"I'm afraid you'll find what I have to say rather dry," I said.
"A woman can't expect to understand everything," she answered quickly.
This remark struck me favourably. I glanced at her sideways. She was not
a beauty, but she was distinctly well-formed and strong. Her face was
oval, her features not quite regular,--giving them a certain charm; her
colour was fresh, her eyes blue, the lighter blue one sees on Chinese
ware: not a poetic comparison, but so I thought of them. She was
apparently not sophisticated, as were most of the young women at home
whom I knew intimately (as were the Watling twins, for example, with one
of whom, Frances, I had had, by the way, rather a lively flirtation the
spring before); she seemed refreshingly original, impressionable and
plastic....
We walked slowly back to the house, and in the hallway I met Mrs.
Hutchins, a bustling, housewifely lady, inclined to stoutness, whose
creased and kindly face bore witness to long acquiescence in the
discipline of matrimony, to the contentment that results from an
essentially circumscribed and comfortable life. She was, I learned later,
the second Mrs. Hutchins, and Maude their only child. The children of the
first marriage, all girls, had married and scattered.
Supper was a decorous but heterogeneous meal of the old-fashioned sort
that gives one the choice between tea and cocoa. It was something of an
occasion, I suspected. The minister was there, the Reverend Mr.
Doddridge, who would have made, in appearance at least, a perfect Puritan
divine in a steeple hat and a tippet. Only--he was no longer the leader
of the community; and even in his grace he had the air of deferring to
the man who provided the bounties of which we were about to partake
rather than to the Almighty. Young George was there, Mr. Hutchins's
nephew, who was daily becoming more and more of a factor in the
management of the mills, and had built the house of yellow brick that
stood out so incongruously among the older Hutchinses' mansions, and
marked a transition. I thought him rather a yellow-brick gentleman
himself for his assumption of cosmopolitan manners. His wife was a
pretty, discontented little woman who plainly deplored her environment,
longed for larger fields of conquest: George, she said, must remain where
he was, for the present at least,--Uncle Ezra depended on him; but
Elkington was a prosy place, and Mrs. George gave the impression that she
did not belong here. They went to the city on occasions; both cities. And
when she told me we had a common acquaintance in Mrs. Hambleton
Durrett--whom she thought so lovely!--I knew that she had taken Nancy as
an ideal: Nancy, the social leader of what was to Mrs. George a
metropolis.
Presently the talk became general among the men, the subject being the
campaign, and I the authority, bombarded with questions I strove to
answer judicially. What was the situation in this county and in that? the
national situation? George indulged in rather a vigorous arraignment of
the demagogues, national and state, who were hurting business in order to
obtain political power. The Reverend Mr. Doddridge assented, deploring
the poverty that the local people had brought on themselves by heeding
the advice of agitators; and Mrs. Hutchins, who spent much of her time in
charity work, agreed with the minister when he declared that the trouble
was largely due to a decline in Christian belief. Ezra Hutchins, too,
nodded at this.
"Take that man Krebs, for example," the minister went on, stimulated by
this encouragement, "he's an atheist, pure and simple." A sympathetic
shudder went around the table at the word. George alone smiled. "Old
Krebs was a free-thinker; I used to get my glasses of him. He was at
least a conscientious man, a good workman, which is more than can be said
for the son. Young Krebs has talent, and if only he had devoted himself
to the honest practice of law, instead of stirring up dissatisfaction
among these people, he would be a successful man to-day."
Mr. Hutchins explained that I was at college with Krebs.
"These people must like him," I said, "or they wouldn't have sent him to
the legislature."
"Well, a good many of them do like him," the minister admitted. "You see,
he actually lives among them. They believe his socialistic doctrines
because he's a friend of theirs."
"He won't represent this town again, that's sure," exclaimed George. "You
didn't see in the papers that he was nominated,--did you, Paret?"
"But if the mill people wanted him, George, how could it be prevented?"
his wife demanded.
George winked at me.
