When the President of the United States declined to withdraw the
regulars from Chicago as urged by the governor of Illinois, Mr.
Elmendorf decided that it was because he had not been heard from on the
subject, and so started for Washington. This was how it happened that he
abandoned his project of leading his friends and fellow-citizens in
their determined assault upon the serried ranks of capital, backed
though they were by "the bristling bayonets of a usurper." For several
days his deluded disciples looked for him in vain. The telegraphic
despatches of the Associated Press told briefly of another crank
demanding audience at the White House, claiming to represent the people
of Chicago and persisting in his demand until, "yielding to force," he
was finally ejected. But Elmendorf was silent upon this episode when he
returned, so the story could hardly have referred to him. Calling at
Allison's to attend to the long-deferred duty of packing his trunk, he
was informed by the butler that that labor had been spared him and that
he would find all his things at his former lodging-place, Mrs. Wallen's.
Going thither to claim them, he was met at the threshold by Mart, whose
face was gaunt and white and worn, and who no sooner caught sight of the
once revered features of the would-be labor leader than he fell upon
them with his fists and fragmentary malediction. Mart battered and
thumped, while Elmendorf backed and protested. It was a policeman, one
of that body whom ever since '86 Elmendorf had loved to designate as
"blood-hounds of the rich man's laws," who lifted Mart off his prostrate
victim, and Mrs. McGrath who partially raised the victim to his feet. No
sooner, however, had she recognized him than she loosed her hold,
flopped him back into the gutter, and, addressing the policeman, bade
him "Fur the love of hivvin set him on again!" which the policeman
declined to do, despite Mrs. McGrath's magnificent and descriptive
denunciation, addressed to the entire neighborhood, in which Elmendorf's
personal character and professional career came in for glowing and not
altogether inaccurate portrayal. Slowly the dishevelled scholar found
his legs, Mart making one more effort to break away from the grasp of
the law and renew the attack before he was led to the station-house,
where, however, he had not long to languish before a major of cavalry
rode up and bailed him out; but by that time, and without his luggage,
the victim of his wrath had disappeared. "There's three weeks' board
ag'in' it," said Mrs. McGrath, "and the ould lady not buried three days,
and the young lady sick and cryin' her purty eyes out, and divil a cint
or sup in the house for Mart's wife and babies, barrin' what me and Mac
could spare 'em. Och, that's only wan of five-and-twinty families that
furrin loonattic has ruined."
At the camp of his squadron Major Cranston had been informed by his
veteran, McGrath, of the reappearance of Elmendorf, and of the arrest of
Mart for spoiling his beauty. Mac also told something of the straits to
which Mart's family were reduced. Mrs. Mac had known Mrs. Mart in the
days when, as a blooming school-girl, the latter used to trip by the
Cranston homestead, and had striven to aid her through the failing
fortunes of the months preceding Mart's last strike; it was her voluble
account of the state of affairs that prompted this soft-hearted squadron
commander to take Mart by the hand and bid him tell his troubles. Mart
broke down. He'd been a fool and a dupe, he knew and realized it, but
Elmendorf had so preached about his higher destiny and the absolute
certainty of triumph and victory if they but made one grand concerted
effort, that he had staked all on the result, and lost it. He knew it
was all up with the strikers when once the general government said stop,
and so had gone home, to be greeted by the tidings that his mother was
sick unto death. Jenny was there, calm, brave, silent, full of resource,
but, oh, so pale and wan! She had employed the best physician to be had,
but she alone would be nurse. She never reproached, never chided him for
his long absence when most needed. Then had followed a few days of
sorrow and suspense, and then the gentle, harmless, helpless,
purposeless life fluttered away. Jenny paid all the bills, the doctor,
the undertaker, everything, and Mart tried vainly to get some work; but
he was a marked man. Then, the day after Jenny had settled up everything
and made herself some simple mourning garb, she went to resume her
duties at the library, and came back in a little while, white and ill,
and she had been very ill since,--out of her head at times, he believed,
said Mart, and he had gone and got the doctor whom she had employed for
her mother, a kind fellow who had been unremitting in his attentions,
and who told him bluntly to shut up when he talked about not knowing
where the money was to come from to pay him, and said that that little
woman was worth ten times her weight in gold, which, said Mart, was
God's truth, as he himself ought to have had sense enough to know
before.
