Years afterwards, when Roger recalled the thing that had made him most
ashamed of himself before men, it was this house-to-house canvass of
Hilary Wainwright's stevedores.
They all lived in mean, dilapidated buildings, down close to the great
wharves, on narrow side-streets, never free from the smell of tar
and bilge water and refuse. The men were mostly physical giants, with
badly shaped heads, small, close-set eyes, and brutal mouths. The women
were worn and dull, although here and there, among those with fewer
children, faint traces of an anemic, youthful prettiness were fading to
shrewish angles and deep lines about the pale lips. The children were
dirty and sharp-eyed, with the shifting look and the quick, darting
movements of children who live in the streets, dodging policemen and
irate parents and passing trucks.
The men glared sullenly at Roger, and, for the most part, made no
comment. Some of the women reviled Hilary Wainwright in gutter speech;
some were confused; none were grateful. But in the end, they all
accepted. If the "kids" did not go to this tree, they would have none.
The kids would like it.
On Christmas morning Anne went to the office and helped with the
tree. It was the finest that Hilary could find and weighted under
innumerable, if cheap, presents, and bags of candy and lights. It was
finished a little before twelve, and the clerks and clerks' wives who
had helped stood back and admired it.
"It's a lot better than my children are going to have," one woman
whispered to Anne.
"It really is pretty, isn't it, Roger?" Anne had enjoyed hanging the
thick, silver tinsel and concealing the colored electric globes in the
most effective places.
"Yes. It's pretty." Roger had made up his mind to see the thing through
decently, but it was difficult.
The lights were switched on for a trial view; every one exclaimed
"O-h," and, after other appropriate remarks of appreciation for the
beauty of the tree, and Hilary's generosity, left. Anne came close to
Roger.
"Next year," she whispered, "we're going to have one exactly like this,
only a teeny, weeny one, aren't we?"
Roger did not answer, but as Hilary called to him just then, Anne did
not notice. In a moment Roger returned.
"He wants me to come back after lunch and start things going. His
sister can't get here until half past three and the tree's scheduled
for three."
"Half past three!" The Mitchell dinner was to be at four, to give Belle
time to get back to her case at seven. Roger could not possibly be
punctual and James Mitchell hated a meal to be delayed. But Roger could
not refuse Hilary.
"It's one now. There's hardly time to go home for lunch and get back
here."
"I tell you. I'll go round the corner and get a bite and then clear up
a few reports I didn't have time for yesterday and stay right on until
she arrives. I'll leave the minute she comes."
"Try not to be later than you can help, dear, won't you?"
"I'll try. But don't wait for me. I won't be much behind. I'll come
right out."
"All right. I guess you've got to stay, but--I wanted us to go
together. Don't be any later than you can help," Anne again warned
Roger as he took her to the elevator.
"I won't." But coming back to the office, Roger wished that Miss
Wainwright would not come at all. The Mitchell dinner, from a boring
incident, had become in the last forty-eight hours, through Anne's
constant reference to it, an ordeal not unlike the delivery of the
invitations and the tree itself. He had wanted a quiet home dinner,
with liberty of silence afterwards, a small space in the cluttered
confusion of the last days, in which to take careful stock of his
almost irrepressible scorn of Hilary Wainwright.
But Hilda Mitchell had never had a pleasant Christmas!
Roger frowned and tried to shrug off his unjust impatience. "I wish
to the Lord they'd all go and live in China or somewhere. I suppose
it will be worse after the baby comes. Roger Mitchell Barton!"
he whispered. "Sabatini would be better." But at the impossible
combination of Roger Sabatini Barton, Roger laughed.
* * * * *
At two the children began to arrive, surprisingly clean and well
dressed; the girls with bright hair ribbons and white stockings
and patent leather shoes and the boys with plastered hair and neat
suits. A clerk, with no family ties, who had come from the shipping
office to help, made a running line of comment aside to Roger on the
extraordinary and warped viewpoint of men who could afford patent
leather shoes for their children, striking for higher wages.
