PATRIOTISM had waxed and politics waned with the ebbing of the year
1917, in Centralia. Through the murk and fume of alien treachery, enemy
propaganda, and the reckless self-seeking of petty partisanship had
burst a clear, high, consuming flame of Americanism. Lesser matters were
forgotten in the maintenance of that beacon-fire. Men of all types of
political belief, of all classes, of all economic and social creeds, had
abandoned their private feuds and bitternesses in the fervor against the
common enemy. To them had rallied the finer and more courageous element
of the German-Americans, some impulsively from emotion and sentiment
like Stock-muller and Blasius, others, in the pain and travail of old
ties broken and from the profound conviction of loyalty and right, like
Professor Brender. Centralia, thirty years before marked by Deutschtum
to be the Little Germany of the New World, was slowly, doggedly
establishing its birthright of Americanism.
Poison still lurked in its system. There were whisperings in dark
corners. The German-language press still gave heart-service to the
Kaiser’s cause in hint and suggestion and innuendo, while giving
lip-service to the cause of the United States in artificial and
machine-made editorials. The German pulpit, preaching an ineradicable
Germanism by the very use of the German tongue, was lack-loyal where it
dared not be disloyal. Over many a Verein and Bund and Gesellschaft the
Stars and Stripes waved above seething revolt of spirit. Workers in all
patriotic causes felt the dead-weight of a sullen, unworded, untraceable
opposition clogging their efforts. But all this was negative.
Deutschtum, a few short months before so arrogant and confident of its
power over Centralia, was on its defense. More; it was in hiding. No
other one force had done so much to drive it thither as that once yellow
mongrel of journalism, The Fenchester Guardian.
The Guardian’s den was brightly lighted on this December evening of
1917. It was brightly lighted on most evenings. Yet Doc Summerfield,
aforetime of a pessimistic view regarding the effect of night-labor upon
Jeremy Robson, was obliged to admit that he showed a steady improvement
in spite of apparent overwork. Perhaps this was because he had provided
himself with a highly valued assistant. The assistant was seated
opposite the chief, reading proof on an editorial, when the door opened,
and in stalked Andrew Galpin, traveling-bag in hand.
“Hello, Bosses!” he said.
“Hello, Andy,” said his chief; and “Welcome back, Andy,” said the
assistant getting up to perch upon the arm of the chief editorial chair,
thus leaving a seat for the general manager, who took it with a nod.
“I saw Cassius Kimball,” he stated. “He’s just back from Washington.”
“Any new’s?” asked Jeremy.
“We’ve located Emil Bausch. But not for publication.”
“Where is he?”
“Behind two row’s of barbed wire, one of ’em charged with electricity,
in a pleasant Southern camp. He’s a member of the Millionaires’ Club,
there. They caught him on that chemical deal. Supposed to be wholesale
drugs; really high explosives.”
“Any other of our extinguished local lights heard from?”
“Muller, the saloon-keeper, is down there, too. But not in the
Millionaires’ Club. He’s gardening. One dollar per diem. Martin Dolge is
in Mexico.”
“What about Gunst and Klink and the church outfit?”
“They’ve promised to be good. Three of their religious weeklies are
scheduled to quit. Gordon Fliess has dropped his financial support
of the German-American dailies. We’re going to go stale for lack of
opposition’ if this keeps on,” prophesied Andy sadly.
“Cassius did n’t run across Mart Embree down there, did he?” queried
Jeremy.
“Ay-ah. He did. Says ‘Smiling Mart’ was running around like a little,
worried dog, wagging his tail anxiously and trying to make his peace.”
“Peace is still Governor Embree’s specialty, then?” put in the
assistant, from her perch.
“Why, I guess it always will be, so long as there’s a German vote in
Centralia,” returned the general manager. “But what does ‘Smiling Mart’
amount to, now? We’ve got the whole bunch licked to a frazzle, and
licked for keeps.”
“Do you think so. So easily?”
Andy Galpin looked intently at Mrs. Jeremy Robson. “Maybe I’m wrong,” he
said meekly. “You think it is n’t over?”
The little, tawny head was shaken emphatically.
“I think that we shall have it all to fight again,” she said, in her
unchanged, precise, and subtly caressing manner of speech.
“When?” The chief and the general manager challenged her with one voice.
