JUDGE VAN DORN SINGS SOME MERRY SONGS AND THEY TAKE GRANT ADAMS BEHIND A
WHITE DOOR
After arguments of counsel, after citation of cases, after the applause
of Market Street at some incidental _obiter dicta_ of Judge Van
Dorn's about the rights of property, after the court had put on its
tortoise-shell rimmed glasses, which the court had brought home from its
recent trip to Chicago to witness the renomination of President Taft,
after the court, peering through its brown-framed spectacles, was
fumbling over its typewritten opinion from the typewriter of the offices
of Calvin & Calvin, written during the afternoon by the court's legal
_alter ego_, after the court had cleared its throat to proceed with
the reading of the answer to the petition in habeas corpus of Grant
Adams, the court, through its owlish glasses, saw the eyes of the
petitioner Adams fixed, as the court believed, malignantly on the court.
"Adams," barked the court, "stand up!" With his black slouch hat in his
hand, the petitioner Adams rose. It was a hot night and he wiped his
brow with a red handkerchief twisted about his steel claw.
"Adams," began the court, laying down the typewritten manuscript, "I
suppose you think you are a martyr."
The court paused. Grant Adams made no reply. The court insisted:
"Well, speak up. Aren't you a martyr?"
"No," meeting the eye of the court, "I want to get out and get to work
too keenly to be a martyr."
"To get to work," sneered the court. "You mean to keep others from going
to work. Now, Adams, isn't it true that you are trying to steal the
property of this district from its legal owners by riot and set yourself
up as the head of your Democracy of Labor, to fatten on the folly of the
working men?" The court did not pause for a reply, but continued: "Now,
Adams, there is no merit to the contentions of your counsel in this
hearing, but, even if there was mere technical weight to his arguments,
the moral issues involved, the vast importance of this ease to the
general welfare of this Republic, would compel this court to take
judicial notice of the logic of its decision in your favor. For it would
release anarchy, backed by legal authority, and strike down the arm of
the State in protecting property and suppressing crime."
The court paused, and, taking its heavy spectacles in its fingers,
twirled them before asking: "Adams, do you think you are a God? What is
this rot you're talking about the Prince of Peace? What do you mean by
saying nothing can hurt you? If you know nothing can hurt you, why do
you let your attorney plead the baby act and declare that, if you are
not released to-night, a mob will wait on you? If you are a God, why
don't you help yourself--quell the mob, overcome the devil?"
The crowd laughed and the court perfunctorily rapped for order. The
laugh was frankincense and myrrh to the court. So the court clearly
showed its appreciation of its own fine sarcasm as it rapped for order
and continued insolently: "See here, Adams, if you aren't crazy, what
are you trying to do? What do you expect to get out of all this glib
talk about the power of spiritual forces and the peaceful revolution and
the power greater than bullets and your fanatical ranting about the Holy
Ghost in the dupes you are inciting to murder? Come now, maybe you are
crazy? Maybe if you'd talk and not stand there like a loon--"
Again the crowd roared and again the court suppressed its chuckle and
again order was restored. "Maybe if you'd not stand there grouching,
you'd prove to the court that you are crazy, and on the grounds of
insanity the court might grant your prayer. Come, now, Adams, speak up;
go the whole length. Give us your creed!"
"Well," began Adams, "since you want--"
"Don't you know how to address a court?" The court bellowed.
"To say 'Your honor' would be a formality which even your friends would
laugh at," replied Grant quietly. The crowd hissed; the court turned
purple. Grant Adams stood rigid, with white face and quivering muscles.
His jaws knotted and his fist clenched. Yet when he spoke he held his
voice down. In it was no evidence of his tension. Facing for the first
few moments of his speech the little group of his friends--Dr. Nesbit,
George Brotherton, Captain Morton, Nathan Perry and Amos Adams--who sat
at the lawyers' table with Henry Fenn, Grant Adams plunged abruptly into
his creed: "I believe that in every human adult consciousness there is a
spark of altruism, a divine fire, which marks the fatherhood of God and
proves the brotherhood of man. Environment fans that spark or stifles
it. Its growth is evidenced in human institutions, in scales and grades
of civilization. Christ was a glowing flame of this fire." The court
gave a knowing wink to Ahab Wright, who grinned at the court's keen
sense of humor. Adams saw the wink, but proceeded: "That is what He
means when He says: 'I am the resurrection and the life,' for only as
men and nations, races and civilization by their institutions fan that
spark to fire, will they live, will they conquer the forces of death
ever within them."
