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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/18684-8.txt b/18684-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3cf99bd --- /dev/null +++ b/18684-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,15881 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Certain Rich Man, by William Allen White + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: A Certain Rich Man + + +Author: William Allen White + + + +Release Date: June 26, 2006 [eBook #18684] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CERTAIN RICH MAN*** + + +E-text prepared by Roger Frank and the Project Gutenberg Online +Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net/) + + + +A CERTAIN RICH MAN + +by + +WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE + +Author of "Stratagems and Spoils," +"The Court of Boyville," etc. + + + + + + + +The MacMillan Company +New York · Boston · Chicago +Atlanta · San Francisco + +MacMillan & Co., Limited +London · Bombay · Calcutta +Melbourne + +The Macmillan Co. Of Canada, Ltd. +Toronto + +A Certain Rich Man + +New York +The MacMillan Company +1909 +All rights reserved +Copyright, 1909, +By The MacMillan Company. +Set up and electrotyped. Published July, 1909. +Norwood Press +J. S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co. +Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER I 1 +CHAPTER II 15 +CHAPTER III 30 +CHAPTER IV 51 +CHAPTER V 59 +CHAPTER VI 72 +CHAPTER VII 84 +CHAPTER VIII 95 +CHAPTER IX 105 +CHAPTER X 118 +CHAPTER XI 135 +CHAPTER XII 150 +CHAPTER XIII 165 +CHAPTER XIV 176 +CHAPTER XV 193 +CHAPTER XVI 206 +CHAPTER XVII 227 +CHAPTER XVIII 243 +CHAPTER XIX 262 +CHAPTER XX 275 +CHAPTER XXI 294 +CHAPTER XXII 304 +CHAPTER XXIII 319 +CHAPTER XXIV 334 +CHAPTER XXV 339 +CHAPTER XXVI 355 +CHAPTER XXVII 365 +CHAPTER XXVIII 382 +CHAPTER XXIX 405 +CHAPTER XXX 428 + + + + + + +BOOK I + +A CERTAIN RICH MAN + +CHAPTER I + + +The woods were as the Indians had left them, but the boys who were +playing there did not realize, until many years afterwards, that they +had moved in as the Indians moved out. Perhaps, if these boys had +known that they were the first white boys to use the Indians' +playgrounds, the realization might have added zest to the make-believe +of their games; but probably boys between seven and fourteen, when +they play at all, play with their fancies strained, and very likely +these little boys, keeping their stick-horse livery-stable in a +wild-grape arbour in the thicket, needed no verisimilitude. The long +straight hickory switches--which served as horses--were arranged +with their butts on a rotting log, whereon some grass was spread for +their feed. Their string bridles hung loosely over the log. The +horsemen swinging in the vines above, or in the elm tree near by, were +preparing a raid on the stables of other boys, either in the native +lumber town a rifle-shot away or in distant parts of the woods. When +the youngsters climbed down, they straddled their hickory steeds and +galloped friskily away to the creek and drank; this was part of the +rites, for tradition in the town of their elders said that whoever +drank of Sycamore Creek water immediately turned horse thief. Having +drunk their fill at the ford, they waded it and left the stumpy road, +plunging into the underbrush, snorting and puffing and giggling and +fussing and complaining--the big ones at the little ones and the +little ones at the big ones--after the manner of mankind. + +When they had gone perhaps a half-mile from the ford, one of the +little boys, feeling the rag on his sore heel slipping and letting the +rough woods grass scratch his raw flesh, stopped to tie up the rag. He +was far in the rear of the pack when he stopped, and the boys, not +heeding his blat, rushed on and left him at the edge of a thicket near +a deep-rutted road. His cry became a whimper and his whimper a sniffle +as he worked with the rag; but the little fingers were clumsy, and a +heel is a hard place to cover, and the sun was hot on his back; so he +took the rag in one hand and his bridle in the other, and limped on +his stick horse into the thick shade of a lone oak tree that stood +beside the wide dusty road. His sore did not bother him, and he sat +with his back against the tree for a while, flipping the rag and +making figures in the dust with the pronged tail of his horse. Then +his hands were still, and as he ran from tune to tune with improvised +interludes, he droned a song of his prowess. Sometimes he sang words +and sometimes he sang thoughts. He sank farther and farther down and +looked up into the tree and ceased his song, chirping instead a +stuttering falsetto trill, not unlike a cricket's, holding his breath +as long as he could to draw it out to its finest strand; and thus with +his head on his arm and his arm on the tree root, he fell asleep. + +The noon sun was on his legs when he awoke, and a strange dog was +sniffing at him. As he started up, he heard the clatter of a horse's +feet in the road, and saw an Indian woman trotting toward him on a +pony. In an instant he was a-wing with terror, scooting toward the +thick of the woods. He screamed as he ran, for his head was full of +Indian stories, and he knew that the only use Indians had for little +boys was to steal them and adopt them into the tribe. He heard the +brush crackling behind him, and he knew that the woman had turned off +the road to follow him. A hundred yards is a long way for a +terror-stricken little boy to run through tangled underbrush, and when +he had come to the high bank of the stream, he slipped down among the +tree roots and tried to hide. His little heart beat so fast that he +could not keep from panting, and the sound of breaking brush came +nearer and then stopped, and in a moment he looked up and saw the +squaw leaning over the bank, holding to the tree above him. She smiled +kindly at him and said:-- + +"Come on, boy--I won't hurt you. I as scared of you as you are of +me." + +She bent over and took him by the arm and lifted him to her. She got +on her pony and put him on before her and soothed his fright, as they +rode slowly through the wood to the road, where they came to a great +band of Indians, all riding ponies. + +It seemed to the boy that he had never imagined there were so many +people in the whole world; there was some parley among them, and the +band set out on the road again, with the squaw in advance. They were +but a few yards from the forks of the road, and as they came to it she +said:-- + +"Boy--which way to town?" + +He pointed the way and she turned into it, and the band followed. They +crossed the ford, climbed the steep red clay bank of the creek, and +filed up the hill into the unpainted group of cabins and shanties +cluttered around a well that men, in 1857, knew as Sycamore Ridge. The +Indians filled the dusty area between the two rows of gray houses on +either side of the street, and the town flocked from its ten front +doors before half the train had arrived. The last door of them all to +open was in a slab house, nearly half a mile from the street. A +washing fluttered on the clothes-line, and the woman who came out of +the door carried a round-bottomed hickory-bark basket, such as might +hold clothes-pins. Seeing the invasion, she hurried across the +prairie, toward the town. She was a tall thin woman, not yet thirty, +brown and tanned, with a strong masculine face, and as she came nearer +one could see that she had a square firm jaw, and great kind gray eyes +that lighted her countenance from a serene soul. Her sleeves rolled +far above her elbows revealed arms used to rough hard work, and her +hands were red from the wash-tub. As she came into the street, she saw +the little boy sitting on the horse in front of the squaw. Walking to +them quickly, and lifting her arms, as she neared the squaw's pony, +the white woman said:-- + +"Why, Johnnie Barclay, where have you been?" + +The boy climbed from the pony, and the two women smiled at each other, +but exchanged no words. And as his feet touched the ground, he became +conscious of the rag in his hand, of his bleeding heel, of his cramped +legs being "asleep"--all in one instant, and went limping and whining +toward home with his mother, while the Indians traded in the store and +tried to steal from the other houses, and in a score of peaceful ways +diverted the town's attention from the departing figures down the +path. + +That was the first adventure that impressed itself upon the memory of +John Barclay. All his life he remembered the covered wagon in which +the Barclays crossed the Mississippi; but it is only a curious memory +of seeing the posts of the bed, lying flat beside him in the wagon, +and of fingering the palm leaves cut in the wood. He was four years +old then, and as a man he remembered only as a tale that is told the +fight at Westport Landing, where his father was killed for preaching +an abolition sermon from the wagon tongue. The man remembered nothing +of the long ride that the child and the mother took with the father's +body to Lawrence, where they buried it in a free-state cemetery. But +he always remembered something of their westward ride, after the +funeral of his father. The boy carried a child's memory of the +prairie--probably his first sight of the prairie, with the vacant +horizon circling around and around him, and the monotonous rattle of +the wagon on the level prairie road, for hours keeping the same rhythm +and fitting the same tune. Then there was a mottled memory of the +woods--woods with sunshine in them, and of a prairie flooded with +sunshine on which he played, now picking flowers, now playing house +under the limestone ledges, now, after a rain, following little rivers +down rocky draws, and finding sunfish and silversides in the deeper +pools. But always his memory was of the sunshine, and the open sky, or +the deep wide woods all unexplored, save by himself. + +The great road that widened to make the prairie street, and wormed +over the hill into the sunset, always seemed dusty to the boy, and +although in after years he followed that road, over the hills and far +away, when it was rutty and full of clods, as a child he recalled it +only as a great bed of dust, wherein he and other boys played, now +battling with handfuls of dust, and now running races on some level +stretch of it, and now standing beside the road while a passing +movers' wagon delayed their play. The movers' wagon was never absent +from the boy's picture of that time and place. Either the +canvas-covered wagon was coming from the ford of Sycamore Creek, or +disappearing over the hill beyond the town, or was passing in front of +the boys as they stopped their play. Being a boy, he could not know, +nor would he care if he did know, that he was seeing one of God's +miracles--the migration of a people, blind but instinctive as that of +birds or buffalo, from old pastures into new ones. All over the plains +in those days, on a hundred roads like that which ran through Sycamore +Ridge, men and women were moving from east to west, and, as often has +happened since the beginning of time, when men have migrated, a great +ethical principle was stirring in them. The pioneers do not go to the +wilderness always in lust of land, but sometimes they go to satisfy +their souls. The spirit of God moves in the hearts of men as it moves +on the face of the waters. + +Something of this moving spirit was in John Barclay's mother. For +often she paused at her work, looking up from her wash-tub toward the +highway, when a prairie schooner sailed by, and lifting her face +skyward for an instant, as her lips moved in silence. As a man the boy +knew she was thinking of her long journey, of the tragedy that came of +it, and praying for those who passed into the West. Then she would +bend to her work again; and the washerwoman's child who took the +clothes she washed in his little wagon with the cottonwood log wheels, +across the commons into the town, was not made to feel an inferior +place in the social system until he was in his early teens. For all +the Sycamore Ridge women worked hard in those days. But there were +Sundays when the boy and his mother walked over the wide prairies +together, and she told him stories of Haverhill--of the wonderful +people who lived there, of the great college, of the beautiful women +and wise men, and best of all of his father, who was a student in the +college, and they dreamed together--mother and child--about how he +would board at Uncle Union's and work in the store for Uncle +Abner--when the boy went back to Haverhill to school when he grew up. + +On these excursions the mother sometimes tried to interest him in Mr. +Beecher's sermons which she read to him, but his eyes followed the +bees and the birds and the butterflies and the shadows trailing across +the hillside; so the seed fell on stony ground. One fine fall day they +went up the ridge far above the town where the court-house stands now, +and there under a lone elm tree just above a limestone ledge, they +spread their lunch, and the mother sat on the hillside, almost hidden +by the rippling prairie grass, reading the first number of the +_Atlantic Monthly_, while the boy cleared out a spring that bubbled +from beneath a rock in the shade, and after running for a few feet +sank under a great stone and did not appear again. As the mother read, +the afternoon waned, and when she looked up, she was astonished to see +John standing beside the rock, waist deep in a hole, trying to back +down into it. His face was covered with dirt, and his clothes were wet +from the falling water of the spring that was flowing into the hole he +had opened. In a jiffy she pulled him out, and looking into the hole, +saw by the failing sunlight which shone directly into the place that +the child had uncovered the opening of a cave. But they did not +explore it, for the mother was afraid, and the two came down the hill, +the child's head full of visions of a pirate's treasure, and the +mother's full of the whims of the Autocrat of the Breakfast Table. + +The next day school began in Sycamore Ridge,--for the school and the +church came with the newspaper, _Freedom's Banner_,--and a new world +opened to the boy, and he forgot the cave, and became interested in +Webster's blue-backed speller. And thus another grown-up person, "Miss +Lucy," came into his world. For with children, men and women +generically are of another order of beings. But Miss Lucy, being John +Barclay's teacher, grew into his daily life on an equality with his +dog and the Hendricks boys, and took a place somewhat lower than his +mother in his list of saints. For Miss Lucy came from Sangamon County, +Illinois, and her father had fought the Indians, and she told the +school as many strange and wonderful things about Illinois as John had +learned from his mother about Haverhill. But his allegiance to the +teacher was only lip service. For at night when he sat digging the +gravel and dirt from the holes in the heels of his copper-toed boots, +that he might wad them with paper to be ready for his skates on the +morrow, or when he sat by the wide fireplace oiling the runners with +the steel curly-cues curving over the toes, or filing a groove in the +blades, the boy's greatest joy was with his mother. Sometimes as she +ironed she told him stories of his father, or when the child was sick +and nervous, as a special favour, on his promise to take the medicine +and not ask for a drink, she would bring her guitar from under the bed +and tune it up and play with a curious little mouse-like touch. And on +rare occasions she would sing to her own shy maidenly accompaniment, +her voice rising scarcely higher than the wind in the sycamore at the +spring outside. The boy remembered only one line of an old song she +sometimes tried to sing: "Sleeping, I dream, love, dream, love, of +thee," but what the rest of it was, and what it was all about, he +never knew; for when she got that far, she always stopped and came to +the bed and lay beside him, and they both cried, though as a child he +did not know why. + +So the winter of 1857 wore away at Sycamore Ridge, and with the coming +of the spring of '58, when the town was formally incorporated, even into +the boy world there came the murmurs of strife and alarms. The games the +boys played were war games. They had battles in the woods, between the +free-state and the pro-slavery men, and once--twice--three times there +marched by on the road real soldiers, and it was no unusual thing to see +a dragoon dismount at the town well and water his horse. The big boys in +school affected spurs, and Miss Lucy brought to school with her one +morning a long bundle, which, when it was unwrapped, disclosed the sword +of her father, Captain Barnes, presented to him by his admiring soldiers +at the close of the "Black Hawk War." John traded for a tin fife and +learned to play "Jaybird" upon it, though he preferred the jew's-harp, +and had a more varied repertory with it. Was it an era of music, or is +childhood the period of music? Perhaps this land of ours was younger +than it is now and sang more lustily, if not with great precision; for +to the man who harks back over the years, those were days of song. All +the world seemed singing--men in their stores and shops, women at their +work, and children in their schools. And a freckled, barefooted little +boy with sunburned curly hair, in home-made clothes, and with brown bare +legs showing through the rips in his trousers, used to sit alone in the +woods breathing his soul into a mouth-organ--a priceless treasure for +which he had traded two raccoons, an owl, and a prairie dog. But he +mastered the mouth-organ,--it was called a French harp in those +days,--and before he had put on his first collar, Watts McHurdie had +taught the boy to play the accordion. The great heavy bellows was half +as large as he was, but the little chap would sit in McHurdie's harness +shop of a summer afternoon and swing the instrument up and down as the +melody swelled or died, and sway his body with the time and the tune, as +Watts McHurdie, who owned the accordion, swayed and gyrated when he +played. Mrs. Barclay, hearing her son, smiled and shook her head and +knew him for a Thatcher; "No Barclay," she said, "ever could carry a +tune." So the mother brought out from the bottom of the trunk her +yellow-covered book, "Winner's Instructor on the Guitar," and taught the +child what she could of notes. Thus music found its way out of the boy's +soul. + +One day in the summer of 1860, as he and his fellows were filing down +the crooked dusty path that led from the swimming hole through the dry +woods to the main road, they came upon a group of horsemen scanning +the dry ford of the Sycamore. That was the first time that John +Barclay met the famous Captain Lee. He was a great hulk of a man who, +John thought, looked like a pirate. The boys led the men and their +horses up the dry limestone bed of the stream to the swimming hole--a +deep pool in the creek. The coming of the soldiers made a stir in the +town. For they were not "regulars"; they were known as the Red Legs, +but called themselves "The Army of the Border." Under Captain J. Lord +Lee--whose life afterwards touched Barclay's sometimes--"The Army of +the Border," being about forty in number, came to Sycamore Ridge that +night, and greatly to the scandal of the decent village, there +appeared with the men two women in short skirts and red leggins, who +were introduced at Schnitzler's saloon as Happy Hally and Lady Lee. +"The Army of the Border," under J. Lord and Lady Lee,--as they were +known,--proceeded to get bawling drunk, whereupon they introduced to +the town the song which for the moment was the national hymn of +Kansas:-- + + "Am I a soldier of the boss, + A follower of Jim Lane? + Then should I fear to steal a hoss, + Or blush to ride the same." + +As the night deepened and Henry Schnitzler's supply of liquor seemed +exhaustless, the Army of the Border went from song to war and wandered +about banging doors and demanding to know if any white-livered +Missourian in the town was man enough to come out and fight. At +half-past one the Army of the Border had either gone back to camp, or +propped itself up against the sides of the buildings in peaceful +sleep, when the screech of the brakes on the wheels of the stage was +heard half a mile away as it lumbered down the steep bank of the +Sycamore, and then the town woke up. As the stage rolled down Main +Street, the male portion of Sycamore Ridge lined up before the Thayer +House to see who would get out and to learn the news from the +gathering storm in the world outside. As the crowd stood there, and +while the driver was climbing from his box, little John Barclay, +white-faced, clad in his night drawers, came flying into the crowd +from behind a building. + +"Mother--" he gasped, "mother--says--come--mother says some one +come quick--there's a man there--trying to break in!" And finding +that he had made himself understood, the boy darted back across the +common toward home. The little white figure kept ahead of the men, and +when they arrived, they found Mrs. Barclay standing in the door of her +house, with a lantern in one hand and a carbine in the crook of her +arm. In the dark, somewhere over toward the highway, but in the +direction of the river, the sound of a man running over the ploughed +ground might be heard as he stumbled and grunted and panted in fear. +She shook her head reassuringly as the men from the town came into the +radius of the light from her lantern, and as they stepped on the hard +clean-swept earth of her doorway, she said, smiling: + +"He won't come back. I'm sorry I bothered you. Only--I was frightened +a little at first--when I sent Johnnie out of the back door." She +paused a moment, and answered some one's question about the man, and +went on, "He was just drunk. He meant no harm. It was Lige Bemis--" + +"Oh, yes," said Watts McHurdie, "you know--the old gang that used to +be here before the town started. He's with the Red Legs now." + +"Well," continued Mrs. Barclay, "he said he wanted to come over and +visit the sycamore tree by the spring." + +The crowd knew Lige and laughed and turned away. The men trudged +slowly back to the cluster of lights that marked the town, and the +woman closed her door, and she and the child went to bed. Instead of +sleeping, they talked over their adventure. He sat up in bed, big-eyed +with excitement, while his mother told him that the drunken visitor +was Lige Bemis, who had come to revisit a cave, a horse thief's cave, +he had said, back of the big rock that seemed to have slipped down +from the ledge behind the house, right by the spring. She told the boy +that Bemis had said that the cave contained a room wherein they used +to keep their stolen horses, and that he tried to move the great slab +door of stone and, being drunk, could not do so. + +When the men of Sycamore Ridge who left the stage without waiting to +see what human seed it would shuck out arrived at Main Street, the +stage was in the barn, the driver was eating his supper, and the +passenger was in bed at the Thayer House. But his name was on the +dog-eared hotel register, and it gave the town something to talk about +as Martin Culpepper was distributing the mail. For the name on the +book was Philemon R. Ward, and the town after his name, Cambridge, +Massachusetts. Every man and woman and most of the children in +Sycamore Ridge knew who Philemon Ward was. He had been driven out of +Georgia in '58 for editing an abolition newspaper; he had been mobbed +in Ohio for delivering abolition lectures; he had been led out of +Missouri with a rope around his neck, and a reward was on his head in +a half-dozen Southern states for inciting slaves to rebellion. His +picture had been in _Harper's Weekly_ as a General Passenger Agent of +the Underground Railway. Naturally to Sycamore Ridge, where more than +one night the town had sat up all night waiting for the stage to bring +the _New York Tribune_, Philemon R. Ward was a hero, and his presence +in the town was an event. When the little Barclay boy heard it at the +store that morning before sunrise, he ran down the path toward home to +tell his mother and had to go back to do the errand on which he was +sent. By sunrise every one in town had the news; men were shaken out +of their morning naps to hear, "Philemon Ward's in town--wake up, +man; did you hear what I say? Philemon Ward came to town last night on +the stage." And before the last man was awake, the town was startled +by the clatter of horses' hoofs on the gravel road over the hill south +of town, and Gabriel Carnine and Lycurgus Mason of Minneola came +dashing into the street and yelling, "The Missourians are coming, the +Missourians are coming!" + +The little boy, who had just turned into Main Street for the second +time, remembered all his life how the news that the Minneola men +brought, thrilled Sycamore Ridge. It seemed to the boy but an instant +till the town was in the street, and then he and a group of boys were +running to the swimming hole to call the Army of the Border. The horse +weeds scratched his face as he plunged through the timber cross-lots +with his message. He was the first boy to reach the camp. What they +did or what he did, he never remembered. He has heard men say many +times that he whispered his message, grabbed a carbine, and came +tearing through the brush back to the town. + +All that is important to know of the battle of Sycamore Ridge is that +Philemon Ward, called out of bed with the town to fight that summer +morning, took command before he had dressed, and when the town was +threatened with a charge from a second division of the enemy, Bemis +and Captain Lee of the Red Legs, Watts McHurdie, Madison Hendricks, +Oscar Fernald, and Gabriel Carnine, under the command of Philemon +Ward, ran to the top of the high bank of the Sycamore, and there held +a deep cut made for the stage road,--held it as a pass against a +half-hundred horsemen, floundering under the bank, in the underbrush +below, who dared not file up the pass. + +The little boy standing at the window of his mother's house saw this. +But all the firing in the town, all the forming and charging and +skirmishing that was done that hot August day in '60, either he did +not see, or if he saw it, the memory faded under the great terror that +gripped his soul when he saw his mother in danger. Ward in his +undershirt was standing by a tree near the stage road above the bank. +The firing in the creek bed had stopped. His back was toward the town, +and then, out of some place dim in the child's mind--from the troop +southwest of town perhaps--came a charge of galloping horsemen, +riding down on Ward. The others with him had found cover, and he, +seeing the enemy before him and behind him, pistol in hand, alone +charged into the advancing horsemen. It was all confused in the +child's mind, though the histories say that the Sycamore Ridge people +did not know Ward was in danger, and that when he fell they did not +understand who had fallen. But the boy--John Barclay--saw him fall, +and his mother knew who had fallen, and the wife of the Westport +martyr groaned in anguish as she saw Freedom's champion writhing in +the dust of the road like a dying snake, after the troop passed over +him. And even when he was a man, the boy could remember the woe in her +face, as she stooped to kiss her child, and then huddling down to +avoid the bullets, ran across the field to the wounded man, with dust +in his mouth, twitching in the highway. Bullets were spitting in the +dust about her as the boy saw his mother roll the bleeding man over, +pick him up, get him on her back with his feet trailing on the earth +beside her, and then rising to her full height, stagger under her limp +burden back to the house. When she came in the door, her face and +shoulders were covered with blood and her skirt ripped with a bullet. + +That is all of the battle that John Barclay ever remembered. After +that it seemed to end, though the histories say that it lasted all the +long day, and that the fire of the invaders was so heavy that no one +from the Ridge dared venture to the Barclay home. The boy saw his +mother lay the unconscious man on the floor, while she opened the back +door, and without saying a word, stepped to the spring, which was +hidden from the road. She put her knee, her broad chest, and her +strong red hand to the rock and shoved until her back bowed and the +cords stood out on her neck; then slowly the rock moved till she could +see inside the cave, could put her leg in, could squirm her body in. +The morning light flooded in after her, and in the instant that she +stood there she saw dimly a great room, through which the spring +trickled. There were hay inside, and candles and saddles; in another +minute she had the wounded man in the cave and was washing the dirt +from him. A bullet had ploughed its way along his scalp, his body was +pierced through the shoulder, and his leg was broken by a horse's +hoof. She did what she could while the shooting went on outside, and +then slipped out, tugged at the great rock again until it fell back in +its place, and knowing that Philemon Ward was safe from the +Missourians if they should win the day, she came into the house. Then +as the mocking clouds of the summer drouth rolled up at night, and +belched forth their thunder in a tempest of wind, the besiegers passed +as a dream in the night. And in the morning they were not. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +And so on the night of the battle of Sycamore Ridge, John Barclay +closed the door of his childhood and became a boy. He did not remember +how Ward's wounds were dressed, nor how the town made a hero of the +man; but he did remember Watts McHurdie and Martin Culpepper and the +Hendricks boys tramping through the cave that night with torches, and +he was the hero of that occasion because he was the smallest boy there +and they put him up through the crack in the head of the cave, and he +saw the stars under the elm tree far above the town, where he and his +mother had spent a Sunday afternoon three years before. He called to +the men below and told them where he was, and slipped down through, +the hole again with an elm sprout in his hand to prove that he had +been under the elm tree at the spring. But he remembered nothing of +the night--how the men picketed the town; how he sat up with them +along with the other boys; how the women, under his mother's direction +and Miss Lucy's, cared for the wounded man, who lapsed into delirium +as the night wore on, and gibbered of liberty and freedom as another +man would go over his accounts in his dreams. + +His mother and Miss Lucy took turns nursing Ward night after night +during the hot dry summer. As the sick man grew better, many men came +to the house, and great plans were afloat. Philemon Ward, sitting up +in bed waiting for his leg to heal, talked much of the cave as a +refuge for fugitive slaves. There was some kind of a military +organization; all the men in town were enlisted, and Ward was their +captain, drums were rattling and men were drilling; the dust clouds +rose as they marched across the drouth-blighted fields. One night they +marched up to the Barclay home, and Ward with a crutch under his arm, +and with Mrs. Barclay and Miss Lucy beside him, stood in the door and +made a speech to the men. And then there were songs. Watts McHurdie +threw back his head and sang "Scots wha ha' wi' Wallace bled," +following it with some words of his own denouncing slavery and calling +down curses upon the slaveholders; so withal it was a martial +occasion, and the boy's heart swelled with patriotic pride. But for a +vague feeling that Miss Lucy was neglecting him for her patient, John +would have begun making a hero of Philemon R. Ward. As it was, the boy +merely tolerated the man and silently suspected him of intentions and +designs. + +But when school opened, Philemon Ward left Sycamore Ridge and John +Barclay made an important discovery. It was that Ellen Culpepper had +eyes. In Sycamore Ridge with its three hundred souls, only fifteen of +them were children, and five of them were ten years old, and John had +played with those five nearly all his life. But at ten sometimes the +scales drop from one's eyes, and a ribbon or a bead or a pair of new +red striped yarn stockings or any other of the embellishments which +nature teaches little girls to wear casts a sheen over all the world +for a boy. The magic bundle that charmed John Barclay was a scarlet +dress, "made over," that came in an "aid box" from the Culpeppers in +Virginia. And when the other children in Miss Lucy's school made fun +of John and his _amour_, the boy fought his way through it all--where +fighting was the better part of valour--and made horsehair chains for +Ellen and cut lockets for her out of coffee beans, and with a red-hot +poker made a ring for her from a rubber button as a return for the +smile he got at the sly twist he gave her hair as he passed her desk +on his way to the spelling class. As for Miss Lucy, who saw herself +displaced, she wrote to Philemon Ward, and told him of her jilting, +and railed at the fickleness and frailty of the sex. + +And by that token an envelope in Ward's handwriting came to Miss Lucy +every week, and Postmaster Martin Culpepper and Mrs. Martin Culpepper +and all Sycamore Ridge knew it. And loyal Southerner though he was, +Martin Culpepper's interest in the affair between Ward and Miss Lucy +was greater than his indignation over the fact that Ward had carried +his campaign even into Virginia; nothing would have tempted him to +disclose to his political friends at home the postmarks of Ward's +letters. That was the year of the great drouth of '60, remembered all +over the plains. And as the winter deepened and the people of Sycamore +Ridge were without crops, and without money to buy food, they bundled +up Martin Culpepper and sent him back to Ohio seeking aid. He was a +handsome figure the day he took the stage in his high hat and his +ruffled shirt and broad coat tails, a straight lean figure of a man in +his early thirties, with fine black eyes and a shocky head of hair, +and when he pictured the sufferings of the Kansas pioneers to the +people of the East, the state was flooded with beans and flour, and +sheeted in white muslin. For Martin Culpepper was an orator, and +though he is in his grave now, the picture he painted of bleeding +Kansas nearly fifty years ago still hangs in many an old man's memory. +And after all, it was only a picture. For they were all young out here +then, and through all the drouth and the hardship that followed--and +the hardship was real--there was always the gayety of youth. The +dances on Deer Creek and at Minneola did not stop for the drouth, and +many's the night that Mrs. Mason, the tall raw-boned wife of Lycurgus, +wrapped little Jane in a quilt and came over to the Ridge from +Minneola to take part in some social affair. And while Martin +Culpepper was telling of the anguish of the famine, Watts McHurdie and +his accordion and Ezra Lane's fiddle were agitating the heels of the +populace. And even those pioneers who were moved to come into the +wilderness by a great purpose--and they were moved so--to come into +the new territory and make it free, nevertheless capered and romped +through the drouth of '60 in the cast-off garments of their kinsmen +and were happy; for there were buffalo meat and beans for the needy, +the aid room had flour, and God gave them youth. + +Not drouth, nor famine, nor suffering, nor zeal of a great purpose can +burn out the sparkle of youth in the heart. Only time can do that, and +so John Barclay remembered the famous drouth of '60, not by his +mother's tears, which came as she bent over his little clothes, before +the aid box came from Haverhill, not by the long days of waiting for +the rain that never came, not even by the sun that lapped up the +swimming hole before fall, and left no river to freeze for their +winter's skating, not even by his mother's anguish when she had to go +to the aid store for flour and beans, though that must have been a +sorry day for a Thatcher; but he remembers the great drouth by Ellen +Culpepper's party, where they had a frosted cake and played kissing +games, and--well, fifty years is along time for two brown eyes to +shine in the heart of a boy and a man. It is strange that they should +glow there, and all memory of the runaway slaves who were sheltered in +the cave by the sycamore tree should fade, and be only as a tale that +is told. Yet, so memory served the boy, and he knew only at second +hand how his mother gave her widow's mite to the cause for which she +had crossed the prairies as of old her "fathers crossed the sea." + +Before the rain came in the spring of '61 Martin Culpepper came back +from the East an orator of established reputation. The town was proud +of him, and he addressed the multitude on various occasions and wept +many tears over the sad state of the country. For in the nation, as +well as in Sycamore Ridge, great things were stirring. Watts McHurdie +filled _Freedom's Banner_ with incendiary verse, always giving the +name of the tune at the beginning of each contribution, by which it +might be sung, and the way he clanked Slavery's chains and made love +to Freedom was highly disconcerting; but the town liked it. + +In April Philemon R. Ward came back to Sycamore Ridge, and there was a +great gathering to hear his speech. Ward's soul was aflame with anger. +There were no Greek gods and Roman deities in what Ward said, as there +were in Martin Culpepper's addresses. Ward used no figures of speech +and exercised no rhetorical charms; but he talked with passion in his +voice and the frenzy of a cause in his eyes. Martin Culpepper was in +the crowd, and as Ward lashed the South, every heart turned in +interrogation to Culpepper. They knew what his education had been. +They understood his sentiments; and yet because he was one of them, +because he had endured with them and suffered with them and ministered +to them, the town set him apart from its hatred. And Martin Culpepper +was sensitive enough to feel this. It came over him with a wave of +joy, and as Ward talked, Culpepper expanded. Ward closed in a low +tone, and his face was white with pent-up zeal as he asked some one to +pray. There was a silence, and then a woman's voice, trembling and +passionate, arose, and Sycamore Ridge knew that Mrs. Barclay, the +widow of the Westport martyr, was giving sound to a voice that had +long been still. It was a simple halting prayer, and not all those in +the room heard it clearly. The words were not always fitly chosen; but +as the prayer neared its close,--and it was a short prayer at the +most,--there came strength and courage into the voice as it asked for +grace for "the brother among us who has shared our sufferings and +lightened our burdens, and who has cleaved to us as a brother, but +whose heart is drawn away from us by ties of blood and kinship"; and +then the voice sank lower and lower as though in shame at its +boldness, and hushed in a tremulous Amen. + +No one spoke for a moment, and as Sycamore Ridge looked up from the +floor, its eyes turned instinctively toward Martin Culpepper. He felt +the question that was in the hearts about him, and slowly, to the +wonder of all, he rose. He had a beautiful deep purring voice, and +when he opened his eyes, they seemed to look into every pair of eyes +in the throng. There were tears on his face and in his voice as he +spoke. "Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following +after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, +I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: where +thou diest, I will die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to +me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me." And then he +sank to his chair and hid his face, and for a moment a hundred +wet-eyed men were still. + +Though John Barclay was at the meeting, he remembered only his +mother's prayer, but in his heart there was always a picture of a +little boy trying to walk home with a little girl, and when he came up +with her she darted ahead or dropped back. At the Culpepper gate she +stood waiting fully a minute for him to catch her, and when he came up +to her, she laughed, "Huh, Mr. Smarty, you didn't, did you?" and ran +up the walk, scooted into the house, and slammed the door. But he +understood and went leaping down the hill toward home with happiness +tingling in his very finger-tips. He seemed to be flying rather than +walking, and his toes touched the dirt path so lightly that he rounded +the corner and ran plump into Miss Lucy and Philemon Ward standing at +the gate. And what he saw surprised him so that he let out a great +"haw-haw-haw" and ran, trying to escape his shame and fear at his +behaviour. But the next morning Miss Lucy smiled so sweetly at him as +he came into the schoolroom, that he knew he was forgiven, and that +thrill was lost by the thump of joy that startled his heart when he +saw a bunch of dog-tooth violets in his ink bottle, and in his +geography found a candy heart with a motto on it so fervent that he +did not eat it for three long abstemious days of sheer devotion, in +which there were eyes and eyes and eyes from the little girl in the +scarlet gown. + +It is strange that the boy did not remember how Sycamore Ridge took +the call to arms for the war between the states. All he remembered of +the great event in our history as it touched the town was that one day +he heard there was going to be a war. And then everything seemed to +change. A dread came over the people. It fell upon the school, where +every child had a father who was going away. + +And it was because Madison Hendricks, the first man to leave for the +war, was father of Bob and Elmer Hendricks that John's first +associations of the great Civil War go back to the big black-bearded +man. For Madison Hendricks, who was a graduate of West Point, and a +veteran of the Mexican War, was called to Washington in May, and his +boys acquired a prestige that was not accorded to them by the mere +fact that their father was president of the town company, and was +accounted the first citizen of the town. Madison Hendricks, who owned +the land on which the town was built, Madison Hendricks, scholar and +gentleman, veteran of the Mexican War, first mayor of Sycamore Ridge +upon its incorporation,--his sons had no standing. But Madison +Hendricks, formally summoned to go to Washington to put down the +rebellion, and leaving on the stage with appropriate ceremonies, +--there was a man who could bequeath to his posterity in the boy +world something of his consequence. + +So in the pall that came upon the school in Sycamore Ridge that spring +of '61, Bob and Elmer Hendricks were heroes, and their sister--who +was their only guardian in their father's absence--had to put them in +her dresses and send them to bed, and punish them in all the shameful +ways that she knew to take what she called "the tuck out of them." And +the boy of all the boys who gave the Hendricks boys most homage was +little Johnnie Barclay. There was no dread in his hero-worship. He had +no father to go to the war. But the other children and all the women +were under a great cloud of foreboding, and for them the time was one +of tension and hoping against hope that the war would soon pass. + +How the years gild our retrospect. It was in 1903 that Martin +Culpepper, a man in his seventies, collected and published "The +Complete Poetical and Philosophical Works of Watts McHurdie, together +with Notes and a Biographical Appreciation by Martin F. Culpepper." +One of the earlier chapters, which tells of the enlistment of the +volunteer soldiers for the Civil War in '61, devotes some space to the +recruiting and enlistment in Sycamore Ridge. The chapter bears the +heading "The Large White Plumes," and in his "introductory remarks" +the biographer says, "To him who looks back to those golden days of +heroic deeds only the lines of Keats will paint the picture in his +soul:-- + +"'Lo, I must tell a tale of chivalry, +For large white plumes are dancing in mine eyes.'" + +And so the "large white plumes" blinded his eyes to the fear and the +dread that were in the hearts of the people, and he tells his readers +nothing of the sadness that men felt who put in crops knowing that +their wives must cultivate and harvest them. He sees only the glory of +it; for we read: "Hail to the spirit of mighty Mars. When he strode +through our peaceful village, he awoke many a war song in our breasts. +As for our hero, Mars, the war god forged iron reeds for his lute, and +he breathed into it the spirit of the age, and all the valour, all the +chivalry of a golden day came pouring out of his impassioned reeds." +Such is the magic of those large white plumes on Martin Culpepper's +memory. Although John Barclay in that latter day bought a thousand +copies of the Biography and sent them to public libraries all over the +world, he smiled as he read that paragraph referring to Watts +McHurdie's accordion as the "impassioned reeds." When he read it, John +Barclay, grown to a man of fifty-three, sitting at a great mahogany +table, with a tablet of white paper on a green blotting pad before +him, and a gorgeous rose rising from a tall graceful green vase on the +shining table, looked out over a brown wilderness of roofs and +chimneys across a broad river into the hills that were green afar off, +and there, rising out of yesterday, he saw, not the bent little old +man in the harness shop with steel-rimmed spectacles and greasy cap, +whom you may see to-day; but instead, the boy in John Barclay's soul +looked through his eyes, and he saw another Watts McHurdie,--a dapper +little fellow under a wide slouch hat, with a rolling Byronic collar, +and fancy yellow waistcoat of the period, in exceedingly tight +trousers. And then, flash! the picture changed, and Barclay saw Watts +McHurdie under his mushroom hat; Martin Culpepper in his long-tailed +coat; Philemon Ward, tall, fair-skinned, blue-eyed, slim, and sturdy; +skinny, nervous Lycurgus Mason and husky Gabriel Carnine from +Minneola; Jake Dolan in his shirt sleeves, without adornment of any +kind, except the gold horseshoe pinned on his shirt bosom; Daniel +Frye, the pride of an admiring family, in his best home-made clothes; +Henry Schnitzler, Oscar Fernald, and nearly a hundred other men, to +the boy's eyes so familiar then, now forgotten, and all their faces +blurred in the crowd that stood about the recruiting officer by the +town pump in Sycamore Ridge that summer day of '61. A score or so of +men had passed muster. The line on the post at the wooden awning in +front of Schnitzler's saloon was marked at five feet six. All had +stood by it with their heads above the line. It was Watts McHurdie's +turn. He wore high-heeled boots for the occasion, but strut as he +would, his roached hair would not touch the stick that came over the +line. "Stretch your neck--ye bantam," laughed Jake Dolan. "Walk +turkey fashion, Watts," cried Henry Schnitzler, rushing up behind +Watts and grabbing his waistband. The crowd roared. Watts looked +imploringly at the recruiting officer and blubbered in wrath: "Yes, +damn you--yea; that's right. Of course; you won't let me die for my +bleedin' country because I ain't nine feet tall." And the little man +turned away trying to choke his tears and raging at his failure. And +because the recruiting officer was considerable of a man, Watts +McHurdie's name was written in the muster roll, and he went out. + +Many days must have passed between the time when the men were mustered +in and the day they went away to the war. But to the man who saw those +times through the memory of the boy in blue jeans forever playing +bugle-calls upon his fife, it was all one day. For that crowd +dissolved, and another picture appeared upon the sensitized plate of +his memory. There is a crowd in the post-office--mostly men who are +going away to war. The stage has come in, and a stranger, better +dressed than the men of Sycamore Ridge, is behind the letter-boxes of +the post-office. The boy is watching his box; for it is the day when +the _Springfield Republican_ is due. Gradually the hum in front of the +boxes quiets, and two loud voices have risen behind the screen. Then +out walks great Martin Culpepper, white of face, with pent-up fury. +His left hand is clutched like a talon in the shoulder of the +stranger, whom Martin is holding before him. "Gentlemen, your +attention," demands Culpepper. The stranger swallows his Adam's apple +as if to speak; Martin turns to him with, "Don't you say that word +again, sir, or I'll wring your neck." Then he proceeds:-- + +"Gentlemen, this busybody has come all the way from Washington here to +tell me I'm a thief. I wrote to his damn Yankee government that I was +needing the money last winter to go East on the aid committee and +would replace it, and now that I'm going out to-morrow to die for his +damn Yankee government, he has the impertinence to come in here and +say I stole that money. Now what I want to ask you, gentlemen, is +this: Do I go out to-morrow to die on the field of glory for my +country, or does this here little contemptible whippersnapper take me +off to rot in some Yankee jail? I leave it to you, gentlemen. Settle +it for yourselves." And with that Culpepper throws the man into the +crowd and walks behind the screen in solemn state. + +The boy never knew how it was settled. But Martin Culpepper went to +"the field of glory," and all the boy knew of the incident is here +recorded. However, in the Biography of Watts McHurdie above-mentioned +and aforesaid occur these words, in the same chapter--the one +entitled "The Large White Plumes": "Let memory with gentle hand cover +with her black curtain of soft oblivion all that was painful on that +glorious day. Let us not recall the bickerings and the strifes, let +the grass watered by Lethe's sweet spring creep over the scars in the +bright prospect which lies under our loving gaze. Let us hold in our +heart the tears in beauty's eyes; the smile that curls her crimson +lips, and the hope that burns upon her brow. Let us fondle the sacred +memory of every warm hand clasp of comrade and take to the silent +grave the ever green garland of love that adorned our hearts that day. +For the sordid thorns that pierced our bleeding hearts--what are they +but ashes to-day, blown on the winds of yesterday?" + +What indeed, Martin Culpepper--what indeed, smiled John Barclay as he +reached for the rose on his broad mahogany desk across forty long +years, and looking through a wide window, saw on the blank wall of a +great hulk of a building half a mile away, the fine strong figure of a +man with black shaggy hair on his young leonine head rise and wave his +handkerchief to a woman with tears running down her face and anguish +in her eyes, standing in a swarm of children. What indeed are sordid +thorns when the "large white plumes are dancing"--what indeed? + +That was a busy night in Sycamore Ridge--the night before the men +left for war in the summer of '61. And the busiest man in all the town +was Philemon R. Ward. Every man in the town was going, and most of the +men were going who lived in the county--an area as large as a New +England state, and yet when they were all gathered in Main Street, +there were less than fivescore of them. They had agreed to elect Ward +captain, Martin Culpepper first lieutenant, Jake Dolan second +lieutenant. It was one of the diversions of the occasion to call out +"Hello, Cap," when Ward hustled by a loitering crowd. But his pride +was in his work, and before sundown he had it done. The Yankee in him +gave him industry and method and foresight. At sunset the last of the +twenty teams and wagons he had ordered came rattling down the hill +west of town, driven by Gabriel Carnine of Minneola, with Mrs. +Lycurgus Mason sitting like a war goddess on the back seat holding +Lycurgus, a spoil of battle, while he held their daughter on his lap, +withal a martial family party. Mrs. Barclay and Miss Lucy went to the +aid store-room and worked the long night through, getting breakfast +for the men. Mary Murphy and Nellie Logan came from the Thayer House +to the aid room when the hotel dishes were washed, and helped with the +work. And while they were there the Culpeppers walked in, returning +from a neighbourly visit to Miss Hendricks; John Barclay in an apron, +stirring a boiling pot of dried apples, turned his back on the eyes +that charmed him, but when the women sent him for a bucket of water, +he shook the handle at Ellen Culpepper and beckoned her with a finger, +and they slipped out into the moonlight together. She had hold of the +handle of the bucket with him, and they pulled and hauled and laughed +as boy and girl will laugh so long as the world turns round. The +street was deserted, and only the bar of light that fell across the +sidewalk from Schnitzler's saloon indicated the presence of human +beings in the little low buildings that pent in the highway. The boy +and the girl stood at the pump, and the boy stuck a foot in the horse +trough. He made a wet silhouette of it on the stone beneath him, and +reached for the handle of the pump. Then he said, "I got somepin I +won't tell." + +"Three little niggers in a peanut shell," replied the girl. + +"All right, Miss Cuteness. All right for you; I was going to tell you +somepin, but I won't now." He gave the pump-handle a pull. It was limp +and did not respond with water. "Ellen--" the boy repeated as he +worked the handle, "I got somepin to tell you. Honest I have." + +"I don't care, Mr. Smarty," the girl replied; she made a motion as if +to walk away, but did not. The boy noticed it and said, "Yes, +sir--it's somepin you'd like to know." The girl did not turn round. +The boy, who had been working with the wheezy pump, was holding the +handle up, and water was gurgling down the well. And before she could +answer he said, "Say, Ellen--don't be mad; honest I got somepin." + +"Who's it about?" she asked over her shoulder. + +"Me." + +"That's not much--who else?" + +"Elmer Hendricks!" + +"Who else?" The girl was halfway turned around when she spoke. + +"Bob--Bob Hendricks," replied the boy. + +"Aw--Bob Hendricks--" returned the girl, in contempt. Then she faced +the boy and said, "What is it?" + +"Come here 'n' I'll tell you." + +"I'll come this far." The girl took two steps. + +"I got to whisper it, and you can't hear." + +"Well, 'tain't much." The girl dangled one bare foot hesitatingly. + +"I'll come halfway," she added. + +The boy made a mark in the dust of the road a few feet from him with +his toe, and said, "Come to there." + +The girl shook her head, and spoke. "Tell me part--'n' I'll see if +it's good." + +"Me and Elmer an' Bob are goin' to run away!" The girl stepped to the +toe mark and cried, "What?" + +"Yes, sir--in the mornin'." He caught hold of the girl's arm +awkwardly and swung her around to the opposite side of the +pump-handle, and put her hands on it and began to pump. She pumped +with him as he puffed between the strokes, "Um' huh--we're going to +hide in the provision wagons, under some saddles they is there and +go--to--war!" The water was pouring into the bucket by the time he +had got this out. Their hands touched on the pump-handle. It was the +boy who drew his hand away. The girl gasped:-- + +"Why, John Barclay,--it ain't no such thing--does your ma know it?" + +He told her that no one knew it but her, and they pumped in silence +until the bucket was full, and walking back carrying the bucket +between them, he told her another secret: that Watts McHurdie had +asked John to get his guitar after midnight, and play an accompaniment +to the accordion, and that Watts and Ward and Jake Dolan and Gabriel +Carnine were going out serenading. Further he told her that Watts was +going to serenade Nellie Logan at the Thayer House, and that Gabriel +Carnine was going to serenade Mary Murphy, and that Philemon Ward was +going to serenade Miss Lucy, and that he, John Barclay, had suggested +that it would be fine to serenade Mrs. Culpepper, because she was such +a nice woman, and they agreed that if he would bring his guitar, they +would! + +When the boy and girl returned to the store, Ward and Miss Lucy went +to the Barclay home for the guitar. When they came back, Mrs. Barclay +noted a pink welt on one of Ward's fingers where his cameo ring had +been, and she observed that from time to time Miss Lucy kept feeling +of her hair as if to smooth it. It was long after midnight before the +girls from the hotel went home, and Miss Lucy and Mrs. Barclay lay on +the counter in the store, trying to sleep. They awoke with the sound +of music in their ears, and Miss Lucy said, "It's Captain Ward--and +the other boys, serenading us." They heard the high tenor voice of +Watts McHurdie and the strong clear voice of Ward rising above the +accordion and guitar:-- + + "For her voice is on the breeze, + Her spirit comes at will, + At midnight on the seas + Her bright smile haunts me still." + +And underneath these high voices was the gruff bass voice of Gabriel +Carnine and the baritone of Jake Dolan. And when Mrs. Barclay heard +the piping treble of her son, and the tinkle of his guitar, her eyes +filled with tears of pride. + +The serenaders waked the chickens, and the crowing roosters roused +Mrs. Barclay, and in the hurry of the hour she forgot to look for her +son. As "the gray dawn was breaking," a hundred men came into the +room, and found the smoking breakfast on the table. It was a good +breakfast as breakfasts go when men are hungry. But they sat in +silence that morning. The song was all out of them; the spring of +youth was crushed under the weight of great events. And as they +rose--they who had been so merry the day before, and had joked of the +things the soldier fears, they were all but mute, and left their +breakfasts scarcely tasted. + +The women remember this,--the telltale sign of the untouched +breakfast,--and their memory is better than that of Martin Culpepper, +who wrote in that plumy chapter of the Biography, before mentioned:-- + +"The soldiers left their homes that beautiful August morning as the +sun was kissing the tips of the sycamore that gave the magnificent +little city its name. They had partaken abundantly of a bountiful +breakfast, and as they satisfied their inner man from a table groaning +with good things prepared by the fair hands of the gentler sex, the +gallant men rose with song and cheer, and went on their happy way +where duty and honour called them." + +But the women who scraped the plates that morning knew the truth. One +wonders how much of history would be thrown out as worthless, like +Martin Culpepper's fine writing, if the women who scraped the plates +might testify. For those "large white plumes" do not dance in women's +eyes! + +After breakfast the men tumbled into the wagons, and as one wagon +after another rattled out of Fernald's feed lot and came down the +street, the men waved their hats and the women waved their aprons, and +a great cloud of dust rose on the highway, and as the wagons ducked +down the bank to the river, only the tall figure of Martin Culpepper, +waving his handkerchief, rose above the cloud. At the end of the line +was a provision wagon, and on it rode Philemon Ward--Yankee in his +greatest moment, scorning the heroic place in the van, and looking +after the substantials. In the feed lot, just as the reins were in his +hands, Ward saw Elmer Hendricks' foot peeping from under a saddle. +Ward dragged the boy out, spanking him as he came over the end gate, +and noted the sheepish smile on his face. Ten days later, as Ward, +marching in the infantry, was going up a hill through the timber at +the battle of Wilson's Creek, that same boy rode by with the cavalry, +and seeing Ward, waved a carbine and smiled as he charged the brow of +the hill. That night, going back under the stars, Ward stumbled over a +body, and stooping, saw the smile still on the boy's face, and the +carbine clutched in his hand. But for the hole through the boyish +brow, the eyes might still have been laughing. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +A few years ago, in the room of the great mahogany table, with its +clean blotting pad, its writing tablet, and its superb rose rising +from a green vase in the midst of the shining unlittered expanse, +there was a plain, heavy mahogany wainscoting reaching chin-high to +the average man. A few soft-toned pictures adorned the dull gray walls +above the wainscoting, and directly over a massive desk that never was +seen open hung a framed letter. The letter was written on blue-lined +paper in red pokeberry ink. At the top of the letter was the +advertisement of a hotel, done in quaint, old-fashioned, fancy script +with many curly-cues and printers' ornaments. The advertisement set +forth that the Thayer House at Sycamore Ridge was "First class in +every particular," and that "Especial attention was paid to transient +custom." On a line in the right-hand corner the reader was notified +that the tavern was founded by the Emigrant Aid Society, and balancing +this line, in the left-hand corner, were these words: "The only +livery-stable west of Lawrence." John Barclay's eyes have read it a +thousand times, and yet he always smiled when he scanned the letter +that followed the advertisement. The letter read:-- + +"Dear Ma I am going to war. Doan crye. Iff father was here he wood go; +so why should not I. I will be very caerfull not to get hurt & stay by +Cap Ward all the time. So godby yours truly J. Barclay Jr." + +It was five hours after the soldiers had gone when Mrs. Barclay came +home from her work in the aid room, and the first thing that attracted +her attention was her son's letter, lying folded on the table. When +she read it, she ran with the open letter across the common to the +town. It was a woman's town that morning,--not a man was left in +it,--for Ezra Lane, the only old man living in the Ridge, had left +_Freedom's Banner_ to shift for itself while he rode to Leavenworth +with the soldiers to bring back the teams; and when Mrs. Barclay came +into the street, she found some small stir there, made by Miss +Hendricks--the only mother the Hendricks boys remembered--who was +inquiring for her lost boys. Mrs. Barclay displayed her note, and in a +moment the whole population of Sycamore Ridge, with hands under its +aprons, was standing in front of the post-office. Then Ellen Culpepper +found her tongue, and Mrs. Barclay began to look for a horse. Elmer +Hendricks' pony in the pasture was the only horse Ward had left within +twenty miles. When Ellen Culpepper and her little sister Molly came +back from the pasture and announced that Elmer's pony was gone also, +the women surmised that he had taken it with him, for they could not +know that after he was spanked from the provision wagon, he had +slipped out to the pasture and ridden by a circuitous route to the +main road. + +It was Captain Ward, dismounting from his driver's seat on the +provision wagon at noon, who discovered two boys: a little boy eleven +years old in a dead faint, and a bigger boy panting with the heat. +They threw cold spring water on John Barclay's face, and finally his +eyes opened, and he grinned as he whispered, "Hullo, Captain," to the +man bending over him. The man held water to the boy's lips, and he +sipped a little and swam out into the blackness again, and then the +man reappeared and the boy tried to smile and whispered, "Aw--I'm all +right." They saw he was coming out of his faint, and one by one the +crowd dropped away from him; but Ward stayed, and when the child could +speak, he replied to Ward's question, "'Cause I wanted to." And then +again when the question was repeated, the boy said, "I tell you 'cause +I wanted to." He shook his head feebly and grinned again and tried to +rise, but the man gently held him down, and kept bathing his temples +with cold water from the spring beside them. Finally, when the man +seemed a little harsh in his questions, the boy's eyes brimmed and he +said: "Whur'd my pa be if he was alive to-day? I just guess I got as +much right here as you have." He made a funny little picture lying on +the lush grass by the spring in the woods; his browned face, washed +clean on the forehead and temples, showed almost white under the dirt. +There were tear-stained rings about the eyes, and his pink shirt and +blue trousers were grimy with dust, and the red clay of the Sycamore +still was on the sides of his dust-brown bare feet. Around a big toe +was a rag which showed a woman's tying--neat and firm, but red with +clay. + +Ward left, and Bob Hendricks came and stood over the prostrate boy. +Bob was carrying a bucket of water to the cook as a peace offering. + +"What did they do?" asked the boy on the ground. + +"Just shook me--and then said father'd tend to me for this." The boys +exchanged comments on the situation without words, and then Bob said +as he drew the dripping bucket from the spring, "We're going clear on +to Leavenworth, and they say then we've got to come back with Ezra +Lane and the teams." + +The boy on the ground raised himself by rolling over and catching hold +of a sapling. He panted a moment, and "I'll bet y' I don't." The other +boy went away with a weak "Me neither," thrown over his shoulder. + +During that long afternoon, and all the next day and the next, the +boys ran from wagon to wagon, climbing over end gates, wriggling among +the men, running with the horses through the shady woods, paddling in +the fords, and only refusing to move when the men got out of the +wagons and walked up the long clay hills that rise above the Kaw +River. At night they camped by the prairie streams, and the men sang +and wondered what they were doing at home, and Philemon Ward took John +Barclay out into the silence of the woods and made him say his +prayers. And Ward would look toward the west and say, "Well, +Johnnie,--there's home," and once they stood in an open place in the +timber, and Ward gazed at a bright star sinking in the west, and said, +"I guess that's about over Sycamore Ridge." They went on, and the boy, +looking back to see why the man had stopped, caught him throwing a +kiss at the star. And they could not know, as they walked back +together through the woods abashed, that two women sitting before a +cabin door under a sycamore tree were looking at an eastern star, and +one threw kisses at it unashamed while the other wept. And on other +nights, many other nights, the two, Miss Lucy and Mrs. Barclay, sat +looking at their star while the terror in their hearts made their lips +mute. God makes men brave who stand where bullets fly, yet always they +can run away. But God seems to give no alternative to women at home +who have to wait and dread. + +Forty years later John Barclay took from a box in a safety vault back +of his office in the city a newspaper. It was the Sycamore Ridge +_Banner_, yellow and creased and pungent with age. "This," he said to +Senator Myton, spreading the wrinkled sheet out on the mahogany table, +"this is my enlistment paper." He smiled as he read aloud:-- + +"At noon of our first day out we came across two stowaways. Hendricks, +aged twelve, son of our well-known and popular Mayor, and J. Barclay, +aged eleven, son of Mrs. M. Barclay, who, owing to the suddenness of +the departure of our troops for the seat of war in Missouri, and +certain business delays made necessary in ye editor's return, were +slipped out with our company rather than left in the rough and +uncertain city of Leavenworth. They are called by the boys of 'C' +company respectively 'the little sergeant and the little corporal, +Good Luck boys.'" + +A little farther down the column was this paragraph: + +"Aug. 2nd we went into camp on Sugar Creek, and some sport was had by +the men who went in bathing, taking the horses with them." + +"Ever go in swimming with the horses, Senator?" asked Barclay. The +senator shook his head doubtfully. + +"Well--you haven't. For if you had you'd remember it," answered +Barclay, and a hundred naked young men and two skinny, bony boys +splashed and yelled and ducked and wrestled and locked their strong +wet arms about the necks of the plunging horses and dived under them, +and rolled across them and played with them like young satyrs in the +cool water under the overhanging elms with the stars twinkling in the +shining mahogany as Barclay folded the paper and put it away. He +thrummed the polished surface a moment and looked back into the past +to see Philemon Ward straight, lean, and glistening like a god +standing on a horse ready to dive, and as he huddled, crouched for the +leap, Barclay said, "Well, come on, Senator, we must go to lunch now." + +It was late in the afternoon of their third day's journey that the men +from Sycamore Ridge rode in close order, singing, through the streets +of Leavenworth. Watts McHurdie was playing his accordion, and the +people turned to look at the uncouth crowd in civilian's clothes that +went bellowing "O My Darling Nellie Gray," across the town and out to +the Fort. Ezra Lane promised to call at the Fort for the two boys and +with drivers for the teams early the next morning--but to Sycamore +Ridge, Leavenworth in those days was the great city with its pitfalls, +and when Ezra Lane, grizzled though he was, came to a realizing sense +of his responsibilities, the next day was gone and the third was +waning. When he went to the Fort, he found the Sycamore Ridge men had +been hurried into Missouri to meet General Price, who was threatening +Springfield, and no word had been left for him about the boys. As he +left the gate at the Fort, a troop of cavalry rode by gaily, and a +boy, a big overgrown fourteen-year-old boy in a blue uniform, passed +and waved his hand at the befuddled old man, and cried, "Good-by, Mr. +Lane,--tell 'em you saw me." He knew the boy was from Sycamore Ridge, +but he knew also that he was not one of the boys who had come with the +soldiers; and being an old man, far removed from the boy world, he +could not place the child in his blue uniform, so he drove away +puzzled. + +The afternoon the men from Sycamore Ridge came to Leavenworth they +were hurriedly examined again, signed the muster rolls, and were sent +away without uniforms all in twenty-four hours. But not before they +had found time to have their pictures taken in borrowed regimentals. +For twenty years after the war the daguerreotypes of the soldiers +taken at Leavenworth that day were the proudest adornments of the +centre-tables of Sycamore Ridge, and even now on Lincoln Avenue, in a +little white cottage with green blinds, that sits in a broad smooth +lawn with elm trees on it, stands an easel. On the easel is a +picture--an enlarged crayon drawing of a straight, handsome young +fellow in a captain's uniform. One hand is in his coat, and the other +at his hip. His head is thrown back with a fierce determination into +the photographer's iron rest and all together the picture is marked +with the wrinkled front of war. For over one corner of the easel hangs +a sword with an ivory handle, and upon it is an inscription +proclaiming the fact that the sword was presented to Captain Philemon +R. Ward by his company for gallant conduct on the field of battle on +the night of August 4, 1861. Above the easel in the corner hangs +another picture--that of a sweet-faced old man of seventy, beaming +rather benignly over his white lawn necktie. The forty-five years that +have passed between the two faces have trimmed the hair away from the +temples and the brow, have softened the mouth, and have put patience +into the eyes--the patience of a great faith often tried but never +broken. The five young women of the household know that the crayon +portrait on the bamboo easel is highly improper as a parlour +ornament--for do they not teach school, and do they not take all the +educational journals and the crafty magazines of art? But the hand +that put it there was proud of its handiwork, and she who hung the +sword upon the easel is gone away, so the girls smile at the fierce +young boyish face in the picture as they pass it, and throw a kiss at +the face above it, and the easel is not moved. + +And the man,--the tall old man with a slight stoop in his shoulders, +the old man who wears the alpaca coat and the white lawn tie seen in +the upper picture,--sometimes he wanders into the stately front room +with a finger in a census bulletin as a problem in his head creases +his brow--and the sight of the sword always makes him smile, and +sometimes the smile is a chuckle that stirs the cockles of his heart. + +For his mind goes back to that summer night of August 4, 1861, and he +sees himself riding on a horse with a little boy behind with his arms +in the soldier's belt. It is dusk, and "C" Company on foot is filing +down a Missouri hill. It is a muddy road, and the men are tired and +dirty. There is no singing now. A man driving an ox team has turned +out of the road to let the soldiers pass. Some one in the line asks +the man, "Where's Price?" + +"Over the hill yonder," replies the man, pointing with his hickory +whip-stock. The word buzzes up and down the line. The captain on his +horse with the boy clutching at his belt does not hear it. But the +line lags and finally halts. The men have been only two days under +military discipline. That day last week Phil Ward--who was he, +anyway? Henry Schnitzler and Oscar Fernald could have bought him and +sold him twice over. So the line halted. Then the captain halted. Then +he called Second Lieutenant Dolan and asked to know what was the +matter. "They say they are going to camp," responded Dolan, touching +his cap. Captain Ward's face flushed. He told Dolan to give the order +to march. There were shouts and laughter, and Gabriel Carnine cried, +"Say, Phil, this here Missourian we passed says old General Price is +over that hill." The boys laughed again, and Ward saw that trouble was +before him. The men stood waiting while he controlled his rage before +he spoke. Dolan said under his breath from the ground beside the +horse, "They're awful tired, Cap, and they don't want to tackle +Price's army all by their lonelies." Some one in the company called +out, "We've voted on this thing, Cap. Don't the majority rule in this +country?" + +A smile twitched at Ward's mouth and the boy in him pricked a twinkle +in his eyes, for he was only twenty-six, and he laughed--threw his +head back and then leaned over and slapped the horse's neck and +finally straightened up and said, "Gentlemen, I bow to the will of the +people." + +And so it happened that when they drew their first month's pay, Martin +Culpepper and Jake Dolan suggested to the company that they buy Ward a +sword to commemorate the victory of the people. And Martin Culpepper +made a great presentation speech in which he said that to the +infantry, cavalry, and artillery arms of military service, "C" Company +had added the "vox populi." But the night after the presentation Oscar +Fernald and Watts McHurdie crawled under the captain's tent and stole +the sword and pawned it for beer, and there was a sound of revelry by +night. + +When they found the great camp near Springfield, it seemed to John +Barclay that all the soldiers in the world were gathered. It is +difficult for a boy under a dozen years to remember things +consecutively; because boys do not do things consecutively. They flit +around like butterflies, and so the picture that they make of events +jumps from scene to scene. One film on a roll of John's memory showed +a hot August day in the camp of "C" Company; the men are hurrying +about the place. The tents are down; the boys--John and Bob--are +kicking around the vacant camp looking for trophies. But there the +film broke and did not record the fact that Captain Ward put Bob and +John on a commissary wagon that stood in a side street as the soldiers +moved out. John remembered looking into a street filled with marching +soldiers. First the regulars and the artillery came swinging down the +street. At their head the boy saw General Lyon, the commanding +officer, and around him was a bodyguard whose plumed hats, with the +left brim pinned up, caught the boys' eyes. The regulars marched by +silently. It was part of their day's work; but following them came a +detachment of Germans singing "Marchen Rote," and then the battery of +six guns and then the Kansans. Small wonder Captain Gordon Granger +told Colonel Mitchel that the Kansas soldiers were only an armed mob. +They filed out of Springfield, some in rags and some in tags and some +in velvet gowns. They carried guns; but they looked like delegates to +a convention, and as the boys saw their own company, they waved their +hands, but they were almost ashamed of the shabby clothes of the men +from Sycamore Ridge; for a boy always notices clothes on others. When +the Germans stopped singing "Marchen Rote," the boys heard Watts +McHurdie's high tenor voice start up "The Dutch Companee," and the +crowd that was lining the street cheered and cheered. A Missouri +regiment followed and more regulars, and then a battery of four guns +passed, and then came more Kansans still going to that everlasting +convention. And a band came roaring by,--with its crashing brass and +rumbling drums,--and then after the band had turned the corner, came +Iowa in gray blouses and such other garments as the clothes-lines of +the country afforded. They were singing as they passed--a song the +boy had never heard, being all about the "happy land of Canaan." And +before the sun had set again, after that night, hundreds of those who +sang of the happy land were there. In the rear were the ambulances and +the ammunition and the hospital vans, and the wagon which held the +boys wheeled into the line. After they had passed, the streets were +clogged with carts and drays and wagons of all sorts, for the citizens +were moving to places of safety. + +As a man, the boy's memory did not tell him how the boys fared, but he +does remember that it was dark in the timber where they camped that +night, and that they slipped away into the woods to lie down together. +The chirping of the birds at dawn wakened them, and as John sat up +rubbing his eyes, he heard a rifle's crack. They were at the edge of a +field, and half a mile from him, troops were marching by columns +across a clearing. The rifle-shot was followed by another, and +another, and then by a half-dozen. "Wake up, Bob--wake up--they's a +battle," he cried, and the two boys stumbled to their feet. The shots +were far in front of the marching soldiers, and the boys could not +make out what the firing meant. The line formed and ran up the hill, +and the boys saw the morning sun flashing on the guns of the enemy. +The battery roared, and the boys were filled with terror. They ran +through the woods like dogs until they came to the soldiers from +Sycamore Ridge. The boys crawled on their bellies to their friends, +and lay with their faces all but buried in the ground. The men were +lying at the edge of the timber talking, and Watts McHurdie was on his +back. + +"What's the matter with you, Watts?" asked Oscar Fernald. + +"Os," replied Watts, "I got a presentiment I'm goin' to be shot in the +rear. It will kill me to be shot in the back, and I've got a notion +that's how I am goin' to die." + +The line laughed. Captain Ward, who was sitting a few paces in the +rear of the men, went over to Watts, and scuffled the man over with +his foot. A bullet went through Ward's hat before he got back to his +place. The men were sticking up ramrods and betting on the number of +minutes they would last. No ramrod stood more than ten minutes. Martin +Culpepper threw up his hat five times before a bullet hit it; but he +went bareheaded the rest of the day, and John Barclay, in sheer fear, +began to dig a hole under him. After he had been on his belly for an +hour, Henry Schnitzler got tired and rose. The men begged him to lie +down. But his only reply when they told him he was a fool was, "Vell, +vot of it?" And when they said he would be shot, he answered again, +"Vell, vot of it?" And when Jake Dolan cried, "You pot-gutted +Dutchman, sit down or there'll be a sauer-kraut shower in hell pretty +quick," Henry shook his fat sides a moment and laughed, "Vell, vot of +dot--altzo!" For an hour, that seemed ten, he moved back and forth on +the line, firing and joking, and then the spell broke and a bullet +took part of his jaw. As he dropped to his position, with the blood +gushing from his face, his eyes blazed, and he spat out, "By hell-tam, +now I vos mad," and he fought the day out and died that night. But as +he sank to his place when the bullet hit him, Watts McHurdie saw +Schnitzler stagger, and through the smoke, knew that he was wounded. +Watts rushed to Schnitzler and bent over him, when a ball hit Watts +and went ripping through the fleshy part of his hip. "Shot in the +back--damn it, shot in the back!" he screamed, as he jumped into the +air. "What did I tell you, boys, I'm shot in the back." And he crawled +bleeding to the rear. + +All the long forenoon the camp of the enemy continued to belch out +men. The battery mowed them down, and once the Kansans were ordered to +charge the hill, and the boys were left alone. It was there that the +two were separated. John saw men sink in awful silence, and the blood +ooze from their heads. He saw men cramp in agony and choke with blood, +and he saw Martin Culpepper, perhaps with the large white plumes still +dancing in his eyes, dash out of the line and pick up a Union banner +that Sigel's men had lost, and that the enemy was flaunting just +before the artillery mowed the gray line down. He heard the hoarse men +cheer Martin, and as the tall swart figure came running back waving +the flag, the boy prayed to his father's God to save the man. + +When the battle lulled, the boy found himself parted from "C" Company, +and fled back through the woods to the rear. There he came upon a +smell that was familiar. He had known it in the slaughter-house at +home. It was the smell of fresh blood, and with it came the sickening +drone of flies. In an instant he stood under a tree where men were +working smeared with blood. He stumbled over a little pile of +dismembered legs and hands. A man with a bloody knife was bending over +a human form stretched on a bloody and, it seemed to the boy, a greasy +table. Another was helping the big man. They were cutting the bullet +out of Watts McHurdie, who was lying white and unconscious and with +flies crawling over him, half naked and blood-smeared, on the table. +The boy screamed, and the man turned his head and snarled through his +clenched teeth that held the knife, "Get out of here--no--go get me +a bucket of water from the creek." Some one handed the boy a bucket, +and he ran where he was told to go, with the awful sight burned on his +brain, with the sickening smell in his nose, and with the drone of +flies in his ears. When he came back the firing had begun again. The +surgeon was saying, "Well, that's all that's waiting--now I'm going +for a minute." He grabbed a gun standing by the table and ran toward +the front; he did not take off his blood-splotched apron, and the boy +fled from the place in terror. In a few moments the firing ceased; but +the boy ran on, hunting for a hiding-place. He saw a troop of +Alabamians plunge over a log in a charge, and roll in an awful, +writhing, screaming pile of dying men and horses, and in the heap he +saw the terror-stricken face of a youth, who was shrieking for help; +John carried that fear-distorted face in his memory for years, until +long afterwards it appeared in Sycamore Ridge. + +But that day John fled from the death-trap almost mad with fear. +Rushing farther into the woods, he came upon General Lyon and his +staff. The plumed hats of the bodyguard told the boy that the +sandy-haired man before him was in command, though the man's face was +bloody from a wound in his head, and though his clothes were stained +with blood and he was hatless. He sat upright on his horse, and as the +boy turned, he heard the voices of Captain Ward and his soldiers, +begging to be sent into the fight. It was a clamour fierce and +piteous, and the general had turned his head to the Kansans, when +something at the left startled him. There was no firing, and a column +of soldiers was approaching. Doubt paralyzed the group around Lyon for +a moment. The men wore gray blouses strangely like those the Iowans +wore. The men might be Sigel's men, coming back from their artillery +duel. The general plainly was puzzled. He rode out from the bodyguard +a few paces. The boy was staring at him, when the bodyguard with their +gay plumed hats came up, and he saw wrath flash into the general's +face as he recognized the enemy. "Shoot them--shoot them--" he +shouted. But the gray line vomited its smoke first, and the boy felt +his foot afire. The general dropped from his horse, and as the boy +looked down, he saw a red blot coming out on his instep. In the same +instant he saw Captain Ward rush to the falling general, and saw the +bodyguard gather about him, and then the blackness came over the child +and he fell. He did not see them bear General Lyon's body into the +brush, nor hear Ward moan his sorrow. But when Ward returned from the +thicket, he saw the child lying limp on the grass. + +As Ward ran toward the hospital van carrying the limp little body, he +could see that a ball had pierced the boy's foot. Also he saw the men +in retreat who had shot Lyon, and all over the field the firing had +ceased. As he hurried through the underbrush, Ward ran into Bob +Hendricks hiding in the thicket. Ward took the child's hand and he +began to sob: "I saw Elmer go up that hill, Captain; I saw him go up +with the horses and he ain't come back." But Ward did not understand +him, and hurried the little fellow along with John to the surgeon. + +Then Ward left them, and when John Barclay opened his eyes, Bob +Hendricks was sitting beside him. A great lint bandage was about +John's foot, and they were in a wagon jolting over a rutty road. He +did not speak for a long time, and then he asked, "Did we whip 'em?" + +And Bob nodded and said, "Cap says so!" + +The children clasped hands and talked of many things that passed from +the boy's mind. But his mind recorded that the next day in the +hospital Martin Culpepper said, "Bob can't come to-day, Johnnie; you +know he's tendin' Elmer's funeral." The boy must have opened his eyes, +for the man said, "Why, Johnnie, I thought you knew; yes; they found +him dead that night--right under the reb--under the enemies' guns on +the brink of the hill." + +The child's eyes filled with tears, but he did not cry. His emotion +was spent. The two sat together for a time, and the little boy said, +"Why didn't you go, Mr. Culpepper?" And the man replied: "Me? +Oh--why--Oh, yes, I got a little scratch here in my leg, and they +won't let me out of here. There's Watts over there in the next cot; he +got a little scratch too--didn't you, Watts?" Watts and the boy +smiled at each other, but John did not see Bob again for years. Miss +Hendricks came and took him to their father's people in Ohio. + +One day some one came in the hospital where John and Watts and Martin +Culpepper were lying, and began to call out mail for the men, and the +third name the corporal called was "Captain Martin Culpepper"; and +when they brought him a long official envelope with General Frémont's +name on it, Martin Culpepper held it in his hands, looked at the +inscription, read the word "captain" again and again, and could not +speak for choked joy. And tears so dimmed his eyes that he could not +see the "large white plumes" of chivalry, but the men in the beds +cheered as they heard the words the corporal read. + +With such music as that in his ears, and with his soul stirred by the +events about him, Watts McHurdie, lying in the hospital, wrote the +song that made him famous. They know in Sycamore Ridge that Watts is +not much of a poet, that his rhymes are sometimes bad and his metre +worse. But once his heart took fire and burned for a day sheer white, +and in that day he wrote words that a nation sang, and now all the +world is singing. And they are proud of him, and when people come to +Sycamore Ridge on pilgrimages to see the author of the song, men do +not smile in wonder; they show the visitors his shop, and point out +the bowed little man bending over his bench, stretching his arms out +as he sews, and they point him out with pride. Not even John Barclay +with all his millions, or Bob Hendricks, who once refused a place in +the President's cabinet, are more esteemed in Sycamore Ridge than the +little harness maker who set the world to singing. + +And curiously enough, John Barclay was with Watts McHurdie when he +wrote the song. They brought him an accordion one day while he was +getting well, and the two sat together. Watts droned along and shut +his eyes and mumbled some words, and then burst out with the chorus. +Over and over he sang it and exclaimed between breaths: "Say--ain't +that fine? I just made it up." He was exalted with his performance, +and some women came loitering down the corridor where the wounded man +and the boy were lying. The visitors gazed compassionately at +them--little Watts not much larger than the boy. A woman asked, "And +where were you wounded, son?" looking at Watts with his accordion. His +face flushed up at the thought of his shame, and he could not keep +back the tears that always betrayed him when he was deeply moved. +"Ten--ten miles from Springfield, madam, ten miles from Springfield." +And to hide his embarrassment he began sawing at his accordion, +chanting his famous song. But being only a little boy, John Barclay +tittered. + +A few days after the battle Captain Ward wrote to Miss Lucy telling +her that some soldiers slightly wounded would go home on a furlough to +Lawrence, and that they would take John with them and put him on the +stage at Lawrence for Sycamore Ridge. Then Ward's letter continued: +"It is all so horrible--this curse of war; sometimes I think it is +worse than the curse of slavery. There is no 'pomp and circumstance of +glorious war.' Men died screaming in agony, or dumb with fear. They +were covered with dirt, and when they were dead they merged into the +landscape like inanimate things. What vital difference is there +between a living man and a dead man, that one stands out in a scene +big and obtrusive, and the other begins to fade into the earth as soon +as death touches the body? The horror of death is upon me, and I +cannot shake it off. It is a fearful thing to see a human soul pass +'in any shape, in any mood.' And I have seen so many deaths--we lost +one man out of every three--that I am all unnerved. I saw General +Lyon die--the only abolitionist in the regular army, they say. He +died like a soldier--but not as the soldiers die in pictures. He sank +off his horse so limp, and so like an animal with its death wound, and +gasped so weakly, 'I'm killed--take care of my body,' that when we +covered his face and bore him away, we could not realize we were +carrying a man's body. And now, my dear, if I should go as these men +go, I have neither kith nor kin to mourn me--only you, and you must +not mourn, for I shall be near you always and always, without sign or +token, and when you feel my presence near, know that it is real, and +not a seeming. For the great force of life that moves events in this +world has but one symbol, but one vital manifestation, and that is +love, and when a soul is touched with that, it is immortal." + +But Martin Culpepper, with his dancing plumes, saw things in another +light. Perhaps we always see things in another light when forty years +have passed over them. But in his chapter "The Shrill Trump," in the +Biography, he writes: "'O you mortal engines, whose rude throats the +immortal Jove's dread clamours counterfeit,' O for the 'spirit-stirring +drum, and the ear-splitting fife' 'in these piping times of peace.' +Small wonder it was that with the clang and clank of sabre and artillery +in his ears, with the huzzas of comrades and the sparkle of the wine of +war in his eyes, our hero wrote the never dying words that made him +famous. How the day comes back with all its pageantry, the caparisoned +horses, the handsome men stepping to the music of inspiring melody, the +clarion commands of the officers, and the steady rumble of a thousand +feet upon the battle ground, going careless whether to death or +immortality in deathless fame." + +A curious thing is that deathless fame which Martin speaks of--a +passing curious thing; for when word came of Henry Schnitzler's death, +Mary Murphy, of the Thayer House, put off Gabriel Carnine's ring, and +wept many tears in the stage driver's coffee and wore black in her hat +for a year, and when Gabriel came home, she married him and all went +as merrily as a wedding-bell. What covert tenderness or dream of gauzy +romance was in her memory, the town could never know; but the +Carnines' first boy was named Henry, and for many years after the war, +she was known among the men, who do not understand a woman's heart, as +the "War widow by brevet." Yet that was Henry's "deathless fame" in +Sycamore Ridge, for the town has long since forgotten him, and even +his name means nothing to our children, who see it on the bronze +statue set up by the rich John Barclay to commemorate our soldier +dead. + +But John was our first war hero. And when he brought his battle scars +home that September night in '61, for hours before the stage drove +across Sycamore Creek the boy was filled with a nameless dread that he +might be spanked. + +They carried him on a cot to his mother's house, and put him in the +great carved four-poster bed, and in the morning Miss Lucy came and +hovered over him, and they talked of Captain Ward to her heart's +content, and the boy told Miss Lucy the gossip of the hospital,--that +Captain Ward was to be made a major,--and she kissed him and petted +him until he was glad none of the boys was around to see the sickening +spectacle. And then Miss Lucy and Mrs. Barclay told the child of their +plans,--that Miss Lucy was going to war as a nurse, and that Mrs. +Barclay was to teach the Sycamore Ridge school during the winter. And +in a few weeks John was out of the hero business, working in +Culpepper's store after school, and getting used to a limp that stayed +with him all his life. + +The next spring he traded a carbine that he brought home from the army +for an Indian pony, and then he began business for himself. He organized +the cows of the town into a town herd and took them every morning to +pasture on the prairie. All day he rode in the open air, and the town +boys came out to play with him, and they explored the cave by his +mother's house, and with their sling-shots killed quails and prairie +chickens and cooked them, and they played war through the long summer +days. But John did not grow as the other boys grew; he remained +undersized, and his limp put him at a disadvantage; so he had few +fights, but he learned cunning, and got his way by strategy rather than +by force--but he always had his way. He was strong; the memory of what +he had seen and what he had been that one awful day in the battle made +lines on his face; sometimes at night he would wake screaming, when he +dreamed he was running away from the surgeon with the bloody knife in +his teeth and that the man was going to throw an arm at him. And when he +wished to bring Ellen Culpepper to time he would begin in a low +terrorful voice, "And I saw--the man--take--a--g-r-e-a-t l-o-n-g knife +d-r-i-p-p-i-n-g with r-e-d-b-l-o-o-d out of his t-e-e-t-h and go slish, +k-slish," but he never got farther than this, for the girl would begin +shaking, and if they were alone, would run to him and grab him and put +her hand to his mouth to make him stop. + +And so his twelfth year passed under the open sky in the sunshine in +summer and in winter working after school in town where men were +wanting, and where a boy could always find work. He grew brown and +lean, and as his voice grew squeaky and he sang alto in the school, he +became more and more crafty and masterful. The fact that his mother +was the teacher, did not give him more rights in school than other +boys, for she was a sensible woman, but it gave him a prestige on the +playground that he was not slow to take. He was a born trader; and he +kept what he got and got more. His weakness was music. He kept two +cows in his herd in the summer time in return for the use of the +melodeon at the Thayer House, and moved it to his own home and put it +in the crowded little room, and practised on it at night when the +other boys were loafing at the town pump. For a consideration in +marbles he taught Buck Culpepper the chords in "G" on the guitar, and +for further consideration taught him the chords in "D" and "C," and +with the aid of Jimmy Fernald, aged nine, and Molly Culpepper, aged +eleven, one with a triangle and the other with a pumpkin reed pipe, +John organized his Band, which he led with his mouth-organ, and +exhibited in Culpepper's barn, appropriating to himself as the +director the pins charged at the door. Forty years afterward, when +Molly called his attention to his failure to divide with the children, +John Barclay smiled as he lifted his lame foot to a fat leather chair +in front of him and said, "That was what we call the promoter's +profit." And then the talk ran to Ellen, and John opened his great +desk and from a box without a mark on it he brought out a tintype +picture of Ellen at fourteen, a pink-cheeked child in short sleeves, +with the fringe of her pantalets showing above her red striped +stockings and beneath her bulging skirts, and with a stringy, stiff +feather rising from the front of her narrow-rimmed hat. + +During the time when he was going to school by day and working +evenings and caring for the town herd through the summer, the war was +dragging wearily on. Sometimes a soldier came home on a furlough and +there was news of the Sycamore Ridge men, but oftener it was a season +of waiting and working. The women and children cared for the farms and +the stores as best they could and lived, heaven only knows how, and +opened every newspaper with horror and dread, and glanced down the +long list of names of the dead, the missing and the wounded, fearful +of what they might see. Mrs. Barclay heard from Miss Lucy and through +her kept track of Philemon Ward, who was transferred to another +regiment after he was made major. And when he was made a colonel at +Shiloh, there were tear blots on Miss Lucy's letter that told of it, +and after Appomattox he was brevetted a general. As for Captain +Culpepper, he came home a colonel, and Jake Dolan came home a first +lieutenant. But Watts McHurdie came home with a letter from Lincoln +about his song, and he was the greatest man of all of them. + +It is odd that Sycamore Ridge grew during the war. Where the people +came from, no one could say--yet they came, and young Barclay +remembered even during the war of playing in the foundations and +running over the rafters of new houses. But when the war closed, the +great caravan that had lagged while the war was raging, began to trail +itself steadily in front of Mrs. Barclay's door, through the streets +of Sycamore Ridge and out over the western hills. Soldiers with their +families passed, going to the free homesteads, and the line of movers' +wagons began with daybreak and rumbled by far into the night. But +hundreds of wagons stopped in Sycamore Ridge, and the stage came +crowded every night. Brick buildings, the town's mortal pride, began +showing their fronts on Main Street, and other streets in the town +began to assert themselves. Mrs. Barclay's school grew from a score of +children in 1864 to three rooms full in '65, and in '66 the whole town +turned out to welcome General and Mrs. Ward, she that was Miss Lucy +Barnes, and there was a reunion of "C" Company that night, and a +camp-fire in Culpepper Hall, and the next day Lige Bemis was painting +a sign which read "Philemon R. Ward, Attorney-at-Law, Pension Matters +Promptly Attended To." And the first little Ward was born at the +Thayer House and named Eli Thayer Ward. + +The spring that found John Barclay sixteen years old found him a +browned, gray-eyed, lumpy sort of a boy, big at the wrong places, and +stunted at the wrong places, with a curious, uneven sort of an +education. He knew all about Walden Pond; and he knew his +Emerson--and was mad with passion to see the man; he had travelled +over the world with Scott; had crossed the bridge with Cæsar in his +father's books; had roamed the prairie and the woods with Cooper's +Indians; had gone into the hearts of men with Thackeray and Dickens, +holding his mother's hand and listening to her voice; but he knew +algebra only as a name, and rhetoric was a dictionary word with him. +Of earthly possessions he had two horses, a bill of sale for his +melodeon, a saddle, a wagon, a set of harness; four mouth-organs, one +each in "A," "D," "E," and "C," all carefully rolled in Canton flannel +on a shelf above his bed; one concertina,--a sort of German +accordion,--five pigs, a cow, and a bull calf. Moreover, there were +_two_ rooms in the Barclay home; and the great rock was gone from the +door of the cave, and a wooden door was in its place and the Barclays +were using it for a spring-house. The boy had a milk route and sold +butter to the hotel. But the chiefest treasure of the household was +John's new music book. And while he played on his melodeon, Ellen +Culpepper's eyes smiled from the pages and her voice moved in the +melodies, and his heart began to feel the first vague vibration with +the great harmony of life. And so the pimples on his chin reddened, +and the squeak in his voice began to squawk, and his big milky eyes +began to see visions wherein a man was walking through this vain +world. As for Ellen Culpepper, her shoe tops were tiptoeing to her +skirts, and her eyes were full of dreams of the warrior bold, "with +spurs of gold," who "sang merrily his lay." And rising from these +dreams, she always stepped on her feet. But that was a long time ago, +and men and women have been born and loved, and married and brought +children into the world since then. For it was a long time ago. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +The changes of time are hard to realize. One knows, of course, that +the old man once was young. One understands that the tree once was a +sapling, and conversely we know that the child will be a man and the +gaunt sapling stuck in the earth in time will become a great spreading +tree. But the miracle of growth passes not merely our understanding, +but our imagination. + +So though men tell us, and grow black in the face with the vehemence +of telling, that the Sycamore Ridge of the sixties--a gray smudge of +unpainted wooden houses bordering the Santa Fe trail, with the street +merging into the sunflowers a block either way from the pump,--is the +town that now lies hidden in the elm forest, with its thirty miles of +paving and its scores of acres of wide velvet lawns, with its parks +wherein fountains play, guarded by cannon discarded by the pride of +modern war, with the court-house on the brink of the hill that once +was far west of the town and with twenty-two thousand people whizzing +around in trolleys, rattling about in buggies or scooting down the +shady avenues in motor-cars--whatever the records may show, the real +truth we know; the towns are not the same; the miracle of growth +cannot fool us. And yet here is the miracle in the making. Always in +John Barclay's eyes when he closed them to think of the first years +that followed the war between the states, rose visions of yellow pine +and red bricks and the litter and debris of building; always in his +ears as he remembered those days were the confused noises of wagons +whining and groaning under their heavy loads, of gnawing saws and +rattling hammers, of the clink of trowels on stones, of the swish of +mortar in boxes, and of the murmur of the tide of hurrying feet over +board sidewalks, ebbing and flowing night and morning. In those days +new boys came to town so rapidly that sometimes John met a boy in +swimming whom he did not know, and, even in 1866, when Ellen and Molly +Culpepper were giving a birthday party for Ellen, she declared that +she "simply couldn't have all the new people there." + +And so in the sixties the boy and the town went through their raw, +gawky, ugly adolescence together. As streets formed in the town, ideas +took shape in the boy's mind. As Lincoln Avenue was marked out on the +hill, where afterward the quality of the town came to live, so in the +boy's heart books that told him of the world outlined vague visions. +Boy fashion he wrote to Bob Hendricks once or twice a month or a +season, as the spirit moved him, and measured everything with the eyes +of his absent friend. For he came to idealize Bob, who was out in the +wonderful world, and their letters in those days were curious +compositions--full of adventures by field and wood, and awkward +references to proper books to read, and cures for cramps and bashfully +expressed aspirations of the soul. Bob's father had become a general, +and when the war closed, he was sent west to fight the Indians, and he +took Lieutenant Jacob Dolan with him, and Bob sent to John news of the +Indian fighting that glorified Bob further. + +And when a letter came to the Ridge from Dolan announcing that he and +the Hendricks family were coming back to the Ridge to live,--the +general to look after his neglected property, and Dolan to start a +livery-stable,--John heard the news with a throb of great joy. When a +letter from Bob confirmed the news, John began to count the days. For +the love of boys is the most unselfish thing in a selfish world. They +met awkwardly and sheepishly at the stage, and greeted each other with +grunts, and became inseparable. Bob came back tall, lanky, grinny, and +rather dumb, and he found John undersized, wiry, masterful, and rather +mooney, but strong and purposeful, for a boy. But each accepted the +other as perfect in every detail. + +Nothing Bob did changed John's attitude, and nothing John did made Bob +waver in his faith in John. Did the boys come to John with a sickening +story that Bob's sister made him bring a towel to the swimming hole, +John glared at them a moment and then waved them aside with, "Well, +you big brutes,--didn't you know what it was for?" When they reported +to John that Bob's father was making him tip his hat to the girls, +they got, instead of the outbreak of scorn they expected, "Well--did +the girls tip back?" And when Bob's sister said that the Barclay +boy--barefooted, curly-headed, dusty, and sunburned--looked like +something the old cat had dragged into the house, the boy-was impudent +to his sister and took a whipping from his father. + +That fall the children of Sycamore Ridge assembled for the first time +in their new seven-room stone schoolhouse, and the two boys were in +the high school. The board hired General Philemon Ward to teach the +twenty high school pupils, and it was then he first began to wear the +white neckties which he never afterwards abandoned. Ward's first clash +with John Barclay occurred when Ward organized a military company. +John's limp kept him out of it, so he broke up the company and +organized a literary society, of which he was president and Ellen +Culpepper secretary, and a constitution was adopted exempting the +president and secretary from work in the society. It was natural +enough that Bob Hendricks should be made treasurer, and that these +three officers should be the programme committee, and then a long line +of vice-presidents and assistant secretaries and treasurers and +monitors was elected by the society. + +So John became the social leader of the group of boys and girls who +were just coming out of kissing games into dances at one another's +homes in the town. John decided who should be in the "crowd" and who +might be invited only when a mixed crowd was expected. Fathers +desiring trade, and mothers faithful to church ties, protested; but +John Barclay had his way. It was his crowd. They called themselves the +"Spring Chickens," and as John had money saved to spend as he pleased, +he dictated many things; but he did not spend his money, he lent it, +and his barn was stored with, skates and sleds and broken guns and +scrap-iron held as security, while his pockets bulged with knives +taken as interest. + +As the winter waned and the Spring Chickens waxed fat in social +honours, Bob Hendricks glanced up from his algebra one day, and +discovered that little Molly Culpepper had two red lips and two +pig-tail braids of hair that reached below her waist. Then and there +he shot her deftly with a paper wad, chewed and fired through a cane +pipe-stem, and waited till she wiped it off her cheek with her apron +and made a face at him, before he plunged into the mysteries of _x_2 + +2_xy_ + _y_2. And thus another old story began, as new and as fresh as +when Adam and Eve walked together in the garden. + +John Barclay was so busy during his last year in the Sycamore Ridge +school that he often fancied afterwards that the houses on Lincoln +Avenue in Culpepper addition must have come with the grass in the +spring, for he has no memory of their building. Neither does he +remember when General Madison Hendricks built the brick building on +the corner of Main Street and Fifth Avenue, in which he opened the +Exchange National Bank of Sycamore Ridge. Yet John remembered that his +team and wagon were going all winter, hauling stone for the foundation +of the Hendricks home on the hill--a great brick structure, with +square towers and square "ells" rambling off on the prairie, and +square turrets with ornate cornice pikes pricking the sky. For years +the two big houses standing side by side--the Hendricks house and the +Culpepper house, with its tall white pillars reaching to the roof, its +double door and its two white wings spreading over the wide green +lawn--were the show places of Sycamore Ridge, and the town was always +divided in its admiration for them. John's heart was sadly torn +between them. Yet he was secretly glad to learn from his mother that +his Uncle Union's house in Haverhill had tall columns, green blinds on +the white woodwork, and a wide hall running down the centre. For it +made him feel more at home at the Culpeppers'. But when the Hendricks' +piano came, after they moved into the big house, the boy's heart was +opened afresh; and he spent hours with Bob Hendricks at the piano, +when he knew he would be welcome at the Culpeppers'. He leased his +town herd in the summer to Jimmie Fernald--giving him the right to +take the cows to the commons around town upon the payment of five +dollars a month to John for keeping out of the business, and passing +Jimmie good-will. In the meantime, by day, John worked his team, and +hired two others and took contracts for digging cellars. At nights he +went to the country with his concertina and played for dances, making +two dollars a night, and General Hendricks for years pointed with +pride to the fact that when the Exchange National Bank of Sycamore +Ridge opened for business the first morning, standing at the head of +the line of depositors was John Barclay, with his concertina under his +arm, just as he had returned from a country dance at daylight, waiting +to be first in line, with $178.53 in his pocket to deposit. That +deposit slip, framed, still hangs over the desk in the office of the +president of the bank, and when John Barclay became famous, it was +always a part of the "Art Loan Exhibit," held by the women in Barclay +Memorial Hall. + +That summer of '67 John capitulated to life, held his hands up for the +shackles and put on shoes in summer for the first time. Also, he only +went swimming twice--both times at night, and he bought his first box +of paper collars and his mother tried to make his neckties like those +in Dorman's store; but some way she did not get the hang of it, and +John bought a Sunday necktie of great pride, and he and his mother +agreed that it was off the tail of Joseph's coat of many colours. But +he wore it only on state occasions. At work, he made an odd figure +limping over the dirt heaps and into the excavations bossing men old +enough to be his father. He wore a serious face in those days,--for a +boy,--and his mouth was almost hard, but something burned in his eyes +that was more than ambition, though that lighted his face like a +flame, and he was always whistling or singing. At night he and Bob +Hendricks wandered away together, and sometimes they walked out under +the stars and talked as boys will talk of their little world and the +big world about them, or sometimes they sat reading at one or the +other's home, and one would walk home with the other, and the other +walk a piece of the way back. They read poetry and mooned; "Lalla +Rookh" appealed to John because of its music and melody, and both boys +devoured Byron, and gobbled over the "Corsair" and the "Giaour" and +"Childe Harold" with the book above the table, and came back from the +barn on Sundays licking their chops after surreptitiously nibbling +"Don Juan." But they had Captain Mayne Reid and Kingsley as an +antidote, and they soon got enough of Byron. + +The two boys persuaded each other to go away to school, and John chose +the state university because it was cheap and because he heard he +could get work in Lawrence to carry him through. He did not recollect +that his mother had any influence in the matter; but in those days she +always seemed to be sitting by the lamp in their little home, sewing, +with his shirts and underwear strewn about her. She had a permanent +place in the town schools, and the Barclay home had grown to a kitchen +and two bedrooms as well as the big room with its fireplace. His +mother's hair was growing gray at the temples, but her clear, firm, +unwrinkled skin and strong broad jaw kept youth in her countenance, +and as Martin Culpepper wrote in the Biography, where he names the +pioneers of Sycamore Ridge whose lives influenced Watts McHurdie's, +"the three graces, Faith, Hope, and Charity, were mirrored in her +smile." + +One night when the boy came in tired after his night's ramble, he left +his mother, as he often did those last nights before he went away to +school, bending over her work, humming a low happy-noted song, even +though the hour was late. He lay in his bed beside the open window +looking out into the night, dreaming with open eyes about life. +Perhaps he actually dreamed a moment, for he did not hear her come +into the room; but he felt her bend over him, and a tear dropped on +his face from hers. He turned toward her, and she put her arms about +his neck. Then she sobbed: "Oh, good-by, my little boy--good-by. I am +coming here to bid you good-by, every night now." He kissed her hand, +and she was silent a moment, and then she spoke: "I know this is the +last of it all, John. You will never come back to me again--not you, +but a man. And you will seem strange, and I will seem strange." She +paused a moment to let the cramp in her throat leave, then she went +on: "I was going to say so many things--when this time came, but +they're all gone. But oh, my boy, my little tender-hearted boy--be a +good man--just be a good man, John." And then she sobbed for an +unrestrained minute: "O God, when you take my boy away, keep him +clean, and brave, and kind, and--O God, make him--make him a good +man." And with a pat and a kiss she rose and said as she left him, +"Now good night, Johnnie, go to sleep." + + * * * * * + +In the Sycamore Ridge _Banner_ for September 12, 1867, appeared some +verses by Watts McHurdie, beginning:-- + + "Hail and farewell to thee, friend of my youth, + Pilgrim who seekest the Fountain of Truth, + Hail and farewell to thy innocent pranks, + No more can I send thee for left-handed cranks. + Farewell, and a tear laves the ink on my pen, + For ne'er shall I 'noint thee with strap-oil again." + +It was a noble effort, and in his notes to the McHurdie poems +following the Biography published over thirty years after those lines +were written, Colonel Culpepper writes: "This touching, though +somewhat humorous, poem was written on the occasion of the departure +for college of one who since has become listed with the world's great +captains of finance--none other than Honourable John Barclay, whose +fame is too substantial to need encomium in these humble pages. +Suffice it to say that between these two men, our hero, the poet, and +the great man of affairs, there has always remained the closest +friendship, and each carries in his bosom, wrapped in the myrrh of +fond memory, the deathless blossom of friendship, that sweetest flower +in the conservatory of the soul." + +The day before John left for Lawrence he met Lieutenant Jacob Dolan. + +"So ye're going to college--ay, Johnnie?" + +"Yes, Mr. Dolan," replied the boy. + +"Well, they're all givin' you somethin', Johnnie: Watts here has given +a bit of a posey in verse; and my friend, General Hendricks, I'm told, +has given you a hundred-dollar note; and General Philemon Ward has +given you Wendell Phillips' orations; and your sweetheart--God bless +her, whoever she is--will be givin' ye the makins' of a broken heart; +and your mother'll be givin' you her blessin'--and the saints' +prayers go with 'em; and me, havin' known your father before you and +the mother that bore you, and seein' her rub the roses off her cheeks +tryin' to keep your ornery little soul in your worthless little body, +I'll give you this sentiment to put in your pipe and smoke: John +Barclay, man--if they ever be's a law agin damn fools, the first raid +the officers should make is on the colleges. And now may ye be struck +blind before ye get your education and dumb if it makes a fool of ye." +And so slapping the boy on the back, Jake Dolan went down the street +winding in and out among the brick piles and lumber and mortar boxes, +whistling "Tread on the Tail of me Coat." + +For life was all so fine and gay with Lieutenant Dolan in those days. +And he whistled and sang, and thought what he pleased, and said what +he pleased, and did what he pleased, and if the world didn't like it, +the world could picket its horses and get out of Jacob Dolan's livery +barn. For Mr. Dolan was thinking that from the livery-stable to the +office of sheriff is but a step in this land of the free and home of +the brave; so he carried his head back and his chest out and invited +insult in the fond hope of provoking assault. He was the flower of the +times,--effulgent, rather gaudy, and mostly red! + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +Good times came to Sycamore Ridge in the autumn. The dam across the +creek was furnishing power for a flour-mill and a furniture factory. +The endless worm of wagons that was wriggling through the town +carrying movers to the West, was sloughing many of its scales in +Sycamore Ridge. Martin Culpepper had been East with circulars +describing the town and adjacent country. He had brought back three +stage loads of settlers, and was selling lots in Culpepper's addition +faster than they could be surveyed. The Frye blacksmith shop had +become a wagon shop, and then a hardware store was added; the flag +fluttered from the high flagstaff over the Exchange National Bank +building, and all day long farmers were going from the mill to the +bank. General Philemon Ward gave up school-teaching and went back to +his law office; but he was apt to take sides with President Andrew +Johnson too vigorously for his own good, and clients often avoided his +office in fear of an argument. Still he was cheerful, and being only +in his early thirties, looked at the green hills afar from his pasture +and was happy. The Thayer House was filled with guests, and the +Fernalds had money in the bank; Mary Murphy and Gabriel Carnine were +living happily ever after, and Nellie Logan was clerking in Dorman's +Dry Goods store and making Watts McHurdie understand that she had her +choice between a preacher and a drummer. Other girls in the dining +room of the Thayer House were rattling the dinner dishes and singing +"Sweet Belle Mahone" and "Do you love me, Molly Darling?" to ensnare +the travelling public that might be tilted back against the veranda in +a mood for romance. And as John and Bob that hot September afternoon +made the round of the stores and offices bidding the town good-by, it +seemed to them that perhaps they were seizing the shadow and letting +the substance fade. For it was such a good-natured busy little place +that their hearts were heavy at leaving it. + +But that evening John in his gorgeous necktie, his clean paper collar, +his new stiff hat, his first store clothes, wearing proudly his +father's silver watch and chain, set out to say good-by to Ellen +Culpepper, and his mother, standing in the doorway of their home, +sighed at his limp and laughed at his strut--the first laugh she had +enjoyed in a dozen days. + +John and Bob together went up the stone walk leading across a yard, +still littered with the debris of building, to the unboxed steps that +climbed to the veranda of the Culpepper house. There they met Colonel +Culpepper in his shirt-sleeves, walking up and down the veranda +admiring the tall white pillars. When he had greeted the boys, he put +his thumbs in his vest holes and continued his parade in some pomp. +The boys were used to this attitude of the colonel's toward themselves +and the pillars. It always followed a hearty meal. So they sat +respectfully while he marched before them, pointing occasionally, when +he took his cigar from his mouth and a hand from his vest, to some +feature of the landscape in the sunset light that needed emphatic +attention. + +"Yes, sir, young gentlemen," expanded the colonel, "you are doing the +right and proper thing--the right and proper thing. Of all the +avocations of youth, I conceive the pursuit of the sombre goddess of +learning to be the most profitable--entirely the most profitable. I +myself, though a young man,--being still on the right side of +forty,--have reaped the richest harvest from my labours in the +classic shades. Twenty years ago, young gentlemen, I, like you, left +my ancestral estates to sip at the Pierian spring. In point of fact, I +attended the institution founded by Thomas Jefferson, the father of +the American democracy--yes, sir." He put his cigar back in his mouth +and added, "Yes, sir, you are certainly taking a wise and, I may say, +highly necessary step--" + +Mrs. Culpepper, small, sprightly, blue-eyed, and calm, entered the +veranda, and cut the colonel off with: "Good evening, boys. So you are +going away. Well--we'll miss you. The girls will be right out." + +But the colonel would not be quenched; his fires were burning deeply. +"As I was saying, Mrs. Culpepper," he went on, "the classic training +obtained from a liberal education such as it was my fortune--" + +Mrs. Culpepper smiled blandly as she put in, "Now, pa, these boys +don't care for that." + +"But, my dear, let me finish. As I started to say: the flowers of +poetry, Keats and his large white plumes, the contemplation of +nature's secrets, the reflective study of--" + +"Yes,--here's your coat now, pa," said the wife, returning from a +dive into the hall. "John, how's your ma going to get on without you? +And, pa, be sure don't forget the eggs for breakfast. I declare since +we've moved up here so far from the stores, we nearly starve." + +The colonel waited a second while a glare melted into a smile, and +then backed meekly into the arms stretched high to hold his alpaca +coat. As he turned toward the group, he was beaming. "If it were not," +exclaimed the colonel, addressing the young men with a quizzical +smile, "that there is a lady present--a very important lady in point +of fact,--I might be tempted to say, 'I will certainly be damned!'" +And with that the colonel lifted Mrs. Culpepper off her feet and +kissed her, then lumbered down the steps and strode away. He paused at +the gate to gaze at the valley and turned to look back at the great +unfinished house, then swung into the street and soon his hat +disappeared under the hill. + +As he went Mrs. Culpepper said, "Let them say what they will about +Mart Culpepper, I always tell the girls if they get as good a man as +their pa, they will be doing mighty well." + +Then the girls appeared bulging in hoops, and ruffles, with elbow +sleeves, with a hint of their shoulders showing and with pink ribbons +in their hair. Clearly it was a state occasion. The mother beamed at +them a moment, and walked around Molly, saying, "I told you that was +all right," and tied Ellen's hair ribbon over, while the young people +were chattering, and before the boys knew it, she had faded into the +dusk of the hall, and the clattering of dishes came to them from the +rear of the house. John fancied he felt the heavy step of Buchanan +Culpepper, and then he heard: "Don't you talk to me, Buck Culpepper, +about woman's work. You'll do what I tell you, and if I say wipe +dishes--" the voice was drowned by the rattle of a passing wagon. And +soon the young people on the front porch were so busy with their +affairs that the house behind them and its affairs dropped to another +world. They say, who seem to know, that when any group of boys and +girls meet under twenty-five serious years, the recording angel puts +down his pen with, a sigh and takes a needed nap. But when the group +pairs off, then Mr. Recorder pricks up his ears and works with both +hands, one busy taking what the youngsters say, and the other busy +with what they would like to say. And shame be it upon the courage of +youth that what they would like to say fills the larger book. And +marvel of marvels, often the book that holds what the boys would say +is merely a copy of what the girls would like to hear, and so much of +the work is saved to the angel. + +It was nine o'clock when the limping boy and the slender girl followed +the tall youth and the plump little girl down the walk from the +Culpepper home through the gate and into the main road. And the couple +that walked behind took the opposite direction from that which they +took who walked ahead. Yet when John and Ellen reached the river and +were seated on the mill-dam, where the roar of the falling water +drowned their voices, Ellen Culpepper spoke first: "That looks like +them over on the bridge. I can see Molly, and Bob's hat about three +feet above her." + +"I guess so," returned the boy. He was reaching behind him for clods +and pebbles to toss into the white foaming flood below them. The girl +reached back and got one, then another, then their hands met, and she +pulled hers away and said, "Get me some stones." He gave her a +handful, and she threw the pebbles away slowly and awkwardly, one at a +time. There was a long gap in their talk while they threw the pebbles. +The girl closed it with, "Ma made old Buck wipe the dishes." Then she +giggled, "Poor Buckie." + +John managed to say, "Yes, I heard him." Then he added, "What does +your mother think of Bob?" + +"Oh, she likes him fine. But she's glad you're all going away." + +The boy asked why and the girl returned, "Watch me hit that log." She +threw, and missed the water. + +"Why?" persisted the boy. + +The girl was digging in a crevice for a stone and said, "Can you get +that out?" + +John worked at it a moment and handed it to her with, "Why?" + +She threw it, standing up to give her arm strength. She sat down and +folded her hands and waited for another "why." When it came she said, +"Oh, you know why." When he protested she answered, "Ma thinks Molly's +too young." + +"Too young for what?" demanded the boy, who knew. + +"Too young to be going with boys." + +There was a long pause, then he managed to say it, "She's no younger +than you were--nor half as old." + +"When?" returned the girl, giving him the broadside of her eyes for a +second, and letting them droop. The eyes bewitched the boy, and he +could not speak. At length the girl shivered, "It's getting cold--I +must go home." + +The boy found voice. "Aw no, Bob and Molly are still up there." + +She started to rise, he caught her hand, but she pulled it away and +resigned herself for a moment. Then she looked at him a long second +and said, "Do you remember years ago at the Frye boy's party--when we +were little tots, and I chose you?" + +The boy nodded his head and turned full toward her with serious eyes. +He devoured her feature by feature with his gaze in the starlight. The +moon was just rising at the end of the mill-dam behind them, and its +light fell on her profile. He cried out, "Yes, Ellen, do you--do +you?" + +She nodded her head and spoke quickly, "That was the time you got your +hands stuck in the taffy and had to be soaked out." + +They laughed. John tried to get the moment back. "Do you remember the +rubber ring I gave you?" + +She grew bold and turned to him with her heart in her face: +"Yes--yes, John, and the coffee-bean locket. I've got them both in a +little box at home." Then, scampering back to her reserve, she added, +"You know ma says I'm a regular rat to store things away." She felt +that the sudden reserve chilled him, for in a minute or two she said, +looking at the bridge: "They're going now. We mustn't stay but a +minute." She put her hand on the rock between them, and said, "You +remember that night when you went away before?" Before he answered she +went on: "I was counting up this afternoon, and it's six years ago. We +were just children then." + +Again the boy found his voice: "Ellen Culpepper, we've been going +together seven years. Don't you think that's long enough?" + +"We were just children then," she replied. + +The boy leaned awkwardly toward her and their hands met on the rock, +and he withdrew his as he asked, "Do you--do you?" + +She bent toward him, and looked at him steadily as she nodded her head +again and again. She rose to go, saying, "We mustn't stay here any +longer." + +He caught her hand to stop her, and said, "Ellen--Ellen, promise me +just one thing." She looked her question. He cried, "That you won't +forget--just that you won't forget." + +She took his hand and stood before him as he sat, hoping to stay her. +She answered: "Not as long as I live, John Barclay. Oh, not as long as +I live." Then she exclaimed: "Now--" and her voice changed, "we just +must go, John; Molly's gone, and it's getting late." She helped him +limp over the rocks and up the steep road, but when they reached the +level, she dropped his hand, and they walked home slowly, looking back +at the moon, so that they might not overtake the other couple. Once or +twice they stopped and sat on lumber piles in the street, talking of +nothing, and it was after ten o'clock when they came to the gate. The +girl looked anxiously up the walk toward the house. "They've come and +gone," she said. She moved as if to go away. + +"I wish you wouldn't go right in," he begged. + +"Oh--I ought to," she replied. They were silent. The roar of the +water over the dam came to them on the evening breeze. She put out her +hand. + +"Well," he sighed as he rested his lame foot, and started, +"well--good-by." + +She turned to go, and then swiftly stepped toward him, and kissed him, +and ran gasping and laughing up the walk. + +The boy gazed after her a moment, wondering if he should follow her, +but while he waited she was gone, and he heard her lock the door after +her. Then he limped down the road in a kind of swoon of joy. Sometimes +he tried to whistle--he tried a bar of Schubert's "Serenade," but +consciously stopped. Again and again under his breath as loud as he +dared, he called the name "Ellen" and stood gazing at the moon, and +then tried to hippety-hop, but his limp stopped that. Then he tried +whistling the "Miserere," but he pitched it too high, and it ran out, +so he sang as he turned across the commons toward home, and that +helped a little; and he opened the door of his home singing, "How can +I leave thee--how can I bear to part?" The light was burning in the +kitchen, and he went to his mother and kissed her. His face was aglow, +and she saw what had happened to him. She put him aside with, "Run on +to bed now, sonny; I've got a little work out here." And he left her. +In the sitting room only the moon gave light. He stood at the window a +moment, and then turned to his melodeon. His hands fell on the major +chord of "G," and without knowing what he was playing he began +"Largo." He played his soul into his music, and looking up, whispered +the name "Ellen" rapturously over and over, and then as the music +mounted to its climax the whole world's mystery, and his personal +thought of the meaning of life revelled through his brain, and he +played on, not stopping at the close but wandering into he knew not +what mazes of harmony. When his hands dropped, he was playing "The +Long and Weary Day," and his mother was standing behind him humming +it. When he rose from the bench, she ran her fingers through his hair +and spoke the words of the song, "'My lone watch keeping,' John, 'my +lone watch keeping.' But I think it has been worth while." + +Then she left him and he went to bed, with the moon in his room, and +the murmur of waters lulling him to sleep. But he looked out into the +sky a long time before his dream came, and then it slipped in gently +through the door of a nameless hope. For he wished to meet her in the +moon that night, but when they did meet, the white veil of the falling +waters of the dam blew across her face and he could not brush it away. +For one is bold in dreams. + +A little after sunrise the next morning John rode away from his +mother's door, on one of his horses, leading the other one. He was +going up the hill to get Bob Hendricks, and the two were to ride to +Lawrence. He had been promised work, carrying newspapers, and the +Yankee in him made him believe he could find work for the other horse. +As the boy turned into Main Street waving his mother good-by, he saw +the places where he and Ellen Culpepper had stopped the night before, +and they looked different some way, and he could not realize that he +was in the same street. + +As he climbed the hill, he passed General Ward, working in his flower +garden, and the man sprang over the fence and came into the road, and +put his hand on the horse's bridle, saying, "Stop a minute, John: I +just wanted to say something." He hesitated a moment before going on: +"You know back where I came from--back in New England--the name of +John Barclay stands for a good deal--more than you can realize, John. +Your father was one of the first martyrs of our cause. I guess your +mother never has told you, but I'm going to--your father gave up a +business career for this cause. His father was rich--very rich, and +your grandfather was set on your father going into business." John +looked up the hill toward the Hendricks home, and Ward saw it, and +mistook the glance for one of impatience. "Johnnie," said the man, his +fine thin, features glowing with earnestness, "Johnnie--I wish I +could get to your heart, boy. I want to make you hear what I have to +say with your soul and not with your ears, and I know youth is so +deaf. Your grandfather was angry when your father entered the ministry +and came out here. He thought it was folly. The old man offered to +give fifty thousand dollars to the Kansas-Nebraska cause, and that +would have sent a good many men out here. But your father said no. He +said money wouldn't win this cause. He said personal sacrifice was all +that would win it. He said men must give up themselves, not their +money, to make this cause win--and so he came; and there was a +terrible quarrel, and that is why your mother has stayed. She had +faith in God, too--faith that her life some way in His Providence +would prove worth something. Your father and mother, John, believed in +God--they believed in a God, not a Moloch; your father's faith has +been justified. The death he died was worth millions to the cause of +liberty. It stirred the whole North, as the miserable little fifty +thousand dollars that Abijah Barclay offered never could have done. +But your mother's sacrifice must find its justification in you. And +she, not your father, made the final decision to give up everything +for human freedom. She has endured poverty, Johnnie--" the man's +voice was growing tense, and his eyes were ablaze; "you know how she +worked, and if you fail her, if you do not live a consecrated life, +John, your mother's life has failed. I don't mean a pious life; God +knows I hate sanctimony. But I mean a life consecrated to some +practical service, to an ideal--to some actual service to your +fellows--not money service, but personal service. Do you understand?" +Ward leaned forward and looked into the boy's face. He took hold of +John's arm as he pleaded, "Johnnie--boy--Johnnie, do you +understand?" + +The boy answered, "Yes, General--I think I get your meaning." He +picked up his bridle, and Ward relaxed his hold on the boy's arm. The +man's hand dropped and he sighed, for he saw only a boy's face, and +heard a boy's politeness in the voice that went on, "Thank you, +General, give my love to Miss Lucy." And the youth rode on up the +hill. + +In a few minutes the boys were riding down the steep clay bank that +led to the new iron bridge across the ford of the Sycamore, and for +half an hour they rode chattering through the wood before they came +into the valley and soon were Climbing the bluff which they had seen +the night before from the Culpepper home. On the brow of the bluff Bob +said, "Hold on--" He turned his horse and looked back. The sun was on +the town, and across on the opposite hill stood the colonel's big +house with its proud pillars. No trees were about it in those days, +and it and the Hendricks house stood out clearly on the horizon. But +on the top of the Culpepper home were two little figures waving +handkerchiefs. The boys waved back, and John thought he could tell +Ellen from her sister, and the night and its joy came back to him, and +he was silent. + +They had ridden half an hour without speaking when Bob Hendricks said, +"Awful fine girls--aren't they?" + +"That's what I've always told you," returned John. + +After another quarter of a mile Bob tried it again. "The colonel's a +funny old rooster--isn't he?" + +"Well, I don't know. That day at the battle of Wilson's Creek when he +walked out in front of a thousand soldiers and got a Union flag and +brought it back to the line, he didn't look very funny. But he's windy +all right." + +Again, as they crossed a creek and the horses were drinking, Bob said: +"Father thinks General Ward's a crank. He says Ward will keep harping +on about those war bonds, and quarrelling because the soldiers got +their pay in paper money and the bondholders in gold, until people +will think every one in high places is a thief." + +"Oh, Ward's all right," answered John. "He's just talking; he likes an +argument, I guess. He's kind of built that way." + +It was a poor starved-to-death school that the boys found at Lawrence +in those days; with half a dozen instructors--most of whom were still +in their twenties; with books lent by the instructors, and with +appliances devised by necessity. But John was happy; he was making +money with his horses, doing chores for his board, and carrying papers +night and morning besides. The boy's industry was the marvel of the +town. His limp got him sympathy, and he capitalized the sympathy. +Indeed, he would have capitalized his soul, if it had been necessary. +For his Yankee blood was beginning to come out. Before he had been in +school a year he had swapped, traded, and saved until he had two +teams, and was working them with hired drivers on excavation +contracts. In his summer vacations he went to Topeka and worked his +two teams, and by some sharp practice got the title to a third. He was +rollicking, noisy, good-natured, but under the boyish veneer was a +hard indomitable nature. He was becoming a stickler for his rights in +every transaction. + +"John," said Bob, one day after John had cut a particularly lamentable +figure, gouging a driver in a settlement, "don't you know that your +rights are often others' wrongs?" + +John was silent a moment. He looked at the driver moving away, and +then the boy's face set hard and he said: "Well--what's the use of +blubbering over him? If I don't get it, some one else will. I'm no +charitable institution for John Walruff's brewery!" And he snapped the +rubber band on his wallet viciously, and turned to his books. + +But on the other hand he wrote every other day to his mother and every +other day to Ellen Culpepper with unwavering precision. He told his +mother the news, and he told Ellen Culpepper the news plus some +Emerson, something more of "Faust," with such dashes of Longfellow and +Ruskin as seemed to express his soul. He never wrote to Ellen of +money, and so strong was her influence upon him that when he had +written to her after his quarrel with the driver, he went out in the +night, hunted the man up, and paid him the disputed wages. Then he +mailed Ellen Culpepper's letter, and was a lover living in an ethereal +world as he walked home babbling her name in whispers to the stars. +Often when this mood was not upon him, and a letter was due to Ellen, +he went downstairs in the house where he lived and played the piano to +bring her near to him. That never failed to change his face as by a +miracle. "When John comes upstairs," wrote Bob Hendricks to Molly, "he +is as one in a dream, with the mists of the music in his eyes. I never +bother him then. He will not speak to me, nor do a thing in the world, +until that letter is written, sealed, and stamped. Then he gets up, +yawns and smiles sheepishly and perhaps hits me with a book or punches +me with his fist, and then we wrestle over the room and the bed like +bear cubs. After the wrestle he comes back to himself. I wonder why?" + +And Ellen Culpepper read those letters from John Barclay over and +over, and curiously enough she understood them; for there is a +telepathy between spirits that meet as these two children's souls had +met, and in that concord words drop out and only thoughts are +merchandized. Her spirit grew with his, and so "through all the world +she followed him." + +But there came a gray dawn of a May morning when John Barclay clutched +his bedfellow and whispered, "Bob, Bob--look, look." When the +awakened one saw nothing, John tried to scream, but could only gasp, +"Don't you see Ellen--there--there by the table?" But whatever it +was that startled him fluttered away on a beam of sunrise, and Bob +Hendricks rose with the frightened boy, and went to his work with him. + +Two days later a letter came telling him that Ellen Culpepper was +dead. + +Now death--the vast baffling mystery of death--is Fate's strongest +lever to pry men from their philosophy. And death came into this boy's +life before his creed was set and hard, and in those first days while +he walked far afield, he turned his face to the sky in his lonely +sorrow, and when he cried to Heaven there was a silence. + +So his heart curdled, and you kind gentlemen of the jury who are to +pass on the case of John Barclay in this story, remember that he was +only twenty years old, and that in all his life there was nothing to +symbolize the joy of sacrifice except this young girl. All his boyish +life she had nurtured the other self in his soul,--the self that +might have learned to give and be glad in the giving. And when she +went, he closed his Emerson and opened his Trigonometry, and put money +in his purse.[1] + +There came a time when Ellen Culpepper was to him as a dream. But she +lived in her mother's eyes, and through all the years that followed +the mother watched the little girl grow to maturity and into middle +life with the other girls of her age. And even when the little +headstone on the Hill slanted in sad neglect, Mrs. Culpepper's old +eyes still saw Ellen growing old with her playmates. And she never saw +John Barclay that she did not think of Ellen--and and what she would +have made of him. + +And what would she have made of him? Maybe a poet, maybe a dreamer of +dreams--surely not the hard, grinding, rich man that he became in +this world. + + +FOOTNOTE: + +[1] To the Publisher.--"In returning the Mss. of the life of John + Barclay, which you sent for my verification as to certain dates and + incidents, let me first set down, before discussing matters pertaining + to his later life, my belief that your author has found in the death + of Ellen Culpepper an incident, humble though it is, that explains + much in the character of Mr. Barclay. The incident probably produced a + mental shock like that of a psychological earthquake, literally + sealing up the spring of his life as it was flowing into consciousness + at that time, and the John Barclay of his boyhood and youth became + subterranean, to appear later in life after the weakening of his + virility under the strain of the crushing events of his fifties. Yet + the subterranean Barclay often appeared for a moment in his life, + glowed in some kind act and sank again. Ellen Culpepper explains it + all. How many of our lives are similarly divided, forced upward or + downward by events, Heaven only knows. We do not know our own souls. I + am sure John never knew of the transformation. Surely 'we are + fearfully and wonderfully made.'... The other dates and incidents are + as I have indicated.... Allow me to thank you for your kindness in + sending me the Mss., and permit me to subscribe myself, + + "Yours faithfully, + + "Philemon R. Ward." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +John Barclay returned to Sycamore Ridge in 1872 a full-fledged young +man. He was of a slight build and rather pale of face, for five years +indoors had rubbed the sunburn off. During the five years he had been +absent from Sycamore Ridge he had acquired a master's degree from the +state university, and a license to practise law. He was distinctly +dapper, in the black and white checked trousers, the flowered cravat, +and tight-fitting coat of the period; and the first Monday after he +and his mother went to the Congregational Church, whereat John let out +his baritone voice, he was invited to sing in the choir. Bob Hendricks +came home a year before John, and with Bob and Watts McHurdie singing +tenor at one end of the choir, and John and Philemon Ward holding down +the other end of the line, with Mrs. Ward, Nellie Logan, Molly +Culpepper, and Jane Mason of Minneola,--grown up out of short dresses +in his absence,--all in gay colours between the sombre clothes of the +men, the choir in the Congregational Church was worth going miles to +see--if not to hear. + +Now you know, of course,--or if you do not know, it is high time you +were learning,--that when Fate gives a man who can sing a head of +curly hair, the devil, who is after us all, quits worrying about that +young person. For the Old Boy knows that a voice and curly hair are +mortgages on a young man's soul that few young fellows ever pay off. +Now there was neither curly head nor music in all the Barclay tribe, +and when John sang "Through the trees the night winds murmur, murmur +low and sweet," his mother could shut her eyes and hear Uncle Leander, +the black sheep of three generations of Thatchers. So that the fact +that John had something over a thousand dollars to put in General +Hendricks' bank, and owned half a dozen town lots in the various +additions to the town, made the mother thankful for the Grandfather +Barclay's blood in him. But she saw a soul growing into the boy's face +that frightened her. What others admired as strength she feared, for +she knew it was ruthlessness. What others called shrewdness she, +remembering his Grandfather Barclay, knew might grow into blind, cruel +greed, and when she thought of his voice and his curly hair, and +recalled Uncle Leander, the curly-headed, singing ne'er-do-well of her +family, and then in the boy's hardening mouth and his canine jaw saw +Grandfather Barclay sneering at her, she was uncertain which blood she +feared most. So she managed it that John should go into partnership +with General Ward, and Bob Hendricks managed it that the firm should +have offices over the bank, and also that the firm was made attorneys +for the bank,--the highest mark of distinction that may come to a law +firm in a country town. The general realized it and was proud. But he +thought the young man took it too much as a matter of course. + +"John," said the general, one day, as they were dividing their first +five-hundred-dollar fee, "you're a lucky dog. Everything comes so +easily with you. Let me tell you something; I've figured this out: if +you don't give it back some way--give it back to the world, or +society, or your fellows,--or God, if you like to bunch your good +luck under one head,--you're surely going to suffer for it. There is +no come-easy-go-easy in this world. I've learned that much of the +scheme of things." + +"You mean that I've got to pay as I go, or Providence will keep books +on me and foreclose?" asked John, as he stood patting the roll of +bills in his trousers pocket. + +"That's the idea, son," smiled the elder man. + +The younger man put his hand to his chin and grinned. "I suppose," he +replied, "that's why so many men keep the title to their religious +proclivities in their wife's name." He went out gayly, and the elder +man heard the boyish limp almost tripping down the stairs. Ward walked +to the window, straightening his white tie, and stood looking into the +street at the young man shaking hands and bowing and raising his hat +as he went. Ward's hair was graying at the temples, and his thin +smooth face was that of a man who spends many hours considering many +things, and he sighed as he saw John turn a corner and disappear. + +"No, Lucy, that's not it exactly," said the general that afternoon, as +he brought the sprinkler full of water to the flower bed for the +eighth time, and picketed little Harriet Beecher Ward out of the +watermelon patch, and wheeled the baby's buggy to the four-o'clocks, +where Mrs. Ward was working. "It isn't that he is conceited--the boy +isn't that at all. He just seems to have too little faith in God and +too much in the ability of John Barclay. He thinks he can beat the +game--can take out more happiness for himself than he puts in for +others." + +The wife looked up and put back her sunbonnet as she said, "Yes, I +believe his mother thinks something of the kind." + +One of the things that surprised John when he came home from the +university was the prominence of Lige Bemis in the town. When John +left Sycamore Ridge to go to school, Bemis was a drunken sign-painter +married to a woman who a few years before had been the scandal of half +a dozen communities. And now though Mrs. Bemis was still queen only of +the miserable unpainted Bemis domicile in the sunflowers at the edge +of town, Lige Bemis politically was a potentate of some power. General +Hendricks consulted Bemis about politics. Often he was found in the +back room of the bank, and Colonel Culpepper, although he was an +unterrified Democrat, in his campaign speeches referred to Bemis as "a +diamond in the rough." John was sitting on a roll of leather one day +in Watts McHurdie's shop talking of old times when Watts recalled the +battle of Sycamore Ridge, and the time when Bemis came to town with +the Red Legs and frightened Mrs. Barclay. + +"Yes--and now look at him," exclaimed John, "dressed up like a +gambler, and referred to in the _Banner_ as 'Hon. E. W. Bemis'! How +did he do it?" + +McHurdie sewed two or three long stitches in silence. He leaned over +from his bench to throw his tobacco quid in the sawdust box under the +rusty stove, then the little man scraped his fuzzy jaw reflectively +with his blackened hand as if about to speak, but he thought better of +it and waxed his thread. He showed his yellow teeth in a smile, and +motioned John to come closer. Then he put his head forward, and +whispered confidentially:-- + +"What'd you ruther do or go a-fishing?" + +"But why?" persisted the young man. + +"Widder who?" returned Watts, grinning and putting his hand to his +ear. + +When John repeated his question the third time, McHurdie said:-- + +"I know a way you can get rich mighty quick, sonny." And when the boy +refused to "bite," Watts went on: "If any one asks you what Watts +McHurdie thinks about politics so long as he is in the harness +business, you just take the fellow upstairs, and pull down the +curtain, and lock the door, and tell him you don't know, and not to +tell a living soul." + +With Bob Hendricks, John had little better success in solving the +mystery of the rise of Bemis. "Father says he's effective, and he +would rather have him for him than against him," was the extent of +Bob's explanation. + +Ward's answer was more to the point. He said: "Lige Bemis is a living +example of the power of soft soap in politics. We know--every man in +this county knows--that Lige Bemis was a horse thief before the war, +and that he was a cattle thief and a camp-follower during the war; and +after the war we know what he was--he and the woman he took up with. +Yet here he has been a member of the legislature and is beginning to +be a figure in state politics,--at least the one to whom the governor +and all the fellows write when they want information about this +county. Why? I'll tell you: because he's committed every crime and +can't denounce one and goes about the country extenuating things and +oiling people up with his palaver. Now he says he is a lawyer--yes, +sir, actually claims to be a lawyer, and brought his diploma into +court two years ago, and they accepted it. But I know, and the court +knows, and the bar knows it was forged; it belonged to his dead +brother back in Hornellsville, New York. But Hendricks downstairs said +we needed Lige in the county-seat case, so he is a member of the bar, +taking one hundred per cent for collecting accounts for Eastern +people, and giving the country a black eye. A man told me he was on +over fifty notes for people at the bank; he signs with every one, and +Hendricks never bothers him. He managed to get into all the lodges, +right after the war when they were reorganized, and he sits up with +the sick, and is pall-bearer--regular professional pall-bearer, and I +don't doubt gets a commission for selling coffins from Livingston." +Ward rose from the table his full six feet and put his hands in his +pocket and stretched his legs as he added, "And when you think how +many Bemises in the first, second, or third degree there are in this +government, you wonder if the Democrats weren't right when they +declared the war was a failure." + +The general spoke as he did to John partly in anger and partly because +he thought the youth needed the lesson he was trying to implant. "You +know, Martin," explained the general, a few days later, to Colonel +Culpepper, "John has come home a Barclay--not a Barclay of his +father's stripe. He has taken back, as they say. It's old +Abijah--with the mouth and jaw of a wolf. I caught him palavering +with a juror the other day while we had a case trying." + +The colonel rested his hands on his knees a moment in meditation and +smiled as he replied: "Still, there's his mother, General. Don't ever +forget that the boy's mother is Mary Barclay; she has bred most of the +wolf out of him. And in the end her blood will tell." + +And now observe John Barclay laying the footing stones of his fortune. +He put every dollar he could get into town lots, paying for all he +bought and avoiding mortgages. Also he joined Colonel Culpepper in +putting the College Heights upon the market. "For what," explained the +colonel, when the propriety of using the name for his addition was +questioned, when no college was there nor any prospect of a college +for years to come--"what is plainer to the prophetic eye than that +time will bring to this magnificent city an institution of learning +worthy of our hopes? I have noticed," added the colonel, waving his +cigar broadly about him, "that learning is a shy goddess; she has to +be coaxed--hence on these empyrean heights we have provided for a +seat of learning; therefore College Heights. Look at the splendid +vista, the entrancing view, in point of fact." It was the large white +plumes dancing in the colonel's prophetic eyes. So it happened that +more real estate buyers than clients came to the office of Ward and +Barclay. But as the general that fall had been out of the office +running for Congress on the Greeley ticket, still protesting against +the crime of paying the soldiers in paper and the bondholders in gold, +he did not miss the clients, and as John saw to it that there was +enough law business to keep Mrs. Ward going, the general returned from +the canvass overwhelmingly beaten, but not in the least dismayed; and +as Jake Dolan put it, "The general had his say and the people had +their choice--so both are happy." + +As the winter deepened John and Colonel Culpepper planted five hundred +elm trees on the campus on College Heights, lining three broad avenues +leading from the town to the campus with the trees. John rode into the +woods and picked the trees, and saw that each one was properly set. +And the colonel noticed that the finest trees were on Ellen Avenue and +spoke of it to Mrs. Culpepper, who only said, "Yes, pa--that's just +like him." And the colonel looked puzzled. And when the colonel added, +"They say he is shining up to that Mason girl from Minneola, that +comes here with Molly," his wife returned, "Yes, I expected that +sooner than now." The colonel gave the subject up. The ways of women +were past his finding out. But Mrs. Culpepper had heard Jane Mason +sing a duet in church with John Barclay, and the elder woman had heard +in the big contralto voice of the girl something not meant for the +preacher. And Mrs. Culpepper heard John answer it, so she knew what he +did not know, what Jane Mason did not know, and what only Molly +Culpepper suspected, and Bob Hendricks scoffed at. + +As for John, he said to Bob: "I know why you always want me to go over +with you and Molly to get the Mason girl--by cracky, I'm the only +fellow in town that will let you and Molly have the back seat coming +home without a fuss! No, Robbie--you don't fool your Uncle John." And +so when there was to be special music at the church, or when any other +musical event was expected, John and Bob would get a two-seated buggy, +and drive to Minneola and bring the soloist back with them. And there +would be dances and parties, and coming from Minneola and going back +there would be much singing. "The fox is on the hill, I hear him +calling still," was a favourite, but "Come where the lilies bloom" +rent the midnight air between the rival towns many times that winter +and spring of '73. And never once did John try to get the back seat. +But there came a time when Bob Hendricks told him that Molly told him +that Jane had said that Molly and Bob were pigs--never to do any of +the driving. And the next time there was a trip to Minneola, John said +as the young people were seated comfortably for the return trip, +"Molly, I heard you said that I was a pig to do all the driving, and +not let you and Bob have a chance. Was that true?" + +"No--but do you want to know who did say it?" answered Molly, and +Jane Mason looked straight ahead and cut in with, "Molly Culpepper, if +you say another word, I'll never speak to you as long as I live." But +she glanced down at Barclay, who caught her eye and saw the smile she +was swallowing, and he cried: "I don't believe you ever said it, +Molly,--it must have been some one else." And when they had all had +their say,--all but Jane Mason,--John saw that she was crying, and +the others had to sing for ten minutes without her, before they could +coax away her temper. And crafty as he was, he did not know it was +temper--he thought it was something entirely different. + +For the craft of youth always is clumsy. The business of youth is to +fight and to mate. Wherever there is young blood, there is "boot and +horse," and John Barclay in his early twenties felt in him the call +for combat. It came with the events that were forming about him. For +the war between the states had left the men restless and unsatisfied +who had come into the plain to make their homes. They had heard and +followed in their youth the call John Barclay was hearing, and after +the war was over, they were still impatient with the obstacles they +found in their paths. So Sycamore Ridge and Minneola, being rival +towns, had to fight. The men who made these towns knew no better +settlement than the settlement by force. And even during his first six +months at home from school, when John sniffed the battle from afar, he +was glad in his soul that the fight was coming. Sycamore Ridge had the +county-seat; but Minneola, having a majority of the votes in the +county, was trying to get the county-seat, and the situation grew so +serious for Sycamore Ridge that General Hendricks felt it necessary to +defeat Philemon Ward for the state senate so that Sycamore Ridge could +get a law passed that would prevent Minneola's majority from changing +the county-seat. This was done by a law which Hendricks secured, +giving the county commissioners the right to build a court-house by +direct levy, without a vote of the people,--a court-house so large +that it would settle the county-seat matter out of hand. + +The general, however, took no chances even with his commissioners. For +he had his son elected as one, and with the knowledge that John was +investing in real estate in the Ridge and had an eye for the main +chance, the general picked John for the other commissioner. The place +was on the firing-line of the battle, and John took it almost +greedily. As the spring of '73 opened, there were alarms and rumours +of strife on every breeze, and youth was happy and breathed the fight +into its nostrils like a balsam. For all the world of Sycamore Ridge +was young then, and all the trees were green in the eyes of the men +who kept up the town. Each town had its hired desperadoes, and there +were pickets about each village, and drills in the streets of the two +towns, and a martial spirit all over the county. And as John limped +about his tasks in those stirring spring days, he felt that he was +coming into his own. But it was all a curious mock combat,--that +between the towns,--for though the pickets drilled, and the bad men +swaggered on the streets, and the bullies roared their anathemas, the +social relations between the towns were not seriously disturbed. +Youths and maidens came from Minneola to the Ridge for parties and +dances, and from the Ridge young men went to Minneola to weddings and +festivals of a social nature unmolested, for it takes a real war--and +sometimes more than that--to put a bar across the mating ground of +youth. So Bob and Molly and John drove to Minneola time and again for +Jane Mason, and other boys and girls came and went from town to town, +while the bitterness and the bickering and the mimic war between the +rival communities went on. + +Dolan was made sheriff, and Bemis county attorney, and with those two +officers and a majority of the county commissioners the Ridge had the +forces of administration with her. And so one night Minneola came with +her wrinkled front of war; viz., forty fighting men under Gabriel +Carnine and an ox team, prepared to take the county records by force +and haul them home by main strength. But Lycurgus Mason, whose wife +had locked him in the cellar that night to keep him from danger, was +the cackling goose that saved Rome; for when, having escaped his +wife's vigilance, he came riding down the wind from Minneola to catch +up with his fellow-townsmen, his clatter aroused the men of the Ridge, +and they hurried to the court-house and greeted the invaders with half +a thousand armed men in the court-house yard. And in a crisis where +craft and cunning would not help him, courage came out of John +Barclay's soul for the first time and into his life as he limped +through the guns into the open to explain to the men from Minneola +when they finally arrived that Lycurgus Mason had not betrayed them, +but had rushed into the town, thinking his friends were there ahead of +him. It was a plucky thing for John to do, considering that his death +would stop the making of the levy for the court-house that was to be +recorded in a few days. But the young man's blood tingled with joy as +he jumped the court-house fence and went back to his men. There was +something like a smile from Jane Mason in his joy, but chiefly it was +the joy that youth has in daring, that thrilled him. And the next day, +or perhaps it was the next,--at any rate, it was a Sunday late in +June,--when an armed posse from Minneola came charging down on the +town at noon, John ran from his office unseen, over the roofs of +buildings upon which as a boy he had romped, and ducking through a +second-story window in Frye's store, got two kegs of powder, ran out +of the back door, under the exposed piling supporting the building, +put the two kegs of powder in a wooden culvert under the ammunition +wagons of the Minneola men, who were battling with the town in the +street, and taking a long fuse in his teeth, crawled back to the +alley, lit the fuse, and ran into the street to look into the revolver +of J. Lord Lee--late of the Red Legs--and warn him to run or be +blown up with the wagons. And when the explosion came, knocking him +senseless, he woke up a hero, with the town bending over him, and +Minneola's forces gone. + +And so John and the town had their fling together. And we who sit +among our books or by our fire--or if not that by our iron radiator +exuding its pleasance and comfort--should not sniff at that day when +blood pulsed quicker and joy was keener, and life was more vivid than +it is to-day. + +Thirty-five years later--in August, 1908, to be exact--the general, +in his late seventies, sat in McHurdie's harness shop while the poet +worked at his bench. On the floor beside the general was the +historical edition of the Sycamore Ridge _Banner_--rather an +elaborate affair, printed on glossy paper and bedecked with many +photogravures of old scenes and old faces. A page of the paper was +devoted to the County Seat War of '73. The general had furnished the +material for most of the article,--though he would not do the +writing,--and he held the sheet with the story upon it in his hand. +As he read it in the light of that later day, it seemed a sordid story +of chicanery and violence--the sort of an episode that one would +expect to find following a great war. The general read and reread the +old story of the defeat of Minneola, and folded his paper and rolled +it into a wand with which he conjured up his spirit of philosophy. +"Heigh-ho," he sighed. "We don't know much, do we?" + +McHurdie made no reply. He bent closely over his work, and the general +went on: "I was mighty mad when Hendricks defeated me for the state +senate in '72, just to get that law passed cheating Minneola out of a +fair vote on the court-house question. But it's come out all right." + +The harness maker sewed on, and the general reflected. Finally the +little man at the bench turned his big dimmed eyes on his visitor, and +asked, "Did you think, General, that you knew more than the Lord about +making things come out right?" There was no reply and McHurdie +continued, "Well, you don't--I've got that settled in my mind." + +There was silence for a time, and Ward kept beating his leg with the +paper wand in his hand. "Watts," said the general, finally, "I know +what it was--it was youth. John Barclay had to go through that +period. He had to fight and wrangle and grapple with life as he did. +Do you remember that night the Minneola fellows came up with their ox +team and their band of killers to take the county records--" and +there was more of it--the old story of the town's wild days that need +not be recorded, and in the end, in answer to some query from the +general on John's courage, Watts replied, "John was always a bold +little fice--he never lacked brass." + +"Was he going with Jane Mason then, Watts,--I forget?" queried the +general. + +"Yes--yes," replied McHurdie. "Don't you remember that very next +night she sang in the choir--well, John had brought her over from +Minneola two days before, and that Sunday when the little devil went +in the culvert across Main Street and blew up the Minneola wagons, +Jane was in town that day--I remember that; and man--man--I heard +her voice say things to him in the duet that night that she would have +been ashamed to put in words." + +The two old men were silent. "That was youth, too, Watts,--fighting +and loving, and loving and fighting,--that's youth," sighed the +general. + +"Well, Johnnie got his belly full of it in his day, as old Shakespeare +says, Phil--and in your day you had yours, too. Every dog, +General--every dog--you know." The two voices were silent, as two +old men looked back through the years. + +McHurdie put the strap he was working upon in the water, and turned +with his spectacles in his hands to his comrade. "Maybe it's this way: +with a man, it's fighting and loving before we get any sense; and with +a town it's the same way, and I guess with the race it's the same +way--fighting and loving and growing sensible after it's over. Maybe +so--maybe so, Phil, comrade, but man, man," he said as he climbed on +his bench, "it's fine to be a fool!" + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +In Sycamore Ridge every one knows Watts McHurdie, and every one takes +pride in the fact that far and wide the Ridge is known as Watts +McHurdie's town, and this too in spite of the fact that from Sycamore +Ridge Bob Hendricks gained his national reputation as a reformer and +the further fact that when the Barclays went to New York or Chicago or +to California for the winter in their private car, they always +registered from Sycamore Ridge at the great hotels. One would think +that the town would be known more as Hendricks' town or Barclay's +town; but no--nothing of the kind has happened, and when the rich and +the great go forth from the Ridge, people say: "Oh, yes, Sycamore +Ridge--that's Watts McHurdie's town, who wrote--" but people from +the Ridge let the inquirers get no farther; they say: "Exactly--it's +Watts McHurdie's town--and you ought to see him ride in the open +hack with the proprietor of a circus when it comes to the Ridge and +all the bands and the calliope are playing Watts' song. The way the +people cheer shows that it is really Watts McHurdie's town." So when +Colonel Martin Culpepper wrote the "Biography of Watts McHurdie" which +was published together with McHurdie's "Complete Poetical and +Philosophical Works," there was naturally much discussion, and the +town was more or less divided as to what part of the book was the +best. But the old settlers,--those who, during the drouth of '60, ate +mince pies with pumpkins as the fruit and rabbit meat as the filling +and New Orleans black-strap as the sweetening, the old settlers who +knew Watts before he became famous,--they like best of all the +chapters in the colonel's Biography the one entitled "At Hymen's +Altar." And here is a curious thing about it: in that chapter there is +really less of Watts and considerably more of Colonel Martin Culpepper +than in any other chapter. + +But the newcomers, those who came in the prosperous days of the 70's +or 80's, never could understand the partiality of the old settlers for +the "Hymen's Altar" chapter. Lycurgus Mason also always took the view +that the "Hymen" chapter was drivel. + +"Now, John, be sensible--" Lycurgus insisted one night in 1903 when +the two were eating supper in Barclay's private car on a side-track in +Arizona; "don't be like my wife--she always drools over that chapter, +too. But you know my wife--" Lycurgus always referred to Mrs. Mason +with a grand gesture as to his dog or his horse, which were especially +desirable chattels. "My wife,--it's just like a woman,--she sits and +reads that, and laughs and weeps, and giggles and sniffs, and I say, +'What's the matter with you, anyway?'" + +John Barclay pushed a button. To the porter he said, "Bring me that +little red book in my satchel." The book had been published but a few +weeks, and John always carried a copy around with him in those days to +give to a friend. When the porter brought the book, Barclay read +aloud, "Ah, truly hath the poet said, 'Marriages are made in heaven.'" + +But Lycurgus Mason pulled his napkin from under his chin and moved +back from the table, dusting the crumbs from his obviously Sunday +clothes. "There you go--that's it; 'as the poet says.' John, if you +heard that 'as the poet says' as often as I do--" He could not finish +the figure. But he sniffed out his disgust with "as the poet says." +"It wasn't so bad when we were in the hotel, and she was busy with +something else. But now--but now--" he repeated it the third time, +"but now--honest, every time that woman goes to get up a paper for +the Hypatia Club, she gets me in the parlour, and rehearses it to me, +and the dad-binged thing is simply packed full of 'as the poet +sayses.' And about that marriages being made in heaven, I tell my wife +this: I say, 'Maybe so, but if they are, I know one that was made on a +busy day when the angels were thinking of something else.'" + +And John Barclay, who knew Mrs. Mason and knew Lycurgus, knew that he +would as soon think of throwing a bomb at the President as to say such +a thing to her; so John asked credulously: "You did? Well, well! Say, +what did she say to that?" + +"That's it--" responded Lycurgus. "That's it. What could she say? I +had her." He walked the length of the room proudly, with his hands +thrust into his pockets. + +Barclay moved his chair to the rear of the car, where he sat smoking +and looking into the clear star-lit heavens above the desert. And his +mind went back thirty years to the twilight in June after he had set +off the powder keg in the culvert under Main Street in Sycamore Ridge, +and he tried to remember how Jane Mason got over from Minneola--did +he bring her over the day before, or was she visiting at the +Culpeppers', or did she come over that day? It puzzled him, but he +remembered well that in the Congregational choir he and Jane sang a +duet in an anthem, "He giveth his beloved sleep." And he hummed the +old aria, a rather melancholy tune, as he sat on the car platform in +Arizona that night, and her voice came back--a deep sweet contralto +that took "G" below middle "C" as clearly as a tenor, and in her lower +register there was a passion and a fire that did not blaze in the +higher notes. For those notes were merely girlish and untrained. That +June night in '73 was the first night that he and Jane Mason ever had +lagged behind as they walked up the hill with Bob and Molly. And what +curious things stick in the memory! The man on the rear of the car +remembered that as they left the business part of Main Street behind +and walked up the hill, they came to a narrow cross-walk, a single +stone in width, and that they tried to walk upon it together, and that +his limp made him jostle her, and she said, "We mustn't do that." + +"What?" he inquired. + +"Oh--you know--walk on one stone. You know what it's a sign of." + +"Do you believe in signs?" he asked. She kept hold of his arm, and +kept him from leaving the stone. She was taller than he by a head, and +he hated himself for it. They managed to keep together until they +crossed the street and came into the broader walk. Then she drew a +relieved breath and answered: "Oh, I don't know. Sometimes I do." They +were lagging far behind their friends, and the girl hummed a tune, +then she said, "You know I've always believed in my 'Star light--star +bright--first star I've seen to-night,' just as I believe in my +prayers." And she looked up and said, "Oh, I haven't said it yet." She +picked out her star and said the rhyme, closing with, "I wish I may, I +wish I might, have the wish I wish to-night." + +And sitting on the car end in Arizona thirty years after, he tried to +find her star in the firmament above him. He was a man in his fifties +then, and the night she showed him her star was more than thirty years +gone by. But he remembered. We are curious creatures, we men, and we +remember much more than we pretend to. For our mothers in many cases +were women, and we take after them. + +As Barclay stood in the door of his car debating whether or not to go +in, the light from the chimney of the sawmill on the hill attracted +his attention, and because he was in a mood for it, the flying sparks +trailing across the night sky reminded him of the fireworks that +Fourth of July in 1873, when he and Jane Mason and Bob and Molly spent +the day together, picnicking down in the timber and coming home to +dance on the platform under the cottonwood-bough pavilion in the +evening. It was a riotous day, and Bob and Molly being lovers of long +acceptance assumed a paternal attitude to John and Jane that was +charming in the main, but sometimes embarrassing. And of all the +chatter he only remembered that Jane said: "Think how many years these +old woods have been here--how many hundred years--maybe when the +mound-builders were here! Don't you suppose that they are used to--to +young people--oh, maybe Indian lovers, and all that, and don't you +suppose the trees see these young people loving and marrying, and +growing old and ugly and unhappy, and that they some way feel that +they are just a little tired of it all?" + +If any one replied to her, he had no recollection of it, for after +that he saw the dance and heard the music, and then events seemed to +slip along without registering in his memory. There must have been the +fifth and the sixth of July in 1873, for certainly there was the +seventh, and that was Sunday; he remembered that well enough, for in +the morning there was a council in his office to discuss ways and +means for the week's work in the county-seat trouble. Tuesday was the +day which the new law designated as the one when the levy must be made +for the court-house improvements that would hold the county-seat in +Sycamore Ridge. At four o'clock, after the Sunday council, John and +Bob drove out of Sheriff Jake Dolan's stable with his best two-seated +buggy, and told him they would be back from Minneola at midnight or +thereabout after taking Jane Mason home, and the two boys drove down +Main Street with the girls, waving to every one with their hats, while +the girls waved their parasols, and the town smiled; for though all +the world loves a lover, in Sycamore Ridge it has been the custom, +since the days when Philemon Ward first took Miss Lucy out to drive, +for all the town to jeer at lovers as they pass down street in buggies +and carriages! And so thirty years slipped from Barclay as he stood in +the doorway of his car looking at the Arizona stars. A flicker of +light high up in the sky-line seemed to move. It was the headlight of +a train coming over the mountain. A switchman with a lantern was +passing near the car, and Barclay called to him, "Is that headlight +No. 2?" And when the man affirmed Barclay's theory, he asked, "How +long does it take it to get down here?" + +"Oh, she comes a-humming," replied the man. "If she doesn't jump the +track, she'll be down in eight minutes." + +Inside the car Barclay heard a watch snap, and knew that Lycurgus +Mason didn't believe anything of the kind and proposed to get at the +facts. So Barclay sat down on the platform; but his mind went back to +the old days, and the ride through the woods along the Sycamore that +Sunday night in July came to him, with all its fragrance and stillness +and sweetness. He recalled that they came into the prairie just as the +meadow-lark was crying its last plaintive twilight trill, and the +western sky was glowing with a rim of gold upon the tips of the +clouds. The beauty of the prairie and the sky and the calm of the +evening entered into their hearts, and they were silent. Then they +left the prairie and went into the woods again, on the river road. And +before they came out of that road into the upland, Fate turned a screw +that changed the lives of all of them. For in a turn of the road, in a +deep cut made by a ravine, Gabriel Carnine, making the last stand for +Minneola, stepped into the path and took the horses by the bridles. +The shock that John felt that night when he realized what had happened +came back even across the years. And as the headlight far up in the +mountain above the desert slipped into a tunnel, though it flashed out +again in a few seconds, while it was gone, all the details of the +kidnapping of the young people in the buggy hurried across his mind. +Even the old anxiety that he felt lest Sycamore Ridge would think him +a traitor to their cause, when they should find that he was not there +to sign the tax levy and save the court-house and the county-seat, +came back to him as he gazed at the mountain, waiting for the +headlight, and he remembered how he made a paper trail of torn bits +from a Congregational hymn-book, left in Bob's pocket from the morning +service, dropping the bits under the buggy wheels in the dust so that +the men from the Ridge would see the trail and follow the captives. In +his memory he saw Jake Dolan, who had followed the trail where it led +to Carnine's farm, come stumbling into the farm-house Tuesday where +they were hidden, and John, in memory, heard Jake whisper that he had +left his dog with the rescuing party to lead the rescuers to him if he +was on the right trail and did not return. + +And then as Barclay's mind went back to the long Tuesday, when he +should have been at the Ridge to sign the tax levy, the headlight +flashed out of the tunnel. But these were fading pictures. The one +image that was in his mind--clear through all the years--was of a +wood and a tree,--a great, spreading, low-boughed elm, near Carnine's +house where the young people were held prisoners, and Jane Mason +sitting with her back against the tree, and lying on the dry grass at +her feet his own slight figure; sometimes he was looking up at her +over his brow, and sometimes his head rested on the roots of the tree +beside her, and she looked down at him and they talked, and no one was +near. For through youth into middle life, and into the dawn of old +age, That Day was marked in his life. The day of the month--he forgot +which it was. The day of the week--that also left him, and there came +a time when he had to figure back to recall the year; but for all +that, there was a radiance in his life, an hour of calm joy that never +left him, and he called it only--That Day. That Day is in every +heart; in yours, my dear fat Mr. Jones, and in yours, my good dried-up +Mrs. Smith; and in yours, Mrs. Goodman, and in yours, Mr. Badman; +maybe it is upon the sea, or in the woods, or among the noises of some +great city--but it is That Day. And no other day of all the thousands +that have come to you is like it. + +Why should he remember the ugly farm-yard, the hard faces of the men, +the straw-covered frame they called a barn, and the unpainted house? +All these things passed by him unrecorded, as did the miserable fare +of the table, the hard bed at night, and the worry that must have +gnawed at his nerves to know that perhaps the town was thinking him +false to it, or that his mother, guessing the truth, was in pain with +terror, or to feel that a rescuing party coming at the wrong time +would bring on a fight in which the girls would be killed. Only the +picture of Jane Mason, fine and lithe and strong, with the pink cheeks +of twenty, and the soft curves of childhood still playing about her +chin and throat as he saw it from the ground at her feet,--that +picture was etched into his heart, and with it the recollection of her +eyes when she said, "John,--you don't think I--I knew of +this--beforehand, do you?" Just that sentence--those were the only +words left in his memory of a day's happiness. And he never heard a +locust whirring in a tree that it did not bring back the memory of the +spreading tree and the touch--the soft, quick, shy touch of her +fingers in his hair, and the fire that was in her eyes. + +It was in the dusk of Tuesday evening that Jake Dolan's dog came into +the yard where the captives were, and Jake disowned him, and joined +the men who stoned the faithful creature out to the main road. But the +prisoners knew that their rescuers would follow the dog, so at supper +the three men from the Ridge sat together on a bench at the table +while Mrs. Carnine and the girls waited on the men--after the fashion +of country places in those days. Dolan managed to say under his breath +to Barclay, "It's all right--but the girls must stay in the house +to-night." And John knew that if he and Bob escaped with horses before +ten o'clock, they could reach the Ridge in time to sign the levy +before midnight. Darkness fell at eight, and a screech-owl in the wood +complained to the night. Dolan rose and stretched and yawned, and then +began to talk of going to bed, and Gabriel Carnine, whose turn it was +to sleep because he had been up two nights, shuffled off to the +straw-covered stable to lie down with the Texan who was his bunk mate, +leaving half a dozen men to guard the prisoners. An hour later the +screech-owl in the wood murmured again, this time much closer, and +Dolan rose and took off his hat and threw it in the straw beside him. +He was looking at the time anxiously toward the wood. But the next +moment from behind the barn in the opposite direction something +attracted them. It was a glare of light, and the guards noticed it at +the same time. A last year's straw stack next to the barn was afire. +Jane Mason was standing in the back door of the house, and in the +hurried blur of moving events John divined that she had slipped out +and fired the stack. In an instant there was confusion. The men were +on their feet. They must fight fire, or the barn would go. Dolan ran +with the men to the straw stack. "We'll help you," he cried. "I'll +wake Gabe." There was hurrrying for water pails. The women appeared, +crying shrilly, and in the glare that reddened the sky the yard +seemed, full of mad men racing heedlessly. + +"John," whispered Jane, coming up to him as he drew water from the +well, "let me do this. There are two horses in the pasture. You and +Bob go--fly--fly." The Texan came running from the barn, which was +beginning to blaze. Dolan and Carnine still were in it. Then from the +wood back of the camp fifty men appeared, riding at a gallop. Lige +Bemis and General Ward rode in front of the troop of horsemen. Carnine +was still in the burning barn asleep, and there was no leader to give +command to the dazed guards. Ward and Bemis ran up, motioning the men +back, and Ward cried, "Shall we help you save your stock and barn, or +must we fight?" It was addressed to the crowd, but before they could +answer, Dolan stumbled out of the barn through the smoke and flames +crying, "Boys,--boys,--I can't find him." He saw the rescuing party +and shouted, "Boys,--Gabe's in there asleep and I can't find him." +The wind had suddenly veered, and the crackling flames had reached the +straw roof of the barn. The fire was gaining headway, and the three +buckets that were coming from the well had no effect on it. As the +last horse was pulled out of the door, one side of the straw wall of +the barn fell away on fire and showed Gabriel Carnine sleeping not ten +feet from the flames. Lige Bemis soused his handkerchief in water, +tied it over his mouth, and ran in. He grabbed the sleeping man and +dragged him through, the flames; but both were afire as they came into +the open. + +Now in this story Elijah Westlake Bemis is not shown often in a heroic +light. Yet he had in his being the making of a hero, for he was brave. +And heroism, after all, is only effective reliance on some virtue in a +crisis, in spite of temptations to do the easy excusable thing. And +when Lige Bemis sneaks through this story in unlovely guise, remember +that he has a virtue that once exalted even him. + +"Gabe Carnine," said Ward, as the barn fell and there was nothing more +to fear, "we didn't fire your haystack; I give you my word on that. +But we are going to take these boys home now. And you better let us +alone." + +That John Barclay remembered, and then he remembered being in the +front yard of the farm-house a moment--alone with Jane Mason, his +bridle rein over his arm. Her hair was down, and she looked wild and +beautiful. The straw was still burning back of the house, and the glow +was everywhere. He always remembered that she held his hand and would +not let him go, and there two memories are different; for she always +maintained that he did, right there and then, and he recollected that +as he mounted his horse he tried to kiss her and failed. Perhaps both +are right--who knows? But both agree that as he sat there an instant +on his horse, she threw kisses at him and he threw them back. And when +the men rode away, she stood in the road, and he could see her in the +light of the waning fire, and thirty years passed and still he saw +her. + +As the headlight of the train lit up the cinder yard, and brought the +glint of the rails out of the darkness, John Barclay, a thousand miles +away and thirty years after, fancied he could see her there in the +railroad yards beside him waving her hands at him, smiling at him with +the new-found joy in her face. For there is no difference between +fifty-three and twenty-three when men are in love, and if they are in +love with the same woman in both years, her face will never change, +her smile will always seem the same. And to John Barclay there on the +rear platform of the car, with the crash of the great train in his +ears, the same face looked out of the night at him that he saw back in +his twenties, and he knew that the same prayer to the same God would +go up that night for him that went up from the same lips so long ago. +The man on the car platform rose from his chair, and went into the +car. + +"Well," he said to Lycurgus Mason as the old man reached for his +watch, "how about it?" + +Lycurgus replied as he put it back in his pocket, "Just seven minutes +and a half. She's covered a lot of track in those seven minutes!" + +And John Barclay looked back over the years, and saw a boy riding like +the wind through the night, changing horses every half-hour, and +trying to tell time from his watch by a rising moon, but the moon was +blown with clouds like a woman's hair, and he could not see the hands +on the watch face. So as he looked at the old man sitting crooked over +in the great leather chair, John Barclay only grunted, "Yes--she's +covered a long stretch of country in those seven minutes." And he +picked the Biography off the table and read to himself: "I sometimes +think that only that part of the soul that loves is saved. The rest is +dross and perishes in the fire. Whether the love be the love of woman +or the love of kind, or the love of God that embraces all, it matters +not. That sanctifies; that purifies--that marks the way of the only +salvation the soul can know, and he who does not love with the fervour +of a passionate heart some of God's creatures, cannot love God, and +not loving Him, is lost in spite of all his prayers, in spite of all +his aspirations. Therefore, if you would live you must love, for when +love dies the soul shrivels. And if God takes what you love--love on; +for only love will make you immortal, only love will cheat death of +its victory." + +And looking at Lycurgus Mason fidgeting in his chair, John Barclay +wondered when he would die the kind of a death that had come to the +little old man before him, and then he felt the car move under him, +and knew they were going back to Sycamore Ridge. + +"Day after to-morrow," said Barclay, meditatively, as he heard the +first faint screaming of the heavily laden wheels under him, "day +after to-morrow, Daddy Mason, we will be home with Colonel Culpepper +and his large white plumes." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +This chapter might have had in it "all the quality, pride, pomp, and +circumstance of glorious war" if it had not been for the matters that +came up for discussion at the meeting of the Garrison County Old +Settlers' Association this year of our Lord Nineteen Hundred and +Eight. For until that meeting the legend of the last hour of the +County-seat War of '73 had flourished unmolested; but there General +Philemon Ward rose and laid an axe at the root of the legend, and +while of course he did not destroy it entirely, he left it scarred and +withered on one side and therefore entirely unfitted for historical +purposes. It seems that Gabriel Carnine was assigned by President John +Barclay of the Association to prepare and read a paper on "The Rise, +Decline, and Fall of Minneola." Certainly that was a proper subject +considering the fact that corn has been growing over the site of +Minneola for twenty years. And surely Gabriel Carnine, whose black +beard has whitened in thirty years' faithful service to Sycamore +Ridge, whose wife lies buried on the Hill, and whose children read the +Sycamore Ridge _Banner_ in the uttermost parts of the earth,--surely +Gabriel Carnine might have been trusted to tell the truth of the +conflict waged between the towns a generation ago. But men have +curious works in them, and unless one has that faith in God that gives +him unbounded faith in the goodness of man, one should not open men up +in the back and watch the wheels go 'round. For though men are good, +and in the long run what they do is God's work and is therefore +acceptable, no man is perfect. There goes Lige Bemis past the +post-office, now, for instance; when he was in the legislature in the +late sixties, every one knows that Minneola raised twenty thousand +dollars in cash and offered it to Lige if he would pretend to be sick +and quit work on the Sycamore Ridge county-seat bill. He could have +fooled us, and could have taken the money, which was certainly more +than he could expect to get from Sycamore Ridge. Did he take it? Not +at all. A million would not have tempted him. He was in that game; yet +ten days after he refused the offer of Minneola, he tried to blackmail +his United States senator out of fifty dollars, and sold his vote to a +candidate for state printer for one hundred dollars and flashed the +bill around Sycamore Ridge proudly for a week before spending it. + +So Gabriel Carnine must not be blamed if in that paper on Minneola, +before the Old Settlers' Association, he let out the pent-up wrath of +thirty years; and also if in the discussion General Ward unsealed his +lips for the first time and blighted the myth that told how a hundred +Minneola men had captured the court-house yard on the night that John +Barclay and Bob Hendricks rode home from their captivity to sign the +tax levy. Legend has always said that Lige Bemis, riding half a mile +ahead of the others that night, came to the courtyard; found it +guarded by Minneola men, rode back, met John and Bob and the general +crossing the bridge over the old ford of the Sycamore, and told them +that they could not get into the court-house until the men came up who +had ridden out to rescue the commissioners,--perhaps a quarter of an +hour behind the others,--and that even then there must be a fight of +doubtful issue; and further that it was after eleven o'clock, and soon +would be too late to sign the levy. The forty thousand people in +Garrison County have believed for thirty years that finding the +court-house yard in possession of the enemy, Bemis suggested going +through the cave by the Barclays' home, which had its west opening in +the wall of the basement of the court-house; and furthermore, +tradition has said that Bemis led John and Bob through the cave, and +with crowbars and hammers they made a man-sized hole in the wall, +crawled through it, mounted the basement stairs, unlocked the +commissioners' room, held their meeting in darkness, and five minutes +before twelve o'clock astonished the invading forces by lighting a +lamp in their room, signing the levy that Bemis, as county attorney, +had prepared the Sunday before, and slipping with it into the +basement, through the cave and back to the troop of horsemen as they +were jogging across the bridge on their way back from Carnine's farm. +And here are the marks of General Ward's axe--verified by Gabriel +Carnine: first, that there were no Minneola invaders in possession of +the court-house, but only a dozen visitors loafing about town that +night to watch developments; second, that the regular pickets were out +as usual, and an invading force could not have stolen in; and third, +that Bemis knew it, but as his political fortunes were low, he rode +ahead of the others, hatched up the cock-and-bull story about the +guarded court-house, and persuaded the boys to let him lead them into +a romantic adventure that would sound well in the campaign and help to +insure his reëlection the following year. In view of the general's +remarks and Gabriel Carnine's corroborative statement, and in view of +the bitterness with which Carnine assailed the whole Sycamore Ridge +campaign, how can a truthful chronicler use the episode at all? +History is a fickle goddess, and perhaps Pontius Pilate, being human +and used to human errors and human weakness, is not so much to blame +for asking, "What is truth?" and then turning away before he had the +answer. + +Walking home from the meeting through Mary Barclay Park, Barclay's +mind wandered back to the days when he won his first important +lawsuit--the suit brought by Minneola to prevent the collection of +taxes under the midnight levy to build the court-house. It was that +lawsuit which brought him to the attention of the legal department of +the Fifth Parallel Railroad Company, and his employment by that +company to defeat the bonds of its narrow-gauged competitor, that was +seeking entrance into Garrison County, was the beginning of his +career. And in that fight to defeat the narrow-gauged railroad, the +people of Garrison County learned something of Barclay as well. He and +Bemis went over the county together,--the little fox and the old +coyote, the people called them,--and where men were for sale, Bemis +bought them, and where they were timid, John threatened them, and +where they were neither, both John and Bemis fought with a ferocity +that made men hate but respect the pair. And so though the Fifth +Parallel Railroad never came to the Ridge, its successor, the Corn +Belt Road, did come, and in '74 John spoke in every schoolhouse in the +county, urging the people to vote the bonds for the Corn Belt Road, +and his employment as local attorney for the company marked his first +step into the field of state politics. For it gave him a railroad +pass, and brought him into relations with the men who manipulated +state affairs; also it made him a silent partner of Lige Bemis in +Garrison County politics. + +But even when he was county commissioner, less than two dozen years +old, he was a force in Sycamore Ridge, and there were days when he had +four or five thousand dollars to his credit in General Hendricks' +bank. The general used to look over the daily balances and stroke his +iron-gray beard and say: "Robert, John is doing well to-day. Son, I +wish you had the acquisitive faculty. Why don't you invest something +and make something?" But Bob Hendricks was content to do his work in +the bank, and read at home one night and slip over to the Culpeppers' +the next night, and so long as the boy was steady and industrious and +careful, his father had no real cause for complaint, and he knew it. +But the town knew that John was getting on in the world. He owned half +of Culpepper's second addition, and his interest in College Heights +was clear; he never dealt in equities, but paid cash and gave warranty +deeds for what he sold. It was believed around the Ridge that he could +"clean up," for fifteen or twenty thousand dollars, and when he called +Mrs. Mason of the Mason House, Minneola, into the dining room one +afternoon to talk over a little matter with her, he found her most +willing. It was a short session. After listening and punctuating his +remarks with "of courses" and "yeses" and "so's," Mrs. Mason's reply +was:-- + +"Of course, Mr. Barclay,"--the Mr. Barclay he remembered as the only +time in his life he ever had it from her,--"of course, Mr. Barclay, +that is a matter rather for you and Mr. Mason to settle. You know," +she added, folding her hands across her ample waist, "Mr. Mason is the +head of the house!" Then she lifted her voice, perhaps fearing that +matters might be delayed. "Oh, pa!" she cried. "Pa! Come in here, +please. There's a gentleman to see you." + +Lycurgus Mason came in with a tea towel in his hands and an apron on. +He heard John through in a dazed way, his hollow eyes blinking with +evident uncertainty as to what was expected of him. When Barclay was +through, the father looked at the mother for his cue, and did not +speak for a moment. Then he faltered: "Why, yes,--yes,--I see! Well, +ma, what--" And at the cloud on her brow Lycurgus hesitated again, +and rolled his apron about his hands nervously and finally said, +"Oh--well--whatever you and her ma think will be all right with me, +I guess." And having been dismissed telepathically, Lycurgus hurried +back to his work. + +It was when John Barclay was elected President of the Corn Belt +Railway, in the early nineties, that Lycurgus told McHurdie and Ward +and Culpepper and Frye, as the graybeards wagged around the big brown +stove in the harness shop one winter day: "You know ma, she never saw +much in him, and when I came in the room she was about to tell him he +couldn't have her. Now, isn't that like a woman?--no sense about men. +But I says: 'Ma, John Barclay's got good blood in him. His grandpa +died worth a million,--and that was a pile of money for them days;' +so I says, 'If Jane Mason wants him, ma,' I says, 'let her have him. +Remember what a fuss your folks made over me getting you,' I says; +'and see how it's turned out.' Then I turned to John--I can see the +little chap now a-standing there with his dicky hat in his hand and +his pipe-stem legs no bigger than his cane, and his gray eyes lookin' +as wistful as a dog's when you got a bone in your hand, and I says, +'Take her along, John; take her along and good luck go with you,' I +says; 'but,' I says, 'John Barclay, I want you always to remember Jane +Mason has got a father.' Just that way I says. I tell you, gentlemen, +there's nothing like having a wife that respects you." The crowd in +the harness shop wagged their heads, and Lycurgus went on: "Now, they +ain't many women that would just let a man stand up like that and, as +you may say, give her daughter right away under her nose. But my wife, +she's been well trained." + +In the pause that followed, Watts McHurdie's creaking lever was the +only sound that broke the silence. Then Watts, who had been sewing +away at his work with waving arms, spoke, after clearing his throat, +"I've heard many say that she was sich." And the old man cackled, and +it became a saying-among them and in the town. + +One who goes back over the fifty years that have passed since Sycamore +Ridge became a local habitation and a name finds it difficult to +realize that one-third of its life was passed before the panic of '78, +which closed the Hendricks' bank. For those first nineteen years +passed as the life of a child passes, so that they seem only sketched +in; yet to those who lived at all, to those like Watts McHurdie and +Philemon Ward, who now pass their happiest moments mooning over tilted +headstones in the cemetery on the Hill, those first nineteen years +seem the longest and the best. And that fateful year of '73 to them +seems the most portentous. For then, perhaps for the first time, they +realized the cruel uncertainty of the struggle for existence. With the +terrible drouth of '60 this realization did not come; for the town was +young, and the people were young; only Ezra Lane was a graybeard in +all the town in the sixties; and youth is so sure; there is no hazard +under thirty. In the war they fought and marched and sang and starved +and died, and were still young. But when the financial panic of '73 +spread its dread and its trouble over the land, youth in Sycamore +Ridge was gone; it was manhood that faced these things in the Ridge, +and manhood had cares, had given hostages to fortune, and life was +serious and hard; and big on the horizon was the fear of failure. +General Hendricks swayed in the panic of '73; and the time marked him, +took the best of the light from his eye, and put the slightest +perceptible hobble on his feet. To Martin Culpepper and Watts McHurdie +and Philemon Ward and Jacob Dolan and Oscar Fernald, the panic came in +their late thirties and early forties, a flash of lightning that +prophesied the coming of the storm and stress of an inexorable fate. + +The wedding of John Barclay and Jane Mason occurred in September, +1873, two days after he had stood on the high stone steps of the +Exchange National Bank and made a speech to the crowd, telling them he +was the largest depositor in the bank, and begging them to stop the +run. But the run did not stop, and the day before John's wedding the +bank did not open; the short crop and the panic in the East were more +than Garrison County people could stand. But all the first day of the +bank's closing and all the next day John worked among the people, +reassuring them. So that it was five o'clock in the evening before he +could start to Minneola for his wedding. + +And such a wedding! One would say that when hard times were staring +every one in the face, social forms would be observed most simply. But +one would say so without reckoning with Mrs. Lycurgus Mason. As the +groom and the bridesmaid and best man rode up from Sycamore Valley, +two miles from Minneola, in the early falling dusk that night, the +Mason House loomed through the darkness, lighted up like a steamboat. +"You'll have to move along, John," said Bob Hendricks; "I think I +heard her whistle." + +On the sidewalk in front of the hotel they met Mrs. Mason in her black +silk with a hemstitched linen apron over it. She ushered them into the +house, took them to their rooms, and whirled John around on a pivot, +it seemed to him, with her interminable directions. His mother, who +had come over to Minneola the day before, came to his room and quieted +her son, and as he got ready for what he called the "ordeal," he could +hear Mrs. Mason swinging doors below stairs, walking on her heels +through the house, receiving belated guests from Sycamore Ridge and +the country,--for the whole county had been invited,--and he heard +her carrying out a dog that had sneaked into the dining room. + +The groom missed the bride, and as he was tying his necktie,--which +reminded him of General Ward by its whiteness,--he wondered why she +did not come to him. He did not know that she was a prisoner in her +room, while all the young girls in Sycamore Ridge and Minneola were +looking for pins and hooking her up and stepping on each other's +skirts. For one wedding is like all weddings--whether it be in the +Mason House, Minneola, or in Buckingham Palace. And some there are who +marry for love in Minneola, and some for money, and some for a home, +and some for Heaven only knows what, just as they do in the châteaux +and palaces and mansions. And the groom is nobody and the bride is +everything, as it was in the beginning and as it shall be ever after. +Probably poor Adam had to stand behind a tree neglected and alone, +while Lilith and girls from the land of Nod bedecked Eve for the +festivities. Men are not made for ceremonies. And so at all the formal +occasions of this life--whether it be among the great or among the +lowly, in the East or the West, at weddings, christenings, and +funerals--man hides in shame and leaves the affairs to woman, who +leads him as an ox, even a muzzled ox, that treadeth out the corn. +"The doomed man," whispered John to Bob as the two in their black +clothes stood at the head of the stair that led into the parlour of +the Mason House that night, waiting for the wedding march to begin on +the cabinet organ, "ate a hearty supper, consisting of beefsteak and +eggs, and after shaking hands with his friends he mounted the gallows +with a firm step!" + +Then he heard the thud of the music book on the organ, the creak of +the treadle,--and when he returned to consciousness he was Mrs. +Mason's son-in-law, and proud of it. And she,--bless her heart and +the hearts of all good women who give up the joy of their lives to us +poor unworthy creatures,--she stood by the wax-flower wreath under +the glass case on the whatnot in the corner, and wept into her real +lace handkerchief, and wished with all the earnestness of her soul +that she could think of some way to let John know that his trousers +leg was wrinkled over his left shoe top. But she could not solve the +problem, so she gave herself up to the consolation of her tears. Yet +it should be set down to her credit that when the preacher's amen was +said, hers was the first head up, and while the others were rushing +for the happy pair she was in the kitchen with her apron on dishing up +the wedding supper. Well might the Sycamore Ridge _Weekly Banner_ +declare that the "tables groaned with good things." There were not +merely a little piddling dish of salad, a bite of cake, and a dab of +ice-cream. There were turkey and potatoes and vegetables and fruit and +bread and cake and pudding and pie--four kinds of pie, mark you--and +preserves, and "Won't you please, Mrs. Culpepper, try some of that +piccalilli?" and "Oh, Mrs. Ward, if you just would have a slice of +that fruit cake," and "Now, General,--a little more of the gravy for +that turkey dressing--it is such a long ride home," or "Colonel, I +know you like corn bread, and I made this myself as a special +compliment to Virginia." + +And through it all the bride sat watching the door--looking always +through the crowd for some one. Her face was anxious and her heart was +clouded, and when the guests had gone and the house was empty, she +left her husband and slipped out of the back door. There, after the +glare of the lamps had left her eyes, she saw a little man walking +with his head down, out near the barn, and she ran to him and threw +her arms about him and kissed him, and when she led Lycurgus Mason, +who was all washed and dressed, back through the kitchen to her +husband, John saw that the man's eyelids were red, and that on the +starched cuffs were the marks of tears. For to him she was only his +little girl, and John afterward knew that she was the only friend he +had in the world. "Oh, father, why didn't you come in?" cried the +daughter. "I missed you so!" The man blinked a moment at the lights +and looked toward his wife, who was busy at a table, as he said: "Who? +Me?" and then added: "I was just lookin' after their horses. I was +coming in pretty soon. You oughtn't to bother about me. Well, John," +he smiled, as he put out his hand, "the seegars seems to be on +you--as the feller says." And John put his arm about Lycurgus Mason, +as they walked out of the kitchen, and Jane reached for her gingham +apron. Then life began for Mr. and Mrs. John Barclay in earnest. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +Forty thousand words--and that is the number we have piled up in this +story--is a large number of words to string together without a +heroine. That is almost as bad as the dictionary, in which He and She +are always hundreds of pages apart and never meet,--not even in the +"Z's" at the end,--which is why the dictionary is so unpopular, +perhaps. But this is the story of a man, and naturally it must have +many heroines. For you know men--they are all alike! First, Mrs. Mary +Barclay was a heroine--you saw her face, strong and clean and sharply +chiselled with a great purpose; then Miss Lucy--black-eyed, +red-cheeked, slender little Miss Lucy--was a heroine, but she married +General Ward; and then Ellen Culpepper was a heroine, but she +fluttered out of the book into the sunlight, and was gone; and then +came Jane Mason,--and you have seen her girlish beauty, and you will +see it develop into gentle womanhood; but the real heroine,--of the +real story,--you have not seen her face. You have heard her name, and +have seen her moving through these pages with her back consciously +turned to you--for being a shy minx, she had no desire to intrude +until she was properly introduced. And now we will whirl her around +that you may have a good look at her. + +Let us begin at the ground: as to feet--they are not too small--say +three and a half in size. And they support rather short legs--my +goodness, of course she has legs--did you think her shoes were pinned to +her over-skirt? Her legs carry around a plump body,--not fat--why, +certainly not--who ever heard of a fat heroine (the very best a heroine +can do for comfort is to be plump)--and so beginning the sentence over +again, being a plump little body, there is a neck to account for--a neck +which we may look at, but which is so exquisite that it would be hardly +polite to consider it in terms of language. Only when we come to the +chin that tips the oval of the face may we descend to language, and even +then we must rise and flick the red mouth with, but a passing word. But +this much must be plainly spoken. The nose does turn up--not much--but a +little (Bob used to say, just to be good and out of the way)! That, +however, is mere personal opinion, and of little importance here. But +the eyes are brown--reddish brown, with enough white at the corners to +make them seem liquid; only liquid is not the word. For they are +radiant--remember that word, for we may come back to it, after we are +done with the brow--a wide brow--low enough for Dickens and Thackeray +and Charlotte Bronte, and for Longfellow and Whittier and Will Carleton +in his day, and high enough for Tennyson at the temples, but not so high +but that the gate of the eyes has to shut wearily when Browning would +sail through the current of her soul. As to hair--Heaven knows there is +plenty of that, but it had rather a checkered career. As she clung to +her mother's apron and waved her father away to war, she was a +tow-headed little tot, and when he came back from the field of glory he +thought he could detect a tendency to red in it, but the fire smouldered +and went out, and the hair turned brown--a dark brown with the glint of +the quenched fires in it when it blew in the sun. Now frame a glowing +young face in that soft waving hair, and you have a picture that will +speak, and if the picture should come to life and speak as it was in the +year of our Lord 1873, the first word of all the words in the big fat +dictionary it would utter would be Bob. And so you may lift up your face +and take your name and place in this story--Molly Culpepper, heroine. +And when you lift your face, we may see something more than its pretty +features: we shall see a radiant soul. For scientists have found out +that every material thing in this universe gives off atomic particles of +itself, and some elements are more radiant than others. And there is a +paralleling quality in the spiritual world, and some souls give off more +of their colour and substance than others, though what it is they +radiate we do not know. Even the scientists do not know the material +things that the atoms radiate, so why should we be asked to define the +essence of souls? Yet from the soul of Molly Culpepper, in joy and in +sorrow, in her moments of usefulness and in her deepest woe, her soul +glowed and shed its glory, and she grew even as she gave her substance +to the world about her. For that is the magic of God's mystery of life. + +And now having for the moment finished our discussion on the +radio-activity of souls, let us go back to the story. + +Mary Barclay rode home from her son's wedding that night with Bob +Hendricks and Molly Culpepper. They were in a long line of buggies +that began to scatter out and roam across fields to escape the dust of +the roads. "Well," said Mrs. Barclay, as they pulled up the bank of +the Sycamore for home, "I suppose it will be you and Molly next, Bob?" + +It was Molly who replied: "Yes. It is going to be Thanksgiving." + +"Well, why not?" asked Mrs. Barclay. + +"Oh--they all seem to think we shouldn't, don't you know, Mrs. +Barclay--with all this hard times--and the bank closing. And hasn't +John told you of the plan he's worked out for Bob to go to New York +this winter?" + +The buggy was nearing the Barclay home. Mrs. Barclay answered, "No," +and the girl went on. + +"Well, it's a big wheat land scheme--and Bob's to go East and sell +the stock. They worked it out last night after the bank closed. He'll +tell you all about it." + +Mrs. Barclay was standing by the buggy when the girl finished. The +elder woman bade the young people good night, and turned and went into +the yard and stood a moment looking at the stars before going into her +lonely house. The lovers let the tired horses lag up the hill, and as +they turned into Lincoln Avenue the girl was saying: "A year's so +long, Bob,--so long. And you'll be away, and I'm afraid." He tried to +reassure her; but she protested: "You are all my life,--big +boy,--all my life. I was only fourteen, just a little girl, when you +came into my life, and all these long seven years you are the only +human being that has been always in my heart. Oh, Bob, Bob,--always." + +What a man says to his sweetheart is of no importance. Men are so +circumscribed in their utterances--so tongue-tied in love. They all +say one thing; so it need not be set down here what Bob Hendricks +said. It was what the king said to the queen, the prince to the +princess, the duke to the lady, the gardener to the maid, the +troubadour to his dulcinea. And Molly Culpepper replied, "When are you +going, Bob?" + +The young man picked up the sagging lines to turn out for Watts +McHurdie's buggy. He had just let Nellie Logan out at the Wards', +where she lived. After a "Hello, Watts; getting pretty late for an old +man like you," Hendricks answered: "Well, you know John--when he gets +a thing in his head he's a regular tornado. There was an immense crowd +in town to-day--depositors and all that. And do you know, John went +out this afternoon with a paper in his hand, and five hundred dollars +he dug out of his safe over in the office, and he got options to lease +their land for a year signed up by the owners of five thousand acres +of the best wheat land in Garrison County. He wants twenty thousand +acres, and pretty well bunched down in Pleasant and Spring townships, +and I'm going in four days." The young man was full of the scheme. He +went on: "John's a wonder, Molly,--a perfect wonder. He's got grit. +Father wouldn't have been able to stand up under this--but John has +braced him, and has cheered up the people, and I believe, before the +week is out, we will be able to get nearly all the depositors to agree +to leave their money alone for a year, and then only take it out on +thirty days' notice. And if we can get that, we can open up by the +first of the month. But I've got to go on to Washington to see if I +can arrange that with the comptroller of the currency." + +They were standing at the Culpepper gate as he spoke. A light in the +upper windows showed that the parents were in. Buchanan came ambling +along the walk and went through the gate between them without +speaking. When he had closed the door, the girl came close to her +lover. He took her in his arms, and cried, "Oh, darling,--only four +more days together." He paused, and in the starlight she saw on his +face more than words could have told her of his love for her. He was a +silent youth; the spoken word came haltingly to his lips, and as often +happens, words were superfluous to him in his moments of great +emotion. He put her hands to his lips, and moaned, for the hour of +parting seemed to be hurrying down upon him. Finally his tongue found +liberty. "Oh, sweetheart--sweetheart," he cried, "always remember +that you are bound in my soul with the iron of youth's first love--my +only love. Oh, I never could again, dear,--only you--only you. After +this it would be a sacrilege." + +They stood silent in the joy of their ecstacy for a long minute, then +he asked gently: "Do you understand, Molly,--do you understand? this +is forever for us, Molly,--forever. When one loves as we love--with +our childhood and youth welded into it all--whom God hath joined--" +he stammered; "oh, Molly, whom God hath joined," he whispered, and his +voice trembled as he sighed again, and kissed her, "whom God hath +joined. Oh, God--God, God!" cried the lover, as he closed his eyes +with his lips against her hair. + +The restless horses recalled the lovers to the earth. It was Molly who +spoke. "Bob--Bob--I can't let you go!" + +Molly Culpepper had no reserves with her lover. She went on +whispering, with, her face against his heart: "Bob--Bob, big boy, I +am going to tell you something truthy true, that I never breathed to +any one. At night--to-night, in just a few minutes--when I go up to +my room--all alone--I get your picture and hold it to me close, and +holding it right next to my very heart, Bob, I pray for you." She +paused a moment, and then continued, "Oh, and--I pray for +us--Bob--I pray for us." Then she ran up the stone walk, and on the +steps she turned to throw kisses at him, but he did not move until he +heard the lock click in the front door. + +At the livery-stable he found Watts McHurdie bending over some break +in his buggy. They walked up the street together. At the corner where +they were about to part the little man said, as he looked into the +rapturous face of the lanky boy, "Well, Bob,--it's good-by, John, for +you, I suppose?" + +"Oh--I don't know," replied the other from his enchanted world and +then asked absently, "Why?" + +"Well, it's nature, I guess. She'll take all his time now." He rubbed +his chin reflectively, and as Bob turned to go Watts said: "My +Heavens, how time does fly! It just seems like yesterday that all you +boys were raking over the scrap-pile back of my shop, and slipping in +and nipping leather strands and braiding them into whips, and I'd have +to douse you with water to get rid of you. I got a quirt hanging up in +the shop now that Johnnie Barclay dropped one day when I got after him +with a pan of water. It's a six-sided one, with eight strands down in +the round part. I taught him how to braid it." He chewed a moment and +spat before going on: "And now look at him. He's little, but oh my." +Something was working under McHurdie's belt, for Bob could hear it +chuckling as he chewed: "Wasn't she a buster? It's funny, ain't +it--the way we all pick big ones--we sawed-offs"? The laugh came--a +quiet, repressed gurgle, and he added: "Yes--by hen, and you +long-shanks always pick little dominickers. Eh?" He chewed a +meditative cud before venturing, "That's what I told her comin' home +to-night." Bob knew whom he meant. The man went on: "But when she saw +them--him so little she'll have to shake the sheet to find him--and +her so big and busting, I seen _her_--you know," he nodded his head +wisely to indicate which "her" he meant. "I saw her a-eying me, out of +the corner of her eye, and looking at him, and then looking at the +girl, and looking at herself, and on the way home to-night I'm damned +if I didn't have to put off asking her another six months." He sighed +and continued, "And the first thing I know the drummer or the +preacher'll get her." He chewed for a minute in peace and chuckled, +"Well--Bob, I suppose you'll be next?" He did not wait for an answer, +but spoke up quickly, "Well, Bob, good night--good night," and +hurried to his shop. + +The next day the people that blackened Main Street in Sycamore Ridge +talked of two things--the bank failure and the new Golden Belt Wheat +Company. Barclay enlisted Colonel Culpepper, and promised him two +dollars for every hundred-acre option to lease that he secured at +three dollars an acre--the cash on the lease to be paid March first. +Barclay's plan was to organize a stock company and to sell his stock +in the East for enough to raise eight dollars an acre for every acre +he secured, and to use the five dollars for making the crop. He +believed that with a good wheat crop the next year he could make money +and buy as much land as he needed. But that year of the panic John +capitalized the hardship of his people, and made terms for them, which +they could not refuse. He literally sold them their own want. For the +fact that he had a little ready money and could promise more before +harvest upon which the people might live--however miserably was no +concern of his--made it possible for him to drive a bargain little +short of robbery. It was Bob's part of the business to float the stock +company in the East among his father's rich friends. John was to +furnish the money to keep Bob in New York, and the Hendricks' +connections in banking circles were to furnish the cash to float the +proposition, and the Hendricks' bank--if John could get it opened +again--was to guarantee that the stock subscribed would pay six per +cent interest. So there was no honeymoon for John Barclay. When he +dropped the reins and helped his bride out of the buggy the next +morning in front of the Thayer House, he hustled General Ward's little +boy into the seat, told him to drive the team to Dolan's stable, and +waving the new Mrs. Barclay good-by, limped in a trot over to the +bank. In five minutes he was working in the crowd, and by night had +the required number of the depositors ready to agree to let their +money lie a year on deposit, and that matter was closed. He was a +solemn-faced youth in those days, with a serious air about him, and +something of that superabundance of dignity little men often think +they must assume to hold their own. The town knew him as a trim little +man in a three-buttoned tail-coat, with rather extraordinary neckties, +a well-brushed hat, and shiny shoes. To the country people he was +"limping Johnnie," and General Ward, watching Barclay hustle his way +down Main Street Saturday afternoons, when the sidewalk and the +streets were full of people, used to say, "Busier 'n a tin pedler." +And he said to Mrs. Ward, "Lucy, if it's true that old Grandpa Barclay +got his start carrying a pack, you can see him cropping out in John, +bigger than a wolf." + +But the general had little time to devote to John, for he was state +organizer of a movement that had for its object the abolition of +middlemen in trade, and he was travelling most of the time. The dust +gathered on his law-books, and his Sunday suit grew frayed at the +edges and shiny at the elbows, but his heart was in the cause, and his +blue eyes burned with joy when he talked, and he was happy, and had to +travel two days and nights when the fourth baby came, and then was too +late to serve on the committee on reception, and had to be satisfied +with a minor place on the committee on entertainment and amusements of +which Mrs. Culpepper was chairman. But John turned in half of a fee +that came from the East for a lawsuit that both he and Ward had +forgotten, and Miss Lucy would have named the new baby Mary Ward, but +the general stood firm for Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Sitting at Sunday +dinner with the Wards on the occasion of Elizabeth Cady Stanton Ward's +first monthly birthday, John listened to the general's remarks on the +iniquity of the money power, and the wickedness of the national banks, +and kept respectful and attentive silence. The worst the young man did +was to wink swiftly across the table at Watts McHurdie, who had been +invited by Mrs. Ward with malice prepense and seated by Nellie Logan. +The wink came just as the general, waving the carving knife, was +saying: "Gentlemen, it's the world-old fight--the fight of might +against right. When I was a boy like you, John, the fight was between +brute strength and the oppressed; between slaves and masters. Now it +is between weakness and cunning, between those who would be +slaveholders if they could be, and those who are fighting the +shackles." And Mrs. Ward saw the wink, and John saw that she saw it, +and he was ashamed. + +So before the afternoon was over, Mr. and Mrs. John Barclay went over +to Hendricks's, picking up Molly Culpepper on the way, and the three +spent the evening with the general and Miss Hendricks--a faded mousy +little woman in despairing thirties; and before the open fire they sat +and talked, and John played the piano for an hour, and thought out an +extra kink for the Golden Belt Wheat Company's charter. He jabbered +about it to Jane as they walked home, and the next day it became a +fact. + +"That boy," said the colonel to his assembled family one evening as +they dined on mush and dried peaches, and coffee made of parched corn, +"that John Barclay certainly and surely is a marvel. Talk about +drawing blood from a turnip,--why, he can strike an artery in a +pumpkin." The colonel smiled reflectively as he proceeded: "Chicago +lawyer came in on the stage this afternoon,--kinder getting uneasy +about a little interest I owed to an Ohio man on that College Heights +property, and John took that Chicago lawyer up to his office, and +talked him into putting the interest in a second mortgage with all the +interest that will fall due till next spring, and then traded him +Golden Belt Wheat Company stock for the mortgage and a thousand +dollars besides." + +"Well, did John give you back the mortgage, father?" asked Molly. + +"No, sis,--that wouldn't be business," replied the colonel, as he +stirred his dried peaches into his third dish of mush for dessert; +"business is business, you know. John took the mortgage over to the +bank and discounted it for some money to buy more options with. John +surely does make things hum." + +"Yes, and he's made Bob resign from the board of commissioners, and +won't let him come home Christmas, and keeps him on fifty dollars a +month there in New York--all the same," returned the girl. + +The colonel looked at his daughter a moment in sympathetic silence; +then he put his thumbs in the armholes of his vest and tilted back in +his chair and answered: "Oh, well, my dear,--when you are living in a +brown-stone house on Fifth Avenue down in New York, stepping on a +nigger every which way you turn, you'll thank John that he did keep +Bob at work, and not bring him back here to pin on a buffalo tail, +drink crick water, eat tumble weeds, and run wild. I say, and I fear +no contradiction when I say it, that John Barclay is a marvel--a +living wonder in point of fact. And if Bob Hendricks wants to come +back here and live on the succulent and classic bean and the luscious, +and I may say tempting, flapjack, let him come, Molly Farquhar +Culpepper, let him come." The colonel, proud of his language, looked +around the family circle. "And we at our humble board, with our plain +though--shall I say nutritive--yes, nutritive and wholesome fare, +should thank our lucky stars that John Barclay keeps the Golden Belt +Wheat Company going, and your husband and father can make a more or +less honest dollar now and then to supply your simple wants." + +The colonel had more in his mind, for he rose and began to pace the +floor in a fine frenzy. But Mrs. Culpepper looked up for an instant +from her tea, and said, "You know you forgot the mail to-day, father," +and he replied, "Yes, that's so." Then added: "Molly dear, will you +bring me my overcoat--please?" + +The girl bundled her father into his threadbare blue army overcoat +with the cape. He stood for a moment absently rattling some dimes in +his pocket. Then the faintness of their jingle must have appealed to +him, for he drew a long breath and walked majestically away. He was a +tall stout man in the midst of his forties, with a military goatee and +black flowing mustaches, and he wore his campaign hat pinned up at the +side with the brass military pin and swayed with some show of swagger +as he walked. His gift of oratory he did not bring to the flower of +its perfection except at lodge. He was always sent as a delegate to +Grand Lodge, and when he came home men came from all over the county +to see the colonel exemplify the work. But as he marched to funerals +under his large white plume and with his sword dangling at his side, +Colonel Martin Culpepper, six feet four one way and four feet two the +other, was a regal spectacle, and it will be many years before the +town will see his like again. + +The colonel walked over to the post-office box and got his mail, then +took a backless chair and drew it up to the sand box in which the +stove sat, and the conversation became general in its nature, ranging +from Emerson's theory of the cosmos and the whiskey ring to the +efficacy of a potato in the pocket for rheumatism. Finally when they +had come to their "don't you remembers" about the battle of Wilson's +Creek, General Ward, with his long coat buttoned closely about him, +came shivering into the store to get some camphor gum and stood +rubbing his cold hands by the stove while the clerk was wrapping up +the package. His thin nose was red and his eyes watered, and he had +little to say. When he went out the colonel said, "What's he going to +run for this year?" + +"Haven't you heard?" replied McHurdie, and to the colonel's negative +Watts replied, "Governor--the uprising's going to nominate him." + +"Yes," said Frye, "and he'll go off following that foolishness and +leave his wife and children to John or the neighbours." + +"Do you suppose he thinks he'll win?" asked the Colonel. + +"Naw," put in McHurdie; "I was talking to him only last week in the +shop, and he says, 'Watts, you boys don't understand me.' He says, 'I +don't want their offices. What I want is to make them think. I'm +sowing seed. Some day it will come to a harvest--maybe long after I'm +dead and gone.' I asked him if a little seed wouldn't help out some +for breakfast, and he didn't answer. Then he said: 'Watts--what you +need is faith--faith in God and not in money. There are no +Christians; they don't believe in God, or they'd trust Him more. They +don't trust God; they trust money. Yet I tell you it will work. Go +ahead--do your work in the world, and you won't starve nor your +children beg in the streets.'" McHurdie stopped a moment to gnaw his +plug of tobacco. "The general's gitting kind of a crank--and I told +him so." + +"What did he say?" inquired the colonel. + +"Oh, he just laughed," replied McHurdie; "he just laughed and said if +he was a crank I was a poet, and neither was much good at the note +window of the bank, and we kind of made it up." + +And so the winter evening grew old, and one by one the cronies rose +and yawned and went their way. Evening after evening went thus, and +was it strange that in the years that came, when the sunset of life +was gilding things for Watts McHurdie, he looked through the golden +haze and saw not the sand in the pit under the stove, not the rows of +drugs on the wall, not the patent medicine bottles in their faded +wrappers, but as he wrote many years after in "Autumn Musing":-- + + "Those nights when Wisdom was our guide + And Friendship was the glow, + That warmed our souls like living coals, + Those nights of long ago." + +Nor is it strange that Martin Culpepper, his commentator, conning +those lines through the snows of many winters, should be a little +misty as to details, and having taken his pen in hand to write, should +set down this note:-- + +"These lines probably refer to the evenings which the poet passed in a +goodly company of choice spirits during the early seventies. E'en as I +write, Memory, with tender hand, pushes back the sombre curtain, and I +see them now--that charmed circle; the poet with the brow of Jove and +Minerva's lips; the rugged warrior at his side, with the dignity of +Mars himself; perhaps some Croesus with his gold, drawn by the spell +of Wisdom's enchantment into the magic circle; and this your humble +disciple of Thucydides, sitting spellbound under the drippings of the +sacred font, getting the material for these pages. That was the Golden +Age; there were giants in those days." + +And so there were, Colonel Martin Culpepper of the Great Heart and the +"large white plumes"--so there were. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +It was a cold raw day in March, 1874. Colonel Culpepper was sitting in +the office of Ward and Barclay over the Exchange National Bank waiting +for the junior member of the firm to come in; the senior member of the +firm, who had just brought up an arm load of green hickory and dry +hackberry stove wood, was standing beside the box-shaped stove, +abstractedly brushing the sawdust and wormwood from his sleeves and +coat front. The colonel was whistling and whittling, and the general +kept on brushing after the last speck of dust had gone from his shiny +coat. He walked to the window and stared into the ugly brown street. + +Two or three minutes passed, and Colonel Culpepper, anxious for the +society of his kind, spoke. "Well, General, what's the trouble?" + +"Nothing in particular, Martin. I was just questioning the reality of +matter and the existence of the universe as you spoke; but it's not +important." The general shivered, and turned his kind blue eyes on his +friend in a smile, and then bethought him to put the wood in the +stove. + +While he was jamming in a final stick, Colonel Culpepper inquired, +"Well, am I an appearance or an entity?" + +The general put the smoking poker on the floor, and turned the damper +in the pipe as he answered: "That's what I can't seem to make out. You +know old Emerson says a man doesn't amount to much as a thinker until +he has doubted the existence of matter. And I just got to thinking +about it, and wondering if this was a real world after all--or just +my idea of one." The two men smiled at the notion, and Ward went on: +"All right, laugh if you want to, but if this is a real world, whose +world is it, your world or my world? Here is John Barclay, for +instance. Sometimes I get a peek at his world." Ward picked up the +poker and sat down and hammered the toe of a boot with it as he went +on: "John's world is the Golden Belt Wheat Company, wheat pouring a +steady stream into boundless bins, and money flowing in golden ripples +over it all. Sometimes Bob Hendricks' head rises above the tide long +enough to gasp or cry for help and beg to come home, but John's golden +flood sweeps over him again, and he's gone. And here's your world, +Martin, wherein every one is kind and careless, and generous and good, +and full of smiles and gayety. And there's Lige Bemis' world, full of +cunning and hypocrisy, and meanness and treachery and plotting--a +hell of a world it is, with its foundations on hate and deceit--but +it's his world, and he has the same right to it that I have to mine. +And there's old Watts' world--" The general sighted along the poker +over his toe to the stove side whereon a cornucopia wriggled out of +nothing and poured its richness of fruit and grain into nothing. +"There's Watts' world, full of stuffed Personifications, Virtue, +Pleasure, Happiness, Sin, Sorrow, and God knows what of demigods, with +the hay of his philosophy sticking out of their eyeholes. You know +about his maxims, Mart; he actually lives by 'em, and no matter how +common sense yells at him to get off the track, old Watts just goes on +following his maxims, and gets butted into the middle of next week." + +The colonel was making a hole in the stick in his hands, and his +attention was fixed on the whittling, but he added, "And your own +world, General--how about your own world?" + +"My world," replied the general, as he pulled at the bows of his +rather soiled white tie, and evened them, "My world--" the general +jabbed the poker spear-like into the floor, "I guess I'm a kind of a +transcendentalist!" + +The colonel blew the chips through the hole in his stick; he bored it +round in the pause that followed before he spoke. + +"A transcendentalist, eh? Well, pintedly, General, that is what I may +call a soft impeachment, as the poet says--a mighty soft impeachment. +I've heard you called a lot worse names than that--and I may say," +here the crow's-feet began scratching for a smile around the colonel's +eyes, "proved, sir, with you as the prosecuting witness." + +The two men chuckled. Then the general, balancing himself, with the +poker point on the floor, as he tilted back went on: "My world, Mart +Culpepper, is a world in which the ideal is real--a world in a state +of flux with thoughts of to-day the matter of to-morrow; my world is a +world of faith that God will crystallize to-day's aspirations into +to-morrow's justice; my world," the general rose and waved his poker +as if to beat down the forces of materialism about him, "my world is +the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not +seen." He paused. "As I was saying," he continued at last, "if this is +a real world, if matter actually exists and this world is not a dream +of my consciousness, whose world is it, my world, your world, Watts +McHurdie's world, Lige's world, or John's world? It can't be all of +'em." He put the poker across the stove hearth, and sank his hands +deeply into his pockets as he continued: "The question that philosophy +never has answered is this: Am I a spectre and you an essence, or are +you a spectre and am I an essence? Is it your world or mine?" + +The two men looked instinctively at the rattling doorknob, and John +Barclay limped into the room. His face was red with the cold and the +driving mist. He walked to the stove and unbuttoned his ulster, while +the colonel put the subject of the debate before him. The general +amended the colonel's statement from time to time, but the young man +only smiled tolerantly and shook his head. Then he went to his desk +and pulled a letter from a drawer. + +"Colonel, I've got a letter here from Bob. The thing doesn't seem to +be moving. He only sold about a thousand dollars' worth of stock last +month--a falling off of forty per cent, and we must have more or we +can't take up our leases. He's begging like a dog to come home for a +week, but I can't let him. We need that week." He limped over to the +elder and put his hand on the tall man's arm as he said: "Now, +Colonel, that was what I sent for you about. You kind of speak to +Molly and have her write him and tell him to hold on a little while. +It's business, you know, and we can't afford to have sentiment +interfere with business." + +The colonel, standing by the window, replied, after a pause: "I can +see where you are right, John. Business is business. You got to +consider that." He looked into the street below and saw General +Hendricks come shuddering into the cold wind. "How's he getting on?" +asked Culpepper, nodding towards Hendricks, who seemed unequal to the +gale. + +"Oh, I don't know, Colonel,--times are hard." + +"My, how he's aging!" said the colonel, softly. + +After a silence Barclay said: "There's one thing sure--I've got it +into his hard old head that Bob is doing something back there, and he +couldn't earn his salt here. Besides," added Barclay, as if to justify +himself against an accusing conscience, "the old man does all the work +in the bank now, with time to spare." + +It was the day of army overcoats, and the hard times had brought +hundreds of them from closets and trunks. General Hendricks, +fluttering down the street in his faded blue, made a rather pathetic +figure. The winter had whitened his hair and withered his ruddy face. +His unequal struggle with the wind seemed some way symbolical of his +life, and the two men watched him out of sight without a word. The +colonel turned toward his own blue overcoat which lay sprawling in a +chair, and Barclay said as he helped the elder man squeeze into it, +"Don't forget to speak to Molly, Colonel," and then ushered him to the +door. For a moment Colonel Culpepper stood at the bottom of the +stairs, partly hesitating to go into the windy street, and partly +trying to think of some way in which he could get the subject on his +mind before his daughter in the right way. Then as he stood on the +threshold with his nose in the storm, he recalled General Ward's +discourse about the different worlds, and he thought of Molly's world +of lovers' madness, and that brought up his own youth and its +day-dreams, and Molly flew out of his mind and her mother came in, and +he saw her blue-eyed and fair as she stood before him on their +wedding-day. With that picture in his heart he breasted the storm and +went home whistling cheerfully, walking through his world like a +prince. + +When the colonel left the office of Ward and Barclay, the partners +retired into their respective worlds and went sailing through space, +each world upon its own axis. The general in a desultory way began +writing letters to reformers urging them to prepare for the coming +struggle; but John was head over heels in the business of the Golden +Belt Wheat Company, and in an hour had covered two sheets of foolscap +with figures and had written a dozen letters. The scratch, scratch of +his pen was as regular as the swish of a piston. On the other hand, +the general often stopped and looked off into space, and three times +he got up to mend the fire. At the end of the afternoon Mrs. Ward came +in, her cheeks pink with the cold; she had left the seven-year-old to +care for the one-year-old, and the five-year-old to look after the +three-year-old, and had come scurrying through the streets in a brown +alpaca dress with a waterproof cape over her shoulders. She and the +general spoke for a few moments in their corner, and she hurried out +again. The general finished the letter he was writing and wrote +another, and then backed up to the stove with his coat tails in front +of him and stood benignly watching Barclay work. Barclay felt the +man's attention, and whirling about in his chair licking an envelope +flap, he said, "Well, General--what's on your mind?" + +"I was just thinking of Lucy--that's all," replied the general. +Barclay knew that the Wards had gone through the winter on less than +one hundred dollars, and it occurred to the younger man that times +might be rather hard in the Ward household. So he asked, "Are you +worried about money matters, General?" + +The general's smile broadened to a grin. "Well, to be exact, Lucy and +I just counted cash--it's in her pocketbook, and we find our total +cash assets are eight dollars and thirty-nine cents, and it's got to +tide us over till grass." He stroked his lean chin, and ran his hands +through his iron-gray hair and went on, "That's plenty, the way we've +figured it out--Lucy and I only eat one meal a day anyway, and the +children seem to eat all the time and that averages it up." He smiled +deprecatingly and added: "But Lucy's got her heart set on a little +matter, and we've decided to spend eighty-seven cents, as you might +say riotously, and get it. That's what we were talking about." + +Barclay entered into the spirit of Ward's remarks and put in: "But the +National debt, General--if you have all that money to spare, why +don't you pay it off? Practise what you preach, General." + +The smile faded from Ward's face. He was not a man to joke on what he +regarded as sacred things. He replied: "Yes, yes, that's just it. My +share of the interest on that debt this winter was just seventy-five +cents, and if it wasn't for that, we would have had enough to get +them; as it is, we are going to cut out meat for a week--we figured +it all out just now--and get them anyway. She's down at the store +buying them." + +"Buying what?" asked Barclay. + +The general's face lighted up again with a grin, and he replied: "Now +laugh--dog-gone you--buying flower seeds!" They heard a step at the +bottom of the stairs, and the general strode to the door, opened it, +and called down, "All right, Lucy--I'm coming," and buttoning up his +coat, he whisked himself from the room, and Barclay, looking out of +the window, watched the two forms as they disappeared in the dusk. But +appearances are so deceptive. The truth is that what he saw was not +there at all, but only appeared on his retina; the two forms that he +seemed to see were not shivering through the twilight, but were +walking among dahlias and coxcombs and four-o'clocks and petunias and +poppies and hollyhocks on a wide lawn whereon newly set elm trees were +fluttering their faint green foliage in the summer breeze. Yet John +Barclay would have sworn he saw them there in the cold street, with +the mist beating upon them, and curiously corroborative of this +impression is a memory he retained of reflecting that since the +general's blue overcoat had disappeared the winter before, he had +noticed that little Thayer had a blue Sunday suit and little Elizabeth +Cady Stanton had appeared wrapped in a blue baby coat. But that only +shows how these matter-of-fact people are fooled. For though the +little Wards were caparisoned in blue, and though the general's blue +overcoat did disappear about that time, the general and Lucy Ward have +no recollection of shivering home that night, but instead they know +that they walked among the flowers. + +And John, looking into the darkening street, must have seen something +besides the commonplace couple that he thought he saw; for as he +turned away to light his lamp and go to work again, he smiled. Surely +there was nothing to smile at in the thing he saw. Perhaps God was +trying to make him see the flowers. But he did not see them, and as it +was nearly an hour before six o'clock, he turned to his work under the +lamp and finished his letter to Bob Hendricks. When it was written, he +read it over carefully, crossing his "t's" and dotting his "i's," and +as no one was in the room he mumbled it aloud, thus:-- + + "DEAR BOB:--Don't get blue; it will be all right. Stick to it. I am + laying a wire that will get you an audience with Jay Gould. Make the + talk of your life there. You may be able to interest him--if just + for a few dollars. Offer him anything. Give him the stock if he will + let us use his name. + + "Don't get uneasy about Molly, Bob. Jane and I see that she goes to + everything, and we've scared her up a kind of brevet beau--an old + rooster named Brownwell--Adrian Pericles Brownwell, who has blown in + here and bought the _Banner_ from Ezra Lane. Brownwell is from + Alabama. Do you remember, Bob, that day at Wilson's Creek after we + got separated in the Battle I ran into a pile of cavalry writhing in + a road? Well, there was one face in that awful struggling mass that + I always remembered--and I never expect to see such a look of fear + on a man's face again--he was a young fellow then, but now he's + thirty-five or so. Well--that was this man Brownwell. I asked him + about it the other day. How he ever got out alive, I don't know; but + the fact that he should turn up here proves that this is a small + world. Brownwell also is a writer from Writersville. You should see + the way he paints the lily in the _Banner_ every week. You remember + old Cap Lee--J. Lord Lee of the Red Legs--and Lady Lee, as they + called her when she was a sagebrush siren with the 'Army of the + Border' before the War? Well, read this clipping from the _Banner_ + of this week: 'The wealth, beauty, and fashion of Minneola--fairest + village of the plain--were agog this week over the birth of a + daughter to Lord and Lady Lee, whose prominence in our social + circles makes the event one of first importance in our week's + annals. Little Beatrix, for so they have decided to christen her, + will some day be a notable addition to our refined and gracious + circles. Welcome to you, little stranger.' + + "Now you know the man! You needn't be jealous of him. However, he + has frozen to the Culpeppers because they are from the South, and + clearly he thinks they are the only persons of consequence in town. + So he beaus Molly around with Jane and me to the concerts and + sociables and things. He is easily thirty-five, walks with a cane, + struts like a peacock, and Molly and Jane are having great sport + with him. Also he is the only man in town with any money. He brought + five thousand dollars in gold, real money,--his people made it on + contraband cotton contracts during the War, they say,--and he has + been the only visible means of support the town has had for three + months. But in the meantime don't worry about Molly, Bob, she's all + right, and business is business, you know, and you shouldn't let + such things interfere with it. But in another six months we'll be + out of the woods and on our way to big money." + +Now another strange thing happened to John Barclay that evening, and +this time it was what he saw, not what he failed to see, that puzzled +him. For just as he sealed the letter to his friend, and thumped his +lean fist on it to blot the address on the envelope and press the +mucilage down, he looked around suddenly, though he never knew why, +and there, just outside the rim of light from his lampshade, trembled +the image of Ellen Culpepper with her red and black checked flannel +dress at her shoe tops and his rubber button ring upon her finger. She +smiled at him sweetly for a moment and shook her head sadly, and her +curls fluttered upon her shoulders, and then she seemed to fade into +the general's desk by the opposite wall. John was pallid and +frightened for a moment; then as he looked at the great pile of +letters before him he realized how tired and worn he was. But the face +and the eyes haunted him and brought back old memories, and that night +he and Jane and Molly Culpepper went to Hendricks', and he played the +piano for an hour in the firelight, and dreamed old dreams. And his +hands fell into the chords of a song that he sang as a boy, and Molly +came from the fire and stood beside him while they hummed the words in +a low duet:-- + + "Let me believe that you love as you loved + Long, long ago--long ago." + +But when he went out into the drizzling night, and he and Jane left +Molly at home, he stepped into the whirling yellow world of gold and +grain, and drafts and checks, and leases and mortgages, and Heaven +knows what of plots and schemes and plans. So he did not heed Jane +when she said, "Poor--poor little Molly," but replied as he latched +the Culpepper gate, "Oh, Molly'll be all right. You can't mix business +and pleasure, you know. Bob must stay." + +And when Molly went into the house, she found her mother waiting for +her. The colonel's courage had failed him. The mother took her +daughter's hand, and the two walked up the broad stairs together. + +"Molly," said the mother, as the girl listlessly went about her +preparations for bed, "don't grieve so about Bob. Father and John need +him there. It's business, you know." + +The daughter answered, "Yes, I know, but I'm so lonesome--so +lonesome." Then she sobbed, "You know he hasn't written for a whole +week, and I'm afraid--afraid!" + +When the paroxysm had passed, the mother said: "You know, my dear, +they need him there a little longer, and he wants to come back. Your +father told me that John sent word to-day that you must not let him +come." The girl's face looked the pain that struck her heart, and she +did not answer. "Molly dear," began the mother again, "can't you write +to Bob to-morrow and urge him to stay--for me? For all of us? It is +so much to us now--for a little while--to have Bob there, sending +back money for the company. I don't know what father would do if it +wasn't for the company--and John." + +The daughter held her mother's hand, and after gasping down a sob, +promised, and then as the sob kept tilting back in her throat, she +cried: "But oh, mother, it's such a big world--so wide, and I am so +afraid--so afraid of something--I don't know what--only that I'm +afraid." + +But the mother soothed her daughter, and they talked of other things +until she was quiet and drowsy. + +But when she went to sleep, she dreamed a strange dream. The next day +she could not untangle it, save that with her for hours as she went +about her duties was the odour of lilacs, and the face of her lover, +now a young eager face in pain, and then, by the miracle of dreams, +grown old, bald at the temples and brow, but fine and strong and +clean--like a boy's face. The face soon left her, but the smell of +the lilacs was in her heart for days--they were her lilacs, from the +bushes in the garden. As days and weeks passed, the dream blurred into +the gray of her humdrum life and was gone. And so that day and that +night dropped from time into eternity, and who knows of all the +millions of stars that swarmed the heavens, what ones held the +wandering souls of the simple people of that bleak Western town as +they lay on their pillows and dreamed. For if our waking hours are +passed in worlds so wide apart, who shall know where we walk in +dreams? + +It is thirty years and more now since John Barclay dreamed of himself +as the Wheat King of the Sycamore Valley, and in that thirty years he +had considerable time to reflect upon the reasons why pride always +goeth before destruction. And he figured it out that in his particular +case he was so deeply engrossed in the money he was going to make that +first year, that he did not study the simple problem of wheat-growing +as he should have studied it. In those days wheat-growing upon the +plains had not yet become the science it is to-day, and many Sycamore +Valley farmers planted their wheat in the fall, and failed to make it +pay, and many other Sycamore Valley farmers planted their wheat in the +spring, and failed, while many others succeeded. The land had not been +definitely staked off and set apart by experience as a winter wheat +country, and so the farmers operating under the Golden Belt Wheat +Company, in the spring of 1874, planted their wheat in March. + +That was a beautiful season on the plains. April rains came, and the +great fields glowed green under the mild spring sun. And Bob +Hendricks, collecting the money from his stock subscriptions, poured +it into the treasury of the company, and John Barclay spent the money +for seed and land and men to work the land, and so confident was he of +the success of the plan that he borrowed every dollar he could lay his +hands on, and got leases on more land and bought more seed and hired +more men, in the belief that during the summer Hendricks could sell +stock enough to pay back the loans. To Colonel Culpepper, Barclay gave +a block of five thousand dollars' worth of the stock as a bonus in +addition to his commission for his work in securing options, and the +colonel, feeling himself something of a capitalist, and being in funds +from the spring sale of lots in College Heights addition, invested in +new clothes, bought some farm products in Missouri, and went up and +down the earth proclaiming the glories of the Sycamore Valley, and in +May brought two car-loads of land seekers by stages and wagons and +buggies to Sycamore Ridge, and located them in Garrison County. And in +his mail when he came home he found a notice indicating that he had +overdrawn his account in the bank five hundred dollars, and that his +note was due for five hundred more on the second mortgage which he had +given the previous fall. + +For two days he was plunged in gloom, and Barclay, observing his +depression and worming out of the colonel the cause, persuaded General +Hendricks to put the overdraft and the second mortgage note into one +note for a thousand dollars plus the interest for sixty days until the +colonel could make a turn, and after that the colonel was happy again. +He forgot for a moment the responsibility of wealth and engaged +himself in the task of making the Memorial Day celebration in Sycamore +Ridge the greatest event in the history of the town. Though there were +only five soldiers' graves to decorate, the longest procession +Garrison County had ever known wound up the hill to the cemetery, and +Colonel Martin Culpepper in his red sash, with his Knights Templar hat +on, riding up and down the line on an iron-gray stallion, was easily +the most notable figure in the spectacle. Even General Hendricks, +revived by the pomp of the occasion, heading the troop of ten veterans +of the Mexican War, and General Ward, in his regimentals, were +inconsequential compared with the colonel. And his oration at the +graves, after the bugles had blown taps, kept the multitude in tears +for half an hour. John Barclay's address at the Opera House that +afternoon--the address on "The Soldier and the Scholar"--was so +completely overshadowed by the colonel's oratorical flight that Jane +teased her husband about the eclipse for a month, and never could make +him laugh. Moreover, the _Banner_ that week printed the colonel's +oration in full and referred to John's address as "a few sensible +remarks by Hon. John Barclay on the duty of scholarship in times of +peace." But here is the strange thing about it--those who read the +colonel's oration were not moved by it; the charm of the voice and the +spell of the tall, handsome, vigorous man and the emotion of the +occasion were needed to make the colonel's oratory move one. Still, +opinions differ even about so palpable a proposition as the ephemeral +nature of the colonel's oratory. For the _Banner_ that week pronounced +it one of the classic oratorical gems of American eloquence, and the +editor thereof brought a dozen copies of the paper under his arm when +he climbed the hill to Lincoln Avenue the following Sunday night, and +presented them to the women of the Culpepper household, whom he was +punctilious to call "the ladies," and he assured Miss Molly and +Mistress Culpepper--he was nice about those titles also--that their +father and husband had a great future before him in the forum. + +It may be well to pause here and present so punctilious a gentleman as +Adrian Pericles Brownwell to the reader somewhat more formally than he +has been introduced. For he will appear in this story many times. In +the first place he wore mustaches--chestnut-coloured mustaches--that +drooped rather gracefully from his lip to his jaw, and thence over his +coat lapels; in the second place he always wore gloves, and never was +without a flower in his long frock-coat; and thirdly he clicked his +cane on the sidewalk so regularly that his approach was heralded, and +the company was prepared for the coming of a serious, rather nervous, +fiery man, a stickler for his social dues; and finally in those days, +those sombre days of Sycamore Ridge after the panic of '73, when men +had to go to the post-office to get their ten-dollar bills changed, +Brownwell had the money to support the character he assumed. He had +come to the Ridge from the South,--from that part of the South that +carried its pistol in its hip pocket and made a large and serious +matter of its honour,--that was obvious; he had paid Ezra Lane two +thousand dollars for the _Banner_, that was a matter of record; and he +had marched with some grandeur into General Hendricks' bank one +Saturday and had clinked out five thousand dollars in gold on the +marble slab at the teller's window, and that was a matter attested to +by a crowd of witnesses. Watts McHurdie used to say that more people +saw that deposit than could be packed into the front room of the bank +with a collar stuffer. + +But why Adrian Brownwell had come to the Ridge, and where he had made +his money--there myth and fable enter into the composition of the +narrative, and one man's opinion is as good as another's. Curiously +enough, all who testify claim that they speak by the authority of Mr. +Brownwell himself. But he was a versatile and obliging gentleman +withal, so it is not unlikely that all those who assembled him from +the uttermost parts of the earth into Sycamore Ridge for all the +reasons in the longer catechism, were telling the simple truth as they +have reason to believe it. What men know of a certainty is that he +came, that he hired the bridal chamber of the Thayer House for a year, +and that he contested John Barclay's right to be known as the glass of +fashion and the mould of form in Garrison County for thirty long +years, and then--but that is looking in the back of the book, which +is manifestly unfair. + +It is enough to know now that on that Sunday evening after Memorial +Day, in 1874, Adrian P. Brownwell sat on the veranda of the Culpepper +home slapping his lavender gloves on his knee by way of emphasis, and +told the company what he told General Beauregard and what General +Beauregard told him, at the battle of Shiloh; also what his maternal +grandfather, Governor Papin, had said to General Jackson, when his +grandmother, then Mademoiselle Dulangpré, youngest daughter of the +refugee duke of that house, had volunteered to nurse the American +soldiers in Jackson's hospital after the battle of New Orleans; also, +and with detail, what his father, Congressman Brownwell, had said on +the capitol steps in December, 1860, before leaving for Washington to +resign his seat in Congress; and also with much greater detail he +recounted the size of his ancestral domain, the number of the +ancestral slaves and the royal state of the ancestral household, and +then with a grand wave of his gloves, and a shrug of which Madam Papin +might well have been proud, "But 'tis all over; and we are +brothers--one country, one flag, one God, one very kind but very busy +God!" And he smiled so graciously through his great mustaches, showing +his fine even teeth, that Mrs. Culpepper, Methodist to the heart, +smiled back and was not so badly shocked as she knew she should have +been. + +"Is it not so?" he asked with his voice and his hands at once. "Ah," +he exclaimed, addressing Mrs. Culpepper dramatically, "what better +proof would you have of our brotherhood than our common bondage to +you? However dark the night of our national discord--to-day, North, +South, East, West, we bask in the sunrise of some woman's eyes." He +fluttered his gloves gayly toward Molly and continued:-- + + "'O when did morning ever break, + And find such beaming eyes awake.'" + +And so he rattled on, and the colonel had to poke his words into the +conversation in wedge-shaped queries, and Mrs. Culpepper, being in due +and proper awe of so much family and such apparent consequence, spoke +little and smiled many times. And if it was "Miss Molly" this and +"Miss Molly" that, when the colonel went into the house to lock the +back doors, and "Miss Molly" the other when Mrs. Culpepper went in to +open the west bedroom windows; and even if it was "Miss Molly, shall +we go down town and refresh ourselves with a dish of ice-cream?" and +even if still further a full-grown man standing at the gate under the +May moon deftly nips a rose from Miss Molly's hair and holds the rose +in both hands to his lips as he bows a good night--what then? What +were roses made for and brown eyes and long lashes and moons and May +winds heavy with the odour of flowers and laden with the faint sounds +of distant herd bells tinkling upon the hills? For men are bold at +thirty-five, and maidens, the best and sweetest, truest, gentlest +maidens in all the world, are shy at twenty-one, and polite to their +elders and betters of thirty-five--even when those elders and betters +forget their years! + +As for Adrian P. Brownwell, he went about his daily task, editing the +_Banner_, making it as luscious and effulgent as a seed catalogue, +with rhetorical pictures about as florid and unconvincing. To him the +town was a veritable Troy--full of heroes and demigods, and +honourables and persons of nobility and quality. He used no adjective +of praise milder than superb, and on the other hand, Lige Bemis once +complained that the least offensive epithet he saw in the _Banner_ +tacked after his name for two years was miscreant. As for John +Barclay, he once told General Ward that a man could take five dollars +in to Brownwell and come out a statesman, a Croesus or a scholar, as +the exigencies of the case demanded, and for ten dollars he could +combine the three. + +Yet for all that Brownwell ever remained a man apart. No one thought +of calling him "Ade." Sooner would one nickname a gargoyle on a tin +cornice. So the editor of the _Banner_ never came close to the real +heart of Sycamore Ridge, and often for months at a time he did not +know what the people were thinking. And that summer when General +Hendricks was walking out of the bank every hour and looking from +under his thin, blue-veined hand at the strange cloud of insects +covering the sky, and when Martin Culpepper was predicting that the +plague of grasshoppers would leave the next day, and when John Barclay +was getting that deep vertical crease between his eyes that made him +look forty while he was still in his twenties, Adrian P. Brownwell was +chirping cheerfully in the _Banner_ about the "salubrious climate of +Garrison County," and writing articles about "our phenomenal prospects +for a bumper crop." And when in the middle of July the grasshoppers +had eaten the wheat to the ground and had left the corn stalks +stripped like beanpoles, and had devoured every green thing in their +path, the _Banner_ contained only a five-line item referring to the +plague and calling it a "most curious and unusual visitation." But +that summer the _Banner_ was filled with Brownwell's editorials on +"The Tonic Effect of the Prairie Ozone," "Turn the Rascals Out," "Our +Duty to the South," and "The Kingdom of Corn." As a writer Brownwell +was what is called "fluent" and "genial." And he was fond of copying +articles from the Topeka and Kansas City papers about himself, in +which he was referred to as "the gallant and urbane editor of the +_Banner_." + +But then we all have our weaknesses, and be it said to the everlasting +credit of Adrian Brownwell that he understood and appreciated Watts +McHurdie and Colonel Culpepper better than any other man in town, and +that he printed Watts' poems on all occasions, and never referred to +him as anything less than "our honoured townsman," or as "our talented +and distinguished fellow-citizen," and he never laughed at General +Ward. But the best he could do for John Barclay--even after John had +become one of the world's great captains--was to wave his gloves +resignedly and exclaim, "Industry, thy name is Barclay." And Barclay +in return seemed never to warm up to Brownwell. "Colonel," replied +John to some encomium of his old friend's upon the new editor, "I'll +say this much. Certainly your friend is a prosperous talker!" + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +The twenty-fifth of July, 1874, is a memorable day in the life of John +Barclay. For on that day the grasshoppers which had eaten off the +twenty thousand acres of wheat in the fields of the Golden Belt Wheat +Company, as though it had been cropped, rose and left the Missouri +Valley. They will never come back, for they are ploughed under in the +larva every year by the Colorado farmers who have invaded the plains +where once the "hoppers" had their nursery; but all this, even if he +had known it, would not have cheered up John that day. For he knew +that he owed one hundred and fifty thousand dollars to Eastern +stockholders of the company, and he had not a dollar to show for it. +He had expected to borrow the money needed for the harvesting in the +fall, and over and over and over again he had figured with paper and +pencil the amount of his debt, and again and again he had tried to +find some way to pay even the interest on the debt at six per cent, +which the bank had guaranteed. While the locusts were devouring the +vegetation, he walked the hemp carpet that ran diagonally across his +office, and chased phantom after phantom of hope that lured him up to +the rim of a solution of the problem, only to push him back into the +abyss. He walked with his hands deep in his trousers pockets and his +head down, and as General Ward was out organizing the farmers in a +revolt against the dominant party in the state, Barclay was alone most +of the time. The picture of that barren office, with its insurance +chromos, with its white, cobweb-marked walls, with its dirty floor +partly covered with an "X" of red-bordered hemp carpet reaching from +the middle to the four corners, the picture of the four tall unwashed +windows letting in the merciless afternoon sun to fade the grimy black +and white lithograph of William Lloyd Garrison above the general's +desk, never left John Barclay's memory. It was like a cell on a +prisoner's mind. + +As he paced the room that last day of the visit of the grasshoppers, +General Hendricks came in. His hair had whitened in the summer. The +panic and the plague of the locusts had literally wrung the sap out of +his nerves. Old age was pressing inexorably upon him, palsying his +hands on its rack, tripping his feet in its helpless mazes. His dimmed +eyes could see only ruin coming, coming slowly and steadily toward +him. In the panic, it came suddenly and inspired fight in him. But +this year there was something diabolical in its resistless approach. +So he shrank from his impending fate as a child trembles at some +unknown terror. But Barclay did not swerve. He knew the affairs of the +bank fairly well. He was a director who never signed the quarterly +statement without verifying every item for himself. He had dreaded the +general's visit, yet he knew that it must come, and he pulled toward +the general a big hickory chair. The old man sank into it and looked +helplessly into the drawn hard face of the younger man and sighed, +"Well, John?" + +Barclay stood before him a second and then walked down one arm of the +"X" of the carpet and back, and up another, and then turned to +Hendricks with: "Now, don't lose your nerve, General. You've got to +keep your nerve. That's about all the asset we've got now, I guess." + +The general replied weakly: "I--I, I--I guess you're right, John. I +suppose that's about it." + +"How do you figure it out, General?" asked Barclay, still walking the +carpet. + +The general fumbled for a paper in his pocket and handed it to +Barclay. He took it, glanced at it a moment, and then said: "I'm no +good at translating another man's figures--how is it in +short?--Right down to bed-rock?" + +Hendricks seemed to pull himself together and replied: "Well, +something like ten thousand in cash against seventy thousand in +deposits, and fifty thousand of that time deposits, due next October, +you know, on the year's agreement. Of the ten thousand cash, four +thousand belongs to Brownwell, and is on check, and you have two +thousand on check." + +"All right. Now, General, what do you owe?" + +"Well, you know that guarantee of your and Bob's business--that nine +thousand. It's due next week." + +"And it will gut you?" asked Barclay. + +The old man nodded and sighed. Barclay limped carefully all over his +"X," swinging himself on his heels at the turns; his mouth was +hardening, and his eyes were fixed on the old man without blinking as +he said: "General--that's got to come. If it busts you--it will save +us, and we can save you after. That has just absolutely got to be +paid, right on the dot." + +The old man could not have turned paler than he was when he entered +the room, but he rose halfway in his chair and shook his leonine head, +and then let his hands fall limply on his knees as he cried: "No--no, +John--I can't. I can't." + +Barclay put his hand on the back of the old man's chair, and he could +feel the firm hard grip of the boy through his whole frame. Then after +a moment's pause Barclay said: "General, I'm in earnest about that. +You will either mail those dividend certificates according to your +guarantee on the first, or as sure as there is a God in heaven I'll +see that you won't have a dollar in your bank on the night of the +second." + +The old man stood gasping. The eyes of the two men met. Barclay's were +bold and green and blazing. + +"Boy! Boy! Boy!--" the old man faltered. "Don't ruin me! Don't ruin +me--" he did not finish the sentence, but sank into his chair, and +dropped his face to his breast and repeated, "Don't, don't, don't," +feebly for a few times, without seeming to realize what he was saying. +From some outpost of his being reinforcements came. For he rose +suddenly, and shaking his haggard fist at the youth, exclaimed in a +high, furious, cracking voice as he panted and shook his great hairy +head: "No--by God, no, by God, no! You damned young cut-throat--you +can break my bank, but you can't bulldoze me. No, by God--no!" He +started to leave the room. Barclay caught the old man and swung him +into a chair. The flint that Barclay's nature needed had been struck. +His face was aglow as with an inspiration. + +"Listen, man, listen!" Barclay cried. "I'm not going to break your +bank, I'm trying to save it." He knew that the plan was ripe in his +head, and as he talked it out, something stood beside him and +marvelled at its perfection. As its inherent dishonesty revealed +itself, the old man's face flinched, but Barclay went on unfolding his +scheme. It required General Hendricks to break the law half a dozen +ways, and to hazard all of the bank's assets, and all of its cash. And +it required him to agree not to lend a dollar to any man in the county +except as he complied with the demands of the Golden Belt Wheat +Company and mortgaged his farm to Barclay. The plan that Barclay set +forth literally capitalized the famine that had followed the +grasshopper invasion, and sold the people their own need at Barclay's +price. Then for an hour the two men fought it out, and at the end +Barclay was saying: "I am glad you see it that way, and I believe, as +you do, that they will take it a little better if we also agree to pay +this year's taxes on the land they put under the mortgage. It would be +a great sweetener to some of them, and I can slip in an option to sell +the land to us outright as a kind of a joker in small type." His +brassy eyes were small and beady as his brain worked out the details +of his plan. He put his hands affectionately on General Hendricks' +shoulders as he added, "You mustn't forget to write to Bob, General; +hold him there whatever comes." + +At the foot of the stairs the two men could hear the heavy tread of +Colonel Culpepper. As Hendricks went down the stairs John heard the +colonel's "Mornin', General," as the two men passed in the hallway. + +"Mornin', Johnnie--how does your corporocity sagashiate this +mornin'?" asked the colonel. + +Barclay looked at the colonel through little beady green eyes and +replied,--he knew not what. He merely dipped an oar into the talk +occasionally, he did not steer it, and not until he emerged from his +calculations twenty minutes after the colonel's greeting did Barclay +realize that the colonel was in great pain. He was saying when +Barclay's mind took heed: "And now, sir, I say, now, having forced his +unwelcome and, I may say, filthy lucre upon me, the impudent scalawag +writes me to-day to say that I must liquidate, must--liquidate, sir; +in short, pay up. I call that impertinence. But no matter what I call +it, he's going to foreclose." Barclay's eyes opened to attention. The +colonel went on. "The original indebtedness was a matter of ten +thousand--you will remember, John, that's what I paid for my share of +the College Heights property, and while I have disposed of some,--in +point of fact sold it at considerable profit,--yet, as you know, and +as this scoundrel knows, for I have written him pointedly to that +effect, I have been temporarily unable to remit any sum substantial +enough to justify bothering him with it. But now the scamp, the +grasping insulting brigand, notifies me that unless I pay him when the +mortgage is due,--to be plain, sir, next week,--he proposes to +foreclose on me." + +The colonel's brows were knit with trouble. His voice faltered as he +added: "And, John--John Barclay, my good friend--do you realize that +that little piece of property out on the hill is all I have on earth +now, except the roof over my head? And may--" here his voice slid +into a tenor with pent-up emotion--"maybe the contemptible +rapscallion will try to get that." The colonel had risen and was +pacing the floor. "What a damn disreputable business your commerce is, +anyway! John, I can't afford to lose that property--or I'd be a +pauper, sir, a pauper peddling organs and sewing-machines and maybe +teaching singing-school." The colonel's face caught a rift of sunshine +as he added, "You know I did that once before I was married and came +West--taught singing-school." + +"Well, Colonel--let's see about it," said Barclay, absently. And the +two men sat at the table and figured up that the colonel's liabilities +were in the neighbourhood of twelve thousand, of which ten thousand +were pressing and the rest more or less imminent. At the end of their +conference, Barclay's mind was still full of his own affairs. But he +said, after looking a moment at the troubled face of the big +black-eyed man whose bulk towered above him, "Well, Colonel, I don't +know what under heavens I can do--but I'll do what I can." + +The colonel did not feel Barclay's abstraction. But the colonel's face +cleared like a child's, and he reached for the little man and hugged +him off his feet. Then the colonel broke out, "May the Lord, who +heedeth the sparrow's fall and protects all us poor blundering +children, bless you, John Barclay--bless you and all your household." +There were tears in his eyes as he waved a grand adieu at the door, +and he whistled "Gayly the Troubadour" as he tripped lightly down the +stairs. And in another moment the large white plumes were dancing in +his eyes again. This time they waved and beckoned toward a +subscription paper which the colonel had just drawn up when the +annoying letter came from Chicago, reminding him of his debt. The +paper was for the relief of a farmer whose house and stock had been +burned. The colonel brought from his hip pocket the carefully folded +sheet of foolscap which he had put away when duty called him to +Barclay. He paused at the bottom of the stair, backed the paper on the +wall, and wrote under the words setting forth the farmer's +destitution, "Martin Culpepper--twenty-five dollars." He stood a +moment in the stairway looking into the street; the day was fair and +beautiful; the grasshoppers were gone, and with them went all the +vegetation in the landscape; but the colonel in his nankeen trousers +and his plaited white shirt and white suspenders, under his white +Panama hat, felt only the influence of the genial air. So he drew out +the subscription paper again and erased the twenty-five dollars and +put down thirty-five dollars. Then as Oscar Fernald and Daniel Frye +came by with long faces the colonel hailed them. + +"Boys," he said, "fellow named Haskins down in Fairview, with nine +children and a sick wife, got burnt out last night, and I'm kind of +seeing if we can't get him some lumber and groceries and things. I +want you boys," the colonel saw the clouds gathering and smiled to +brush them away, "yes, I want you boys to give me ten dollars apiece." + +"Ten dollars!" cried Fernald. + +"Ten dollars!" echoed Frye. "My Lord, man, there isn't ten dollars in +cash between here and the Missouri River!" + +"But the man and his children will starve, and his wife will die of +neglect." + +"That's the Lord's affair--and yours, Mart," returned Fernald, as he +broke away from the colonel's grasp; "you and He brought them here." +Frye went with Oscar, and they left the colonel with his subscription +paper in his hand. He looked up and down the street and then drew a +long breath, and put the paper against the wall again and sighed as he +erased the thirty-five dollars and put down fifty dollars after his +name. Then he started for the bank to see General Hendricks. The large +white plumes were still dancing in his eyes. + +But so far as Barclay is concerned the colonel never reached the +bottom of the stairs, for Barclay had his desk covered with law-books +and was looking up contracts. In an hour he had a draft of a mortgage +and option to buy the mortgaged land written out, and was copying it +for the printer. He took it to the _Banner_ office and asked Brownwell +to put two men on the job, and to have the proof ready by the next +morning. + +Brownwell waved both hands magnificently and with much grace, and +said: "Mr. Barclay, we will put three men on the work, sir, and if you +will do me the honour, I will be pleased to bring the proof up Lincoln +Avenue to the home of our mutual friend, Colonel Culpepper, where you +may see it to-night." Barclay fancied that a complacent smile wreathed +Brownwell's face at the prospect of going to the Culpeppers', and the +next instant the man was saying: "Charming young lady, Miss Molly! Ah, +the ladies, the ladies--they will make fools of us. We can't resist +them." He shrugged and smirked and wiggled his fingers and played with +his mustaches. "Wine and women and song, you know--they get us all. +But as for me--no wine, no song--but--" he finished the sentence +with another flourish. + +Barclay did what he could to smile good-naturedly and assent in some +sort of way as he got out of the room. That night, going up the hill, +he said to Jane: "Brownwell is one of those fellows who regard all +women--all females is better, probably--as a form of vice. He's the +kind that coos like a pouter pigeon when he talks to a woman." + +Jane replied: "Yes, we women know them. They are always claiming that +men like you are not gallant!" She added, "You know, John, he's the +jealous, fiendish kind--with an animal's idea of honour." They walked +on in silence for a moment, and she pressed his arm to her side and +their eyes met in a smile. Then she said: "Doubtless some women like +that sort of thing, or it would perish, but I don't like to be treated +like a woman--a she-creature. I like to be thought of as a human +being with a soul." She shuddered and continued: "But the soul doesn't +enter even remotely into his scheme of things. We are just bodies." + +The Barclays did not stay late at the Culpeppers' that night, but took +the proofs at early bedtime and went down the hill. An hour later they +heard Molly Culpepper and Brownwell loitering along the sidewalk. +Brownwell was saying:-- + +"Ah, but you, Miss Molly, you are like the moon, for-- + + "'The moon looks on many brooks, + The brook can see no moon but this.' + +"And I--I am--" + +The Barclays did not hear what he was; however, they guessed, and they +guessed correctly--so far as that goes. But Molly Culpepper did hear +what he was and what he had been and what he would be, and the more +she parried him, the closer he came. There were times when he forgot +the "Miss" before the "Molly," and there were other times when she had +to slip her hand from his ever so deftly. And once when they were +walking over a smooth new wooden sidewalk coming home, he caught her +swiftly by the waist and began waltzing and humming "The Blue Danube." +And at the end of the smooth walk, she had to step distinctly away +from him to release his arm. But she was twenty-one, and one does not +always know how to do things at twenty-one--even when one intends to +do them, and intends strongly and earnestly--that one would do at +forty-one, and so as they stood under the Culpepper elm by the gate +that night,--under the elm, stripped gaunt and naked by the +locusts,--and the July moon traced the skeleton of the tree upon the +close-cropped sod, we must not blame Molly Culpepper too much even if +she let him, hold her hand a moment too long after he had kissed it a +formal good night; for twenty-one is not as strong as its instincts. +It is such a little while to learn all about a number of important +things in a big and often wicked world that when a little man or a +little woman, so new to this earth as twenty-one years, gets a finger +pinched in the ruthless machinery, it is a time for tears and +mothering and not for punishment. And so when Adrian Brownwell pulled +the little girl off her feet and kissed her and asked her to marry him +all in a second, and she could only struggle and cry "No, no!" and beg +him to let her go--it is not a time to frown, but instead a time to +go back to our twenty-ones and blush a little and sigh a little, and +maybe cry and lie a little, and in the end thank God for the angel He +sent to guard us, and if the angel slept--thank God still for the +charity that has come to us. + +The next day John Barclay had Colonel Martin Culpepper and Lige Bemis +in his office galvanizing them with his enthusiasm and coaching them +in their task. They were to promise three dollars an acre, August 15, +to every farmer who would put a mortgage on his land for six dollars +an acre. The other three dollars was to cover the amount paid by +Barclay as rent for the land the year before. They were also to offer +the landowner a dollar and a half an acre to plough and plant the land +by September 15, and another dollar to cultivate it ready for the +harvest, and the company was to pay the taxes on the land and furnish +the seed. Barclay had figured out the seed money from the sale of the +mortgages. The man was a dynamo of courage and determination, and he +charged the two men before him until they fairly prickled with the +scheme. He talked in short hard sentences, going over and over his +plan, drilling them to bear down on the hard times and that there +would be no other buyers or renters for the land, and to say that the +bank would not lend a dollar except in this way. Long after they had +left his office, Barclay's voice haunted them. His face was set and +his eyes steady and small, and the vertical wrinkle in his brow was as +firm as an old scar. He limped about the room quickly, but his strong +foot thumped the floor with a thud that punctuated his words. + +They left, and he sat down to write a letter to Bob Hendricks telling +him the plan. He had finished two pages when General Hendricks came in +a-tremble and breathless. The eyes of the two men met, and Hendricks +replied:-- + +"It's Brownwell--the fat's in the fire, John. Brownwell's going!" + +"Going--going where?" asked the man at the desk, blankly. + +"Going to leave town. He's been in and given notice that he wants his +money in gold day after to-morrow." + +"Well--well!" exclaimed Barclay, with his eyes staring dumbly at +nothing on the dingy white wall before him. "Well--don't that beat +the Jews? Going to leave town!" He pulled himself together and gripped +his chair as he said, "Not by a damn sight he ain't. He's going to +stay right here and sweat it out. We need that four thousand dollars +in our business. No, you don't, Mr. Man--" he addressed a +hypothetical Brownwell. "You're roped and tied and bucked and gagged, +and you stay here." Then he said, "You go on over to the bank, +General, and I'll take care of Brownwell." Barclay literally shoved +the older man to the door. As he opened it he said, "Send me up a boy +if you see one on the street." + +In ten minutes Brownwell was running up the stairs to Barclay's office +in response to his note. He brought a copy of the mortgage with, him, +and laid it before Barclay, who went over it critically. He found a +few errors and marked them, and holding it in his hands turned to the +editor. + +"Hendricks says you are going to leave town. Why?" asked Barclay, +bluntly. He had discovered even that early in life that a circuitous +man is generally knocked off his guard by a rush. Brown well blinked +and sputtered a second or two, scrambling to his equilibrium. Before +he could parry Barclay assaulted him again with: "Starving to death, +eh? Lost your grip--going back to Alabama with the banjo on your +knee, are you?" + +"No, sir--no, sir, you are entirely wrong, sir--entirely wrong, and +scarcely more polite, either." Brown well paused a minute and added: +"Business is entirely satisfactory, sir--entirely so. It is another +matter." He hesitated a moment and added, with the ghost of a smirk, +"A matter of sentiment--for-- + + "'The heart that is soonest awake to the flowers, + Is always the first to be touched by the thorns.'" + +Brownwell sat there flipping his gloves, exasperatingly; Barclay +screwed up his eyes, put his head on one side, and suddenly a flash +came into his face and he exclaimed, "Come off, you don't mean +it--not Molly!" + +The rejected one inclined his head. Barclay was about to laugh, but +instead he said, "Well, you are not a quitter; why don't you go ahead +and get her?" He glanced instinctively at his letter to Bob Hendricks, +and as if to shield what he was going to say, put a paper over the +page, and then the seriousness of the situation came over him. "You +know women; cheer up, man--try again. Stick to it--you'll win," +cried Barclay. The fool might go for so small a reason. It was no time +for ribaldry. "Let me tell you something," he went on. His eyes opened +again with a steady ruthless purpose in them, that the man before him +was too intent on his own pose to see. Barclay put a weight upon the +white sheet of paper that he had spread over his letter to Bob +Hendricks and then went on. "Say, Brownwell, let me tell you +something. This town is right in the balance; you can help." Something +seemed to hold Barclay back, but he took the plunge. "You can stay +here and help. We need men like you." Then he took a blind shot in the +dark before going on--perhaps to give himself another chance. "Have +you got any more of that buried money--I mean more than you gave +General Hendricks--the kind that you dug up after the war and +scratched the mould off the eagles?" + +Brownwell flushed and replied, as he put one hand in his coat and the +other, with his stick and hat and gloves, behind him: "That is my +affair, sir. However, I will say that I have." + +"I thought so," retorted Barclay. "Now look here, bring it to the +Ridge. Here's the place to invest it and now's the everlasting time. +You jump in here and help us out, help build up the town, and there's +nothing too good for you." Barclay was ready for it now. He did not +flinch, but went on: "Also here's your chance to help Colonel +Culpepper. He's to be closed out, and ten thousand would save him. You +know the kind of a man the colonel is. Stay with the game, Mr. Man, +stay with the game." He saw Brownwell's eyes twitch. Barclay knew he +had won. He added slowly, "You understand?" + +Brownwell smiled benignly. Barclay looked nervously at the unfinished +letter on the table. Brownwell waved his arms again dramatically, and +replied: "Ah, thank you--thank you. I shall play my hand out--and +hearts are trumps--are they not?" And he went out almost dancing for +joy. + +When the man was gone Barclay shuddered; his contempt for Brownwell +was one of the things he prided himself on, and the intrigue revolted +him. He stood a moment at the window looking into the street absently. +He became conscious that some one was smiling at him on the crossing +below. Then automatically he heard himself say, "Oh, Molly, can you +run up a minute?" And a moment later she was in the room. She was a +bewitching little body in her wide skirts and her pancake of a hat +with a feather in it as she sat there looking at her toes that +morning, with her bright eyes flashing up into his like rockets. But +there were lines under the eyes, and the rims of the eyelids were +almost red--as red as pretty eyelids ever may be. Barclay went right +to the midst of the matter at once. He did not patronize her, but told +her in detail just the situation--how the Golden Belt Wheat Company's +interest must be met by the bank under its guarantee, or Bob and his +father would be worse than bankrupts, they would be criminals. He put +Bob always in the foreground. Barclay unfolded to her all the plans +for going ahead with the work, and he told her what they were doing +for her father by giving him employment. He marched straight up to the +matter in hand without flinching. + +"Molly," he began without batting his eyes, "here is where you come +in. That fellow Brownwell was up here this morning. Oh, you needn't +shiver--I know all about it. You had the honour of refusing him last +night." To her astonished, hurt face he paid no heed, but went on: +"Now he's going to leave town on account of you and pull out four +thousand dollars he's got in the bank. If he does that, we can't pay +our guarantee. You've got to call him back." She flared up as if to +stop him, but he went on: "Oh, I know, Molly Culpepper--but this is +no game of London Bridge. It's bad enough, but it's business--cold +clammy business, and sometimes we have to do things in this world for +the larger good. That roan simply can't leave this town and you must +bold him. It's ruin and perhaps prison to Bob and his father if he +goes; and as for your own father and mother--it makes them paupers, +Molly. There's no other way out of it." He paused a moment. + +The girl's face blanched, and she looked at the floor and spoke, "And +Bob--when can he come back?" + +"I don't know, Molly--but not now--he never was needed there as he +is now. It's a life-and-death matter, Molly Culpepper, with every +creature on earth that's nearest and dearest to you--it makes or +breaks us. It's a miserable business, I know well--but your duty is +to act for the larger good. You can't afford to send Bob to jail and +your people to the poorhouse just because--" + +The girl looked up piteously and then cried out: "Oh, John--don't, +don't--I can't. It's awful, John--I can't." + +"But, Molly," he replied as gently as he could, "you must. You can't +afford to be squeamish about this business. This is a woman's job, +Molly, not a child's." + +She rose and looked at him a fleeting moment as if in search of some +mercy in his face. Then she looked away. He stood beside her, barring +her way to the door. "But you'll try, Molly, won't you--you'll try?" +he cried. She looked at him again with begging eyes and stepped around +him, and said breathlessly as she reached the door: "Oh, I don't know, +John--I don't know. I must think about it." + +She felt her way down the stairs, and stopped a minute to compose +herself before she crossed the street and walked wearily up the hill. + +That night at supper Colonel Culpepper addressed the assembled family +expansively. "The ravens, my dears, the ravens. Behold Elijah fed by +the sacred birds. By Adrian P. Brownwell, to be exact. This morning I +went down town with the sheriff selling the roof over our heads. This +afternoon who should come to me soliciting the pleasure of lending, me +money--who, I say, but Adrian P. Brownwell?" + +"Well, I hope you didn't keep him standing," put in Buchanan. + +"My son," responded the colonel, as he whetted the carving knife on +the steel--a form which was used more for rhetorical effect than, +culinary necessity, as there were pork chops on the platter, "my son, +no true gentleman will rebuke another who is trying to lend him money. +Always remember that." And the colonel's great body shook with +merriment, as he proceeded to fill up the plates. But one plate went +from the table untouched, and Molly Culpepper went about her work with +a leaden heart. For the world had become a horrible phantasm to her, a +place of longing and of heartache, a place of temptation and trial, +lying under the shadow of tragedy. And whose world was it that night, +as she sat chattering with her father and the man she feared, whose +world was it that night, if this is a real world, and not the shadow +of a dream? Was it the colonel's gay world, or John's golden world, or +Ward's harmonious world, or poor little Molly's world--all askew with +miserable duties and racking heartaches, and grinning sneering fears, +with the relentless image of the Larger Good always before her? Surely +it was not all their worlds, for there is only one world. Then whose +was it? God who made it and set it in the heavens in His great love +and mercy only knows. Watts McHurdie once wrote some query like this, +and the whole town smiled at his fancy. In that portion of his +"Complete Poetical and Philosophical Works" called "Fragments" occur +these lines:-- + + "The wise men say + This world spins 'round the universe of which it is a part; + But anyway-- + The only world I know about is spun from out my heart." + +And perhaps Watts, sewing away in his harness shop, had deciphered one +letter in the riddle of the Sphinx. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +"If I ever get to be a Turk or anything like that," said Watts +McHurdie, in October, two months after the events recorded in the last +chapter had occurred, as he sat astraddle of his bench, sewing on a +bridle, "I'm going to have one red-headed wife--but not much more'n +one." + +Colonel Culpepper dropped a "Why?" into the reflections of the poet. + +Watts replied, "Oh, just to complete the set!" + +The colonel did not answer and Watts chuckled: "I figure out that +women are a study. You learn this one and pat yourself on the +breast-bone and say, 'Behold me, I'm on to women.' But you ain't. +Another comes along and you have to begin at the beginning and learn +'em all over. I wonder if Solomon who had a thousand--more or +less--got all his wisdom from them." + +The colonel shook his head, and said sententiously, "Watts--they +hain't a blame thing in it--not a blame thing." The creaking of the +treadle on Watt's bench slit the silence for a few moments, and the +colonel went on: "There can be educated fools about women, Watts +McHurdie, just as there are educated fools about books. There's +nothing in your theory of a liberal education in women. On the +contrary, in all matters relating to and touching on affairs of the +heart--beware of the man with one wife." + +McHurdie flashed his yellow-toothed smile upon his friend and replied, +"Or less than one?" + +"No, sir, just one," answered Colonel Culpepper. "A man with a raft of +wives, first and last, is like a fellow with good luck--the Lord +never gives him anything else. And I may say in point of fact, that +the man with no wife is like a man with bad luck--the Lord never +gives him anything else, either!" The colonel slapped his right hand +on his knee and exclaimed: "Watts McHurdie--what's the matter with +you, man? Don't you see Nellie's all ready and waitin'--just fairly +honin', and longin', I may say, for a home and a place to begin to +live?" + +McHurdie gave his treadle a jam and swayed forward over his work and +answered, "Marry in haste--repent at leisure." + +But nevertheless that night Watts sat with Nellie Logan on the front +porch of the Wards' house, watching the rising harvest moon, while +Mrs. Ward, inside, was singing to her baby. Nellie Logan roomed with +the Wards, and was bookkeeper in Dorman's store. It was nearly ten +o'clock and the man rose to go. "Well," he said, and hesitated a +moment, "well, Nellie, I suppose you're still waiting?" It was a +question rather than an assertion. + +The woman put her hands gently on the man's arms and sighed. "I just +can't--not yet, Watts." + +"Well, I thought maybe you'd changed your mind." He smiled as he +continued, "You know they say women do change sometimes." + +She looked down at him sadly. "Yes, I know they do, but some way I +don't." + +There was a long pause while Watts screwed up his courage to say, +"Still kind of thinking about that preacher?" + +The woman had no animation in her voice as she replied, "You know that +by now--without asking." + +The man sat down on the step, and she sat on a lower step. He was +silent for a time. Then he said, "Funny, ain't it?" She knew she was +not to reply; for in a dozen years she had learned the man's moods. In +a minute, during which he looked into his hat absent-mindedly, he went +on: "As far as I've been able to make it out, love's a kind of a +grand-right-and-left. I give my right hand to you, and you give yours +to the preacher, and he gives his to some other girl, and she gives +hers to some one else, like as not, who gives his to some one else, +and the fiddle and the horn and the piano and the bass fid screech and +toot and howl, and away we go and sigh under our breaths and break our +hearts and swing our partners, and it's everybody dance." He looked up +at her and smiled at his fancy. For he was a poet and thought his +remarks had some artistic value. + +She smiled back at him, and he leaned on his elbows and looked up at +her as he said quietly: "I'd like awful well, Nellie--awful well if +you'd be my partner for the rest of this dance. It's lonesome down +there in the shop." + +The woman patted his hand, and they sat quietly for a while and then +she said, "Maybe sometime, Watts, but not to-night." + +He got up, and stood for a moment beside her on the walk. "Well," he +said at length, "I suppose I must be moving along--as the wandering +Jew said." He smiled and their eyes met in the moonlight. Watts +dropped his instantly, and exclaimed, "You're a terrible handsome +girl, Nellie--? did you know it?" He repeated it and added, "And the +Lord knows I love you, Nellie, and I've said it a thousand times." He +found her hand again, and said as he put on his hat, "Well, good-by, +Nellie--good-by--if you call that gone." His handclasp tightened and +hers responded, and then he dropped her hand and turned away. + +The woman felt a desire to scream; she never knew how she choked her +desire. But she rushed after him and caught him tightly and sobbed, +"Oh, Watts--Watts--Watts McHurdie--are you never going to have any +more snap in you than that?" + +As he kicked away the earth from under him, Watts McHurdie saw the +light in a window of the Culpepper home, and when he came down to +earth again five minutes later, he said, "Well, I was just a-thinking +how nice it would be to go over to Culpeppers' and kind of tell them +the news!" + +"They'll have news of their own pretty soon, I expect," replied +Nellie. And to Watts' blank look she replied: "The way that man +Brownwell keeps shining around. He was there four nights last week, +and he's been there two this week already. I don't see what Molly +Culpepper can be thinking of." + +So they deferred the visit to the Culpeppers', and in due time Watts +McHurdie flitted down Lincoln Avenue and felt himself wafted along +Main Street as far in the clouds as a mortal may be. And though it was +nearly midnight, he brought out his accordion and sat playing it, +beating time with his left foot, and in his closed eyes seeing visions +that by all the rights of this game of life should come only to youth. +And the guests in the Thayer House next morning asked, "Well, for +heaven's sake, who was that playing 'Silver Threads among the Gold' +along there about midnight?--he surely must know it by this time." + +And Adrian Brownwell, sitting on the Culpepper veranda the next night +but one, said: "Colonel, your harness-maker friend is a musical +artist. The other night when I came in I heard him twanging his +lute--'The Harp that once through Tara's Hall'; you know, Colonel." + +And John Barclay closed his letter to Bob Hendricks: "Well, Bob, as I +sit here with fifty letters written this evening and ready to mail, +and the blessed knowledge that we have 18,000 acres of winter wheat +all planted if not paid for, I can hear old Watts wheezing away on his +accordion in his shop down street. Poor old Watts, it's a pity that +man hasn't the acquisitive faculty--he could turn that talent into +enough to keep him all his days. Poor old Watts!" + +And Molly Culpepper, sitting in her bedroom chewing her penholder, +finally wrote this: "Watts McHurdie went sailing by the house +to-night, coming home from the Wards', where he was making his regular +call on Nellie. You know what a mouse-like little walk he has, +scratching along the sidewalk so demurely; but to-night, after he +passed our place I heard him actually break into a hippety-hop, and as +I was sitting on the veranda, I could hear him clicking clear down to +the new stone walk in front of the post-office." Oho, Molly Culpepper, +you said "as I was sitting on the veranda"; that is of course the +truth, but not the whole truth; what you might have said was "as we +were sitting on the veranda," and "as we were talking of what I like" +and "what you like," and of "what I think" and "what you think," and +as "I was listening to war tales from a Southern soldier," and as "I +was finding it on the whole rather a tiresome business "; those things +you might have written, Molly Culpepper, but you did not. And was it a +twinge or a prick or a sharp reproachful stab of your conscience that +made you chew the tip of your penholder into shreds and then madly +write down this:-- + +"Bob, I don't know what is coming over me; but some way your letters +seem so far away, and it has been such a long time since I saw you, a +whole lonesome year, and Bob dear, I am so weak and so unworthy of +you; I know it, oh, I know it. But I feel to-night that I must tell +you something right from my heart. It is this, dear: no matter what +may happen, I want you to know that I must always love you better than +any one else in all the world. I seem so young and foolish, and life +is so long and the world is so big--so big and you are so far away. +But, Bob dear, my good true boy, don't forget this that I tell you +to-night, that through all time and all eternity the innermost part of +my heart must always be yours. No matter what happens to you and me in +the course of life in the big world--you must never forget what I +have written here to-night." + +And these words, for some strange reason, were burned on the man's +soul; though she had written him fonder ones, which passed from him +with the years. The other words of the letter fell into his eyes and +were consumed there, so he does not remember that she also wrote that +night: "I have just been standing at my bedroom window, looking out +over the town. It is quiet as the graveyard, save for the murmur of +the waters falling over the dam. And I cannot tell whether it is fancy +or whether it is real, but now and then there comes to me a faint hint +of music,--it sounds almost like Watts' accordion, but of course it +cannot be at this unholy hour, and the tune it makes me think of some +way is 'Silver Threads among the Gold.' Isn't it odd that I should +hear that song, and yet not hear it, and have it running through my +mind?" + +And thus the town heard Watts McHurdie's song of triumph--the chortle +that every male creature of the human kind instinctively lets out when +he has found favour in some woman's eyes, that men have let out since +Lemech sang of victory over the young man to Adah and Zillah! And in +all the town no one knew what it meant. For the accordion is not +essentially an instrument of passion. So the episode ended, and +another day came in. And all that is left to mark for this world that +night of triumph--and that mark soon will bleach into oblivion--are +the verses entitled "Love at Sunset," of which Colonel Martin +Culpepper, the poet's biographer, writes in that chapter "At Hymen's +Altar," referred to before: "This poem was written October 14, 1874, +on the occasion of the poet's engagement to Miss Nellie Logan, who +afterward became his wife. By many competent critics, including no +less a personage than Hon. John Barclay, president of the National +Provisions Company, this poem is deemed one of Mr. McHurdie's noblest +achievements, ranking second only to the great song that gave him +national fame." + +And it should be set down as an integral part of this narrative that +John Barclay first read the verses "Love at Sunset" in the _Banner_, +two weeks after the night of their composition, as he was finishing a +campaign for the Fifth Parallel bonds. He picked up the _Banner_ one +evening at twilight in a house in Pleasant township, and seeing Watts' +initials under some verses, read them at first mechanically, and then +reread them with real zest, and so deeply did they move the man from +the mooring of the campaign that seeing an accordion on the table of +the best room in which he was waiting for supper, Barclay picked it up +and fooled with it for half an hour. It had been a dozen years since +he had played an accordion, and the tunes that came into his fingers +were old tunes in vogue before the war, and he thought of himself as +an old man, though he was not yet twenty-five. But the old tunes +brought back his boyhood from days so remote that they seemed a long +time past. And that night when he addressed the people in the Pleasant +Valley schoolhouse, he was half an hour getting on to the subject of +the bonds; he dwelt on the old days and spoke of the drouth of '60 and +of the pioneers, and preached a sermon, with their lives for texts, on +the value of service without thought of money or hope of other reward +than the joy one has in consecrated work. Then he launched into the +bond proposition, and when the votes were counted Pleasant township +indorsed Barclay's plan overwhelmingly. For he was a young man of +force, if not of eloquence. His evident sincerity made up for what he +lacked in oratorical charm, and he left an impression on those about +him. So when the bonds carried in Garrison County, the firm of Ward +and Barclay was made local attorneys for the road, and General Ward, +smarting under the defeat of his party in the state, refused to accept +the railroad's business, and the partnership was dissolved. + +"John," said Ward, as he put his hands on the young man's shoulders +and looked at him a kindly moment, before picking up his bushel basket +of letters and papers, to move them into another room and dissolve the +partnership, "John," the elder man repeated, "if I could always +maintain such a faith in God as you maintain in money and its power, I +could raise the dead." + +Barclay blinked a second and replied, "Well, now, General, look +here--what I don't understand is how you expect to accomplish +anything without money." + +"I can't tell you, John--but some way I have faith that I can--can +do more real work in this world without bothering to get money, than I +can by stopping to get money with which to do good." + +"But if you had a million, you could do more good with it than you are +doing now, couldn't you?" asked Barclay. + +"Yes, perhaps I could," admitted the general, as he eyed his miserable +little pile of worldly goods in the basket. "I suppose I could," he +repeated meditatively. + +"All right then, General," cut in Barclay. "I have no million, any +more than you have; but I'm going to get one--or two, maybe a dozen +if I can, and I want to do good with it just as much as you do. When I +get it I'll show you." Barclay rose to lend the general a hand with +his basket. As they went awkwardly through the door with the load, the +general stopping to get a hold on the basket that would not twist his +hand, he put the load down in the hall and said: "But while you're +getting that million, you're wasting God's ten talents, boy. Can't you +see that if you would use your force, your keenness, and persistence +helping mankind in some way--teaching, preaching, lending a hand to +the poor, or helping to fight organized greed, you would get more of +God's work done than you will by squeezing the daylights out of your +fellow-men, making them hate money because of your avarice, and end by +doling it out to them in charity? That's my point, boy. That's why I +don't want your railroad job." + +They had dropped the basket in the bare room. The general had not so +much as a chair or a desk. He looked it over, and Barclay's eyes +followed his. "What are you going to do for furniture?" asked the +younger man. + +The general's thin face wrinkled into a smile. "Well," he replied, "I +suppose that if a raven can carry dry-goods, groceries, boots and +shoes and drugs, paints and oils,--and certainly the ravens have been +bringing those things to the Wards for eight years now, and they're +all paid for,--the blessed bird can hump itself a little and bring +some furniture, stoves, and hardware." + +Barclay limped into his room, while the general rubbed the dust off +the windows. In a minute John came stumbling in with a chair, and as +he set it down he said, "Here comes the first raven, General, and now +if you'll kindly come and give the ravens a lift, they'll bring you a +table." And so the two men dragged the table into the office, and as +they finished, Ward saw General Hendricks coming up the stairs, and +when the new room had been put in order,--a simple operation, +--General Ward hurried home to help Mrs. Ward get in their dahlia +roots for the winter. + +As they were digging in the garden, covering the ferns and wrapping +the magnolia tree they had lately acquired, and mulching the +perennials, Mrs. Mary Barclay came toward them buffeting the wind. She +wore the long cowlish waterproof cloak and hood of the period--which +she had put on during the cloudy morning. Her tall strong figure did +not bend in the wind, and the schoolbooks she carried in her hand +broke the straight line of her figure only to heighten the priestess +effect that her approaching presence produced. + +"Well, children," she said, as she stood by the Wards at their work, +"preparing your miracles?" She looked at the bulbs and roots, and +smiled. "How wonderful that all the beauty of the flowers should be in +those scrawny brown things; and," she added as she brushed away the +brown hair of her forties from her broad brow, "God probably thinks +the same thing when He considers men and their souls." + +"And when the gardener puts us away for our winter's sleep?" Ward +asked. + +She turned her big frank blue eyes upon him as she took the words from +his mouth, "'And the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.'" Then +she smiled sadly and said, "But it is the old Adam himself that I seem +to be wrestling with just now." + +"In the children--at school?" asked the Wards, one after the other. +She sighed and looked at the little troopers straggling along the +highway, and replied, "Yes, partly that, too," and throwing her +unnecessary hood back, turned her face into the wind and walked +quickly away. The Wards watched her as she strode down the hill, and +finally as he bent to his work the general asked:-- + +"Lucy, what does she think of John?" + +Mrs. Ward, who was busy with a geranium, did not reply at once. But in +a moment she rose and, putting the plant with some others that were to +go to the cellar, replied: "Oh, Phil--you know a mother tries to hope +against hope. She teaches her school every day, and keeps her mind +busy. But sometimes, when she stops in here after school or for lunch, +she can't help dropping things that let me know. I think her heart is +breaking, Phil." + +"Does she know about the wheat deal--I mean about the way he has +made the farmers sign that mortgage by cutting them off from borrowing +money at the bank?" + +"Not all of it--but I think she suspects," replied the wife. + +"Did you know, dear," said the general, as he put the plants in the +barrow to wheel them to the cellar, "that I ran across something +to-day--it may be all suspicion, and I don't want to wrong +John--but Mart Culpepper, God bless his big innocent heart, let +something slip--well, it was John, I think, who arranged for that +loan of ten thousand from Brownwell to Mart. Though why he didn't get +it at the bank, I don't know. But John had some reason. Things look +mighty crooked there at the bank. I know this--Mart says that +Brownwell lent him the money, and Mart lent it to the bank for a month +there in August, while he was holding the Chicago fellow in the air." + +Mrs. Ward sat down on the front steps of the porch, and exclaimed:-- + +"Well, Phil Ward--that's why the Culpeppers are so nice to Brownwell. +Honestly, Phil, the last time I was over Mrs. Culpepper nearly talked +her head off to me and at Molly about what a fine man he is, and told +all about his family, and connections--he's related to the angel +Gabriel on his mother's side," she laughed, "and he's own cousin to +St. Peter through the Brownwells." + +"Oh, I guess they're innocent enough about it--they aren't +mercenary," interrupted the general. + +"Oh, no," replied Mrs Ward, "never in the world; but he's been good to +them and he's of their stock--and it's only natural." + +"Yes, probably," replied the general, and asked, "Does she intend to +marry him, do you think?" Mrs. Ward was sorting some dahlia roots on +the wheelbarrow and did not reply at once. "Do you suppose they're +engaged?" repeated the general. + +"I often wonder," she returned, still at her task. Then she rose, +holding a bulb in her hands, and said: "It's a funny kind of relation. +Her father and mother egging her on--and you know that kind of a man; +give him an inch and he'll take an ell. I wonder how far he has got." +She took the bulb to a pile near the rear of the house. "Those are the +nice big yellow ones I'm saving for Mrs. Barclay. But I'm sure of one +thing, Molly has no notion of marrying Brownwell." She continued: +"Molly is still in love with Bob. She was over here last week and had +a good cry and told me so." + +"Well, why doesn't she send this man about his business?" exclaimed +the general. + +Mrs. Ward sighed a little and replied, "Because--there is only one +perfect person in all the world, and that's you." She smiled at him +and continued: "The rest of us, dear, are just flesh and blood. So we +make mistakes. Molly knows she should; she told me so the other day. +And she hates herself for not doing it. But, dearie--don't you see +she thinks if she does, her father and mother will lose the big house, +and Bob will be involved in some kind of trouble? They keep that +before her all of the time. She says that John is always insisting +that she be nice to Brownwell. And you know the Culpeppers think +Brownwell is--well, you know what they think." + +They worked along for a while, and the general stopped and put his +foot on his spade and cried: "That boy--that boy--that boy! Isn't he +selling his soul to the devil by bits? A little chunk goes every day. +And oh, my dear, my dear--" he broke out, "what profiteth a man if he +gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Poor, poor John." He fell +to his work again, sighing, "Poor John, poor John!" So they talked on +until the afternoon grew old. + +And while they were talking, John and General Hendricks were in +Barclay's office going over matters, and seeing where they stood. + +"So he says seventy thousand is too much for the company and me to +owe?" said John, at the end of half an hour's conference. + +The general was drumming his fingers on the table nervously. "Yes--he +says we've got to reduce that in thirty days, or he'll close us up. +Haven't you got any political influence, somewhere in the East, +John,--some of those stockholders,--that will hold this matter up +till you can harvest your crop next June?" + +Barclay thought a moment, with his hand in his chin, and then slowly +shook his head. A bank inspector from Washington was several degrees +higher in the work of politics than Barclay had gone. + +"Let me see--" droned Barclay; "let me see. We can at least try +scattering it out a little; cut off, say, fifty thousand from me and +the company and put it in the name of Lige--" + +"He's on to Lige, we've got a hat full of Lige's notes in there," +interrupted the general. + +"All right, then, drop Lige and put in the colonel--he'll do that for +me, and I'll see if I can't get the colonel to get Brownwell to +accommodate us. He's burning a good bit of the colonel's stove wood +these nights." Barclay smiled, and added, "And I'll just put Bob in +for a few thousand." + +"But what'll we do about those taxes?" asked the general, anxiously. +"You know they've got to be paid before the first of the year, and +that's only six weeks off." + +Barclay rose and paced the rug, and replied: "Yes, that's so. I was +going to make another note for them. But I suppose we oughtn't to do +it even under cover; for if he found out you had exceeded our loan +right now--you know those fellows get ugly sometimes." The young man +screwed up his face and stood looking out of the window in silence for +a long minute. Then he limped over to his chair and sat down as one +who has a plan. "Say now, General; you know Gabe Carnine's coming in +as county treasurer right after the first of the year, and we will +make him help us. You make your personal check for the nine thousand, +and give it to the old cuss who's in the county treasurer's office +now, with the descriptions of the land, and get the tax receipts; +he'll bring the check back to the bank; you give him credit on his +pass-book with the other checks, and just hold your own check out in +the drawer as cash. If my check was in there, the inspector might drop +in and see it, and cause a disturbance. When Gabe comes in, I'll make +him carry the matter over till next summer." + +The transaction would cover only a few days, Barclay explained; and +finally he had his way. So the Larger Good was accomplished. + +And later Adrian Brownwell came into the office to say:-- + +"Mr. Barclay, our friend, Colonel Culpepper, confessed to me after +some transparent attempts at subterfuge that my signing an +accommodation note would help you, and do I understand this also will +help our young friend, Robert Hendricks, whom I have never seen, and +enable him to remain at his post during the winter?" + +John Barclay took a square hard look at Brownwell, and got a smile and +a faint little shrug in return, whereupon, for the Larger Good, he +replied "Yes," and for the Larger Good also, perhaps, Adrian Brownwell +answered: + +"Well, I shall be delighted--just make my note for thirty days--only +thirty days, you understand; and then--well, of course if +circumstances justify it, I'll renew it." Barclay laughed and asked, +"Well, Mr. Brownwell, as between friends may I ask how 'circumstances' +are getting on?" + +Brownwell shrugged his shoulders and smiled blandly as he answered: +"Just so-so; I go twice a week. And--" he waved his gloves airily and +continued, "What is it the immortal Burns says: 'A man's a man, for a' +that and a' that!' And I'm a man, John Barclay, and she's a woman. And +I go twice a week. You know women, sir, you know women--they're +mostly all alike. So I think--" he smirked complacently as he +concluded--"I think what I need is time--only time." + +"Luck to you," said Barclay. "I'll just make the note thirty days, as +you say, and we can renew it from time to time." + +Then Brownwell put on his hat, twirled his cane effusively, and bade +Barclay an elaborate adieu. + +And ten days later, Molly Culpepper, loathing herself in her soul, and +praying for the day of deliverance when it should be all over, walked +slowly from the post-office up the hill to the house, the stately +house, with its impressive pillars, reading this: "My darling Girl: +John has sent me some more mortgages to sell, and they have to be sold +now. He says that father has to have the money, and he and father have +laid out work for me that will keep me here till the middle of +January. John says that the government inspector has been threatening +us with serious trouble in the bank lately, and we must have the +money. He says the times have forced us to do certain things that were +technically wrong--though I guess they were criminally wrong from +what he says, and we must have this money to make things good. So I am +compelled to stay here and work. Father commands me to stay in a way +that makes me fear that my coming home now would mean our ruin. What a +brick John is to stay there and shoulder it all. But, oh, darling, +darling, darling, I love you." + +There was more, of course, and it was from a man's heart, and the +strange and sad part of this story is that when Molly Culpepper read +the rest of the letter, her heart burned in shame, and her shame was +keener than her sorrow that her lover was not coming home. + +So it happened naturally that Molly Culpepper went to the Christmas +dance with Adrian Brownwell, and when Jane Barclay, seeing the +proprietary way the Alabaman hovered over Molly, and his obvious +jealousy of all the other men who were civil to her, asked John why he +did not let Bob come home for the holidays, as he had promised, for +the Larger Good John told her the facts--that there were some +mortgages that had just come in, and they must be sold, so that the +company could reduce its indebtedness to the bank. But the facts are +not always the truth, and in her heart, which did not reason but only +felt, Molly Culpepper, knowing that Brownwell and John Barclay were in +some kind of an affair together, feared the truth. And from her heart +she wrote to her lover questioning John's motives and pleading with +him to return, and he, having merely the facts, did not see the truth, +and replied impatiently--so impatiently that it hurt, and there was +temper in her answer, and then for over a week no letter came, and for +over a week no reply went back to that. And so the Larger Good was +doing its fine work in a wicked world. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +The spring sun of 1875 that tanned John Barclay's face gave it a +leathery masklike appearance that the succeeding years never entirely +wore off. For he lived in the open by day, riding among his fields in +three townships, watching the green carpet of March rise and begin to +dimple in April, and billow in May. And at night he worked in his +office until the midnight cockcrow. His back was bowed under a score +of burdens. But his greatest burden was the bank; for it gave him +worry; and worry weighed upon him more than work. It was in +April--early April when the days were raw and cloudy, and the nights +blustery and dreary--that Barclay sat in his office one night after a +hard day afield, his top-boots spattered with mud, his corduroy coat +spread out on a chair to dry, and his wet gray soft hat on his desk +beside him. Jane was with her parents in Minneola, and Barclay had +come to his office without eating, from the stable where he left his +team. The yellow lights in the street below were reflected on the +mists outside his window, and the dripping eaves and cornices above +him and about him seemed to mark the time of some eery music too fine +for his senses, and the footfalls in the street below, hurrying +footfalls of people shivering through the mists, seemed to be the drum +beats of the weird symphony that he could not hear. + +Barclay drew a watch from, the pocket of his blue flannel shirt, and +looked at it and stopped writing and stood by the box-stove. He was +looking at the door when he heard a thud on the stairs. It was +followed by a rattling sound, and in a moment Adrian Brownwell and his +cane were in the room. After the rather gorgeous cadenza of +Brownwell's greeting had died away and Barclay had his man in a chair, +Barclay opened the stove door and let the glow of the flames fight the +shadows in the room. + +"Well," said Barclay, turning toward his visitor brusquely, "why won't +you renew that accommodation paper for me again?" + +The Papins and the Dulangprés shrugged their shoulders and waved +their hands through Brownwell rather nastily as he answered, +"Circumstances, Mr. Barclay, circumstances!" + +"You're not getting along fast enough, eh?" retorted Barclay. + +"Yes--and no," returned Brownwell. + +"What do you mean?" asked Barclay, half divining the truth. + +"Well--it is after all our own affair--but since you are a friend I +will say this: three times a week--sometimes four times a week I go +out to pay my respects. Until November I stayed until nine, at +Christmas we put on another hour; now it is ten-thirty. I am a man, +John Barclay--as you see. She--she is an angel. Very good. In that +way, yes. But," the Papins and Dulangprés came back to his face, and +he shook his head. "But otherwise--no. There we stand still. She will +not say it." + +Barclay squinted at the man who sat so complacently in the glow of the +firelight, with his cane between his toes and his gloves lightly +fanning the air. "So I take it," said John, "that you are like the +Memorial Day parade, several hours passing a given point!" + +"Exactly," smiled back Brownwell. He drew from his pocket a diamond +ring. "She will look at it; she will admire it. She will put it on a +chain, but she will not wear it. And so I say, why should I put my +head in a noose here in your bank--what's the use? No, sir, John +Barclay--no, sir. I'm done, sir." + +Barclay knew wheedling would not move Brownwell. He was of the mulish +temperament. So Barclay stretched out in his chair, locked his hands +back of his head, and looked at the ceiling through his eyelashes. +After a silence he addressed the cobwebs above him: "Supposing the +case. Would a letter from me to you, setting forth the desperate need +of this accommodation paper, not especially for me, but for Colonel +Culpepper's fortunes and the good name of the Hendricks family--would +that help your cause--a letter that you could show; a letter," +Barclay said slowly, "asking for this accommodation; a letter that you +could show to--to--well, to the proper parties, let us say, +to-night; would--that kind of a letter help--" Barclay rose suddenly +to an upright position and went on: "Say, Mr. Man, that ought to +pretty nearly fix it. Let's leave both matters open, say for two +hours, and then at ten o'clock or so--you come back here, and I'll +have the note for you to sign--if you care to. How's that?" he asked +as he turned to his desk and reached for a pen. + +"Well," replied Brownwell, "I am willing to try." + +And so Barclay sat writing for five minutes, while the glow of the +flames died down, and the shadows ceased fighting and were still. + +"Read this over," said Barclay at length. "You will see," he added, as +he handed Brownwell the unfolded sheets, "that I have made it clear +that if you refuse to sign our notes, General Hendricks will be +compelled to close the bank, and that the examination which will +follow will send him to prison and jeopardize Bob, who has signed a +lot of improper notes there to cover our transactions, and that in the +crash Colonel Culpepper will lose all he has, including the roof over +his head--if you refuse to help us." ("However," snarled Barclay, at +his conscience, "I've only told the truth; for if you take your money +and go and shut down on the colonel, it would make him a pauper.") + +With a flourishing crescendo finale Adrian Brownwell entered the dark +stairway and went down into the street. Barclay turned quickly to his +work as if to avoid meditation. The scratch of his pen and the murmur +of the water on the roof grew louder and louder as the evening waxed +old. And out on the hill, out on Lincoln Avenue, the rain descended, +and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that +house--that stately house of a father's pride and-- + +At ten o'clock John Barclay heard a light footstep and a rattling cane +upon the stair, and Brownwell, a human whirligig of gay gestures, came +tripping into the room. "A pen, a pen,"--he cried, "my kingdom for a +pen." He was tugging at his gloves as he spoke, and in the clatter +that he made, Barclay found the blank note and pushed it toward the +table's edge to Brownwell, who put his ornate copy-book signature upon +it with a flourish. + +When he had gone, Barclay wrote a note to Jane telling her of Molly's +engagement to Brownwell, and then he sat posting his books, and +figuring up his accounts. It was after midnight when he limped down +the stairs, and the rain had ceased. But a biting wind like a cruel +fate came out of the north, and he hurried through the deserted +street, under lowering clouds that scurried madly across the stars. +But John Barclay could not look up at the stars, he broke into a +limping run and head downward plunged into the gale. And never in all +his life could he take a square look at Molly Culpepper's diamond +ring. + +As the spring deepened Bob Hendricks felt upon him at his work the +pressure of two distinct troubles. One was his sweetheart's attitude +toward him, and the other was the increasing weakness of his father. +Molly Culpepper's letters seemed to be growing sad; also they were +failing in their length and frequency--the young man felt that they +were perfunctory. His father's letters showed a physical breakdown. +His handwriting was unsteady, and often he repeated himself in +successive letters. The sister wrote about her father's weakness, and +seemed to think he was working too hard. But the son suspected that it +was worry rather than work, and that things were not going right in +the bank. He did not know that the Golden Belt Wheat Company had +sapped the money of the bank and had left it a husk, which at any time +might crumble. The father knew this, and after the first of the year +every morning when he opened the bank he feared that day would be the +last day of its career. + +And so it fell out that "those that look out of the windows" were +darkened, and General Hendricks rose up with the voice of the bird and +was "afraid of that which was high" and terrors were in the way. So on +his head, the white blossom of the almond tree trembled; and one noon +in March the stage bore to this broken, shaking old man a letter from +Kansas City that ran the sword of fear into his heart and almost +stopped it forever. It ran:-- + +"Dear General: I have just learned from talking with a banker here +that an inspector is headed our way. He probably will arrive the day +after this reaches you. Something must be done about that tax check of +yours. The inspector should not find it in the drawer again. Once was +all right, but you must get it out now. Put it in the form of a note. +Make it Carnine's note. He is good for twice that. Don't bother him +with it, but make it out for ninety days, and by that time we can make +another turn. But that note must be in there. Your check won't do any +longer. The inspector has been gossiping about us up here--and about +that check of yours. For God's sake, don't hesitate, but do this thing +quick." + +The letter was not signed, but it came in Barclay's envelope, and was +addressed by Barclay's hand. + +The general fumbled with the pad of blank notes before him for a long +time. He read and reread Barclay's letter. Then he put away the pad +and tore the letter into bits and started for the front door. But a +terror seized him, and he walked behind the counter and put his +palsied hand into the box where he kept cancelled checks, and picked +out one of Gabriel Carnine's checks. He folded it up, and started for +the door again, but turned weakly at the threshold, and walked to the +back room of the bank. + +When it was done, and had been worked through the books, General +Hendricks, quaking with shame and fear, sat shivering before his desk +with jaws agape and the forged name gashed into his soul. And "the +strong men" bowed themselves as he shuffled home in the twilight. The +next day when the inspector came, "all the daughters of music were +brought low" and the feeble, bent, stricken man piped and wheezed and +stammered his confused answers to the young man's questions, and stood +paralyzed with unspeakable horror while the inspector glanced at the +Carnine note and asked some casual question about it. When the bank +closed that night, General Hendricks tried to write to his son and +tell him the truth, but he sat weeping before his desk and could not +put down the words he longed to write. Bob Hendricks found that +tear-stained letter half finished in the desk when he came home, and +he kept it locked up for years. And when he discovered that the date +on the letter and the date on the forged note were the same, the son +knew the meaning of the tears. But it was all for the Larger Good, and +so John Barclay won another game with Destiny. + +But the silver cord was straining, and morning after morning the old +pitcher went to the fountain, to be battered and battered and +battered. His books, which he kept himself, grew spotted and dirty, +and day by day in the early spring the general dreaded lest some +depositor would come into the bank and call for a sum in cash so large +that it would take the cash supply below the legal limit, and that an +inspector would suddenly appear again and discover the deficiency. +Except Barclay the other directors knew nothing of the situation. They +signed whatever reports the general or Barclay put before them; there +came a time in April when any three of a dozen depositors could have +taken every penny out of the bank. When the general was unusually low +in spirits, Barclay sent Colonel Culpepper around to the bank with his +anthem about times being better when the spring really opened, and for +an hour the general was cheerful, but when the colonel went, the +general always saw the axe hanging over his head. And then one morning +late in April--one bright Sunday morning--the wheel of the cistern +was broken, and they found the old man cold in his bed with his face +to the wall. + +John Barclay was on a horse riding to the railroad--four hours away, +before the town was up for late Sunday morning breakfast. That +afternoon he went into Topeka on a special engine, and told a Topeka +banker who dealt with the bank of Sycamore Ridge the news of the +general's death, and asked for five thousand dollars in silver to +allay a possible run. At midnight he drove into the Ridge with the +money, and the bank opened in the morning at seven o'clock instead of +nine, so that a crowd might not gather, and depositors who came, saw +back of Barclay a great heap of silver dollars, flanked by all the +gold and greenbacks in the vault, and when a man asked for his money +he got it in silver, and when Oscar Fernald presented a check for over +three thousand dollars, Barclay paid it out in silver, and in the +spirit of fun, Sheriff Jake Dolan, who heard of the counting and +recounting of the money while it was going on, brought in a +wheelbarrow and Oscar wheeled his money to his hotel, while every +loafer in town followed him. At noon Fernald came back with his money, +and Barclay refused to take it. The town knew that also. Barclay did +not step out of the teller's cage during the whole day, but Lige Bemis +was his herald, and through him Barclay had Dolan refuse to give +Fernald protection for his money unless Fernald would consent to be +locked up in jail with it. In ten minutes the town knew that story, +and at three o'clock Barclay posted a notice saying the bank would +remain open until nine o'clock that night, to accommodate any +depositors who desired their money, but that it would be closed for +three days following until after the funeral of the president of the +bank. + +The next day he sat in the back room of the bank and received +privately nearly all the money that had been taken out Monday, and +several thousand dollars besides that came through fear that Fernald's +cash would attract robbers from the rough country to the West who +might loot the town. To urge in that class of depositors, Barclay +asked Sheriff Dolan to detail a guard of fifty deputies about the bank +day and night, and the day following the cash began coming in with +mildew on it, and Adrian Brownwell appeared that night with a thousand +dollars of old bank-notes, issued in the fifties, that smelled of the +earth. Thursday John limped up and down the street inviting first one +business man and then another into the bank to help him count cash and +straighten out his balance. And each of a dozen men believed for years +that he was the man who first found the balance in the books of the +Exchange National Bank of Sycamore Ridge, after John Barclay had got +them tangled. And when Barclay was a great and powerful man in the +world, these men, being interviewed by reporters about the personality +of Barclay, took pride in telling this story of his blundering. But +when Bob Hendricks reached Sycamore Ridge Thursday noon, confidence in +the safety of the bank was founded upon a rock. + +So when the town closed its stores that afternoon and took the body of +the general, its first distinguished citizen to die, out upon the +Hill, and laid it to rest in the wild prairie grass, John Barclay and +Jane, his wife, rode in the carriage with the mourners, and John stood +by his friend through the long service, and when the body was lowered +into the grave, the most remote thought in all the world from John's +mind was that he was responsible for the old man's death. + +Bob Hendricks saw Molly Culpepper for the first time in twenty months, +standing by her father with those who gathered about the general's +grave, and as soon as he could leave the friends who came home with +him and his sister, he hurried to the Culpeppers'. As he left his +home, he could see Molly sitting on the veranda behind one of the +pillars of great pride. She moved down the steps toward the gate to +meet him. It was dusk,--deep dusk,--but he knew her figure and was +thrilled with joy. They walked silently from the gate toward the +veranda, and the youth's soul was moved too deeply for words. So +deeply indeed was his being stirred, that he did not notice in his +eagerness to bring their souls together how she was holding him away +from her heart. + +The yellow roses were blooming, and the pink roses were in bud. They +strayed idly to the side of the house farthest from the street, and +there they found the lilacs, heavy with blooms; they were higher than +the girl's head,--a little thicket of them,--and behind the thicket +was a rustic seat made of the grape-vines. He stepped toward the +chair, pulling her by the hand, and she followed. He tried to gather +her into his arms, but she slid away from him and cried, "No--no, +Bob--no!" + +"Why--why--why! what's wrong?" gasped the youth. + +The girl sank on the seat and covered her face with her hands. He +touched her shoulder and her hair with his finger-tips, and she +shivered away from him. "Oh, Bob--Bob, Bob!--" she cried in agony, +still looking at the grass before her. + +The young man looked at her in perplexity. "Why, dear--why--why, +darling--why, Molly," he stammered, "why--why--" + +She rose and faced him. She gripped herself, and he could feel the +unnatural firmness in her voice as she spoke. + +"Bob, I am not the little girl you left." He put out his arms, but she +shrank back among the lilacs; their perfume was in her face, and she +was impressed with that odd feeling one sometimes has of having had +some glimpse of it all before. She knew that she would say, "I am not +worthy--not worthy any more--Bob, do you understand?" + +And when he had stepped to ward her again with piteous pleading +face,--a face that she had never seen before, yet seemed always to +have known,--she felt that numb sense of familiarity with it all, and +it did not pain her as she feared it would when he cried, "Oh--God, +Molly--nothing you ever could do would make you unworthy of +me--Molly, Molly, what is it?" The anguish in his face flashed back +from some indefinite past to her, and then the illusion was gone, and +the drama was all new. He caught her, but she fought herself away. + +"Don't--don't!" she cried; "you have no right--now." She dropped +into the seat, while he stood over her with horror on his face. She +answered the question of his eyes, rocking her body as she spoke, +"Bob--do you understand now?" He shook his head, and she went on, "We +aren't engaged--not any more, Bob--not any more--never!" He started +to speak, but she said: "I'm going to marry Mr. Brownwell. Oh, +Bob--Bob, I told you I was unworthy--now do you understand?" + +The man turned his face starward a second, and then dropped his head. +"Oh," he groaned, and then sat down beside her at the other end of the +bench. He folded his hands on his knees, and they sat silent for a +time, and then he asked in a dead voice, "You know I love you--still, +don't you, Molly?" + +She answered, "Yes, that's what makes it hard." + +"And do you love me?" he cried with eagerness. + +She sat for a minute without replying and then answered, "I am a woman +now, Bob--a grown woman, and some way things are different." + +They sat without speaking; then he drew a deep breath and said, "Well, +I suppose I ought to go." His head rested on his hand which was +supported by an arm of the chair. He did not offer to rise. + +She rose and went to him, kneeling before him. She put her hands upon +his shoulders, and he put them aside, and she felt him shudder. She +moaned, and looked up at him. Her face was close to his, but he did +not come closer. He stared at her dumbly, and kept shaking his head as +if asking some mute question too deep for words. Then he put out his +hand and took hers. He put it against his cheek and held it in both +his own. She did not take her eyes from his face, but his eyes began +to wander. + +"I will never see you again, Bob--I mean like this." She paused. + +There was no life in his hands, and hers slipped away unrestrained. +"How sweet the lilacs smell to-night," he said as he drew in a deep +breath. He leaned back that he might breathe more freely, and added as +he sighed, "I shall smell them through eternity--Molly." Then he rose +and broke off a spray. He helped her rise and said, "Well--so this is +the way of it." His handsome fair face was white in the moonlight, and +she saw that his hair was thinning at the temples, and the strange +flash of familiarity with it all came again as she inhaled the +fragrance of the lilacs. + +She trembled with some chill of inner grief, and cried vehemently, +"Oh, Bob--my boy--my boy--say you hate me--for God's love, say you +hate me." She came so close to him that she touched him, then she +crumpled against the side of the seat in a storm of tears, but he +looked at her steadily and shook his head. + +"Come on, Molly. It's too cool for you out here," he said, and took +her hand and walked with her to the steps. She was blinded by her +weeping, and he helped here to the veranda, but he stopped on a lower +step where his face was on a level with hers, and dropping her hand, +he said, "Well, good night, Molly--good night--" and as he half +turned from her, he said in the same voice, "Good-by." + +He went quickly down the walk--a tall stalwart figure, and he carried +his hat in his hand, and wiped his forehead as he went. At the gate he +looked back and saw her standing where he had left her; he could still +hear the pitiful sobs, but he made no sign to her, and she heard him +walking away under the elms into the night. When his steps had ceased +she ran on tiptoe, holding her breath to silence her sobs, through the +hall, up the stairs of the silent home to her room, and locked the +door. When she could not pray, she lay sobbing and groaning through a +long night. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +The next morning John Barclay gave Robert Hendricks the keys to the +bank. Barclay watched the town until nine o'clock and satisfied +himself that there would be no run on the bank, for during the early +part of the morning young Hendricks was holding a reception in his +office; then Barclay saddled a horse and started for the wheat fields. +After the first hours of the morning had passed, and the townspeople +had gone from the bank, Robert Hendricks began to burrow into the +books. He felt instinctively that he would find there the solution of +the puzzle that perplexed him. For he was sure Molly Culpepper had not +jilted him wantonly. He worked all the long spring afternoon and into +the night, and when he could not sleep he went back to the bank at +midnight, following some clew that rose out of his under-consciousness +and beckoned him to an answer to his question. + +The next morning found him at his counter, still worrying his books as +a ferret worries a rat. They were beginning to mean something to him, +and he saw that the bank was a worm-eaten shell. When he discovered +that Brownwell's notes were not made for bona fide loans, but that +they were made to cover Barclay's overdrafts, he began to find the +truth, and then when he found that Colonel Culpepper had lent the +money back to the bank that he borrowed from Brownwell,--also to save +John's overdrafts,--Bob Hendricks' soul burned pale with rage. He +found that John had borrowed far beyond the limit of his credit at the +bank to buy the company's stock, and that he had used Culpepper and +Brownwell to protect his account when it needed protection. Hendricks +went about his work silently, serving the bank's customers, and +greeting his neighbours pleasantly, but his heart was full of a lust +to do some bodily hurt to John Barclay. When John came back, he +sauntered into the bank so airily that Hendricks could not put the +hate into his hands that was in his breast. John was full of a plan to +organize a commission company, buy all of the wheat grown by the +Golden Belt Wheat Company and make a profit off the wheat company for +the commission company. He had bargained with the traffic officers of +the railroad company to accept stock in the commission company in +return for rate concessions on the Corn Belt Railroad, which was +within a few months' building distance of Sycamore Ridge. + +As John unfolded his scheme, Bob eyed his partner almost without a +word. A devil back in some recess of his soul was thirsting for a +quarrel. But Bob's sane consciousness would not unleash the devil, so +he replied:-- + +"No--you go ahead with your commission company, and I'll stick to the +wheat proposition. That and the bank will keep me going." + +The afternoon was late, and a great heap of papers of the bank and the +company lay before them that needed their time. Bob brushed his devil +back and went to work. But he kept looking at Barclay's neck and +imagining his fingers closing upon it. When the twilight was falling, +Barclay brought the portmanteau containing the notes into the back +room and turning to the "C's" pulled out a note for nine thousand +dollars signed by Gabriel Carnine, who was then county treasurer. +Barclay put it on the table before Hendricks and looked steadily at +him a minute before saying, "Bob--see that note?" And when the young +man answered, the other returned: "We had to do that, and several +other things, this spring to tide us over. I didn't bother you with +it--but we just had to do it--or close up, and go to pieces with the +wheat scheme." + +Hendricks picked up the note, and after examining it a moment, asked +quickly, "John, is that Gabe's signature?" + +"No--I couldn't get Gabe to sign it--and we had to have it to make +his account balance." + +"And you forged his note,--and are carrying it?" cried Hendricks, +rising. + +"Oh, sit down, Bob--we did it here amongst hands. It wasn't exactly +my affair, the way it got squared around." + +Hendricks took the note to the window. He was flushed, and the devil +got into his eyes when he came back, and he cried, "And you made +father do it!" + +Barclay smiled pacifically, and limped over to Hendricks and took the +note from him and put it back into the portmanteau. Then Barclay +replied: "No, Bob, I didn't make your father--the times made your +father. It was that or confess to Gabe Carnine, who swelled up on +taking his job, that we hadn't paid the taxes on the company's land, +though our check had been passed for it. When it came in, we gave the +county treasurer credit on his daily bank-book for the nine thousand, +but we held out the check. Do you see?" + +"Yes, that far," replied Hendricks. + +"Well, it's a long story after that, but when I found Gabe wouldn't +accommodate us for six months by giving us his note to carry as cash +until we could pay it,--the inspectors wouldn't take mine or your +father's,--and our books had to show the amount of gross cash that +the treasurer deposited before Gabe came in, your father thought it +unwise to keep holding checks that had already been paid in the drawer +as cash for that nine thousand, so we--well, one day he just put this +note in, and worked it through the books." + +Hendricks had his devil well in hand as he stared at Barclay, and then +said: "John--this is mighty dangerous business. Are we carrying his +account nine thousand short on our books, and making his pass-book +balance?" + +"That's it, only--" + +"But suppose some one finds it out?" asked Hendricks. + +"Oh, now, Bob, keep your shirt on. I fixed that. You know they keep +two separate accounts,--a general maintenance account and a bond +account, and Gabe has been letting us keep the paid-off bonds in the +vault and look after their cancelling, and while he was sick, I was in +charge of the treasurer's office and had the run of the bank, and I +squared our account at the Eastern fiscal agency and in the bond +account in the treasurer's office, and fixed up the short maintenance +account all with nine thousand dollars' worth of old bonds that were +kicking around the vault uncancelled, and now the job is hermetically +sealed so far as the treasurer and the bank are concerned." + +"So we can't pay it back if we want to? Is that the way, John?" asked +Hendricks, his fingers twitching as he leaned forward in his chair. + +"Ah, don't get so tragic about it. Some day when Gabe has calmed down, +and wants a renomination, I'll take him in the back room and show him +the error that we've both made, and we'll just quietly put back the +money and give him the laugh." There was a pause, and Barclay tilted +his chair back and grinned. "It's all right, Bob--we were where we +had to do it; the books balance to a 'T' now--and we'll square it +with Gabe sometime." + +"But if we can't--if Gabe won't be--be--well, be reasonable? What +then?" asked Hendricks. + +"Oh, well," returned John, "I've thought of that too. And you'll find +that when, the county treasury changes hands in '79, you'll have to +look after the bond account and the treasurer's books and make a +little entry to satisfy the bonds when they really fall due; +then--I'll show you about it when we're over at the court-house. But +if we can't get the money back with Gabe or the next man, the time +will come when we can." + +And Bob Hendricks looked at the natty little man before him and +sighed, and began working for the Larger Good also. And afterwards as +the months flew by the Golden Belt Wheat Company paid the interest on +the forged note, and the bank paid the Golden Belt Wheat Company +interest on a daily ledger balance of nine thousand, and all went +happily. The Larger Good accepted the sacrifices of truth, and went on +its felicitous way. + +After Barclay left the bank that night, Hendricks found still more of +the truth. And the devil in the background of his soul came out and +glared through the young man's sleepless eyes as he appeared in +Barclay's office in the morning and said, before he had found a chair, +"John, what's your idea about those farmers' mortgages? Are you going +to let them pay them, or are you going to make them sell under that +option that you've got in them?" + +"Why," asked Barclay, "what's it to us? Haven't the courts decided +that that kind of an option is a sale--clear through to the United +States Supreme Court?" + +"Well, what are you going to do about it?" persisted Hendricks. + +Barclay squinted sidewise at his partner for a few seconds and said, +"Well, it's no affair of ours; we've sold all the mortgages anyway." + +Hendricks wagged his head impatiently and exclaimed, "Quit your +dodging and give me a square answer--what have you got up your sleeve +about those options?" + +Barclay rose, limped to the window, and looked out as he answered: +"Well, I've always supposed we'd fix it up some way to buy back those +mortgages and then take the land we want for ourselves--for you and +me personally--and give the poor land back to the farmers if they pay +the money we lent them." + +"Well," returned Hendricks, "just count me out on that. Whatever I +make in this deal, and you seem to think our share will be plenty, +goes to getting those farmers back their land. So far as I'm concerned +that money we paid them was rent, not a loan!" + +Barclay dropped his hands in astonishment and gaped at Hendricks. + +"Well, my dear Miss Nancy," he exclaimed, "when did you get religion?" + +The two men glared at each other a moment, and Hendricks grappled his +devil and drew a long breath and replied: "Well, you heard what I +said." And then he added: "I'm pretty keen for money, John, but when +it comes to skinning a lot of neighbours out of land that you and +every one says is going to raise thirty dollars' worth of wheat to the +acre this year alone, and only paying them ten dollars an acre for the +title to the land itself--" He did not finish. After a pause he +added: "Why, they'll mob you, man. I've got to live with those +farmers." Barclay sneered at Hendricks without speaking and Hendricks +stepped over to him and drew back his open hand as he said angrily, +"Stop it--stop it, I say." Then he exclaimed: "I'm not what you'd +call nasty nice, John--but I'm no robber. I can't take the rent of +that land for nothing, raise a thirty-dollar crop on every acre of it, +and make them pay me ten dollars an acre to get back the poor land and +steal the good land, on a hocus-pocus option." + +"'I do not use the nasty weed, said little Robert Reed,'" replied +Barclay, with a leer on his face. Then, he added: "I've held your +miserable little note-shaving shop up by main strength for a year, by +main strength and awkwardness, and now you come home with your mouth +all fixed for prisms and prunes, and want to get on a higher plane. +You try that," continued Barclay, and his eyes blazed at Hendricks, +"and you'll come down town some morning minus a bank." + +Then the devil in Bob Hendricks was freed for an exultant moment, as +his hands came out of his pockets and clamped down on Barclay's +shoulders, and shook him till his teeth rattled. + +"Not with me, John, not with me," he cried, and he felt his fingers +clutching for the thin neck so near them, and then suddenly his hands +went back to his pockets. "Now, another thing--you got Brownwell to +lend the colonel that money?" Hendricks was himself. + +Barclay nodded. + +"And you got Brownwell to sign a lot of accommodation paper there at +the bank?" + +"Yes--to cover our own overdrafts," retorted Barclay. "It was either +that or bust--and I preferred not to bust. What's more, if we had +gone under there at one stage of the game when Brownwell helped us, we +could have been indicted for obtaining money under false +pretences--you and I, I mean. I'm perfectly willing to stick my head +inside the jail and look around," Barclay grinned, "but I'll be damned +if I'm going clear inside for any man--not when I can find a way to +back out." Barclay tried to laugh, but Hendricks would not let him. + +"And so you put up Molly to bail you out." Barclay did not answer and +Hendricks went on bitterly: "Oh, you're a friend, John Barclay, you're +a loyal friend. You've sold me out like a dog, John--like a dog!" + +Barclay, sitting at his desk, playing with a paper-weight, snarled +back: "Why don't you get in the market yourself, if you think I've +sold you out? Why don't you lend the old man some money?" + +"And take it from the bank you've just got done robbing of everything +but the wall-paper?" Hendricks retorted. + +"No," cried Barclay, in a loud voice. "Come off your high horse and +take the profits we'll make on our wheat, pay off old Brownwell and +marry her." + +"And let the bank bust and the farmers slide?" asked Hendricks, "and +buy back Molly with stolen money? Is that your idea?" + +"Well," Barclay snapped, "you have your choice, so if you think more +of the bank and your old hayseeds than you do of Molly, don't come +blubbering around me about selling her." + +"John," sighed Hendricks, after a long wrestle--a final contest with +his demon, "I've gone all over that. And I have decided that if I've +got to swindle seventy-five or a hundred farmers--most of them old +soldiers on their homesteads--out of their little all, and cheat five +hundred depositors out of their money to get Molly, she and I wouldn't +be very happy when we thought of the price, and we'd always think of +the price." His demon was limp in the background of his soul as he +added: "Here are some papers I brought over. Let's get back to the +settlement--fix them up and bring them over to the bank this morning, +will you?" And laying a package carefully on the table, Hendricks +turned and went quickly out of the room. + +After Hendricks left the office that May morning, Barclay sat +whistling the air of the song of the "Evening Star," looking blankly +at a picture of Wagner hanging beside a picture of Jay Gould. The tune +seemed to restore his soul. When he had been whistling softly for five +minutes or so, the idea flashed across his mind that flour was the one +thing used in America more than any other food product and that if a +man had his money invested in the manufacture and sale of flour, he +would have an investment that would weather any panic. The idea +overcame him, and he shut his eyes and his ears and gripped his chair +and whistled and saw visions. Molly Culpepper came into the room, and +paused a moment on the threshold as one afraid to interrupt a sleeper. +She saw the dapper little man kicking the chair rounds with his +dangling heels, his flushed face reflecting a brain full of blood, his +eyes shut, his head thrown far back, so that his Adam's apple stuck up +irrelevantly, and she knew only by the persistence of the soft low +whistle that he was awake, clutching at some day-dream. When she +cleared her throat, he was startled and stared at her foolishly for a +moment, with the vision still upon him. His wits came to him, and he +rose to greet her. + +"Well--well--why--hello, Molly--I was just figuring on a matter," +he said as he put her in a chair, and then he added, "Well--I wasn't +expecting you." + +Even before she could speak his lips were puckering to pick up the +tune he had dropped. She answered, "No, John, I wanted to see you--so +I just came up." + +"Oh, that's all right, Molly--what is it?" he returned. + +"Well--" answered the young woman, listlessly, "it's about; father. +You know he's badly in debt, and some way--of course he sells lots of +land and all, but you know father, John, and he just doesn't--oh, he +just keeps in debt." + +Barclay had been lapsing back into his revery as she spoke, but he +pulled himself out and replied: "Oh, yes, Molly--I know about father +all right. Can't you make him straighten things out?" + +"Well, no. John, that's just it. His money comes in so irregularly, +this month a lot and next month nothing, that it just spoils him. When +he gets a lot he spends it like a prince," she smiled sadly and +interjected: "You know he is forever giving away--and then while he's +waiting he gets in debt again. Then we are as poor as the people for +whom he passes subscription papers, and that's just what I wanted to +see you about." + +Barclay took his eyes off Jay Gould's picture long enough to look at +the brown-eyed girl with an oval face and a tip of a chin that just +fitted the hollow of a man's hand; there were the smallest brown +freckles in the world across the bridge of her nose, and under her +eyes there was the faintest suggestion of dark shading. Youth was in +her lips and cheeks, and when she smiled there were dimples. But +John's eyes went back to Jay Gould's solemn black whiskers and he said +from his abstraction, "Well, Molly, I wish I could help you." + +"Well, I knew you would, John, some way; and oh, John, I do need help +so badly." She paused a moment and gazed at him piteously and +repeated, "So badly." But his eyes did not move from the sacred +whiskers of his joss. The vision was flaming in his brain, and with +his lips parted, he whistled "The Evening Star" to conjure it back and +keep it with him. The girl went on:-- + +"About that money Mr. Brownwell loaned father, John." She flushed and +cried, "Can't you find some way for father to borrow the money and pay +Mr. Brownwell--now that your wheat is turning out so well?" + +The young man pulled himself out of his day-dream and said, +"Well--why--you see, Molly--I--Well now, to be entirely frank with +you, Molly, I'm going into a business that will take all of my +credit--and every cent of my money." + +He paused a moment, and the girl asked, "Tell me, John, will the wheat +straighten things up at the bank?" + +"Well, it might if Bob had any sense--but he's got a fool notion of +considering a straight mortgage that those farmers gave on their land +as rent, and isn't going to make them redeem their land,--his share +of it, I mean,--and if he doesn't do that, he'll not have a cent, and +he couldn't lend your father any money." Barclay was anxious to get +back to his "Evening Star" and his dream of power, so he asked, "Why, +Molly, what's wrong?" + +"John," she began, "this is a miserable business to talk about; but it +is business, I guess." She stopped and looked at him piteously. "Well, +John, father's debt to Mr. Brownwell--the ten-thousand-dollar loan on +the house--will be due in August." The young man assented. And after +a moment she sighed, "That is why I'm to be married in August." She +stood a moment looking out of the window and cried, "Oh, John, John, +isn't there some way out--isn't there, John?" + +Barclay rose and limped to her and answered harshly: "Not so long as +Bob is a fool--no, Molly. If he wants to go mooning around releasing +those farmers from their mortgages--there's no way out. But I +wouldn't care for a man who didn't think more of me than he did of a +lot of old clodhoppers." + +The girl looked at the hard-faced youth a moment in silence, and +turned without a word and left the room. Barclay floated away on his +"Evening Star" and spun out his dream as a spider spins his web, and +when Hendricks came into the office for a mislaid paper half an hour +later, Barclay still was figuring up profits, and making his web +stronger. As Hendricks, having finished his errand, was about to go, +Barclay stopped him. + +"Bob, Molly's been up here. As nearly as I can get at it, Brownwell +has promised to renew the colonel's mortgage in August. If he and +Molly aren't married by then--no more renewals from him. Don't be a +fool, Bob; let your sod-busters go hang. If you don't get their farms, +some one else will!" + +Hendricks looked at his partner a minute steadily, grunted, and strode +out of the room. And the incident slipped from John Barclay's mind, +and the web of the spider grew stronger and stronger in his brain, but +it cast a shadow that was to reach across his life. + +After Hendricks went from his office that morning, Barclay bounded +back, like a boy at play, to the vision of controlling the flour +market. He saw the waving wheat of Garrison County coming to the +railroad, and he knew that his railroad rates were so low that the +miller on the Sycamore could not ship a pound of flour profitably, and +Barclay's mind gradually comprehended that through railroad rates he +controlled the mill, and could buy it at his leisure, upon his own +terms. Then the whole scheme unfolded itself before his closed eyes as +he sat with his head tilted back and pillowed in his hands. If his +railroad concession made it possible for him to underbid the miller at +the Ridge, why could he not get other railroad concessions and +underbid every miller along the line of the Corn Belt road, by +dividing profits with the railroad officials? As he spun out his +vision, he could hear the droning voices of General Ward and Colonel +Culpepper in the next room; but he did not heed them. + +They were discussing the things of the day,--indeed, the things of a +fortnight before, to be precise,--the reception given by the +Culpeppers to celebrate their silver wedding anniversary. The windows +were open, and Barclay could hear the men's voices, and he knew +vaguely that they were talking of Lige Bemis. For Barclay had +tactfully asked the colonel as a favour to invite Mr. and Mrs. Bemis +to the silver wedding reception. So the Bemises came. Mrs. Bemis, who +was rather stout, even for a woman in her early forties, wore black +satin and jet ornaments, including black jet ear bobs of tremendous +size. And Watts McHurdie was so touched by the way ten years under a +roof had tamed the woman whom he had known of old as "Happy Hallie," +that he wrote a poem for the _Banner_ about the return of the +"Prodigal Daughter," which may be found in Garrison County scrap-books +of that period. As for Mr. Bemis, he went slinking about the outskirts +of the crowd, showing his teeth considerably, and making it obvious +that he was there. + +So as John Barclay rode his "Evening Star" to glory, in the next room +General Ward turned to the colonel, who stood puffing in the doorway +of the general's law-office. "Martin, did John Barclay make you invite +that woman to your house--that Bemis woman?" + +The colonel got his breath slowly after climbing the stair, and he did +not reply at once. But he smiled, and stood with his arms akimbo a few +seconds before he spoke. "Well now, General--since you ask it, I may +as well confess it pointedly--I am ashamed to say he did!" + +Ward motioned the colonel to a seat and asked impatiently, "Ashamed?" + +"Well," responded Culpepper, as he put his feet in the window ledge, +"she's as good as I am--if you come down to that! Why shouldn't I, +who pretend to be a gentleman,--a Virginia gentleman, I may say, +sir,--why shouldn't I be ashamed, disgraced, sir, disgraced in point +of fact, that I had to be forced to invite any person in all God's +beautiful world to my home?" + +Ward looked at the colonel coldly a moment and then blurted out: "Ah, +shucks, sir--stuff and nonsense! You know what she was before the +war--Happy Hally! My gracious, Martin, how could you?" + +Martin Culpepper brought his chair down with a bang and turned +squarely to Ward. "General, the war's over now. I knew Happy +Hally--and I knew the Red Legs she trained with. And we're making +senators and governors and state officers and indeed, I may say, +prominent citizens out of them. Why not give Hally her show? You damn +cold-nosed Yankee Brahmins--you have Faith and you have Hope, but you +have no more Charity than a sausage-grinder." The colonel rose, and +cried with some asperity, "General, if you'd preach about the poor +less, and pray with 'em more, you'd know more about your fellow-men, +sir!" + +Perhaps this conversation should not have been set down here; for it +has no direct relation to the movement of this narrative. The +narrative at this point should be hurrying along to tell how John +Barclay and Bob Hendricks cleared up a small fortune on their wheat +deal, and how that autumn Barclay bought the mill at Sycamore Ridge by +squeezing its owner out, and then set about to establish four branches +of the Golden Belt Wheat Company's elevator service along the line of +the new railroad, and how he controlled the wheat output of three +counties the next year through his enterprise. These facts carry John +Barclay forward toward his life's goal. And while these two +middle-aged gentlemen--the general and the colonel--were in the next +room wrangling over the youthful love affairs of a middle-aged lady, a +great dream was shaping in Barclay's head, and he did not heed them. +He was dreaming of controlling the wheat market of the Golden Belt +Railroad, through railroad-rate privileges, and his fancy was feeling +its way into flour, and comprehending what might be done with wheat +products. + +It was a crude dream, but he was aflame with it, and yet--John +Barclay, aged twenty-five, was a young man with curly hair and +flattered himself that he could sing. And there was always in him that +side of his nature, so the reader must know that when Nellie Logan +came to his office that bright summer morning and found him wrapped in +his day-dream of power, she addressed herself not to the Thane of +Wheat who should be King hereafter, but to the baritone singer in the +Congregational choir, and the wheat king scampered back to the dream +world when John replied to Nellie's question. + +"So it's _your_ wedding, is it, Nellie--your wedding," he repeated. +"Well, where does Watts come in?" And then, before she answered, he +went on, "You bet I'll sing at your wedding, and what's more, I'll +bring along my limping Congregational foot, and I'll dance at your +wedding." + +"Well, I just knew you would," said the young woman. + +"So old Watts thought I wouldn't, did he?" asked Barclay. "The old +skeezicks--Well, well! Nellie, you tell him that the fellow who was +with Watts when he was shot ten miles from Springfield isn't going to +desert him when he gets a mortal wound in the heart." Then Barclay +added: "You get the music and take it down to Jane, and tell her to +teach me, and I'll be there. Jane says you're going to put old Watts +through all the gaits." + +He leaned back in his swivel chair and smiled at his visitor. He had a +slow drawl that he used in teasing, and one who heard that voice and +afterward heard the harsh bark of the man in driving a bargain or +browbeating an adversary would have to look twice to realize that the +same man was talking. A little over an hour before in that very room +he had looked at Bob Hendricks from under wrinkled brows with the +vertical line creased between his eyes and snarled, "Well, then, if +you think she's going to marry that fellow because I got him to lend +the colonel some money, why don't you go and lend the colonel some +more money and get her back?" + +But there was not a muscle twitching in his face as he talked to +Nellie Logan, not a break in his voice, not a ruffle of a hair, to +tell her that John Barclay had broken with the friend of his boyhood +and the partner of his youth, and that he had closed and bolted the +Door of Hope on Molly Culpepper. He drawled on: "Jane was saying that +you were going to have Bob and Molly for best man and bridesmaid. +Ought you to do that? You know they--" + +He did not finish the sentence, but she replied: "Oh, yes, I know +about that. I told Watts he ought to have Mr. Brownwell; but he's as +stubborn as a mule about just that one thing. Everything else--the +flower girls and the procession and the ring service and all--he's so +nice about. And you know I just had to have Molly." + +John slapped the arms of his chair and laughed. "As old Daddy Mason +says, 'Now hain't that just like a woman!' Well, Nellie, it's your +wedding, and a woman is generally not married more than once, so it's +all right. Go it while you're young." + +And so he teased her out of the room, and when Sycamore Ridge packed +itself into the Congregational Church one June night, to witness the +most gorgeous church wedding the town ever had seen, John opened the +ceremonies by singing the "Voice that breathed o'er Eden" most +effectively, and Sycamore Ridge in its best clothes, rather stuffed +and uncomfortable thereby, was in that unnatural attitude toward the +world where it thought John Barclay's voice, a throaty baritone, with +much affectation in the middle register, a tendency to flat in the +upper register, and thick fuzz below "C," was beautiful, though John +often remembered that night with unalloyed shame. He saw himself as he +stood there, primped to kill, like a prize bull at a fair, bellowing +out a mawkish sentiment in a stilted voice, and he wondered how the +Ridge ever managed to endure him afterwards. + +But this is a charitable world, and his temperament was such that he +did not realize that no one paid much attention to him, after the real +ceremony started. When the bride and the bridesmaid came down the +aisle, Nellie Logan radiant in the gown which every woman in the +church knew had come from Chicago and had been bought of the drummer +at wholesale cost, saving the bride over fifteen dollars on the +regular price--what did the guests care for a dapper little man +singing a hymn tune through his nose, even if he was the richest young +man in town? And when Molly Culpepper--dear little Molly +Culpepper--came after the bride, blushing through her powder, and +looking straight at the floor for fear her eyes would wander after her +heart and wondering if the people knew--it was of no consequence that +John Barclay's voice frazzled on "F"; for if the town wished to notice +a man at that wedding, there was Watts McHurdie in a paper collar, +with a white embroidered bow tie and the first starched shirt the town +had ever seen him wear, badly out of step with the procession, while +the best man dragged him like an unwilling victim to the altar; and of +course there was the best man,--and a handsome best man as men +go,--fair-skinned, light-haired, blue-eyed, with a good glow on his +immobile face and rather sad eyes that, being in a man's head, went +boldly where they chose and where all the women in the town could see +them go. So there were other things to remember that night besides +John Barclay's singing and the festive figure he cut at that wedding: +there was the wedding supper at the Wards', and the wedding reception +at the Culpeppers', and after it all the dance in Culpepper Hall. And +all the town remembers these things, but only two people remember a +moment after the reception when every one was hurrying away to the +dance and when the bridesmaid--such a sweet, pretty little +bridesmaid--was standing alone in a deserted room with a tall +groomsman--just for a moment--just for a moment before Adrian +Brownwell came up bustling and bristling, but long enough to say, +"Bob--did you take my gloves there in the carriage as we were coming +home from the church?" and long enough for him to answer, "Why, did +you lose them?" and then to get a good square look into her eyes. It +was only a few seconds in the long evening--less than a second that +their eyes met; but it was enough to be remembered forever; though +why--you say! It was all so commonplace; there was nothing in it that +you would have thought worth remembering for a moment. "Bob, did you +take my gloves?" "Why, did you lose them?" and then a glance of the +eyes. Surely there are more romantic words than these. But when a man +and a woman go in for collecting antiques in their dialogues, Heaven +only knows what old rubbish you will find in their attics, scoured off +and rebuilt and polished with secret tears until the old stuff glows +like embers. + +And that is why, when the music was silent in Culpepper Hall, and the +tall young man walked slowly home alone, as he clicked his own gate +behind him, he brought from his pocket two little white gloves,--just +two ordinary white gloves,--and held them to his lips and lifted his +arms in despair once and let them drop as he stood before his +doorstep. And that is why a girl, a little girl with the weariest face +in the town, looked out of her bedroom window that night and whispered +over and over to herself the name she dared not speak. And all this +was going on while the town was turning over in its bed, listening to +the most tumultuous charivari that Sycamore Ridge has ever known. + +Night after night that summer faithful Jake Dolan walked the streets +of Sycamore Ridge with Bob Hendricks. By day they lived apart, but at +night the young man often would look up the elder, and they would walk +and walk together, but never once did Hendricks mention Molly's name +nor refer to her in any way; yet Jake Dolan knew why they walked +abroad. How did he know? How do we know so many things in this world +that are neither seen nor heard? And the Irish--they have the drop of +blood that defies mathematics; the Irish are the only people in the +world whom kind Providence permits to add two and two together to make +six. "You say 'tis four," said Dolan, one night, as he and Hendricks +stood on the bridge listening to the roar from the dam. "I say 'tis +six. There is this and there is that and you say they make the other. +Not at all; they make something else entirely different. You take your +two and your two and make your four and try your four on the world, +and it works--yes, it works up to a point; but there is something +left over, something unexplained; you don't know what. I do. It's the +other two. Therefore I say to you, Mr. Robert Hendricks, that two and +two make six, because God loves the Irish, and for no other reason on +earth." + +So much for the dreams of Molly, the memories of Bob, and the vagaries +of Mr. Dolan. They were as light as air. But in John Barclay's life a +vision was rising--a vision that was real, palpable, and vital; a +vision of wealth and power,--and as the days and the months passed, +the shadow of that vision grew big and black and real in a score of +lives. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +As June burned itself gloriously into July, Robert Hendricks no longer +counted the weeks until Molly Culpepper should be married, but counted +the days. So three weeks and two days, from the first of July, became +three weeks, then two weeks and six days, and then one week and six +days, and then six days, five days, four days, three days; and then it +became seventy-two hours. And the three threshing machines of the +Golden Belt Wheat Company were pouring their ceaseless stream into the +company's great bins. The railroad was only five miles away, and +Hendricks was sitting in his office in the bank going over and over +his estimates of the year's crop which was still lying in the +field,--save the crop from less than two thousand acres that was +harvested and threshed. From that he judged that there would be enough +to redeem his share of the farmers' mortgages, which in Hendricks' +mind could be nothing but rent for the land, and to pay his share of +the bank's fraudulent loans to the company--and leave nothing more. + +The fact that John expected to buy back the mortgages from Eastern +investors who had bought them, and then squeeze the farmers out of +their land by the option to buy hidden in the contract, did not move +Hendricks. He saw his duty in the matter, but as the golden flood rose +higher in the bins, and as hour after hour rolled by bringing him +nearer and nearer to the time when Molly Culpepper should marry Adrian +Brownwell, a temptation came to him, and he dallied with it as he sat +figuring at his desk. The bank was a husk. Its real resources had been +sold, and a lot of bogus notes--accommodation paper, they called +it--had taken the place of real assets. For Hendricks to borrow money +of any other institution as the officer of the Exchange National Bank +of Sycamore Ridge would be a crime. And yet he knew that ten thousand +dollars would save her, and his brain was wrought with a madness. And +so he sat figuring while the hours slipped by, trying to discount his +future income from the wheat to justify himself in taking the money +from the bank's vaults. His figures did not encourage him. They showed +him that to be honest with the farmers he might hope for no profit +from that year's crop, and with two years of failure behind him, he +knew that to discount the next year's crop would be nothing less than +stealing. Then, strong and compelling, came the temptation to let the +farmers fight it out with the Eastern investors. The temptation rocked +the foundations of his soul. He knew it was wrong; he knew he would be +a thief, if he did it, no matter what the law might say, no matter +what the courts might adjudge. To Barclay what was legal was right, +and what the courts had passed upon--that was legal. But Hendricks +sat with his pencil in his hand, going over and over his figures, +trying to silence his conscience. + +It was a hot afternoon that he sat there, and idly through his mind +went the computation that he had but sixty-six more hours of hope, and +as he looked at the clock he added, "and thirty-eight minutes and +twenty-seven seconds," when Martin Culpepper came ambling into the +back room of the bank. + +"Robert," began the colonel, with his eyes on the floor and his hands +deep in his trousers pockets, "I've just been talking to John." The +colonel rubbed his neck absent-mindedly and went on, "John's a Yankee, +Robert--the blue stripe on his belly is fast blue, sir; it won't +fade, change colour, or crock, in point of fact, not a damned bit, +sir, not till the devil covers it with a griddle stripe, sir, I may +say." The colonel slouched into a chair and looked into Hendricks' +face with a troubled expression and continued, "That John certainly is +Yankee, Robert, and he's too many for me. Yes, sir, certainly he's got +me up in the air, sir--up in the air, and as I may say a mile west, +on that wheat deal." Hendricks leaned forward unconsciously, and the +colonel dropped both hands to his knees and leaned toward Hendricks. +"Robert Hendricks," asked the colonel, as he bored his deep black eyes +into the younger man, "did you know about that option in the wheat +land mortgage? Answer me, sir!" + +"Not at the time, Colonel," returned Hendricks, and began, "but I--" + +"Well, neither did I. And I got half of those mortgages myself. Lige +and I did it all, sir. And Lige knew--Lige, he says it's legal, but I +say it's just common stealing." Hendricks moistened his lips and sat +with mute face gazing at the colonel. The colonel went on, "And now +the farmers have found it out, and the devil's to pay, sir, with no +pitch hot!" + +Hendricks cleared his throat and began, "Well, Colonel--I don't know; +of course I--" + +The elder man rose to his full height and glared at the younger, and +cried, "Ah, Robert, Robert, fire in the mountain, snakes in the +grass--you do know--you do know, sir. You know that to hold up the +farmers of this county in the midst of what amounted to a famine, not +to let them borrow a dollar in the county except on a gouging +mortgage, and then to slip into that mortgage a blind option to sell +for ten dollars an acre land that is worth three times that, is +stealing, and so does John Barclay know that, and, worst of all, so +does Martin Culpepper know that, and the farmers are finding it +out--my neighbours and comrades that I helped to swindle, sir--to +rob, I may say--they know what it is." + +The colonel's voice was rising, and he stood glaring and puffing +before the young man, shaking his head furiously. Young Hendricks was +engaged in swallowing his Adam's apple and blinking unsteadily, and +just as he started to reply, the colonel, who had caught his temper by +the horn and was shaking it into submission, cried: "Yes, sir, Robert, +that's what I said, sir; those were my very words in point of fact. +And," he began as he sat down and sighed, "what galls me most of all, +Robert, is that John laughs at me. Here you've been gagging and +gulping and sputtering, boy, to keep down your conscience, and so I +know--yes, Robert, I'm dead sure, I may say, that you're all right; +but John giggles--giggles, sir, snickers in point of fact, as though +he had done something smart in getting me to go out among my old +soldier friends and rob 'em of their homesteads. He doesn't care for +my good name any more than for his own." + +Hendricks drummed with his fingers on the desk before him. His blue +eyes looked into nothing, and his mind's eye saw the house of cards he +had been dallying with totter and fall. He drew a deep breath before +he looked up at the colonel, and said rather sadly: "Well, Colonel, +you're right. I told John the day after I came home that I wouldn't +stand it." He drummed with his fingers for a moment before continuing, +"I suppose you got about half of those contracts, didn't you?" + +The colonel pulled from his pocket a crumpled paper and handed it to +Hendricks, "Here they are, sir--and every one from a soldier or a +soldier's widow, every one a homestead, sir." + +Hendricks walked to the window, and stood looking out with his eyes +cast down. He fumbled his Masonic watch-charm a moment, and then +glancing at it, caught the colonel's eye and smiled as he said: "I'm +on the square, Colonel, in this matter. I'll protect you." He went to +the elder man and put his hands on his shoulder as he said: "You go to +your comrades and tell them this, Colonel, that between now and +snowfall every man will have his land clear. But," he added, picking +up the list of the colonel's contracts, "don't mention me in the +matter." He paused and continued, "It might hurt the bank. Just tell +them you'll see that it's taken care of." + +The colonel put out his hand as he rose. When their hands met he was +saying: "Blood tells, Robert Hendricks, blood tells. Wasn't your +sainted father a Democrat, boy, a Democrat like me, sir,--a Union +Democrat in point of fact?" The colonel squeezed the younger man's +hand as he cried: "A Union Democrat, sir, who could shoot at his +party, sir, but never could bring himself to vote against it--not +once, sir--not once. And Robert Hendricks, when I see you acting as +you've acted just now, sir, this very minute in point of fact, I may +say, sir, that you're almost honest enough to be a Democrat, +sir--like your sainted father." The colonel held the young man's hand +affectionately for a time and then dropped it, sighing, "Ah, sir--if +it wasn't for your damned Yankee free schools and your damned Yankee +surroundings, what a Democrat you would have made, Robert--what a +grand Democrat!" The colonel waved his silver tobacco box proudly and +made for the door and left Hendricks sitting at his desk, drumming on +the board with one hand, and resting his head in the other, looking +longingly into the abyss from which he had escaped; for the lure of +the danger still fluttered his soul. + +Strength had come to him in that hour to resist the temptation. But +the temptation still was there. For he was a young man, giving up for +an intangible thing called justice the dearest thing in his life. He +had opened the door of his life's despair and had walked in, as much +like a man as he could, but he kept looking back with a heavy heart, +hungering with his whole body and most of his soul for all that he had +renounced. And so, staring at the light of other days, and across the +shadow of what might have been, he let ten long minutes tick past +toward the inevitable hour, and then he rose and put his hand to the +plough for the long furrow. + +They are all off the stage now, as Bob Hendricks is standing in the +front door of the bank that August night with his watch in his hand +reckoning the minutes--some four thousand three hundred of +them--until Molly Culpepper will pass from him forever, and as the +stage is almost deserted, we may peep under the rear curtain for a +minute. Observe Sycamore Ridge in the eighties, with Hendricks its +moving spirit, controlling its politics, dominating its +business,--for John Barclay's business has moved to the City and Bob +Hendricks has become the material embodiment of the town. And the town +there on the canvas is a busy town of twenty thousand people. Just +back of that scene we find a convention spread on the canvas, a +political convention wherein Robert Hendricks is struggling for good +government and clean politics. Observe him a taciturn, forceful man, +with his hands on the machinery of his party in the state, shaping its +destinies, directing its politics, seeking no office, keeping himself +in the background, desiring only to serve, and not to advertise his +power. So more and more power comes to him, greater and wider +opportunities to serve his state. His business grows and multiplies, +and he becomes a strong man among men; always reserved, always +cautious, a man whose self-poise makes people take him for a cynic, +though his heart is full of hope and of the joy of life to the very +last. Let us lift up one more rag--one more painted rag in the +scenery of his life--and see him a reformer of national fame; see him +with an unflinching hand pull the wires that control a great national +policy of his party, and watch in that scene wherein he names a +president--even against the power and the money and the organization +of rich men, brutally rich men like John Barclay. Hendricks' thin hair +is growing gray in this scene, and his skin is no longer fresh and +white; but his eyes have a twinkle in them, and the ardour of his soul +glows in a glad countenance. And as he sits alone in his room long +after midnight while the bands are roaring and the processions +cheering and the great city is ablaze with excitement, Robert +Hendricks, turning fifty, winds his watch--the same watch that he +holds in his hand here while we pause to peek under the canvas behind +the scenes--and wonders if Molly will be glad that his side won. He +has not seen her for months, nor talked with her for years, and yet as +he sits there winding his watch after his great strategic victory in +national politics, he hopes fondly that perhaps Molly will know that +he played a clean hand and won a fair game. + +Now let us crawl out from under this rubbish of the coming years, back +into Sycamore Ridge. And while the street is deserted, let us turn the +film of events forward, letting them flit by unnoticed past the +wedding of Molly Culpepper and Adrian Brownwell until we come to the +August day when the railroad came to Sycamore Ridge. + +Jacob Dolan, sheriff in and for Garrison County for four years, +beginning with 1873, remembered the summer of 1875 to his dying day, +as the year when he tore his blue soldier coat, and for twenty-five +years, after the fight in which the coat was torn, Dolan never put it +on for a funeral or a state occasion, that he did not smooth out the +seam that Nellie Logan McHurdie made in mending the rent place, and +recall the exigencies of the public service which made it necessary to +tear one's clothes to keep the peace. + +"You may state to the court in your own way," said the judge at the +trial of the sheriff for assault, "just how the difficulty began." + +"Well, sir," answered Dolan, "there was a bit of a celebration in +town, on August 30, it being the day the railroad came in, and in +honour of the occasion I put on my regimentals, and along about--say +eleven o'clock--as the crowd began to thicken up around the bank +corner, and in front of the hardware store, I was walking along, kind +of shoving the way clear for the ladies to pass, when some one behind +me says, 'General Hendricks was an old thief, and his son is no +better,' and I turned around and clapt my eye on this gentleman here. +I'd never seen him before in my whole life, but I knew by the bold +free gay way he had with his tongue that he was from Minneola and bent +on trouble. 'Keep still,' says I, calm and dignified like, bent on +preserving the peace, as was my duty. 'I'll not,' says he. 'You will,' +says I. 'Tis a free country,' says he, coming toward me with one +shoulder wiggling. 'But not for cowards who malign the dead,' says I. +'Well, they were thieves,' says he, shaking his fist and getting more +and more into contempt of court every minute. 'You're a liar,' says I, +maintaining the dignity of my office. 'And you're a thief too,' says +he. 'A what?' says I. 'A thief,' says he. 'Whack,' says I, with my +stick across his head, upholding the dignity of the court. 'Biff,' +says he, with a brick that was handy, more and more contemptuous. 'You +dirty, mangy cur,' says I, grabbing him by the ears and pounding his +head against the wall as I spoke, hoping to get some idea of the +dignity of the court into his rebellious head. 'Whoop,' says he, and, +as he tore my coat, 'Yip yip,' says I, and may it please the court it +was shortly thereafter that the real trouble started, though I +misremember just how at this time." And as there were three "E" +Company men on the jury, they acquitted Dolan and advised the court to +assess a fine on the prosecuting witness for contributory negligence +in resisting an officer. + +But the coat--the blue coat with brass buttons, with the straps of a +lieutenant on the shoulders, was mended and even in that same summer +did active service many times. For that was a busy summer for Sycamore +Ridge, and holidays came faster than the months. When the supreme +court decided the Minneola suit to enjoin the building of the +court-house, in favour of Syeamore Ridge, there was another holiday, +and men drew John Barclay around in the new hack with the top down, +and there were fireworks in the evening. For it was John Barclay's +lawsuit. Lige Bemis, who was county attorney, did not try to claim +credit for the work, and when the last acre of the great wheat crop of +the Golden Belt Wheat Company was cut, and threshed, there was a big +celebration and the elevator of the Golden Belt Wheat Company was +formally turned over to the company, and John Barclay was the hero of +another happy occasion. For the elevator, standing on a switch by the +railroad track, was his "proposition." And every one in town knew that +the railroad company had made a rate of wheat to Barclay and his +associates, so low that Minneola could not compete, even if she hauled +her wheat to another station on the road, so Minneola teams lined up +at Barclay's elevator. That autumn Minneola, without a railroad, +without a chance for the county-seat, and without a grain market, +began to fag, and during the last of September, the Mason House came +moving out over the hill road, from Minneola to Sycamore Ridge, +surrounded by a great crowd of enthusiastic men from the Ridge. Every +evening, of the two weeks in which the house was moving, people drove +out from Sycamore Ridge to see it, and Lycurgus Mason, sitting on the +back step smoking,--he could not get into the habit of using the +front steps even in his day of triumph,--was a person of considerable +importance. + +Money was plentiful, and the Exchange National Bank grew with the +country. The procession of covered wagons, that had straggled and +failed the year before, began to close ranks in the spring; and in +place of "Buck" and "Ball" and "Star," and "Bright" and "Tom" and +"Jerry," who used to groan under the yoke, horses were hitched to the +wagons, and stock followed after them, and thus Garrison County was +settled, and Sycamore Ridge grew from three to five thousand people in +three years. In the spring of '75 the _Banner_ began to publish a +daily edition, and Editor Brownwell went up and down the railroad on +his pass, attending conventions and making himself a familiar figure +in the state. Times were so prosperous that the people lost interest +in the crime of '73, and General Ward had to stay in his law-office, +but he joined the teetotalers and helped to organize the Good Templars +and the state temperance society. Colonel Culpepper in his prosperity +took to fancy vests, cut extremely low, and the Culpepper women became +the nucleus of organized polite society in the Ridge. + +The money that John Barclay made in that first wheat transaction was +the foundation of his fortune. For that money gave him two important +things needed in making money--confidence in himself, and prestige. +He was twenty-five years old then, and he had demonstrated to his +community thoroughly that he had courage, that he was crafty, and that +he went to his end and got results, without stopping for overnice +scruples of honour. Sycamore Ridge and Garrison County, excepting a +few men like General Ward, who were known as cranks, regarded John as +the smartest man in the county--smarter even than Lige Bemis. And the +whole community, including some of the injured farmers themselves, +considered Hendricks a sissy for his scruples, and thought Barclay a +shrewd financier for claiming all that he could get. Barclay got hold +of eight thousand acres of wheat land, in adjacent tracts, and went +ahead with his business. In August he ploughed the ground for another +crop. Also he persuaded his mother to let him build a new home on the +site of the Barclay home by the Sycamore tree under the ridge, and +when it was done that winter Mr. and Mrs. John Barclay moved out of +their rooms at the Thayer House and lived with John's mother. The +house they built cost ten thousand dollars when it was finished, and +it may still be seen as part of the great rambling structure that he +built in the nineties. John put five hundred dollars' worth of books +into the new house--sets of books, which strangely enough he forced +himself to wade through laboriously, and thus he cultivated a habit of +reading that always remained with him. In those days the books with +cracked backs in his library were Emerson, Browning, and Tennyson. And +after a hard day's work he would come home to his poets and his piano. +He thought out the whole plan of the Barclay Economy Car Door Strip +about midnight, sitting in his night clothes at the piano after +reading "Abt Vogler," and the central idea for the address on the +"Practical Transcendentalist," which he delivered at the opening of +the state university the next year, came to him one winter night after +he had tried to compose a clanging march as an air to fit Emerson's +"The Sphinx." After almost a quarter of a century that address became +the first chapter of Barclay's famous book, which created such +ribaldry in the newspapers, entitled "The Obligations of Wealth." + +It was in 1879 that Barclay patented his Economy Door Strip, and put +it in his grain cars. It saved loss of grain in shipping, and Barclay, +being on terms of business intimacy with the railroad men, sold the +Economy Strip to the railroads to use on every car of grain or flour +he shipped. And Lycurgus Mason, taken from the kitchen of the Mason +House, hired a room over McHurdie's harness shop, and made the strips +there. His first day in his new shop is impressed upon his memory by +an incident that is the seed of a considerable part of this story. + +He always remembers that day, because, when he got to the Thayer +House, he found John there in the buggy waiting for him, and a crowd +of men sitting around smoking cigars. In the seat by Barclay was a +cigar-box, and Lycurgus cut in, before John could speak, with, "Well, +which is it?" + +And John returned, "A girl--get in; Mother Mason needs you." + +Lycurgus fumbled under the box lid for a cigar as he got into the +buggy, and repeated: "Mother needs me, eh? Well, now, ain't that just +like a woman, taking a man from his work in the middle of the day? +What are you going to name her?" + +"How do you like Jeanette?" asked Barclay, as he turned the horse. +"You know we can't have two Janes," he explained. + +"Well," asked the elder man, tentatively, "how does mother stand on +Jeanette?" + +"Mother Mason," answered Barclay, "is against it." + +"All right," replied Lycurgus, "I vote aye. What does she want?" he +asked. + +"Susan B.," returned Barclay. + +"Susan B. Anthony?" queried the new grandfather. + +"Exactly," replied the new father. + +The two rode down the street in silence; as they turned into the +Barclay driveway Lycurgus chuckled, "Well--well--Susan B. Wants to +put breeches on that child before she gets her eyes open." Then he +turned on Barclay with a broad grin of fellowship, as he pinched the +young man's leg and laughed, "Say--John--honest, ain't that just +like a woman?" + +And so Jeanette Thatcher Barclay came into this world, and what with +her Grandmother Barclay uncovering her to look at the Thatcher nose, +and her Grandmother Mason taking her to the attic so that she could go +upstairs before she went down, that she might never come down in the +world, and what with her Grandfather Mason rubbing her almost raw with +his fuzzy beard before the women could scream at him, and what with +her father trying to jostle her on his knee, and what with all the +different things Mrs. Ward, the mother of six, would have done to her, +and all the things Mrs. Culpepper, mother of three, would have done to +her, and Mrs. McHurdie, mother of none, prevented the others from +doing, Jeanette had rather an exciting birthday. And Jeanette Barclay +as a young woman often looks at the scrap-book with its crinkly leaves +and reads this item from the _Daily Banner_: "The angels visited our +prosperous city again last Thursday, June 12, and left a little one +named Jeanette at the home of our honoured townsman, John Barclay. +Mother and child progressing nicely." But under this item is a long +poem clipped from a paper printed a week later,--Jeanette has counted +the stanzas many times and knows there are seventeen, and each one +ends with "when the angels brought Jeanette." Her father used to read +the verses to her to tease her when she was in her teens, and once +when she was in her twenties, and Jeanette had the lonely poet out to +dinner one Sunday, she sat with him on the sofa in the library, +looking at the old scrap-book. Their eyes fell upon the verses about +the angels bringing Jeanette, and the girl noticed the old man mumming +it over and smiling. + +"Tell me, Uncle Watts," she asked, "why did you make such a long poem +about such a short girl?" + +The poet ran his fingers through his rough gray beard, and went on +droning off the lines, and grinning as he read. When he had finished, +he took her pretty hand in his gnarly, bony one and patted the white +firm flesh tenderly as he peered back through the years. "U-h-m, that +was years and years ago, Jeanette--years and years ago, and Nellie +had just bought me my rhyming dictionary. It was the first time I had +a chance to use it." The lyrical artist drummed with his fingers on +the mahogany arm of the sofa. "My goodness, child--what a long column +there was of words rhyming with 'ette.'" He laughed to himself as he +mused: "You know, my dear, I had to let 'brevet' and 'fret' and +'roulette' go, because I couldn't think of anything to say about them. +You don't know how that worries a poet." He looked at the verses in +the book before him and then shook his head sadly: "I was young +then--it seems strange to think I could write that. Youth, youth," he +sighed as he patted the fresh young hand beside him, "it is not by +chance you rhyme with truth." + +His eyes glistened, and the girl put her cheek against his and +squeezed the thin, trembling hand as she cried, "Oh, Uncle Watts, +Uncle Watts, you're a dear--a regular dear!" + +"In his latter days," writes Colonel Culpepper, in the second edition +of the Biography, "those subterranean fires of life that flowed so +fervently in his youth and manhood smouldered, and he did not write +often. But on occasion the flames would rise and burn for a moment +with their old-time ardour. The poem 'After Glow' was penned one night +just following a visit with a young woman, Jeanette, only daughter of +Honourable and Mrs. John Barclay, whose birth is celebrated elsewhere +in this volume under the title 'When the Angels brought Jeanette.' The +day after the poem 'After Glow' was composed I was sitting in the +harness shop with the poet when the conversation turned upon the +compensations of age. I said: 'Sir, do you not think that one of our +compensations is that found in the freedom and the rare intimacy with +which we are treated by the young women? They no longer seem to fear +us. Is it not sweet?' I asked. Our hero turned from his bench with a +smile and a deprecating gesture as he replied softly, 'Ah, +Colonel--that's just it; that's just the trouble.' And then he took +from a box near by this poem, 'The After Glow,' and read it to me. And +I knew the meaning of the line-- + +"'Oh, drowsy blood that tosses in its sleep.' + +"And so we fell to talking of other days. And until the twilight came +we sat together, dreaming of faded moons." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +Colonel Martin Culpepper was standing with, one foot on the window +ledge in the office of Philemon R. Ward one bright spring morning +watching the procession of humanity file into the post-office and out +into the street upon the regular business of life. Mrs. Watts +McHurdie, a bride of five years and obviously proud of it, hurried by, +and Mrs. John Barclay drove down the street in her phaeton; Oscar +Fernald, with a pencil behind his ear, came out of his office licking +an envelope and loped into the post-office and out like a dog looking +for his bone; and then a lank figure sauntered down the street, +stopping here and there to talk with a passerby, stepping into a +stairway to light a cigar, and betimes leaning languidly against an +awning post in the sun and overhauling farmers passing down Main +Street in their wagons. + +"He's certainly a gallus-looking slink," ejaculated the colonel. + +The general, writing at his desk, asked, "Who?" + +"Our old friend and comrade in arms, Lige Bemis." At the blank look on +the general's face the colonel shook his head wearily. "Don't know +what a gallus-looking slink is, do you? General, the more I live with +you damn Yankees and fight for your flag and die for your country, +sir, the more astonished I am at your limited and provincial knowledge +of the United States language. Here you are, a Harvard graduate, with +the Harvard pickle dripping off your ears, confessing such ignorance +of your mother-tongue. General, a gallus-looking slink is four hoss +thieves, three revenue officers, a tin pedler, and a sheep-killing +dog, all rolled into one man. And as I before remarked, our beloved +comrade, Lige Bemis, is certainly a gallus-looking slink." + +"Far be it from me," continued the colonel, "residing as I may say in +a rather open and somewhat exposed domicile--a glass house in +fact--to throw stones at Elijah Westlake Bemis,--far be it." The +colonel patted himself heroically on the stomach and laughed. +"Doubtless, while I haven't been a professional horse thief, nor a +cattle rustler, still, probably, if the truth was known, I've done a +number of things equally distasteful--I was going to say +obnoxious--in the sight of Mr. Bemis, so we'll let that pass." The +colonel stretched his suspenders out and let them flap against the +plaits of his immaculate shirt. "But I will say, General, that as I +see it, it will be a heap handier for me to explain to St. Peter at +the gate the things I've done than if he'd ask me about Lige's +record." + +The general scratched along, without answering, and the colonel looked +meditatively into the street; then he began to smile, and the smile +glowed into a beam that bespread his countenance and sank into a mood +that set his vest to shaking "like a bowl full of jelly." "I was just +thinking," he said to nobody in particular, "that if Lige was jumped out +of his grave right quick by Gabriel and hauled up before St. Peter and +asked to justify my record, he'd have some trouble too--considerable +difficulty, I may say. I reckon it's all a matter of having to live with +your sins till you get a good excuse thought up." + +The general pushed aside his work impatiently and tilted back in his +chair. "Come, Martin Culpepper, come, come! That won't do. You know +better than that. What's the use of your pretending to be as bad as +Lige Bemis? You know better and I know better and the whole town knows +better. He's little, and he's mean, and snooping, and crooked as a +dog's hind leg. Why, he was in here yesterday--actually in here to +see me. Yes, sir--what do you think of that? Wants to be state +senator." + +"So I hear," smiled the colonel. + +"Well," continued the general, "he came in here yesterday as pious as +a deacon, and he said that his friends were insisting on his running +because his enemies were bringing up that 'old trouble' on him. He +calls his horse stealing and cattle rustling 'that old trouble.' +Honestly, Martin, you'd think he was being persecuted. It was all I +could do to keep from sympathizing with him. He said he couldn't +afford to retreat under fire, and then he told me how he had been +trying to be a better man, and win the respect of the people--and I +couldn't stand it any longer, and I rose up and shook my fist in his +face and said: 'Lige Bemis, you disreputable, horse-stealing cow +thief, what right have you to ask my help? What right have you got to +run for state senator, anyway?' And, Martin, the brazen whelp reared +back and looked me squarely in the eye and answered without blinking, +'Because, Phil Ward, I want the job.' What do you think of that for +brass?" + +The colonel slapped his campaign hat on his leg and laughed. There was +always, even to the last, something feminine in Martin Culpepper's +face when he laughed--a kind of alternating personality of the other +sex seemed to tiptoe up to his consciousness and peek out of his kind +eyes. As he laughed with Ward the colonel spoke: "Criminy, but that's +like him. He's over there talking to Gabe Carnine on the corner now. I +know what he's saying. He has only one speech, and he gets it off to +all of us. He's got his cigar chawed down to a rag, stuck in one +corner of his mouth, and he's saying, 'Gabe--this is the fight of my +life. This is the last time I'm going to ask my friends for help.' +General, I've heard that now, off and on, first and last, from old +Lige at every city, state, county, and lodge election since the war +closed, and I can see how Gabe is twisting and wiggling trying to get +away from it. He's heard it too. Now Lige is saying: 'Gabe, I ain't +going to lie to you; you know me, and you know I've made +mistakes--but they were errors of judgment, and I want to get a +chance to live 'em down. I want to show the young men of this state +that Lige Bemis of the Red Legs is a man--even if he was wild as a +young fellow; it'll prove that a man can rise.' Poor old Gabe--Lige +has got him by the coat front, now. That's the third degree. When he +gets him by the neck and begins to whisper, he's giving him the work +in the uniform rank. He's saying: 'Gabe, I've got to have you with me. +I can't win without you, and I would rather lose than win with you +against me. You stand for all that's upright in this county, and if +you'll come to my aid, I can win.' Here, General--look--Lige's got +him by the neck and the hand. Now for the password right from the +grand lodge, 'Gabe, you'd make a fine state treasurer--I can land it +for you. Make me state senator, and with my state acquaintance, added +to the prestige of this office, I can make a deal that will land you.' +Oh, I know his whole speech," laughed the colonel. "Bob Hendricks is +to be secretary of state, John Barclay is to be governor, Oscar +Fernald is to be state auditor, and the boys say that Lycurgus Mason +has the refusal of warden of the Penitentiary." The colonel chuckled +as he added: "So far as the boys have been able to learn, Lige still +has United States senator, president, and five places in the cabinet +to go on, but Minneola township returns ain't all in yet, and they may +change the result. By the way, General, what did you get?" + +The general flushed and replied, "Well, to be perfectly honest with +you, Mart--he did promise me to vote for the dram-shop law." + +And in the convention that summer Lige Bemis strode with his ragged +cigar sticking from the corner of his mouth, with his black eyes +blazing, and his shock of black hair on end, begging, bulldozing, and +buying delegates to vote for him. He had the river wards behind him to +a man, and he had the upland townships where the farmers needed a +second name on their notes at the bank; and in the gentleman's +ward--the silk-stocking ward--he had Gabriel Carnine, chairman of +the first ward delegation, casting the solid vote of that ward for +Bemis ballot after ballot. And when Bemis got Minneola township for +fifty dollars,--and everybody in the convention knew it,--he was +declared the nominee of the party with a whoop. + +But behind Bemis was the sinister figure of young John Barclay working +for his Elevator Company. He needed Bemis in politics, and Bemis +needed Barclay in business. And there the alliance between Barclay and +Bemis was cemented, to last for a quarter of a century. Barclay and +Bemis went into the campaign together and asked the people to rally to +the support of the party that had put down the rebellion, that had +freed four million slaves, and had put the names of Lincoln and of +Grant and Garfield as stars in the world's firmament of heroes. And +the people of Garrison County responded, and State Senator Elijah +Westlake Bemis did for Barclay in the legislature the things that +Barclay would have preferred not to do for himself, and the Golden +Belt Elevator Company throve and waxed fat. And Lige Bemis, its +attorney, put himself in the way of becoming a "general counsel," with +his name on an opaque glass door. For as Barclay rose in the world, he +found the need of Bemis more and more pressing every year. In politics +the favours a man does for others are his capital, and Barclay's +deposit grew large. He was forever helping some one. His standing with +the powers in the state was good. He was a local railroad attorney, +and knew the men who had passes to give, and who were responsible for +the direction which legislation took during the session. Barclay saw +that they put Bemis on the judiciary committee, and by manipulating +the judiciary committee he controlled a dozen votes through Bemis. He +changed a railroad assessment law, secured the passage of a law +permitting his Elevator Company to cheat the farmers by falsely +grading their wheat, and prevented the passage of half a dozen laws +restricting the powers of railroads. So at the close of the +legislative session his name appeared under a wood-cut picture in the +_Commonwealth_ newspaper, and in the article thereunto appended +Barclay was referred to as one of the "money kings of our young +state." That summer he turned his wheat into his elevator early and at +a low price, and borrowed money on it, and bought five new elevators +and strained his credit to the limit, and before the fall closed he +had ten more, and controlled the wheat in twenty counties. Strangers +riding through the state on the Corn Belt Railroad saw the words, "The +Golden Belt Elevator Company" on elevators all along the line. But few +people knew then that the "Company" had become a partnership between +John Barclay of Sycamore Ridge and less than half a dozen railroad +men, with Barclay owning seventy-five per cent of the partnership and +with State Senator Bemis the attorney for the company. + +That year the railroad officials who were making money out of the +Golden Belt Elevator Company were obliging, and Barclay made a +contract with them to ship all grain from the Golden Belt Company's +elevators in cars equipped with the Barclay Economy Rubber Strip, and +he sold these strips to the railroads for four dollars apiece and put +them on at the elevators. He shipped ten thousand cars that year, and +Lycurgus Mason hired two men to help him in the strip factory. And +John Barclay, in addition to the regular rebate, made forty thousand +dollars that he did not have to divide. The next year he leased three +large mills and took over a score of elevators and paid Lycurgus +twenty dollars a week, and Lycurgus deposited money in the bank in his +own name for the first time in his life. + +As the century clanged noisily into its busy eighties, Adrian P. +Brownwell creaked stiffly into his forties. And while all the world +about him was growing rich,--or thought it was, which is the same +thing,--Brownwell seemed to be struggling to keep barely even with +the score of life. The _Banner_ of course ran as a daily, but it was a +miserable, half-starved little sheet, badly printed, and edited, as +the printers used to say, with a pitchfork. It looked shiftless and +dirty-faced long before Brownwell began to look seedy. Editor +Brownwell was forever going on excursions--editorial excursions, +land-buyers' excursions, corn trains, fruit trains, trade trains, +political junkets, tours of inspection of new towns and new fields, +and for consideration he was forever writing grandiloquent accounts of +his adventures home to the _Banner_. But from the very first he +ostentatiously left Molly, his wife, at home. "The place for a woman," +said Brownwell to the assembled company on the Barclay veranda one +evening, when Jane had asked him why he did not take Molly to the +opening of the new hotel at Garden City, "the place for woman is in +the sacred precincts of home, 'far from the madding crowd's ignoble +throng.' The madame and I," with a flourish of his cane, "came to that +agreement early, eh, my dear, eh?" he asked, poking her masterfully +with his cane. And Molly Brownwell, wistful-eyed and fading, smiled +and assented, and the incident passed as dozens of other incidents +passed in the Ridge, which made the women wish they had Adrian +Brownwell, to handle for just one day. But the angels in that +department of heaven where the marriages are made are exceedingly +careful not to give to that particular kind of women the Adrian +Brownwell kind of men, so the experiment which every one on earth for +thousands of years has longed to witness, still remains a theory, and +Adrian Brownwell traipsed up and down the earth, in his lavender +gloves, his long coat and mouse-coloured trousers, his high hat, with +his twirling cane, and the everlasting red carnation in his +buttonhole. His absence made it necessary for Molly Brownwell to leave +the sacred precincts of the home many and many a Saturday afternoon, +to go over the books at the _Banner_ office, make out bills, take them +out, and collect the money due upon them and pay off the printers who +got out the paper. But Adrian Brownwell ostentatiously ignored such +services and kept up the fiction about the sacred precincts, and often +wrote scorching editorials about the "encroachment of women" and grew +indignant editorially at the growth of sentiment for woman's suffrage. +On one occasion he left on the copy-hook a fervid appeal for women to +repulse the commercialism which "was sullying the fair rose of +womanhood," and taking "from woman the rare perfume of her chiefest +charm," and then he went away on a ten days' journey, and the foreman +of the _Banner_ had to ask Mrs. Brownwell to collect enough money from +the sheriff and a delinquent livery-stable keeper to pay the freight +charges on the paper stock needed for that week's issue of the paper. + +The town came to know these things, and so when Brownwell, who, since +his marriage, had taken up his abode at the Culpeppers', hinted at his +"extravagant family," the town refused to take him seriously. And the +strutting, pompous little man, who referred grandly to "my wife," and +then to "the madame," and finally to "my landlady," in a rather +elaborate attempt at jocularity, laughed alone at his merriment along +this line, and never knew that no one cared for his humour. + +So in his early forties Editor Brownwell dried up and grew yellow and +began to dye his mustaches and his eyebrows, and to devote much time +to considering his own importance. "Throw it out," said Brownwell to +the foreman, "not a line of it shall go!" He had just come home from a +trip and had happened to glance over the proof of the article +describing the laying of the corner-stone of Ward University. + +"But that's the only thing that happened in town this week, and Mrs. +Brownwell wrote it herself." + +"Cut it out, I say," insisted Brownwell, and then threw back his +shoulders and marched to his desk, snapping his eyes, and +demonstrating to the printers that he was a man of consequence. "I'll +teach 'em," he roared. "I'll teach 'em to make up their committees and +leave me out." + +He raged about the office, and finally wrote the name of Philemon R. +Ward in large letters on the office blacklist hanging above his desk. +This list contained the names which under no circumstances were to +appear in the paper. But it was a flexible list. The next day John +Barclay, who desired to have his speech on the laying of the +corner-stone printed in full, gave Brownwell twenty dollars, and a +most glowing account of the event in question appeared in the +_Banner_, and eloquence staggered under the burden of praise which +Brownwell's language loaded upon the shoulders of General Ward. + +It is now nearly a generation since that corner-stone was laid. Boys and +girls who then were children have children in the university, and its +alumni include a brigadier in the army, a poet, a preacher of national +renown, two college presidents, an authority upon the dynamics of living +matter, and two men who died in the American mission at Foo Chow during +the uprising in 1900. When General Ward was running for President of the +United States on one of the various seceding branches of the prohibition +party, while Jeanette Barclay was a little girl, he found the money for +it; two maiden great-aunts on his mother's side of the family had half a +million dollars to leave to something, and the general got it. They +willed it to him to hold in trust during his lifetime, but the day after +the check came for it, he had transferred the money to a university +fund, and had borrowed fifty dollars of Bob Hendricks to clean up his +grocery bills and tide him over until his pension came. But he was a +practical old fox. He announced that he would give the money to a +college only if the town would give a similar sum, and what with John +Barclay's hundred-thousand-dollar donation, and Bob Hendricks' ten +thousand, and what with the subscription paper carried around by Colonel +Culpepper, who proudly headed it with five thousand dollars, and after +the figure wrote in red ink "in real estate," much to the town's +merriment, and what with public meetings and exhortations in the +churches, and what with voting one hundred thousand dollars in bonds by +Garrison County for the privilege of sending students to the college +without tuition, the amount was raised; and as the procession wheeled +out of Main Street to attend the ceremonies incident to laying the +corner-stone that beautiful October day, it is doubtful which was the +prouder man--Martin Culpepper, the master of ceremonies, in his plumed +hat, flashing sword, and red sash, or General Philemon Ward, who for the +first time in a dozen years heard the crowd cheer his name when the +governor in his speech pointed at the general's picture--his campaign +picture that had been hooted with derision and spattered with filth on +so many different occasions in the town. The governor's remarks were of +course perfunctory; he devoted five or ten minutes to the praise of +General Ward, of Sycamore Ridge, of John Barclay, and of education in +general, and then made his regular speech that he used for college +commencements, for addresses of welcome to church conferences, synods, +and assemblies, and for conclaves of the grand lodge. General Ward spoke +poorly, which was to his credit, considering the occasion, and Watts +McHurdie's poem got entangled with Juno and Hermes and Minerva and a +number of scandalous heathen gods,--who were no friends of Watts,--and +the crowd tired before he finished the second canto. But many +discriminating persons think that John Barclay's address, "The Time of +True Romance," was the best thing he ever wrote. It may be found in his +book as Chapter XI. "The Goths," he said, "came out of the woods, pulled +the beards of the senators, destroyed the Roman state, murdered and +pillaged the Roman people, and left the world the Gothic arch; the +Vikings came over the sea, roaring their sagas of rapine and slaughter; +the conquerors came to Europe with spear and sword and torch and left +the outlines of the map, the boundaries of states. Luther married his +nun, and set Christendom to fighting over it for a hundred years, but he +left a free conscience. Cromwell thrust his pikes into the noble heads +of England, snapped his fingers at law, and left civil liberty. +Organized murder reached its sublimity in the war that Lincoln waged, +and in that murdering and pillage true romance came to mankind in its +flower. Murder for the moment in these piping times has become impolite. +But true romance is here. Our heroes rob and plunder, and build cities, +and swing gayly around the curves of the railroads they have stolen, and +swagger through the cities they have levied upon the people to build. Do +we care to-day whether Charlemagne murdered his enemies with a sword or +an axe; do we ask if King Arthur used painless assassination or burned +his foes at the stake? Who cares to know that Cæsar was a rake, and that +William the Conqueror was a robber? They did their work and did it well, +and are snugly sitting on their monuments where no moralist can reach +them. So those searching for true romance to-day, who regard the +decalogue as mere persiflage, and the moral code as a thing of archaic +interest, will get their day's work done and strut into posterity in +bronze and marble. They will cheat and rob and oppress and grind the +faces off the poor, and do their work and follow their visions, and live +the romance in their hearts. To-morrow we will take their work, +disinfect it, and dedicate it to God's uses." + +There was more of it--four thousand words more, to be exact, and when +General Ward went home that night he prayed his Unitarian God to +forgive John Barclay for his blasphemy. And for years the general +shuddered when his memory brought back the picture of the little man, +with his hard tanned face, his glaring green eyes, his brazen voice +trumpeting the doctrine of materialism to the people. + +"John," said the general, the next day, as he sat in the mill, going +over the plans of the college buildings with Barclay, who was chairman +of the board of directors, "John, why are you so crass, so gross a +materialist? You have enough money--why don't you stop getting it and +do something with it worth while?" + +"Because, General, I'm not making money--that's only an incident of +my day's work. I'm organizing the grain industry of this country as it +is organized in no other country on this planet." Barclay rose as he +spoke and began limping the length of the room. It was his habit to +walk when he talked, and he knew the general had come to catechize +him. + +"Yes, but then, John--what then?" + +"What then?" repeated Barclay, with his hands in his pockets and his +eyes on the floor. "Coffee, maybe--perhaps sugar, or tobacco. Or why +not the whole food supply of the people--let me have meat and sugar +where I will have flour and grain, and in ten years no man in America +can open his grocery store in the morning until he has asked John +Barclay for the key." He snapped his eyes good-naturedly at the +general, challenging the man's approval. + +The general smiled and replied: "No, John, you'll get the social bug +and go around in knee-breeches, riding a horse after a scared fox, or +keeping a lot of hussies on a yacht. They all get that way sooner or +later." + +Barclay leaned over Ward, stuck out his hard jaw and growled: "Well, I +won't. I'm going to be a tourist-sleeper millionaire. I stick to +Sycamore Ridge; Jeanette goes to the public schools; Jane buys her +clothes at Bob Hendricks' or Dorman's, or at the most of Marshall +Field in Chicago; I go fishing down at Minneola when I want rest." +Ward started to protest, but Barclay headed him off. "I made a million +last year. What did I do with it? See any yachts on the Sycamore? +Observe any understudies for Jane around the place? Have you heard of +any villas for the Barclays in Newport? No--no, you haven't, but you +may like to know that I have control of a railroad that handles more +wheat than any other hundred miles in the world, and it is the key to +the lake situation. And I've put the price of my Economy Door Strip up +to ten dollars, and they don't dare refuse it. What's more, I'm going +to hire a high-priced New York sculptor to make a monument for old +Henry Schnitzler, who fell at Wilson's Creek, and put it in the +cemetery. But I am giving none of my hard-earned cash to cooks and +florists and chorus ladies. So if I want to steal a mill or so every +season, and gut a railroad, I'm going to do it, but no one can rise up +and say I am squandering my substance on riotous living." + +Barclay shook his head as he spoke and gesticulated with his hands, +and the general, seeing that he could not get the younger man to talk +of serious things, brought out the plans for the college buildings, +and the men fell to the work in hand with a will. + +Barclay's spirit was the spirit of his times--growing out of a +condition which, as Barclay said in his speech, was like Emersonian +optimism set to Wagnerian music. In Sycamore Ridge factories rose in +the bottoms near the creek, and shop hands appeared on the streets at +night; new people invaded Lincoln Avenue, and the Culpeppers, to +maintain their social supremacy, had to hire a coloured man to open +the door for an afternoon party, and for an evening reception it took +two, one for the door and one to stand at the top of the stairs. + +Those were the palmy days of the colonel's life. Money came easily, +and went easily. The Culpepper Mortgage Company employed fifty men, +who handled money all over the West, and one of the coloured men who +opened the door at the annual social affair at the Culpepper home also +took care of the horses, and drove the colonel down to his office in +the Barclay block every morning, and drove him home in the evening. + +"Well," said Watts McHurdie to Gabriel Carnine as the two walked down +the hill into the business section of the town, a few days after the +corner-stone of Ward College was laid, "old Phil has got his college +started and Mart's got his church a-going." + +"You mean the East End Mission? Yes, and I don't know which, of 'em is +happier over his work," replied Carnine. + +"Well, Mart certainly is proud; he's been too busy to loaf in the shop +for six months," said McHurdie. + +Carnine smiled, and stroked his chestnut beard reflectively before he +added: "Probably that's why he hasn't been in to renew his last two +notes. But I guess he does a lot of good to the poor people over there +along the river. Though I shouldn't wonder if he was encouraging them +to be paupers." Carnine paused a moment and then added, "Good old +Mart--he's got a heart just like a woman's." + +They were passing the court-house square, and Bailiff Jacob Dolan, +with a fist full of legal papers, caught step with Carnine and +McHurdie. "We were talking about Mart Culpepper and his Mission +Church," said Carnine. "Don't you suppose, Jake, that Mart, by +circulating down there with his basket so much, encourages the people +to be shiftless? We were just wondering." + +"Oh, you were, were you?" snapped Dolan. "There you go, Gabe Carnine; +since you've moved to town and got to be president of a bank, you're +mighty damn scared about making paupers. When Christ told the young +man to sell his goods and give them to the poor, He didn't tell him to +be careful about making them paupers. And Mr. Gabriel Carnine, +Esquire, having the aroma of one large morning's drink on my breath +emboldens me to say, that if you rich men will do your part in giving, +the Lord will manage to keep His side of the traces from scraping on +the wheel. And if I had one more good nip, I'd say, which Heaven +forbid, that you fellows are asking more of the Lord by expecting Him +to save your shrivelled selfish little souls from hell-fire because of +your squeeze-penny charities, than you would be asking by expecting +Him to keep the poor from becoming paupers by the dribs you give them. +And if Mart Culpepper can give his time and his money every day +helping them poor devils down by the track, niggers and whites, good +and bad, male and female, I guess the Lord will put in lick for lick +with Mart and see that his helping doesn't hurt them." Dolan shook his +head at the banker, and then smiled at him good-naturedly as he +finished, "Put that in your knapsack, you son of a gun, and chew on it +till I see you again." Whereupon he turned a corner and went his way. + +Carnine laughed rather unnaturally and said to McHurdie, "That's why +he's never got on like the other boys. Whiskey's a bad partner." + +McHurdie agreed, and went chuckling to his work, when Carnine turned +into the bank. Later in the forenoon Bailiff Dolan came in grinning, +and took a seat by the stove in McHurdie's shop and said as he reached +into the waste-basket for a scrap of harness leather, and began +whittling it, "What did Gabe say when I left you this morning?" and +without waiting for a reply, went on, "I've thought for some time Gabe +needed a little something for what ails him, and I gave it to him, out +of the goodness of my heart." + +McHurdie looked at Dolan over his glasses and replied, "Speech is +silver, but silence is golden." + +"The same," answered Dolan, "the same it is, and by the same authority +apples of gold in pictures of silver is a word fitly spoken to a man +like Gabe Gamine." He whittled for a few minutes while the harness +maker worked, and then sticking his pocket-knife into the chair +between his legs, said: "But what I came in to tell you was about Lige +Bemis; did you know he's in town? Well, he is. Johnnie Barclay wired +him to leave the dump up in the City and come down here, and what for, +do you think? 'Tis this. The council was going to change the name of +Ellen Avenue out by the college to Garfield, and because it was named +for that little girl of Mart's that died right after the war, don't +you think Johnnie's out raising hell about it, and brought Lige down +here to beat the game. He'll be spending a lot of money if he has to. +Now you wouldn't think he'd do that for old Mart, would you? He's too +many for me--that Johnny boy is. I can't make him out." The Irishman +played with his knife, sticking it in the chair and pulling it out for +a while, and then continued: "Oh, yes, what I was going to tell you +was the little spat me and Lige had over Johnnie. Lige was in my room +in the court-house waiting to see a man in the court, and was bragging +to me about how smart John was, and says Lige, 'He's found some earth +over in Missouri--yellow clay,' he says, 'that's just as good as +oatmeal, and he ships it all over the country to his oatmeal mills and +mixes it with the real stuff and sells it.' I says: 'He does, does he? +Sells mud mixed with oatmeal?' and Lige says, 'Yes, sir, he's got a +whole mountain of it, and he's getting ten dollars a ton net for it, +which is better than a gold mine.' 'And you call that smart?' says I. +'Yes,' says he, 'yes, sir, that's commercial instinct; it's perfectly +clean mud, and our chemist says it won't harm any one,' says he. 'And +him president of the Golden Belt Elevator Co.?' says I. 'He is,' says +Lige. 'And don't need the money at all?' says I. 'Not a penny of it,' +says he. 'Well,' says I, 'Lige Bemis,' says I, 'when Johnnie gets to +hell,--and he'll get there as sure as it doesn't freeze over,' says +I, 'may the devil put him under that mountain of mud and keep his +railroad running night and day dumping more mud on while he eats his +way out as a penance,' says I. And you orto heard 'em laugh." Dolan +went on cutting curly-cues from the leather, and McHurdie kept on +sewing at his bench. "It is a queer world--a queer world; and that +Johnnie Barclay is a queer duck. Bringing Lige Bemis clear down here +to help old Mart out of a little trouble there ain't a dollar in; and +then turning around and feeding the American people a mountain of mud. +Giving the town a park with his mother's name on it, and selling +little tin strips for ten dollars apiece to pay for it. He's a queer +duck. I'll bet it will keep the recording angel busy keeping books on +Johnnie Barclay." + +"Oh, well, Jake," replied McHurdie, after a silence, "maybe the angels +will just drop a tear and wipe much of the evil off." + +"Maybe so, Watts McHurdie, maybe so," returned Dolan, "but there won't +be a dry eye in the house, as the papers say, if they keep up with +him." And after delivering himself of this, Dolan rose and yawned, and +went out of the shop singing an old tune which recited the fact that +he had "a job to do down in the boulevard." + +Looking over the years that have passed since John Barclay and +Sycamore Ridge were coming out of raw adolescence into maturity, one +sees that there was a miracle of change in them both, but where it was +and just how it came, one may not say. The town had no special +advantages. It might have been one of a thousand dreary brown +unpainted villages that dot the wind-swept plain to-day, instead of +the bright, prosperous, elm-shaded town that it is. John Barclay in +those days of his early thirties might have become a penny-pinching +dull-witted "prominent citizen" of the Ridge, with no wider sphere of +influence than the Sycamore Valley, or at most the Corn Belt Railroad. +But he and the town grew, and whether it was destiny that guided them, +or whether they made their own destiny, one cannot say. The town +seemed to be struggling and fighting its way to supremacy in the +Sycamore Valley; and the colonel and the general and Watts McHurdie, +sitting in the harness shop a score of years after those days of the +seventies, used to try to remember some episode or event that would +tell them how John fought his way up. But they could not do so. It was +a fight in his soul. Every time his hand reached out to steal a mill +or crush an opponent with the weapon of his secret railroad rebates, +something caught his hand and held it for a moment, and he had to +fight his way free. At first he had to learn to hate the man he was +about to ruin, and to pretend that he thought the man was about to +ruin him. Then he could justify himself in his greedy game. But at +last he worked almost merrily. He came to enjoy the combat for its own +sake. And sometimes he would play with a victim cat-wise, and after a +victory in which the mouse fought well, John would lick his chops with +some satisfaction at his business prowess. Mill after mill along the +valley and through the West came under his control. And his skin grew +leathery, and the brass lustre in his eyes grew hard and metallic. +When he knew that he was the richest man in Garrison County, he saw +that there were richer men in the state, and in after years when he +was the richest man in the state, and in the Missouri Valley, the rich +men in other states moved him by their wealth to work harder. But +before he was thirty, his laugh had become a cackle, and Colonel +Martin Culpepper, who would saunter along when Barclay would limp by +on Main Street, would call out after him, "Slow down, Johnnie, slow +down, boy, or you'll bust a biler." And then the colonel would pause +and gaze benignly after the limping figure bobbing along in the next +block, and if there was a bystander to address, the colonel would say, +"For a flat-wheel he does certainly make good time." And then if the +bystander looked worth the while, the colonel, in seven cases out of +ten, would pull out a subscription paper for some new church building, +or for some charitable purpose, and proceed to solicit the needed +funds. + + + + +BOOK II + +BEING NO CHAPTER AT ALL, BUT AN INTERLUDE FOR THE ORCHESTRA + + +And so the years slipped by--monotonous years they seem now, so far +as this story goes. Because little happened worth the telling; for +growth is so still and so dull and so undramatic that it escapes +interest and climax; yet it is all there is in life. For the roots of +events in the ground of the past are like the crowded moments of our +passing lives that are recorded only in our under-consciousnesses, to +rise in other years in character formed, in traits established, in +events fructified. And in the years when the evil days came not, John +Barclay's tragedy was stirring in the soil of his soul. + +And now, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the management, let us +thank you for your kind attention, during the tedious act which has +closed. We have done our best to please you with the puppets and have +cracked their heads together in fine fashion, and they have danced and +cried and crackled, while we pulled the strings as our mummers +mumbled. But now they must have new clothes on. Time, the great +costumer, must change their make-up. So we will fold down the curtain. +John Barclay, a Gentleman, must be painted yellow with gold. Philemon +Ward, a Patriot, must be sprinkled with gray. Martin Culpepper's Large +White Plumes must be towsled. Watts McHurdie, a Poet, must be bent a +little at the hips and shoulders. Adrian Brownwell, a Gallant, must +creak as he struts. Neal Dow Ward, an Infant, must put on long +trousers. E. W. Bemis, a Lawyer, must be dignified; Jacob Dolan, an +Irishman and a Soldier, must grow unkempt and frowsy. Robert +Hendricks, Fellow Fine, must have his blond hair rubbed off at the +temples, and his face marked with maturity. Lycurgus Mason, a Woman +Tamer, must get used to wearing white shirts. Gabriel Carnine, a Money +Changer, must feel his importance; and Oscar Fernald, a Tavern Keeper, +must be hobbled by the years. All but the shades must be refurbished. +General Hendricks and Elmer, his son, must fade farther into the mists +of the past, while Henry Schnitzler settles comfortably down in +storied urn and animated bust. + +There they hang together on the line, these basswood folk, and beside +them wave their womankind. These also must be repaired and refitted +throughout, as Oscar Fernald's letter-heads used to say of the Thayer +House. Jane Barclay, Wife of John, must have the "star light, star +bright" wiped out of her eyes. Mary Barclay, Mother of the Same, must +have her limbs trimmed gaunt, and her face chiselled strong and +indomitable. Jeanette Barclay, a Toddler, must grow into dresses. +Molly Culpepper, a Dear, must have her heart taken out, and her face +show the shock of the operation. Nellie Logan, a poet's Wife, must +join all the lodges in the Ridge to help her husband in politics. +Trixie Lee, little Beatrix Lee, daughter of J. Lord and Lady Lee, must +have her childish face scarred and her eyes glazed. Mrs. Hally Bemis, +a Prodigal, must be swathed in silk. Elizabeth Cady Stanton Ward and +all her sisters must be put in the simple garb of school-teachers. +Miss Hendricks, a Mouse, must hide in the dusky places; and Ellen +Culpepper, a Memory, must come to life. + +And so, ladies and gentlemen, while we have been diverting you, Time +has been at work on the little people of the passing show, and now +before we draw back the curtain to let them caper across your hearts, +let us again thank you one and all for your courtesy in staying, and +hope that what you see and hear may make you wiser and kinder and +braver; for this is a moral entertainment, good people, planned to +show you that yesterday makes to-day and they both make to-morrow, and +so the world spins round the sun. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +The rumble of the wheels in the great stone mill across the Sycamore +and the roar of the waters over the dam seem to have been in Jeanette +Barclay's ears from the day of her birth; for she was but a baby when +the stone mill rose where the little red mill had stood, and beside +the stone mill there had grown up the long stone factory wherein +Lycurgus Mason was a man of consequence. As the trains whirled by +strangers could see the signs in mammoth letters, "The Golden Belt +Mills" on the larger building and on the smaller, "The Barclay Economy +Door Strip Factory." Standing on the stone steps of her father's house +the child could read these signs clear across the mill-pond, and from +these signs she learned her letters. For her father had more pride in +that one mill on the Sycamore than in the scores of other mills that +he controlled. And even in after years, when he controlled mills all +over the West, and owned railroads upon which to take his flour to the +sea, and ships in which to carry his flour all over the world, the +Golden Belt Mill at Sycamore Ridge was his chief pride. The rumble of +the wheels and the hoarse voice of the dam that seemed to Jeanette +like the call of the sea, were so sweet to her father's ears that when +he wearied of the work of the National Provisions Company, with its +two floors of busy offices in the Corn Exchange Building in the great +city, he would come home to Sycamore Ridge, and go to his private +office in the mill. The child remembers what seemed like endless days, +but what in truth were only a few hours in a few days in a few years, +when Daddy Barclay carried her on his shoulders across the bridge and +sat her down barefooted and bareheaded to play upon the dam, while he +in his old clothes prodded among the great wheels near by or sat +beside her telling her where he caught this fish or that fish or a +turtle or a water moccasin when he was a little boy. At low water, she +remembers that he sometimes let her wade in the clear stream, while he +sat in his office near by watching her from the window. That was when +she was only four years old, and she always had the strangest memory +of a playfellow on the dam, a big girl, who fluttered in and out of +the shadows on the stones. Jeanette talked with her, but no one else +could see her, and once the big girl, who could not talk herself, +stamped her feet and beckoned Jeanette to come away from a rock on +which she was playing, and her father, looking out of a window, turned +white when he saw a snake coiled beside the rock. But Jeanette saw the +snake and was frightened, and told her father that Ellen saw it too, +and she could not make him understand who Ellen was. So he only +trembled and hugged his little girl to him tightly, and mother would +not let the child play on the dam again all that summer. + +She made songs to fit the rhythmic murmur of the wheels. And always +she remembered the days she had spent with Daddy Mason in the factory +where the machines thumped and creaked, and where the long rubber +sheets were cut and sewed, and the clanking rolls of tin and zinc +curled into strips, and Daddy Mason made her a little set of dishes +and all the things she needed in her playhouse from the scraps of tin +and rubber, and she learned to twist the little tin strips on a stick +and make the prettiest bright shiny tin curls for her dolls that a +little girl ever saw in all the world. And once Ellen came from among +the moving shadows of the wheels and drew Jeanette from beneath a +great knife that fell at her feet, and when Daddy Mason saw what had +happened he fainted, poor man, and made her promise never, never, so +long as she lived, to tell Grandma Mason. And then he drove her up +town, and they had some ice-cream, and she was sent to bed without her +lunch because she would not tell Grandma Mason why grandpa bought +ice-cream for her. + +It was such a beautiful life, so natural and so exactly what a little +girl should have, that even though she went to the ocean and crossed +it as a child with her mother and grandmother, and even though she +went to the mountains many times, her childish heart always was +homesick for the mill, and at night in her dreams her ears were filled +with the murmur of waters and the wordless song of ceaseless wheels. +And once when she came back a big girl,--an exceedingly big girl with +braids down her back, a girl in the third reader in fact, who could +read everything in the fourth reader, because she had already done so, +and who could read Eugene Aram in the back of the sixth, only she +never did find out what "gyves upon his wrists" meant,--once when she +came back to the dam and was sitting there looking at the sunset +reflected in the bubbling, froth-flecked water at her feet, Ellen came +suddenly, under the noise of the roaring water, and frightened +Jeanette so that she screamed and jumped; and Ellen, who was much +older than Jeanette--four or five and maybe six years older--ran +right over the slippery, moss-covered ridge of the dam, and was gone +before Jeanette could call her back. The child never saw her playmate +again, though often Jeanette would wonder where Ellen lived and who +she was. As the years went by, Jeanette came to remember her playmate +as her dream child, and once when she was a young miss of eighteen, +and something in her hurt to be said, she tried to make a little poem +about her dream-child playmate, but all she ever got was:-- + +"O eyes, so brown and clear like water sparkling over mossy stones." + +So she gave it up and wrote a poem about a prince who carried away a +maiden, and then she tore up the prince and the maiden, and if it were +not for that line about the eyes in the back of her trigonometry, with +a long list of words under it rhyming with "stones," she would have +forgotten about her playfellow, and much of the memory of the dam and +the pride she took as a child in the great letters upon the high stone +walls of the mills, and of the word "Barclay" on the long low walls of +the factory, might have passed from her consciousness altogether. By +such frail links does memory bind us to our past; and yet, once +formed, how like steel they hold us! What we will be, grows from what +we are, and what we are has grown from what we were. If Jeanette +Barclay, the only child of a man who, when she was in her twenties, +was to be one of the hundred richest men in his country,--so far as +mere money goes,--had been brought up with a governess and a maid, +and with frills and furbelows and tucks and Heaven knows what of silly +kinks and fluffy stuff in her childish head, instead of being brought +up in the Sycamore Ridge public schools, with Grandmother Barclay to +teach her the things that a little girl in the fourth reader should +know, and with a whole community of honest, hard-working men and women +about her to teach her what life really is, indeed she would have +lived a different life, and when she was ready to marry--But there we +go looking in the back of the book again, and that will not do at all; +and besides, a little blue-eyed girl in gingham aprons, sitting on a +cool stone with moss on its north side, watching the bass play among +the rocks in a clear, deep, sun-mottled pool under a great elm tree, +has a right to the illusions of her childhood and should not be +hustled into long dresses and love affairs until her time has come. + +But the recollection of those days, so vivid and so sweet, is one of +her choicest treasures. Of course things were not as she saw them. +Jake Dolan was only in his forties then, and considered himself a +young man. But the child remembers him as a tall, brown-eyed man whom +she saw on state occasions in his faded blue army clothes, and to her +he has always been the picture of a veteran. Some one must have told +her--though she cannot remember who it was--that as Jake Dolan +gently descended the social and political scale, he sloughed off his +worldly goods, and as he moved about in the court-house from the +sheriff's office to the deputy's office, and from the deputy's to the +bailiff's, and from the bailiff's to the constable's, and from the +constable's to the janitor's room in the basement, he carried with him +the little bundle that contained all his worldly goods, the thin blue +uniform, spotless and trim, and his lieutenant's commission, and +mustering-out papers from the army. It is odd, is it not, that this +prosaic old chap, who smoked a clay pipe, and whose only +accomplishment was the ability to sing "The Hat me Father Wore," under +three drinks, and the "Sword of Bunker Hill," under ten, should have +epitomized all that was heroic in this child's memory. As for General +Philemon Ward,--a dear old crank who, when Jeanette was born, was +voting with the Republican party for the first time since the war, and +who ran twice for President on some strange issue before she was in +long dresses,--General Ward, whose children's ages could be guessed +by the disturbers of the public peace, whose names they bore,--Eli +Thayer, Mary Livermore, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Frances Willard, Neal +Dow, Belva Lockwood, and Helen Gougar,--General Ward, who scorned her +father's offer of ten thousand dollars a year as state counsel for the +National Provisions Company, and went out preaching fiat money and a +subtreasury for the farmers' crops, trusting to God and the flower +garden about his little white house, to keep the family alive--it is +odd that Jeanette's childish impression was that General Ward was a +man of consequence in the world. Perhaps his white necktie, his long +black coat, and his keen lean face, or his prematurely gray hair, gave +her some sort of a notion of his dignity, but whatever gave her that +notion she kept it, and though in her later life there came a passing +time when she hated him, she did not despise him. And what with the +song that she heard the bands playing all over the country, the song +that the bands sometimes played for Americans in Europe, very badly, +as though it was being translated from English into broken French or +Italian, what with Watts McHurdie's fame and with his verses that +appeared in the _Banner_ on formal occasions, the girl built a fancy +of him as one of the world's great poets--some one like Shakespeare +or Milton; and she was well into her teens before she realized the +truth, that he was an excellent harness maker who often brought out of +his quaint little dream world odd-shaped fancies in rhyme,--some +grotesque, some ridiculous, and some that seemed pretty for a +moment,--and who under the stress of a universal emotion had rhymed +one phase of our common nature and set it to a simple tune that moved +men deeply without regard to race or station. So she lived in her +child world--a world quite different from the real world--a world +gilded by the sunrise of consciousness; and because the angels loved +her and kept her heart clean, the gilding never quite wore off her +heroes. And nothing that Heaven gives us in this world is so blessed +as to have the gilding stick to the images of our youth. In Jeanette's +case even Lige Bemis--Judge Bemis, she had been taught to call +him--never showed the tar under the gilding to her eyes. Her first +memory of him was in her father's office in the big City. He was a +tall man, with gray hair that became him well, with sharp black eyes, +and enough flesh on his bones to carry the frock-coats he always wore +and give him a corporosity just escaping the portly. She remembers +seeing the name "E. W. Bemis" in gold letters on the door of his room, +and not being able to figure out how a man whose name began with "E" +or "W" could be called Lige. He was General Counsel of the Corn Belt +Railroad in those days, when her father was president of the road, and +she knew that he was a man always to be considered. And when, as a +woman grown, she learned the truth about Lige Bemis, it was hard to +believe, for all she could find against him was his everlasting smile. + +It is a curious and withal a beautiful thing to see a child come into +the worn and weary world that we grownups have made, and make it over +into another world altogether. Perhaps the child's eye and the child's +heart, fresh from God, see and feel more clearly and more justly than +we do. For this much is sure--Jeanette was right in keeping to the +end the image of Colonel Martin Culpepper as a knight-errant, who +needed only a bespangled steed, a little less avoirdupois, and a +foolish cause to set him battling in the tourney. As it was, in this +humdrum world, the colonel could do nothing more heroic than come +rattling down Main Street into the child's heart, sitting with some +dignity in his weather-beaten buggy, while instead of shining armour +and a glistening helmet he wore nankeen trousers, a linen coat, and a +dignified panama hat. Moreover, it is stencilled into her memory +indelibly that the colonel was the first man in this wide world to +raise his hat to her. + +Now it should not be strange that this world was a sad jumble of +fiction and of facts to a child's eyes; for to many an older pair of +eyes it has all seemed a puzzle. Even the shrewd, kind brown eyes of +Jacob Dolan often failed to see things as they were, and what his eyes +did see sometimes bewildered him. By day Dolan saw Robert Hendricks, +president of the Exchange National Bank, president and manager of the +Sycamore Ridge Light, Heat, and Power Company, proprietor of the +Hendricks Mercantile Company, treasurer and first vice-president of +the new Western Wholesale Grocery, and chairman of his party's +congressional central committee, and Dolan's eyes saw a hard, busy +man--a young man, it is true; a tall, straight, rather lean, +rope-haired young man in his thirties, with frank blue eyes, that +turned rather suddenly upon one as if to frighten out a secret. The +man seemed real enough to Dolan, from the wide crown of his slightly +bald, V-shaped head, to his feet with the hard click in the heels; and +yet that man paid no particular attention to Dolan. It was "Hello, +Jake," with a nod, as they passed, maybe only an abstracted stare and +a grunt. But at night, as they walked together over the town under the +stars or moon, a lonely soul rose out of the tall body and spread over +the face. + +Dolan kept to his pipe and Hendricks to his cigar. But these were the +only marks of caste between them. One night Hendricks led the way +across the bridge down the river road and into the fields. They walked +far up the stream and their conversation had consisted largely of +"Watch out," "All right," "I see," "This is the best way." They +loitered down a dark lane shaded by hedgerows until they came to a +little wooden bridge and sat down. Dolan looked at the stars, while a +pipe and a cigar had burned out before Hendricks spoke, "Well, +chatterbox?" + +"I was bothered with a question of mistaken identity," replied Dolan. +To the silence he answered: "Me myself. I'm the man. Do you happen to +know who I am?" Hendricks broke a splinter from the wood under him, +and Dolan continued: "Of course you don't, and neither do I. For +example, I go down into Union township before election and visit with +the boys. I bring a box of cigars and maybe a nip under the buggy +seat, and maybe a few stray five-dollar bills for the lads that drive +the wagons that haul the voters to the polls. I go home, and I says to +myself: 'I have that bailiwick to a man. No votes there against Jake.' +But the morning after election I see Jake didn't get but two votes in +the township. Very well. Now who did they vote against? Surely not +against the genial obliging rollicking Irish lad whose face I shave +every other morning. What could they possibly have against him? +No--they voted against that man Dolan, who got drunk, at the Fair and +throwed the gate receipts into the well, and tried to shoo the horses +off the track into the crowd at the home-stretch of the trotting race. +He's the man they plugged. And there's another one--him that +confesses to Father Van Sandt." Dolan shook his head sadly and sighed. +"He's a black-hearted wretch. If you want to see how a soul will look +in its underwear, get an Irishman to confess to a Dutchman." The chirp +of crickets arose in the silence, and after a time Dolan concluded, +"And now there abideth these three, me that I shave, me that they vote +against, and me that the Father knows; and the greatest of these is +charity--I dunno." + +The soul beside him on the bridge came back from a lilac bower of +other years, with a girl's lips glowing upon his and the beat of a +girl's heart throbbing against his own. The soul was seared with +images that must never find spoken words, and it moved the lips to say +after exhaling a deep breath from its body, "Well, let's go home." +There, too, was a question of identity. Who was Robert Hendricks? Was +he the man chosen to lead his party organization because he was clean +above reproach and a man of ideals; was he the man who was trusted +with the money of the people of his town and county implicitly; or was +he the man who knew that on page 234 of the cash ledger for 1879 in +the county treasurer's office in the Garrison County court-house there +was a forgery in his own handwriting to cover nine thousand dollars of +his father's debt? Or was he the man who for seven years had crept +into a neighbour's garden on a certain night in April to smell the +lilac blossoms and always had found them gone, and had stood there +rigid, with upturned face and clenched fists, cursing a fellow-man? Or +was he the man who in the county convention of his party had risen +pale with anger, and had walked across the floor and roared his +denunciation of Elijah W. Bemis as a boodler and a scoundrel squarely +to the man's gray, smirking face and chattering teeth, and then had +reached down, and grabbed the trapped bribe-giver by the scruff of the +neck and literally thrown him out of the convention, while the crowd +went mad with applause? As he went home that night following the +convention, walking by the side of Dolan in silence, he wondered which +of all his _aliases_ he really was. At the gate of the Hendricks home +the two men stopped. Hendricks smiled quizzically as he asked: "Well, +I give it up, Jake. By the way, did you ever meet me?" + +The brown eyes of the Irishman beamed an instant through the night, +before he hurried lightly down the street. + +And so with all of this hide-and-seek of souls, now peering from +behind eyes and now far away patting one--two--three upon some +distant base, with all these queer goings-on inside of people here in +this strange world, it is no wonder that when the angels brought +Jeanette to the Barclays, they left her much to learn and many things +to study about. So she had to ask questions. But questions often +reveal more than answers. At least once they revealed much, when she +sat on the veranda of the Barclay home a fine spring evening with all +the company there. Aunt Molly was there; and Uncle Bob Hendricks was +there, the special guest of Grandma Barclay. Uncle Adrian was away on +a trip somewhere; but Uncle Colonel and Grandma Culpepper and all the +others were there listening to father's new German music-box, and no +one should blame a little girl, sitting shyly on the stone steps, +trying to make something out of the absurd world around her, if she +piped out when the talk stopped:-- + +"Mother, why does Aunt Molly cut off her lilac buds before they +bloom?" + +And when her mother assured her that Aunt Molly did nothing of the +kind, and when Uncle Bob Hendricks looked up and saw Aunt Molly go +pale under her powder, and when Aunt Molly said, "Why, Jane--the +child must have dreamed that," no one in this wide world must blame a +little girl for opening her eyes as wide as she could, and lifting her +little voice as strongly as she could, and saying: "Why, Aunt Molly, +you know I saw you last night--when I stayed with you. You know I +did, 'cause I looked out of the window and spokened to you. You know I +did--don't you remember?" And no one must blame the mother for +shaking her finger at Jeanette, and no one must blame Jeanette for +sitting there shaking a protesting head, and screwing up her little +face, trying to make the puzzle out. + +And when, later in the evening, Daddy Barclay went over to the mill +with his work, and Uncle Bob left in the twilight, and Aunt Molly and +mother were alone in mother's room, how should a little girl know what +the crying was all about, and how should a little girl understand when +a small woman, looking in a mirror, and dabbing her face with a powder +rag, said to mother, who knows everything in the world, and all about +the angels that brought you here: "Oh, Jane, Jane, you don't +know--you don't understand. There are things that I couldn't make you +understand--and I mustn't even think of them." + +Surely it is a curious world for little girls--a passing curious +world, when there are things in it that even mothers cannot +understand. + +So Jeanette turned her face to the wall and went to sleep, leaving +Aunt Molly powdering her nose and asking mother, "Does it look all +right now--" and adding, "Oh, I'm such a fool." In so illogical a +world, the reader must not be allowed to think that Molly Brownwell +lamented the folly of mourning for a handsome young gentleman in blue +serge with white spats on his shoes and a Byronic collar and a fluffy +necktie of the period. Far be it from her to lament that sentiment as +folly; however, when she looked at her eyes in the mirror and saw her +nose, she felt that tears were expensive and reproached herself for +them. But so long as these souls of ours, whatever they may be, are +caged in our bodies, our poor bodies will have to bear witness to +their prisoners. If the soul smiles the body shines, and if the soul +frets the body withers. And Molly Brownwell saw in the looking-glass +that night more surely than ever before that her face was beginning to +slump. Her cheeks were no longer firm, and at her eyes were the stains +of tears that would not wipe off, but crinkled the skin at the temples +and deepened the shadows into wide salmon-coloured lines that fell +away from each side of the nose so that no trick could hide them. +Moreover, the bright eyes that used to flash into Bob Hendricks' +steady blue eyes had grown tired, and women who did not know, wondered +why such a pretty girl had broken so. + +The Culpeppers had remained with the Barclays for dinner, and the hour +was late for the Ridge--after nine o'clock, and as the departing +guests went down the long curved walk of Barclay pride to the Barclay +gate, they saw a late April moon rising over the trees by the mill. +They clanged the tall iron gate behind them, and stood a moment +watching the moon. For the colonel never grew too old to notice it. He +put his arms about his wife and his daughter tenderly, and said before +they started up the street, "It never grows old--does it?" And he +pressed his wife to him gently and repeated, "Does it, my dear--it's +the same old moon; the one we used to have in Virginia before the war, +isn't it?" + +His wife smiled at him placidly and said, "Now, pa--" + +Whereupon the colonel squeezed his daughter lustily, and exclaimed, +"Well, Molly still loves me, anyway. Don't you, Molly?" And the +younger woman patted his cheek, and then they started for home. + +"Papa, how much money has John?" asked the daughter, as they walked +along. + +A man always likes to be regarded as an authority in financial +matters, and the colonel stroked his goatee wisely before replying: +"U-h-m-m, let me see--I don't exactly know. Bob and I were talking +about it the other day--after I bought John's share in College +Heights--last year, to be exact. Of course he's got the mill and it's +all paid for--say a hundred thousand dollars--and that old wheat +land he got back in the seventies--he's cleaned all of that up. I +should say that and the mill were easily worth half a million, and +they're both clear. That's all in sight." The colonel ruminated a +moment and then continued: "About the rest--it's a guess. Some say a +million, some say ten. All I know in point of fact, my dear, to get +right down to bed-rock, is that Lycurgus says they are turning out two +or three car-loads of the strips a year. I wouldn't believe Lycurgus +on a stack of Bibles as high as his head, but little Thayer Ward, who +works down there in the shipping department, told the general the same +thing, and Bob says he knows John gets ten dollars apiece for them +now, so that's a million dollars a year income he's got. He handles +grain and flour way up in Minnesota, and back as far as Ohio, and west +to California. But what he actually owns,--that is, whether he rents +the mills or, to be exact, steals them,--I haven't any idea--not the +slightest notion in the world, in point of fact--not the slightest +notion." + +As they passed through Main Street it was deserted, save in the +billiard halls, and as no one seemed inclined to talk, the colonel +took up the subject of Barclay: "Say we call it five million--five +million in round numbers; that's a good deal of money for a man to +have and haggle a month over seventy-five dollars the way he did with +me when he sold me his share of College Heights. But," added the +colonel, "I suppose if I had that much I'd value it more." The women +were thinking of other things, and the colonel addressed the night: +"Man gets an appetite for money just as he does for liquor--just like +the love for whiskey, I may say." He shook his sides as he meditated +aloud: "But as for me--I guess I've got so I can take it or let it +alone. Eh, ma?" + +"I didn't catch what you were saying, pa," answered his wife. "I was +just thinking whether we had potatoes enough to make hash for +breakfast; have we, Molly?" + +As the women were discussing the breakfast, two men came out of a +cross street, and the colonel, who was slightly in advance of his +women, hailed the men with, "Hello there, Bob--you and Jake out here +carrying on your illicit friendship in the dark?" + +The men and the Culpeppers stopped for a moment at the corner. Molly +Brownwell's heart throbbed as they met, and she thought of the rising +moon, and in an instant her brain was afire with a hope that shamed +her. Three could not walk abreast on the narrow sidewalk up the hill, +and when she heard Hendricks say after the group had parleyed a +moment, "Well, Jake, good night; I'll go on home with the colonel," +she managed the pairing off so that the young man fell to her, and the +colonel and Mrs. Culpepper walked before the younger people, and they +all talked together. But at Lincoln Avenue, the younger people +disconnected themselves from the talk of the elders, and finally +lagged a few feet behind. When they reached the gate the colonel +called back, "Better come in and visit a minute, Bob," and Molly +added, "Yes, Bob, it's early yet." + +But what she said with her voice did not decide the matter for him. It +was her eyes. And what he said with his voice is immaterial--it was +what his eyes replied that the woman caught. What he said was, "Well, +just for a minute, Colonel," and the party walked up the steps of the +veranda, and Bob and Molly and the colonel sat down. + +Mrs. Culpepper stood for a moment and then said, "Well, Bob, you must +excuse me--I forgot to set my sponge, and there isn't a bit of bread +in the house for Sunday." Whereupon she left them, and when the +colonel had talked himself out he left them, and when the two were +alone there came an awkward silence. In the years they had been apart +a thousand things had stirred in their hearts to say at this time, yet +all their voices spoke was, "Well, Molly?" and "Well, Bob?" The moon +was in their faces as it shone through the elm at the gate. The man +turned his chair so that he could look at her, and after satisfying +his eyes he broke the silence with, "Seven years." + +And she returned, "Seven years the thirteenth of April." + +The man played a tune with his fingers and a foot and said nothing +more. The woman finally spoke. "Did you know it was the thirteenth?" + +"Yes," he replied, "father died the ninth. I have often counted it +up." He added shortly after: "It's a long time--seven years! My! but +it has been a long time!" + +"I have wondered if you have thought so," a pause, "too!" + +Their hearts were beating too fast for thoughts to come coherently. +The fever of madness was upon them, and numbed their wills so that +they could not reach beneath the surface of their consciousnesses to +find words for their emotions. Then also there was in each a +deadening, flaming sense of guilt. Shame is a dumb passion, and these +two, who in the fastnesses of a thousand nights had told themselves +that what they sought was good and holy, now found in each other's +actual presence a gripping at the tongue's root that held them dumb. + +"Yes, I--" the man mumbled, "yes, I--I fancied you understood that +well enough." + +"But you have been busy?" she asked; "very busy, Bob, and oh, I've +been so proud of all that you've done." It was the woman's tongue that +first found a sincere word. + +The man replied, "Well--I--I am glad you have." + +It seemed to the woman a long time since her father had gone. Her +conscience was making minutes out of seconds. She said, "Don't you +think it's getting late?" but did not rise. + +The man looked at his watch and answered, "Only 10.34." He started to +rise, but she checked him breathlessly. + +"Oh, Bob, Bob, sit down. This isn't enough for these long years. I had +so many things to say to you." She hesitated and cried, "Why are we so +stupid now--now when every second counts?" + +He bent slightly toward her and said in a low voice, "So that's why +your lilacs have never bloomed again." + +She looked at her chair arm and asked, "Did you know they hadn't +bloomed?" + +"Oh, Molly, of course I knew," he answered, and then went on: "Every +thirteenth of April I have slipped through the fence and come over +here, rain or shine, at night, to see if they were blooming. But I +didn't know why they never bloomed!" + +The woman rose and walked a step toward the door, and turned her head +away. When she spoke it was after a sob, "Bob, I couldn't bear it--I +just couldn't bear it, Bob!" + +He groaned and put his hands to his forehead and rested his elbow on +the chair arm. "Oh, Molly, Molly, Molly," he sighed, "poor, poor +little Molly." After a pause he said: "I won't ever bother you again. +It doesn't do any good." A silence followed in which the woman turned +her face to him, tear-stained and wretched, with the seams of her +heart all torn open and showing through it. "It only hurts," the man +continued, and then he groaned aloud, "Oh, God, how it hurts!" + +She sank back into her chair and buried her face in the arm farthest +from him and her body shook, but she did not speak. He stared at her +dry-eyed for a minute, that tolled by so slowly that he rose at the +end of it, fearful that his stay was indecorously long. + +"I think I should go now," he said, as he passed her. + +"Oh, no!" she cried. "Not yet, not just yet." She caught his arm and +he stopped, as she stood beside him, trembling, haggard, staring at +him out of dead, mad eyes. There was no colour in her blotched face, +and in the moonlight the red rims of her eyes looked leaden, and her +voice was unsteady. At times it broke in sobbing croaks, and she spoke +with loose jaws, as one in great terror. "I want you to know--" she +paused at the end of each little hiccoughed phrase--"that I have not +forgotten--" she caught her breath--"that I think of you every +day--" she wiped her eyes with a limp handkerchief--"every day and +every night, and pray for you, though I don't believe--" she +whimpered as she shuddered--"that God cares much about me." + +He tried to stop her, and would have gone, but she put a hand upon his +shoulder and pleaded: "Just another minute. Oh, Bob," she cried, and +her voice broke again, "don't forget me. Don't forget me. When I was +so sick last year--you remember," she pleaded, "I raved in delirium a +week." She stopped as if afraid to go on, then began to shake as with +a palsy. "I raved of everything under God's sun, and through it all, +Bob--not one word of you. Oh, I knew that wouldn't do." She swayed +upon his arm. "I kept a little corner of my soul safe to guard you." +She sank back into her chair and chattered, "Oh, I guarded you." + +She was crying like a child. He stood over her and touched her +dishevelled hair with the tips of his fingers and said: "I oughtn't to +stay, Molly." + +And she motioned him away with her face hidden and sobbed, "No--I +know it." + +He paused a moment on the step before her and then said, "Good-by, +Molly--I'm going now." And she heard him walking down the yard on the +grass, so that his footsteps would not arouse the house. It seemed to +them both that it was midnight, but time had moved slowly, and when +the spent, broken woman crept into the house, and groped her way to +her room, she did not make a light, but slipped into bed without +looking at her scarred, shameful face. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +In the sunshine of that era of world-wide prosperity in the eighties, +John Barclay made much hay. He spent little time in Sycamore Ridge, +and his private car might be found in Minnesota to-day and at the end +of the week in California. As president of the Corn Belt Road and as +controlling director in the North Lake Line, he got rates on other +railroads for his grain products that no competitor could duplicate. +And when a competitor began to grow beyond the small fry class, +Barclay either bought him out or built a mill beside the offender and +crushed him out. Experts taught him the value of the chaff from the +grain. He had a dozen mills to which he shipped the refuse from his +flour and heaven only knows what else, and turned the stuff into +various pancake flours and breakfast foods. He spent hundreds of +thousands of dollars in advertising--in a day when large +appropriations for advertising were unusual. And the words "Barclay's +Best" glared at the traveller from crags in the Rocky Mountains and +from the piers of all the great harbour bridges. He used Niagara to +glorify the name of Barclay, and "Use Barclay's Best" had to be washed +off the statue of the Goddess of Liberty in New York Harbour. The +greenish brown eyes of the little man were forever looking into space, +and when he caught a dream, instead of letting it go, he called a +stenographer and made it come true. In those days he was beginning to +realize that an idea plus a million dollars will become a fact if a +man but says the word, whereas the same idea minus a million remains a +dream. The great power of money was slowly becoming part of the man's +consciousness. During the years that were to come, he came to think +that there was nothing impossible. Any wish he had might be gratified. +Such a consciousness drives men mad. + +But in those prosperous days, while the millions were piling up, +Barclay kept his head. All the world was buying then, but wherever he +could Barclay sold. He bought only where he had to, and paid cash for +what he bought. He did not owe a dollar for anything. He had no +equities; his titles were all good. And as he neared his forties he +believed that he could sell what he had at forced sale for many +millions. He was supposed to be much richer than he was, but the one +thing that he knew about it was that scores of other men had more than +he. So he kept staring into space and pressing the button for his +stenographer, and at night wherever his work found him, whether in +Boston or in Chicago or in San Francisco, he hunted up the place where +he could hear the best music, and sat listening with his eyes closed. +He always kept his note-book in his hand, when Jane was not with him, +and when an idea came to him inspired by the music, he jotted it down, +and the next day, if it stood the test of a night's sleep, he turned +the idea into an event. + +In planning his work he was ruthless. He learned that by bribing men +in the operating department of any railroad he could find out what his +competitors were doing. And in the main offices of the National +Provisions Company two rooms full of clerks were devoted to +considering the duplicate way-bills of every car of flour or grain or +grain product not shipped by the Barclay companies. Thus he was able +to delay the cars of his competitors, and get his own cars through on +time. Thus he was able to bribe buyers in wholesale establishments to +push his products. And with Lige Bemis manipulating the railroad and +judiciary committees in the legislatures of ten states, no laws were +enacted which might hamper Barclay's activities. + +"Do you know, Lucy," said General Ward to his wife one night when they +were discussing Barclay and his ways and works, "sometimes I think +that what that boy saw at Wilson's Creek,--the horrible bloodshed, +the deadly spectacle of human suffering at the hospital wagon, some +way blinded his soul's eye to right and wrong. It was all a man could +stand; the picture must have seared the boy's heart like a fire." + +Mrs. Ward, who was mending little clothes in the light of the +dining-room lamp, put down her work a moment and said: "I have always +thought the colonel had some such idea. For once when he was speaking +of the way John stole that wheat land, he said, 'Well, poor John, he +got a wound at Wilson's Creek that never will heal,' and when I asked +if he meant his foot, the colonel smiled like a woman and said gently, +'No, Miss Lucy, not there--not there at all; in his heart, my dear, +in his heart!'" + +And the general's eyes met the eyes of a mother wandering toward a boy +of nine sleeping, tired out, on a couch near by; he was a little boy +with dark hair, and red tanned cheeks, and his mouth--such a soft +innocent mouth--curved prettily, like the lips of children in old +pictures, and as he slept he smiled, and the general, meeting the +mother's eyes coming back from the little face, wiped his glasses and +nodded his head in understanding; in a moment they both rose and stood +hand in hand over their child, and the mother said in a trembling +voice, "And his mother prayed for him, too--she has told me so--so +many times." + +But the people of Sycamore Ridge and of the Mississippi Valley did not +indulge in any fine speculations upon the meaning of life when they +thought of John Barclay. He had become considerable of a figure in the +world, and the Middle West was proud of him. For those were the days +of tin cornices, false fronts, vain pretences, and borrowed plumes +bought with borrowed money. Other people's capital was easy to get, +and every one was rich. Debt was regarded as an evidence of +prosperity, and the town ran mad with the rest of the country. It is +not strange then that Mrs. Watts McHurdie, she who for four years +during the war dispensed "beefsteak--ham and eggs--breakfast +bacon--tea--coffee--iced tea--or--milk" at the Thayer House, and +for ten years thereafter sold dry-goods and kept books at Dorman's +store, should have become tainted with the infection of the times. But +it is strange that she could have inoculated so sane a little man as +Watts. Still, there were Delilah and Samson, and of course Samson was +a much larger man than Watts, and Nellie McHurdie was considerably +larger than Delilah; and you never can tell about those things, +anyway. Also it must not be forgotten that Nellie McHurdie since her +marriage had become Grand Preceptress in one lodge, Worthy Matron in +another, Senior Vice Commander in a third, and Worshipful Benefactress +in a fourth, to say nothing of positions as corresponding secretary, +delegate to the state convention, Keeper of the Records and Seals, +Scribe,--and perhaps Pharisee,--in half a dozen others, all in the +interests of her husband's political future; and with such obvious +devotion before him, it is small wonder after all that he succumbed. + +But he would not run for office. He had trouble every spring +persuading her, but he always did persuade her, that this wasn't his +year, that conditions were wrong, and that next year probably would be +better. But he allowed her to call their home "The Bivouac," and have +the name cut in stone letters on the horse-block; and he sat by meekly +for many long years at lodges, at church entertainments, at high +school commencement exercises, at public gatherings of every sort, and +heard her sing a medley of American patriotic songs which wound up +with the song that made him famous. It was five drinks in Jake Dolan +that stopped the medley, when the drinks aforesaid inspired him to +rise grandly from his chair at the front of the hall at an +installation of officers of Henry Schnitzler Post of the Grand Army, +and stalk majestically out of the room, while the singing was in +progress, saying as he turned back at the door, before thumping +heavily down the stairs, "Well, I'm getting pretty damn tired of +that!" Mrs. McHurdie insisted that Watts should whip Dolan, and it is +possible that at home that night Watts did smite his breast and shake +his head fiercely, for in the morning the neighbours saw Mrs. McHurdie +walk to the gate with him, talking earnestly and holding his arm as if +to restrain him; moreover, when Watts had turned the corner of Lincoln +Avenue and had disappeared into Main Street, she hurried over to the +Culpeppers' to have the colonel warn Dolan that Watts was a dangerous +man. But when Dolan, sober, walked into the harness shop that +afternoon to apologize, the little harness maker came down the aisle +of saddles in his shop blinking over his spectacles and with his hand +to his mouth to strangle a smile, and before Dolan could speak, Watts +said, "So am I--Jake Dolan--so am I; but if you ever do that again, +I'll have to kill you." + +It happened in the middle eighties--maybe a year before the college +was opened--maybe a year after, though Gabriel Carnine, talking of it +some twenty years later, insists that it happened two years after the +opening of the college. But no one ever has mentioned the matter to +Watts, so the exact date may not be recorded, though it is an +important date in the uses of this narrative, as will be seen later. +All agree--the colonel, the general, Dolan, Fernald, and perhaps two +dozen old soldiers who were at the railroad station waiting for the +train to take them to the National Encampment of the Grand Army of the +Republic,--that it was a fine morning in September. Of course John +Barclay contributed the band. He afterwards confessed to that, +explaining that Nellie had told him that Watts never had received the +attention he should receive either in the town or the state or the +nation, and so long as Watts was a National Delegate for the first +time in his life, and so long as she had twice been voted for as +National President of the Ladies' Aid, and might get it this time, the +band would be, as she put it, "so nice to take along"; and as John +never forgot the fact that Nellie asked him to sing at her wedding, he +hired the band. Thus are we bound to our past. But the band was not +what caused the comrades to gasp, though its going was a surprise. And +when they heard it turn into Main Street far up by Lincoln Avenue, +playing the good old tune that the town loved for Watts' sake and for +the sake of the time and the place and the heroic deeds it +celebrated,--when they heard the band, the colonel asked the general, +"Where's Watts?" and they suspected that the band might be bringing +him to the depot. + +Heaven knows the town had bought uniforms and new horns for the band +often enough for it to do something public-spirited once in a while +without being paid for it. So the band did not come to the town as a +shock in and of itself. Neither for that matter did the hack--the new +glistening silver-mounted hack, with the bright spick-and-span hearse +harness on the horses; in those bustling days a quarter was nothing, +and you can ride all over the Ridge for a quarter; so when the +comrades at the depot, in their blue soldiers' clothes their campaign +hats, and their delegates' badges, saw the band followed by the hack, +they were of course interested, but that was all. And when some of the +far-sighted ones observed that the top of the hack was spread back +royally, they commented upon the display of pomp, but the comment was +not extraordinary. But when from the street as the band stopped, there +came cheers from the people, the boys at the station felt that +something unusual was about to come to them. So they watched the band +march down the long sheet-iron-covered station walk, and the hack move +along beside the band boys; and the poet's comrades-in-arms saw him +sitting beside the poet's wife,--the two in solemn state. And then +the old boys beheld Watts McHurdie,--little Watts McHurdie, with his +grizzled beard combed, with his gold-rimmed Sunday glasses far down on +his nose so that he could see over them, and--wonder of wonders, they +saw a high shiny new silk hat wobbling over his modest head. + +He stumbled out of the open hack with his hand on the great stiff +awkward thing, obviously afraid it would fall off, and she that was +Nellie Logan, late of the Thayer House and still later of Dorman's +store, and later still most worshipful, most potent, most gorgeous and +most radiant archangel of seven secret and mysterious covenants, +conclaves, and inner temples, stood beaming at the pitiful sight, +clearly proud of her shameless achievement. Watts, putting his hand to +his mouth to cover his smile, grabbed the shiny thing again as he +nodded cautiously at the crowd. Then he followed her meekly to the +women's waiting room, where the wives and sisters of the comrades were +assembled--and they, less punctilious than the men, burst forth with +a scream of joy, and the agony was over. + +And thus Watts McHurdie went to his greatest earthly glory. The +delegation from the Ridge, with the band, had John Barclay's private +car; that was another surprise which Mrs. McHurdie arranged, and when +they got to Washington, where the National Encampment was, opinions +differ as to when Watts McHurdie had his high tide of happiness. The +colonel says that it was in the great convention, where the Sycamore +Ridge band sat in front of the stage, and where Watts stood in front +of the band and led the great throng,--beginning with his cracked +little heady tenor, and in an instant losing it in the awful diapason +of ten thousand voices singing his old song with him; and where, when +it was over, General Grant came down the platform, making his way +rather clumsily among the chairs, and at last in front of the whole +world grasped Watts McHurdie's hands, and the two little men, +embarrassed by the formality of it all, stood for a few seconds +looking at each other with tears glistening in their speaking eyes. + +But Jake Dolan, who knows something of human nature, does not hold to +the colonel's view about the moment of McHurdie's greatest joy. "We +were filing down the Avenue again, thousands and ten thousands of us, +as we filed past the White House nearly twenty years before. And the +Sycamore Ridge band was cramming its lungs into the old tune, when up +on the reviewing stand, beside all the big bugs and with the President +there himself, stood little Watts, plug hat in hand, bowing to the +boys. 'Twas a lovely sight, and he had been there for two mortal hours +before we boys got down--there was the Kansas boys and the Iowa boys +and some from Missouri, carrying the old flag we fought under at +Wilson's Creek. Watts saw us down the street and heard the old band +play; a dozen other bands had played that tune that day; but Billy +Dorman's tuba had its own kind of a rag in it, and Watts knew it. I +seen him a-waving his hat at the boys, almost as soon as they saw him, +and as the band came nearer and nearer I saw the little man's face +begin to crack, and as he looked down the line and saw them Kansas and +Iowa soldiers, I seen him give one whoop, and throw that plug hat +hellwards over the crowd and jump down from that band stand like a +wild man and make for the gang. He was blubbering like a calf when he +caught step with me, and he yelled so as to reach my ears above the +roar of the crowds and the blatting of the bands--yelled with his +voice ripped to shreds that fluttered out ragged from the torn bosom +of him, 'Jake--Jake--how I would like to get drunk--just this +once!' And we went on down the avenue together--him bareheaded, +hay-footing and straw-footing it the same as in the old days." + +Jake always paused at this point and shook his head sorrowfully, and +then continued dolefully: "But 'twas no use; he was caught and took +away; some says it was to see the pictures in the White House, and +some says it was to a reception given by the Relief Corps to the +officers elect of the Ladies' Aid, where he was pawed over by a lot of +old girls who says, 'Yes, I'm so glad--what name please--oh, +--McHurdie, surely not _the_ McHurdie; O dear me--Sister McIntire, +come right here, this is _the_ McHurdie--you know I sang your song +when I was a little girl'--which was a lie, unless Watts wrote it for +the Mexican War, and he didn't. And then some one else comes waddling +up and says, 'O dear me, Mr. McHurdie--you don't know how glad I am +to see the author of "Home, Sweet Home,"' and Watts blinks his eyes +and pleads not guilty; and she says, 'O dear, excuse the mistake; +well, I'm sure you wrote something?' And Watts, being sick of love, as +Solomon says in his justly celebrated and popular song, Watts looks +through his Sunday glasses and doesn't see a blame thing, and smiles +and says calmly, 'No, madam, you mistake--I am a simple harness +maker.' And she sidles off looking puzzled, to make room for the one +from Massachusetts, who stares at him through her glasses and says, +'So you're Watts McHurdie--who wrote the--' 'The same, madam,' says +Watts, courting favour. 'Well,' says the high-browed one, 'well--you +are not at all what I imagined.' And 'Neither are you, madam,' returns +Watts, as sweet as a dill pickle; and she goes away to think it over +and wonder if he meant it that way. No--that's where Nellie made her +mistake. It wouldn't have hurt him--just once. But what's done's +done, and can't be undone, as the man said when he fished his wife out +of the lard vat." + +Now this all seems a long way from John Barclay--the hero of this +romance. Yet the departure of Watts McHurdie for his scene of glory +was on the same day that a most important thing happened in the lives +of Bob Hendricks and Molly Brownwell. That day Bob Hendricks walked +one end of the station platform alone. The east-bound train was half +an hour late, and while the veterans were teasing Watts and the women +railing at Mrs. McHurdie, Hendricks discovered that it was one hundred +and seventy-eight steps from one end of the walk to the other, and +that to go entirely around the building made the distance fifty-four +steps more. It was almost train time before Adrian Brownwell arrived. +When the dapper little chap came with his bright crimson carnation, +and his flashing red necktie, and his inveterate gloves and cane, +Hendricks came only close enough to him to smell the perfume on the +man's clothes, and to nod to him. But when Hendricks found that the +man was going with the Culpeppers as far as Cleveland, as he told the +entire depot platform, "to report the trip," Hendricks sat on a +baggage truck beside the depot, and considered many things. As he was +sitting there Dolan came up, out of breath, and fearful he should be +late. + +"How long will you be gone, Jake?" asked Hendricks. + +"The matter of a week or ten days, maybe," answered Dolan. + +"Well, Jake," said Hendricks, looking at Dolan with serious eyes, yet +rather abstractedly, "I am thinking of taking a long trip--to be gone +a long time--I don't know exactly how long. I may not go at all--I +haven't said anything to the boys in the store or the bank or out at +the shop about it; it isn't altogether settled--as yet." He paused +while a switch engine clanged by and the crowd surged out of the +depot, and ebbed back again into their seats. "Did you deliver my note +this morning?" + +"Yes," replied Dolan, "just as you said. That's what made me a little +late." + +"To the lady herself?" + +"To the lady herself," repeated Dolan. + +"All right," acquiesced Hendricks. "Now, Jake, if I give it out that +I'm going away on a trip, there'll be a lot of pulling and hauling and +fussing around in the bank and in the store and at the shop +and--every place, and then I may not go. So I've gone over every +concern carefully during the past week, and have set down what ought +to be done in case I'm gone. I didn't tell my sister even--she's so +nervous. And, Jake, I won't tell any one. But if, when you get back +from Washington, I'm not here, I'm going to leave this key with you. +Tell the boys at the bank that it will open my tin box, and in the tin +box they'll find some instructions about things." He smiled, and Dolan +assented. Hendricks uncoiled his legs from the truck, and began to get +down. "I won't mix up with the old folks, I guess, Jake. They have +their own affairs, and I'm tired. I worked all last night," he added. +He held out his hand to Dolan and said, "Well, good-by, Jake--have a +good time." + +The elder man had walked away a few steps when Hendricks called him +back, and fumbling in his pockets, said: "Well, Jake, I certainly am a +fool; here--" he pulled an envelope marked "Dolan" from his inside +pocket--"Jake, I was in the bank this morning, and I found a picture +for you. Take it and have a good time. It's a long time till pension +day--so long." + +The Irishman peeped at the bill and grinned as he said, "Them holy +pictures from the bank, my boy, have powerful healing qualities." And +he marched off with joy in his carriage. + +Hendricks then resumed his tramp; up and down the long platform he +went, stepping on cracks one way, and avoiding cracks the next, +thinking it all out. He tried to remember if he had been unfair to any +one; if he had left any ragged edges; if he had taken a penny more +than his honest due. The letter to the county treasurer, returning the +money his father had taken, was on top of the pile of papers in his +tin box at the bank. He had finally concluded, that when everything +else was known, that would not add much to his disgrace. And then it +would be paid, and that page with the forged entry would not always be +in his mind. There were deeds, each witnessed by a different notary, +so that the town would not gossip before he went, transferring all of +his real estate to his sister, and the stock he had sold to the bank +was transferred, and the records all in the box; then he went over the +prices again at which he had disposed of his holdings to the bank, and +he was sure he had made good bargains in every case for the bank. So +it was all fair, he argued for the thousandth time--he was all square +with the world. He had left a deposit subject to his check of twenty +thousand dollars--that ought to do until they could get on their feet +somewhere; and it was all his, he said to himself--all his, and no +one's business. + +And when he thought of the other part, the voice of Adrian Brownwell +saying, "Well, come on, old lady, we must be going," rose in his +consciousness. It was not so much Brownwell's words, as his air of +patronage and possession; it was cheerful enough, quite gay in fact, +but Hendricks asked himself a hundred times why the man didn't whistle +for her, and clamp a steel collar about her neck. He wondered +cynically if at the bottom of Brownwell's heart, he would not rather +have the check for twelve thousand dollars which Hendricks had left +for Colonel Culpepper, to pay off the Brownwell note, than to have his +wife. For seven years the colonel had been cheerfully neglecting it, +and now Hendricks knew that Adrian was troubling him about the old +debt. + +As he rounded the depot for the tenth time he got back to their last +meeting. There stood General Ward with his arm about the girlish waist +of Mrs. Ward, the mother of seven. There was John Barclay with Jane +beside him, and they were holding hands like lovers. The Ward children +were running like rabbits over the broad lawn under the elms, and +there, talking to the wide, wide world, was Adrian Brownwell, +propounding the philosophy of the _Banner_, and quoting from last +week's editorials. And there sat Bob and Molly by the flower bed that +bordered the porch. + +"I am going to the city to hear Gilmore," he said. That was simple +enough, and her sigh had no meaning either. It was just a weary little +sigh, such as women sometimes bring forth when they decide to say +something else. So she had said: "I'll be all alone next week. I think +I'll visit Jane--if she's in town." + +Then something throbbed in his brain and made him say:-- + +"So you'd like to hear Gilmore, too?" + +She coloured and was silent, and the pulse of madness that was beating +in her made her answer:-- + +"Oh--I can't--you know the folks are going to Washington to the +encampment, and Adrian is going as far as Cleveland with the +delegation to write it up." + +An impulse loosened his tongue, and he asked:-- + +"Why not? Come on. If you don't know any one up there, go to the Fifth +Avenue; it's all right, and I'll get tickets, and we'll go every night +and both matinees. Come on!" he urged. + +She was aflame and could not think. "Oh--don't, Bob, don't--not now. +Please don't," she begged, in as low a tone as she dared to use. + +Adrian was thundering on about the tariff, and the general was +wrangling with him. The Barclays were talking to themselves, and the +children were clattering about underfoot, and in the trees overhead. +Bob's eyes and Molly's met, and the man shuddered at what he saw of +pathos and yearning, and he said: "Well, why not? It's no worse to go +than to want to go. What's wrong about it--Molly, do you think--" + +He did not finish the sentence, for Adrian had ceased talking, and +Molly, seeing his jealous eyes upon her, rose and moved away. But +before they left that night she found occasion to say, "I've been +thinking about it, Bob, and maybe I will." + +In the year that had passed since Hendricks had left her sobbing in +the chair on the porch of the Culpepper home, a current between them +had been reëstablished, and was fed by the chance passing in a store, +a smile at a reception, a good morning on the street, and the current +was pulsing through their veins night and day. But that fine September +morning, as she stood on the veranda of her home with a dust-cap on +her head, cleaning up the litter her parents had made in packing, she +was not ready for what rushed into her soul from the letter Dolan left +her, as he hurried away to overtake the band that was turning from +Lincoln Avenue into Main Street. She sat in a chair to read it, and +for a moment after she had read it, she held it open in her lap and +gazed at the sunlight mottling the blue grass before her, through the +elm trees. Her lips were parted and her eyes wide, and she breathed +slowly. The tune the band was playing--McHurdie's song--sank into +her memory there that day so that it always brought back the mottled +sunshine, the flowers blooming along the walk, and the song of a robin +from a lilac bush near by. She folded the letter carefully, and put it +inside her dress, and then moving mechanically, took it out and read +it again:-- + + "MY DARLING, MY DARLING: There is no use struggling any more. You + must come. I will meet you in the city at the morning train, the one + that leaves the Ridge here at 2.35 A.M. We can go to the parks + to-morrow and be alone and talk it all out, before the concert--and + then--oh, Molly, core of my soul, heart of my heart, why should we + ever come back! BOB." + +All that she could feel as she sat there motionless was a crashing +"no." The thing seemed to drive her mad by its insistence--a horrible +racking thing that all but shook her, and she chattered at it: "Why +not? Why not? Why not?" But the "no" kept roaring through her mind, +and as she heard the servant rattling the breakfast dishes in the +house, the woman shivered out of sight and ran to her room. She fell +on her knees to pray, but all she could pray was, "O God, O God, O +God, help me!" and to that prayer, as she said it, the something in +her heart kept gibbering, "Why not? Why not? Why not?" From an old box +hidden in a closet opening out of her mother's room she took Bob +Hendricks' picture,--the faded picture of a boy of twenty,--and +holding it close to her breast, stared open-lipped into the heart of +an elm tree-top. The whistle of the train brought her back to her real +world. She rose and looked at herself in the mirror, at the unromantic +face with its lines showing faintly around her eyes, grown quiet +during the dozen years that had settled her fluffy hair into sedate +waves. She smiled at the changes of the years and shook her head, and +got a grip on her normal consciousness, and after putting away the +picture and closing the box, she went downstairs to finish her work. + +On the stairs she felt sure of herself, and set about to plan for the +next day, and then the tumult began, between the "no" and her soul. In +a few minutes as she worked the "no" conquered, and she said, "Bob's +crazy." She repeated it many times, and found as she repeated it that +it was mechanical and that her soul was aching again. So the morning +wore away; she gossiped with the servant a moment; a neighbour came in +on an errand; and she dressed to go down town. As she went out of the +gate, she wondered where she would be that hour the next day, and then +the struggle began again. Moreover, she bought some new +gloves--travelling gloves to match her gray dress. + +In the afternoon she and Jane Barclay sat on the wide porch of the +Barclay home. "Gilmore's going to be in the city all this week," said +Jane, biting a thread in her sewing. + +"Is he?" replied Molly. "I should so like to hear him. It's so poky up +at the house." + +"Why don't you?" inquired Jane. "Get on the train and go on up." + +"Do you suppose it would be all right?" replied Molly. + +"Why, of course, girl! Aren't you a married woman of lawful age? I +would if I wanted to." + +There was a pause, and Molly replied thoughtfully, "I have half a +notion to--really!" + +But as she walked home, she decided not to do it. People from the +Ridge might be there, and they wouldn't understand, and her +finger-tips chilled at the memory of Adrian Brownwell's jealous eyes. +So as she ate supper, she went over the dresses she had that were +available. And at bedtime she gave the whole plan up and went upstairs +humming "Marguerite" as happily as the thrush that sang in the lilacs +that morning. As she undressed the note fell to the floor. When she +picked it up, the flash of passion came tearing through her heart, and +the "no" crashed in her ears again, and all the day's struggle was for +nothing. So she went to bed, resolved not to go. But she stared +through the window into the night, and of a sudden a resolve came to +her to go, and have one fair day with Hendricks--to talk it all out +forever, and then to come home, and she rose from her bed and tiptoed +through the house packing a valise. She left a note in the kitchen for +the servant, saying that she would be back for dinner the next +evening, and when she struck a match in the front hall to see what +time it was, she found that it was only one o'clock. For an hour she +sat in the chill September air on the veranda, thinking it all +over--what she would say; how they would meet and part; and over and +over again she told herself that she was doing the sensible thing. As +the clock struck two she picked up her valise--it was heavier than +she thought, and it occurred to her that she had put in many +unnecessary things, and that she had time to lighten it. But she +stopped a moment only, and then walked to the gate and down a side +street to the station. It was 2.20 when she arrived, and the train was +marked on the blackboard by the ticket window on time. She kept +telling herself that it was best to have it out; that she would come +right back; but she remembered her heavy valise, and again the warning +"no" roared through her soul. She walked up and down the long +platform, and felt the presence of Bob Hendricks strong and +compelling; she knew he had been there that very day, and wondered +where he sat. Then she thought perhaps she would do better not to go. +She looked into the men's waiting room, and it was empty save for one +man; his back was turned to her, but she recognized Lige Bemis. A +tremble of guilt racked and weakened her. And with a thrill as of pain +she heard the faint whistle of a train far up the valley. The man +moved about the room inside. Apparently he also heard the far-off +whistle. She shrank around the corner of the depot. But he caught +sight of her dress, and slowly sauntered up and down the platform +until he passed near enough to her to identify her in the faint +flicker of the gas. He spoke, and she returned his greeting. The train +whistled again--much nearer it seemed to her, but still far away, and +her soul and the "no" were grappling in a final contest. Suddenly it +came over her that she had not bought her ticket. Again the train +whistled, and far up the tracks she could see a speck of light. She +hurried into the waiting room to buy the ticket. The noise of the +train was beginning to sound in her ears, She was frightened and +nervous, and she fumbled with her purse and valise. Nearer and nearer +came the train, and the "no" fairly screamed in her ears, and her face +was pallid, with the black wrinkles standing out upon it in the +gaslight. The train was in the railroad yards, and the glare of the +headlight was in the waiting room. Bemis came in and saw her fumbling +with her ticket, her pocket book, and her valise. + +"You'll have to hurry, Mrs. Brownwell, this is the limited--it only +stops a minute. Let me help you." + +He picked up the valise and followed her from the room. The rush of +the incoming train shattered her nerves. They pulsed in fear of some +dreadful thing, and in that moment she wondered whether or not she +would ever see it all again--the depot, the familiar street, the +great mill looming across the river, and the Barclay home half a mile +above them. In a second she realized all that her going meant, and the +"no" screamed at her, and the "why not" answered feebly. But she had +gone too far, she said to herself. The engine was passing her, and +Bemis was behind her with the heavy valise. She wondered what he would +say when Bob met her at the train in the city. All this flashed across +her mind in a second, and then she became conscious that the rumbling +thing in front of her was not the limited but a cattle train, and the +sickening odour from it made her faint. In the minute while it was +rushing by at full speed she became rigid, and then, taking her valise +from the man behind her, turned and walked as fast as she could up the +hill, and when she turned the corner she tried to run. Her feet took +her to the Barclay home. She stood trembling in terror on the great +wide porch and rang the bell. The servant admitted the white-faced, +shaking woman, and she ran to Jane Barclay's room. + +"Oh, Jane," chattered Molly, "Jane, for God's love, Jane, hold +me--hold me tight; don't let me go. Don't!" She sank to the floor and +put her face in Jane's lap and stuttered: "I--I--have g-g-got to +t-t-tell you, Jane. I've g-g-ot to t-t-t-ell you, J-J-Jane." And then +she fell to sobbing. "Hold me, don't let me go out there. When it +whistles ag-g-gain h-h-hold me t-t-tight." + +Jane Barclay's strong kind hands stroked the dishevelled hair of the +trembling woman. And in time she looked up and said quietly, "You +know--you know, Jane, Bob and I--Bob and I were going to run away!" +Molly looked at Jane a fearful second with beseeching eyes, and then +dropped her head and fell to sobbing again, and lay with her face on +the other woman's knees. + +When she was quiet Jane said: "I wouldn't talk about it any more, +dear--not now." She stroked the hair and patted the face of the woman +before her. "Shall we go to bed now, dear? Come right in with me." And +soon Molly rose, and her spent soul rested in peace. But they did not go +to bed. The dawn found the two women talking it out together--clear from +the beginning. + +And when the day came Molly Brownwell went to Jane Barclay's desk and +wrote. And when Bob Hendricks came home that night, his sister handed +him a letter. It ran:-- + + "MY DEAR BOB: I have thought it all out, dear; it wouldn't do at + all. I went to the train, and something, I don't know what, caught + me and dragged me over to Jane's. She was good--oh, so good. She + knows; but it was better that she should than--the other way. + + "It will never do, Bob. We can't go back. The terrible something + that I did stands irrevocably between us. The love that might have + made both our lives radiant is broken, Bob--forever broken. And all + the king's horses and all the king's men cannot ever put it together + again. I know it now, and oh Bob, Bob, it makes me sadder than the + pain of unsatisfied love in my heart. + + "It just can't be; nothing ever can make it as it was, and unless it + could be that way--the boy and girl way, it would be something + dreadful. We have missed the best in the world, Bob; we cannot enjoy + the next best together. But apart, each doing his work in life as + God wills it, we may find the next best, which is more than most + people know. + + "I have found during this hour that I can pray again, Bob, and I am + asking God always to let me hope for a heaven, into which I can + bring a few little memories--of the time before you left me. Won't + you bring yours there, too, dear? Until then--good-by. + + "MOLLY." + +The springs that move God's universe are hidden,--those that move the +world of material things and those that move the world of spiritual +things, and make events creep out of the past into the future so +noiselessly that they seem born in the present. It is all a mystery, +the half-stated equation of life that we call the scheme of things. +Only this is sure, that however remote, however separated by time and +space, the tragedy of life has its root in the weakness of men, and of +all the heart-breaking phantasms that move across the panorama of the +day, somewhere deep-rooted in our own souls' weakness is the +ineradicable cause. Even God's mercy cannot separate the punishment +that follows sin, and perhaps it is the greatest mercy of His mercy +that it cannot do so. For when we leave this world, our books are +clear. If our souls grow--we pay the price in suffering; if they +shrivel, we go into the next world, poorer for our pilgrimage. + +So do not pity Molly Brownwell nor Robert Hendricks when you learn +that as she left the station at Sycamore Ridge that night, Lige Bemis +went to a gas lamp and read the note from Robert Hendricks that in her +confusion she had dropped upon the floor. Only pity the miserable +creature whose soul was so dead in him that he could put that note +away to bide his time. In this wide universe, wherein we are growing +slowly up to Godhood, only the poor leprous soul, whitened with malice +and hate, deserves the angels' tears. The rest of us,--weak, failing, +frail, to whom life deals its sorrows and its tears, its punishments +and its anguish,--we leave this world nearer to God than when we came +here, and the journey, though long and hard, has been worth the while. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +Back in the days when John Barclay had become powerful enough to +increase the price of his door strips to the railroad companies from +five dollars to seven and a half, he had transferred the business of +the factory that made the strips from Hendricks' Exchange National to +the new Merchants' State Bank which Gabriel Carnine was establishing. +For Carnine and Barclay were more of a mind than were Barclay and +Hendricks; Carnine was bent on getting rich, and he had come to regard +Barclay as the most remarkable man in the world. Hendricks, on the +other hand, knew Barclay to the core, and since the quarrel of the +seventies, while they had maintained business relations, they were +merely getting along together. There were times when Barclay felt +uncomfortable, knowing that Hendricks knew much about his business, +but the more Carnine knew, the more praise Barclay had of him; and so, +even though Jane kept her own account with Hendricks, and though John +himself kept a personal account with Hendricks, the Economy Door Strip +Company and the Golden Belt Wheat Company did business with Carnine, +and Barclay became a director of the Merchants' State Bank, and +greatly increased its prestige thereby. And Bob Hendricks sighed a +sigh of relief, for he knew that he would never become John Barclay's +fence and be called upon to dispose of stolen goods. So Hendricks went +his way with his eyes on a level and his jaw squared with the world. +And when he knew that Jane knew the secret of his soul, about the only +comfort he had in those black days was the exultation in his heart +that John--whatever he might know--could not turn it into cash at +the Exchange National Bank. + +As he walked alone under the stars that first night after Molly +Brownwell's note came to him, he saw his life as it was, with things +squarely in their relations. Of course this light did not stay with +him always; at times in his loneliness the old cloud of wild yearning +would come over him, and he would rattle the bars of his madhouse +until he could fight his way out to the clean air of Heaven under the +stars. And at such times he would elude Dolan, and walk far away from +the town in fields and meadows and woods struggling back to +sanity--sometimes through a long night. But as the years passed, this +truth came to be a part of his consciousness--that in some measure +the thing we call custom, or law, or civilization, or society, with +all its faults, is the best that man, endowed as he is to-day, can +establish, and that the highest service one can pay to man or to God +is found in conforming to the social compact, at whatever cost of +physical pain, or mental anguish, if the conformation does not require +a moral breach. That was the faith he lived by, that by service to his +fellows and by sacrifice to whatever was worthy in the social compact, +he would find a growth of soul that would pay him, either here or +hereafter. So he lent money, and sold light, and traded in +merchandise, and did a man's work in politics--playing each game +according to the rules. + +But whatever came to him, whatever of honour or of influence, or of +public respect, in his own heart there was the cloud--he knew that he +was a forger, and that once he had offered to throw everything he had +aside and take in return--But he was not candid enough even in his +own heart to finish the indictment. It made him flush with shame, and +perhaps that was why on his face there was often a curious +self-deprecating smile--not of modesty, not of charity, but the smile +of the man who is looking at a passing show and knows that it is not +real. As he went into his forties, and the flux of his life hardened, +he became a man of reserves--a kind, quiet, strong man, charitable to +a fault for the weaknesses of others, but a man who rarely reflected +his impulses, a listener in conversation, a dreamer amid the tumult of +business, whose success lay in his industry and caution, and who drew +men to him not by what he promised, but by the faith we chattering +daws have in the man who looks on and smiles while we prattle. + +His lank bones began to take on flesh, and his face rounded at the +corners, and the eagerness of youth passed from him. He always looked +more of a man than John Barclay. For Barclay was a man of enthusiasms, +who occasionally liked to mouth a hard jaw-breaking "damn," and who +followed his instincts with womanly faith in them--so that he became +known as a man of impulse. But Hendricks' power was in repression, and +in Sycamore Ridge they used to say that the only reason why Bob +Hendricks grew a mustache was to chew it when people expected him to +talk. It wasn't much of a mustache--a little blond fuzz about as +heavy as his yellow eyebrows over his big inquiring blue eyes, and he +once told Dolan that he kept it for a danger signal. When he found +himself pulling at it, he knew he was nervous and should get out into +the open. They tell a story in the Ridge to the effect that Hendricks +started to run to a fire, and caught himself pulling at his mustache, +and turned around and went out to the power-house instead. + +It was the only anecdote ever told of Hendricks after he was +forty--for he was not a man about whom anecdotes would hang well, +though the town is full of them about John Barclay. So Hendricks lived +a strong reticent man, who succeeded in business though he was honest, +and who won in politics by choosing his enemies from the kind of noisy +men who make many mistakes, and let every one know it. The time came +when he did not avoid Molly Brownwell; she felt that he was not afraid +to see her in any circumstances, and that made her happy. Sometimes +she went to him in behalf of one of her father's charges,--some poor +devil who could not pay his note at the bank and keep the children in +school, or some clerk or workman at the power-house who had been +discharged. At such times they talked the matter in hand over frankly, +and it ended by the man giving way to the woman, or showing her simply +that she was wrong. + +Only once in nearly a score of years did a personal word pass between +them. She had come to him for his signature to a petition for a pardon +for a man whose family suffered while he was in the penitentiary. +Hendricks signed the paper and handed it back to her, and his blue +eyes were fixed impersonally upon her, and he smiled his curious, +self-deprecatory smile and sighed, "As we forgive our debtors." Then +he reached for a paper in his desk and seemed oblivious to her +presence. No one else was near them, and the woman hesitated a moment +before turning to go and repeated, "Yes, Bob--as we forgive our +debtors." She tried to show him the radiance in her soul, but he did +not look up and she went away. When she had gone, he pushed aside his +work and sat for a moment looking into the street; he began biting his +mustache, and rose, and went out of the bank and found some other +work. + +That night as Hendricks and Dolan walked over the town together, Dolan +said: "Did you ever know, Robert"--that was as near familiarity as +the elder man came with Hendricks--"that Mart Culpepper owed his +son-in-law a lot of money?" + +"Well," returned Hendricks, "he borrowed a lot fifteen years ago or +such a matter; why?" + +"Well," answered Dolan, "I served papers on Mart to-day in a suit +for--I dunno, a lot of money--as I remember it about fifteen +thousand dollars. That seems like a good deal." + +Hendricks grunted, and they walked on in silence. Hendricks knew from +Brownwell's overdraft that things were not going well with him, and he +believed that matters must have reached a painful crisis in the +Culpepper family if Brownwell had brought suit against the colonel. + +The next morning Colonel Martin Culpepper came into the bank. He had +grown into a large gray man--with gray hair, gray mustaches of +undiminished size, and chin whiskers grayed and broadened with the +years. His fine black eyes were just beginning to lose their lustre, +and the spring was going out of his stride. As he came into the bank, +Hendricks noticed that the colonel seemed to shuffle just a little. He +put out his fat hand, and said:-- + +"Robert, will you come into the back room with me a moment? It isn't +business--I just want to talk with you." He smiled apologetically and +added, "Just troubles, Robert--just an old man wants to talk to some +one, in point of fact." + +Hendricks followed the colonel into the directors' room, and without +ceremony the colonel sank heavily into a fat leather chair, facing the +window, and Hendricks sat down facing the colonel. The colonel looked +at the floor and fumbled his triangular watch-charm a moment, and +cleared his throat, as he spoke, "I don't know just how to begin--to +get at it--to proceed, as I may say, Robert." Hendricks did not +reply, and the colonel went on, "I just wanted to talk to some one, +that's all--to talk to you--just to you, sir, to be exact." + +Hendricks looked kindly at the colonel, whose averted eyes made the +younger man feel uncomfortable. Then he said gently, "Well, Colonel, +don't be backward about saying what you want to to me." It was a long +speech for Hendricks, and he felt it, and then qualified it with, +"But, of course, I don't want to urge you." + +The colonel's face showed a flush of courage to Hendricks, but the +courage passed, and there was a silence, and then a little twitch +under his eyes told Hendricks that the colonel was contemplating a +flank attack as he spoke, "Robert, may I ask you in confidence if +Adrian Brownwell is hard up?" + +Hendricks believed the truth would bring matters to a head, and he +answered, "Well, I shouldn't wonder, Colonel." + +"Very hard up?" pressed the colonel. + +Hendricks remembered Brownwell's overdraft and half a dozen past due +notes to cover other overdrafts and answered, "Well, Colonel, not +desperate, but you know the _Index_ has been getting the best of the +_Banner_ for two or three years." + +There was a pause, and then the colonel blurted out, "Well, Bob, he's +sued me." + +"I knew that, Colonel," returned Hendricks, anxious to press the +matter to its core. "Jake told me yesterday." + +"I was going to pay him; he's spoken about it several times--dunned me, +sir, in point of fact, off and on for several years. But he knew I was +good for it. And now the little coward runs off up to Chicago to attend +the convention and sues me while he's gone. That's what I hate." +Hendricks could see that the object of the colonel's visit was still on +his mind, and so he left the way open for the colonel to talk. "You know +how Mrs. Culpepper feels and how Molly feels--disgraced, sir, +humiliated, shamed, to be exact, sir, in front of the whole town. What +would you do, Robert? What can a man do in a time like this--I ask you, +what can he do?" + +"Well, I'd pay him, Colonel, if I were you," ventured the younger man. + +The colonel straightened up and glared at Hendricks and exclaimed: +"Bob Hendricks, do you think, sir, that Martin Culpepper would rest +for a minute, while he had a dollar to his name, or a rag on his back, +under the imputation of not paying a debt like that? It is paid, +sir,--settled in full this morning, sir. But what am I going to do +about him, sir--the contemptible scamp who publicly sued his own +wife's father? That's what I came to you for, Robert. What am I going +to do?" + +"It'll be forgotten in a week, Colonel--I wouldn't worry about it," +answered Hendricks. "We all have those little unpleasantnesses." + +The colonel was silent for a time, and then he said: "Bob--" turning +his eyes to meet Hendricks' for the first time during their +meeting--"that scoundrel said to me yesterday morning before leaving, +'If I hadn't the misfortune of being your son-in-law, you wouldn't +have the honour of owing me this money.' Then he sneered at me--you +know the supercilious way he has, the damn miserable hound-pup way he +has of grinning at you,--and says, 'I regarded it as a loan, even +though you seemed to regard it as a bargain.' And he whirled and left +me." The colonel's voice broke as he added: "In God's name, Bob, tell +me--did I sell Molly? You know--you can tell me." + +The colonel was on his feet, standing before Hendricks, with, his +hands stretched toward the younger man. Hendricks did not reply at +once, and the colonel broke forth: "Bob Hendricks, why did you and my +little girl quarrel? Did she break it or did you? Did I sell her, Bob, +did I sell my little girl?" He slipped back into the chair and for a +moment hid his face, and shook with a great sob, then pulled himself +together, and said, "I know I'm a foolish old man, Bob, only I feel a +good deal depends on knowing the truth--a good deal of my attitude +toward him." + +Hendricks looked at the colonel for an abstracted moment, and then +said: "Colonel, Adrian Brownwell is hard up--very hard up, and you +don't know how he is suffering with chagrin at being beaten by the +_Index_. He is quick-tempered--just as you are, Colonel." He paused a +moment and took the colonel by the hand,--a fat, pink hand, without +much iron in it,--and brought him to his feet. "And about that other +matter," he added, as he put his arm about the colonel, "you didn't +sell her. I know that; I give you my word on that. It was fifteen +years ago--maybe longer--since Molly and I were--since we went +together as boy and girl. That's a long time ago, Colonel, a long time +ago, and I've managed to forget just why we--why we didn't make a go +of it." He smiled kindly at the colonel as he spoke--a smile that the +colonel had not seen in Hendricks' face in many years. Then the mask +fell on his face, and the colonel saw it fall--the mask of the man +over the face of the boy. A puzzled, bewildered look crept into the +gray, fat face, and Hendricks could see that the doubt was still in +the colonel's heart. The younger man pressed the colonel's hand, and +the two moved toward the door. Suddenly tears flushed into the dimmed +eyes of the colonel, and he cried, through a smile, "Bob Hendricks, I +believe in my soul you're a liar--a damn liar, sir, but, boy, you're +a thoroughbred--God bless you, you're a thoroughbred." And he turned +and shuffled from the room and out of the bank. + +When Colonel Martin Culpepper left Robert Hendricks at the door of the +directors' room of the Exchange National Bank, the colonel was +persuaded in his heart that his daughter had married Adrian Brownwell +to please her parents, and the colonel realized that day that her +parents were pleased with Brownwell as a suitor for their daughter, +because in time of need he had come to their rescue with money, and +incidentally because he was of their own blood and caste--a Southern +gentleman of family. The colonel went to the offices of the Culpepper +Mortgage and Loan Company and went over his bank-book again. The check +that he drew would take all but three hundred and forty-five dollars +out of the accounts of his company, and not a dollar of it was his. +The Culpepper Mortgage Company was lending other people's money. It +had been lending money on farm mortgages for ten years. Pay-day on +many mortgages was coming due, and of the fifteen thousand dollars he +checked out to pay Adrian Brownwell's debt, thirteen thousand dollars +was money that belonged to the Eastern creditors of the company--men +and women who had sent their money to the company for it to lend; and +the money checked out represented money paid back by the farmers for +the release of their mortgages. Some of the money was interest paid by +farmers on their mortgages, some of it was partial payments--but none +of it was Colonel Culpepper's money. + +"Molly," said the colonel, as his daughter came into the office, "I've +given a check for that--that money, you know, to Adrian--paid it in +full, my dear. But--" the colonel fumbled with his pencil a moment +and added, "I'm a trifle shy--a few thousand in point of fact, and I +just thought I'd ask--would you borrow it of Bob, if you were me?" + +He looked at her closely, and she coloured and shook her head +vehemently as she replied: "Oh, no, father--no, can't you get it +somewhere else? Not from Bob--for that! I mean--oh--I'd much rather +not." + +The colonel looked at his daughter a moment and drew a deep breath, +and sighed, and smiled across his sigh, and took her hand and put it +around his neck and kissed it, and when she was close to him he put +his arm about her, and their eyes met for a fleeting instant, and they +did not speak. But in a moment from across his desk the daughter +spoke, "Why don't you go to John or Carnine, father?" + +"Well, Gabe--you know Gabe. I'm borrowed clear to the limit there, +now. And John--you know John, Molly--and the muss, the disagreeable +muss,--the row, in point of fact, we had over that last seventy-five +dollars settling up the College Heights business--you remember? Well, +I just can't go to John. But," he added cheerfully, "I can get it +elsewhere, my dear--I have other resources, other resources, my +dear." And the colonel smiled so gayly that he deceived even his +daughter, and she went home as happy as a woman with eyelids as red as +hers were that day might reasonably expect to be. + +As for the colonel, he sat figuring for an hour upon a sheet of white +paper. His figures indicated that by putting all of his property +except his home into the market, and reserving all of his commissions +on loans that would fall due during the three years coming, he could +pay back the money he had taken, little by little, and be square with +the company's creditors in three years--or four at the most. So he +let the check stand, and did not try to borrow money of the banks to +make it good, but trusted to to-morrow's receipts to pay yesterday's +debts of the company. Knowing that several mortgages of more than +three thousand each would fall due in a few weeks, and that the men +carrying them, expected to pay them, the colonel wrote dilatory +letters to the Eastern creditors whose money he had taken, explaining +that there was some delay in the payment of the notes, and that the +matter would be straightened out in a few weeks. When the money came +in from the mortgages falling due the next month, he paid those +already due, and delayed the payment of Peter until Paul paid up. It +was a miserable business, and Colonel Culpepper knew that he was a +thief. The knowledge branded him as one, and bent his eyes to the +ground, and wrenched his proud neck so that his head hung loosely upon +it. Always when he spoke in public, or went among his poor on errands +of mercy, at his elbow stood the accusing spectre, and choked his +voice, and unnerved his hand. And trouble came upon the Culpeppers, +and the colonel's clothes, which, had always been immaculate, grew +shabby. As that year and the next passed and mortgages began falling +due, not only in the colonel's company but all over the county, all +over the state, all over the Missouri Valley, men found they could not +pay. The cycle of business depression moved across the world, as those +things come and go through the centuries. Moreover, General Ward was +riding on the crest of a wave of unrest which expressed in terms of +politics what the people felt in their homes. Debts were falling due; +crops brought small returns; capital was frightened; men in the mills +lost their work; men on the farms burned their corn; and Colonel +Martin Culpepper sank deeper and deeper into the mire. + +Those years of the panic of the early nineties pressed all the youth +out of his step, dimmed the lustre of his eyes, and slowly broke his +heart. His keenest anguish was not for his own suffering, but because +his poor, the people at the Mission, came trooping to him for help, +and he had to turn so many away. The whole town knew that he was in +trouble, though no one knew or even suspected just what it was. For +the people had their own troubles in those days, and the town and the +county and the state and the whole world grew shabby. + +One day in the summer of '93, Colonel Culpepper was sitting in his +office reading a letter from Vermont demanding a long-deferred +interest payment on a mortgage. There were three hundred dollars due, +and the colonel had but half that amount, and was going to send what +he had. Jake Dolan came into the office and saw the colonel sitting +with the letter crumpled in his hands, and with worry in the dull old +eyes. + +"Come in, Jake, come in," cried the colonel, a little huskily. "What's +the trouble, comrade--what's wrong?" + +But let Dolan tell it to Hendricks three days later, as the two are +sitting at night on the stone bridge across the Sycamore built by John +Barclay to commemorate the battle of Sycamore Ridge. "'Well, Mart,' +says I, 'I'm in vicarious trouble,' says I. 'It's along of my orphan +asylum,' says I. 'What orphan asylum?' says he. 'Well, it's this way, +Mart,' says I. 'You know they found Trixie Lee guilty this afternoon +in the justice court, don't you?' Mart sighs and says, 'Poor Trixie, I +supposed they would sooner or later, poor girl--poor girl. An' old +Cap Lee of the Red Legs was her father; did you know that, Jake?' he +asks. 'Yes, Mart,' says I, 'and Lady Lee before her. She comes by it +honestly.' Mart sat drumming with his fingers on the table, looking +back into the years. 'Poor Jim,' he says, 'Jim was a brave soldier--a +brave, big-hearted, generous soldier--he nursed me all that first +night at Wilson's Creek when I was wounded. Poor Jim.' 'Yes,' says I, +'and Trixie has named her boy for him--Jim Lord Lee Young; that was +her husband's name--Young,' says I. 'And it's along of the boy that +I'm here for. The nicest bright-eyed little chap you ever saw; and he +seems to know that something is wrong, and just clings to his mother +and cries--seven years old, or maybe eight--and begs me not to put +his mother in jail. And,' says I to Mart, 'Mart, I just can't do it. +The sheriff he's run, and so has the deputy; they can't stand the boy +crying, and damn it to hell, Mart, I can't, either; so I just left 'em +in the office and locked the door and come around to see you. I'd 'a' +gone to see Bob, only he's out of town this week,' I says. 'I can +throw up the job, Mart--though I'd have to go on the county; but +Mart, they ain't a soul for the boy to go to; and it ain't right to +put him in jail with the scum that's in there.'" + +"Tough--wasn't it?" said Hendricks. "What did you do? Why didn't you +go to Carnine or Barclay?" + +"That's just what I'm a-comin' to,--the Priest or the Levite?" said +Jake. "Well, Mart said, 'Where're the men they caught--won't they +help?' and I says, 'They paid their tine and skipped.' 'Fine?' asks +Mart, 'fine? I thought you said it was jail sentence.' 'Well,' says I, +'it amounts to the same thing; she can't pay her fine, and that damn +reform judge, wanting to make a record as a Spartan, has committed her +to jail till it is paid!' 'So they go free, and she goes to jail, +because she is poor,' says Mart.' That's what your reform means,' says +I, 'or I let her and the boy loose and lose my job. And oh, Mart,' +says I, 'the screams of that little boy at the disgrace of it and the +terror of the jail--man--I can't stand it!' 'How much is it?' sighs +Mart. 'An even hundred fine and seventeen dollars and fifty cents +costs,' says I. Mart's eyes was leaking, and he gets up and goes to +the vault, and comes back with the cash and says, blubbering like a +calf: 'Here, Jake Dolan, you old scoundrel, take this. I'll pass a +paper and get it to-morrow--now get out of here.' And he handed me +the money all cried over where he'd been slow counting it out, and +said when he'd got hold of his wobbly jaw: 'Don't you tell her where +you got it--I don't want her around here. I'll see her to-morrow when +I'm down that way and talk to her for old Cap Lee--' And then he +laughs as he stands in the door and says: 'Well, Jim,' and he points +up, 'your bread cast upon the waters was a long time a-coming--but +here she is;' and he says, 'Do you suppose the old villain knows?' And +I turned and hunted up the justice and went around to the office, and +told Trixie to 'go sin no more,' and she laughs and says, 'Well, +hardly ever!' and I kissed the kid, and he fought my whiskers, and we +all live happy ever after." + +But the colonel, after Dolan left the office, went into the darkening +room, and spread out the harsh letter from the Vermont banker +demanding money long past due, and read and reread it and took up his +burden, and got into the weary treadmill of his life. It rained the +next day, and he did not go out with his subscription paper; he had +learned that people subscribe better on bright days; and as Hendricks +and Barclay were both out of town, he wrote a dilatory letter to the +Vermont people--the fifth he had written about that particular +transaction--and waited another rainy day and still another before +starting out with his paper. But the event was past; the cry of the +child was not in the people's ears; they knew that the colonel had put +up the money; so it was not until Hendricks came back and heard the +story from Dolan that the colonel was repaid. Then because he actually +had the money--at least half of it due on that particular debt, which +was one of scores of its kind--the colonel delayed another day and +another, and while he was musing the fire burned. And events started +in Vermont which greatly changed the course of this story. + +"I wonder," he has written in that portion of the McHurdie Biography +devoted to "The Press of the Years," "why, as we go farther and +farther into life, invariably it grows dingier and dingier. The 'large +white plumes' that dance before the eyes of youth soil, and are +bedraggled. And out of the inexplicable tangle of the mesh of life +come dark threads from God knows where and colour the woof of it gray +and dreary. Ah for the days of the large white plumes--for the days +when life's woof was bright!" + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +If the reader of this tale should feel drawn to visit Sycamore Ridge, +he will find a number of interesting things there, and the trip may be +made by the transcontinental traveller with the loss of but half a +dozen hours from his journey. The Golden Belt Railroad, fifteen years +ago, used to print a guide-book called "California and Back," in which +were set down the places of interest to the traveller. In that book +Sycamore Ridge was described thus:-- + + "Sycamore Ridge, pop. 22,345, census 1890; large water-power, main + industry milling; also manufacturing; five wholesale houses. Seat + Ward University, 1300 students; also Garrison County High School, + also Business College. Thirty-five churches, two newspapers, the + _Daily Banner_ and the _Index_; fifty miles of paved streets; + largest stone arch bridge in the West, marking site of Battle of + Sycamore Ridge, a border ruffian skirmish; home of Watts McHurdie, + famous as writer of war-songs, best known of which is--" etc., etc. + +But excepting Watts, who may be gone before you get there,--for he is +an old man now, and is alone and probably does not always have the +best of care,--the things above annotated will not interest the +traveller. At the Thayer House they will tell you that three things in +the town give it distinction: the Barclay home, a rambling gray brick +structure which the natives call Barclay Castle, with a great sycamore +tree held together by iron bands on the terraced lawn before the +house--that is number one; the second thing they will advise the +traveller to see is Mary Barclay Park, ten acres of transplanted elm +trees, most tastefully laid out, between Main Street and the Barclay +home; and the third thing that will be pointed out to the traveller is +the Schnitzler fountain, in the cemetery gateway, done by St. Gaudens; +it represents a soldier pouring water from his canteen into his hand, +as he bathes the brow of a dying comrade. + +These things, of course,--the house, the park, and the +fountain,--represent John Barclay and his money. The town is proud of +them, but the reader is advised not to expect too much of them. One of +the two things really worth seeing at the Ridge is the view over the +wheat fields of the Sycamore Valley from the veranda of the Culpepper +home on the hill. There one may see the great fields lying in three +townships whereon John Barclay founded his fortune. The second thing +worth seeing may be found in the hallway of the public library +building, just at the turn of the marble stairway, where the morning +light strikes it. Take the night train out of Chicago and get to the +Ridge in the morning, to get the light on that picture. + +It is a portrait of John Barclay, done when he was forty years old and +painted by a Russian during the summer when the Barclays were called +home from Europe before their journey was half completed, to +straighten out an obstreperous congressman, one Tom Wharton by name, +who was threatening to put wheat and flour on the free list in a +tariff bill, unless--but that is immaterial, except that Wharton was +on Barclay's mind more or less while the painter was at work, and the +portrait reflects what Barclay thought of a number of things. It shows +a small gray-clad man, with a pearl pin in a black tie, sitting rather +on the edge of his chair, leaning forward, so that the head is thrown +into the light. The eyes are well opened, and the jaw comes out, a +hard mean jaw; but the work of the artist, the real work that reveals +the soul of the sitter, is shown in three features, if we except the +pugnacious shoulders. In the face are two of these features: the +mouth, a hard, coarse, furtive mouth,--the mouth of the liar who is +not polished,--the peasant liar who has been caught and has brazened +it out; the mouth and the forehead, full almost to bulging, so clean +and white and naked that it seems shameful to expose it, a poet's +forehead, noble and full of dreams, broad over the eyes, and as +delicately modelled at the temples as a woman's where the curly brown +hair is brushed away from it. But the wonderful feature about the +portrait is the right hand. The artist obviously asked Barclay to +assume a natural attitude, and then seeing him lean forward with his +hand stretched out in some gesture of impatience, persuaded him to +take that pose. It is the sort of vital human thing that would please +Barclay--no sham about it; but he did not realize what the Russian +was putting into that hand--a long, hard, hairy, hollow, grasping, +relentless hand, full in the foreground and squarely in the light--a +horrible thing with artistic fingers, and a thin, greedy palm +indicated by the deep hump in the back. It reaches out from the +picture, with the light on the flesh tints, with the animal hair thick +upon it, and with the curved, slender, tapering fingers cramped like a +claw; and when one follows up the arm to the crouching body, the +furtive mouth, the bold, shrewd eyes, and then sees that forehead full +of visions, one sees in it more than John Barclay of Sycamore Ridge, +more than America, more than Europe. It is the menace of +civilization--the danger to the race from the domination of sheer +intellect without moral restraint. + +General Ward, who was on the committee that received the picture +fifteen years after it was painted, stood looking at it the morning it +was hung there on the turn of the stairs. As the light fell +mercilessly upon it, the general, white-haired, white-necktied, +clean-shaven, and lean-faced, gazed at the portrait for a long time, +and then said to his son Neal who stood beside him, "And Samson wist +not that the Lord had departed from him." + +It will pay one to stop a day in Sycamore Ridge to see that +picture--though he does not know John Barclay, and only understands +the era that made him, and gave him that refined, savage, cunning, +grasping hand. + +Barclay stopped a week in Washington on his return from Europe the +year that picture was painted, made a draft for fifty thousand dollars +on the National Provisions Company to cover "legal expenses," and came +straight home to Sycamore Ridge. He was tired of cities, he told +Colonel Culpepper, who met Barclay at the post-office the morning he +returned, with his arms full of newspapers. "I want to hear the old +mill, Colonel," said Barclay, "to smell the grease down in the guts of +her, and to get my hair full of flour again." When he had gorged +himself for two days, he wired Bemis to come to the Ridge, and Barclay +and Bemis sat on the dam one evening until late bedtime, considering +many things. As they talked, Barclay found that a plan for the +reorganization of the Provisions Company was growing in his mind, and +he talked it out as it grew. + +"Lige," he said, as he leaned with his elbows on a rock behind him, +"the trouble with the company as it now stands is that it's too +palpable. There's too much to levy on--too much in sight; too much +physical property. How would it do to sell all these mills and +elevators, and use the company as a kind of a cream skimmer--a profit +shop--to market the products of the mills?" He paused a moment, and +Bemis, who knew he was not expected to reply, flipped pebbles into the +stream. Barclay changed his position slightly and began to pick stones +out of the crevices, and throw the stones into the water. "That's the +thing to do--go ahead and sell every dollar's worth of assets the +company's got--I'll take the mill here. I couldn't get along without +that. Then we'll buy the products of the mills at cost of the millers, +and let them get their profits back as individual holders of our +stock. Our company will handle the Door Strip--buy it and sell +it--and if any long-nosed reformer gets to snooping around the mills, +he'll find they are making only a living profit; and as for us--any +state grain commissioner or board of commissioners who wanted to +examine us could do so, and what'd he find? Simply that we're buying +our products at cost of the millers and selling at the market +price--sometimes at a loss, sometimes at a profit; and what if we do +handle all the grain and grain products in the United States? They +can't show that we are hurting anything. I tell you there's getting to +be too much snooping now in the state and federal governments. Have +you got any fellow in your office who can fix up a charter that will +let us buy and sell grain, and also sell the Barclay Economy Strip?" + +Bemis nodded. + +"Then, damn 'em, let 'em go on with their commissioners and boards and +legislative committees; they can't catch us. There's no law against +the railroads that ship our stuff buying the Economy Door Strip, is +there? You bet there isn't. And we're entitled to a good round +inventor's profit, ain't we? You bet we are. You go ahead and get up +that reorganization, and I'll put it through. Say, Lige--" Barclay +chuckled as a recollection flashed across his mind--"you know I've +made some of our Northwest senators promise to make you a federal +judge. That's one of the things I did last week; I thought maybe +sometime we'd need a federal judge as one of the--what do you call +it--the hereditaments thereunto appertaining of the company." Bemis +opened his eyes in astonishment, and Barclay grunted in disgust as he +went on: "Of course we can't get you appointed from this +state--that's clear--but they think we can work it through in the +City--as soon as there is a vacancy--or make a new district. How +would you like that? Judge Bemis--say, that sounds all right, doesn't +it?" + +Barclay rose and stretched his legs and arms. "Well, I must be +going--Mrs. Barclay and my mother want to hear the new organ over in +the Congregational Church. It's a daisy--Colonel Culpepper, amongst +hands, skirmished up three thousand. They let me pick it out, and I +had to put up another thousand myself to get the kind I wanted. Are +you well taken care of at the hotel?" When Bemis explained that he had +the bridal chamber, the two men clambered up the bank of the stream, +crossed the bridge, and at his gate Barclay said: "Now, I'll sleep on +this to-night,--this reorganization,--and then I'll write you a +letter to-morrow, covering all that I've said, and you can fix up a +tentative charter and fire it down--and say, Lige, figure out what a +modest profit on all the grain and grain produce business of the +country would be--say about two and a half per cent, and make the +capitalization of the reorganization fit that. We'll get the real +profits out of the Door Strip, and can fix that up in the books. We'll +show the reformers a trick or two." It was a warm night, and when the +organ recital was over, John and Jane Barclay, after the custom of the +town, sat on a terrace in front of the house talking of the day's +events. Music always made John babble. + +"Jane," he asked suddenly, "Jane--when does a man begin to grow old? +Here I am past forty. I used to think when a man was forty he was +middle-aged; every five years I have advanced my idea of what an old +man was; when I was fifteen, I thought a man was getting along when he +was thirty. When I was twenty-five, I regarded forty as the beginning +of the end; when I was thirty, I put the limit of activity at +forty-five; five years ago I moved it up to fifty; and to-day I have +jumped it to sixty. It seems to me, Jane, that I'm as much of a boy as +ever; all this talk about my being a man puzzles me. What's this +Provisions Company but a game? And I'm going to play another game; I'm +going to get grain and grain produce organized, and then I'm going to +tackle meat. In ten years I'll have the packing-houses where I have +the mills; but it's just play--and it's a lot of fun." + +He was silent a moment. Jane did not disturb his reveries. She +understood, without exactly putting her feeling into language, that +she was being talked at, not talked to. + +"Say, Jane," he exclaimed, "wasn't that 'Marche Triomphante to-night +great?" He hummed a bar from the motif, "That's it--my--" he cried, +hitting his chair arm with his fist, "but that's a big thing--almost +good enough for Wagner to have done; big and insistent and strong. I'm +getting to like music with go to it--with bang and brass. Wagner does +it; honest, Jane, when I hear his trombones coming into a theme, I get +ideas enough to give the whole force in the office nervous prostration +for a month. To-night when that thing was swelling up like a great +tidal wave of music rolling in, I worked out a big idea; I'm going to +sell all the mills and factories back to the millers for our stock, +and when I own every dollar of our stock, I'm going to double the +price of it to them and sell it back to them; and if they haggle about +it, I'll build a new mill across the track from every man-jack who +tries to give me any funny business--I'll show 'em. That +reorganization ought to clean up millions for us in the next year. +What a lot of fun it all is! I used to think old Jay Gould was some +pumpkins; but if we get this reorganization through, I'll go down +there and buy the Gould outfit and sell 'em for old iron." + +The current of his thoughts struck under language, as a prairie stream +sometimes hides from its surface bed. After a time Jane said: "Grandma +Barclay thought the 'Marche Funebre' was the best thing the man did. I +heard the Wards speaking of it in the vestibule; and Molly, who held +my hand through it, nearly squeezed it off--poor girl; but she looks +real well these days." Jane paused a moment and added: "Did you notice +the colonel? How worn and haggard he looks--he seems broken so. They +say he is in trouble. Couldn't we help him?" + +Her husband did not reply at once. Finally he recalled his wandering +wits and answered: "Oh, I don't know, Jane. He'll pull through, I +guess." Then he reverted to the music, which was still in his head. +"He played the Largo well--didn't he? That was made for the organ. +But some way I like the big things. The Largo is like running a little +twenty-horse-power steam mill, and selling to the home grocers. But +'The Ride of the Valkyries,' with those screaming discords of brass, +and those magnificent crashes of harmony--Jane, I've got an +idea--Wagner's work is the National Provisions Company set to music, +and I'm the first trombone." He laughed and reached for his wife's +hand and kissed it; then he rose and stood before her, admiring her in +the starlight, as he exclaimed: "And you are those clarinets, sweet +and clear and delicious, that make a man want to cry for sheer joy. +Come on, my dear--isn't it very late?" And the little man limped +across the grass up the steps and into the house. The two stopped a +moment while he listened to the roar of the water and the rumble of +the mill, that glowed in the night like a phosphorescent spectre. He +squeezed her hand and cried out in exultation, "It's great, isn't +it--the finest mill on this planet, my dear--do you realize that?" +And then they turned into the house. + +The next morning he kept two stenographers busy; he was spinning the +web of his reorganization, bringing about a condition under which men +were compelled to exchange their stock in the National Provisions +Company for their former property. He was a crafty little man, and his +ways were sometimes devious, even though to outward view his +advertised and proclaimed methods were those of a pirate. So when he +had dictated a day's work to two girls, he went nosing through the +mill, loafing in the engine rooms, looking at the water wheel, or +running about rafters in the fifth floor like a great gray rat. As he +went he hummed little tunes under his breath or whistled between his +teeth, with his lips apart. After luncheon he unlocked a row-boat, and +took a cane pole and rowed himself a mile up the mill-pond, and +brought home three good-sized bass. Thus did he spend his idle moments +around the Ridge. That night he thumped his piano and longed for a +pipe organ. The things he tried to play were noisy, and his mother, +sitting in the gloaming near him, sighed and said: "John, play some of +the old pieces--the quieter ones; play 'The Long and Weary Day' and +some of the old songs. Have you forgotten the 'Bohemian Girl' and +those Schubert songs?" + +His fingers felt their way back to his boyhood, and when he ceased +playing, he stood by his mother a moment, and patted her cheeks as he +hummed in German the first two lines of the "Lorelei," and then said, +"We have come a long way since then--eh, mother?" She held his hand +to her cheek and then to her lips, but she did not reply. He repeated +it, "A long, long way from the little home of one room here!" After a +pause he added, "Would you like to go back?" + +A tear fell on the hand against her cheek. He felt her jaw quiver, and +then she said, "Oh, yes, John--yes, I believe I would." + +He knew she did not care for his wealth, and there were many things +about his achievements that he felt she might misunderstand; her +attitude often puzzled him. So he sat a moment on her chair arm, and +said, "Well, mother, I have done my best." It was a question more than +a protest. + +"Yes, dear," she replied, "I know you have--you have done your +best--your very best. But I think it is in your blood." + +"What?" he asked. + +"Oh, all this," she answered; "all this money-getting. I am foolish, +John, but some way, I want my little boy back--the one who used to +sit with me so long ago, and play on the guitar and sing 'Sleeping, I +Dream, Love.' I don't like your new music, John; it's so like clanging +cars, and crashing hammers, and the groans of men at toil." + +"But this is a new world, mother--a new world that is different," +protested the son, impatiently. + +And the mother answered sadly as she looked up at him: "I know, +dear--it is a new world; but the same old God moves it; and the same +faith in God and love of man move men that always have moved them, and +always will move them; there are as many things to live and die for +now, as when your father gave up his life, John--just as many." They +rocked together in silence--the boy of forty and the mother of sixty. +Finally she said, "Johnnie, play me 'Ever of Thee I'm fondly +Thinking,' won't you, before you go?" + +He sat with his foot on the soft pedal and played the old love song, +and as he played his mother wandered over hills he had never seen, +through fields he had never known, and heard a voice in the song he +might never hear, even in his dreams. When he finished, she stood +beside him and cried with all the passion her years could summon: "Oh, +John--John--it will come out some way--some day. It's in your soul, +and God in His own way will bring it out." He did not understand her +then, and it was many years before he prayed her prayer. + +The next day he went to the City and plunged into his work, and the +Ridge and its people and the prayers of his mother became to him only +as a dream that comes in the night and fades in the day. Even the +shabby figure of Colonel Martin Culpepper, with his market basket on +his arm, waving a good-by as the Barclay private car pulled out of the +Sycamore Ridge depot, disappeared from his mind, though that pathetic +image haunted him for nearly a hundred miles as he rode, and he could +not shake it off until he immersed himself in the roar of the great +City. He could not know that he had any remote relation with the worry +in the old man's eyes. Nor did Martin Culpepper try to shift his load +to John. He knew where the blame was, and he tried to take it like a +man. But in reckoning the colonel's account, may not something be +charged off to the account of John Barclay, who to save himself and +accomplish the Larger Good--which meant the establishment of his own +fortunes--sent Adrian Brownwell in those days in the seventies with +the money to the colonel, not so much to help the colonel as to save +John Barclay? The Larger Good is a slow, vicious, accumulative poison, +and heaven only knows when it will come out and kill. + +It was a week after the pipe-organ recital at the church, when Mary +Barclay, doing her day's marketing, ran into Colonel Culpepper +standing rather forlornly in front of McHurdie's shop. He bowed to her +with elaborate graciousness, and she stopped to speak with him. In a +moment he was saying, "So you have not heard, are unaware, entirely +ignorant, in point of fact, of my misfortunes?" She assented, and the +colonel went on: "Well, madam, the end has come; I have played out my +hand; I have strutted my hour upon the stage, and now I go off. Old +Mart Culpepper, my dear, is no longer the leading citizen, nor our +distinguished capitalist, not even the hustling real estate agent of +former days--just plain old Mart Culpepper, I may say. He who was, is +now a has-been,--just an old man without a business." He saw that she +did not appreciate what had happened, and he smiled gently and said: +"Closed up, my dear madam. A receiver was appointed a few minutes ago +for the Culpepper Mortgage Company, and I gave him the key. +Failure--failure--" he repeated the word bitterly--"failure is +written over the door of this life." + +Mary Barclay grasped his big fat hand and pressed it, and shook her +head. Something in her throat choked her, and she could not speak at +first. The two stood a moment in silence before the woman said +emphatically, "No--no! Martin Culpepper, God is keeping your books!" + +The shabby old man stood uncovered, a smile quivering about his eyes. +"Maybe so, Mary Barclay, maybe so," he said. The smile fell into his +countenance as he added, "That is why I have gone so long without a +settlement; with my account so badly overdrawn, too." Then he turned +to go and walked as lightly down the street as a man could walk, +broken before his time with the weight of a humiliation upon him and a +fear greater than his shame burning in his fluttering old heart. + +And now if you are reading this story to be in the company of the rich +Mr. Barclay, to feel the madness of his millions, to enjoy the vain +delirium of his power, skip the rest of this chapter. For it tells of a +shabby time in the lives of all of the threadbare people who move in +this tale. Even John Barclay sees the seams and basting threads of his +life here, and as for the others,--the colonel and Jake and the general +and Watts, and even Molly,--what do these people mean to you, these +common people, in their old clothes, with their old hearts and their +rusty sins and their homely sorrows? Milord and his lady will not +scamper across these pages; no rooms with rich appointments will gladden +your eyes, and perhaps in the whole book you will not find a man in +evening dress nor a woman in a dinner gown. And now the only thing there +is to offer is Jake Dolan, aged fifty-seven, with scanty, grizzled hair, +sitting in his shirt-sleeves in the basement of the court-house, with +the canvas cot he sleeps on for a chair, mending his blue army coat. +Beside him on the bed are his trousers, thin, almost worn through, +patched as to the knees and as to other important places, but clean and +without a loose thread hanging from them. Surely an old Irishman mending +an old army coat under a dusty electric light bulb in the basement of a +court-house, wherein he is janitor by grace of the united demand of +Henry Schnitzler Post of the G.A.R. No. 432, is not a particularly +inspiring picture. But he has bitten the last thread with his teeth, and +is putting away the sewing outfit. And now Mr. Dolan, from the drawer of +a little table beside the cot,--a table with Bob Hendricks' picture, +framed in plush, sitting on the top,--now Mr. Dolan takes from the +drawer a tablet of writing paper printed by the county. It is his +particular pride, that writing paper. For upon it at the top is the +picture of the new one-hundred-thousand-dollar court-house, and beside +the court-house picture are these words: "Office of Jacob Dolan, +Custodian of Public Buildings and Grounds of Garrison County." Mr. Dolan +will be writing a letter, and so long as it begins with "Dear Sir," and +nothing more endearing, surely we may look over his shoulder while he +writes,--even though it is bad form. And as Mr. Dolan will be writing to +"Robert Hendricks, care of Cook's Hotel, Cairo, Egypt,"--which he spells +with an "i," but let that pass, and let some of his literary style and +construction pass with it,--and as he will be writing to Mr. Hendricks, +perhaps Miss Nancy may do well to go sit in the corridor and put her +fingers in her ears while we read. For Mr. Dolan is an emotional man, +and he is breathing hard, and by the way he grabs his pen and jabs it +into the ink one can see that he is angry. + + "DEAR SIR (begins Mr. Dolan): I take my pen in hand to answer yours + of this date from New York and would have written you anyhow, as + there is much on my mind and I would cable you, but I can't, being + for the moment short of funds. I write to say, Robert, that we have + Mart Culpepper in jail--right across the hall. He came in at nine + o'clock to-night, and the damn Pop judge put his bail at $15,999 to + cover his alleged shortage, and the stinker won't accept us old boys + on the bond--Phil and Watts and Os and the Company 'C' boys I could + get before the judge went to bed, and Gabe Carnine, the gut, would + not sign--would not sign old Mart's bond, sir, and I hope to be in + hell with a fishpole some day poking him down every time his slimy + fingers get on the rim of the kettle. But we'll have him out in the + morning, if every man in Garrison County has to go on the bond. They + say Mart received money to pay four or five mortgages due to a + Vermont Bank, and they sent a detective here about a month ago and + worked up the case, and closed his business to-day and waited until + to-night to arrest him. I've just come from Mart. It's hell. Hoping + this will find you enjoying the same I beg my dear sir to sign + myself + + "Your ob't s'r'v't J. DOLAN." + +When Jacob Dolan finished his letter, he addressed the envelope and +hurried away to mail it. And so long as we are here in the +court-house, and the custodian is gone, would you like to step in and +see Martin Culpepper across the hall? It is still in the basement now, +and if you are quiet, so quiet that the slipping patter of a rat's +foot on the floor comes to you, a sound as of a faint whining will +come to you also. There--now it comes again. No, it is not a dog; it +is a man--a man in his agony. Shall we open the great iron door, and +go into the cell room? Why, not even you, Miss Nancy--not even you, +who love tears so? You would not see much--only a man, with his coat +and vest off, an old man with a rather shaggy, ill-kept chin whisker +and not the cleanest shirt in the world--though it is plaited, and +once was a considerable garment. And the man wearing it, who lies +prostrate upon his face, once was a considerable man. But he is old +now, old and broken, and if he should look up, as you stepped in the +corridor before him, you would see a great face ripped and scarred by +fear and guilt, and eyes that look so piteously at you--eyes of a man +who cannot understand why the blow has fallen, surprised eyes with a +horror in them; and if he should speak, you will find a voice rough +and mushy with asthma. The heart that has throbbed so many nights in +fear and the breath that has been held for so many footsteps, at last +have turned their straining into disease. No--let's not go in. He +bade his daughter go, and would not see his wife, and they have sent +to the City for his son,--so let us not bother him, for to-morrow he +will be out on bail. But did you hear that fine, trembling, animal +whine--that cry that wrenched itself out of set teeth like a living +thing? Come on--let us go and find Jake, and if he is taking a drink, +don't blame him too much, Miss Nancy--how would you like to sleep in +that room across the corridor? + +At nine o'clock the next morning two hundred men had signed the bond +the judge required, and Martin Culpepper shambled home with averted +eyes. They tried to carry him on their shoulders, thinking it would +cheer him up; and from the river wards of the town scores came to give +him their hands. But he shook himself away from them, like a great +whipped dog, and walked slowly up the hill, and turned into Lincoln +Avenue alone. + +John Barclay heard the news of the colonel's trouble as he stepped +from his private car in the Sycamore Ridge yards that morning, and +Jane went to the Culpepper home without stopping at her own. That +afternoon, Molly Brownwell knocked at Barclay's office door in the +mill, and went in without waiting for him to open it. She was pale and +haggard, and she sat down before he could speak to her. + +"John," she said in a dead voice that smote his heart, "I have come +for my reward now. I never thought I'd ask it, John, but last night I +thought it all out, and I don't believe it's begging." + +"No," he replied quietly, "it's not. I am sure--" + +But she did not let him finish. She broke in with: "Oh, I don't want +any of your money; I want my own money--money that you got when you +sold me into bondage, John Barclay--do you remember when?" She cried +the last words in a tremulous little voice, and then caught herself, +and went on before he could put into words the daze in his face. "Let +me tell you; do you remember the day you called me up into your office +and asked me to hold Adrian in town to save the wheat company? Yes, +you do--you know you do! And you remember that you played on my love +for Bob, and my duty to father. Well, I saved you, didn't I?" + +"Yes, you did, Molly," Barclay replied. + +She stared a moment at the framed pictures of mill designs on the +wall, and at the wheat samples on the long table near her, and did not +speak; nor did he. She finally broke the silence: "Well, I saved you, +but what about father--" her voice broke into a sob--"and Bob--Jane +has told you what Bob and I have been--and what about me--what have +you taken from me in these twenty years? Oh, John, John, what a +fearful wreck we have made of life--you with your blind selfishness, +and I with my weakness! Did you know, John, that the money that father +borrowed that day, twenty years ago, of Adrian, to lend to you, is the +very money that sent him to jail last night? I guess he--he took what +wasn't his to pay it back." Her face twitched, and she was losing +control of her voice. Barclay stepped to the door and latched it. She +watched him and shook her head sadly. "You needn't be afraid, +John--I'm not going to make a scene." + +"It's all right, Molly," said Barclay. "I want to help you--you know +that. I'm sorry, Molly--infinitely sorry." + +She looked at him for a moment in silence, and then said: "Yes, John, +I'll give you credit for that; I think you're as sorry as a selfish +man like you can be. But are you sorry enough to go to jail a pauper, +like father, or wander over the earth alone, like Bob, or come and beg +for money, like me?" Then she caught herself quickly and cried: "Only +it's not begging, John--it's my own; it's the price you got when you +sold me into bondage; it's the price of my soul, and I need it now. +Those people only want their money--that is all." + +"Yes," he replied, "I suppose that is all they want." He drummed on +his desk a moment and then asked, "Does your father know how much it +is?" + +"Yes," she answered, "I found in his desk at the house last night a +paper on which he had been figuring--poor father--all the night +before. All the night before--" she repeated, and then sobbed, "Poor +father--all the night before. He knew it was coming. He knew the +detective was here. He told me to-day that the sum he had there was +correct. It is sixteen thousand five hundred and forty-three dollars. +But he doesn't know I'm here, John. I told him I had some money of my +own--some I'd had for years--and I have--oh, I have, John +Barclay--I have." She looked up at him with the pallid face stained +with fresh tears and asked, "I have--I have--haven't I, John, +haven't I?" + +He put his elbows on the desk and sank his head in his hands and +sighed, "Yes, Molly--yes, you have." + +They sat in silence until the roar of the waters and the murmur of the +wheels about them came into the room. Then the woman rose to go. +"Well, John," she said, "I suppose one shouldn't thank a person for +giving her her own--but I do, John. Oh, it's like blood money to +me--but father--I can't let father suffer." + +She walked to the door, he stepped to unlatch it, and she passed out +without saying good-by. When she was gone, he slipped the latch, and +sat down with his hands gripping the table before him. As he sat +there, he looked across the years and saw some of the havoc he had +made. There was no shirking anything that he saw. A footfall passing +the door made him start as if he feared to be caught in some guilty +act. Yet he knew the door was locked. He choked a little groan behind +his teeth, and then reached for the top of his desk, pulled down the +rolling cover, and limped quickly out of the room--as though he were +leaving a corpse. What he saw was the ghost of the Larger Good, +mocking him through the veil of the past, and asking him such +questions as only a man's soul may hear and not resent. + +He walked over the mill for a time, and then calling his stenographers +from their room, dictated them blind and himself dumb with details of +a deal he was putting through to get control of the cracker companies +of the country. When he finished, the sunset was glaring across the +water through the window in front of him, and he had laid his ghost. +But Molly Brownwell had her check, and her father was saved. + +That evening the colonel sat with Watts McHurdie, on the broad veranda +of the Culpepper home, and as the moon came out, General Ward wandered +up the walk and Jake Dolan came singing down the street about "the +relic of old dacincy--the hat me father wore." Perhaps he had one +drink in him, and perhaps two, or maybe three, but he clicked the gate +behind him, and seeing the three men on the veranda, he called out:-- + +"Hi, you pig-stealing Kansas soldiers, haven't ye heard the war is +over?" And then he carolled: "Oh, can't get 'em up, Oh, can't get 'em +up, Oh, can't get 'em up in the mornin'--Get up, you"--but the rest +of the song, being devoted to the technical affairs of war, and ending +with a general exhortation to the soldier to "get into your breeches," +would give offence to persons of sensitive natures, and so may as well +be omitted from this story. + +There was an awkward pause when Dolan came on the veranda. The general +had just tried to break the ice, but Dolan was going at too high a +speed to be checked. + +"Do you know," he asked, "what I always remember when I hear that +call? You do not. I'll tell you. 'Twas the morning of the battle of +Wilson's Creek, and Mart and me was sleeping under a tree, when the +bugler of the Johnnies off somewhere on the hill he begins to crow +that, and it wakes Mart up, and he rolls over on me and he says: +'Jake,' he says, or maybe 'twas me says, 'Mart,' says I--anyway, one +of us says, 'Shut up your gib, you flannel-mouthed mick,' he says, +'and let me pull my dream through to the place where I find the +money,' he says. And I says, 'D'ye know what I'm goin' to do when I +get home?' says I. 'No,' says he, still keen for that money; 'no,' +says he, 'unless it is you're going to be hanged by way of diversion,' +he says. 'I'm going to hire a bugler,' says I. 'What fer--in the name +of all the saints?' says he. 'Well,' says I, 'I'm going to ask him to +blow his damn horn under my window every morning at five o'clock,' I +says, 'and then I'm going to get up and poke my head out of the window +and say: "Mister, you can get me up in the army, but on this occasion +would you be obliging enough to go to hell"!' And Mart, seeing that +the money was gone from his dream, he turns over and wallops me with +the blanket till I was merely a palpitating mass. That was a great +battle, though, boys--a great battle." + +And then they shouldered arms and showed how fields were won. Boom! +went Sigel's guns out of the past, and crash! came the Texas cavalry, +and the whoop of the Louisiana Pelicans rang in their ears. They +marched south after Hindman, and then came back with Grant to +Vicksburg, where they fought and bled and died. The general left them +and went east, where he "deployed on our right" and executed flank +movements, and watched Pickett's column come fling itself to death at +Gettysburg. And Watts McHurdie rode with the artillery through the +rear of the rebel lines at Pittsburg Landing, and when the rebel +officer saw the little man's bravery, and watched him making for the +Union lines bringing three guns, he waved his hat and told his +soldiers not to shoot at that boy. The colonel took a stick and marked +out on the floor our position at Antietam, and showed where the +reserves were supposed to be and how the enemy masked his guns behind +that hill, and we planted our artillery on the opposite ridge; and he +marched with the infantry and lay in ambush while the enemy came +marching in force through the wood. In time Watts McHurdie was talking +to Lincoln in the streets of Richmond, and telling for the hundredth +time what Lincoln said of the song and how he had sung it. But who +cares now what Lincoln said? It was something kind, you may be sure, +with a tear and a laugh in it, and the veterans laughed, while their +eyes grew moist as they always did when Watts told it. Then they fell +to carnage again--a fierce fight against time, against the moment +when they must leave their old companion alone. Up hills they charged +and down dales, and the moon rose high, and cast its shadow to the +eastward before they parted. First Dolan edged away, and then the +general went, waving his hand military fashion; and the colonel +returned the salute. When the gate had clanged, Watts rose to go. He +did not speak, nor did the colonel. Arm in arm, they walked down the +steps together, and halfway down the garden path the colonel rested +his hand on the little man's shoulder as they walked in silence. At +the gate they saw each other's tears, and the little man's voice +failed him when the colonel said, "Well, good-by, comrade--good +night." So Watts turned and ran, while the colonel, for the first time +in his manhood, loosed the cords of his sorrow and stood alone in the +moonlight with upturned face, swaying like an old tree in a storm. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +And now those who have avoided the gray unpainted shame of these +unimportant people of the Ridge may here take up again for a moment +the trailing clouds of glory that shimmer over John Barclay's office +in the big City. For here there is the sounding brass and tinkling +cymbal of great worldly power. Here sits John Barclay, a little +gray-haired, gray-clad, lynx-eyed man, in a big light room at the +corner of a tower high over the City in the Corn Exchange Building, +the brain from which a million nerves radiate that run all over the +world and move thousands of men. Forty years before, when John was +playing in the dust of the road leading up from the Sycamore, no king +in all the world knew so much of the day's doings as John knows now, +sitting there at the polished mahogany table with the green blotting +paper upon it, under the green vase adorned with the red rose. A +blight may threaten the wheat in Argentine, and John Barclay knows +every cloud that sails the sky above that wheat, and when the cloud +bursts into rain he sighs, for it means something to him, though +heaven only knows what, and we and heaven do not care. But a dry day +in India or a wet day in Russia or a cloudy day in the Dakotas are all +taken into account in the little man's plans. And if princes quarrel +and kings grow weary of peace, and money bags refuse them war, John +Barclay knows it and puts the episode into figures on the clean white +pad of paper before him. + +It is a privilege to be in this office; one passes three doors to get +here, and even at the third door our statesmen often cool their toes. +Mr. Barclay is about to admit one now. And when Senator Myton comes +in, deferentially of course, to tell Mr. Barclay the details of the +long fight in executive session which ended in the confirmation by the +senate of Lige Bemis as a federal judge, the little gray man waves the +senator to a chair, and runs his pencil up a column of figures, +presses a button, writes a word on a sheet of paper, and when the +messenger appears, hands the paper to him and says, "For Judge Bemis." + +"I have just dismissed a Persian satrap," expands Barclay, "who won't +let his people use our binders; that country eventually will be a +great field for our Mediterranean branch." + +Myton is properly impressed. For a man who can make a senator out of +Red River clay and a federal judge out of Lige Bemis is a superhuman +creature, and Myton does not doubt Barclay's power over satraps. + +When the business of the moment between the two men is done, Barclay, +rampant with power, says: "Myton" (it is always "Myton," never +"Senator," with Barclay; he finds it just as well to let his inferiors +know their relation to the universe), "Myton, I ran across a queer +thing last week when I took over that little jerkwater New England +coast line. The Yankees are a methodical lot of old maids. I find they +had been made agents of a lot of the big fellows--insurance people, +packing-houses, and transcontinental railroads--two of my lines were +paying them, though I'd forgotten about it until I looked it up--and +the good old sewing society had card-indexed the politics of the +United States--the whole blessed country, by state and congressional +districts. I took over the chap who runs it, and I've got the whole +kit in the offices here now. It's great. If a man bobs up for +something in Florida or Nebraska, we just run him down on the card +index, and there he stands--everything he ever did, every interview +he ever gave, every lawsuit he ever had, every stand he ever took in +politics--right there in the index, in an envelope ready for use, and +all the mean things ever written about him. I simply can't make a +mistake now in getting the wrong kind of fellows in. Commend me to a +Yankee or a Jap for pains. I can tell you in five minutes just what +influences are behind every governor, congressman, senator, judge, +most of the legislators in every state, the federal courts clear up to +the Supreme Court. There was a man appointed on that court less than a +dozen years ago who swapped railroad receiverships like a tin peddler +with his senator for his job, when he was on the circuit bench. And he +was considerable of a judge in the bean country for a time. Just to +verify my index, I asked Bemis about this judge. 'Lige,' I said, 'was +Judge So-and-So a pretty honest judge?' 'Oh, hell,' says Lige, and +that was all I could get out of him. So I guess they had him indexed +right." And Barclay rattles on; he has become vociferous and +loquacious, and seems to like to hear the roar of his voice in his +head. The habit has been growing on him. + +But do not laugh at the blindness of John Barclay, sitting there in +his power, admiring himself, boasting in the strength of his +card-index to Senator Myton. For the tide of his power was running in, +and soon it would be high tide with John Barclay--high tide of his +power, high tide of his fame, high tide of his pride. So let us watch +the complacent smile crack his features as he sits listening to +Senator Myton: "Mr. Barclay, do you know, I sometimes think that +Providence manifests itself in minds like yours, even as in the days +of old it was manifest in the hearts of the prophets. In those days it +was piety that fitted the heart for higher things; to-day it is +business. You and a score of men like you in America are intrusted +with the destiny of this republic, as surely as the fate of the +children of Israel was in the hands of Moses and Aaron!" + +Barclay closed his eyes a moment, in contemplation of the figure, and +then broke out in a roaring laugh, "Hanno is a god! Hanno is a +god!--get out of here, Henry Myton,--get out of here, I say--this +is my busy day," and he laughed the young senator out of the room. But +he sat alone in his office grinning, as over and over in his mind his +own words rang, "Hanno is a god!" And the foolish parrot of his other +self cackled the phrase in his soul for days and days! + +It is our high privilege thus to stand close by and watch the wheels +of the world go around. In those days of the late nineties Barclay +travelled up and down the earth so much in his private car that Jane +used to tell Molly Brownwell that living with John was like being a +travelling man's wife. But Jane did not seem to appreciate her +privilege. She managed to stay at home as much as possible, and +sometimes he took the Masons along for company. Mrs. Mason gloried in +it, and lived at the great hotels and shopped at the highest-priced +antique stores to her heart's delight. Lycurgus' joy was in being +interviewed, and the Barclay secretaries got so that they could edit +the Mason interviews and keep out the poison, and let the old man +swell and swell until the people at home thought he must surely burst +with importance at the next town. + +One day in the nineties Barclay appropriated a half-million dollars to +advertise "Barclay's Best" and a cracker that he was pushing. When the +man who placed the business in the newspaper had gone, Barclay sat +looking out of the window and said to his advertising manager: "I've +got an idea. Why should I pay a million dollars to irresponsible +newspapers? I won't do it." + +"But we must advertise, Mr. Barclay--you've proved it pays." + +"Yes," he returned, "you bet it pays, and I might just as well get +something out of it besides advertising. Take this; make five copies +of it; I'll give you the addresses later." Barclay squared himself to +a stenographer to dictate:-- + + "Dear Sir: I spend a million dollars a year advertising grain + products; you and the packers doubtless spend that much advertising + your products and by-products; the railroads spend as much more, and + the Oil people probably half as much more. Add the steel products + and the lumber products, and we have ten million dollars going into + the press of this country. In a crisis we cannot tell how these + newspapers will treat us. I think we should organize so that we will + know exactly where we stand. Therefore it is necessary absolutely to + control the trade advertising of this country. A company to take + over the five leading advertising agencies could be formed, for half + as much as we spend every year, and we could control nine-tenths of + the American trade advertising. We could then put an end to any + indiscriminate mobbing of corporations by editors. I will be pleased + to hear from you further upon this subject." + +A day or two later, when the idea had grown and ramified itself in his +mind, he talked it all out to Jane and exclaimed, "How will old Phil +Ward's God manage to work it out, as he says, against that +proposition? Brains," continued Barclay, "brains--that's what counts +in this world. You can't expect the men who dominate this +country--who make its wealth, and are responsible for its prosperity, +to be at the mercy of a lot of long-nosed reformers who don't know how +to cash their own checks." + +How little this rich man knew of the world about him! How +circumscribed was his vision! With all his goings up and down the +earth, with all of his great transactions, with all of his apparent +power, how little and sordid was his outlook on life. For he thought +he was somebody in this universe, some one of importance, and in his +scheme of things he figured out a kind of partnership between himself +and Providence--a partnership to run the world in the interests of +John Barclay, and of course, wherever possible, with reasonable +dividends to Providence. + +But a miracle was coming into the world. In the under-consciousnesses +of men, sown God only knows how and when and where, sown in the +weakness of a thousand blind prophets, the seeds of righteous wrath at +greed like John Barclay's were growing during all the years of his +triumph. Men scarcely knew it themselves. Growth is so simple and +natural a process that its work is done before its presence is known. +And so this arrogant man, this miserable, little, limping, brass-eyed, +leather-skinned man, looked out at the world around him, and did not +see the change that was quickening the hearts of his neighbours. + +And yet change was in everything about him. A thousand years are as +but a watch in the night, and tick, tock, tick, tock, went the great +clock, and the dresses of little Jeanette Barclay slipped down, down, +down to her shoe-tops, and as the skirts slipped down she went up. And +before her father knew it her shoe-tops sank out of sight, and she was +a miss at the last of her teens. But he still gave her his finger when +they walked out together, though she was head and shoulders above him. + +One day when she led him to the _Banner_ office to buy some fancy +programmes for a party she was giving, he saw her watching young Neal +Ward,--youngest son of the general,--who was sitting at a reporter's +desk in the office, and the father's quick eyes saw that she regarded +the youth as a young man. For she talked so obviously for the Ward +boy's benefit that her father, when they went out of the +printing-office, took a furtive look at his daughter and sighed and +knew what her mother had known for a year. + +"Jeanette," he said that night at dinner, "where's my shot-gun?" When +she told him, he said: "After dinner you get it, load it with salt, +and put it in the corner by the front door." Then he added to the +assembled family: "For boys--dirty-faced, good-for-nothing, +long-legged boys! I'm going to have a law passed making an open season +for boys in this place from January first until Christmas." + +Jeanette dimpled and blushed, the family smiled, and her mother said: +"Well, John, there'll be a flock of them at Jeanette's party next week +for you to practise on. All the boys and girls in town are coming." + +And after dessert was served the father sat chuckling and grinning and +grunting, "Boys--boys," and at intervals, "Measly little milk-eyed +kids," and again "Boys--boys," while the family nibbled at its +cheese. + +Those years when the nineteenth century was nearing its close and when +the tide of his fortunes was running in, bringing him power and making +him mad with it, were years of change in Sycamore Ridge--in the old +as well as in the young. In those years the lilacs bloomed on in the +Culpepper yard; and John Barclay did not know it, though forty years +before Ellen Culpepper had guarded the first blossoms from those +bushes for him. Miss Lucy, his first ideal, went to rest in those +years while the booming tide was running in, and he scarcely knew it. +Mrs. Culpepper was laid beside Ellen out on the Hill; and he hardly +realized it, though no one in all the town had watched him growing +into worldly success with so kindly an eye as she. But the tide was +roaring in, and John Barclay's whole consciousness was turned toward +it; the real things of life about him, he did not see and could not +feel. And so as the century is old the booming tide is full, and John +Barclay in his power--a bubble in the Divine consciousness, a mere +vision in the real world--stands stark mad before his phantasm, +dreaming that it is all real, and chattering to his soul, "Hanno is a +god." + +And now we must leave John Barclay for the moment, to explain why Neal +Dow Ward, son of General Philemon Ward, made his first formal call at +the Barclays'. It cannot be gainsaid that young Mr. Ward, aged +twenty-one, a senior at Ward University, felt a tingle in his blood +that day when he met Miss Jeanette Barclay, aged eighteen, and home +for the spring vacation from the state university; and seeing her for +the first time with her eyes and her hair and her pretty, strong, wide +forehead poking through the cocoon of gawky girlhood, created a +distinct impression on young Mr. Ward. + +But in all good faith it should be stated that he did not make his +first formal call at the Barclays' of his own accord; for his sister, +Elizabeth Cady Stanton Ward, took him. She came home from the +Culpeppers' just before supper, laughing until she was red in the +face. And what she heard at the Culpeppers', let her tell in her own +way to the man of her heart. For Lizzie was her father's child; the +four other Ward girls, Mary Livermore, Frances Willard, Belva +Lockwood, and Helen Gougar, had climbed to the College Heights and had +gone to Ward University, and from that seat of learning had gone forth +in the world to teach school. Elizabeth Cady Stanton Ward had remained +in the home, after her mother's death filling her mother's vacant +place as well as a daughter may. + +"Well, father," said the daughter, as she was putting the evening meal +on the table, addressing the general, who sat reading by the window in +the dining room, "you should have been at the Culpeppers' when the +colonel came home and told us his troubles. It seems that Nellie +McHurdie is going to make Watts run for sheriff--for sheriff, father. +Imagine Watts heading a posse, or locking any one up! And Watts has +passed the word to the colonel, and he has passed it to Molly and me, +and I am to see Mrs. Barclay, and she is to see Mrs. Carnine to-morrow +morning, and they are all to set to work on Nellie and get her to see +that it won't do. Poor Watts--the colonel says he is terribly wrought +up at the prospect." + +The general folded his paper and smiled as he said: "Well, I don't +know; Watts was a brave soldier. He would make a good enough sheriff; +but I suppose he doesn't really care for it." + +"Why, no, of course not, father--why should he?" asked the daughter. +"Anyhow, I want you to make Neal go down to Barclays' with me to-night +to talk it over with Jane. Neal," she called to the young man who was +sitting on the porch with his book on his knee, "Neal, I want you to +go to Barclays' with me to-night. Come in now, supper's ready." + +And so it happened that Neal Dow Ward made his first call on Jeanette +Barclay with his sister, and they all sat on the porch together that +fine spring evening, with the perfume of the lilacs in the air; and it +happened naturally enough that the curious human law of attraction +which unites youth should draw the chairs of the two young people +together as they talked of the things that interest youth--the +parties and the ball-games and the fraternities and sororities, and +the freshman picnic and the senior grind; while the chairs of the two +others drew together as they talked of the things which interest women +in middle life--the affairs of the town, the troubles of Watts +McHurdie, the bereavement of the Culpeppers, the scarcity of good help +in the kitchen, the popularity of Max Nordau's "Social Evolution," and +the fun in "David Harum." Nor is it strange that after the girl had +shown the boy her Pi Phi pin, and he had shown her his Phi Delta +shield, they should fall to talking of the new songs, and that they +should slip into the big living room of the Barclay home, lighted by +the electric lamps in the hall, and that she should sit down to the +piano to show him how the new song went. And if the moonlight fell +across the piano, and upon her face as she sang the little Irish +folk-song, all in minors, with her high, trembling, half-formed notes +in the upper register, and if she flushed and looked up abashed and +had to be teased to go on,--not teased a great deal, but a +little,--will you blame the young man if he forgot for a moment that +her father was worth such a lot of money, and thought only that she +was a beautiful girl, and said so with his eyes and face and hands in +the pretty little pause that followed when she ceased singing? And if +to hide her confusion when her heart knew what he thought, she put one +foot on the loud pedal of the piano and began singing "O Margery, O +Margery," and he sang with her, and if they thrilled just a little as +their voices blended in the rollicking song--what of it? What of it? +Was it not natural that lilacs should grow in April? Was it not +natural that Watts McHurdie should dread the white light that beats +upon the throne of the sheriff's office? Was it not natural that he +should turn to women for protection against one of their sex, and that +the women plotting for him should have a boy around and having a boy +around where there is a girl around, and spring around and lilacs +around and a moon and music and joy around,--what is more natural in +all this world than that in the fire struck by the simple joy of youth +there should be the flutter of unseen wings around, and when the two +had finished singing, with something passing between their hearts not +in the words, what is more natural than that the girl, half frightened +at the thrill in her soul, should say timidly:-- + +"I think they will miss us out there--don't you?" as she rose from +the piano. + +And if you were a boy again, only twenty-one, to whom millions of +money meant nothing, would you not catch the blue eyes of the girl as +she looked up at you, in the twilight of the big room, and answer, +"All right, Jeanette"? Certainly if you had known a girl all your +life, you would call her by her first name, if her father were worth a +billion, and would you not continue, emboldened some way by not being +frowned upon for calling her Jeanette, though she would have been +astonished if you had said Miss Barclay--astonished and maybe a +little fearful of your sincerity--would you not continue, after a +little pause, repeating your words, "All right, Jeanette--I suppose +so--but I don't care--do you?" as you followed her through the door +back to the moon-lit porch? + +And as you walked home, listening to your elder sister, would you not +have time and inclination to wonder from what remote part of this +beautiful universe, from what star or what fairy realm, that creature +came, whose hair you pulled yesterday, whose legs seem to have been +covered with long skirts in the twinkling of an eye, and whose +unrelated features by some magic had sloughed off, leaving a beautiful +face? Would you not think these things, good kind sir, when you were +twenty-one--even though to-day they seem highly improbable thoughts +for any one to have who was not stark mad? But if we were not all +stark mad sometimes, how would the world go round? If we were not all +mad sometimes, who would make our dreams come true? How would visions +in thin air congeal into facts, how would the aspirations of the race +make history? And if we were all sane all the time, how would the +angels ever get babies into the world at all, at all? + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +"Speaking of lunatics," said Mr. Dolan to Mr. Hendricks one June +night, a few weeks after the women had persuaded Mrs. McHurdie not to +drag the poet into politics,--"speaking of lunatics, you may remember +that I was born in Boston, and 'twas my duty as a lad to drive the +Cambridge car, and many a time I have heard Mr. Holmes the poet and +Mr. Emerson the philosopher discussing how the world was made; whether +it was objective or subjective,--which I take it to mean whether the +world is in the universe or only in your eye. One fine winter night we +were waiting on a switch for the Boston car, when Mr. Holmes said to +Mr. Emerson: 'What,' says he, 'would you think if Jake Dolan driving +this car should come in and say, "Excuse me, gentlemen, but the moon I +see this moment is not some millions of miles away, but entirely in my +own noddle?"' 'I'd think,' says the great philosopher, never blinking, +'that Mr. Dolan was drunk,' says he. And there the discussion ended, +but it has been going on in my head ever since. Here I am a man +climbing up my sixties, and when have I seen the moon? Once walking by +this very creek here trying to get me courage up to put me arm around +her that is now Mary Carnine; once with me head poked up close to the +heads of Watts McHurdie, Gabe Carnine, and Philemon Ward, serenading +the girls under the Thayer House window the night before we left for +the army. And again to-night, sitting here on the dam, listening to +the music coming down the mill-pond. Did you notice them, Robert--the +young people--Phil Ward's boy, and John Barclay's girl, and Mary +Carnine's oldest, and Oscar Fernald's youngest, with their guitars and +mandolins, piling into the boats and rowing up stream? And now they're +singing the songs we sang--to their mothers, God bless 'em--the +other day before these children were born or thought of, and now I sit +here an old man looking at the moon." + +"But is it the moon?" he went on after a long silence, puffing at his +pipe. "If the moon is off there, three or thirty or three hundred +million miles away in the sky, where has it been these forty years? +I've not seen it. And yet here she pops out of my memory into my eye, +and if I say the moon has always been in my eye, and is still in my +eye, Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson says I'm drunk. But does that settle the +question of who's got the moon--me or the cosmos--as the poets call +it?" After that the two men smoked in silence, and as Hendricks threw +away the butt of his cigar, Dolan said, "'Tis a queer, queer world, +Robert--a queer, queer world." + +Now do not smile at Mr. Dolan, gentle reader, for Adam must have +thought the same thing, and philosophy has been able to say nothing +more to the point. + +It is indeed a queer, queer world, and our blindness is the queerest +thing in it. Here a few weeks, later sit John and Jane Barclay on the +terrace before their house one June night, listening to singing on the +water. Suddenly they realize that there is youth in the world--yet +there has been singing on the mill-pond ever since it was built. It +has been the habitat of lovers for a quarter of a century, this +mill-pond, yet Jane and John Barclay have not known it, and not until +their own child's voice came up to them, singing "Juanita," did they +realize that the song had not begun anew after its twenty years' +silence in their own hearts, but always had been on the summer breeze. +And this is strange, too, considering how rich and powerful John +Barclay is and how by the scratch of his pen, he might set men working +by the thousands for some righteous cause. Yet so it is; for with all +the consciousness of great power, with all the feeling of unrestraint +that such power gives a man, driving him to think he is a kind of god, +John Barclay was only a two-legged man, with a limp in one foot, and a +little mad place in his brain, wherein he kept the sense of his +relation to the rest of this universe. And as he sat, blind to the +moon, dreaming of a time when he would control Presidents and dominate +courts if they crossed his path, out on the mill-pond under an elm +tree that spread like a canopy upon the water, a boy, letting the oars +hang loosely, was playing the mandolin to a girl--a pretty girl +withal, blue as to eyes, fair as to hair, strong as to mouth and chin, +and glorious as to forehead--who leaned back in the boat, played with +the overhanging branches, and listened and looked at the moon, and let +God's miracle work unhindered in her heart. And all up and down those +two miles of mill-pond were other boats and other boys and other +maidens, and as they chatted and sang and sat in the moonlight, there +grew in their hearts, as quietly as the growing of the wheat in the +fields, that strange marvel of life, that keeps the tide of humanity +ceaselessly flowing onward. And it is all so simply done before our +eyes, and in our ears, that we forget it is so baffling a mystery. + +Now let us project our astral bodies into the living room of the +Barclay home, while Mr. and Mrs. John Barclay are away in Boston, and +only John Barclay's mother and his daughter are in Sycamore Ridge; and +let us watch a young man of twenty-one and a young woman of eighteen +dispose of a dish of fudge together. Fudge, it may be explained to the +unsophisticated, is a preparation of chocolate, sugar, and cream, +cooked, cooled, and cut into squares. As our fathers and mothers +pulled taffy, as our grandfathers and grandmothers conjured with maple +sugar, and as their parents worked the mysterious spell with some +witchery of cookery to this generation unknown, so is fudge in these +piping times the worker of a strange witchery. Observe: Through a +large room, perhaps forty feet one way and twenty-five feet the other +way, flits a young woman in the summer twilight. She goes about +humming, putting a vase in place here, straightening a picture there, +kicking down a flapping rug, or rearranging a chair; then she sits +down and turns on an electric light and pretends to read. But she does +not read; the light shows her something else in the room that needs +attention, and she turns to that. Then she sits down again, and again +goes humming about the room. Suddenly the young woman rises and +hurries out of the room, and a footstep is heard on the porch, +outside. A bell tinkles, and a maid appears, and-- + +"Yes," she says. "I'll see if Miss Jeanette is at home!" + +And then a rustle of skirts is heard on the stairway and Miss Jeanette +enters with: "Why, Neal, you are an early bird this evening--were you +afraid the worm would escape? Well, it won't; it's right here on the +piano." + +The young man's eyes,--good, clear, well-set, dark eyes that match +his brown hair; eyes that speak from the heart,--note how they dwell +upon every detail of the opposing figure, caressing with their shy +surreptitious glances the girl's hair, her broad forehead, her lips; +observe how they flit back betimes to those ripe red lips, like bees +that hover over a flower trembling in the wind; how the eyes of the +young man play about the strong chin, and the bewitching curves of the +neck and shoulders, and rise again to the hair, and again steal over +the face, to the strong shoulders, and again hurry back to the face +lest some feature fade. This is not staring--it is done so quickly, +so furtively, so deftly withal as the minutes fly by, while the lips +and the teeth chatter on, that the stolen honey of these glances is +stored away in the heart's memory, all unknown to him who has gathered +it. + +An hour has passed now, while we have watched the restless eyes at +their work, and what has passed with the hour? Nothing, ladies and +gentlemen--nothing; gibber, chatter, giggles, and squeals--that is +all. Grandma Barclay above stairs has her opinion of it, and wonders +how girls can be so addle-pated. In her day--but who ever lived long +enough or travelled far enough or inquired widely enough to find one +single girl who was as wise, or as sedate, or as industrious, or as +meek, or as gentle, or as kind as girls were in her grandmother's day? +No wonder indeed that grandmothers are all married--for one could +hardly imagine the young men of that day overlooking such paragons of +virtue and propriety as lived in their grandmothers' days. Fancy an +old maid grandmother with all those qualities of mind and heart that +girls had in their grandmothers' days! + +So the elder Mrs. Barclay in her room at the top of the stairs hears +what "he said," "he said he said," and what "she said she said," and +what "we girls did," and what "you boys ought to do," and what "would +be perfectly lovely," and what "would be a lot of fun!" and so +grandmother, good soul, grows drowsy, closes her door, and goes to +bed. She does not know that they are about to sit down together on a +sofa--not a long, straight, cold, formal affair, but a small, rather +snuggly sofa, with the dish between them. No, girls never did that in +their grandmothers' days, so of course who would imagine they would do +so now? Who, indeed? But there they are, and there is the dish between +them, and two hands reaching into the same dish, must of course +collide. Collision is inevitable, and by carefully noting the +repetitions of the collisions, one may logically infer that the +collisions are upon the whole rather pleasurable than otherwise; and +when it comes to the last piece of fudge in the dish,--the very last +piece,--the astral observer will see that there is just the +slightest, the very slightest, quickest, most fleeting little tussle +of hands for it, and much laughter; and then the young woman rises +quickly--also note the slight pink flush in her cheeks, and she goes +to her chair and folds her pretty hands in her lap, and asks:-- + +"Well, do you like my fudge, Neal Ward? Is it as good as Belva +Lockwood's? She puts nuts in hers--I've eaten it; do you like it with +nuts in it?" + +"Not so well as this," says the boy. + +The girl slips into the dining room, for a glass of water. See the eyes +of the youth following her. It is dusky in the dining room, and the +youth longs for dusky places, but has not developed courage enough to +follow her. But he has courage enough to steady his eyes as she comes +back with the water, so that he can look into her blue eyes while you +would count as much as one--two--three--slowly--four--slowly--five. A +long, long time, so long indeed that she wishes he would look just a +second longer. + +So at the end of the evening here stand Neal, and Jeanette, even as +Adam and Eve stood in the garden, talking of nothing in particular as +they slowly move toward the door. "Yes, I suppose so," she says, as +Eve said and as Eve's daughters have said through all the centuries, +looking intently at the floor. And then Neal, suddenly finding the +language of his line back to Adam, looks up to say, "Oh, yes, I +forgot--but have you read 'Monsieur Beaucaire'?" Now Adam said, "Have +you heard the new song that the morning stars are singing together?" +and Priam asked Helen if she would like to hear that new thing of +Solomon's just out, and so as the ages have rolled by, young gentlemen +standing beside their adored but not declared ones have mixed +literature with love, and have tied wisdom up in a package of candy or +wild honey, and have taken it to the trysting place since the +beginning of time. It is thus the poets thrive. And when she was asked +about the new song of the morning stars, Eve, though she knew it as +she knew her litany, answered no; and so did Eve's daughter, standing +in the dimly lighted hallway of the Barclay home in Sycamore Ridge; +and so then and there being, these two made their next meeting sure. + +In those last years of the last century John Barclay became a powerful +man in this world--one of the few hundred men who divided the +material kingdoms of this earth among them. He was a rich man who was +turning his money into great political power. Senates listened to him, +many courts were his in fee simple, because he had bought and paid for +the men who named the judges; Presidents were glad to know what he +thought, and when he came to the White House, reporters speculated +about the talk that went on behind the doors of the President's room, +and the stock market fluttered. If he desired a law, he paid for it +and got it--not in a coarse illegal way, to be sure, but through the +regular conventional channels of politics, and if he desired to step +on a law, he stepped on it, and a court came running up behind him, +and legalized his transaction. He sneered at reformers, and mocked +God, did John Barclay in those days. He grew arrogant and boastful, +and strutted in his power like a man in liquor with the vain knowledge +that he could increase the population of a state or a group of states, +or he could shrivel the prosperity of a section of the country by his +whim. For by changing a freight rate he could make wheat grow, where +grass had nourished. By changing the rate again, he could beckon back +the wilderness. And yet, how small was his power; here beside him, +cherished as the apple of his eye, was his daughter, a slip of a girl, +with blue eyes and fair hair, whose heart was growing toward the +light, as the hearts of young things grow, and he, with all of his +power, could only watch the mystery, and wonder at it. He was not +displeased at what he saw. But it was one of the few things in his +consciousness over which he could find no way to assume control. He +stood in the presence of something that came from outside of his realm +and ignored him as the sun and the rain and the simple processes of +nature ignored him. + +"Jane," he said one night, when he was in the Ridge for the first time +in many weeks,--a night near the end of the summer when Jeanette and +Neal Ward were vaguely feeling their way together, "Jane, mother says +that while we've been away Neal Ward has been here pretty often. You +don't suppose that--" + +"Well, I've rather wondered about it myself a little," responded Jane. +"Neal is such a fine handsome young fellow." + +"But, Jane," exclaimed Barclay, impatiently, as he rose to walk the +rug, "Jennie is only a child. Why, she's only--" + +"Nineteen, John--she's a big girl now." + +"I know, dear," he protested, "but that's absurdly young. Why--" + +"Yes," she answered, "I was nearly twenty when I was engaged to you, +and Jennie's not engaged yet, nor probably even thinking seriously of +it." + +"Don't you think," cried Barclay, as he limped down the diagonal of +the rug, "that you should do something? Isn't it a little unusual? +Why--" + +"Well, John," smiled the wife, "I might do what mother did: turn the +young man over to father!" Barclay laughed, and she went on patiently: +"It's not at all unusual, John, even if they do--that is, if they +are--you know; but they aren't, and Jennie is too much in love with +her work at school to quit that. But after all it's the American way; +it was the way we did, dear, and the way our mothers and fathers did, +and unless you wish to change it--to Europeanize it, and pick--" + +"Ah, nonsense, Jane--of course I don't want that! Only I thought some +way, if it's serious she ought to--Oh, don't you know she ought +to--" + +Mrs. Barclay broke her smile with, "Of course she ought to, dear, and +so ought I and so ought mother when she married father and so ought my +grandmother when she married grandpa--but did we? Dear, don't you see +the child doesn't realize it? If it is anything, it is growing in her +heart, and I wouldn't smudge it for the world, by speaking to her +now--unless you don't like Neal; unless you think he's too--unless +you want a different boy. I mean some one of consequence?" + +"Oh, no, it isn't that, Jane--it isn't that. Neal's all right; he's +clean and he is honest--I asked Bob Hendricks about him to-day, when +we passed the boy chasing news for the _Banner_, and Bob gives him a +fine name." Barclay threw himself into a chair and sighed. "I suppose +it's just that I feel Jeanette's kind of leaving us out of it--that +is all." + +Jane went to him and patted his head gently, as she spoke: "That is +nature, dear--the fawn hiding in the woods; we must trust to Jennie's +good sense, and the good blood in Neal. My, but his sisters are proud +of him! Last week Lizzie was telling me Neal's wages had been +increased to ten dollars a week--and I don't suppose their father in +all of his life ever had that much of a steady income. The things the +family is planning to do with that ten dollars a week brought tears of +joy to my eyes. Neal's going to have his mother-in-law on his side, +anyway--just as you had yours. I know now how mother felt." + +But John Barclay did not know how mother felt, and he did not care. He +knew how father felt--how Lycurgus Mason felt, and how the father of +Mrs. Lycurgus Mason felt; he felt hurt and slighted, and he could not +repress a feeling of bitterness toward the youth. All the world loves +a daughter-in-law, but a father's love for a son-in-law is an acquired +taste; some men never get it. And John Barclay was called away the +next morning to throttle a mill in the San Joaquin Valley, and from +there he went to North Dakota to stop the building of a competitive +railroad that tapped his territory; so September came, and with it +Jeanette Barclay went back to school. The mother wondered what the +girl would do with her last night at home. She was clearly nervous and +unsettled all the afternoon before, and made an errand into town and +came back with a perturbed face. But after dinner the mother heard +Jeanette at the telephone, and this is the one-sided dialogue the +mother caught: "Yes--this is Miss Barclay." "Oh, yes, I didn't +recognize your voice at first." "What meeting?" "Yes--yes." "And they +are not going to have it?" "Oh, I see." "You were--oh, I don't know. +Of course I should have felt--well, I--oh, it would have been all +right with me. Of course." Then the voice cheered up and she said: +"Why, of course--come right out. I understand." A pause and then, +"Yes, I know a man has to go where he is called." "Oh, she'll +understand--you know father is always on the wing." "No--why, no, of +course not--mother wouldn't think that of you. I'll tell her how it +was." "All right, good-by--yes, right away." And Jeanette Barclay +skipped away from the telephone and ran to her mother to say, "Mother, +that was Neal Ward--he wants to come out, and he was afraid you'd +think it rude for him to ask that way, but you know he had a meeting +to report and thought he couldn't come, and now they've postponed the +meeting, and I told him to come right out--wasn't that all right?" + +And so out came Neal Ward, a likely-looking young man of twenty-one or +maybe twenty-two--a good six feet in height, with a straight leg, a +square shoulder, and firm jaw, set like his father's, and clean brown +eyes that did not blink. And as Jeanette Barclay, with her mother's +height, and her father's quick keen features, and her Grandmother +Barclay's eyes and dominant figure, stood beside him in the doorway, +Mrs. Jane Barclay thought a good way ahead, and Jeanette would have +blushed her face to a cinder if the mother had spoken her thoughts. +The three, mother and daughter and handsome young man, sat for a while +together in the living room, and then Jane, who knew the heart of +youth, and did not fear it, said, "You children should go out on the +porch--it's a beautiful night; I'm going upstairs." + +And now let us once more in our astral bodies watch them there in the +light of the veiled moon--for it is the last time that even we should +see them alone. She is sitting on a balustrade, and he is standing +beside her, and their hands are close together on the stones. "Yes," +he is saying, "I shall be busy at the train to-morrow trying to catch +the governor for an interview on the railroad question, and may not +see you." + +"I wish you would throw the governor into the deep blue sea," she +says, and he responds:-- + +"I wish I could." There is a silence, and then he risks it--and the +thing he has been trying to say comes out, "I wonder if you will do +something for me, Jeanette?" + +"Oh, I don't know--don't ask me anything hard--not very hard, Neal!" + +The last word was all he cared for, and by what sleight of hand he +slipped his fraternity pin from his vest into her hand, neither ever +knew. + +"Will you?" he asks. "For me?" + +She pins it at her throat, and smiles. Then she says, "Is this long +enough--do you want it back now?" + +He shakes his head, and finally she asks, "When?" and then it comes +out:-- + +"Never." + +And her face reddens, and she does not speak. Their hands, on the +wall, have met--they just touch, that is all, but they do not hasten +apart. A long, long time they are silent--an eternity of a minute; +and then she says, "We shall see in the morning." + +And then another eternal minute rolls by, and the youth slips the rose +from her hair--quickly, and without disarranging a strand. + +"Oh," she cries, "Neal!" and then adds, "Let me get you a pretty +one--that is faded." + +But no, he will have that one, and she stands beside him and pins it +on his coat--stands close beside him, and where her elbows and her +arms touch him he is thrilled with delight. In the shadow of the great +porch they stand a moment, and her hand goes out to his. + +"Well, Jeanette," he says, and still her hand does not shrink away, +"well, Jeanette--it will be lonesome when you go." + +"Will it?" she asks. + +"Yes--but I--I have been so happy to-night." + +He presses her hand a little closer, and as she says, "I'm so glad," +he says, "Good-by," and moves down the broad stone steps. She stands +watching him, and at the bottom he stops and again says:-- + +"Well--good-by--Jeanette--I must go--I suppose." And she does not +move, so again he says, "Good-by." + + * * * * * + +"Youth," said Colonel Martin Culpepper to the assembled company in the +ballroom of the Barclay home as the clock struck twelve and brought in +the twentieth century; "Youth," he repeated, as he tugged at the +bottom of Buchanan Culpepper's white silk vest, to be sure that it met +his own black trousers, and waved his free hand grandly aloft; +"Youth," he reiterated, as he looked over the gay young company at the +foot of the hall, while the fiddlers paused with their bows in the +air, and the din of the New Year's clang was rising in the town; +"Youth,--of all the things in God's good green earth,--Youth is the +most beautiful." Then he signalled with some dignity to the leader of +the orchestra, and the music began. + +It was a memorable New Year's party that Jeanette Barclay gave at the +dawn of this century. The Barclay private car had brought a dozen girls +down from the state university for the Christmas holidays, and then had +made a recruiting trip as far east as Cleveland and had brought back a +score more of girls in their teens and early twenties--for an invitation +from the Barclays, if not of much social consequence, had a power behind +it that every father recognized. And what with threescore girls from the +Ridge, and young men from half a dozen neighbouring states,--and young +men are merely background in any social picture,--the ballroom was as +pretty as a garden. It was her own idea,--with perhaps a shade of +suggestion from her father,--that the old century should be danced out +and the new one danced in with the pioneers of Garrison County set in +quadrilles in the centre of the floor, while the young people whirled +around them in the two-step then in vogue. So the Barclays asked a score +or so of the old people in for dinner New Year's Eve; and they kept +below stairs until midnight. Then they filed into the ballroom, with its +fair fresh faces, its shrill treble note of merriment,--these old men +and women, gray and faded, looking back on the old century while the +others looked into the new one. There came Mr. and Mrs. Watts McHurdie +in the lead, Watts in his best brown suit, and Mrs. Watts in lavender to +sustain her gray hair; General Ward, in his straight black frock coat +and white tie, followed with Mrs. Dorman, relict of the late William +Dorman, merchant, on his arm; behind him came the Brownwells, in evening +clothes, and Robert Hendricks and his sister,--all gray-haired, but +straight of figure and firm of foot; Colonel Culpepper followed with +Mrs. Mary Barclay; the Lycurgus Masons were next in the file, and in +their evening clothes they looked withered and old, and Lycurgus was not +sure upon his feet; Jacob Dolan in his faded blue uniform marched in +like a drum-major with the eldest Miss Ward; and the Carnines followed, +and the Fernalds followed them; and then came Judge and Mrs. Bemis--he a +gaunt, sinister, parchment-skinned man, with white hair and a gray +mustache, and she a crumbling ruin in shiny satin bedecked in diamonds. +Down the length of the long room they walked, and executed an +old-fashioned grand march, such as Watts could lead, while the orchestra +played the tune that brought cheers from the company, and the little old +man looked at the floor, while Mrs. McHurdie beamed and bowed and +smiled. And then they took their partners to step off the +quadrille--when behold, it transpired that in all the city orchestra, +that had cost the Barclays a thousand dollars according to town +tradition, not one man could be found who could call off a quadrille. +Then up spake John Barclay, and stood him on a chair, and there, when +the colonel had signalled for the music to start, the voice of John +Barclay rang out above the din, as it had not sounded before in nearly +thirty years. Old memories came rushing back to him of the nights when +he used to ride five and ten and twenty miles and play the cabinet organ +to a fiddle's lead, and call off until daybreak for two dollars. And +such a quadrille as he gave them--four figures of it before he sent them +to their seats. There were "cheat or swing," the "crow's nest," "skip to +my Loo,"--and they all broke out singing, while the young people clapped +their hands, and finally by a series of promptings he quickly called the +men into one line and the women into another, and then the music +suddenly changed to the Virginia reel. And so the dance closed for the +old people, and they vanished from the room, looking back at the youth +and the happiness and warmth of the place with wistful but not eager +eyes; and as Jacob Dolan, in his faded blues and grizzled hair and +beard, disappeared into the dusk of the hallway, Jeanette Barclay, +looking at her new ring, patted it and said to Neal Ward: "Well, dear, +the nineteenth century is gone! Now let us dance and be happy in this +one." + +And so she danced the new year and the new century and the new life +in, as happy as a girl of twenty can be. For was she not a Junior at +the state university, if you please? Was she not the heir of all the +ages, and a scandalous lot of millions besides, and what is infinitely +more important to a girl's happiness, was she not engaged, good and +tight, and proud of it, to a youth making twelve dollars every week +whether it rained or not? What more could an honest girl ask? And it +was all settled, and so happily settled too, that when she had +graduated with her class at the university, and had spent a year in +Europe--but that was a long way ahead, and Neal had to go to the City +with father and learn the business first. But business and graduation +and Europe were mere details--the important thing had happened. So +when it was all over that night, and the girls had giggled themselves +to bed, and the house was dark, Jeanette Barclay and her mother walked +up the stairs to her room together. There they sat down, and Jeanette +began-- + +"Neal said he told you about the ring?" + +"Yes," answered her mother. + +"But he did not show it to you--because he wanted me to be the first +to see it." + +"Neal's a dear," replied her mother. "So that was why? I thought +perhaps he was bashful." + +"No, mother," answered the girl, "no--we're both so proud of it." She +kept her hand over the ring finger, as she spoke, "You know those +'Short and Simple Annals' he's been doing for the _Star_--well, he +got his first check the day before Christmas, and he gave half of it +to his father, and took the other twenty-five dollars and bought this +ring. I think it is so pretty, and we are both real proud of it." And +then she took her hand from the ring, and held her finger out for her +mother's eyes, and her mother kissed it. They were silent a moment; +then the girl rose and stood with her hand on the doorknob and cried: +"I think it is the prettiest ring in all the world, and I never want +any other." Then she thought of mother, and flushed and ran away. + +And we should not follow her. Rather let us climb Main Street and turn +into Lincoln Avenue and enter the room where Martin Culpepper sits +writing the Biography of Watts McHurdie. He is at work on his famous +chapter, "Hymen's Altar," and we may look over his great shoulder and +see what he has written: "The soul caged in its prison house of the +flesh looks forth," he writes, "and sees other chained souls, and +hails them in passing like distant ships. But soul only meets soul in +some great passion of giving, whether it be man to his fellow-man, to +his God, or in the love of men and women; it matters not how the +ecstasy comes, its root is in sacrifice, in giving, in forgetting self +and merging through abnegation into the source of life in this +universe for one sublime moment. For we may not come out of our prison +houses save to inhale the air of heaven once or twice, and then go +scourged back to our dungeons. Great souls are they who love the most, +who breathe the deepest of heaven's air, and give of themselves most +freely." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +The next morning, before the guests were downstairs, Barclay, reading +his morning papers before the fireplace, stopped his daughter, who was +going through the living room on some morning errand. + +"Jeanette," said the father, as he drew her to his chair arm, "let me +see it." + +She brought the setting around to the outside of her finger, and gave +him her hand. He looked at it a moment, patted her hand, put the ring +to his lips, and the two sat silent, choked with something of joy and +something of sorrow that shone through their brimming eyes. Thus Mary +Barclay found them. They looked up abashed, and she bent over them and +stroked her son's hair as she said:-- + +"John, John, isn't it fine that Jennie has escaped the curse of your +millions?" + +Barclay's heart was melted. He could not answer, so he nodded an +assenting head. The mother stooped to kiss her son's forehead, as she +went on, "Not with all of your millions could you buy that simple +little ring for Jennie, John." And the father pressed his lips to the +ring, and his daughter snuggled tightly into his heart and the three +mingled their joy together. + +Two hours later Barclay and General Ward met on the bridge by the +mill. It was one of those warm midwinter days, when nature seems to be +listening for the coming of spring. A red bird was calling in the +woods near by, and the soft south wind had spring in it as it blew +across the veil of waters that hid the dam. John Barclay's head was +full of music, and he was lounging across the bridge from the mill on +his way home to try his new pipe organ. He had spent four hours the +day before at his organ bench, trying to teach his lame foot to keep +up with his strong foot. So when General Ward overhauled him, Barclay +was annoyed. He was not the man to have his purposes crossed, even +when they were whims. + +"I was just coming over to the mill to see you," said the general, as +he halted in Barclay's path. + +"All right, General--all right; what can I do for you?" + +The general was as blunt a man as John Barclay. If Barclay desired no +beating around the bush, the general would go the heart of matters. So +he said, "I want to talk about Neal with you." + +Barclay knew that certain things must be said, and the two men sat in +a stone seat in the bridge wall, with the sun upon them, to talk it +out then and there. "Well, General, we like Neal--we like him +thoroughly. And we are glad, Jane and I, and my mother too--she likes +him; and I want to do something for him. That's about all there is to +say." + +"Yes, but what, John Barclay--what?" exclaimed the general. "That's +what I want to know. What are you going to do for him? Make him a +devil worshipper?" + +"Well now, General, here--don't be too fast," Barclay smiled and +drawled. He put his hands on the warm rocks at his sides and flapped +them like wing-tips as he went on: "Jeanette and Neal have their own +lives to live. They're sensible--unusually sensible. We didn't steal +Neal, any more than you stole Jeanette, General, and--" + +"Oh, I understand that, John; that isn't the point," broke in the +general. "But now that you've got him, what are you going to do with +him? Can't you see, John, he's my boy, and that I have a right to +know?" + +"Now, General, will you let me do a little of this talking?" asked +Barclay, impatiently. "As I was saying, Jeanette and Neal are +sensible, and money isn't going to make fools of them. When the time +comes and I'm gone, they'll take the divine responsibility--" + +"The divine tommyrot!" cried the general; "the divine fiddlesticks! +Why should they? What have they done that they should have that thrust +upon them like a curse; in God's name, John Barclay, why should my +Neal have to have that blot upon his soul? Can't they be free and +independent?" + +Barclay did not answer; he looked glumly at the floor, and kicked the +cement with his heel. "What would you have them do with the money when +they get it," he growled, "burn it?" + +"Why not?" snapped the general. + +"Oh--I just thought I'd ask," responded Barclay. + +The two men sat in silence. Barclay regarded conversation with the +general in that mood as arguing with a lunatic. Presently he rose, and +stood before Ward and spoke rather harshly: "What I am going to do is +this--? and nothing more. Neal tells me he understands shorthand: I +know the boy is industrious, and I know that he is bright and quick +and honest. That's all he needs. I am going to take him into our +company as a stockholder--with one share--a thousand-dollar share, +to be explicit; I'm going to give that to him, and that's all; then +he's to be my private secretary for three years at five thousand a +year, so long as you must know, and then at the end of that time, if +he and Jennie are so minded, they're going to marry; and if he has any +business sense--of course you know what will happen. She is all we +have, General--some one's got to take hold of things." + +As Barclay spoke General Ward grew white--his face was aquiver as his +trembling voice cried out: "Oh, God, John Barclay, and would you take +my boy--my clean-hearted, fine-souled boy, whom I have taught to fear +God, and callous his soul with your damned money-making? How would you +like me to take your girl and blacken her heart and teach her the +wiles of the outcasts? And yet you're going to teach Neal to lie and +steal and cheat and make his moral guide the penal code instead of his +father's faith. Shame on you, John Barclay--shame on you, and may God +damn you for this thing, John Barclay!" The old man trembled, but the +sob that shook his frame had no tears in it. He looked Barclay in the +eyes without a tremor for an angry moment, and then broke: "I am an +old man, John; I can't interfere with Neal and Jeanette; it's their +life, not mine, and some way God will work it out; but," he added, +"I've still got my own heart to break over it--that's mine--that's +mine." + +He rose and faced the younger man a moment, and then walked quickly +away. Barclay limped after him, and went home. There he sat on his +bench and made the great organ scream and howl and bellow with rage +for two hours. + +When Neal Ward went to the City to live, he had a revelation of John +Barclay as a man of moods. The Barclay Neal Ward saw was an electric +motor rather than an engine. The power he had to perceive and to act +seemed transmitted to him from the outside. At times he dictated +letters of momentous importance to the young man, which Neal was sure +were improvised. Barclay relied on his instincts and rarely changed a +decision. He wore himself out every day, yet he returned to his work +the next day without a sign of fag. The young man found that Barclay +had one curious vanity--he liked to seem composed. Hence the big +smooth mahogany table before him, with the single paper tablet on it, +and the rose--the one rose in the green vase in the centre of the +table. Visitors always found him thus accoutred. But to see him +limping about from room to room, giving orders in the great offices, +dictating notes for the heads of the various departments, to see him +in the room where the mail was received, worrying it like a pup, was +to see another man revealed. He liked to have people from Sycamore +Ridge call upon him, and the man who kept door in the outer office--a +fine gray-haired person, who had the manners of a brigadier--knew so +many people in Sycamore Ridge that Neal used to call him the City +Directory. One day Molly Brownwell called. She was the only person who +ever quelled the brigadier; but when a woman has been a social leader +in a country town all of her life, she has a social poise that may not +be impressed by a mere brigadier. Mrs. Brownwell realized that her +call was unusual, but she refused to acknowledge it to him. Barclay +seemed glad to see her, and as he was in one of his mellow moods he +talked of old times, and drew from a desk near the wall, which he +rarely opened, an envelope containing a tintype picture of Ellen. +Culpepper. He showed it to her sister, and they both sat silent for a +time, and then the woman spoke. + +"Well, John," she said, "that was a long time ago." + +"Forty years, Molly--forty years." + +When they came back to the world she said: "John, I am up here looking +for a publisher. Father has written a Biography of Watts, and +collected all of his poems and things in it, and we thought it might +sell--Watts is so well known. But the publishers won't take it. I +want your advice about it." + +Barclay listened to her story, and then wheeled in his chair and +exclaimed, "Can Adrian publish that book?" + +"Yes," she answered tentatively; "that is, he could if it didn't take +such an awful lot of money." + +After discussing details with her, Barclay called Neal Ward and +said:-- + +"Get up a letter to Adrian Brownwell asking him to print for me three +thousand copies of the colonel's book, at one dollar and fifty cents a +copy, and give seventy-five per cent of the profits to Colonel +Culpepper. We'll put that book in every public library in this +country. How's that?" And he looked at the tintype and said, "Bless +her dear little heart." + +"Neal," asked Barclay, as Mrs. Brownwell left the room, "how old are +you? I keep forgetting." When the young man answered twenty-five, +Barclay, who was putting away the tintype picture, said, "And Jeanette +will be twenty-three at her next birthday." He closed the desk and +looked at the youth bending over his typewriter and sighed. "Been +going together off and on five or six years--I should say." + +Neal nodded. Barclay put his hand on his chin and contemplated the +young man a moment. "Ever have any other love affair, son?" + +The youngster coloured and looked up quickly with a puzzled look and +did not reply. + +Barclay cut in with, "Well, son, I'm glad to find you don't lie +easily." He laughed silently. "Jennie has--lots of them. When she was +six she used to cry for little Watts Fernald, and they quarrelled like +cats and dogs, and when she was ten there was an Irish boy--Finnegan +I think his name was--who milked the cow, whom she adored, and when +she was fourteen or so, it was some boy in the high school who gave +her candy until her mother had to shoo him off, and I don't know how +many others." He paused for a few seconds and then went on, "But she's +forgotten them--that's the way of women." His eyes danced merrily as +he continued, while he scratched his head: "But with us men--it's +different. We never forget." He chuckled a moment, and then his face +changed as he said, "Neal, I wish you'd go into the mail room and see +if the noon mail has anything in it from that damn scoundrel who's +trying to start a cracker factory in St. Louis--I hate to bother to +smash him right now when we're so busy." + +But it so happened that the damn scoundrel thought better of his +intention and took fifty thousand for his first thought, and Neal +Ward, being one of the component parts of an engaged couple, went +ahead being sensible about it. All engaged couples, of course, resolve +to be sensible about it. And for two years and a half--during +nineteen one and two and part of nineteen three--Jeanette Barclay and +Neal Ward had tried earnestly and succeeded admirably (they believed) +in being exceedingly sensible about everything. Jeanette had gone +through school and was spending the year in Europe with her mother, +and she would be home in May; and in June--in June of 1904--why, the +almanac stopped there; the world had no further interest, and no one +on earth could imagine anything after that. For then they proposed not +to be sensible any longer. + +In the early years of this century--about 1902, probably--John +Barclay paid an accounting company twenty-five thousand dollars--more +money than General Ward and Watts McHurdie and Martin Culpepper and +Jacob Dolan had saved in all their long, industrious, frugal, and +useful lives--to go over his business, install a system of audits and +accounts, and tell him just how much money he was worth. After a score +of men had been working for six months, the accounting company made +its report. It was put in terms of dollars and cents, which are +fleeting and illusive terms, and mean much in one country and little +in another, signify great wealth at one time and mere affluence in +another period. So the sum need not be set down here. But certain +interesting details of the report may be set down to illuminate this +narrative. For instance, it indicates that John Barclay was a man of +some consequence, when one knows that he employed more men in that +year than many a sovereign state of this Union employed in its state +and county and city governments. It signifies something to learn that +he controlled more land growing wheat than any of half a dozen +European kings reign over. It means something to realize that in those +years of his high tide John Barclay, by a few lines dictated to Neal +Ward, could have put bread out of the reach of millions of his +fellow-creatures. And these are evidences of material power--these +men he hired, these lands he dominated, and this vast store of food +that he kept. So it is fair to assume that if this is a material +world, John Barclay's fortune was founded upon a rock. He and his +National Provisions Company were real. They were able to make laws; +they were able to create administrators of the law; and they were able +to influence those who interpreted the law. Barclay and his power were +substantial, palpable, and translatable into terms of money, of power, +of vital force. + +And then one day, after long years of growth in the +under-consciousnesses of men, an idea came into full bloom in the +world. It had no especial champions. The people began to think this +idea. That was all. Now life reduced to its lowest terms consists of +you and him and me. Put us on a desert island together--you and him +and me--and he can do nothing without you and me--except he kill us, +and then he is alone; even then we haunt him, so our influence still +binds him. You can do nothing without him and me, and I can do nothing +without you and him. Not that you and he will hold me; not that you +will stop me; but what you think and say will bind me to your wishes +tighter than any chains you might forge. What you and he think is more +powerful than all the material forces of this universe. For what you +and he think is public opinion. It is not substantial; it is not +palpable. It may not readily be translated into terms of money, or +power, or vital force. But it crushes all these things before it. When +this public opinion rises sure and firm and strong, no material force +on this earth can stop it. For a time it may be dammed and checked. +For a day or a week or a year or a decade it may be turned from its +channel; yet money cannot hold it; arms cannot hold it; cunning cannot +baffle it. For it is God moving among men. Thus He manifests Himself +in this earth. Through the centuries, amid the storm and stress of +time, often muffled, often strangled, often incoherent, often raucous +and inarticulate with anguish, but always in the end triumphant, the +voice of the people is indeed the voice of God! + +Nearly a dozen years had passed since the Russian painted the picture +of John Barclay, which hangs in the public library of Sycamore Ridge, +and in that time the heart of the American people had changed. Barclay +was beginning to feel upon him, night and day, the crushing weight of +popular scorn. He called the idea envy, but it was not envy. It was +the idea working in the world, and the weight of the scorn was +beginning to crumple his soul; for this idea that the people were +thinking was finding its way into newspapers, magazines, and books. +They were beginning to question the divine right of wealth to rule, +because it was wealth--an idea that Barclay could not comprehend even +vaguely. The term honest wealth, which was creeping into respectable +periodicals, was exceedingly annoying to him. For the very presence of +the term seemed to indicate that there was such a thing as dishonest +wealth,--an obvious absurdity; and when he addressed the students of +the Southwestern University at their commencement exercises in 1902, +his address attracted considerable attention because it deplored the +modern tendency in high places toward socialism and warned the +students that a nation of iconoclasts would perish from the earth. But +the people went on questioning the divine right of wealth to rule. In +the early part of 1903 Barclay was astounded at the action of a score +of his senators and nearly a hundred of his congressmen, who voted for +a national law prohibiting the giving of railroad rebates. He was +assured by all of them that it was done to satisfy temporary +agitation, but the fact that they voted for the law at all, as he +explained to Senator Myton, at some length and with some asperity, was +a breach of faith with "interests in American politics which may not +safely be ignored." "And what's more," he added angrily, "this is a +personal insult to me. That law hits my Door Strip." + +And then out of the clear sky like a thunderbolt, not from an enemy, +not from any clique or crowd he had fought, but from the government +itself, during the last days of Congress came a law creating a +Department of Commerce and Labour at Washington, a law giving federal +inspectors the right to go through books of private concerns. Barclay +was overwhelmed with amazement. He raged, but to no avail; and his +wrath was heated by the rumours printed in all the newspapers that +Barclay and the National Provisions Company were to be the first +victims of the new law. Mrs. Barclay and Jeanette were going to Europe +in the spring of 1903, and Barclay on the whole was glad of it. He +wished the decks cleared for his fight; he felt that he must not have +Jane at his elbow holding his hand from malice in the engagement that +was coming, and when he left them on the boat, he spent a week +scurrying through the East looking for some unknown enemy in high +financial circles who might be back of the government's determination +to move against the N.P.C. He felt sure he could uncover the source of +his trouble--and then, either fight his enemy or make terms. It did +not occur to Barclay that he could not find a material, palpable, +personal object upon which to charge or with which to capitulate. But +he found nothing, and crossed the Alleghanies puzzled. + +When he got home, he learned that a government inspector, one H. S. +Smith, was beginning the investigation of the Provisions Company's +books in St. Paul, Omaha, Chicago, and Denver. Barclay learned that +Smith had secured some bills of lading that might not easily be +explained. Incidentally, Barclay learned that an attempt had been +made, through proper channels, to buy Smith, and he was nonplussed to +learn that Smith was not purchasable. Then to end the whole matter, +Barclay wrote to Senator Myton, directing him to have Smith removed +immediately. But Myton's reply, which was forwarded to Barclay at +Sycamore Ridge, indicated that "the orders under which Smith is +working come from a higher source than the department." + +Barclay's scorn of Inspector Smith--a man whom he could buy and sell +a dozen times from one day's income from his wealth--flamed into a +passion. He tore Myton's letter to bits, and refreshed his faith in +the god of Things As They Are by garroting a mill in Texas. While the +Texas miller was squirming, Barclay did not consider Inspector Smith +consciously, but in remote places in his mind always there lived the +scorned person whom Barclay knew was working against him. + +From time to time in the early summer the newspapers contained +definite statements, authorized from Washington with increasing +positiveness, that the cordon around the N.P.C. was tightening. In +July Barclay's scorn of Inspector Smith grew into disquietude; for a +letter from Judge Bemis, of the federal court,--written up in the +Catskills,--warned him that scorn was not the only emotion with which +he should honour Smith. After reading Bemis' confidential and +ambiguous scrawl, Barclay drummed for a time with his hard fingers on +the mahogany before him, stared at the print sketches of machinery +above him, and paced the floor of his office with the roar of the mill +answering something in his angry heart. He could not know that the +tide was running out. He went to his telephone and asked for a city so +far away that when he had finished talking for ten minutes, he had +spent enough money to keep General Ward in comfort for a month. Neal +Ward, sitting in his room, heard Barclay say: "What kind of a damn +bunco game were you fellows putting up on me in 1900? You got my +money; that's all right; I didn't squeal at the assessment, did I?" +Young Ward in the pause closed his door. But the bull-like roar of +Barclay came through the wood between them in a moment, and he heard: +"Matter enough--here's this fellow Smith bullying my clerks out in +Omaha, and nosing around the St. Paul office; what right has he got? +Who is he, anyway--who got him his job? I wrote to Myton to get him +removed, or sent to some other work, and Myton said that the White +House was back of him. I wish you'd go over to Washington, and tell +them who I am and what we did for you in '96 and 1900; we can't stand +this. It's a damned outrage, and I look to you to stop it." In a +moment Ward heard Barclay exclaim: "You can't--why, that's a hell of +a note! What kind of a fellow is he, anyway? Tell him I gave half a +million to the party, and I've got some rights in this government that +a white man is bound to respect--or does he believe in taking your +money and letting you whistle?" A train rolling by the mill drowned +Barclay's voice, but at the end of the conversation Ward heard Barclay +say: "Well, what's a party good for if it doesn't protect the men who +contribute to its support? You simply must do it. I look to you for +it. You got my good money, and it's up to you to get results." + +There was some growling, and then Barclay hung up the receiver. But he +was mad all day, and dictated a panic interview to Ward, which Ward +was to give to the Associated Press when they went to Chicago the next +day. In the interview, Barclay said that economic conditions were +being disturbed by half-baked politicians, and that values would +shrink and the worst panic in the history of the country would follow +unless the socialistic meddling with business was stopped. + +The summer had deepened to its maturest splendour before Barclay +acknowledged to himself his dread of the City. For he began to feel a +definite discomfiture at the panorama of his pictures on the +news-stands in connection with the advertising of the Sunday +newspapers and magazines. The newspapers were blazoning to the whole +country that the Economy Door Strip was a blind for taking railroad +rebates, and everywhere he met the report of Inspector Smith that the +National Provisions Company's fifty-pound sack of Barclay's Best +contained but forty-eight pounds and ten ounces; also that Barclay had +been taking three ounces out of the pound cartons of breakfast food, +and that the cracker packages were growing smaller, while the prices +were not lowered. Even in Sycamore Ridge the reporters appeared with +exasperating regularity, and the papers were filled with diverting +articles telling of the Barclays' social simplicity and rehashing old +stories of John Barclay's boyhood. His attempt to stop the +investigation of the National Provisions Company became noised around +Washington, and the news of his failure was frankly given out from the +White House. This inspired a cartoon from McCutcheon in the _Chicago +Tribune_, representing the President weighing a flour sack on which +was printed "Barclay's Worst," with Barclay behind the President +trying to get his foot on the scales. + +All of his life Barclay had been a fighter; he liked to hit and dodge +or get hit back. His struggles in business and in the business part of +politics had been with tangible foes, with material things; and his +weapons had been material things: coercion, bribery (more or less +sugar-coated), cheating, and often in these later years the roar of +his voice or the power of his name. But now, facing the formless, +impersonal thing called public opinion, hitherto unknown in his scheme +of things, he was filled with uncertainty and indecision. + +One autumn day, after sending three stenographers home limp and weary +with directions for his battles, Barclay strayed into McHurdie's shop. +The general and Dolan were the only members of the parliament present +that afternoon, besides Watts. Barclay nodded at the general without +speaking, and Dolan said:-- + +"Cool, ain't it? Think it will freeze?" + +Barclay took a chair, and when Dolan and Ward saw that he had come for +a visit, they left. + +"Watts," asked Barclay, after the others had gone, and the little man +at the bench did not speak, "Watts, what's got into the people of this +country? What have I done that they should begin pounding me this +way?" + +McHurdie turned a gentle smile on his visitor, knowing that Barclay +would do the talking. Barclay went on: "Here are five suits in county +courts in Texas against me; a suit in Kansas by the attorney-general, +five or ten in the Dakotas, three in Nebraska, one or two in each of +the Lake states, and the juries always finding against me. I haven't +changed my methods. I'm doing just what I've done for fifteen years. +I've had lots of lawsuits before, with stockholders and rival +companies and partners, and millers and all that--but this standing +in front of the mob and fighting them off--why? Why? What have I +done? These county attorneys and attorneys-general seem to delight in +it--now why? They didn't used to; it used to be that only cranks like +old Phil Ward even talked of such things, and people laughed at them; +and now prosecuting attorneys actually do these things, and people +reelect them. Why? What's got into the people? What am I doing that I +haven't been doing?" + +"Maybe the people are growing honest, John," suggested the harness +maker amiably. + +Barclay threw back his head and roared: "Naw--naw--it isn't that; +it's the damn newspapers. That's what it is! They're what's raising +the devil. But why? Why? What have I done? Why, they have even +bulldozed some of my own federal judges--my own men, Watts, my own +men; men whose senators came into my office with their hats in their +hands and asked permission to name these judges. Now why?" He was +silent awhile and then began chuckling: "But I fixed 'em the other +day. Did you see that article in all the papers briefed out of New +York about how that professor had said that the N.P.C. was an economic +necessity? I did that, Watts: and got it published in the magazines, +too--and our advertising agents made all the newspapers that get our +advertising print it--and they had to." Barclay laughed. After a +moody silence he continued: "And you know what I could do. I could +finance a scheme to buy out the meat trust and the lumber trust, and I +could control every line of advertising that goes into the damn +magazines--and I could buy the paper trust too, and that would fix +'em. The Phil Wards are not running this country yet. The men who make +the wealth and maintain the prosperity have got to run it in spite of +the long-nosed reformers and socialists. You know, Watts, that we men +who do things have a divine responsibility to keep the country off the +rocks. But she's drifting a lot just now, and they're all after me, +because I'm rich. That's all, Watts, just because I've worked hard and +earned a little money--that's why." And so he talked on, until he was +tired, and limped home and sat idly in front of his organ, unable to +touch the keys. + +Then he turned toward the City to visit his temporal kingdom. There in +the great Corn Exchange Building his domain was unquestioned. There in +the room with the mahogany walls he could feel his power, and stanch +the flow of his courage. There he was a man. But alas for human +vanity! When he got to the City, he found the morning papers full of a +story of a baby that had died from overeating breakfast food made at +his mills and adulterated with earth from his Missouri clay banks, as +the coroner had attested after an autopsy; and a miserable county +prosecutor was looking for John Barclay. So he hid all the next day in +his offices, and that evening took Neal Ward on a special train in his +private car, on a roundabout way home to Sycamore Ridge. + +It was a wretched homecoming for so great and successful a man as +Barclay. Yet he with all his riches, with all his material power, even +he longed for the safety of home, as any hunted thing longs for his +lair. On the way he paced the diagonals of the little office room in +his car, like a caged jackal. The man had lost his anchor; the things +which his life had been built on would not hold him. Money--men +envied the rich nowadays, he said, and the rich man had no rights in +the courts or out of them; friends--they had gone up in the market, +and he could not afford them; politics--he had found it a quicksand. +So he jabbered to Neal Ward, his secretary, and pulled down the +curtains of his car on the station side of every stop the train made +in its long day's journey. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +It was nearly midnight when the special train pulled into Sycamore +Ridge, and Neal Ward hurried home. He went to his room, and found +there a letter and a package, both addressed in Jeanette's +handwriting. The letter was only a note that read:-- + + "MY DEAREST BOY: I could not wait to send it for your Christmas + present. So I am sending it the very day it is finished. I hope it + will bring me close to you--into your very heart and keep me there. + I have kissed it--for I knew that you would. + + "Your loving JEANETTE." + +He tore open the package and found a miniature of Jeanette done on +ivory--that seemed to bring her into the room, and illumine it with +her presence. The thing bloomed with life, and his heart bounded with +joy as his eyes drank the beauty of it. His father called from below +stairs, and the youth went down holding the note and the miniature in +his hands. Before the father could speak, the son held out the +picture, and Philemon Ward looked for a moment into the glowing +faces--that of the picture and that of the living soul before him, +and hesitated before speaking. + +"I got your wire--" he began. + +"But isn't it beautiful, father--wonderful!" broke in the son. + +The father assented kindly and then continued: "So I thought I'd sit +up for you. I had to talk with you." The son's face looked an +interrogation, and the father answered, "Read that, Neal--" handing +his son a letter in a rich linen envelope bearing in the corner the +indication that it was written at the Army and Navy Club in +Washington. The lovely face in the miniature lay on the table between +them and smiled up impartially at father and son as the young man drew +out the letter and read:-- + + "MY DEAR GENERAL WARD: This letter will introduce to you Mr. H. S. + Smith, an inspector from the Bureau of Commerce and Labour, who has + been working upon evidence connected with the National Provisions + Company. I happened to be at luncheon this afternoon with a man of + the highest official authority, whose name it would be bad faith to + divulge, but whom I know you respect, even if you do not always + agree with him. I mentioned your name and the part you took in the + battle of the Wilderness, and my friend was at once interested, + though, of course, he had known you by name and fame for forty + years. One word led to another, as is usual in these cases, and my + friend mentioned the fact that your son, Neal Dow Ward, is secretary + to John Barclay, and in a position to verify certain evidence which + the government now has in the N.P.C. matter. I happen to know that + the government is exceedingly anxious to be exactly correct in every + charge it makes against this Company, and hence I am writing to you. + Your son can do a service to his country to-day by telling the truth + when he is questioned by Inspector Smith, to my mind as important as + that you did in the Wilderness. Inspector Smith has a right to + question him, and will do so, and I have promised my friend here to + ask you to counsel with your son, and beg him in the name of that + good citizenship for which you have always stood, and for which you + offered your life, to tell the simple truth. As a comrade and a + patriot, I have no doubt what you will do, knowing the facts." + +Neal Ward put his hand on the table, with the letter still in his +fingers. "Father," he asked blankly, "do you know what that means?" + +"Yes, Neal, I think I understand; it means that to-morrow morning will +decide whether you are a patriot or a perjurer, my boy--a patriot or +a perjurer!" The general, who was in his shirt-sleeves and collarless, +rose, and putting his hands behind him, backed to the radiator to warm +them. + +"But, father--father," exclaimed the boy, "how can I? What I learned +was in confidence. How can I?" + +The father saw the anguish in his son's face, and did not reply at +once. "Is it crooked, Neal?" + +"Yes," replied the son, and then added: "So bad I was going to get out +of it, as soon as Jeanette came home. I couldn't stand it--for a +life, father. But I promised to stay three years, and try, and I think +I should keep my promise." + +The father and son were silent for a time, and then the father spoke. +"And you love her with all your life--don't you, Nealie?" The son was +gazing intently at the miniature and nodded. At length the father +sighed. "My poor, poor boy--my poor, poor boy." He walked to the +table on which were his books and papers, and then stood looking at +the girl's face. "You couldn't explain it to her, I suppose?" he +asked. + +"No," replied the son. "No; she adores her father; to her he is +perfect. And I don't blame her, for he is good--you can't know how +good, to her." Again they stood in silence. The son looked up from the +picture and said, "And you know, father, what the world would think of +me--a spy, an informer--an ingrate?" + +The old man did not reply, and the son shook his head and his face +twitched with the struggle that was in him. Suddenly the father walked +to the son and cried: "And yet you must, Neal Ward--you must. Is +there any confidence in God's world so sacred as your duty to mankind? +Is there any tie, even that of your wife, so sacred as that which +binds you to humanity? I left your mother, my sweetheart, and went out +to fight, with the chance of never seeing her again. I went out and +left her for the same country that is calling you now, Neal!" The boy +looked up with agony on his face. The father paused a moment and then +went on: "Your soul is your soul--not John Barclay's, my boy--not +Jeanette Barclay's--but yours--yours, Neal, to blight or to cherish, +as you will." A moment later he added, "Don't you see, son--don't you +see, Neal?" The son shook his head and looked down, and did not +answer. The father put his arm about the son. "Boy, boy," he cried, +"boy, you've got a a man's load on you now--a man's load. To-morrow +you can run away like a coward; you can dodge and lie like a thief, or +you can tell the simple truth, as it is asked of you, like a man--the +simple truth like a man, Neal." + +"Yes, I know, father--I see it all--but it is so hard--for her +sake, father." + +The old man was silent, while the kitchen clock ticked away a minute +and then another and a third. Then he took his arm away from his son, +and grasped the boy's hand. "Oh, little boy--little boy," he cried, +"can't I make you see that the same God who has put this trial upon +you will see you through it, and that if you fail in this trial, your +soul will be crippled for life, and that no matter what you get in +return for your soul--you will lose in the bargain? Can't you see it, +Nealie--can't you see it? All my life I have been trying to live that +way, and I have tried to make you see it--so that you would be ready +for some trial like this." + +The son rose, and the two men stood side by side, clasping hands. The +boy suddenly tore himself loose, and throwing his hands in the air, +wailed, "Oh, God--it is too hard--I can't, father--I can't." + +And with the miniature in his hand he walked from the room, and +Philemon Ward went to his closet and wrestled through the night. At +dawn his son sat reading and re-reading a letter. Finally he pressed +another letter to his lips, and read his own letter again. It read:-- + + "MY DARLING GIRL: This is the last letter I shall ever mail to you, + perhaps. I can imagine no miracle that will bring us together again. + My duty, as I see it, stands between us. The government inspector is + going to put me under oath to-morrow--unless I run, and I + won't--and question me about your father's business. What I must + tell will injure him--maybe ruin him. I am going to tell your father + what I am going to do before I do it. But by all the faith I have + been taught in a God--and you know I am not pious, and belong to no + church--I am forced to do this thing. Oh, Jeanette, Jeanette--if I + loved you less, I would take you for this life alone and sell my + soul for you; but I want you for an eternity--and in that eternity I + want to bring you an unsoiled soul. Good-by--oh, good-by. + NEAL." + +The next morning when Neal Ward went out of the office at the mill, +John Barclay sat shivering with wrath and horror. Every second stamped +him with its indelible finger, as a day, or a month, puts its stain on +other men. + +Another morning, a week later, as he sat at his desk, a telegram from +his office manager in the city fluttered in his hands. It read: "We +are privately advised that you were indicted by the federal grand jury +last night--though we do not know upon what specific charge--our +friend B. will advise us later in the day." + +It was a gray December day, and a thin film of ice covered the +mill-pond. Barclay looked there and shuddered away from the thought +that came to him. He was alone in the mill. He longed for his wife and +daughter, and yet when he thought of their homecoming to disgrace, he +shook with agony. Over and over again he whispered the word +"indicted." The thought of his mother and her sorrow broke him down. +He locked the door, dropped heavily into his chair, and bowed his head +on his crossed arms. And then-- + +What, tears? Tears for Mr. Barclay?