A SHORT CHAPTER, YET IN IT WE EXAMINE ONE CANVAS HEAVEN, ONE REAL
HEAVEN, AND TWO SNUG LITTLE HELLS
"The idea of hell," wrote the Peach Blow Philosopher in the Harvey
_Tribune_, "is the logical sequence of the belief that material
punishments must follow spiritual offenses. For the wicked go unscathed
of material punishments in this naughty world. And so the idea of Heaven
is a logical sequence of the idea that only spiritual rewards come to
men for spiritual services. Not that Heaven is needed to balance the
accounts of good men after death--not at all. Good men get all that is
coming to them here--whether it is a crucifixion or a crown--that makes
no difference; crowns and crosses are mere material counters. They do
not win or lose the game--nor even justly mark its loss or winning.
"The reason why Heaven is needed in the scheme of a neighborly man,"
said the Peach Blow Philosopher as he stood at his gate and reviewed the
procession of pilgrims through the wilderness, "is this: The man who
leads a decent life, is building a great soul. Obviously, this world is
not the natural final habitat of great souls; for they occur here
sporadically--though perhaps more and more frequently every trip around
the sun. But Heaven is needed in any scheme of general decency for
decency's sake, so that the decent soul for whose primary development
the earth was hung in the sky, may have a place to find further
usefulness, and a far more exceeding glory than may be enjoyed in this
material dwelling place. So as we grow better and kinder in this world,
hell sloughs off and Heaven is more real."
There is more of this dissertation--if the reader cares to pursue it,
and it may be found in the files of the Harvey _Tribune_. It also
appears as a footnote to an article by an eminent authority on Abnormal
Psychology in a report on Mr. Left, Vol. XXXII, p. 2126, of the Report
of the Psychological Association. The remarks of the Peach Blow
Philosopher credited in the Report of the Proceedings above noted, to
Mr. Left, appeared in the Harvey _Tribune_ Jan. 14, 1903. They may
have been called forth by an editorial in the Harvey _Times_ of
January 9 of that same year. So as that editorial has a proper place in
this narrative, it may be set down here at the outset of this chapter.
The article from the _Times_ is headed: "A Successful Career" and
it follows:
"To-day Judge Thomas Van Dorn retires from ten years of faithful service
as district judge of this district. He was appointed by the Governor and
has been twice elected to this position by the people, and feeling that
the honor should go to some other county in the district, the Judge was
not a candidate for a third nomination or election. During the ten years
of his service he has grown steadily in legal and intellectual
attainments. He has been president of the state bar association,
delegate from that body to the National Bar Association, member of
several important committees in that organization, and now is at the
head of that branch of the National Bar Association organized to secure
a more strict interpretation of the Federal Constitution, as a bulwark
of commercial liberty. Judge Van Dorn also has been selected as a member
of a subcommittee to draft a new state constitution to be submitted to
the legislature by the state bar association. So much for the
recognition of his legal ability.
"As an orator he has won similar and enviable fame. His speech at the
dedication of the state monument at Vicksburg will be a classic in
American oratory for years. At the Marquette Club Banquet in Chicago
last month his oration was reprinted in New York and Boston with
flattering comment. Recently he has been engaged--though his term of
service has just ended--in every important criminal action now pending
west of the Mississippi. As a jury lawyer he has no equal in all the
West.
"But while this practice is highly interesting, and in a sense
remunerative, the Judge feels that the criminal practice makes too much
of a drain upon his mind and body, and while he will defend certain
great lumber operators and will appear for the defense in the famous
Yarborrough murder case, and is considering accepting an almost
unbelievably large retainer in the Skelton divorce case with its
ramifications leading into at least three criminal prosecutions, and
four suits to change or perfect certain land titles, yet this kind of
practice is distasteful to the Judge, and he will probably confine
himself after this year to what is known as corporation practice. He has
been retained as general counsel for all the industrial interests in the
Wahoo Valley. The mine operators, the smelter owners, the cement
manufacturers, the glass factories have seen in Judge Van Dorn a man in
whom they all may safely trust their interests--amicably settling all
differences between themselves in his office, and presenting for the
Wahoo Valley an unbroken front in all future disputes--industrial or
otherwise. This arrangement has been perfected by our giant of finance,
Hon. Daniel Sands of the Traders' State Bank, who is, as every one
knows, heavily interested in every concern in the Valley--excepting the
Independent Coal Company, which by the way has preferred to remain
outside of the united commercial union, and do business under its own
flag--however dark that flag may be.
