Since Adelle's visit Judge Orcutt had given some hours of profound
reflection to Clark's Field, for the second time in his life. Not to the
legal problem suggested by the young woman's desire to upset the
disposition of her property. That he had answered in the only way he
could, firmly and decisively. Unscrupulous lawyers might hold out
delusive hopes to these newly found heirs if they should fall into their
clutches; but the probate judge knew the law of the land and the temper
of the courts on this familiar topic. No, his attention had been given
to Adelle herself and to her request for his advice upon what she should
do with the property that had been given her in the due process of the
law. He realized that he was called upon to advise again crucially in
regard to Clark's Field. For he recognized Adelle's earnestness of
purpose and her pathetically groping desire for light upon life.
He had already reversed that decision about her, given when Adelle upon
her majority appeared in his court and he had had occasion to lecture
her about the nature of the fortune he was handing over to her. Then his
harsh tone had been due to a sense of futility in having been at great
pains to preserve for this foolishly dressed and apparently empty-headed
young woman a very great property. To him had come then acutely the
disheartening realization of the underlying irony of life, when such
power and privilege could be put into such futile hands. And he--the
conscientious judge--had been the instrument of the law in perpetrating
this bitter jest upon justice. But now he felt that Adelle might justify
her good fortune. For it seemed that her riches after poisoning her had
already begun to work their own cure. She wanted to rid herself of them.
That was a good sign.
Not that he sympathized in her crude plan of endowing these unknown
Clark cousins with a lot of her money. He was glad that, at any rate,
the law put a stop to further litigation over Clark's Field. If she
wanted to distribute her estate to them she could, of course. But in all
probability it would do them little good; and it might do a great deal
of harm. He was interested in Adelle, in her development and her being,
much more than in the Clark money. What would be best for her
ultimately? If he had been a conventionally minded old gentleman, he
would have urged her to bestow her money prudently upon safe
charities--perhaps create a special philanthropic trust for the
distribution of Clark's Field, after her death, of course, for the good
of education, or hospitals, or art--the ordinary channels chosen by
those rich persons who cared to alienate from themselves and their heirs
a portion of their property. But the judge, fortunately, was not
conventionally minded, although he had sat upon the bench for upwards of
forty years. He knew that philanthropy was a very wasteful and
mechanical method of attaining an end, and often did great harm to
everybody, because such a little charity made such an immense amount of
social salve. He did not believe that "philanthropy" would appeal in its
common forms to Adelle, certainly not deathbed giving.
She had been through some terrible experiences, that was evident, and
was still more shaken by them than she knew. But she was young, with a
long life presumably to lead, and other children and loves and interests
to blossom in it. Would it not be wise for her to retain her property,
now that she had learned something of the nature of money, and endeavor
by herself to use Clark's Field wisely? It was here that the judge's
musings brought up. He was inclined to have faith in Adelle as a person
for the first time.
We can see how far from the anarchist his philosophy of life led him.
The accidents of life--yes, but mysterious, not merely ironic and
meaningless, accidents! Adelle Clark, the unpromising little girl, the
loud, silly young married woman, was the instrument chosen by Fate--only
the judge said God-sharpened by pain and sorrow to become the
intelligent destiny of Clark's Field. Could the law with all its hedging
and guarding beat that? Could the stone mason or the judge himself or
any human mind select a better executor for Clark's Field than the
unlikely instrument which Fate had chosen? The judge thought not, and
with his own little plan in mind serenely awaited the arrival of the
Clark cousins on this joyous May morning, having previously ordered the
horses and carriage that he commonly used for his outings.
* * * * *
Adelle sat beside the judge in the old-fashioned brougham, and the stone
mason opposite to them, his great brown hands bedded on his knees, his
face critically examining the city landscape. The judge talked chiefly
to the young man, in his humorous and rather garrulous manner,
describing for his benefit the glories of the old city. They plunged
almost at once off the hill into a slum, where in the tall brick
tenements women were hanging out of the windows enjoying the spring day.
The sunshine and the blue sky made the narrow, dirty streets, and the
evil-looking buildings even more out of place than usual. The young
Californian wrinkled his mouth scornfully over it. But soon they drove
out upon a new bridge that bound the two parts of the city together
where the breeze came in across the water gayly. The mason was specially
pleased with the tunnel through which the surface cars disappeared into
the bowels of the city. That was some good, he said, and added that they
did not have it in California. "But we don't need it yet--we aren't so
crowded out there," he explained. He did not think much of the tall
buildings they encountered on their route. They had better ones in
"'Frisco," and had he not seen New York? His attitude towards this home
of his forefathers was mildly tolerant. If the issue had been put to him
squarely, he would never have exchanged his free California inheritance
for his share of Clark's Field! He seemed to think better of his
grandfather for having shaken the dust of Alton from his scornful feet.
