DUCIT AMOR PATRIAE
"The same soil that nourishes the Indian and the white, nourishes me.
Yet they do not know that thus we are blood brothers."--_The Murmuring
Pine_.
It was the last week in August when John Levine was summoned before the
commission. Lydia and Amos were summoned with him.
Lydia was frightened, Amos was irritable and sullen by turns after the
summons finally came. They were due at the hearing at nine o'clock and
arrived a little late. Amos had refused to be hurried.
The room in which the hearing was held was big and cool, with a heavily
carpeted floor and walls lined with black walnut bookcases. There were
two long tables at one end of the room behind one of which sat the
three commissioners. At the other table were the official
stenographers and Charlie Jackson. Before the tables were chairs and
here were John Levine and Kent, Pa Norton, and Billy, old Susie and a
younger squaw, with several bucks.
Lydia and her father dropped into empty seats and Lydia gave a little
sigh of relief when Levine caught her eye across the room and smiled at
her. She looked at the commissioners curiously. They were talking in
undertones to one another and she thought that they all looked tired
and harassed. She knew them fairly well from the many newspaper
pictures she had seen of them. The fat gentleman, with penetrating
blue eyes and a clean-shaven face, was Senator Smith of Texas. The
roly-poly man, with black eyes and a grizzled beard, was Senator Elway
of Maine, and the tall, smooth-shaven man with red hair was Senator
James of New York.
"Mr. Levine," said Senator Smith, suddenly, "we are sorry to have to
put you to this inconvenience. Believe us, we find our task no more
savory than you do."
Levine gave his slow, sardonic grin. "Don't apologize, gentlemen.
Only make the ordeal as short as you can."
"We have done that," said Elway. "We found that you had carried on so
many--er--transactions that we finally decided to choose three or four
sample cases and let our case stand on those. First, we have found
that full bloods have been repeatedly sworn as mixed bloods, in order
that their lands might be alienated. A curious idea, Mr. Levine, to
attempt to legalize an illegality by false swearing. Jackson, call
Crippled Bear."
Charlie, who had been sitting with arms folded, his somber eyes on
Lydia, spoke quickly to one of the bucks, who rose and took the empty
chair by Charlie.
He began to talk at once, Charlie interpreting slowly and carefully.
"I am a mixed blood. I speak English pretty well when I am with only
one white. With so many, my English goes. Many moons ago the man
Levine found me drunk in the snow. He picked me up and kept me in his
house over night. When I was sober, he fed me. Then he made this
plan. I was to gather half a dozen half-breeds together, he could
trust. In the spring he would come up to the reservation and talk to
us. I did this and he came. We were very hungry when he met us in the
woods and he gave us food and money. Then he told us he was going to
get the big fathers at Washington to let us sell our pines so we could
always have money and food. Never be hungry any more--never."
Charlie's voice was husky as he said this and he looked at Levine with
his teeth bared, like a wolf, Lydia thought.
"Then he said while he was getting that done, he would pay us a little
every month to go through the woods and chop down the best trees. The
Big Father will let whites get 'dead and down' timber out of Indian
woods, he said. But not let whites cut any. So we say yes, and though
full bloods are very mad when we cut down big trees, we do it. For
many moons we do it and in winter, white men haul it to sawmills.
"Every little while, Levine comes up there and we have a council and
tell him everything that happens. All about things Marshall and other
whites do. And he pays us always. Then he tells us that the Big
Father will let mixed bloods sell their pine lands but not full bloods.
So then we agree when he wants any full blood land to swear that any
full blood is mixed. And we have done this now, perhaps twenty times."
The mixed blood and Charlie paused, and Levine leaned forward.
"Crippled Bear," he said, "why did you tell all this?"
Crippled Bear Jerked a swarthy thumb at Billy Norton. "That white," he
answered in English, "tell me if I tell truth, maybe I get back all
lands and pine. I like that, you un'stand--for then I sell 'em again,
un'stand."