Thus far Grant Adams had been speaking slowly, addressing himself more
to his friends and the court stenographer than the crowd. Now he faced
the crowd defiantly as he let his voice rise and cried: "This is no
material world. Humanity is God trying to express Himself in terms of
justice--with the sad handicap of time and space ever holding the
Eternal Spirit in check. We are all Gods."
Again Market Street, which worshiped the god material, hissed. Grant
turned to the men in the benches a mad, ecstatic face and throwing his
crippled arm high above his head, cried aloud:
"O men of Harvey, men with whom I have lived and labored, I would give
my life if you could understand me; if you could know in your hearts how
passionately I yearn to get into your souls the knowledge that only as
you give you will have, only as you love these men of the mines and
mills, only as you are brothers to these ginks and wops and guinnies,
will prosperity come to Harvey. 'I am the resurrection and the life'
should ring through your souls; for when brotherhood, expressed in law
and customs, gives these men their rightful share in the products of
their labor, our resurrected society will begin to live." He stopped
dead still for a moment, gazing, almost glaring, into the eyes of the
crowd. Ahab Wright dropped his gaze. But John Kollander, who heard
nothing, glared angrily back. Then leaning forward and throwing out his
claw as if to grapple them, Grant Adams, let out his great voice in a
cry that startled Market Street into a shudder as he spoke. "Come, come,
come with us and live, oh, men of Market Street, you who are dead and
damned! Come with us and live. 'I am the way and the life.'" He checked
his rising voice, then said: "Come, let us go forward together, for only
then will God, striving for justice in humanity, restore your dead and
atrophied souls. Have faith that as you give you will have; as you love,
will you live." His manner changed again. The court was growing
restless. Grant's voice was low pitched, but it showed a heavy tension
of emotion. He stretched his hand as one pleading: "Oh, come with us.
Come with us--your brothers. We are one body, why should we have
different aims? We are ten thousand here, you are many more. Perhaps we
are only dreaming a mad dream, but if you come with us we shall all
awake from our dream into a glorious reality."
Market Street laughed. John Kollander bawled: "He's an anarchist--a
socialist!" Grant looked at the deaf old man in his blue coat and brass
buttons adorned with many little flags, to advertise his patriotism.
Taking a cue from John Kollander, Grant cried: "I am moving with the
current of Heavenly love, I am a part of that love that is washing into
this planet from the infinite source of life beyond our ken. I am moved,
I know not how. I am inspired to act, I know not whence. I go I know not
where--only I have faith, faith that fears nothing, faith that tells me
that insomuch as I act in love, I am a part of the Great Purpose moving
the universe, immortal, all powerful, vital, the incarnation of
Happiness! I am trying--trying--ah, God, how I am trying, to bring into
the world all the love that my soul will carry. I am--"
"That's enough," snapped the court; and turning to Joseph Calvin, Judge
Van Dorn said: "That man's crazy. This court has no jurisdiction over
the insane. His family can bring a proceeding in habeas corpus before
the probate court of the county on the ground of the prisoner's
insanity. But I have no right to take judicial notice of his insanity."
The Judge folded up his opinion, twirled his heavy glasses a moment,
blinked wisely and said: "Gentlemen, this is no case for me. This is a
crazy man. I wash my hands of the whole business!"
He rose, put away his glasses deliberately, and was stepping from his
dais, when up rose big George Brotherton and cried:
"Say, Tom Van Dorn--if you want this man murdered, say so. If you want
him saved, say so. Don't polly-fox around here, dodging the issue. You
know the truth of the matter as well as--"
The court smiled tolerantly at the impetuous fellow, who was clearly in
contempt of court. The crowd waited breathlessly.
"Well, George," said the suave Judge with condescension in his tone as
he strutted into the group of lawyers and reporters about him, "if you
know so much about this case, what is the truth?" The crowd roared its
approval. "But hire a hall, George--don't bother me with it. It's out of
my jurisdiction."
