In the Heart of a Fool Part 18

"Oh, those men,--those men--those wonderful, beautiful souls of men I saw!--those strong, fearless. G.o.dlike men!--there in the mine, I mean.

Evan Davis, d.i.c.k Bowman, Pat McCann, Jamey McPherson, Casper Herd.i.c.ker, Chopini--all of them; yes, Dennis Hogan, drunk as he is sometimes, and Ira Dooley, who's been in jail for hold-ups--I don't care which one--those wonderful men, who risked their lives for others, and Casper Herd.i.c.ker and Chopini, who gave their lives there under the rock for me.

My G.o.d, my G.o.d!"

His voice thrilled with emotion, and his arms trembled as his hands gripped the table. Those who heard him did not stop him, for they felt that from some uncovered spring in his being a section of personality was gushing forth that never had seen day. He turned quietly to the wondering child, took him from his chair and hugged him closely to a man's broad chest and stroked the boyish head as the man's blue eyes filled with tears. Grant sat for a moment looking at the floor, then roughed his red mane with his fingers and said slowly and more quietly, but contentiously:

"I know what you don't know with all your religion, Mr. Dexter; I know what the Holy Ghost is now. I have seen it. The Holy Ghost is that divine spark in every human soul--however life has smudged it over by circ.u.mstance--that rises and envelopes a human creature in a flame of sacrificial love for his kind and makes him joy to die to save others.

That's the Holy Ghost--that's what is immortal."

He clenched his great hickory fist and hit the table and lifted his face again, crying: "I saw Dennis Hogan walk up to Death smiling that Irish smile. I saw him standing with a ton of loose dirt hanging over him while he was digging me out! I saw Evan Davis--little, bow-legged Evan Davis--go out into the smoke alone--alone, Mr. Dexter, and they say Evan is a coward--he went out alone and brought back Casper Herd.i.c.ker's limp body hugged to his little Welsh breast like a gorilla's--and saved a man. I saw d.i.c.k Bowman do more--when the dirt was dropping from the slipping, working roof into my mouth and eyes, and might have come down in a slide--I lay there and watched d.i.c.k working to save me and I heard him order his son to hold a shovel over my face--his own boy." Grant shuddered and drew the child closer to him, and looked at the group near him with wet eyes. "Ira Dooley and Tom Williams and that little Italian went on their bellies, half dead from the smoke, out into death and brought home three men to safety, and would have died without batting an eye--all three to save one lost man in that pa.s.sage." He beat the table again with his fist and cried wildly: "I tell you that's the Holy Ghost.

I know those men may sometimes trick the company if they can. I know Ira Dooley spends lots of good money on 'the row'; I know Tom gambles off everything he can get his hands on, and that the little Dago probably would have stuck a knife in an enemy over a quarter. But that doesn't count."

The young man's voice rose again. "That is circ.u.mstance; much of it is surroundings, either of birth or of this d.a.m.ned place where we are living. If they cheat the company, it is because the company dares them to cheat and cheats them badly. If they steal, it is because they have been taught to steal by the example of big, successful thieves. I've had time to think it all out.

"Father--father!" cried Grant, as a new wave of emotion surged in from the outer bourne of his soul, "you once said d.i.c.k Bowman sold out the town and took money for voting for the Harvey Improvement bond steal.

But what if he did? That was merely circ.u.mstance. d.i.c.k is a little man who has had to fight for money all his life--just enough money to feed his hungry children. And here came an opportunity to get hold of--what was it?--a hundred dollars--" Amos Adams nodded. "Well, then, a hundred dollars, and it would buy so much, and leading citizens came and told him it was all right--men we have educated with our taxes and our surplus money in universities and colleges. And we haven't educated d.i.c.k; we've just taught him to fight--to fight for money, and to think money will do everything in G.o.d's beautiful world. So d.i.c.k took it. That was the d.i.c.k that man and Harvey and America made, father, but I saw the d.i.c.k that G.o.d made!" He stopped and cried out pa.s.sionately, "And some day, some day all the world must know this man--this great-souled, common American--that G.o.d made!"

Grant's voice was low, but a thousand impulses struggled across his features for voice and his eyes were infinitely sad as he gazed at the curly, brown hair of the child in his arms playing with the b.u.t.tons on his coat.

The minister looked at his wife. She was wet-faced and a-tremble, and had her hands over her eyes. Amos Adams's old, frank face was troubled.

