thirty years of unflinching toil and honesty, he found himself with
a vast budget of experience in the ruinous loaning of money, with a
mortgage on the farm of a friend, and a mortgage on his own farm likely
to be foreclosed? Perhaps it might have been better to stay in Henry
County. He had paid for his farm at last. He had known a good moment,
too, that day he drove away from the lawyer's with the cancelled
mortgage in his pocket and Tim hopping up and down on the seat for
joy. But the next day Richards--just to give him the chance of a good
thing--had brought out that Maine man who wanted to buy him out. He was
anxious to put the money down for the new farm, to have no whip-lash of
debt forever whistling about his ears as he ploughed, ready to sting did
he stumble in the furrows; and Tim was more anxious than he; but--there
was Richards! Richards was a neighbor who thought as he did about Henry
George and Spiritualism, and belonged to the Farmers' Alliance, and
had lent Nelson all the works of Henry George that he (Richards) could
borrow. Richards was in deep trouble. He had lost his wife; he might
lose his farm. He appealed to Nelson, for the sake of old friendship,
to save him. And Nelson could not resist; so, two thousand of the
thirty-four hundred dollars that the Maine man paid went to Richards,
the latter swearing by all that is holy, to pay his friend off in full
at the end of the year. There was money coming to him from his dead
wife's estate, but it was tied up in the courts. Nelson would not listen
to Tim's prophecies of evil. But he was a little dashed when Richards
paid neither interest nor principal at the year's end, although he gave
reasons of weight; and he experienced veritable consternation when the
renewed mortgage ran its course and still Richards could not pay. The
money from his wife's estate had been used to improve his farm (Nelson
knew how rundown everything was), his new wife was sickly and “didn't
seem to take hold,” there had been a disastrous hail-storm--but
why rehearse the calamities? they focussed on one sentence: it was
impossible to pay.
Then Nelson, who had been restfully counting on the money from Richards
for his own debt, bestirred himself, only to find his patient creditor
gone and a woman in his stead who must have her money. He wrote
again--sorely against his will--begging Richards to raise the money
somehow. Richards's answer was in his pocket, for he wore the best black
broadcloth in which he had done honor to the lawyer, yesterday. Richards
plainly was wounded; but he explained in detail to Nelson how he
(Nelson) could borrow money of the banks on his farm and pay Miss Brown.
There was no bank where Richards could borrow money; and he begged
Nelson not to drive his wife and little children from their cherished
home. Nelson choked over the pathos when he read the letter to Tim; but
Tim only grunted a wish that HE had the handling of that feller. And the
lawyer was as little moved as Tim. Miss Brown needed the money, he said.
The banks were not disposed to lend just at present; money, it appeared,
was “tight;” so, in the end, Nelson drove home with the face of Failure
staring at him between his horses' ears.
There was only one way. Should he make Richards suffer or suffer
himself? Did a man have to grind other people or be ground himself?
Meanwhile they had reached the town. The stir of a festival was in the
air. On every side bunting streamed in the breeze or was draped across
brick or wood. Arches spanned some of the streets, with inscriptions of
welcome on them, and swarms of colored lanterns glittered against the
sunlight almost as gayly as they would show when they should be lighted
at night. Little children ran about waving flags. Grocery wagons and
butchers' wagons trotted by with a flash of flags dangling from the
horses' harness. The streets were filled with people in their holiday
clothes. Everybody smiled. The shopkeepers answered questions and went
out on the sidewalks to direct strangers. From one window hung a banner
inviting visitors to enter and get a list of hotels and boarding-houses.
The crowd was entirely good-humored and waited outside restaurants,
bandying jokes with true Western philosophy. At times the wagons made
a temporary blockade in the street, but no one grumbled. Bands of music
paraded past them, the escort for visitors of especial consideration.
In a window belonging, the sign above declared, to the Business Men's
Association, stood a huge doll clad in blue satin, on which was painted
a device of Neptune sailing down the Mississippi amid a storm of
fireworks. The doll stood in a boat arched about with lantern-decked
hoops, and while Nelson halted, unable to proceed, he could hear
the voluble explanation of the proud citizen who was interpreting to
strangers.
This, Nelson thought, was success. Here were the successful men. The man
who had failed looked at them. Eve roused him by a shrill cry, “There
they are. There's May and the girls. Let me out quick, Uncle!”