So saying, he elbowed his way out of the room into his office and soon
was in his automobile, driving toward the Country Club. He had agreed to
be out of reach by telephone during the evening and that part of the
agreement he decided to keep.
After the Judge left the room Market Street rose and filed out, leaving
Grant standing among the little group of his friends. The sheriff stood
near by, chatting with the jailer and as Brotherton came up to bid Grant
good-night, Brotherton felt a piece of paper slip into his hands, when
he shook hands with Grant. "Don't let it leave your pocket until you see
me again," said Grant in a monotone, that no one noticed.
The group--Dr. Nesbit, Nathan Perry, George Brotherton and Captain
Morton--stood dazed and discouraged about Grant. No one knew exactly
what note to strike--whether of anger or of warning or of cheer. It was
Captain Morton who broke the silence.
"'Y gory, man--free speech is all right, and I'm going to stay with you,
boy, and fight it out; but, Grant, things do look mighty shaky here, and
I wonder if it's worth it--for that class of people, eh?"
From the Captain, Nathan Perry took his cue. "I should say, Grant, that
they'll make trouble to-night. Shouldn't we call out the boys from the
Valley, and--"
Grant cut in:
"Men, I know what you fear," he said. "You are afraid they will kill me.
Why, they can't kill me! All that I am that is worth living is immortal.
What difference does it make about this body?" His face was still
lighted with the glow it wore while he was addressing the court. "Ten
thousand people in the Valley have my faith. And now I know that even
this strike is not important. The coming Democracy of Labor is a
spiritual caste. And it has been planted in millions of minds. It can
never die. It too is immortal. What have guns and ropes and steel bars
to do with a vision like this?" He threw back his head, his blue eyes
blazed and he all but chanted his defiance of material things: "What can
they do to me, to my faith, to us, to these Valley people, to the
millions in the world who see what we see, who know what we know and
strive for what we cherish? Don't talk to me about death--there is no
death for God's truth. As for this miserable body here--" He gazed at
his friends for a moment, shook his head sadly and walked to the jailer.
For an hour after the sheriff took Grant to his cell as the town went
home and presumably to bed, George Brotherton with Henry Fenn and Nathan
Perry, rolled his car around the court house square in the still, hot
June night. The Doctor stood by his electric runabout, for half an hour
or more. Then, the Doctor feeling that a false alarm had been spread,
whirred up the hill. The younger men stayed on Market Street. They left
it long after midnight, deserted and still.
As the watching party broke up, a telephone message from the offices of
Calvin & Calvin winged its way to Sands Park, and from the shades there
came silently a great company of automobiles with hooded lights. One
separated from the others and shot down into the Valley of the Wahoo.
The others went into Market Street.
At three o'clock the work there was done. The office of the Harvey
_Tribune_ was wrecked, and in one automobile rode Amos Adams, a
prisoner, while before him, surrounded by a squad of policemen, rode
Grant Adams, bound and gagged.
Around the policemen the mob gathered, and at the city limits the
policemen abandoned Grant and Amos. Their instructions were to take the
two men out of town. The policemen knew the mob. It was not Market
Street. It was the thing that Market Street had made with its greed. The
ignorance of the town, the scum of the town--men, white and black, whom
Market Street, in thoughtless greed the world over, had robbed as
children of their birthright; men whose chief joy was in cruelty and who
lusted for horror. The mob was the earth-bound demon of Market Street.
Only John Kollander in his brass buttons and blue soldier clothes and
stuttering Kyle Perry and one or two others of the town's respectability
were with the mob that took Grant Adams and his father after the
policemen released the father and son at the city limits. The
respectables directed; the scum and the scruff of the town followed,
yelping not unlike a pack of hungry dogs.
John Kollander led the way to the country club grounds. There was a wide
stretch of rolling land, quiet, remote from passing intruders, safe; and
there great elm trees cast their protecting shade, even in the
starlight, over such deeds as men might wish to do in darkness.
It was nearly four o'clock and the clouds, banked high in the west, were
flaming with heat lightning.
