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[Illustration: "THEN IT'S ALL LIES! LIES AND MURDER!"]
THE CLARION
BY
SAMUEL HOPKINS ADAMS
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY W.D. STEVENS
_Published October 1914_
TO THE MEMORY OF MY FATHER MYRON ADAMS WHO LIVED AND DIED A SOLDIER OF
IDEALS THIS BOOK IS REVERENTLY INSCRIBED
CONTENTS
I. THE ITINERANT
II. OUR LEADING CITIZEN
III. ESMÉ
IV. THE SHOP
V. THE SCION
VI. LAUNCHED
VII. THE OWNER
VIII. A PARTNERSHIP
IX. GLIMMERINGS
X. IN THE WAY OF TRADE
XI. THE INITIATE
XII. THE THIN EDGE
XIII. NEW BLOOD
XIV. THE ROOKERIES
XV. JUGGERNAUT
XVI. THE STRATEGIST
XVII. REPRISALS
XVIII. MILLY
XIX. DONNYBROOK
XX. THE LESSER TEMPTING
XXI. THE POWER OF PRINT
XXII. PATRIOTS
XXIII. CREEPING FLAME
XXIV. A FAILURE IN TACTICS
XXV. STERN LOGIC
XXVI. THE PARTING
XXVII. THE GREATER TEMPTING
XXVIII. "WHOSE BREAD I EAT"
XXIX. CERTINA CHARLEY
XXX. ILLUMINATION
XXXI. THE VOICE OF THE PROPHET
XXXII. THE WARNING
XXXIII. THE GOOD FIGHT
XXXIV. VOX POPULI
XXXV. TEMPERED METAL
XXXVI. THE VICTORY
XXXVII. MCGUIRE ELLIS WAKES UP
XXXVIII. THE CONVERT
ILLUSTRATIONS
"THEN IT'S ALL LIES! LIES AND MURDER!"
HELP AND CURE ARE AT THEIR BECK AND CALL
"KILL IT," SHE URGED SOFTLY
"DON'T GO NEAR HIM. DON'T LOOK"
THE CLARION
CHAPTER I
THE ITINERANT
Between two flames the man stood, overlooking the crowd. A soft breeze,
playing about the torches, sent shadows billowing across the massed folk
on the ground. Shrewdly set with an eye to theatrical effect, these
phares of a night threw out from the darkness the square bulk of the
man's figure, and, reflecting garishly upward from the naked hemlock of
the platform, accentuated, as in bronze, the bosses of the face, and
gleamed deeply in the dark, bold eyes. Half of Marysville buzzed and
chattered in the park-space below, together with many representatives of
the farming country near by, for the event had been advertised with
skilled appeal: cf. the "Canoga County Palladium," April 15, 1897, page
4.
The occupant of the platform, having paused, after a self-introductory
trumpeting of professional claims, was slowly and with an eye to
oratorical effect moistening lips and throat from a goblet at his elbow.
Now, ready to resume, he raised a slow hand in an indescribable gesture
of mingled command and benevolence. The clamor subsided to a murmur,
over which his voice flowed and spread like oil subduing vexed waters.
"Pain. Pain. Pain. The primal curse, the dominant tragedy of life. Who
among you, dear friends, but has felt it? You men, slowly torn upon the
rack of rheumatism; you women, with the hidden agony gnawing at your
breast" (his roving regard was swift, like a hawk, to mark down the
sudden, involuntary quiver of a faded slattern under one of the
torches); "all you who have known burning nights and pallid mornings, I
offer you r-r-r-release!"
On the final word his face lighted up as from an inner fire of
inspiration, and he flung his arms wide in an embracing benediction. The
crowd, heavy-eyed, sodden, wondering, bent to him as the torch-fires
bent to the breath of summer. With the subtle sense of the man who
wrings his livelihood from human emotions, he felt the moment of his
mastery approaching. Was it fully come yet? Were his fish securely in
the net? Betwixt hovering hands he studied his audience.
His eyes stopped with a sense of being checked by the steady regard of
one who stood directly in front of him only a few feet away; a
solid-built, crisply outlined man of forty, carrying himself with a
practical erectness, upon whose face there was a rather disturbing
half-smile. The stranger's hand was clasped in that of a little girl,
wide-eyed, elfin, and lovely.
"Release," repeated the man of the torches. "Blessed release from your
torments. Peace out of pain."
