In the Heart of a Fool Part 29

Lida Bowman bringing her little brood sometimes would sit silently watching the children, and look at Laura as if about to speak, but she always went away with her mind unrelieved. Violet Hogan, who brought her beruffled and bedizened eldest, made up for Mrs. Bowman's reticence.

Moreover Violet brought other mothers and there was much talk on the topics of the day--talk that revealed to Laura Nesbit a whole philosophy that was new to her--the helpfulness of the poor to the poor.

But if others brought to Laura Van Dorn material strength and spiritual comfort in her enterprise, Grant Adams waved the wand of his steel claw over the kindergarten and made it live. For he was a power in the Wahoo Valley. Her friends knew that his word gave the kindergarten the endors.e.m.e.nt of every union there and thus brought to it mothers with children and with problems as well as children, whom Laura Van Dorn otherwise never could have reached. The unions made a small donation monthly to the work which gave them the feeling of proprietorship in the place and the mothers and children came in self-respect. But if Grant gave life to the kindergarten, he got more than he gave. For the restraining hand of Laura Van Dorn always was upon him, and his friends in the Valley came to realize her friendship for them and their cause.

They knew that many a venture of Grant's Utopia would have been a wild goose chase but for the wisdom of her counsel. And the two came to rely upon each other unconsciously.

So in the ugly little building near Dooley's saloon in South Harvey the two towns met and worked together; and all to heal a broken heart, a bruised life. From out of the unexplored realm where our dreams are blooming into the fruit of reality one evening came Mr. Left with this message: "Whoever in the joy of service gives part of himself to the vast sum of sacrificial giving that has remained unspent, since man began to walk erect, is adding to humanity's heritage, is building an unseen temple wherein mankind is sheltered from its own inhumanity. This sum of sacrificial giving is the temple not made with hands!"

Now the foundations of that part of the temple not made with hands in South Harvey, may be said to have been laid and the watertable set on the day when Laura Van Dorn first laughed the bell-chime laugh of her girlhood. And that day came well along in the summer. It was twilight and the Doctor was sitting with his wife and daughter on their east veranda when Morty Sands came flitting across the lawn like a striped miller moth in a broad-banded outing suit. He waved gayly to the little company in the veranda and came up the steps at two bounds, though he was a man of thirty-eight and just the least bit weazened.

"Well," he said, with his greetings scarcely off his lips, "I came to tell you I've sold the colt!"

The chorus repeated his announcement as a question.

"Yes, sold the colt," solemnly responded Morty. And then added, "Father just wouldn't! I tried to get that two hundred in various ways--adding it to my cigar bill; slipping it in on my bill for raiment at Wright & Perry's, but father pinned Kyle down, and he stuttered out the truth. I tried to get the horse-doctor to charge the two hundred into his bill and when father uncovered that--I couldn't wait any longer so I've sold the colt!"

"Well, Morty, what for in Heaven's name?" asked Laura. Morty began fumbling in his pockets before he spoke. He did not smile, but as his hand came out of an inside pocket, he said gently: "For two hundred and seventeen dollars and a half! I fought an hour for that half dollar!" He handed it to the Doctor, saying: "It's for the kindergarten. You keep it for her, Doctor Jim!"

When Morty had gone Mrs. Nesbit said: "What queer blood that Sands blood is, Doctor. There is Mary Sands's heart in that boy, and Daniel has bred nothing into him. They must have been a queer breed a generation or two back!"

The Doctor did not answer. He took the money which Morty had given to him, handed it to Laura and said: "And now my dear, accept this token of devotion from Sir Mortimer Sands, of the golden heart and wooden head!"

And then Laura laughed, not in derision, not in merriment even, but in sheer joy that life could mean so much. And as she laughed the temple not made with hands began to rise strong and beautiful in her heart and in the hearts of all who touched her.

How they would have sneered at Laura Van Dorn's niche in the temple, those practical folk who helped her because they loved her. How George Brotherton would have laughed; with what suspicion John Kollander would have viewed the kindergarten, if he had been told that it was part of a temple. For he had no sort of an idea of letting the rag-tag and bob-tail of South Harvey into a temple; he knew very well they deserved no temple. They were shiftless and wicked. How Wright & Perry would have sniffed at any one who would have called the dreary little shack, where Laura Van Dorn held forth, a temple. For they all pretended to see only the earthly dimensions of material things. But in their hearts they knew the truth. It is the American way to mask the beauty of our n.o.bler selves, or real selves under a gibing deprecation. So we wear the veneer of materialism, and beneath it we are intense idealists. And woe to him who reckons to the contrary!

