Under the Skylights Part 36

"He's a fool!" cried half the men.

"He's a liar!" cried the other half.

"Oh--h!" shrilled the young women.

The Doctor wiped his streaming brow.

"What kind of a community is this, anyhow?" he resumed, stuffing back his handkerchief into his pocket. "Here we have this magnificent school [applause] that for the past fifteen years has been offering the highest possible grade of art instruction. A corps of thirty earnest and competent teachers [loud applause and a few cat-calls] are ministering to the needs of three thousand promising and talented young people, the flower of our great Northwest----" [Tremendous and long-continued applause, during which the continuity of the speaker's remarks was lost.]

The Doctor filled in the minutes of tumult by taking several sips of water.

"Why, you, we, this Academy, should be the leaven, the yeast, to work upon our great metropolis; not merely the flower, but the self-raising flour"--a pause for appreciation of the pun--"the self-raising flour [loud laughter, easily yielded and unnecessarily prolonged] that is to lift yourselves, and the city with you, from the abyss of no-art, and from the still deeper abyss of false art. That's where we're groping; that's where we're floundering. I declare, when I was elbowing my way through that struggling, gaping crowd [cries of "Oh, Doctor!" and laughter], I could only ask myself the question that I have just asked you here: what kind of a community is this, anyhow?"

Up popped a shock of black hair from northern Michigan.

"It's rotten!" Shouts. Cat-calls.

"I should think it was!" vociferated the Doctor.

He went ahead for half an hour longer, crowding on more steam, acquiring a more perilous momentum, throwing out an ever-widening torrent of reckless personalities, not forgetting the ill-fated monument of Andrew P. Hill. ("Applause" and "laughter" were very frequent just here.) He ended his improvisation without the clearest idea in the world of just what he had said, and went home well pleased.

XI

When Dr. Gowdy took up the _Daily Task_ next morning--there were sixteen pages of it--the first thing that met his eye was a picture of himself--the familiar two-column cut that had not had an airing for more than three months. "Gowdy Gives Us Up," said the head-line.

"What now?" wondered the good Doctor. "Or rather, which?" For he knew that every public utterance reported in the daily press of the town was given one of two twists, the local or the personal. This was apparently the local. The personal was to follow--and it did.

Yes, the _Daily Task_ had been represented at the Academy, and its young man, by a marvel of mutilation and misrepresentation, had put together a column to convey the impression that Dr. Gowdy was a carping Jeremiah, intent upon inflicting a deadly wound on local pride. "Oh, shucks!" said the worthy man, and went on with his toast and coffee.

But the other papers, though unrepresented at the Academy, had quickly detected the possibilities resident in Dr. Gowdy's abounding personalities, and the evening sheets were full of interviews. What did Jared Stiles think of the attack on him as a representative Western artist? What did Meyer, Van Horn, and Co. think of Dr. Gowdy's characterization of their enterprise and the pointed alternative it presented? What did Andrew P. Hill, as the representative of local wealth and culture, think of Dr Gowdy's strictures on the self-made man's endeavour to adorn the city that had given him success and fortune? What did the distinguished members of the Western Art Circuit think of such treatment toward their most promising and conspicuous protege? All these people had thoughts, and none of them was slow in expressing them.

"I can't understand it, nohow; I swan, I'm completely knocked off my feet," said Jared to the young man of the _Evening Rounder_, in the rustic dialect of the vaudeville. "Why, that there man--I've allus looked on him as my best friend. It was that book of his'n that give me my start, and now he turns agen me. But he's wrong, and I've got the hull town to prove it. And if he's wrong, by gum, he'll have to pay for it. He can't trip up the heels of an honest country boy and not get tripped up hisself. I don't know yet just what I'll do, but----"

With the _Evening Pattern_ Jared was more academic. "I acknowledge that this attack comes as a great surprise. I had always regarded the reverend gentleman as the chief of my friends. His own book for young men [name not mentioned--Print, Push, and Co. did not advertise in the _Pattern_]

was my earliest inspiration. Such conduct seems as inconsistent as inconsiderate. The public, I think, will be certain to support me. And if the words of the address are correctly reported, I shall be found, I believe, to have good grounds for an action at law. An intelligent jury, I make no doubt----"