The voice was of wonderful quality, rich and unctuous, the labials
dropping, honeyed, from the lips. It wooed the crowd, lured it, enmeshed
it. But the magician had, a little, lost confidence in the power of his
spell. His mind dwelt uneasily upon his well-garbed auditor. What was he
doing there, with his keen face and worldly, confident carriage, amidst
those clodhoppers? Was there peril in his presence? Your predatory
creature hunts ever with fear in his heart.
"Guardy," the voice of the elfin child rang silvery in the silence, as
she pressed close to her companion. "Guardy, is he preaching?"
"Yes, my dear little child." The orator saw his opportunity and swooped
upon it, with a flash of dazzling teeth from under his pliant lips.
"This sweet little girl asks if I am preaching. I thank her for the
word. Preaching, indeed! Preaching a blessed gospel, for this world of
pain and suffering; a gospel of hope and happiness and joy. I offer you,
here, now, this moment of blessed opportunity, the priceless boon of
health. It is within reach of the humblest and poorest as well as the
millionaire. The blessing falls on all like the gentle rain from
heaven."
His hands, outstretched, quivering as if to shed the promised balm,
slowly descended below the level of the platform railing. Behind the
tricolored cheesecloth which screened him from the waist down something
stirred. The hands ascended again into the light. In each was a bottle.
The speaker's words came now sharp, decisive, compelling.
"Here it is! Look at it, my friends. The wonder of the scientific world,
the never-failing panacea, the despair of the doctors. All diseases
yield to it. It revivifies the blood, reconstructs the nerves, drives
out the poisons which corrupt the human frame. It banishes pain,
sickness, weakness, and cheats death of his prey. Oh, grave, where is
thy victory? Oh, death, where is thy power? Overcome by my marvelous
discovery! Harmless as water! Sweet on the tongue as honey! Potent as a
miracle! By the grace of Heaven, which has bestowed this secret upon me,
I have saved five thousand men, women, and children from sure doom, in
the last three years, through my swift and infallible remedy, Professor
Certain's Vitalizing Mixture; as witness my undenied affidavit, sworn to
before Almighty God and a notary public and published in every newspaper
in the State."
Wonder and hope exhaled in a sigh from the assemblage. People began to
stir, to shift from one foot to another, to glance about them nervously.
Professor Certain had them. It needed but the first thrust of hand into
pocket to set the avalanche of coin rolling toward the platform. From
near the speaker a voice piped thinly:--
"Will it ease my cough?"
The orator bent over, and his voice was like a benign hand upon the brow
of suffering.
"Ease it? You'll never know you had a cough after one bottle."
"We-ell, gimme--"
"Just a moment, my friend." The Professor was not yet ready. "Put your
dollar back. There's enough to go around. Oh, Uncle Cal! Step up here,
please."
An old negro, very pompous and upright, made his way to the steps and
mounted.
"You all know old Uncle Cal Parks, my friends. You've seen him hobbling
and hunching around for years, all twisted up with rheumatics. He came
to me yesterday, begging for relief, and we began treatment with the
Vitalizing Mixture right off. Look at him now. Show them what you can
do, uncle."
Wild-eyed, the old fellow gazed about at the people. "Glory!
Hallelujah!" Emotional explosives left over from the previous year's
revival burst from his lips. He broke into a stiff, but prankish
double-shuffle.
"I'd like to try some o' that on my old mare," remarked a
facetious-minded rustic, below, and a titter followed.
"Good for man or beast," retorted the Professor with smiling amiability.
"You've seen what the Vitalizing Mixture has done for this poor old
colored man. It will do as much or more for any of you. And the price is
Only One Dollar!" The voice double-capitalized the words. "Don't, for
the sake of one hundred little cents, put off the day of cure. Don't
waste your chance. Don't let a miserable little dollar stand between you
and death. Come, now. Who's first?"
The victim of the "cough" was first, closely followed by the mare-owning
wit. Then the whole mass seemed to be pressing forward, at once. Like
those of a conjurer, the deft hands of the Professor pushed in and out
of the light, snatching from below the bottles handed up to him, and
taking in the clinking silver and fluttering greenbacks. And still they
came, that line of grotesques, hobbling, limping, sprawling their way to
the golden promise. Never did Pied Piper flute to creatures more
bemused. Only once was there pause, when the dispenser of balm held
aloft between thumb and finger a cart-wheel dollar.