Perhaps the town's views on temples in general and Laura's temple in particular, was summed up by Hildy Herd.i.c.ker, Prop., when she read Mr.

Left's reflections in the _Tribune_. "Temples--eh?--temples not made with hands--is it? Well, Miss Laura can get what comfort she can out of her baby shop; but me? Every man to his trade as Kyle Perry said when he tried to buy a dozen scissors and got a sewing machine--me?--I get my heart balm selling hats, and if others gets theirs coddling brats--'tis the good G.o.d's wisdom that makes us different and no business of mine so long as they bring grist to the profit mill! The trouble with their temples is that they don't pay taxes!"

So in the matter of putting up temples--particularly in the matter of erecting temples not made with hands, the town worked blindly. But so far as Laura Van Dorn was concerned, while she was working on her part of the temple, she had the vision of youth still in her heart. Youth indeed is that part of every soul that life has not tarnished, and if we keep our faith, hold ourselves true and bow to no circ.u.mstance however arrogant it may be, youth still will abide in our hearts through many years. Now Laura, who was born Nesbit and became Van Dorn, was taking up life with that large charity that comes to every unconquered soul. She held her illusions, she believed in herself, and youth shone like a beacon from her face and glowed in her body.

For Thomas Van Dorn, who had been her husband, she had trained herself to hold no unkind thought. She even taught Lila--when the child asked for him--to harbor no rancor toward him. So the child turned to her father when they met, the natural face of a child; it was a sad little face that he saw--though no one else ever saw it sad; but the child smiled when she spoke and looked gently at him, in the hope that some day he would come back to her.

Now it happened that on the night when Laura's laugh first echoed through her temple another rising temple witnessed a ceremony entirely befitting its use.

That night--late that night when a pale moon was climbing over the valley below the town, Margaret and her lover stood alone in the great unfinished house which they were building.

Through the uncurtained windows the moonlight was streaming, making white splashes upon the floors. Across the plank pathways they wandered locating the halls, the great living-room, the s.p.a.cious dining-room, the airy, comfortable bedrooms exposed to the south, the library, the kitchen, and the ballroom on the third floor. It was to be a grand house--this house of Van Dorn. And in their fancy the man and the woman called it the temple of love erected as an altar to the love G.o.d whom they worshiped. They peopled it with many a merry company. They saw the rich and the great in the dining-room. They pictured in this vision pleasure capering through the ball room. They enshrined wisdom and contentment in the library. In the great living-room they installed elegance and luxury, and hospitality beckoned with ostentatious pride for the coming of such of the n.o.bility as Harvey and its environs and the surrounding state and Nation could produce. A grand, proud temple, a rich, beautiful temple, a strong, masterful temple would be this temple of love.

"And, dearest," said he--the master of the house, as he held her in his arms at the foot of the stairway that swept down into the broad hall like the ghost of some baronial grandeur, "dearest, what do we care what they say! We have built it for ourselves--just for you, I want it--just for you; not friends, not children, not any one but you. This is to be our temple of love."

She kissed him, and whined wordless a.s.sent. Then she whispered: "Just you--you, you, and if man, woman or child come to mar our joy or to lessen our love, G.o.d pity the intruder." And like a flaming torch she fluttered in his arms.

The summer breeze came caressingly through an unclosed window into the temple. It seemed--the summer breeze which fell upon their cheeks--like the benediction of some pagan G.o.d; their G.o.d of love perhaps. For the grand house, the rich house, the beautiful, masterful temple of their mad love was made for summer breezes.

But when the rain came, and the storms fell and beat upon that house, they found that it was a house built upon sand. But while it stood and even when it fell there was a temple, a real temple, a temple made with hands--a temple that all Harvey and all the world could understand!

CHAPTER XXVI

DR. NESBIT STARTS ON A LONG UPWARD BUT DEVIOUS JOURNEY

The Van Dorns opened their new house without ostentation the day after their marriage in October. There was no reception; the handsomest hack in town waited for them at the railway station, as they alighted from the Limited from Chicago. They rode down Market Street, up the Avenue to Elm Crest Place, drove to the new house, and that night it was lighted.

