In the Heart of a Fool Part 70

From the Captain, Nathan Perry took his cue. "I should say, Grant, that they'll make trouble to-night. Shouldn't we call out the boys from the Valley, and--"

Grant cut in:

"Men, I know what you fear," he said. "You are afraid they will kill me.

Why, they can't kill me! All that I am that is worth living is immortal.

What difference does it make about this body?" His face was still lighted with the glow it wore while he was addressing the court. "Ten thousand people in the Valley have my faith. And now I know that even this strike is not important. The coming Democracy of Labor is a spiritual caste. And it has been planted in millions of minds. It can never die. It too is immortal. What have guns and ropes and steel bars to do with a vision like this?" He threw back his head, his blue eyes blazed and he all but chanted his defiance of material things: "What can they do to me, to my faith, to us, to these Valley people, to the millions in the world who see what we see, who know what we know and strive for what we cherish? Don't talk to me about death--there is no death for G.o.d's truth. As for this miserable body here--" He gazed at his friends for a moment, shook his head sadly and walked to the jailer.

For an hour after the sheriff took Grant to his cell as the town went home and presumably to bed, George Brotherton with Henry Fenn and Nathan Perry, rolled his car around the court house square in the still, hot June night. The Doctor stood by his electric runabout, for half an hour or more. Then, the Doctor feeling that a false alarm had been spread, whirred up the hill. The younger men stayed on Market Street. They left it long after midnight, deserted and still.

As the watching party broke up, a telephone message from the offices of Calvin & Calvin winged its way to Sands Park, and from the shades there came silently a great company of automobiles with hooded lights. One separated from the others and shot down into the Valley of the Wahoo.

The others went into Market Street.

At three o'clock the work there was done. The office of the Harvey _Tribune_ was wrecked, and in one automobile rode Amos Adams, a prisoner, while before him, surrounded by a squad of policemen, rode Grant Adams, bound and gagged.

Around the policemen the mob gathered, and at the city limits the policemen abandoned Grant and Amos. Their instructions were to take the two men out of town. The policemen knew the mob. It was not Market Street. It was the thing that Market Street had made with its greed. The ignorance of the town, the sc.u.m of the town--men, white and black, whom Market Street, in thoughtless greed the world over, had robbed as children of their birthright; men whose chief joy was in cruelty and who l.u.s.ted for horror. The mob was the earth-bound demon of Market Street.

Only John Kollander in his bra.s.s b.u.t.tons and blue soldier clothes and stuttering Kyle Perry and one or two others of the town's respectability were with the mob that took Grant Adams and his father after the policemen released the father and son at the city limits. The respectables directed; the sc.u.m and the scruff of the town followed, yelping not unlike a pack of hungry dogs.

John Kollander led the way to the country club grounds. There was a wide stretch of rolling land, quiet, remote from pa.s.sing intruders, safe; and there great elm trees cast their protecting shade, even in the starlight, over such deeds as men might wish to do in darkness.

It was nearly four o'clock and the clouds, banked high in the west, were flaming with heat lightning.

On the wide veranda of the country club alone, with a siphon and a fancy, square, black bottle, sat Judge Thomas Van Dorn. He was in his s.h.i.+rt sleeves. His wilted collar, grimy and bedraggled, lay on the floor beside him. He was laughing at something not visible to the waiter, who sat drowsing in the door of the dining room, waiting for the Judge either to go to sleep or to leave the club in his car. The Judge had been singing to himself and laughing quietly at his own ribaldry for nearly an hour. The heat had smothered the poker game in the bas.e.m.e.nt and except for the Judge and the waiter the club house was deserted. The Judge hit the table with the black bottle and babbled:

"Dog bit a rye straw, Dog bit a riddle-O!

Dog bit a little boy Playing on a fiddle-O!"

Then he laughed and said to the sleepy waiter: "Didn't know I could sing, did you, Gustave!"

The waiter grinned. The Judge did not hear a footstep behind him. The waiter looked up and saw Kyle Perry.

"Oh, I know a maid And she's not afraid To face--

"Why, h.e.l.lo Kyle, you old stuttering scoundrel--have one on me--cleanses the teeth--sweetens the breath and makes hair grow on your belly!"

He laughed and when Kyle broke in:

"S-s-say, T-T-Tom, the f-f-fellows are all over in the g-g-golf l-l-links."

"The h.e.l.l they are, Kyle," laughed the Judge. "Tell 'em to come over and have a cold one on me--Gustave, you go--"

"B-b-but they d-don't want a drink. The p-p-poker b-b-bunch said you were here and th-th-they s-s-sent m-m-me to--"

"S-s-s-sure they d-d-did, Kyle," interrupted Van Dorn. "They sent you to read the Declaration of Independence to-morrow and wanted you to begin now and get a g-g-good st-st-start!" He broke into song:

"Oh, there was an old man from Dundee Who got on a h.e.l.l of a spree, Oh, he wound up the clock, With--

"Say, Kyle," the Judge looked up foolishly, "you didn't know that I was a cantatrice." He laughed and repeated the last word slowly three times and then giggled.

