In the Heart of a Fool Part 40

"George--I tell Henry he's had a dirty deal, too--Oh, such a dirty deal.

I know he's a man--he never cast off a girl--like I was cast off--you know how. Henry's a man, George--a real man, and oh, if I could help him--if I could help him get up again. He's had such a dirty deal."

Brotherton saw her mouth in all its ugliness, and saw as he looked how tears were streaking the bedaubed face. She was repulsive beyond words, yet as she tried to hold back her tears, George Brotherton thought she was beautiful.

Fenn found his voice. "Now, here, George--it's like this: I don't want any woman; I've washed most of that monkey business out of me with whisky--it's not in me any more. And I know she's had enough of men. And I've brought her here--we've come here to tell you that part is straight--decent--square. I wanted you to know that--and Violet would, too--wouldn't you, Violet?" She nodded.

"Now, then, George--I'm her man! Do you understand--her man. I'm going to see that she doesn't have to go on the streets. Why, when she was a girl I used to beau her around, and if she isn't ashamed of a drunken thief--then in Christ's name, I'm going to help her."

He smiled out of his leaden eyes the ghost of his glittering, old, self-deprecatory smile. The woman remembered it, and bent over and kissed his dirty hand. She rose, and put her fingers gently upon his head, and sobbed:

"Oh, G.o.d, forgive me and make me worthy of this!"

There was an awkward pause. When the woman had controlled herself Fenn said: "What I want is to keep right on sleeping in the bas.e.m.e.nt here--until I can get ahead enough to pay for my room. I'm not going to make any scandal for Violet, here. But we both feel better to talk it out with you."

They started for the back door. The front of the store was dark.

Brotherton saw the man hesitate, and look down the alley to see if any one was in sight.

"Henry," said Brotherton, "here's a dollar. You might just as well begin fighting it out to-night. You go to the bas.e.m.e.nt. I'll take Violet home."

The woman would have protested, but the big man said gently: "No, Violet--you were Denny Hogan's wife. He was my friend. You are Henry's ward--he is my friend. Let's go out the front way, Violet."

When they were gone, and the lights were out in the office of the bookstore, Henry Fenn slipped through the alley, went to the nearest saloon, walked in, stood looking at the whiskey sparkling brown and devilishly in the thick-bottomed cut gla.s.ses, saw the beer foaming upon the mahogany board, breathed it all in deeply, felt of the hard silver dollar in his pocket, shook as one in a palsy, set his teeth and while the tears came into his eyes stood and silently counted one hundred and another hundred; grinning foolishly when the loafers joked with him, and finally shuffled weakly out into the night, and ran to his cellar. And if Mr. Left's theory of angels is correct, then all the angels in heaven had their harps in their hands waving them for Henry, and cheering for joy!

CHAPTER x.x.xIV

A SHORT CHAPTER, YET IN IT WE EXAMINE ONE CANVAS HEAVEN, ONE REAL HEAVEN, AND TWO SNUG LITTLE h.e.l.lS

"The idea of h.e.l.l," wrote the Peach Blow Philosopher in the Harvey _Tribune_, "is the logical sequence of the belief that material punishments must follow spiritual offenses. For the wicked go unscathed of material punishments in this naughty world. And so the idea of Heaven is a logical sequence of the idea that only spiritual rewards come to men for spiritual services. Not that Heaven is needed to balance the accounts of good men after death--not at all. Good men get all that is coming to them here--whether it is a crucifixion or a crown--that makes no difference; crowns and crosses are mere material counters. They do not win or lose the game--nor even justly mark its loss or winning.

"The reason why Heaven is needed in the scheme of a neighborly man,"

said the Peach Blow Philosopher as he stood at his gate and reviewed the procession of pilgrims through the wilderness, "is this: The man who leads a decent life, is building a great soul. Obviously, this world is not the natural final habitat of great souls; for they occur here sporadically--though perhaps more and more frequently every trip around the sun. But Heaven is needed in any scheme of general decency for decency's sake, so that the decent soul for whose primary development the earth was hung in the sky, may have a place to find further usefulness, and a far more exceeding glory than may be enjoyed in this material dwelling place. So as we grow better and kinder in this world, h.e.l.l sloughs off and Heaven is more real."

