In the Heart of a Fool

“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-hell,” 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, God, 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 crashing 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.

“‘Kyle,’ he repeated, ‘tried to yell at old John, but got so excited stuttering, he couldn’t! I’m sure the fellows didn’t intend–’ he was getting weak; ‘this,’ he said.

“‘Promise me and make–others; you won’t tell. I know father–he won’t. They’re not–it’s–society. Just that,’ he said. ‘This was society!’ He had to stop. I felt his hand squeeze. ‘I’m–so–happy,’ he said one word at a time, gripping my hand tighter and tighter till it ached.” Brotherton put out his great hand, and looked at it impersonally, as one introducing a stranger for witness. Then Brotherton lifted his eyes to Laura’s and took up his story:

“‘That’s hers,’ he said; ‘the letter,’ and then ‘my messages–happy.’”

The woman pressed her letter to her lips and looked at the white door. She rose and, holding her letter to her bosom, closed her eyes and stood with a hand on the knob. She dropped her hand and turned from the white door. The dawn was graying in the ugly street. But on the clouds the glow of sunrise blushed in promise. She walked slowly toward the street. She gazed for a moment at the glorious sky of dawn.

When her eyes met her friend’s, she cried:

“Give me your hand–that hand!”

She seized it, gazed hungrily at it a second, then kissed it passionately. She looked back at the white door, and shook with sobs as she cried:

“Oh, you don’t think he’s there–there in the night–behind the door? We know–oh, we do know he’s out here–out here in the dawn.”

CHAPTER LI

IN WHICH WE END AS WE BEGAN AND ALL LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER

The great strike in the Wahoo Valley now is only an episode in the history of this struggle of labor for its rights. The episode is receding year by year further and more dimly into the past and is one of the long, half-forgotten skirmishes wherein labor is learning the truth that only in so far as labor dares to lean on peace and efficiency can labor move upward in the scale of life. The larger life with its wider hope, requires the deeper fellowship of men. The winning or losing of the strike in the Wahoo meant little in terms of winning or losing; but because the men kept the peace, kept it to the very end, the strike meant much in terms of progress. For what they gained was permanent; based on their own strength, not on the weakness of those who would deny them.

But the workers in the mines and mills of the Wahoo Valley, who have gone to and from their gardens, planting and cultivating and harvesting their crops for many changing seasons, hold the legend of the strong man, maimed and scarred, who led them in that first struggle with themselves, to hold themselves worthy of their dreams. In a hundred little shacks in the gardens, and in dingy rooms in the tenements may be found even to-day newspaper clippings pinned to the wall with his picture on them, all curled up and yellow with years. Before a wash-stand, above a bed or pasted over the kitchen stove, soiled and begrimed, these clippings recall the story of the man who gave his life to prove his creed. So the fellowship he brought into the world lives on.

And the fellowship that came into the world as Grant Adams went out of it, touched a wider circle than the group with whom he lived and labored. The sad sincerity with which he worked proved to Market Street that the man was consecrated to a noble purpose, and Market Street’s heart learned a lesson. Indeed the lives of that long procession of working men who have given themselves so freely–where life was all they had to give–for the freedom of their fellows from the bondage of the times, the lives of these men have found their highest value in making the Market Street eternal, realize its own shame. So Grant Adams lay down in the company of his peers that Market Street might understand in his death what his fellows really hoped for. He was a seed that is sown and falls upon good ground. For Market Street after all is not a stony place; seeds sown there bring forth great harvests. And while the harvest of Grant Adams’s life is not at hand; the millennium is not here; the seed is quickening in the earth. And great things are moving in the world.

Of course, there came a time in Harvey, even in the house of Nesbit, when there was marrying and giving in marriage. It was on a winter’s night when the house inside the deep, dark Moorish verandas, celebrating Mrs. Nesbit’s last bout with the spirit of architecture, glowed with a jewel of light.