Little by little, as they walked homeward together, Cranston's orderly
riding with the horses along the street, and dozens of people turning
curiously to gaze at the cavalry officer and the late striker, it began
to dawn upon Cranston that Mart's sister, who was worth so much more
than her weight in gold, was the very Miss Wallen who had been so oddly
unwilling to write at his dictation the letter to Elmendorf. Arrived at
the house, he was sure of it, for there, with solemn face, was Mr.
Wells. "My wife," said he, "is up-stairs, trying to see what she can do.
This is Martin Wallen, is it?--Well, Martin, I regret exceedingly to
hear you assaulted Mr. Elmendorf to-day--and didn't kill him."
Manifestly Mr. Wells was not a proper person for the position he held,
being far too impulsive in speech for a bookish man; but then Wells had
been sorely tried. He told Cranston something of it as they walked away
together after loading Mart with provisions and fruit at the corner
grocery. Together they stopped to see Dr. Francis and have a brief chat
with him about his patient, and then Cranston mounted and rode
thoughtfully back to camp at the lake front. Captain Davies, with his
troop, had just returned from a long day's dusty, dirty, exasperating
duty at the stock-yards, and no sooner had he made his brief report than
the major queried, "Do you happen to know whether Forrest is back with
his regiment?"
"He was commanding his company at the yards to-day, sir. I heard he
returned four days ago."
"H'm!" said the major, reflectively: "I think I'll stroll over to-night
and find Kenyon."
They were both sons of Chicago, these two field officers, and had always
been close friends. Forrest, however, was a New Yorker, many years their
junior in the service. Cranston had liked him well, yet now he felt that
he should be glad to consult Kenyon, who had known him still longer, for
that which he had heard from Wells as they walked to the doctor's filled
him with vague anxiety. In common with most society people, Cranston
shared the belief that, if not actually engaged to Florence Allison,
Forrest certainly would be as soon as old Allison's objections were
removed; but in speaking of the probable cause of Miss Wallen's illness
Wells had used some vehement language. Plainly the librarian told
Cranston of the stormy interview between Allison and himself, in which,
in presence of Mr. Waldo and "that man Elmendorf," Allison had demanded
her discharge. Plainly he told him his own views of Miss Wallen's
character and conduct, and what his wife thought of her,--that she was a
girl to be honored and admired and respected above her kind; "but," said
he, "Mr. Forrest always treated her as though he thought so too, and it
may be that she learned to care for him before she had heard about his
being a suitor for the hand of Miss Allison. I sent the girl who was
temporarily occupying her place back into the library when we had our
talk," said Wells, "but I reckon she didn't go beyond the passage-way
and heard pretty much the whole thing. Allison bellowed, like the bull
he is, and perhaps I did, too. Still, it hadn't occurred to me to
question her on the subject, though I was minded to tell her if she had
heard anything she was on no account to repeat it or any part of it; but
Miss Wallen came back to her desk sooner than I expected, and the moment
this young minx hesitatingly told me she had been here and had gone home
I suspected something, and presently pumped the whole truth out of her.
The contemptible meanness of some women passes all my descriptive
powers. There are several girls employed in the library, and it seems
some of them were jealous of Miss Wallen, or rather of her superior
position, and one evening that fellow Elmendorf got in there and
threatened her with exposure or something of the kind and insulted her,
so that she slapped his face, and two of those library girls heard it.
It happened just before Forrest came in, and he found her all quivering
and unstrung. She was to have finished some work for him that evening,
and he was to have dined at Allison's, but she was so broken up it was
some time before she could go on with it. Neither could she tell him the
cause. Well, it was one of these very girls whom, all unthinkingly, I
had put in her place, and what does the little wretch do the morning
that Jeannette returned but tell her all about Allison's row with me,
and his demand and reasons for her discharge! Of course she didn't tell
of my refusal; she says she didn't happen to hear that, which is a lie,
I reckon. However, that's the big, big last pound that broke the heart
of that poor hard-working, long-suffering girl and sent her home a sick
woman. Francis says she'll pull through; but what do you suppose will
come of it even then?" Wells told him more about poor Jenny, all the
story of her long, brave struggle so far as he knew it, which was far
less than the facts, and Cranston wished with all his heart that Meg,
his own bonny wife, were home to help and counsel. All the same he meant
to see Kenyon, and later, perhaps, Forrest.
