John Wycliff’s den had become well known as a resort for workingmen,
and people in other walks of life were occasionally to be found in
consultation with him. Ford Hulbert, a real estate and insurance agent,
was an occasional caller.
“You knew Wells Boardman, who was recently killed in an accident on the
Papyrus Electric Street Railway?” asked Hulbert.
“Yes, very well; an old neighbor when we lived out in the country. His
daughter, Lena, was one of the best girls I ever met. Her laugh would
do one more good than medicine sometimes. A half hour with her was a
sure cure for the blues.”
“I don’t need to tell you much about her, then.”
“No, you do not. I have known her from the cradle up. A better girl or
woman was never raised on the hills. She was a rollicking, laughing,
singing sunbeam, and never a thought of wrong in it all. Many a heart
has been tangled in those brown curls of hers, though. It seems strange
to me now, as I look back, that I was not one of the victims; but,
then, we were too much like a sister and brother for that.”
There was a pause, broken by Mr. Hulbert.
“She made an early and unfortunate marriage, I believe?”
“Yes; she left the hills, and came down into this dull valley. She
brought the sparkle of the mountain brook, and the melody of the
bobolinks with her. Wherever she went there was a ripple of laughter,
a burst of sunshine, a peal of music. Such a girl could not be
without admirers. She had plenty of them. And then,--what did she do?
Deliberately picked out the worst one in the whole lot,--a drunken
libertine, a man with whom scarcely any other respectable woman would
be seen crossing the street.”
“Why did she do it?”
“I cannot tell. Some thought it was because he had more money than her
other admirers, but that may have been unjust to her. Whatever the
reason, she had plenty of reason to regret her decision when it was too
late.”
“And then?” queried Hulbert, as Wycliff remained silent for several
minutes, and showed no disposition to resume the conversation.
“Just what might have been expected. The scoundrel cared nothing for
her and was soon running after other women, just as though he had no
wife, to whom he had vowed fidelity. They had children,--two of them,
and she remained several years for her children’s sake. But it became
more than flesh and blood could endure. He was continually abusing her,
in the hope that she would leave him. When I was a boy I heard of a
man who turned his son out of doors, and then whipped him for leaving
home. Lena’s husband was just about as consistent as that. He treated
her so contemptibly, that if she had not left him, she must have gone
crazy. Then he said that his wife ‘could not have had much love for the
children, else she would not have left them;’--the lying wretch. I have
lived in places where he would have had a coat of tar and feathers.”
“And then?” pursued Mr. Hulbert, who seemed anxious to have Wycliff
continue.
“Well, not exactly what the villain had been planning for. He expected
to secure a divorce for desertion, and to marry another woman who had
attracted his wandering affections, but his wife secured the divorce,
and the care of the children.”
“And now,” said Hulbert, in a low tone of voice, “an honest man who
actually loves her, will find it very difficult to convince her of his
loyalty to her.”
Wycliff glanced up quickly.
“You are an admirer of Lena?”
“Yes, but we had a break. We had a falling-out the evening you left
Beauna Vista. We were watering our horses, sheltered from your sight
by the hemlock bushes. I made a remark about Mr. Sharp, in connection
with the church, which offended her.”
“Yes, she is very loyal to the church; but the church has hardly kept
its pledges to her in her trouble. I did not know that there were any
disinterested witnesses of my difference with Sharp, else I might have
proceeded differently.”
“But now I must do my errand,” resumed Hulbert. “I came to see you
because Miss Boardman could not come, and she wishes your advice.
Zechariah Baldwin, for the Papyrus Electric Street Railway Company,
has offered her three thousand dollars in settlement for her father’s
death.”
“The company acknowledges its liability, then?”
“Yes; the only question is as to the amount which shall be paid.”
“Isn’t Congressman Baldwin a stockholder in the company?”
“Yes; he is the heaviest stockholder.”
“Of course, you know that the State of Massachusetts, some years ago,
obeying the demands of the railroad corporations, which were killing
a great many people, made a law that not more than five thousand
dollars could be collected for a human life, lost through the fault of
a railroad corporation. It’s an infamous law, but it’s there, all the
same.”
“Miss Boardman wants your advice as to whether she shall accept the
three thousand dollars.”
“Has she called upon Congressman Baldwin?”
“No, and she will not do so. She has too much independence for that.
She will not go to him.”
“Tell Lena not to be in a hurry, to wait a few days, and I will see if
I can do anything for her.”
“All right; if you can help her any she will do the fair thing by you.
She ought to receive much more than they offer her. Good night.”
Wycliff sat alone some time after his visitor had gone, looking into
the fire, and thinking of many things. One of his long-cherished
idols had been gradually dethroned. He had been, before coming to
Papyrus, a great admirer of Congressman Baldwin. It was hard for him
to give up his political idol, but he had seen the workingmen of
Papyrus defrauded of their votes, and Congressman Baldwin a silent and
satisfied witness of the robbery. One word from Congressman Baldwin,
who was the political boss of the State, would have blotted from the
statute books of Massachusetts the damnable “Five-Thousand-Dollar
Law;” but Congressman Baldwin never spoke the word. Instead, his
puppets at Boston voted to retain the law, which shielded railroad and
street railway corporations from just punishment for deaths caused by
them, and robbed families of their victims. Wycliff himself, by David
Baldwin’s orders, had been blacklisted in all the Baldwin industries.