On the wide veranda of the country club alone, with a siphon and a
fancy, square, black bottle, sat Judge Thomas Van Dorn. He was in his
shirt sleeves. His wilted collar, grimy and bedraggled, lay on the floor
beside him. He was laughing at something not visible to the waiter, who
sat drowsing in the door of the dining room, waiting for the Judge
either to go to sleep or to leave the club in his car. The Judge had
been singing to himself and laughing quietly at his own ribaldry for
nearly an hour. The heat had smothered the poker game in the basement
and except for the Judge and the waiter the club house was deserted. The
Judge hit the table with the black bottle and babbled:
"Dog bit a rye straw,
Dog bit a riddle-O!
Dog bit a little boy
Playing on a fiddle-O!"
Then he laughed and said to the sleepy waiter: "Didn't know I could
sing, did you, Gustave!"
The waiter grinned. The Judge did not hear a footstep behind him. The
waiter looked up and saw Kyle Perry.
"Oh, I know a maid
And she's not afraid
To face--
"Why, hello Kyle, you old stuttering scoundrel--have one on me--cleanses
the teeth--sweetens the breath and makes hair grow on your belly!"
He laughed and when Kyle broke in:
"S-s-say, T-T-Tom, the f-f-fellows are all over in the g-g-golf
l-l-links."
"The hell they are, Kyle," laughed the Judge. "Tell 'em to come over and
have a cold one on me--Gustave, you go--"
"B-b-but they d-don't want a drink. The p-p-poker b-b-bunch said you
were here and th-th-they s-s-sent m-m-me to--"
"S-s-s-sure they d-d-did, Kyle," interrupted Van Dorn. "They sent you to
read the Declaration of Independence to-morrow and wanted you to begin
now and get a g-g-good st-st-start!" He broke into song:
"Oh, there was an old man from Dundee
Who got on a hell of a spree,
Oh, he wound up the clock,
With--
"Say, Kyle," the Judge looked up foolishly, "you didn't know that I was
a cantatrice." He laughed and repeated the last word slowly three times
and then giggled.
"Still sober. I tell Mrs. Van Dorn that when I can say cantatrice or
specification," he repeated that word slowly, "I'm fit to hold court."
"Oh, the keyhole in the door--
The keyhole in the door--"
he bellowed.
"Now, l-l-listen, T-T-Tom," insisted Perry. "I t-t-tell you the bunch
has g-g-got Grant Adams and the old man out there in the g-g-golf
l-links and they heard you were h-h-here and they s-s-sent me to tell
you they were g-g-going to g-g-give him all the d-d-degrees and they
w-w-want to t-t-tie a s-s-sign on him when they t-t-turn him loose and
h-h-head him for Om-m-ma-h-ha--"
"B-b-better h-h-h-head him for h-h-hell," mocked the Judge.
"Well, they've g-got an iron b-b-band they've b-b-bound on h-h-him and
they've got a b-b-board and some t-t-tar and they w-w-want a m-motto."
The Judge reached for his fountain pen in his white vest and when the
waiter had brought a sheet of paper, he scribbled while he sang
sleepily:
"Oh, there was a man and he could do,
He could do--he could do;
"Here," he pushed the paper to Perry, who saw the words:
"Get on to the Prince of Peace,
Big Boss of the Democracy of Labor."
"That's k-k-kind of t-t-tame, don't y-y-you think?" said Kyle.
"That's all right, Kyle--anyway, what I've written goes:
"Oh, there was an old woman in Guiana."
He sang and waved Kyle proudly away. And in another hour the waiter had
put him to bed.
* * * * *
It was nearly dawn when George Brotherton had told his story to Laura.
They sat in the little, close, varnish-smelling room to which he called
her.
She had come through rain from Harvey. As she came into the dreary,
shabby, little room in South Harvey, with its artificial palms and
artificial wreaths--cheap, commercial habiliments of ostentatious
mourning, Laura Van Dorn thought how cruel it was that he should be
there, in a public place at the end, with only the heavy hands of paid
attendants to do the last earthly services for him--whose whole life was
a symbol of love.
But her heart was stricken, deeply, poignantly stricken by the great
peace she found behind the white door. Yet thus the dust touches our
souls' profoundest depths--always with her memory of that great peace,
comes the memory of the odor of varnish and carbolic acid and the drawn,
spent face of George Brotherton, as he stood before her when she closed
the door. He gazed at her piteously, a wreck of a man, storm-battered
and haggard. His big hands were shaking with a palsy of terrible grief.
