PETERSEN'S SIN
The first news of the committee's failing confidence that reached Tom's
ears he discredited as being one of the rumors that are always flying
about when large powers are vested in a small body of men. That the
strike could fail was too preposterous for his belief. But when the
committee was forced to admit in open meeting that its courage was
waning, Tom, astounded, had to accept what but yesterday he had
discredited. He thought immediately of treachery on Foley's part, but in
his hot remarks to the union he made no mention of his suspicions; he
knew the boomerang quality of an accusation he could not prove. Later,
when he went over the situation with cool brain, he saw that treachery
was impossible. Granting even that Foley could be bought, there was the
rest of the committee,--and Pete, on whose integrity he would have
staked his own, was one of its members.
And yet, for all that reason told him, a vague and large suspicion
persisted in his mind. A few days after the meeting he had a talk with
Pete, during which his suspicion got into words. "Has it occurred to
you, Pete, that maybe Foley is up to some deep trick?" he asked.
"You're away off, Tom!" was the answer, given with some heat. "I ain't
missed a single committee meetin', an' I know just where Foley stands.
It's the rest of us that're sorter peterin' out. Buck's the only one
that's standin' out for not givin' in. Mebbe he's not above dumpin' us
all if he had the chance. But he couldn't be crooked here even if he
wanted to. We're too many watchin' him."
All this Tom had said to himself before, but his saying it had not
dispelled his suspicion, and no more did the saying of it now by Pete.
The negotiations seemed all open and above board; he could not lay his
finger on a single flaw in them. But yet the strike seemed to him to
have been on too solid a basis to have thus collapsed without apparent
cause.
At the union meeting following the committee conference where Foley had
yielded, a broken man, the advisability of abandoning the strike came up
for discussion. Foley sat back in his chair, with overcast face, and
refused to speak. But his words to the committee had gone round, and now
his gloomy silence was more convincing in its discouragement than any
speech could have been. Tom, whose mind could not give up the suspicion
that there was trickery, even though he could not see it, had a
despairing thought that if action could be staved off time might make
the flaw apparent. He frantically opposed the desire of a portion of the
members that the strike be given up that very evening. Their defeat was
not difficult; the union was not yet ready for the step. It was decided
that the matter should come up for a vote at the following meeting.
While Tom was at breakfast the next morning there was a knock at the
door. Maggie answered it, and he heard a thin yet resonant voice that
he seemed to have heard before, inquire: "Is Mr. Keating in?"
He stepped to the door. In the dim hallway he saw indistinctly a small,
thin woman with a child in her arms. "Yes," he answered for himself.
"Don't you remember me, Brother Keating?" she asked, with a glad note in
her voice, shifting the child higher on her breast and holding out a
hand.
"Mrs. Petersen!" he cried. "Come right in."
She entered, and Tom introduced her to Maggie, who drew a chair for her
up beside the breakfast table.
"Thank you, sister." She sank exhausted into the chair, and turned
immediately on Tom. "Have you seen Nels lately?" she asked eagerly.
"Not for more than two weeks."
The excitement died out of her face; Tom now saw, by the light of the
gas that had to be burned in the dining-room even at midday, that the
face was drawn and that there were dark rings under the eyes. "Is
anything wrong?" he asked.
"He ain't been home for two nights," she returned tremulously. "I said
to myself last night, if he don't come to-night I'll come over to see
you early this morning. Mebbe you'd know something about him."
"Not a thing." He wanted to lighten that wan face, so he gave the best
cheer that he could. "But I guess nothing's wrong with him."
"Yes, there is, or he'd never stay away like this," she returned
quickly. Her voice sank with resignation. "I suppose all I can do is to
pray."
"And look," Tom added. "I'll look."
She rose to go. Maggie pressed her to have breakfast, but she refused, a
faint returning hope in her eyes. "Mebbe the Lord's brung him home while
I've been here."
A half minute after the door had closed upon her Tom opened it and
hurried down the three flights of stairs. He caught her just going into
the street.
He fumbled awkwardly in his pocket. "Do you need anything?"
"No. Bless you, Brother Keating. Nels left me plenty o' money. You know
he works reg'lar on the docks."
Two causes for Petersen's absence occurred as possible to Tom--arrest
and death. He looked through the record of arrests for the last two days
at police headquarters. Petersen's name was not there, and to give a
false name would never have occurred to Petersen's slow mind. So Tom
knew he was not in a cell. He visited the public morgues and followed
attendants who turned back sheets from cold faces. But Petersen's face
he did not see.