--for himself? Look back along the +record for his life: there are many tears charged to his account, but +none for his own use. Back in the seventies there are tears of Miss +Culpepper, charged to Mr. Barclay, and one heart-break for General +Hendricks. Again in the eighties there is sorrow for Mr. Robert +Hendricks, and more tears for Mrs. Brownwell, that was Miss +Culpepper--all charged to the account of Mr. Barclay; and in the +early nineties there are some manly tears for Martin F. Culpepper, +also charged to Mr. Barclay--but none before for his own use. Are +they, then, tears of repentance? No, not tears for the recording +angel, not good, man's size, soul-washing tears of repentance, but +miserable, dwarf, useless, self-pitying, corroding tears--tears of +shame and rage, for the proud, God-mocking, man-cheating, powerful, +faithless, arrogant John Barclay, dealer in the Larger Good. + +And so with his head upon his arms, and his arms upon his desk,--a +gray-clad, gray-haired, slightly built, time-racked little +figure,--John Barclay strained his soul and wrenched his body and +tried in vain to weep. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +Down comes the curtain. Only a minute does John Barclay sit there with +his head in his arms, and then, while you are stretching your legs, or +reading your programme, or looking over the house to see who may be +here, up rises John Barclay, and while the stage carpenters are +setting the new scene, he is behind there telephoning to Chicago, to +Minneapolis, to Omaha, to Cleveland, to Buffalo,--he fairly swamps +the girl with expensive long-distance calls,--trying to see if there +is not some way to stop the filing of that indictment. For to him the +mere indictment advertises to mankind that money is not power, and +with him and with all of his caste and class a confession of weakness +is equivalent to a confession of wrong. For where might makes right, +as it does in his world, weakness spells guilt, and with all the +people jeering at him, with the press saying: "Aha, so they have got +Mr. Barclay, have they? Well, if all his money and all his power could +not prevent an indictment, he must be a pretty tough customer,"--with +the public peering into his private books and papers in a lawsuit, +confirming as facts all that they had read in the newspapers, in short +with the gold plating of respectability rubbed off his moral brass, he +feels the crushing weight of the indictment, as he limps up and down +his room at the mill and frets at the long-distance operator for being +so slow with his calls. + +But he is behind the scenes now; and so is Neal Ward, walking the +streets of Chicago, looking for work on a newspaper, and finally +finding it. And so are Mrs. Jane Barclay and Miss Barclay, as they +sail away on their ten days' cruise of the Mediterranean. And while +the orchestra plays and the man in the middle of row A of the dress +circle edges out of his seat and in again, we cannot hear John Barclay +sigh when the last telephone call is answered, and he finds that +nothing can be done. And he is not particularly cheered by the +knowledge that the Associated Press report that very afternoon is +sending all over the world the story of the indictment. But late in +the afternoon Judge Bemis, in whose court the indictment was found, +much to his chagrin, upon evidence furnished by special counsel sent +out from Washington--Judge Bemis tells him, as from one old friend to +another, that the special counsellor isn't much of a lawyer. The +pleasant friendly little rip-saw laugh of the judge over the telephone +nearly a thousand miles away is not distinct enough to be heard across +the stage even if the carpenters were not hammering, and the orchestra +screaming, and the audience buzzing; but that little laugh of his good +friend, Judge Bemis, was the sweetest sound John Barclay had heard in +many a day. It seemed curious that he should so associate it, but that +little laugh seemed to drown the sound of a clicking key in a lock--a +large iron lock, that had been rattling in his mind since noon. For +even in the minds of the rich and the great, even in the minds of men +who fancy they are divinely appointed to parcel out to their less +daring brethren the good things of this world, there is always a +child's horror of the jail. So when Mr. Barclay, who was something of +a lawyer himself, heard his good friend, Judge Bemis, laugh that +pleasant little friendly laugh behind the scenes, the heart of Mr. +Barclay gave a little pulse-beat of relief if not of joy. + +But an instant later the blight of the indictment was over him again. +Hammer away, and scream away, and buzz away with all your might, you +noises of the playhouse; let us not hear John Barclay hastening across +the bridge just before the early winter sunset comes, that he may +intercept the _Index_ and the _Banner_ in the front yard of the +Barclay home, before his mother sees them. Always heretofore he has +been glad to have her read of his achievements, in the hope that she +would come to approve them, and to view things as he saw them--his +success and his power and his glory. But to-night he hides the paper +under his gray coat and slips into the house. She and her son sit down +to dinner alone. This must be a stage dinner they are eating--though +it is all behind the scenes; for Mr. Barclay is merely going through +the empty form of eating. "No, thank you," for the roast. "Why, Mr. +Barclay did not touch his soup!" "Well," says the cook, tasting it +critically, "that's strange." And "No, thank you" for the salad, and +"Not any pie to-night, Clara." "What--none of the mince pie, John? +Why, I went out in the kitchen and made it for you myself." "Well, a +little." + +Heigh-ho! We sigh, and we drum on our table-cloth with our fingers, +and we are trying to find some way to tell something. We have been a +bad boy, maybe--a bad little boy, and must own up; that is part of +our punishment--the hardest part perhaps, even with the curtain down, +even with the noise in front, even with the maid gone, even when a +mother comes and strokes our head, as we sit idly at the organ bench, +unable to sound a key. Shall the curtain go up now? Shall we sit +gawking while a boy gropes his way out of a man's life, back through +forty years, and puts his head in shame and sorrow against a mother's +breast? How he stumbles and falters and halts, as the truth comes +out--and it must come out; on the whole the best thing there is to +say of John Barclay on that fateful December day in the year of our +Lord 1903 is that he did not let his mother learn the truth from any +lips but his. And so it follows naturally, because he was brave and +kind, that instead of having to strengthen her, she sustained +him--she in her seventies, he in his fifties. + +"My poor dear child," she said, "I know--I know. But don't worry, +John--don't worry. I don't mind. Jane won't mind, I am sure, and I +know Jennie will understand. It isn't what even we who love you think +of you, John--it is what you are that counts. Oh, Johnnie, Johnnie, +maybe you could serve your country and humanity in jail--by showing +the folly and the utter uselessness of all this money-getting, just as +your father served it by dying. I would not mind if it made men see +that money isn't the thing--if it made you see it, my boy; if you +could come out of a jail with that horrible greed for money purged +from you--" + +But no--we will not peep behind the curtain; we will not dwell with +John Barclay as he walked all night up and down the great living room +of his home. And see, the footlights have winked at the leader of the +orchestra, to let him know he is playing too long; observe, how +quickly the music dies down--rather too quickly, for the clatter of +cast iron is heard on the stage, and the sound of hurried footsteps is +audible, as of some one moving rapidly about behind the curtain. The +rattling iron you hear is the stove in Watts McHurdie's shop; they +have just set it up, and got it red hot; for it is a cold day, that +fifteenth day of December, 1903, and the footsteps you hear are those +of the members of the harness shop parliament. + +Ah! There goes the curtain, and there sits Watts astraddle of his +bench, working with all his might, for he has an order to sew +sleigh-bells on a breast strap, for some festivity or another; and +here sits the colonel, and over there the general, and on his +home-made chair Jacob Dolan is tilted back, warming his toes at the +stove. They are all reading--all except Watts, who is working; on the +floor are the Chicago and St. Louis evening papers, and the Omaha and +Kansas City morning papers. And on the first pages of all of these +papers are pictures of John Barclay. There is John Barclay in the +_Bee_, taken in his Omaha office by the _Bee's_ own photographer--a +new picture of Mr. Barclay, unfamiliar to the readers of most +newspapers. It shows the little man standing by a desk, smiling rather +benignly with his sharp bold eyes fixed on the camera. There is a line +portrait of Mr. Barclay in the _Times_, one of recent date, showing +the crow's-feet about the eyes, the vertical wrinkle above the nose, +and the furtive mouth, hard and naked, and the square mean jaw, that +every cartoonist of Barclay has emphasized for a dozen years. And +there are other pictures of Mr. Barclay in the papers on the floor, +and the first pages of the papers are filled with the news of the +Barclay indictment. All over this land, and in Europe, the news of +that indictment caused a sensation. In the _Times_, there on the +floor, is an editorial comment upon the indictment of Barclay cabled +from London, another from Paris, and a third from Berlin. It was a big +event in the world, an event of more than passing note--this sudden +standing up of one of the richest men of his land, before the front +door of a county jail. Big business, and little business that apes big +business, dropped its jaw. The world is not accustomed to think of +might making wrong, so when a Charles I or a Louis XVI or a John +Barclay comes to harm, the traditions of the world are wrenched. Men +say: "How can these things be--if might makes right? Here is a case +where might and right conflict--how about it? Jails are for the poor, +not for the rich, because the poor are wrong and the rich are right, +and no just man made perfect by a million should be in jail." + +And so while the members of the parliament in Watts McHurdie's shop +read and were disturbed at the strange twist of events, the whole +world was puzzled with them, and in unison with Jacob Dolan, half the +world spoke, "I see no difference in poisoning breakfast foods and +poisoning wells, and it's no odds to me whether a man pinches a few +ounces out of my flour sack, or steals my chickens." + +And the other half of the world was replying with Colonel Culpepper, +"Oh, well, Jake, now that's all right for talk; but in the realms of +high finance men are often forced to be their own judges of right and +wrong, and circumstances that we do not appreciate, cannot understand, +in point of fact, nor comprehend, if I may say so, intervene, and make +what seems wrong in small transactions, trivial matters and +pinch-penny business, seem right in the high paths of commerce." + +The general was too deeply interested in reading what purported to be +his son's testimony before Commissioner Smith, to break into the +discussion at this point, so Dolan answered, "From which I take it +that you think that Johnnie down at the mill keeps a private God in +his private car." + +The colonel was silent for a time; he read a few lines and looked into +space a moment, and then replied in a gentle husky voice: "Jake, what +do we know about it? The more I think how every man differs from his +neighbour, and all our sins are the result of individual weakness at +the end of lonely struggles with lonely temptations--the more I think +maybe there is something in what you say, and that not only John but +each of us--each of us under this shining sun, sir--keeps his +private God." + +"You'll have to break that news gently to the Pope," returned Dolan. +"I'll not try it. Right's right, Mart Culpepper, and wrong's wrong for +me and for Johnnie Barclay, white, black, brown, or yellow--'tis the +same." + +"There's nothing in your theory, Mart," cut in the general, folding +his paper across his knee; "not a thing in the world. We're all parts +of a whole, and the only way this is an individual problem at +all--this working out of the race's destiny--is that the whole can't +improve so long as the parts don't grow. So long as we all are like +John Barclay save in John's courage to do wrong, laws won't help us +much, and putting John in jail won't do so very much--though it may +scare the cowards until John's kind of crime grows unpopular. But what +we must have is individual--" + +Tinkle goes the bell over Watts McHurdie's head--the bell tied to a +cord that connects with the front door. Down jumps Watts, and note the +play of the lights from the flies, observe that spot light moving +toward R. U. E., there by the door of the shop. Yes, all ready; enter +John Barclay. See that iron smile on his face; he has not surrendered. +He has been clean-shaven, and entering that door, he is as spick and +span as though he were on a wedding journey. Give him a hand or a hiss +as you will, ladies and gentlemen, John Barclay has entered at the +Right Upper Entrance, and the play may proceed. + +"Well," he grinned, "I suppose you are talking it over. Colonel, has +the jury come to a verdict yet?" + +What a suave John Barclay it was; how admirably he held his nerve; not +a quiver in the face, not a ruffle of the voice. The general looked at +him over his spectacles, and could not keep the kindness out of his +eyes. "What a brick you are!" he said to himself, and Jake Dolan, +conquered by the simplicity of it, surrendered. + +"Oh, well, John, I suppose we all have our little troubles," said +Jake. Only that; the rack of the inquisitor grew limp. And Colonel +Culpepper rose and gave Barclay his hand and spoke not a word. The +silence was awkward, and at the end of a few moments the colonel found +words. + +"How," he asked in his thick asthmatic voice, mushy with emotion, "how +in the world did this happen, John? How did it happen?" + +Barclay looked at the general; no, he did not glare, for John Barclay +had grown tame during the night, almost docile, one would say. But he +did not answer at first, and Watts McHurdie, bending over his work, +chuckled out: "Ten miles from Springfield, madam--ten miles from +Springfield." And then John sloughed off thirty years and laughed. And +the general laughed, and the colonel smiled, and Jake Dolan took John +Barclay's hand from the colonel, and said:-- + +"The court adjudges that the prisoner at the bar pay the assembled +company four of those cigars in his inside pocket, and stand committed +until the same is paid." + +And then there was a scratching of matches, and a puffing, and Barclay +spoke: "I knew there was one place on earth where I was welcome. The +mill is swarming with reporters, and I thought I'd slip away. They'll +not find me here." The parliament smoked in silence, and again Barclay +said, "Well, gentlemen, it's pretty tough--pretty tough to work all +your life to build up an industry and in the end--get this." + +"Well, John," said the general, as he rolled up his newspaper and put +it away, "I'm sorry--just as sorry as Mart is; not so much for the +indictment, that is all part of the inevitable consequence of your +creed; if it hadn't been the indictment, it would have been something +else, equally sad--don't you see, John?" + +"Oh, I know what you think, General," retorted Barclay, bitterly. "I +know your idea; you think it's retribution." + +"Not exactly that either, John--just the other side of the equation. +You have reaped what you sowed, and I am sorry for what you sowed. God +gave you ten talents, John Barclay--ten fine talents, my boy, and you +wrapped them in a napkin and buried them in the ground, buried them in +greed and cunning and love of power, and you are reaping envy and +malice and cruelty. You were efficient, John; oh, if I had been as +efficient as you, how much I could have done for this world--how +much--how much!" he mused wistfully. + +Barclay did not reply, but his face was hard, and his neck was stiff, +and he was not moved. He was still the implacable Mr. Barclay, the +rich Mr. Barclay, and he would have no patronage from old Phil +Ward--Phil Ward the crank, who was a nation's joke. Ting-a-ling went +the bell over Watts McHurdie's head, and the little man climbed down +from his bench and hurried into the shop. But instead of a customer, +Mr. J. K. Mercheson, J. K. Mercheson representing Barber, Hancock, and +Kohn,--yes, the whip trust; that's what they call it, but it is +really an industrial organization of the trade,--Mr. J. K. Mercheson +of New York came in. No, McHurdie did not need anything at present, +and he backed into the shop. He had all of the goods in that line that +he could carry just now; and he sidled toward his seat. The members of +the parliament effaced themselves, as loafers do in every busy place +when business comes up; the colonel got behind his paper, Barclay hid +back of the stove, Dolan examined a bit of harness, and the general +busied himself picking up the litter on the floor, and folding the +papers with the pictures of Barclay inside so that he would not be +annoyed by them. But Mr. Mercheson knew how to get orders; he knew +that the thing to do is to stay with the trade. + +So he leaned against the work bench and began:-- + +"This is a great town, Mr. McHurdie; we're always hearing from +Sycamore Ridge. When I'm in the East they say, 'What kind of a town is +that Sycamore Ridge where Watts McHurdie and your noted reformer, +Robert Hendricks, who was offered a place in the cabinet, and this man +John Barclay live?'" + +Mr. Mercheson paused for effect. Mr. McHurdie smiled and went on with +his work. + +"Say," said Mr. Mercheson, "your man Barclay is in all the papers this +morning. I was in the smoker of the sleeper last evening coming out of +Chicago, and we got to talking about him--and Lord, how the fellows +did roast him." + +"They did?" asked Barclay, from his chair behind the stove. + +"Sure," replied Mr. Mercheson; "roasted him good and brown. There +wasn't a man in the smoker but me to stand up for him." + +"So you stood up for the old scoundrel, did you?" asked Barclay. + +"Sure," answered the travelling man. "Anything to get up an argument, +you know," he went on, beginning to see which way sentiment lay in the +shop. "I've been around town this morning, and I find the people here +don't approve of him for a minute, any more than they did on the +train." + +"What do they say?" asked Barclay, braiding a four-strand whip, and +finding that his cunning of nearly fifty years had not left his +fingers. + +"Oh, it isn't so much what they say--but you can tell, don't you +know; it's what they don't say; they don't defend him. I guess they +like him personally, but they know he's a thief; that's the +idea--they simply can't defend him and they don't try. The government +has got him dead to rights. Say," he went on, "just to be arguing, you +know last evening I took a poll of the train--the limited--the +Golden State Limited--swell train, swell crowd--all rich old +roosters; and honest, do you know that out of one hundred and +twenty-three votes polled only four were for him, and three of those +were girls who said they knew his daughter at the state university, +and had visited at his house. Wasn't that funny?" + +Barclay laughed grimly, and answered, "Well, it was pretty funny +considering that I'm John Barclay." + +The suspense of the group in the shop was broken, and they laughed, +too. + +"Oh, hell," said Mr. Mercheson, "come off!" Then he turned to McHurdie +and tried to talk trade to him. But Watts was obdurate, and the man +soon left the shop, eying Barclay closely. He stood in the door and +said, as he went out of the store, "Well, you do look some like his +pictures, Mister." + +There was a silence when the stranger went, and Barclay, whose face +had grown red, cried, "Damn 'em--damn 'em all--kick a man when he is +down!" + +Again the bell tinkled, and McHurdie went into the shop. Evidently a +customer was looking at a horse collar, for through the glass door +they could see Watts' hook go up to the ceiling and bring one down. + +"John," said the colonel, when Barclay had spoken, "John, don't mind +it. Look at me, John--look at me! They had to put me in jail, you +know; but every one seems to have forgotten it but me--and I am a dog +that I don't." + +John Barclay looked at the old, broken man, discarded from the +playing-cards of life, with the hurt, surprised look always in his +eyes, and it was with an effort that the suave Mr. Barclay kept the +choke in his throat out of his voice as he replied:-- + +"Yes, Colonel, yes, I know I have no right to kick against the +pricks." + +Watts was saying: "Yes, he's in there now--with the boys; you better +go in and cheer him up." + +And then at the upper right-hand entrance entered Gabriel Carnine, +president of the State Bank, unctuous as a bishop. He ignored the +others, and walking to Barclay, put out his hand. "Well, well, John, +glad to see you; just came up from the mill--I was looking for you. +Couldn't find Neal, either. Where is he?" + +The general answered curtly, "Neal is in Chicago, working on the +_Record-Herald_." + +"Oh," returned Carnine, and did not pursue the subject further. "Well, +gentlemen," he said, "fine winter weather we're having." + +"Is that so?" chipped in Dolan. "Mr. Barclay was finding it a little +mite warm." + +Carnine ignored Dolan, and Barclay grinned. "Well, John," Carnine +hesitated, "I was just down to see you--on a little matter of +business." + +"Delighted, sir, delighted," exclaimed Dolan, as he rose to go; "we +were going, anyway--weren't we, General?" The veterans rose, and +Colonel Culpepper said as he went, "I told Molly to call for me here +about noon with the buggy--if she comes, tell her to wait." + +All of life may not be put on the stage, and this scene has to be cut; +for it was at the end of half an hour's aimless, footless, foolish +talk that Gabriel Carnine came to the business in hand. Round and +round the bush he beat the devil, before he hit him a whack. Then he +said, as if it had just occurred to him, "We were wondering--some of +the directors--this morning, if under the circumstances--oh, say +just for the coming six months or such a matter--it might not be wise +to reorganize our board; freshen it up, don't you know; kind of get +some new names on it, and drop the old ones--not permanently, but +just to give the other stockholders a show on the board." + +"So you want me to get off, do you?" blurted Barclay. "You're afraid +of my name--now?" + +The screams of Mr. Carnine, the protesting screams of that oleaginous +gentleman, if they could have been vocalized in keeping with their +muffled, low-voiced, whispering earnestness, would have been loud +enough to be heard a mile away, but Barclay talked out:-- + +"All right, take my name off; and out comes my account. I don't care." + +And thereupon the agony of Mr. Carnine was unutterable. If he had been +a natural man, he would have howled in pain; as it was, he merely +purred. But Barclay's skin was thin that day, sensitive to every +touch, and he felt the rough hand of Carnine and winced. He let the +old man whine and pur and stroke his beard awhile, and then Barclay +said wearily, "All right, just as you please, Gabe--I'll not move my +account. It's nothing to me." + +In another minute the feline foot of Mr. Carnine was pattering gently +toward the front door. Barclay sat looking at the stove, and Watts +went on working. Barclay sighed deeply once or twice, but McHurdie +paid no heed to him. Finally Barclay rose and went over to the bench. + +"Watts," cried Barclay, "what do you think about it--you, your own +self, what do you think way down in your heart?" + +Watts sewed a stitch or two without speaking, and then put down his +thread and put up his glasses and said, "That's fairly spoken, John +Barclay, and will have a fair answer." + +The old man paused; Barclay cried impatiently, "Oh, well, Watts, don't +be afraid--nothing can hurt me much now!" + +"I was just a-thinking, lad," said Watts, gently, "just a-thinking." + +"What?" cried Barclay. + +"Just a-thinking," returned the old man, as he put his hand on the +younger man's shoulder, "what a fine poet you spoiled in your life, +just to get the chance to go to jail. But the Lord knows His business, +I suppose!" he added with a twinkle in his eye, "and if He thinks a +poet more or less in jail would help more than one out--it is all for +the best, John, all for the best. But, my boy," he cried earnestly, +"if you'll be going to jail, don't whine, lad. Go to jail like a +gentleman, John Barclay, go to jail like a gentleman, and serve your +Lord there like a man." + +"Damn cheerful you are, Watts," returned Barclay. "What a lot of Job's +comforters you fellows have been this morning." He went on half +bitterly and half jokingly: "Beginning with the general, continuing +with your travelling salesman friend, and following up with Gabe, who +wants me to get off the board of directors of his bank for the moral +effect of it, and coming on down to you who bid me Godspeed to +jail--I have had a--a--a rather gorgeous morning." + +The door-bell tinkled, and a woman's voice called, "Father, father!" + +"Yes, Molly," the harness maker answered; "he'll be here pretty soon. +He said for you to wait." + +"Come in, for heaven's sake, Molly," cried Barclay, "come back here +and cheer me up." + +"Oh, all right--it's you, John? What are you doing back here? I'm so +glad to find you. I've just got the dearest letter from Jane. We won't +talk business or anything--you know how I feel, and how sorry I +am--so just let's read Jane's letter; it has something in it to cheer +you. She said she was going to write it to you the next day--but I'll +read it to you." And so Mrs. Brownwell took from her pocketbook the +crumpled letter and unfolded it. "It's so like Jane--just good hard +sense clear through." She turned the pages hastily, and finally the +fluttering of the sheets stopped. "Oh, yes," she said, "here's the +place--the rest she's told you. Let me see--Oh: 'And, Molly, what do +you think?--there's a duke after Jeanette--a miserable, little, +dried-up, burned-out, poverty-stricken Italian duke. And oh, how much +good it did us both to cut him, and let him know how ill-bred we +considered him, how altogether beneath any wholesome honest girl we +thought such a fellow.' And now, John, isn't this like Jane?" +interposed Mrs. Brownwell. "Listen; she says, 'Molly, do you know, I +am so happy about Jeanette and Neal. We run such an awful risk with +this money--such a horrible risk of unhappiness and misery for the +poor child--heaven knows she would be so much happier without it. And +to think, dear, that she has found the one in the world for her, in +the sweet simple way that a girl should always find him, and that the +money--the menacing thing that hangs like a shadow over her--cannot +by any possibility spoil her life! It makes me happy all the day, and +I go singing through life with joy at the thought that the money won't +hurt Jennie--that it can't take from her the joy that comes from +living with her lover all her life, as I have lived.' Isn't that fine, +John?" asked Mrs. Brownwell, and looking up, she saw John Barclay, +white-faced, with trembling jaw, staring in pain at the stove. Watts +had gone into the store to wait on a customer, and the woman, seeing +the man's anguish, came to him and said: "Why, John, what is it? How +have I hurt you?--I thought this would cheer you so." + +The man rose heavily. His colour was coming back. "Oh, God--God," he +cried, "I needed that to-day--I needed that." + +The woman looked at him, puzzled and nonplussed. "Why--why--why?" +she stammered. + +"Oh, nothing," he smiled back at her bitterly, "except--" and his jaw +hardened as he snapped--"except that Neal Ward is a damned +informer--and I've sent him about his business, and Jeanette's got to +do the same." + +Mollie Brownwell looked at him with hard eyes for a moment, and then +asked, "What did Neal do?" + +"Well," replied Barclay, "under cross-examination, I'll admit without +incriminating myself that he gave the testimony which indicted me." + +"Was it that or lie, John?" He did not reply. A silence fell, and the +woman broke it with a cry: "Oh, John Barclay, John Barclay, must your +traffic in souls reach your own flesh and blood? Haven't you enough +without selling her into Egypt, too? Haven't you enough money now?" +And without waiting for answer, Molly Brownwell turned and left him +staring into nothing, with his jaw agape. + +It was noon and a band was playing up the street, and as he stood by +the stove in McHurdie's shop, he remembered vaguely that he had seen +banners flying and some "Welcome" arches across the street as he +walked through the town that morning. He realized that some lodge or +conclave or assembly was gathering in the town, and that the band was +a part of its merriment. It was playing a gay tune and came nearer and +nearer. But as he stood leaning upon his chair, with his heart +quivering and raw from its punishment, he did not notice that the band +had stopped in front of the harness shop. His mind went back wearily +to the old days, fifty years before, when as a toddling child in +dresses he used to play on that very scrap-heap outside the back door, +picking up bits of leather, and in his boyhood days, playing pranks +upon the little harness maker, and braiding his whips for the town +herd. Then he remembered the verses Watts had written about Bob +Hendricks and him in that very room, and the music he and Watts had +played together there. The old song Watts had made in his presence in +the hospital at St. Louis came back to his mind. Did it come because +outside the band had halted and was playing that old song to serenade +Watts McHurdie? Or did it come because John Barclay was wondering if, +had he made a poet of himself, or a man of spiritual and not of +material power, it would have been better for him? + +Heaven knows why the old tune came into his head. But when he +recognized that they were serenading the little harness maker, and +that so far as they thought of John Barclay and his power and his +achievements, it was with scorn, he had a flash of insight into his +relations with the world that illumined his soul for a moment and then +died away. The great Mr. Barclay, alone, sitting in the dingy little +harness shop, can hear the band strike up the old familiar tune again, +and hear the crowd cheer and roar its applause at the little harness +maker, who stands shamefaced and abashed, coatless and aproned, before +the crowd. And he is only a poet--hardly a poet, would be a better +way to say it; an exceedingly bad poet who makes bad rhymes, and +thinks trite thoughts, and says silly and often rather stupid things, +but who once had his say, and for that one hour of glorious liberty of +the soul has moved millions of hearts to love him. John Barclay does +not envy Watts McHurdie--not at all; for Barclay, with all his +faults, is not narrow-gauged; he does not wish they would call for +him--not to-day--not at all; he could not face them now, even if +they cheered him. He says in his heart of pride, beneath his stiff +neck, that it is all right; that Watts,--poor little church-mouse of +a Watts, whom he could buy five times over with the money that has +dropped into the Barclay till since he entered the shop--that Watts +should have his due; but only--only--only--that is it--only, but +only--! + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +And now as we go out into the busy world, after this act in the +dawning of John Barclay's life, let the court convene, and the +reporters gather, and the honourable special counsel for the +government rage, and the defendant sit nervous and fidgety as the +honourable counsel reads the indictment; let the counsel for the +defendant swell and strut with indignation that such indignities +should be put upon honest men and useful citizens, and let the court +frown, and ponder and consider; for that is what courts are for, but +what do we care for it all? We have left it all behind, with the +ragged programmes in the seats. So if the honourable court, in the +person of the more or less honourable Elijah Westlake Bemis, after the +fashion of federal judges desiring to do a questionable thing, calls +in a judge from a neighbouring court--what do we care? And if the +judge of the neighbouring court, after much legal hemming and judicial +hawing, decides in his great wisdom--that the said defendant Barclay +has been charged in the indictment with no crime, and instructs the +jury to find a verdict of not guilty for said defendant John Barclay, +upon the mere reading of the indictment,--what are the odds? What do +we care if the men in the packed courtroom hiss and the reporters put +down the hisses in their note-books and editors write the hisses in +headlines, and presses print the hisses all over the world? For the +fidgety little man is free now--entirely free save for fifty-four +years of selfish life upon his shoulders. + +In the trial of nearly every cause it becomes necessary at some point +in the proceedings to halt the narrative and introduce certain +exhibits, records, and documents, upon which foregone evidence has +been based, and to which coming testimony may properly be attached. +That point has been reached in the case now before the reader. And as +"Exhibit A" let us submit a letter written by John Barclay, January +seventh, nineteen hundred and four, to Jane, his wife, at Naples. + + "As I cabled you this afternoon, the case resulted exactly as I said + it would the day after the indictment. I had not seen or talked with + Lige since that day I talked with him over the telephone, before the + indictment was made public, but I knew Lige well enough to know how + he would act under fire. I had him out to dinner this evening, and + we talked over old times, and he tells me he wants to retire from + the bench. Jane, Lige has been my mainstay ever since this company + was organized. Sometimes I feel that without his help in + politics--looking to see that pernicious legislation was killed, and + that the right men were elected to administrative offices, and + appointed to certain judicial places--we never would have been able + to get the company to its present high standing. I feel that he has + been so valuable to us that we should settle a sum on him that will + make him a rich man as men go in the Ridge. Heaven knows that is + little enough, considering all that he has done. He may have his + faults, Jane, but he has been loyal to me. + + "I hope, my dear, that Jeanette has ceased to worry about the other + matter; he is not worth her tears. Don't come home for a month or + two yet. The same conditions prevail that I spoke of in my first + cable the day of the indictment. The press and the public are + perfectly crazy. America is one great howling mob, and it would make + you and Jennie unhappy. As for me, I don't mind it. You know me." + +And that the reader may know how truthful John Barclay is, let us +append herewith a letter written by Mrs. Mary Barclay, of Sycamore +Ridge, to her granddaughter at Naples, January 15, 1904. She writes +among other things:-- + + "Well, dear, it is a week now since your father's case was settled, + and he was at home for the first time last night. I expected that + his victory--such as it was--would cheer him up, but some way he + seems worse in the dumps than he was before. He does not sleep well, + and is getting too nervous for a man of his age. I have the + impression that he is forever battling with something. Of course the + public temper is bitter, dearie. You are a woman now, and should not + be shielded and pampered with lies, so I am going to tell you the + truth. The indignation of the people of this nation at your father, + as he represents present business methods, is past belief. And + frankly, dearie, I can't blame them. Your father and my son is a + brave, sweet, loving man; none could be finer in this world, Jennie. + But the head of the National Provisions Company is another person, + dear; and of him I do not approve, as you know so well. I am sending + you Neal Ward's statement which was published by the government the + day after the case was dismissed. I have not sent it to you before, + because I wanted to ask your father if it was true. Jennie, he + admits that Neal told the truth, and nothing but the truth--and did + not make it as bad as it was. You are entitled to the facts. You are + a grown woman now, dear, and must make your own decisions. But oh, + my dear little girl, I am heartsick to see your father breaking as + he is. He seems to be fighting--fighting--fighting all the time; + perhaps it is against the flames of public wrath, but some way I + think he is fighting something inside himself--fighting it back; + fighting it down--whatever it is." + +Counsel also begs indulgence while he introduces and reads two +clippings from the Sycamore Ridge _Daily Banner_, of February 12, +1904. The first one reads:-- + + "Judge Bemis Retires + + "Hon. E. W. Bemis has retired from the federal bench, and rumour has + it that he is soon to return with his estimable wife to our midst. + Our people will welcome the judge and Mrs. Bemis with open arms. He + retires from an honourable career, to pass his declining years in + the peace and quiet of the town in which he began his career over + fifty years ago. For as every one knows, he came West as a boy, and + before having been admitted to the bar dealt largely in horses and + cattle. He has always been a good business man, having with his + legal acumen the acquisitive faculty, and now he is looking for some + place to invest a modest competence here in the Ridge, and rumour + has it again that he is negotiating for the purchase of the Sycamore + Ridge Waterworks bonds, which are now in litigation. If so, he will + make an admirable head of that popular institution." + +In this connection, and before introducing the other clipping from the +_Banner_, it would be entirely proper to introduce the manuscript for +the above, in the typewriting of the stenographer of Judge Bemis's +court, and a check for fifty dollars payable to Adrian Brownwell, +signed by Judge Bemis aforesaid; but those documents would only clog +the narrative and would not materially strengthen the case, so they +will be thrown out. + +The second clipping, found in the personal column of the _Banner_ of +the date referred to, February 12, 1904, follows:-- + + "Mrs. John Barclay and Miss Barclay are on the steamer _Etruria_ + which was sighted off Fire Island to-day. They will spend a few + weeks in New York, and early in March Miss Barclay will enter the + state university to do some post-graduate work in English, and Mrs. + Barclay will return to Sycamore Ridge. Mr. Barclay will meet them at + the pier, and they expect to spend the coming two weeks attending + German opera. Mrs. Mary Barclay left to-day for the East to join + them. She will remain a month visiting relatives near Haverhill, + Mass." + +It becomes necessary to append some letters of Miss Jeanette +Barclay's, and they are set down here in the order in which they were +written, though the first one takes the reader back a few weeks to +December 5, 1903. It was posted at Rome, and in the body of it are +found these words:-- + + "My dear, I know you will smile when you hear I have been reading + all the Italian scientific books I can find, dealing with the human + brain--partly to help my Italian, but chiefly, I think, to see if I + can find and formulate some sort of a definition for love. It is so + much a part of my soul, dear heart, that I would like to know more + about it. And I am going to write down for you what I think it is as + we know it. I have been wearing your ring nearly three years, Neal, + and if you had only known it, I would have been happy to have taken + it a year sooner. In those four years I have grown from a girl to a + woman, and you have become a man full grown. In that time all my + thoughts have centred on you. In all my schoolbooks your face comes + back to me as I open them in fancy. As I think of the old room at + school, of my walk up the hill, as I think of home and my room + there, some thought of you is always between me and the picture. All + through my physical brain are little fibres running to every centre + that bring up images of you. You are woven into my life, and I know + in my heart that I am woven into your life. The thing is done; it is + as much apart of my being as my blood--those million fibres of my + brain that from every part of my consciousness bring thoughts of + you. We cannot be separated now, darling--we are united for life, + whether we unite in life or not. I am yours and you are mine. It is + now as inexorable as anything we call material. More than that--you + have made my soul. All the aspirations of my spiritual life go to + you for beginning and for being as truly as the fibres of my brain + thrill to the sound of your name or the mental image of your face. + My soul is your soul, because in the making the thought of you was + uppermost. I know that my love for you is immortal, ineffaceable, + and though I should live a hundred years, that love would still be + as much a part of my life as my hands or my eyes or my body. And the + best of it all is that I am so glad it is so. Divorce is as + impossible with a love like that as amputation of the brain. It is + big and vital in me, real and certain, and so long as I live on + earth, or dwell in eternity, my soul and your soul are knit + together." + +Three weeks later, on December 28, 1903, Miss Barclay wrote to Mr. +Ward as follows:-- + + "Your letter and father's letter were on my desk when we returned + from our cruise. I have just finished writing to him, and I herewith + return your ring and your pin." + +There was neither signature nor superscription--just those words. And +a month later, Miss Barclay wrote this letter to her Grandmother +Barclay in Sycamore Ridge:-- + + "MY DEAR, DEAR GRANNY: I have told mother what you wrote of father, + and we are coming home just as soon as we can get a steamer. We are + cabling him to-day, and hope to sail within a week or ten days at + the very farthest. But I cannot wait until I see you, dear, to come + close into your heart. And first of all I want you to know that I + share your views about the heart-break of all this money and the + miserable man-killing way it is being piled up. I know the two men + you speak of--father and the president of the N.P.C. But he is my + father, and I must stand by him, and brace him if I can. But, oh, + Granny, I don't want the old money! It has never made me + happy--never for one minute. The only happiness I have ever had was + when he was at home with us all, away from business--and--but you + know about that other happiness, and it hurts to speak of it now. I + have not read what you sent me. I can't. But I will keep it. That it + is true doesn't help me any. Nothing can help me. It is just one of + those awful things that I have read of coming to people, but which I + thought never could possibly come to me. Oh, Granny, Granny, you who + pray so much for others, now pray for me. Granny, you can't cut + something out of you--right out of the heart of you, by merely + saying so; it keeps growing back; it hurts, and hurts, and keeps + hurting; even if you know it is cut out and thrown away. They say + that men who have had legs cut off can feel them for months and even + years if they are cramped when they are buried. The nerves of the + old dead body reach through space and hurt. It is that way with me. + The old dead thing in my heart that is buried and gone keeps + cramping and hurting. You are the only one I can come to, Granny. It + hurts mother too much, and she is not strong this winter. I think it + is worry. She is growing thin, and her heart doesn't act right. I am + terribly worried about her; but she made me promise to say nothing + to father, and you must not, either; for he will see for himself + soon." + +A few letters from Neal Ward to Jeanette Barclay, and a document some +twenty years old, which the reader may have forgotten, but which one +person connected with this narrative has feared would come to light +every day in that time--and then this tedious business of introducing +documentary evidence will be over. The letter from Neal Ward to +Jeanette Barclay is one of hundreds that he wrote and never mailed. +They were dated, sealed, addressed, and put away. This one was written +at midnight as the bells and whistles and pistols and fireworks were +welcoming the year 1904. It begins:-- + + "MY VERY DEAREST: Here I am sitting at the old desk again, in the + old office of the _Banner_. I could only scribble you a little note + on the train last night to tell you that my heart still was with + you, and I did not have the time to explain why I was coming. It is + a dead secret, little woman, and perhaps I shouldn't tell even you, + but I feel that I must bring everything to you. Bob Hendricks wired + me to come down. He has a mortgage on the _Banner_, and he feels + that things are not being properly managed, so he persuaded Mr. + Brownwell to give me a place as sort of manager of the paper at + twenty dollars a week--a sum that seems princely considering that I + was making only eighteen dollars in Chicago, and that it costs so + much less to live here. Hendricks guarantees my wages, so that + Adrian cannot stand me off. Hendricks has another motive for wanting + me to come here. The waterworks franchise will come up for renewal + June first of this year, and Mr. Hendricks is for municipal + ownership. Carnine and the State Bank are against municipal + ownership, because the water company does business with them, and as + they control the _Index_, they are preparing to make a warm fight + for the renewal of the old franchise. So there will be a hot time in + the old town this spring. But the miserable part of it is this. The + growth of the town has made it dangerous to use the present supply + station. The water must not come out of the mill-pond any longer, as + the town is tilted so that all the surface drainage goes into it, + and the sewers that drain into it, while they drain a few hundred + yards below the intake of the waterworks, cannot help tainting the + whole pond. Mr. Hendricks has had an expert here who declared that + both the typhoid and diphtheria epidemics here last fall were due + directly to the water supply, and Mr. Hendricks is going to make the + fight of his life to have the city buy the waterworks plant, and + move the intake six miles above town, where there is plenty of clean + water. Of course it will mean first a city election to get decent + councilmen, and then a bond election to vote money to buy the old + plant; the waterworks company are going to move heaven and earth to + get an anti-Hendricks council elected and to renew the franchise and + let things go as they are. So that is why I am here, dear heart, and + oh, my darling, you do not know how painful it all seems to be here + and not have you--I mean--you know what I mean. All my associations + with the work here in the office and on the street are with my heart + close to yours. Everything in the old town tells me of you. 'Saint + Andrews by the Northern sea, a haunted city is to me.' To-night I + hear the music of the New Year's dance, and I can shut my eyes and + feel you with me there. Oh, sweetheart, I have kept you so close, by + writing to you every night. I come and lay my heart and all its + thoughts at your shrine, and put all my day's work before you for + your approval, just as I used to do. It is so sweet a privilege. + + "Last night I dreamed about you. It was so real and your voice + sounded so clearly, crying to me, that you have been with me all + day. I wonder if while we sleep, we whose souls would struggle to + meet through eternity, if through the walls of space they may not + find each other, and speak to each other through our dreams. It is + midnight here now, and you are just waking, perhaps, or just + sleeping that sleep of early morning wherein the soul sinks to + unknown depths. Oh--oh--oh, if I could but speak to you there, my + dear! I am going to sit here and close my eyes and try." + +The next letter in the exhibit was written six weeks later and is +dated February 12, 1904. It says in part:-- + + "I must tell you what a bully fellow Bob Hendricks is. Judge Bemis + sent a highly laudatory article about himself to the office to-day + with a check for fifty dollars. In the article it develops that he + is going to retire from the federal bench and come down here and buy + the waterworks plant--on the theory that he will get a bargain + because of the expiring franchise and the prospective fight. That + fifty dollars looked as big as a barn to poor Adrian, so he trotted + off with the letter and the check to Hendricks. Of course, the + letter and the check together, just framed and put in the bank + window, would make great sport of the judge; but Bob is a + thoroughbred, and probably Bemis knows it, and figures on that in + his dealings with him. I was in the bank when Adrian came in with + the letter. He showed the check and the article to Hendricks, and + you could almost see Adrian wag his tail and hear him whine to keep + the check; Bob looked at the poor fellow's wistful eyes and handed + it back with a quizzical little smile and said, 'Oh, I guess I'd run + it; it can't hurt anything.' The light that came into Adrian's eyes + was positively beatific, and he shook Bob by the hand, and twirled + his cane, and waved his gloves in a sort of canine ecstasy, and + trotted to the cashier's window with the check like a dog with a + bone. It is the largest piece of real money he has had in six + months, the boys say, and he has spent it for clothes. To-morrow he + will hurry off to the first convention in the city like a comet two + centuries behind time. But that is beside the point; the thing I + don't like is the coming of Bemis. I know him; the things I have + seen him do in your father's business and when he was on the bench, + make me shudder for decent politics in this town. He is shrewd, + unscrupulous, and without any restraint on earth. + + "I feel closer to you than I have felt since I put the barrier + between us. For you are in this country to-night--I could go to the + telephone there five feet away and reach you if I would. I looked + to-day in the papers and saw that they would be giving Lohengrin at + the Metropolitan Opera House, and knowing your father as I do, I + think he will take you there. I can hear the music rising and see + you drinking in the harmony, and as it swells into exquisite pain, + and thrills through the holy places of your soul where are old + memories of our love, sweetheart, maybe your spirit will go forth in + God's strange universe where we all dwell neighbours, loosed from + those material chains that bind our bodies, and will seek the heart + that is searching for you out there in the highway of heaven. I seem + to feel you now, dear soul--did the music fling your spirit free for + a second till it touched my own? I am so happy, Jeanette--even to + love you and to know that you have loved me, and must always love me + while you are you and I am I." + +And now let us consider the final exhibit. It will be necessary to +turn back the action of this story a month and a half and sit with +John Barclay and his friend, former federal judge Elijah Westlake +Bemis, before the fire in the wide fireplace in the Barclay home, one +cold January night, a week after Barclay had gone free from the court +and the world had hissed him. They were talking of the judge's +business future, and the judge was saying:-- + +"John, how did Bob Hendricks ever straighten out that affair in the +treasurer's office in connection with the first year's taxes of the +old Wheat Company? What did he do with it finally?" + +Barclay looked at the fire and then turned his searchlight eyes into +Bemis's. There was not a quiver. The man sat there without a muscle of +his parchment face moving. His eyes were squinted up, looking at the +tip of his long cigar. + +"Why?" asked Barclay. + +"Well," responded Bemis, impassive as an ox, "it would help me in my +business to know. Tell me." + +He spoke the last two words as one in authority. + +"Well," answered Barclay, "one day back in the seventies, I was +appointed to check up the treasurer's book, and I found where he had +fixed it on the county books--apparently between two administrations. +I recognized his hand; and it made the balance for the first time." + +Bemis smoked awhile. "What time in the seventies?" he asked. + +There was a pause. "In January, 1879." + +Bemis grinned a wicked, mean little grin and said: "That settles it. I +believe I am safe in buying the waterworks." + +"What are you going to do to Bob?" Barclay asked. + +"Nothing, nothing--absolutely nothing, if he has any sense and drops +this municipal ownership tommyrot. Absolutely nothing." + +Again the grin came over his face, and at the end of a pause Barclay +said:-- + +"Well, if not, what then?" + +Bemis shut his eyes and crossed his gaunt legs, and began: "Think back +twenty years ago--more or less. Do you remember when I brought your +car down here for Watts McHurdie and his crowd to go to Washington in, +to the G.A.R. celebration? All right; do you remember that I came to +the office and told you I saw Bob Hendricks waiting for some one at +the Union Station, when the train got into the city that morning?" + +"Yes," said Barclay, "you were so mysterious and funny about it, I +remember." + +"Well," said Bemis, as he got up and poked a log that was annoying him +in the fireplace, "well, I have a little document in my desk at home, +that I got the night before in the Ridge, which will convince Bobbie, +if he has any sense, that this municipal ownership business isn't all +it's cracked up to be." + +Barclay, who knew from Jane something of the truth, guessed the rest, +but he did not question Bemis further. "Oh, I don't know, Lige," he +began; "it seems to me I wouldn't drag that into it." + +Bemis turned his old face, full of malicious passion, toward Barclay +and cried, "Maybe you wouldn't, John Barclay--you forget things; but +I never do; and you're a coward sometimes, and I am not." + +The blaze of his wrath went out in a moment, and Barclay's mind went +back to that afternoon in the seventies when Hendricks picked Bemis up +and threw him bodily from the county convention and branded him as a +boodler. Barclay knew argument was useless. So he said nothing. + +"He has the county officers--every man-jack of them from the +treasurer to Jake Dolan, the janitor--and I couldn't get hold of that +book by fair means without his knowing it. But I am going to have that +book, John--I'm going to have that book." + +Barclay followed Bemis's mental processes, as if they were his own. +"Well--what if he does know it?" asked Barclay. + +"Oh, if he knew I was after the book, he'd fix me,--have it destroyed +or something; he could do lots of things or beat me some way. I've got +to get that book--get it out of the court-house--and there's just +one way to get into the court-house, without using the doors and the +windows." When Bemis had finished speaking, he gazed steadily into +Barclay's eyes. And Bemis saw the fear that was in Barclay's face. +"Yes, I know a way into the court-house, John--it's mine by fifty +years' right of discovery. I'm going to have that book, and get an +expert opinion as to the similarity of the handwriting in the book and +the handwriting of my own little document. My own little document," he +mused, licking his chops like a hound at the prospect. + +Now we will call that little document "Exhibit I" in the case of the +Larger Good _vs._ The People, and close thereby a long and tedious +chapter. But we will begin another chapter in which the wheels of +events spin rapidly in their courses toward that moral equilibrium +that deeds must find before they stop when they are started for the +Larger Good. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +The spring of 1904 in Sycamore Ridge opened in turmoil. The turmoil +came from the contest over the purchase of the town's water system. +Robert Hendricks as president of the Citizens' League was leading the +forces that advocated the purchase of the system by the town, as being +the only sure way to change the water supply from the polluted +mill-pond to a clean source. Six months before he had leased every +bill-board in town, and for the two months preceding the city election +that was to decide the question of municipal purchase he had hired +every available hall in town, for every vacant night during those +months, and had bought half of the first page of both the _Banner_ and +the _Index_ for those months--and all of this long before the town +knew the fight was coming. He covered the bill-boards and the first +pages of the newspapers with analyses of the water in the +mill-pond--badly infected from the outlet of the town sewers and its +surface drainage. The Citizens' League filled the halls with speakers +demanding the purchase of the plant and the removal of the pumping +station to a place several miles above the town, and four beyond the +mill-pond. Judge Bemis, with the aid and abetment of John Barclay, who +was in the game to help his old friend, put up banners denouncing +Hendricks as a socialist, accusing him of being the town boss, and +charged through the columns of the _Index_ that Hendricks' real motive +in desiring to have the city take over the waterworks system was to +make money on the sale of the city's bonds. So Hendricks was the +centre of the fight. + +In the first engagement, a malicious contest, Hendricks lost. The town +refused to vote the bonds to buy the plant. But at the same election +the same people elected a city council overwhelmingly in favour of +municipal ownership and in favour of compelling the operating company +to move its plant from the mill-pond. The morning after the election +Hendricks began a lawsuit as a taxpayer and citizen to make the +waterworks company move its plant. The town could understand that +issue, and sentiment rallied to Hendricks again. Judge Bemis, at the +head of the company, although irritated, was not alarmed. For in the +courts he could promote delays, plead technicalities, and wear out his +adversary. It was an old game with him. Still, the suit disturbed the +value of his bonds, and having other resources, he gleefully decided +to use them. + +And thus it fell out that one fine day in April, Trixie Lee, from the +bedraggled outer hem of the social garment down by the banks of the +Sycamore, called to the telephone Robert Hendricks of the town's +purple and fine linen, who dwelt on the hill. He did not recognize her +voice, the first time she called. But shrewd as Judge Bemis was, and +bad as he was, he did not know it all. He did not know that when +Hendricks had received the first anonymous letter three days before, +he had instructed the girls in the telephone office, which he +controlled, to make a record of every telephone call for his office or +his house, and when the woman's voice on the telephone that day +delivered Judge Bemis's message, the moment after she quit talking he +knew with whom he had been talking. + +"Is this Mr. Hendricks?" the voice had begun, rather pleasantly. Yes, +it was Mr. Hendricks. "Well, I am your friend, but I don't dare to let +you know my name now; it would be all my life is worth." And Robert +Hendricks grinned pleasantly into the rubber transmitter as he +realized that his trap would work. "Yes, Mr. Hendricks, I am your +friend, and you have a powerful enemy." What with the insinuations in +the _Index_ and the venom that Lige Bemis had been putting into +anonymous circulars during the preliminary waterworks campaign, this +was no news to Mr. Hendricks; so he let the voice go on, "They want +you to dismiss that suit against the waterworks company that you +brought last week." There was a pause for a reply; but none came; then +the voice said, "Are you there, Mr. Hendricks--do you hear me?" And +Mr. Hendricks said that he heard perfectly. "And," went on the voice, +"as your friend I wish you would, too. Do you remember a letter you +once wrote to a woman, asking her to elope with you--a married woman, +Mr. Hendricks?" There was a pause for a reply, and again the voice +asked, "Do you hear, Mr. Hendricks?" and Mr. Hendricks heard; heard in +his soul and was afraid, but his voice did not quaver as he replied, +"Yes, I hear perfectly." Then the voice went on, "Well, they have that +letter--a little note--not over one hundred words, and with no date +on it, and the man who has it also has a photograph of page 234 of a +certain ledger in the county treasurer's office for 1879, and there is +an entry there in your handwriting, Mr. Hendricks; and he has had them +both enlarged to show that the handwriting of the note and of the +county book are the same; isn't that mean, Mr. Hendricks?" Hendricks +coughed into the transmitter, and she knew that he was there, so she +continued: "As your friend in this matter, I have got them to promise +that if you will come to the Citizens' League meeting that you have +called for to-morrow night at Barclay Hall and tell the people that +you think we need harmony in the Ridge worse than we need this +everlasting row, if you will merely say to Mr. Barclay as you pass +into the meeting, 'Well, John, I believe I'll dismiss that suit,' you +can have your letter back. He hasn't got the letter, but he will be +sure to tell the news to a friend who has." Here the voice faltered, +and said unconsciously, "Wait a minute, I've lost my place; oh, here +it is; all right. And if you don't come to the meeting and say that, I +believe they are going to spring those documents on the meeting to put +you in bad odour." + +"Is that all?" asked Hendricks. + +"Well--" a pause and then finally--"yes," came the voice. + +"Well, my answer is no," said Hendricks, and while he was trying to +get central the voice called again and said:-- + +"Just one word more: if you still maintain your present decision, a +copy of that letter you wrote will be put into the hands of Mr. +Brownwell of the _Banner_ before the meeting; I tell you this to +protect you. He and Mrs. Brownwell and Mrs. Barclay will be in town +to-morrow evening on the Barclay car from the West on No. 6; you will +have until then to reconsider your decision; after that you act at +your own risk." + +Again the voice ceased, and Hendricks learned from central who had +been talking with him. It was after banking hours, and he sat for a +time looking the situation squarely in the face. The reckoning had +come. He had answered "no" with much bravery over the telephone--but +in his heart a question began to rise, and his decision was clouded. + +Hendricks walked alone under the stars that night, and as he walked he +turned the situation over and over as one who examines a strange +puzzle. He saw that his "no" could not be his own "no." Molly must be +partner in it. For to continue his fight for clean water he must risk +her good name. He measured Bemis, and remembered the old quarrel. The +hate in the face of the bribe-giver, thrown out of the county +convention a quarter of a century before, came to Hendricks, and he +knew that it was no vain threat he was facing. So he turned up the +other facet of the puzzle. There was Adrian. For an hour he considered +Adrian Brownwell, a vain jealous old man with the temper of a beast. +To see Molly, tell her of their common peril, get her decision, and be +with it at the meeting before Adrian saw the note, all in the two +hours between the arrival of the train bearing the Brownwells and Mrs. +Barclay, and the time of the meeting in Barclay Hall, was part of +Hendricks' puzzle. He believed that by using the telephone to make an +appointment he could manage it. Then he turned the puzzle over and saw +that to save Molly Brownwell's good name and his father's, human lives +must be sacrificed by permitting the use of foul water in the town. +And in the end his mind set. He knew that unless she forbade it, the +contest must go on to a righteous finish, through whatever perils, +over any obstacles. Yet as he walked back to the bank, determined not +to take his hand from the plough, he saw that he must prepare to go +into the next day as though it were his last. For in his consciousness +on the other side of the puzzle--always there was the foolish Adrian, +impetuous at best, but stark mad in his jealousy and wrath. + +And Elijah Westlake Bemis, keeping account of the man's movements, +chuckled as he felt the struggle in the man's breast. For he was a +wise old snake, that Lige Bemis, and he had seduced many another man +after the brave impulsive "no" had roared in his face. Just before +midnight when he saw the electric light flash on in the private office +of the president of the Exchange National Bank, Lige Bemis, libertine +with men, strolled home and counted the battle won. "He's writing his +speech," he said to Barclay over the telephone at midnight. And John +Barclay, who had fought the local contest in the election with Bemis +to be loyal to a friend, and to help one who was in danger of losing +the profit on half a million dollars' investment in the Sycamore Ridge +waterworks, laughed as he walked upstairs in his pajamas, and said to +himself, "Old Lige is a great one--there is a lot of fight in the old +viper yet." It was nothing to Barclay that the town got its water from +a polluted pond. That phase of the case did not enter his +consciousness, though it was placarded on the bill-boards and had been +printed in the _Banner_ a thousand times during the campaign. To him +it was a fight by the demagogues against property interests, and he +was with property, even a little property--even a miserable little +dribble of property like half a million dollars' worth of waterworks +bonds. + +And Robert Hendricks--playfellow of John Barclay's boyhood, partner +of his youth--sat working throughout the night, a brave man, going +into battle without a tremor. He went through his books, made out +statements of his business relations, prepared directions for the +heads of his different concerns, as a man would do who might be going +on a long journey. For above everything, Robert Hendricks was +foresighted. He prepared for emergencies first, and tried to avoid +them afterwards. And with the thought of the smallness of this life in +his soul, he looked up from his work to see the hard gray lines of the +dawn in the street outside of his office, bringing the ugly details +from the shadows that hid them during the day, and he sighed as he +wondered in what bourne he should see the next dawn break. + +It was a busy day for Robert Hendricks, that next day, and through it +all his mind was planning every moment of the time how he could +protect Molly Brownwell. Did he work in the bank, behind his work his +mind was seeking some outlet from his prison. If he went over the +power-house at the electric plant, always he was looking among the +wheels for some way of refuge for Molly. When he spent an hour in the +office of the wholesale grocery house, he despatched a day's work, but +never for a second was his problem out of his head. He spent two hours +with his lawyers planning the suit against the water company, pointing +out new sources of evidence, and incidentally leaving a large check to +pay for the work. But through it all Molly Brownwell's good name was +ever before him, and when he thought how twenty years before he had +walked through another day planning, scheming, and contriving, all to +produce the climax of calamity that was hovering over her to-day, he +was sick and faint with horror and self-loathing. + +But as the day drew to its noon, Hendricks began to feel a persistent +detachment from the world about him. It floated across his +consciousness, like the shadow anchor of some cloud far above him. He +began to watch the world go by. He seemed not to be a part of it. He +became a spectator. At four o'clock he passed Dolan on the street and +said, absently, "I want you to-night at the bank at seven o'clock +sharp--don't forget, it's very important." + +As he walked down Main Street to the bank, the shadow anchor of the +cloud had ceased to flit across his consciousness. Life had grown all +gray and dull, and he was apart from the world. He saw the handbills +announcing the meeting that night as one who sees a curious passing +show; the men he met on the street he greeted as creatures from +another world. Yet he knew he smiled and spoke with them casually. But +it was not he who spoke; the real Robert Hendricks he knew was +separated from the pantomime about him. When he went into the bank at +five o'clock, the janitor was finishing his work. Hendricks called up +the depot on the telephone and found that No. 6 was an hour late. With +the realization that a full hour of his fighting time had been taken +from him and that the train would arrive only a scant hour before the +meeting, the Adrian face of his puzzle turned insistently toward +Hendricks. It was not fear but despair that seized him. The cloud was +over him. And for want of something to do he wrote. First he wrote +abstractedly and mechanically to John Barclay, then to Neal Ward--a +note for the _Banner_--and as the twilight deepened in the room, he +squared his chair to the table and wrote to Molly Brownwell; that +letter was the voice of his soul. That was real. Six o'clock struck. +Half-past six clanged on the town clock, and as Jake Dolan opened the +bank door, Hendricks heard the roar of the train crossing at the end +of Main Street. + +"There goes Johnnie's private car, switching on the tail of her," said +Dolan, standing in the doorway. + +Hendricks sent Dolan to a back room of the bank, and at seven-twenty +went to the telephone. "Give me 876, central," he called. +"Hello--hello--hello," he cried nervously, "hello--who is this?" +The answer came and he said, "Oh, I didn't recognize your voice." Then +he asked in a low tone, as one who had fear in his heart: "Do you +recognize me? If you do, don't speak my name. Where is Adrian?" Then +Mr. Dolan, listening in the next room, heard this: "You say Judge +Bemis phoned to him? Oh, he was to meet him at eight o'clock. How long +ago did he leave?" After a moment Hendricks' answer was: "Then he has +just gone; and will not be back?" Hendricks cut impatiently into +whatever answer came with: "Molly, I must see you within the next +fifteen minutes. I can't talk any more over the telephone, but I must +come up." "Yes," in a moment, "I must have your decision in a matter +of great importance to you--to you, Molly." There was a short +silence, then Dolan heard: "All right, I'll be there in ten minutes." +Then Hendricks turned from the telephone and called Dolan in. He +unlocked a drawer in his desk, and began speaking to Dolan, who stood +over him. Hendricks' voice was low, and he was repressing the +agitation in his heart by main strength. + +"Jake," he said, talking as rapidly as he could, "I must be ungodly +frank with you. It doesn't make any difference whether he is right or +not, but Adrian Brownwell may be fooled into thinking he has reason to +be jealous of me." Hendricks was biting his mustache. "He's a raging +maniac of jealousy, Jake, but I'm not afraid of him--not for myself. +I can get him before he gets me, if it comes to that, but to do it +I'll have to sacrifice Molly. And I won't do that. If it comes to her +good name or my life--she can have my life." They were outside now +and Dolan was unhitching the horse. He knew instinctively that he was +not to reply. In a moment Hendricks went on, "Well, there is just one +chance in a hundred that it may turn that way--her good name or my +life--and on that chance I've written some letters here." He reached +in his coat and said, "Now, Jake, put these letters in your pocket and +if anything goes wrong with me, deliver them to the persons whose +names are on the envelopes--and to no one else. I must trust +everything to you, Jake," he said. + +Driving up the hill, he met Bemis coming down town. He passed people +going to the meeting in Barclay Hall. He did not greet them, but drove +on. His jaw was set hard, and the muscles of his face were firm. As he +neared the Culpepper home he climbed from the buggy and hitched the +horse to the block in front of his own house. He hurried into the +Culpepper yard, past the lilac bushes heavy with blooms, and up the +broad stone steps with the white pillars looming above him. It was a +quarter to eight, and at that minute Bemis was saying to Adrian +Brownwell, "All right, if you don't believe it, don't take my word for +it, but go home right now and see what you find." + +Molly Brownwell met Hendricks on the threshold with trembling steps. +"Bob, what is it?" she asked. They stood in the shadow of the great +white pillars, where they had parted a generation ago. + +"It's this, Molly," answered Hendricks, as he put his hand to his +forehead that was throbbing with pain; "Lige Bemis has my letter to +you. Yes," he cried as she gasped, "the note--the very note, and to +get it I must quit the waterworks fight and go to the meeting to-night +and surrender. I had no right to decide that alone. It is our +question, Molly. We are bound by the old life--and we must take this +last stand together." + +The woman shrank from Hendricks with horror on her face, as he +personified her danger. She could not reply at once, but stood staring +at him in the dusk. As she stared, the feeling that she had seen it +all before in a dream came over her, and the premonition that some +awful thing was impending shook her to the marrow. + +"Molly, we have no time to spare," he urged. "I must answer Bemis in +ten minutes--I can do it by phone. But say what you think." + +"Why--why--why--Bob--let me think," she whispered, as one trying +to speak in a dream, and that also seemed familiar to her. "It's +typhoid for my poor who died like sheep last year," she cried, "or my +good name and yours, is it, Bob? Is it, Bob?" she repeated. + +He put his hand to his forehead again in the old way she remembered so +well--to temples that were covered with thin gray hair--and +answered, "Yes, Molly, that's our price." + +Those were the last words that she seemed to have heard before; after +that the dialogue was all new to her. She was silent a few agonized +seconds and then said, "I know what you think, Bob; you are for my +poor; you are brave." He did not answer, fearing to turn the balance. +As she sank into a porch chair a rustling breeze moved the lilac +plumes and brought their perfume to her. From down the avenue came the +whir of wheels and the hurrying click of a horse's hoofs. At length +she rose, and said tremulously: "I stand with you, Bob. May God make +the blow as light as He can." + +They did not notice that a buggy had drawn up on the asphalt in front +of the house. Hendricks put out his hand and cried, "Oh, +Molly--Molly--Molly--" and she took it in both of hers and pressed +it to her lips, and as Adrian Brownwell passed the lilac thicket in +the gathering darkness that is what he saw. Hendricks was halfway down +the veranda steps before he was aware that Brownwell was running up +the walk at them, pistol in hand, like one mad. Before the man could +fire, Hendricks was upon him, and had Brownwell's two hands gripped +tightly in one of his, holding them high in the air. The little man +struggled. + +"Don't scream--for God's sake, don't scream," cried Hendricks to the +woman in a suppressed voice. Then he commanded her harshly, "Go in the +house--quick--Molly--quick." + +She ran as though hypnotized by the force of the suggestion. Hendricks +had his free hand over Brownwell's mouth and around his neck. The +little old man was kicking and wriggling, but Hendricks held him. "Not +here, you fool, not here. Can't you see it would ruin her, you fool? +Not here." He carried and dragged Brownwell across the grass through +the shrubbery and into the Hendricks yard. No one was passing, and the +night had fallen. "Now," said Hendricks, as he backed against a pine +tree, still holding Brownwell, "I shall let you go if you'll promise +to listen to me just a minute until I tell you the whole truth. Molly +is innocent, man--absolutely innocent, and I'll show you if you'll +talk for a moment. Will you promise, man?" + +Brownwell nodded his assent; Hendricks looked at him steadily for a +second and then said, "All right," and set the little man on his feet. +The glare of madness came into Brownwell's eyes, and as he turned he +came at Hendricks with his pistol drawn. An instant later there was a +shot. Brownwell saw the amazement flash into Hendricks' eyes, and then +Hendricks sank gently to the foot of the pine tree. + +And Molly Brownwell, with the paralysis of terror still upon her, +heard the shot and then heard footsteps running across the grass. A +moment later her husband, empty-handed, chattering, shivering, and +white, stumbled into the room. Rage had been conquered by fear. For an +agonized second the man and woman stared at one another, +speechless--then the wife cried:-- + +"Oh--oh--why--why--Adrian," and her voice was thick with fear.-- + +The man was a-tremble--hands, limbs, body--and his mad eyes seemed +to shrink from the woman's gaze. "Oh, God--God--oh, God--" he +panted, and fell upon his face across the sofa. They heard a hurrying +step running toward the Hendricks house, there came a frightened, +choked cry of "Help!" repeated twice, another and another sound of +pattering feet came, and five minutes after the quaking man had +entered the door the whole neighbourhood seemed to be alive with +running figures hurrying silently through the gloom. The thud of feet +and the pounding of her heart, and the whimpering of the little man +who lay, face down, on the sofa, were the only sounds in her ears. She +started to go with the crowd. But Adrian screamed to her to stay. + +"Oh," he cried, "he sank so softly--he sank so softly--he sank so +softly! Oh, God, oh, God--he sank so softly!" + +And the next conscious record of her memory was that of Neal Ward +bursting into the room, crying, "Aunt Molly--Aunt Molly--do you know +Mr. Hendricks has committed suicide? They've found him dead with a +pistol by his side. I want some whiskey for Miss Hendricks. And they +need you right away." + +But Molly Brownwell, with what composure she could, said, "Adrian is +sick, Neal--I can't--I can't leave him now." And she called after +Neal as he ran toward the door, "Tell them, Neal, tell them--why I +can't come." There was a hum of voices in the air, and the sound of a +gathering crowd. Soon the shuffle and clatter of a thousand feet made +it evident that the meeting at Barclay Hall had heard the news and was +hurrying up the hill. The crowd buzzed for an hour, and Molly and +Adrian Brownwell waited speechless together--he face downward on the +sofa, she huddled in a chair by the window. And then the crowd broke, +slowly, first into small groups that moved away together and then +turned in a steady stream and tramped, tramped, tramped down the hill. + +When the silence had been unbroken a long time, save by the rumble of +a buggy on the asphalt or by the footsteps of some stray passerby, the +man on the sofa lifted his head, looked at his wife and spoke, "Well, +Molly?" + +"Well, Adrian," she answered, "this is the end, I suppose?" + +He did not reply for a time, and when he did speak, it was in a dead, +passionless voice: "Yes--I suppose so. I can't stay here now." + +"No--no," she returned. "No, you should not stay here." + +He sat up and stared vacantly at her for a while and then said, +"Though I don't see why I didn't leave years and years ago; I knew all +this then, as well as I do now." The wife looked away from him as she +replied: "Yes, I should have known you would know. I knew your secret +and you--" + +"My secret," said Adrian, "my secret?" + +"Yes--that you came North with your inherited money because when you +were in the Confederate army you were a coward in some action and +could not live among your own people." + +"Who told you," he asked, "who told you?" + +"The one who told you I have always loved Bob; life has told me that, +Adrian. Just as life has told you my story." They sat without speaking +for a time, and then the woman sighed and rose. "Two people who have +lived together twenty-five years can have no secrets from each other. +In a thousand, ways the truth comes out." + +"I should have gone away a long time ago," he repeated, "a long time +ago; I knew it, but I didn't trust my instincts." + +"Here comes father," she said, as the gate clicked. + +They stood together, listening to the slow shuffle of the colonel +coming up the walk, and the heavy fall of his cane. The wife put out +her hand and said gently, "I think I have wronged you, Adrian, more +than any one else." + +He did not take her hand but sighed, and turned and went up the wide +stairway. He was an old man then, and she remembered the years when he +tripped up gayly, and then she looked at her own gray hair in the +mirror and saw that her life was spent too. + +As the colonel came in gasping asthmatically, he found his daughter +waiting for him. "Is Adrian better?" he asked excitedly. "Neal said +Adrian was sick." + +"Yes, father, he's upstairs packing. He is going out on the four +o'clock train." + +"Oh," said the colonel, and then panted a moment before asking, "Has +any one told you how it happened?" + +"Yes," she replied, "I know everything. I think I'll run over there +now, father." As she stood in the doorway, she said, "Don't bother +Adrian--he'll need no help." + +And so Molly Brownwell passed the last night with her dead lover. +About midnight the bell rang and she went to the door. + +"Ah, madam," said Jacob Dolan, as he fumbled in his pockets, and tried +to breathe away from her to hide the surcease of his sorrow, "Ah, +madam," he repeated, as he suddenly thought to pull off his hat, "I +did not come for you--'twas Miss Hendricks I called for; but I have +one for you, too. He gave the bundle to me the last thing--poor lad, +poor lad." He handed her the letter addressed to Mrs. Brownwell, and +then asked, "Is the sister about?" + +And when he found she could not be seen he went away, and Molly +Brownwell sat by the dead man's body and read:-- + +"My darling--my darling--they will let a dead man say that to +you--won't they? And yet, so far as any thought of mine could sin +against you, I have been dead these twenty years. Yet I know that I +have loved you all that time, and as I sit alone here in the bank, and +take the bridle off my heart, the old throb of joy that we both knew +as children comes back again. It is such a strange thing--this +life--such a strange thing." Then there followed a burst of +passionate regret from the man's very heart, and it is so sacred to a +manly love that curbed itself for a score of years, that it must not +be set down here. + +Over and over Molly Brownwell read the letter and then crept out to +her lilac thicket and wept till dawn. She heard Adrian Brownwell go, +but she could not face him, and listened as his footsteps died away, +and he passed from her life. + +And John Barclay kept vigil for the dead with her. As he tossed in his +bed through the night, he seemed to see glowing out of the darkness +before him the words Hendricks had written, in the letter that Dolan +gave Barclay at midnight. Sometimes the farewell came to him:-- + +"It is not this man of millions that I wish to be with a moment +to-night, John--but the boy I knew in the old days--the boy who ran +with me through the woods at Wilson's Creek, the boy who rode over the +hill into the world with me that September day forty years ago; the +boy whose face used to beam eagerly out of yours when you sat playing +at your old melodeon. I wish to be near him a little while to-night. +When you get this, can't you go to your great organ and play him back +into consciousness and tell him Bob says good-by?" + +At dawn Barclay called Bemis out of bed, and before sunrise he and +Barclay were walking on the terrace in front of the Barclay home. + +"Lige," began Barclay, "did you tell Adrian of that note last night?" +Bemis grinned his assent. + +"And he went home, found Bob there conferring with Mrs. Brownwell +about his position in the matter, and Adrian killed him." + +"That's the way I figured it out myself," replied Bemis, laconically, +"but it's not my business to say so." + +"I thought you promised me you would just bluff with that note and not +go so far, Lige Bemis," said Barclay. + +"Did he just bluff with me when he called me a boodler and threw me +downstairs in the county convention?" + +"Then you lied to me, sir," snapped Barclay. + +"Oh, hell, John--come off," sneered Bemis. "Haven't I got a right to +lie to you if I want to?" + +The two men stared at each other like growling dogs for a moment, and +then Barclay turned away with, "What is there in the typhoid talk?" + +"Demagogery--that's all. Of course there may be typhoid in the water; +but let 'em boil the water." + +"But they won't." + +"Well, then, if they eat too much of your 'Old Honesty' or drink too +much of my water unboiled, they take their own risk. You don't make a +breakfast food for hogs, and I can't run my water plant for fools." + +"But, Lige," protested Barclay, "couldn't we hitch up the electric +plant--" + +"Hitch up the devil and Tom Walker, John Barclay. When the wolves got +after you, did I come blubbering to you to lay down and take a light +sentence?" Barclay did not answer. Bemis continued: "Brace up, +John--what's turned you baby when we've got the whole thing won? We +didn't kill Hendricks, did we? Are you full of remorse and going to +turn state's evidence?" + +Barclay looked at the ground for a time, and said: "I believe, Lige, +we did kill Bob--if it comes to that; and we are morally responsible +for--" + +"Oh, bag your head, John; I'm going home. When you can talk some +sense, let me know." + +And Bemis left Barclay standing in the garden looking at the sunrise +across the mill-pond. Presently the carrier boy with a morning paper +came around, and in it Barclay read the account of Hendricks' reported +suicide, corroborated by his antemortem statement, written and +delivered to Jacob Dolan an hour before he died. + +"When I took charge of the Exchange National Bank," it read, "I found +that my father owed Garrison County nine thousand dollars for another +man's taxes, which he, my father, had agreed to pay, but had no money +to do so. The other man insisted on my father forging a note to +straighten matters up. It seemed at that time that the bank would +close and the whole county would be ruined if my father had not +committed that deed. I could not put the money back into the treasury +without revealing my father's crime, so I let the matter run for a few +years, renewing the forged note, and then, as it seemed an +interminable job of forgery, I forged the balance on the county books, +one afternoon between administrations in 1879. Mr. E. W. Bemis, who is +trying to force polluted water on Sycamore Ridge, has discovered this +forgery and has threatened to expose me in that and perhaps other +matters. So I feel that my usefulness in the fight for pure water in +the town is ended. I leave funds to fight the matter in the courts, +and I feel sure that we will win." + +Barclay sat in the warm morning sun, reading and re-reading the +statement. Finally Jane Barclay, thin, broken and faded, on whom the +wrath of the people was falling with crushing weight, came into the +veranda, and put her hands on her husband's shoulders. + +"Come in, John, breakfast is ready." + +The woman whom the leprosy of dishonest wealth was whitening, walked +dumbly into the great house, and ate in silence. "I am going to +Molly," she said simply, as the two rose from their meal. "I think she +needs me, dear; won't you come, too?" she asked. + +"I can't, Jane--I can't," cried Barclay. And when his wife had +pressed him, he broke forth: "Because Lige Bemis made Adrian kill Bob +and I helped--" he groaned, and sank into his chair, "and I helped." + +When Neal Ward came to the office the next morning, he found Dolan +waiting for him. Ward opened the envelope that Dolan gave him, and +found in it the mortgage Hendricks had owned on the _Banner_ office, +assigned to Ward, and around the mortgage was a paper band on which +was written: "God bless you, my boy--keep up the fight; never say +die." + +Then Ward read Adrian Brownwell's valedictory that was hanging on a +copy spike before him. It was the heart-broken sob of an old man who +had run away from failure and sorrow, and it need not be printed here. + +On Memorial Day, when they came to the cemetery on the hill to +decorate the soldiers' graves, men saw that the great mound of lilacs +on Robert Hendricks' grave had withered. The seven days' wonder of his +passing was ended. The business that he had left prospered without +him, or languished and died; within a week in all but a dozen hearts +Hendricks' memory began to recede into the past, and so, where there +had been a bubble on the tide, that held in its prism of light for a +brief bit of eternity all of God's spectacle of life, suddenly there +was only the tide moving resistlessly toward the unknown shore. And +thus it is with all of us. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +In the summer of 1904, following the death of Robert Hendricks, John +Barclay spent much time in the Ridge, more time than he had spent +there for thirty years. For in the City he was a marked man. Every +time the market quivered, reporters rushed to get his opinion about +the cause of the disturbance; the City papers were full of stories +either of his own misdeeds, or of the wrong-doings of other men of his +caste. His cronies were dying all about him of broken hearts or +wrecked minds, and it seemed to him that the word "indictment" was in +every column of every newspaper, was on every man's lips, and +literally floated in the air. + +So he remained in Sycamore Ridge much of the time, and every fair +afternoon he rowed himself up the mill-pond to fish. He liked to be +alone; for when he was alone, he could fight the battle in his soul +without interruption. The combat had been gathering for a year; a +despair was rising in him, that he concealed from his womenkind--who +were his only intimate associates in those days--as if it had been a +crime. But out on the mill-pond alone, casting minnows for bass, he +could let the melancholy in his heart rage and battle with his sanity, +without let or hindrance. His business was doing well; the lawsuits +against the company in a dozen states were not affecting dividends, +and the department in charge of his charities was forwarding letters +of condolence and consolation from preachers and college presidents, +and men who under the old regime had been in high walks of life. +Occasionally some conservative newspaper or magazine would praise him +and his company highly; but he knew the shallowness of all the patter +of praise. He knew that he paid for it in one way or another, and he +grew cynical; and in his lonely afternoons on the river, often he +laughed at the whole mockery of his career, smiled at the thought of +organized religion, licking his boots for money like a dog for bones, +and then in his heart he said there is no God. Once, to relieve the +pain of his soul's woe, he asked aloud, who is God, anyway, and then +laughed as he thought that the bass nibbling at his minnow would soon +think he, John Barclay, was God. The analogy pleased him, and he +thought that his own god, some devilish fate, had the string through +his gills at that moment and was preparing to cast him into the fire. +Up in the office in the city, they went on making senators and +governors, and slipping a federal judge in where they could, but he +had little hand in it, for his power was a discarded toy. He sat in +his boat alone, rowing for miles and miles, from stump to stump, and +from fallen tree-top to tree-top, hating the thing he called God, and +distrusting men. + +But when he appeared in the town, or at home, he was cheerful enough; +he liked to mingle with the people, and it fed his despair to notice +what a hang-dog way they had with him. He knew they had been abusing +him behind his back, and when he found out exactly what a man had +said, he delighted in facing the man down with it. + +"So you think John Barclay could have saved Bob Hendricks' life, do +you, Oscar?" asked Barclay, as he overhauled Fernald coming out of the +post-office. + +"Who said so?" asked Fernald, turning red. + +"Oh," chuckled Barclay, "I got it from the hired girls' wireless news +agency. But you said it all right--you said it, Oscar; you said it +over to Ward's at dinner night before last." And Barclay grinned +maliciously. + +Fernald scratched his head, and said, "Well, John, to be frank with +you, that's the talk all over town--among the people." + +"The people--the people," snapped Barclay, impatiently, "the people +take my money for bridges and halls and parks and churches and statues +and then call me a murderer--oh, damn the people! Who started this +story?" + +"See Jake Dolan, John--it's up to him. He can satisfy you," said +Fernald, and turned, leaving Barclay in the street. + +Up the hill trudged the gray-clad little man, with his pugnacious +shoulders weaving and his bronzed face set hard and his mean jaw +locked. On the steps of the court-house he found Jake Dolan, smoking a +morning pipe with the loafers in the shade of the building. + +"Here you, Jake Dolan," called Barclay, "what do you mean by accusing +me of murdering Bob Hendricks? What did I have to do with it?" + +"Easy, easy, Johnnie, my boy," returned Dolan, knocking the ashes from +his pipe on the steps between his feet. "Gentlemen," said Dolan, +addressing the crowd, "you've heard what our friend says. All +right--come with me to my office, Johnnie Barclay, and I'll show +you." Barclay followed Dolan into the basement of the court-house, +with the crowd at a respectful distance. "Right this way--" and Dolan +switched on an electric light. "Do you see that break in the +foundation, Mr. Barclay? You do? And you know in your soul that it +opens into the cave that leads to the cellar of your own house. Well, +then, Mr. Johnnie Barclay--the book that contained the evidence +against Bob Hendricks did not go out of this court-house by the front +door, as you well know, but through that hole--stolen at night when I +was out; and the man who stole it was the horse thief that used to run +the cave--your esteemed friend, Lige Bemis." + +The crowd was gaping at the rickety place in the foundation, and one +man pulled a loose stone out and let the cold air of the cave into the +room. + +"Lige Bemis came to your house, Mr. Johnnie Barclay, got into the cave +from your cellar, broke through this wall, and stole the book that +contained the forgery made to cover General Hendricks' disgrace. And +who caused that disgrace but the overbearing, domineering John +Barclay, who made that old man steal to pay John Barclay's taxes, back +in the grasshopper year, when the sheriff and the jail were almost as +familiar to him as they are now,--by all counts. Ah, John Barclay," +said the Irishman, turning to the crowd, "John Barclay, John +Barclay--you're a brave little man sometimes; I've seen you when I +was most ungodly proud of you; I've seen you do grand things, my +little man, grand things. But you're a coward too, Johnnie; sitting in +your own house while your horse-thief friend used your cellar to work +out the disgrace of the man who gave his good name to save your +own--that was a fine trick--a damn fine trick, wasn't it, Mr. +Barclay?" + +Barclay started to go, but the crowd blocked his way. Dolan saw that +Barclay was trying to escape. "Turn tail, will you, my little man? +Wait one minute," cried Dolan. "Wait one minute, sir. For what was you +conniving against the big man? I know--to win your game; to win your +miserable little game. Ah, what a pup a man can be, Johnnie, what a +mangy, miserable, cowardly little pup a man can be when he tries--and +a decent man, too. Money don't mean anything to you--you got past +that, but it's to win the game. Why, man, look at yourself--look at +yourself--you'd cheat your own mother playing cards with matches for +counters--just to win the game." Dolan waved for the crowd to break. +"Let him out of here, and get out yourselves--every one of you. This +is public property you're desecrating." + +Dolan sat alone in his office, pale and trembling after the crowd had +gone. Colonel Culpepper came puffing in and saw the Irishman sitting +with his head in his hands and his elbows on the table. + +"What's this, Jake--what's this I hear?" asked the colonel. + +"Oh, nothing," answered Dolan, and then he looked up at the colonel +with sad, remorseful eyes. "What a fool--what a fool whiskey in a +man's tongue is--what a fool." He reached under his cot for his jug, +and repeated as he poured the liquor into a glass, "What a fool, what +a fool, what a fool." And then, as he gulped it down and made a wry +face, "Poor little Johnnie at the mill; I didn't mean to hit him so +hard--not half so hard. What a fool, what a fool," and the two old +men started off for the harness shop together. + +Neal Ward that night, in the _Banner_ office alone, wrote to his +sweetheart the daily letter that was never mailed. + + "How sweet it is," he writes, "to have you at home. Sometimes I hear + your voice through the old leaky telephone, talking to Aunt Molly; + her phone and ours are through the same board, and your voice seems + natural then, and unstrained, not as it is when we meet. But I know + that some way we are meeting--our souls--in the infinite realm + outside ourselves--beyond our consciousness--either sleeping or + waking. Last night I dreamed a strange dream. A little girl, like + one of the pictures in mother's old family photograph album, seemed + to be talking with me,--dressed so quaintly in the dear old fashion + of the days when mother taught the Sycamore Ridge School. She seemed + to be playing with me in some way, and then she said: 'Oh, yes, I am + your telephone; she knows all about it. I tell her every night as we + play together.' And then she was no longer a little girl but a most + beautiful soul and she said with great gentleness: 'In her heart she + loves you--in her heart she loves you. This I know, only she is + proud--proud with the Barclay pride; but in her heart she loves you; + is not that enough?' What a strange dream! I wonder where we are--we + who animate our bodies, when we sleep. What is sleep, but the proof + that death is but a sleep? Oh, Jeanette, Jeanette, come into my soul + as we sleep." + +He folded the letter, sealed and addressed it, and dated the envelope, +and put it in his desk--the desk before which Adrian Brownwell had +sat, eating his heart out in futile endeavour to find his place in the +world. Neal Ward had cleaned out one side of the desk, and was using +that for his own. Mrs. Brownwell kept her papers in the other side, +and one key locked them both. As he walked home that night under the +stars, his heart was full of John Barclay's troubles. Neal knew +Barclay well enough to know that the sensitive nature of the man, with +his strongly developed instinctive faculty for getting at the truth, +would be his curse in the turmoil or criticism through which he was +going. So a day or two later Neal was not surprised to find a long +statement in the morning press despatches from Barclay explaining and +defending the methods of the National Provisions Company. He proved +carefully that the notorious Door Strip saved large losses in transit +of the National Provisions Company's grain and grain produce, and +showed that in paying him for the use of these strips the railroad +companies were saving great sums for widowed and orphaned stockholders +of railroads--sums which would be his due for losses in transit if +the strips were not used. + +Neal Ward knew what it had cost Barclay in pride to give out that +statement; so the young man printed it on the first page of the +_Banner_ with a kind editorial about Mr. Barclay and his good works. +That night when the paper was off, and young Ward was working on the +books of his office, he was called to the telephone. + +"Is this you, Nealie Ward?" asked a woman's voice--the strong, clear, +deep voice of an old woman. And when he had answered, the voice went +on: "Well, Nealie, I wish to thank you for that editorial about John +to-night in the paper; I'm Mary Barclay. It isn't more than half true, +Nealie; and if it was all true, it isn't a fraction of what the truth +ought to be if John did what he could, but it will do him a lot of +good--right here in the home paper, and--Why, Jennie, I'm speaking +with Nealie Ward,--why, do you think I am not old enough to talk with +Nealie without breeding scandal?--as I was saying, my dear, it will +cheer John up a little, and heaven knows he needs something. +I'm--Jennie, for mercy sakes keep still; I know Nealie Ward and I +knew his father when he wasn't as old as Nealie--did his washing for +him; and boarded his mother four winters, and I have a right to say +what I want to to that child." The boy and the grandmother laughed +into the telephone. "Jennie is so afraid I'll do something improper," +laughed Mrs. Barclay. "Oh, yes, by the way--here's a little item for +your paper to-morrow: Jennie's mother is sick; I think it's typhoid, +but you can't get John to admit it. So don't say typhoid." Then with a +few more words she rang off. + +When the _Banner_ printed the item about Mrs. Barclay's illness, the +town, in one of those outbursts of feeling which communities often +have, seemed to try to show John Barclay the affection that was in +their hearts for the man who had grown up among them, and the family +that had been established under his name. Flowers--summer +flowers--poured in on the Barclays. Children came with wild flowers, +prairie flowers that Jane Barclay had not seen since she roamed over +the unbroken sod about Minneola as a girl; and Colonel Culpepper came +marching up the walk through the Barclay grounds, bearing his +old-fashioned bouquet, as grandly as an ambassador bringing a king's +gift. Jane Barclay sent word that she wished to see him. + +"My dear," said the colonel, as he held the flowers toward her, +"accept these flowers from those who have shared your bounty--from +God's poor, my dear; these are God's smiles that they send you from +their hearts--from their very hearts, my dear, from their poor hearts +wherein God's smiles come none too often." She saw through glistening +eyes the broken old figure, with his coat tightly buttoned on that +July day to hide some shabbiness underneath. But she bade the colonel +sit down, and they chatted of old times and old places and old faces +for a few minutes; and the colonel, to whom any sort of social +function was a rare and sweet occasion, stayed until the nurse had to +beckon him out of the room over Mrs. Barclay's shoulder. + +General Ward sent a note with a bunch of monthly blooming roses. + + "MY DEAR JANE (he wrote): These roses are from slips we got from + John's mother when we planted our little yard. This red one is from + the very bush on which grew the rose John wore at his wedding. Pin + it on the old scamp to-night, and see how he will look. He was a + dapper little chap that night, and the years have hardly begun their + work on him; or perhaps he is such a tough customer that he dulls + the chisel of time. I do not know, and so long as it is so, you do + not care, but we both know, and are both glad that of all the many + things God has sent you in thirty years, he has sent you nothing so + fine as the joy that came with the day John wore this rose for + you--a joy that has grown while the rose has faded. And may this + rose renew your joy for another thirty years." + +John read the note when he came in from the mill that evening, and +Jane watched the years slip off his face. He looked into the past as +it spread itself on the carpet near the bed. + +"Well, well, well," he said, as he smiled into the picture he saw, "I +remember as well the general bringing that rose down to the office +that morning, wrapped in blue tissue paper from cotton batting rolls! +The package was tied with fancy red braid that used to bind muslin +bolts." He laughed quietly, and asked, "Jane, do you remember that old +red braid?" The sick woman nodded. "Well, with the little blue package +was a note from Miss Lucy, which said that my old teacher could not +give me a present that year--times were cruelly hard then, you +remember--but that she could and did put the blessing of her prayers +on the rose, that all that it witnessed at my wedding would bring me +happiness." He sat for a moment in silence, and, as the nurse was +gone, he knelt beside the sick woman and kissed her. And as the wife +stroked his head she whispered, "How that prayer has been answered, +John--dear, hasn't it?" And the great clock in the silent hall below +ticked away some of the happiest minutes it had ever measured. + +But when he passed out of the sick room, the world--the maddening +press of affairs, and the combat in his soul--snapped back on his +shoulders with a mental click as though a load had fallen into its old +place. He stood before his organ, and could not press the keys. As he +sat there in the twilight made by the shaded electric lamps, the +struggle rose in his heart against the admission of anything into his +scheme of life but material things, and the conflict raged unchecked. +What a silliness, he said, to think that the mummery of a woman over a +rose could affect a life. Life is what the succession of the days +brings. The thing is or is not, he said to himself, and the gibber +about prayer and the moral force that moves the universe is for the +weak-minded. So he took his hell to bed with him as it went every +night, and during the heavy hours when he could not sleep, he tiptoed +into the sick room, and looked at the thin face of his wife, sleeping +a restless, feverish sleep, and a great fear came into his heart. + +Once as the morning dawned he asked the nurse whom he met in the hall, +"Is it typhoid?" + +She was a stranger to the town, and she said to him, "What does the +doctor tell you?" + +"That's not the point," he insisted. "What do you think?" + +She looked at him for an undecided moment and replied, "I'm not paid +to think, Mr. Barclay," and went past him with her work. But he knew +the truth. He went to his bed, and threw himself upon it, a-tremble +with remorse and fear, and the sneer in his heart stilled his lips and +he could not look outside himself for help. So the morning came, and +another day, bringing its thousand cares, faced him, like a jailer +with his tortures. + +Time dragged slowly in the sick room and at the mill. One doctor +brought another, and the Barclay private car went far east and came +flying back with a third. The town knew that Mrs. John Barclay was +dangerously sick. There came hopeful days when the patient's mind was +clear; on one of these days Mrs. McHurdie called, and they let her see +the sick woman. She brought some flowers. + +"In the flowers, Jane," she said, "you will find something from +Watts." Mrs. McHurdie smiled. "You know he sat up till 'way after +midnight last night, playing his accordion. Oh, it's been years since +he has touched it. And this morning when I got up, I found him sitting +by the kitchen table, writing. It's a poem for you." Mrs. McHurdie +looked rather sheepish as she said: "You know how Watts is, Jane; he +just made me bring it. You can read it when you get well." + +They hurried Mrs. McHurdie out, and when Jane Barclay went to sleep, +they found tears on her pillow, and in her hand the verses,--the +limping, awkward verses of an old man, whose music only echoed back +from the past. The nurses and the young doctor from Boston had a good +laugh at it. Each of the four stanzas began with two lines that asked: +"Oh, don't you remember the old river road, that ran through the +sweet-scented wood?" To them it was a curious parody on something old +and quaint that they had long since forgotten. But to the woman who +lay murmuring of other days, whose lips were parched for the waters of +brooks that had surrendered to the plough a score of years ago, the +halting verses of Watts McHurdie were laden with odours of grape +blossoms, of wild cucumbers and sumach, of elder blossoms, and the +fragrance of the crushed leaves of autumn. And the music of distant +ripples played in her feverish brain and the sobbing voice of the +turtle dove sang out of the past for her as she slept. All through the +day and the night and for many nights and days she whispered of the +trees and the running water and the wild grass and the birds. + +And so one morning when it was still gray, she woke and said to John, +who bent over her, "Why, dear, we are almost home; there are the +lights across the river; just one more hill, dearie, and then--" And +then with the water prattling in her ears at the last ford she turned +to the wall and sank to rest. + +Day after day, until the days and nights became a week and the week +repeated itself until nearly a month was gone, John Barclay, dry-eyed +and all but dumb, paced the terrace before his house by night, and by +day roamed through the noisy mill or wandered through his desolate +house, seeking peace that would not come to him. The whole foundation +of his scheme of life was crumbling beneath him. He had built +thirty-five years of his manhood upon the theory that the human brain +is the god of things as they are and as they must be. The structure of +his life was an imposing edifice, and men called it great and +successful. Yet as he walked his lonely way in those black days that +followed Jane's death, there came into his consciousness a strong, +overmastering conviction, which he dared not accept, that his house +was built on sand. For here were things outside of his plans, outside +of his very beliefs, coming into his life, bringing calamity, sorrow, +and tragedy with them into his own circle of friends, into his own +household, into his own heart. As he walked through the dull, lonely +hours he could not escape the vague feeling, though he fought it as +one mad fights for his delusion, that all the tragedies piling up +about him came from his own mistakes. Over and over again he threshed +the past. Molly Brownwell's cry, "You have sold me into bondage, John +Barclay," would not be stilled, though at times he could smile at it; +and the broken body and shamed face of her father haunted him like an +obsession. Night after night when he tried to sleep, Robert Hendricks' +letter burned in fire before his eyes, and at last so mad was the +struggle in his soul that he hugged these things to him that he might +escape the greater horror: the dreadful red headlines in the +sensational paper they had sent him from the City office which +screamed at him, "John Barclay slays his wife--Aids a water +franchise grab that feeds the people typhoid germs and his own wife +dies of the fever." He had not replied to the letter from the law +department of the Provisions Company which asked if he wished to sue +for libel, and begged him to do so. He had burned the paper, but the +headlines were seared into his brain. + +Over and over he climbed the fiery ladder of his sins: the death of +General Hendricks, the sacrifice of Molly Culpepper, the temptation +and fall of her father, the death of his boyhood's friend, and then +the headlines. These things were laid at his door, and over and over +again, like Sisyphus rolling the stones uphill, he swept them away +from his threshold, only to find that they rolled right back again. +And with them came at times the suspicion that his daughter's +unhappiness was upon him also. And besides these things, a hundred +business transactions wherein he had cheated and lied for money rose +to disturb him. And through it all, through his anguish and shame, the +faith of his life kept battling for its dominion. + +Once he sent for Bemis and tried to talk himself into peace with his +friend. He did not speak of the things that were corroding his heart, +but he sat by and heard himself chatter his diabolic creed as a +drunkard watches his own folly. + +"Lige," he said, "I'm sick of that infernal charities bureau we've +got. I'm going to abolish it. These philanthropic millionaires make me +sick at the stomach, Lige. What do they care for the people? They know +what I know, that the damn people are here to be skinned." He laughed +viciously and went on: "Sometimes I think we filthy rich are divided +into two classes: those of us who keep mistresses, and those of us who +have harmless little entanglements with preachers and college +presidents. Neither the lemon-haired women nor the college presidents +interfere with our business; they don't hamper us--not the slightest. +They just take our money, and for a few idle hours amuse us, and make +us feel that we are good fellows. As for me, I'll have neither women +nor college presidents purring around my ankles. I'm going to cut out +the philanthropy appropriation to-day." + +And he was as good as his word. But that did not help. The truth kept +wrenching his soul, and his feet blindly kept trying to find a path to +peace. + +It was late one night in August, and a dead moon was hanging in the +south, when, treading the terrace before his house, he saw a shadow +moving down the stairway in the hall. At first his racked nerves +quivered, but when he found that it was his mother, he went to meet +her, exclaiming as he mounted the steps to the veranda, "Why, mother, +what is it--is anything wrong?" + +Though it was past midnight, Mary Barclay was dressed for the day. She +stood in the doorway with the dimmed light behind her, a tall, strong +woman, straight and gaunt as a Nemesis. "No, John--nothing is +wrong--in the house." She walked into the veranda and began as she +approached a chair, "Sit down, John; I wish to talk with you." + +"Well, mother--what is it?" asked the son, as he sat facing her. + +She paused a moment looking earnestly at his face and replied, "The +time has come when we must talk this thing out, John, soul to soul." + +He shrank from what was coming. His instinct told him to fight away +the crisis. He began to palaver, but his mother cut him short, as she +exclaimed:-- + +"Why don't you let Him in, John?" + +"Let who in?" asked her son. + +"You know Whom, John Barclay; that was your grandfather speaking then, +the old polly foxer. You know, my boy. Don't you remember me bending +over the town wash-tub when you were a child, Johnnie? Don't you +remember the old song I used to sing--of course you do, child--as I +rubbed the clothes on the board: 'Let Him in, He is your friend, let Him +in, He is your friend; He will keep you to the end--let--Him--in!' Of +course you remember it, boy, and you have been fighting Him with all +your might for six months now, and since Jane went, the fight is driving +you crazy--can't you see, John?" + +The son did not reply for a moment, then he said, "Oh, well, mother, +that was all right in that day, but--" + +"John Barclay," cried the mother sternly, as she leaned toward him, +"the faith that bore your father a martyr to the grave, sustained me +in this wilderness, and kept me happy as I scrubbed for your bread, +shall not be scoffed in my presence. We are going to have this thing +out to-night. I, who bore you, and nursed you, and fed you, and staked +my soul on your soul, have some rights to-night. Here you are, +fifty-four years old, and what have you done? You've killed your +friend and your friend's father before him--I know that, John. You've +wrecked the life of the sister of your first sweetheart, and put fear +and disgrace in her father's face forever--forever, John Barclay, as +long as he lives. I know that too; I haven't been wrapped in pink +cotton all these years, boy--I've lived my own life since you left my +wing, and made my own way too, as far as that goes. And now you are +trying to quench the fires of remorse in your soul because your wife +died a victim of your selfish, ruthless, practical scheme of things. +More than that, my son--more than that, your child is suffering all +the agony that a woman can suffer because of your devilish system of +traffic in blood for money. You know what I mean, John. That boy told +the truth, as you admit, and he could either run or lie, and for being +a man you have broken up a God-sent love merely to satisfy your own +vanity. Oh, John--John," she cried passionately, "my poor, blind, +foolish boy--haven't you found the ashes in the core of your faith +yet--aren't you ready to quit?" + +He began, "Don't you think, mother, I have suffered--" + +"Suffered, boy? Suffered? Of course you have suffered, John," she +answered, taking his hands in hers. "I have seen the furnace fires +smoking your face, and I know you have suffered, Johnnie; that's why I +am coming to you--to ask you to quit suffering. Look at it, my +boy--what are you suffering for? Is it material power you want? Well, +you have never had it. The people are going right along running their +own affairs in spite of you. All your nicely built card houses are +knocked over. In the states and in the federal government, in spite of +your years of planning and piecing out your little practical system, +at the very first puff of God's breath it goes to pieces. The men whom +you bought and paid for don't stay bought--do they, my boy? Oh, your +old mother knows, John. Men who will sell are never worth buying; and +the house that relies on them, falls. You have built a sand dam, +son--like the dams you used to build in the spring stream when you +were a child. It melts under pressure like straw. You have no worldly +power. In this practical world you are a failure, and good old Phil +Ward, who went out into the field and scattered seeds of discontent at +your system--he is seeing his harvest ripen in his old age, John," +she cried. "Can't you see your failure? Look at it from a practical +standpoint: what thing in the last thirty years have you advocated, +and Philemon Ward opposed, that to-day he has not realized and you +lost? His prescription for the evils may have been wrong many times, +but his diagnosis of them was always right, and they are being cured, +in spite of all your protest that they did not exist. Which of you has +won his practical fight in this practical world--his God or your God; +the ideal world or the material world, boy? Can't you see it?" The old +woman leaned forward and looked in her son's dull, unresponsive face. +"Can't you see how you have failed?" she pleaded. + +They rose together and began to pace the long floor of the veranda. +"Oh, mother," he cried, as he put his arm about her, "I am so +lonely--so tired, so sick in the heart of me." + +They didn't speak for a time, but walked together in silence. At +length the mother began again. "John," she said, as they turned at the +end of the porch, "I suppose you are saying that you have your +money--that it is material--solid, substantial, and undeniable. But +is it? Isn't it all a myth? Leave it where it is--in the shape of +securities and stocks and credits--what will it do? Will it bring +Jane back? Will it give Jeanette her heart's desire, and make her +happy all her life? You know, dear, that it will only make me +miserable. Has it made you happy, John? Turn it into gold and pile it +up in the front yard--and what will it buy that poor Phil Ward has +not had all of his life--good food, good clothing--good enough, at +least--a happy family, useful children, and a good name? A good name, +John, is rather to be chosen than great riches--than all your money, +my son--rather to be chosen than all your money. Can you buy that +with your millions piled on millions?" + +They were walking slowly as she spoke, and they turned into the +terrace. There they stood looking at the livid moon sinking behind the +great house. + +"Is there more joy in this house than in any other house in town, +John--answer me squarely, son--answer me," she cried. He shook his +head sadly and sighed. "A mother, whose heart bleeds every hour as she +sees her son torturing himself with footless remorse; that is one. A +heart-broken, motherless girl, whose lover has been torn away from her +by her father's vanity and her own pride, and whose mother has been +taken as a pawn in the game her father played with no motive, no +benefit, nothing but to win his point in a miserable little game of +politics; that is number two. And a man who should be young for twenty +years yet, who should have been useful for thirty years--and now what +is he? powerless, useless, wretched, lonely, who spends his time +walking about fighting against God, that he may prove his own wisdom +and nothing more." + +"Mother," cried Barclay, petulantly, "I can't stand this--that you +should turn on me--now." He broke away from her, and stood alone. +"When I need you most, you reproach me. When I need sympathy, you +scorn all that I have done. You can't prove your God. Why should I +accept Him?" + +The gaunt old woman stretched out her arms and cried: "Oh, John +Barclay, prove your god. Tell him to come and give you a moment's +happiness--set him to work to restore your good name; command him to +make Jeanette happy. These things my God can do! Let your Mammon," she +cried with all the passion of her soul, "let your Mammon come down and +do one single miracle like that." Her voice broke and she sobbed. +"What a tower of Babel--an industrial Babel, you are building, +John--you and your kith and kind. The last century gave us +Schopenhauers and Kants, all denying God, and this one gives us +Railroad Kings and Iron Kings and Wheat Kings, all by their works +proclaiming that Mammon has the power and the glory and the Kingdom. O +ye workers of iniquity!" she cried, and her voice lifted, "ye wicked +and perverse--" + +She did not finish, but broken and trembling, her strength spent and +her faith scorned, she sank on her knees by a marble urn on the +terrace and sobbed and prayed. When she rose, the dawn was breaking, +and she looked for a moment at her son, who had been sitting near her, +and cried: "Oh, my boy, my little boy that I nursed at my breast--let +Him in, He is your friend--and oh, my God, sustain my faith!" + +Her son came to her side and led her into the house. But he went to +his room and began the weary round, battling for his own faith. + +As he stood by his open window that day at the mill, he saw Molly +Brownwell across the pond, going into his home. He watched her idly +and saw Jeanette meet her at the door, and then as his memory went +back to the old days, he tried to find tears for the woman who had +died, but he could only rack his soul. Tears were denied to him. + +He was a rich man--was John Barclay; some people thought that, taking +his wealth as wealth goes, all carefully invested in substantial +things--in material things, let us say--he was the richest man in +the Mississippi Valley. He bought a railroad that day when he looked +through the office window at Molly Brownwell--a railroad three +thousand miles long. And he bought a man's soul in a distant city--a +man whom he did not know even by name, but the soul was thrown in "to +boot" in a bargain; and he bought a woman's body whose face he had +never seen, and that went as part of another trade he was making and +he did not even know they had thrown it in. And he bought a child's +life, and he bought a city's prosperity in another bargain, and bought +the homage of a state, and the tribute of a European kingdom, as part +of the day's huckstering. But with all his wealth and power, he could +not buy one tear--not one little, miserable tear to moisten his +grief-dried heart. For tears, just then, were a trifle high. So Mr. +Barclay had to do without, though the man whose soul he bought wept, +and the woman whose body came with a trade, sobbed, and the dead face +of the child was stained with a score of tears. + +They went to Jeanette Barclay's room,--the gray-haired woman and the +girl,--and they sat there talking for a time--talking of things that +were on their lips and not in their hearts. Each felt that the other +understood her. And each felt that something was to be said. For one +day before the end Jeanette's mother had said to her: "Jennie, if I am +not here always go to Molly--ask her to tell you about her girlhood." +The mother had rested for a while, and then added, "Tell her I said +for you to ask her, and she'll know what I mean." + +"Jeanette," said Molly Brownwell, "your mother and I were girls +together. Your father saw more of her at our house than he did at her +own home, until they married. Did you know that?" Jeanette nodded +assent. "So one day last June she said to me, 'Molly, sometime I wish +you would tell Jennie all about you and Bob.'" + +Mrs. Brownwell paused, and Jeanette said, "Yes, mother told me to ask +you to, Aunt Molly." Tears came into the daughter's eyes, and she +added, "I think she knew even then that--" + +And then it all came back, and after a while the elder woman was +saying, "Well, once upon a time there lived a princess, my dear. All +good stories begin so--don't they? She was a fat, pudgy little +princess who longed to grow up and have hoop-skirts like a real +sure-enough woman princess, and there came along a tall prince--the +tallest, handsomest prince in all the wide world, I think. And he and +the princess fell in love, as princesses and princes will, you know, +my dear,--just as they do now, I am told. And the prince had to go +away on business and be gone a long, long time, and while he was gone +the father of the princess and the friend of the prince got into +trouble--and the princess thought it was serious trouble. She thought +the father of the prince would have to go to jail and maybe the prince +and his friend fail. My, my, Jeanette, what a big word that word fail +seemed to the little fat princess! So she let a man make love to her +who could lend them all some money and keep the father out of jail and +the prince and his friend from the awful fate of failure. So the man +lent the money and made love, and made love. And the little princess +had to listen; every one seemed to like to have her listen, so she +listened and she listened, and she was a weak little princess. She +knew she had wronged the prince by letting the man make love to her, +and her soul was smudged and--oh, Jeanette, she was such a foolish, +weak, miserable little princess, and they didn't tell her that there +is only one prince for every princess, and one princess for every +prince--so she took the man, and sent away the prince, and the man +made love ever so beautifully--but it was not the real thing, my +dear,--not the real thing. And afterwards when she saw the +prince--so young and so strong and so handsome, her heart burned for +him as with a flame, and she was not ashamed; the wicked, wicked +princess, she didn't know. And so they walked together one night right +up to the brink of the bad place, dearie--right up to the brink; and +the princess shuddered back, and saved the prince. Oh, Jeanette, +Jeanette, Jeanette," sobbed the woman, in the girl's arms, "right in +this room, in this very room, which was your mother's room in the old +house, I came out of the night, as bad a woman as God ever sent away +from Him. And your mother and I cried it out, and talked it out, and I +fought it out, and won. Oh, I won, Jeanette--I won!" + +The two women were silent for a time, and then the elder went on: +"That's what your mother wished you to know--that for every princess +there is just one real prince, and for every prince there is just one +real princess, my dear, and when you have found him, and know he is +true, nothing--not money, not friends, not father nor mother--when +he is honest, not even pride--should stand between you. That is what +your mother sent you, dearie. Do you understand?" + +"I think I do, Aunt Molly--I think so," repeated the girl. She looked +out of the window for a moment, and then cried, "Oh, Aunt Molly--but +I can't, I can't. How could he, Aunt Molly--how could he?" The girl +buried her face in the woman's lap, and sobbed. + +After a time the elder woman spoke. "You know he loves you, don't you, +dear?" + +The girl shook her head and cried, "But how could he?" and repeated it +again and again. + +"And you still love him--I know that, my dear, or you could not--you +would not care, either," she added. + +And so after a time the tears dried, as tears will, and the two women +fell back into the pale world of surfaces, and as Molly Brownwell left +she took the girl's hand and said: "You won't forget about the little +pudgy princess--the dear, foolish, little weak princess, will you, +Jeanette? And, dearie," she added as she stood on the lower steps of +the porch, "don't--don't always be so proud--not about that, my +dear--about everything else in the world, but not about that." And so +she went back into the world, and ceased to be a fairy godmother, and +took up her day's work. + +John Barclay went to the City that night for the first time in two +months, and Jeanette and her Grandmother Barclay kept the big house +alone. In ten days he came back; his face was still hard, and the red +rims around his eyes were dry, and his voice was sullen, as it had +been for many weeks. His soul was still wrestling with a spirit that +would not give up the fight. That night his daughter tried to sit with +him, as she had tried many nights before. They sat looking at the +stars in silence as was their wont. Generally the father had risen and +walked away, but that night he turned upon her and said:-- + +"Jeanette, don't you like to be rich? I guess you are the richest girl +in this country. Doesn't that sound good to you?" + +"No, father," she answered simply, and continued, "What can I do with +all that money?" + +"Marry some man who's got sense enough to double it, and double it," +cried Barclay, harshly. "Then there'll be no question but that you'll +be the richest people in the world." + +"And then what?" asked the girl. + +"Then--then," he cried, "make the people in this world stand +around--that's what." + +"But, father," she said as she put her hand on his arm, "what if I +don't want them to stand around? Why should I have to bother about +it?" + +"Oh," he groaned, "your grandmother has been filling you full of +nonsense." He did not speak for a time, and at length she rose to go +to bed. "Jeanette," he cried so suddenly that it startled her, "are +you still moping after Neal Ward? Do you love him? Do you want me to +go and get him for you?" + +The girl stood by her father's chair a moment and then answered +colourlessly: "No, father, I don't want you to get him for me. I am +not moping for him, as you call it." + +Her desolate tone reached some chord in his very heart, for he caught +her hand, and put it to his cheek and said softly, "But she loves +him--my poor little girl loves him?" + +She tried to pull away her hand and replied, in the same dead voice: +"Oh, well--that doesn't matter much, I suppose. It's all over--so +far as I am concerned." She turned to leave him, and he cried:-- + +"My dear, my dear--why don't you go to him?" + +She stopped a moment and looked at her father, and even in the +starlight she could see his hard mouth and his ruthless jaw. Then she +cried out, "Oh, father, I can't--I can't--" After a moment she +turned and looked at him, and asked, "Would you? Would you?" and +walked into the house without waiting for an answer. + +The father sat crumpled up in his chair, listening to the flames +crackling in his heart. The old negation was fighting for its own, and +he was weary and broken and sick as with a palsy of the soul. For +everything in him trembled. There was no solid ground under him. He +had visited his material kingdom in the City, and had seen its strong +fortresses and had tried all of its locks and doors, and found them +firm and fast. But they did not satisfy his soul; something within him +kept mocking them; refusing to be awed by their power, and the eternal +"yes" rushed through his reason like a great wind. + +As he sat there, suddenly, as from some power outside, John Barclay +felt a creaking of his resisting timbers, and he quit the struggle. +His heart was lead in his breast, and he walked through the house to +his pipe organ, that had stood silent in the hall for nearly a year. +He stood hesitatingly before it for a second, and then wearily lay him +down to rest, on a couch beside it, where, when he had played the last +time, Jane lay and listened. He was tired past all telling, but his +soul was relaxed. He lay there for hours--until the tall clock above +his head chimed two. He could not sleep, but his consciousness was +inert and his mind seemed limp and empty, as one who has worked past +his limit. The hymn that the clock chimed through the quarter hours +repeated itself over and over again without meaning in his brain. +Something aroused him; he started up suddenly, and lying half on his +elbow and half on his side he stared about him, and was conscious of a +great light in the room: it was as though there was a fire near by and +he was alarmed, but he could not move. As he looked into space, +terrified by the paralysis that held him, he saw across the face of +the organ, "Righteousness exalteth a Nation, but sin is a reproach to +any people." + +Quick as a flash his mind went back to the time that same motto stared +meaninglessly at him from above the pulpit in the chapel at West +Point, to which he had been appointed official visitor at Commencement +many years before. But that night as he gazed at the text its meaning +came rushing through his brain. It came so quickly that he could not +will it back nor reason it in. Righteousness, he knew, was not +piety--not wearing your Sunday clothes to church and praying and +singing psalms; it was living honestly and kindly and charitably and +dealing decently with every one in every transaction; and sin--that, +he knew--was the cheating, the deceiving, and the malicious greed +that had built up his company and scores of others like it all over +the land. That, he knew--that bribery and corruption and vicarious +stealing which he had learned to know as business--that was a +reproach to any people, and as it came to him that he was a miserable +offender and that the other life, the decent life, was the right life, +he was filled with a joy that he could not express, and he let the +light fail about him unheeded, and lay for a time in a transport of +happiness. He had found the secret. + +The truth had come to him--to him first of all men, and it was his to +tell. The joy of it--that he should find out what righteousness +was--that it was not crying "Lord, Lord" and playing the +hypocrite--thrilled him. And then the sense of his sinning came over +him, but only with joy too, because he felt he could show others how +foolish they were. The clock stopped ticking; the chimes were silent, +and he lay unconscious of his body, with his spirit bathed in some new +essence that he did not understand and did not try to understand. +Finally he rose and went to his organ and turned on the motor, and put +his hands to the keys. As he played the hymn to the "Evening Star," +John Barclay looked up and saw his mother standing upon the stair with +her fine old face bathed in tears. And then at last-- + +Tears? Tears for Mr. Barclay? All these months there have been no +tears for him--none, except miserable little corroding tears of rage +and shame. But now there are tears for Mr. Barclay, large, man's size, +soul-healing tears--tears of repentance; not for the rich Mr. +Barclay, the proud Mr. Barclay, the powerful, man-hating, God-defying +Mr. Barclay of Sycamore Ridge, but for John Barclay, a contrite man, +the humblest in all the kingdom. + +And as John Barclay let his soul rise with the swelling music, he felt +the solace of a great peace in his heart; he turned his wet face +upward and cried, "Oh, mother, mother, I feel like a child!" Then Mary +Barclay knew that her son had let Him in, knew in her own heart all +the joy there is in heaven over one sinner that repenteth. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +It is written in the Book that holds the wisdom of our race that one +who is reborn into the Kingdom of God, enters as a little child. It is +there in black and white, yet few people get the idea into their +consciousnesses. They expect regeneration to produce an upright man. +God knows better than that. And we should know better too when it is +written down for us. And so you good people who expect to see John +Barclay turn rightabout face on the habits of a lifetime are to be +disappointed. For a little child stumbles and falls and goes the wrong +way many times before it learns the way of life. There came days after +that summer night of 1904, when John Barclay fell--days when he would +sneak into the stenographers' room in his office in the City and tear +up some letter he had dictated, when he would send a telegram +annulling an order, when he would find himself cheating and gouging +his competitors or his business associates,--even days when he had +not the moral courage to retrace his steps although he knew he was +wrong. Shame put her brand on his heart, and his face showed to those +who watched it closely--and there were scores of fellow-gamblers at +the game with him, whose profits came from watching his face--his +face showed forth uncertainty and daze. So men said, "The old man's +off his feed," or others said, "Barclay's losing his nerve"; and still +others said, "Can it be possible that the old hypocrite is getting a +sort of belated conscience?" + +But slowly, inch by inch, the child within him grew; he gripped his +soul with the iron hand of will that had made a man of him, and when +the child fell and ached with shame, Barclay's will sustained the +weakling. We are so hidden by our masks that this struggle in the +man's soul, though guessed at by some of those about him, was unknown +to the hundreds who saw him every day. But for him the universe had +changed. And as a child, amazed, he looked upon the new wonder of +God's order about him and went tripping and stumbling and toppling +over awkwardly through it all as one learning some new equilibrium. +There were times when his heart grew sick, and he would have given it +all up. There were hours when he did surrender; when he did a mean +thing and gloried in it, or a cowardly thing and apologized for it. +But his will rose and turned him back to his resolve. He found the big +things easy, and the little things hard to do. So he kept at the big +things until they had pushed him so far toward his goal that the +little things were details which he repaired slowly and with anguish +of humiliation in secret, and unknown even to those who were nearest +to him. + +And all this struggle was behind the hard face, under the broad, high +forehead, back of the mean jaw, beneath the cover of the sharp brazen +eyes. Even in Sycamore Ridge they did not suspect the truth until +Barclay had grown so strong in his new faith that he could look at his +yesterdays without shuddering. + +The year of our Lord nineteen hundred and six was a slow year +politically in Sycamore Ridge, so in the parliament at McHurdie's shop +discussion took somewhat wider range than was usual. It may interest +metaphysicians in the world at large to know that the McHurdie +parliament that August definitely decided that this is not a material +world; that sensation is a delusion, that the whole phantasmagoria of +the outer and material world is a reaction of some sort upon the +individual consciousness. Up to this point the matter is settled, and +metaphysicians may as well make a record of the decision; for Watts +McHurdie, Jacob Dolan, Philemon Ward, Martin Culpepper, and sometimes +Oscar Fernald, know just exactly as much about it as the ablest +logician in the world. It is, however, regrettable that after deciding +that the external world is but a divine reaction upon the individual +consciousness, the parliament was unable to reach any sort of a +decision as to whose consciousness received the picture. Mr. Dolan +maintained vigorously that his consciousness was the one actually +affected, and that the colonel and the general and Watts were mere +hallucinations of his. The general held that Jake and the others were +accessory phantasms of his own dream, and Watts and the colonel, being +of more poetical temperament, held that the whole outfit was a chimera +in some larger consciousness, whose entity it is not given us to know. +As for Oscar, he claimed the parliament was crazy, and started to +prove it, when it was thought best to shift and modify the discussion; +and, therefore, early in September, when the upper currents of the +national atmosphere were vocal with discordant allegations, denials, +accusations, and maledictions, in Watts McHurdie's shop the question +before the house was, "How many people are there in the world?" For +ten days, in the desultory debate that had droned through the summer, +the general, true to his former contention, insisted that there was +only one person in the world. Mr. Dolan, with the Celtic elasticity of +reason, was willing to admit two. + +"You and me and no more--all the rest is background for us," he +proclaimed. "If the you of the moment is the colonel--well and good; +then the colonel and I for it; but if it is the general and I--to the +trees with your colonel and Watts, and the three billion +others--you're merely stage setting, and become third persons." + +"But," asked McHurdie, "if I exist this minute with you, and then you +focus your attention on Mart there, the next minute, and he exists, +what becomes of me when you turn your head from me?" + +Dolan did not answer. He dipped into the _Times_ and read awhile; and +the colonel and the general got out the checkerboard and plunged into +a silent game. At length Dolan, after the fashion of debaters in the +parliament, came out of his newspaper and said:-- + +"That, Mr. McHurdie, is a problem ranging off the subject, into the +theories of the essence of time and space, and I refuse to answer it." + +Me Hurdie kept on working, and the hands of the clock slipped around +nearly an hour. Then the bell tinkled and Neal Ward came in on his +afternoon round for news to print in the next day's issue of the +_Banner_. + +"Anything new?" he asked. + +"Mrs. Dorman is putting new awnings on the rear windows of her +store--did you get that?" asked McHurdie. + +The young man made a note of the fact. + +"Yes," added Dolan, "and you may just say that Hon. Jacob Dolan, +former sheriff of Garrison County, and a member of 'C' Company, well +known in this community, who has been custodian of public buildings +and grounds in and for Garrison County, state of Kansas, ss., is +contemplating resigning his position and removing to the National +Soldiers' Home at Leavenworth for the future." + +Young Ward smiled, but did not take the item down in his note-book. + +"It isn't time yet," he said. + +"Why not?" asked Dolan. + +"Only two months and a half since I printed that the last time. It +can't go oftener than four times a year, and it's been in twice this +year. Late in December will time it about right." + +"What's the news with you, boy?" asked Dolan. + +"Well," said the young man, pausing carefully as if to make a +selection from a large and tempting assortment, but really swinging +his arms for a long jump into the heart of the matter in his mind, +"have you heard that John Barclay has given the town his pipe organ?" + +"You don't say!" exclaimed McHurdie. + +"Tired of it?" asked Dolan, as though twenty-five-thousand-dollar pipe +organs were raining in the town every few days. + +"It'll not be that, Jake," said Watts. "John is no man to tire of +things." + +"No, it's not that, Mr. Dolan," answered Neal Ward. "He has sent word +to the mayor and council that he is going to have the organ installed +in Barclay Hall this week at his own expense, and he accompanied the +letter with fifty thousand dollars in securities to hire a permanent +organist and a band-master for the band; and a band concert and an +organ concert will alternate in the hall every week during the year. I +gather from reading his letter that Mr. Barclay believes the organ +will do more good in the hall than in his house." + +The general and the colonel kept on at their game. Dolan whistled, and +Watts nodded his head. "That's what I would say he did it for," said +McHurdie. + +"Are the securities N.P.C. stock?" asked Dolan, tentatively. + +"No," replied Neal; "I saw them; they are municipal bonds of one sort +and another." + +"Well, well--Johnnie at the mill certainly is popping open like a +chestnut bur. Generally when he has some scheme on to buy public +sentiment he endows something with N.P.C. stock, so that in case of a +lawsuit against the company he'd have the people interested in +protecting the stock. This new tack is certainly queer doings. +Certainly queer doings for the dusty miller!" repeated Dolan. + +"Well, it's like his buying the waterworks of Bemis last month, and +that land at the new pumping station, and giving the council money to +build the new dam and power-house. He had no rebate or take back in +that--at least no one can see it," said the young man. + +"Nellie says," put in Watts, "that she heard from Mrs. Fernald, who +got it from her girl, who got it from the girl who works in the Hub +restaurant, who had it from Mrs. Carnine's girl--so it come pretty +straight--that Lige made John pay a pretty penny for the waterworks, +and they had a great row because John would give up the fight." + +"Yes," replied Dolan, "it come to me from one of the nigger prisoners +in the jail, who has a friend who sweeps out Gabe's bank, that he +heard John and Lige dickering, and that Lige held John up for a +hundred thousand cold dollars for his bargain." + +"The Associated Press to-day," said young Ward, "has a story to the +effect that there is a great boom in certain railroad stocks owing to +some secret operations of Mr. Barclay. They don't know what he is +doing, but things are pretty shaky. He refuses to make a statement." + +"He's a queer canny little man," explained Watts. "You never know +where he'll break out next." + +"Well, he's up to some devilment," exclaimed Dolan; "you can depend on +that. Why do you suppose he's laying off the hands at the strip +factory?" + +The young man shook his head. "Give it up. I asked Mr. Mason and the +best I could get out of him was a parrot-like statement that 'owing to +the oversupply of our commodity, we have decided to close operations +for the present. We have, therefore,' he said pompously, 'given each +of our employees unable to find immediate work here, a ticket for +himself and family to any point in the United States to which he may +desire to go, and have agreed to pay the freight on his household +goods also.' That was every word I could get out of him--and you know +Mr. Mason is pretty talkative sometimes." + +"Queer doings for the dusty miller," repeated Dolan. + +The group by the bench heard the slap of the checkerboard on its +shelf, and General Ward cut into the conversation as one who had never +been out of it. "The boy's got good blood in him; it will come out +some day--he wasn't made a Thatcher and a Barclay and a Winthrop for +nothing. Lizzie was over there the other night for tea with them, and +she said she hadn't seen John so much like himself for years." + +Young Ward went about his afternoon's work and the parliament +continued its debate on miscellaneous public business. The general +pulled the _Times_ from Dolan's pocket and began turning it over. He +stopped and read for a few moments and exclaimed:-- + +"Boys--see here. Maybe this explains something we were talking +about." He began reading a news item sent out from Washington, D.C. +The item stated that the Department of Commerce and Labour had scored +what every one in official circles believed was the most important +victory ever achieved by the government outside of a war. The item +continued:-- + + "Within the last ten days, the head of one of the largest so-called + trusts in this country called at the department, and explained that + his organization, which controls a great staple commodity, was going + into voluntary liquidation. The organization in question has been + the subject of governmental investigation for nearly two years, and + investigators were constantly hampered and annoyed by attempts of + politicians of the very highest caste, outside of the White House, + trying to get inspectors removed or discredited, and all along the + line of its investigations the government has felt a powerful secret + influence shielding the trust. As an evidence of his good faith in + the disorganization, the head of the trust, while he was here, + promised to send to the White House, what he called his 'political + burglar's kit,' consisting of a card index, labelling and ticketing + with elaborate cross references and cabinet data, every man in the + United States who is in politics far enough to get to his state + legislature, or to be a nominee of his party for county attorney. + This outfit, shipped in a score of great boxes, was dumped at the + White House to-day, and it is said that a number of the cards + indicating the reputation of certain so-called conservative senators + and congressmen may be framed. There is a great hubbub in + Washington, and the newspaper correspondents who called at the White + House on their morning rounds were regaled by a confidential glimpse + into the cards and the cabinets. It is likely that the whole outfit + will be filed in the Department of Commerce and Labour, and will + constitute the basis of what is called around the White House + to-day, a 'National Rogues' Gallery.' The complete details of every + senatorial election held in the country during twelve years last + past, showing how to reach any Senator susceptible to any influence + whatsoever, whether political, social, or religious, are among the + trophies of the chase in the hands of the Mighty Hunter for Big Game + to-day." + +When General Ward had finished reading, he lifted up his glasses and +said: "Well, that's it, boys; John has come to his turn of the road. +Here's the rest. It says: 'The corporation in question is practically +controlled by one man, the man who has placed the information above +mentioned in the hands of the government. It is a corporation owning +no physical property whatever, and is organized as a rebate hopper, if +one may so style it. The head of the corporation stated when he was +here recently that he is preparing to buy in every share of the +company's stock at the price for which it was sold and then--' Jake, +where is page 3 with the rest of this article on it?" asked the +general. + +"Why, I threw that away coming down here," responded Dolan. + +"Rather leaves us in the air--doesn't it?" suggested the colonel. + +"Well, it's John. I know enough to know that--from Neal," said the +general. + +The afternoon sun was shining in the south window of the shop. Dolan +started to go. In the doorway McHurdie halted him. + +"Jake," he cried, pointing a lean, smutty finger at Dolan, "Jake +Dolan, if there are only two people in the world, what becomes of me +when you begin talking to Mart? If you knew, you would not dodge. In +philosophy no man can stand on his constitutional rights. Turn state's +evidence, Jake Dolan, and tell the truth--what becomes of me?" + +"'Tis an improper question," replied Dolan, and then drawing himself +up and pulling down the front of his coat, he added, "'Tis not a +matter that may be discussed among gentlemen," and with that he +disappeared. + +The front door-bell tinkled, and the parliament prepared to adjourn. +The colonel helped the poet close his store and bring in the wooden +horse from the sidewalk, and then Molly Brownwell came with her +phaeton and drove the two old men home. On the way up Main Street they +overhauled Neal Ward. Mrs. Brownwell turned in to the sidewalk and +called, "Neal, can you run over to the house a moment this evening?" +And when he answered in the affirmative, she let the old nag amble +gently up the street. + +"How pretty you are, Aunt Molly," exclaimed Neal, as the gray-haired +woman who could still wear a red ribbon came into the room where he +sat waiting for her. The boy's compliment pleased her, and she did not +hesitate to say so. But after that she plunged into the subject that +was uppermost in her heart. + +"Neal," she said, as she drew her chair in front of him so that she +could see his face and know the truth, no matter what his lips might +say, "we're partners now, aren't we, or what amounts to the same +thing?" She smiled good-naturedly. "I own the overdraft at the bank +and you own the mortgage at the court-house. So I am going to ask you +a plain question; and if you say it isn't any of my business, I'll +attempt to show you that it is. Neal," she asked, looking earnestly +into his face, "why do you write to Jeanette Barclay every day of your +life and not mail the letters?" + +The youth flushed. "Why--Aunt Molly--how did you know?--I never +told--" + +"No, Neal, you never told me; but this afternoon while you we're out I +was looking for Adrian's check-book; I was sure we paid Dorman's bill +last April, and that I took the check over myself. I was going through +the desk, and I got on your side, thinking I might have left the +check-book there by mistake, and I ran into the very midst of those +letters, before I knew what I was about. Now, Neal--why?" + +The young man gazed at the woman seriously for a time and then parried +her question with, "Why do you care--what difference can it make to +you, Aunt Molly?" + +"Because," she answered quickly, "because I wish to see my partner +happy. He will do better work so--if you desire to put it on a +cold-blooded basis. Oh, Nealie, Nealie--do you love her that +much--that you take your heart and your life to her without hope or +without sign or answer every day?" + +He dropped his eyes, and turned his face away. "Not every day," he +answered, "not every day--but every night, Aunt Molly." + +"Why don't you go to her, Neal, and tell her?" asked the woman. "Is it +so hopeless as that?" + +"Oh, there are many reasons--why I don't go to her," he replied. +After a minute's silence he went on: "In the first place she is a very +rich girl, and that makes a difference--now. When she was just a +young girl of eighteen, or such a matter, and I only twenty or +twenty-one, we met so naturally, and it all came out so beautifully! +But we are older now, Aunt Molly," he said sadly, "and it's +different." + +"Yes," admitted Mrs. Brownwell, "it is different now--you are right +about it." + +"Yes," he continued, repeating a patter which he had said to himself a +thousand times. "Yes,--and then I can't say I'm sorry--for I'm not. +I'd do it again. And I know how Mr. Barclay feels; he didn't leave me +in any doubt about that," smiled the boy, "when I left his office that +morning after telling him what I was going to do. So," he sighed and +smiled in rather hopeless good humour, "I can't see my way out. Can +you?" + +Molly Brownwell leaned back in her chair, and closed her eyes for a +minute, and then shook her head, and said, "No, Neal, not now; but +there is a way--somehow--I am sure of that." + +He laughed for want of any words to express his hopelessness, and the +two--the youth in despair, and the woman full of hope--sat in +silence. + +"Neal," she asked finally, "what do you put in those letters? Why do +you write them at all?" + +The young man with his eyes upon the floor began, "Well--they're just +letters, Aunt Molly--just letters--such as I used to write +before--don't you know." His voice was dull and passionless, and he +went on: "I can't tell you more about them. They're just letters." He +drew in a quick long breath and exclaimed: "Oh, you know what they +are--I want to talk to some one and I'm going to. Oh, Aunt Molly," he +cried, "I'm not heart-broken, and all that--I'm infinitely happy. +Because I still hold it--it doesn't die. Don't you see? And I know +that always it will be with me--whatever may come to her. I don't +want to forget--and it is my only joy in the matter, that I never +will forget. I can be happy this way; I don't want to give any other +woman a warmed-over heart, for this would always be there--I know +it--and so I am just going to keep it." He dropped his voice again +after a sigh, and went on: "There, that's all there is to it. Do you +think I'm a fool?" he asked, as the colour came into his face. + +"No, Neal, I don't," said Molly Brownwell, as she stood beside him. +"You are a brave, manly fellow, Neal, and I wish I could help you. I +don't see how now--but the way will come--sometime. Now," she added, +"tell me about the paper." + +And then they went into business matters which do not concern us; for +in this story business conjures up the face of John Barclay--the +tanned, hard face of John Barclay, crackled with a hundred wrinkles +about the eyes, and scarred with hard lines about the furtive crafty +mouth; and we do not wish to see that face now; it should be hidden +while the new soul that is rising in his body struggles with that +tough, bronzed rind, gets a focus from the heart into those glaring +brass eyes, and teaches the lying lips to speak the truth, and having +spoken it to look it. And so while John Barclay in the City is daily +slipping millions of his railroad bonds into the market,--slipping +them in quietly yet steadily withal, mixing them into the daily +commerce of the country, so gently that they are absorbed before any +one knows they have left his long grasping fingers,--while he is +trading to his heart's content, let us forget him, and look at this +young man, that September night, after he left Molly Brownwell, +sitting at his desk in the office with the telephone at his elbow, +with the smell of the ink from the presses in his nostrils, with the +silence of the deserted office becalming his soul, and with his +heart--a clean, strong, manly heart--full of the picture of a +woman's face, and the vision without a hope. In his brain are recorded +a thousand pictures, and millions of little fibres run all over this +brain, conjuring up those pictures, and if there are blue eyes in the +pictures, and lips in the pictures, and the pressure of hands, and the +touch of souls in the pictures,--they are Neal Ward's pictures, +--they are Mr. Higgin's pictures, and Mrs. Wiggin's pictures, and Mr. +Stiggin's pictures, my dears, and alack and alas, they are the +pictures of Miss Jones and Miss Lewis and Miss Thomas and Miss Smith, +for that matter; and so, my dears, if we would be happy we should be +careful even if we can't be good, for it is all for eternity, and +whatever courts may say, and whatever churches may say, and whatever +comes back with rings and letters and trinkets,--there is no divorce, +and the pictures always stay in the heart, and the sum of the pictures +is life. + +So that September night Neal Ward went back over the old trail as +lovers always will, and then his pen began to write. Now in the nature +of things the first three words are not for our eyes, and to-night we +must not see the first three lines nor the first thirty, nor the last +three words nor the last three lines nor the last thirty lines. But we +may watch him write; we may observe how longingly he looks at the +telephone, as if tempted to go to it, and tell it what is in his +breast. There it sits, all shiny and metallic; and by conjuring it +with a number and a word, he could have her with him. Yet he does not +take it up; because--the crazy loon thinks in the soul of him, that +what he writes, some way, in the great unknown system of receivers and +recorders and transmitters of thought that range through this +universe, is pouring into her heart, and so he writes and smiles, and +smiles and writes--no bigger fool than half the other lovers on the +planet who, talking to their sweethearts, holding their hands and +looking squarely into their eyes, deceive themselves that what they +say is going to the heart, and not going in one ear and out of the +other. + +And now let us put on our seven-league boots and walk from September's +green and brown, through October's gold and crimson, into that season +of the year 1906 when Nature is shifting her scenery, making ready for +the great spring show. It is bleak, but not cold; barren, but not +ugly,--for the stage setting of the hills and woods and streams, even +without the coloured wings and flies and the painted trees and grass, +has its fine simplicity of form and grouping that are good to look +upon. Observe in the picture a small man sitting on a log in a wood, +looking at the stencil work of the brown and gray branches, as its +shadows waver and shimmer upon the gray earth. He is poking +reflectively in the earth with his cane. His boat is tied to some tree +roots, and he doesn't breathe as regularly as a man should breathe who +is merely thinking of his next dinner or his last dollar. He delves +into himself and almost forgets to breathe at all, so deep is his +abstraction. And so he sits for five minutes--ten minutes--half an +hour--and save that he edges into the sun as the shadow of the great +walnut tree above catches him, an hour passes and he does not move. +Poking, poking, poking his stick into the mould, he has dug up much +litter in an hour, and he has seen his whole life thrown up before +him. In those leaves yonder is a battle--a bloody battle, and things +are blistered into his boyish heart in that battle that never heal +over; that tuft of sod is a girl's face--a little girl's face that he +loved as a boy; there is his first lawsuit--that ragged pile of +leaves by the twig at the log's end; and the twig is his first ten +thousand dollars. All of it lies there before him, his victories and +his defeats, his millions come, and his millions going--going?--yes, +all but gone. Yonder that deep gash in the sod at the left hides a +woman's face--pale, wasted, dead on her pillow; and that clean black +streak on the ebony cane--that is a tear, and in the tear is a girl's +face and back of hers shimmers a boy's countenance. All of John +Barclay's life and hopes and dreams and visions are spread out before +him on the ground. So he closes his eyes, and braces his soul, and +then, having risen, whistles as he limps lightly--for a man past +fifty--down to the boat. He rows with a clean manly stroke--even in +an old flat-bottomed boat--through the hazy sunset into the dusk. + +"Jeanette," he said to his daughter that evening at dinner, "I wish +you would go to the phone, pretty soon, and tell Molly Culpepper that +I want her to come down this evening. I am anxious to see her. The +colonel isn't at home, or I'd have him, mother," explained Mr Barclay. + +And that is why Miss Barclay called "876, Please--yes, 8-7-6;" and +then said: "Hello--hello, is this 876? Yes--is Mrs. Brownwell in? +Oh, all right." And then, "54, please; yes, 5-4. Is this you, Aunt +Molly? Father is in town--he came in this morning and has spent the +afternoon on the river, and he told me at dinner to ask you if you +could run down this evening. Oh, any time. I didn't know you worked +nights at the office. Oh, is Mr. Ward out of town?--I didn't know. +All right, then--about eight o'clock--we'll look for you." + +And that is why at the other end of the telephone, a pretty, +gray-haired woman stood, and looked, and looked, and looked at a plain +walnut desk, as though it was enchanted, and then slipped guiltily +over to that black walnut desk, unlocked a drawer, and pulled out a +whole apronful of letters. + +And so the reader may know what Molly Brownwell had in that package +which she put in the buggy seat beside her when she drove down to see +the Barclays, that beautiful starry November night. She put the +package with her hat and wraps in Jeanette's room, and then came down +to the living room where John Barclay sat by the roaring fire in the +wide fireplace, with a bundle beside him also. His mother was there, +and his daughter took a seat beside him. + +"Molly," said Barclay, with a deep sigh, "I sent for you, first, +because, of all the people in the world, it is but just that you +should be here, to witness what I am doing; and second, because Jane +would have had you, and I want you to be with Jeanette when I tell her +some things that she must know to-night--she and mother." + +He was sitting in a deep easy chair, with one foot--not his lame +foot--curled under him, a wiry-looking little gray cat of a man who +nervously drummed on the mahogany chair arm, or kept running his hands +over the carving, or folding and unfolding them, and twirled his +thumbs incessantly as he talked. He smiled as he began:-- + +"Well, girls, father got off the chair car at Sycamore Ridge this +morning, after having had the best sleep he has had in twenty years." + +He paused for the effect of his declaration to sink in. Jeanette +asked, "Where was the car?" + +"What car?" teased the little gray cat. + +"Why, our car?" + +"My dear, we have no car," he smiled, with the cream of mystery on his +lips. Then he licked it off. "I sold the car three weeks ago, when I +left the Ridge the last time." He dropped into an eloquent silence, +and then went on: "I rode in the chair car to save three dollars. I +need it in my business." + +His mother's blue eyes were watching him closely. She exclaimed, +"John, quit your foolishness. What have you done?" + +He laughed as he said: "Mother, I have returned to you poor but +honest. My total assets at this minute are seventy-five million +dollars' worth of stock of the National Provisions Company, tied up in +this bundle on the floor here, and five thousand dollars in the +Exchange National Bank of Sycamore Ridge which I have held for thirty +years. I sold my State Bank stock last Monday to Gabe Carnine. I have +thirty-four dollars and seventy-three cents in my pocketbook, and that +is all." + +The women were puzzled, and their faces showed it. So the little gray +cat made short work of the mice. + +"Well, now, to be brief and plain," said Barclay, pulling himself +forward in his chair and thrusting out an arm and hand, as if to grip +the attention of his hearers, "I have always owned or directly +controlled over half the N.P.C. stock--representing a big pile of +money. I am trying to forget how much, and you don't care. But it was +only part of my holdings--about half or such a matter, I should say. +The rest were railroad bonds on roads necessary to the company, +mortgages on mills and elevators whose stock was merged in the +company, and all sorts of gilt-edged stuff, bank stock and insurance +company stock--all needed to make N.P.C. a dominant factor in the +commercial life of the country. You don't care about that, but it was +all a sort of commercial blackmail on certain fellows and interests to +keep them from fighting N.P.C." Barclay hitched himself forward to the +edge of his chair, and still held out his grappling-hook of a hand to +hold them as he smiled and went on: "Well, I've been kind of swapping +horses here for six months or so--trading my gilt-edged bonds and +stuff for cash and buying up N.P.C. stock. I got a lot of it +quietly--an awful lot." He grinned. "I guess that was square enough. +I paid the price for it--and a little better than the price--because +I had to." He was silent a few moments, looking at the fire. He +meditated pleasantly: "There was some good in it--a lot of good when +you come to think of it--but a fearful lot of bad! Well--I've saved +the good. I just reorganized the whole concern from top to +bottom--the whole blame rebate hopper. We had some patents, and we +had some contracts with mills, and we had some good ideas of +organization. And I've kept the good and chucked the bad. I put N.P.C. +out of business and have issued stock in the new company to our +minority whose stock I couldn't buy and have squeezed the water out of +the whole concern. And then I took what balance I had left--every +cent of it, went over the books for thirty years, and made what +restitution I could." He grinned as he added: "But I found it was +nearly whittlety whet. A lot of fellows had been doing me up, while I +had been doing others up. But I made what restitution I could and then +I got out. I closed up the City office, and moved the whole concern to +St. Paul, and turned it over to the real owners--the millers and +elevator men--and I have organized an industry with a capitalization +small enough to make it possible for them to afford to be honest for +thirty years--while our patents and contracts last, anyway." He put +an elbow in the hollow of his hand, and the knuckles on his knee as he +sat cross-legged, and drawled: "I wonder if it will work--" and +repeated: "I wonder, I wonder. There's big money in it; she's a dead +monopoly as she stands, and they have the key to the whole thing in +the Commerce Department at Washington. They can keep her straight if +they will." He paused for a while and went on: "But I'm tired of it. +The great hulk of a thing has ground the soul out of me. So I ducked. +Girls," he cried, as he turned toward them, "here's the way it is; I +never did any real good with money. I'm going to see what a man can do +to help his fellows with his bare hands. I want to help, not with +money, but just to be some account on earth without money. And so +yesterday I cleaned up the whole deal forever." + +He paused to let it sink in. Finally Jeanette asked, "And are we poor, +father--poor?" + +"Well, my dear," he expanded, "your grandmother Barclay has always +owned this house. An Omaha syndicate owns the mill. I own $5,000 in +bank stock, and the boy who marries you for your money right now is +going to get badly left." + +"You aren't fooling me, are you, John?" asked his mother as she rose +from her chair. + +"No, mother," answered the son, "I've got rid of every dirty dollar I +have on earth. The bank stock I bought with the money the Citizens' +Committee subscribed to pay me for winning the county-seat lawsuit. As +near as I can figure it out, that was about the last clean money I +ever earned." + +The mother walked toward her son, and leaned over and kissed him again +and again as she sobbed: "Oh, John, I am so happy to-night--so +happy." + +In a moment he asked, "Well, Jeanette, what do you think of it?" + +"You know what I think, father--you know very well, don't you?" + +He sighed and nodded his head. Then he reached for the package on the +floor and began cutting the strings. The bundle burst open and the +stock of the National Provisions Company, issued only in +fifty-thousand-dollar and one-hundred-thousand-dollar shares, littered +the floor. + +"Now," cried Barclay, as he stood looking at the litter, "now, Molly, +here's what I want you to do: Burn it up--burn it up," he cried. "It +has burned the joy out of your life, Molly--burn it up! I have fought +it all out to-day on the river--but I can't quite do that. Burn it +up--for God's sake, Molly, burn it up." + +When the white ashes had risen up the chimney, he put on another log. +"This is our last extravagance for some time, girls--but we'll +celebrate to-night," he cried. "You haven't a little elderberry wine, +have you, mother?" he asked. "Riley says that's the stuff for little +boys with curvature of the spine--and I'll tell you it put several +kinks in mine to watch that burn." + +And so they sat for an hour talking of old times while the fire +burned. But Molly Brownwell's mind was not in the performance that +John Barclay had staged. She could see nothing but the package lying +on her cloak in the girl's room upstairs. So she rose to go early, and +the circle broke when she left it. She and Jeanette left John standing +with his arms about his mother, patting her back while she wept. + +As she closed the door of Jeanette's room behind her, Molly Brownwell +knew that she must speak. "Jeanette," she said, "I don't know just how +to say it, dear; but, I stole those--I mean what is in that +package--I took it and Neal doesn't know I have it. It's for you," +she cried, as she broke the string that tied it, and tore off the +wrapping. + +The girl stared at her and asked: "Why, Aunt Molly--what is it? I +don't understand." + +The woman in pulling her wrap from the chair, tumbled the letters to +the floor. She slipped into her cloak and kissed the bewildered girl, +and said as she stood in the doorway: "There they are, my dear--they +are yours; do what you please with them." + +She hurried down the stairs, and finding John sitting alone before the +fire in the sitting room, would have bidden him good night as she +passed through the room, but he stopped her. + +"There is one thing more, Molly," he said, as he motioned to a chair. + +"Yes," she answered, "I wondered if you had forgotten it!" + +He worried the fire, and renewed the blaze, before he spoke. "What +about Neal--how does he feel?" + +"John," replied the woman, turning upon him a radiant face, "it is the +most beautiful thing in the world--that boy's love for Jennie! Why, +every night after his work is done, sitting there in the office alone, +Neal writes her a letter, that he never mails; just takes his heart to +her, John. I found a great stack of them in his desk the other day." + +Barclay's face crinkled in a spasm of pain, and he exclaimed, "Poor +little kids--poor, poor children." + +"John--" Molly Brown well hesitated, and then took courage and cried: +"Won't you--won't you for Ellen's sake? It is like that--like you +and Ellen. And," she stammered, "oh, John, I do want to see one such +love affair end happily before I die." + +Barclay's hard jaw trembled, and his eyes were wet as he rose and +limped across the great room. At the foot of the stairs he called up, +"Don't bother with the phone, Jeanette, I'm going to use it." He +explained, "The branch in her room rings when we use this one," and +then asked, "Do you know where he is--at home or at the office?" + +"If the ten o'clock train is in, he's at the office. If not, he's not +in town." + +But Barclay went to the hall, and when he returned he said, "Well, I +got him; he'll be right out." + +Molly was standing by the fire. "What are you going to say, John?" she +asked. + +"Oh, I don't know. There'll be enough for me to say, I suppose," he +replied, as he looked at the floor. + +She gave him her hand, and they stood for a minute looking back into +their lives. They walked together toward the door, but at the +threshold their eyes met and each saw tears, and they parted without +words. + +Neal Ward found Barclay prodding the fire, and the gray little man, +red-faced from his task, limped toward the tall, handsome youth, and +led him to a chair. Barclay stood for a time with his back to the +fire, and his head down, and in the silence he seemed to try to speak +several times before the right words came. Then he exclaimed: + +"Neal, I was wrong--dead wrong--and I've been too proud and mean all +this time--to say so." + +Neal stared open-eyed at Barclay and moistened his lips before +language came to him. Finally he said: "Well, Mr. Barclay--that's all +right. I never blamed you. You needn't have bothered about--that is, +to tell me." + +Barclay gazed at the young man abstractedly for a minute that seemed +interminable, and then broke out, "Damn it, Neal, I can't propose to +you--but that's about what I've got you out here to-night for." + +He laughed nervously, but the young face showed his obtuseness, and +John Barclay having broken the ice in his own heart put his hands in +his pockets and threw back his head and roared, and then cried +merrily: "All we need now is a chorus in fluffy skirts and an +orchestra with me coming down in front singing, 'Will you be my +son-in-law?' for it to be real comic opera." + +The young man's heart gave such a bound of joy that it flashed in his +face, and the father, seeing it, was thrilled with happiness. So he +limped over to Neal's chair and stood beaming down upon the +embarrassed young fellow. + +"But, Mr. Barclay--" the boy found voice, "I don't know--the +money--it bothers me." + +And John Barclay again threw his head back and roared, and then they +talked it all out. He told Neal the story of his year's work. It was +midnight when they heard the telephone ringing, and Barclay, curled up +like an old gray cat in his chair before the fire, said for old times' +sake, "Neal, go see who is ringing up at this unholy hour." + +And while Neal Ward steps to the telephone, let us go upstairs on one +last journey with our astral bodies and discover what Jeanette is +doing. After Molly's departure, Jeanette stooped to pick up what Molly +had left. She saw her own name, "Jeanette Barclay," and her address +written on an envelope. She picked it up. It was dated: "Written +December 28," and she saw that the package was filled with letters in +envelopes similarly addressed in Neal Ward's handwriting. She dropped +the letter on her dressing-table and began to undo her hair. In a few +minutes she stopped and picked up another, and laid it down unopened. +But in half an hour she was sitting on the floor reading the letters +through her tears. The flood of joy that came over her drowned her +pride. For an hour she sat reading the letters, and they brought her +so near to her lover that it seemed that she must reach out and touch +him. She was drawn by an irresistible impulse to her telephone that +sat on her desk. It seemed crazy to expect to reach Neal Ward at +midnight, but as she rose from the floor with the letters slipping +from her lap and with the impulse like a cord drawing her, she saw, or +thought she saw, standing by the desk, a part of the fluttering +shadows, a girl--a quaint, old-fashioned girl in her teens, +with--but then she remembered the dream girl her lover had described +in the letter she had just been reading, and she understood the source +of her delusion. And yet there the vision moved by the telephone, +smiling and beckoning; then it faded, and there came rushing back to +her memory a host of recollections of her childhood, and of some one +she could not place, and then a memory of danger,--and then it was +all gone and there stood the desk and the telephone and the room as it +was. + +She shuddered slightly, and then remembered that she had just been +through two great nervous experiences--the story of her father's +changed life, and the return of her lover. And she was a level-headed, +strong-nerved girl. So the joy of love in her heart was not dampened, +and the cord drawing her to the desk in the window did not loosen, and +she did not resist. With a gulp of nervous fear she rang the telephone +bell and called, "54, please!" She heard a buzzing, and then a faint +stir in the receiver, and then she got the answer. She sat a-tremble, +afraid to reply. The call was repeated in her ear, and then she said +so faintly that she could not believe it would be heard, "Oh, +Neal--Neal--I have come back." + +The young man standing in the dimly lighted hall was startled. He +cried, "Is it really you, Jeanette--is it you?" + +And then stronger than before the voice said, "Yes, Neal, it is I--I +have come back!" + +"Oh, Jeanette--Jeanette," he cried. + +But she stopped him with, "We must not talk any more--now, don't you +know--but I had to tell you that I had come back, Neal." And then she +said, "Good night." So there they stood, the only two people in the +universe, reunited lovers, each with the voice of the other sounding +in his ears. For Mr. Dolan was right. There are only two people in the +world, and for these two lovers earth and the stars and the systems of +suns that make up this universe were only background for the play of +their happiness. + +As Neal Ward came back to John Barclay from the telephone, the young +man's face was burning with joy. + +"Who was it?" asked Barclay. + +The youth smiled bashfully as he said, "Well, it was Jeanette--she +was calling up another number and I cut in." + +"What did she say?" asked her father. + +"Oh, nothing--in particular," replied Neal. + +Barclay looked up quickly, caught the young man's abashed smile, and +asked, "Does she know you're here?" + +"No, she thinks I'm at the office." + +Barclay rose from his chair, and limped across the room, calling back +as he mounted the stair, "Wait a minute." + +It was more than a minute that Neal Ward stood by the fire waiting. + +And now, gentle people, observe the leader of the orchestra fumbling +with his music. There is a faint stir among the musicians under the +footlights. And you, too, are getting restless; you are feeling for +your hat instinctively, and you for your hat-pins, and you for your +rubbers, while Neal Ward stands there waiting, and the great clock +ticks in the long silence. There is a rustle on the stairs, at the +right, and do you see that foot peeping down, that skirt, that slender +girlish figure coming down, that young face tear-stained, happy, +laughing and sobbing, with the arms outstretched as she nears the last +turn of the stairs? And the lover--he has started toward her. The +orchestra leader is standing up. And the youth, with God's holiest +glory in his face, has almost reached her. And there for an instant +stand Neal and Jeanette mingling tears in their kisses, for the +curtain, the miserable, unemotional, awkward curtain--it has stuck +and so they must stand apart, hand in hand, devouring each other's +faces a moment, and then as the curtain falls we see four feet close +together again, and then--and then the world comes in upon us, and we +smile and sigh and sigh and smile, for the journey of those four feet +is ended, the story is done. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +BEING SOMEWHAT IN THE NATURE OF AN EPILOGUE + + +And now that the performance is finished and the curtain has been rung +down, we desire to thank you, one and all, for your kind attention, +and to express the hope that in this highly moral show you may have +found some pleasure as well as profit. But though the play is ended, +and you are already reaching for your hats and coats, the lights are +still dim; and as you see a great white square of light appear against +the curtain, you know that the entertainment is to conclude with a +brief exhibition of the wonders of that great modern invention, the +cinematograph of Time. + +The first flickering shadows show you the interior of Watts McHurdie's +shop, and as your eyes take in the dancing shapes, you discern the +parliament in session. Colonel Martin F. Culpepper is sitting there +with Watts McHurdie, reading and re-reading for the fourth and fifth +time, in the peculiar pride that authorship has in listening to the +reverberation of its own eloquence, the brand-new copy of the second +edition of "The Complete Poetical and Philosophical Works of Watts +McHurdie, with Notes and a Biographical Appreciation by Martin F. +Culpepper, 'C' Company, Second Regiment K.V." The colonel, with his +thumb in the book, pokes the fire in the stove, and sits down again to +drink his joy unalloyed. Watts is working on a saddle, but his arms +and his hands are not what they were in the old days when his saddlery +won first prize year after year at the Kansas City Fair. So he puffs +and fusses and sighs his way through his morning's work. Sometimes the +colonel reads aloud a line from a verse, or a phrase from the +Biography--more frequently from the Biography--and exclaims, +"Genius, Watts, genius, genius!" But Watts McHurdie makes no reply. As +his old eyes--quicker than his old fingers--see the sad work they +are making, his heart sinks within him. + +"Listen, Watts," cries the colonel. "How do you like this, you old +skeezicks?" and the colonel reads a stanza full of "lips" and "slips," +"eyes" and "tries," "desires" and "fires," and "darts" and "hearts." + +The little white-haired old man leans forward eagerly to catch it all. +But his shoulders slump, and he draws a long, tired breath when the +colonel has finished. + +"Man--man," he cries, "what a saddle I could make when I wrote that!" +And he turns wearily to his task again. + +Oscar Fernald paces in busily, and in half an hour Lycurgus Mason, who +has been thrown out of the current of life, drifts into his place in +the back-water, and the parliament is ready for business. They see +Gabriel Carnine totter by, chasing after pennies to add to his little +pile. The bell tinkles, and the postman brings a letter. McHurdie +opens it and says, as he looks at the heading: + +"It's from old Jake. It is to all of us" he adds as he looks at the +top of the sheet of letter paper. He takes off his apron and +ceremoniously puts on his coat; then seats himself, and unfolding the +sheet, begins at the very top to read:-- + + "National Soldiers' Home, + Leavenworth, Kansas, + March 11, 1909. + + "TO THE MEMBERS OF MCHURDIE'S PARLIAMENT, + + "_Gents and Comrades_: I take my pen in hand this bright spring + morning to tell you that I arrived here safe, this side up with + care, glass, be careful, Saturday morning, and I am willing to + compromise my chances for heaven, which Father Van Saudt being a + Dutchman always regarded as slim, for a couple of geological ages of + this. I hope you are the same, but you are not. Given a few hundred + white nighties for us to wear by day, and a dozen or two dagoes + playing on harps, and this would be my idea of Heaven. The meals + that we do have--tell Oscar that when I realize what eating is, what + roast beef can be, cut thin and rare and dripping with gravy--it + makes me wonder if the days when I boarded at the Thayer House might + not be counted as part of the time I must do in the fireworks. And + the porcelean bath tubs, and the white clean beds, and the music of + the band, and the free tobacco--here I raise my Ebenezer, as the + Colonel sings down in his heretic church; here I put my standard + down. + + "Well, Watts, I hear the news about Nelly. We've known it was coming + for a year, but that doesn't make it easier. Why don't you come up + here, Comrade--we are all lonesome up here, and it doesn't make the + difference. Well, John Barclay, the reformed pirate, President of + the Exchange National Bank, and general all-round municipal + reformer, was over in Leavenworth last week attending the Bankers' + Convention, or something, and he came to see me, as though he hadn't + bid me good-by at the train two days before. But he said things were + going on at the Ridge about the same, and being away from home, he + grew confidential, and he told me Lige Bemis had lost all his money + bucking the board of trade--did you know that? If not, it isn't so, + and I never told you. John showed me the picture of little John B. + Ward--as likely a looking yearling as I ever saw. Well, I must + close. Remember me to all inquiring friends and tell them Comrade + Dolan is lying down by the still waters." + +And now the screen is darkened for a moment to mark the passage of +months before we are given another peep into the parliament. It is +May--a May morning that every one of these old men will remember to +his death. The spring rise of the Sycamore has flooded the lowlands. +The odour of spring is in the air. In the parliament are lilacs in a +sprinkling pot--a great armful of lilacs, sent by Molly Culpepper. +The members who are present are talking of the way John Barclay has +sloughed off his years, and Watts is saying:-- + +"Boys will be boys; I knew him forty years ago when he was at least a +hundred years older, and twice as wise." + +"He hasn't missed a ball game--either foot-ball or baseball--for for +nearly two years now," ventures Fernald. "And yell! Say, it's +something terrible." + +McHurdie turns on the group with his glasses on his forehead. "Don't +you know what's a-happening to John?" he asks. "Well, I know. Whoever +wrote the Bible was a pretty smart man. I've found that out in +seventy-five years--especially the Proverbs, and I've been thinking +some of the Testament." He smiles. "There's something in it. It says, +'Except ye come as a little child, ye shall in no wise enter the +Kingdom.' That's it--that's it. I don't claim to know rightly what +the kingdom may be, but John's entering it. And I'll say this: John's +been a long time getting in, but now that he's there, he's having the +de'el of a fine time." + +And on the very words General Ward comes bursting into the room, +forgetful of his years, with tragedy in his face. The bustle and +clatter of that morning in the town have passed over the men in the +parliament. They have not heard the shouts of voices in the street, +nor the sound of footsteps running towards the river. But even their +dim eyes see the horror in the general's face as he gasps for breath. + +"Boys, boys," he exclaims. "My God, boys, haven't you heard--haven't +you heard?" And as their old lips are slow to answer, he cries out, +"John's dead--John Barclay's drowned--drowned--gave his life trying +to save Trixie Lee out there on a tree caught in the dam." + +The news is so sudden, so stunning, that the old men sit there for a +moment, staring wide-eyed at the general. McHurdie is the first to +find his voice. + +"How did it happen?" he says. + +"I don't know--no one seems to know exactly," replies the general. +And then in broken phrases he gives them the confused report that he +has gathered: how some one had found Trixie Lee clinging to a tree +caught in the current of the swollen river just above the dam, and +calling for help, frantic with fear; how a crowd gathered, as crowds +gather, and the outcry brought John Barclay running from his house +near by; how he arrived to find men discussing ways of reaching the +woman in the swift current, while her grip was loosening and her cries +were becoming fainter. Then the old spirit in John Barclay, that had +saved the county-seat for Sycamore Ridge, came out for the last time. +His skiff was tied to a tree on the bank close at hand. A boy was sent +running to the nearest house for a clothes-line. When he returned, +John was in the skiff, with the oars in hand. He passed an end of the +line to the men, and without a word in answer to their protests, began +to pull out against the current. It was too strong for him, and was +sweeping him past the woman, when he stood up, measured the distance +with his eye, and threw the line so it fell squarely across her +shoulders. Some one said that as the skiff shot over the dam, John, +still standing up, had a smile on his face, and that he waved his hand +to the crowd with a touch of his old bravado. + +The general paused before going on with the story. + +"They sent me to tell his mother--the woman who had borne him, +suckled him, reared him, lost him, and found him again." + +"And what did she say?" asked Watts, as the general hesitated. + +The general moistened his lips and went on. "She stood staring at me +for one dreadful minute, and then she asked, 'How did he die, +Philemon?' 'He died saving a woman from drowning,' I told her. 'Did he +save her?'--that was what she asked, still standing stiff and +motionless. 'Yes,' I said. 'She was only Trixie Lee--a bad woman--a +bad woman, Mrs. Barclay.' And Mary Barclay lifted her long, gaunt arms +halfway above her head and cried: 'Mine eyes have seen the glory of +the coming of the Lord. I must have an hour with God now, Philemon,' +she said over her shoulder as she left me; 'don't let them bother me.' +Then she walked unbent and unshaken up the stairs." + +So John Barclay, who tried for four years and more to live by his +faith, was given the opportunity to die for it, and went to his duty +with a glad heart. + + * * * * * + +We will give our cinematograph one more whirl. A day, a week, a month, +have gone, and we may glimpse the parliament for the last time. Watts +McHurdie is reading aloud, slowly and rather painfully, a news item +from the _Banner_. Two vacant chairs are formally backed to the wall, +and in a third sits General Ward. At the end of a column-long article +Watts drones out:-- + +"And there was considerable adverse comment in the city over the fact +that the deceased was sent here for burial from the National Soldiers' +Home at Leavenworth, in a shabby, faded blue army uniform of most +ancient vintage. Surely this great government can afford better +shrouds than that for its soldier dead." + +Watts lays down the paper and wipes his spectacles, and finally he +says:-- + +"And Neal wrote that?" + +"And Neal wrote that," replies the general. + +"And was born and bred in the Ridge," complains McHurdie. + +"Born and bred in the Ridge," responds the general. + +Watts puts on his glasses and fumbles for some piece of his work on +the bench. Then he shakes his head sadly and says, after drawing a +deep breath, "Well, it's a new generation, General, a new generation." + +There follows a silence, during which Watts works on mending some bit +of harness, and the general reads the evening paper. The late +afternoon sun is slanting into the shop. At length the general speaks. + +"Yes," he says, "but it's a fine town after all. It was worth doing. I +wake up early these days, and often of a fine spring morning I go out +to call on the people on the Hill." + +McHurdie nods his comprehension. + +"Yes," continues the general, "and I tell them all about the new +improvements. There are more of us out on the Hill now than in town, +Watts; I spent some time with David Frye and Henry Schnitzler and Jim +Lord Lee this morning, and called on General Hendricks for a little +while." + +"Did you find him sociable?" asks the poet, grinning up from his +bench. + +"Oh, so-so--about as usual," answers the general. + +"He was always a proud one," comments Watts. "Will Henry Schnitzler be +stiff-necked about his monument there by the gate?" asks the little +Scotchman. + +"Inordinately, Watts, inordinately! The pride of that man is something +terrible." + +The two old men chuckle at the foolery of the moment. The general +folds away the evening paper and rises to go. + +"Watts," he says, "I have lived seventy-eight years to find out just +one thing." + +"And what will that be?" asks the harness maker. + +"This," beams the old man, as he puts his spectacle case in his black +silk coat; "that the more we give in this world, the more we take from +it; and the more we keep for ourselves, the less we take." And smiling +at his paradox, he goes through the shop into the sunset. + +The air is vocal with the home-bound traffic of the day. Cars are +crowded; delivery wagons rattle home; buggies clatter by on the +pavements; one hears the whisper of a thousand feet treading the hot, +crowded street. But Watts works on. So let us go in to bid him a +formal good-by. The tinkling door-bell will bring out a bent little +old man, with grimy fingers, who will put up his glasses to peer at +our faces, and who will pause a moment to try to recollect us. He will +talk about John Barclay. + +"Yes, yes, I knew him well," says McHurdie; "there by the door hangs a +whip he made as a boy. We used to play on that accordion in the case +there. Oh, yes, yes, he was well thought of; we are a neighbourly +people--maybe too much so. Yes, yes, he died a brave death, and the +papers seemed to think his act of sacrifice showed the world a real +man--and he was that,--he was surely that, was John; yes, he was a +real man. You ask about his funeral? It was a fine one--a grand +funeral--every hack in town out--every high-stepping horse out; and +the flowers--from all over the world they came--the flowers were +most beautiful. But there are funerals and funerals. There was Martin +Culpepper's--not so many hacks, not so many high-stepping horses, but +the old buggies, and the farm wagons, and the little nigger +carts--and man, man alive, the tears, the tears!" + + + + * * * * * * + + + +Mr. ROBERT HERRICK'S NOVELS + +_Cloth, extra, gilt tops, each $1.50_ + + +The Gospel of Freedom + +"A novel that may truly be called the greatest study of social life, +in a broad and very much up-to-date sense, that has ever been +contributed to American fiction."--_Chicago Inter-Ocean_. + +The Web of Life + +"It is strong in that it faithfully depicts many phases of American +life, and uses them to strengthen a web of fiction, which is most +artistically wrought out."--_Buffalo Express_. + +Jock o' Dreams, or The Real World + +"The title of the book has a subtle intention. It indicates, and is +true to the verities in doing so, the strange dreamlike quality of +life to the man who has not yet fought his own battles, or come into +conscious possession of his will--only such battles bite into the +consciousness."--_Chicago Tribune_. + +The Common Lot + +"It grips the reader tremendously.... It is the drama of a human soul +the reader watches ... the finest study of human motive that has +appeared for many a day."--_The World To-day_. + +The Memoirs of an American Citizen. Illustrated with about fifty +drawings by F. B. Masters. + +"Mr. Herrick's book is a book among many, and he comes nearer to +reflecting a certain kind of recognizable, contemporaneous American +spirit than anybody has yet done."--_New York Times._ + +"Intensely absorbing as a story, it is also a crisp, vigorous document +of startling significance. More than any other writer to-day he is +giving us _the_ American novel."--_New York Globe_. + +Together + +"The thing is straight from life.... The spirit of the book is in the +end bracing and quickening."--_Chicago Evening Post._ + +"An able book, remarkably so, and one which should find a place in the +library of any woman who is not a fool."--_New York American_. + +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY +Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York + + * * * * * * + +Mr. WINSTON CHURCHILL'S NOVELS + +_Each, cloth, gilt tops and titles, $1.50_ + + +Mr. Crewe's Career Illustrated + +"Another chapter in his broad, epical delineation of the American +spirit ... It is an honest and fair story ...It is very interesting: +and the heroine is a type of woman as fresh, original and captivating +as any that has appeared in American novels for a long time +past."--_The Outlook, New York._ + +"Shows Mr. Churchill at his best. The flavor of his humor is of that +stimulating kind which asserts itself just the moment, as it were, +after it has passed the palate ... As for Victoria, she has that +quality of vivid freshness, tenderness, and independence which makes +so many modern American heroines delightful."--_The Times_, London. + +The Celebrity. An Episode + +"No such piece of inimitable comedy in a literary way has appeared for +years... It is the purest, keenest fun."--_Chicago_ _Inter-Ocean_. + +Richard Carvel Illustrated +"...In breadth of canvas, massing of dramatic effect, depth of +feeling, and rare wholesomeness of spirit, it has seldom, if ever, +been surpassed by an American romance."--_Chicago Tribune_. + +The Crossing Illustrated +"'The Crossing' is a thoroughly interesting book, packed with exciting +adventure and sentimental incident, yet faithful to historical fact +both in detail and in spirit."--_The Dial_. + +The Crisis Illustrated +"It is a charming love story, and never loses its interest ... The +intense political bitterness, the intense patriotism of both parties, +are shown understandingly."--_Evening Telegraph_, Philadelphia. + +Coniston Illustrated +"'Coniston' has a lighter, gayer spirit and a deeper, tenderer touch +than Mr. Churchill has ever achieved before... It is one of the truest +and finest transcripts of modern American life thus far achieved in +our fiction."--_Chicago Record-Herald_. + +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY +Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York + + * * * * * * + +By EDEN PHILLPOTTS + + The Three Brothers _Cloth, $1.50_ + +"'The Three Brothers' seems to us the best yet of the long series of +these remarkable Dartmoor tales. If Shakespeare had written novels we +can think that some of his pages would have been like some of these. +Here certainly is language, turn of humor, philosophical play, vigor +of incident such as might have come straight from Elizabeth's day.... +The story has its tragedy, but this is less dire, more reasonable than +the tragedy is in too many of Mr. Phillpotts's other tales. The book +is full of a very moving interest, and it is agreeable and +beautiful."--_The New York Sun_. + +By Miss ELLEN GLASGOW + + The Romance of a Plain Man _$1.50_ + +"From the first she has had the power to tell a strong story, full of +human interest, but as her work has continued it has shown an +increasing mellowness and sympathy. The atmosphere of this book is +fascinating indeed."--_Chicago Tribune_. + +By FRANK DANBY + + The Heart of a Child _Cloth, $1.50_ + +BEING PASSAGES FROM THE EARLY LIFE +OF SALLY SNAPE, LADY KIDDERMINSTER + +"'Frank Danby' has found herself. It is full of the old wit, the old +humor, the old epigram, and the old knowledge of what I may call the +Bohemia of London; but it is also full of a new quality, the quality +of imaginative tenderness and creative sympathy. It is delightful to +watch the growth of human character either in life or in literature, +and in 'The Heart of a Child' one can see the brilliancy of Frank +Danby suddenly burgeoning into the wistfulness that makes cleverness +soft and exquisite and delicate.... It is a mixture of naturalism and +romance, and one detects in it the miraculous power ... of seeing +things steadily and seeing them wholly, with relentless humor and +pitiless pathos. The book is crowded with types, and they are all +etched in with masterly fidelity of vision and sureness of touch, with +feminine subtlety as well as virile audacity."--James Douglas in _The +Star_, London. + + Sebastian. A Son of Dreams. _Cloth, $1.50_ + +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY +Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York + + * * * * * * + +NOVELS, ETC., BY "BARBARA" + +(MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT) + +_Each, in decorated cloth binding, $1.50_ + + +The Garden of a Commuter's Wife Illustrated + +"Reading it is like having the entry into a home of the class that is +the proudest product of our land, a home where love of books and love +of nature go hand in hand with hearty, simple love of 'folks.' ... It +is a charming book."--_The Interior_. + +People of the Whirlpool Illustrated +"The whole book is delicious, with its wise and kindly humor, its just +perspective of the true values of things, its clever pen pictures of +people and customs, and its healthy optimism for the great world in +general."--_Philadelphia Evening Telegraph_. + +The Woman Errant + +"The book is worth reading. It will cause discussion. It is an +interesting fictional presentation of an important modern question, +treated with fascinating feminine adroitness."--Miss Jeannette Gilder +in the _Chicago Tribune_. + +At the Sign of the Fox + +"Her little pictures of country life are fragrant with a genuine love +of nature, and there is fun as genuine in her notes on rural +character."--_New York Tribune_. + +The Garden, You and I + +"This volume is simply the best she has yet put forth, and quite too +deliciously torturing to the reviewer, whose only garden is in +Spain.... The delightful humor which pervaded the earlier books, and +without which Barbara would not be Barbara, has lost nothing of its +poignancy."--_Congregationalist_. + +The Open Window. Tales of the Months. + +"A little vacation from the sophistication of the +commonplace."--_Argonaut_. + +Poppea of the Post Office + +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY +Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York + + + + * * * * * * + + + +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES + +1. Punctuation has been changed to conform to contemporary standards. + +2. Table of Contents not present in the original has been added. + +3. Alternate spellings of "ecstacy" (inside quoted material, on page + 318 and 361) and "ecstasy" (outside quoted material, on page 109) + retained. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CERTAIN RICH MAN*** + + +******* This file should be named 18684-8.txt or 18684-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/6/8/18684 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: A Certain Rich Man</p> +<p>Author: William Allen White</p> +<p>Release Date: June 26, 2006 [eBook #18684]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CERTAIN RICH MAN***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3>E-text prepared by Roger Frank<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (http://www.pgdp.net/)</h3> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<p style="font-size: 180%; text-align:center">A CERTAIN RICH MAN</p> + +<hr class='major' /> + +<p style='text-align:center'> +<span style="font-size: 100%;">THE MACMILLAN COMPANY</span><br/> +<span style="font-size: 80%;">NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO</span><br/> +<span style="font-size: 80%;">ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO</span><br/> +<br/> +<span style="font-size: 100%;">MACMILLAN & CO., <span class="smcap">Limited</span></span><br/> +<span style="font-size: 80%;">LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA</span><br/> +<span style="font-size: 80%;">MELBOURNE</span><br/> +<br/> +<span style="font-size: 100%;">THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, <span class="smcap">Ltd.</span></span><br/> +<span style="font-size: 80%;">TORONTO</span> +</p> + +<hr class='major' /> + +<table width="450" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="" border="1"> + <col style="width:100%;" /> + <tr> + <td align="center"> + +<span style="font-size: 180%;"><br />A CERTAIN RICH MAN</span><br/> +<br/><br/><br/><br/><br/> +<span style="font-size: 90%;">BY</span><br/> +<span style="font-size: 120%;">WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE</span><br/> +<span style="font-size: 80%;">AUTHOR OF "STRATAGEMS AND SPOILS," "THE</span><br/> +<span style="font-size: 80%;">COURT OF BOYVILLE," ETC.</span><br/> +<br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/> +<span style="font-size: 100%;">New York</span><br/> +<span style="font-size: 80%;">THE MACMILLAN COMPANY</span><br/> +<span style="font-size: 80%;">1909</span><br/> +<span style="font-size: 80%;"><i>All rights reserved</i></span> +<br/><br/> + </td> + </tr> +</table> + +<hr class='major' /> + +<p style='text-align:center'> +<span class="smcap">Copyright, 1909,</span><br/> +<span class="smcap">By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.</span> +</p> +<hr class='minor' /> +<p style='text-align:center'> +Set up and electrotyped. Published July, 1909.<br/> +<br/> +Norwood Press<br/> +J. S. Cushing Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.<br/> +Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. +</p> + +<hr class='major' /> + +<h2><a name="Contents" id="Contents"></a>Contents</h2> + +<table border="0" width="500" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents"> +<col style="width:70%;" /> +<col style="width:20%;" /> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER I</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">1</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER II</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">15</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER III</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">30</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER IV</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">51</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER V</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">59</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER VI</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">72</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER VII</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">84</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER VIII</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">95</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER IX</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">105</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER X</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">118</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XI</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">135</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XII</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">150</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XIII</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">165</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XIV</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">176</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XV</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">193</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XVI</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">206</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XVII</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">227</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XVIII</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">243</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XIX</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">262</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XX</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">275</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XXI</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">294</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XXII</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">304</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XXIII</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">319</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XXIV</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">334</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XXV</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">339</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XXVI</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">355</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XXVII</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">365</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XXVIII</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">382</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XXIX</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">405</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER XXX</td><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">428</a></td></tr> +</table> + +<hr class='major' /> + +<p style="font-size: 150%; text-align: center">BOOK I</p> + +<hr class='minor' /> + +<h1>A CERTAIN RICH MAN</h1> + +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER I</h2> +</div> + +<p>The woods were as the Indians had left them, but the boys who were +playing there did not realize, until many years afterwards, that they +had moved in as the Indians moved out. Perhaps, if these boys had known +that they were the first white boys to use the Indians' playgrounds, the +realization might have added zest to the make-believe of their games; +but probably boys between seven and fourteen, when they play at all, +play with their fancies strained, and very likely these little boys, +keeping their stick-horse livery-stable in a wild-grape arbour in the +thicket, needed no verisimilitude. The long straight hickory +switches—which served as horses—were arranged with their butts on a +rotting log, whereon some grass was spread for their feed. Their string +bridles hung loosely over the log. The horsemen swinging in the vines +above, or in the elm tree near by, were preparing a raid on the stables +of other boys, either in the native lumber town a rifle-shot away or in +distant parts of the woods. When the youngsters climbed down, they +straddled their hickory steeds and galloped friskily away to the creek +and drank; this was part of the rites, for tradition in the town of +their elders said that whoever drank of Sycamore Creek water immediately +turned horse thief. Having drunk their fill at the ford, they waded it +and left the stumpy road, plunging into the underbrush, snorting and +puffing and giggling and fussing and complaining—the big ones at the +little ones and the little ones at the big ones—after the manner of +mankind.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p> + +<p>When they had gone perhaps a half-mile from the ford, one of the little +boys, feeling the rag on his sore heel slipping and letting the rough +woods grass scratch his raw flesh, stopped to tie up the rag. He was far +in the rear of the pack when he stopped, and the boys, not heeding his +blat, rushed on and left him at the edge of a thicket near a deep-rutted +road. His cry became a whimper and his whimper a sniffle as he worked +with the rag; but the little fingers were clumsy, and a heel is a hard +place to cover, and the sun was hot on his back; so he took the rag in +one hand and his bridle in the other, and limped on his stick horse into +the thick shade of a lone oak tree that stood beside the wide dusty +road. His sore did not bother him, and he sat with his back against the +tree for a while, flipping the rag and making figures in the dust with +the pronged tail of his horse. Then his hands were still, and as he ran +from tune to tune with improvised interludes, he droned a song of his +prowess. Sometimes he sang words and sometimes he sang thoughts. He sank +farther and farther down and looked up into the tree and ceased his +song, chirping instead a stuttering falsetto trill, not unlike a +cricket's, holding his breath as long as he could to draw it out to its +finest strand; and thus with his head on his arm and his arm on the tree +root, he fell asleep.</p> + +<p>The noon sun was on his legs when he awoke, and a strange dog was +sniffing at him. As he started up, he heard the clatter of a horse's +feet in the road, and saw an Indian woman trotting toward him on a pony. +In an instant he was a-wing with terror, scooting toward the thick of +the woods. He screamed as he ran, for his head was full of Indian +stories, and he knew that the only use Indians had for little boys was +to steal them and adopt them into the tribe. He heard the brush +crackling behind him, and he knew that the woman had turned off the road +to follow him. A hundred yards is a long way for a terror-stricken +little boy to run through tangled underbrush, and when he had come to +the high bank of the stream, he slipped down among the tree roots<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> and +tried to hide. His little heart beat so fast that he could not keep from +panting, and the sound of breaking brush came nearer and then stopped, +and in a moment he looked up and saw the squaw leaning over the bank, +holding to the tree above him. She smiled kindly at him and said:—</p> + +<p>"Come on, boy—I won't hurt you. I as scared of you as you are of me."</p> + +<p>She bent over and took him by the arm and lifted him to her. She got on +her pony and put him on before her and soothed his fright, as they rode +slowly through the wood to the road, where they came to a great band of +Indians, all riding ponies.</p> + +<p>It seemed to the boy that he had never imagined there were so many +people in the whole world; there was some parley among them, and the +band set out on the road again, with the squaw in advance. They were but +a few yards from the forks of the road, and as they came to it she +said:—</p> + +<p>"Boy—which way to town?"</p> + +<p>He pointed the way and she turned into it, and the band followed. They +crossed the ford, climbed the steep red clay bank of the creek, and +filed up the hill into the unpainted group of cabins and shanties +cluttered around a well that men, in 1857, knew as Sycamore Ridge. The +Indians filled the dusty area between the two rows of gray houses on +either side of the street, and the town flocked from its ten front doors +before half the train had arrived. The last door of them all to open was +in a slab house, nearly half a mile from the street. A washing fluttered +on the clothes-line, and the woman who came out of the door carried a +round-bottomed hickory-bark basket, such as might hold clothes-pins. +Seeing the invasion, she hurried across the prairie, toward the town. +She was a tall thin woman, not yet thirty, brown and tanned, with a +strong masculine face, and as she came nearer one could see that she had +a square firm jaw, and great kind gray eyes that lighted her countenance +from a serene soul. Her sleeves rolled far above her elbows revealed +arms used to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> rough hard work, and her hands were red from the wash-tub. +As she came into the street, she saw the little boy sitting on the horse +in front of the squaw. Walking to them quickly, and lifting her arms, as +she neared the squaw's pony, the white woman said:—</p> + +<p>"Why, Johnnie Barclay, where have you been?"</p> + +<p>The boy climbed from the pony, and the two women smiled at each other, +but exchanged no words. And as his feet touched the ground, he became +conscious of the rag in his hand, of his bleeding heel, of his cramped +legs being "asleep"—all in one instant, and went limping and whining +toward home with his mother, while the Indians traded in the store and +tried to steal from the other houses, and in a score of peaceful ways +diverted the town's attention from the departing figures down the path.</p> + +<p>That was the first adventure that impressed itself upon the memory of +John Barclay. All his life he remembered the covered wagon in which the +Barclays crossed the Mississippi; but it is only a curious memory of +seeing the posts of the bed, lying flat beside him in the wagon, and of +fingering the palm leaves cut in the wood. He was four years old then, +and as a man he remembered only as a tale that is told the fight at +Westport Landing, where his father was killed for preaching an abolition +sermon from the wagon tongue. The man remembered nothing of the long +ride that the child and the mother took with the father's body to +Lawrence, where they buried it in a free-state cemetery. But he always +remembered something of their westward ride, after the funeral of his +father. The boy carried a child's memory of the prairie—probably his +first sight of the prairie, with the vacant horizon circling around and +around him, and the monotonous rattle of the wagon on the level prairie +road, for hours keeping the same rhythm and fitting the same tune. Then +there was a mottled memory of the woods—woods with sunshine in them, +and of a prairie flooded with sunshine on which he played, now picking +flowers, now playing house under the limestone ledges, now, after a +rain, following little rivers down rocky draws, and finding sunfish and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> +silversides in the deeper pools. But always his memory was of the +sunshine, and the open sky, or the deep wide woods all unexplored, save +by himself.</p> + +<p>The great road that widened to make the prairie street, and wormed over +the hill into the sunset, always seemed dusty to the boy, and although +in after years he followed that road, over the hills and far away, when +it was rutty and full of clods, as a child he recalled it only as a +great bed of dust, wherein he and other boys played, now battling with +handfuls of dust, and now running races on some level stretch of it, and +now standing beside the road while a passing movers' wagon delayed their +play. The movers' wagon was never absent from the boy's picture of that +time and place. Either the canvas-covered wagon was coming from the ford +of Sycamore Creek, or disappearing over the hill beyond the town, or was +passing in front of the boys as they stopped their play. Being a boy, he +could not know, nor would he care if he did know, that he was seeing one +of God's miracles—the migration of a people, blind but instinctive as +that of birds or buffalo, from old pastures into new ones. All over the +plains in those days, on a hundred roads like that which ran through +Sycamore Ridge, men and women were moving from east to west, and, as +often has happened since the beginning of time, when men have migrated, +a great ethical principle was stirring in them. The pioneers do not go +to the wilderness always in lust of land, but sometimes they go to +satisfy their souls. The spirit of God moves in the hearts of men as it +moves on the face of the waters.</p> + +<p>Something of this moving spirit was in John Barclay's mother. For often +she paused at her work, looking up from her wash-tub toward the highway, +when a prairie schooner sailed by, and lifting her face skyward for an +instant, as her lips moved in silence. As a man the boy knew she was +thinking of her long journey, of the tragedy that came of it, and +praying for those who passed into the West. Then she would bend to her +work again; and the washerwoman's child who took the clothes she washed +in his little wagon with the cottonwood log wheels, across<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> the commons +into the town, was not made to feel an inferior place in the social +system until he was in his early teens. For all the Sycamore Ridge women +worked hard in those days. But there were Sundays when the boy and his +mother walked over the wide prairies together, and she told him stories +of Haverhill—of the wonderful people who lived there, of the great +college, of the beautiful women and wise men, and best of all of his +father, who was a student in the college, and they dreamed +together—mother and child—about how he would board at Uncle Union's +and work in the store for Uncle Abner—when the boy went back to +Haverhill to school when he grew up.</p> + +<p>On these excursions the mother sometimes tried to interest him in Mr. +Beecher's sermons which she read to him, but his eyes followed the bees +and the birds and the butterflies and the shadows trailing across the +hillside; so the seed fell on stony ground. One fine fall day they went +up the ridge far above the town where the court-house stands now, and +there under a lone elm tree just above a limestone ledge, they spread +their lunch, and the mother sat on the hillside, almost hidden by the +rippling prairie grass, reading the first number of the <i>Atlantic +Monthly</i>, while the boy cleared out a spring that bubbled from beneath a +rock in the shade, and after running for a few feet sank under a great +stone and did not appear again. As the mother read, the afternoon waned, +and when she looked up, she was astonished to see John standing beside +the rock, waist deep in a hole, trying to back down into it. His face +was covered with dirt, and his clothes were wet from the falling water +of the spring that was flowing into the hole he had opened. In a jiffy +she pulled him out, and looking into the hole, saw by the failing +sunlight which shone directly into the place that the child had +uncovered the opening of a cave. But they did not explore it, for the +mother was afraid, and the two came down the hill, the child's head full +of visions of a pirate's treasure, and the mother's full of the whims of +the Autocrat of the Breakfast Table.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p> + +<p>The next day school began in Sycamore Ridge,—for the school and the +church came with the newspaper, <i>Freedom's Banner</i>,—and a new world +opened to the boy, and he forgot the cave, and became interested in +Webster's blue-backed speller. And thus another grown-up person, "Miss +Lucy," came into his world. For with children, men and women generically +are of another order of beings. But Miss Lucy, being John Barclay's +teacher, grew into his daily life on an equality with his dog and the +Hendricks boys, and took a place somewhat lower than his mother in his +list of saints. For Miss Lucy came from Sangamon County, Illinois, and +her father had fought the Indians, and she told the school as many +strange and wonderful things about Illinois as John had learned from his +mother about Haverhill. But his allegiance to the teacher was only lip +service. For at night when he sat digging the gravel and dirt from the +holes in the heels of his copper-toed boots, that he might wad them with +paper to be ready for his skates on the morrow, or when he sat by the +wide fireplace oiling the runners with the steel curly-cues curving over +the toes, or filing a groove in the blades, the boy's greatest joy was +with his mother. Sometimes as she ironed she told him stories of his +father, or when the child was sick and nervous, as a special favour, on +his promise to take the medicine and not ask for a drink, she would +bring her guitar from under the bed and tune it up and play with a +curious little mouse-like touch. And on rare occasions she would sing to +her own shy maidenly accompaniment, her voice rising scarcely higher +than the wind in the sycamore at the spring outside. The boy remembered +only one line of an old song she sometimes tried to sing: "Sleeping, I +dream, love, dream, love, of thee," but what the rest of it was, and +what it was all about, he never knew; for when she got that far, she +always stopped and came to the bed and lay beside him, and they both +cried, though as a child he did not know why.</p> + +<p>So the winter of 1857 wore away at Sycamore Ridge, and with the coming +of the spring of '58, when the town was formally incorporated, even into +the boy world there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> came the murmurs of strife and alarms. The games +the boys played were war games. They had battles in the woods, between +the free-state and the pro-slavery men, and once—twice—three times +there marched by on the road real soldiers, and it was no unusual thing +to see a dragoon dismount at the town well and water his horse. The big +boys in school affected spurs, and Miss Lucy brought to school with her +one morning a long bundle, which, when it was unwrapped, disclosed the +sword of her father, Captain Barnes, presented to him by his admiring +soldiers at the close of the "Black Hawk War." John traded for a tin +fife and learned to play "Jaybird" upon it, though he preferred the +jew's-harp, and had a more varied repertory with it. Was it an era of +music, or is childhood the period of music? Perhaps this land of ours +was younger than it is now and sang more lustily, if not with great +precision; for to the man who harks back over the years, those were days +of song. All the world seemed singing—men in their stores and shops, +women at their work, and children in their schools. And a freckled, +barefooted little boy with sunburned curly hair, in home-made clothes, +and with brown bare legs showing through the rips in his trousers, used +to sit alone in the woods breathing his soul into a mouth-organ—a +priceless treasure for which he had traded two raccoons, an owl, and a +prairie dog. But he mastered the mouth-organ,—it was called a French +harp in those days,—and before he had put on his first collar, Watts +McHurdie had taught the boy to play the accordion. The great heavy +bellows was half as large as he was, but the little chap would sit in +McHurdie's harness shop of a summer afternoon and swing the instrument +up and down as the melody swelled or died, and sway his body with the +time and the tune, as Watts McHurdie, who owned the accordion, swayed +and gyrated when he played. Mrs. Barclay, hearing her son, smiled and +shook her head and knew him for a Thatcher; "No Barclay," she said, +"ever could carry a tune." So the mother brought out from the bottom of +the trunk her yellow-covered book, "Winner's Instructor on the Guitar," +and taught the child<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> what she could of notes. Thus music found its way +out of the boy's soul.</p> + +<p>One day in the summer of 1860, as he and his fellows were filing down +the crooked dusty path that led from the swimming hole through the dry +woods to the main road, they came upon a group of horsemen scanning the +dry ford of the Sycamore. That was the first time that John Barclay met +the famous Captain Lee. He was a great hulk of a man who, John thought, +looked like a pirate. The boys led the men and their horses up the dry +limestone bed of the stream to the swimming hole—a deep pool in the +creek. The coming of the soldiers made a stir in the town. For they were +not "regulars"; they were known as the Red Legs, but called themselves +"The Army of the Border." Under Captain J. Lord Lee—whose life +afterwards touched Barclay's sometimes—"The Army of the Border," being +about forty in number, came to Sycamore Ridge that night, and greatly to +the scandal of the decent village, there appeared with the men two women +in short skirts and red leggins, who were introduced at Schnitzler's +saloon as Happy Hally and Lady Lee. "The Army of the Border," under J. +Lord and Lady Lee,—as they were known,—proceeded to get bawling drunk, +whereupon they introduced to the town the song which for the moment was +the national hymn of Kansas:—</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Am I a soldier of the boss,</span><br/> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;"> A follower of Jim Lane?</span><br/> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Then should I fear to steal a hoss,</span><br/> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;"> Or blush to ride the same."</span></p> + +<p>As the night deepened and Henry Schnitzler's supply of liquor seemed +exhaustless, the Army of the Border went from song to war and wandered +about banging doors and demanding to know if any white-livered +Missourian in the town was man enough to come out and fight. At +half-past one the Army of the Border had either gone back to camp, or +propped itself up against the sides of the buildings in peaceful sleep, +when the screech of the brakes on the wheels of the stage was heard half +a mile away as it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> lumbered down the steep bank of the Sycamore, and +then the town woke up. As the stage rolled down Main Street, the male +portion of Sycamore Ridge lined up before the Thayer House to see who +would get out and to learn the news from the gathering storm in the +world outside. As the crowd stood there, and while the driver was +climbing from his box, little John Barclay, white-faced, clad in his +night drawers, came flying into the crowd from behind a building.</p> + +<p>"Mother—" he gasped, "mother—says—come—mother says some one come +quick—there's a man there—trying to break in!" And finding that he had +made himself understood, the boy darted back across the common toward +home. The little white figure kept ahead of the men, and when they +arrived, they found Mrs. Barclay standing in the door of her house, with +a lantern in one hand and a carbine in the crook of her arm. In the +dark, somewhere over toward the highway, but in the direction of the +river, the sound of a man running over the ploughed ground might be +heard as he stumbled and grunted and panted in fear. She shook her head +reassuringly as the men from the town came into the radius of the light +from her lantern, and as they stepped on the hard clean-swept earth of +her doorway, she said, smiling:</p> + +<p>"He won't come back. I'm sorry I bothered you. Only—I was frightened a +little at first—when I sent Johnnie out of the back door." She paused a +moment, and answered some one's question about the man, and went on, "He +was just drunk. He meant no harm. It was Lige Bemis—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," said Watts McHurdie, "you know—the old gang that used to be +here before the town started. He's with the Red Legs now."</p> + +<p>"Well," continued Mrs. Barclay, "he said he wanted to come over and +visit the sycamore tree by the spring."</p> + +<p>The crowd knew Lige and laughed and turned away. The men trudged slowly +back to the cluster of lights that marked the town, and the woman closed +her door, and she and the child went to bed. Instead of sleeping, they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> +talked over their adventure. He sat up in bed, big-eyed with excitement, +while his mother told him that the drunken visitor was Lige Bemis, who +had come to revisit a cave, a horse thief's cave, he had said, back of +the big rock that seemed to have slipped down from the ledge behind the +house, right by the spring. She told the boy that Bemis had said that +the cave contained a room wherein they used to keep their stolen horses, +and that he tried to move the great slab door of stone and, being drunk, +could not do so.</p> + +<p>When the men of Sycamore Ridge who left the stage without waiting to see +what human seed it would shuck out arrived at Main Street, the stage was +in the barn, the driver was eating his supper, and the passenger was in +bed at the Thayer House. But his name was on the dog-eared hotel +register, and it gave the town something to talk about as Martin +Culpepper was distributing the mail. For the name on the book was +Philemon R. Ward, and the town after his name, Cambridge, Massachusetts. +Every man and woman and most of the children in Sycamore Ridge knew who +Philemon Ward was. He had been driven out of Georgia in '58 for editing +an abolition newspaper; he had been mobbed in Ohio for delivering +abolition lectures; he had been led out of Missouri with a rope around +his neck, and a reward was on his head in a half-dozen Southern states +for inciting slaves to rebellion. His picture had been in <i>Harper's +Weekly</i> as a General Passenger Agent of the Underground Railway. +Naturally to Sycamore Ridge, where more than one night the town had sat +up all night waiting for the stage to bring the <i>New York Tribune</i>, +Philemon R. Ward was a hero, and his presence in the town was an event. +When the little Barclay boy heard it at the store that morning before +sunrise, he ran down the path toward home to tell his mother and had to +go back to do the errand on which he was sent. By sunrise every one in +town had the news; men were shaken out of their morning naps to hear, +"Philemon Ward's in town—wake up, man; did you hear what I say? +Philemon Ward came to town last<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> night on the stage." And before the +last man was awake, the town was startled by the clatter of horses' +hoofs on the gravel road over the hill south of town, and Gabriel +Carnine and Lycurgus Mason of Minneola came dashing into the street and +yelling, "The Missourians are coming, the Missourians are coming!"</p> + +<p>The little boy, who had just turned into Main Street for the second +time, remembered all his life how the news that the Minneola men +brought, thrilled Sycamore Ridge. It seemed to the boy but an instant +till the town was in the street, and then he and a group of boys were +running to the swimming hole to call the Army of the Border. The horse +weeds scratched his face as he plunged through the timber cross-lots +with his message. He was the first boy to reach the camp. What they did +or what he did, he never remembered. He has heard men say many times +that he whispered his message, grabbed a carbine, and came tearing +through the brush back to the town.</p> + +<p>All that is important to know of the battle of Sycamore Ridge is that +Philemon Ward, called out of bed with the town to fight that summer +morning, took command before he had dressed, and when the town was +threatened with a charge from a second division of the enemy, Bemis and +Captain Lee of the Red Legs, Watts McHurdie, Madison Hendricks, Oscar +Fernald, and Gabriel Carnine, under the command of Philemon Ward, ran to +the top of the high bank of the Sycamore, and there held a deep cut made +for the stage road,—held it as a pass against a half-hundred horsemen, +floundering under the bank, in the underbrush below, who dared not file +up the pass.</p> + +<p>The little boy standing at the window of his mother's house saw this. +But all the firing in the town, all the forming and charging and +skirmishing that was done that hot August day in '60, either he did not +see, or if he saw it, the memory faded under the great terror that +gripped his soul when he saw his mother in danger. Ward in his +undershirt was standing by a tree near the stage road above the bank. +The firing in the creek bed had stopped. His back was toward the town, +and then, out of some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> place dim in the child's mind—from the troop +southwest of town perhaps—came a charge of galloping horsemen, riding +down on Ward. The others with him had found cover, and he, seeing the +enemy before him and behind him, pistol in hand, alone charged into the +advancing horsemen. It was all confused in the child's mind, though the +histories say that the Sycamore Ridge people did not know Ward was in +danger, and that when he fell they did not understand who had fallen. +But the boy—John Barclay—saw him fall, and his mother knew who had +fallen, and the wife of the Westport martyr groaned in anguish as she +saw Freedom's champion writhing in the dust of the road like a dying +snake, after the troop passed over him. And even when he was a man, the +boy could remember the woe in her face, as she stooped to kiss her +child, and then huddling down to avoid the bullets, ran across the field +to the wounded man, with dust in his mouth, twitching in the highway. +Bullets were spitting in the dust about her as the boy saw his mother +roll the bleeding man over, pick him up, get him on her back with his +feet trailing on the earth beside her, and then rising to her full +height, stagger under her limp burden back to the house. When she came +in the door, her face and shoulders were covered with blood and her +skirt ripped with a bullet.</p> + +<p>That is all of the battle that John Barclay ever remembered. After that +it seemed to end, though the histories say that it lasted all the long +day, and that the fire of the invaders was so heavy that no one from the +Ridge dared venture to the Barclay home. The boy saw his mother lay the +unconscious man on the floor, while she opened the back door, and +without saying a word, stepped to the spring, which was hidden from the +road. She put her knee, her broad chest, and her strong red hand to the +rock and shoved until her back bowed and the cords stood out on her +neck; then slowly the rock moved till she could see inside the cave, +could put her leg in, could squirm her body in. The morning light +flooded in after her, and in the instant that she stood there she saw +dimly a great room, through which the spring trickled. There were hay<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> +inside, and candles and saddles; in another minute she had the wounded +man in the cave and was washing the dirt from him. A bullet had ploughed +its way along his scalp, his body was pierced through the shoulder, and +his leg was broken by a horse's hoof. She did what she could while the +shooting went on outside, and then slipped out, tugged at the great rock +again until it fell back in its place, and knowing that Philemon Ward +was safe from the Missourians if they should win the day, she came into +the house. Then as the mocking clouds of the summer drouth rolled up at +night, and belched forth their thunder in a tempest of wind, the +besiegers passed as a dream in the night. And in the morning they were +not.</p> + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER II</h2> +</div> + +<p>And so on the night of the battle of Sycamore Ridge, John Barclay closed +the door of his childhood and became a boy. He did not remember how +Ward's wounds were dressed, nor how the town made a hero of the man; but +he did remember Watts McHurdie and Martin Culpepper and the Hendricks +boys tramping through the cave that night with torches, and he was the +hero of that occasion because he was the smallest boy there and they put +him up through the crack in the head of the cave, and he saw the stars +under the elm tree far above the town, where he and his mother had spent +a Sunday afternoon three years before. He called to the men below and +told them where he was, and slipped down through, the hole again with an +elm sprout in his hand to prove that he had been under the elm tree at +the spring. But he remembered nothing of the night—how the men picketed +the town; how he sat up with them along with the other boys; how the +women, under his mother's direction and Miss Lucy's, cared for the +wounded man, who lapsed into delirium as the night wore on, and gibbered +of liberty and freedom as another man would go over his accounts in his +dreams.</p> + +<p>His mother and Miss Lucy took turns nursing Ward night after night +during the hot dry summer. As the sick man grew better, many men came to +the house, and great plans were afloat. Philemon Ward, sitting up in bed +waiting for his leg to heal, talked much of the cave as a refuge for +fugitive slaves. There was some kind of a military organization; all the +men in town were enlisted, and Ward was their captain, drums were +rattling and men were drilling; the dust clouds rose as they marched +across the drouth-blighted fields. One night they marched up to the +Barclay home, and Ward with a crutch under his arm, and with Mrs. +Barclay and Miss Lucy beside him,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> stood in the door and made a speech +to the men. And then there were songs. Watts McHurdie threw back his +head and sang "Scots wha ha' wi' Wallace bled," following it with some +words of his own denouncing slavery and calling down curses upon the +slaveholders; so withal it was a martial occasion, and the boy's heart +swelled with patriotic pride. But for a vague feeling that Miss Lucy was +neglecting him for her patient, John would have begun making a hero of +Philemon R. Ward. As it was, the boy merely tolerated the man and +silently suspected him of intentions and designs.</p> + +<p>But when school opened, Philemon Ward left Sycamore Ridge and John +Barclay made an important discovery. It was that Ellen Culpepper had +eyes. In Sycamore Ridge with its three hundred souls, only fifteen of +them were children, and five of them were ten years old, and John had +played with those five nearly all his life. But at ten sometimes the +scales drop from one's eyes, and a ribbon or a bead or a pair of new red +striped yarn stockings or any other of the embellishments which nature +teaches little girls to wear casts a sheen over all the world for a boy. +The magic bundle that charmed John Barclay was a scarlet dress, "made +over," that came in an "aid box" from the Culpeppers in Virginia. And +when the other children in Miss Lucy's school made fun of John and his +<i>amour</i>, the boy fought his way through it all—where fighting was the +better part of valour—and made horsehair chains for Ellen and cut +lockets for her out of coffee beans, and with a red-hot poker made a +ring for her from a rubber button as a return for the smile he got at +the sly twist he gave her hair as he passed her desk on his way to the +spelling class. As for Miss Lucy, who saw herself displaced, she wrote +to Philemon Ward, and told him of her jilting, and railed at the +fickleness and frailty of the sex.</p> + +<p>And by that token an envelope in Ward's handwriting came to Miss Lucy +every week, and Postmaster Martin Culpepper and Mrs. Martin Culpepper +and all Sycamore Ridge knew it. And loyal Southerner though he was,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> +Martin Culpepper's interest in the affair between Ward and Miss Lucy was +greater than his indignation over the fact that Ward had carried his +campaign even into Virginia; nothing would have tempted him to disclose +to his political friends at home the postmarks of Ward's letters. That +was the year of the great drouth of '60, remembered all over the plains. +And as the winter deepened and the people of Sycamore Ridge were without +crops, and without money to buy food, they bundled up Martin Culpepper +and sent him back to Ohio seeking aid. He was a handsome figure the day +he took the stage in his high hat and his ruffled shirt and broad coat +tails, a straight lean figure of a man in his early thirties, with fine +black eyes and a shocky head of hair, and when he pictured the +sufferings of the Kansas pioneers to the people of the East, the state +was flooded with beans and flour, and sheeted in white muslin. For +Martin Culpepper was an orator, and though he is in his grave now, the +picture he painted of bleeding Kansas nearly fifty years ago still hangs +in many an old man's memory. And after all, it was only a picture. For +they were all young out here then, and through all the drouth and the +hardship that followed—and the hardship was real—there was always the +gayety of youth. The dances on Deer Creek and at Minneola did not stop +for the drouth, and many's the night that Mrs. Mason, the tall raw-boned +wife of Lycurgus, wrapped little Jane in a quilt and came over to the +Ridge from Minneola to take part in some social affair. And while Martin +Culpepper was telling of the anguish of the famine, Watts McHurdie and +his accordion and Ezra Lane's fiddle were agitating the heels of the +populace. And even those pioneers who were moved to come into the +wilderness by a great purpose—and they were moved so—to come into the +new territory and make it free, nevertheless capered and romped through +the drouth of '60 in the cast-off garments of their kinsmen and were +happy; for there were buffalo meat and beans for the needy, the aid room +had flour, and God gave them youth.</p> + +<p>Not drouth, nor famine, nor suffering, nor zeal of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> great purpose can +burn out the sparkle of youth in the heart. Only time can do that, and +so John Barclay remembered the famous drouth of '60, not by his mother's +tears, which came as she bent over his little clothes, before the aid +box came from Haverhill, not by the long days of waiting for the rain +that never came, not even by the sun that lapped up the swimming hole +before fall, and left no river to freeze for their winter's skating, not +even by his mother's anguish when she had to go to the aid store for +flour and beans, though that must have been a sorry day for a Thatcher; +but he remembers the great drouth by Ellen Culpepper's party, where they +had a frosted cake and played kissing games, and—well, fifty years is +along time for two brown eyes to shine in the heart of a boy and a man. +It is strange that they should glow there, and all memory of the runaway +slaves who were sheltered in the cave by the sycamore tree should fade, +and be only as a tale that is told. Yet, so memory served the boy, and +he knew only at second hand how his mother gave her widow's mite to the +cause for which she had crossed the prairies as of old her "fathers +crossed the sea."</p> + +<p>Before the rain came in the spring of '61 Martin Culpepper came back +from the East an orator of established reputation. The town was proud of +him, and he addressed the multitude on various occasions and wept many +tears over the sad state of the country. For in the nation, as well as +in Sycamore Ridge, great things were stirring. Watts McHurdie filled +<i>Freedom's Banner</i> with incendiary verse, always giving the name of the +tune at the beginning of each contribution, by which it might be sung, +and the way he clanked Slavery's chains and made love to Freedom was +highly disconcerting; but the town liked it.</p> + +<p>In April Philemon R. Ward came back to Sycamore Ridge, and there was a +great gathering to hear his speech. Ward's soul was aflame with anger. +There were no Greek gods and Roman deities in what Ward said, as there +were in Martin Culpepper's addresses. Ward used no figures of speech and +exercised no rhetorical charms; but he talked with passion in his voice +and the frenzy of a cause in his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> eyes. Martin Culpepper was in the +crowd, and as Ward lashed the South, every heart turned in interrogation +to Culpepper. They knew what his education had been. They understood his +sentiments; and yet because he was one of them, because he had endured +with them and suffered with them and ministered to them, the town set +him apart from its hatred. And Martin Culpepper was sensitive enough to +feel this. It came over him with a wave of joy, and as Ward talked, +Culpepper expanded. Ward closed in a low tone, and his face was white +with pent-up zeal as he asked some one to pray. There was a silence, and +then a woman's voice, trembling and passionate, arose, and Sycamore +Ridge knew that Mrs. Barclay, the widow of the Westport martyr, was +giving sound to a voice that had long been still. It was a simple +halting prayer, and not all those in the room heard it clearly. The +words were not always fitly chosen; but as the prayer neared its +close,—and it was a short prayer at the most,—there came strength and +courage into the voice as it asked for grace for "the brother among us +who has shared our sufferings and lightened our burdens, and who has +cleaved to us as a brother, but whose heart is drawn away from us by +ties of blood and kinship"; and then the voice sank lower and lower as +though in shame at its boldness, and hushed in a tremulous Amen.</p> + +<p>No one spoke for a moment, and as Sycamore Ridge looked up from the +floor, its eyes turned instinctively toward Martin Culpepper. He felt +the question that was in the hearts about him, and slowly, to the wonder +of all, he rose. He had a beautiful deep purring voice, and when he +opened his eyes, they seemed to look into every pair of eyes in the +throng. There were tears on his face and in his voice as he spoke. +"Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: +for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: +thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: where thou diest, I +will die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more +also, if aught but death part thee and me." And then he sank to his +chair and hid his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> face, and for a moment a hundred wet-eyed men were +still.</p> + +<p>Though John Barclay was at the meeting, he remembered only his mother's +prayer, but in his heart there was always a picture of a little boy +trying to walk home with a little girl, and when he came up with her she +darted ahead or dropped back. At the Culpepper gate she stood waiting +fully a minute for him to catch her, and when he came up to her, she +laughed, "Huh, Mr. Smarty, you didn't, did you?" and ran up the walk, +scooted into the house, and slammed the door. But he understood and went +leaping down the hill toward home with happiness tingling in his very +finger-tips. He seemed to be flying rather than walking, and his toes +touched the dirt path so lightly that he rounded the corner and ran +plump into Miss Lucy and Philemon Ward standing at the gate. And what he +saw surprised him so that he let out a great "haw-haw-haw" and ran, +trying to escape his shame and fear at his behaviour. But the next +morning Miss Lucy smiled so sweetly at him as he came into the +schoolroom, that he knew he was forgiven, and that thrill was lost by +the thump of joy that startled his heart when he saw a bunch of +dog-tooth violets in his ink bottle, and in his geography found a candy +heart with a motto on it so fervent that he did not eat it for three +long abstemious days of sheer devotion, in which there were eyes and +eyes and eyes from the little girl in the scarlet gown.</p> + +<p>It is strange that the boy did not remember how Sycamore Ridge took the +call to arms for the war between the states. All he remembered of the +great event in our history as it touched the town was that one day he +heard there was going to be a war. And then everything seemed to change. +A dread came over the people. It fell upon the school, where every child +had a father who was going away.</p> + +<p>And it was because Madison Hendricks, the first man to leave for the +war, was father of Bob and Elmer Hendricks that John's first +associations of the great Civil War go back to the big black-bearded +man. For Madison Hendricks, who was a graduate of West Point, and a +veteran<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> of the Mexican War, was called to Washington in May, and his +boys acquired a prestige that was not accorded to them by the mere fact +that their father was president of the town company, and was accounted +the first citizen of the town. Madison Hendricks, who owned the land on +which the town was built, Madison Hendricks, scholar and gentleman, +veteran of the Mexican War, first mayor of Sycamore Ridge upon its +incorporation,—his sons had no standing. But Madison Hendricks, +formally summoned to go to Washington to put down the rebellion, and +leaving on the stage with appropriate ceremonies,—there was a man who +could bequeath to his posterity in the boy world something of his +consequence.</p> + +<p>So in the pall that came upon the school in Sycamore Ridge that spring +of '61, Bob and Elmer Hendricks were heroes, and their sister—who was +their only guardian in their father's absence—had to put them in her +dresses and send them to bed, and punish them in all the shameful ways +that she knew to take what she called "the tuck out of them." And the +boy of all the boys who gave the Hendricks boys most homage was little +Johnnie Barclay. There was no dread in his hero-worship. He had no +father to go to the war. But the other children and all the women were +under a great cloud of foreboding, and for them the time was one of +tension and hoping against hope that the war would soon pass.</p> + +<p>How the years gild our retrospect. It was in 1903 that Martin Culpepper, +a man in his seventies, collected and published "The Complete Poetical +and Philosophical Works of Watts McHurdie, together with Notes and a +Biographical Appreciation by Martin F. Culpepper." One of the earlier +chapters, which tells of the enlistment of the volunteer soldiers for +the Civil War in '61, devotes some space to the recruiting and +enlistment in Sycamore Ridge. The chapter bears the heading "The Large +White Plumes," and in his "introductory remarks" the biographer says, +"To him who looks back to those golden days of heroic deeds only the +lines of Keats will paint the picture in his soul:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>—</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 2em;">"'Lo, I must tell a tale of chivalry,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For large white plumes are dancing in mine eyes.'"</span></p> + +<p>And so the "large white plumes" blinded his eyes to the fear and the +dread that were in the hearts of the people, and he tells his readers +nothing of the sadness that men felt who put in crops knowing that their +wives must cultivate and harvest them. He sees only the glory of it; for +we read: "Hail to the spirit of mighty Mars. When he strode through our +peaceful village, he awoke many a war song in our breasts. As for our +hero, Mars, the war god forged iron reeds for his lute, and he breathed +into it the spirit of the age, and all the valour, all the chivalry of a +golden day came pouring out of his impassioned reeds." Such is the magic +of those large white plumes on Martin Culpepper's memory. Although John +Barclay in that latter day bought a thousand copies of the Biography and +sent them to public libraries all over the world, he smiled as he read +that paragraph referring to Watts McHurdie's accordion as the +"impassioned reeds." When he read it, John Barclay, grown to a man of +fifty-three, sitting at a great mahogany table, with a tablet of white +paper on a green blotting pad before him, and a gorgeous rose rising +from a tall graceful green vase on the shining table, looked out over a +brown wilderness of roofs and chimneys across a broad river into the +hills that were green afar off, and there, rising out of yesterday, he +saw, not the bent little old man in the harness shop with steel-rimmed +spectacles and greasy cap, whom you may see to-day; but instead, the boy +in John Barclay's soul looked through his eyes, and he saw another Watts +McHurdie,—a dapper little fellow under a wide slouch hat, with a +rolling Byronic collar, and fancy yellow waistcoat of the period, in +exceedingly tight trousers. And then, flash! the picture changed, and +Barclay saw Watts McHurdie under his mushroom hat; Martin Culpepper in +his long-tailed coat; Philemon Ward, tall, fair-skinned, blue-eyed, +slim, and sturdy; skinny, nervous Lycurgus Mason and husky Gabriel +Carnine from Minneola; Jake Dolan in his shirt sleeves, without +adornment of any kind, except the gold horseshoe<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> pinned on his shirt +bosom; Daniel Frye, the pride of an admiring family, in his best +home-made clothes; Henry Schnitzler, Oscar Fernald, and nearly a hundred +other men, to the boy's eyes so familiar then, now forgotten, and all +their faces blurred in the crowd that stood about the recruiting officer +by the town pump in Sycamore Ridge that summer day of '61. A score or so +of men had passed muster. The line on the post at the wooden awning in +front of Schnitzler's saloon was marked at five feet six. All had stood +by it with their heads above the line. It was Watts McHurdie's turn. He +wore high-heeled boots for the occasion, but strut as he would, his +roached hair would not touch the stick that came over the line. "Stretch +your neck—ye bantam," laughed Jake Dolan. "Walk turkey fashion, Watts," +cried Henry Schnitzler, rushing up behind Watts and grabbing his +waistband. The crowd roared. Watts looked imploringly at the recruiting +officer and blubbered in wrath: "Yes, damn you—yea; that's right. Of +course; you won't let me die for my bleedin' country because I ain't +nine feet tall." And the little man turned away trying to choke his +tears and raging at his failure. And because the recruiting officer was +considerable of a man, Watts McHurdie's name was written in the muster +roll, and he went out.</p> + +<p>Many days must have passed between the time when the men were mustered +in and the day they went away to the war. But to the man who saw those +times through the memory of the boy in blue jeans forever playing +bugle-calls upon his fife, it was all one day. For that crowd dissolved, +and another picture appeared upon the sensitized plate of his memory. +There is a crowd in the post-office—mostly men who are going away to +war. The stage has come in, and a stranger, better dressed than the men +of Sycamore Ridge, is behind the letter-boxes of the post-office. The +boy is watching his box; for it is the day when the <i>Springfield +Republican</i> is due. Gradually the hum in front of the boxes quiets, and +two loud voices have risen behind the screen. Then out walks great +Martin Culpepper, white of face, with pent-up fury. His left<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> hand is +clutched like a talon in the shoulder of the stranger, whom Martin is +holding before him. "Gentlemen, your attention," demands Culpepper. The +stranger swallows his Adam's apple as if to speak; Martin turns to him +with, "Don't you say that word again, sir, or I'll wring your neck." +Then he proceeds:—</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen, this busybody has come all the way from Washington here to +tell me I'm a thief. I wrote to his damn Yankee government that I was +needing the money last winter to go East on the aid committee and would +replace it, and now that I'm going out to-morrow to die for his damn +Yankee government, he has the impertinence to come in here and say I +stole that money. Now what I want to ask you, gentlemen, is this: Do I +go out to-morrow to die on the field of glory for my country, or does +this here little contemptible whippersnapper take me off to rot in some +Yankee jail? I leave it to you, gentlemen. Settle it for yourselves." +And with that Culpepper throws the man into the crowd and walks behind +the screen in solemn state.</p> + +<p>The boy never knew how it was settled. But Martin Culpepper went to "the +field of glory," and all the boy knew of the incident is here recorded. +However, in the Biography of Watts McHurdie above-mentioned and +aforesaid occur these words, in the same chapter—the one entitled "The +Large White Plumes": "Let memory with gentle hand cover with her black +curtain of soft oblivion all that was painful on that glorious day. Let +us not recall the bickerings and the strifes, let the grass watered by +Lethe's sweet spring creep over the scars in the bright prospect which +lies under our loving gaze. Let us hold in our heart the tears in +beauty's eyes; the smile that curls her crimson lips, and the hope that +burns upon her brow. Let us fondle the sacred memory of every warm hand +clasp of comrade and take to the silent grave the ever green garland of +love that adorned our hearts that day. For the sordid thorns that +pierced our bleeding hearts—what are they but ashes to-day, blown on +the winds of yesterday?"</p> + +<p>What indeed, Martin Culpepper—what indeed, smiled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> John Barclay as he +reached for the rose on his broad mahogany desk across forty long years, +and looking through a wide window, saw on the blank wall of a great hulk +of a building half a mile away, the fine strong figure of a man with +black shaggy hair on his young leonine head rise and wave his +handkerchief to a woman with tears running down her face and anguish in +her eyes, standing in a swarm of children. What indeed are sordid thorns +when the "large white plumes are dancing"—what indeed?</p> + +<p>That was a busy night in Sycamore Ridge—the night before the men left +for war in the summer of '61. And the busiest man in all the town was +Philemon R. Ward. Every man in the town was going, and most of the men +were going who lived in the county—an area as large as a New England +state, and yet when they were all gathered in Main Street, there were +less than fivescore of them. They had agreed to elect Ward captain, +Martin Culpepper first lieutenant, Jake Dolan second lieutenant. It was +one of the diversions of the occasion to call out "Hello, Cap," when +Ward hustled by a loitering crowd. But his pride was in his work, and +before sundown he had it done. The Yankee in him gave him industry and +method and foresight. At sunset the last of the twenty teams and wagons +he had ordered came rattling down the hill west of town, driven by +Gabriel Carnine of Minneola, with Mrs. Lycurgus Mason sitting like a war +goddess on the back seat holding Lycurgus, a spoil of battle, while he +held their daughter on his lap, withal a martial family party. Mrs. +Barclay and Miss Lucy went to the aid store-room and worked the long +night through, getting breakfast for the men. Mary Murphy and Nellie +Logan came from the Thayer House to the aid room when the hotel dishes +were washed, and helped with the work. And while they were there the +Culpeppers walked in, returning from a neighbourly visit to Miss +Hendricks; John Barclay in an apron, stirring a boiling pot of dried +apples, turned his back on the eyes that charmed him, but when the women +sent him for a bucket of water, he shook the handle at Ellen Culpepper +and beckoned her with a finger, and they slipped<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> out into the moonlight +together. She had hold of the handle of the bucket with him, and they +pulled and hauled and laughed as boy and girl will laugh so long as the +world turns round. The street was deserted, and only the bar of light +that fell across the sidewalk from Schnitzler's saloon indicated the +presence of human beings in the little low buildings that pent in the +highway. The boy and the girl stood at the pump, and the boy stuck a +foot in the horse trough. He made a wet silhouette of it on the stone +beneath him, and reached for the handle of the pump. Then he said, "I +got somepin I won't tell."</p> + +<p>"Three little niggers in a peanut shell," replied the girl.</p> + +<p>"All right, Miss Cuteness. All right for you; I was going to tell you +somepin, but I won't now." He gave the pump-handle a pull. It was limp +and did not respond with water. "Ellen—" the boy repeated as he worked +the handle, "I got somepin to tell you. Honest I have."</p> + +<p>"I don't care, Mr. Smarty," the girl replied; she made a motion as if to +walk away, but did not. The boy noticed it and said, "Yes, sir—it's +somepin you'd like to know." The girl did not turn round. The boy, who +had been working with the wheezy pump, was holding the handle up, and +water was gurgling down the well. And before she could answer he said, +"Say, Ellen—don't be mad; honest I got somepin."</p> + +<p>"Who's it about?" she asked over her shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Me."</p> + +<p>"That's not much—who else?"</p> + +<p>"Elmer Hendricks!"</p> + +<p>"Who else?" The girl was halfway turned around when she spoke.</p> + +<p>"Bob—Bob Hendricks," replied the boy.</p> + +<p>"Aw—Bob Hendricks—" returned the girl, in contempt. Then she faced the +boy and said, "What is it?"</p> + +<p>"Come here 'n' I'll tell you."</p> + +<p>"I'll come this far." The girl took two steps.</p> + +<p>"I got to whisper it, and you can't hear."</p> + +<p>"Well, 'tain't much." The girl dangled one bare foot hesitatingly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I'll come halfway," she added.</p> + +<p>The boy made a mark in the dust of the road a few feet from him with his +toe, and said, "Come to there."</p> + +<p>The girl shook her head, and spoke. "Tell me part—'n' I'll see if it's +good."</p> + +<p>"Me and Elmer an' Bob are goin' to run away!" The girl stepped to the +toe mark and cried, "What?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir—in the mornin'." He caught hold of the girl's arm awkwardly +and swung her around to the opposite side of the pump-handle, and put +her hands on it and began to pump. She pumped with him as he puffed +between the strokes, "Um' huh—we're going to hide in the provision +wagons, under some saddles they is there and go—to—war!" The water was +pouring into the bucket by the time he had got this out. Their hands +touched on the pump-handle. It was the boy who drew his hand away. The +girl gasped:—</p> + +<p>"Why, John Barclay,—it ain't no such thing—does your ma know it?"</p> + +<p>He told her that no one knew it but her, and they pumped in silence +until the bucket was full, and walking back carrying the bucket between +them, he told her another secret: that Watts McHurdie had asked John to +get his guitar after midnight, and play an accompaniment to the +accordion, and that Watts and Ward and Jake Dolan and Gabriel Carnine +were going out serenading. Further he told her that Watts was going to +serenade Nellie Logan at the Thayer House, and that Gabriel Carnine was +going to serenade Mary Murphy, and that Philemon Ward was going to +serenade Miss Lucy, and that he, John Barclay, had suggested that it +would be fine to serenade Mrs. Culpepper, because she was such a nice +woman, and they agreed that if he would bring his guitar, they would!</p> + +<p>When the boy and girl returned to the store, Ward and Miss Lucy went to +the Barclay home for the guitar. When they came back, Mrs. Barclay noted +a pink welt on one of Ward's fingers where his cameo ring had been, and +she observed that from time to time Miss Lucy kept<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> feeling of her hair +as if to smooth it. It was long after midnight before the girls from the +hotel went home, and Miss Lucy and Mrs. Barclay lay on the counter in +the store, trying to sleep. They awoke with the sound of music in their +ears, and Miss Lucy said, "It's Captain Ward—and the other boys, +serenading us." They heard the high tenor voice of Watts McHurdie and +the strong clear voice of Ward rising above the accordion and guitar:—</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 2em;">"For her voice is on the breeze,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Her spirit comes at will,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">At midnight on the seas</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Her bright smile haunts me still."</span></p> + +<p>And underneath these high voices was the gruff bass voice of Gabriel +Carnine and the baritone of Jake Dolan. And when Mrs. Barclay heard the +piping treble of her son, and the tinkle of his guitar, her eyes filled +with tears of pride.</p> + +<p>The serenaders waked the chickens, and the crowing roosters roused Mrs. +Barclay, and in the hurry of the hour she forgot to look for her son. As +"the gray dawn was breaking," a hundred men came into the room, and +found the smoking breakfast on the table. It was a good breakfast as +breakfasts go when men are hungry. But they sat in silence that morning. +The song was all out of them; the spring of youth was crushed under the +weight of great events. And as they rose—they who had been so merry the +day before, and had joked of the things the soldier fears, they were all +but mute, and left their breakfasts scarcely tasted.</p> + +<p>The women remember this,—the telltale sign of the untouched +breakfast,—and their memory is better than that of Martin Culpepper, +who wrote in that plumy chapter of the Biography, before mentioned:—</p> + +<p>"The soldiers left their homes that beautiful August morning as the sun +was kissing the tips of the sycamore that gave the magnificent little +city its name. They had partaken abundantly of a bountiful breakfast, +and as they satisfied their inner man from a table groaning with good<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> +things prepared by the fair hands of the gentler sex, the gallant men +rose with song and cheer, and went on their happy way where duty and +honour called them."</p> + +<p>But the women who scraped the plates that morning knew the truth. One +wonders how much of history would be thrown out as worthless, like +Martin Culpepper's fine writing, if the women who scraped the plates +might testify. For those "large white plumes" do not dance in women's +eyes!</p> + +<p>After breakfast the men tumbled into the wagons, and as one wagon after +another rattled out of Fernald's feed lot and came down the street, the +men waved their hats and the women waved their aprons, and a great cloud +of dust rose on the highway, and as the wagons ducked down the bank to +the river, only the tall figure of Martin Culpepper, waving his +handkerchief, rose above the cloud. At the end of the line was a +provision wagon, and on it rode Philemon Ward—Yankee in his greatest +moment, scorning the heroic place in the van, and looking after the +substantials. In the feed lot, just as the reins were in his hands, Ward +saw Elmer Hendricks' foot peeping from under a saddle. Ward dragged the +boy out, spanking him as he came over the end gate, and noted the +sheepish smile on his face. Ten days later, as Ward, marching in the +infantry, was going up a hill through the timber at the battle of +Wilson's Creek, that same boy rode by with the cavalry, and seeing Ward, +waved a carbine and smiled as he charged the brow of the hill. That +night, going back under the stars, Ward stumbled over a body, and +stooping, saw the smile still on the boy's face, and the carbine +clutched in his hand. But for the hole through the boyish brow, the eyes +might still have been laughing.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER III</h2> +</div> + +<p>A few years ago, in the room of the great mahogany table, with its clean +blotting pad, its writing tablet, and its superb rose rising from a +green vase in the midst of the shining unlittered expanse, there was a +plain, heavy mahogany wainscoting reaching chin-high to the average man. +A few soft-toned pictures adorned the dull gray walls above the +wainscoting, and directly over a massive desk that never was seen open +hung a framed letter. The letter was written on blue-lined paper in red +pokeberry ink. At the top of the letter was the advertisement of a +hotel, done in quaint, old-fashioned, fancy script with many curly-cues +and printers' ornaments. The advertisement set forth that the Thayer +House at Sycamore Ridge was "First class in every particular," and that +"Especial attention was paid to transient custom." On a line in the +right-hand corner the reader was notified that the tavern was founded by +the Emigrant Aid Society, and balancing this line, in the left-hand +corner, were these words: "The only livery-stable west of Lawrence." +John Barclay's eyes have read it a thousand times, and yet he always +smiled when he scanned the letter that followed the advertisement. The +letter read:—</p> + +<p>"Dear Ma I am going to war. Doan crye. Iff father was here he wood go; +so why should not I. I will be very caerfull not to get hurt & stay by +Cap Ward all the time. So godby yours truly J. Barclay Jr."</p> + +<p>It was five hours after the soldiers had gone when Mrs. Barclay came +home from her work in the aid room, and the first thing that attracted +her attention was her son's letter, lying folded on the table. When she +read it, she ran with the open letter across the common to the town. It +was a woman's town that morning,—not a man was left in it,—for Ezra +Lane, the only old man living in the Ridge, had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> left <i>Freedom's Banner</i> +to shift for itself while he rode to Leavenworth with the soldiers to +bring back the teams; and when Mrs. Barclay came into the street, she +found some small stir there, made by Miss Hendricks—the only mother the +Hendricks boys remembered—who was inquiring for her lost boys. Mrs. +Barclay displayed her note, and in a moment the whole population of +Sycamore Ridge, with hands under its aprons, was standing in front of +the post-office. Then Ellen Culpepper found her tongue, and Mrs. Barclay +began to look for a horse. Elmer Hendricks' pony in the pasture was the +only horse Ward had left within twenty miles. When Ellen Culpepper and +her little sister Molly came back from the pasture and announced that +Elmer's pony was gone also, the women surmised that he had taken it with +him, for they could not know that after he was spanked from the +provision wagon, he had slipped out to the pasture and ridden by a +circuitous route to the main road.</p> + +<p>It was Captain Ward, dismounting from his driver's seat on the provision +wagon at noon, who discovered two boys: a little boy eleven years old in +a dead faint, and a bigger boy panting with the heat. They threw cold +spring water on John Barclay's face, and finally his eyes opened, and he +grinned as he whispered, "Hullo, Captain," to the man bending over him. +The man held water to the boy's lips, and he sipped a little and swam +out into the blackness again, and then the man reappeared and the boy +tried to smile and whispered, "Aw—I'm all right." They saw he was +coming out of his faint, and one by one the crowd dropped away from him; +but Ward stayed, and when the child could speak, he replied to Ward's +question, "'Cause I wanted to." And then again when the question was +repeated, the boy said, "I tell you 'cause I wanted to." He shook his +head feebly and grinned again and tried to rise, but the man gently held +him down, and kept bathing his temples with cold water from the spring +beside them. Finally, when the man seemed a little harsh in his +questions, the boy's eyes brimmed and he said: "Whur'd my pa be if he +was alive to-day? I just guess I got as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> much right here as you have." +He made a funny little picture lying on the lush grass by the spring in +the woods; his browned face, washed clean on the forehead and temples, +showed almost white under the dirt. There were tear-stained rings about +the eyes, and his pink shirt and blue trousers were grimy with dust, and +the red clay of the Sycamore still was on the sides of his dust-brown +bare feet. Around a big toe was a rag which showed a woman's tying—neat +and firm, but red with clay.</p> + +<p>Ward left, and Bob Hendricks came and stood over the prostrate boy. Bob +was carrying a bucket of water to the cook as a peace offering.</p> + +<p>"What did they do?" asked the boy on the ground.</p> + +<p>"Just shook me—and then said father'd tend to me for this." The boys +exchanged comments on the situation without words, and then Bob said as +he drew the dripping bucket from the spring, "We're going clear on to +Leavenworth, and they say then we've got to come back with Ezra Lane and +the teams."</p> + +<p>The boy on the ground raised himself by rolling over and catching hold +of a sapling. He panted a moment, and "I'll bet y' I don't." The other +boy went away with a weak "Me neither," thrown over his shoulder.</p> + +<p>During that long afternoon, and all the next day and the next, the boys +ran from wagon to wagon, climbing over end gates, wriggling among the +men, running with the horses through the shady woods, paddling in the +fords, and only refusing to move when the men got out of the wagons and +walked up the long clay hills that rise above the Kaw River. At night +they camped by the prairie streams, and the men sang and wondered what +they were doing at home, and Philemon Ward took John Barclay out into +the silence of the woods and made him say his prayers. And Ward would +look toward the west and say, "Well, Johnnie,—there's home," and once +they stood in an open place in the timber, and Ward gazed at a bright +star sinking in the west, and said, "I guess that's about over Sycamore +Ridge." They went on, and the boy, looking back to see why the man had +stopped, caught him throwing a kiss at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> the star. And they could not +know, as they walked back together through the woods abashed, that two +women sitting before a cabin door under a sycamore tree were looking at +an eastern star, and one threw kisses at it unashamed while the other +wept. And on other nights, many other nights, the two, Miss Lucy and +Mrs. Barclay, sat looking at their star while the terror in their hearts +made their lips mute. God makes men brave who stand where bullets fly, +yet always they can run away. But God seems to give no alternative to +women at home who have to wait and dread.</p> + +<p>Forty years later John Barclay took from a box in a safety vault back of +his office in the city a newspaper. It was the Sycamore Ridge <i>Banner</i>, +yellow and creased and pungent with age. "This," he said to Senator +Myton, spreading the wrinkled sheet out on the mahogany table, "this is +my enlistment paper." He smiled as he read aloud:—</p> + +<p>"At noon of our first day out we came across two stowaways. Hendricks, +aged twelve, son of our well-known and popular Mayor, and J. Barclay, +aged eleven, son of Mrs. M. Barclay, who, owing to the suddenness of the +departure of our troops for the seat of war in Missouri, and certain +business delays made necessary in ye editor's return, were slipped out +with our company rather than left in the rough and uncertain city of +Leavenworth. They are called by the boys of 'C' company respectively +'the little sergeant and the little corporal, Good Luck boys.'"</p> + +<p>A little farther down the column was this paragraph:</p> + +<p>"Aug. 2nd we went into camp on Sugar Creek, and some sport was had by +the men who went in bathing, taking the horses with them."</p> + +<p>"Ever go in swimming with the horses, Senator?" asked Barclay. The +senator shook his head doubtfully.</p> + +<p>"Well—you haven't. For if you had you'd remember it," answered Barclay, +and a hundred naked young men and two skinny, bony boys splashed and +yelled and ducked and wrestled and locked their strong wet arms about +the necks of the plunging horses and dived under them, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> rolled +across them and played with them like young satyrs in the cool water +under the overhanging elms with the stars twinkling in the shining +mahogany as Barclay folded the paper and put it away. He thrummed the +polished surface a moment and looked back into the past to see Philemon +Ward straight, lean, and glistening like a god standing on a horse ready +to dive, and as he huddled, crouched for the leap, Barclay said, "Well, +come on, Senator, we must go to lunch now."</p> + +<p>It was late in the afternoon of their third day's journey that the men +from Sycamore Ridge rode in close order, singing, through the streets of +Leavenworth. Watts McHurdie was playing his accordion, and the people +turned to look at the uncouth crowd in civilian's clothes that went +bellowing "O My Darling Nellie Gray," across the town and out to the +Fort. Ezra Lane promised to call at the Fort for the two boys and with +drivers for the teams early the next morning—but to Sycamore Ridge, +Leavenworth in those days was the great city with its pitfalls, and when +Ezra Lane, grizzled though he was, came to a realizing sense of his +responsibilities, the next day was gone and the third was waning. When +he went to the Fort, he found the Sycamore Ridge men had been hurried +into Missouri to meet General Price, who was threatening Springfield, +and no word had been left for him about the boys. As he left the gate at +the Fort, a troop of cavalry rode by gaily, and a boy, a big overgrown +fourteen-year-old boy in a blue uniform, passed and waved his hand at +the befuddled old man, and cried, "Good-by, Mr. Lane,—tell 'em you saw +me." He knew the boy was from Sycamore Ridge, but he knew also that he +was not one of the boys who had come with the soldiers; and being an old +man, far removed from the boy world, he could not place the child in his +blue uniform, so he drove away puzzled.</p> + +<p>The afternoon the men from Sycamore Ridge came to Leavenworth they were +hurriedly examined again, signed the muster rolls, and were sent away +without uniforms all in twenty-four hours. But not before they had +found<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> time to have their pictures taken in borrowed regimentals. For +twenty years after the war the daguerreotypes of the soldiers taken at +Leavenworth that day were the proudest adornments of the centre-tables +of Sycamore Ridge, and even now on Lincoln Avenue, in a little white +cottage with green blinds, that sits in a broad smooth lawn with elm +trees on it, stands an easel. On the easel is a picture—an enlarged +crayon drawing of a straight, handsome young fellow in a captain's +uniform. One hand is in his coat, and the other at his hip. His head is +thrown back with a fierce determination into the photographer's iron +rest and all together the picture is marked with the wrinkled front of +war. For over one corner of the easel hangs a sword with an ivory +handle, and upon it is an inscription proclaiming the fact that the +sword was presented to Captain Philemon R. Ward by his company for +gallant conduct on the field of battle on the night of August 4, 1861. +Above the easel in the corner hangs another picture—that of a +sweet-faced old man of seventy, beaming rather benignly over his white +lawn necktie. The forty-five years that have passed between the two +faces have trimmed the hair away from the temples and the brow, have +softened the mouth, and have put patience into the eyes—the patience of +a great faith often tried but never broken. The five young women of the +household know that the crayon portrait on the bamboo easel is highly +improper as a parlour ornament—for do they not teach school, and do +they not take all the educational journals and the crafty magazines of +art? But the hand that put it there was proud of its handiwork, and she +who hung the sword upon the easel is gone away, so the girls smile at +the fierce young boyish face in the picture as they pass it, and throw a +kiss at the face above it, and the easel is not moved.</p> + +<p>And the man,—the tall old man with a slight stoop in his shoulders, the +old man who wears the alpaca coat and the white lawn tie seen in the +upper picture,—sometimes he wanders into the stately front room with a +finger in a census bulletin as a problem in his head creases his +brow—and the sight of the sword always makes him smile, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> sometimes +the smile is a chuckle that stirs the cockles of his heart.</p> + +<p>For his mind goes back to that summer night of August 4, 1861, and he +sees himself riding on a horse with a little boy behind with his arms in +the soldier's belt. It is dusk, and "C" Company on foot is filing down a +Missouri hill. It is a muddy road, and the men are tired and dirty. +There is no singing now. A man driving an ox team has turned out of the +road to let the soldiers pass. Some one in the line asks the man, +"Where's Price?"</p> + +<p>"Over the hill yonder," replies the man, pointing with his hickory +whip-stock. The word buzzes up and down the line. The captain on his +horse with the boy clutching at his belt does not hear it. But the line +lags and finally halts. The men have been only two days under military +discipline. That day last week Phil Ward—who was he, anyway? Henry +Schnitzler and Oscar Fernald could have bought him and sold him twice +over. So the line halted. Then the captain halted. Then he called Second +Lieutenant Dolan and asked to know what was the matter. "They say they +are going to camp," responded Dolan, touching his cap. Captain Ward's +face flushed. He told Dolan to give the order to march. There were +shouts and laughter, and Gabriel Carnine cried, "Say, Phil, this here +Missourian we passed says old General Price is over that hill." The boys +laughed again, and Ward saw that trouble was before him. The men stood +waiting while he controlled his rage before he spoke. Dolan said under +his breath from the ground beside the horse, "They're awful tired, Cap, +and they don't want to tackle Price's army all by their lonelies." Some +one in the company called out, "We've voted on this thing, Cap. Don't +the majority rule in this country?"</p> + +<p>A smile twitched at Ward's mouth and the boy in him pricked a twinkle in +his eyes, for he was only twenty-six, and he laughed—threw his head +back and then leaned over and slapped the horse's neck and finally +straightened up and said, "Gentlemen, I bow to the will of the people."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span></p> + +<p>And so it happened that when they drew their first month's pay, Martin +Culpepper and Jake Dolan suggested to the company that they buy Ward a +sword to commemorate the victory of the people. And Martin Culpepper +made a great presentation speech in which he said that to the infantry, +cavalry, and artillery arms of military service, "C" Company had added +the "vox populi." But the night after the presentation Oscar Fernald and +Watts McHurdie crawled under the captain's tent and stole the sword and +pawned it for beer, and there was a sound of revelry by night.</p> + +<p>When they found the great camp near Springfield, it seemed to John +Barclay that all the soldiers in the world were gathered. It is +difficult for a boy under a dozen years to remember things +consecutively; because boys do not do things consecutively. They flit +around like butterflies, and so the picture that they make of events +jumps from scene to scene. One film on a roll of John's memory showed a +hot August day in the camp of "C" Company; the men are hurrying about +the place. The tents are down; the boys—John and Bob—are kicking +around the vacant camp looking for trophies. But there the film broke +and did not record the fact that Captain Ward put Bob and John on a +commissary wagon that stood in a side street as the soldiers moved out. +John remembered looking into a street filled with marching soldiers. +First the regulars and the artillery came swinging down the street. At +their head the boy saw General Lyon, the commanding officer, and around +him was a bodyguard whose plumed hats, with the left brim pinned up, +caught the boys' eyes. The regulars marched by silently. It was part of +their day's work; but following them came a detachment of Germans +singing "Marchen Rote," and then the battery of six guns and then the +Kansans. Small wonder Captain Gordon Granger told Colonel Mitchel that +the Kansas soldiers were only an armed mob. They filed out of +Springfield, some in rags and some in tags and some in velvet gowns. +They carried guns; but they looked like delegates to a convention,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> and +as the boys saw their own company, they waved their hands, but they were +almost ashamed of the shabby clothes of the men from Sycamore Ridge; for +a boy always notices clothes on others. When the Germans stopped singing +"Marchen Rote," the boys heard Watts McHurdie's high tenor voice start +up "The Dutch Companee," and the crowd that was lining the street +cheered and cheered. A Missouri regiment followed and more regulars, and +then a battery of four guns passed, and then came more Kansans still +going to that everlasting convention. And a band came roaring by,—with +its crashing brass and rumbling drums,—and then after the band had +turned the corner, came Iowa in gray blouses and such other garments as +the clothes-lines of the country afforded. They were singing as they +passed—a song the boy had never heard, being all about the "happy land +of Canaan." And before the sun had set again, after that night, hundreds +of those who sang of the happy land were there. In the rear were the +ambulances and the ammunition and the hospital vans, and the wagon which +held the boys wheeled into the line. After they had passed, the streets +were clogged with carts and drays and wagons of all sorts, for the +citizens were moving to places of safety.</p> + +<p>As a man, the boy's memory did not tell him how the boys fared, but he +does remember that it was dark in the timber where they camped that +night, and that they slipped away into the woods to lie down together. +The chirping of the birds at dawn wakened them, and as John sat up +rubbing his eyes, he heard a rifle's crack. They were at the edge of a +field, and half a mile from him, troops were marching by columns across +a clearing. The rifle-shot was followed by another, and another, and +then by a half-dozen. "Wake up, Bob—wake up—they's a battle," he +cried, and the two boys stumbled to their feet. The shots were far in +front of the marching soldiers, and the boys could not make out what the +firing meant. The line formed and ran up the hill, and the boys saw the +morning sun flashing on the guns of the enemy. The battery roared, and +the boys were filled with terror. They ran through<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> the woods like dogs +until they came to the soldiers from Sycamore Ridge. The boys crawled on +their bellies to their friends, and lay with their faces all but buried +in the ground. The men were lying at the edge of the timber talking, and +Watts McHurdie was on his back.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter with you, Watts?" asked Oscar Fernald.</p> + +<p>"Os," replied Watts, "I got a presentiment I'm goin' to be shot in the +rear. It will kill me to be shot in the back, and I've got a notion +that's how I am goin' to die."</p> + +<p>The line laughed. Captain Ward, who was sitting a few paces in the rear +of the men, went over to Watts, and scuffled the man over with his foot. +A bullet went through Ward's hat before he got back to his place. The +men were sticking up ramrods and betting on the number of minutes they +would last. No ramrod stood more than ten minutes. Martin Culpepper +threw up his hat five times before a bullet hit it; but he went +bareheaded the rest of the day, and John Barclay, in sheer fear, began +to dig a hole under him. After he had been on his belly for an hour, +Henry Schnitzler got tired and rose. The men begged him to lie down. But +his only reply when they told him he was a fool was, "Vell, vot of it?" +And when they said he would be shot, he answered again, "Vell, vot of +it?" And when Jake Dolan cried, "You pot-gutted Dutchman, sit down or +there'll be a sauer-kraut shower in hell pretty quick," Henry shook his +fat sides a moment and laughed, "Vell, vot of dot—altzo!" For an hour, +that seemed ten, he moved back and forth on the line, firing and joking, +and then the spell broke and a bullet took part of his jaw. As he +dropped to his position, with the blood gushing from his face, his eyes +blazed, and he spat out, "By hell-tam, now I vos mad," and he fought the +day out and died that night. But as he sank to his place when the bullet +hit him, Watts McHurdie saw Schnitzler stagger, and through the smoke, +knew that he was wounded. Watts rushed to Schnitzler and bent over him, +when a ball hit Watts and went ripping through the fleshy part of his +hip. "Shot in the back—damn it, shot in the back!" he screamed, as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> he +jumped into the air. "What did I tell you, boys, I'm shot in the back." +And he crawled bleeding to the rear.</p> + +<p>All the long forenoon the camp of the enemy continued to belch out men. +The battery mowed them down, and once the Kansans were ordered to charge +the hill, and the boys were left alone. It was there that the two were +separated. John saw men sink in awful silence, and the blood ooze from +their heads. He saw men cramp in agony and choke with blood, and he saw +Martin Culpepper, perhaps with the large white plumes still dancing in +his eyes, dash out of the line and pick up a Union banner that Sigel's +men had lost, and that the enemy was flaunting just before the artillery +mowed the gray line down. He heard the hoarse men cheer Martin, and as +the tall swart figure came running back waving the flag, the boy prayed +to his father's God to save the man.</p> + +<p>When the battle lulled, the boy found himself parted from "C" Company, +and fled back through the woods to the rear. There he came upon a smell +that was familiar. He had known it in the slaughter-house at home. It +was the smell of fresh blood, and with it came the sickening drone of +flies. In an instant he stood under a tree where men were working +smeared with blood. He stumbled over a little pile of dismembered legs +and hands. A man with a bloody knife was bending over a human form +stretched on a bloody and, it seemed to the boy, a greasy table. Another +was helping the big man. They were cutting the bullet out of Watts +McHurdie, who was lying white and unconscious and with flies crawling +over him, half naked and blood-smeared, on the table. The boy screamed, +and the man turned his head and snarled through his clenched teeth that +held the knife, "Get out of here—no—go get me a bucket of water from +the creek." Some one handed the boy a bucket, and he ran where he was +told to go, with the awful sight burned on his brain, with the sickening +smell in his nose, and with the drone of flies in his ears. When he came +back the firing had begun again. The surgeon was saying, "Well, that's +all that's waiting—now<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> I'm going for a minute." He grabbed a gun +standing by the table and ran toward the front; he did not take off his +blood-splotched apron, and the boy fled from the place in terror. In a +few moments the firing ceased; but the boy ran on, hunting for a +hiding-place. He saw a troop of Alabamians plunge over a log in a +charge, and roll in an awful, writhing, screaming pile of dying men and +horses, and in the heap he saw the terror-stricken face of a youth, who +was shrieking for help; John carried that fear-distorted face in his +memory for years, until long afterwards it appeared in Sycamore Ridge.</p> + +<p>But that day John fled from the death-trap almost mad with fear. Rushing +farther into the woods, he came upon General Lyon and his staff. The +plumed hats of the bodyguard told the boy that the sandy-haired man +before him was in command, though the man's face was bloody from a wound +in his head, and though his clothes were stained with blood and he was +hatless. He sat upright on his horse, and as the boy turned, he heard +the voices of Captain Ward and his soldiers, begging to be sent into the +fight. It was a clamour fierce and piteous, and the general had turned +his head to the Kansans, when something at the left startled him. There +was no firing, and a column of soldiers was approaching. Doubt paralyzed +the group around Lyon for a moment. The men wore gray blouses strangely +like those the Iowans wore. The men might be Sigel's men, coming back +from their artillery duel. The general plainly was puzzled. He rode out +from the bodyguard a few paces. The boy was staring at him, when the +bodyguard with their gay plumed hats came up, and he saw wrath flash +into the general's face as he recognized the enemy. "Shoot them—shoot +them—" he shouted. But the gray line vomited its smoke first, and the +boy felt his foot afire. The general dropped from his horse, and as the +boy looked down, he saw a red blot coming out on his instep. In the same +instant he saw Captain Ward rush to the falling general, and saw the +bodyguard gather about him, and then the blackness came over the child +and he fell. He did not see them bear General Lyon's body<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> into the +brush, nor hear Ward moan his sorrow. But when Ward returned from the +thicket, he saw the child lying limp on the grass.</p> + +<p>As Ward ran toward the hospital van carrying the limp little body, he +could see that a ball had pierced the boy's foot. Also he saw the men in +retreat who had shot Lyon, and all over the field the firing had ceased. +As he hurried through the underbrush, Ward ran into Bob Hendricks hiding +in the thicket. Ward took the child's hand and he began to sob: "I saw +Elmer go up that hill, Captain; I saw him go up with the horses and he +ain't come back." But Ward did not understand him, and hurried the +little fellow along with John to the surgeon.</p> + +<p>Then Ward left them, and when John Barclay opened his eyes, Bob +Hendricks was sitting beside him. A great lint bandage was about John's +foot, and they were in a wagon jolting over a rutty road. He did not +speak for a long time, and then he asked, "Did we whip 'em?"</p> + +<p>And Bob nodded and said, "Cap says so!"</p> + +<p>The children clasped hands and talked of many things that passed from +the boy's mind. But his mind recorded that the next day in the hospital +Martin Culpepper said, "Bob can't come to-day, Johnnie; you know he's +tendin' Elmer's funeral." The boy must have opened his eyes, for the man +said, "Why, Johnnie, I thought you knew; yes; they found him dead that +night—right under the reb—under the enemies' guns on the brink of the +hill."</p> + +<p>The child's eyes filled with tears, but he did not cry. His emotion was +spent. The two sat together for a time, and the little boy said, "Why +didn't you go, Mr. Culpepper?" And the man replied: "Me? Oh—why—Oh, +yes, I got a little scratch here in my leg, and they won't let me out of +here. There's Watts over there in the next cot; he got a little scratch +too—didn't you, Watts?" Watts and the boy smiled at each other, but +John did not see Bob again for years. Miss Hendricks came and took him +to their father's people in Ohio.</p> + +<p>One day some one came in the hospital where John and Watts and Martin +Culpepper were lying, and began to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> call out mail for the men, and the +third name the corporal called was "Captain Martin Culpepper"; and when +they brought him a long official envelope with General Frémont's name on +it, Martin Culpepper held it in his hands, looked at the inscription, +read the word "captain" again and again, and could not speak for choked +joy. And tears so dimmed his eyes that he could not see the "large white +plumes" of chivalry, but the men in the beds cheered as they heard the +words the corporal read.</p> + +<p>With such music as that in his ears, and with his soul stirred by the +events about him, Watts McHurdie, lying in the hospital, wrote the song +that made him famous. They know in Sycamore Ridge that Watts is not much +of a poet, that his rhymes are sometimes bad and his metre worse. But +once his heart took fire and burned for a day sheer white, and in that +day he wrote words that a nation sang, and now all the world is singing. +And they are proud of him, and when people come to Sycamore Ridge on +pilgrimages to see the author of the song, men do not smile in wonder; +they show the visitors his shop, and point out the bowed little man +bending over his bench, stretching his arms out as he sews, and they +point him out with pride. Not even John Barclay with all his millions, +or Bob Hendricks, who once refused a place in the President's cabinet, +are more esteemed in Sycamore Ridge than the little harness maker who +set the world to singing.</p> + +<p>And curiously enough, John Barclay was with Watts McHurdie when he wrote +the song. They brought him an accordion one day while he was getting +well, and the two sat together. Watts droned along and shut his eyes and +mumbled some words, and then burst out with the chorus. Over and over he +sang it and exclaimed between breaths: "Say—ain't that fine? I just +made it up." He was exalted with his performance, and some women came +loitering down the corridor where the wounded man and the boy were +lying. The visitors gazed compassionately at them—little Watts not much +larger than the boy. A woman asked, "And where were you wounded, son?" +looking at Watts with his accordion.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> His face flushed up at the thought +of his shame, and he could not keep back the tears that always betrayed +him when he was deeply moved. "Ten—ten miles from Springfield, madam, +ten miles from Springfield." And to hide his embarrassment he began +sawing at his accordion, chanting his famous song. But being only a +little boy, John Barclay tittered.</p> + +<p>A few days after the battle Captain Ward wrote to Miss Lucy telling her +that some soldiers slightly wounded would go home on a furlough to +Lawrence, and that they would take John with them and put him on the +stage at Lawrence for Sycamore Ridge. Then Ward's letter continued: "It +is all so horrible—this curse of war; sometimes I think it is worse +than the curse of slavery. There is no 'pomp and circumstance of +glorious war.' Men died screaming in agony, or dumb with fear. They were +covered with dirt, and when they were dead they merged into the +landscape like inanimate things. What vital difference is there between +a living man and a dead man, that one stands out in a scene big and +obtrusive, and the other begins to fade into the earth as soon as death +touches the body? The horror of death is upon me, and I cannot shake it +off. It is a fearful thing to see a human soul pass 'in any shape, in +any mood.' And I have seen so many deaths—we lost one man out of every +three—that I am all unnerved. I saw General Lyon die—the only +abolitionist in the regular army, they say. He died like a soldier—but +not as the soldiers die in pictures. He sank off his horse so limp, and +so like an animal with its death wound, and gasped so weakly, 'I'm +killed—take care of my body,' that when we covered his face and bore +him away, we could not realize we were carrying a man's body. And now, +my dear, if I should go as these men go, I have neither kith nor kin to +mourn me—only you, and you must not mourn, for I shall be near you +always and always, without sign or token, and when you feel my presence +near, know that it is real, and not a seeming. For the great force of +life that moves events in this world has but one symbol, but one vital<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> +manifestation, and that is love, and when a soul is touched with that, +it is immortal."</p> + +<p>But Martin Culpepper, with his dancing plumes, saw things in another +light. Perhaps we always see things in another light when forty years +have passed over them. But in his chapter "The Shrill Trump," in the +Biography, he writes: "'O you mortal engines, whose rude throats the +immortal Jove's dread clamours counterfeit,' O for the 'spirit-stirring +drum, and the ear-splitting fife' 'in these piping times of peace.' +Small wonder it was that with the clang and clank of sabre and artillery +in his ears, with the huzzas of comrades and the sparkle of the wine of +war in his eyes, our hero wrote the never dying words that made him +famous. How the day comes back with all its pageantry, the caparisoned +horses, the handsome men stepping to the music of inspiring melody, the +clarion commands of the officers, and the steady rumble of a thousand +feet upon the battle ground, going careless whether to death or +immortality in deathless fame."</p> + +<p>A curious thing is that deathless fame which Martin speaks of—a passing +curious thing; for when word came of Henry Schnitzler's death, Mary +Murphy, of the Thayer House, put off Gabriel Carnine's ring, and wept +many tears in the stage driver's coffee and wore black in her hat for a +year, and when Gabriel came home, she married him and all went as +merrily as a wedding-bell. What covert tenderness or dream of gauzy +romance was in her memory, the town could never know; but the Carnines' +first boy was named Henry, and for many years after the war, she was +known among the men, who do not understand a woman's heart, as the "War +widow by brevet." Yet that was Henry's "deathless fame" in Sycamore +Ridge, for the town has long since forgotten him, and even his name +means nothing to our children, who see it on the bronze statue set up by +the rich John Barclay to commemorate our soldier dead.</p> + +<p>But John was our first war hero. And when he brought his battle scars +home that September night in '61, for hours before the stage drove +across Sycamore Creek the boy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> was filled with a nameless dread that he +might be spanked.</p> + +<p>They carried him on a cot to his mother's house, and put him in the +great carved four-poster bed, and in the morning Miss Lucy came and +hovered over him, and they talked of Captain Ward to her heart's +content, and the boy told Miss Lucy the gossip of the hospital,—that +Captain Ward was to be made a major,—and she kissed him and petted him +until he was glad none of the boys was around to see the sickening +spectacle. And then Miss Lucy and Mrs. Barclay told the child of their +plans,—that Miss Lucy was going to war as a nurse, and that Mrs. +Barclay was to teach the Sycamore Ridge school during the winter. And in +a few weeks John was out of the hero business, working in Culpepper's +store after school, and getting used to a limp that stayed with him all +his life.</p> + +<p>The next spring he traded a carbine that he brought home from the army +for an Indian pony, and then he began business for himself. He organized +the cows of the town into a town herd and took them every morning to +pasture on the prairie. All day he rode in the open air, and the town +boys came out to play with him, and they explored the cave by his +mother's house, and with their sling-shots killed quails and prairie +chickens and cooked them, and they played war through the long summer +days. But John did not grow as the other boys grew; he remained +undersized, and his limp put him at a disadvantage; so he had few +fights, but he learned cunning, and got his way by strategy rather than +by force—but he always had his way. He was strong; the memory of what +he had seen and what he had been that one awful day in the battle made +lines on his face; sometimes at night he would wake screaming, when he +dreamed he was running away from the surgeon with the bloody knife in +his teeth and that the man was going to throw an arm at him. And when he +wished to bring Ellen Culpepper to time he would begin in +a low<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> +terrorful voice, "And I saw—the +man—take—a—g-r-e-a-t l-o-n-g +knife d-r-i-p-p-i-n-g with r-e-d-b-l-o-o-d out of his t-e-e-t-h and go +slish, k-slish," but he never got farther than this, for the girl would +begin shaking, and if they were alone, would run to him and grab him and +put her hand to his mouth to make him stop.</p> + +<p>And so his twelfth year passed under the open sky in the sunshine in +summer and in winter working after school in town where men were +wanting, and where a boy could always find work. He grew brown and lean, +and as his voice grew squeaky and he sang alto in the school, he became +more and more crafty and masterful. The fact that his mother was the +teacher, did not give him more rights in school than other boys, for she +was a sensible woman, but it gave him a prestige on the playground that +he was not slow to take. He was a born trader; and he kept what he got +and got more. His weakness was music. He kept two cows in his herd in +the summer time in return for the use of the melodeon at the Thayer +House, and moved it to his own home and put it in the crowded little +room, and practised on it at night when the other boys were loafing at +the town pump. For a consideration in marbles he taught Buck Culpepper +the chords in "G" on the guitar, and for further consideration taught +him the chords in "D" and "C," and with the aid of Jimmy Fernald, aged +nine, and Molly Culpepper, aged eleven, one with a triangle and the +other with a pumpkin reed pipe, John organized his Band, which he led +with his mouth-organ, and exhibited in Culpepper's barn, appropriating +to himself as the director the pins charged at the door. Forty years +afterward, when Molly called his attention to his failure to divide with +the children, John Barclay smiled as he lifted his lame foot to a fat +leather chair in front of him and said, "That was what we call the +promoter's profit." And then the talk ran to Ellen, and John opened his +great desk and from a box without a mark on it he brought out a tintype +picture of Ellen at fourteen, a pink-cheeked child in short sleeves, +with the fringe of her pantalets showing above her red striped stockings +and beneath her bulging skirts, and with a stringy, stiff feather rising +from the front of her narrow-rimmed hat.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span></p> + +<p>During the time when he was going to school by day and working evenings +and caring for the town herd through the summer, the war was dragging +wearily on. Sometimes a soldier came home on a furlough and there was +news of the Sycamore Ridge men, but oftener it was a season of waiting +and working. The women and children cared for the farms and the stores +as best they could and lived, heaven only knows how, and opened every +newspaper with horror and dread, and glanced down the long list of names +of the dead, the missing and the wounded, fearful of what they might +see. Mrs. Barclay heard from Miss Lucy and through her kept track of +Philemon Ward, who was transferred to another regiment after he was made +major. And when he was made a colonel at Shiloh, there were tear blots +on Miss Lucy's letter that told of it, and after Appomattox he was +brevetted a general. As for Captain Culpepper, he came home a colonel, +and Jake Dolan came home a first lieutenant. But Watts McHurdie came +home with a letter from Lincoln about his song, and he was the greatest +man of all of them.</p> + +<p>It is odd that Sycamore Ridge grew during the war. Where the people came +from, no one could say—yet they came, and young Barclay remembered even +during the war of playing in the foundations and running over the +rafters of new houses. But when the war closed, the great caravan that +had lagged while the war was raging, began to trail itself steadily in +front of Mrs. Barclay's door, through the streets of Sycamore Ridge and +out over the western hills. Soldiers with their families passed, going +to the free homesteads, and the line of movers' wagons began with +daybreak and rumbled by far into the night. But hundreds of wagons +stopped in Sycamore Ridge, and the stage came crowded every night. Brick +buildings, the town's mortal pride, began showing their fronts on Main +Street, and other streets in the town began to assert themselves. Mrs. +Barclay's school grew from a score of children in 1864 to three rooms +full in '65, and in '66 the whole town turned out to welcome General and +Mrs. Ward, she that was Miss Lucy Barnes, and there was a reunion<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> of +"C" Company that night, and a camp-fire in Culpepper Hall, and the next +day Lige Bemis was painting a sign which read "Philemon R. Ward, +Attorney-at-Law, Pension Matters Promptly Attended To." And the first +little Ward was born at the Thayer House and named Eli Thayer Ward.</p> + +<p>The spring that found John Barclay sixteen years old found him a +browned, gray-eyed, lumpy sort of a boy, big at the wrong places, and +stunted at the wrong places, with a curious, uneven sort of an +education. He knew all about Walden Pond; and he knew his Emerson—and +was mad with passion to see the man; he had travelled over the world +with Scott; had crossed the bridge with Cæsar in his father's books; had +roamed the prairie and the woods with Cooper's Indians; had gone into +the hearts of men with Thackeray and Dickens, holding his mother's hand +and listening to her voice; but he knew algebra only as a name, and +rhetoric was a dictionary word with him. Of earthly possessions he had +two horses, a bill of sale for his melodeon, a saddle, a wagon, a set of +harness; four mouth-organs, one each in "A," "D," "E," and "C," all +carefully rolled in Canton flannel on a shelf above his bed; one +concertina,—a sort of German accordion,—five pigs, a cow, and a bull +calf. Moreover, there were <i>two</i> rooms in the Barclay home; and the +great rock was gone from the door of the cave, and a wooden door was in +its place and the Barclays were using it for a spring-house. The boy had +a milk route and sold butter to the hotel. But the chiefest treasure of +the household was John's new music book. And while he played on his +melodeon, Ellen Culpepper's eyes smiled from the pages and her voice +moved in the melodies, and his heart began to feel the first vague +vibration with the great harmony of life. And so the pimples on his chin +reddened, and the squeak in his voice began to squawk, and his big milky +eyes began to see visions wherein a man was walking through this vain +world. As for Ellen Culpepper, her shoe tops were tiptoeing to her +skirts, and her eyes were full of dreams of the warrior bold, "with +spurs of gold," who "sang merrily his lay." And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> rising from these +dreams, she always stepped on her feet. But that was a long time ago, +and men and women have been born and loved, and married and brought +children into the world since then. For it was a long time ago.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2> +</div> + +<p>The changes of time are hard to realize. One knows, of course, that the +old man once was young. One understands that the tree once was a +sapling, and conversely we know that the child will be a man and the +gaunt sapling stuck in the earth in time will become a great spreading +tree. But the miracle of growth passes not merely our understanding, but +our imagination.</p> + +<p>So though men tell us, and grow black in the face with the vehemence of +telling, that the Sycamore Ridge of the sixties—a gray smudge of +unpainted wooden houses bordering the Santa Fe trail, with the street +merging into the sunflowers a block either way from the pump,—is the +town that now lies hidden in the elm forest, with its thirty miles of +paving and its scores of acres of wide velvet lawns, with its parks +wherein fountains play, guarded by cannon discarded by the pride of +modern war, with the court-house on the brink of the hill that once was +far west of the town and with twenty-two thousand people whizzing around +in trolleys, rattling about in buggies or scooting down the shady +avenues in motor-cars—whatever the records may show, the real truth we +know; the towns are not the same; the miracle of growth cannot fool us. +And yet here is the miracle in the making. Always in John Barclay's eyes +when he closed them to think of the first years that followed the war +between the states, rose visions of yellow pine and red bricks and the +litter and debris of building; always in his ears as he remembered those +days were the confused noises of wagons whining and groaning under their +heavy loads, of gnawing saws and rattling hammers, of the clink of +trowels on stones, of the swish of mortar in boxes, and of the murmur of +the tide of hurrying feet over board sidewalks, ebbing and flowing night +and morning. In those days new boys came to town<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> so rapidly that +sometimes John met a boy in swimming whom he did not know, and, even in +1866, when Ellen and Molly Culpepper were giving a birthday party for +Ellen, she declared that she "simply couldn't have all the new people +there."</p> + +<p>And so in the sixties the boy and the town went through their raw, +gawky, ugly adolescence together. As streets formed in the town, ideas +took shape in the boy's mind. As Lincoln Avenue was marked out on the +hill, where afterward the quality of the town came to live, so in the +boy's heart books that told him of the world outlined vague visions. Boy +fashion he wrote to Bob Hendricks once or twice a month or a season, as +the spirit moved him, and measured everything with the eyes of his +absent friend. For he came to idealize Bob, who was out in the wonderful +world, and their letters in those days were curious compositions—full +of adventures by field and wood, and awkward references to proper books +to read, and cures for cramps and bashfully expressed aspirations of the +soul. Bob's father had become a general, and when the war closed, he was +sent west to fight the Indians, and he took Lieutenant Jacob Dolan with +him, and Bob sent to John news of the Indian fighting that glorified Bob +further.</p> + +<p>And when a letter came to the Ridge from Dolan announcing that he and +the Hendricks family were coming back to the Ridge to live,—the general +to look after his neglected property, and Dolan to start a +livery-stable,—John heard the news with a throb of great joy. When a +letter from Bob confirmed the news, John began to count the days. For +the love of boys is the most unselfish thing in a selfish world. They +met awkwardly and sheepishly at the stage, and greeted each other with +grunts, and became inseparable. Bob came back tall, lanky, grinny, and +rather dumb, and he found John undersized, wiry, masterful, and rather +mooney, but strong and purposeful, for a boy. But each accepted the +other as perfect in every detail.</p> + +<p>Nothing Bob did changed John's attitude, and nothing John did made Bob +waver in his faith in John. Did the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> boys come to John with a sickening +story that Bob's sister made him bring a towel to the swimming hole, +John glared at them a moment and then waved them aside with, "Well, you +big brutes,—didn't you know what it was for?" When they reported to +John that Bob's father was making him tip his hat to the girls, they +got, instead of the outbreak of scorn they expected, "Well—did the +girls tip back?" And when Bob's sister said that the Barclay +boy—barefooted, curly-headed, dusty, and sunburned—looked like +something the old cat had dragged into the house, the boy-was impudent +to his sister and took a whipping from his father.</p> + +<p>That fall the children of Sycamore Ridge assembled for the first time in +their new seven-room stone schoolhouse, and the two boys were in the +high school. The board hired General Philemon Ward to teach the twenty +high school pupils, and it was then he first began to wear the white +neckties which he never afterwards abandoned. Ward's first clash with +John Barclay occurred when Ward organized a military company. John's +limp kept him out of it, so he broke up the company and organized a +literary society, of which he was president and Ellen Culpepper +secretary, and a constitution was adopted exempting the president and +secretary from work in the society. It was natural enough that Bob +Hendricks should be made treasurer, and that these three officers should +be the programme committee, and then a long line of vice-presidents and +assistant secretaries and treasurers and monitors was elected by the +society.</p> + +<p>So John became the social leader of the group of boys and girls who were +just coming out of kissing games into dances at one another's homes in +the town. John decided who should be in the "crowd" and who might be +invited only when a mixed crowd was expected. Fathers desiring trade, +and mothers faithful to church ties, protested; but John Barclay had his +way. It was his crowd. They called themselves the "Spring Chickens," and +as John had money saved to spend as he pleased, he dictated many things; +but he did not spend his money, he lent it, and his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> barn was stored +with, skates and sleds and broken guns and scrap-iron held as security, +while his pockets bulged with knives taken as interest.</p> + +<p>As the winter waned and the Spring Chickens waxed fat in social honours, +Bob Hendricks glanced up from his algebra one day, and discovered that +little Molly Culpepper had two red lips and two pig-tail braids of hair +that reached below her waist. Then and there he shot her deftly with a +paper wad, chewed and fired through a cane pipe-stem, and waited till +she wiped it off her cheek with her apron and made a face at him, before +he plunged into the mysteries +of <i>x</i><sup><span style='font-size:smaller'>2</span></sup> + 2<i>xy</i> + <i>y</i><sup><span style='font-size:smaller'>2</span></sup>. And thus +another old story began, as new and as fresh as when Adam and Eve walked +together in the garden.</p> + +<p>John Barclay was so busy during his last year in the Sycamore Ridge +school that he often fancied afterwards that the houses on Lincoln +Avenue in Culpepper addition must have come with the grass in the +spring, for he has no memory of their building. Neither does he remember +when General Madison Hendricks built the brick building on the corner of +Main Street and Fifth Avenue, in which he opened the Exchange National +Bank of Sycamore Ridge. Yet John remembered that his team and wagon were +going all winter, hauling stone for the foundation of the Hendricks home +on the hill—a great brick structure, with square towers and square +"ells" rambling off on the prairie, and square turrets with ornate +cornice pikes pricking the sky. For years the two big houses standing +side by side—the Hendricks house and the Culpepper house, with its tall +white pillars reaching to the roof, its double door and its two white +wings spreading over the wide green lawn—were the show places of +Sycamore Ridge, and the town was always divided in its admiration for +them. John's heart was sadly torn between them. Yet he was secretly glad +to learn from his mother that his Uncle Union's house in Haverhill had +tall columns, green blinds on the white woodwork, and a wide hall +running down the centre. For it made him feel more at home at the +Culpeppers'. But when the Hendricks' piano came, after<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> they moved into +the big house, the boy's heart was opened afresh; and he spent hours +with Bob Hendricks at the piano, when he knew he would be welcome at the +Culpeppers'. He leased his town herd in the summer to Jimmie +Fernald—giving him the right to take the cows to the commons around +town upon the payment of five dollars a month to John for keeping out of +the business, and passing Jimmie good-will. In the meantime, by day, +John worked his team, and hired two others and took contracts for +digging cellars. At nights he went to the country with his concertina +and played for dances, making two dollars a night, and General Hendricks +for years pointed with pride to the fact that when the Exchange National +Bank of Sycamore Ridge opened for business the first morning, standing +at the head of the line of depositors was John Barclay, with his +concertina under his arm, just as he had returned from a country dance +at daylight, waiting to be first in line, with $178.53 in his pocket to +deposit. That deposit slip, framed, still hangs over the desk in the +office of the president of the bank, and when John Barclay became +famous, it was always a part of the "Art Loan Exhibit," held by the +women in Barclay Memorial Hall.</p> + +<p>That summer of '67 John capitulated to life, held his hands up for the +shackles and put on shoes in summer for the first time. Also, he only +went swimming twice—both times at night, and he bought his first box of +paper collars and his mother tried to make his neckties like those in +Dorman's store; but some way she did not get the hang of it, and John +bought a Sunday necktie of great pride, and he and his mother agreed +that it was off the tail of Joseph's coat of many colours. But he wore +it only on state occasions. At work, he made an odd figure limping over +the dirt heaps and into the excavations bossing men old enough to be his +father. He wore a serious face in those days,—for a boy,—and his mouth +was almost hard, but something burned in his eyes that was more than +ambition, though that lighted his face like a flame, and he was always +whistling or singing. At night<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> he and Bob Hendricks wandered away +together, and sometimes they walked out under the stars and talked as +boys will talk of their little world and the big world about them, or +sometimes they sat reading at one or the other's home, and one would +walk home with the other, and the other walk a piece of the way back. +They read poetry and mooned; "Lalla Rookh" appealed to John because of +its music and melody, and both boys devoured Byron, and gobbled over the +"Corsair" and the "Giaour" and "Childe Harold" with the book above the +table, and came back from the barn on Sundays licking their chops after +surreptitiously nibbling "Don Juan." But they had Captain Mayne Reid and +Kingsley as an antidote, and they soon got enough of Byron.</p> + +<p>The two boys persuaded each other to go away to school, and John chose +the state university because it was cheap and because he heard he could +get work in Lawrence to carry him through. He did not recollect that his +mother had any influence in the matter; but in those days she always +seemed to be sitting by the lamp in their little home, sewing, with his +shirts and underwear strewn about her. She had a permanent place in the +town schools, and the Barclay home had grown to a kitchen and two +bedrooms as well as the big room with its fireplace. His mother's hair +was growing gray at the temples, but her clear, firm, unwrinkled skin +and strong broad jaw kept youth in her countenance, and as Martin +Culpepper wrote in the Biography, where he names the pioneers of +Sycamore Ridge whose lives influenced Watts McHurdie's, "the three +graces, Faith, Hope, and Charity, were mirrored in her smile."</p> + +<p>One night when the boy came in tired after his night's ramble, he left +his mother, as he often did those last nights before he went away to +school, bending over her work, humming a low happy-noted song, even +though the hour was late. He lay in his bed beside the open window +looking out into the night, dreaming with open eyes about life. Perhaps +he actually dreamed a moment, for he did not hear her come into the +room; but he felt her bend<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> over him, and a tear dropped on his face +from hers. He turned toward her, and she put her arms about his neck. +Then she sobbed: "Oh, good-by, my little boy—good-by. I am coming here +to bid you good-by, every night now." He kissed her hand, and she was +silent a moment, and then she spoke: "I know this is the last of it all, +John. You will never come back to me again—not you, but a man. And you +will seem strange, and I will seem strange." She paused a moment to let +the cramp in her throat leave, then she went on: "I was going to say so +many things—when this time came, but they're all gone. But oh, my boy, +my little tender-hearted boy—be a good man—just be a good man, John." +And then she sobbed for an unrestrained minute: "O God, when you take my +boy away, keep him clean, and brave, and kind, and—O God, make +him—make him a good man." And with a pat and a kiss she rose and said +as she left him, "Now good night, Johnnie, go to sleep."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>In the Sycamore Ridge <i>Banner</i> for September 12, 1867, appeared some +verses by Watts McHurdie, beginning:—</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Hail and farewell to thee, friend of my youth,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Pilgrim who seekest the Fountain of Truth,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Hail and farewell to thy innocent pranks,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">No more can I send thee for left-handed cranks.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Farewell, and a tear laves the ink on my pen,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For ne'er shall I 'noint thee with strap-oil again."</span><br /></p> + +<p>It was a noble effort, and in his notes to the McHurdie poems following +the Biography published over thirty years after those lines were +written, Colonel Culpepper writes: "This touching, though somewhat +humorous, poem was written on the occasion of the departure for college +of one who since has become listed with the world's great captains of +finance—none other than Honourable John Barclay, whose fame is too +substantial to need encomium in these humble pages. Suffice it to say +that between these two men, our hero, the poet, and the great man of +affairs, there has always remained the closest friendship, and each +carries in his bosom, wrapped in the myrrh of fond memory, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> +deathless blossom of friendship, that sweetest flower in the +conservatory of the soul."</p> + +<p>The day before John left for Lawrence he met Lieutenant Jacob Dolan.</p> + +<p>"So ye're going to college—ay, Johnnie?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Mr. Dolan," replied the boy.</p> + +<p>"Well, they're all givin' you somethin', Johnnie: Watts here has given a +bit of a posey in verse; and my friend, General Hendricks, I'm told, has +given you a hundred-dollar note; and General Philemon Ward has given you +Wendell Phillips' orations; and your sweetheart—God bless her, whoever +she is—will be givin' ye the makins' of a broken heart; and your +mother'll be givin' you her blessin'—and the saints' prayers go with +'em; and me, havin' known your father before you and the mother that +bore you, and seein' her rub the roses off her cheeks tryin' to keep +your ornery little soul in your worthless little body, I'll give you +this sentiment to put in your pipe and smoke: John Barclay, man—if they +ever be's a law agin damn fools, the first raid the officers should make +is on the colleges. And now may ye be struck blind before ye get your +education and dumb if it makes a fool of ye." And so slapping the boy on +the back, Jake Dolan went down the street winding in and out among the +brick piles and lumber and mortar boxes, whistling "Tread on the Tail of +me Coat."