his money,” stated Drew. “When he looks around and sees so many other
men holding the poor chaps upside down and shaking the dollars out of
their pockets he must think he is doing a mighty sight more than is
required of him. But sticking plasters of dollar bills onto sore places
in this state ain't curing anything.” He stopped. “I've walked with you
farther than I intended to, Mr. Farr. But somehow I wanted to talk with
you. There's a meeting of the Square Deal Club this evening at Union
Hall. I didn't know but in some way we might--It was thought you might
be going to run for office.”
“The registration-office will prove that I'm not. Pass that word!”
“I'll go back--to the meeting. It doesn't seem to be much use in holding
the meetings,” said the man. “We hear one another talk--we know we are
talking the truth. But nobody listens who can help us poor folks. Well,
I'll admit that the politicians come in and listen and promise to help
us and we give our votes; but that's all: they give nothing back to us.”
Farr broke out with a remark which seemed to have no bearing on what
Citizen Drew was saying.
“He comes out at nine o'clock, eh?”
“Who?”
“The Honorable Archer Converse. Leaves that clubhouse then, does he?”
“Regular to the tick of the clock.”
“Citizen Drew, hold your club in session until half past nine or a
little later. My experience with those meetings is that you always have
troubles enough to keep you talking for at least two hours.”
Citizen Drew glanced at the face of Farr and then at the big door of the
Mellicite Club.
“You don't mean to say--”
“I don't say anything. I seem to be in a queer state of mind to-night,
Citizen Drew.” Again there was an odd note of raillery in his voice. “A
lot of odd ideas keep coming to me. Another one had just popped into my
head. That's all! Keep your boys at the hall.”
He swung off up the street.
He turned after a few steps and saw the elderly man standing where he
had left him. Drew was a rather pathetic figure there in the brilliantly
lighted main thoroughfare, a poor, plain man from the Eleventh Ward
of the tenement-houses--this man who had been striving and struggling,
reading and studying, endeavoring to find some way out for the poor
people; some relief--something that would help. Farr knew what sort of
men were waiting in the little hall. He had attended their meetings. It
was the only resource they understood--a public meeting. They knew that
the important folks up-town held public meetings of various sorts, and
the poor folks had decided that there must be virtue in assemblages.
But nothing had seemed to come out of their efforts in the tenement
districts.
Farr stepped back to where Citizen Drew stood.
“I think I will say something to you, after all. Tell the boys in Union
Hall to be patient and I'll bring the Honorable Archer Converse around
this evening.”
He smiled into the stare of blank amazement on the man's face, flung up
a hand to check the stammering questions, and went off up the street.
“A decent man's conscience will make him keep a promise he has made to
a child or to the simple or to the helpless,” Farr told himself. “I have
undertaken a big contract, I reckon, but now that I have put myself on
record I've got to go ahead and deliver the goods. At any rate, I feel
on my mettle.” Then he smiled at what seemed to be his sudden folly. “I
think I'll have to lay it all to those nice old ladies who were foolish
enough to put that knight-errant idea into my head,” he said.
XVII
THE MADNESS OF A MIDSUMMER NIGHT
Farr glanced again at the big clock in the First National block.
He had less than one hour to wait, according to the schedule Citizen
Drew had promulgated in regard to the unvarying movements of the
Honorable Archer Converse. As to how this first coup in the operations
of that nascent organization, the Public-spirited Press Gang, was to be
managed Farr had little idea at that moment.
He decided to devote that hour to devising a plan, deciding to attempt
nothing until he saw the honorable gentleman march down the club steps.
A club must be sanctuary--but the streets belonged to the people.
Therefore, Farr took a walk. He went back into that quarter of the city
from which he had emerged during his stroll with Citizen Drew; he
felt his courage deserting him in those more imposing surroundings of
up-town; he went back to the purlieus of the poor, hoping for contact
that might charge him afresh with determination. He realized that he
needed all the dynamics of courage in the preposterous task he had set
himself.
He knew he would find old Etienne sitting on the stoop of Mother
Maillet's house where the old man posted himself on pleasant summer
evenings and whittled whirligigs for the crowding children--just as his
peasant ancestors whittled the same sort of toys in old Normandy.