The end of the day brought also the end of Tom's search. He now had
three explanations for Petersen's absence: The Swede was dead, and his
body unrecovered; he had wandered off in a fit of mental aberration; he
had deserted his wife. The first he did not want to believe. The third,
remembering the looks that had passed between the two the night he had
visited their home, he could not believe. He clung to the second; and
that was the only one he mentioned to Mrs. Petersen when he called in
the evening to report.
"He'll come to suddenly, and come back," he encouraged her. "That's the
way with such cases."
"You think so?" She brightened visibly.
A fourth explanation flashed upon him. "Perhaps he got caught by
accident on some boat he had been helping load, and got carried away."
She brightened a little more at this. "Just so he's alive!" she cried.
"He'll be certain to be back in a few days," Tom said positively. He
left her greatly comforted by his words, though he himself did not half
believe them.
There was nothing more he could do toward discovering the missing man.
It must be admitted that, during the next few days, he thought of
Petersen much less frequently than was the due of such a friend as the
Swede had proved. The affairs of the union held his mind exclusively.
Opinion was turning overwhelmingly toward giving up the strike, and
giving it up immediately. Wherever there was a man who still held out,
there were three or four men pouring words upon him. "Foley may not be
so honest as to hurt him, but he's a fighter from 'way back, an' if he
thinks we ought to stop fightin' now, then we ought to 'a' stopped weeks
ago"--such was the substance of the reasoning in bar-room and street
that converted many a man to yielding.
And also, Tom learned, a quick settlement was being urged at home. As
long as the men had stood firm for the strike, the women had skimped at
every point and supported that policy. But when they discovered that the
men's courage was going, the women, who feel most the fierce economy of
a strike, were for the straight resumption of work and income. Maggie,
Tom knew, was beginning to look forward in silent eagerness to a
settlement; he guessed that she hoped, the strike ended, he might go
back to work untroubled by Foley.
Tom undertook to stand out against the proposal of submission, but he
might as well have tried to shoulder back a Fundy tide. Men remembered
it was he who had so hotly urged them into a strike that thus far had
cost them seven weeks' wages. "I suppose you'd have us lose seven more
weeks' money," they sneered at him. They said other things, and
stronger, for your ironworker has studied English in many places.
Monday evening found Tom in a chair at one of the open windows of his
sitting-room, staring out at nothing at all, hardly conscious of Maggie,
who was reading, or of Ferdinand, who lay dozing on the couch. He was
completely discouraged--at the uttermost end of things. He had searched
his mind frantically for flaws in the negotiations and in Foley's
conduct, flaws which, if followed up, clue by clue, would reveal Foley's
suspected treachery. But he found none. There seemed nothing more he
could do. The vote would come on Wednesday evening, and its result was
as certain as if the count had already been made.
And so he sat staring into the line of back yards with their rows and
rows of lighted windows. His mind moved over the past five months. They
had held nothing for him but failure and pain. He had fought for honor
in the management of the union's affairs, staking his place in his trade
on the result--and honor in the contest with dishonesty had gone down in
defeat. He had urged the union to strike for better wages, and now the
strike was on the eve of being lost. He would have to begin life over
anew, and he did not know where he could begin. Moreover, he had lost
all but a few friends; and he had lost all influence. This was what his
fight for right had brought him, and in five months.
And this was not the sum of the bitterness the five months had brought
him--no, nor its greater part. He had learned how mighty real love can
be--and how hopeless!
He had been sitting so, dreaming darkly, for an hour or more when Maggie
asked him if he had heard whether Petersen had come back. The question
brought to his mind that he had neglected Mrs. Petersen for four days.
He rose, conscience-smitten, told Maggie he would be back presently, and
set forth for the tenement in which the Petersens had their home. He
found Mrs. Petersen, her child asleep in her lap, reading the Bible. She
appeared to be even slighter and paler than when he had last seen her,
but her spirit seemed to burn even higher through the lessened
obscuration of her thinning flesh.
No, Petersen had not yet come back. "But I fetched my trouble to God in
prayer," she said. "An' He helped me, glory to His name! He told me Nels
is comin' back."