His moon face was inanimate, and vagrant emotions from his heart flicked
across his features in quivers of anguish. His thin hair was tousled and
his clothes were soiled and disheveled.
"I thought you ought to know, Laura--at once," he said, after she had
closed the white door behind her and sat numb and dumb before him. "Nate
and Henry and I got there about four o'clock. Well, there they were--by
the big elm tree--on the golf course. His father was there and he told
me coming back that when they wanted Grant to do anything--they would
string up Amos--poor old Amos! They made Grant stoop over and kiss the
flag, while they kicked him; and they made him pull that machine gun
around the lake. The fools brought it up from the camp in South Harvey."
Brotherton's face quivered, but his tears were gone. He continued: "They
strung poor old Amos up four times, Laura--four times, he says."
Brotherton looked wearily into the street. "Well, as we came down the
hill in our car, we could see Grant. He was nearly naked--about as he is
now. We came tearing down the hill, our siren screaming and Nate and me
yelling and waving our guns. At the first scream of our siren, there was
an awful roar and a flash. Some one," Brotherton paused and turned his
haggard eyes toward Laura--"it was deaf John Kollander, he turned the
lever and fired that machine gun. Oh, Laura, God, it was awful. I saw
Grant wilt down. I saw--"
The man broke into tears, but bit his lips and continued: "Oh, they ran
like snakes then--like snakes--like snakes, and we came crashing down to
the tree and in a moment the last machine had piked--but I know 'em,
every man-jack!" he cried. "There was the old man, tied hand and foot,
three yards from the tree, and there, half leaning, half sitting by the
tree, the boy, the big, red-headed, broken and crippled boy--was panting
his life out." Brotherton caught her inquiring eyes. "It was all gone,
Laura," he said softly, "all gone. He was the boy, the shy, gentle boy
that we used to know--and always have loved. All this other that the
years have brought was wiped from his eyes. They were so tender and--"
He could go no further. She nodded her understanding. He finally
continued: "The first thing he said to me was, 'It's all right, George.'
He was tied, they had pulled the claw off and his poor stumped arm was
showing and he was bleeding--oh, Laura."
Brotherton fumbled in his pocket and handed an envelope to her.
"'George,' he panted, as I tried to make him comfortable--'have Nate
look after father.' And when Nate had gone he whispered between gasps,
'that letter there in the court room--' He had to stop a moment, then he
whispered again, 'is for her, for Laura.' He tried to smile, but the
blood kept bubbling up. We lifted him into an easier position, but
nothing helped much. He realized that and when we quit he said:
"'Now then, George, promise me this--they're not to blame. John
Kollander isn't to blame. It was funny; Kyle Perry saw him as I did, and
Kyle--' he almost laughed, Laura.
"'Kyle,' he repeated, 'tried to yell at old John, but got so excited
stuttering, he couldn't! I'm sure the fellows didn't intend--' he was
getting weak; 'this,' he said.
"'Promise me and make--others; you won't tell. I know father--he won't.
They're not--it's--society. Just that,' he said. 'This was society!' He
had to stop. I felt his hand squeeze. 'I'm--so--happy,' he said one word
at a time, gripping my hand tighter and tighter till it ached."
Brotherton put out his great hand, and looked at it impersonally, as one
introducing a stranger for witness. Then Brotherton lifted his eyes to
Laura's and took up his story:
"'That's hers,' he said; 'the letter,' and then 'my messages--happy.'"
The woman pressed her letter to her lips and looked at the white door.
She rose and, holding her letter to her bosom, closed her eyes and stood
with a hand on the knob. She dropped her hand and turned from the white
door. The dawn was graying in the ugly street. But on the clouds the
glow of sunrise blushed in promise. She walked slowly toward the street.
She gazed for a moment at the glorious sky of dawn.
When her eyes met her friend's, she cried:
"Give me your hand--that hand!"
She seized it, gazed hungrily at it a second, then kissed it
passionately. She looked back at the white door, and shook with sobs as
she cried:
"Oh, you don't think he's there--there in the night--behind the door? We
know--oh, we do know he's out here--out here in the dawn."