"This new career of Judge Van Dorn will be highly gratifying to his
friends--and who is there who is not his friend?
"Courteous, knightly, impetuous, gallant Tom Van Dorn? What a career he
has builded for himself in Harvey and the West.
"Scorning his enemies with the quiet contempt of the intellectual
gladiator that he is, Tom Van Dorn has risen in this community as no
other man young or old since its founding. His spacious home is the
temple of hospitality; his magnificent talent is given freely, often to
the poor and needy to whom his money flows in a generous stream whenever
the call comes. His shrewd investment of his savings in the Valley have
made him rich; his beautiful wife and his widening circle of friends
have made him happy--his fine, active brain has made him great.
"The _Times_ extends to the Judge upon his retirement from the
bench the congratulations of an admiring community, and best wishes for
future success."
Now perhaps it was not this article that inspired the Peach Blow
Philosopher. It may have been another item in the same paper hidden away
in the want column.
"Wanted--All the sewing and mending, quilt patching, sheet making, or
other plain sewing that the good women of Harvey have to give out. I
know certain worthy women with families, who need this work. Also
wood-sawing orders promptly filled by competent men out of work. I will
bring work and the workers together. H. Fenn, care Brotherton Book &
Stationery Co., 1127 Market Street."
Or if it was not that item, perhaps it was this one from the South
Harvey _Derrick_ of January 7, that called forth the Peach Blow
Philosopher's remarks on Heaven:
"Mrs. Violet Hogan and family have rented the rooms adjoining Mrs. Van
Dorn's kindergarten. Mrs. Hogan has made arrangements to provide ladies
of South Harvey and the Valley in general with plain sewing by the
piece. A day nursery for children has been fitted up by our genial
George Brotherton, former mayor of Harvey, where mothers sewing may
leave their children in an adjoining room."
Now the Heaven of the Peach Blow Philosopher is not gained at one bound.
Even the painted, canvas Heaven of Thomas Van Dorn cost him
something--to be exact, $100, which he took in "stock" of the
_Times_ company--which always had stock for sale, issued by a Price
& Chanler Gordon job press whenever it was required. And the
negotiations for the Judge's painted Heaven made by his partner, Mr.
Joseph Calvin, of the renewed and reunited firm of Van Dorn & Calvin,
were not without their painful moments. As, for instance, when the
editor of the _Times_ complained bitterly at having it agreed that
he would have to mention in the article the Judge's "beautiful wife,"
specifically and in terms, the editor was for raising the price to $150,
by reason of the laughing stock it would make of the paper, but
compromised upon the promise of legal notices from the firm amounting to
$100 within the following six months. Also there was a hitch in the
negotiations hereinbefore mentioned when the _Times_ was required
to refer to the National Bar Association meeting at all. For it was
notorious that the Judge's flourishing signature with "and wife" had
been photographed upon the register of a New York Hotel when he attended
that meeting, whereas every one knew that Mrs. Van Dorn was in Europe
that summer, and the photograph of the Judge's beautifully flourishing
signature aforesaid was one of the things that persuaded the Judge to
enter the active practice and leave the shades and solitudes of the
bench for more strenuous affairs. To allude to the Judge's wife, and to
mention the National Bar Association in the same article, struck the
editor of the _Times_ as so inauspicious that it required
considerable persuasion on the part of the diplomatic Mr. Calvin, to
arrange the matter.
