BLIND

He was, in a manner of speaking, useless. He could tend the furnace and

help around the house--scour the bath-tub and clean windows--but for a

powerful man these were trivial chores. The trouble with him, as I soon

discovered, was complete and simple. He was blind.

I was sorry for him. It was bad enough to be blind, but it was terrible

to be blind and at the mercy of his sister-in-law, Mrs. Angier. Mrs.

Angier ran the rooming-house. She was a grenadier of a woman, very tall

and very bony, with a virile voice and no touch of femininity except

false curls. She wore rusty black, with long skirts, and a tasseled

shawl. Her smile was as forced as her curls. She hated her rooming-house

and every one in it. Her one desire, insane but relentless, was to save

enough money out of her establishment to escape from it. To that end she

plugged the gaps in the bathroom, doled out the towels, scrimped on the

furnace, scrooged on the attendance. And her chief sacrifice on the

altar of her economy was Samuel Earp, her brother-in-law. Since he was

blind and useless, he was dependent on her. When she called, he

literally ran to her, crying, "Coming, coming!" He might be out on the

window-sill, risking his poor neck to polish the windows that he would

never see, but, "Do I hear my sister calling me? Might I--would you be

so good--ah, you are very kind. Coming, Adelaide, just one moment...."

and he would paddle down stairs. She treated him like dirt. Sometimes

one would arrive during an interview between them. The spare,

gimlet-eyed Mrs. Angier would somehow manage to compel Samuel to cringe

in every limb. He was a burly man with a thick beard, iron-gray, and his

sightless eyes were hidden behind solemn and imposing steel-rimmed

spectacles. Usually, with head lifted and with his voice booming

heartily, he was a cheerful, honest figure. I liked Samuel Earp, though

he was a most platitudinous Englishman. But when Mrs. Angier

tongue-lashed him, for some stupidity like spilling a water-bucket or

leaving a duster on the stairs or forgetting to empty a waste-basket, he

became infantile, tearful, and limp. Her lecturing always changed to a

sugared greeting as one was recognized. "Good e-e-evening, isn't it a

pleasant e-e-evening?" But the only value in speaking to Mrs. Angier was

that it permitted Samuel somehow to shamble away to the limbo of the

basement.

Of course I wanted to know how, he became blind. Luckily, as Mrs. Angier

had prosperous relatives in another part of Chicago, she sometimes could

be counted on to be absent, and on those occasions or when she went to

church, Samuel haunted my room. He was unhappy unless he was at work,

and he managed to keep tinkering at something, but I really believe he

liked to chatter to me: and he was more than anxious to tell me how his

tragedy had befallen him.

"Oh, dear, yes," he said to me, "it happened during the strike. They hit

me on the head, and left me unconscious. And I have never seen since,

not one thing."

"Who hit you, Samuel?"

"Who hit me? The blackguards who were out on strike, sir. They nearly

killed me with a piece of lead pipe. Oh, dear, yes."

It seemed an unspeakable outrage to me, but in Samuel there was nothing

but a kind of healthy indignation. He was not bitter. He never raised

his voice above its easy reminiscent pitch.

"But what did you do to them? Why did the strikers attack you? What

strike was it?"

"I did nothing at all to them. But, you see, my horse slipped and when I

was helpless on the ground with my hip smashed, one of them knocked me

out. It was right up on the sidewalk. I had gone after them up on the

sidewalk, and I suppose the flags were so slippery that the horse came

down."

"But what were you doing on a horse?" I asked in despair.

"I was a volunteer policeman. These scoundrels were led by Debs, and we

were out to see that there was law and order in Chicago."

"Oh, the Pullman strike. Were you railroading then?"

"Railroading? No, sir, I was in the wholesale dry-goods business. We had

just started in in a small way. I was married only two years, to

Adelaide's younger sister. Ah, my accident brought on more trouble than

she could stand. She was very different from Adelaide, quite dainty and

lively, if you follow me. We were living at that time on Cottage Grove

Avenue, on the south side. I was building up the importing end of the

business, and then this thing came, and everything went to smash. They

gave me no compensation whatsoever, to make the thing worse."

"But, Samuel, how did you come to be out against the strikers?"

"And why shouldn't I be out, I'd like to know!" Samuel straightened up

from rubbing a chair, and pointed his rag at my voice. "These scoundrels

had nothing against Mr. Pullman. He treated them like a prince. But they

took the bit in their teeth, and once they break loose where are we? The

President didn't get shut of them till he sent in the troops. But I've

always contended that if we business men had taken the matter in hand

ourselves and nipped the trouble in the bud, we'd have had no such

lawlessness to deal with in the end. It is always the same. The business

men are the backbone of the community, but they don't recognize their

responsibility! Take the sword to those bullies and blackguards; that's

what I say!"

