In the Heart of a Fool

“Why, Tom, are you crazy! Take her all over the three counties of this district with you? Why, boy–” But Judge Van Dorn continued evenly: “I don’t like a man stenographer. Men make me nervous and self-conscious, and I can’t give a man the best that’s in me. And I propose to give my best to this job–in justice to myself. And Violet Mauling knows my ways. She doesn’t interpose herself between me and my ideas, so I am going to make her court stenographer next month right after the election.”

When the Doctor drew in a breath to speak, Van Dorn put out a hand, checked the elder man and said blandly and smilingly, “And, Father Jim, I’m going to be elected–I’m dead sure of election.”

The Doctor thought he saw a glint of sheer malicious impudence in Van Dorn’s smile as he finished speaking: “And anyway, pater, we mustn’t quarrel right now–Just at this time, Laura–”

“You’re a sly dog, now, ain’t you! Ain’t you a sly dog?” shrilled the Doctor in sputtering rage. Then the blaze in his eyes faded and he cried in despair: “Tom, Tom, isn’t there any way I can put the fear of God into you?”

Van Dorn realized that he had won the contest. So he forbore to strike again.

“Doctor Jim, I’m afraid you can’t jar me much with the fear of God. You have a God that sneaks in the back door of matter as a kind of a divine immanence that makes for progress and Joe Calvin in there has a God with whiskers who sits on a throne and runs a sort of police court; but one’s as impossible as the other. I have no God at all,” his chest swelled magnificently, “and here’s what happens”:

He was talking against time and the Doctor realized it. But his scorn was crusting over his anger and he listened as the young Judge amused himself: “I’ve defended gamblers and thugs–and crooks, some rich, some poor, mostly poor and mostly guilty. And Joe has been free attorney for the law and order league and has given the church free advice and entertained preachers when he wasn’t hiding out from his wife. And he’s gone to conference and been a deacon and given to the Lord all his life. And now that it’s good business for him to have me elected, can he get a vote out of all his God-and-morality crowd? Not a vote. And all I have to do is to wiggle my finger and the whole crowd of thugs and blacklegs and hoodlums and rich and poor line up for me–no matter how pious I talk. I tell you, Father Jim–there’s nothing in your God theory. It doesn’t work. My job is to get the best out of myself possible.” But this was harking back to Violet Mauling and the young Judge smiled with bland impertinence as he finished, “The fittest survive, my dear pater, and I propose to keep fit–to keep fit–and survive!”

The Doctor’s anger cooled, but the pain still twinged his heart, the pain that came as he saw clearly and surely that his daughter’s life was bound to the futile task of making bricks without straw. Deep in his soul he knew the anguish before her and its vain, continual round of fallen hopes. As the young Judge strutted up and down the Doctor’s office, the father in the elder man dominated him and a kind of contemptuous pity seized him. Pity overcame rage, and the Doctor could not even sputter at his son-in-law. “Fit and survive” kept repeating themselves over in Dr. Nesbit’s mind, and it was from a sad, hurt heart that he spoke almost kindly: “Tom–Tom, my boy, don’t be too sure of yourself. You may keep fit and you may survive–but Tom, Tom–” the Doctor looked steadily into the bold, black eyes before him and fancied they were being held consciously from dropping and shifting as the Doctor cried: “For God’s sake, Tom, don’t let up! Keep on fighting, son, God or no God–you’ve got a devil–keep on fighting him!”

The olive cheeks flushed for a fleeting second. Van Dorn laughed an irritated little laugh. “Well,” he said, turning to the door, “be over to-night?–or shall we come over? Anything good for dinner?”

A minute later he came swinging into his own office. He pulled a package from his pocket. “Violet,” he said, going up to her writing desk and half sitting upon it, as he put the package before her, “here’s the candy.”

He picked up her little round desk mirror, smiled at her in it, and played rather idly about the desk for a foolish moment before going to his own desk. He sat looking into the street, folding a sheet of blank paper. When it became a wad he snapped it at the young woman. It hit her round, beautiful neck and disappeared into her square-cut bodice.

