NESTS
Laurence at last hung out that shingle which was to tingle Appleboro
into step with the Time-spirit. It was a very happy and important day
for the judge and his immediate friends, though Appleboro at large
looked on with but apathetic interest. One more little legal light
flickering "in our midst" didn't make much difference; we literally
have lawyers to burn. So we aren't too enthusiastic over our
fledglings; we wait for them to show us--which is good for them, and
sometimes better for us.
This fledgling, however, was of the stuff which endures. Laurence was
one of those dynamic and dangerous people who not only think
independently themselves, but have the power to make other people
think. No one who came in contact with him escaped this; it seemed to
crackle electrically in the air around him; he was a sort of human
thought-conductor, and he shocked many a smug and self-satisfied
citizen into horrific life before he had done with him.
If this young man had not been one of the irreproachable Maynes
Appleboro might have set him down as a pestilent and radical theorist
and visionary. But fortunately for us and himself he was a Mayne; and
the Maynes have been from the dawn of things Carolinian "a good
family."
I don't think I have ever seen two people so mutually delight in each
other's powers as did John Flint and Laurence Mayne. The Butterfly Man
was immensely proud of Laurence's handsome person and his grace of
speech and manner; he had even a more profound respect for his more
solid attainments, for his own struggle upward had deepened his regard
for higher education. As for Laurence, he thought his friend
marvelous; what he had overcome and become made him in the younger
man's eyes an incarnate proof of the power of will and of patience.
The originality and breadth of his views fired the boy's imagination
and broadened his personality. The two complemented each other.
The Butterfly Man's workroom had a fascination for others than
Laurence. It was a sort of Open Question Club. Here Westmoreland came
to air his views with a free tongue and to ride his hobbies with a
gallant zest; here the major, tugging at his goatee, his glasses far
down on his nose, narrated in spicy chapters the Secret Social History
of Appleboro. Here the judge--for he, too, had fallen into the habit
of strolling over of an evening--sunk in the old Morris chair, his
cigar gone cold in his fingers, reviewed great cases. And sometimes
Eustis stopped by, spoke in his modest fashion of his experiments, and
left us all the better for his quiet strength. And Flint, with his
eyes alive and watchful behind his glasses, listened with that air
which made one like to tell him things. Laurence declared that he got
his post-graduate course in John Flint's workroom, and that the
Butterfly Man wasn't the least of his teachers.
I should dearly like to say that the Awakening of Appleboro began in
that workroom; and in a way it did. But it really had its inception in
a bird's nest John Flint had discovered and watched with great
interest and pleasure. The tiny mother had learned to accept his
approach, without fear; he said she knew him personally. She allowed
him to approach close enough to touch her; she even took food out of
his fingers. He had worked toward that friendliness with great skill
and patience, and his success gave him infinite pleasure. He had a
great tenderness for the little brown lady, and he looked forward to
her babies with an almost grandfatherly eagerness. The nest was over
in a corner of our garden, in a thick evergreen bush big enough to be
called a young tree.
Now on a sunny morning Laurence and I and the Butterfly Man walked in
our garden. Laurence had gotten his first brief, and we two older
fellows were somewhat like two old birds fluttering over an
adventurous fledgling. I think we saw the boy sitting on the Supreme
Court bench, that morning!
As we neared the evergreen tree the Butterfly Man raised his hand to
caution us to be silent. He wanted us to see his wee friend's
reception of him, and so he went on a bit ahead, to let her know she
needn't be afraid--we, too, were merely big friends come a-calling.
And just then we heard shrill cries of distress, and above it the
louder, raucous scream of the bluejay.
The bluejay was entirely occupied with his own business of breaking
into another bird's nest and eating the eggs. He scolded violently
between mouthfuls; he had finished three eggs and begun on the fourth
and last when we came upon the scene. He had no fear of us; he had
seen us before, and he knew very well indeed that the red-bearded
creature with the cane was a particular and peculiar friend of
feathered folks. So he cocked a knowing head, with a cruel beak full
of egg, and flirted a splendid tail at his friend; then swallowed the
last morsel and rowed viciously with Laurence and me; for the bluejay
is wholly addicted to billingsgate. He paid no attention to the
distraught mother-bird, fluttering and crying on a limb nearby.
"Gosh, pal, I've sure had some meal!" said the bluejay to John Flint.
"Chase that skirt, over there, please--she makes too much noise to
suit me!"
But for once John Flint wasn't a friend to a bluejay--he uttered an
exclamation of sorrow and dismay.
