WHITE TERROR
I
The day of glory, sung in the “Marseillaise,” had arrived; the
American troops stopped the first German onslaught, and began their
counter-advance which was to end the war. The whole country thrilled
with it--all but a few perverse persons, so constructed that they could
not think of glory, but only of boys crawling about in burning forests,
dragging shattered limbs and protruded entrails. “Ah, but the broken
bodies, that drip like honeycomb!”
Cornelia and her grand-daughter went to Plymouth to rest for a week,
Betty staying with her friend, Lucile Walker, and Cornelia with the
Brinis. The little room which had been Cornelia’s for a year and a
half now belonged to Fay, but she was glad to vacate it. Vanzetti had
a room with a neighbor, but came in for his meals, and stayed to do
his studying in the evening. He was digging more ditches, and reading
diligently the few radical papers he could get. There had been a revolt
in the Italian armies; it had been suppressed, but more was coming, and
he watched for every scrap of news.
Also he told Cornelia of his experiences in Mexico: what a fine fellow
that Nick Sacc’ had proved to be, and how they had settled down with a
colony of Italians, all draft-evaders, living upon a rough communistic
system. Bart had helped to feed them, baking bread, and also he had
fed them “anarchista propaganda”--bread for the spirit. There had been
several in the group whom Cornelia knew: Boda, the little macaroni
salesman who had driven them to see the drama; and Coacci and Orciani,
two others whom she had met on that same occasion.
Nonna, like Christmas, came but once a year, so it was a holiday for
everybody. Papa Brini showed his garden, and Cornelia recited the
Italian names, and he tried to say the English names, and the children
laughed at his blunders. They had their walk in the woods on Sunday,
and gathered bunches of flowers, and Fay and Trando remembered things
about nature which Bart had taught them, and were proud of it. Bart had
resumed charge of the boy’s development, and would give him advice and
help. One day Trando had a cold, and Bart said the way to cure it was
to sweat; so he got down on his knees, which made him about a match for
a nine-and-a-half-year-old boy, and the two of them had a wrestling
match, in which the big man was floored several times, and the small
boy whooped with delight. Pretty soon he was perspiring profusely, and
Bart put him to bed with no supper but a drink of hot lemonade. In the
morning he would be all right, said the amateur doctor.
Trando wanted a violin, and had worked all last summer to earn the
money; but then he had had to spend it, because the family went down
with “flu.” Cornelia wanted to give him a violin, but Bart said no,
that would spoil it all; let the little fellow earn it, and then he
would really value it; the achievement would give him courage, a sense
of power. This was the time for berries, and there was nothing better
for youngsters than to wander in the fields all day.
Trando’s relations with the boys of the neighborhood made a problem.
They would not play with him, because the priest had warned them to
have nothing to do with a bad boy who did not go to church: there was
a place in hell for such as he. The other boys called him “socialist,”
and when he went off and read a story-book, or played with his sister,
they called him “sissy.” It was hard to please them. Bart told him to
make of his persecution a source of strength. Many a great man had done
that, and those who had spurned him in boyhood would see him leap above
their heads when they were grown.
Vanzetti told him what was true about religion. There was a great and
good God, the God of nature, whose laws we must understand if we would
be happy. This God loved all human beings alike, and it was not His
will that some should be slaves to others. We might pray to Him for
courage and strength; but we did not need any priest to intervene for
us. The priest was nothing but a man like other men; he might be good,
or he might be bad, like Father O’Brien--but in any case he represented
a system which helped to keep the poor in subjection to the rich, and
so was a trap for their minds.
Then Trando wanted to know about how we got born, and how we got
married. It is the custom of Italian parents to say they buy the
babies; but Bart explained those things seriously to Trando; and he
talked to Cornelia about it, and asked her to talk to Fay, because
children ought to know the truth, and parents had a foolish shyness
about talking to their own little ones. All the questions of children
ought to be answered; they should connect the idea of shame only with
actions that were harmful to themselves or to others. A wise man
speaking, always; a man gentle, full of spiritual insight--yet turning
into a lion at a moment’s notice when confronted with “injoostice.”
Some of the bigger boys found that out when they undertook to torment
the “sissy.”
II
Betty Alvin’s relations with the Walker family were peculiar. They were
all extremely patriotic, and shocked beyond utterance by the opinions
and behavior of Betty and her grandmother. But they were fond of Betty,
and if she had come to Plymouth and not stayed with them, it would
have been emphasizing an estrangement. Of course Betty’s mother put
the worst construction on their invitation, saying that the Walkers
would rather know a “red” blue-blood than none at all. But Betty would
not believe that, and kept up the friendship with Lucile at Radcliffe
and at home, carefully avoiding any utterance that would displease her
hosts.
Mr. Walker appeared only once during the visit. He was in greater
trouble than ever, and showed it in every line of his features--a
really terrible example of what the fierce pace of business can do
to its victims. Mrs. Walker was silent and preoccupied, and Lucile
hesitated to say anything; but Betty got it out of her finally--Mr.
Walker was convinced that there was a determination on the part of a
Boston banking-group to put him out of business, and the man who was at
the head of the campaign was Betty’s uncle, Henry Cabot Winters. This
information was coming to Mr. Walker from many different sources: in
all the troubles of the felt industry, it was Mr. Winters who stood
behind the scenes and pulled the strings.
Just think of it, exclaimed Lucile--here were enterprises that had
made a million and a quarter dollars in net profits last year, and
were going even higher this year; yet the owner could not get half a
million dollars’ credit from any bank in Boston or New York! They all
stood together; if the banks where you had your accounts, your banks of
deposit, as they were called, refused to “check your paper,” why, then
no other bank would accept it. The felt-industry was peculiar, in that
the sales were made early in the year, but payments were not made until
the fall, which meant that the business was helpless without credit;
the bankers knew that perfectly well, and Mr. Walker had always had the
credit, year after year, as a matter of course. This year he had to
have more, because of his war contracts, and the increased production;
the wicked thing the bankers had done was to make promises, and lure
him along from month to month, giving him no hint there was anything
wrong until the last moment, when one or two hundred thousand dollars’
worth of notes came due, and suddenly he was told that he must “take
them up.” There must be some reason for such things, said Lucile; and
Mr. Walker was convinced that it was Henry Cabot Winters plotting to
ruin him.
The bankers had put accountants on Mr. Walker’s books, and insisted
that he would need three million dollars to carry him until the fall.
They were going to make him pay twenty-seven per cent for the use of
that money. He didn’t mind that so much--his profits could stand it;
but he didn’t believe he was really going to get the three million.
When the time came, there would be more excuses and delays, and he
would be compelled to turn the stock of his companies over to the
bankers. He had twenty big plants of one sort or another, all working
day and night, employing more than eight thousand men; he was doing
what was supposed to be patriotic war-work--but the government wouldn’t
help him with a dollar, and wouldn’t protect him against these banking
conspiracies.
Betty took that story to Cornelia. “Can it possibly be true, Grannie?
Can Uncle Henry be doing such a thing?”