"Phony!" he said curtly, and flipped it far into the darkness. "Don't
any more of you try it on," he warned, as the thwarted profferer of the
counterfeit sidled away, and there was, in his tone, a dominant
ferocity.
Presently the line of purchasers thinned out. The Vitalizing Mixture had
exhausted its market. But only part of the crowd had contributed to the
levy. Mainly it was the men, whom the "spiel" had lured. Now for the
women. The voice, the organ of a genuine artist, took on a new cadence,
limpid and tender.
"And now, we come to the sufferings of those who bear pain with the
fortitude of the angels. Our women-folk! How many here are hiding that
dreadful malady, cancer? Hiding it, when help and cure are at their beck
and call. Lady," he bent swiftly to the slattern under the torch and his
accents were a healing effluence, "with my soothing, balmy oils, you can
cure yourself in three weeks, or your money back."
"I do' know haow you knew," faltered the woman. "I ain't told no one
yet. Kinder hoped it wa'n't thet, after all."
He brooded over her compassionately. "You've suffered needlessly. Soon
it would have been too late. The Vitalizing Mixture will keep up your
strength, while the soothing, balmy oils drive out the poison, and heal
up the sore. Three and a half for the two. Thank you. And is there some
suffering friend who you can lead to the light?"
The woman hesitated. She moved out to the edge of the crowd, and spoke
earnestly to a younger woman, whose comely face was scarred with the
chiseling of sleeplessness.
"Joe, he wouldn't let me," protested the younger woman. "He'd say 't was
a waste."
"But ye'll be cured," cried the other in exaltation. "Think of it. Ye'll
sleep again o' nights."
The woman's hand went to her breast, with a piteous gesture. "Oh, my
God! D'yeh think it could be true?" she cried.
"Accourse it's true! Didn't yeh hear whut he sayed? Would he dast swear
to it if it wasn't true?"
Tremulously the younger woman moved forward, clutching her shawl about
her.
"Could yeh sell me half a bottle to try it, sir?" she asked.
The vender shook his head. "Impossible, my dear madam. Contrary to my
fixed professional rule. But, I'll tell you what I will do. If, in three
days you're not better, you can have your money back."
She began painfully to count out her coins. Reaching impatiently for his
price, the Professor found himself looking straight into the eyes of the
well-dressed stranger.
"Are you going to take that woman's money?"
The question was low-toned but quite clear. An uneasy twitching beset
the corners of the professional brow. For just the fraction of a second,
the outstretched hand was stayed. Then:--
"That's what I am. And all the others I can get. Can I sell _you_ a
bottle?"
Behind the suavity there was the impudence of the man who is a little
alarmed, and a little angry because of the alarm.
"Why, yes," said the other coolly. "Some day I might like to know what's
in the stuff."
"Hand up your cash then. And here you are--Doctor. It _is_ 'Doctor,'
ain't it?"
"You've guessed it," returned the stranger.
[Illustration: HELP AND CURE ARE AT THEIR BECK AND CALL.]
At once the platform peddler became the opportunist orator again.
"A fellow practitioner, in my audience, ladies and gentlemen; and doing
me the honor of purchasing my cure. Sir," the splendid voice rose and
soared as he addressed his newest client, "you follow the noblest of
callings. My friends, I would rather heal a people's ills than determine
their destinies."
Giving them a moment to absorb that noble sentiment, he passed on to his
next source of revenue: Dyspepsia. He enlarged and expatiated upon its
symptoms until his subjects could fairly feel the grilling at the pit of
their collective stomach. One by one they came forward, the yellow-eyed,
the pasty-faced feeders on fried breakfasts, snatchers of hasty
noon-meals, sleepers on gorged stomachs. About them he wove the glamour
of his words, the arch-seducer, until the dollars fidgeted in their
pockets.
"Just one dollar the bottle, and pain is banished. Eat? You can eat a
cord of hickory for breakfast, knots and all, and digest it in an hour.
The Vitalizing Mixture does it."
Assorted ills came next. In earlier spring it would have been pneumonia
and coughs. Now it was the ailments that we have always with us:
backache, headache, indigestion and always the magnificent promise. So
he picked up the final harvest, gleaning his field.