</p> + +<p>For life was all so fine and gay with Lieutenant Dolan in those days. +And he whistled and sang, and thought what he pleased, and said what he +pleased, and did what he pleased, and if the world didn't like it, the +world could picket its horses and get out of Jacob Dolan's livery barn. +For Mr. Dolan was thinking that from the livery-stable to the office of +sheriff is but a step in this land of the free and home of the brave; so +he carried his head back and his chest out and invited insult in the +fond hope of provoking assault. He was the flower of the +times,—effulgent, rather gaudy, and mostly red!</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER V</h2> +</div> + +<p>Good times came to Sycamore Ridge in the autumn. The dam across the +creek was furnishing power for a flour-mill and a furniture factory. The +endless worm of wagons that was wriggling through the town carrying +movers to the West, was sloughing many of its scales in Sycamore Ridge. +Martin Culpepper had been East with circulars describing the town and +adjacent country. He had brought back three stage loads of settlers, and +was selling lots in Culpepper's addition faster than they could be +surveyed. The Frye blacksmith shop had become a wagon shop, and then a +hardware store was added; the flag fluttered from the high flagstaff +over the Exchange National Bank building, and all day long farmers were +going from the mill to the bank. General Philemon Ward gave up +school-teaching and went back to his law office; but he was apt to take +sides with President Andrew Johnson too vigorously for his own good, and +clients often avoided his office in fear of an argument. Still he was +cheerful, and being only in his early thirties, looked at the green +hills afar from his pasture and was happy. The Thayer House was filled +with guests, and the Fernalds had money in the bank; Mary Murphy and +Gabriel Carnine were living happily ever after, and Nellie Logan was +clerking in Dorman's Dry Goods store and making Watts McHurdie +understand that she had her choice between a preacher and a drummer. +Other girls in the dining room of the Thayer House were rattling the +dinner dishes and singing "Sweet Belle Mahone" and "Do you love me, +Molly Darling?" to ensnare the travelling public that might be tilted +back against the veranda in a mood for romance. And as John and Bob that +hot September afternoon made the round of the stores and offices bidding +the town good-by, it seemed to them that perhaps they were seizing the +shadow and letting the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> substance fade. For it was such a good-natured +busy little place that their hearts were heavy at leaving it.</p> + +<p>But that evening John in his gorgeous necktie, his clean paper collar, +his new stiff hat, his first store clothes, wearing proudly his father's +silver watch and chain, set out to say good-by to Ellen Culpepper, and +his mother, standing in the doorway of their home, sighed at his limp +and laughed at his strut—the first laugh she had enjoyed in a dozen +days.</p> + +<p>John and Bob together went up the stone walk leading across a yard, +still littered with the debris of building, to the unboxed steps that +climbed to the veranda of the Culpepper house. There they met Colonel +Culpepper in his shirt-sleeves, walking up and down the veranda admiring +the tall white pillars. When he had greeted the boys, he put his thumbs +in his vest holes and continued his parade in some pomp. The boys were +used to this attitude of the colonel's toward themselves and the +pillars. It always followed a hearty meal. So they sat respectfully +while he marched before them, pointing occasionally, when he took his +cigar from his mouth and a hand from his vest, to some feature of the +landscape in the sunset light that needed emphatic attention.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir, young gentlemen," expanded the colonel, "you are doing the +right and proper thing—the right and proper thing. Of all the +avocations of youth, I conceive the pursuit of the sombre goddess of +learning to be the most profitable—entirely the most profitable. I +myself, though a young man,—being still on the right side of +forty,—have reaped the richest harvest from my labours in the classic +shades. Twenty years ago, young gentlemen, I, like you, left my +ancestral estates to sip at the Pierian spring. In point of fact, I +attended the institution founded by Thomas Jefferson, the father of the +American democracy—yes, sir." He put his cigar back in his mouth and +added, "Yes, sir, you are certainly taking a wise and, I may say, highly +necessary step—"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Culpepper, small, sprightly, blue-eyed, and calm, entered the +veranda, and cut the colonel off with: "Good<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> evening, boys. So you are +going away. Well—we'll miss you. The girls will be right out."</p> + +<p>But the colonel would not be quenched; his fires were burning deeply. +"As I was saying, Mrs. Culpepper," he went on, "the classic training +obtained from a liberal education such as it was my fortune—"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Culpepper smiled blandly as she put in, "Now, pa, these boys don't +care for that."</p> + +<p>"But, my dear, let me finish. As I started to say: the flowers of +poetry, Keats and his large white plumes, the contemplation of nature's +secrets, the reflective study of—"</p> + +<p>"Yes,—here's your coat now, pa," said the wife, returning from a dive +into the hall. "John, how's your ma going to get on without you? And, +pa, be sure don't forget the eggs for breakfast. I declare since we've +moved up here so far from the stores, we nearly starve."</p> + +<p>The colonel waited a second while a glare melted into a smile, and then +backed meekly into the arms stretched high to hold his alpaca coat. As +he turned toward the group, he was beaming. "If it were not," exclaimed +the colonel, addressing the young men with a quizzical smile, "that +there is a lady present—a very important lady in point of fact,—I +might be tempted to say, 'I will certainly be damned!'" And with that +the colonel lifted Mrs. Culpepper off her feet and kissed her, then +lumbered down the steps and strode away. He paused at the gate to gaze +at the valley and turned to look back at the great unfinished house, +then swung into the street and soon his hat disappeared under the hill.</p> + +<p>As he went Mrs. Culpepper said, "Let them say what they will about Mart +Culpepper, I always tell the girls if they get as good a man as their +pa, they will be doing mighty well."</p> + +<p>Then the girls appeared bulging in hoops, and ruffles, with elbow +sleeves, with a hint of their shoulders showing and with pink ribbons in +their hair. Clearly it was a state occasion. The mother beamed at them a +moment, and walked around Molly, saying, "I told you that was all +right," and tied Ellen's hair ribbon over, while the young<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> people were +chattering, and before the boys knew it, she had faded into the dusk of +the hall, and the clattering of dishes came to them from the rear of the +house. John fancied he felt the heavy step of Buchanan Culpepper, and +then he heard: "Don't you talk to me, Buck Culpepper, about woman's +work. You'll do what I tell you, and if I say wipe dishes—" the voice +was drowned by the rattle of a passing wagon. And soon the young people +on the front porch were so busy with their affairs that the house behind +them and its affairs dropped to another world. They say, who seem to +know, that when any group of boys and girls meet under twenty-five +serious years, the recording angel puts down his pen with, a sigh and +takes a needed nap. But when the group pairs off, then Mr. Recorder +pricks up his ears and works with both hands, one busy taking what the +youngsters say, and the other busy with what they would like to say. And +shame be it upon the courage of youth that what they would like to say +fills the larger book. And marvel of marvels, often the book that holds +what the boys would say is merely a copy of what the girls would like to +hear, and so much of the work is saved to the angel.</p> + +<p>It was nine o'clock when the limping boy and the slender girl followed +the tall youth and the plump little girl down the walk from the +Culpepper home through the gate and into the main road. And the couple +that walked behind took the opposite direction from that which they took +who walked ahead. Yet when John and Ellen reached the river and were +seated on the mill-dam, where the roar of the falling water drowned +their voices, Ellen Culpepper spoke first: "That looks like them over on +the bridge. I can see Molly, and Bob's hat about three feet above her."</p> + +<p>"I guess so," returned the boy. He was reaching behind him for clods and +pebbles to toss into the white foaming flood below them. The girl +reached back and got one, then another, then their hands met, and she +pulled hers away and said, "Get me some stones." He gave her a handful, +and she threw the pebbles away slowly and awkwardly, one at a time. +There was a long<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> gap in their talk while they threw the pebbles. The +girl closed it with, "Ma made old Buck wipe the dishes." Then she +giggled, "Poor Buckie."</p> + +<p>John managed to say, "Yes, I heard him." Then he added, "What does your +mother think of Bob?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, she likes him fine. But she's glad you're all going away."</p> + +<p>The boy asked why and the girl returned, "Watch me hit that log." She +threw, and missed the water.</p> + +<p>"Why?" persisted the boy.</p> + +<p>The girl was digging in a crevice for a stone and said, "Can you get +that out?"</p> + +<p>John worked at it a moment and handed it to her with, "Why?"</p> + +<p>She threw it, standing up to give her arm strength. She sat down and +folded her hands and waited for another "why." When it came she said, +"Oh, you know why." When he protested she answered, "Ma thinks Molly's +too young."</p> + +<p>"Too young for what?" demanded the boy, who knew.</p> + +<p>"Too young to be going with boys."</p> + +<p>There was a long pause, then he managed to say it, "She's no younger +than you were—nor half as old."</p> + +<p>"When?" returned the girl, giving him the broadside of her eyes for a +second, and letting them droop. The eyes bewitched the boy, and he could +not speak. At length the girl shivered, "It's getting cold—I must go +home."</p> + +<p>The boy found voice. "Aw no, Bob and Molly are still up there."</p> + +<p>She started to rise, he caught her hand, but she pulled it away and +resigned herself for a moment. Then she looked at him a long second and +said, "Do you remember years ago at the Frye boy's party—when we were +little tots, and I chose you?"</p> + +<p>The boy nodded his head and turned full toward her with serious eyes. He +devoured her feature by feature with his gaze in the starlight. The moon +was just rising at the end of the mill-dam behind them, and its light +fell<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> on her profile. He cried out, "Yes, Ellen, do you—do you?"</p> + +<p>She nodded her head and spoke quickly, "That was the time you got your +hands stuck in the taffy and had to be soaked out."</p> + +<p>They laughed. John tried to get the moment back. "Do you remember the +rubber ring I gave you?"</p> + +<p>She grew bold and turned to him with her heart in her face: "Yes—yes, +John, and the coffee-bean locket. I've got them both in a little box at +home." Then, scampering back to her reserve, she added, "You know ma +says I'm a regular rat to store things away." She felt that the sudden +reserve chilled him, for in a minute or two she said, looking at the +bridge: "They're going now. We mustn't stay but a minute." She put her +hand on the rock between them, and said, "You remember that night when +you went away before?" Before he answered she went on: "I was counting +up this afternoon, and it's six years ago. We were just children then."</p> + +<p>Again the boy found his voice: "Ellen Culpepper, we've been going +together seven years. Don't you think that's long enough?"</p> + +<p>"We were just children then," she replied.</p> + +<p>The boy leaned awkwardly toward her and their hands met on the rock, and +he withdrew his as he asked, "Do you—do you?"</p> + +<p>She bent toward him, and looked at him steadily as she nodded her head +again and again. She rose to go, saying, "We mustn't stay here any +longer."</p> + +<p>He caught her hand to stop her, and said, "Ellen—Ellen, promise me just +one thing." She looked her question. He cried, "That you won't +forget—just that you won't forget."</p> + +<p>She took his hand and stood before him as he sat, hoping to stay her. +She answered: "Not as long as I live, John Barclay. Oh, not as long as I +live." Then she exclaimed: "Now—" and her voice changed, "we just must +go, John; Molly's gone, and it's getting late." She helped him limp over +the rocks and up the steep road, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> when they reached the level, she +dropped his hand, and they walked home slowly, looking back at the moon, +so that they might not overtake the other couple. Once or twice they +stopped and sat on lumber piles in the street, talking of nothing, and +it was after ten o'clock when they came to the gate. The girl looked +anxiously up the walk toward the house. "They've come and gone," she +said. She moved as if to go away.</p> + +<p>"I wish you wouldn't go right in," he begged.</p> + +<p>"Oh—I ought to," she replied. They were silent. The roar of the water +over the dam came to them on the evening breeze. She put out her hand.</p> + +<p>"Well," he sighed as he rested his lame foot, and started, +"well—good-by."</p> + +<p>She turned to go, and then swiftly stepped toward him, and kissed him, +and ran gasping and laughing up the walk.</p> + +<p>The boy gazed after her a moment, wondering if he should follow her, but +while he waited she was gone, and he heard her lock the door after her. +Then he limped down the road in a kind of swoon of joy. Sometimes he +tried to whistle—he tried a bar of Schubert's "Serenade," but +consciously stopped. Again and again under his breath as loud as he +dared, he called the name "Ellen" and stood gazing at the moon, and then +tried to hippety-hop, but his limp stopped that. Then he tried whistling +the "Miserere," but he pitched it too high, and it ran out, so he sang +as he turned across the commons toward home, and that helped a little; +and he opened the door of his home singing, "How can I leave thee—how +can I bear to part?" The light was burning in the kitchen, and he went +to his mother and kissed her. His face was aglow, and she saw what had +happened to him. She put him aside with, "Run on to bed now, sonny; I've +got a little work out here." And he left her. In the sitting room only +the moon gave light. He stood at the window a moment, and then turned to +his melodeon. His hands fell on the major chord of "G," and without +knowing what he was playing he began "Largo." He played his soul into +his music, and looking up, whispered the name<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> "Ellen" rapturously over +and over, and then as the music mounted to its climax the whole world's +mystery, and his personal thought of the meaning of life revelled +through his brain, and he played on, not stopping at the close but +wandering into he knew not what mazes of harmony. When his hands +dropped, he was playing "The Long and Weary Day," and his mother was +standing behind him humming it. When he rose from the bench, she ran her +fingers through his hair and spoke the words of the song, "'My lone +watch keeping,' John, 'my lone watch keeping.' But I think it has been +worth while."</p> + +<p>Then she left him and he went to bed, with the moon in his room, and the +murmur of waters lulling him to sleep. But he looked out into the sky a +long time before his dream came, and then it slipped in gently through +the door of a nameless hope. For he wished to meet her in the moon that +night, but when they did meet, the white veil of the falling waters of +the dam blew across her face and he could not brush it away. For one is +bold in dreams.</p> + +<p>A little after sunrise the next morning John rode away from his mother's +door, on one of his horses, leading the other one. He was going up the +hill to get Bob Hendricks, and the two were to ride to Lawrence. He had +been promised work, carrying newspapers, and the Yankee in him made him +believe he could find work for the other horse. As the boy turned into +Main Street waving his mother good-by, he saw the places where he and +Ellen Culpepper had stopped the night before, and they looked different +some way, and he could not realize that he was in the same street.</p> + +<p>As he climbed the hill, he passed General Ward, working in his flower +garden, and the man sprang over the fence and came into the road, and +put his hand on the horse's bridle, saying, "Stop a minute, John: I just +wanted to say something." He hesitated a moment before going on: "You +know back where I came from—back in New England—the name of John +Barclay stands for a good deal—more than you can realize, John. Your +father was one of the first martyrs of our cause. I guess<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> your mother +never has told you, but I'm going to—your father gave up a business +career for this cause. His father was rich—very rich, and your +grandfather was set on your father going into business." John looked up +the hill toward the Hendricks home, and Ward saw it, and mistook the +glance for one of impatience. "Johnnie," said the man, his fine thin, +features glowing with earnestness, "Johnnie—I wish I could get to your +heart, boy. I want to make you hear what I have to say with your soul +and not with your ears, and I know youth is so deaf. Your grandfather +was angry when your father entered the ministry and came out here. He +thought it was folly. The old man offered to give fifty thousand dollars +to the Kansas-Nebraska cause, and that would have sent a good many men +out here. But your father said no. He said money wouldn't win this +cause. He said personal sacrifice was all that would win it. He said men +must give up themselves, not their money, to make this cause win—and so +he came; and there was a terrible quarrel, and that is why your mother +has stayed. She had faith in God, too—faith that her life some way in +His Providence would prove worth something. Your father and mother, +John, believed in God—they believed in a God, not a Moloch; your +father's faith has been justified. The death he died was worth millions +to the cause of liberty. It stirred the whole North, as the miserable +little fifty thousand dollars that Abijah Barclay offered never could +have done. But your mother's sacrifice must find its justification in +you. And she, not your father, made the final decision to give up +everything for human freedom. She has endured poverty, Johnnie—" the +man's voice was growing tense, and his eyes were ablaze; "you know how +she worked, and if you fail her, if you do not live a consecrated life, +John, your mother's life has failed. I don't mean a pious life; God +knows I hate sanctimony. But I mean a life consecrated to some practical +service, to an ideal—to some actual service to your fellows—not money +service, but personal service. Do you understand?" Ward leaned forward +and looked into the boy's face. He took<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> hold of John's arm as he +pleaded, "Johnnie—boy—Johnnie, do you understand?"</p> + +<p>The boy answered, "Yes, General—I think I get your meaning." He picked +up his bridle, and Ward relaxed his hold on the boy's arm. The man's +hand dropped and he sighed, for he saw only a boy's face, and heard a +boy's politeness in the voice that went on, "Thank you, General, give my +love to Miss Lucy." And the youth rode on up the hill.</p> + +<p>In a few minutes the boys were riding down the steep clay bank that led +to the new iron bridge across the ford of the Sycamore, and for half an +hour they rode chattering through the wood before they came into the +valley and soon were Climbing the bluff which they had seen the night +before from the Culpepper home. On the brow of the bluff Bob said, "Hold +on—" He turned his horse and looked back. The sun was on the town, and +across on the opposite hill stood the colonel's big house with its proud +pillars. No trees were about it in those days, and it and the Hendricks +house stood out clearly on the horizon. But on the top of the Culpepper +home were two little figures waving handkerchiefs. The boys waved back, +and John thought he could tell Ellen from her sister, and the night and +its joy came back to him, and he was silent.</p> + +<p>They had ridden half an hour without speaking when Bob Hendricks said, +"Awful fine girls—aren't they?"</p> + +<p>"That's what I've always told you," returned John.</p> + +<p>After another quarter of a mile Bob tried it again. "The colonel's a +funny old rooster—isn't he?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know. That day at the battle of Wilson's Creek when he +walked out in front of a thousand soldiers and got a Union flag and +brought it back to the line, he didn't look very funny. But he's windy +all right."</p> + +<p>Again, as they crossed a creek and the horses were drinking, Bob said: +"Father thinks General Ward's a crank. He says Ward will keep harping on +about those war bonds, and quarrelling because the soldiers got their +pay in paper money and the bondholders in gold, until people will think +every one in high places is a thief."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, Ward's all right," answered John. "He's just talking; he likes an +argument, I guess. He's kind of built that way."</p> + +<p>It was a poor starved-to-death school that the boys found at Lawrence in +those days; with half a dozen instructors—most of whom were still in +their twenties; with books lent by the instructors, and with appliances +devised by necessity. But John was happy; he was making money with his +horses, doing chores for his board, and carrying papers night and +morning besides. The boy's industry was the marvel of the town. His limp +got him sympathy, and he capitalized the sympathy. Indeed, he would have +capitalized his soul, if it had been necessary. For his Yankee blood was +beginning to come out. Before he had been in school a year he had +swapped, traded, and saved until he had two teams, and was working them +with hired drivers on excavation contracts. In his summer vacations he +went to Topeka and worked his two teams, and by some sharp practice got +the title to a third. He was rollicking, noisy, good-natured, but under +the boyish veneer was a hard indomitable nature. He was becoming a +stickler for his rights in every transaction.</p> + +<p>"John," said Bob, one day after John had cut a particularly lamentable +figure, gouging a driver in a settlement, "don't you know that your +rights are often others' wrongs?"</p> + +<p>John was silent a moment. He looked at the driver moving away, and then +the boy's face set hard and he said: "Well—what's the use of blubbering +over him? If I don't get it, some one else will. I'm no charitable +institution for John Walruff's brewery!" And he snapped the rubber band +on his wallet viciously, and turned to his books.</p> + +<p>But on the other hand he wrote every other day to his mother and every +other day to Ellen Culpepper with unwavering precision. He told his +mother the news, and he told Ellen Culpepper the news plus some Emerson, +something more of "Faust," with such dashes of Longfellow and Ruskin as +seemed to express his soul. He never wrote to Ellen of money, and so +strong was her influence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> upon him that when he had written to her after +his quarrel with the driver, he went out in the night, hunted the man +up, and paid him the disputed wages. Then he mailed Ellen Culpepper's +letter, and was a lover living in an ethereal world as he walked home +babbling her name in whispers to the stars. Often when this mood was not +upon him, and a letter was due to Ellen, he went downstairs in the house +where he lived and played the piano to bring her near to him. That never +failed to change his face as by a miracle. "When John comes upstairs," +wrote Bob Hendricks to Molly, "he is as one in a dream, with the mists +of the music in his eyes. I never bother him then. He will not speak to +me, nor do a thing in the world, until that letter is written, sealed, +and stamped. Then he gets up, yawns and smiles sheepishly and perhaps +hits me with a book or punches me with his fist, and then we wrestle +over the room and the bed like bear cubs. After the wrestle he comes +back to himself. I wonder why?"</p> + +<p>And Ellen Culpepper read those letters from John Barclay over and over, +and curiously enough she understood them; for there is a telepathy +between spirits that meet as these two children's souls had met, and in +that concord words drop out and only thoughts are merchandized. Her +spirit grew with his, and so "through all the world she followed him."</p> + +<p>But there came a gray dawn of a May morning when John Barclay clutched +his bedfellow and whispered, "Bob, Bob—look, look." When the awakened +one saw nothing, John tried to scream, but could only gasp, "Don't you +see Ellen—there—there by the table?" But whatever it was that startled +him fluttered away on a beam of sunrise, and Bob Hendricks rose with the +frightened boy, and went to his work with him.</p> + +<p>Two days later a letter came telling him that Ellen Culpepper was dead.</p> + +<p>Now death—the vast baffling mystery of death—is Fate's strongest lever +to pry men from their philosophy. And death came into this boy's life +before his creed was set and hard, and in those first days while he +walked far<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> afield, he turned his face to the sky in his lonely sorrow, +and when he cried to Heaven there was a silence.</p> + +<p>So his heart curdled, and you kind gentlemen of the jury who are to pass +on the case of John Barclay in this story, remember that he was only +twenty years old, and that in all his life there was nothing to +symbolize the joy of sacrifice except this young girl. All his boyish +life she had nurtured the other self in his soul,—the self that might +have learned to give and be glad in the giving. And when she went, he +closed his Emerson and opened his Trigonometry, and put money in his +purse.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p> + +<p>There came a time when Ellen Culpepper was to him as a dream. But she +lived in her mother's eyes, and through all the years that followed the +mother watched the little girl grow to maturity and into middle life +with the other girls of her age. And even when the little headstone on +the Hill slanted in sad neglect, Mrs. Culpepper's old eyes still saw +Ellen growing old with her playmates. And she never saw John Barclay +that she did not think of Ellen—and and what she would have made of +him.</p> + +<p>And what would she have made of him? Maybe a poet, maybe a dreamer of +dreams—surely not the hard, grinding, rich man that he became in this +world.</p> + + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> <span class="smcap">To the Publisher.</span>—"In returning the Mss. of the life of +John Barclay, which you sent for my verification as to certain dates and +incidents, let me first set down, before discussing matters pertaining +to his later life, my belief that your author has found in the death of +Ellen Culpepper an incident, humble though it is, that explains much in +the character of Mr. Barclay. The incident probably produced a mental +shock like that of a psychological earthquake, literally sealing up the +spring of his life as it was flowing into consciousness at that time, +and the John Barclay of his boyhood and youth became subterranean, to +appear later in life after the weakening of his virility under the +strain of the crushing events of his fifties. Yet the subterranean +Barclay often appeared for a moment in his life, glowed in some kind act +and sank again. Ellen Culpepper explains it all. How many of our lives +are similarly divided, forced upward or downward by events, Heaven only +knows. We do not know our own souls. I am sure John never knew of the +transformation. Surely 'we are fearfully and wonderfully made.'... The +other dates and incidents are as I have indicated.... Allow me to thank +you for your kindness in sending me the Mss., and permit me to subscribe +myself, +</p><p style='margin-left:70%'> +"Yours faithfully,<br/><br /> +<span class="smcap"> "Philemon R. Ward</span>."</p></div> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2> +</div> + +<p>John Barclay returned to Sycamore Ridge in 1872 a full-fledged young +man. He was of a slight build and rather pale of face, for five years +indoors had rubbed the sunburn off. During the five years he had been +absent from Sycamore Ridge he had acquired a master's degree from the +state university, and a license to practise law. He was distinctly +dapper, in the black and white checked trousers, the flowered cravat, +and tight-fitting coat of the period; and the first Monday after he and +his mother went to the Congregational Church, whereat John let out his +baritone voice, he was invited to sing in the choir. Bob Hendricks came +home a year before John, and with Bob and Watts McHurdie singing tenor +at one end of the choir, and John and Philemon Ward holding down the +other end of the line, with Mrs. Ward, Nellie Logan, Molly Culpepper, +and Jane Mason of Minneola,—grown up out of short dresses in his +absence,—all in gay colours between the sombre clothes of the men, the +choir in the Congregational Church was worth going miles to see—if not +to hear.</p> + +<p>Now you know, of course,—or if you do not know, it is high time you +were learning,—that when Fate gives a man who can sing a head of curly +hair, the devil, who is after us all, quits worrying about that young +person. For the Old Boy knows that a voice and curly hair are mortgages +on a young man's soul that few young fellows ever pay off. Now there was +neither curly head nor music in all the Barclay tribe, and when John +sang "Through the trees the night winds murmur, murmur low and sweet," +his mother could shut her eyes and hear Uncle Leander, the black sheep +of three generations of Thatchers. So that the fact that John had +something over a thousand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> dollars to put in General Hendricks' bank, +and owned half a dozen town lots in the various additions to the town, +made the mother thankful for the Grandfather Barclay's blood in him. But +she saw a soul growing into the boy's face that frightened her. What +others admired as strength she feared, for she knew it was ruthlessness. +What others called shrewdness she, remembering his Grandfather Barclay, +knew might grow into blind, cruel greed, and when she thought of his +voice and his curly hair, and recalled Uncle Leander, the curly-headed, +singing ne'er-do-well of her family, and then in the boy's hardening +mouth and his canine jaw saw Grandfather Barclay sneering at her, she +was uncertain which blood she feared most. So she managed it that John +should go into partnership with General Ward, and Bob Hendricks managed +it that the firm should have offices over the bank, and also that the +firm was made attorneys for the bank,—the highest mark of distinction +that may come to a law firm in a country town. The general realized it +and was proud. But he thought the young man took it too much as a matter +of course.</p> + +<p>"John," said the general, one day, as they were dividing their first +five-hundred-dollar fee, "you're a lucky dog. Everything comes so easily +with you. Let me tell you something; I've figured this out: if you don't +give it back some way—give it back to the world, or society, or your +fellows,—or God, if you like to bunch your good luck under one +head,—you're surely going to suffer for it. There is no +come-easy-go-easy in this world. I've learned that much of the scheme of +things."</p> + +<p>"You mean that I've got to pay as I go, or Providence will keep books on +me and foreclose?" asked John, as he stood patting the roll of bills in +his trousers pocket.</p> + +<p>"That's the idea, son," smiled the elder man.</p> + +<p>The younger man put his hand to his chin and grinned. "I suppose," he +replied, "that's why so many men keep the title to their religious +proclivities in their wife's name." He went out gayly, and the elder man +heard the boyish limp almost tripping down the stairs. Ward<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> walked to +the window, straightening his white tie, and stood looking into the +street at the young man shaking hands and bowing and raising his hat as +he went. Ward's hair was graying at the temples, and his thin smooth +face was that of a man who spends many hours considering many things, +and he sighed as he saw John turn a corner and disappear.</p> + +<p>"No, Lucy, that's not it exactly," said the general that afternoon, as +he brought the sprinkler full of water to the flower bed for the eighth +time, and picketed little Harriet Beecher Ward out of the watermelon +patch, and wheeled the baby's buggy to the four-o'clocks, where Mrs. +Ward was working. "It isn't that he is conceited—the boy isn't that at +all. He just seems to have too little faith in God and too much in the +ability of John Barclay. He thinks he can beat the game—can take out +more happiness for himself than he puts in for others."</p> + +<p>The wife looked up and put back her sunbonnet as she said, "Yes, I +believe his mother thinks something of the kind."</p> + +<p>One of the things that surprised John when he came home from the +university was the prominence of Lige Bemis in the town. When John left +Sycamore Ridge to go to school, Bemis was a drunken sign-painter married +to a woman who a few years before had been the scandal of half a dozen +communities. And now though Mrs. Bemis was still queen only of the +miserable unpainted Bemis domicile in the sunflowers at the edge of +town, Lige Bemis politically was a potentate of some power. General +Hendricks consulted Bemis about politics. Often he was found in the back +room of the bank, and Colonel Culpepper, although he was an unterrified +Democrat, in his campaign speeches referred to Bemis as "a diamond in +the rough." John was sitting on a roll of leather one day in Watts +McHurdie's shop talking of old times when Watts recalled the battle of +Sycamore Ridge, and the time when Bemis came to town with the Red Legs +and frightened Mrs. Barclay.</p> + +<p>"Yes—and now look at him," exclaimed John, "dressed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> up like a gambler, +and referred to in the <i>Banner</i> as 'Hon. E. W. Bemis'! How did he do +it?"</p> + +<p>McHurdie sewed two or three long stitches in silence. He leaned over +from his bench to throw his tobacco quid in the sawdust box under the +rusty stove, then the little man scraped his fuzzy jaw reflectively with +his blackened hand as if about to speak, but he thought better of it and +waxed his thread. He showed his yellow teeth in a smile, and motioned +John to come closer. Then he put his head forward, and whispered +confidentially:—</p> + +<p>"What'd you ruther do or go a-fishing?"</p> + +<p>"But why?" persisted the young man.</p> + +<p>"Widder who?" returned Watts, grinning and putting his hand to his ear.</p> + +<p>When John repeated his question the third time, McHurdie said:—</p> + +<p>"I know a way you can get rich mighty quick, sonny." And when the boy +refused to "bite," Watts went on: "If any one asks you what Watts +McHurdie thinks about politics so long as he is in the harness business, +you just take the fellow upstairs, and pull down the curtain, and lock +the door, and tell him you don't know, and not to tell a living soul."</p> + +<p>With Bob Hendricks, John had little better success in solving the +mystery of the rise of Bemis. "Father says he's effective, and he would +rather have him for him than against him," was the extent of Bob's +explanation.</p> + +<p>Ward's answer was more to the point. He said: "Lige Bemis is a living +example of the power of soft soap in politics. We know—every man in +this county knows—that Lige Bemis was a horse thief before the war, and +that he was a cattle thief and a camp-follower during the war; and after +the war we know what he was—he and the woman he took up with. Yet here +he has been a member of the legislature and is beginning to be a figure +in state politics,—at least the one to whom the governor and all the +fellows write when they want information about this county. Why? I'll +tell you: because he's committed every crime and can't denounce one and +goes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> about the country extenuating things and oiling people up with his +palaver. Now he says he is a lawyer—yes, sir, actually claims to be a +lawyer, and brought his diploma into court two years ago, and they +accepted it. But I know, and the court knows, and the bar knows it was +forged; it belonged to his dead brother back in Hornellsville, New York. +But Hendricks downstairs said we needed Lige in the county-seat case, so +he is a member of the bar, taking one hundred per cent for collecting +accounts for Eastern people, and giving the country a black eye. A man +told me he was on over fifty notes for people at the bank; he signs with +every one, and Hendricks never bothers him. He managed to get into all +the lodges, right after the war when they were reorganized, and he sits +up with the sick, and is pall-bearer—regular professional pall-bearer, +and I don't doubt gets a commission for selling coffins from +Livingston." Ward rose from the table his full six feet and put his +hands in his pocket and stretched his legs as he added, "And when you +think how many Bemises in the first, second, or third degree there are +in this government, you wonder if the Democrats weren't right when they +declared the war was a failure."</p> + +<p>The general spoke as he did to John partly in anger and partly because +he thought the youth needed the lesson he was trying to implant. "You +know, Martin," explained the general, a few days later, to Colonel +Culpepper, "John has come home a Barclay—not a Barclay of his father's +stripe. He has taken back, as they say. It's old Abijah—with the mouth +and jaw of a wolf. I caught him palavering with a juror the other day +while we had a case trying."</p> + +<p>The colonel rested his hands on his knees a moment in meditation and +smiled as he replied: "Still, there's his mother, General. Don't ever +forget that the boy's mother is Mary Barclay; she has bred most of the +wolf out of him. And in the end her blood will tell."</p> + +<p>And now observe John Barclay laying the footing stones of his fortune. +He put every dollar he could get into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> town lots, paying for all he +bought and avoiding mortgages. Also he joined Colonel Culpepper in +putting the College Heights upon the market. "For what," explained the +colonel, when the propriety of using the name for his addition was +questioned, when no college was there nor any prospect of a college for +years to come—"what is plainer to the prophetic eye than that time will +bring to this magnificent city an institution of learning worthy of our +hopes? I have noticed," added the colonel, waving his cigar broadly +about him, "that learning is a shy goddess; she has to be coaxed—hence +on these empyrean heights we have provided for a seat of learning; +therefore College Heights. Look at the splendid vista, the entrancing +view, in point of fact." It was the large white plumes dancing in the +colonel's prophetic eyes. So it happened that more real estate buyers +than clients came to the office of Ward and Barclay. But as the general +that fall had been out of the office running for Congress on the Greeley +ticket, still protesting against the crime of paying the soldiers in +paper and the bondholders in gold, he did not miss the clients, and as +John saw to it that there was enough law business to keep Mrs. Ward +going, the general returned from the canvass overwhelmingly beaten, but +not in the least dismayed; and as Jake Dolan put it, "The general had +his say and the people had their choice—so both are happy."</p> + +<p>As the winter deepened John and Colonel Culpepper planted five hundred +elm trees on the campus on College Heights, lining three broad avenues +leading from the town to the campus with the trees. John rode into the +woods and picked the trees, and saw that each one was properly set. And +the colonel noticed that the finest trees were on Ellen Avenue and spoke +of it to Mrs. Culpepper, who only said, "Yes, pa—that's just like him." +And the colonel looked puzzled. And when the colonel added, "They say he +is shining up to that Mason girl from Minneola, that comes here with +Molly," his wife returned, "Yes, I expected that sooner than now." The +colonel gave the subject up. The ways of women were past his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> finding +out. But Mrs. Culpepper had heard Jane Mason sing a duet in church with +John Barclay, and the elder woman had heard in the big contralto voice +of the girl something not meant for the preacher. And Mrs. Culpepper +heard John answer it, so she knew what he did not know, what Jane Mason +did not know, and what only Molly Culpepper suspected, and Bob Hendricks +scoffed at.</p> + +<p>As for John, he said to Bob: "I know why you always want me to go over +with you and Molly to get the Mason girl—by cracky, I'm the only fellow +in town that will let you and Molly have the back seat coming home +without a fuss! No, Robbie—you don't fool your Uncle John." And so when +there was to be special music at the church, or when any other musical +event was expected, John and Bob would get a two-seated buggy, and drive +to Minneola and bring the soloist back with them. And there would be +dances and parties, and coming from Minneola and going back there would +be much singing. "The fox is on the hill, I hear him calling still," was +a favourite, but "Come where the lilies bloom" rent the midnight air +between the rival towns many times that winter and spring of '73. And +never once did John try to get the back seat. But there came a time when +Bob Hendricks told him that Molly told him that Jane had said that Molly +and Bob were pigs—never to do any of the driving. And the next time +there was a trip to Minneola, John said as the young people were seated +comfortably for the return trip, "Molly, I heard you said that I was a +pig to do all the driving, and not let you and Bob have a chance. Was +that true?"</p> + +<p>"No—but do you want to know who did say it?" answered Molly, and Jane +Mason looked straight ahead and cut in with, "Molly Culpepper, if you +say another word, I'll never speak to you as long as I live." But she +glanced down at Barclay, who caught her eye and saw the smile she was +swallowing, and he cried: "I don't believe you ever said it, Molly,—it +must have been some one else." And when they had all had their say,—all +but Jane Mason,—John saw that she was crying, and the others had to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> +sing for ten minutes without her, before they could coax away her +temper. And crafty as he was, he did not know it was temper—he thought +it was something entirely different.</p> + +<p>For the craft of youth always is clumsy. The business of youth is to +fight and to mate. Wherever there is young blood, there is "boot and +horse," and John Barclay in his early twenties felt in him the call for +combat. It came with the events that were forming about him. For the war +between the states had left the men restless and unsatisfied who had +come into the plain to make their homes. They had heard and followed in +their youth the call John Barclay was hearing, and after the war was +over, they were still impatient with the obstacles they found in their +paths. So Sycamore Ridge and Minneola, being rival towns, had to fight. +The men who made these towns knew no better settlement than the +settlement by force. And even during his first six months at home from +school, when John sniffed the battle from afar, he was glad in his soul +that the fight was coming. Sycamore Ridge had the county-seat; but +Minneola, having a majority of the votes in the county, was trying to +get the county-seat, and the situation grew so serious for Sycamore +Ridge that General Hendricks felt it necessary to defeat Philemon Ward +for the state senate so that Sycamore Ridge could get a law passed that +would prevent Minneola's majority from changing the county-seat. This +was done by a law which Hendricks secured, giving the county +commissioners the right to build a court-house by direct levy, without a +vote of the people,—a court-house so large that it would settle the +county-seat matter out of hand.</p> + +<p>The general, however, took no chances even with his commissioners. For +he had his son elected as one, and with the knowledge that John was +investing in real estate in the Ridge and had an eye for the main +chance, the general picked John for the other commissioner. The place +was on the firing-line of the battle, and John took it almost greedily. +As the spring of '73 opened, there were alarms and rumours of strife on +every breeze, and youth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> was happy and breathed the fight into its +nostrils like a balsam. For all the world of Sycamore Ridge was young +then, and all the trees were green in the eyes of the men who kept up +the town. Each town had its hired desperadoes, and there were pickets +about each village, and drills in the streets of the two towns, and a +martial spirit all over the county. And as John limped about his tasks +in those stirring spring days, he felt that he was coming into his own. +But it was all a curious mock combat,—that between the towns,—for +though the pickets drilled, and the bad men swaggered on the streets, +and the bullies roared their anathemas, the social relations between the +towns were not seriously disturbed. Youths and maidens came from +Minneola to the Ridge for parties and dances, and from the Ridge young +men went to Minneola to weddings and festivals of a social nature +unmolested, for it takes a real war—and sometimes more than that—to +put a bar across the mating ground of youth. So Bob and Molly and John +drove to Minneola time and again for Jane Mason, and other boys and +girls came and went from town to town, while the bitterness and the +bickering and the mimic war between the rival communities went on.</p> + +<p>Dolan was made sheriff, and Bemis county attorney, and with those two +officers and a majority of the county commissioners the Ridge had the +forces of administration with her. And so one night Minneola came with +her wrinkled front of war; viz., forty fighting men under Gabriel +Carnine and an ox team, prepared to take the county records by force and +haul them home by main strength. But Lycurgus Mason, whose wife had +locked him in the cellar that night to keep him from danger, was the +cackling goose that saved Rome; for when, having escaped his wife's +vigilance, he came riding down the wind from Minneola to catch up with +his fellow-townsmen, his clatter aroused the men of the Ridge, and they +hurried to the court-house and greeted the invaders with half a thousand +armed men in the court-house yard. And in a crisis where craft and +cunning would not help him, courage came out of John Barclay's soul for +the first time and into his life as he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> limped through the guns into the +open to explain to the men from Minneola when they finally arrived that +Lycurgus Mason had not betrayed them, but had rushed into the town, +thinking his friends were there ahead of him. It was a plucky thing for +John to do, considering that his death would stop the making of the levy +for the court-house that was to be recorded in a few days. But the young +man's blood tingled with joy as he jumped the court-house fence and went +back to his men. There was something like a smile from Jane Mason in his +joy, but chiefly it was the joy that youth has in daring, that thrilled +him. And the next day, or perhaps it was the next,—at any rate, it was +a Sunday late in June,—when an armed posse from Minneola came charging +down on the town at noon, John ran from his office unseen, over the +roofs of buildings upon which as a boy he had romped, and ducking +through a second-story window in Frye's store, got two kegs of powder, +ran out of the back door, under the exposed piling supporting the +building, put the two kegs of powder in a wooden culvert under the +ammunition wagons of the Minneola men, who were battling with the town +in the street, and taking a long fuse in his teeth, crawled back to the +alley, lit the fuse, and ran into the street to look into the revolver +of J. Lord Lee—late of the Red Legs—and warn him to run or be blown up +with the wagons. And when the explosion came, knocking him senseless, he +woke up a hero, with the town bending over him, and Minneola's forces +gone.</p> + +<p>And so John and the town had their fling together. And we who sit among +our books or by our fire—or if not that by our iron radiator exuding +its pleasance and comfort—should not sniff at that day when blood +pulsed quicker and joy was keener, and life was more vivid than it is +to-day.</p> + +<p>Thirty-five years later—in August, 1908, to be exact—the general, in +his late seventies, sat in McHurdie's harness shop while the poet worked +at his bench. On the floor beside the general was the historical edition +of the Sycamore Ridge <i>Banner</i>—rather an elaborate affair, printed on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> +glossy paper and bedecked with many photogravures of old scenes and old +faces. A page of the paper was devoted to the County Seat War of '73. +The general had furnished the material for most of the article,—though +he would not do the writing,—and he held the sheet with the story upon +it in his hand. As he read it in the light of that later day, it seemed +a sordid story of chicanery and violence—the sort of an episode that +one would expect to find following a great war. The general read and +reread the old story of the defeat of Minneola, and folded his paper and +rolled it into a wand with which he conjured up his spirit of +philosophy. "Heigh-ho," he sighed. "We don't know much, do we?"</p> + +<p>McHurdie made no reply. He bent closely over his work, and the general +went on: "I was mighty mad when Hendricks defeated me for the state +senate in '72, just to get that law passed cheating Minneola out of a +fair vote on the court-house question. But it's come out all right."</p> + +<p>The harness maker sewed on, and the general reflected. Finally the +little man at the bench turned his big dimmed eyes on his visitor, and +asked, "Did you think, General, that you knew more than the Lord about +making things come out right?" There was no reply and McHurdie +continued, "Well, you don't—I've got that settled in my mind."</p> + +<p>There was silence for a time, and Ward kept beating his leg with the +paper wand in his hand. "Watts," said the general, finally, "I know what +it was—it was youth. John Barclay had to go through that period. He had +to fight and wrangle and grapple with life as he did. Do you remember +that night the Minneola fellows came up with their ox team and their +band of killers to take the county records—" and there was more of +it—the old story of the town's wild days that need not be recorded, and +in the end, in answer to some query from the general on John's courage, +Watts replied, "John was always a bold little fice—he never lacked +brass."</p> + +<p>"Was he going with Jane Mason then, Watts,—I forget?" queried the +general.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes—yes," replied McHurdie. "Don't you remember that very next night +she sang in the choir—well, John had brought her over from Minneola two +days before, and that Sunday when the little devil went in the culvert +across Main Street and blew up the Minneola wagons, Jane was in town +that day—I remember that; and man—man—I heard her voice say things to +him in the duet that night that she would have been ashamed to put in +words."</p> + +<p>The two old men were silent. "That was youth, too, Watts,—fighting and +loving, and loving and fighting,—that's youth," sighed the general.</p> + +<p>"Well, Johnnie got his belly full of it in his day, as old Shakespeare +says, Phil—and in your day you had yours, too. Every dog, +General—every dog—you know." The two voices were silent, as two old +men looked back through the years.</p> + +<p>McHurdie put the strap he was working upon in the water, and turned with +his spectacles in his hands to his comrade. "Maybe it's this way: with a +man, it's fighting and loving before we get any sense; and with a town +it's the same way, and I guess with the race it's the same way—fighting +and loving and growing sensible after it's over. Maybe so—maybe so, +Phil, comrade, but man, man," he said as he climbed on his bench, "it's +fine to be a fool!"</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2> +</div> + +<p>In Sycamore Ridge every one knows Watts McHurdie, and every one takes +pride in the fact that far and wide the Ridge is known as Watts +McHurdie's town, and this too in spite of the fact that from Sycamore +Ridge Bob Hendricks gained his national reputation as a reformer and the +further fact that when the Barclays went to New York or Chicago or to +California for the winter in their private car, they always registered +from Sycamore Ridge at the great hotels. One would think that the town +would be known more as Hendricks' town or Barclay's town; but +no—nothing of the kind has happened, and when the rich and the great go +forth from the Ridge, people say: "Oh, yes, Sycamore Ridge—that's Watts +McHurdie's town, who wrote—" but people from the Ridge let the +inquirers get no farther; they say: "Exactly—it's Watts McHurdie's +town—and you ought to see him ride in the open hack with the +proprietor of a circus when it comes to the Ridge and all the bands and +the calliope are playing Watts' song. The way the people cheer shows +that it is really Watts McHurdie's town." So when Colonel Martin +Culpepper wrote the "Biography of Watts McHurdie" which was published +together with McHurdie's "Complete Poetical and Philosophical Works," +there was naturally much discussion, and the town was more or less +divided as to what part of the book was the best. But the old +settlers,—those who, during the drouth of '60, ate mince pies with +pumpkins as the fruit and rabbit meat as the filling and New Orleans +black-strap as the sweetening, the old settlers who knew Watts before he +became famous,—they like best of all the chapters in the colonel's +Biography the one entitled "At Hymen's Altar." And here is a curious<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> +thing about it: in that chapter there is really less of Watts and +considerably more of Colonel Martin Culpepper than in any other chapter.</p> + +<p>But the newcomers, those who came in the prosperous days of the 70's or +80's, never could understand the partiality of the old settlers for the +"Hymen's Altar" chapter. Lycurgus Mason also always took the view that +the "Hymen" chapter was drivel.</p> + +<p>"Now, John, be sensible—" Lycurgus insisted one night in 1903 when the +two were eating supper in Barclay's private car on a side-track in +Arizona; "don't be like my wife—she always drools over that chapter, +too. But you know my wife—" Lycurgus always referred to Mrs. Mason with +a grand gesture as to his dog or his horse, which were especially +desirable chattels. "My wife,—it's just like a woman,—she sits and +reads that, and laughs and weeps, and giggles and sniffs, and I say, +'What's the matter with you, anyway?'"</p> + +<p>John Barclay pushed a button. To the porter he said, "Bring me that +little red book in my satchel." The book had been published but a few +weeks, and John always carried a copy around with him in those days to +give to a friend. When the porter brought the book, Barclay read aloud, +"Ah, truly hath the poet said, 'Marriages are made in heaven.'"</p> + +<p>But Lycurgus Mason pulled his napkin from under his chin and moved back +from the table, dusting the crumbs from his obviously Sunday clothes. +"There you go—that's it; 'as the poet says.' John, if you heard that +'as the poet says' as often as I do—" He could not finish the figure. +But he sniffed out his disgust with "as the poet says." "It wasn't so +bad when we were in the hotel, and she was busy with something else. But +now—but now—" he repeated it the third time, "but now—honest, every +time that woman goes to get up a paper for the Hypatia Club, she gets me +in the parlour, and rehearses it to me, and the dad-binged thing is +simply packed full of 'as the poet sayses.' And about that marriages +being made in heaven, I tell my wife this: I say, 'Maybe so, but if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> +they are, I know one that was made on a busy day when the angels were +thinking of something else.'"</p> + +<p>And John Barclay, who knew Mrs. Mason and knew Lycurgus, knew that he +would as soon think of throwing a bomb at the President as to say such a +thing to her; so John asked credulously: "You did? Well, well! Say, what +did she say to that?"</p> + +<p>"That's it—" responded Lycurgus. "That's it. What could she say? I had +her." He walked the length of the room proudly, with his hands thrust +into his pockets.</p> + +<p>Barclay moved his chair to the rear of the car, where he sat smoking and +looking into the clear star-lit heavens above the desert. And his mind +went back thirty years to the twilight in June after he had set off the +powder keg in the culvert under Main Street in Sycamore Ridge, and he +tried to remember how Jane Mason got over from Minneola—did he bring +her over the day before, or was she visiting at the Culpeppers', or did +she come over that day? It puzzled him, but he remembered well that in +the Congregational choir he and Jane sang a duet in an anthem, "He +giveth his beloved sleep." And he hummed the old aria, a rather +melancholy tune, as he sat on the car platform in Arizona that night, +and her voice came back—a deep sweet contralto that took "G" below +middle "C" as clearly as a tenor, and in her lower register there was a +passion and a fire that did not blaze in the higher notes. For those +notes were merely girlish and untrained. That June night in '73 was the +first night that he and Jane Mason ever had lagged behind as they walked +up the hill with Bob and Molly. And what curious things stick in the +memory! The man on the rear of the car remembered that as they left the +business part of Main Street behind and walked up the hill, they came to +a narrow cross-walk, a single stone in width, and that they tried to +walk upon it together, and that his limp made him jostle her, and she +said, "We mustn't do that."</p> + +<p>"What?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>"Oh—you know—walk on one stone. You know what it's a sign of."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Do you believe in signs?" he asked. She kept hold of his arm, and kept +him from leaving the stone. She was taller than he by a head, and he +hated himself for it. They managed to keep together until they crossed +the street and came into the broader walk. Then she drew a relieved +breath and answered: "Oh, I don't know. Sometimes I do." They were +lagging far behind their friends, and the girl hummed a tune, then she +said, "You know I've always believed in my 'Star light—star +bright—first star I've seen to-night,' just as I believe in my +prayers." And she looked up and said, "Oh, I haven't said it yet." She +picked out her star and said the rhyme, closing with, "I wish I may, I +wish I might, have the wish I wish to-night."</p> + +<p>And sitting on the car end in Arizona thirty years after, he tried to +find her star in the firmament above him. He was a man in his fifties +then, and the night she showed him her star was more than thirty years +gone by. But he remembered. We are curious creatures, we men, and we +remember much more than we pretend to. For our mothers in many cases +were women, and we take after them.</p> + +<p>As Barclay stood in the door of his car debating whether or not to go +in, the light from the chimney of the sawmill on the hill attracted his +attention, and because he was in a mood for it, the flying sparks +trailing across the night sky reminded him of the fireworks that Fourth +of July in 1873, when he and Jane Mason and Bob and Molly spent the day +together, picnicking down in the timber and coming home to dance on the +platform under the cottonwood-bough pavilion in the evening. It was a +riotous day, and Bob and Molly being lovers of long acceptance assumed a +paternal attitude to John and Jane that was charming in the main, but +sometimes embarrassing. And of all the chatter he only remembered that +Jane said: "Think how many years these old woods have been here—how +many hundred years—maybe when the mound-builders were here! Don't you +suppose that they are used to—to young people—oh, maybe Indian lovers, +and all that, and don't you suppose the trees see these young people +loving and marrying,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> and growing old and ugly and unhappy, and that +they some way feel that they are just a little tired of it all?"</p> + +<p>If any one replied to her, he had no recollection of it, for after that +he saw the dance and heard the music, and then events seemed to slip +along without registering in his memory. There must have been the fifth +and the sixth of July in 1873, for certainly there was the seventh, and +that was Sunday; he remembered that well enough, for in the morning +there was a council in his office to discuss ways and means for the +week's work in the county-seat trouble. Tuesday was the day which the +new law designated as the one when the levy must be made for the +court-house improvements that would hold the county-seat in Sycamore +Ridge. At four o'clock, after the Sunday council, John and Bob drove out +of Sheriff Jake Dolan's stable with his best two-seated buggy, and told +him they would be back from Minneola at midnight or thereabout after +taking Jane Mason home, and the two boys drove down Main Street with the +girls, waving to every one with their hats, while the girls waved their +parasols, and the town smiled; for though all the world loves a lover, +in Sycamore Ridge it has been the custom, since the days when Philemon +Ward first took Miss Lucy out to drive, for all the town to jeer at +lovers as they pass down street in buggies and carriages! And so thirty +years slipped from Barclay as he stood in the doorway of his car looking +at the Arizona stars. A flicker of light high up in the sky-line seemed +to move. It was the headlight of a train coming over the mountain. A +switchman with a lantern was passing near the car, and Barclay called to +him, "Is that headlight No. 2?" And when the man affirmed Barclay's +theory, he asked, "How long does it take it to get down here?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, she comes a-humming," replied the man. "If she doesn't jump the +track, she'll be down in eight minutes."</p> + +<p>Inside the car Barclay heard a watch snap, and knew that Lycurgus Mason +didn't believe anything of the kind and proposed to get at the facts. So +Barclay sat down on the platform; but his mind went back to the old +days, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> the ride through the woods along the Sycamore that Sunday +night in July came to him, with all its fragrance and stillness and +sweetness. He recalled that they came into the prairie just as the +meadow-lark was crying its last plaintive twilight trill, and the +western sky was glowing with a rim of gold upon the tips of the clouds. +The beauty of the prairie and the sky and the calm of the evening +entered into their hearts, and they were silent. Then they left the +prairie and went into the woods again, on the river road. And before +they came out of that road into the upland, Fate turned a screw that +changed the lives of all of them. For in a turn of the road, in a deep +cut made by a ravine, Gabriel Carnine, making the last stand for +Minneola, stepped into the path and took the horses by the bridles. The +shock that John felt that night when he realized what had happened came +back even across the years. And as the headlight far up in the mountain +above the desert slipped into a tunnel, though it flashed out again in a +few seconds, while it was gone, all the details of the kidnapping of the +young people in the buggy hurried across his mind. Even the old anxiety +that he felt lest Sycamore Ridge would think him a traitor to their +cause, when they should find that he was not there to sign the tax levy +and save the court-house and the county-seat, came back to him as he +gazed at the mountain, waiting for the headlight, and he remembered how +he made a paper trail of torn bits from a Congregational hymn-book, left +in Bob's pocket from the morning service, dropping the bits under the +buggy wheels in the dust so that the men from the Ridge would see the +trail and follow the captives. In his memory he saw Jake Dolan, who had +followed the trail where it led to Carnine's farm, come stumbling into +the farm-house Tuesday where they were hidden, and John, in memory, +heard Jake whisper that he had left his dog with the rescuing party to +lead the rescuers to him if he was on the right trail and did not +return.</p> + +<p>And then as Barclay's mind went back to the long Tuesday, when he should +have been at the Ridge to sign<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> the tax levy, the headlight flashed out +of the tunnel. But these were fading pictures. The one image that was in +his mind—clear through all the years—was of a wood and a tree,—a +great, spreading, low-boughed elm, near Carnine's house where the young +people were held prisoners, and Jane Mason sitting with her back against +the tree, and lying on the dry grass at her feet his own slight figure; +sometimes he was looking up at her over his brow, and sometimes his head +rested on the roots of the tree beside her, and she looked down at him +and they talked, and no one was near. For through youth into middle +life, and into the dawn of old age, That Day was marked in his life. The +day of the month—he forgot which it was. The day of the week—that also +left him, and there came a time when he had to figure back to recall the +year; but for all that, there was a radiance in his life, an hour of +calm joy that never left him, and he called it only—That Day. That Day +is in every heart; in yours, my dear fat Mr. Jones, and in yours, my +good dried-up Mrs. Smith; and in yours, Mrs. Goodman, and in yours, Mr. +Badman; maybe it is upon the sea, or in the woods, or among the noises +of some great city—but it is That Day. And no other day of all the +thousands that have come to you is like it.</p> + +<p>Why should he remember the ugly farm-yard, the hard faces of the men, +the straw-covered frame they called a barn, and the unpainted house? All +these things passed by him unrecorded, as did the miserable fare of the +table, the hard bed at night, and the worry that must have gnawed at his +nerves to know that perhaps the town was thinking him false to it, or +that his mother, guessing the truth, was in pain with terror, or to feel +that a rescuing party coming at the wrong time would bring on a fight in +which the girls would be killed. Only the picture of Jane Mason, fine +and lithe and strong, with the pink cheeks of twenty, and the soft +curves of childhood still playing about her chin and throat as he saw it +from the ground at her feet,—that picture was etched into his heart, +and with it the recollection of her eyes when she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> said, "John,—you +don't think I—I knew of this—beforehand, do you?" Just that +sentence—those were the only words left in his memory of a day's +happiness. And he never heard a locust whirring in a tree that it did +not bring back the memory of the spreading tree and the touch—the soft, +quick, shy touch of her fingers in his hair, and the fire that was in +her eyes.</p> + +<p>It was in the dusk of Tuesday evening that Jake Dolan's dog came into +the yard where the captives were, and Jake disowned him, and joined the +men who stoned the faithful creature out to the main road. But the +prisoners knew that their rescuers would follow the dog, so at supper +the three men from the Ridge sat together on a bench at the table while +Mrs. Carnine and the girls waited on the men—after the fashion of +country places in those days. Dolan managed to say under his breath to +Barclay, "It's all right—but the girls must stay in the house +to-night." And John knew that if he and Bob escaped with horses before +ten o'clock, they could reach the Ridge in time to sign the levy before +midnight. Darkness fell at eight, and a screech-owl in the wood +complained to the night. Dolan rose and stretched and yawned, and then +began to talk of going to bed, and Gabriel Carnine, whose turn it was to +sleep because he had been up two nights, shuffled off to the +straw-covered stable to lie down with the Texan who was his bunk mate, +leaving half a dozen men to guard the prisoners. An hour later the +screech-owl in the wood murmured again, this time much closer, and Dolan +rose and took off his hat and threw it in the straw beside him. He was +looking at the time anxiously toward the wood. But the next moment from +behind the barn in the opposite direction something attracted them. It +was a glare of light, and the guards noticed it at the same time. A last +year's straw stack next to the barn was afire. Jane Mason was standing +in the back door of the house, and in the hurried blur of moving events +John divined that she had slipped out and fired the stack. In an instant +there was confusion. The men were on their feet. They must fight fire, +or the barn would go. Dolan ran with the men to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> straw stack. "We'll +help you," he cried. "I'll wake Gabe." There was hurrrying for water +pails. The women appeared, crying shrilly, and in the glare that +reddened the sky the yard seemed, full of mad men racing heedlessly.</p> + +<p>"John," whispered Jane, coming up to him as he drew water from the well, +"let me do this. There are two horses in the pasture. You and Bob +go—fly—fly." The Texan came running from the barn, which was beginning +to blaze. Dolan and Carnine still were in it. Then from the wood back of +the camp fifty men appeared, riding at a gallop. Lige Bemis and General +Ward rode in front of the troop of horsemen. Carnine was still in the +burning barn asleep, and there was no leader to give command to the +dazed guards. Ward and Bemis ran up, motioning the men back, and Ward +cried, "Shall we help you save your stock and barn, or must we fight?" +It was addressed to the crowd, but before they could answer, Dolan +stumbled out of the barn through the smoke and flames crying, +"Boys,—boys,—I can't find him." He saw the rescuing party and shouted, +"Boys,—Gabe's in there asleep and I can't find him." The wind had +suddenly veered, and the crackling flames had reached the straw roof of +the barn. The fire was gaining headway, and the three buckets that were +coming from the well had no effect on it. As the last horse was pulled +out of the door, one side of the straw wall of the barn fell away on +fire and showed Gabriel Carnine sleeping not ten feet from the flames. +Lige Bemis soused his handkerchief in water, tied it over his mouth, and +ran in. He grabbed the sleeping man and dragged him through, the flames; +but both were afire as they came into the open.</p> + +<p>Now in this story Elijah Westlake Bemis is not shown often in a heroic +light. Yet he had in his being the making of a hero, for he was brave. +And heroism, after all, is only effective reliance on some virtue in a +crisis, in spite of temptations to do the easy excusable thing. And when +Lige Bemis sneaks through this story in unlovely guise, remember that he +has a virtue that once exalted even him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Gabe Carnine," said Ward, as the barn fell and there was nothing more +to fear, "we didn't fire your haystack; I give you my word on that. But +we are going to take these boys home now. And you better let us alone."</p> + +<p>That John Barclay remembered, and then he remembered being in the front +yard of the farm-house a moment—alone with Jane Mason, his bridle rein +over his arm. Her hair was down, and she looked wild and beautiful. The +straw was still burning back of the house, and the glow was everywhere. +He always remembered that she held his hand and would not let him go, +and there two memories are different; for she always maintained that he +did, right there and then, and he recollected that as he mounted his +horse he tried to kiss her and failed. Perhaps both are right—who +knows? But both agree that as he sat there an instant on his horse, she +threw kisses at him and he threw them back. And when the men rode away, +she stood in the road, and he could see her in the light of the waning +fire, and thirty years passed and still he saw her.</p> + +<p>As the headlight of the train lit up the cinder yard, and brought the +glint of the rails out of the darkness, John Barclay, a thousand miles +away and thirty years after, fancied he could see her there in the +railroad yards beside him waving her hands at him, smiling at him with +the new-found joy in her face. For there is no difference between +fifty-three and twenty-three when men are in love, and if they are in +love with the same woman in both years, her face will never change, her +smile will always seem the same. And to John Barclay there on the rear +platform of the car, with the crash of the great train in his ears, the +same face looked out of the night at him that he saw back in his +twenties, and he knew that the same prayer to the same God would go up +that night for him that went up from the same lips so long ago. The man +on the car platform rose from his chair, and went into the car.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said to Lycurgus Mason as the old man reached for his watch, +"how about it?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span></p> + +<p>Lycurgus replied as he put it back in his pocket, "Just seven minutes +and a half. She's covered a lot of track in those seven minutes!"</p> + +<p>And John Barclay looked back over the years, and saw a boy riding like +the wind through the night, changing horses every half-hour, and trying +to tell time from his watch by a rising moon, but the moon was blown +with clouds like a woman's hair, and he could not see the hands on the +watch face. So as he looked at the old man sitting crooked over in the +great leather chair, John Barclay only grunted, "Yes—she's covered a +long stretch of country in those seven minutes." And he picked the +Biography off the table and read to himself: "I sometimes think that +only that part of the soul that loves is saved. The rest is dross and +perishes in the fire. Whether the love be the love of woman or the love +of kind, or the love of God that embraces all, it matters not. That +sanctifies; that purifies—that marks the way of the only salvation the +soul can know, and he who does not love with the fervour of a passionate +heart some of God's creatures, cannot love God, and not loving Him, is +lost in spite of all his prayers, in spite of all his aspirations. +Therefore, if you would live you must love, for when love dies the soul +shrivels. And if God takes what you love—love on; for only love will +make you immortal, only love will cheat death of its victory."</p> + +<p>And looking at Lycurgus Mason fidgeting in his chair, John Barclay +wondered when he would die the kind of a death that had come to the +little old man before him, and then he felt the car move under him, and +knew they were going back to Sycamore Ridge.</p> + +<p>"Day after to-morrow," said Barclay, meditatively, as he heard the first +faint screaming of the heavily laden wheels under him, "day after +to-morrow, Daddy Mason, we will be home with Colonel Culpepper and his +large white plumes."</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2> +</div> + +<p>This chapter might have had in it "all the quality, pride, pomp, and +circumstance of glorious war" if it had not been for the matters that +came up for discussion at the meeting of the Garrison County Old +Settlers' Association this year of our Lord Nineteen Hundred and Eight. +For until that meeting the legend of the last hour of the County-seat +War of '73 had flourished unmolested; but there General Philemon Ward +rose and laid an axe at the root of the legend, and while of course he +did not destroy it entirely, he left it scarred and withered on one side +and therefore entirely unfitted for historical purposes. It seems that +Gabriel Carnine was assigned by President John Barclay of the +Association to prepare and read a paper on "The Rise, Decline, and Fall +of Minneola." Certainly that was a proper subject considering the fact +that corn has been growing over the site of Minneola for twenty years. +And surely Gabriel Carnine, whose black beard has whitened in thirty +years' faithful service to Sycamore Ridge, whose wife lies buried on the +Hill, and whose children read the Sycamore Ridge <i>Banner</i> in the +uttermost parts of the earth,—surely Gabriel Carnine might have been +trusted to tell the truth of the conflict waged between the towns a +generation ago. But men have curious works in them, and unless one has +that faith in God that gives him unbounded faith in the goodness of man, +one should not open men up in the back and watch the wheels go 'round. +For though men are good, and in the long run what they do is God's work +and is therefore acceptable, no man is perfect. There goes Lige Bemis +past the post-office, now, for instance; when he was in the legislature +in the late sixties, every one knows that Minneola raised twenty +thousand dollars in cash and offered it to Lige if he would pretend to +be sick and quit work on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> Sycamore Ridge county-seat bill. He could +have fooled us, and could have taken the money, which was certainly more +than he could expect to get from Sycamore Ridge. Did he take it? Not at +all. A million would not have tempted him. He was in that game; yet ten +days after he refused the offer of Minneola, he tried to blackmail his +United States senator out of fifty dollars, and sold his vote to a +candidate for state printer for one hundred dollars and flashed the bill +around Sycamore Ridge proudly for a week before spending it.</p> + +<p>So Gabriel Carnine must not be blamed if in that paper on Minneola, +before the Old Settlers' Association, he let out the pent-up wrath of +thirty years; and also if in the discussion General Ward unsealed his +lips for the first time and blighted the myth that told how a hundred +Minneola men had captured the court-house yard on the night that John +Barclay and Bob Hendricks rode home from their captivity to sign the tax +levy. Legend has always said that Lige Bemis, riding half a mile ahead +of the others that night, came to the courtyard; found it guarded by +Minneola men, rode back, met John and Bob and the general crossing the +bridge over the old ford of the Sycamore, and told them that they could +not get into the court-house until the men came up who had ridden out to +rescue the commissioners,—perhaps a quarter of an hour behind the +others,—and that even then there must be a fight of doubtful issue; and +further that it was after eleven o'clock, and soon would be too late to +sign the levy. The forty thousand people in Garrison County have +believed for thirty years that finding the court-house yard in +possession of the enemy, Bemis suggested going through the cave by the +Barclays' home, which had its west opening in the wall of the basement +of the court-house; and furthermore, tradition has said that Bemis led +John and Bob through the cave, and with crowbars and hammers they made a +man-sized hole in the wall, crawled through it, mounted the basement +stairs, unlocked the commissioners' room, held their meeting in +darkness, and five minutes before twelve o'clock astonished the invading +forces by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> lighting a lamp in their room, signing the levy that Bemis, +as county attorney, had prepared the Sunday before, and slipping with it +into the basement, through the cave and back to the troop of horsemen as +they were jogging across the bridge on their way back from Carnine's +farm. And here are the marks of General Ward's axe—verified by Gabriel +Carnine: first, that there were no Minneola invaders in possession of +the court-house, but only a dozen visitors loafing about town that night +to watch developments; second, that the regular pickets were out as +usual, and an invading force could not have stolen in; and third, that +Bemis knew it, but as his political fortunes were low, he rode ahead of +the others, hatched up the cock-and-bull story about the guarded +court-house, and persuaded the boys to let him lead them into a romantic +adventure that would sound well in the campaign and help to insure his +reëlection the following year. In view of the general's remarks and +Gabriel Carnine's corroborative statement, and in view of the bitterness +with which Carnine assailed the whole Sycamore Ridge campaign, how can a +truthful chronicler use the episode at all? History is a fickle goddess, +and perhaps Pontius Pilate, being human and used to human errors and +human weakness, is not so much to blame for asking, "What is truth?" and +then turning away before he had the answer.</p> + +<p>Walking home from the meeting through Mary Barclay Park, Barclay's mind +wandered back to the days when he won his first important lawsuit—the +suit brought by Minneola to prevent the collection of taxes under the +midnight levy to build the court-house. It was that lawsuit which +brought him to the attention of the legal department of the Fifth +Parallel Railroad Company, and his employment by that company to defeat +the bonds of its narrow-gauged competitor, that was seeking entrance +into Garrison County, was the beginning of his career. And in that fight +to defeat the narrow-gauged railroad, the people of Garrison County +learned something of Barclay as well. He and Bemis went over the county +together,—the little fox and the old coyote, the people called +them,—and where men<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> were for sale, Bemis bought them, and where they +were timid, John threatened them, and where they were neither, both John +and Bemis fought with a ferocity that made men hate but respect the +pair. And so though the Fifth Parallel Railroad never came to the Ridge, +its successor, the Corn Belt Road, did come, and in '74 John spoke in +every schoolhouse in the county, urging the people to vote the bonds for +the Corn Belt Road, and his employment as local attorney for the company +marked his first step into the field of state politics. For it gave him +a railroad pass, and brought him into relations with the men who +manipulated state affairs; also it made him a silent partner of Lige +Bemis in Garrison County politics.</p> + +<p>But even when he was county commissioner, less than two dozen years old, +he was a force in Sycamore Ridge, and there were days when he had four +or five thousand dollars to his credit in General Hendricks' bank. The +general used to look over the daily balances and stroke his iron-gray +beard and say: "Robert, John is doing well to-day. Son, I wish you had +the acquisitive faculty. Why don't you invest something and make +something?" But Bob Hendricks was content to do his work in the bank, +and read at home one night and slip over to the Culpeppers' the next +night, and so long as the boy was steady and industrious and careful, +his father had no real cause for complaint, and he knew it. But the town +knew that John was getting on in the world. He owned half of Culpepper's +second addition, and his interest in College Heights was clear; he never +dealt in equities, but paid cash and gave warranty deeds for what he +sold. It was believed around the Ridge that he could "clean up," for +fifteen or twenty thousand dollars, and when he called Mrs. Mason of the +Mason House, Minneola, into the dining room one afternoon to talk over a +little matter with her, he found her most willing. It was a short +session. After listening and punctuating his remarks with "of courses" +and "yeses" and "so's," Mrs. Mason's reply was:—</p> + +<p>"Of course, Mr. Barclay,"—the Mr. Barclay he remembered as the only +time in his life he ever had it from her,—"of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> course, Mr. Barclay, +that is a matter rather for you and Mr. Mason to settle. You know," she +added, folding her hands across her ample waist, "Mr. Mason is the head +of the house!" Then she lifted her voice, perhaps fearing that matters +might be delayed. "Oh, pa!" she cried. "Pa! Come in here, please. +There's a gentleman to see you."</p> + +<p>Lycurgus Mason came in with a tea towel in his hands and an apron on. He +heard John through in a dazed way, his hollow eyes blinking with evident +uncertainty as to what was expected of him. When Barclay was through, +the father looked at the mother for his cue, and did not speak for a +moment. Then he faltered: "Why, yes,—yes,—I see! Well, ma, what—" And +at the cloud on her brow Lycurgus hesitated again, and rolled his apron +about his hands nervously and finally said, "Oh—well—whatever you and +her ma think will be all right with me, I guess." And having been +dismissed telepathically, Lycurgus hurried back to his work.</p> + +<p>It was when John Barclay was elected President of the Corn Belt Railway, +in the early nineties, that Lycurgus told McHurdie and Ward and +Culpepper and Frye, as the graybeards wagged around the big brown stove +in the harness shop one winter day: "You know ma, she never saw much in +him, and when I came in the room she was about to tell him he couldn't +have her. Now, isn't that like a woman?—no sense about men. But I says: +'Ma, John Barclay's got good blood in him. His grandpa died worth a +million,—and that was a pile of money for them days;' so I says, 'If +Jane Mason wants him, ma,' I says, 'let her have him. Remember what a +fuss your folks made over me getting you,' I says; 'and see how it's +turned out.' Then I turned to John—I can see the little chap now +a-standing there with his dicky hat in his hand and his pipe-stem legs +no bigger than his cane, and his gray eyes lookin' as wistful as a dog's +when you got a bone in your hand, and I says, 'Take her along, John; +take her along and good luck go with you,' I says; 'but,' I says, 'John +Barclay, I want you always to remember<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> Jane Mason has got a father.' +Just that way I says. I tell you, gentlemen, there's nothing like having +a wife that respects you." The crowd in the harness shop wagged their +heads, and Lycurgus went on: "Now, they ain't many women that would just +let a man stand up like that and, as you may say, give her daughter +right away under her nose. But my wife, she's been well trained."</p> + +<p>In the pause that followed, Watts McHurdie's creaking lever was the only +sound that broke the silence. Then Watts, who had been sewing away at +his work with waving arms, spoke, after clearing his throat, "I've heard +many say that she was sich." And the old man cackled, and it became a +saying-among them and in the town.</p> + +<p>One who goes back over the fifty years that have passed since Sycamore +Ridge became a local habitation and a name finds it difficult to realize +that one-third of its life was passed before the panic of '78, which +closed the Hendricks' bank. For those first nineteen years passed as the +life of a child passes, so that they seem only sketched in; yet to those +who lived at all, to those like Watts McHurdie and Philemon Ward, who +now pass their happiest moments mooning over tilted headstones in the +cemetery on the Hill, those first nineteen years seem the longest and +the best. And that fateful year of '73 to them seems the most +portentous. For then, perhaps for the first time, they realized the +cruel uncertainty of the struggle for existence. With the terrible +drouth of '60 this realization did not come; for the town was young, and +the people were young; only Ezra Lane was a graybeard in all the town in +the sixties; and youth is so sure; there is no hazard under thirty. In +the war they fought and marched and sang and starved and died, and were +still young. But when the financial panic of '73 spread its dread and +its trouble over the land, youth in Sycamore Ridge was gone; it was +manhood that faced these things in the Ridge, and manhood had cares, had +given hostages to fortune, and life was serious and hard; and big on the +horizon was the fear of failure. General Hendricks swayed in the panic +of '73; and the time marked him, took the best of the light from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> his +eye, and put the slightest perceptible hobble on his feet. To Martin +Culpepper and Watts McHurdie and Philemon Ward and Jacob Dolan and Oscar +Fernald, the panic came in their late thirties and early forties, a +flash of lightning that prophesied the coming of the storm and stress of +an inexorable fate.</p> + +<p>The wedding of John Barclay and Jane Mason occurred in September, 1873, +two days after he had stood on the high stone steps of the Exchange +National Bank and made a speech to the crowd, telling them he was the +largest depositor in the bank, and begging them to stop the run. But the +run did not stop, and the day before John's wedding the bank did not +open; the short crop and the panic in the East were more than Garrison +County people could stand. But all the first day of the bank's closing +and all the next day John worked among the people, reassuring them. So +that it was five o'clock in the evening before he could start to +Minneola for his wedding.</p> + +<p>And such a wedding! One would say that when hard times were staring +every one in the face, social forms would be observed most simply. But +one would say so without reckoning with Mrs. Lycurgus Mason. As the +groom and the bridesmaid and best man rode up from Sycamore Valley, two +miles from Minneola, in the early falling dusk that night, the Mason +House loomed through the darkness, lighted up like a steamboat. "You'll +have to move along, John," said Bob Hendricks; "I think I heard her +whistle."</p> + +<p>On the sidewalk in front of the hotel they met Mrs. Mason in her black +silk with a hemstitched linen apron over it. She ushered them into the +house, took them to their rooms, and whirled John around on a pivot, it +seemed to him, with her interminable directions. His mother, who had +come over to Minneola the day before, came to his room and quieted her +son, and as he got ready for what he called the "ordeal," he could hear +Mrs. Mason swinging doors below stairs, walking on her heels through the +house, receiving belated guests from Sycamore<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> Ridge and the +country,—for the whole county had been invited,—and he heard her +carrying out a dog that had sneaked into the dining room.</p> + +<p>The groom missed the bride, and as he was tying his necktie,—which +reminded him of General Ward by its whiteness,—he wondered why she did +not come to him. He did not know that she was a prisoner in her room, +while all the young girls in Sycamore Ridge and Minneola were looking +for pins and hooking her up and stepping on each other's skirts. For one +wedding is like all weddings—whether it be in the Mason House, +Minneola, or in Buckingham Palace. And some there are who marry for love +in Minneola, and some for money, and some for a home, and some for +Heaven only knows what, just as they do in the châteaux and palaces and +mansions. And the groom is nobody and the bride is everything, as it was +in the beginning and as it shall be ever after. Probably poor Adam had +to stand behind a tree neglected and alone, while Lilith and girls from +the land of Nod bedecked Eve for the festivities. Men are not made for +ceremonies. And so at all the formal occasions of this life—whether it +be among the great or among the lowly, in the East or the West, at +weddings, christenings, and funerals—man hides in shame and leaves the +affairs to woman, who leads him as an ox, even a muzzled ox, that +treadeth out the corn. "The doomed man," whispered John to Bob as the +two in their black clothes stood at the head of the stair that led into +the parlour of the Mason House that night, waiting for the wedding march +to begin on the cabinet organ, "ate a hearty supper, consisting of +beefsteak and eggs, and after shaking hands with his friends he mounted +the gallows with a firm step!"</p> + +<p>Then he heard the thud of the music book on the organ, the creak of the +treadle,—and when he returned to consciousness he was Mrs. Mason's +son-in-law, and proud of it. And she,—bless her heart and the hearts of +all good women who give up the joy of their lives to us poor unworthy +creatures,—she stood by the wax-flower wreath under the glass case on +the whatnot in the corner,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> and wept into her real lace handkerchief, +and wished with all the earnestness of her soul that she could think of +some way to let John know that his trousers leg was wrinkled over his +left shoe top. But she could not solve the problem, so she gave herself +up to the consolation of her tears. Yet it should be set down to her +credit that when the preacher's amen was said, hers was the first head +up, and while the others were rushing for the happy pair she was in the +kitchen with her apron on dishing up the wedding supper. Well might the +Sycamore Ridge <i>Weekly Banner</i> declare that the "tables groaned with +good things." There were not merely a little piddling dish of salad, a +bite of cake, and a dab of ice-cream. There were turkey and potatoes and +vegetables and fruit and bread and cake and pudding and pie—four kinds +of pie, mark you—and preserves, and "Won't you please, Mrs. Culpepper, +try some of that piccalilli?" and "Oh, Mrs. Ward, if you just would have +a slice of that fruit cake," and "Now, General,—a little more of the +gravy for that turkey dressing—it is such a long ride home," or +"Colonel, I know you like corn bread, and I made this myself as a +special compliment to Virginia."</p> + +<p>And through it all the bride sat watching the door—looking always +through the crowd for some one. Her face was anxious and her heart was +clouded, and when the guests had gone and the house was empty, she left +her husband and slipped out of the back door. There, after the glare of +the lamps had left her eyes, she saw a little man walking with his head +down, out near the barn, and she ran to him and threw her arms about him +and kissed him, and when she led Lycurgus Mason, who was all washed and +dressed, back through the kitchen to her husband, John saw that the +man's eyelids were red, and that on the starched cuffs were the marks of +tears. For to him she was only his little girl, and John afterward knew +that she was the only friend he had in the world. "Oh, father, why +didn't you come in?" cried the daughter. "I missed you so!" The man +blinked a moment at the lights and looked toward his wife, who was busy +at a table,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> as he said: "Who? Me?" and then added: "I was just lookin' +after their horses. I was coming in pretty soon. You oughtn't to bother +about me. Well, John," he smiled, as he put out his hand, "the seegars +seems to be on you—as the feller says." And John put his arm about +Lycurgus Mason, as they walked out of the kitchen, and Jane reached for +her gingham apron. Then life began for Mr. and Mrs. John Barclay in +earnest.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2> +</div> + +<p>Forty thousand words—and that is the number we have piled up in this +story—is a large number of words to string together without a heroine. +That is almost as bad as the dictionary, in which He and She are always +hundreds of pages apart and never meet,—not even in the "Z's" at the +end,—which is why the dictionary is so unpopular, perhaps. But this is +the story of a man, and naturally it must have many heroines. For you +know men—they are all alike! First, Mrs. Mary Barclay was a +heroine—you saw her face, strong and clean and sharply chiselled with a +great purpose; then Miss Lucy—black-eyed, red-cheeked, slender little +Miss Lucy—was a heroine, but she married General Ward; and then Ellen +Culpepper was a heroine, but she fluttered out of the book into the +sunlight, and was gone; and then came Jane Mason,—and you have seen her +girlish beauty, and you will see it develop into gentle womanhood; but +the real heroine,—of the real story,—you have not seen her face. You +have heard her name, and have seen her moving through these pages with +her back consciously turned to you—for being a shy minx, she had no +desire to intrude until she was properly introduced. And now we will +whirl her around that you may have a good look at her.</p> + +<p>Let us begin at the ground: as to feet—they are not too small—say +three and a half in size. And they support rather short legs—my +goodness, of course she has legs—did you think her shoes were pinned to +her over-skirt? Her legs carry around a plump body,—not fat—why, +certainly not—who ever heard of a fat heroine (the very best a heroine +can do for comfort is to be plump)—and so beginning the sentence over +again, being a plump little body, there is a neck to account for—a neck +which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> we may look at, but which is so exquisite that it would be hardly +polite to consider it in terms of language. Only when we come to the +chin that tips the oval of the face may we descend to language, and even +then we must rise and flick the red mouth with, but a passing word. But +this much must be plainly spoken. The nose does turn up—not much—but a +little (Bob used to say, just to be good and out of the way)! That, +however, is mere personal opinion, and of little importance here. But +the eyes are brown—reddish brown, with enough white at the corners to +make them seem liquid; only liquid is not the word. For they are +radiant—remember that word, for we may come back to it, after we are +done with the brow—a wide brow—low enough for Dickens and Thackeray +and Charlotte Bronte, and for Longfellow and Whittier and Will Carleton +in his day, and high enough for Tennyson at the temples, but not so high +but that the gate of the eyes has to shut wearily when Browning would +sail through the current of her soul. As to hair—Heaven knows there is +plenty of that, but it had rather a checkered career. As she clung to +her mother's apron and waved her father away to war, she was a +tow-headed little tot, and when he came back from the field of glory he +thought he could detect a tendency to red in it, but the fire smouldered +and went out, and the hair turned brown—a dark brown with the glint of +the quenched fires in it when it blew in the sun. Now frame a glowing +young face in that soft waving hair, and you have a picture that will +speak, and if the picture should come to life and speak as it was in the +year of our Lord 1873, the first word of all the words in the big fat +dictionary it would utter would be Bob. And so you may lift up your face +and take your name and place in this story—Molly Culpepper, heroine. +And when you lift your face, we may see something more than its pretty +features: we shall see a radiant soul. For scientists have found out +that every material thing in this universe gives off atomic particles of +itself, and some elements are more radiant than others. And there is a +paralleling quality in the spiritual world, and some souls give off<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> +more of their colour and substance than others, though what it is they +radiate we do not know. Even the scientists do not know the material +things that the atoms radiate, so why should we be asked to define the +essence of souls? Yet from the soul of Molly Culpepper, in joy and in +sorrow, in her moments of usefulness and in her deepest woe, her soul +glowed and shed its glory, and she grew even as she gave her substance +to the world about her. For that is the magic of God's mystery of life.</p> + +<p>And now having for the moment finished our discussion on the +radio-activity of souls, let us go back to the story.</p> + +<p>Mary Barclay rode home from her son's wedding that night with Bob +Hendricks and Molly Culpepper. They were in a long line of buggies that +began to scatter out and roam across fields to escape the dust of the +roads. "Well," said Mrs. Barclay, as they pulled up the bank of the +Sycamore for home, "I suppose it will be you and Molly next, Bob?"</p> + +<p>It was Molly who replied: "Yes. It is going to be Thanksgiving."</p> + +<p>"Well, why not?" asked Mrs. Barclay.</p> + +<p>"Oh—they all seem to think we shouldn't, don't you know, Mrs. +Barclay—with all this hard times—and the bank closing. And hasn't John +told you of the plan he's worked out for Bob to go to New York this +winter?"</p> + +<p>The buggy was nearing the Barclay home. Mrs. Barclay answered, "No," and +the girl went on.</p> + +<p>"Well, it's a big wheat land scheme—and Bob's to go East and sell the +stock. They worked it out last night after the bank closed. He'll tell +you all about it."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Barclay was standing by the buggy when the girl finished. The elder +woman bade the young people good night, and turned and went into the +yard and stood a moment looking at the stars before going into her +lonely house. The lovers let the tired horses lag up the hill, and as +they turned into Lincoln Avenue the girl was saying: "A year's so long, +Bob,—so long. And you'll be away, and I'm afraid." He tried to reassure +her; but she protested: "You are all my life,—big boy,—all my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> life. I +was only fourteen, just a little girl, when you came into my life, and +all these long seven years you are the only human being that has been +always in my heart. Oh, Bob, Bob,—always."</p> + +<p>What a man says to his sweetheart is of no importance. Men are so +circumscribed in their utterances—so tongue-tied in love. They all say +one thing; so it need not be set down here what Bob Hendricks said. It +was what the king said to the queen, the prince to the princess, the +duke to the lady, the gardener to the maid, the troubadour to his +dulcinea. And Molly Culpepper replied, "When are you going, Bob?"</p> + +<p>The young man picked up the sagging lines to turn out for Watts +McHurdie's buggy. He had just let Nellie Logan out at the Wards', where +she lived. After a "Hello, Watts; getting pretty late for an old man +like you," Hendricks answered: "Well, you know John—when he gets a +thing in his head he's a regular tornado. There was an immense crowd in +town to-day—depositors and all that. And do you know, John went out +this afternoon with a paper in his hand, and five hundred dollars he dug +out of his safe over in the office, and he got options to lease their +land for a year signed up by the owners of five thousand acres of the +best wheat land in Garrison County. He wants twenty thousand acres, and +pretty well bunched down in Pleasant and Spring townships, and I'm going +in four days." The young man was full of the scheme. He went on: "John's +a wonder, Molly,—a perfect wonder. He's got grit. Father wouldn't have +been able to stand up under this—but John has braced him, and has +cheered up the people, and I believe, before the week is out, we will be +able to get nearly all the depositors to agree to leave their money +alone for a year, and then only take it out on thirty days' notice. And +if we can get that, we can open up by the first of the month. But I've +got to go on to Washington to see if I can arrange that with the +comptroller of the currency."</p> + +<p>They were standing at the Culpepper gate as he spoke. A light in the +upper windows showed that the parents<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> were in. Buchanan came ambling +along the walk and went through the gate between them without speaking. +When he had closed the door, the girl came close to her lover. He took +her in his arms, and cried, "Oh, darling,—only four more days +together." He paused, and in the starlight she saw on his face more than +words could have told her of his love for her. He was a silent youth; +the spoken word came haltingly to his lips, and as often happens, words +were superfluous to him in his moments of great emotion. He put her +hands to his lips, and moaned, for the hour of parting seemed to be +hurrying down upon him. Finally his tongue found liberty. "Oh, +sweetheart—sweetheart," he cried, "always remember that you are bound +in my soul with the iron of youth's first love—my only love. Oh, I +never could again, dear,—only you—only you. After this it would be a +sacrilege."</p> + +<p>They stood silent in the joy of their ecstasy for a long minute, then he +asked gently: "Do you understand, Molly,—do you understand? this is +forever for us, Molly,—forever. When one loves as we love—with our +childhood and youth welded into it all—whom God hath joined—" he +stammered; "oh, Molly, whom God hath joined," he whispered, and his +voice trembled as he sighed again, and kissed her, "whom God hath +joined. Oh, God—God, God!" cried the lover, as he closed his eyes with +his lips against her hair.</p> + +<p>The restless horses recalled the lovers to the earth. It was Molly who +spoke. "Bob—Bob—I can't let you go!"</p> + +<p>Molly Culpepper had no reserves with her lover. She went on whispering, +with, her face against his heart: "Bob—Bob, big boy, I am going to tell +you something truthy true, that I never breathed to any one. At +night—to-night, in just a few minutes—when I go up to my room—all +alone—I get your picture and hold it to me close, and holding it right +next to my very heart, Bob, I pray for you." She paused a moment, and +then continued, "Oh, and—I pray for us—Bob—I pray for us." Then she +ran up the stone walk, and on the steps she turned to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> throw kisses at +him, but he did not move until he heard the lock click in the front +door.</p> + +<p>At the livery-stable he found Watts McHurdie bending over some break in +his buggy. They walked up the street together. At the corner where they +were about to part the little man said, as he looked into the rapturous +face of the lanky boy, "Well, Bob,—it's good-by, John, for you, I +suppose?"</p> + +<p>"Oh—I don't know," replied the other from his enchanted world and then +asked absently, "Why?"</p> + +<p>"Well, it's nature, I guess. She'll take all his time now." He rubbed +his chin reflectively, and as Bob turned to go Watts said: "My Heavens, +how time does fly! It just seems like yesterday that all you boys were +raking over the scrap-pile back of my shop, and slipping in and nipping +leather strands and braiding them into whips, and I'd have to douse you +with water to get rid of you. I got a quirt hanging up in the shop now +that Johnnie Barclay dropped one day when I got after him with a pan of +water. It's a six-sided one, with eight strands down in the round part. +I taught him how to braid it." He chewed a moment and spat before going +on: "And now look at him. He's little, but oh my." Something was working +under McHurdie's belt, for Bob could hear it chuckling as he chewed: +"Wasn't she a buster? It's funny, ain't it—the way we all pick big +ones—we sawed-offs"? The laugh came—a quiet, repressed gurgle, and he +added: "Yes—by hen, and you long-shanks always pick little dominickers. +Eh?" He chewed a meditative cud before venturing, "That's what I told +her comin' home to-night." Bob knew whom he meant. The man went on: "But +when she saw them—him so little she'll have to shake the sheet to find +him—and her so big and busting, I seen <i>her</i>—you know," he nodded his +head wisely to indicate which "her" he meant. "I saw her a-eying me, out +of the corner of her eye, and looking at him, and then looking at the +girl, and looking at herself, and on the way home to-night I'm damned if +I didn't have to put off asking her another six months." He sighed and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> +continued, "And the first thing I know the drummer or the preacher'll +get her." He chewed for a minute in peace and chuckled, "Well—Bob, I +suppose you'll be next?" He did not wait for an answer, but spoke up +quickly, "Well, Bob, good night—good night," and hurried to his shop.</p> + +<p>The next day the people that blackened Main Street in Sycamore Ridge +talked of two things—the bank failure and the new Golden Belt Wheat +Company. Barclay enlisted Colonel Culpepper, and promised him two +dollars for every hundred-acre option to lease that he secured at three +dollars an acre—the cash on the lease to be paid March first. Barclay's +plan was to organize a stock company and to sell his stock in the East +for enough to raise eight dollars an acre for every acre he secured, and +to use the five dollars for making the crop. He believed that with a +good wheat crop the next year he could make money and buy as much land +as he needed. But that year of the panic John capitalized the hardship +of his people, and made terms for them, which they could not refuse. He +literally sold them their own want. For the fact that he had a little +ready money and could promise more before harvest upon which the people +might live—however miserably was no concern of his—made it possible +for him to drive a bargain little short of robbery. It was Bob's part of +the business to float the stock company in the East among his father's +rich friends. John was to furnish the money to keep Bob in New York, and +the Hendricks' connections in banking circles were to furnish the cash +to float the proposition, and the Hendricks' bank—if John could get it +opened again—was to guarantee that the stock subscribed would pay six +per cent interest. So there was no honeymoon for John Barclay. When he +dropped the reins and helped his bride out of the buggy the next morning +in front of the Thayer House, he hustled General Ward's little boy into +the seat, told him to drive the team to Dolan's stable, and waving the +new Mrs. Barclay good-by, limped in a trot over to the bank. In five +minutes he was working<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> in the crowd, and by night had the required +number of the depositors ready to agree to let their money lie a year on +deposit, and that matter was closed. He was a solemn-faced youth in +those days, with a serious air about him, and something of that +superabundance of dignity little men often think they must assume to +hold their own. The town knew him as a trim little man in a +three-buttoned tail-coat, with rather extraordinary neckties, a +well-brushed hat, and shiny shoes. To the country people he was "limping +Johnnie," and General Ward, watching Barclay hustle his way down Main +Street Saturday afternoons, when the sidewalk and the streets were full +of people, used to say, "Busier 'n a tin pedler." And he said to Mrs. +Ward, "Lucy, if it's true that old Grandpa Barclay got his start +carrying a pack, you can see him cropping out in John, bigger than a +wolf."</p> + +<p>But the general had little time to devote to John, for he was state +organizer of a movement that had for its object the abolition of +middlemen in trade, and he was travelling most of the time. The dust +gathered on his law-books, and his Sunday suit grew frayed at the edges +and shiny at the elbows, but his heart was in the cause, and his blue +eyes burned with joy when he talked, and he was happy, and had to travel +two days and nights when the fourth baby came, and then was too late to +serve on the committee on reception, and had to be satisfied with a +minor place on the committee on entertainment and amusements of which +Mrs. Culpepper was chairman. But John turned in half of a fee that came +from the East for a lawsuit that both he and Ward had forgotten, and +Miss Lucy would have named the new baby Mary Ward, but the general stood +firm for Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Sitting at Sunday dinner with the Wards +on the occasion of Elizabeth Cady Stanton Ward's first monthly birthday, +John listened to the general's remarks on the iniquity of the money +power, and the wickedness of the national banks, and kept respectful and +attentive silence. The worst the young man did was to wink swiftly +across the table at Watts McHurdie, who had been invited by Mrs.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> Ward +with malice prepense and seated by Nellie Logan. The wink came just as +the general, waving the carving knife, was saying: "Gentlemen, it's the +world-old fight—the fight of might against right. When I was a boy like +you, John, the fight was between brute strength and the oppressed; +between slaves and masters. Now it is between weakness and cunning, +between those who would be slaveholders if they could be, and those who +are fighting the shackles." And Mrs. Ward saw the wink, and John saw +that she saw it, and he was ashamed.</p> + +<p>So before the afternoon was over, Mr. and Mrs. John Barclay went over to +Hendricks's, picking up Molly Culpepper on the way, and the three spent +the evening with the general and Miss Hendricks—a faded mousy little +woman in despairing thirties; and before the open fire they sat and +talked, and John played the piano for an hour, and thought out an extra +kink for the Golden Belt Wheat Company's charter. He jabbered about it +to Jane as they walked home, and the next day it became a fact.</p> + +<p>"That boy," said the colonel to his assembled family one evening as they +dined on mush and dried peaches, and coffee made of parched corn, "that +John Barclay certainly and surely is a marvel. Talk about drawing blood +from a turnip,—why, he can strike an artery in a pumpkin." The colonel +smiled reflectively as he proceeded: "Chicago lawyer came in on the +stage this afternoon,—kinder getting uneasy about a little interest I +owed to an Ohio man on that College Heights property, and John took that +Chicago lawyer up to his office, and talked him into putting the +interest in a second mortgage with all the interest that will fall due +till next spring, and then traded him Golden Belt Wheat Company stock +for the mortgage and a thousand dollars besides."</p> + +<p>"Well, did John give you back the mortgage, father?" asked Molly.</p> + +<p>"No, sis,—that wouldn't be business," replied the colonel, as he +stirred his dried peaches into his third dish of mush for dessert; +"business is business, you know. John took the mortgage over to the bank +and discounted it for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> some money to buy more options with. John surely +does make things hum."</p> + +<p>"Yes, and he's made Bob resign from the board of commissioners, and +won't let him come home Christmas, and keeps him on fifty dollars a +month there in New York—all the same," returned the girl.</p> + +<p>The colonel looked at his daughter a moment in sympathetic silence; then +he put his thumbs in the armholes of his vest and tilted back in his +chair and answered: "Oh, well, my dear,—when you are living in a +brown-stone house on Fifth Avenue down in New York, stepping on a nigger +every which way you turn, you'll thank John that he did keep Bob at +work, and not bring him back here to pin on a buffalo tail, drink crick +water, eat tumble weeds, and run wild. I say, and I fear no +contradiction when I say it, that John Barclay is a marvel—a living +wonder in point of fact. And if Bob Hendricks wants to come back here +and live on the succulent and classic bean and the luscious, and I may +say tempting, flapjack, let him come, Molly Farquhar Culpepper, let him +come." The colonel, proud of his language, looked around the family +circle. "And we at our humble board, with our plain though—shall I say +nutritive—yes, nutritive and wholesome fare, should thank our lucky +stars that John Barclay keeps the Golden Belt Wheat Company going, and +your husband and father can make a more or less honest dollar now and +then to supply your simple wants."</p> + +<p>The colonel had more in his mind, for he rose and began to pace the +floor in a fine frenzy. But Mrs. Culpepper looked up for an instant from +her tea, and said, "You know you forgot the mail to-day, father," and he +replied, "Yes, that's so." Then added: "Molly dear, will you bring me my +overcoat—please?"</p> + +<p>The girl bundled her father into his threadbare blue army overcoat with +the cape. He stood for a moment absently rattling some dimes in his +pocket. Then the faintness of their jingle must have appealed to him, +for he drew a long breath and walked majestically away. He was a tall +stout man in the midst of his forties, with a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> military goatee and black +flowing mustaches, and he wore his campaign hat pinned up at the side +with the brass military pin and swayed with some show of swagger as he +walked. His gift of oratory he did not bring to the flower of its +perfection except at lodge. He was always sent as a delegate to Grand +Lodge, and when he came home men came from all over the county to see +the colonel exemplify the work. But as he marched to funerals under his +large white plume and with his sword dangling at his side, Colonel +Martin Culpepper, six feet four one way and four feet two the other, was +a regal spectacle, and it will be many years before the town will see +his like again.</p> + +<p>The colonel walked over to the post-office box and got his mail, then +took a backless chair and drew it up to the sand box in which the stove +sat, and the conversation became general in its nature, ranging from +Emerson's theory of the cosmos and the whiskey ring to the efficacy of a +potato in the pocket for rheumatism. Finally when they had come to their +"don't you remembers" about the battle of Wilson's Creek, General Ward, +with his long coat buttoned closely about him, came shivering into the +store to get some camphor gum and stood rubbing his cold hands by the +stove while the clerk was wrapping up the package. His thin nose was red +and his eyes watered, and he had little to say. When he went out the +colonel said, "What's he going to run for this year?"</p> + +<p>"Haven't you heard?" replied McHurdie, and to the colonel's negative +Watts replied, "Governor—the uprising's going to nominate him."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Frye, "and he'll go off following that foolishness and leave +his wife and children to John or the neighbours."</p> + +<p>"Do you suppose he thinks he'll win?" asked the Colonel.</p> + +<p>"Naw," put in McHurdie; "I was talking to him only last week in the +shop, and he says, 'Watts, you boys don't understand me.' He says, 'I +don't want their offices. What I want is to make them think. I'm sowing +seed. Some day it will come to a harvest—maybe long<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> after I'm dead and +gone.' I asked him if a little seed wouldn't help out some for +breakfast, and he didn't answer. Then he said: 'Watts—what you need is +faith—faith in God and not in money. There are no Christians; they +don't believe in God, or they'd trust Him more. They don't trust God; +they trust money. Yet I tell you it will work. Go ahead—do your work in +the world, and you won't starve nor your children beg in the streets.'" +McHurdie stopped a moment to gnaw his plug of tobacco. "The general's +gitting kind of a crank—and I told him so."</p> + +<p>"What did he say?" inquired the colonel.</p> + +<p>"Oh, he just laughed," replied McHurdie; "he just laughed and said if he +was a crank I was a poet, and neither was much good at the note window +of the bank, and we kind of made it up."</p> + +<p>And so the winter evening grew old, and one by one the cronies rose and +yawned and went their way. Evening after evening went thus, and was it +strange that in the years that came, when the sunset of life was gilding +things for Watts McHurdie, he looked through the golden haze and saw not +the sand in the pit under the stove, not the rows of drugs on the wall, +not the patent medicine bottles in their faded wrappers, but as he wrote +many years after in "Autumn Musing":—</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Those nights when Wisdom was our guide</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And Friendship was the glow,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That warmed our souls like living coals,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Those nights of long ago."</span><br /></p> + +<p>Nor is it strange that Martin Culpepper, his commentator, conning those +lines through the snows of many winters, should be a little misty as to +details, and having taken his pen in hand to write, should set down this +note:—</p> + +<p>"These lines probably refer to the evenings which the poet passed in a +goodly company of choice spirits during the early seventies. E'en as I +write, Memory, with tender hand, pushes back the sombre curtain, and I +see them now—that charmed circle; the poet with the brow of Jove and +Minerva's lips; the rugged warrior at his side, with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> the dignity of +Mars himself; perhaps some Crœsus with his gold, drawn by the spell +of Wisdom's enchantment into the magic circle; and this your humble +disciple of Thucydides, sitting spellbound under the drippings of the +sacred font, getting the material for these pages. That was the Golden +Age; there were giants in those days."</p> + +<p>And so there were, Colonel Martin Culpepper of the Great Heart and the +"large white plumes"—so there were.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER X</h2> +</div> + +<p>It was a cold raw day in March, 1874. Colonel Culpepper was sitting in +the office of Ward and Barclay over the Exchange National Bank waiting +for the junior member of the firm to come in; the senior member of the +firm, who had just brought up an arm load of green hickory and dry +hackberry stove wood, was standing beside the box-shaped stove, +abstractedly brushing the sawdust and wormwood from his sleeves and coat +front. The colonel was whistling and whittling, and the general kept on +brushing after the last speck of dust had gone from his shiny coat. He +walked to the window and stared into the ugly brown street.</p> + +<p>Two or three minutes passed, and Colonel Culpepper, anxious for the +society of his kind, spoke. "Well, General, what's the trouble?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing in particular, Martin. I was just questioning the reality of +matter and the existence of the universe as you spoke; but it's not +important." The general shivered, and turned his kind blue eyes on his +friend in a smile, and then bethought him to put the wood in the stove.</p> + +<p>While he was jamming in a final stick, Colonel Culpepper inquired, +"Well, am I an appearance or an entity?"</p> + +<p>The general put the smoking poker on the floor, and turned the damper in +the pipe as he answered: "That's what I can't seem to make out. You know +old Emerson says a man doesn't amount to much as a thinker until he has +doubted the existence of matter. And I just got to thinking about it, +and wondering if this was a real world after all—or just my idea of +one." The two men smiled at the notion, and Ward went on: "All right, +laugh if you want to, but if this is a real world, whose world is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> it, +your world or my world? Here is John Barclay, for instance. Sometimes I +get a peek at his world." Ward picked up the poker and sat down and +hammered the toe of a boot with it as he went on: "John's world is the +Golden Belt Wheat Company, wheat pouring a steady stream into boundless +bins, and money flowing in golden ripples over it all. Sometimes Bob +Hendricks' head rises above the tide long enough to gasp or cry for help +and beg to come home, but John's golden flood sweeps over him again, and +he's gone. And here's your world, Martin, wherein every one is kind and +careless, and generous and good, and full of smiles and gayety. And +there's Lige Bemis' world, full of cunning and hypocrisy, and meanness +and treachery and plotting—a hell of a world it is, with its +foundations on hate and deceit—but it's his world, and he has the same +right to it that I have to mine. And there's old Watts' world—" The +general sighted along the poker over his toe to the stove side whereon a +cornucopia wriggled out of nothing and poured its richness of fruit and +grain into nothing. "There's Watts' world, full of stuffed +Personifications, Virtue, Pleasure, Happiness, Sin, Sorrow, and God +knows what of demigods, with the hay of his philosophy sticking out of +their eyeholes. You know about his maxims, Mart; he actually lives by +'em, and no matter how common sense yells at him to get off the track, +old Watts just goes on following his maxims, and gets butted into the +middle of next week."</p> + +<p>The colonel was making a hole in the stick in his hands, and his +attention was fixed on the whittling, but he added, "And your own world, +General—how about your own world?"</p> + +<p>"My world," replied the general, as he pulled at the bows of his rather +soiled white tie, and evened them, "My world—" the general jabbed the +poker spear-like into the floor, "I guess I'm a kind of a +transcendentalist!"</p> + +<p>The colonel blew the chips through the hole in his stick; he bored it +round in the pause that followed before he spoke.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span></p> + +<p>"A transcendentalist, eh? Well, pintedly, General, that is what I may +call a soft impeachment, as the poet says—a mighty soft impeachment. +I've heard you called a lot worse names than that—and I may say," here +the crow's-feet began scratching for a smile around the colonel's eyes, +"proved, sir, with you as the prosecuting witness."</p> + +<p>The two men chuckled. Then the general, balancing himself, with the +poker point on the floor, as he tilted back went on: "My world, Mart +Culpepper, is a world in which the ideal is real—a world in a state of +flux with thoughts of to-day the matter of to-morrow; my world is a +world of faith that God will crystallize to-day's aspirations into +to-morrow's justice; my world," the general rose and waved his poker as +if to beat down the forces of materialism about him, "my world is the +substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen." He +paused. "As I was saying," he continued at last, "if this is a real +world, if matter actually exists and this world is not a dream of my +consciousness, whose world is it, my world, your world, Watts McHurdie's +world, Lige's world, or John's world? It can't be all of 'em." He put +the poker across the stove hearth, and sank his hands deeply into his +pockets as he continued: "The question that philosophy never has +answered is this: Am I a spectre and you an essence, or are you a +spectre and am I an essence? Is it your world or mine?"</p> + +<p>The two men looked instinctively at the rattling doorknob, and John +Barclay limped into the room. His face was red with the cold and the +driving mist. He walked to the stove and unbuttoned his ulster, while +the colonel put the subject of the debate before him. The general +amended the colonel's statement from time to time, but the young man +only smiled tolerantly and shook his head. Then he went to his desk and +pulled a letter from a drawer.</p> + +<p>"Colonel, I've got a letter here from Bob. The thing doesn't seem to be +moving. He only sold about a thousand dollars' worth of stock last +month—a falling off of forty per cent, and we must have more or we +can't take up<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> our leases. He's begging like a dog to come home for a +week, but I can't let him. We need that week." He limped over to the +elder and put his hand on the tall man's arm as he said: "Now, Colonel, +that was what I sent for you about. You kind of speak to Molly and have +her write him and tell him to hold on a little while. It's business, you +know, and we can't afford to have sentiment interfere with business."</p> + +<p>The colonel, standing by the window, replied, after a pause: "I can see +where you are right, John. Business is business. You got to consider +that." He looked into the street below and saw General Hendricks come +shuddering into the cold wind. "How's he getting on?" asked Culpepper, +nodding towards Hendricks, who seemed unequal to the gale.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't know, Colonel,—times are hard."</p> + +<p>"My, how he's aging!" said the colonel, softly.</p> + +<p>After a silence Barclay said: "There's one thing sure—I've got it into +his hard old head that Bob is doing something back there, and he +couldn't earn his salt here. Besides," added Barclay, as if to justify +himself against an accusing conscience, "the old man does all the work +in the bank now, with time to spare."</p> + +<p>It was the day of army overcoats, and the hard times had brought +hundreds of them from closets and trunks. General Hendricks, fluttering +down the street in his faded blue, made a rather pathetic figure. The +winter had whitened his hair and withered his ruddy face. His unequal +struggle with the wind seemed some way symbolical of his life, and the +two men watched him out of sight without a word. The colonel turned +toward his own blue overcoat which lay sprawling in a chair, and Barclay +said as he helped the elder man squeeze into it, "Don't forget to speak +to Molly, Colonel," and then ushered him to the door. For a moment +Colonel Culpepper stood at the bottom of the stairs, partly hesitating +to go into the windy street, and partly trying to think of some way in +which he could get the subject on his mind before his daughter in the +right way. Then as he stood on the threshold with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> his nose in the +storm, he recalled General Ward's discourse about the different worlds, +and he thought of Molly's world of lovers' madness, and that brought up +his own youth and its day-dreams, and Molly flew out of his mind and her +mother came in, and he saw her blue-eyed and fair as she stood before +him on their wedding-day. With that picture in his heart he breasted the +storm and went home whistling cheerfully, walking through his world like +a prince.</p> + +<p>When the colonel left the office of Ward and Barclay, the partners +retired into their respective worlds and went sailing through space, +each world upon its own axis. The general in a desultory way began +writing letters to reformers urging them to prepare for the coming +struggle; but John was head over heels in the business of the Golden +Belt Wheat Company, and in an hour had covered two sheets of foolscap +with figures and had written a dozen letters. The scratch, scratch of +his pen was as regular as the swish of a piston. On the other hand, the +general often stopped and looked off into space, and three times he got +up to mend the fire. At the end of the afternoon Mrs. Ward came in, her +cheeks pink with the cold; she had left the seven-year-old to care for +the one-year-old, and the five-year-old to look after the +three-year-old, and had come scurrying through the streets in a brown +alpaca dress with a waterproof cape over her shoulders. She and the +general spoke for a few moments in their corner, and she hurried out +again. The general finished the letter he was writing and wrote another, +and then backed up to the stove with his coat tails in front of him and +stood benignly watching Barclay work. Barclay felt the man's attention, +and whirling about in his chair licking an envelope flap, he said, +"Well, General—what's on your mind?"</p> + +<p>"I was just thinking of Lucy—that's all," replied the general. Barclay +knew that the Wards had gone through the winter on less than one hundred +dollars, and it occurred to the younger man that times might be rather +hard in the Ward household. So he asked, "Are you worried about money +matters, General?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span></p> + +<p>The general's smile broadened to a grin. "Well, to be exact, Lucy and I +just counted cash—it's in her pocketbook, and we find our total cash +assets are eight dollars and thirty-nine cents, and it's got to tide us +over till grass." He stroked his lean chin, and ran his hands through +his iron-gray hair and went on, "That's plenty, the way we've figured it +out—Lucy and I only eat one meal a day anyway, and the children seem to +eat all the time and that averages it up." He smiled deprecatingly and +added: "But Lucy's got her heart set on a little matter, and we've +decided to spend eighty-seven cents, as you might say riotously, and get +it. That's what we were talking about."</p> + +<p>Barclay entered into the spirit of Ward's remarks and put in: "But the +National debt, General—if you have all that money to spare, why don't +you pay it off? Practise what you preach, General."</p> + +<p>The smile faded from Ward's face. He was not a man to joke on what he +regarded as sacred things. He replied: "Yes, yes, that's just it. My +share of the interest on that debt this winter was just seventy-five +cents, and if it wasn't for that, we would have had enough to get them; +as it is, we are going to cut out meat for a week—we figured it all out +just now—and get them anyway. She's down at the store buying them."</p> + +<p>"Buying what?" asked Barclay.</p> + +<p>The general's face lighted up again with a grin, and he replied: "Now +laugh—dog-gone you—buying flower seeds!" They heard a step at the +bottom of the stairs, and the general strode to the door, opened it, and +called down, "All right, Lucy—I'm coming," and buttoning up his coat, +he whisked himself from the room, and Barclay, looking out of the +window, watched the two forms as they disappeared in the dusk. But +appearances are so deceptive. The truth is that what he saw was not +there at all, but only appeared on his retina; the two forms that he +seemed to see were not shivering through the twilight, but were walking +among dahlias and coxcombs and four-o'clocks and petunias and poppies +and hollyhocks on a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> wide lawn whereon newly set elm trees were +fluttering their faint green foliage in the summer breeze. Yet John +Barclay would have sworn he saw them there in the cold street, with the +mist beating upon them, and curiously corroborative of this impression +is a memory he retained of reflecting that since the general's blue +overcoat had disappeared the winter before, he had noticed that little +Thayer had a blue Sunday suit and little Elizabeth Cady Stanton had +appeared wrapped in a blue baby coat. But that only shows how these +matter-of-fact people are fooled. For though the little Wards were +caparisoned in blue, and though the general's blue overcoat did +disappear about that time, the general and Lucy Ward have no +recollection of shivering home that night, but instead they know that +they walked among the flowers.</p> + +<p>And John, looking into the darkening street, must have seen something +besides the commonplace couple that he thought he saw; for as he turned +away to light his lamp and go to work again, he smiled. Surely there was +nothing to smile at in the thing he saw. Perhaps God was trying to make +him see the flowers. But he did not see them, and as it was nearly an +hour before six o'clock, he turned to his work under the lamp and +finished his letter to Bob Hendricks. When it was written, he read it +over carefully, crossing his "t's" and dotting his "i's," and as no one +was in the room he mumbled it aloud, thus:—</p> + +<p class='blockquot'> +"<span class="smcap">Dear Bob</span>:—Don't get blue; it will be all right. Stick to it. I +am laying a wire that will get you an audience with Jay Gould. Make +the talk of your life there. You may be able to interest him—if +just for a few dollars. Offer him anything. Give him the stock if +he will let us use his name.<br /> +<br /> +"Don't get uneasy about Molly, Bob. Jane and I see that she goes to +everything, and we've scared her up a kind of brevet beau—an old +rooster named Brownwell—Adrian Pericles Brownwell, who has blown +in here and bought the <i>Banner</i> from Ezra Lane. Brownwell is from +Alabama. Do you remember, Bob, that day at Wilson's Creek after we +got separated in the Battle I ran into a pile of cavalry writhing +in a road? Well, there was one face in that awful struggling mass +that I always remembered—and I never expect to see such a look of +fear on a man's face again—he was a young fellow then, but now +he's thirty-five or so. Well—that was this man Brownwell. I asked +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>him about it the other day. How he ever got out alive, I don't +know; but the fact that he should turn up here proves that this is +a small world. Brownwell also is a writer from Writersville. You +should see the way he paints the lily in the <i>Banner</i> every week. +You remember old Cap Lee—J. Lord Lee of the Red Legs—and Lady +Lee, as they called her when she was a sagebrush siren with the +'Army of the Border' before the War? Well, read this clipping from +the <i>Banner</i> of this week: 'The wealth, beauty, and fashion of +Minneola—fairest village of the plain—were agog this week over +the birth of a daughter to Lord and Lady Lee, whose prominence in +our social circles makes the event one of first importance in our +week's annals. Little Beatrix, for so they have decided to christen +her, will some day be a notable addition to our refined and +gracious circles. Welcome to you, little stranger.'<br /> +<br /> +"Now you know the man! You needn't be jealous of him. However, he +has frozen to the Culpeppers because they are from the South, and +clearly he thinks they are the only persons of consequence in town. +So he beaus Molly around with Jane and me to the concerts and +sociables and things. He is easily thirty-five, walks with a cane, +struts like a peacock, and Molly and Jane are having great sport +with him. Also he is the only man in town with any money. He +brought five thousand dollars in gold, real money,—his people made +it on contraband cotton contracts during the War, they say,—and he +has been the only visible means of support the town has had for +three months. But in the meantime don't worry about Molly, Bob, +she's all right, and business is business, you know, and you +shouldn't let such things interfere with it. But in another six +months we'll be out of the woods and on our way to big money."</p> + +<p>Now another strange thing happened to John Barclay that evening, and +this time it was what he saw, not what he failed to see, that puzzled +him. For just as he sealed the letter to his friend, and thumped his +lean fist on it to blot the address on the envelope and press the +mucilage down, he looked around suddenly, though he never knew why, and +there, just outside the rim of light from his lampshade, trembled the +image of Ellen Culpepper with her red and black checked flannel dress at +her shoe tops and his rubber button ring upon her finger. She smiled at +him sweetly for a moment and shook her head sadly, and her curls +fluttered upon her shoulders, and then she seemed to fade into the +general's desk by the opposite wall. John was pallid and frightened for +a moment; then as he looked at the great pile of letters before him he +realized how tired and worn he was. But the face and the eyes haunted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> +him and brought back old memories, and that night he and Jane and Molly +Culpepper went to Hendricks', and he played the piano for an hour in the +firelight, and dreamed old dreams. And his hands fell into the chords of +a song that he sang as a boy, and Molly came from the fire and stood +beside him while they hummed the words in a low duet:—</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Let me believe that you love as you loved</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Long, long ago—long ago."</span><br /></p> + +<p>But when he went out into the drizzling night, and he and Jane left +Molly at home, he stepped into the whirling yellow world of gold and +grain, and drafts and checks, and leases and mortgages, and Heaven knows +what of plots and schemes and plans. So he did not heed Jane when she +said, "Poor—poor little Molly," but replied as he latched the Culpepper +gate, "Oh, Molly'll be all right. You can't mix business and pleasure, +you know. Bob must stay."</p> + +<p>And when Molly went into the house, she found her mother waiting for +her. The colonel's courage had failed him. The mother took her +daughter's hand, and the two walked up the broad stairs together.</p> + +<p>"Molly," said the mother, as the girl listlessly went about her +preparations for bed, "don't grieve so about Bob. Father and John need +him there. It's business, you know."</p> + +<p>The daughter answered, "Yes, I know, but I'm so lonesome—so lonesome." +Then she sobbed, "You know he hasn't written for a whole week, and I'm +afraid—afraid!"</p> + +<p>When the paroxysm had passed, the mother said: "You know, my dear, they +need him there a little longer, and he wants to come back. Your father +told me that John sent word to-day that you must not let him come." The +girl's face looked the pain that struck her heart, and she did not +answer. "Molly dear," began the mother again, "can't you write to Bob +to-morrow and urge him to stay—for me? For all of us? It is so much to +us now—for a little while—to have Bob there, sending back money<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> for +the company. I don't know what father would do if it wasn't for the +company—and John."</p> + +<p>The daughter held her mother's hand, and after gasping down a sob, +promised, and then as the sob kept tilting back in her throat, she +cried: "But oh, mother, it's such a big world—so wide, and I am so +afraid—so afraid of something—I don't know what—only that I'm +afraid."</p> + +<p>But the mother soothed her daughter, and they talked of other things +until she was quiet and drowsy.</p> + +<p>But when she went to sleep, she dreamed a strange dream. The next day +she could not untangle it, save that with her for hours as she went +about her duties was the odour of lilacs, and the face of her lover, now +a young eager face in pain, and then, by the miracle of dreams, grown +old, bald at the temples and brow, but fine and strong and clean—like a +boy's face. The face soon left her, but the smell of the lilacs was in +her heart for days—they were her lilacs, from the bushes in the garden. +As days and weeks passed, the dream blurred into the gray of her humdrum +life and was gone. And so that day and that night dropped from time into +eternity, and who knows of all the millions of stars that swarmed the +heavens, what ones held the wandering souls of the simple people of that +bleak Western town as they lay on their pillows and dreamed. For if our +waking hours are passed in worlds so wide apart, who shall know where we +walk in dreams?</p> + +<p>It is thirty years and more now since John Barclay dreamed of himself as +the Wheat King of the Sycamore Valley, and in that thirty years he had +considerable time to reflect upon the reasons why pride always goeth +before destruction. And he figured it out that in his particular case he +was so deeply engrossed in the money he was going to make that first +year, that he did not study the simple problem of wheat-growing as he +should have studied it. In those days wheat-growing upon the plains had +not yet become the science it is to-day, and many Sycamore Valley +farmers planted their wheat in the fall, and failed to make it pay, and +many other Sycamore Valley farmers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> planted their wheat in the spring, +and failed, while many others succeeded. The land had not been +definitely staked off and set apart by experience as a winter wheat +country, and so the farmers operating under the Golden Belt Wheat +Company, in the spring of 1874, planted their wheat in March.</p> + +<p>That was a beautiful season on the plains. April rains came, and the +great fields glowed green under the mild spring sun. And Bob Hendricks, +collecting the money from his stock subscriptions, poured it into the +treasury of the company, and John Barclay spent the money for seed and +land and men to work the land, and so confident was he of the success of +the plan that he borrowed every dollar he could lay his hands on, and +got leases on more land and bought more seed and hired more men, in the +belief that during the summer Hendricks could sell stock enough to pay +back the loans. To Colonel Culpepper, Barclay gave a block of five +thousand dollars' worth of the stock as a bonus in addition to his +commission for his work in securing options, and the colonel, feeling +himself something of a capitalist, and being in funds from the spring +sale of lots in College Heights addition, invested in new clothes, +bought some farm products in Missouri, and went up and down the earth +proclaiming the glories of the Sycamore Valley, and in May brought two +car-loads of land seekers by stages and wagons and buggies to Sycamore +Ridge, and located them in Garrison County. And in his mail when he came +home he found a notice indicating that he had overdrawn his account in +the bank five hundred dollars, and that his note was due for five +hundred more on the second mortgage which he had given the previous +fall.</p> + +<p>For two days he was plunged in gloom, and Barclay, observing his +depression and worming out of the colonel the cause, persuaded General +Hendricks to put the overdraft and the second mortgage note into one +note for a thousand dollars plus the interest for sixty days until the +colonel could make a turn, and after that the colonel was happy again. +He forgot for a moment the responsibility<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> of wealth and engaged himself +in the task of making the Memorial Day celebration in Sycamore Ridge the +greatest event in the history of the town. Though there were only five +soldiers' graves to decorate, the longest procession Garrison County had +ever known wound up the hill to the cemetery, and Colonel Martin +Culpepper in his red sash, with his Knights Templar hat on, riding up +and down the line on an iron-gray stallion, was easily the most notable +figure in the spectacle. Even General Hendricks, revived by the pomp of +the occasion, heading the troop of ten veterans of the Mexican War, and +General Ward, in his regimentals, were inconsequential compared with the +colonel. And his oration at the graves, after the bugles had blown taps, +kept the multitude in tears for half an hour. John Barclay's address at +the Opera House that afternoon—the address on "The Soldier and the +Scholar"—was so completely overshadowed by the colonel's oratorical +flight that Jane teased her husband about the eclipse for a month, and +never could make him laugh. Moreover, the <i>Banner</i> that week printed the +colonel's oration in full and referred to John's address as "a few +sensible remarks by Hon. John Barclay on the duty of scholarship in +times of peace." But here is the strange thing about it—those who read +the colonel's oration were not moved by it; the charm of the voice and +the spell of the tall, handsome, vigorous man and the emotion of the +occasion were needed to make the colonel's oratory move one. Still, +opinions differ even about so palpable a proposition as the ephemeral +nature of the colonel's oratory. For the <i>Banner</i> that week pronounced +it one of the classic oratorical gems of American eloquence, and the +editor thereof brought a dozen copies of the paper under his arm when he +climbed the hill to Lincoln Avenue the following Sunday night, and +presented them to the women of the Culpepper household, whom he was +punctilious to call "the ladies," and he assured Miss Molly and Mistress +Culpepper—he was nice about those titles also—that their father and +husband had a great future before him in the forum.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span></p> + +<p>It may be well to pause here and present so punctilious a gentleman as +Adrian Pericles Brownwell to the reader somewhat more formally than he +has been introduced. For he will appear in this story many times. In the +first place he wore mustaches—chestnut-coloured mustaches—that drooped +rather gracefully from his lip to his jaw, and thence over his coat +lapels; in the second place he always wore gloves, and never was without +a flower in his long frock-coat; and thirdly he clicked his cane on the +sidewalk so regularly that his approach was heralded, and the company +was prepared for the coming of a serious, rather nervous, fiery man, a +stickler for his social dues; and finally in those days, those sombre +days of Sycamore Ridge after the panic of '73, when men had to go to the +post-office to get their ten-dollar bills changed, Brownwell had the +money to support the character he assumed. He had come to the Ridge from +the South,—from that part of the South that carried its pistol in its +hip pocket and made a large and serious matter of its honour,—that was +obvious; he had paid Ezra Lane two thousand dollars for the <i>Banner</i>, +that was a matter of record; and he had marched with some grandeur into +General Hendricks' bank one Saturday and had clinked out five thousand +dollars in gold on the marble slab at the teller's window, and that was +a matter attested to by a crowd of witnesses. Watts McHurdie used to say +that more people saw that deposit than could be packed into the front +room of the bank with a collar stuffer.</p> + +<p>But why Adrian Brownwell had come to the Ridge, and where he had made +his money—there myth and fable enter into the composition of the +narrative, and one man's opinion is as good as another's. Curiously +enough, all who testify claim that they speak by the authority of Mr. +Brownwell himself. But he was a versatile and obliging gentleman withal, +so it is not unlikely that all those who assembled him from the +uttermost parts of the earth into Sycamore Ridge for all the reasons in +the longer catechism, were telling the simple truth as they have reason +to believe it. What men know of a certainty is that he came, that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> he +hired the bridal chamber of the Thayer House for a year, and that he +contested John Barclay's right to be known as the glass of fashion and +the mould of form in Garrison County for thirty long years, and +then—but that is looking in the back of the book, which is manifestly +unfair.</p> + +<p>It is enough to know now that on that Sunday evening after Memorial Day, +in 1874, Adrian P. Brownwell sat on the veranda of the Culpepper home +slapping his lavender gloves on his knee by way of emphasis, and told +the company what he told General Beauregard and what General Beauregard +told him, at the battle of Shiloh; also what his maternal grandfather, +Governor Papin, had said to General Jackson, when his grandmother, then +Mademoiselle Dulangpré, youngest daughter of the refugee duke of that +house, had volunteered to nurse the American soldiers in Jackson's +hospital after the battle of New Orleans; also, and with detail, what +his father, Congressman Brownwell, had said on the capitol steps in +December, 1860, before leaving for Washington to resign his seat in +Congress; and also with much greater detail he recounted the size of his +ancestral domain, the number of the ancestral slaves and the royal state +of the ancestral household, and then with a grand wave of his gloves, +and a shrug of which Madam Papin might well have been proud, "But 'tis +all over; and we are brothers—one country, one flag, one God, one very +kind but very busy God!" And he smiled so graciously through his great +mustaches, showing his fine even teeth, that Mrs. Culpepper, Methodist +to the heart, smiled back and was not so badly shocked as she knew she +should have been.</p> + +<p>"Is it not so?" he asked with his voice and his hands at once. "Ah," he +exclaimed, addressing Mrs. Culpepper dramatically, "what better proof +would you have of our brotherhood than our common bondage to you? +However dark the night of our national discord—to-day, North, South, +East, West, we bask in the sunrise of some woman's eyes." He fluttered +his gloves gayly toward Molly and continued:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>—</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 2em;">"'O when did morning ever break,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And find such beaming eyes awake.'"</span></p> + +<p>And so he rattled on, and the colonel had to poke his words into the +conversation in wedge-shaped queries, and Mrs. Culpepper, being in due +and proper awe of so much family and such apparent consequence, spoke +little and smiled many times. And if it was "Miss Molly" this and "Miss +Molly" that, when the colonel went into the house to lock the back +doors, and "Miss Molly" the other when Mrs. Culpepper went in to open +the west bedroom windows; and even if it was "Miss Molly, shall we go +down town and refresh ourselves with a dish of ice-cream?" and even if +still further a full-grown man standing at the gate under the May moon +deftly nips a rose from Miss Molly's hair and holds the rose in both +hands to his lips as he bows a good night—what then? What were roses +made for and brown eyes and long lashes and moons and May winds heavy +with the odour of flowers and laden with the faint sounds of distant +herd bells tinkling upon the hills? For men are bold at thirty-five, and +maidens, the best and sweetest, truest, gentlest maidens in all the +world, are shy at twenty-one, and polite to their elders and betters of +thirty-five—even when those elders and betters forget their years!</p> + +<p>As for Adrian P. Brownwell, he went about his daily task, editing the +<i>Banner</i>, making it as luscious and effulgent as a seed catalogue, with +rhetorical pictures about as florid and unconvincing. To him the town +was a veritable Troy—full of heroes and demigods, and honourables and +persons of nobility and quality. He used no adjective of praise milder +than superb, and on the other hand, Lige Bemis once complained that the +least offensive epithet he saw in the <i>Banner</i> tacked after his name for +two years was miscreant. As for John Barclay, he once told General Ward +that a man could take five dollars in to Brownwell and come out a +statesman, a Crœsus or a scholar, as the exigencies of the case +demanded, and for ten dollars he could combine the three.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span></p> + +<p>Yet for all that Brownwell ever remained a man apart. No one thought of +calling him "Ade." Sooner would one nickname a gargoyle on a tin +cornice. So the editor of the <i>Banner</i> never came close to the real +heart of Sycamore Ridge, and often for months at a time he did not know +what the people were thinking. And that summer when General Hendricks +was walking out of the bank every hour and looking from under his thin, +blue-veined hand at the strange cloud of insects covering the sky, and +when Martin Culpepper was predicting that the plague of grasshoppers +would leave the next day, and when John Barclay was getting that deep +vertical crease between his eyes that made him look forty while he was +still in his twenties, Adrian P. Brownwell was chirping cheerfully in +the <i>Banner</i> about the "salubrious climate of Garrison County," and +writing articles about "our phenomenal prospects for a bumper crop." And +when in the middle of July the grasshoppers had eaten the wheat to the +ground and had left the corn stalks stripped like beanpoles, and had +devoured every green thing in their path, the <i>Banner</i> contained only a +five-line item referring to the plague and calling it a "most curious +and unusual visitation." But that summer the <i>Banner</i> was filled with +Brownwell's editorials on "The Tonic Effect of the Prairie Ozone," "Turn +the Rascals Out," "Our Duty to the South," and "The Kingdom of Corn." As +a writer Brownwell was what is called "fluent" and "genial." And he was +fond of copying articles from the Topeka and Kansas City papers about +himself, in which he was referred to as "the gallant and urbane editor +of the <i>Banner</i>."</p> + +<p>But then we all have our weaknesses, and be it said to the everlasting +credit of Adrian Brownwell that he understood and appreciated Watts +McHurdie and Colonel Culpepper better than any other man in town, and +that he printed Watts' poems on all occasions, and never referred to him +as anything less than "our honoured townsman," or as "our talented and +distinguished fellow-citizen," and he never laughed at General Ward. But +the best<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> he could do for John Barclay—even after John had become one +of the world's great captains—was to wave his gloves resignedly and +exclaim, "Industry, thy name is Barclay." And Barclay in return seemed +never to warm up to Brownwell. "Colonel," replied John to some encomium +of his old friend's upon the new editor, "I'll say this much. Certainly +your friend is a prosperous talker!"</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2> +</div> + +<p>The twenty-fifth of July, 1874, is a memorable day in the life of John +Barclay. For on that day the grasshoppers which had eaten off the twenty +thousand acres of wheat in the fields of the Golden Belt Wheat Company, +as though it had been cropped, rose and left the Missouri Valley. They +will never come back, for they are ploughed under in the larva every +year by the Colorado farmers who have invaded the plains where once the +"hoppers" had their nursery; but all this, even if he had known it, +would not have cheered up John that day. For he knew that he owed one +hundred and fifty thousand dollars to Eastern stockholders of the +company, and he had not a dollar to show for it. He had expected to +borrow the money needed for the harvesting in the fall, and over and +over and over again he had figured with paper and pencil the amount of +his debt, and again and again he had tried to find some way to pay even +the interest on the debt at six per cent, which the bank had guaranteed. +While the locusts were devouring the vegetation, he walked the hemp +carpet that ran diagonally across his office, and chased phantom after +phantom of hope that lured him up to the rim of a solution of the +problem, only to push him back into the abyss. He walked with his hands +deep in his trousers pockets and his head down, and as General Ward was +out organizing the farmers in a revolt against the dominant party in the +state, Barclay was alone most of the time. The picture of that barren +office, with its insurance chromos, with its white, cobweb-marked walls, +with its dirty floor partly covered with an "X" of red-bordered hemp +carpet reaching from the middle to the four corners, the picture of the +four tall unwashed windows letting in the merciless afternoon sun to +fade the grimy black and white lithograph of William<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> Lloyd Garrison +above the general's desk, never left John Barclay's memory. It was like +a cell on a prisoner's mind.</p> + +<p>As he paced the room that last day of the visit of the grasshoppers, +General Hendricks came in. His hair had whitened in the summer. The +panic and the plague of the locusts had literally wrung the sap out of +his nerves. Old age was pressing inexorably upon him, palsying his hands +on its rack, tripping his feet in its helpless mazes. His dimmed eyes +could see only ruin coming, coming slowly and steadily toward him. In +the panic, it came suddenly and inspired fight in him. But this year +there was something diabolical in its resistless approach. So he shrank +from his impending fate as a child trembles at some unknown terror. But +Barclay did not swerve. He knew the affairs of the bank fairly well. He +was a director who never signed the quarterly statement without +verifying every item for himself. He had dreaded the general's visit, +yet he knew that it must come, and he pulled toward the general a big +hickory chair. The old man sank into it and looked helplessly into the +drawn hard face of the younger man and sighed, "Well, John?"</p> + +<p>Barclay stood before him a second and then walked down one arm of the +"X" of the carpet and back, and up another, and then turned to Hendricks +with: "Now, don't lose your nerve, General. You've got to keep your +nerve. That's about all the asset we've got now, I guess."</p> + +<p>The general replied weakly: "I—I, I—I guess you're right, John. I +suppose that's about it."</p> + +<p>"How do you figure it out, General?" asked Barclay, still walking the +carpet.</p> + +<p>The general fumbled for a paper in his pocket and handed it to Barclay. +He took it, glanced at it a moment, and then said: "I'm no good at +translating another man's figures—how is it in short?—Right down to +bed-rock?"</p> + +<p>Hendricks seemed to pull himself together and replied: "Well, something +like ten thousand in cash against seventy thousand in deposits, and +fifty thousand of that time deposits, due next October, you know, on the +year's agreement. Of the ten thousand cash, four thousand belongs<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> to +Brownwell, and is on check, and you have two thousand on check."</p> + +<p>"All right. Now, General, what do you owe?"</p> + +<p>"Well, you know that guarantee of your and Bob's business—that nine +thousand. It's due next week."</p> + +<p>"And it will gut you?" asked Barclay.</p> + +<p>The old man nodded and sighed. Barclay limped carefully all over his +"X," swinging himself on his heels at the turns; his mouth was +hardening, and his eyes were fixed on the old man without blinking as he +said: "General—that's got to come. If it busts you—it will save us, +and we can save you after. That has just absolutely got to be paid, +right on the dot."</p> + +<p>The old man could not have turned paler than he was when he entered the +room, but he rose halfway in his chair and shook his leonine head, and +then let his hands fall limply on his knees as he cried: "No—no, +John—I can't. I can't."</p> + +<p>Barclay put his hand on the back of the old man's chair, and he could +feel the firm hard grip of the boy through his whole frame. Then after a +moment's pause Barclay said: "General, I'm in earnest about that. You +will either mail those dividend certificates according to your guarantee +on the first, or as sure as there is a God in heaven I'll see that you +won't have a dollar in your bank on the night of the second."</p> + +<p>The old man stood gasping. The eyes of the two men met. Barclay's were +bold and green and blazing.</p> + +<p>"Boy! Boy! Boy!—" the old man faltered. "Don't ruin me! Don't ruin +me—" he did not finish the sentence, but sank into his chair, and +dropped his face to his breast and repeated, "Don't, don't, don't," +feebly for a few times, without seeming to realize what he was saying. +From some outpost of his being reinforcements came. For he rose +suddenly, and shaking his haggard fist at the youth, exclaimed in a +high, furious, cracking voice as he panted and shook his great hairy +head: "No—by God, no, by God, no! You damned young cut-throat—you can +break my bank, but you can't bulldoze me. No, by God—no!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> He started +to leave the room. Barclay caught the old man and swung him into a +chair. The flint that Barclay's nature needed had been struck. His face +was aglow as with an inspiration.</p> + +<p>"Listen, man, listen!" Barclay cried. "I'm not going to break your +bank, I'm trying to save it." He knew that the plan was ripe in his +head, and as he talked it out, something stood beside him and marvelled +at its perfection. As its inherent dishonesty revealed itself, the old +man's face flinched, but Barclay went on unfolding his scheme. It +required General Hendricks to break the law half a dozen ways, and to +hazard all of the bank's assets, and all of its cash. And it required +him to agree not to lend a dollar to any man in the county except as he +complied with the demands of the Golden Belt Wheat Company and mortgaged +his farm to Barclay. The plan that Barclay set forth literally +capitalized the famine that had followed the grasshopper invasion, and +sold the people their own need at Barclay's price. Then for an hour the +two men fought it out, and at the end Barclay was saying: "I am glad you +see it that way, and I believe, as you do, that they will take it a +little better if we also agree to pay this year's taxes on the land they +put under the mortgage. It would be a great sweetener to some of them, +and I can slip in an option to sell the land to us outright as a kind of +a joker in small type." His brassy eyes were small and beady as his +brain worked out the details of his plan. He put his hands +affectionately on General Hendricks' shoulders as he added, "You mustn't +forget to write to Bob, General; hold him there whatever comes."</p> + +<p>At the foot of the stairs the two men could hear the heavy tread of +Colonel Culpepper. As Hendricks went down the stairs John heard the +colonel's "Mornin', General," as the two men passed in the hallway.</p> + +<p>"Mornin', Johnnie—how does your corporocity sagashiate this mornin'?" +asked the colonel.</p> + +<p>Barclay looked at the colonel through little beady green eyes and +replied,—he knew not what. He merely dipped an oar into the talk +occasionally, he did not steer it, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> not until he emerged from his +calculations twenty minutes after the colonel's greeting did Barclay +realize that the colonel was in great pain. He was saying when Barclay's +mind took heed: "And now, sir, I say, now, having forced his unwelcome +and, I may say, filthy lucre upon me, the impudent scalawag writes me +to-day to say that I must liquidate, must—liquidate, sir; in short, pay +up. I call that impertinence. But no matter what I call it, he's going +to foreclose." Barclay's eyes opened to attention. The colonel went on. +"The original indebtedness was a matter of ten thousand—you will +remember, John, that's what I paid for my share of the College Heights +property, and while I have disposed of some,—in point of fact sold it +at considerable profit,—yet, as you know, and as this scoundrel knows, +for I have written him pointedly to that effect, I have been temporarily +unable to remit any sum substantial enough to justify bothering him with +it. But now the scamp, the grasping insulting brigand, notifies me that +unless I pay him when the mortgage is due,—to be plain, sir, next +week,—he proposes to foreclose on me."</p> + +<p>The colonel's brows were knit with trouble. His voice faltered as he +added: "And, John—John Barclay, my good friend—do you realize that +that little piece of property out on the hill is all I have on earth +now, except the roof over my head? And may—" here his voice slid into a +tenor with pent-up emotion—"maybe the contemptible rapscallion will try +to get that." The colonel had risen and was pacing the floor. "What a +damn disreputable business your commerce is, anyway! John, I can't +afford to lose that property—or I'd be a pauper, sir, a pauper peddling +organs and sewing-machines and maybe teaching singing-school." The +colonel's face caught a rift of sunshine as he added, "You know I did +that once before I was married and came West—taught singing-school."</p> + +<p>"Well, Colonel—let's see about it," said Barclay, absently. And the two +men sat at the table and figured up that the colonel's liabilities were +in the neighbourhood of twelve thousand, of which ten thousand were +pressing and the rest more or less imminent. At the end of their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> +conference, Barclay's mind was still full of his own affairs. But he +said, after looking a moment at the troubled face of the big black-eyed +man whose bulk towered above him, "Well, Colonel, I don't know what +under heavens I can do—but I'll do what I can."</p> + +<p>The colonel did not feel Barclay's abstraction. But the colonel's face +cleared like a child's, and he reached for the little man and hugged him +off his feet. Then the colonel broke out, "May the Lord, who heedeth the +sparrow's fall and protects all us poor blundering children, bless you, +John Barclay—bless you and all your household." There were tears in his +eyes as he waved a grand adieu at the door, and he whistled "Gayly the +Troubadour" as he tripped lightly down the stairs. And in another moment +the large white plumes were dancing in his eyes again. This time they +waved and beckoned toward a subscription paper which the colonel had +just drawn up when the annoying letter came from Chicago, reminding him +of his debt. The paper was for the relief of a farmer whose house and +stock had been burned. The colonel brought from his hip pocket the +carefully folded sheet of foolscap which he had put away when duty +called him to Barclay. He paused at the bottom of the stair, backed the +paper on the wall, and wrote under the words setting forth the farmer's +destitution, "Martin Culpepper—twenty-five dollars." He stood a moment +in the stairway looking into the street; the day was fair and beautiful; +the grasshoppers were gone, and with them went all the vegetation in the +landscape; but the colonel in his nankeen trousers and his plaited white +shirt and white suspenders, under his white Panama hat, felt only the +influence of the genial air. So he drew out the subscription paper again +and erased the twenty-five dollars and put down thirty-five dollars. +Then as Oscar Fernald and Daniel Frye came by with long faces the +colonel hailed them.</p> + +<p>"Boys," he said, "fellow named Haskins down in Fairview, with nine +children and a sick wife, got burnt out last night, and I'm kind of +seeing if we can't get him some lumber and groceries and things. I want +you boys," the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> colonel saw the clouds gathering and smiled to brush +them away, "yes, I want you boys to give me ten dollars apiece."</p> + +<p>"Ten dollars!" cried Fernald.</p> + +<p>"Ten dollars!" echoed Frye. "My Lord, man, there isn't ten dollars in +cash between here and the Missouri River!"</p> + +<p>"But the man and his children will starve, and his wife will die of +neglect."</p> + +<p>"That's the Lord's affair—and yours, Mart," returned Fernald, as he +broke away from the colonel's grasp; "you and He brought them here." +Frye went with Oscar, and they left the colonel with his subscription +paper in his hand. He looked up and down the street and then drew a long +breath, and put the paper against the wall again and sighed as he erased +the thirty-five dollars and put down fifty dollars after his name. Then +he started for the bank to see General Hendricks. The large white plumes +were still dancing in his eyes.</p> + +<p>But so far as Barclay is concerned the colonel never reached the bottom +of the stairs, for Barclay had his desk covered with law-books and was +looking up contracts. In an hour he had a draft of a mortgage and option +to buy the mortgaged land written out, and was copying it for the +printer. He took it to the <i>Banner</i> office and asked Brownwell to put +two men on the job, and to have the proof ready by the next morning.</p> + +<p>Brownwell waved both hands magnificently and with much grace, and said: +"Mr. Barclay, we will put three men on the work, sir, and if you will do +me the honour, I will be pleased to bring the proof up Lincoln Avenue to +the home of our mutual friend, Colonel Culpepper, where you may see it +to-night." Barclay fancied that a complacent smile wreathed Brownwell's +face at the prospect of going to the Culpeppers', and the next instant +the man was saying: "Charming young lady, Miss Molly! Ah, the ladies, +the ladies—they will make fools of us. We can't resist them." He +shrugged and smirked and wiggled his fingers and played with his +mustaches. "Wine and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> women and song, you know—they get us all. But as +for me—no wine, no song—but—" he finished the sentence with another +flourish.</p> + +<p>Barclay did what he could to smile good-naturedly and assent in some +sort of way as he got out of the room. That night, going up the hill, he +said to Jane: "Brownwell is one of those fellows who regard all +women—all females is better, probably—as a form of vice. He's the kind +that coos like a pouter pigeon when he talks to a woman."</p> + +<p>Jane replied: "Yes, we women know them. They are always claiming that +men like you are not gallant!" She added, "You know, John, he's the +jealous, fiendish kind—with an animal's idea of honour." They walked on +in silence for a moment, and she pressed his arm to her side and their +eyes met in a smile. Then she said: "Doubtless some women like that sort +of thing, or it would perish, but I don't like to be treated like a +woman—a she-creature. I like to be thought of as a human being with a +soul." She shuddered and continued: "But the soul doesn't enter even +remotely into his scheme of things. We are just bodies."</p> + +<p>The Barclays did not stay late at the Culpeppers' that night, but took +the proofs at early bedtime and went down the hill. An hour later they +heard Molly Culpepper and Brownwell loitering along the sidewalk. +Brownwell was saying:—</p> + +<p>"Ah, but you, Miss Molly, you are like the moon, for—</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 2em;">"'The moon looks on many brooks,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The brook can see no moon but this.'</span></p> + +<p>"And I—I am—"</p> + +<p>The Barclays did not hear what he was; however, they guessed, and they +guessed correctly—so far as that goes. But Molly Culpepper did hear +what he was and what he had been and what he would be, and the more she +parried him, the closer he came. There were times when he forgot the +"Miss" before the "Molly," and there were other times when she had to +slip her hand from his ever so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> deftly. And once when they were walking +over a smooth new wooden sidewalk coming home, he caught her swiftly by +the waist and began waltzing and humming "The Blue Danube." And at the +end of the smooth walk, she had to step distinctly away from him to +release his arm. But she was twenty-one, and one does not always know +how to do things at twenty-one—even when one intends to do them, and +intends strongly and earnestly—that one would do at forty-one, and so +as they stood under the Culpepper elm by the gate that night,—under the +elm, stripped gaunt and naked by the locusts,—and the July moon traced +the skeleton of the tree upon the close-cropped sod, we must not blame +Molly Culpepper too much even if she let him, hold her hand a moment too +long after he had kissed it a formal good night; for twenty-one is not +as strong as its instincts. It is such a little while to learn all about +a number of important things in a big and often wicked world that when a +little man or a little woman, so new to this earth as twenty-one years, +gets a finger pinched in the ruthless machinery, it is a time for tears +and mothering and not for punishment. And so when Adrian Brownwell +pulled the little girl off her feet and kissed her and asked her to +marry him all in a second, and she could only struggle and cry "No, no!" +and beg him to let her go—it is not a time to frown, but instead a time +to go back to our twenty-ones and blush a little and sigh a little, and +maybe cry and lie a little, and in the end thank God for the angel He +sent to guard us, and if the angel slept—thank God still for the +charity that has come to us.</p> + +<p>The next day John Barclay had Colonel Martin Culpepper and Lige Bemis in +his office galvanizing them with his enthusiasm and coaching them in +their task. They were to promise three dollars an acre, August 15, to +every farmer who would put a mortgage on his land for six dollars an +acre. The other three dollars was to cover the amount paid by Barclay as +rent for the land the year before. They were also to offer the landowner +a dollar and a half an acre to plough and plant the land by September +15, and another dollar to cultivate it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> ready for the harvest, and the +company was to pay the taxes on the land and furnish the seed. Barclay +had figured out the seed money from the sale of the mortgages. The man +was a dynamo of courage and determination, and he charged the two men +before him until they fairly prickled with the scheme. He talked in +short hard sentences, going over and over his plan, drilling them to +bear down on the hard times and that there would be no other buyers or +renters for the land, and to say that the bank would not lend a dollar +except in this way. Long after they had left his office, Barclay's voice +haunted them. His face was set and his eyes steady and small, and the +vertical wrinkle in his brow was as firm as an old scar. He limped about +the room quickly, but his strong foot thumped the floor with a thud that +punctuated his words.</p> + +<p>They left, and he sat down to write a letter to Bob Hendricks telling +him the plan. He had finished two pages when General Hendricks came in +a-tremble and breathless. The eyes of the two men met, and Hendricks +replied:—</p> + +<p>"It's Brownwell—the fat's in the fire, John. Brownwell's going!"</p> + +<p>"Going—going where?" asked the man at the desk, blankly.</p> + +<p>"Going to leave town. He's been in and given notice that he wants his +money in gold day after to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"Well—well!" exclaimed Barclay, with his eyes staring dumbly at nothing +on the dingy white wall before him. "Well—don't that beat the Jews? +Going to leave town!" He pulled himself together and gripped his chair +as he said, "Not by a damn sight he ain't. He's going to stay right here +and sweat it out. We need that four thousand dollars in our business. +No, you don't, Mr. Man—" he addressed a hypothetical Brownwell. "You're +roped and tied and bucked and gagged, and you stay here." Then he said, +"You go on over to the bank, General, and I'll take care of Brownwell." +Barclay literally shoved the older man to the door. As he opened it he +said, "Send me up a boy if you see one on the street."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span></p> + +<p>In ten minutes Brownwell was running up the stairs to Barclay's office +in response to his note. He brought a copy of the mortgage with, him, +and laid it before Barclay, who went over it critically. He found a few +errors and marked them, and holding it in his hands turned to the +editor.</p> + +<p>"Hendricks says you are going to leave town. Why?" asked Barclay, +bluntly. He had discovered even that early in life that a circuitous man +is generally knocked off his guard by a rush. Brown well blinked and +sputtered a second or two, scrambling to his equilibrium. Before he +could parry Barclay assaulted him again with: "Starving to death, eh? +Lost your grip—going back to Alabama with the banjo on your knee, are +you?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir—no, sir, you are entirely wrong, sir—entirely wrong, and +scarcely more polite, either." Brown well paused a minute and added: +"Business is entirely satisfactory, sir—entirely so. It is another +matter." He hesitated a moment and added, with the ghost of a smirk, "A +matter of sentiment—for—</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 2em;">"'The heart that is soonest awake to the flowers,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Is always the first to be touched by the thorns.'"</span></p> + +<p>Brownwell sat there flipping his gloves, exasperatingly; Barclay screwed +up his eyes, put his head on one side, and suddenly a flash came into +his face and he exclaimed, "Come off, you don't mean it—not Molly!"</p> + +<p>The rejected one inclined his head. Barclay was about to laugh, but +instead he said, "Well, you are not a quitter; why don't you go ahead +and get her?" He glanced instinctively at his letter to Bob Hendricks, +and as if to shield what he was going to say, put a paper over the page, +and then the seriousness of the situation came over him. "You know +women; cheer up, man—try again. Stick to it—you'll win," cried +Barclay. The fool might go for so small a reason. It was no time for +ribaldry. "Let me tell you something," he went on. His eyes opened again +with a steady ruthless purpose in them, that the man before him was too +intent on his own pose to see.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> Barclay put a weight upon the white +sheet of paper that he had spread over his letter to Bob Hendricks and +then went on. "Say, Brownwell, let me tell you something. This town is +right in the balance; you can help." Something seemed to hold Barclay +back, but he took the plunge. "You can stay here and help. We need men +like you." Then he took a blind shot in the dark before going +on—perhaps to give himself another chance. "Have you got any more of +that buried money—I mean more than you gave General Hendricks—the kind +that you dug up after the war and scratched the mould off the eagles?"</p> + +<p>Brownwell flushed and replied, as he put one hand in his coat and the +other, with his stick and hat and gloves, behind him: "That is my +affair, sir. However, I will say that I have."</p> + +<p>"I thought so," retorted Barclay. "Now look here, bring it to the Ridge. +Here's the place to invest it and now's the everlasting time. You jump +in here and help us out, help build up the town, and there's nothing too +good for you." Barclay was ready for it now. He did not flinch, but went +on: "Also here's your chance to help Colonel Culpepper. He's to be +closed out, and ten thousand would save him. You know the kind of a man +the colonel is. Stay with the game, Mr. Man, stay with the game." He saw +Brownwell's eyes twitch. Barclay knew he had won. He added slowly, "You +understand?"</p> + +<p>Brownwell smiled benignly. Barclay looked nervously at the unfinished +letter on the table. Brownwell waved his arms again dramatically, and +replied: "Ah, thank you—thank you. I shall play my hand out—and hearts +are trumps—are they not?" And he went out almost dancing for joy.</p> + +<p>When the man was gone Barclay shuddered; his contempt for Brownwell was +one of the things he prided himself on, and the intrigue revolted him. +He stood a moment at the window looking into the street absently. He +became conscious that some one was smiling at him on the crossing below. +Then automatically he heard himself say, "Oh, Molly, can you run up a +minute?" And a moment later she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> was in the room. She was a bewitching +little body in her wide skirts and her pancake of a hat with a feather +in it as she sat there looking at her toes that morning, with her bright +eyes flashing up into his like rockets. But there were lines under the +eyes, and the rims of the eyelids were almost red—as red as pretty +eyelids ever may be. Barclay went right to the midst of the matter at +once. He did not patronize her, but told her in detail just the +situation—how the Golden Belt Wheat Company's interest must be met by +the bank under its guarantee, or Bob and his father would be worse than +bankrupts, they would be criminals. He put Bob always in the foreground. +Barclay unfolded to her all the plans for going ahead with the work, and +he told her what they were doing for her father by giving him +employment. He marched straight up to the matter in hand without +flinching.</p> + +<p>"Molly," he began without batting his eyes, "here is where you come in. +That fellow Brownwell was up here this morning. Oh, you needn't +shiver—I know all about it. You had the honour of refusing him last +night." To her astonished, hurt face he paid no heed, but went on: "Now +he's going to leave town on account of you and pull out four thousand +dollars he's got in the bank. If he does that, we can't pay our +guarantee. You've got to call him back." She flared up as if to stop +him, but he went on: "Oh, I know, Molly Culpepper—but this is no game +of London Bridge. It's bad enough, but it's business—cold clammy +business, and sometimes we have to do things in this world for the +larger good. That roan simply can't leave this town and you must bold +him. It's ruin and perhaps prison to Bob and his father if he goes; and +as for your own father and mother—it makes them paupers, Molly. There's +no other way out of it." He paused a moment.</p> + +<p>The girl's face blanched, and she looked at the floor and spoke, "And +Bob—when can he come back?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know, Molly—but not now—he never was needed there as he is +now. It's a life-and-death matter, Molly Culpepper, with every creature +on earth that's nearest and dearest to you—it makes or breaks us.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> It's +a miserable business, I know well—but your duty is to act for the +larger good. You can't afford to send Bob to jail and your people to the +poorhouse just because—"</p> + +<p>The girl looked up piteously and then cried out: "Oh, John—don't, +don't—I can't. It's awful, John—I can't."</p> + +<p>"But, Molly," he replied as gently as he could, "you must. You can't +afford to be squeamish about this business. This is a woman's job, +Molly, not a child's."</p> + +<p>She rose and looked at him a fleeting moment as if in search of some +mercy in his face. Then she looked away. He stood beside her, barring +her way to the door. "But you'll try, Molly, won't you—you'll try?" he +cried. She looked at him again with begging eyes and stepped around him, +and said breathlessly as she reached the door: "Oh, I don't know, +John—I don't know. I must think about it."</p> + +<p>She felt her way down the stairs, and stopped a minute to compose +herself before she crossed the street and walked wearily up the hill.</p> + +<p>That night at supper Colonel Culpepper addressed the assembled family +expansively. "The ravens, my dears, the ravens. Behold Elijah fed by the +sacred birds. By Adrian P. Brownwell, to be exact. This morning I went +down town with the sheriff selling the roof over our heads. This +afternoon who should come to me soliciting the pleasure of lending, me +money—who, I say, but Adrian P. Brownwell?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I hope you didn't keep him standing," put in Buchanan.</p> + +<p>"My son," responded the colonel, as he whetted the carving knife on the +steel—a form which was used more for rhetorical effect than, culinary +necessity, as there were pork chops on the platter, "my son, no true +gentleman will rebuke another who is trying to lend him money. Always +remember that." And the colonel's great body shook with merriment, as he +proceeded to fill up the plates. But one plate went from the table +untouched, and Molly Culpepper went about her work with a leaden heart. +For the world had become a horrible phantasm to her, a place<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> of longing +and of heartache, a place of temptation and trial, lying under the +shadow of tragedy. And whose world was it that night, as she sat +chattering with her father and the man she feared, whose world was it +that night, if this is a real world, and not the shadow of a dream? Was +it the colonel's gay world, or John's golden world, or Ward's harmonious +world, or poor little Molly's world—all askew with miserable duties and +racking heartaches, and grinning sneering fears, with the relentless +image of the Larger Good always before her? Surely it was not all their +worlds, for there is only one world. Then whose was it? God who made it +and set it in the heavens in His great love and mercy only knows. Watts +McHurdie once wrote some query like this, and the whole town smiled at +his fancy. In that portion of his "Complete Poetical and Philosophical +Works" called "Fragments" occur these lines:—</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 4em;">"The wise men say</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">This world spins 'round the universe of which it is a part;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">But anyway—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The only world I know about is spun from out my heart."</span></p> + +<p>And perhaps Watts, sewing away in his harness shop, had deciphered one +letter in the riddle of the Sphinx.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2> +</div> + +<p>"If I ever get to be a Turk or anything like that," said Watts McHurdie, +in October, two months after the events recorded in the last chapter had +occurred, as he sat astraddle of his bench, sewing on a bridle, "I'm +going to have one red-headed wife—but not much more'n one."</p> + +<p>Colonel Culpepper dropped a "Why?" into the reflections of the poet.</p> + +<p>Watts replied, "Oh, just to complete the set!"</p> + +<p>The colonel did not answer and Watts chuckled: "I figure out that women +are a study. You learn this one and pat yourself on the breast-bone and +say, 'Behold me, I'm on to women.' But you ain't. Another comes along +and you have to begin at the beginning and learn 'em all over. I wonder +if Solomon who had a thousand—more or less—got all his wisdom from +them."</p> + +<p>The colonel shook his head, and said sententiously, "Watts—they hain't +a blame thing in it—not a blame thing." The creaking of the treadle on +Watt's bench slit the silence for a few moments, and the colonel went +on: "There can be educated fools about women, Watts McHurdie, just as +there are educated fools about books. There's nothing in your theory of +a liberal education in women. On the contrary, in all matters relating +to and touching on affairs of the heart—beware of the man with one +wife."</p> + +<p>McHurdie flashed his yellow-toothed smile upon his friend and replied, +"Or less than one?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir, just one," answered Colonel Culpepper. "A man with a raft of +wives, first and last, is like a fellow with good luck—the Lord never +gives him anything else. And I may say in point of fact, that the man +with no wife is like a man with bad luck—the Lord never gives him +anything else, either!" The colonel slapped his right<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> hand on his knee +and exclaimed: "Watts McHurdie—what's the matter with you, man? Don't +you see Nellie's all ready and waitin'—just fairly honin', and longin', +I may say, for a home and a place to begin to live?"</p> + +<p>McHurdie gave his treadle a jam and swayed forward over his work and +answered, "Marry in haste—repent at leisure."</p> + +<p>But nevertheless that night Watts sat with Nellie Logan on the front +porch of the Wards' house, watching the rising harvest moon, while Mrs. +Ward, inside, was singing to her baby. Nellie Logan roomed with the +Wards, and was bookkeeper in Dorman's store. It was nearly ten o'clock +and the man rose to go. "Well," he said, and hesitated a moment, "well, +Nellie, I suppose you're still waiting?" It was a question rather than +an assertion.</p> + +<p>The woman put her hands gently on the man's arms and sighed. "I just +can't—not yet, Watts."</p> + +<p>"Well, I thought maybe you'd changed your mind." He smiled as he +continued, "You know they say women do change sometimes."</p> + +<p>She looked down at him sadly. "Yes, I know they do, but some way I +don't."</p> + +<p>There was a long pause while Watts screwed up his courage to say, "Still +kind of thinking about that preacher?"</p> + +<p>The woman had no animation in her voice as she replied, "You know that +by now—without asking."</p> + +<p>The man sat down on the step, and she sat on a lower step. He was silent +for a time. Then he said, "Funny, ain't it?" She knew she was not to +reply; for in a dozen years she had learned the man's moods. In a +minute, during which he looked into his hat absent-mindedly, he went on: +"As far as I've been able to make it out, love's a kind of a +grand-right-and-left. I give my right hand to you, and you give yours to +the preacher, and he gives his to some other girl, and she gives hers to +some one else, like as not, who gives his to some one else, and the +fiddle and the horn and the piano and the bass fid screech and toot<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> and +howl, and away we go and sigh under our breaths and break our hearts and +swing our partners, and it's everybody dance." He looked up at her and +smiled at his fancy. For he was a poet and thought his remarks had some +artistic value.</p> + +<p>She smiled back at him, and he leaned on his elbows and looked up at her +as he said quietly: "I'd like awful well, Nellie—awful well if you'd be +my partner for the rest of this dance. It's lonesome down there in the +shop."</p> + +<p>The woman patted his hand, and they sat quietly for a while and then she +said, "Maybe sometime, Watts, but not to-night."</p> + +<p>He got up, and stood for a moment beside her on the walk. "Well," he +said at length, "I suppose I must be moving along—as the wandering Jew +said." He smiled and their eyes met in the moonlight. Watts dropped his +instantly, and exclaimed, "You're a terrible handsome girl, Nellie—? +did you know it?" He repeated it and added, "And the Lord knows I love +you, Nellie, and I've said it a thousand times." He found her hand again, +and said as he put on his hat, "Well, good-by, Nellie—good-by—if you +call that gone." His handclasp tightened and hers responded, and then +he dropped her hand and turned away.</p> + +<p>The woman felt a desire to scream; she never knew how she choked her +desire. But she rushed after him and caught him tightly and sobbed, "Oh, +Watts—Watts—Watts McHurdie—are you never going to have any more snap +in you than that?"</p> + +<p>As he kicked away the earth from under him, Watts McHurdie saw the light +in a window of the Culpepper home, and when he came down to earth again +five minutes later, he said, "Well, I was just a-thinking how nice it +would be to go over to Culpeppers' and kind of tell them the news!"</p> + +<p>"They'll have news of their own pretty soon, I expect," replied Nellie. +And to Watts' blank look she replied: "The way that man Brownwell keeps +shining<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> around. He was there four nights last week, and he's been there +two this week already. I don't see what Molly Culpepper can be thinking +of."</p> + +<p>So they deferred the visit to the Culpeppers', and in due time Watts +McHurdie flitted down Lincoln Avenue and felt himself wafted along Main +Street as far in the clouds as a mortal may be. And though it was nearly +midnight, he brought out his accordion and sat playing it, beating time +with his left foot, and in his closed eyes seeing visions that by all +the rights of this game of life should come only to youth. And the +guests in the Thayer House next morning asked, "Well, for heaven's sake, +who was that playing 'Silver Threads among the Gold' along there about +midnight?—he surely must know it by this time."</p> + +<p>And Adrian Brownwell, sitting on the Culpepper veranda the next night +but one, said: "Colonel, your harness-maker friend is a musical artist. +The other night when I came in I heard him twanging his lute—'The Harp +that once through Tara's Hall'; you know, Colonel."</p> + +<p>And John Barclay closed his letter to Bob Hendricks: "Well, Bob, as I +sit here with fifty letters written this evening and ready to mail, and +the blessed knowledge that we have 18,000 acres of winter wheat all +planted if not paid for, I can hear old Watts wheezing away on his +accordion in his shop down street. Poor old Watts, it's a pity that man +hasn't the acquisitive faculty—he could turn that talent into enough to +keep him all his days. Poor old Watts!"</p> + +<p>And Molly Culpepper, sitting in her bedroom chewing her penholder, +finally wrote this: "Watts McHurdie went sailing by the house to-night, +coming home from the Wards', where he was making his regular call on +Nellie. You know what a mouse-like little walk he has, scratching along +the sidewalk so demurely; but to-night, after he passed our place I +heard him actually break into a hippety-hop, and as I was sitting on the +veranda, I could hear him clicking clear down to the new stone walk in +front of the post-office." Oho, Molly Culpepper,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> you said "as I was +sitting on the veranda"; that is of course the truth, but not the whole +truth; what you might have said was "as we were sitting on the veranda," +and "as we were talking of what I like" and "what you like," and of +"what I think" and "what you think," and as "I was listening to war +tales from a Southern soldier," and as "I was finding it on the whole +rather a tiresome business "; those things you might have written, Molly +Culpepper, but you did not. And was it a twinge or a prick or a sharp +reproachful stab of your conscience that made you chew the tip of your +penholder into shreds and then madly write down this:—</p> + +<p>"Bob, I don't know what is coming over me; but some way your letters +seem so far away, and it has been such a long time since I saw you, a +whole lonesome year, and Bob dear, I am so weak and so unworthy of you; +I know it, oh, I know it. But I feel to-night that I must tell you +something right from my heart. It is this, dear: no matter what may +happen, I want you to know that I must always love you better than any +one else in all the world. I seem so young and foolish, and life is so +long and the world is so big—so big and you are so far away. But, Bob +dear, my good true boy, don't forget this that I tell you to-night, that +through all time and all eternity the innermost part of my heart must +always be yours. No matter what happens to you and me in the course of +life in the big world—you must never forget what I have written here +to-night."</p> + +<p>And these words, for some strange reason, were burned on the man's soul; +though she had written him fonder ones, which passed from him with the +years. The other words of the letter fell into his eyes and were +consumed there, so he does not remember that she also wrote that night: +"I have just been standing at my bedroom window, looking out over the +town. It is quiet as the graveyard, save for the murmur of the waters +falling over the dam. And I cannot tell whether it is fancy or whether +it is real, but now and then there comes to me a faint hint of +music,—it sounds almost like Watts' accordion, but of course it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> cannot +be at this unholy hour, and the tune it makes me think of some way is +'Silver Threads among the Gold.' Isn't it odd that I should hear that +song, and yet not hear it, and have it running through my mind?"</p> + +<p>And thus the town heard Watts McHurdie's song of triumph—the chortle +that every male creature of the human kind instinctively lets out when +he has found favour in some woman's eyes, that men have let out since +Lemech sang of victory over the young man to Adah and Zillah! And in all +the town no one knew what it meant. For the accordion is not essentially +an instrument of passion. So the episode ended, and another day came in. +And all that is left to mark for this world that night of triumph—and +that mark soon will bleach into oblivion—are the verses entitled "Love +at Sunset," of which Colonel Martin Culpepper, the poet's biographer, +writes in that chapter "At Hymen's Altar," referred to before: "This +poem was written October 14, 1874, on the occasion of the poet's +engagement to Miss Nellie Logan, who afterward became his wife. By many +competent critics, including no less a personage than Hon. John Barclay, +president of the National Provisions Company, this poem is deemed one of +Mr. McHurdie's noblest achievements, ranking second only to the great +song that gave him national fame."</p> + +<p>And it should be set down as an integral part of this narrative that +John Barclay first read the verses "Love at Sunset" in the <i>Banner</i>, two +weeks after the night of their composition, as he was finishing a +campaign for the Fifth Parallel bonds. He picked up the <i>Banner</i> one +evening at twilight in a house in Pleasant township, and seeing Watts' +initials under some verses, read them at first mechanically, and then +reread them with real zest, and so deeply did they move the man from the +mooring of the campaign that seeing an accordion on the table of the +best room in which he was waiting for supper, Barclay picked it up and +fooled with it for half an hour. It had been a dozen years since he had +played an accordion, and the tunes that came into his fingers were old +tunes in vogue before the war, and he thought of himself as an old man,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> +though he was not yet twenty-five. But the old tunes brought back his +boyhood from days so remote that they seemed a long time past. And that +night when he addressed the people in the Pleasant Valley schoolhouse, +he was half an hour getting on to the subject of the bonds; he dwelt on +the old days and spoke of the drouth of '60 and of the pioneers, and +preached a sermon, with their lives for texts, on the value of service +without thought of money or hope of other reward than the joy one has in +consecrated work. Then he launched into the bond proposition, and when +the votes were counted Pleasant township indorsed Barclay's plan +overwhelmingly. For he was a young man of force, if not of eloquence. +His evident sincerity made up for what he lacked in oratorical charm, +and he left an impression on those about him. So when the bonds carried +in Garrison County, the firm of Ward and Barclay was made local +attorneys for the road, and General Ward, smarting under the defeat of +his party in the state, refused to accept the railroad's business, and +the partnership was dissolved.</p> + +<p>"John," said Ward, as he put his hands on the young man's shoulders and +looked at him a kindly moment, before picking up his bushel basket of +letters and papers, to move them into another room and dissolve the +partnership, "John," the elder man repeated, "if I could always maintain +such a faith in God as you maintain in money and its power, I could +raise the dead."</p> + +<p>Barclay blinked a second and replied, "Well, now, General, look +here—what I don't understand is how you expect to accomplish anything +without money."</p> + +<p>"I can't tell you, John—but some way I have faith that I can—can do +more real work in this world without bothering to get money, than I can +by stopping to get money with which to do good."</p> + +<p>"But if you had a million, you could do more good with it than you are +doing now, couldn't you?" asked Barclay.</p> + +<p>"Yes, perhaps I could," admitted the general, as he eyed his miserable +little pile of worldly goods in the basket. "I suppose I could," he +repeated meditatively.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p> + +<p>"All right then, General," cut in Barclay. "I have no million, any more +than you have; but I'm going to get one—or two, maybe a dozen if I can, +and I want to do good with it just as much as you do. When I get it I'll +show you." Barclay rose to lend the general a hand with his basket. As +they went awkwardly through the door with the load, the general stopping +to get a hold on the basket that would not twist his hand, he put the +load down in the hall and said: "But while you're getting that million, +you're wasting God's ten talents, boy. Can't you see that if you would +use your force, your keenness, and persistence helping mankind in some +way—teaching, preaching, lending a hand to the poor, or helping to +fight organized greed, you would get more of God's work done than you +will by squeezing the daylights out of your fellow-men, making them hate +money because of your avarice, and end by doling it out to them in +charity? That's my point, boy. That's why I don't want your railroad +job."</p> + +<p>They had dropped the basket in the bare room. The general had not so +much as a chair or a desk. He looked it over, and Barclay's eyes +followed his. "What are you going to do for furniture?" asked the +younger man.</p> + +<p>The general's thin face wrinkled into a smile. "Well," he replied, "I +suppose that if a raven can carry dry-goods, groceries, boots and shoes +and drugs, paints and oils,—and certainly the ravens have been bringing +those things to the Wards for eight years now, and they're all paid +for,—the blessed bird can hump itself a little and bring some +furniture, stoves, and hardware."</p> + +<p>Barclay limped into his room, while the general rubbed the dust off the +windows. In a minute John came stumbling in with a chair, and as he set +it down he said, "Here comes the first raven, General, and now if you'll +kindly come and give the ravens a lift, they'll bring you a table." And +so the two men dragged the table into the office, and as they finished, +Ward saw General Hendricks coming up the stairs, and when the new room +had been put in order,—a simple operation,—General Ward hurried home +to help Mrs. Ward get in their dahlia roots for the winter.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span></p> + +<p>As they were digging in the garden, covering the ferns and wrapping the +magnolia tree they had lately acquired, and mulching the perennials, +Mrs. Mary Barclay came toward them buffeting the wind. She wore the long +cowlish waterproof cloak and hood of the period—which she had put on +during the cloudy morning. Her tall strong figure did not bend in the +wind, and the schoolbooks she carried in her hand broke the straight +line of her figure only to heighten the priestess effect that her +approaching presence produced.</p> + +<p>"Well, children," she said, as she stood by the Wards at their work, +"preparing your miracles?" She looked at the bulbs and roots, and +smiled. "How wonderful that all the beauty of the flowers should be in +those scrawny brown things; and," she added as she brushed away the +brown hair of her forties from her broad brow, "God probably thinks the +same thing when He considers men and their souls."</p> + +<p>"And when the gardener puts us away for our winter's sleep?" Ward asked.</p> + +<p>She turned her big frank blue eyes upon him as she took the words from +his mouth, "'And the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.'" Then she +smiled sadly and said, "But it is the old Adam himself that I seem to be +wrestling with just now."</p> + +<p>"In the children—at school?" asked the Wards, one after the other. She +sighed and looked at the little troopers straggling along the highway, +and replied, "Yes, partly that, too," and throwing her unnecessary hood +back, turned her face into the wind and walked quickly away. The Wards +watched her as she strode down the hill, and finally as he bent to his +work the general asked:—</p> + +<p>"Lucy, what does she think of John?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ward, who was busy with a geranium, did not reply at once. But in a +moment she rose and, putting the plant with some others that were to go +to the cellar, replied: "Oh, Phil—you know a mother tries to hope +against hope. She teaches her school every day, and keeps her mind busy. +But sometimes, when she stops in here<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> after school or for lunch, she +can't help dropping things that let me know. I think her heart is +breaking, Phil."</p> + +<p>"Does she know about the wheat deal—I mean about the way he has made +the farmers sign that mortgage by cutting them off from borrowing money +at the bank?"</p> + +<p>"Not all of it—but I think she suspects," replied the wife.</p> + +<p>"Did you know, dear," said the general, as he put the plants in the +barrow to wheel them to the cellar, "that I ran across something +to-day—it may be all suspicion, and I don't want to wrong John—but +Mart Culpepper, God bless his big innocent heart, let something +slip—well, it was John, I think, who arranged for that loan of ten +thousand from Brownwell to Mart. Though why he didn't get it at the +bank, I don't know. But John had some reason. Things look mighty crooked +there at the bank. I know this—Mart says that Brownwell lent him the +money, and Mart lent it to the bank for a month there in August, while +he was holding the Chicago fellow in the air."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ward sat down on the front steps of the porch, and exclaimed:—</p> + +<p>"Well, Phil Ward—that's why the Culpeppers are so nice to Brownwell. +Honestly, Phil, the last time I was over Mrs. Culpepper nearly talked +her head off to me and at Molly about what a fine man he is, and told +all about his family, and connections—he's related to the angel Gabriel +on his mother's side," she laughed, "and he's own cousin to St. Peter +through the Brownwells."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I guess they're innocent enough about it—they aren't mercenary," +interrupted the general.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no," replied Mrs Ward, "never in the world; but he's been good to +them and he's of their stock—and it's only natural."</p> + +<p>"Yes, probably," replied the general, and asked, "Does she intend to +marry him, do you think?" Mrs. Ward was sorting some dahlia roots on the +wheelbarrow and did not reply at once. "Do you suppose they're engaged?" +repeated the general.</p> + +<p>"I often wonder," she returned, still at her task. Then<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> she rose, +holding a bulb in her hands, and said: "It's a funny kind of relation. +Her father and mother egging her on—and you know that kind of a man; +give him an inch and he'll take an ell. I wonder how far he has got." +She took the bulb to a pile near the rear of the house. "Those are the +nice big yellow ones I'm saving for Mrs. Barclay. But I'm sure of one +thing, Molly has no notion of marrying Brownwell." She continued: "Molly +is still in love with Bob. She was over here last week and had a good +cry and told me so."</p> + +<p>"Well, why doesn't she send this man about his business?" exclaimed the +general.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ward sighed a little and replied, "Because—there is only one +perfect person in all the world, and that's you." She smiled at him and +continued: "The rest of us, dear, are just flesh and blood. So we make +mistakes. Molly knows she should; she told me so the other day. And she +hates herself for not doing it. But, dearie—don't you see she thinks if +she does, her father and mother will lose the big house, and Bob will be +involved in some kind of trouble? They keep that before her all of the +time. She says that John is always insisting that she be nice to +Brownwell. And you know the Culpeppers think Brownwell is—well, you +know what they think."</p> + +<p>They worked along for a while, and the general stopped and put his foot +on his spade and cried: "That boy—that boy—that boy! Isn't he selling +his soul to the devil by bits? A little chunk goes every day. And oh, my +dear, my dear—" he broke out, "what profiteth a man if he gain the +whole world, and lose his own soul? Poor, poor John." He fell to his +work again, sighing, "Poor John, poor John!" So they talked on until the +afternoon grew old.</p> + +<p>And while they were talking, John and General Hendricks were in +Barclay's office going over matters, and seeing where they stood.</p> + +<p>"So he says seventy thousand is too much for the company and me to owe?" +said John, at the end of half an hour's conference.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span></p> + +<p>The general was drumming his fingers on the table nervously. "Yes—he +says we've got to reduce that in thirty days, or he'll close us up. +Haven't you got any political influence, somewhere in the East, +John,—some of those stockholders,—that will hold this matter up till +you can harvest your crop next June?"</p> + +<p>Barclay thought a moment, with his hand in his chin, and then slowly +shook his head. A bank inspector from Washington was several degrees +higher in the work of politics than Barclay had gone.</p> + +<p>"Let me see—" droned Barclay; "let me see. We can at least try +scattering it out a little; cut off, say, fifty thousand from me and the +company and put it in the name of Lige—"</p> + +<p>"He's on to Lige, we've got a hat full of Lige's notes in there," +interrupted the general.</p> + +<p>"All right, then, drop Lige and put in the colonel—he'll do that for +me, and I'll see if I can't get the colonel to get Brownwell to +accommodate us. He's burning a good bit of the colonel's stove wood +these nights." Barclay smiled, and added, "And I'll just put Bob in for +a few thousand."</p> + +<p>"But what'll we do about those taxes?" asked the general, anxiously. +"You know they've got to be paid before the first of the year, and +that's only six weeks off."</p> + +<p>Barclay rose and paced the rug, and replied: "Yes, that's so. I was +going to make another note for them. But I suppose we oughtn't to do it +even under cover; for if he found out you had exceeded our loan right +now—you know those fellows get ugly sometimes." The young man screwed +up his face and stood looking out of the window in silence for a long +minute. Then he limped over to his chair and sat down as one who has a +plan. "Say now, General; you know Gabe Carnine's coming in as county +treasurer right after the first of the year, and we will make him help +us. You make your personal check for the nine thousand, and give it to +the old cuss who's in the county treasurer's office now, with the +descriptions of the land, and get the tax receipts; he'll bring the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> +check back to the bank; you give him credit on his pass-book with the +other checks, and just hold your own check out in the drawer as cash. If +my check was in there, the inspector might drop in and see it, and cause +a disturbance. When Gabe comes in, I'll make him carry the matter over +till next summer."</p> + +<p>The transaction would cover only a few days, Barclay explained; and +finally he had his way. So the Larger Good was accomplished.</p> + +<p>And later Adrian Brownwell came into the office to say:—</p> + +<p>"Mr. Barclay, our friend, Colonel Culpepper, confessed to me after some +transparent attempts at subterfuge that my signing an accommodation note +would help you, and do I understand this also will help our young +friend, Robert Hendricks, whom I have never seen, and enable him to +remain at his post during the winter?"</p> + +<p>John Barclay took a square hard look at Brownwell, and got a smile and a +faint little shrug in return, whereupon, for the Larger Good, he replied +"Yes," and for the Larger Good also, perhaps, Adrian Brownwell answered:</p> + +<p>"Well, I shall be delighted—just make my note for thirty days—only +thirty days, you understand; and then—well, of course if circumstances +justify it, I'll renew it." Barclay laughed and asked, "Well, Mr. +Brownwell, as between friends may I ask how 'circumstances' are getting +on?"</p> + +<p>Brownwell shrugged his shoulders and smiled blandly as he answered: +"Just so-so; I go twice a week. And—" he waved his gloves airily and +continued, "What is it the immortal Burns says: 'A man's a man, for a' +that and a' that!' And I'm a man, John Barclay, and she's a woman. And I +go twice a week. You know women, sir, you know women—they're mostly all +alike. So I think—" he smirked complacently as he concluded—"I think +what I need is time—only time."</p> + +<p>"Luck to you," said Barclay. "I'll just make the note thirty days, as +you say, and we can renew it from time to time."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span></p> + +<p>Then Brownwell put on his hat, twirled his cane effusively, and bade +Barclay an elaborate adieu.</p> + +<p>And ten days later, Molly Culpepper, loathing herself in her soul, and +praying for the day of deliverance when it should be all over, walked +slowly from the post-office up the hill to the house, the stately house, +with its impressive pillars, reading this: "My darling Girl: John has +sent me some more mortgages to sell, and they have to be sold now. He +says that father has to have the money, and he and father have laid out +work for me that will keep me here till the middle of January. John says +that the government inspector has been threatening us with serious +trouble in the bank lately, and we must have the money. He says the +times have forced us to do certain things that were technically +wrong—though I guess they were criminally wrong from what he says, and +we must have this money to make things good. So I am compelled to stay +here and work. Father commands me to stay in a way that makes me fear +that my coming home now would mean our ruin. What a brick John is to +stay there and shoulder it all. But, oh, darling, darling, darling, I +love you."</p> + +<p>There was more, of course, and it was from a man's heart, and the +strange and sad part of this story is that when Molly Culpepper read the +rest of the letter, her heart burned in shame, and her shame was keener +than her sorrow that her lover was not coming home.</p> + +<p>So it happened naturally that Molly Culpepper went to the Christmas +dance with Adrian Brownwell, and when Jane Barclay, seeing the +proprietary way the Alabaman hovered over Molly, and his obvious +jealousy of all the other men who were civil to her, asked John why he +did not let Bob come home for the holidays, as he had promised, for the +Larger Good John told her the facts—that there were some mortgages that +had just come in, and they must be sold, so that the company could +reduce its indebtedness to the bank. But the facts are not always the +truth, and in her heart, which did not reason but only felt, Molly +Culpepper, knowing that Brownwell and John<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> Barclay were in some kind of +an affair together, feared the truth. And from her heart she wrote to +her lover questioning John's motives and pleading with him to return, +and he, having merely the facts, did not see the truth, and replied +impatiently—so impatiently that it hurt, and there was temper in her +answer, and then for over a week no letter came, and for over a week no +reply went back to that. And so the Larger Good was doing its fine work +in a wicked world.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2> +</div> + +<p>The spring sun of 1875 that tanned John Barclay's face gave it a +leathery masklike appearance that the succeeding years never entirely +wore off. For he lived in the open by day, riding among his fields in +three townships, watching the green carpet of March rise and begin to +dimple in April, and billow in May. And at night he worked in his office +until the midnight cockcrow. His back was bowed under a score of +burdens. But his greatest burden was the bank; for it gave him worry; +and worry weighed upon him more than work. It was in April—early April +when the days were raw and cloudy, and the nights blustery and +dreary—that Barclay sat in his office one night after a hard day +afield, his top-boots spattered with mud, his corduroy coat spread out +on a chair to dry, and his wet gray soft hat on his desk beside him. +Jane was with her parents in Minneola, and Barclay had come to his +office without eating, from the stable where he left his team. The +yellow lights in the street below were reflected on the mists outside +his window, and the dripping eaves and cornices above him and about him +seemed to mark the time of some eery music too fine for his senses, and +the footfalls in the street below, hurrying footfalls of people +shivering through the mists, seemed to be the drum beats of the weird +symphony that he could not hear.</p> + +<p>Barclay drew a watch from, the pocket of his blue flannel shirt, and +looked at it and stopped writing and stood by the box-stove. He was +looking at the door when he heard a thud on the stairs. It was followed +by a rattling sound, and in a moment Adrian Brownwell and his cane were +in the room. After the rather gorgeous cadenza of Brownwell's greeting +had died away and Barclay had his man in a chair, Barclay opened the +stove door and let the glow of the flames fight the shadows in the +room.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well," said Barclay, turning toward his visitor brusquely, "why won't +you renew that accommodation paper for me again?"</p> + +<p>The Papins and the Dulangprés shrugged their shoulders and waved their +hands through Brownwell rather nastily as he answered, "Circumstances, +Mr. Barclay, circumstances!"</p> + +<p>"You're not getting along fast enough, eh?" retorted Barclay.</p> + +<p>"Yes—and no," returned Brownwell.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" asked Barclay, half divining the truth.</p> + +<p>"Well—it is after all our own affair—but since you are a friend I will +say this: three times a week—sometimes four times a week I go out to +pay my respects. Until November I stayed until nine, at Christmas we put +on another hour; now it is ten-thirty. I am a man, John Barclay—as you +see. She—she is an angel. Very good. In that way, yes. But," the Papins +and Dulangprés came back to his face, and he shook his head. "But +otherwise—no. There we stand still. She will not say it."</p> + +<p>Barclay squinted at the man who sat so complacently in the glow of the +firelight, with his cane between his toes and his gloves lightly fanning +the air. "So I take it," said John, "that you are like the Memorial Day +parade, several hours passing a given point!"</p> + +<p>"Exactly," smiled back Brownwell. He drew from his pocket a diamond +ring. "She will look at it; she will admire it. She will put it on a +chain, but she will not wear it. And so I say, why should I put my head +in a noose here in your bank—what's the use? No, sir, John Barclay—no, +sir. I'm done, sir."</p> + +<p>Barclay knew wheedling would not move Brownwell. He was of the mulish +temperament. So Barclay stretched out in his chair, locked his hands +back of his head, and looked at the ceiling through his eyelashes. After +a silence he addressed the cobwebs above him: "Supposing the case. Would +a letter from me to you, setting forth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> the desperate need of this +accommodation paper, not especially for me, but for Colonel Culpepper's +fortunes and the good name of the Hendricks family—would that help your +cause—a letter that you could show; a letter," Barclay said slowly, +"asking for this accommodation; a letter that you could show +to—to—well, to the proper parties, let us say, to-night; would—that +kind of a letter help—" Barclay rose suddenly to an upright position +and went on: "Say, Mr. Man, that ought to pretty nearly fix it. Let's +leave both matters open, say for two hours, and then at ten o'clock or +so—you come back here, and I'll have the note for you to sign—if you +care to. How's that?" he asked as he turned to his desk and reached for +a pen.</p> + +<p>"Well," replied Brownwell, "I am willing to try."</p> + +<p>And so Barclay sat writing for five minutes, while the glow of the +flames died down, and the shadows ceased fighting and were still.</p> + +<p>"Read this over," said Barclay at length. "You will see," he added, as +he handed Brownwell the unfolded sheets, "that I have made it clear that +if you refuse to sign our notes, General Hendricks will be compelled to +close the bank, and that the examination which will follow will send him +to prison and jeopardize Bob, who has signed a lot of improper notes +there to cover our transactions, and that in the crash Colonel Culpepper +will lose all he has, including the roof over his head—if you refuse to +help us." ("However," snarled Barclay, at his conscience, "I've only +told the truth; for if you take your money and go and shut down on the +colonel, it would make him a pauper.")</p> + +<p>With a flourishing crescendo finale Adrian Brownwell entered the dark +stairway and went down into the street. Barclay turned quickly to his +work as if to avoid meditation. The scratch of his pen and the murmur of +the water on the roof grew louder and louder as the evening waxed old. +And out on the hill, out on Lincoln Avenue, the rain descended, and the +floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house—that stately +house of a father's pride and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>—</p> + +<p>At ten o'clock John Barclay heard a light footstep and a rattling cane +upon the stair, and Brownwell, a human whirligig of gay gestures, came +tripping into the room. "A pen, a pen,"—he cried, "my kingdom for a +pen." He was tugging at his gloves as he spoke, and in the clatter that +he made, Barclay found the blank note and pushed it toward the table's +edge to Brownwell, who put his ornate copy-book signature upon it with a +flourish.</p> + +<p>When he had gone, Barclay wrote a note to Jane telling her of Molly's +engagement to Brownwell, and then he sat posting his books, and figuring +up his accounts. It was after midnight when he limped down the stairs, +and the rain had ceased. But a biting wind like a cruel fate came out of +the north, and he hurried through the deserted street, under lowering +clouds that scurried madly across the stars. But John Barclay could not +look up at the stars, he broke into a limping run and head downward +plunged into the gale. And never in all his life could he take a square +look at Molly Culpepper's diamond ring.</p> + +<p>As the spring deepened Bob Hendricks felt upon him at his work the +pressure of two distinct troubles. One was his sweetheart's attitude +toward him, and the other was the increasing weakness of his father. +Molly Culpepper's letters seemed to be growing sad; also they were +failing in their length and frequency—the young man felt that they were +perfunctory. His father's letters showed a physical breakdown. His +handwriting was unsteady, and often he repeated himself in successive +letters. The sister wrote about her father's weakness, and seemed to +think he was working too hard. But the son suspected that it was worry +rather than work, and that things were not going right in the bank. He +did not know that the Golden Belt Wheat Company had sapped the money of +the bank and had left it a husk, which at any time might crumble. The +father knew this, and after the first of the year every morning when he +opened the bank he feared that day would be the last day of its career.</p> + +<p>And so it fell out that "those that look out of the windows" were +darkened, and General Hendricks rose up<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> with the voice of the bird and +was "afraid of that which was high" and terrors were in the way. So on +his head, the white blossom of the almond tree trembled; and one noon in +March the stage bore to this broken, shaking old man a letter from +Kansas City that ran the sword of fear into his heart and almost stopped +it forever. It ran:—</p> + +<p class='blockquot'>"<span class="smcap">Dear General:</span> I have just learned from talking with a banker here +that an inspector is headed our way. He probably will arrive the +day after this reaches you. Something must be done about that tax +check of yours. The inspector should not find it in the drawer +again. Once was all right, but you must get it out now. Put it in +the form of a note. Make it Carnine's note. He is good for twice +that. Don't bother him with it, but make it out for ninety days, +and by that time we can make another turn. But that note must be in +there. Your check won't do any longer. The inspector has been +gossiping about us up here—and about that check of yours. For +God's sake, don't hesitate, but do this thing quick."</p> + +<p>The letter was not signed, but it came in Barclay's envelope, and was +addressed by Barclay's hand.</p> + +<p>The general fumbled with the pad of blank notes before him for a long +time. He read and reread Barclay's letter. Then he put away the pad and +tore the letter into bits and started for the front door. But a terror +seized him, and he walked behind the counter and put his palsied hand +into the box where he kept cancelled checks, and picked out one of +Gabriel Carnine's checks. He folded it up, and started for the door +again, but turned weakly at the threshold, and walked to the back room +of the bank.</p> + +<p>When it was done, and had been worked through the books, General +Hendricks, quaking with shame and fear, sat shivering before his desk +with jaws agape and the forged name gashed into his soul. And "the +strong men" bowed themselves as he shuffled home in the twilight. The +next day when the inspector came, "all the daughters of music were +brought low" and the feeble, bent, stricken man piped and wheezed and +stammered his confused answers to the young man's questions, and stood +paralyzed with unspeakable horror while the inspector glanced at the +Carnine note and asked some casual question about it. When the bank +closed that night, General Hendricks<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> tried to write to his son and tell +him the truth, but he sat weeping before his desk and could not put down +the words he longed to write. Bob Hendricks found that tear-stained +letter half finished in the desk when he came home, and he kept it +locked up for years. And when he discovered that the date on the letter +and the date on the forged note were the same, the son knew the meaning +of the tears. But it was all for the Larger Good, and so John Barclay +won another game with Destiny.</p> + +<p>But the silver cord was straining, and morning after morning the old +pitcher went to the fountain, to be battered and battered and battered. +His books, which he kept himself, grew spotted and dirty, and day by day +in the early spring the general dreaded lest some depositor would come +into the bank and call for a sum in cash so large that it would take the +cash supply below the legal limit, and that an inspector would suddenly +appear again and discover the deficiency. Except Barclay the other +directors knew nothing of the situation. They signed whatever reports +the general or Barclay put before them; there came a time in April when +any three of a dozen depositors could have taken every penny out of the +bank. When the general was unusually low in spirits, Barclay sent +Colonel Culpepper around to the bank with his anthem about times being +better when the spring really opened, and for an hour the general was +cheerful, but when the colonel went, the general always saw the axe +hanging over his head. And then one morning late in April—one bright +Sunday morning—the wheel of the cistern was broken, and they found the +old man cold in his bed with his face to the wall.</p> + +<p>John Barclay was on a horse riding to the railroad—four hours away, +before the town was up for late Sunday morning breakfast. That afternoon +he went into Topeka on a special engine, and told a Topeka banker who +dealt with the bank of Sycamore Ridge the news of the general's death, +and asked for five thousand dollars in silver to allay a possible run. +At midnight he drove into the Ridge with the money, and the bank opened +in the morning<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> at seven o'clock instead of nine, so that a crowd might +not gather, and depositors who came, saw back of Barclay a great heap of +silver dollars, flanked by all the gold and greenbacks in the vault, and +when a man asked for his money he got it in silver, and when Oscar +Fernald presented a check for over three thousand dollars, Barclay paid +it out in silver, and in the spirit of fun, Sheriff Jake Dolan, who +heard of the counting and recounting of the money while it was going on, +brought in a wheelbarrow and Oscar wheeled his money to his hotel, while +every loafer in town followed him. At noon Fernald came back with his +money, and Barclay refused to take it. The town knew that also. Barclay +did not step out of the teller's cage during the whole day, but Lige +Bemis was his herald, and through him Barclay had Dolan refuse to give +Fernald protection for his money unless Fernald would consent to be +locked up in jail with it. In ten minutes the town knew that story, and +at three o'clock Barclay posted a notice saying the bank would remain +open until nine o'clock that night, to accommodate any depositors who +desired their money, but that it would be closed for three days +following until after the funeral of the president of the bank.</p> + +<p>The next day he sat in the back room of the bank and received privately +nearly all the money that had been taken out Monday, and several +thousand dollars besides that came through fear that Fernald's cash +would attract robbers from the rough country to the West who might loot +the town. To urge in that class of depositors, Barclay asked Sheriff +Dolan to detail a guard of fifty deputies about the bank day and night, +and the day following the cash began coming in with mildew on it, and +Adrian Brownwell appeared that night with a thousand dollars of old +bank-notes, issued in the fifties, that smelled of the earth. Thursday +John limped up and down the street inviting first one business man and +then another into the bank to help him count cash and straighten out his +balance. And each of a dozen men believed for years that he was the man +who first found the balance in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> books of the Exchange National Bank +of Sycamore Ridge, after John Barclay had got them tangled. And when +Barclay was a great and powerful man in the world, these men, being +interviewed by reporters about the personality of Barclay, took pride in +telling this story of his blundering. But when Bob Hendricks reached +Sycamore Ridge Thursday noon, confidence in the safety of the bank was +founded upon a rock.</p> + +<p>So when the town closed its stores that afternoon and took the body of +the general, its first distinguished citizen to die, out upon the Hill, +and laid it to rest in the wild prairie grass, John Barclay and Jane, +his wife, rode in the carriage with the mourners, and John stood by his +friend through the long service, and when the body was lowered into the +grave, the most remote thought in all the world from John's mind was +that he was responsible for the old man's death.</p> + +<p>Bob Hendricks saw Molly Culpepper for the first time in twenty months, +standing by her father with those who gathered about the general's +grave, and as soon as he could leave the friends who came home with him +and his sister, he hurried to the Culpeppers'. As he left his home, he +could see Molly sitting on the veranda behind one of the pillars of +great pride. She moved down the steps toward the gate to meet him. It +was dusk,—deep dusk,—but he knew her figure and was thrilled with joy. +They walked silently from the gate toward the veranda, and the youth's +soul was moved too deeply for words. So deeply indeed was his being +stirred, that he did not notice in his eagerness to bring their souls +together how she was holding him away from her heart.</p> + +<p>The yellow roses were blooming, and the pink roses were in bud. They +strayed idly to the side of the house farthest from the street, and +there they found the lilacs, heavy with blooms; they were higher than +the girl's head,—a little thicket of them,—and behind the thicket was +a rustic seat made of the grape-vines. He stepped toward the chair, +pulling her by the hand, and she followed. He tried to gather her into +his arms, but she slid away from him and cried, "No—no, Bob—no!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Why—why—why! what's wrong?" gasped the youth.</p> + +<p>The girl sank on the seat and covered her face with her hands. He +touched her shoulder and her hair with his finger-tips, and she shivered +away from him. "Oh, Bob—Bob, Bob!—" she cried in agony, still looking +at the grass before her.</p> + +<p>The young man looked at her in perplexity. "Why, dear—why—why, +darling—why, Molly," he stammered, "why—why—"</p> + +<p>She rose and faced him. She gripped herself, and he could feel the +unnatural firmness in her voice as she spoke.</p> + +<p>"Bob, I am not the little girl you left." He put out his arms, but she +shrank back among the lilacs; their perfume was in her face, and she was +impressed with that odd feeling one sometimes has of having had some +glimpse of it all before. She knew that she would say, "I am not +worthy—not worthy any more—Bob, do you understand?"</p> + +<p>And when he had stepped to ward her again with piteous pleading face,—a +face that she had never seen before, yet seemed always to have +known,—she felt that numb sense of familiarity with it all, and it did +not pain her as she feared it would when he cried, "Oh—God, +Molly—nothing you ever could do would make you unworthy of me—Molly, +Molly, what is it?" The anguish in his face flashed back from some +indefinite past to her, and then the illusion was gone, and the drama +was all new. He caught her, but she fought herself away.</p> + +<p>"Don't—don't!" she cried; "you have no right—now." She dropped into +the seat, while he stood over her with horror on his face. She answered +the question of his eyes, rocking her body as she spoke, "Bob—do you +understand now?" He shook his head, and she went on, "We aren't +engaged—not any more, Bob—not any more—never!" He started to speak, +but she said: "I'm going to marry Mr. Brownwell. Oh, Bob—Bob, I told +you I was unworthy—now do you understand?"</p> + +<p>The man turned his face starward a second, and then<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> dropped his head. +"Oh," he groaned, and then sat down beside her at the other end of the +bench. He folded his hands on his knees, and they sat silent for a time, +and then he asked in a dead voice, "You know I love you—still, don't +you, Molly?"</p> + +<p>She answered, "Yes, that's what makes it hard."</p> + +<p>"And do you love me?" he cried with eagerness.</p> + +<p>She sat for a minute without replying and then answered, "I am a woman +now, Bob—a grown woman, and some way things are different."</p> + +<p>They sat without speaking; then he drew a deep breath and said, "Well, I +suppose I ought to go." His head rested on his hand which was supported +by an arm of the chair. He did not offer to rise.</p> + +<p>She rose and went to him, kneeling before him. She put her hands upon +his shoulders, and he put them aside, and she felt him shudder. She +moaned, and looked up at him. Her face was close to his, but he did not +come closer. He stared at her dumbly, and kept shaking his head as if +asking some mute question too deep for words. Then he put out his hand +and took hers. He put it against his cheek and held it in both his own. +She did not take her eyes from his face, but his eyes began to wander.</p> + +<p>"I will never see you again, Bob—I mean like this." She paused.</p> + +<p>There was no life in his hands, and hers slipped away unrestrained. "How +sweet the lilacs smell to-night," he said as he drew in a deep breath. +He leaned back that he might breathe more freely, and added as he +sighed, "I shall smell them through eternity—Molly." Then he rose and +broke off a spray. He helped her rise and said, "Well—so this is the +way of it." His handsome fair face was white in the moonlight, and she +saw that his hair was thinning at the temples, and the strange flash of +familiarity with it all came again as she inhaled the fragrance of the +lilacs.</p> + +<p>She trembled with some chill of inner grief, and cried vehemently, "Oh, +Bob—my boy—my boy—say you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> hate me—for God's love, say you hate me." +She came so close to him that she touched him, then she crumpled against +the side of the seat in a storm of tears, but he looked at her steadily +and shook his head.</p> + +<p>"Come on, Molly. It's too cool for you out here," he said, and took her +hand and walked with her to the steps. She was blinded by her weeping, +and he helped here to the veranda, but he stopped on a lower step where +his face was on a level with hers, and dropping her hand, he said, +"Well, good night, Molly—good night—" and as he half turned from her, +he said in the same voice, "Good-by."</p> + +<p>He went quickly down the walk—a tall stalwart figure, and he carried +his hat in his hand, and wiped his forehead as he went. At the gate he +looked back and saw her standing where he had left her; he could still +hear the pitiful sobs, but he made no sign to her, and she heard him +walking away under the elms into the night. When his steps had ceased +she ran on tiptoe, holding her breath to silence her sobs, through the +hall, up the stairs of the silent home to her room, and locked the door. +When she could not pray, she lay sobbing and groaning through a long +night.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2> +</div> + +<p>The next morning John Barclay gave Robert Hendricks the keys to the +bank. Barclay watched the town until nine o'clock and satisfied himself +that there would be no run on the bank, for during the early part of the +morning young Hendricks was holding a reception in his office; then +Barclay saddled a horse and started for the wheat fields. After the +first hours of the morning had passed, and the townspeople had gone from +the bank, Robert Hendricks began to burrow into the books. He felt +instinctively that he would find there the solution of the puzzle that +perplexed him. For he was sure Molly Culpepper had not jilted him +wantonly. He worked all the long spring afternoon and into the night, +and when he could not sleep he went back to the bank at midnight, +following some clew that rose out of his under-consciousness and +beckoned him to an answer to his question.</p> + +<p>The next morning found him at his counter, still worrying his books as a +ferret worries a rat. They were beginning to mean something to him, and +he saw that the bank was a worm-eaten shell. When he discovered that +Brownwell's notes were not made for bona fide loans, but that they were +made to cover Barclay's overdrafts, he began to find the truth, and then +when he found that Colonel Culpepper had lent the money back to the bank +that he borrowed from Brownwell,—also to save John's overdrafts,—Bob +Hendricks' soul burned pale with rage. He found that John had borrowed +far beyond the limit of his credit at the bank to buy the company's +stock, and that he had used Culpepper and Brownwell to protect his +account when it needed protection. Hendricks went about his work +silently, serving the bank's customers, and greeting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> his neighbours +pleasantly, but his heart was full of a lust to do some bodily hurt to +John Barclay. When John came back, he sauntered into the bank so airily +that Hendricks could not put the hate into his hands that was in his +breast. John was full of a plan to organize a commission company, buy +all of the wheat grown by the Golden Belt Wheat Company and make a +profit off the wheat company for the commission company. He had +bargained with the traffic officers of the railroad company to accept +stock in the commission company in return for rate concessions on the +Corn Belt Railroad, which was within a few months' building distance of +Sycamore Ridge.</p> + +<p>As John unfolded his scheme, Bob eyed his partner almost without a word. +A devil back in some recess of his soul was thirsting for a quarrel. But +Bob's sane consciousness would not unleash the devil, so he replied:—</p> + +<p>"No—you go ahead with your commission company, and I'll stick to the +wheat proposition. That and the bank will keep me going."</p> + +<p>The afternoon was late, and a great heap of papers of the bank and the +company lay before them that needed their time. Bob brushed his devil +back and went to work. But he kept looking at Barclay's neck and +imagining his fingers closing upon it. When the twilight was falling, +Barclay brought the portmanteau containing the notes into the back room +and turning to the "C's" pulled out a note for nine thousand dollars +signed by Gabriel Carnine, who was then county treasurer. Barclay put it +on the table before Hendricks and looked steadily at him a minute before +saying, "Bob—see that note?" And when the young man answered, the other +returned: "We had to do that, and several other things, this spring to +tide us over. I didn't bother you with it—but we just had to do it—or +close up, and go to pieces with the wheat scheme."</p> + +<p>Hendricks picked up the note, and after examining it a moment, asked +quickly, "John, is that Gabe's signature?"</p> + +<p>"No—I couldn't get Gabe to sign it—and we had to have it to make his +account balance."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span></p> + +<p>"And you forged his note,—and are carrying it?" cried Hendricks, +rising.</p> + +<p>"Oh, sit down, Bob—we did it here amongst hands. It wasn't exactly my +affair, the way it got squared around."</p> + +<p>Hendricks took the note to the window. He was flushed, and the devil got +into his eyes when he came back, and he cried, "And you made father do +it!"</p> + +<p>Barclay smiled pacifically, and limped over to Hendricks and took the +note from him and put it back into the portmanteau. Then Barclay +replied: "No, Bob, I didn't make your father—the times made your +father. It was that or confess to Gabe Carnine, who swelled up on taking +his job, that we hadn't paid the taxes on the company's land, though our +check had been passed for it. When it came in, we gave the county +treasurer credit on his daily bank-book for the nine thousand, but we +held out the check. Do you see?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, that far," replied Hendricks.</p> + +<p>"Well, it's a long story after that, but when I found Gabe wouldn't +accommodate us for six months by giving us his note to carry as cash +until we could pay it,—the inspectors wouldn't take mine or your +father's,—and our books had to show the amount of gross cash that the +treasurer deposited before Gabe came in, your father thought it unwise +to keep holding checks that had already been paid in the drawer as cash +for that nine thousand, so we—well, one day he just put this note in, +and worked it through the books."</p> + +<p>Hendricks had his devil well in hand as he stared at Barclay, and then +said: "John—this is mighty dangerous business. Are we carrying his +account nine thousand short on our books, and making his pass-book +balance?"</p> + +<p>"That's it, only—"</p> + +<p>"But suppose some one finds it out?" asked Hendricks.</p> + +<p>"Oh, now, Bob, keep your shirt on. I fixed that. You know they keep two +separate accounts,—a general maintenance account and a bond account, +and Gabe has been letting us keep the paid-off bonds in the vault and +look<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> after their cancelling, and while he was sick, I was in charge of +the treasurer's office and had the run of the bank, and I squared our +account at the Eastern fiscal agency and in the bond account in the +treasurer's office, and fixed up the short maintenance account all with +nine thousand dollars' worth of old bonds that were kicking around the +vault uncancelled, and now the job is hermetically sealed so far as the +treasurer and the bank are concerned."</p> + +<p>"So we can't pay it back if we want to? Is that the way, John?" asked +Hendricks, his fingers twitching as he leaned forward in his chair.</p> + +<p>"Ah, don't get so tragic about it. Some day when Gabe has calmed down, +and wants a renomination, I'll take him in the back room and show him +the error that we've both made, and we'll just quietly put back the +money and give him the laugh." There was a pause, and Barclay tilted his +chair back and grinned. "It's all right, Bob—we were where we had to do +it; the books balance to a 'T' now—and we'll square it with Gabe +sometime."</p> + +<p>"But if we can't—if Gabe won't be—be—well, be reasonable? What then?" +asked Hendricks.</p> + +<p>"Oh, well," returned John, "I've thought of that too. And you'll find +that when, the county treasury changes hands in '79, you'll have to look +after the bond account and the treasurer's books and make a little entry +to satisfy the bonds when they really fall due; then—I'll show you +about it when we're over at the court-house. But if we can't get the +money back with Gabe or the next man, the time will come when we can."</p> + +<p>And Bob Hendricks looked at the natty little man before him and sighed, +and began working for the Larger Good also. And afterwards as the months +flew by the Golden Belt Wheat Company paid the interest on the forged +note, and the bank paid the Golden Belt Wheat Company interest on a +daily ledger balance of nine thousand, and all went happily. The Larger +Good accepted the sacrifices of truth, and went on its felicitous way.</p> + +<p>After Barclay left the bank that night, Hendricks<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> found still more of +the truth. And the devil in the background of his soul came out and +glared through the young man's sleepless eyes as he appeared in +Barclay's office in the morning and said, before he had found a chair, +"John, what's your idea about those farmers' mortgages? Are you going to +let them pay them, or are you going to make them sell under that option +that you've got in them?"</p> + +<p>"Why," asked Barclay, "what's it to us? Haven't the courts decided that +that kind of an option is a sale—clear through to the United States +Supreme Court?"</p> + +<p>"Well, what are you going to do about it?" persisted Hendricks.</p> + +<p>Barclay squinted sidewise at his partner for a few seconds and said, +"Well, it's no affair of ours; we've sold all the mortgages anyway."</p> + +<p>Hendricks wagged his head impatiently and exclaimed, "Quit your dodging +and give me a square answer—what have you got up your sleeve about +those options?"</p> + +<p>Barclay rose, limped to the window, and looked out as he answered: +"Well, I've always supposed we'd fix it up some way to buy back those +mortgages and then take the land we want for ourselves—for you and me +personally—and give the poor land back to the farmers if they pay the +money we lent them."</p> + +<p>"Well," returned Hendricks, "just count me out on that. Whatever I make +in this deal, and you seem to think our share will be plenty, goes to +getting those farmers back their land. So far as I'm concerned that +money we paid them was rent, not a loan!"</p> + +<p>Barclay dropped his hands in astonishment and gaped at Hendricks.</p> + +<p>"Well, my dear Miss Nancy," he exclaimed, "when did you get religion?"</p> + +<p>The two men glared at each other a moment, and Hendricks grappled his +devil and drew a long breath and replied: "Well, you heard what I said." +And then he added: "I'm pretty keen for money, John, but when it comes +to skinning a lot of neighbours out of land that you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> and every one says +is going to raise thirty dollars' worth of wheat to the acre this year +alone, and only paying them ten dollars an acre for the title to the +land itself—" He did not finish. After a pause he added: "Why, they'll +mob you, man. I've got to live with those farmers." Barclay sneered at +Hendricks without speaking and Hendricks stepped over to him and drew +back his open hand as he said angrily, "Stop it—stop it, I say." Then +he exclaimed: "I'm not what you'd call nasty nice, John—but I'm no +robber. I can't take the rent of that land for nothing, raise a +thirty-dollar crop on every acre of it, and make them pay me ten dollars +an acre to get back the poor land and steal the good land, on a +hocus-pocus option."</p> + +<p>"'I do not use the nasty weed, said little Robert Reed,'" replied +Barclay, with a leer on his face. Then, he added: "I've held your +miserable little note-shaving shop up by main strength for a year, by +main strength and awkwardness, and now you come home with your mouth all +fixed for prisms and prunes, and want to get on a higher plane. You try +that," continued Barclay, and his eyes blazed at Hendricks, "and you'll +come down town some morning minus a bank."</p> + +<p>Then the devil in Bob Hendricks was freed for an exultant moment, as his +hands came out of his pockets and clamped down on Barclay's shoulders, +and shook him till his teeth rattled.</p> + +<p>"Not with me, John, not with me," he cried, and he felt his fingers +clutching for the thin neck so near them, and then suddenly his hands +went back to his pockets. "Now, another thing—you got Brownwell to lend +the colonel that money?" Hendricks was himself.</p> + +<p>Barclay nodded.</p> + +<p>"And you got Brownwell to sign a lot of accommodation paper there at the +bank?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—to cover our own overdrafts," retorted Barclay. "It was either +that or bust—and I preferred not to bust. What's more, if we had gone +under there at one stage of the game when Brownwell helped us, we could +have been indicted for obtaining money under false pretences—you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> and +I, I mean. I'm perfectly willing to stick my head inside the jail and +look around," Barclay grinned, "but I'll be damned if I'm going clear +inside for any man—not when I can find a way to back out." Barclay +tried to laugh, but Hendricks would not let him.</p> + +<p>"And so you put up Molly to bail you out." Barclay did not answer and +Hendricks went on bitterly: "Oh, you're a friend, John Barclay, you're a +loyal friend. You've sold me out like a dog, John—like a dog!"</p> + +<p>Barclay, sitting at his desk, playing with a paper-weight, snarled back: +"Why don't you get in the market yourself, if you think I've sold you +out? Why don't you lend the old man some money?"</p> + +<p>"And take it from the bank you've just got done robbing of everything +but the wall-paper?" Hendricks retorted.</p> + +<p>"No," cried Barclay, in a loud voice. "Come off your high horse and take +the profits we'll make on our wheat, pay off old Brownwell and marry +her."</p> + +<p>"And let the bank bust and the farmers slide?" asked Hendricks, "and buy +back Molly with stolen money? Is that your idea?"</p> + +<p>"Well," Barclay snapped, "you have your choice, so if you think more of +the bank and your old hayseeds than you do of Molly, don't come +blubbering around me about selling her."</p> + +<p>"John," sighed Hendricks, after a long wrestle—a final contest with his +demon, "I've gone all over that. And I have decided that if I've got to +swindle seventy-five or a hundred farmers—most of them old soldiers on +their homesteads—out of their little all, and cheat five hundred +depositors out of their money to get Molly, she and I wouldn't be very +happy when we thought of the price, and we'd always think of the price." +His demon was limp in the background of his soul as he added: "Here are +some papers I brought over. Let's get back to the settlement—fix them +up and bring them over to the bank this morning, will you?" And laying a +package carefully on the table, Hendricks turned and went quickly out of +the room.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span></p> + +<p>After Hendricks left the office that May morning, Barclay sat whistling +the air of the song of the "Evening Star," looking blankly at a picture +of Wagner hanging beside a picture of Jay Gould. The tune seemed to +restore his soul. When he had been whistling softly for five minutes or +so, the idea flashed across his mind that flour was the one thing used +in America more than any other food product and that if a man had his +money invested in the manufacture and sale of flour, he would have an +investment that would weather any panic. The idea overcame him, and he +shut his eyes and his ears and gripped his chair and whistled and saw +visions. Molly Culpepper came into the room, and paused a moment on the +threshold as one afraid to interrupt a sleeper. She saw the dapper +little man kicking the chair rounds with his dangling heels, his flushed +face reflecting a brain full of blood, his eyes shut, his head thrown +far back, so that his Adam's apple stuck up irrelevantly, and she knew +only by the persistence of the soft low whistle that he was awake, +clutching at some day-dream. When she cleared her throat, he was +startled and stared at her foolishly for a moment, with the vision still +upon him. His wits came to him, and he rose to greet her.</p> + +<p>"Well—well—why—hello, Molly—I was just figuring on a matter," he +said as he put her in a chair, and then he added, "Well—I wasn't +expecting you."</p> + +<p>Even before she could speak his lips were puckering to pick up the tune +he had dropped. She answered, "No, John, I wanted to see you—so I just +came up."</p> + +<p>"Oh, that's all right, Molly—what is it?" he returned.</p> + +<p>"Well—" answered the young woman, listlessly, "it's about; father. You +know he's badly in debt, and some way—of course he sells lots of land +and all, but you know father, John, and he just doesn't—oh, he just +keeps in debt."</p> + +<p>Barclay had been lapsing back into his revery as she spoke, but he +pulled himself out and replied: "Oh, yes, Molly—I know about father all +right. Can't you make him straighten things out?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, no. John, that's just it. His money comes in so irregularly, this +month a lot and next month nothing, that it just spoils him. When he +gets a lot he spends it like a prince," she smiled sadly and +interjected: "You know he is forever giving away—and then while he's +waiting he gets in debt again. Then we are as poor as the people for +whom he passes subscription papers, and that's just what I wanted to see +you about."</p> + +<p>Barclay took his eyes off Jay Gould's picture long enough to look at the +brown-eyed girl with an oval face and a tip of a chin that just fitted +the hollow of a man's hand; there were the smallest brown freckles in +the world across the bridge of her nose, and under her eyes there was +the faintest suggestion of dark shading. Youth was in her lips and +cheeks, and when she smiled there were dimples. But John's eyes went +back to Jay Gould's solemn black whiskers and he said from his +abstraction, "Well, Molly, I wish I could help you."</p> + +<p>"Well, I knew you would, John, some way; and oh, John, I do need help so +badly." She paused a moment and gazed at him piteously and repeated, "So +badly." But his eyes did not move from the sacred whiskers of his joss. +The vision was flaming in his brain, and with his lips parted, he +whistled "The Evening Star" to conjure it back and keep it with him. The +girl went on:—</p> + +<p>"About that money Mr. Brownwell loaned father, John." She flushed and +cried, "Can't you find some way for father to borrow the money and pay +Mr. Brownwell—now that your wheat is turning out so well?"</p> + +<p>The young man pulled himself out of his day-dream and said, +"Well—why—you see, Molly—I—Well now, to be entirely frank with you, +Molly, I'm going into a business that will take all of my credit—and +every cent of my money."</p> + +<p>He paused a moment, and the girl asked, "Tell me, John, will the wheat +straighten things up at the bank?"</p> + +<p>"Well, it might if Bob had any sense—but he's got a fool notion of +considering a straight mortgage that those farmers gave on their land as +rent, and isn't going to make<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> them redeem their land,—his share of it, +I mean,—and if he doesn't do that, he'll not have a cent, and he +couldn't lend your father any money." Barclay was anxious to get back to +his "Evening Star" and his dream of power, so he asked, "Why, Molly, +what's wrong?"</p> + +<p>"John," she began, "this is a miserable business to talk about; but it +is business, I guess." She stopped and looked at him piteously. "Well, +John, father's debt to Mr. Brownwell—the ten-thousand-dollar loan on +the house—will be due in August." The young man assented. And after a +moment she sighed, "That is why I'm to be married in August." She stood +a moment looking out of the window and cried, "Oh, John, John, isn't +there some way out—isn't there, John?"</p> + +<p>Barclay rose and limped to her and answered harshly: "Not so long as Bob +is a fool—no, Molly. If he wants to go mooning around releasing those +farmers from their mortgages—there's no way out. But I wouldn't care +for a man who didn't think more of me than he did of a lot of old +clodhoppers."</p> + +<p>The girl looked at the hard-faced youth a moment in silence, and turned +without a word and left the room. Barclay floated away on his "Evening +Star" and spun out his dream as a spider spins his web, and when +Hendricks came into the office for a mislaid paper half an hour later, +Barclay still was figuring up profits, and making his web stronger. As +Hendricks, having finished his errand, was about to go, Barclay stopped +him.</p> + +<p>"Bob, Molly's been up here. As nearly as I can get at it, Brownwell has +promised to renew the colonel's mortgage in August. If he and Molly +aren't married by then—no more renewals from him. Don't be a fool, Bob; +let your sod-busters go hang. If you don't get their farms, some one +else will!"</p> + +<p>Hendricks looked at his partner a minute steadily, grunted, and strode +out of the room. And the incident slipped from John Barclay's mind, and +the web of the spider grew stronger and stronger in his brain, but it +cast a shadow that was to reach across his life.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span></p> + +<p>After Hendricks went from his office that morning, Barclay bounded back, +like a boy at play, to the vision of controlling the flour market. He +saw the waving wheat of Garrison County coming to the railroad, and he +knew that his railroad rates were so low that the miller on the Sycamore +could not ship a pound of flour profitably, and Barclay's mind gradually +comprehended that through railroad rates he controlled the mill, and +could buy it at his leisure, upon his own terms. Then the whole scheme +unfolded itself before his closed eyes as he sat with his head tilted +back and pillowed in his hands. If his railroad concession made it +possible for him to underbid the miller at the Ridge, why could he not +get other railroad concessions and underbid every miller along the line +of the Corn Belt road, by dividing profits with the railroad officials? +As he spun out his vision, he could hear the droning voices of General +Ward and Colonel Culpepper in the next room; but he did not heed them.</p> + +<p>They were discussing the things of the day,—indeed, the things of a +fortnight before, to be precise,—the reception given by the Culpeppers +to celebrate their silver wedding anniversary. The windows were open, +and Barclay could hear the men's voices, and he knew vaguely that they +were talking of Lige Bemis. For Barclay had tactfully asked the colonel +as a favour to invite Mr. and Mrs. Bemis to the silver wedding +reception. So the Bemises came. Mrs. Bemis, who was rather stout, even +for a woman in her early forties, wore black satin and jet ornaments, +including black jet ear bobs of tremendous size. And Watts McHurdie was +so touched by the way ten years under a roof had tamed the woman whom he +had known of old as "Happy Hallie," that he wrote a poem for the +<i>Banner</i> about the return of the "Prodigal Daughter," which may be found +in Garrison County scrap-books of that period. As for Mr. Bemis, he went +slinking about the outskirts of the crowd, showing his teeth +considerably, and making it obvious that he was there.</p> + +<p>So as John Barclay rode his "Evening Star" to glory, in the next room +General Ward turned to the colonel, who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> stood puffing in the doorway of +the general's law-office. "Martin, did John Barclay make you invite that +woman to your house—that Bemis woman?"</p> + +<p>The colonel got his breath slowly after climbing the stair, and he did +not reply at once. But he smiled, and stood with his arms akimbo a few +seconds before he spoke. "Well now, General—since you ask it, I may as +well confess it pointedly—I am ashamed to say he did!"</p> + +<p>Ward motioned the colonel to a seat and asked impatiently, "Ashamed?"</p> + +<p>"Well," responded Culpepper, as he put his feet in the window ledge, +"she's as good as I am—if you come down to that! Why shouldn't I, who +pretend to be a gentleman,—a Virginia gentleman, I may say, sir,—why +shouldn't I be ashamed, disgraced, sir, disgraced in point of fact, that +I had to be forced to invite any person in all God's beautiful world to +my home?"</p> + +<p>Ward looked at the colonel coldly a moment and then blurted out: "Ah, +shucks, sir—stuff and nonsense! You know what she was before the +war—Happy Hally! My gracious, Martin, how could you?"</p> + +<p>Martin Culpepper brought his chair down with a bang and turned squarely +to Ward. "General, the war's over now. I knew Happy Hally—and I knew +the Red Legs she trained with. And we're making senators and governors +and state officers and indeed, I may say, prominent citizens out of +them. Why not give Hally her show? You damn cold-nosed Yankee +Brahmins—you have Faith and you have Hope, but you have no more Charity +than a sausage-grinder." The colonel rose, and cried with some asperity, +"General, if you'd preach about the poor less, and pray with 'em more, +you'd know more about your fellow-men, sir!"</p> + +<p>Perhaps this conversation should not have been set down here; for it has +no direct relation to the movement of this narrative. The narrative at +this point should be hurrying along to tell how John Barclay and Bob +Hendricks cleared up a small fortune on their wheat deal, and how that +autumn Barclay bought the mill at Sycamore Ridge by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> squeezing its owner +out, and then set about to establish four branches of the Golden Belt +Wheat Company's elevator service along the line of the new railroad, and +how he controlled the wheat output of three counties the next year +through his enterprise. These facts carry John Barclay forward toward +his life's goal. And while these two middle-aged gentlemen—the general +and the colonel—were in the next room wrangling over the youthful love +affairs of a middle-aged lady, a great dream was shaping in Barclay's +head, and he did not heed them. He was dreaming of controlling the wheat +market of the Golden Belt Railroad, through railroad-rate privileges, +and his fancy was feeling its way into flour, and comprehending what +might be done with wheat products.</p> + +<p>It was a crude dream, but he was aflame with it, and yet—John Barclay, +aged twenty-five, was a young man with curly hair and flattered himself +that he could sing. And there was always in him that side of his nature, +so the reader must know that when Nellie Logan came to his office that +bright summer morning and found him wrapped in his day-dream of power, +she addressed herself not to the Thane of Wheat who should be King +hereafter, but to the baritone singer in the Congregational choir, and +the wheat king scampered back to the dream world when John replied to +Nellie's question.</p> + +<p>"So it's <i>your</i> wedding, is it, Nellie—your wedding," he repeated. +"Well, where does Watts come in?" And then, before she answered, he went +on, "You bet I'll sing at your wedding, and what's more, I'll bring +along my limping Congregational foot, and I'll dance at your wedding."</p> + +<p>"Well, I just knew you would," said the young woman.</p> + +<p>"So old Watts thought I wouldn't, did he?" asked Barclay. "The old +skeezicks—Well, well! Nellie, you tell him that the fellow who was +with Watts when he was shot ten miles from Springfield isn't going to +desert him when he gets a mortal wound in the heart." Then Barclay +added: "You get the music and take it down to Jane, and tell her to +teach me, and I'll be there. Jane says you're going to put old Watts +through all the gaits."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span></p> + +<p>He leaned back in his swivel chair and smiled at his visitor. He had a +slow drawl that he used in teasing, and one who heard that voice and +afterward heard the harsh bark of the man in driving a bargain or +browbeating an adversary would have to look twice to realize that the +same man was talking. A little over an hour before in that very room he +had looked at Bob Hendricks from under wrinkled brows with the vertical +line creased between his eyes and snarled, "Well, then, if you think +she's going to marry that fellow because I got him to lend the colonel +some money, why don't you go and lend the colonel some more money and +get her back?"</p> + +<p>But there was not a muscle twitching in his face as he talked to Nellie +Logan, not a break in his voice, not a ruffle of a hair, to tell her +that John Barclay had broken with the friend of his boyhood and the +partner of his youth, and that he had closed and bolted the Door of Hope +on Molly Culpepper. He drawled on: "Jane was saying that you were going +to have Bob and Molly for best man and bridesmaid. Ought you to do that? +You know they—"</p> + +<p>He did not finish the sentence, but she replied: "Oh, yes, I know about +that. I told Watts he ought to have Mr. Brownwell; but he's as stubborn +as a mule about just that one thing. Everything else—the flower girls +and the procession and the ring service and all—he's so nice about. And +you know I just had to have Molly."</p> + +<p>John slapped the arms of his chair and laughed. "As old Daddy Mason +says, 'Now hain't that just like a woman!' Well, Nellie, it's your +wedding, and a woman is generally not married more than once, so it's +all right. Go it while you're young."</p> + +<p>And so he teased her out of the room, and when Sycamore Ridge packed +itself into the Congregational Church one June night, to witness the +most gorgeous church wedding the town ever had seen, John opened the +ceremonies by singing the "Voice that breathed o'er Eden" most +effectively, and Sycamore Ridge in its best clothes, rather stuffed and +uncomfortable thereby, was in that unnatural<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> attitude toward the world +where it thought John Barclay's voice, a throaty baritone, with much +affectation in the middle register, a tendency to flat in the upper +register, and thick fuzz below "C," was beautiful, though John often +remembered that night with unalloyed shame. He saw himself as he stood +there, primped to kill, like a prize bull at a fair, bellowing out a +mawkish sentiment in a stilted voice, and he wondered how the Ridge ever +managed to endure him afterwards.</p> + +<p>But this is a charitable world, and his temperament was such that he did +not realize that no one paid much attention to him, after the real +ceremony started. When the bride and the bridesmaid came down the aisle, +Nellie Logan radiant in the gown which every woman in the church knew +had come from Chicago and had been bought of the drummer at wholesale +cost, saving the bride over fifteen dollars on the regular price—what +did the guests care for a dapper little man singing a hymn tune through +his nose, even if he was the richest young man in town? And when Molly +Culpepper—dear little Molly Culpepper—came after the bride, blushing +through her powder, and looking straight at the floor for fear her eyes +would wander after her heart and wondering if the people knew—it was of +no consequence that John Barclay's voice frazzled on "F"; for if the +town wished to notice a man at that wedding, there was Watts McHurdie in +a paper collar, with a white embroidered bow tie and the first starched +shirt the town had ever seen him wear, badly out of step with the +procession, while the best man dragged him like an unwilling victim to +the altar; and of course there was the best man,—and a handsome best +man as men go,—fair-skinned, light-haired, blue-eyed, with a good glow +on his immobile face and rather sad eyes that, being in a man's head, +went boldly where they chose and where all the women in the town could +see them go. So there were other things to remember that night besides +John Barclay's singing and the festive figure he cut at that wedding: +there was the wedding supper at the Wards', and the wedding reception at +the Culpeppers', and after it all the dance in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> Culpepper Hall. And all +the town remembers these things, but only two people remember a moment +after the reception when every one was hurrying away to the dance and +when the bridesmaid—such a sweet, pretty little bridesmaid—was +standing alone in a deserted room with a tall groomsman—just for a +moment—just for a moment before Adrian Brownwell came up bustling and +bristling, but long enough to say, "Bob—did you take my gloves there in +the carriage as we were coming home from the church?" and long enough +for him to answer, "Why, did you lose them?" and then to get a good +square look into her eyes. It was only a few seconds in the long +evening—less than a second that their eyes met; but it was enough to be +remembered forever; though why—you say! It was all so commonplace; +there was nothing in it that you would have thought worth remembering +for a moment. "Bob, did you take my gloves?" "Why, did you lose them?" +and then a glance of the eyes. Surely there are more romantic words than +these. But when a man and a woman go in for collecting antiques in their +dialogues, Heaven only knows what old rubbish you will find in their +attics, scoured off and rebuilt and polished with secret tears until the +old stuff glows like embers.</p> + +<p>And that is why, when the music was silent in Culpepper Hall, and the +tall young man walked slowly home alone, as he clicked his own gate +behind him, he brought from his pocket two little white gloves,—just +two ordinary white gloves,—and held them to his lips and lifted his +arms in despair once and let them drop as he stood before his doorstep. +And that is why a girl, a little girl with the weariest face in the +town, looked out of her bedroom window that night and whispered over and +over to herself the name she dared not speak. And all this was going on +while the town was turning over in its bed, listening to the most +tumultuous charivari that Sycamore Ridge has ever known.</p> + +<p>Night after night that summer faithful Jake Dolan walked the streets of +Sycamore Ridge with Bob Hendricks. By day they lived apart, but at night +the young man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> often would look up the elder, and they would walk and +walk together, but never once did Hendricks mention Molly's name nor +refer to her in any way; yet Jake Dolan knew why they walked abroad. How +did he know? How do we know so many things in this world that are +neither seen nor heard? And the Irish—they have the drop of blood that +defies mathematics; the Irish are the only people in the world whom kind +Providence permits to add two and two together to make six. "You say +'tis four," said Dolan, one night, as he and Hendricks stood on the +bridge listening to the roar from the dam. "I say 'tis six. There is +this and there is that and you say they make the other. Not at all; they +make something else entirely different. You take your two and your two +and make your four and try your four on the world, and it works—yes, it +works up to a point; but there is something left over, something +unexplained; you don't know what. I do. It's the other two. Therefore I +say to you, Mr. Robert Hendricks, that two and two make six, because God +loves the Irish, and for no other reason on earth."</p> + +<p>So much for the dreams of Molly, the memories of Bob, and the vagaries +of Mr. Dolan. They were as light as air. But in John Barclay's life a +vision was rising—a vision that was real, palpable, and vital; a vision +of wealth and power,—and as the days and the months passed, the shadow +of that vision grew big and black and real in a score of lives.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XV</h2> +</div> + +<p>As June burned itself gloriously into July, Robert Hendricks no longer +counted the weeks until Molly Culpepper should be married, but counted +the days. So three weeks and two days, from the first of July, became +three weeks, then two weeks and six days, and then one week and six +days, and then six days, five days, four days, three days; and then it +became seventy-two hours. And the three threshing machines of the Golden +Belt Wheat Company were pouring their ceaseless stream into the +company's great bins. The railroad was only five miles away, and +Hendricks was sitting in his office in the bank going over and over his +estimates of the year's crop which was still lying in the field,—save +the crop from less than two thousand acres that was harvested and +threshed. From that he judged that there would be enough to redeem his +share of the farmers' mortgages, which in Hendricks' mind could be +nothing but rent for the land, and to pay his share of the bank's +fraudulent loans to the company—and leave nothing more.</p> + +<p>The fact that John expected to buy back the mortgages from Eastern +investors who had bought them, and then squeeze the farmers out of their +land by the option to buy hidden in the contract, did not move +Hendricks. He saw his duty in the matter, but as the golden flood rose +higher in the bins, and as hour after hour rolled by bringing him nearer +and nearer to the time when Molly Culpepper should marry Adrian +Brownwell, a temptation came to him, and he dallied with it as he sat +figuring at his desk. The bank was a husk. Its real resources had been +sold, and a lot of bogus notes—accommodation paper, they called it—had +taken the place of real assets. For Hendricks<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> to borrow money of any +other institution as the officer of the Exchange National Bank of +Sycamore Ridge would be a crime. And yet he knew that ten thousand +dollars would save her, and his brain was wrought with a madness. And so +he sat figuring while the hours slipped by, trying to discount his +future income from the wheat to justify himself in taking the money from +the bank's vaults. His figures did not encourage him. They showed him +that to be honest with the farmers he might hope for no profit from that +year's crop, and with two years of failure behind him, he knew that to +discount the next year's crop would be nothing less than stealing. Then, +strong and compelling, came the temptation to let the farmers fight it +out with the Eastern investors. The temptation rocked the foundations of +his soul. He knew it was wrong; he knew he would be a thief, if he did +it, no matter what the law might say, no matter what the courts might +adjudge. To Barclay what was legal was right, and what the courts had +passed upon—that was legal. But Hendricks sat with his pencil in his +hand, going over and over his figures, trying to silence his conscience.</p> + +<p>It was a hot afternoon that he sat there, and idly through his mind went +the computation that he had but sixty-six more hours of hope, and as he +looked at the clock he added, "and thirty-eight minutes and twenty-seven +seconds," when Martin Culpepper came ambling into the back room of the +bank.</p> + +<p>"Robert," began the colonel, with his eyes on the floor and his hands +deep in his trousers pockets, "I've just been talking to John." The +colonel rubbed his neck absent-mindedly and went on, "John's a Yankee, +Robert—the blue stripe on his belly is fast blue, sir; it won't fade, +change colour, or crock, in point of fact, not a damned bit, sir, not +till the devil covers it with a griddle stripe, sir, I may say." The +colonel slouched into a chair and looked into Hendricks' face with a +troubled expression and continued, "That John certainly is Yankee, +Robert, and he's too many for me. Yes, sir, certainly he's got me up in +the air, sir—up in the air, and as I may say a mile<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> west, on that +wheat deal." Hendricks leaned forward unconsciously, and the colonel +dropped both hands to his knees and leaned toward Hendricks. "Robert +Hendricks," asked the colonel, as he bored his deep black eyes into the +younger man, "did you know about that option in the wheat land mortgage? +Answer me, sir!"</p> + +<p>"Not at the time, Colonel," returned Hendricks, and began, "but I—"</p> + +<p>"Well, neither did I. And I got half of those mortgages myself. Lige and +I did it all, sir. And Lige knew—Lige, he says it's legal, but I say +it's just common stealing." Hendricks moistened his lips and sat with +mute face gazing at the colonel. The colonel went on, "And now the +farmers have found it out, and the devil's to pay, sir, with no pitch +hot!"</p> + +<p>Hendricks cleared his throat and began, "Well, Colonel—I don't know; of +course I—"</p> + +<p>The elder man rose to his full height and glared at the younger, and +cried, "Ah, Robert, Robert, fire in the mountain, snakes in the +grass—you do know—you do know, sir. You know that to hold up the +farmers of this county in the midst of what amounted to a famine, not to +let them borrow a dollar in the county except on a gouging mortgage, and +then to slip into that mortgage a blind option to sell for ten dollars +an acre land that is worth three times that, is stealing, and so does +John Barclay know that, and, worst of all, so does Martin Culpepper know +that, and the farmers are finding it out—my neighbours and comrades +that I helped to swindle, sir—to rob, I may say—they know what it is."</p> + +<p>The colonel's voice was rising, and he stood glaring and puffing before +the young man, shaking his head furiously. Young Hendricks was engaged +in swallowing his Adam's apple and blinking unsteadily, and just as he +started to reply, the colonel, who had caught his temper by the horn and +was shaking it into submission, cried: "Yes, sir, Robert, that's what I +said, sir; those were my very words in point of fact. And," he began as +he sat down and sighed, "what galls me most of all, Robert, is that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> +John laughs at me. Here you've been gagging and gulping and sputtering, +boy, to keep down your conscience, and so I know—yes, Robert, I'm dead +sure, I may say, that you're all right; but John giggles—giggles, sir, +snickers in point of fact, as though he had done something smart in +getting me to go out among my old soldier friends and rob 'em of their +homesteads. He doesn't care for my good name any more than for his own."</p> + +<p>Hendricks drummed with his fingers on the desk before him. His blue eyes +looked into nothing, and his mind's eye saw the house of cards he had +been dallying with totter and fall. He drew a deep breath before he +looked up at the colonel, and said rather sadly: "Well, Colonel, you're +right. I told John the day after I came home that I wouldn't stand it." +He drummed with his fingers for a moment before continuing, "I suppose +you got about half of those contracts, didn't you?"</p> + +<p>The colonel pulled from his pocket a crumpled paper and handed it to +Hendricks, "Here they are, sir—and every one from a soldier or a +soldier's widow, every one a homestead, sir."</p> + +<p>Hendricks walked to the window, and stood looking out with his eyes cast +down. He fumbled his Masonic watch-charm a moment, and then glancing at +it, caught the colonel's eye and smiled as he said: "I'm on the square, +Colonel, in this matter. I'll protect you." He went to the elder man and +put his hands on his shoulder as he said: "You go to your comrades and +tell them this, Colonel, that between now and snowfall every man will +have his land clear. But," he added, picking up the list of the +colonel's contracts, "don't mention me in the matter." He paused and +continued, "It might hurt the bank. Just tell them you'll see that it's +taken care of."</p> + +<p>The colonel put out his hand as he rose. When their hands met he was +saying: "Blood tells, Robert Hendricks, blood tells. Wasn't your sainted +father a Democrat, boy, a Democrat like me, sir,—a Union Democrat in +point of fact?" The colonel squeezed the younger man's hand as he cried: +"A Union Democrat, sir, who could shoot<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> at his party, sir, but never +could bring himself to vote against it—not once, sir—not once. And +Robert Hendricks, when I see you acting as you've acted just now, sir, +this very minute in point of fact, I may say, sir, that you're almost +honest enough to be a Democrat, sir—like your sainted father." The +colonel held the young man's hand affectionately for a time and then +dropped it, sighing, "Ah, sir—if it wasn't for your damned Yankee free +schools and your damned Yankee surroundings, what a Democrat you would +have made, Robert—what a grand Democrat!" The colonel waved his silver +tobacco box proudly and made for the door and left Hendricks sitting at +his desk, drumming on the board with one hand, and resting his head in +the other, looking longingly into the abyss from which he had escaped; +for the lure of the danger still fluttered his soul.</p> + +<p>Strength had come to him in that hour to resist the temptation. But the +temptation still was there. For he was a young man, giving up for an +intangible thing called justice the dearest thing in his life. He had +opened the door of his life's despair and had walked in, as much like a +man as he could, but he kept looking back with a heavy heart, hungering +with his whole body and most of his soul for all that he had renounced. +And so, staring at the light of other days, and across the shadow of +what might have been, he let ten long minutes tick past toward the +inevitable hour, and then he rose and put his hand to the plough for the +long furrow.</p> + +<p>They are all off the stage now, as Bob Hendricks is standing in the +front door of the bank that August night with his watch in his hand +reckoning the minutes—some four thousand three hundred of them—until +Molly Culpepper will pass from him forever, and as the stage is almost +deserted, we may peep under the rear curtain for a minute. Observe +Sycamore Ridge in the eighties, with Hendricks its moving spirit, +controlling its politics, dominating its business,—for John Barclay's +business has moved to the City and Bob Hendricks has become the material +embodiment of the town. And the town there on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> canvas is a busy town +of twenty thousand people. Just back of that scene we find a convention +spread on the canvas, a political convention wherein Robert Hendricks is +struggling for good government and clean politics. Observe him a +taciturn, forceful man, with his hands on the machinery of his party in +the state, shaping its destinies, directing its politics, seeking no +office, keeping himself in the background, desiring only to serve, and +not to advertise his power. So more and more power comes to him, greater +and wider opportunities to serve his state. His business grows and +multiplies, and he becomes a strong man among men; always reserved, +always cautious, a man whose self-poise makes people take him for a +cynic, though his heart is full of hope and of the joy of life to the +very last. Let us lift up one more rag—one more painted rag in the +scenery of his life—and see him a reformer of national fame; see him +with an unflinching hand pull the wires that control a great national +policy of his party, and watch in that scene wherein he names a +president—even against the power and the money and the organization of +rich men, brutally rich men like John Barclay. Hendricks' thin hair is +growing gray in this scene, and his skin is no longer fresh and white; +but his eyes have a twinkle in them, and the ardour of his soul glows in +a glad countenance. And as he sits alone in his room long after midnight +while the bands are roaring and the processions cheering and the great +city is ablaze with excitement, Robert Hendricks, turning fifty, winds +his watch—the same watch that he holds in his hand here while we pause +to peek under the canvas behind the scenes—and wonders if Molly will be +glad that his side won. He has not seen her for months, nor talked with +her for years, and yet as he sits there winding his watch after his +great strategic victory in national politics, he hopes fondly that +perhaps Molly will know that he played a clean hand and won a fair game.</p> + +<p>Now let us crawl out from under this rubbish of the coming years, back +into Sycamore Ridge. And while the street is deserted, let us turn the +film of events forward, letting them flit by unnoticed past the wedding +of Molly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> Culpepper and Adrian Brownwell until we come to the August day +when the railroad came to Sycamore Ridge.</p> + +<p>Jacob Dolan, sheriff in and for Garrison County for four years, +beginning with 1873, remembered the summer of 1875 to his dying day, as +the year when he tore his blue soldier coat, and for twenty-five years, +after the fight in which the coat was torn, Dolan never put it on for a +funeral or a state occasion, that he did not smooth out the seam that +Nellie Logan McHurdie made in mending the rent place, and recall the +exigencies of the public service which made it necessary to tear one's +clothes to keep the peace.</p> + +<p>"You may state to the court in your own way," said the judge at the +trial of the sheriff for assault, "just how the difficulty began."</p> + +<p>"Well, sir," answered Dolan, "there was a bit of a celebration in town, +on August 30, it being the day the railroad came in, and in honour of +the occasion I put on my regimentals, and along about—say eleven +o'clock—as the crowd began to thicken up around the bank corner, and in +front of the hardware store, I was walking along, kind of shoving the +way clear for the ladies to pass, when some one behind me says, 'General +Hendricks was an old thief, and his son is no better,' and I turned +around and clapt my eye on this gentleman here. I'd never seen him +before in my whole life, but I knew by the bold free gay way he had with +his tongue that he was from Minneola and bent on trouble. 'Keep still,' +says I, calm and dignified like, bent on preserving the peace, as was my +duty. 'I'll not,' says he. 'You will,' says I. 'Tis a free country,' +says he, coming toward me with one shoulder wiggling. 'But not for +cowards who malign the dead,' says I. 'Well, they were thieves,' says +he, shaking his fist and getting more and more into contempt of court +every minute. 'You're a liar,' says I, maintaining the dignity of my +office. 'And you're a thief too,' says he. 'A what?' says I. 'A thief,' +says he. 'Whack,' says I, with my stick across his head, upholding the +dignity of the court. 'Biff,' says he, with a brick that was handy, more +and more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> contemptuous. 'You dirty, mangy cur,' says I, grabbing him by +the ears and pounding his head against the wall as I spoke, hoping to +get some idea of the dignity of the court into his rebellious head. +'Whoop,' says he, and, as he tore my coat, 'Yip yip,' says I, and may it +please the court it was shortly thereafter that the real trouble +started, though I misremember just how at this time." And as there were +three "E" Company men on the jury, they acquitted Dolan and advised the +court to assess a fine on the prosecuting witness for contributory +negligence in resisting an officer.</p> + +<p>But the coat—the blue coat with brass buttons, with the straps of a +lieutenant on the shoulders, was mended and even in that same summer did +active service many times. For that was a busy summer for Sycamore +Ridge, and holidays came faster than the months. When the supreme court +decided the Minneola suit to enjoin the building of the court-house, in +favour of Syeamore Ridge, there was another holiday, and men drew John +Barclay around in the new hack with the top down, and there were +fireworks in the evening. For it was John Barclay's lawsuit. Lige Bemis, +who was county attorney, did not try to claim credit for the work, and +when the last acre of the great wheat crop of the Golden Belt Wheat +Company was cut, and threshed, there was a big celebration and the +elevator of the Golden Belt Wheat Company was formally turned over to +the company, and John Barclay was the hero of another happy occasion. +For the elevator, standing on a switch by the railroad track, was his +"proposition." And every one in town knew that the railroad company had +made a rate of wheat to Barclay and his associates, so low that Minneola +could not compete, even if she hauled her wheat to another station on +the road, so Minneola teams lined up at Barclay's elevator. That autumn +Minneola, without a railroad, without a chance for the county-seat, and +without a grain market, began to fag, and during the last of September, +the Mason House came moving out over the hill road, from Minneola to +Sycamore Ridge, surrounded by a great crowd of enthusiastic men from +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> Ridge. Every evening, of the two weeks in which the house was +moving, people drove out from Sycamore Ridge to see it, and Lycurgus +Mason, sitting on the back step smoking,—he could not get into the +habit of using the front steps even in his day of triumph,—was a person +of considerable importance.</p> + +<p>Money was plentiful, and the Exchange National Bank grew with the +country. The procession of covered wagons, that had straggled and failed +the year before, began to close ranks in the spring; and in place of +"Buck" and "Ball" and "Star," and "Bright" and "Tom" and "Jerry," who +used to groan under the yoke, horses were hitched to the wagons, and +stock followed after them, and thus Garrison County was settled, and +Sycamore Ridge grew from three to five thousand people in three years. +In the spring of '75 the <i>Banner</i> began to publish a daily edition, and +Editor Brownwell went up and down the railroad on his pass, attending +conventions and making himself a familiar figure in the state. Times +were so prosperous that the people lost interest in the crime of '73, +and General Ward had to stay in his law-office, but he joined the +teetotalers and helped to organize the Good Templars and the state +temperance society. Colonel Culpepper in his prosperity took to fancy +vests, cut extremely low, and the Culpepper women became the nucleus of +organized polite society in the Ridge.</p> + +<p>The money that John Barclay made in that first wheat transaction was the +foundation of his fortune. For that money gave him two important things +needed in making money—confidence in himself, and prestige. He was +twenty-five years old then, and he had demonstrated to his community +thoroughly that he had courage, that he was crafty, and that he went to +his end and got results, without stopping for overnice scruples of +honour. Sycamore Ridge and Garrison County, excepting a few men like +General Ward, who were known as cranks, regarded John as the smartest +man in the county—smarter even than Lige Bemis. And the whole +community, including some of the injured farmers themselves, considered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> +Hendricks a sissy for his scruples, and thought Barclay a shrewd +financier for claiming all that he could get. Barclay got hold of eight +thousand acres of wheat land, in adjacent tracts, and went ahead with +his business. In August he ploughed the ground for another crop. Also he +persuaded his mother to let him build a new home on the site of the +Barclay home by the Sycamore tree under the ridge, and when it was done +that winter Mr. and Mrs. John Barclay moved out of their rooms at the +Thayer House and lived with John's mother. The house they built cost ten +thousand dollars when it was finished, and it may still be seen as part +of the great rambling structure that he built in the nineties. John put +five hundred dollars' worth of books into the new house—sets of books, +which strangely enough he forced himself to wade through laboriously, +and thus he cultivated a habit of reading that always remained with him. +In those days the books with cracked backs in his library were Emerson, +Browning, and Tennyson. And after a hard day's work he would come home +to his poets and his piano. He thought out the whole plan of the Barclay +Economy Car Door Strip about midnight, sitting in his night clothes at +the piano after reading "Abt Vogler," and the central idea for the +address on the "Practical Transcendentalist," which he delivered at the +opening of the state university the next year, came to him one winter +night after he had tried to compose a clanging march as an air to fit +Emerson's "The Sphinx." After almost a quarter of a century that address +became the first chapter of Barclay's famous book, which created such +ribaldry in the newspapers, entitled "The Obligations of Wealth."</p> + +<p>It was in 1879 that Barclay patented his Economy Door Strip, and put it +in his grain cars. It saved loss of grain in shipping, and Barclay, +being on terms of business intimacy with the railroad men, sold the +Economy Strip to the railroads to use on every car of grain or flour he +shipped. And Lycurgus Mason, taken from the kitchen of the Mason House, +hired a room over McHurdie's harness shop, and made the strips there. +His first day in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> his new shop is impressed upon his memory by an +incident that is the seed of a considerable part of this story.</p> + +<p>He always remembers that day, because, when he got to the Thayer House, +he found John there in the buggy waiting for him, and a crowd of men +sitting around smoking cigars. In the seat by Barclay was a cigar-box, +and Lycurgus cut in, before John could speak, with, "Well, which is it?"</p> + +<p>And John returned, "A girl—get in; Mother Mason needs you."</p> + +<p>Lycurgus fumbled under the box lid for a cigar as he got into the buggy, +and repeated: "Mother needs me, eh? Well, now, ain't that just like a +woman, taking a man from his work in the middle of the day? What are you +going to name her?"</p> + +<p>"How do you like Jeanette?" asked Barclay, as he turned the horse. "You +know we can't have two Janes," he explained.</p> + +<p>"Well," asked the elder man, tentatively, "how does mother stand on +Jeanette?"</p> + +<p>"Mother Mason," answered Barclay, "is against it."</p> + +<p>"All right," replied Lycurgus, "I vote aye. What does she want?" he +asked.</p> + +<p>"Susan B.," returned Barclay.</p> + +<p>"Susan B. Anthony?" queried the new grandfather.</p> + +<p>"Exactly," replied the new father.</p> + +<p>The two rode down the street in silence; as they turned into the Barclay +driveway Lycurgus chuckled, "Well—well—Susan B. Wants to put breeches +on that child before she gets her eyes open." Then he turned on Barclay +with a broad grin of fellowship, as he pinched the young man's leg and +laughed, "Say—John—honest, ain't that just like a woman?"</p> + +<p>And so Jeanette Thatcher Barclay came into this world, and what with her +Grandmother Barclay uncovering her to look at the Thatcher nose, and her +Grandmother Mason taking her to the attic so that she could go upstairs +before she went down, that she might never come down in the world, and +what with her Grandfather Mason rubbing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> her almost raw with his fuzzy +beard before the women could scream at him, and what with her father +trying to jostle her on his knee, and what with all the different things +Mrs. Ward, the mother of six, would have done to her, and all the things +Mrs. Culpepper, mother of three, would have done to her, and Mrs. +McHurdie, mother of none, prevented the others from doing, Jeanette had +rather an exciting birthday. And Jeanette Barclay as a young woman often +looks at the scrap-book with its crinkly leaves and reads this item from +the <i>Daily Banner</i>: "The angels visited our prosperous city again last +Thursday, June 12, and left a little one named Jeanette at the home of +our honoured townsman, John Barclay. Mother and child progressing +nicely." But under this item is a long poem clipped from a paper printed +a week later,—Jeanette has counted the stanzas many times and knows +there are seventeen, and each one ends with "when the angels brought +Jeanette." Her father used to read the verses to her to tease her when +she was in her teens, and once when she was in her twenties, and +Jeanette had the lonely poet out to dinner one Sunday, she sat with him +on the sofa in the library, looking at the old scrap-book. Their eyes +fell upon the verses about the angels bringing Jeanette, and the girl +noticed the old man mumming it over and smiling.</p> + +<p>"Tell me, Uncle Watts," she asked, "why did you make such a long poem +about such a short girl?"</p> + +<p>The poet ran his fingers through his rough gray beard, and went on +droning off the lines, and grinning as he read. When he had finished, he +took her pretty hand in his gnarly, bony one and patted the white firm +flesh tenderly as he peered back through the years. "U-h-m, that was +years and years ago, Jeanette—years and years ago, and Nellie had just +bought me my rhyming dictionary. It was the first time I had a chance to +use it." The lyrical artist drummed with his fingers on the mahogany arm +of the sofa. "My goodness, child—what a long column there was of words +rhyming with 'ette.'" He laughed to himself as he mused: "You know, my +dear, I had to let 'brevet' and 'fret' and 'roulette' go, because I +couldn't think of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> anything to say about them. You don't know how that +worries a poet." He looked at the verses in the book before him and then +shook his head sadly: "I was young then—it seems strange to think I +could write that. Youth, youth," he sighed as he patted the fresh young +hand beside him, "it is not by chance you rhyme with truth."</p> + +<p>His eyes glistened, and the girl put her cheek against his and squeezed +the thin, trembling hand as she cried, "Oh, Uncle Watts, Uncle Watts, +you're a dear—a regular dear!"</p> + +<p>"In his latter days," writes Colonel Culpepper, in the second edition of +the Biography, "those subterranean fires of life that flowed so +fervently in his youth and manhood smouldered, and he did not write +often. But on occasion the flames would rise and burn for a moment with +their old-time ardour. The poem 'After Glow' was penned one night just +following a visit with a young woman, Jeanette, only daughter of +Honourable and Mrs. John Barclay, whose birth is celebrated elsewhere in +this volume under the title 'When the Angels brought Jeanette.' The day +after the poem 'After Glow' was composed I was sitting in the harness +shop with the poet when the conversation turned upon the compensations +of age. I said: 'Sir, do you not think that one of our compensations is +that found in the freedom and the rare intimacy with which we are +treated by the young women? They no longer seem to fear us. Is it not +sweet?' I asked. Our hero turned from his bench with a smile and a +deprecating gesture as he replied softly, 'Ah, Colonel—that's just it; +that's just the trouble.' And then he took from a box near by this poem, +'The After Glow,' and read it to me. And I knew the meaning of the +line—</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 2em;">"'Oh, drowsy blood that tosses in its sleep.'</span><br /></p> + +<p>"And so we fell to talking of other days. And until the twilight came we +sat together, dreaming of faded moons."</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2> +</div> + +<p>Colonel Martin Culpepper was standing with, one foot on the window ledge +in the office of Philemon R. Ward one bright spring morning watching the +procession of humanity file into the post-office and out into the street +upon the regular business of life. Mrs. Watts McHurdie, a bride of five +years and obviously proud of it, hurried by, and Mrs. John Barclay drove +down the street in her phaeton; Oscar Fernald, with a pencil behind his +ear, came out of his office licking an envelope and loped into the +post-office and out like a dog looking for his bone; and then a lank +figure sauntered down the street, stopping here and there to talk with a +passerby, stepping into a stairway to light a cigar, and betimes leaning +languidly against an awning post in the sun and overhauling farmers +passing down Main Street in their wagons.</p> + +<p>"He's certainly a gallus-looking slink," ejaculated the colonel.</p> + +<p>The general, writing at his desk, asked, "Who?"</p> + +<p>"Our old friend and comrade in arms, Lige Bemis." At the blank look on +the general's face the colonel shook his head wearily. "Don't know what +a gallus-looking slink is, do you? General, the more I live with you +damn Yankees and fight for your flag and die for your country, sir, the +more astonished I am at your limited and provincial knowledge of the +United States language. Here you are, a Harvard graduate, with the +Harvard pickle dripping off your ears, confessing such ignorance of your +mother-tongue. General, a gallus-looking slink is four hoss thieves, +three revenue officers, a tin pedler, and a sheep-killing dog, all +rolled into one man. And as I before remarked, our beloved comrade, Lige +Bemis, is certainly a gallus-looking slink."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Far be it from me," continued the colonel, "residing as I may say in a +rather open and somewhat exposed domicile—a glass house in fact—to +throw stones at Elijah Westlake Bemis,—far be it." The colonel patted +himself heroically on the stomach and laughed. "Doubtless, while I +haven't been a professional horse thief, nor a cattle rustler, still, +probably, if the truth was known, I've done a number of things equally +distasteful—I was going to say obnoxious—in the sight of Mr. Bemis, so +we'll let that pass." The colonel stretched his suspenders out and let +them flap against the plaits of his immaculate shirt. "But I will say, +General, that as I see it, it will be a heap handier for me to explain +to St. Peter at the gate the things I've done than if he'd ask me about +Lige's record."</p> + +<p>The general scratched along, without answering, and the colonel looked +meditatively into the street; then he began to smile, and the smile +glowed into a beam that bespread his countenance and sank into a mood +that set his vest to shaking "like a bowl full of jelly." "I was just +thinking," he said to nobody in particular, "that if Lige was jumped out +of his grave right quick by Gabriel and hauled up before St. Peter and +asked to justify my record, he'd have some trouble too—considerable +difficulty, I may say. I reckon it's all a matter of having to live with +your sins till you get a good excuse thought up."</p> + +<p>The general pushed aside his work impatiently and tilted back in his +chair. "Come, Martin Culpepper, come, come! That won't do. You know +better than that. What's the use of your pretending to be as bad as Lige +Bemis? You know better and I know better and the whole town knows +better. He's little, and he's mean, and snooping, and crooked as a dog's +hind leg. Why, he was in here yesterday—actually in here to see me. +Yes, sir—what do you think of that? Wants to be state senator."</p> + +<p>"So I hear," smiled the colonel.</p> + +<p>"Well," continued the general, "he came in here yesterday as pious as a +deacon, and he said that his friends were insisting on his running +because his enemies were bringing up that 'old trouble' on him. He calls +his horse<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> stealing and cattle rustling 'that old trouble.' Honestly, +Martin, you'd think he was being persecuted. It was all I could do to +keep from sympathizing with him. He said he couldn't afford to retreat +under fire, and then he told me how he had been trying to be a better +man, and win the respect of the people—and I couldn't stand it any +longer, and I rose up and shook my fist in his face and said: 'Lige +Bemis, you disreputable, horse-stealing cow thief, what right have you +to ask my help? What right have you got to run for state senator, +anyway?' And, Martin, the brazen whelp reared back and looked me +squarely in the eye and answered without blinking, 'Because, Phil Ward, +I want the job.' What do you think of that for brass?"</p> + +<p>The colonel slapped his campaign hat on his leg and laughed. There was +always, even to the last, something feminine in Martin Culpepper's face +when he laughed—a kind of alternating personality of the other sex +seemed to tiptoe up to his consciousness and peek out of his kind eyes. +As he laughed with Ward the colonel spoke: "Criminy, but that's like +him. He's over there talking to Gabe Carnine on the corner now. I know +what he's saying. He has only one speech, and he gets it off to all of +us. He's got his cigar chawed down to a rag, stuck in one corner of his +mouth, and he's saying, 'Gabe—this is the fight of my life. This is the +last time I'm going to ask my friends for help.' General, I've heard +that now, off and on, first and last, from old Lige at every city, +state, county, and lodge election since the war closed, and I can see +how Gabe is twisting and wiggling trying to get away from it. He's heard +it too. Now Lige is saying: 'Gabe, I ain't going to lie to you; you know +me, and you know I've made mistakes—but they were errors of judgment, +and I want to get a chance to live 'em down. I want to show the young +men of this state that Lige Bemis of the Red Legs is a man—even if he +was wild as a young fellow; it'll prove that a man can rise.' Poor old +Gabe—Lige has got him by the coat front, now. That's the third degree. +When he gets him by the neck and begins to whisper, he's giving<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> him the +work in the uniform rank. He's saying: 'Gabe, I've got to have you with +me. I can't win without you, and I would rather lose than win with you +against me. You stand for all that's upright in this county, and if +you'll come to my aid, I can win.' Here, General—look—Lige's got him +by the neck and the hand. Now for the password right from the grand +lodge, 'Gabe, you'd make a fine state treasurer—I can land it for you. +Make me state senator, and with my state acquaintance, added to the +prestige of this office, I can make a deal that will land you.' Oh, I +know his whole speech," laughed the colonel. "Bob Hendricks is to be +secretary of state, John Barclay is to be governor, Oscar Fernald is to +be state auditor, and the boys say that Lycurgus Mason has the refusal +of warden of the Penitentiary." The colonel chuckled as he added: "So +far as the boys have been able to learn, Lige still has United States +senator, president, and five places in the cabinet to go on, but +Minneola township returns ain't all in yet, and they may change the +result. By the way, General, what did you get?"</p> + +<p>The general flushed and replied, "Well, to be perfectly honest with you, +Mart—he did promise me to vote for the dram-shop law."</p> + +<p>And in the convention that summer Lige Bemis strode with his ragged +cigar sticking from the corner of his mouth, with his black eyes +blazing, and his shock of black hair on end, begging, bulldozing, and +buying delegates to vote for him. He had the river wards behind him to a +man, and he had the upland townships where the farmers needed a second +name on their notes at the bank; and in the gentleman's ward—the +silk-stocking ward—he had Gabriel Carnine, chairman of the first ward +delegation, casting the solid vote of that ward for Bemis ballot after +ballot. And when Bemis got Minneola township for fifty dollars,—and +everybody in the convention knew it,—he was declared the nominee of the +party with a whoop.</p> + +<p>But behind Bemis was the sinister figure of young John Barclay working +for his Elevator Company. He needed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> Bemis in politics, and Bemis needed +Barclay in business. And there the alliance between Barclay and Bemis +was cemented, to last for a quarter of a century. Barclay and Bemis went +into the campaign together and asked the people to rally to the support +of the party that had put down the rebellion, that had freed four +million slaves, and had put the names of Lincoln and of Grant and +Garfield as stars in the world's firmament of heroes. And the people of +Garrison County responded, and State Senator Elijah Westlake Bemis did +for Barclay in the legislature the things that Barclay would have +preferred not to do for himself, and the Golden Belt Elevator Company +throve and waxed fat. And Lige Bemis, its attorney, put himself in the +way of becoming a "general counsel," with his name on an opaque glass +door. For as Barclay rose in the world, he found the need of Bemis more +and more pressing every year. In politics the favours a man does for +others are his capital, and Barclay's deposit grew large. He was forever +helping some one. His standing with the powers in the state was good. He +was a local railroad attorney, and knew the men who had passes to give, +and who were responsible for the direction which legislation took during +the session. Barclay saw that they put Bemis on the judiciary committee, +and by manipulating the judiciary committee he controlled a dozen votes +through Bemis. He changed a railroad assessment law, secured the passage +of a law permitting his Elevator Company to cheat the farmers by falsely +grading their wheat, and prevented the passage of half a dozen laws +restricting the powers of railroads. So at the close of the legislative +session his name appeared under a wood-cut picture in the <i>Commonwealth</i> +newspaper, and in the article thereunto appended Barclay was referred to +as one of the "money kings of our young state." That summer he turned +his wheat into his elevator early and at a low price, and borrowed money +on it, and bought five new elevators and strained his credit to the +limit, and before the fall closed he had ten more, and controlled the +wheat in twenty counties. Strangers riding through the state on the Corn +Belt Railroad saw the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> words, "The Golden Belt Elevator Company" on +elevators all along the line. But few people knew then that the +"Company" had become a partnership between John Barclay of Sycamore +Ridge and less than half a dozen railroad men, with Barclay owning +seventy-five per cent of the partnership and with State Senator Bemis +the attorney for the company.</p> + +<p>That year the railroad officials who were making money out of the Golden +Belt Elevator Company were obliging, and Barclay made a contract with +them to ship all grain from the Golden Belt Company's elevators in cars +equipped with the Barclay Economy Rubber Strip, and he sold these strips +to the railroads for four dollars apiece and put them on at the +elevators. He shipped ten thousand cars that year, and Lycurgus Mason +hired two men to help him in the strip factory. And John Barclay, in +addition to the regular rebate, made forty thousand dollars that he did +not have to divide. The next year he leased three large mills and took +over a score of elevators and paid Lycurgus twenty dollars a week, and +Lycurgus deposited money in the bank in his own name for the first time +in his life.</p> + +<p>As the century clanged noisily into its busy eighties, Adrian P. +Brownwell creaked stiffly into his forties. And while all the world +about him was growing rich,—or thought it was, which is the same +thing,—Brownwell seemed to be struggling to keep barely even with the +score of life. The <i>Banner</i> of course ran as a daily, but it was a +miserable, half-starved little sheet, badly printed, and edited, as the +printers used to say, with a pitchfork. It looked shiftless and +dirty-faced long before Brownwell began to look seedy. Editor Brownwell +was forever going on excursions—editorial excursions, land-buyers' +excursions, corn trains, fruit trains, trade trains, political junkets, +tours of inspection of new towns and new fields, and for consideration +he was forever writing grandiloquent accounts of his adventures home to +the <i>Banner</i>. But from the very first he ostentatiously left Molly, his +wife, at home. "The place for a woman," said Brownwell to the assembled +company on the Barclay veranda one evening,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> when Jane had asked him why +he did not take Molly to the opening of the new hotel at Garden City, +"the place for woman is in the sacred precincts of home, 'far from the +madding crowd's ignoble throng.' The madame and I," with a flourish of +his cane, "came to that agreement early, eh, my dear, eh?" he asked, +poking her masterfully with his cane. And Molly Brownwell, wistful-eyed +and fading, smiled and assented, and the incident passed as dozens of +other incidents passed in the Ridge, which made the women wish they had +Adrian Brownwell, to handle for just one day. But the angels in that +department of heaven where the marriages are made are exceedingly +careful not to give to that particular kind of women the Adrian +Brownwell kind of men, so the experiment which every one on earth for +thousands of years has longed to witness, still remains a theory, and +Adrian Brownwell traipsed up and down the earth, in his lavender gloves, +his long coat and mouse-coloured trousers, his high hat, with his +twirling cane, and the everlasting red carnation in his buttonhole. His +absence made it necessary for Molly Brownwell to leave the sacred +precincts of the home many and many a Saturday afternoon, to go over the +books at the <i>Banner</i> office, make out bills, take them out, and collect +the money due upon them and pay off the printers who got out the paper. +But Adrian Brownwell ostentatiously ignored such services and kept up +the fiction about the sacred precincts, and often wrote scorching +editorials about the "encroachment of women" and grew indignant +editorially at the growth of sentiment for woman's suffrage. On one +occasion he left on the copy-hook a fervid appeal for women to repulse +the commercialism which "was sullying the fair rose of womanhood," and +taking "from woman the rare perfume of her chiefest charm," and then he +went away on a ten days' journey, and the foreman of the <i>Banner</i> had to +ask Mrs. Brownwell to collect enough money from the sheriff and a +delinquent livery-stable keeper to pay the freight charges on the paper +stock needed for that week's issue of the paper.</p> + +<p>The town came to know these things, and so when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> Brownwell, who, since +his marriage, had taken up his abode at the Culpeppers', hinted at his +"extravagant family," the town refused to take him seriously. And the +strutting, pompous little man, who referred grandly to "my wife," and +then to "the madame," and finally to "my landlady," in a rather +elaborate attempt at jocularity, laughed alone at his merriment along +this line, and never knew that no one cared for his humour.</p> + +<p>So in his early forties Editor Brownwell dried up and grew yellow and +began to dye his mustaches and his eyebrows, and to devote much time to +considering his own importance. "Throw it out," said Brownwell to the +foreman, "not a line of it shall go!" He had just come home from a trip +and had happened to glance over the proof of the article describing the +laying of the corner-stone of Ward University.</p> + +<p>"But that's the only thing that happened in town this week, and Mrs. +Brownwell wrote it herself."</p> + +<p>"Cut it out, I say," insisted Brownwell, and then threw back his +shoulders and marched to his desk, snapping his eyes, and demonstrating +to the printers that he was a man of consequence. "I'll teach 'em," he +roared. "I'll teach 'em to make up their committees and leave me out."</p> + +<p>He raged about the office, and finally wrote the name of Philemon R. +Ward in large letters on the office blacklist hanging above his desk. +This list contained the names which under no circumstances were to +appear in the paper. But it was a flexible list. The next day John +Barclay, who desired to have his speech on the laying of the +corner-stone printed in full, gave Brownwell twenty dollars, and a most +glowing account of the event in question appeared in the <i>Banner</i>, and +eloquence staggered under the burden of praise which Brownwell's +language loaded upon the shoulders of General Ward.</p> + +<p>It is now nearly a generation since that corner-stone was laid. Boys and +girls who then were children have children in the university, and its +alumni include a brigadier in the army, a poet, a preacher of national +renown,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> two college presidents, an authority upon the dynamics of +living matter, and two men who died in the American mission at Foo Chow +during the uprising in 1900. When General Ward was running for President +of the United States on one of the various seceding branches of the +prohibition party, while Jeanette Barclay was a little girl, he found +the money for it; two maiden great-aunts on his mother's side of the +family had half a million dollars to leave to something, and the general +got it. They willed it to him to hold in trust during his lifetime, but +the day after the check came for it, he had transferred the money to a +university fund, and had borrowed fifty dollars of Bob Hendricks to +clean up his grocery bills and tide him over until his pension came. But +he was a practical old fox. He announced that he would give the money to +a college only if the town would give a similar sum, and what with John +Barclay's hundred-thousand-dollar donation, and Bob Hendricks' ten +thousand, and what with the subscription paper carried around by Colonel +Culpepper, who proudly headed it with five thousand dollars, and after +the figure wrote in red ink "in real estate," much to the town's +merriment, and what with public meetings and exhortations in the +churches, and what with voting one hundred thousand dollars in bonds by +Garrison County for the privilege of sending students to the college +without tuition, the amount was raised; and as the procession wheeled +out of Main Street to attend the ceremonies incident to laying the +corner-stone that beautiful October day, it is doubtful which was the +prouder man—Martin Culpepper, the master of ceremonies, in his plumed +hat, flashing sword, and red sash, or General Philemon Ward, who for the +first time in a dozen years heard the crowd cheer his name when the +governor in his speech pointed at the general's picture—his campaign +picture that had been hooted with derision and spattered with filth on +so many different occasions in the town. The governor's remarks were of +course perfunctory; he devoted five or ten minutes to the praise of +General Ward, of Sycamore Ridge, of John Barclay, and of education in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> +general, and then made his regular speech that he used for college +commencements, for addresses of welcome to church conferences, synods, +and assemblies, and for conclaves of the grand lodge. General Ward spoke +poorly, which was to his credit, considering the occasion, and Watts +McHurdie's poem got entangled with Juno and Hermes and Minerva and a +number of scandalous heathen gods,—who were no friends of Watts,—and +the crowd tired before he finished the second canto. But many +discriminating persons think that John Barclay's address, "The Time of +True Romance," was the best thing he ever wrote. It may be found in his +book as Chapter XI. "The Goths," he said, "came out of the woods, pulled +the beards of the senators, destroyed the Roman state, murdered and +pillaged the Roman people, and left the world the Gothic arch; the +Vikings came over the sea, roaring their sagas of rapine and slaughter; +the conquerors came to Europe with spear and sword and torch and left +the outlines of the map, the boundaries of states. Luther married his +nun, and set Christendom to fighting over it for a hundred years, but he +left a free conscience. Cromwell thrust his pikes into the noble heads +of England, snapped his fingers at law, and left civil liberty. +Organized murder reached its sublimity in the war that Lincoln waged, +and in that murdering and pillage true romance came to mankind in its +flower. Murder for the moment in these piping times has become impolite. +But true romance is here. Our heroes rob and plunder, and build cities, +and swing gayly around the curves of the railroads they have stolen, and +swagger through the cities they have levied upon the people to build. Do +we care to-day whether Charlemagne murdered his enemies with a sword or +an axe; do we ask if King Arthur used painless assassination or burned +his foes at the stake? Who cares to know that Cæsar was a rake, and that +William the Conqueror was a robber? They did their work and did it well, +and are snugly sitting on their monuments where no moralist can reach +them. So those searching for true romance to-day, who regard the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> +decalogue as mere persiflage, and the moral code as a thing of archaic +interest, will get their day's work done and strut into posterity in +bronze and marble. They will cheat and rob and oppress and grind the +faces off the poor, and do their work and follow their visions, and live +the romance in their hearts. To-morrow we will take their work, +disinfect it, and dedicate it to God's uses."</p> + +<p>There was more of it—four thousand words more, to be exact, and when +General Ward went home that night he prayed his Unitarian God to forgive +John Barclay for his blasphemy. And for years the general shuddered when +his memory brought back the picture of the little man, with his hard +tanned face, his glaring green eyes, his brazen voice trumpeting the +doctrine of materialism to the people.</p> + +<p>"John," said the general, the next day, as he sat in the mill, going +over the plans of the college buildings with Barclay, who was chairman +of the board of directors, "John, why are you so crass, so gross a +materialist? You have enough money—why don't you stop getting it and do +something with it worth while?"</p> + +<p>"Because, General, I'm not making money—that's only an incident of my +day's work. I'm organizing the grain industry of this country as it is +organized in no other country on this planet." Barclay rose as he spoke +and began limping the length of the room. It was his habit to walk when +he talked, and he knew the general had come to catechize him.</p> + +<p>"Yes, but then, John—what then?"</p> + +<p>"What then?" repeated Barclay, with his hands in his pockets and his +eyes on the floor. "Coffee, maybe—perhaps sugar, or tobacco. Or why not +the whole food supply of the people—let me have meat and sugar where I +will have flour and grain, and in ten years no man in America can open +his grocery store in the morning until he has asked John Barclay for the +key." He snapped his eyes good-naturedly at the general, challenging the +man's approval.</p> + +<p>The general smiled and replied: "No, John, you'll get<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> the social bug +and go around in knee-breeches, riding a horse after a scared fox, or +keeping a lot of hussies on a yacht. They all get that way sooner or +later."</p> + +<p>Barclay leaned over Ward, stuck out his hard jaw and growled: "Well, I +won't. I'm going to be a tourist-sleeper millionaire. I stick to +Sycamore Ridge; Jeanette goes to the public schools; Jane buys her +clothes at Bob Hendricks' or Dorman's, or at the most of Marshall Field +in Chicago; I go fishing down at Minneola when I want rest." Ward +started to protest, but Barclay headed him off. "I made a million last +year. What did I do with it? See any yachts on the Sycamore? Observe any +understudies for Jane around the place? Have you heard of any villas for +the Barclays in Newport? No—no, you haven't, but you may like to know +that I have control of a railroad that handles more wheat than any other +hundred miles in the world, and it is the key to the lake situation. And +I've put the price of my Economy Door Strip up to ten dollars, and they +don't dare refuse it. What's more, I'm going to hire a high-priced New +York sculptor to make a monument for old Henry Schnitzler, who fell at +Wilson's Creek, and put it in the cemetery. But I am giving none of my +hard-earned cash to cooks and florists and chorus ladies. So if I want +to steal a mill or so every season, and gut a railroad, I'm going to do +it, but no one can rise up and say I am squandering my substance on +riotous living."</p> + +<p>Barclay shook his head as he spoke and gesticulated with his hands, and +the general, seeing that he could not get the younger man to talk of +serious things, brought out the plans for the college buildings, and the +men fell to the work in hand with a will.</p> + +<p>Barclay's spirit was the spirit of his times—growing out of a condition +which, as Barclay said in his speech, was like Emersonian optimism set +to Wagnerian music. In Sycamore Ridge factories rose in the bottoms near +the creek, and shop hands appeared on the streets at night; new people +invaded Lincoln Avenue, and the Culpeppers, to maintain their social +supremacy, had to hire a coloured<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> man to open the door for an afternoon +party, and for an evening reception it took two, one for the door and +one to stand at the top of the stairs.</p> + +<p>Those were the palmy days of the colonel's life. Money came easily, and +went easily. The Culpepper Mortgage Company employed fifty men, who +handled money all over the West, and one of the coloured men who opened +the door at the annual social affair at the Culpepper home also took +care of the horses, and drove the colonel down to his office in the +Barclay block every morning, and drove him home in the evening.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Watts McHurdie to Gabriel Carnine as the two walked down +the hill into the business section of the town, a few days after the +corner-stone of Ward College was laid, "old Phil has got his college +started and Mart's got his church a-going."</p> + +<p>"You mean the East End Mission? Yes, and I don't know which, of 'em is +happier over his work," replied Carnine.</p> + +<p>"Well, Mart certainly is proud; he's been too busy to loaf in the shop +for six months," said McHurdie.</p> + +<p>Carnine smiled, and stroked his chestnut beard reflectively before he +added: "Probably that's why he hasn't been in to renew his last two +notes. But I guess he does a lot of good to the poor people over there +along the river. Though I shouldn't wonder if he was encouraging them to +be paupers." Carnine paused a moment and then added, "Good old +Mart—he's got a heart just like a woman's."</p> + +<p>They were passing the court-house square, and Bailiff Jacob Dolan, with +a fist full of legal papers, caught step with Carnine and McHurdie. "We +were talking about Mart Culpepper and his Mission Church," said Carnine. +"Don't you suppose, Jake, that Mart, by circulating down there with his +basket so much, encourages the people to be shiftless? We were just +wondering."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you were, were you?" snapped Dolan. "There you go, Gabe Carnine; +since you've moved to town and got to be president of a bank, you're +mighty damn scared about making paupers. When Christ told the young<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> man +to sell his goods and give them to the poor, He didn't tell him to be +careful about making them paupers. And Mr. Gabriel Carnine, Esquire, +having the aroma of one large morning's drink on my breath emboldens me +to say, that if you rich men will do your part in giving, the Lord will +manage to keep His side of the traces from scraping on the wheel. And if +I had one more good nip, I'd say, which Heaven forbid, that you fellows +are asking more of the Lord by expecting Him to save your shrivelled +selfish little souls from hell-fire because of your squeeze-penny +charities, than you would be asking by expecting Him to keep the poor +from becoming paupers by the dribs you give them. And if Mart Culpepper +can give his time and his money every day helping them poor devils down +by the track, niggers and whites, good and bad, male and female, I guess +the Lord will put in lick for lick with Mart and see that his helping +doesn't hurt them." Dolan shook his head at the banker, and then smiled +at him good-naturedly as he finished, "Put that in your knapsack, you +son of a gun, and chew on it till I see you again." Whereupon he turned +a corner and went his way.</p> + +<p>Carnine laughed rather unnaturally and said to McHurdie, "That's why +he's never got on like the other boys. Whiskey's a bad partner."</p> + +<p>McHurdie agreed, and went chuckling to his work, when Carnine turned +into the bank. Later in the forenoon Bailiff Dolan came in grinning, and +took a seat by the stove in McHurdie's shop and said as he reached into +the waste-basket for a scrap of harness leather, and began whittling it, +"What did Gabe say when I left you this morning?" and without waiting +for a reply, went on, "I've thought for some time Gabe needed a little +something for what ails him, and I gave it to him, out of the goodness +of my heart."