"There are more ways of skinning a cat than one," he said cryptically.
"Well, it's time to go to the meeting, I guess," remarked Ezra, rising.
Once more he looked at his watch.
We were packed into several family carriages and started off. In front of
the hall the inevitable red fire was burning, its quivering light
reflected on the faces of the crowd that blocked the street. They stood
silent, strangely apathetic as we pushed through them to the curb, and
the red fire went out suddenly as we descended. My temporary sense of
depression, however, deserted me as we entered the hall, which was well
lighted and filled with people, who clapped when the Hon. Joseph and I,
accompanied by Mr. Doddridge and the Hon. Henry Clay Mellish from
Pottstown, with the local chairman, walked out on the stage. A glance
over the audience sufficed to ascertain that that portion of the
population whose dinner pails we longed to fill was evidently not present
in large numbers. But the farmers had driven in from the hills, while the
merchants and storekeepers of Elkington had turned out loyally.
The chairman, in introducing me, proclaimed me as a coming man, and
declared that I had already achieved, in the campaign, considerable
notoriety. As I spoke, I was pleasantly aware of Maude Hutchins leaning
forward a little across the rail of the right-hand stage box--for the
town hall was half opera-house; her attitude was one of semi-absorbed
admiration; and the thought that I had made an impression on her
stimulated me. I spoke with more aplomb. Somewhat to my surprise, I found
myself making occasional, unexpected witticisms that drew laughter and
applause. Suddenly, from the back of the hall, a voice called out:--"How
about House Bill 709?"
There was a silence, then a stirring and craning of necks. It was my
first experience of heckling, and for the moment I was taken aback. I
thought of Krebs. He had, indeed, been in my mind since I had risen to my
feet, and I had scanned the faces before me in search of his. But it was
not his voice.
"Well, what about Bill 709?" I demanded.
"You ought to know something about it, I guess," the voice responded.
"Put him out!" came from various portions of the hall.
Inwardly, I was shaken. Not--in orthodox language from any "conviction of
sin." Yet it was my first intimation that my part in the legislation
referred to was known to any save a select few. I blamed Krebs, and a hot
anger arose within me against him. After all, what could they prove?
"No, don't put him out," I said. "Let him come up here to the platform.
I'll yield to him. And I'm entirely willing to discuss with him and
defend any measures passed in the legislature of this state by a
Republican majority. Perhaps," I added, "the gentleman has a copy of the
law in his pocket, that I may know what he is talking about, and answer
him intelligently."
At this there was wild applause. I had the audience with me. The offender
remained silent and presently I finished my speech. After that Mr.
Mecklin made them cheer and weep, and Mr. Mellish made them laugh. The
meeting had been highly successful.
"You polished him off, all right," said George Hutchins, as he took my
hand.
"Who was he?"
"Oh, one of the local sore-heads. Krebs put him up to it, of course."
"Was Krebs here?" I asked.
"Sitting in the corner of the balcony. That meeting must have made him
feel sick." George bent forward and whispered in my ear: "I thought Bill
709 was Watling's idea."
"Oh, I happened to be in the Potts House about that time," I explained.
George, of whom it may be gathered that he was not wholly
unsophisticated, grinned at me appreciatively.
"Say, Paret," he replied, putting his hand through my arm, "there's a
little legal business in prospect down here that will require some
handling, and I wish you'd come down after the campaign and talk it over,
with us. I've just about made up my mind that you're he man to tackle
it."
"All right, I'll come," I said.
"And stay with me," said George....
We went to his yellow-brick house for refreshments, salad and ice-cream
and (in the face of the Hutchins traditions) champagne. Others had been
invited in, some twenty persons.... Once in a while, when I looked up, I
met Maude's eyes across the room. I walked home with her, slowly, the
length of the Hutchinses' block. Floating over the lake was a waning
October moon that cast through the thinning maples a lace-work of shadows
at our feet; I had the feeling of well-being that comes to heroes, and
the presence of Maude Hutchins was an incense, a vestal incense far from
unpleasing. Yet she had reservations which appealed to me. Hers was not a
gushing provincialism, like that of Mrs. George.