A little ripple of laughter went through the room, though John himself
did not smile. He looked at young Norton with his black eyes half
closed.
Mr. Smith took up a paper. "I have here, Mr. Levine, a statement of
your dealings with the Lake City Lumber Company. You have had sawed by
them during the past six or eight years millions of feet of pine
lumber. I find that you are holding Indian lands in the name of Lydia
Dudley and her father, Amos Dudley, these lands legally belonging to
full bloods. Amos Dudley is also the purchaser of land from full
bloods, as is William Norton, Senior, through you."
Levine rose quickly. "Gentlemen," he exclaimed, "surely you can find
enough counts against me without including Miss Dudley, who has never
heard of the matters you mention."
Commissioner James spoke for the first time. "Suppose we go on with
the witnesses before we open any discussion with Mr. Levine. Jackson,
what have these squaws to tell? Or first, what about the other bucks?"
When Charlie had called the last of these Levine spoke, "I'd like to
call the Government Roll-maker, Mr. Hardy."
A small man, who had slipped into the room unnoticed during the
proceedings, came forward.
"What is your business, Mr. Hardy?" asked Levine.
"I am sent here by the Indian office to make a Roll of the Indians on
this reservation, in the attempt to discover which are full and which
mixed bloods."
"Do you find your task difficult, Mr. Hardy?" Levine's voice was
whimsical.
"Very! The Government allows a man to claim his Indian rights when he
has as little as one sixty-fourth of Indian blood in his veins. On the
other hand, the older Indians are deadly ashamed of white blood in
their veins and hate to admit it."
"Mr. Hardy, you have your Rolls with you? Yes? Well, tell me the
blood status of each of these witnesses."
The room was breathless while the little Roll-maker ran through his
list. According to this not one of the witnesses against Levine was a
full blood nor one of the Indians from whom he had taken land. Even
old Susie and Charlie's sister, he stated, had white blood in their
veins.
"It's a lie!" shouted Charlie. "This man Hardy is paid by Levine!"
"Gently, Jackson!" said Senator James. "Mr. Levine, do you wish to
call more witnesses?"
"Not for the present," replied John. "Let Jackson go on."
Charlie called old Susie. And old Susie, waving aside any attempts on
Charlie's part to help, told of the death of her daughter from
starvation and cold, this same daughter having sold her pines to Levine
for a five-dollar bill and a dollar watch. She held out the watch
toward Levine in one trembling old hand.
"I find this in dress, when she dead. She strong. It take her many
days to die. I old. I pray Great Spirit take me. No! I starve! I
freeze! I no can die. She young. She have little baby. She die."
Suddenly, she flung the watch at Levine's feet and sank trembling into
her chair.
There was silence for a moment. In at the open window came the rumble
of a street-car. Levine cleared his throat.
"All this is dramatic, of course, but doesn't make me the murderer of
the squaw."
"No! but you killed my father!" shouted Charlie Jackson. And rising,
he hurled forth the story he had told Lydia, years before. Lydia sat
with her hands clasped tightly in her lap, her eyes fastened in horror
on Charlie's face. A great actor had been lost in creating Charlie an
Indian. He pictured his father's death, his sister's two attempts at
revenge with a vividness and power that held even Levine spell-bound.
It seemed to Lydia that the noose was fastened closer round John's neck
with every word that was uttered.
Suddenly she sprang to her feet. "Stop, Charlie! Stop!" she screamed.
"You shan't say any more!"
Senator Elway rapped on the table. "You're out of order, Miss Dudley,"
he exclaimed, sharply.
Lydia had forgotten to be embarrassed. "I can't help it if I am," she
insisted, "I won't have Charlie Jackson picturing Mr. Levine as a
fiend, while I have a tongue to speak with. I know how bad the Indian
matters are. Nobody's worried about it more than I have. But Mr.
Levine's not a murderer. He couldn't be."