"If they came in the things they wear at home during the week, you'd be
afraid of germs," Roger exploded.
The man looked at him suspiciously, but ceased his comments.
Anne waited for Roger until three and then left the house. By Hilda's
concern at seeing her alone, Anne knew that her mother was not quite
sure that Roger would come at all.
"He's coming, but yesterday Mr. Wainwright sprang a Christmas tree for
the children of his striking stevedores, and his sister can't get there
to help him entertain until after three. The children will begin coming
long before that and he needed Roger. I would have stayed too except
that I knew you wouldn't like us both to be late."
"Now, I think that's mighty kind of Mr. Wainwright. Not many rich
people, men 'specially, would have thought of such a thing. Yes, dear,
it would have made it a little awkward for you both to be late, but
we'll wait a bit for Roger anyhow."
"No, please don't. He won't be much behind and he'd rather you didn't."
Anne and Hilda were in Anne's old room where she was taking off her
things. In the front room, Belle and Dr. Stetson were talking. Hilda
closed the door softly.
"I believe there is something doing," she whispered with raised
eyebrows and quick nods. "He's one of those thin, decided-looking men
and he's got Belle going. I heard him tell her not to smoke so much and
she actually threw her cigarette away."
"They must be married."
"Anne! No, they're not married. I don't believe he's asked her yet, but
I hope he will. Belle says he's a wonder at his line, cuts the queerest
things out of you, and never makes a cut for less than a thousand
dollars."
"Maybe he'll do it cheaper for the family. I couldn't afford a pin
prick at that rate."
"I hope you'll never need it. But papa seems to like him. Listen.
That's him laughing. I like his voice, don't you?"
Anne thought it was cold, rather like one of his wonderful knives, but
she said it sounded pleasant and followed Hilda down the hall to the
kitchen, where she gave her the black silk underskirt she had brought.
Hilda's eyes filled with tears, and she touched the thick messaline
lovingly.
"It's the first real silk petticoat I've ever had, Annie. It's almost
too nice to wear."
"Now, mamma, you put it right on."
Hilda hesitated, then dropped the torn gingham she was wearing, made a
face at it, slipped into the new skirt, and waltzed about the kitchen
holding up her dress skirt like a ballet dancer.
"You're just a girl, yourself, mamma. I don't believe you'll ever grow
up." Anne watched her mother with the deep tenderness and sense of
protection. No piece of finery could ever make her as happy as this
black silk petticoat made her mother. It was a shame that she had
never been able to have pretty things. The old resentment against her
father, somewhat allayed since her marriage, rose in Anne, and she
was glad that Dr. Stetson's presence prevented her having to give him
at that moment the box of good cigars she had brought. She had always
resented giving her father presents, ever since, as a little girl of
ten, she had discovered one Christmas morning, that the handkerchiefs
with "papa's love" had really come from Hilda's manipulation of the
tissue-wrapped allotments. She had succeeded in losing every one of the
handkerchiefs before New Year, but she had gone on giving him gifts and
thanking him for his.
Hilda had waltzed into the bedroom, and now returned with the family's
remembrances to Anne and Roger, a silver cigarette case from Belle, a
necktie from James and Hilda to Roger. Three pair of silk stockings
from Belle to Anne, a hand-embroidered nightgown from Hilda and James.
And then, the matter of presents being over, they both felt a little
freer. Hilda looked at the kitchen clock. It was five minutes after
four.
"If you don't think Roger would really mind, Anne, we'll begin. I want
a nice, long talky dinner, and a little evening after." Hilda gave her
petticoat a last flirt, twirled about on her toes, and began dishing up
the turkey. "Belle came early and made the salad, something extra fancy
she's learned. The plates are ready in the pantry, Anne. If you'll just
carry them in, then I'll introduce you."
Anne carried the salad into the dining-room, catching a side view of
Dr. Stetson through the drawn portière. He looked as she imagined he
would look from his voice; slim, and exceedingly well groomed. He was
leaning back now in the rocker, his thin, strong white hands clasped
behind his sleek, dark head. He was listening to an animated anecdote
of Belle's and smiling. Anne thought he was the most collected,
self-possessed being she had ever seen. He might have removed every
nerve in his body by one of his own skillful operations.