</p> + +<p>McHurdie looked at Dolan over his glasses and replied, "Speech is +silver, but silence is golden."</p> + +<p>"The same," answered Dolan, "the same it is, and by the same authority +apples of gold in pictures of silver is a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> word fitly spoken to a man +like Gabe Gamine." He whittled for a few minutes while the harness maker +worked, and then sticking his pocket-knife into the chair between his +legs, said: "But what I came in to tell you was about Lige Bemis; did +you know he's in town? Well, he is. Johnnie Barclay wired him to leave +the dump up in the City and come down here, and what for, do you think? +'Tis this. The council was going to change the name of Ellen Avenue out +by the college to Garfield, and because it was named for that little +girl of Mart's that died right after the war, don't you think Johnnie's +out raising hell about it, and brought Lige down here to beat the game. +He'll be spending a lot of money if he has to. Now you wouldn't think +he'd do that for old Mart, would you? He's too many for me—that Johnny +boy is. I can't make him out." The Irishman played with his knife, +sticking it in the chair and pulling it out for a while, and then +continued: "Oh, yes, what I was going to tell you was the little spat me +and Lige had over Johnnie. Lige was in my room in the court-house +waiting to see a man in the court, and was bragging to me about how +smart John was, and says Lige, 'He's found some earth over in +Missouri—yellow clay,' he says, 'that's just as good as oatmeal, and he +ships it all over the country to his oatmeal mills and mixes it with the +real stuff and sells it.' I says: 'He does, does he? Sells mud mixed +with oatmeal?' and Lige says, 'Yes, sir, he's got a whole mountain of +it, and he's getting ten dollars a ton net for it, which is better than +a gold mine.' 'And you call that smart?' says I. 'Yes,' says he, 'yes, +sir, that's commercial instinct; it's perfectly clean mud, and our +chemist says it won't harm any one,' says he. 'And him president of the +Golden Belt Elevator Co.?' says I. 'He is,' says Lige. 'And don't need +the money at all?' says I. 'Not a penny of it,' says he. 'Well,' says I, +'Lige Bemis,' says I, 'when Johnnie gets to hell,—and he'll get there +as sure as it doesn't freeze over,' says I, 'may the devil put him under +that mountain of mud and keep his railroad running night and day dumping +more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> mud on while he eats his way out as a penance,' says I. And you +orto heard 'em laugh." Dolan went on cutting curly-cues from the +leather, and McHurdie kept on sewing at his bench. "It is a queer +world—a queer world; and that Johnnie Barclay is a queer duck. Bringing +Lige Bemis clear down here to help old Mart out of a little trouble +there ain't a dollar in; and then turning around and feeding the +American people a mountain of mud. Giving the town a park with his +mother's name on it, and selling little tin strips for ten dollars +apiece to pay for it. He's a queer duck. I'll bet it will keep the +recording angel busy keeping books on Johnnie Barclay."</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, Jake," replied McHurdie, after a silence, "maybe the angels +will just drop a tear and wipe much of the evil off."</p> + +<p>"Maybe so, Watts McHurdie, maybe so," returned Dolan, "but there won't +be a dry eye in the house, as the papers say, if they keep up with him." +And after delivering himself of this, Dolan rose and yawned, and went +out of the shop singing an old tune which recited the fact that he had +"a job to do down in the boulevard."</p> + +<p>Looking over the years that have passed since John Barclay and Sycamore +Ridge were coming out of raw adolescence into maturity, one sees that +there was a miracle of change in them both, but where it was and just +how it came, one may not say. The town had no special advantages. It +might have been one of a thousand dreary brown unpainted villages that +dot the wind-swept plain to-day, instead of the bright, prosperous, +elm-shaded town that it is. John Barclay in those days of his early +thirties might have become a penny-pinching dull-witted "prominent +citizen" of the Ridge, with no wider sphere of influence than the +Sycamore Valley, or at most the Corn Belt Railroad. But he and the town +grew, and whether it was destiny that guided them, or whether they made +their own destiny, one cannot say. The town seemed to be struggling and +fighting its way to supremacy in the Sycamore Valley; and the colonel +and the general and Watts McHurdie, sitting in the harness shop a score +of years after those<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> days of the seventies, used to try to remember +some episode or event that would tell them how John fought his way up. +But they could not do so. It was a fight in his soul. Every time his +hand reached out to steal a mill or crush an opponent with the weapon of +his secret railroad rebates, something caught his hand and held it for a +moment, and he had to fight his way free. At first he had to learn to +hate the man he was about to ruin, and to pretend that he thought the +man was about to ruin him. Then he could justify himself in his greedy +game. But at last he worked almost merrily. He came to enjoy the combat +for its own sake. And sometimes he would play with a victim cat-wise, +and after a victory in which the mouse fought well, John would lick his +chops with some satisfaction at his business prowess. Mill after mill +along the valley and through the West came under his control. And his +skin grew leathery, and the brass lustre in his eyes grew hard and +metallic. When he knew that he was the richest man in Garrison County, +he saw that there were richer men in the state, and in after years when +he was the richest man in the state, and in the Missouri Valley, the +rich men in other states moved him by their wealth to work harder. But +before he was thirty, his laugh had become a cackle, and Colonel Martin +Culpepper, who would saunter along when Barclay would limp by on Main +Street, would call out after him, "Slow down, Johnnie, slow down, boy, +or you'll bust a biler." And then the colonel would pause and gaze +benignly after the limping figure bobbing along in the next block, and +if there was a bystander to address, the colonel would say, "For a +flat-wheel he does certainly make good time." And then if the bystander +looked worth the while, the colonel, in seven cases out of ten, would +pull out a subscription paper for some new church building, or for some +charitable purpose, and proceed to solicit the needed funds.</p> + +<hr class='major' /> + + +<div> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> +<h1>BOOK II</h1> +</div> + +<div> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> +<h2><span class="smcap">Being No Chapter at All, but an Interlude for the Orchestra</span></h2> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>And +so the years slipped by—monotonous years they seem now, so far as +this story goes. Because little happened worth the telling; for growth +is so still and so dull and so undramatic that it escapes interest and +climax; yet it is all there is in life. For the roots of events in the +ground of the past are like the crowded moments of our passing lives +that are recorded only in our under-consciousnesses, to rise in other +years in character formed, in traits established, in events fructified. +And in the years when the evil days came not, John Barclay's tragedy was +stirring in the soil of his soul.</p> + +<p>And now, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the management, let us thank +you for your kind attention, during the tedious act which has closed. We +have done our best to please you with the puppets and have cracked their +heads together in fine fashion, and they have danced and cried and +crackled, while we pulled the strings as our mummers mumbled. But now +they must have new clothes on. Time, the great costumer, must change +their make-up. So we will fold down the curtain. John Barclay, a +Gentleman, must be painted yellow with gold. Philemon Ward, a Patriot, +must be sprinkled with gray. Martin Culpepper's Large White Plumes must +be towsled. Watts McHurdie, a Poet, must be bent a little at the hips +and shoulders. Adrian Brownwell, a Gallant, must creak as he struts. +Neal Dow Ward, an Infant, must put on long trousers. E. W. Bemis, a +Lawyer, must be dignified; Jacob Dolan, an Irishman and a Soldier, must +grow unkempt and frowsy. Robert Hendricks, Fellow Fine, must have his +blond hair rubbed off at the temples, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> his face marked with +maturity. Lycurgus Mason, a Woman Tamer, must get used to wearing white +shirts. Gabriel Carnine, a Money Changer, must feel his importance; and +Oscar Fernald, a Tavern Keeper, must be hobbled by the years. All but +the shades must be refurbished. General Hendricks and Elmer, his son, +must fade farther into the mists of the past, while Henry Schnitzler +settles comfortably down in storied urn and animated bust.</p> + +<p>There they hang together on the line, these basswood folk, and beside +them wave their womankind. These also must be repaired and refitted +throughout, as Oscar Fernald's letter-heads used to say of the Thayer +House. Jane Barclay, Wife of John, must have the "star light, star +bright" wiped out of her eyes. Mary Barclay, Mother of the Same, must +have her limbs trimmed gaunt, and her face chiselled strong and +indomitable. Jeanette Barclay, a Toddler, must grow into dresses. Molly +Culpepper, a Dear, must have her heart taken out, and her face show the +shock of the operation. Nellie Logan, a poet's Wife, must join all the +lodges in the Ridge to help her husband in politics. Trixie Lee, little +Beatrix Lee, daughter of J. Lord and Lady Lee, must have her childish +face scarred and her eyes glazed. Mrs. Hally Bemis, a Prodigal, must be +swathed in silk. Elizabeth Cady Stanton Ward and all her sisters must be +put in the simple garb of school-teachers. Miss Hendricks, a Mouse, must +hide in the dusky places; and Ellen Culpepper, a Memory, must come to +life.</p> + +<p>And so, ladies and gentlemen, while we have been diverting you, Time has +been at work on the little people of the passing show, and now before we +draw back the curtain to let them caper across your hearts, let us again +thank you one and all for your courtesy in staying, and hope that what +you see and hear may make you wiser and kinder and braver; for this is a +moral entertainment, good people, planned to show you that yesterday +makes to-day and they both make to-morrow, and so the world spins round +the sun.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2> +</div> + +<p>The rumble of the wheels in the great stone mill across the Sycamore and +the roar of the waters over the dam seem to have been in Jeanette +Barclay's ears from the day of her birth; for she was but a baby when +the stone mill rose where the little red mill had stood, and beside the +stone mill there had grown up the long stone factory wherein Lycurgus +Mason was a man of consequence. As the trains whirled by strangers could +see the signs in mammoth letters, "The Golden Belt Mills" on the larger +building and on the smaller, "The Barclay Economy Door Strip Factory." +Standing on the stone steps of her father's house the child could read +these signs clear across the mill-pond, and from these signs she learned +her letters. For her father had more pride in that one mill on the +Sycamore than in the scores of other mills that he controlled. And even +in after years, when he controlled mills all over the West, and owned +railroads upon which to take his flour to the sea, and ships in which to +carry his flour all over the world, the Golden Belt Mill at Sycamore +Ridge was his chief pride. The rumble of the wheels and the hoarse voice +of the dam that seemed to Jeanette like the call of the sea, were so +sweet to her father's ears that when he wearied of the work of the +National Provisions Company, with its two floors of busy offices in the +Corn Exchange Building in the great city, he would come home to Sycamore +Ridge, and go to his private office in the mill. The child remembers +what seemed like endless days, but what in truth were only a few hours +in a few days in a few years, when Daddy Barclay carried her on his +shoulders across the bridge and sat her down barefooted and bareheaded +to play upon the dam, while he in his old clothes prodded among the +great wheels near by or sat beside her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> telling her where he caught this +fish or that fish or a turtle or a water moccasin when he was a little +boy. At low water, she remembers that he sometimes let her wade in the +clear stream, while he sat in his office near by watching her from the +window. That was when she was only four years old, and she always had +the strangest memory of a playfellow on the dam, a big girl, who +fluttered in and out of the shadows on the stones. Jeanette talked with +her, but no one else could see her, and once the big girl, who could not +talk herself, stamped her feet and beckoned Jeanette to come away from a +rock on which she was playing, and her father, looking out of a window, +turned white when he saw a snake coiled beside the rock. But Jeanette +saw the snake and was frightened, and told her father that Ellen saw it +too, and she could not make him understand who Ellen was. So he only +trembled and hugged his little girl to him tightly, and mother would not +let the child play on the dam again all that summer.</p> + +<p>She made songs to fit the rhythmic murmur of the wheels. And always she +remembered the days she had spent with Daddy Mason in the factory where +the machines thumped and creaked, and where the long rubber sheets were +cut and sewed, and the clanking rolls of tin and zinc curled into +strips, and Daddy Mason made her a little set of dishes and all the +things she needed in her playhouse from the scraps of tin and rubber, +and she learned to twist the little tin strips on a stick and make the +prettiest bright shiny tin curls for her dolls that a little girl ever +saw in all the world. And once Ellen came from among the moving shadows +of the wheels and drew Jeanette from beneath a great knife that fell at +her feet, and when Daddy Mason saw what had happened he fainted, poor +man, and made her promise never, never, so long as she lived, to tell +Grandma Mason. And then he drove her up town, and they had some +ice-cream, and she was sent to bed without her lunch because she would +not tell Grandma Mason why grandpa bought ice-cream for her.</p> + +<p>It was such a beautiful life, so natural and so exactly what a little +girl should have, that even though she went<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> to the ocean and crossed it +as a child with her mother and grandmother, and even though she went to +the mountains many times, her childish heart always was homesick for the +mill, and at night in her dreams her ears were filled with the murmur of +waters and the wordless song of ceaseless wheels. And once when she came +back a big girl,—an exceedingly big girl with braids down her back, a +girl in the third reader in fact, who could read everything in the +fourth reader, because she had already done so, and who could read +Eugene Aram in the back of the sixth, only she never did find out what +"gyves upon his wrists" meant,—once when she came back to the dam and +was sitting there looking at the sunset reflected in the bubbling, +froth-flecked water at her feet, Ellen came suddenly, under the noise of +the roaring water, and frightened Jeanette so that she screamed and +jumped; and Ellen, who was much older than Jeanette—four or five and +maybe six years older—ran right over the slippery, moss-covered ridge +of the dam, and was gone before Jeanette could call her back. The child +never saw her playmate again, though often Jeanette would wonder where +Ellen lived and who she was. As the years went by, Jeanette came to +remember her playmate as her dream child, and once when she was a young +miss of eighteen, and something in her hurt to be said, she tried to +make a little poem about her dream-child playmate, but all she ever got +was:—</p> + +<p>"O eyes, so brown and clear like water sparkling over mossy stones."</p> + +<p>So she gave it up and wrote a poem about a prince who carried away a +maiden, and then she tore up the prince and the maiden, and if it were +not for that line about the eyes in the back of her trigonometry, with a +long list of words under it rhyming with "stones," she would have +forgotten about her playfellow, and much of the memory of the dam and +the pride she took as a child in the great letters upon the high stone +walls of the mills, and of the word "Barclay" on the long low walls of +the factory, might have passed from her consciousness altogether. By +such frail links does memory bind us to our past; and yet,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> once formed, +how like steel they hold us! What we will be, grows from what we are, +and what we are has grown from what we were. If Jeanette Barclay, the +only child of a man who, when she was in her twenties, was to be one of +the hundred richest men in his country,—so far as mere money goes,—had +been brought up with a governess and a maid, and with frills and +furbelows and tucks and Heaven knows what of silly kinks and fluffy +stuff in her childish head, instead of being brought up in the Sycamore +Ridge public schools, with Grandmother Barclay to teach her the things +that a little girl in the fourth reader should know, and with a whole +community of honest, hard-working men and women about her to teach her +what life really is, indeed she would have lived a different life, and +when she was ready to marry—But there we go looking in the back of the +book again, and that will not do at all; and besides, a little blue-eyed +girl in gingham aprons, sitting on a cool stone with moss on its north +side, watching the bass play among the rocks in a clear, deep, +sun-mottled pool under a great elm tree, has a right to the illusions of +her childhood and should not be hustled into long dresses and love +affairs until her time has come.</p> + +<p>But the recollection of those days, so vivid and so sweet, is one of her +choicest treasures. Of course things were not as she saw them. Jake +Dolan was only in his forties then, and considered himself a young man. +But the child remembers him as a tall, brown-eyed man whom she saw on +state occasions in his faded blue army clothes, and to her he has always +been the picture of a veteran. Some one must have told her—though she +cannot remember who it was—that as Jake Dolan gently descended the +social and political scale, he sloughed off his worldly goods, and as he +moved about in the court-house from the sheriff's office to the deputy's +office, and from the deputy's to the bailiff's, and from the bailiff's +to the constable's, and from the constable's to the janitor's room in +the basement, he carried with him the little bundle that contained all +his worldly goods, the thin blue uniform, spotless and trim,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> and his +lieutenant's commission, and mustering-out papers from the army. It is +odd, is it not, that this prosaic old chap, who smoked a clay pipe, and +whose only accomplishment was the ability to sing "The Hat me Father +Wore," under three drinks, and the "Sword of Bunker Hill," under ten, +should have epitomized all that was heroic in this child's memory. As +for General Philemon Ward,—a dear old crank who, when Jeanette was +born, was voting with the Republican party for the first time since the +war, and who ran twice for President on some strange issue before she +was in long dresses,—General Ward, whose children's ages could be +guessed by the disturbers of the public peace, whose names they +bore,—Eli Thayer, Mary Livermore, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Frances +Willard, Neal Dow, Belva Lockwood, and Helen Gougar,—General Ward, who +scorned her father's offer of ten thousand dollars a year as state +counsel for the National Provisions Company, and went out preaching fiat +money and a subtreasury for the farmers' crops, trusting to God and the +flower garden about his little white house, to keep the family alive—it +is odd that Jeanette's childish impression was that General Ward was a +man of consequence in the world. Perhaps his white necktie, his long +black coat, and his keen lean face, or his prematurely gray hair, gave +her some sort of a notion of his dignity, but whatever gave her that +notion she kept it, and though in her later life there came a passing +time when she hated him, she did not despise him. And what with the song +that she heard the bands playing all over the country, the song that the +bands sometimes played for Americans in Europe, very badly, as though it +was being translated from English into broken French or Italian, what +with Watts McHurdie's fame and with his verses that appeared in the +<i>Banner</i> on formal occasions, the girl built a fancy of him as one of +the world's great poets—some one like Shakespeare or Milton; and she +was well into her teens before she realized the truth, that he was an +excellent harness maker who often brought out of his quaint little dream +world odd-shaped fancies in rhyme,—some grotesque,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> some ridiculous, +and some that seemed pretty for a moment,—and who under the stress of a +universal emotion had rhymed one phase of our common nature and set it +to a simple tune that moved men deeply without regard to race or +station. So she lived in her child world—a world quite different from +the real world—a world gilded by the sunrise of consciousness; and +because the angels loved her and kept her heart clean, the gilding never +quite wore off her heroes. And nothing that Heaven gives us in this +world is so blessed as to have the gilding stick to the images of our +youth. In Jeanette's case even Lige Bemis—Judge Bemis, she had been +taught to call him—never showed the tar under the gilding to her eyes. +Her first memory of him was in her father's office in the big City. He +was a tall man, with gray hair that became him well, with sharp black +eyes, and enough flesh on his bones to carry the frock-coats he always +wore and give him a corporosity just escaping the portly. She remembers +seeing the name "E. W. Bemis" in gold letters on the door of his room, +and not being able to figure out how a man whose name began with "E" or +"W" could be called Lige. He was General Counsel of the Corn Belt +Railroad in those days, when her father was president of the road, and +she knew that he was a man always to be considered. And when, as a woman +grown, she learned the truth about Lige Bemis, it was hard to believe, +for all she could find against him was his everlasting smile.</p> + +<p>It is a curious and withal a beautiful thing to see a child come into +the worn and weary world that we grownups have made, and make it over +into another world altogether. Perhaps the child's eye and the child's +heart, fresh from God, see and feel more clearly and more justly than we +do. For this much is sure—Jeanette was right in keeping to the end the +image of Colonel Martin Culpepper as a knight-errant, who needed only a +bespangled steed, a little less avoirdupois, and a foolish cause to set +him battling in the tourney. As it was, in this humdrum world, the +colonel could do nothing more heroic than come rattling down Main Street +into the child's heart, sitting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> with some dignity in his weather-beaten +buggy, while instead of shining armour and a glistening helmet he wore +nankeen trousers, a linen coat, and a dignified panama hat. Moreover, it +is stencilled into her memory indelibly that the colonel was the first +man in this wide world to raise his hat to her.</p> + +<p>Now it should not be strange that this world was a sad jumble of fiction +and of facts to a child's eyes; for to many an older pair of eyes it has +all seemed a puzzle. Even the shrewd, kind brown eyes of Jacob Dolan +often failed to see things as they were, and what his eyes did see +sometimes bewildered him. By day Dolan saw Robert Hendricks, president +of the Exchange National Bank, president and manager of the Sycamore +Ridge Light, Heat, and Power Company, proprietor of the Hendricks +Mercantile Company, treasurer and first vice-president of the new +Western Wholesale Grocery, and chairman of his party's congressional +central committee, and Dolan's eyes saw a hard, busy man—a young man, +it is true; a tall, straight, rather lean, rope-haired young man in his +thirties, with frank blue eyes, that turned rather suddenly upon one as +if to frighten out a secret. The man seemed real enough to Dolan, from +the wide crown of his slightly bald, V-shaped head, to his feet with the +hard click in the heels; and yet that man paid no particular attention +to Dolan. It was "Hello, Jake," with a nod, as they passed, maybe only +an abstracted stare and a grunt. But at night, as they walked together +over the town under the stars or moon, a lonely soul rose out of the +tall body and spread over the face.</p> + +<p>Dolan kept to his pipe and Hendricks to his cigar. But these were the +only marks of caste between them. One night Hendricks led the way across +the bridge down the river road and into the fields. They walked far up +the stream and their conversation had consisted largely of "Watch out," +"All right," "I see," "This is the best way." They loitered down a dark +lane shaded by hedgerows until they came to a little wooden bridge and +sat down. Dolan looked at the stars, while a pipe and a cigar<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> had +burned out before Hendricks spoke, "Well, chatterbox?"</p> + +<p>"I was bothered with a question of mistaken identity," replied Dolan. To +the silence he answered: "Me myself. I'm the man. Do you happen to know +who I am?" Hendricks broke a splinter from the wood under him, and Dolan +continued: "Of course you don't, and neither do I. For example, I go +down into Union township before election and visit with the boys. I +bring a box of cigars and maybe a nip under the buggy seat, and maybe a +few stray five-dollar bills for the lads that drive the wagons that haul +the voters to the polls. I go home, and I says to myself: 'I have that +bailiwick to a man. No votes there against Jake.' But the morning after +election I see Jake didn't get but two votes in the township. Very well. +Now who did they vote against? Surely not against the genial obliging +rollicking Irish lad whose face I shave every other morning. What could +they possibly have against him? No—they voted against that man Dolan, +who got drunk, at the Fair and throwed the gate receipts into the well, +and tried to shoo the horses off the track into the crowd at the +home-stretch of the trotting race. He's the man they plugged. And +there's another one—him that confesses to Father Van Sandt." Dolan +shook his head sadly and sighed. "He's a black-hearted wretch. If you +want to see how a soul will look in its underwear, get an Irishman to +confess to a Dutchman." The chirp of crickets arose in the silence, and +after a time Dolan concluded, "And now there abideth these three, me +that I shave, me that they vote against, and me that the Father knows; +and the greatest of these is charity—I dunno."</p> + +<p>The soul beside him on the bridge came back from a lilac bower of other +years, with a girl's lips glowing upon his and the beat of a girl's +heart throbbing against his own. The soul was seared with images that +must never find spoken words, and it moved the lips to say after +exhaling a deep breath from its body, "Well, let's go home." There, too, +was a question of identity. Who was Robert Hendricks? Was he the man +chosen to lead his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> party organization because he was clean above +reproach and a man of ideals; was he the man who was trusted with the +money of the people of his town and county implicitly; or was he the man +who knew that on page 234 of the cash ledger for 1879 in the county +treasurer's office in the Garrison County court-house there was a +forgery in his own handwriting to cover nine thousand dollars of his +father's debt? Or was he the man who for seven years had crept into a +neighbour's garden on a certain night in April to smell the lilac +blossoms and always had found them gone, and had stood there rigid, with +upturned face and clenched fists, cursing a fellow-man? Or was he the +man who in the county convention of his party had risen pale with anger, +and had walked across the floor and roared his denunciation of Elijah W. +Bemis as a boodler and a scoundrel squarely to the man's gray, smirking +face and chattering teeth, and then had reached down, and grabbed the +trapped bribe-giver by the scruff of the neck and literally thrown him +out of the convention, while the crowd went mad with applause? As he +went home that night following the convention, walking by the side of +Dolan in silence, he wondered which of all his <i>aliases</i> he really was. +At the gate of the Hendricks home the two men stopped. Hendricks smiled +quizzically as he asked: "Well, I give it up, Jake. By the way, did you +ever meet me?"</p> + +<p>The brown eyes of the Irishman beamed an instant through the night, +before he hurried lightly down the street.</p> + +<p>And so with all of this hide-and-seek of souls, now peering from behind +eyes and now far away patting one—two—three upon some distant base, +with all these queer goings-on inside of people here in this strange +world, it is no wonder that when the angels brought Jeanette to the +Barclays, they left her much to learn and many things to study about. So +she had to ask questions. But questions often reveal more than answers. +At least once they revealed much, when she sat on the veranda of the +Barclay home a fine spring evening with all the company there. Aunt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> +Molly was there; and Uncle Bob Hendricks was there, the special guest of +Grandma Barclay. Uncle Adrian was away on a trip somewhere; but Uncle +Colonel and Grandma Culpepper and all the others were there listening to +father's new German music-box, and no one should blame a little girl, +sitting shyly on the stone steps, trying to make something out of the +absurd world around her, if she piped out when the talk stopped:—</p> + +<p>"Mother, why does Aunt Molly cut off her lilac buds before they bloom?"</p> + +<p>And when her mother assured her that Aunt Molly did nothing of the kind, +and when Uncle Bob Hendricks looked up and saw Aunt Molly go pale under +her powder, and when Aunt Molly said, "Why, Jane—the child must have +dreamed that," no one in this wide world must blame a little girl for +opening her eyes as wide as she could, and lifting her little voice as +strongly as she could, and saying: "Why, Aunt Molly, you know I saw you +last night—when I stayed with you. You know I did, 'cause I looked out +of the window and spokened to you. You know I did—don't you remember?" +And no one must blame the mother for shaking her finger at Jeanette, and +no one must blame Jeanette for sitting there shaking a protesting head, +and screwing up her little face, trying to make the puzzle out.</p> + +<p>And when, later in the evening, Daddy Barclay went over to the mill with +his work, and Uncle Bob left in the twilight, and Aunt Molly and mother +were alone in mother's room, how should a little girl know what the +crying was all about, and how should a little girl understand when a +small woman, looking in a mirror, and dabbing her face with a powder +rag, said to mother, who knows everything in the world, and all about +the angels that brought you here: "Oh, Jane, Jane, you don't know—you +don't understand. There are things that I couldn't make you +understand—and I mustn't even think of them."</p> + +<p>Surely it is a curious world for little girls—a passing curious world, +when there are things in it that even mothers cannot understand.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span></p> + +<p>So Jeanette turned her face to the wall and went to sleep, leaving Aunt +Molly powdering her nose and asking mother, "Does it look all right +now—" and adding, "Oh, I'm such a fool." In so illogical a world, the +reader must not be allowed to think that Molly Brownwell lamented the +folly of mourning for a handsome young gentleman in blue serge with +white spats on his shoes and a Byronic collar and a fluffy necktie of +the period. Far be it from her to lament that sentiment as folly; +however, when she looked at her eyes in the mirror and saw her nose, she +felt that tears were expensive and reproached herself for them. But so +long as these souls of ours, whatever they may be, are caged in our +bodies, our poor bodies will have to bear witness to their prisoners. If +the soul smiles the body shines, and if the soul frets the body withers. +And Molly Brownwell saw in the looking-glass that night more surely than +ever before that her face was beginning to slump. Her cheeks were no +longer firm, and at her eyes were the stains of tears that would not +wipe off, but crinkled the skin at the temples and deepened the shadows +into wide salmon-coloured lines that fell away from each side of the +nose so that no trick could hide them. Moreover, the bright eyes that +used to flash into Bob Hendricks' steady blue eyes had grown tired, and +women who did not know, wondered why such a pretty girl had broken so.</p> + +<p>The Culpeppers had remained with the Barclays for dinner, and the hour +was late for the Ridge—after nine o'clock, and as the departing guests +went down the long curved walk of Barclay pride to the Barclay gate, +they saw a late April moon rising over the trees by the mill. They +clanged the tall iron gate behind them, and stood a moment watching the +moon. For the colonel never grew too old to notice it. He put his arms +about his wife and his daughter tenderly, and said before they started +up the street, "It never grows old—does it?" And he pressed his wife to +him gently and repeated, "Does it, my dear—it's the same old moon; the +one we used to have in Virginia before the war, isn't it?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span></p> + +<p>His wife smiled at him placidly and said, "Now, pa—"</p> + +<p>Whereupon the colonel squeezed his daughter lustily, and exclaimed, +"Well, Molly still loves me, anyway. Don't you, Molly?" And the younger +woman patted his cheek, and then they started for home.</p> + +<p>"Papa, how much money has John?" asked the daughter, as they walked +along.</p> + +<p>A man always likes to be regarded as an authority in financial matters, +and the colonel stroked his goatee wisely before replying: "U-h-m-m, let +me see—I don't exactly know. Bob and I were talking about it the other +day—after I bought John's share in College Heights—last year, to be +exact. Of course he's got the mill and it's all paid for—say a hundred +thousand dollars—and that old wheat land he got back in the +seventies—he's cleaned all of that up. I should say that and the mill +were easily worth half a million, and they're both clear. That's all in +sight." The colonel ruminated a moment and then continued: "About the +rest—it's a guess. Some say a million, some say ten. All I know in +point of fact, my dear, to get right down to bed-rock, is that Lycurgus +says they are turning out two or three car-loads of the strips a year. I +wouldn't believe Lycurgus on a stack of Bibles as high as his head, but +little Thayer Ward, who works down there in the shipping department, +told the general the same thing, and Bob says he knows John gets ten +dollars apiece for them now, so that's a million dollars a year income +he's got. He handles grain and flour way up in Minnesota, and back as +far as Ohio, and west to California. But what he actually owns,—that +is, whether he rents the mills or, to be exact, steals them,—I haven't +any idea—not the slightest notion in the world, in point of fact—not +the slightest notion."</p> + +<p>As they passed through Main Street it was deserted, save in the billiard +halls, and as no one seemed inclined to talk, the colonel took up the +subject of Barclay: "Say we call it five million—five million in round +numbers; that's a good deal of money for a man to have and haggle a +month over seventy-five dollars the way he did with me<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> when he sold me +his share of College Heights. But," added the colonel, "I suppose if I +had that much I'd value it more." The women were thinking of other +things, and the colonel addressed the night: "Man gets an appetite for +money just as he does for liquor—just like the love for whiskey, I may +say." He shook his sides as he meditated aloud: "But as for me—I guess +I've got so I can take it or let it alone. Eh, ma?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't catch what you were saying, pa," answered his wife. "I was +just thinking whether we had potatoes enough to make hash for breakfast; +have we, Molly?"</p> + +<p>As the women were discussing the breakfast, two men came out of a cross +street, and the colonel, who was slightly in advance of his women, +hailed the men with, "Hello there, Bob—you and Jake out here carrying +on your illicit friendship in the dark?"</p> + +<p>The men and the Culpeppers stopped for a moment at the corner. Molly +Brownwell's heart throbbed as they met, and she thought of the rising +moon, and in an instant her brain was afire with a hope that shamed her. +Three could not walk abreast on the narrow sidewalk up the hill, and +when she heard Hendricks say after the group had parleyed a moment, +"Well, Jake, good night; I'll go on home with the colonel," she managed +the pairing off so that the young man fell to her, and the colonel and +Mrs. Culpepper walked before the younger people, and they all talked +together. But at Lincoln Avenue, the younger people disconnected +themselves from the talk of the elders, and finally lagged a few feet +behind. When they reached the gate the colonel called back, "Better come +in and visit a minute, Bob," and Molly added, "Yes, Bob, it's early +yet."</p> + +<p>But what she said with her voice did not decide the matter for him. It +was her eyes. And what he said with his voice is immaterial—it was what +his eyes replied that the woman caught. What he said was, "Well, just +for a minute, Colonel," and the party walked up the steps of the +veranda, and Bob and Molly and the colonel sat down.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mrs. Culpepper stood for a moment and then said, "Well, Bob, you must +excuse me—I forgot to set my sponge, and there isn't a bit of bread in +the house for Sunday." Whereupon she left them, and when the colonel had +talked himself out he left them, and when the two were alone there came +an awkward silence. In the years they had been apart a thousand things +had stirred in their hearts to say at this time, yet all their voices +spoke was, "Well, Molly?" and "Well, Bob?" The moon was in their faces +as it shone through the elm at the gate. The man turned his chair so +that he could look at her, and after satisfying his eyes he broke the +silence with, "Seven years."</p> + +<p>And she returned, "Seven years the thirteenth of April."</p> + +<p>The man played a tune with his fingers and a foot and said nothing more. +The woman finally spoke. "Did you know it was the thirteenth?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he replied, "father died the ninth. I have often counted it up." +He added shortly after: "It's a long time—seven years! My! but it has +been a long time!"</p> + +<p>"I have wondered if you have thought so," a pause, "too!"</p> + +<p>Their hearts were beating too fast for thoughts to come coherently. The +fever of madness was upon them, and numbed their wills so that they +could not reach beneath the surface of their consciousnesses to find +words for their emotions. Then also there was in each a deadening, +flaming sense of guilt. Shame is a dumb passion, and these two, who in +the fastnesses of a thousand nights had told themselves that what they +sought was good and holy, now found in each other's actual presence a +gripping at the tongue's root that held them dumb.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I—" the man mumbled, "yes, I—I fancied you understood that well +enough."</p> + +<p>"But you have been busy?" she asked; "very busy, Bob, and oh, I've been +so proud of all that you've done." It was the woman's tongue that first +found a sincere word.</p> + +<p>The man replied, "Well—I—I am glad you have."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span></p> + +<p>It seemed to the woman a long time since her father had gone. Her +conscience was making minutes out of seconds. She said, "Don't you think +it's getting late?" but did not rise.</p> + +<p>The man looked at his watch and answered, "Only 10.34." He started to +rise, but she checked him breathlessly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Bob, Bob, sit down. This isn't enough for these long years. I had +so many things to say to you." She hesitated and cried, "Why are we so +stupid now—now when every second counts?"</p> + +<p>He bent slightly toward her and said in a low voice, "So that's why your +lilacs have never bloomed again."</p> + +<p>She looked at her chair arm and asked, "Did you know they hadn't +bloomed?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Molly, of course I knew," he answered, and then went on: "Every +thirteenth of April I have slipped through the fence and come over here, +rain or shine, at night, to see if they were blooming. But I didn't know +why they never bloomed!"</p> + +<p>The woman rose and walked a step toward the door, and turned her head +away. When she spoke it was after a sob, "Bob, I couldn't bear it—I +just couldn't bear it, Bob!"</p> + +<p>He groaned and put his hands to his forehead and rested his elbow on the +chair arm. "Oh, Molly, Molly, Molly," he sighed, "poor, poor little +Molly." After a pause he said: "I won't ever bother you again. It +doesn't do any good." A silence followed in which the woman turned her +face to him, tear-stained and wretched, with the seams of her heart all +torn open and showing through it. "It only hurts," the man continued, +and then he groaned aloud, "Oh, God, how it hurts!"</p> + +<p>She sank back into her chair and buried her face in the arm farthest +from him and her body shook, but she did not speak. He stared at her +dry-eyed for a minute, that tolled by so slowly that he rose at the end +of it, fearful that his stay was indecorously long.</p> + +<p>"I think I should go now," he said, as he passed her.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no!" she cried. "Not yet, not just yet." She<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> caught his arm and he +stopped, as she stood beside him, trembling, haggard, staring at him out +of dead, mad eyes. There was no colour in her blotched face, and in the +moonlight the red rims of her eyes looked leaden, and her voice was +unsteady. At times it broke in sobbing croaks, and she spoke with loose +jaws, as one in great terror. "I want you to know—" she paused at the +end of each little hiccoughed phrase—"that I have not forgotten—" she +caught her breath—"that I think of you every day—" she wiped her eyes +with a limp handkerchief—"every day and every night, and pray for you, +though I don't believe—" she whimpered as she shuddered—"that God +cares much about me."</p> + +<p>He tried to stop her, and would have gone, but she put a hand upon his +shoulder and pleaded: "Just another minute. Oh, Bob," she cried, and her +voice broke again, "don't forget me. Don't forget me. When I was so sick +last year—you remember," she pleaded, "I raved in delirium a week." She +stopped as if afraid to go on, then began to shake as with a palsy. "I +raved of everything under God's sun, and through it all, Bob—not one +word of you. Oh, I knew that wouldn't do." She swayed upon his arm. "I +kept a little corner of my soul safe to guard you." She sank back into +her chair and chattered, "Oh, I guarded you."</p> + +<p>She was crying like a child. He stood over her and touched her +dishevelled hair with the tips of his fingers and said: "I oughtn't to +stay, Molly."</p> + +<p>And she motioned him away with her face hidden and sobbed, "No—I know +it."</p> + +<p>He paused a moment on the step before her and then said, "Good-by, +Molly—I'm going now." And she heard him walking down the yard on the +grass, so that his footsteps would not arouse the house. It seemed to +them both that it was midnight, but time had moved slowly, and when the +spent, broken woman crept into the house, and groped her way to her +room, she did not make a light, but slipped into bed without looking at +her scarred, shameful face.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> +</div> + +<p>In the sunshine of that era of world-wide prosperity in the eighties, +John Barclay made much hay. He spent little time in Sycamore Ridge, and +his private car might be found in Minnesota to-day and at the end of the +week in California. As president of the Corn Belt Road and as +controlling director in the North Lake Line, he got rates on other +railroads for his grain products that no competitor could duplicate. And +when a competitor began to grow beyond the small fry class, Barclay +either bought him out or built a mill beside the offender and crushed +him out. Experts taught him the value of the chaff from the grain. He +had a dozen mills to which he shipped the refuse from his flour and +heaven only knows what else, and turned the stuff into various pancake +flours and breakfast foods. He spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in +advertising—in a day when large appropriations for advertising were +unusual. And the words "Barclay's Best" glared at the traveller from +crags in the Rocky Mountains and from the piers of all the great harbour +bridges. He used Niagara to glorify the name of Barclay, and "Use +Barclay's Best" had to be washed off the statue of the Goddess of +Liberty in New York Harbour. The greenish brown eyes of the little man +were forever looking into space, and when he caught a dream, instead of +letting it go, he called a stenographer and made it come true. In those +days he was beginning to realize that an idea plus a million dollars +will become a fact if a man but says the word, whereas the same idea +minus a million remains a dream. The great power of money was slowly +becoming part of the man's consciousness. During the years that were to +come, he came to think that there was nothing impossible. Any wish he +had might be gratified. Such a consciousness drives men mad.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span></p> + +<p>But in those prosperous days, while the millions were piling up, Barclay +kept his head. All the world was buying then, but wherever he could +Barclay sold. He bought only where he had to, and paid cash for what he +bought. He did not owe a dollar for anything. He had no equities; his +titles were all good. And as he neared his forties he believed that he +could sell what he had at forced sale for many millions. He was supposed +to be much richer than he was, but the one thing that he knew about it +was that scores of other men had more than he. So he kept staring into +space and pressing the button for his stenographer, and at night +wherever his work found him, whether in Boston or in Chicago or in San +Francisco, he hunted up the place where he could hear the best music, +and sat listening with his eyes closed. He always kept his note-book in +his hand, when Jane was not with him, and when an idea came to him +inspired by the music, he jotted it down, and the next day, if it stood +the test of a night's sleep, he turned the idea into an event.</p> + +<p>In planning his work he was ruthless. He learned that by bribing men in +the operating department of any railroad he could find out what his +competitors were doing. And in the main offices of the National +Provisions Company two rooms full of clerks were devoted to considering +the duplicate way-bills of every car of flour or grain or grain product +not shipped by the Barclay companies. Thus he was able to delay the cars +of his competitors, and get his own cars through on time. Thus he was +able to bribe buyers in wholesale establishments to push his products. +And with Lige Bemis manipulating the railroad and judiciary committees +in the legislatures of ten states, no laws were enacted which might +hamper Barclay's activities.</p> + +<p>"Do you know, Lucy," said General Ward to his wife one night when they +were discussing Barclay and his ways and works, "sometimes I think that +what that boy saw at Wilson's Creek,—the horrible bloodshed, the deadly +spectacle of human suffering at the hospital wagon, some way blinded his +soul's eye to right and wrong. It was all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> a man could stand; the +picture must have seared the boy's heart like a fire."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ward, who was mending little clothes in the light of the +dining-room lamp, put down her work a moment and said: "I have always +thought the colonel had some such idea. For once when he was speaking of +the way John stole that wheat land, he said, 'Well, poor John, he got a +wound at Wilson's Creek that never will heal,' and when I asked if he +meant his foot, the colonel smiled like a woman and said gently, 'No, +Miss Lucy, not there—not there at all; in his heart, my dear, in his +heart!'"</p> + +<p>And the general's eyes met the eyes of a mother wandering toward a boy +of nine sleeping, tired out, on a couch near by; he was a little boy +with dark hair, and red tanned cheeks, and his mouth—such a soft +innocent mouth—curved prettily, like the lips of children in old +pictures, and as he slept he smiled, and the general, meeting the +mother's eyes coming back from the little face, wiped his glasses and +nodded his head in understanding; in a moment they both rose and stood +hand in hand over their child, and the mother said in a trembling voice, +"And his mother prayed for him, too—she has told me so—so many times."</p> + +<p>But the people of Sycamore Ridge and of the Mississippi Valley did not +indulge in any fine speculations upon the meaning of life when they +thought of John Barclay. He had become considerable of a figure in the +world, and the Middle West was proud of him. For those were the days of +tin cornices, false fronts, vain pretences, and borrowed plumes bought +with borrowed money. Other people's capital was easy to get, and every +one was rich. Debt was regarded as an evidence of prosperity, and the +town ran mad with the rest of the country. It is not strange then that +Mrs. Watts McHurdie, she who for four years during the war dispensed +"beefsteak—ham and eggs—breakfast bacon—tea—coffee—iced +tea—or—milk" at the Thayer House, and for ten years thereafter sold +dry-goods and kept books at Dorman's store, should have become tainted +with the infection of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> times. But it is strange that she could have +inoculated so sane a little man as Watts. Still, there were Delilah and +Samson, and of course Samson was a much larger man than Watts, and +Nellie McHurdie was considerably larger than Delilah; and you never can +tell about those things, anyway. Also it must not be forgotten that +Nellie McHurdie since her marriage had become Grand Preceptress in one +lodge, Worthy Matron in another, Senior Vice Commander in a third, and +Worshipful Benefactress in a fourth, to say nothing of positions as +corresponding secretary, delegate to the state convention, Keeper of the +Records and Seals, Scribe,—and perhaps Pharisee,—in half a dozen +others, all in the interests of her husband's political future; and with +such obvious devotion before him, it is small wonder after all that he +succumbed.</p> + +<p>But he would not run for office. He had trouble every spring persuading +her, but he always did persuade her, that this wasn't his year, that +conditions were wrong, and that next year probably would be better. But +he allowed her to call their home "The Bivouac," and have the name cut +in stone letters on the horse-block; and he sat by meekly for many long +years at lodges, at church entertainments, at high school commencement +exercises, at public gatherings of every sort, and heard her sing a +medley of American patriotic songs which wound up with the song that +made him famous. It was five drinks in Jake Dolan that stopped the +medley, when the drinks aforesaid inspired him to rise grandly from his +chair at the front of the hall at an installation of officers of Henry +Schnitzler Post of the Grand Army, and stalk majestically out of the +room, while the singing was in progress, saying as he turned back at the +door, before thumping heavily down the stairs, "Well, I'm getting pretty +damn tired of that!" Mrs. McHurdie insisted that Watts should whip +Dolan, and it is possible that at home that night Watts did smite his +breast and shake his head fiercely, for in the morning the neighbours +saw Mrs. McHurdie walk to the gate with him, talking earnestly and +holding his arm as if to restrain him; moreover, when Watts had turned +the corner of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> Lincoln Avenue and had disappeared into Main Street, she +hurried over to the Culpeppers' to have the colonel warn Dolan that +Watts was a dangerous man. But when Dolan, sober, walked into the +harness shop that afternoon to apologize, the little harness maker came +down the aisle of saddles in his shop blinking over his spectacles and +with his hand to his mouth to strangle a smile, and before Dolan could +speak, Watts said, "So am I—Jake Dolan—so am I; but if you ever do +that again, I'll have to kill you."</p> + +<p>It happened in the middle eighties—maybe a year before the college was +opened—maybe a year after, though Gabriel Carnine, talking of it some +twenty years later, insists that it happened two years after the opening +of the college. But no one ever has mentioned the matter to Watts, so +the exact date may not be recorded, though it is an important date in +the uses of this narrative, as will be seen later. All agree—the +colonel, the general, Dolan, Fernald, and perhaps two dozen old soldiers +who were at the railroad station waiting for the train to take them to +the National Encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic,—that it was +a fine morning in September. Of course John Barclay contributed the +band. He afterwards confessed to that, explaining that Nellie had told +him that Watts never had received the attention he should receive either +in the town or the state or the nation, and so long as Watts was a +National Delegate for the first time in his life, and so long as she had +twice been voted for as National President of the Ladies' Aid, and might +get it this time, the band would be, as she put it, "so nice to take +along"; and as John never forgot the fact that Nellie asked him to sing +at her wedding, he hired the band. Thus are we bound to our past. But +the band was not what caused the comrades to gasp, though its going was +a surprise. And when they heard it turn into Main Street far up by +Lincoln Avenue, playing the good old tune that the town loved for Watts' +sake and for the sake of the time and the place and the heroic deeds it +celebrated,—when they heard the band, the colonel asked the general, +"Where's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> Watts?" and they suspected that the band might be bringing him +to the depot.</p> + +<p>Heaven knows the town had bought uniforms and new horns for the band +often enough for it to do something public-spirited once in a while +without being paid for it. So the band did not come to the town as a +shock in and of itself. Neither for that matter did the hack—the new +glistening silver-mounted hack, with the bright spick-and-span hearse +harness on the horses; in those bustling days a quarter was nothing, and +you can ride all over the Ridge for a quarter; so when the comrades at +the depot, in their blue soldiers' clothes their campaign hats, and +their delegates' badges, saw the band followed by the hack, they were of +course interested, but that was all. And when some of the far-sighted +ones observed that the top of the hack was spread back royally, they +commented upon the display of pomp, but the comment was not +extraordinary. But when from the street as the band stopped, there came +cheers from the people, the boys at the station felt that something +unusual was about to come to them. So they watched the band march down +the long sheet-iron-covered station walk, and the hack move along beside +the band boys; and the poet's comrades-in-arms saw him sitting beside +the poet's wife,—the two in solemn state. And then the old boys beheld +Watts McHurdie,—little Watts McHurdie, with his grizzled beard combed, +with his gold-rimmed Sunday glasses far down on his nose so that he +could see over them, and—wonder of wonders, they saw a high shiny new +silk hat wobbling over his modest head.</p> + +<p>He stumbled out of the open hack with his hand on the great stiff +awkward thing, obviously afraid it would fall off, and she that was +Nellie Logan, late of the Thayer House and still later of Dorman's +store, and later still most worshipful, most potent, most gorgeous and +most radiant archangel of seven secret and mysterious covenants, +conclaves, and inner temples, stood beaming at the pitiful sight, +clearly proud of her shameless achievement. Watts, putting his hand to +his mouth to cover his smile, grabbed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> the shiny thing again as he +nodded cautiously at the crowd. Then he followed her meekly to the +women's waiting room, where the wives and sisters of the comrades were +assembled—and they, less punctilious than the men, burst forth with a +scream of joy, and the agony was over.</p> + +<p>And thus Watts McHurdie went to his greatest earthly glory. The +delegation from the Ridge, with the band, had John Barclay's private +car; that was another surprise which Mrs. McHurdie arranged, and when +they got to Washington, where the National Encampment was, opinions +differ as to when Watts McHurdie had his high tide of happiness. The +colonel says that it was in the great convention, where the Sycamore +Ridge band sat in front of the stage, and where Watts stood in front of +the band and led the great throng,—beginning with his cracked little +heady tenor, and in an instant losing it in the awful diapason of ten +thousand voices singing his old song with him; and where, when it was +over, General Grant came down the platform, making his way rather +clumsily among the chairs, and at last in front of the whole world +grasped Watts McHurdie's hands, and the two little men, embarrassed by +the formality of it all, stood for a few seconds looking at each other +with tears glistening in their speaking eyes.</p> + +<p>But Jake Dolan, who knows something of human nature, does not hold to +the colonel's view about the moment of McHurdie's greatest joy. "We were +filing down the Avenue again, thousands and ten thousands of us, as we +filed past the White House nearly twenty years before. And the Sycamore +Ridge band was cramming its lungs into the old tune, when up on the +reviewing stand, beside all the big bugs and with the President there +himself, stood little Watts, plug hat in hand, bowing to the boys. 'Twas +a lovely sight, and he had been there for two mortal hours before we +boys got down—there was the Kansas boys and the Iowa boys and some from +Missouri, carrying the old flag we fought under at Wilson's Creek. Watts +saw us down the street and heard the old band play; a dozen other bands +had played that tune that day; but Billy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> Dorman's tuba had its own kind +of a rag in it, and Watts knew it. I seen him a-waving his hat at the +boys, almost as soon as they saw him, and as the band came nearer and +nearer I saw the little man's face begin to crack, and as he looked down +the line and saw them Kansas and Iowa soldiers, I seen him give one +whoop, and throw that plug hat hellwards over the crowd and jump down +from that band stand like a wild man and make for the gang. He was +blubbering like a calf when he caught step with me, and he yelled so as +to reach my ears above the roar of the crowds and the blatting of the +bands—yelled with his voice ripped to shreds that fluttered out ragged +from the torn bosom of him, 'Jake—Jake—how I would like to get +drunk—just this once!' And we went on down the avenue together—him +bareheaded, hay-footing and straw-footing it the same as in the old +days."</p> + +<p>Jake always paused at this point and shook his head sorrowfully, and +then continued dolefully: "But 'twas no use; he was caught and took +away; some says it was to see the pictures in the White House, and some +says it was to a reception given by the Relief Corps to the officers +elect of the Ladies' Aid, where he was pawed over by a lot of old girls +who says, 'Yes, I'm so glad—what name please—oh,—McHurdie, surely not +<i>the</i> McHurdie; O dear me—Sister McIntire, come right here, this is +<i>the</i> McHurdie—you know I sang your song when I was a little +girl'—which was a lie, unless Watts wrote it for the Mexican War, and +he didn't. And then some one else comes waddling up and says, 'O dear +me, Mr. McHurdie—you don't know how glad I am to see the author of +"Home, Sweet Home,"' and Watts blinks his eyes and pleads not guilty; +and she says, 'O dear, excuse the mistake; well, I'm sure you wrote +something?' And Watts, being sick of love, as Solomon says in his justly +celebrated and popular song, Watts looks through his Sunday glasses and +doesn't see a blame thing, and smiles and says calmly, 'No, madam, you +mistake—I am a simple harness maker.' And she sidles off looking +puzzled, to make room for the one from Massachusetts, who stares at him +through her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> glasses and says, 'So you're Watts McHurdie—who wrote +the—' 'The same, madam,' says Watts, courting favour. 'Well,' says the +high-browed one, 'well—you are not at all what I imagined.' And +'Neither are you, madam,' returns Watts, as sweet as a dill pickle; and +she goes away to think it over and wonder if he meant it that way. +No—that's where Nellie made her mistake. It wouldn't have hurt +him—just once. But what's done's done, and can't be undone, as the man +said when he fished his wife out of the lard vat."</p> + +<p>Now this all seems a long way from John Barclay—the hero of this +romance. Yet the departure of Watts McHurdie for his scene of glory was +on the same day that a most important thing happened in the lives of Bob +Hendricks and Molly Brownwell. That day Bob Hendricks walked one end of +the station platform alone. The east-bound train was half an hour late, +and while the veterans were teasing Watts and the women railing at Mrs. +McHurdie, Hendricks discovered that it was one hundred and seventy-eight +steps from one end of the walk to the other, and that to go entirely +around the building made the distance fifty-four steps more. It was +almost train time before Adrian Brownwell arrived. When the dapper +little chap came with his bright crimson carnation, and his flashing red +necktie, and his inveterate gloves and cane, Hendricks came only close +enough to him to smell the perfume on the man's clothes, and to nod to +him. But when Hendricks found that the man was going with the Culpeppers +as far as Cleveland, as he told the entire depot platform, "to report +the trip," Hendricks sat on a baggage truck beside the depot, and +considered many things. As he was sitting there Dolan came up, out of +breath, and fearful he should be late.</p> + +<p>"How long will you be gone, Jake?" asked Hendricks.</p> + +<p>"The matter of a week or ten days, maybe," answered Dolan.</p> + +<p>"Well, Jake," said Hendricks, looking at Dolan with serious eyes, yet +rather abstractedly, "I am thinking of taking a long trip—to be gone a +long time—I don't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> know exactly how long. I may not go at all—I +haven't said anything to the boys in the store or the bank or out at the +shop about it; it isn't altogether settled—as yet." He paused while a +switch engine clanged by and the crowd surged out of the depot, and +ebbed back again into their seats. "Did you deliver my note this +morning?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," replied Dolan, "just as you said. That's what made me a little +late."</p> + +<p>"To the lady herself?"</p> + +<p>"To the lady herself," repeated Dolan.</p> + +<p>"All right," acquiesced Hendricks. "Now, Jake, if I give it out that I'm +going away on a trip, there'll be a lot of pulling and hauling and +fussing around in the bank and in the store and at the shop and—every +place, and then I may not go. So I've gone over every concern carefully +during the past week, and have set down what ought to be done in case +I'm gone. I didn't tell my sister even—she's so nervous. And, Jake, I +won't tell any one. But if, when you get back from Washington, I'm not +here, I'm going to leave this key with you. Tell the boys at the bank +that it will open my tin box, and in the tin box they'll find some +instructions about things." He smiled, and Dolan assented. Hendricks +uncoiled his legs from the truck, and began to get down. "I won't mix up +with the old folks, I guess, Jake. They have their own affairs, and I'm +tired. I worked all last night," he added. He held out his hand to Dolan +and said, "Well, good-by, Jake—have a good time."</p> + +<p>The elder man had walked away a few steps when Hendricks called him +back, and fumbling in his pockets, said: "Well, Jake, I certainly am a +fool; here—" he pulled an envelope marked "Dolan" from his inside +pocket—"Jake, I was in the bank this morning, and I found a picture for +you. Take it and have a good time. It's a long time till pension day—so +long."</p> + +<p>The Irishman peeped at the bill and grinned as he said, "Them holy +pictures from the bank, my boy, have powerful healing qualities." And he +marched off with joy in his carriage.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span></p> + +<p>Hendricks then resumed his tramp; up and down the long platform he went, +stepping on cracks one way, and avoiding cracks the next, thinking it +all out. He tried to remember if he had been unfair to any one; if he +had left any ragged edges; if he had taken a penny more than his honest +due. The letter to the county treasurer, returning the money his father +had taken, was on top of the pile of papers in his tin box at the bank. +He had finally concluded, that when everything else was known, that +would not add much to his disgrace. And then it would be paid, and that +page with the forged entry would not always be in his mind. There were +deeds, each witnessed by a different notary, so that the town would not +gossip before he went, transferring all of his real estate to his +sister, and the stock he had sold to the bank was transferred, and the +records all in the box; then he went over the prices again at which he +had disposed of his holdings to the bank, and he was sure he had made +good bargains in every case for the bank. So it was all fair, he argued +for the thousandth time—he was all square with the world. He had left a +deposit subject to his check of twenty thousand dollars—that ought to +do until they could get on their feet somewhere; and it was all his, he +said to himself—all his, and no one's business.</p> + +<p>And when he thought of the other part, the voice of Adrian Brownwell +saying, "Well, come on, old lady, we must be going," rose in his +consciousness. It was not so much Brownwell's words, as his air of +patronage and possession; it was cheerful enough, quite gay in fact, but +Hendricks asked himself a hundred times why the man didn't whistle for +her, and clamp a steel collar about her neck. He wondered cynically if +at the bottom of Brownwell's heart, he would not rather have the check +for twelve thousand dollars which Hendricks had left for Colonel +Culpepper, to pay off the Brownwell note, than to have his wife. For +seven years the colonel had been cheerfully neglecting it, and now +Hendricks knew that Adrian was troubling him about the old debt.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span></p> + +<p>As he rounded the depot for the tenth time he got back to their last +meeting. There stood General Ward with his arm about the girlish waist +of Mrs. Ward, the mother of seven. There was John Barclay with Jane +beside him, and they were holding hands like lovers. The Ward children +were running like rabbits over the broad lawn under the elms, and there, +talking to the wide, wide world, was Adrian Brownwell, propounding the +philosophy of the <i>Banner</i>, and quoting from last week's editorials. And +there sat Bob and Molly by the flower bed that bordered the porch.</p> + +<p>"I am going to the city to hear Gilmore," he said. That was simple +enough, and her sigh had no meaning either. It was just a weary little +sigh, such as women sometimes bring forth when they decide to say +something else. So she had said: "I'll be all alone next week. I think +I'll visit Jane—if she's in town."</p> + +<p>Then something throbbed in his brain and made him say:—</p> + +<p>"So you'd like to hear Gilmore, too?"</p> + +<p>She coloured and was silent, and the pulse of madness that was beating +in her made her answer:—</p> + +<p>"Oh—I can't—you know the folks are going to Washington to the +encampment, and Adrian is going as far as Cleveland with the delegation +to write it up."</p> + +<p>An impulse loosened his tongue, and he asked:—</p> + +<p>"Why not? Come on. If you don't know any one up there, go to the Fifth +Avenue; it's all right, and I'll get tickets, and we'll go every night +and both matinees. Come on!" he urged.</p> + +<p>She was aflame and could not think. "Oh—don't, Bob, don't—not now. +Please don't," she begged, in as low a tone as she dared to use.</p> + +<p>Adrian was thundering on about the tariff, and the general was wrangling +with him. The Barclays were talking to themselves, and the children were +clattering about underfoot, and in the trees overhead. Bob's eyes and +Molly's met, and the man shuddered at what he saw of pathos and +yearning, and he said: "Well, why not?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> It's no worse to go than to want +to go. What's wrong about it—Molly, do you think—"</p> + +<p>He did not finish the sentence, for Adrian had ceased talking, and +Molly, seeing his jealous eyes upon her, rose and moved away. But before +they left that night she found occasion to say, "I've been thinking +about it, Bob, and maybe I will."</p> + +<p>In the year that had passed since Hendricks had left her sobbing in the +chair on the porch of the Culpepper home, a current between them had +been reëstablished, and was fed by the chance passing in a store, a +smile at a reception, a good morning on the street, and the current was +pulsing through their veins night and day. But that fine September +morning, as she stood on the veranda of her home with a dust-cap on her +head, cleaning up the litter her parents had made in packing, she was +not ready for what rushed into her soul from the letter Dolan left her, +as he hurried away to overtake the band that was turning from Lincoln +Avenue into Main Street. She sat in a chair to read it, and for a moment +after she had read it, she held it open in her lap and gazed at the +sunlight mottling the blue grass before her, through the elm trees. Her +lips were parted and her eyes wide, and she breathed slowly. The tune +the band was playing—McHurdie's song—sank into her memory there that +day so that it always brought back the mottled sunshine, the flowers +blooming along the walk, and the song of a robin from a lilac bush near +by. She folded the letter carefully, and put it inside her dress, and +then moving mechanically, took it out and read it again:—</p> + +<p class='blockquot'> +"<span class="smcap">My Darling, my Darling</span>: There is no use struggling any more. You +must come. I will meet you in the city at the morning train, the +one that leaves the Ridge here at 2.35 <span class="smcap">A.M</span>. We can go to the parks +to-morrow and be alone and talk it all out, before the concert—and +then—oh, Molly, core of my soul, heart of my heart, why should we +ever come back! <span class='smcap'>Bob</span>." +</p> + +<p>All that she could feel as she sat there motionless was a crashing "no." +The thing seemed to drive her mad by its insistence—a horrible racking +thing that all but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> shook her, and she chattered at it: "Why not? Why +not? Why not?" But the "no" kept roaring through her mind, and as she +heard the servant rattling the breakfast dishes in the house, the woman +shivered out of sight and ran to her room. She fell on her knees to +pray, but all she could pray was, "O God, O God, O God, help me!" and to +that prayer, as she said it, the something in her heart kept gibbering, +"Why not? Why not? Why not?" From an old box hidden in a closet opening +out of her mother's room she took Bob Hendricks' picture,—the faded +picture of a boy of twenty,—and holding it close to her breast, stared +open-lipped into the heart of an elm tree-top. The whistle of the train +brought her back to her real world. She rose and looked at herself in +the mirror, at the unromantic face with its lines showing faintly around +her eyes, grown quiet during the dozen years that had settled her fluffy +hair into sedate waves. She smiled at the changes of the years and shook +her head, and got a grip on her normal consciousness, and after putting +away the picture and closing the box, she went downstairs to finish her +work.</p> + +<p>On the stairs she felt sure of herself, and set about to plan for the +next day, and then the tumult began, between the "no" and her soul. In a +few minutes as she worked the "no" conquered, and she said, "Bob's +crazy." She repeated it many times, and found as she repeated it that it +was mechanical and that her soul was aching again. So the morning wore +away; she gossiped with the servant a moment; a neighbour came in on an +errand; and she dressed to go down town. As she went out of the gate, +she wondered where she would be that hour the next day, and then the +struggle began again. Moreover, she bought some new gloves—travelling +gloves to match her gray dress.</p> + +<p>In the afternoon she and Jane Barclay sat on the wide porch of the +Barclay home. "Gilmore's going to be in the city all this week," said +Jane, biting a thread in her sewing.</p> + +<p>"Is he?" replied Molly. "I should so like to hear him. It's so poky up +at the house."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Why don't you?" inquired Jane. "Get on the train and go on up."</p> + +<p>"Do you suppose it would be all right?" replied Molly.</p> + +<p>"Why, of course, girl! Aren't you a married woman of lawful age? I would +if I wanted to."</p> + +<p>There was a pause, and Molly replied thoughtfully, "I have half a notion +to—really!"</p> + +<p>But as she walked home, she decided not to do it. People from the Ridge +might be there, and they wouldn't understand, and her finger-tips +chilled at the memory of Adrian Brownwell's jealous eyes. So as she ate +supper, she went over the dresses she had that were available. And at +bedtime she gave the whole plan up and went upstairs humming +"Marguerite" as happily as the thrush that sang in the lilacs that +morning. As she undressed the note fell to the floor. When she picked it +up, the flash of passion came tearing through her heart, and the "no" +crashed in her ears again, and all the day's struggle was for nothing. +So she went to bed, resolved not to go. But she stared through the +window into the night, and of a sudden a resolve came to her to go, and +have one fair day with Hendricks—to talk it all out forever, and then +to come home, and she rose from her bed and tiptoed through the house +packing a valise. She left a note in the kitchen for the servant, saying +that she would be back for dinner the next evening, and when she struck +a match in the front hall to see what time it was, she found that it was +only one o'clock. For an hour she sat in the chill September air on the +veranda, thinking it all over—what she would say; how they would meet +and part; and over and over again she told herself that she was doing +the sensible thing. As the clock struck two she picked up her valise—it +was heavier than she thought, and it occurred to her that she had put in +many unnecessary things, and that she had time to lighten it. But she +stopped a moment only, and then walked to the gate and down a side +street to the station. It was 2.20 when she arrived, and the train was +marked on the blackboard by the ticket window on time. She<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> kept telling +herself that it was best to have it out; that she would come right back; +but she remembered her heavy valise, and again the warning "no" roared +through her soul. She walked up and down the long platform, and felt the +presence of Bob Hendricks strong and compelling; she knew he had been +there that very day, and wondered where he sat. Then she thought perhaps +she would do better not to go. She looked into the men's waiting room, +and it was empty save for one man; his back was turned to her, but she +recognized Lige Bemis. A tremble of guilt racked and weakened her. And +with a thrill as of pain she heard the faint whistle of a train far up +the valley. The man moved about the room inside. Apparently he also +heard the far-off whistle. She shrank around the corner of the depot. +But he caught sight of her dress, and slowly sauntered up and down the +platform until he passed near enough to her to identify her in the faint +flicker of the gas. He spoke, and she returned his greeting. The train +whistled again—much nearer it seemed to her, but still far away, and +her soul and the "no" were grappling in a final contest. Suddenly it +came over her that she had not bought her ticket. Again the train +whistled, and far up the tracks she could see a speck of light. She +hurried into the waiting room to buy the ticket. The noise of the train +was beginning to sound in her ears, She was frightened and nervous, and +she fumbled with her purse and valise. Nearer and nearer came the train, +and the "no" fairly screamed in her ears, and her face was pallid, with +the black wrinkles standing out upon it in the gaslight. The train was +in the railroad yards, and the glare of the headlight was in the waiting +room. Bemis came in and saw her fumbling with her ticket, her pocket +book, and her valise.</p> + +<p>"You'll have to hurry, Mrs. Brownwell, this is the limited—it only +stops a minute. Let me help you."</p> + +<p>He picked up the valise and followed her from the room. The rush of the +incoming train shattered her nerves. They pulsed in fear of some +dreadful thing, and in that moment she wondered whether or not she +would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> ever see it all again—the depot, the familiar street, the great +mill looming across the river, and the Barclay home half a mile above +them. In a second she realized all that her going meant, and the "no" +screamed at her, and the "why not" answered feebly. But she had gone too +far, she said to herself. The engine was passing her, and Bemis was +behind her with the heavy valise. She wondered what he would say when +Bob met her at the train in the city. All this flashed across her mind +in a second, and then she became conscious that the rumbling thing in +front of her was not the limited but a cattle train, and the sickening +odour from it made her faint. In the minute while it was rushing by at +full speed she became rigid, and then, taking her valise from the man +behind her, turned and walked as fast as she could up the hill, and when +she turned the corner she tried to run. Her feet took her to the Barclay +home. She stood trembling in terror on the great wide porch and rang the +bell. The servant admitted the white-faced, shaking woman, and she ran +to Jane Barclay's room.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Jane," chattered Molly, "Jane, for God's love, Jane, hold me—hold +me tight; don't let me go. Don't!" She sank to the floor and put her +face in Jane's lap and stuttered: "I—I—have g-g-got to t-t-tell you, +Jane. I've g-g-ot to t-t-t-ell you, J-J-Jane." And then she fell to +sobbing. "Hold me, don't let me go out there. When it whistles ag-g-gain +h-h-hold me t-t-tight."</p> + +<p>Jane Barclay's strong kind hands stroked the dishevelled hair of the +trembling woman. And in time she looked up and said quietly, "You +know—you know, Jane, Bob and I—Bob and I were going to run away!" +Molly looked at Jane a fearful second with beseeching eyes, and then +dropped her head and fell to sobbing again, and lay with her face on the +other woman's knees.</p> + +<p>When she was quiet Jane said: "I wouldn't talk about it any more, +dear—not now." She stroked the hair and patted the face of the woman +before her. "Shall we go to bed now, dear? Come right in with me." And +soon Molly rose, and her spent soul rested in peace. But they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> did not +go to bed. The dawn found the two women talking it out together—clear +from the beginning.</p> + +<p>And when the day came Molly Brownwell went to Jane Barclay's desk and +wrote. And when Bob Hendricks came home that night, his sister handed +him a letter. It ran:—</p> + +<p class='blockquot'>"<span class="smcap">My dear</span> Bob: I have thought it all out, dear; it wouldn't do at +all. I went to the train, and something, I don't know what, caught +me and dragged me over to Jane's. She was good—oh, so good. She +knows; but it was better that she should than—the other way.<br/> +<br/> +"It will never do, Bob. We can't go back. The terrible something +that I did stands irrevocably between us. The love that might have +made both our lives radiant is broken, Bob—forever broken. And all +the king's horses and all the king's men cannot ever put it +together again. I know it now, and oh Bob, Bob, it makes me sadder +than the pain of unsatisfied love in my heart.<br/> +<br/> +"It just can't be; nothing ever can make it as it was, and unless +it could be that way—the boy and girl way, it would be something +dreadful. We have missed the best in the world, Bob; we cannot +enjoy the next best together. But apart, each doing his work in +life as God wills it, we may find the next best, which is more than +most people know.<br/> +<br/> +"I have found during this hour that I can pray again, Bob, and I am +asking God always to let me hope for a heaven, into which I can +bring a few little memories—of the time before you left me. Won't +you bring yours there, too, dear? Until then—good-by.<br/> +<br/> +"<span class="smcap">Molly</span>."</p> + +<p>The springs that move God's universe are hidden,—those that move the +world of material things and those that move the world of spiritual +things, and make events creep out of the past into the future so +noiselessly that they seem born in the present. It is all a mystery, the +half-stated equation of life that we call the scheme of things. Only +this is sure, that however remote, however separated by time and space, +the tragedy of life has its root in the weakness of men, and of all the +heart-breaking phantasms that move across the panorama of the day, +somewhere deep-rooted in our own souls' weakness is the ineradicable +cause. Even God's mercy cannot separate the punishment that follows sin, +and perhaps it is the greatest mercy of His mercy that it cannot do so. +For when we leave this world, our books are clear. If our souls grow—we +pay the price<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> in suffering; if they shrivel, we go into the next world, +poorer for our pilgrimage.</p> + +<p>So do not pity Molly Brownwell nor Robert Hendricks when you learn that +as she left the station at Sycamore Ridge that night, Lige Bemis went to +a gas lamp and read the note from Robert Hendricks that in her confusion +she had dropped upon the floor. Only pity the miserable creature whose +soul was so dead in him that he could put that note away to bide his +time. In this wide universe, wherein we are growing slowly up to +Godhood, only the poor leprous soul, whitened with malice and hate, +deserves the angels' tears. The rest of us,—weak, failing, frail, to +whom life deals its sorrows and its tears, its punishments and its +anguish,—we leave this world nearer to God than when we came here, and +the journey, though long and hard, has been worth the while.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XIX</h2> +</div> + +<p>Back in the days when John Barclay had become powerful enough to +increase the price of his door strips to the railroad companies from +five dollars to seven and a half, he had transferred the business of the +factory that made the strips from Hendricks' Exchange National to the +new Merchants' State Bank which Gabriel Carnine was establishing. For +Carnine and Barclay were more of a mind than were Barclay and Hendricks; +Carnine was bent on getting rich, and he had come to regard Barclay as +the most remarkable man in the world. Hendricks, on the other hand, knew +Barclay to the core, and since the quarrel of the seventies, while they +had maintained business relations, they were merely getting along +together. There were times when Barclay felt uncomfortable, knowing that +Hendricks knew much about his business, but the more Carnine knew, the +more praise Barclay had of him; and so, even though Jane kept her own +account with Hendricks, and though John himself kept a personal account +with Hendricks, the Economy Door Strip Company and the Golden Belt Wheat +Company did business with Carnine, and Barclay became a director of the +Merchants' State Bank, and greatly increased its prestige thereby. And +Bob Hendricks sighed a sigh of relief, for he knew that he would never +become John Barclay's fence and be called upon to dispose of stolen +goods. So Hendricks went his way with his eyes on a level and his jaw +squared with the world. And when he knew that Jane knew the secret of +his soul, about the only comfort he had in those black days was the +exultation in his heart that John—whatever he might know—could not +turn it into cash at the Exchange National Bank.</p> + +<p>As he walked alone under the stars that first night after Molly +Brownwell's note came to him, he saw his life as it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> was, with things +squarely in their relations. Of course this light did not stay with him +always; at times in his loneliness the old cloud of wild yearning would +come over him, and he would rattle the bars of his madhouse until he +could fight his way out to the clean air of Heaven under the stars. And +at such times he would elude Dolan, and walk far away from the town in +fields and meadows and woods struggling back to sanity—sometimes +through a long night. But as the years passed, this truth came to be a +part of his consciousness—that in some measure the thing we call +custom, or law, or civilization, or society, with all its faults, is the +best that man, endowed as he is to-day, can establish, and that the +highest service one can pay to man or to God is found in conforming to +the social compact, at whatever cost of physical pain, or mental +anguish, if the conformation does not require a moral breach. That was +the faith he lived by, that by service to his fellows and by sacrifice +to whatever was worthy in the social compact, he would find a growth of +soul that would pay him, either here or hereafter. So he lent money, and +sold light, and traded in merchandise, and did a man's work in +politics—playing each game according to the rules.</p> + +<p>But whatever came to him, whatever of honour or of influence, or of +public respect, in his own heart there was the cloud—he knew that he +was a forger, and that once he had offered to throw everything he had +aside and take in return—But he was not candid enough even in his own +heart to finish the indictment. It made him flush with shame, and +perhaps that was why on his face there was often a curious +self-deprecating smile—not of modesty, not of charity, but the smile of +the man who is looking at a passing show and knows that it is not real. +As he went into his forties, and the flux of his life hardened, he +became a man of reserves—a kind, quiet, strong man, charitable to a +fault for the weaknesses of others, but a man who rarely reflected his +impulses, a listener in conversation, a dreamer amid the tumult of +business, whose success lay in his industry and caution, and who drew +men to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> him not by what he promised, but by the faith we chattering daws +have in the man who looks on and smiles while we prattle.</p> + +<p>His lank bones began to take on flesh, and his face rounded at the +corners, and the eagerness of youth passed from him. He always looked +more of a man than John Barclay. For Barclay was a man of enthusiasms, +who occasionally liked to mouth a hard jaw-breaking "damn," and who +followed his instincts with womanly faith in them—so that he became +known as a man of impulse. But Hendricks' power was in repression, and +in Sycamore Ridge they used to say that the only reason why Bob +Hendricks grew a mustache was to chew it when people expected him to +talk. It wasn't much of a mustache—a little blond fuzz about as heavy +as his yellow eyebrows over his big inquiring blue eyes, and he once +told Dolan that he kept it for a danger signal. When he found himself +pulling at it, he knew he was nervous and should get out into the open. +They tell a story in the Ridge to the effect that Hendricks started to +run to a fire, and caught himself pulling at his mustache, and turned +around and went out to the power-house instead.</p> + +<p>It was the only anecdote ever told of Hendricks after he was forty—for +he was not a man about whom anecdotes would hang well, though the town +is full of them about John Barclay. So Hendricks lived a strong reticent +man, who succeeded in business though he was honest, and who won in +politics by choosing his enemies from the kind of noisy men who make +many mistakes, and let every one know it. The time came when he did not +avoid Molly Brownwell; she felt that he was not afraid to see her in any +circumstances, and that made her happy. Sometimes she went to him in +behalf of one of her father's charges,—some poor devil who could not +pay his note at the bank and keep the children in school, or some clerk +or workman at the power-house who had been discharged. At such times +they talked the matter in hand over frankly, and it ended by the man +giving way to the woman, or showing her simply that she was wrong.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span></p> + +<p>Only once in nearly a score of years did a personal word pass between +them. She had come to him for his signature to a petition for a pardon +for a man whose family suffered while he was in the penitentiary. +Hendricks signed the paper and handed it back to her, and his blue eyes +were fixed impersonally upon her, and he smiled his curious, +self-deprecatory smile and sighed, "As we forgive our debtors." Then he +reached for a paper in his desk and seemed oblivious to her presence. No +one else was near them, and the woman hesitated a moment before turning +to go and repeated, "Yes, Bob—as we forgive our debtors." She tried to +show him the radiance in her soul, but he did not look up and she went +away. When she had gone, he pushed aside his work and sat for a moment +looking into the street; he began biting his mustache, and rose, and +went out of the bank and found some other work.</p> + +<p>That night as Hendricks and Dolan walked over the town together, Dolan +said: "Did you ever know, Robert"—that was as near familiarity as the +elder man came with Hendricks—"that Mart Culpepper owed his son-in-law +a lot of money?"</p> + +<p>"Well," returned Hendricks, "he borrowed a lot fifteen years ago or such +a matter; why?"</p> + +<p>"Well," answered Dolan, "I served papers on Mart to-day in a suit for—I +dunno, a lot of money—as I remember it about fifteen thousand dollars. +That seems like a good deal."</p> + +<p>Hendricks grunted, and they walked on in silence. Hendricks knew from +Brownwell's overdraft that things were not going well with him, and he +believed that matters must have reached a painful crisis in the +Culpepper family if Brownwell had brought suit against the colonel.</p> + +<p>The next morning Colonel Martin Culpepper came into the bank. He had +grown into a large gray man—with gray hair, gray mustaches of +undiminished size, and chin whiskers grayed and broadened with the +years. His fine black eyes were just beginning to lose their lustre, and +the spring<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> was going out of his stride. As he came into the bank, +Hendricks noticed that the colonel seemed to shuffle just a little. He +put out his fat hand, and said:—</p> + +<p>"Robert, will you come into the back room with me a moment? It isn't +business—I just want to talk with you." He smiled apologetically and +added, "Just troubles, Robert—just an old man wants to talk to some +one, in point of fact."</p> + +<p>Hendricks followed the colonel into the directors' room, and without +ceremony the colonel sank heavily into a fat leather chair, facing the +window, and Hendricks sat down facing the colonel. The colonel looked at +the floor and fumbled his triangular watch-charm a moment, and cleared +his throat, as he spoke, "I don't know just how to begin—to get at +it—to proceed, as I may say, Robert." Hendricks did not reply, and the +colonel went on, "I just wanted to talk to some one, that's all—to talk +to you—just to you, sir, to be exact."</p> + +<p>Hendricks looked kindly at the colonel, whose averted eyes made the +younger man feel uncomfortable. Then he said gently, "Well, Colonel, +don't be backward about saying what you want to to me." It was a long +speech for Hendricks, and he felt it, and then qualified it with, "But, +of course, I don't want to urge you."</p> + +<p>The colonel's face showed a flush of courage to Hendricks, but the +courage passed, and there was a silence, and then a little twitch under +his eyes told Hendricks that the colonel was contemplating a flank +attack as he spoke, "Robert, may I ask you in confidence if Adrian +Brownwell is hard up?"</p> + +<p>Hendricks believed the truth would bring matters to a head, and he +answered, "Well, I shouldn't wonder, Colonel."</p> + +<p>"Very hard up?" pressed the colonel.</p> + +<p>Hendricks remembered Brownwell's overdraft and half a dozen past due +notes to cover other overdrafts and answered, "Well, Colonel, not +desperate, but you know the <i>Index</i> has been getting the best of the +<i>Banner</i> for two or three years."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span></p> + +<p>There was a pause, and then the colonel blurted out, "Well, Bob, he's +sued me."</p> + +<p>"I knew that, Colonel," returned Hendricks, anxious to press the matter +to its core. "Jake told me yesterday."</p> + +<p>"I was going to pay him; he's spoken about it several times—dunned me, +sir, in point of fact, off and on for several years. But he knew I was +good for it. And now the little coward runs off up to Chicago to attend +the convention and sues me while he's gone. That's what I hate." +Hendricks could see that the object of the colonel's visit was still on +his mind, and so he left the way open for the colonel to talk. "You know +how Mrs. Culpepper feels and how Molly feels—disgraced, sir, +humiliated, shamed, to be exact, sir, in front of the whole town. What +would you do, Robert? What can a man do in a time like this—I ask you, +what can he do?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I'd pay him, Colonel, if I were you," ventured the younger man.</p> + +<p>The colonel straightened up and glared at Hendricks and exclaimed: "Bob +Hendricks, do you think, sir, that Martin Culpepper would rest for a +minute, while he had a dollar to his name, or a rag on his back, under +the imputation of not paying a debt like that? It is paid, sir,—settled +in full this morning, sir. But what am I going to do about him, sir—the +contemptible scamp who publicly sued his own wife's father? That's what +I came to you for, Robert. What am I going to do?"</p> + +<p>"It'll be forgotten in a week, Colonel—I wouldn't worry about it," +answered Hendricks. "We all have those little unpleasantnesses."</p> + +<p>The colonel was silent for a time, and then he said: "Bob—" turning his +eyes to meet Hendricks' for the first time during their meeting—"that +scoundrel said to me yesterday morning before leaving, 'If I hadn't the +misfortune of being your son-in-law, you wouldn't have the honour of +owing me this money.' Then he sneered at me—you know the supercilious +way he has, the damn miserable hound-pup way he has of grinning at +you,—and says,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> 'I regarded it as a loan, even though you seemed to +regard it as a bargain.' And he whirled and left me." The colonel's +voice broke as he added: "In God's name, Bob, tell me—did I sell Molly? +You know—you can tell me."</p> + +<p>The colonel was on his feet, standing before Hendricks, with, his hands +stretched toward the younger man. Hendricks did not reply at once, and +the colonel broke forth: "Bob Hendricks, why did you and my little girl +quarrel? Did she break it or did you? Did I sell her, Bob, did I sell my +little girl?" He slipped back into the chair and for a moment hid his +face, and shook with a great sob, then pulled himself together, and +said, "I know I'm a foolish old man, Bob, only I feel a good deal +depends on knowing the truth—a good deal of my attitude toward him."</p> + +<p>Hendricks looked at the colonel for an abstracted moment, and then said: +"Colonel, Adrian Brownwell is hard up—very hard up, and you don't know +how he is suffering with chagrin at being beaten by the <i>Index</i>. He is +quick-tempered—just as you are, Colonel." He paused a moment and took +the colonel by the hand,—a fat, pink hand, without much iron in +it,—and brought him to his feet. "And about that other matter," he +added, as he put his arm about the colonel, "you didn't sell her. I know +that; I give you my word on that. It was fifteen years ago—maybe +longer—since Molly and I were—since we went together as boy and girl. +That's a long time ago, Colonel, a long time ago, and I've managed to +forget just why we—why we didn't make a go of it." He smiled kindly at +the colonel as he spoke—a smile that the colonel had not seen in +Hendricks' face in many years. Then the mask fell on his face, and the +colonel saw it fall—the mask of the man over the face of the boy. A +puzzled, bewildered look crept into the gray, fat face, and Hendricks +could see that the doubt was still in the colonel's heart. The younger +man pressed the colonel's hand, and the two moved toward the door. +Suddenly tears flushed into the dimmed eyes of the colonel, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> he +cried, through a smile, "Bob Hendricks, I believe in my soul you're a +liar—a damn liar, sir, but, boy, you're a thoroughbred—God bless you, +you're a thoroughbred." And he turned and shuffled from the room and out +of the bank.</p> + +<p>When Colonel Martin Culpepper left Robert Hendricks at the door of the +directors' room of the Exchange National Bank, the colonel was persuaded +in his heart that his daughter had married Adrian Brownwell to please +her parents, and the colonel realized that day that her parents were +pleased with Brownwell as a suitor for their daughter, because in time +of need he had come to their rescue with money, and incidentally because +he was of their own blood and caste—a Southern gentleman of family. The +colonel went to the offices of the Culpepper Mortgage and Loan Company +and went over his bank-book again. The check that he drew would take all +but three hundred and forty-five dollars out of the accounts of his +company, and not a dollar of it was his. The Culpepper Mortgage Company +was lending other people's money. It had been lending money on farm +mortgages for ten years. Pay-day on many mortgages was coming due, and +of the fifteen thousand dollars he checked out to pay Adrian Brownwell's +debt, thirteen thousand dollars was money that belonged to the Eastern +creditors of the company—men and women who had sent their money to the +company for it to lend; and the money checked out represented money paid +back by the farmers for the release of their mortgages. Some of the +money was interest paid by farmers on their mortgages, some of it was +partial payments—but none of it was Colonel Culpepper's money.</p> + +<p>"Molly," said the colonel, as his daughter came into the office, "I've +given a check for that—that money, you know, to Adrian—paid it in +full, my dear. But—" the colonel fumbled with his pencil a moment and +added, "I'm a trifle shy—a few thousand in point of fact, and I just +thought I'd ask—would you borrow it of Bob, if you were me?"</p> + +<p>He looked at her closely, and she coloured and shook her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> head +vehemently as she replied: "Oh, no, father—no, can't you get it +somewhere else? Not from Bob—for that! I mean—oh—I'd much rather +not."</p> + +<p>The colonel looked at his daughter a moment and drew a deep breath, and +sighed, and smiled across his sigh, and took her hand and put it around +his neck and kissed it, and when she was close to him he put his arm +about her, and their eyes met for a fleeting instant, and they did not +speak. But in a moment from across his desk the daughter spoke, "Why +don't you go to John or Carnine, father?"</p> + +<p>"Well, Gabe—you know Gabe. I'm borrowed clear to the limit there, now. +And John—you know John, Molly—and the muss, the disagreeable +muss,—the row, in point of fact, we had over that last seventy-five +dollars settling up the College Heights business—you remember? Well, I +just can't go to John. But," he added cheerfully, "I can get it +elsewhere, my dear—I have other resources, other resources, my dear." +And the colonel smiled so gayly that he deceived even his daughter, and +she went home as happy as a woman with eyelids as red as hers were that +day might reasonably expect to be.</p> + +<p>As for the colonel, he sat figuring for an hour upon a sheet of white +paper. His figures indicated that by putting all of his property except +his home into the market, and reserving all of his commissions on loans +that would fall due during the three years coming, he could pay back the +money he had taken, little by little, and be square with the company's +creditors in three years—or four at the most. So he let the check +stand, and did not try to borrow money of the banks to make it good, but +trusted to to-morrow's receipts to pay yesterday's debts of the company. +Knowing that several mortgages of more than three thousand each would +fall due in a few weeks, and that the men carrying them, expected to pay +them, the colonel wrote dilatory letters to the Eastern creditors whose +money he had taken, explaining that there was some delay in the payment +of the notes, and that the matter would be straightened out in a few +weeks. When the money came in from the mortgages falling due the next +month,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> he paid those already due, and delayed the payment of Peter +until Paul paid up. It was a miserable business, and Colonel Culpepper +knew that he was a thief. The knowledge branded him as one, and bent his +eyes to the ground, and wrenched his proud neck so that his head hung +loosely upon it. Always when he spoke in public, or went among his poor +on errands of mercy, at his elbow stood the accusing spectre, and choked +his voice, and unnerved his hand. And trouble came upon the Culpeppers, +and the colonel's clothes, which, had always been immaculate, grew +shabby. As that year and the next passed and mortgages began falling +due, not only in the colonel's company but all over the county, all over +the state, all over the Missouri Valley, men found they could not pay. +The cycle of business depression moved across the world, as those things +come and go through the centuries. Moreover, General Ward was riding on +the crest of a wave of unrest which expressed in terms of politics what +the people felt in their homes. Debts were falling due; crops brought +small returns; capital was frightened; men in the mills lost their work; +men on the farms burned their corn; and Colonel Martin Culpepper sank +deeper and deeper into the mire.</p> + +<p>Those years of the panic of the early nineties pressed all the youth out +of his step, dimmed the lustre of his eyes, and slowly broke his heart. +His keenest anguish was not for his own suffering, but because his poor, +the people at the Mission, came trooping to him for help, and he had to +turn so many away. The whole town knew that he was in trouble, though no +one knew or even suspected just what it was. For the people had their +own troubles in those days, and the town and the county and the state +and the whole world grew shabby.</p> + +<p>One day in the summer of '93, Colonel Culpepper was sitting in his +office reading a letter from Vermont demanding a long-deferred interest +payment on a mortgage. There were three hundred dollars due, and the +colonel had but half that amount, and was going to send what he had. +Jake Dolan came into the office and saw the colonel<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> sitting with the +letter crumpled in his hands, and with worry in the dull old eyes.</p> + +<p>"Come in, Jake, come in," cried the colonel, a little huskily. "What's +the trouble, comrade—what's wrong?"</p> + +<p>But let Dolan tell it to Hendricks three days later, as the two are +sitting at night on the stone bridge across the Sycamore built by John +Barclay to commemorate the battle of Sycamore Ridge. "'Well, Mart,' says +I, 'I'm in vicarious trouble,' says I. 'It's along of my orphan asylum,' +says I. 'What orphan asylum?' says he. 'Well, it's this way, Mart,' says +I. 'You know they found Trixie Lee guilty this afternoon in the justice +court, don't you?' Mart sighs and says, 'Poor Trixie, I supposed they +would sooner or later, poor girl—poor girl. An' old Cap Lee of the Red +Legs was her father; did you know that, Jake?' he asks. 'Yes, Mart,' +says I, 'and Lady Lee before her. She comes by it honestly.' Mart sat +drumming with his fingers on the table, looking back into the years. +'Poor Jim,' he says, 'Jim was a brave soldier—a brave, big-hearted, +generous soldier—he nursed me all that first night at Wilson's Creek +when I was wounded. Poor Jim.' 'Yes,' says I, 'and Trixie has named her +boy for him—Jim Lord Lee Young; that was her husband's name—Young,' +says I. 'And it's along of the boy that I'm here for. The nicest +bright-eyed little chap you ever saw; and he seems to know that +something is wrong, and just clings to his mother and cries—seven years +old, or maybe eight—and begs me not to put his mother in jail. And,' +says I to Mart, 'Mart, I just can't do it. The sheriff he's run, and so +has the deputy; they can't stand the boy crying, and damn it to hell, +Mart, I can't, either; so I just left 'em in the office and locked the +door and come around to see you. I'd 'a' gone to see Bob, only he's out +of town this week,' I says. 'I can throw up the job, Mart—though I'd +have to go on the county; but Mart, they ain't a soul for the boy to go +to; and it ain't right to put him in jail with the scum that's in +there.'"</p> + +<p>"Tough—wasn't it?" said Hendricks. "What did you do? Why didn't you go +to Carnine or Barclay?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That's just what I'm a-comin' to,—the Priest or the Levite?" said +Jake. "Well, Mart said, 'Where're the men they caught—won't they help?' +and I says, 'They paid their tine and skipped.' 'Fine?' asks Mart, +'fine? I thought you said it was jail sentence.' 'Well,' says I, 'it +amounts to the same thing; she can't pay her fine, and that damn reform +judge, wanting to make a record as a Spartan, has committed her to jail +till it is paid!' 'So they go free, and she goes to jail, because she is +poor,' says Mart.' That's what your reform means,' says I, 'or I let her +and the boy loose and lose my job. And oh, Mart,' says I, 'the screams +of that little boy at the disgrace of it and the terror of the +jail—man—I can't stand it!' 'How much is it?' sighs Mart. 'An even +hundred fine and seventeen dollars and fifty cents costs,' says I. +Mart's eyes was leaking, and he gets up and goes to the vault, and comes +back with the cash and says, blubbering like a calf: 'Here, Jake Dolan, +you old scoundrel, take this. I'll pass a paper and get it +to-morrow—now get out of here.' And he handed me the money all cried +over where he'd been slow counting it out, and said when he'd got hold +of his wobbly jaw: 'Don't you tell her where you got it—I don't want +her around here. I'll see her to-morrow when I'm down that way and talk +to her for old Cap Lee—' And then he laughs as he stands in the door +and says: 'Well, Jim,' and he points up, 'your bread cast upon the +waters was a long time a-coming—but here she is;' and he says, 'Do you +suppose the old villain knows?' And I turned and hunted up the justice +and went around to the office, and told Trixie to 'go sin no more,' and +she laughs and says, 'Well, hardly ever!' and I kissed the kid, and he +fought my whiskers, and we all live happy ever after."</p> + +<p>But the colonel, after Dolan left the office, went into the darkening +room, and spread out the harsh letter from the Vermont banker demanding +money long past due, and read and reread it and took up his burden, and +got into the weary treadmill of his life. It rained the next day, and he +did not go out with his subscription paper; he had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> learned that people +subscribe better on bright days; and as Hendricks and Barclay were both +out of town, he wrote a dilatory letter to the Vermont people—the fifth +he had written about that particular transaction—and waited another +rainy day and still another before starting out with his paper. But the +event was past; the cry of the child was not in the people's ears; they +knew that the colonel had put up the money; so it was not until +Hendricks came back and heard the story from Dolan that the colonel was +repaid. Then because he actually had the money—at least half of it due +on that particular debt, which was one of scores of its kind—the +colonel delayed another day and another, and while he was musing the +fire burned. And events started in Vermont which greatly changed the +course of this story.</p> + +<p>"I wonder," he has written in that portion of the McHurdie Biography +devoted to "The Press of the Years," "why, as we go farther and farther +into life, invariably it grows dingier and dingier. The 'large white +plumes' that dance before the eyes of youth soil, and are bedraggled. +And out of the inexplicable tangle of the mesh of life come dark threads +from God knows where and colour the woof of it gray and dreary. Ah for +the days of the large white plumes—for the days when life's woof was +bright!"</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XX</h2> +</div> + +<p>If the reader of this tale should feel drawn to visit Sycamore Ridge, he +will find a number of interesting things there, and the trip may be made +by the transcontinental traveller with the loss of but half a dozen +hours from his journey. The Golden Belt Railroad, fifteen years ago, +used to print a guide-book called "California and Back," in which were +set down the places of interest to the traveller. In that book Sycamore +Ridge was described thus:—</p> + +<p class='blockquot'>"Sycamore Ridge, pop. 22,345, census 1890; large water-power, main +industry milling; also manufacturing; five wholesale houses. Seat +Ward University, 1300 students; also Garrison County High School, +also Business College. Thirty-five churches, two newspapers, the +<i>Daily Banner</i> and the <i>Index</i>; fifty miles of paved streets; +largest stone arch bridge in the West, marking site of Battle of +Sycamore Ridge, a border ruffian skirmish; home of Watts McHurdie, +famous as writer of war-songs, best known of which is—" etc., etc.</p> + +<p>But excepting Watts, who may be gone before you get there,—for he is an +old man now, and is alone and probably does not always have the best of +care,—the things above annotated will not interest the traveller. At +the Thayer House they will tell you that three things in the town give +it distinction: the Barclay home, a rambling gray brick structure which +the natives call Barclay Castle, with a great sycamore tree held +together by iron bands on the terraced lawn before the house—that is +number one; the second thing they will advise the traveller to see is +Mary Barclay Park, ten acres of transplanted elm trees, most tastefully +laid out, between Main Street and the Barclay home; and the third thing +that will be pointed out to the traveller is the Schnitzler fountain, in +the cemetery gateway, done by St. Gaudens; it represents a soldier +pouring<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> water from his canteen into his hand, as he bathes the brow of +a dying comrade.</p> + +<p>These things, of course,—the house, the park, and the +fountain,—represent John Barclay and his money. The town is proud of +them, but the reader is advised not to expect too much of them. One of +the two things really worth seeing at the Ridge is the view over the +wheat fields of the Sycamore Valley from the veranda of the Culpepper +home on the hill. There one may see the great fields lying in three +townships whereon John Barclay founded his fortune. The second thing +worth seeing may be found in the hallway of the public library building, +just at the turn of the marble stairway, where the morning light strikes +it. Take the night train out of Chicago and get to the Ridge in the +morning, to get the light on that picture.</p> + +<p>It is a portrait of John Barclay, done when he was forty years old and +painted by a Russian during the summer when the Barclays were called +home from Europe before their journey was half completed, to straighten +out an obstreperous congressman, one Tom Wharton by name, who was +threatening to put wheat and flour on the free list in a tariff bill, +unless—but that is immaterial, except that Wharton was on Barclay's +mind more or less while the painter was at work, and the portrait +reflects what Barclay thought of a number of things. It shows a small +gray-clad man, with a pearl pin in a black tie, sitting rather on the +edge of his chair, leaning forward, so that the head is thrown into the +light. The eyes are well opened, and the jaw comes out, a hard mean jaw; +but the work of the artist, the real work that reveals the soul of the +sitter, is shown in three features, if we except the pugnacious +shoulders. In the face are two of these features: the mouth, a hard, +coarse, furtive mouth,—the mouth of the liar who is not polished,—the +peasant liar who has been caught and has brazened it out; the mouth and +the forehead, full almost to bulging, so clean and white and naked that +it seems shameful to expose it, a poet's forehead, noble and full of +dreams, broad over the eyes, and as delicately<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> modelled at the temples +as a woman's where the curly brown hair is brushed away from it. But the +wonderful feature about the portrait is the right hand. The artist +obviously asked Barclay to assume a natural attitude, and then seeing +him lean forward with his hand stretched out in some gesture of +impatience, persuaded him to take that pose. It is the sort of vital +human thing that would please Barclay—no sham about it; but he did not +realize what the Russian was putting into that hand—a long, hard, +hairy, hollow, grasping, relentless hand, full in the foreground and +squarely in the light—a horrible thing with artistic fingers, and a +thin, greedy palm indicated by the deep hump in the back. It reaches out +from the picture, with the light on the flesh tints, with the animal +hair thick upon it, and with the curved, slender, tapering fingers +cramped like a claw; and when one follows up the arm to the crouching +body, the furtive mouth, the bold, shrewd eyes, and then sees that +forehead full of visions, one sees in it more than John Barclay of +Sycamore Ridge, more than America, more than Europe. It is the menace of +civilization—the danger to the race from the domination of sheer +intellect without moral restraint.</p> + +<p>General Ward, who was on the committee that received the picture fifteen +years after it was painted, stood looking at it the morning it was hung +there on the turn of the stairs. As the light fell mercilessly upon it, +the general, white-haired, white-necktied, clean-shaven, and lean-faced, +gazed at the portrait for a long time, and then said to his son Neal who +stood beside him, "And Samson wist not that the Lord had departed from +him."</p> + +<p>It will pay one to stop a day in Sycamore Ridge to see that +picture—though he does not know John Barclay, and only understands the +era that made him, and gave him that refined, savage, cunning, grasping +hand.</p> + +<p>Barclay stopped a week in Washington on his return from Europe the year +that picture was painted, made a draft for fifty thousand dollars on the +National Provisions Company to cover "legal expenses," and came straight +home to Sycamore Ridge. He was tired of cities, he told Colonel +Culpepper,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> who met Barclay at the post-office the morning he returned, +with his arms full of newspapers. "I want to hear the old mill, +Colonel," said Barclay, "to smell the grease down in the guts of her, +and to get my hair full of flour again." When he had gorged himself for +two days, he wired Bemis to come to the Ridge, and Barclay and Bemis sat +on the dam one evening until late bedtime, considering many things. As +they talked, Barclay found that a plan for the reorganization of the +Provisions Company was growing in his mind, and he talked it out as it +grew.</p> + +<p>"Lige," he said, as he leaned with his elbows on a rock behind him, "the +trouble with the company as it now stands is that it's too palpable. +There's too much to levy on—too much in sight; too much physical +property. How would it do to sell all these mills and elevators, and use +the company as a kind of a cream skimmer—a profit shop—to market the +products of the mills?" He paused a moment, and Bemis, who knew he was +not expected to reply, flipped pebbles into the stream. Barclay changed +his position slightly and began to pick stones out of the crevices, and +throw the stones into the water. "That's the thing to do—go ahead and +sell every dollar's worth of assets the company's got—I'll take the +mill here. I couldn't get along without that. Then we'll buy the +products of the mills at cost of the millers, and let them get their +profits back as individual holders of our stock. Our company will handle +the Door Strip—buy it and sell it—and if any long-nosed reformer gets +to snooping around the mills, he'll find they are making only a living +profit; and as for us—any state grain commissioner or board of +commissioners who wanted to examine us could do so, and what'd he find? +Simply that we're buying our products at cost of the millers and selling +at the market price—sometimes at a loss, sometimes at a profit; and +what if we do handle all the grain and grain products in the United +States? They can't show that we are hurting anything. I tell you there's +getting to be too much snooping now in the state and federal +governments.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> Have you got any fellow in your office who can fix up a +charter that will let us buy and sell grain, and also sell the Barclay +Economy Strip?"</p> + +<p>Bemis nodded.</p> + +<p>"Then, damn 'em, let 'em go on with their commissioners and boards and +legislative committees; they can't catch us. There's no law against the +railroads that ship our stuff buying the Economy Door Strip, is there? +You bet there isn't. And we're entitled to a good round inventor's +profit, ain't we? You bet we are. You go ahead and get up that +reorganization, and I'll put it through. Say, Lige—" Barclay chuckled +as a recollection flashed across his mind—"you know I've made some of +our Northwest senators promise to make you a federal judge. That's one +of the things I did last week; I thought maybe sometime we'd need a +federal judge as one of the—what do you call it—the hereditaments +thereunto appertaining of the company." Bemis opened his eyes in +astonishment, and Barclay grunted in disgust as he went on: "Of course +we can't get you appointed from this state—that's clear—but they think +we can work it through in the City—as soon as there is a vacancy—or +make a new district. How would you like that? Judge Bemis—say, that +sounds all right, doesn't it?"</p> + +<p>Barclay rose and stretched his legs and arms. "Well, I must be +going—Mrs. Barclay and my mother want to hear the new organ over in the +Congregational Church. It's a daisy—Colonel Culpepper, amongst hands, +skirmished up three thousand. They let me pick it out, and I had to put +up another thousand myself to get the kind I wanted. Are you well taken +care of at the hotel?" When Bemis explained that he had the bridal +chamber, the two men clambered up the bank of the stream, crossed the +bridge, and at his gate Barclay said: "Now, I'll sleep on this +to-night,—this reorganization,—and then I'll write you a letter +to-morrow, covering all that I've said, and you can fix up a tentative +charter and fire it down—and say, Lige, figure out what a modest profit +on all the grain and grain produce business of the country would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> +be—say about two and a half per cent, and make the capitalization of +the reorganization fit that. We'll get the real profits out of the Door +Strip, and can fix that up in the books. We'll show the reformers a +trick or two." It was a warm night, and when the organ recital was over, +John and Jane Barclay, after the custom of the town, sat on a terrace in +front of the house talking of the day's events. Music always made John +babble.</p> + +<p>"Jane," he asked suddenly, "Jane—when does a man begin to grow old? +Here I am past forty. I used to think when a man was forty he was +middle-aged; every five years I have advanced my idea of what an old man +was; when I was fifteen, I thought a man was getting along when he was +thirty. When I was twenty-five, I regarded forty as the beginning of the +end; when I was thirty, I put the limit of activity at forty-five; five +years ago I moved it up to fifty; and to-day I have jumped it to sixty. +It seems to me, Jane, that I'm as much of a boy as ever; all this talk +about my being a man puzzles me. What's this Provisions Company but a +game? And I'm going to play another game; I'm going to get grain and +grain produce organized, and then I'm going to tackle meat. In ten years +I'll have the packing-houses where I have the mills; but it's just +play—and it's a lot of fun."</p> + +<p>He was silent a moment. Jane did not disturb his reveries. She +understood, without exactly putting her feeling into language, that she +was being talked at, not talked to.</p> + +<p>"Say, Jane," he exclaimed, "wasn't that 'Marche Triomphante to-night +great?" He hummed a bar from the motif, "That's it—my—" he cried, +hitting his chair arm with his fist, "but that's a big thing—almost +good enough for Wagner to have done; big and insistent and strong. I'm +getting to like music with go to it—with bang and brass. Wagner does +it; honest, Jane, when I hear his trombones coming into a theme, I get +ideas enough to give the whole force in the office nervous prostration +for a month. To-night when that thing was swelling up like a great tidal +wave of music rolling in, I worked out a big<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> idea; I'm going to sell +all the mills and factories back to the millers for our stock, and when +I own every dollar of our stock, I'm going to double the price of it to +them and sell it back to them; and if they haggle about it, I'll build a +new mill across the track from every man-jack who tries to give me any +funny business—I'll show 'em. That reorganization ought to clean up +millions for us in the next year. What a lot of fun it all is! I used to +think old Jay Gould was some pumpkins; but if we get this reorganization +through, I'll go down there and buy the Gould outfit and sell 'em for +old iron."</p> + +<p>The current of his thoughts struck under language, as a prairie stream +sometimes hides from its surface bed. After a time Jane said: "Grandma +Barclay thought the 'Marche Funebre' was the best thing the man did. I +heard the Wards speaking of it in the vestibule; and Molly, who held my +hand through it, nearly squeezed it off—poor girl; but she looks real +well these days." Jane paused a moment and added: "Did you notice the +colonel? How worn and haggard he looks—he seems broken so. They say he +is in trouble. Couldn't we help him?"</p> + +<p>Her husband did not reply at once. Finally he recalled his wandering +wits and answered: "Oh, I don't know, Jane. He'll pull through, I +guess." Then he reverted to the music, which was still in his head. "He +played the Largo well—didn't he? That was made for the organ. But some +way I like the big things. The Largo is like running a little +twenty-horse-power steam mill, and selling to the home grocers. But 'The +Ride of the Valkyries,' with those screaming discords of brass, and +those magnificent crashes of harmony—Jane, I've got an idea—Wagner's +work is the National Provisions Company set to music, and I'm the first +trombone." He laughed and reached for his wife's hand and kissed it; +then he rose and stood before her, admiring her in the starlight, as he +exclaimed: "And you are those clarinets, sweet and clear and delicious, +that make a man want to cry for sheer joy. Come on, my dear—isn't it +very late?" And the little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> man limped across the grass up the steps and +into the house. The two stopped a moment while he listened to the roar +of the water and the rumble of the mill, that glowed in the night like a +phosphorescent spectre. He squeezed her hand and cried out in +exultation, "It's great, isn't it—the finest mill on this planet, my +dear—do you realize that?" And then they turned into the house.</p> + +<p>The next morning he kept two stenographers busy; he was spinning the web +of his reorganization, bringing about a condition under which men were +compelled to exchange their stock in the National Provisions Company for +their former property. He was a crafty little man, and his ways were +sometimes devious, even though to outward view his advertised and +proclaimed methods were those of a pirate. So when he had dictated a +day's work to two girls, he went nosing through the mill, loafing in the +engine rooms, looking at the water wheel, or running about rafters in +the fifth floor like a great gray rat. As he went he hummed little tunes +under his breath or whistled between his teeth, with his lips apart. +After luncheon he unlocked a row-boat, and took a cane pole and rowed +himself a mile up the mill-pond, and brought home three good-sized bass. +Thus did he spend his idle moments around the Ridge. That night he +thumped his piano and longed for a pipe organ. The things he tried to +play were noisy, and his mother, sitting in the gloaming near him, +sighed and said: "John, play some of the old pieces—the quieter ones; +play 'The Long and Weary Day' and some of the old songs. Have you +forgotten the 'Bohemian Girl' and those Schubert songs?"</p> + +<p>His fingers felt their way back to his boyhood, and when he ceased +playing, he stood by his mother a moment, and patted her cheeks as he +hummed in German the first two lines of the "Lorelei," and then said, +"We have come a long way since then—eh, mother?" She held his hand to +her cheek and then to her lips, but she did not reply. He repeated it, +"A long, long way from the little home of one room here!" After a pause +he added, "Would you like to go back?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span></p> + +<p>A tear fell on the hand against her cheek. He felt her jaw quiver, and +then she said, "Oh, yes, John—yes, I believe I would."</p> + +<p>He knew she did not care for his wealth, and there were many things +about his achievements that he felt she might misunderstand; her +attitude often puzzled him. So he sat a moment on her chair arm, and +said, "Well, mother, I have done my best." It was a question more than a +protest.</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear," she replied, "I know you have—you have done your +best—your very best. But I think it is in your blood."</p> + +<p>"What?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Oh, all this," she answered; "all this money-getting. I am foolish, +John, but some way, I want my little boy back—the one who used to sit +with me so long ago, and play on the guitar and sing 'Sleeping, I Dream, +Love.' I don't like your new music, John; it's so like clanging cars, +and crashing hammers, and the groans of men at toil."</p> + +<p>"But this is a new world, mother—a new world that is different," +protested the son, impatiently.</p> + +<p>And the mother answered sadly as she looked up at him: "I know, dear—it +is a new world; but the same old God moves it; and the same faith in God +and love of man move men that always have moved them, and always will +move them; there are as many things to live and die for now, as when +your father gave up his life, John—just as many." They rocked together +in silence—the boy of forty and the mother of sixty. Finally she said, +"Johnnie, play me 'Ever of Thee I'm fondly Thinking,' won't you, before +you go?"</p> + +<p>He sat with his foot on the soft pedal and played the old love song, and +as he played his mother wandered over hills he had never seen, through +fields he had never known, and heard a voice in the song he might never +hear, even in his dreams. When he finished, she stood beside him and +cried with all the passion her years could summon: "Oh, John—John—it +will come out some way—some day. It's in your soul, and God in His own +way will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> bring it out." He did not understand her then, and it was many +years before he prayed her prayer.</p> + +<p>The next day he went to the City and plunged into his work, and the +Ridge and its people and the prayers of his mother became to him only as +a dream that comes in the night and fades in the day. Even the shabby +figure of Colonel Martin Culpepper, with his market basket on his arm, +waving a good-by as the Barclay private car pulled out of the Sycamore +Ridge depot, disappeared from his mind, though that pathetic image +haunted him for nearly a hundred miles as he rode, and he could not +shake it off until he immersed himself in the roar of the great City. He +could not know that he had any remote relation with the worry in the old +man's eyes. Nor did Martin Culpepper try to shift his load to John. He +knew where the blame was, and he tried to take it like a man. But in +reckoning the colonel's account, may not something be charged off to the +account of John Barclay, who to save himself and accomplish the Larger +Good—which meant the establishment of his own fortunes—sent Adrian +Brownwell in those days in the seventies with the money to the colonel, +not so much to help the colonel as to save John Barclay? The Larger Good +is a slow, vicious, accumulative poison, and heaven only knows when it +will come out and kill.</p> + +<p>It was a week after the pipe-organ recital at the church, when Mary +Barclay, doing her day's marketing, ran into Colonel Culpepper standing +rather forlornly in front of McHurdie's shop. He bowed to her with +elaborate graciousness, and she stopped to speak with him. In a moment +he was saying, "So you have not heard, are unaware, entirely ignorant, +in point of fact, of my misfortunes?" She assented, and the colonel went +on: "Well, madam, the end has come; I have played out my hand; I have +strutted my hour upon the stage, and now I go off. Old Mart Culpepper, +my dear, is no longer the leading citizen, nor our distinguished +capitalist, not even the hustling real estate agent of former days—just +plain old Mart Culpepper, I may say. He who was, is now a +has-been,—just<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> an old man without a business." He saw that she did not +appreciate what had happened, and he smiled gently and said: "Closed up, +my dear madam. A receiver was appointed a few minutes ago for the +Culpepper Mortgage Company, and I gave him the key. Failure—failure—" +he repeated the word bitterly—"failure is written over the door of this +life."</p> + +<p>Mary Barclay grasped his big fat hand and pressed it, and shook her +head. Something in her throat choked her, and she could not speak at +first. The two stood a moment in silence before the woman said +emphatically, "No—no! Martin Culpepper, God is keeping your books!"</p> + +<p>The shabby old man stood uncovered, a smile quivering about his eyes. +"Maybe so, Mary Barclay, maybe so," he said. The smile fell into his +countenance as he added, "That is why I have gone so long without a +settlement; with my account so badly overdrawn, too." Then he turned to +go and walked as lightly down the street as a man could walk, broken +before his time with the weight of a humiliation upon him and a fear +greater than his shame burning in his fluttering old heart.</p> + +<p>And now if you are reading this story to be in the company of the rich +Mr. Barclay, to feel the madness of his millions, to enjoy the vain +delirium of his power, skip the rest of this chapter. For it tells of a +shabby time in the lives of all of the threadbare people who move in +this tale. Even John Barclay sees the seams and basting threads of his +life here, and as for the others,—the colonel and Jake and the general +and Watts, and even Molly,—what do these people mean to you, these +common people, in their old clothes, with their old hearts and their +rusty sins and their homely sorrows? Milord and his lady will not +scamper across these pages; no rooms with rich appointments will gladden +your eyes, and perhaps in the whole book you will not find a man in +evening dress nor a woman in a dinner gown. And now the only thing there +is to offer is Jake Dolan, aged fifty-seven, with scanty, grizzled hair, +sitting in his shirt-sleeves in the basement of the court-house, with +the canvas cot he sleeps on for a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> chair, mending his blue army coat. +Beside him on the bed are his trousers, thin, almost worn through, +patched as to the knees and as to other important places, but clean and +without a loose thread hanging from them. Surely an old Irishman mending +an old army coat under a dusty electric light bulb in the basement of a +court-house, wherein he is janitor by grace of the united demand of +Henry Schnitzler Post of the G.A.R. No. 432, is not a particularly +inspiring picture. But he has bitten the last thread with his teeth, and +is putting away the sewing outfit. And now Mr. Dolan, from the drawer of +a little table beside the cot,—a table with Bob Hendricks' picture, +framed in plush, sitting on the top,—now Mr. Dolan takes from the +drawer a tablet of writing paper printed by the county. It is his +particular pride, that writing paper. For upon it at the top is the +picture of the new one-hundred-thousand-dollar court-house, and beside +the court-house picture are these words: "Office of Jacob Dolan, +Custodian of Public Buildings and Grounds of Garrison County." Mr. Dolan +will be writing a letter, and so long as it begins with "Dear Sir," and +nothing more endearing, surely we may look over his shoulder while he +writes,—even though it is bad form. And as Mr. Dolan will be writing to +"Robert Hendricks, care of Cook's Hotel, Cairo, Egypt,"—which he spells +with an "i," but let that pass, and let some of his literary style and +construction pass with it,—and as he will be writing to Mr. Hendricks, +perhaps Miss Nancy may do well to go sit in the corridor and put her +fingers in her ears while we read. For Mr. Dolan is an emotional man, +and he is breathing hard, and by the way he grabs his pen and jabs it +into the ink one can see that he is angry.</p> + +<p class='blockquot'>"<span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span> (begins Mr. Dolan): I take my pen in hand to answer yours +of this date from New York and would have written you anyhow, as +there is much on my mind and I would cable you, but I can't, being +for the moment short of funds. I write to say, Robert, that we have +Mart Culpepper in jail—right across the hall. He came in at nine +o'clock to-night, and the damn Pop judge put his bail at $15,999 to +cover his alleged shortage, and the stinker won't accept us old +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> +boys on the bond—Phil and Watts and Os and the Company 'C' boys I +could get before the judge went to bed, and Gabe Carnine, the gut, +would not sign—would not sign old Mart's bond, sir, and I hope to +be in hell with a fishpole some day poking him down every time his +slimy fingers get on the rim of the kettle. But we'll have him out +in the morning, if every man in Garrison County has to go on the +bond. They say Mart received money to pay four or five mortgages +due to a Vermont Bank, and they sent a detective here about a month +ago and worked up the case, and closed his business to-day and +waited until to-night to arrest him. I've just come from Mart. It's +hell. Hoping this will find you enjoying the same I beg my dear sir +to sign myself<br/> +<br/> +"Your ob't s'r'v't J. <span class="smcap">Dolan</span>."</p> + + + +<p>When Jacob Dolan finished his letter, he addressed the envelope and +hurried away to mail it. And so long as we are here in the court-house, +and the custodian is gone, would you like to step in and see Martin +Culpepper across the hall? It is still in the basement now, and if you +are quiet, so quiet that the slipping patter of a rat's foot on the +floor comes to you, a sound as of a faint whining will come to you also. +There—now it comes again. No, it is not a dog; it is a man—a man in +his agony. Shall we open the great iron door, and go into the cell room? +Why, not even you, Miss Nancy—not even you, who love tears so? You +would not see much—only a man, with his coat and vest off, an old man +with a rather shaggy, ill-kept chin whisker and not the cleanest shirt +in the world—though it is plaited, and once was a considerable garment. +And the man wearing it, who lies prostrate upon his face, once was a +considerable man. But he is old now, old and broken, and if he should +look up, as you stepped in the corridor before him, you would see a +great face ripped and scarred by fear and guilt, and eyes that look so +piteously at you—eyes of a man who cannot understand why the blow has +fallen, surprised eyes with a horror in them; and if he should speak, +you will find a voice rough and mushy with asthma. The heart that has +throbbed so many nights in fear and the breath that has been held for so +many footsteps, at last have turned their straining into disease. +No—let's not go in. He bade his daughter go, and would not see his +wife, and they have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> sent to the City for his son,—so let us not bother +him, for to-morrow he will be out on bail. But did you hear that fine, +trembling, animal whine—that cry that wrenched itself out of set teeth +like a living thing? Come on—let us go and find Jake, and if he is +taking a drink, don't blame him too much, Miss Nancy—how would you like +to sleep in that room across the corridor?</p> + +<p>At nine o'clock the next morning two hundred men had signed the bond the +judge required, and Martin Culpepper shambled home with averted eyes. +They tried to carry him on their shoulders, thinking it would cheer him +up; and from the river wards of the town scores came to give him their +hands. But he shook himself away from them, like a great whipped dog, +and walked slowly up the hill, and turned into Lincoln Avenue alone.</p> + +<p>John Barclay heard the news of the colonel's trouble as he stepped from +his private car in the Sycamore Ridge yards that morning, and Jane went +to the Culpepper home without stopping at her own. That afternoon, Molly +Brownwell knocked at Barclay's office door in the mill, and went in +without waiting for him to open it. She was pale and haggard, and she +sat down before he could speak to her.</p> + +<p>"John," she said in a dead voice that smote his heart, "I have come for +my reward now. I never thought I'd ask it, John, but last night I +thought it all out, and I don't believe it's begging."</p> + +<p>"No," he replied quietly, "it's not. I am sure—"</p> + +<p>But she did not let him finish. She broke in with: "Oh, I don't want any +of your money; I want my own money—money that you got when you sold me +into bondage, John Barclay—do you remember when?" She cried the last +words in a tremulous little voice, and then caught herself, and went on +before he could put into words the daze in his face. "Let me tell you; +do you remember the day you called me up into your office and asked me +to hold Adrian in town to save the wheat company? Yes, you do—you know +you do! And you remember that you played on my love for Bob, and my duty +to father. Well, I saved you, didn't I?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, you did, Molly," Barclay replied.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span></p> + +<p>She stared a moment at the framed pictures of mill designs on the wall, +and at the wheat samples on the long table near her, and did not speak; +nor did he. She finally broke the silence: "Well, I saved you, but what +about father—" her voice broke into a sob—"and Bob—Jane has told you +what Bob and I have been—and what about me—what have you taken from me +in these twenty years? Oh, John, John, what a fearful wreck we have made +of life—you with your blind selfishness, and I with my weakness! Did +you know, John, that the money that father borrowed that day, twenty +years ago, of Adrian, to lend to you, is the very money that sent him to +jail last night? I guess he—he took what wasn't his to pay it back." +Her face twitched, and she was losing control of her voice. Barclay +stepped to the door and latched it. She watched him and shook her head +sadly. "You needn't be afraid, John—I'm not going to make a scene."</p> + +<p>"It's all right, Molly," said Barclay. "I want to help you—you know +that. I'm sorry, Molly—infinitely sorry."</p> + +<p>She looked at him for a moment in silence, and then said: "Yes, John, +I'll give you credit for that; I think you're as sorry as a selfish man +like you can be. But are you sorry enough to go to jail a pauper, like +father, or wander over the earth alone, like Bob, or come and beg for +money, like me?" Then she caught herself quickly and cried: "Only it's +not begging, John—it's my own; it's the price you got when you sold me +into bondage; it's the price of my soul, and I need it now. Those people +only want their money—that is all."</p> + +<p>"Yes," he replied, "I suppose that is all they want." He drummed on his +desk a moment and then asked, "Does your father know how much it is?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she answered, "I found in his desk at the house last night a +paper on which he had been figuring—poor father—all the night before. +All the night before—" she repeated, and then sobbed, "Poor father—all +the night before. He knew it was coming. He knew the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> detective was +here. He told me to-day that the sum he had there was correct. It is +sixteen thousand five hundred and forty-three dollars. But he doesn't +know I'm here, John. I told him I had some money of my own—some I'd had +for years—and I have—oh, I have, John Barclay—I have." She looked up +at him with the pallid face stained with fresh tears and asked, "I +have—I have—haven't I, John, haven't I?"</p> + +<p>He put his elbows on the desk and sank his head in his hands and sighed, +"Yes, Molly—yes, you have."</p> + +<p>They sat in silence until the roar of the waters and the murmur of the +wheels about them came into the room. Then the woman rose to go. "Well, +John," she said, "I suppose one shouldn't thank a person for giving her +her own—but I do, John. Oh, it's like blood money to me—but father—I +can't let father suffer."</p> + +<p>She walked to the door, he stepped to unlatch it, and she passed out +without saying good-by. When she was gone, he slipped the latch, and sat +down with his hands gripping the table before him. As he sat there, he +looked across the years and saw some of the havoc he had made. There was +no shirking anything that he saw. A footfall passing the door made him +start as if he feared to be caught in some guilty act. Yet he knew the +door was locked. He choked a little groan behind his teeth, and then +reached for the top of his desk, pulled down the rolling cover, and +limped quickly out of the room—as though he were leaving a corpse. What +he saw was the ghost of the Larger Good, mocking him through the veil of +the past, and asking him such questions as only a man's soul may hear +and not resent.</p> + +<p>He walked over the mill for a time, and then calling his stenographers +from their room, dictated them blind and himself dumb with details of a +deal he was putting through to get control of the cracker companies of +the country. When he finished, the sunset was glaring across the water +through the window in front of him, and he had laid his ghost. But Molly +Brownwell had her check, and her father was saved.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span></p> + +<p>That evening the colonel sat with Watts McHurdie, on the broad veranda +of the Culpepper home, and as the moon came out, General Ward wandered +up the walk and Jake Dolan came singing down the street about "the relic +of old dacincy—the hat me father wore." Perhaps he had one drink in +him, and perhaps two, or maybe three, but he clicked the gate behind +him, and seeing the three men on the veranda, he called out:—</p> + +<p>"Hi, you pig-stealing Kansas soldiers, haven't ye heard the war is +over?" And then he carolled: "Oh, can't get 'em up, Oh, can't get 'em +up, Oh, can't get 'em up in the mornin'—Get up, you"—but the rest of +the song, being devoted to the technical affairs of war, and ending with +a general exhortation to the soldier to "get into your breeches," would +give offence to persons of sensitive natures, and so may as well be +omitted from this story.</p> + +<p>There was an awkward pause when Dolan came on the veranda. The general +had just tried to break the ice, but Dolan was going at too high a speed +to be checked.</p> + +<p>"Do you know," he asked, "what I always remember when I hear that call? +You do not. I'll tell you. 'Twas the morning of the battle of Wilson's +Creek, and Mart and me was sleeping under a tree, when the bugler of the +Johnnies off somewhere on the hill he begins to crow that, and it wakes +Mart up, and he rolls over on me and he says: 'Jake,' he says, or maybe +'twas me says, 'Mart,' says I—anyway, one of us says, 'Shut up your +gib, you flannel-mouthed mick,' he says, 'and let me pull my dream +through to the place where I find the money,' he says. And I says, 'D'ye +know what I'm goin' to do when I get home?' says I. 'No,' says he, still +keen for that money; 'no,' says he, 'unless it is you're going to be +hanged by way of diversion,' he says. 'I'm going to hire a bugler,' says +I. 'What fer—in the name of all the saints?' says he. 'Well,' says I, +'I'm going to ask him to blow his damn horn under my window every +morning at five o'clock,' I says, 'and then I'm going to get up and poke +my head out of the window and say: "Mister, you can get me up in the +army, but on this occasion would you be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> obliging enough to go to +hell"!' And Mart, seeing that the money was gone from his dream, he +turns over and wallops me with the blanket till I was merely a +palpitating mass. That was a great battle, though, boys—a great +battle."</p> + +<p>And then they shouldered arms and showed how fields were won. Boom! went +Sigel's guns out of the past, and crash! came the Texas cavalry, and the +whoop of the Louisiana Pelicans rang in their ears. They marched south +after Hindman, and then came back with Grant to Vicksburg, where they +fought and bled and died. The general left them and went east, where he +"deployed on our right" and executed flank movements, and watched +Pickett's column come fling itself to death at Gettysburg. And Watts +McHurdie rode with the artillery through the rear of the rebel lines at +Pittsburg Landing, and when the rebel officer saw the little man's +bravery, and watched him making for the Union lines bringing three guns, +he waved his hat and told his soldiers not to shoot at that boy. The +colonel took a stick and marked out on the floor our position at +Antietam, and showed where the reserves were supposed to be and how the +enemy masked his guns behind that hill, and we planted our artillery on +the opposite ridge; and he marched with the infantry and lay in ambush +while the enemy came marching in force through the wood. In time Watts +McHurdie was talking to Lincoln in the streets of Richmond, and telling +for the hundredth time what Lincoln said of the song and how he had sung +it. But who cares now what Lincoln said? It was something kind, you may +be sure, with a tear and a laugh in it, and the veterans laughed, while +their eyes grew moist as they always did when Watts told it. Then they +fell to carnage again—a fierce fight against time, against the moment +when they must leave their old companion alone. Up hills they charged +and down dales, and the moon rose high, and cast its shadow to the +eastward before they parted. First Dolan edged away, and then the +general went, waving his hand military fashion; and the colonel returned +the salute. When the gate had clanged, Watts rose to go. He did not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> +speak, nor did the colonel. Arm in arm, they walked down the steps +together, and halfway down the garden path the colonel rested his hand +on the little man's shoulder as they walked in silence. At the gate they +saw each other's tears, and the little man's voice failed him when the +colonel said, "Well, good-by, comrade—good night." So Watts turned and +ran, while the colonel, for the first time in his manhood, loosed the +cords of his sorrow and stood alone in the moonlight with upturned face, +swaying like an old tree in a storm.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXI</h2> +</div> + +<p>And now those who have avoided the gray unpainted shame of these +unimportant people of the Ridge may here take up again for a moment the +trailing clouds of glory that shimmer over John Barclay's office in the +big City. For here there is the sounding brass and tinkling cymbal of +great worldly power. Here sits John Barclay, a little gray-haired, +gray-clad, lynx-eyed man, in a big light room at the corner of a tower +high over the City in the Corn Exchange Building, the brain from which a +million nerves radiate that run all over the world and move thousands of +men. Forty years before, when John was playing in the dust of the road +leading up from the Sycamore, no king in all the world knew so much of +the day's doings as John knows now, sitting there at the polished +mahogany table with the green blotting paper upon it, under the green +vase adorned with the red rose. A blight may threaten the wheat in +Argentine, and John Barclay knows every cloud that sails the sky above +that wheat, and when the cloud bursts into rain he sighs, for it means +something to him, though heaven only knows what, and we and heaven do +not care. But a dry day in India or a wet day in Russia or a cloudy day +in the Dakotas are all taken into account in the little man's plans. And +if princes quarrel and kings grow weary of peace, and money bags refuse +them war, John Barclay knows it and puts the episode into figures on the +clean white pad of paper before him.</p> + +<p>It is a privilege to be in this office; one passes three doors to get +here, and even at the third door our statesmen often cool their toes. +Mr. Barclay is about to admit one now. And when Senator Myton comes in, +deferentially of course, to tell Mr. Barclay the details of the long +fight in executive session which ended in the confirmation by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> +senate of Lige Bemis as a federal judge, the little gray man waves the +senator to a chair, and runs his pencil up a column of figures, presses +a button, writes a word on a sheet of paper, and when the messenger +appears, hands the paper to him and says, "For Judge Bemis."</p> + +<p>"I have just dismissed a Persian satrap," expands Barclay, "who won't +let his people use our binders; that country eventually will be a great +field for our Mediterranean branch."</p> + +<p>Myton is properly impressed. For a man who can make a senator out of Red +River clay and a federal judge out of Lige Bemis is a superhuman +creature, and Myton does not doubt Barclay's power over satraps.</p> + +<p>When the business of the moment between the two men is done, Barclay, +rampant with power, says: "Myton" (it is always "Myton," never +"Senator," with Barclay; he finds it just as well to let his inferiors +know their relation to the universe), "Myton, I ran across a queer thing +last week when I took over that little jerkwater New England coast line. +The Yankees are a methodical lot of old maids. I find they had been made +agents of a lot of the big fellows—insurance people, packing-houses, +and transcontinental railroads—two of my lines were paying them, though +I'd forgotten about it until I looked it up—and the good old sewing +society had card-indexed the politics of the United States—the whole +blessed country, by state and congressional districts. I took over the +chap who runs it, and I've got the whole kit in the offices here now. +It's great. If a man bobs up for something in Florida or Nebraska, we +just run him down on the card index, and there he stands—everything he +ever did, every interview he ever gave, every lawsuit he ever had, every +stand he ever took in politics—right there in the index, in an envelope +ready for use, and all the mean things ever written about him. I simply +can't make a mistake now in getting the wrong kind of fellows in. +Commend me to a Yankee or a Jap for pains. I can tell you in five +minutes just what influences are behind every governor, congressman, +senator, judge, most of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> legislators in every state, the federal +courts clear up to the Supreme Court. There was a man appointed on that +court less than a dozen years ago who swapped railroad receiverships +like a tin peddler with his senator for his job, when he was on the +circuit bench. And he was considerable of a judge in the bean country +for a time. Just to verify my index, I asked Bemis about this judge. +'Lige,' I said, 'was Judge So-and-So a pretty honest judge?' 'Oh, hell,' +says Lige, and that was all I could get out of him. So I guess they had +him indexed right." And Barclay rattles on; he has become vociferous and +loquacious, and seems to like to hear the roar of his voice in his head. +The habit has been growing on him.</p> + +<p>But do not laugh at the blindness of John Barclay, sitting there in his +power, admiring himself, boasting in the strength of his card-index to +Senator Myton. For the tide of his power was running in, and soon it +would be high tide with John Barclay—high tide of his power, high tide +of his fame, high tide of his pride. So let us watch the complacent +smile crack his features as he sits listening to Senator Myton: "Mr. +Barclay, do you know, I sometimes think that Providence manifests itself +in minds like yours, even as in the days of old it was manifest in the +hearts of the prophets. In those days it was piety that fitted the heart +for higher things; to-day it is business. You and a score of men like +you in America are intrusted with the destiny of this republic, as +surely as the fate of the children of Israel was in the hands of Moses +and Aaron!"</p> + +<p>Barclay closed his eyes a moment, in contemplation of the figure, and +then broke out in a roaring laugh, "Hanno is a god! Hanno is a god!—get +out of here, Henry Myton,—get out of here, I say—this is my busy day," +and he laughed the young senator out of the room. But he sat alone in +his office grinning, as over and over in his mind his own words rang, +"Hanno is a god!" And the foolish parrot of his other self cackled the +phrase in his soul for days and days!</p> + +<p>It is our high privilege thus to stand close by and watch<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> the wheels of +the world go around. In those days of the late nineties Barclay +travelled up and down the earth so much in his private car that Jane +used to tell Molly Brownwell that living with John was like being a +travelling man's wife. But Jane did not seem to appreciate her +privilege. She managed to stay at home as much as possible, and +sometimes he took the Masons along for company. Mrs. Mason gloried in +it, and lived at the great hotels and shopped at the highest-priced +antique stores to her heart's delight. Lycurgus' joy was in being +interviewed, and the Barclay secretaries got so that they could edit the +Mason interviews and keep out the poison, and let the old man swell and +swell until the people at home thought he must surely burst with +importance at the next town.</p> + +<p>One day in the nineties Barclay appropriated a half-million dollars to +advertise "Barclay's Best" and a cracker that he was pushing. When the +man who placed the business in the newspaper had gone, Barclay sat +looking out of the window and said to his advertising manager: "I've got +an idea. Why should I pay a million dollars to irresponsible newspapers? +I won't do it."</p> + +<p>"But we must advertise, Mr. Barclay—you've proved it pays."</p> + +<p>"Yes," he returned, "you bet it pays, and I might just as well get +something out of it besides advertising. Take this; make five copies of +it; I'll give you the addresses later." Barclay squared himself to a +stenographer to dictate:—</p> + +<p class='blockquot'>"<span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>: I spend a million dollars a year advertising grain +products; you and the packers doubtless spend that much advertising +your products and by-products; the railroads spend as much more, +and the Oil people probably half as much more. Add the steel +products and the lumber products, and we have ten million dollars +going into the press of this country. In a crisis we cannot tell +how these newspapers will treat us. I think we should organize so +that we will know exactly where we stand. Therefore it is necessary +absolutely to control the trade advertising of this country. A +company to take over the five leading advertising agencies could be +formed, for half as much as we spend every year, and we could +control nine-tenths of the American trade advertising. We could +then put an end to any indiscriminate mobbing of corporations by +editors. I will be pleased to hear from you further upon this +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> +subject."</p> + +<p>A day or two later, when the idea had grown and ramified itself in his +mind, he talked it all out to Jane and exclaimed, "How will old Phil +Ward's God manage to work it out, as he says, against that proposition? +Brains," continued Barclay, "brains—that's what counts in this world. +You can't expect the men who dominate this country—who make its wealth, +and are responsible for its prosperity, to be at the mercy of a lot of +long-nosed reformers who don't know how to cash their own checks."</p> + +<p>How little this rich man knew of the world about him! How circumscribed +was his vision! With all his goings up and down the earth, with all of +his great transactions, with all of his apparent power, how little and +sordid was his outlook on life. For he thought he was somebody in this +universe, some one of importance, and in his scheme of things he figured +out a kind of partnership between himself and Providence—a partnership +to run the world in the interests of John Barclay, and of course, +wherever possible, with reasonable dividends to Providence.</p> + +<p>But a miracle was coming into the world. In the under-consciousnesses of +men, sown God only knows how and when and where, sown in the weakness of +a thousand blind prophets, the seeds of righteous wrath at greed like +John Barclay's were growing during all the years of his triumph. Men +scarcely knew it themselves. Growth is so simple and natural a process +that its work is done before its presence is known. And so this arrogant +man, this miserable, little, limping, brass-eyed, leather-skinned man, +looked out at the world around him, and did not see the change that was +quickening the hearts of his neighbours.</p> + +<p>And yet change was in everything about him. A thousand years are as but +a watch in the night, and tick, tock, tick, tock, went the great clock, +and the dresses of little Jeanette Barclay slipped down, down, down to +her shoe-tops, and as the skirts slipped down she went up. And before +her father knew it her shoe-tops sank out of sight, and she was a miss +at the last of her teens. But he still gave her his finger when they +walked out together, though she was head and shoulders above him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span></p> + +<p>One day when she led him to the <i>Banner</i> office to buy some fancy +programmes for a party she was giving, he saw her watching young Neal +Ward,—youngest son of the general,—who was sitting at a reporter's +desk in the office, and the father's quick eyes saw that she regarded +the youth as a young man. For she talked so obviously for the Ward boy's +benefit that her father, when they went out of the printing-office, took +a furtive look at his daughter and sighed and knew what her mother had +known for a year.</p> + +<p>"Jeanette," he said that night at dinner, "where's my shot-gun?" When +she told him, he said: "After dinner you get it, load it with salt, and +put it in the corner by the front door." Then he added to the assembled +family: "For boys—dirty-faced, good-for-nothing, long-legged boys! I'm +going to have a law passed making an open season for boys in this place +from January first until Christmas."</p> + +<p>Jeanette dimpled and blushed, the family smiled, and her mother said: +"Well, John, there'll be a flock of them at Jeanette's party next week +for you to practise on. All the boys and girls in town are coming."</p> + +<p>And after dessert was served the father sat chuckling and grinning and +grunting, "Boys—boys," and at intervals, "Measly little milk-eyed +kids," and again "Boys—boys," while the family nibbled at its cheese.</p> + +<p>Those years when the nineteenth century was nearing its close and when +the tide of his fortunes was running in, bringing him power and making +him mad with it, were years of change in Sycamore Ridge—in the old as +well as in the young. In those years the lilacs bloomed on in the +Culpepper yard; and John Barclay did not know it, though forty years +before Ellen Culpepper had guarded the first blossoms from those bushes +for him. Miss Lucy, his first ideal, went to rest in those years while +the booming tide was running in, and he scarcely knew it. Mrs. Culpepper +was laid beside Ellen out on the Hill; and he hardly realized it, though +no one in all the town had watched him growing into worldly success with +so kindly an eye<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> as she. But the tide was roaring in, and John +Barclay's whole consciousness was turned toward it; the real things of +life about him, he did not see and could not feel. And so as the century +is old the booming tide is full, and John Barclay in his power—a bubble +in the Divine consciousness, a mere vision in the real world—stands +stark mad before his phantasm, dreaming that it is all real, and +chattering to his soul, "Hanno is a god."</p> + +<p>And now we must leave John Barclay for the moment, to explain why Neal +Dow Ward, son of General Philemon Ward, made his first formal call at +the Barclays'. It cannot be gainsaid that young Mr. Ward, aged +twenty-one, a senior at Ward University, felt a tingle in his blood that +day when he met Miss Jeanette Barclay, aged eighteen, and home for the +spring vacation from the state university; and seeing her for the first +time with her eyes and her hair and her pretty, strong, wide forehead +poking through the cocoon of gawky girlhood, created a distinct +impression on young Mr. Ward.</p> + +<p>But in all good faith it should be stated that he did not make his first +formal call at the Barclays' of his own accord; for his sister, +Elizabeth Cady Stanton Ward, took him. She came home from the +Culpeppers' just before supper, laughing until she was red in the face. +And what she heard at the Culpeppers', let her tell in her own way to +the man of her heart. For Lizzie was her father's child; the four other +Ward girls, Mary Livermore, Frances Willard, Belva Lockwood, and Helen +Gougar, had climbed to the College Heights and had gone to Ward +University, and from that seat of learning had gone forth in the world +to teach school. Elizabeth Cady Stanton Ward had remained in the home, +after her mother's death filling her mother's vacant place as well as a +daughter may.</p> + +<p>"Well, father," said the daughter, as she was putting the evening meal +on the table, addressing the general, who sat reading by the window in +the dining room, "you should have been at the Culpeppers' when the +colonel came home and told us his troubles. It seems that Nellie +McHurdie is going to make Watts run for sheriff—for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> sheriff, father. +Imagine Watts heading a posse, or locking any one up! And Watts has +passed the word to the colonel, and he has passed it to Molly and me, +and I am to see Mrs. Barclay, and she is to see Mrs. Carnine to-morrow +morning, and they are all to set to work on Nellie and get her to see +that it won't do. Poor Watts—the colonel says he is terribly wrought up +at the prospect."</p> + +<p>The general folded his paper and smiled as he said: "Well, I don't know; +Watts was a brave soldier. He would make a good enough sheriff; but I +suppose he doesn't really care for it."</p> + +<p>"Why, no, of course not, father—why should he?" asked the daughter. +"Anyhow, I want you to make Neal go down to Barclays' with me to-night +to talk it over with Jane. Neal," she called to the young man who was +sitting on the porch with his book on his knee, "Neal, I want you to go +to Barclays' with me to-night. Come in now, supper's ready."</p> + +<p>And so it happened that Neal Dow Ward made his first call on Jeanette +Barclay with his sister, and they all sat on the porch together that +fine spring evening, with the perfume of the lilacs in the air; and it +happened naturally enough that the curious human law of attraction which +unites youth should draw the chairs of the two young people together as +they talked of the things that interest youth—the parties and the +ball-games and the fraternities and sororities, and the freshman picnic +and the senior grind; while the chairs of the two others drew together +as they talked of the things which interest women in middle life—the +affairs of the town, the troubles of Watts McHurdie, the bereavement of +the Culpeppers, the scarcity of good help in the kitchen, the popularity +of Max Nordau's "Social Evolution," and the fun in "David Harum." Nor is +it strange that after the girl had shown the boy her Pi Phi pin, and he +had shown her his Phi Delta shield, they should fall to talking of the +new songs, and that they should slip into the big living room of the +Barclay home, lighted by the electric lamps in the hall, and that she +should sit down to the piano to show him how the new song went. And if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> +the moonlight fell across the piano, and upon her face as she sang the +little Irish folk-song, all in minors, with her high, trembling, +half-formed notes in the upper register, and if she flushed and looked +up abashed and had to be teased to go on,—not teased a great deal, but +a little,—will you blame the young man if he forgot for a moment that +her father was worth such a lot of money, and thought only that she was +a beautiful girl, and said so with his eyes and face and hands in the +pretty little pause that followed when she ceased singing? And if to +hide her confusion when her heart knew what he thought, she put one foot +on the loud pedal of the piano and began singing "O Margery, O Margery," +and he sang with her, and if they thrilled just a little as their voices +blended in the rollicking song—what of it? What of it? Was it not +natural that lilacs should grow in April? Was it not natural that Watts +McHurdie should dread the white light that beats upon the throne of the +sheriff's office? Was it not natural that he should turn to women for +protection against one of their sex, and that the women plotting for him +should have a boy around and having a boy around where there is a girl +around, and spring around and lilacs around and a moon and music and joy +around,—what is more natural in all this world than that in the fire +struck by the simple joy of youth there should be the flutter of unseen +wings around, and when the two had finished singing, with something +passing between their hearts not in the words, what is more natural than +that the girl, half frightened at the thrill in her soul, should say +timidly:—</p> + +<p>"I think they will miss us out there—don't you?" as she rose from the +piano.</p> + +<p>And if you were a boy again, only twenty-one, to whom millions of money +meant nothing, would you not catch the blue eyes of the girl as she +looked up at you, in the twilight of the big room, and answer, "All +right, Jeanette"? Certainly if you had known a girl all your life, you +would call her by her first name, if her father were worth a billion, +and would you not continue, emboldened some way by not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> being frowned +upon for calling her Jeanette, though she would have been astonished if +you had said Miss Barclay—astonished and maybe a little fearful of your +sincerity—would you not continue, after a little pause, repeating your +words, "All right, Jeanette—I suppose so—but I don't care—do you?" as +you followed her through the door back to the moon-lit porch?</p> + +<p>And as you walked home, listening to your elder sister, would you not +have time and inclination to wonder from what remote part of this +beautiful universe, from what star or what fairy realm, that creature +came, whose hair you pulled yesterday, whose legs seem to have been +covered with long skirts in the twinkling of an eye, and whose unrelated +features by some magic had sloughed off, leaving a beautiful face? Would +you not think these things, good kind sir, when you were +twenty-one—even though to-day they seem highly improbable thoughts for +any one to have who was not stark mad? But if we were not all stark mad +sometimes, how would the world go round? If we were not all mad +sometimes, who would make our dreams come true? How would visions in +thin air congeal into facts, how would the aspirations of the race make +history? And if we were all sane all the time, how would the angels ever +get babies into the world at all, at all?</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXII</h2> +</div> + +<p>"Speaking of lunatics," said Mr. Dolan to Mr. Hendricks one June night, +a few weeks after the women had persuaded Mrs. McHurdie not to drag the +poet into politics,—"speaking of lunatics, you may remember that I was +born in Boston, and 'twas my duty as a lad to drive the Cambridge car, +and many a time I have heard Mr. Holmes the poet and Mr. Emerson the +philosopher discussing how the world was made; whether it was objective +or subjective,—which I take it to mean whether the world is in the +universe or only in your eye. One fine winter night we were waiting on a +switch for the Boston car, when Mr. Holmes said to Mr. Emerson: 'What,' +says he, 'would you think if Jake Dolan driving this car should come in +and say, "Excuse me, gentlemen, but the moon I see this moment is not +some millions of miles away, but entirely in my own noddle?"' 'I'd +think,' says the great philosopher, never blinking, 'that Mr. Dolan was +drunk,' says he. And there the discussion ended, but it has been going +on in my head ever since. Here I am a man climbing up my sixties, and +when have I seen the moon? Once walking by this very creek here trying +to get me courage up to put me arm around her that is now Mary Carnine; +once with me head poked up close to the heads of Watts McHurdie, Gabe +Carnine, and Philemon Ward, serenading the girls under the Thayer House +window the night before we left for the army. And again to-night, +sitting here on the dam, listening to the music coming down the +mill-pond. Did you notice them, Robert—the young people—Phil Ward's +boy, and John Barclay's girl, and Mary Carnine's oldest, and Oscar +Fernald's youngest, with their guitars and mandolins, piling into the +boats and rowing up stream? And now they're singing the songs we +sang—to their mothers, God bless 'em—the other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> day before these +children were born or thought of, and now I sit here an old man looking +at the moon."</p> + +<p>"But is it the moon?" he went on after a long silence, puffing at his +pipe. "If the moon is off there, three or thirty or three hundred +million miles away in the sky, where has it been these forty years? I've +not seen it. And yet here she pops out of my memory into my eye, and if +I say the moon has always been in my eye, and is still in my eye, Mr. +Ralph Waldo Emerson says I'm drunk. But does that settle the question of +who's got the moon—me or the cosmos—as the poets call it?" After that +the two men smoked in silence, and as Hendricks threw away the butt of +his cigar, Dolan said, "'Tis a queer, queer world, Robert—a queer, +queer world."</p> + +<p>Now do not smile at Mr. Dolan, gentle reader, for Adam must have thought +the same thing, and philosophy has been able to say nothing more to the +point.</p> + +<p>It is indeed a queer, queer world, and our blindness is the queerest +thing in it. Here a few weeks, later sit John and Jane Barclay on the +terrace before their house one June night, listening to singing on the +water. Suddenly they realize that there is youth in the world—yet there +has been singing on the mill-pond ever since it was built. It has been +the habitat of lovers for a quarter of a century, this mill-pond, yet +Jane and John Barclay have not known it, and not until their own child's +voice came up to them, singing "Juanita," did they realize that the song +had not begun anew after its twenty years' silence in their own hearts, +but always had been on the summer breeze. And this is strange, too, +considering how rich and powerful John Barclay is and how by the scratch +of his pen, he might set men working by the thousands for some righteous +cause. Yet so it is; for with all the consciousness of great power, with +all the feeling of unrestraint that such power gives a man, driving him +to think he is a kind of god, John Barclay was only a two-legged man, +with a limp in one foot, and a little mad place in his brain, wherein he +kept the sense of his relation to the rest of this universe. And as he +sat, blind to the moon, dreaming of a time when he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> would control +Presidents and dominate courts if they crossed his path, out on the +mill-pond under an elm tree that spread like a canopy upon the water, a +boy, letting the oars hang loosely, was playing the mandolin to a +girl—a pretty girl withal, blue as to eyes, fair as to hair, strong as +to mouth and chin, and glorious as to forehead—who leaned back in the +boat, played with the overhanging branches, and listened and looked at +the moon, and let God's miracle work unhindered in her heart. And all up +and down those two miles of mill-pond were other boats and other boys +and other maidens, and as they chatted and sang and sat in the +moonlight, there grew in their hearts, as quietly as the growing of the +wheat in the fields, that strange marvel of life, that keeps the tide of +humanity ceaselessly flowing onward. And it is all so simply done before +our eyes, and in our ears, that we forget it is so baffling a mystery.</p> + +<p>Now let us project our astral bodies into the living room of the Barclay +home, while Mr. and Mrs. John Barclay are away in Boston, and only John +Barclay's mother and his daughter are in Sycamore Ridge; and let us +watch a young man of twenty-one and a young woman of eighteen dispose of +a dish of fudge together. Fudge, it may be explained to the +unsophisticated, is a preparation of chocolate, sugar, and cream, +cooked, cooled, and cut into squares. As our fathers and mothers pulled +taffy, as our grandfathers and grandmothers conjured with maple sugar, +and as their parents worked the mysterious spell with some witchery of +cookery to this generation unknown, so is fudge in these piping times +the worker of a strange witchery. Observe: Through a large room, perhaps +forty feet one way and twenty-five feet the other way, flits a young +woman in the summer twilight. She goes about humming, putting a vase in +place here, straightening a picture there, kicking down a flapping rug, +or rearranging a chair; then she sits down and turns on an electric +light and pretends to read. But she does not read; the light shows her +something else in the room that needs attention, and she turns to that. +Then she sits down again, and again goes humming about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> the room. +Suddenly the young woman rises and hurries out of the room, and a +footstep is heard on the porch, outside. A bell tinkles, and a maid +appears, and—</p> + +<p>"Yes," she says. "I'll see if Miss Jeanette is at home!"</p> + +<p>And then a rustle of skirts is heard on the stairway and Miss Jeanette +enters with: "Why, Neal, you are an early bird this evening—were you +afraid the worm would escape? Well, it won't; it's right here on the +piano."</p> + +<p>The young man's eyes,—good, clear, well-set, dark eyes that match his +brown hair; eyes that speak from the heart,—note how they dwell upon +every detail of the opposing figure, caressing with their shy +surreptitious glances the girl's hair, her broad forehead, her lips; +observe how they flit back betimes to those ripe red lips, like bees +that hover over a flower trembling in the wind; how the eyes of the +young man play about the strong chin, and the bewitching curves of the +neck and shoulders, and rise again to the hair, and again steal over the +face, to the strong shoulders, and again hurry back to the face lest +some feature fade. This is not staring—it is done so quickly, so +furtively, so deftly withal as the minutes fly by, while the lips and +the teeth chatter on, that the stolen honey of these glances is stored +away in the heart's memory, all unknown to him who has gathered it.</p> + +<p>An hour has passed now, while we have watched the restless eyes at their +work, and what has passed with the hour? Nothing, ladies and +gentlemen—nothing; gibber, chatter, giggles, and squeals—that is all. +Grandma Barclay above stairs has her opinion of it, and wonders how +girls can be so addle-pated. In her day—but who ever lived long enough +or travelled far enough or inquired widely enough to find one single +girl who was as wise, or as sedate, or as industrious, or as meek, or as +gentle, or as kind as girls were in her grandmother's day? No wonder +indeed that grandmothers are all married—for one could hardly imagine +the young men of that day<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> overlooking such paragons of virtue and +propriety as lived in their grandmothers' days. Fancy an old maid +grandmother with all those qualities of mind and heart that girls had in +their grandmothers' days!</p> + +<p>So the elder Mrs. Barclay in her room at the top of the stairs hears +what "he said," "he said he said," and what "she said she said," and +what "we girls did," and what "you boys ought to do," and what "would be +perfectly lovely," and what "would be a lot of fun!" and so grandmother, +good soul, grows drowsy, closes her door, and goes to bed. She does not +know that they are about to sit down together on a sofa—not a long, +straight, cold, formal affair, but a small, rather snuggly sofa, with +the dish between them. No, girls never did that in their grandmothers' +days, so of course who would imagine they would do so now? Who, indeed? +But there they are, and there is the dish between them, and two hands +reaching into the same dish, must of course collide. Collision is +inevitable, and by carefully noting the repetitions of the collisions, +one may logically infer that the collisions are upon the whole rather +pleasurable than otherwise; and when it comes to the last piece of fudge +in the dish,—the very last piece,—the astral observer will see that +there is just the slightest, the very slightest, quickest, most fleeting +little tussle of hands for it, and much laughter; and then the young +woman rises quickly—also note the slight pink flush in her cheeks, and +she goes to her chair and folds her pretty hands in her lap, and asks:—</p> + +<p>"Well, do you like my fudge, Neal Ward? Is it as good as Belva +Lockwood's? She puts nuts in hers—I've eaten it; do you like it with +nuts in it?"</p> + +<p>"Not so well as this," says the boy.</p> + +<p>The girl slips into the dining room, for a glass of water. See the eyes +of the youth following her. It is dusky in the dining room, and the +youth longs for dusky places, but has not developed courage enough to +follow her. But he has courage enough to steady his eyes as she comes +back with the water, so that he can look into her blue eyes while<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> you +would count as much as one—two—three—slowly—four—slowly—five. A +long, long time, so long indeed that she wishes he would look just a +second longer.</p> + +<p>So at the end of the evening here stand Neal, and Jeanette, even as Adam +and Eve stood in the garden, talking of nothing in particular as they +slowly move toward the door. "Yes, I suppose so," she says, as Eve said +and as Eve's daughters have said through all the centuries, looking +intently at the floor. And then Neal, suddenly finding the language of +his line back to Adam, looks up to say, "Oh, yes, I forgot—but have you +read 'Monsieur Beaucaire'?" Now Adam said, "Have you heard the new song +that the morning stars are singing together?" and Priam asked Helen if +she would like to hear that new thing of Solomon's just out, and so as +the ages have rolled by, young gentlemen standing beside their adored +but not declared ones have mixed literature with love, and have tied +wisdom up in a package of candy or wild honey, and have taken it to the +trysting place since the beginning of time. It is thus the poets thrive. +And when she was asked about the new song of the morning stars, Eve, +though she knew it as she knew her litany, answered no; and so did Eve's +daughter, standing in the dimly lighted hallway of the Barclay home in +Sycamore Ridge; and so then and there being, these two made their next +meeting sure.</p> + +<p>In those last years of the last century John Barclay became a powerful +man in this world—one of the few hundred men who divided the material +kingdoms of this earth among them. He was a rich man who was turning his +money into great political power. Senates listened to him, many courts +were his in fee simple, because he had bought and paid for the men who +named the judges; Presidents were glad to know what he thought, and when +he came to the White House, reporters speculated about the talk that +went on behind the doors of the President's room, and the stock market +fluttered. If he desired a law, he paid for it and got it—not in a +coarse illegal way, to be sure, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> through the regular conventional +channels of politics, and if he desired to step on a law, he stepped on +it, and a court came running up behind him, and legalized his +transaction. He sneered at reformers, and mocked God, did John Barclay +in those days. He grew arrogant and boastful, and strutted in his power +like a man in liquor with the vain knowledge that he could increase the +population of a state or a group of states, or he could shrivel the +prosperity of a section of the country by his whim. For by changing a +freight rate he could make wheat grow, where grass had nourished. By +changing the rate again, he could beckon back the wilderness. And yet, +how small was his power; here beside him, cherished as the apple of his +eye, was his daughter, a slip of a girl, with blue eyes and fair hair, +whose heart was growing toward the light, as the hearts of young things +grow, and he, with all of his power, could only watch the mystery, and +wonder at it. He was not displeased at what he saw. But it was one of +the few things in his consciousness over which he could find no way to +assume control. He stood in the presence of something that came from +outside of his realm and ignored him as the sun and the rain and the +simple processes of nature ignored him.</p> + +<p>"Jane," he said one night, when he was in the Ridge for the first time +in many weeks,—a night near the end of the summer when Jeanette and +Neal Ward were vaguely feeling their way together, "Jane, mother says +that while we've been away Neal Ward has been here pretty often. You +don't suppose that—"</p> + +<p>"Well, I've rather wondered about it myself a little," responded Jane. +"Neal is such a fine handsome young fellow."</p> + +<p>"But, Jane," exclaimed Barclay, impatiently, as he rose to walk the rug, +"Jennie is only a child. Why, she's only—"</p> + +<p>"Nineteen, John—she's a big girl now."</p> + +<p>"I know, dear," he protested, "but that's absurdly young. Why—"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she answered, "I was nearly twenty when I was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> engaged to you, +and Jennie's not engaged yet, nor probably even thinking seriously of +it."</p> + +<p>"Don't you think," cried Barclay, as he limped down the diagonal of the +rug, "that you should do something? Isn't it a little unusual? Why—"</p> + +<p>"Well, John," smiled the wife, "I might do what mother did: turn the +young man over to father!" Barclay laughed, and she went on patiently: +"It's not at all unusual, John, even if they do—that is, if they +are—you know; but they aren't, and Jennie is too much in love with her +work at school to quit that. But after all it's the American way; it was +the way we did, dear, and the way our mothers and fathers did, and +unless you wish to change it—to Europeanize it, and pick—"</p> + +<p>"Ah, nonsense, Jane—of course I don't want that! Only I thought some +way, if it's serious she ought to—Oh, don't you know she ought to—"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Barclay broke her smile with, "Of course she ought to, dear, and so +ought I and so ought mother when she married father and so ought my +grandmother when she married grandpa—but did we? Dear, don't you see +the child doesn't realize it? If it is anything, it is growing in her +heart, and I wouldn't smudge it for the world, by speaking to her +now—unless you don't like Neal; unless you think he's too—unless you +want a different boy. I mean some one of consequence?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, it isn't that, Jane—it isn't that. Neal's all right; he's +clean and he is honest—I asked Bob Hendricks about him to-day, when we +passed the boy chasing news for the <i>Banner</i>, and Bob gives him a fine +name." Barclay threw himself into a chair and sighed. "I suppose it's +just that I feel Jeanette's kind of leaving us out of it—that is all."</p> + +<p>Jane went to him and patted his head gently, as she spoke: "That is +nature, dear—the fawn hiding in the woods; we must trust to Jennie's +good sense, and the good blood in Neal. My, but his sisters are proud of +him! Last week Lizzie was telling me Neal's wages had been increased to +ten dollars a week—and I don't suppose<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> their father in all of his life +ever had that much of a steady income. The things the family is planning +to do with that ten dollars a week brought tears of joy to my eyes. +Neal's going to have his mother-in-law on his side, anyway—just as you +had yours. I know now how mother felt."</p> + +<p>But John Barclay did not know how mother felt, and he did not care. He +knew how father felt—how Lycurgus Mason felt, and how the father of +Mrs. Lycurgus Mason felt; he felt hurt and slighted, and he could not +repress a feeling of bitterness toward the youth. All the world loves a +daughter-in-law, but a father's love for a son-in-law is an acquired +taste; some men never get it. And John Barclay was called away the next +morning to throttle a mill in the San Joaquin Valley, and from there he +went to North Dakota to stop the building of a competitive railroad that +tapped his territory; so September came, and with it Jeanette Barclay +went back to school. The mother wondered what the girl would do with her +last night at home. She was clearly nervous and unsettled all the +afternoon before, and made an errand into town and came back with a +perturbed face. But after dinner the mother heard Jeanette at the +telephone, and this is the one-sided dialogue the mother caught: +"Yes—this is Miss Barclay." "Oh, yes, I didn't recognize your voice at +first." "What meeting?" "Yes—yes." "And they are not going to have it?" +"Oh, I see." "You were—oh, I don't know. Of course I should have +felt—well, I—oh, it would have been all right with me. Of course." +Then the voice cheered up and she said: "Why, of course—come right out. +I understand." A pause and then, "Yes, I know a man has to go where he +is called." "Oh, she'll understand—you know father is always on the +wing." "No—why, no, of course not—mother wouldn't think that of you. +I'll tell her how it was." "All right, good-by—yes, right away." And +Jeanette Barclay skipped away from the telephone and ran to her mother +to say, "Mother, that was Neal Ward—he wants to come out, and he was +afraid you'd think it rude for him to ask that way, but you know he had +a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> meeting to report and thought he couldn't come, and now they've +postponed the meeting, and I told him to come right out—wasn't that all +right?"</p> + +<p>And so out came Neal Ward, a likely-looking young man of twenty-one or +maybe twenty-two—a good six feet in height, with a straight leg, a +square shoulder, and firm jaw, set like his father's, and clean brown +eyes that did not blink. And as Jeanette Barclay, with her mother's +height, and her father's quick keen features, and her Grandmother +Barclay's eyes and dominant figure, stood beside him in the doorway, +Mrs. Jane Barclay thought a good way ahead, and Jeanette would have +blushed her face to a cinder if the mother had spoken her thoughts. The +three, mother and daughter and handsome young man, sat for a while +together in the living room, and then Jane, who knew the heart of youth, +and did not fear it, said, "You children should go out on the +porch—it's a beautiful night; I'm going upstairs."</p> + +<p>And now let us once more in our astral bodies watch them there in the +light of the veiled moon—for it is the last time that even we should +see them alone. She is sitting on a balustrade, and he is standing +beside her, and their hands are close together on the stones. "Yes," he +is saying, "I shall be busy at the train to-morrow trying to catch the +governor for an interview on the railroad question, and may not see +you."</p> + +<p>"I wish you would throw the governor into the deep blue sea," she says, +and he responds:—</p> + +<p>"I wish I could." There is a silence, and then he risks it—and the +thing he has been trying to say comes out, "I wonder if you will do +something for me, Jeanette?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't know—don't ask me anything hard—not very hard, Neal!"</p> + +<p>The last word was all he cared for, and by what sleight of hand he +slipped his fraternity pin from his vest into her hand, neither ever +knew.</p> + +<p>"Will you?" he asks. "For me?"</p> + +<p>She pins it at her throat, and smiles. Then she says, "Is this long +enough—do you want it back now?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span></p> + +<p>He shakes his head, and finally she asks, "When?" and then it comes +out:—</p> + +<p>"Never."</p> + +<p>And her face reddens, and she does not speak. Their hands, on the wall, +have met—they just touch, that is all, but they do not hasten apart. A +long, long time they are silent—an eternity of a minute; and then she +says, "We shall see in the morning."</p> + +<p>And then another eternal minute rolls by, and the youth slips the rose +from her hair—quickly, and without disarranging a strand.</p> + +<p>"Oh," she cries, "Neal!" and then adds, "Let me get you a pretty +one—that is faded."</p> + +<p>But no, he will have that one, and she stands beside him and pins it on +his coat—stands close beside him, and where her elbows and her arms +touch him he is thrilled with delight. In the shadow of the great porch +they stand a moment, and her hand goes out to his.</p> + +<p>"Well, Jeanette," he says, and still her hand does not shrink away, +"well, Jeanette—it will be lonesome when you go."</p> + +<p>"Will it?" she asks.</p> + +<p>"Yes—but I—I have been so happy to-night."</p> + +<p>He presses her hand a little closer, and as she says, "I'm so glad," he +says, "Good-by," and moves down the broad stone steps. She stands +watching him, and at the bottom he stops and again says:—</p> + +<p>"Well—good-by—Jeanette—I must go—I suppose." And she does not move, +so again he says, "Good-by."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>"Youth," said Colonel Martin Culpepper to the assembled company in the +ballroom of the Barclay home as the clock struck twelve and brought in +the twentieth century; "Youth," he repeated, as he tugged at the bottom +of Buchanan Culpepper's white silk vest, to be sure that it met his own +black trousers, and waved his free hand grandly aloft; "Youth," he +reiterated, as he looked over the gay young company at the foot of the +hall,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> while the fiddlers paused with their bows in the air, and the din +of the New Year's clang was rising in the town; "Youth,—of all the +things in God's good green earth,—Youth is the most beautiful." Then he +signalled with some dignity to the leader of the orchestra, and the +music began.</p> + +<p>It was a memorable New Year's party that Jeanette Barclay gave at the +dawn of this century. The Barclay private car had brought a dozen girls +down from the state university for the Christmas holidays, and then had +made a recruiting trip as far east as Cleveland and had brought back a +score more of girls in their teens and early twenties—for an invitation +from the Barclays, if not of much social consequence, had a power behind +it that every father recognized. And what with threescore girls from the +Ridge, and young men from half a dozen neighbouring states,—and young +men are merely background in any social picture,—the ballroom was as +pretty as a garden. It was her own idea,—with perhaps a shade of +suggestion from her father,—that the old century should be danced out +and the new one danced in with the pioneers of Garrison County set in +quadrilles in the centre of the floor, while the young people whirled +around them in the two-step then in vogue. So the Barclays asked a score +or so of the old people in for dinner New Year's Eve; and they kept +below stairs until midnight. Then they filed into the ballroom, with its +fair fresh faces, its shrill treble note of merriment,—these old men +and women, gray and faded, looking back on the old century while the +others looked into the new one. There came Mr. and Mrs. Watts McHurdie +in the lead, Watts in his best brown suit, and Mrs. Watts in lavender to +sustain her gray hair; General Ward, in his straight black frock coat +and white tie, followed with Mrs. Dorman, relict of the late William +Dorman, merchant, on his arm; behind him came the Brownwells, in evening +clothes, and Robert Hendricks and his sister,—all gray-haired, but +straight of figure and firm of foot; Colonel Culpepper followed with +Mrs. Mary Barclay; the Lycurgus Masons were next in the file, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span> in +their evening clothes they looked withered and old, and Lycurgus was not +sure upon his feet; Jacob Dolan in his faded blue uniform marched in +like a drum-major with the eldest Miss Ward; and the Carnines followed, +and the Fernalds followed them; and then came Judge and Mrs. Bemis—he a +gaunt, sinister, parchment-skinned man, with white hair and a gray +mustache, and she a crumbling ruin in shiny satin bedecked in diamonds. +Down the length of the long room they walked, and executed an +old-fashioned grand march, such as Watts could lead, while the orchestra +played the tune that brought cheers from the company, and the little old +man looked at the floor, while Mrs. McHurdie beamed and bowed and +smiled. And then they took their partners to step off the +quadrille—when behold, it transpired that in all the city orchestra, +that had cost the Barclays a thousand dollars according to town +tradition, not one man could be found who could call off a quadrille. +Then up spake John Barclay, and stood him on a chair, and there, when +the colonel had signalled for the music to start, the voice of John +Barclay rang out above the din, as it had not sounded before in nearly +thirty years. Old memories came rushing back to him of the nights when +he used to ride five and ten and twenty miles and play the cabinet organ +to a fiddle's lead, and call off until daybreak for two dollars. And +such a quadrille as he gave them—four figures of it before he sent them +to their seats. There were "cheat or swing," the "crow's nest," "skip to +my Loo,"—and they all broke out singing, while the young people clapped +their hands, and finally by a series of promptings he quickly called the +men into one line and the women into another, and then the music +suddenly changed to the Virginia reel. And so the dance closed for the +old people, and they vanished from the room, looking back at the youth +and the happiness and warmth of the place with wistful but not eager +eyes; and as Jacob Dolan, in his faded blues and grizzled hair and +beard, disappeared into the dusk of the hallway, Jeanette Barclay, +looking at her new ring, patted it and said to Neal Ward: "Well, dear, +the nineteenth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span> century is gone! Now let us dance and be happy in this +one."</p> + +<p>And so she danced the new year and the new century and the new life in, +as happy as a girl of twenty can be. For was she not a Junior at the +state university, if you please? Was she not the heir of all the ages, +and a scandalous lot of millions besides, and what is infinitely more +important to a girl's happiness, was she not engaged, good and tight, +and proud of it, to a youth making twelve dollars every week whether it +rained or not? What more could an honest girl ask? And it was all +settled, and so happily settled too, that when she had graduated with +her class at the university, and had spent a year in Europe—but that +was a long way ahead, and Neal had to go to the City with father and +learn the business first. But business and graduation and Europe were +mere details—the important thing had happened. So when it was all over +that night, and the girls had giggled themselves to bed, and the house +was dark, Jeanette Barclay and her mother walked up the stairs to her +room together. There they sat down, and Jeanette began—</p> + +<p>"Neal said he told you about the ring?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," answered her mother.</p> + +<p>"But he did not show it to you—because he wanted me to be the first to +see it."</p> + +<p>"Neal's a dear," replied her mother. "So that was why? I thought perhaps +he was bashful."</p> + +<p>"No, mother," answered the girl, "no—we're both so proud of it." She +kept her hand over the ring finger, as she spoke, "You know those 'Short +and Simple Annals' he's been doing for the <i>Star</i>—well, he got his +first check the day before Christmas, and he gave half of it to his +father, and took the other twenty-five dollars and bought this ring. I +think it is so pretty, and we are both real proud of it." And then she +took her hand from the ring, and held her finger out for her mother's +eyes, and her mother kissed it. They were silent a moment; then the girl +rose and stood with her hand on the doorknob and cried: "I think it is +the prettiest ring in all the world,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> and I never want any other." Then +she thought of mother, and flushed and ran away.</p> + +<p>And we should not follow her. Rather let us climb Main Street and turn +into Lincoln Avenue and enter the room where Martin Culpepper sits +writing the Biography of Watts McHurdie. He is at work on his famous +chapter, "Hymen's Altar," and we may look over his great shoulder and +see what he has written: "The soul caged in its prison house of the +flesh looks forth," he writes, "and sees other chained souls, and hails +them in passing like distant ships. But soul only meets soul in some +great passion of giving, whether it be man to his fellow-man, to his +God, or in the love of men and women; it matters not how the ecstasy +comes, its root is in sacrifice, in giving, in forgetting self and +merging through abnegation into the source of life in this universe for +one sublime moment. For we may not come out of our prison houses save to +inhale the air of heaven once or twice, and then go scourged back to our +dungeons. Great souls are they who love the most, who breathe the +deepest of heaven's air, and give of themselves most freely."</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> +</div> + +<p>The next morning, before the guests were downstairs, Barclay, reading +his morning papers before the fireplace, stopped his daughter, who was +going through the living room on some morning errand.</p> + +<p>"Jeanette," said the father, as he drew her to his chair arm, "let me +see it."</p> + +<p>She brought the setting around to the outside of her finger, and gave +him her hand. He looked at it a moment, patted her hand, put the ring to +his lips, and the two sat silent, choked with something of joy and +something of sorrow that shone through their brimming eyes. Thus Mary +Barclay found them. They looked up abashed, and she bent over them and +stroked her son's hair as she said:—</p> + +<p>"John, John, isn't it fine that Jennie has escaped the curse of your +millions?"</p> + +<p>Barclay's heart was melted. He could not answer, so he nodded an +assenting head. The mother stooped to kiss her son's forehead, as she +went on, "Not with all of your millions could you buy that simple little +ring for Jennie, John." And the father pressed his lips to the ring, and +his daughter snuggled tightly into his heart and the three mingled their +joy together.</p> + +<p>Two hours later Barclay and General Ward met on the bridge by the mill. +It was one of those warm midwinter days, when nature seems to be +listening for the coming of spring. A red bird was calling in the woods +near by, and the soft south wind had spring in it as it blew across the +veil of waters that hid the dam. John Barclay's head was full of music, +and he was lounging across the bridge from the mill on his way home to +try his new pipe organ. He had spent four hours the day before at his +organ bench,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span> trying to teach his lame foot to keep up with his strong +foot. So when General Ward overhauled him, Barclay was annoyed. He was +not the man to have his purposes crossed, even when they were whims.</p> + +<p>"I was just coming over to the mill to see you," said the general, as he +halted in Barclay's path.</p> + +<p>"All right, General—all right; what can I do for you?"</p> + +<p>The general was as blunt a man as John Barclay. If Barclay desired no +beating around the bush, the general would go the heart of matters. So +he said, "I want to talk about Neal with you."</p> + +<p>Barclay knew that certain things must be said, and the two men sat in a +stone seat in the bridge wall, with the sun upon them, to talk it out +then and there. "Well, General, we like Neal—we like him thoroughly. +And we are glad, Jane and I, and my mother too—she likes him; and I +want to do something for him. That's about all there is to say."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but what, John Barclay—what?" exclaimed the general. "That's what +I want to know. What are you going to do for him? Make him a devil +worshipper?"</p> + +<p>"Well now, General, here—don't be too fast," Barclay smiled and +drawled. He put his hands on the warm rocks at his sides and flapped +them like wing-tips as he went on: "Jeanette and Neal have their own +lives to live. They're sensible—unusually sensible. We didn't steal +Neal, any more than you stole Jeanette, General, and—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I understand that, John; that isn't the point," broke in the +general. "But now that you've got him, what are you going to do with +him? Can't you see, John, he's my boy, and that I have a right to know?"</p> + +<p>"Now, General, will you let me do a little of this talking?" asked +Barclay, impatiently. "As I was saying, Jeanette and Neal are sensible, +and money isn't going to make fools of them. When the time comes and I'm +gone, they'll take the divine responsibility—"</p> + +<p>"The divine tommyrot!" cried the general; "the divine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> fiddlesticks! Why +should they? What have they done that they should have that thrust upon +them like a curse; in God's name, John Barclay, why should my Neal have +to have that blot upon his soul? Can't they be free and independent?"</p> + +<p>Barclay did not answer; he looked glumly at the floor, and kicked the +cement with his heel. "What would you have them do with the money when +they get it," he growled, "burn it?"</p> + +<p>"Why not?" snapped the general.</p> + +<p>"Oh—I just thought I'd ask," responded Barclay.</p> + +<p>The two men sat in silence. Barclay regarded conversation with the +general in that mood as arguing with a lunatic. Presently he rose, and +stood before Ward and spoke rather harshly: "What I am going to do is +this—? and nothing more. Neal tells me he understands shorthand: I know +the boy is industrious, and I know that he is bright and quick and +honest. That's all he needs. I am going to take him into our company as +a stockholder—with one share—a thousand-dollar share, to be explicit; +I'm going to give that to him, and that's all; then he's to be my +private secretary for three years at five thousand a year, so long as +you must know, and then at the end of that time, if he and Jennie are so +minded, they're going to marry; and if he has any business sense—of +course you know what will happen. She is all we have, General—some +one's got to take hold of things."</p> + +<p>As Barclay spoke General Ward grew white—his face was aquiver as his +trembling voice cried out: "Oh, God, John Barclay, and would you take my +boy—my clean-hearted, fine-souled boy, whom I have taught to fear God, +and callous his soul with your damned money-making? How would you like +me to take your girl and blacken her heart and teach her the wiles of +the outcasts? And yet you're going to teach Neal to lie and steal and +cheat and make his moral guide the penal code instead of his father's +faith. Shame on you, John Barclay—shame on you, and may God damn you +for this thing, John Barclay!" The old man trembled, but the sob that +shook<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span> his frame had no tears in it. He looked Barclay in the eyes +without a tremor for an angry moment, and then broke: "I am an old man, +John; I can't interfere with Neal and Jeanette; it's their life, not +mine, and some way God will work it out; but," he added, "I've still got +my own heart to break over it—that's mine—that's mine."</p> + +<p>He rose and faced the younger man a moment, and then walked quickly +away. Barclay limped after him, and went home. There he sat on his bench +and made the great organ scream and howl and bellow with rage for two +hours.</p> + +<p>When Neal Ward went to the City to live, he had a revelation of John +Barclay as a man of moods. The Barclay Neal Ward saw was an electric +motor rather than an engine. The power he had to perceive and to act +seemed transmitted to him from the outside. At times he dictated letters +of momentous importance to the young man, which Neal was sure were +improvised. Barclay relied on his instincts and rarely changed a +decision. He wore himself out every day, yet he returned to his work the +next day without a sign of fag. The young man found that Barclay had one +curious vanity—he liked to seem composed. Hence the big smooth mahogany +table before him, with the single paper tablet on it, and the rose—the +one rose in the green vase in the centre of the table. Visitors always +found him thus accoutred. But to see him limping about from room to +room, giving orders in the great offices, dictating notes for the heads +of the various departments, to see him in the room where the mail was +received, worrying it like a pup, was to see another man revealed. He +liked to have people from Sycamore Ridge call upon him, and the man who +kept door in the outer office—a fine gray-haired person, who had the +manners of a brigadier—knew so many people in Sycamore Ridge that Neal +used to call him the City Directory. One day Molly Brownwell called. She +was the only person who ever quelled the brigadier; but when a woman has +been a social leader in a country town all of her life, she has a social +poise that may not be impressed by a mere brigadier. Mrs. Brownwell<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span> +realized that her call was unusual, but she refused to acknowledge it to +him. Barclay seemed glad to see her, and as he was in one of his mellow +moods he talked of old times, and drew from a desk near the wall, which +he rarely opened, an envelope containing a tintype picture of Ellen. +Culpepper. He showed it to her sister, and they both sat silent for a +time, and then the woman spoke.</p> + +<p>"Well, John," she said, "that was a long time ago."</p> + +<p>"Forty years, Molly—forty years."</p> + +<p>When they came back to the world she said: "John, I am up here looking +for a publisher. Father has written a Biography of Watts, and collected +all of his poems and things in it, and we thought it might sell—Watts +is so well known. But the publishers won't take it. I want your advice +about it."</p> + +<p>Barclay listened to her story, and then wheeled in his chair and +exclaimed, "Can Adrian publish that book?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she answered tentatively; "that is, he could if it didn't take +such an awful lot of money."</p> + +<p>After discussing details with her, Barclay called Neal Ward and said:—</p> + +<p>"Get up a letter to Adrian Brownwell asking him to print for me three +thousand copies of the colonel's book, at one dollar and fifty cents a +copy, and give seventy-five per cent of the profits to Colonel +Culpepper. We'll put that book in every public library in this country. +How's that?" And he looked at the tintype and said, "Bless her dear +little heart."</p> + +<p>"Neal," asked Barclay, as Mrs. Brownwell left the room, "how old are +you? I keep forgetting." When the young man answered twenty-five, +Barclay, who was putting away the tintype picture, said, "And Jeanette +will be twenty-three at her next birthday." He closed the desk and +looked at the youth bending over his typewriter and sighed. "Been going +together off and on five or six years—I should say."</p> + +<p>Neal nodded. Barclay put his hand on his chin and contemplated the young +man a moment. "Ever have any other love affair, son?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span></p> + +<p>The youngster coloured and looked up quickly with a puzzled look and did +not reply.</p> + +<p>Barclay cut in with, "Well, son, I'm glad to find you don't lie easily." +He laughed silently. "Jennie has—lots of them. When she was six she +used to cry for little Watts Fernald, and they quarrelled like cats and +dogs, and when she was ten there was an Irish boy—Finnegan I think his +name was—who milked the cow, whom she adored, and when she was fourteen +or so, it was some boy in the high school who gave her candy until her +mother had to shoo him off, and I don't know how many others." He paused +for a few seconds and then went on, "But she's forgotten them—that's +the way of women." His eyes danced merrily as he continued, while he +scratched his head: "But with us men—it's different. We never forget." +He chuckled a moment, and then his face changed as he said, "Neal, I +wish you'd go into the mail room and see if the noon mail has anything +in it from that damn scoundrel who's trying to start a cracker factory +in St. Louis—I hate to bother to smash him right now when we're so +busy."</p> + +<p>But it so happened that the damn scoundrel thought better of his +intention and took fifty thousand for his first thought, and Neal Ward, +being one of the component parts of an engaged couple, went ahead being +sensible about it. All engaged couples, of course, resolve to be +sensible about it. And for two years and a half—during nineteen one and +two and part of nineteen three—Jeanette Barclay and Neal Ward had tried +earnestly and succeeded admirably (they believed) in being exceedingly +sensible about everything. Jeanette had gone through school and was +spending the year in Europe with her mother, and she would be home in +May; and in June—in June of 1904—why, the almanac stopped there; the +world had no further interest, and no one on earth could imagine +anything after that. For then they proposed not to be sensible any +longer.</p> + +<p>In the early years of this century—about 1902, probably—John Barclay +paid an accounting company twenty-five<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span> thousand dollars—more money +than General Ward and Watts McHurdie and Martin Culpepper and Jacob +Dolan had saved in all their long, industrious, frugal, and useful +lives—to go over his business, install a system of audits and accounts, +and tell him just how much money he was worth. After a score of men had +been working for six months, the accounting company made its report. It +was put in terms of dollars and cents, which are fleeting and illusive +terms, and mean much in one country and little in another, signify great +wealth at one time and mere affluence in another period. So the sum need +not be set down here. But certain interesting details of the report may +be set down to illuminate this narrative. For instance, it indicates +that John Barclay was a man of some consequence, when one knows that he +employed more men in that year than many a sovereign state of this Union +employed in its state and county and city governments. It signifies +something to learn that he controlled more land growing wheat than any +of half a dozen European kings reign over. It means something to realize +that in those years of his high tide John Barclay, by a few lines +dictated to Neal Ward, could have put bread out of the reach of millions +of his fellow-creatures. And these are evidences of material +power—these men he hired, these lands he dominated, and this vast store +of food that he kept. So it is fair to assume that if this is a material +world, John Barclay's fortune was founded upon a rock. He and his +National Provisions Company were real. They were able to make laws; they +were able to create administrators of the law; and they were able to +influence those who interpreted the law. Barclay and his power were +substantial, palpable, and translatable into terms of money, of power, +of vital force.</p> + +<p>And then one day, after long years of growth in the under-consciousnesses +of men, an idea came into full bloom in the world. It had no especial +champions. The people began to think this idea. That was all. Now life +reduced to its lowest terms consists of you and him and me. Put us on a +desert island together—you and him and me—and he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span> can do nothing +without you and me—except he kill us, and then he is alone; even then +we haunt him, so our influence still binds him. You can do nothing +without him and me, and I can do nothing without you and him. Not that +you and he will hold me; not that you will stop me; but what you think +and say will bind me to your wishes tighter than any chains you might +forge. What you and he think is more powerful than all the material +forces of this universe. For what you and he think is public opinion. It +is not substantial; it is not palpable. It may not readily be translated +into terms of money, or power, or vital force. But it crushes all these +things before it. When this public opinion rises sure and firm and +strong, no material force on this earth can stop it. For a time it may +be dammed and checked. For a day or a week or a year or a decade it may +be turned from its channel; yet money cannot hold it; arms cannot hold +it; cunning cannot baffle it. For it is God moving among men. Thus He +manifests Himself in this earth. Through the centuries, amid the storm +and stress of time, often muffled, often strangled, often incoherent, +often raucous and inarticulate with anguish, but always in the end +triumphant, the voice of the people is indeed the voice of God!</p> + +<p>Nearly a dozen years had passed since the Russian painted the picture of +John Barclay, which hangs in the public library of Sycamore Ridge, and +in that time the heart of the American people had changed. Barclay was +beginning to feel upon him, night and day, the crushing weight of +popular scorn. He called the idea envy, but it was not envy. It was the +idea working in the world, and the weight of the scorn was beginning to +crumple his soul; for this idea that the people were thinking was +finding its way into newspapers, magazines, and books. They were +beginning to question the divine right of wealth to rule, because it was +wealth—an idea that Barclay could not comprehend even vaguely. The term +honest wealth, which was creeping into respectable periodicals, was +exceedingly annoying to him. For the very presence of the term seemed to +indicate that there was such a thing as dishonest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span> wealth,—an obvious +absurdity; and when he addressed the students of the Southwestern +University at their commencement exercises in 1902, his address +attracted considerable attention because it deplored the modern tendency +in high places toward socialism and warned the students that a nation of +iconoclasts would perish from the earth. But the people went on +questioning the divine right of wealth to rule. In the early part of +1903 Barclay was astounded at the action of a score of his senators and +nearly a hundred of his congressmen, who voted for a national law +prohibiting the giving of railroad rebates. He was assured by all of +them that it was done to satisfy temporary agitation, but the fact that +they voted for the law at all, as he explained to Senator Myton, at some +length and with some asperity, was a breach of faith with "interests in +American politics which may not safely be ignored." "And what's more," +he added angrily, "this is a personal insult to me. That law hits my +Door Strip."</p> + +<p>And then out of the clear sky like a thunderbolt, not from an enemy, not +from any clique or crowd he had fought, but from the government itself, +during the last days of Congress came a law creating a Department of +Commerce and Labour at Washington, a law giving federal inspectors the +right to go through books of private concerns. Barclay was overwhelmed +with amazement. He raged, but to no avail; and his wrath was heated by +the rumours printed in all the newspapers that Barclay and the National +Provisions Company were to be the first victims of the new law. Mrs. +Barclay and Jeanette were going to Europe in the spring of 1903, and +Barclay on the whole was glad of it. He wished the decks cleared for his +fight; he felt that he must not have Jane at his elbow holding his hand +from malice in the engagement that was coming, and when he left them on +the boat, he spent a week scurrying through the East looking for some +unknown enemy in high financial circles who might be back of the +government's determination to move against the N.P.C. He felt sure he +could uncover the source of his trouble—and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span> then, either fight his +enemy or make terms. It did not occur to Barclay that he could not find +a material, palpable, personal object upon which to charge or with which +to capitulate. But he found nothing, and crossed the Alleghanies +puzzled.</p> + +<p>When he got home, he learned that a government inspector, one H. S. +Smith, was beginning the investigation of the Provisions Company's books +in St. Paul, Omaha, Chicago, and Denver. Barclay learned that Smith had +secured some bills of lading that might not easily be explained. +Incidentally, Barclay learned that an attempt had been made, through +proper channels, to buy Smith, and he was nonplussed to learn that Smith +was not purchasable. Then to end the whole matter, Barclay wrote to +Senator Myton, directing him to have Smith removed immediately. But +Myton's reply, which was forwarded to Barclay at Sycamore Ridge, +indicated that "the orders under which Smith is working come from a +higher source than the department."</p> + +<p>Barclay's scorn of Inspector Smith—a man whom he could buy and sell a +dozen times from one day's income from his wealth—flamed into a +passion. He tore Myton's letter to bits, and refreshed his faith in the +god of Things As They Are by garroting a mill in Texas. While the Texas +miller was squirming, Barclay did not consider Inspector Smith +consciously, but in remote places in his mind always there lived the +scorned person whom Barclay knew was working against him.</p> + +<p>From time to time in the early summer the newspapers contained definite +statements, authorized from Washington with increasing positiveness, +that the cordon around the N.P.C. was tightening. In July Barclay's +scorn of Inspector Smith grew into disquietude; for a letter from Judge +Bemis, of the federal court,—written up in the Catskills,—warned him +that scorn was not the only emotion with which he should honour Smith. +After reading Bemis' confidential and ambiguous scrawl, Barclay drummed +for a time with his hard fingers on the mahogany before him, stared at +the print sketches of machinery above him, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span> paced the floor of his +office with the roar of the mill answering something in his angry heart. +He could not know that the tide was running out. He went to his +telephone and asked for a city so far away that when he had finished +talking for ten minutes, he had spent enough money to keep General Ward +in comfort for a month. Neal Ward, sitting in his room, heard Barclay +say: "What kind of a damn bunco game were you fellows putting up on me +in 1900? You got my money; that's all right; I didn't squeal at the +assessment, did I?" Young Ward in the pause closed his door. But the +bull-like roar of Barclay came through the wood between them in a +moment, and he heard: "Matter enough—here's this fellow Smith bullying +my clerks out in Omaha, and nosing around the St. Paul office; what +right has he got? Who is he, anyway—who got him his job? I wrote to +Myton to get him removed, or sent to some other work, and Myton said +that the White House was back of him. I wish you'd go over to +Washington, and tell them who I am and what we did for you in '96 and +1900; we can't stand this. It's a damned outrage, and I look to you to +stop it." In a moment Ward heard Barclay exclaim: "You can't—why, +that's a hell of a note! What kind of a fellow is he, anyway? Tell him I +gave half a million to the party, and I've got some rights in this +government that a white man is bound to respect—or does he believe in +taking your money and letting you whistle?" A train rolling by the mill +drowned Barclay's voice, but at the end of the conversation Ward heard +Barclay say: "Well, what's a party good for if it doesn't protect the +men who contribute to its support? You simply must do it. I look to you +for it. You got my good money, and it's up to you to get results."</p> + +<p>There was some growling, and then Barclay hung up the receiver. But he +was mad all day, and dictated a panic interview to Ward, which Ward was +to give to the Associated Press when they went to Chicago the next day. +In the interview, Barclay said that economic conditions were being +disturbed by half-baked politicians, and that values would shrink and +the worst panic in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span> history of the country would follow unless the +socialistic meddling with business was stopped.</p> + +<p>The summer had deepened to its maturest splendour before Barclay +acknowledged to himself his dread of the City. For he began to feel a +definite discomfiture at the panorama of his pictures on the news-stands +in connection with the advertising of the Sunday newspapers and +magazines. The newspapers were blazoning to the whole country that the +Economy Door Strip was a blind for taking railroad rebates, and +everywhere he met the report of Inspector Smith that the National +Provisions Company's fifty-pound sack of Barclay's Best contained but +forty-eight pounds and ten ounces; also that Barclay had been taking +three ounces out of the pound cartons of breakfast food, and that the +cracker packages were growing smaller, while the prices were not +lowered. Even in Sycamore Ridge the reporters appeared with exasperating +regularity, and the papers were filled with diverting articles telling +of the Barclays' social simplicity and rehashing old stories of John +Barclay's boyhood. His attempt to stop the investigation of the National +Provisions Company became noised around Washington, and the news of his +failure was frankly given out from the White House. This inspired a +cartoon from McCutcheon in the <i>Chicago Tribune</i>, representing the +President weighing a flour sack on which was printed "Barclay's Worst," +with Barclay behind the President trying to get his foot on the scales.</p> + +<p>All of his life Barclay had been a fighter; he liked to hit and dodge or +get hit back. His struggles in business and in the business part of +politics had been with tangible foes, with material things; and his +weapons had been material things: coercion, bribery (more or less +sugar-coated), cheating, and often in these later years the roar of his +voice or the power of his name. But now, facing the formless, impersonal +thing called public opinion, hitherto unknown in his scheme of things, +he was filled with uncertainty and indecision.</p> + +<p>One autumn day, after sending three stenographers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span> home limp and weary +with directions for his battles, Barclay strayed into McHurdie's shop. +The general and Dolan were the only members of the parliament present +that afternoon, besides Watts. Barclay nodded at the general without +speaking, and Dolan said:—</p> + +<p>"Cool, ain't it? Think it will freeze?"</p> + +<p>Barclay took a chair, and when Dolan and Ward saw that he had come for a +visit, they left.</p> + +<p>"Watts," asked Barclay, after the others had gone, and the little man at +the bench did not speak, "Watts, what's got into the people of this +country? What have I done that they should begin pounding me this way?"</p> + +<p>McHurdie turned a gentle smile on his visitor, knowing that Barclay +would do the talking. Barclay went on: "Here are five suits in county +courts in Texas against me; a suit in Kansas by the attorney-general, +five or ten in the Dakotas, three in Nebraska, one or two in each of the +Lake states, and the juries always finding against me. I haven't changed +my methods. I'm doing just what I've done for fifteen years. I've had +lots of lawsuits before, with stockholders and rival companies and +partners, and millers and all that—but this standing in front of the +mob and fighting them off—why? Why? What have I done? These county +attorneys and attorneys-general seem to delight in it—now why? They +didn't used to; it used to be that only cranks like old Phil Ward even +talked of such things, and people laughed at them; and now prosecuting +attorneys actually do these things, and people reelect them. Why? What's +got into the people? What am I doing that I haven't been doing?"</p> + +<p>"Maybe the people are growing honest, John," suggested the harness maker +amiably.</p> + +<p>Barclay threw back his head and roared: "Naw—naw—it isn't that; it's +the damn newspapers. That's what it is! They're what's raising the +devil. But why? Why? What have I done? Why, they have even bulldozed +some of my own federal judges—my own men, Watts, my own men; men whose +senators came into my office with their hats in their hands and asked +permission<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span> to name these judges. Now why?" He was silent awhile and +then began chuckling: "But I fixed 'em the other day. Did you see that +article in all the papers briefed out of New York about how that +professor had said that the N.P.C. was an economic necessity? I did +that, Watts: and got it published in the magazines, too—and our +advertising agents made all the newspapers that get our advertising +print it—and they had to." Barclay laughed. After a moody silence he +continued: "And you know what I could do. I could finance a scheme to +buy out the meat trust and the lumber trust, and I could control every +line of advertising that goes into the damn magazines—and I could buy +the paper trust too, and that would fix 'em. The Phil Wards are not +running this country yet. The men who make the wealth and maintain the +prosperity have got to run it in spite of the long-nosed reformers and +socialists. You know, Watts, that we men who do things have a divine +responsibility to keep the country off the rocks. But she's drifting a +lot just now, and they're all after me, because I'm rich. That's all, +Watts, just because I've worked hard and earned a little money—that's +why." And so he talked on, until he was tired, and limped home and sat +idly in front of his organ, unable to touch the keys.</p> + +<p>Then he turned toward the City to visit his temporal kingdom. There in +the great Corn Exchange Building his domain was unquestioned. There in +the room with the mahogany walls he could feel his power, and stanch the +flow of his courage. There he was a man. But alas for human vanity! When +he got to the City, he found the morning papers full of a story of a +baby that had died from overeating breakfast food made at his mills and +adulterated with earth from his Missouri clay banks, as the coroner had +attested after an autopsy; and a miserable county prosecutor was looking +for John Barclay. So he hid all the next day in his offices, and that +evening took Neal Ward on a special train in his private car, on a +roundabout way home to Sycamore Ridge.</p> + +<p>It was a wretched homecoming for so great and successful a man as +Barclay. Yet he with all his riches, with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span> all his material power, even +he longed for the safety of home, as any hunted thing longs for his +lair. On the way he paced the diagonals of the little office room in his +car, like a caged jackal. The man had lost his anchor; the things which +his life had been built on would not hold him. Money—men envied the +rich nowadays, he said, and the rich man had no rights in the courts or +out of them; friends—they had gone up in the market, and he could not +afford them; politics—he had found it a quicksand. So he jabbered to +Neal Ward, his secretary, and pulled down the curtains of his car on the +station side of every stop the train made in its long day's journey.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> +</div> + +<p>It was nearly midnight when the special train pulled into Sycamore +Ridge, and Neal Ward hurried home. He went to his room, and found there +a letter and a package, both addressed in Jeanette's handwriting. The +letter was only a note that read:—</p> + +<p class='blockquot'> +"<span class="smcap">My dearest Boy</span>: I could not wait to send it for your Christmas +present. So I am sending it the very day it is finished. I hope it +will bring me close to you—into your very heart and keep me there. +I have kissed it—for I knew that you would.<br/> +<br/> +"Your loving <span class="smcap">Jeanette</span>."</p> + + + +<p>He tore open the package and found a miniature of Jeanette done on +ivory—that seemed to bring her into the room, and illumine it with her +presence. The thing bloomed with life, and his heart bounded with joy as +his eyes drank the beauty of it. His father called from below stairs, +and the youth went down holding the note and the miniature in his hands. +Before the father could speak, the son held out the picture, and +Philemon Ward looked for a moment into the glowing faces—that of the +picture and that of the living soul before him, and hesitated before +speaking.</p> + +<p>"I got your wire—" he began.</p> + +<p>"But isn't it beautiful, father—wonderful!" broke in the son.</p> + +<p>The father assented kindly and then continued: "So I thought I'd sit up +for you. I had to talk with you." The son's face looked an +interrogation, and the father answered, "Read that, Neal—" handing his +son a letter in a rich linen envelope bearing in the corner the +indication that it was written at the Army and Navy Club in Washington. +The lovely face in the miniature lay on the table between them and +smiled up impartially at father and son as the young man drew out the +letter and read:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span>—</p> + +<p class='blockquot'> +"<span class="smcap">My dear General Ward</span>: This letter will introduce to you Mr. H. S. +Smith, an inspector from the Bureau of Commerce and Labour, who has +been working upon evidence connected with the National Provisions +Company. I happened to be at luncheon this afternoon with a man of +the highest official authority, whose name it would be bad faith to +divulge, but whom I know you respect, even if you do not always +agree with him. I mentioned your name and the part you took in the +battle of the Wilderness, and my friend was at once interested, +though, of course, he had known you by name and fame for forty +years. One word led to another, as is usual in these cases, and my +friend mentioned the fact that your son, Neal Dow Ward, is +secretary to John Barclay, and in a position to verify certain +evidence which the government now has in the N.P.C. matter. I +happen to know that the government is exceedingly anxious to be +exactly correct in every charge it makes against this Company, and +hence I am writing to you. Your son can do a service to his country +to-day by telling the truth when he is questioned by Inspector +Smith, to my mind as important as that you did in the Wilderness. +Inspector Smith has a right to question him, and will do so, and I +have promised my friend here to ask you to counsel with your son, +and beg him in the name of that good citizenship for which you have +always stood, and for which you offered your life, to tell the +simple truth. As a comrade and a patriot, I have no doubt what you +will do, knowing the facts."</p> + +<p>Neal Ward put his hand on the table, with the letter still in his +fingers. "Father," he asked blankly, "do you know what that means?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Neal, I think I understand; it means that to-morrow morning will +decide whether you are a patriot or a perjurer, my boy—a patriot or a +perjurer!" The general, who was in his shirt-sleeves and collarless, +rose, and putting his hands behind him, backed to the radiator to warm +them.</p> + +<p>"But, father—father," exclaimed the boy, "how can I? What I learned was +in confidence. How can I?"</p> + +<p>The father saw the anguish in his son's face, and did not reply at once. +"Is it crooked, Neal?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," replied the son, and then added: "So bad I was going to get out +of it, as soon as Jeanette came home. I couldn't stand it—for a life, +father. But I promised to stay three years, and try, and I think I +should keep my promise."</p> + +<p>The father and son were silent for a time, and then the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span> father spoke. +"And you love her with all your life—don't you, Nealie?" The son was +gazing intently at the miniature and nodded. At length the father +sighed. "My poor, poor boy—my poor, poor boy." He walked to the table +on which were his books and papers, and then stood looking at the girl's +face. "You couldn't explain it to her, I suppose?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"No," replied the son. "No; she adores her father; to her he is perfect. +And I don't blame her, for he is good—you can't know how good, to her." +Again they stood in silence. The son looked up from the picture and +said, "And you know, father, what the world would think of me—a spy, an +informer—an ingrate?"</p> + +<p>The old man did not reply, and the son shook his head and his face +twitched with the struggle that was in him. Suddenly the father walked +to the son and cried: "And yet you must, Neal Ward—you must. Is there +any confidence in God's world so sacred as your duty to mankind? Is +there any tie, even that of your wife, so sacred as that which binds you +to humanity? I left your mother, my sweetheart, and went out to fight, +with the chance of never seeing her again. I went out and left her for +the same country that is calling you now, Neal!" The boy looked up with +agony on his face. The father paused a moment and then went on: "Your +soul is your soul—not John Barclay's, my boy—not Jeanette +Barclay's—but yours—yours, Neal, to blight or to cherish, as you +will." A moment later he added, "Don't you see, son—don't you see, +Neal?" The son shook his head and looked down, and did not answer. The +father put his arm about the son. "Boy, boy," he cried, "boy, you've got +a a man's load on you now—a man's load. To-morrow you can run away like +a coward; you can dodge and lie like a thief, or you can tell the simple +truth, as it is asked of you, like a man—the simple truth like a man, +Neal."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know, father—I see it all—but it is so hard—for her sake, +father."</p> + +<p>The old man was silent, while the kitchen clock ticked away a minute and +then another and a third. Then he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span> took his arm away from his son, and +grasped the boy's hand. "Oh, little boy—little boy," he cried, "can't I +make you see that the same God who has put this trial upon you will see +you through it, and that if you fail in this trial, your soul will be +crippled for life, and that no matter what you get in return for your +soul—you will lose in the bargain? Can't you see it, Nealie—can't you +see it? All my life I have been trying to live that way, and I have +tried to make you see it—so that you would be ready for some trial like +this."</p> + +<p>The son rose, and the two men stood side by side, clasping hands. The +boy suddenly tore himself loose, and throwing his hands in the air, +wailed, "Oh, God—it is too hard—I can't, father—I can't."</p> + +<p>And with the miniature in his hand he walked from the room, and Philemon +Ward went to his closet and wrestled through the night. At dawn his son +sat reading and re-reading a letter. Finally he pressed another letter to +his lips, and read his own letter again. It read:—</p> + +<p class='blockquot'> +"<span class="smcap">My darling Girl</span>: This is the last letter I shall ever mail to you, +perhaps. I can imagine no miracle that will bring us together +again. My duty, as I see it, stands between us. The government +inspector is going to put me under oath to-morrow—unless I run, +and I won't—and question me about your father's business. What I +must tell will injure him—maybe ruin him. I am going to tell your +father what I am going to do before I do it. But by all the faith I +have been taught in a God—and you know I am not pious, and belong +to no church—I am forced to do this thing. Oh, Jeanette, +Jeanette—if I loved you less, I would take you for this life alone +and sell my soul for you; but I want you for an eternity—and in +that eternity I want to bring you an unsoiled soul. Good-by—oh, +good-by.<br/> +<br/> +<span class="smcap">Neal</span>."</p> + + + +<p>The next morning when Neal Ward went out of the office at the mill, John +Barclay sat shivering with wrath and horror. Every second stamped him +with its indelible finger, as a day, or a month, puts its stain on other +men.</p> + +<p>Another morning, a week later, as he sat at his desk, a telegram from +his office manager in the city fluttered in his hands. It read: "We are +privately advised that you were indicted by the federal grand jury last +night—though we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span> do not know upon what specific charge—our friend B. +will advise us later in the day."</p> + +<p>It was a gray December day, and a thin film of ice covered the +mill-pond. Barclay looked there and shuddered away from the thought that +came to him. He was alone in the mill. He longed for his wife and +daughter, and yet when he thought of their homecoming to disgrace, he +shook with agony. Over and over again he whispered the word "indicted." +The thought of his mother and her sorrow broke him down. He locked the +door, dropped heavily into his chair, and bowed his head on his crossed +arms. And then—</p> + +<p>What, tears? Tears for Mr. Barclay?—for himself? Look back along the +record for his life: there are many tears charged to his account, but +none for his own use. Back in the seventies there are tears of Miss +Culpepper, charged to Mr. Barclay, and one heart-break for General +Hendricks. Again in the eighties there is sorrow for Mr. Robert +Hendricks, and more tears for Mrs. Brownwell, that was Miss +Culpepper—all charged to the account of Mr. Barclay; and in the early +nineties there are some manly tears for Martin F. Culpepper, also +charged to Mr. Barclay—but none before for his own use. Are they, then, +tears of repentance? No, not tears for the recording angel, not good, +man's size, soul-washing tears of repentance, but miserable, dwarf, +useless, self-pitying, corroding tears—tears of shame and rage, for the +proud, God-mocking, man-cheating, powerful, faithless, arrogant John +Barclay, dealer in the Larger Good.</p> + +<p>And so with his head upon his arms, and his arms upon his desk,—a +gray-clad, gray-haired, slightly built, time-racked little figure,—John +Barclay strained his soul and wrenched his body and tried in vain to +weep.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXV</h2> +</div> + +<p>Down comes the curtain. Only a minute does John Barclay sit there with +his head in his arms, and then, while you are stretching your legs, or +reading your programme, or looking over the house to see who may be +here, up rises John Barclay, and while the stage carpenters are setting +the new scene, he is behind there telephoning to Chicago, to +Minneapolis, to Omaha, to Cleveland, to Buffalo,—he fairly swamps the +girl with expensive long-distance calls,—trying to see if there is not +some way to stop the filing of that indictment. For to him the mere +indictment advertises to mankind that money is not power, and with him +and with all of his caste and class a confession of weakness is +equivalent to a confession of wrong. For where might makes right, as it +does in his world, weakness spells guilt, and with all the people +jeering at him, with the press saying: "Aha, so they have got Mr. +Barclay, have they? Well, if all his money and all his power could not +prevent an indictment, he must be a pretty tough customer,"—with the +public peering into his private books and papers in a lawsuit, +confirming as facts all that they had read in the newspapers, in short +with the gold plating of respectability rubbed off his moral brass, he +feels the crushing weight of the indictment, as he limps up and down his +room at the mill and frets at the long-distance operator for being so +slow with his calls.</p> + +<p>But he is behind the scenes now; and so is Neal Ward, walking the +streets of Chicago, looking for work on a newspaper, and finally finding +it. And so are Mrs. Jane Barclay and Miss Barclay, as they sail away on +their ten days' cruise of the Mediterranean. And while the orchestra +plays and the man in the middle of row A of the dress circle edges out +of his seat and in again, we cannot hear John Barclay sigh when the last +telephone call is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span> answered, and he finds that nothing can be done. And +he is not particularly cheered by the knowledge that the Associated +Press report that very afternoon is sending all over the world the story +of the indictment. But late in the afternoon Judge Bemis, in whose court +the indictment was found, much to his chagrin, upon evidence furnished +by special counsel sent out from Washington—Judge Bemis tells him, as +from one old friend to another, that the special counsellor isn't much +of a lawyer. The pleasant friendly little rip-saw laugh of the judge +over the telephone nearly a thousand miles away is not distinct enough +to be heard across the stage even if the carpenters were not hammering, +and the orchestra screaming, and the audience buzzing; but that little +laugh of his good friend, Judge Bemis, was the sweetest sound John +Barclay had heard in many a day. It seemed curious that he should so +associate it, but that little laugh seemed to drown the sound of a +clicking key in a lock—a large iron lock, that had been rattling in his +mind since noon. For even in the minds of the rich and the great, even +in the minds of men who fancy they are divinely appointed to parcel out +to their less daring brethren the good things of this world, there is +always a child's horror of the jail. So when Mr. Barclay, who was +something of a lawyer himself, heard his good friend, Judge Bemis, laugh +that pleasant little friendly laugh behind the scenes, the heart of Mr. +Barclay gave a little pulse-beat of relief if not of joy.</p> + +<p>But an instant later the blight of the indictment was over him again. +Hammer away, and scream away, and buzz away with all your might, you +noises of the playhouse; let us not hear John Barclay hastening across +the bridge just before the early winter sunset comes, that he may +intercept the <i>Index</i> and the <i>Banner</i> in the front yard of the Barclay +home, before his mother sees them. Always heretofore he has been glad to +have her read of his achievements, in the hope that she would come to +approve them, and to view things as he saw them—his success and his +power and his glory. But to-night he hides the paper under his gray coat +and slips into the house. She<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span> and her son sit down to dinner alone. +This must be a stage dinner they are eating—though it is all behind the +scenes; for Mr. Barclay is merely going through the empty form of +eating. "No, thank you," for the roast. "Why, Mr. Barclay did not touch +his soup!" "Well," says the cook, tasting it critically, "that's +strange." And "No, thank you" for the salad, and "Not any pie to-night, +Clara." "What—none of the mince pie, John? Why, I went out in the +kitchen and made it for you myself." "Well, a little."</p> + +<p>Heigh-ho! We sigh, and we drum on our table-cloth with our fingers, and +we are trying to find some way to tell something. We have been a bad +boy, maybe—a bad little boy, and must own up; that is part of our +punishment—the hardest part perhaps, even with the curtain down, even +with the noise in front, even with the maid gone, even when a mother +comes and strokes our head, as we sit idly at the organ bench, unable to +sound a key. Shall the curtain go up now? Shall we sit gawking while a +boy gropes his way out of a man's life, back through forty years, and +puts his head in shame and sorrow against a mother's breast? How he +stumbles and falters and halts, as the truth comes out—and it must come +out; on the whole the best thing there is to say of John Barclay on that +fateful December day in the year of our Lord 1903 is that he did not let +his mother learn the truth from any lips but his. And so it follows +naturally, because he was brave and kind, that instead of having to +strengthen her, she sustained him—she in her seventies, he in his +fifties.</p> + +<p>"My poor dear child," she said, "I know—I know. But don't worry, +John—don't worry. I don't mind. Jane won't mind, I am sure, and I know +Jennie will understand. It isn't what even we who love you think of you, +John—it is what you are that counts. Oh, Johnnie, Johnnie, maybe you +could serve your country and humanity in jail—by showing the folly and +the utter uselessness of all this money-getting, just as your father +served it by dying. I would not mind if it made men see that money isn't +the thing—if it made you see it, my boy; if you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span> could come out of a +jail with that horrible greed for money purged from you—"</p> + +<p>But no—we will not peep behind the curtain; we will not dwell with John +Barclay as he walked all night up and down the great living room of his +home. And see, the footlights have winked at the leader of the +orchestra, to let him know he is playing too long; observe, how quickly +the music dies down—rather too quickly, for the clatter of cast iron is +heard on the stage, and the sound of hurried footsteps is audible, as of +some one moving rapidly about behind the curtain. The rattling iron you +hear is the stove in Watts McHurdie's shop; they have just set it up, +and got it red hot; for it is a cold day, that fifteenth day of +December, 1903, and the footsteps you hear are those of the members of +the harness shop parliament.</p> + +<p>Ah! There goes the curtain, and there sits Watts astraddle of his bench, +working with all his might, for he has an order to sew sleigh-bells on a +breast strap, for some festivity or another; and here sits the colonel, +and over there the general, and on his home-made chair Jacob Dolan is +tilted back, warming his toes at the stove. They are all reading—all +except Watts, who is working; on the floor are the Chicago and St. Louis +evening papers, and the Omaha and Kansas City morning papers. And on the +first pages of all of these papers are pictures of John Barclay. There +is John Barclay in the <i>Bee</i>, taken in his Omaha office by the <i>Bee's</i> +own photographer—a new picture of Mr. Barclay, unfamiliar to the +readers of most newspapers. It shows the little man standing by a desk, +smiling rather benignly with his sharp bold eyes fixed on the camera. +There is a line portrait of Mr. Barclay in the <i>Times</i>, one of recent +date, showing the crow's-feet about the eyes, the vertical wrinkle above +the nose, and the furtive mouth, hard and naked, and the square mean +jaw, that every cartoonist of Barclay has emphasized for a dozen years. +And there are other pictures of Mr. Barclay in the papers on the floor, +and the first pages of the papers are filled with the news of the +Barclay indictment. All over this land, and in Europe, the news of that +indictment<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span> caused a sensation. In the <i>Times</i>, there on the floor, is +an editorial comment upon the indictment of Barclay cabled from London, +another from Paris, and a third from Berlin. It was a big event in the +world, an event of more than passing note—this sudden standing up of +one of the richest men of his land, before the front door of a county +jail. Big business, and little business that apes big business, dropped +its jaw. The world is not accustomed to think of might making wrong, so +when a Charles I or a Louis XVI or a John Barclay comes to harm, the +traditions of the world are wrenched. Men say: "How can these things +be—if might makes right? Here is a case where might and right +conflict—how about it? Jails are for the poor, not for the rich, +because the poor are wrong and the rich are right, and no just man made +perfect by a million should be in jail."</p> + +<p>And so while the members of the parliament in Watts McHurdie's shop read +and were disturbed at the strange twist of events, the whole world was +puzzled with them, and in unison with Jacob Dolan, half the world spoke, +"I see no difference in poisoning breakfast foods and poisoning wells, +and it's no odds to me whether a man pinches a few ounces out of my +flour sack, or steals my chickens."</p> + +<p>And the other half of the world was replying with Colonel Culpepper, +"Oh, well, Jake, now that's all right for talk; but in the realms of +high finance men are often forced to be their own judges of right and +wrong, and circumstances that we do not appreciate, cannot understand, +in point of fact, nor comprehend, if I may say so, intervene, and make +what seems wrong in small transactions, trivial matters and pinch-penny +business, seem right in the high paths of commerce."</p> + +<p>The general was too deeply interested in reading what purported to be +his son's testimony before Commissioner Smith, to break into the +discussion at this point, so Dolan answered, "From which I take it that +you think that Johnnie down at the mill keeps a private God in his +private car."</p> + +<p>The colonel was silent for a time; he read a few lines<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span> and looked into +space a moment, and then replied in a gentle husky voice: "Jake, what do +we know about it? The more I think how every man differs from his +neighbour, and all our sins are the result of individual weakness at the +end of lonely struggles with lonely temptations—the more I think maybe +there is something in what you say, and that not only John but each of +us—each of us under this shining sun, sir—keeps his private God."</p> + +<p>"You'll have to break that news gently to the Pope," returned Dolan. +"I'll not try it. Right's right, Mart Culpepper, and wrong's wrong for +me and for Johnnie Barclay, white, black, brown, or yellow—'tis the +same."</p> + +<p>"There's nothing in your theory, Mart," cut in the general, folding his +paper across his knee; "not a thing in the world. We're all parts of a +whole, and the only way this is an individual problem at all—this +working out of the race's destiny—is that the whole can't improve so +long as the parts don't grow. So long as we all are like John Barclay +save in John's courage to do wrong, laws won't help us much, and putting +John in jail won't do so very much—though it may scare the cowards +until John's kind of crime grows unpopular. But what we must have is +individual—"</p> + +<p>Tinkle goes the bell over Watts McHurdie's head—the bell tied to a cord +that connects with the front door. Down jumps Watts, and note the play +of the lights from the flies, observe that spot light moving toward +R. U. E., there by the door of the shop. Yes, all ready; enter John +Barclay. See that iron smile on his face; he has not surrendered. He has +been clean-shaven, and entering that door, he is as spick and span as +though he were on a wedding journey. Give him a hand or a hiss as you +will, ladies and gentlemen, John Barclay has entered at the Right Upper +Entrance, and the play may proceed.</p> + +<p>"Well," he grinned, "I suppose you are talking it over. Colonel, has the +jury come to a verdict yet?"</p> + +<p>What a suave John Barclay it was; how admirably he held his nerve; not a +quiver in the face, not a ruffle of the voice. The general looked at him +over his spectacles, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span> could not keep the kindness out of his eyes. +"What a brick you are!" he said to himself, and Jake Dolan, conquered by +the simplicity of it, surrendered.</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, John, I suppose we all have our little troubles," said Jake. +Only that; the rack of the inquisitor grew limp. And Colonel Culpepper +rose and gave Barclay his hand and spoke not a word. The silence was +awkward, and at the end of a few moments the colonel found words.</p> + +<p>"How," he asked in his thick asthmatic voice, mushy with emotion, "how +in the world did this happen, John? How did it happen?"</p> + +<p>Barclay looked at the general; no, he did not glare, for John Barclay +had grown tame during the night, almost docile, one would say. But he +did not answer at first, and Watts McHurdie, bending over his work, +chuckled out: "Ten miles from Springfield, madam—ten miles from +Springfield." And then John sloughed off thirty years and laughed. And +the general laughed, and the colonel smiled, and Jake Dolan took John +Barclay's hand from the colonel, and said:—</p> + +<p>"The court adjudges that the prisoner at the bar pay the assembled +company four of those cigars in his inside pocket, and stand committed +until the same is paid."</p> + +<p>And then there was a scratching of matches, and a puffing, and Barclay +spoke: "I knew there was one place on earth where I was welcome. The +mill is swarming with reporters, and I thought I'd slip away. They'll +not find me here." The parliament smoked in silence, and again Barclay +said, "Well, gentlemen, it's pretty tough—pretty tough to work all your +life to build up an industry and in the end—get this."</p> + +<p>"Well, John," said the general, as he rolled up his newspaper and put it +away, "I'm sorry—just as sorry as Mart is; not so much for the +indictment, that is all part of the inevitable consequence of your +creed; if it hadn't been the indictment, it would have been something +else, equally sad—don't you see, John?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I know what you think, General," retorted Barclay,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span> bitterly. "I +know your idea; you think it's retribution."</p> + +<p>"Not exactly that either, John—just the other side of the equation. You +have reaped what you sowed, and I am sorry for what you sowed. God gave +you ten talents, John Barclay—ten fine talents, my boy, and you wrapped +them in a napkin and buried them in the ground, buried them in greed and +cunning and love of power, and you are reaping envy and malice and +cruelty. You were efficient, John; oh, if I had been as efficient as +you, how much I could have done for this world—how much—how much!" he +mused wistfully.</p> + +<p>Barclay did not reply, but his face was hard, and his neck was stiff, +and he was not moved. He was still the implacable Mr. Barclay, the rich +Mr. Barclay, and he would have no patronage from old Phil Ward—Phil +Ward the crank, who was a nation's joke. Ting-a-ling went the bell over +Watts McHurdie's head, and the little man climbed down from his bench +and hurried into the shop. But instead of a customer, Mr. J. K. +Mercheson, J. K. Mercheson representing Barber, Hancock, and Kohn,—yes, +the whip trust; that's what they call it, but it is really an industrial +organization of the trade,—Mr. J. K. Mercheson of New York came in. No, +McHurdie did not need anything at present, and he backed into the shop. +He had all of the goods in that line that he could carry just now; and +he sidled toward his seat. The members of the parliament effaced +themselves, as loafers do in every busy place when business comes up; +the colonel got behind his paper, Barclay hid back of the stove, Dolan +examined a bit of harness, and the general busied himself picking up the +litter on the floor, and folding the papers with the pictures of Barclay +inside so that he would not be annoyed by them. But Mr. Mercheson knew +how to get orders; he knew that the thing to do is to stay with the +trade.</p> + +<p>So he leaned against the work bench and began:—</p> + +<p>"This is a great town, Mr. McHurdie; we're always hearing from Sycamore +Ridge. When I'm in the East they say, 'What kind of a town is that +Sycamore Ridge<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span> where Watts McHurdie and your noted reformer, Robert +Hendricks, who was offered a place in the cabinet, and this man John +Barclay live?'"</p> + +<p>Mr. Mercheson paused for effect. Mr. McHurdie smiled and went on with +his work.</p> + +<p>"Say," said Mr. Mercheson, "your man Barclay is in all the papers this +morning. I was in the smoker of the sleeper last evening coming out of +Chicago, and we got to talking about him—and Lord, how the fellows did +roast him."</p> + +<p>"They did?" asked Barclay, from his chair behind the stove.</p> + +<p>"Sure," replied Mr. Mercheson; "roasted him good and brown. There wasn't +a man in the smoker but me to stand up for him."</p> + +<p>"So you stood up for the old scoundrel, did you?" asked Barclay.</p> + +<p>"Sure," answered the travelling man. "Anything to get up an argument, +you know," he went on, beginning to see which way sentiment lay in the +shop. "I've been around town this morning, and I find the people here +don't approve of him for a minute, any more than they did on the train."</p> + +<p>"What do they say?" asked Barclay, braiding a four-strand whip, and +finding that his cunning of nearly fifty years had not left his fingers.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it isn't so much what they say—but you can tell, don't you know; +it's what they don't say; they don't defend him. I guess they like him +personally, but they know he's a thief; that's the idea—they simply +can't defend him and they don't try. The government has got him dead to +rights. Say," he went on, "just to be arguing, you know last evening I +took a poll of the train—the limited—the Golden State Limited—swell +train, swell crowd—all rich old roosters; and honest, do you know that +out of one hundred and twenty-three votes polled only four were for him, +and three of those were girls who said they knew his daughter at the +state university, and had visited at his house. Wasn't that funny?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span></p> + +<p>Barclay laughed grimly, and answered, "Well, it was pretty funny +considering that I'm John Barclay."</p> + +<p>The suspense of the group in the shop was broken, and they laughed, too.</p> + +<p>"Oh, hell," said Mr. Mercheson, "come off!" Then he turned to McHurdie +and tried to talk trade to him. But Watts was obdurate, and the man soon +left the shop, eying Barclay closely. He stood in the door and said, as +he went out of the store, "Well, you do look some like his pictures, +Mister."</p> + +<p>There was a silence when the stranger went, and Barclay, whose face had +grown red, cried, "Damn 'em—damn 'em all—kick a man when he is down!"</p> + +<p>Again the bell tinkled, and McHurdie went into the shop. Evidently a +customer was looking at a horse collar, for through the glass door they +could see Watts' hook go up to the ceiling and bring one down.</p> + +<p>"John," said the colonel, when Barclay had spoken, "John, don't mind it. +Look at me, John—look at me! They had to put me in jail, you know; but +every one seems to have forgotten it but me—and I am a dog that I +don't."</p> + +<p>John Barclay looked at the old, broken man, discarded from the +playing-cards of life, with the hurt, surprised look always in his eyes, +and it was with an effort that the suave Mr. Barclay kept the choke in +his throat out of his voice as he replied:—</p> + +<p>"Yes, Colonel, yes, I know I have no right to kick against the pricks."</p> + +<p>Watts was saying: "Yes, he's in there now—with the boys; you better go +in and cheer him up."</p> + +<p>And then at the upper right-hand entrance entered Gabriel Carnine, +president of the State Bank, unctuous as a bishop. He ignored the +others, and walking to Barclay, put out his hand. "Well, well, John, +glad to see you; just came up from the mill—I was looking for you. +Couldn't find Neal, either. Where is he?"</p> + +<p>The general answered curtly, "Neal is in Chicago, working on the +<i>Record-Herald</i>."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh," returned Carnine, and did not pursue the subject further. "Well, +gentlemen," he said, "fine winter weather we're having."</p> + +<p>"Is that so?" chipped in Dolan. "Mr. Barclay was finding it a little +mite warm."</p> + +<p>Carnine ignored Dolan, and Barclay grinned. "Well, John," Carnine +hesitated, "I was just down to see you—on a little matter of business."</p> + +<p>"Delighted, sir, delighted," exclaimed Dolan, as he rose to go; "we were +going, anyway—weren't we, General?" The veterans rose, and Colonel +Culpepper said as he went, "I told Molly to call for me here about noon +with the buggy—if she comes, tell her to wait."</p> + +<p>All of life may not be put on the stage, and this scene has to be cut; +for it was at the end of half an hour's aimless, footless, foolish talk +that Gabriel Carnine came to the business in hand. Round and round the +bush he beat the devil, before he hit him a whack. Then he said, as if +it had just occurred to him, "We were wondering—some of the +directors—this morning, if under the circumstances—oh, say just for +the coming six months or such a matter—it might not be wise to +reorganize our board; freshen it up, don't you know; kind of get some +new names on it, and drop the old ones—not permanently, but just to +give the other stockholders a show on the board."</p> + +<p>"So you want me to get off, do you?" blurted Barclay. "You're afraid of +my name—now?"</p> + +<p>The screams of Mr. Carnine, the protesting screams of that oleaginous +gentleman, if they could have been vocalized in keeping with their +muffled, low-voiced, whispering earnestness, would have been loud enough +to be heard a mile away, but Barclay talked out:—</p> + +<p>"All right, take my name off; and out comes my account. I don't care."</p> + +<p>And thereupon the agony of Mr. Carnine was unutterable. If he had been a +natural man, he would have howled in pain; as it was, he merely purred. +But Barclay's skin was thin that day, sensitive to every touch,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span> and he +felt the rough hand of Carnine and winced. He let the old man whine and +pur and stroke his beard awhile, and then Barclay said wearily, "All +right, just as you please, Gabe—I'll not move my account. It's nothing +to me."</p> + +<p>In another minute the feline foot of Mr. Carnine was pattering gently +toward the front door. Barclay sat looking at the stove, and Watts went +on working. Barclay sighed deeply once or twice, but McHurdie paid no +heed to him. Finally Barclay rose and went over to the bench.</p> + +<p>"Watts," cried Barclay, "what do you think about it—you, your own self, +what do you think way down in your heart?"</p> + +<p>Watts sewed a stitch or two without speaking, and then put down his +thread and put up his glasses and said, "That's fairly spoken, John +Barclay, and will have a fair answer."</p> + +<p>The old man paused; Barclay cried impatiently, "Oh, well, Watts, don't +be afraid—nothing can hurt me much now!"</p> + +<p>"I was just a-thinking, lad," said Watts, gently, "just a-thinking."</p> + +<p>"What?" cried Barclay.</p> + +<p>"Just a-thinking," returned the old man, as he put his hand on the +younger man's shoulder, "what a fine poet you spoiled in your life, just +to get the chance to go to jail. But the Lord knows His business, I +suppose!" he added with a twinkle in his eye, "and if He thinks a poet +more or less in jail would help more than one out—it is all for the +best, John, all for the best. But, my boy," he cried earnestly, "if +you'll be going to jail, don't whine, lad. Go to jail like a gentleman, +John Barclay, go to jail like a gentleman, and serve your Lord there +like a man."</p> + +<p>"Damn cheerful you are, Watts," returned Barclay. "What a lot of Job's +comforters you fellows have been this morning." He went on half bitterly +and half jokingly: "Beginning with the general, continuing with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span> your +travelling salesman friend, and following up with Gabe, who wants me to +get off the board of directors of his bank for the moral effect of it, +and coming on down to you who bid me Godspeed to jail—I have had +a—a—a rather gorgeous morning."</p> + +<p>The door-bell tinkled, and a woman's voice called, "Father, father!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Molly," the harness maker answered; "he'll be here pretty soon. He +said for you to wait."</p> + +<p>"Come in, for heaven's sake, Molly," cried Barclay, "come back here and +cheer me up."</p> + +<p>"Oh, all right—it's you, John? What are you doing back here? I'm so +glad to find you. I've just got the dearest letter from Jane. We won't +talk business or anything—you know how I feel, and how sorry I am—so +just let's read Jane's letter; it has something in it to cheer you. She +said she was going to write it to you the next day—but I'll read it to +you." And so Mrs. Brownwell took from her pocketbook the crumpled letter +and unfolded it. "It's so like Jane—just good hard sense clear +through." She turned the pages hastily, and finally the fluttering of +the sheets stopped. "Oh, yes," she said, "here's the place—the rest +she's told you. Let me see—Oh: 'And, Molly, what do you think?—there's +a duke after Jeanette—a miserable, little, dried-up, burned-out, +poverty-stricken Italian duke. And oh, how much good it did us both to +cut him, and let him know how ill-bred we considered him, how altogether +beneath any wholesome honest girl we thought such a fellow.' And now, +John, isn't this like Jane?" interposed Mrs. Brownwell. "Listen; she +says, 'Molly, do you know, I am so happy about Jeanette and Neal. We run +such an awful risk with this money—such a horrible risk of unhappiness +and misery for the poor child—heaven knows she would be so much happier +without it. And to think, dear, that she has found the one in the world +for her, in the sweet simple way that a girl should always find him, and +that the money—the menacing thing that hangs like a shadow over +her—cannot by any possibility spoil her life! It makes me<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span> happy all +the day, and I go singing through life with joy at the thought that the +money won't hurt Jennie—that it can't take from her the joy that comes +from living with her lover all her life, as I have lived.' Isn't that +fine, John?" asked Mrs. Brownwell, and looking up, she saw John Barclay, +white-faced, with trembling jaw, staring in pain at the stove. Watts had +gone into the store to wait on a customer, and the woman, seeing the +man's anguish, came to him and said: "Why, John, what is it? How have I +hurt you?—I thought this would cheer you so."</p> + +<p>The man rose heavily. His colour was coming back. "Oh, God—God," he +cried, "I needed that to-day—I needed that."</p> + +<p>The woman looked at him, puzzled and nonplussed. "Why—why—why?" she +stammered.</p> + +<p>"Oh, nothing," he smiled back at her bitterly, "except—" and his jaw +hardened as he snapped—"except that Neal Ward is a damned informer—and +I've sent him about his business, and Jeanette's got to do the same."</p> + +<p>Mollie Brownwell looked at him with hard eyes for a moment, and then +asked, "What did Neal do?"</p> + +<p>"Well," replied Barclay, "under cross-examination, I'll admit without +incriminating myself that he gave the testimony which indicted me."</p> + +<p>"Was it that or lie, John?" He did not reply. A silence fell, and the +woman broke it with a cry: "Oh, John Barclay, John Barclay, must your +traffic in souls reach your own flesh and blood? Haven't you enough +without selling her into Egypt, too? Haven't you enough money now?" And +without waiting for answer, Molly Brownwell turned and left him staring +into nothing, with his jaw agape.</p> + +<p>It was noon and a band was playing up the street, and as he stood by the +stove in McHurdie's shop, he remembered vaguely that he had seen banners +flying and some "Welcome" arches across the street as he walked through +the town that morning. He realized that some lodge or conclave or +assembly was gathering in the town, and that the band was a part of its +merriment. It was playing a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span> gay tune and came nearer and nearer. But as +he stood leaning upon his chair, with his heart quivering and raw from +its punishment, he did not notice that the band had stopped in front of +the harness shop. His mind went back wearily to the old days, fifty +years before, when as a toddling child in dresses he used to play on +that very scrap-heap outside the back door, picking up bits of leather, +and in his boyhood days, playing pranks upon the little harness maker, +and braiding his whips for the town herd. Then he remembered the verses +Watts had written about Bob Hendricks and him in that very room, and the +music he and Watts had played together there. The old song Watts had +made in his presence in the hospital at St. Louis came back to his mind. +Did it come because outside the band had halted and was playing that old +song to serenade Watts McHurdie? Or did it come because John Barclay was +wondering if, had he made a poet of himself, or a man of spiritual and +not of material power, it would have been better for him?</p> + +<p>Heaven knows why the old tune came into his head. But when he recognized +that they were serenading the little harness maker, and that so far as +they thought of John Barclay and his power and his achievements, it was +with scorn, he had a flash of insight into his relations with the world +that illumined his soul for a moment and then died away. The great Mr. +Barclay, alone, sitting in the dingy little harness shop, can hear the +band strike up the old familiar tune again, and hear the crowd cheer and +roar its applause at the little harness maker, who stands shamefaced and +abashed, coatless and aproned, before the crowd. And he is only a +poet—hardly a poet, would be a better way to say it; an exceedingly bad +poet who makes bad rhymes, and thinks trite thoughts, and says silly and +often rather stupid things, but who once had his say, and for that one +hour of glorious liberty of the soul has moved millions of hearts to +love him. John Barclay does not envy Watts McHurdie—not at all; for +Barclay, with all his faults, is not narrow-gauged; he does not wish +they would call for him—not to-day—not at all; he could not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span> face them +now, even if they cheered him. He says in his heart of pride, beneath +his stiff neck, that it is all right; that Watts,—poor little +church-mouse of a Watts, whom he could buy five times over with the +money that has dropped into the Barclay till since he entered the +shop—that Watts should have his due; but only—only—only—that is +it—only, but only—!</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXVI</h2> +</div> + +<p>And now as we go out into the busy world, after this act in the dawning +of John Barclay's life, let the court convene, and the reporters gather, +and the honourable special counsel for the government rage, and the +defendant sit nervous and fidgety as the honourable counsel reads the +indictment; let the counsel for the defendant swell and strut with +indignation that such indignities should be put upon honest men and +useful citizens, and let the court frown, and ponder and consider; for +that is what courts are for, but what do we care for it all? We have +left it all behind, with the ragged programmes in the seats. So if the +honourable court, in the person of the more or less honourable Elijah +Westlake Bemis, after the fashion of federal judges desiring to do a +questionable thing, calls in a judge from a neighbouring court—what do +we care? And if the judge of the neighbouring court, after much legal +hemming and judicial hawing, decides in his great wisdom—that the said +defendant Barclay has been charged in the indictment with no crime, and +instructs the jury to find a verdict of not guilty for said defendant +John Barclay, upon the mere reading of the indictment,—what are the +odds? What do we care if the men in the packed courtroom hiss and the +reporters put down the hisses in their note-books and editors write the +hisses in headlines, and presses print the hisses all over the world? +For the fidgety little man is free now—entirely free save for +fifty-four years of selfish life upon his shoulders.</p> + +<p>In the trial of nearly every cause it becomes necessary at some point in +the proceedings to halt the narrative and introduce certain exhibits, +records, and documents, upon which foregone evidence has been based, and +to which coming testimony may properly be attached. That point has been +reached in the case now before the reader. And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span> as "Exhibit A" let us +submit a letter written by John Barclay, January seventh, nineteen +hundred and four, to Jane, his wife, at Naples.</p> + +<p class='blockquot'>"As I cabled you this afternoon, the case resulted exactly as I +said it would the day after the indictment. I had not seen or +talked with Lige since that day I talked with him over the +telephone, before the indictment was made public, but I knew Lige +well enough to know how he would act under fire. I had him out to +dinner this evening, and we talked over old times, and he tells me +he wants to retire from the bench. Jane, Lige has been my mainstay +ever since this company was organized. Sometimes I feel that +without his help in politics—looking to see that pernicious +legislation was killed, and that the right men were elected to +administrative offices, and appointed to certain judicial +places—we never would have been able to get the company to its +present high standing. I feel that he has been so valuable to us +that we should settle a sum on him that will make him a rich man as +men go in the Ridge. Heaven knows that is little enough, +considering all that he has done. He may have his faults, Jane, but +he has been loyal to me.<br/> +<br/> +"I hope, my dear, that Jeanette has ceased to worry about the other +matter; he is not worth her tears. Don't come home for a month or +two yet. The same conditions prevail that I spoke of in my first +cable the day of the indictment. The press and the public are +perfectly crazy. America is one great howling mob, and it would +make you and Jennie unhappy. As for me, I don't mind it. You know +me."</p> + +<p>And that the reader may know how truthful John Barclay is, let us append +herewith a letter written by Mrs. Mary Barclay, of Sycamore Ridge, to +her granddaughter at Naples, January 15, 1904. She writes among other +things:—</p> + +<p class='blockquot'> +"Well, dear, it is a week now since your father's case was settled, +and he was at home for the first time last night. I expected that +his victory—such as it was—would cheer him up, but some way he +seems worse in the dumps than he was before. He does not sleep +well, and is getting too nervous for a man of his age. I have the +impression that he is forever battling with something. Of course +the public temper is bitter, dearie. You are a woman now, and +should not be shielded and pampered with lies, so I am going to +tell you the truth. The indignation of the people of this nation at +your father, as he represents present business methods, is past +belief. And frankly, dearie, I can't blame them. Your father and my +son is a brave, sweet, loving man; none could be finer in this +world, Jennie. But the head of the National Provisions Company is +another person, dear; and of him I do not approve, as you know so +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span> +well. I am sending you Neal Ward's statement which was published +by the government the day after the case was dismissed. I have not +sent it to you before, because I wanted to ask your father if it +was true. Jennie, he admits that Neal told the truth, and nothing +but the truth—and did not make it as bad as it was. You are +entitled to the facts. You are a grown woman now, dear, and must +make your own decisions. But oh, my dear little girl, I am +heartsick to see your father breaking as he is. He seems to be +fighting—fighting—fighting all the time; perhaps it is against +the flames of public wrath, but some way I think he is fighting +something inside himself—fighting it back; fighting it +down—whatever it is."</p> + +<p>Counsel also begs indulgence while he introduces and reads two clippings +from the Sycamore Ridge <i>Daily Banner</i>, of February 12, 1904. The first +one reads:—</p> + +<p class='blockquot'> +<span class="smcap">"Judge Bemis Retires</span> +<br/> +"Hon. E. W. Bemis has retired from the federal bench, and rumour +has it that he is soon to return with his estimable wife to our +midst. Our people will welcome the judge and Mrs. Bemis with open +arms. He retires from an honourable career, to pass his declining +years in the peace and quiet of the town in which he began his +career over fifty years ago. For as every one knows, he came West +as a boy, and before having been admitted to the bar dealt largely +in horses and cattle. He has always been a good business man, +having with his legal acumen the acquisitive faculty, and now he is +looking for some place to invest a modest competence here in the +Ridge, and rumour has it again that he is negotiating for the +purchase of the Sycamore Ridge Waterworks bonds, which are now in +litigation. If so, he will make an admirable head of that popular +institution."</p> + +<p>In this connection, and before introducing the other clipping from the +<i>Banner</i>, it would be entirely proper to introduce the manuscript for +the above, in the typewriting of the stenographer of Judge Bemis's +court, and a check for fifty dollars payable to Adrian Brownwell, signed +by Judge Bemis aforesaid; but those documents would only clog the +narrative and would not materially strengthen the case, so they will be +thrown out.</p> + +<p>The second clipping, found in the personal column of the <i>Banner</i> of the +date referred to, February 12, 1904, follows:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span>—</p> + +<p class='blockquot'> +"Mrs. John Barclay and Miss Barclay are on the steamer <i>Etruria</i> +which was sighted off Fire Island to-day. They will spend a few +weeks in New York, and early in March Miss Barclay will enter the +state university to do some post-graduate work in English, and Mrs. +Barclay will return to Sycamore Ridge. Mr. Barclay will meet them +at the pier, and they expect to spend the coming two weeks +attending German opera. Mrs. Mary Barclay left to-day for the East +to join them. She will remain a month visiting relatives near +Haverhill, Mass."</p> + +<p>It becomes necessary to append some letters of Miss Jeanette Barclay's, +and they are set down here in the order in which they were written, +though the first one takes the reader back a few weeks to December +5, 1903. It was posted at Rome, and in the body of it are found these +words:—</p> + +<p class='blockquot'> +"My dear, I know you will smile when you hear I have been reading +all the Italian scientific books I can find, dealing with the human +brain—partly to help my Italian, but chiefly, I think, to see if I +can find and formulate some sort of a definition for love. It is so +much a part of my soul, dear heart, that I would like to know more +about it. And I am going to write down for you what I think it is as +we know it. I have been wearing your ring nearly three years, Neal, +and if you had only known it, I would have been happy to have taken +it a year sooner. In those four years I have grown from a girl to a +woman, and you have become a man full grown. In that time all my +thoughts have centred on you. In all my schoolbooks your face comes +back to me as I open them in fancy. As I think of the old room at +school, of my walk up the hill, as I think of home and my room +there, some thought of you is always between me and the picture. All +through my physical brain are little fibres running to every centre +that bring up images of you. You are woven into my life, and I know +in my heart that I am woven into your life. The thing is done; it is +as much apart of my being as my blood—those million fibres of my +brain that from every part of my consciousness bring thoughts of +you. We cannot be separated now, darling—we are united for life, +whether we unite in life or not. I am yours and you are mine. It is +now as inexorable as anything we call material. More than that—you +have made my soul. All the aspirations of my spiritual life go to +you for beginning and for being as truly as the fibres of my brain +thrill to the sound of your name or the mental image of your face. +My soul is your soul, because in the making the thought of you was +uppermost. I know that my love for you is immortal, ineffaceable, +and though I should live a hundred years, that love would still be +as much a part of my life as my hands or my eyes or my body. And the +best of it all is that I am so glad it is so. Divorce is as +impossible with a love like that as amputation of the brain. It is +big and vital in me, real and certain, and so long as I live on +earth, or dwell in eternity, my soul and your soul are knit +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span> +together."</p> + +<p>Three weeks later, on December 28, 1903, Miss Barclay wrote to Mr. Ward +as follows:—</p> + +<p class='blockquot'> +"Your letter and father's letter were on my desk when we returned +from our cruise. I have just finished writing to him, and I +herewith return your ring and your pin."</p> + +<p>There was neither signature nor superscription—just those words. And a +month later, Miss Barclay wrote this letter to her Grandmother Barclay +in Sycamore Ridge:—</p> + +<p class='blockquot'> +"<span class="smcap">My dear, dear Granny</span>: I have told mother what you wrote of father, +and we are coming home just as soon as we can get a steamer. We are +cabling him to-day, and hope to sail within a week or ten days at +the very farthest. But I cannot wait until I see you, dear, to come +close into your heart. And first of all I want you to know that I +share your views about the heart-break of all this money and the +miserable man-killing way it is being piled up. I know the two men +you speak of—father and the president of the N.P.C. But he is my +father, and I must stand by him, and brace him if I can. But, oh, +Granny, I don't want the old money! It has never made me +happy—never for one minute. The only happiness I have ever had was +when he was at home with us all, away from business—and—but you +know about that other happiness, and it hurts to speak of it now. I +have not read what you sent me. I can't. But I will keep it. That +it is true doesn't help me any. Nothing can help me. It is just one +of those awful things that I have read of coming to people, but +which I thought never could possibly come to me. Oh, Granny, +Granny, you who pray so much for others, now pray for me. Granny, +you can't cut something out of you—right out of the heart of you, +by merely saying so; it keeps growing back; it hurts, and hurts, +and keeps hurting; even if you know it is cut out and thrown away. +They say that men who have had legs cut off can feel them for +months and even years if they are cramped when they are buried. The +nerves of the old dead body reach through space and hurt. It is +that way with me. The old dead thing in my heart that is buried and +gone keeps cramping and hurting. You are the only one I can come +to, Granny. It hurts mother too much, and she is not strong this +winter. I think it is worry. She is growing thin, and her heart +doesn't act right. I am terribly worried about her; but she made me +promise to say nothing to father, and you must not, either; for he +will see for himself soon."</p> + +<p>A few letters from Neal Ward to Jeanette Barclay, and a document some +twenty years old, which the reader may have forgotten, but which one +person connected with this narrative has feared would come to light +every day in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span> that time—and then this tedious business of introducing +documentary evidence will be over. The letter from Neal Ward to Jeanette +Barclay is one of hundreds that he wrote and never mailed. They were +dated, sealed, addressed, and put away. This one was written at midnight +as the bells and whistles and pistols and fireworks were welcoming the +year 1904. It begins:—</p> + +<p class='blockquot'> +"<span class="smcap">My very Dearest</span>: Here I am sitting at the old desk again, in the +old office of the <i>Banner</i>. I could only scribble you a little note +on the train last night to tell you that my heart still was with +you, and I did not have the time to explain why I was coming. It is +a dead secret, little woman, and perhaps I shouldn't tell even you, +but I feel that I must bring everything to you. Bob Hendricks wired +me to come down. He has a mortgage on the <i>Banner</i>, and he feels +that things are not being properly managed, so he persuaded Mr. +Brownwell to give me a place as sort of manager of the paper at +twenty dollars a week—a sum that seems princely considering that I +was making only eighteen dollars in Chicago, and that it costs so +much less to live here. Hendricks guarantees my wages, so that +Adrian cannot stand me off. Hendricks has another motive for +wanting me to come here. The waterworks franchise will come up for +renewal June first of this year, and Mr. Hendricks is for municipal +ownership. Carnine and the State Bank are against municipal +ownership, because the water company does business with them, and +as they control the <i>Index</i>, they are preparing to make a warm +fight for the renewal of the old franchise. So there will be a hot +time in the old town this spring. But the miserable part of it is +this. The growth of the town has made it dangerous to use the +present supply station. The water must not come out of the +mill-pond any longer, as the town is tilted so that all the surface +drainage goes into it, and the sewers that drain into it, while +they drain a few hundred yards below the intake of the waterworks, +cannot help tainting the whole pond. Mr. Hendricks has had an +expert here who declared that both the typhoid and diphtheria +epidemics here last fall were due directly to the water supply, and +Mr. Hendricks is going to make the fight of his life to have the +city buy the waterworks plant, and move the intake six miles above +town, where there is plenty of clean water. Of course it will mean +first a city election to get decent councilmen, and then a bond +election to vote money to buy the old plant; the waterworks company +are going to move heaven and earth to get an anti-Hendricks council +elected and to renew the franchise and let things go as they are. +So that is why I am here, dear heart, and oh, my darling, you do +not know how painful it all seems to be here and not have you—I +mean—you know what I mean. All my associations with the work here +in the office and on the street are with my heart close to yours. +Everything in the old town tells me of you. 'Saint Andrews by the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span> +Northern sea, a haunted city is to me.' To-night I hear the music +of the New Year's dance, and I can shut my eyes and feel you with +me there. Oh, sweetheart, I have kept you so close, by writing to +you every night. I come and lay my heart and all its thoughts at +your shrine, and put all my day's work before you for your +approval, just as I used to do. It is so sweet a privilege.<br/> +<br/> +"Last night I dreamed about you. It was so real and your voice +sounded so clearly, crying to me, that you have been with me all +day. I wonder if while we sleep, we whose souls would struggle to +meet through eternity, if through the walls of space they may not +find each other, and speak to each other through our dreams. It is +midnight here now, and you are just waking, perhaps, or just +sleeping that sleep of early morning wherein the soul sinks to +unknown depths. Oh—oh—oh, if I could but speak to you there, my +dear! I am going to sit here and close my eyes and try."</p> + +<p>The next letter in the exhibit was written six weeks later and is dated +February 12, 1904. It says in part:—</p> + +<p class='blockquot'>"I must tell you what a bully fellow Bob Hendricks is. Judge Bemis +sent a highly laudatory article about himself to the office to-day +with a check for fifty dollars. In the article it develops that he +is going to retire from the federal bench and come down here and +buy the waterworks plant—on the theory that he will get a bargain +because of the expiring franchise and the prospective fight. That +fifty dollars looked as big as a barn to poor Adrian, so he trotted +off with the letter and the check to Hendricks. Of course, the +letter and the check together, just framed and put in the bank +window, would make great sport of the judge; but Bob is a +thoroughbred, and probably Bemis knows it, and figures on that in +his dealings with him. I was in the bank when Adrian came in with +the letter. He showed the check and the article to Hendricks, and +you could almost see Adrian wag his tail and hear him whine to keep +the check; Bob looked at the poor fellow's wistful eyes and handed +it back with a quizzical little smile and said, 'Oh, I guess I'd +run it; it can't hurt anything.' The light that came into Adrian's +eyes was positively beatific, and he shook Bob by the hand, and +twirled his cane, and waved his gloves in a sort of canine ecstasy, +and trotted to the cashier's window with the check like a dog with +a bone. It is the largest piece of real money he has had in six +months, the boys say, and he has spent it for clothes. To-morrow he +will hurry off to the first convention in the city like a comet two +centuries behind time. But that is beside the point; the thing I +don't like is the coming of Bemis. I know him; the things I have +seen him do in your father's business and when he was on the bench, +make me shudder for decent politics in this town. He is shrewd, +unscrupulous, and without any restraint on earth.<br/> +<br/> +"I feel closer to you than I have felt since I put the barrier +between us. For you are in this country to-night—I could go to the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span> +telephone there five feet away and reach you if I would. I looked +to-day in the papers and saw that they would be giving Lohengrin at +the Metropolitan Opera House, and knowing your father as I do, I +think he will take you there. I can hear the music rising and see +you drinking in the harmony, and as it swells into exquisite pain, +and thrills through the holy places of your soul where are old +memories of our love, sweetheart, maybe your spirit will go forth +in God's strange universe where we all dwell neighbours, loosed +from those material chains that bind our bodies, and will seek the +heart that is searching for you out there in the highway of heaven. +I seem to feel you now, dear soul—did the music fling your spirit +free for a second till it touched my own? I am so happy, +Jeanette—even to love you and to know that you have loved me, and +must always love me while you are you and I am I."</p> + +<p>And now let us consider the final exhibit. It will be necessary to turn +back the action of this story a month and a half and sit with John +Barclay and his friend, former federal judge Elijah Westlake Bemis, +before the fire in the wide fireplace in the Barclay home, one cold +January night, a week after Barclay had gone free from the court and the +world had hissed him. They were talking of the judge's business future, +and the judge was saying:—</p> + +<p>"John, how did Bob Hendricks ever straighten out that affair in the +treasurer's office in connection with the first year's taxes of the old +Wheat Company? What did he do with it finally?"</p> + +<p>Barclay looked at the fire and then turned his searchlight eyes into +Bemis's. There was not a quiver. The man sat there without a muscle of +his parchment face moving. His eyes were squinted up, looking at the tip +of his long cigar.</p> + +<p>"Why?" asked Barclay.</p> + +<p>"Well," responded Bemis, impassive as an ox, "it would help me in my +business to know. Tell me."</p> + +<p>He spoke the last two words as one in authority.</p> + +<p>"Well," answered Barclay, "one day back in the seventies, I was +appointed to check up the treasurer's book, and I found where he had +fixed it on the county books—apparently between two administrations. I +recognized his hand; and it made the balance for the first time."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span></p> + +<p>Bemis smoked awhile. "What time in the seventies?" he asked.</p> + +<p>There was a pause. "In January, 1879."</p> + +<p>Bemis grinned a wicked, mean little grin and said: "That settles it. I +believe I am safe in buying the waterworks."</p> + +<p>"What are you going to do to Bob?" Barclay asked.</p> + +<p>"Nothing, nothing—absolutely nothing, if he has any sense and drops +this municipal ownership tommyrot. Absolutely nothing."</p> + +<p>Again the grin came over his face, and at the end of a pause Barclay +said:—</p> + +<p>"Well, if not, what then?"</p> + +<p>Bemis shut his eyes and crossed his gaunt legs, and began: "Think back +twenty years ago—more or less. Do you remember when I brought your car +down here for Watts McHurdie and his crowd to go to Washington in, to +the G.A.R. celebration? All right; do you remember that I came to the +office and told you I saw Bob Hendricks waiting for some one at the +Union Station, when the train got into the city that morning?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Barclay, "you were so mysterious and funny about it, I +remember."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Bemis, as he got up and poked a log that was annoying him +in the fireplace, "well, I have a little document in my desk at home, +that I got the night before in the Ridge, which will convince Bobbie, if +he has any sense, that this municipal ownership business isn't all it's +cracked up to be."</p> + +<p>Barclay, who knew from Jane something of the truth, guessed the rest, +but he did not question Bemis further. "Oh, I don't know, Lige," he +began; "it seems to me I wouldn't drag that into it."</p> + +<p>Bemis turned his old face, full of malicious passion, toward Barclay and +cried, "Maybe you wouldn't, John Barclay—you forget things; but I never +do; and you're a coward sometimes, and I am not."</p> + +<p>The blaze of his wrath went out in a moment, and Barclay's mind went +back to that afternoon in the seventies<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span> when Hendricks picked Bemis up +and threw him bodily from the county convention and branded him as a +boodler. Barclay knew argument was useless. So he said nothing.</p> + +<p>"He has the county officers—every man-jack of them from the treasurer +to Jake Dolan, the janitor—and I couldn't get hold of that book by fair +means without his knowing it. But I am going to have that book, +John—I'm going to have that book."</p> + +<p>Barclay followed Bemis's mental processes, as if they were his own. +"Well—what if he does know it?" asked Barclay.</p> + +<p>"Oh, if he knew I was after the book, he'd fix me,—have it destroyed or +something; he could do lots of things or beat me some way. I've got to +get that book—get it out of the court-house—and there's just one way +to get into the court-house, without using the doors and the windows." +When Bemis had finished speaking, he gazed steadily into Barclay's eyes. +And Bemis saw the fear that was in Barclay's face. "Yes, I know a way +into the court-house, John—it's mine by fifty years' right of +discovery. I'm going to have that book, and get an expert opinion as to +the similarity of the handwriting in the book and the handwriting of my +own little document. My own little document," he mused, licking his +chops like a hound at the prospect.</p> + +<p>Now we will call that little document "Exhibit I" in the case of the +Larger Good <i>vs.</i> The People, and close thereby a long and tedious +chapter. But we will begin another chapter in which the wheels of events +spin rapidly in their courses toward that moral equilibrium that deeds +must find before they stop when they are started for the Larger Good.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXVII</h2> +</div> + +<p>The spring of 1904 in Sycamore Ridge opened in turmoil. The turmoil came +from the contest over the purchase of the town's water system. Robert +Hendricks as president of the Citizens' League was leading the forces +that advocated the purchase of the system by the town, as being the only +sure way to change the water supply from the polluted mill-pond to a +clean source. Six months before he had leased every bill-board in town, +and for the two months preceding the city election that was to decide +the question of municipal purchase he had hired every available hall in +town, for every vacant night during those months, and had bought half of +the first page of both the <i>Banner</i> and the <i>Index</i> for those +months—and all of this long before the town knew the fight was coming. +He covered the bill-boards and the first pages of the newspapers with +analyses of the water in the mill-pond—badly infected from the outlet +of the town sewers and its surface drainage. The Citizens' League filled +the halls with speakers demanding the purchase of the plant and the +removal of the pumping station to a place several miles above the town, +and four beyond the mill-pond. Judge Bemis, with the aid and abetment of +John Barclay, who was in the game to help his old friend, put up banners +denouncing Hendricks as a socialist, accusing him of being the town +boss, and charged through the columns of the <i>Index</i> that Hendricks' +real motive in desiring to have the city take over the waterworks system +was to make money on the sale of the city's bonds. So Hendricks was the +centre of the fight.</p> + +<p>In the first engagement, a malicious contest, Hendricks lost. The town +refused to vote the bonds to buy the plant. But at the same election the +same people elected<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span> a city council overwhelmingly in favour of +municipal ownership and in favour of compelling the operating company to +move its plant from the mill-pond. The morning after the election +Hendricks began a lawsuit as a taxpayer and citizen to make the +waterworks company move its plant. The town could understand that issue, +and sentiment rallied to Hendricks again. Judge Bemis, at the head of +the company, although irritated, was not alarmed. For in the courts he +could promote delays, plead technicalities, and wear out his adversary. +It was an old game with him. Still, the suit disturbed the value of his +bonds, and having other resources, he gleefully decided to use them.</p> + +<p>And thus it fell out that one fine day in April, Trixie Lee, from the +bedraggled outer hem of the social garment down by the banks of the +Sycamore, called to the telephone Robert Hendricks of the town's purple +and fine linen, who dwelt on the hill. He did not recognize her voice, +the first time she called. But shrewd as Judge Bemis was, and bad as he +was, he did not know it all. He did not know that when Hendricks had +received the first anonymous letter three days before, he had instructed +the girls in the telephone office, which he controlled, to make a record +of every telephone call for his office or his house, and when the +woman's voice on the telephone that day delivered Judge Bemis's message, +the moment after she quit talking he knew with whom he had been talking.</p> + +<p>"Is this Mr. Hendricks?" the voice had begun, rather pleasantly. Yes, it +was Mr. Hendricks. "Well, I am your friend, but I don't dare to let you +know my name now; it would be all my life is worth." And Robert +Hendricks grinned pleasantly into the rubber transmitter as he realized +that his trap would work. "Yes, Mr. Hendricks, I am your friend, and you +have a powerful enemy." What with the insinuations in the <i>Index</i> and +the venom that Lige Bemis had been putting into anonymous circulars +during the preliminary waterworks campaign, this was no news to Mr. +Hendricks; so he let the voice go on, "They want you to dismiss that +suit against<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span> the waterworks company that you brought last week." There +was a pause for a reply; but none came; then the voice said, "Are you +there, Mr. Hendricks—do you hear me?" And Mr. Hendricks said that he +heard perfectly. "And," went on the voice, "as your friend I wish you +would, too. Do you remember a letter you once wrote to a woman, asking +her to elope with you—a married woman, Mr. Hendricks?" There was a +pause for a reply, and again the voice asked, "Do you hear, Mr. +Hendricks?" and Mr. Hendricks heard; heard in his soul and was afraid, +but his voice did not quaver as he replied, "Yes, I hear perfectly." +Then the voice went on, "Well, they have that letter—a little note—not +over one hundred words, and with no date on it, and the man who has it +also has a photograph of page 234 of a certain ledger in the county +treasurer's office for 1879, and there is an entry there in your +handwriting, Mr. Hendricks; and he has had them both enlarged to show +that the handwriting of the note and of the county book are the same; +isn't that mean, Mr. Hendricks?" Hendricks coughed into the transmitter, +and she knew that he was there, so she continued: "As your friend in +this matter, I have got them to promise that if you will come to the +Citizens' League meeting that you have called for to-morrow night at +Barclay Hall and tell the people that you think we need harmony in the +Ridge worse than we need this everlasting row, if you will merely say to +Mr. Barclay as you pass into the meeting, 'Well, John, I believe I'll +dismiss that suit,' you can have your letter back. He hasn't got the +letter, but he will be sure to tell the news to a friend who has." Here +the voice faltered, and said unconsciously, "Wait a minute, I've lost my +place; oh, here it is; all right. And if you don't come to the meeting +and say that, I believe they are going to spring those documents on the +meeting to put you in bad odour."</p> + +<p>"Is that all?" asked Hendricks.</p> + +<p>"Well—" a pause and then finally—"yes," came the voice.</p> + +<p>"Well, my answer is no," said Hendricks, and while he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span> was trying to get +central the voice called again and said:—</p> + +<p>"Just one word more: if you still maintain your present decision, a copy +of that letter you wrote will be put into the hands of Mr. Brownwell of +the <i>Banner</i> before the meeting; I tell you this to protect you. He and +Mrs. Brownwell and Mrs. Barclay will be in town to-morrow evening on the +Barclay car from the West on No. 6; you will have until then to +reconsider your decision; after that you act at your own risk."</p> + +<p>Again the voice ceased, and Hendricks learned from central who had been +talking with him. It was after banking hours, and he sat for a time +looking the situation squarely in the face. The reckoning had come. He +had answered "no" with much bravery over the telephone—but in his heart +a question began to rise, and his decision was clouded.</p> + +<p>Hendricks walked alone under the stars that night, and as he walked he +turned the situation over and over as one who examines a strange puzzle. +He saw that his "no" could not be his own "no." Molly must be partner in +it. For to continue his fight for clean water he must risk her good +name. He measured Bemis, and remembered the old quarrel. The hate in the +face of the bribe-giver, thrown out of the county convention a quarter +of a century before, came to Hendricks, and he knew that it was no vain +threat he was facing. So he turned up the other facet of the puzzle. +There was Adrian. For an hour he considered Adrian Brownwell, a vain +jealous old man with the temper of a beast. To see Molly, tell her of +their common peril, get her decision, and be with it at the meeting +before Adrian saw the note, all in the two hours between the arrival of +the train bearing the Brownwells and Mrs. Barclay, and the time of the +meeting in Barclay Hall, was part of Hendricks' puzzle. He believed that +by using the telephone to make an appointment he could manage it. Then +he turned the puzzle over and saw that to save Molly Brownwell's good +name and his father's, human lives must be sacrificed by permitting the +use of foul water in the town.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span> And in the end his mind set. He knew +that unless she forbade it, the contest must go on to a righteous +finish, through whatever perils, over any obstacles. Yet as he walked +back to the bank, determined not to take his hand from the plough, he +saw that he must prepare to go into the next day as though it were his +last. For in his consciousness on the other side of the puzzle—always +there was the foolish Adrian, impetuous at best, but stark mad in his +jealousy and wrath.</p> + +<p>And Elijah Westlake Bemis, keeping account of the man's movements, +chuckled as he felt the struggle in the man's breast. For he was a wise +old snake, that Lige Bemis, and he had seduced many another man after +the brave impulsive "no" had roared in his face. Just before midnight +when he saw the electric light flash on in the private office of the +president of the Exchange National Bank, Lige Bemis, libertine with men, +strolled home and counted the battle won. "He's writing his speech," he +said to Barclay over the telephone at midnight. And John Barclay, who +had fought the local contest in the election with Bemis to be loyal to a +friend, and to help one who was in danger of losing the profit on half a +million dollars' investment in the Sycamore Ridge waterworks, laughed as +he walked upstairs in his pajamas, and said to himself, "Old Lige is a +great one—there is a lot of fight in the old viper yet." It was nothing +to Barclay that the town got its water from a polluted pond. That phase +of the case did not enter his consciousness, though it was placarded on +the bill-boards and had been printed in the <i>Banner</i> a thousand times +during the campaign. To him it was a fight by the demagogues against +property interests, and he was with property, even a little +property—even a miserable little dribble of property like half a +million dollars' worth of waterworks bonds.</p> + +<p>And Robert Hendricks—playfellow of John Barclay's boyhood, partner of +his youth—sat working throughout the night, a brave man, going into +battle without a tremor. He went through his books, made out statements +of his business relations, prepared directions for the heads<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span> of his +different concerns, as a man would do who might be going on a long +journey. For above everything, Robert Hendricks was foresighted. He +prepared for emergencies first, and tried to avoid them afterwards. And +with the thought of the smallness of this life in his soul, he looked up +from his work to see the hard gray lines of the dawn in the street +outside of his office, bringing the ugly details from the shadows that +hid them during the day, and he sighed as he wondered in what bourne he +should see the next dawn break.</p> + +<p>It was a busy day for Robert Hendricks, that next day, and through it +all his mind was planning every moment of the time how he could protect +Molly Brownwell. Did he work in the bank, behind his work his mind was +seeking some outlet from his prison. If he went over the power-house at +the electric plant, always he was looking among the wheels for some way +of refuge for Molly. When he spent an hour in the office of the +wholesale grocery house, he despatched a day's work, but never for a +second was his problem out of his head. He spent two hours with his +lawyers planning the suit against the water company, pointing out new +sources of evidence, and incidentally leaving a large check to pay for +the work. But through it all Molly Brownwell's good name was ever before +him, and when he thought how twenty years before he had walked through +another day planning, scheming, and contriving, all to produce the +climax of calamity that was hovering over her to-day, he was sick and +faint with horror and self-loathing.</p> + +<p>But as the day drew to its noon, Hendricks began to feel a persistent +detachment from the world about him. It floated across his +consciousness, like the shadow anchor of some cloud far above him. He +began to watch the world go by. He seemed not to be a part of it. He +became a spectator. At four o'clock he passed Dolan on the street and +said, absently, "I want you to-night at the bank at seven o'clock +sharp—don't forget, it's very important."</p> + +<p>As he walked down Main Street to the bank, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span> shadow anchor of the +cloud had ceased to flit across his consciousness. Life had grown all +gray and dull, and he was apart from the world. He saw the handbills +announcing the meeting that night as one who sees a curious passing +show; the men he met on the street he greeted as creatures from another +world. Yet he knew he smiled and spoke with them casually. But it was +not he who spoke; the real Robert Hendricks he knew was separated from +the pantomime about him. When he went into the bank at five o'clock, the +janitor was finishing his work. Hendricks called up the depot on the +telephone and found that No. 6 was an hour late. With the realization +that a full hour of his fighting time had been taken from him and that +the train would arrive only a scant hour before the meeting, the Adrian +face of his puzzle turned insistently toward Hendricks. It was not fear +but despair that seized him. The cloud was over him. And for want of +something to do he wrote. First he wrote abstractedly and mechanically +to John Barclay, then to Neal Ward—a note for the <i>Banner</i>—and as the +twilight deepened in the room, he squared his chair to the table and +wrote to Molly Brownwell; that letter was the voice of his soul. That +was real. Six o'clock struck. Half-past six clanged on the town clock, +and as Jake Dolan opened the bank door, Hendricks heard the roar of the +train crossing at the end of Main Street.</p> + +<p>"There goes Johnnie's private car, switching on the tail of her," said +Dolan, standing in the doorway.</p> + +<p>Hendricks sent Dolan to a back room of the bank, and at seven-twenty +went to the telephone. "Give me 876, central," he called. +"Hello—hello—hello," he cried nervously, "hello—who is this?" The +answer came and he said, "Oh, I didn't recognize your voice." Then he +asked in a low tone, as one who had fear in his heart: "Do you recognize +me? If you do, don't speak my name. Where is Adrian?" Then Mr. Dolan, +listening in the next room, heard this: "You say Judge Bemis phoned to +him? Oh, he was to meet him at eight o'clock. How long ago did he +leave?" After a moment Hendricks' answer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span> was: "Then he has just gone; +and will not be back?" Hendricks cut impatiently into whatever answer +came with: "Molly, I must see you within the next fifteen minutes. I +can't talk any more over the telephone, but I must come up." "Yes," in a +moment, "I must have your decision in a matter of great importance to +you—to you, Molly." There was a short silence, then Dolan heard: "All +right, I'll be there in ten minutes." Then Hendricks turned from the +telephone and called Dolan in. He unlocked a drawer in his desk, and +began speaking to Dolan, who stood over him. Hendricks' voice was low, +and he was repressing the agitation in his heart by main strength.</p> + +<p>"Jake," he said, talking as rapidly as he could, "I must be ungodly +frank with you. It doesn't make any difference whether he is right or +not, but Adrian Brownwell may be fooled into thinking he has reason to +be jealous of me." Hendricks was biting his mustache. "He's a raging +maniac of jealousy, Jake, but I'm not afraid of him—not for myself. I +can get him before he gets me, if it comes to that, but to do it I'll +have to sacrifice Molly. And I won't do that. If it comes to her good +name or my life—she can have my life." They were outside now and Dolan +was unhitching the horse. He knew instinctively that he was not to +reply. In a moment Hendricks went on, "Well, there is just one chance in +a hundred that it may turn that way—her good name or my life—and on +that chance I've written some letters here." He reached in his coat and +said, "Now, Jake, put these letters in your pocket and if anything goes +wrong with me, deliver them to the persons whose names are on the +envelopes—and to no one else. I must trust everything to you, Jake," he +said.</p> + +<p>Driving up the hill, he met Bemis coming down town. He passed people +going to the meeting in Barclay Hall. He did not greet them, but drove +on. His jaw was set hard, and the muscles of his face were firm. As he +neared the Culpepper home he climbed from the buggy and hitched the +horse to the block in front of his own house.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span> He hurried into the +Culpepper yard, past the lilac bushes heavy with blooms, and up the +broad stone steps with the white pillars looming above him. It was a +quarter to eight, and at that minute Bemis was saying to Adrian +Brownwell, "All right, if you don't believe it, don't take my word for +it, but go home right now and see what you find."</p> + +<p>Molly Brownwell met Hendricks on the threshold with trembling steps. +"Bob, what is it?" she asked. They stood in the shadow of the great +white pillars, where they had parted a generation ago.</p> + +<p>"It's this, Molly," answered Hendricks, as he put his hand to his +forehead that was throbbing with pain; "Lige Bemis has my letter to you. +Yes," he cried as she gasped, "the note—the very note, and to get it I +must quit the waterworks fight and go to the meeting to-night and +surrender. I had no right to decide that alone. It is our question, +Molly. We are bound by the old life—and we must take this last stand +together."</p> + +<p>The woman shrank from Hendricks with horror on her face, as he +personified her danger. She could not reply at once, but stood staring +at him in the dusk. As she stared, the feeling that she had seen it all +before in a dream came over her, and the premonition that some awful +thing was impending shook her to the marrow.</p> + +<p>"Molly, we have no time to spare," he urged. "I must answer Bemis in ten +minutes—I can do it by phone. But say what you think."</p> + +<p>"Why—why—why—Bob—let me think," she whispered, as one trying to +speak in a dream, and that also seemed familiar to her. "It's typhoid +for my poor who died like sheep last year," she cried, "or my good name +and yours, is it, Bob? Is it, Bob?" she repeated.</p> + +<p>He put his hand to his forehead again in the old way she remembered so +well—to temples that were covered with thin gray hair—and answered, +"Yes, Molly, that's our price."</p> + +<p>Those were the last words that she seemed to have heard before; after +that the dialogue was all new to her. She was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span> silent a few agonized +seconds and then said, "I know what you think, Bob; you are for my poor; +you are brave." He did not answer, fearing to turn the balance. As she +sank into a porch chair a rustling breeze moved the lilac plumes and +brought their perfume to her. From down the avenue came the whir of +wheels and the hurrying click of a horse's hoofs. At length she rose, +and said tremulously: "I stand with you, Bob. May God make the blow as +light as He can."</p> + +<p>They did not notice that a buggy had drawn up on the asphalt in front of +the house. Hendricks put out his hand and cried, "Oh, +Molly—Molly—Molly—" and she took it in both of hers and pressed it to +her lips, and as Adrian Brownwell passed the lilac thicket in the +gathering darkness that is what he saw. Hendricks was halfway down the +veranda steps before he was aware that Brownwell was running up the walk +at them, pistol in hand, like one mad. Before the man could fire, +Hendricks was upon him, and had Brownwell's two hands gripped tightly in +one of his, holding them high in the air. The little man struggled.</p> + +<p>"Don't scream—for God's sake, don't scream," cried Hendricks to the +woman in a suppressed voice. Then he commanded her harshly, "Go in the +house—quick—Molly—quick."</p> + +<p>She ran as though hypnotized by the force of the suggestion. Hendricks +had his free hand over Brownwell's mouth and around his neck. The little +old man was kicking and wriggling, but Hendricks held him. "Not here, +you fool, not here. Can't you see it would ruin her, you fool? Not +here." He carried and dragged Brownwell across the grass through the +shrubbery and into the Hendricks yard. No one was passing, and the night +had fallen. "Now," said Hendricks, as he backed against a pine tree, +still holding Brownwell, "I shall let you go if you'll promise to listen +to me just a minute until I tell you the whole truth. Molly is innocent, +man—absolutely innocent, and I'll show you if you'll talk for a moment. +Will you promise, man?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span></p> + +<p>Brownwell nodded his assent; Hendricks looked at him steadily for a +second and then said, "All right," and set the little man on his feet. +The glare of madness came into Brownwell's eyes, and as he turned he +came at Hendricks with his pistol drawn. An instant later there was a +shot. Brownwell saw the amazement flash into Hendricks' eyes, and then +Hendricks sank gently to the foot of the pine tree.</p> + +<p>And Molly Brownwell, with the paralysis of terror still upon her, heard +the shot and then heard footsteps running across the grass. A moment +later her husband, empty-handed, chattering, shivering, and white, +stumbled into the room. Rage had been conquered by fear. For an agonized +second the man and woman stared at one another, speechless—then the +wife cried:—</p> + +<p>"Oh—oh—why—why—Adrian," and her voice was thick with fear.—</p> + +<p>The man was a-tremble—hands, limbs, body—and his mad eyes seemed to +shrink from the woman's gaze. "Oh, God—God—oh, God—" he panted, and +fell upon his face across the sofa. They heard a hurrying step running +toward the Hendricks house, there came a frightened, choked cry of +"Help!" repeated twice, another and another sound of pattering feet +came, and five minutes after the quaking man had entered the door the +whole neighbourhood seemed to be alive with running figures hurrying +silently through the gloom. The thud of feet and the pounding of her +heart, and the whimpering of the little man who lay, face down, on the +sofa, were the only sounds in her ears. She started to go with the +crowd. But Adrian screamed to her to stay.</p> + +<p>"Oh," he cried, "he sank so softly—he sank so softly—he sank so +softly! Oh, God, oh, God—he sank so softly!"</p> + +<p>And the next conscious record of her memory was that of Neal Ward +bursting into the room, crying, "Aunt Molly—Aunt Molly—do you know Mr. +Hendricks has committed suicide? They've found him dead with a pistol by +his side. I want some whiskey for Miss Hendricks. And they need you +right away."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span></p> + +<p>But Molly Brownwell, with what composure she could, said, "Adrian is +sick, Neal—I can't—I can't leave him now." And she called after Neal +as he ran toward the door, "Tell them, Neal, tell them—why I can't +come." There was a hum of voices in the air, and the sound of a +gathering crowd. Soon the shuffle and clatter of a thousand feet made it +evident that the meeting at Barclay Hall had heard the news and was +hurrying up the hill. The crowd buzzed for an hour, and Molly and Adrian +Brownwell waited speechless together—he face downward on the sofa, she +huddled in a chair by the window. And then the crowd broke, slowly, +first into small groups that moved away together and then turned in a +steady stream and tramped, tramped, tramped down the hill.</p> + +<p>When the silence had been unbroken a long time, save by the rumble of a +buggy on the asphalt or by the footsteps of some stray passerby, the +man on the sofa lifted his head, looked at his wife and spoke, "Well, +Molly?"</p> + +<p>"Well, Adrian," she answered, "this is the end, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>He did not reply for a time, and when he did speak, it was in a dead, +passionless voice: "Yes—I suppose so. I can't stay here now."</p> + +<p>"No—no," she returned. "No, you should not stay here."</p> + +<p>He sat up and stared vacantly at her for a while and then said, "Though +I don't see why I didn't leave years and years ago; I knew all this +then, as well as I do now." The wife looked away from him as she +replied: "Yes, I should have known you would know. I knew your secret +and you—"</p> + +<p>"My secret," said Adrian, "my secret?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—that you came North with your inherited money because when you +were in the Confederate army you were a coward in some action and could +not live among your own people."</p> + +<p>"Who told you," he asked, "who told you?"</p> + +<p>"The one who told you I have always loved Bob; life has told me that, +Adrian. Just as life has told you my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span> story." They sat without speaking +for a time, and then the woman sighed and rose. "Two people who have +lived together twenty-five years can have no secrets from each other. In +a thousand, ways the truth comes out."</p> + +<p>"I should have gone away a long time ago," he repeated, "a long time +ago; I knew it, but I didn't trust my instincts."</p> + +<p>"Here comes father," she said, as the gate clicked.</p> + +<p>They stood together, listening to the slow shuffle of the colonel coming +up the walk, and the heavy fall of his cane. The wife put out her hand +and said gently, "I think I have wronged you, Adrian, more than any one +else."</p> + +<p>He did not take her hand but sighed, and turned and went up the wide +stairway. He was an old man then, and she remembered the years when he +tripped up gayly, and then she looked at her own gray hair in the mirror +and saw that her life was spent too.</p> + +<p>As the colonel came in gasping asthmatically, he found his daughter +waiting for him. "Is Adrian better?" he asked excitedly. "Neal said +Adrian was sick."</p> + +<p>"Yes, father, he's upstairs packing. He is going out on the four o'clock +train."</p> + +<p>"Oh," said the colonel, and then panted a moment before asking, "Has any +one told you how it happened?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she replied, "I know everything. I think I'll run over there now, +father." As she stood in the doorway, she said, "Don't bother +Adrian—he'll need no help."</p> + +<p>And so Molly Brownwell passed the last night with her dead lover. About +midnight the bell rang and she went to the door.</p> + +<p>"Ah, madam," said Jacob Dolan, as he fumbled in his pockets, and tried +to breathe away from her to hide the surcease of his sorrow, "Ah, +madam," he repeated, as he suddenly thought to pull off his hat, "I did +not come for you—'twas Miss Hendricks I called for; but I have one for +you, too. He gave the bundle to me the last thing—poor lad, poor lad." +He handed her the letter addressed to Mrs. Brownwell, and then asked, +"Is the sister about?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span></p> + +<p>And when he found she could not be seen he went away, and Molly +Brownwell sat by the dead man's body and read:—</p> + +<p>"My darling—my darling—they will let a dead man say that to you—won't +they? And yet, so far as any thought of mine could sin against you, I +have been dead these twenty years. Yet I know that I have loved you all +that time, and as I sit alone here in the bank, and take the bridle off +my heart, the old throb of joy that we both knew as children comes back +again. It is such a strange thing—this life—such a strange thing." +Then there followed a burst of passionate regret from the man's very +heart, and it is so sacred to a manly love that curbed itself for a +score of years, that it must not be set down here.</p> + +<p>Over and over Molly Brownwell read the letter and then crept out to her +lilac thicket and wept till dawn. She heard Adrian Brownwell go, but she +could not face him, and listened as his footsteps died away, and he +passed from her life.</p> + +<p>And John Barclay kept vigil for the dead with her. As he tossed in his +bed through the night, he seemed to see glowing out of the darkness +before him the words Hendricks had written, in the letter that Dolan +gave Barclay at midnight. Sometimes the farewell came to him:—</p> + +<p>"It is not this man of millions that I wish to be with a moment +to-night, John—but the boy I knew in the old days—the boy who ran with +me through the woods at Wilson's Creek, the boy who rode over the hill +into the world with me that September day forty years ago; the boy whose +face used to beam eagerly out of yours when you sat playing at your old +melodeon. I wish to be near him a little while to-night. When you get +this, can't you go to your great organ and play him back into +consciousness and tell him Bob says good-by?"</p> + +<p>At dawn Barclay called Bemis out of bed, and before sunrise he and +Barclay were walking on the terrace in front of the Barclay home.</p> + +<p>"Lige," began Barclay, "did you tell Adrian of that note last night?" +Bemis grinned his assent.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span></p> + +<p>"And he went home, found Bob there conferring with Mrs. Brownwell about +his position in the matter, and Adrian killed him."</p> + +<p>"That's the way I figured it out myself," replied Bemis, laconically, +"but it's not my business to say so."</p> + +<p>"I thought you promised me you would just bluff with that note and not +go so far, Lige Bemis," said Barclay.</p> + +<p>"Did he just bluff with me when he called me a boodler and threw me +downstairs in the county convention?"</p> + +<p>"Then you lied to me, sir," snapped Barclay.</p> + +<p>"Oh, hell, John—come off," sneered Bemis. "Haven't I got a right to lie +to you if I want to?"</p> + +<p>The two men stared at each other like growling dogs for a moment, and +then Barclay turned away with, "What is there in the typhoid talk?"</p> + +<p>"Demagogery—that's all. Of course there may be typhoid in the water; +but let 'em boil the water."</p> + +<p>"But they won't."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, if they eat too much of your 'Old Honesty' or drink too +much of my water unboiled, they take their own risk. You don't make a +breakfast food for hogs, and I can't run my water plant for fools."</p> + +<p>"But, Lige," protested Barclay, "couldn't we hitch up the electric +plant—"</p> + +<p>"Hitch up the devil and Tom Walker, John Barclay. When the wolves got +after you, did I come blubbering to you to lay down and take a light +sentence?" Barclay did not answer. Bemis continued: "Brace up, +John—what's turned you baby when we've got the whole thing won? We +didn't kill Hendricks, did we? Are you full of remorse and going to turn +state's evidence?"</p> + +<p>Barclay looked at the ground for a time, and said: "I believe, Lige, we +did kill Bob—if it comes to that; and we are morally responsible for—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, bag your head, John; I'm going home. When you can talk some sense, +let me know."</p> + +<p>And Bemis left Barclay standing in the garden looking at the sunrise +across the mill-pond. Presently the carrier boy with a morning paper +came around, and in it Barclay<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span> read the account of Hendricks' reported +suicide, corroborated by his antemortem statement, written and delivered +to Jacob Dolan an hour before he died.</p> + +<p>"When I took charge of the Exchange National Bank," it read, "I found +that my father owed Garrison County nine thousand dollars for another +man's taxes, which he, my father, had agreed to pay, but had no money to +do so. The other man insisted on my father forging a note to straighten +matters up. It seemed at that time that the bank would close and the +whole county would be ruined if my father had not committed that deed. I +could not put the money back into the treasury without revealing my +father's crime, so I let the matter run for a few years, renewing the +forged note, and then, as it seemed an interminable job of forgery, I +forged the balance on the county books, one afternoon between +administrations in 1879. Mr. E. W. Bemis, who is trying to force polluted +water on Sycamore Ridge, has discovered this forgery and has threatened +to expose me in that and perhaps other matters. So I feel that my +usefulness in the fight for pure water in the town is ended. I leave +funds to fight the matter in the courts, and I feel sure that we will +win."