The three commissioners had looked up at Lydia with a scowl when she
had interrupted Charlie. Now the scowl, as they watched her flushed
face, gave way to arched eyebrows and a little smile, that was
reflected on every face in the room except Charlie Jackson's.
"Lydia, you keep out of this," he shouted. "You don't know what you're
talking about."
"I do too!" stormed Lydia. "I--"
"Order! Let Jackson finish, Miss Dudley," said Senator Smith.
"I can't let him finish," cried Lydia, "until I tell you about Mr.
Levine. He's been as much to me as my own father ever since my mother
died when I was a little girl. He's understood me as only my own
mother could, hasn't he, Daddy!"
Amos nodded, with a little apologetic glance at the commissioners.
Levine's eyes were fastened on Lydia's face with an expression that was
as sweet as it was fathomless. Charlie Jackson stood biting his nails
and waiting, his affection for Lydia holding in abeyance his frenzied
loyalty to his father.
"You think he could murder when he could hold a little girl on his
knees and comfort her for the death of her little sister, when he
taught her how to find God, when--oh, I know he's robbed the
Indians--so has my own father, it seems, and so has Pa Norton, and so
has Kent, and all of them are dear people. They've all been wrong.
But think of the temptation, Mr. Commissioner! Supposing you were poor
and the wonderful pines lay up there, _so easy to take_."
Senator Elway would have interrupted, but Senator James laid a hand on
his arm. "It's all informal, let her have her say," he whispered.
"It's the first bright spot in all the weeks of the hearing."
"Did you ever feel land hunger yourself," Lydia went on eagerly, "to
look at the rows and rows of pine and think what it would mean to own
them, forever! It's the queerest, strongest hunger in the world. I
know, because I've had it. Honestly, I have, as strongly as any one
here--only--I knew Charlie Jackson and this awful tragedy of his and I
knew his eyes would haunt me if I took Indian lands."
"You're covering a good deal of ground and getting away from the
specific case, Miss Dudley," said, Smith. "Of course, what you say
doesn't exonerate Mr. Levine. On the other hand, Jackson has no means
of proving him accessory to the murder of his father. We've threshed
that out with Jackson before. What you say of Mr. Levine's character
is interesting but there remains the fact that he has been proceeding
fraudulently for years in his relations to the Indian lands. You
yourself don't pretend to justify your acts, do you, Mr. Levine?"
Lydia sat down and Levine slowly rose and looked thoughtfully out of
the window. "The legality or illegality of the matter has nothing to
do with the broader ethics of the case, though I think you will find,
gentlemen, that my acts are protected by law," he said. "The virgin
land lies there, inhabited by a degenerate race, whose one hope of
salvation lay in amalgamation with the white race. An ignorant
government, when land was plenty and the tribe was larger, placed
certain restrictions on the reservation. When land became scarce, and
the tribe dwindled to a handful, those restrictions became wrong. It
was inevitable that the whites should override them. Knowing that the
ethics of my acts and those of other people would be questioned, I went
to Congress to get these restrictions removed. If another two years
could have elapsed, before these investigations had been begun, the
fair name of Lake City never would have been smirched." Levine's hand
on the back of his chair tightened as he looked directly at Billy
Norton.
Once more Lydia came to her feet. "Oh, Mr. Levine," she exclaimed,
"don't put all the blame on Billy! Really, it's my fault. He wouldn't
have done it if I hadn't agreed that it was right. And he would have
stopped when he found that Dad and his father had taken full blood
lands only--why--why, I said that if I could stand his showing that you
had been--crooked--up there, I could stand anything and I made him go
on."
She stopped with a little break in her voice that was not unlike a sob.
And for the first time there spread over John Levine's face a blush, so
dark, so agonizing, that the men about him turned their eyes away.
With a little groan, he sat down. Lydia clasped her hands.
"Oh, it is all my fault," she repeated brokenly, "all the trouble
that's come to Lake City."
Billy Norton jumped up. "That's blamed nonsense!" he began, when Smith
interrupted him, impatiently.