Mother Maillet's house had a yard. It was narrow and dusty, because the
feet of the children had worn away all the grass. Some of the palings
were off the fence, and through the spaces the little folks came and
went as they liked. It was not much of a yard to boast of, but there
were few open spaces in that part of the city where the big land
corporation hogged all the available feet of earth in order to stick the
tenement-houses closely together. Therefore, because Mother Maillet was
kind, the yard was a godsend so far as the little folks were concerned.
The high fence kept children off the greensward where the canal flowed.
Householders who had managed to save their yards down that way were, in
most cases, fussy old people who were hanging on to the ancient cottage
homes in spite of the city's growth, and they shooed the children out of
their yards where the flower-beds struggled under the coal-dust from the
high chimneys.
But Mother Maillet did not mind because she had no flower-beds and
because the palings were off and the youngsters made merry in her
yard. She had two geraniums and a begonia and a rubber-plant on the
window-sill in order to give the canary-bird a comfortable sense of
arboreal surroundings; so why have homesick flowers out in a front yard
where they must all the time keep begging the breeze to come and dust
the grime off their petals? It should be understood that Mother Maillet
had known what _real_ flower-beds were when she was a girl in the
Tadousac country.
Furthermore, Etienne Provancher always came to the yard o' fine evenings
and it served as his little realm; and the door-step of the good woman's
house was his throne where he sat in state among his little subjects.
However, on second thought, this metaphor is not happy description; old
Etienne did not rule--he obeyed.
He did not resent familiarity--he welcomed the comradeship of the
children. When they called him “Pickaroon” it seemed to him that they
were making a play-fellow of him.
He sat and whittled toys for them out of the pine-wood scraps which the
yard foreman gave him. There were grotesque heads for rag dolls, and
the good woman seemed to have unlimited rags and an excellent taste in
doll-dressmaking; there were chunky automobiles with spools for wheels;
there were funny little wooden men who jumped in most amusing fashion
at the end of wires which were stuck into their backs. Old Etienne was
always ready to sit and whittle until the evening settled down and he
could see no longer, even though he held the wood and busy knife close
to his eyes.
So on that evening he whittled as usual.
Walker Farr came to the yard and sat beside the old man on the door-step
and was plainly thinking no agreeable thoughts while he listened to the
chatter of the children.
After the darkness had come and the larger boys and girls, custodians
of their tiny kin, had dragged away the protesting and whimpering little
folks because it was bedtime, Zelie Dionne laid down her needlework over
which she had been straining her eyes. The good woman protested often
because the girl toiled so steadily with her needle after her day at the
mill was ended. And on that summer evening she voiced complaint again.
“You have so many pretty gowns already! You wear one last evening--you
wear anodder this evening--and still you make some more! When a young
girl nigh kill herself so as to make a picture-book of her dresses
I think it is time to look for some young man who seems to like the
pictures. Eh?”
“Mother Angelique, I do not relish jokes which are silly,” protested the
girl. “You know how the girls of our country are taught! We cannot sit
with hands in our laps without being very unhappy.”
She went out and sat upon the door-step where old Etienne made way for
her.
“At first I did not think I would come out, Mr. Farr,” she said. “But I
have made bold to come.”
“I do not think it needs boldness to come where I am,” he returned. “I
hope you are not going to make a stranger of me because I have not been
very neighborly of late. I have been busy and I have been away. The boys
have paid my fare up-country, and so I ran about to carry the gospel of
the free water. The truckmen have volunteered in half a dozen places. We
are doing a great work.”
“And yet I am afraid,” she confessed. “You are fighting men who can do
you much harm. I have been asking questions so as to know more about
those men. For they have threatened poor Father Etienne. I wanted to
know about them. I cannot help. But can you not help, Mr. Farr? I think
you are much more than you seem to be,” she added, naively.
“They have threatened Etienne?” demanded Farr, a sharp note in his
voice.
“Ah, m'sieu', I have said nottin's to you. I am only poor old man. No
matter.”
“Why didn't you say something to me?”
“It's because you might feel bad, m'sieu'. P'raps not, for I'm only poor
man and don't count.”
“What have they said to you?”
“It's nottin's,” said Etienne, stubbornly. “You shall not think you got
me into trouble. You did not. I would have done it maself as soon as I
thought of it.”
“I command you to tell me what has been said to you, Etienne.”