"If Belle marries him, she'll toe the mark." Anne smiled and went back
to the kitchen. When the turkey and cranberries and sprouts were dished
and in the hotplate, Hilda took Anne into the parlor. Dr. Stetson rose
instantly, gave her a penetrating glance as if she were a patient,
dismissed her as much less interesting than Belle, and they all
followed Hilda into the dining-room beyond.
"Why, where's Roger?" Belle demanded.
"He'll be along shortly. Hilary Wainwright's giving a party, a
Christmas tree to some poor children, and Roger had to help get the
thing going."
"If there were a few more Wainwrights in this country there wouldn't be
any labor trouble," James explained, squinting and pursing up his lips
as if he had private information of this certainty. Belle laughed.
"Well, I'm glad I'm not a philanthropic millionaire if he can't even
take Christmas off. It must be worse than nursing or surgery, don't you
think so, Doctor?"
"It must be if it keeps any one from a salad like this," Dr. Stetson
smiled at Hilda, who was saved in the nick of time by Belle's look,
from disclaiming the honor.
Roger's absence was not further commented upon and the talk became
general. Dr. Stetson had traveled extensively before the war in Europe
and he described people and places well, always picking out with the
unerring accuracy of his famous thousand-dollar cuts, the weak or
ridiculous spots in people and conditions. James Mitchell scarcely
stopped smiling. Belle's ringing laugh interrupted every few moments.
Anne, too, was interested. She felt the charm of the man's culture and
experience. It would be nice to travel and meet interesting people, go
to wonderful concerts and luxuriate for a little while in pleasant,
easy places. To meet people concerned in creating beauty or enjoying
it; not only those always striving to divide it up. Perhaps, some
day, when Europe had settled again to a semblance of what it had been
before, she and Roger and Rogie would go. Anne began in imagination to
travel.
A loud peal of the doorbell brought her back from Rome, and stopped Dr.
Stetson in the middle of a story.
Roger came up the stairs two at a time, explaining to Hilda as he came.
"I'm awfully sorry, but I couldn't make it sooner. Miss Wainwright was
later even than she expected. The train was stalled or something."
"That's all right. We've only just about begun."
When Roger had said he would come straight on, Anne had not thought of
his clothes, and now, as he followed Hilda, she saw that he was in his
everyday suit, rumpled and covered with a fine powdering of dust from
the tree. A bit of wool and a scrap of tinsel clung to his sleeve. He
looked tired. She saw Dr. Stetson size him up and a touch of annoyance
cloud Belle's eyes. She was annoyed herself. Roger took the vacant
place and Hilda made a great to-do about getting him salad, although
Roger said, more emphatically than one usually refuses a course at a
special dinner, that he did not want any. And when it came, he ate it
as indifferently as if it had been plain lettuce. Anne saw her mother
watching him and tried to catch his eye, but Roger's head was bent
and she gave it up. Dr. Stetson had caught again the thread of his
interrupted story, but Anne heard little of the rest. She wished that
Roger would not sit so, absorbed in his salad as if he were alone at a
lunch counter.
The others, seeing that Roger was not entering the talk, abandoned
their pretense of eating slowly until he caught up with them, took
their second helping of turkey, and disregarded him. As Hilda removed
his salad plate and passed him turkey, Anne managed at last to catch
his eye. He looked puzzled, frowned slightly, and with a distinct
effort banished his thoughts and turned to the doctor.
"It's the same in all countries," the doctor was saying, "there's just
a small group of people who really care for what's beautiful. We hear
a lot about the artistic French and Italians. The average Latin--the
ordinary man--doesn't respond to beauty, pure beauty, in itself, any
more than does the average Saxon. They grub along with their eyes in
the dust in exactly the same dull way."