Tom had nothing to give to one so fired by hope, and he slipped away as
soon as he could and returned home. On entering his flat, his eyes going
straight through the dining-room into the sitting-room, he saw Maggie
gazing in uncomfortable silence at a man--a lean, brown man, with knobby
face, and wing-like mustache, who sat with bony hands in his lap and
eyes fastened on his knees.
Tom crossed the dining-room with long strides. Maggie, glad of the
chance to escape, passed into the bedroom.
"Petersen!" he cried. "Where on earth've you been?"
Petersen rose with a glad light in his face and grasped the hand Tom
offered. Immediately he disengaged his hand to slip it into a trousers
pocket. Tom now noted that Petersen's face was slightly discolored,--dim
yellows, and greens, and blues--and that his left thumb was brown, as
though stained with arnica.
"I come to pay vot I loan," Petersen mumbled. His hand came forth from
the pocket grasping a roll of bills as big as his wrist. He unwrapped
three tens and silently held them out.
Tom, who had watched this action through with dumb amazement, now broke
out: "Where d'you get all that money? Where've you been?"
The three tens were still in Petersen's outstretched hand. "For vot you
give de union, and vot you give me."
"But where've you been?" Tom demanded, taking the money.
Fear, shame, and contrition struggled for control of Petersen's face.
But he answered doggedly: "I vorked at de docks."
"You know that's not so, Petersen. You haven't been home for a week. And
your wife's scared half to death."
"Anna scared? Vy?" He started, and his brown face paled.
"Why shouldn't she be?" Tom returned wrathfully. "You went off without a
word to her, and not a word from you for a week! Now see here, Petersen,
where've you been?"
"Vorkin' at de docks," he repeated, but weakly.
"And got that wad of money for it! Hardly." He pushed Petersen firmly
back into his chair. "Now you've got to tell me all about it."
All the dogged resistance faded from Petersen's manner, and he sat
trembling, with face down. For a moment Tom was in consternation lest he
break into tears. But he controlled himself and in shame told his story,
aided by questions from Tom. Tom heard him without comment, breathing
rapidly and gulping at parts of the brokenly-told story.
When the account was ended Tom gripped Petersen's hand. "You're all
right, Petersen!" he said huskily.
Tears trickled down from Petersen's eyes, and his simple face twitched
with remorse.
Tom fell into thought. He understood Petersen's fear to face his wife.
He, too, was uncertain how Mrs. Petersen, in her religious fervor, would
regard what Petersen had done. He had to tell her, of course, since
Petersen had shown he could not. But how should he tell her--how, so
that the woman, and not the religious enthusiast, would be reached?
Presently Tom handed Petersen his hat, and picked up his own. "Come on,"
he said; and to Maggie he called through the bedroom door: "I'll be back
in an hour."
As they passed through the tunnel Tom, who had slipped his hand through
Petersen's arm for guidance, felt the Swede begin to tremble; and it was
so across the little stone-paved court, with the square of stars above,
and up the nervous stairway, whose February odors had been multiplied by
the June warmth. Before his own door Petersen held back.
Tom understood. "Wait here for me, then," he said, and knocked upon the
door.
"Who's there?" an eager voice questioned.
"Keating."
When she answered, the eagerness in the voice had turned to
disappointment. "All right, Brother Keating. In just a minute."
Tom heard the sounds of rapid dressing, and then a hand upon the knob.
Petersen shrank back into the darkness of a corner.
The door opened. "Come in, Brother Keating," she said, not quite able to
hide her surprise at this second visit in one evening.
A coal oil lamp on the kitchen table revealed the utter barrenness and
the utter cleanness--so far as unmonied effort could make clean those
scaling walls and that foot-hollowed floor--which he had seen on his
first visit five months before. He was hardly within the door when her
quick eyes caught the strain in his manner. One thin hand seized his
arm excitedly. "What is it, brother? Have you heard from Nels?"
"Ye-es," Tom admitted hesitatingly. He had not planned to begin the
story so.
"And he's alive? Quick! He's alive?"
"Yes."
She sank into a chair, clasped both hands over her heart, and turned her
eyes upward. "Praise the Lord! I thank Thee, Lord! I knew Thou wouldst
keep him."
Immediately her wide, burning eyes were back on Tom. "Where is he?"
"He's been very wicked," said Tom, shaking his head sadly, and lowering
himself into the only other chair. "So wicked he's afraid you can never
forgive him. And I don't see how you can. He's afraid to come home."