“They say that I shall be discharge from the rack. They say I have
talk too much to my compatriots about the poison water. But I shall
talk--yes--jesso!”
“Who says so?”
“The yard boss say to me that. Oh, there's no mistake. He have the
power, M'sieu' Farr. The super tell the yard boss, the mill agent tell
the super, the alderman tell the mill agent, the mayor he tell the
alderman.”
“And probably Colonel Symonds Dodd told the mayor,” growled Farr. “It's
a great system, Etienne. Nobody too small--nobody too big!”
“But I do not care. I shall talk some more--yes, I shall talk in the
_hotel de ville_ when you shall tell me to talk. I was scare at
first and I tol' you I would not talk; but now I have found out I
can talk--and I am not scare any more, and I will talk.” Pride and
determination were in the old man's tones. Since that most wonderful
evening in all his life when he had heard his voice as if it were the
voice of another man ringing forth denunciation of those in high places,
the old rack-tender had referred to that new manifestation of himself as
if he were discussing another man whom he had discovered. The memory of
his feat was ever fresh within him. And his meek pride was filled with
much wonderment that such a being should have been hidden all the years
in Etienne Provancher. Many men had called around to shake his hand and
increase his wonderment as to his own ability.
“We will wait awhile,” counseled Farr, understanding the pride and
treating it gently. “Stay at your work and be very quiet, Etienne, and
they will not trouble you. You need your money, and I will call on you
when you can help again.”
“Then I will come. I shall be sorry to see somebody have my rake and
pole, but I shall come.”
A moment of silence fell between them, and during that moment a young
woman passed rapidly along the sidewalk. Walker Farr shut his eyes
suddenly, as a man tries to wink away what he considers an illusion, and
then opened his eyes and made sure that she was what she seemed; there
was no mistaking that face--it was Kate Kilgour.
He stared after her. She halted on the next corner, peered up at the
dingy street light to make sure of the sign legend on its globe and then
turned down an alley.
“Ba gar!” commented old Etienne, putting Farr's thoughts into words,
“that be queer t'ing for such a fine, pretty lady to go down into Rose
Alley, because Rose Alley ain't so sweet as what it sounds.”
Then two men came hurrying past without paying any attention to the
denizens of the neighborhood who were sitting in the gloom on the stoop.
The street light revealed the faces of the men as it had shown to them
the girl's features. One was Richard Dodd. Unmistakably, they were
following the girl. Farr heard Dodd say: “Slow up! Give her time to get
there. She's headed all right.”
And Farr stared after those men, more than ever amazed.
One of them was obtrusively a clergyman--that is to say, he was cased in
a frock-coat that flapped against his calves, wore a white necktie, and
carried a book under his arm.
Dodd was attired immaculately in gray, and as he walked he whipped a
thin cane nervously. They began to stroll soon after they had hurried
past the stoop, and were sauntering leisurely when they turned into Rose
Alley.
“I now say two ba gars!” exploded Etienne. “Because I been see the
jailbird, Dennis Burke, all dress up like minister, go past here with
the nephew of Colonel Dodd. And they go 'long after la belle mam'selle.”
“A jailbird!”
“He smart, bad man, that Dennis Burke. But he was hire by the big man
to do something with the votes on election-time--so to cheat--and he
get caught and so he been in the state prison. But he seem to be out all
free now and convert to religion in some funny way. Eh?”
“Etienne, are you sure of what you are talking about?” demanded Farr.
His voice trembled. The visit of that handsome girl to that quarter of
the city--those men so patently pursuing her--there was a sinister look
to the affair.
“Oh, we all know that Burke. He hire many votes in this ward for many
years. He known in Marion just so well as the steeple on the _hotel de
ville_. And that odder--that young mans, we know him, for his oncle is
Colonel Dodd. Oh yes!”
“Good night, Etienne--and to you Miss Zelie!” said Farr, curtly, walking
off toward the entrance of Rose Alley. He did not ask the old man to
go with him. He was drawn in two directions by his emotions and stopped
after he had taken a few steps. This seemed like espionage in a matter
which was none of his concern. It was entirely possible that the
confidential secretary of Colonel Dodd and the nephew of that gentleman
might have common business even in Rose Alley and at that time of
evening.