</p> + +<p>Barclay sat in the warm morning sun, reading and re-reading the +statement. Finally Jane Barclay, thin, broken and faded, on whom the +wrath of the people was falling with crushing weight, came into the +veranda, and put her hands on her husband's shoulders.</p> + +<p>"Come in, John, breakfast is ready."</p> + +<p>The woman whom the leprosy of dishonest wealth was whitening, walked +dumbly into the great house, and ate in silence. "I am going to Molly," +she said simply, as the two rose from their meal. "I think she needs me, +dear; won't you come, too?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"I can't, Jane—I can't," cried Barclay. And when his wife had pressed +him, he broke forth: "Because Lige Bemis made Adrian kill Bob and I +helped—" he groaned, and sank into his chair, "and I helped."</p> + +<p>When Neal Ward came to the office the next morning, he found Dolan +waiting for him. Ward opened the envelope<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span> that Dolan gave him, and +found in it the mortgage Hendricks had owned on the <i>Banner</i> office, +assigned to Ward, and around the mortgage was a paper band on which was +written: "God bless you, my boy—keep up the fight; never say die."</p> + +<p>Then Ward read Adrian Brownwell's valedictory that was hanging on a copy +spike before him. It was the heart-broken sob of an old man who had run +away from failure and sorrow, and it need not be printed here.</p> + +<p>On Memorial Day, when they came to the cemetery on the hill to decorate +the soldiers' graves, men saw that the great mound of lilacs on Robert +Hendricks' grave had withered. The seven days' wonder of his passing was +ended. The business that he had left prospered without him, or +languished and died; within a week in all but a dozen hearts Hendricks' +memory began to recede into the past, and so, where there had been a +bubble on the tide, that held in its prism of light for a brief bit of +eternity all of God's spectacle of life, suddenly there was only the +tide moving resistlessly toward the unknown shore. And thus it is with +all of us.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2> +</div> + +<p>In the summer of 1904, following the death of Robert Hendricks, John +Barclay spent much time in the Ridge, more time than he had spent there +for thirty years. For in the City he was a marked man. Every time the +market quivered, reporters rushed to get his opinion about the cause of +the disturbance; the City papers were full of stories either of his own +misdeeds, or of the wrong-doings of other men of his caste. His cronies +were dying all about him of broken hearts or wrecked minds, and it +seemed to him that the word "indictment" was in every column of every +newspaper, was on every man's lips, and literally floated in the air.</p> + +<p>So he remained in Sycamore Ridge much of the time, and every fair +afternoon he rowed himself up the mill-pond to fish. He liked to be +alone; for when he was alone, he could fight the battle in his soul +without interruption. The combat had been gathering for a year; a +despair was rising in him, that he concealed from his womenkind—who +were his only intimate associates in those days—as if it had been a +crime. But out on the mill-pond alone, casting minnows for bass, he +could let the melancholy in his heart rage and battle with his sanity, +without let or hindrance. His business was doing well; the lawsuits +against the company in a dozen states were not affecting dividends, and +the department in charge of his charities was forwarding letters of +condolence and consolation from preachers and college presidents, and +men who under the old regime had been in high walks of life. +Occasionally some conservative newspaper or magazine would praise him +and his company highly; but he knew the shallowness of all the patter of +praise. He knew that he paid for it in one way or another, and he grew +cynical;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</a></span> and in his lonely afternoons on the river, often he laughed at +the whole mockery of his career, smiled at the thought of organized +religion, licking his boots for money like a dog for bones, and then in +his heart he said there is no God. Once, to relieve the pain of his +soul's woe, he asked aloud, who is God, anyway, and then laughed as he +thought that the bass nibbling at his minnow would soon think he, John +Barclay, was God. The analogy pleased him, and he thought that his own +god, some devilish fate, had the string through his gills at that moment +and was preparing to cast him into the fire. Up in the office in the +city, they went on making senators and governors, and slipping a federal +judge in where they could, but he had little hand in it, for his power +was a discarded toy. He sat in his boat alone, rowing for miles and +miles, from stump to stump, and from fallen tree-top to tree-top, hating +the thing he called God, and distrusting men.</p> + +<p>But when he appeared in the town, or at home, he was cheerful enough; he +liked to mingle with the people, and it fed his despair to notice what a +hang-dog way they had with him. He knew they had been abusing him behind +his back, and when he found out exactly what a man had said, he +delighted in facing the man down with it.</p> + +<p>"So you think John Barclay could have saved Bob Hendricks' life, do you, +Oscar?" asked Barclay, as he overhauled Fernald coming out of the +post-office.</p> + +<p>"Who said so?" asked Fernald, turning red.</p> + +<p>"Oh," chuckled Barclay, "I got it from the hired girls' wireless news +agency. But you said it all right—you said it, Oscar; you said it over +to Ward's at dinner night before last." And Barclay grinned maliciously.</p> + +<p>Fernald scratched his head, and said, "Well, John, to be frank with you, +that's the talk all over town—among the people."</p> + +<p>"The people—the people," snapped Barclay, impatiently, "the people take +my money for bridges and halls and parks and churches and statues and +then call me a murderer—oh, damn the people! Who started this story?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</a></span></p> + +<p>"See Jake Dolan, John—it's up to him. He can satisfy you," said +Fernald, and turned, leaving Barclay in the street.</p> + +<p>Up the hill trudged the gray-clad little man, with his pugnacious +shoulders weaving and his bronzed face set hard and his mean jaw locked. +On the steps of the court-house he found Jake Dolan, smoking a morning +pipe with the loafers in the shade of the building.</p> + +<p>"Here you, Jake Dolan," called Barclay, "what do you mean by accusing me +of murdering Bob Hendricks? What did I have to do with it?"</p> + +<p>"Easy, easy, Johnnie, my boy," returned Dolan, knocking the ashes from +his pipe on the steps between his feet. "Gentlemen," said Dolan, +addressing the crowd, "you've heard what our friend says. All +right—come with me to my office, Johnnie Barclay, and I'll show you." +Barclay followed Dolan into the basement of the court-house, with the +crowd at a respectful distance. "Right this way—" and Dolan switched on +an electric light. "Do you see that break in the foundation, Mr. +Barclay? You do? And you know in your soul that it opens into the cave +that leads to the cellar of your own house. Well, then, Mr. Johnnie +Barclay—the book that contained the evidence against Bob Hendricks did +not go out of this court-house by the front door, as you well know, but +through that hole—stolen at night when I was out; and the man who stole +it was the horse thief that used to run the cave—your esteemed friend, +Lige Bemis."</p> + +<p>The crowd was gaping at the rickety place in the foundation, and one man +pulled a loose stone out and let the cold air of the cave into the room.</p> + +<p>"Lige Bemis came to your house, Mr. Johnnie Barclay, got into the cave +from your cellar, broke through this wall, and stole the book that +contained the forgery made to cover General Hendricks' disgrace. And who +caused that disgrace but the overbearing, domineering John Barclay, who +made that old man steal to pay John Barclay's taxes, back in the +grasshopper year, when the sheriff and the jail were almost as familiar +to him as they are now,—by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span> all counts. Ah, John Barclay," said the +Irishman, turning to the crowd, "John Barclay, John Barclay—you're a +brave little man sometimes; I've seen you when I was most ungodly proud +of you; I've seen you do grand things, my little man, grand things. But +you're a coward too, Johnnie; sitting in your own house while your +horse-thief friend used your cellar to work out the disgrace of the man +who gave his good name to save your own—that was a fine trick—a damn +fine trick, wasn't it, Mr. Barclay?"</p> + +<p>Barclay started to go, but the crowd blocked his way. Dolan saw that +Barclay was trying to escape. "Turn tail, will you, my little man? Wait +one minute," cried Dolan. "Wait one minute, sir. For what was you +conniving against the big man? I know—to win your game; to win your +miserable little game. Ah, what a pup a man can be, Johnnie, what a +mangy, miserable, cowardly little pup a man can be when he tries—and a +decent man, too. Money don't mean anything to you—you got past that, +but it's to win the game. Why, man, look at yourself—look at +yourself—you'd cheat your own mother playing cards with matches for +counters—just to win the game." Dolan waved for the crowd to break. +"Let him out of here, and get out yourselves—every one of you. This is +public property you're desecrating."</p> + +<p>Dolan sat alone in his office, pale and trembling after the crowd had +gone. Colonel Culpepper came puffing in and saw the Irishman sitting +with his head in his hands and his elbows on the table.</p> + +<p>"What's this, Jake—what's this I hear?" asked the colonel.</p> + +<p>"Oh, nothing," answered Dolan, and then he looked up at the colonel with +sad, remorseful eyes. "What a fool—what a fool whiskey in a man's +tongue is—what a fool." He reached under his cot for his jug, and +repeated as he poured the liquor into a glass, "What a fool, what a +fool, what a fool." And then, as he gulped it down and made a wry face, +"Poor little Johnnie at the mill; I didn't mean<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span> to hit him so hard—not +half so hard. What a fool, what a fool," and the two old men started off +for the harness shop together.</p> + +<p>Neal Ward that night, in the <i>Banner</i> office alone, wrote to his +sweetheart the daily letter that was never mailed.</p> + +<p class='blockquot'> +"How sweet it is," he writes, "to have you at home. Sometimes I +hear your voice through the old leaky telephone, talking to Aunt +Molly; her phone and ours are through the same board, and your +voice seems natural then, and unstrained, not as it is when we +meet. But I know that some way we are meeting—our souls—in the +infinite realm outside ourselves—beyond our consciousness—either +sleeping or waking. Last night I dreamed a strange dream. A little +girl, like one of the pictures in mother's old family photograph +album, seemed to be talking with me,—dressed so quaintly in the +dear old fashion of the days when mother taught the Sycamore Ridge +School. She seemed to be playing with me in some way, and then she +said: 'Oh, yes, I am your telephone; she knows all about it. I tell +her every night as we play together.' And then she was no longer a +little girl but a most beautiful soul and she said with great +gentleness: 'In her heart she loves you—in her heart she loves +you. This I know, only she is proud—proud with the Barclay pride; +but in her heart she loves you; is not that enough?' What a strange +dream! I wonder where we are—we who animate our bodies, when we +sleep. What is sleep, but the proof that death is but a sleep? Oh, +Jeanette, Jeanette, come into my soul as we sleep."</p> + +<p>He folded the letter, sealed and addressed it, and dated the envelope, +and put it in his desk—the desk before which Adrian Brownwell had sat, +eating his heart out in futile endeavour to find his place in the world. +Neal Ward had cleaned out one side of the desk, and was using that for +his own. Mrs. Brownwell kept her papers in the other side, and one key +locked them both. As he walked home that night under the stars, his +heart was full of John Barclay's troubles. Neal knew Barclay well enough +to know that the sensitive nature of the man, with his strongly +developed instinctive faculty for getting at the truth, would be his +curse in the turmoil or criticism through which he was going. So a day +or two later Neal was not surprised to find a long statement in the +morning press despatches from Barclay explaining and defending the +methods of the National Provisions Company. He proved carefully that the +notorious Door Strip saved large losses in transit of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</a></span> National +Provisions Company's grain and grain produce, and showed that in paying +him for the use of these strips the railroad companies were saving great +sums for widowed and orphaned stockholders of railroads—sums which +would be his due for losses in transit if the strips were not used.</p> + +<p>Neal Ward knew what it had cost Barclay in pride to give out that +statement; so the young man printed it on the first page of the <i>Banner</i> +with a kind editorial about Mr. Barclay and his good works. That night +when the paper was off, and young Ward was working on the books of his +office, he was called to the telephone.</p> + +<p>"Is this you, Nealie Ward?" asked a woman's voice—the strong, clear, +deep voice of an old woman. And when he had answered, the voice went on: +"Well, Nealie, I wish to thank you for that editorial about John +to-night in the paper; I'm Mary Barclay. It isn't more than half true, +Nealie; and if it was all true, it isn't a fraction of what the truth +ought to be if John did what he could, but it will do him a lot of +good—right here in the home paper, and—Why, Jennie, I'm speaking with +Nealie Ward,—why, do you think I am not old enough to talk with Nealie +without breeding scandal?—as I was saying, my dear, it will cheer John +up a little, and heaven knows he needs something. I'm—Jennie, for mercy +sakes keep still; I know Nealie Ward and I knew his father when he +wasn't as old as Nealie—did his washing for him; and boarded his mother +four winters, and I have a right to say what I want to to that child." +The boy and the grandmother laughed into the telephone. "Jennie is so +afraid I'll do something improper," laughed Mrs. Barclay. "Oh, yes, by +the way—here's a little item for your paper to-morrow: Jennie's mother +is sick; I think it's typhoid, but you can't get John to admit it. So +don't say typhoid." Then with a few more words she rang off.</p> + +<p>When the <i>Banner</i> printed the item about Mrs. Barclay's illness, the +town, in one of those outbursts of feeling which communities often have, +seemed to try to show John Barclay the affection that was in their +hearts for the man who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span> had grown up among them, and the family that had +been established under his name. Flowers—summer flowers—poured in on +the Barclays. Children came with wild flowers, prairie flowers that Jane +Barclay had not seen since she roamed over the unbroken sod about +Minneola as a girl; and Colonel Culpepper came marching up the walk +through the Barclay grounds, bearing his old-fashioned bouquet, as +grandly as an ambassador bringing a king's gift. Jane Barclay sent word +that she wished to see him.</p> + +<p>"My dear," said the colonel, as he held the flowers toward her, "accept +these flowers from those who have shared your bounty—from God's poor, +my dear; these are God's smiles that they send you from their +hearts—from their very hearts, my dear, from their poor hearts wherein +God's smiles come none too often." She saw through glistening eyes the +broken old figure, with his coat tightly buttoned on that July day to +hide some shabbiness underneath. But she bade the colonel sit down, and +they chatted of old times and old places and old faces for a few +minutes; and the colonel, to whom any sort of social function was a rare +and sweet occasion, stayed until the nurse had to beckon him out of the +room over Mrs. Barclay's shoulder.</p> + +<p>General Ward sent a note with a bunch of monthly blooming roses.</p> + +<p class='blockquot'> +"<span class="smcap">My dear Jane</span> (he wrote): These roses are from slips we got from +John's mother when we planted our little yard. This red one is from +the very bush on which grew the rose John wore at his wedding. Pin +it on the old scamp to-night, and see how he will look. He was a +dapper little chap that night, and the years have hardly begun +their work on him; or perhaps he is such a tough customer that he +dulls the chisel of time. I do not know, and so long as it is so, +you do not care, but we both know, and are both glad that of all +the many things God has sent you in thirty years, he has sent you +nothing so fine as the joy that came with the day John wore this +rose for you—a joy that has grown while the rose has faded. And +may this rose renew your joy for another thirty years."</p> + +<p>John read the note when he came in from the mill that evening, and Jane +watched the years slip off his face. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</a></span> looked into the past as it +spread itself on the carpet near the bed.</p> + +<p>"Well, well, well," he said, as he smiled into the picture he saw, "I +remember as well the general bringing that rose down to the office that +morning, wrapped in blue tissue paper from cotton batting rolls! The +package was tied with fancy red braid that used to bind muslin bolts." +He laughed quietly, and asked, "Jane, do you remember that old red +braid?" The sick woman nodded. "Well, with the little blue package was a +note from Miss Lucy, which said that my old teacher could not give me a +present that year—times were cruelly hard then, you remember—but that +she could and did put the blessing of her prayers on the rose, that all +that it witnessed at my wedding would bring me happiness." He sat for a +moment in silence, and, as the nurse was gone, he knelt beside the sick +woman and kissed her. And as the wife stroked his head she whispered, +"How that prayer has been answered, John—dear, hasn't it?" And the +great clock in the silent hall below ticked away some of the happiest +minutes it had ever measured.</p> + +<p>But when he passed out of the sick room, the world—the maddening press +of affairs, and the combat in his soul—snapped back on his shoulders +with a mental click as though a load had fallen into its old place. He +stood before his organ, and could not press the keys. As he sat there in +the twilight made by the shaded electric lamps, the struggle rose in his +heart against the admission of anything into his scheme of life but +material things, and the conflict raged unchecked. What a silliness, he +said, to think that the mummery of a woman over a rose could affect a +life. Life is what the succession of the days brings. The thing is or is +not, he said to himself, and the gibber about prayer and the moral force +that moves the universe is for the weak-minded. So he took his hell to +bed with him as it went every night, and during the heavy hours when he +could not sleep, he tiptoed into the sick room, and looked at the thin +face of his wife, sleeping a restless, feverish sleep, and a great fear +came into his heart.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</a></span></p> + +<p>Once as the morning dawned he asked the nurse whom he met in the hall, +"Is it typhoid?"</p> + +<p>She was a stranger to the town, and she said to him, "What does the +doctor tell you?"</p> + +<p>"That's not the point," he insisted. "What do you think?"</p> + +<p>She looked at him for an undecided moment and replied, "I'm not paid to +think, Mr. Barclay," and went past him with her work. But he knew the +truth. He went to his bed, and threw himself upon it, a-tremble with +remorse and fear, and the sneer in his heart stilled his lips and he +could not look outside himself for help. So the morning came, and +another day, bringing its thousand cares, faced him, like a jailer with +his tortures.</p> + +<p>Time dragged slowly in the sick room and at the mill. One doctor brought +another, and the Barclay private car went far east and came flying back +with a third. The town knew that Mrs. John Barclay was dangerously sick. +There came hopeful days when the patient's mind was clear; on one of +these days Mrs. McHurdie called, and they let her see the sick woman. +She brought some flowers.</p> + +<p>"In the flowers, Jane," she said, "you will find something from Watts." +Mrs. McHurdie smiled. "You know he sat up till 'way after midnight last +night, playing his accordion. Oh, it's been years since he has touched +it. And this morning when I got up, I found him sitting by the kitchen +table, writing. It's a poem for you." Mrs. McHurdie looked rather +sheepish as she said: "You know how Watts is, Jane; he just made me +bring it. You can read it when you get well."</p> + +<p>They hurried Mrs. McHurdie out, and when Jane Barclay went to sleep, +they found tears on her pillow, and in her hand the verses,—the +limping, awkward verses of an old man, whose music only echoed back from +the past. The nurses and the young doctor from Boston had a good laugh +at it. Each of the four stanzas began with two lines that asked: "Oh, +don't you remember the old river road, that ran through the +sweet-scented wood?" To them it was a curious parody on something old +and quaint<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</a></span> that they had long since forgotten. But to the woman who lay +murmuring of other days, whose lips were parched for the waters of +brooks that had surrendered to the plough a score of years ago, the +halting verses of Watts McHurdie were laden with odours of grape +blossoms, of wild cucumbers and sumach, of elder blossoms, and the +fragrance of the crushed leaves of autumn. And the music of distant +ripples played in her feverish brain and the sobbing voice of the turtle +dove sang out of the past for her as she slept. All through the day and +the night and for many nights and days she whispered of the trees and +the running water and the wild grass and the birds.</p> + +<p>And so one morning when it was still gray, she woke and said to John, +who bent over her, "Why, dear, we are almost home; there are the lights +across the river; just one more hill, dearie, and then—" And then with +the water prattling in her ears at the last ford she turned to the wall +and sank to rest.</p> + +<p>Day after day, until the days and nights became a week and the week +repeated itself until nearly a month was gone, John Barclay, dry-eyed +and all but dumb, paced the terrace before his house by night, and by +day roamed through the noisy mill or wandered through his desolate +house, seeking peace that would not come to him. The whole foundation of +his scheme of life was crumbling beneath him. He had built thirty-five +years of his manhood upon the theory that the human brain is the god of +things as they are and as they must be. The structure of his life was an +imposing edifice, and men called it great and successful. Yet as he +walked his lonely way in those black days that followed Jane's death, +there came into his consciousness a strong, overmastering conviction, +which he dared not accept, that his house was built on sand. For here +were things outside of his plans, outside of his very beliefs, coming +into his life, bringing calamity, sorrow, and tragedy with them into his +own circle of friends, into his own household, into his own heart. As he +walked through the dull, lonely hours he could not escape the vague +feeling, though he fought it as one mad fights for his delusion, that +all the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</a></span> tragedies piling up about him came from his own mistakes. Over +and over again he threshed the past. Molly Brownwell's cry, "You have +sold me into bondage, John Barclay," would not be stilled, though at +times he could smile at it; and the broken body and shamed face of her +father haunted him like an obsession. Night after night when he tried to +sleep, Robert Hendricks' letter burned in fire before his eyes, and at +last so mad was the struggle in his soul that he hugged these things to +him that he might escape the greater horror: the dreadful red headlines +in the sensational paper they had sent him from the City office which +screamed at him, "John Barclay slays his wife—Aids a water franchise +grab that feeds the people typhoid germs and his own wife dies of the +fever." He had not replied to the letter from the law department of the +Provisions Company which asked if he wished to sue for libel, and begged +him to do so. He had burned the paper, but the headlines were seared +into his brain.</p> + +<p>Over and over he climbed the fiery ladder of his sins: the death of +General Hendricks, the sacrifice of Molly Culpepper, the temptation and +fall of her father, the death of his boyhood's friend, and then the +headlines. These things were laid at his door, and over and over again, +like Sisyphus rolling the stones uphill, he swept them away from his +threshold, only to find that they rolled right back again. And with them +came at times the suspicion that his daughter's unhappiness was upon him +also. And besides these things, a hundred business transactions wherein +he had cheated and lied for money rose to disturb him. And through it +all, through his anguish and shame, the faith of his life kept battling +for its dominion.</p> + +<p>Once he sent for Bemis and tried to talk himself into peace with his +friend. He did not speak of the things that were corroding his heart, +but he sat by and heard himself chatter his diabolic creed as a drunkard +watches his own folly.</p> + +<p>"Lige," he said, "I'm sick of that infernal charities bureau we've got. +I'm going to abolish it. These philanthropic millionaires make me sick +at the stomach, Lige.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</a></span> What do they care for the people? They know what +I know, that the damn people are here to be skinned." He laughed +viciously and went on: "Sometimes I think we filthy rich are divided +into two classes: those of us who keep mistresses, and those of us who +have harmless little entanglements with preachers and college +presidents. Neither the lemon-haired women nor the college presidents +interfere with our business; they don't hamper us—not the slightest. +They just take our money, and for a few idle hours amuse us, and make us +feel that we are good fellows. As for me, I'll have neither women nor +college presidents purring around my ankles. I'm going to cut out the +philanthropy appropriation to-day."</p> + +<p>And he was as good as his word. But that did not help. The truth kept +wrenching his soul, and his feet blindly kept trying to find a path to +peace.</p> + +<p>It was late one night in August, and a dead moon was hanging in the +south, when, treading the terrace before his house, he saw a shadow +moving down the stairway in the hall. At first his racked nerves +quivered, but when he found that it was his mother, he went to meet her, +exclaiming as he mounted the steps to the veranda, "Why, mother, what is +it—is anything wrong?"</p> + +<p>Though it was past midnight, Mary Barclay was dressed for the day. She +stood in the doorway with the dimmed light behind her, a tall, strong +woman, straight and gaunt as a Nemesis. "No, John—nothing is wrong—in +the house." She walked into the veranda and began as she approached a +chair, "Sit down, John; I wish to talk with you."</p> + +<p>"Well, mother—what is it?" asked the son, as he sat facing her.</p> + +<p>She paused a moment looking earnestly at his face and replied, "The time +has come when we must talk this thing out, John, soul to soul."</p> + +<p>He shrank from what was coming. His instinct told him to fight away the +crisis. He began to palaver, but his mother cut him short, as she +exclaimed:—</p> + +<p>"Why don't you let Him in, John?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Let who in?" asked her son.</p> + +<p>"You know Whom, John Barclay; that was your grandfather speaking then, +the old polly foxer. You know, my boy. Don't you remember me bending +over the town wash-tub when you were a child, Johnnie? Don't you +remember the old song I used to sing—of course you do, child—as I +rubbed the clothes on the board: 'Let Him in, He is your friend, let Him +in, He is your friend; He will keep you to the end—let—Him—in!' Of +course you remember it, boy, and you have been fighting Him with all +your might for six months now, and since Jane went, the fight is driving +you crazy—can't you see, John?"</p> + +<p>The son did not reply for a moment, then he said, "Oh, well, mother, +that was all right in that day, but—"</p> + +<p>"John Barclay," cried the mother sternly, as she leaned toward him, "the +faith that bore your father a martyr to the grave, sustained me in this +wilderness, and kept me happy as I scrubbed for your bread, shall not be +scoffed in my presence. We are going to have this thing out to-night. I, +who bore you, and nursed you, and fed you, and staked my soul on your +soul, have some rights to-night. Here you are, fifty-four years old, and +what have you done? You've killed your friend and your friend's father +before him—I know that, John. You've wrecked the life of the sister of +your first sweetheart, and put fear and disgrace in her father's face +forever—forever, John Barclay, as long as he lives. I know that too; I +haven't been wrapped in pink cotton all these years, boy—I've lived my +own life since you left my wing, and made my own way too, as far as that +goes. And now you are trying to quench the fires of remorse in your soul +because your wife died a victim of your selfish, ruthless, practical +scheme of things. More than that, my son—more than that, your child is +suffering all the agony that a woman can suffer because of your devilish +system of traffic in blood for money. You know what I mean, John. That +boy told the truth, as you admit, and he could either run or lie, and +for being a man you have broken up a God-sent love merely to satisfy +your own vanity. Oh, John—John," she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</a></span> cried passionately, "my poor, +blind, foolish boy—haven't you found the ashes in the core of your +faith yet—aren't you ready to quit?"</p> + +<p>He began, "Don't you think, mother, I have suffered—"</p> + +<p>"Suffered, boy? Suffered? Of course you have suffered, John," she +answered, taking his hands in hers. "I have seen the furnace fires +smoking your face, and I know you have suffered, Johnnie; that's why I +am coming to you—to ask you to quit suffering. Look at it, my boy—what +are you suffering for? Is it material power you want? Well, you have +never had it. The people are going right along running their own affairs +in spite of you. All your nicely built card houses are knocked over. In +the states and in the federal government, in spite of your years of +planning and piecing out your little practical system, at the very first +puff of God's breath it goes to pieces. The men whom you bought and paid +for don't stay bought—do they, my boy? Oh, your old mother knows, John. +Men who will sell are never worth buying; and the house that relies on +them, falls. You have built a sand dam, son—like the dams you used to +build in the spring stream when you were a child. It melts under +pressure like straw. You have no worldly power. In this practical world +you are a failure, and good old Phil Ward, who went out into the field +and scattered seeds of discontent at your system—he is seeing his +harvest ripen in his old age, John," she cried. "Can't you see your +failure? Look at it from a practical standpoint: what thing in the last +thirty years have you advocated, and Philemon Ward opposed, that to-day +he has not realized and you lost? His prescription for the evils may +have been wrong many times, but his diagnosis of them was always right, +and they are being cured, in spite of all your protest that they did not +exist. Which of you has won his practical fight in this practical +world—his God or your God; the ideal world or the material world, boy? +Can't you see it?" The old woman leaned forward and looked in her son's +dull, unresponsive face. "Can't you see how you have failed?" she +pleaded.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</a></span></p> + +<p>They rose together and began to pace the long floor of the veranda. "Oh, +mother," he cried, as he put his arm about her, "I am so lonely—so +tired, so sick in the heart of me."</p> + +<p>They didn't speak for a time, but walked together in silence. At length +the mother began again. "John," she said, as they turned at the end of +the porch, "I suppose you are saying that you have your money—that it +is material—solid, substantial, and undeniable. But is it? Isn't it all +a myth? Leave it where it is—in the shape of securities and stocks and +credits—what will it do? Will it bring Jane back? Will it give Jeanette +her heart's desire, and make her happy all her life? You know, dear, +that it will only make me miserable. Has it made you happy, John? Turn +it into gold and pile it up in the front yard—and what will it buy that +poor Phil Ward has not had all of his life—good food, good +clothing—good enough, at least—a happy family, useful children, and a +good name? A good name, John, is rather to be chosen than great +riches—than all your money, my son—rather to be chosen than all your +money. Can you buy that with your millions piled on millions?"</p> + +<p>They were walking slowly as she spoke, and they turned into the terrace. +There they stood looking at the livid moon sinking behind the great +house.</p> + +<p>"Is there more joy in this house than in any other house in town, +John—answer me squarely, son—answer me," she cried. He shook his head +sadly and sighed. "A mother, whose heart bleeds every hour as she sees +her son torturing himself with footless remorse; that is one. A +heart-broken, motherless girl, whose lover has been torn away from her by +her father's vanity and her own pride, and whose mother has been taken +as a pawn in the game her father played with no motive, no benefit, +nothing but to win his point in a miserable little game of politics; +that is number two. And a man who should be young for twenty years yet, +who should have been useful for thirty years—and now what is he? +powerless, useless, wretched, lonely, who spends his time walking about +fighting against<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</a></span> God, that he may prove his own wisdom and nothing +more."</p> + +<p>"Mother," cried Barclay, petulantly, "I can't stand this—that you +should turn on me—now." He broke away from her, and stood alone. "When +I need you most, you reproach me. When I need sympathy, you scorn all +that I have done. You can't prove your God. Why should I accept Him?"</p> + +<p>The gaunt old woman stretched out her arms and cried: "Oh, John Barclay, +prove your god. Tell him to come and give you a moment's happiness—set +him to work to restore your good name; command him to make Jeanette +happy. These things my God can do! Let your Mammon," she cried with all +the passion of her soul, "let your Mammon come down and do one single +miracle like that." Her voice broke and she sobbed. "What a tower of +Babel—an industrial Babel, you are building, John—you and your kith +and kind. The last century gave us Schopenhauers and Kants, all denying +God, and this one gives us Railroad Kings and Iron Kings and Wheat +Kings, all by their works proclaiming that Mammon has the power and the +glory and the Kingdom. O ye workers of iniquity!" she cried, and her +voice lifted, "ye wicked and perverse—"</p> + +<p>She did not finish, but broken and trembling, her strength spent and her +faith scorned, she sank on her knees by a marble urn on the terrace and +sobbed and prayed. When she rose, the dawn was breaking, and she looked +for a moment at her son, who had been sitting near her, and cried: "Oh, +my boy, my little boy that I nursed at my breast—let Him in, He is your +friend—and oh, my God, sustain my faith!"</p> + +<p>Her son came to her side and led her into the house. But he went to his +room and began the weary round, battling for his own faith.</p> + +<p>As he stood by his open window that day at the mill, he saw Molly +Brownwell across the pond, going into his home. He watched her idly and +saw Jeanette meet her at the door, and then as his memory went back to +the old<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[Pg 398]</a></span> days, he tried to find tears for the woman who had died, but he +could only rack his soul. Tears were denied to him.</p> + +<p>He was a rich man—was John Barclay; some people thought that, taking +his wealth as wealth goes, all carefully invested in substantial +things—in material things, let us say—he was the richest man in the +Mississippi Valley. He bought a railroad that day when he looked through +the office window at Molly Brownwell—a railroad three thousand miles +long. And he bought a man's soul in a distant city—a man whom he did +not know even by name, but the soul was thrown in "to boot" in a +bargain; and he bought a woman's body whose face he had never seen, and +that went as part of another trade he was making and he did not even +know they had thrown it in. And he bought a child's life, and he bought +a city's prosperity in another bargain, and bought the homage of a +state, and the tribute of a European kingdom, as part of the day's +huckstering. But with all his wealth and power, he could not buy one +tear—not one little, miserable tear to moisten his grief-dried heart. +For tears, just then, were a trifle high. So Mr. Barclay had to do +without, though the man whose soul he bought wept, and the woman whose +body came with a trade, sobbed, and the dead face of the child was +stained with a score of tears.</p> + +<p>They went to Jeanette Barclay's room,—the gray-haired woman and the +girl,—and they sat there talking for a time—talking of things that +were on their lips and not in their hearts. Each felt that the other +understood her. And each felt that something was to be said. For one day +before the end Jeanette's mother had said to her: "Jennie, if I am not +here always go to Molly—ask her to tell you about her girlhood." The +mother had rested for a while, and then added, "Tell her I said for you +to ask her, and she'll know what I mean."</p> + +<p>"Jeanette," said Molly Brownwell, "your mother and I were girls +together. Your father saw more of her at our house than he did at her +own home, until they married. Did you know that?" Jeanette nodded +assent. "So one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[Pg 399]</a></span> day last June she said to me, 'Molly, sometime I wish +you would tell Jennie all about you and Bob.'"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Brownwell paused, and Jeanette said, "Yes, mother told me to ask +you to, Aunt Molly." Tears came into the daughter's eyes, and she added, +"I think she knew even then that—"</p> + +<p>And then it all came back, and after a while the elder woman was saying, +"Well, once upon a time there lived a princess, my dear. All good +stories begin so—don't they? She was a fat, pudgy little princess who +longed to grow up and have hoop-skirts like a real sure-enough woman +princess, and there came along a tall prince—the tallest, handsomest +prince in all the wide world, I think. And he and the princess fell in +love, as princesses and princes will, you know, my dear,—just as they +do now, I am told. And the prince had to go away on business and be gone +a long, long time, and while he was gone the father of the princess and +the friend of the prince got into trouble—and the princess thought it +was serious trouble. She thought the father of the prince would have to +go to jail and maybe the prince and his friend fail. My, my, Jeanette, +what a big word that word fail seemed to the little fat princess! So she +let a man make love to her who could lend them all some money and keep +the father out of jail and the prince and his friend from the awful fate +of failure. So the man lent the money and made love, and made love. And +the little princess had to listen; every one seemed to like to have her +listen, so she listened and she listened, and she was a weak little +princess. She knew she had wronged the prince by letting the man make +love to her, and her soul was smudged and—oh, Jeanette, she was such a +foolish, weak, miserable little princess, and they didn't tell her that +there is only one prince for every princess, and one princess for every +prince—so she took the man, and sent away the prince, and the man made +love ever so beautifully—but it was not the real thing, my dear,—not +the real thing. And afterwards when she saw the prince—so young and so +strong and so handsome, her heart burned for him as with a flame, and +she was not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[Pg 400]</a></span> ashamed; the wicked, wicked princess, she didn't know. And +so they walked together one night right up to the brink of the bad +place, dearie—right up to the brink; and the princess shuddered back, +and saved the prince. Oh, Jeanette, Jeanette, Jeanette," sobbed the +woman, in the girl's arms, "right in this room, in this very room, which +was your mother's room in the old house, I came out of the night, as bad +a woman as God ever sent away from Him. And your mother and I cried it +out, and talked it out, and I fought it out, and won. Oh, I won, +Jeanette—I won!"</p> + +<p>The two women were silent for a time, and then the elder went on: +"That's what your mother wished you to know—that for every princess +there is just one real prince, and for every prince there is just one +real princess, my dear, and when you have found him, and know he is +true, nothing—not money, not friends, not father nor mother—when he is +honest, not even pride—should stand between you. That is what your +mother sent you, dearie. Do you understand?"</p> + +<p>"I think I do, Aunt Molly—I think so," repeated the girl. She looked +out of the window for a moment, and then cried, "Oh, Aunt Molly—but I +can't, I can't. How could he, Aunt Molly—how could he?" The girl buried +her face in the woman's lap, and sobbed.</p> + +<p>After a time the elder woman spoke. "You know he loves you, don't you, +dear?"</p> + +<p>The girl shook her head and cried, "But how could he?" and repeated it +again and again.</p> + +<p>"And you still love him—I know that, my dear, or you could not—you +would not care, either," she added.</p> + +<p>And so after a time the tears dried, as tears will, and the two women +fell back into the pale world of surfaces, and as Molly Brownwell left +she took the girl's hand and said: "You won't forget about the little +pudgy princess—the dear, foolish, little weak princess, will you, +Jeanette? And, dearie," she added as she stood on the lower steps of the +porch, "don't—don't always be so proud—not about that, my dear—about +everything else in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[Pg 401]</a></span> world, but not about that." And so she went back +into the world, and ceased to be a fairy godmother, and took up her +day's work.</p> + +<p>John Barclay went to the City that night for the first time in two +months, and Jeanette and her Grandmother Barclay kept the big house +alone. In ten days he came back; his face was still hard, and the red +rims around his eyes were dry, and his voice was sullen, as it had been +for many weeks. His soul was still wrestling with a spirit that would +not give up the fight. That night his daughter tried to sit with him, as +she had tried many nights before. They sat looking at the stars in +silence as was their wont. Generally the father had risen and walked +away, but that night he turned upon her and said:—</p> + +<p>"Jeanette, don't you like to be rich? I guess you are the richest girl +in this country. Doesn't that sound good to you?"</p> + +<p>"No, father," she answered simply, and continued, "What can I do with +all that money?"</p> + +<p>"Marry some man who's got sense enough to double it, and double it," +cried Barclay, harshly. "Then there'll be no question but that you'll be +the richest people in the world."</p> + +<p>"And then what?" asked the girl.</p> + +<p>"Then—then," he cried, "make the people in this world stand +around—that's what."</p> + +<p>"But, father," she said as she put her hand on his arm, "what if I don't +want them to stand around? Why should I have to bother about it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh," he groaned, "your grandmother has been filling you full of +nonsense." He did not speak for a time, and at length she rose to go to +bed. "Jeanette," he cried so suddenly that it startled her, "are you +still moping after Neal Ward? Do you love him? Do you want me to go and +get him for you?"</p> + +<p>The girl stood by her father's chair a moment and then answered +colourlessly: "No, father, I don't want you to get him for me. I am not +moping for him, as you call it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[Pg 402]</a></span></p> + +<p>Her desolate tone reached some chord in his very heart, for he caught +her hand, and put it to his cheek and said softly, "But she loves +him—my poor little girl loves him?"</p> + +<p>She tried to pull away her hand and replied, in the same dead voice: +"Oh, well—that doesn't matter much, I suppose. It's all over—so far as +I am concerned." She turned to leave him, and he cried:—</p> + +<p>"My dear, my dear—why don't you go to him?"</p> + +<p>She stopped a moment and looked at her father, and even in the starlight +she could see his hard mouth and his ruthless jaw. Then she cried out, +"Oh, father, I can't—I can't—" After a moment she turned and looked at +him, and asked, "Would you? Would you?" and walked into the house +without waiting for an answer.</p> + +<p>The father sat crumpled up in his chair, listening to the flames +crackling in his heart. The old negation was fighting for its own, and +he was weary and broken and sick as with a palsy of the soul. For +everything in him trembled. There was no solid ground under him. He had +visited his material kingdom in the City, and had seen its strong +fortresses and had tried all of its locks and doors, and found them firm +and fast. But they did not satisfy his soul; something within him kept +mocking them; refusing to be awed by their power, and the eternal "yes" +rushed through his reason like a great wind.</p> + +<p>As he sat there, suddenly, as from some power outside, John Barclay felt +a creaking of his resisting timbers, and he quit the struggle. His heart +was lead in his breast, and he walked through the house to his pipe +organ, that had stood silent in the hall for nearly a year. He stood +hesitatingly before it for a second, and then wearily lay him down to +rest, on a couch beside it, where, when he had played the last time, +Jane lay and listened. He was tired past all telling, but his soul was +relaxed. He lay there for hours—until the tall clock above his head +chimed two. He could not sleep, but his consciousness was inert and his +mind seemed limp and empty, as one who has worked past his limit. The +hymn that the clock chimed through the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[Pg 403]</a></span> quarter hours repeated itself +over and over again without meaning in his brain. Something aroused him; +he started up suddenly, and lying half on his elbow and half on his side +he stared about him, and was conscious of a great light in the room: it +was as though there was a fire near by and he was alarmed, but he could +not move. As he looked into space, terrified by the paralysis that held +him, he saw across the face of the organ, "Righteousness exalteth a +Nation, but sin is a reproach to any people."</p> + +<p>Quick as a flash his mind went back to the time that same motto stared +meaninglessly at him from above the pulpit in the chapel at West Point, +to which he had been appointed official visitor at Commencement many +years before. But that night as he gazed at the text its meaning came +rushing through his brain. It came so quickly that he could not will it +back nor reason it in. Righteousness, he knew, was not piety—not +wearing your Sunday clothes to church and praying and singing psalms; it +was living honestly and kindly and charitably and dealing decently with +every one in every transaction; and sin—that, he knew—was the +cheating, the deceiving, and the malicious greed that had built up his +company and scores of others like it all over the land. That, he +knew—that bribery and corruption and vicarious stealing which he had +learned to know as business—that was a reproach to any people, and as +it came to him that he was a miserable offender and that the other life, +the decent life, was the right life, he was filled with a joy that he +could not express, and he let the light fail about him unheeded, and lay +for a time in a transport of happiness. He had found the secret.</p> + +<p>The truth had come to him—to him first of all men, and it was his to +tell. The joy of it—that he should find out what righteousness +was—that it was not crying "Lord, Lord" and playing the +hypocrite—thrilled him. And then the sense of his sinning came over +him, but only with joy too, because he felt he could show others how +foolish they were. The clock stopped ticking; the chimes were silent, +and he lay unconscious of his body,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[Pg 404]</a></span> with his spirit bathed in some new +essence that he did not understand and did not try to understand. +Finally he rose and went to his organ and turned on the motor, and put +his hands to the keys. As he played the hymn to the "Evening Star," John +Barclay looked up and saw his mother standing upon the stair with her +fine old face bathed in tears. And then at last—</p> + +<p>Tears? Tears for Mr. Barclay? All these months there have been no tears +for him—none, except miserable little corroding tears of rage and +shame. But now there are tears for Mr. Barclay, large, man's size, +soul-healing tears—tears of repentance; not for the rich Mr. Barclay, +the proud Mr. Barclay, the powerful, man-hating, God-defying Mr. Barclay +of Sycamore Ridge, but for John Barclay, a contrite man, the humblest in +all the kingdom.</p> + +<p>And as John Barclay let his soul rise with the swelling music, he felt +the solace of a great peace in his heart; he turned his wet face upward +and cried, "Oh, mother, mother, I feel like a child!" Then Mary Barclay +knew that her son had let Him in, knew in her own heart all the joy +there is in heaven over one sinner that repenteth.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[Pg 405]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIX</h2> +</div> + +<p>It is written in the Book that holds the wisdom of our race that one who +is reborn into the Kingdom of God, enters as a little child. It is there +in black and white, yet few people get the idea into their +consciousnesses. They expect regeneration to produce an upright man. God +knows better than that. And we should know better too when it is written +down for us. And so you good people who expect to see John Barclay turn +rightabout face on the habits of a lifetime are to be disappointed. For +a little child stumbles and falls and goes the wrong way many times +before it learns the way of life. There came days after that summer +night of 1904, when John Barclay fell—days when he would sneak into the +stenographers' room in his office in the City and tear up some letter he +had dictated, when he would send a telegram annulling an order, when he +would find himself cheating and gouging his competitors or his business +associates,—even days when he had not the moral courage to retrace his +steps although he knew he was wrong. Shame put her brand on his heart, +and his face showed to those who watched it closely—and there were +scores of fellow-gamblers at the game with him, whose profits came from +watching his face—his face showed forth uncertainty and daze. So men +said, "The old man's off his feed," or others said, "Barclay's losing +his nerve"; and still others said, "Can it be possible that the old +hypocrite is getting a sort of belated conscience?"</p> + +<p>But slowly, inch by inch, the child within him grew; he gripped his soul +with the iron hand of will that had made a man of him, and when the +child fell and ached with shame, Barclay's will sustained the weakling. +We<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[Pg 406]</a></span> are so hidden by our masks that this struggle in the man's soul, +though guessed at by some of those about him, was unknown to the +hundreds who saw him every day. But for him the universe had changed. +And as a child, amazed, he looked upon the new wonder of God's order +about him and went tripping and stumbling and toppling over awkwardly +through it all as one learning some new equilibrium. There were times +when his heart grew sick, and he would have given it all up. There were +hours when he did surrender; when he did a mean thing and gloried in it, +or a cowardly thing and apologized for it. But his will rose and turned +him back to his resolve. He found the big things easy, and the little +things hard to do. So he kept at the big things until they had pushed +him so far toward his goal that the little things were details which he +repaired slowly and with anguish of humiliation in secret, and unknown +even to those who were nearest to him.</p> + +<p>And all this struggle was behind the hard face, under the broad, high +forehead, back of the mean jaw, beneath the cover of the sharp brazen +eyes. Even in Sycamore Ridge they did not suspect the truth until +Barclay had grown so strong in his new faith that he could look at his +yesterdays without shuddering.</p> + +<p>The year of our Lord nineteen hundred and six was a slow year +politically in Sycamore Ridge, so in the parliament at McHurdie's shop +discussion took somewhat wider range than was usual. It may interest +metaphysicians in the world at large to know that the McHurdie +parliament that August definitely decided that this is not a material +world; that sensation is a delusion, that the whole phantasmagoria of +the outer and material world is a reaction of some sort upon the +individual consciousness. Up to this point the matter is settled, and +metaphysicians may as well make a record of the decision; for Watts +McHurdie, Jacob Dolan, Philemon Ward, Martin Culpepper, and sometimes +Oscar Fernald, know just exactly as much about it as the ablest logician +in the world. It is, however, regrettable that after deciding that the +external<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[Pg 407]</a></span> world is but a divine reaction upon the individual +consciousness, the parliament was unable to reach any sort of a decision +as to whose consciousness received the picture. Mr. Dolan maintained +vigorously that his consciousness was the one actually affected, and +that the colonel and the general and Watts were mere hallucinations of +his. The general held that Jake and the others were accessory phantasms +of his own dream, and Watts and the colonel, being of more poetical +temperament, held that the whole outfit was a chimera in some larger +consciousness, whose entity it is not given us to know. As for Oscar, he +claimed the parliament was crazy, and started to prove it, when it was +thought best to shift and modify the discussion; and, therefore, early +in September, when the upper currents of the national atmosphere were +vocal with discordant allegations, denials, accusations, and +maledictions, in Watts McHurdie's shop the question before the house +was, "How many people are there in the world?" For ten days, in the +desultory debate that had droned through the summer, the general, true +to his former contention, insisted that there was only one person in the +world. Mr. Dolan, with the Celtic elasticity of reason, was willing to +admit two.</p> + +<p>"You and me and no more—all the rest is background for us," he +proclaimed. "If the you of the moment is the colonel—well and good; +then the colonel and I for it; but if it is the general and I—to the +trees with your colonel and Watts, and the three billion others—you're +merely stage setting, and become third persons."</p> + +<p>"But," asked McHurdie, "if I exist this minute with you, and then you +focus your attention on Mart there, the next minute, and he exists, what +becomes of me when you turn your head from me?"</p> + +<p>Dolan did not answer. He dipped into the <i>Times</i> and read awhile; and +the colonel and the general got out the checkerboard and plunged into a +silent game. At length Dolan, after the fashion of debaters in the +parliament, came out of his newspaper and said:—</p> + +<p>"That, Mr. McHurdie, is a problem ranging off the subject,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[Pg 408]</a></span> into the +theories of the essence of time and space, and I refuse to answer it."</p> + +<p>Me Hurdie kept on working, and the hands of the clock slipped around +nearly an hour. Then the bell tinkled and Neal Ward came in on his +afternoon round for news to print in the next day's issue of the +<i>Banner</i>.</p> + +<p>"Anything new?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Dorman is putting new awnings on the rear windows of her +store—did you get that?" asked McHurdie.</p> + +<p>The young man made a note of the fact.</p> + +<p>"Yes," added Dolan, "and you may just say that Hon. Jacob Dolan, former +sheriff of Garrison County, and a member of 'C' Company, well known in +this community, who has been custodian of public buildings and grounds +in and for Garrison County, state of Kansas, ss., is contemplating +resigning his position and removing to the National Soldiers' Home at +Leavenworth for the future."</p> + +<p>Young Ward smiled, but did not take the item down in his note-book.</p> + +<p>"It isn't time yet," he said.</p> + +<p>"Why not?" asked Dolan.</p> + +<p>"Only two months and a half since I printed that the last time. It can't +go oftener than four times a year, and it's been in twice this year. +Late in December will time it about right."</p> + +<p>"What's the news with you, boy?" asked Dolan.</p> + +<p>"Well," said the young man, pausing carefully as if to make a selection +from a large and tempting assortment, but really swinging his arms for a +long jump into the heart of the matter in his mind, "have you heard that +John Barclay has given the town his pipe organ?"</p> + +<p>"You don't say!" exclaimed McHurdie.</p> + +<p>"Tired of it?" asked Dolan, as though twenty-five-thousand-dollar pipe +organs were raining in the town every few days.</p> + +<p>"It'll not be that, Jake," said Watts. "John is no man to tire of +things."</p> + +<p>"No, it's not that, Mr. Dolan," answered Neal Ward. "He has sent word to +the mayor and council that he is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[Pg 409]</a></span> going to have the organ installed in +Barclay Hall this week at his own expense, and he accompanied the letter +with fifty thousand dollars in securities to hire a permanent organist +and a band-master for the band; and a band concert and an organ concert +will alternate in the hall every week during the year. I gather from +reading his letter that Mr. Barclay believes the organ will do more good +in the hall than in his house."</p> + +<p>The general and the colonel kept on at their game. Dolan whistled, and +Watts nodded his head. "That's what I would say he did it for," said +McHurdie.</p> + +<p>"Are the securities N.P.C. stock?" asked Dolan, tentatively.</p> + +<p>"No," replied Neal; "I saw them; they are municipal bonds of one sort +and another."</p> + +<p>"Well, well—Johnnie at the mill certainly is popping open like a +chestnut bur. Generally when he has some scheme on to buy public +sentiment he endows something with N.P.C. stock, so that in case of a +lawsuit against the company he'd have the people interested in +protecting the stock. This new tack is certainly queer doings. Certainly +queer doings for the dusty miller!" repeated Dolan.</p> + +<p>"Well, it's like his buying the waterworks of Bemis last month, and that +land at the new pumping station, and giving the council money to build +the new dam and power-house. He had no rebate or take back in that—at +least no one can see it," said the young man.</p> + +<p>"Nellie says," put in Watts, "that she heard from Mrs. Fernald, who got +it from her girl, who got it from the girl who works in the Hub +restaurant, who had it from Mrs. Carnine's girl—so it come pretty +straight—that Lige made John pay a pretty penny for the waterworks, and +they had a great row because John would give up the fight."</p> + +<p>"Yes," replied Dolan, "it come to me from one of the nigger prisoners in +the jail, who has a friend who sweeps out Gabe's bank, that he heard +John and Lige dickering, and that Lige held John up for a hundred +thousand cold dollars for his bargain."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[Pg 410]</a></span></p> + +<p>"The Associated Press to-day," said young Ward, "has a story to the +effect that there is a great boom in certain railroad stocks owing to +some secret operations of Mr. Barclay. They don't know what he is doing, +but things are pretty shaky. He refuses to make a statement."</p> + +<p>"He's a queer canny little man," explained Watts. "You never know where +he'll break out next."</p> + +<p>"Well, he's up to some devilment," exclaimed Dolan; "you can depend on +that. Why do you suppose he's laying off the hands at the strip +factory?"</p> + +<p>The young man shook his head. "Give it up. I asked Mr. Mason and the +best I could get out of him was a parrot-like statement that 'owing to +the oversupply of our commodity, we have decided to close operations for +the present. We have, therefore,' he said pompously, 'given each of our +employees unable to find immediate work here, a ticket for himself and +family to any point in the United States to which he may desire to go, +and have agreed to pay the freight on his household goods also.' That +was every word I could get out of him—and you know Mr. Mason is pretty +talkative sometimes."</p> + +<p>"Queer doings for the dusty miller," repeated Dolan.</p> + +<p>The group by the bench heard the slap of the checkerboard on its shelf, +and General Ward cut into the conversation as one who had never been out +of it. "The boy's got good blood in him; it will come out some day—he +wasn't made a Thatcher and a Barclay and a Winthrop for nothing. Lizzie +was over there the other night for tea with them, and she said she +hadn't seen John so much like himself for years."</p> + +<p>Young Ward went about his afternoon's work and the parliament continued +its debate on miscellaneous public business. The general pulled the +<i>Times</i> from Dolan's pocket and began turning it over. He stopped and +read for a few moments and exclaimed:—</p> + +<p>"Boys—see here. Maybe this explains something we were talking about." +He began reading a news item sent out from Washington, D.C. The item +stated that the Department of Commerce and Labour had scored what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[Pg 411]</a></span> every +one in official circles believed was the most important victory ever +achieved by the government outside of a war. The item continued:—</p> + +<p class='blockquot'> +"Within the last ten days, the head of one of the largest so-called +trusts in this country called at the department, and explained that +his organization, which controls a great staple commodity, was +going into voluntary liquidation. The organization in question has +been the subject of governmental investigation for nearly two +years, and investigators were constantly hampered and annoyed by +attempts of politicians of the very highest caste, outside of the +White House, trying to get inspectors removed or discredited, and +all along the line of its investigations the government has felt a +powerful secret influence shielding the trust. As an evidence of +his good faith in the disorganization, the head of the trust, while +he was here, promised to send to the White House, what he called +his 'political burglar's kit,' consisting of a card index, +labelling and ticketing with elaborate cross references and cabinet +data, every man in the United States who is in politics far enough +to get to his state legislature, or to be a nominee of his party +for county attorney. This outfit, shipped in a score of great +boxes, was dumped at the White House to-day, and it is said that a +number of the cards indicating the reputation of certain so-called +conservative senators and congressmen may be framed. There is a +great hubbub in Washington, and the newspaper correspondents who +called at the White House on their morning rounds were regaled by a +confidential glimpse into the cards and the cabinets. It is likely +that the whole outfit will be filed in the Department of Commerce +and Labour, and will constitute the basis of what is called around +the White House to-day, a 'National Rogues' Gallery.' The complete +details of every senatorial election held in the country during +twelve years last past, showing how to reach any Senator +susceptible to any influence whatsoever, whether political, social, +or religious, are among the trophies of the chase in the hands of +the Mighty Hunter for Big Game to-day."</p> + +<p>When General Ward had finished reading, he lifted up his glasses and +said: "Well, that's it, boys; John has come to his turn of the road. +Here's the rest. It says: 'The corporation in question is practically +controlled by one man, the man who has placed the information above +mentioned in the hands of the government. It is a corporation owning no +physical property whatever, and is organized as a rebate hopper, if one +may so style it. The head of the corporation stated when he was here +recently that he is preparing to buy in every share of the company's +stock at the price for which it was sold and then—' Jake,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[Pg 412]</a></span> where is +page 3 with the rest of this article on it?" asked the general.</p> + +<p>"Why, I threw that away coming down here," responded Dolan.</p> + +<p>"Rather leaves us in the air—doesn't it?" suggested the colonel.</p> + +<p>"Well, it's John. I know enough to know that—from Neal," said the +general.</p> + +<p>The afternoon sun was shining in the south window of the shop. Dolan +started to go. In the doorway McHurdie halted him.</p> + +<p>"Jake," he cried, pointing a lean, smutty finger at Dolan, "Jake Dolan, +if there are only two people in the world, what becomes of me when you +begin talking to Mart? If you knew, you would not dodge. In philosophy +no man can stand on his constitutional rights. Turn state's evidence, +Jake Dolan, and tell the truth—what becomes of me?"</p> + +<p>"'Tis an improper question," replied Dolan, and then drawing himself up +and pulling down the front of his coat, he added, "'Tis not a matter +that may be discussed among gentlemen," and with that he disappeared.</p> + +<p>The front door-bell tinkled, and the parliament prepared to adjourn. The +colonel helped the poet close his store and bring in the wooden horse +from the sidewalk, and then Molly Brownwell came with her phaeton and +drove the two old men home. On the way up Main Street they overhauled +Neal Ward. Mrs. Brownwell turned in to the sidewalk and called, "Neal, +can you run over to the house a moment this evening?" And when he +answered in the affirmative, she let the old nag amble gently up the +street.</p> + +<p>"How pretty you are, Aunt Molly," exclaimed Neal, as the gray-haired +woman who could still wear a red ribbon came into the room where he sat +waiting for her. The boy's compliment pleased her, and she did not +hesitate to say so. But after that she plunged into the subject that was +uppermost in her heart.</p> + +<p>"Neal," she said, as she drew her chair in front of him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[Pg 413]</a></span> so that she +could see his face and know the truth, no matter what his lips might +say, "we're partners now, aren't we, or what amounts to the same thing?" +She smiled good-naturedly. "I own the overdraft at the bank and you own +the mortgage at the court-house. So I am going to ask you a plain +question; and if you say it isn't any of my business, I'll attempt to +show you that it is. Neal," she asked, looking earnestly into his face, +"why do you write to Jeanette Barclay every day of your life and not +mail the letters?"</p> + +<p>The youth flushed. "Why—Aunt Molly—how did you know?—I never told—"</p> + +<p>"No, Neal, you never told me; but this afternoon while you we're out I +was looking for Adrian's check-book; I was sure we paid Dorman's bill +last April, and that I took the check over myself. I was going through +the desk, and I got on your side, thinking I might have left the +check-book there by mistake, and I ran into the very midst of those +letters, before I knew what I was about. Now, Neal—why?"</p> + +<p>The young man gazed at the woman seriously for a time and then parried +her question with, "Why do you care—what difference can it make to you, +Aunt Molly?"</p> + +<p>"Because," she answered quickly, "because I wish to see my partner +happy. He will do better work so—if you desire to put it on a +cold-blooded basis. Oh, Nealie, Nealie—do you love her that much—that +you take your heart and your life to her without hope or without sign or +answer every day?"</p> + +<p>He dropped his eyes, and turned his face away. "Not every day," he +answered, "not every day—but every night, Aunt Molly."</p> + +<p>"Why don't you go to her, Neal, and tell her?" asked the woman. "Is it +so hopeless as that?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, there are many reasons—why I don't go to her," he replied. After a +minute's silence he went on: "In the first place she is a very rich +girl, and that makes a difference—now. When she was just a young girl +of eighteen, or such a matter, and I only twenty or twenty-one, we met<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[Pg 414]</a></span> +so naturally, and it all came out so beautifully! But we are older now, +Aunt Molly," he said sadly, "and it's different."</p> + +<p>"Yes," admitted Mrs. Brownwell, "it is different now—you are right +about it."</p> + +<p>"Yes," he continued, repeating a patter which he had said to himself a +thousand times. "Yes,—and then I can't say I'm sorry—for I'm not. I'd +do it again. And I know how Mr. Barclay feels; he didn't leave me in any +doubt about that," smiled the boy, "when I left his office that morning +after telling him what I was going to do. So," he sighed and smiled in +rather hopeless good humour, "I can't see my way out. Can you?"</p> + +<p>Molly Brownwell leaned back in her chair, and closed her eyes for a +minute, and then shook her head, and said, "No, Neal, not now; but there +is a way—somehow—I am sure of that."</p> + +<p>He laughed for want of any words to express his hopelessness, and the +two—the youth in despair, and the woman full of hope—sat in silence.</p> + +<p>"Neal," she asked finally, "what do you put in those letters? Why do you +write them at all?"</p> + +<p>The young man with his eyes upon the floor began, "Well—they're just +letters, Aunt Molly—just letters—such as I used to write before—don't +you know." His voice was dull and passionless, and he went on: "I can't +tell you more about them. They're just letters." He drew in a quick long +breath and exclaimed: "Oh, you know what they are—I want to talk to +some one and I'm going to. Oh, Aunt Molly," he cried, "I'm not +heart-broken, and all that—I'm infinitely happy. Because I still hold +it—it doesn't die. Don't you see? And I know that always it will be +with me—whatever may come to her. I don't want to forget—and it is my +only joy in the matter, that I never will forget. I can be happy this +way; I don't want to give any other woman a warmed-over heart, for this +would always be there—I know it—and so I am just going to keep it." He +dropped his voice again after a sigh, and went on: "There, that's all +there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[Pg 415]</a></span> is to it. Do you think I'm a fool?" he asked, as the colour came +into his face.</p> + +<p>"No, Neal, I don't," said Molly Brownwell, as she stood beside him. "You +are a brave, manly fellow, Neal, and I wish I could help you. I don't +see how now—but the way will come—sometime. Now," she added, "tell me +about the paper."</p> + +<p>And then they went into business matters which do not concern us; for in +this story business conjures up the face of John Barclay—the tanned, +hard face of John Barclay, crackled with a hundred wrinkles about the +eyes, and scarred with hard lines about the furtive crafty mouth; and we +do not wish to see that face now; it should be hidden while the new soul +that is rising in his body struggles with that tough, bronzed rind, gets +a focus from the heart into those glaring brass eyes, and teaches the +lying lips to speak the truth, and having spoken it to look it. And so +while John Barclay in the City is daily slipping millions of his +railroad bonds into the market,—slipping them in quietly yet steadily +withal, mixing them into the daily commerce of the country, so gently +that they are absorbed before any one knows they have left his long +grasping fingers,—while he is trading to his heart's content, let us +forget him, and look at this young man, that September night, after he +left Molly Brownwell, sitting at his desk in the office with the +telephone at his elbow, with the smell of the ink from the presses in +his nostrils, with the silence of the deserted office becalming his +soul, and with his heart—a clean, strong, manly heart—full of the +picture of a woman's face, and the vision without a hope. In his brain +are recorded a thousand pictures, and millions of little fibres run all +over this brain, conjuring up those pictures, and if there are blue eyes +in the pictures, and lips in the pictures, and the pressure of hands, +and the touch of souls in the pictures,—they are Neal Ward's +pictures,—they are Mr. Higgin's pictures, and Mrs. Wiggin's pictures, +and Mr. Stiggin's pictures, my dears, and alack and alas, they are the +pictures of Miss Jones and Miss Lewis and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[Pg 416]</a></span> Miss Thomas and Miss Smith, +for that matter; and so, my dears, if we would be happy we should be +careful even if we can't be good, for it is all for eternity, and +whatever courts may say, and whatever churches may say, and whatever +comes back with rings and letters and trinkets,—there is no divorce, +and the pictures always stay in the heart, and the sum of the pictures +is life.</p> + +<p>So that September night Neal Ward went back over the old trail as lovers +always will, and then his pen began to write. Now in the nature of +things the first three words are not for our eyes, and to-night we must +not see the first three lines nor the first thirty, nor the last three +words nor the last three lines nor the last thirty lines. But we may +watch him write; we may observe how longingly he looks at the telephone, +as if tempted to go to it, and tell it what is in his breast. There it +sits, all shiny and metallic; and by conjuring it with a number and a +word, he could have her with him. Yet he does not take it up; +because—the crazy loon thinks in the soul of him, that what he writes, +some way, in the great unknown system of receivers and recorders and +transmitters of thought that range through this universe, is pouring +into her heart, and so he writes and smiles, and smiles and writes—no +bigger fool than half the other lovers on the planet who, talking to +their sweethearts, holding their hands and looking squarely into their +eyes, deceive themselves that what they say is going to the heart, and +not going in one ear and out of the other.</p> + +<p>And now let us put on our seven-league boots and walk from September's +green and brown, through October's gold and crimson, into that season of +the year 1906 when Nature is shifting her scenery, making ready for the +great spring show. It is bleak, but not cold; barren, but not ugly,—for +the stage setting of the hills and woods and streams, even without the +coloured wings and flies and the painted trees and grass, has its fine +simplicity of form and grouping that are good to look upon. Observe in +the picture a small man sitting on a log in a wood, looking at the +stencil work of the brown and gray branches, as its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[Pg 417]</a></span> shadows waver and +shimmer upon the gray earth. He is poking reflectively in the earth with +his cane. His boat is tied to some tree roots, and he doesn't breathe as +regularly as a man should breathe who is merely thinking of his next +dinner or his last dollar. He delves into himself and almost forgets to +breathe at all, so deep is his abstraction. And so he sits for five +minutes—ten minutes—half an hour—and save that he edges into the sun +as the shadow of the great walnut tree above catches him, an hour passes +and he does not move. Poking, poking, poking his stick into the mould, +he has dug up much litter in an hour, and he has seen his whole life +thrown up before him. In those leaves yonder is a battle—a bloody +battle, and things are blistered into his boyish heart in that battle +that never heal over; that tuft of sod is a girl's face—a little girl's +face that he loved as a boy; there is his first lawsuit—that ragged +pile of leaves by the twig at the log's end; and the twig is his first +ten thousand dollars. All of it lies there before him, his victories and +his defeats, his millions come, and his millions going—going?—yes, all +but gone. Yonder that deep gash in the sod at the left hides a woman's +face—pale, wasted, dead on her pillow; and that clean black streak on +the ebony cane—that is a tear, and in the tear is a girl's face and +back of hers shimmers a boy's countenance. All of John Barclay's life +and hopes and dreams and visions are spread out before him on the +ground. So he closes his eyes, and braces his soul, and then, having +risen, whistles as he limps lightly—for a man past fifty—down to the +boat. He rows with a clean manly stroke—even in an old flat-bottomed +boat—through the hazy sunset into the dusk.</p> + +<p>"Jeanette," he said to his daughter that evening at dinner, "I wish you +would go to the phone, pretty soon, and tell Molly Culpepper that I want +her to come down this evening. I am anxious to see her. The colonel +isn't at home, or I'd have him, mother," explained Mr Barclay.</p> + +<p>And that is why Miss Barclay called "876, Please—yes, 8-7-6;" and then +said: "Hello—hello, is this 876? Yes—is Mrs. Brownwell in? Oh, all +right." And then,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[Pg 418]</a></span> "54, please; yes, 5-4. Is this you, Aunt Molly? +Father is in town—he came in this morning and has spent the afternoon +on the river, and he told me at dinner to ask you if you could run down +this evening. Oh, any time. I didn't know you worked nights at the +office. Oh, is Mr. Ward out of town?—I didn't know. All right, +then—about eight o'clock—we'll look for you."</p> + +<p>And that is why at the other end of the telephone, a pretty, gray-haired +woman stood, and looked, and looked, and looked at a plain walnut desk, +as though it was enchanted, and then slipped guiltily over to that black +walnut desk, unlocked a drawer, and pulled out a whole apronful of +letters.</p> + +<p>And so the reader may know what Molly Brownwell had in that package +which she put in the buggy seat beside her when she drove down to see +the Barclays, that beautiful starry November night. She put the package +with her hat and wraps in Jeanette's room, and then came down to the +living room where John Barclay sat by the roaring fire in the wide +fireplace, with a bundle beside him also. His mother was there, and his +daughter took a seat beside him.</p> + +<p>"Molly," said Barclay, with a deep sigh, "I sent for you, first, +because, of all the people in the world, it is but just that you should +be here, to witness what I am doing; and second, because Jane would have +had you, and I want you to be with Jeanette when I tell her some things +that she must know to-night—she and mother."</p> + +<p>He was sitting in a deep easy chair, with one foot—not his lame +foot—curled under him, a wiry-looking little gray cat of a man who +nervously drummed on the mahogany chair arm, or kept running his hands +over the carving, or folding and unfolding them, and twirled his thumbs +incessantly as he talked. He smiled as he began:—</p> + +<p>"Well, girls, father got off the chair car at Sycamore Ridge this +morning, after having had the best sleep he has had in twenty years."</p> + +<p>He paused for the effect of his declaration to sink in. Jeanette asked, +"Where was the car?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[Pg 419]</a></span></p> + +<p>"What car?" teased the little gray cat.</p> + +<p>"Why, our car?"</p> + +<p>"My dear, we have no car," he smiled, with the cream of mystery on his +lips. Then he licked it off. "I sold the car three weeks ago, when I +left the Ridge the last time." He dropped into an eloquent silence, and +then went on: "I rode in the chair car to save three dollars. I need it +in my business."</p> + +<p>His mother's blue eyes were watching him closely. She exclaimed, "John, +quit your foolishness. What have you done?"</p> + +<p>He laughed as he said: "Mother, I have returned to you poor but honest. +My total assets at this minute are seventy-five million dollars' worth +of stock of the National Provisions Company, tied up in this bundle on +the floor here, and five thousand dollars in the Exchange National Bank +of Sycamore Ridge which I have held for thirty years. I sold my State +Bank stock last Monday to Gabe Carnine. I have thirty-four dollars and +seventy-three cents in my pocketbook, and that is all."</p> + +<p>The women were puzzled, and their faces showed it. So the little gray +cat made short work of the mice.</p> + +<p>"Well, now, to be brief and plain," said Barclay, pulling himself +forward in his chair and thrusting out an arm and hand, as if to grip +the attention of his hearers, "I have always owned or directly +controlled over half the N.P.C. stock—representing a big pile of money. +I am trying to forget how much, and you don't care. But it was only part +of my holdings—about half or such a matter, I should say. The rest were +railroad bonds on roads necessary to the company, mortgages on mills and +elevators whose stock was merged in the company, and all sorts of +gilt-edged stuff, bank stock and insurance company stock—all needed to +make N.P.C. a dominant factor in the commercial life of the country. You +don't care about that, but it was all a sort of commercial blackmail on +certain fellows and interests to keep them from fighting N.P.C." Barclay +hitched himself forward to the edge of his chair, and still held out his +grappling-hook of a hand to hold them as he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[Pg 420]</a></span> smiled and went on: "Well, +I've been kind of swapping horses here for six months or so—trading my +gilt-edged bonds and stuff for cash and buying up N.P.C. stock. I got a +lot of it quietly—an awful lot." He grinned. "I guess that was square +enough. I paid the price for it—and a little better than the +price—because I had to." He was silent a few moments, looking at the +fire. He meditated pleasantly: "There was some good in it—a lot of good +when you come to think of it—but a fearful lot of bad! Well—I've saved +the good. I just reorganized the whole concern from top to bottom—the +whole blame rebate hopper. We had some patents, and we had some +contracts with mills, and we had some good ideas of organization. And +I've kept the good and chucked the bad. I put N.P.C. out of business and +have issued stock in the new company to our minority whose stock I +couldn't buy and have squeezed the water out of the whole concern. And +then I took what balance I had left—every cent of it, went over the +books for thirty years, and made what restitution I could." He grinned +as he added: "But I found it was nearly whittlety whet. A lot of fellows +had been doing me up, while I had been doing others up. But I made what +restitution I could and then I got out. I closed up the City office, and +moved the whole concern to St. Paul, and turned it over to the real +owners—the millers and elevator men—and I have organized an industry +with a capitalization small enough to make it possible for them to +afford to be honest for thirty years—while our patents and contracts +last, anyway." He put an elbow in the hollow of his hand, and the +knuckles on his knee as he sat cross-legged, and drawled: "I wonder if +it will work—" and repeated: "I wonder, I wonder. There's big money in +it; she's a dead monopoly as she stands, and they have the key to the +whole thing in the Commerce Department at Washington. They can keep her +straight if they will." He paused for a while and went on: "But I'm +tired of it. The great hulk of a thing has ground the soul out of me. So +I ducked. Girls," he cried, as he turned toward +them,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[Pg 421]</a></span> "here's the way +it is; I never did any real good with money. I'm going to see what a man +can do to help his fellows with his bare hands. I want to help, not with +money, but just to be some account on earth without money. And so +yesterday I cleaned up the whole deal forever."</p> + +<p>He paused to let it sink in. Finally Jeanette asked, "And are we poor, +father—poor?"</p> + +<p>"Well, my dear," he expanded, "your grandmother Barclay has always owned +this house. An Omaha syndicate owns the mill. I own $5,000 in bank +stock, and the boy who marries you for your money right now is going to +get badly left."</p> + +<p>"You aren't fooling me, are you, John?" asked his mother as she rose +from her chair.</p> + +<p>"No, mother," answered the son, "I've got rid of every dirty dollar I +have on earth. The bank stock I bought with the money the Citizens' +Committee subscribed to pay me for winning the county-seat lawsuit. As +near as I can figure it out, that was about the last clean money I ever +earned."</p> + +<p>The mother walked toward her son, and leaned over and kissed him again +and again as she sobbed: "Oh, John, I am so happy to-night—so happy."</p> + +<p>In a moment he asked, "Well, Jeanette, what do you think of it?"</p> + +<p>"You know what I think, father—you know very well, don't you?"</p> + +<p>He sighed and nodded his head. Then he reached for the package on the +floor and began cutting the strings. The bundle burst open and the stock +of the National Provisions Company, issued only in fifty-thousand-dollar +and one-hundred-thousand-dollar shares, littered the floor.</p> + +<p>"Now," cried Barclay, as he stood looking at the litter, "now, Molly, +here's what I want you to do: Burn it up—burn it up," he cried. "It has +burned the joy out of your life, Molly—burn it up! I have fought it all +out to-day on the river—but I can't quite do that. Burn it up—for +God's sake, Molly, burn it up."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[Pg 422]</a></span></p> + +<p>When the white ashes had risen up the chimney, he put on another log. +"This is our last extravagance for some time, girls—but we'll celebrate +to-night," he cried. "You haven't a little elderberry wine, have you, +mother?" he asked. "Riley says that's the stuff for little boys with +curvature of the spine—and I'll tell you it put several kinks in mine +to watch that burn."</p> + +<p>And so they sat for an hour talking of old times while the fire burned. +But Molly Brownwell's mind was not in the performance that John Barclay +had staged. She could see nothing but the package lying on her cloak in +the girl's room upstairs. So she rose to go early, and the circle broke +when she left it. She and Jeanette left John standing with his arms +about his mother, patting her back while she wept.</p> + +<p>As she closed the door of Jeanette's room behind her, Molly Brownwell +knew that she must speak. "Jeanette," she said, "I don't know just how to +say it, dear; but, I stole those—I mean what is in that package—I took +it and Neal doesn't know I have it. It's for you," she cried, as she +broke the string that tied it, and tore off the wrapping.</p> + +<p>The girl stared at her and asked: "Why, Aunt Molly—what is it? I don't +understand."</p> + +<p>The woman in pulling her wrap from the chair, tumbled the letters to the +floor. She slipped into her cloak and kissed the bewildered girl, and +said as she stood in the doorway: "There they are, my dear—they are +yours; do what you please with them."</p> + +<p>She hurried down the stairs, and finding John sitting alone before the +fire in the sitting room, would have bidden him good night as she passed +through the room, but he stopped her.</p> + +<p>"There is one thing more, Molly," he said, as he motioned to a chair.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she answered, "I wondered if you had forgotten it!"</p> + +<p>He worried the fire, and renewed the blaze, before he spoke. "What about +Neal—how does he feel?"</p> + +<p>"John," replied the woman, turning upon him a radiant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[Pg 423]</a></span> face, "it is the +most beautiful thing in the world—that boy's love for Jennie! Why, +every night after his work is done, sitting there in the office alone, +Neal writes her a letter, that he never mails; just takes his heart to +her, John. I found a great stack of them in his desk the other day."</p> + +<p>Barclay's face crinkled in a spasm of pain, and he exclaimed, "Poor +little kids—poor, poor children."</p> + +<p>"John—" Molly Brown well hesitated, and then took courage and cried: +"Won't you—won't you for Ellen's sake? It is like that—like you and +Ellen. And," she stammered, "oh, John, I do want to see one such love +affair end happily before I die."</p> + +<p>Barclay's hard jaw trembled, and his eyes were wet as he rose and limped +across the great room. At the foot of the stairs he called up, "Don't +bother with the phone, Jeanette, I'm going to use it." He explained, +"The branch in her room rings when we use this one," and then asked, "Do +you know where he is—at home or at the office?"</p> + +<p>"If the ten o'clock train is in, he's at the office. If not, he's not in +town."</p> + +<p>But Barclay went to the hall, and when he returned he said, "Well, I got +him; he'll be right out."</p> + +<p>Molly was standing by the fire. "What are you going to say, John?" she +asked.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't know. There'll be enough for me to say, I suppose," he +replied, as he looked at the floor.</p> + +<p>She gave him her hand, and they stood for a minute looking back into +their lives. They walked together toward the door, but at the threshold +their eyes met and each saw tears, and they parted without words.</p> + +<p>Neal Ward found Barclay prodding the fire, and the gray little man, +red-faced from his task, limped toward the tall, handsome youth, and led +him to a chair. Barclay stood for a time with his back to the fire, and +his head down, and in the silence he seemed to try to speak several +times before the right words came. Then he exclaimed:</p> + +<p>"Neal, I was wrong—dead wrong—and I've been too proud and mean all +this time—to say so."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[Pg 424]</a></span></p> + +<p>Neal stared open-eyed at Barclay and moistened his lips before language +came to him. Finally he said: "Well, Mr. Barclay—that's all right. I +never blamed you. You needn't have bothered about—that is, to tell me."</p> + +<p>Barclay gazed at the young man abstractedly for a minute that seemed +interminable, and then broke out, "Damn it, Neal, I can't propose to +you—but that's about what I've got you out here to-night for."</p> + +<p>He laughed nervously, but the young face showed his obtuseness, and John +Barclay having broken the ice in his own heart put his hands in his +pockets and threw back his head and roared, and then cried merrily: "All +we need now is a chorus in fluffy skirts and an orchestra with me coming +down in front singing, 'Will you be my son-in-law?' for it to be real +comic opera."</p> + +<p>The young man's heart gave such a bound of joy that it flashed in his +face, and the father, seeing it, was thrilled with happiness. So he +limped over to Neal's chair and stood beaming down upon the embarrassed +young fellow.</p> + +<p>"But, Mr. Barclay—" the boy found voice, "I don't know—the money—it +bothers me."</p> + +<p>And John Barclay again threw his head back and roared, and then they +talked it all out. He told Neal the story of his year's work. It was +midnight when they heard the telephone ringing, and Barclay, curled up +like an old gray cat in his chair before the fire, said for old times' +sake, "Neal, go see who is ringing up at this unholy hour."</p> + +<p>And while Neal Ward steps to the telephone, let us go upstairs on one +last journey with our astral bodies and discover what Jeanette is doing. +After Molly's departure, Jeanette stooped to pick up what Molly had +left. She saw her own name, "Jeanette Barclay," and her address written +on an envelope. She picked it up. It was dated: "Written December 28," +and she saw that the package was filled with letters in envelopes +similarly addressed in Neal Ward's handwriting. She dropped the letter +on her dressing-table and began to undo her hair. In a few minutes she +stopped and picked up another, and laid it down unopened. But in half an +hour she was sitting on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[Pg 425]</a></span> floor reading the letters through her +tears. The flood of joy that came over her drowned her pride. For an +hour she sat reading the letters, and they brought her so near to her +lover that it seemed that she must reach out and touch him. She was +drawn by an irresistible impulse to her telephone that sat on her desk. +It seemed crazy to expect to reach Neal Ward at midnight, but as she +rose from the floor with the letters slipping from her lap and with the +impulse like a cord drawing her, she saw, or thought she saw, standing +by the desk, a part of the fluttering shadows, a girl—a quaint, +old-fashioned girl in her teens, with—but then she remembered the dream +girl her lover had described in the letter she had just been reading, +and she understood the source of her delusion. And yet there the vision +moved by the telephone, smiling and beckoning; then it faded, and there +came rushing back to her memory a host of recollections of her +childhood, and of some one she could not place, and then a memory of +danger,—and then it was all gone and there stood the desk and the +telephone and the room as it was.</p> + +<p>She shuddered slightly, and then remembered that she had just been +through two great nervous experiences—the story of her father's changed +life, and the return of her lover. And she was a level-headed, +strong-nerved girl. So the joy of love in her heart was not dampened, +and the cord drawing her to the desk in the window did not loosen, and +she did not resist. With a gulp of nervous fear she rang the telephone +bell and called, "54, please!" She heard a buzzing, and then a faint +stir in the receiver, and then she got the answer. She sat a-tremble, +afraid to reply. The call was repeated in her ear, and then she said so +faintly that she could not believe it would be heard, "Oh, Neal—Neal—I +have come back."</p> + +<p>The young man standing in the dimly lighted hall was startled. He cried, +"Is it really you, Jeanette—is it you?"</p> + +<p>And then stronger than before the voice said, "Yes, Neal, it is I—I +have come back!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Jeanette—Jeanette," he cried.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">[Pg 426]</a></span></p> + +<p>But she stopped him with, "We must not talk any more—now, don't you +know—but I had to tell you that I had come back, Neal." And then she +said, "Good night." So there they stood, the only two people in the +universe, reunited lovers, each with the voice of the other sounding in +his ears. For Mr. Dolan was right. There are only two people in the +world, and for these two lovers earth and the stars and the systems of +suns that make up this universe were only background for the play of +their happiness.</p> + +<p>As Neal Ward came back to John Barclay from the telephone, the young +man's face was burning with joy.</p> + +<p>"Who was it?" asked Barclay.</p> + +<p>The youth smiled bashfully as he said, "Well, it was Jeanette—she was +calling up another number and I cut in."</p> + +<p>"What did she say?" asked her father.</p> + +<p>"Oh, nothing—in particular," replied Neal.</p> + +<p>Barclay looked up quickly, caught the young man's abashed smile, and +asked, "Does she know you're here?"</p> + +<p>"No, she thinks I'm at the office."</p> + +<p>Barclay rose from his chair, and limped across the room, calling back as +he mounted the stair, "Wait a minute."</p> + +<p>It was more than a minute that Neal Ward stood by the fire waiting.</p> + +<p>And now, gentle people, observe the leader of the orchestra fumbling +with his music. There is a faint stir among the musicians under the +footlights. And you, too, are getting restless; you are feeling for your +hat instinctively, and you for your hat-pins, and you for your rubbers, +while Neal Ward stands there waiting, and the great clock ticks in the +long silence. There is a rustle on the stairs, at the right, and do you +see that foot peeping down, that skirt, that slender girlish figure +coming down, that young face tear-stained, happy, laughing and sobbing, +with the arms outstretched as she nears the last turn of the stairs? And +the lover—he has started toward her. The orchestra leader is standing +up. And the youth, with God's holiest glory in his face, has almost +reached<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[Pg 427]</a></span> her. And there for an instant stand Neal and Jeanette mingling +tears in their kisses, for the curtain, the miserable, unemotional, +awkward curtain—it has stuck and so they must stand apart, hand in +hand, devouring each other's faces a moment, and then as the curtain +falls we see four feet close together again, and then—and then the +world comes in upon us, and we smile and sigh and sigh and smile, for +the journey of those four feet is ended, the story is done.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">[Pg 428]</a></span> +<h2>CHAPTER XXX</h2><h3><span class="smcap">Being Somewhat in the Nature of an Epilogue</span></h3> +</div> + + +<p>And now that the performance is finished and the curtain has been rung +down, we desire to thank you, one and all, for your kind attention, and +to express the hope that in this highly moral show you may have found +some pleasure as well as profit. But though the play is ended, and you +are already reaching for your hats and coats, the lights are still dim; +and as you see a great white square of light appear against the curtain, +you know that the entertainment is to conclude with a brief exhibition +of the wonders of that great modern invention, the cinematograph of +Time.</p> + +<p>The first flickering shadows show you the interior of Watts McHurdie's +shop, and as your eyes take in the dancing shapes, you discern the +parliament in session. Colonel Martin F. Culpepper is sitting there with +Watts McHurdie, reading and re-reading for the fourth and fifth time, in +the peculiar pride that authorship has in listening to the reverberation +of its own eloquence, the brand-new copy of the second edition of "The +Complete Poetical and Philosophical Works of Watts McHurdie, with Notes +and a Biographical Appreciation by Martin F. Culpepper, 'C' Company, +Second Regiment K.V." The colonel, with his thumb in the book, pokes +the fire in the stove, and sits down again to drink his joy unalloyed. +Watts is working on a saddle, but his arms and his hands are not what +they were in the old days when his saddlery won first prize year after +year at the Kansas City Fair. So he puffs and fusses and sighs his way +through his morning's work. Sometimes the colonel reads aloud a line +from a verse, or a phrase from the Biography—more frequently from the +Biography—and exclaims, "Genius, Watts, genius, genius!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_429" id="Page_429">[Pg 429]</a></span> But Watts +McHurdie makes no reply. As his old eyes—quicker than his old +fingers—see the sad work they are making, his heart sinks within him.</p> + +<p>"Listen, Watts," cries the colonel. "How do you like this, you old +skeezicks?" and the colonel reads a stanza full of "lips" and "slips," +"eyes" and "tries," "desires" and "fires," and "darts" and "hearts."</p> + +<p>The little white-haired old man leans forward eagerly to catch it all. +But his shoulders slump, and he draws a long, tired breath when the +colonel has finished.</p> + +<p>"Man—man," he cries, "what a saddle I could make when I wrote that!" +And he turns wearily to his task again.</p> + +<p>Oscar Fernald paces in busily, and in half an hour Lycurgus Mason, who +has been thrown out of the current of life, drifts into his place in the +back-water, and the parliament is ready for business. They see Gabriel +Carnine totter by, chasing after pennies to add to his little pile. The +bell tinkles, and the postman brings a letter. McHurdie opens it and +says, as he looks at the heading:</p> + +<p>"It's from old Jake. It is to all of us" he adds as he looks at the top +of the sheet of letter paper. He takes off his apron and ceremoniously +puts on his coat; then seats himself, and unfolding the sheet, begins at +the very top to read:—</p> + +<p class='blockquot'> +<span class="smcap">National Soldiers' Home</span>,<br/> +<span class="smcap">Leavenworth, Kansas</span>,<br/> +"March 11, 1909.<br/> +<br/> +"<span class="smcap">To the Members of McHurdie's Parliament</span>,<br/> +<br/> +"<i>Gents and Comrades</i>: I take my pen in hand this bright spring +morning to tell you that I arrived here safe, this side up with +care, glass, be careful, Saturday morning, and I am willing to +compromise my chances for heaven, which Father Van Saudt being a +Dutchman always regarded as slim, for a couple of geological ages +of this. I hope you are the same, but you are not. Given a few +hundred white nighties for us to wear by day, and a dozen or two +dagoes playing on harps, and this would be my idea of Heaven. The +meals that we do have—tell Oscar that when I realize what eating +is, what roast beef can be, cut thin and rare and dripping with +gravy—it makes me wonder if the days when I boarded at the Thayer +House might not be counted as part of the time I must do in the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_430" id="Page_430">[Pg 430]</a></span> +fireworks. And the porcelean bath tubs, and the white clean beds, +and the music of the band, and the free tobacco—here I raise my +Ebenezer, as the Colonel sings down in his heretic church; here I +put my standard down.<br/> +<br/> +"Well, Watts, I hear the news about Nelly. We've known it was +coming for a year, but that doesn't make it easier. Why don't you +come up here, Comrade—we are all lonesome up here, and it doesn't +make the difference. Well, John Barclay, the reformed pirate, +President of the Exchange National Bank, and general all-round +municipal reformer, was over in Leavenworth last week attending the +Bankers' Convention, or something, and he came to see me, as though +he hadn't bid me good-by at the train two days before. But he said +things were going on at the Ridge about the same, and being away +from home, he grew confidential, and he told me Lige Bemis had lost +all his money bucking the board of trade—did you know that? If +not, it isn't so, and I never told you. John showed me the picture +of little John B. Ward—as likely a looking yearling as I ever saw. +Well, I must close. Remember me to all inquiring friends and tell +them Comrade Dolan is lying down by the still waters."</p> + +<p>And now the screen is darkened for a moment to mark the passage of +months before we are given another peep into the parliament. It is +May—a May morning that every one of these old men will remember to his +death. The spring rise of the Sycamore has flooded the lowlands. The +odour of spring is in the air. In the parliament are lilacs in a +sprinkling pot—a great armful of lilacs, sent by Molly Culpepper. The +members who are present are talking of the way John Barclay has sloughed +off his years, and Watts is saying:—</p> + +<p>"Boys will be boys; I knew him forty years ago when he was at least a +hundred years older, and twice as wise."</p> + +<p>"He hasn't missed a ball game—either foot-ball or baseball—for for +nearly two years now," ventures Fernald. "And yell! Say, it's something +terrible."</p> + +<p>McHurdie turns on the group with his glasses on his forehead. "Don't you +know what's a-happening to John?" he asks. "Well, I know. Whoever wrote +the Bible was a pretty smart man. I've found that out in seventy-five +years—especially the Proverbs, and I've been thinking some of the +Testament." He smiles. "There's something in it. It says, 'Except ye +come as a little child, ye shall in no wise enter the Kingdom.' That's +it—that's it. I don't claim to know rightly what the kingdom may be,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_431" id="Page_431">[Pg 431]</a></span> +but John's entering it. And I'll say this: John's been a long time +getting in, but now that he's there, he's having the de'el of a fine +time."</p> + +<p>And on the very words General Ward comes bursting into the room, +forgetful of his years, with tragedy in his face. The bustle and clatter +of that morning in the town have passed over the men in the parliament. +They have not heard the shouts of voices in the street, nor the sound of +footsteps running towards the river. But even their dim eyes see the +horror in the general's face as he gasps for breath.</p> + +<p>"Boys, boys," he exclaims. "My God, boys, haven't you heard—haven't you +heard?" And as their old lips are slow to answer, he cries out, "John's +dead—John Barclay's drowned—drowned—gave his life trying to save +Trixie Lee out there on a tree caught in the dam."</p> + +<p>The news is so sudden, so stunning, that the old men sit there for a +moment, staring wide-eyed at the general. McHurdie is the first to find +his voice.</p> + +<p>"How did it happen?" he says.</p> + +<p>"I don't know—no one seems to know exactly," replies the general. And +then in broken phrases he gives them the confused report that he has +gathered: how some one had found Trixie Lee clinging to a tree caught in +the current of the swollen river just above the dam, and calling for +help, frantic with fear; how a crowd gathered, as crowds gather, and the +outcry brought John Barclay running from his house near by; how he +arrived to find men discussing ways of reaching the woman in the swift +current, while her grip was loosening and her cries were becoming +fainter. Then the old spirit in John Barclay, that had saved the +county-seat for Sycamore Ridge, came out for the last time. His skiff +was tied to a tree on the bank close at hand. A boy was sent running to +the nearest house for a clothes-line. When he returned, John was in the +skiff, with the oars in hand. He passed an end of the line to the men, +and without a word in answer to their protests, began to pull out +against the current. It was too strong for him, and was sweeping<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_432" id="Page_432">[Pg 432]</a></span> him +past the woman, when he stood up, measured the distance with his eye, +and threw the line so it fell squarely across her shoulders. Some one +said that as the skiff shot over the dam, John, still standing up, had a +smile on his face, and that he waved his hand to the crowd with a touch +of his old bravado.</p> + +<p>The general paused before going on with the story.</p> + +<p>"They sent me to tell his mother—the woman who had borne him, suckled +him, reared him, lost him, and found him again."</p> + +<p>"And what did she say?" asked Watts, as the general hesitated.</p> + +<p>The general moistened his lips and went on. "She stood staring at me for +one dreadful minute, and then she asked, 'How did he die, Philemon?' 'He +died saving a woman from drowning,' I told her. 'Did he save her?'—that +was what she asked, still standing stiff and motionless. 'Yes,' I said. +'She was only Trixie Lee—a bad woman—a bad woman, Mrs. Barclay.' And +Mary Barclay lifted her long, gaunt arms halfway above her head and +cried: 'Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. I must +have an hour with God now, Philemon,' she said over her shoulder as she +left me; 'don't let them bother me.' Then she walked unbent and unshaken +up the stairs."</p> + +<p>So John Barclay, who tried for four years and more to live by his faith, +was given the opportunity to die for it, and went to his duty with a +glad heart.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>We will give our cinematograph one more whirl. A day, a week, a month, +have gone, and we may glimpse the parliament for the last time. Watts +McHurdie is reading aloud, slowly and rather painfully, a news item from +the <i>Banner</i>. Two vacant chairs are formally backed to the wall, and in +a third sits General Ward. At the end of a column-long article Watts +drones out:—</p> + +<p>"And there was considerable adverse comment in the city over the fact +that the deceased was sent here for burial from the National Soldiers' +Home at Leavenworth,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_433" id="Page_433">[Pg 433]</a></span> in a shabby, faded blue army uniform of most +ancient vintage. Surely this great government can afford better shrouds +than that for its soldier dead."</p> + +<p>Watts lays down the paper and wipes his spectacles, and finally he +says:—</p> + +<p>"And Neal wrote that?"</p> + +<p>"And Neal wrote that," replies the general.</p> + +<p>"And was born and bred in the Ridge," complains McHurdie.</p> + +<p>"Born and bred in the Ridge," responds the general.</p> + +<p>Watts puts on his glasses and fumbles for some piece of his work on the +bench. Then he shakes his head sadly and says, after drawing a deep +breath, "Well, it's a new generation, General, a new generation."</p> + +<p>There follows a silence, during which Watts works on mending some bit of +harness, and the general reads the evening paper. The late afternoon sun +is slanting into the shop. At length the general speaks.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he says, "but it's a fine town after all. It was worth doing. I +wake up early these days, and often of a fine spring morning I go out to +call on the people on the Hill."</p> + +<p>McHurdie nods his comprehension.</p> + +<p>"Yes," continues the general, "and I tell them all about the new +improvements. There are more of us out on the Hill now than in town, +Watts; I spent some time with David Frye and Henry Schnitzler and Jim +Lord Lee this morning, and called on General Hendricks for a little +while."</p> + +<p>"Did you find him sociable?" asks the poet, grinning up from his bench.</p> + +<p>"Oh, so-so—about as usual," answers the general.</p> + +<p>"He was always a proud one," comments Watts. "Will Henry Schnitzler be +stiff-necked about his monument there by the gate?" asks the little +Scotchman.</p> + +<p>"Inordinately, Watts, inordinately! The pride of that man is something +terrible."</p> + +<p>The two old men chuckle at the foolery of the moment. The general folds +away the evening paper and rises to go.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_434" id="Page_434">[Pg 434]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Watts," he says, "I have lived seventy-eight years to find out just one +thing."</p> + +<p>"And what will that be?" asks the harness maker.</p> + +<p>"This," beams the old man, as he puts his spectacle case in his black +silk coat; "that the more we give in this world, the more we take from +it; and the more we keep for ourselves, the less we take." And smiling +at his paradox, he goes through the shop into the sunset.</p> + +<p>The air is vocal with the home-bound traffic of the day. Cars are +crowded; delivery wagons rattle home; buggies clatter by on the +pavements; one hears the whisper of a thousand feet treading the hot, +crowded street. But Watts works on. So let us go in to bid him a formal +good-by. The tinkling door-bell will bring out a bent little old man, +with grimy fingers, who will put up his glasses to peer at our faces, +and who will pause a moment to try to recollect us. He will talk about +John Barclay.</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, I knew him well," says McHurdie; "there by the door hangs a +whip he made as a boy. We used to play on that accordion in the case +there. Oh, yes, yes, he was well thought of; we are a neighbourly +people—maybe too much so. Yes, yes, he died a brave death, and the +papers seemed to think his act of sacrifice showed the world a real +man—and he was that,—he was surely that, was John; yes, he was a real +man. You ask about his funeral? It was a fine one—a grand +funeral—every hack in town out—every high-stepping horse out; and the +flowers—from all over the world they came—the flowers were most +beautiful. But there are funerals and funerals. There was Martin +Culpepper's—not so many hacks, not so many high-stepping horses, but +the old buggies, and the farm wagons, and the little nigger carts—and +man, man alive, the tears, the tears!"</p> + + + +<hr class='full' /> + +<h2>Mr. ROBERT HERRICK'S NOVELS</h2> +<hr class='short' /> + +<p style='text-align:center'><i>Cloth, extra, gilt tops, each $1.50</i></p> +<hr class='short' /> + + +<p style='font-size:125%'>The Gospel of Freedom</p> + +<p style='margin-left: 5%;font-size: smaller'>"A novel that may truly be called the greatest study of social +life, in a broad and very much up-to-date sense, that has ever been +contributed to American fiction."—<i>Chicago Inter-Ocean</i>.</p> + +<p style='font-size:125%'>The Web of Life</p> + +<p style='margin-left: 5%;font-size: smaller'>"It is strong in that it faithfully depicts many phases of American +life, and uses them to strengthen a web of fiction, which is most +artistically wrought out."—<i>Buffalo Express</i>.</p> + +<p style='font-size:125%'>Jock o' Dreams, or The Real World</p> + +<p style='margin-left: 5%;font-size: smaller'>"The title of the book has a subtle intention. It indicates, and is +true to the verities in doing so, the strange dreamlike quality of +life to the man who has not yet fought his own battles, or come +into conscious possession of his will—only such battles bite into +the consciousness."—<i>Chicago Tribune</i>.</p> + +<p style='font-size:125%'>The Common Lot</p> + +<p style='margin-left: 5%;font-size: smaller'>"It grips the reader tremendously.... It is the drama of a human +soul the reader watches ... the finest study of human motive that +has appeared for many a day."—<i>The World To-day</i>.</p> + +<p style='font-size:125%'>The Memoirs of an American Citizen. Illustrated with about fifty +drawings by F. B. Masters.</p> + +<p style='margin-left: 5%;font-size: smaller'>"Mr. Herrick's book is a book among many, and he comes nearer to +reflecting a certain kind of recognizable, contemporaneous American +spirit than anybody has yet done."—<i>New York Times.</i></p> + +<p style='margin-left: 5%;font-size: smaller'>"Intensely absorbing as a story, it is also a crisp, vigorous +document of startling significance. More than any other writer +to-day he is giving us <i>the</i> American novel."—<i>New York Globe</i>.</p> + +<p style='font-size:125%'>Together</p> + +<p style='margin-left: 5%;font-size: smaller'>"The thing is straight from life.... The spirit of the book is in +the end bracing and quickening."—<i>Chicago Evening Post.</i></p> + +<p style='margin-left: 5%;font-size: smaller'>"An able book, remarkably so, and one which should find a place in +the library of any woman who is not a fool."—<i>New York American</i>.</p> + +<hr class='short' /> + +<p style='text-align:center'><span style='font-size:120%'>THE MACMILLAN COMPANY</span><br /> +Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York</p> + +<hr class='full' /> + + +<h2>Mr. WINSTON CHURCHILL'S NOVELS</h2> +<hr class='short' /> + +<p style='text-align:center'><i>Each, cloth, gilt tops and titles, $1.50</i></p> +<hr class='short' /> + +<table summary='' width='100%'> + <tr><td align='left'> + <span style='font-size: 125%'>Mr. Crewe's Career</span></td><td align='right'>Illustrated</td> +</tr></table> + +<p style='margin-left: 5%;font-size: smaller'>"Another chapter in his broad, epical delineation of the American +spirit ... It is an honest and fair story ...It is very +interesting: and the heroine is a type of woman as fresh, original +and captivating as any that has appeared in American novels for a +long time past."—<i>The Outlook, New York.</i></p> + +<p style='margin-left: 5%;font-size: smaller'>"Shows Mr. Churchill at his best. The flavor of his humor is of +that stimulating kind which asserts itself just the moment, as it +were, after it has passed the palate ... As for Victoria, she has +that quality of vivid freshness, tenderness, and independence which +makes so many modern American heroines delightful."—<i>The Times</i>, +London.</p> + +<p><span style='font-size: 125%'>The Celebrity.</span> An Episode</p> + +<p style='margin-left: 5%;font-size: smaller'>"No such piece of inimitable comedy in a literary way has appeared +for years... It is the purest, keenest fun."—<i>Chicago</i> +<i>Inter-Ocean</i>.</p> + +<table summary='' width='100%'> + <tr><td align='left'> + <span style='font-size: 125%'>Richard Carvel</span></td><td align='right'>Illustrated</td> +</tr></table> + +<p style='margin-left: 5%;font-size: smaller'>"...In breadth of canvas, massing of dramatic effect, depth of +feeling, and rare wholesomeness of spirit, it has seldom, if ever, +been surpassed by an American romance."—<i>Chicago Tribune</i>.</p> + +<table summary='' width='100%'> + <tr><td align='left'> + <span style='font-size: 125%'>The Crossing</span></td><td align='right'>Illustrated</td> +</tr></table> + +<p style='margin-left: 5%'>"'The Crossing' is a thoroughly interesting book, packed with +exciting adventure and sentimental incident, yet faithful to +historical fact both in detail and in spirit."—<i>The Dial</i>.</p> + +<table summary='' width='100%'> + <tr><td align='left'> + <span style='font-size: 125%'>The Crisis</span></td><td align='right'>Illustrated</td> +</tr></table> + +<p style='margin-left: 5%'>"It is a charming love story, and never loses its interest ... The +intense political bitterness, the intense patriotism of both +parties, are shown understandingly."—<i>Evening Telegraph</i>, +Philadelphia.</p> + +<table summary='' width='100%'> + <tr><td align='left'> + <span style='font-size: 125%'>Coniston</span></td><td align='right'>Illustrated</td> +</tr></table> + +<p style='margin-left: 5%'>"'Coniston' has a lighter, gayer spirit and a deeper, tenderer +touch than Mr. Churchill has ever achieved before... It is one of +the truest and finest transcripts of modern American life thus far +achieved in our fiction."—<i>Chicago Record-Herald</i>.</p> + +<hr class='short' /> + +<p style='text-align:center'><span style='font-size:120%'>THE MACMILLAN COMPANY</span><br /> +Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York</p> + +<hr class='full' /> + + +<p style='font-size: 110%'><span class="smcap">By</span> EDEN PHILLPOTTS</p> + +<table summary='' width='100%'> + <col style="width:5%" /> + <col style="width:70%" /> + <col style="width:20%" /> + <tr> + <td> </td> + <td align='left'><span style='font-size: 180%;'>The Three Brothers</span></td> + <td align='right'><i>Cloth, $1.50</i></td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p style='font-size: smaller'>"'The Three Brothers' seems to us the best yet of the long series +of these remarkable Dartmoor tales. If Shakespeare had written +novels we can think that some of his pages would have been like +some of these. Here certainly is language, turn of humor, +philosophical play, vigor of incident such as might have come +straight from Elizabeth's day.... The story has its tragedy, but +this is less dire, more reasonable than the tragedy is in too many +of Mr. Phillpotts's other tales. The book is full of a very moving +interest, and it is agreeable and beautiful."—<i>The New York Sun</i>.<br/><br/></p> + + +<p style='font-size: 110%'><span class="smcap">By</span> Miss ELLEN GLASGOW</p> + +<table summary='' width='100%'> + <col style="width:5%" /> + <col style="width:70%" /> + <col style="width:20%" /> + <tr> + <td> </td> + <td align='left'><span style='font-size: 180%;'>The Romance of a Plain Man</span></td> + <td align='right'><i>$1.50</i></td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p style='font-size: smaller'>"From the first she has had the power to tell a strong story, full +of human interest, but as her work has continued it has shown an +increasing mellowness and sympathy. The atmosphere of this book is +fascinating indeed."—<i>Chicago Tribune</i>.<br/><br/></p> + + +<p style='font-size: 110%'><span class="smcap">By</span> FRANK DANBY</p> + +<table summary='' width='100%'> + <col style="width:5%" /> + <col style="width:70%" /> + <col style="width:20%" /> + <tr> + <td> </td> + <td align='left'><span style='font-size: 180%;'>The Heart of a Child</span></td> + <td align='right'><i>Cloth, $1.50</i></td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p style='text-align:center; margin-left:20%; margin-right:20%;'>BEING PASSAGES FROM THE EARLY LIFE<br/> + OF SALLY SNAPE, LADY KIDDERMINSTER</p> + +<p style='font-size: smaller'>"'Frank Danby' has found herself. It is full of the old wit, the +old humor, the old epigram, and the old knowledge of what I may +call the Bohemia of London; but it is also full of a new quality, +the quality of imaginative tenderness and creative sympathy. It is +delightful to watch the growth of human character either in life or +in literature, and in 'The Heart of a Child' one can see the +brilliancy of Frank Danby suddenly burgeoning into the wistfulness +that makes cleverness soft and exquisite and delicate.... It is a +mixture of naturalism and romance, and one detects in it the +miraculous power ... of seeing things steadily and seeing them +wholly, with relentless humor and pitiless pathos. The book is +crowded with types, and they are all etched in with masterly +fidelity of vision and sureness of touch, with feminine subtlety as +well as virile audacity."—<span class="smcap">James Douglas</span> in <i>The Star</i>, London.</p> + +<table summary='' width='100%'> + <col style="width:5%" /> + <col style="width:70%" /> + <col style="width:20%" /> + <tr> + <td> </td> + <td align='left'><span style='font-size: 180%;'>Sebastian.</span> A Son of Dreams.</td> + <td align='right'><i>Cloth, $1.50</i></td> + </tr> +</table> + + + +<hr class='short' /> + +<p style='text-align:center'><span style='font-size:120%'>THE MACMILLAN COMPANY</span><br /> +Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York</p> + +<hr class='full' /> + + + + +<h2>NOVELS, ETC., BY "BARBARA"</h2> + +<p style='text-align:center'>(MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT)</p> +<hr class='short'/> +<p style='text-align:center'><i>Each, in decorated cloth binding, $1.50</i></p> +<hr class='short'/> + +<table summary='' width='100%'> + <tr><td align='left'> + <span style='font-size: 125%'>The Garden of a Commuter's Wife</span></td><td align='right'>Illustrated</td> +</tr></table> + +<p style='margin-left: 5%;font-size: smaller'>"Reading it is like having the entry into a home of the class that +is the proudest product of our land, a home where love of books and +love of nature go hand in hand with hearty, simple love of 'folks.' +... It is a charming book."—<i>The Interior</i>.</p> + +<table summary='' width='100%'> + <tr><td align='left'> + <span style='font-size: 125%'>People of the Whirlpool</span></td><td align='right'>Illustrated</td> +</tr></table> + +<p style='margin-left: 5%;font-size: smaller'>"The whole book is delicious, with its wise and kindly humor, its +just perspective of the true values of things, its clever pen +pictures of people and customs, and its healthy optimism for the +great world in general."—<i>Philadelphia Evening Telegraph</i>.</p> + +<p style='font-size: 125%'>The Woman Errant</p> + +<p style='margin-left: 5%;font-size: smaller'>"The book is worth reading. It will cause discussion. It is an +interesting fictional presentation of an important modern question, +treated with fascinating feminine adroitness."—Miss <span class="smcap">Jeannette +Gilder</span> in the <i>Chicago Tribune</i>.</p> + +<p style='font-size: 125%'>At the Sign of the Fox</p> + +<p style='margin-left: 5%;font-size: smaller'>"Her little pictures of country life are fragrant with a genuine +love of nature, and there is fun as genuine in her notes on rural +character."—<i>New York Tribune</i>.</p> + +<p style='font-size: 125%'>The Garden, You and I</p> + +<p style='margin-left: 5%;font-size: smaller'>"This volume is simply the best she has yet put forth, and quite +too deliciously torturing to the reviewer, whose only garden is in +Spain.... The delightful humor which pervaded the earlier books, +and without which Barbara would not be Barbara, has lost nothing of +its poignancy."—<i>Congregationalist</i>.</p> + +<p style='font-size: 125%'>The Open Window. Tales of the Months.</p> + +<p style='margin-left: 5%;font-size: smaller'>"A little vacation from the sophistication of the +commonplace."—<i>Argonaut</i>.</p> + +<p style='font-size: 125%'>Poppea of the Post Office</p> + +<p style='text-align:center'><span style='font-size:120%'>THE MACMILLAN COMPANY</span><br /> +Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York</p> + +<hr class='full' /> +<div class='tnote'><h3>Transcriber's Notes</h3> + <div style='margin-left:2em'> + <p style='text-indent: -1em'>1. Punctuation has been changed to conform to contemporary standards.</p> + <p style='text-indent: -1em'>2. Table of Contents not present in the original has been added.</p> + <p style='text-indent: -1em'>3. Alternate spellings of "ecstacy" (inside quoted material, on page 318 and + 361) and "ecstasy" (outside quoted material, on page 109) retained.</p> + </div> +</div> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CERTAIN RICH MAN***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 18684-h.txt or 18684-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/6/8/18684">http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/6/8/18684</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: A Certain Rich Man + + +Author: William Allen White + + + +Release Date: June 26, 2006 [eBook #18684] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CERTAIN RICH MAN*** + + +E-text prepared by Roger Frank and the Project Gutenberg Online +Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net/) + + + +A CERTAIN RICH MAN + +by + +WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE + +Author of "Stratagems and Spoils," +"The Court of Boyville," etc. + + + + + + + +The MacMillan Company +New York . Boston . Chicago +Atlanta . San Francisco + +MacMillan & Co., Limited +London . Bombay . Calcutta +Melbourne + +The Macmillan Co. Of Canada, Ltd. +Toronto + +A Certain Rich Man + +New York +The MacMillan Company +1909 +All rights reserved +Copyright, 1909, +By The MacMillan Company. +Set up and electrotyped. Published July, 1909. +Norwood Press +J. S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co. +Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER I 1 +CHAPTER II 15 +CHAPTER III 30 +CHAPTER IV 51 +CHAPTER V 59 +CHAPTER VI 72 +CHAPTER VII 84 +CHAPTER VIII 95 +CHAPTER IX 105 +CHAPTER X 118 +CHAPTER XI 135 +CHAPTER XII 150 +CHAPTER XIII 165 +CHAPTER XIV 176 +CHAPTER XV 193 +CHAPTER XVI 206 +CHAPTER XVII 227 +CHAPTER XVIII 243 +CHAPTER XIX 262 +CHAPTER XX 275 +CHAPTER XXI 294 +CHAPTER XXII 304 +CHAPTER XXIII 319 +CHAPTER XXIV 334 +CHAPTER XXV 339 +CHAPTER XXVI 355 +CHAPTER XXVII 365 +CHAPTER XXVIII 382 +CHAPTER XXIX 405 +CHAPTER XXX 428 + + + + + + +BOOK I + +A CERTAIN RICH MAN + +CHAPTER I + + +The woods were as the Indians had left them, but the boys who were +playing there did not realize, until many years afterwards, that they +had moved in as the Indians moved out. Perhaps, if these boys had +known that they were the first white boys to use the Indians' +playgrounds, the realization might have added zest to the make-believe +of their games; but probably boys between seven and fourteen, when +they play at all, play with their fancies strained, and very likely +these little boys, keeping their stick-horse livery-stable in a +wild-grape arbour in the thicket, needed no verisimilitude. The long +straight hickory switches--which served as horses--were arranged +with their butts on a rotting log, whereon some grass was spread for +their feed. Their string bridles hung loosely over the log. The +horsemen swinging in the vines above, or in the elm tree near by, were +preparing a raid on the stables of other boys, either in the native +lumber town a rifle-shot away or in distant parts of the woods. When +the youngsters climbed down, they straddled their hickory steeds and +galloped friskily away to the creek and drank; this was part of the +rites, for tradition in the town of their elders said that whoever +drank of Sycamore Creek water immediately turned horse thief. Having +drunk their fill at the ford, they waded it and left the stumpy road, +plunging into the underbrush, snorting and puffing and giggling and +fussing and complaining--the big ones at the little ones and the +little ones at the big ones--after the manner of mankind. + +When they had gone perhaps a half-mile from the ford, one of the +little boys, feeling the rag on his sore heel slipping and letting the +rough woods grass scratch his raw flesh, stopped to tie up the rag. He +was far in the rear of the pack when he stopped, and the boys, not +heeding his blat, rushed on and left him at the edge of a thicket near +a deep-rutted road. His cry became a whimper and his whimper a sniffle +as he worked with the rag; but the little fingers were clumsy, and a +heel is a hard place to cover, and the sun was hot on his back; so he +took the rag in one hand and his bridle in the other, and limped on +his stick horse into the thick shade of a lone oak tree that stood +beside the wide dusty road. His sore did not bother him, and he sat +with his back against the tree for a while, flipping the rag and +making figures in the dust with the pronged tail of his horse. Then +his hands were still, and as he ran from tune to tune with improvised +interludes, he droned a song of his prowess. Sometimes he sang words +and sometimes he sang thoughts. He sank farther and farther down and +looked up into the tree and ceased his song, chirping instead a +stuttering falsetto trill, not unlike a cricket's, holding his breath +as long as he could to draw it out to its finest strand; and thus with +his head on his arm and his arm on the tree root, he fell asleep. + +The noon sun was on his legs when he awoke, and a strange dog was +sniffing at him. As he started up, he heard the clatter of a horse's +feet in the road, and saw an Indian woman trotting toward him on a +pony. In an instant he was a-wing with terror, scooting toward the +thick of the woods. He screamed as he ran, for his head was full of +Indian stories, and he knew that the only use Indians had for little +boys was to steal them and adopt them into the tribe. He heard the +brush crackling behind him, and he knew that the woman had turned off +the road to follow him. A hundred yards is a long way for a +terror-stricken little boy to run through tangled underbrush, and when +he had come to the high bank of the stream, he slipped down among the +tree roots and tried to hide. His little heart beat so fast that he +could not keep from panting, and the sound of breaking brush came +nearer and then stopped, and in a moment he looked up and saw the +squaw leaning over the bank, holding to the tree above him. She smiled +kindly at him and said:-- + +"Come on, boy--I won't hurt you. I as scared of you as you are of +me." + +She bent over and took him by the arm and lifted him to her. She got +on her pony and put him on before her and soothed his fright, as they +rode slowly through the wood to the road, where they came to a great +band of Indians, all riding ponies. + +It seemed to the boy that he had never imagined there were so many +people in the whole world; there was some parley among them, and the +band set out on the road again, with the squaw in advance. They were +but a few yards from the forks of the road, and as they came to it she +said:-- + +"Boy--which way to town?" + +He pointed the way and she turned into it, and the band followed. They +crossed the ford, climbed the steep red clay bank of the creek, and +filed up the hill into the unpainted group of cabins and shanties +cluttered around a well that men, in 1857, knew as Sycamore Ridge. The +Indians filled the dusty area between the two rows of gray houses on +either side of the street, and the town flocked from its ten front +doors before half the train had arrived. The last door of them all to +open was in a slab house, nearly half a mile from the street. A +washing fluttered on the clothes-line, and the woman who came out of +the door carried a round-bottomed hickory-bark basket, such as might +hold clothes-pins. Seeing the invasion, she hurried across the +prairie, toward the town. She was a tall thin woman, not yet thirty, +brown and tanned, with a strong masculine face, and as she came nearer +one could see that she had a square firm jaw, and great kind gray eyes +that lighted her countenance from a serene soul. Her sleeves rolled +far above her elbows revealed arms used to rough hard work, and her +hands were red from the wash-tub. As she came into the street, she saw +the little boy sitting on the horse in front of the squaw. Walking to +them quickly, and lifting her arms, as she neared the squaw's pony, +the white woman said:-- + +"Why, Johnnie Barclay, where have you been?" + +The boy climbed from the pony, and the two women smiled at each other, +but exchanged no words. And as his feet touched the ground, he became +conscious of the rag in his hand, of his bleeding heel, of his cramped +legs being "asleep"--all in one instant, and went limping and whining +toward home with his mother, while the Indians traded in the store and +tried to steal from the other houses, and in a score of peaceful ways +diverted the town's attention from the departing figures down the +path. + +That was the first adventure that impressed itself upon the memory of +John Barclay. All his life he remembered the covered wagon in which +the Barclays crossed the Mississippi; but it is only a curious memory +of seeing the posts of the bed, lying flat beside him in the wagon, +and of fingering the palm leaves cut in the wood. He was four years +old then, and as a man he remembered only as a tale that is told the +fight at Westport Landing, where his father was killed for preaching +an abolition sermon from the wagon tongue. The man remembered nothing +of the long ride that the child and the mother took with the father's +body to Lawrence, where they buried it in a free-state cemetery. But +he always remembered something of their westward ride, after the +funeral of his father. The boy carried a child's memory of the +prairie--probably his first sight of the prairie, with the vacant +horizon circling around and around him, and the monotonous rattle of +the wagon on the level prairie road, for hours keeping the same rhythm +and fitting the same tune. Then there was a mottled memory of the +woods--woods with sunshine in them, and of a prairie flooded with +sunshine on which he played, now picking flowers, now playing house +under the limestone ledges, now, after a rain, following little rivers +down rocky draws, and finding sunfish and silversides in the deeper +pools. But always his memory was of the sunshine, and the open sky, or +the deep wide woods all unexplored, save by himself. + +The great road that widened to make the prairie street, and wormed +over the hill into the sunset, always seemed dusty to the boy, and +although in after years he followed that road, over the hills and far +away, when it was rutty and full of clods, as a child he recalled it +only as a great bed of dust, wherein he and other boys played, now +battling with handfuls of dust, and now running races on some level +stretch of it, and now standing beside the road while a passing +movers' wagon delayed their play. The movers' wagon was never absent +from the boy's picture of that time and place. Either the +canvas-covered wagon was coming from the ford of Sycamore Creek, or +disappearing over the hill beyond the town, or was passing in front of +the boys as they stopped their play. Being a boy, he could not know, +nor would he care if he did know, that he was seeing one of God's +miracles--the migration of a people, blind but instinctive as that of +birds or buffalo, from old pastures into new ones. All over the plains +in those days, on a hundred roads like that which ran through Sycamore +Ridge, men and women were moving from east to west, and, as often has +happened since the beginning of time, when men have migrated, a great +ethical principle was stirring in them. The pioneers do not go to the +wilderness always in lust of land, but sometimes they go to satisfy +their souls. The spirit of God moves in the hearts of men as it moves +on the face of the waters. + +Something of this moving spirit was in John Barclay's mother. For +often she paused at her work, looking up from her wash-tub toward the +highway, when a prairie schooner sailed by, and lifting her face +skyward for an instant, as her lips moved in silence. As a man the boy +knew she was thinking of her long journey, of the tragedy that came of +it, and praying for those who passed into the West. Then she would +bend to her work again; and the washerwoman's child who took the +clothes she washed in his little wagon with the cottonwood log wheels, +across the commons into the town, was not made to feel an inferior +place in the social system until he was in his early teens. For all +the Sycamore Ridge women worked hard in those days. But there were +Sundays when the boy and his mother walked over the wide prairies +together, and she told him stories of Haverhill--of the wonderful +people who lived there, of the great college, of the beautiful women +and wise men, and best of all of his father, who was a student in the +college, and they dreamed together--mother and child--about how he +would board at Uncle Union's and work in the store for Uncle +Abner--when the boy went back to Haverhill to school when he grew up. + +On these excursions the mother sometimes tried to interest him in Mr. +Beecher's sermons which she read to him, but his eyes followed the +bees and the birds and the butterflies and the shadows trailing across +the hillside; so the seed fell on stony ground. One fine fall day they +went up the ridge far above the town where the court-house stands now, +and there under a lone elm tree just above a limestone ledge, they +spread their lunch, and the mother sat on the hillside, almost hidden +by the rippling prairie grass, reading the first number of the +_Atlantic Monthly_, while the boy cleared out a spring that bubbled +from beneath a rock in the shade, and after running for a few feet +sank under a great stone and did not appear again. As the mother read, +the afternoon waned, and when she looked up, she was astonished to see +John standing beside the rock, waist deep in a hole, trying to back +down into it. His face was covered with dirt, and his clothes were wet +from the falling water of the spring that was flowing into the hole he +had opened. In a jiffy she pulled him out, and looking into the hole, +saw by the failing sunlight which shone directly into the place that +the child had uncovered the opening of a cave. But they did not +explore it, for the mother was afraid, and the two came down the hill, +the child's head full of visions of a pirate's treasure, and the +mother's full of the whims of the Autocrat of the Breakfast Table. + +The next day school began in Sycamore Ridge,--for the school and the +church came with the newspaper, _Freedom's Banner_,--and a new world +opened to the boy, and he forgot the cave, and became interested in +Webster's blue-backed speller. And thus another grown-up person, "Miss +Lucy," came into his world. For with children, men and women +generically are of another order of beings. But Miss Lucy, being John +Barclay's teacher, grew into his daily life on an equality with his +dog and the Hendricks boys, and took a place somewhat lower than his +mother in his list of saints. For Miss Lucy came from Sangamon County, +Illinois, and her father had fought the Indians, and she told the +school as many strange and wonderful things about Illinois as John had +learned from his mother about Haverhill. But his allegiance to the +teacher was only lip service. For at night when he sat digging the +gravel and dirt from the holes in the heels of his copper-toed boots, +that he might wad them with paper to be ready for his skates on the +morrow, or when he sat by the wide fireplace oiling the runners with +the steel curly-cues curving over the toes, or filing a groove in the +blades, the boy's greatest joy was with his mother. Sometimes as she +ironed she told him stories of his father, or when the child was sick +and nervous, as a special favour, on his promise to take the medicine +and not ask for a drink, she would bring her guitar from under the bed +and tune it up and play with a curious little mouse-like touch. And on +rare occasions she would sing to her own shy maidenly accompaniment, +her voice rising scarcely higher than the wind in the sycamore at the +spring outside. The boy remembered only one line of an old song she +sometimes tried to sing: "Sleeping, I dream, love, dream, love, of +thee," but what the rest of it was, and what it was all about, he +never knew; for when she got that far, she always stopped and came to +the bed and lay beside him, and they both cried, though as a child he +did not know why. + +So the winter of 1857 wore away at Sycamore Ridge, and with the coming +of the spring of '58, when the town was formally incorporated, even into +the boy world there came the murmurs of strife and alarms. The games the +boys played were war games. They had battles in the woods, between the +free-state and the pro-slavery men, and once--twice--three times there +marched by on the road real soldiers, and it was no unusual thing to see +a dragoon dismount at the town well and water his horse. The big boys in +school affected spurs, and Miss Lucy brought to school with her one +morning a long bundle, which, when it was unwrapped, disclosed the sword +of her father, Captain Barnes, presented to him by his admiring soldiers +at the close of the "Black Hawk War." John traded for a tin fife and +learned to play "Jaybird" upon it, though he preferred the jew's-harp, +and had a more varied repertory with it. Was it an era of music, or is +childhood the period of music? Perhaps this land of ours was younger +than it is now and sang more lustily, if not with great precision; for +to the man who harks back over the years, those were days of song. All +the world seemed singing--men in their stores and shops, women at their +work, and children in their schools. And a freckled, barefooted little +boy with sunburned curly hair, in home-made clothes, and with brown bare +legs showing through the rips in his trousers, used to sit alone in the +woods breathing his soul into a mouth-organ--a priceless treasure for +which he had traded two raccoons, an owl, and a prairie dog. But he +mastered the mouth-organ,--it was called a French harp in those +days,--and before he had put on his first collar, Watts McHurdie had +taught the boy to play the accordion. The great heavy bellows was half +as large as he was, but the little chap would sit in McHurdie's harness +shop of a summer afternoon and swing the instrument up and down as the +melody swelled or died, and sway his body with the time and the tune, as +Watts McHurdie, who owned the accordion, swayed and gyrated when he +played. Mrs. Barclay, hearing her son, smiled and shook her head and +knew him for a Thatcher; "No Barclay," she said, "ever could carry a +tune." So the mother brought out from the bottom of the trunk her +yellow-covered book, "Winner's Instructor on the Guitar," and taught the +child what she could of notes. Thus music found its way out of the boy's +soul. + +One day in the summer of 1860, as he and his fellows were filing down +the crooked dusty path that led from the swimming hole through the dry +woods to the main road, they came upon a group of horsemen scanning +the dry ford of the Sycamore. That was the first time that John +Barclay met the famous Captain Lee. He was a great hulk of a man who, +John thought, looked like a pirate. The boys led the men and their +horses up the dry limestone bed of the stream to the swimming hole--a +deep pool in the creek. The coming of the soldiers made a stir in the +town. For they were not "regulars"; they were known as the Red Legs, +but called themselves "The Army of the Border." Under Captain J. Lord +Lee--whose life afterwards touched Barclay's sometimes--"The Army of +the Border," being about forty in number, came to Sycamore Ridge that +night, and greatly to the scandal of the decent village, there +appeared with the men two women in short skirts and red leggins, who +were introduced at Schnitzler's saloon as Happy Hally and Lady Lee. +"The Army of the Border," under J. Lord and Lady Lee,--as they were +known,--proceeded to get bawling drunk, whereupon they introduced to +the town the song which for the moment was the national hymn of +Kansas:-- + + "Am I a soldier of the boss, + A follower of Jim Lane? + Then should I fear to steal a hoss, + Or blush to ride the same." + +As the night deepened and Henry Schnitzler's supply of liquor seemed +exhaustless, the Army of the Border went from song to war and wandered +about banging doors and demanding to know if any white-livered +Missourian in the town was man enough to come out and fight. At +half-past one the Army of the Border had either gone back to camp, or +propped itself up against the sides of the buildings in peaceful +sleep, when the screech of the brakes on the wheels of the stage was +heard half a mile away as it lumbered down the steep bank of the +Sycamore, and then the town woke up. As the stage rolled down Main +Street, the male portion of Sycamore Ridge lined up before the Thayer +House to see who would get out and to learn the news from the +gathering storm in the world outside. As the crowd stood there, and +while the driver was climbing from his box, little John Barclay, +white-faced, clad in his night drawers, came flying into the crowd +from behind a building. + +"Mother--" he gasped, "mother--says--come--mother says some one +come quick--there's a man there--trying to break in!" And finding +that he had made himself understood, the boy darted back across the +common toward home. The little white figure kept ahead of the men, and +when they arrived, they found Mrs. Barclay standing in the door of her +house, with a lantern in one hand and a carbine in the crook of her +arm. In the dark, somewhere over toward the highway, but in the +direction of the river, the sound of a man running over the ploughed +ground might be heard as he stumbled and grunted and panted in fear. +She shook her head reassuringly as the men from the town came into the +radius of the light from her lantern, and as they stepped on the hard +clean-swept earth of her doorway, she said, smiling: + +"He won't come back. I'm sorry I bothered you. Only--I was frightened +a little at first--when I sent Johnnie out of the back door." She +paused a moment, and answered some one's question about the man, and +went on, "He was just drunk. He meant no harm. It was Lige Bemis--" + +"Oh, yes," said Watts McHurdie, "you know--the old gang that used to +be here before the town started. He's with the Red Legs now." + +"Well," continued Mrs. Barclay, "he said he wanted to come over and +visit the sycamore tree by the spring." + +The crowd knew Lige and laughed and turned away. The men trudged +slowly back to the cluster of lights that marked the town, and the +woman closed her door, and she and the child went to bed. Instead of +sleeping, they talked over their adventure. He sat up in bed, big-eyed +with excitement, while his mother told him that the drunken visitor +was Lige Bemis, who had come to revisit a cave, a horse thief's cave, +he had said, back of the big rock that seemed to have slipped down +from the ledge behind the house, right by the spring. She told the boy +that Bemis had said that the cave contained a room wherein they used +to keep their stolen horses, and that he tried to move the great slab +door of stone and, being drunk, could not do so. + +When the men of Sycamore Ridge who left the stage without waiting to +see what human seed it would shuck out arrived at Main Street, the +stage was in the barn, the driver was eating his supper, and the +passenger was in bed at the Thayer House. But his name was on the +dog-eared hotel register, and it gave the town something to talk about +as Martin Culpepper was distributing the mail. For the name on the +book was Philemon R. Ward, and the town after his name, Cambridge, +Massachusetts. Every man and woman and most of the children in +Sycamore Ridge knew who Philemon Ward was. He had been driven out of +Georgia in '58 for editing an abolition newspaper; he had been mobbed +in Ohio for delivering abolition lectures; he had been led out of +Missouri with a rope around his neck, and a reward was on his head in +a half-dozen Southern states for inciting slaves to rebellion. His +picture had been in _Harper's Weekly_ as a General Passenger Agent of +the Underground Railway. Naturally to Sycamore Ridge, where more than +one night the town had sat up all night waiting for the stage to bring +the _New York Tribune_, Philemon R. Ward was a hero, and his presence +in the town was an event. When the little Barclay boy heard it at the +store that morning before sunrise, he ran down the path toward home to +tell his mother and had to go back to do the errand on which he was +sent. By sunrise every one in town had the news; men were shaken out +of their morning naps to hear, "Philemon Ward's in town--wake up, +man; did you hear what I say? Philemon Ward came to town last night on +the stage." And before the last man was awake, the town was startled +by the clatter of horses' hoofs on the gravel road over the hill south +of town, and Gabriel Carnine and Lycurgus Mason of Minneola came +dashing into the street and yelling, "The Missourians are coming, the +Missourians are coming!" + +The little boy, who had just turned into Main Street for the second +time, remembered all his life how the news that the Minneola men +brought, thrilled Sycamore Ridge. It seemed to the boy but an instant +till the town was in the street, and then he and a group of boys were +running to the swimming hole to call the Army of the Border. The horse +weeds scratched his face as he plunged through the timber cross-lots +with his message. He was the first boy to reach the camp. What they +did or what he did, he never remembered. He has heard men say many +times that he whispered his message, grabbed a carbine, and came +tearing through the brush back to the town. + +All that is important to know of the battle of Sycamore Ridge is that +Philemon Ward, called out of bed with the town to fight that summer +morning, took command before he had dressed, and when the town was +threatened with a charge from a second division of the enemy, Bemis +and Captain Lee of the Red Legs, Watts McHurdie, Madison Hendricks, +Oscar Fernald, and Gabriel Carnine, under the command of Philemon +Ward, ran to the top of the high bank of the Sycamore, and there held +a deep cut made for the stage road,--held it as a pass against a +half-hundred horsemen, floundering under the bank, in the underbrush +below, who dared not file up the pass. + +The little boy standing at the window of his mother's house saw this. +But all the firing in the town, all the forming and charging and +skirmishing that was done that hot August day in '60, either he did +not see, or if he saw it, the memory faded under the great terror that +gripped his soul when he saw his mother in danger. Ward in his +undershirt was standing by a tree near the stage road above the bank. +The firing in the creek bed had stopped. His back was toward the town, +and then, out of some place dim in the child's mind--from the troop +southwest of town perhaps--came a charge of galloping horsemen, +riding down on Ward. The others with him had found cover, and he, +seeing the enemy before him and behind him, pistol in hand, alone +charged into the advancing horsemen. It was all confused in the +child's mind, though the histories say that the Sycamore Ridge people +did not know Ward was in danger, and that when he fell they did not +understand who had fallen. But the boy--John Barclay--saw him fall, +and his mother knew who had fallen, and the wife of the Westport +martyr groaned in anguish as she saw Freedom's champion writhing in +the dust of the road like a dying snake, after the troop passed over +him. And even when he was a man, the boy could remember the woe in her +face, as she stooped to kiss her child, and then huddling down to +avoid the bullets, ran across the field to the wounded man, with dust +in his mouth, twitching in the highway. Bullets were spitting in the +dust about her as the boy saw his mother roll the bleeding man over, +pick him up, get him on her back with his feet trailing on the earth +beside her, and then rising to her full height, stagger under her limp +burden back to the house. When she came in the door, her face and +shoulders were covered with blood and her skirt ripped with a bullet. + +That is all of the battle that John Barclay ever remembered. After +that it seemed to end, though the histories say that it lasted all the +long day, and that the fire of the invaders was so heavy that no one +from the Ridge dared venture to the Barclay home. The boy saw his +mother lay the unconscious man on the floor, while she opened the back +door, and without saying a word, stepped to the spring, which was +hidden from the road. She put her knee, her broad chest, and her +strong red hand to the rock and shoved until her back bowed and the +cords stood out on her neck; then slowly the rock moved till she could +see inside the cave, could put her leg in, could squirm her body in. +The morning light flooded in after her, and in the instant that she +stood there she saw dimly a great room, through which the spring +trickled. There were hay inside, and candles and saddles; in another +minute she had the wounded man in the cave and was washing the dirt +from him. A bullet had ploughed its way along his scalp, his body was +pierced through the shoulder, and his leg was broken by a horse's +hoof. She did what she could while the shooting went on outside, and +then slipped out, tugged at the great rock again until it fell back in +its place, and knowing that Philemon Ward was safe from the +Missourians if they should win the day, she came into the house. Then +as the mocking clouds of the summer drouth rolled up at night, and +belched forth their thunder in a tempest of wind, the besiegers passed +as a dream in the night. And in the morning they were not. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +And so on the night of the battle of Sycamore Ridge, John Barclay +closed the door of his childhood and became a boy. He did not remember +how Ward's wounds were dressed, nor how the town made a hero of the +man; but he did remember Watts McHurdie and Martin Culpepper and the +Hendricks boys tramping through the cave that night with torches, and +he was the hero of that occasion because he was the smallest boy there +and they put him up through the crack in the head of the cave, and he +saw the stars under the elm tree far above the town, where he and his +mother had spent a Sunday afternoon three years before. He called to +the men below and told them where he was, and slipped down through, +the hole again with an elm sprout in his hand to prove that he had +been under the elm tree at the spring. But he remembered nothing of +the night--how the men picketed the town; how he sat up with them +along with the other boys; how the women, under his mother's direction +and Miss Lucy's, cared for the wounded man, who lapsed into delirium +as the night wore on, and gibbered of liberty and freedom as another +man would go over his accounts in his dreams. + +His mother and Miss Lucy took turns nursing Ward night after night +during the hot dry summer. As the sick man grew better, many men came +to the house, and great plans were afloat. Philemon Ward, sitting up +in bed waiting for his leg to heal, talked much of the cave as a +refuge for fugitive slaves. There was some kind of a military +organization; all the men in town were enlisted, and Ward was their +captain, drums were rattling and men were drilling; the dust clouds +rose as they marched across the drouth-blighted fields. One night they +marched up to the Barclay home, and Ward with a crutch under his arm, +and with Mrs. Barclay and Miss Lucy beside him, stood in the door and +made a speech to the men. And then there were songs. Watts McHurdie +threw back his head and sang "Scots wha ha' wi' Wallace bled," +following it with some words of his own denouncing slavery and calling +down curses upon the slaveholders; so withal it was a martial +occasion, and the boy's heart swelled with patriotic pride. But for a +vague feeling that Miss Lucy was neglecting him for her patient, John +would have begun making a hero of Philemon R. Ward. As it was, the boy +merely tolerated the man and silently suspected him of intentions and +designs. + +But when school opened, Philemon Ward left Sycamore Ridge and John +Barclay made an important discovery. It was that Ellen Culpepper had +eyes. In Sycamore Ridge with its three hundred souls, only fifteen of +them were children, and five of them were ten years old, and John had +played with those five nearly all his life. But at ten sometimes the +scales drop from one's eyes, and a ribbon or a bead or a pair of new +red striped yarn stockings or any other of the embellishments which +nature teaches little girls to wear casts a sheen over all the world +for a boy. The magic bundle that charmed John Barclay was a scarlet +dress, "made over," that came in an "aid box" from the Culpeppers in +Virginia. And when the other children in Miss Lucy's school made fun +of John and his _amour_, the boy fought his way through it all--where +fighting was the better part of valour--and made horsehair chains for +Ellen and cut lockets for her out of coffee beans, and with a red-hot +poker made a ring for her from a rubber button as a return for the +smile he got at the sly twist he gave her hair as he passed her desk +on his way to the spelling class. As for Miss Lucy, who saw herself +displaced, she wrote to Philemon Ward, and told him of her jilting, +and railed at the fickleness and frailty of the sex. + +And by that token an envelope in Ward's handwriting came to Miss Lucy +every week, and Postmaster Martin Culpepper and Mrs. Martin Culpepper +and all Sycamore Ridge knew it. And loyal Southerner though he was, +Martin Culpepper's interest in the affair between Ward and Miss Lucy +was greater than his indignation over the fact that Ward had carried +his campaign even into Virginia; nothing would have tempted him to +disclose to his political friends at home the postmarks of Ward's +letters. That was the year of the great drouth of '60, remembered all +over the plains. And as the winter deepened and the people of Sycamore +Ridge were without crops, and without money to buy food, they bundled +up Martin Culpepper and sent him back to Ohio seeking aid. He was a +handsome figure the day he took the stage in his high hat and his +ruffled shirt and broad coat tails, a straight lean figure of a man in +his early thirties, with fine black eyes and a shocky head of hair, +and when he pictured the sufferings of the Kansas pioneers to the +people of the East, the state was flooded with beans and flour, and +sheeted in white muslin. For Martin Culpepper was an orator, and +though he is in his grave now, the picture he painted of bleeding +Kansas nearly fifty years ago still hangs in many an old man's memory. +And after all, it was only a picture. For they were all young out here +then, and through all the drouth and the hardship that followed--and +the hardship was real--there was always the gayety of youth. The +dances on Deer Creek and at Minneola did not stop for the drouth, and +many's the night that Mrs. Mason, the tall raw-boned wife of Lycurgus, +wrapped little Jane in a quilt and came over to the Ridge from +Minneola to take part in some social affair. And while Martin +Culpepper was telling of the anguish of the famine, Watts McHurdie and +his accordion and Ezra Lane's fiddle were agitating the heels of the +populace. And even those pioneers who were moved to come into the +wilderness by a great purpose--and they were moved so--to come into +the new territory and make it free, nevertheless capered and romped +through the drouth of '60 in the cast-off garments of their kinsmen +and were happy; for there were buffalo meat and beans for the needy, +the aid room had flour, and God gave them youth. + +Not drouth, nor famine, nor suffering, nor zeal of a great purpose can +burn out the sparkle of youth in the heart. Only time can do that, and +so John Barclay remembered the famous drouth of '60, not by his +mother's tears, which came as she bent over his little clothes, before +the aid box came from Haverhill, not by the long days of waiting for +the rain that never came, not even by the sun that lapped up the +swimming hole before fall, and left no river to freeze for their +winter's skating, not even by his mother's anguish when she had to go +to the aid store for flour and beans, though that must have been a +sorry day for a Thatcher; but he remembers the great drouth by Ellen +Culpepper's party, where they had a frosted cake and played kissing +games, and--well, fifty years is along time for two brown eyes to +shine in the heart of a boy and a man. It is strange that they should +glow there, and all memory of the runaway slaves who were sheltered in +the cave by the sycamore tree should fade, and be only as a tale that +is told. Yet, so memory served the boy, and he knew only at second +hand how his mother gave her widow's mite to the cause for which she +had crossed the prairies as of old her "fathers crossed the sea." + +Before the rain came in the spring of '61 Martin Culpepper came back +from the East an orator of established reputation. The town was proud +of him, and he addressed the multitude on various occasions and wept +many tears over the sad state of the country. For in the nation, as +well as in Sycamore Ridge, great things were stirring. Watts McHurdie +filled _Freedom's Banner_ with incendiary verse, always giving the +name of the tune at the beginning of each contribution, by which it +might be sung, and the way he clanked Slavery's chains and made love +to Freedom was highly disconcerting; but the town liked it. + +In April Philemon R. Ward came back to Sycamore Ridge, and there was a +great gathering to hear his speech. Ward's soul was aflame with anger. +There were no Greek gods and Roman deities in what Ward said, as there +were in Martin Culpepper's addresses. Ward used no figures of speech +and exercised no rhetorical charms; but he talked with passion in his +voice and the frenzy of a cause in his eyes. Martin Culpepper was in +the crowd, and as Ward lashed the South, every heart turned in +interrogation to Culpepper. They knew what his education had been. +They understood his sentiments; and yet because he was one of them, +because he had endured with them and suffered with them and ministered +to them, the town set him apart from its hatred. And Martin Culpepper +was sensitive enough to feel this. It came over him with a wave of +joy, and as Ward talked, Culpepper expanded. Ward closed in a low +tone, and his face was white with pent-up zeal as he asked some one to +pray. There was a silence, and then a woman's voice, trembling and +passionate, arose, and Sycamore Ridge knew that Mrs. Barclay, the +widow of the Westport martyr, was giving sound to a voice that had +long been still. It was a simple halting prayer, and not all those in +the room heard it clearly. The words were not always fitly chosen; but +as the prayer neared its close,--and it was a short prayer at the +most,--there came strength and courage into the voice as it asked for +grace for "the brother among us who has shared our sufferings and +lightened our burdens, and who has cleaved to us as a brother, but +whose heart is drawn away from us by ties of blood and kinship"; and +then the voice sank lower and lower as though in shame at its +boldness, and hushed in a tremulous Amen. + +No one spoke for a moment, and as Sycamore Ridge looked up from the +floor, its eyes turned instinctively toward Martin Culpepper. He felt +the question that was in the hearts about him, and slowly, to the +wonder of all, he rose. He had a beautiful deep purring voice, and +when he opened his eyes, they seemed to look into every pair of eyes +in the throng. There were tears on his face and in his voice as he +spoke. "Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following +after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, +I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: where +thou diest, I will die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to +me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me." And then he +sank to his chair and hid his face, and for a moment a hundred +wet-eyed men were still. + +Though John Barclay was at the meeting, he remembered only his +mother's prayer, but in his heart there was always a picture of a +little boy trying to walk home with a little girl, and when he came up +with her she darted ahead or dropped back. At the Culpepper gate she +stood waiting fully a minute for him to catch her, and when he came up +to her, she laughed, "Huh, Mr. Smarty, you didn't, did you?" and ran +up the walk, scooted into the house, and slammed the door. But he +understood and went leaping down the hill toward home with happiness +tingling in his very finger-tips. He seemed to be flying rather than +walking, and his toes touched the dirt path so lightly that he rounded +the corner and ran plump into Miss Lucy and Philemon Ward standing at +the gate. And what he saw surprised him so that he let out a great +"haw-haw-haw" and ran, trying to escape his shame and fear at his +behaviour. But the next morning Miss Lucy smiled so sweetly at him as +he came into the schoolroom, that he knew he was forgiven, and that +thrill was lost by the thump of joy that startled his heart when he +saw a bunch of dog-tooth violets in his ink bottle, and in his +geography found a candy heart with a motto on it so fervent that he +did not eat it for three long abstemious days of sheer devotion, in +which there were eyes and eyes and eyes from the little girl in the +scarlet gown. + +It is strange that the boy did not remember how Sycamore Ridge took +the call to arms for the war between the states. All he remembered of +the great event in our history as it touched the town was that one day +he heard there was going to be a war. And then everything seemed to +change. A dread came over the people. It fell upon the school, where +every child had a father who was going away. + +And it was because Madison Hendricks, the first man to leave for the +war, was father of Bob and Elmer Hendricks that John's first +associations of the great Civil War go back to the big black-bearded +man. For Madison Hendricks, who was a graduate of West Point, and a +veteran of the Mexican War, was called to Washington in May, and his +boys acquired a prestige that was not accorded to them by the mere +fact that their father was president of the town company, and was +accounted the first citizen of the town. Madison Hendricks, who owned +the land on which the town was built, Madison Hendricks, scholar and +gentleman, veteran of the Mexican War, first mayor of Sycamore Ridge +upon its incorporation,--his sons had no standing. But Madison +Hendricks, formally summoned to go to Washington to put down the +rebellion, and leaving on the stage with appropriate ceremonies, +--there was a man who could bequeath to his posterity in the boy +world something of his consequence. + +So in the pall that came upon the school in Sycamore Ridge that spring +of '61, Bob and Elmer Hendricks were heroes, and their sister--who +was their only guardian in their father's absence--had to put them in +her dresses and send them to bed, and punish them in all the shameful +ways that she knew to take what she called "the tuck out of them." And +the boy of all the boys who gave the Hendricks boys most homage was +little Johnnie Barclay. There was no dread in his hero-worship. He had +no father to go to the war. But the other children and all the women +were under a great cloud of foreboding, and for them the time was one +of tension and hoping against hope that the war would soon pass. + +How the years gild our retrospect. It was in 1903 that Martin +Culpepper, a man in his seventies, collected and published "The +Complete Poetical and Philosophical Works of Watts McHurdie, together +with Notes and a Biographical Appreciation by Martin F. Culpepper." +One of the earlier chapters, which tells of the enlistment of the +volunteer soldiers for the Civil War in '61, devotes some space to the +recruiting and enlistment in Sycamore Ridge. The chapter bears the +heading "The Large White Plumes," and in his "introductory remarks" +the biographer says, "To him who looks back to those golden days of +heroic deeds only the lines of Keats will paint the picture in his +soul:-- + +"'Lo, I must tell a tale of chivalry, +For large white plumes are dancing in mine eyes.'" + +And so the "large white plumes" blinded his eyes to the fear and the +dread that were in the hearts of the people, and he tells his readers +nothing of the sadness that men felt who put in crops knowing that +their wives must cultivate and harvest them. He sees only the glory of +it; for we read: "Hail to the spirit of mighty Mars. When he strode +through our peaceful village, he awoke many a war song in our breasts. +As for our hero, Mars, the war god forged iron reeds for his lute, and +he breathed into it the spirit of the age, and all the valour, all the +chivalry of a golden day came pouring out of his impassioned reeds." +Such is the magic of those large white plumes on Martin Culpepper's +memory. Although John Barclay in that latter day bought a thousand +copies of the Biography and sent them to public libraries all over the +world, he smiled as he read that paragraph referring to Watts +McHurdie's accordion as the "impassioned reeds." When he read it, John +Barclay, grown to a man of fifty-three, sitting at a great mahogany +table, with a tablet of white paper on a green blotting pad before +him, and a gorgeous rose rising from a tall graceful green vase on the +shining table, looked out over a brown wilderness of roofs and +chimneys across a broad river into the hills that were green afar off, +and there, rising out of yesterday, he saw, not the bent little old +man in the harness shop with steel-rimmed spectacles and greasy cap, +whom you may see to-day; but instead, the boy in John Barclay's soul +looked through his eyes, and he saw another Watts McHurdie,--a dapper +little fellow under a wide slouch hat, with a rolling Byronic collar, +and fancy yellow waistcoat of the period, in exceedingly tight +trousers. And then, flash! the picture changed, and Barclay saw Watts +McHurdie under his mushroom hat; Martin Culpepper in his long-tailed +coat; Philemon Ward, tall, fair-skinned, blue-eyed, slim, and sturdy; +skinny, nervous Lycurgus Mason and husky Gabriel Carnine from +Minneola; Jake Dolan in his shirt sleeves, without adornment of any +kind, except the gold horseshoe pinned on his shirt bosom; Daniel +Frye, the pride of an admiring family, in his best home-made clothes; +Henry Schnitzler, Oscar Fernald, and nearly a hundred other men, to +the boy's eyes so familiar then, now forgotten, and all their faces +blurred in the crowd that stood about the recruiting officer by the +town pump in Sycamore Ridge that summer day of '61. A score or so of +men had passed muster. The line on the post at the wooden awning in +front of Schnitzler's saloon was marked at five feet six. All had +stood by it with their heads above the line. It was Watts McHurdie's +turn. He wore high-heeled boots for the occasion, but strut as he +would, his roached hair would not touch the stick that came over the +line. "Stretch your neck--ye bantam," laughed Jake Dolan. "Walk +turkey fashion, Watts," cried Henry Schnitzler, rushing up behind +Watts and grabbing his waistband. The crowd roared. Watts looked +imploringly at the recruiting officer and blubbered in wrath: "Yes, +damn you--yea; that's right. Of course; you won't let me die for my +bleedin' country because I ain't nine feet tall." And the little man +turned away trying to choke his tears and raging at his failure. And +because the recruiting officer was considerable of a man, Watts +McHurdie's name was written in the muster roll, and he went out. + +Many days must have passed between the time when the men were mustered +in and the day they went away to the war. But to the man who saw those +times through the memory of the boy in blue jeans forever playing +bugle-calls upon his fife, it was all one day. For that crowd +dissolved, and another picture appeared upon the sensitized plate of +his memory. There is a crowd in the post-office--mostly men who are +going away to war. The stage has come in, and a stranger, better +dressed than the men of Sycamore Ridge, is behind the letter-boxes of +the post-office. The boy is watching his box; for it is the day when +the _Springfield Republican_ is due. Gradually the hum in front of the +boxes quiets, and two loud voices have risen behind the screen. Then +out walks great Martin Culpepper, white of face, with pent-up fury. +His left hand is clutched like a talon in the shoulder of the +stranger, whom Martin is holding before him. "Gentlemen, your +attention," demands Culpepper. The stranger swallows his Adam's apple +as if to speak; Martin turns to him with, "Don't you say that word +again, sir, or I'll wring your neck." Then he proceeds:-- + +"Gentlemen, this busybody has come all the way from Washington here to +tell me I'm a thief. I wrote to his damn Yankee government that I was +needing the money last winter to go East on the aid committee and +would replace it, and now that I'm going out to-morrow to die for his +damn Yankee government, he has the impertinence to come in here and +say I stole that money. Now what I want to ask you, gentlemen, is +this: Do I go out to-morrow to die on the field of glory for my +country, or does this here little contemptible whippersnapper take me +off to rot in some Yankee jail? I leave it to you, gentlemen. Settle +it for yourselves." And with that Culpepper throws the man into the +crowd and walks behind the screen in solemn state. + +The boy never knew how it was settled. But Martin Culpepper went to +"the field of glory," and all the boy knew of the incident is here +recorded. However, in the Biography of Watts McHurdie above-mentioned +and aforesaid occur these words, in the same chapter--the one +entitled "The Large White Plumes": "Let memory with gentle hand cover +with her black curtain of soft oblivion all that was painful on that +glorious day. Let us not recall the bickerings and the strifes, let +the grass watered by Lethe's sweet spring creep over the scars in the +bright prospect which lies under our loving gaze. Let us hold in our +heart the tears in beauty's eyes; the smile that curls her crimson +lips, and the hope that burns upon her brow. Let us fondle the sacred +memory of every warm hand clasp of comrade and take to the silent +grave the ever green garland of love that adorned our hearts that day. +For the sordid thorns that pierced our bleeding hearts--what are they +but ashes to-day, blown on the winds of yesterday?" + +What indeed, Martin Culpepper--what indeed, smiled John Barclay as he +reached for the rose on his broad mahogany desk across forty long +years, and looking through a wide window, saw on the blank wall of a +great hulk of a building half a mile away, the fine strong figure of a +man with black shaggy hair on his young leonine head rise and wave his +handkerchief to a woman with tears running down her face and anguish +in her eyes, standing in a swarm of children. What indeed are sordid +thorns when the "large white plumes are dancing"--what indeed? + +That was a busy night in Sycamore Ridge--the night before the men +left for war in the summer of '61. And the busiest man in all the town +was Philemon R. Ward. Every man in the town was going, and most of the +men were going who lived in the county--an area as large as a New +England state, and yet when they were all gathered in Main Street, +there were less than fivescore of them. They had agreed to elect Ward +captain, Martin Culpepper first lieutenant, Jake Dolan second +lieutenant. It was one of the diversions of the occasion to call out +"Hello, Cap," when Ward hustled by a loitering crowd. But his pride +was in his work, and before sundown he had it done. The Yankee in him +gave him industry and method and foresight. At sunset the last of the +twenty teams and wagons he had ordered came rattling down the hill +west of town, driven by Gabriel Carnine of Minneola, with Mrs. +Lycurgus Mason sitting like a war goddess on the back seat holding +Lycurgus, a spoil of battle, while he held their daughter on his lap, +withal a martial family party. Mrs. Barclay and Miss Lucy went to the +aid store-room and worked the long night through, getting breakfast +for the men. Mary Murphy and Nellie Logan came from the Thayer House +to the aid room when the hotel dishes were washed, and helped with the +work. And while they were there the Culpeppers walked in, returning +from a neighbourly visit to Miss Hendricks; John Barclay in an apron, +stirring a boiling pot of dried apples, turned his back on the eyes +that charmed him, but when the women sent him for a bucket of water, +he shook the handle at Ellen Culpepper and beckoned her with a finger, +and they slipped out into the moonlight together. She had hold of the +handle of the bucket with him, and they pulled and hauled and laughed +as boy and girl will laugh so long as the world turns round. The +street was deserted, and only the bar of light that fell across the +sidewalk from Schnitzler's saloon indicated the presence of human +beings in the little low buildings that pent in the highway. The boy +and the girl stood at the pump, and the boy stuck a foot in the horse +trough. He made a wet silhouette of it on the stone beneath him, and +reached for the handle of the pump. Then he said, "I got somepin I +won't tell." + +"Three little niggers in a peanut shell," replied the girl. + +"All right, Miss Cuteness. All right for you; I was going to tell you +somepin, but I won't now." He gave the pump-handle a pull. It was limp +and did not respond with water. "Ellen--" the boy repeated as he +worked the handle, "I got somepin to tell you. Honest I have." + +"I don't care, Mr. Smarty," the girl replied; she made a motion as if +to walk away, but did not. The boy noticed it and said, "Yes, +sir--it's somepin you'd like to know." The girl did not turn round. +The boy, who had been working with the wheezy pump, was holding the +handle up, and water was gurgling down the well. And before she could +answer he said, "Say, Ellen--don't be mad; honest I got somepin." + +"Who's it about?" she asked over her shoulder. + +"Me." + +"That's not much--who else?" + +"Elmer Hendricks!" + +"Who else?" The girl was halfway turned around when she spoke. + +"Bob--Bob Hendricks," replied the boy. + +"Aw--Bob Hendricks--" returned the girl, in contempt. Then she faced +the boy and said, "What is it?" + +"Come here 'n' I'll tell you." + +"I'll come this far." The girl took two steps. + +"I got to whisper it, and you can't hear." + +"Well, 'tain't much." The girl dangled one bare foot hesitatingly. + +"I'll come halfway," she added. + +The boy made a mark in the dust of the road a few feet from him with +his toe, and said, "Come to there." + +The girl shook her head, and spoke. "Tell me part--'n' I'll see if +it's good." + +"Me and Elmer an' Bob are goin' to run away!" The girl stepped to the +toe mark and cried, "What?" + +"Yes, sir--in the mornin'." He caught hold of the girl's arm +awkwardly and swung her around to the opposite side of the +pump-handle, and put her hands on it and began to pump. She pumped +with him as he puffed between the strokes, "Um' huh--we're going to +hide in the provision wagons, under some saddles they is there and +go--to--war!" The water was pouring into the bucket by the time he +had got this out. Their hands touched on the pump-handle. It was the +boy who drew his hand away. The girl gasped:-- + +"Why, John Barclay,--it ain't no such thing--does your ma know it?" + +He told her that no one knew it but her, and they pumped in silence +until the bucket was full, and walking back carrying the bucket +between them, he told her another secret: that Watts McHurdie had +asked John to get his guitar after midnight, and play an accompaniment +to the accordion, and that Watts and Ward and Jake Dolan and Gabriel +Carnine were going out serenading. Further he told her that Watts was +going to serenade Nellie Logan at the Thayer House, and that Gabriel +Carnine was going to serenade Mary Murphy, and that Philemon Ward was +going to serenade Miss Lucy, and that he, John Barclay, had suggested +that it would be fine to serenade Mrs. Culpepper, because she was such +a nice woman, and they agreed that if he would bring his guitar, they +would! + +When the boy and girl returned to the store, Ward and Miss Lucy went +to the Barclay home for the guitar. When they came back, Mrs. Barclay +noted a pink welt on one of Ward's fingers where his cameo ring had +been, and she observed that from time to time Miss Lucy kept feeling +of her hair as if to smooth it. It was long after midnight before the +girls from the hotel went home, and Miss Lucy and Mrs. Barclay lay on +the counter in the store, trying to sleep. They awoke with the sound +of music in their ears, and Miss Lucy said, "It's Captain Ward--and +the other boys, serenading us." They heard the high tenor voice of +Watts McHurdie and the strong clear voice of Ward rising above the +accordion and guitar:-- + + "For her voice is on the breeze, + Her spirit comes at will, + At midnight on the seas + Her bright smile haunts me still." + +And underneath these high voices was the gruff bass voice of Gabriel +Carnine and the baritone of Jake Dolan. And when Mrs. Barclay heard +the piping treble of her son, and the tinkle of his guitar, her eyes +filled with tears of pride. + +The serenaders waked the chickens, and the crowing roosters roused +Mrs. Barclay, and in the hurry of the hour she forgot to look for her +son. As "the gray dawn was breaking," a hundred men came into the +room, and found the smoking breakfast on the table. It was a good +breakfast as breakfasts go when men are hungry. But they sat in +silence that morning. The song was all out of them; the spring of +youth was crushed under the weight of great events. And as they +rose--they who had been so merry the day before, and had joked of the +things the soldier fears, they were all but mute, and left their +breakfasts scarcely tasted. + +The women remember this,--the telltale sign of the untouched +breakfast,--and their memory is better than that of Martin Culpepper, +who wrote in that plumy chapter of the Biography, before mentioned:-- + +"The soldiers left their homes that beautiful August morning as the +sun was kissing the tips of the sycamore that gave the magnificent +little city its name. They had partaken abundantly of a bountiful +breakfast, and as they satisfied their inner man from a table groaning +with good things prepared by the fair hands of the gentler sex, the +gallant men rose with song and cheer, and went on their happy way +where duty and honour called them." + +But the women who scraped the plates that morning knew the truth. One +wonders how much of history would be thrown out as worthless, like +Martin Culpepper's fine writing, if the women who scraped the plates +might testify. For those "large white plumes" do not dance in women's +eyes! + +After breakfast the men tumbled into the wagons, and as one wagon +after another rattled out of Fernald's feed lot and came down the +street, the men waved their hats and the women waved their aprons, and +a great cloud of dust rose on the highway, and as the wagons ducked +down the bank to the river, only the tall figure of Martin Culpepper, +waving his handkerchief, rose above the cloud. At the end of the line +was a provision wagon, and on it rode Philemon Ward--Yankee in his +greatest moment, scorning the heroic place in the van, and looking +after the substantials. In the feed lot, just as the reins were in his +hands, Ward saw Elmer Hendricks' foot peeping from under a saddle. +Ward dragged the boy out, spanking him as he came over the end gate, +and noted the sheepish smile on his face. Ten days later, as Ward, +marching in the infantry, was going up a hill through the timber at +the battle of Wilson's Creek, that same boy rode by with the cavalry, +and seeing Ward, waved a carbine and smiled as he charged the brow of +the hill. That night, going back under the stars, Ward stumbled over a +body, and stooping, saw the smile still on the boy's face, and the +carbine clutched in his hand. But for the hole through the boyish +brow, the eyes might still have been laughing. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +A few years ago, in the room of the great mahogany table, with its +clean blotting pad, its writing tablet, and its superb rose rising +from a green vase in the midst of the shining unlittered expanse, +there was a plain, heavy mahogany wainscoting reaching chin-high to +the average man. A few soft-toned pictures adorned the dull gray walls +above the wainscoting, and directly over a massive desk that never was +seen open hung a framed letter. The letter was written on blue-lined +paper in red pokeberry ink. At the top of the letter was the +advertisement of a hotel, done in quaint, old-fashioned, fancy script +with many curly-cues and printers' ornaments. The advertisement set +forth that the Thayer House at Sycamore Ridge was "First class in +every particular," and that "Especial attention was paid to transient +custom." On a line in the right-hand corner the reader was notified +that the tavern was founded by the Emigrant Aid Society, and balancing +this line, in the left-hand corner, were these words: "The only +livery-stable west of Lawrence." John Barclay's eyes have read it a +thousand times, and yet he always smiled when he scanned the letter +that followed the advertisement. The letter read:-- + +"Dear Ma I am going to war. Doan crye. Iff father was here he wood go; +so why should not I. I will be very caerfull not to get hurt & stay by +Cap Ward all the time. So godby yours truly J. Barclay Jr." + +It was five hours after the soldiers had gone when Mrs. Barclay came +home from her work in the aid room, and the first thing that attracted +her attention was her son's letter, lying folded on the table. When +she read it, she ran with the open letter across the common to the +town. It was a woman's town that morning,--not a man was left in +it,--for Ezra Lane, the only old man living in the Ridge, had left +_Freedom's Banner_ to shift for itself while he rode to Leavenworth +with the soldiers to bring back the teams; and when Mrs. Barclay came +into the street, she found some small stir there, made by Miss +Hendricks--the only mother the Hendricks boys remembered--who was +inquiring for her lost boys. Mrs. Barclay displayed her note, and in a +moment the whole population of Sycamore Ridge, with hands under its +aprons, was standing in front of the post-office. Then Ellen Culpepper +found her tongue, and Mrs. Barclay began to look for a horse. Elmer +Hendricks' pony in the pasture was the only horse Ward had left within +twenty miles. When Ellen Culpepper and her little sister Molly came +back from the pasture and announced that Elmer's pony was gone also, +the women surmised that he had taken it with him, for they could not +know that after he was spanked from the provision wagon, he had +slipped out to the pasture and ridden by a circuitous route to the +main road. + +It was Captain Ward, dismounting from his driver's seat on the +provision wagon at noon, who discovered two boys: a little boy eleven +years old in a dead faint, and a bigger boy panting with the heat. +They threw cold spring water on John Barclay's face, and finally his +eyes opened, and he grinned as he whispered, "Hullo, Captain," to the +man bending over him. The man held water to the boy's lips, and he +sipped a little and swam out into the blackness again, and then the +man reappeared and the boy tried to smile and whispered, "Aw--I'm all +right." They saw he was coming out of his faint, and one by one the +crowd dropped away from him; but Ward stayed, and when the child could +speak, he replied to Ward's question, "'Cause I wanted to." And then +again when the question was repeated, the boy said, "I tell you 'cause +I wanted to." He shook his head feebly and grinned again and tried to +rise, but the man gently held him down, and kept bathing his temples +with cold water from the spring beside them. Finally, when the man +seemed a little harsh in his questions, the boy's eyes brimmed and he +said: "Whur'd my pa be if he was alive to-day? I just guess I got as +much right here as you have." He made a funny little picture lying on +the lush grass by the spring in the woods; his browned face, washed +clean on the forehead and temples, showed almost white under the dirt. +There were tear-stained rings about the eyes, and his pink shirt and +blue trousers were grimy with dust, and the red clay of the Sycamore +still was on the sides of his dust-brown bare feet. Around a big toe +was a rag which showed a woman's tying--neat and firm, but red with +clay. + +Ward left, and Bob Hendricks came and stood over the prostrate boy. +Bob was carrying a bucket of water to the cook as a peace offering. + +"What did they do?" asked the boy on the ground. + +"Just shook me--and then said father'd tend to me for this." The boys +exchanged comments on the situation without words, and then Bob said +as he drew the dripping bucket from the spring, "We're going clear on +to Leavenworth, and they say then we've got to come back with Ezra +Lane and the teams." + +The boy on the ground raised himself by rolling over and catching hold +of a sapling. He panted a moment, and "I'll bet y' I don't." The other +boy went away with a weak "Me neither," thrown over his shoulder. + +During that long afternoon, and all the next day and the next, the +boys ran from wagon to wagon, climbing over end gates, wriggling among +the men, running with the horses through the shady woods, paddling in +the fords, and only refusing to move when the men got out of the +wagons and walked up the long clay hills that rise above the Kaw +River. At night they camped by the prairie streams, and the men sang +and wondered what they were doing at home, and Philemon Ward took John +Barclay out into the silence of the woods and made him say his +prayers. And Ward would look toward the west and say, "Well, +Johnnie,--there's home," and once they stood in an open place in the +timber, and Ward gazed at a bright star sinking in the west, and said, +"I guess that's about over Sycamore Ridge." They went on, and the boy, +looking back to see why the man had stopped, caught him throwing a +kiss at the star. And they could not know, as they walked back +together through the woods abashed, that two women sitting before a +cabin door under a sycamore tree were looking at an eastern star, and +one threw kisses at it unashamed while the other wept. And on other +nights, many other nights, the two, Miss Lucy and Mrs. Barclay, sat +looking at their star while the terror in their hearts made their lips +mute. God makes men brave who stand where bullets fly, yet always they +can run away. But God seems to give no alternative to women at home +who have to wait and dread. + +Forty years later John Barclay took from a box in a safety vault back +of his office in the city a newspaper. It was the Sycamore Ridge +_Banner_, yellow and creased and pungent with age. "This," he said to +Senator Myton, spreading the wrinkled sheet out on the mahogany table, +"this is my enlistment paper." He smiled as he read aloud:-- + +"At noon of our first day out we came across two stowaways. Hendricks, +aged twelve, son of our well-known and popular Mayor, and J. Barclay, +aged eleven, son of Mrs. M. Barclay, who, owing to the suddenness of +the departure of our troops for the seat of war in Missouri, and +certain business delays made necessary in ye editor's return, were +slipped out with our company rather than left in the rough and +uncertain city of Leavenworth. They are called by the boys of 'C' +company respectively 'the little sergeant and the little corporal, +Good Luck boys.'" + +A little farther down the column was this paragraph: + +"Aug. 2nd we went into camp on Sugar Creek, and some sport was had by +the men who went in bathing, taking the horses with them." + +"Ever go in swimming with the horses, Senator?" asked Barclay. The +senator shook his head doubtfully. + +"Well--you haven't. For if you had you'd remember it," answered +Barclay, and a hundred naked young men and two skinny, bony boys +splashed and yelled and ducked and wrestled and locked their strong +wet arms about the necks of the plunging horses and dived under them, +and rolled across them and played with them like young satyrs in the +cool water under the overhanging elms with the stars twinkling in the +shining mahogany as Barclay folded the paper and put it away. He +thrummed the polished surface a moment and looked back into the past +to see Philemon Ward straight, lean, and glistening like a god +standing on a horse ready to dive, and as he huddled, crouched for the +leap, Barclay said, "Well, come on, Senator, we must go to lunch now." + +It was late in the afternoon of their third day's journey that the men +from Sycamore Ridge rode in close order, singing, through the streets +of Leavenworth. Watts McHurdie was playing his accordion, and the +people turned to look at the uncouth crowd in civilian's clothes that +went bellowing "O My Darling Nellie Gray," across the town and out to +the Fort. Ezra Lane promised to call at the Fort for the two boys and +with drivers for the teams early the next morning--but to Sycamore +Ridge, Leavenworth in those days was the great city with its pitfalls, +and when Ezra Lane, grizzled though he was, came to a realizing sense +of his responsibilities, the next day was gone and the third was +waning. When he went to the Fort, he found the Sycamore Ridge men had +been hurried into Missouri to meet General Price, who was threatening +Springfield, and no word had been left for him about the boys. As he +left the gate at the Fort, a troop of cavalry rode by gaily, and a +boy, a big overgrown fourteen-year-old boy in a blue uniform, passed +and waved his hand at the befuddled old man, and cried, "Good-by, Mr. +Lane,--tell 'em you saw me." He knew the boy was from Sycamore Ridge, +but he knew also that he was not one of the boys who had come with the +soldiers; and being an old man, far removed from the boy world, he +could not place the child in his blue uniform, so he drove away +puzzled. + +The afternoon the men from Sycamore Ridge came to Leavenworth they +were hurriedly examined again, signed the muster rolls, and were sent +away without uniforms all in twenty-four hours. But not before they +had found time to have their pictures taken in borrowed regimentals. +For twenty years after the war the daguerreotypes of the soldiers +taken at Leavenworth that day were the proudest adornments of the +centre-tables of Sycamore Ridge, and even now on Lincoln Avenue, in a +little white cottage with green blinds, that sits in a broad smooth +lawn with elm trees on it, stands an easel. On the easel is a +picture--an enlarged crayon drawing of a straight, handsome young +fellow in a captain's uniform. One hand is in his coat, and the other +at his hip. His head is thrown back with a fierce determination into +the photographer's iron rest and all together the picture is marked +with the wrinkled front of war. For over one corner of the easel hangs +a sword with an ivory handle, and upon it is an inscription +proclaiming the fact that the sword was presented to Captain Philemon +R. Ward by his company for gallant conduct on the field of battle on +the night of August 4, 1861. Above the easel in the corner hangs +another picture--that of a sweet-faced old man of seventy, beaming +rather benignly over his white lawn necktie. The forty-five years that +have passed between the two faces have trimmed the hair away from the +temples and the brow, have softened the mouth, and have put patience +into the eyes--the patience of a great faith often tried but never +broken. The five young women of the household know that the crayon +portrait on the bamboo easel is highly improper as a parlour +ornament--for do they not teach school, and do they not take all the +educational journals and the crafty magazines of art? But the hand +that put it there was proud of its handiwork, and she who hung the +sword upon the easel is gone away, so the girls smile at the fierce +young boyish face in the picture as they pass it, and throw a kiss at +the face above it, and the easel is not moved. + +And the man,--the tall old man with a slight stoop in his shoulders, +the old man who wears the alpaca coat and the white lawn tie seen in +the upper picture,--sometimes he wanders into the stately front room +with a finger in a census bulletin as a problem in his head creases +his brow--and the sight of the sword always makes him smile, and +sometimes the smile is a chuckle that stirs the cockles of his heart. + +For his mind goes back to that summer night of August 4, 1861, and he +sees himself riding on a horse with a little boy behind with his arms +in the soldier's belt. It is dusk, and "C" Company on foot is filing +down a Missouri hill. It is a muddy road, and the men are tired and +dirty. There is no singing now. A man driving an ox team has turned +out of the road to let the soldiers pass. Some one in the line asks +the man, "Where's Price?" + +"Over the hill yonder," replies the man, pointing with his hickory +whip-stock. The word buzzes up and down the line. The captain on his +horse with the boy clutching at his belt does not hear it. But the +line lags and finally halts. The men have been only two days under +military discipline. That day last week Phil Ward--who was he, +anyway? Henry Schnitzler and Oscar Fernald could have bought him and +sold him twice over. So the line halted. Then the captain halted. Then +he called Second Lieutenant Dolan and asked to know what was the +matter. "They say they are going to camp," responded Dolan, touching +his cap. Captain Ward's face flushed. He told Dolan to give the order +to march. There were shouts and laughter, and Gabriel Carnine cried, +"Say, Phil, this here Missourian we passed says old General Price is +over that hill." The boys laughed again, and Ward saw that trouble was +before him. The men stood waiting while he controlled his rage before +he spoke. Dolan said under his breath from the ground beside the +horse, "They're awful tired, Cap, and they don't want to tackle +Price's army all by their lonelies." Some one in the company called +out, "We've voted on this thing, Cap. Don't the majority rule in this +country?" + +A smile twitched at Ward's mouth and the boy in him pricked a twinkle +in his eyes, for he was only twenty-six, and he laughed--threw his +head back and then leaned over and slapped the horse's neck and +finally straightened up and said, "Gentlemen, I bow to the will of the +people." + +And so it happened that when they drew their first month's pay, Martin +Culpepper and Jake Dolan suggested to the company that they buy Ward a +sword to commemorate the victory of the people. And Martin Culpepper +made a great presentation speech in which he said that to the +infantry, cavalry, and artillery arms of military service, "C" Company +had added the "vox populi." But the night after the presentation Oscar +Fernald and Watts McHurdie crawled under the captain's tent and stole +the sword and pawned it for beer, and there was a sound of revelry by +night. + +When they found the great camp near Springfield, it seemed to John +Barclay that all the soldiers in the world were gathered. It is +difficult for a boy under a dozen years to remember things +consecutively; because boys do not do things consecutively. They flit +around like butterflies, and so the picture that they make of events +jumps from scene to scene. One film on a roll of John's memory showed +a hot August day in the camp of "C" Company; the men are hurrying +about the place. The tents are down; the boys--John and Bob--are +kicking around the vacant camp looking for trophies. But there the +film broke and did not record the fact that Captain Ward put Bob and +John on a commissary wagon that stood in a side street as the soldiers +moved out. John remembered looking into a street filled with marching +soldiers. First the regulars and the artillery came swinging down the +street. At their head the boy saw General Lyon, the commanding +officer, and around him was a bodyguard whose plumed hats, with the +left brim pinned up, caught the boys' eyes. The regulars marched by +silently. It was part of their day's work; but following them came a +detachment of Germans singing "Marchen Rote," and then the battery of +six guns and then the Kansans. Small wonder Captain Gordon Granger +told Colonel Mitchel that the Kansas soldiers were only an armed mob. +They filed out of Springfield, some in rags and some in tags and some +in velvet gowns. They carried guns; but they looked like delegates to +a convention, and as the boys saw their own company, they waved their +hands, but they were almost ashamed of the shabby clothes of the men +from Sycamore Ridge; for a boy always notices clothes on others. When +the Germans stopped singing "Marchen Rote," the boys heard Watts +McHurdie's high tenor voice start up "The Dutch Companee," and the +crowd that was lining the street cheered and cheered. A Missouri +regiment followed and more regulars, and then a battery of four guns +passed, and then came more Kansans still going to that everlasting +convention. And a band came roaring by,--with its crashing brass and +rumbling drums,--and then after the band had turned the corner, came +Iowa in gray blouses and such other garments as the clothes-lines of +the country afforded. They were singing as they passed--a song the +boy had never heard, being all about the "happy land of Canaan." And +before the sun had set again, after that night, hundreds of those who +sang of the happy land were there. In the rear were the ambulances and +the ammunition and the hospital vans, and the wagon which held the +boys wheeled into the line. After they had passed, the streets were +clogged with carts and drays and wagons of all sorts, for the citizens +were moving to places of safety. + +As a man, the boy's memory did not tell him how the boys fared, but he +does remember that it was dark in the timber where they camped that +night, and that they slipped away into the woods to lie down together. +The chirping of the birds at dawn wakened them, and as John sat up +rubbing his eyes, he heard a rifle's crack. They were at the edge of a +field, and half a mile from him, troops were marching by columns +across a clearing. The rifle-shot was followed by another, and +another, and then by a half-dozen. "Wake up, Bob--wake up--they's a +battle," he cried, and the two boys stumbled to their feet. The shots +were far in front of the marching soldiers, and the boys could not +make out what the firing meant. The line formed and ran up the hill, +and the boys saw the morning sun flashing on the guns of the enemy. +The battery roared, and the boys were filled with terror. They ran +through the woods like dogs until they came to the soldiers from +Sycamore Ridge. The boys crawled on their bellies to their friends, +and lay with their faces all but buried in the ground. The men were +lying at the edge of the timber talking, and Watts McHurdie was on his +back. + +"What's the matter with you, Watts?" asked Oscar Fernald. + +"Os," replied Watts, "I got a presentiment I'm goin' to be shot in the +rear. It will kill me to be shot in the back, and I've got a notion +that's how I am goin' to die." + +The line laughed. Captain Ward, who was sitting a few paces in the +rear of the men, went over to Watts, and scuffled the man over with +his foot. A bullet went through Ward's hat before he got back to his +place. The men were sticking up ramrods and betting on the number of +minutes they would last. No ramrod stood more than ten minutes. Martin +Culpepper threw up his hat five times before a bullet hit it; but he +went bareheaded the rest of the day, and John Barclay, in sheer fear, +began to dig a hole under him. After he had been on his belly for an +hour, Henry Schnitzler got tired and rose. The men begged him to lie +down. But his only reply when they told him he was a fool was, "Vell, +vot of it?" And when they said he would be shot, he answered again, +"Vell, vot of it?" And when Jake Dolan cried, "You pot-gutted +Dutchman, sit down or there'll be a sauer-kraut shower in hell pretty +quick," Henry shook his fat sides a moment and laughed, "Vell, vot of +dot--altzo!" For an hour, that seemed ten, he moved back and forth on +the line, firing and joking, and then the spell broke and a bullet +took part of his jaw. As he dropped to his position, with the blood +gushing from his face, his eyes blazed, and he spat out, "By hell-tam, +now I vos mad," and he fought the day out and died that night. But as +he sank to his place when the bullet hit him, Watts McHurdie saw +Schnitzler stagger, and through the smoke, knew that he was wounded. +Watts rushed to Schnitzler and bent over him, when a ball hit Watts +and went ripping through the fleshy part of his hip. "Shot in the +back--damn it, shot in the back!" he screamed, as he jumped into the +air. "What did I tell you, boys, I'm shot in the back." And he crawled +bleeding to the rear. + +All the long forenoon the camp of the enemy continued to belch out +men. The battery mowed them down, and once the Kansans were ordered to +charge the hill, and the boys were left alone. It was there that the +two were separated. John saw men sink in awful silence, and the blood +ooze from their heads. He saw men cramp in agony and choke with blood, +and he saw Martin Culpepper, perhaps with the large white plumes still +dancing in his eyes, dash out of the line and pick up a Union banner +that Sigel's men had lost, and that the enemy was flaunting just +before the artillery mowed the gray line down. He heard the hoarse men +cheer Martin, and as the tall swart figure came running back waving +the flag, the boy prayed to his father's God to save the man. + +When the battle lulled, the boy found himself parted from "C" Company, +and fled back through the woods to the rear. There he came upon a +smell that was familiar. He had known it in the slaughter-house at +home. It was the smell of fresh blood, and with it came the sickening +drone of flies. In an instant he stood under a tree where men were +working smeared with blood. He stumbled over a little pile of +dismembered legs and hands. A man with a bloody knife was bending over +a human form stretched on a bloody and, it seemed to the boy, a greasy +table. Another was helping the big man. They were cutting the bullet +out of Watts McHurdie, who was lying white and unconscious and with +flies crawling over him, half naked and blood-smeared, on the table. +The boy screamed, and the man turned his head and snarled through his +clenched teeth that held the knife, "Get out of here--no--go get me +a bucket of water from the creek." Some one handed the boy a bucket, +and he ran where he was told to go, with the awful sight burned on his +brain, with the sickening smell in his nose, and with the drone of +flies in his ears. When he came back the firing had begun again. The +surgeon was saying, "Well, that's all that's waiting--now I'm going +for a minute." He grabbed a gun standing by the table and ran toward +the front; he did not take off his blood-splotched apron, and the boy +fled from the place in terror. In a few moments the firing ceased; but +the boy ran on, hunting for a hiding-place. He saw a troop of +Alabamians plunge over a log in a charge, and roll in an awful, +writhing, screaming pile of dying men and horses, and in the heap he +saw the terror-stricken face of a youth, who was shrieking for help; +John carried that fear-distorted face in his memory for years, until +long afterwards it appeared in Sycamore Ridge. + +But that day John fled from the death-trap almost mad with fear. +Rushing farther into the woods, he came upon General Lyon and his +staff. The plumed hats of the bodyguard told the boy that the +sandy-haired man before him was in command, though the man's face was +bloody from a wound in his head, and though his clothes were stained +with blood and he was hatless. He sat upright on his horse, and as the +boy turned, he heard the voices of Captain Ward and his soldiers, +begging to be sent into the fight. It was a clamour fierce and +piteous, and the general had turned his head to the Kansans, when +something at the left startled him. There was no firing, and a column +of soldiers was approaching. Doubt paralyzed the group around Lyon for +a moment. The men wore gray blouses strangely like those the Iowans +wore. The men might be Sigel's men, coming back from their artillery +duel. The general plainly was puzzled. He rode out from the bodyguard +a few paces. The boy was staring at him, when the bodyguard with their +gay plumed hats came up, and he saw wrath flash into the general's +face as he recognized the enemy. "Shoot them--shoot them--" he +shouted. But the gray line vomited its smoke first, and the boy felt +his foot afire. The general dropped from his horse, and as the boy +looked down, he saw a red blot coming out on his instep. In the same +instant he saw Captain Ward rush to the falling general, and saw the +bodyguard gather about him, and then the blackness came over the child +and he fell. He did not see them bear General Lyon's body into the +brush, nor hear Ward moan his sorrow. But when Ward returned from the +thicket, he saw the child lying limp on the grass. + +As Ward ran toward the hospital van carrying the limp little body, he +could see that a ball had pierced the boy's foot. Also he saw the men +in retreat who had shot Lyon, and all over the field the firing had +ceased. As he hurried through the underbrush, Ward ran into Bob +Hendricks hiding in the thicket. Ward took the child's hand and he +began to sob: "I saw Elmer go up that hill, Captain; I saw him go up +with the horses and he ain't come back." But Ward did not understand +him, and hurried the little fellow along with John to the surgeon. + +Then Ward left them, and when John Barclay opened his eyes, Bob +Hendricks was sitting beside him. A great lint bandage was about +John's foot, and they were in a wagon jolting over a rutty road. He +did not speak for a long time, and then he asked, "Did we whip 'em?" + +And Bob nodded and said, "Cap says so!" + +The children clasped hands and talked of many things that passed from +the boy's mind. But his mind recorded that the next day in the +hospital Martin Culpepper said, "Bob can't come to-day, Johnnie; you +know he's tendin' Elmer's funeral." The boy must have opened his eyes, +for the man said, "Why, Johnnie, I thought you knew; yes; they found +him dead that night--right under the reb--under the enemies' guns on +the brink of the hill." + +The child's eyes filled with tears, but he did not cry. His emotion +was spent. The two sat together for a time, and the little boy said, +"Why didn't you go, Mr. Culpepper?" And the man replied: "Me? +Oh--why--Oh, yes, I got a little scratch here in my leg, and they +won't let me out of here. There's Watts over there in the next cot; he +got a little scratch too--didn't you, Watts?" Watts and the boy +smiled at each other, but John did not see Bob again for years. Miss +Hendricks came and took him to their father's people in Ohio. + +One day some one came in the hospital where John and Watts and Martin +Culpepper were lying, and began to call out mail for the men, and the +third name the corporal called was "Captain Martin Culpepper"; and +when they brought him a long official envelope with General Fremont's +name on it, Martin Culpepper held it in his hands, looked at the +inscription, read the word "captain" again and again, and could not +speak for choked joy. And tears so dimmed his eyes that he could not +see the "large white plumes" of chivalry, but the men in the beds +cheered as they heard the words the corporal read. + +With such music as that in his ears, and with his soul stirred by the +events about him, Watts McHurdie, lying in the hospital, wrote the +song that made him famous. They know in Sycamore Ridge that Watts is +not much of a poet, that his rhymes are sometimes bad and his metre +worse. But once his heart took fire and burned for a day sheer white, +and in that day he wrote words that a nation sang, and now all the +world is singing. And they are proud of him, and when people come to +Sycamore Ridge on pilgrimages to see the author of the song, men do +not smile in wonder; they show the visitors his shop, and point out +the bowed little man bending over his bench, stretching his arms out +as he sews, and they point him out with pride. Not even John Barclay +with all his millions, or Bob Hendricks, who once refused a place in +the President's cabinet, are more esteemed in Sycamore Ridge than the +little harness maker who set the world to singing. + +And curiously enough, John Barclay was with Watts McHurdie when he +wrote the song. They brought him an accordion one day while he was +getting well, and the two sat together. Watts droned along and shut +his eyes and mumbled some words, and then burst out with the chorus. +Over and over he sang it and exclaimed between breaths: "Say--ain't +that fine? I just made it up." He was exalted with his performance, +and some women came loitering down the corridor where the wounded man +and the boy were lying. The visitors gazed compassionately at +them--little Watts not much larger than the boy. A woman asked, "And +where were you wounded, son?" looking at Watts with his accordion. His +face flushed up at the thought of his shame, and he could not keep +back the tears that always betrayed him when he was deeply moved. +"Ten--ten miles from Springfield, madam, ten miles from Springfield." +And to hide his embarrassment he began sawing at his accordion, +chanting his famous song. But being only a little boy, John Barclay +tittered. + +A few days after the battle Captain Ward wrote to Miss Lucy telling +her that some soldiers slightly wounded would go home on a furlough to +Lawrence, and that they would take John with them and put him on the +stage at Lawrence for Sycamore Ridge. Then Ward's letter continued: +"It is all so horrible--this curse of war; sometimes I think it is +worse than the curse of slavery. There is no 'pomp and circumstance of +glorious war.' Men died screaming in agony, or dumb with fear. They +were covered with dirt, and when they were dead they merged into the +landscape like inanimate things. What vital difference is there +between a living man and a dead man, that one stands out in a scene +big and obtrusive, and the other begins to fade into the earth as soon +as death touches the body? The horror of death is upon me, and I +cannot shake it off. It is a fearful thing to see a human soul pass +'in any shape, in any mood.' And I have seen so many deaths--we lost +one man out of every three--that I am all unnerved. I saw General +Lyon die--the only abolitionist in the regular army, they say. He +died like a soldier--but not as the soldiers die in pictures. He sank +off his horse so limp, and so like an animal with its death wound, and +gasped so weakly, 'I'm killed--take care of my body,' that when we +covered his face and bore him away, we could not realize we were +carrying a man's body. And now, my dear, if I should go as these men +go, I have neither kith nor kin to mourn me--only you, and you must +not mourn, for I shall be near you always and always, without sign or +token, and when you feel my presence near, know that it is real, and +not a seeming. For the great force of life that moves events in this +world has but one symbol, but one vital manifestation, and that is +love, and when a soul is touched with that, it is immortal." + +But Martin Culpepper, with his dancing plumes, saw things in another +light. Perhaps we always see things in another light when forty years +have passed over them. But in his chapter "The Shrill Trump," in the +Biography, he writes: "'O you mortal engines, whose rude throats the +immortal Jove's dread clamours counterfeit,' O for the 'spirit-stirring +drum, and the ear-splitting fife' 'in these piping times of peace.' +Small wonder it was that with the clang and clank of sabre and artillery +in his ears, with the huzzas of comrades and the sparkle of the wine of +war in his eyes, our hero wrote the never dying words that made him +famous. How the day comes back with all its pageantry, the caparisoned +horses, the handsome men stepping to the music of inspiring melody, the +clarion commands of the officers, and the steady rumble of a thousand +feet upon the battle ground, going careless whether to death or +immortality in deathless fame." + +A curious thing is that deathless fame which Martin speaks of--a +passing curious thing; for when word came of Henry Schnitzler's death, +Mary Murphy, of the Thayer House, put off Gabriel Carnine's ring, and +wept many tears in the stage driver's coffee and wore black in her hat +for a year, and when Gabriel came home, she married him and all went +as merrily as a wedding-bell. What covert tenderness or dream of gauzy +romance was in her memory, the town could never know; but the +Carnines' first boy was named Henry, and for many years after the war, +she was known among the men, who do not understand a woman's heart, as +the "War widow by brevet." Yet that was Henry's "deathless fame" in +Sycamore Ridge, for the town has long since forgotten him, and even +his name means nothing to our children, who see it on the bronze +statue set up by the rich John Barclay to commemorate our soldier +dead. + +But John was our first war hero. And when he brought his battle scars +home that September night in '61, for hours before the stage drove +across Sycamore Creek the boy was filled with a nameless dread that he +might be spanked. + +They carried him on a cot to his mother's house, and put him in the +great carved four-poster bed, and in the morning Miss Lucy came and +hovered over him, and they talked of Captain Ward to her heart's +content, and the boy told Miss Lucy the gossip of the hospital,--that +Captain Ward was to be made a major,--and she kissed him and petted +him until he was glad none of the boys was around to see the sickening +spectacle. And then Miss Lucy and Mrs. Barclay told the child of their +plans,--that Miss Lucy was going to war as a nurse, and that Mrs. +Barclay was to teach the Sycamore Ridge school during the winter. And +in a few weeks John was out of the hero business, working in +Culpepper's store after school, and getting used to a limp that stayed +with him all his life. + +The next spring he traded a carbine that he brought home from the army +for an Indian pony, and then he began business for himself. He organized +the cows of the town into a town herd and took them every morning to +pasture on the prairie. All day he rode in the open air, and the town +boys came out to play with him, and they explored the cave by his +mother's house, and with their sling-shots killed quails and prairie +chickens and cooked them, and they played war through the long summer +days. But John did not grow as the other boys grew; he remained +undersized, and his limp put him at a disadvantage; so he had few +fights, but he learned cunning, and got his way by strategy rather than +by force--but he always had his way. He was strong; the memory of what +he had seen and what he had been that one awful day in the battle made +lines on his face; sometimes at night he would wake screaming, when he +dreamed he was running away from the surgeon with the bloody knife in +his teeth and that the man was going to throw an arm at him. And when he +wished to bring Ellen Culpepper to time he would begin in a low +terrorful voice, "And I saw--the man--take--a--g-r-e-a-t l-o-n-g knife +d-r-i-p-p-i-n-g with r-e-d-b-l-o-o-d out of his t-e-e-t-h and go slish, +k-slish," but he never got farther than this, for the girl would begin +shaking, and if they were alone, would run to him and grab him and put +her hand to his mouth to make him stop. + +And so his twelfth year passed under the open sky in the sunshine in +summer and in winter working after school in town where men were +wanting, and where a boy could always find work. He grew brown and +lean, and as his voice grew squeaky and he sang alto in the school, he +became more and more crafty and masterful. The fact that his mother +was the teacher, did not give him more rights in school than other +boys, for she was a sensible woman, but it gave him a prestige on the +playground that he was not slow to take. He was a born trader; and he +kept what he got and got more. His weakness was music. He kept two +cows in his herd in the summer time in return for the use of the +melodeon at the Thayer House, and moved it to his own home and put it +in the crowded little room, and practised on it at night when the +other boys were loafing at the town pump. For a consideration in +marbles he taught Buck Culpepper the chords in "G" on the guitar, and +for further consideration taught him the chords in "D" and "C," and +with the aid of Jimmy Fernald, aged nine, and Molly Culpepper, aged +eleven, one with a triangle and the other with a pumpkin reed pipe, +John organized his Band, which he led with his mouth-organ, and +exhibited in Culpepper's barn, appropriating to himself as the +director the pins charged at the door. Forty years afterward, when +Molly called his attention to his failure to divide with the children, +John Barclay smiled as he lifted his lame foot to a fat leather chair +in front of him and said, "That was what we call the promoter's +profit." And then the talk ran to Ellen, and John opened his great +desk and from a box without a mark on it he brought out a tintype +picture of Ellen at fourteen, a pink-cheeked child in short sleeves, +with the fringe of her pantalets showing above her red striped +stockings and beneath her bulging skirts, and with a stringy, stiff +feather rising from the front of her narrow-rimmed hat. + +During the time when he was going to school by day and working +evenings and caring for the town herd through the summer, the war was +dragging wearily on. Sometimes a soldier came home on a furlough and +there was news of the Sycamore Ridge men, but oftener it was a season +of waiting and working. The women and children cared for the farms and +the stores as best they could and lived, heaven only knows how, and +opened every newspaper with horror and dread, and glanced down the +long list of names of the dead, the missing and the wounded, fearful +of what they might see. Mrs. Barclay heard from Miss Lucy and through +her kept track of Philemon Ward, who was transferred to another +regiment after he was made major. And when he was made a colonel at +Shiloh, there were tear blots on Miss Lucy's letter that told of it, +and after Appomattox he was brevetted a general. As for Captain +Culpepper, he came home a colonel, and Jake Dolan came home a first +lieutenant. But Watts McHurdie came home with a letter from Lincoln +about his song, and he was the greatest man of all of them. + +It is odd that Sycamore Ridge grew during the war. Where the people +came from, no one could say--yet they came, and young Barclay +remembered even during the war of playing in the foundations and +running over the rafters of new houses. But when the war closed, the +great caravan that had lagged while the war was raging, began to trail +itself steadily in front of Mrs. Barclay's door, through the streets +of Sycamore Ridge and out over the western hills. Soldiers with their +families passed, going to the free homesteads, and the line of movers' +wagons began with daybreak and rumbled by far into the night. But +hundreds of wagons stopped in Sycamore Ridge, and the stage came +crowded every night. Brick buildings, the town's mortal pride, began +showing their fronts on Main Street, and other streets in the town +began to assert themselves. Mrs. Barclay's school grew from a score of +children in 1864 to three rooms full in '65, and in '66 the whole town +turned out to welcome General and Mrs. Ward, she that was Miss Lucy +Barnes, and there was a reunion of "C" Company that night, and a +camp-fire in Culpepper Hall, and the next day Lige Bemis was painting +a sign which read "Philemon R. Ward, Attorney-at-Law, Pension Matters +Promptly Attended To." And the first little Ward was born at the +Thayer House and named Eli Thayer Ward. + +The spring that found John Barclay sixteen years old found him a +browned, gray-eyed, lumpy sort of a boy, big at the wrong places, and +stunted at the wrong places, with a curious, uneven sort of an +education. He knew all about Walden Pond; and he knew his +Emerson--and was mad with passion to see the man; he had travelled +over the world with Scott; had crossed the bridge with Caesar in his +father's books; had roamed the prairie and the woods with Cooper's +Indians; had gone into the hearts of men with Thackeray and Dickens, +holding his mother's hand and listening to her voice; but he knew +algebra only as a name, and rhetoric was a dictionary word with him. +Of earthly possessions he had two horses, a bill of sale for his +melodeon, a saddle, a wagon, a set of harness; four mouth-organs, one +each in "A," "D," "E," and "C," all carefully rolled in Canton flannel +on a shelf above his bed; one concertina,--a sort of German +accordion,--five pigs, a cow, and a bull calf. Moreover, there were +_two_ rooms in the Barclay home; and the great rock was gone from the +door of the cave, and a wooden door was in its place and the Barclays +were using it for a spring-house. The boy had a milk route and sold +butter to the hotel. But the chiefest treasure of the household was +John's new music book. And while he played on his melodeon, Ellen +Culpepper's eyes smiled from the pages and her voice moved in the +melodies, and his heart began to feel the first vague vibration with +the great harmony of life. And so the pimples on his chin reddened, +and the squeak in his voice began to squawk, and his big milky eyes +began to see visions wherein a man was walking through this vain +world. As for Ellen Culpepper, her shoe tops were tiptoeing to her +skirts, and her eyes were full of dreams of the warrior bold, "with +spurs of gold," who "sang merrily his lay." And rising from these +dreams, she always stepped on her feet. But that was a long time ago, +and men and women have been born and loved, and married and brought +children into the world since then. For it was a long time ago. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +The changes of time are hard to realize. One knows, of course, that +the old man once was young. One understands that the tree once was a +sapling, and conversely we know that the child will be a man and the +gaunt sapling stuck in the earth in time will become a great spreading +tree. But the miracle of growth passes not merely our understanding, +but our imagination. + +So though men tell us, and grow black in the face with the vehemence +of telling, that the Sycamore Ridge of the sixties--a gray smudge of +unpainted wooden houses bordering the Santa Fe trail, with the street +merging into the sunflowers a block either way from the pump,--is the +town that now lies hidden in the elm forest, with its thirty miles of +paving and its scores of acres of wide velvet lawns, with its parks +wherein fountains play, guarded by cannon discarded by the pride of +modern war, with the court-house on the brink of the hill that once +was far west of the town and with twenty-two thousand people whizzing +around in trolleys, rattling about in buggies or scooting down the +shady avenues in motor-cars--whatever the records may show, the real +truth we know; the towns are not the same; the miracle of growth +cannot fool us. And yet here is the miracle in the making. Always in +John Barclay's eyes when he closed them to think of the first years +that followed the war between the states, rose visions of yellow pine +and red bricks and the litter and debris of building; always in his +ears as he remembered those days were the confused noises of wagons +whining and groaning under their heavy loads, of gnawing saws and +rattling hammers, of the clink of trowels on stones, of the swish of +mortar in boxes, and of the murmur of the tide of hurrying feet over +board sidewalks, ebbing and flowing night and morning. In those days +new boys came to town so rapidly that sometimes John met a boy in +swimming whom he did not know, and, even in 1866, when Ellen and Molly +Culpepper were giving a birthday party for Ellen, she declared that +she "simply couldn't have all the new people there." + +And so in the sixties the boy and the town went through their raw, +gawky, ugly adolescence together. As streets formed in the town, ideas +took shape in the boy's mind. As Lincoln Avenue was marked out on the +hill, where afterward the quality of the town came to live, so in the +boy's heart books that told him of the world outlined vague visions. +Boy fashion he wrote to Bob Hendricks once or twice a month or a +season, as the spirit moved him, and measured everything with the eyes +of his absent friend. For he came to idealize Bob, who was out in the +wonderful world, and their letters in those days were curious +compositions--full of adventures by field and wood, and awkward +references to proper books to read, and cures for cramps and bashfully +expressed aspirations of the soul. Bob's father had become a general, +and when the war closed, he was sent west to fight the Indians, and he +took Lieutenant Jacob Dolan with him, and Bob sent to John news of the +Indian fighting that glorified Bob further. + +And when a letter came to the Ridge from Dolan announcing that he and +the Hendricks family were coming back to the Ridge to live,--the +general to look after his neglected property, and Dolan to start a +livery-stable,--John heard the news with a throb of great joy. When a +letter from Bob confirmed the news, John began to count the days. For +the love of boys is the most unselfish thing in a selfish world. They +met awkwardly and sheepishly at the stage, and greeted each other with +grunts, and became inseparable. Bob came back tall, lanky, grinny, and +rather dumb, and he found John undersized, wiry, masterful, and rather +mooney, but strong and purposeful, for a boy. But each accepted the +other as perfect in every detail. + +Nothing Bob did changed John's attitude, and nothing John did made Bob +waver in his faith in John. Did the boys come to John with a sickening +story that Bob's sister made him bring a towel to the swimming hole, +John glared at them a moment and then waved them aside with, "Well, +you big brutes,--didn't you know what it was for?" When they reported +to John that Bob's father was making him tip his hat to the girls, +they got, instead of the outbreak of scorn they expected, "Well--did +the girls tip back?" And when Bob's sister said that the Barclay +boy--barefooted, curly-headed, dusty, and sunburned--looked like +something the old cat had dragged into the house, the boy-was impudent +to his sister and took a whipping from his father. + +That fall the children of Sycamore Ridge assembled for the first time +in their new seven-room stone schoolhouse, and the two boys were in +the high school. The board hired General Philemon Ward to teach the +twenty high school pupils, and it was then he first began to wear the +white neckties which he never afterwards abandoned. Ward's first clash +with John Barclay occurred when Ward organized a military company. +John's limp kept him out of it, so he broke up the company and +organized a literary society, of which he was president and Ellen +Culpepper secretary, and a constitution was adopted exempting the +president and secretary from work in the society. It was natural +enough that Bob Hendricks should be made treasurer, and that these +three officers should be the programme committee, and then a long line +of vice-presidents and assistant secretaries and treasurers and +monitors was elected by the society. + +So John became the social leader of the group of boys and girls who +were just coming out of kissing games into dances at one another's +homes in the town. John decided who should be in the "crowd" and who +might be invited only when a mixed crowd was expected. Fathers +desiring trade, and mothers faithful to church ties, protested; but +John Barclay had his way. It was his crowd. They called themselves the +"Spring Chickens," and as John had money saved to spend as he pleased, +he dictated many things; but he did not spend his money, he lent it, +and his barn was stored with, skates and sleds and broken guns and +scrap-iron held as security, while his pockets bulged with knives +taken as interest. + +As the winter waned and the Spring Chickens waxed fat in social +honours, Bob Hendricks glanced up from his algebra one day, and +discovered that little Molly Culpepper had two red lips and two +pig-tail braids of hair that reached below her waist. Then and there +he shot her deftly with a paper wad, chewed and fired through a cane +pipe-stem, and waited till she wiped it off her cheek with her apron +and made a face at him, before he plunged into the mysteries of _x_2 + +2_xy_ + _y_2. And thus another old story began, as new and as fresh as +when Adam and Eve walked together in the garden. + +John Barclay was so busy during his last year in the Sycamore Ridge +school that he often fancied afterwards that the houses on Lincoln +Avenue in Culpepper addition must have come with the grass in the +spring, for he has no memory of their building. Neither does he +remember when General Madison Hendricks built the brick building on +the corner of Main Street and Fifth Avenue, in which he opened the +Exchange National Bank of Sycamore Ridge. Yet John remembered that his +team and wagon were going all winter, hauling stone for the foundation +of the Hendricks home on the hill--a great brick structure, with +square towers and square "ells" rambling off on the prairie, and +square turrets with ornate cornice pikes pricking the sky. For years +the two big houses standing side by side--the Hendricks house and the +Culpepper house, with its tall white pillars reaching to the roof, its +double door and its two white wings spreading over the wide green +lawn--were the show places of Sycamore Ridge, and the town was always +divided in its admiration for them. John's heart was sadly torn +between them. Yet he was secretly glad to learn from his mother that +his Uncle Union's house in Haverhill had tall columns, green blinds on +the white woodwork, and a wide hall running down the centre. For it +made him feel more at home at the Culpeppers'. But when the Hendricks' +piano came, after they moved into the big house, the boy's heart was +opened afresh; and he spent hours with Bob Hendricks at the piano, +when he knew he would be welcome at the Culpeppers'. He leased his +town herd in the summer to Jimmie Fernald--giving him the right to +take the cows to the commons around town upon the payment of five +dollars a month to John for keeping out of the business, and passing +Jimmie good-will. In the meantime, by day, John worked his team, and +hired two others and took contracts for digging cellars. At nights he +went to the country with his concertina and played for dances, making +two dollars a night, and General Hendricks for years pointed with +pride to the fact that when the Exchange National Bank of Sycamore +Ridge opened for business the first morning, standing at the head of +the line of depositors was John Barclay, with his concertina under his +arm, just as he had returned from a country dance at daylight, waiting +to be first in line, with $178.53 in his pocket to deposit. That +deposit slip, framed, still hangs over the desk in the office of the +president of the bank, and when John Barclay became famous, it was +always a part of the "Art Loan Exhibit," held by the women in Barclay +Memorial Hall. + +That summer of '67 John capitulated to life, held his hands up for the +shackles and put on shoes in summer for the first time. Also, he only +went swimming twice--both times at night, and he bought his first box +of paper collars and his mother tried to make his neckties like those +in Dorman's store; but some way she did not get the hang of it, and +John bought a Sunday necktie of great pride, and he and his mother +agreed that it was off the tail of Joseph's coat of many colours. But +he wore it only on state occasions. At work, he made an odd figure +limping over the dirt heaps and into the excavations bossing men old +enough to be his father. He wore a serious face in those days,--for a +boy,--and his mouth was almost hard, but something burned in his eyes +that was more than ambition, though that lighted his face like a +flame, and he was always whistling or singing. At night he and Bob +Hendricks wandered away together, and sometimes they walked out under +the stars and talked as boys will talk of their little world and the +big world about them, or sometimes they sat reading at one or the +other's home, and one would walk home with the other, and the other +walk a piece of the way back. They read poetry and mooned; "Lalla +Rookh" appealed to John because of its music and melody, and both boys +devoured Byron, and gobbled over the "Corsair" and the "Giaour" and +"Childe Harold" with the book above the table, and came back from the +barn on Sundays licking their chops after surreptitiously nibbling +"Don Juan." But they had Captain Mayne Reid and Kingsley as an +antidote, and they soon got enough of Byron. + +The two boys persuaded each other to go away to school, and John chose +the state university because it was cheap and because he heard he +could get work in Lawrence to carry him through. He did not recollect +that his mother had any influence in the matter; but in those days she +always seemed to be sitting by the lamp in their little home, sewing, +with his shirts and underwear strewn about her. She had a permanent +place in the town schools, and the Barclay home had grown to a kitchen +and two bedrooms as well as the big room with its fireplace. His +mother's hair was growing gray at the temples, but her clear, firm, +unwrinkled skin and strong broad jaw kept youth in her countenance, +and as Martin Culpepper wrote in the Biography, where he names the +pioneers of Sycamore Ridge whose lives influenced Watts McHurdie's, +"the three graces, Faith, Hope, and Charity, were mirrored in her +smile." + +One night when the boy came in tired after his night's ramble, he left +his mother, as he often did those last nights before he went away to +school, bending over her work, humming a low happy-noted song, even +though the hour was late. He lay in his bed beside the open window +looking out into the night, dreaming with open eyes about life. +Perhaps he actually dreamed a moment, for he did not hear her come +into the room; but he felt her bend over him, and a tear dropped on +his face from hers. He turned toward her, and she put her arms about +his neck. Then she sobbed: "Oh, good-by, my little boy--good-by. I am +coming here to bid you good-by, every night now." He kissed her hand, +and she was silent a moment, and then she spoke: "I know this is the +last of it all, John. You will never come back to me again--not you, +but a man. And you will seem strange, and I will seem strange." She +paused a moment to let the cramp in her throat leave, then she went +on: "I was going to say so many things--when this time came, but +they're all gone. But oh, my boy, my little tender-hearted boy--be a +good man--just be a good man, John." And then she sobbed for an +unrestrained minute: "O God, when you take my boy away, keep him +clean, and brave, and kind, and--O God, make him--make him a good +man." And with a pat and a kiss she rose and said as she left him, +"Now good night, Johnnie, go to sleep." + + * * * * * + +In the Sycamore Ridge _Banner_ for September 12, 1867, appeared some +verses by Watts McHurdie, beginning:-- + + "Hail and farewell to thee, friend of my youth, + Pilgrim who seekest the Fountain of Truth, + Hail and farewell to thy innocent pranks, + No more can I send thee for left-handed cranks. + Farewell, and a tear laves the ink on my pen, + For ne'er shall I 'noint thee with strap-oil again." + +It was a noble effort, and in his notes to the McHurdie poems +following the Biography published over thirty years after those lines +were written, Colonel Culpepper writes: "This touching, though +somewhat humorous, poem was written on the occasion of the departure +for college of one who since has become listed with the world's great +captains of finance--none other than Honourable John Barclay, whose +fame is too substantial to need encomium in these humble pages. +Suffice it to say that between these two men, our hero, the poet, and +the great man of affairs, there has always remained the closest +friendship, and each carries in his bosom, wrapped in the myrrh of +fond memory, the deathless blossom of friendship, that sweetest flower +in the conservatory of the soul." + +The day before John left for Lawrence he met Lieutenant Jacob Dolan. + +"So ye're going to college--ay, Johnnie?" + +"Yes, Mr. Dolan," replied the boy. + +"Well, they're all givin' you somethin', Johnnie: Watts here has given +a bit of a posey in verse; and my friend, General Hendricks, I'm told, +has given you a hundred-dollar note; and General Philemon Ward has +given you Wendell Phillips' orations; and your sweetheart--God bless +her, whoever she is--will be givin' ye the makins' of a broken heart; +and your mother'll be givin' you her blessin'--and the saints' +prayers go with 'em; and me, havin' known your father before you and +the mother that bore you, and seein' her rub the roses off her cheeks +tryin' to keep your ornery little soul in your worthless little body, +I'll give you this sentiment to put in your pipe and smoke: John +Barclay, man--if they ever be's a law agin damn fools, the first raid +the officers should make is on the colleges. And now may ye be struck +blind before ye get your education and dumb if it makes a fool of ye." +And so slapping the boy on the back, Jake Dolan went down the street +winding in and out among the brick piles and lumber and mortar boxes, +whistling "Tread on the Tail of me Coat." + +For life was all so fine and gay with Lieutenant Dolan in those days. +And he whistled and sang, and thought what he pleased, and said what +he pleased, and did what he pleased, and if the world didn't like it, +the world could picket its horses and get out of Jacob Dolan's livery +barn. For Mr. Dolan was thinking that from the livery-stable to the +office of sheriff is but a step in this land of the free and home of +the brave; so he carried his head back and his chest out and invited +insult in the fond hope of provoking assault. He was the flower of the +times,--effulgent, rather gaudy, and mostly red! + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +Good times came to Sycamore Ridge in the autumn. The dam across the +creek was furnishing power for a flour-mill and a furniture factory. +The endless worm of wagons that was wriggling through the town +carrying movers to the West, was sloughing many of its scales in +Sycamore Ridge. Martin Culpepper had been East with circulars +describing the town and adjacent country. He had brought back three +stage loads of settlers, and was selling lots in Culpepper's addition +faster than they could be surveyed. The Frye blacksmith shop had +become a wagon shop, and then a hardware store was added; the flag +fluttered from the high flagstaff over the Exchange National Bank +building, and all day long farmers were going from the mill to the +bank. General Philemon Ward gave up school-teaching and went back to +his law office; but he was apt to take sides with President Andrew +Johnson too vigorously for his own good, and clients often avoided his +office in fear of an argument. Still he was cheerful, and being only +in his early thirties, looked at the green hills afar from his pasture +and was happy. The Thayer House was filled with guests, and the +Fernalds had money in the bank; Mary Murphy and Gabriel Carnine were +living happily ever after, and Nellie Logan was clerking in Dorman's +Dry Goods store and making Watts McHurdie understand that she had her +choice between a preacher and a drummer. Other girls in the dining +room of the Thayer House were rattling the dinner dishes and singing +"Sweet Belle Mahone" and "Do you love me, Molly Darling?" to ensnare +the travelling public that might be tilted back against the veranda in +a mood for romance. And as John and Bob that hot September afternoon +made the round of the stores and offices bidding the town good-by, it +seemed to them that perhaps they were seizing the shadow and letting +the substance fade. For it was such a good-natured busy little place +that their hearts were heavy at leaving it. + +But that evening John in his gorgeous necktie, his clean paper collar, +his new stiff hat, his first store clothes, wearing proudly his +father's silver watch and chain, set out to say good-by to Ellen +Culpepper, and his mother, standing in the doorway of their home, +sighed at his limp and laughed at his strut--the first laugh she had +enjoyed in a dozen days. + +John and Bob together went up the stone walk leading across a yard, +still littered with the debris of building, to the unboxed steps that +climbed to the veranda of the Culpepper house. There they met Colonel +Culpepper in his shirt-sleeves, walking up and down the veranda +admiring the tall white pillars. When he had greeted the boys, he put +his thumbs in his vest holes and continued his parade in some pomp. +The boys were used to this attitude of the colonel's toward themselves +and the pillars. It always followed a hearty meal. So they sat +respectfully while he marched before them, pointing occasionally, when +he took his cigar from his mouth and a hand from his vest, to some +feature of the landscape in the sunset light that needed emphatic +attention. + +"Yes, sir, young gentlemen," expanded the colonel, "you are doing the +right and proper thing--the right and proper thing. Of all the +avocations of youth, I conceive the pursuit of the sombre goddess of +learning to be the most profitable--entirely the most profitable. I +myself, though a young man,--being still on the right side of +forty,--have reaped the richest harvest from my labours in the +classic shades. Twenty years ago, young gentlemen, I, like you, left +my ancestral estates to sip at the Pierian spring. In point of fact, I +attended the institution founded by Thomas Jefferson, the father of +the American democracy--yes, sir." He put his cigar back in his mouth +and added, "Yes, sir, you are certainly taking a wise and, I may say, +highly necessary step--" + +Mrs. Culpepper, small, sprightly, blue-eyed, and calm, entered the +veranda, and cut the colonel off with: "Good evening, boys. So you are +going away. Well--we'll miss you. The girls will be right out." + +But the colonel would not be quenched; his fires were burning deeply. +"As I was saying, Mrs. Culpepper," he went on, "the classic training +obtained from a liberal education such as it was my fortune--" + +Mrs. Culpepper smiled blandly as she put in, "Now, pa, these boys +don't care for that." + +"But, my dear, let me finish. As I started to say: the flowers of +poetry, Keats and his large white plumes, the contemplation of +nature's secrets, the reflective study of--" + +"Yes,--here's your coat now, pa," said the wife, returning from a +dive into the hall. "John, how's your ma going to get on without you? +And, pa, be sure don't forget the eggs for breakfast. I declare since +we've moved up here so far from the stores, we nearly starve." + +The colonel waited a second while a glare melted into a smile, and +then backed meekly into the arms stretched high to hold his alpaca +coat. As he turned toward the group, he was beaming. "If it were not," +exclaimed the colonel, addressing the young men with a quizzical +smile, "that there is a lady present--a very important lady in point +of fact,--I might be tempted to say, 'I will certainly be damned!'" +And with that the colonel lifted Mrs. Culpepper off her feet and +kissed her, then lumbered down the steps and strode away. He paused at +the gate to gaze at the valley and turned to look back at the great +unfinished house, then swung into the street and soon his hat +disappeared under the hill. + +As he went Mrs. Culpepper said, "Let them say what they will about +Mart Culpepper, I always tell the girls if they get as good a man as +their pa, they will be doing mighty well." + +Then the girls appeared bulging in hoops, and ruffles, with elbow +sleeves, with a hint of their shoulders showing and with pink ribbons +in their hair. Clearly it was a state occasion. The mother beamed at +them a moment, and walked around Molly, saying, "I told you that was +all right," and tied Ellen's hair ribbon over, while the young people +were chattering, and before the boys knew it, she had faded into the +dusk of the hall, and the clattering of dishes came to them from the +rear of the house. John fancied he felt the heavy step of Buchanan +Culpepper, and then he heard: "Don't you talk to me, Buck Culpepper, +about woman's work. You'll do what I tell you, and if I say wipe +dishes--" the voice was drowned by the rattle of a passing wagon. And +soon the young people on the front porch were so busy with their +affairs that the house behind them and its affairs dropped to another +world. They say, who seem to know, that when any group of boys and +girls meet under twenty-five serious years, the recording angel puts +down his pen with, a sigh and takes a needed nap. But when the group +pairs off, then Mr. Recorder pricks up his ears and works with both +hands, one busy taking what the youngsters say, and the other busy +with what they would like to say. And shame be it upon the courage of +youth that what they would like to say fills the larger book. And +marvel of marvels, often the book that holds what the boys would say +is merely a copy of what the girls would like to hear, and so much of +the work is saved to the angel. + +It was nine o'clock when the limping boy and the slender girl followed +the tall youth and the plump little girl down the walk from the +Culpepper home through the gate and into the main road. And the couple +that walked behind took the opposite direction from that which they +took who walked ahead. Yet when John and Ellen reached the river and +were seated on the mill-dam, where the roar of the falling water +drowned their voices, Ellen Culpepper spoke first: "That looks like +them over on the bridge. I can see Molly, and Bob's hat about three +feet above her." + +"I guess so," returned the boy. He was reaching behind him for clods +and pebbles to toss into the white foaming flood below them. The girl +reached back and got one, then another, then their hands met, and she +pulled hers away and said, "Get me some stones." He gave her a +handful, and she threw the pebbles away slowly and awkwardly, one at a +time. There was a long gap in their talk while they threw the pebbles. +The girl closed it with, "Ma made old Buck wipe the dishes." Then she +giggled, "Poor Buckie." + +John managed to say, "Yes, I heard him." Then he added, "What does +your mother think of Bob?" + +"Oh, she likes him fine. But she's glad you're all going away." + +The boy asked why and the girl returned, "Watch me hit that log." She +threw, and missed the water. + +"Why?" persisted the boy. + +The girl was digging in a crevice for a stone and said, "Can you get +that out?" + +John worked at it a moment and handed it to her with, "Why?" + +She threw it, standing up to give her arm strength. She sat down and +folded her hands and waited for another "why." When it came she said, +"Oh, you know why." When he protested she answered, "Ma thinks Molly's +too young." + +"Too young for what?" demanded the boy, who knew. + +"Too young to be going with boys." + +There was a long pause, then he managed to say it, "She's no younger +than you were--nor half as old." + +"When?" returned the girl, giving him the broadside of her eyes for a +second, and letting them droop. The eyes bewitched the boy, and he +could not speak. At length the girl shivered, "It's getting cold--I +must go home." + +The boy found voice. "Aw no, Bob and Molly are still up there." + +She started to rise, he caught her hand, but she pulled it away and +resigned herself for a moment. Then she looked at him a long second +and said, "Do you remember years ago at the Frye boy's party--when we +were little tots, and I chose you?" + +The boy nodded his head and turned full toward her with serious eyes. +He devoured her feature by feature with his gaze in the starlight. The +moon was just rising at the end of the mill-dam behind them, and its +light fell on her profile. He cried out, "Yes, Ellen, do you--do +you?" + +She nodded her head and spoke quickly, "That was the time you got your +hands stuck in the taffy and had to be soaked out." + +They laughed. John tried to get the moment back. "Do you remember the +rubber ring I gave you?" + +She grew bold and turned to him with her heart in her face: +"Yes--yes, John, and the coffee-bean locket. I've got them both in a +little box at home." Then, scampering back to her reserve, she added, +"You know ma says I'm a regular rat to store things away." She felt +that the sudden reserve chilled him, for in a minute or two she said, +looking at the bridge: "They're going now. We mustn't stay but a +minute." She put her hand on the rock between them, and said, "You +remember that night when you went away before?" Before he answered she +went on: "I was counting up this afternoon, and it's six years ago. We +were just children then." + +Again the boy found his voice: "Ellen Culpepper, we've been going +together seven years. Don't you think that's long enough?" + +"We were just children then," she replied. + +The boy leaned awkwardly toward her and their hands met on the rock, +and he withdrew his as he asked, "Do you--do you?" + +She bent toward him, and looked at him steadily as she nodded her head +again and again. She rose to go, saying, "We mustn't stay here any +longer." + +He caught her hand to stop her, and said, "Ellen--Ellen, promise me +just one thing." She looked her question. He cried, "That you won't +forget--just that you won't forget." + +She took his hand and stood before him as he sat, hoping to stay her. +She answered: "Not as long as I live, John Barclay. Oh, not as long as +I live." Then she exclaimed: "Now--" and her voice changed, "we just +must go, John; Molly's gone, and it's getting late." She helped him +limp over the rocks and up the steep road, but when they reached the +level, she dropped his hand, and they walked home slowly, looking back +at the moon, so that they might not overtake the other couple. Once or +twice they stopped and sat on lumber piles in the street, talking of +nothing, and it was after ten o'clock when they came to the gate. The +girl looked anxiously up the walk toward the house. "They've come and +gone," she said. She moved as if to go away. + +"I wish you wouldn't go right in," he begged. + +"Oh--I ought to," she replied. They were silent. The roar of the +water over the dam came to them on the evening breeze. She put out her +hand. + +"Well," he sighed as he rested his lame foot, and started, +"well--good-by." + +She turned to go, and then swiftly stepped toward him, and kissed him, +and ran gasping and laughing up the walk. + +The boy gazed after her a moment, wondering if he should follow her, +but while he waited she was gone, and he heard her lock the door after +her. Then he limped down the road in a kind of swoon of joy. Sometimes +he tried to whistle--he tried a bar of Schubert's "Serenade," but +consciously stopped. Again and again under his breath as loud as he +dared, he called the name "Ellen" and stood gazing at the moon, and +then tried to hippety-hop, but his limp stopped that. Then he tried +whistling the "Miserere," but he pitched it too high, and it ran out, +so he sang as he turned across the commons toward home, and that +helped a little; and he opened the door of his home singing, "How can +I leave thee--how can I bear to part?" The light was burning in the +kitchen, and he went to his mother and kissed her. His face was aglow, +and she saw what had happened to him. She put him aside with, "Run on +to bed now, sonny; I've got a little work out here." And he left her. +In the sitting room only the moon gave light. He stood at the window a +moment, and then turned to his melodeon. His hands fell on the major +chord of "G," and without knowing what he was playing he began +"Largo." He played his soul into his music, and looking up, whispered +the name "Ellen" rapturously over and over, and then as the music +mounted to its climax the whole world's mystery, and his personal +thought of the meaning of life revelled through his brain, and he +played on, not stopping at the close but wandering into he knew not +what mazes of harmony. When his hands dropped, he was playing "The +Long and Weary Day," and his mother was standing behind him humming +it. When he rose from the bench, she ran her fingers through his hair +and spoke the words of the song, "'My lone watch keeping,' John, 'my +lone watch keeping.' But I think it has been worth while." + +Then she left him and he went to bed, with the moon in his room, and +the murmur of waters lulling him to sleep. But he looked out into the +sky a long time before his dream came, and then it slipped in gently +through the door of a nameless hope. For he wished to meet her in the +moon that night, but when they did meet, the white veil of the falling +waters of the dam blew across her face and he could not brush it away. +For one is bold in dreams. + +A little after sunrise the next morning John rode away from his +mother's door, on one of his horses, leading the other one. He was +going up the hill to get Bob Hendricks, and the two were to ride to +Lawrence. He had been promised work, carrying newspapers, and the +Yankee in him made him believe he could find work for the other horse. +As the boy turned into Main Street waving his mother good-by, he saw +the places where he and Ellen Culpepper had stopped the night before, +and they looked different some way, and he could not realize that he +was in the same street. + +As he climbed the hill, he passed General Ward, working in his flower +garden, and the man sprang over the fence and came into the road, and +put his hand on the horse's bridle, saying, "Stop a minute, John: I +just wanted to say something." He hesitated a moment before going on: +"You know back where I came from--back in New England--the name of +John Barclay stands for a good deal--more than you can realize, John. +Your father was one of the first martyrs of our cause. I guess your +mother never has told you, but I'm going to--your father gave up a +business career for this cause. His father was rich--very rich, and +your grandfather was set on your father going into business." John +looked up the hill toward the Hendricks home, and Ward saw it, and +mistook the glance for one of impatience. "Johnnie," said the man, his +fine thin, features glowing with earnestness, "Johnnie--I wish I +could get to your heart, boy. I want to make you hear what I have to +say with your soul and not with your ears, and I know youth is so +deaf. Your grandfather was angry when your father entered the ministry +and came out here. He thought it was folly. The old man offered to +give fifty thousand dollars to the Kansas-Nebraska cause, and that +would have sent a good many men out here. But your father said no. He +said money wouldn't win this cause. He said personal sacrifice was all +that would win it. He said men must give up themselves, not their +money, to make this cause win--and so he came; and there was a +terrible quarrel, and that is why your mother has stayed. She had +faith in God, too--faith that her life some way in His Providence +would prove worth something. Your father and mother, John, believed in +God--they believed in a God, not a Moloch; your father's faith has +been justified. The death he died was worth millions to the cause of +liberty. It stirred the whole North, as the miserable little fifty +thousand dollars that Abijah Barclay offered never could have done. +But your mother's sacrifice must find its justification in you. And +she, not your father, made the final decision to give up everything +for human freedom. She has endured poverty, Johnnie--" the man's +voice was growing tense, and his eyes were ablaze; "you know how she +worked, and if you fail her, if you do not live a consecrated life, +John, your mother's life has failed. I don't mean a pious life; God +knows I hate sanctimony. But I mean a life consecrated to some +practical service, to an ideal--to some actual service to your +fellows--not money service, but personal service. Do you understand?" +Ward leaned forward and looked into the boy's face. He took hold of +John's arm as he pleaded, "Johnnie--boy--Johnnie, do you +understand?" + +The boy answered, "Yes, General--I think I get your meaning." He +picked up his bridle, and Ward relaxed his hold on the boy's arm. The +man's hand dropped and he sighed, for he saw only a boy's face, and +heard a boy's politeness in the voice that went on, "Thank you, +General, give my love to Miss Lucy." And the youth rode on up the +hill. + +In a few minutes the boys were riding down the steep clay bank that +led to the new iron bridge across the ford of the Sycamore, and for +half an hour they rode chattering through the wood before they came +into the valley and soon were Climbing the bluff which they had seen +the night before from the Culpepper home. On the brow of the bluff Bob +said, "Hold on--" He turned his horse and looked back. The sun was on +the town, and across on the opposite hill stood the colonel's big +house with its proud pillars. No trees were about it in those days, +and it and the Hendricks house stood out clearly on the horizon. But +on the top of the Culpepper home were two little figures waving +handkerchiefs. The boys waved back, and John thought he could tell +Ellen from her sister, and the night and its joy came back to him, and +he was silent. + +They had ridden half an hour without speaking when Bob Hendricks said, +"Awful fine girls--aren't they?" + +"That's what I've always told you," returned John. + +After another quarter of a mile Bob tried it again. "The colonel's a +funny old rooster--isn't he?" + +"Well, I don't know. That day at the battle of Wilson's Creek when he +walked out in front of a thousand soldiers and got a Union flag and +brought it back to the line, he didn't look very funny. But he's windy +all right." + +Again, as they crossed a creek and the horses were drinking, Bob said: +"Father thinks General Ward's a crank. He says Ward will keep harping +on about those war bonds, and quarrelling because the soldiers got +their pay in paper money and the bondholders in gold, until people +will think every one in high places is a thief." + +"Oh, Ward's all right," answered John. "He's just talking; he likes an +argument, I guess. He's kind of built that way." + +It was a poor starved-to-death school that the boys found at Lawrence +in those days; with half a dozen instructors--most of whom were still +in their twenties; with books lent by the instructors, and with +appliances devised by necessity. But John was happy; he was making +money with his horses, doing chores for his board, and carrying papers +night and morning besides. The boy's industry was the marvel of the +town. His limp got him sympathy, and he capitalized the sympathy. +Indeed, he would have capitalized his soul, if it had been necessary. +For his Yankee blood was beginning to come out. Before he had been in +school a year he had swapped, traded, and saved until he had two +teams, and was working them with hired drivers on excavation +contracts. In his summer vacations he went to Topeka and worked his +two teams, and by some sharp practice got the title to a third. He was +rollicking, noisy, good-natured, but under the boyish veneer was a +hard indomitable nature. He was becoming a stickler for his rights in +every transaction. + +"John," said Bob, one day after John had cut a particularly lamentable +figure, gouging a driver in a settlement, "don't you know that your +rights are often others' wrongs?" + +John was silent a moment. He looked at the driver moving away, and +then the boy's face set hard and he said: "Well--what's the use of +blubbering over him? If I don't get it, some one else will. I'm no +charitable institution for John Walruff's brewery!" And he snapped the +rubber band on his wallet viciously, and turned to his books. + +But on the other hand he wrote every other day to his mother and every +other day to Ellen Culpepper with unwavering precision. He told his +mother the news, and he told Ellen Culpepper the news plus some +Emerson, something more of "Faust," with such dashes of Longfellow and +Ruskin as seemed to express his soul. He never wrote to Ellen of +money, and so strong was her influence upon him that when he had +written to her after his quarrel with the driver, he went out in the +night, hunted the man up, and paid him the disputed wages. Then he +mailed Ellen Culpepper's letter, and was a lover living in an ethereal +world as he walked home babbling her name in whispers to the stars. +Often when this mood was not upon him, and a letter was due to Ellen, +he went downstairs in the house where he lived and played the piano to +bring her near to him. That never failed to change his face as by a +miracle. "When John comes upstairs," wrote Bob Hendricks to Molly, "he +is as one in a dream, with the mists of the music in his eyes. I never +bother him then. He will not speak to me, nor do a thing in the world, +until that letter is written, sealed, and stamped. Then he gets up, +yawns and smiles sheepishly and perhaps hits me with a book or punches +me with his fist, and then we wrestle over the room and the bed like +bear cubs. After the wrestle he comes back to himself. I wonder why?" + +And Ellen Culpepper read those letters from John Barclay over and +over, and curiously enough she understood them; for there is a +telepathy between spirits that meet as these two children's souls had +met, and in that concord words drop out and only thoughts are +merchandized. Her spirit grew with his, and so "through all the world +she followed him." + +But there came a gray dawn of a May morning when John Barclay clutched +his bedfellow and whispered, "Bob, Bob--look, look." When the +awakened one saw nothing, John tried to scream, but could only gasp, +"Don't you see Ellen--there--there by the table?" But whatever it +was that startled him fluttered away on a beam of sunrise, and Bob +Hendricks rose with the frightened boy, and went to his work with him. + +Two days later a letter came telling him that Ellen Culpepper was +dead. + +Now death--the vast baffling mystery of death--is Fate's strongest +lever to pry men from their philosophy. And death came into this boy's +life before his creed was set and hard, and in those first days while +he walked far afield, he turned his face to the sky in his lonely +sorrow, and when he cried to Heaven there was a silence. + +So his heart curdled, and you kind gentlemen of the jury who are to +pass on the case of John Barclay in this story, remember that he was +only twenty years old, and that in all his life there was nothing to +symbolize the joy of sacrifice except this young girl. All his boyish +life she had nurtured the other self in his soul,--the self that +might have learned to give and be glad in the giving. And when she +went, he closed his Emerson and opened his Trigonometry, and put money +in his purse.[1] + +There came a time when Ellen Culpepper was to him as a dream. But she +lived in her mother's eyes, and through all the years that followed +the mother watched the little girl grow to maturity and into middle +life with the other girls of her age. And even when the little +headstone on the Hill slanted in sad neglect, Mrs. Culpepper's old +eyes still saw Ellen growing old with her playmates. And she never saw +John Barclay that she did not think of Ellen--and and what she would +have made of him. + +And what would she have made of him? Maybe a poet, maybe a dreamer of +dreams--surely not the hard, grinding, rich man that he became in +this world. + + +FOOTNOTE: + +[1] To the Publisher.--"In returning the Mss. of the life of John + Barclay, which you sent for my verification as to certain dates and + incidents, let me first set down, before discussing matters pertaining + to his later life, my belief that your author has found in the death + of Ellen Culpepper an incident, humble though it is, that explains + much in the character of Mr. Barclay. The incident probably produced a + mental shock like that of a psychological earthquake, literally + sealing up the spring of his life as it was flowing into consciousness + at that time, and the John Barclay of his boyhood and youth became + subterranean, to appear later in life after the weakening of his + virility under the strain of the crushing events of his fifties. Yet + the subterranean Barclay often appeared for a moment in his life, + glowed in some kind act and sank again. Ellen Culpepper explains it + all. How many of our lives are similarly divided, forced upward or + downward by events, Heaven only knows. We do not know our own souls. I + am sure John never knew of the transformation. Surely 'we are + fearfully and wonderfully made.'... The other dates and incidents are + as I have indicated.... Allow me to thank you for your kindness in + sending me the Mss., and permit me to subscribe myself, + + "Yours faithfully, + + "Philemon R. Ward." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +John Barclay returned to Sycamore Ridge in 1872 a full-fledged young +man. He was of a slight build and rather pale of face, for five years +indoors had rubbed the sunburn off. During the five years he had been +absent from Sycamore Ridge he had acquired a master's degree from the +state university, and a license to practise law. He was distinctly +dapper, in the black and white checked trousers, the flowered cravat, +and tight-fitting coat of the period; and the first Monday after he +and his mother went to the Congregational Church, whereat John let out +his baritone voice, he was invited to sing in the choir. Bob Hendricks +came home a year before John, and with Bob and Watts McHurdie singing +tenor at one end of the choir, and John and Philemon Ward holding down +the other end of the line, with Mrs. Ward, Nellie Logan, Molly +Culpepper, and Jane Mason of Minneola,--grown up out of short dresses +in his absence,--all in gay colours between the sombre clothes of the +men, the choir in the Congregational Church was worth going miles to +see--if not to hear. + +Now you know, of course,--or if you do not know, it is high time you +were learning,--that when Fate gives a man who can sing a head of +curly hair, the devil, who is after us all, quits worrying about that +young person. For the Old Boy knows that a voice and curly hair are +mortgages on a young man's soul that few young fellows ever pay off. +Now there was neither curly head nor music in all the Barclay tribe, +and when John sang "Through the trees the night winds murmur, murmur +low and sweet," his mother could shut her eyes and hear Uncle Leander, +the black sheep of three generations of Thatchers. So that the fact +that John had something over a thousand dollars to put in General +Hendricks' bank, and owned half a dozen town lots in the various +additions to the town, made the mother thankful for the Grandfather +Barclay's blood in him. But she saw a soul growing into the boy's face +that frightened her. What others admired as strength she feared, for +she knew it was ruthlessness. What others called shrewdness she, +remembering his Grandfather Barclay, knew might grow into blind, cruel +greed, and when she thought of his voice and his curly hair, and +recalled Uncle Leander, the curly-headed, singing ne'er-do-well of her +family, and then in the boy's hardening mouth and his canine jaw saw +Grandfather Barclay sneering at her, she was uncertain which blood she +feared most. So she managed it that John should go into partnership +with General Ward, and Bob Hendricks managed it that the firm should +have offices over the bank, and also that the firm was made attorneys +for the bank,--the highest mark of distinction that may come to a law +firm in a country town. The general realized it and was proud. But he +thought the young man took it too much as a matter of course. + +"John," said the general, one day, as they were dividing their first +five-hundred-dollar fee, "you're a lucky dog. Everything comes so +easily with you. Let me tell you something; I've figured this out: if +you don't give it back some way--give it back to the world, or +society, or your fellows,--or God, if you like to bunch your good +luck under one head,--you're surely going to suffer for it. There is +no come-easy-go-easy in this world. I've learned that much of the +scheme of things." + +"You mean that I've got to pay as I go, or Providence will keep books +on me and foreclose?" asked John, as he stood patting the roll of +bills in his trousers pocket. + +"That's the idea, son," smiled the elder man. + +The younger man put his hand to his chin and grinned. "I suppose," he +replied, "that's why so many men keep the title to their religious +proclivities in their wife's name." He went out gayly, and the elder +man heard the boyish limp almost tripping down the stairs. Ward walked +to the window, straightening his white tie, and stood looking into the +street at the young man shaking hands and bowing and raising his hat +as he went. Ward's hair was graying at the temples, and his thin +smooth face was that of a man who spends many hours considering many +things, and he sighed as he saw John turn a corner and disappear. + +"No, Lucy, that's not it exactly," said the general that afternoon, as +he brought the sprinkler full of water to the flower bed for the +eighth time, and picketed little Harriet Beecher Ward out of the +watermelon patch, and wheeled the baby's buggy to the four-o'clocks, +where Mrs. Ward was working. "It isn't that he is conceited--the boy +isn't that at all. He just seems to have too little faith in God and +too much in the ability of John Barclay. He thinks he can beat the +game--can take out more happiness for himself than he puts in for +others." + +The wife looked up and put back her sunbonnet as she said, "Yes, I +believe his mother thinks something of the kind." + +One of the things that surprised John when he came home from the +university was the prominence of Lige Bemis in the town. When John +left Sycamore Ridge to go to school, Bemis was a drunken sign-painter +married to a woman who a few years before had been the scandal of half +a dozen communities. And now though Mrs. Bemis was still queen only of +the miserable unpainted Bemis domicile in the sunflowers at the edge +of town, Lige Bemis politically was a potentate of some power. General +Hendricks consulted Bemis about politics. Often he was found in the +back room of the bank, and Colonel Culpepper, although he was an +unterrified Democrat, in his campaign speeches referred to Bemis as "a +diamond in the rough." John was sitting on a roll of leather one day +in Watts McHurdie's shop talking of old times when Watts recalled the +battle of Sycamore Ridge, and the time when Bemis came to town with +the Red Legs and frightened Mrs. Barclay. + +"Yes--and now look at him," exclaimed John, "dressed up like a +gambler, and referred to in the _Banner_ as 'Hon. E. W. Bemis'! How +did he do it?" + +McHurdie sewed two or three long stitches in silence. He leaned over +from his bench to throw his tobacco quid in the sawdust box under the +rusty stove, then the little man scraped his fuzzy jaw reflectively +with his blackened hand as if about to speak, but he thought better of +it and waxed his thread. He showed his yellow teeth in a smile, and +motioned John to come closer. Then he put his head forward, and +whispered confidentially:-- + +"What'd you ruther do or go a-fishing?" + +"But why?" persisted the young man. + +"Widder who?" returned Watts, grinning and putting his hand to his +ear. + +When John repeated his question the third time, McHurdie said:-- + +"I know a way you can get rich mighty quick, sonny." And when the boy +refused to "bite," Watts went on: "If any one asks you what Watts +McHurdie thinks about politics so long as he is in the harness +business, you just take the fellow upstairs, and pull down the +curtain, and lock the door, and tell him you don't know, and not to +tell a living soul." + +With Bob Hendricks, John had little better success in solving the +mystery of the rise of Bemis. "Father says he's effective, and he +would rather have him for him than against him," was the extent of +Bob's explanation. + +Ward's answer was more to the point. He said: "Lige Bemis is a living +example of the power of soft soap in politics. We know--every man in +this county knows--that Lige Bemis was a horse thief before the war, +and that he was a cattle thief and a camp-follower during the war; and +after the war we know what he was--he and the woman he took up with. +Yet here he has been a member of the legislature and is beginning to +be a figure in state politics,--at least the one to whom the governor +and all the fellows write when they want information about this +county. Why? I'll tell you: because he's committed every crime and +can't denounce one and goes about the country extenuating things and +oiling people up with his palaver. Now he says he is a lawyer--yes, +sir, actually claims to be a lawyer, and brought his diploma into +court two years ago, and they accepted it. But I know, and the court +knows, and the bar knows it was forged; it belonged to his dead +brother back in Hornellsville, New York. But Hendricks downstairs said +we needed Lige in the county-seat case, so he is a member of the bar, +taking one hundred per cent for collecting accounts for Eastern +people, and giving the country a black eye. A man told me he was on +over fifty notes for people at the bank; he signs with every one, and +Hendricks never bothers him. He managed to get into all the lodges, +right after the war when they were reorganized, and he sits up with +the sick, and is pall-bearer--regular professional pall-bearer, and I +don't doubt gets a commission for selling coffins from Livingston." +Ward rose from the table his full six feet and put his hands in his +pocket and stretched his legs as he added, "And when you think how +many Bemises in the first, second, or third degree there are in this +government, you wonder if the Democrats weren't right when they +declared the war was a failure." + +The general spoke as he did to John partly in anger and partly because +he thought the youth needed the lesson he was trying to implant. "You +know, Martin," explained the general, a few days later, to Colonel +Culpepper, "John has come home a Barclay--not a Barclay of his +father's stripe. He has taken back, as they say. It's old +Abijah--with the mouth and jaw of a wolf. I caught him palavering +with a juror the other day while we had a case trying." + +The colonel rested his hands on his knees a moment in meditation and +smiled as he replied: "Still, there's his mother, General. Don't ever +forget that the boy's mother is Mary Barclay; she has bred most of the +wolf out of him. And in the end her blood will tell." + +And now observe John Barclay laying the footing stones of his fortune. +He put every dollar he could get into town lots, paying for all he +bought and avoiding mortgages. Also he joined Colonel Culpepper in +putting the College Heights upon the market. "For what," explained the +colonel, when the propriety of using the name for his addition was +questioned, when no college was there nor any prospect of a college +for years to come--"what is plainer to the prophetic eye than that +time will bring to this magnificent city an institution of learning +worthy of our hopes? I have noticed," added the colonel, waving his +cigar broadly about him, "that learning is a shy goddess; she has to +be coaxed--hence on these empyrean heights we have provided for a +seat of learning; therefore College Heights. Look at the splendid +vista, the entrancing view, in point of fact." It was the large white +plumes dancing in the colonel's prophetic eyes. So it happened that +more real estate buyers than clients came to the office of Ward and +Barclay. But as the general that fall had been out of the office +running for Congress on the Greeley ticket, still protesting against +the crime of paying the soldiers in paper and the bondholders in gold, +he did not miss the clients, and as John saw to it that there was +enough law business to keep Mrs. Ward going, the general returned from +the canvass overwhelmingly beaten, but not in the least dismayed; and +as Jake Dolan put it, "The general had his say and the people had +their choice--so both are happy." + +As the winter deepened John and Colonel Culpepper planted five hundred +elm trees on the campus on College Heights, lining three broad avenues +leading from the town to the campus with the trees. John rode into the +woods and picked the trees, and saw that each one was properly set. +And the colonel noticed that the finest trees were on Ellen Avenue and +spoke of it to Mrs. Culpepper, who only said, "Yes, pa--that's just +like him." And the colonel looked puzzled. And when the colonel added, +"They say he is shining up to that Mason girl from Minneola, that +comes here with Molly," his wife returned, "Yes, I expected that +sooner than now." The colonel gave the subject up. The ways of women +were past his finding out. But Mrs. Culpepper had heard Jane Mason +sing a duet in church with John Barclay, and the elder woman had heard +in the big contralto voice of the girl something not meant for the +preacher. And Mrs. Culpepper heard John answer it, so she knew what he +did not know, what Jane Mason did not know, and what only Molly +Culpepper suspected, and Bob Hendricks scoffed at. + +As for John, he said to Bob: "I know why you always want me to go over +with you and Molly to get the Mason girl--by cracky, I'm the only +fellow in town that will let you and Molly have the back seat coming +home without a fuss! No, Robbie--you don't fool your Uncle John." And +so when there was to be special music at the church, or when any other +musical event was expected, John and Bob would get a two-seated buggy, +and drive to Minneola and bring the soloist back with them. And there +would be dances and parties, and coming from Minneola and going back +there would be much singing. "The fox is on the hill, I hear him +calling still," was a favourite, but "Come where the lilies bloom" +rent the midnight air between the rival towns many times that winter +and spring of '73. And never once did John try to get the back seat. +But there came a time when Bob Hendricks told him that Molly told him +that Jane had said that Molly and Bob were pigs--never to do any of +the driving. And the next time there was a trip to Minneola, John said +as the young people were seated comfortably for the return trip, +"Molly, I heard you said that I was a pig to do all the driving, and +not let you and Bob have a chance. Was that true?" + +"No--but do you want to know who did say it?" answered Molly, and +Jane Mason looked straight ahead and cut in with, "Molly Culpepper, if +you say another word, I'll never speak to you as long as I live." But +she glanced down at Barclay, who caught her eye and saw the smile she +was swallowing, and he cried: "I don't believe you ever said it, +Molly,--it must have been some one else." And when they had all had +their say,--all but Jane Mason,--John saw that she was crying, and +the others had to sing for ten minutes without her, before they could +coax away her temper. And crafty as he was, he did not know it was +temper--he thought it was something entirely different. + +For the craft of youth always is clumsy. The business of youth is to +fight and to mate. Wherever there is young blood, there is "boot and +horse," and John Barclay in his early twenties felt in him the call +for combat. It came with the events that were forming about him. For +the war between the states had left the men restless and unsatisfied +who had come into the plain to make their homes. They had heard and +followed in their youth the call John Barclay was hearing, and after +the war was over, they were still impatient with the obstacles they +found in their paths. So Sycamore Ridge and Minneola, being rival +towns, had to fight. The men who made these towns knew no better +settlement than the settlement by force. And even during his first six +months at home from school, when John sniffed the battle from afar, he +was glad in his soul that the fight was coming. Sycamore Ridge had the +county-seat; but Minneola, having a majority of the votes in the +county, was trying to get the county-seat, and the situation grew so +serious for Sycamore Ridge that General Hendricks felt it necessary to +defeat Philemon Ward for the state senate so that Sycamore Ridge could +get a law passed that would prevent Minneola's majority from changing +the county-seat. This was done by a law which Hendricks secured, +giving the county commissioners the right to build a court-house by +direct levy, without a vote of the people,--a court-house so large +that it would settle the county-seat matter out of hand. + +The general, however, took no chances even with his commissioners. For +he had his son elected as one, and with the knowledge that John was +investing in real estate in the Ridge and had an eye for the main +chance, the general picked John for the other commissioner. The place +was on the firing-line of the battle, and John took it almost +greedily. As the spring of '73 opened, there were alarms and rumours +of strife on every breeze, and youth was happy and breathed the fight +into its nostrils like a balsam. For all the world of Sycamore Ridge +was young then, and all the trees were green in the eyes of the men +who kept up the town. Each town had its hired desperadoes, and there +were pickets about each village, and drills in the streets of the two +towns, and a martial spirit all over the county. And as John limped +about his tasks in those stirring spring days, he felt that he was +coming into his own. But it was all a curious mock combat,--that +between the towns,--for though the pickets drilled, and the bad men +swaggered on the streets, and the bullies roared their anathemas, the +social relations between the towns were not seriously disturbed. +Youths and maidens came from Minneola to the Ridge for parties and +dances, and from the Ridge young men went to Minneola to weddings and +festivals of a social nature unmolested, for it takes a real war--and +sometimes more than that--to put a bar across the mating ground of +youth. So Bob and Molly and John drove to Minneola time and again for +Jane Mason, and other boys and girls came and went from town to town, +while the bitterness and the bickering and the mimic war between the +rival communities went on. + +Dolan was made sheriff, and Bemis county attorney, and with those two +officers and a majority of the county commissioners the Ridge had the +forces of administration with her. And so one night Minneola came with +her wrinkled front of war; viz., forty fighting men under Gabriel +Carnine and an ox team, prepared to take the county records by force +and haul them home by main strength. But Lycurgus Mason, whose wife +had locked him in the cellar that night to keep him from danger, was +the cackling goose that saved Rome; for when, having escaped his +wife's vigilance, he came riding down the wind from Minneola to catch +up with his fellow-townsmen, his clatter aroused the men of the Ridge, +and they hurried to the court-house and greeted the invaders with half +a thousand armed men in the court-house yard. And in a crisis where +craft and cunning would not help him, courage came out of John +Barclay's soul for the first time and into his life as he limped +through the guns into the open to explain to the men from Minneola +when they finally arrived that Lycurgus Mason had not betrayed them, +but had rushed into the town, thinking his friends were there ahead of +him. It was a plucky thing for John to do, considering that his death +would stop the making of the levy for the court-house that was to be +recorded in a few days. But the young man's blood tingled with joy as +he jumped the court-house fence and went back to his men. There was +something like a smile from Jane Mason in his joy, but chiefly it was +the joy that youth has in daring, that thrilled him. And the next day, +or perhaps it was the next,--at any rate, it was a Sunday late in +June,--when an armed posse from Minneola came charging down on the +town at noon, John ran from his office unseen, over the roofs of +buildings upon which as a boy he had romped, and ducking through a +second-story window in Frye's store, got two kegs of powder, ran out +of the back door, under the exposed piling supporting the building, +put the two kegs of powder in a wooden culvert under the ammunition +wagons of the Minneola men, who were battling with the town in the +street, and taking a long fuse in his teeth, crawled back to the +alley, lit the fuse, and ran into the street to look into the revolver +of J. Lord Lee--late of the Red Legs--and warn him to run or be +blown up with the wagons. And when the explosion came, knocking him +senseless, he woke up a hero, with the town bending over him, and +Minneola's forces gone. + +And so John and the town had their fling together. And we who sit +among our books or by our fire--or if not that by our iron radiator +exuding its pleasance and comfort--should not sniff at that day when +blood pulsed quicker and joy was keener, and life was more vivid than +it is to-day. + +Thirty-five years later--in August, 1908, to be exact--the general, +in his late seventies, sat in McHurdie's harness shop while the poet +worked at his bench. On the floor beside the general was the +historical edition of the Sycamore Ridge _Banner_--rather an +elaborate affair, printed on glossy paper and bedecked with many +photogravures of old scenes and old faces. A page of the paper was +devoted to the County Seat War of '73. The general had furnished the +material for most of the article,--though he would not do the +writing,--and he held the sheet with the story upon it in his hand. +As he read it in the light of that later day, it seemed a sordid story +of chicanery and violence--the sort of an episode that one would +expect to find following a great war. The general read and reread the +old story of the defeat of Minneola, and folded his paper and rolled +it into a wand with which he conjured up his spirit of philosophy. +"Heigh-ho," he sighed. "We don't know much, do we?" + +McHurdie made no reply. He bent closely over his work, and the general +went on: "I was mighty mad when Hendricks defeated me for the state +senate in '72, just to get that law passed cheating Minneola out of a +fair vote on the court-house question. But it's come out all right." + +The harness maker sewed on, and the general reflected. Finally the +little man at the bench turned his big dimmed eyes on his visitor, and +asked, "Did you think, General, that you knew more than the Lord about +making things come out right?" There was no reply and McHurdie +continued, "Well, you don't--I've got that settled in my mind." + +There was silence for a time, and Ward kept beating his leg with the +paper wand in his hand. "Watts," said the general, finally, "I know +what it was--it was youth. John Barclay had to go through that +period. He had to fight and wrangle and grapple with life as he did. +Do you remember that night the Minneola fellows came up with their ox +team and their band of killers to take the county records--" and +there was more of it--the old story of the town's wild days that need +not be recorded, and in the end, in answer to some query from the +general on John's courage, Watts replied, "John was always a bold +little fice--he never lacked brass." + +"Was he going with Jane Mason then, Watts,--I forget?" queried the +general. + +"Yes--yes," replied McHurdie. "Don't you remember that very next +night she sang in the choir--well, John had brought her over from +Minneola two days before, and that Sunday when the little devil went +in the culvert across Main Street and blew up the Minneola wagons, +Jane was in town that day--I remember that; and man--man--I heard +her voice say things to him in the duet that night that she would have +been ashamed to put in words." + +The two old men were silent. "That was youth, too, Watts,--fighting +and loving, and loving and fighting,--that's youth," sighed the +general. + +"Well, Johnnie got his belly full of it in his day, as old Shakespeare +says, Phil--and in your day you had yours, too. Every dog, +General--every dog--you know." The two voices were silent, as two +old men looked back through the years. + +McHurdie put the strap he was working upon in the water, and turned +with his spectacles in his hands to his comrade. "Maybe it's this way: +with a man, it's fighting and loving before we get any sense; and with +a town it's the same way, and I guess with the race it's the same +way--fighting and loving and growing sensible after it's over. Maybe +so--maybe so, Phil, comrade, but man, man," he said as he climbed on +his bench, "it's fine to be a fool!" + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +In Sycamore Ridge every one knows Watts McHurdie, and every one takes +pride in the fact that far and wide the Ridge is known as Watts +McHurdie's town, and this too in spite of the fact that from Sycamore +Ridge Bob Hendricks gained his national reputation as a reformer and +the further fact that when the Barclays went to New York or Chicago or +to California for the winter in their private car, they always +registered from Sycamore Ridge at the great hotels. One would think +that the town would be known more as Hendricks' town or Barclay's +town; but no--nothing of the kind has happened, and when the rich and +the great go forth from the Ridge, people say: "Oh, yes, Sycamore +Ridge--that's Watts McHurdie's town, who wrote--" but people from +the Ridge let the inquirers get no farther; they say: "Exactly--it's +Watts McHurdie's town--and you ought to see him ride in the open +hack with the proprietor of a circus when it comes to the Ridge and +all the bands and the calliope are playing Watts' song. The way the +people cheer shows that it is really Watts McHurdie's town." So when +Colonel Martin Culpepper wrote the "Biography of Watts McHurdie" which +was published together with McHurdie's "Complete Poetical and +Philosophical Works," there was naturally much discussion, and the +town was more or less divided as to what part of the book was the +best. But the old settlers,--those who, during the drouth of '60, ate +mince pies with pumpkins as the fruit and rabbit meat as the filling +and New Orleans black-strap as the sweetening, the old settlers who +knew Watts before he became famous,--they like best of all the +chapters in the colonel's Biography the one entitled "At Hymen's +Altar." And here is a curious thing about it: in that chapter there is +really less of Watts and considerably more of Colonel Martin Culpepper +than in any other chapter. + +But the newcomers, those who came in the prosperous days of the 70's +or 80's, never could understand the partiality of the old settlers for +the "Hymen's Altar" chapter. Lycurgus Mason also always took the view +that the "Hymen" chapter was drivel. + +"Now, John, be sensible--" Lycurgus insisted one night in 1903 when +the two were eating supper in Barclay's private car on a side-track in +Arizona; "don't be like my wife--she always drools over that chapter, +too. But you know my wife--" Lycurgus always referred to Mrs. Mason +with a grand gesture as to his dog or his horse, which were especially +desirable chattels. "My wife,--it's just like a woman,--she sits and +reads that, and laughs and weeps, and giggles and sniffs, and I say, +'What's the matter with you, anyway?'" + +John Barclay pushed a button. To the porter he said, "Bring me that +little red book in my satchel." The book had been published but a few +weeks, and John always carried a copy around with him in those days to +give to a friend. When the porter brought the book, Barclay read +aloud, "Ah, truly hath the poet said, 'Marriages are made in heaven.'" + +But Lycurgus Mason pulled his napkin from under his chin and moved +back from the table, dusting the crumbs from his obviously Sunday +clothes. "There you go--that's it; 'as the poet says.' John, if you +heard that 'as the poet says' as often as I do--" He could not finish +the figure. But he sniffed out his disgust with "as the poet says." +"It wasn't so bad when we were in the hotel, and she was busy with +something else. But now--but now--" he repeated it the third time, +"but now--honest, every time that woman goes to get up a paper for +the Hypatia Club, she gets me in the parlour, and rehearses it to me, +and the dad-binged thing is simply packed full of 'as the poet +sayses.' And about that marriages being made in heaven, I tell my wife +this: I say, 'Maybe so, but if they are, I know one that was made on a +busy day when the angels were thinking of something else.'" + +And John Barclay, who knew Mrs. Mason and knew Lycurgus, knew that he +would as soon think of throwing a bomb at the President as to say such +a thing to her; so John asked credulously: "You did? Well, well! Say, +what did she say to that?" + +"That's it--" responded Lycurgus. "That's it. What could she say? I +had her." He walked the length of the room proudly, with his hands +thrust into his pockets. + +Barclay moved his chair to the rear of the car, where he sat smoking +and looking into the clear star-lit heavens above the desert. And his +mind went back thirty years to the twilight in June after he had set +off the powder keg in the culvert under Main Street in Sycamore Ridge, +and he tried to remember how Jane Mason got over from Minneola--did +he bring her over the day before, or was she visiting at the +Culpeppers', or did she come over that day? It puzzled him, but he +remembered well that in the Congregational choir he and Jane sang a +duet in an anthem, "He giveth his beloved sleep." And he hummed the +old aria, a rather melancholy tune, as he sat on the car platform in +Arizona that night, and her voice came back--a deep sweet contralto +that took "G" below middle "C" as clearly as a tenor, and in her lower +register there was a passion and a fire that did not blaze in the +higher notes. For those notes were merely girlish and untrained. That +June night in '73 was the first night that he and Jane Mason ever had +lagged behind as they walked up the hill with Bob and Molly. And what +curious things stick in the memory! The man on the rear of the car +remembered that as they left the business part of Main Street behind +and walked up the hill, they came to a narrow cross-walk, a single +stone in width, and that they tried to walk upon it together, and that +his limp made him jostle her, and she said, "We mustn't do that." + +"What?" he inquired. + +"Oh--you know--walk on one stone. You know what it's a sign of." + +"Do you believe in signs?" he asked. She kept hold of his arm, and +kept him from leaving the stone. She was taller than he by a head, and +he hated himself for it. They managed to keep together until they +crossed the street and came into the broader walk. Then she drew a +relieved breath and answered: "Oh, I don't know. Sometimes I do." They +were lagging far behind their friends, and the girl hummed a tune, +then she said, "You know I've always believed in my 'Star light--star +bright--first star I've seen to-night,' just as I believe in my +prayers." And she looked up and said, "Oh, I haven't said it yet." She +picked out her star and said the rhyme, closing with, "I wish I may, I +wish I might, have the wish I wish to-night." + +And sitting on the car end in Arizona thirty years after, he tried to +find her star in the firmament above him. He was a man in his fifties +then, and the night she showed him her star was more than thirty years +gone by. But he remembered. We are curious creatures, we men, and we +remember much more than we pretend to. For our mothers in many cases +were women, and we take after them. + +As Barclay stood in the door of his car debating whether or not to go +in, the light from the chimney of the sawmill on the hill attracted +his attention, and because he was in a mood for it, the flying sparks +trailing across the night sky reminded him of the fireworks that +Fourth of July in 1873, when he and Jane Mason and Bob and Molly spent +the day together, picnicking down in the timber and coming home to +dance on the platform under the cottonwood-bough pavilion in the +evening. It was a riotous day, and Bob and Molly being lovers of long +acceptance assumed a paternal attitude to John and Jane that was +charming in the main, but sometimes embarrassing. And of all the +chatter he only remembered that Jane said: "Think how many years these +old woods have been here--how many hundred years--maybe when the +mound-builders were here! Don't you suppose that they are used to--to +young people--oh, maybe Indian lovers, and all that, and don't you +suppose the trees see these young people loving and marrying, and +growing old and ugly and unhappy, and that they some way feel that +they are just a little tired of it all?" + +If any one replied to her, he had no recollection of it, for after +that he saw the dance and heard the music, and then events seemed to +slip along without registering in his memory. There must have been the +fifth and the sixth of July in 1873, for certainly there was the +seventh, and that was Sunday; he remembered that well enough, for in +the morning there was a council in his office to discuss ways and +means for the week's work in the county-seat trouble. Tuesday was the +day which the new law designated as the one when the levy must be made +for the court-house improvements that would hold the county-seat in +Sycamore Ridge. At four o'clock, after the Sunday council, John and +Bob drove out of Sheriff Jake Dolan's stable with his best two-seated +buggy, and told him they would be back from Minneola at midnight or +thereabout after taking Jane Mason home, and the two boys drove down +Main Street with the girls, waving to every one with their hats, while +the girls waved their parasols, and the town smiled; for though all +the world loves a lover, in Sycamore Ridge it has been the custom, +since the days when Philemon Ward first took Miss Lucy out to drive, +for all the town to jeer at lovers as they pass down street in buggies +and carriages! And so thirty years slipped from Barclay as he stood in +the doorway of his car looking at the Arizona stars. A flicker of +light high up in the sky-line seemed to move. It was the headlight of +a train coming over the mountain. A switchman with a lantern was +passing near the car, and Barclay called to him, "Is that headlight +No. 2?" And when the man affirmed Barclay's theory, he asked, "How +long does it take it to get down here?" + +"Oh, she comes a-humming," replied the man. "If she doesn't jump the +track, she'll be down in eight minutes." + +Inside the car Barclay heard a watch snap, and knew that Lycurgus +Mason didn't believe anything of the kind and proposed to get at the +facts. So Barclay sat down on the platform; but his mind went back to +the old days, and the ride through the woods along the Sycamore that +Sunday night in July came to him, with all its fragrance and stillness +and sweetness. He recalled that they came into the prairie just as the +meadow-lark was crying its last plaintive twilight trill, and the +western sky was glowing with a rim of gold upon the tips of the +clouds. The beauty of the prairie and the sky and the calm of the +evening entered into their hearts, and they were silent. Then they +left the prairie and went into the woods again, on the river road. And +before they came out of that road into the upland, Fate turned a screw +that changed the lives of all of them. For in a turn of the road, in a +deep cut made by a ravine, Gabriel Carnine, making the last stand for +Minneola, stepped into the path and took the horses by the bridles. +The shock that John felt that night when he realized what had happened +came back even across the years. And as the headlight far up in the +mountain above the desert slipped into a tunnel, though it flashed out +again in a few seconds, while it was gone, all the details of the +kidnapping of the young people in the buggy hurried across his mind. +Even the old anxiety that he felt lest Sycamore Ridge would think him +a traitor to their cause, when they should find that he was not there +to sign the tax levy and save the court-house and the county-seat, +came back to him as he gazed at the mountain, waiting for the +headlight, and he remembered how he made a paper trail of torn bits +from a Congregational hymn-book, left in Bob's pocket from the morning +service, dropping the bits under the buggy wheels in the dust so that +the men from the Ridge would see the trail and follow the captives. In +his memory he saw Jake Dolan, who had followed the trail where it led +to Carnine's farm, come stumbling into the farm-house Tuesday where +they were hidden, and John, in memory, heard Jake whisper that he had +left his dog with the rescuing party to lead the rescuers to him if he +was on the right trail and did not return. + +And then as Barclay's mind went back to the long Tuesday, when he +should have been at the Ridge to sign the tax levy, the headlight +flashed out of the tunnel. But these were fading pictures. The one +image that was in his mind--clear through all the years--was of a +wood and a tree,--a great, spreading, low-boughed elm, near Carnine's +house where the young people were held prisoners, and Jane Mason +sitting with her back against the tree, and lying on the dry grass at +her feet his own slight figure; sometimes he was looking up at her +over his brow, and sometimes his head rested on the roots of the tree +beside her, and she looked down at him and they talked, and no one was +near. For through youth into middle life, and into the dawn of old +age, That Day was marked in his life. The day of the month--he forgot +which it was. The day of the week--that also left him, and there came +a time when he had to figure back to recall the year; but for all +that, there was a radiance in his life, an hour of calm joy that never +left him, and he called it only--That Day. That Day is in every +heart; in yours, my dear fat Mr. Jones, and in yours, my good dried-up +Mrs. Smith; and in yours, Mrs. Goodman, and in yours, Mr. Badman; +maybe it is upon the sea, or in the woods, or among the noises of some +great city--but it is That Day. And no other day of all the thousands +that have come to you is like it. + +Why should he remember the ugly farm-yard, the hard faces of the men, +the straw-covered frame they called a barn, and the unpainted house? +All these things passed by him unrecorded, as did the miserable fare +of the table, the hard bed at night, and the worry that must have +gnawed at his nerves to know that perhaps the town was thinking him +false to it, or that his mother, guessing the truth, was in pain with +terror, or to feel that a rescuing party coming at the wrong time +would bring on a fight in which the girls would be killed. Only the +picture of Jane Mason, fine and lithe and strong, with the pink cheeks +of twenty, and the soft curves of childhood still playing about her +chin and throat as he saw it from the ground at her feet,--that +picture was etched into his heart, and with it the recollection of her +eyes when she said, "John,--you don't think I--I knew of +this--beforehand, do you?" Just that sentence--those were the only +words left in his memory of a day's happiness. And he never heard a +locust whirring in a tree that it did not bring back the memory of the +spreading tree and the touch--the soft, quick, shy touch of her +fingers in his hair, and the fire that was in her eyes. + +It was in the dusk of Tuesday evening that Jake Dolan's dog came into +the yard where the captives were, and Jake disowned him, and joined +the men who stoned the faithful creature out to the main road. But the +prisoners knew that their rescuers would follow the dog, so at supper +the three men from the Ridge sat together on a bench at the table +while Mrs. Carnine and the girls waited on the men--after the fashion +of country places in those days. Dolan managed to say under his breath +to Barclay, "It's all right--but the girls must stay in the house +to-night." And John knew that if he and Bob escaped with horses before +ten o'clock, they could reach the Ridge in time to sign the levy +before midnight. Darkness fell at eight, and a screech-owl in the wood +complained to the night. Dolan rose and stretched and yawned, and then +began to talk of going to bed, and Gabriel Carnine, whose turn it was +to sleep because he had been up two nights, shuffled off to the +straw-covered stable to lie down with the Texan who was his bunk mate, +leaving half a dozen men to guard the prisoners. An hour later the +screech-owl in the wood murmured again, this time much closer, and +Dolan rose and took off his hat and threw it in the straw beside him. +He was looking at the time anxiously toward the wood. But the next +moment from behind the barn in the opposite direction something +attracted them. It was a glare of light, and the guards noticed it at +the same time. A last year's straw stack next to the barn was afire. +Jane Mason was standing in the back door of the house, and in the +hurried blur of moving events John divined that she had slipped out +and fired the stack. In an instant there was confusion. The men were +on their feet. They must fight fire, or the barn would go. Dolan ran +with the men to the straw stack. "We'll help you," he cried. "I'll +wake Gabe." There was hurrrying for water pails. The women appeared, +crying shrilly, and in the glare that reddened the sky the yard +seemed, full of mad men racing heedlessly. + +"John," whispered Jane, coming up to him as he drew water from the +well, "let me do this. There are two horses in the pasture. You and +Bob go--fly--fly." The Texan came running from the barn, which was +beginning to blaze. Dolan and Carnine still were in it. Then from the +wood back of the camp fifty men appeared, riding at a gallop. Lige +Bemis and General Ward rode in front of the troop of horsemen. Carnine +was still in the burning barn asleep, and there was no leader to give +command to the dazed guards. Ward and Bemis ran up, motioning the men +back, and Ward cried, "Shall we help you save your stock and barn, or +must we fight?" It was addressed to the crowd, but before they could +answer, Dolan stumbled out of the barn through the smoke and flames +crying, "Boys,--boys,--I can't find him." He saw the rescuing party +and shouted, "Boys,--Gabe's in there asleep and I can't find him." +The wind had suddenly veered, and the crackling flames had reached the +straw roof of the barn. The fire was gaining headway, and the three +buckets that were coming from the well had no effect on it. As the +last horse was pulled out of the door, one side of the straw wall of +the barn fell away on fire and showed Gabriel Carnine sleeping not ten +feet from the flames. Lige Bemis soused his handkerchief in water, +tied it over his mouth, and ran in. He grabbed the sleeping man and +dragged him through, the flames; but both were afire as they came into +the open. + +Now in this story Elijah Westlake Bemis is not shown often in a heroic +light. Yet he had in his being the making of a hero, for he was brave. +And heroism, after all, is only effective reliance on some virtue in a +crisis, in spite of temptations to do the easy excusable thing. And +when Lige Bemis sneaks through this story in unlovely guise, remember +that he has a virtue that once exalted even him. + +"Gabe Carnine," said Ward, as the barn fell and there was nothing more +to fear, "we didn't fire your haystack; I give you my word on that. +But we are going to take these boys home now. And you better let us +alone." + +That John Barclay remembered, and then he remembered being in the +front yard of the farm-house a moment--alone with Jane Mason, his +bridle rein over his arm. Her hair was down, and she looked wild and +beautiful. The straw was still burning back of the house, and the glow +was everywhere. He always remembered that she held his hand and would +not let him go, and there two memories are different; for she always +maintained that he did, right there and then, and he recollected that +as he mounted his horse he tried to kiss her and failed. Perhaps both +are right--who knows? But both agree that as he sat there an instant +on his horse, she threw kisses at him and he threw them back. And when +the men rode away, she stood in the road, and he could see her in the +light of the waning fire, and thirty years passed and still he saw +her. + +As the headlight of the train lit up the cinder yard, and brought the +glint of the rails out of the darkness, John Barclay, a thousand miles +away and thirty years after, fancied he could see her there in the +railroad yards beside him waving her hands at him, smiling at him with +the new-found joy in her face. For there is no difference between +fifty-three and twenty-three when men are in love, and if they are in +love with the same woman in both years, her face will never change, +her smile will always seem the same. And to John Barclay there on the +rear platform of the car, with the crash of the great train in his +ears, the same face looked out of the night at him that he saw back in +his twenties, and he knew that the same prayer to the same God would +go up that night for him that went up from the same lips so long ago. +The man on the car platform rose from his chair, and went into the +car. + +"Well," he said to Lycurgus Mason as the old man reached for his +watch, "how about it?" + +Lycurgus replied as he put it back in his pocket, "Just seven minutes +and a half. She's covered a lot of track in those seven minutes!" + +And John Barclay looked back over the years, and saw a boy riding like +the wind through the night, changing horses every half-hour, and +trying to tell time from his watch by a rising moon, but the moon was +blown with clouds like a woman's hair, and he could not see the hands +on the watch face. So as he looked at the old man sitting crooked over +in the great leather chair, John Barclay only grunted, "Yes--she's +covered a long stretch of country in those seven minutes." And he +picked the Biography off the table and read to himself: "I sometimes +think that only that part of the soul that loves is saved. The rest is +dross and perishes in the fire. Whether the love be the love of woman +or the love of kind, or the love of God that embraces all, it matters +not. That sanctifies; that purifies--that marks the way of the only +salvation the soul can know, and he who does not love with the fervour +of a passionate heart some of God's creatures, cannot love God, and +not loving Him, is lost in spite of all his prayers, in spite of all +his aspirations. Therefore, if you would live you must love, for when +love dies the soul shrivels. And if God takes what you love--love on; +for only love will make you immortal, only love will cheat death of +its victory." + +And looking at Lycurgus Mason fidgeting in his chair, John Barclay +wondered when he would die the kind of a death that had come to the +little old man before him, and then he felt the car move under him, +and knew they were going back to Sycamore Ridge. + +"Day after to-morrow," said Barclay, meditatively, as he heard the +first faint screaming of the heavily laden wheels under him, "day +after to-morrow, Daddy Mason, we will be home with Colonel Culpepper +and his large white plumes." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +This chapter might have had in it "all the quality, pride, pomp, and +circumstance of glorious war" if it had not been for the matters that +came up for discussion at the meeting of the Garrison County Old +Settlers' Association this year of our Lord Nineteen Hundred and +Eight. For until that meeting the legend of the last hour of the +County-seat War of '73 had flourished unmolested; but there General +Philemon Ward rose and laid an axe at the root of the legend, and +while of course he did not destroy it entirely, he left it scarred and +withered on one side and therefore entirely unfitted for historical +purposes. It seems that Gabriel Carnine was assigned by President John +Barclay of the Association to prepare and read a paper on "The Rise, +Decline, and Fall of Minneola." Certainly that was a proper subject +considering the fact that corn has been growing over the site of +Minneola for twenty years. And surely Gabriel Carnine, whose black +beard has whitened in thirty years' faithful service to Sycamore +Ridge, whose wife lies buried on the Hill, and whose children read the +Sycamore Ridge _Banner_ in the uttermost parts of the earth,--surely +Gabriel Carnine might have been trusted to tell the truth of the +conflict waged between the towns a generation ago. But men have +curious works in them, and unless one has that faith in God that gives +him unbounded faith in the goodness of man, one should not open men up +in the back and watch the wheels go 'round. For though men are good, +and in the long run what they do is God's work and is therefore +acceptable, no man is perfect. There goes Lige Bemis past the +post-office, now, for instance; when he was in the legislature in the +late sixties, every one knows that Minneola raised twenty thousand +dollars in cash and offered it to Lige if he would pretend to be sick +and quit work on the Sycamore Ridge county-seat bill. He could have +fooled us, and could have taken the money, which was certainly more +than he could expect to get from Sycamore Ridge. Did he take it? Not +at all. A million would not have tempted him. He was in that game; yet +ten days after he refused the offer of Minneola, he tried to blackmail +his United States senator out of fifty dollars, and sold his vote to a +candidate for state printer for one hundred dollars and flashed the +bill around Sycamore Ridge proudly for a week before spending it. + +So Gabriel Carnine must not be blamed if in that paper on Minneola, +before the Old Settlers' Association, he let out the pent-up wrath of +thirty years; and also if in the discussion General Ward unsealed his +lips for the first time and blighted the myth that told how a hundred +Minneola men had captured the court-house yard on the night that John +Barclay and Bob Hendricks rode home from their captivity to sign the +tax levy. Legend has always said that Lige Bemis, riding half a mile +ahead of the others that night, came to the courtyard; found it +guarded by Minneola men, rode back, met John and Bob and the general +crossing the bridge over the old ford of the Sycamore, and told them +that they could not get into the court-house until the men came up who +had ridden out to rescue the commissioners,--perhaps a quarter of an +hour behind the others,--and that even then there must be a fight of +doubtful issue; and further that it was after eleven o'clock, and soon +would be too late to sign the levy. The forty thousand people in +Garrison County have believed for thirty years that finding the +court-house yard in possession of the enemy, Bemis suggested going +through the cave by the Barclays' home, which had its west opening in +the wall of the basement of the court-house; and furthermore, +tradition has said that Bemis led John and Bob through the cave, and +with crowbars and hammers they made a man-sized hole in the wall, +crawled through it, mounted the basement stairs, unlocked the +commissioners' room, held their meeting in darkness, and five minutes +before twelve o'clock astonished the invading forces by lighting a +lamp in their room, signing the levy that Bemis, as county attorney, +had prepared the Sunday before, and slipping with it into the +basement, through the cave and back to the troop of horsemen as they +were jogging across the bridge on their way back from Carnine's farm. +And here are the marks of General Ward's axe--verified by Gabriel +Carnine: first, that there were no Minneola invaders in possession of +the court-house, but only a dozen visitors loafing about town that +night to watch developments; second, that the regular pickets were out +as usual, and an invading force could not have stolen in; and third, +that Bemis knew it, but as his political fortunes were low, he rode +ahead of the others, hatched up the cock-and-bull story about the +guarded court-house, and persuaded the boys to let him lead them into +a romantic adventure that would sound well in the campaign and help to +insure his reelection the following year. In view of the general's +remarks and Gabriel Carnine's corroborative statement, and in view of +the bitterness with which Carnine assailed the whole Sycamore Ridge +campaign, how can a truthful chronicler use the episode at all? +History is a fickle goddess, and perhaps Pontius Pilate, being human +and used to human errors and human weakness, is not so much to blame +for asking, "What is truth?" and then turning away before he had the +answer. + +Walking home from the meeting through Mary Barclay Park, Barclay's +mind wandered back to the days when he won his first important +lawsuit--the suit brought by Minneola to prevent the collection of +taxes under the midnight levy to build the court-house. It was that +lawsuit which brought him to the attention of the legal department of +the Fifth Parallel Railroad Company, and his employment by that +company to defeat the bonds of its narrow-gauged competitor, that was +seeking entrance into Garrison County, was the beginning of his +career. And in that fight to defeat the narrow-gauged railroad, the +people of Garrison County learned something of Barclay as well. He and +Bemis went over the county together,--the little fox and the old +coyote, the people called them,--and where men were for sale, Bemis +bought them, and where they were timid, John threatened them, and +where they were neither, both John and Bemis fought with a ferocity +that made men hate but respect the pair. And so though the Fifth +Parallel Railroad never came to the Ridge, its successor, the Corn +Belt Road, did come, and in '74 John spoke in every schoolhouse in the +county, urging the people to vote the bonds for the Corn Belt Road, +and his employment as local attorney for the company marked his first +step into the field of state politics. For it gave him a railroad +pass, and brought him into relations with the men who manipulated +state affairs; also it made him a silent partner of Lige Bemis in +Garrison County politics. + +But even when he was county commissioner, less than two dozen years +old, he was a force in Sycamore Ridge, and there were days when he had +four or five thousand dollars to his credit in General Hendricks' +bank. The general used to look over the daily balances and stroke his +iron-gray beard and say: "Robert, John is doing well to-day. Son, I +wish you had the acquisitive faculty. Why don't you invest something +and make something?" But Bob Hendricks was content to do his work in +the bank, and read at home one night and slip over to the Culpeppers' +the next night, and so long as the boy was steady and industrious and +careful, his father had no real cause for complaint, and he knew it. +But the town knew that John was getting on in the world. He owned half +of Culpepper's second addition, and his interest in College Heights +was clear; he never dealt in equities, but paid cash and gave warranty +deeds for what he sold. It was believed around the Ridge that he could +"clean up," for fifteen or twenty thousand dollars, and when he called +Mrs. Mason of the Mason House, Minneola, into the dining room one +afternoon to talk over a little matter with her, he found her most +willing. It was a short session. After listening and punctuating his +remarks with "of courses" and "yeses" and "so's," Mrs. Mason's reply +was:-- + +"Of course, Mr. Barclay,"--the Mr. Barclay he remembered as the only +time in his life he ever had it from her,--"of course, Mr. Barclay, +that is a matter rather for you and Mr. Mason to settle. You know," +she added, folding her hands across her ample waist, "Mr. Mason is the +head of the house!" Then she lifted her voice, perhaps fearing that +matters might be delayed. "Oh, pa!" she cried. "Pa! Come in here, +please. There's a gentleman to see you." + +Lycurgus Mason came in with a tea towel in his hands and an apron on. +He heard John through in a dazed way, his hollow eyes blinking with +evident uncertainty as to what was expected of him. When Barclay was +through, the father looked at the mother for his cue, and did not +speak for a moment. Then he faltered: "Why, yes,--yes,--I see! Well, +ma, what--" And at the cloud on her brow Lycurgus hesitated again, +and rolled his apron about his hands nervously and finally said, +"Oh--well--whatever you and her ma think will be all right with me, +I guess." And having been dismissed telepathically, Lycurgus hurried +back to his work. + +It was when John Barclay was elected President of the Corn Belt +Railway, in the early nineties, that Lycurgus told McHurdie and Ward +and Culpepper and Frye, as the graybeards wagged around the big brown +stove in the harness shop one winter day: "You know ma, she never saw +much in him, and when I came in the room she was about to tell him he +couldn't have her. Now, isn't that like a woman?--no sense about men. +But I says: 'Ma, John Barclay's got good blood in him. His grandpa +died worth a million,--and that was a pile of money for them days;' +so I says, 'If Jane Mason wants him, ma,' I says, 'let her have him. +Remember what a fuss your folks made over me getting you,' I says; +'and see how it's turned out.' Then I turned to John--I can see the +little chap now a-standing there with his dicky hat in his hand and +his pipe-stem legs no bigger than his cane, and his gray eyes lookin' +as wistful as a dog's when you got a bone in your hand, and I says, +'Take her along, John; take her along and good luck go with you,' I +says; 'but,' I says, 'John Barclay, I want you always to remember Jane +Mason has got a father.' Just that way I says. I tell you, gentlemen, +there's nothing like having a wife that respects you." The crowd in +the harness shop wagged their heads, and Lycurgus went on: "Now, they +ain't many women that would just let a man stand up like that and, as +you may say, give her daughter right away under her nose. But my wife, +she's been well trained." + +In the pause that followed, Watts McHurdie's creaking lever was the +only sound that broke the silence. Then Watts, who had been sewing +away at his work with waving arms, spoke, after clearing his throat, +"I've heard many say that she was sich." And the old man cackled, and +it became a saying-among them and in the town. + +One who goes back over the fifty years that have passed since Sycamore +Ridge became a local habitation and a name finds it difficult to +realize that one-third of its life was passed before the panic of '78, +which closed the Hendricks' bank. For those first nineteen years +passed as the life of a child passes, so that they seem only sketched +in; yet to those who lived at all, to those like Watts McHurdie and +Philemon Ward, who now pass their happiest moments mooning over tilted +headstones in the cemetery on the Hill, those first nineteen years +seem the longest and the best. And that fateful year of '73 to them +seems the most portentous. For then, perhaps for the first time, they +realized the cruel uncertainty of the struggle for existence. With the +terrible drouth of '60 this realization did not come; for the town was +young, and the people were young; only Ezra Lane was a graybeard in +all the town in the sixties; and youth is so sure; there is no hazard +under thirty. In the war they fought and marched and sang and starved +and died, and were still young. But when the financial panic of '73 +spread its dread and its trouble over the land, youth in Sycamore +Ridge was gone; it was manhood that faced these things in the Ridge, +and manhood had cares, had given hostages to fortune, and life was +serious and hard; and big on the horizon was the fear of failure. +General Hendricks swayed in the panic of '73; and the time marked him, +took the best of the light from his eye, and put the slightest +perceptible hobble on his feet. To Martin Culpepper and Watts McHurdie +and Philemon Ward and Jacob Dolan and Oscar Fernald, the panic came in +their late thirties and early forties, a flash of lightning that +prophesied the coming of the storm and stress of an inexorable fate. + +The wedding of John Barclay and Jane Mason occurred in September, +1873, two days after he had stood on the high stone steps of the +Exchange National Bank and made a speech to the crowd, telling them he +was the largest depositor in the bank, and begging them to stop the +run. But the run did not stop, and the day before John's wedding the +bank did not open; the short crop and the panic in the East were more +than Garrison County people could stand. But all the first day of the +bank's closing and all the next day John worked among the people, +reassuring them. So that it was five o'clock in the evening before he +could start to Minneola for his wedding. + +And such a wedding! One would say that when hard times were staring +every one in the face, social forms would be observed most simply. But +one would say so without reckoning with Mrs. Lycurgus Mason. As the +groom and the bridesmaid and best man rode up from Sycamore Valley, +two miles from Minneola, in the early falling dusk that night, the +Mason House loomed through the darkness, lighted up like a steamboat. +"You'll have to move along, John," said Bob Hendricks; "I think I +heard her whistle." + +On the sidewalk in front of the hotel they met Mrs. Mason in her black +silk with a hemstitched linen apron over it. She ushered them into the +house, took them to their rooms, and whirled John around on a pivot, +it seemed to him, with her interminable directions. His mother, who +had come over to Minneola the day before, came to his room and quieted +her son, and as he got ready for what he called the "ordeal," he could +hear Mrs. Mason swinging doors below stairs, walking on her heels +through the house, receiving belated guests from Sycamore Ridge and +the country,--for the whole county had been invited,--and he heard +her carrying out a dog that had sneaked into the dining room. + +The groom missed the bride, and as he was tying his necktie,--which +reminded him of General Ward by its whiteness,--he wondered why she +did not come to him. He did not know that she was a prisoner in her +room, while all the young girls in Sycamore Ridge and Minneola were +looking for pins and hooking her up and stepping on each other's +skirts. For one wedding is like all weddings--whether it be in the +Mason House, Minneola, or in Buckingham Palace. And some there are who +marry for love in Minneola, and some for money, and some for a home, +and some for Heaven only knows what, just as they do in the chateaux +and palaces and mansions. And the groom is nobody and the bride is +everything, as it was in the beginning and as it shall be ever after. +Probably poor Adam had to stand behind a tree neglected and alone, +while Lilith and girls from the land of Nod bedecked Eve for the +festivities. Men are not made for ceremonies. And so at all the formal +occasions of this life--whether it be among the great or among the +lowly, in the East or the West, at weddings, christenings, and +funerals--man hides in shame and leaves the affairs to woman, who +leads him as an ox, even a muzzled ox, that treadeth out the corn. +"The doomed man," whispered John to Bob as the two in their black +clothes stood at the head of the stair that led into the parlour of +the Mason House that night, waiting for the wedding march to begin on +the cabinet organ, "ate a hearty supper, consisting of beefsteak and +eggs, and after shaking hands with his friends he mounted the gallows +with a firm step!" + +Then he heard the thud of the music book on the organ, the creak of +the treadle,--and when he returned to consciousness he was Mrs. +Mason's son-in-law, and proud of it. And she,--bless her heart and +the hearts of all good women who give up the joy of their lives to us +poor unworthy creatures,--she stood by the wax-flower wreath under +the glass case on the whatnot in the corner, and wept into her real +lace handkerchief, and wished with all the earnestness of her soul +that she could think of some way to let John know that his trousers +leg was wrinkled over his left shoe top. But she could not solve the +problem, so she gave herself up to the consolation of her tears. Yet +it should be set down to her credit that when the preacher's amen was +said, hers was the first head up, and while the others were rushing +for the happy pair she was in the kitchen with her apron on dishing up +the wedding supper. Well might the Sycamore Ridge _Weekly Banner_ +declare that the "tables groaned with good things." There were not +merely a little piddling dish of salad, a bite of cake, and a dab of +ice-cream. There were turkey and potatoes and vegetables and fruit and +bread and cake and pudding and pie--four kinds of pie, mark you--and +preserves, and "Won't you please, Mrs. Culpepper, try some of that +piccalilli?" and "Oh, Mrs. Ward, if you just would have a slice of +that fruit cake," and "Now, General,--a little more of the gravy for +that turkey dressing--it is such a long ride home," or "Colonel, I +know you like corn bread, and I made this myself as a special +compliment to Virginia." + +And through it all the bride sat watching the door--looking always +through the crowd for some one. Her face was anxious and her heart was +clouded, and when the guests had gone and the house was empty, she +left her husband and slipped out of the back door. There, after the +glare of the lamps had left her eyes, she saw a little man walking +with his head down, out near the barn, and she ran to him and threw +her arms about him and kissed him, and when she led Lycurgus Mason, +who was all washed and dressed, back through the kitchen to her +husband, John saw that the man's eyelids were red, and that on the +starched cuffs were the marks of tears. For to him she was only his +little girl, and John afterward knew that she was the only friend he +had in the world. "Oh, father, why didn't you come in?" cried the +daughter. "I missed you so!" The man blinked a moment at the lights +and looked toward his wife, who was busy at a table, as he said: "Who? +Me?" and then added: "I was just lookin' after their horses. I was +coming in pretty soon. You oughtn't to bother about me. Well, John," +he smiled, as he put out his hand, "the seegars seems to be on +you--as the feller says." And John put his arm about Lycurgus Mason, +as they walked out of the kitchen, and Jane reached for her gingham +apron. Then life began for Mr. and Mrs. John Barclay in earnest. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +Forty thousand words--and that is the number we have piled up in this +story--is a large number of words to string together without a +heroine. That is almost as bad as the dictionary, in which He and She +are always hundreds of pages apart and never meet,--not even in the +"Z's" at the end,--which is why the dictionary is so unpopular, +perhaps. But this is the story of a man, and naturally it must have +many heroines. For you know men--they are all alike! First, Mrs. Mary +Barclay was a heroine--you saw her face, strong and clean and sharply +chiselled with a great purpose; then Miss Lucy--black-eyed, +red-cheeked, slender little Miss Lucy--was a heroine, but she married +General Ward; and then Ellen Culpepper was a heroine, but she +fluttered out of the book into the sunlight, and was gone; and then +came Jane Mason,--and you have seen her girlish beauty, and you will +see it develop into gentle womanhood; but the real heroine,--of the +real story,--you have not seen her face. You have heard her name, and +have seen her moving through these pages with her back consciously +turned to you--for being a shy minx, she had no desire to intrude +until she was properly introduced. And now we will whirl her around +that you may have a good look at her. + +Let us begin at the ground: as to feet--they are not too small--say +three and a half in size. And they support rather short legs--my +goodness, of course she has legs--did you think her shoes were pinned to +her over-skirt? Her legs carry around a plump body,--not fat--why, +certainly not--who ever heard of a fat heroine (the very best a heroine +can do for comfort is to be plump)--and so beginning the sentence over +again, being a plump little body, there is a neck to account for--a neck +which we may look at, but which is so exquisite that it would be hardly +polite to consider it in terms of language. Only when we come to the +chin that tips the oval of the face may we descend to language, and even +then we must rise and flick the red mouth with, but a passing word. But +this much must be plainly spoken. The nose does turn up--not much--but a +little (Bob used to say, just to be good and out of the way)! That, +however, is mere personal opinion, and of little importance here. But +the eyes are brown--reddish brown, with enough white at the corners to +make them seem liquid; only liquid is not the word. For they are +radiant--remember that word, for we may come back to it, after we are +done with the brow--a wide brow--low enough for Dickens and Thackeray +and Charlotte Bronte, and for Longfellow and Whittier and Will Carleton +in his day, and high enough for Tennyson at the temples, but not so high +but that the gate of the eyes has to shut wearily when Browning would +sail through the current of her soul. As to hair--Heaven knows there is +plenty of that, but it had rather a checkered career. As she clung to +her mother's apron and waved her father away to war, she was a +tow-headed little tot, and when he came back from the field of glory he +thought he could detect a tendency to red in it, but the fire smouldered +and went out, and the hair turned brown--a dark brown with the glint of +the quenched fires in it when it blew in the sun. Now frame a glowing +young face in that soft waving hair, and you have a picture that will +speak, and if the picture should come to life and speak as it was in the +year of our Lord 1873, the first word of all the words in the big fat +dictionary it would utter would be Bob. And so you may lift up your face +and take your name and place in this story--Molly Culpepper, heroine. +And when you lift your face, we may see something more than its pretty +features: we shall see a radiant soul. For scientists have found out +that every material thing in this universe gives off atomic particles of +itself, and some elements are more radiant than others. And there is a +paralleling quality in the spiritual world, and some souls give off more +of their colour and substance than others, though what it is they +radiate we do not know. Even the scientists do not know the material +things that the atoms radiate, so why should we be asked to define the +essence of souls? Yet from the soul of Molly Culpepper, in joy and in +sorrow, in her moments of usefulness and in her deepest woe, her soul +glowed and shed its glory, and she grew even as she gave her substance +to the world about her. For that is the magic of God's mystery of life. + +And now having for the moment finished our discussion on the +radio-activity of souls, let us go back to the story. + +Mary Barclay rode home from her son's wedding that night with Bob +Hendricks and Molly Culpepper. They were in a long line of buggies +that began to scatter out and roam across fields to escape the dust of +the roads. "Well," said Mrs. Barclay, as they pulled up the bank of +the Sycamore for home, "I suppose it will be you and Molly next, Bob?" + +It was Molly who replied: "Yes. It is going to be Thanksgiving." + +"Well, why not?" asked Mrs. Barclay. + +"Oh--they all seem to think we shouldn't, don't you know, Mrs. +Barclay--with all this hard times--and the bank closing. And hasn't +John told you of the plan he's worked out for Bob to go to New York +this winter?" + +The buggy was nearing the Barclay home. Mrs. Barclay answered, "No," +and the girl went on. + +"Well, it's a big wheat land scheme--and Bob's to go East and sell +the stock. They worked it out last night after the bank closed. He'll +tell you all about it." + +Mrs. Barclay was standing by the buggy when the girl finished. The +elder woman bade the young people good night, and turned and went into +the yard and stood a moment looking at the stars before going into her +lonely house. The lovers let the tired horses lag up the hill, and as +they turned into Lincoln Avenue the girl was saying: "A year's so +long, Bob,--so long. And you'll be away, and I'm afraid." He tried to +reassure her; but she protested: "You are all my life,--big +boy,--all my life. I was only fourteen, just a little girl, when you +came into my life, and all these long seven years you are the only +human being that has been always in my heart. Oh, Bob, Bob,--always." + +What a man says to his sweetheart is of no importance. Men are so +circumscribed in their utterances--so tongue-tied in love. They all +say one thing; so it need not be set down here what Bob Hendricks +said. It was what the king said to the queen, the prince to the +princess, the duke to the lady, the gardener to the maid, the +troubadour to his dulcinea. And Molly Culpepper replied, "When are you +going, Bob?" + +The young man picked up the sagging lines to turn out for Watts +McHurdie's buggy. He had just let Nellie Logan out at the Wards', +where she lived. After a "Hello, Watts; getting pretty late for an old +man like you," Hendricks answered: "Well, you know John--when he gets +a thing in his head he's a regular tornado. There was an immense crowd +in town to-day--depositors and all that. And do you know, John went +out this afternoon with a paper in his hand, and five hundred dollars +he dug out of his safe over in the office, and he got options to lease +their land for a year signed up by the owners of five thousand acres +of the best wheat land in Garrison County. He wants twenty thousand +acres, and pretty well bunched down in Pleasant and Spring townships, +and I'm going in four days." The young man was full of the scheme. He +went on: "John's a wonder, Molly,--a perfect wonder. He's got grit. +Father wouldn't have been able to stand up under this--but John has +braced him, and has cheered up the people, and I believe, before the +week is out, we will be able to get nearly all the depositors to agree +to leave their money alone for a year, and then only take it out on +thirty days' notice. And if we can get that, we can open up by the +first of the month. But I've got to go on to Washington to see if I +can arrange that with the comptroller of the currency." + +They were standing at the Culpepper gate as he spoke. A light in the +upper windows showed that the parents were in. Buchanan came ambling +along the walk and went through the gate between them without +speaking. When he had closed the door, the girl came close to her +lover. He took her in his arms, and cried, "Oh, darling,--only four +more days together." He paused, and in the starlight she saw on his +face more than words could have told her of his love for her. He was a +silent youth; the spoken word came haltingly to his lips, and as often +happens, words were superfluous to him in his moments of great +emotion. He put her hands to his lips, and moaned, for the hour of +parting seemed to be hurrying down upon him. Finally his tongue found +liberty. "Oh, sweetheart--sweetheart," he cried, "always remember +that you are bound in my soul with the iron of youth's first love--my +only love. Oh, I never could again, dear,--only you--only you. After +this it would be a sacrilege." + +They stood silent in the joy of their ecstacy for a long minute, then +he asked gently: "Do you understand, Molly,--do you understand? this +is forever for us, Molly,--forever. When one loves as we love--with +our childhood and youth welded into it all--whom God hath joined--" +he stammered; "oh, Molly, whom God hath joined," he whispered, and his +voice trembled as he sighed again, and kissed her, "whom God hath +joined. Oh, God--God, God!" cried the lover, as he closed his eyes +with his lips against her hair. + +The restless horses recalled the lovers to the earth. It was Molly who +spoke. "Bob--Bob--I can't let you go!" + +Molly Culpepper had no reserves with her lover. She went on +whispering, with, her face against his heart: "Bob--Bob, big boy, I +am going to tell you something truthy true, that I never breathed to +any one. At night--to-night, in just a few minutes--when I go up to +my room--all alone--I get your picture and hold it to me close, and +holding it right next to my very heart, Bob, I pray for you." She +paused a moment, and then continued, "Oh, and--I pray for +us--Bob--I pray for us." Then she ran up the stone walk, and on the +steps she turned to throw kisses at him, but he did not move until he +heard the lock click in the front door. + +At the livery-stable he found Watts McHurdie bending over some break +in his buggy. They walked up the street together. At the corner where +they were about to part the little man said, as he looked into the +rapturous face of the lanky boy, "Well, Bob,--it's good-by, John, for +you, I suppose?" + +"Oh--I don't know," replied the other from his enchanted world and +then asked absently, "Why?" + +"Well, it's nature, I guess. She'll take all his time now." He rubbed +his chin reflectively, and as Bob turned to go Watts said: "My +Heavens, how time does fly! It just seems like yesterday that all you +boys were raking over the scrap-pile back of my shop, and slipping in +and nipping leather strands and braiding them into whips, and I'd have +to douse you with water to get rid of you. I got a quirt hanging up in +the shop now that Johnnie Barclay dropped one day when I got after him +with a pan of water. It's a six-sided one, with eight strands down in +the round part. I taught him how to braid it." He chewed a moment and +spat before going on: "And now look at him. He's little, but oh my." +Something was working under McHurdie's belt, for Bob could hear it +chuckling as he chewed: "Wasn't she a buster? It's funny, ain't +it--the way we all pick big ones--we sawed-offs"? The laugh came--a +quiet, repressed gurgle, and he added: "Yes--by hen, and you +long-shanks always pick little dominickers. Eh?" He chewed a +meditative cud before venturing, "That's what I told her comin' home +to-night." Bob knew whom he meant. The man went on: "But when she saw +them--him so little she'll have to shake the sheet to find him--and +her so big and busting, I seen _her_--you know," he nodded his head +wisely to indicate which "her" he meant. "I saw her a-eying me, out of +the corner of her eye, and looking at him, and then looking at the +girl, and looking at herself, and on the way home to-night I'm damned +if I didn't have to put off asking her another six months." He sighed +and continued, "And the first thing I know the drummer or the +preacher'll get her." He chewed for a minute in peace and chuckled, +"Well--Bob, I suppose you'll be next?" He did not wait for an answer, +but spoke up quickly, "Well, Bob, good night--good night," and +hurried to his shop. + +The next day the people that blackened Main Street in Sycamore Ridge +talked of two things--the bank failure and the new Golden Belt Wheat +Company. Barclay enlisted Colonel Culpepper, and promised him two +dollars for every hundred-acre option to lease that he secured at +three dollars an acre--the cash on the lease to be paid March first. +Barclay's plan was to organize a stock company and to sell his stock +in the East for enough to raise eight dollars an acre for every acre +he secured, and to use the five dollars for making the crop. He +believed that with a good wheat crop the next year he could make money +and buy as much land as he needed. But that year of the panic John +capitalized the hardship of his people, and made terms for them, which +they could not refuse. He literally sold them their own want. For the +fact that he had a little ready money and could promise more before +harvest upon which the people might live--however miserably was no +concern of his--made it possible for him to drive a bargain little +short of robbery. It was Bob's part of the business to float the stock +company in the East among his father's rich friends. John was to +furnish the money to keep Bob in New York, and the Hendricks' +connections in banking circles were to furnish the cash to float the +proposition, and the Hendricks' bank--if John could get it opened +again--was to guarantee that the stock subscribed would pay six per +cent interest. So there was no honeymoon for John Barclay. When he +dropped the reins and helped his bride out of the buggy the next +morning in front of the Thayer House, he hustled General Ward's little +boy into the seat, told him to drive the team to Dolan's stable, and +waving the new Mrs. Barclay good-by, limped in a trot over to the +bank. In five minutes he was working in the crowd, and by night had +the required number of the depositors ready to agree to let their +money lie a year on deposit, and that matter was closed. He was a +solemn-faced youth in those days, with a serious air about him, and +something of that superabundance of dignity little men often think +they must assume to hold their own. The town knew him as a trim little +man in a three-buttoned tail-coat, with rather extraordinary neckties, +a well-brushed hat, and shiny shoes. To the country people he was +"limping Johnnie," and General Ward, watching Barclay hustle his way +down Main Street Saturday afternoons, when the sidewalk and the +streets were full of people, used to say, "Busier 'n a tin pedler." +And he said to Mrs. Ward, "Lucy, if it's true that old Grandpa Barclay +got his start carrying a pack, you can see him cropping out in John, +bigger than a wolf." + +But the general had little time to devote to John, for he was state +organizer of a movement that had for its object the abolition of +middlemen in trade, and he was travelling most of the time. The dust +gathered on his law-books, and his Sunday suit grew frayed at the +edges and shiny at the elbows, but his heart was in the cause, and his +blue eyes burned with joy when he talked, and he was happy, and had to +travel two days and nights when the fourth baby came, and then was too +late to serve on the committee on reception, and had to be satisfied +with a minor place on the committee on entertainment and amusements of +which Mrs. Culpepper was chairman. But John turned in half of a fee +that came from the East for a lawsuit that both he and Ward had +forgotten, and Miss Lucy would have named the new baby Mary Ward, but +the general stood firm for Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Sitting at Sunday +dinner with the Wards on the occasion of Elizabeth Cady Stanton Ward's +first monthly birthday, John listened to the general's remarks on the +iniquity of the money power, and the wickedness of the national banks, +and kept respectful and attentive silence. The worst the young man did +was to wink swiftly across the table at Watts McHurdie, who had been +invited by Mrs. Ward with malice prepense and seated by Nellie Logan. +The wink came just as the general, waving the carving knife, was +saying: "Gentlemen, it's the world-old fight--the fight of might +against right. When I was a boy like you, John, the fight was between +brute strength and the oppressed; between slaves and masters. Now it +is between weakness and cunning, between those who would be +slaveholders if they could be, and those who are fighting the +shackles." And Mrs. Ward saw the wink, and John saw that she saw it, +and he was ashamed. + +So before the afternoon was over, Mr. and Mrs. John Barclay went over +to Hendricks's, picking up Molly Culpepper on the way, and the three +spent the evening with the general and Miss Hendricks--a faded mousy +little woman in despairing thirties; and before the open fire they sat +and talked, and John played the piano for an hour, and thought out an +extra kink for the Golden Belt Wheat Company's charter. He jabbered +about it to Jane as they walked home, and the next day it became a +fact. + +"That boy," said the colonel to his assembled family one evening as +they dined on mush and dried peaches, and coffee made of parched corn, +"that John Barclay certainly and surely is a marvel. Talk about +drawing blood from a turnip,--why, he can strike an artery in a +pumpkin." The colonel smiled reflectively as he proceeded: "Chicago +lawyer came in on the stage this afternoon,--kinder getting uneasy +about a little interest I owed to an Ohio man on that College Heights +property, and John took that Chicago lawyer up to his office, and +talked him into putting the interest in a second mortgage with all the +interest that will fall due till next spring, and then traded him +Golden Belt Wheat Company stock for the mortgage and a thousand +dollars besides." + +"Well, did John give you back the mortgage, father?" asked Molly. + +"No, sis,--that wouldn't be business," replied the colonel, as he +stirred his dried peaches into his third dish of mush for dessert; +"business is business, you know. John took the mortgage over to the +bank and discounted it for some money to buy more options with. John +surely does make things hum." + +"Yes, and he's made Bob resign from the board of commissioners, and +won't let him come home Christmas, and keeps him on fifty dollars a +month there in New York--all the same," returned the girl. + +The colonel looked at his daughter a moment in sympathetic silence; +then he put his thumbs in the armholes of his vest and tilted back in +his chair and answered: "Oh, well, my dear,--when you are living in a +brown-stone house on Fifth Avenue down in New York, stepping on a +nigger every which way you turn, you'll thank John that he did keep +Bob at work, and not bring him back here to pin on a buffalo tail, +drink crick water, eat tumble weeds, and run wild. I say, and I fear +no contradiction when I say it, that John Barclay is a marvel--a +living wonder in point of fact. And if Bob Hendricks wants to come +back here and live on the succulent and classic bean and the luscious, +and I may say tempting, flapjack, let him come, Molly Farquhar +Culpepper, let him come." The colonel, proud of his language, looked +around the family circle. "And we at our humble board, with our plain +though--shall I say nutritive--yes, nutritive and wholesome fare, +should thank our lucky stars that John Barclay keeps the Golden Belt +Wheat Company going, and your husband and father can make a more or +less honest dollar now and then to supply your simple wants." + +The colonel had more in his mind, for he rose and began to pace the +floor in a fine frenzy. But Mrs. Culpepper looked up for an instant +from her tea, and said, "You know you forgot the mail to-day, father," +and he replied, "Yes, that's so." Then added: "Molly dear, will you +bring me my overcoat--please?" + +The girl bundled her father into his threadbare blue army overcoat +with the cape. He stood for a moment absently rattling some dimes in +his pocket. Then the faintness of their jingle must have appealed to +him, for he drew a long breath and walked majestically away. He was a +tall stout man in the midst of his forties, with a military goatee and +black flowing mustaches, and he wore his campaign hat pinned up at the +side with the brass military pin and swayed with some show of swagger +as he walked. His gift of oratory he did not bring to the flower of +its perfection except at lodge. He was always sent as a delegate to +Grand Lodge, and when he came home men came from all over the county +to see the colonel exemplify the work. But as he marched to funerals +under his large white plume and with his sword dangling at his side, +Colonel Martin Culpepper, six feet four one way and four feet two the +other, was a regal spectacle, and it will be many years before the +town will see his like again. + +The colonel walked over to the post-office box and got his mail, then +took a backless chair and drew it up to the sand box in which the +stove sat, and the conversation became general in its nature, ranging +from Emerson's theory of the cosmos and the whiskey ring to the +efficacy of a potato in the pocket for rheumatism. Finally when they +had come to their "don't you remembers" about the battle of Wilson's +Creek, General Ward, with his long coat buttoned closely about him, +came shivering into the store to get some camphor gum and stood +rubbing his cold hands by the stove while the clerk was wrapping up +the package. His thin nose was red and his eyes watered, and he had +little to say. When he went out the colonel said, "What's he going to +run for this year?" + +"Haven't you heard?" replied McHurdie, and to the colonel's negative +Watts replied, "Governor--the uprising's going to nominate him." + +"Yes," said Frye, "and he'll go off following that foolishness and +leave his wife and children to John or the neighbours." + +"Do you suppose he thinks he'll win?" asked the Colonel. + +"Naw," put in McHurdie; "I was talking to him only last week in the +shop, and he says, 'Watts, you boys don't understand me.' He says, 'I +don't want their offices. What I want is to make them think. I'm +sowing seed. Some day it will come to a harvest--maybe long after I'm +dead and gone.' I asked him if a little seed wouldn't help out some +for breakfast, and he didn't answer. Then he said: 'Watts--what you +need is faith--faith in God and not in money. There are no +Christians; they don't believe in God, or they'd trust Him more. They +don't trust God; they trust money. Yet I tell you it will work. Go +ahead--do your work in the world, and you won't starve nor your +children beg in the streets.'" McHurdie stopped a moment to gnaw his +plug of tobacco. "The general's gitting kind of a crank--and I told +him so." + +"What did he say?" inquired the colonel. + +"Oh, he just laughed," replied McHurdie; "he just laughed and said if +he was a crank I was a poet, and neither was much good at the note +window of the bank, and we kind of made it up." + +And so the winter evening grew old, and one by one the cronies rose +and yawned and went their way. Evening after evening went thus, and +was it strange that in the years that came, when the sunset of life +was gilding things for Watts McHurdie, he looked through the golden +haze and saw not the sand in the pit under the stove, not the rows of +drugs on the wall, not the patent medicine bottles in their faded +wrappers, but as he wrote many years after in "Autumn Musing":-- + + "Those nights when Wisdom was our guide + And Friendship was the glow, + That warmed our souls like living coals, + Those nights of long ago." + +Nor is it strange that Martin Culpepper, his commentator, conning +those lines through the snows of many winters, should be a little +misty as to details, and having taken his pen in hand to write, should +set down this note:-- + +"These lines probably refer to the evenings which the poet passed in a +goodly company of choice spirits during the early seventies. E'en as I +write, Memory, with tender hand, pushes back the sombre curtain, and I +see them now--that charmed circle; the poet with the brow of Jove and +Minerva's lips; the rugged warrior at his side, with the dignity of +Mars himself; perhaps some Croesus with his gold, drawn by the spell +of Wisdom's enchantment into the magic circle; and this your humble +disciple of Thucydides, sitting spellbound under the drippings of the +sacred font, getting the material for these pages. That was the Golden +Age; there were giants in those days." + +And so there were, Colonel Martin Culpepper of the Great Heart and the +"large white plumes"--so there were. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +It was a cold raw day in March, 1874. Colonel Culpepper was sitting in +the office of Ward and Barclay over the Exchange National Bank waiting +for the junior member of the firm to come in; the senior member of the +firm, who had just brought up an arm load of green hickory and dry +hackberry stove wood, was standing beside the box-shaped stove, +abstractedly brushing the sawdust and wormwood from his sleeves and +coat front. The colonel was whistling and whittling, and the general +kept on brushing after the last speck of dust had gone from his shiny +coat. He walked to the window and stared into the ugly brown street. + +Two or three minutes passed, and Colonel Culpepper, anxious for the +society of his kind, spoke. "Well, General, what's the trouble?" + +"Nothing in particular, Martin. I was just questioning the reality of +matter and the existence of the universe as you spoke; but it's not +important." The general shivered, and turned his kind blue eyes on his +friend in a smile, and then bethought him to put the wood in the +stove. + +While he was jamming in a final stick, Colonel Culpepper inquired, +"Well, am I an appearance or an entity?" + +The general put the smoking poker on the floor, and turned the damper +in the pipe as he answered: "That's what I can't seem to make out. You +know old Emerson says a man doesn't amount to much as a thinker until +he has doubted the existence of matter. And I just got to thinking +about it, and wondering if this was a real world after all--or just +my idea of one." The two men smiled at the notion, and Ward went on: +"All right, laugh if you want to, but if this is a real world, whose +world is it, your world or my world? Here is John Barclay, for +instance. Sometimes I get a peek at his world." Ward picked up the +poker and sat down and hammered the toe of a boot with it as he went +on: "John's world is the Golden Belt Wheat Company, wheat pouring a +steady stream into boundless bins, and money flowing in golden ripples +over it all. Sometimes Bob Hendricks' head rises above the tide long +enough to gasp or cry for help and beg to come home, but John's golden +flood sweeps over him again, and he's gone. And here's your world, +Martin, wherein every one is kind and careless, and generous and good, +and full of smiles and gayety. And there's Lige Bemis' world, full of +cunning and hypocrisy, and meanness and treachery and plotting--a +hell of a world it is, with its foundations on hate and deceit--but +it's his world, and he has the same right to it that I have to mine. +And there's old Watts' world--" The general sighted along the poker +over his toe to the stove side whereon a cornucopia wriggled out of +nothing and poured its richness of fruit and grain into nothing. +"There's Watts' world, full of stuffed Personifications, Virtue, +Pleasure, Happiness, Sin, Sorrow, and God knows what of demigods, with +the hay of his philosophy sticking out of their eyeholes. You know +about his maxims, Mart; he actually lives by 'em, and no matter how +common sense yells at him to get off the track, old Watts just goes on +following his maxims, and gets butted into the middle of next week." + +The colonel was making a hole in the stick in his hands, and his +attention was fixed on the whittling, but he added, "And your own +world, General--how about your own world?" + +"My world," replied the general, as he pulled at the bows of his +rather soiled white tie, and evened them, "My world--" the general +jabbed the poker spear-like into the floor, "I guess I'm a kind of a +transcendentalist!" + +The colonel blew the chips through the hole in his stick; he bored it +round in the pause that followed before he spoke. + +"A transcendentalist, eh? Well, pintedly, General, that is what I may +call a soft impeachment, as the poet says--a mighty soft impeachment. +I've heard you called a lot worse names than that--and I may say," +here the crow's-feet began scratching for a smile around the colonel's +eyes, "proved, sir, with you as the prosecuting witness." + +The two men chuckled. Then the general, balancing himself, with the +poker point on the floor, as he tilted back went on: "My world, Mart +Culpepper, is a world in which the ideal is real--a world in a state +of flux with thoughts of to-day the matter of to-morrow; my world is a +world of faith that God will crystallize to-day's aspirations into +to-morrow's justice; my world," the general rose and waved his poker +as if to beat down the forces of materialism about him, "my world is +the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not +seen." He paused. "As I was saying," he continued at last, "if this is +a real world, if matter actually exists and this world is not a dream +of my consciousness, whose world is it, my world, your world, Watts +McHurdie's world, Lige's world, or John's world? It can't be all of +'em." He put the poker across the stove hearth, and sank his hands +deeply into his pockets as he continued: "The question that philosophy +never has answered is this: Am I a spectre and you an essence, or are +you a spectre and am I an essence? Is it your world or mine?" + +The two men looked instinctively at the rattling doorknob, and John +Barclay limped into the room. His face was red with the cold and the +driving mist. He walked to the stove and unbuttoned his ulster, while +the colonel put the subject of the debate before him. The general +amended the colonel's statement from time to time, but the young man +only smiled tolerantly and shook his head. Then he went to his desk +and pulled a letter from a drawer. + +"Colonel, I've got a letter here from Bob. The thing doesn't seem to +be moving. He only sold about a thousand dollars' worth of stock last +month--a falling off of forty per cent, and we must have more or we +can't take up our leases. He's begging like a dog to come home for a +week, but I can't let him. We need that week." He limped over to the +elder and put his hand on the tall man's arm as he said: "Now, +Colonel, that was what I sent for you about. You kind of speak to +Molly and have her write him and tell him to hold on a little while. +It's business, you know, and we can't afford to have sentiment +interfere with business." + +The colonel, standing by the window, replied, after a pause: "I can +see where you are right, John. Business is business. You got to +consider that." He looked into the street below and saw General +Hendricks come shuddering into the cold wind. "How's he getting on?" +asked Culpepper, nodding towards Hendricks, who seemed unequal to the +gale. + +"Oh, I don't know, Colonel,--times are hard." + +"My, how he's aging!" said the colonel, softly. + +After a silence Barclay said: "There's one thing sure--I've got it +into his hard old head that Bob is doing something back there, and he +couldn't earn his salt here. Besides," added Barclay, as if to justify +himself against an accusing conscience, "the old man does all the work +in the bank now, with time to spare." + +It was the day of army overcoats, and the hard times had brought +hundreds of them from closets and trunks. General Hendricks, +fluttering down the street in his faded blue, made a rather pathetic +figure. The winter had whitened his hair and withered his ruddy face. +His unequal struggle with the wind seemed some way symbolical of his +life, and the two men watched him out of sight without a word. The +colonel turned toward his own blue overcoat which lay sprawling in a +chair, and Barclay said as he helped the elder man squeeze into it, +"Don't forget to speak to Molly, Colonel," and then ushered him to the +door. For a moment Colonel Culpepper stood at the bottom of the +stairs, partly hesitating to go into the windy street, and partly +trying to think of some way in which he could get the subject on his +mind before his daughter in the right way. Then as he stood on the +threshold with his nose in the storm, he recalled General Ward's +discourse about the different worlds, and he thought of Molly's world +of lovers' madness, and that brought up his own youth and its +day-dreams, and Molly flew out of his mind and her mother came in, and +he saw her blue-eyed and fair as she stood before him on their +wedding-day. With that picture in his heart he breasted the storm and +went home whistling cheerfully, walking through his world like a +prince. + +When the colonel left the office of Ward and Barclay, the partners +retired into their respective worlds and went sailing through space, +each world upon its own axis. The general in a desultory way began +writing letters to reformers urging them to prepare for the coming +struggle; but John was head over heels in the business of the Golden +Belt Wheat Company, and in an hour had covered two sheets of foolscap +with figures and had written a dozen letters. The scratch, scratch of +his pen was as regular as the swish of a piston. On the other hand, +the general often stopped and looked off into space, and three times +he got up to mend the fire. At the end of the afternoon Mrs. Ward came +in, her cheeks pink with the cold; she had left the seven-year-old to +care for the one-year-old, and the five-year-old to look after the +three-year-old, and had come scurrying through the streets in a brown +alpaca dress with a waterproof cape over her shoulders. She and the +general spoke for a few moments in their corner, and she hurried out +again. The general finished the letter he was writing and wrote +another, and then backed up to the stove with his coat tails in front +of him and stood benignly watching Barclay work. Barclay felt the +man's attention, and whirling about in his chair licking an envelope +flap, he said, "Well, General--what's on your mind?" + +"I was just thinking of Lucy--that's all," replied the general. +Barclay knew that the Wards had gone through the winter on less than +one hundred dollars, and it occurred to the younger man that times +might be rather hard in the Ward household. So he asked, "Are you +worried about money matters, General?" + +The general's smile broadened to a grin. "Well, to be exact, Lucy and +I just counted cash--it's in her pocketbook, and we find our total +cash assets are eight dollars and thirty-nine cents, and it's got to +tide us over till grass." He stroked his lean chin, and ran his hands +through his iron-gray hair and went on, "That's plenty, the way we've +figured it out--Lucy and I only eat one meal a day anyway, and the +children seem to eat all the time and that averages it up." He smiled +deprecatingly and added: "But Lucy's got her heart set on a little +matter, and we've decided to spend eighty-seven cents, as you might +say riotously, and get it. That's what we were talking about." + +Barclay entered into the spirit of Ward's remarks and put in: "But the +National debt, General--if you have all that money to spare, why +don't you pay it off? Practise what you preach, General." + +The smile faded from Ward's face. He was not a man to joke on what he +regarded as sacred things. He replied: "Yes, yes, that's just it. My +share of the interest on that debt this winter was just seventy-five +cents, and if it wasn't for that, we would have had enough to get +them; as it is, we are going to cut out meat for a week--we figured +it all out just now--and get them anyway. She's down at the store +buying them." + +"Buying what?" asked Barclay. + +The general's face lighted up again with a grin, and he replied: "Now +laugh--dog-gone you--buying flower seeds!" They heard a step at the +bottom of the stairs, and the general strode to the door, opened it, +and called down, "All right, Lucy--I'm coming," and buttoning up his +coat, he whisked himself from the room, and Barclay, looking out of +the window, watched the two forms as they disappeared in the dusk. But +appearances are so deceptive. The truth is that what he saw was not +there at all, but only appeared on his retina; the two forms that he +seemed to see were not shivering through the twilight, but were +walking among dahlias and coxcombs and four-o'clocks and petunias and +poppies and hollyhocks on a wide lawn whereon newly set elm trees were +fluttering their faint green foliage in the summer breeze. Yet John +Barclay would have sworn he saw them there in the cold street, with +the mist beating upon them, and curiously corroborative of this +impression is a memory he retained of reflecting that since the +general's blue overcoat had disappeared the winter before, he had +noticed that little Thayer had a blue Sunday suit and little Elizabeth +Cady Stanton had appeared wrapped in a blue baby coat. But that only +shows how these matter-of-fact people are fooled. For though the +little Wards were caparisoned in blue, and though the general's blue +overcoat did disappear about that time, the general and Lucy Ward have +no recollection of shivering home that night, but instead they know +that they walked among the flowers. + +And John, looking into the darkening street, must have seen something +besides the commonplace couple that he thought he saw; for as he +turned away to light his lamp and go to work again, he smiled. Surely +there was nothing to smile at in the thing he saw. Perhaps God was +trying to make him see the flowers. But he did not see them, and as it +was nearly an hour before six o'clock, he turned to his work under the +lamp and finished his letter to Bob Hendricks. When it was written, he +read it over carefully, crossing his "t's" and dotting his "i's," and +as no one was in the room he mumbled it aloud, thus:-- + + "DEAR BOB:--Don't get blue; it will be all right. Stick to it. I am + laying a wire that will get you an audience with Jay Gould. Make the + talk of your life there. You may be able to interest him--if just + for a few dollars. Offer him anything. Give him the stock if he will + let us use his name. + + "Don't get uneasy about Molly, Bob. Jane and I see that she goes to + everything, and we've scared her up a kind of brevet beau--an old + rooster named Brownwell--Adrian Pericles Brownwell, who has blown in + here and bought the _Banner_ from Ezra Lane. Brownwell is from + Alabama. Do you remember, Bob, that day at Wilson's Creek after we + got separated in the Battle I ran into a pile of cavalry writhing in + a road? Well, there was one face in that awful struggling mass that + I always remembered--and I never expect to see such a look of fear + on a man's face again--he was a young fellow then, but now he's + thirty-five or so. Well--that was this man Brownwell. I asked him + about it the other day. How he ever got out alive, I don't know; but + the fact that he should turn up here proves that this is a small + world. Brownwell also is a writer from Writersville. You should see + the way he paints the lily in the _Banner_ every week. You remember + old Cap Lee--J. Lord Lee of the Red Legs--and Lady Lee, as they + called her when she was a sagebrush siren with the 'Army of the + Border' before the War? Well, read this clipping from the _Banner_ + of this week: 'The wealth, beauty, and fashion of Minneola--fairest + village of the plain--were agog this week over the birth of a + daughter to Lord and Lady Lee, whose prominence in our social + circles makes the event one of first importance in our week's + annals. Little Beatrix, for so they have decided to christen her, + will some day be a notable addition to our refined and gracious + circles. Welcome to you, little stranger.' + + "Now you know the man! You needn't be jealous of him. However, he + has frozen to the Culpeppers because they are from the South, and + clearly he thinks they are the only persons of consequence in town. + So he beaus Molly around with Jane and me to the concerts and + sociables and things. He is easily thirty-five, walks with a cane, + struts like a peacock, and Molly and Jane are having great sport + with him. Also he is the only man in town with any money. He brought + five thousand dollars in gold, real money,--his people made it on + contraband cotton contracts during the War, they say,--and he has + been the only visible means of support the town has had for three + months. But in the meantime don't worry about Molly, Bob, she's all + right, and business is business, you know, and you shouldn't let + such things interfere with it. But in another six months we'll be + out of the woods and on our way to big money." + +Now another strange thing happened to John Barclay that evening, and +this time it was what he saw, not what he failed to see, that puzzled +him. For just as he sealed the letter to his friend, and thumped his +lean fist on it to blot the address on the envelope and press the +mucilage down, he looked around suddenly, though he never knew why, +and there, just outside the rim of light from his lampshade, trembled +the image of Ellen Culpepper with her red and black checked flannel +dress at her shoe tops and his rubber button ring upon her finger. She +smiled at him sweetly for a moment and shook her head sadly, and her +curls fluttered upon her shoulders, and then she seemed to fade into +the general's desk by the opposite wall. John was pallid and +frightened for a moment; then as he looked at the great pile of +letters before him he realized how tired and worn he was. But the face +and the eyes haunted him and brought back old memories, and that night +he and Jane and Molly Culpepper went to Hendricks', and he played the +piano for an hour in the firelight, and dreamed old dreams. And his +hands fell into the chords of a song that he sang as a boy, and Molly +came from the fire and stood beside him while they hummed the words in +a low duet:-- + + "Let me believe that you love as you loved + Long, long ago--long ago." + +But when he went out into the drizzling night, and he and Jane left +Molly at home, he stepped into the whirling yellow world of gold and +grain, and drafts and checks, and leases and mortgages, and Heaven +knows what of plots and schemes and plans. So he did not heed Jane +when she said, "Poor--poor little Molly," but replied as he latched +the Culpepper gate, "Oh, Molly'll be all right. You can't mix business +and pleasure, you know. Bob must stay." + +And when Molly went into the house, she found her mother waiting for +her. The colonel's courage had failed him. The mother took her +daughter's hand, and the two walked up the broad stairs together. + +"Molly," said the mother, as the girl listlessly went about her +preparations for bed, "don't grieve so about Bob. Father and John need +him there. It's business, you know." + +The daughter answered, "Yes, I know, but I'm so lonesome--so +lonesome." Then she sobbed, "You know he hasn't written for a whole +week, and I'm afraid--afraid!" + +When the paroxysm had passed, the mother said: "You know, my dear, +they need him there a little longer, and he wants to come back. Your +father told me that John sent word to-day that you must not let him +come." The girl's face looked the pain that struck her heart, and she +did not answer. "Molly dear," began the mother again, "can't you write +to Bob to-morrow and urge him to stay--for me? For all of us? It is +so much to us now--for a little while--to have Bob there, sending +back money for the company. I don't know what father would do if it +wasn't for the company--and John." + +The daughter held her mother's hand, and after gasping down a sob, +promised, and then as the sob kept tilting back in her throat, she +cried: "But oh, mother, it's such a big world--so wide, and I am so +afraid--so afraid of something--I don't know what--only that I'm +afraid." + +But the mother soothed her daughter, and they talked of other things +until she was quiet and drowsy. + +But when she went to sleep, she dreamed a strange dream. The next day +she could not untangle it, save that with her for hours as she went +about her duties was the odour of lilacs, and the face of her lover, +now a young eager face in pain, and then, by the miracle of dreams, +grown old, bald at the temples and brow, but fine and strong and +clean--like a boy's face. The face soon left her, but the smell of +the lilacs was in her heart for days--they were her lilacs, from the +bushes in the garden. As days and weeks passed, the dream blurred into +the gray of her humdrum life and was gone. And so that day and that +night dropped from time into eternity, and who knows of all the +millions of stars that swarmed the heavens, what ones held the +wandering souls of the simple people of that bleak Western town as +they lay on their pillows and dreamed. For if our waking hours are +passed in worlds so wide apart, who shall know where we walk in +dreams? + +It is thirty years and more now since John Barclay dreamed of himself +as the Wheat King of the Sycamore Valley, and in that thirty years he +had considerable time to reflect upon the reasons why pride always +goeth before destruction. And he figured it out that in his particular +case he was so deeply engrossed in the money he was going to make that +first year, that he did not study the simple problem of wheat-growing +as he should have studied it. In those days wheat-growing upon the +plains had not yet become the science it is to-day, and many Sycamore +Valley farmers planted their wheat in the fall, and failed to make it +pay, and many other Sycamore Valley farmers planted their wheat in the +spring, and failed, while many others succeeded. The land had not been +definitely staked off and set apart by experience as a winter wheat +country, and so the farmers operating under the Golden Belt Wheat +Company, in the spring of 1874, planted their wheat in March. + +That was a beautiful season on the plains. April rains came, and the +great fields glowed green under the mild spring sun. And Bob +Hendricks, collecting the money from his stock subscriptions, poured +it into the treasury of the company, and John Barclay spent the money +for seed and land and men to work the land, and so confident was he of +the success of the plan that he borrowed every dollar he could lay his +hands on, and got leases on more land and bought more seed and hired +more men, in the belief that during the summer Hendricks could sell +stock enough to pay back the loans. To Colonel Culpepper, Barclay gave +a block of five thousand dollars' worth of the stock as a bonus in +addition to his commission for his work in securing options, and the +colonel, feeling himself something of a capitalist, and being in funds +from the spring sale of lots in College Heights addition, invested in +new clothes, bought some farm products in Missouri, and went up and +down the earth proclaiming the glories of the Sycamore Valley, and in +May brought two car-loads of land seekers by stages and wagons and +buggies to Sycamore Ridge, and located them in Garrison County. And in +his mail when he came home he found a notice indicating that he had +overdrawn his account in the bank five hundred dollars, and that his +note was due for five hundred more on the second mortgage which he had +given the previous fall. + +For two days he was plunged in gloom, and Barclay, observing his +depression and worming out of the colonel the cause, persuaded General +Hendricks to put the overdraft and the second mortgage note into one +note for a thousand dollars plus the interest for sixty days until the +colonel could make a turn, and after that the colonel was happy again. +He forgot for a moment the responsibility of wealth and engaged +himself in the task of making the Memorial Day celebration in Sycamore +Ridge the greatest event in the history of the town. Though there were +only five soldiers' graves to decorate, the longest procession +Garrison County had ever known wound up the hill to the cemetery, and +Colonel Martin Culpepper in his red sash, with his Knights Templar hat +on, riding up and down the line on an iron-gray stallion, was easily +the most notable figure in the spectacle. Even General Hendricks, +revived by the pomp of the occasion, heading the troop of ten veterans +of the Mexican War, and General Ward, in his regimentals, were +inconsequential compared with the colonel. And his oration at the +graves, after the bugles had blown taps, kept the multitude in tears +for half an hour. John Barclay's address at the Opera House that +afternoon--the address on "The Soldier and the Scholar"--was so +completely overshadowed by the colonel's oratorical flight that Jane +teased her husband about the eclipse for a month, and never could make +him laugh. Moreover, the _Banner_ that week printed the colonel's +oration in full and referred to John's address as "a few sensible +remarks by Hon. John Barclay on the duty of scholarship in times of +peace." But here is the strange thing about it--those who read the +colonel's oration were not moved by it; the charm of the voice and the +spell of the tall, handsome, vigorous man and the emotion of the +occasion were needed to make the colonel's oratory move one. Still, +opinions differ even about so palpable a proposition as the ephemeral +nature of the colonel's oratory. For the _Banner_ that week pronounced +it one of the classic oratorical gems of American eloquence, and the +editor thereof brought a dozen copies of the paper under his arm when +he climbed the hill to Lincoln Avenue the following Sunday night, and +presented them to the women of the Culpepper household, whom he was +punctilious to call "the ladies," and he assured Miss Molly and +Mistress Culpepper--he was nice about those titles also--that their +father and husband had a great future before him in the forum. + +It may be well to pause here and present so punctilious a gentleman as +Adrian Pericles Brownwell to the reader somewhat more formally than he +has been introduced. For he will appear in this story many times. In +the first place he wore mustaches--chestnut-coloured mustaches--that +drooped rather gracefully from his lip to his jaw, and thence over his +coat lapels; in the second place he always wore gloves, and never was +without a flower in his long frock-coat; and thirdly he clicked his +cane on the sidewalk so regularly that his approach was heralded, and +the company was prepared for the coming of a serious, rather nervous, +fiery man, a stickler for his social dues; and finally in those days, +those sombre days of Sycamore Ridge after the panic of '73, when men +had to go to the post-office to get their ten-dollar bills changed, +Brownwell had the money to support the character he assumed. He had +come to the Ridge from the South,--from that part of the South that +carried its pistol in its hip pocket and made a large and serious +matter of its honour,--that was obvious; he had paid Ezra Lane two +thousand dollars for the _Banner_, that was a matter of record; and he +had marched with some grandeur into General Hendricks' bank one +Saturday and had clinked out five thousand dollars in gold on the +marble slab at the teller's window, and that was a matter attested to +by a crowd of witnesses. Watts McHurdie used to say that more people +saw that deposit than could be packed into the front room of the bank +with a collar stuffer. + +But why Adrian Brownwell had come to the Ridge, and where he had made +his money--there myth and fable enter into the composition of the +narrative, and one man's opinion is as good as another's. Curiously +enough, all who testify claim that they speak by the authority of Mr. +Brownwell himself. But he was a versatile and obliging gentleman +withal, so it is not unlikely that all those who assembled him from +the uttermost parts of the earth into Sycamore Ridge for all the +reasons in the longer catechism, were telling the simple truth as they +have reason to believe it. What men know of a certainty is that he +came, that he hired the bridal chamber of the Thayer House for a year, +and that he contested John Barclay's right to be known as the glass of +fashion and the mould of form in Garrison County for thirty long +years, and then--but that is looking in the back of the book, which +is manifestly unfair. + +It is enough to know now that on that Sunday evening after Memorial +Day, in 1874, Adrian P. Brownwell sat on the veranda of the Culpepper +home slapping his lavender gloves on his knee by way of emphasis, and +told the company what he told General Beauregard and what General +Beauregard told him, at the battle of Shiloh; also what his maternal +grandfather, Governor Papin, had said to General Jackson, when his +grandmother, then Mademoiselle Dulangpre, youngest daughter of the +refugee duke of that house, had volunteered to nurse the American +soldiers in Jackson's hospital after the battle of New Orleans; also, +and with detail, what his father, Congressman Brownwell, had said on +the capitol steps in December, 1860, before leaving for Washington to +resign his seat in Congress; and also with much greater detail he +recounted the size of his ancestral domain, the number of the +ancestral slaves and the royal state of the ancestral household, and +then with a grand wave of his gloves, and a shrug of which Madam Papin +might well have been proud, "But 'tis all over; and we are +brothers--one country, one flag, one God, one very kind but very busy +God!" And he smiled so graciously through his great mustaches, showing +his fine even teeth, that Mrs. Culpepper, Methodist to the heart, +smiled back and was not so badly shocked as she knew she should have +been. + +"Is it not so?" he asked with his voice and his hands at once. "Ah," +he exclaimed, addressing Mrs. Culpepper dramatically, "what better +proof would you have of our brotherhood than our common bondage to +you? However dark the night of our national discord--to-day, North, +South, East, West, we bask in the sunrise of some woman's eyes." He +fluttered his gloves gayly toward Molly and continued:-- + + "'O when did morning ever break, + And find such beaming eyes awake.'" + +And so he rattled on, and the colonel had to poke his words into the +conversation in wedge-shaped queries, and Mrs. Culpepper, being in due +and proper awe of so much family and such apparent consequence, spoke +little and smiled many times. And if it was "Miss Molly" this and +"Miss Molly" that, when the colonel went into the house to lock the +back doors, and "Miss Molly" the other when Mrs. Culpepper went in to +open the west bedroom windows; and even if it was "Miss Molly, shall +we go down town and refresh ourselves with a dish of ice-cream?" and +even if still further a full-grown man standing at the gate under the +May moon deftly nips a rose from Miss Molly's hair and holds the rose +in both hands to his lips as he bows a good night--what then? What +were roses made for and brown eyes and long lashes and moons and May +winds heavy with the odour of flowers and laden with the faint sounds +of distant herd bells tinkling upon the hills? For men are bold at +thirty-five, and maidens, the best and sweetest, truest, gentlest +maidens in all the world, are shy at twenty-one, and polite to their +elders and betters of thirty-five--even when those elders and betters +forget their years! + +As for Adrian P. Brownwell, he went about his daily task, editing the +_Banner_, making it as luscious and effulgent as a seed catalogue, +with rhetorical pictures about as florid and unconvincing. To him the +town was a veritable Troy--full of heroes and demigods, and +honourables and persons of nobility and quality. He used no adjective +of praise milder than superb, and on the other hand, Lige Bemis once +complained that the least offensive epithet he saw in the _Banner_ +tacked after his name for two years was miscreant. As for John +Barclay, he once told General Ward that a man could take five dollars +in to Brownwell and come out a statesman, a Croesus or a scholar, as +the exigencies of the case demanded, and for ten dollars he could +combine the three. + +Yet for all that Brownwell ever remained a man apart. No one thought +of calling him "Ade." Sooner would one nickname a gargoyle on a tin +cornice. So the editor of the _Banner_ never came close to the real +heart of Sycamore Ridge, and often for months at a time he did not +know what the people were thinking. And that summer when General +Hendricks was walking out of the bank every hour and looking from +under his thin, blue-veined hand at the strange cloud of insects +covering the sky, and when Martin Culpepper was predicting that the +plague of grasshoppers would leave the next day, and when John Barclay +was getting that deep vertical crease between his eyes that made him +look forty while he was still in his twenties, Adrian P. Brownwell was +chirping cheerfully in the _Banner_ about the "salubrious climate of +Garrison County," and writing articles about "our phenomenal prospects +for a bumper crop." And when in the middle of July the grasshoppers +had eaten the wheat to the ground and had left the corn stalks +stripped like beanpoles, and had devoured every green thing in their +path, the _Banner_ contained only a five-line item referring to the +plague and calling it a "most curious and unusual visitation." But +that summer the _Banner_ was filled with Brownwell's editorials on +"The Tonic Effect of the Prairie Ozone," "Turn the Rascals Out," "Our +Duty to the South," and "The Kingdom of Corn." As a writer Brownwell +was what is called "fluent" and "genial." And he was fond of copying +articles from the Topeka and Kansas City papers about himself, in +which he was referred to as "the gallant and urbane editor of the +_Banner_." + +But then we all have our weaknesses, and be it said to the everlasting +credit of Adrian Brownwell that he understood and appreciated Watts +McHurdie and Colonel Culpepper better than any other man in town, and +that he printed Watts' poems on all occasions, and never referred to +him as anything less than "our honoured townsman," or as "our talented +and distinguished fellow-citizen," and he never laughed at General +Ward. But the best he could do for John Barclay--even after John had +become one of the world's great captains--was to wave his gloves +resignedly and exclaim, "Industry, thy name is Barclay." And Barclay +in return seemed never to warm up to Brownwell. "Colonel," replied +John to some encomium of his old friend's upon the new editor, "I'll +say this much. Certainly your friend is a prosperous talker!" + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +The twenty-fifth of July, 1874, is a memorable day in the life of John +Barclay. For on that day the grasshoppers which had eaten off the +twenty thousand acres of wheat in the fields of the Golden Belt Wheat +Company, as though it had been cropped, rose and left the Missouri +Valley. They will never come back, for they are ploughed under in the +larva every year by the Colorado farmers who have invaded the plains +where once the "hoppers" had their nursery; but all this, even if he +had known it, would not have cheered up John that day. For he knew +that he owed one hundred and fifty thousand dollars to Eastern +stockholders of the company, and he had not a dollar to show for it. +He had expected to borrow the money needed for the harvesting in the +fall, and over and over and over again he had figured with paper and +pencil the amount of his debt, and again and again he had tried to +find some way to pay even the interest on the debt at six per cent, +which the bank had guaranteed. While the locusts were devouring the +vegetation, he walked the hemp carpet that ran diagonally across his +office, and chased phantom after phantom of hope that lured him up to +the rim of a solution of the problem, only to push him back into the +abyss. He walked with his hands deep in his trousers pockets and his +head down, and as General Ward was out organizing the farmers in a +revolt against the dominant party in the state, Barclay was alone most +of the time. The picture of that barren office, with its insurance +chromos, with its white, cobweb-marked walls, with its dirty floor +partly covered with an "X" of red-bordered hemp carpet reaching from +the middle to the four corners, the picture of the four tall unwashed +windows letting in the merciless afternoon sun to fade the grimy black +and white lithograph of William Lloyd Garrison above the general's +desk, never left John Barclay's memory. It was like a cell on a +prisoner's mind. + +As he paced the room that last day of the visit of the grasshoppers, +General Hendricks came in. His hair had whitened in the summer. The +panic and the plague of the locusts had literally wrung the sap out of +his nerves. Old age was pressing inexorably upon him, palsying his +hands on its rack, tripping his feet in its helpless mazes. His dimmed +eyes could see only ruin coming, coming slowly and steadily toward +him. In the panic, it came suddenly and inspired fight in him. But +this year there was something diabolical in its resistless approach. +So he shrank from his impending fate as a child trembles at some +unknown terror. But Barclay did not swerve. He knew the affairs of the +bank fairly well. He was a director who never signed the quarterly +statement without verifying every item for himself. He had dreaded the +general's visit, yet he knew that it must come, and he pulled toward +the general a big hickory chair. The old man sank into it and looked +helplessly into the drawn hard face of the younger man and sighed, +"Well, John?" + +Barclay stood before him a second and then walked down one arm of the +"X" of the carpet and back, and up another, and then turned to +Hendricks with: "Now, don't lose your nerve, General. You've got to +keep your nerve. That's about all the asset we've got now, I guess." + +The general replied weakly: "I--I, I--I guess you're right, John. I +suppose that's about it." + +"How do you figure it out, General?" asked Barclay, still walking the +carpet. + +The general fumbled for a paper in his pocket and handed it to +Barclay. He took it, glanced at it a moment, and then said: "I'm no +good at translating another man's figures--how is it in +short?--Right down to bed-rock?" + +Hendricks seemed to pull himself together and replied: "Well, +something like ten thousand in cash against seventy thousand in +deposits, and fifty thousand of that time deposits, due next October, +you know, on the year's agreement. Of the ten thousand cash, four +thousand belongs to Brownwell, and is on check, and you have two +thousand on check." + +"All right. Now, General, what do you owe?" + +"Well, you know that guarantee of your and Bob's business--that nine +thousand. It's due next week." + +"And it will gut you?" asked Barclay. + +The old man nodded and sighed. Barclay limped carefully all over his +"X," swinging himself on his heels at the turns; his mouth was +hardening, and his eyes were fixed on the old man without blinking as +he said: "General--that's got to come. If it busts you--it will save +us, and we can save you after. That has just absolutely got to be +paid, right on the dot." + +The old man could not have turned paler than he was when he entered +the room, but he rose halfway in his chair and shook his leonine head, +and then let his hands fall limply on his knees as he cried: "No--no, +John--I can't. I can't." + +Barclay put his hand on the back of the old man's chair, and he could +feel the firm hard grip of the boy through his whole frame. Then after +a moment's pause Barclay said: "General, I'm in earnest about that. +You will either mail those dividend certificates according to your +guarantee on the first, or as sure as there is a God in heaven I'll +see that you won't have a dollar in your bank on the night of the +second." + +The old man stood gasping. The eyes of the two men met. Barclay's were +bold and green and blazing. + +"Boy! Boy! Boy!--" the old man faltered. "Don't ruin me! Don't ruin +me--" he did not finish the sentence, but sank into his chair, and +dropped his face to his breast and repeated, "Don't, don't, don't," +feebly for a few times, without seeming to realize what he was saying. +From some outpost of his being reinforcements came. For he rose +suddenly, and shaking his haggard fist at the youth, exclaimed in a +high, furious, cracking voice as he panted and shook his great hairy +head: "No--by God, no, by God, no! You damned young cut-throat--you +can break my bank, but you can't bulldoze me. No, by God--no!" He +started to leave the room. Barclay caught the old man and swung him +into a chair. The flint that Barclay's nature needed had been struck. +His face was aglow as with an inspiration. + +"Listen, man, listen!" Barclay cried. "I'm not going to break your +bank, I'm trying to save it." He knew that the plan was ripe in his +head, and as he talked it out, something stood beside him and +marvelled at its perfection. As its inherent dishonesty revealed +itself, the old man's face flinched, but Barclay went on unfolding his +scheme. It required General Hendricks to break the law half a dozen +ways, and to hazard all of the bank's assets, and all of its cash. And +it required him to agree not to lend a dollar to any man in the county +except as he complied with the demands of the Golden Belt Wheat +Company and mortgaged his farm to Barclay. The plan that Barclay set +forth literally capitalized the famine that had followed the +grasshopper invasion, and sold the people their own need at Barclay's +price. Then for an hour the two men fought it out, and at the end +Barclay was saying: "I am glad you see it that way, and I believe, as +you do, that they will take it a little better if we also agree to pay +this year's taxes on the land they put under the mortgage. It would be +a great sweetener to some of them, and I can slip in an option to sell +the land to us outright as a kind of a joker in small type." His +brassy eyes were small and beady as his brain worked out the details +of his plan. He put his hands affectionately on General Hendricks' +shoulders as he added, "You mustn't forget to write to Bob, General; +hold him there whatever comes." + +At the foot of the stairs the two men could hear the heavy tread of +Colonel Culpepper. As Hendricks went down the stairs John heard the +colonel's "Mornin', General," as the two men passed in the hallway. + +"Mornin', Johnnie--how does your corporocity sagashiate this +mornin'?" asked the colonel. + +Barclay looked at the colonel through little beady green eyes and +replied,--he knew not what. He merely dipped an oar into the talk +occasionally, he did not steer it, and not until he emerged from his +calculations twenty minutes after the colonel's greeting did Barclay +realize that the colonel was in great pain. He was saying when +Barclay's mind took heed: "And now, sir, I say, now, having forced his +unwelcome and, I may say, filthy lucre upon me, the impudent scalawag +writes me to-day to say that I must liquidate, must--liquidate, sir; +in short, pay up. I call that impertinence. But no matter what I call +it, he's going to foreclose." Barclay's eyes opened to attention. The +colonel went on. "The original indebtedness was a matter of ten +thousand--you will remember, John, that's what I paid for my share of +the College Heights property, and while I have disposed of some,--in +point of fact sold it at considerable profit,--yet, as you know, and +as this scoundrel knows, for I have written him pointedly to that +effect, I have been temporarily unable to remit any sum substantial +enough to justify bothering him with it. But now the scamp, the +grasping insulting brigand, notifies me that unless I pay him when the +mortgage is due,--to be plain, sir, next week,--he proposes to +foreclose on me." + +The colonel's brows were knit with trouble. His voice faltered as he +added: "And, John--John Barclay, my good friend--do you realize that +that little piece of property out on the hill is all I have on earth +now, except the roof over my head? And may--" here his voice slid +into a tenor with pent-up emotion--"maybe the contemptible +rapscallion will try to get that." The colonel had risen and was +pacing the floor. "What a damn disreputable business your commerce is, +anyway! John, I can't afford to lose that property--or I'd be a +pauper, sir, a pauper peddling organs and sewing-machines and maybe +teaching singing-school." The colonel's face caught a rift of sunshine +as he added, "You know I did that once before I was married and came +West--taught singing-school." + +"Well, Colonel--let's see about it," said Barclay, absently. And the +two men sat at the table and figured up that the colonel's liabilities +were in the neighbourhood of twelve thousand, of which ten thousand +were pressing and the rest more or less imminent. At the end of their +conference, Barclay's mind was still full of his own affairs. But he +said, after looking a moment at the troubled face of the big +black-eyed man whose bulk towered above him, "Well, Colonel, I don't +know what under heavens I can do--but I'll do what I can." + +The colonel did not feel Barclay's abstraction. But the colonel's face +cleared like a child's, and he reached for the little man and hugged +him off his feet. Then the colonel broke out, "May the Lord, who +heedeth the sparrow's fall and protects all us poor blundering +children, bless you, John Barclay--bless you and all your household." +There were tears in his eyes as he waved a grand adieu at the door, +and he whistled "Gayly the Troubadour" as he tripped lightly down the +stairs. And in another moment the large white plumes were dancing in +his eyes again. This time they waved and beckoned toward a +subscription paper which the colonel had just drawn up when the +annoying letter came from Chicago, reminding him of his debt. The +paper was for the relief of a farmer whose house and stock had been +burned. The colonel brought from his hip pocket the carefully folded +sheet of foolscap which he had put away when duty called him to +Barclay. He paused at the bottom of the stair, backed the paper on the +wall, and wrote under the words setting forth the farmer's +destitution, "Martin Culpepper--twenty-five dollars." He stood a +moment in the stairway looking into the street; the day was fair and +beautiful; the grasshoppers were gone, and with them went all the +vegetation in the landscape; but the colonel in his nankeen trousers +and his plaited white shirt and white suspenders, under his white +Panama hat, felt only the influence of the genial air. So he drew out +the subscription paper again and erased the twenty-five dollars and +put down thirty-five dollars. Then as Oscar Fernald and Daniel Frye +came by with long faces the colonel hailed them. + +"Boys," he said, "fellow named Haskins down in Fairview, with nine +children and a sick wife, got burnt out last night, and I'm kind of +seeing if we can't get him some lumber and groceries and things. I +want you boys," the colonel saw the clouds gathering and smiled to +brush them away, "yes, I want you boys to give me ten dollars apiece." + +"Ten dollars!" cried Fernald. + +"Ten dollars!" echoed Frye. "My Lord, man, there isn't ten dollars in +cash between here and the Missouri River!" + +"But the man and his children will starve, and his wife will die of +neglect." + +"That's the Lord's affair--and yours, Mart," returned Fernald, as he +broke away from the colonel's grasp; "you and He brought them here." +Frye went with Oscar, and they left the colonel with his subscription +paper in his hand. He looked up and down the street and then drew a +long breath, and put the paper against the wall again and sighed as he +erased the thirty-five dollars and put down fifty dollars after his +name. Then he started for the bank to see General Hendricks. The large +white plumes were still dancing in his eyes. + +But so far as Barclay is concerned the colonel never reached the +bottom of the stairs, for Barclay had his desk covered with law-books +and was looking up contracts. In an hour he had a draft of a mortgage +and option to buy the mortgaged land written out, and was copying it +for the printer. He took it to the _Banner_ office and asked Brownwell +to put two men on the job, and to have the proof ready by the next +morning. + +Brownwell waved both hands magnificently and with much grace, and +said: "Mr. Barclay, we will put three men on the work, sir, and if you +will do me the honour, I will be pleased to bring the proof up Lincoln +Avenue to the home of our mutual friend, Colonel Culpepper, where you +may see it to-night." Barclay fancied that a complacent smile wreathed +Brownwell's face at the prospect of going to the Culpeppers', and the +next instant the man was saying: "Charming young lady, Miss Molly! Ah, +the ladies, the ladies--they will make fools of us. We can't resist +them." He shrugged and smirked and wiggled his fingers and played with +his mustaches. "Wine and women and song, you know--they get us all. +But as for me--no wine, no song--but--" he finished the sentence +with another flourish. + +Barclay did what he could to smile good-naturedly and assent in some +sort of way as he got out of the room. That night, going up the hill, +he said to Jane: "Brownwell is one of those fellows who regard all +women--all females is better, probably--as a form of vice. He's the +kind that coos like a pouter pigeon when he talks to a woman." + +Jane replied: "Yes, we women know them. They are always claiming that +men like you are not gallant!" She added, "You know, John, he's the +jealous, fiendish kind--with an animal's idea of honour." They walked +on in silence for a moment, and she pressed his arm to her side and +their eyes met in a smile. Then she said: "Doubtless some women like +that sort of thing, or it would perish, but I don't like to be treated +like a woman--a she-creature. I like to be thought of as a human +being with a soul." She shuddered and continued: "But the soul doesn't +enter even remotely into his scheme of things. We are just bodies." + +The Barclays did not stay late at the Culpeppers' that night, but took +the proofs at early bedtime and went down the hill. An hour later they +heard Molly Culpepper and Brownwell loitering along the sidewalk. +Brownwell was saying:-- + +"Ah, but you, Miss Molly, you are like the moon, for-- + + "'The moon looks on many brooks, + The brook can see no moon but this.' + +"And I--I am--" + +The Barclays did not hear what he was; however, they guessed, and they +guessed correctly--so far as that goes. But Molly Culpepper did hear +what he was and what he had been and what he would be, and the more +she parried him, the closer he came. There were times when he forgot +the "Miss" before the "Molly," and there were other times when she had +to slip her hand from his ever so deftly. And once when they were +walking over a smooth new wooden sidewalk coming home, he caught her +swiftly by the waist and began waltzing and humming "The Blue Danube." +And at the end of the smooth walk, she had to step distinctly away +from him to release his arm. But she was twenty-one, and one does not +always know how to do things at twenty-one--even when one intends to +do them, and intends strongly and earnestly--that one would do at +forty-one, and so as they stood under the Culpepper elm by the gate +that night,--under the elm, stripped gaunt and naked by the +locusts,--and the July moon traced the skeleton of the tree upon the +close-cropped sod, we must not blame Molly Culpepper too much even if +she let him, hold her hand a moment too long after he had kissed it a +formal good night; for twenty-one is not as strong as its instincts. +It is such a little while to learn all about a number of important +things in a big and often wicked world that when a little man or a +little woman, so new to this earth as twenty-one years, gets a finger +pinched in the ruthless machinery, it is a time for tears and +mothering and not for punishment. And so when Adrian Brownwell pulled +the little girl off her feet and kissed her and asked her to marry him +all in a second, and she could only struggle and cry "No, no!" and beg +him to let her go--it is not a time to frown, but instead a time to +go back to our twenty-ones and blush a little and sigh a little, and +maybe cry and lie a little, and in the end thank God for the angel He +sent to guard us, and if the angel slept--thank God still for the +charity that has come to us. + +The next day John Barclay had Colonel Martin Culpepper and Lige Bemis +in his office galvanizing them with his enthusiasm and coaching them +in their task. They were to promise three dollars an acre, August 15, +to every farmer who would put a mortgage on his land for six dollars +an acre. The other three dollars was to cover the amount paid by +Barclay as rent for the land the year before. They were also to offer +the landowner a dollar and a half an acre to plough and plant the land +by September 15, and another dollar to cultivate it ready for the +harvest, and the company was to pay the taxes on the land and furnish +the seed. Barclay had figured out the seed money from the sale of the +mortgages. The man was a dynamo of courage and determination, and he +charged the two men before him until they fairly prickled with the +scheme. He talked in short hard sentences, going over and over his +plan, drilling them to bear down on the hard times and that there +would be no other buyers or renters for the land, and to say that the +bank would not lend a dollar except in this way. Long after they had +left his office, Barclay's voice haunted them. His face was set and +his eyes steady and small, and the vertical wrinkle in his brow was as +firm as an old scar. He limped about the room quickly, but his strong +foot thumped the floor with a thud that punctuated his words. + +They left, and he sat down to write a letter to Bob Hendricks telling +him the plan. He had finished two pages when General Hendricks came in +a-tremble and breathless. The eyes of the two men met, and Hendricks +replied:-- + +"It's Brownwell--the fat's in the fire, John. Brownwell's going!" + +"Going--going where?" asked the man at the desk, blankly. + +"Going to leave town. He's been in and given notice that he wants his +money in gold day after to-morrow." + +"Well--well!" exclaimed Barclay, with his eyes staring dumbly at +nothing on the dingy white wall before him. "Well--don't that beat +the Jews? Going to leave town!" He pulled himself together and gripped +his chair as he said, "Not by a damn sight he ain't. He's going to +stay right here and sweat it out. We need that four thousand dollars +in our business. No, you don't, Mr. Man--" he addressed a +hypothetical Brownwell. "You're roped and tied and bucked and gagged, +and you stay here." Then he said, "You go on over to the bank, +General, and I'll take care of Brownwell." Barclay literally shoved +the older man to the door. As he opened it he said, "Send me up a boy +if you see one on the street." + +In ten minutes Brownwell was running up the stairs to Barclay's office +in response to his note. He brought a copy of the mortgage with, him, +and laid it before Barclay, who went over it critically. He found a +few errors and marked them, and holding it in his hands turned to the +editor. + +"Hendricks says you are going to leave town. Why?" asked Barclay, +bluntly. He had discovered even that early in life that a circuitous +man is generally knocked off his guard by a rush. Brown well blinked +and sputtered a second or two, scrambling to his equilibrium. Before +he could parry Barclay assaulted him again with: "Starving to death, +eh? Lost your grip--going back to Alabama with the banjo on your +knee, are you?" + +"No, sir--no, sir, you are entirely wrong, sir--entirely wrong, and +scarcely more polite, either." Brown well paused a minute and added: +"Business is entirely satisfactory, sir--entirely so. It is another +matter." He hesitated a moment and added, with the ghost of a smirk, +"A matter of sentiment--for-- + + "'The heart that is soonest awake to the flowers, + Is always the first to be touched by the thorns.'" + +Brownwell sat there flipping his gloves, exasperatingly; Barclay +screwed up his eyes, put his head on one side, and suddenly a flash +came into his face and he exclaimed, "Come off, you don't mean +it--not Molly!" + +The rejected one inclined his head. Barclay was about to laugh, but +instead he said, "Well, you are not a quitter; why don't you go ahead +and get her?" He glanced instinctively at his letter to Bob Hendricks, +and as if to shield what he was going to say, put a paper over the +page, and then the seriousness of the situation came over him. "You +know women; cheer up, man--try again. Stick to it--you'll win," +cried Barclay. The fool might go for so small a reason. It was no time +for ribaldry. "Let me tell you something," he went on. His eyes opened +again with a steady ruthless purpose in them, that the man before him +was too intent on his own pose to see. Barclay put a weight upon the +white sheet of paper that he had spread over his letter to Bob +Hendricks and then went on. "Say, Brownwell, let me tell you +something. This town is right in the balance; you can help." Something +seemed to hold Barclay back, but he took the plunge. "You can stay +here and help. We need men like you." Then he took a blind shot in the +dark before going on--perhaps to give himself another chance. "Have +you got any more of that buried money--I mean more than you gave +General Hendricks--the kind that you dug up after the war and +scratched the mould off the eagles?" + +Brownwell flushed and replied, as he put one hand in his coat and the +other, with his stick and hat and gloves, behind him: "That is my +affair, sir. However, I will say that I have." + +"I thought so," retorted Barclay. "Now look here, bring it to the +Ridge. Here's the place to invest it and now's the everlasting time. +You jump in here and help us out, help build up the town, and there's +nothing too good for you." Barclay was ready for it now. He did not +flinch, but went on: "Also here's your chance to help Colonel +Culpepper. He's to be closed out, and ten thousand would save him. You +know the kind of a man the colonel is. Stay with the game, Mr. Man, +stay with the game." He saw Brownwell's eyes twitch. Barclay knew he +had won. He added slowly, "You understand?" + +Brownwell smiled benignly. Barclay looked nervously at the unfinished +letter on the table. Brownwell waved his arms again dramatically, and +replied: "Ah, thank you--thank you. I shall play my hand out--and +hearts are trumps--are they not?" And he went out almost dancing for +joy. + +When the man was gone Barclay shuddered; his contempt for Brownwell +was one of the things he prided himself on, and the intrigue revolted +him. He stood a moment at the window looking into the street absently. +He became conscious that some one was smiling at him on the crossing +below. Then automatically he heard himself say, "Oh, Molly, can you +run up a minute?" And a moment later she was in the room. She was a +bewitching little body in her wide skirts and her pancake of a hat +with a feather in it as she sat there looking at her toes that +morning, with her bright eyes flashing up into his like rockets. But +there were lines under the eyes, and the rims of the eyelids were +almost red--as red as pretty eyelids ever may be. Barclay went right +to the midst of the matter at once. He did not patronize her, but told +her in detail just the situation--how the Golden Belt Wheat Company's +interest must be met by the bank under its guarantee, or Bob and his +father would be worse than bankrupts, they would be criminals. He put +Bob always in the foreground. Barclay unfolded to her all the plans +for going ahead with the work, and he told her what they were doing +for her father by giving him employment. He marched straight up to the +matter in hand without flinching. + +"Molly," he began without batting his eyes, "here is where you come +in. That fellow Brownwell was up here this morning. Oh, you needn't +shiver--I know all about it. You had the honour of refusing him last +night." To her astonished, hurt face he paid no heed, but went on: +"Now he's going to leave town on account of you and pull out four +thousand dollars he's got in the bank. If he does that, we can't pay +our guarantee. You've got to call him back." She flared up as if to +stop him, but he went on: "Oh, I know, Molly Culpepper--but this is +no game of London Bridge. It's bad enough, but it's business--cold +clammy business, and sometimes we have to do things in this world for +the larger good. That roan simply can't leave this town and you must +bold him. It's ruin and perhaps prison to Bob and his father if he +goes; and as for your own father and mother--it makes them paupers, +Molly. There's no other way out of it." He paused a moment. + +The girl's face blanched, and she looked at the floor and spoke, "And +Bob--when can he come back?" + +"I don't know, Molly--but not now--he never was needed there as he +is now. It's a life-and-death matter, Molly Culpepper, with every +creature on earth that's nearest and dearest to you--it makes or +breaks us. It's a miserable business, I know well--but your duty is +to act for the larger good. You can't afford to send Bob to jail and +your people to the poorhouse just because--" + +The girl looked up piteously and then cried out: "Oh, John--don't, +don't--I can't. It's awful, John--I can't." + +"But, Molly," he replied as gently as he could, "you must. You can't +afford to be squeamish about this business. This is a woman's job, +Molly, not a child's." + +She rose and looked at him a fleeting moment as if in search of some +mercy in his face. Then she looked away. He stood beside her, barring +her way to the door. "But you'll try, Molly, won't you--you'll try?" +he cried. She looked at him again with begging eyes and stepped around +him, and said breathlessly as she reached the door: "Oh, I don't know, +John--I don't know. I must think about it." + +She felt her way down the stairs, and stopped a minute to compose +herself before she crossed the street and walked wearily up the hill. + +That night at supper Colonel Culpepper addressed the assembled family +expansively. "The ravens, my dears, the ravens. Behold Elijah fed by +the sacred birds. By Adrian P. Brownwell, to be exact. This morning I +went down town with the sheriff selling the roof over our heads. This +afternoon who should come to me soliciting the pleasure of lending, me +money--who, I say, but Adrian P. Brownwell?" + +"Well, I hope you didn't keep him standing," put in Buchanan. + +"My son," responded the colonel, as he whetted the carving knife on +the steel--a form which was used more for rhetorical effect than, +culinary necessity, as there were pork chops on the platter, "my son, +no true gentleman will rebuke another who is trying to lend him money. +Always remember that." And the colonel's great body shook with +merriment, as he proceeded to fill up the plates. But one plate went +from the table untouched, and Molly Culpepper went about her work with +a leaden heart. For the world had become a horrible phantasm to her, a +place of longing and of heartache, a place of temptation and trial, +lying under the shadow of tragedy. And whose world was it that night, +as she sat chattering with her father and the man she feared, whose +world was it that night, if this is a real world, and not the shadow +of a dream? Was it the colonel's gay world, or John's golden world, or +Ward's harmonious world, or poor little Molly's world--all askew with +miserable duties and racking heartaches, and grinning sneering fears, +with the relentless image of the Larger Good always before her? Surely +it was not all their worlds, for there is only one world. Then whose +was it? God who made it and set it in the heavens in His great love +and mercy only knows. Watts McHurdie once wrote some query like this, +and the whole town smiled at his fancy. In that portion of his +"Complete Poetical and Philosophical Works" called "Fragments" occur +these lines:-- + + "The wise men say + This world spins 'round the universe of which it is a part; + But anyway-- + The only world I know about is spun from out my heart." + +And perhaps Watts, sewing away in his harness shop, had deciphered one +letter in the riddle of the Sphinx. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +"If I ever get to be a Turk or anything like that," said Watts +McHurdie, in October, two months after the events recorded in the last +chapter had occurred, as he sat astraddle of his bench, sewing on a +bridle, "I'm going to have one red-headed wife--but not much more'n +one." + +Colonel Culpepper dropped a "Why?" into the reflections of the poet. + +Watts replied, "Oh, just to complete the set!" + +The colonel did not answer and Watts chuckled: "I figure out that +women are a study. You learn this one and pat yourself on the +breast-bone and say, 'Behold me, I'm on to women.' But you ain't. +Another comes along and you have to begin at the beginning and learn +'em all over. I wonder if Solomon who had a thousand--more or +less--got all his wisdom from them." + +The colonel shook his head, and said sententiously, "Watts--they +hain't a blame thing in it--not a blame thing." The creaking of the +treadle on Watt's bench slit the silence for a few moments, and the +colonel went on: "There can be educated fools about women, Watts +McHurdie, just as there are educated fools about books. There's +nothing in your theory of a liberal education in women. On the +contrary, in all matters relating to and touching on affairs of the +heart--beware of the man with one wife." + +McHurdie flashed his yellow-toothed smile upon his friend and replied, +"Or less than one?" + +"No, sir, just one," answered Colonel Culpepper. "A man with a raft of +wives, first and last, is like a fellow with good luck--the Lord +never gives him anything else. And I may say in point of fact, that +the man with no wife is like a man with bad luck--the Lord never +gives him anything else, either!" The colonel slapped his right hand +on his knee and exclaimed: "Watts McHurdie--what's the matter with +you, man? Don't you see Nellie's all ready and waitin'--just fairly +honin', and longin', I may say, for a home and a place to begin to +live?" + +McHurdie gave his treadle a jam and swayed forward over his work and +answered, "Marry in haste--repent at leisure." + +But nevertheless that night Watts sat with Nellie Logan on the front +porch of the Wards' house, watching the rising harvest moon, while +Mrs. Ward, inside, was singing to her baby. Nellie Logan roomed with +the Wards, and was bookkeeper in Dorman's store. It was nearly ten +o'clock and the man rose to go. "Well," he said, and hesitated a +moment, "well, Nellie, I suppose you're still waiting?" It was a +question rather than an assertion. + +The woman put her hands gently on the man's arms and sighed. "I just +can't--not yet, Watts." + +"Well, I thought maybe you'd changed your mind." He smiled as he +continued, "You know they say women do change sometimes." + +She looked down at him sadly. "Yes, I know they do, but some way I +don't." + +There was a long pause while Watts screwed up his courage to say, +"Still kind of thinking about that preacher?" + +The woman had no animation in her voice as she replied, "You know that +by now--without asking." + +The man sat down on the step, and she sat on a lower step. He was +silent for a time. Then he said, "Funny, ain't it?" She knew she was +not to reply; for in a dozen years she had learned the man's moods. In +a minute, during which he looked into his hat absent-mindedly, he went +on: "As far as I've been able to make it out, love's a kind of a +grand-right-and-left. I give my right hand to you, and you give yours +to the preacher, and he gives his to some other girl, and she gives +hers to some one else, like as not, who gives his to some one else, +and the fiddle and the horn and the piano and the bass fid screech and +toot and howl, and away we go and sigh under our breaths and break our +hearts and swing our partners, and it's everybody dance." He looked up +at her and smiled at his fancy. For he was a poet and thought his +remarks had some artistic value. + +She smiled back at him, and he leaned on his elbows and looked up at +her as he said quietly: "I'd like awful well, Nellie--awful well if +you'd be my partner for the rest of this dance. It's lonesome down +there in the shop." + +The woman patted his hand, and they sat quietly for a while and then +she said, "Maybe sometime, Watts, but not to-night." + +He got up, and stood for a moment beside her on the walk. "Well," he +said at length, "I suppose I must be moving along--as the wandering +Jew said." He smiled and their eyes met in the moonlight. Watts +dropped his instantly, and exclaimed, "You're a terrible handsome +girl, Nellie--? did you know it?" He repeated it and added, "And the +Lord knows I love you, Nellie, and I've said it a thousand times." He +found her hand again, and said as he put on his hat, "Well, good-by, +Nellie--good-by--if you call that gone." His handclasp tightened and +hers responded, and then he dropped her hand and turned away. + +The woman felt a desire to scream; she never knew how she choked her +desire. But she rushed after him and caught him tightly and sobbed, +"Oh, Watts--Watts--Watts McHurdie--are you never going to have any +more snap in you than that?" + +As he kicked away the earth from under him, Watts McHurdie saw the +light in a window of the Culpepper home, and when he came down to +earth again five minutes later, he said, "Well, I was just a-thinking +how nice it would be to go over to Culpeppers' and kind of tell them +the news!" + +"They'll have news of their own pretty soon, I expect," replied +Nellie. And to Watts' blank look she replied: "The way that man +Brownwell keeps shining around. He was there four nights last week, +and he's been there two this week already. I don't see what Molly +Culpepper can be thinking of." + +So they deferred the visit to the Culpeppers', and in due time Watts +McHurdie flitted down Lincoln Avenue and felt himself wafted along +Main Street as far in the clouds as a mortal may be. And though it was +nearly midnight, he brought out his accordion and sat playing it, +beating time with his left foot, and in his closed eyes seeing visions +that by all the rights of this game of life should come only to youth. +And the guests in the Thayer House next morning asked, "Well, for +heaven's sake, who was that playing 'Silver Threads among the Gold' +along there about midnight?--he surely must know it by this time." + +And Adrian Brownwell, sitting on the Culpepper veranda the next night +but one, said: "Colonel, your harness-maker friend is a musical +artist. The other night when I came in I heard him twanging his +lute--'The Harp that once through Tara's Hall'; you know, Colonel." + +And John Barclay closed his letter to Bob Hendricks: "Well, Bob, as I +sit here with fifty letters written this evening and ready to mail, +and the blessed knowledge that we have 18,000 acres of winter wheat +all planted if not paid for, I can hear old Watts wheezing away on his +accordion in his shop down street. Poor old Watts, it's a pity that +man hasn't the acquisitive faculty--he could turn that talent into +enough to keep him all his days. Poor old Watts!" + +And Molly Culpepper, sitting in her bedroom chewing her penholder, +finally wrote this: "Watts McHurdie went sailing by the house +to-night, coming home from the Wards', where he was making his regular +call on Nellie. You know what a mouse-like little walk he has, +scratching along the sidewalk so demurely; but to-night, after he +passed our place I heard him actually break into a hippety-hop, and as +I was sitting on the veranda, I could hear him clicking clear down to +the new stone walk in front of the post-office." Oho, Molly Culpepper, +you said "as I was sitting on the veranda"; that is of course the +truth, but not the whole truth; what you might have said was "as we +were sitting on the veranda," and "as we were talking of what I like" +and "what you like," and of "what I think" and "what you think," and +as "I was listening to war tales from a Southern soldier," and as "I +was finding it on the whole rather a tiresome business "; those things +you might have written, Molly Culpepper, but you did not. And was it a +twinge or a prick or a sharp reproachful stab of your conscience that +made you chew the tip of your penholder into shreds and then madly +write down this:-- + +"Bob, I don't know what is coming over me; but some way your letters +seem so far away, and it has been such a long time since I saw you, a +whole lonesome year, and Bob dear, I am so weak and so unworthy of +you; I know it, oh, I know it. But I feel to-night that I must tell +you something right from my heart. It is this, dear: no matter what +may happen, I want you to know that I must always love you better than +any one else in all the world. I seem so young and foolish, and life +is so long and the world is so big--so big and you are so far away. +But, Bob dear, my good true boy, don't forget this that I tell you +to-night, that through all time and all eternity the innermost part of +my heart must always be yours. No matter what happens to you and me in +the course of life in the big world--you must never forget what I +have written here to-night." + +And these words, for some strange reason, were burned on the man's +soul; though she had written him fonder ones, which passed from him +with the years. The other words of the letter fell into his eyes and +were consumed there, so he does not remember that she also wrote that +night: "I have just been standing at my bedroom window, looking out +over the town. It is quiet as the graveyard, save for the murmur of +the waters falling over the dam. And I cannot tell whether it is fancy +or whether it is real, but now and then there comes to me a faint hint +of music,--it sounds almost like Watts' accordion, but of course it +cannot be at this unholy hour, and the tune it makes me think of some +way is 'Silver Threads among the Gold.' Isn't it odd that I should +hear that song, and yet not hear it, and have it running through my +mind?" + +And thus the town heard Watts McHurdie's song of triumph--the chortle +that every male creature of the human kind instinctively lets out when +he has found favour in some woman's eyes, that men have let out since +Lemech sang of victory over the young man to Adah and Zillah! And in +all the town no one knew what it meant. For the accordion is not +essentially an instrument of passion. So the episode ended, and +another day came in. And all that is left to mark for this world that +night of triumph--and that mark soon will bleach into oblivion--are +the verses entitled "Love at Sunset," of which Colonel Martin +Culpepper, the poet's biographer, writes in that chapter "At Hymen's +Altar," referred to before: "This poem was written October 14, 1874, +on the occasion of the poet's engagement to Miss Nellie Logan, who +afterward became his wife. By many competent critics, including no +less a personage than Hon. John Barclay, president of the National +Provisions Company, this poem is deemed one of Mr. McHurdie's noblest +achievements, ranking second only to the great song that gave him +national fame." + +And it should be set down as an integral part of this narrative that +John Barclay first read the verses "Love at Sunset" in the _Banner_, +two weeks after the night of their composition, as he was finishing a +campaign for the Fifth Parallel bonds. He picked up the _Banner_ one +evening at twilight in a house in Pleasant township, and seeing Watts' +initials under some verses, read them at first mechanically, and then +reread them with real zest, and so deeply did they move the man from +the mooring of the campaign that seeing an accordion on the table of +the best room in which he was waiting for supper, Barclay picked it up +and fooled with it for half an hour. It had been a dozen years since +he had played an accordion, and the tunes that came into his fingers +were old tunes in vogue before the war, and he thought of himself as +an old man, though he was not yet twenty-five. But the old tunes +brought back his boyhood from days so remote that they seemed a long +time past. And that night when he addressed the people in the Pleasant +Valley schoolhouse, he was half an hour getting on to the subject of +the bonds; he dwelt on the old days and spoke of the drouth of '60 and +of the pioneers, and preached a sermon, with their lives for texts, on +the value of service without thought of money or hope of other reward +than the joy one has in consecrated work. Then he launched into the +bond proposition, and when the votes were counted Pleasant township +indorsed Barclay's plan overwhelmingly. For he was a young man of +force, if not of eloquence. His evident sincerity made up for what he +lacked in oratorical charm, and he left an impression on those about +him. So when the bonds carried in Garrison County, the firm of Ward +and Barclay was made local attorneys for the road, and General Ward, +smarting under the defeat of his party in the state, refused to accept +the railroad's business, and the partnership was dissolved. + +"John," said Ward, as he put his hands on the young man's shoulders +and looked at him a kindly moment, before picking up his bushel basket +of letters and papers, to move them into another room and dissolve the +partnership, "John," the elder man repeated, "if I could always +maintain such a faith in God as you maintain in money and its power, I +could raise the dead." + +Barclay blinked a second and replied, "Well, now, General, look +here--what I don't understand is how you expect to accomplish +anything without money." + +"I can't tell you, John--but some way I have faith that I can--can +do more real work in this world without bothering to get money, than I +can by stopping to get money with which to do good." + +"But if you had a million, you could do more good with it than you are +doing now, couldn't you?" asked Barclay. + +"Yes, perhaps I could," admitted the general, as he eyed his miserable +little pile of worldly goods in the basket. "I suppose I could," he +repeated meditatively. + +"All right then, General," cut in Barclay. "I have no million, any +more than you have; but I'm going to get one--or two, maybe a dozen +if I can, and I want to do good with it just as much as you do. When I +get it I'll show you." Barclay rose to lend the general a hand with +his basket. As they went awkwardly through the door with the load, the +general stopping to get a hold on the basket that would not twist his +hand, he put the load down in the hall and said: "But while you're +getting that million, you're wasting God's ten talents, boy. Can't you +see that if you would use your force, your keenness, and persistence +helping mankind in some way--teaching, preaching, lending a hand to +the poor, or helping to fight organized greed, you would get more of +God's work done than you will by squeezing the daylights out of your +fellow-men, making them hate money because of your avarice, and end by +doling it out to them in charity? That's my point, boy. That's why I +don't want your railroad job." + +They had dropped the basket in the bare room. The general had not so +much as a chair or a desk. He looked it over, and Barclay's eyes +followed his. "What are you going to do for furniture?" asked the +younger man. + +The general's thin face wrinkled into a smile. "Well," he replied, "I +suppose that if a raven can carry dry-goods, groceries, boots and +shoes and drugs, paints and oils,--and certainly the ravens have been +bringing those things to the Wards for eight years now, and they're +all paid for,--the blessed bird can hump itself a little and bring +some furniture, stoves, and hardware." + +Barclay limped into his room, while the general rubbed the dust off +the windows. In a minute John came stumbling in with a chair, and as +he set it down he said, "Here comes the first raven, General, and now +if you'll kindly come and give the ravens a lift, they'll bring you a +table." And so the two men dragged the table into the office, and as +they finished, Ward saw General Hendricks coming up the stairs, and +when the new room had been put in order,--a simple operation, +--General Ward hurried home to help Mrs. Ward get in their dahlia +roots for the winter. + +As they were digging in the garden, covering the ferns and wrapping +the magnolia tree they had lately acquired, and mulching the +perennials, Mrs. Mary Barclay came toward them buffeting the wind. She +wore the long cowlish waterproof cloak and hood of the period--which +she had put on during the cloudy morning. Her tall strong figure did +not bend in the wind, and the schoolbooks she carried in her hand +broke the straight line of her figure only to heighten the priestess +effect that her approaching presence produced. + +"Well, children," she said, as she stood by the Wards at their work, +"preparing your miracles?" She looked at the bulbs and roots, and +smiled. "How wonderful that all the beauty of the flowers should be in +those scrawny brown things; and," she added as she brushed away the +brown hair of her forties from her broad brow, "God probably thinks +the same thing when He considers men and their souls." + +"And when the gardener puts us away for our winter's sleep?" Ward +asked. + +She turned her big frank blue eyes upon him as she took the words from +his mouth, "'And the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.'" Then +she smiled sadly and said, "But it is the old Adam himself that I seem +to be wrestling with just now." + +"In the children--at school?" asked the Wards, one after the other. +She sighed and looked at the little troopers straggling along the +highway, and replied, "Yes, partly that, too," and throwing her +unnecessary hood back, turned her face into the wind and walked +quickly away. The Wards watched her as she strode down the hill, and +finally as he bent to his work the general asked:-- + +"Lucy, what does she think of John?" + +Mrs. Ward, who was busy with a geranium, did not reply at once. But in +a moment she rose and, putting the plant with some others that were to +go to the cellar, replied: "Oh, Phil--you know a mother tries to hope +against hope. She teaches her school every day, and keeps her mind +busy. But sometimes, when she stops in here after school or for lunch, +she can't help dropping things that let me know. I think her heart is +breaking, Phil." + +"Does she know about the wheat deal--I mean about the way he has +made the farmers sign that mortgage by cutting them off from borrowing +money at the bank?" + +"Not all of it--but I think she suspects," replied the wife. + +"Did you know, dear," said the general, as he put the plants in the +barrow to wheel them to the cellar, "that I ran across something +to-day--it may be all suspicion, and I don't want to wrong +John--but Mart Culpepper, God bless his big innocent heart, let +something slip--well, it was John, I think, who arranged for that +loan of ten thousand from Brownwell to Mart. Though why he didn't get +it at the bank, I don't know. But John had some reason. Things look +mighty crooked there at the bank. I know this--Mart says that +Brownwell lent him the money, and Mart lent it to the bank for a month +there in August, while he was holding the Chicago fellow in the air." + +Mrs. Ward sat down on the front steps of the porch, and exclaimed:-- + +"Well, Phil Ward--that's why the Culpeppers are so nice to Brownwell. +Honestly, Phil, the last time I was over Mrs. Culpepper nearly talked +her head off to me and at Molly about what a fine man he is, and told +all about his family, and connections--he's related to the angel +Gabriel on his mother's side," she laughed, "and he's own cousin to +St. Peter through the Brownwells." + +"Oh, I guess they're innocent enough about it--they aren't +mercenary," interrupted the general. + +"Oh, no," replied Mrs Ward, "never in the world; but he's been good to +them and he's of their stock--and it's only natural." + +"Yes, probably," replied the general, and asked, "Does she intend to +marry him, do you think?" Mrs. Ward was sorting some dahlia roots on +the wheelbarrow and did not reply at once. "Do you suppose they're +engaged?" repeated the general. + +"I often wonder," she returned, still at her task. Then she rose, +holding a bulb in her hands, and said: "It's a funny kind of relation. +Her father and mother egging her on--and you know that kind of a man; +give him an inch and he'll take an ell. I wonder how far he has got." +She took the bulb to a pile near the rear of the house. "Those are the +nice big yellow ones I'm saving for Mrs. Barclay. But I'm sure of one +thing, Molly has no notion of marrying Brownwell." She continued: +"Molly is still in love with Bob. She was over here last week and had +a good cry and told me so." + +"Well, why doesn't she send this man about his business?" exclaimed +the general. + +Mrs. Ward sighed a little and replied, "Because--there is only one +perfect person in all the world, and that's you." She smiled at him +and continued: "The rest of us, dear, are just flesh and blood. So we +make mistakes. Molly knows she should; she told me so the other day. +And she hates herself for not doing it. But, dearie--don't you see +she thinks if she does, her father and mother will lose the big house, +and Bob will be involved in some kind of trouble? They keep that +before her all of the time. She says that John is always insisting +that she be nice to Brownwell. And you know the Culpeppers think +Brownwell is--well, you know what they think." + +They worked along for a while, and the general stopped and put his +foot on his spade and cried: "That boy--that boy--that boy! Isn't he +selling his soul to the devil by bits? A little chunk goes every day. +And oh, my dear, my dear--" he broke out, "what profiteth a man if he +gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Poor, poor John." He fell +to his work again, sighing, "Poor John, poor John!" So they talked on +until the afternoon grew old. + +And while they were talking, John and General Hendricks were in +Barclay's office going over matters, and seeing where they stood. + +"So he says seventy thousand is too much for the company and me to +owe?" said John, at the end of half an hour's conference. + +The general was drumming his fingers on the table nervously. "Yes--he +says we've got to reduce that in thirty days, or he'll close us up. +Haven't you got any political influence, somewhere in the East, +John,--some of those stockholders,--that will hold this matter up +till you can harvest your crop next June?" + +Barclay thought a moment, with his hand in his chin, and then slowly +shook his head. A bank inspector from Washington was several degrees +higher in the work of politics than Barclay had gone. + +"Let me see--" droned Barclay; "let me see. We can at least try +scattering it out a little; cut off, say, fifty thousand from me and +the company and put it in the name of Lige--" + +"He's on to Lige, we've got a hat full of Lige's notes in there," +interrupted the general. + +"All right, then, drop Lige and put in the colonel--he'll do that for +me, and I'll see if I can't get the colonel to get Brownwell to +accommodate us. He's burning a good bit of the colonel's stove wood +these nights." Barclay smiled, and added, "And I'll just put Bob in +for a few thousand." + +"But what'll we do about those taxes?" asked the general, anxiously. +"You know they've got to be paid before the first of the year, and +that's only six weeks off." + +Barclay rose and paced the rug, and replied: "Yes, that's so. I was +going to make another note for them. But I suppose we oughtn't to do +it even under cover; for if he found out you had exceeded our loan +right now--you know those fellows get ugly sometimes." The young man +screwed up his face and stood looking out of the window in silence for +a long minute. Then he limped over to his chair and sat down as one +who has a plan. "Say now, General; you know Gabe Carnine's coming in +as county treasurer right after the first of the year, and we will +make him help us. You make your personal check for the nine thousand, +and give it to the old cuss who's in the county treasurer's office +now, with the descriptions of the land, and get the tax receipts; +he'll bring the check back to the bank; you give him credit on his +pass-book with the other checks, and just hold your own check out in +the drawer as cash. If my check was in there, the inspector might drop +in and see it, and cause a disturbance. When Gabe comes in, I'll make +him carry the matter over till next summer." + +The transaction would cover only a few days, Barclay explained; and +finally he had his way. So the Larger Good was accomplished. + +And later Adrian Brownwell came into the office to say:-- + +"Mr. Barclay, our friend, Colonel Culpepper, confessed to me after +some transparent attempts at subterfuge that my signing an +accommodation note would help you, and do I understand this also will +help our young friend, Robert Hendricks, whom I have never seen, and +enable him to remain at his post during the winter?" + +John Barclay took a square hard look at Brownwell, and got a smile and +a faint little shrug in return, whereupon, for the Larger Good, he +replied "Yes," and for the Larger Good also, perhaps, Adrian Brownwell +answered: + +"Well, I shall be delighted--just make my note for thirty days--only +thirty days, you understand; and then--well, of course if +circumstances justify it, I'll renew it." Barclay laughed and asked, +"Well, Mr. Brownwell, as between friends may I ask how 'circumstances' +are getting on?" + +Brownwell shrugged his shoulders and smiled blandly as he answered: +"Just so-so; I go twice a week. And--" he waved his gloves airily and +continued, "What is it the immortal Burns says: 'A man's a man, for a' +that and a' that!' And I'm a man, John Barclay, and she's a woman. And +I go twice a week. You know women, sir, you know women--they're +mostly all alike. So I think--" he smirked complacently as he +concluded--"I think what I need is time--only time." + +"Luck to you," said Barclay. "I'll just make the note thirty days, as +you say, and we can renew it from time to time." + +Then Brownwell put on his hat, twirled his cane effusively, and bade +Barclay an elaborate adieu. + +And ten days later, Molly Culpepper, loathing herself in her soul, and +praying for the day of deliverance when it should be all over, walked +slowly from the post-office up the hill to the house, the stately +house, with its impressive pillars, reading this: "My darling Girl: +John has sent me some more mortgages to sell, and they have to be sold +now. He says that father has to have the money, and he and father have +laid out work for me that will keep me here till the middle of +January. John says that the government inspector has been threatening +us with serious trouble in the bank lately, and we must have the +money. He says the times have forced us to do certain things that were +technically wrong--though I guess they were criminally wrong from +what he says, and we must have this money to make things good. So I am +compelled to stay here and work. Father commands me to stay in a way +that makes me fear that my coming home now would mean our ruin. What a +brick John is to stay there and shoulder it all. But, oh, darling, +darling, darling, I love you." + +There was more, of course, and it was from a man's heart, and the +strange and sad part of this story is that when Molly Culpepper read +the rest of the letter, her heart burned in shame, and her shame was +keener than her sorrow that her lover was not coming home. + +So it happened naturally that Molly Culpepper went to the Christmas +dance with Adrian Brownwell, and when Jane Barclay, seeing the +proprietary way the Alabaman hovered over Molly, and his obvious +jealousy of all the other men who were civil to her, asked John why he +did not let Bob come home for the holidays, as he had promised, for +the Larger Good John told her the facts--that there were some +mortgages that had just come in, and they must be sold, so that the +company could reduce its indebtedness to the bank. But the facts are +not always the truth, and in her heart, which did not reason but only +felt, Molly Culpepper, knowing that Brownwell and John Barclay were in +some kind of an affair together, feared the truth. And from her heart +she wrote to her lover questioning John's motives and pleading with +him to return, and he, having merely the facts, did not see the truth, +and replied impatiently--so impatiently that it hurt, and there was +temper in her answer, and then for over a week no letter came, and for +over a week no reply went back to that. And so the Larger Good was +doing its fine work in a wicked world. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +The spring sun of 1875 that tanned John Barclay's face gave it a +leathery masklike appearance that the succeeding years never entirely +wore off. For he lived in the open by day, riding among his fields in +three townships, watching the green carpet of March rise and begin to +dimple in April, and billow in May. And at night he worked in his +office until the midnight cockcrow. His back was bowed under a score +of burdens. But his greatest burden was the bank; for it gave him +worry; and worry weighed upon him more than work. It was in +April--early April when the days were raw and cloudy, and the nights +blustery and dreary--that Barclay sat in his office one night after a +hard day afield, his top-boots spattered with mud, his corduroy coat +spread out on a chair to dry, and his wet gray soft hat on his desk +beside him. Jane was with her parents in Minneola, and Barclay had +come to his office without eating, from the stable where he left his +team. The yellow lights in the street below were reflected on the +mists outside his window, and the dripping eaves and cornices above +him and about him seemed to mark the time of some eery music too fine +for his senses, and the footfalls in the street below, hurrying +footfalls of people shivering through the mists, seemed to be the drum +beats of the weird symphony that he could not hear. + +Barclay drew a watch from, the pocket of his blue flannel shirt, and +looked at it and stopped writing and stood by the box-stove. He was +looking at the door when he heard a thud on the stairs. It was +followed by a rattling sound, and in a moment Adrian Brownwell and his +cane were in the room. After the rather gorgeous cadenza of +Brownwell's greeting had died away and Barclay had his man in a chair, +Barclay opened the stove door and let the glow of the flames fight the +shadows in the room. + +"Well," said Barclay, turning toward his visitor brusquely, "why won't +you renew that accommodation paper for me again?" + +The Papins and the Dulangpres shrugged their shoulders and waved +their hands through Brownwell rather nastily as he answered, +"Circumstances, Mr. Barclay, circumstances!" + +"You're not getting along fast enough, eh?" retorted Barclay. + +"Yes--and no," returned Brownwell. + +"What do you mean?" asked Barclay, half divining the truth. + +"Well--it is after all our own affair--but since you are a friend I +will say this: three times a week--sometimes four times a week I go +out to pay my respects. Until November I stayed until nine, at +Christmas we put on another hour; now it is ten-thirty. I am a man, +John Barclay--as you see. She--she is an angel. Very good. In that +way, yes. But," the Papins and Dulangpres came back to his face, and +he shook his head. "But otherwise--no. There we stand still. She will +not say it." + +Barclay squinted at the man who sat so complacently in the glow of the +firelight, with his cane between his toes and his gloves lightly +fanning the air. "So I take it," said John, "that you are like the +Memorial Day parade, several hours passing a given point!" + +"Exactly," smiled back Brownwell. He drew from his pocket a diamond +ring. "She will look at it; she will admire it. She will put it on a +chain, but she will not wear it. And so I say, why should I put my +head in a noose here in your bank--what's the use? No, sir, John +Barclay--no, sir. I'm done, sir." + +Barclay knew wheedling would not move Brownwell. He was of the mulish +temperament. So Barclay stretched out in his chair, locked his hands +back of his head, and looked at the ceiling through his eyelashes. +After a silence he addressed the cobwebs above him: "Supposing the +case. Would a letter from me to you, setting forth the desperate need +of this accommodation paper, not especially for me, but for Colonel +Culpepper's fortunes and the good name of the Hendricks family--would +that help your cause--a letter that you could show; a letter," +Barclay said slowly, "asking for this accommodation; a letter that you +could show to--to--well, to the proper parties, let us say, +to-night; would--that kind of a letter help--" Barclay rose suddenly +to an upright position and went on: "Say, Mr. Man, that ought to +pretty nearly fix it. Let's leave both matters open, say for two +hours, and then at ten o'clock or so--you come back here, and I'll +have the note for you to sign--if you care to. How's that?" he asked +as he turned to his desk and reached for a pen. + +"Well," replied Brownwell, "I am willing to try." + +And so Barclay sat writing for five minutes, while the glow of the +flames died down, and the shadows ceased fighting and were still. + +"Read this over," said Barclay at length. "You will see," he added, as +he handed Brownwell the unfolded sheets, "that I have made it clear +that if you refuse to sign our notes, General Hendricks will be +compelled to close the bank, and that the examination which will +follow will send him to prison and jeopardize Bob, who has signed a +lot of improper notes there to cover our transactions, and that in the +crash Colonel Culpepper will lose all he has, including the roof over +his head--if you refuse to help us." ("However," snarled Barclay, at +his conscience, "I've only told the truth; for if you take your money +and go and shut down on the colonel, it would make him a pauper.") + +With a flourishing crescendo finale Adrian Brownwell entered the dark +stairway and went down into the street. Barclay turned quickly to his +work as if to avoid meditation. The scratch of his pen and the murmur +of the water on the roof grew louder and louder as the evening waxed +old. And out on the hill, out on Lincoln Avenue, the rain descended, +and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that +house--that stately house of a father's pride and-- + +At ten o'clock John Barclay heard a light footstep and a rattling cane +upon the stair, and Brownwell, a human whirligig of gay gestures, came +tripping into the room. "A pen, a pen,"--he cried, "my kingdom for a +pen." He was tugging at his gloves as he spoke, and in the clatter +that he made, Barclay found the blank note and pushed it toward the +table's edge to Brownwell, who put his ornate copy-book signature upon +it with a flourish. + +When he had gone, Barclay wrote a note to Jane telling her of Molly's +engagement to Brownwell, and then he sat posting his books, and +figuring up his accounts. It was after midnight when he limped down +the stairs, and the rain had ceased. But a biting wind like a cruel +fate came out of the north, and he hurried through the deserted +street, under lowering clouds that scurried madly across the stars. +But John Barclay could not look up at the stars, he broke into a +limping run and head downward plunged into the gale. And never in all +his life could he take a square look at Molly Culpepper's diamond +ring. + +As the spring deepened Bob Hendricks felt upon him at his work the +pressure of two distinct troubles. One was his sweetheart's attitude +toward him, and the other was the increasing weakness of his father. +Molly Culpepper's letters seemed to be growing sad; also they were +failing in their length and frequency--the young man felt that they +were perfunctory. His father's letters showed a physical breakdown. +His handwriting was unsteady, and often he repeated himself in +successive letters. The sister wrote about her father's weakness, and +seemed to think he was working too hard. But the son suspected that it +was worry rather than work, and that things were not going right in +the bank. He did not know that the Golden Belt Wheat Company had +sapped the money of the bank and had left it a husk, which at any time +might crumble. The father knew this, and after the first of the year +every morning when he opened the bank he feared that day would be the +last day of its career. + +And so it fell out that "those that look out of the windows" were +darkened, and General Hendricks rose up with the voice of the bird and +was "afraid of that which was high" and terrors were in the way. So on +his head, the white blossom of the almond tree trembled; and one noon +in March the stage bore to this broken, shaking old man a letter from +Kansas City that ran the sword of fear into his heart and almost +stopped it forever. It ran:-- + +"Dear General: I have just learned from talking with a banker here +that an inspector is headed our way. He probably will arrive the day +after this reaches you. Something must be done about that tax check of +yours. The inspector should not find it in the drawer again. Once was +all right, but you must get it out now. Put it in the form of a note. +Make it Carnine's note. He is good for twice that. Don't bother him +with it, but make it out for ninety days, and by that time we can make +another turn. But that note must be in there. Your check won't do any +longer. The inspector has been gossiping about us up here--and about +that check of yours. For God's sake, don't hesitate, but do this thing +quick." + +The letter was not signed, but it came in Barclay's envelope, and was +addressed by Barclay's hand. + +The general fumbled with the pad of blank notes before him for a long +time. He read and reread Barclay's letter. Then he put away the pad +and tore the letter into bits and started for the front door. But a +terror seized him, and he walked behind the counter and put his +palsied hand into the box where he kept cancelled checks, and picked +out one of Gabriel Carnine's checks. He folded it up, and started for +the door again, but turned weakly at the threshold, and walked to the +back room of the bank. + +When it was done, and had been worked through the books, General +Hendricks, quaking with shame and fear, sat shivering before his desk +with jaws agape and the forged name gashed into his soul. And "the +strong men" bowed themselves as he shuffled home in the twilight. The +next day when the inspector came, "all the daughters of music were +brought low" and the feeble, bent, stricken man piped and wheezed and +stammered his confused answers to the young man's questions, and stood +paralyzed with unspeakable horror while the inspector glanced at the +Carnine note and asked some casual question about it. When the bank +closed that night, General Hendricks tried to write to his son and +tell him the truth, but he sat weeping before his desk and could not +put down the words he longed to write. Bob Hendricks found that +tear-stained letter half finished in the desk when he came home, and +he kept it locked up for years. And when he discovered that the date +on the letter and the date on the forged note were the same, the son +knew the meaning of the tears. But it was all for the Larger Good, and +so John Barclay won another game with Destiny. + +But the silver cord was straining, and morning after morning the old +pitcher went to the fountain, to be battered and battered and +battered. His books, which he kept himself, grew spotted and dirty, +and day by day in the early spring the general dreaded lest some +depositor would come into the bank and call for a sum in cash so large +that it would take the cash supply below the legal limit, and that an +inspector would suddenly appear again and discover the deficiency. +Except Barclay the other directors knew nothing of the situation. They +signed whatever reports the general or Barclay put before them; there +came a time in April when any three of a dozen depositors could have +taken every penny out of the bank. When the general was unusually low +in spirits, Barclay sent Colonel Culpepper around to the bank with his +anthem about times being better when the spring really opened, and for +an hour the general was cheerful, but when the colonel went, the +general always saw the axe hanging over his head. And then one morning +late in April--one bright Sunday morning--the wheel of the cistern +was broken, and they found the old man cold in his bed with his face +to the wall. + +John Barclay was on a horse riding to the railroad--four hours away, +before the town was up for late Sunday morning breakfast. That +afternoon he went into Topeka on a special engine, and told a Topeka +banker who dealt with the bank of Sycamore Ridge the news of the +general's death, and asked for five thousand dollars in silver to +allay a possible run. At midnight he drove into the Ridge with the +money, and the bank opened in the morning at seven o'clock instead of +nine, so that a crowd might not gather, and depositors who came, saw +back of Barclay a great heap of silver dollars, flanked by all the +gold and greenbacks in the vault, and when a man asked for his money +he got it in silver, and when Oscar Fernald presented a check for over +three thousand dollars, Barclay paid it out in silver, and in the +spirit of fun, Sheriff Jake Dolan, who heard of the counting and +recounting of the money while it was going on, brought in a +wheelbarrow and Oscar wheeled his money to his hotel, while every +loafer in town followed him. At noon Fernald came back with his money, +and Barclay refused to take it. The town knew that also. Barclay did +not step out of the teller's cage during the whole day, but Lige Bemis +was his herald, and through him Barclay had Dolan refuse to give +Fernald protection for his money unless Fernald would consent to be +locked up in jail with it. In ten minutes the town knew that story, +and at three o'clock Barclay posted a notice saying the bank would +remain open until nine o'clock that night, to accommodate any +depositors who desired their money, but that it would be closed for +three days following until after the funeral of the president of the +bank. + +The next day he sat in the back room of the bank and received +privately nearly all the money that had been taken out Monday, and +several thousand dollars besides that came through fear that Fernald's +cash would attract robbers from the rough country to the West who +might loot the town. To urge in that class of depositors, Barclay +asked Sheriff Dolan to detail a guard of fifty deputies about the bank +day and night, and the day following the cash began coming in with +mildew on it, and Adrian Brownwell appeared that night with a thousand +dollars of old bank-notes, issued in the fifties, that smelled of the +earth. Thursday John limped up and down the street inviting first one +business man and then another into the bank to help him count cash and +straighten out his balance. And each of a dozen men believed for years +that he was the man who first found the balance in the books of the +Exchange National Bank of Sycamore Ridge, after John Barclay had got +them tangled. And when Barclay was a great and powerful man in the +world, these men, being interviewed by reporters about the personality +of Barclay, took pride in telling this story of his blundering. But +when Bob Hendricks reached Sycamore Ridge Thursday noon, confidence in +the safety of the bank was founded upon a rock. + +So when the town closed its stores that afternoon and took the body of +the general, its first distinguished citizen to die, out upon the +Hill, and laid it to rest in the wild prairie grass, John Barclay and +Jane, his wife, rode in the carriage with the mourners, and John stood +by his friend through the long service, and when the body was lowered +into the grave, the most remote thought in all the world from John's +mind was that he was responsible for the old man's death. + +Bob Hendricks saw Molly Culpepper for the first time in twenty months, +standing by her father with those who gathered about the general's +grave, and as soon as he could leave the friends who came home with +him and his sister, he hurried to the Culpeppers'. As he left his +home, he could see Molly sitting on the veranda behind one of the +pillars of great pride. She moved down the steps toward the gate to +meet him. It was dusk,--deep dusk,--but he knew her figure and was +thrilled with joy. They walked silently from the gate toward the +veranda, and the youth's soul was moved too deeply for words. So +deeply indeed was his being stirred, that he did not notice in his +eagerness to bring their souls together how she was holding him away +from her heart. + +The yellow roses were blooming, and the pink roses were in bud. They +strayed idly to the side of the house farthest from the street, and +there they found the lilacs, heavy with blooms; they were higher than +the girl's head,--a little thicket of them,--and behind the thicket +was a rustic seat made of the grape-vines. He stepped toward the +chair, pulling her by the hand, and she followed. He tried to gather +her into his arms, but she slid away from him and cried, "No--no, +Bob--no!" + +"Why--why--why! what's wrong?" gasped the youth. + +The girl sank on the seat and covered her face with her hands. He +touched her shoulder and her hair with his finger-tips, and she +shivered away from him. "Oh, Bob--Bob, Bob!--" she cried in agony, +still looking at the grass before her. + +The young man looked at her in perplexity. "Why, dear--why--why, +darling--why, Molly," he stammered, "why--why--" + +She rose and faced him. She gripped herself, and he could feel the +unnatural firmness in her voice as she spoke. + +"Bob, I am not the little girl you left." He put out his arms, but she +shrank back among the lilacs; their perfume was in her face, and she +was impressed with that odd feeling one sometimes has of having had +some glimpse of it all before. She knew that she would say, "I am not +worthy--not worthy any more--Bob, do you understand?" + +And when he had stepped to ward her again with piteous pleading +face,--a face that she had never seen before, yet seemed always to +have known,--she felt that numb sense of familiarity with it all, and +it did not pain her as she feared it would when he cried, "Oh--God, +Molly--nothing you ever could do would make you unworthy of +me--Molly, Molly, what is it?" The anguish in his face flashed back +from some indefinite past to her, and then the illusion was gone, and +the drama was all new. He caught her, but she fought herself away. + +"Don't--don't!" she cried; "you have no right--now." She dropped +into the seat, while he stood over her with horror on his face. She +answered the question of his eyes, rocking her body as she spoke, +"Bob--do you understand now?" He shook his head, and she went on, "We +aren't engaged--not any more, Bob--not any more--never!" He started +to speak, but she said: "I'm going to marry Mr. Brownwell. Oh, +Bob--Bob, I told you I was unworthy--now do you understand?" + +The man turned his face starward a second, and then dropped his head. +"Oh," he groaned, and then sat down beside her at the other end of the +bench. He folded his hands on his knees, and they sat silent for a +time, and then he asked in a dead voice, "You know I love you--still, +don't you, Molly?" + +She answered, "Yes, that's what makes it hard." + +"And do you love me?" he cried with eagerness. + +She sat for a minute without replying and then answered, "I am a woman +now, Bob--a grown woman, and some way things are different." + +They sat without speaking; then he drew a deep breath and said, "Well, +I suppose I ought to go." His head rested on his hand which was +supported by an arm of the chair. He did not offer to rise. + +She rose and went to him, kneeling before him. She put her hands upon +his shoulders, and he put them aside, and she felt him shudder. She +moaned, and looked up at him. Her face was close to his, but he did +not come closer. He stared at her dumbly, and kept shaking his head as +if asking some mute question too deep for words. Then he put out his +hand and took hers. He put it against his cheek and held it in both +his own. She did not take her eyes from his face, but his eyes began +to wander. + +"I will never see you again, Bob--I mean like this." She paused. + +There was no life in his hands, and hers slipped away unrestrained. +"How sweet the lilacs smell to-night," he said as he drew in a deep +breath. He leaned back that he might breathe more freely, and added as +he sighed, "I shall smell them through eternity--Molly." Then he rose +and broke off a spray. He helped her rise and said, "Well--so this is +the way of it." His handsome fair face was white in the moonlight, and +she saw that his hair was thinning at the temples, and the strange +flash of familiarity with it all came again as she inhaled the +fragrance of the lilacs. + +She trembled with some chill of inner grief, and cried vehemently, +"Oh, Bob--my boy--my boy--say you hate me--for God's love, say you +hate me." She came so close to him that she touched him, then she +crumpled against the side of the seat in a storm of tears, but he +looked at her steadily and shook his head. + +"Come on, Molly. It's too cool for you out here," he said, and took +her hand and walked with her to the steps. She was blinded by her +weeping, and he helped here to the veranda, but he stopped on a lower +step where his face was on a level with hers, and dropping her hand, +he said, "Well, good night, Molly--good night--" and as he half +turned from her, he said in the same voice, "Good-by." + +He went quickly down the walk--a tall stalwart figure, and he carried +his hat in his hand, and wiped his forehead as he went. At the gate he +looked back and saw her standing where he had left her; he could still +hear the pitiful sobs, but he made no sign to her, and she heard him +walking away under the elms into the night. When his steps had ceased +she ran on tiptoe, holding her breath to silence her sobs, through the +hall, up the stairs of the silent home to her room, and locked the +door. When she could not pray, she lay sobbing and groaning through a +long night. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +The next morning John Barclay gave Robert Hendricks the keys to the +bank. Barclay watched the town until nine o'clock and satisfied +himself that there would be no run on the bank, for during the early +part of the morning young Hendricks was holding a reception in his +office; then Barclay saddled a horse and started for the wheat fields. +After the first hours of the morning had passed, and the townspeople +had gone from the bank, Robert Hendricks began to burrow into the +books. He felt instinctively that he would find there the solution of +the puzzle that perplexed him. For he was sure Molly Culpepper had not +jilted him wantonly. He worked all the long spring afternoon and into +the night, and when he could not sleep he went back to the bank at +midnight, following some clew that rose out of his under-consciousness +and beckoned him to an answer to his question. + +The next morning found him at his counter, still worrying his books as +a ferret worries a rat. They were beginning to mean something to him, +and he saw that the bank was a worm-eaten shell. When he discovered +that Brownwell's notes were not made for bona fide loans, but that +they were made to cover Barclay's overdrafts, he began to find the +truth, and then when he found that Colonel Culpepper had lent the +money back to the bank that he borrowed from Brownwell,--also to save +John's overdrafts,--Bob Hendricks' soul burned pale with rage. He +found that John had borrowed far beyond the limit of his credit at the +bank to buy the company's stock, and that he had used Culpepper and +Brownwell to protect his account when it needed protection. Hendricks +went about his work silently, serving the bank's customers, and +greeting his neighbours pleasantly, but his heart was full of a lust +to do some bodily hurt to John Barclay. When John came back, he +sauntered into the bank so airily that Hendricks could not put the +hate into his hands that was in his breast. John was full of a plan to +organize a commission company, buy all of the wheat grown by the +Golden Belt Wheat Company and make a profit off the wheat company for +the commission company. He had bargained with the traffic officers of +the railroad company to accept stock in the commission company in +return for rate concessions on the Corn Belt Railroad, which was +within a few months' building distance of Sycamore Ridge. + +As John unfolded his scheme, Bob eyed his partner almost without a +word. A devil back in some recess of his soul was thirsting for a +quarrel. But Bob's sane consciousness would not unleash the devil, so +he replied:-- + +"No--you go ahead with your commission company, and I'll stick to the +wheat proposition. That and the bank will keep me going." + +The afternoon was late, and a great heap of papers of the bank and the +company lay before them that needed their time. Bob brushed his devil +back and went to work. But he kept looking at Barclay's neck and +imagining his fingers closing upon it. When the twilight was falling, +Barclay brought the portmanteau containing the notes into the back +room and turning to the "C's" pulled out a note for nine thousand +dollars signed by Gabriel Carnine, who was then county treasurer. +Barclay put it on the table before Hendricks and looked steadily at +him a minute before saying, "Bob--see that note?" And when the young +man answered, the other returned: "We had to do that, and several +other things, this spring to tide us over. I didn't bother you with +it--but we just had to do it--or close up, and go to pieces with the +wheat scheme." + +Hendricks picked up the note, and after examining it a moment, asked +quickly, "John, is that Gabe's signature?" + +"No--I couldn't get Gabe to sign it--and we had to have it to make +his account balance." + +"And you forged his note,--and are carrying it?" cried Hendricks, +rising. + +"Oh, sit down, Bob--we did it here amongst hands. It wasn't exactly +my affair, the way it got squared around." + +Hendricks took the note to the window. He was flushed, and the devil +got into his eyes when he came back, and he cried, "And you made +father do it!" + +Barclay smiled pacifically, and limped over to Hendricks and took the +note from him and put it back into the portmanteau. Then Barclay +replied: "No, Bob, I didn't make your father--the times made your +father. It was that or confess to Gabe Carnine, who swelled up on +taking his job, that we hadn't paid the taxes on the company's land, +though our check had been passed for it. When it came in, we gave the +county treasurer credit on his daily bank-book for the nine thousand, +but we held out the check. Do you see?" + +"Yes, that far," replied Hendricks. + +"Well, it's a long story after that, but when I found Gabe wouldn't +accommodate us for six months by giving us his note to carry as cash +until we could pay it,--the inspectors wouldn't take mine or your +father's,--and our books had to show the amount of gross cash that +the treasurer deposited before Gabe came in, your father thought it +unwise to keep holding checks that had already been paid in the drawer +as cash for that nine thousand, so we--well, one day he just put this +note in, and worked it through the books." + +Hendricks had his devil well in hand as he stared at Barclay, and then +said: "John--this is mighty dangerous business. Are we carrying his +account nine thousand short on our books, and making his pass-book +balance?" + +"That's it, only--" + +"But suppose some one finds it out?" asked Hendricks. + +"Oh, now, Bob, keep your shirt on. I fixed that. You know they keep +two separate accounts,--a general maintenance account and a bond +account, and Gabe has been letting us keep the paid-off bonds in the +vault and look after their cancelling, and while he was sick, I was in +charge of the treasurer's office and had the run of the bank, and I +squared our account at the Eastern fiscal agency and in the bond +account in the treasurer's office, and fixed up the short maintenance +account all with nine thousand dollars' worth of old bonds that were +kicking around the vault uncancelled, and now the job is hermetically +sealed so far as the treasurer and the bank are concerned." + +"So we can't pay it back if we want to? Is that the way, John?" asked +Hendricks, his fingers twitching as he leaned forward in his chair. + +"Ah, don't get so tragic about it. Some day when Gabe has calmed down, +and wants a renomination, I'll take him in the back room and show him +the error that we've both made, and we'll just quietly put back the +money and give him the laugh." There was a pause, and Barclay tilted +his chair back and grinned. "It's all right, Bob--we were where we +had to do it; the books balance to a 'T' now--and we'll square it +with Gabe sometime." + +"But if we can't--if Gabe won't be--be--well, be reasonable? What +then?" asked Hendricks. + +"Oh, well," returned John, "I've thought of that too. And you'll find +that when, the county treasury changes hands in '79, you'll have to +look after the bond account and the treasurer's books and make a +little entry to satisfy the bonds when they really fall due; +then--I'll show you about it when we're over at the court-house. But +if we can't get the money back with Gabe or the next man, the time +will come when we can." + +And Bob Hendricks looked at the natty little man before him and +sighed, and began working for the Larger Good also. And afterwards as +the months flew by the Golden Belt Wheat Company paid the interest on +the forged note, and the bank paid the Golden Belt Wheat Company +interest on a daily ledger balance of nine thousand, and all went +happily. The Larger Good accepted the sacrifices of truth, and went on +its felicitous way. + +After Barclay left the bank that night, Hendricks found still more of +the truth. And the devil in the background of his soul came out and +glared through the young man's sleepless eyes as he appeared in +Barclay's office in the morning and said, before he had found a chair, +"John, what's your idea about those farmers' mortgages? Are you going +to let them pay them, or are you going to make them sell under that +option that you've got in them?" + +"Why," asked Barclay, "what's it to us? Haven't the courts decided +that that kind of an option is a sale--clear through to the United +States Supreme Court?" + +"Well, what are you going to do about it?" persisted Hendricks. + +Barclay squinted sidewise at his partner for a few seconds and said, +"Well, it's no affair of ours; we've sold all the mortgages anyway." + +Hendricks wagged his head impatiently and exclaimed, "Quit your +dodging and give me a square answer--what have you got up your sleeve +about those options?" + +Barclay rose, limped to the window, and looked out as he answered: +"Well, I've always supposed we'd fix it up some way to buy back those +mortgages and then take the land we want for ourselves--for you and +me personally--and give the poor land back to the farmers if they pay +the money we lent them." + +"Well," returned Hendricks, "just count me out on that. Whatever I +make in this deal, and you seem to think our share will be plenty, +goes to getting those farmers back their land. So far as I'm concerned +that money we paid them was rent, not a loan!" + +Barclay dropped his hands in astonishment and gaped at Hendricks. + +"Well, my dear Miss Nancy," he exclaimed, "when did you get religion?" + +The two men glared at each other a moment, and Hendricks grappled his +devil and drew a long breath and replied: "Well, you heard what I +said." And then he added: "I'm pretty keen for money, John, but when +it comes to skinning a lot of neighbours out of land that you and +every one says is going to raise thirty dollars' worth of wheat to the +acre this year alone, and only paying them ten dollars an acre for the +title to the land itself--" He did not finish. After a pause he +added: "Why, they'll mob you, man. I've got to live with those +farmers." Barclay sneered at Hendricks without speaking and Hendricks +stepped over to him and drew back his open hand as he said angrily, +"Stop it--stop it, I say." Then he exclaimed: "I'm not what you'd +call nasty nice, John--but I'm no robber. I can't take the rent of +that land for nothing, raise a thirty-dollar crop on every acre of it, +and make them pay me ten dollars an acre to get back the poor land and +steal the good land, on a hocus-pocus option." + +"'I do not use the nasty weed, said little Robert Reed,'" replied +Barclay, with a leer on his face. Then, he added: "I've held your +miserable little note-shaving shop up by main strength for a year, by +main strength and awkwardness, and now you come home with your mouth +all fixed for prisms and prunes, and want to get on a higher plane. +You try that," continued Barclay, and his eyes blazed at Hendricks, +"and you'll come down town some morning minus a bank." + +Then the devil in Bob Hendricks was freed for an exultant moment, as +his hands came out of his pockets and clamped down on Barclay's +shoulders, and shook him till his teeth rattled. + +"Not with me, John, not with me," he cried, and he felt his fingers +clutching for the thin neck so near them, and then suddenly his hands +went back to his pockets. "Now, another thing--you got Brownwell to +lend the colonel that money?" Hendricks was himself. + +Barclay nodded. + +"And you got Brownwell to sign a lot of accommodation paper there at +the bank?" + +"Yes--to cover our own overdrafts," retorted Barclay. "It was either +that or bust--and I preferred not to bust. What's more, if we had +gone under there at one stage of the game when Brownwell helped us, we +could have been indicted for obtaining money under false +pretences--you and I, I mean. I'm perfectly willing to stick my head +inside the jail and look around," Barclay grinned, "but I'll be damned +if I'm going clear inside for any man--not when I can find a way to +back out." Barclay tried to laugh, but Hendricks would not let him. + +"And so you put up Molly to bail you out." Barclay did not answer and +Hendricks went on bitterly: "Oh, you're a friend, John Barclay, you're +a loyal friend. You've sold me out like a dog, John--like a dog!" + +Barclay, sitting at his desk, playing with a paper-weight, snarled +back: "Why don't you get in the market yourself, if you think I've +sold you out? Why don't you lend the old man some money?" + +"And take it from the bank you've just got done robbing of everything +but the wall-paper?" Hendricks retorted. + +"No," cried Barclay, in a loud voice. "Come off your high horse and +take the profits we'll make on our wheat, pay off old Brownwell and +marry her." + +"And let the bank bust and the farmers slide?" asked Hendricks, "and +buy back Molly with stolen money? Is that your idea?" + +"Well," Barclay snapped, "you have your choice, so if you think more +of the bank and your old hayseeds than you do of Molly, don't come +blubbering around me about selling her." + +"John," sighed Hendricks, after a long wrestle--a final contest with +his demon, "I've gone all over that. And I have decided that if I've +got to swindle seventy-five or a hundred farmers--most of them old +soldiers on their homesteads--out of their little all, and cheat five +hundred depositors out of their money to get Molly, she and I wouldn't +be very happy when we thought of the price, and we'd always think of +the price." His demon was limp in the background of his soul as he +added: "Here are some papers I brought over. Let's get back to the +settlement--fix them up and bring them over to the bank this morning, +will you?" And laying a package carefully on the table, Hendricks +turned and went quickly out of the room. + +After Hendricks left the office that May morning, Barclay sat +whistling the air of the song of the "Evening Star," looking blankly +at a picture of Wagner hanging beside a picture of Jay Gould. The tune +seemed to restore his soul. When he had been whistling softly for five +minutes or so, the idea flashed across his mind that flour was the one +thing used in America more than any other food product and that if a +man had his money invested in the manufacture and sale of flour, he +would have an investment that would weather any panic. The idea +overcame him, and he shut his eyes and his ears and gripped his chair +and whistled and saw visions. Molly Culpepper came into the room, and +paused a moment on the threshold as one afraid to interrupt a sleeper. +She saw the dapper little man kicking the chair rounds with his +dangling heels, his flushed face reflecting a brain full of blood, his +eyes shut, his head thrown far back, so that his Adam's apple stuck up +irrelevantly, and she knew only by the persistence of the soft low +whistle that he was awake, clutching at some day-dream. When she +cleared her throat, he was startled and stared at her foolishly for a +moment, with the vision still upon him. His wits came to him, and he +rose to greet her. + +"Well--well--why--hello, Molly--I was just figuring on a matter," +he said as he put her in a chair, and then he added, "Well--I wasn't +expecting you." + +Even before she could speak his lips were puckering to pick up the +tune he had dropped. She answered, "No, John, I wanted to see you--so +I just came up." + +"Oh, that's all right, Molly--what is it?" he returned. + +"Well--" answered the young woman, listlessly, "it's about; father. +You know he's badly in debt, and some way--of course he sells lots of +land and all, but you know father, John, and he just doesn't--oh, he +just keeps in debt." + +Barclay had been lapsing back into his revery as she spoke, but he +pulled himself out and replied: "Oh, yes, Molly--I know about father +all right. Can't you make him straighten things out?" + +"Well, no. John, that's just it. His money comes in so irregularly, +this month a lot and next month nothing, that it just spoils him. When +he gets a lot he spends it like a prince," she smiled sadly and +interjected: "You know he is forever giving away--and then while he's +waiting he gets in debt again. Then we are as poor as the people for +whom he passes subscription papers, and that's just what I wanted to +see you about." + +Barclay took his eyes off Jay Gould's picture long enough to look at +the brown-eyed girl with an oval face and a tip of a chin that just +fitted the hollow of a man's hand; there were the smallest brown +freckles in the world across the bridge of her nose, and under her +eyes there was the faintest suggestion of dark shading. Youth was in +her lips and cheeks, and when she smiled there were dimples. But +John's eyes went back to Jay Gould's solemn black whiskers and he said +from his abstraction, "Well, Molly, I wish I could help you." + +"Well, I knew you would, John, some way; and oh, John, I do need help +so badly." She paused a moment and gazed at him piteously and +repeated, "So badly." But his eyes did not move from the sacred +whiskers of his joss. The vision was flaming in his brain, and with +his lips parted, he whistled "The Evening Star" to conjure it back and +keep it with him. The girl went on:-- + +"About that money Mr. Brownwell loaned father, John." She flushed and +cried, "Can't you find some way for father to borrow the money and pay +Mr. Brownwell--now that your wheat is turning out so well?" + +The young man pulled himself out of his day-dream and said, +"Well--why--you see, Molly--I--Well now, to be entirely frank with +you, Molly, I'm going into a business that will take all of my +credit--and every cent of my money." + +He paused a moment, and the girl asked, "Tell me, John, will the wheat +straighten things up at the bank?" + +"Well, it might if Bob had any sense--but he's got a fool notion of +considering a straight mortgage that those farmers gave on their land +as rent, and isn't going to make them redeem their land,--his share +of it, I mean,--and if he doesn't do that, he'll not have a cent, and +he couldn't lend your father any money." Barclay was anxious to get +back to his "Evening Star" and his dream of power, so he asked, "Why, +Molly, what's wrong?" + +"John," she began, "this is a miserable business to talk about; but it +is business, I guess." She stopped and looked at him piteously. "Well, +John, father's debt to Mr. Brownwell--the ten-thousand-dollar loan on +the house--will be due in August." The young man assented. And after +a moment she sighed, "That is why I'm to be married in August." She +stood a moment looking out of the window and cried, "Oh, John, John, +isn't there some way out--isn't there, John?" + +Barclay rose and limped to her and answered harshly: "Not so long as +Bob is a fool--no, Molly. If he wants to go mooning around releasing +those farmers from their mortgages--there's no way out. But I +wouldn't care for a man who didn't think more of me than he did of a +lot of old clodhoppers." + +The girl looked at the hard-faced youth a moment in silence, and +turned without a word and left the room. Barclay floated away on his +"Evening Star" and spun out his dream as a spider spins his web, and +when Hendricks came into the office for a mislaid paper half an hour +later, Barclay still was figuring up profits, and making his web +stronger. As Hendricks, having finished his errand, was about to go, +Barclay stopped him. + +"Bob, Molly's been up here. As nearly as I can get at it, Brownwell +has promised to renew the colonel's mortgage in August. If he and +Molly aren't married by then--no more renewals from him. Don't be a +fool, Bob; let your sod-busters go hang. If you don't get their farms, +some one else will!" + +Hendricks looked at his partner a minute steadily, grunted, and strode +out of the room. And the incident slipped from John Barclay's mind, +and the web of the spider grew stronger and stronger in his brain, but +it cast a shadow that was to reach across his life. + +After Hendricks went from his office that morning, Barclay bounded +back, like a boy at play, to the vision of controlling the flour +market. He saw the waving wheat of Garrison County coming to the +railroad, and he knew that his railroad rates were so low that the +miller on the Sycamore could not ship a pound of flour profitably, and +Barclay's mind gradually comprehended that through railroad rates he +controlled the mill, and could buy it at his leisure, upon his own +terms. Then the whole scheme unfolded itself before his closed eyes as +he sat with his head tilted back and pillowed in his hands. If his +railroad concession made it possible for him to underbid the miller at +the Ridge, why could he not get other railroad concessions and +underbid every miller along the line of the Corn Belt road, by +dividing profits with the railroad officials? As he spun out his +vision, he could hear the droning voices of General Ward and Colonel +Culpepper in the next room; but he did not heed them. + +They were discussing the things of the day,--indeed, the things of a +fortnight before, to be precise,--the reception given by the +Culpeppers to celebrate their silver wedding anniversary. The windows +were open, and Barclay could hear the men's voices, and he knew +vaguely that they were talking of Lige Bemis. For Barclay had +tactfully asked the colonel as a favour to invite Mr. and Mrs. Bemis +to the silver wedding reception. So the Bemises came. Mrs. Bemis, who +was rather stout, even for a woman in her early forties, wore black +satin and jet ornaments, including black jet ear bobs of tremendous +size. And Watts McHurdie was so touched by the way ten years under a +roof had tamed the woman whom he had known of old as "Happy Hallie," +that he wrote a poem for the _Banner_ about the return of the +"Prodigal Daughter," which may be found in Garrison County scrap-books +of that period. As for Mr. Bemis, he went slinking about the outskirts +of the crowd, showing his teeth considerably, and making it obvious +that he was there. + +So as John Barclay rode his "Evening Star" to glory, in the next room +General Ward turned to the colonel, who stood puffing in the doorway +of the general's law-office. "Martin, did John Barclay make you invite +that woman to your house--that Bemis woman?" + +The colonel got his breath slowly after climbing the stair, and he did +not reply at once. But he smiled, and stood with his arms akimbo a few +seconds before he spoke. "Well now, General--since you ask it, I may +as well confess it pointedly--I am ashamed to say he did!" + +Ward motioned the colonel to a seat and asked impatiently, "Ashamed?" + +"Well," responded Culpepper, as he put his feet in the window ledge, +"she's as good as I am--if you come down to that! Why shouldn't I, +who pretend to be a gentleman,--a Virginia gentleman, I may say, +sir,--why shouldn't I be ashamed, disgraced, sir, disgraced in point +of fact, that I had to be forced to invite any person in all God's +beautiful world to my home?" + +Ward looked at the colonel coldly a moment and then blurted out: "Ah, +shucks, sir--stuff and nonsense! You know what she was before the +war--Happy Hally! My gracious, Martin, how could you?" + +Martin Culpepper brought his chair down with a bang and turned +squarely to Ward. "General, the war's over now. I knew Happy +Hally--and I knew the Red Legs she trained with. And we're making +senators and governors and state officers and indeed, I may say, +prominent citizens out of them. Why not give Hally her show? You damn +cold-nosed Yankee Brahmins--you have Faith and you have Hope, but you +have no more Charity than a sausage-grinder." The colonel rose, and +cried with some asperity, "General, if you'd preach about the poor +less, and pray with 'em more, you'd know more about your fellow-men, +sir!" + +Perhaps this conversation should not have been set down here; for it +has no direct relation to the movement of this narrative. The +narrative at this point should be hurrying along to tell how John +Barclay and Bob Hendricks cleared up a small fortune on their wheat +deal, and how that autumn Barclay bought the mill at Sycamore Ridge by +squeezing its owner out, and then set about to establish four branches +of the Golden Belt Wheat Company's elevator service along the line of +the new railroad, and how he controlled the wheat output of three +counties the next year through his enterprise. These facts carry John +Barclay forward toward his life's goal. And while these two +middle-aged gentlemen--the general and the colonel--were in the next +room wrangling over the youthful love affairs of a middle-aged lady, a +great dream was shaping in Barclay's head, and he did not heed them. +He was dreaming of controlling the wheat market of the Golden Belt +Railroad, through railroad-rate privileges, and his fancy was feeling +its way into flour, and comprehending what might be done with wheat +products. + +It was a crude dream, but he was aflame with it, and yet--John +Barclay, aged twenty-five, was a young man with curly hair and +flattered himself that he could sing. And there was always in him that +side of his nature, so the reader must know that when Nellie Logan +came to his office that bright summer morning and found him wrapped in +his day-dream of power, she addressed herself not to the Thane of +Wheat who should be King hereafter, but to the baritone singer in the +Congregational choir, and the wheat king scampered back to the dream +world when John replied to Nellie's question. + +"So it's _your_ wedding, is it, Nellie--your wedding," he repeated. +"Well, where does Watts come in?" And then, before she answered, he +went on, "You bet I'll sing at your wedding, and what's more, I'll +bring along my limping Congregational foot, and I'll dance at your +wedding." + +"Well, I just knew you would," said the young woman. + +"So old Watts thought I wouldn't, did he?" asked Barclay. "The old +skeezicks--Well, well! Nellie, you tell him that the fellow who was +with Watts when he was shot ten miles from Springfield isn't going to +desert him when he gets a mortal wound in the heart." Then Barclay +added: "You get the music and take it down to Jane, and tell her to +teach me, and I'll be there. Jane says you're going to put old Watts +through all the gaits." + +He leaned back in his swivel chair and smiled at his visitor. He had a +slow drawl that he used in teasing, and one who heard that voice and +afterward heard the harsh bark of the man in driving a bargain or +browbeating an adversary would have to look twice to realize that the +same man was talking. A little over an hour before in that very room +he had looked at Bob Hendricks from under wrinkled brows with the +vertical line creased between his eyes and snarled, "Well, then, if +you think she's going to marry that fellow because I got him to lend +the colonel some money, why don't you go and lend the colonel some +more money and get her back?" + +But there was not a muscle twitching in his face as he talked to +Nellie Logan, not a break in his voice, not a ruffle of a hair, to +tell her that John Barclay had broken with the friend of his boyhood +and the partner of his youth, and that he had closed and bolted the +Door of Hope on Molly Culpepper. He drawled on: "Jane was saying that +you were going to have Bob and Molly for best man and bridesmaid. +Ought you to do that? You know they--" + +He did not finish the sentence, but she replied: "Oh, yes, I know +about that. I told Watts he ought to have Mr. Brownwell; but he's as +stubborn as a mule about just that one thing. Everything else--the +flower girls and the procession and the ring service and all--he's so +nice about. And you know I just had to have Molly." + +John slapped the arms of his chair and laughed. "As old Daddy Mason +says, 'Now hain't that just like a woman!' Well, Nellie, it's your +wedding, and a woman is generally not married more than once, so it's +all right. Go it while you're young." + +And so he teased her out of the room, and when Sycamore Ridge packed +itself into the Congregational Church one June night, to witness the +most gorgeous church wedding the town ever had seen, John opened the +ceremonies by singing the "Voice that breathed o'er Eden" most +effectively, and Sycamore Ridge in its best clothes, rather stuffed +and uncomfortable thereby, was in that unnatural attitude toward the +world where it thought John Barclay's voice, a throaty baritone, with +much affectation in the middle register, a tendency to flat in the +upper register, and thick fuzz below "C," was beautiful, though John +often remembered that night with unalloyed shame. He saw himself as he +stood there, primped to kill, like a prize bull at a fair, bellowing +out a mawkish sentiment in a stilted voice, and he wondered how the +Ridge ever managed to endure him afterwards. + +But this is a charitable world, and his temperament was such that he +did not realize that no one paid much attention to him, after the real +ceremony started. When the bride and the bridesmaid came down the +aisle, Nellie Logan radiant in the gown which every woman in the +church knew had come from Chicago and had been bought of the drummer +at wholesale cost, saving the bride over fifteen dollars on the +regular price--what did the guests care for a dapper little man +singing a hymn tune through his nose, even if he was the richest young +man in town? And when Molly Culpepper--dear little Molly +Culpepper--came after the bride, blushing through her powder, and +looking straight at the floor for fear her eyes would wander after her +heart and wondering if the people knew--it was of no consequence that +John Barclay's voice frazzled on "F"; for if the town wished to notice +a man at that wedding, there was Watts McHurdie in a paper collar, +with a white embroidered bow tie and the first starched shirt the town +had ever seen him wear, badly out of step with the procession, while +the best man dragged him like an unwilling victim to the altar; and of +course there was the best man,--and a handsome best man as men +go,--fair-skinned, light-haired, blue-eyed, with a good glow on his +immobile face and rather sad eyes that, being in a man's head, went +boldly where they chose and where all the women in the town could see +them go. So there were other things to remember that night besides +John Barclay's singing and the festive figure he cut at that wedding: +there was the wedding supper at the Wards', and the wedding reception +at the Culpeppers', and after it all the dance in Culpepper Hall. And +all the town remembers these things, but only two people remember a +moment after the reception when every one was hurrying away to the +dance and when the bridesmaid--such a sweet, pretty little +bridesmaid--was standing alone in a deserted room with a tall +groomsman--just for a moment--just for a moment before Adrian +Brownwell came up bustling and bristling, but long enough to say, +"Bob--did you take my gloves there in the carriage as we were coming +home from the church?" and long enough for him to answer, "Why, did +you lose them?" and then to get a good square look into her eyes. It +was only a few seconds in the long evening--less than a second that +their eyes met; but it was enough to be remembered forever; though +why--you say! It was all so commonplace; there was nothing in it that +you would have thought worth remembering for a moment. "Bob, did you +take my gloves?" "Why, did you lose them?" and then a glance of the +eyes. Surely there are more romantic words than these. But when a man +and a woman go in for collecting antiques in their dialogues, Heaven +only knows what old rubbish you will find in their attics, scoured off +and rebuilt and polished with secret tears until the old stuff glows +like embers. + +And that is why, when the music was silent in Culpepper Hall, and the +tall young man walked slowly home alone, as he clicked his own gate +behind him, he brought from his pocket two little white gloves,--just +two ordinary white gloves,--and held them to his lips and lifted his +arms in despair once and let them drop as he stood before his +doorstep. And that is why a girl, a little girl with the weariest face +in the town, looked out of her bedroom window that night and whispered +over and over to herself the name she dared not speak. And all this +was going on while the town was turning over in its bed, listening to +the most tumultuous charivari that Sycamore Ridge has ever known. + +Night after night that summer faithful Jake Dolan walked the streets +of Sycamore Ridge with Bob Hendricks. By day they lived apart, but at +night the young man often would look up the elder, and they would walk +and walk together, but never once did Hendricks mention Molly's name +nor refer to her in any way; yet Jake Dolan knew why they walked +abroad. How did he know? How do we know so many things in this world +that are neither seen nor heard? And the Irish--they have the drop of +blood that defies mathematics; the Irish are the only people in the +world whom kind Providence permits to add two and two together to make +six. "You say 'tis four," said Dolan, one night, as he and Hendricks +stood on the bridge listening to the roar from the dam. "I say 'tis +six. There is this and there is that and you say they make the other. +Not at all; they make something else entirely different. You take your +two and your two and make your four and try your four on the world, +and it works--yes, it works up to a point; but there is something +left over, something unexplained; you don't know what. I do. It's the +other two. Therefore I say to you, Mr. Robert Hendricks, that two and +two make six, because God loves the Irish, and for no other reason on +earth." + +So much for the dreams of Molly, the memories of Bob, and the vagaries +of Mr. Dolan. They were as light as air. But in John Barclay's life a +vision was rising--a vision that was real, palpable, and vital; a +vision of wealth and power,--and as the days and the months passed, +the shadow of that vision grew big and black and real in a score of +lives. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +As June burned itself gloriously into July, Robert Hendricks no longer +counted the weeks until Molly Culpepper should be married, but counted +the days. So three weeks and two days, from the first of July, became +three weeks, then two weeks and six days, and then one week and six +days, and then six days, five days, four days, three days; and then it +became seventy-two hours. And the three threshing machines of the +Golden Belt Wheat Company were pouring their ceaseless stream into the +company's great bins. The railroad was only five miles away, and +Hendricks was sitting in his office in the bank going over and over +his estimates of the year's crop which was still lying in the +field,--save the crop from less than two thousand acres that was +harvested and threshed. From that he judged that there would be enough +to redeem his share of the farmers' mortgages, which in Hendricks' +mind could be nothing but rent for the land, and to pay his share of +the bank's fraudulent loans to the company--and leave nothing more. + +The fact that John expected to buy back the mortgages from Eastern +investors who had bought them, and then squeeze the farmers out of +their land by the option to buy hidden in the contract, did not move +Hendricks. He saw his duty in the matter, but as the golden flood rose +higher in the bins, and as hour after hour rolled by bringing him +nearer and nearer to the time when Molly Culpepper should marry Adrian +Brownwell, a temptation came to him, and he dallied with it as he sat +figuring at his desk. The bank was a husk. Its real resources had been +sold, and a lot of bogus notes--accommodation paper, they called +it--had taken the place of real assets. For Hendricks to borrow money +of any other institution as the officer of the Exchange National Bank +of Sycamore Ridge would be a crime. And yet he knew that ten thousand +dollars would save her, and his brain was wrought with a madness. And +so he sat figuring while the hours slipped by, trying to discount his +future income from the wheat to justify himself in taking the money +from the bank's vaults. His figures did not encourage him. They showed +him that to be honest with the farmers he might hope for no profit +from that year's crop, and with two years of failure behind him, he +knew that to discount the next year's crop would be nothing less than +stealing. Then, strong and compelling, came the temptation to let the +farmers fight it out with the Eastern investors. The temptation rocked +the foundations of his soul. He knew it was wrong; he knew he would be +a thief, if he did it, no matter what the law might say, no matter +what the courts might adjudge. To Barclay what was legal was right, +and what the courts had passed upon--that was legal. But Hendricks +sat with his pencil in his hand, going over and over his figures, +trying to silence his conscience. + +It was a hot afternoon that he sat there, and idly through his mind +went the computation that he had but sixty-six more hours of hope, and +as he looked at the clock he added, "and thirty-eight minutes and +twenty-seven seconds," when Martin Culpepper came ambling into the +back room of the bank. + +"Robert," began the colonel, with his eyes on the floor and his hands +deep in his trousers pockets, "I've just been talking to John." The +colonel rubbed his neck absent-mindedly and went on, "John's a Yankee, +Robert--the blue stripe on his belly is fast blue, sir; it won't +fade, change colour, or crock, in point of fact, not a damned bit, +sir, not till the devil covers it with a griddle stripe, sir, I may +say." The colonel slouched into a chair and looked into Hendricks' +face with a troubled expression and continued, "That John certainly is +Yankee, Robert, and he's too many for me. Yes, sir, certainly he's got +me up in the air, sir--up in the air, and as I may say a mile west, +on that wheat deal." Hendricks leaned forward unconsciously, and the +colonel dropped both hands to his knees and leaned toward Hendricks. +"Robert Hendricks," asked the colonel, as he bored his deep black eyes +into the younger man, "did you know about that option in the wheat +land mortgage? Answer me, sir!" + +"Not at the time, Colonel," returned Hendricks, and began, "but I--" + +"Well, neither did I. And I got half of those mortgages myself. Lige +and I did it all, sir. And Lige knew--Lige, he says it's legal, but I +say it's just common stealing." Hendricks moistened his lips and sat +with mute face gazing at the colonel. The colonel went on, "And now +the farmers have found it out, and the devil's to pay, sir, with no +pitch hot!" + +Hendricks cleared his throat and began, "Well, Colonel--I don't know; +of course I--" + +The elder man rose to his full height and glared at the younger, and +cried, "Ah, Robert, Robert, fire in the mountain, snakes in the +grass--you do know--you do know, sir. You know that to hold up the +farmers of this county in the midst of what amounted to a famine, not +to let them borrow a dollar in the county except on a gouging +mortgage, and then to slip into that mortgage a blind option to sell +for ten dollars an acre land that is worth three times that, is +stealing, and so does John Barclay know that, and, worst of all, so +does Martin Culpepper know that, and the farmers are finding it +out--my neighbours and comrades that I helped to swindle, sir--to +rob, I may say--they know what it is." + +The colonel's voice was rising, and he stood glaring and puffing +before the young man, shaking his head furiously. Young Hendricks was +engaged in swallowing his Adam's apple and blinking unsteadily, and +just as he started to reply, the colonel, who had caught his temper by +the horn and was shaking it into submission, cried: "Yes, sir, Robert, +that's what I said, sir; those were my very words in point of fact. +And," he began as he sat down and sighed, "what galls me most of all, +Robert, is that John laughs at me. Here you've been gagging and +gulping and sputtering, boy, to keep down your conscience, and so I +know--yes, Robert, I'm dead sure, I may say, that you're all right; +but John giggles--giggles, sir, snickers in point of fact, as though +he had done something smart in getting me to go out among my old +soldier friends and rob 'em of their homesteads. He doesn't care for +my good name any more than for his own." + +Hendricks drummed with his fingers on the desk before him. His blue +eyes looked into nothing, and his mind's eye saw the house of cards he +had been dallying with totter and fall. He drew a deep breath before +he looked up at the colonel, and said rather sadly: "Well, Colonel, +you're right. I told John the day after I came home that I wouldn't +stand it." He drummed with his fingers for a moment before continuing, +"I suppose you got about half of those contracts, didn't you?" + +The colonel pulled from his pocket a crumpled paper and handed it to +Hendricks, "Here they are, sir--and every one from a soldier or a +soldier's widow, every one a homestead, sir." + +Hendricks walked to the window, and stood looking out with his eyes +cast down. He fumbled his Masonic watch-charm a moment, and then +glancing at it, caught the colonel's eye and smiled as he said: "I'm +on the square, Colonel, in this matter. I'll protect you." He went to +the elder man and put his hands on his shoulder as he said: "You go to +your comrades and tell them this, Colonel, that between now and +snowfall every man will have his land clear. But," he added, picking +up the list of the colonel's contracts, "don't mention me in the +matter." He paused and continued, "It might hurt the bank. Just tell +them you'll see that it's taken care of." + +The colonel put out his hand as he rose. When their hands met he was +saying: "Blood tells, Robert Hendricks, blood tells. Wasn't your +sainted father a Democrat, boy, a Democrat like me, sir,--a Union +Democrat in point of fact?" The colonel squeezed the younger man's +hand as he cried: "A Union Democrat, sir, who could shoot at his +party, sir, but never could bring himself to vote against it--not +once, sir--not once. And Robert Hendricks, when I see you acting as +you've acted just now, sir, this very minute in point of fact, I may +say, sir, that you're almost honest enough to be a Democrat, +sir--like your sainted father." The colonel held the young man's hand +affectionately for a time and then dropped it, sighing, "Ah, sir--if +it wasn't for your damned Yankee free schools and your damned Yankee +surroundings, what a Democrat you would have made, Robert--what a +grand Democrat!" The colonel waved his silver tobacco box proudly and +made for the door and left Hendricks sitting at his desk, drumming on +the board with one hand, and resting his head in the other, looking +longingly into the abyss from which he had escaped; for the lure of +the danger still fluttered his soul. + +Strength had come to him in that hour to resist the temptation. But +the temptation still was there. For he was a young man, giving up for +an intangible thing called justice the dearest thing in his life. He +had opened the door of his life's despair and had walked in, as much +like a man as he could, but he kept looking back with a heavy heart, +hungering with his whole body and most of his soul for all that he had +renounced. And so, staring at the light of other days, and across the +shadow of what might have been, he let ten long minutes tick past +toward the inevitable hour, and then he rose and put his hand to the +plough for the long furrow. + +They are all off the stage now, as Bob Hendricks is standing in the +front door of the bank that August night with his watch in his hand +reckoning the minutes--some four thousand three hundred of +them--until Molly Culpepper will pass from him forever, and as the +stage is almost deserted, we may peep under the rear curtain for a +minute. Observe Sycamore Ridge in the eighties, with Hendricks its +moving spirit, controlling its politics, dominating its +business,--for John Barclay's business has moved to the City and Bob +Hendricks has become the material embodiment of the town. And the town +there on the canvas is a busy town of twenty thousand people. Just +back of that scene we find a convention spread on the canvas, a +political convention wherein Robert Hendricks is struggling for good +government and clean politics. Observe him a taciturn, forceful man, +with his hands on the machinery of his party in the state, shaping its +destinies, directing its politics, seeking no office, keeping himself +in the background, desiring only to serve, and not to advertise his +power. So more and more power comes to him, greater and wider +opportunities to serve his state. His business grows and multiplies, +and he becomes a strong man among men; always reserved, always +cautious, a man whose self-poise makes people take him for a cynic, +though his heart is full of hope and of the joy of life to the very +last. Let us lift up one more rag--one more painted rag in the +scenery of his life--and see him a reformer of national fame; see him +with an unflinching hand pull the wires that control a great national +policy of his party, and watch in that scene wherein he names a +president--even against the power and the money and the organization +of rich men, brutally rich men like John Barclay. Hendricks' thin hair +is growing gray in this scene, and his skin is no longer fresh and +white; but his eyes have a twinkle in them, and the ardour of his soul +glows in a glad countenance. And as he sits alone in his room long +after midnight while the bands are roaring and the processions +cheering and the great city is ablaze with excitement, Robert +Hendricks, turning fifty, winds his watch--the same watch that he +holds in his hand here while we pause to peek under the canvas behind +the scenes--and wonders if Molly will be glad that his side won. He +has not seen her for months, nor talked with her for years, and yet as +he sits there winding his watch after his great strategic victory in +national politics, he hopes fondly that perhaps Molly will know that +he played a clean hand and won a fair game. + +Now let us crawl out from under this rubbish of the coming years, back +into Sycamore Ridge. And while the street is deserted, let us turn the +film of events forward, letting them flit by unnoticed past the +wedding of Molly Culpepper and Adrian Brownwell until we come to the +August day when the railroad came to Sycamore Ridge. + +Jacob Dolan, sheriff in and for Garrison County for four years, +beginning with 1873, remembered the summer of 1875 to his dying day, +as the year when he tore his blue soldier coat, and for twenty-five +years, after the fight in which the coat was torn, Dolan never put it +on for a funeral or a state occasion, that he did not smooth out the +seam that Nellie Logan McHurdie made in mending the rent place, and +recall the exigencies of the public service which made it necessary to +tear one's clothes to keep the peace. + +"You may state to the court in your own way," said the judge at the +trial of the sheriff for assault, "just how the difficulty began." + +"Well, sir," answered Dolan, "there was a bit of a celebration in +town, on August 30, it being the day the railroad came in, and in +honour of the occasion I put on my regimentals, and along about--say +eleven o'clock--as the crowd began to thicken up around the bank +corner, and in front of the hardware store, I was walking along, kind +of shoving the way clear for the ladies to pass, when some one behind +me says, 'General Hendricks was an old thief, and his son is no +better,' and I turned around and clapt my eye on this gentleman here. +I'd never seen him before in my whole life, but I knew by the bold +free gay way he had with his tongue that he was from Minneola and bent +on trouble. 'Keep still,' says I, calm and dignified like, bent on +preserving the peace, as was my duty. 'I'll not,' says he. 'You will,' +says I. 'Tis a free country,' says he, coming toward me with one +shoulder wiggling. 'But not for cowards who malign the dead,' says I. +'Well, they were thieves,' says he, shaking his fist and getting more +and more into contempt of court every minute. 'You're a liar,' says I, +maintaining the dignity of my office. 'And you're a thief too,' says +he. 'A what?' says I. 'A thief,' says he. 'Whack,' says I, with my +stick across his head, upholding the dignity of the court. 'Biff,' +says he, with a brick that was handy, more and more contemptuous. 'You +dirty, mangy cur,' says I, grabbing him by the ears and pounding his +head against the wall as I spoke, hoping to get some idea of the +dignity of the court into his rebellious head. 'Whoop,' says he, and, +as he tore my coat, 'Yip yip,' says I, and may it please the court it +was shortly thereafter that the real trouble started, though I +misremember just how at this time." And as there were three "E" +Company men on the jury, they acquitted Dolan and advised the court to +assess a fine on the prosecuting witness for contributory negligence +in resisting an officer. + +But the coat--the blue coat with brass buttons, with the straps of a +lieutenant on the shoulders, was mended and even in that same summer +did active service many times. For that was a busy summer for Sycamore +Ridge, and holidays came faster than the months. When the supreme +court decided the Minneola suit to enjoin the building of the +court-house, in favour of Syeamore Ridge, there was another holiday, +and men drew John Barclay around in the new hack with the top down, +and there were fireworks in the evening. For it was John Barclay's +lawsuit. Lige Bemis, who was county attorney, did not try to claim +credit for the work, and when the last acre of the great wheat crop of +the Golden Belt Wheat Company was cut, and threshed, there was a big +celebration and the elevator of the Golden Belt Wheat Company was +formally turned over to the company, and John Barclay was the hero of +another happy occasion. For the elevator, standing on a switch by the +railroad track, was his "proposition." And every one in town knew that +the railroad company had made a rate of wheat to Barclay and his +associates, so low that Minneola could not compete, even if she hauled +her wheat to another station on the road, so Minneola teams lined up +at Barclay's elevator. That autumn Minneola, without a railroad, +without a chance for the county-seat, and without a grain market, +began to fag, and during the last of September, the Mason House came +moving out over the hill road, from Minneola to Sycamore Ridge, +surrounded by a great crowd of enthusiastic men from the Ridge. Every +evening, of the two weeks in which the house was moving, people drove +out from Sycamore Ridge to see it, and Lycurgus Mason, sitting on the +back step smoking,--he could not get into the habit of using the +front steps even in his day of triumph,--was a person of considerable +importance. + +Money was plentiful, and the Exchange National Bank grew with the +country. The procession of covered wagons, that had straggled and +failed the year before, began to close ranks in the spring; and in +place of "Buck" and "Ball" and "Star," and "Bright" and "Tom" and +"Jerry," who used to groan under the yoke, horses were hitched to the +wagons, and stock followed after them, and thus Garrison County was +settled, and Sycamore Ridge grew from three to five thousand people in +three years. In the spring of '75 the _Banner_ began to publish a +daily edition, and Editor Brownwell went up and down the railroad on +his pass, attending conventions and making himself a familiar figure +in the state. Times were so prosperous that the people lost interest +in the crime of '73, and General Ward had to stay in his law-office, +but he joined the teetotalers and helped to organize the Good Templars +and the state temperance society. Colonel Culpepper in his prosperity +took to fancy vests, cut extremely low, and the Culpepper women became +the nucleus of organized polite society in the Ridge. + +The money that John Barclay made in that first wheat transaction was +the foundation of his fortune. For that money gave him two important +things needed in making money--confidence in himself, and prestige. +He was twenty-five years old then, and he had demonstrated to his +community thoroughly that he had courage, that he was crafty, and that +he went to his end and got results, without stopping for overnice +scruples of honour. Sycamore Ridge and Garrison County, excepting a +few men like General Ward, who were known as cranks, regarded John as +the smartest man in the county--smarter even than Lige Bemis. And the +whole community, including some of the injured farmers themselves, +considered Hendricks a sissy for his scruples, and thought Barclay a +shrewd financier for claiming all that he could get. Barclay got hold +of eight thousand acres of wheat land, in adjacent tracts, and went +ahead with his business. In August he ploughed the ground for another +crop. Also he persuaded his mother to let him build a new home on the +site of the Barclay home by the Sycamore tree under the ridge, and +when it was done that winter Mr. and Mrs. John Barclay moved out of +their rooms at the Thayer House and lived with John's mother. The +house they built cost ten thousand dollars when it was finished, and +it may still be seen as part of the great rambling structure that he +built in the nineties. John put five hundred dollars' worth of books +into the new house--sets of books, which strangely enough he forced +himself to wade through laboriously, and thus he cultivated a habit of +reading that always remained with him. In those days the books with +cracked backs in his library were Emerson, Browning, and Tennyson. And +after a hard day's work he would come home to his poets and his piano. +He thought out the whole plan of the Barclay Economy Car Door Strip +about midnight, sitting in his night clothes at the piano after +reading "Abt Vogler," and the central idea for the address on the +"Practical Transcendentalist," which he delivered at the opening of +the state university the next year, came to him one winter night after +he had tried to compose a clanging march as an air to fit Emerson's +"The Sphinx." After almost a quarter of a century that address became +the first chapter of Barclay's famous book, which created such +ribaldry in the newspapers, entitled "The Obligations of Wealth." + +It was in 1879 that Barclay patented his Economy Door Strip, and put +it in his grain cars. It saved loss of grain in shipping, and Barclay, +being on terms of business intimacy with the railroad men, sold the +Economy Strip to the railroads to use on every car of grain or flour +he shipped. And Lycurgus Mason, taken from the kitchen of the Mason +House, hired a room over McHurdie's harness shop, and made the strips +there. His first day in his new shop is impressed upon his memory by +an incident that is the seed of a considerable part of this story. + +He always remembers that day, because, when he got to the Thayer +House, he found John there in the buggy waiting for him, and a crowd +of men sitting around smoking cigars. In the seat by Barclay was a +cigar-box, and Lycurgus cut in, before John could speak, with, "Well, +which is it?" + +And John returned, "A girl--get in; Mother Mason needs you." + +Lycurgus fumbled under the box lid for a cigar as he got into the +buggy, and repeated: "Mother needs me, eh? Well, now, ain't that just +like a woman, taking a man from his work in the middle of the day? +What are you going to name her?" + +"How do you like Jeanette?" asked Barclay, as he turned the horse. +"You know we can't have two Janes," he explained. + +"Well," asked the elder man, tentatively, "how does mother stand on +Jeanette?" + +"Mother Mason," answered Barclay, "is against it." + +"All right," replied Lycurgus, "I vote aye. What does she want?" he +asked. + +"Susan B.," returned Barclay. + +"Susan B. Anthony?" queried the new grandfather. + +"Exactly," replied the new father. + +The two rode down the street in silence; as they turned into the +Barclay driveway Lycurgus chuckled, "Well--well--Susan B. Wants to +put breeches on that child before she gets her eyes open." Then he +turned on Barclay with a broad grin of fellowship, as he pinched the +young man's leg and laughed, "Say--John--honest, ain't that just +like a woman?" + +And so Jeanette Thatcher Barclay came into this world, and what with +her Grandmother Barclay uncovering her to look at the Thatcher nose, +and her Grandmother Mason taking her to the attic so that she could go +upstairs before she went down, that she might never come down in the +world, and what with her Grandfather Mason rubbing her almost raw with +his fuzzy beard before the women could scream at him, and what with +her father trying to jostle her on his knee, and what with all the +different things Mrs. Ward, the mother of six, would have done to her, +and all the things Mrs. Culpepper, mother of three, would have done to +her, and Mrs. McHurdie, mother of none, prevented the others from +doing, Jeanette had rather an exciting birthday. And Jeanette Barclay +as a young woman often looks at the scrap-book with its crinkly leaves +and reads this item from the _Daily Banner_: "The angels visited our +prosperous city again last Thursday, June 12, and left a little one +named Jeanette at the home of our honoured townsman, John Barclay. +Mother and child progressing nicely." But under this item is a long +poem clipped from a paper printed a week later,--Jeanette has counted +the stanzas many times and knows there are seventeen, and each one +ends with "when the angels brought Jeanette." Her father used to read +the verses to her to tease her when she was in her teens, and once +when she was in her twenties, and Jeanette had the lonely poet out to +dinner one Sunday, she sat with him on the sofa in the library, +looking at the old scrap-book. Their eyes fell upon the verses about +the angels bringing Jeanette, and the girl noticed the old man mumming +it over and smiling. + +"Tell me, Uncle Watts," she asked, "why did you make such a long poem +about such a short girl?" + +The poet ran his fingers through his rough gray beard, and went on +droning off the lines, and grinning as he read. When he had finished, +he took her pretty hand in his gnarly, bony one and patted the white +firm flesh tenderly as he peered back through the years. "U-h-m, that +was years and years ago, Jeanette--years and years ago, and Nellie +had just bought me my rhyming dictionary. It was the first time I had +a chance to use it." The lyrical artist drummed with his fingers on +the mahogany arm of the sofa. "My goodness, child--what a long column +there was of words rhyming with 'ette.'" He laughed to himself as he +mused: "You know, my dear, I had to let 'brevet' and 'fret' and +'roulette' go, because I couldn't think of anything to say about them. +You don't know how that worries a poet." He looked at the verses in +the book before him and then shook his head sadly: "I was young +then--it seems strange to think I could write that. Youth, youth," he +sighed as he patted the fresh young hand beside him, "it is not by +chance you rhyme with truth." + +His eyes glistened, and the girl put her cheek against his and +squeezed the thin, trembling hand as she cried, "Oh, Uncle Watts, +Uncle Watts, you're a dear--a regular dear!" + +"In his latter days," writes Colonel Culpepper, in the second edition +of the Biography, "those subterranean fires of life that flowed so +fervently in his youth and manhood smouldered, and he did not write +often. But on occasion the flames would rise and burn for a moment +with their old-time ardour. The poem 'After Glow' was penned one night +just following a visit with a young woman, Jeanette, only daughter of +Honourable and Mrs. John Barclay, whose birth is celebrated elsewhere +in this volume under the title 'When the Angels brought Jeanette.' The +day after the poem 'After Glow' was composed I was sitting in the +harness shop with the poet when the conversation turned upon the +compensations of age. I said: 'Sir, do you not think that one of our +compensations is that found in the freedom and the rare intimacy with +which we are treated by the young women? They no longer seem to fear +us. Is it not sweet?' I asked. Our hero turned from his bench with a +smile and a deprecating gesture as he replied softly, 'Ah, +Colonel--that's just it; that's just the trouble.' And then he took +from a box near by this poem, 'The After Glow,' and read it to me. And +I knew the meaning of the line-- + +"'Oh, drowsy blood that tosses in its sleep.' + +"And so we fell to talking of other days. And until the twilight came +we sat together, dreaming of faded moons." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +Colonel Martin Culpepper was standing with, one foot on the window +ledge in the office of Philemon R. Ward one bright spring morning +watching the procession of humanity file into the post-office and out +into the street upon the regular business of life. Mrs. Watts +McHurdie, a bride of five years and obviously proud of it, hurried by, +and Mrs. John Barclay drove down the street in her phaeton; Oscar +Fernald, with a pencil behind his ear, came out of his office licking +an envelope and loped into the post-office and out like a dog looking +for his bone; and then a lank figure sauntered down the street, +stopping here and there to talk with a passerby, stepping into a +stairway to light a cigar, and betimes leaning languidly against an +awning post in the sun and overhauling farmers passing down Main +Street in their wagons. + +"He's certainly a gallus-looking slink," ejaculated the colonel. + +The general, writing at his desk, asked, "Who?" + +"Our old friend and comrade in arms, Lige Bemis." At the blank look on +the general's face the colonel shook his head wearily. "Don't know +what a gallus-looking slink is, do you? General, the more I live with +you damn Yankees and fight for your flag and die for your country, +sir, the more astonished I am at your limited and provincial knowledge +of the United States language. Here you are, a Harvard graduate, with +the Harvard pickle dripping off your ears, confessing such ignorance +of your mother-tongue. General, a gallus-looking slink is four hoss +thieves, three revenue officers, a tin pedler, and a sheep-killing +dog, all rolled into one man. And as I before remarked, our beloved +comrade, Lige Bemis, is certainly a gallus-looking slink." + +"Far be it from me," continued the colonel, "residing as I may say in +a rather open and somewhat exposed domicile--a glass house in +fact--to throw stones at Elijah Westlake Bemis,--far be it." The +colonel patted himself heroically on the stomach and laughed. +"Doubtless, while I haven't been a professional horse thief, nor a +cattle rustler, still, probably, if the truth was known, I've done a +number of things equally distasteful--I was going to say +obnoxious--in the sight of Mr. Bemis, so we'll let that pass." The +colonel stretched his suspenders out and let them flap against the +plaits of his immaculate shirt. "But I will say, General, that as I +see it, it will be a heap handier for me to explain to St. Peter at +the gate the things I've done than if he'd ask me about Lige's +record." + +The general scratched along, without answering, and the colonel looked +meditatively into the street; then he began to smile, and the smile +glowed into a beam that bespread his countenance and sank into a mood +that set his vest to shaking "like a bowl full of jelly." "I was just +thinking," he said to nobody in particular, "that if Lige was jumped out +of his grave right quick by Gabriel and hauled up before St. Peter and +asked to justify my record, he'd have some trouble too--considerable +difficulty, I may say. I reckon it's all a matter of having to live with +your sins till you get a good excuse thought up." + +The general pushed aside his work impatiently and tilted back in his +chair. "Come, Martin Culpepper, come, come! That won't do. You know +better than that. What's the use of your pretending to be as bad as +Lige Bemis? You know better and I know better and the whole town knows +better. He's little, and he's mean, and snooping, and crooked as a +dog's hind leg. Why, he was in here yesterday--actually in here to +see me. Yes, sir--what do you think of that? Wants to be state +senator." + +"So I hear," smiled the colonel. + +"Well," continued the general, "he came in here yesterday as pious as +a deacon, and he said that his friends were insisting on his running +because his enemies were bringing up that 'old trouble' on him. He +calls his horse stealing and cattle rustling 'that old trouble.' +Honestly, Martin, you'd think he was being persecuted. It was all I +could do to keep from sympathizing with him. He said he couldn't +afford to retreat under fire, and then he told me how he had been +trying to be a better man, and win the respect of the people--and I +couldn't stand it any longer, and I rose up and shook my fist in his +face and said: 'Lige Bemis, you disreputable, horse-stealing cow +thief, what right have you to ask my help? What right have you got to +run for state senator, anyway?' And, Martin, the brazen whelp reared +back and looked me squarely in the eye and answered without blinking, +'Because, Phil Ward, I want the job.' What do you think of that for +brass?" + +The colonel slapped his campaign hat on his leg and laughed. There was +always, even to the last, something feminine in Martin Culpepper's +face when he laughed--a kind of alternating personality of the other +sex seemed to tiptoe up to his consciousness and peek out of his kind +eyes. As he laughed with Ward the colonel spoke: "Criminy, but that's +like him. He's over there talking to Gabe Carnine on the corner now. I +know what he's saying. He has only one speech, and he gets it off to +all of us. He's got his cigar chawed down to a rag, stuck in one +corner of his mouth, and he's saying, 'Gabe--this is the fight of my +life. This is the last time I'm going to ask my friends for help.' +General, I've heard that now, off and on, first and last, from old +Lige at every city, state, county, and lodge election since the war +closed, and I can see how Gabe is twisting and wiggling trying to get +away from it. He's heard it too. Now Lige is saying: 'Gabe, I ain't +going to lie to you; you know me, and you know I've made +mistakes--but they were errors of judgment, and I want to get a +chance to live 'em down. I want to show the young men of this state +that Lige Bemis of the Red Legs is a man--even if he was wild as a +young fellow; it'll prove that a man can rise.' Poor old Gabe--Lige +has got him by the coat front, now. That's the third degree. When he +gets him by the neck and begins to whisper, he's giving him the work +in the uniform rank. He's saying: 'Gabe, I've got to have you with me. +I can't win without you, and I would rather lose than win with you +against me. You stand for all that's upright in this county, and if +you'll come to my aid, I can win.' Here, General--look--Lige's got +him by the neck and the hand. Now for the password right from the +grand lodge, 'Gabe, you'd make a fine state treasurer--I can land it +for you. Make me state senator, and with my state acquaintance, added +to the prestige of this office, I can make a deal that will land you.' +Oh, I know his whole speech," laughed the colonel. "Bob Hendricks is +to be secretary of state, John Barclay is to be governor, Oscar +Fernald is to be state auditor, and the boys say that Lycurgus Mason +has the refusal of warden of the Penitentiary." The colonel chuckled +as he added: "So far as the boys have been able to learn, Lige still +has United States senator, president, and five places in the cabinet +to go on, but Minneola township returns ain't all in yet, and they may +change the result. By the way, General, what did you get?" + +The general flushed and replied, "Well, to be perfectly honest with +you, Mart--he did promise me to vote for the dram-shop law." + +And in the convention that summer Lige Bemis strode with his ragged +cigar sticking from the corner of his mouth, with his black eyes +blazing, and his shock of black hair on end, begging, bulldozing, and +buying delegates to vote for him. He had the river wards behind him to +a man, and he had the upland townships where the farmers needed a +second name on their notes at the bank; and in the gentleman's +ward--the silk-stocking ward--he had Gabriel Carnine, chairman of +the first ward delegation, casting the solid vote of that ward for +Bemis ballot after ballot. And when Bemis got Minneola township for +fifty dollars,--and everybody in the convention knew it,--he was +declared the nominee of the party with a whoop. + +But behind Bemis was the sinister figure of young John Barclay working +for his Elevator Company. He needed Bemis in politics, and Bemis +needed Barclay in business. And there the alliance between Barclay and +Bemis was cemented, to last for a quarter of a century. Barclay and +Bemis went into the campaign together and asked the people to rally to +the support of the party that had put down the rebellion, that had +freed four million slaves, and had put the names of Lincoln and of +Grant and Garfield as stars in the world's firmament of heroes. And +the people of Garrison County responded, and State Senator Elijah +Westlake Bemis did for Barclay in the legislature the things that +Barclay would have preferred not to do for himself, and the Golden +Belt Elevator Company throve and waxed fat. And Lige Bemis, its +attorney, put himself in the way of becoming a "general counsel," with +his name on an opaque glass door. For as Barclay rose in the world, he +found the need of Bemis more and more pressing every year. In politics +the favours a man does for others are his capital, and Barclay's +deposit grew large. He was forever helping some one. His standing with +the powers in the state was good. He was a local railroad attorney, +and knew the men who had passes to give, and who were responsible for +the direction which legislation took during the session. Barclay saw +that they put Bemis on the judiciary committee, and by manipulating +the judiciary committee he controlled a dozen votes through Bemis. He +changed a railroad assessment law, secured the passage of a law +permitting his Elevator Company to cheat the farmers by falsely +grading their wheat, and prevented the passage of half a dozen laws +restricting the powers of railroads. So at the close of the +legislative session his name appeared under a wood-cut picture in the +_Commonwealth_ newspaper, and in the article thereunto appended +Barclay was referred to as one of the "money kings of our young +state." That summer he turned his wheat into his elevator early and at +a low price, and borrowed money on it, and bought five new elevators +and strained his credit to the limit, and before the fall closed he +had ten more, and controlled the wheat in twenty counties. Strangers +riding through the state on the Corn Belt Railroad saw the words, "The +Golden Belt Elevator Company" on elevators all along the line. But few +people knew then that the "Company" had become a partnership between +John Barclay of Sycamore Ridge and less than half a dozen railroad +men, with Barclay owning seventy-five per cent of the partnership and +with State Senator Bemis the attorney for the company. + +That year the railroad officials who were making money out of the +Golden Belt Elevator Company were obliging, and Barclay made a +contract with them to ship all grain from the Golden Belt Company's +elevators in cars equipped with the Barclay Economy Rubber Strip, and +he sold these strips to the railroads for four dollars apiece and put +them on at the elevators. He shipped ten thousand cars that year, and +Lycurgus Mason hired two men to help him in the strip factory. And +John Barclay, in addition to the regular rebate, made forty thousand +dollars that he did not have to divide. The next year he leased three +large mills and took over a score of elevators and paid Lycurgus +twenty dollars a week, and Lycurgus deposited money in the bank in his +own name for the first time in his life. + +As the century clanged noisily into its busy eighties, Adrian P. +Brownwell creaked stiffly into his forties. And while all the world +about him was growing rich,--or thought it was, which is the same +thing,--Brownwell seemed to be struggling to keep barely even with +the score of life. The _Banner_ of course ran as a daily, but it was a +miserable, half-starved little sheet, badly printed, and edited, as +the printers used to say, with a pitchfork. It looked shiftless and +dirty-faced long before Brownwell began to look seedy. Editor +Brownwell was forever going on excursions--editorial excursions, +land-buyers' excursions, corn trains, fruit trains, trade trains, +political junkets, tours of inspection of new towns and new fields, +and for consideration he was forever writing grandiloquent accounts of +his adventures home to the _Banner_. But from the very first he +ostentatiously left Molly, his wife, at home. "The place for a woman," +said Brownwell to the assembled company on the Barclay veranda one +evening, when Jane had asked him why he did not take Molly to the +opening of the new hotel at Garden City, "the place for woman is in +the sacred precincts of home, 'far from the madding crowd's ignoble +throng.' The madame and I," with a flourish of his cane, "came to that +agreement early, eh, my dear, eh?" he asked, poking her masterfully +with his cane. And Molly Brownwell, wistful-eyed and fading, smiled +and assented, and the incident passed as dozens of other incidents +passed in the Ridge, which made the women wish they had Adrian +Brownwell, to handle for just one day. But the angels in that +department of heaven where the marriages are made are exceedingly +careful not to give to that particular kind of women the Adrian +Brownwell kind of men, so the experiment which every one on earth for +thousands of years has longed to witness, still remains a theory, and +Adrian Brownwell traipsed up and down the earth, in his lavender +gloves, his long coat and mouse-coloured trousers, his high hat, with +his twirling cane, and the everlasting red carnation in his +buttonhole. His absence made it necessary for Molly Brownwell to leave +the sacred precincts of the home many and many a Saturday afternoon, +to go over the books at the _Banner_ office, make out bills, take them +out, and collect the money due upon them and pay off the printers who +got out the paper. But Adrian Brownwell ostentatiously ignored such +services and kept up the fiction about the sacred precincts, and often +wrote scorching editorials about the "encroachment of women" and grew +indignant editorially at the growth of sentiment for woman's suffrage. +On one occasion he left on the copy-hook a fervid appeal for women to +repulse the commercialism which "was sullying the fair rose of +womanhood," and taking "from woman the rare perfume of her chiefest +charm," and then he went away on a ten days' journey, and the foreman +of the _Banner_ had to ask Mrs. Brownwell to collect enough money from +the sheriff and a delinquent livery-stable keeper to pay the freight +charges on the paper stock needed for that week's issue of the paper. + +The town came to know these things, and so when Brownwell, who, since +his marriage, had taken up his abode at the Culpeppers', hinted at his +"extravagant family," the town refused to take him seriously. And the +strutting, pompous little man, who referred grandly to "my wife," and +then to "the madame," and finally to "my landlady," in a rather +elaborate attempt at jocularity, laughed alone at his merriment along +this line, and never knew that no one cared for his humour. + +So in his early forties Editor Brownwell dried up and grew yellow and +began to dye his mustaches and his eyebrows, and to devote much time +to considering his own importance. "Throw it out," said Brownwell to +the foreman, "not a line of it shall go!" He had just come home from a +trip and had happened to glance over the proof of the article +describing the laying of the corner-stone of Ward University. + +"But that's the only thing that happened in town this week, and Mrs. +Brownwell wrote it herself." + +"Cut it out, I say," insisted Brownwell, and then threw back his +shoulders and marched to his desk, snapping his eyes, and +demonstrating to the printers that he was a man of consequence. "I'll +teach 'em," he roared. "I'll teach 'em to make up their committees and +leave me out." + +He raged about the office, and finally wrote the name of Philemon R. +Ward in large letters on the office blacklist hanging above his desk. +This list contained the names which under no circumstances were to +appear in the paper. But it was a flexible list. The next day John +Barclay, who desired to have his speech on the laying of the +corner-stone printed in full, gave Brownwell twenty dollars, and a +most glowing account of the event in question appeared in the +_Banner_, and eloquence staggered under the burden of praise which +Brownwell's language loaded upon the shoulders of General Ward. + +It is now nearly a generation since that corner-stone was laid. Boys and +girls who then were children have children in the university, and its +alumni include a brigadier in the army, a poet, a preacher of national +renown, two college presidents, an authority upon the dynamics of living +matter, and two men who died in the American mission at Foo Chow during +the uprising in 1900. When General Ward was running for President of the +United States on one of the various seceding branches of the prohibition +party, while Jeanette Barclay was a little girl, he found the money for +it; two maiden great-aunts on his mother's side of the family had half a +million dollars to leave to something, and the general got it. They +willed it to him to hold in trust during his lifetime, but the day after +the check came for it, he had transferred the money to a university +fund, and had borrowed fifty dollars of Bob Hendricks to clean up his +grocery bills and tide him over until his pension came. But he was a +practical old fox. He announced that he would give the money to a +college only if the town would give a similar sum, and what with John +Barclay's hundred-thousand-dollar donation, and Bob Hendricks' ten +thousand, and what with the subscription paper carried around by Colonel +Culpepper, who proudly headed it with five thousand dollars, and after +the figure wrote in red ink "in real estate," much to the town's +merriment, and what with public meetings and exhortations in the +churches, and what with voting one hundred thousand dollars in bonds by +Garrison County for the privilege of sending students to the college +without tuition, the amount was raised; and as the procession wheeled +out of Main Street to attend the ceremonies incident to laying the +corner-stone that beautiful October day, it is doubtful which was the +prouder man--Martin Culpepper, the master of ceremonies, in his plumed +hat, flashing sword, and red sash, or General Philemon Ward, who for the +first time in a dozen years heard the crowd cheer his name when the +governor in his speech pointed at the general's picture--his campaign +picture that had been hooted with derision and spattered with filth on +so many different occasions in the town. The governor's remarks were of +course perfunctory; he devoted five or ten minutes to the praise of +General Ward, of Sycamore Ridge, of John Barclay, and of education in +general, and then made his regular speech that he used for college +commencements, for addresses of welcome to church conferences, synods, +and assemblies, and for conclaves of the grand lodge. General Ward spoke +poorly, which was to his credit, considering the occasion, and Watts +McHurdie's poem got entangled with Juno and Hermes and Minerva and a +number of scandalous heathen gods,--who were no friends of Watts,--and +the crowd tired before he finished the second canto. But many +discriminating persons think that John Barclay's address, "The Time of +True Romance," was the best thing he ever wrote. It may be found in his +book as Chapter XI. "The Goths," he said, "came out of the woods, pulled +the beards of the senators, destroyed the Roman state, murdered and +pillaged the Roman people, and left the world the Gothic arch; the +Vikings came over the sea, roaring their sagas of rapine and slaughter; +the conquerors came to Europe with spear and sword and torch and left +the outlines of the map, the boundaries of states. Luther married his +nun, and set Christendom to fighting over it for a hundred years, but he +left a free conscience. Cromwell thrust his pikes into the noble heads +of England, snapped his fingers at law, and left civil liberty. +Organized murder reached its sublimity in the war that Lincoln waged, +and in that murdering and pillage true romance came to mankind in its +flower. Murder for the moment in these piping times has become impolite. +But true romance is here. Our heroes rob and plunder, and build cities, +and swing gayly around the curves of the railroads they have stolen, and +swagger through the cities they have levied upon the people to build. Do +we care to-day whether Charlemagne murdered his enemies with a sword or +an axe; do we ask if King Arthur used painless assassination or burned +his foes at the stake? Who cares to know that Caesar was a rake, and that +William the Conqueror was a robber? They did their work and did it well, +and are snugly sitting on their monuments where no moralist can reach +them. So those searching for true romance to-day, who regard the +decalogue as mere persiflage, and the moral code as a thing of archaic +interest, will get their day's work done and strut into posterity in +bronze and marble. They will cheat and rob and oppress and grind the +faces off the poor, and do their work and follow their visions, and live +the romance in their hearts. To-morrow we will take their work, +disinfect it, and dedicate it to God's uses." + +There was more of it--four thousand words more, to be exact, and when +General Ward went home that night he prayed his Unitarian God to +forgive John Barclay for his blasphemy. And for years the general +shuddered when his memory brought back the picture of the little man, +with his hard tanned face, his glaring green eyes, his brazen voice +trumpeting the doctrine of materialism to the people. + +"John," said the general, the next day, as he sat in the mill, going +over the plans of the college buildings with Barclay, who was chairman +of the board of directors, "John, why are you so crass, so gross a +materialist? You have enough money--why don't you stop getting it and +do something with it worth while?" + +"Because, General, I'm not making money--that's only an incident of +my day's work. I'm organizing the grain industry of this country as it +is organized in no other country on this planet." Barclay rose as he +spoke and began limping the length of the room. It was his habit to +walk when he talked, and he knew the general had come to catechize +him. + +"Yes, but then, John--what then?" + +"What then?" repeated Barclay, with his hands in his pockets and his +eyes on the floor. "Coffee, maybe--perhaps sugar, or tobacco. Or why +not the whole food supply of the people--let me have meat and sugar +where I will have flour and grain, and in ten years no man in America +can open his grocery store in the morning until he has asked John +Barclay for the key." He snapped his eyes good-naturedly at the +general, challenging the man's approval. + +The general smiled and replied: "No, John, you'll get the social bug +and go around in knee-breeches, riding a horse after a scared fox, or +keeping a lot of hussies on a yacht. They all get that way sooner or +later." + +Barclay leaned over Ward, stuck out his hard jaw and growled: "Well, I +won't. I'm going to be a tourist-sleeper millionaire. I stick to +Sycamore Ridge; Jeanette goes to the public schools; Jane buys her +clothes at Bob Hendricks' or Dorman's, or at the most of Marshall +Field in Chicago; I go fishing down at Minneola when I want rest." +Ward started to protest, but Barclay headed him off. "I made a million +last year. What did I do with it? See any yachts on the Sycamore? +Observe any understudies for Jane around the place? Have you heard of +any villas for the Barclays in Newport? No--no, you haven't, but you +may like to know that I have control of a railroad that handles more +wheat than any other hundred miles in the world, and it is the key to +the lake situation. And I've put the price of my Economy Door Strip up +to ten dollars, and they don't dare refuse it. What's more, I'm going +to hire a high-priced New York sculptor to make a monument for old +Henry Schnitzler, who fell at Wilson's Creek, and put it in the +cemetery. But I am giving none of my hard-earned cash to cooks and +florists and chorus ladies. So if I want to steal a mill or so every +season, and gut a railroad, I'm going to do it, but no one can rise up +and say I am squandering my substance on riotous living." + +Barclay shook his head as he spoke and gesticulated with his hands, +and the general, seeing that he could not get the younger man to talk +of serious things, brought out the plans for the college buildings, +and the men fell to the work in hand with a will. + +Barclay's spirit was the spirit of his times--growing out of a +condition which, as Barclay said in his speech, was like Emersonian +optimism set to Wagnerian music. In Sycamore Ridge factories rose in +the bottoms near the creek, and shop hands appeared on the streets at +night; new people invaded Lincoln Avenue, and the Culpeppers, to +maintain their social supremacy, had to hire a coloured man to open +the door for an afternoon party, and for an evening reception it took +two, one for the door and one to stand at the top of the stairs. + +Those were the palmy days of the colonel's life. Money came easily, +and went easily. The Culpepper Mortgage Company employed fifty men, +who handled money all over the West, and one of the coloured men who +opened the door at the annual social affair at the Culpepper home also +took care of the horses, and drove the colonel down to his office in +the Barclay block every morning, and drove him home in the evening. + +"Well," said Watts McHurdie to Gabriel Carnine as the two walked down +the hill into the business section of the town, a few days after the +corner-stone of Ward College was laid, "old Phil has got his college +started and Mart's got his church a-going." + +"You mean the East End Mission? Yes, and I don't know which, of 'em is +happier over his work," replied Carnine. + +"Well, Mart certainly is proud; he's been too busy to loaf in the shop +for six months," said McHurdie. + +Carnine smiled, and stroked his chestnut beard reflectively before he +added: "Probably that's why he hasn't been in to renew his last two +notes. But I guess he does a lot of good to the poor people over there +along the river. Though I shouldn't wonder if he was encouraging them +to be paupers." Carnine paused a moment and then added, "Good old +Mart--he's got a heart just like a woman's." + +They were passing the court-house square, and Bailiff Jacob Dolan, +with a fist full of legal papers, caught step with Carnine and +McHurdie. "We were talking about Mart Culpepper and his Mission +Church," said Carnine. "Don't you suppose, Jake, that Mart, by +circulating down there with his basket so much, encourages the people +to be shiftless? We were just wondering." + +"Oh, you were, were you?" snapped Dolan. "There you go, Gabe Carnine; +since you've moved to town and got to be president of a bank, you're +mighty damn scared about making paupers. When Christ told the young +man to sell his goods and give them to the poor, He didn't tell him to +be careful about making them paupers. And Mr. Gabriel Carnine, +Esquire, having the aroma of one large morning's drink on my breath +emboldens me to say, that if you rich men will do your part in giving, +the Lord will manage to keep His side of the traces from scraping on +the wheel. And if I had one more good nip, I'd say, which Heaven +forbid, that you fellows are asking more of the Lord by expecting Him +to save your shrivelled selfish little souls from hell-fire because of +your squeeze-penny charities, than you would be asking by expecting +Him to keep the poor from becoming paupers by the dribs you give them. +And if Mart Culpepper can give his time and his money every day +helping them poor devils down by the track, niggers and whites, good +and bad, male and female, I guess the Lord will put in lick for lick +with Mart and see that his helping doesn't hurt them." Dolan shook his +head at the banker, and then smiled at him good-naturedly as he +finished, "Put that in your knapsack, you son of a gun, and chew on it +till I see you again." Whereupon he turned a corner and went his way. + +Carnine laughed rather unnaturally and said to McHurdie, "That's why +he's never got on like the other boys. Whiskey's a bad partner." + +McHurdie agreed, and went chuckling to his work, when Carnine turned +into the bank. Later in the forenoon Bailiff Dolan came in grinning, +and took a seat by the stove in McHurdie's shop and said as he reached +into the waste-basket for a scrap of harness leather, and began +whittling it, "What did Gabe say when I left you this morning?" and +without waiting for a reply, went on, "I've thought for some time Gabe +needed a little something for what ails him, and I gave it to him, out +of the goodness of my heart." + +McHurdie looked at Dolan over his glasses and replied, "Speech is +silver, but silence is golden." + +"The same," answered Dolan, "the same it is, and by the same authority +apples of gold in pictures of silver is a word fitly spoken to a man +like Gabe Gamine." He whittled for a few minutes while the harness +maker worked, and then sticking his pocket-knife into the chair +between his legs, said: "But what I came in to tell you was about Lige +Bemis; did you know he's in town? Well, he is. Johnnie Barclay wired +him to leave the dump up in the City and come down here, and what for, +do you think? 'Tis this. The council was going to change the name of +Ellen Avenue out by the college to Garfield, and because it was named +for that little girl of Mart's that died right after the war, don't +you think Johnnie's out raising hell about it, and brought Lige down +here to beat the game. He'll be spending a lot of money if he has to. +Now you wouldn't think he'd do that for old Mart, would you? He's too +many for me--that Johnny boy is. I can't make him out." The Irishman +played with his knife, sticking it in the chair and pulling it out for +a while, and then continued: "Oh, yes, what I was going to tell you +was the little spat me and Lige had over Johnnie. Lige was in my room +in the court-house waiting to see a man in the court, and was bragging +to me about how smart John was, and says Lige, 'He's found some earth +over in Missouri--yellow clay,' he says, 'that's just as good as +oatmeal, and he ships it all over the country to his oatmeal mills and +mixes it with the real stuff and sells it.' I says: 'He does, does he? +Sells mud mixed with oatmeal?' and Lige says, 'Yes, sir, he's got a +whole mountain of it, and he's getting ten dollars a ton net for it, +which is better than a gold mine.' 'And you call that smart?' says I. +'Yes,' says he, 'yes, sir, that's commercial instinct; it's perfectly +clean mud, and our chemist says it won't harm any one,' says he. 'And +him president of the Golden Belt Elevator Co.?' says I. 'He is,' says +Lige. 'And don't need the money at all?' says I. 'Not a penny of it,' +says he. 'Well,' says I, 'Lige Bemis,' says I, 'when Johnnie gets to +hell,--and he'll get there as sure as it doesn't freeze over,' says +I, 'may the devil put him under that mountain of mud and keep his +railroad running night and day dumping more mud on while he eats his +way out as a penance,' says I. And you orto heard 'em laugh." Dolan +went on cutting curly-cues from the leather, and McHurdie kept on +sewing at his bench. "It is a queer world--a queer world; and that +Johnnie Barclay is a queer duck. Bringing Lige Bemis clear down here +to help old Mart out of a little trouble there ain't a dollar in; and +then turning around and feeding the American people a mountain of mud. +Giving the town a park with his mother's name on it, and selling +little tin strips for ten dollars apiece to pay for it. He's a queer +duck. I'll bet it will keep the recording angel busy keeping books on +Johnnie Barclay." + +"Oh, well, Jake," replied McHurdie, after a silence, "maybe the angels +will just drop a tear and wipe much of the evil off." + +"Maybe so, Watts McHurdie, maybe so," returned Dolan, "but there won't +be a dry eye in the house, as the papers say, if they keep up with +him." And after delivering himself of this, Dolan rose and yawned, and +went out of the shop singing an old tune which recited the fact that +he had "a job to do down in the boulevard." + +Looking over the years that have passed since John Barclay and +Sycamore Ridge were coming out of raw adolescence into maturity, one +sees that there was a miracle of change in them both, but where it was +and just how it came, one may not say. The town had no special +advantages. It might have been one of a thousand dreary brown +unpainted villages that dot the wind-swept plain to-day, instead of +the bright, prosperous, elm-shaded town that it is. John Barclay in +those days of his early thirties might have become a penny-pinching +dull-witted "prominent citizen" of the Ridge, with no wider sphere of +influence than the Sycamore Valley, or at most the Corn Belt Railroad. +But he and the town grew, and whether it was destiny that guided them, +or whether they made their own destiny, one cannot say. The town +seemed to be struggling and fighting its way to supremacy in the +Sycamore Valley; and the colonel and the general and Watts McHurdie, +sitting in the harness shop a score of years after those days of the +seventies, used to try to remember some episode or event that would +tell them how John fought his way up. But they could not do so. It was +a fight in his soul. Every time his hand reached out to steal a mill +or crush an opponent with the weapon of his secret railroad rebates, +something caught his hand and held it for a moment, and he had to +fight his way free. At first he had to learn to hate the man he was +about to ruin, and to pretend that he thought the man was about to +ruin him. Then he could justify himself in his greedy game. But at +last he worked almost merrily. He came to enjoy the combat for its own +sake. And sometimes he would play with a victim cat-wise, and after a +victory in which the mouse fought well, John would lick his chops with +some satisfaction at his business prowess. Mill after mill along the +valley and through the West came under his control. And his skin grew +leathery, and the brass lustre in his eyes grew hard and metallic. +When he knew that he was the richest man in Garrison County, he saw +that there were richer men in the state, and in after years when he +was the richest man in the state, and in the Missouri Valley, the rich +men in other states moved him by their wealth to work harder. But +before he was thirty, his laugh had become a cackle, and Colonel +Martin Culpepper, who would saunter along when Barclay would limp by +on Main Street, would call out after him, "Slow down, Johnnie, slow +down, boy, or you'll bust a biler." And then the colonel would pause +and gaze benignly after the limping figure bobbing along in the next +block, and if there was a bystander to address, the colonel would say, +"For a flat-wheel he does certainly make good time." And then if the +bystander looked worth the while, the colonel, in seven cases out of +ten, would pull out a subscription paper for some new church building, +or for some charitable purpose, and proceed to solicit the needed +funds. + + + + +BOOK II + +BEING NO CHAPTER AT ALL, BUT AN INTERLUDE FOR THE ORCHESTRA + + +And so the years slipped by--monotonous years they seem now, so far +as this story goes. Because little happened worth the telling; for +growth is so still and so dull and so undramatic that it escapes +interest and climax; yet it is all there is in life. For the roots of +events in the ground of the past are like the crowded moments of our +passing lives that are recorded only in our under-consciousnesses, to +rise in other years in character formed, in traits established, in +events fructified. And in the years when the evil days came not, John +Barclay's tragedy was stirring in the soil of his soul. + +And now, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the management, let us +thank you for your kind attention, during the tedious act which has +closed. We have done our best to please you with the puppets and have +cracked their heads together in fine fashion, and they have danced and +cried and crackled, while we pulled the strings as our mummers +mumbled. But now they must have new clothes on. Time, the great +costumer, must change their make-up. So we will fold down the curtain. +John Barclay, a Gentleman, must be painted yellow with gold. Philemon +Ward, a Patriot, must be sprinkled with gray. Martin Culpepper's Large +White Plumes must be towsled. Watts McHurdie, a Poet, must be bent a +little at the hips and shoulders. Adrian Brownwell, a Gallant, must +creak as he struts. Neal Dow Ward, an Infant, must put on long +trousers. E. W. Bemis, a Lawyer, must be dignified; Jacob Dolan, an +Irishman and a Soldier, must grow unkempt and frowsy. Robert +Hendricks, Fellow Fine, must have his blond hair rubbed off at the +temples, and his face marked with maturity. Lycurgus Mason, a Woman +Tamer, must get used to wearing white shirts. Gabriel Carnine, a Money +Changer, must feel his importance; and Oscar Fernald, a Tavern Keeper, +must be hobbled by the years. All but the shades must be refurbished. +General Hendricks and Elmer, his son, must fade farther into the mists +of the past, while Henry Schnitzler settles comfortably down in +storied urn and animated bust. + +There they hang together on the line, these basswood folk, and beside +them wave their womankind. These also must be repaired and refitted +throughout, as Oscar Fernald's letter-heads used to say of the Thayer +House. Jane Barclay, Wife of John, must have the "star light, star +bright" wiped out of her eyes. Mary Barclay, Mother of the Same, must +have her limbs trimmed gaunt, and her face chiselled strong and +indomitable. Jeanette Barclay, a Toddler, must grow into dresses. +Molly Culpepper, a Dear, must have her heart taken out, and her face +show the shock of the operation. Nellie Logan, a poet's Wife, must +join all the lodges in the Ridge to help her husband in politics. +Trixie Lee, little Beatrix Lee, daughter of J. Lord and Lady Lee, must +have her childish face scarred and her eyes glazed. Mrs. Hally Bemis, +a Prodigal, must be swathed in silk. Elizabeth Cady Stanton Ward and +all her sisters must be put in the simple garb of school-teachers. +Miss Hendricks, a Mouse, must hide in the dusky places; and Ellen +Culpepper, a Memory, must come to life. + +And so, ladies and gentlemen, while we have been diverting you, Time +has been at work on the little people of the passing show, and now +before we draw back the curtain to let them caper across your hearts, +let us again thank you one and all for your courtesy in staying, and +hope that what you see and hear may make you wiser and kinder and +braver; for this is a moral entertainment, good people, planned to +show you that yesterday makes to-day and they both make to-morrow, and +so the world spins round the sun. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +The rumble of the wheels in the great stone mill across the Sycamore +and the roar of the waters over the dam seem to have been in Jeanette +Barclay's ears from the day of her birth; for she was but a baby when +the stone mill rose where the little red mill had stood, and beside +the stone mill there had grown up the long stone factory wherein +Lycurgus Mason was a man of consequence. As the trains whirled by +strangers could see the signs in mammoth letters, "The Golden Belt +Mills" on the larger building and on the smaller, "The Barclay Economy +Door Strip Factory." Standing on the stone steps of her father's house +the child could read these signs clear across the mill-pond, and from +these signs she learned her letters. For her father had more pride in +that one mill on the Sycamore than in the scores of other mills that +he controlled. And even in after years, when he controlled mills all +over the West, and owned railroads upon which to take his flour to the +sea, and ships in which to carry his flour all over the world, the +Golden Belt Mill at Sycamore Ridge was his chief pride. The rumble of +the wheels and the hoarse voice of the dam that seemed to Jeanette +like the call of the sea, were so sweet to her father's ears that when +he wearied of the work of the National Provisions Company, with its +two floors of busy offices in the Corn Exchange Building in the great +city, he would come home to Sycamore Ridge, and go to his private +office in the mill. The child remembers what seemed like endless days, +but what in truth were only a few hours in a few days in a few years, +when Daddy Barclay carried her on his shoulders across the bridge and +sat her down barefooted and bareheaded to play upon the dam, while he +in his old clothes prodded among the great wheels near by or sat +beside her telling her where he caught this fish or that fish or a +turtle or a water moccasin when he was a little boy. At low water, she +remembers that he sometimes let her wade in the clear stream, while he +sat in his office near by watching her from the window. That was when +she was only four years old, and she always had the strangest memory +of a playfellow on the dam, a big girl, who fluttered in and out of +the shadows on the stones. Jeanette talked with her, but no one else +could see her, and once the big girl, who could not talk herself, +stamped her feet and beckoned Jeanette to come away from a rock on +which she was playing, and her father, looking out of a window, turned +white when he saw a snake coiled beside the rock. But Jeanette saw the +snake and was frightened, and told her father that Ellen saw it too, +and she could not make him understand who Ellen was. So he only +trembled and hugged his little girl to him tightly, and mother would +not let the child play on the dam again all that summer. + +She made songs to fit the rhythmic murmur of the wheels. And always +she remembered the days she had spent with Daddy Mason in the factory +where the machines thumped and creaked, and where the long rubber +sheets were cut and sewed, and the clanking rolls of tin and zinc +curled into strips, and Daddy Mason made her a little set of dishes +and all the things she needed in her playhouse from the scraps of tin +and rubber, and she learned to twist the little tin strips on a stick +and make the prettiest bright shiny tin curls for her dolls that a +little girl ever saw in all the world. And once Ellen came from among +the moving shadows of the wheels and drew Jeanette from beneath a +great knife that fell at her feet, and when Daddy Mason saw what had +happened he fainted, poor man, and made her promise never, never, so +long as she lived, to tell Grandma Mason. And then he drove her up +town, and they had some ice-cream, and she was sent to bed without her +lunch because she would not tell Grandma Mason why grandpa bought +ice-cream for her. + +It was such a beautiful life, so natural and so exactly what a little +girl should have, that even though she went to the ocean and crossed +it as a child with her mother and grandmother, and even though she +went to the mountains many times, her childish heart always was +homesick for the mill, and at night in her dreams her ears were filled +with the murmur of waters and the wordless song of ceaseless wheels. +And once when she came back a big girl,--an exceedingly big girl with +braids down her back, a girl in the third reader in fact, who could +read everything in the fourth reader, because she had already done so, +and who could read Eugene Aram in the back of the sixth, only she +never did find out what "gyves upon his wrists" meant,--once when she +came back to the dam and was sitting there looking at the sunset +reflected in the bubbling, froth-flecked water at her feet, Ellen came +suddenly, under the noise of the roaring water, and frightened +Jeanette so that she screamed and jumped; and Ellen, who was much +older than Jeanette--four or five and maybe six years older--ran +right over the slippery, moss-covered ridge of the dam, and was gone +before Jeanette could call her back. The child never saw her playmate +again, though often Jeanette would wonder where Ellen lived and who +she was. As the years went by, Jeanette came to remember her playmate +as her dream child, and once when she was a young miss of eighteen, +and something in her hurt to be said, she tried to make a little poem +about her dream-child playmate, but all she ever got was:-- + +"O eyes, so brown and clear like water sparkling over mossy stones." + +So she gave it up and wrote a poem about a prince who carried away a +maiden, and then she tore up the prince and the maiden, and if it were +not for that line about the eyes in the back of her trigonometry, with +a long list of words under it rhyming with "stones," she would have +forgotten about her playfellow, and much of the memory of the dam and +the pride she took as a child in the great letters upon the high stone +walls of the mills, and of the word "Barclay" on the long low walls of +the factory, might have passed from her consciousness altogether. By +such frail links does memory bind us to our past; and yet, once +formed, how like steel they hold us! What we will be, grows from what +we are, and what we are has grown from what we were. If Jeanette +Barclay, the only child of a man who, when she was in her twenties, +was to be one of the hundred richest men in his country,--so far as +mere money goes,--had been brought up with a governess and a maid, +and with frills and furbelows and tucks and Heaven knows what of silly +kinks and fluffy stuff in her childish head, instead of being brought +up in the Sycamore Ridge public schools, with Grandmother Barclay to +teach her the things that a little girl in the fourth reader should +know, and with a whole community of honest, hard-working men and women +about her to teach her what life really is, indeed she would have +lived a different life, and when she was ready to marry--But there we +go looking in the back of the book again, and that will not do at all; +and besides, a little blue-eyed girl in gingham aprons, sitting on a +cool stone with moss on its north side, watching the bass play among +the rocks in a clear, deep, sun-mottled pool under a great elm tree, +has a right to the illusions of her childhood and should not be +hustled into long dresses and love affairs until her time has come. + +But the recollection of those days, so vivid and so sweet, is one of +her choicest treasures. Of course things were not as she saw them. +Jake Dolan was only in his forties then, and considered himself a +young man. But the child remembers him as a tall, brown-eyed man whom +she saw on state occasions in his faded blue army clothes, and to her +he has always been the picture of a veteran. Some one must have told +her--though she cannot remember who it was--that as Jake Dolan +gently descended the social and political scale, he sloughed off his +worldly goods, and as he moved about in the court-house from the +sheriff's office to the deputy's office, and from the deputy's to the +bailiff's, and from the bailiff's to the constable's, and from the +constable's to the janitor's room in the basement, he carried with him +the little bundle that contained all his worldly goods, the thin blue +uniform, spotless and trim, and his lieutenant's commission, and +mustering-out papers from the army. It is odd, is it not, that this +prosaic old chap, who smoked a clay pipe, and whose only +accomplishment was the ability to sing "The Hat me Father Wore," under +three drinks, and the "Sword of Bunker Hill," under ten, should have +epitomized all that was heroic in this child's memory. As for General +Philemon Ward,--a dear old crank who, when Jeanette was born, was +voting with the Republican party for the first time since the war, and +who ran twice for President on some strange issue before she was in +long dresses,--General Ward, whose children's ages could be guessed +by the disturbers of the public peace, whose names they bore,--Eli +Thayer, Mary Livermore, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Frances Willard, Neal +Dow, Belva Lockwood, and Helen Gougar,--General Ward, who scorned her +father's offer of ten thousand dollars a year as state counsel for the +National Provisions Company, and went out preaching fiat money and a +subtreasury for the farmers' crops, trusting to God and the flower +garden about his little white house, to keep the family alive--it is +odd that Jeanette's childish impression was that General Ward was a +man of consequence in the world. Perhaps his white necktie, his long +black coat, and his keen lean face, or his prematurely gray hair, gave +her some sort of a notion of his dignity, but whatever gave her that +notion she kept it, and though in her later life there came a passing +time when she hated him, she did not despise him. And what with the +song that she heard the bands playing all over the country, the song +that the bands sometimes played for Americans in Europe, very badly, +as though it was being translated from English into broken French or +Italian, what with Watts McHurdie's fame and with his verses that +appeared in the _Banner_ on formal occasions, the girl built a fancy +of him as one of the world's great poets--some one like Shakespeare +or Milton; and she was well into her teens before she realized the +truth, that he was an excellent harness maker who often brought out of +his quaint little dream world odd-shaped fancies in rhyme,--some +grotesque, some ridiculous, and some that seemed pretty for a +moment,--and who under the stress of a universal emotion had rhymed +one phase of our common nature and set it to a simple tune that moved +men deeply without regard to race or station. So she lived in her +child world--a world quite different from the real world--a world +gilded by the sunrise of consciousness; and because the angels loved +her and kept her heart clean, the gilding never quite wore off her +heroes. And nothing that Heaven gives us in this world is so blessed +as to have the gilding stick to the images of our youth. In Jeanette's +case even Lige Bemis--Judge Bemis, she had been taught to call +him--never showed the tar under the gilding to her eyes. Her first +memory of him was in her father's office in the big City. He was a +tall man, with gray hair that became him well, with sharp black eyes, +and enough flesh on his bones to carry the frock-coats he always wore +and give him a corporosity just escaping the portly. She remembers +seeing the name "E. W. Bemis" in gold letters on the door of his room, +and not being able to figure out how a man whose name began with "E" +or "W" could be called Lige. He was General Counsel of the Corn Belt +Railroad in those days, when her father was president of the road, and +she knew that he was a man always to be considered. And when, as a +woman grown, she learned the truth about Lige Bemis, it was hard to +believe, for all she could find against him was his everlasting smile. + +It is a curious and withal a beautiful thing to see a child come into +the worn and weary world that we grownups have made, and make it over +into another world altogether. Perhaps the child's eye and the child's +heart, fresh from God, see and feel more clearly and more justly than +we do. For this much is sure--Jeanette was right in keeping to the +end the image of Colonel Martin Culpepper as a knight-errant, who +needed only a bespangled steed, a little less avoirdupois, and a +foolish cause to set him battling in the tourney. As it was, in this +humdrum world, the colonel could do nothing more heroic than come +rattling down Main Street into the child's heart, sitting with some +dignity in his weather-beaten buggy, while instead of shining armour +and a glistening helmet he wore nankeen trousers, a linen coat, and a +dignified panama hat. Moreover, it is stencilled into her memory +indelibly that the colonel was the first man in this wide world to +raise his hat to her. + +Now it should not be strange that this world was a sad jumble of +fiction and of facts to a child's eyes; for to many an older pair of +eyes it has all seemed a puzzle. Even the shrewd, kind brown eyes of +Jacob Dolan often failed to see things as they were, and what his eyes +did see sometimes bewildered him. By day Dolan saw Robert Hendricks, +president of the Exchange National Bank, president and manager of the +Sycamore Ridge Light, Heat, and Power Company, proprietor of the +Hendricks Mercantile Company, treasurer and first vice-president of +the new Western Wholesale Grocery, and chairman of his party's +congressional central committee, and Dolan's eyes saw a hard, busy +man--a young man, it is true; a tall, straight, rather lean, +rope-haired young man in his thirties, with frank blue eyes, that +turned rather suddenly upon one as if to frighten out a secret. The +man seemed real enough to Dolan, from the wide crown of his slightly +bald, V-shaped head, to his feet with the hard click in the heels; and +yet that man paid no particular attention to Dolan. It was "Hello, +Jake," with a nod, as they passed, maybe only an abstracted stare and +a grunt. But at night, as they walked together over the town under the +stars or moon, a lonely soul rose out of the tall body and spread over +the face. + +Dolan kept to his pipe and Hendricks to his cigar. But these were the +only marks of caste between them. One night Hendricks led the way +across the bridge down the river road and into the fields. They walked +far up the stream and their conversation had consisted largely of +"Watch out," "All right," "I see," "This is the best way." They +loitered down a dark lane shaded by hedgerows until they came to a +little wooden bridge and sat down. Dolan looked at the stars, while a +pipe and a cigar had burned out before Hendricks spoke, "Well, +chatterbox?" + +"I was bothered with a question of mistaken identity," replied Dolan. +To the silence he answered: "Me myself. I'm the man. Do you happen to +know who I am?" Hendricks broke a splinter from the wood under him, +and Dolan continued: "Of course you don't, and neither do I. For +example, I go down into Union township before election and visit with +the boys. I bring a box of cigars and maybe a nip under the buggy +seat, and maybe a few stray five-dollar bills for the lads that drive +the wagons that haul the voters to the polls. I go home, and I says to +myself: 'I have that bailiwick to a man. No votes there against Jake.' +But the morning after election I see Jake didn't get but two votes in +the township. Very well. Now who did they vote against? Surely not +against the genial obliging rollicking Irish lad whose face I shave +every other morning. What could they possibly have against him? +No--they voted against that man Dolan, who got drunk, at the Fair and +throwed the gate receipts into the well, and tried to shoo the horses +off the track into the crowd at the home-stretch of the trotting race. +He's the man they plugged. And there's another one--him that +confesses to Father Van Sandt." Dolan shook his head sadly and sighed. +"He's a black-hearted wretch. If you want to see how a soul will look +in its underwear, get an Irishman to confess to a Dutchman." The chirp +of crickets arose in the silence, and after a time Dolan concluded, +"And now there abideth these three, me that I shave, me that they vote +against, and me that the Father knows; and the greatest of these is +charity--I dunno." + +The soul beside him on the bridge came back from a lilac bower of +other years, with a girl's lips glowing upon his and the beat of a +girl's heart throbbing against his own. The soul was seared with +images that must never find spoken words, and it moved the lips to say +after exhaling a deep breath from its body, "Well, let's go home." +There, too, was a question of identity. Who was Robert Hendricks? Was +he the man chosen to lead his party organization because he was clean +above reproach and a man of ideals; was he the man who was trusted +with the money of the people of his town and county implicitly; or was +he the man who knew that on page 234 of the cash ledger for 1879 in +the county treasurer's office in the Garrison County court-house there +was a forgery in his own handwriting to cover nine thousand dollars of +his father's debt? Or was he the man who for seven years had crept +into a neighbour's garden on a certain night in April to smell the +lilac blossoms and always had found them gone, and had stood there +rigid, with upturned face and clenched fists, cursing a fellow-man? Or +was he the man who in the county convention of his party had risen +pale with anger, and had walked across the floor and roared his +denunciation of Elijah W. Bemis as a boodler and a scoundrel squarely +to the man's gray, smirking face and chattering teeth, and then had +reached down, and grabbed the trapped bribe-giver by the scruff of the +neck and literally thrown him out of the convention, while the crowd +went mad with applause? As he went home that night following the +convention, walking by the side of Dolan in silence, he wondered which +of all his _aliases_ he really was. At the gate of the Hendricks home +the two men stopped. Hendricks smiled quizzically as he asked: "Well, +I give it up, Jake. By the way, did you ever meet me?" + +The brown eyes of the Irishman beamed an instant through the night, +before he hurried lightly down the street. + +And so with all of this hide-and-seek of souls, now peering from +behind eyes and now far away patting one--two--three upon some +distant base, with all these queer goings-on inside of people here in +this strange world, it is no wonder that when the angels brought +Jeanette to the Barclays, they left her much to learn and many things +to study about. So she had to ask questions. But questions often +reveal more than answers. At least once they revealed much, when she +sat on the veranda of the Barclay home a fine spring evening with all +the company there. Aunt Molly was there; and Uncle Bob Hendricks was +there, the special guest of Grandma Barclay. Uncle Adrian was away on +a trip somewhere; but Uncle Colonel and Grandma Culpepper and all the +others were there listening to father's new German music-box, and no +one should blame a little girl, sitting shyly on the stone steps, +trying to make something out of the absurd world around her, if she +piped out when the talk stopped:-- + +"Mother, why does Aunt Molly cut off her lilac buds before they +bloom?" + +And when her mother assured her that Aunt Molly did nothing of the +kind, and when Uncle Bob Hendricks looked up and saw Aunt Molly go +pale under her powder, and when Aunt Molly said, "Why, Jane--the +child must have dreamed that," no one in this wide world must blame a +little girl for opening her eyes as wide as she could, and lifting her +little voice as strongly as she could, and saying: "Why, Aunt Molly, +you know I saw you last night--when I stayed with you. You know I +did, 'cause I looked out of the window and spokened to you. You know I +did--don't you remember?" And no one must blame the mother for +shaking her finger at Jeanette, and no one must blame Jeanette for +sitting there shaking a protesting head, and screwing up her little +face, trying to make the puzzle out. + +And when, later in the evening, Daddy Barclay went over to the mill +with his work, and Uncle Bob left in the twilight, and Aunt Molly and +mother were alone in mother's room, how should a little girl know what +the crying was all about, and how should a little girl understand when +a small woman, looking in a mirror, and dabbing her face with a powder +rag, said to mother, who knows everything in the world, and all about +the angels that brought you here: "Oh, Jane, Jane, you don't +know--you don't understand. There are things that I couldn't make you +understand--and I mustn't even think of them." + +Surely it is a curious world for little girls--a passing curious +world, when there are things in it that even mothers cannot +understand. + +So Jeanette turned her face to the wall and went to sleep, leaving +Aunt Molly powdering her nose and asking mother, "Does it look all +right now--" and adding, "Oh, I'm such a fool." In so illogical a +world, the reader must not be allowed to think that Molly Brownwell +lamented the folly of mourning for a handsome young gentleman in blue +serge with white spats on his shoes and a Byronic collar and a fluffy +necktie of the period. Far be it from her to lament that sentiment as +folly; however, when she looked at her eyes in the mirror and saw her +nose, she felt that tears were expensive and reproached herself for +them. But so long as these souls of ours, whatever they may be, are +caged in our bodies, our poor bodies will have to bear witness to +their prisoners. If the soul smiles the body shines, and if the soul +frets the body withers. And Molly Brownwell saw in the looking-glass +that night more surely than ever before that her face was beginning to +slump. Her cheeks were no longer firm, and at her eyes were the stains +of tears that would not wipe off, but crinkled the skin at the temples +and deepened the shadows into wide salmon-coloured lines that fell +away from each side of the nose so that no trick could hide them. +Moreover, the bright eyes that used to flash into Bob Hendricks' +steady blue eyes had grown tired, and women who did not know, wondered +why such a pretty girl had broken so. + +The Culpeppers had remained with the Barclays for dinner, and the hour +was late for the Ridge--after nine o'clock, and as the departing +guests went down the long curved walk of Barclay pride to the Barclay +gate, they saw a late April moon rising over the trees by the mill. +They clanged the tall iron gate behind them, and stood a moment +watching the moon. For the colonel never grew too old to notice it. He +put his arms about his wife and his daughter tenderly, and said before +they started up the street, "It never grows old--does it?" And he +pressed his wife to him gently and repeated, "Does it, my dear--it's +the same old moon; the one we used to have in Virginia before the war, +isn't it?" + +His wife smiled at him placidly and said, "Now, pa--" + +Whereupon the colonel squeezed his daughter lustily, and exclaimed, +"Well, Molly still loves me, anyway. Don't you, Molly?" And the +younger woman patted his cheek, and then they started for home. + +"Papa, how much money has John?" asked the daughter, as they walked +along. + +A man always likes to be regarded as an authority in financial +matters, and the colonel stroked his goatee wisely before replying: +"U-h-m-m, let me see--I don't exactly know. Bob and I were talking +about it the other day--after I bought John's share in College +Heights--last year, to be exact. Of course he's got the mill and it's +all paid for--say a hundred thousand dollars--and that old wheat +land he got back in the seventies--he's cleaned all of that up. I +should say that and the mill were easily worth half a million, and +they're both clear. That's all in sight." The colonel ruminated a +moment and then continued: "About the rest--it's a guess. Some say a +million, some say ten. All I know in point of fact, my dear, to get +right down to bed-rock, is that Lycurgus says they are turning out two +or three car-loads of the strips a year. I wouldn't believe Lycurgus +on a stack of Bibles as high as his head, but little Thayer Ward, who +works down there in the shipping department, told the general the same +thing, and Bob says he knows John gets ten dollars apiece for them +now, so that's a million dollars a year income he's got. He handles +grain and flour way up in Minnesota, and back as far as Ohio, and west +to California. But what he actually owns,--that is, whether he rents +the mills or, to be exact, steals them,--I haven't any idea--not the +slightest notion in the world, in point of fact--not the slightest +notion." + +As they passed through Main Street it was deserted, save in the +billiard halls, and as no one seemed inclined to talk, the colonel +took up the subject of Barclay: "Say we call it five million--five +million in round numbers; that's a good deal of money for a man to +have and haggle a month over seventy-five dollars the way he did with +me when he sold me his share of College Heights. But," added the +colonel, "I suppose if I had that much I'd value it more." The women +were thinking of other things, and the colonel addressed the night: +"Man gets an appetite for money just as he does for liquor--just like +the love for whiskey, I may say." He shook his sides as he meditated +aloud: "But as for me--I guess I've got so I can take it or let it +alone. Eh, ma?" + +"I didn't catch what you were saying, pa," answered his wife. "I was +just thinking whether we had potatoes enough to make hash for +breakfast; have we, Molly?" + +As the women were discussing the breakfast, two men came out of a +cross street, and the colonel, who was slightly in advance of his +women, hailed the men with, "Hello there, Bob--you and Jake out here +carrying on your illicit friendship in the dark?" + +The men and the Culpeppers stopped for a moment at the corner. Molly +Brownwell's heart throbbed as they met, and she thought of the rising +moon, and in an instant her brain was afire with a hope that shamed +her. Three could not walk abreast on the narrow sidewalk up the hill, +and when she heard Hendricks say after the group had parleyed a +moment, "Well, Jake, good night; I'll go on home with the colonel," +she managed the pairing off so that the young man fell to her, and the +colonel and Mrs. Culpepper walked before the younger people, and they +all talked together. But at Lincoln Avenue, the younger people +disconnected themselves from the talk of the elders, and finally +lagged a few feet behind. When they reached the gate the colonel +called back, "Better come in and visit a minute, Bob," and Molly +added, "Yes, Bob, it's early yet." + +But what she said with her voice did not decide the matter for him. It +was her eyes. And what he said with his voice is immaterial--it was +what his eyes replied that the woman caught. What he said was, "Well, +just for a minute, Colonel," and the party walked up the steps of the +veranda, and Bob and Molly and the colonel sat down. + +Mrs. Culpepper stood for a moment and then said, "Well, Bob, you must +excuse me--I forgot to set my sponge, and there isn't a bit of bread +in the house for Sunday." Whereupon she left them, and when the +colonel had talked himself out he left them, and when the two were +alone there came an awkward silence. In the years they had been apart +a thousand things had stirred in their hearts to say at this time, yet +all their voices spoke was, "Well, Molly?" and "Well, Bob?" The moon +was in their faces as it shone through the elm at the gate. The man +turned his chair so that he could look at her, and after satisfying +his eyes he broke the silence with, "Seven years." + +And she returned, "Seven years the thirteenth of April." + +The man played a tune with his fingers and a foot and said nothing +more. The woman finally spoke. "Did you know it was the thirteenth?" + +"Yes," he replied, "father died the ninth. I have often counted it +up." He added shortly after: "It's a long time--seven years! My! but +it has been a long time!" + +"I have wondered if you have thought so," a pause, "too!" + +Their hearts were beating too fast for thoughts to come coherently. +The fever of madness was upon them, and numbed their wills so that +they could not reach beneath the surface of their consciousnesses to +find words for their emotions. Then also there was in each a +deadening, flaming sense of guilt. Shame is a dumb passion, and these +two, who in the fastnesses of a thousand nights had told themselves +that what they sought was good and holy, now found in each other's +actual presence a gripping at the tongue's root that held them dumb. + +"Yes, I--" the man mumbled, "yes, I--I fancied you understood that +well enough." + +"But you have been busy?" she asked; "very busy, Bob, and oh, I've +been so proud of all that you've done." It was the woman's tongue that +first found a sincere word. + +The man replied, "Well--I--I am glad you have." + +It seemed to the woman a long time since her father had gone. Her +conscience was making minutes out of seconds. She said, "Don't you +think it's getting late?" but did not rise. + +The man looked at his watch and answered, "Only 10.34." He started to +rise, but she checked him breathlessly. + +"Oh, Bob, Bob, sit down. This isn't enough for these long years. I had +so many things to say to you." She hesitated and cried, "Why are we so +stupid now--now when every second counts?" + +He bent slightly toward her and said in a low voice, "So that's why +your lilacs have never bloomed again." + +She looked at her chair arm and asked, "Did you know they hadn't +bloomed?" + +"Oh, Molly, of course I knew," he answered, and then went on: "Every +thirteenth of April I have slipped through the fence and come over +here, rain or shine, at night, to see if they were blooming. But I +didn't know why they never bloomed!" + +The woman rose and walked a step toward the door, and turned her head +away. When she spoke it was after a sob, "Bob, I couldn't bear it--I +just couldn't bear it, Bob!" + +He groaned and put his hands to his forehead and rested his elbow on +the chair arm. "Oh, Molly, Molly, Molly," he sighed, "poor, poor +little Molly." After a pause he said: "I won't ever bother you again. +It doesn't do any good." A silence followed in which the woman turned +her face to him, tear-stained and wretched, with the seams of her +heart all torn open and showing through it. "It only hurts," the man +continued, and then he groaned aloud, "Oh, God, how it hurts!" + +She sank back into her chair and buried her face in the arm farthest +from him and her body shook, but she did not speak. He stared at her +dry-eyed for a minute, that tolled by so slowly that he rose at the +end of it, fearful that his stay was indecorously long. + +"I think I should go now," he said, as he passed her. + +"Oh, no!" she cried. "Not yet, not just yet." She caught his arm and +he stopped, as she stood beside him, trembling, haggard, staring at +him out of dead, mad eyes. There was no colour in her blotched face, +and in the moonlight the red rims of her eyes looked leaden, and her +voice was unsteady. At times it broke in sobbing croaks, and she spoke +with loose jaws, as one in great terror. "I want you to know--" she +paused at the end of each little hiccoughed phrase--"that I have not +forgotten--" she caught her breath--"that I think of you every +day--" she wiped her eyes with a limp handkerchief--"every day and +every night, and pray for you, though I don't believe--" she +whimpered as she shuddered--"that God cares much about me." + +He tried to stop her, and would have gone, but she put a hand upon his +shoulder and pleaded: "Just another minute. Oh, Bob," she cried, and +her voice broke again, "don't forget me. Don't forget me. When I was +so sick last year--you remember," she pleaded, "I raved in delirium a +week." She stopped as if afraid to go on, then began to shake as with +a palsy. "I raved of everything under God's sun, and through it all, +Bob--not one word of you. Oh, I knew that wouldn't do." She swayed +upon his arm. "I kept a little corner of my soul safe to guard you." +She sank back into her chair and chattered, "Oh, I guarded you." + +She was crying like a child. He stood over her and touched her +dishevelled hair with the tips of his fingers and said: "I oughtn't to +stay, Molly." + +And she motioned him away with her face hidden and sobbed, "No--I +know it." + +He paused a moment on the step before her and then said, "Good-by, +Molly--I'm going now." And she heard him walking down the yard on the +grass, so that his footsteps would not arouse the house. It seemed to +them both that it was midnight, but time had moved slowly, and when +the spent, broken woman crept into the house, and groped her way to +her room, she did not make a light, but slipped into bed without +looking at her scarred, shameful face. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +In the sunshine of that era of world-wide prosperity in the eighties, +John Barclay made much hay. He spent little time in Sycamore Ridge, +and his private car might be found in Minnesota to-day and at the end +of the week in California. As president of the Corn Belt Road and as +controlling director in the North Lake Line, he got rates on other +railroads for his grain products that no competitor could duplicate. +And when a competitor began to grow beyond the small fry class, +Barclay either bought him out or built a mill beside the offender and +crushed him out. Experts taught him the value of the chaff from the +grain. He had a dozen mills to which he shipped the refuse from his +flour and heaven only knows what else, and turned the stuff into +various pancake flours and breakfast foods. He spent hundreds of +thousands of dollars in advertising--in a day when large +appropriations for advertising were unusual. And the words "Barclay's +Best" glared at the traveller from crags in the Rocky Mountains and +from the piers of all the great harbour bridges. He used Niagara to +glorify the name of Barclay, and "Use Barclay's Best" had to be washed +off the statue of the Goddess of Liberty in New York Harbour. The +greenish brown eyes of the little man were forever looking into space, +and when he caught a dream, instead of letting it go, he called a +stenographer and made it come true. In those days he was beginning to +realize that an idea plus a million dollars will become a fact if a +man but says the word, whereas the same idea minus a million remains a +dream. The great power of money was slowly becoming part of the man's +consciousness. During the years that were to come, he came to think +that there was nothing impossible. Any wish he had might be gratified. +Such a consciousness drives men mad. + +But in those prosperous days, while the millions were piling up, +Barclay kept his head. All the world was buying then, but wherever he +could Barclay sold. He bought only where he had to, and paid cash for +what he bought. He did not owe a dollar for anything. He had no +equities; his titles were all good. And as he neared his forties he +believed that he could sell what he had at forced sale for many +millions. He was supposed to be much richer than he was, but the one +thing that he knew about it was that scores of other men had more than +he. So he kept staring into space and pressing the button for his +stenographer, and at night wherever his work found him, whether in +Boston or in Chicago or in San Francisco, he hunted up the place where +he could hear the best music, and sat listening with his eyes closed. +He always kept his note-book in his hand, when Jane was not with him, +and when an idea came to him inspired by the music, he jotted it down, +and the next day, if it stood the test of a night's sleep, he turned +the idea into an event. + +In planning his work he was ruthless. He learned that by bribing men +in the operating department of any railroad he could find out what his +competitors were doing. And in the main offices of the National +Provisions Company two rooms full of clerks were devoted to +considering the duplicate way-bills of every car of flour or grain or +grain product not shipped by the Barclay companies. Thus he was able +to delay the cars of his competitors, and get his own cars through on +time. Thus he was able to bribe buyers in wholesale establishments to +push his products. And with Lige Bemis manipulating the railroad and +judiciary committees in the legislatures of ten states, no laws were +enacted which might hamper Barclay's activities. + +"Do you know, Lucy," said General Ward to his wife one night when they +were discussing Barclay and his ways and works, "sometimes I think +that what that boy saw at Wilson's Creek,--the horrible bloodshed, +the deadly spectacle of human suffering at the hospital wagon, some +way blinded his soul's eye to right and wrong. It was all a man could +stand; the picture must have seared the boy's heart like a fire." + +Mrs. Ward, who was mending little clothes in the light of the +dining-room lamp, put down her work a moment and said: "I have always +thought the colonel had some such idea. For once when he was speaking +of the way John stole that wheat land, he said, 'Well, poor John, he +got a wound at Wilson's Creek that never will heal,' and when I asked +if he meant his foot, the colonel smiled like a woman and said gently, +'No, Miss Lucy, not there--not there at all; in his heart, my dear, +in his heart!'" + +And the general's eyes met the eyes of a mother wandering toward a boy +of nine sleeping, tired out, on a couch near by; he was a little boy +with dark hair, and red tanned cheeks, and his mouth--such a soft +innocent mouth--curved prettily, like the lips of children in old +pictures, and as he slept he smiled, and the general, meeting the +mother's eyes coming back from the little face, wiped his glasses and +nodded his head in understanding; in a moment they both rose and stood +hand in hand over their child, and the mother said in a trembling +voice, "And his mother prayed for him, too--she has told me so--so +many times." + +But the people of Sycamore Ridge and of the Mississippi Valley did not +indulge in any fine speculations upon the meaning of life when they +thought of John Barclay. He had become considerable of a figure in the +world, and the Middle West was proud of him. For those were the days +of tin cornices, false fronts, vain pretences, and borrowed plumes +bought with borrowed money. Other people's capital was easy to get, +and every one was rich. Debt was regarded as an evidence of +prosperity, and the town ran mad with the rest of the country. It is +not strange then that Mrs. Watts McHurdie, she who for four years +during the war dispensed "beefsteak--ham and eggs--breakfast +bacon--tea--coffee--iced tea--or--milk" at the Thayer House, and +for ten years thereafter sold dry-goods and kept books at Dorman's +store, should have become tainted with the infection of the times. But +it is strange that she could have inoculated so sane a little man as +Watts. Still, there were Delilah and Samson, and of course Samson was +a much larger man than Watts, and Nellie McHurdie was considerably +larger than Delilah; and you never can tell about those things, +anyway. Also it must not be forgotten that Nellie McHurdie since her +marriage had become Grand Preceptress in one lodge, Worthy Matron in +another, Senior Vice Commander in a third, and Worshipful Benefactress +in a fourth, to say nothing of positions as corresponding secretary, +delegate to the state convention, Keeper of the Records and Seals, +Scribe,--and perhaps Pharisee,--in half a dozen others, all in the +interests of her husband's political future; and with such obvious +devotion before him, it is small wonder after all that he succumbed. + +But he would not run for office. He had trouble every spring +persuading her, but he always did persuade her, that this wasn't his +year, that conditions were wrong, and that next year probably would be +better. But he allowed her to call their home "The Bivouac," and have +the name cut in stone letters on the horse-block; and he sat by meekly +for many long years at lodges, at church entertainments, at high +school commencement exercises, at public gatherings of every sort, and +heard her sing a medley of American patriotic songs which wound up +with the song that made him famous. It was five drinks in Jake Dolan +that stopped the medley, when the drinks aforesaid inspired him to +rise grandly from his chair at the front of the hall at an +installation of officers of Henry Schnitzler Post of the Grand Army, +and stalk majestically out of the room, while the singing was in +progress, saying as he turned back at the door, before thumping +heavily down the stairs, "Well, I'm getting pretty damn tired of +that!" Mrs. McHurdie insisted that Watts should whip Dolan, and it is +possible that at home that night Watts did smite his breast and shake +his head fiercely, for in the morning the neighbours saw Mrs. McHurdie +walk to the gate with him, talking earnestly and holding his arm as if +to restrain him; moreover, when Watts had turned the corner of Lincoln +Avenue and had disappeared into Main Street, she hurried over to the +Culpeppers' to have the colonel warn Dolan that Watts was a dangerous +man. But when Dolan, sober, walked into the harness shop that +afternoon to apologize, the little harness maker came down the aisle +of saddles in his shop blinking over his spectacles and with his hand +to his mouth to strangle a smile, and before Dolan could speak, Watts +said, "So am I--Jake Dolan--so am I; but if you ever do that again, +I'll have to kill you." + +It happened in the middle eighties--maybe a year before the college +was opened--maybe a year after, though Gabriel Carnine, talking of it +some twenty years later, insists that it happened two years after the +opening of the college. But no one ever has mentioned the matter to +Watts, so the exact date may not be recorded, though it is an +important date in the uses of this narrative, as will be seen later. +All agree--the colonel, the general, Dolan, Fernald, and perhaps two +dozen old soldiers who were at the railroad station waiting for the +train to take them to the National Encampment of the Grand Army of the +Republic,--that it was a fine morning in September. Of course John +Barclay contributed the band. He afterwards confessed to that, +explaining that Nellie had told him that Watts never had received the +attention he should receive either in the town or the state or the +nation, and so long as Watts was a National Delegate for the first +time in his life, and so long as she had twice been voted for as +National President of the Ladies' Aid, and might get it this time, the +band would be, as she put it, "so nice to take along"; and as John +never forgot the fact that Nellie asked him to sing at her wedding, he +hired the band. Thus are we bound to our past. But the band was not +what caused the comrades to gasp, though its going was a surprise. And +when they heard it turn into Main Street far up by Lincoln Avenue, +playing the good old tune that the town loved for Watts' sake and for +the sake of the time and the place and the heroic deeds it +celebrated,--when they heard the band, the colonel asked the general, +"Where's Watts?" and they suspected that the band might be bringing +him to the depot. + +Heaven knows the town had bought uniforms and new horns for the band +often enough for it to do something public-spirited once in a while +without being paid for it. So the band did not come to the town as a +shock in and of itself. Neither for that matter did the hack--the new +glistening silver-mounted hack, with the bright spick-and-span hearse +harness on the horses; in those bustling days a quarter was nothing, +and you can ride all over the Ridge for a quarter; so when the +comrades at the depot, in their blue soldiers' clothes their campaign +hats, and their delegates' badges, saw the band followed by the hack, +they were of course interested, but that was all. And when some of the +far-sighted ones observed that the top of the hack was spread back +royally, they commented upon the display of pomp, but the comment was +not extraordinary. But when from the street as the band stopped, there +came cheers from the people, the boys at the station felt that +something unusual was about to come to them. So they watched the band +march down the long sheet-iron-covered station walk, and the hack move +along beside the band boys; and the poet's comrades-in-arms saw him +sitting beside the poet's wife,--the two in solemn state. And then +the old boys beheld Watts McHurdie,--little Watts McHurdie, with his +grizzled beard combed, with his gold-rimmed Sunday glasses far down on +his nose so that he could see over them, and--wonder of wonders, they +saw a high shiny new silk hat wobbling over his modest head. + +He stumbled out of the open hack with his hand on the great stiff +awkward thing, obviously afraid it would fall off, and she that was +Nellie Logan, late of the Thayer House and still later of Dorman's +store, and later still most worshipful, most potent, most gorgeous and +most radiant archangel of seven secret and mysterious covenants, +conclaves, and inner temples, stood beaming at the pitiful sight, +clearly proud of her shameless achievement. Watts, putting his hand to +his mouth to cover his smile, grabbed the shiny thing again as he +nodded cautiously at the crowd. Then he followed her meekly to the +women's waiting room, where the wives and sisters of the comrades were +assembled--and they, less punctilious than the men, burst forth with +a scream of joy, and the agony was over. + +And thus Watts McHurdie went to his greatest earthly glory. The +delegation from the Ridge, with the band, had John Barclay's private +car; that was another surprise which Mrs. McHurdie arranged, and when +they got to Washington, where the National Encampment was, opinions +differ as to when Watts McHurdie had his high tide of happiness. The +colonel says that it was in the great convention, where the Sycamore +Ridge band sat in front of the stage, and where Watts stood in front +of the band and led the great throng,--beginning with his cracked +little heady tenor, and in an instant losing it in the awful diapason +of ten thousand voices singing his old song with him; and where, when +it was over, General Grant came down the platform, making his way +rather clumsily among the chairs, and at last in front of the whole +world grasped Watts McHurdie's hands, and the two little men, +embarrassed by the formality of it all, stood for a few seconds +looking at each other with tears glistening in their speaking eyes. + +But Jake Dolan, who knows something of human nature, does not hold to +the colonel's view about the moment of McHurdie's greatest joy. "We +were filing down the Avenue again, thousands and ten thousands of us, +as we filed past the White House nearly twenty years before. And the +Sycamore Ridge band was cramming its lungs into the old tune, when up +on the reviewing stand, beside all the big bugs and with the President +there himself, stood little Watts, plug hat in hand, bowing to the +boys. 'Twas a lovely sight, and he had been there for two mortal hours +before we boys got down--there was the Kansas boys and the Iowa boys +and some from Missouri, carrying the old flag we fought under at +Wilson's Creek. Watts saw us down the street and heard the old band +play; a dozen other bands had played that tune that day; but Billy +Dorman's tuba had its own kind of a rag in it, and Watts knew it. I +seen him a-waving his hat at the boys, almost as soon as they saw him, +and as the band came nearer and nearer I saw the little man's face +begin to crack, and as he looked down the line and saw them Kansas and +Iowa soldiers, I seen him give one whoop, and throw that plug hat +hellwards over the crowd and jump down from that band stand like a +wild man and make for the gang. He was blubbering like a calf when he +caught step with me, and he yelled so as to reach my ears above the +roar of the crowds and the blatting of the bands--yelled with his +voice ripped to shreds that fluttered out ragged from the torn bosom +of him, 'Jake--Jake--how I would like to get drunk--just this +once!' And we went on down the avenue together--him bareheaded, +hay-footing and straw-footing it the same as in the old days." + +Jake always paused at this point and shook his head sorrowfully, and +then continued dolefully: "But 'twas no use; he was caught and took +away; some says it was to see the pictures in the White House, and +some says it was to a reception given by the Relief Corps to the +officers elect of the Ladies' Aid, where he was pawed over by a lot of +old girls who says, 'Yes, I'm so glad--what name please--oh, +--McHurdie, surely not _the_ McHurdie; O dear me--Sister McIntire, +come right here, this is _the_ McHurdie--you know I sang your song +when I was a little girl'--which was a lie, unless Watts wrote it for +the Mexican War, and he didn't. And then some one else comes waddling +up and says, 'O dear me, Mr. McHurdie--you don't know how glad I am +to see the author of "Home, Sweet Home,"' and Watts blinks his eyes +and pleads not guilty; and she says, 'O dear, excuse the mistake; +well, I'm sure you wrote something?' And Watts, being sick of love, as +Solomon says in his justly celebrated and popular song, Watts looks +through his Sunday glasses and doesn't see a blame thing, and smiles +and says calmly, 'No, madam, you mistake--I am a simple harness +maker.' And she sidles off looking puzzled, to make room for the one +from Massachusetts, who stares at him through her glasses and says, +'So you're Watts McHurdie--who wrote the--' 'The same, madam,' says +Watts, courting favour. 'Well,' says the high-browed one, 'well--you +are not at all what I imagined.' And 'Neither are you, madam,' returns +Watts, as sweet as a dill pickle; and she goes away to think it over +and wonder if he meant it that way. No--that's where Nellie made her +mistake. It wouldn't have hurt him--just once. But what's done's +done, and can't be undone, as the man said when he fished his wife out +of the lard vat." + +Now this all seems a long way from John Barclay--the hero of this +romance. Yet the departure of Watts McHurdie for his scene of glory +was on the same day that a most important thing happened in the lives +of Bob Hendricks and Molly Brownwell. That day Bob Hendricks walked +one end of the station platform alone. The east-bound train was half +an hour late, and while the veterans were teasing Watts and the women +railing at Mrs. McHurdie, Hendricks discovered that it was one hundred +and seventy-eight steps from one end of the walk to the other, and +that to go entirely around the building made the distance fifty-four +steps more. It was almost train time before Adrian Brownwell arrived. +When the dapper little chap came with his bright crimson carnation, +and his flashing red necktie, and his inveterate gloves and cane, +Hendricks came only close enough to him to smell the perfume on the +man's clothes, and to nod to him. But when Hendricks found that the +man was going with the Culpeppers as far as Cleveland, as he told the +entire depot platform, "to report the trip," Hendricks sat on a +baggage truck beside the depot, and considered many things. As he was +sitting there Dolan came up, out of breath, and fearful he should be +late. + +"How long will you be gone, Jake?" asked Hendricks. + +"The matter of a week or ten days, maybe," answered Dolan. + +"Well, Jake," said Hendricks, looking at Dolan with serious eyes, yet +rather abstractedly, "I am thinking of taking a long trip--to be gone +a long time--I don't know exactly how long. I may not go at all--I +haven't said anything to the boys in the store or the bank or out at +the shop about it; it isn't altogether settled--as yet." He paused +while a switch engine clanged by and the crowd surged out of the +depot, and ebbed back again into their seats. "Did you deliver my note +this morning?" + +"Yes," replied Dolan, "just as you said. That's what made me a little +late." + +"To the lady herself?" + +"To the lady herself," repeated Dolan. + +"All right," acquiesced Hendricks. "Now, Jake, if I give it out that +I'm going away on a trip, there'll be a lot of pulling and hauling and +fussing around in the bank and in the store and at the shop +and--every place, and then I may not go. So I've gone over every +concern carefully during the past week, and have set down what ought +to be done in case I'm gone. I didn't tell my sister even--she's so +nervous. And, Jake, I won't tell any one. But if, when you get back +from Washington, I'm not here, I'm going to leave this key with you. +Tell the boys at the bank that it will open my tin box, and in the tin +box they'll find some instructions about things." He smiled, and Dolan +assented. Hendricks uncoiled his legs from the truck, and began to get +down. "I won't mix up with the old folks, I guess, Jake. They have +their own affairs, and I'm tired. I worked all last night," he added. +He held out his hand to Dolan and said, "Well, good-by, Jake--have a +good time." + +The elder man had walked away a few steps when Hendricks called him +back, and fumbling in his pockets, said: "Well, Jake, I certainly am a +fool; here--" he pulled an envelope marked "Dolan" from his inside +pocket--"Jake, I was in the bank this morning, and I found a picture +for you. Take it and have a good time. It's a long time till pension +day--so long." + +The Irishman peeped at the bill and grinned as he said, "Them holy +pictures from the bank, my boy, have powerful healing qualities." And +he marched off with joy in his carriage. + +Hendricks then resumed his tramp; up and down the long platform he +went, stepping on cracks one way, and avoiding cracks the next, +thinking it all out. He tried to remember if he had been unfair to any +one; if he had left any ragged edges; if he had taken a penny more +than his honest due. The letter to the county treasurer, returning the +money his father had taken, was on top of the pile of papers in his +tin box at the bank. He had finally concluded, that when everything +else was known, that would not add much to his disgrace. And then it +would be paid, and that page with the forged entry would not always be +in his mind. There were deeds, each witnessed by a different notary, +so that the town would not gossip before he went, transferring all of +his real estate to his sister, and the stock he had sold to the bank +was transferred, and the records all in the box; then he went over the +prices again at which he had disposed of his holdings to the bank, and +he was sure he had made good bargains in every case for the bank. So +it was all fair, he argued for the thousandth time--he was all square +with the world. He had left a deposit subject to his check of twenty +thousand dollars--that ought to do until they could get on their feet +somewhere; and it was all his, he said to himself--all his, and no +one's business. + +And when he thought of the other part, the voice of Adrian Brownwell +saying, "Well, come on, old lady, we must be going," rose in his +consciousness. It was not so much Brownwell's words, as his air of +patronage and possession; it was cheerful enough, quite gay in fact, +but Hendricks asked himself a hundred times why the man didn't whistle +for her, and clamp a steel collar about her neck. He wondered +cynically if at the bottom of Brownwell's heart, he would not rather +have the check for twelve thousand dollars which Hendricks had left +for Colonel Culpepper, to pay off the Brownwell note, than to have his +wife. For seven years the colonel had been cheerfully neglecting it, +and now Hendricks knew that Adrian was troubling him about the old +debt. + +As he rounded the depot for the tenth time he got back to their last +meeting. There stood General Ward with his arm about the girlish waist +of Mrs. Ward, the mother of seven. There was John Barclay with Jane +beside him, and they were holding hands like lovers. The Ward children +were running like rabbits over the broad lawn under the elms, and +there, talking to the wide, wide world, was Adrian Brownwell, +propounding the philosophy of the _Banner_, and quoting from last +week's editorials. And there sat Bob and Molly by the flower bed that +bordered the porch. + +"I am going to the city to hear Gilmore," he said. That was simple +enough, and her sigh had no meaning either. It was just a weary little +sigh, such as women sometimes bring forth when they decide to say +something else. So she had said: "I'll be all alone next week. I think +I'll visit Jane--if she's in town." + +Then something throbbed in his brain and made him say:-- + +"So you'd like to hear Gilmore, too?" + +She coloured and was silent, and the pulse of madness that was beating +in her made her answer:-- + +"Oh--I can't--you know the folks are going to Washington to the +encampment, and Adrian is going as far as Cleveland with the +delegation to write it up." + +An impulse loosened his tongue, and he asked:-- + +"Why not? Come on. If you don't know any one up there, go to the Fifth +Avenue; it's all right, and I'll get tickets, and we'll go every night +and both matinees. Come on!" he urged. + +She was aflame and could not think. "Oh--don't, Bob, don't--not now. +Please don't," she begged, in as low a tone as she dared to use. + +Adrian was thundering on about the tariff, and the general was +wrangling with him. The Barclays were talking to themselves, and the +children were clattering about underfoot, and in the trees overhead. +Bob's eyes and Molly's met, and the man shuddered at what he saw of +pathos and yearning, and he said: "Well, why not? It's no worse to go +than to want to go. What's wrong about it--Molly, do you think--" + +He did not finish the sentence, for Adrian had ceased talking, and +Molly, seeing his jealous eyes upon her, rose and moved away. But +before they left that night she found occasion to say, "I've been +thinking about it, Bob, and maybe I will." + +In the year that had passed since Hendricks had left her sobbing in +the chair on the porch of the Culpepper home, a current between them +had been reestablished, and was fed by the chance passing in a store, +a smile at a reception, a good morning on the street, and the current +was pulsing through their veins night and day. But that fine September +morning, as she stood on the veranda of her home with a dust-cap on +her head, cleaning up the litter her parents had made in packing, she +was not ready for what rushed into her soul from the letter Dolan left +her, as he hurried away to overtake the band that was turning from +Lincoln Avenue into Main Street. She sat in a chair to read it, and +for a moment after she had read it, she held it open in her lap and +gazed at the sunlight mottling the blue grass before her, through the +elm trees. Her lips were parted and her eyes wide, and she breathed +slowly. The tune the band was playing--McHurdie's song--sank into +her memory there that day so that it always brought back the mottled +sunshine, the flowers blooming along the walk, and the song of a robin +from a lilac bush near by. She folded the letter carefully, and put it +inside her dress, and then moving mechanically, took it out and read +it again:-- + + "MY DARLING, MY DARLING: There is no use struggling any more. You + must come. I will meet you in the city at the morning train, the one + that leaves the Ridge here at 2.35 A.M. We can go to the parks + to-morrow and be alone and talk it all out, before the concert--and + then--oh, Molly, core of my soul, heart of my heart, why should we + ever come back! BOB." + +All that she could feel as she sat there motionless was a crashing +"no." The thing seemed to drive her mad by its insistence--a horrible +racking thing that all but shook her, and she chattered at it: "Why +not? Why not? Why not?" But the "no" kept roaring through her mind, +and as she heard the servant rattling the breakfast dishes in the +house, the woman shivered out of sight and ran to her room. She fell +on her knees to pray, but all she could pray was, "O God, O God, O +God, help me!" and to that prayer, as she said it, the something in +her heart kept gibbering, "Why not? Why not? Why not?" From an old box +hidden in a closet opening out of her mother's room she took Bob +Hendricks' picture,--the faded picture of a boy of twenty,--and +holding it close to her breast, stared open-lipped into the heart of +an elm tree-top. The whistle of the train brought her back to her real +world. She rose and looked at herself in the mirror, at the unromantic +face with its lines showing faintly around her eyes, grown quiet +during the dozen years that had settled her fluffy hair into sedate +waves. She smiled at the changes of the years and shook her head, and +got a grip on her normal consciousness, and after putting away the +picture and closing the box, she went downstairs to finish her work. + +On the stairs she felt sure of herself, and set about to plan for the +next day, and then the tumult began, between the "no" and her soul. In +a few minutes as she worked the "no" conquered, and she said, "Bob's +crazy." She repeated it many times, and found as she repeated it that +it was mechanical and that her soul was aching again. So the morning +wore away; she gossiped with the servant a moment; a neighbour came in +on an errand; and she dressed to go down town. As she went out of the +gate, she wondered where she would be that hour the next day, and then +the struggle began again. Moreover, she bought some new +gloves--travelling gloves to match her gray dress. + +In the afternoon she and Jane Barclay sat on the wide porch of the +Barclay home. "Gilmore's going to be in the city all this week," said +Jane, biting a thread in her sewing. + +"Is he?" replied Molly. "I should so like to hear him. It's so poky up +at the house." + +"Why don't you?" inquired Jane. "Get on the train and go on up." + +"Do you suppose it would be all right?" replied Molly. + +"Why, of course, girl! Aren't you a married woman of lawful age? I +would if I wanted to." + +There was a pause, and Molly replied thoughtfully, "I have half a +notion to--really!" + +But as she walked home, she decided not to do it. People from the +Ridge might be there, and they wouldn't understand, and her +finger-tips chilled at the memory of Adrian Brownwell's jealous eyes. +So as she ate supper, she went over the dresses she had that were +available. And at bedtime she gave the whole plan up and went upstairs +humming "Marguerite" as happily as the thrush that sang in the lilacs +that morning. As she undressed the note fell to the floor. When she +picked it up, the flash of passion came tearing through her heart, and +the "no" crashed in her ears again, and all the day's struggle was for +nothing. So she went to bed, resolved not to go. But she stared +through the window into the night, and of a sudden a resolve came to +her to go, and have one fair day with Hendricks--to talk it all out +forever, and then to come home, and she rose from her bed and tiptoed +through the house packing a valise. She left a note in the kitchen for +the servant, saying that she would be back for dinner the next +evening, and when she struck a match in the front hall to see what +time it was, she found that it was only one o'clock. For an hour she +sat in the chill September air on the veranda, thinking it all +over--what she would say; how they would meet and part; and over and +over again she told herself that she was doing the sensible thing. As +the clock struck two she picked up her valise--it was heavier than +she thought, and it occurred to her that she had put in many +unnecessary things, and that she had time to lighten it. But she +stopped a moment only, and then walked to the gate and down a side +street to the station. It was 2.20 when she arrived, and the train was +marked on the blackboard by the ticket window on time. She kept +telling herself that it was best to have it out; that she would come +right back; but she remembered her heavy valise, and again the warning +"no" roared through her soul. She walked up and down the long +platform, and felt the presence of Bob Hendricks strong and +compelling; she knew he had been there that very day, and wondered +where he sat. Then she thought perhaps she would do better not to go. +She looked into the men's waiting room, and it was empty save for one +man; his back was turned to her, but she recognized Lige Bemis. A +tremble of guilt racked and weakened her. And with a thrill as of pain +she heard the faint whistle of a train far up the valley. The man +moved about the room inside. Apparently he also heard the far-off +whistle. She shrank around the corner of the depot. But he caught +sight of her dress, and slowly sauntered up and down the platform +until he passed near enough to her to identify her in the faint +flicker of the gas. He spoke, and she returned his greeting. The train +whistled again--much nearer it seemed to her, but still far away, and +her soul and the "no" were grappling in a final contest. Suddenly it +came over her that she had not bought her ticket. Again the train +whistled, and far up the tracks she could see a speck of light. She +hurried into the waiting room to buy the ticket. The noise of the +train was beginning to sound in her ears, She was frightened and +nervous, and she fumbled with her purse and valise. Nearer and nearer +came the train, and the "no" fairly screamed in her ears, and her face +was pallid, with the black wrinkles standing out upon it in the +gaslight. The train was in the railroad yards, and the glare of the +headlight was in the waiting room. Bemis came in and saw her fumbling +with her ticket, her pocket book, and her valise. + +"You'll have to hurry, Mrs. Brownwell, this is the limited--it only +stops a minute. Let me help you." + +He picked up the valise and followed her from the room. The rush of +the incoming train shattered her nerves. They pulsed in fear of some +dreadful thing, and in that moment she wondered whether or not she +would ever see it all again--the depot, the familiar street, the +great mill looming across the river, and the Barclay home half a mile +above them. In a second she realized all that her going meant, and the +"no" screamed at her, and the "why not" answered feebly. But she had +gone too far, she said to herself. The engine was passing her, and +Bemis was behind her with the heavy valise. She wondered what he would +say when Bob met her at the train in the city. All this flashed across +her mind in a second, and then she became conscious that the rumbling +thing in front of her was not the limited but a cattle train, and the +sickening odour from it made her faint. In the minute while it was +rushing by at full speed she became rigid, and then, taking her valise +from the man behind her, turned and walked as fast as she could up the +hill, and when she turned the corner she tried to run. Her feet took +her to the Barclay home. She stood trembling in terror on the great +wide porch and rang the bell. The servant admitted the white-faced, +shaking woman, and she ran to Jane Barclay's room. + +"Oh, Jane," chattered Molly, "Jane, for God's love, Jane, hold +me--hold me tight; don't let me go. Don't!" She sank to the floor and +put her face in Jane's lap and stuttered: "I--I--have g-g-got to +t-t-tell you, Jane. I've g-g-ot to t-t-t-ell you, J-J-Jane." And then +she fell to sobbing. "Hold me, don't let me go out there. When it +whistles ag-g-gain h-h-hold me t-t-tight." + +Jane Barclay's strong kind hands stroked the dishevelled hair of the +trembling woman. And in time she looked up and said quietly, "You +know--you know, Jane, Bob and I--Bob and I were going to run away!" +Molly looked at Jane a fearful second with beseeching eyes, and then +dropped her head and fell to sobbing again, and lay with her face on +the other woman's knees. + +When she was quiet Jane said: "I wouldn't talk about it any more, +dear--not now." She stroked the hair and patted the face of the woman +before her. "Shall we go to bed now, dear? Come right in with me." And +soon Molly rose, and her spent soul rested in peace. But they did not go +to bed. The dawn found the two women talking it out together--clear from +the beginning. + +And when the day came Molly Brownwell went to Jane Barclay's desk and +wrote. And when Bob Hendricks came home that night, his sister handed +him a letter. It ran:-- + + "MY DEAR BOB: I have thought it all out, dear; it wouldn't do at + all. I went to the train, and something, I don't know what, caught + me and dragged me over to Jane's. She was good--oh, so good. She + knows; but it was better that she should than--the other way. + + "It will never do, Bob. We can't go back. The terrible something + that I did stands irrevocably between us. The love that might have + made both our lives radiant is broken, Bob--forever broken. And all + the king's horses and all the king's men cannot ever put it together + again. I know it now, and oh Bob, Bob, it makes me sadder than the + pain of unsatisfied love in my heart. + + "It just can't be; nothing ever can make it as it was, and unless it + could be that way--the boy and girl way, it would be something + dreadful. We have missed the best in the world, Bob; we cannot enjoy + the next best together. But apart, each doing his work in life as + God wills it, we may find the next best, which is more than most + people know. + + "I have found during this hour that I can pray again, Bob, and I am + asking God always to let me hope for a heaven, into which I can + bring a few little memories--of the time before you left me. Won't + you bring yours there, too, dear? Until then--good-by. + + "MOLLY." + +The springs that move God's universe are hidden,--those that move the +world of material things and those that move the world of spiritual +things, and make events creep out of the past into the future so +noiselessly that they seem born in the present. It is all a mystery, +the half-stated equation of life that we call the scheme of things. +Only this is sure, that however remote, however separated by time and +space, the tragedy of life has its root in the weakness of men, and of +all the heart-breaking phantasms that move across the panorama of the +day, somewhere deep-rooted in our own souls' weakness is the +ineradicable cause. Even God's mercy cannot separate the punishment +that follows sin, and perhaps it is the greatest mercy of His mercy +that it cannot do so. For when we leave this world, our books are +clear. If our souls grow--we pay the price in suffering; if they +shrivel, we go into the next world, poorer for our pilgrimage. + +So do not pity Molly Brownwell nor Robert Hendricks when you learn +that as she left the station at Sycamore Ridge that night, Lige Bemis +went to a gas lamp and read the note from Robert Hendricks that in her +confusion she had dropped upon the floor. Only pity the miserable +creature whose soul was so dead in him that he could put that note +away to bide his time. In this wide universe, wherein we are growing +slowly up to Godhood, only the poor leprous soul, whitened with malice +and hate, deserves the angels' tears. The rest of us,--weak, failing, +frail, to whom life deals its sorrows and its tears, its punishments +and its anguish,--we leave this world nearer to God than when we came +here, and the journey, though long and hard, has been worth the while. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +Back in the days when John Barclay had become powerful enough to +increase the price of his door strips to the railroad companies from +five dollars to seven and a half, he had transferred the business of +the factory that made the strips from Hendricks' Exchange National to +the new Merchants' State Bank which Gabriel Carnine was establishing. +For Carnine and Barclay were more of a mind than were Barclay and +Hendricks; Carnine was bent on getting rich, and he had come to regard +Barclay as the most remarkable man in the world. Hendricks, on the +other hand, knew Barclay to the core, and since the quarrel of the +seventies, while they had maintained business relations, they were +merely getting along together. There were times when Barclay felt +uncomfortable, knowing that Hendricks knew much about his business, +but the more Carnine knew, the more praise Barclay had of him; and so, +even though Jane kept her own account with Hendricks, and though John +himself kept a personal account with Hendricks, the Economy Door Strip +Company and the Golden Belt Wheat Company did business with Carnine, +and Barclay became a director of the Merchants' State Bank, and +greatly increased its prestige thereby. And Bob Hendricks sighed a +sigh of relief, for he knew that he would never become John Barclay's +fence and be called upon to dispose of stolen goods. So Hendricks went +his way with his eyes on a level and his jaw squared with the world. +And when he knew that Jane knew the secret of his soul, about the only +comfort he had in those black days was the exultation in his heart +that John--whatever he might know--could not turn it into cash at +the Exchange National Bank. + +As he walked alone under the stars that first night after Molly +Brownwell's note came to him, he saw his life as it was, with things +squarely in their relations. Of course this light did not stay with +him always; at times in his loneliness the old cloud of wild yearning +would come over him, and he would rattle the bars of his madhouse +until he could fight his way out to the clean air of Heaven under the +stars. And at such times he would elude Dolan, and walk far away from +the town in fields and meadows and woods struggling back to +sanity--sometimes through a long night. But as the years passed, this +truth came to be a part of his consciousness--that in some measure +the thing we call custom, or law, or civilization, or society, with +all its faults, is the best that man, endowed as he is to-day, can +establish, and that the highest service one can pay to man or to God +is found in conforming to the social compact, at whatever cost of +physical pain, or mental anguish, if the conformation does not require +a moral breach. That was the faith he lived by, that by service to his +fellows and by sacrifice to whatever was worthy in the social compact, +he would find a growth of soul that would pay him, either here or +hereafter. So he lent money, and sold light, and traded in +merchandise, and did a man's work in politics--playing each game +according to the rules. + +But whatever came to him, whatever of honour or of influence, or of +public respect, in his own heart there was the cloud--he knew that he +was a forger, and that once he had offered to throw everything he had +aside and take in return--But he was not candid enough even in his +own heart to finish the indictment. It made him flush with shame, and +perhaps that was why on his face there was often a curious +self-deprecating smile--not of modesty, not of charity, but the smile +of the man who is looking at a passing show and knows that it is not +real. As he went into his forties, and the flux of his life hardened, +he became a man of reserves--a kind, quiet, strong man, charitable to +a fault for the weaknesses of others, but a man who rarely reflected +his impulses, a listener in conversation, a dreamer amid the tumult of +business, whose success lay in his industry and caution, and who drew +men to him not by what he promised, but by the faith we chattering +daws have in the man who looks on and smiles while we prattle. + +His lank bones began to take on flesh, and his face rounded at the +corners, and the eagerness of youth passed from him. He always looked +more of a man than John Barclay. For Barclay was a man of enthusiasms, +who occasionally liked to mouth a hard jaw-breaking "damn," and who +followed his instincts with womanly faith in them--so that he became +known as a man of impulse. But Hendricks' power was in repression, and +in Sycamore Ridge they used to say that the only reason why Bob +Hendricks grew a mustache was to chew it when people expected him to +talk. It wasn't much of a mustache--a little blond fuzz about as +heavy as his yellow eyebrows over his big inquiring blue eyes, and he +once told Dolan that he kept it for a danger signal. When he found +himself pulling at it, he knew he was nervous and should get out into +the open. They tell a story in the Ridge to the effect that Hendricks +started to run to a fire, and caught himself pulling at his mustache, +and turned around and went out to the power-house instead. + +It was the only anecdote ever told of Hendricks after he was +forty--for he was not a man about whom anecdotes would hang well, +though the town is full of them about John Barclay. So Hendricks lived +a strong reticent man, who succeeded in business though he was honest, +and who won in politics by choosing his enemies from the kind of noisy +men who make many mistakes, and let every one know it. The time came +when he did not avoid Molly Brownwell; she felt that he was not afraid +to see her in any circumstances, and that made her happy. Sometimes +she went to him in behalf of one of her father's charges,--some poor +devil who could not pay his note at the bank and keep the children in +school, or some clerk or workman at the power-house who had been +discharged. At such times they talked the matter in hand over frankly, +and it ended by the man giving way to the woman, or showing her simply +that she was wrong. + +Only once in nearly a score of years did a personal word pass between +them. She had come to him for his signature to a petition for a pardon +for a man whose family suffered while he was in the penitentiary. +Hendricks signed the paper and handed it back to her, and his blue +eyes were fixed impersonally upon her, and he smiled his curious, +self-deprecatory smile and sighed, "As we forgive our debtors." Then +he reached for a paper in his desk and seemed oblivious to her +presence. No one else was near them, and the woman hesitated a moment +before turning to go and repeated, "Yes, Bob--as we forgive our +debtors." She tried to show him the radiance in her soul, but he did +not look up and she went away. When she had gone, he pushed aside his +work and sat for a moment looking into the street; he began biting his +mustache, and rose, and went out of the bank and found some other +work. + +That night as Hendricks and Dolan walked over the town together, Dolan +said: "Did you ever know, Robert"--that was as near familiarity as +the elder man came with Hendricks--"that Mart Culpepper owed his +son-in-law a lot of money?" + +"Well," returned Hendricks, "he borrowed a lot fifteen years ago or +such a matter; why?" + +"Well," answered Dolan, "I served papers on Mart to-day in a suit +for--I dunno, a lot of money--as I remember it about fifteen +thousand dollars. That seems like a good deal." + +Hendricks grunted, and they walked on in silence. Hendricks knew from +Brownwell's overdraft that things were not going well with him, and he +believed that matters must have reached a painful crisis in the +Culpepper family if Brownwell had brought suit against the colonel. + +The next morning Colonel Martin Culpepper came into the bank. He had +grown into a large gray man--with gray hair, gray mustaches of +undiminished size, and chin whiskers grayed and broadened with the +years. His fine black eyes were just beginning to lose their lustre, +and the spring was going out of his stride. As he came into the bank, +Hendricks noticed that the colonel seemed to shuffle just a little. He +put out his fat hand, and said:-- + +"Robert, will you come into the back room with me a moment? It isn't +business--I just want to talk with you." He smiled apologetically and +added, "Just troubles, Robert--just an old man wants to talk to some +one, in point of fact." + +Hendricks followed the colonel into the directors' room, and without +ceremony the colonel sank heavily into a fat leather chair, facing the +window, and Hendricks sat down facing the colonel. The colonel looked +at the floor and fumbled his triangular watch-charm a moment, and +cleared his throat, as he spoke, "I don't know just how to begin--to +get at it--to proceed, as I may say, Robert." Hendricks did not +reply, and the colonel went on, "I just wanted to talk to some one, +that's all--to talk to you--just to you, sir, to be exact." + +Hendricks looked kindly at the colonel, whose averted eyes made the +younger man feel uncomfortable. Then he said gently, "Well, Colonel, +don't be backward about saying what you want to to me." It was a long +speech for Hendricks, and he felt it, and then qualified it with, +"But, of course, I don't want to urge you." + +The colonel's face showed a flush of courage to Hendricks, but the +courage passed, and there was a silence, and then a little twitch +under his eyes told Hendricks that the colonel was contemplating a +flank attack as he spoke, "Robert, may I ask you in confidence if +Adrian Brownwell is hard up?" + +Hendricks believed the truth would bring matters to a head, and he +answered, "Well, I shouldn't wonder, Colonel." + +"Very hard up?" pressed the colonel. + +Hendricks remembered Brownwell's overdraft and half a dozen past due +notes to cover other overdrafts and answered, "Well, Colonel, not +desperate, but you know the _Index_ has been getting the best of the +_Banner_ for two or three years." + +There was a pause, and then the colonel blurted out, "Well, Bob, he's +sued me." + +"I knew that, Colonel," returned Hendricks, anxious to press the +matter to its core. "Jake told me yesterday." + +"I was going to pay him; he's spoken about it several times--dunned me, +sir, in point of fact, off and on for several years. But he knew I was +good for it. And now the little coward runs off up to Chicago to attend +the convention and sues me while he's gone. That's what I hate." +Hendricks could see that the object of the colonel's visit was still on +his mind, and so he left the way open for the colonel to talk. "You know +how Mrs. Culpepper feels and how Molly feels--disgraced, sir, +humiliated, shamed, to be exact, sir, in front of the whole town. What +would you do, Robert? What can a man do in a time like this--I ask you, +what can he do?" + +"Well, I'd pay him, Colonel, if I were you," ventured the younger man. + +The colonel straightened up and glared at Hendricks and exclaimed: +"Bob Hendricks, do you think, sir, that Martin Culpepper would rest +for a minute, while he had a dollar to his name, or a rag on his back, +under the imputation of not paying a debt like that? It is paid, +sir,--settled in full this morning, sir. But what am I going to do +about him, sir--the contemptible scamp who publicly sued his own +wife's father? That's what I came to you for, Robert. What am I going +to do?" + +"It'll be forgotten in a week, Colonel--I wouldn't worry about it," +answered Hendricks. "We all have those little unpleasantnesses." + +The colonel was silent for a time, and then he said: "Bob--" turning +his eyes to meet Hendricks' for the first time during their +meeting--"that scoundrel said to me yesterday morning before leaving, +'If I hadn't the misfortune of being your son-in-law, you wouldn't +have the honour of owing me this money.' Then he sneered at me--you +know the supercilious way he has, the damn miserable hound-pup way he +has of grinning at you,--and says, 'I regarded it as a loan, even +though you seemed to regard it as a bargain.' And he whirled and left +me." The colonel's voice broke as he added: "In God's name, Bob, tell +me--did I sell Molly? You know--you can tell me." + +The colonel was on his feet, standing before Hendricks, with, his +hands stretched toward the younger man. Hendricks did not reply at +once, and the colonel broke forth: "Bob Hendricks, why did you and my +little girl quarrel? Did she break it or did you? Did I sell her, Bob, +did I sell my little girl?" He slipped back into the chair and for a +moment hid his face, and shook with a great sob, then pulled himself +together, and said, "I know I'm a foolish old man, Bob, only I feel a +good deal depends on knowing the truth--a good deal of my attitude +toward him." + +Hendricks looked at the colonel for an abstracted moment, and then +said: "Colonel, Adrian Brownwell is hard up--very hard up, and you +don't know how he is suffering with chagrin at being beaten by the +_Index_. He is quick-tempered--just as you are, Colonel." He paused a +moment and took the colonel by the hand,--a fat, pink hand, without +much iron in it,--and brought him to his feet. "And about that other +matter," he added, as he put his arm about the colonel, "you didn't +sell her. I know that; I give you my word on that. It was fifteen +years ago--maybe longer--since Molly and I were--since we went +together as boy and girl. That's a long time ago, Colonel, a long time +ago, and I've managed to forget just why we--why we didn't make a go +of it." He smiled kindly at the colonel as he spoke--a smile that the +colonel had not seen in Hendricks' face in many years. Then the mask +fell on his face, and the colonel saw it fall--the mask of the man +over the face of the boy. A puzzled, bewildered look crept into the +gray, fat face, and Hendricks could see that the doubt was still in +the colonel's heart. The younger man pressed the colonel's hand, and +the two moved toward the door. Suddenly tears flushed into the dimmed +eyes of the colonel, and he cried, through a smile, "Bob Hendricks, I +believe in my soul you're a liar--a damn liar, sir, but, boy, you're +a thoroughbred--God bless you, you're a thoroughbred." And he turned +and shuffled from the room and out of the bank. + +When Colonel Martin Culpepper left Robert Hendricks at the door of the +directors' room of the Exchange National Bank, the colonel was +persuaded in his heart that his daughter had married Adrian Brownwell +to please her parents, and the colonel realized that day that her +parents were pleased with Brownwell as a suitor for their daughter, +because in time of need he had come to their rescue with money, and +incidentally because he was of their own blood and caste--a Southern +gentleman of family. The colonel went to the offices of the Culpepper +Mortgage and Loan Company and went over his bank-book again. The check +that he drew would take all but three hundred and forty-five dollars +out of the accounts of his company, and not a dollar of it was his. +The Culpepper Mortgage Company was lending other people's money. It +had been lending money on farm mortgages for ten years. Pay-day on +many mortgages was coming due, and of the fifteen thousand dollars he +checked out to pay Adrian Brownwell's debt, thirteen thousand dollars +was money that belonged to the Eastern creditors of the company--men +and women who had sent their money to the company for it to lend; and +the money checked out represented money paid back by the farmers for +the release of their mortgages. Some of the money was interest paid by +farmers on their mortgages, some of it was partial payments--but none +of it was Colonel Culpepper's money. + +"Molly," said the colonel, as his daughter came into the office, "I've +given a check for that--that money, you know, to Adrian--paid it in +full, my dear. But--" the colonel fumbled with his pencil a moment +and added, "I'm a trifle shy--a few thousand in point of fact, and I +just thought I'd ask--would you borrow it of Bob, if you were me?" + +He looked at her closely, and she coloured and shook her head +vehemently as she replied: "Oh, no, father--no, can't you get it +somewhere else? Not from Bob--for that! I mean--oh--I'd much rather +not." + +The colonel looked at his daughter a moment and drew a deep breath, +and sighed, and smiled across his sigh, and took her hand and put it +around his neck and kissed it, and when she was close to him he put +his arm about her, and their eyes met for a fleeting instant, and they +did not speak. But in a moment from across his desk the daughter +spoke, "Why don't you go to John or Carnine, father?" + +"Well, Gabe--you know Gabe. I'm borrowed clear to the limit there, +now. And John--you know John, Molly--and the muss, the disagreeable +muss,--the row, in point of fact, we had over that last seventy-five +dollars settling up the College Heights business--you remember? Well, +I just can't go to John. But," he added cheerfully, "I can get it +elsewhere, my dear--I have other resources, other resources, my +dear." And the colonel smiled so gayly that he deceived even his +daughter, and she went home as happy as a woman with eyelids as red as +hers were that day might reasonably expect to be. + +As for the colonel, he sat figuring for an hour upon a sheet of white +paper. His figures indicated that by putting all of his property +except his home into the market, and reserving all of his commissions +on loans that would fall due during the three years coming, he could +pay back the money he had taken, little by little, and be square with +the company's creditors in three years--or four at the most. So he +let the check stand, and did not try to borrow money of the banks to +make it good, but trusted to to-morrow's receipts to pay yesterday's +debts of the company. Knowing that several mortgages of more than +three thousand each would fall due in a few weeks, and that the men +carrying them, expected to pay them, the colonel wrote dilatory +letters to the Eastern creditors whose money he had taken, explaining +that there was some delay in the payment of the notes, and that the +matter would be straightened out in a few weeks. When the money came +in from the mortgages falling due the next month, he paid those +already due, and delayed the payment of Peter until Paul paid up. It +was a miserable business, and Colonel Culpepper knew that he was a +thief. The knowledge branded him as one, and bent his eyes to the +ground, and wrenched his proud neck so that his head hung loosely upon +it. Always when he spoke in public, or went among his poor on errands +of mercy, at his elbow stood the accusing spectre, and choked his +voice, and unnerved his hand. And trouble came upon the Culpeppers, +and the colonel's clothes, which, had always been immaculate, grew +shabby. As that year and the next passed and mortgages began falling +due, not only in the colonel's company but all over the county, all +over the state, all over the Missouri Valley, men found they could not +pay. The cycle of business depression moved across the world, as those +things come and go through the centuries. Moreover, General Ward was +riding on the crest of a wave of unrest which expressed in terms of +politics what the people felt in their homes. Debts were falling due; +crops brought small returns; capital was frightened; men in the mills +lost their work; men on the farms burned their corn; and Colonel +Martin Culpepper sank deeper and deeper into the mire. + +Those years of the panic of the early nineties pressed all the youth +out of his step, dimmed the lustre of his eyes, and slowly broke his +heart. His keenest anguish was not for his own suffering, but because +his poor, the people at the Mission, came trooping to him for help, +and he had to turn so many away. The whole town knew that he was in +trouble, though no one knew or even suspected just what it was. For +the people had their own troubles in those days, and the town and the +county and the state and the whole world grew shabby. + +One day in the summer of '93, Colonel Culpepper was sitting in his +office reading a letter from Vermont demanding a long-deferred +interest payment on a mortgage. There were three hundred dollars due, +and the colonel had but half that amount, and was going to send what +he had. Jake Dolan came into the office and saw the colonel sitting +with the letter crumpled in his hands, and with worry in the dull old +eyes. + +"Come in, Jake, come in," cried the colonel, a little huskily. "What's +the trouble, comrade--what's wrong?" + +But let Dolan tell it to Hendricks three days later, as the two are +sitting at night on the stone bridge across the Sycamore built by John +Barclay to commemorate the battle of Sycamore Ridge. "'Well, Mart,' +says I, 'I'm in vicarious trouble,' says I. 'It's along of my orphan +asylum,' says I. 'What orphan asylum?' says he. 'Well, it's this way, +Mart,' says I. 'You know they found Trixie Lee guilty this afternoon +in the justice court, don't you?' Mart sighs and says, 'Poor Trixie, I +supposed they would sooner or later, poor girl--poor girl. An' old +Cap Lee of the Red Legs was her father; did you know that, Jake?' he +asks. 'Yes, Mart,' says I, 'and Lady Lee before her. She comes by it +honestly.' Mart sat drumming with his fingers on the table, looking +back into the years. 'Poor Jim,' he says, 'Jim was a brave soldier--a +brave, big-hearted, generous soldier--he nursed me all that first +night at Wilson's Creek when I was wounded. Poor Jim.' 'Yes,' says I, +'and Trixie has named her boy for him--Jim Lord Lee Young; that was +her husband's name--Young,' says I. 'And it's along of the boy that +I'm here for. The nicest bright-eyed little chap you ever saw; and he +seems to know that something is wrong, and just clings to his mother +and cries--seven years old, or maybe eight--and begs me not to put +his mother in jail. And,' says I to Mart, 'Mart, I just can't do it. +The sheriff he's run, and so has the deputy; they can't stand the boy +crying, and damn it to hell, Mart, I can't, either; so I just left 'em +in the office and locked the door and come around to see you. I'd 'a' +gone to see Bob, only he's out of town this week,' I says. 