INTRODUCING MR. DANIEL HARWOOD
On the day following the delivery to Andrew Kelton of the letter in
which money for Sylvia's education was offered by an unknown person, the
bearer of the message was to be seen at Indianapolis, in the law office
of Wright and Fitch, attorneys and counselors at law, on the fourth
floor of the White River Trust Company's building in Washington Street.
In that office young Mr. Harwood was one of half a dozen students, who
ran errands to the courts, kept the accounts, and otherwise made
themselves useful.
Wright and Fitch was the principal law firm in the state in the period
under scrutiny, as may readily be proved by an examination of the court
dockets. The firm's practice was, however, limited. Persons anxious to
mulct wicked corporations in damages for physical injuries did not
apply to Wright and Fitch, for the excellent reason that this capable
firm was retained by most of the public service corporations and had no
time to waste on the petty and vexatious claims of minor litigants. Mr.
Wright was a Republican, Mr. Fitch a Democrat, and each of these
gentlemen occasionally raised his voice loud enough in politics to
emphasize his party fealty. In the seventies Mr. Wright had served a
term as city attorney; on the other hand, Mr. Fitch had once declined
the Italian ambassadorship. Both had been mentioned at different times
for the governorship or for the United States Senate, and both had
declined to enter the lists for these offices.
Daniel Harwood had been graduated from Yale University a year before we
first observed him, and though the world lay before him where to choose,
he returned to his native state and gave himself to the study of law by
day and earned a livelihood by serving the "Courier" newspaper by night.
As Mr. Harwood is to appear frequently in this chronicle, it may be well
to summarize briefly the facts of his history. He was born on a farm in
Harrison County, and his aversion to farm life had been colored from
earliest childhood by the difficulties his father experienced in
wringing enough money out of eighty acres of land to buy food and
clothing and to pay taxes and interest on an insatiable mortgage held
somewhere by a ruthless life insurance company that seemed most
unreasonably insistent in its collections. Daniel had two older brothers
who, having satisfied their passion for enlightenment at the nearest
schoolhouse, meekly enlisted under their father in the task of fighting
the mortgage. Daniel, with a weaker hand and a better head, and with
vastly more enterprise, resolved to go to Yale. This seemed the most
fatuous, the most profane of ambitions. If college at all, why not the
State University, to support which the Harwood eighty acres were taxed;
but a college away off in Connecticut! There were no precedents for this
in Harrison County. No Harwood within the memory of man had ever
adventured farther into the unknown world than to the State Fair at
Indianapolis; and when it came to education, both the judge of the
Harrison County Circuit Court and the presiding elder of the district
had climbed to fame without other education than that afforded by the
common schools. Daniel's choice of Yale had been determined by the fact
that a professor in that institution had once addressed the county
teachers, and young Harwood had been greatly impressed by him. The Yale
professor was the first graduate of an Eastern university that Daniel
had ever seen, and he became the young Hoosier's ideal of elegance and
learning. Daniel had acquired at this time all that the county school
offered, and he made bold to approach the visitor and ask his advice as
to the best means of getting to college.
We need not trace the devious course by which, after much burning of oil
during half a dozen winters, Dan Harwood attained to a freshman's
dignity at New Haven, where, arriving with his effects in a canvas
telescope, he had found a scholarship awaiting him; nor need we do more
than record the fact that he had cared for furnaces, taken the night
shift on a trolley car, and otherwise earned money until, in his junior
year, his income from newspaper correspondence and tutoring made further
manual labor unnecessary. It is with profound regret that we cannot
point to Harwood as a football hero or the mainstay of the crew. Having
ploughed the mortgaged acres, and tossed hay and broken colts, college
athletics struck him as rather puerile diversion. He would have been
the least conspicuous man in college if he had not shone in debate and
gathered up such prizes and honors as were accessible in that field. His
big booming voice, recognizable above the din in all 'varsity
demonstrations, earned for him the sobriquet of "Foghorn" Harwood. For
the rest he studied early and late, and experienced the doubtful glory,
and accepted meekly the reproach, of being a grind.
History and the dismal science had interested him immensely. His
assiduous attention to the classes of Professor Sumner had not gone
unnoticed by that eminent instructor, who once called him by name in
Chapel Street, much to Dan's edification. He thought well of
belles-lettres and for a time toyed with an ambition to enrich English
literature with contributions of his own. During this period he
contributed to the "Lit" a sonnet called "The Clam-Digger" which
began:--
At rosy dawn I see thine argosy;
and which closed with the invocation:--
Fair tides reward thy long, laborious days.
The sonnet was neatly parodied in the "Record," and that journal printed
a gratuitous defense of the fisherman at whom, presumably, the poem had
been directed. "The sonnet discloses nothing," said the "Record," "as to
the race, color, or previous condition of servitude of the unfortunate
clammer to justify a son of Eli in attacking a poor man laudably engaged
in a perfectly honorable calling. The sonneteer, coming, we believe,
from the unsalt waters of the Wabash, seems to be unaware that the
fisherman at whom he has leveled his tuneful lyre is not seeking fair
tides but clams. We therefore suggest that the closing line of the
sextette be amended to read--
Fair clams reward thy long, laborious days."
Harwood was liked by his fellow students in the law office. Two
Yalensians, already established there, made his lot easier, and they
combined against a lone Harvardian, who bitterly resented Harwood's
habit of smoking a cob pipe in the library at night. The bouquet of
Dan's pipe was pretty well dispelled by morning save to the discerning
nostril of the harvard man, who protested against it, and said the
offense was indictable at common law. Harwood stood stoutly for his
rights and privileges, and for Yale democracy, which he declared his
pipe exemplified. There was much good-natured banter of this sort in the
office.