The old man lifted both fists like a dauntless Samson, and fixed me with

his sightless eyes. He had paid hellishly for living up to his

convictions, and here they seemed absolutely unshaken.

"That's all right, too, Samuel," I said, feebly enough, "but how do you

feel now? Nobody compensated you for being laid out in that big strike,

and your business was ruined, and here you are emptying the

waste-basket. How about that? I think it's fierce that you got injured,

but those men in the Pullman strike weren't out to break up society.

They were fighting for their rights, that's all. Don't you think so

now?"

"_No_, sir. The solid class of the community must be depended upon to

preserve law and order. I think that it was the duty of the business men

of Chicago to put down ruffianism in that strike and to smite whenever

it raised its head. Smite it hip and thigh, as the saying is. Oh, no.

Young men have fine notions about these things, ha, ha! You'll excuse

me, won't you, but you can't allow violence and disorder to run riot and

then talk of men's 'rights' as an excuse. Ah, but it was a great

misfortune for me, I confess. It was the end of all my hopes. The

doctors thought at first that the sight might be restored, but I have

never seen a glimmer of light since. But we mustn't repine, must we?

That'd never do."

"Samuel!" Mrs. Angier's sharp voice pierced the room.

"Good gracious, back so soon. You'll excuse me, I'm sure.... Coming,

Adelaide, coming!"

He groped for his bucket, with its seedy sponge all but submerged in the

dirty water. The water splashed a little as he hurriedly made for the

door.

"Oh, dear," he muttered, "Adelaide won't like that!"

"AND THE EARTH WAS DRY"

Like all great ideas it seemed perfectly simple when Harrod first

disclosed it to his unimportant partner John Prentiss.

"Of course we'll get back of it. We've got to," said Harrod, in the

sanctity of the directors' room. "You've been down to Hopeville on pay

day. It's the limit. Ordinary days there's practically no trouble. Pay

day's a madhouse. How many men, do you think, had to have the company

doctor last pay day?"

"You don't expect me to answer, Robert," Prentiss replied mildly.

"You're telling me, you're not arguing with me."

"Twenty-five, Prentiss, twenty-five drunken swine. What do you think

happened? I'll tell you. That doctor never stopped a minute taking

stitches, sewing on scalps, mending skulls. He was kept on the hop all

day and night all over the town. I'll tell you something more." The

sturdy Harrod rapped his fist on the mahogany table, leaning out of his

armchair. "The doctor's wife told me a Polack came to her shack at two

in the morning with half his thumb hanging off, bitten off in a drunken

brawl. What do you think she did, Prentiss? She amputated it herself, on

her own hook, just like a little soldier. She's got nerve, let me tell

you. But do you think we want to stand for any more of this? Not much.

Hopeville is going dry!"

Mr. Harrod produced a gold pen-knife and nicked a cigar emphatically. He

brushed the tiny wedge of tobacco from his plump trouser leg on to the

bronze carpet. He lit his cigar and got up to have a little strut.

Poor Prentiss looked at him as only a weedy Yankee can look at a man

whose cheeks are rosy with arrogant health. Why the stout Harrod who ate

and drank as he willed should be proclaiming prohibition, while the man

with a Balkan digestive apparatus should be a reluctant listener, no one

could have analyzed. It never would have occurred to Prentiss to be so

restlessly efficient. But Harrod was as simple as chanticleer. He'd made

up his mind.

"We'll back Billy Sunday. His advance agent will be in town this week,"

Mr. Harrod unfolded. "We'll put the whole industry behind him. Drink is

a constant source of inefficiency. It's an undeniable cause. When do we

have accidents? On Mondays, regularly. The men come back stupefied from

the rotgut they've been drinking, and it's simple luck if they don't set

fire to the mine. The Hopeville mine is perfectly safe. Except for that

one big disaster we had, it's one of the safest mines in the country.

But how can you call any mine safe if the fellows handling dynamite and

the men working the cage are just as likely as not to have a hangover?

We'll stop it. We'll make that town so dry that you can't find a beer

bottle in it. It took me some time to realize the common sense of this

situation, but it's as clear as daylight; it's ridiculously clear. We're

fools, Prentiss, that we didn't advocate prohibition twenty years ago."