"My nest!" he cried tragically. "My beautiful nest with the four eggs,
that I've been watching day by day! And the little mother-thing that
knew me, and let me touch her, and feed her, and wasn't afraid of me!
Oh, you blue devil! You thief! You murderer!" And in a great gust of
sorrow and anger he lifted his stick to hurl it at the criminal.
Laurence caught the upraised arm.
"But he doesn't know he's a thief and a murderer," said he, and looked
at the handsome culprit with unwilling admiration. The jay, having
finished the nest to his entire satisfaction, hopped down upon a limb
and turned his attention to us. He screamed at Laurence, thrusting
forward his impudent head; while the poor robbed mother, with
lamentable cries, watched him from a safe distance. Full of his
cannibal meal, Mister Bluejay callously ignored her. He was more
interested in us. Down he came, nearer yet, with a flirt of fine
wings, a spreading of barred tail, just above Flint's head, and
talked jocularly to his friend in jayese.
"You're a thief and a robber!" raged the Butterfly Man. "You're a damn
little bird-killer, that's what you are! I ought to wring your neck
for you, and I'd do it if it would do the rest of your tribe any good.
But it wouldn't. It wouldn't bring back the lost eggs nor the spoiled
nest, either. Besides, you don't know any better. You're what you are
because you were hatched like that, and there wasn't Anything to tell
you what's right and wrong for a decent bird to do. The best one can
do for you is to get wise to your ways and watch out that you can't do
more mischief."
The bluejay, with his handsome crested head on one side, cocked his
bright black eye knowingly, and passed derisive remarks. Any one who
has listened attentively to a bluejay must be deeply grateful that the
gift of articulate speech has been wisely withheld from him; he is a
hooligan of a bird. He lifted his wings like half-playful fists. If he
had fingers, be sure a thumb had been lifted profanely to his nose.
The Butterfly Man watched him for a moment in silence; a furrow came
to his forehead.
"Damn little thief!" he muttered. "And you don't even have to care!
No! It's not right. There ought to be some way to save the mothers and
the nests from your sort--without having to kill you, either. But good
Lord, how? That's what I want to know!"
"Beat 'em to it and stand 'em off," said Laurence, staring at the
ravaged nest, the unhappy mother, the gorged impenitent thief. "'Git
thar fustest with the mostest men.' Have the nests so protected the
thief can't get in without getting caught. Build Better Bird Houses,
say, and enforce a Law of the Garden--Boom and Food for all, Pillage
for None. You'd have to expect some spoiled nests, of course, for you
couldn't be on guard all the time, and you couldn't make all the birds
live in your Better Bird Houses--they wouldn't know how. But you'd
save some of them, at any rate."
"Think so?" said John Flint. "Huh! And what'd you do with _him_?" And
he jerked his head at the screaming jay.
"Let him alone, so long as he behaved. Shoo him outside when he
didn't--and see that he kept outside," said Laurence. "You see, the
idea isn't so much to reform bluejays--it's to save the other birds
from them."
John Flint's face was troubled. "It's all a muddle, anyhow," said he.
"You can't blame the bluejay, because he was born so, and it's
bluejay nature to act like that when it gets the chance. But there's
the other bird--it looks bad. It is bad. For a thief to come into a
little nest like that, that she'd been brooding on, and twittering to,
and feeling so good and so happy about--Man, I'd have given a month's
work and pay to have saved that nest! It's not fair. God! Isn't there
_some_ way to save the good ones from the bad ones?"
There he stood, in the middle of the path, staring ruefully at the
wrecked bit of twigs and moss and down that had been a wee home; and
with more of sorrow than anger at the feathered crook who had done the
damage. The thing was slight in itself, and more than common--just one
of the unrecorded humble tragedies which daily engulf the Little
Peoples. But I had seen a butterfly's wing save him alive; and so I
did not doubt now that a little bird's nest could weigh down the
balance which would put him definitely upon the side of good and of
God.
"I think there is a way," said Laurence, gravely, "and that is to beat
them to it and stand them off. All the rest is talk and piffle--the
only way to save is to save. There are no halfway measures; also, it's
a lifetime job, full of kicks and cuffs and ingratitude and
misunderstanding and failure and loneliness, and sometimes even worse
things yet. But you do manage to sometimes save the nests and the
fledglings, and you do sometimes escape the pain of hearing the
mothers lamenting. And that's the only reward a decent mortal ought to
hope for. I reckon it's about the best reward there is, this side of
heaven."
The Butterfly Man swallowed this a bit ungraciously.
"You've got a devil of a way of twisting things into parables. I'm
talking birds and thinking birds, and here you must go and make my
birds people! I wasn't thinking about people--that is, I wasn't, until
you have to go and put the notion into my head. It's not fair. The
thing's bad enough already, without your lugging folks into it and
making it worse!"