"What is pure beauty, in itself?" Roger demanded, as if he were
heckling a witness on the stand. "What is impure beauty, or beauty out
of itself?"
Dr. Stetson regarded him for a moment with a smile of forced amusement,
as if this were a joke, in poor taste, but to be condoned in a family
gathering.
"The Latin past," he elaborated, "was very closely tangled up with
Art, and, as they have nothing to be proud of now, they fall back a
few centuries and rave about their paintings and marbles, which never
did interest more than a very few of them. And it's the same thing
with other nations which have not much now to boast of. They go back
to something centuries ago and find comfort in it. You can't talk ten
minutes to an educated Portuguese before he's referring to the dead
glories of the Portuguese fleet and dragging in Vasco da Gama as if
he lived to-day. A Spaniard--at any rate up until the time of the
Spanish-American War--would talk as if Mexico and all South America
were still theirs. Nations, like people, the less they have as a whole
to boast of now, the more they blind themselves with the dreams a few
choice souls among them had generations ago."
"Just as we, in America, blind ourselves with the dream of liberty and
equality that Washington and Lincoln had," Roger interposed so quietly
that his inference was lost for a moment in the echo of Dr. Stetson's
sweeping assertions. The doctor himself was the first to catch it, and
turning to Roger with a look as if he were diagnosing an unexpected
symptom said, with the same smug assurance with which Hilary Wainwright
regretted the slow coming of the Average Man's ability to think:
"No, I don't think the cases are parallel. At least I, personally, am
old fashioned enough to believe we have liberty and equality for all."
"You're right." James Mitchell threw out his narrow shoulders and
glared at Roger. "Liberty and equality! There's too much of them now,
allowing every dirty foreigner and crack-brained native to stir up any
fool that will listen. Let me tell you," and James Mitchell cut the
heart of the problem from the air before him with his knife, "if there
isn't a little less 'liberty and equality' pretty soon, this country's
going to be in the same rotten mess as Russia. The people are half
asleep. If I didn't know that down at bottom, the great middle class of
America is really sane----"
"----we might get somewhere," Roger spoke almost sadly, so that
Belle and Dr. Stetson looked toward him, puzzled; but Anne, her face
flushing, looked down. "It's the great, sane, middle class that's
holding back liberty--killing it. The rich, to a certain extent, have
it. The poor are struggling for it. It's only in the middle that
they're dead, and safe. The middle class. There is no middle class,
really. It is the dividing class. It's the blow-neither-hot-nor-cold.
It's the lackey-souled. It's the misfortune of any country that has
it, this great, sane, safe, middle class."
"From your point of view, whatever that is, it may be. Not from mine."
Dr. Stetson now spoke in crisp, sharp tones; like tiny glittering
knives they seemed to pare the emotion from Roger's words. "The
lackey-souled are, on the whole, the clean bodied. Your struggling
poor, battling for so-called liberty, are unfit, humanly below par.
They can't function efficiently as humans where they are, much less
direct matters. Perhaps you don't know the number of mental defectives
there are in this country. The draft records showed a tremendous
proportion of men with the mental capacity of children. They work
at trades requiring little skill, they marry and raise others like
themselves. It's ridiculous to talk about increasing the liberty of
these people. It ought to be restricted, anyhow redirected. At the
other end of the scale, we have, of course, the effect of over-license,
but, it may surprise you to know that in school tests taken through all
classes, it was the children of the rich who, on the whole, averaged
highest."
"It doesn't surprise me at all," Roger said quietly, while Hilda
fidgeted and made little clucking noises, as if trying to swallow the
too large portions of mental food offered by Dr. Stetson. "It's exactly
what I would expect under the present system."
"Which system is the result of these conditions, not the other way
round. The upper class, using it in a broad sense as the directors of
the world, are there because they are most fit."
"Exactly," James Mitchell interpolated like a stinging wasp. "Look
at the directors of any corporation, quiet, clean, sharp-eyed men.
Look at the soap-boxers, the I. W. W.'s, the union organizers--all
shifty-looking, as if they'd never had enough baths or enough to eat."