He stopped the horse and jumped out himself to help her. It was the
first time since she came under his roof that she had been away from it
all night. He cleared his throat for some advice on behavior. “Mind and
be respectful to Mrs. Arlington. Say yes, ma'am, and no, ma'am----” He
got no further, for Eve gave him a hasty kiss and the crowd brushed her
away.
“All she thinks of is wearing fine clothes and going with the fellers!”
said her brother, disdainfully. “If I had to be born a girl, I wouldn't
be born at all!”
“Maybe if you despise girls so, you'll be born a girl the next time,”
said Nelson. “Some folks thinks that's how it happens with us.”
“Do YOU, Uncle?” asked Tim, running his mind forebodingly over the
possible business results of such a belief. “S'posing he shouldn't be
willing to sell the pigs to be killed, 'cause they might be some friends
of his!” he reflected, with a rising tide of consternation. Nelson
smiled rather sadly. He said, in another tone: “Tim, I've thought so
many things, that now I've about given up thinking. All I can do is to
live along the best way I know how and help the world move the best I'm
able.”
“You bet _I_ ain't going to help the world move,” said the boy; “I'm
going to look out for myself!”
“Then my training of you has turned out pretty badly, if that's the way
you feel.”
A little shiver passed over the lad's sullen face; he flushed until he
lost his freckles in the red veil and burst out passionately: “Well, I
got eyes, ain't I? I ain't going to be bad, or drink, or steal, or do
things to git put in the penitentiary; but I ain't going to let folks
walk all over me like you do; no, sir!”
Nelson did not answer; in his heart he thought that he had failed with
the children, too; and he relapsed into that dismal study of the face of
Failure.
He had come to the city to show Tim the sights, and, therefore, though
like a man in a dream, he drove conscientiously about the gay streets,
pointing out whatever he thought might interest the boy, and generally
discovering that Tim had the new information by heart already. All
the while a question pounded itself, like the beat of the heart of an
engine, through the noise and the talk: “Shall I give up Richards or be
turned out myself?”
When the afternoon sunlight waned he put up the horse at a modest little
stable where farmers were allowed to bring their own provender. The
charges were of the smallest and the place neat and weather-tight,
but it had been a long time before Nelson could be induced to use it,
because there was a higher-priced stable kept by an ex-farmer and
member of the Farmers' Alliance. Only the fact that the keeper of the
low-priced stable was a poor orphan girl, struggling to earn an honest
livelihood, had moved him.
They had supper at a restaurant of Tim's discovery, small, specklessly
tidy, and as unexacting of the pocket as the stable. It was an excellent
supper. But Nelson had no appetite; in spite of an almost childish
capacity for being diverted, he could attend to nothing but the question
always in his ears: “Richards or me--which?”
Until it should be time for the spectacle they walked down the hill,
and watched the crowds gradually blacken every inch of the river-banks.
Already the swarms of lanterns were beginning to bloom out in the dusk.
Strains of music throbbed through the air, adding a poignant touch to
the excitement vibrating in all the faces and voices about them. Even
the stolid Tim felt the contagion. He walked with a jaunty step and
assaulted a tune himself. “I tell you, Uncle,” says Tim, “it's nice of
these folks to be getting up all this show, and giving it for nothing!”
“Do you think so?” says Nelson. “You don't love your book as I wish
you did; but I guess you remember about the ancient Romans, and how the
great, rich Romans used to spend enormous sums in games and shows that
they let the people in free to--well, what for? Was it to learn them
anything or to make them happy? Oh, no, it was to keep down the spirit
of liberty, Son, it was to make them content to be slaves! And so it
is here. These merchants and capitalists are only looking out for
themselves, trying to keep labor down and not let it know how oppressed
it is, trying to get people here from everywhere to show what a fine
city they have and get their money.”
“Well, 'TIS a fine town,” Tim burst in, “a boss town! And they ain't
gouging folks a little bit. None of the hotels or the restaurants
have put up their prices one cent. Look what a dandy supper we got for
twenty-five cents! And ain't the boy at Lumley's grocery given me two
tickets to set on the steamboat? There's nothing mean about this town!”
Nelson made no remark; but he thought, for the fiftieth time, that his
farm was too near the city. Tim was picking up all the city boys' false
pride as well as their slang. Unconscious Tim resumed his tune. He knew
that it was “Annie Rooney” if no one else did, and he mangled the notes
with appropriate exhilaration.