Laurence looked at him steadily. "You've got to think of people, when
you see things like that," said he, slowly; "otherwise you only
half-see. I have to think of people--of kids, particularly--and their
mothers." He turned as he spoke, and stared out over our garden, with
its sunny spaces, and its shrubs and flowers, and trees, to where,
over in the sky a pillar of smoke rose steadily, endlessly, and
merged into a cloud overhanging the quiet little town.
"The pillar of cloud by day," said he "that leads the children--" He
stopped, and the whimsical smile faded from his face; his jaw set.
The bluejay, having exhausted his vocabulary of jay-ribaldry,
screeched one last outrageous bit of billingsgate into Flint's ears,
shut up his tail like a fan, and darted off, a streak of blue and
gray. The Butterfly Man's eyes followed him smilelessly; then they
came back and dwelt for a moment upon the ruined nest and the
fluttering mother-bird, still vexing the ear with her shrill
lamentable futile protests. From her his eyes went, out over the trees
and flowers to that pillar mounting lazily and inevitably into the
sky. For a long moment he stared at that, too, fixedly. After an
interval he clenched his hand upon his stick and struck the ground.
"_Nothing's_ got any business to break up a nest! I'd rather sit up
all night and watch than see what I've just seen and listen to that
mother-thing calling to Something that's far-off and stone deaf and
can't hear nor heed. Why, the little birds haven't got even the chance
to get themselves born, much less grow up and sing! I--Say, you two go
on a bit. I feel mighty bad about this. I'd been watching her. She
knew me. She let me feed her. If only I'd thought about the jay, why,
I might have saved her. But just when she needed me I wasn't there!"
He turned abruptly, and strode off toward his own rooms. Kerry
followed with a drooping head and tail. But Laurence looked after him
hopefully.
"Padre, the Butterfly Man's seen something this morning that will
sink to the bottom of his soul and stay there: didn't you see his
eyes? Now, which of those two have taught him the most--the happy
thief and murderer, or the innocent unhappy victim? The bluejay's not
a whit the worse for it, remember; in fact, he's all the better off,
for his stomach is full and his mischief satisfied, and that's all
that ever worries a bluejay. And there isn't any redress for the
mother-bird. The thing's done, and can't be undone. But between them
they've shown John Flint something that forces a man to take sides.
Doesn't the bluejay deserve some little credit for that? And is there
_ever_ any redress for the mother-bird, Padre?"
"Why, the Church teaches--" I began.
Laurence nodded. "Yes, Padre, I know all that. But it can't teach away
what's always happening here and now. At least not to the Butterfly
Man and me, ... nor yet the mother-birds, Padre. No. We want to be
shown how to head off the bluejays."
We walked along in silence, his hand upon my arm. His eyes were
clouded with the vision that beckoned him. As for me, I was wondering
just where, and how far, that bluejay was going to lead John Flint.
It led him presently to my mother. All men learn their great lessons
from women and in stress the race instinctively goes back to be taught
by the mothers of it. There were long intimate talks between herself
and the Butterfly Man, to which Laurence was also called. In her quiet
way Madame knew by heart the whole mill district, good, bad and
indifferent, for she was a woman among the women. She had supported
wives parting from dying husbands; she had hushed the cries of
frightened children, while I gave the last blessings to mothers whose
feet were already on the confines of another world; she had taken dead
children from frenzied women's arms. Just as the Butterfly Man had
shown the country folks to Laurence, so now Madame showed them both
the mill folks, the poor folks, the foreigners in a small town
disdainful of them; and she did it with the added keenness of her
woman's eyes and the diviner kindness of her woman's heart.
The little lady had enormous influence in the parish. And as
Laurence's plans and hopes and ambitions unfolded before her, she
threw this potent influence, with all it implied, in the scale of the
young lawyer's favor. They began their work at the bottom, as all
great movements should begin. What struck me with astonishment was
that so many quiet women seemed to be ready and waiting, as for a
hoped for message, a bugle-call in the dawn, for just that which
Laurence had to tell them.
"A fellow with pull behind him," said John Flint, "is what you might
call a pretty fair probability. But a fellow with the women behind him
is a steam-roller. There's nothing to do but clear the road and keep
from under." And when he went on his rounds among the farm houses now
it wasn't only the men and children he talked to. There was a message
for the overworked women, the wives and daughters who had all the
pains and none of the profits. Westmoreland, who had been a rather
lonesome evangelist for many years, of a sudden found himself backed
and supported by younger and stronger forces.