"Be seated, Norton." Then, gently, to Lydia, "My dear, you mean that,
knowing what an investigation would mean to the people you love, you
backed young Norton in instigating one. That you knew he would not go
on without your backing?"
"Yes, sir," faltered Lydia.
"Can you tell us why?" asked Elway, still more gently.
Lydia, whose cheeks were burning and whose eyes were deep with unshed
tears, twisted her hands uncomfortably and looked at Billy.
"Go ahead, Lyd," he said, reassuringly.
"Because it was right," she said, finally. "Because--Ducit Amor
Patriae---you know, because no matter whether the Indians were good or
bad, we had made promises to them and they depended on us." She
paused, struggling for words.
"I did it because I felt responsible to the country like my ancestors
did, in the Civil War and in the Revolution, to--to take care of
America, to keep it clean, no matter how it hurt. I--I couldn't be led
by love of country and see my people doing something contemptible,
something that the world would remember against us forever, and not try
to stop it, no matter how it hurt."
Trembling so that the ribbon at her throat quivered, she looked at the
three commissioners, and sat down.
James cleared his throat. "Mr. Dudley, did you know your daughter's
attitude when you undertook to get some pine lands?"
Amos pulled himself to his feet. His first anger at Lydia had given
way to a mixture of feelings. Now, he swallowed once or twice and
answered, "Of course, I knew she was sympathetic with the Indians, but
I don't know anything about the rest of it."
The commissioners waited as though expecting Amos to go on. He fumbled
with his watch chain for a moment, staring out the window. With his
thin face, his high forehead and sparse hair, he never looked more like
the picture of Daniel Webster than now.
"Gentlemen," he said, "I'm a New Englander and I'm frank to admit that
I've wandered a long way from the old ideals, like most of the New
Englanders in America. But that isn't saying, gentlemen, that I'm
not--not darned proud of Lydia!"
There was a little murmur through the room and Senator Elway smiled, a
trifle sadly. "Mr. Dudley," he said, "we're all proud of Lydia. She's
made our unsavory task seem better worth while."
"I suggest that we adjourn for lunch," said Smith. "Miss Dudley, you
need not return."
While her father paused to speak to Kent and Levine, Lydia made her
escape. She wanted more than anything in the world to be alone, but
when she reached home, Ma Norton and Lizzie were waiting at the
cottage, both of them half sick with anxiety. They were not reassured
by Lydia's story of the morning session, although Ma said,
"Of course, it's the disgrace of the thing that worries us. Pa and
Billy say all this commission can do is to present their evidence to
Congress. I'm not saying, of course, that you weren't right plucky to
take the stand you did, Lydia. And I'm proud of Billy though he is
bringing trouble on his poor father!"
Lydia spent the afternoon with Adam in the woods. She expected John
Levine to come home with her father to supper, and for the first time
in her life, she did not want to meet her best loved friend. But she
might have spared herself this anxiety, for Amos came home alone.
Levine was busy, he said.
Amos was in a curiously subdued mood. Whatever Lydia had expected of
him, she had not expected the almost conciliatory attitude he took
toward her. It embarrassed her far more than recriminations would have.
"I do think, Lydia," he said mildly, after they had discussed the
morning session, "you should have told me what was going on. But
there, I suppose, I'd have raised Cain, if you had."
"Is Mr. Levine very angry with me?" asked Lydia.
"He didn't say. I don't see how he can be. After all, the stuff was
bound to come out, sooner or later. He's got something up his sleeve.
This experience's done one thing. It's brought all the different
factions together. Disgrace loves company as well as misery."
"I'm so worried about it all!" sighed Lydia.
"Kind of late in the day for you to worry," sniffed Amos. "I suppose
Billy's worrying too! But there, I guess you two have put some saving
grace into Lake City, in the commission's eyes. Of course, I'm going
to give up any claim on those lands."
