Yes, Peter was safe, but it had been a close call, and he still had
painful scenes to play his part in. He had to go back to the Todd
home and meet the frantic Sadie, and weep and be horrified with the
rest of them. It would have been suspicious if he had not done this;
the “comrades” would never have forgiven him. Then to his dismay, he
found that Sadie had somehow come to a positive conviction as to
Jennie’s trouble. She penned Peter up in a corner and accused him of
being responsible; and there was poor Peter, protesting vehemently
that he was innocent, and wishing that the floor would open up and
swallow him.
In the midst of his protestations a clever scheme occurred to him.
He lowered his voice in shame. There was a man, a young man, who
used to come to see Jennie off and on. “Jennie asked me not to
tell.” Peter hesitated a moment, and added his master-stroke.
“Jennie explained to me that she was a free-lover; she told me all
about free love. I told her I didn’t believe in it, but you know,
Sadie, when Jennie believed in anything, she would stand by it and
act on it. So I felt certain it wouldn’t do any good for me to butt
in.”
Sadie almost went out of her mind at this. She glared at Peter.
“Slanderer! Devil!” she cried. “Who was this man?”
Peter answered, “He went by the name of Ned. That’s what Jennie
called him. It wasn’t my business to pin her down about him.”
“It wasn’t your business to look out for an innocent child?”
“Jennie herself said she wasn’t an innocent child, she knew exactly
what she was doing--all Socialists did it.” And to this parting shot
he added that he hadn’t thought it was decent, when he was a guest
in a home, to spy on the morals of the people in it. When Sadie
persisted in doubting him, and even in calling him names, he took
the easiest way out of the difficulty--fell into a rage and stormed
out of the house.
Peter felt pretty certain that Sadie would not spread the story very
far; it was too disgraceful to her sister and to herself; and maybe
when she had thought it over she might come to believe Peter’s
story; maybe she herself was a “free lover.” McGivney had certainly
said that all Socialists were, and he had been studying them a lot.
Anyhow, Sadie would have to think first of the Goober case, just as
little Jennie had done. Peter had them there all right, and realized
that he could afford to be forgiving, so he went to the telephone
and called up Sadie and said: “I want you to know that I’m not going
to say anything about this story; it won’t become known except thru
you.”
There were half a dozen people whom Sadie must have told. Miss
Nebbins was icy-cold to Peter the next time he came in to see Mr.
Andrews; also Miriam Yankovich lost her former cordiality, and
several other women treated him with studied reserve. But the only
person who spoke about the matter was Pat McCormick, the I. W. W.
boy who had given Peter the news of little Jennie’s suicide. Perhaps
Peter hadn’t been able to act satisfactorily on that occasion; or
perhaps the young fellow had observed something for himself, some
love-glances between Peter and Jennie. Peter had never felt
comfortable in the presence of this silent Irish boy, whose dark
eyes would roam from one person to another in the room, and seemed
to be probing your most secret thoughts.
Now Peter’s worst fears were justified. “Mac” got him off in a
corner, and put his fist under his nose, and told him that he was “a
dirty hound,” and if it hadn’t been for the Goober case, he, “Mac,”
would kill him without a moment’s concern.
And Peter did not dare open his mouth; the look on the Irishman’s
face was so fierce that he was really afraid for his life. God, what
a hateful lot these Reds were! And now here was Peter with the worst
one of all against him! From now on his life would be in danger from
this maniac Irishman! Peter hated him--so heartily and genuinely
that it served to divert his thoughts from little Jennie, and to
make him regard himself as a victim.
Yes, in the midnight hours when Jennie’s gentle little face haunted
him and his conscience attacked him, Peter looked back upon the
tangled web of events, and saw quite clearly how inevitable this
tragedy had been, how naturally it had grown out of circumstances
beyond his control. The fearful labor struggle in American City was
surely not Peter’s fault; nor was it his fault that he had been
drawn into it, and forced to act first as an unwilling witness, and
then as a secret agent. Peter read the American City “Times” every
morning, and knew that the cause of Goober was the cause of anarchy
and riot, while the cause of the district attorney and of Guffey’s
secret service was the cause of law and order. Peter was doing his
best in this great cause, he was following the instructions of those
above him, and how could he be blamed because one poor weakling of a
girl had got in the way of the great chariot of the law?
Peter knew that it wasn’t his fault; and yet grief and terror gnawed
at him. For one thing, he missed little Jennie, he missed her by day
and he missed her by night. He missed her gentle voice, her fluffy
soft hair, her body in his empty arms. She was his first love, and
she was gone, and it is human weakness to appreciate things most
when they have been lost.
Peter aspired to be a strong man, a “he-man,” according to the slang
that was coming into fashion; he now tried to live up to that role.
He didn’t want to go mooning about over this accident; yet Jennie’s
face stayed with him--sometimes wild, as he had seen it at their
last meeting, sometimes gentle and reproachful. Peter would remember
how good she had been, how tender, how never-failing in instant
response to an advance of love on his part. Where would he ever find
another girl like that?
Another thing troubled him especially--a strange, inexplicable
thing, for which Peter had no words, and about which he found
himself frequently thinking. This weak, frail slip of a girl had
deliberately given her life for her convictions; she had died, in
order that he might be saved as a witness for the Goobers! Of course
Peter had known all along that little Jennie was doomed, that she
was throwing herself away, that nothing could save her. But somehow,
it does frighten the strongest heart when people are so fanatical as
to throw away their very lives for a cause. Peter found himself
regarding the ideas of these Reds from a new angle; before this they
had been just a bunch of “nuts,” but now they seemed to him
creatures of monstrous deformity, products of the devil, or of a God
gone insane.