The work was done very noiselessly; there was no outward
disturbances, yet; but the women were in deadly earnest; there were
far, far too many small graves in our cemetery, and they were being
taught to ask why the children who filled them hadn't had a fair
chance? The men might smile at many things, but fathers couldn't smile
when mothers of lost children wanted to know why Appleboro hadn't
better milk and sanitation. And there, under their eyes bulked the
huge red mills, and every day from the bosom of this Moloch went up
the smoke of sacrifice.
Behind all this gathering of forces stood an almost unguessed figure.
Not the lovely white-haired lady of the Parish House; not big
Westmoreland; not handsome Laurence, nor outspoken Miss Sally Ruth
with a suffrage button on her black basque; but a limping man in gray
tweeds with a soft felt hat pulled down over his eyes and a butterfly
net in his hand. That net was symbolic. With trained eye and sure hand
the naturalist caught and classified us, put each one in his proper
place.
Keener, shrewder far than any of us, no one, save I alone, guessed the
part it pleased him to play. Laurence was hailed as the Joshua who was
to lead all Appleboro into the promised land of better paving, better
lighting, better schools, better living conditions, better city
government--a better Appleboro. Behind Laurence stood the Butterfly
Man.
He seldom interfered with Laurence's plans; but every now and then he
laid a finger unerringly upon some weak point which, unnoticed and
uncorrected, would have made those plans barren of result. He amended
and suggested. I have seen him breathe upon the dry bones of a
project and make it live. It satisfied that odd sardonic twist in him
to stand thus obscurely in the background and pull the strings. I
think, too, that there must have been in his mind, since that morning
he had watched the bluejay destroy his nest, some obscure sense of
restitution. Once, in the dark, he had worked for evil. Still keeping
himself hidden, it pleased him now to work for good. So there he sat
in his workroom, and cast filaments here and there, and spun a web
which gradually netted all Appleboro.
There was, for instance, the _Clarion_. We had had but that one
newspaper in our town from time immemorial. I suppose it might have
been a fairly good county paper once,--but for some years it had
spluttered so feebly that one wondered how it survived at all. In
spite of this, nobody in our county could get himself decently born or
married, or buried, without a due and proper notice in the _Clarion_.
To the country folks an obituary notice in its columns was as much a
matter of form as a clergyman at one's obsequies. It simply wasn't
respectable to be buried without proper comment in the _Clarion_.
Wherefore the paper always held open half a column for obituary
notices and poetry.
These dismal productions had first brought the _Clarion_ to Mr.
Flint's notice. He used to snigger at sight of the paper. He said it
made him sure the dead walked. He cut out all those lugubrious and
home-made verses and pasted them in a big black scrapbook. He had a
fashion of strolling down to the paper's office and snipping out all
such notices and poems from its country exchanges. A more ghoulish and
fearsome collection than he acquired I never elsewhere beheld. It was
a taste which astonished me. Sometimes he would gleefully read aloud
one which particularly delighted him:
"A Christian wife and offspring seven
Mourn for John Peters who has gone to heaven.
But as for him we are sure he can weep no more,
He is happy with the lovely angels on that bright shore."†
† Heaven.
My mother was horrified. She said, severely, that she couldn't to save
her life see why any mortal man should snigger because a Christian
wife and children seven mourned for John Peters who had gone to
heaven. The Butterfly Man looked up, meekly. And of a sudden my mother
stopped short, regarded him with open mouth and eyes, and retired
hastily. He resumed his pasting.
"I've got a hankering for what you might call grave poetry," said he,
pensively. "Yes, sir; an obituary like that is like an all-day sucker
to me. Say, don't you reckon they make the people they're written
about feel glad they're dead and done for good with folks that could
spring something like that on a poor stiff? Wait a minute, parson--you
can't afford to miss Broken-hearted Admirer:
"Miss Matty, I watched thee laid in the gloomy grave's embrace,
Where nobody can evermore press your hand or your sweet face.
When you were alive I often thought of thee with fond pride,
And meant to call around some night & ask you to be my loving Bride.
"But alas, there is a sorrowful sadness in my bosom to-day,
For I never did it & now can never really know what you would say.
Miss Matty, the time may come when I can remember thee as a brother,
And lay my fond true heart at the loving feet of another.
For though just at present I can do nothing but sigh & groan,
The Holy Bible tells us it is not good for a man to dwell alone.
But even though, alas, I'm married, my poor heart will still be true,
And oft in the lone night I will wake & weep to think she never
can be you."
--"A BROKEN-HEARTED ADMIRER."