But the matter of that masquerading ballot-falsifier, just out of state
prison, overcame Farr's scruples about meddling in the affairs of Kate
Kilgour.
He turned the corner into the alley in season to see the two men far
ahead of him; they passed out of the radiance shed by a dim light and he
saw no more of them. He walked the length of the alley and was not able
to locate any of the party. At its lower end the alley was closed in by
houses, and it was plain that the people he sought had not passed out
into another thoroughfare. He marched back, scrutinizing the outside of
buildings, trying to conjecture what business the handsome girl and
the two men could have in that section at that hour, and where they had
entered to prosecute that business.
“I must continue to blame it all on the nice old ladies,” he told
himself, smiling at the shamed zest he was finding in this hunt. “But I
hope this knight-errantry will not grow to be a habit with me. I
mustn't forget that I have another job on hand for nine o'clock--also
knight-errantry!”
He paused under the dim light where his men had disappeared and looked
at his cheap watch.
Twenty-five minutes of nine!
Then he heard a woman's protesting voice. She cried “No, _no_, NO!” in
crescendo.
He gazed at the house from which the voice seemed to come. It was near
at hand, a shabby little cottage with a thin slice of yard closed in by
a dilapidated picket fence. He perceived no observers in the alley, and
he stepped into the yard. The front windows were open, for the evening
was warm, but no lights were visible in the house.
He heard the protesting cry again. It was more earnest.
He head the rumble of a man's voice, but could not catch the words.
Whatever was happening was taking place in some rear room.
“No, I say, no! Unlock that door,” cried the voice, passionately.
Farr troubled his mind no longer with quixotic considerations about
intrusion. He hoisted himself over the window-sill into the darkened
front room, passed down a short corridor and, when he heard the voice
once again on the inside of a door which he found locked, he immediately
kicked the door open. He appeared to those in the room, heralded by an
amazing crash and flying splinters.
First of all, he was astonished to find two women there; one was Miss
Kilgour and the other was her mother. And there were the two men whom he
had followed.
Farr swept off his hat and addressed the girl.
“I happened to be passing and heard your voice,” he said. “If you are--”
He hesitated, a bit confused, realizing all at once that knight-errantry
in modern days is not quite as free and easy a matter as it used to be
when damsels were in distress in the ruder times of yore. “I am at your
service,” he added, a bit curtly.
But she did not reply. Her attitude was tense, her cheeks were flaming,
her eyes were like glowing coals.
“You lunatic, you have come slamming in here, disturbing a private
wedding,” announced the man in the white tie, slapping his palm upon the
book he carried.
“Get out of here!” shouted Dodd. He had dodged into a corner of the
room, his face whitening, when Farr had burst in. He remained in the
corner now, brandishing his cane.
The uninvited guest surveyed the young man with more composure than he
had been able to command when he looked at the girl.
Etienne Provancher had fortified him with some valuable information.
“Mr. Richard Dodd, I'll apologize and walk out of here after you have
explained to me why you have faked up into a parson one Dennis Burke,
late of the state prison, to officiate at weddings.”
Upon the silence that followed the girl thrust an “Oh!” into which she
put grief, protest, anger, consternation.
“Mother!” she cried. “Did you know? How could you allow--how did you
come to do such a terrible thing?”
Her mother put her hands to her face and sat down and began to sob with
hysterical display of emotion. Farr scowled a bit as he looked at
her. She was overdressed. There was an artificial air about her whole
appearance--even her hysterics seemed artificial.
The girl turned from her with a gesture of angry despair as if she
realized, from experience, that she could expect, at that juncture, only
emotion without explanation.
“Hold on here,” cried Dodd, “hold on here, everybody! This is all right.
You just let me inform you, Mr. Butter-in, that Mr. Burke has full
authority to solemnize a marriage. He is a notary and was commissioned
at the last meeting of the governor and council. And I know that,” he
added, attempting a bit of a swagger, “for I secured the commission for
him myself.” He came out of his corner and shook his cane at Farr. “I
want you to understand that I have political power in this state!”
“I wouldn't brag about that kind of political power, when you can use it
to make notaries out of jailbirds. That must be a nice bunch you have up
at your State House!”
“On your way!” Again the cane swished in front of Farr's face.