And in due course they appeared, Rev. Dr. John Dexter leading the way, followed by a thin, dark-skinned young man with eyes to match and a rather slight, shortish girl, blond and pink with happy trimmings and real pearls on her eyelashes. The children jabbered, and the women wept and the men wiped their eyes, and it was altogether a gay occasion. Just as the young people were ready to look the world squarely in the face, George Brotherton, thinking he heard some one moving outside in the deep, dark veranda, flicked on the porch light, and through the windows he saw–and the merry company could not help seeing two faces–two wan, unhappy faces, staring hungrily in at the bridal pair. They stood at different corners of the house and did not seem to know of one another’s presence until the light revealed them. Only an instant did their faces flash into the light, as John Dexter was reading from the Bible a part of the service that he loved to put in, “and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of Heaven.” The faces vanished, there was a scurrying across the cement floor of the veranda and two figures met on the lawn in shame and anger.

But they in the house did not know of the meeting. For everybody was kissing everybody else, and the peppermint candy in little Grant Brotherton’s mouth tasted on a score of lips in three minutes, and a finger dab of candy on Jasper Adams’s shirt front made the world akin.

After the guests had gone, three old men lingered by the smoldering logs. “Well, now, Doc Jim,” asked Amos, “why shouldn’t I? Haven’t I paid taxes in Greeley County for nearly fifty years? Didn’t I make the campaign for that home in the nineties, when they called it the poor house–most people call it that now. I only stay there when I am lonesome and I go out in a taxi-cab at the county’s expense like a gentleman to his estate. And I guess it is my estate. I was talking to Lincoln about it the other night, and he says he approves. Ruskin says I am living my religion like a diamond in the rock.”

To the Captain’s protest he answered, “Oh, yes, I know that–but that would be charity. My pencils and shoestrings and collar buttons and coat hangers keep me in spending money. I couldn’t take charity even from you men. And Jasper’s money,” the gray poll wagged, and he cried, “Oh, no–not Ahab Wright’s and Kyle Perry’s–not that money. Kenyon is forever slipping me fifty. But I don’t need it. John Dexter keeps a room always ready for me, and I like it at the Dexters’ almost as much as I do at the county home. So I don’t really need Kenyon’s money, however much joy he takes in giving it. And I raise the devil’s own fuss to keep him from doing it.”

The Doctor puffed, and the Captain in his regal garments paraded the long room, with his hands locked under his coattails.

“But, Amos,” cried the Captain, “under the law, no man wearing that button,” and the Captain looked at the tri-color of the Loyal Legion, proudly adorning the shiny coat, “no soldier under the law, has to go out there. They’ve got to keep you here in town, and besides you’re entitled to a whopping lot of pension money for all these unclaimed years.”

The white old head shook and the pursed old lips smiled, as the thin little voice replied, “Not yet, Ezra–not yet–I don’t need the pension yet. And as for the Home–it’s not lonesome there. A lot of ’em are bedfast and stricken and I get a certain amount of fun–chirping ’em up on cloudy days. They like to hear from Emerson and John A. Logan, and Sitting Bull and Huxley and their comrades. So I guess I’m being more or less useful.” He stroked his scraggy beard and looked at the fire. “And then,” he added, “she always seems nearer where there is sorrow. Grant, too, is that way, though neither of ’em really has come.”

The Captain finding that his money was ashes in his hands, and not liking the thought and meditation of death, changed the subject, and when the evening was old, Amos Adams called a taxi-cab, and at the county’s expense rode home.

At the end of a hard winter day, descending tardily into the early spring, they missed him at the farm. No one knew whether he had gone to visit the Dexters, as was his weekly wont, or whether he was staying with Captain Morton in town, where he sometimes spent Saturday night after the Grand Army meeting.

The next day the sun came out and melted the untimely snow banks. And some country boys playing by a limestone ledge in a wide upland meadow above the Wahoo, far from the smoke of town, came upon the body of an old man. Beside him was strewn a meager peddler’s kit. On his knees was a tablet of paper; in his left hand was a pencil tightly gripped. On the tablet in a fine, even hand were the words: “I am here, Amos,” and his old eyes, stark and wide, were drooped, perhaps to look at the tri-color of the Loyal Legion that shone on his shrunken chest and told of a great dream of a nation come true, or perhaps in the dead, stark eyes was another vision in another world.

And so as in the beginning, there was blue sky and sunshine and prairie grass at the end.

CHAPTER LII

NOT EXACTLY A CHAPTER BUT RATHER A Q E D OR A HIC FABULA DOCET