"Maybe they haven't," Roger said slowly, while Anne's face flamed and
with difficulty she kept back the tears.
Why did Roger persist? What did it matter anyhow who was right or who
wrong, at this first real Christmas of her mother's?
"Perhaps they haven't," Dr. Stetson conceded, "but that doesn't alter
the fact that, socially, they are not fit to function as directors.
They are mentally below par," he repeated in clean, crisp finality.
"They are to be classed roughly, to the layman, in the same general
division as idiots."
"Idiots!" Hilda murmured with a shiver.
"Nonsense, mamma." Belle's hand pushed away Hilda's excited, intruding
interest. "They're not idiots. That's just the point. Idiots, real ones
that everybody recognizes, get locked up. These people--why you meet
them every day. You wouldn't know them, very likely. You----"
"Why, Belle! I certainly would know an idiot when I see one."
"They're not idiots, not driveling idiots, Mrs. Mitchell," the doctor
hastened to her aid; "they are--well, just the average unskilled
worker, the laborer, the migratory worker, the seasonal worker. Many
stevedores and longshoremen, fruit pickers, the simplest work in
machine shops--an appalling percentage of these men aren't over ten
or twelve years of age really. From these sub-normals or variants,
come the criminals. Criminology is only just beginning to associate
itself with psychology, but I could tell you some apparent miracles
worked in prisons by small, minor operations. Which proves," he turned
now, including Roger, "that it is not a question of opportunity or
will--Nature isn't romantic or emotional--it's a scientific question.
Deficiencies, variations, do exist. Perhaps, in time, all this may be
correctable, but only by scientific methods--not by talk." He allowed
himself the last thrust, covering it by a genial smile. "A clinic is
enough to make one doubt the right of the democratic principle."
"Not unless you refuse to look below the surface. Nature may be
scientific, but she's not insane. She doesn't turn out millions upon
millions of human beings that a few may scramble to themselves all the
beauty of the universe. I grant you all the mentally inefficient you
claim, but, what started it, what caused it? Why?"
"A thousand things, many too intricate, too subtle to explain. And
remember we know very little about it. The field is new. There are a
thousand threads tangled in the problem, pre-natal influences, going
back for generations, malnutrition of mothers, early environment of
the baby, nervous stimuli--dozens of influences. A psychopathic clinic
in any of the big, free institutions, a ward in a baby hospital,
a maternity ward--it's enough to make one doubt the right of the
democratic principle," he repeated as if he found the phrase so exact
he needed no other.
Roger looked at him. "It would be very hopeless, if it were true:
I mean if nothing preventive could be done." Hilda moved uneasily
and James Mitchell cleared his throat. Anne's flaming face was still
lowered. "But since, according to science, malnutrition, pre-natal
conditions, unhealthy nerve conditions, do play a part, it seems to
me there is a chance. As you say, the children of the rich, under the
best physical and educational conditions, do average higher; if these
conditions, or even approximately these, were extended, it ought to
help some, don't you think?"
Dr. Stetson saw where Roger was leading and looked at him coldly.
"Really, Mr. Barton, it's such an intricate subject, and, on the
whole, so impossible to discuss with a layman, that"--he beamed round,
his charming smile of culture and advantage--"I think we'd have to
give more time to it, and more seriousness, than I, at least, am
able to give under these conditions." A gracious gesture laid the
responsibility for this upon the well-cooked turkey.
Hilda got up to remove the dishes and Anne rose quickly to help. Out in
the kitchen, Hilda closed the door and whispered:
"What on earth is the matter with Roger?"
Anne shrugged. "Oh, I don't know. He simply can't take those things
lightly. He gets all wrought up about the state of the world."
"Do you think he's dropped it now?" Hilda said hurriedly, detaining
Anne as she was about to pass back to the dining-room.
"Yes," Anne said shortly. "He won't say any more."
"Really, it's enough to scare one to death," Hilda went on in her
hurried whisper, as she slipped the mince pies from their pans to the
serving plates. "Idiots and criminals lurking round and you can't tell
them from sane people! Sometimes I think Christian Science must be an
awful comfort. Look at Charlotte Welles, she never gets all stewed
up. She just goes round saying--All is Love--and she doesn't have to
bother about fixing it. What with Dr. Stetson saying you can almost cut
wickedness out of people, and Roger wanting to feed it out of them,
and Charlotte saying there is none in them--one doesn't know what to
believe."
Belle's laughter drifted from the dining-room. Hilda heaved a sigh of
real relief. "That's nice. I guess everything'll be all right now.
Belle has a lot of tact."
The rest of the meal went off pleasantly. Although Roger made no
definite contribution, he no longer sat frowning and crumbling his
bread. It was after six when they rose from the table, and, according
to a prearranged scheme of Belle's, had black coffee in the other room
before the gas log. But Anne saw that Belle did not quite trust Roger
yet, because she so evidently kept the conversation in her own hands.
"It's a shame," Anne decided. "He couldn't change them, and this is
the first time Belle has ever brought any of her friends home and had
things pleasant."
As soon after the black coffee as she could, she let her eye catch
Roger's and, at the question in his, nodded faintly. The others would
have a better time when he had gone, and they would all be going soon
anyhow. She slipped out as Hilda took the empty coffee things.
"I think we'll have to go now, mamma. Roger has had a tiring day and
there may be reports to do yet. This is Mr. Wainwright's busy season."
"Do you have to go, dear, really?" Hilda could not keep every atom of
relief out of her voice, for neither was she sure of Roger. Perhaps
James would let the dinner pass, but not if Roger annoyed him any more.
"I think so. It was a lovely dinner. I'd like to help you with the
dishes, but I suppose you'll leave them till morning."
Hilda laughed. "I'm not going to do them at all. Mrs. Welles' Jap
schoolboy's coming at half past eight for an hour."
"Good for you!"
"It's papa's present," Hilda said proudly. "Really, Anne, papa's
changing quite a bit."
Anne put her arms about her mother. "You dear, patient thing. I wish I
were more like you."
"Go on, you flatterer. There's Roger coming to look you up."
"They're going to play bridge for a while. Do you want to play, dear?"
he asked.
"No. We'll just slip out the back way. They won't notice."
"Why, Anne, that's awfully rude. Of course they'll notice."
"Is it?" Anne asked coldly, as Hilda disappeared for a moment into the
pantry. "Well, I don't think it matters if it is now."
She got her things quietly and joined Roger again in the kitchen. Hilda
leaned over the porch railing and waved as they disappeared into the
covered tunnel that led to the street. On the sidewalk, Roger slipped
his hand under Anne's arm, but Anne drew violently away.
"Why, honey, what's the matter? Surely you don't----"
"Surely I do care for common decency and politeness. Mamma got up a
lovely dinner; every one was having a good time, until you got one of
those excited streaks on. You might know they wouldn't agree with you.
What sense was there in insisting? Besides, Dr. Stetson is an authority
and you don't know anything about subnormal psychology or criminology."
Under the stream of Anne's anger, Roger's nerves quivered. Like fork
lightning, fears cut across his mind, phrases of Anne's, moods, likes
and dislikes, resemblances to the Mitchells. He had been longing to
get away from the house, now he wanted to get away from the stream of
Anne's invective. But, once started, Anne clung to her hurt.
"Please, Anne, quit it," Roger said as they reached the corner where
they had to take the car. "I don't want to hear any more about it."
The car was just coming into sight. "No," Anne said hurriedly, "you
never do, after you've had your say."
Side by side, hurt and angry, they sat through the long ride home. But,
as they climbed the hill, quiet at this hour, the earth sweet with long
rain, the stars clean and shining from a densely blue-black sky, Roger
took Anne's hand.
"I'm sorry I hurt you, dear. I really never meant to."
"I don't see how you could have helped meaning it," Anne said coldly,
and then, because she too was afraid of this their first real
disagreement, pressed his fingers faintly.