“Get it out for you if you want it?” He laughed fatuously.

The girl flashed quick eyes at him, and said, “Oh, I don’t know,” and went on with her work. He began to read, but in a few minutes laid his book down.

“How’d you like to be a court stenographer?” The girl kept on writing. “Honest now I mean it. If I win this election and get this job for the two years of unexpired term, you’ll be court stenographer–pays fifteen hundred a year.” The girl glanced quickly at him again, with fire in her eyes, then looked conspicuously down at the keyboard of the writing machine.

“I couldn’t leave home,” she said finally, as she pulled out a sheet of paper. “It wouldn’t be the thing–do you think so?”

He put his feet on the desk, showing his ankles of pride, and fingering his mustache, smiling a squinty smile with his handsome, beady eyes as he said: “Oh, I’d take care of you. You aren’t afraid of me, are you?”

They both laughed. And the girl came over with a sheet of paper. “Here is that Midland Valley letter. Will you sign it now?”

He managed to touch her hand as she handed him the sheet, and again to touch her bare forearm as he handed it back after signing it. For which he got two darts from her eyes.

A client came in. Joseph Calvin hurried in and out, a busy little rat of a man who always wore shiny clothes that bagged at the knees and elbows. George Brotherton crashed in through the office on city business, and so the afternoon wore away. At the end of the day, Thomas Van Dorn and Miss Mauling locked up the office and went down the hall and the stairs to the street together. He released her arm as they came to the street, and tipped his hat as she rounded the corner for home. He saw the white-clad Doctor trudging up the low incline that led to Elm Street.

Dr. Nesbit was asking the question, Who are the fit? Who should survive? His fingers had been pinched in the door of the young Judge’s philosophy and the Doctor was considering much that might be behind the door. He wondered if it was the rich and the powerful who should survive. Or he thought perhaps it is those who give themselves for others. There was Captain Morton with his one talent, pottering up and down the town talking all kinds of weather, and all kinds of rebuffs that he might keep the girls in school and make them ready to serve society; yet according to Tom’s standards of success the Captain was unfit; and there was George Brotherton, ignorant, but loyal, foolishly blind, of a tender heart, yet compared with those who used his ignorance and played upon his blindness (and the Doctor winced at his part in that game) Mr. Brotherton was cast aside among the world’s unfit; and so was Henry Fenn, fighting with his devil like a soldier; and so was Dick Bowman going into the mines for his family, sacrificing light and air and the joy of a free life that the wife and children might be clad, housed and fed and that they might enjoy something of the comforts of the great civilization which his toil was helping to build up around them; yet in his grime Dick was accounted exceedingly unfit. Dick only had a number on the company’s books and his number corresponded to a share of stock and it was the business of the share of stock to get as much out of Dick and give him back as little, and to take as much from society in passing for coal as it could, and being without soul or conscience or feeling of any kind, the share of stock put the automatic screws on Dick–as their numbers corresponded. And for squeezing the sweat out of him the share was accounted unusually fit, while poor Dick–why he was merely a number on the books and was called a unit of labor. Then there was Daniel Sands. He had spread his web all over the town. It ran in the pipes under ground that brought water and gas, and the wires above ground, that brought light and power and communication. The web found its way into the earth–through deep cuts in the earth, worming along caverns where it held men at work; then the web ran into foul dens where the toilers were robbed of their health and strength and happiness and even of the money the toilers toiled for, and the web brought it all back slimey and stinking from unclean hands into the place where the spider sat spinning. And there was his son and daughter; Mr. Sands had married at least four estimable ladies with the plausible excuse that he was doing it only to give his children a home. Mr. Sands had given his son a home, to be sure; but his son had not taken a conscience from the home–for who was there at home to give it? Not the estimable ladies who had married Mr. Sands, for they had none or they would have been somewhere else, to be sure; not Mr. Sands himself, for he was busy with his web, and conscience rips such webs as his endways, and Daniel would have none of that. And the servants who had reared the youth had no conscience to give him; for it was made definite and certain in that home that they were paid for what they did, so they did what they were paid for, and bestowing consciences upon young gentlemen is no part of the duty of the “help” in a home like that.