"I liked your speech so much, Mr. Paret," she told me. "It seemed so
sensible and--controlled, compared to the others. I have never thought a
great deal about these things, of course, and I never understood before
why taking away the tariff caused so much misery. You made that quite
plain.
"If so, I'm glad," I said.
She was silent a moment.
"The working people here have had a hard time during the last year," she
went on. "Some of the mills had to be shut down, you know. It has
troubled me. Indeed, it has troubled all of us. And what has made it more
difficult, more painful is that many of them seem actually to dislike us.
They think it's father's fault, and that he could run all the mills if he
wanted to. I've been around a little with mother and sometimes the women
wouldn't accept any help from us; they said they'd rather starve than
take charity, that they had the right to work. But father couldn't run
the mills at a loss--could he?"
"Certainly not," I replied.
"And then there's Mr. Krebs, of whom we were speaking at supper, and who
puts all kinds of queer notions into their heads. Father says he's an
anarchist. I heard father say at supper that he was at Harvard with you.
Did you like him?"
"Well," I answered hesitatingly, "I didn't know him very well."
"Of course not," she put in. "I suppose you couldn't have."
"He's got these notions," I explained, "that are mischievous and
crazy--but I don't dislike him."
"I'm glad to hear you say that!" she answered quietly. "I like him,
too--he seems so kind, so understanding."
"Do you know him?"
"Well,--" she hesitated--"I feel as though I do. I've only met him once,
and that was by accident. It was the day the big strike began, last
spring, and I had been shopping, and started for the mills to get father
to walk home with me, as I used to do. I saw the crowds blocking the
streets around the canal. At first I paid no attention to them, but after
a while I began to be a little uneasy, there were places where I had to
squeeze through, and I couldn't help seeing that something was wrong, and
that the people were angry. Men and women were talking in loud voices.
One woman stared at me, and called my name, and said something that
frightened me terribly. I went into a doorway--and then I saw Mr. Krebs.
I didn't know who he was. He just said, 'You'd better come with me, Miss
Hutchins,' and I went with him. I thought afterwards that it was a very
courageous thing for him to do, because he was so popular with the mill
people, and they had such a feeling against us. Yet they didn't seem to
resent it, and made way for us, and Mr. Krebs spoke to many of them as we
passed. After we got to State Street, I asked him his name, and when he
told me I was speechless. He took off his hat and went away. He had such
a nice face--not at all ugly when you look at it twice--and kind eyes,
that I just couldn't believe him to be as bad as father and George think
he is. Of course he is mistaken," she added hastily, "but I am sure he is
sincere, and honestly thinks he can help those people by telling them
what he does."
The question shot at me during the meeting rankled still; I wanted to
believe that Krebs had inspired it, and her championship of him gave me a
twinge of jealousy,--the slightest twinge, to be sure, yet a perceptible
one. At the same time, the unaccountable liking I had for the man stirred
to life. The act she described had been so characteristic.
"He's one of the born rebels against society," I said glibly. "Yet I do
think he's sincere."
Maude was grave. "I should be sorry to think he wasn't," she replied.
After I had bidden her good night at the foot of the stairs, and gone to
my room, I reflected how absurd it was to be jealous of Krebs. What was
Maude Hutchins to me? And even if she had been something to me, she never
could be anything to Krebs. All the forces of our civilization stood
between the two; nor was she of a nature to take plunges of that sort.
The next day, as I lay back in my seat in the parlour-car and gazed at
the autumn landscape, I indulged in a luxurious contemplation of the
picture she had made as she stood on the lawn under the trees in the
early morning light, when my carriage had driven away; and I had turned,
to perceive that her eyes had followed me. I was not in love with her, of
course. I did not wish to return at once to Elkington, but I dwelt with a
pleasant anticipation upon my visit, when the campaign should be over,
with George.