The spotless Deacon Surface had notified every concern controlled by
the Baldwins not to give employment to John Wycliff. This was more
than his idolatry would bear. A man will forgive many things, but ought
he to forgive the man who tries to take the bread away from his family?
John Wycliff looked up at the face of Congressman Baldwin, on the wall
opposite. He arose and took down the portrait.
“What on earth are you doing, John?” asked his wife, summoned from
another room by the noise of breaking glass and splintering wood.
Bare feet came pattering down the stairs from the chamber above.
“Say, pop; what’s up?”
“Robbie, what did the Israelites do every time they got a chance? What
did the Lord have to punish them for, very often?”
“Worshipping idols.”
“And once in a while, after being punished enough, what would they do?”
“Burn up their idols.”
“That’s right. That’s what I’ve been doing. Now I’ll kiss you both if
you’ll clear out, and leave me alone, to write.”
He then wrote a letter to an old friend and schoolmate, now an editor
in Charleston, South Carolina. From that letter the following is
extract taken:--
“You have frequently requested me to write something for your
paper, a request which I have been very slow to comply with. I do
not suppose you wish me to write your editorials, and the enclosed
article is only intended as a hint of the way in which I would use
the facts referred to.”
Within a week the whole country echoed with the first public attack
ever made upon Congressman Baldwin. The attack was made by a
Charleston, South Carolina, newspaper, and every political paper in the
country was immediately drawn into the combat, either as an assailant
or defender of the Congressman. Congressman Baldwin in a public
speech, had commented bitterly upon the cheapness of human life in the
South; and now every Southern newspaper, and many of their Northern
sympathizers, were revenged upon him. The following paragraphs from
the Charleston paper formed the key-note of their attack:--
“We have listened, and so has the rest of the country, while this
immaculate and infallible Baldwin upbraided us for the cheapness
of a human life in the South. What is the value of human life in
Congressman Baldwin’s own model town of Papyrus, in the model state
of Massachusetts? Congressman Baldwin’s trolley company takes the
life of a man earning fifteen hundred dollars a year, and in full
payment for that life, it offers the victim’s family three thousand
dollars. The Savings Banks offer the safest investment for widows
and orphans. Should they accept, they would receive from the savings
bank, at three and a half per cent.,--one hundred and five dollars a
year.
“To sum up the case: Congressman Baldwin’s railway takes a life worth
fifteen hundred dollars a year to the victim’s family, and offers
that family one hundred and five dollars a year in full settlement.
And yet Congressman Baldwin says that human life is cheap,--in the
South. Under Massachusetts law a railway company cannot be obliged to
pay more than five thousand dollars for taking a human life, while
under a just law, like that of New York, a railroad corporation has
been compelled to pay one hundred thousand dollars for a human life,
lost through its negligence. A jury awarded that sum against the New
York Central for a victim of the Park Avenue tunnel disaster of 1902.
“Congressman Baldwin is the political boss of his state, and
responsible for that law which says to all the world that
Massachusetts has no man whose life is worth more than five thousand
dollars. Yet South Carolina once had slaves whose masters would not
part with them for that sum. The explanation is simple. Baldwin has
millions in railroads.
“One more item and we are done. Baldwin and other Massachusetts
statesmen declaim loudly against negro disfranchisement in the South:
‘Consistency is a jewel.’ Baldwin’s own mill-hands cannot vote on
town-appropriations. Under the Massachusetts law they must stay in
the mills and add to the Baldwin millions, while he ‘runs the town.’
Southerners say the black man is not fit to run the State. Baldwin of
Massachusetts says his white mill-hands are not fit to run the Town.
And he has Massachusetts law with him. ‘People who live in glass
houses should not throw stones.’”
For weeks David Baldwin was the recipient of more unfriendly criticism
than any other public man in Washington. The humble cause of all this
trouble rolled his one gray eye, saying:--
“Blacklist me again for telling the truth, will you? Shut your eyes
again, while your workmen’s votes are stolen, Dave Baldwin!”
Long before the battle was over the Congressman became very weary of
it, and sent the following directions to his brother, Zechariah:--
“Pay Wells Boardman’s daughter twenty thousand dollars. Charge five
thousand dollars to Papyrus Electric Railway, and balance to me.”
The news of this generous payment was spread throughout the country,
and took the edge off the criticism of Baldwin.
“Is that you, Lena?” asked Mrs. Wycliff, one evening.
“I think it is,” was the answer. “Here’s a check for a thousand
dollars, for your husband. Tell him he has earned it. I have said all
along that John could make the Baldwins toe the mark. He is almost the
only one about here who is not afraid of them, and he is the only one
who hits them in the only place where they feel it,--in the newspapers.
They don’t care anything about right and wrong, God, man or the devil,
but they don’t like to have their injustice shown up in the newspapers,
or in the courts. They don’t fear God, or His Word, or the Judgment
Day, but they are afraid of newspapers and courts. I don’t care for the
twenty thousand dollars myself, but with the income from it I can give
my boys a good education. Tell John I hear that Zack Baldwin will give
a thousand dollars to get him out of town. This thousand is for him to
stay.”