The son turned upon him and cried:

"Father--you're right when you say character makes happiness. But what do you call it--surroundings--where you live and how you live and what you do for a living--environment! That's it, that's the word--environment has lots and lots to do with character. Let the company reduce its dividends by giving the men a chance at decent living conditions, in decent houses and decent streets, and you'll have another sort of att.i.tude toward the company. Quit cheating them at the store, and you'll have more honesty in the mines; quit sprinkling sour beer and whiskey on the sawdust in front of the saloons to coax men in who have an appet.i.te, and you'll have less drinking--but, of course, Sands will have less rents. Let the company obey the law--the company run by men who are pointed out as examples, and there'll be less lawlessness among the men when trouble comes. Why, Mr. Dexter, do you know as we sat down there in the dark, we counted up five laws which the company broke, any one of which would have prevented the fire, and would have saved ninety lives. Trash in the pa.s.sage leading to the main shaft delayed notifying the men five minutes--that's against the law. Torches leaking in the pa.s.sageway where there should have been electric lights--that's against the law. Boys--little ten-year-olds working down there--cheap, cheap!"

he cried, "and dumping that pine lumber under a dripping torch--that's against the law. Having no fire drill, and rusty water plugs and hose that doesn't reach--that's against the law. A pine part.i.tion in an air-chute using it as a shaft--that's against the law. Yet when trouble comes and these men burn and kill and plunder--we'll put the miners in jail, and maybe hang them, for doing as they are taught a thousand times a week by the company--risking life for their own gain!"

Grant Adams rose. He ran his great, strong, copper-freckled hands through his fiery hair and stood with face transfigured, as the face of one staring at some phantasm. "Oh, those men--they risked their lives--Chopini and Casper Herd.i.c.ker gave their lives for me. Father," he cried, "I am bought with a price. These men risked all and gave all for me. I am theirs. I have no other right to live except as I serve them."

He drew a deep breath; set his jaw and spoke with all the force he could put into a quiet voice: "I am dedicated to men--to those great-souled, brave, kind men whom G.o.d has sent here for man to dwarf and ruin. They have bought me. I am theirs."

The minister put the question in their minds:

"What are you going to do, Grant?"

The fervor that had been dying down returned to Grant Adams's face.

"My job," he cried, "is so big I don't know where to take hold. But I'm not going to bother to tell those men who sweat and stink and suffer under the injustices of men, about the justice of G.o.d. I've got one thing in me bigger'n a wolf--it's this: House them--feed them, clothe them, work them--these working people--and pay them as you people of the middle cla.s.ses are housed and fed and paid and clad, and crime won't be the recreation of poverty. And the Lord knows the work of the men who toil with their hands is just as valuable to society as preaching and trading and buying and selling and banking and editing and lawing and doctoring, and insuring and school teaching."

He stood before the kitchen stove, a tall, awkward, bony, wide-shouldered, loose-wired creature in the first raw stage of full-blown manhood. The red muscles of his jaw worked as his emotions rose in him. His hands were the hands of a fanatic--never still.

"I've been down into death and I've found something about life," he went on. "Out of the world's gross earnings we're paying too much for superintendence, and rent and machines, and not enough for labor.

There's got to be a new shake-up. And I'm going to help. I don't know where nor how to begin, but some way I'll find a hold and I'm going to take it."

He drew in a long breath, looked around and smiled rather a ragged, ugly smile that showed his big teeth, all white and strong but uneven.

"Well, Grant," said Mrs. Dexter, "you have cut out a big job for yourself." The young man nodded soberly.

"Well, we're going to organize 'em, the first thing. We talked that over in the mine when we had nothing else to talk about--but G.o.d and our babies."

In the silence that followed, Amos Adams said: "While you were down there of course I had to do something. So after the paper was out, I got to talking with Lincoln about things. He said you'd get out. Though,"

smiled the old man sheepishly and wagged his beard, "Darwin didn't think you would. But anyway, they all agreed we should do something for the widows."

"They have a subscription paper at George Brotherton's store--you know, Grant," said Mr. Dexter.

"Well--we ought to put in something, father,--all we've got, don't you think?"

"I tried and tried to get her last night to know how she felt about it,"

mused Amos. "I've borrowed all I can on the office--and it wouldn't sell for its debts."

"You ought to keep your home, I think," put in Mrs. Dexter quickly, who had her husband's approving nod.

"They told me," said the father, "that Mary didn't feel that way about it. I couldn't get her. But that was the word she sent."

"Father," said Grant with the glow in his face that had died for a minute, "let's take the chance. Let's check it up to G.o.d good and hard.

Let's sell the house and give it all to those who have lost more than we. We can earn the rent, anyway."

Mrs. Dexter looked significantly at Kenyon.

"No, that shouldn't count, either," said Grant stubbornly. "d.i.c.k Bowman didn't let his boy count when I needed help, and when hundreds of orphaned boys and girls and widows need our help, we shouldn't hold back for Kenyon."

"Grant," said the father when the visit was ended and the two were alone, "they say your father has no sense--up town. Maybe I haven't. I commune with these great minds; maybe they too are shadows. But they come from outside of me." He ran his fingers through his graying beard and smiled. "Mr. Left brings me things that are deeper and wiser than the things I know--it seems to me. But they all bear one testimony, Grant; they all tell me that it's the spiritual things and not the material things in this world that count in the long run, and, Grant, boy," the father reached for his son's strong hand, "I would rather have seen the son that has come back to me from death, go back to death now, if otherwise I never could have seen him. They told me your mother was with you. And now I know some way she touched your heart out there in the dark--O Grant, boy, while you spoke I saw her in your face--in your face I saw her. Mary--Mary," cried the weeping old man, "when you sent me back to the war you looked as he looked to-day, and talked so."