“I’m sorry to say, dear, he has that reputation.”
“But Grannie, he doesn’t seem that kind of man!”
“Men have different standards for their friends, and for outsiders.
Uncle Henry has grown rich, and he has never produced anything that I
know of.”
“But Grannie, that would be a wicked thing to do to Mr. Walker!”
“It’s the way of the business world. I watched it, and held my
peace--for forty years. I used to hear things that Henry and James
and your father would talk over with your grandfather. Josiah did it
to others--and then at last somebody did it to him. He trusted the
big bankers in New York--the Morgan crowd, because they had such a
respectable name. He put everything he had into the securities of the
New Haven Railroad, and those New York bankers simply gutted it, they
stole every dollar, and the stock fell from two hundred and forty-six
to sixteen, if I remember. I’ve heard your grandfather say, he had
enough New Haven paper to fill up the music-room, but it wasn’t enough
to pay his debts.”
“Is that why Uncle James has the mills and ‘Hillview’?”
“That’s the reason. There were tens of thousands of people left in
worse plight, widows and children and old people. All this decline of
New England industry that you hear about really dates from that time
when we trusted the Morgan crowd; for they took something like five
hundred million dollars away from this part of the country.”
“But Grannie, if Uncle Henry is doing that to Mr. Walker, it is really
the same thing as banditry!”
“Yes, of course; but you mustn’t say it to your father or your uncles;
they wouldn’t take it kindly from a twenty-year-old girl.”
“I’ll be older some day,” said Miss Betty.
III
The first thing when Cornelia got back to town, she went to call at her
son-in-law’s office. “Henry, what is this I hear about you and Jerry
Walker?”
“What do you hear, Mother?”
“That you are taking his plants away from him.”
“Has Jerry told you that?”
“No; but Betty has been visiting Lucile, and naturally hears about
their troubles.”
“Jerry tells his wife, and she tells Lucile, and Lucile tells Betty,
and Betty tells you, and you tell me!” Henry laughed.
“Is it true, Henry? Are you after him?”
“It is absolutely untrue, Mother.”
“You’re not interested in his affairs?”
“I didn’t say that. Jerry comes to certain bankers--including Rupert
and John Quincy--and tries to borrow money. The bankers are my clients,
and ask me to investigate, and draw up papers, and perform other legal
services, which I do. Because the decisions of the bankers don’t please
Jerry, he takes up the notion that I’m an arch-conspirator, plotting
his ruin. But that’s all rubbish.”
“Henry, you have the reputation of not being a very gentle enemy.”
The other laughed again. “Well, Mother, have you come to convert me to
pacifism? But seriously, I got through with Jerry Walker years ago. I
was a stockholder in two of his felt-companies, and a director. I found
that his way of doing business didn’t agree with mine, so I let him
buy me out at a fair price, and washed my hands of him. But he’s been
afraid of me ever since--because he knows I know too much about him.”
“Henry, I’ve always had an interest in Jerry, ever since he was an
errand-boy at the hospital, a bright little fellow that I saw had a
future. Josiah helped him to get a start, you know.”
“Yes, of course. But he’s grown up now, and learned many tricks, and he
plays the business game pretty roughly.”
“I can’t pretend to know all about his affairs--”
“Naturally not, Mother; only an expert accountant could do that--and
he’d have trouble, because Jerry has hidden some things cleverly. It’s
a complicated matter, I assure you, and you make a mistake if you let
the Walkers use you, or even worry you. Nobody can believe a word Jerry
says.”
“I just want to ask you to give him a square deal, Henry. Give him what
you give other business men.”
“Well, Mother, it’s up to the bankers, and you are talking to a lawyer.
There are many bankers interested in the Jerry Walker problem, and they
all agree that he wants much more than any other business man--he wants
everything in sight. There’s only so much credit to go round--only
about two per cent of what people holler for--and Jerry is getting
more than his share, and using it without any sort of scruple.”
“He’s paying a high price for it, I understand.”
“He thinks so, naturally. It seems a simple matter to him, for the
banks to check all the paper he can sign. He never figures on the risks
the banks may be running.”
“Is it true he’s paying twenty-seven per cent, Henry?”
“That is a question you’ll have to ask the bankers, Mother. I
can’t discuss my clients’ affairs. But I’ll say this as a general
principle--two men seldom agree about the value of a horse, when one of
them is selling and the other is buying.”
“Henry, I want to ask it straight. You’re not planning to take over
Jerry’s business?”
“Absolutely not, Mother!”
“You’re telling me the truth?”
“When have I told you anything else?” And the telephone rang. Henry
took down the receiver, listened, and said, “Yes, Rupert, I’ll be right
over. I’m having a consultation on the matter with Mrs. Thornwell, and
I’m telling her you are the banker, and the real villain in the case.”
So later in the day Cornelia went to call on this “real villain,” and
found him, a large island completely surrounded by statistics and
charts relating to the felt business. He was polite, but reluctant to
give her his precious time. If she had come to ask about investing
a thousand dollars of her own, he would have taken an hour off to
advise her--he would do that any day for any member of the family,
even the poorest fifth cousin. But when she came about Jerry Walker he
told her frankly that she was letting herself be used by a family of
adventurers. She was deceived if she thought that Rupert had anything
more to do with the matter than a score of other bankers; it was a
council of the financial leaders of Boston who were deciding the
future of the felt industry, and even if Rupert were to go before them
and say, “Gentlemen, I have promised my mother-in-law that out of my
affection for her we will agree to let her former errand-boy have all
the money he wants”--still the other bankers might refuse to assent.
“And I don’t carry three million in my own wallet, Mother.”
IV
Both Henry and Rupert had told Cornelia what was not true; and only
two or three weeks later she found it out. Mrs. Jerry Walker came to
Cornelia’s apartment, and broke down and wept, and told the terrible
story of what was happening. Jerry Walker was being stripped of
every dollar he owned in the world; and it was Rupert Alvin and
Henry Cabot Winters who were driving the other bankers to the job,
sometimes against their will, and even without their knowledge. The
loan for three millions had been agreed upon, and Mr. Winters had been
instructed to prepare the papers; but instead of doing so, he had got
one of the big banks in New York to call a loan suddenly, and Mr. Alvin
had brought up demands that the other bankers had not known about--in
short, everything had been tied up for a month.
Finally, in order to get half a million dollars in a hurry, poor Jerry
had had to turn over to the bankers all the stock of all his companies.
It was supposed to be a trusteeship--he had the right to get the
properties back any time within two years by paying a million and a
quarter; but the very day they got the securities, the bankers, with
Mr. Winters at their head, had set to work to plunder the properties.
They put in their own directors, and barred Jerry Walker from access to
the books, and even barred him physically from the plants. They were
disposing of all the assets of the subsidiary companies, and loading
them up with debts and claims--everywhere Jerry turned he found that
some unknown lawyer had mysteriously appeared with liens and suits.
Everything was tied up, so that the real owner of the properties could
not get a dollar, and was going to have to sell his home to get money
to live.