"Twenty years ago, Robert," Prentiss murmured, "you were checking coal

at the pit-head. You weren't so damned worried about evolving policies

for the mine owners twenty years ago."

"Well, you know what I mean," Robert Harrod rejoined.

"Perfectly," retorted Prentiss. "And I'm with you, though all the

perfumes of Arabia won't cleanse these little hands."

That was the first gospel, so to speak, and Harrod was as good as his

word. He saw Sunday's advance agent, he rallied the industry, he lunched

with innumerable Christians and had a few painful but necessary

political conferences. The prohibitionist manager he discovered to be a

splendid fellow--direct, clean-cut, intelligent, indefatigable. The

whole great state was won to prohibition after a strenuous preparation

and a typically "bitter" campaign.

And everything went well at Hopeville. At first, not unnaturally, there

was a good deal of rebellion. A few of the miners--you know Irish

miners, born trouble-makers--talked considerably. Something in them took

kindly to the relief from monotony that came with a periodic explosion,

and they muttered blasphemously about the prohibitionists, and time hung

heavy on their hands. A few of them pulled out, preceded by the gaunt

Scotchman who had run the bare "hotel" where most of the whisky was

consumed. These were led by a sullen compatriot of their own, a man who

once was a fine miner but who had proved his own best customer in the

liquor business and whose contour suggested that his body was trying

desperately to blow a bulb. One miner left for a neighboring state

(still wet) to purchase a pair of boots. He crawled back on foot after a

week, minus the new boots, plus a pawn-ticket, and most horribly chewed

by an unintelligent watchdog who had misunderstood his desire to borrow

a night's lodging in the barn. The drinking haunts were desolate

reminders of bygone entertainments for weeks after the law took effect,

and few of the younger men could look forward to tame amusement,

amusement that had no elysium in it, without a twinge of disgust. But on

the whole, Hopeville went dry with surprising simplicity. A great many

of the miners were neither English, Scotch, Cornish, Welsh nor Irish,

but Austrians and Italians and Poles, and these were not so inured to

drinking and biting each other as Mr. Harrod might have thought. The mud

in Hopeville, it is true, was often from nine inches to four feet deep,

and there were no named streets, and no known amusements, and a very

slim possibility of distraction for the unmarried men. After

prohibition, however, a far from unpleasant club house was founded, with

lots of "dangerous" reading material, and a segregated place for

homemade music, and bright lights and a fire, and a place to write

letters, and a pungent odor of something like syndicalism in the air.

That was the beginning. The men did not detonate on pay day, except in

lively conversation. There was less diffused blasphemy. It concentrated

rather particularly on one or two eminent men. And when the virtues and

defects of these men were sufficiently canvassed, the "system" beyond

them was analyzed. Even the delight of the Hunkies in dirt, or the

meanness of certain bosses, began to be less engrossing than the exact

place in the terrestrial economy where Harrod and Prentiss got off.

"Well, Robert," inquired the man of migraine, back in the home office,

"how is your precious prohibition working? It seems to me the doctor's

wife is the sole beneficiary so far."

"Working?" the rubicund Harrod responded urgently. "I don't know what

we're going to do about it. You can't rely on the men for anything. A

few years ago, after all, they took their wages over to Mason and blew

it all in, or they soaked up enough rum in Hopeville to satisfy

themselves, and come back on the job. Now, what do they do? They quit

for two weeks when they want to. They quit for a month at a time. And

still they have a balance. You can't deal with such men. They're

infernally independent. They're impudent with prosperity. I never saw

anything like it. We can't stand it. I don't know what we're going to

do."

"You're going to back the liquor trade, Robert, of course. That's simple

enough."

"You may laugh, but it is too late, I tell you, the harm's done. We

can't remedy it. National prohibition is right on top of us. I don't

know what we'll do."

"Sell 'em Bevo. That'll keep them conservative. Ever drink it?"

"Bevo? Conservative? Prentiss, this is serious. These men are completely

out of hand."

"Well, aren't they more efficient?"

"Of course they're more efficient. They're too damnably efficient. They

wanted Hopeville drained and they're getting it drained. They'll insist

on having it paved next. They'll want hot and cold water. They'll want

bathtubs. That'll be the end."

"The end? Come, Robert, perhaps only the beginning of the end."

"It's very amusing to you, Prentiss, but you're in on this with me.

We've forced these working-men into prohibition, and now they're sober,

they're everlastingly sober. They're making demands and getting away

with it. We've got to go on or go under. Wake up, man. I've played my

cards. What can we do?"

"What can we do? That is not the point now. Now the point is, what'll

_they_ do."