The two Meyers were delighted. This was advertising indeed! Van Horn, a shade less thick-skinned, stuck at the animadversions made so spiritedly by the Doctor and so vociferously supported by his audience. They wore upon him; they seemed almost actionable. He sent for the son of their credit man, a youth enrolled at the Academy, where he was learning to design carpets and curtains, and tried to get from him just what the Doctor had really said. This solicitude reacted upon the Meyers, and Meyer junior, who gave the interview, intimated that such language was actionable beyond a doubt. "Our Mr. Levy will attend to this. We have the endors.e.m.e.nt of the general public, and that makes us still less willing to have anybody challenge our business ac.u.men"--all this was but an elegant paraphrase of Sidney Meyer's actual remarks, for he had left school at sixteen and had never looked into a book since--"or our business integrity."

Abner Joyce, on behalf of the Circuit, gave out a grave interview in a few guarded words. Though Joyce by no means looked upon Jared as a protege of his organization, yet his essential sympathy with the country still held full sway, and he felt it possible to regard young Stiles not as a mere freak, but as a human creature like ourselves, and struggling upward, like the rest of us and to the best of his powers, toward the light. But the town did not want restraint and reason just then, and Joyce's well-considered words went--much to his mortification--for next to nothing. Bond, who better apprehended the spirit of the hour, let himself loose in a vein of pure fantasy,--he ventured on the whimsical, the sprightly, the paradoxical. The poor fellow sent to interview him might as well have tried to grasp a bundle of sunbeams or a handful of quicksilver. His report turned out a frightful bungle; the wretched Bond, made clumsy, fatuous, pointless, sodden, when he had meant to show himself as witty and brilliant as possible, was completely crushed. With Joyce going for next to nothing and Bond for worse than nothing, the Art Circuit could hardly be said to s.h.i.+ne. It paled, it sickened, it drooped away, and presently it died.

As for Andrew P. Hill, he did not wait for the interviewer; he wrote to his favourite journal over his own signature. If he himself, straying outside of his legitimate field (banking and investments), had failed with "Our City Enlightening the Universe," Dr. Gowdy, astray in the field of finance, had failed no less egregiously. Yes, his handling of the Famine Fund had been maladroit and eccentric to the point that permitted doubts as to his own personal integrity: why, then, should he be casting doubts upon the veracity, the business honour, of others.

This was a word for Meyer, Van Horn, and Co., who were tenants of Hill's.

Landlord and tenant were just now in the midst of some delicate negotiations, and Hill hoped that a word of the right kind from him might help to make adjustment easier. Meyer, Van Horn, and Co. were intending to arrange a summer garden on their roof. Query: was the roof theirs--was it included in the lease? Hill felt sure of carrying his point,--decidedly the roof was an entirely distinct matter from the ten floors beneath it; but the situation might well stand a little lubrication if good feeling were to endure. Therefore Meyer, Van Horn, and Co. had the satisfaction of reading that William S. Gowdy was altogether too impulsive, erratic and unreliable--happily Hill did not employ the word "untrustworthy"--for holding a quasi-public position of some importance. Age was impairing his judgment and setting a term to his usefulness.

Dr. Gowdy flew into a pa.s.sion. Threatened with legal proceedings!--he, the blameless citizen. Accused of dishonesty!--he, the pattern of integrity. Taunted with failing powers!--he, the inexhaustible reservoir of vigour, of energy! What, after all this, were the pin-p.r.i.c.ks daily, hourly inflicted by the press, the post, the tongues of indignant a.s.sociates, all intent on vindicating the honour of a community he had so wantonly attacked? What were squibs, caricatures, saucy verses, anonymous letters, cold looks from former friends, hot taunts from casual acquaintances? For art had been attacked in the very home and haunt of art! The town had been knifed under the ribs by one of her own sons!--made ridiculous in the eyes of the ribald East, and dubious in the regard of the trusting, tributary West!

Well, what would they have? demanded the Doctor. Should we gain anything whatever by always throwing bouquets at ourselves? Could we go along forever living on the flubdub of self-praise?