So that was that. The caribou was down, and his blood was being drunk.
Cornelia might wring her hands, and be very sorry; she might shout at
the wolves and scold them--whereat they would lift their bloody jaws
for a moment and grin at her. “Of course, Mother,” said Henry, quite
blandly and good-naturedly, when next she met him--“of course, I told
you an untruth. What did you expect me to do?”
“I expected you to have a sense of family loyalty.”
“You have too good a mind to fool yourself with such an argument,
Mother. I have plenty of Thornwell family loyalty, but not the least
particle of Walker family loyalty. If you had come to me for the truth
about affairs of your own, you would have had it; in case of need you
might have had the last dollar I own in the world. But when you let
yourself be used by Jerry Walker, to try to pull wires for him in the
midst of a business crisis--then you haven’t the least reason in the
world to expect me to give you any information to be carried back to
him!--Yes, of course, you didn’t mean to carry it back, but I assure
you Lucile expected to get it out of Betty, and Mrs. Walker expected to
get it out of Lucile. They have been cultivating an intimacy with Betty
for several years for exactly that purpose, and I didn’t intend to let
them succeed. When I told Rupert and James about it, they agreed that I
had done exactly right to stall you.”
“So you’re going to put Jerry Walker out of the felt business!”
“Not at all, Mother. He knows felt well, and if he wants a job as
manager of one of the plants, we’ll pay him a good salary. What he
doesn’t know is finance, and we’re going to fix him so he can’t lead
the Boston banks into a smash.”
“He was making a lot of money, Henry.”
“A chimpanzee could make money right now, with the government buying
everything at any price you ask. But the war will be over soon, and
then will come the storm, and we’re going to have a safer man than
Jerry Walker at the helm of the ship.”
So Cornelia went away, and watched the events of the next few months,
and decided no longer to think of her son-in-law as a wolf. From now on
she would see him as a large, black, witty, urbane and charming spider.
He lurked in a hole and watched the business flies, and once in a while
he made a pounce, and sunk his fangs into a victim, and wove him round
and round with a ton or two of legal nets, until he could not move a
finger; after which he would be sucked dry of his financial juices.
In the case of the too enthusiastic manufacturer of felt, what happened
was that he struggled in the nets until his health broke down; his
hands trembled so that he could not hold a cup of coffee, and he had
to go to North Carolina for the winter and play golf. While he was
gone, the bankers sat down with his lawyers, and convinced them that
the victim stood not a chance in the world, so the lawyers advised
him to sign a release, forgiving his enemies for all they had done
to him, in consideration of the sum of six hundred and twenty-five
thousand dollars. For this price he gave up properties which earned a
million and three-quarters net profit that year, and were worth about
ten millions on the market. The six hundred and twenty-five thousand
paid a part of his debts, and he sold his home to pay more, and his
family gave up their social ambitions and moved into a cottage, and his
daughter quit going to Radcliffe and went to work.
“Isn’t it nice, Grannie?” said Betty. “When I get older, if I behave,
I’ll get a lot of Lucile’s money, and I can hire her--perhaps to
be a governess to my children. And Priscilla will have a share of
it too, and can found a charity home to take care of Mr. and Mrs.
Walker when they are old. And Cousin Josiah”--that was Henry Winters’
one son--“he’ll have a bigger share than any of us, to spend on
women-chasing--I understand that’s what he’s doing now. Aunt Alice will
be able to retain her adolescence--”
“My child! Don’t say things like that!”
“I’m talking in the family, Grannie. We members of the new generation
are going to be what you call hard-boiled. They are raising us in
war-time, and we’re getting used to plain language and messy sights. I
read in the paper that Mrs. Henry Cabot Winters is planning a ‘little
theater,’ in which her mystical poet’s works are to be shown to the
world as soon as the war is over. If Aunt Alice wants to subsidize
genius, why does she have to pick out literary lounge-lizards and
music-box monkeys?”
Cornelia said, “Dear me, I am really getting old! The new generation
shocks me!”
V
There came a day when every able-bodied person in America rushed
out of his house, and fell on the necks of passersby and danced and
laughed and shouted and sang. Men threw their hats into the air, or
tied tin cans to the tails of automobiles and drove up and down the
streets. Three days later they all turned out and did it again, because
the first time had been a mistake, some news agency had been in too
much of a hurry. But it was a big enough war to deserve two armistice
days, and even in State Street one saw “blue-bloods” celebrating with
bootblacks, and high-hatted bankers forgetting their dignity for the
first time in their eighty years.
This was a celebration in which even the pacifists could join. The
nation would have one or two hundred thousand cripples to take care
of--but at least you didn’t have to think of new thousands being made
every day! You could again expect people to listen to reason, and
could work at stopping the next war without danger of arrest. The
Kaiser had fled to Holland, and there seemed a real prospect of that
newly-promised world. Such wonderful promises--a world fit for heroes,
a world made safe for democracy, a world in which the last war had been
won by the forces of justice! So we had been told in a golden glowing
speech at least once a week for a year and a half; and now we were
to see it made real. As a first step President Wilson packed up his
typewriter and his fourteen points, and went over to Europe to oversee
the making of a world charter. His packing appeared to be careless, for
he lost one of the points in England--that providing for the “freedom
of the seas”--and had only thirteen when he landed in France.
The American people had been told to trust him; he was the President,
and had sources of information not open to the rest of us--so Deborah
had assured her mother. But now it turned out that he hadn’t any
sources of information, or if he had, he hadn’t used them. He had made
no bargains whatever with the allies, he had not made them give up a
single one of their greedy demands. And now, of course, it was too
late; the danger was over, the allies were no longer afraid, and would
do exactly what they pleased.
It was a disillusioning experience, and was to produce ten years of
cynicism and corruption in every department of American life. The
climax came when the President capitulated to the diplomatic ravens,
and let them have their prey, and came home and told the public that
that was what his fourteen points had meant. He did more than that--he
went before a committee of the Senate, and stated that he had not known
about the secret treaties until he went to Paris; which one had to take
as Pascal took the doctrine of his church, and believe it because it
was impossible.
VI
There were a few groups in America whose demands did not depend upon
the diplomats at Versailles; and among these were the women. France
might grab the Rhine, Japan might grab Shantung--but what was to
prevent American women from having their rights at home? Surely the
men were not making such a success with their votes that they could
spurn the help of wives and sisters! Let us have a world made fit for
heroines! So the campaign of votes for women leaped into life in a
score of cities. In Washington the ladies began besieging senators and
congressmen, and elderly statesmen took to physical flight from urgent
feminine tongues. The militant suffragists began carrying placards in
front of the White House, and got themselves arrested over and over
again. It was most embarrassing, because the jails in the national
capital had been made for street-walkers and Negro drunks, and had no
accommodations for ladies.
The suffragists were divided into two groups, the respectable ones, who
made dignified speeches and circulated petitions and got an inch in
the newspapers once a month; and the militants, who set themselves the
goal of a front-page story twice a day, and made it most of the time.