So the Judge's Heaven bellied on its canvas, full of vain east wind, and
fooled no one--not even the Judge, least of all his beautiful wife, who,
knowing of the Bar Association incident, laughed a ribald laugh.
Moreover, having abandoned mental healing for the Episcopalian faith and
having killed her mental healing dog with caramels and finding surcease
in a white poodle, she gave herself over to a riot of earth
thoughts--together with language thereunto appertaining of so plain a
texture that the Judge all but limped in his strut for several hours.
But when the strut did come back, and the mocking echoes of the strident
tones of "his beautiful wife" were stilled by several rounds of Scotch
whisky at the Club, the Judge went forth into the town, waving his hands
right and left, bowing punctiliously to women, and spending an hour in
police court getting out of trouble some of his gambler friends who had
supported him in politics.
He told every one that it was good to be off the bench and to be "plain
Tom Van Dorn" again, and he shook hands up and down Market Street. And
as "plain Tom Van Dorn" he sat down in the shop of the Paris Millinery
Company, Mrs. Herdicker, Prop., and talked to the amiable Prop. for half
an hour--casting sly glances at the handsome Miss Morton, who got behind
him and made faces over his back for Mrs. Herdicker's edification.
But as Mrs. Herdicker, Prop., made it a point--and kept it--never to
talk against the cash drawer, "plain Tom Van Dorn" didn't learn the
truth from her. So he pranced up and down before his scenic
representation of Heaven in the _Times_, and did not know that the
whole town knew that his stage Heaven was the masque for as hot and cozy
a little hell as any respectable gentleman of middle years could endure.
However clear he made it to the public, that he and Mrs. Van Dorn were
passionately fond of each other; however evident he intended it to be
that he was more than satisfied with the bargain that he had made when
he took her, and put away his first wife; however strongly he played the
card of the gallant husband and "dearied" her, and however she smirked
at him and "dawlinged" him in public when the town was looking, every
one knew the truth.
"We may," says the Peach Blow Philosopher in one of his dissertations on
the Illusion of Time, "counterfeit everything in this world--but
sincerity." So Judge Thomas Van Dorn--"plain Tom Van Dorn," went along
Market Street, and through the world, handing out his leaden gratuities.
But people felt how greasy they were, how heavy they were, how soft they
were; and threw them aside, and sneered.
As for the Heaven which the Peach Blow Philosopher may have found for
Henry Fenn and Violet Hogan, it was a different affair, but of slow and
uncertain growth. Henry Fenn went into the sewer gang the day after he
found Violet in the railroad yards, and for two weeks he worked ten
hours a day with the negroes and Mexicans in the ditch. It took him a
month to get enough money ahead to pay for a room. Leaving the sewer
gang, he was made timekeeper on a small paving contract. But every day
he sent through the mails to Violet enough to pay her rent and feed the
children--a little sum, but all he could spare. He did not see her. He
did not write to her. He only knew that the money he was making was
keeping her out of the night, so he bent to his work with a will.
And at night,--it was not easy for Violet to stay in the house. She
needed a thousand little things--or thought she did. And there was the
old track and the easy money. But she knew what the pittance that came
from Henry Fenn meant to him, so in pride and in shame one night she
turned back home when she had slipped clear to the corner of the street
with her paint on. When she got home she threw herself upon the bed and
wept like a child in anguish. But the next night she did not even touch
the rouge pot, and avoided it as though it were a poison. Her idea was
the sewing room. She wrote it all out, in her stylish, angular hand to
Mr. Brotherton, told him what it would cost, and how she believed she
could make expenses for herself and help a number of other women who,
like her, were tempted to go the wrong road. She even sent him five
spoons--the last relic of the old Mauling decency, five silver spoons
dented with the tooth marks of the Mauling children, five spoons done up
in pink tissue that she had always told little Ouida Hogan should come
to her some day--she sent those spoons to Mr. Brotherton to sell to make
the start toward the sewing room.
