The Walking Delegate Part 53

"Well, I'd like to know what else they could do?" Mrs. Barry demanded indignantly. "With him havin' fought an' sacrificed as he has for 'em!"

"He can have anything he wants now. Tokens of appreciation? They'll be givin' you a gold watch an' chain for every pocket."

"But what'll they think after they've read the papers?" asked Tom.

"I saw how the bosses' fairy story goes. But the boys ain't kids, an'

they ain't goin' to swallow all that down. They'll think about the same as me, an' I think them bosses ain't such holy guys as they say they are. I think there was somethin' else we don't know nothin' about, or else the bosses'd 'a' gone right through with the game. An' the boys'll not give credit to a boss when they can give credit to a union man. You can bet your false teeth on that. Anyhow, Tom, you could fall a big bunch o' miles an' still be in heaven."

"Now, the strike, Tom; what d'you think about the strike?" Mrs. Barry asked.

Before Tom could answer there was another knock. Maggie slipped away and ushered in Petersen, who hung back abashed at this gathering.

"h.e.l.lo, Petersen," Tom called out. "Come in. How are you?"

Petersen advanced into the room, took a chair and sat holding his derby hat on his knees with both hands. "I be purty good,--oh, yah," he answered, smiling happily. "I be movin' to-day."

"Where?" Tom asked. "But you haven't met Mrs. Barry, have you?"

"Glad to know you, Mr. Petersen." Mrs. Barry held out her hand, and Petersen, without getting up, took it in his great embarra.s.sed fist.

She turned quickly about on Tom. "What d'you think about the strike?"

she repeated.

"Yes, what about it?" echoed Barry and Pete.

"We're going to win it," Tom answered, with quiet confidence.

"You think so?"

"I do. We're going to win--certain!"

"If you do, we women'll all take turns kissin' your shoes."

"You'll be, all in a jump, the biggest labor leader in New York City!"

cried Pete. "What, to put Buck Foley out o' business, an' to win a strike after the union had give it up!"

Within Tom responded to this by a wild exultation, but he maintained an outward calm. "Don't lay it on so thick, Pete."

He stole a glance at Maggie. She was very pale. Her eyes, coming up from her lap, met his. She rose abruptly.

"I must see to my work," she said, and hurried into the kitchen.

Tom's eyes came back to his friends. "Have you boys heard anything about Foley?"

"He ain't been caught yet," answered Pete.

"He'll never be," Tom declared. Then after a moment's thought he went on with conviction: "Boys, if Foley had had a fair start and had been honest, he'd have been the biggest thing that ever happened in the labor world."

Their loyalty prompted the others to take strong exception to this.

"No, I wouldn't have been in his cla.s.s," Tom said decidedly, and led the talk to the probabilities of the next few days. They chatted on for half an hour longer, then all four departed. Pete, however, turned at the door and came back.

"I almost forgot, Tom. There was something else. O' course you didn't hear about Johnson. You know there's been someone in the union--more'n one, I bet--that's been keepin' the bosses posted on all we do. Well, Johnson got himself outside o' more'n a few last night, an' began to get in some lively jaw-work. The boys got on from what he said that he'd been doin' the spy business for a long time--that he'd seen Baxter just before the meetin'. Well, a few things happened right then an' there. I won't tell you what, but I got an idea Johnson sorter thinks this ain't just the health resort for his kind o' disease."

Tom said nothing. Here was confirmation of, and addition to, one sentence in the detectives' report.

Pete had been gone hardly more than a minute when he was back for the third time. "Say, Tom, guess where Petersen's movin'?" he called out from the dining-room door.

"I never can."

"On the floor above! A wagon load o' new furniture just pulled up down in front. I met Petersen an' his wife comin' in. Petersen was carryin'

a bran' new baby carriage."

Pete's news had immediate corroboration. As he was going out Tom heard a thin voice ask, "Is Mr. Keating in?" and heard Maggie answer, "Go right through the next door;" and there was Mrs. Petersen, her child in her arms, coming radiantly toward him.

"Bless you, brother!" she said. "I've heard all about your glorious victory. I could hardly wait to come over an' tell you how glad I am.

I'd 'a' come with Nels, but I wasn't ready an' he had to hurry here to be ready to look after the furniture when it come. I'm so glad! But things had to come out that way. The Lord never lets sin prevail!--praise His name!"

"Won't you sit down, Mrs. Petersen?" Tom said, in some embarra.s.sment, relinquis.h.i.+ng the slight hand she had given him.

"I can't stop a minute, we're so busy. You must come up an' see us. I pray G.o.d'll prosper you in your new work, an' make you a power for right. Good-by."

As she pa.s.sed through the dining-room Tom heard her thin vibrant voice sound out again: "You ought to be the proudest an' happiest woman in America, Mrs. Keating." There was no answer, and Tom heard the door close.

In a few minutes Maggie came in and stood leaning against the back of one of the chairs. "Tom," she said; and her voice was forced and unnatural.

Tom knew that the scene he had been expecting so long was now at hand.

"Yes," he answered, in a kind of triumphant dread.

She did not speak at once, but stood looking down on him, her throat pulsing, her face puckered in its effort to be immobile. "Well, it was about time something of this sort was happening. You know what I've had to put up with in the last five months. I suppose you think I ought to beg your pardon. But you know what I said, I said because I thought it was to our interest to do that. And you know if we'd done what I said we'd never have seen the hard times we have."

"I suppose not," Tom admitted, with a dull sinking of his heart.

She stood looking down on him for a moment longer, then turned abruptly about and went into the kitchen. These five sentences were her only verbal acknowledgment that she had been wrong, and her only verbal apology. She felt much more than this--grudgingly, she was proud that he had succeeded, she was proud that others praised him, she was pleased at the prospect of better times--but more than this she could not bend to admit.

While Tom lay on the couch reasoning himself into a fuller and fuller understanding of Mr. Baxter's part in last night's events, out in the kitchen Maggie's resentment over having been proved wrong was slowly disappearing under the genial influence of thoughts of the better days ahead. Her mind ran with eagerness over the many things that could be done with the thirty-five dollars a week Tom would get as walking delegate--new dresses, better than she had ever had before; new things for the house; a better table. And she thought of the social elevation Tom's new importance in the union would give her. She forgot her bitterness. She became satisfied; then exultant; then, unconsciously, she began humming.

Presently her new pride had an unexpected gratification. In the midst of her dreams there was a rapping at the hall door. Opening it she found before her a man she had seen only once--Tom had pointed him out to her one Sunday when they had walked on Fifth Avenue--but she recognized him immediately.

"Is Mr. Keating at home?" the man asked.

"Yes." Maggie, awed and embarra.s.sed, led the way into the sitting-room.

"Mr. Keating," said the man, in a quiet, even voice.

"Mr. Baxter!" Tom e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.

"I saw in the papers this morning that you were hurt. Thank you very much, Mrs. Keating." He closed the door after Maggie had withdrawn, as though paying her a courtesy by the act, and sat down in the chair she had pushed beside the couch for him. "Your injury is not serious, I hope."