That was all the ceremony of housewarming which the place had. The Van Dorns knew what the town thought of them. They made it plain what they thought of the town. They allowed no second rate people to crowd into the house as guests while the first rate people smiled, and the third rate people sniffed. The Judge had some difficulty keeping Mrs. Van Dorn to their purpose. She was impatient--having nothing in particular to think about, and being proud of her furniture. Naturally, there were calls--a few. And they were returned with some punctiliousness. But the people whom the Van Dorns were anxious to see did not call. In the winter, the Van Dorns went to Florida for a fortnight, and put up at a hotel where they could meet a number of persons of distinction whom they courted, and whom the Van Dorns pressed to visit them. When she came home from the winter's social excursion, Mrs. Van Dorn went straight to the establishment of Mrs. Herd.i.c.ker, Prop., and bought a hat; and bragged to Mrs. Herd.i.c.ker of having met certain New York social dignitaries in Florida whose names were as familiar to the Harvey women as the names of their hired girl's beaux! Then having started this tale of her social prowess on its career, Margaret was more easily restrained by her husband from offering the house to the Plymouth Daughters for an entertainment. It was in that spring that Margaret began--or perhaps they both began to put on what George Brotherton called the "Van Dorn remnant sale." The parade pa.s.sed down Market Street every morning at eight thirty. It consisted of one handsome rather overdressed man and one beautiful rather conspicuously dressed woman. On fair days they rode in a rakish-looking vehicle known as a trap, and in bad weather they walked through Market Street. At the foot of the stairs leading to the Judge's office they parted with all the voltage of affection permitted by the canons of propriety and at five in the evening, Mrs. Van Dorn reappeared on Market Street, and at the foot of the stairs before the Judge's office, the parade resumed its course.

"Well--say," said George Brotherton, "right smart little line of staple and fancy love that firm is carrying this season. Rather nice t.i.tles too; good deal of full calf bindings--well, say--glancing at the ill.u.s.trations, I should like to read the text. But man--say--hear your Uncle George! With me it's always a sign of low stock when I put it all in the window and the show case! Well, say--" and he laughed like the ripping of an earthquake. "It certainly looks to me as if they were moving the line for a quick turnover at a small profit! Well say!"

But without the complicated ceremony required to show the town that he was pleased with his matrimonial bargain, the handsome Judge was a busy man. Every time he saw Dr. Nesbit toddling up or down Market Street, or through South Harvey, or in the remotenesses of Foley or Magnus, the Judge whipped up his energies. For he knew that the Doctor never lost a fight through overconfidence. So the Judge, alone for the first time in his career, set out to bring about his nomination, where a nomination meant an election. Now a judge who showed the courage of his convictions, as Judge Van Dorn had shown his courage in forcing settlements in the mine accident cases and in similar matters of occasional interest, was rather more immediately needed by the mine owners of Harvey than the political boss, who merely used the mine owner's money to encompa.s.s his own ends, and incidentally work out the owner's salvation. Daniel Sands played both sides, which was all that Van Dorn could ask. But when the Doctor saw that Sands was giving secret aid to Van Dorn, the Doctor's heart was hot within him. And Van Dorn continued to rove the district day and night, like a dog, hunting for its buried bone.

It was in the courthouse that Van Dorn made his strongest alliance--in the courthouse, where the Doctor was supposed to be in supreme command.

A capricious fate had arranged it so that nearly all the county officers were running for their second terms, and a second term was a time honored courtesy. Van Dorn tied himself up with them by maintaining that his was a second term election also,--and a second regular four year term it was. His appointment, and his election to fill out the remainder of his predecessor's term, he waved aside as immaterial, and staged himself as a candidate for his second term. The Doctor tried to break the combination between the Judge and the second term county candidates by ruthlessly bringing out their deputies against the second termers as candidates. But the scheme provoked popular rebellion. The Doctor tried bringing out one young lawyer after another against the Judge, but all had retainers from the mine owners, and no one in the county would run against Van Dorn, so the Doctor had to pick his candidate from outside of the county, in a judicial convention wherein Greeley County had a majority of the votes. But Van Dorn knew that for all the strategy of the situation, the Doctor might be able to ma.s.s the town's disapproval of Van Dorn, socially, into a political majority in the convention against him. So the handsome Judge, with his matrimonial parade to give daily, his political fortunes to consider every hour, and withal, a court to hold, and a judicial serenity to maintain, was a busy young man--a rather more than pa.s.sing busy young man!

