In the Heart of a Fool

“I know, Lida, that money isn’t what you mothers want–but–”

“But we’ve got to think of it, Doc Jim–that’s one of the curses of poverty, but, oh, money!–It won’t bring them back strong and whole–who leave us to go to work, and come back all torn and mashed.”

She sat choking down the sobs that came surging up from her great bosom, and weaving to and fro as she fought back her tears. The Doctor sat beside her and took her red unshapely hands unadorned except by the thin gold wedding ring that she had worn in toil for over thirty years.

“Lida, sometimes I think only God and the doctors know how heavy women’s loads are,” said the Doctor.

“Ain’t that so–Doc Jim!” she cried. “Ain’t that the truth? I’ve had a long time to think these two days and nights–and I’ve thought it all over and all out. Here I am nearly fifty and eight times you and I have fought it out with death and brought life into this world. I’m strong–I don’t mind that. I joyed at their coming, and made the others edge over at the table, and snuggle up in the bed, and we’ve been happy. Even the three that are dead–I’m glad they came; I’m thankful for ’em. And Dick he’s been so proud of each one, and cuddled it, and muched it–”

Her voice broke and she sobbed, “Oh, little Ben–little Ben, how pappy made over his hair–he was born with hair–don’t you mind, Doc Jim?”

The Doctor laughed and looked into the past as he piped, “Curliest headed little tyke, and don’t you remember Laura gave him Lila’s baby things she’d saved for all those years?”

“Yes, Doc Jim–don’t I? God knows, Doc, she’s been a mother to the whole Valley–when I got up I found I was the twentieth woman up and down the Valley she’d given Lila’s little things to–just to save our pride when she thought we would not take ’em any other way. Don’t I know–all about it–and she’s still doing it–God bless her, and she’s been here every morning, noon and night since–since–she came with a little beef tea, or some of her own wine, or a plate of hot toast in her basket–that she made me eat. Why, if it wasn’t for her and Henry and Violet and Grant–what would God’s poor in this Valley do in trouble–I sure dunno.”

There came an unsteady minute, when the Doctor stroked her hand and piped, “Well, Lida–you folks in the Valley don’t get half the fun out of it that the others get. It’s pie for them.”

The woman folded her hands in her lap and sighed deeply. “Doc Jim,” she began, “eight times I’ve brought life into this world. The three that went, went because we were poor–because we couldn’t buy life for ’em. They went into the mills and the mines with Dick’s muscle. One is at home, waiting till the wheels get hungry for her. Four I’ve fed into the mills that grind up the meat we mothers make.” She stared at him wildly and cried “O God–God, Doc Jim–what justice is there in it? I’ve been a kind of brood-mare bearing burden carriers for Dan Sands, who has sold my blood like cheese in his market. My mother sent three boys to the war who never came back and I’ve heard her cry and thank God He’d let her. But my flesh and blood–the little ones that Dick and me have coddled and petted and babied–they’ve been fed into the wheels to make profits–profits for idlers to squander–profits to lure women to shame and men to death. That’s what I’ve been giving my body and soul for, Doc Jim. Little Ben up there has given his legs and his arms–oh, those soft little arms and the cunning little legs I used to kiss–for what? I’ll tell you–he’s given them so that by saving a day’s work repairing a car, some straw boss could make a showing to a superintendent, and the superintendent could make a record for economy to a president, and a president could increase dividends–dividends to be spent by idlers. And idleness makes drunkards who make harlots who make hell–and all my little boy’s arms and legs will go for is for sin and shame.”

The Doctor returned to the window and she cried bitterly: “Oh, you know that’s the truth–the God’s truth, Doc Jim. Where’s my Jean? She went into the glass factory–worked twelve hours a day on a job that would have crippled her for life in another year, and then went away with that Austrian blower–and when he threw her out, she was ashamed to write–and for a long time now I’ve read the city papers of them women who kill themselves–hoping to find she was dead. And Mugs–you know what South Harvey’s made of him–”

She rose and walked to the window. Standing beside him she cried:

“I tell you, Doc Jim–I hate it.” She pointed to the great black mills and mine shafts and the piles of brick and lumber and sheet iron that stretched before her for a mile. “I hate it, and I’m going to hit it once before I die. Don’t talk peace to me. I’ve got a right to hit it and hit it hard–and if my time ever comes–”

A visitor was shown into the room, and Mrs. Bowman ceased speaking. She was calm when the Doctor left her and at noon she stood beside the cot, and saw little Ben smile at her. Then she went away in tears. As she passed out of the door of the hospital into the street, she met Grant Adams coming in to inquire about little Ben.

“He knows me now,” she said. “I suppose he’ll get well–without legs–and with only one arm–I’ve seen them on the street selling pencils–oh, little Ben!” she cried. Then she turned on Grant in anger. “Grant Adams–go on with your revolution. I’m for it–and the quicker the better–but don’t come around talking peace to me. Us mothers want to fight.”

“Fighting, in the long run, will do no good, Mrs. Bowman,” said Grant. “It will hurt the cause.

“But it will do us good,” she answered.

“Force against force and we lose–they have the guns,” he persisted.

“Well, I’d rather feed my babies to good merciful guns than to wheels,” she replied, and then softened as she took his hand.

“I guess I’m mad to-day, Grant. Go on up. Maybe they’ll let you look at him. He smiled at me–just as he did when Doctor Nesbit showed him to me the day he was born.”

She kept back her tears with an effort, and added, “Only the Doc tried to tell me that babies don’t smile. But I know better, Ben smiled–just like the one to-day.”

“Well, Mrs. Bowman,” rejoined Grant, “there’s one comfort. Dr. Nesbit’s law makes it possible for you to get your damages without going to law and dividing with some lawyer. However the Doctor and I may differ–we down here in the mines and mills must thank him for that.”

“Oh, Doc Jim’s all right, Grant,” answered Mrs. Bowman, relapsing into her lifetime silence.

It was nearly three months later and spring was at its full, before they discharged little Ben from the hospital. But the last fortnight of his stay they had let him visit outside the hospital for a few hours daily. And to the joy of a great crowd in the Hot Dog saloon, he sat on the bar and sang his little heart out. They took him down to Belgian hall at noon, and he sang the “Marseillaise” to the crowd that gathered there. In the hospital, wherever they would let him, after he had visited the Hot Dog, he sang–sang in the big ward where he sat by a window, sang in the corridors, whenever the patients could hear him, and sang Gospel hymns in his cot at bedtime.

He was an odd little bundle, that Henry Fenn carried into the offices of the Wahoo Valley Fuel Company one afternoon in early June, with Dick Bowman following proudly, as they made the proof of the claim for compensation for the accident. The people in the offices were kind and tenderly polite to the little fellow. Henry saw that all the papers were properly made out, and the clerk in the office told Dick and Henry to call for the check next day but one–which was pay day.

So they carried little Ben away and Mrs. Bowman–though it was barely five o’clock–began fixing Ben up for the wedding of Jasper Adams and Ruth Morton. It was the first public appearance as a singer that little Ben had made in Harvey. His appearance was due largely to the notion of Captain Morton, supported and abetted by George Brotherton. So little Ben Bowman was smuggled behind a palm in the choir loft and permitted to sing “O Promise Me” during the services.

“Not,” explained the Captain to Mr. Brotherton in the barn where he was smoking, the afternoon before the ceremony, “not that I cared a whoop in Texas about Ben–though ’y gory, the boy sings like a canary; but it was the only excuse I could find for slipping a hundred dollars to the Bowman family, without making Dick and Lida think it was charity–eh?”

The wedding made a dull evening for Grant. He carried little Ben in his arms out of the crowd at the church, and gathering up the Bowmans and his father, went home without stopping for the reception or for the dance or for any of the subsidiary attractions of the ceremony which Jasper and the Captain, each delighting in tableaux and parades, had arranged for. Little Ben’s arm was clinging to Grant’s neck as he piloted his party to the street car. They passed the Van Dorn house and saw old Daniel Sands come tottering down the walk from the Van Dorn home, between Ahab Wright and young Joe Calvin. Daniel Sands stumbled as he shuffled past Amos Adams and Amos put out an arm to catch Daniel. He regained his balance and without recognizing who had helped him, cackled:

“Tom’s a man of his word, boys–when he promises–that settles it. Tom never lies.” And his senile voice shrilled in a laugh. Then the old banker recognized Amos Adams with Grant in the moonlight. “Hi, old spook chaser,” he chirped feebly, still holding to Amos Adams’s arm; “sorry I couldn’t get to my nevvy’s wedding–Morty went–Morty’s our social man,” he laughed again. “But I had some other important matters–business–very important business.”

The Sands’ party was moving toward the Sands’ limousine, which stood purring at the curb. Ahab Wright and young Joe Calvin boosted the trembling old man into the car, and Ahab Wright slipped back and returned to the wedding reception, from which he had stolen away. Ahab was obviously embarrassed at being caught in the conference with Sands and Van Dorn, but Daniel Sands as he climbed into the car, sinking cautiously among the cushions and being swathed in robes by the chauffeur, was garrulous. He kept carping at Amos Adams who stood by with his son and the Bowmans, waiting for the street car.

“Lost your only sane son, Amos,” he said. “The fool takes after you, and the fiddler after his mother–but Jap–he’s real Sands–he’s like me.”

He laughed at his joke, and when his breath came back he went on.

“There’s Morty–he’s like both the fool and the fiddler–both the fool and the fiddler–and not a bit like me.”

“Morty isn’t very well, Daniel,” said Amos Adams, ignoring all that the old man had said. “Don’t you think, Daniel, you’re letting that disease get too deep a hold on Morty? With all your money, Dan, I think you’d–”

“With all my money–with all my money, Amos,” cried the old man, shaking his hands, “with all my money–I can just stand and wait. Amos–he’s a fool, I know–but he’s the only boy I’ve got–the only boy. And with all my money–what good will it do me? Anne won’t have it–and Morty’s all I’ve got and he’s going before I do. Amos–Amos–tell me, Amos–what have I done to deserve this of God? Haven’t I done as I ort? Why is this put on me?” He sat panting and blinking and shaking his ever-denying, palsied head. Amos did not reply. The chauffeur was taking his seat in the car. “Ain’t I paid my share in the church? Ain’t I give parks to the city? Ain’t I had family prayers for fifty years? Ain’t I been a praying member all my life nearly? Ain’t I supported missions? Why,” he panted, “is it put on me to die without a son to bear my name and take care of my property? I made over two millions to him the other day. But why, Amos,” the old man’s voice was broken and he whimpered, “has the Lord sent this to Morty?”

Amos did not reply, but the big voice of Grant spoke very softly: “Uncle Dan, Morty’s got tuberculosis–you know that. Tuberculosis has made you twenty per cent. interest for twenty years–those hothouses for consumption of yours in the Valley. But it’s cost the poor scores and scores of lives. Morty has it.” Grant’s voice rose solemnly. “Vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord, I will repay. You’ve got your interest, and the Lord has taken his toll.”

The old man showed his colorless gums as he opened a raging mouth.

“You–you–eh, you blasphemer!” He shook as with a chill and screamed, “But we’ve got you now–we’ll fix you!”

The car for Harvey came, and the Adamses climbed in.

Amos Adams, sitting on the hard seat of the street car looking into the moonlight, considered seriously his brother-in-law, and his low estate. That he had to be helped into his limousine, that he had to be wrapped up like a baby, that his head was palsied and his hands fluttering, seemed strange and rather inexplicable to Amos. He counted Daniel a young man, four years his junior, barely seventy-nine; a man who should be in his prime. Amos did not realize that his legs had been kept supple by climbing on and off a high printer’s stool hourly for fifty years, and that his body had buffeted the winds of the world unprotected all those years and had kept fit. But Daniel Sands’s sad case seemed pathetic to the elder Adams and he cut into some rising stream of conversation from Grant and the Bowmans inadvertently with: “Poor Daniel–Morty doomed, and Daniel himself looking like the breaking up of a hard winter–poor Daniel! He doesn’t seem to have got the hang of things in this world; he can’t seem to get on some way. I’m sorry for Daniel, Grant; he might have made quite a man if he’d not been fooled by money.”

Clearly Amos was meditating aloud; no one replied and the talk flowed on. But the old man looked into the moonlight and dreamed dreams.

The next day was Grant’s day at his carpenter’s bench, and when he came to his office with his kit in his hands at five o’clock in the afternoon, he found Violet Hogan waiting with the letters he was to sign, and with the mail opened and sorted. As he was signing his letters Violet gave him the news of the day:

“Dick Bowman ran in at noon and asked me to see if I could get Dr. Nesbit and George Brotherton and Henry Fenn down here this evening to talk over his investment of little Ben’s money. The check will come to-morrow.” Grant looked up from his desk, but before he could ask a question Violet answered: “They’ll be down at eight. The Doctor is that proud! And Mr. Brotherton is cutting lodge–the Shriners, themselves–to come down.”

It was a grave and solemn council that sat by Grant Adams’s desk that evening discussing the disposal of little Ben’s five thousand. Excepting Mr. Brotherton, no one there had ever handled that much money at one time. For though the Doctor was a man of affairs the money he handled in politics came easy and went easy, and the money he earned Mrs. Nesbit always had invested for him. So he and Lida Bowman sat rather apart while Dick and Brotherton considered the safety of bonds and mortgages and time deposits and other staple methods of investing the vast sum which was about to be paid to them for Ben’s accident. They also considered plans for his education–whether he should learn telegraphy or should cultivate his voice, or go to college or what not. In this part of the council the Doctor took a hand. But Lida Bowman kept her wonted silence. The money could not take the bitterness from her loss; though it did relieve her despair. While they talked, as a mere incident of the conversation, some one spoke of having seen Joe Calvin come down to the Wahoo Fuel Company’s offices that day in his automobile. Doctor Nesbit recalled having seen Calvin conferring with Tom Van Dorn and Daniel Sands in Van Dorn’s office that afternoon. Then Dick Bowman craning his neck asked for the third time when Henry Fenn would show up; and for the third time it was explained that Henry had taken the Hogan children to the High School building in Harvey to behold the spectacle of Janice Hogan graduating from the eighth grade into the High School. Then Dick explained:

“Well, I just thought Henry would know about this paper I got to-day from the constable. It’s a legal document, and probably has something to do with getting Benny’s money or something. I couldn’t make it out so I thought I’d just let Henry figure on it and tell me what to do.” And when a few minutes later Fenn came in, with a sense of duty to the Hogans well done, Dick handed Fenn the paper and asked with all the assurance of a man who expects the reassurance of an affirmative answer:

“Well, Henry–she’s all right, ain’t she? Just some legal formality to go through, I suppose?”

Henry Fenn took the document from Bowman’s hand. Henry stood under the electric, read it and sat thinking for a few seconds, with widely furious eyes.

“Well,” he said, “they’ve played their trump, boys. Doc Jim–your law’s been attacked in the federal court–under Tom Van Dorn–damn him!”

The group barked a common question in many voices. Fenn replied: “As I make it out, they got a New York stockholder of the Wahoo Valley Fuel Company to ask for an injunction against paying little Ben his money to-morrow, and the temporary injunction has been granted with the hearing set for June 16.”

“And won’t they pay us without a suit?” asked Bowman. “Why, I don’t see how that can be–they’ve been paying for accidents for a year now.”