"Still sober. I tell Mrs. Van Dorn that when I can say cantatrice or specification," he repeated that word slowly, "I'm fit to hold court."

"Oh, the keyhole in the door-- The keyhole in the door--"

he bellowed.

"Now, l-l-listen, T-T-Tom," insisted Perry. "I t-t-tell you the bunch has g-g-got Grant Adams and the old man out there in the g-g-golf l-links and they heard you were h-h-here and they s-s-sent me to tell you they were g-g-going to g-g-give him all the d-d-degrees and they w-w-want to t-t-tie a s-s-sign on him when they t-t-turn him loose and h-h-head him for Om-m-ma-h-ha--"

"B-b-better h-h-h-head him for h-h-h.e.l.l," mocked the Judge.

"Well, they've g-got an iron b-b-band they've b-b-bound on h-h-him and they've got a b-b-board and some t-t-tar and they w-w-want a m-motto."

The Judge reached for his fountain pen in his white vest and when the waiter had brought a sheet of paper, he scribbled while he sang sleepily:

"Oh, there was a man and he could do, He could do--he could do;

"Here," he pushed the paper to Perry, who saw the words:

"Get on to the Prince of Peace, Big Boss of the Democracy of Labor."

"That's k-k-kind of t-t-tame, don't y-y-you think?" said Kyle.

"That's all right, Kyle--anyway, what I've written goes:

"Oh, there was an old woman in Guiana."

He sang and waved Kyle proudly away. And in another hour the waiter had put him to bed.

It was nearly dawn when George Brotherton had told his story to Laura.

They sat in the little, close, varnish-smelling room to which he called her.

She had come through rain from Harvey. As she came into the dreary, shabby, little room in South Harvey, with its artificial palms and artificial wreaths--cheap, commercial habiliments of ostentatious mourning, Laura Van Dorn thought how cruel it was that he should be there, in a public place at the end, with only the heavy hands of paid attendants to do the last earthly services for him--whose whole life was a symbol of love.

But her heart was stricken, deeply, poignantly stricken by the great peace she found behind the white door. Yet thus the dust touches our souls' profoundest depths--always with her memory of that great peace, comes the memory of the odor of varnish and carbolic acid and the drawn, spent face of George Brotherton, as he stood before her when she closed the door. He gazed at her piteously, a wreck of a man, storm-battered and haggard. His big hands were shaking with a palsy of terrible grief.

His moon face was inanimate, and vagrant emotions from his heart flicked across his features in quivers of anguish. His thin hair was tousled and his clothes were soiled and disheveled.

"I thought you ought to know, Laura--at once," he said, after she had closed the white door behind her and sat numb and dumb before him. "Nate and Henry and I got there about four o'clock. Well, there they were--by the big elm tree--on the golf course. His father was there and he told me coming back that when they wanted Grant to do anything--they would string up Amos--poor old Amos! They made Grant stoop over and kiss the flag, while they kicked him; and they made him pull that machine gun around the lake. The fools brought it up from the camp in South Harvey."

Brotherton's face quivered, but his tears were gone. He continued: "They strung poor old Amos up four times, Laura--four times, he says."

Brotherton looked wearily into the street. "Well, as we came down the hill in our car, we could see Grant. He was nearly naked--about as he is now. We came tearing down the hill, our siren screaming and Nate and me yelling and waving our guns. At the first scream of our siren, there was an awful roar and a flash. Some one," Brotherton paused and turned his haggard eyes toward Laura--"it was deaf John Kollander, he turned the lever and fired that machine gun. Oh, Laura, G.o.d, it was awful. I saw Grant wilt down. I saw--"

The man broke into tears, but bit his lips and continued: "Oh, they ran like snakes then--like snakes--like snakes, and we came cras.h.i.+ng down to the tree and in a moment the last machine had piked--but I know 'em, every man-jack!" he cried. "There was the old man, tied hand and foot, three yards from the tree, and there, half leaning, half sitting by the tree, the boy, the big, red-headed, broken and crippled boy--was panting his life out." Brotherton caught her inquiring eyes. "It was all gone, Laura," he said softly, "all gone. He was the boy, the shy, gentle boy that we used to know--and always have loved. All this other that the years have brought was wiped from his eyes. They were so tender and--"

He could go no further. She nodded her understanding. He finally continued: "The first thing he said to me was, 'It's all right, George.'

He was tied, they had pulled the claw off and his poor stumped arm was showing and he was bleeding--oh, Laura."

Brotherton fumbled in his pocket and handed an envelope to her.

"'George,' he panted, as I tried to make him comfortable--'have Nate look after father.' And when Nate had gone he whispered between gasps, 'that letter there in the court room--' He had to stop a moment, then he whispered again, 'is for her, for Laura.' He tried to smile, but the blood kept bubbling up. We lifted him into an easier position, but nothing helped much. He realized that and when we quit he said:

"'Now then, George, promise me this--they're not to blame. John Kollander isn't to blame. It was funny; Kyle Perry saw him as I did, and Kyle--' he almost laughed, Laura.