The Walking Delegate Part 17

Chapter X

LAST DAYS OF THE CAMPAIGN

After supper, which was eaten in the customary silence, Tom started for the Barrys' to talk over the scheme of circularizing the members of the union. He met Pete coming out of the Barrys' tenement. He joined him and, as they walked away, outlined the new plan.

"That's what I call a mighty foxy scheme," Pete approved. "It's a knock-out blow. It'll come right at the last minute, an' Foley won't have time to hit back."

Tom pointed out the difficulty of getting the members.h.i.+p list. "You leave that to me, Tom. It's as easy as fallin' off the twenty-third story an' hittin' the asphalt. You can't miss it."

"But what kind of a deal will you make with Connelly? He's crooked, you know."

"Yes, he has got pretty much of a bend to him," Pete admitted. "But he ain't so worse, Tom. I've traveled a lot with him. When d'you want the book?"

"We've got to get it and put it back without Connelly knowing it's been gone. We'd have to use it at night. Could you get it late, and take it back the next morning?"

"That'd be runnin' mighty close. What's the matter with gettin' it Sat.u.r.day night an' usin' it Sunday?"

"Sunday's pretty late, with the election coming Wednesday. But it'll do, I guess."

Tom spent the evening at one corner of the dining-table from which he had turned back the red cloth, laboriously scratching on a sheet of ruled letter paper. He had never written when he could avoid it. His ideas were now clear enough, but they struggled against the unaccustomed confinement of written language. The words came slowly, with physical effort, and only after crossing out, and interlining, and crossing out again, were they joined into sentences.

At ten o'clock Maggie, who had been calling on a friend, came in with Ferdinand. The boy made straight for the couch and was instantly asleep.

Maggie was struck at once by the unwonted sight of her husband writing, but her sulkiness fought her curiosity for more than a minute, during which she removed her hat and jacket, before the latter could gain a grudged victory. "What are you doing?" she asked shortly.

"Writing a letter," he answered, keeping his eyes on the paper.

She leaned over his shoulder and read a few lines. Her features stiffened. "What're you going to do with that?"

"Print it."

"But you'll have to pay for it."

"Yes."

"How much?"

"About fifty dollars."

She gasped, and her sullen composure fled. "Fifty dollars! For that--that----" Breath failed her.

Tom looked around. Her black eyes were blazing. Her hands were clenched.

Her full breast was rising and falling rapidly.

"Tom Keating, this is about the limit!" she broke out. "Hain't your foolishness learnt you anything yet? It's cost you seven dollars a week already. And here you are, throwing fifty dollars away all in one lump!

Fifty dollars!" Her breath failed her again. "That's like you! You'll throw money away, and let me go without a decent rag to my back!"

Tom arose. "Maggie," he said, in a voice that was cold and hard, "I don't expect any sympathy from you. I don't expect you to understand what I'm about. I don't think you want to understand. But I do expect you to keep still, if you've got nothing better to say than you've just said!"

Maggie had lost herself. "Is that a threat?" she cried furiously. "Do you mean to threaten me? Why, you brute! D'you think you can make me keep still? You throw away money that's as much mine as yours!--you make me suffer for it!--and yet you expect me never to say a word, do you?"

Tom glared at her. His hands tingled to lay hold of her and shake her.

But, as he glared, he thought of the woman he had so recently left, and a sense of shame for his desire crept upon him. And, too, he began vaguely to feel, what it was inevitable he should some time feel, the contrast between his wife ... and this other.

His silence added to her frenzy. "You threaten me? What do I care for your threats! You can't do anything worse than you already have done,--and are doing. You're ruining us! Well, what are you standing there for? Why----"

There was but one thing for Tom to do, that which he had often had to do before,--go into the street. He put the scribbled sheets into his coat, and left her standing there in the middle of the floor pouring out her fury.

He walked about till he thought she would be asleep, then returned. A glance into their bedroom showed her in bed, and Ferdinand in his cot at the bed's foot. He sat down again at the table and resumed his clumsy pencil.

It was midnight before the two-hundred-word production was completed and copied. He put it into an envelope, enclosed a note saying he expected to have the list of names over the following Sunday, and took the letter down and dropped it into a mail-box. Then removing shoes, coat, and collar, he lay down on the sofa with his overcoat for covering, and presently fell asleep.

Ruth's heart sank when she received the letter the next afternoon. Her yesterday's talk with him had left her with a profound impression of his power, and that impression had been fresh all the morning. This painfully written letter, with its stiff, hard sentences, headed "Save the Union!" and beginning "Brothers," recalled to her with a shock another element of his personality. It was as though his crudity had dissociated itself from his other qualities and laid itself, bare and unrelieved, before her eyes.

As she read the letter a second time she felt a desire to improve upon his sentences; but she thought this might give him offense; and she thought also, and rightly, that his stilted sentences, rich with such epithets, as "tyrant," "bully," "grafter," would have a stronger effect on his readers than would more polished and controlled language. So she carried the letter to the printer as it had left Tom's hand.

She wrote Tom that Mr. Driscoll was willing her office should be used for the work of Sunday. Tom's answer was on a postal card and written in pencil. She sighed.

The week pa.s.sed rapidly with Tom, the nights in canva.s.sing, the days in work. Every time he went to work, he did so half expecting it would be his last day on the job. But all went well till Friday morning. Then the expected happened. As he came up to the fire-house a hansom cab, which had turned into the street behind him, stopped and Foley stepped out.

"Hold on there, Keating!" the walking delegate called.

Tom paused, three or four paces from the cab. Foley stepped to his side.

"So this's where youse've sneaked off to work!"

Tom kept his square jaw closed.

"I heard youse were at work. I thought I'd look youse up to-day. So I followed youse. Now, are youse goin' to quit this job quiet, or do I have to get youse fired?"

Tom answered with dangerous restraint. "I haven't got anything against the contractor. And I know what you'd do to him to get me off. I'll go."

"Move then, an' quick!"

"There's one thing I want to say to you first," said Tom; and instantly his right fist caught the walking delegate squarely on the chin. Foley staggered back against the wheel of the hansom. Without giving him a second look Tom turned about and walked toward the car line.

When Foley recovered himself Tom was a score of paces away. Half a dozen of the workmen were looking at him in waiting silence. He glared at Tom's broad back, but made no attempt to follow.

"To-day ain't the only day!" he said to the men, closing his eyes to ominous slits; and he stepped back into the cab and drove away.

That evening Tom had an answer to the letter he had written Mr. Baxter, after having failed once more to find that gentleman in. It was of but a single sentence.

After giving thorough consideration to your suggestion, I have decided that it would be neither wise nor in good taste for me to interfere in the affairs of your union.

Tom stared at the letter in amazement. Mr. Baxter had little to risk, and much to gain. He could not understand. But, however obscure Mr.

Baxter's motive, the action necessitated by his decision was as clear as a noon sun; a vital change had to be made in the letter to the members of the union. Certain of Mr. Baxter's consent, Tom had set down the guarantee to the men as the last paragraph in the letter and had held the proof awaiting Mr. Baxter's formal authorization of its use. He now cut out the paragraph that might have meant a thousand votes, and mailed the sheet to Ruth.

He talked wherever he could all the next day, and the next evening.

After going home he sat up till almost one o'clock expecting Pete to come in with the roster of the members. But Pete did not appear. Early Sunday morning Tom was over at the Barrys'. Pete was not yet up, Mrs.

Barry told him. Tom softly opened the door of Pete's narrow room and stepped in. Pete announced himself asleep by a mighty trumpeting. Tom shook his shoulders. He stirred, but did not open his eyes. "Doan wan'