The Hearts of the People
There was great excitement in Roma the following morning, when the
people read in head-lines that occupied half or more of the first page
of the morning paper,
THE MAYOR IS FOUND
Newspaper reporters had reached the Van Deusen residence before the two
women did, and they did not leave until the story of their ten days'
adventure (wonderfully simple from their point of view) had been told.
The presses waited while the facts were properly embellished and each
paper vied with the other to get the longest and most readable, if not
the most startling story.
It seemed almost inconceivable that two prominent women could have been
imprisoned in the center of the town and concealed for ten days--and yet
it had been done; and now that they were restored to their friends--and
the public--once more, that there should not be the slightest clue to
the persons behind the plot.
"It is the most successful trick ever perpetrated," announced the
_Atlas_, "and one no sane man would ever have admitted possible. The
mayor has not seen a human being, except Miss Snow, nor heard any other
human voice for ten days. No detective has yet found who sent her the
message signed by Newton Fitzgerald, nor can they discover who was at
the elevator to receive them when they mounted to their place of
concealment, the regular incumbent having already proved an alibi.
They met in the drug-store, but no one recognized or noticed them. The
plot was carefully laid and successfully carried out, By whom, is at
present, a mystery."
By nine o'clock the Mayor was at her desk, with Mary Snow in her office.
Friends tried to deter her, on the plea of needed rest, but she only
laughed at them.
"Rest? What else have I done but rest, for ten days past?" she asked.
"Worry, I should hope," answered her cousin Jessica. "I'm sure the rest
are nearly worn out with worrying about you."
"I didn't worry--not so very much," said Gertrude. "I felt sure we were
confined only to make me resign--or to give them a chance at the mayor's
office, to get some nefarious contract through, or to secrete evidence
in the street railway case, and I'm in a hurry to get down there and
find out just what they have been doing."
"We felt sure our kidnapers wouldn't dare to do us any real harm," added
Mary. "They've seen that we had plenty to eat and we have not suffered
in any way. As Gertrude says, we've done nothing but rest."
"Well, I suppose you'll have to go then," said Jessica. "But you'll just
have to hold a reception all day. Every man, woman and child will be
there to shake hands with you and congratulate you."
But the citizens did not wait for them to reach their office. Before
Gertrude's carriage appeared in the square in front of the city hall,
the citizens had unharnessed the horses and were drawing her, as if she
had been some princess royal and they her subjects.
Men that voted against her, men that had denounced her in private and
public, joined the procession and helped to give her such a welcome as
to bring tears to her eyes and choke her utterance.
When they reached the square, it was full of the surging, shouting
populace who crowded about, seizing her hands and demonstrating in every
possible way their joy at her return. If any of her captors had been
looking on, he could not have doubted whether the town would be friendly
to him just then.
They reached the City Hall at last, but even then, the mayor was not
allowed to get out.
"Speech, speech," they were crying all about her; and Gertrude stood up,
choking back her tears and trying to speak. This was what it meant to
reach the popular heart, at last.
"Friends," she said, "I cannot tell you what this welcome means to us.
Never again can I feel discouragement or lose faith in the people of
Roma. You are showing me that I am as dear to you as you are to me. I
cannot say more. Your welcome thrills me to the heart, and it seems to
me I can never outlive this moment of joyous welcome. Let us go now--to
our homes, our offices, our stores; and while we thank God that he has
brought us out from the shadow into the light of day, let us ask Him,
all humbly, for help in making our beloved Roma a fairer, a better, a
purer city--a city of ideals realized and lofty purposes fulfilled."
She sat down exhausted and the crowd saw that she was near to
over-taxing her strength. They began to disperse, but one cried out:
"The little secretary, too. Three cheers for Mary Snow!"
They were given spontaneously, ringing to the echo, and Mary, blushing
and tremulous, rose and thanked them. Then the crowd parted to let the
two women descend and go up to the hall. Had they been men and the same
feeling prevailed, the mayor would have been carried in on broad
shoulders, and amid shouts and cheers; but although the thought occurred
to the leaders of the good-natured mob, there was something about her
that made them remember the old Senator.
"She's not the kind for that," they said, and stood with bared heads
while she passed in and out of sight.
"Oh, but it's good to get back here," said Mary, as they found
themselves once more in the mayor's rooms. "I shall be glad to buckle
down to work again."
But there was little chance for "buckling down" that day. Even as she
spoke, Bailey Armstrong was beside Mary Snow with warm greetings and
Allingham was exchanging salutations with the Mayor herself. A stream of
others were coming in, all the employees about the place, and hundreds
of others, who wanted to clasp the hands of the returned prisoners, and
assure them of their loyal support.
The women of the city began to arrive about ten o'clock, the
"Progressives" arriving at that hour in a body, and everyone of them
clasping and kissing the Mayor as, it is safe to say, no incumbent of
that office was ever hugged and kissed before--at least, during office
hours.
"O, Gertrude," said Mrs. Blake, "we would never have put you in, if we'd
known what it would bring you."
"To think we were letting you in for kidnaping and imprisonment," said
Mrs. Turner.
"Like a criminal--or step-child," added Mrs. Mason.
"O, Gertie!" cried the fluffy woman known as Bella, "and I brought it on
by telling you all that stuff my laundress told me. Rudolph says I did."
And she burst into tears.
"Don't cry, Bella," said the mayor, soothingly. "I was finding things
out, anyway. It would have been just the same in the end."
"But Rudolph says--" insisted the weeping one, when the push from behind
carried her on out into the corridors.
Club-women, patriotic women, stay-at-home women were followed by women
from the poorer classes who had waited until their morning's work was
done before coming to tell the Mayor how glad they were to have her
back. Then noon came, bringing young women from the stores and offices
and factories, all eager to add their bit of welcome; and the school
children, to shake her hand and go home and tell of this wonderful day,
which afterward became a memory for a lifetime. When four o'clock came,
Gertrude prepared to go home; to rest and sleep in her own bed, worn out
with the welcome of thousands of her people. Mary Snow had already
succumbed to the demand on her energies and had gone an hour before.
"It's worth the whole gamut of experience," Gertrude said to herself as
she closed her desk, "just to find out what it is to get at the heart of
the American people. It's a great experience, and I shall be a better
woman for it, all my days."
A step on the bare floor behind her. She looked up.
"I haven't had a chance to tell you in words how very, very glad I am,"
said Allingham, holding out his hand. "But--you know--"
"Yes," she said, taking it; "I know."
"Excuse me," said a voice, and a burly form pushed in from the outer
office; "but I couldn't go home until I came to have one word with you,
Miss Van Deusen. You don't--you can't believe I had anything to do with
getting you into that scrape?"
"No, Newton, I never believed it for a minute," said the mayor, "not
after I realized you were not there, sick and in trouble. I know you too
well."
"Thank you," said Fitzgerald. "I'm ready to go on the witness stand for
you, any time. More than that, I'll run down the rascals that played you
such a d--d trick, if it takes the last cent I've got."