"Ain't that sad and sweet, though?" said the Butterfly Man admiringly.
"Don't you hope those loving feet will be extra loving when
Broken-hearted makes 'em a present of his fond heart, parson? Wouldn't
it be something fierce if they stepped on it! Gee, I cried in my hat
when I first read that!" Now wasn't it a curious coincidence that,
even as Madame, I regarded John Flint with open mouth and eyes, and
retired hastily?
For some time the _Clarion_ had been getting worse and worse; heaven
knows how it managed to appear on time, and we expected each issue to
be its last. It wasn't news to Appleboro that it was on its last legs.
I was not particularly interested in its threatened demise, not having
John Flint's madness for its obituaries; but he watched it narrowly.
"Did you know," he remarked to Laurence, "that the poor old _Clarion_
is ready to bust? It will have to write a death-notice for itself in a
week or two, the editor told me this morning."
"So?" Laurence seemed as indifferent as I.
The Butterfly Man shot him a freighted glance. "Folks in this county
will sort of miss the _Clarion_," he reflected. "After all, it's the
one county paper. Seems to me," he mused, "that if _I_ were going in
head, neck and crop for the sweet little job of reformer-general, I'd
first off get me a grappling-hook on my town's one newspaper.
Particularly when grappling-hooks were going cheap."
"Hasn't Inglesby got a mortgage on it?"
"If he had would he let it die in its bed so nice and ladylike? Not
much! It'd kick out the footboard and come alive. Inglesby must be
getting rusty in the joints not to reach out for the _Clarion_
himself, right now. Maybe he figures it's not worth the price. Maybe
he knows this town so well he's dead sure nobody that buys a newspaper
here would have the nerve to print anything or think anything he
didn't approve of. Yes, I guess that's it."
"Which is your gentle way," cut in Laurence, "of telling me I'd better
hustle out and gather in the _Clarion_ before Inglesby beats me to it,
isn't it?"
"Me?" The Butterfly Man looked pained. "I'm not telling you to buy
anything. _I'm_ only thinking of the obituaries. Ask the parson.
I'm--I'm addicted to 'em, like some people are to booze. But if you'd
promise to keep open the old corner for them, why, I might come out
and _beg_ you to buy the _Clarion_, now it's going so cheap. Yep--all
on account of the obituaries!" And he murmured:
"_Our dear little Johnny was left alive
To reach the interesting age of five
When_--"
"That's just about as much as I can stand of that, my son!" said I,
hastily.
"The parson's got an awful tender heart," the Butterfly Man explained
and Laurence was graceless enough to grin.
"Well, as I was about to say: I happened to think Inglesby would be
brute enough to choke out my pet column, or make folks pay for it, and
things like that haven't got any business to have price tags on 'em.
So I got to thinking of you. You're young and tender; also a college
man; and you're itching to wash and iron Appleboro--" he took off his
glasses and wiped them delicately and deliberately.
"Did you also get to thinking," said Laurence, crisply, "that I'm just
about making my salt at present, and still you're suggesting that I
tie a dead old newspaper about my neck and jump overboard? One might
fancy you hankered to add my obituary to your collection!" he finished
with a touch of tartness.
The Butterfly Man smiled ever so gently.
"The _Clarion_ is the county paper," he explained patiently. "It was
here first. It's been here a long time, and people are used to it. It
knows by heart how they think and feel and how they want to be told
they think and feel. And you ought to know Carolina people when it
comes right down to prying them loose from something they're used to!"
He paused, to let that sink in.
"There's no reason why the _Clarion_ should keep on being a dead one,
is there? There's plenty room for a live daily right here and now, if
it was run right. Why, this town's blue-molded for a live paper! Look
here: You go buy the _Clarion_. It won't cost you much. Believe me,
you'll find it mighty handy--power of the press, all the usual guff,
you know! I sha'n't have to worry about obituaries, but I bet you
dollars to doughnuts some people will wake up some morning worrying a
whole lot about editorials. Mayne--people like to think they think
what they think themselves. They don't. They think what their home
newspapers tell them to think. And this is your great big chance to
get the town ear and shout into it good and loud."
A week or so later Mayne & Son surprised Appleboro by purchasing the
moribund _Clarion_. They didn't have to go into debt for it, either.
They got it for an absurdly low sum, although folks said, with sniffs,
that anything paid for that rag was too much.
"Nevertheless," said the Butterfly Man to me, complacently, "that's
the little jimmy that's going to grow up and crack some fat cribs.
Watch it grow!"