As for his daughter, Anne, again one of God’s miracles was wrought. There she was growing in the dead atmosphere of that home–where she had known two mothers before she was ten and she saw with a child’s shrewd eyes that another was coming. Yet in some subsoil of the life about her the roots of her life were finding a moral sense. Her hazel eyes were questioning so curiously the old man who fathered her that he felt uncomfortable when she was near him. Yet for all the money he had won and all that money had made him, he was reckoned among the fit. Then there was the fit Mr. Van Dorn and the fit Mr. Calvin. Mr. Calvin never missed a Sunday in church, gave his tithe, and revered the law. He adjusted his halo and sang feelingly in prayer meeting about his cross and hoped ultimately for his crown as full and complete payment and return, the same being the legal and just equivalent for said hereinbefore named cross as aforesaid, and Mr. Calvin was counted among the fit, and the Doctor smiled as he put him in the list. And Mr. Van Dorn had confessed that he was among the fit and his fitness consisted in getting everything that he could without being caught.

But these reflections were vain and unprofitable to Dr. Nesbit, and so he turned himself to the consideration of the business in hand: namely, to make his calling and reëlection sure to the State Senate that November. So he went over Greeley County behind his motherly sorrel mare, visiting the people, telling them stories, prescribing for their ailments, eating their fried chicken, cream gravy and mashed potatoes, and putting to rout the forces of the loathed opposition who maintained that the Doctor beat his wife, by sometimes showing said wife as exhibit “A” without comment in those remote parts of the county where her proud figure was unknown.

In November he was reëlected, and there was a torchlight procession up the aisle of elms and all the neighbors stood on the front porch, including the Van Dorns and the Mortons and John Kollander in his blue soldier clothes, carrying the flag into another county office, and the Henry Fenns, while the Doctor addressed the multitude! And there was cheering, whereupon Mr. Van Dorn, Judge pro tem and Judge-elect, made a speech with eloquence and fire in it; John Kollander made his well-known flag speech, and Captain Morton got some comfort out of the election of Comrade Nesbit, who had stood where bullets were thickest and as a boy had bared his breast to the foe to save his country, and drawing the Doctor into the corner, filed early application to be made sergeant-at-arms of the State Senate and was promised that or Something Equally Good. The hungry friends of the new Senator so loaded him with obligations that blessed night that he again sold his soul to the devil, went in with the organization, got all the places for all his people, and being something of an organizer himself, distributed the patronage for half the State.

Ten days later–or perhaps it may have been two weeks later, at half past five in the evening–the Judge-elect was sitting at his desk, handsomely dressed in black–as befitting the dignity of his office. He and his newly appointed court stenographer had returned the hour before from an adjoining county where they had been holding court. The Judge was alone, if one excepts the young woman at the typewriting desk, before whom he was preening, as though she were a mere impersonal mirror. During the hour the Judge had visited the tailor’s and had returned to his office wearing a new, long-tailed coat. His black silk neck-scarf was resplendently new, his large, soft, black hat–of a type much favored by statesmen in that day–was cocked at a frivolous angle, showing the raven’s wing of black hair upon his fine forehead. A black silk watchguard crossed his black vest; his patent leather shoes shone below his trim black silk socks, and he rubbed his smooth, olive cheek with the yellow chrysanthemum upon his coat lapel.

“Gee, but you’re swell,” said Miss Mauling. “You look good enough to eat.”

“Might try a bite–if you feel that way about it,” replied the Judge. He put his hands in his pockets, tried them under his long coat tails, buttoned the coat and thrust one hand between the buttons, put one hand in a trousers’ pocket, letting the other fall at his side, put both hands behind him, and posed for a few minutes exchanging more or less fervent glances with the girl. A step sounded in the hallway. The man and woman obviously listened. It was a heavy tread; it was coming to the office door. The man and woman slipped into Judge Van Dorn’s private office. When the outer door opened, and it was apparent that some one was in the outer office, Miss Mauling appeared, note book in hand, quite brisk and businesslike with a question in her good afternoon.

“Where’s Van Dorn?” The visitor was tall, rawboned, and of that physical cast known as lanky. His face was flinty, and his red hair was untrimmed at the neck and ears.

“The Judge is engaged just now,” smiled Miss Mauling. “Will you wait?” She was careful not to ask him to sit. Grant Adams looked at the girl with a fretful stare. He did not take off his hat, and he shook his head toward Van Dorn’s office door as he said brusquely, “Tell him to come out. It’s important.” The square shoulders of the tall man gave a lunge or hunch toward the door. “I tell you it’s important.”

Miss Mauling smiled. “But he can’t come out just now. He’s busy. Any message I can give him?”

The man was excited, and his voice and manner showed his temper.

“Now, look here–I have no message; tell Van Dorn I want him quick.”

“What name, please?” responded Miss Mauling, who knew that the visitor knew she was playing.

“Grant Adams–tell him it’s his business and not mine–except–”

But the girl had gone. It was several minutes before Tom Van Dorn moved gracefully and elegantly into the room. “Ah,” he began. Grant glared at him.

“I’ve just driven down from Nesbit’s with Kenyon, and Mrs. Nesbit says to tell you Laura’s there–came over this morning, and you’re to come just as quick as you can. They tried to get you on the ’phone, but you weren’t here. Do you understand? You’re to come quick, and I’ve left my horse out here for you. Kenyon and I’ll catch a car home.”

The pose with one hand in his trousers pocket and the other hanging loosely suited the Judge-elect as he answered: “Is that all?” Then he added, as his eyes went over the blue overalls: “I presume Mrs. Nesbit advised you as to the reason for–for, well–for haste?”

Grant saw Van Dorn’s eyes wander to the girl’s for approval. “I shall not need your horse, Adams,” Van Dorn went on without waiting for a reply to his question. Then again turning his eyes to the girl, he asked: “Adams, anything I can do to repay your kindness?”

“No–” growled Adams, turning to go.

“Say, Adams,” called Van Dorn, rubbing his hands and still smiling at the girl, “you wouldn’t take a cigar in–in anticipation of the happy–”

Adams whirled around. His big jaw muscles worked in knots before he spoke; his blue eyes were set and raging. But he looked at the floor an instant before crying:

“You go to hell!” And an instant later, the lank figure had left the room, slamming the door after him. Grant heard the telephone bell ringing, and heard the girl’s voice answering it, then he went to the doctor’s office. As he was writing the words “At Home” on the slate on the door, he could hear Miss Mauling at the telephone.

“Yes,” and again, “Yes,” and then, “Is there any message,” and finally she giggled, “All right, I’ll call him.” Then Grant stalked down the stairs. The receiver was hanging down. The Doctor at the other end of the wire could hear a man and a woman laughing. Van Dorn stepped to the instrument and said: “Yes, Doctor.”

Then, “What–well, you don’t say!”

And still again, “Yes, he was just here this minute; shall I call him back?” And before hanging up the receiver, he said, “Why, of course, I’ll come right out.”

The Judge-elect turned gracefully around, smiling complacently: “Well, Violet–it’s your bet. It’s a girl!”

The court stenographer poked a teasing forefinger at him and whittled it with another in glee. Then, as if remembering something, she asked: “How’s your wife?”

Van Dorn’s face was blank for an instant. “By George–that’s so. I forgot to ask.” He started to pick up the telephone receiver, but checked himself. He pulled his broad-brimmed hat over his eyes, and started for the door, waving merrily and rubbing his chin with his flower.

“Ta ta,” he called as he saw the last of her flashing smile through the closing door.

And thus into a world where only the fittest survive that day came Lila Van Dorn,–the child of a mother’s love.

CHAPTER XV