DENOUNCED
_The snake lifts its head--My picture gets into the newspaper--The
Reverend Mr. Hardman in his church--The opinions of ministers--Mr.
Hardman points his finger at me--I reply--A scene--The real
blow--May has her say--Women, religion, and this earth_
It was the Saturday after my little adventure in Indiana. As I was
riding downtown in a street car, my eye was caught by a coarse cut in
the newspaper that the man opposite me was reading. The picture seemed
in a general way familiar. Underneath it ran these flaring head-lines:--
BRIBERY OF A JUDGE!
OFFICIAL IN PACKING CONCERN IMPLICATED!
EXCLUSIVE STORY IN THE _NATIONALIST_!
I bought a copy of the paper, and when I reached my office I read the
article. It was sprung, plainly enough, to hit Garretson, who was up for
reelection, and, in the main, they had a straight story,--Lokes, Frost,
the judge's brother-in-law, and all. And the right figures, too! The
reference to Slocum and me was vague, and Ed was left out altogether. My
picture was put in alongside of the judge's and labelled "Vice-President
and General Manager of the American Meat Products Company." The
inference was plain, and the paper wouldn't have dared to go so far, I
judged, if they hadn't their facts where they could produce them. There
was no word of the story in the other morning papers. I folded up the
article and put it away in my desk, then telegraphed Slocum, who had
gone to St. Louis on some railroad business for Farson and me.
Luckily, the _Nationalist_ was not a sheet that ever found its way into
my house, but that evening I looked apprehensively at Sarah. She was
pale and quiet,--she had been downtown all day shopping,--but she said
nothing to indicate that she was specially disturbed. The next day was
Sunday, and though Mr. Hardman's preaching was not much to my liking, I
drove over with Sarah to the little church on the North Side where he
held forth. There was a pretty large congregation that morning, mostly
women and poor people of the neighborhood, with a few North Side men
whom I knew in a business way.
The Reverend Mr. Hardman never preached a good sermon that he had
written out beforehand. He was one of those Episcopal preachers who come
out in front of the chancel rail, cross their hands, look down on the
floor, and meditate a few minutes to get their ideas in flow. Then they
raise their eyes in a truly soulful manner and begin. But to-day, for
some reason, Mr. Hardman didn't go through his trick. He marched out as
if he had something on his mind to get rid of quick, and shot out his
text:--
"_What shall it profit a man if he gain all and lose his own soul?_"
Then he began talking very distinctly, pausing every now and then after
he had delivered a sentence. He said that we had fallen on evil days;
that corruption was abroad in the land, polluting the springs of our
national life. And the law breakers came and went boldly in our midst,
the rich and powerful, the most envied and socially respected. Every one
knows the style of his remarks from that introduction. Most preachers
nowadays feel that they must say this sort of thing once or twice a
year, or their people won't believe they read the papers. So long as he
kept out in the open I had no objection to his volleys. I had heard it
all before, and in the main I agreed with him--only he saw but a little
way into the truth.
Suddenly his right arm, which had been hanging limp by his side, shot
out, and as we were sitting pretty well up front on the main aisle it
_seemed_ to point at us. Sarah gave a little start, and her cheeks
flushed red.
"And I say," the minister thundered, "that when such men come into our
churches, when they have the effrontery to mingle with God-fearing
people, and, unrepentant of their crimes, desecrate this sanctuary, yea,
partake of the Holy Body, I say it is worse for them than if they were
mere common thieves and robbers! I tell you, my people, that here in our
very midst one of them comes--a man who has defied the laws of man and
God, the most sacred; who has corrupted the source of justice; who has
bought that which the law denied him! This man has used...."
I had been getting angry, and was looking the minister in the eye pretty
fiercely. At that moment Sarah gave a little groan. She was very white.
"Come!" I whispered to her, getting up. "Come. It's time you got out of
this."
At first she shook her head, but as I refused to sit down she rose to
follow me. I had stepped to the aisle and turned to give Sarah my arm
when she fainted--just sank down with a groan in my arms.
"So this is the gospel you preach!" I called out to the minister, who
had paused and now stepped forward to help me raise Sarah. "Let her
alone! You have hit her hard enough already. Another time when you
undertake this kind of business, you had better know what you are
talking about."
He stepped back to his desk and kept silent, while I and one of the
ushers who had come forward to help me lifted Sarah and carried her to
the door. When we got to the end of the aisle Sarah opened her eyes and
stood up.
"I have had enough of _your_ gospel, my friend!" I called back. "I am
going where I shall hear religion and not newspaper scandal."
Sarah groaned and pulled gently at my arm. Once in the carriage, she
turned her face to the window and looked out as if she were still
shocked and sick. I tried to say something to comfort, but I could only
think of curses for that meddlesome Pharisee, who thought it was his
duty to judge his flock.