I watched; but, like most others, I was rather doubtful. It was true
that the _Clarion_ immediately showed signs of reviving life. And that
Jim Dabney, a college friend from upstate, whom Laurence had induced
to accept the rather precarious position of editor and manager, wrote
pleasantly as well as pungently, and so set us all to talking.
I suppose it was because it really had something to say, and that
something very pertinent to our local interests and affairs, that we
learned and liked to quote the _Clarion_. It made a neat appearance in
new black type, and this pleased us. It had, too, a newer, clearer,
louder note, which made itself heard over the whole county. The county
merchants and farmers began once more to advertise in its pages, as
John Flint, who watched it jealously--feeling responsible for
Laurence's purchase of it--was happy to point out.
One thing, too, became more and more evident. The women were behind
the _Clarion_ in a solid phalanx. They knew it meant for them a voice
which spoke articulately and publicly, an insistent voice which must
be answered. It noticed every Mothers' Meeting, Dorcas activity,
Ladies' Aid, Altar Guild, temperance gathering; spoke respectfully of
the suffragists and hopefully of the "public-spirited women" of the
new Civic League. And never, never, never omitted nor misplaced nor
misspelled a name! The boy from up-state saw to that. He was wily as
the serpent and simple as the dove. Over the local page appeared
daily:
"LET'S GET TOGETHER!"
After awhile we took him at his word and tried to ... and things began
to happen in Appleboro.
"Here," said the Butterfly Man to me, "is where the bluejay begins to
get his."
For in most Appleboro houses insistent women were asking harassed and
embarrassed men certain questions concerning certain things which
ladies hadn't been supposed to know anything about, much less worry
their heads over, since the state was a state. So determined were the
women to have these questions fairly answered that they presently
asked them in cold print, on the front page of the town paper. And
Laurence told them. He had appalling lists and figures and names and
dates. The "chiel among us takin' notes" printed them. Dabney's
editorial comments were barbed.
Now there are mills in the South which do obey the state laws and
regulations as to hours, working conditions, wages, sanitation, safety
appliances, child labor. But there are others which do not. Ours
notoriously didn't.
John Flint and my mother had had many a conference about deplorable
cases which both knew, but were powerless to change. The best they had
been able to do was to tabulate such cases, with names and facts and
dates, but precious little had been accomplished for the welfare of
the mill people, for those who might have helped had been too busy, or
perhaps unwilling, to listen or to act.
But, as Flint insisted, the new Civic League was ready and ripe to
hear now what Madame had to tell. At one meeting, therefore, she took
the floor and told them. When she had finished they named a committee
to investigate mill conditions in Appleboro.
That work was done with a painstaking thoroughness, and the
committee's final report was very unpleasant reading. But the names
signed to it were so unassailable, the facts so incontrovertible, that
Dabney thought best to print it in full, and later to issue it in
pamphlet form. It has become a classic for this sort of thing now, and
it is always quoted when similar investigations are necessary
elsewhere.
It was the Butterfly Man who had taken that report and had rewritten
and revised it, and clothed it with a terrible earnestness and force.
Its plain words were alive. It seemed to me, when I read them that I
heard ... a bluejay's ribald screech ... and the heart-rending and
piercing cries of a little brown motherbird whose nest had been
ravaged and destroyed.
Appleboro gasped, and sat up, and rubbed its eyes. That such things
could be occurring here, in this pleasant little place, in the shadow
of their churches, within reach of their homes! No one dared to even
question the truth of that report, however, and it went before the
Grand Jury intact. The Grand Jury very promptly called Mr. Inglesby
before it. They were polite to him, of course, but they did manage to
ask him some very unpleasant and rather personal questions, and they
did manage to impress upon him that certain things mentioned in the
Civic League's report must not be allowed to reoccur. One juror--he
was a planter--had even had the temerity to say out loud the ugly word
"penetentiary."
Inglesby was shocked. He hadn't known. He was a man of large interests
and he had to leave a great deal to the discretion of superintendents
and foremen. It might be, yes, he could understand how it might very
well be--that his confidence had been abused. He would look into these
things personally hereafter. Why, he was even now busily engaged
compiling a "Book of Rules for Employees." He deplored the almost
universal unrest among employees. It was a very bad sign. Very. Due
almost entirely to agitators, too.
He didn't come out of that investigation without some of its slime
sticking to him, and this annoyed and irritated and enraged him more
than we guessed, for we hadn't as yet learned the man's ambition.
Also, the women kept following him up. They meant to make him comply
with the strict letter of the law, if that were humanly possible.
He was far too shrewd not to recognize this; for he presently called
on my mother and offered her whatever aid he could reasonably give.