But he saw the latter first.
There was a brilliant gathering at the club that night. Matters had so
quieted down in the disturbed districts that many of the regular
officers had been permitted to accept invitations to be present. Allison
had not wished to go, but Florence begged. She was looking "absolutely
saffron," said Aunt Lawrence, and if something wasn't done to break up
that child's nervous melancholy she wouldn't be responsible for her.
That she herself was in the faintest degree responsible for the alleged
nervous melancholy Aunt Lawrence would not have admitted for a moment.
Allison was in evil humor, as is many a better man when beginning to
realize that he has made an ass of himself. Wells had been after him
with a hot stick on discovering that the only authority for his
accusations against Miss Wallen was "that devil's tool Elmendorf and a
creature of his own coaching." Allison knew, moreover, that Forrest was
back, commanding a company of his regiment, for his own associates were
pouring into his ears their praises for Forrest's nerve and calm courage
in facing with only twenty men a furious mob of nearly a thousand and
rescuing some so-called "scabs" from their hands, poor fellows who had
been pulled from the platforms of the P.Q. & R. trains. "He's 'way down
below the stock-yards, anyhow, and won't be there to-night," said
Allison to himself: so, at ten o'clock, with Florence on his arm, he
entered the brilliantly lighted parlor. It was full of well-gowned women
and of men in the appropriate garb of the hour and occasion, while not a
few of the officers were in uniform. The general and some of his staff
were almost the first to greet them. Presently Mr. Sloan joined the
party, and the first thing he did was to begin telling of Forrest's
prediction as to the attitude of the general government in the event of
trouble. Allison shifted uncomfortably, the general and his aides looked
politely interested, and somebody attempted to make some arch remark for
Miss Allison's ears, but she was plainly nervous and ill at ease. The
chief presently presumed Miss Florence had heard how admirably Forrest
had behaved in the rescue of certain railway men from the mob the
previous day, and Florence owned that she had heard nothing at all,--it
was the first intimation she had that Forrest was there; whereat the
three officers looked astonished and embarrassed. Evidently something
was amiss. There had perhaps been a quarrel. "Oh," said Captain Morris,
in prompt explanation, "Forrest was away down in the depths of Oklahoma
when he heard his regiment was ordered here, and he had to wait for
telegraphic authority to come on. He never even got up into town. His
company was at Grand Crossing, and he joined it there. He hasn't been
north of the stock-yards since."
But Allison got away as quickly as possible. This sort of thing wasn't
helping Flo to forget, and presently Flo herself concluded she'd rather
go home, and just at eleven o'clock they came forth to their carriage.
Three officers in full uniform were directly in front, chatting with two
others in rough campaign rig, and the taller, slenderer of these latter,
a soldierly, brown-eyed fellow with a heavy moustache and a week-old
brown stubble on cheeks and chin, stepped quickly forward and whipped
off his drab slouch hat. For the first time in her life Florence Allison
saw her friend the lieutenant in service dress, and knew not what to
say. All the response to his cordial "Good-evening, Miss Allison. How
are you, Mr. Allison?" was the hurried hustling past of the pair, the
girl with averted head, the father reddening and embarrassed. Florence
was bundled quickly into the carriage, and then Allison turned. "You'll
have to excuse my daughter to-night, Mr. Forrest. She isn't well,
and--er--er--I'll hope to see you to-morrow." And, lifting his hat, he
followed Florence. The door was slammed, and away they went, leaving
Forrest gazing after them in no pleasant frame of mind.
Major Cranston touched his arm. "Come over to my tent, Forrest. I can
explain something of this," he said.
And the next morning, after some sleepless hours, with permission from
Colonel Kenyon to be absent from camp until noon, Mr. Forrest took a cab
and drove far up town, making only one stop--at a florist's--on the way.
The Allison carriage was coming forth just as he reached the well-known
gates. Mrs. Lawrence and Florence, seated therein, did not catch sight
of the occupant of the cab until he raised his hat. Florence gasped,
grabbed Aunt Lawrence by the arm, called to their coachman, and glanced
back.
But no, Mr. Forrest had no thought of stopping there at all. The cab
drove straight on past the Allison homestead, and something told her
whither it was bound.
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