"Now,"--the rotund voice sunk into the confidential, sympathetic
register, yet with a tone of saddened rebuke,--"there are topics that
the lips shrink from when ladies are present. But I have a word for you
young men. Young blood! Ah, young blood, and the fire of life! For that
we pay a penalty. Yet we must not overpay the debt. To such as wish my
private advice--_private_, I say, and sacredly confidential--" He broke
off and leaned out over the railing. "Thousands have lived to bless the
name of Professor Certain, and his friendship, at such a crisis;
thousands, my friends. To such, I shall be available for consultation
from nine to twelve to-morrow, at the Moscow Hotel. Remember the time
and place. Men only. Nine to twelve. And all under the inviolable seal
of my profession."
Some quality of unexpressed insistence in the stranger--or was it the
speaker's own uneasiness of spirit?--brought back the roving, brilliant
eyes to the square face below.
"A little blackmail on the side, eh?"
The words were spoken low, but with a peculiar, abrupt crispness. This,
then, was direct challenge. Professor Certain tautened. Should he accept
it, or was it safer to ignore this pestilent disturber? Craft and anger
thrust opposing counsels upon him. But determination of the issue came
from outside.
"Lemme through."
From the outskirts of the crowd a rawboned giant forced his way inward.
He was gaunt and unkempt as a weed in winter.
"Here's trouble," remarked a man at the front. "Allus comes with a
Hardscrabbler."
"What's a Hardscrabbler?" queried the well-dressed man.
"Feller from the Hardscrabble Settlement over on Corsica Lake. Tough
lot, they are. Make their own laws, when they want any; run their place
to suit themselves. Ain't much they ain't up to. Hoss-stealin',
barn-burnin', boot-leggin', an' murder thrown in when--"
"Be you the doctor was to Corsica Village two years ago?" The newcomer's
high, droning voice cut short the explanation.
"I was there, my friend. Testimonials and letters from some of your
leading citizens attest the work--"
"You give my woman morpheean." There was a hideous edged intonation in
the word, like the whine of some plaintive and dangerous animal.
"My friend!" The Professor's hand went forth in repressive deprecation.
"We physicians give what seems to us best, in these cases."
"A reg'lar doctor from Burnham seen her," pursued the Hardscrabbler, in
the same thin wail, moving nearer, but not again raising his eyes to the
other's face. Instead, his gaze seemed fixed upon the man's shining
expanse of waistcoat. "He said you doped her with the morpheean you give
her."
"So your chickens come home to roost, Professor," said the stranger, in
a half-voice.
"Impossible," declared the Professor, addressing the Hardscrabbler. "You
misunderstood him."
"They took my woman away. They took her to the 'sylum."
Foreboding peril, the people nearest the uncouth visitor had drawn away.
Only the stranger held his ground; more than held it, indeed, for he
edged almost imperceptibly nearer. He had noticed a fleck of red on the
matted beard, where the lip had been bitten into. Also he saw that the
Professor, whose gaze had so timorously shifted from his, was intent,
recognizing danger; intent, and unafraid before the threat.
"She used to cry fer it, my woman. Cry fer the morpheean like a baby."
He sagged a step forward. "She don't haff to cry no more. She's dead."
Whence had the knife leapt, to gleam so viciously in his hand? Almost as
swiftly as it was drawn, the healer had snatched one of the heavy
torch-poles from its socket. Almost, not quite. The fury leapt and
struck; struck for that shining waistcoat, upon which his regard had
concentrated, with an upward lunge, the most surely deadly blow known to
the knife-fighter. Two other movements coincided, to the instant. From
the curtain of cheesecloth the slight form of a boy shot upward, with
brandished arms; and the square-built man reached the Hardscrabbler's
jaw with a powerful and accurate swing. There was a scream of pain, a
roar from the crowd, and an answering bellow from the quack in midair,
for he had launched his formidable bulk over the rail, to plunge, a
crushing weight, upon the would-be murderer, who lay stunned on the
grass. For a moment the avenger ground him, with knees and fists; then
was up and back on the platform. Already the city man had gained the
flooring, and was bending above the child. There was a sprinkle of blood
on the bright, rough boards.
"Oh, my God! Boy-ee! Has he killed you?"
"No: he isn't killed," said the stranger curtly. "Keep the people back.
Lift down that torch."
The Professor wavered on his legs, grasping at the rail for support.
"You _are_ a doctor?" he gasped.
"Yes."
"Can you save him? Any money--"
"Set the torch here."