Now, the river was as busy as the land, lights swimming hither and
thither; steamboats with ropes of tiny stars bespangling their dark bulk
and a white electric glare in the bow, low boats with lights that sent
wavering spear-heads into the shadow beneath. The bridge was a blazing
barbed fence of fire, and beyond the bridge, at the point of the island,
lay a glittering multitude of lights, a fairy fleet with miniature sails
outlined in flame as if by jewels.
Nelson followed Tim. The crowds, the ceaseless clatter of tongues and
jar of wheels, depressed the man, who hardly knew which way to dodge
the multitudinous perils of the thoroughfare; but Tim used his elbows to
such good purpose that they were out of the levee, on the steamboat, and
settling themselves in two comfortable chairs in a coign of vantage on
deck, that commanded the best obtainable view of the pageant, before
Nelson had gathered his wits together enough to plan a path out of the
crush.
“I sized up this place from the shore,” Tim sighed complacently, drawing
a long breath of relief; “only jest two chairs, so we won't be crowded.”
Obediently, Nelson took his chair. His head sank on his thin chest.
Richards or himself, which should he sacrifice? So the weary old
question droned through his brain. He felt a tap on his shoulder. The
man who roused him was an acquaintance, and he stood smiling in the
attitude of a man about to ask a favor, while the expectant half-smile
of the lady on his arm hinted at the nature of the favor. Would Mr.
Forrest be so kind?--there seemed to be no more seats. Before Mr.
Forrest could be kind Tim had yielded his own chair and was off,
wriggling among the crowd in search of another place.
“Smart boy, that youngster of yours,” said the man; “he'll make his way
in the world, he can push. Well, Miss Alma, let me make you acquainted
with Mr. Forrest. I know you will be well entertained by him. So, if
you'll excuse me, I'll get back and help my wife wrestle with the kids.
They have been trying to see which will fall overboard first ever since
we came on deck!”
Under the leeway of this pleasantry he bowed and retired. Nelson turned
with determined politeness to the lady. He was sorry that she had come,
she looking to him a very fine lady indeed, with her black silk gown,
her shining black ornaments, and her bright black eyes. She was not
young, but handsome in Nelson's judgment, although of a haughty bearing.
“Maybe she is the principal of the High School,” thought he. “Martin has
her for a boarder, and he said she was very particular about her melons
being cold!”
But however formidable a personage, the lady must be entertained.
“I expect you are a resident of the city, ma'am?” said Nelson.
“Yes, I was born here.” She smiled, a smile that revealed a little break
in the curve of her cheek, not exactly a dimple, but like one.
“I don't know when I have seen such a fine appearing lady,” thought
Nelson. He responded: “Well, I wasn't born here; but I come when I was
a little shaver of ten and stayed till I was eighteen, when I went to
Kansas to help fight the border ruffians. I went to school here in the
Warren Street school-house.”
“So did I, as long as I went anywhere to school. I had to go to work
when I was twelve.”
Nelson's amazement took shape before his courtesy had a chance to
control it. “I didn't suppose you ever did any work in your life!” cried
he.
“I guess I haven't done much else. Father died when I was twelve and the
oldest of five, the next only eight--Polly, that came between Eb and me,
died--naturally I had to work. I was a nurse-girl by the day, first; and
I never shall forget how kind the woman was to me. She gave me so much
dinner I never needed to eat any breakfast, which was a help.”
“You poor little thing! I'm afraid you went hungry sometimes.”
Immediately he marvelled at his familiar speech, but she did not seem to
resent it.
“No, not so often,” she said, musingly; “but I used often and often
to wish I could carry some of the nice things home to mother and the
babies. After a while she would give me a cookey or a piece of bread
and butter for lunch; that I could take home. I don't suppose I'll often
have more pleasure than I used to have then, seeing little Eb waiting
for sister; and the baby and mother----” She stopped abruptly, to
continue, in an instant, with a kind of laugh; “I am never likely to
feel so important again as I did then, either. It was great to have
mother consulting me, as if I had been grown up. I felt like I had the
weight of the nation on my shoulders, I assure you.”
“And have you always worked since? You are not working out now?” with a
glance at her shining gown.
“Oh, no, not for a long time. I learned to be a cook. I was a good cook,
too, if I say it myself. I worked for the Lossings for four years. I am
not a bit ashamed of being a hired girl, for I was as good a one as
I knew how. It was Mrs. Lossing that first lent me books; and Harry
Lossing, who is head of the firm now, got Ebenezer into the works.