"God forgives everything to the penitent, an' I try to follow after
God," she said, trembling. A sickening fear was on her face. "Tell me,
brother! What's he done? Don't try to spare me! God will help me to bear
it. Not--not--murder?"
"No. He's fallen in another way," Tom returned, with the sad shake of
his head again. "Shall I tell you all?"
"All, brother! An' quickly!" She leaned toward him, hands gripped in the
lap of her calico wrapper, with such a staring, fearing attention as
seemed to stand out from her gray face and be of itself a separate
presence.
"I'll have to tell you some things you know already, and know better
than I do," Tom said, watching to see how his words worked upon her.
"After Petersen got in the union he held a job for two weeks. Then Foley
knocked him out, and then came the strike. It's been eleven weeks since
he earned a cent at his trade. The money he'd made in the two weeks he
worked soon gave out. He tried to find work and couldn't. Days passed,
and weeks. They had little to eat at home. I guess they had a pretty
hard time of it. He----"
"We did, brother!"
"He saw his wife and kid falling off--getting weaker and weaker," Tom
went on, not heeding the interruption. "He got desperate; he couldn't
see 'em starve. Now the devil always has temptation ready for a
desperate man. About four weeks ago when his wife was so weak she could
hardly move, and there wasn't a bite in the house, the devil tempted
Petersen. He happened to meet a man who had been his partner in his old
wicked days, his manager when he was a prize fighter. The manager said
it was too bad Petersen had left the ring; he was arranging a
heavy-weight bout to come off before a swell athletic club in
Philadelphia, a nice purse for the loser and a big fat one for the
winner. They walked along the street together for awhile, and all the
time the devil was tempting Petersen, saying to him: 'Go in and
fight--this once. It's right for a man to do anything rather than let
his wife and kid starve.' But Petersen held out, getting weaker all the
time, though. Then the devil said to him: 'He's a pretty poor sort of a
man that loves his promise not to fight more than he loves his wife and
kid.' Petersen fell. He decided to commit the sin."
Tom paused an instant, then added in a hard voice: "But because a man
loves his wife so much he's willing to do anything for her, that don't
excuse the sin, does it?"
"Go on!" she entreated, leaning yet further toward him.
"Well, he said to the manager he'd fight. They settled it, and the man
advanced some money. Petersen went into training. But he was afraid to
tell us what an awful thing he was doing,--doing because he didn't want
his wife to starve,--and so he told us he was working at the docks. So
it was for three weeks, and his wife and kid had things to eat. The
fight came off last Wednesday night----"
"And who won? Who?"
"Well--Petersen."
"Yes! Of course!" she cried, exultation for the moment possessing her
face. "He is a terrible fighter! He----"
She broke off and bowed her head with sudden shame; when it came up the
next instant she wore again the tense look that seemed the focus of her
being.
Tom had gone right on. "It was a hard fight. He was up against a fast
hard hitter. But he fought better than he ever did before. I suppose he
was thinking of his wife and kid. He won, and got the big purse. But
after the fight was over, he didn't dare come home. His face was so
bruised his wife would have known he'd been fighting,--and he knew it
would break her heart for her to know he'd been at it again. And so he
thought he'd stay away till his face got well. She needn't ever have the
pain then of knowing how he'd sinned. He never even thought how worried
she'd be at not hearing from him. So he stayed away till his face got
well, almost--till to-night. Then he came back, and slipped up to his
door. He wanted to come in, but he was still afraid. He listened at the
door. His wife was praying for him, and one thing he heard was, she
asked God to keep him wherever he was from wrong-doing. He knew then
he'd have to tell her all about it, and he knew how terrible his sin
would seem to her. He knew she could never forgive him. So he slipped
down the stairs, and went away. Of course he was right about what his
wife would think," Tom drove himself on with implacable voice. "I didn't
come here to plead for him. I don't blame you. It was a terrible sin, a
sin----"
She rose tremblingly from her chair, and raised a thin authoritative
hand. "Stop right there, brother!" she cried, her voice sob-broken. "It
wasn't a sin. It--it was glorious!"
Tom sprang toward the door. "Petersen!" he shouted. He flung it open,
and the next instant dragged Petersen, shrinking and eager, fearful,
shamefaced, and yet glowing, into the room.
"Oh, Nels!" She rushed into his arms, and their mighty length tightened
about the frail body. "It--was--glorious--Nels! It----"
But Tom heard no more. He closed the door and groped down the shivering
stairway.