Each of these two groups was active in Boston--a city full of ladies
who felt themselves competent to take charge, not only of America,
but of the world. Each group laid siege to Cornelia Thornwell and her
grand-daughter, and the militants won. Another scandal in the Sewing
Circles, and another grief for a great family!
Cornelia’s oldest daughter, Betty’s mother, was a vigorous “anti.”
Her enemies told a story about her, that one day when company was
expected, and many duties were clamoring, she had locked herself in her
study and made no response, and when subsequent complaint was made,
the answer was that she had been writing an article on “Woman the
Home-maker.” Jokes like that gave annoyance to the “antis,” because
it was so obvious to them that nothing but the wicked activities of
the suffragists were dragging them out from the homes they loved, and
compelling them to become examples of the evil they feared. Yes, the
“wild women” had that power, and rejoiced in it; when the “antis” hired
a house on Park Street and opened up offices, what should they see but
a group of women marching back and forth before their door, carrying a
banner with a strange device:
_They say that home is woman’s sphere.
What are the antis doing here?_
The true “anti” was Cornelia’s youngest daughter, Clara Thornwell
Scatterbridge, who stayed at home with her eight babies, and loved
them and petted them and scolded them and wept over them and saw that
their various nurses and governesses kept their noses wiped. Clara had
no idea what a vote looked like; but, alas, that didn’t get even an
inch in the papers! Nor did it have any appreciable effect when Alice
Thornwell Winters shrugged her beautiful white shoulders and lifted
her haughty eyebrows in scorn at the idea of sacrificing her feminine
charm. Neither did it help when she wrote more and larger checks to pay
for the “little theater” which was to produce the plays of Chauncey
Duvillier, dealing with ancient Erse legends about dusky-haired
promiscuous queens. The productions came off, and were at once very
“high-brow” and very “high-hat,” but they did not seem to reduce the
attendance at suffrage meetings.
President Wilson had set his stern Presbyterian face against the
program of national suffrage. It was a question for the individual
states; thus spoke Sir Oracle, and when the female dogs barked, he said
it again. But such a thing had been known as a great statesman changing
his mind when made uncomfortable enough. It was a fact that the women
out west had got the vote and were using it; Woodrow could not forget
that it was California which had elected him the last time, and might
defeat his party and his world policies the next time. A terrible
thing to contemplate having women vote, but a still worse thing to
contemplate having them vote Republican!
The President came back from Europe in February, and the suffragettes
prepared a hearty welcome for him in New York. It was more than he
could face, in his nervous condition, with that incredible statement
he had to make to the Senate; so at the last moment the route of his
ship was changed, and it landed at Boston. That put the burden onto
the Boston suffragettes, who had to organize a demonstration almost
overnight. They came rushing to Cornelia and Betty; would they help?
Banners must be got ready, asking urgent witty questions, and these
must be carried by ladies of absolutely indigo-colored blood; they must
be carried as close to the President as the police would permit, and
then a little closer; also the great man’s latest anti-suffrage speech
was to be burned in effigy on Boston Common.
VII
“Old Boston” is a city which has been laid out by cows. They made
tracks, and these became lanes, and the lanes have now become narrow
canyons of concrete and steel, made immutable for all time by a
court-house full of deeds with intricate specifications. You may
still see on Beacon Hill a house which has a narrow archway built
under one room--because in selling the land the owner specified that
access must for all time be left for his cow to reach the Common. Now,
instead of a cow, there was coming a high-powered automobile bearing a
long-featured Presbyterian gentleman in frock coat and silk hat, under
military escort, with all the trappings of glory, and that unending
roar of applause which he had heard even from the billows in mid-ocean.
Patriotism in Boston was to have its day of rapture; Democratic
patriotism, taking in even the Irish-Catholics, and marred only by the
antics of twenty-two contumacious females, who refused to accept a
great statesman’s own definition of what he meant by democracy.
Among these twenty-two lady-pests was the widow of Josiah Quincy
Thornwell, former governor of the Commonwealth; also Elizabeth
Thornwell Alvin, daughter of the president of the Pilgrim National
Bank. But the names of these two were not on the list furnished to the
press; in that case the two would have been spotted by the police,
and denied the honor they craved. They sallied forth with the other
women, carrying placards aloft, in the route of the procession; and
promptly they were snapped up, and hustled into a patrol wagon, and
landed in Joy Street police-station--most beautifully named of public
institutions in the home of the bean and the cod.
The police had them--and what was to be done with them? The police had
no idea. The one thing desired was to keep them out of the newspapers;
which was the one thing impossible to achieve. They spent the entire
day sitting in a room in the police-station, with no food--save the
knowledge that they would be on the front page of all the afternoon
newspapers! In the evening they were taken to the “House of Detention”
under the Court House, where they slept on board benches covered with
black oil cloth. They rolled up their coats for pillows, and spread
newspapers to cover the dirt--but alas, the worst part of the dirt
had powers of locomotion. Cornelia, sitting up awake, watched Betty
sleeping, and counted twenty-one round black objects on her newspapers,
and in the morning some of the women’s ankles were so swollen that they
could not get on their shoes. Also sleep was interfered with by the
constant bringing in of drunken women, who howled in loud voices what
appeared to be a popular song, “I love you as I never loved before.” In
the morning they filed out to a rusty iron sink to wash, and everyone
had to answer the question, “Are you a drunk or a suffragette?” But
these woes vanished in a blaze of glory when they discovered that
they had got a quarter of a million dollars’ worth of publicity on
the front pages of the morning newspapers--while the respectable lady
suffragists, who had presented a dignified petition, had got one inch
in each paper!
Now they were going to be taken into court, and would refuse to
employ lawyers, and would make twenty-two eloquent suffrage speeches.
So they thought, but their captors thought otherwise. For these
publicity-seekers the constitution of the Commonwealth was to be
suspended, and trials were to be in secret in one of the rooms of the
prison! When they learned this, there was a hasty consultation among
the prisoners, and an agreement not to recognize such an illegal
tribunal. Until they were in open court, no woman would say a word.
Their enemies had a still more dastardly scheme; they were going to
deprive the little band of their most brightly shining star. A jailer
came in and demanded, “Which is Elizabeth Alvin?”--and of course all
the prisoners knew instantly what that meant. Papa Banker had got busy
and pulled some political strings, and his daughter was to be bailed
out, or spirited away, or something--a vile plot! Betty made no sound
or sign, and neither did any one else; and presently came the young
Irish policeman who had arrested and “booked” her. He had been ordered
to pick her out of the bunch--and a fine mess he made of it!
It so happened that in the course of a year and a half, Betty was to be
deeply concerned with the problem of identifications. To what extent
was it possible for bystanders, witnesses of a crime, to describe the
men who had committed the crime, and to recognize them some time later?
Human lives have depended upon this problem, and not for the last time.