"Oh, Boyee, Boyee!" The great, dark man had dropped to his knees, his
face a mask of agony.
"Oh, the devil!" said the physician disgustedly. "You're no help. Clear
a way there, some of you, so that I can get him to the hotel." Then, to
the other. "Keep quiet. There's no danger. Only a flesh wound, but he's
fainted."
Carefully he swung the small form to his shoulder, and forced a way
through the crowd, the little girl, who had followed him to the
platform, composedly trotting along in his wake, while the
Hardscrabbler, moaning from the pain of two broken ribs, was led away by
a constable. Some distance behind, the itinerant wallowed like a drunken
man, muttering brilliant bargain offers of good conduct to Almighty God,
if "Boyee" were saved to him.
Once in the little hotel room, the physician went about his business
with swift decisiveness, aided by the mite of a girl, who seemed to know
by instinct where to be and what to do in the way of handling towels,
wash-basin, and the other simple paraphernalia required. Professor
Certain was unceremoniously packed off to the drug store for bandages.
When he returned the patient had recovered consciousness.
"Where's Dad?" he asked eagerly. "Did he hurt Dad?"
"No, Boyee." The big man was at the bedside in two long, velvety-footed
steps. Struck by the extenuation of the final "y" in the term, the
physician for the first time noted a very faint foreign accent, the
merest echo of some alien tongue. "Are you in pain, Boyee?"
"Not very much. It doesn't matter. Why did he want to kill you?"
"Never mind that, now," interrupted the physician. "We'll get that
scratch bound up, and then, young man, you'll go to sleep."
Pallid as a ghost, the itinerant held the little hand during the process
of binding the wound. "Boyee" essayed to smile, at the end, and closed
his eyes.
"Now we can leave him," said the physician. "Poppet, curl up in that
chair and keep watch on our patient while this gentleman and I have a
little talk in the outer room."
With a brisk nod of obedience and comprehension, the elfin girl took her
place, while the two men went out.
"What do I owe you?" asked Professor Certain, as soon as the door had
closed.
"Nothing."
"Oh, that won't do."
"It will have to do."
"Courtesy of the profession? But--"
The other laughed grimly, cutting him short. "So you call yourself an
M.D., do you?"
"Call myself? I am. Regular degree from the Dayton Medical College." He
sleeked down his heavy hair with a complacent hand.
The physician snorted. "A diploma-mill. What did you pay for your M.D.?"
"One hundred dollars, and it's as good as your four-year P. and S.
course or any other, for my purposes," retorted the other, with
hardihood. "What's more, I'm a member of the American Academy of
Surgeons, with a special diploma from St. Luke's Hospital of Niles,
Michigan, and a certificate of fellowship in the National Medical
Scientific Fraternity. Pleased to meet a brother practitioner." The
sneer was as palpable as it was cynical.
"You've got all the fake trimmings, haven't you? Do those things pay?"
"Do they! Better than your game, I'll bet. Name your own fee, now, and
don't be afraid to make it strong."
"I'm not in regular practice. I'm a naval surgeon on leave. Give your
money to those poor devils you swindled to-night. I don't like the smell
of it."
"Oh, you can't rile me," returned the quack. "I don't blame you regulars
for getting sore when you see us fellows culling out coin from under
your very noses, that you can't touch."
"Cull it, and welcome. But don't try to pass it on to me."
"Well, I'd like to do something for you in return for what you did for
my son."
"Would you? Pay me in words, then, if you will and dare. What is your
Vitalizing Mixture?"
"That's my secret."
"Liquor? Eh?"
"Some."
"Morphine?"
"A little."
"And the rest syrup and coloring matter, I suppose. A fine vitalizer!"
"It gets the money," retorted the other.
"And your soothing, balmy oils for cancer? Arsenious acid, I suppose, to
eat it out?"
"What if it is? As well that as anything else--for cancer."
"Humph! I happened to see a patient you'd treated, two years ago, by
that mild method. It wasn't cancer at all; only a benign tumor. Your
soothing oils burned her breast off, like so much fire. She's dead now."
"Oh, we all make mistakes."
"But we don't all commit murder."
"Rub it in, if you like to. You can't make me mad. Just the same, if it
wasn't for what you've done for Boyee--"
"Well, what about 'Boyee'?" broke in his persecutor quite undisturbed.
"He seems a perfectly decent sort of human integer."