Harwood was busy filing papers when Mr. Fitch summoned him to his
private room on the day indicated. Fitch was short, thin, and bald, with
a clipped reddish beard, brown eyes, and a turn-up nose. He was
considered a better lawyer than Wright, who was the orator of the firm,
and its reliance in dealing with juries. In the preparation of briefs
and in oral arguments before the Supreme Court, Fitch was the superior.
His personal peculiarities had greatly Interested Harwood; as, for
example, Fitch's manner of locking himself in his room for days at a
time while he was preparing to write a brief, denying himself to all
visitors, and only occasionally calling for books from the library.
Then, when he had formulated his ideas, he summoned the stenographer and
dictated at one sitting a brief that generally proved to be the
reviewing court's own judgment of the case in hand. Some of Fitch's
fellow practitioners intimated at times that he was tricky. In
conferences with opposing counsel, one heard, he required watching, as
he was wary of committing himself and it was difficult to discover what
line of reasoning he elected to oppose or defend. In such conferences it
was his fashion to begin any statement that might seem even remotely to
bind him with the remark, "I'm just thinking aloud on that proposition
and don't want to be bound by what I say." The students in the office,
to whom he was unfailingly courteous, apostrophized him as "the fox." He
called them all "Mister," and occasionally flattered them by presenting
a hypothetical case for their consideration.
Fitch was sitting before the immaculate desk he affected (no one ever
dared leave anything on it in his absence) when Harwood entered. The
lawyer's chair was an enormous piece of furniture in which his small
figure seemed to shrink and hide. His hands were thrust into his
pockets, as they usually were, and he piped out "Good-Morning" in a high
tenor voice.
"Shut the door, please, Mr. Harwood. What have you to report about your
errand to Montgomery?"
He indicated with a nod the one chair in the room and Harwood seated
himself.
"I found Professor Kelton without difficulty and presented the letter."
"You delivered the letter and you have told no one of your visit to
Montgomery."
"No one, sir; no one knows I have been away from town. I handed the
letter to the gentleman in his own house, alone, and he gave me his
answer."
"Well?"
"_No_ is the answer."
Fitch polished his eyeglasses with his handkerchief. He scrutinized
Harwood carefully for a moment, then asked:--
"Did the gentleman--whose name, by the way, you have forgotten--"
"Yes, sir; I have quite forgotten it," Harwood replied promptly.
"Did he show any feeling--indignation, pique, as he read the letter?"
"No; but he read it carefully. His face showed pain, I should say, sir,
rather than indignation. He gave his negative reply coldly--a little
sharply. He was very courteous--a gentleman, I should say, beyond any
question."
"I dare say. What kind of an establishment did he keep?"
"A small cottage, with books everywhere, right by the campus. A young
girl let me in; she spoke of the professor as her grandfather. She went
off to find him for me in the college library."
"A young person. What did she look like?"
"A dark young miss, with black hair tied with a red ribbon."
Fitch smiled.
"You are sure of the color, are you? This man lives there with his
granddaughter, and the place was simple--comfortable, no luxuries. You
had no conversation with him."
"I think we exchanged a word about the weather, which was warm."
Fitch smiled again. His was a rare smile, but it was worth waiting for.
"What did the trip cost you?"
Harwood named the amount and the lawyer drew a check book from his
impeccable desk and wrote.
"I have added one hundred dollars for your services. This is a personal
matter between you and me, and does not go on the office books. By the
way, Mr. Harwood, what are you doing out there?" he asked, moving his
head slightly toward the outer office.
"I'm reading law."
"Is it possible! The other youngsters in the office seem to be talking
politics or reading newspapers most of the time. How do you manage to
live?"
"I do some work for the 'Courier' from time to time."
"Ah! You are careful not to let your legal studies get mixed with the
newspaper work?"
"Yes, sir. They put me on meetings, and other night assignments. As to
the confidences of this office, you need have no fear of my--"
"I haven't, Mr. Harwood. Let me see. It was of you Professor Sumner
wrote me last year; he's an old friend of mine. He said he thought you
had a sinewy mind--a strong phrase for Sumner."
"He never told me that," said Dan, laughing. "He several times implied
quite the reverse."
"He's a great man--Sumner. I suppose you absorbed a good many of his
ideas at New Haven."
"I hope I did, sir: I believe in most of them anyhow."
"So do I, Mr. Harwood."
Fitch pointed to a huge pile of manuscript on a table by the window. It
was a stenographic transcript of testimony in a case which had been lost
in the trial court and was now going up on appeal.
"Digest that evidence and give me the gist of it in not more than five
hundred words. That's all."
Harwood's hand was on the door when Fitch arrested him with a word.
"To recur to this private transaction between us, you have not the
remotest idea what was in that letter, and nothing was said in the
interview that gave you any hint--is that entirely correct?"
"Absolutely."
"Very well. I know nothing of the matter myself; I am merely
accommodating a friend. We need not refer to this again."
When the door had closed, the lawyer wrote a brief note which he placed
in his pocket, and dropped later into a letter-box with his own hand.
Mr. Fitch, of the law firm of Wright and Fitch, was not in the habit of
acting as agent in matters he didn't comprehend, and his part in
Harwood's errand was not to his liking. He had spoken the truth when he
said that he knew no more of the nature of the letter that had been
carried to Professor Kelton than the messenger, and Harwood's replies
to his interrogatories had told him nothing.
Many matters, however, pressed upon his attention and offered abundant
exercise for his curiosity. With Harwood, too, pleased to have for the
first time in his life one hundred dollars in cash, the incident was
closed.