“When Germany’s peace offer is made. Then you will see Governor Embree
and all that is left of Germany here making their fight for a peace
which will be worse than war. That is why I will not listen to Jem’s
giving up the paper.”
“What do you think of that, Andy?” asked Jem.
The general manager smiled his slow, homely, friendly smile at Marcia
Robson. “I think what I’ve thought since the first minute I set eyes
on her,” he said: “that she’s a wise guy. Boss, we haven’t won this war
over here until we’ve won this war over there, and don’t you forget it!
By the way, there’s quite a little talk in Washington, Kimball tells me,
about the new Senator-elect from Centralia.”
“I blush, modestly and prettily,” retorted Jem. “Or--Marcia, you do it
for me. I’d rather stay here and run the old Guardian.”
“I’d rather have you,” returned Andy, with rueful emphasis.
“We shall be back for the fight that is coming,” promised Marcia.
Galpin’s eyes wandered slowly about the room and returned upon Marcia.
“It gives me the shivers,” he said, “to think how near we were to losing
out on the whole fight when Buddy Higman went and got you. I’d like to
have heard Buddy’s argument.”
“It was effective,” laughed Marcia. “Buddy was honestly convinced that
without The Guardian to guide it, the Nation would go to immediate
destruction.”
“Buddy’s little plan turned out well for him,” observed Jem. “Marcia
is sending him to Old Central in the fall. Sort of a fairy godmother,
aren’t you?” he added, looking up at his wife. “Pull the paper through
with one hand, save us all, and make a man of Buddy with the other.”
“Do not give me too much credit,” said Marcia, more gravely. “It was
Andy who really held you here when you wished to go into the army.”
“Oh, well, I had my stake in the paper, too,” disclaimed the general
manager, picking up his valise and hat. “Good-night, Bosses,” he added.
“Don’t overwork and spoil your beauty, you two.”
“Marcia,” said Jem, after their aide had gone. “That night when you
came back--don’t go away while I’m talking seriously, please!--would you
really have married me, right away, then and there?”
“Certainly, I would. I meant to. You were very cruel. You spoiled my
plans.”
He regarded her with suspicion. Was there a note of raillery in the
sweet, even voice?
“What plans?”
“Why, to marry you then.”
“And then what?”
“To put my money into the paper and keep you from selling it, of
course.’
“But if I would n’t have taken it? And I would n’t, you know.”
“That would not have made the slightest difference,” she said calmly.
“You could not have sold the paper, in any case, if you had married me
when--when I proposed to you.”
“Could n’t I! I’d have had to, if matters had gone on as they were
going.”
“No. For you could not have sold the paper without the plant, and the
plant being real estate, could not be transferred without the wife’s
consent.”
“So it couldn’t! You wretched little plotter! Who put you up to that?”
“I consulted a lawyer,” she replied demurely. “On a hypothetical case.”
“I’m jealous,” declared Jem. “You were trying to marry me for my
property and not for my winning self. Was that the only reason?”
Her face changed adorably as she bent over him. “What do you think?” she
said.
“But I wanted to have--what is it Andy called it?--a stake in the paper,
too,” she continued, after a moment. “You have never let me. Do you
think that is fair?”
“It’s the only fair way. We’re not out of the woods yet, with The
Guardian. Newspaper property is going to be mighty uncertain before this
war is over, and I don’t want you involved in it. The Guardian has taken
you in, little wife, but it won’t take your money.”
“Not even if you should need it? To save the paper?”
“Not even then.”
“Jem, I--I want a--a stake in the paper.”
“Why, Marcia! What is it, dearest? You’re not crying, are you?”
“No, I _think_ not. If I am, it is for happiness, Jem. I--I have a--a
special stake now in the paper. I want to keep The Guardian to hand it
down to--to--”
“Marcia!” He turned in the circle of her arms, but for once the frank
eyes were hidden from him.
“--to our son,” said the soft voice with a little catch in it. “I am
sure it will be a son, Jem. If we name him Jeremy Andrew Robson”--the
voice was muffled now against Jem’s cheek--“he will be almost The
Guardian’s child--next to being ours, Jem.”
Jem drew a long, deep breath of happiness. “There’ll always be a good
fight for a hundred per cent American paper like The Guardian to get
into. That’s the real best of the business, I guess.” He bent over the
little, proud, bowed head. “I hope he’ll be as good an American as his
mother,” he said.
THE END