Amos pulled at his pipe thoughtfully and looked at Lydia's tired,
wistful face complacently. He did not tell her that the three
commissioners had individually and collectively congratulated him on
Lydia and their praise had been such that he felt that any disgrace he
had suffered in connection with the Indian lands had been more than
counteracted by Lydia's performance.
To Lydia's pain and disappointment, Levine did not come to the cottage
before he returned to Washington, which he did the week following the
hearing. And then, all thought of her status with him was swallowed up
in astonishment over the revelations that came out early in September
when Dave Marshall and the Indian Agent were called before the
commission.
Dave Marshall was the owner of the Last Chance! The Last Chance where
"hussies" lay in wait like vultures for the Indian youths, took their
government allowances, took their ancient Indian decency, and cast them
forth to pollute their tribe with drink and disease. The Last Chance!
The headquarters for the illegal selling of whisky to Indians. Where
Indians were taught to evade the law, to carry whisky into the
reservation and where in turn the bounty for their arrest was pledged
to Marshall. The Last Chance, the main source of Dave Marshall's
wealth!
Even Lake City was horrified by these revelations. People began to
remove their money from his bank and for a time a run was threatened,
then Dave resigned as president and the run was stayed. The drugstore
owned by Dave was boycotted. The women of the town began to cut
Margery and Elviry. The minister of the Methodist Church asked Dave
for his resignation as Trustee.
To say that old Lizzie was pleased by the revelations would be perhaps
to do the old lady an injustice. Yet the fact remains that she did go
about with a knowing, "I told you so" air, that smacked of complacency.
"He always was just _skulch_," she insisted to Lydia. "When he was a
child, he was the kind of a brat mothers didn't want their children to
play with. I always prayed he'd get his come-uppers, and Elviry too.
But I am sorry for Margery. Poor young one! Her future's ruined."
Lydia, sitting on the front steps in the lovely September afternoons,
rubbed Adam's ears, watched the pine and the Norton herds and thought
some long, long thoughts. Finally, one hazy Saturday afternoon, she
gathered a great bunch of many colored asters and started off, without
telling Lizzie of her destination.
It was nearly five o'clock when she stopped at the Marshalls' gate.
The front of the house was closed, but nothing daunted, she made her
way round to the kitchen door, which was open. Elviry answered her rap.
"Oh, it's Lydia," she said, brusquely. "What do you want?"
"I brought Marg some flowers," answered Lydia, awkwardly.
Elviry hesitated. "Margery's been having a headache and I don't know
as she'd want to see you."
Lydia was not entirely daunted. "Well, if you're getting supper you
might let me come and sit in the kitchen a few minutes. It's quite a
walk in from the cottage."
Elviry opened the screen door and Lydia marched in and paused. Dave
Marshall was sitting by the kitchen table, his hat on the back of his
head, a pile of newspapers on the floor beside him. He did not speak
to Lydia when she came in, but Lydia nodded brightly at him and said,
"You like to sit in the kitchen, the way Dad does, don't you?"
She sat down in the rocker by the dining-room door and Elviry began to
stir a kettle of catsup that was simmering on the back of the stove.
This was worse than Lydia had thought it would be. She had not
calculated on Dave's being at home. However, her fighting blood was up.
"You haven't asked me about my clothes, Mrs. Marshall," she said.
"Don't you think I did pretty well with this skirt?"
Elviry glanced at the blue serge skirt. "It'll do," she answered
listlessly.
Lydia looked at Dave desperately. At that moment there was a light
step in the dining-room, and Margery came into the kitchen. When she
saw Lydia she gasped.
"Hadn't you heard? Oh, Lydia! You came anyhow!" and suddenly Margery
threw herself down and sobbed with her face in Lydia's lap.
Elviry threw her apron over her head and Dave, with a groan, dropped
his head on his chest. For a moment, there was only the crackling of
the fire in the stove and Margery's sobs to be heard.
Then Dave said, "What did you come for, Lydia? You only hurt yourself
and you can't help us. I don't know what to do! God! I don't know
what to do!"