There is more of this dissertation--if the reader cares to pursue it, and it may be found in the files of the Harvey _Tribune_. It also appears as a footnote to an article by an eminent authority on Abnormal Psychology in a report on Mr. Left, Vol. x.x.xII, p. 2126, of the Report of the Psychological a.s.sociation. The remarks of the Peach Blow Philosopher credited in the Report of the Proceedings above noted, to Mr. Left, appeared in the Harvey _Tribune_ Jan. 14, 1903. They may have been called forth by an editorial in the Harvey _Times_ of January 9 of that same year. So as that editorial has a proper place in this narrative, it may be set down here at the outset of this chapter.

The article from the _Times_ is headed: "A Successful Career" and it follows:

"To-day Judge Thomas Van Dorn retires from ten years of faithful service as district judge of this district. He was appointed by the Governor and has been twice elected to this position by the people, and feeling that the honor should go to some other county in the district, the Judge was not a candidate for a third nomination or election. During the ten years of his service he has grown steadily in legal and intellectual attainments. He has been president of the state bar a.s.sociation, delegate from that body to the National Bar a.s.sociation, member of several important committees in that organization, and now is at the head of that branch of the National Bar a.s.sociation organized to secure a more strict interpretation of the Federal Const.i.tution, as a bulwark of commercial liberty. Judge Van Dorn also has been selected as a member of a subcommittee to draft a new state const.i.tution to be submitted to the legislature by the state bar a.s.sociation. So much for the recognition of his legal ability.

"As an orator he has won similar and enviable fame. His speech at the dedication of the state monument at Vicksburg will be a cla.s.sic in American oratory for years. At the Marquette Club Banquet in Chicago last month his oration was reprinted in New York and Boston with flattering comment. Recently he has been engaged--though his term of service has just ended--in every important criminal action now pending west of the Mississippi. As a jury lawyer he has no equal in all the West.

"But while this practice is highly interesting, and in a sense remunerative, the Judge feels that the criminal practice makes too much of a drain upon his mind and body, and while he will defend certain great lumber operators and will appear for the defense in the famous Yarborrough murder case, and is considering accepting an almost unbelievably large retainer in the Skelton divorce case with its ramifications leading into at least three criminal prosecutions, and four suits to change or perfect certain land t.i.tles, yet this kind of practice is distasteful to the Judge, and he will probably confine himself after this year to what is known as corporation practice. He has been retained as general counsel for all the industrial interests in the Wahoo Valley. The mine operators, the smelter owners, the cement manufacturers, the gla.s.s factories have seen in Judge Van Dorn a man in whom they all may safely trust their interests--amicably settling all differences between themselves in his office, and presenting for the Wahoo Valley an unbroken front in all future disputes--industrial or otherwise. This arrangement has been perfected by our giant of finance, Hon. Daniel Sands of the Traders' State Bank, who is, as every one knows, heavily interested in every concern in the Valley--excepting the Independent Coal Company, which by the way has preferred to remain outside of the united commercial union, and do business under its own flag--however dark that flag may be.

"This new career of Judge Van Dorn will be highly gratifying to his friends--and who is there who is not his friend?

"Courteous, knightly, impetuous, gallant Tom Van Dorn? What a career he has builded for himself in Harvey and the West.

"Scorning his enemies with the quiet contempt of the intellectual gladiator that he is, Tom Van Dorn has risen in this community as no other man young or old since its founding. His s.p.a.cious home is the temple of hospitality; his magnificent talent is given freely, often to the poor and needy to whom his money flows in a generous stream whenever the call comes. His shrewd investment of his savings in the Valley have made him rich; his beautiful wife and his widening circle of friends have made him happy--his fine, active brain has made him great.

"The _Times_ extends to the Judge upon his retirement from the bench the congratulations of an admiring community, and best wishes for future success."

Now perhaps it was not this article that inspired the Peach Blow Philosopher. It may have been another item in the same paper hidden away in the want column.

"Wanted--All the sewing and mending, quilt patching, sheet making, or other plain sewing that the good women of Harvey have to give out. I know certain worthy women with families, who need this work. Also wood-sawing orders promptly filled by competent men out of work. I will bring work and the workers together. H. Fenn, care Brotherton Book & Stationery Co., 1127 Market Street."