"Father," said Grant, "I don't know about your Mr. Left. He doesn't interest me, as he does you, and as for the others--they may be true or all a mockery, for anything I know. But," he exclaimed, "I've seen G.o.d face to face and I can't rest until I've given all I am--everything--everything to help those men!"

Then the three went out into the crisp January air--father and son and little Kenyon bundled to the chin. They walked over the prairies under the sunshine and talked together through the short winter afternoon. At its close they were in the timber where the fallen leaves were beginning to pack against the tree trunks and in the ravines. The child listened as the wind played upon its harp, and the rhythm of the rising and falling tide of harmony set his heart a-flutter, and he squeezed his father's fingers with delight. A redbird flashing through the gray and brown picture gave him joy, and when it sang far down the ravine where the wind organ seemed to be, the child's eyes brimmed and he dropped behind the elders a few paces to listen and be alone with his ecstasy.

And so in the fading day they walked home. The quail piped for the child, and the prairie chicken pounded his drum, and in the prairie gra.s.s the slanting sun painted upon the ripples across the distant, rolling hills many pictures that filled the child's heart so full that he was still, as one who is awed with a great vision. And it was a great vision that filled his soul: the sunset with its splendors, the twilight hovering in the brown woods, the prairie a-quiver with the caresses of the wind, winter-birds throbbing life and ecstasy into the picture, and above and around it all a great, warm, father's heart symbolizing the loving kindness of the infinite to the child's heart.

CHAPTER XVIII

OUR HERO RIDES TO HOUNDS WITH THE PRIMROSE HUNT

Going home from the Adamses that afternoon, John Dexter mused: "Curious--very curious." Then he added: "Of course this phase will pa.s.s.

Probably it is gone now. But I am wondering how fundamental this state of mind is, if it will not appear again--at some crisis later in life."

"His mother," said Mrs. Dexter, "was a strong, beautiful woman. She builded deep and wide in that boy. And his father is a wise, earnest, kindly man, even if he may be impractical. Why shouldn't Grant do all that he dreams of doing?"

"Yes," returned the minister dryly. "But there is life--there are its temptations. He is of the emotional type, and the wrong woman could bend him away from any purpose that he may have now. Then, suppose he does get past the first gate--the gate of his senses--there's the temptation to be a fool about his talents if he has any--if this gift of tongues we've seen to-day should stay with him--he may get the swelled head. And then," he concluded sadly, "at the end is the greatest temptation of all--the temptation that comes with power to get power for the sake of power."

The next morning Amos Adams and Grant went in to Market Street to sell their home. Grant seemed a stranger to that busy mart of trade: the week of his absence had taken him so far from it. His eyes were caught by two tall figures, a man and a woman, walking and talking as they crossed the street--the man in a heavy, long, brown ulster, the woman in a flaring red, outer garment. He recognized them as Margaret Fenn and Thomas Van Dorn. They had met entirely by chance, and the meeting was one of perhaps half a dozen chance meetings which they had enjoyed during the winter, and these meetings were so entirely pleasurable that the man was beginning rather vaguely to antic.i.p.ate them--to hope for another meeting after the last. Grant was in an exalted mood that morning, and the sight of the two walking together struck him only as a symbol and epitome of all that he was going into the world to fight--in the man intellect without moral purpose, in the woman materialism, gross and carnal. The Adamses went the rounds of the real estate dealers trying to sell their home, and in following his vision Grant forgot the two tall figures in the street.

But the two figures that had started Grant's reverie continued to walk--perhaps a trifle slower than was the wont of either, down Market Street. They walked slowly for two reasons: For her part, she wished to make the most of a parade on Market Street with so grand a person as the Judge of the District Court, and the town's most distinguished citizen; and for his part, he dawdled because life was going slowly with him in certain quarters: he felt the lack of adventure, and here--at least, she was a stunning figure of a woman! "Yes," she said, "I heard about them.

Henry has just told me that Mr. Brotherton said the Adamses are going to sell their home and give it to the miners' widows. Isn't it foolish?

It's all they've got in the world, too! Still, really nothing is strange in that family. You know, I boarded with them one winter when I taught the Prospect School. Henry says they want to do something for the laboring people," she added navely.

As she spoke, the man's eyes wandered over her figure, across her face, and were caught by her eyes that looked at him with something in them entirely irrelevant to the subject that her lips were discussing. His eyes caught up the suggestion of her eyes, and carried it a little further, but he only said: "Yes--queer folks--trying to make a whistle--"

"Out of a pig's tail," she laughed. But her eyes thought his eyes had gone just a little too far, so they drooped, and changed the subject.