Whenever Betty and her grandmother thought about the matter, the first
thing that came to their minds was this experience in the Joy Street
police-station. Here was a policeman who had arrested Elizabeth Alvin
on the street, and marched her along for some distance, in the meantime
having a considerable argument with her as to his right to destroy her
banner, and his right to squeeze and hurt her arm. He had put her into
a patrol-wagon, and sat opposite her during a ride of several blocks
through crowded streets, meantime gazing at her and speculating, what
kind of crazy loon was this that wanted a vote, when so many people
that he knew were glad to sell theirs for two dollars. Arriving at the
station-house, he had stood at the desk and booked her for sauntering,
loitering, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest--enough offenses to
keep her in jail until President Wilson’s successor had been elected.
And now, next morning, came this young policeman to pick that young
person out of a group of twenty-two, most of whom could not possibly
be the right one, because they were old like Cornelia, or large and
matronly, or tall and masterful, or in some other obvious way not the
young and sweet and lovely Betty. She was the youngest in the crowd,
and there were not more than half a dozen others near her age. All
she had done to make the policeman’s task harder was to take off her
brown coat with beaver fur trimmings, and appear in a blue silk dress.
What all the women did was to stand or sit, completely unaware of the
policeman’s existence, while he wandered about, peering into one face
and then into another, obviously perplexed. He had all the time he
wanted, he had everything his own way--and he got the wrong woman!
He picked out a fashionable young matron, mother of two blossoming
babes, and said, “That’s the one.” The jailer commanded, “Come with
me, Miss”--and when the young matron remained unaware of his existence,
he stooped in front of her, and put one sturdy arm about her knees,
and lifted her over his shoulder, and carried her like a sack of meal,
out of the room and upstairs into the presence of the secret judge. He
arrived there, somewhat red and out of breath, and the young matron
no less so. Set down upon her two feet, she stamped one of them, and
glared at the judge and the jailer, and clenched her two fists. “I will
say just this and no more--I am _not_ Betty Alvin!”
VIII
The night that Betty and Cornelia spent in jail there was a gathering
of the Thornwell clan: not summoned, but just happening, because every
Thornwell who got the report knew instantly that it was his duty to
repair to the Alvin home on Commonwealth Avenue to offer aid and
counsel.
There was a general agreement that it would be useless to get the two
renegades out of jail until the President was out of the city, because
they would only get in again and make another scandal. There was also
agreement as to what should be done with Betty; she must be shipped
abroad by the very first steamer. The war was over now, and while
passports were not being given for any but official purposes, it would
be an easy matter for Rupert to get what he wanted, and Betty would be
put in charge of some elderly respectable relative, and subjected to
the refining influences of Westminster Abbey and the Tower of London
and the National Gallery and the Nelson Column, and later on to the
Louvre and the Eiffel Tower, and would doubtless come back at the end
of a year a lady like all the other ladies who lived on Commonwealth
Avenue, home of the least common and most exclusive wealth in America.
About Cornelia there was a sharp difference of opinion. One group
declared that the thing to do was to excommunicate her and ignore her
existence; while the other group wanted to have her committed to an
institution, where she would be treated with the utmost kindness and
consideration, but prevented from bringing further disgrace upon an
honorable family. The head of this group was Uncle Abner, whose deaf
man’s voice would boom out in the drawing-room at intervals, “Lock her
up!” The others would try to explain objections to this plan, but he
would only say again, “Lock her up!” There are some advantages to being
deaf, it is so much easier to keep your opinions unchanged.
Great-aunt Priscilla joined Abner’s group. She was tall and thin, and
suffered from anchylosis of the spine, which made it painful for her to
sit erect, but she never sat any other way in public. She had the long
lean face of her dead brother, Josiah, and of Betty’s mother, Deborah;
it sagged now, but the pouches disappeared as she set her jaw in anger
and declared, “It is the proper thing to do in such cases. Everybody
will agree that we are justified.”
“Not quite everybody, Aunt Priscilla,” said Henry Cabot Winters.
“Surely not the suffragettes.”
“I am talking about people one mentions,” said the old lady.
“But the suffragettes would say it was persecution,” objected Deborah,
“and they would make a great fuss.”
“We should have them picketing this house!” added Rupert.
That horrible idea silenced all of them but Abner. “Lock her up!” said
he; and when his son Quincy shouted into his ear, “The suffragettes
would object,” he answered, in good old Puritan style, “Lock ’em all
up!”
There were many precedents that could be cited for this procedure,
and the old people did not fail to cite them. All you had to do was
to find a judge and a couple of doctors who sympathized with the
family predicament--and it would be easy enough for Thornwells to do
that. Great-uncle Ahab had become violent at one time, due to his
disappointment in love, and had spent ten years alone in a wing of the
Thornwell mansion, with a keeper by day and another by night; he still
had spells of brooding, when similar action had to be contemplated.
Such emergencies arose in all “blue-blood” families--it was one of the
mysteries of the Lord’s mercy--and all physicians to the rich were
accustomed to signing certificates, and judges to issuing commitments.
Some such action might have come of this conference, had it not been
for Henry Cabot Winters, that witty, urbane and charming black spider.
He was nothing but an “in-law,” and not really entitled to speak,
but he did it none the less. “Cornelia is eccentric, but she is not
insane, and we all know it; she has many friends who know it, and one
of them is Morrow.”
“Morrow?” said Great-aunt Priscilla. “Who brought Morrow into it?”
“Well, Morrow as Cornelia’s physician would naturally expect to be
consulted; and I’m pretty sure you’d have him against you.”
“What makes you think that?” It was James Scatterbridge, the great
mill-owner, who had made some millions of yards of bandages for
soldiers who were not going to be wounded, and was now very busy making
clear to the government that he was not going to give up his profit on
these contracts. He had postponed an important conference this evening,
and if his mother-in-law was going to be locked up, he wanted it done
quickly.
Said Henry, “Cornelia told me that Rupert dropped a hint of something
of the sort to her, and she decided she would take the precaution to
have a chat with Morrow, and tell him her story, and all her ideas.
He was very much amused, of course--at least that is what Cornelia
reported.”
“Oh, yes, it is _most_ amusing!” snapped Great-aunt Priscilla. “The
newspapers are finding it so, and no doubt their readers. But is that
what we have been paying Morrow for--some fifty years, I believe?”
“Well,” said the lawyer, “you certainly can’t offer to pay him to
declare Cornelia _non compos_; at least, I don’t think he would take
the money. So it looks as if we’d have to forget our black sheep.”
“Well, at least let her take her own Irish name!” This parting shot
of the old lady made Deborah and Alice wince--because, after all,
the black sheep with the Irish name was their mother. That is the
difficulty in these family councils--there are so many toes to be
trod upon! It was safer to be deaf, like Great-uncle Abner, and go on
saying, over and over, “Lock her up!”
IX
Three days after this conference Great-uncle Ahab was walking home on
a stormy night, and fell and struck his head. He lay in the snow for
some time before he was found, and a few hours later he was ill with
pneumonia, and next day was in a critical condition. The family came
in haste--including his brother Abner, somewhat embarrassed after
fifty-three years of estrangement. He tried to refer to the matter, but
Ahab was in a delirium. That was “old Boston’s” idea of drama--an old
man who could hear very little shouting to another old man who would
never hear anything. They talked about it in the clubs for quite a
while.