But Mr. Brotherton took the spoons to Mr. Ira Dooley's home of the fine
arts and crafts, and then and there, mounting a lookout stand, addressed
the crowd through the smoke in simple but effective language, showing
the spoons, telling the boys at the gaming tables that they all knew
Denny Hogan's wife and how about her; that she wanted to get in right;
that the spoons were sent to him to sell to the highest and best bidder
for cash in hand. He also said that chips would count at the market
price, and lo! he got a hat full of rattly red and white and blue chips
and jingly silver dollars and a wad of whispering five-dollar bills big
enough to cork a cannon. He went back to Harvey, spoons and all,
considering deeply certain statements that Grant Adams had made about
the presence of the holy ghost in every human heart.
As for the bright particular Heaven of Mr. Fenn, as hereinbefore
possibly hinted at by the Peach Blow Philosopher, these are its
specifications:
_Item One._ Job as storekeeper at the railroad roundhouse, from
which by specific order of the master mechanic two hours a day are
granted to Mr. Fenn, to take his hat in his hand and go marching over
the town, knocking at doors and soliciting sewing for women, and
wood-sawing or yard or furnace work for men; but
_Item Two._ Being a generous man, Mr. Fenn is up before eight for
an hour of his work, and stays at it until seven, and thereby gets in
two or three extra hours on the job, and feels
_Item Three._ That he is doing something worth while;
_Item Four._ Upon the first of the month he has nothing;
_Item Five._ Balancing his books at the last of the month he has
nothing,
_Item Six._ And having no debt he is happy. But speaking of debt,
there is
_Item Seven._ In Mr. Fenn's room a collection of receipts:
(a) One from the Midland Railroad Company for brass as per statement
rendered.
(b) One from the Harvey Transfer Co. for one box of cutlery marked
Wright & Perry, and
(c) One--the hardest receipt of all to get--from Martha Morton for six
chickens as per account rendered. These receipts hang on a spindle in
the little room. Under the spindle is
_Item Eight._ A bottle of whisky--full but uncorked. He is in his
room but little. Sometimes he comes in late at night, and does not light
the lamp to avoid seeing the bottle, but plunges into bed, and covers up
his head in fear and trembling. On the day when the Peach Blow
Philosopher printed his view on Heaven, Mr. Fenn, by way of personal
adornment, had purchased of Wright & Perry
_Item Nine._ One new coat. He hoped and so indicated to the firm,
to be able to afford a vest in the spring and perhaps trousers by
summer, and because of the cutlery transaction above mentioned, the firm
indicated
_Item Ten._ That Mr. Fenn's credit was good for the whole suit. But
Mr. Fenn waved a proud hand and said he had
_Item Eleven._ No desire to become involved in the devious ways of
high finance, and took only the coat.
But, nevertheless, no small part of his Heaven lies in the serene
knowledge that the whole suit is waiting for him, carefully put aside by
the head of the house until Mr. Fenn cares to call for it. That is
perhaps a material Heaven but it is a part of Mr. Fenn's Heaven, and as
he goes about from door to door soliciting for sewing, the knowledge
that if he should cease or falter four women might be on the street the
next night, keeps him happy, and not even when he was county attorney or
in the real estate business nor writing insurance, nor disporting
himself as an auctioneer was Mr. Fenn ever in his own mind a person of
so much use and consequence. So his Heaven needs no east wind to belly
it out. Mr. Fenn's Heaven is full and fat and prosperous--even on two
meals a day and in a three-dollar-a-month room.
And now that we may balance up the Heaven account in these books, we
should come to some conclusion as to what Heaven is. Let us call it, for
the sake of our hypothesis, the most work one can do for the least
self-interest, and let it go at that and get on with the story. For this
story has to do with large and real affairs. It must not dally here with
the sordid affairs of a lady who certainly was no better than she should
be and of a gentleman who was as the hereinbefore mentioned receipts
will show, much worse than he might have been.