But a truce to all this!--for Dr. Gowdy was coming to see, to feel, to consider but one thing--the Squash. Here was the fountain-head of all his woes. "Perdition take that fellow!" he exclaimed, with his thoughts fiercely focused on the unseen Jared Stiles.

XII

Yes, the Squash had begun to run, and nothing, apparently, had the power to stop it. It was putting out leaves here, blossoms there, and tendrils everywhere. Particularly in the press. Interviews continued. Generals, judges, merchants, capitalists--the whole trying tribe of "prominent citizens"--were asked what they thought of such an attack on the fair fame of the city by one of its own sons. Less prominent citizens sent in their views unasked. Professors of crayon portraiture wrote to tell the Doctor he knew nothing of art. Lecturers to cla.s.ses in civics advised him that he little realized the citizen's duty to his native town. The _Noonday Worm_, which had more than once praised the Doctor's public spirit, now turned on him and called him a renegade. The _Early Morning Fly_, among other buzzings, buzzed this: "If you don't like our city, Doctor, there is Another--higher up. Good-bye; we'll see you later!" The Doctor, who had always felt that he had done as much as any for the town's well-being within, and more than many for its repute abroad, saw now that he had been taking much too favourable a view of himself.

Only the staid old _Hourgla.s.s_ had a word in his behalf--a sober editorial on the art conditions actually prevalent. The _Hourgla.s.s_ was in some degree Dr. Gowdy's mouthpiece. It had a yearly contract with him for the publication of his sermons--they came out every Monday morning--and Dr. Gowdy handed over the proceeds to the Board of Foreign Missions. This contract was about to expire, and it was a question whether it should be renewed. Meyer, Van Horn, and Co. said no. Dr. Gowdy had a column or two in the _Hourgla.s.s_ on one day in the week, but Meyer, Van Horn, and Co. had a whole page every week-day and a double one on Sunday. And they paid for it! They disliked the editorial. They disapproved the sermon. The contract was not renewed, and Dr. Gowdy raged.

On the heels of this came a bill from Meyer, Van Horn, and Co. for tin-ware. It had been purchased but a week before, yet the bill bore these words, stamped in red ink and set askew with a haste that seemed to denote a sudden gust of spite: "Please remit."

"Henrietta!" called the Doctor to his wife; "how's this? You know I never trade at any of those abominable department stores! You know what I think of them: they demoralize trade; they take the bread out of the mouth of the small dealer; they pay sinfully low wages to the poor girls that they enslave----"

It was the new cook, it appeared, who had purchased a few pie-pans on her own initiative.

"Discharge her!" roared the Doctor.

Two or three days later the Squash put forth a new tendril. It had invaded his home, and now it invaded his pulpit, so to speak. Exacerbated by persecution, Dr. Gowdy had thrown off all restraint. His one real weakness, his inability to keep from talking when talking was going on, grew plainer every hour in exact proportion as his invective, his vituperation, grew stronger. He rushed into print, like some of the others, and his expressions were made matter for consideration at the monthly meeting of the ministers of his own denomination. Briefly, his brethren themselves (brutishly insensible to the abundant provocation) censured him for language that was violent and unchristian.

"I'll resign!" said Dr. Gowdy.

"You'll do nothing of the sort," said his wife.

"Of course I sha'n't," he returned.

Then the Squash invaded the Academy. The shake-up came; Professor English was removed; and Dr. Gowdy was requested to withdraw from the board of trustees.

"I'll resign this time, anyway!" said he.

"I wish you would," said his wife.

Next day came a letter from "our" Mr. Levy. It as good as asked Dr.

Gowdy's attendance at the store. Dr. Gowdy tore the letter into very small sc.r.a.ps, thrust them into an envelope, slapped on a stamp with a furious hand, and sent them back.

Then "our" Mr. Levy called at the house, accompanied by a Mr. Kahn, whose particular function was left in some vagueness.

Mr. Kahn felt around the edge of the thing. "It can be settled, I am inclined to think," he said, smoothly.

"So it can," said the Doctor--"by your both going out that door inside of ten seconds."

But Mr. Kahn remained. "Your libellous utterances----" he began.

"Mine? Those students', you mean. Sue _them_--in a body!"

"We may prefer to sue you."