"Don't talk about it!" Sarah exclaimed, as if my words gave her pain.
So we rode home in silence all the way. At the end she turned to me:--
"Just say it isn't true, Van!"
I began to say a few words of explanation.
"No, just say it isn't true!" she interrupted. "I can't understand all
that you are saying. Just say that you haven't done anything wrong.
That's all I want."
"Some people would think it was wrong, Sarah," I had to say after a
while.
She gave a little groan and shut her lips tight. When we entered the
house May was there, with her children.
"Why, my land!" she exclaimed on seeing us. "What brings you people back
so soon? Sarah looks sick!"
Sarah was ready to faint again. May helped her up to her room, and I
went into my study. Pretty soon May came down to me.
"What's the matter with Sarah, Van?" she asked sharply. "She seems all
queer and out of her head."
Then I told her what had happened.
"Did you see the piece in the paper?" I asked at the end.
May shook her head. "But I shouldn't wonder if Sarah had seen it."
"Why do you think so?" I asked.
"Why, she seemed troubled about something yesterday when she came into
the house after she had been downtown shopping. She asked me whether I
generally believed the things I saw in the papers. I asked her what
kind of things, and she said,--'Scandals about people in business.' I
thought it was queer at the time."
"She won't talk to me about it," I said.
May didn't make any reply to this, and we sat there some time without
talking. Then May asked in a queer little voice:--
"Tell me, Van, is there anything in that story? Is it true in the least
way?"
"I'll tell you just how it was," I answered.
May was not the kind of person that could be put off with a general
answer, and I was glad to give her the inside story. So I told her the
circumstances of the case. "It was blackmail and robbery--the judge was
waiting to be bought. These rats stood between us and what we had a
perfect right to do. There's hardly a business man in this city who,
under the circumstances, would not have done what we did!"
"I don't believe that!" May exclaimed in her sharp, decisive little way.
She sat looking at me rather sternly with the same look on her face that
I had remembered for twenty years. And the next thing that she said was
pretty much what I thought she was going to say:--
"Van, you are always a great hand to think what you want to believe is
the only thing to believe! You know that!"
She smiled unconsciously, with the little ironical ripple which I knew
so well, and I smiled, too. I couldn't help myself. We both seemed to
have gone back to the old boy and girl days. But I was angry, as well,
and began to defend myself.
"No," she interrupted. "It isn't a mite of use for you to bluster and
get angry, Van. I don't trust you! I haven't for some time. I have been
worried for Will. Don't you let him mix himself up in your ways of doing
things, Van Harrington!"
"If he is so terribly precious," I said hotly, "I guess you had better
take him back to Jasonville."
"Maybe I shall," she answered quietly. "I'd take him to the meanest
little place in creation rather than know he had done any such thing as
you say you have done!"
We were both pretty angry by this time, and yet we both smiled. She was
such a snappy, strong little woman--I admired her all the time she was
making me angry! Somehow it brought back all that time long ago when I
had thought the world began and ended with her. We had never been so
near each other since. And I think she felt somewhat in the same way.
"Well," I said at last, "I am not going to fight this thing out with
you, May, or with any other woman. I have too much else on hand. I am
answerable for all I do or have done. If you and Will don't like my
company, why, we have got to do without you."
I wished I hadn't been so small as to make that fling. She flashed a
look at me out of her eyes that brought me to my senses in a moment. I
took her by the shoulders. "See here, May, we mustn't quarrel. Let's
all hang together in this, as in other things. You women don't know what
business means."
She smiled back into my eyes and retorted, "It seems to be just as well
we don't!" In a moment more she added: "But you mustn't think that I can
make up like this. You and I don't look at things in the same way."
"Never did!" I said dryly. "At any rate, you had better go up now and
look after Sarah. She can't keep on this way. She's got to look at this
more sensibly. She isn't like you, May!"
"No," May retorted, "she isn't! But this hurts her, too. Perhaps she
cares more what folks _say_ than I do. And she believes in her religion,
Van."
"That's all right. Her religion tells her to forgive, and not to judge,
and a few other sensible truths, which that minister seemed to forget
to-day."
"I never expected to see you, Van Harrington, asking for quarter in that
way!" she flashed.
Then she went back to Sarah. What my sister-in-law said set me to
thinking queer thoughts. I admired the way she took the matter, though
it made me pretty angry at the time. It seemed straight and courageous,
like her. If we had married, down there at home in the years past, there
would have been some pretty lively times between us. I could never have
got her to look at things my way, and I don't see how I could have come
to see things her way. For in spite of all the preacher and May had to
say, my feeling was unchanged: women and clergy, they were both alike,
made for some other kind of earth than this. I was made for just this
earth, good and bad as it is,--and I must go my way to my end.