Ebenezer is shipping-clerk with a good salary and stock in the concern;
and Ralph is there, learning the trade. I went to the business-college
and learned book-keeping, and afterward I learned typewriting and
shorthand. I have been working for the firm for fourteen years. We
have educated the girls. Milly is married, and Kitty goes to the
boarding-school, here.”
“Then you haven't been married yourself?”
“What time did I have to think of being married? I had the family on my
mind, and looking after them.”
“That was more fortunate for your family than it was for my sex,”
said Nelson, gallantly. He accompanied the compliment by a glance of
admiration, extinguished in an eye-flash, for the white radiance that
had bathed the deck suddenly vanished.
“Now you will see a lovely sight,” said the woman, deigning no reply to
his tribute; “listen! That is the signal.”
The air was shaken with the boom of cannon. Once, twice, thrice.
Directly the boat-whistles took up the roar, making a hideous din. The
fleet had moved. Spouting rockets and Roman candles, which painted above
it a kaleidoscopic archway of fire, welcomed by answering javelins of
light and red and orange and blue and green flares from the shore; the
fleet bombarded the bridge, escorted Neptune in his car, manoeuvred and
massed and charged on the blazing city with a many-hued shower of flame.
After the boats, silently, softly, floated the battalions of lanterns,
so close to the water that they seemed flaming water-lilies, while the
dusky mirror repeated and inverted their splendor.
“They're shingles, you know,” explained Nelson's companion, “with
lanterns on them; but aren't they pretty?”
“Yes, they are! I wish you had not told me. It is like a fairy story!”
“Ain't it? But we aren't through; there's more to come. Beautiful
fireworks!”
The fireworks, however, were slow of coming. They could see the barge
from which they were to be sent; they could watch the movements of the
men in white oil-cloth who moved in a ghostly fashion about the barge;
they could hear the tap of hammers; but nothing came of it all.
They sat in the darkness, waiting; and there came to Nelson a strange
sensation of being alone and apart from all the breathing world with
this woman. He did not perceive that Tim had quietly returned with a box
which did very well for a seat, and was sitting with his knees against
the chair-rungs. He seemed to be somehow outside of all the tumult and
the spectacle. It was the vainglorying triumph of this world. He was the
soul outside, the soul that had missed its triumph. In his perplexity
and loneliness he felt an overwhelming longing for sympathy; neither did
it strike Nelson, who believed in all sorts of occult influences, that
his confidence in a stranger was unwarranted. He would have told you
that his “psychic instincts” never played him false, although really
they were traitors from their astral cradles to their astral graves.
He said in a hesitating way: “You must excuse me being kinder dull; I've
got some serious business on my mind and I can't help thinking of it.”
“Is that so? Well, I know how that is; I have often stayed awake nights
worrying about things. Lest I shouldn't suit and all that--especially
after mother took sick.”
“I s'pose you had to give up and nurse her then?”
“That was what Ebenezer and Ralph were for having me do; but mother--my
mother always had so much sense--mother says, 'No, Alma, you've got a
good place and a chance in life, you sha'n't give it up. We'll hire a
girl. I ain't never lonesome except evenings, and then you will be home.
I should jest want to die,' she says, 'if I thought I kept you in a kind
of prison like by my being sick--now, just when you are getting on
so well.' There never WAS a woman like my mother!” Her voice shook a
little, and Nelson asked gently:
“Ain't your mother living now?”
“No, she died last year.” She added, after a little silence, “I somehow
can't get used to being lonesome.”
“It IS hard,” said Nelson. “I lost my wife three years ago.”
“That's hard, too.”
“My goodness! I guess it is. And it's hardest when trouble comes on a
man and he can't go nowhere for advice.”
“Yes, that's so, too. But--have you any children?”
“Yes, ma'am; that is, they ain't my own children. Lizzie and I never had
any; but these two we took and they are most like my own. The girl is
eighteen and the boy rising of fourteen.”
“They must be a comfort to you; but they are considerable of a
responsibility, too.”
“Yes, ma'am,” he sighed softly to himself. “Sometimes I feel I haven't
done the right way by them, though I've tried. Not that they ain't
good children, for they are--no better anywhere. Tim, he will work from
morning till night, and never need to urge him; and he never gives me a
promise he don't keep it, no ma'am, never did since he was a little
mite of a lad. And he is a kind boy, too, always good to the beasts; and
while he may speak up a little short to his sister, he saves her many a
step. He doesn't take to his studies quite as I would like to have him,
but he has a wonderful head for business. There is splendid stuff in Tim
if it could only be worked right.”
