Broken to the Plow Part 16

CHAPTER IX

The men at the booking desk treated Fred Starratt with a rough courtesy. They did not make the required search of his person unduly humiliating, and, when they were through, one of the men said, not unkindly:

"We can ring for a messenger if you want to send word to your folks; ... it's against the rules to telephone."

"I've notified them," Fred returned, crisply. It was curious to discover that he had no doubts concerning Ginger's delivery of his message.

"Is there a chance for you to get bailed out to-night?" the same man inquired.

Fred hesitated. "There may be," he said, finally.

They put him in a temporary cell with three others--two white men and a Chinese, who had been arrested for smuggling opium. The floor was of thick boards sloping toward the center, and in a corner was a washbasin. There were no seats. One of the white men was pacing up and down with the aimless ferocity of an animal freshly caged. At Fred's entrance the younger and quieter of these two looked up and said, eagerly:

"Got a smoke?"

Fred drew out a box of cigarettes and tossed it to him. The other white man came forward; even the Chinese was moved to interest.

Fred saw the box pa.s.sed from one to the other. There did not seem to be any color line drawn about this transient solace. Fred took a smoke himself.

"What are you up for?" the younger man inquired.

Fred experienced a shock. "Oh ... you see ... I just got caught in a jam. It will come out all right."

It sounded ridiculous--this feeble attempt at pride, and Fred regretted it, once it escaped him. But his questioner was not put out of countenance.

"Well, if you've got a pull, it's easy; otherwise--" He finished with a shrug and went on smoking.

Fred looked at him intently. He was a lad not much over twenty, with thick black hair and very deep-blue eyes and an indefinable quality which made his rather irregular features seem much more delicate than they really were.

"What's _your_ trouble?" Fred asked, suddenly.

The boy grinned. "I rolled a guy for twenty dollars in Portsmouth Square... He was drunk, at that," he finished, as if in justification.

At this moment the door of the cell was opened. The three white men started forward expectantly. But it was the Chinese who was wanted. A group of his countrymen had come to bail him out.

The man who had been silent suddenly spoke to the policeman as he was closing the door again.

"You might as well lock me up proper for the night," he flung out, bitterly. "I guess they're not coming to get me now."

The policeman led him away, in the wake of the disappearing Chinese.

The youth turned to Starratt with a chuckle:

"The old boy's kinda peeved, ain't he? Well, he'll get over that after a while... The first time they jugged me I thought--"

"Then you've been up before?"

"Before?... Say, do I look like a dead one? This isn't a bad habit after you get used to it... So far I've only made the county jails.

Some day I suppose I'll graduate... But I'm pretty wise--vagrancy is about all they've ever pinned on me."

Fred looked at his new friend curiously. There didn't seem to be anything particularly vicious about the youth. He merely had learned how to get his hands on easy money and jails were an incident in his career. Without being asked, he described his first tilt with the law.

He had come, a youth of seventeen, from a country town up North. He had run away from home, to be exact; there was a stepmother or some equally ancient and honorable excuse. He had arrived in San Francisco in January without money or friends or any great moral equipment, and after a week of purposeless b.u.mming he had been picked up by a policeman and charged with vagrancy. The obliging judge who heard his case gave him twenty-four hours to leave town. He went, in company with a professional tramp, upon the brake beams of a freight train that pulled out for Stockton that very night. But at Stockton the train was overhauled by policemen in wait for just these unwelcome strangers from a rival town, and the two were told to go back promptly where they came from. They got into San Francisco more dead than alive, and then the inevitable happened. They were haled before the selfsame judge who had given the youth such an amazing chance to get started right. He treated them both to thirty days in the county jail, and the youth emerged a wiser but by no means a sadder man. He had learned, among other things, that if one were to be jailed one might just as well be jailed for cause. The charge of vagrancy was very inclusive, and a man could skirt very near the edge of felony and still manage to achieve a nominal punishment. He told all this simply, naturally, naively--as if he were entertaining an acquaintance with a drawing-room anecdote. When he finished, Fred inquired:

"And how about bail to-night?"

The youth shrugged. "Well, I dunno. I sent word to a girl who--"

At that moment the attendant appeared again. He had come after the youth--evidently the girl had proved herself.

"So long," the boy said to Fred, as he went through the door. "If you've got a dame stuck on you there's always a chance."

Fred went over and leaned against the washbasin. His companions had been diverting. In their company he had ceased to think very definitely about his own plight. Now he was alone. He wondered what Helen would do... He put his hand to his cheek--it was still smarting from the blow that had waked his primitive hatred...

He was standing in this same position before the washbasin, smoking furiously, when the attendant came for him.

"It's past midnight," the man said. "I guess your folks ain't coming."

Fred stirred. "No, I guess not," he echoed, with resignation.

The officer took his arm. "Well, we'll have to get fixed up for the night," he announced.

Fred threw his cigarette b.u.t.t on the floor and stepped on it.

The next morning at eleven o'clock Fred Starratt heard his name bawled through the corridors and he was led out to the room where prisoners were allowed to receive their lawyers or converse with relatives and friends through the barred and screened opening.

A man was exchanging tearful confidences with his wife and baby as he clung to the bars. The woman was sending a brave smile across, but the wire mesh between gave her face the same unreality that a gauze drop in a play gives to the figures on the other side. A strange man was ushered in.

"Mr. Starratt?" he inquired.

Fred inclined his head.

"My name is Watson--from the firm of Kimball & Devine. We're attorneys for Mr. Hilmer. He asked me to run in and see you this morning. Just what _did_ happen?"

Fred recited the events briefly. When he had finished, the attorney said:

"Everything depends on this man Brauer. I'll have to get in touch with him to-day. Hilmer told me to use my own judgment about bail... I guess it's all right."

A hot flush overspread Fred's face, but it died quickly. He could stand any insult now. All night he had been brooding on that slap upon the cheek. A clenched fist had an element of fairness in it, but the bare palm was always the mark of a petty tyrant. It was thus that a woman struck ... or a piddling official ... or a mob bent on humiliation. They smote Christ in the same way--_with their hands_. He remembered the phrase perfectly and the circ.u.mstance that had impressed it so indelibly on his mind. His people had seen to it that he had attended Sabbath school, but he was well past ten before they had taken him to church. And, out of the hazy impression of the first sermon he had fidgeted through, he remembered the picture of Christ which the good man in the pulpit had drawn, sitting in a mockery of purple, receiving the open-palmed blows of cowards. In his extremity the story recurred with sharp insistence and all night he had been haunted by this thorn-crowned remembrance.

Hilmer's messenger was waiting for him to speak. He gave a shrug.

"It really doesn't matter," he said.

"Oh, come now, Mr. Starratt," Watson broke in, reprovingly. "That isn't any way to talk. You've got to keep your spirits up. Things might be worse. It's lucky you've got a friend like Hilmer. He's a man that can do things for you, if anyone can."