Also they talked about the funeral, which was an imposing affair,
the same as Josiah’s--for after all, Thornwells were alike in the
eyes of the Lord, even though in the eyes of the world one might be a
governor and the other a manic depressive. The ceremony was held in
the house which Ahab had sawed in half in order to get away from his
brother; and all through the ceremony you heard the dead man’s half
dozen hairless Chinese dogs howling their heads off in an upstairs
room--it was most uncanny. When the will was read the family kept it
secret--which of course put everybody on tiptoe with curiosity, and
caused the newspapers to give it special prominence when it was filed
for probate. One provision read, “I leave my beloved dogs to my sister
Priscilla, whom they remind of newly born mice.” Another said, “I leave
my half house to serve as a home for elderly gentlemen of good family
who can prove that they have been robbed by their relatives.” Finally,
his income from stocks and bonds of the Thornwell Mills Company was to
be used to establish a chair at some New England theological seminary
which would agree to have a course of lectures delivered every year
under the auspices of “The Ahab Adams Thornwell Foundation for the
Precise and Final Refutation of the Lyman Beecher Interpretation of the
Doctrine of Infant Damnation as Expounded in Holy Writ.” Ahab had heard
Lyman Beecher at the age of twenty-five, and had waited sixty years to
have him precisely and finally refuted.
At family funerals the hardest hearts are softened and the fiercest
prides are humbled. Betty remembered that Great-uncle Ahab had once
given her a pony, riding it all the way to her home, with his long
legs reaching to the ground. So it was a good time for her mother
to plead with her. Yes, Betty would promise to engage in no further
public disturbances until she had finished that year at Radcliffe;
and thereafter she was willing to spend a year abroad and become
cultured--could Grannie go with her? The little minx asked it quite
soberly; and Deborah, equally without trace of a smile, explained that
the family was under great obligations to Cousin Letitia Adams Quincy,
who had nursed Betty once as a little girl, while Deborah herself had
been in Europe.
Cousin Letitia was a third or fourth cousin--one of those who had
arrived too early for the funeral of Josiah, and got out and walked
about the estate for half an hour, in order not to make herself
conspicuous. Because of such behavior she was known as a perfect lady,
and now was to receive the poor relation’s ultimate reward. Deborah had
interviewed her and ascertained that she had read nothing since “The
Marble Faun”--except the “Sunday School Examiner’s Bulletin” and the
religious and genealogical pages of the _Transcript_. She was judged
immune to the contagion of redness, and the right person to chaperon
Betty’s grand tour. The girl accepted her with a meekness which would
have made Deborah suspicious, if the latter’s natural shrewdness had
not been smothered under a heavy load of self-sufficiency.
X
It was high time to get excitable young rebels out of the country; the
family realized that more and more clearly every day. For it appeared
that the signing of the armistice was not going to mean peace; not
even the signing of a treaty would mean it. Our troops were to stay
in Germany; worse yet, they were to stay in Siberia and Archangel,
and wage President Wilson’s private war upon the Russian people. The
American army and navy were to serve as a world police-force for the
capitalist system. Exactly what Cornelia had seen the Boston police do
in Plymouth, the national police were going to do all over Europe and
Asia, sometimes under our command, sometimes under British command. And
any persons at home who objected to this program would be hit over the
head with the so-called espionage act; a law enacted to punish enemy
spies, and now serving to jail American citizens for protesting against
attacks upon a friendly people without a declaration of war.
It was the White Terror. Conducted partly by mobs, and partly by
police and government agents acting as mobs, it had for its aim the
destruction of every means through which the American people might
learn how their blood and treasure were being wasted. It stopped at no
crime; the law-enforcers of city, state and nation became the leading
criminals. In New York four Russian boys and a girl, all of them
under age, attempting to distribute a circular protesting against the
invasion of Russia, were seized by the police and tortured until one of
them died; the rest were prosecuted in the federal courts and received
sentences of twenty years’ imprisonment.
Such things were happening all over the country, and made trouble
for well-meaning persons like Cornelia, who sought to argue for
constitutional methods. How could she ask her friend Vanzetti to settle
the grievances of the workers by political action, when again and again
socialist candidates were thrown off the ballot, or, when elected, were
denied their seats? How could she urge him to obey the law, when the
law-makers and law-enforcers themselves defied it? A year or two ago
Vanzetti had made to her the statement, “Capitalist is most fighting
man in whole world”; and never did the capitalist work harder to prove
that the anarchist was right.
The victims of this White Terror would strike back; and if they struck
blindly, it was the way the lesson had been taught them. May Day was an
occasion for celebration of the Russian revolution by all who believed
in it; and on the day before May Day, a package arrived by mail at the
home of a United States senator in Georgia, especially conspicuous for
his “red-baiting.” The package was opened by a Negro maid, and exploded
and blew her to pieces. That led to hurried searches, and the finding
of a score or so of bombs in the New York post-office, addressed to
various persons of prominence, and detained because they had not enough
postage paid.
May Day came in Boston, with that terrible news upon the front page of
the papers. The socialists had several meetings scheduled--and they
were a legal party, not advocating violence in any form. But this was a
distinction the newspapers and those who controlled them were anxious
to conceal. When the audience emerged from one hall, and attempted to
march down the street to another hall where there was another meeting,
they were set upon by three hundred policemen and a mob of soldiers
and sailors, thoroughly “americanized” by a year in Europe. The
socialists, and many innocent passers-by who happened to look foreign,
were chased through the streets, hunted out in stores where they sought
refuge, and pummeled and clubbed into insensibility. The police loaded
them into patrol-wagons, and then beat them over the heads while in the
wagons; they loaded them into trucks, and permitted the soldiers and
sailors to beat them--there were even cases of policemen lending their
clubs to members of the mob who thought some victim insufficiently
mishandled. They raided the second hall and beat up the audience;
the fighting went on for two or three hours, until four persons were
killed, and a hundred and sixteen dragged off to jail. Among them was a
son of Boris Sidis, of Harvard, and H. W. L. Dana, a grandson of Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow and of Richard Henry Dana.
So once more Cornelia heard the thud of hickory clubs on human flesh
and bone. This time Betty heard it too, and both of them had to run
for their lives. They got into a cab and drove home, both trembling
so that they could hardly use their hands, both white and tearful,
with a mixture of fear and rage. They spent hours of anguish together,
telephoning to find out who had been killed and who had been hurt and
who was in jail; then to get lawyers, and persons with property for
bail-bonds--all the routine so familiar to the seasoned “radical,” and
so startling to the newcomer who still believes in his country.
In the morning Cornelia would go to court, and perhaps serve as a
witness. Betty could do nothing but return to college and keep quiet,
and hope that no one would report her to her parents. She had not meant
to break her promise--but how could one know that going to a socialist
meeting was disorderly conduct?