While Nelson spoke, Tim was hunching his shoulders forward in the
darkness, listening with the whole of two sharp ears. His face worked in
spite of him, and he gave an inarticulate snort.
“Well,” the woman said, “I think that speaks well for Tim. Why should
you be worried about him?”
“I am afraid he is getting to love money and worldly success too well,
and that is what I fear for the girl, too. You see, she is so pretty,
and the idols of the tribe and the market, as Bacon calls them, are
strong with the young.”
“Yes, that's so,” the woman assented vaguely, not at all sure what
either Bacon or his idols might be. “Are the children relations of
yours?”
“No, ma'am; it was like this: When I was up in Henry County there came
a photographic artist to the village near us, and pitched his tent and
took tintypes in his wagon. He had his wife and his two children with
him. The poor woman fell ill and died; so we took the two children.
My wife was willing; she was a wonderfully good woman, member of the
Methodist church till she died. I--I am not a church member myself,
ma'am; I passed through that stage of spiritual development a long
while ago.” He gave a wistful glance at his companion's dimly outlined
profile. “But I never tried to disturb her faith; it made HER happy.”
“Oh, I don't think it is any good fooling with other people's
religions,” said the woman, easily. “It is just like trying to talk
folks out of drinking; nobody knows what is right for anybody else's
soul any more than they do what is good for anybody else's stomach!”
“Yes, ma'am. You put things very clearly.”
“I guess it is because you understand so quickly. But you were
saying------”
“That's all the story. We took the children, and their father was killed
by the cars the next year, poor man; and so we have done the best we
could ever since by them.”
“I should say you had done very well by them.”
“No, ma'am; I haven't done very well somehow by anyone, myself included,
though God knows I've tried hard enough!”
Then followed the silence natural after such a confession when the
listener does not know the speaker well enough to parry abasement by
denial.
“I am impressed,” said Nelson, simply, “to talk with you frankly. It
isn't polite to bother strangers with your troubles, but I am impressed
that you won't mind.”
“Oh, no, I won't mind.”
It was not extravagant sympathy; but Nelson thought how kind her voice
sounded, and what a musical voice it was. Most people would have called
it rather sharp.
He told her--with surprisingly little egotism, as the keen listener
noted--the story of his life; the struggle of his boyhood; his random
self-education; his years in the army (he had criticised his superior
officers, thereby losing the promotion that was coming for bravery in
the field); his marriage (apparently he had married his wife because
another man had jilted her); his wrestle with nature (whose pranks
included a cyclone) on a frontier farm that he eventually lost, having
put all his savings into a “Greenback” newspaper, and being thus swamped
with debt; his final slow success in paying for his Iowa farm; and his
purchase of the new farm, with its resulting disaster. “I've farmed in
Kansas,” he said, “in Nebraska, in Dakota, in Iowa. I was willing to
go wherever the land promised. It always seemed like I was going to
succeed, but somehow I never did. The world ain't fixed right for the
workers, I take it. A man who has spent thirty years in hard, honest
toil oughtn't to be staring ruin in the face like I am to-day. They
won't let it be so when we have the single tax and when we farmers send
our own men instead of city lawyers, to the Legislature and halls of
Congress. Sometimes I think it's the world that's wrong and sometimes I
think it's me!”
The reply came in crisp and assured accents, which were the strongest
contrast to Nelson's soft, undecided pipe: “Seems to me in this last
case the one most to blame is neither you nor the world at large, but
this man Richards, who is asking YOU to pay for HIS farm. And I notice
you don't seem to consider your creditor in this business. How do you
know she don't need the money? Look at me, for instance; I'm in some
financial difficulty myself. I have a mortgage for two thousand dollars,
and that mortgage--for which good value was given, mind you--falls due
this month. I want the money. I want it bad. I have a chance to put
my money into stock at the factory. I know all about the investment;
I haven't worked there all these years and not know how the business
stands. It is a chance to make a fortune. I ain't likely to ever have
another like it; and it won't wait for me to make up my mind forever,
either. Isn't it hard on me, too?”
“Lord knows it is, ma'am,” said Nelson, despondently; “it is hard on
us all! Sometimes I don't see the end of it all. A vast social
revolution----”
“Social fiddlesticks! I beg your pardon, Mr. Forrest, but it puts me out
of patience to have people expecting to be allowed to make every mortal
kind of fools of themselves and then have 'a social revolution' jump in
to slue off the consequences. Let us understand each other. Who do you
suppose I am?”
“Miss--Miss Almer, ain't it?”