The bold eyes shifted and softened abruptly. "He's the big thing in my
life."
"Bringing him up to the trade, eh?"
"No, damn you!"
"Damn me, if you like. But don't damn him. He seems to be a bit too good
for this sort of thing."
"To tell you the truth," said the other gloomily, "I was going to quit
at the end of this year, anyway. But I guess this ends it now. Accidents
like this hurt business. I guess this closes my tour."
"Is the game playing out?"
"Not exactly! Do you know what I took out of this town last night? One
hundred and ten good dollars. And to-morrow's consultation is good for
fifty more. That 'spiel' of mine is the best high-pitch in the
business."
"High-pitch?"
"High-pitching," explained the quack, "is our term for the talk, the
patter. You can sell sugar pills to raise the dead with a good-enough
high-pitch. I've done it myself--pretty near. With a voice like mine,
it's a shame to drop it. But I'm getting tired. And Boyee ought to have
schooling. So, I'll settle down and try a regular proprietary trade with
the Mixture and some other stuff I've got. I guess I can make printer's
ink do the work. And there's millions in it if you once get a start.
More than you can say of regular practice. I tried that, too, before I
took up itinerating." He grinned. "A midge couldn't have lived on my
receipts. By the way," he added, becoming grave, "what was your game in
cutting in on my 'spiel'?"
"Just curiosity."
"You ain't a government agent or a medical society investigator?"
The physician pulled out a card and handed it over. It read, "Mark
Elliot, Surgeon, U.S.N."
"Don't lose any sleep over me," he advised, then went to open the outer
door, in response to a knock.
A spectacled young man appeared. "They told me Professor Certain was
here," he said.
"What is it?" asked the quack.
"About that stabbing. I'm the editor of the weekly 'Palladium.'"
"Glad to see you, Mr. Editor. Always glad to see the Press. Of course
you won't print anything about this affair?"
The visitor blinked. "You wouldn't hardly expect me to kill the story."
"Not? Does anybody else but me give you page ads.?"
"Well, of course, we try to favor our advertisers," said the spectacled
one nervously.
"That's business! I'll be coming around again next year, if this thing
is handled right, and I think my increased business might warrant a
double page, then."
"But the paper will have to carry something about it. Too many folks saw
it happen."
"Just say that a crazy man tried to interrupt the lecture of Professor
Andrew Leon Certain, the distinguished medical savant, and was locked up
by the authorities."
"But the knifing. How is the boy?"
"Somebody's been giving you the wrong tip. There wasn't any knife,"
replied the Professor with a wink. "You may send me two hundred and
fifty copies of the paper. And, by the way, do what you can to get that
poor lunatic off easy, and I'll square the bills--with commission."
"I'll see the Justice first thing in the morning," said the editor with
enthusiasm. "Much obliged, Professor Certain. And the article will be
all right. I'll show you a proof. It mightn't be a bad notion for you to
drop in at the jail with me, and see Neal, the man that stab--that
interrupted the meeting, before he gets talking with any one else."
"So it mightn't. But what about my leaving, now?" Professor Certain
asked of the physician.
"Go ahead. I'll keep watch."
Shortly after the itinerant had gone out with the exponent of free and
untrammeled journalism, the boy awoke and looked about with fevered
anxiety for his father. The little nurse was beside him at once.
"You mustn't wiggle around," she commanded. "Do you want a drink?"
Gratefully he drank the water which she held to his lips.
"Where's my Dad?" he asked.
"He's gone out. He'll come back pretty soon. Lie down."
He sank back, fixing his eyes upon her. "Will you stay with me till he
comes?"
She nodded. "Does it hurt you much?" Her cool and tiny fingers touched
his forehead, soothingly. "You're very hot. I think you've got a little
fever."
"Don't take your hand away." His eyes closed, but presently opened
again. "I think you're very pretty," he said shyly.
"Do you? I like to have people think I'm pretty. Uncle Guardy scolds me
for it. Not really, you know, but just pretending. He says I'm vain."
"Is that your uncle, the gentleman that fixed my arm?"
"Yes. I call him Uncle Guardy because he's my guardian, too."
"I like him. He looks good. But I like you better. I like you a lot."
"Everybody does," replied the girl with dimpling complacency. "They
can't help it. It's because I'm me!"
For a moment he brooded. "Am I going to die?" he asked quite suddenly.