Her work was invaluable; his foremen and superintendents had
instructions to give her any information she asked for, to show her
anything in the mills she wished to see, and to report to headquarters
any suggestions as to the--er--younger employees, she might be kind
enough to make. If that were not enough she might, he suggested, call
on him personally. Really, one couldn't but admire the _savoir faire_
of this large unctious being, so fluent, so plausible, until one
happened to catch of a sudden that hard and ruthless gleam which, in
spite of all his caution, would leap at times into his cold eyes.
"Is he, or isn't he, a hypocrite pure and simple, or are such men
self-deceived?" mused my mother, puckering her brows. "He will do
nothing, I know, that he can well avoid. But--he gave me of his own
accord his personal check for fifty dollars, for that poor consumptive
Shivers woman."
"She contracted her disease working in his mill and living in one of
his houses on the wages he paid her," said I, "I might remind you to
beware of the Greeks when they come bearing gifts."
"Proverb for proverb," said she. "The hair of the dog is good for its
bite."
"Fifty dollars isn't much for a woman's life."
"Fifty dollars buys considerable comfort in the shape of milk and ice
and eggs. When it's gone--if poor Shivers isn't--I shall take the
Baptist minister's wife and Miss Sally Ruth Dexter with me, and go and
ask him for another check. He'll give it."
"You'll make him bitterly repent ever having succumbed to the
temptation of appearing charitable," said I.
We were not left long in doubt that Inglesby had other methods of
attack less pleasant than offering checks for charity. Its two largest
advertisers simultaneously withdrew their advertisements from the
_Clarion_.
"Let's think this thing out," said John Flint to Laurence. "Cutting
out ads is a bad habit. It costs good money. It should be nipped in
the bud. You've got to go after advertisers like that and make 'em see
the thing in the right light. Say, parson, what's that thing you were
saying the other day--the thing I asked you to read over, remember?"
_"When the scorner is punished, the simple is made wise; and when the
wise is instructed, he receiveth knowledge,"_ I quoted Solomon.
"That's it, exactly. You see," he explained, "there's always the right
way out, if you've got sense enough to find it. Only you mustn't get
rattled and try to make your getaway out the wrong door or the front
window--that spoils things. The parson's given you the right tip. That
old chap Solomon had a great bean on him, didn't he?"
A few days later there appeared, in the space which for years had been
occupied by the bigger of the two advertisements, the following
pleasant notice:
People Who Disapprove of
Civic Cleanliness,
A Better Town,
Better Kiddies,
and
A Square Deal for Everybody,
_Also_
Disapprove of
Advertising in the Clarion.
And the space once occupied by the other advertiser was headed:
OBITUARIES
That ghastly poetry in which the soul of the Butterfly Man reveled
appeared in that column thereafter. It was a conspicuous space, and
the horn of rural mourning in printer's ink was exalted among us. It
was not very hard to guess whose hand had directed those
counter-blows.
When we met those two advertisers on the street afterward we greeted
them with ironical smiles intended to enrage. They had at Inglesby's
instigation been guilty of a tactical blunder of which the men behind
the _Clarion_ had taken fiendish and unexpected advantage. It had
simply never occurred to either that a small town editor might dare to
"come back." The impossible had actually happened.
I think it was this slackening of his power which alarmed Inglesby
into action.
"Mr. Inglesby," said the Butterfly Man to me one night, casually, "has
got him a new private secretary. He came this afternoon. His name's
Hunter--J. Howard Hunter. He dresses as if he wrote checks for a
living and he looks exactly like he dresses. Honest, he's the original
he-god they use to advertise suspenders and collars and neverrips and
that sort of thing in the classy magazines. I bet you Inglesby's got
to fork over a man-sized bucket of dough per, to keep _him_. There'll
be a flutter of calico in this burg from now on, for that fellow
certainly knows how to wear his face. He's gilt-edged from start to
finish!"
Laurence, lounging on the steps, looked up with a smile.
"His arrival," said he, "has been duly chronicled in to-day's press.
Cease speaking in parables, Bughunter, and tell us what's on your
mind."
The Butterfly Man hesitated for a moment. Then:
"Why, it's this way," said he, slowly. "I--hear things. A bit here and
there, you see, as folks tell me. I put what I've heard together, and
think it over. Of course I didn't need anybody to tell me Inglesby was
sore because the _Clarion_ got away from him. He expected it to die.
It didn't. He thought it wouldn't pay expenses--well, the sheriff
isn't in charge yet. And he knows the paper is growing. He's too wise
a guy to let on he's been stung for fair, once in his life, but he
don't propose to let himself in for any more body blows than he can
help. So he looks about a bit and he gets him an agent--older than
you, Mayne, but young enough, too--and even better looking. That agent
will be everywhere pretty soon. The town will fall for him. Say, how
many of you folks know what Inglesby really wants, anyhow?"