'I can +throw up the job, Mart--though I'd have to go on the county; but +Mart, they ain't a soul for the boy to go to; and it ain't right to +put him in jail with the scum that's in there.'" + +"Tough--wasn't it?" said Hendricks. "What did you do? Why didn't you +go to Carnine or Barclay?" + +"That's just what I'm a-comin' to,--the Priest or the Levite?" said +Jake. "Well, Mart said, 'Where're the men they caught--won't they +help?' and I says, 'They paid their tine and skipped.' 'Fine?' asks +Mart, 'fine? I thought you said it was jail sentence.' 'Well,' says I, +'it amounts to the same thing; she can't pay her fine, and that damn +reform judge, wanting to make a record as a Spartan, has committed her +to jail till it is paid!' 'So they go free, and she goes to jail, +because she is poor,' says Mart.' That's what your reform means,' says +I, 'or I let her and the boy loose and lose my job. And oh, Mart,' +says I, 'the screams of that little boy at the disgrace of it and the +terror of the jail--man--I can't stand it!' 'How much is it?' sighs +Mart. 'An even hundred fine and seventeen dollars and fifty cents +costs,' says I. Mart's eyes was leaking, and he gets up and goes to +the vault, and comes back with the cash and says, blubbering like a +calf: 'Here, Jake Dolan, you old scoundrel, take this. I'll pass a +paper and get it to-morrow--now get out of here.' And he handed me +the money all cried over where he'd been slow counting it out, and +said when he'd got hold of his wobbly jaw: 'Don't you tell her where +you got it--I don't want her around here. I'll see her to-morrow when +I'm down that way and talk to her for old Cap Lee--' And then he +laughs as he stands in the door and says: 'Well, Jim,' and he points +up, 'your bread cast upon the waters was a long time a-coming--but +here she is;' and he says, 'Do you suppose the old villain knows?' And +I turned and hunted up the justice and went around to the office, and +told Trixie to 'go sin no more,' and she laughs and says, 'Well, +hardly ever!' and I kissed the kid, and he fought my whiskers, and we +all live happy ever after." + +But the colonel, after Dolan left the office, went into the darkening +room, and spread out the harsh letter from the Vermont banker +demanding money long past due, and read and reread it and took up his +burden, and got into the weary treadmill of his life. It rained the +next day, and he did not go out with his subscription paper; he had +learned that people subscribe better on bright days; and as Hendricks +and Barclay were both out of town, he wrote a dilatory letter to the +Vermont people--the fifth he had written about that particular +transaction--and waited another rainy day and still another before +starting out with his paper. But the event was past; the cry of the +child was not in the people's ears; they knew that the colonel had put +up the money; so it was not until Hendricks came back and heard the +story from Dolan that the colonel was repaid. Then because he actually +had the money--at least half of it due on that particular debt, which +was one of scores of its kind--the colonel delayed another day and +another, and while he was musing the fire burned. And events started +in Vermont which greatly changed the course of this story. + +"I wonder," he has written in that portion of the McHurdie Biography +devoted to "The Press of the Years," "why, as we go farther and +farther into life, invariably it grows dingier and dingier. The 'large +white plumes' that dance before the eyes of youth soil, and are +bedraggled. And out of the inexplicable tangle of the mesh of life +come dark threads from God knows where and colour the woof of it gray +and dreary. Ah for the days of the large white plumes--for the days +when life's woof was bright!" + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +If the reader of this tale should feel drawn to visit Sycamore Ridge, +he will find a number of interesting things there, and the trip may be +made by the transcontinental traveller with the loss of but half a +dozen hours from his journey. The Golden Belt Railroad, fifteen years +ago, used to print a guide-book called "California and Back," in which +were set down the places of interest to the traveller. In that book +Sycamore Ridge was described thus:-- + + "Sycamore Ridge, pop. 22,345, census 1890; large water-power, main + industry milling; also manufacturing; five wholesale houses. Seat + Ward University, 1300 students; also Garrison County High School, + also Business College. Thirty-five churches, two newspapers, the + _Daily Banner_ and the _Index_; fifty miles of paved streets; + largest stone arch bridge in the West, marking site of Battle of + Sycamore Ridge, a border ruffian skirmish; home of Watts McHurdie, + famous as writer of war-songs, best known of which is--" etc., etc. + +But excepting Watts, who may be gone before you get there,--for he is +an old man now, and is alone and probably does not always have the +best of care,--the things above annotated will not interest the +traveller. At the Thayer House they will tell you that three things in +the town give it distinction: the Barclay home, a rambling gray brick +structure which the natives call Barclay Castle, with a great sycamore +tree held together by iron bands on the terraced lawn before the +house--that is number one; the second thing they will advise the +traveller to see is Mary Barclay Park, ten acres of transplanted elm +trees, most tastefully laid out, between Main Street and the Barclay +home; and the third thing that will be pointed out to the traveller is +the Schnitzler fountain, in the cemetery gateway, done by St. Gaudens; +it represents a soldier pouring water from his canteen into his hand, +as he bathes the brow of a dying comrade. + +These things, of course,--the house, the park, and the +fountain,--represent John Barclay and his money. The town is proud of +them, but the reader is advised not to expect too much of them. One of +the two things really worth seeing at the Ridge is the view over the +wheat fields of the Sycamore Valley from the veranda of the Culpepper +home on the hill. There one may see the great fields lying in three +townships whereon John Barclay founded his fortune. The second thing +worth seeing may be found in the hallway of the public library +building, just at the turn of the marble stairway, where the morning +light strikes it. Take the night train out of Chicago and get to the +Ridge in the morning, to get the light on that picture. + +It is a portrait of John Barclay, done when he was forty years old and +painted by a Russian during the summer when the Barclays were called +home from Europe before their journey was half completed, to +straighten out an obstreperous congressman, one Tom Wharton by name, +who was threatening to put wheat and flour on the free list in a +tariff bill, unless--but that is immaterial, except that Wharton was +on Barclay's mind more or less while the painter was at work, and the +portrait reflects what Barclay thought of a number of things. It shows +a small gray-clad man, with a pearl pin in a black tie, sitting rather +on the edge of his chair, leaning forward, so that the head is thrown +into the light. The eyes are well opened, and the jaw comes out, a +hard mean jaw; but the work of the artist, the real work that reveals +the soul of the sitter, is shown in three features, if we except the +pugnacious shoulders. In the face are two of these features: the +mouth, a hard, coarse, furtive mouth,--the mouth of the liar who is +not polished,--the peasant liar who has been caught and has brazened +it out; the mouth and the forehead, full almost to bulging, so clean +and white and naked that it seems shameful to expose it, a poet's +forehead, noble and full of dreams, broad over the eyes, and as +delicately modelled at the temples as a woman's where the curly brown +hair is brushed away from it. But the wonderful feature about the +portrait is the right hand. The artist obviously asked Barclay to +assume a natural attitude, and then seeing him lean forward with his +hand stretched out in some gesture of impatience, persuaded him to +take that pose. It is the sort of vital human thing that would please +Barclay--no sham about it; but he did not realize what the Russian +was putting into that hand--a long, hard, hairy, hollow, grasping, +relentless hand, full in the foreground and squarely in the light--a +horrible thing with artistic fingers, and a thin, greedy palm +indicated by the deep hump in the back. It reaches out from the +picture, with the light on the flesh tints, with the animal hair thick +upon it, and with the curved, slender, tapering fingers cramped like a +claw; and when one follows up the arm to the crouching body, the +furtive mouth, the bold, shrewd eyes, and then sees that forehead full +of visions, one sees in it more than John Barclay of Sycamore Ridge, +more than America, more than Europe. It is the menace of +civilization--the danger to the race from the domination of sheer +intellect without moral restraint. + +General Ward, who was on the committee that received the picture +fifteen years after it was painted, stood looking at it the morning it +was hung there on the turn of the stairs. As the light fell +mercilessly upon it, the general, white-haired, white-necktied, +clean-shaven, and lean-faced, gazed at the portrait for a long time, +and then said to his son Neal who stood beside him, "And Samson wist +not that the Lord had departed from him." + +It will pay one to stop a day in Sycamore Ridge to see that +picture--though he does not know John Barclay, and only understands +the era that made him, and gave him that refined, savage, cunning, +grasping hand. + +Barclay stopped a week in Washington on his return from Europe the +year that picture was painted, made a draft for fifty thousand dollars +on the National Provisions Company to cover "legal expenses," and came +straight home to Sycamore Ridge. He was tired of cities, he told +Colonel Culpepper, who met Barclay at the post-office the morning he +returned, with his arms full of newspapers. "I want to hear the old +mill, Colonel," said Barclay, "to smell the grease down in the guts of +her, and to get my hair full of flour again." When he had gorged +himself for two days, he wired Bemis to come to the Ridge, and Barclay +and Bemis sat on the dam one evening until late bedtime, considering +many things. As they talked, Barclay found that a plan for the +reorganization of the Provisions Company was growing in his mind, and +he talked it out as it grew. + +"Lige," he said, as he leaned with his elbows on a rock behind him, +"the trouble with the company as it now stands is that it's too +palpable. There's too much to levy on--too much in sight; too much +physical property. How would it do to sell all these mills and +elevators, and use the company as a kind of a cream skimmer--a profit +shop--to market the products of the mills?" He paused a moment, and +Bemis, who knew he was not expected to reply, flipped pebbles into the +stream. Barclay changed his position slightly and began to pick stones +out of the crevices, and throw the stones into the water. "That's the +thing to do--go ahead and sell every dollar's worth of assets the +company's got--I'll take the mill here. I couldn't get along without +that. Then we'll buy the products of the mills at cost of the millers, +and let them get their profits back as individual holders of our +stock. Our company will handle the Door Strip--buy it and sell +it--and if any long-nosed reformer gets to snooping around the mills, +he'll find they are making only a living profit; and as for us--any +state grain commissioner or board of commissioners who wanted to +examine us could do so, and what'd he find? Simply that we're buying +our products at cost of the millers and selling at the market +price--sometimes at a loss, sometimes at a profit; and what if we do +handle all the grain and grain products in the United States? They +can't show that we are hurting anything. I tell you there's getting to +be too much snooping now in the state and federal governments. Have +you got any fellow in your office who can fix up a charter that will +let us buy and sell grain, and also sell the Barclay Economy Strip?" + +Bemis nodded. + +"Then, damn 'em, let 'em go on with their commissioners and boards and +legislative committees; they can't catch us. There's no law against +the railroads that ship our stuff buying the Economy Door Strip, is +there? You bet there isn't. And we're entitled to a good round +inventor's profit, ain't we? You bet we are. You go ahead and get up +that reorganization, and I'll put it through. Say, Lige--" Barclay +chuckled as a recollection flashed across his mind--"you know I've +made some of our Northwest senators promise to make you a federal +judge. That's one of the things I did last week; I thought maybe +sometime we'd need a federal judge as one of the--what do you call +it--the hereditaments thereunto appertaining of the company." Bemis +opened his eyes in astonishment, and Barclay grunted in disgust as he +went on: "Of course we can't get you appointed from this +state--that's clear--but they think we can work it through in the +City--as soon as there is a vacancy--or make a new district. How +would you like that? Judge Bemis--say, that sounds all right, doesn't +it?" + +Barclay rose and stretched his legs and arms. "Well, I must be +going--Mrs. Barclay and my mother want to hear the new organ over in +the Congregational Church. It's a daisy--Colonel Culpepper, amongst +hands, skirmished up three thousand. They let me pick it out, and I +had to put up another thousand myself to get the kind I wanted. Are +you well taken care of at the hotel?" When Bemis explained that he had +the bridal chamber, the two men clambered up the bank of the stream, +crossed the bridge, and at his gate Barclay said: "Now, I'll sleep on +this to-night,--this reorganization,--and then I'll write you a +letter to-morrow, covering all that I've said, and you can fix up a +tentative charter and fire it down--and say, Lige, figure out what a +modest profit on all the grain and grain produce business of the +country would be--say about two and a half per cent, and make the +capitalization of the reorganization fit that. We'll get the real +profits out of the Door Strip, and can fix that up in the books. We'll +show the reformers a trick or two." It was a warm night, and when the +organ recital was over, John and Jane Barclay, after the custom of the +town, sat on a terrace in front of the house talking of the day's +events. Music always made John babble. + +"Jane," he asked suddenly, "Jane--when does a man begin to grow old? +Here I am past forty. I used to think when a man was forty he was +middle-aged; every five years I have advanced my idea of what an old +man was; when I was fifteen, I thought a man was getting along when he +was thirty. When I was twenty-five, I regarded forty as the beginning +of the end; when I was thirty, I put the limit of activity at +forty-five; five years ago I moved it up to fifty; and to-day I have +jumped it to sixty. It seems to me, Jane, that I'm as much of a boy as +ever; all this talk about my being a man puzzles me. What's this +Provisions Company but a game? And I'm going to play another game; I'm +going to get grain and grain produce organized, and then I'm going to +tackle meat. In ten years I'll have the packing-houses where I have +the mills; but it's just play--and it's a lot of fun." + +He was silent a moment. Jane did not disturb his reveries. She +understood, without exactly putting her feeling into language, that +she was being talked at, not talked to. + +"Say, Jane," he exclaimed, "wasn't that 'Marche Triomphante to-night +great?" He hummed a bar from the motif, "That's it--my--" he cried, +hitting his chair arm with his fist, "but that's a big thing--almost +good enough for Wagner to have done; big and insistent and strong. I'm +getting to like music with go to it--with bang and brass. Wagner does +it; honest, Jane, when I hear his trombones coming into a theme, I get +ideas enough to give the whole force in the office nervous prostration +for a month. To-night when that thing was swelling up like a great +tidal wave of music rolling in, I worked out a big idea; I'm going to +sell all the mills and factories back to the millers for our stock, +and when I own every dollar of our stock, I'm going to double the +price of it to them and sell it back to them; and if they haggle about +it, I'll build a new mill across the track from every man-jack who +tries to give me any funny business--I'll show 'em. That +reorganization ought to clean up millions for us in the next year. +What a lot of fun it all is! I used to think old Jay Gould was some +pumpkins; but if we get this reorganization through, I'll go down +there and buy the Gould outfit and sell 'em for old iron." + +The current of his thoughts struck under language, as a prairie stream +sometimes hides from its surface bed. After a time Jane said: "Grandma +Barclay thought the 'Marche Funebre' was the best thing the man did. I +heard the Wards speaking of it in the vestibule; and Molly, who held +my hand through it, nearly squeezed it off--poor girl; but she looks +real well these days." Jane paused a moment and added: "Did you notice +the colonel? How worn and haggard he looks--he seems broken so. They +say he is in trouble. Couldn't we help him?" + +Her husband did not reply at once. Finally he recalled his wandering +wits and answered: "Oh, I don't know, Jane. He'll pull through, I +guess." Then he reverted to the music, which was still in his head. +"He played the Largo well--didn't he? That was made for the organ. +But some way I like the big things. The Largo is like running a little +twenty-horse-power steam mill, and selling to the home grocers. But +'The Ride of the Valkyries,' with those screaming discords of brass, +and those magnificent crashes of harmony--Jane, I've got an +idea--Wagner's work is the National Provisions Company set to music, +and I'm the first trombone." He laughed and reached for his wife's +hand and kissed it; then he rose and stood before her, admiring her in +the starlight, as he exclaimed: "And you are those clarinets, sweet +and clear and delicious, that make a man want to cry for sheer joy. +Come on, my dear--isn't it very late?" And the little man limped +across the grass up the steps and into the house. The two stopped a +moment while he listened to the roar of the water and the rumble of +the mill, that glowed in the night like a phosphorescent spectre. He +squeezed her hand and cried out in exultation, "It's great, isn't +it--the finest mill on this planet, my dear--do you realize that?" +And then they turned into the house. + +The next morning he kept two stenographers busy; he was spinning the +web of his reorganization, bringing about a condition under which men +were compelled to exchange their stock in the National Provisions +Company for their former property. He was a crafty little man, and his +ways were sometimes devious, even though to outward view his +advertised and proclaimed methods were those of a pirate. So when he +had dictated a day's work to two girls, he went nosing through the +mill, loafing in the engine rooms, looking at the water wheel, or +running about rafters in the fifth floor like a great gray rat. As he +went he hummed little tunes under his breath or whistled between his +teeth, with his lips apart. After luncheon he unlocked a row-boat, and +took a cane pole and rowed himself a mile up the mill-pond, and +brought home three good-sized bass. Thus did he spend his idle moments +around the Ridge. That night he thumped his piano and longed for a +pipe organ. The things he tried to play were noisy, and his mother, +sitting in the gloaming near him, sighed and said: "John, play some of +the old pieces--the quieter ones; play 'The Long and Weary Day' and +some of the old songs. Have you forgotten the 'Bohemian Girl' and +those Schubert songs?" + +His fingers felt their way back to his boyhood, and when he ceased +playing, he stood by his mother a moment, and patted her cheeks as he +hummed in German the first two lines of the "Lorelei," and then said, +"We have come a long way since then--eh, mother?" She held his hand +to her cheek and then to her lips, but she did not reply. He repeated +it, "A long, long way from the little home of one room here!" After a +pause he added, "Would you like to go back?" + +A tear fell on the hand against her cheek. He felt her jaw quiver, and +then she said, "Oh, yes, John--yes, I believe I would." + +He knew she did not care for his wealth, and there were many things +about his achievements that he felt she might misunderstand; her +attitude often puzzled him. So he sat a moment on her chair arm, and +said, "Well, mother, I have done my best." It was a question more than +a protest. + +"Yes, dear," she replied, "I know you have--you have done your +best--your very best. But I think it is in your blood." + +"What?" he asked. + +"Oh, all this," she answered; "all this money-getting. I am foolish, +John, but some way, I want my little boy back--the one who used to +sit with me so long ago, and play on the guitar and sing 'Sleeping, I +Dream, Love.' I don't like your new music, John; it's so like clanging +cars, and crashing hammers, and the groans of men at toil." + +"But this is a new world, mother--a new world that is different," +protested the son, impatiently. + +And the mother answered sadly as she looked up at him: "I know, +dear--it is a new world; but the same old God moves it; and the same +faith in God and love of man move men that always have moved them, and +always will move them; there are as many things to live and die for +now, as when your father gave up his life, John--just as many." They +rocked together in silence--the boy of forty and the mother of sixty. +Finally she said, "Johnnie, play me 'Ever of Thee I'm fondly +Thinking,' won't you, before you go?" + +He sat with his foot on the soft pedal and played the old love song, +and as he played his mother wandered over hills he had never seen, +through fields he had never known, and heard a voice in the song he +might never hear, even in his dreams. When he finished, she stood +beside him and cried with all the passion her years could summon: "Oh, +John--John--it will come out some way--some day. It's in your soul, +and God in His own way will bring it out." He did not understand her +then, and it was many years before he prayed her prayer. + +The next day he went to the City and plunged into his work, and the +Ridge and its people and the prayers of his mother became to him only +as a dream that comes in the night and fades in the day. Even the +shabby figure of Colonel Martin Culpepper, with his market basket on +his arm, waving a good-by as the Barclay private car pulled out of the +Sycamore Ridge depot, disappeared from his mind, though that pathetic +image haunted him for nearly a hundred miles as he rode, and he could +not shake it off until he immersed himself in the roar of the great +City. He could not know that he had any remote relation with the worry +in the old man's eyes. Nor did Martin Culpepper try to shift his load +to John. He knew where the blame was, and he tried to take it like a +man. But in reckoning the colonel's account, may not something be +charged off to the account of John Barclay, who to save himself and +accomplish the Larger Good--which meant the establishment of his own +fortunes--sent Adrian Brownwell in those days in the seventies with +the money to the colonel, not so much to help the colonel as to save +John Barclay? The Larger Good is a slow, vicious, accumulative poison, +and heaven only knows when it will come out and kill. + +It was a week after the pipe-organ recital at the church, when Mary +Barclay, doing her day's marketing, ran into Colonel Culpepper +standing rather forlornly in front of McHurdie's shop. He bowed to her +with elaborate graciousness, and she stopped to speak with him. In a +moment he was saying, "So you have not heard, are unaware, entirely +ignorant, in point of fact, of my misfortunes?" She assented, and the +colonel went on: "Well, madam, the end has come; I have played out my +hand; I have strutted my hour upon the stage, and now I go off. Old +Mart Culpepper, my dear, is no longer the leading citizen, nor our +distinguished capitalist, not even the hustling real estate agent of +former days--just plain old Mart Culpepper, I may say. He who was, is +now a has-been,--just an old man without a business." He saw that she +did not appreciate what had happened, and he smiled gently and said: +"Closed up, my dear madam. A receiver was appointed a few minutes ago +for the Culpepper Mortgage Company, and I gave him the key. +Failure--failure--" he repeated the word bitterly--"failure is +written over the door of this life." + +Mary Barclay grasped his big fat hand and pressed it, and shook her +head. Something in her throat choked her, and she could not speak at +first. The two stood a moment in silence before the woman said +emphatically, "No--no! Martin Culpepper, God is keeping your books!" + +The shabby old man stood uncovered, a smile quivering about his eyes. +"Maybe so, Mary Barclay, maybe so," he said. The smile fell into his +countenance as he added, "That is why I have gone so long without a +settlement; with my account so badly overdrawn, too." Then he turned +to go and walked as lightly down the street as a man could walk, +broken before his time with the weight of a humiliation upon him and a +fear greater than his shame burning in his fluttering old heart. + +And now if you are reading this story to be in the company of the rich +Mr. Barclay, to feel the madness of his millions, to enjoy the vain +delirium of his power, skip the rest of this chapter. For it tells of a +shabby time in the lives of all of the threadbare people who move in +this tale. Even John Barclay sees the seams and basting threads of his +life here, and as for the others,--the colonel and Jake and the general +and Watts, and even Molly,--what do these people mean to you, these +common people, in their old clothes, with their old hearts and their +rusty sins and their homely sorrows? Milord and his lady will not +scamper across these pages; no rooms with rich appointments will gladden +your eyes, and perhaps in the whole book you will not find a man in +evening dress nor a woman in a dinner gown. And now the only thing there +is to offer is Jake Dolan, aged fifty-seven, with scanty, grizzled hair, +sitting in his shirt-sleeves in the basement of the court-house, with +the canvas cot he sleeps on for a chair, mending his blue army coat. +Beside him on the bed are his trousers, thin, almost worn through, +patched as to the knees and as to other important places, but clean and +without a loose thread hanging from them. Surely an old Irishman mending +an old army coat under a dusty electric light bulb in the basement of a +court-house, wherein he is janitor by grace of the united demand of +Henry Schnitzler Post of the G.A.R. No. 432, is not a particularly +inspiring picture. But he has bitten the last thread with his teeth, and +is putting away the sewing outfit. And now Mr. Dolan, from the drawer of +a little table beside the cot,--a table with Bob Hendricks' picture, +framed in plush, sitting on the top,--now Mr. Dolan takes from the +drawer a tablet of writing paper printed by the county. It is his +particular pride, that writing paper. For upon it at the top is the +picture of the new one-hundred-thousand-dollar court-house, and beside +the court-house picture are these words: "Office of Jacob Dolan, +Custodian of Public Buildings and Grounds of Garrison County." Mr. Dolan +will be writing a letter, and so long as it begins with "Dear Sir," and +nothing more endearing, surely we may look over his shoulder while he +writes,--even though it is bad form. And as Mr. Dolan will be writing to +"Robert Hendricks, care of Cook's Hotel, Cairo, Egypt,"--which he spells +with an "i," but let that pass, and let some of his literary style and +construction pass with it,--and as he will be writing to Mr. Hendricks, +perhaps Miss Nancy may do well to go sit in the corridor and put her +fingers in her ears while we read. For Mr. Dolan is an emotional man, +and he is breathing hard, and by the way he grabs his pen and jabs it +into the ink one can see that he is angry. + + "DEAR SIR (begins Mr. Dolan): I take my pen in hand to answer yours + of this date from New York and would have written you anyhow, as + there is much on my mind and I would cable you, but I can't, being + for the moment short of funds. I write to say, Robert, that we have + Mart Culpepper in jail--right across the hall. He came in at nine + o'clock to-night, and the damn Pop judge put his bail at $15,999 to + cover his alleged shortage, and the stinker won't accept us old boys + on the bond--Phil and Watts and Os and the Company 'C' boys I could + get before the judge went to bed, and Gabe Carnine, the gut, would + not sign--would not sign old Mart's bond, sir, and I hope to be in + hell with a fishpole some day poking him down every time his slimy + fingers get on the rim of the kettle. But we'll have him out in the + morning, if every man in Garrison County has to go on the bond. They + say Mart received money to pay four or five mortgages due to a + Vermont Bank, and they sent a detective here about a month ago and + worked up the case, and closed his business to-day and waited until + to-night to arrest him. I've just come from Mart. It's hell. Hoping + this will find you enjoying the same I beg my dear sir to sign + myself + + "Your ob't s'r'v't J. DOLAN." + +When Jacob Dolan finished his letter, he addressed the envelope and +hurried away to mail it. And so long as we are here in the +court-house, and the custodian is gone, would you like to step in and +see Martin Culpepper across the hall? It is still in the basement now, +and if you are quiet, so quiet that the slipping patter of a rat's +foot on the floor comes to you, a sound as of a faint whining will +come to you also. There--now it comes again. No, it is not a dog; it +is a man--a man in his agony. Shall we open the great iron door, and +go into the cell room? Why, not even you, Miss Nancy--not even you, +who love tears so? You would not see much--only a man, with his coat +and vest off, an old man with a rather shaggy, ill-kept chin whisker +and not the cleanest shirt in the world--though it is plaited, and +once was a considerable garment. And the man wearing it, who lies +prostrate upon his face, once was a considerable man. But he is old +now, old and broken, and if he should look up, as you stepped in the +corridor before him, you would see a great face ripped and scarred by +fear and guilt, and eyes that look so piteously at you--eyes of a man +who cannot understand why the blow has fallen, surprised eyes with a +horror in them; and if he should speak, you will find a voice rough +and mushy with asthma. The heart that has throbbed so many nights in +fear and the breath that has been held for so many footsteps, at last +have turned their straining into disease. No--let's not go in. He +bade his daughter go, and would not see his wife, and they have sent +to the City for his son,--so let us not bother him, for to-morrow he +will be out on bail. But did you hear that fine, trembling, animal +whine--that cry that wrenched itself out of set teeth like a living +thing? Come on--let us go and find Jake, and if he is taking a drink, +don't blame him too much, Miss Nancy--how would you like to sleep in +that room across the corridor? + +At nine o'clock the next morning two hundred men had signed the bond +the judge required, and Martin Culpepper shambled home with averted +eyes. They tried to carry him on their shoulders, thinking it would +cheer him up; and from the river wards of the town scores came to give +him their hands. But he shook himself away from them, like a great +whipped dog, and walked slowly up the hill, and turned into Lincoln +Avenue alone. + +John Barclay heard the news of the colonel's trouble as he stepped +from his private car in the Sycamore Ridge yards that morning, and +Jane went to the Culpepper home without stopping at her own. That +afternoon, Molly Brownwell knocked at Barclay's office door in the +mill, and went in without waiting for him to open it. She was pale and +haggard, and she sat down before he could speak to her. + +"John," she said in a dead voice that smote his heart, "I have come +for my reward now. I never thought I'd ask it, John, but last night I +thought it all out, and I don't believe it's begging." + +"No," he replied quietly, "it's not. I am sure--" + +But she did not let him finish. She broke in with: "Oh, I don't want +any of your money; I want my own money--money that you got when you +sold me into bondage, John Barclay--do you remember when?" She cried +the last words in a tremulous little voice, and then caught herself, +and went on before he could put into words the daze in his face. "Let +me tell you; do you remember the day you called me up into your office +and asked me to hold Adrian in town to save the wheat company? Yes, +you do--you know you do! And you remember that you played on my love +for Bob, and my duty to father. Well, I saved you, didn't I?" + +"Yes, you did, Molly," Barclay replied. + +She stared a moment at the framed pictures of mill designs on the +wall, and at the wheat samples on the long table near her, and did not +speak; nor did he. She finally broke the silence: "Well, I saved you, +but what about father--" her voice broke into a sob--"and Bob--Jane +has told you what Bob and I have been--and what about me--what have +you taken from me in these twenty years? Oh, John, John, what a +fearful wreck we have made of life--you with your blind selfishness, +and I with my weakness! Did you know, John, that the money that father +borrowed that day, twenty years ago, of Adrian, to lend to you, is the +very money that sent him to jail last night? I guess he--he took what +wasn't his to pay it back." Her face twitched, and she was losing +control of her voice. Barclay stepped to the door and latched it. She +watched him and shook her head sadly. "You needn't be afraid, +John--I'm not going to make a scene." + +"It's all right, Molly," said Barclay. "I want to help you--you know +that. I'm sorry, Molly--infinitely sorry." + +She looked at him for a moment in silence, and then said: "Yes, John, +I'll give you credit for that; I think you're as sorry as a selfish +man like you can be. But are you sorry enough to go to jail a pauper, +like father, or wander over the earth alone, like Bob, or come and beg +for money, like me?" Then she caught herself quickly and cried: "Only +it's not begging, John--it's my own; it's the price you got when you +sold me into bondage; it's the price of my soul, and I need it now. +Those people only want their money--that is all." + +"Yes," he replied, "I suppose that is all they want." He drummed on +his desk a moment and then asked, "Does your father know how much it +is?" + +"Yes," she answered, "I found in his desk at the house last night a +paper on which he had been figuring--poor father--all the night +before. All the night before--" she repeated, and then sobbed, "Poor +father--all the night before. He knew it was coming. He knew the +detective was here. He told me to-day that the sum he had there was +correct. It is sixteen thousand five hundred and forty-three dollars. +But he doesn't know I'm here, John. I told him I had some money of my +own--some I'd had for years--and I have--oh, I have, John +Barclay--I have." She looked up at him with the pallid face stained +with fresh tears and asked, "I have--I have--haven't I, John, +haven't I?" + +He put his elbows on the desk and sank his head in his hands and +sighed, "Yes, Molly--yes, you have." + +They sat in silence until the roar of the waters and the murmur of the +wheels about them came into the room. Then the woman rose to go. +"Well, John," she said, "I suppose one shouldn't thank a person for +giving her her own--but I do, John. Oh, it's like blood money to +me--but father--I can't let father suffer." + +She walked to the door, he stepped to unlatch it, and she passed out +without saying good-by. When she was gone, he slipped the latch, and +sat down with his hands gripping the table before him. As he sat +there, he looked across the years and saw some of the havoc he had +made. There was no shirking anything that he saw. A footfall passing +the door made him start as if he feared to be caught in some guilty +act. Yet he knew the door was locked. He choked a little groan behind +his teeth, and then reached for the top of his desk, pulled down the +rolling cover, and limped quickly out of the room--as though he were +leaving a corpse. What he saw was the ghost of the Larger Good, +mocking him through the veil of the past, and asking him such +questions as only a man's soul may hear and not resent. + +He walked over the mill for a time, and then calling his stenographers +from their room, dictated them blind and himself dumb with details of +a deal he was putting through to get control of the cracker companies +of the country. When he finished, the sunset was glaring across the +water through the window in front of him, and he had laid his ghost. +But Molly Brownwell had her check, and her father was saved. + +That evening the colonel sat with Watts McHurdie, on the broad veranda +of the Culpepper home, and as the moon came out, General Ward wandered +up the walk and Jake Dolan came singing down the street about "the +relic of old dacincy--the hat me father wore." Perhaps he had one +drink in him, and perhaps two, or maybe three, but he clicked the gate +behind him, and seeing the three men on the veranda, he called out:-- + +"Hi, you pig-stealing Kansas soldiers, haven't ye heard the war is +over?" And then he carolled: "Oh, can't get 'em up, Oh, can't get 'em +up, Oh, can't get 'em up in the mornin'--Get up, you"--but the rest +of the song, being devoted to the technical affairs of war, and ending +with a general exhortation to the soldier to "get into your breeches," +would give offence to persons of sensitive natures, and so may as well +be omitted from this story. + +There was an awkward pause when Dolan came on the veranda. The general +had just tried to break the ice, but Dolan was going at too high a +speed to be checked. + +"Do you know," he asked, "what I always remember when I hear that +call? You do not. I'll tell you. 'Twas the morning of the battle of +Wilson's Creek, and Mart and me was sleeping under a tree, when the +bugler of the Johnnies off somewhere on the hill he begins to crow +that, and it wakes Mart up, and he rolls over on me and he says: +'Jake,' he says, or maybe 'twas me says, 'Mart,' says I--anyway, one +of us says, 'Shut up your gib, you flannel-mouthed mick,' he says, +'and let me pull my dream through to the place where I find the +money,' he says. And I says, 'D'ye know what I'm goin' to do when I +get home?' says I. 'No,' says he, still keen for that money; 'no,' +says he, 'unless it is you're going to be hanged by way of diversion,' +he says. 'I'm going to hire a bugler,' says I. 'What fer--in the name +of all the saints?' says he. 'Well,' says I, 'I'm going to ask him to +blow his damn horn under my window every morning at five o'clock,' I +says, 'and then I'm going to get up and poke my head out of the window +and say: "Mister, you can get me up in the army, but on this occasion +would you be obliging enough to go to hell"!' And Mart, seeing that +the money was gone from his dream, he turns over and wallops me with +the blanket till I was merely a palpitating mass. That was a great +battle, though, boys--a great battle." + +And then they shouldered arms and showed how fields were won. Boom! +went Sigel's guns out of the past, and crash! came the Texas cavalry, +and the whoop of the Louisiana Pelicans rang in their ears. They +marched south after Hindman, and then came back with Grant to +Vicksburg, where they fought and bled and died. The general left them +and went east, where he "deployed on our right" and executed flank +movements, and watched Pickett's column come fling itself to death at +Gettysburg. And Watts McHurdie rode with the artillery through the +rear of the rebel lines at Pittsburg Landing, and when the rebel +officer saw the little man's bravery, and watched him making for the +Union lines bringing three guns, he waved his hat and told his +soldiers not to shoot at that boy. The colonel took a stick and marked +out on the floor our position at Antietam, and showed where the +reserves were supposed to be and how the enemy masked his guns behind +that hill, and we planted our artillery on the opposite ridge; and he +marched with the infantry and lay in ambush while the enemy came +marching in force through the wood. In time Watts McHurdie was talking +to Lincoln in the streets of Richmond, and telling for the hundredth +time what Lincoln said of the song and how he had sung it. But who +cares now what Lincoln said? It was something kind, you may be sure, +with a tear and a laugh in it, and the veterans laughed, while their +eyes grew moist as they always did when Watts told it. Then they fell +to carnage again--a fierce fight against time, against the moment +when they must leave their old companion alone. Up hills they charged +and down dales, and the moon rose high, and cast its shadow to the +eastward before they parted. First Dolan edged away, and then the +general went, waving his hand military fashion; and the colonel +returned the salute. When the gate had clanged, Watts rose to go. He +did not speak, nor did the colonel. Arm in arm, they walked down the +steps together, and halfway down the garden path the colonel rested +his hand on the little man's shoulder as they walked in silence. At +the gate they saw each other's tears, and the little man's voice +failed him when the colonel said, "Well, good-by, comrade--good +night." So Watts turned and ran, while the colonel, for the first time +in his manhood, loosed the cords of his sorrow and stood alone in the +moonlight with upturned face, swaying like an old tree in a storm. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +And now those who have avoided the gray unpainted shame of these +unimportant people of the Ridge may here take up again for a moment +the trailing clouds of glory that shimmer over John Barclay's office +in the big City. For here there is the sounding brass and tinkling +cymbal of great worldly power. Here sits John Barclay, a little +gray-haired, gray-clad, lynx-eyed man, in a big light room at the +corner of a tower high over the City in the Corn Exchange Building, +the brain from which a million nerves radiate that run all over the +world and move thousands of men. Forty years before, when John was +playing in the dust of the road leading up from the Sycamore, no king +in all the world knew so much of the day's doings as John knows now, +sitting there at the polished mahogany table with the green blotting +paper upon it, under the green vase adorned with the red rose. A +blight may threaten the wheat in Argentine, and John Barclay knows +every cloud that sails the sky above that wheat, and when the cloud +bursts into rain he sighs, for it means something to him, though +heaven only knows what, and we and heaven do not care. But a dry day +in India or a wet day in Russia or a cloudy day in the Dakotas are all +taken into account in the little man's plans. And if princes quarrel +and kings grow weary of peace, and money bags refuse them war, John +Barclay knows it and puts the episode into figures on the clean white +pad of paper before him. + +It is a privilege to be in this office; one passes three doors to get +here, and even at the third door our statesmen often cool their toes. +Mr. Barclay is about to admit one now. And when Senator Myton comes +in, deferentially of course, to tell Mr. Barclay the details of the +long fight in executive session which ended in the confirmation by the +senate of Lige Bemis as a federal judge, the little gray man waves the +senator to a chair, and runs his pencil up a column of figures, +presses a button, writes a word on a sheet of paper, and when the +messenger appears, hands the paper to him and says, "For Judge Bemis." + +"I have just dismissed a Persian satrap," expands Barclay, "who won't +let his people use our binders; that country eventually will be a +great field for our Mediterranean branch." + +Myton is properly impressed. For a man who can make a senator out of +Red River clay and a federal judge out of Lige Bemis is a superhuman +creature, and Myton does not doubt Barclay's power over satraps. + +When the business of the moment between the two men is done, Barclay, +rampant with power, says: "Myton" (it is always "Myton," never +"Senator," with Barclay; he finds it just as well to let his inferiors +know their relation to the universe), "Myton, I ran across a queer +thing last week when I took over that little jerkwater New England +coast line. The Yankees are a methodical lot of old maids. I find they +had been made agents of a lot of the big fellows--insurance people, +packing-houses, and transcontinental railroads--two of my lines were +paying them, though I'd forgotten about it until I looked it up--and +the good old sewing society had card-indexed the politics of the +United States--the whole blessed country, by state and congressional +districts. I took over the chap who runs it, and I've got the whole +kit in the offices here now. It's great. If a man bobs up for +something in Florida or Nebraska, we just run him down on the card +index, and there he stands--everything he ever did, every interview +he ever gave, every lawsuit he ever had, every stand he ever took in +politics--right there in the index, in an envelope ready for use, and +all the mean things ever written about him. I simply can't make a +mistake now in getting the wrong kind of fellows in. Commend me to a +Yankee or a Jap for pains. I can tell you in five minutes just what +influences are behind every governor, congressman, senator, judge, +most of the legislators in every state, the federal courts clear up to +the Supreme Court. There was a man appointed on that court less than a +dozen years ago who swapped railroad receiverships like a tin peddler +with his senator for his job, when he was on the circuit bench. And he +was considerable of a judge in the bean country for a time. Just to +verify my index, I asked Bemis about this judge. 'Lige,' I said, 'was +Judge So-and-So a pretty honest judge?' 'Oh, hell,' says Lige, and +that was all I could get out of him. So I guess they had him indexed +right." And Barclay rattles on; he has become vociferous and +loquacious, and seems to like to hear the roar of his voice in his +head. The habit has been growing on him. + +But do not laugh at the blindness of John Barclay, sitting there in +his power, admiring himself, boasting in the strength of his +card-index to Senator Myton. For the tide of his power was running in, +and soon it would be high tide with John Barclay--high tide of his +power, high tide of his fame, high tide of his pride. So let us watch +the complacent smile crack his features as he sits listening to +Senator Myton: "Mr. Barclay, do you know, I sometimes think that +Providence manifests itself in minds like yours, even as in the days +of old it was manifest in the hearts of the prophets. In those days it +was piety that fitted the heart for higher things; to-day it is +business. You and a score of men like you in America are intrusted +with the destiny of this republic, as surely as the fate of the +children of Israel was in the hands of Moses and Aaron!" + +Barclay closed his eyes a moment, in contemplation of the figure, and +then broke out in a roaring laugh, "Hanno is a god! Hanno is a +god!--get out of here, Henry Myton,--get out of here, I say--this +is my busy day," and he laughed the young senator out of the room. But +he sat alone in his office grinning, as over and over in his mind his +own words rang, "Hanno is a god!" And the foolish parrot of his other +self cackled the phrase in his soul for days and days! + +It is our high privilege thus to stand close by and watch the wheels +of the world go around. In those days of the late nineties Barclay +travelled up and down the earth so much in his private car that Jane +used to tell Molly Brownwell that living with John was like being a +travelling man's wife. But Jane did not seem to appreciate her +privilege. She managed to stay at home as much as possible, and +sometimes he took the Masons along for company. Mrs. Mason gloried in +it, and lived at the great hotels and shopped at the highest-priced +antique stores to her heart's delight. Lycurgus' joy was in being +interviewed, and the Barclay secretaries got so that they could edit +the Mason interviews and keep out the poison, and let the old man +swell and swell until the people at home thought he must surely burst +with importance at the next town. + +One day in the nineties Barclay appropriated a half-million dollars to +advertise "Barclay's Best" and a cracker that he was pushing. When the +man who placed the business in the newspaper had gone, Barclay sat +looking out of the window and said to his advertising manager: "I've +got an idea. Why should I pay a million dollars to irresponsible +newspapers? I won't do it." + +"But we must advertise, Mr. Barclay--you've proved it pays." + +"Yes," he returned, "you bet it pays, and I might just as well get +something out of it besides advertising. Take this; make five copies +of it; I'll give you the addresses later." Barclay squared himself to +a stenographer to dictate:-- + + "Dear Sir: I spend a million dollars a year advertising grain + products; you and the packers doubtless spend that much advertising + your products and by-products; the railroads spend as much more, and + the Oil people probably half as much more. Add the steel products + and the lumber products, and we have ten million dollars going into + the press of this country. In a crisis we cannot tell how these + newspapers will treat us. I think we should organize so that we will + know exactly where we stand. Therefore it is necessary absolutely to + control the trade advertising of this country. A company to take + over the five leading advertising agencies could be formed, for half + as much as we spend every year, and we could control nine-tenths of + the American trade advertising. We could then put an end to any + indiscriminate mobbing of corporations by editors. I will be pleased + to hear from you further upon this subject." + +A day or two later, when the idea had grown and ramified itself in his +mind, he talked it all out to Jane and exclaimed, "How will old Phil +Ward's God manage to work it out, as he says, against that +proposition? Brains," continued Barclay, "brains--that's what counts +in this world. You can't expect the men who dominate this +country--who make its wealth, and are responsible for its prosperity, +to be at the mercy of a lot of long-nosed reformers who don't know how +to cash their own checks." + +How little this rich man knew of the world about him! How +circumscribed was his vision! With all his goings up and down the +earth, with all of his great transactions, with all of his apparent +power, how little and sordid was his outlook on life. For he thought +he was somebody in this universe, some one of importance, and in his +scheme of things he figured out a kind of partnership between himself +and Providence--a partnership to run the world in the interests of +John Barclay, and of course, wherever possible, with reasonable +dividends to Providence. + +But a miracle was coming into the world. In the under-consciousnesses +of men, sown God only knows how and when and where, sown in the +weakness of a thousand blind prophets, the seeds of righteous wrath at +greed like John Barclay's were growing during all the years of his +triumph. Men scarcely knew it themselves. Growth is so simple and +natural a process that its work is done before its presence is known. +And so this arrogant man, this miserable, little, limping, brass-eyed, +leather-skinned man, looked out at the world around him, and did not +see the change that was quickening the hearts of his neighbours. + +And yet change was in everything about him. A thousand years are as +but a watch in the night, and tick, tock, tick, tock, went the great +clock, and the dresses of little Jeanette Barclay slipped down, down, +down to her shoe-tops, and as the skirts slipped down she went up. And +before her father knew it her shoe-tops sank out of sight, and she was +a miss at the last of her teens. But he still gave her his finger when +they walked out together, though she was head and shoulders above him. + +One day when she led him to the _Banner_ office to buy some fancy +programmes for a party she was giving, he saw her watching young Neal +Ward,--youngest son of the general,--who was sitting at a reporter's +desk in the office, and the father's quick eyes saw that she regarded +the youth as a young man. For she talked so obviously for the Ward +boy's benefit that her father, when they went out of the +printing-office, took a furtive look at his daughter and sighed and +knew what her mother had known for a year. + +"Jeanette," he said that night at dinner, "where's my shot-gun?" When +she told him, he said: "After dinner you get it, load it with salt, +and put it in the corner by the front door." Then he added to the +assembled family: "For boys--dirty-faced, good-for-nothing, +long-legged boys! I'm going to have a law passed making an open season +for boys in this place from January first until Christmas." + +Jeanette dimpled and blushed, the family smiled, and her mother said: +"Well, John, there'll be a flock of them at Jeanette's party next week +for you to practise on. All the boys and girls in town are coming." + +And after dessert was served the father sat chuckling and grinning and +grunting, "Boys--boys," and at intervals, "Measly little milk-eyed +kids," and again "Boys--boys," while the family nibbled at its +cheese. + +Those years when the nineteenth century was nearing its close and when +the tide of his fortunes was running in, bringing him power and making +him mad with it, were years of change in Sycamore Ridge--in the old +as well as in the young. In those years the lilacs bloomed on in the +Culpepper yard; and John Barclay did not know it, though forty years +before Ellen Culpepper had guarded the first blossoms from those +bushes for him. Miss Lucy, his first ideal, went to rest in those +years while the booming tide was running in, and he scarcely knew it. +Mrs. Culpepper was laid beside Ellen out on the Hill; and he hardly +realized it, though no one in all the town had watched him growing +into worldly success with so kindly an eye as she. But the tide was +roaring in, and John Barclay's whole consciousness was turned toward +it; the real things of life about him, he did not see and could not +feel. And so as the century is old the booming tide is full, and John +Barclay in his power--a bubble in the Divine consciousness, a mere +vision in the real world--stands stark mad before his phantasm, +dreaming that it is all real, and chattering to his soul, "Hanno is a +god." + +And now we must leave John Barclay for the moment, to explain why Neal +Dow Ward, son of General Philemon Ward, made his first formal call at +the Barclays'. It cannot be gainsaid that young Mr. Ward, aged +twenty-one, a senior at Ward University, felt a tingle in his blood +that day when he met Miss Jeanette Barclay, aged eighteen, and home +for the spring vacation from the state university; and seeing her for +the first time with her eyes and her hair and her pretty, strong, wide +forehead poking through the cocoon of gawky girlhood, created a +distinct impression on young Mr. Ward. + +But in all good faith it should be stated that he did not make his +first formal call at the Barclays' of his own accord; for his sister, +Elizabeth Cady Stanton Ward, took him. She came home from the +Culpeppers' just before supper, laughing until she was red in the +face. And what she heard at the Culpeppers', let her tell in her own +way to the man of her heart. For Lizzie was her father's child; the +four other Ward girls, Mary Livermore, Frances Willard, Belva +Lockwood, and Helen Gougar, had climbed to the College Heights and had +gone to Ward University, and from that seat of learning had gone forth +in the world to teach school. Elizabeth Cady Stanton Ward had remained +in the home, after her mother's death filling her mother's vacant +place as well as a daughter may. + +"Well, father," said the daughter, as she was putting the evening meal +on the table, addressing the general, who sat reading by the window in +the dining room, "you should have been at the Culpeppers' when the +colonel came home and told us his troubles. It seems that Nellie +McHurdie is going to make Watts run for sheriff--for sheriff, father. +Imagine Watts heading a posse, or locking any one up! And Watts has +passed the word to the colonel, and he has passed it to Molly and me, +and I am to see Mrs. Barclay, and she is to see Mrs. Carnine to-morrow +morning, and they are all to set to work on Nellie and get her to see +that it won't do. Poor Watts--the colonel says he is terribly wrought +up at the prospect." + +The general folded his paper and smiled as he said: "Well, I don't +know; Watts was a brave soldier. He would make a good enough sheriff; +but I suppose he doesn't really care for it." + +"Why, no, of course not, father--why should he?" asked the daughter. +"Anyhow, I want you to make Neal go down to Barclays' with me to-night +to talk it over with Jane. Neal," she called to the young man who was +sitting on the porch with his book on his knee, "Neal, I want you to +go to Barclays' with me to-night. Come in now, supper's ready." + +And so it happened that Neal Dow Ward made his first call on Jeanette +Barclay with his sister, and they all sat on the porch together that +fine spring evening, with the perfume of the lilacs in the air; and it +happened naturally enough that the curious human law of attraction +which unites youth should draw the chairs of the two young people +together as they talked of the things that interest youth--the +parties and the ball-games and the fraternities and sororities, and +the freshman picnic and the senior grind; while the chairs of the two +others drew together as they talked of the things which interest women +in middle life--the affairs of the town, the troubles of Watts +McHurdie, the bereavement of the Culpeppers, the scarcity of good help +in the kitchen, the popularity of Max Nordau's "Social Evolution," and +the fun in "David Harum." Nor is it strange that after the girl had +shown the boy her Pi Phi pin, and he had shown her his Phi Delta +shield, they should fall to talking of the new songs, and that they +should slip into the big living room of the Barclay home, lighted by +the electric lamps in the hall, and that she should sit down to the +piano to show him how the new song went. And if the moonlight fell +across the piano, and upon her face as she sang the little Irish +folk-song, all in minors, with her high, trembling, half-formed notes +in the upper register, and if she flushed and looked up abashed and +had to be teased to go on,--not teased a great deal, but a +little,--will you blame the young man if he forgot for a moment that +her father was worth such a lot of money, and thought only that she +was a beautiful girl, and said so with his eyes and face and hands in +the pretty little pause that followed when she ceased singing? And if +to hide her confusion when her heart knew what he thought, she put one +foot on the loud pedal of the piano and began singing "O Margery, O +Margery," and he sang with her, and if they thrilled just a little as +their voices blended in the rollicking song--what of it? What of it? +Was it not natural that lilacs should grow in April? Was it not +natural that Watts McHurdie should dread the white light that beats +upon the throne of the sheriff's office? Was it not natural that he +should turn to women for protection against one of their sex, and that +the women plotting for him should have a boy around and having a boy +around where there is a girl around, and spring around and lilacs +around and a moon and music and joy around,--what is more natural in +all this world than that in the fire struck by the simple joy of youth +there should be the flutter of unseen wings around, and when the two +had finished singing, with something passing between their hearts not +in the words, what is more natural than that the girl, half frightened +at the thrill in her soul, should say timidly:-- + +"I think they will miss us out there--don't you?" as she rose from +the piano. + +And if you were a boy again, only twenty-one, to whom millions of +money meant nothing, would you not catch the blue eyes of the girl as +she looked up at you, in the twilight of the big room, and answer, +"All right, Jeanette"? Certainly if you had known a girl all your +life, you would call her by her first name, if her father were worth a +billion, and would you not continue, emboldened some way by not being +frowned upon for calling her Jeanette, though she would have been +astonished if you had said Miss Barclay--astonished and maybe a +little fearful of your sincerity--would you not continue, after a +little pause, repeating your words, "All right, Jeanette--I suppose +so--but I don't care--do you?" as you followed her through the door +back to the moon-lit porch? + +And as you walked home, listening to your elder sister, would you not +have time and inclination to wonder from what remote part of this +beautiful universe, from what star or what fairy realm, that creature +came, whose hair you pulled yesterday, whose legs seem to have been +covered with long skirts in the twinkling of an eye, and whose +unrelated features by some magic had sloughed off, leaving a beautiful +face? Would you not think these things, good kind sir, when you were +twenty-one--even though to-day they seem highly improbable thoughts +for any one to have who was not stark mad? But if we were not all +stark mad sometimes, how would the world go round? If we were not all +mad sometimes, who would make our dreams come true? How would visions +in thin air congeal into facts, how would the aspirations of the race +make history? And if we were all sane all the time, how would the +angels ever get babies into the world at all, at all? + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +"Speaking of lunatics," said Mr. Dolan to Mr. Hendricks one June +night, a few weeks after the women had persuaded Mrs. McHurdie not to +drag the poet into politics,--"speaking of lunatics, you may remember +that I was born in Boston, and 'twas my duty as a lad to drive the +Cambridge car, and many a time I have heard Mr. Holmes the poet and +Mr. Emerson the philosopher discussing how the world was made; whether +it was objective or subjective,--which I take it to mean whether the +world is in the universe or only in your eye. One fine winter night we +were waiting on a switch for the Boston car, when Mr. Holmes said to +Mr. Emerson: 'What,' says he, 'would you think if Jake Dolan driving +this car should come in and say, "Excuse me, gentlemen, but the moon I +see this moment is not some millions of miles away, but entirely in my +own noddle?"' 'I'd think,' says the great philosopher, never blinking, +'that Mr. Dolan was drunk,' says he. And there the discussion ended, +but it has been going on in my head ever since. Here I am a man +climbing up my sixties, and when have I seen the moon? Once walking by +this very creek here trying to get me courage up to put me arm around +her that is now Mary Carnine; once with me head poked up close to the +heads of Watts McHurdie, Gabe Carnine, and Philemon Ward, serenading +the girls under the Thayer House window the night before we left for +the army. And again to-night, sitting here on the dam, listening to +the music coming down the mill-pond. Did you notice them, Robert--the +young people--Phil Ward's boy, and John Barclay's girl, and Mary +Carnine's oldest, and Oscar Fernald's youngest, with their guitars and +mandolins, piling into the boats and rowing up stream? And now they're +singing the songs we sang--to their mothers, God bless 'em--the +other day before these children were born or thought of, and now I sit +here an old man looking at the moon." + +"But is it the moon?" he went on after a long silence, puffing at his +pipe. "If the moon is off there, three or thirty or three hundred +million miles away in the sky, where has it been these forty years? +I've not seen it. And yet here she pops out of my memory into my eye, +and if I say the moon has always been in my eye, and is still in my +eye, Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson says I'm drunk. But does that settle the +question of who's got the moon--me or the cosmos--as the poets call +it?" After that the two men smoked in silence, and as Hendricks threw +away the butt of his cigar, Dolan said, "'Tis a queer, queer world, +Robert--a queer, queer world." + +Now do not smile at Mr. Dolan, gentle reader, for Adam must have +thought the same thing, and philosophy has been able to say nothing +more to the point. + +It is indeed a queer, queer world, and our blindness is the queerest +thing in it. Here a few weeks, later sit John and Jane Barclay on the +terrace before their house one June night, listening to singing on the +water. Suddenly they realize that there is youth in the world--yet +there has been singing on the mill-pond ever since it was built. It +has been the habitat of lovers for a quarter of a century, this +mill-pond, yet Jane and John Barclay have not known it, and not until +their own child's voice came up to them, singing "Juanita," did they +realize that the song had not begun anew after its twenty years' +silence in their own hearts, but always had been on the summer breeze. +And this is strange, too, considering how rich and powerful John +Barclay is and how by the scratch of his pen, he might set men working +by the thousands for some righteous cause. Yet so it is; for with all +the consciousness of great power, with all the feeling of unrestraint +that such power gives a man, driving him to think he is a kind of god, +John Barclay was only a two-legged man, with a limp in one foot, and a +little mad place in his brain, wherein he kept the sense of his +relation to the rest of this universe. And as he sat, blind to the +moon, dreaming of a time when he would control Presidents and dominate +courts if they crossed his path, out on the mill-pond under an elm +tree that spread like a canopy upon the water, a boy, letting the oars +hang loosely, was playing the mandolin to a girl--a pretty girl +withal, blue as to eyes, fair as to hair, strong as to mouth and chin, +and glorious as to forehead--who leaned back in the boat, played with +the overhanging branches, and listened and looked at the moon, and let +God's miracle work unhindered in her heart. And all up and down those +two miles of mill-pond were other boats and other boys and other +maidens, and as they chatted and sang and sat in the moonlight, there +grew in their hearts, as quietly as the growing of the wheat in the +fields, that strange marvel of life, that keeps the tide of humanity +ceaselessly flowing onward. And it is all so simply done before our +eyes, and in our ears, that we forget it is so baffling a mystery. + +Now let us project our astral bodies into the living room of the +Barclay home, while Mr. and Mrs. John Barclay are away in Boston, and +only John Barclay's mother and his daughter are in Sycamore Ridge; and +let us watch a young man of twenty-one and a young woman of eighteen +dispose of a dish of fudge together. Fudge, it may be explained to the +unsophisticated, is a preparation of chocolate, sugar, and cream, +cooked, cooled, and cut into squares. As our fathers and mothers +pulled taffy, as our grandfathers and grandmothers conjured with maple +sugar, and as their parents worked the mysterious spell with some +witchery of cookery to this generation unknown, so is fudge in these +piping times the worker of a strange witchery. Observe: Through a +large room, perhaps forty feet one way and twenty-five feet the other +way, flits a young woman in the summer twilight. She goes about +humming, putting a vase in place here, straightening a picture there, +kicking down a flapping rug, or rearranging a chair; then she sits +down and turns on an electric light and pretends to read. But she does +not read; the light shows her something else in the room that needs +attention, and she turns to that. Then she sits down again, and again +goes humming about the room. Suddenly the young woman rises and +hurries out of the room, and a footstep is heard on the porch, +outside. A bell tinkles, and a maid appears, and-- + +"Yes," she says. "I'll see if Miss Jeanette is at home!" + +And then a rustle of skirts is heard on the stairway and Miss Jeanette +enters with: "Why, Neal, you are an early bird this evening--were you +afraid the worm would escape? Well, it won't; it's right here on the +piano." + +The young man's eyes,--good, clear, well-set, dark eyes that match +his brown hair; eyes that speak from the heart,--note how they dwell +upon every detail of the opposing figure, caressing with their shy +surreptitious glances the girl's hair, her broad forehead, her lips; +observe how they flit back betimes to those ripe red lips, like bees +that hover over a flower trembling in the wind; how the eyes of the +young man play about the strong chin, and the bewitching curves of the +neck and shoulders, and rise again to the hair, and again steal over +the face, to the strong shoulders, and again hurry back to the face +lest some feature fade. This is not staring--it is done so quickly, +so furtively, so deftly withal as the minutes fly by, while the lips +and the teeth chatter on, that the stolen honey of these glances is +stored away in the heart's memory, all unknown to him who has gathered +it. + +An hour has passed now, while we have watched the restless eyes at +their work, and what has passed with the hour? Nothing, ladies and +gentlemen--nothing; gibber, chatter, giggles, and squeals--that is +all. Grandma Barclay above stairs has her opinion of it, and wonders +how girls can be so addle-pated. In her day--but who ever lived long +enough or travelled far enough or inquired widely enough to find one +single girl who was as wise, or as sedate, or as industrious, or as +meek, or as gentle, or as kind as girls were in her grandmother's day? +No wonder indeed that grandmothers are all married--for one could +hardly imagine the young men of that day overlooking such paragons of +virtue and propriety as lived in their grandmothers' days. Fancy an +old maid grandmother with all those qualities of mind and heart that +girls had in their grandmothers' days! + +So the elder Mrs. Barclay in her room at the top of the stairs hears +what "he said," "he said he said," and what "she said she said," and +what "we girls did," and what "you boys ought to do," and what "would +be perfectly lovely," and what "would be a lot of fun!" and so +grandmother, good soul, grows drowsy, closes her door, and goes to +bed. She does not know that they are about to sit down together on a +sofa--not a long, straight, cold, formal affair, but a small, rather +snuggly sofa, with the dish between them. No, girls never did that in +their grandmothers' days, so of course who would imagine they would do +so now? Who, indeed? But there they are, and there is the dish between +them, and two hands reaching into the same dish, must of course +collide. Collision is inevitable, and by carefully noting the +repetitions of the collisions, one may logically infer that the +collisions are upon the whole rather pleasurable than otherwise; and +when it comes to the last piece of fudge in the dish,--the very last +piece,--the astral observer will see that there is just the +slightest, the very slightest, quickest, most fleeting little tussle +of hands for it, and much laughter; and then the young woman rises +quickly--also note the slight pink flush in her cheeks, and she goes +to her chair and folds her pretty hands in her lap, and asks:-- + +"Well, do you like my fudge, Neal Ward? Is it as good as Belva +Lockwood's? She puts nuts in hers--I've eaten it; do you like it with +nuts in it?" + +"Not so well as this," says the boy. + +The girl slips into the dining room, for a glass of water. See the eyes +of the youth following her. It is dusky in the dining room, and the +youth longs for dusky places, but has not developed courage enough to +follow her. But he has courage enough to steady his eyes as she comes +back with the water, so that he can look into her blue eyes while you +would count as much as one--two--three--slowly--four--slowly--five. A +long, long time, so long indeed that she wishes he would look just a +second longer. + +So at the end of the evening here stand Neal, and Jeanette, even as +Adam and Eve stood in the garden, talking of nothing in particular as +they slowly move toward the door. "Yes, I suppose so," she says, as +Eve said and as Eve's daughters have said through all the centuries, +looking intently at the floor. And then Neal, suddenly finding the +language of his line back to Adam, looks up to say, "Oh, yes, I +forgot--but have you read 'Monsieur Beaucaire'?" Now Adam said, "Have +you heard the new song that the morning stars are singing together?" +and Priam asked Helen if she would like to hear that new thing of +Solomon's just out, and so as the ages have rolled by, young gentlemen +standing beside their adored but not declared ones have mixed +literature with love, and have tied wisdom up in a package of candy or +wild honey, and have taken it to the trysting place since the +beginning of time. It is thus the poets thrive. And when she was asked +about the new song of the morning stars, Eve, though she knew it as +she knew her litany, answered no; and so did Eve's daughter, standing +in the dimly lighted hallway of the Barclay home in Sycamore Ridge; +and so then and there being, these two made their next meeting sure. + +In those last years of the last century John Barclay became a powerful +man in this world--one of the few hundred men who divided the +material kingdoms of this earth among them. He was a rich man who was +turning his money into great political power. Senates listened to him, +many courts were his in fee simple, because he had bought and paid for +the men who named the judges; Presidents were glad to know what he +thought, and when he came to the White House, reporters speculated +about the talk that went on behind the doors of the President's room, +and the stock market fluttered. If he desired a law, he paid for it +and got it--not in a coarse illegal way, to be sure, but through the +regular conventional channels of politics, and if he desired to step +on a law, he stepped on it, and a court came running up behind him, +and legalized his transaction. He sneered at reformers, and mocked +God, did John Barclay in those days. He grew arrogant and boastful, +and strutted in his power like a man in liquor with the vain knowledge +that he could increase the population of a state or a group of states, +or he could shrivel the prosperity of a section of the country by his +whim. For by changing a freight rate he could make wheat grow, where +grass had nourished. By changing the rate again, he could beckon back +the wilderness. And yet, how small was his power; here beside him, +cherished as the apple of his eye, was his daughter, a slip of a girl, +with blue eyes and fair hair, whose heart was growing toward the +light, as the hearts of young things grow, and he, with all of his +power, could only watch the mystery, and wonder at it. He was not +displeased at what he saw. But it was one of the few things in his +consciousness over which he could find no way to assume control. He +stood in the presence of something that came from outside of his realm +and ignored him as the sun and the rain and the simple processes of +nature ignored him. + +"Jane," he said one night, when he was in the Ridge for the first time +in many weeks,--a night near the end of the summer when Jeanette and +Neal Ward were vaguely feeling their way together, "Jane, mother says +that while we've been away Neal Ward has been here pretty often. You +don't suppose that--" + +"Well, I've rather wondered about it myself a little," responded Jane. +"Neal is such a fine handsome young fellow." + +"But, Jane," exclaimed Barclay, impatiently, as he rose to walk the +rug, "Jennie is only a child. Why, she's only--" + +"Nineteen, John--she's a big girl now." + +"I know, dear," he protested, "but that's absurdly young. Why--" + +"Yes," she answered, "I was nearly twenty when I was engaged to you, +and Jennie's not engaged yet, nor probably even thinking seriously of +it." + +"Don't you think," cried Barclay, as he limped down the diagonal of +the rug, "that you should do something? Isn't it a little unusual? +Why--" + +"Well, John," smiled the wife, "I might do what mother did: turn the +young man over to father!" Barclay laughed, and she went on patiently: +"It's not at all unusual, John, even if they do--that is, if they +are--you know; but they aren't, and Jennie is too much in love with +her work at school to quit that. But after all it's the American way; +it was the way we did, dear, and the way our mothers and fathers did, +and unless you wish to change it--to Europeanize it, and pick--" + +"Ah, nonsense, Jane--of course I don't want that! Only I thought some +way, if it's serious she ought to--Oh, don't you know she ought +to--" + +Mrs. Barclay broke her smile with, "Of course she ought to, dear, and +so ought I and so ought mother when she married father and so ought my +grandmother when she married grandpa--but did we? Dear, don't you see +the child doesn't realize it? If it is anything, it is growing in her +heart, and I wouldn't smudge it for the world, by speaking to her +now--unless you don't like Neal; unless you think he's too--unless +you want a different boy. I mean some one of consequence?" + +"Oh, no, it isn't that, Jane--it isn't that. Neal's all right; he's +clean and he is honest--I asked Bob Hendricks about him to-day, when +we passed the boy chasing news for the _Banner_, and Bob gives him a +fine name." Barclay threw himself into a chair and sighed. "I suppose +it's just that I feel Jeanette's kind of leaving us out of it--that +is all." + +Jane went to him and patted his head gently, as she spoke: "That is +nature, dear--the fawn hiding in the woods; we must trust to Jennie's +good sense, and the good blood in Neal. My, but his sisters are proud +of him! Last week Lizzie was telling me Neal's wages had been +increased to ten dollars a week--and I don't suppose their father in +all of his life ever had that much of a steady income. The things the +family is planning to do with that ten dollars a week brought tears of +joy to my eyes. Neal's going to have his mother-in-law on his side, +anyway--just as you had yours. I know now how mother felt." + +But John Barclay did not know how mother felt, and he did not care. He +knew how father felt--how Lycurgus Mason felt, and how the father of +Mrs. Lycurgus Mason felt; he felt hurt and slighted, and he could not +repress a feeling of bitterness toward the youth. All the world loves +a daughter-in-law, but a father's love for a son-in-law is an acquired +taste; some men never get it. And John Barclay was called away the +next morning to throttle a mill in the San Joaquin Valley, and from +there he went to North Dakota to stop the building of a competitive +railroad that tapped his territory; so September came, and with it +Jeanette Barclay went back to school. The mother wondered what the +girl would do with her last night at home. She was clearly nervous and +unsettled all the afternoon before, and made an errand into town and +came back with a perturbed face. But after dinner the mother heard +Jeanette at the telephone, and this is the one-sided dialogue the +mother caught: "Yes--this is Miss Barclay." "Oh, yes, I didn't +recognize your voice at first." "What meeting?" "Yes--yes." "And they +are not going to have it?" "Oh, I see." "You were--oh, I don't know. +Of course I should have felt--well, I--oh, it would have been all +right with me. Of course." Then the voice cheered up and she said: +"Why, of course--come right out. I understand." A pause and then, +"Yes, I know a man has to go where he is called." "Oh, she'll +understand--you know father is always on the wing." "No--why, no, of +course not--mother wouldn't think that of you. I'll tell her how it +was." "All right, good-by--yes, right away." And Jeanette Barclay +skipped away from the telephone and ran to her mother to say, "Mother, +that was Neal Ward--he wants to come out, and he was afraid you'd +think it rude for him to ask that way, but you know he had a meeting +to report and thought he couldn't come, and now they've postponed the +meeting, and I told him to come right out--wasn't that all right?" + +And so out came Neal Ward, a likely-looking young man of twenty-one or +maybe twenty-two--a good six feet in height, with a straight leg, a +square shoulder, and firm jaw, set like his father's, and clean brown +eyes that did not blink. And as Jeanette Barclay, with her mother's +height, and her father's quick keen features, and her Grandmother +Barclay's eyes and dominant figure, stood beside him in the doorway, +Mrs. Jane Barclay thought a good way ahead, and Jeanette would have +blushed her face to a cinder if the mother had spoken her thoughts. +The three, mother and daughter and handsome young man, sat for a while +together in the living room, and then Jane, who knew the heart of +youth, and did not fear it, said, "You children should go out on the +porch--it's a beautiful night; I'm going upstairs." + +And now let us once more in our astral bodies watch them there in the +light of the veiled moon--for it is the last time that even we should +see them alone. She is sitting on a balustrade, and he is standing +beside her, and their hands are close together on the stones. "Yes," +he is saying, "I shall be busy at the train to-morrow trying to catch +the governor for an interview on the railroad question, and may not +see you." + +"I wish you would throw the governor into the deep blue sea," she +says, and he responds:-- + +"I wish I could." There is a silence, and then he risks it--and the +thing he has been trying to say comes out, "I wonder if you will do +something for me, Jeanette?" + +"Oh, I don't know--don't ask me anything hard--not very hard, Neal!" + +The last word was all he cared for, and by what sleight of hand he +slipped his fraternity pin from his vest into her hand, neither ever +knew. + +"Will you?" he asks. "For me?" + +She pins it at her throat, and smiles. Then she says, "Is this long +enough--do you want it back now?" + +He shakes his head, and finally she asks, "When?" and then it comes +out:-- + +"Never." + +And her face reddens, and she does not speak. Their hands, on the +wall, have met--they just touch, that is all, but they do not hasten +apart. A long, long time they are silent--an eternity of a minute; +and then she says, "We shall see in the morning." + +And then another eternal minute rolls by, and the youth slips the rose +from her hair--quickly, and without disarranging a strand. + +"Oh," she cries, "Neal!" and then adds, "Let me get you a pretty +one--that is faded." + +But no, he will have that one, and she stands beside him and pins it +on his coat--stands close beside him, and where her elbows and her +arms touch him he is thrilled with delight. In the shadow of the great +porch they stand a moment, and her hand goes out to his. + +"Well, Jeanette," he says, and still her hand does not shrink away, +"well, Jeanette--it will be lonesome when you go." + +"Will it?" she asks. + +"Yes--but I--I have been so happy to-night." + +He presses her hand a little closer, and as she says, "I'm so glad," +he says, "Good-by," and moves down the broad stone steps. She stands +watching him, and at the bottom he stops and again says:-- + +"Well--good-by--Jeanette--I must go--I suppose." And she does not +move, so again he says, "Good-by." + + * * * * * + +"Youth," said Colonel Martin Culpepper to the assembled company in the +ballroom of the Barclay home as the clock struck twelve and brought in +the twentieth century; "Youth," he repeated, as he tugged at the +bottom of Buchanan Culpepper's white silk vest, to be sure that it met +his own black trousers, and waved his free hand grandly aloft; +"Youth," he reiterated, as he looked over the gay young company at the +foot of the hall, while the fiddlers paused with their bows in the +air, and the din of the New Year's clang was rising in the town; +"Youth,--of all the things in God's good green earth,--Youth is the +most beautiful." Then he signalled with some dignity to the leader of +the orchestra, and the music began. + +It was a memorable New Year's party that Jeanette Barclay gave at the +dawn of this century. The Barclay private car had brought a dozen girls +down from the state university for the Christmas holidays, and then had +made a recruiting trip as far east as Cleveland and had brought back a +score more of girls in their teens and early twenties--for an invitation +from the Barclays, if not of much social consequence, had a power behind +it that every father recognized. And what with threescore girls from the +Ridge, and young men from half a dozen neighbouring states,--and young +men are merely background in any social picture,--the ballroom was as +pretty as a garden. It was her own idea,--with perhaps a shade of +suggestion from her father,--that the old century should be danced out +and the new one danced in with the pioneers of Garrison County set in +quadrilles in the centre of the floor, while the young people whirled +around them in the two-step then in vogue. So the Barclays asked a score +or so of the old people in for dinner New Year's Eve; and they kept +below stairs until midnight. Then they filed into the ballroom, with its +fair fresh faces, its shrill treble note of merriment,--these old men +and women, gray and faded, looking back on the old century while the +others looked into the new one. There came Mr. and Mrs. Watts McHurdie +in the lead, Watts in his best brown suit, and Mrs. Watts in lavender to +sustain her gray hair; General Ward, in his straight black frock coat +and white tie, followed with Mrs. Dorman, relict of the late William +Dorman, merchant, on his arm; behind him came the Brownwells, in evening +clothes, and Robert Hendricks and his sister,--all gray-haired, but +straight of figure and firm of foot; Colonel Culpepper followed with +Mrs. Mary Barclay; the Lycurgus Masons were next in the file, and in +their evening clothes they looked withered and old, and Lycurgus was not +sure upon his feet; Jacob Dolan in his faded blue uniform marched in +like a drum-major with the eldest Miss Ward; and the Carnines followed, +and the Fernalds followed them; and then came Judge and Mrs. Bemis--he a +gaunt, sinister, parchment-skinned man, with white hair and a gray +mustache, and she a crumbling ruin in shiny satin bedecked in diamonds. +Down the length of the long room they walked, and executed an +old-fashioned grand march, such as Watts could lead, while the orchestra +played the tune that brought cheers from the company, and the little old +man looked at the floor, while Mrs. McHurdie beamed and bowed and +smiled. And then they took their partners to step off the +quadrille--when behold, it transpired that in all the city orchestra, +that had cost the Barclays a thousand dollars according to town +tradition, not one man could be found who could call off a quadrille. +Then up spake John Barclay, and stood him on a chair, and there, when +the colonel had signalled for the music to start, the voice of John +Barclay rang out above the din, as it had not sounded before in nearly +thirty years. Old memories came rushing back to him of the nights when +he used to ride five and ten and twenty miles and play the cabinet organ +to a fiddle's lead, and call off until daybreak for two dollars. And +such a quadrille as he gave them--four figures of it before he sent them +to their seats. There were "cheat or swing," the "crow's nest," "skip to +my Loo,"--and they all broke out singing, while the young people clapped +their hands, and finally by a series of promptings he quickly called the +men into one line and the women into another, and then the music +suddenly changed to the Virginia reel. And so the dance closed for the +old people, and they vanished from the room, looking back at the youth +and the happiness and warmth of the place with wistful but not eager +eyes; and as Jacob Dolan, in his faded blues and grizzled hair and +beard, disappeared into the dusk of the hallway, Jeanette Barclay, +looking at her new ring, patted it and said to Neal Ward: "Well, dear, +the nineteenth century is gone! Now let us dance and be happy in this +one." + +And so she danced the new year and the new century and the new life +in, as happy as a girl of twenty can be. For was she not a Junior at +the state university, if you please? Was she not the heir of all the +ages, and a scandalous lot of millions besides, and what is infinitely +more important to a girl's happiness, was she not engaged, good and +tight, and proud of it, to a youth making twelve dollars every week +whether it rained or not? What more could an honest girl ask? And it +was all settled, and so happily settled too, that when she had +graduated with her class at the university, and had spent a year in +Europe--but that was a long way ahead, and Neal had to go to the City +with father and learn the business first. But business and graduation +and Europe were mere details--the important thing had happened. So +when it was all over that night, and the girls had giggled themselves +to bed, and the house was dark, Jeanette Barclay and her mother walked +up the stairs to her room together. There they sat down, and Jeanette +began-- + +"Neal said he told you about the ring?" + +"Yes," answered her mother. + +"But he did not show it to you--because he wanted me to be the first +to see it." + +"Neal's a dear," replied her mother. "So that was why? I thought +perhaps he was bashful." + +"No, mother," answered the girl, "no--we're both so proud of it." She +kept her hand over the ring finger, as she spoke, "You know those +'Short and Simple Annals' he's been doing for the _Star_--well, he +got his first check the day before Christmas, and he gave half of it +to his father, and took the other twenty-five dollars and bought this +ring. I think it is so pretty, and we are both real proud of it." And +then she took her hand from the ring, and held her finger out for her +mother's eyes, and her mother kissed it. They were silent a moment; +then the girl rose and stood with her hand on the doorknob and cried: +"I think it is the prettiest ring in all the world, and I never want +any other." Then she thought of mother, and flushed and ran away. + +And we should not follow her. Rather let us climb Main Street and turn +into Lincoln Avenue and enter the room where Martin Culpepper sits +writing the Biography of Watts McHurdie. He is at work on his famous +chapter, "Hymen's Altar," and we may look over his great shoulder and +see what he has written: "The soul caged in its prison house of the +flesh looks forth," he writes, "and sees other chained souls, and +hails them in passing like distant ships. But soul only meets soul in +some great passion of giving, whether it be man to his fellow-man, to +his God, or in the love of men and women; it matters not how the +ecstasy comes, its root is in sacrifice, in giving, in forgetting self +and merging through abnegation into the source of life in this +universe for one sublime moment. For we may not come out of our prison +houses save to inhale the air of heaven once or twice, and then go +scourged back to our dungeons. Great souls are they who love the most, +who breathe the deepest of heaven's air, and give of themselves most +freely." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +The next morning, before the guests were downstairs, Barclay, reading +his morning papers before the fireplace, stopped his daughter, who was +going through the living room on some morning errand. + +"Jeanette," said the father, as he drew her to his chair arm, "let me +see it." + +She brought the setting around to the outside of her finger, and gave +him her hand. He looked at it a moment, patted her hand, put the ring +to his lips, and the two sat silent, choked with something of joy and +something of sorrow that shone through their brimming eyes. Thus Mary +Barclay found them. They looked up abashed, and she bent over them and +stroked her son's hair as she said:-- + +"John, John, isn't it fine that Jennie has escaped the curse of your +millions?" + +Barclay's heart was melted. He could not answer, so he nodded an +assenting head. The mother stooped to kiss her son's forehead, as she +went on, "Not with all of your millions could you buy that simple +little ring for Jennie, John." And the father pressed his lips to the +ring, and his daughter snuggled tightly into his heart and the three +mingled their joy together. + +Two hours later Barclay and General Ward met on the bridge by the +mill. It was one of those warm midwinter days, when nature seems to be +listening for the coming of spring. A red bird was calling in the +woods near by, and the soft south wind had spring in it as it blew +across the veil of waters that hid the dam. John Barclay's head was +full of music, and he was lounging across the bridge from the mill on +his way home to try his new pipe organ. He had spent four hours the +day before at his organ bench, trying to teach his lame foot to keep +up with his strong foot. So when General Ward overhauled him, Barclay +was annoyed. He was not the man to have his purposes crossed, even +when they were whims. + +"I was just coming over to the mill to see you," said the general, as +he halted in Barclay's path. + +"All right, General--all right; what can I do for you?" + +The general was as blunt a man as John Barclay. If Barclay desired no +beating around the bush, the general would go the heart of matters. So +he said, "I want to talk about Neal with you." + +Barclay knew that certain things must be said, and the two men sat in +a stone seat in the bridge wall, with the sun upon them, to talk it +out then and there. "Well, General, we like Neal--we like him +thoroughly. And we are glad, Jane and I, and my mother too--she likes +him; and I want to do something for him. That's about all there is to +say." + +"Yes, but what, John Barclay--what?" exclaimed the general. "That's +what I want to know. What are you going to do for him? Make him a +devil worshipper?" + +"Well now, General, here--don't be too fast," Barclay smiled and +drawled. He put his hands on the warm rocks at his sides and flapped +them like wing-tips as he went on: "Jeanette and Neal have their own +lives to live. They're sensible--unusually sensible. We didn't steal +Neal, any more than you stole Jeanette, General, and--" + +"Oh, I understand that, John; that isn't the point," broke in the +general. "But now that you've got him, what are you going to do with +him? Can't you see, John, he's my boy, and that I have a right to +know?" + +"Now, General, will you let me do a little of this talking?" asked +Barclay, impatiently. "As I was saying, Jeanette and Neal are +sensible, and money isn't going to make fools of them. When the time +comes and I'm gone, they'll take the divine responsibility--" + +"The divine tommyrot!" cried the general; "the divine fiddlesticks! +Why should they? What have they done that they should have that thrust +upon them like a curse; in God's name, John Barclay, why should my +Neal have to have that blot upon his soul? Can't they be free and +independent?" + +Barclay did not answer; he looked glumly at the floor, and kicked the +cement with his heel. "What would you have them do with the money when +they get it," he growled, "burn it?" + +"Why not?" snapped the general. + +"Oh--I just thought I'd ask," responded Barclay. + +The two men sat in silence. Barclay regarded conversation with the +general in that mood as arguing with a lunatic. Presently he rose, and +stood before Ward and spoke rather harshly: "What I am going to do is +this--? and nothing more. Neal tells me he understands shorthand: I +know the boy is industrious, and I know that he is bright and quick +and honest. That's all he needs. I am going to take him into our +company as a stockholder--with one share--a thousand-dollar share, +to be explicit; I'm going to give that to him, and that's all; then +he's to be my private secretary for three years at five thousand a +year, so long as you must know, and then at the end of that time, if +he and Jennie are so minded, they're going to marry; and if he has any +business sense--of course you know what will happen. She is all we +have, General--some one's got to take hold of things." + +As Barclay spoke General Ward grew white--his face was aquiver as his +trembling voice cried out: "Oh, God, John Barclay, and would you take +my boy--my clean-hearted, fine-souled boy, whom I have taught to fear +God, and callous his soul with your damned money-making? How would you +like me to take your girl and blacken her heart and teach her the +wiles of the outcasts? And yet you're going to teach Neal to lie and +steal and cheat and make his moral guide the penal code instead of his +father's faith. Shame on you, John Barclay--shame on you, and may God +damn you for this thing, John Barclay!" The old man trembled, but the +sob that shook his frame had no tears in it. He looked Barclay in the +eyes without a tremor for an angry moment, and then broke: "I am an +old man, John; I can't interfere with Neal and Jeanette; it's their +life, not mine, and some way God will work it out; but," he added, +"I've still got my own heart to break over it--that's mine--that's +mine." + +He rose and faced the younger man a moment, and then walked quickly +away. Barclay limped after him, and went home. There he sat on his +bench and made the great organ scream and howl and bellow with rage +for two hours. + +When Neal Ward went to the City to live, he had a revelation of John +Barclay as a man of moods. The Barclay Neal Ward saw was an electric +motor rather than an engine. The power he had to perceive and to act +seemed transmitted to him from the outside. At times he dictated +letters of momentous importance to the young man, which Neal was sure +were improvised. Barclay relied on his instincts and rarely changed a +decision. He wore himself out every day, yet he returned to his work +the next day without a sign of fag. The young man found that Barclay +had one curious vanity--he liked to seem composed. Hence the big +smooth mahogany table before him, with the single paper tablet on it, +and the rose--the one rose in the green vase in the centre of the +table. Visitors always found him thus accoutred. But to see him +limping about from room to room, giving orders in the great offices, +dictating notes for the heads of the various departments, to see him +in the room where the mail was received, worrying it like a pup, was +to see another man revealed. He liked to have people from Sycamore +Ridge call upon him, and the man who kept door in the outer office--a +fine gray-haired person, who had the manners of a brigadier--knew so +many people in Sycamore Ridge that Neal used to call him the City +Directory. One day Molly Brownwell called. She was the only person who +ever quelled the brigadier; but when a woman has been a social leader +in a country town all of her life, she has a social poise that may not +be impressed by a mere brigadier. Mrs. Brownwell realized that her +call was unusual, but she refused to acknowledge it to him. Barclay +seemed glad to see her, and as he was in one of his mellow moods he +talked of old times, and drew from a desk near the wall, which he +rarely opened, an envelope containing a tintype picture of Ellen. +Culpepper. He showed it to her sister, and they both sat silent for a +time, and then the woman spoke. + +"Well, John," she said, "that was a long time ago." + +"Forty years, Molly--forty years." + +When they came back to the world she said: "John, I am up here looking +for a publisher. Father has written a Biography of Watts, and +collected all of his poems and things in it, and we thought it might +sell--Watts is so well known. But the publishers won't take it. I +want your advice about it." + +Barclay listened to her story, and then wheeled in his chair and +exclaimed, "Can Adrian publish that book?" + +"Yes," she answered tentatively; "that is, he could if it didn't take +such an awful lot of money." + +After discussing details with her, Barclay called Neal Ward and +said:-- + +"Get up a letter to Adrian Brownwell asking him to print for me three +thousand copies of the colonel's book, at one dollar and fifty cents a +copy, and give seventy-five per cent of the profits to Colonel +Culpepper. We'll put that book in every public library in this +country. How's that?" And he looked at the tintype and said, "Bless +her dear little heart." + +"Neal," asked Barclay, as Mrs. Brownwell left the room, "how old are +you? I keep forgetting." When the young man answered twenty-five, +Barclay, who was putting away the tintype picture, said, "And Jeanette +will be twenty-three at her next birthday." He closed the desk and +looked at the youth bending over his typewriter and sighed. "Been +going together off and on five or six years--I should say." + +Neal nodded. Barclay put his hand on his chin and contemplated the +young man a moment. "Ever have any other love affair, son?" + +The youngster coloured and looked up quickly with a puzzled look and +did not reply. + +Barclay cut in with, "Well, son, I'm glad to find you don't lie +easily." He laughed silently. "Jennie has--lots of them. When she was +six she used to cry for little Watts Fernald, and they quarrelled like +cats and dogs, and when she was ten there was an Irish boy--Finnegan +I think his name was--who milked the cow, whom she adored, and when +she was fourteen or so, it was some boy in the high school who gave +her candy until her mother had to shoo him off, and I don't know how +many others." He paused for a few seconds and then went on, "But she's +forgotten them--that's the way of women." His eyes danced merrily as +he continued, while he scratched his head: "But with us men--it's +different. We never forget." He chuckled a moment, and then his face +changed as he said, "Neal, I wish you'd go into the mail room and see +if the noon mail has anything in it from that damn scoundrel who's +trying to start a cracker factory in St. Louis--I hate to bother to +smash him right now when we're so busy." + +But it so happened that the damn scoundrel thought better of his +intention and took fifty thousand for his first thought, and Neal +Ward, being one of the component parts of an engaged couple, went +ahead being sensible about it. All engaged couples, of course, resolve +to be sensible about it. And for two years and a half--during +nineteen one and two and part of nineteen three--Jeanette Barclay and +Neal Ward had tried earnestly and succeeded admirably (they believed) +in being exceedingly sensible about everything. Jeanette had gone +through school and was spending the year in Europe with her mother, +and she would be home in May; and in June--in June of 1904--why, the +almanac stopped there; the world had no further interest, and no one +on earth could imagine anything after that. For then they proposed not +to be sensible any longer. + +In the early years of this century--about 1902, probably--John +Barclay paid an accounting company twenty-five thousand dollars--more +money than General Ward and Watts McHurdie and Martin Culpepper and +Jacob Dolan had saved in all their long, industrious, frugal, and +useful lives--to go over his business, install a system of audits and +accounts, and tell him just how much money he was worth. After a score +of men had been working for six months, the accounting company made +its report. It was put in terms of dollars and cents, which are +fleeting and illusive terms, and mean much in one country and little +in another, signify great wealth at one time and mere affluence in +another period. So the sum need not be set down here. But certain +interesting details of the report may be set down to illuminate this +narrative. For instance, it indicates that John Barclay was a man of +some consequence, when one knows that he employed more men in that +year than many a sovereign state of this Union employed in its state +and county and city governments. It signifies something to learn that +he controlled more land growing wheat than any of half a dozen +European kings reign over. It means something to realize that in those +years of his high tide John Barclay, by a few lines dictated to Neal +Ward, could have put bread out of the reach of millions of his +fellow-creatures. And these are evidences of material power--these +men he hired, these lands he dominated, and this vast store of food +that he kept. So it is fair to assume that if this is a material +world, John Barclay's fortune was founded upon a rock. He and his +National Provisions Company were real. They were able to make laws; +they were able to create administrators of the law; and they were able +to influence those who interpreted the law. Barclay and his power were +substantial, palpable, and translatable into terms of money, of power, +of vital force. + +And then one day, after long years of growth in the +under-consciousnesses of men, an idea came into full bloom in the +world. It had no especial champions. The people began to think this +idea. That was all. Now life reduced to its lowest terms consists of +you and him and me. Put us on a desert island together--you and him +and me--and he can do nothing without you and me--except he kill us, +and then he is alone; even then we haunt him, so our influence still +binds him. You can do nothing without him and me, and I can do nothing +without you and him. Not that you and he will hold me; not that you +will stop me; but what you think and say will bind me to your wishes +tighter than any chains you might forge. What you and he think is more +powerful than all the material forces of this universe. For what you +and he think is public opinion. It is not substantial; it is not +palpable. It may not readily be translated into terms of money, or +power, or vital force. But it crushes all these things before it. When +this public opinion rises sure and firm and strong, no material force +on this earth can stop it. For a time it may be dammed and checked. +For a day or a week or a year or a decade it may be turned from its +channel; yet money cannot hold it; arms cannot hold it; cunning cannot +baffle it. For it is God moving among men. Thus He manifests Himself +in this earth. Through the centuries, amid the storm and stress of +time, often muffled, often strangled, often incoherent, often raucous +and inarticulate with anguish, but always in the end triumphant, the +voice of the people is indeed the voice of God! + +Nearly a dozen years had passed since the Russian painted the picture +of John Barclay, which hangs in the public library of Sycamore Ridge, +and in that time the heart of the American people had changed. Barclay +was beginning to feel upon him, night and day, the crushing weight of +popular scorn. He called the idea envy, but it was not envy. It was +the idea working in the world, and the weight of the scorn was +beginning to crumple his soul; for this idea that the people were +thinking was finding its way into newspapers, magazines, and books. +They were beginning to question the divine right of wealth to rule, +because it was wealth--an idea that Barclay could not comprehend even +vaguely. The term honest wealth, which was creeping into respectable +periodicals, was exceedingly annoying to him. For the very presence of +the term seemed to indicate that there was such a thing as dishonest +wealth,--an obvious absurdity; and when he addressed the students of +the Southwestern University at their commencement exercises in 1902, +his address attracted considerable attention because it deplored the +modern tendency in high places toward socialism and warned the +students that a nation of iconoclasts would perish from the earth. But +the people went on questioning the divine right of wealth to rule. In +the early part of 1903 Barclay was astounded at the action of a score +of his senators and nearly a hundred of his congressmen, who voted for +a national law prohibiting the giving of railroad rebates. He was +assured by all of them that it was done to satisfy temporary +agitation, but the fact that they voted for the law at all, as he +explained to Senator Myton, at some length and with some asperity, was +a breach of faith with "interests in American politics which may not +safely be ignored." "And what's more," he added angrily, "this is a +personal insult to me. That law hits my Door Strip." + +And then out of the clear sky like a thunderbolt, not from an enemy, +not from any clique or crowd he had fought, but from the government +itself, during the last days of Congress came a law creating a +Department of Commerce and Labour at Washington, a law giving federal +inspectors the right to go through books of private concerns. Barclay +was overwhelmed with amazement. He raged, but to no avail; and his +wrath was heated by the rumours printed in all the newspapers that +Barclay and the National Provisions Company were to be the first +victims of the new law. Mrs. Barclay and Jeanette were going to Europe +in the spring of 1903, and Barclay on the whole was glad of it. He +wished the decks cleared for his fight; he felt that he must not have +Jane at his elbow holding his hand from malice in the engagement that +was coming, and when he left them on the boat, he spent a week +scurrying through the East looking for some unknown enemy in high +financial circles who might be back of the government's determination +to move against the N.P.C. He felt sure he could uncover the source of +his trouble--and then, either fight his enemy or make terms. It did +not occur to Barclay that he could not find a material, palpable, +personal object upon which to charge or with which to capitulate. But +he found nothing, and crossed the Alleghanies puzzled. + +When he got home, he learned that a government inspector, one H. S. +Smith, was beginning the investigation of the Provisions Company's +books in St. Paul, Omaha, Chicago, and Denver. Barclay learned that +Smith had secured some bills of lading that might not easily be +explained. Incidentally, Barclay learned that an attempt had been +made, through proper channels, to buy Smith, and he was nonplussed to +learn that Smith was not purchasable. Then to end the whole matter, +Barclay wrote to Senator Myton, directing him to have Smith removed +immediately. But Myton's reply, which was forwarded to Barclay at +Sycamore Ridge, indicated that "the orders under which Smith is +working come from a higher source than the department." + +Barclay's scorn of Inspector Smith--a man whom he could buy and sell +a dozen times from one day's income from his wealth--flamed into a +passion. He tore Myton's letter to bits, and refreshed his faith in +the god of Things As They Are by garroting a mill in Texas. While the +Texas miller was squirming, Barclay did not consider Inspector Smith +consciously, but in remote places in his mind always there lived the +scorned person whom Barclay knew was working against him. + +From time to time in the early summer the newspapers contained +definite statements, authorized from Washington with increasing +positiveness, that the cordon around the N.P.C. was tightening. In +July Barclay's scorn of Inspector Smith grew into disquietude; for a +letter from Judge Bemis, of the federal court,--written up in the +Catskills,--warned him that scorn was not the only emotion with which +he should honour Smith. After reading Bemis' confidential and +ambiguous scrawl, Barclay drummed for a time with his hard fingers on +the mahogany before him, stared at the print sketches of machinery +above him, and paced the floor of his office with the roar of the mill +answering something in his angry heart. He could not know that the +tide was running out. He went to his telephone and asked for a city so +far away that when he had finished talking for ten minutes, he had +spent enough money to keep General Ward in comfort for a month. Neal +Ward, sitting in his room, heard Barclay say: "What kind of a damn +bunco game were you fellows putting up on me in 1900? You got my +money; that's all right; I didn't squeal at the assessment, did I?" +Young Ward in the pause closed his door. But the bull-like roar of +Barclay came through the wood between them in a moment, and he heard: +"Matter enough--here's this fellow Smith bullying my clerks out in +Omaha, and nosing around the St. Paul office; what right has he got? +Who is he, anyway--who got him his job? I wrote to Myton to get him +removed, or sent to some other work, and Myton said that the White +House was back of him. I wish you'd go over to Washington, and tell +them who I am and what we did for you in '96 and 1900; we can't stand +this. It's a damned outrage, and I look to you to stop it." In a +moment Ward heard Barclay exclaim: "You can't--why, that's a hell of +a note! What kind of a fellow is he, anyway? Tell him I gave half a +million to the party, and I've got some rights in this government that +a white man is bound to respect--or does he believe in taking your +money and letting you whistle?" A train rolling by the mill drowned +Barclay's voice, but at the end of the conversation Ward heard Barclay +say: "Well, what's a party good for if it doesn't protect the men who +contribute to its support? You simply must do it. I look to you for +it. You got my good money, and it's up to you to get results." + +There was some growling, and then Barclay hung up the receiver. But he +was mad all day, and dictated a panic interview to Ward, which Ward +was to give to the Associated Press when they went to Chicago the next +day. In the interview, Barclay said that economic conditions were +being disturbed by half-baked politicians, and that values would +shrink and the worst panic in the history of the country would follow +unless the socialistic meddling with business was stopped. + +The summer had deepened to its maturest splendour before Barclay +acknowledged to himself his dread of the City. For he began to feel a +definite discomfiture at the panorama of his pictures on the +news-stands in connection with the advertising of the Sunday +newspapers and magazines. The newspapers were blazoning to the whole +country that the Economy Door Strip was a blind for taking railroad +rebates, and everywhere he met the report of Inspector Smith that the +National Provisions Company's fifty-pound sack of Barclay's Best +contained but forty-eight pounds and ten ounces; also that Barclay had +been taking three ounces out of the pound cartons of breakfast food, +and that the cracker packages were growing smaller, while the prices +were not lowered. Even in Sycamore Ridge the reporters appeared with +exasperating regularity, and the papers were filled with diverting +articles telling of the Barclays' social simplicity and rehashing old +stories of John Barclay's boyhood. His attempt to stop the +investigation of the National Provisions Company became noised around +Washington, and the news of his failure was frankly given out from the +White House. This inspired a cartoon from McCutcheon in the _Chicago +Tribune_, representing the President weighing a flour sack on which +was printed "Barclay's Worst," with Barclay behind the President +trying to get his foot on the scales. + +All of his life Barclay had been a fighter; he liked to hit and dodge +or get hit back. His struggles in business and in the business part of +politics had been with tangible foes, with material things; and his +weapons had been material things: coercion, bribery (more or less +sugar-coated), cheating, and often in these later years the roar of +his voice or the power of his name. But now, facing the formless, +impersonal thing called public opinion, hitherto unknown in his scheme +of things, he was filled with uncertainty and indecision. + +One autumn day, after sending three stenographers home limp and weary +with directions for his battles, Barclay strayed into McHurdie's shop. +The general and Dolan were the only members of the parliament present +that afternoon, besides Watts. Barclay nodded at the general without +speaking, and Dolan said:-- + +"Cool, ain't it? Think it will freeze?" + +Barclay took a chair, and when Dolan and Ward saw that he had come for +a visit, they left. + +"Watts," asked Barclay, after the others had gone, and the little man +at the bench did not speak, "Watts, what's got into the people of this +country? What have I done that they should begin pounding me this +way?" + +McHurdie turned a gentle smile on his visitor, knowing that Barclay +would do the talking. Barclay went on: "Here are five suits in county +courts in Texas against me; a suit in Kansas by the attorney-general, +five or ten in the Dakotas, three in Nebraska, one or two in each of +the Lake states, and the juries always finding against me. I haven't +changed my methods. I'm doing just what I've done for fifteen years. +I've had lots of lawsuits before, with stockholders and rival +companies and partners, and millers and all that--but this standing +in front of the mob and fighting them off--why? Why? What have I +done? These county attorneys and attorneys-general seem to delight in +it--now why? They didn't used to; it used to be that only cranks like +old Phil Ward even talked of such things, and people laughed at them; +and now prosecuting attorneys actually do these things, and people +reelect them. Why? What's got into the people? What am I doing that I +haven't been doing?" + +"Maybe the people are growing honest, John," suggested the harness +maker amiably. + +Barclay threw back his head and roared: "Naw--naw--it isn't that; +it's the damn newspapers. That's what it is! They're what's raising +the devil. But why? Why? What have I done? Why, they have even +bulldozed some of my own federal judges--my own men, Watts, my own +men; men whose senators came into my office with their hats in their +hands and asked permission to name these judges. Now why?" He was +silent awhile and then began chuckling: "But I fixed 'em the other +day. Did you see that article in all the papers briefed out of New +York about how that professor had said that the N.P.C. was an economic +necessity? I did that, Watts: and got it published in the magazines, +too--and our advertising agents made all the newspapers that get our +advertising print it--and they had to." Barclay laughed. After a +moody silence he continued: "And you know what I could do. I could +finance a scheme to buy out the meat trust and the lumber trust, and I +could control every line of advertising that goes into the damn +magazines--and I could buy the paper trust too, and that would fix +'em. The Phil Wards are not running this country yet. The men who make +the wealth and maintain the prosperity have got to run it in spite of +the long-nosed reformers and socialists. You know, Watts, that we men +who do things have a divine responsibility to keep the country off the +rocks. But she's drifting a lot just now, and they're all after me, +because I'm rich. That's all, Watts, just because I've worked hard and +earned a little money--that's why." And so he talked on, until he was +tired, and limped home and sat idly in front of his organ, unable to +touch the keys. + +Then he turned toward the City to visit his temporal kingdom. There in +the great Corn Exchange Building his domain was unquestioned. There in +the room with the mahogany walls he could feel his power, and stanch +the flow of his courage. There he was a man. But alas for human +vanity! When he got to the City, he found the morning papers full of a +story of a baby that had died from overeating breakfast food made at +his mills and adulterated with earth from his Missouri clay banks, as +the coroner had attested after an autopsy; and a miserable county +prosecutor was looking for John Barclay. So he hid all the next day in +his offices, and that evening took Neal Ward on a special train in his +private car, on a roundabout way home to Sycamore Ridge. + +It was a wretched homecoming for so great and successful a man as +Barclay. Yet he with all his riches, with all his material power, even +he longed for the safety of home, as any hunted thing longs for his +lair. On the way he paced the diagonals of the little office room in +his car, like a caged jackal. The man had lost his anchor; the things +which his life had been built on would not hold him. Money--men +envied the rich nowadays, he said, and the rich man had no rights in +the courts or out of them; friends--they had gone up in the market, +and he could not afford them; politics--he had found it a quicksand. +So he jabbered to Neal Ward, his secretary, and pulled down the +curtains of his car on the station side of every stop the train made +in its long day's journey. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +It was nearly midnight when the special train pulled into Sycamore +Ridge, and Neal Ward hurried home. He went to his room, and found +there a letter and a package, both addressed in Jeanette's +handwriting. The letter was only a note that read:-- + + "MY DEAREST BOY: I could not wait to send it for your Christmas + present. So I am sending it the very day it is finished. I hope it + will bring me close to you--into your very heart and keep me there. + I have kissed it--for I knew that you would. + + "Your loving JEANETTE." + +He tore open the package and found a miniature of Jeanette done on +ivory--that seemed to bring her into the room, and illumine it with +her presence. The thing bloomed with life, and his heart bounded with +joy as his eyes drank the beauty of it. His father called from below +stairs, and the youth went down holding the note and the miniature in +his hands. Before the father could speak, the son held out the +picture, and Philemon Ward looked for a moment into the glowing +faces--that of the picture and that of the living soul before him, +and hesitated before speaking. + +"I got your wire--" he began. + +"But isn't it beautiful, father--wonderful!" broke in the son. + +The father assented kindly and then continued: "So I thought I'd sit +up for you. I had to talk with you." The son's face looked an +interrogation, and the father answered, "Read that, Neal--" handing +his son a letter in a rich linen envelope bearing in the corner the +indication that it was written at the Army and Navy Club in +Washington. The lovely face in the miniature lay on the table between +them and smiled up impartially at father and son as the young man drew +out the letter and read:-- + + "MY DEAR GENERAL WARD: This letter will introduce to you Mr. H. S. + Smith, an inspector from the Bureau of Commerce and Labour, who has + been working upon evidence connected with the National Provisions + Company. I happened to be at luncheon this afternoon with a man of + the highest official authority, whose name it would be bad faith to + divulge, but whom I know you respect, even if you do not always + agree with him. I mentioned your name and the part you took in the + battle of the Wilderness, and my friend was at once interested, + though, of course, he had known you by name and fame for forty + years. One word led to another, as is usual in these cases, and my + friend mentioned the fact that your son, Neal Dow Ward, is secretary + to John Barclay, and in a position to verify certain evidence which + the government now has in the N.P.C. matter. I happen to know that + the government is exceedingly anxious to be exactly correct in every + charge it makes against this Company, and hence I am writing to you. + Your son can do a service to his country to-day by telling the truth + when he is questioned by Inspector Smith, to my mind as important as + that you did in the Wilderness. Inspector Smith has a right to + question him, and will do so, and I have promised my friend here to + ask you to counsel with your son, and beg him in the name of that + good citizenship for which you have always stood, and for which you + offered your life, to tell the simple truth. As a comrade and a + patriot, I have no doubt what you will do, knowing the facts." + +Neal Ward put his hand on the table, with the letter still in his +fingers. "Father," he asked blankly, "do you know what that means?" + +"Yes, Neal, I think I understand; it means that to-morrow morning will +decide whether you are a patriot or a perjurer, my boy--a patriot or +a perjurer!" The general, who was in his shirt-sleeves and collarless, +rose, and putting his hands behind him, backed to the radiator to warm +them. + +"But, father--father," exclaimed the boy, "how can I? What I learned +was in confidence. How can I?" + +The father saw the anguish in his son's face, and did not reply at +once. "Is it crooked, Neal?" + +"Yes," replied the son, and then added: "So bad I was going to get out +of it, as soon as Jeanette came home. I couldn't stand it--for a +life, father. But I promised to stay three years, and try, and I think +I should keep my promise." + +The father and son were silent for a time, and then the father spoke. +"And you love her with all your life--don't you, Nealie?" The son was +gazing intently at the miniature and nodded. At length the father +sighed. "My poor, poor boy--my poor, poor boy." He walked to the +table on which were his books and papers, and then stood looking at +the girl's face. "You couldn't explain it to her, I suppose?" he +asked. + +"No," replied the son. "No; she adores her father; to her he is +perfect. And I don't blame her, for he is good--you can't know how +good, to her." Again they stood in silence. The son looked up from the +picture and said, "And you know, father, what the world would think of +me--a spy, an informer--an ingrate?" + +The old man did not reply, and the son shook his head and his face +twitched with the struggle that was in him. Suddenly the father walked +to the son and cried: "And yet you must, Neal Ward--you must. Is +there any confidence in God's world so sacred as your duty to mankind? +Is there any tie, even that of your wife, so sacred as that which +binds you to humanity? I left your mother, my sweetheart, and went out +to fight, with the chance of never seeing her again. I went out and +left her for the same country that is calling you now, Neal!" The boy +looked up with agony on his face. The father paused a moment and then +went on: "Your soul is your soul--not John Barclay's, my boy--not +Jeanette Barclay's--but yours--yours, Neal, to blight or to cherish, +as you will." A moment later he added, "Don't you see, son--don't you +see, Neal?" The son shook his head and looked down, and did not +answer. The father put his arm about the son. "Boy, boy," he cried, +"boy, you've got a a man's load on you now--a man's load. To-morrow +you can run away like a coward; you can dodge and lie like a thief, or +you can tell the simple truth, as it is asked of you, like a man--the +simple truth like a man, Neal." + +"Yes, I know, father--I see it all--but it is so hard--for her +sake, father." + +The old man was silent, while the kitchen clock ticked away a minute +and then another and a third. Then he took his arm away from his son, +and grasped the boy's hand. "Oh, little boy--little boy," he cried, +"can't I make you see that the same God who has put this trial upon +you will see you through it, and that if you fail in this trial, your +soul will be crippled for life, and that no matter what you get in +return for your soul--you will lose in the bargain? Can't you see it, +Nealie--can't you see it? All my life I have been trying to live that +way, and I have tried to make you see it--so that you would be ready +for some trial like this." + +The son rose, and the two men stood side by side, clasping hands. The +boy suddenly tore himself loose, and throwing his hands in the air, +wailed, "Oh, God--it is too hard--I can't, father--I can't." + +And with the miniature in his hand he walked from the room, and +Philemon Ward went to his closet and wrestled through the night. At +dawn his son sat reading and re-reading a letter. Finally he pressed +another letter to his lips, and read his own letter again. It read:-- + + "MY DARLING GIRL: This is the last letter I shall ever mail to you, + perhaps. I can imagine no miracle that will bring us together again. + My duty, as I see it, stands between us. The government inspector is + going to put me under oath to-morrow--unless I run, and I + won't--and question me about your father's business. What I must + tell will injure him--maybe ruin him. I am going to tell your father + what I am going to do before I do it. But by all the faith I have + been taught in a God--and you know I am not pious, and belong to no + church--I am forced to do this thing. Oh, Jeanette, Jeanette--if I + loved you less, I would take you for this life alone and sell my + soul for you; but I want you for an eternity--and in that eternity I + want to bring you an unsoiled soul. Good-by--oh, good-by. + NEAL." + +The next morning when Neal Ward went out of the office at the mill, +John Barclay sat shivering with wrath and horror. Every second stamped +him with its indelible finger, as a day, or a month, puts its stain on +other men. + +Another morning, a week later, as he sat at his desk, a telegram from +his office manager in the city fluttered in his hands. It read: "We +are privately advised that you were indicted by the federal grand jury +last night--though we do not know upon what specific charge--our +friend B. will advise us later in the day." + +It was a gray December day, and a thin film of ice covered the +mill-pond. Barclay looked there and shuddered away from the thought +that came to him. He was alone in the mill. He longed for his wife and +daughter, and yet when he thought of their homecoming to disgrace, he +shook with agony. Over and over again he whispered the word +"indicted." The thought of his mother and her sorrow broke him down. +He locked the door, dropped heavily into his chair, and bowed his head +on his crossed arms. And then-- + +What, tears? Tears for Mr. Barclay?--for himself? Look back along the +record for his life: there are many tears charged to his account, but +none for his own use. Back in the seventies there are tears of Miss +Culpepper, charged to Mr. Barclay, and one heart-break for General +Hendricks. Again in the eighties there is sorrow for Mr. Robert +Hendricks, and more tears for Mrs. Brownwell, that was Miss +Culpepper--all charged to the account of Mr. Barclay; and in the +early nineties there are some manly tears for Martin F. Culpepper, +also charged to Mr. Barclay--but none before for his own use. Are +they, then, tears of repentance? No, not tears for the recording +angel, not good, man's size, soul-washing tears of repentance, but +miserable, dwarf, useless, self-pitying, corroding tears--tears of +shame and rage, for the proud, God-mocking, man-cheating, powerful, +faithless, arrogant John Barclay, dealer in the Larger Good. + +And so with his head upon his arms, and his arms upon his desk,--a +gray-clad, gray-haired, slightly built, time-racked little +figure,--John Barclay strained his soul and wrenched his body and +tried in vain to weep. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +Down comes the curtain. Only a minute does John Barclay sit there with +his head in his arms, and then, while you are stretching your legs, or +reading your programme, or looking over the house to see who may be +here, up rises John Barclay, and while the stage carpenters are +setting the new scene, he is behind there telephoning to Chicago, to +Minneapolis, to Omaha, to Cleveland, to Buffalo,--he fairly swamps +the girl with expensive long-distance calls,--trying to see if there +is not some way to stop the filing of that indictment. For to him the +mere indictment advertises to mankind that money is not power, and +with him and with all of his caste and class a confession of weakness +is equivalent to a confession of wrong. For where might makes right, +as it does in his world, weakness spells guilt, and with all the +people jeering at him, with the press saying: "Aha, so they have got +Mr. Barclay, have they? Well, if all his money and all his power could +not prevent an indictment, he must be a pretty tough customer,"--with +the public peering into his private books and papers in a lawsuit, +confirming as facts all that they had read in the newspapers, in short +with the gold plating of respectability rubbed off his moral brass, he +feels the crushing weight of the indictment, as he limps up and down +his room at the mill and frets at the long-distance operator for being +so slow with his calls. + +But he is behind the scenes now; and so is Neal Ward, walking the +streets of Chicago, looking for work on a newspaper, and finally +finding it. And so are Mrs. Jane Barclay and Miss Barclay, as they +sail away on their ten days' cruise of the Mediterranean. And while +the orchestra plays and the man in the middle of row A of the dress +circle edges out of his seat and in again, we cannot hear John Barclay +sigh when the last telephone call is answered, and he finds that +nothing can be done. And he is not particularly cheered by the +knowledge that the Associated Press report that very afternoon is +sending all over the world the story of the indictment. But late in +the afternoon Judge Bemis, in whose court the indictment was found, +much to his chagrin, upon evidence furnished by special counsel sent +out from Washington--Judge Bemis tells him, as from one old friend to +another, that the special counsellor isn't much of a lawyer. The +pleasant friendly little rip-saw laugh of the judge over the telephone +nearly a thousand miles away is not distinct enough to be heard across +the stage even if the carpenters were not hammering, and the orchestra +screaming, and the audience buzzing; but that little laugh of his good +friend, Judge Bemis, was the sweetest sound John Barclay had heard in +many a day. It seemed curious that he should so associate it, but that +little laugh seemed to drown the sound of a clicking key in a lock--a +large iron lock, that had been rattling in his mind since noon. For +even in the minds of the rich and the great, even in the minds of men +who fancy they are divinely appointed to parcel out to their less +daring brethren the good things of this world, there is always a +child's horror of the jail. So when Mr. Barclay, who was something of +a lawyer himself, heard his good friend, Judge Bemis, laugh that +pleasant little friendly laugh behind the scenes, the heart of Mr. +Barclay gave a little pulse-beat of relief if not of joy. + +But an instant later the blight of the indictment was over him again. +Hammer away, and scream away, and buzz away with all your might, you +noises of the playhouse; let us not hear John Barclay hastening across +the bridge just before the early winter sunset comes, that he may +intercept the _Index_ and the _Banner_ in the front yard of the +Barclay home, before his mother sees them. Always heretofore he has +been glad to have her read of his achievements, in the hope that she +would come to approve them, and to view things as he saw them--his +success and his power and his glory. But to-night he hides the paper +under his gray coat and slips into the house. She and her son sit down +to dinner alone. This must be a stage dinner they are eating--though +it is all behind the scenes; for Mr. Barclay is merely going through +the empty form of eating. "No, thank you," for the roast. "Why, Mr. +Barclay did not touch his soup!" "Well," says the cook, tasting it +critically, "that's strange." And "No, thank you" for the salad, and +"Not any pie to-night, Clara." "What--none of the mince pie, John? +Why, I went out in the kitchen and made it for you myself." "Well, a +little." + +Heigh-ho! We sigh, and we drum on our table-cloth with our fingers, +and we are trying to find some way to tell something. We have been a +bad boy, maybe--a bad little boy, and must own up; that is part of +our punishment--the hardest part perhaps, even with the curtain down, +even with the noise in front, even with the maid gone, even when a +mother comes and strokes our head, as we sit idly at the organ bench, +unable to sound a key. Shall the curtain go up now? Shall we sit +gawking while a boy gropes his way out of a man's life, back through +forty years, and puts his head in shame and sorrow against a mother's +breast? How he stumbles and falters and halts, as the truth comes +out--and it must come out; on the whole the best thing there is to +say of John Barclay on that fateful December day in the year of our +Lord 1903 is that he did not let his mother learn the truth from any +lips but his. And so it follows naturally, because he was brave and +kind, that instead of having to strengthen her, she sustained +him--she in her seventies, he in his fifties. + +"My poor dear child," she said, "I know--I know. But don't worry, +John--don't worry. I don't mind. Jane won't mind, I am sure, and I +know Jennie will understand. It isn't what even we who love you think +of you, John--it is what you are that counts. Oh, Johnnie, Johnnie, +maybe you could serve your country and humanity in jail--by showing +the folly and the utter uselessness of all this money-getting, just as +your father served it by dying. I would not mind if it made men see +that money isn't the thing--if it made you see it, my boy; if you +could come out of a jail with that horrible greed for money purged +from you--" + +But no--we will not peep behind the curtain; we will not dwell with +John Barclay as he walked all night up and down the great living room +of his home. And see, the footlights have winked at the leader of the +orchestra, to let him know he is playing too long; observe, how +quickly the music dies down--rather too quickly, for the clatter of +cast iron is heard on the stage, and the sound of hurried footsteps is +audible, as of some one moving rapidly about behind the curtain. The +rattling iron you hear is the stove in Watts McHurdie's shop; they +have just set it up, and got it red hot; for it is a cold day, that +fifteenth day of December, 1903, and the footsteps you hear are those +of the members of the harness shop parliament. + +Ah! There goes the curtain, and there sits Watts astraddle of his +bench, working with all his might, for he has an order to sew +sleigh-bells on a breast strap, for some festivity or another; and +here sits the colonel, and over there the general, and on his +home-made chair Jacob Dolan is tilted back, warming his toes at the +stove. They are all reading--all except Watts, who is working; on the +floor are the Chicago and St. Louis evening papers, and the Omaha and +Kansas City morning papers. And on the first pages of all of these +papers are pictures of John Barclay. There is John Barclay in the +_Bee_, taken in his Omaha office by the _Bee's_ own photographer--a +new picture of Mr. Barclay, unfamiliar to the readers of most +newspapers. It shows the little man standing by a desk, smiling rather +benignly with his sharp bold eyes fixed on the camera. There is a line +portrait of Mr. Barclay in the _Times_, one of recent date, showing +the crow's-feet about the eyes, the vertical wrinkle above the nose, +and the furtive mouth, hard and naked, and the square mean jaw, that +every cartoonist of Barclay has emphasized for a dozen years. And +there are other pictures of Mr. Barclay in the papers on the floor, +and the first pages of the papers are filled with the news of the +Barclay indictment. All over this land, and in Europe, the news of +that indictment caused a sensation. In the _Times_, there on the +floor, is an editorial comment upon the indictment of Barclay cabled +from London, another from Paris, and a third from Berlin. It was a big +event in the world, an event of more than passing note--this sudden +standing up of one of the richest men of his land, before the front +door of a county jail. Big business, and little business that apes big +business, dropped its jaw. The world is not accustomed to think of +might making wrong, so when a Charles I or a Louis XVI or a John +Barclay comes to harm, the traditions of the world are wrenched. Men +say: "How can these things be--if might makes right? Here is a case +where might and right conflict--how about it? Jails are for the poor, +not for the rich, because the poor are wrong and the rich are right, +and no just man made perfect by a million should be in jail." + +And so while the members of the parliament in Watts McHurdie's shop +read and were disturbed at the strange twist of events, the whole +world was puzzled with them, and in unison with Jacob Dolan, half the +world spoke, "I see no difference in poisoning breakfast foods and +poisoning wells, and it's no odds to me whether a man pinches a few +ounces out of my flour sack, or steals my chickens." + +And the other half of the world was replying with Colonel Culpepper, +"Oh, well, Jake, now that's all right for talk; but in the realms of +high finance men are often forced to be their own judges of right and +wrong, and circumstances that we do not appreciate, cannot understand, +in point of fact, nor comprehend, if I may say so, intervene, and make +what seems wrong in small transactions, trivial matters and +pinch-penny business, seem right in the high paths of commerce." + +The general was too deeply interested in reading what purported to be +his son's testimony before Commissioner Smith, to break into the +discussion at this point, so Dolan answered, "From which I take it +that you think that Johnnie down at the mill keeps a private God in +his private car." + +The colonel was silent for a time; he read a few lines and looked into +space a moment, and then replied in a gentle husky voice: "Jake, what +do we know about it? The more I think how every man differs from his +neighbour, and all our sins are the result of individual weakness at +the end of lonely struggles with lonely temptations--the more I think +maybe there is something in what you say, and that not only John but +each of us--each of us under this shining sun, sir--keeps his +private God." + +"You'll have to break that news gently to the Pope," returned Dolan. +"I'll not try it. Right's right, Mart Culpepper, and wrong's wrong for +me and for Johnnie Barclay, white, black, brown, or yellow--'tis the +same." + +"There's nothing in your theory, Mart," cut in the general, folding +his paper across his knee; "not a thing in the world. We're all parts +of a whole, and the only way this is an individual problem at +all--this working out of the race's destiny--is that the whole can't +improve so long as the parts don't grow. So long as we all are like +John Barclay save in John's courage to do wrong, laws won't help us +much, and putting John in jail won't do so very much--though it may +scare the cowards until John's kind of crime grows unpopular. But what +we must have is individual--" + +Tinkle goes the bell over Watts McHurdie's head--the bell tied to a +cord that connects with the front door. Down jumps Watts, and note the +play of the lights from the flies, observe that spot light moving +toward R. U. E., there by the door of the shop. Yes, all ready; enter +John Barclay. See that iron smile on his face; he has not surrendered. +He has been clean-shaven, and entering that door, he is as spick and +span as though he were on a wedding journey. Give him a hand or a hiss +as you will, ladies and gentlemen, John Barclay has entered at the +Right Upper Entrance, and the play may proceed. + +"Well," he grinned, "I suppose you are talking it over. Colonel, has +the jury come to a verdict yet?" + +What a suave John Barclay it was; how admirably he held his nerve; not +a quiver in the face, not a ruffle of the voice. The general looked at +him over his spectacles, and could not keep the kindness out of his +eyes. "What a brick you are!" he said to himself, and Jake Dolan, +conquered by the simplicity of it, surrendered. + +"Oh, well, John, I suppose we all have our little troubles," said +Jake. Only that; the rack of the inquisitor grew limp. And Colonel +Culpepper rose and gave Barclay his hand and spoke not a word. The +silence was awkward, and at the end of a few moments the colonel found +words. + +"How," he asked in his thick asthmatic voice, mushy with emotion, "how +in the world did this happen, John? How did it happen?" + +Barclay looked at the general; no, he did not glare, for John Barclay +had grown tame during the night, almost docile, one would say. But he +did not answer at first, and Watts McHurdie, bending over his work, +chuckled out: "Ten miles from Springfield, madam--ten miles from +Springfield." And then John sloughed off thirty years and laughed. And +the general laughed, and the colonel smiled, and Jake Dolan took John +Barclay's hand from the colonel, and said:-- + +"The court adjudges that the prisoner at the bar pay the assembled +company four of those cigars in his inside pocket, and stand committed +until the same is paid." + +And then there was a scratching of matches, and a puffing, and Barclay +spoke: "I knew there was one place on earth where I was welcome. The +mill is swarming with reporters, and I thought I'd slip away. They'll +not find me here." The parliament smoked in silence, and again Barclay +said, "Well, gentlemen, it's pretty tough--pretty tough to work all +your life to build up an industry and in the end--get this." + +"Well, John," said the general, as he rolled up his newspaper and put +it away, "I'm sorry--just as sorry as Mart is; not so much for the +indictment, that is all part of the inevitable consequence of your +creed; if it hadn't been the indictment, it would have been something +else, equally sad--don't you see, John?" + +"Oh, I know what you think, General," retorted Barclay, bitterly. "I +know your idea; you think it's retribution." + +"Not exactly that either, John--just the other side of the equation. +You have reaped what you sowed, and I am sorry for what you sowed. God +gave you ten talents, John Barclay--ten fine talents, my boy, and you +wrapped them in a napkin and buried them in the ground, buried them in +greed and cunning and love of power, and you are reaping envy and +malice and cruelty. You were efficient, John; oh, if I had been as +efficient as you, how much I could have done for this world--how +much--how much!" he mused wistfully. + +Barclay did not reply, but his face was hard, and his neck was stiff, +and he was not moved. He was still the implacable Mr. Barclay, the +rich Mr. Barclay, and he would have no patronage from old Phil +Ward--Phil Ward the crank, who was a nation's joke. Ting-a-ling went +the bell over Watts McHurdie's head, and the little man climbed down +from his bench and hurried into the shop. But instead of a customer, +Mr. J. K. Mercheson, J. K. Mercheson representing Barber, Hancock, and +Kohn,--yes, the whip trust; that's what they call it, but it is +really an industrial organization of the trade,--Mr. J. K. Mercheson +of New York came in. No, McHurdie did not need anything at present, +and he backed into the shop. He had all of the goods in that line that +he could carry just now; and he sidled toward his seat. The members of +the parliament effaced themselves, as loafers do in every busy place +when business comes up; the colonel got behind his paper, Barclay hid +back of the stove, Dolan examined a bit of harness, and the general +busied himself picking up the litter on the floor, and folding the +papers with the pictures of Barclay inside so that he would not be +annoyed by them. But Mr. Mercheson knew how to get orders; he knew +that the thing to do is to stay with the trade. + +So he leaned against the work bench and began:-- + +"This is a great town, Mr. McHurdie; we're always hearing from +Sycamore Ridge. When I'm in the East they say, 'What kind of a town is +that Sycamore Ridge where Watts McHurdie and your noted reformer, +Robert Hendricks, who was offered a place in the cabinet, and this man +John Barclay live?'" + +Mr. Mercheson paused for effect. Mr. McHurdie smiled and went on with +his work. + +"Say," said Mr. Mercheson, "your man Barclay is in all the papers this +morning. I was in the smoker of the sleeper last evening coming out of +Chicago, and we got to talking about him--and Lord, how the fellows +did roast him." + +"They did?" asked Barclay, from his chair behind the stove. + +"Sure," replied Mr. Mercheson; "roasted him good and brown. There +wasn't a man in the smoker but me to stand up for him." + +"So you stood up for the old scoundrel, did you?" asked Barclay. + +"Sure," answered the travelling man. "Anything to get up an argument, +you know," he went on, beginning to see which way sentiment lay in the +shop. "I've been around town this morning, and I find the people here +don't approve of him for a minute, any more than they did on the +train." + +"What do they say?" asked Barclay, braiding a four-strand whip, and +finding that his cunning of nearly fifty years had not left his +fingers. + +"Oh, it isn't so much what they say--but you can tell, don't you +know; it's what they don't say; they don't defend him. I guess they +like him personally, but they know he's a thief; that's the +idea--they simply can't defend him and they don't try. The government +has got him dead to rights. Say," he went on, "just to be arguing, you +know last evening I took a poll of the train--the limited--the +Golden State Limited--swell train, swell crowd--all rich old +roosters; and honest, do you know that out of one hundred and +twenty-three votes polled only four were for him, and three of those +were girls who said they knew his daughter at the state university, +and had visited at his house. Wasn't that funny?" + +Barclay laughed grimly, and answered, "Well, it was pretty funny +considering that I'm John Barclay." + +The suspense of the group in the shop was broken, and they laughed, +too. + +"Oh, hell," said Mr. Mercheson, "come off!" Then he turned to McHurdie +and tried to talk trade to him. But Watts was obdurate, and the man +soon left the shop, eying Barclay closely. He stood in the door and +said, as he went out of the store, "Well, you do look some like his +pictures, Mister." + +There was a silence when the stranger went, and Barclay, whose face +had grown red, cried, "Damn 'em--damn 'em all--kick a man when he is +down!" + +Again the bell tinkled, and McHurdie went into the shop. Evidently a +customer was looking at a horse collar, for through the glass door +they could see Watts' hook go up to the ceiling and bring one down. + +"John," said the colonel, when Barclay had spoken, "John, don't mind +it. Look at me, John--look at me! They had to put me in jail, you +know; but every one seems to have forgotten it but me--and I am a dog +that I don't." + +John Barclay looked at the old, broken man, discarded from the +playing-cards of life, with the hurt, surprised look always in his +eyes, and it was with an effort that the suave Mr. Barclay kept the +choke in his throat out of his voice as he replied:-- + +"Yes, Colonel, yes, I know I have no right to kick against the +pricks." + +Watts was saying: "Yes, he's in there now--with the boys; you better +go in and cheer him up." + +And then at the upper right-hand entrance entered Gabriel Carnine, +president of the State Bank, unctuous as a bishop. He ignored the +others, and walking to Barclay, put out his hand. "Well, well, John, +glad to see you; just came up from the mill--I was looking for you. +Couldn't find Neal, either. Where is he?" + +The general answered curtly, "Neal is in Chicago, working on the +_Record-Herald_." + +"Oh," returned Carnine, and did not pursue the subject further. "Well, +gentlemen," he said, "fine winter weather we're having." + +"Is that so?" chipped in Dolan. "Mr. Barclay was finding it a little +mite warm." + +Carnine ignored Dolan, and Barclay grinned. "Well, John," Carnine +hesitated, "I was just down to see you--on a little matter of +business." + +"Delighted, sir, delighted," exclaimed Dolan, as he rose to go; "we +were going, anyway--weren't we, General?" The veterans rose, and +Colonel Culpepper said as he went, "I told Molly to call for me here +about noon with the buggy--if she comes, tell her to wait." + +All of life may not be put on the stage, and this scene has to be cut; +for it was at the end of half an hour's aimless, footless, foolish +talk that Gabriel Carnine came to the business in hand. Round and +round the bush he beat the devil, before he hit him a whack. Then he +said, as if it had just occurred to him, "We were wondering--some of +the directors--this morning, if under the circumstances--oh, say +just for the coming six months or such a matter--it might not be wise +to reorganize our board; freshen it up, don't you know; kind of get +some new names on it, and drop the old ones--not permanently, but +just to give the other stockholders a show on the board." + +"So you want me to get off, do you?" blurted Barclay. "You're afraid +of my name--now?" + +The screams of Mr. Carnine, the protesting screams of that oleaginous +gentleman, if they could have been vocalized in keeping with their +muffled, low-voiced, whispering earnestness, would have been loud +enough to be heard a mile away, but Barclay talked out:-- + +"All right, take my name off; and out comes my account. I don't care." + +And thereupon the agony of Mr. Carnine was unutterable. If he had been +a natural man, he would have howled in pain; as it was, he merely +purred. But Barclay's skin was thin that day, sensitive to every +touch, and he felt the rough hand of Carnine and winced. He let the +old man whine and pur and stroke his beard awhile, and then Barclay +said wearily, "All right, just as you please, Gabe--I'll not move my +account. It's nothing to me." + +In another minute the feline foot of Mr. Carnine was pattering gently +toward the front door. Barclay sat looking at the stove, and Watts +went on working. Barclay sighed deeply once or twice, but McHurdie +paid no heed to him. Finally Barclay rose and went over to the bench. + +"Watts," cried Barclay, "what do you think about it--you, your own +self, what do you think way down in your heart?" + +Watts sewed a stitch or two without speaking, and then put down his +thread and put up his glasses and said, "That's fairly spoken, John +Barclay, and will have a fair answer." + +The old man paused; Barclay cried impatiently, "Oh, well, Watts, don't +be afraid--nothing can hurt me much now!" + +"I was just a-thinking, lad," said Watts, gently, "just a-thinking." + +"What?" cried Barclay. + +"Just a-thinking," returned the old man, as he put his hand on the +younger man's shoulder, "what a fine poet you spoiled in your life, +just to get the chance to go to jail. But the Lord knows His business, +I suppose!" he added with a twinkle in his eye, "and if He thinks a +poet more or less in jail would help more than one out--it is all for +the best, John, all for the best. But, my boy," he cried earnestly, +"if you'll be going to jail, don't whine, lad. Go to jail like a +gentleman, John Barclay, go to jail like a gentleman, and serve your +Lord there like a man." + +"Damn cheerful you are, Watts," returned Barclay. "What a lot of Job's +comforters you fellows have been this morning." He went on half +bitterly and half jokingly: "Beginning with the general, continuing +with your travelling salesman friend, and following up with Gabe, who +wants me to get off the board of directors of his bank for the moral +effect of it, and coming on down to you who bid me Godspeed to +jail--I have had a--a--a rather gorgeous morning." + +The door-bell tinkled, and a woman's voice called, "Father, father!" + +"Yes, Molly," the harness maker answered; "he'll be here pretty soon. +He said for you to wait." + +"Come in, for heaven's sake, Molly," cried Barclay, "come back here +and cheer me up." + +"Oh, all right--it's you, John? What are you doing back here? I'm so +glad to find you. I've just got the dearest letter from Jane. We won't +talk business or anything--you know how I feel, and how sorry I +am--so just let's read Jane's letter; it has something in it to cheer +you. She said she was going to write it to you the next day--but I'll +read it to you." And so Mrs. Brownwell took from her pocketbook the +crumpled letter and unfolded it. "It's so like Jane--just good hard +sense clear through." She turned the pages hastily, and finally the +fluttering of the sheets stopped. "Oh, yes," she said, "here's the +place--the rest she's told you. Let me see--Oh: 'And, Molly, what do +you think?--there's a duke after Jeanette--a miserable, little, +dried-up, burned-out, poverty-stricken Italian duke. And oh, how much +good it did us both to cut him, and let him know how ill-bred we +considered him, how altogether beneath any wholesome honest girl we +thought such a fellow.' And now, John, isn't this like Jane?" +interposed Mrs. Brownwell. "Listen; she says, 'Molly, do you know, I +am so happy about Jeanette and Neal. We run such an awful risk with +this money--such a horrible risk of unhappiness and misery for the +poor child--heaven knows she would be so much happier without it. And +to think, dear, that she has found the one in the world for her, in +the sweet simple way that a girl should always find him, and that the +money--the menacing thing that hangs like a shadow over her--cannot +by any possibility spoil her life! It makes me happy all the day, and +I go singing through life with joy at the thought that the money won't +hurt Jennie--that it can't take from her the joy that comes from +living with her lover all her life, as I have lived.' Isn't that fine, +John?" asked Mrs. Brownwell, and looking up, she saw John Barclay, +white-faced, with trembling jaw, staring in pain at the stove. Watts +had gone into the store to wait on a customer, and the woman, seeing +the man's anguish, came to him and said: "Why, John, what is it? How +have I hurt you?--I thought this would cheer you so." + +The man rose heavily. His colour was coming back. "Oh, God--God," he +cried, "I needed that to-day--I needed that." + +The woman looked at him, puzzled and nonplussed. "Why--why--why?" +she stammered. + +"Oh, nothing," he smiled back at her bitterly, "except--" and his jaw +hardened as he snapped--"except that Neal Ward is a damned +informer--and I've sent him about his business, and Jeanette's got to +do the same." + +Mollie Brownwell looked at him with hard eyes for a moment, and then +asked, "What did Neal do?" + +"Well," replied Barclay, "under cross-examination, I'll admit without +incriminating myself that he gave the testimony which indicted me." + +"Was it that or lie, John?" He did not reply. A silence fell, and the +woman broke it with a cry: "Oh, John Barclay, John Barclay, must your +traffic in souls reach your own flesh and blood? Haven't you enough +without selling her into Egypt, too? Haven't you enough money now?" +And without waiting for answer, Molly Brownwell turned and left him +staring into nothing, with his jaw agape. + +It was noon and a band was playing up the street, and as he stood by +the stove in McHurdie's shop, he remembered vaguely that he had seen +banners flying and some "Welcome" arches across the street as he +walked through the town that morning. He realized that some lodge or +conclave or assembly was gathering in the town, and that the band was +a part of its merriment. It was playing a gay tune and came nearer and +nearer. But as he stood leaning upon his chair, with his heart +quivering and raw from its punishment, he did not notice that the band +had stopped in front of the harness shop. His mind went back wearily +to the old days, fifty years before, when as a toddling child in +dresses he used to play on that very scrap-heap outside the back door, +picking up bits of leather, and in his boyhood days, playing pranks +upon the little harness maker, and braiding his whips for the town +herd. Then he remembered the verses Watts had written about Bob +Hendricks and him in that very room, and the music he and Watts had +played together there. The old song Watts had made in his presence in +the hospital at St. Louis came back to his mind. Did it come because +outside the band had halted and was playing that old song to serenade +Watts McHurdie? Or did it come because John Barclay was wondering if, +had he made a poet of himself, or a man of spiritual and not of +material power, it would have been better for him? + +Heaven knows why the old tune came into his head. But when he +recognized that they were serenading the little harness maker, and +that so far as they thought of John Barclay and his power and his +achievements, it was with scorn, he had a flash of insight into his +relations with the world that illumined his soul for a moment and then +died away. The great Mr. Barclay, alone, sitting in the dingy little +harness shop, can hear the band strike up the old familiar tune again, +and hear the crowd cheer and roar its applause at the little harness +maker, who stands shamefaced and abashed, coatless and aproned, before +the crowd. And he is only a poet--hardly a poet, would be a better +way to say it; an exceedingly bad poet who makes bad rhymes, and +thinks trite thoughts, and says silly and often rather stupid things, +but who once had his say, and for that one hour of glorious liberty of +the soul has moved millions of hearts to love him. John Barclay does +not envy Watts McHurdie--not at all; for Barclay, with all his +faults, is not narrow-gauged; he does not wish they would call for +him--not to-day--not at all; he could not face them now, even if +they cheered him. He says in his heart of pride, beneath his stiff +neck, that it is all right; that Watts,--poor little church-mouse of +a Watts, whom he could buy five times over with the money that has +dropped into the Barclay till since he entered the shop--that Watts +should have his due; but only--only--only--that is it--only, but +only--! + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +And now as we go out into the busy world, after this act in the +dawning of John Barclay's life, let the court convene, and the +reporters gather, and the honourable special counsel for the +government rage, and the defendant sit nervous and fidgety as the +honourable counsel reads the indictment; let the counsel for the +defendant swell and strut with indignation that such indignities +should be put upon honest men and useful citizens, and let the court +frown, and ponder and consider; for that is what courts are for, but +what do we care for it all? We have left it all behind, with the +ragged programmes in the seats. So if the honourable court, in the +person of the more or less honourable Elijah Westlake Bemis, after the +fashion of federal judges desiring to do a questionable thing, calls +in a judge from a neighbouring court--what do we care? And if the +judge of the neighbouring court, after much legal hemming and judicial +hawing, decides in his great wisdom--that the said defendant Barclay +has been charged in the indictment with no crime, and instructs the +jury to find a verdict of not guilty for said defendant John Barclay, +upon the mere reading of the indictment,--what are the odds? What do +we care if the men in the packed courtroom hiss and the reporters put +down the hisses in their note-books and editors write the hisses in +headlines, and presses print the hisses all over the world? For the +fidgety little man is free now--entirely free save for fifty-four +years of selfish life upon his shoulders. + +In the trial of nearly every cause it becomes necessary at some point +in the proceedings to halt the narrative and introduce certain +exhibits, records, and documents, upon which foregone evidence has +been based, and to which coming testimony may properly be attached. +That point has been reached in the case now before the reader. And as +"Exhibit A" let us submit a letter written by John Barclay, January +seventh, nineteen hundred and four, to Jane, his wife, at Naples. + + "As I cabled you this afternoon, the case resulted exactly as I said + it would the day after the indictment. I had not seen or talked with + Lige since that day I talked with him over the telephone, before the + indictment was made public, but I knew Lige well enough to know how + he would act under fire. I had him out to dinner this evening, and + we talked over old times, and he tells me he wants to retire from + the bench. Jane, Lige has been my mainstay ever since this company + was organized. Sometimes I feel that without his help in + politics--looking to see that pernicious legislation was killed, and + that the right men were elected to administrative offices, and + appointed to certain judicial places--we never would have been able + to get the company to its present high standing. I feel that he has + been so valuable to us that we should settle a sum on him that will + make him a rich man as men go in the Ridge. Heaven knows that is + little enough, considering all that he has done. He may have his + faults, Jane, but he has been loyal to me. + + "I hope, my dear, that Jeanette has ceased to worry about the other + matter; he is not worth her tears. Don't come home for a month or + two yet. The same conditions prevail that I spoke of in my first + cable the day of the indictment. The press and the public are + perfectly crazy. America is one great howling mob, and it would make + you and Jennie unhappy. As for me, I don't mind it. You know me." + +And that the reader may know how truthful John Barclay is, let us +append herewith a letter written by Mrs. Mary Barclay, of Sycamore +Ridge, to her granddaughter at Naples, January 15, 1904. She writes +among other things:-- + + "Well, dear, it is a week now since your father's case was settled, + and he was at home for the first time last night. I expected that + his victory--such as it was--would cheer him up, but some way he + seems worse in the dumps than he was before. He does not sleep well, + and is getting too nervous for a man of his age. I have the + impression that he is forever battling with something. Of course the + public temper is bitter, dearie. You are a woman now, and should not + be shielded and pampered with lies, so I am going to tell you the + truth. The indignation of the people of this nation at your father, + as he represents present business methods, is past belief. And + frankly, dearie, I can't blame them. Your father and my son is a + brave, sweet, loving man; none could be finer in this world, Jennie. + But the head of the National Provisions Company is another person, + dear; and of him I do not approve, as you know so well. I am sending + you Neal Ward's statement which was published by the government the + day after the case was dismissed. I have not sent it to you before, + because I wanted to ask your father if it was true. Jennie, he + admits that Neal told the truth, and nothing but the truth--and did + not make it as bad as it was. You are entitled to the facts. You are + a grown woman now, dear, and must make your own decisions. But oh, + my dear little girl, I am heartsick to see your father breaking as + he is. He seems to be fighting--fighting--fighting all the time; + perhaps it is against the flames of public wrath, but some way I + think he is fighting something inside himself--fighting it back; + fighting it down--whatever it is." + +Counsel also begs indulgence while he introduces and reads two +clippings from the Sycamore Ridge _Daily Banner_, of February 12, +1904. The first one reads:-- + + "Judge Bemis Retires + + "Hon. E. W. Bemis has retired from the federal bench, and rumour has + it that he is soon to return with his estimable wife to our midst. + Our people will welcome the judge and Mrs. Bemis with open arms. He + retires from an honourable career, to pass his declining years in + the peace and quiet of the town in which he began his career over + fifty years ago. For as every one knows, he came West as a boy, and + before having been admitted to the bar dealt largely in horses and + cattle. He has always been a good business man, having with his + legal acumen the acquisitive faculty, and now he is looking for some + place to invest a modest competence here in the Ridge, and rumour + has it again that he is negotiating for the purchase of the Sycamore + Ridge Waterworks bonds, which are now in litigation. If so, he will + make an admirable head of that popular institution." + +In this connection, and before introducing the other clipping from the +_Banner_, it would be entirely proper to introduce the manuscript for +the above, in the typewriting of the stenographer of Judge Bemis's +court, and a check for fifty dollars payable to Adrian Brownwell, +signed by Judge Bemis aforesaid; but those documents would only clog +the narrative and would not materially strengthen the case, so they +will be thrown out. + +The second clipping, found in the personal column of the _Banner_ of +the date referred to, February 12, 1904, follows:-- + + "Mrs. John Barclay and Miss Barclay are on the steamer _Etruria_ + which was sighted off Fire Island to-day. They will spend a few + weeks in New York, and early in March Miss Barclay will enter the + state university to do some post-graduate work in English, and Mrs. + Barclay will return to Sycamore Ridge. Mr. Barclay will meet them at + the pier, and they expect to spend the coming two weeks attending + German opera. Mrs. Mary Barclay left to-day for the East to join + them. She will remain a month visiting relatives near Haverhill, + Mass." + +It becomes necessary to append some letters of Miss Jeanette +Barclay's, and they are set down here in the order in which they were +written, though the first one takes the reader back a few weeks to +December 5, 1903. It was posted at Rome, and in the body of it are +found these words:-- + + "My dear, I know you will smile when you hear I have been reading + all the Italian scientific books I can find, dealing with the human + brain--partly to help my Italian, but chiefly, I think, to see if I + can find and formulate some sort of a definition for love. It is so + much a part of my soul, dear heart, that I would like to know more + about it. And I am going to write down for you what I think it is as + we know it. I have been wearing your ring nearly three years, Neal, + and if you had only known it, I would have been happy to have taken + it a year sooner. In those four years I have grown from a girl to a + woman, and you have become a man full grown. In that time all my + thoughts have centred on you. In all my schoolbooks your face comes + back to me as I open them in fancy. As I think of the old room at + school, of my walk up the hill, as I think of home and my room + there, some thought of you is always between me and the picture. All + through my physical brain are little fibres running to every centre + that bring up images of you. You are woven into my life, and I know + in my heart that I am woven into your life. The thing is done; it is + as much apart of my being as my blood--those million fibres of my + brain that from every part of my consciousness bring thoughts of + you. We cannot be separated now, darling--we are united for life, + whether we unite in life or not. I am yours and you are mine. It is + now as inexorable as anything we call material. More than that--you + have made my soul. All the aspirations of my spiritual life go to + you for beginning and for being as truly as the fibres of my brain + thrill to the sound of your name or the mental image of your face. + My soul is your soul, because in the making the thought of you was + uppermost. I know that my love for you is immortal, ineffaceable, + and though I should live a hundred years, that love would still be + as much a part of my life as my hands or my eyes or my body. And the + best of it all is that I am so glad it is so. Divorce is as + impossible with a love like that as amputation of the brain. It is + big and vital in me, real and certain, and so long as I live on + earth, or dwell in eternity, my soul and your soul are knit + together." + +Three weeks later, on December 28, 1903, Miss Barclay wrote to Mr. +Ward as follows:-- + + "Your letter and father's letter were on my desk when we returned + from our cruise. I have just finished writing to him, and I herewith + return your ring and your pin." + +There was neither signature nor superscription--just those words. And +a month later, Miss Barclay wrote this letter to her Grandmother +Barclay in Sycamore Ridge:-- + + "MY DEAR, DEAR GRANNY: I have told mother what you wrote of father, + and we are coming home just as soon as we can get a steamer. We are + cabling him to-day, and hope to sail within a week or ten days at + the very farthest. But I cannot wait until I see you, dear, to come + close into your heart. And first of all I want you to know that I + share your views about the heart-break of all this money and the + miserable man-killing way it is being piled up. I know the two men + you speak of--father and the president of the N.P.C. But he is my + father, and I must stand by him, and brace him if I can. But, oh, + Granny, I don't want the old money! It has never made me + happy--never for one minute. The only happiness I have ever had was + when he was at home with us all, away from business--and--but you + know about that other happiness, and it hurts to speak of it now. I + have not read what you sent me. I can't. But I will keep it. That it + is true doesn't help me any. Nothing can help me. It is just one of + those awful things that I have read of coming to people, but which I + thought never could possibly come to me. Oh, Granny, Granny, you who + pray so much for others, now pray for me. Granny, you can't cut + something out of you--right out of the heart of you, by merely + saying so; it keeps growing back; it hurts, and hurts, and keeps + hurting; even if you know it is cut out and thrown away. They say + that men who have had legs cut off can feel them for months and even + years if they are cramped when they are buried. The nerves of the + old dead body reach through space and hurt. It is that way with me. + The old dead thing in my heart that is buried and gone keeps + cramping and hurting. You are the only one I can come to, Granny. It + hurts mother too much, and she is not strong this winter. I think it + is worry. She is growing thin, and her heart doesn't act right. I am + terribly worried about her; but she made me promise to say nothing + to father, and you must not, either; for he will see for himself + soon." + +A few letters from Neal Ward to Jeanette Barclay, and a document some +twenty years old, which the reader may have forgotten, but which one +person connected with this narrative has feared would come to light +every day in that time--and then this tedious business of introducing +documentary evidence will be over. The letter from Neal Ward to +Jeanette Barclay is one of hundreds that he wrote and never mailed. +They were dated, sealed, addressed, and put away. This one was written +at midnight as the bells and whistles and pistols and fireworks were +welcoming the year 1904. It begins:-- + + "MY VERY DEAREST: Here I am sitting at the old desk again, in the + old office of the _Banner_. I could only scribble you a little note + on the train last night to tell you that my heart still was with + you, and I did not have the time to explain why I was coming. It is + a dead secret, little woman, and perhaps I shouldn't tell even you, + but I feel that I must bring everything to you. Bob Hendricks wired + me to come down. He has a mortgage on the _Banner_, and he feels + that things are not being properly managed, so he persuaded Mr. + Brownwell to give me a place as sort of manager of the paper at + twenty dollars a week--a sum that seems princely considering that I + was making only eighteen dollars in Chicago, and that it costs so + much less to live here. Hendricks guarantees my wages, so that + Adrian cannot stand me off. Hendricks has another motive for wanting + me to come here. The waterworks franchise will come up for renewal + June first of this year, and Mr. Hendricks is for municipal + ownership. Carnine and the State Bank are against municipal + ownership, because the water company does business with them, and as + they control the _Index_, they are preparing to make a warm fight + for the renewal of the old franchise. So there will be a hot time in + the old town this spring. But the miserable part of it is this. The + growth of the town has made it dangerous to use the present supply + station. The water must not come out of the mill-pond any longer, as + the town is tilted so that all the surface drainage goes into it, + and the sewers that drain into it, while they drain a few hundred + yards below the intake of the waterworks, cannot help tainting the + whole pond. Mr. Hendricks has had an expert here who declared that + both the typhoid and diphtheria epidemics here last fall were due + directly to the water supply, and Mr. Hendricks is going to make the + fight of his life to have the city buy the waterworks plant, and + move the intake six miles above town, where there is plenty of clean + water. Of course it will mean first a city election to get decent + councilmen, and then a bond election to vote money to buy the old + plant; the waterworks company are going to move heaven and earth to + get an anti-Hendricks council elected and to renew the franchise and + let things go as they are. So that is why I am here, dear heart, and + oh, my darling, you do not know how painful it all seems to be here + and not have you--I mean--you know what I mean. All my associations + with the work here in the office and on the street are with my heart + close to yours. Everything in the old town tells me of you. 'Saint + Andrews by the Northern sea, a haunted city is to me.' To-night I + hear the music of the New Year's dance, and I can shut my eyes and + feel you with me there. Oh, sweetheart, I have kept you so close, by + writing to you every night. I come and lay my heart and all its + thoughts at your shrine, and put all my day's work before you for + your approval, just as I used to do. It is so sweet a privilege. + + "Last night I dreamed about you. It was so real and your voice + sounded so clearly, crying to me, that you have been with me all + day. I wonder if while we sleep, we whose souls would struggle to + meet through eternity, if through the walls of space they may not + find each other, and speak to each other through our dreams. It is + midnight here now, and you are just waking, perhaps, or just + sleeping that sleep of early morning wherein the soul sinks to + unknown depths. Oh--oh--oh, if I could but speak to you there, my + dear! I am going to sit here and close my eyes and try." + +The next letter in the exhibit was written six weeks later and is +dated February 12, 1904. It says in part:-- + + "I must tell you what a bully fellow Bob Hendricks is. Judge Bemis + sent a highly laudatory article about himself to the office to-day + with a check for fifty dollars. In the article it develops that he + is going to retire from the federal bench and come down here and buy + the waterworks plant--on the theory that he will get a bargain + because of the expiring franchise and the prospective fight. That + fifty dollars looked as big as a barn to poor Adrian, so he trotted + off with the letter and the check to Hendricks. Of course, the + letter and the check together, just framed and put in the bank + window, would make great sport of the judge; but Bob is a + thoroughbred, and probably Bemis knows it, and figures on that in + his dealings with him. I was in the bank when Adrian came in with + the letter. He showed the check and the article to Hendricks, and + you could almost see Adrian wag his tail and hear him whine to keep + the check; Bob looked at the poor fellow's wistful eyes and handed + it back with a quizzical little smile and said, 'Oh, I guess I'd run + it; it can't hurt anything.' The light that came into Adrian's eyes + was positively beatific, and he shook Bob by the hand, and twirled + his cane, and waved his gloves in a sort of canine ecstasy, and + trotted to the cashier's window with the check like a dog with a + bone. It is the largest piece of real money he has had in six + months, the boys say, and he has spent it for clothes. To-morrow he + will hurry off to the first convention in the city like a comet two + centuries behind time. But that is beside the point; the thing I + don't like is the coming of Bemis. I know him; the things I have + seen him do in your father's business and when he was on the bench, + make me shudder for decent politics in this town. He is shrewd, + unscrupulous, and without any restraint on earth. + + "I feel closer to you than I have felt since I put the barrier + between us. For you are in this country to-night--I could go to the + telephone there five feet away and reach you if I would. I looked + to-day in the papers and saw that they would be giving Lohengrin at + the Metropolitan Opera House, and knowing your father as I do, I + think he will take you there. I can hear the music rising and see + you drinking in the harmony, and as it swells into exquisite pain, + and thrills through the holy places of your soul where are old + memories of our love, sweetheart, maybe your spirit will go forth in + God's strange universe where we all dwell neighbours, loosed from + those material chains that bind our bodies, and will seek the heart + that is searching for you out there in the highway of heaven. I seem + to feel you now, dear soul--did the music fling your spirit free for + a second till it touched my own? I am so happy, Jeanette--even to + love you and to know that you have loved me, and must always love me + while you are you and I am I." + +And now let us consider the final exhibit. It will be necessary to +turn back the action of this story a month and a half and sit with +John Barclay and his friend, former federal judge Elijah Westlake +Bemis, before the fire in the wide fireplace in the Barclay home, one +cold January night, a week after Barclay had gone free from the court +and the world had hissed him. They were talking of the judge's +business future, and the judge was saying:-- + +"John, how did Bob Hendricks ever straighten out that affair in the +treasurer's office in connection with the first year's taxes of the +old Wheat Company? What did he do with it finally?" + +Barclay looked at the fire and then turned his searchlight eyes into +Bemis's. There was not a quiver. The man sat there without a muscle of +his parchment face moving. His eyes were squinted up, looking at the +tip of his long cigar. + +"Why?" asked Barclay. + +"Well," responded Bemis, impassive as an ox, "it would help me in my +business to know. Tell me." + +He spoke the last two words as one in authority. + +"Well," answered Barclay, "one day back in the seventies, I was +appointed to check up the treasurer's book, and I found where he had +fixed it on the county books--apparently between two administrations. +I recognized his hand; and it made the balance for the first time." + +Bemis smoked awhile. "What time in the seventies?" he asked. + +There was a pause. "In January, 1879." + +Bemis grinned a wicked, mean little grin and said: "That settles it. I +believe I am safe in buying the waterworks." + +"What are you going to do to Bob?" Barclay asked. + +"Nothing, nothing--absolutely nothing, if he has any sense and drops +this municipal ownership tommyrot. Absolutely nothing." + +Again the grin came over his face, and at the end of a pause Barclay +said:-- + +"Well, if not, what then?" + +Bemis shut his eyes and crossed his gaunt legs, and began: "Think back +twenty years ago--more or less. Do you remember when I brought your +car down here for Watts McHurdie and his crowd to go to Washington in, +to the G.A.R. celebration? All right; do you remember that I came to +the office and told you I saw Bob Hendricks waiting for some one at +the Union Station, when the train got into the city that morning?" + +"Yes," said Barclay, "you were so mysterious and funny about it, I +remember." + +"Well," said Bemis, as he got up and poked a log that was annoying him +in the fireplace, "well, I have a little document in my desk at home, +that I got the night before in the Ridge, which will convince Bobbie, +if he has any sense, that this municipal ownership business isn't all +it's cracked up to be." + +Barclay, who knew from Jane something of the truth, guessed the rest, +but he did not question Bemis further. "Oh, I don't know, Lige," he +began; "it seems to me I wouldn't drag that into it." + +Bemis turned his old face, full of malicious passion, toward Barclay +and cried, "Maybe you wouldn't, John Barclay--you forget things; but +I never do; and you're a coward sometimes, and I am not." + +The blaze of his wrath went out in a moment, and Barclay's mind went +back to that afternoon in the seventies when Hendricks picked Bemis up +and threw him bodily from the county convention and branded him as a +boodler. Barclay knew argument was useless. So he said nothing. + +"He has the county officers--every man-jack of them from the +treasurer to Jake Dolan, the janitor--and I couldn't get hold of that +book by fair means without his knowing it. But I am going to have that +book, John--I'm going to have that book." + +Barclay followed Bemis's mental processes, as if they were his own. +"Well--what if he does know it?" asked Barclay. + +"Oh, if he knew I was after the book, he'd fix me,--have it destroyed +or something; he could do lots of things or beat me some way. I've got +to get that book--get it out of the court-house--and there's just +one way to get into the court-house, without using the doors and the +windows." When Bemis had finished speaking, he gazed steadily into +Barclay's eyes. And Bemis saw the fear that was in Barclay's face. +"Yes, I know a way into the court-house, John--it's mine by fifty +years' right of discovery. I'm going to have that book, and get an +expert opinion as to the similarity of the handwriting in the book and +the handwriting of my own little document. My own little document," he +mused, licking his chops like a hound at the prospect. + +Now we will call that little document "Exhibit I" in the case of the +Larger Good _vs._ The People, and close thereby a long and tedious +chapter. But we will begin another chapter in which the wheels of +events spin rapidly in their courses toward that moral equilibrium +that deeds must find before they stop when they are started for the +Larger Good. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +The spring of 1904 in Sycamore Ridge opened in turmoil. The turmoil +came from the contest over the purchase of the town's water system. +Robert Hendricks as president of the Citizens' League was leading the +forces that advocated the purchase of the system by the town, as being +the only sure way to change the water supply from the polluted +mill-pond to a clean source. Six months before he had leased every +bill-board in town, and for the two months preceding the city election +that was to decide the question of municipal purchase he had hired +every available hall in town, for every vacant night during those +months, and had bought half of the first page of both the _Banner_ and +the _Index_ for those months--and all of this long before the town +knew the fight was coming. He covered the bill-boards and the first +pages of the newspapers with analyses of the water in the +mill-pond--badly infected from the outlet of the town sewers and its +surface drainage. The Citizens' League filled the halls with speakers +demanding the purchase of the plant and the removal of the pumping +station to a place several miles above the town, and four beyond the +mill-pond. Judge Bemis, with the aid and abetment of John Barclay, who +was in the game to help his old friend, put up banners denouncing +Hendricks as a socialist, accusing him of being the town boss, and +charged through the columns of the _Index_ that Hendricks' real motive +in desiring to have the city take over the waterworks system was to +make money on the sale of the city's bonds. So Hendricks was the +centre of the fight. + +In the first engagement, a malicious contest, Hendricks lost. The town +refused to vote the bonds to buy the plant. But at the same election +the same people elected a city council overwhelmingly in favour of +municipal ownership and in favour of compelling the operating company +to move its plant from the mill-pond. The morning after the election +Hendricks began a lawsuit as a taxpayer and citizen to make the +waterworks company move its plant. The town could understand that +issue, and sentiment rallied to Hendricks again. Judge Bemis, at the +head of the company, although irritated, was not alarmed. For in the +courts he could promote delays, plead technicalities, and wear out his +adversary. It was an old game with him. Still, the suit disturbed the +value of his bonds, and having other resources, he gleefully decided +to use them. + +And thus it fell out that one fine day in April, Trixie Lee, from the +bedraggled outer hem of the social garment down by the banks of the +Sycamore, called to the telephone Robert Hendricks of the town's +purple and fine linen, who dwelt on the hill. He did not recognize her +voice, the first time she called. But shrewd as Judge Bemis was, and +bad as he was, he did not know it all. He did not know that when +Hendricks had received the first anonymous letter three days before, +he had instructed the girls in the telephone office, which he +controlled, to make a record of every telephone call for his office or +his house, and when the woman's voice on the telephone that day +delivered Judge Bemis's message, the moment after she quit talking he +knew with whom he had been talking. + +"Is this Mr. Hendricks?" the voice had begun, rather pleasantly. Yes, +it was Mr. Hendricks. "Well, I am your friend, but I don't dare to let +you know my name now; it would be all my life is worth." And Robert +Hendricks grinned pleasantly into the rubber transmitter as he +realized that his trap would work. "Yes, Mr. Hendricks, I am your +friend, and you have a powerful enemy." What with the insinuations in +the _Index_ and the venom that Lige Bemis had been putting into +anonymous circulars during the preliminary waterworks campaign, this +was no news to Mr. Hendricks; so he let the voice go on, "They want +you to dismiss that suit against the waterworks company that you +brought last week." There was a pause for a reply; but none came; then +the voice said, "Are you there, Mr. Hendricks--do you hear me?" And +Mr. Hendricks said that he heard perfectly. "And," went on the voice, +"as your friend I wish you would, too. Do you remember a letter you +once wrote to a woman, asking her to elope with you--a married woman, +Mr. Hendricks?" There was a pause for a reply, and again the voice +asked, "Do you hear, Mr. Hendricks?" and Mr. Hendricks heard; heard in +his soul and was afraid, but his voice did not quaver as he replied, +"Yes, I hear perfectly." Then the voice went on, "Well, they have that +letter--a little note--not over one hundred words, and with no date +on it, and the man who has it also has a photograph of page 234 of a +certain ledger in the county treasurer's office for 1879, and there is +an entry there in your handwriting, Mr. Hendricks; and he has had them +both enlarged to show that the handwriting of the note and of the +county book are the same; isn't that mean, Mr. Hendricks?" Hendricks +coughed into the transmitter, and she knew that he was there, so she +continued: "As your friend in this matter, I have got them to promise +that if you will come to the Citizens' League meeting that you have +called for to-morrow night at Barclay Hall and tell the people that +you think we need harmony in the Ridge worse than we need this +everlasting row, if you will merely say to Mr. Barclay as you pass +into the meeting, 'Well, John, I believe I'll dismiss that suit,' you +can have your letter back. He hasn't got the letter, but he will be +sure to tell the news to a friend who has." Here the voice faltered, +and said unconsciously, "Wait a minute, I've lost my place; oh, here +it is; all right. And if you don't come to the meeting and say that, I +believe they are going to spring those documents on the meeting to put +you in bad odour." + +"Is that all?" asked Hendricks. + +"Well--" a pause and then finally--"yes," came the voice. + +"Well, my answer is no," said Hendricks, and while he was trying to +get central the voice called again and said:-- + +"Just one word more: if you still maintain your present decision, a +copy of that letter you wrote will be put into the hands of Mr. +Brownwell of the _Banner_ before the meeting; I tell you this to +protect you. He and Mrs. Brownwell and Mrs. Barclay will be in town +to-morrow evening on the Barclay car from the West on No. 6; you will +have until then to reconsider your decision; after that you act at +your own risk." + +Again the voice ceased, and Hendricks learned from central who had +been talking with him. It was after banking hours, and he sat for a +time looking the situation squarely in the face. The reckoning had +come. He had answered "no" with much bravery over the telephone--but +in his heart a question began to rise, and his decision was clouded. + +Hendricks walked alone under the stars that night, and as he walked he +turned the situation over and over as one who examines a strange +puzzle. He saw that his "no" could not be his own "no." Molly must be +partner in it. For to continue his fight for clean water he must risk +her good name. He measured Bemis, and remembered the old quarrel. The +hate in the face of the bribe-giver, thrown out of the county +convention a quarter of a century before, came to Hendricks, and he +knew that it was no vain threat he was facing. So he turned up the +other facet of the puzzle. There was Adrian. For an hour he considered +Adrian Brownwell, a vain jealous old man with the temper of a beast. +To see Molly, tell her of their common peril, get her decision, and be +with it at the meeting before Adrian saw the note, all in the two +hours between the arrival of the train bearing the Brownwells and Mrs. +Barclay, and the time of the meeting in Barclay Hall, was part of +Hendricks' puzzle. He believed that by using the telephone to make an +appointment he could manage it. Then he turned the puzzle over and saw +that to save Molly Brownwell's good name and his father's, human lives +must be sacrificed by permitting the use of foul water in the town. +And in the end his mind set. He knew that unless she forbade it, the +contest must go on to a righteous finish, through whatever perils, +over any obstacles. Yet as he walked back to the bank, determined not +to take his hand from the plough, he saw that he must prepare to go +into the next day as though it were his last. For in his consciousness +on the other side of the puzzle--always there was the foolish Adrian, +impetuous at best, but stark mad in his jealousy and wrath. + +And Elijah Westlake Bemis, keeping account of the man's movements, +chuckled as he felt the struggle in the man's breast. For he was a +wise old snake, that Lige Bemis, and he had seduced many another man +after the brave impulsive "no" had roared in his face. Just before +midnight when he saw the electric light flash on in the private office +of the president of the Exchange National Bank, Lige Bemis, libertine +with men, strolled home and counted the battle won. "He's writing his +speech," he said to Barclay over the telephone at midnight. And John +Barclay, who had fought the local contest in the election with Bemis +to be loyal to a friend, and to help one who was in danger of losing +the profit on half a million dollars' investment in the Sycamore Ridge +waterworks, laughed as he walked upstairs in his pajamas, and said to +himself, "Old Lige is a great one--there is a lot of fight in the old +viper yet." It was nothing to Barclay that the town got its water from +a polluted pond. That phase of the case did not enter his +consciousness, though it was placarded on the bill-boards and had been +printed in the _Banner_ a thousand times during the campaign. To him +it was a fight by the demagogues against property interests, and he +was with property, even a little property--even a miserable little +dribble of property like half a million dollars' worth of waterworks +bonds. + +And Robert Hendricks--playfellow of John Barclay's boyhood, partner +of his youth--sat working throughout the night, a brave man, going +into battle without a tremor. He went through his books, made out +statements of his business relations, prepared directions for the +heads of his different concerns, as a man would do who might be going +on a long journey. For above everything, Robert Hendricks was +foresighted. He prepared for emergencies first, and tried to avoid +them afterwards. And with the thought of the smallness of this life in +his soul, he looked up from his work to see the hard gray lines of the +dawn in the street outside of his office, bringing the ugly details +from the shadows that hid them during the day, and he sighed as he +wondered in what bourne he should see the next dawn break. + +It was a busy day for Robert Hendricks, that next day, and through it +all his mind was planning every moment of the time how he could +protect Molly Brownwell. Did he work in the bank, behind his work his +mind was seeking some outlet from his prison. If he went over the +power-house at the electric plant, always he was looking among the +wheels for some way of refuge for Molly. When he spent an hour in the +office of the wholesale grocery house, he despatched a day's work, but +never for a second was his problem out of his head. He spent two hours +with his lawyers planning the suit against the water company, pointing +out new sources of evidence, and incidentally leaving a large check to +pay for the work. But through it all Molly Brownwell's good name was +ever before him, and when he thought how twenty years before he had +walked through another day planning, scheming, and contriving, all to +produce the climax of calamity that was hovering over her to-day, he +was sick and faint with horror and self-loathing. + +But as the day drew to its noon, Hendricks began to feel a persistent +detachment from the world about him. It floated across his +consciousness, like the shadow anchor of some cloud far above him. He +began to watch the world go by. He seemed not to be a part of it. He +became a spectator. At four o'clock he passed Dolan on the street and +said, absently, "I want you to-night at the bank at seven o'clock +sharp--don't forget, it's very important." + +As he walked down Main Street to the bank, the shadow anchor of the +cloud had ceased to flit across his consciousness. Life had grown all +gray and dull, and he was apart from the world. He saw the handbills +announcing the meeting that night as one who sees a curious passing +show; the men he met on the street he greeted as creatures from +another world. Yet he knew he smiled and spoke with them casually. But +it was not he who spoke; the real Robert Hendricks he knew was +separated from the pantomime about him. When he went into the bank at +five o'clock, the janitor was finishing his work. Hendricks called up +the depot on the telephone and found that No. 6 was an hour late. With +the realization that a full hour of his fighting time had been taken +from him and that the train would arrive only a scant hour before the +meeting, the Adrian face of his puzzle turned insistently toward +Hendricks. It was not fear but despair that seized him. The cloud was +over him. And for want of something to do he wrote. First he wrote +abstractedly and mechanically to John Barclay, then to Neal Ward--a +note for the _Banner_--and as the twilight deepened in the room, he +squared his chair to the table and wrote to Molly Brownwell; that +letter was the voice of his soul. That was real. Six o'clock struck. +Half-past six clanged on the town clock, and as Jake Dolan opened the +bank door, Hendricks heard the roar of the train crossing at the end +of Main Street. + +"There goes Johnnie's private car, switching on the tail of her," said +Dolan, standing in the doorway. + +Hendricks sent Dolan to a back room of the bank, and at seven-twenty +went to the telephone. "Give me 876, central," he called. +"Hello--hello--hello," he cried nervously, "hello--who is this?" +The answer came and he said, "Oh, I didn't recognize your voice." Then +he asked in a low tone, as one who had fear in his heart: "Do you +recognize me? If you do, don't speak my name. Where is Adrian?" Then +Mr. Dolan, listening in the next room, heard this: "You say Judge +Bemis phoned to him? Oh, he was to meet him at eight o'clock. How long +ago did he leave?" After a moment Hendricks' answer was: "Then he has +just gone; and will not be back?" Hendricks cut impatiently into +whatever answer came with: "Molly, I must see you within the next +fifteen minutes. I can't talk any more over the telephone, but I must +come up." "Yes," in a moment, "I must have your decision in a matter +of great importance to you--to you, Molly." There was a short +silence, then Dolan heard: "All right, I'll be there in ten minutes." +Then Hendricks turned from the telephone and called Dolan in. He +unlocked a drawer in his desk, and began speaking to Dolan, who stood +over him. Hendricks' voice was low, and he was repressing the +agitation in his heart by main strength. + +"Jake," he said, talking as rapidly as he could, "I must be ungodly +frank with you. It doesn't make any difference whether he is right or +not, but Adrian Brownwell may be fooled into thinking he has reason to +be jealous of me." Hendricks was biting his mustache. "He's a raging +maniac of jealousy, Jake, but I'm not afraid of him--not for myself. +I can get him before he gets me, if it comes to that, but to do it +I'll have to sacrifice Molly. And I won't do that. If it comes to her +good name or my life--she can have my life." They were outside now +and Dolan was unhitching the horse. He knew instinctively that he was +not to reply. In a moment Hendricks went on, "Well, there is just one +chance in a hundred that it may turn that way--her good name or my +life--and on that chance I've written some letters here." He reached +in his coat and said, "Now, Jake, put these letters in your pocket and +if anything goes wrong with me, deliver them to the persons whose +names are on the envelopes--and to no one else. I must trust +everything to you, Jake," he said. + +Driving up the hill, he met Bemis coming down town. He passed people +going to the meeting in Barclay Hall. He did not greet them, but drove +on. His jaw was set hard, and the muscles of his face were firm. As he +neared the Culpepper home he climbed from the buggy and hitched the +horse to the block in front of his own house. He hurried into the +Culpepper yard, past the lilac bushes heavy with blooms, and up the +broad stone steps with the white pillars looming above him. It was a +quarter to eight, and at that minute Bemis was saying to Adrian +Brownwell, "All right, if you don't believe it, don't take my word for +it, but go home right now and see what you find." + +Molly Brownwell met Hendricks on the threshold with trembling steps. +"Bob, what is it?" she asked. They stood in the shadow of the great +white pillars, where they had parted a generation ago. + +"It's this, Molly," answered Hendricks, as he put his hand to his +forehead that was throbbing with pain; "Lige Bemis has my letter to +you. Yes," he cried as she gasped, "the note--the very note, and to +get it I must quit the waterworks fight and go to the meeting to-night +and surrender. I had no right to decide that alone. It is our +question, Molly. We are bound by the old life--and we must take this +last stand together." + +The woman shrank from Hendricks with horror on her face, as he +personified her danger. She could not reply at once, but stood staring +at him in the dusk. As she stared, the feeling that she had seen it +all before in a dream came over her, and the premonition that some +awful thing was impending shook her to the marrow. + +"Molly, we have no time to spare," he urged. "I must answer Bemis in +ten minutes--I can do it by phone. But say what you think." + +"Why--why--why--Bob--let me think," she whispered, as one trying +to speak in a dream, and that also seemed familiar to her. "It's +typhoid for my poor who died like sheep last year," she cried, "or my +good name and yours, is it, Bob? Is it, Bob?" she repeated. + +He put his hand to his forehead again in the old way she remembered so +well--to temples that were covered with thin gray hair--and +answered, "Yes, Molly, that's our price." + +Those were the last words that she seemed to have heard before; after +that the dialogue was all new to her. She was silent a few agonized +seconds and then said, "I know what you think, Bob; you are for my +poor; you are brave." He did not answer, fearing to turn the balance. +As she sank into a porch chair a rustling breeze moved the lilac +plumes and brought their perfume to her. From down the avenue came the +whir of wheels and the hurrying click of a horse's hoofs. At length +she rose, and said tremulously: "I stand with you, Bob. May God make +the blow as light as He can." + +They did not notice that a buggy had drawn up on the asphalt in front +of the house. Hendricks put out his hand and cried, "Oh, +Molly--Molly--Molly--" and she took it in both of hers and pressed +it to her lips, and as Adrian Brownwell passed the lilac thicket in +the gathering darkness that is what he saw. Hendricks was halfway down +the veranda steps before he was aware that Brownwell was running up +the walk at them, pistol in hand, like one mad. Before the man could +fire, Hendricks was upon him, and had Brownwell's two hands gripped +tightly in one of his, holding them high in the air. The little man +struggled. + +"Don't scream--for God's sake, don't scream," cried Hendricks to the +woman in a suppressed voice. Then he commanded her harshly, "Go in the +house--quick--Molly--quick." + +She ran as though hypnotized by the force of the suggestion. Hendricks +had his free hand over Brownwell's mouth and around his neck. The +little old man was kicking and wriggling, but Hendricks held him. "Not +here, you fool, not here. Can't you see it would ruin her, you fool? +Not here." He carried and dragged Brownwell across the grass through +the shrubbery and into the Hendricks yard. No one was passing, and the +night had fallen. "Now," said Hendricks, as he backed against a pine +tree, still holding Brownwell, "I shall let you go if you'll promise +to listen to me just a minute until I tell you the whole truth. Molly +is innocent, man--absolutely innocent, and I'll show you if you'll +talk for a moment. Will you promise, man?" + +Brownwell nodded his assent; Hendricks looked at him steadily for a +second and then said, "All right," and set the little man on his feet. +The glare of madness came into Brownwell's eyes, and as he turned he +came at Hendricks with his pistol drawn. An instant later there was a +shot. Brownwell saw the amazement flash into Hendricks' eyes, and then +Hendricks sank gently to the foot of the pine tree. + +And Molly Brownwell, with the paralysis of terror still upon her, +heard the shot and then heard footsteps running across the grass. A +moment later her husband, empty-handed, chattering, shivering, and +white, stumbled into the room. Rage had been conquered by fear. For an +agonized second the man and woman stared at one another, +speechless--then the wife cried:-- + +"Oh--oh--why--why--Adrian," and her voice was thick with fear.-- + +The man was a-tremble--hands, limbs, body--and his mad eyes seemed +to shrink from the woman's gaze. "Oh, God--God--oh, God--" he +panted, and fell upon his face across the sofa. They heard a hurrying +step running toward the Hendricks house, there came a frightened, +choked cry of "Help!" repeated twice, another and another sound of +pattering feet came, and five minutes after the quaking man had +entered the door the whole neighbourhood seemed to be alive with +running figures hurrying silently through the gloom. The thud of feet +and the pounding of her heart, and the whimpering of the little man +who lay, face down, on the sofa, were the only sounds in her ears. She +started to go with the crowd. But Adrian screamed to her to stay. + +"Oh," he cried, "he sank so softly--he sank so softly--he sank so +softly! Oh, God, oh, God--he sank so softly!" + +And the next conscious record of her memory was that of Neal Ward +bursting into the room, crying, "Aunt Molly--Aunt Molly--do you know +Mr. Hendricks has committed suicide? They've found him dead with a +pistol by his side. I want some whiskey for Miss Hendricks. And they +need you right away." + +But Molly Brownwell, with what composure she could, said, "Adrian is +sick, Neal--I can't--I can't leave him now." And she called after +Neal as he ran toward the door, "Tell them, Neal, tell them--why I +can't come." There was a hum of voices in the air, and the sound of a +gathering crowd. Soon the shuffle and clatter of a thousand feet made +it evident that the meeting at Barclay Hall had heard the news and was +hurrying up the hill. The crowd buzzed for an hour, and Molly and +Adrian Brownwell waited speechless together--he face downward on the +sofa, she huddled in a chair by the window. And then the crowd broke, +slowly, first into small groups that moved away together and then +turned in a steady stream and tramped, tramped, tramped down the hill. + +When the silence had been unbroken a long time, save by the rumble of +a buggy on the asphalt or by the footsteps of some stray passerby, the +man on the sofa lifted his head, looked at his wife and spoke, "Well, +Molly?" + +"Well, Adrian," she answered, "this is the end, I suppose?" + +He did not reply for a time, and when he did speak, it was in a dead, +passionless voice: "Yes--I suppose so. I can't stay here now." + +"No--no," she returned. "No, you should not stay here." + +He sat up and stared vacantly at her for a while and then said, +"Though I don't see why I didn't leave years and years ago; I knew all +this then, as well as I do now." The wife looked away from him as she +replied: "Yes, I should have known you would know. I knew your secret +and you--" + +"My secret," said Adrian, "my secret?" + +"Yes--that you came North with your inherited money because when you +were in the Confederate army you were a coward in some action and +could not live among your own people." + +"Who told you," he asked, "who told you?" + +"The one who told you I have always loved Bob; life has told me that, +Adrian. Just as life has told you my story." They sat without speaking +for a time, and then the woman sighed and rose. "Two people who have +lived together twenty-five years can have no secrets from each other. +In a thousand, ways the truth comes out." + +"I should have gone away a long time ago," he repeated, "a long time +ago; I knew it, but I didn't trust my instincts." + +"Here comes father," she said, as the gate clicked. + +They stood together, listening to the slow shuffle of the colonel +coming up the walk, and the heavy fall of his cane. The wife put out +her hand and said gently, "I think I have wronged you, Adrian, more +than any one else." + +He did not take her hand but sighed, and turned and went up the wide +stairway. He was an old man then, and she remembered the years when he +tripped up gayly, and then she looked at her own gray hair in the +mirror and saw that her life was spent too. + +As the colonel came in gasping asthmatically, he found his daughter +waiting for him. "Is Adrian better?" he asked excitedly. "Neal said +Adrian was sick." + +"Yes, father, he's upstairs packing. He is going out on the four +o'clock train." + +"Oh," said the colonel, and then panted a moment before asking, "Has +any one told you how it happened?" + +"Yes," she replied, "I know everything. I think I'll run over there +now, father." As she stood in the doorway, she said, "Don't bother +Adrian--he'll need no help." + +And so Molly Brownwell passed the last night with her dead lover. +About midnight the bell rang and she went to the door. + +"Ah, madam," said Jacob Dolan, as he fumbled in his pockets, and tried +to breathe away from her to hide the surcease of his sorrow, "Ah, +madam," he repeated, as he suddenly thought to pull off his hat, "I +did not come for you--'twas Miss Hendricks I called for; but I have +one for you, too. He gave the bundle to me the last thing--poor lad, +poor lad." He handed her the letter addressed to Mrs. Brownwell, and +then asked, "Is the sister about?" + +And when he found she could not be seen he went away, and Molly +Brownwell sat by the dead man's body and read:-- + +"My darling--my darling--they will let a dead man say that to +you--won't they? And yet, so far as any thought of mine could sin +against you, I have been dead these twenty years. Yet I know that I +have loved you all that time, and as I sit alone here in the bank, and +take the bridle off my heart, the old throb of joy that we both knew +as children comes back again. It is such a strange thing--this +life--such a strange thing." Then there followed a burst of +passionate regret from the man's very heart, and it is so sacred to a +manly love that curbed itself for a score of years, that it must not +be set down here. + +Over and over Molly Brownwell read the letter and then crept out to +her lilac thicket and wept till dawn. She heard Adrian Brownwell go, +but she could not face him, and listened as his footsteps died away, +and he passed from her life. + +And John Barclay kept vigil for the dead with her. As he tossed in his +bed through the night, he seemed to see glowing out of the darkness +before him the words Hendricks had written, in the letter that Dolan +gave Barclay at midnight. Sometimes the farewell came to him:-- + +"It is not this man of millions that I wish to be with a moment +to-night, John--but the boy I knew in the old days--the boy who ran +with me through the woods at Wilson's Creek, the boy who rode over the +hill into the world with me that September day forty years ago; the +boy whose face used to beam eagerly out of yours when you sat playing +at your old melodeon. I wish to be near him a little while to-night. +When you get this, can't you go to your great organ and play him back +into consciousness and tell him Bob says good-by?" + +At dawn Barclay called Bemis out of bed, and before sunrise he and +Barclay were walking on the terrace in front of the Barclay home. + +"Lige," began Barclay, "did you tell Adrian of that note last night?" +Bemis grinned his assent. + +"And he went home, found Bob there conferring with Mrs. Brownwell +about his position in the matter, and Adrian killed him." + +"That's the way I figured it out myself," replied Bemis, laconically, +"but it's not my business to say so." + +"I thought you promised me you would just bluff with that note and not +go so far, Lige Bemis," said Barclay. + +"Did he just bluff with me when he called me a boodler and threw me +downstairs in the county convention?" + +"Then you lied to me, sir," snapped Barclay. + +"Oh, hell, John--come off," sneered Bemis. "Haven't I got a right to +lie to you if I want to?" + +The two men stared at each other like growling dogs for a moment, and +then Barclay turned away with, "What is there in the typhoid talk?" + +"Demagogery--that's all. Of course there may be typhoid in the water; +but let 'em boil the water." + +"But they won't." + +"Well, then, if they eat too much of your 'Old Honesty' or drink too +much of my water unboiled, they take their own risk. You don't make a +breakfast food for hogs, and I can't run my water plant for fools." + +"But, Lige," protested Barclay, "couldn't we hitch up the electric +plant--" + +"Hitch up the devil and Tom Walker, John Barclay. When the wolves got +after you, did I come blubbering to you to lay down and take a light +sentence?" Barclay did not answer. Bemis continued: "Brace up, +John--what's turned you baby when we've got the whole thing won? We +didn't kill Hendricks, did we? Are you full of remorse and going to +turn state's evidence?" + +Barclay looked at the ground for a time, and said: "I believe, Lige, +we did kill Bob--if it comes to that; and we are morally responsible +for--" + +"Oh, bag your head, John; I'm going home. When you can talk some +sense, let me know." + +And Bemis left Barclay standing in the garden looking at the sunrise +across the mill-pond. Presently the carrier boy with a morning paper +came around, and in it Barclay read the account of Hendricks' reported +suicide, corroborated by his antemortem statement, written and +delivered to Jacob Dolan an hour before he died. + +"When I took charge of the Exchange National Bank," it read, "I found +that my father owed Garrison County nine thousand dollars for another +man's taxes, which he, my father, had agreed to pay, but had no money +to do so. The other man insisted on my father forging a note to +straighten matters up. It seemed at that time that the bank would +close and the whole county would be ruined if my father had not +committed that deed. I could not put the money back into the treasury +without revealing my father's crime, so I let the matter run for a few +years, renewing the forged note, and then, as it seemed an +interminable job of forgery, I forged the balance on the county books, +one afternoon between administrations in 1879. Mr. E. W. Bemis, who is +trying to force polluted water on Sycamore Ridge, has discovered this +forgery and has threatened to expose me in that and perhaps other +matters. So I feel that my usefulness in the fight for pure water in +the town is ended. I leave funds to fight the matter in the courts, +and I feel sure that we will win." + +Barclay sat in the warm morning sun, reading and re-reading the +statement. Finally Jane Barclay, thin, broken and faded, on whom the +wrath of the people was falling with crushing weight, came into the +veranda, and put her hands on her husband's shoulders. + +"Come in, John, breakfast is ready." + +The woman whom the leprosy of dishonest wealth was whitening, walked +dumbly into the great house, and ate in silence. "I am going to +Molly," she said simply, as the two rose from their meal. "I think she +needs me, dear; won't you come, too?" she asked. + +"I can't, Jane--I can't," cried Barclay. And when his wife had +pressed him, he broke forth: "Because Lige Bemis made Adrian kill Bob +and I helped--" he groaned, and sank into his chair, "and I helped." + +When Neal Ward came to the office the next morning, he found Dolan +waiting for him. Ward opened the envelope that Dolan gave him, and +found in it the mortgage Hendricks had owned on the _Banner_ office, +assigned to Ward, and around the mortgage was a paper band on which +was written: "God bless you, my boy--keep up the fight; never say +die." + +Then Ward read Adrian Brownwell's valedictory that was hanging on a +copy spike before him. It was the heart-broken sob of an old man who +had run away from failure and sorrow, and it need not be printed here. + +On Memorial Day, when they came to the cemetery on the hill to +decorate the soldiers' graves, men saw that the great mound of lilacs +on Robert Hendricks' grave had withered. The seven days' wonder of his +passing was ended. The business that he had left prospered without +him, or languished and died; within a week in all but a dozen hearts +Hendricks' memory began to recede into the past, and so, where there +had been a bubble on the tide, that held in its prism of light for a +brief bit of eternity all of God's spectacle of life, suddenly there +was only the tide moving resistlessly toward the unknown shore. And +thus it is with all of us. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +In the summer of 1904, following the death of Robert Hendricks, John +Barclay spent much time in the Ridge, more time than he had spent +there for thirty years. For in the City he was a marked man. Every +time the market quivered, reporters rushed to get his opinion about +the cause of the disturbance; the City papers were full of stories +either of his own misdeeds, or of the wrong-doings of other men of his +caste. His cronies were dying all about him of broken hearts or +wrecked minds, and it seemed to him that the word "indictment" was in +every column of every newspaper, was on every man's lips, and +literally floated in the air. + +So he remained in Sycamore Ridge much of the time, and every fair +afternoon he rowed himself up the mill-pond to fish. He liked to be +alone; for when he was alone, he could fight the battle in his soul +without interruption. The combat had been gathering for a year; a +despair was rising in him, that he concealed from his womenkind--who +were his only intimate associates in those days--as if it had been a +crime. But out on the mill-pond alone, casting minnows for bass, he +could let the melancholy in his heart rage and battle with his sanity, +without let or hindrance. His business was doing well; the lawsuits +against the company in a dozen states were not affecting dividends, +and the department in charge of his charities was forwarding letters +of condolence and consolation from preachers and college presidents, +and men who under the old regime had been in high walks of life. +Occasionally some conservative newspaper or magazine would praise him +and his company highly; but he knew the shallowness of all the patter +of praise. He knew that he paid for it in one way or another, and he +grew cynical; and in his lonely afternoons on the river, often he +laughed at the whole mockery of his career, smiled at the thought of +organized religion, licking his boots for money like a dog for bones, +and then in his heart he said there is no God. Once, to relieve the +pain of his soul's woe, he asked aloud, who is God, anyway, and then +laughed as he thought that the bass nibbling at his minnow would soon +think he, John Barclay, was God. The analogy pleased him, and he +thought that his own god, some devilish fate, had the string through +his gills at that moment and was preparing to cast him into the fire. +Up in the office in the city, they went on making senators and +governors, and slipping a federal judge in where they could, but he +had little hand in it, for his power was a discarded toy. He sat in +his boat alone, rowing for miles and miles, from stump to stump, and +from fallen tree-top to tree-top, hating the thing he called God, and +distrusting men. + +But when he appeared in the town, or at home, he was cheerful enough; +he liked to mingle with the people, and it fed his despair to notice +what a hang-dog way they had with him. He knew they had been abusing +him behind his back, and when he found out exactly what a man had +said, he delighted in facing the man down with it. + +"So you think John Barclay could have saved Bob Hendricks' life, do +you, Oscar?" asked Barclay, as he overhauled Fernald coming out of the +post-office. + +"Who said so?" asked Fernald, turning red. + +"Oh," chuckled Barclay, "I got it from the hired girls' wireless news +agency. But you said it all right--you said it, Oscar; you said it +over to Ward's at dinner night before last." And Barclay grinned +maliciously. + +Fernald scratched his head, and said, "Well, John, to be frank with +you, that's the talk all over town--among the people." + +"The people--the people," snapped Barclay, impatiently, "the people +take my money for bridges and halls and parks and churches and statues +and then call me a murderer--oh, damn the people! Who started this +story?" + +"See Jake Dolan, John--it's up to him. He can satisfy you," said +Fernald, and turned, leaving Barclay in the street. + +Up the hill trudged the gray-clad little man, with his pugnacious +shoulders weaving and his bronzed face set hard and his mean jaw +locked. On the steps of the court-house he found Jake Dolan, smoking a +morning pipe with the loafers in the shade of the building. + +"Here you, Jake Dolan," called Barclay, "what do you mean by accusing +me of murdering Bob Hendricks? What did I have to do with it?" + +"Easy, easy, Johnnie, my boy," returned Dolan, knocking the ashes from +his pipe on the steps between his feet. "Gentlemen," said Dolan, +addressing the crowd, "you've heard what our friend says. All +right--come with me to my office, Johnnie Barclay, and I'll show +you." Barclay followed Dolan into the basement of the court-house, +with the crowd at a respectful distance. "Right this way--" and Dolan +switched on an electric light. "Do you see that break in the +foundation, Mr. Barclay? You do? And you know in your soul that it +opens into the cave that leads to the cellar of your own house. Well, +then, Mr. Johnnie Barclay--the book that contained the evidence +against Bob Hendricks did not go out of this court-house by the front +door, as you well know, but through that hole--stolen at night when I +was out; and the man who stole it was the horse thief that used to run +the cave--your esteemed friend, Lige Bemis." + +The crowd was gaping at the rickety place in the foundation, and one +man pulled a loose stone out and let the cold air of the cave into the +room. + +"Lige Bemis came to your house, Mr. Johnnie Barclay, got into the cave +from your cellar, broke through this wall, and stole the book that +contained the forgery made to cover General Hendricks' disgrace. And +who caused that disgrace but the overbearing, domineering John +Barclay, who made that old man steal to pay John Barclay's taxes, back +in the grasshopper year, when the sheriff and the jail were almost as +familiar to him as they are now,--by all counts. Ah, John Barclay," +said the Irishman, turning to the crowd, "John Barclay, John +Barclay--you're a brave little man sometimes; I've seen you when I +was most ungodly proud of you; I've seen you do grand things, my +little man, grand things. But you're a coward too, Johnnie; sitting in +your own house while your horse-thief friend used your cellar to work +out the disgrace of the man who gave his good name to save your +own--that was a fine trick--a damn fine trick, wasn't it, Mr. +Barclay?" + +Barclay started to go, but the crowd blocked his way. Dolan saw that +Barclay was trying to escape. "Turn tail, will you, my little man? +Wait one minute," cried Dolan. "Wait one minute, sir. For what was you +conniving against the big man? I know--to win your game; to win your +miserable little game. Ah, what a pup a man can be, Johnnie, what a +mangy, miserable, cowardly little pup a man can be when he tries--and +a decent man, too. Money don't mean anything to you--you got past +that, but it's to win the game. Why, man, look at yourself--look at +yourself--you'd cheat your own mother playing cards with matches for +counters--just to win the game." Dolan waved for the crowd to break. +"Let him out of here, and get out yourselves--every one of you. This +is public property you're desecrating." + +Dolan sat alone in his office, pale and trembling after the crowd had +gone. Colonel Culpepper came puffing in and saw the Irishman sitting +with his head in his hands and his elbows on the table. + +"What's this, Jake--what's this I hear?" asked the colonel. + +"Oh, nothing," answered Dolan, and then he looked up at the colonel +with sad, remorseful eyes. "What a fool--what a fool whiskey in a +man's tongue is--what a fool." He reached under his cot for his jug, +and repeated as he poured the liquor into a glass, "What a fool, what +a fool, what a fool." And then, as he gulped it down and made a wry +face, "Poor little Johnnie at the mill; I didn't mean to hit him so +hard--not half so hard. What a fool, what a fool," and the two old +men started off for the harness shop together. + +Neal Ward that night, in the _Banner_ office alone, wrote to his +sweetheart the daily letter that was never mailed. + + "How sweet it is," he writes, "to have you at home. Sometimes I hear + your voice through the old leaky telephone, talking to Aunt Molly; + her phone and ours are through the same board, and your voice seems + natural then, and unstrained, not as it is when we meet. But I know + that some way we are meeting--our souls--in the infinite realm + outside ourselves--beyond our consciousness--either sleeping or + waking. Last night I dreamed a strange dream. A little girl, like + one of the pictures in mother's old family photograph album, seemed + to be talking with me,--dressed so quaintly in the dear old fashion + of the days when mother taught the Sycamore Ridge School. She seemed + to be playing with me in some way, and then she said: 'Oh, yes, I am + your telephone; she knows all about it. I tell her every night as we + play together.' And then she was no longer a little girl but a most + beautiful soul and she said with great gentleness: 'In her heart she + loves you--in her heart she loves you. This I know, only she is + proud--proud with the Barclay pride; but in her heart she loves you; + is not that enough?' What a strange dream! I wonder where we are--we + who animate our bodies, when we sleep. What is sleep, but the proof + that death is but a sleep? Oh, Jeanette, Jeanette, come into my soul + as we sleep." + +He folded the letter, sealed and addressed it, and dated the envelope, +and put it in his desk--the desk before which Adrian Brownwell had +sat, eating his heart out in futile endeavour to find his place in the +world. Neal Ward had cleaned out one side of the desk, and was using +that for his own. Mrs. Brownwell kept her papers in the other side, +and one key locked them both. As he walked home that night under the +stars, his heart was full of John Barclay's troubles. Neal knew +Barclay well enough to know that the sensitive nature of the man, with +his strongly developed instinctive faculty for getting at the truth, +would be his curse in the turmoil or criticism through which he was +going. So a day or two later Neal was not surprised to find a long +statement in the morning press despatches from Barclay explaining and +defending the methods of the National Provisions Company. He proved +carefully that the notorious Door Strip saved large losses in transit +of the National Provisions Company's grain and grain produce, and +showed that in paying him for the use of these strips the railroad +companies were saving great sums for widowed and orphaned stockholders +of railroads--sums which would be his due for losses in transit if +the strips were not used. + +Neal Ward knew what it had cost Barclay in pride to give out that +statement; so the young man printed it on the first page of the +_Banner_ with a kind editorial about Mr. Barclay and his good works. +That night when the paper was off, and young Ward was working on the +books of his office, he was called to the telephone. + +"Is this you, Nealie Ward?" asked a woman's voice--the strong, clear, +deep voice of an old woman. And when he had answered, the voice went +on: "Well, Nealie, I wish to thank you for that editorial about John +to-night in the paper; I'm Mary Barclay. It isn't more than half true, +Nealie; and if it was all true, it isn't a fraction of what the truth +ought to be if John did what he could, but it will do him a lot of +good--right here in the home paper, and--Why, Jennie, I'm speaking +with Nealie Ward,--why, do you think I am not old enough to talk with +Nealie without breeding scandal?--as I was saying, my dear, it will +cheer John up a little, and heaven knows he needs something. +I'm--Jennie, for mercy sakes keep still; I know Nealie Ward and I +knew his father when he wasn't as old as Nealie--did his washing for +him; and boarded his mother four winters, and I have a right to say +what I want to to that child." The boy and the grandmother laughed +into the telephone. "Jennie is so afraid I'll do something improper," +laughed Mrs. Barclay. "Oh, yes, by the way--here's a little item for +your paper to-morrow: Jennie's mother is sick; I think it's typhoid, +but you can't get John to admit it. So don't say typhoid." Then with a +few more words she rang off. + +When the _Banner_ printed the item about Mrs. Barclay's illness, the +town, in one of those outbursts of feeling which communities often +have, seemed to try to show John Barclay the affection that was in +their hearts for the man who had grown up among them, and the family +that had been established under his name. Flowers--summer +flowers--poured in on the Barclays. Children came with wild flowers, +prairie flowers that Jane Barclay had not seen since she roamed over +the unbroken sod about Minneola as a girl; and Colonel Culpepper came +marching up the walk through the Barclay grounds, bearing his +old-fashioned bouquet, as grandly as an ambassador bringing a king's +gift. Jane Barclay sent word that she wished to see him. + +"My dear," said the colonel, as he held the flowers toward her, +"accept these flowers from those who have shared your bounty--from +God's poor, my dear; these are God's smiles that they send you from +their hearts--from their very hearts, my dear, from their poor hearts +wherein God's smiles come none too often." She saw through glistening +eyes the broken old figure, with his coat tightly buttoned on that +July day to hide some shabbiness underneath. But she bade the colonel +sit down, and they chatted of old times and old places and old faces +for a few minutes; and the colonel, to whom any sort of social +function was a rare and sweet occasion, stayed until the nurse had to +beckon him out of the room over Mrs. Barclay's shoulder. + +General Ward sent a note with a bunch of monthly blooming roses. + + "MY DEAR JANE (he wrote): These roses are from slips we got from + John's mother when we planted our little yard. This red one is from + the very bush on which grew the rose John wore at his wedding. Pin + it on the old scamp to-night, and see how he will look. He was a + dapper little chap that night, and the years have hardly begun their + work on him; or perhaps he is such a tough customer that he dulls + the chisel of time. I do not know, and so long as it is so, you do + not care, but we both know, and are both glad that of all the many + things God has sent you in thirty years, he has sent you nothing so + fine as the joy that came with the day John wore this rose for + you--a joy that has grown while the rose has faded. And may this + rose renew your joy for another thirty years." + +John read the note when he came in from the mill that evening, and +Jane watched the years slip off his face. He looked into the past as +it spread itself on the carpet near the bed. + +"Well, well, well," he said, as he smiled into the picture he saw, "I +remember as well the general bringing that rose down to the office +that morning, wrapped in blue tissue paper from cotton batting rolls! +The package was tied with fancy red braid that used to bind muslin +bolts." He laughed quietly, and asked, "Jane, do you remember that old +red braid?" The sick woman nodded. "Well, with the little blue package +was a note from Miss Lucy, which said that my old teacher could not +give me a present that year--times were cruelly hard then, you +remember--but that she could and did put the blessing of her prayers +on the rose, that all that it witnessed at my wedding would bring me +happiness." He sat for a moment in silence, and, as the nurse was +gone, he knelt beside the sick woman and kissed her. And as the wife +stroked his head she whispered, "How that prayer has been answered, +John--dear, hasn't it?" And the great clock in the silent hall below +ticked away some of the happiest minutes it had ever measured. + +But when he passed out of the sick room, the world--the maddening +press of affairs, and the combat in his soul--snapped back on his +shoulders with a mental click as though a load had fallen into its old +place. He stood before his organ, and could not press the keys. As he +sat there in the twilight made by the shaded electric lamps, the +struggle rose in his heart against the admission of anything into his +scheme of life but material things, and the conflict raged unchecked. +What a silliness, he said, to think that the mummery of a woman over a +rose could affect a life. Life is what the succession of the days +brings. The thing is or is not, he said to himself, and the gibber +about prayer and the moral force that moves the universe is for the +weak-minded. So he took his hell to bed with him as it went every +night, and during the heavy hours when he could not sleep, he tiptoed +into the sick room, and looked at the thin face of his wife, sleeping +a restless, feverish sleep, and a great fear came into his heart. + +Once as the morning dawned he asked the nurse whom he met in the hall, +"Is it typhoid?" + +She was a stranger to the town, and she said to him, "What does the +doctor tell you?" + +"That's not the point," he insisted. "What do you think?" + +She looked at him for an undecided moment and replied, "I'm not paid +to think, Mr. Barclay," and went past him with her work. But he knew +the truth. He went to his bed, and threw himself upon it, a-tremble +with remorse and fear, and the sneer in his heart stilled his lips and +he could not look outside himself for help. So the morning came, and +another day, bringing its thousand cares, faced him, like a jailer +with his tortures. + +Time dragged slowly in the sick room and at the mill. One doctor +brought another, and the Barclay private car went far east and came +flying back with a third. The town knew that Mrs. John Barclay was +dangerously sick. There came hopeful days when the patient's mind was +clear; on one of these days Mrs. McHurdie called, and they let her see +the sick woman. She brought some flowers. + +"In the flowers, Jane," she said, "you will find something from +Watts." Mrs. McHurdie smiled. "You know he sat up till 'way after +midnight last night, playing his accordion. Oh, it's been years since +he has touched it. And this morning when I got up, I found him sitting +by the kitchen table, writing. It's a poem for you." Mrs. McHurdie +looked rather sheepish as she said: "You know how Watts is, Jane; he +just made me bring it. You can read it when you get well." + +They hurried Mrs. McHurdie out, and when Jane Barclay went to sleep, +they found tears on her pillow, and in her hand the verses,--the +limping, awkward verses of an old man, whose music only echoed back +from the past. The nurses and the young doctor from Boston had a good +laugh at it. Each of the four stanzas began with two lines that asked: +"Oh, don't you remember the old river road, that ran through the +sweet-scented wood?" To them it was a curious parody on something old +and quaint that they had long since forgotten. But to the woman who +lay murmuring of other days, whose lips were parched for the waters of +brooks that had surrendered to the plough a score of years ago, the +halting verses of Watts McHurdie were laden with odours of grape +blossoms, of wild cucumbers and sumach, of elder blossoms, and the +fragrance of the crushed leaves of autumn. And the music of distant +ripples played in her feverish brain and the sobbing voice of the +turtle dove sang out of the past for her as she slept. All through the +day and the night and for many nights and days she whispered of the +trees and the running water and the wild grass and the birds. + +And so one morning when it was still gray, she woke and said to John, +who bent over her, "Why, dear, we are almost home; there are the +lights across the river; just one more hill, dearie, and then--" And +then with the water prattling in her ears at the last ford she turned +to the wall and sank to rest. + +Day after day, until the days and nights became a week and the week +repeated itself until nearly a month was gone, John Barclay, dry-eyed +and all but dumb, paced the terrace before his house by night, and by +day roamed through the noisy mill or wandered through his desolate +house, seeking peace that would not come to him. The whole foundation +of his scheme of life was crumbling beneath him. He had built +thirty-five years of his manhood upon the theory that the human brain +is the god of things as they are and as they must be. The structure of +his life was an imposing edifice, and men called it great and +successful. Yet as he walked his lonely way in those black days that +followed Jane's death, there came into his consciousness a strong, +overmastering conviction, which he dared not accept, that his house +was built on sand. For here were things outside of his plans, outside +of his very beliefs, coming into his life, bringing calamity, sorrow, +and tragedy with them into his own circle of friends, into his own +household, into his own heart. As he walked through the dull, lonely +hours he could not escape the vague feeling, though he fought it as +one mad fights for his delusion, that all the tragedies piling up +about him came from his own mistakes. Over and over again he threshed +the past. Molly Brownwell's cry, "You have sold me into bondage, John +Barclay," would not be stilled, though at times he could smile at it; +and the broken body and shamed face of her father haunted him like an +obsession. Night after night when he tried to sleep, Robert Hendricks' +letter burned in fire before his eyes, and at last so mad was the +struggle in his soul that he hugged these things to him that he might +escape the greater horror: the dreadful red headlines in the +sensational paper they had sent him from the City office which +screamed at him, "John Barclay slays his wife--Aids a water +franchise grab that feeds the people typhoid germs and his own wife +dies of the fever." He had not replied to the letter from the law +department of the Provisions Company which asked if he wished to sue +for libel, and begged him to do so. He had burned the paper, but the +headlines were seared into his brain. + +Over and over he climbed the fiery ladder of his sins: the death of +General Hendricks, the sacrifice of Molly Culpepper, the temptation +and fall of her father, the death of his boyhood's friend, and then +the headlines. These things were laid at his door, and over and over +again, like Sisyphus rolling the stones uphill, he swept them away +from his threshold, only to find that they rolled right back again. +And with them came at times the suspicion that his daughter's +unhappiness was upon him also. And besides these things, a hundred +business transactions wherein he had cheated and lied for money rose +to disturb him. And through it all, through his anguish and shame, the +faith of his life kept battling for its dominion. + +Once he sent for Bemis and tried to talk himself into peace with his +friend. He did not speak of the things that were corroding his heart, +but he sat by and heard himself chatter his diabolic creed as a +drunkard watches his own folly. + +"Lige," he said, "I'm sick of that infernal charities bureau we've +got. I'm going to abolish it. These philanthropic millionaires make me +sick at the stomach, Lige. What do they care for the people? They know +what I know, that the damn people are here to be skinned." He laughed +viciously and went on: "Sometimes I think we filthy rich are divided +into two classes: those of us who keep mistresses, and those of us who +have harmless little entanglements with preachers and college +presidents. Neither the lemon-haired women nor the college presidents +interfere with our business; they don't hamper us--not the slightest. +They just take our money, and for a few idle hours amuse us, and make +us feel that we are good fellows. As for me, I'll have neither women +nor college presidents purring around my ankles. I'm going to cut out +the philanthropy appropriation to-day." + +And he was as good as his word. But that did not help. The truth kept +wrenching his soul, and his feet blindly kept trying to find a path to +peace. + +It was late one night in August, and a dead moon was hanging in the +south, when, treading the terrace before his house, he saw a shadow +moving down the stairway in the hall. At first his racked nerves +quivered, but when he found that it was his mother, he went to meet +her, exclaiming as he mounted the steps to the veranda, "Why, mother, +what is it--is anything wrong?" + +Though it was past midnight, Mary Barclay was dressed for the day. She +stood in the doorway with the dimmed light behind her, a tall, strong +woman, straight and gaunt as a Nemesis. "No, John--nothing is +wrong--in the house." She walked into the veranda and began as she +approached a chair, "Sit down, John; I wish to talk with you." + +"Well, mother--what is it?" asked the son, as he sat facing her. + +She paused a moment looking earnestly at his face and replied, "The +time has come when we must talk this thing out, John, soul to soul." + +He shrank from what was coming. His instinct told him to fight away +the crisis. He began to palaver, but his mother cut him short, as she +exclaimed:-- + +"Why don't you let Him in, John?" + +"Let who in?" asked her son. + +"You know Whom, John Barclay; that was your grandfather speaking then, +the old polly foxer. You know, my boy. Don't you remember me bending +over the town wash-tub when you were a child, Johnnie? Don't you +remember the old song I used to sing--of course you do, child--as I +rubbed the clothes on the board: 'Let Him in, He is your friend, let Him +in, He is your friend; He will keep you to the end--let--Him--in!' Of +course you remember it, boy, and you have been fighting Him with all +your might for six months now, and since Jane went, the fight is driving +you crazy--can't you see, John?" + +The son did not reply for a moment, then he said, "Oh, well, mother, +that was all right in that day, but--" + +"John Barclay," cried the mother sternly, as she leaned toward him, +"the faith that bore your father a martyr to the grave, sustained me +in this wilderness, and kept me happy as I scrubbed for your bread, +shall not be scoffed in my presence. We are going to have this thing +out to-night. I, who bore you, and nursed you, and fed you, and staked +my soul on your soul, have some rights to-night. Here you are, +fifty-four years old, and what have you done? You've killed your +friend and your friend's father before him--I know that, John. You've +wrecked the life of the sister of your first sweetheart, and put fear +and disgrace in her father's face forever--forever, John Barclay, as +long as he lives. I know that too; I haven't been wrapped in pink +cotton all these years, boy--I've lived my own life since you left my +wing, and made my own way too, as far as that goes. And now you are +trying to quench the fires of remorse in your soul because your wife +died a victim of your selfish, ruthless, practical scheme of things. +More than that, my son--more than that, your child is suffering all +the agony that a woman can suffer because of your devilish system of +traffic in blood for money. You know what I mean, John. That boy told +the truth, as you admit, and he could either run or lie, and for being +a man you have broken up a God-sent love merely to satisfy your own +vanity. Oh, John--John," she cried passionately, "my poor, blind, +foolish boy--haven't you found the ashes in the core of your faith +yet--aren't you ready to quit?" + +He began, "Don't you think, mother, I have suffered--" + +"Suffered, boy? Suffered? Of course you have suffered, John," she +answered, taking his hands in hers. "I have seen the furnace fires +smoking your face, and I know you have suffered, Johnnie; that's why I +am coming to you--to ask you to quit suffering. Look at it, my +boy--what are you suffering for? Is it material power you want? Well, +you have never had it. The people are going right along running their +own affairs in spite of you. All your nicely built card houses are +knocked over. In the states and in the federal government, in spite of +your years of planning and piecing out your little practical system, +at the very first puff of God's breath it goes to pieces. The men whom +you bought and paid for don't stay bought--do they, my boy? Oh, your +old mother knows, John. Men who will sell are never worth buying; and +the house that relies on them, falls. You have built a sand dam, +son--like the dams you used to build in the spring stream when you +were a child. It melts under pressure like straw. You have no worldly +power. In this practical world you are a failure, and good old Phil +Ward, who went out into the field and scattered seeds of discontent at +your system--he is seeing his harvest ripen in his old age, John," +she cried. "Can't you see your failure? Look at it from a practical +standpoint: what thing in the last thirty years have you advocated, +and Philemon Ward opposed, that to-day he has not realized and you +lost? His prescription for the evils may have been wrong many times, +but his diagnosis of them was always right, and they are being cured, +in spite of all your protest that they did not exist. Which of you has +won his practical fight in this practical world--his God or your God; +the ideal world or the material world, boy? Can't you see it?" The old +woman leaned forward and looked in her son's dull, unresponsive face. +"Can't you see how you have failed?" she pleaded. + +They rose together and began to pace the long floor of the veranda. +"Oh, mother," he cried, as he put his arm about her, "I am so +lonely--so tired, so sick in the heart of me." + +They didn't speak for a time, but walked together in silence. At +length the mother began again. "John," she said, as they turned at the +end of the porch, "I suppose you are saying that you have your +money--that it is material--solid, substantial, and undeniable. But +is it? Isn't it all a myth? Leave it where it is--in the shape of +securities and stocks and credits--what will it do? Will it bring +Jane back? Will it give Jeanette her heart's desire, and make her +happy all her life? You know, dear, that it will only make me +miserable. Has it made you happy, John? Turn it into gold and pile it +up in the front yard--and what will it buy that poor Phil Ward has +not had all of his life--good food, good clothing--good enough, at +least--a happy family, useful children, and a good name? A good name, +John, is rather to be chosen than great riches--than all your money, +my son--rather to be chosen than all your money. Can you buy that +with your millions piled on millions?" + +They were walking slowly as she spoke, and they turned into the +terrace. There they stood looking at the livid moon sinking behind the +great house. + +"Is there more joy in this house than in any other house in town, +John--answer me squarely, son--answer me," she cried. He shook his +head sadly and sighed. "A mother, whose heart bleeds every hour as she +sees her son torturing himself with footless remorse; that is one. A +heart-broken, motherless girl, whose lover has been torn away from her +by her father's vanity and her own pride, and whose mother has been +taken as a pawn in the game her father played with no motive, no +benefit, nothing but to win his point in a miserable little game of +politics; that is number two. And a man who should be young for twenty +years yet, who should have been useful for thirty years--and now what +is he? powerless, useless, wretched, lonely, who spends his time +walking about fighting against God, that he may prove his own wisdom +and nothing more." + +"Mother," cried Barclay, petulantly, "I can't stand this--that you +should turn on me--now." He broke away from her, and stood alone. +"When I need you most, you reproach me. When I need sympathy, you +scorn all that I have done. You can't prove your God. Why should I +accept Him?" + +The gaunt old woman stretched out her arms and cried: "Oh, John +Barclay, prove your god. Tell him to come and give you a moment's +happiness--set him to work to restore your good name; command him to +make Jeanette happy. These things my God can do! Let your Mammon," she +cried with all the passion of her soul, "let your Mammon come down and +do one single miracle like that." Her voice broke and she sobbed. +"What a tower of Babel--an industrial Babel, you are building, +John--you and your kith and kind. The last century gave us +Schopenhauers and Kants, all denying God, and this one gives us +Railroad Kings and Iron Kings and Wheat Kings, all by their works +proclaiming that Mammon has the power and the glory and the Kingdom. O +ye workers of iniquity!" she cried, and her voice lifted, "ye wicked +and perverse--" + +She did not finish, but broken and trembling, her strength spent and +her faith scorned, she sank on her knees by a marble urn on the +terrace and sobbed and prayed. When she rose, the dawn was breaking, +and she looked for a moment at her son, who had been sitting near her, +and cried: "Oh, my boy, my little boy that I nursed at my breast--let +Him in, He is your friend--and oh, my God, sustain my faith!" + +Her son came to her side and led her into the house. But he went to +his room and began the weary round, battling for his own faith. + +As he stood by his open window that day at the mill, he saw Molly +Brownwell across the pond, going into his home. He watched her idly +and saw Jeanette meet her at the door, and then as his memory went +back to the old days, he tried to find tears for the woman who had +died, but he could only rack his soul. Tears were denied to him. + +He was a rich man--was John Barclay; some people thought that, taking +his wealth as wealth goes, all carefully invested in substantial +things--in material things, let us say--he was the richest man in +the Mississippi Valley. He bought a railroad that day when he looked +through the office window at Molly Brownwell--a railroad three +thousand miles long. And he bought a man's soul in a distant city--a +man whom he did not know even by name, but the soul was thrown in "to +boot" in a bargain; and he bought a woman's body whose face he had +never seen, and that went as part of another trade he was making and +he did not even know they had thrown it in. And he bought a child's +life, and he bought a city's prosperity in another bargain, and bought +the homage of a state, and the tribute of a European kingdom, as part +of the day's huckstering. But with all his wealth and power, he could +not buy one tear--not one little, miserable tear to moisten his +grief-dried heart. For tears, just then, were a trifle high. So Mr. +Barclay had to do without, though the man whose soul he bought wept, +and the woman whose body came with a trade, sobbed, and the dead face +of the child was stained with a score of tears. + +They went to Jeanette Barclay's room,--the gray-haired woman and the +girl,--and they sat there talking for a time--talking of things that +were on their lips and not in their hearts. Each felt that the other +understood her. And each felt that something was to be said. For one +day before the end Jeanette's mother had said to her: "Jennie, if I am +not here always go to Molly--ask her to tell you about her girlhood." +The mother had rested for a while, and then added, "Tell her I said +for you to ask her, and she'll know what I mean." + +"Jeanette," said Molly Brownwell, "your mother and I were girls +together. Your father saw more of her at our house than he did at her +own home, until they married. Did you know that?" Jeanette nodded +assent. "So one day last June she said to me, 'Molly, sometime I wish +you would tell Jennie all about you and Bob.'" + +Mrs. Brownwell paused, and Jeanette said, "Yes, mother told me to ask +you to, Aunt Molly." Tears came into the daughter's eyes, and she +added, "I think she knew even then that--" + +And then it all came back, and after a while the elder woman was +saying, "Well, once upon a time there lived a princess, my dear. All +good stories begin so--don't they? She was a fat, pudgy little +princess who longed to grow up and have hoop-skirts like a real +sure-enough woman princess, and there came along a tall prince--the +tallest, handsomest prince in all the wide world, I think. And he and +the princess fell in love, as princesses and princes will, you know, +my dear,--just as they do now, I am told. And the prince had to go +away on business and be gone a long, long time, and while he was gone +the father of the princess and the friend of the prince got into +trouble--and the princess thought it was serious trouble. She thought +the father of the prince would have to go to jail and maybe the prince +and his friend fail. My, my, Jeanette, what a big word that word fail +seemed to the little fat princess! So she let a man make love to her +who could lend them all some money and keep the father out of jail and +the prince and his friend from the awful fate of failure. So the man +lent the money and made love, and made love. And the little princess +had to listen; every one seemed to like to have her listen, so she +listened and she listened, and she was a weak little princess. She +knew she had wronged the prince by letting the man make love to her, +and her soul was smudged and--oh, Jeanette, she was such a foolish, +weak, miserable little princess, and they didn't tell her that there +is only one prince for every princess, and one princess for every +prince--so she took the man, and sent away the prince, and the man +made love ever so beautifully--but it was not the real thing, my +dear,--not the real thing. And afterwards when she saw the +prince--so young and so strong and so handsome, her heart burned for +him as with a flame, and she was not ashamed; the wicked, wicked +princess, she didn't know. And so they walked together one night right +up to the brink of the bad place, dearie--right up to the brink; and +the princess shuddered back, and saved the prince. Oh, Jeanette, +Jeanette, Jeanette," sobbed the woman, in the girl's arms, "right in +this room, in this very room, which was your mother's room in the old +house, I came out of the night, as bad a woman as God ever sent away +from Him. And your mother and I cried it out, and talked it out, and I +fought it out, and won. Oh, I won, Jeanette--I won!" + +The two women were silent for a time, and then the elder went on: +"That's what your mother wished you to know--that for every princess +there is just one real prince, and for every prince there is just one +real princess, my dear, and when you have found him, and know he is +true, nothing--not money, not friends, not father nor mother--when +he is honest, not even pride--should stand between you. That is what +your mother sent you, dearie. Do you understand?" + +"I think I do, Aunt Molly--I think so," repeated the girl. She looked +out of the window for a moment, and then cried, "Oh, Aunt Molly--but +I can't, I can't. How could he, Aunt Molly--how could he?" The girl +buried her face in the woman's lap, and sobbed. + +After a time the elder woman spoke. "You know he loves you, don't you, +dear?" + +The girl shook her head and cried, "But how could he?" and repeated it +again and again. + +"And you still love him--I know that, my dear, or you could not--you +would not care, either," she added. + +And so after a time the tears dried, as tears will, and the two women +fell back into the pale world of surfaces, and as Molly Brownwell left +she took the girl's hand and said: "You won't forget about the little +pudgy princess--the dear, foolish, little weak princess, will you, +Jeanette? And, dearie," she added as she stood on the lower steps of +the porch, "don't--don't always be so proud--not about that, my +dear--about everything else in the world, but not about that." And so +she went back into the world, and ceased to be a fairy godmother, and +took up her day's work. + +John Barclay went to the City that night for the first time in two +months, and Jeanette and her Grandmother Barclay kept the big house +alone. In ten days he came back; his face was still hard, and the red +rims around his eyes were dry, and his voice was sullen, as it had +been for many weeks. His soul was still wrestling with a spirit that +would not give up the fight. That night his daughter tried to sit with +him, as she had tried many nights before. They sat looking at the +stars in silence as was their wont. Generally the father had risen and +walked away, but that night he turned upon her and said:-- + +"Jeanette, don't you like to be rich? I guess you are the richest girl +in this country. Doesn't that sound good to you?" + +"No, father," she answered simply, and continued, "What can I do with +all that money?" + +"Marry some man who's got sense enough to double it, and double it," +cried Barclay, harshly. "Then there'll be no question but that you'll +be the richest people in the world." + +"And then what?" asked the girl. + +"Then--then," he cried, "make the people in this world stand +around--that's what." + +"But, father," she said as she put her hand on his arm, "what if I +don't want them to stand around? Why should I have to bother about +it?" + +"Oh," he groaned, "your grandmother has been filling you full of +nonsense." He did not speak for a time, and at length she rose to go +to bed. "Jeanette," he cried so suddenly that it startled her, "are +you still moping after Neal Ward? Do you love him? Do you want me to +go and get him for you?" + +The girl stood by her father's chair a moment and then answered +colourlessly: "No, father, I don't want you to get him for me. I am +not moping for him, as you call it." + +Her desolate tone reached some chord in his very heart, for he caught +her hand, and put it to his cheek and said softly, "But she loves +him--my poor little girl loves him?" + +She tried to pull away her hand and replied, in the same dead voice: +"Oh, well--that doesn't matter much, I suppose. It's all over--so +far as I am concerned." She turned to leave him, and he cried:-- + +"My dear, my dear--why don't you go to him?" + +She stopped a moment and looked at her father, and even in the +starlight she could see his hard mouth and his ruthless jaw. Then she +cried out, "Oh, father, I can't--I can't--" After a moment she +turned and looked at him, and asked, "Would you? Would you?" and +walked into the house without waiting for an answer. + +The father sat crumpled up in his chair, listening to the flames +crackling in his heart. The old negation was fighting for its own, and +he was weary and broken and sick as with a palsy of the soul. For +everything in him trembled. There was no solid ground under him. He +had visited his material kingdom in the City, and had seen its strong +fortresses and had tried all of its locks and doors, and found them +firm and fast. But they did not satisfy his soul; something within him +kept mocking them; refusing to be awed by their power, and the eternal +"yes" rushed through his reason like a great wind. + +As he sat there, suddenly, as from some power outside, John Barclay +felt a creaking of his resisting timbers, and he quit the struggle. +His heart was lead in his breast, and he walked through the house to +his pipe organ, that had stood silent in the hall for nearly a year. +He stood hesitatingly before it for a second, and then wearily lay him +down to rest, on a couch beside it, where, when he had played the last +time, Jane lay and listened. He was tired past all telling, but his +soul was relaxed. He lay there for hours--until the tall clock above +his head chimed two. He could not sleep, but his consciousness was +inert and his mind seemed limp and empty, as one who has worked past +his limit. The hymn that the clock chimed through the quarter hours +repeated itself over and over again without meaning in his brain. +Something aroused him; he started up suddenly, and lying half on his +elbow and half on his side he stared about him, and was conscious of a +great light in the room: it was as though there was a fire near by and +he was alarmed, but he could not move. As he looked into space, +terrified by the paralysis that held him, he saw across the face of +the organ, "Righteousness exalteth a Nation, but sin is a reproach to +any people." + +Quick as a flash his mind went back to the time that same motto stared +meaninglessly at him from above the pulpit in the chapel at West +Point, to which he had been appointed official visitor at Commencement +many years before. But that night as he gazed at the text its meaning +came rushing through his brain. It came so quickly that he could not +will it back nor reason it in. Righteousness, he knew, was not +piety--not wearing your Sunday clothes to church and praying and +singing psalms; it was living honestly and kindly and charitably and +dealing decently with every one in every transaction; and sin--that, +he knew--was the cheating, the deceiving, and the malicious greed +that had built up his company and scores of others like it all over +the land. That, he knew--that bribery and corruption and vicarious +stealing which he had learned to know as business--that was a +reproach to any people, and as it came to him that he was a miserable +offender and that the other life, the decent life, was the right life, +he was filled with a joy that he could not express, and he let the +light fail about him unheeded, and lay for a time in a transport of +happiness. He had found the secret. + +The truth had come to him--to him first of all men, and it was his to +tell. The joy of it--that he should find out what righteousness +was--that it was not crying "Lord, Lord" and playing the +hypocrite--thrilled him. And then the sense of his sinning came over +him, but only with joy too, because he felt he could show others how +foolish they were. The clock stopped ticking; the chimes were silent, +and he lay unconscious of his body, with his spirit bathed in some new +essence that he did not understand and did not try to understand. +Finally he rose and went to his organ and turned on the motor, and put +his hands to the keys. As he played the hymn to the "Evening Star," +John Barclay looked up and saw his mother standing upon the stair with +her fine old face bathed in tears. And then at last-- + +Tears? Tears for Mr. Barclay? All these months there have been no +tears for him--none, except miserable little corroding tears of rage +and shame. But now there are tears for Mr. Barclay, large, man's size, +soul-healing tears--tears of repentance; not for the rich Mr. +Barclay, the proud Mr. Barclay, the powerful, man-hating, God-defying +Mr. Barclay of Sycamore Ridge, but for John Barclay, a contrite man, +the humblest in all the kingdom. + +And as John Barclay let his soul rise with the swelling music, he felt +the solace of a great peace in his heart; he turned his wet face +upward and cried, "Oh, mother, mother, I feel like a child!" Then Mary +Barclay knew that her son had let Him in, knew in her own heart all +the joy there is in heaven over one sinner that repenteth. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +It is written in the Book that holds the wisdom of our race that one +who is reborn into the Kingdom of God, enters as a little child. It is +there in black and white, yet few people get the idea into their +consciousnesses. They expect regeneration to produce an upright man. +God knows better than that. And we should know better too when it is +written down for us. And so you good people who expect to see John +Barclay turn rightabout face on the habits of a lifetime are to be +disappointed. For a little child stumbles and falls and goes the wrong +way many times before it learns the way of life. There came days after +that summer night of 1904, when John Barclay fell--days when he would +sneak into the stenographers' room in his office in the City and tear +up some letter he had dictated, when he would send a telegram +annulling an order, when he would find himself cheating and gouging +his competitors or his business associates,--even days when he had +not the moral courage to retrace his steps although he knew he was +wrong. Shame put her brand on his heart, and his face showed to those +who watched it closely--and there were scores of fellow-gamblers at +the game with him, whose profits came from watching his face--his +face showed forth uncertainty and daze. So men said, "The old man's +off his feed," or others said, "Barclay's losing his nerve"; and still +others said, "Can it be possible that the old hypocrite is getting a +sort of belated conscience?" + +But slowly, inch by inch, the child within him grew; he gripped his +soul with the iron hand of will that had made a man of him, and when +the child fell and ached with shame, Barclay's will sustained the +weakling. We are so hidden by our masks that this struggle in the +man's soul, though guessed at by some of those about him, was unknown +to the hundreds who saw him every day. But for him the universe had +changed. And as a child, amazed, he looked upon the new wonder of +God's order about him and went tripping and stumbling and toppling +over awkwardly through it all as one learning some new equilibrium. +There were times when his heart grew sick, and he would have given it +all up. There were hours when he did surrender; when he did a mean +thing and gloried in it, or a cowardly thing and apologized for it. +But his will rose and turned him back to his resolve. He found the big +things easy, and the little things hard to do. So he kept at the big +things until they had pushed him so far toward his goal that the +little things were details which he repaired slowly and with anguish +of humiliation in secret, and unknown even to those who were nearest +to him. + +And all this struggle was behind the hard face, under the broad, high +forehead, back of the mean jaw, beneath the cover of the sharp brazen +eyes. Even in Sycamore Ridge they did not suspect the truth until +Barclay had grown so strong in his new faith that he could look at his +yesterdays without shuddering. + +The year of our Lord nineteen hundred and six was a slow year +politically in Sycamore Ridge, so in the parliament at McHurdie's shop +discussion took somewhat wider range than was usual. It may interest +metaphysicians in the world at large to know that the McHurdie +parliament that August definitely decided that this is not a material +world; that sensation is a delusion, that the whole phantasmagoria of +the outer and material world is a reaction of some sort upon the +individual consciousness. Up to this point the matter is settled, and +metaphysicians may as well make a record of the decision; for Watts +McHurdie, Jacob Dolan, Philemon Ward, Martin Culpepper, and sometimes +Oscar Fernald, know just exactly as much about it as the ablest +logician in the world. It is, however, regrettable that after deciding +that the external world is but a divine reaction upon the individual +consciousness, the parliament was unable to reach any sort of a +decision as to whose consciousness received the picture. Mr. Dolan +maintained vigorously that his consciousness was the one actually +affected, and that the colonel and the general and Watts were mere +hallucinations of his. The general held that Jake and the others were +accessory phantasms of his own dream, and Watts and the colonel, being +of more poetical temperament, held that the whole outfit was a chimera +in some larger consciousness, whose entity it is not given us to know. +As for Oscar, he claimed the parliament was crazy, and started to +prove it, when it was thought best to shift and modify the discussion; +and, therefore, early in September, when the upper currents of the +national atmosphere were vocal with discordant allegations, denials, +accusations, and maledictions, in Watts McHurdie's shop the question +before the house was, "How many people are there in the world?" For +ten days, in the desultory debate that had droned through the summer, +the general, true to his former contention, insisted that there was +only one person in the world. Mr. Dolan, with the Celtic elasticity of +reason, was willing to admit two. + +"You and me and no more--all the rest is background for us," he +proclaimed. "If the you of the moment is the colonel--well and good; +then the colonel and I for it; but if it is the general and I--to the +trees with your colonel and Watts, and the three billion +others--you're merely stage setting, and become third persons." + +"But," asked McHurdie, "if I exist this minute with you, and then you +focus your attention on Mart there, the next minute, and he exists, +what becomes of me when you turn your head from me?" + +Dolan did not answer. He dipped into the _Times_ and read awhile; and +the colonel and the general got out the checkerboard and plunged into +a silent game. At length Dolan, after the fashion of debaters in the +parliament, came out of his newspaper and said:-- + +"That, Mr. McHurdie, is a problem ranging off the subject, into the +theories of the essence of time and space, and I refuse to answer it." + +Me Hurdie kept on working, and the hands of the clock slipped around +nearly an hour. Then the bell tinkled and Neal Ward came in on his +afternoon round for news to print in the next day's issue of the +_Banner_. + +"Anything new?" he asked. + +"Mrs. Dorman is putting new awnings on the rear windows of her +store--did you get that?" asked McHurdie. + +The young man made a note of the fact. + +"Yes," added Dolan, "and you may just say that Hon. Jacob Dolan, +former sheriff of Garrison County, and a member of 'C' Company, well +known in this community, who has been custodian of public buildings +and grounds in and for Garrison County, state of Kansas, ss., is +contemplating resigning his position and removing to the National +Soldiers' Home at Leavenworth for the future." + +Young Ward smiled, but did not take the item down in his note-book. + +"It isn't time yet," he said. + +"Why not?" asked Dolan. + +"Only two months and a half since I printed that the last time. It +can't go oftener than four times a year, and it's been in twice this +year. Late in December will time it about right." + +"What's the news with you, boy?" asked Dolan. + +"Well," said the young man, pausing carefully as if to make a +selection from a large and tempting assortment, but really swinging +his arms for a long jump into the heart of the matter in his mind, +"have you heard that John Barclay has given the town his pipe organ?" + +"You don't say!" exclaimed McHurdie. + +"Tired of it?" asked Dolan, as though twenty-five-thousand-dollar pipe +organs were raining in the town every few days. + +"It'll not be that, Jake," said Watts. "John is no man to tire of +things." + +"No, it's not that, Mr. Dolan," answered Neal Ward. "He has sent word +to the mayor and council that he is going to have the organ installed +in Barclay Hall this week at his own expense, and he accompanied the +letter with fifty thousand dollars in securities to hire a permanent +organist and a band-master for the band; and a band concert and an +organ concert will alternate in the hall every week during the year. I +gather from reading his letter that Mr. Barclay believes the organ +will do more good in the hall than in his house." + +The general and the colonel kept on at their game. Dolan whistled, and +Watts nodded his head. "That's what I would say he did it for," said +McHurdie. + +"Are the securities N.P.C. stock?" asked Dolan, tentatively. + +"No," replied Neal; "I saw them; they are municipal bonds of one sort +and another." + +"Well, well--Johnnie at the mill certainly is popping open like a +chestnut bur. Generally when he has some scheme on to buy public +sentiment he endows something with N.P.C. stock, so that in case of a +lawsuit against the company he'd have the people interested in +protecting the stock. This new tack is certainly queer doings. +Certainly queer doings for the dusty miller!" repeated Dolan. + +"Well, it's like his buying the waterworks of Bemis last month, and +that land at the new pumping station, and giving the council money to +build the new dam and power-house. He had no rebate or take back in +that--at least no one can see it," said the young man. + +"Nellie says," put in Watts, "that she heard from Mrs. Fernald, who +got it from her girl, who got it from the girl who works in the Hub +restaurant, who had it from Mrs. Carnine's girl--so it come pretty +straight--that Lige made John pay a pretty penny for the waterworks, +and they had a great row because John would give up the fight." + +"Yes," replied Dolan, "it come to me from one of the nigger prisoners +in the jail, who has a friend who sweeps out Gabe's bank, that he +heard John and Lige dickering, and that Lige held John up for a +hundred thousand cold dollars for his bargain." + +"The Associated Press to-day," said young Ward, "has a story to the +effect that there is a great boom in certain railroad stocks owing to +some secret operations of Mr. Barclay. They don't know what he is +doing, but things are pretty shaky. He refuses to make a statement." + +"He's a queer canny little man," explained Watts. "You never know +where he'll break out next." + +"Well, he's up to some devilment," exclaimed Dolan; "you can depend on +that. Why do you suppose he's laying off the hands at the strip +factory?" + +The young man shook his head. "Give it up. I asked Mr. Mason and the +best I could get out of him was a parrot-like statement that 'owing to +the oversupply of our commodity, we have decided to close operations +for the present. We have, therefore,' he said pompously, 'given each +of our employees unable to find immediate work here, a ticket for +himself and family to any point in the United States to which he may +desire to go, and have agreed to pay the freight on his household +goods also.' That was every word I could get out of him--and you know +Mr. Mason is pretty talkative sometimes." + +"Queer doings for the dusty miller," repeated Dolan. + +The group by the bench heard the slap of the checkerboard on its +shelf, and General Ward cut into the conversation as one who had never +been out of it. "The boy's got good blood in him; it will come out +some day--he wasn't made a Thatcher and a Barclay and a Winthrop for +nothing. Lizzie was over there the other night for tea with them, and +she said she hadn't seen John so much like himself for years." + +Young Ward went about his afternoon's work and the parliament +continued its debate on miscellaneous public business. The general +pulled the _Times_ from Dolan's pocket and began turning it over. He +stopped and read for a few moments and exclaimed:-- + +"Boys--see here. Maybe this explains something we were talking +about." He began reading a news item sent out from Washington, D.C. +The item stated that the Department of Commerce and Labour had scored +what every one in official circles believed was the most important +victory ever achieved by the government outside of a war. The item +continued:-- + + "Within the last ten days, the head of one of the largest so-called + trusts in this country called at the department, and explained that + his organization, which controls a great staple commodity, was going + into voluntary liquidation. The organization in question has been + the subject of governmental investigation for nearly two years, and + investigators were constantly hampered and annoyed by attempts of + politicians of the very highest caste, outside of the White House, + trying to get inspectors removed or discredited, and all along the + line of its investigations the government has felt a powerful secret + influence shielding the trust. As an evidence of his good faith in + the disorganization, the head of the trust, while he was here, + promised to send to the White House, what he called his 'political + burglar's kit,' consisting of a card index, labelling and ticketing + with elaborate cross references and cabinet data, every man in the + United States who is in politics far enough to get to his state + legislature, or to be a nominee of his party for county attorney. + This outfit, shipped in a score of great boxes, was dumped at the + White House to-day, and it is said that a number of the cards + indicating the reputation of certain so-called conservative senators + and congressmen may be framed. There is a great hubbub in + Washington, and the newspaper correspondents who called at the White + House on their morning rounds were regaled by a confidential glimpse + into the cards and the cabinets. It is likely that the whole outfit + will be filed in the Department of Commerce and Labour, and will + constitute the basis of what is called around the White House + to-day, a 'National Rogues' Gallery.' The complete details of every + senatorial election held in the country during twelve years last + past, showing how to reach any Senator susceptible to any influence + whatsoever, whether political, social, or religious, are among the + trophies of the chase in the hands of the Mighty Hunter for Big Game + to-day." + +When General Ward had finished reading, he lifted up his glasses and +said: "Well, that's it, boys; John has come to his turn of the road. +Here's the rest. It says: 'The corporation in question is practically +controlled by one man, the man who has placed the information above +mentioned in the hands of the government. It is a corporation owning +no physical property whatever, and is organized as a rebate hopper, if +one may so style it. The head of the corporation stated when he was +here recently that he is preparing to buy in every share of the +company's stock at the price for which it was sold and then--' Jake, +where is page 3 with the rest of this article on it?" asked the +general. + +"Why, I threw that away coming down here," responded Dolan. + +"Rather leaves us in the air--doesn't it?" suggested the colonel. + +"Well, it's John. I know enough to know that--from Neal," said the +general. + +The afternoon sun was shining in the south window of the shop. Dolan +started to go. In the doorway McHurdie halted him. + +"Jake," he cried, pointing a lean, smutty finger at Dolan, "Jake +Dolan, if there are only two people in the world, what becomes of me +when you begin talking to Mart? If you knew, you would not dodge. In +philosophy no man can stand on his constitutional rights. Turn state's +evidence, Jake Dolan, and tell the truth--what becomes of me?" + +"'Tis an improper question," replied Dolan, and then drawing himself +up and pulling down the front of his coat, he added, "'Tis not a +matter that may be discussed among gentlemen," and with that he +disappeared. + +The front door-bell tinkled, and the parliament prepared to adjourn. +The colonel helped the poet close his store and bring in the wooden +horse from the sidewalk, and then Molly Brownwell came with her +phaeton and drove the two old men home. On the way up Main Street they +overhauled Neal Ward. Mrs. Brownwell turned in to the sidewalk and +called, "Neal, can you run over to the house a moment this evening?" +And when he answered in the affirmative, she let the old nag amble +gently up the street. + +"How pretty you are, Aunt Molly," exclaimed Neal, as the gray-haired +woman who could still wear a red ribbon came into the room where he +sat waiting for her. The boy's compliment pleased her, and she did not +hesitate to say so. But after that she plunged into the subject that +was uppermost in her heart. + +"Neal," she said, as she drew her chair in front of him so that she +could see his face and know the truth, no matter what his lips might +say, "we're partners now, aren't we, or what amounts to the same +thing?" She smiled good-naturedly. "I own the overdraft at the bank +and you own the mortgage at the court-house. So I am going to ask you +a plain question; and if you say it isn't any of my business, I'll +attempt to show you that it is. Neal," she asked, looking earnestly +into his face, "why do you write to Jeanette Barclay every day of your +life and not mail the letters?" + +The youth flushed. "Why--Aunt Molly--how did you know?--I never +told--" + +"No, Neal, you never told me; but this afternoon while you we're out I +was looking for Adrian's check-book; I was sure we paid Dorman's bill +last April, and that I took the check over myself. I was going through +the desk, and I got on your side, thinking I might have left the +check-book there by mistake, and I ran into the very midst of those +letters, before I knew what I was about. Now, Neal--why?" + +The young man gazed at the woman seriously for a time and then parried +her question with, "Why do you care--what difference can it make to +you, Aunt Molly?" + +"Because," she answered quickly, "because I wish to see my partner +happy. He will do better work so--if you desire to put it on a +cold-blooded basis. Oh, Nealie, Nealie--do you love her that +much--that you take your heart and your life to her without hope or +without sign or answer every day?" + +He dropped his eyes, and turned his face away. "Not every day," he +answered, "not every day--but every night, Aunt Molly." + +"Why don't you go to her, Neal, and tell her?" asked the woman. "Is it +so hopeless as that?" + +"Oh, there are many reasons--why I don't go to her," he replied. +After a minute's silence he went on: "In the first place she is a very +rich girl, and that makes a difference--now. When she was just a +young girl of eighteen, or such a matter, and I only twenty or +twenty-one, we met so naturally, and it all came out so beautifully! +But we are older now, Aunt Molly," he said sadly, "and it's +different." + +"Yes," admitted Mrs. Brownwell, "it is different now--you are right +about it." + +"Yes," he continued, repeating a patter which he had said to himself a +thousand times. "Yes,--and then I can't say I'm sorry--for I'm not. +I'd do it again. And I know how Mr. Barclay feels; he didn't leave me +in any doubt about that," smiled the boy, "when I left his office that +morning after telling him what I was going to do. So," he sighed and +smiled in rather hopeless good humour, "I can't see my way out. Can +you?" + +Molly Brownwell leaned back in her chair, and closed her eyes for a +minute, and then shook her head, and said, "No, Neal, not now; but +there is a way--somehow--I am sure of that." + +He laughed for want of any words to express his hopelessness, and the +two--the youth in despair, and the woman full of hope--sat in +silence. + +"Neal," she asked finally, "what do you put in those letters? Why do +you write them at all?" + +The young man with his eyes upon the floor began, "Well--they're just +letters, Aunt Molly--just letters--such as I used to write +before--don't you know." His voice was dull and passionless, and he +went on: "I can't tell you more about them. They're just letters." He +drew in a quick long breath and exclaimed: "Oh, you know what they +are--I want to talk to some one and I'm going to. Oh, Aunt Molly," he +cried, "I'm not heart-broken, and all that--I'm infinitely happy. +Because I still hold it--it doesn't die. Don't you see? And I know +that always it will be with me--whatever may come to her. I don't +want to forget--and it is my only joy in the matter, that I never +will forget. I can be happy this way; I don't want to give any other +woman a warmed-over heart, for this would always be there--I know +it--and so I am just going to keep it." He dropped his voice again +after a sigh, and went on: "There, that's all there is to it. Do you +think I'm a fool?" he asked, as the colour came into his face. + +"No, Neal, I don't," said Molly Brownwell, as she stood beside him. +"You are a brave, manly fellow, Neal, and I wish I could help you. I +don't see how now--but the way will come--sometime. Now," she added, +"tell me about the paper." + +And then they went into business matters which do not concern us; for +in this story business conjures up the face of John Barclay--the +tanned, hard face of John Barclay, crackled with a hundred wrinkles +about the eyes, and scarred with hard lines about the furtive crafty +mouth; and we do not wish to see that face now; it should be hidden +while the new soul that is rising in his body struggles with that +tough, bronzed rind, gets a focus from the heart into those glaring +brass eyes, and teaches the lying lips to speak the truth, and having +spoken it to look it. And so while John Barclay in the City is daily +slipping millions of his railroad bonds into the market,--slipping +them in quietly yet steadily withal, mixing them into the daily +commerce of the country, so gently that they are absorbed before any +one knows they have left his long grasping fingers,--while he is +trading to his heart's content, let us forget him, and look at this +young man, that September night, after he left Molly Brownwell, +sitting at his desk in the office with the telephone at his elbow, +with the smell of the ink from the presses in his nostrils, with the +silence of the deserted office becalming his soul, and with his +heart--a clean, strong, manly heart--full of the picture of a +woman's face, and the vision without a hope. In his brain are recorded +a thousand pictures, and millions of little fibres run all over this +brain, conjuring up those pictures, and if there are blue eyes in the +pictures, and lips in the pictures, and the pressure of hands, and the +touch of souls in the pictures,--they are Neal Ward's pictures, +--they are Mr. Higgin's pictures, and Mrs. Wiggin's pictures, and Mr. +Stiggin's pictures, my dears, and alack and alas, they are the +pictures of Miss Jones and Miss Lewis and Miss Thomas and Miss Smith, +for that matter; and so, my dears, if we would be happy we should be +careful even if we can't be good, for it is all for eternity, and +whatever courts may say, and whatever churches may say, and whatever +comes back with rings and letters and trinkets,--there is no divorce, +and the pictures always stay in the heart, and the sum of the pictures +is life. + +So that September night Neal Ward went back over the old trail as +lovers always will, and then his pen began to write. Now in the nature +of things the first three words are not for our eyes, and to-night we +must not see the first three lines nor the first thirty, nor the last +three words nor the last three lines nor the last thirty lines. But we +may watch him write; we may observe how longingly he looks at the +telephone, as if tempted to go to it, and tell it what is in his +breast. There it sits, all shiny and metallic; and by conjuring it +with a number and a word, he could have her with him. Yet he does not +take it up; because--the crazy loon thinks in the soul of him, that +what he writes, some way, in the great unknown system of receivers and +recorders and transmitters of thought that range through this +universe, is pouring into her heart, and so he writes and smiles, and +smiles and writes--no bigger fool than half the other lovers on the +planet who, talking to their sweethearts, holding their hands and +looking squarely into their eyes, deceive themselves that what they +say is going to the heart, and not going in one ear and out of the +other. + +And now let us put on our seven-league boots and walk from September's +green and brown, through October's gold and crimson, into that season +of the year 1906 when Nature is shifting her scenery, making ready for +the great spring show. It is bleak, but not cold; barren, but not +ugly,--for the stage setting of the hills and woods and streams, even +without the coloured wings and flies and the painted trees and grass, +has its fine simplicity of form and grouping that are good to look +upon. Observe in the picture a small man sitting on a log in a wood, +looking at the stencil work of the brown and gray branches, as its +shadows waver and shimmer upon the gray earth. He is poking +reflectively in the earth with his cane. His boat is tied to some tree +roots, and he doesn't breathe as regularly as a man should breathe who +is merely thinking of his next dinner or his last dollar. He delves +into himself and almost forgets to breathe at all, so deep is his +abstraction. And so he sits for five minutes--ten minutes--half an +hour--and save that he edges into the sun as the shadow of the great +walnut tree above catches him, an hour passes and he does not move. +Poking, poking, poking his stick into the mould, he has dug up much +litter in an hour, and he has seen his whole life thrown up before +him. In those leaves yonder is a battle--a bloody battle, and things +are blistered into his boyish heart in that battle that never heal +over; that tuft of sod is a girl's face--a little girl's face that he +loved as a boy; there is his first lawsuit--that ragged pile of +leaves by the twig at the log's end; and the twig is his first ten +thousand dollars. All of it lies there before him, his victories and +his defeats, his millions come, and his millions going--going?--yes, +all but gone. Yonder that deep gash in the sod at the left hides a +woman's face--pale, wasted, dead on her pillow; and that clean black +streak on the ebony cane--that is a tear, and in the tear is a girl's +face and back of hers shimmers a boy's countenance. All of John +Barclay's life and hopes and dreams and visions are spread out before +him on the ground. So he closes his eyes, and braces his soul, and +then, having risen, whistles as he limps lightly--for a man past +fifty--down to the boat. He rows with a clean manly stroke--even in +an old flat-bottomed boat--through the hazy sunset into the dusk. + +"Jeanette," he said to his daughter that evening at dinner, "I wish +you would go to the phone, pretty soon, and tell Molly Culpepper that +I want her to come down this evening. I am anxious to see her. The +colonel isn't at home, or I'd have him, mother," explained Mr Barclay. + +And that is why Miss Barclay called "876, Please--yes, 8-7-6;" and +then said: "Hello--hello, is this 876? Yes--is Mrs. Brownwell in? +Oh, all right." And then, "54, please; yes, 5-4. Is this you, Aunt +Molly? Father is in town--he came in this morning and has spent the +afternoon on the river, and he told me at dinner to ask you if you +could run down this evening. Oh, any time. I didn't know you worked +nights at the office. Oh, is Mr. Ward out of town?--I didn't know. +All right, then--about eight o'clock--we'll look for you." + +And that is why at the other end of the telephone, a pretty, +gray-haired woman stood, and looked, and looked, and looked at a plain +walnut desk, as though it was enchanted, and then slipped guiltily +over to that black walnut desk, unlocked a drawer, and pulled out a +whole apronful of letters. + +And so the reader may know what Molly Brownwell had in that package +which she put in the buggy seat beside her when she drove down to see +the Barclays, that beautiful starry November night. She put the +package with her hat and wraps in Jeanette's room, and then came down +to the living room where John Barclay sat by the roaring fire in the +wide fireplace, with a bundle beside him also. His mother was there, +and his daughter took a seat beside him. + +"Molly," said Barclay, with a deep sigh, "I sent for you, first, +because, of all the people in the world, it is but just that you +should be here, to witness what I am doing; and second, because Jane +would have had you, and I want you to be with Jeanette when I tell her +some things that she must know to-night--she and mother." + +He was sitting in a deep easy chair, with one foot--not his lame +foot--curled under him, a wiry-looking little gray cat of a man who +nervously drummed on the mahogany chair arm, or kept running his hands +over the carving, or folding and unfolding them, and twirled his +thumbs incessantly as he talked. He smiled as he began:-- + +"Well, girls, father got off the chair car at Sycamore Ridge this +morning, after having had the best sleep he has had in twenty years." + +He paused for the effect of his declaration to sink in. Jeanette +asked, "Where was the car?" + +"What car?" teased the little gray cat. + +"Why, our car?" + +"My dear, we have no car," he smiled, with the cream of mystery on his +lips. Then he licked it off. "I sold the car three weeks ago, when I +left the Ridge the last time." He dropped into an eloquent silence, +and then went on: "I rode in the chair car to save three dollars. I +need it in my business." + +His mother's blue eyes were watching him closely. She exclaimed, +"John, quit your foolishness. What have you done?" + +He laughed as he said: "Mother, I have returned to you poor but +honest. My total assets at this minute are seventy-five million +dollars' worth of stock of the National Provisions Company, tied up in +this bundle on the floor here, and five thousand dollars in the +Exchange National Bank of Sycamore Ridge which I have held for thirty +years. I sold my State Bank stock last Monday to Gabe Carnine. I have +thirty-four dollars and seventy-three cents in my pocketbook, and that +is all." + +The women were puzzled, and their faces showed it. So the little gray +cat made short work of the mice. + +"Well, now, to be brief and plain," said Barclay, pulling himself +forward in his chair and thrusting out an arm and hand, as if to grip +the attention of his hearers, "I have always owned or directly +controlled over half the N.P.C. stock--representing a big pile of +money. I am trying to forget how much, and you don't care. But it was +only part of my holdings--about half or such a matter, I should say. +The rest were railroad bonds on roads necessary to the company, +mortgages on mills and elevators whose stock was merged in the +company, and all sorts of gilt-edged stuff, bank stock and insurance +company stock--all needed to make N.P.C. a dominant factor in the +commercial life of the country. You don't care about that, but it was +all a sort of commercial blackmail on certain fellows and interests to +keep them from fighting N.P.C." Barclay hitched himself forward to the +edge of his chair, and still held out his grappling-hook of a hand to +hold them as he smiled and went on: "Well, I've been kind of swapping +horses here for six months or so--trading my gilt-edged bonds and +stuff for cash and buying up N.P.C. stock. I got a lot of it +quietly--an awful lot." He grinned. "I guess that was square enough. +I paid the price for it--and a little better than the price--because +I had to." He was silent a few moments, looking at the fire. He +meditated pleasantly: "There was some good in it--a lot of good when +you come to think of it--but a fearful lot of bad! Well--I've saved +the good. I just reorganized the whole concern from top to +bottom--the whole blame rebate hopper. We had some patents, and we +had some contracts with mills, and we had some good ideas of +organization. And I've kept the good and chucked the bad. I put N.P.C. +out of business and have issued stock in the new company to our +minority whose stock I couldn't buy and have squeezed the water out of +the whole concern. And then I took what balance I had left--every +cent of it, went over the books for thirty years, and made what +restitution I could." He grinned as he added: "But I found it was +nearly whittlety whet. A lot of fellows had been doing me up, while I +had been doing others up. But I made what restitution I could and then +I got out. I closed up the City office, and moved the whole concern to +St. Paul, and turned it over to the real owners--the millers and +elevator men--and I have organized an industry with a capitalization +small enough to make it possible for them to afford to be honest for +thirty years--while our patents and contracts last, anyway." He put +an elbow in the hollow of his hand, and the knuckles on his knee as he +sat cross-legged, and drawled: "I wonder if it will work--" and +repeated: "I wonder, I wonder. There's big money in it; she's a dead +monopoly as she stands, and they have the key to the whole thing in +the Commerce Department at Washington. They can keep her straight if +they will." He paused for a while and went on: "But I'm tired of it. +The great hulk of a thing has ground the soul out of me. So I ducked. +Girls," he cried, as he turned toward them, "here's the way it is; I +never did any real good with money. I'm going to see what a man can do +to help his fellows with his bare hands. I want to help, not with +money, but just to be some account on earth without money. And so +yesterday I cleaned up the whole deal forever." + +He paused to let it sink in. Finally Jeanette asked, "And are we poor, +father--poor?" + +"Well, my dear," he expanded, "your grandmother Barclay has always +owned this house. An Omaha syndicate owns the mill. I own $5,000 in +bank stock, and the boy who marries you for your money right now is +going to get badly left." + +"You aren't fooling me, are you, John?" asked his mother as she rose +from her chair. + +"No, mother," answered the son, "I've got rid of every dirty dollar I +have on earth. The bank stock I bought with the money the Citizens' +Committee subscribed to pay me for winning the county-seat lawsuit. As +near as I can figure it out, that was about the last clean money I +ever earned." + +The mother walked toward her son, and leaned over and kissed him again +and again as she sobbed: "Oh, John, I am so happy to-night--so +happy." + +In a moment he asked, "Well, Jeanette, what do you think of it?" + +"You know what I think, father--you know very well, don't you?" + +He sighed and nodded his head. Then he reached for the package on the +floor and began cutting the strings. The bundle burst open and the +stock of the National Provisions Company, issued only in +fifty-thousand-dollar and one-hundred-thousand-dollar shares, littered +the floor. + +"Now," cried Barclay, as he stood looking at the litter, "now, Molly, +here's what I want you to do: Burn it up--burn it up," he cried. "It +has burned the joy out of your life, Molly--burn it up! I have fought +it all out to-day on the river--but I can't quite do that. Burn it +up--for God's sake, Molly, burn it up." + +When the white ashes had risen up the chimney, he put on another log. +"This is our last extravagance for some time, girls--but we'll +celebrate to-night," he cried. "You haven't a little elderberry wine, +have you, mother?" he asked. "Riley says that's the stuff for little +boys with curvature of the spine--and I'll tell you it put several +kinks in mine to watch that burn." + +And so they sat for an hour talking of old times while the fire +burned. But Molly Brownwell's mind was not in the performance that +John Barclay had staged. She could see nothing but the package lying +on her cloak in the girl's room upstairs. So she rose to go early, and +the circle broke when she left it. She and Jeanette left John standing +with his arms about his mother, patting her back while she wept. + +As she closed the door of Jeanette's room behind her, Molly Brownwell +knew that she must speak. "Jeanette," she said, "I don't know just how +to say it, dear; but, I stole those--I mean what is in that +package--I took it and Neal doesn't know I have it. It's for you," +she cried, as she broke the string that tied it, and tore off the +wrapping. + +The girl stared at her and asked: "Why, Aunt Molly--what is it? I +don't understand." + +The woman in pulling her wrap from the chair, tumbled the letters to +the floor. She slipped into her cloak and kissed the bewildered girl, +and said as she stood in the doorway: "There they are, my dear--they +are yours; do what you please with them." + +She hurried down the stairs, and finding John sitting alone before the +fire in the sitting room, would have bidden him good night as she +passed through the room, but he stopped her. + +"There is one thing more, Molly," he said, as he motioned to a chair. + +"Yes," she answered, "I wondered if you had forgotten it!" + +He worried the fire, and renewed the blaze, before he spoke. "What +about Neal--how does he feel?" + +"John," replied the woman, turning upon him a radiant face, "it is the +most beautiful thing in the world--that boy's love for Jennie! Why, +every night after his work is done, sitting there in the office alone, +Neal writes her a letter, that he never mails; just takes his heart to +her, John. I found a great stack of them in his desk the other day." + +Barclay's face crinkled in a spasm of pain, and he exclaimed, "Poor +little kids--poor, poor children." + +"John--" Molly Brown well hesitated, and then took courage and cried: +"Won't you--won't you for Ellen's sake? It is like that--like you +and Ellen. And," she stammered, "oh, John, I do want to see one such +love affair end happily before I die." + +Barclay's hard jaw trembled, and his eyes were wet as he rose and +limped across the great room. At the foot of the stairs he called up, +"Don't bother with the phone, Jeanette, I'm going to use it." He +explained, "The branch in her room rings when we use this one," and +then asked, "Do you know where he is--at home or at the office?" + +"If the ten o'clock train is in, he's at the office. If not, he's not +in town." + +But Barclay went to the hall, and when he returned he said, "Well, I +got him; he'll be right out." + +Molly was standing by the fire. "What are you going to say, John?" she +asked. + +"Oh, I don't know. There'll be enough for me to say, I suppose," he +replied, as he looked at the floor. + +She gave him her hand, and they stood for a minute looking back into +their lives. They walked together toward the door, but at the +threshold their eyes met and each saw tears, and they parted without +words. + +Neal Ward found Barclay prodding the fire, and the gray little man, +red-faced from his task, limped toward the tall, handsome youth, and +led him to a chair. Barclay stood for a time with his back to the +fire, and his head down, and in the silence he seemed to try to speak +several times before the right words came. Then he exclaimed: + +"Neal, I was wrong--dead wrong--and I've been too proud and mean all +this time--to say so." + +Neal stared open-eyed at Barclay and moistened his lips before +language came to him. Finally he said: "Well, Mr. Barclay--that's all +right. I never blamed you. You needn't have bothered about--that is, +to tell me." + +Barclay gazed at the young man abstractedly for a minute that seemed +interminable, and then broke out, "Damn it, Neal, I can't propose to +you--but that's about what I've got you out here to-night for." + +He laughed nervously, but the young face showed his obtuseness, and +John Barclay having broken the ice in his own heart put his hands in +his pockets and threw back his head and roared, and then cried +merrily: "All we need now is a chorus in fluffy skirts and an +orchestra with me coming down in front singing, 'Will you be my +son-in-law?' for it to be real comic opera." + +The young man's heart gave such a bound of joy that it flashed in his +face, and the father, seeing it, was thrilled with happiness. So he +limped over to Neal's chair and stood beaming down upon the +embarrassed young fellow. + +"But, Mr. Barclay--" the boy found voice, "I don't know--the +money--it bothers me." + +And John Barclay again threw his head back and roared, and then they +talked it all out. He told Neal the story of his year's work. It was +midnight when they heard the telephone ringing, and Barclay, curled up +like an old gray cat in his chair before the fire, said for old times' +sake, "Neal, go see who is ringing up at this unholy hour." + +And while Neal Ward steps to the telephone, let us go upstairs on one +last journey with our astral bodies and discover what Jeanette is +doing. After Molly's departure, Jeanette stooped to pick up what Molly +had left. She saw her own name, "Jeanette Barclay," and her address +written on an envelope. She picked it up. It was dated: "Written +December 28," and she saw that the package was filled with letters in +envelopes similarly addressed in Neal Ward's handwriting. She dropped +the letter on her dressing-table and began to undo her hair. In a few +minutes she stopped and picked up another, and laid it down unopened. +But in half an hour she was sitting on the floor reading the letters +through her tears. The flood of joy that came over her drowned her +pride. For an hour she sat reading the letters, and they brought her +so near to her lover that it seemed that she must reach out and touch +him. She was drawn by an irresistible impulse to her telephone that +sat on her desk. It seemed crazy to expect to reach Neal Ward at +midnight, but as she rose from the floor with the letters slipping +from her lap and with the impulse like a cord drawing her, she saw, or +thought she saw, standing by the desk, a part of the fluttering +shadows, a girl--a quaint, old-fashioned girl in her teens, +with--but then she remembered the dream girl her lover had described +in the letter she had just been reading, and she understood the source +of her delusion. And yet there the vision moved by the telephone, +smiling and beckoning; then it faded, and there came rushing back to +her memory a host of recollections of her childhood, and of some one +she could not place, and then a memory of danger,--and then it was +all gone and there stood the desk and the telephone and the room as it +was. + +She shuddered slightly, and then remembered that she had just been +through two great nervous experiences--the story of her father's +changed life, and the return of her lover. And she was a level-headed, +strong-nerved girl. So the joy of love in her heart was not dampened, +and the cord drawing her to the desk in the window did not loosen, and +she did not resist. With a gulp of nervous fear she rang the telephone +bell and called, "54, please!" She heard a buzzing, and then a faint +stir in the receiver, and then she got the answer. She sat a-tremble, +afraid to reply. The call was repeated in her ear, and then she said +so faintly that she could not believe it would be heard, "Oh, +Neal--Neal--I have come back." + +The young man standing in the dimly lighted hall was startled. He +cried, "Is it really you, Jeanette--is it you?" + +And then stronger than before the voice said, "Yes, Neal, it is I--I +have come back!" + +"Oh, Jeanette--Jeanette," he cried. + +But she stopped him with, "We must not talk any more--now, don't you +know--but I had to tell you that I had come back, Neal." And then she +said, "Good night." So there they stood, the only two people in the +universe, reunited lovers, each with the voice of the other sounding +in his ears. For Mr. Dolan was right. There are only two people in the +world, and for these two lovers earth and the stars and the systems of +suns that make up this universe were only background for the play of +their happiness. + +As Neal Ward came back to John Barclay from the telephone, the young +man's face was burning with joy. + +"Who was it?" asked Barclay. + +The youth smiled bashfully as he said, "Well, it was Jeanette--she +was calling up another number and I cut in." + +"What did she say?" asked her father. + +"Oh, nothing--in particular," replied Neal. + +Barclay looked up quickly, caught the young man's abashed smile, and +asked, "Does she know you're here?" + +"No, she thinks I'm at the office." + +Barclay rose from his chair, and limped across the room, calling back +as he mounted the stair, "Wait a minute." + +It was more than a minute that Neal Ward stood by the fire waiting. + +And now, gentle people, observe the leader of the orchestra fumbling +with his music. There is a faint stir among the musicians under the +footlights. And you, too, are getting restless; you are feeling for +your hat instinctively, and you for your hat-pins, and you for your +rubbers, while Neal Ward stands there waiting, and the great clock +ticks in the long silence. There is a rustle on the stairs, at the +right, and do you see that foot peeping down, that skirt, that slender +girlish figure coming down, that young face tear-stained, happy, +laughing and sobbing, with the arms outstretched as she nears the last +turn of the stairs? And the lover--he has started toward her. The +orchestra leader is standing up. And the youth, with God's holiest +glory in his face, has almost reached her. And there for an instant +stand Neal and Jeanette mingling tears in their kisses, for the +curtain, the miserable, unemotional, awkward curtain--it has stuck +and so they must stand apart, hand in hand, devouring each other's +faces a moment, and then as the curtain falls we see four feet close +together again, and then--and then the world comes in upon us, and we +smile and sigh and sigh and smile, for the journey of those four feet +is ended, the story is done. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +BEING SOMEWHAT IN THE NATURE OF AN EPILOGUE + + +And now that the performance is finished and the curtain has been rung +down, we desire to thank you, one and all, for your kind attention, +and to express the hope that in this highly moral show you may have +found some pleasure as well as profit. But though the play is ended, +and you are already reaching for your hats and coats, the lights are +still dim; and as you see a great white square of light appear against +the curtain, you know that the entertainment is to conclude with a +brief exhibition of the wonders of that great modern invention, the +cinematograph of Time. + +The first flickering shadows show you the interior of Watts McHurdie's +shop, and as your eyes take in the dancing shapes, you discern the +parliament in session. Colonel Martin F. Culpepper is sitting there +with Watts McHurdie, reading and re-reading for the fourth and fifth +time, in the peculiar pride that authorship has in listening to the +reverberation of its own eloquence, the brand-new copy of the second +edition of "The Complete Poetical and Philosophical Works of Watts +McHurdie, with Notes and a Biographical Appreciation by Martin F. +Culpepper, 'C' Company, Second Regiment K.V." The colonel, with his +thumb in the book, pokes the fire in the stove, and sits down again to +drink his joy unalloyed. Watts is working on a saddle, but his arms +and his hands are not what they were in the old days when his saddlery +won first prize year after year at the Kansas City Fair. So he puffs +and fusses and sighs his way through his morning's work. Sometimes the +colonel reads aloud a line from a verse, or a phrase from the +Biography--more frequently from the Biography--and exclaims, +"Genius, Watts, genius, genius!" But Watts McHurdie makes no reply. As +his old eyes--quicker than his old fingers--see the sad work they +are making, his heart sinks within him. + +"Listen, Watts," cries the colonel. "How do you like this, you old +skeezicks?" and the colonel reads a stanza full of "lips" and "slips," +"eyes" and "tries," "desires" and "fires," and "darts" and "hearts." + +The little white-haired old man leans forward eagerly to catch it all. +But his shoulders slump, and he draws a long, tired breath when the +colonel has finished. + +"Man--man," he cries, "what a saddle I could make when I wrote that!" +And he turns wearily to his task again. + +Oscar Fernald paces in busily, and in half an hour Lycurgus Mason, who +has been thrown out of the current of life, drifts into his place in +the back-water, and the parliament is ready for business. They see +Gabriel Carnine totter by, chasing after pennies to add to his little +pile. The bell tinkles, and the postman brings a letter. McHurdie +opens it and says, as he looks at the heading: + +"It's from old Jake. It is to all of us" he adds as he looks at the +top of the sheet of letter paper. He takes off his apron and +ceremoniously puts on his coat; then seats himself, and unfolding the +sheet, begins at the very top to read:-- + + "National Soldiers' Home, + Leavenworth, Kansas, + March 11, 1909. + + "TO THE MEMBERS OF MCHURDIE'S PARLIAMENT, + + "_Gents and Comrades_: I take my pen in hand this bright spring + morning to tell you that I arrived here safe, this side up with + care, glass, be careful, Saturday morning, and I am willing to + compromise my chances for heaven, which Father Van Saudt being a + Dutchman always regarded as slim, for a couple of geological ages of + this. I hope you are the same, but you are not. Given a few hundred + white nighties for us to wear by day, and a dozen or two dagoes + playing on harps, and this would be my idea of Heaven. The meals + that we do have--tell Oscar that when I realize what eating is, what + roast beef can be, cut thin and rare and dripping with gravy--it + makes me wonder if the days when I boarded at the Thayer House might + not be counted as part of the time I must do in the fireworks. And + the porcelean bath tubs, and the white clean beds, and the music of + the band, and the free tobacco--here I raise my Ebenezer, as the + Colonel sings down in his heretic church; here I put my standard + down. + + "Well, Watts, I hear the news about Nelly. We've known it was coming + for a year, but that doesn't make it easier. Why don't you come up + here, Comrade--we are all lonesome up here, and it doesn't make the + difference. Well, John Barclay, the reformed pirate, President of + the Exchange National Bank, and general all-round municipal + reformer, was over in Leavenworth last week attending the Bankers' + Convention, or something, and he came to see me, as though he hadn't + bid me good-by at the train two days before. But he said things were + going on at the Ridge about the same, and being away from home, he + grew confidential, and he told me Lige Bemis had lost all his money + bucking the board of trade--did you know that? If not, it isn't so, + and I never told you. John showed me the picture of little John B. + Ward--as likely a looking yearling as I ever saw. Well, I must + close. Remember me to all inquiring friends and tell them Comrade + Dolan is lying down by the still waters." + +And now the screen is darkened for a moment to mark the passage of +months before we are given another peep into the parliament. It is +May--a May morning that every one of these old men will remember to +his death. The spring rise of the Sycamore has flooded the lowlands. +The odour of spring is in the air. In the parliament are lilacs in a +sprinkling pot--a great armful of lilacs, sent by Molly Culpepper. +The members who are present are talking of the way John Barclay has +sloughed off his years, and Watts is saying:-- + +"Boys will be boys; I knew him forty years ago when he was at least a +hundred years older, and twice as wise." + +"He hasn't missed a ball game--either foot-ball or baseball--for for +nearly two years now," ventures Fernald. "And yell! Say, it's +something terrible." + +McHurdie turns on the group with his glasses on his forehead. "Don't +you know what's a-happening to John?" he asks. "Well, I know. Whoever +wrote the Bible was a pretty smart man. I've found that out in +seventy-five years--especially the Proverbs, and I've been thinking +some of the Testament." He smiles. "There's something in it. It says, +'Except ye come as a little child, ye shall in no wise enter the +Kingdom.' That's it--that's it. I don't claim to know rightly what +the kingdom may be, but John's entering it. And I'll say this: John's +been a long time getting in, but now that he's there, he's having the +de'el of a fine time." + +And on the very words General Ward comes bursting into the room, +forgetful of his years, with tragedy in his face. The bustle and +clatter of that morning in the town have passed over the men in the +parliament. They have not heard the shouts of voices in the street, +nor the sound of footsteps running towards the river. But even their +dim eyes see the horror in the general's face as he gasps for breath. + +"Boys, boys," he exclaims. "My God, boys, haven't you heard--haven't +you heard?" And as their old lips are slow to answer, he cries out, +"John's dead--John Barclay's drowned--drowned--gave his life trying +to save Trixie Lee out there on a tree caught in the dam." + +The news is so sudden, so stunning, that the old men sit there for a +moment, staring wide-eyed at the general. McHurdie is the first to +find his voice. + +"How did it happen?" he says. + +"I don't know--no one seems to know exactly," replies the general. +And then in broken phrases he gives them the confused report that he +has gathered: how some one had found Trixie Lee clinging to a tree +caught in the current of the swollen river just above the dam, and +calling for help, frantic with fear; how a crowd gathered, as crowds +gather, and the outcry brought John Barclay running from his house +near by; how he arrived to find men discussing ways of reaching the +woman in the swift current, while her grip was loosening and her cries +were becoming fainter. Then the old spirit in John Barclay, that had +saved the county-seat for Sycamore Ridge, came out for the last time. +His skiff was tied to a tree on the bank close at hand. A boy was sent +running to the nearest house for a clothes-line. When he returned, +John was in the skiff, with the oars in hand. He passed an end of the +line to the men, and without a word in answer to their protests, began +to pull out against the current. It was too strong for him, and was +sweeping him past the woman, when he stood up, measured the distance +with his eye, and threw the line so it fell squarely across her +shoulders. Some one said that as the skiff shot over the dam, John, +still standing up, had a smile on his face, and that he waved his hand +to the crowd with a touch of his old bravado. + +The general paused before going on with the story. + +"They sent me to tell his mother--the woman who had borne him, +suckled him, reared him, lost him, and found him again." + +"And what did she say?" asked Watts, as the general hesitated. + +The general moistened his lips and went on. "She stood staring at me +for one dreadful minute, and then she asked, 'How did he die, +Philemon?' 'He died saving a woman from drowning,' I told her. 'Did he +save her?'--that was what she asked, still standing stiff and +motionless. 'Yes,' I said. 'She was only Trixie Lee--a bad woman--a +bad woman, Mrs. Barclay.' And Mary Barclay lifted her long, gaunt arms +halfway above her head and cried: 'Mine eyes have seen the glory of +the coming of the Lord. I must have an hour with God now, Philemon,' +she said over her shoulder as she left me; 'don't let them bother me.' +Then she walked unbent and unshaken up the stairs." + +So John Barclay, who tried for four years and more to live by his +faith, was given the opportunity to die for it, and went to his duty +with a glad heart. + + * * * * * + +We will give our cinematograph one more whirl. A day, a week, a month, +have gone, and we may glimpse the parliament for the last time. Watts +McHurdie is reading aloud, slowly and rather painfully, a news item +from the _Banner_. Two vacant chairs are formally backed to the wall, +and in a third sits General Ward. At the end of a column-long article +Watts drones out:-- + +"And there was considerable adverse comment in the city over the fact +that the deceased was sent here for burial from the National Soldiers' +Home at Leavenworth, in a shabby, faded blue army uniform of most +ancient vintage. Surely this great government can afford better +shrouds than that for its soldier dead." + +Watts lays down the paper and wipes his spectacles, and finally he +says:-- + +"And Neal wrote that?" + +"And Neal wrote that," replies the general. + +"And was born and bred in the Ridge," complains McHurdie. + +"Born and bred in the Ridge," responds the general. + +Watts puts on his glasses and fumbles for some piece of his work on +the bench. Then he shakes his head sadly and says, after drawing a +deep breath, "Well, it's a new generation, General, a new generation." + +There follows a silence, during which Watts works on mending some bit +of harness, and the general reads the evening paper. The late +afternoon sun is slanting into the shop. At length the general speaks. + +"Yes," he says, "but it's a fine town after all. It was worth doing. I +wake up early these days, and often of a fine spring morning I go out +to call on the people on the Hill." + +McHurdie nods his comprehension. + +"Yes," continues the general, "and I tell them all about the new +improvements. There are more of us out on the Hill now than in town, +Watts; I spent some time with David Frye and Henry Schnitzler and Jim +Lord Lee this morning, and called on General Hendricks for a little +while." + +"Did you find him sociable?" asks the poet, grinning up from his +bench. + +"Oh, so-so--about as usual," answers the general. + +"He was always a proud one," comments Watts. "Will Henry Schnitzler be +stiff-necked about his monument there by the gate?" asks the little +Scotchman. + +"Inordinately, Watts, inordinately! The pride of that man is something +terrible." + +The two old men chuckle at the foolery of the moment. The general +folds away the evening paper and rises to go. + +"Watts," he says, "I have lived seventy-eight years to find out just +one thing." + +"And what will that be?" asks the harness maker. + +"This," beams the old man, as he puts his spectacle case in his black +silk coat; "that the more we give in this world, the more we take from +it; and the more we keep for ourselves, the less we take." And smiling +at his paradox, he goes through the shop into the sunset. + +The air is vocal with the home-bound traffic of the day. Cars are +crowded; delivery wagons rattle home; buggies clatter by on the +pavements; one hears the whisper of a thousand feet treading the hot, +crowded street. But Watts works on. So let us go in to bid him a +formal good-by. The tinkling door-bell will bring out a bent little +old man, with grimy fingers, who will put up his glasses to peer at +our faces, and who will pause a moment to try to recollect us. He will +talk about John Barclay. + +"Yes, yes, I knew him well," says McHurdie; "there by the door hangs a +whip he made as a boy. We used to play on that accordion in the case +there. Oh, yes, yes, he was well thought of; we are a neighbourly +people--maybe too much so. Yes, yes, he died a brave death, and the +papers seemed to think his act of sacrifice showed the world a real +man--and he was that,--he was surely that, was John; yes, he was a +real man. You ask about his funeral? It was a fine one--a grand +funeral--every hack in town out--every high-stepping horse out; and +the flowers--from all over the world they came--the flowers were +most beautiful. But there are funerals and funerals. There was Martin +Culpepper's--not so many hacks, not so many high-stepping horses, but +the old buggies, and the farm wagons, and the little nigger +carts--and man, man alive, the tears, the tears!" + + + + * * * * * * + + + +Mr. ROBERT HERRICK'S NOVELS + +_Cloth, extra, gilt tops, each $1.50_ + + +The Gospel of Freedom + +"A novel that may truly be called the greatest study of social life, +in a broad and very much up-to-date sense, that has ever been +contributed to American fiction."--_Chicago Inter-Ocean_. + +The Web of Life + +"It is strong in that it faithfully depicts many phases of American +life, and uses them to strengthen a web of fiction, which is most +artistically wrought out."--_Buffalo Express_. + +Jock o' Dreams, or The Real World + +"The title of the book has a subtle intention. It indicates, and is +true to the verities in doing so, the strange dreamlike quality of +life to the man who has not yet fought his own battles, or come into +conscious possession of his will--only such battles bite into the +consciousness."--_Chicago Tribune_. + +The Common Lot + +"It grips the reader tremendously.... It is the drama of a human soul +the reader watches ... the finest study of human motive that has +appeared for many a day."--_The World To-day_. + +The Memoirs of an American Citizen. Illustrated with about fifty +drawings by F. B. Masters. + +"Mr. Herrick's book is a book among many, and he comes nearer to +reflecting a certain kind of recognizable, contemporaneous American +spirit than anybody has yet done."--_New York Times._ + +"Intensely absorbing as a story, it is also a crisp, vigorous document +of startling significance. More than any other writer to-day he is +giving us _the_ American novel."--_New York Globe_. + +Together + +"The thing is straight from life.... The spirit of the book is in the +end bracing and quickening."--_Chicago Evening Post._ + +"An able book, remarkably so, and one which should find a place in the +library of any woman who is not a fool."--_New York American_. + +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY +Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York + + * * * * * * + +Mr. WINSTON CHURCHILL'S NOVELS + +_Each, cloth, gilt tops and titles, $1.50_ + + +Mr. Crewe's Career Illustrated + +"Another chapter in his broad, epical delineation of the American +spirit ... It is an honest and fair story ...It is very interesting: +and the heroine is a type of woman as fresh, original and captivating +as any that has appeared in American novels for a long time +past."--_The Outlook, New York._ + +"Shows Mr. Churchill at his best. The flavor of his humor is of that +stimulating kind which asserts itself just the moment, as it were, +after it has passed the palate ... As for Victoria, she has that +quality of vivid freshness, tenderness, and independence which makes +so many modern American heroines delightful."--_The Times_, London. + +The Celebrity. An Episode + +"No such piece of inimitable comedy in a literary way has appeared for +years... It is the purest, keenest fun."--_Chicago_ _Inter-Ocean_. + +Richard Carvel Illustrated +"...In breadth of canvas, massing of dramatic effect, depth of +feeling, and rare wholesomeness of spirit, it has seldom, if ever, +been surpassed by an American romance."--_Chicago Tribune_. + +The Crossing Illustrated +"'The Crossing' is a thoroughly interesting book, packed with exciting +adventure and sentimental incident, yet faithful to historical fact +both in detail and in spirit."--_The Dial_. + +The Crisis Illustrated +"It is a charming love story, and never loses its interest ... The +intense political bitterness, the intense patriotism of both parties, +are shown understandingly."--_Evening Telegraph_, Philadelphia. + +Coniston Illustrated +"'Coniston' has a lighter, gayer spirit and a deeper, tenderer touch +than Mr. Churchill has ever achieved before... It is one of the truest +and finest transcripts of modern American life thus far achieved in +our fiction."--_Chicago Record-Herald_. + +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY +Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York + + * * * * * * + +By EDEN PHILLPOTTS + + The Three Brothers _Cloth, $1.50_ + +"'The Three Brothers' seems to us the best yet of the long series of +these remarkable Dartmoor tales. If Shakespeare had written novels we +can think that some of his pages would have been like some of these. +Here certainly is language, turn of humor, philosophical play, vigor +of incident such as might have come straight from Elizabeth's day.... +The story has its tragedy, but this is less dire, more reasonable than +the tragedy is in too many of Mr. Phillpotts's other tales. The book +is full of a very moving interest, and it is agreeable and +beautiful."--_The New York Sun_. + +By Miss ELLEN GLASGOW + + The Romance of a Plain Man _$1.50_ + +"From the first she has had the power to tell a strong story, full of +human interest, but as her work has continued it has shown an +increasing mellowness and sympathy. The atmosphere of this book is +fascinating indeed."--_Chicago Tribune_. + +By FRANK DANBY + + The Heart of a Child _Cloth, $1.50_ + +BEING PASSAGES FROM THE EARLY LIFE +OF SALLY SNAPE, LADY KIDDERMINSTER + +"'Frank Danby' has found herself. It is full of the old wit, the old +humor, the old epigram, and the old knowledge of what I may call the +Bohemia of London; but it is also full of a new quality, the quality +of imaginative tenderness and creative sympathy. It is delightful to +watch the growth of human character either in life or in literature, +and in 'The Heart of a Child' one can see the brilliancy of Frank +Danby suddenly burgeoning into the wistfulness that makes cleverness +soft and exquisite and delicate.... It is a mixture of naturalism and +romance, and one detects in it the miraculous power ... of seeing +things steadily and seeing them wholly, with relentless humor and +pitiless pathos. The book is crowded with types, and they are all +etched in with masterly fidelity of vision and sureness of touch, with +feminine subtlety as well as virile audacity."--James Douglas in _The +Star_, London. + + Sebastian. A Son of Dreams. _Cloth, $1.50_ + +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY +Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York + + * * * * * * + +NOVELS, ETC., BY "BARBARA" + +(MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT) + +_Each, in decorated cloth binding, $1.50_ + + +The Garden of a Commuter's Wife Illustrated + +"Reading it is like having the entry into a home of the class that is +the proudest product of our land, a home where love of books and love +of nature go hand in hand with hearty, simple love of 'folks.' ... It +is a charming book."--_The Interior_. + +People of the Whirlpool Illustrated +"The whole book is delicious, with its wise and kindly humor, its just +perspective of the true values of things, its clever pen pictures of +people and customs, and its healthy optimism for the great world in +general."--_Philadelphia Evening Telegraph_. + +The Woman Errant + +"The book is worth reading. It will cause discussion. It is an +interesting fictional presentation of an important modern question, +treated with fascinating feminine adroitness."--Miss Jeannette Gilder +in the _Chicago Tribune_. + +At the Sign of the Fox + +"Her little pictures of country life are fragrant with a genuine love +of nature, and there is fun as genuine in her notes on rural +character."--_New York Tribune_. + +The Garden, You and I + +"This volume is simply the best she has yet put forth, and quite too +deliciously torturing to the reviewer, whose only garden is in +Spain.... The delightful humor which pervaded the earlier books, and +without which Barbara would not be Barbara, has lost nothing of its +poignancy."--_Congregationalist_. + +The Open Window. Tales of the Months. + +"A little vacation from the sophistication of the +commonplace."--_Argonaut_. + +Poppea of the Post Office + +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY +Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York + + + + * * * * * * + + + +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES + +1. Punctuation has been changed to conform to contemporary standards. + +2. Table of Contents not present in the original has been added. + +3. Alternate spellings of "ecstacy" (inside quoted material, on page + 318 and 361) and "ecstasy" (outside quoted material, on page 109) + retained. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CERTAIN RICH MAN*** + + +******* This file should be named 18684.txt or 18684.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/6/8/18684 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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