“I beg your pardon, madam,” apologized Farr, bowing to the girl. “You
seem to be the only one in this room entitled to that courtesy,” he
added, with a touch of his cynicism. “Am I intruding on your personal
business?”
“You are not,” she answered, her eyes flashing. “I am glad you came
in here. I could have stopped the wretched folly myself, but you have
helped me, and I thank you.” She delivered that little speech with
vigor.
“Kate!” pleaded Dodd. “This isn't fair. I meant it all right. Here's
your mother here! You wouldn't be reasonable the other way. We had to do
something. For the love of Heaven, be good. You know I--”
She had turned her back on him. Now she whirled and spat furious words
at him, commanding him to be silent.
“Do you want to spread all this miserable business before this
gentleman?” she demanded. “I am ashamed--ashamed! My mother to consent
to such a thing!”
She turned her back on him again and walked to and fro, beating her
hands together in her passion. And now ire boiled in Dodd. He directed
it all at the man who had interfered.
“This is no business of yours, you loafer. I don't know who you are, but
you--”
Farr grabbed the switching cane as he would have swept into his palm an
annoying insect. He broke it into many pieces between his sinewy fingers
and tossed the bits into Dodd's convulsed face.
“You'll know me better later on--you and your uncle, too. Ask him what
I advised him to do about having his weapon loose on his hip--take the
same advice for yourself.”
Then his expression altered suddenly. A disquieting jog of memory
prompted him to yank out the cheap watch.
Twelve minutes to nine.
It was a long way to the foot of the steps of the Mellicite Club! And
Union Hall was filled with men who were patiently waiting for him to
keep his pledged word!
“I hope you'll be all right now,” he said to the girl, haste in his
tones. “I'm sorry--I must go--I have an important engagement.”
Her eyes met his in level gaze, turned scornful glance at the others in
the room, and then came back to his.
“Are you going in the direction of the Boulevard?” she asked him.
“Straight there.”
“Will you bother with me as far as the Boulevard?”
“If you are a good walker,” he informed her. There was strict business
in her tone and cool civility in his.
“I'm going along with this gentleman, mother.”
Farr ushered her ahead of him through the shattered door.
“But I want to walk home with you, my child,” wailed the sobbing woman.
“You'd better ask Mr. Dodd to escort you. And I trust that the talk you
and he will have will bring both of you to your senses.”
She hurried away up the alley with Farr, after he had unlocked the front
door, finding the key on the inside.
“I am sorry I must hurry you,” he apologized, “and if you cannot keep up
I must desert you when we get to a well-lighted street.”
She drove a sharp side glance at him and did not reply. Probably for the
first time in her life she heard a young man declare with determination
that he was in a hurry to leave her. Even a sensible young woman who is
pretty must feel some sort of momentary pique because a young man can
have engagements so summary and so engrossing.
He offered her his arm that they might walk faster. Her touch thrilled
him. He was far from feeling the outward calm that he displayed to her.
They did not speak as they hurried.
Both were nearly breathless when they came out on the Boulevard. He saw
the big clock--its hands were nearly at the right angle.
“Good night!” she gasped, and she put out her hand to him. “I thank
you!”
“It was nothing,” he assured her.
When their palms met they looked into each other's eyes. It was a
momentary flash which they exchanged, but in that instant both of them
were thrilled with the strange, sweet knowledge that no human soul may
analyze: it is the mystic conviction which makes this man or that woman
different from all the rest of humankind to the one whose heart is
touched.
She gave him a smile. “Are you a knight-errant?”
She hurried away before he could reply--and, though all his yearning
nature strove against his man's resolution to do his duty, it could
not prevail: he did not follow her as he wanted to--running after her,
crying his love. But duty won out by a mere hazard of a margin because
her face, as she had shown it to him at the moment of parting, possessed
not merely the wonderful beauty which had so impressed him when he had
first seen her--it shone with a sudden flash of emotion that glorified
it.
He turned away and hurried to the foot of the steps of the Mellicite
Club.
He had no time to ponder on the nature of that mystery which he had
uncovered in the shabby cottage in Rose Alley nor to wonder what sort
of persecution it was that could enlist a mother's aid in that grotesque
fashion against her own daughter.
He had not time even to frame a plan of campaign against the man whom
the patient waiters in Union Hall were expecting him to capture.