"Everything in sight," said Laurence promptly.
"And something around the corner, too. He wants to come out in the
open and be IT. He intends to be a big noise in Washington. Gentlemen,
Senator Inglesby! Well, why not?"
"He hasn't said so, has he?" Laurence was skeptical.
"He doesn't have to say so. He means to be it, and that's very much
more to the point. However, it happens that he did peep, once or
twice, and it buzzed about a bit--and that's how I happened to catch
it in my net. This Johnny he's just got to help him is the first move.
Private Secretary now. Campaign manager and press agent, later.
Inglesby's getting ready to march on to Washington. You watch him do
it!"
"Never!" said Laurence, and set his mouth.
"No?" The Butterfly Man lifted his eyebrows. "Well, what are you going
to do about it? Fight him with your pretty little _Clarion_? It's not
big enough, though you could make it a handy sort of brick to paste
him in the eye with, if you aim straight and pitch hard enough. Go up
against him yourself? You're not strong enough, either, young man,
whatever you may be later on. You can prod him into firing some poor
kids from his mills--but you can't make him feed 'em after he's fired
'em, can you? And you can't keep him from becoming Senator Inglesby
either, unless," he paused impressively, "you can match him even with
a man his money and pull can't beat. Now think."
The young man bit his lip and frowned. The Butterfly Man watched him
quizzically through his glasses.
"Don't take it so hard," he grinned. "And don't let the whole
salvation of South Carolina hang too heavy on your shoulders. Leave
_something_ to God Almighty--He managed to pull the cocky little brute
through worse and tougher situations than Inglesby! Also, He ran the
rest of the world for a few years before you and I got here to help
Him with it."
"You're a cocky brute yourself," said Laurence, critically.
"I can afford to be, because I can open my hand this minute and show
you the button. Why, the very man you need is right in your reach! If
you could get _him_ to put up his name against Inglesby's, the Big Un
wouldn't be in it."
Laurence stared. The Butterfly Man stared back at him.
"Look here," said he slowly. "You remember my nest, and what that
bluejay did for it? And what you said? Well, I've looked about a bit,
and I've seen the bluejay at work.... Oh, hell, I can't talk about
this thing, but I've watched the putty-faced, hollow-chested,
empty-bellied kids--that don't even have guts enough left to laugh....
Somebody ought to sock it to that brute, on account of those kids. He
ought to be headed off ... make him feel he's to be shoo'd outside!
And I think I know the one man that can shoo him." He paused again,
with his head sunk forward. This was so new a John Flint to me that I
had no words. I was too lost in sheer wonder.
"The man I mean hates politics. I've been told he has said openly it's
not a gentleman's game any more. You've got to make him see it can be
made one. You've got to make him see it as a duty. Well, once make him
see _that_, and he'll smash Inglesby."
"You can't mean--for heaven's sake--"
"I do mean. James Eustis."
Laurence got up, and walked about, whistling.
"Good Lord!" said he, "and I never even thought of him in that light.
Why ... he'd sweep everything clean before him!"
I am a priest. I am not even an Irish priest. Therefore politics do
not interest me so keenly as they might another. But even to my slow
mind the suitability of Eustis was apparent. Of an honored name, just,
sure, kind, sagacious, a builder, a teacher, a pioneer, the plainer
people all over the state leaned upon his judgment. A sane shrewd man
of large affairs, other able men of affairs respected and admired him.
The state, knowing what he stood for, what he had accomplished for her
farmers, what he meant to her agricultural interests, admired and
trusted him. If Eustis wanted any gift within the power of the people
to give, he had but to signify that desire. And yet, it had taken my
Butterfly Man to show us this!
"Bughunter," said Laurence, respectfully. "If you ever take the notion
to make me president, will you stand behind and show me how to run the
United States on greased wheels?"
"I?" John Flint was genuinely astounded. "The boy's talking in his
sleep: turn over--you 're lying on your back!"
"You won't?"
"I will not!" said the Butterfly Man severely. "I have got something
much more important on my hands than running states, I'll have you
know. Lord, man, I'm getting ready some sheets that will tell pretty
nearly all there is to tell about Catocala Moths!"
I remembered that sunset hour, and the pretty child of James Eustis
putting in this man's hand a gray moth. I think he was remembering,
too, for his eyes of a sudden melted, as if he saw again her face that
was so lovely and so young. Glancing at me, he smiled fleetingly.