That was exactly what he himself would have done if it had been his
misfortune to belong to the younger branch of the family. But in that
case, perhaps, he would not have had the courage to brave the unknown!
Adelle from her corner of the carriage silently followed this in her
cousin's expressive face. She saw that it all seemed small to him,
petty, planned on a little scale.
"Give me the Coast!" he said when at last they reached the famous Square
of Alton, which was now little more than the intersection of three noisy
streets, and turned up the old South Road. That simple expression meant
volumes as she knew. It expressed the love of freedom, vigor,
simplicity, natural manhood, the longing for the large, fresh face of
Nature, where the hopeful soul of man is ready to meet his destiny by
himself, unpropped by his ancestors and relatives. There was an echo in
her own soul to this primitive lyric cry,--"Give me the Coast!"
(Need we explain that to the true son of California there is but one
"Coast" in all the world?)
The old judge smiled sympathetically in response to the cry. Evidently
he liked the young man, for he was at great pains to point out to him
everything of interest and to explain certain historic monuments that
they passed.
Alton had never been notable as a place of residence even in Adelle's
childhood, but now it was almost completely converted to industrial
uses. The stove factory had grown like a tropic plant, and had spawned
about itself a number of parasitic industries, such as tack-mills,
paper-box factories, and other occupations that use the labor of women
and children. It was one long, smoky, grimy thoroughfare, where in a
small, congested area the coarser labors of humanity were performed
wholesale by a race of imported gnomes, such as might be found in any of
the larger centers of the country. Alton was not one of the "show
places," and it may be wondered why the judge had chosen to drive his
guests thither instead of to the famous parks of the city.
But Adelle suspected something of his purpose, and more when they turned
into that brick maze of small streets that had once been Clark's Field.
At this the Californian's mobile face expressed frank contempt, not to
say disgust. Even on this beautiful May morning, Clark's Field, with its
close-packed rows of lofty tenements, its narrow, dirty alleys, and
monotonous blocks of ugly brick facades, was dreary, depressing, a
needless monstrosity of civilization. And all this had come about in a
little over ten years, as the judge carefully explained to the mason. It
had taken less than a generation to cover Clark's Field with its load of
brick and mortar, to make it into a swarming hive of mean human lives--a
triumph of our day, so often boastfully celebrated in newspaper and
magazine, the triumph of efficient property exploitation by the
Washington Trust Company under the thin disguise of the "Clark's Field
Associates"!
The judge was indefatigable in his determination to penetrate to every
dreary corner, every noisome alley of the place, although the young
stranger seemed to think that he had had enough at the first glance. It
is not necessary for us to make the rounds of the Field for the third
time with the little party. Adelle, who had a greater interest than her
cousin because of her dim understanding of the judge's purpose, gazed
searchingly at everything, and was able to see it differently, to
comprehend it all as she had not been able to the time before when she
had forced Archie to make the expedition with her. She realized now, at
least in part, what Clark's Field really meant, what the magic lamp she
had so carelessly rubbed for years to gratify her desires was made of.
And it made her thoughtful.
About noon, when the little streets were flooded from curb to curb by a
motley army of pale-faced foreign workers from the high lofts and the
noisy factories, the judge's carriage drew up beside a vacant corner,
the one large undeveloped bit of land still left, nearly in the center
of the whole tract. This was plastered with the signs of the realty
company, seductively offering to lease it for a term of years or improve
it with a building to suit tenant, etc.
"About all the open space and blue sky there is left!" the judge
remarked, pointing out the figures of a few dirty children who were
exploring a puddle and a pit of rubbish in the vacant lot. (These, I
suppose, were the descendants of that brave body of little hoodlums of
which I and my brothers were members years ago, and the puddle and pit
were all that was left of our mysterious playground!)
"There's a heap of cheap foreign rubbish all around here," the mason
growled, spitting contemptuously into the roadbed, as if he resented
that human beings could be found forlorn enough, low enough, to labor
under such conditions. "Not one of 'em looks as if he had had enough to
eat or knew what a good wash was or what the earth smells like!"
No, the Coast for him, and the sooner the better, too!