Judge Hayden was the magistrate presiding at the trials, a majestic
gentleman, as they all tried to be. But under the strain of his intense
patriotism, he forgot his dignity, and broke loose and delivered
tirades--and not at the police for lending their clubs to be used in
beating socialists. He did not punish a single one of the assailants,
but sent the victims to jail for varying terms. “The uneducated and the
overeducated,” was one of his sneers--which sounded peculiar in Boston.
It was to be expected that when the next lot of bombs went off,
one of them should tear out the front of Judge Hayden’s home. In
Constantinople under the rule of the sultans it was said that the state
of social discontent could be ascertained from the number of fires
which occurred in the city; when the number increased unduly, some
grafting officials would be strangled, and the fires would grow fewer.
But Boston is not an easy-going place like old Turkey; Boston is a
Puritan stronghold, and its rulers are stiff-necked. The more numerous
the bombs, the more they would increase the causes of bombs. The answer
of the authorities to the bombing of Judge Hayden was to put Galleani
on a steamer and ship him back to Italy; also to plant several spies
among the Boston anarchists.
XI
This was while Betty was saying good-by to her friends, including
these same anarchists. Without a word to the family, Betty and her
grandmother stole away to visit a band of desperados who were at that
time the theme of thousands of words in the files of the Department
of Justice, the American Protective League, and the million-dollar
detective agencies. They actually spent a night in an anarchist home
in Plymouth, and listened to jokes about “bombe di pistacchio,” and
heard Vanzetti’s story of old Galleani’s parting from his wife and four
children.
This was one of the ingenious new methods of torture which the White
Terror had devised. They would grab a man in the middle of the night
and lock him up in a police cell, and badger him there until he
admitted that he did not believe in government, or that he regarded
government as an affair of violence--something they made it easy enough
to admit! They would then present the confession to the immigration
authorities, and a warrant of deportation would be signed, and the
victim would be taken secretly on board a steamer--his wife and
children left behind, with no money to follow him, and nothing but to
beg or starve.
Vanzetti had given up his “picka shov’.” His friends had urged that the
work was too hard for him, and he had invested his savings in a fish
business belonging to an Italian who was going home. “Fish-business”
sounded most impressive--until you learned that it consisted of a
hand-cart, a pair of scales, and a route. Twice a week he got a barrel
or two of fish, either from the docks or by express from Boston, and
shoved his hand-cart about, ringing a bell and calling, “Pay-shee!
Pay-shee!” He had had this same kind of business once before, said
Alfonsina, but had not been successful, because he let everybody owe
him money. This time he had promised to run it on a strictly cash
basis. Vanzetti grinned, and said that it was a “mosta good business,”
because he met all the Italian women and children in Plymouth, and they
got to know him and feel friendly, and he would say a few words about
“joostice,” and when there was to be a meeting or a “picanic,” no one
could “distriboot” circulars or sell tickets so well as he.
Trando had saved up his money and bought himself a three-quarter size
violin for ten dollars, and a bow for two and a half, and had had
several lessons and learned to play a tune. Of course he was made to
exhibit this accomplishment, with Bart serving as master, keeping the
time with an erect forefinger, cocking his head on one side and judging
critically the pitch of the notes, which were apt to vary slightly from
the normal. It was “Old Black Joe,” a very sad tune, and there were
tears in Alfonsina’s eyes at the finish--though perhaps they were tears
of pride, that this marvelous thing should be coming from her precious
little boy. Through the years that were to come Trando was to play that
tune many times for Bart, under circumstances that would bring tears
into the eyes of all who heard it.
XII
They climbed Castle Hill, and picked a few of the wild flowers, and
watched the sail-boats on the bay. It was a parting for Betty and Bart,
and both of them were moved, though Bart said, “Maybe I come see you in
Europe pretty soon. I think I not be let in this countree mooch time;
get shoore catched and sended home. Pretty soon it come trooble in
Italy, maybe rivoluzione--make American afraid for have Italian here.”
“Well, you won’t mind going back to Italy.” It was Betty speaking.
“Shoore not, get free tickets, mooch pleas-èd. I glad for be lonely
man, no family for suffer. I fraid for man like Vincenzo, like Nick
Sacc’--they catch heem, send away--mooch trooble for family. Come mooch
spy--come spy in cloob in East Boston--all time spy watch. But he not
tell true story, tell bombe, make people hate anarchista.”
Vanzetti paused, and watched the sail-boats for a while. “Sooch a
lovely place, is hard to t’ink so ugly thing can be in the world. You
meet Yankee man, he is a good feller; you laugh, you make joke, he is
please, he think wop is all right, pretty good. But next day he take
you, put you in jail, beat you with rubber hose, hang you up by finger,
torture you terrible. Is hard to believe, but it happens all time,
plenty fellers in cloob can tell. I say, I not give up, not stand sooch
thing, I fight. I keep gun all the time now.” And Bart patted his hip,
where a large lump was evident.
“Have you shot that gun off yet?” inquired Betty.
“Shoore, I take it in wood, I practice, he shoot pretty good.”
“Well, it’s not only the gun, it’s the gunner. You need a lot of
practice, Bart, if you’re going to shoot it out with the police.” It
was Betty again, and her grandmother was dismayed. Where on earth did
she pick up slang--“shoot it out!” And where had she acquired that
matter-of-fact smile, discussing the mad idea of resisting arrest?
Truly, the new generation was traveling fast, and their elders had to
“keep on the jump.”
Cornelia knew that if you objected to what the new generation did or
said, it would refrain from arguing with you, but would relegate you
to the storeroom of the “has-beens,” and forbear to take you in its
confidence. But in her own head she pondered and worried. Betty’s
pacifist convictions had apparently not been able to stand the strain
of that “May Day riot” in Boston.
One of the children came up to report that there were men at the
house to see Bart. There were two Italians with a motorcycle and a
side-car. Cornelia recollected their faces, from the night of the
dramatic performance in Stoughton. She was introduced to them again,
Coacci and Orciani, workingmen and anarchist propagandists. The former
had just recently been arrested for deportation, and was now under a
thousand-dollar bond. They talked in Italian, and then drove off, and
Bart brought in from another room a package which the two had left; he
laughed and told Betty and Cornelia that it was a bomb, and these two
had advised him not to let the strange Yankee ladies into the secret,
because, after all, who could say they might not be spies?
The package was big enough for a bomb, to blow up a whole
cordage-plant. It was heavy; and when Bart cut the string and opened
it, they saw what his joke meant--it contained what he liked to call
“mental dinnameet.” There were a dozen copies of a book, bound in red
paper covers, brilliant enough to send a man to jail for ten years
in Massachusetts. Bart handled the books with loving pride, because
they were published by the “Gruppo Autonomo di East Boston,” and he
had helped raise the money to make the enterprise possible. “Faccia à
Faccia col Nemico” was the title, “Face to Face with the Enemy.” It was
a series of biographies of the anarchist martyrs, with their pictures.
It was needed in this crisis, to remind the comrades how the heroes of
past times had been able to withstand torture and persecution, almost
as bad as the White Terror in America. Bart had taken orders for this
book among the Plymouth comrades, and now he said, “I take heem queeck,
I get him distriboot, never let policeman catch heem, giammai!”