As for the Doctor, he threw himself into the contest against Van Dorn with no mixed motives. "There," quoth the Doctor, to the wide world including his own henchmen, yeomen, heralds, and outriders, "is one hound pup I am going to teach house manners!" And failing to break Van Dorn's alliance in the courthouse, and failing to bulldoze Daniel Sands out of a secret liaison with Van Dorn, failing to punish those of his courthouse friends who permitted Van Dorn to stand with them on their convention tickets in the primary, the Doctor went forth with his own primary ticket, and announced that he proposed to beat Van Dorn in the convention single handed and alone.

And so quiet are the wheels of our government, that few heard them grinding during the spring and early summer--few except the little coterie of citizens who pay attention to the details of party politics.

Yet underneath and over the town, and through the very heart of it wherever the web of the spider went, there was a cruel rending. Two men with hate in their hearts were pulling at the web, wrenching its filaments, twisting it out of shape, ripping its texture, in a desperate struggle to control the web, and with that control to govern the people.

Then Dr. Nesbit pushed his way into the very nest of the spider, and bolted into Daniel Sands's office to register a final protest against Sands's covert alliance with the Judge. He plunked angrily into the den of the spider, shut the door, turned the spring lock, and looking around saw not Sands, but Van Dorn himself.

The Doctor burst out: "Well, young man! So you're here, eh!" Van Dorn nodded pleasantly, and replied graciously: "Yes, Doctor, here I am, and I believe we have met here before--at one time or another."

The Doctor sat down and slapping a fat hand on a chair arm, cried angrily: "Thomas, it can't be did--you can't cut 'er."

Judge Van Dorn answered blandly, rather patronizingly: "Yes, Dr. Jim, it can be done. And I shall do it."

"Have you let 'em fool you--the fellows on the street?" asked the Doctor.

Judge Van Dorn tapped on the desk beside him meditatively, then answered slowly: "No--I should say they mostly lied to me--they're not for me--excepting, maybe, Captain Morton, who tried to say he was opposed to me--but couldn't--quite. No--Doctor--no--Market Street didn't fool me."

He was so suave about it, so nave, and yet so c.o.c.k-sure of his success, that the Doctor was impatient: "Tom," he piped, "I tell you, they're too strong to bluff and too many to buy. You can't make it."

The younger man shut one eye, knocked with his tongue on the roof of his mouth, and then said as he looked insolently into the Doctor's face:

"Well, to begin--what's your price?"

The Doctor flushed; his loose skin twitched around his nostrils, and he gripped his chair arms. He did not answer for nearly a minute, during which the Judge tilted back in his chair beside the desk and looked at the elder man with some show of curiosity, if not of interest.

"My price," sneered the Doctor, "is a little mite low to-day. It's a pelt--a hound pup's pelt and you are going to furnish it, if you'll stop strutting long enough for me to skin you!"

The two men glared at each other. Then Van Dorn, regaining his poise, answered: "Well, sir, I'm going to win--no matter how--I'm going to win.

I've sat up with this situation every night for six months--Oh, for a year. I know it backwards and forwards, and you can't trip me any place along the line. I've counted you out." He went on smiling:

"What have I done that is not absolutely legal? This is a government of law, Doctor--not of hysteria. The trouble with you," the Judge settled down to an upright position in his chair, "is that you're an old maid.

You're so--so" he drawled the "so" insolently, "d.a.m.n nice. You're an old maid, and you come from a family of old maids. I warrant your grandmother and her mother before her were old maids. There hasn't been a man in your family for five generations." The Doctor rose, Van Dorn went on arrogantly, "Doctor James Nesbit, I'm not afraid of you. And I'll tell you this: If you make a fight on me in this contest, when I'm elected, we'll see if there isn't one less corrupt boss in this state and if Greeley County can't contribute a pompadour to the rogues'

gallery and a tenor voice to the penitentiary choir."

During the harangue of the Judge, the Doctor's full lips had begun to twitch in a smile, and his eyes to twinkle. Then he chirped gaily: