"John, if you don't speak out at once what you have to say, I shall go
in immediately. You've said again and again that there is something you
must tell me; why don't you? Couldn't you see; can't you see now that I
haven't begged you to tell because it seems to pain you."
"It does," he exclaimed, "you can't know how it pains me." He looked
down at her where she sat on the step and into her uplifted face.
"What is it?" she asked calmly, now.
He sat beside her.
"I hardly know where to begin," he commenced and hesitated. He seemed to
be arranging the words in his mind, for, after a moment he resumed.
"I told you it wasn't any crime," he said. "Well, maybe it isn't, but
Janet," he went on quickly, "while you were standing at the window of
the club this afternoon, you saw a man--do you remember? He wore
overalls. His face and hands were black. You said you saw a policeman
push him back into the crowd, and you believed him to be drunk---- He
was drunk, Janet----"
"How do you know?" she asked, quite indifferently, "did you see him
again?"
"Yes, I saw him again," he said. "I saw him in a big restaurant that was
crowded with students, men whom I know, whom I have eaten with, whose
cheers till now have been--been inspiring to me----"
"John--really----" the girl put in impatiently. "I can't see why that
drunk man should have made such an impression--that common laborer--nor
what he can have to do----"
"Wait a moment," he remonstrated. "You remember, when you called my
attention to him, I took you out across the field, and down town another
way? Yes? Well, I had a reason. I didn't want that drunken man to see
me--to see you----"
"But, dear," she exclaimed with a little laugh.
"It was my father," he said, quietly.
"John!"
Passion, shock, anger, perhaps pity, were all in the tone of her
exclamation. Unconsciously she drew away from him.
"Don't be afraid," he said, holding out a hand to her, "I shan't smirch
you----"
She realized her movement then, and pity filled her heart, pity for
this great creature beside her whose own heart, the heart she knew, was
like a child's.
"Dear," she murmured, "don't think that. Don't. I didn't mean to."
He seemed not to notice the plea in her voice.
"I don't blame you," he went on as calmly as before, "but it was because
I _knew_ you would do just that that I haven't told you before. But
now--I can't wait any longer. Listen. My parents are Poles, Janet. My
father and mother were born in the same tiny town in Poland a little way
from Cracow. They came to this country when I was only five years
old--before my sister--my little sister Pauline, was born. My father was
a peddler at first; afterward for a time he was a street sweeper; and
then, during a strike, a good many years ago, he went into the Stove
Works and learned the moulder's trade. It's a good trade, Janet; the men
sometimes earn four dollars a day, pouring the hot iron into the sand.
My father earns that now----"
She had listened to him raptly, the pale light white upon her lifted
face.
"But John," she exclaimed, "your name--your name isn't foreign?"
He laughed.
"My name isn't 'Adams,'" he replied.
"John!"
"No," he went on--"but maybe my name is, too, after all. I should have
said 'perhaps.' My father's name is not. It is Adamowski----" He heard
her little quick in-taking of breath and looked away.
"You have never heard of such things before, have you?" he asked. "But
it is a custom with Polish young men nowadays. Their names handicap them
in their work, in their advancement, so they often change them."
"Yes, I understand," she murmured.
"Well," he went on, "until I was ten years old I attended the parochial
school----"
"John, you're not a _Catholic_!" she exclaimed.
"No--you needn't be afraid of that either--I'm not--now," he answered.
"And then," he continued as calmly as before, "I was sent to the public
schools. It was the superintendent who wrote my name 'Adams.' He did it
perhaps by accident; anyway it has been my name ever since. Plain 'John
Adams.' I don't suppose I could make you understand the relation between
parents and an only son among my people, so I shan't try, but it is to
the son that the parents look for the fulfilment of all their happiest
hopes. That I should have been sent here to college is not so
surprising as you may consider it. I _was_ sent here. I was sent here by
my father who works in the sand of the moulding room; by my mother who,
to help, has for three years taken in washing; and by my little sister,
Pauline, who sits all day at a bench and tears the stems out of tobacco
leaves in a great, gray factory. They are the ones who have sent me here
to college--to study, to learn, to make something of myself----"
Thus far to the girl, save for little moments when from the narrative
she had suffered twinges of pain, it was as though she were listening to
a story of one whom she knew not. She had been moved and strangely
thrilled at times and now leaning forward eagerly she exclaimed:
"And you have made something of yourself; you have, John! Oh, don't you
see how brave you are--what you can _do_ with the education they have
given you; what you can accomplish for yourself, and so, for them?"
He did not interrupt her but when she had done he looked down at her
pityingly and muttered, as though suffering an intense physical agony:
"Oh Janet! to hear you talk like that--to hear you say such things; to
feel you haven't understood."
She looked away from him piqued, chagrined that she had erred.
"I brave!" he went on, "_I_ brave? Do you think _I_ dare call myself
brave when I think of that little girl tearing stems out of tobacco
leaves until her fingers are stiff; when I think of my mother bent over
a tub, her face wreathed in steam--I can hear the smooth rasp of the wet
clothes now as she rubs them on the board? I _brave_ when I see my
father working in the awful heat of a moulding room--cooked alive--that
I may dawdle here and kick a leather ball about a field." He looked away
with a sneer. But the bitterness in his voice failed to move her.
"Your education!" she exclaimed, tersely,--"you have that!"
He laughed harshly. "Education! my education! What is it? There are my
people--my father a moulder, a good workman who sometimes is drunk, and,
so, a drunkard; my mother a wash-woman; my little sister a stripper in a
cigar factory. They have given me my education and in giving me it what
have they done? They have made me _hate_ them!"
"John, John, you mustn't say that," she implored.
"I must say it," he replied,--"for it's the truth. They have lifted me
above them. All the love I should have for them is gone, obliterated. My
feeling toward them is the feeling a man has for a dog that has helped
him, perhaps saved him from drowning. It is a feeling but it is not
love. I've known this a long time, Janet, but not till now have I known
what to do. There is my place, there beside them. Back in the little
home I should be ashamed to take you into. I have been educated away
from them; from my father, my mother, my little sister; yes," he added
with a virulent bitterness, "I have even been educated away from my
God."
She placed her hand on his arm but she did not speak.
"Educated even away from my God!" he repeated sadly. "They are
Catholics. I should be. I am not. And what has been given me in return?
Nothing; less than nothing; yes, something, for I have been given by
this 'education' that has been paid for by my sister's blood, my
mother's body, and my father's soul, the power to see my own false
position. I thank heaven for that! O, don't remonstrate," he said, as
she leaned toward him as though to speak. "I understand. From the high
plane of your view the picture is not the same. I am closer to it. I see
the fault of the method, the absurdity of the thing, the miserable
falsity of the conception. You cannot understand, Janet. It is because I
have known you could not, that I have not told you till now."
"But, John, dear," she murmured tenderly, pityingly, "I _do_
understand."
"No," he contradicted, gently, "you don't; you can't; it is not _for_
you to understand."
He stood up, and looking down at her where she sat, smiled sadly. The
bell in the tower of the library rang out upon the stillness, six
times--tang--ting--tang--ting--tang--ting!
"But perhaps you can feel a little as I feel and know something of how I
have felt for weeks. I shall go back to-morrow." There was no drama in
the declaration. It was uttered calmly.
The girl stood up now suddenly and leaned toward him.
"What do you mean?" she asked, "you're not really going--going
back--there?"
"Yes," he said. "I'm going back. I am going to try to find what has been
stolen from me. I am going to try to rid myself of my unrest; to undo
for myself the wrong that all unconsciously has been done me, by hands
that have hit me when they only meant to be gentle. I'm going back,
Janet, to work in the moulding-room beside my father."
She stared into his face, in mute wonder.
"And give up your course, John? _Now!_" she cried, as the full force of
his determination dawned upon her.
"I am going to give up the false that has been thrust upon me, for the
good that I have flung away," he answered. "I shall work until I have
paid back all my mother's money and my father's money, and my little
sister's money. Would to God I could pay them for the aching backs, the
stiff fingers, and the tortured souls. I shall try. And if when I have
tried, I find that, after all, it has been of no avail, that these debts
can never be paid, perhaps I shall come back. Good-bye."
He held out his hand. He felt hers cold in his palm.
"Will you forgive me?" he asked simply,--"I should not have--I should
not have cared for you. It was wrong. Forgive me----"
"There is nothing to forgive," she said, quite firmly. He drew away his
hand then and hers fell limp at her side.
She stood motionless and watched his figure as it swung up the street.
Her heart bade her lips call out to him. But the million voices of the
night bade her heart be still. And then, even as she watched, where he
was, there was he not, but only blackness.