XIII
Cornelia went back to Boston to raise funds for the families of
the May Day victims; while Betty and Cousin Letitia went to New
York, accompanied by Deborah, and with a proper amount of tears and
handkerchief-waving were started on their grand tour. The Thornwell
clan breathed a sigh of relief when the young madcap was actually at
sea.
For the first month it seemed all right. Betty was in London. “And
Mother,” she wrote, “it is quite like Boston; New England is really
Old England. I look out of my hotel window and see thousands of brick
buildings stained with smoke, and chimney-pots and dormer-windows
through a haze--I might be looking north from Beacon Hill. I really do
not see that one has to leave Boston to get culture, but I am doing
what you wish. We are going to-night to study the British labor party
at a big mass-meeting in Albert Hall. I am assured that the police
will not club the audience as it comes out. It was kind of you not to
tell Aunt Letitia too much about my ‘redness’; she is so gentle and
innocent, everything is educational to her. I am going to learn a lot,
and only hope you and father won’t mind if I study live people instead
of dead ones.”
That was a hint of trouble; but it was nothing to what came a week
later from Cousin Letitia. “Dear Cousin Deborah: We are having a _most
delightful_ time in London--I will _never_ be able to find words
to express my gratitude to _you_ and _Cousin Rupert_ for affording
me this greatest and _undreamed_ of opportunity--for such it was,
I assure you--though perhaps in some _secret_ corner of my soul I
did cherish the _dream_. Betty is the _dearest_ child, and _most_
companionable, and tractable in every way. To add to the _perfection_
of our happiness, who should turn up in London yesterday but dear Aunt
Cornelia Thornwell! It was Betty who saw her, in the lobby of our
hotel. ‘It is _Grannie_!’ she exclaimed; and at first I could hardly
believe my _eye-sight_. _Imagine_ such a coincidence--here in far-off
London! _Truly_ the world _is_ getting smaller. She was called over
here unexpectedly upon business. We have decided to go to Paris, and
put off seeing London Bridge and the Tower until later.”
And then, a week after that, another letter from Betty. “I hope you
and Father will not be too much annoyed by Grannie’s following us
to Europe. She says she just got too lonesome and couldn’t stand
it. The older generation is very stubborn, I find, and difficult to
control. I will try hard to keep her out of trouble. She has letters of
introduction to leading statesmen, but we are going to see the Eiffel
Tower first, so as to be regular tourists. It was very good of you to
leave our itinerary to our own choice, and we are availing ourselves
of this freedom. Next week we leave for Buda-Pesth. There are some
officials whom Grannie wishes to meet, and they may not be there long,
because governments change swiftly in Europe nowadays. Cousin Letitia
has read that there are very fine gypsy orchestras in Hungary, and this
thrills her repressed Puritan soul. I hope you and Father will not
blame this poor dear lady for anything that may go wrong with our tour,
because she is really as good as gold, though too naïve to cope with
the present world situation. She is invited to lunch with a prominent
editor or member of the house of deputies, and it does not occur to her
to ask whether he is royalist or communist. She says, ‘I suppose it is
not the custom for these European men to trim their beards or their
finger-nails.’ But do not worry about us, because we are learning a
great deal.”
That letter alarmed Deborah, but it seemed worse yet when Rupert came
home that evening and read it and told her about Hungary. There had
been a Bolshevik revolution in that country, and the “officials” whom
Cornelia and Betty were going to meet were no doubt some blood-thirsty
“commissars,” Jews and ex-convicts who were slaughtering the men and
nationalizing the women of several empires. Rupert knew all about it,
because he had before him a proposition for financing the overthrow of
these “officials” in the interest of European stability; he had that
very day been investigating the prospects for having the bonds of a new
counter-revolutionary government absorbed by the Hungarian population
of New England. He had lunched with a man who had explained the details
of the plan, and had prepared a schedule of the subsidies required
to obtain the support of the Hungarian-American press. The world was
growing more and more complicated, and the tasks of a leader of high
finance made him sit up nights and study geography.
“My God,” said the tormented father, “I suppose there’s only one thing
left--they’ll be going to Russia!” Which showed what a great mind he
had. For two weeks later came another communication from Mistress
Betty, as follows:
“I suppose you poor dears are going to be truly shocked by this
news, and I am sorry, but there is no helping it. Grannie and I are
leaving to-morrow for Saratov, which is in Southern Russia. It is
the place where that crazy yarn about the nationalizing of women
got its start, and we are going to see for ourselves. We had the
extraordinary good fortune to run into a man whose head Grannie
bandaged up after it was broken by the police in the Plymouth
cordage strike. Now he is to take charge of the railroads in a
province as big as the whole of New England, and says he has an
underground way to get through the allied lines without danger. It
is just like Boston here, you can do anything if you have money.
It is going to be a most educational experience, and you must not
worry about us. The world is changing rapidly, and nothing could be
more important than to watch the new political forms in the act of
evolving. When these changes come to America, somebody will have to
understand them.
“Please do not worry about Cousin Letitia, who is perfectly safe
and happy in Buda-Pesth. We have taken the precaution to introduce
her to influential people on both sides, so she will be all right
whichever comes out on top. Meantime she is handing out half
loaves of bread to the starving children of war-refugees. That
is charity, and she understands it. In the evenings she hears a
gypsy orchestra, in company with an elderly Hungarian playwright
who speaks fluent English, and has become completely absorbed in
the maiden-lady from Boston. I think she is the first one he ever
met, and he has the idea she will be wonderful in a play; the only
trouble is that European audiences would consider it a fairy-tale.
I do hope you will not blame Cousin Letitia because of Grannie. She
could not possibly have the idea there is anything wrong about a
grandmother. When she was in school, she was taught to admire the
revolutionary leaders of New England, and now that she meets those
in Europe, she finds them highly educated men.
“We only plan to stay in Russia one or two months. Grannie has
promised to return in the fall, to teach a course in the causes of
modern war at the labor college which will be opened in Boston if
the police do not smash it. I expect to come back to Buda-Pesth
and take a job with some relief organization--any one that will
accept a person who has been in Russia. At present the Interallied
Food Mission is refusing all aid to the starving children of Red
Hungary. That is Mr. Herbert Hoover’s amiable method of bringing
back the Whites, and it should earn him everlasting infamy in
American and Hungarian history.
“I hope you won’t mind if I find some way to earn my own keep;
there is a hard time in the relation between parents and children,
when the parents have to realize that their little ones are grown
up. I will continue to let Father send me money if he wants to;
I will not refuse a dollar that will keep some child alive for
a month. The suffering in all Eastern Europe is atrocious--I
have seen sights that would make any darling of luxury grow up
in a hurry. Be patient with Grannie and me, and realize that we
love you all, in spite of not doing what you want; we are acting
according to the dictates of our consciences, and where would New
England be in history if some people had not done that?
“Affectionately your daughter,
“Elizabeth.”