"I don't see why everybody acts so," cried Elviry, "as if what you'd
done was any worse than every one else's doings."
Margery raised her head. "Of course it's worse! A thousand times
worse! I could have stood Dad's even having an Indian wife, better
than this."
Dave looked at Margery helplessly and his chin quivered. Lydia noticed
then how old he was looking.
"I want Margery and her mother to pack up and go away--for good," said
Dave to Lydia. "I'll close up here and follow when I can. None of
these cases will ever come to anything in our state court. It's the
disgrace--and the way the women folks take it."
"I--I've been thinking," said Lydia, timidly, "that what you ought to
do--"
Margery was sitting back on the floor now and she interrupted bitterly.
"I don't see why you should try to help us, Lyd. Mother's always
treated you dirt mean."
"It's not because of your mother," said Lydia, honestly. "I couldn't
even try to forgive her--but--your father did a great favor to me and
once I promised him then to be his friend. And you, Margery, you were
fond of--of little Patience, and she did love you so! If she'd lived,
I know she'd have wanted me to stand by you."
"She was a dear little kiddie," said Margery. "I always meant to tell
you how I cried when she died, and then somehow, you were so silent, I
couldn't."
The old lines round Lydia's mouth deepened for a minute, then she
swallowed and said,
"I don't think it would do a bit of good for you all to go away. The
story would follow you. Mr. Marshall ought to sell out everything and
buy a farm. Let Mrs. Marshall go off for a visit, if she wants to, and
let Margery come and stay with me a while and go to college."
Dave raised his head. "That's what I'd rather do, Lydia, for myself.
Just stay here and try to live it down. I'd like to farm it. Always
intended to."
Margery wrung her hands. "Oh, I don't see how I can! If it had been
anything, anything but the Last Chance. Everybody will cut me and talk
about me."
"Oh, well, Margery," said Lydia, a little impatiently, "it's the first
trouble you've had in all your life and it won't kill you. Anybody
that's as pretty as you are can live down anything. I know our house
is awful scrimpy, but we'd have some good times, anyhow. Kent and
Billy will stand by us and we'll pull through. See if we don't."
"I don't see why she needs to go to your house," said Elviry. "Let her
stay right here, and go up to college with you if she will. And I
don't want to go live on a farm, either."
"Mother, you don't understand, yet!" exclaimed Margery.
"Elviry," said Dave grimly, "our day is over. All we can hope to save
out of the wreck is a future for Margery. Just get that through your
head once and for all. I think Lydia's idea is horse sense. But it's
for Margery to decide."
Margery got up from her place on the floor. "I thought we'd sell out
and go to Europe for the rest of our lives," she said, "but as Lydia
says, the story would follow us there. Dad," sharply, "you aren't
going to _sell_ the Last Chance and use that money?"
"I closed it up, last week," said Dave shortly. "I'm going to have the
place torn down."
Margery rubbed her hand over her forehead. "Well," she said, "I don't
see that I'd gain anything but a reputation for being a quitter, if I
went to Lydia's. I'll stay with you folks, but I'll go to college, if
Lydia'll stand by me."
Lydia rose. "Then that's settled. On Monday we'll register. I'll
meet you on the eight o'clock car."
"I can't thank you, Lyd,--" began Margery.
"I don't want any thanks," said Lydia, making for the door, where Dave
intercepted her with outstretched hand.
Lydia looked up into his dark face and her own turned crimson. "I
can't shake hands," she said, "honestly, I can't. The Last Chance and
the--the starving squaws make me sick. I'll stand by Margery and help
you--but I can't do that."
Dave Marshall dropped his hand and turned away without a word and Lydia
sped from the house into the sunset.
Amos heard Lydia's story of her call with a none too pleased face. "I
don't think I want you mixing up with them, in any way," he said.
"But let me help Margery," pleaded Lydia, "Little Patience did love her
so!"
"Well--Margery--you can help her," he agreed, reluctantly, "but you
can't go near their house again. Margery will have to do all the
visiting."