"Die? Of course not."
"Would you be sorry if I did?"
"Yes. If you died you couldn't like me any more. And I want everybody to
like me and think me pretty."
"I'm glad I'm not. It would be tough on Dad."
"My Uncle Guardy thinks your father is a bad man," said the fairy, not
without a spice of malice.
Up rose the patient from his pillow. "Then I hate him. He's a liar. My
Dad is the best man in the world." A brighter hue than fever burnt in
his cheeks, and his hand went to his shoulder. "I won't have his
bandages on me," he cried.
But she had thrown herself upon his arm, and pushed him back. "Oh,
don't! Please don't," she besought. "Uncle Guardy told me to keep you
perfectly quiet. And I've made you sit up--"
"What's all this commotion?" demanded Dr. Elliot brusquely, from the
door.
"You said my father was a bad man," cried the outraged patient.
"Lie back, youngster." The physician's hand was gentle, but very firm.
"I don't recall saying any such thing. Where did you get it?"
"I said you _thought_ he was a bad man," declared the midget girl. "I
know you do. You wouldn't have spoken back to him down in the square if
you hadn't."
Her uncle turned upon her a slow, cool, silent regard. "Esmé, you talk
too much," he said finally. "I'm a little ashamed of you, as a nurse.
Take your place there by the bedside. And you, young man, shut your ears
and eyes and go to sleep."
Hardly had the door closed behind the autocrat of the sick-room, when
his patient turned softly.
"You're crying," he accused.
"I'm not!" The denial was the merest gasp. The long lashes quivered with
tears.
"Yes, you are. He was mean to you."
"He's _never_ mean to me." The words came in a sobbing rush. "But
he--he--stopped loving me just for that minute. And when anybody I love
stops loving me I want to die!"
The boy's brown hands crept timidly to her arm. "I like you awfully," he
said. "And I'll never stop, not even for a minute!"
"Won't you?" Again she was the child coquette. "But we're going away
to-night. Perhaps you won't see me any more."
"Oh, yes, I shall. I'll look for you until I find you."
"I'll hide," she teased.
"That won't matter, little girl." He repeated the form softly and
drowsily. "Little girl; little girl; I'd do anything in the world for
you, little girl, if ever you asked me. Only don't go away while I'm
asleep."
Back of them the door had opened quietly and Professor Certain, who,
with Dr. Elliot, had been a silent spectator of the little drama, now
closed it again, withdrawing, on the further side, with his companion.
"He'll sleep now," said the physician. "That's all he needs. Hello!
What's this?"
In a corner of the sofa was a tiny huddle, outlined vaguely as human,
under a faded shawl. Drawing aside the folds, the quack disclosed a wild
little face, framed in a mass of glowing red hair.
"That Hardscrabbler's young 'un," he said. "She was crying quietly to
herself, in the darkness outside the jail, poor little tyke. So I picked
her up, and" (with a sort of tender awkwardness) "she was glad to come
with me. Seemed to kind of take to me. Kiddies generally do."
"Do they? That's curious."
"I suppose you think so," replied the quack, without rancor.
"What are you going to do with her?"
"I'll see, later. At present I'm going to keep her here with us. She's
only seven, and her mother's dead. Are you staying here to-night?"
"Got to. Missed my connection."
"Then at least you'll let me pay your hotel bill, if you won't take my
money."
"Why, yes: I suppose so," said the other grudgingly. "I'll look at the
boy in the morning. But he'll be all right. Only, don't take up your
itinerating again for a few days."
"I'm through, I tell you. Give me a growing city to settle in and I'll
go in for the regular proprietary manufacturing game. Know anything
about Worthington?"
"Yes."
"Pretty good, live town?"
"First-class, and not too critical, I suppose, to accept your business,"
said Dr. Elliot dryly. "I'm on my way there now for a visit. Well, I
must get my little girl."
The itinerant opened the door, looked, and beckoned. The boy lay on his
pillow, the girl was curled in her chair, both fast asleep. Their hands
were lightly clasped.
Dr. Elliot lifted his ward and carried her away. The itinerant,
returning to the Hardscrabbler girl, took her out to arrange the night's
accommodation for her. So, there slept that night under one roof and at
the charge of Professor Andrew L. Certain, five human beings who, long
years after, were destined to meet and mingle their fates, intricate,
intimate strands in the pattern of human weal and woe.