Or if it was not that item, perhaps it was this one from the South Harvey _Derrick_ of January 7, that called forth the Peach Blow Philosopher's remarks on Heaven:

"Mrs. Violet Hogan and family have rented the rooms adjoining Mrs. Van Dorn's kindergarten. Mrs. Hogan has made arrangements to provide ladies of South Harvey and the Valley in general with plain sewing by the piece. A day nursery for children has been fitted up by our genial George Brotherton, former mayor of Harvey, where mothers sewing may leave their children in an adjoining room."

Now the Heaven of the Peach Blow Philosopher is not gained at one bound.

Even the painted, canvas Heaven of Thomas Van Dorn cost him something--to be exact, $100, which he took in "stock" of the _Times_ company--which always had stock for sale, issued by a Price & Chanler Gordon job press whenever it was required. And the negotiations for the Judge's painted Heaven made by his partner, Mr.

Joseph Calvin, of the renewed and reunited firm of Van Dorn & Calvin, were not without their painful moments. As, for instance, when the editor of the _Times_ complained bitterly at having it agreed that he would have to mention in the article the Judge's "beautiful wife,"

specifically and in terms, the editor was for raising the price to $150, by reason of the laughing stock it would make of the paper, but compromised upon the promise of legal notices from the firm amounting to $100 within the following six months. Also there was a hitch in the negotiations hereinbefore mentioned when the _Times_ was required to refer to the National Bar a.s.sociation meeting at all. For it was notorious that the Judge's flourishing signature with "and wife" had been photographed upon the register of a New York Hotel when he attended that meeting, whereas every one knew that Mrs. Van Dorn was in Europe that summer, and the photograph of the Judge's beautifully flourishing signature aforesaid was one of the things that persuaded the Judge to enter the active practice and leave the shades and solitudes of the bench for more strenuous affairs. To allude to the Judge's wife, and to mention the National Bar a.s.sociation in the same article, struck the editor of the _Times_ as so inauspicious that it required considerable persuasion on the part of the diplomatic Mr. Calvin, to arrange the matter.

So the Judge's Heaven bellied on its canvas, full of vain east wind, and fooled no one--not even the Judge, least of all his beautiful wife, who, knowing of the Bar a.s.sociation incident, laughed a ribald laugh.

Moreover, having abandoned mental healing for the Episcopalian faith and having killed her mental healing dog with caramels and finding surcease in a white poodle, she gave herself over to a riot of earth thoughts--together with language thereunto appertaining of so plain a texture that the Judge all but limped in his strut for several hours.

But when the strut did come back, and the mocking echoes of the strident tones of "his beautiful wife" were stilled by several rounds of Scotch whisky at the Club, the Judge went forth into the town, waving his hands right and left, bowing punctiliously to women, and spending an hour in police court getting out of trouble some of his gambler friends who had supported him in politics.

He told every one that it was good to be off the bench and to be "plain Tom Van Dorn" again, and he shook hands up and down Market Street. And as "plain Tom Van Dorn" he sat down in the shop of the Paris Millinery Company, Mrs. Herd.i.c.ker, Prop., and talked to the amiable Prop. for half an hour--casting sly glances at the handsome Miss Morton, who got behind him and made faces over his back for Mrs. Herd.i.c.ker's edification.

But as Mrs. Herd.i.c.ker, Prop., made it a point--and kept it--never to talk against the cash drawer, "plain Tom Van Dorn" didn't learn the truth from her. So he pranced up and down before his scenic representation of Heaven in the _Times_, and did not know that the whole town knew that his stage Heaven was the masque for as hot and cozy a little h.e.l.l as any respectable gentleman of middle years could endure.

However clear he made it to the public, that he and Mrs. Van Dorn were pa.s.sionately fond of each other; however evident he intended it to be that he was more than satisfied with the bargain that he had made when he took her, and put away his first wife; however strongly he played the card of the gallant husband and "dearied" her, and however she smirked at him and "dawlinged" him in public when the town was looking, every one knew the truth.

"We may," says the Peach Blow Philosopher in one of his dissertations on the Illusion of Time, "counterfeit everything in this world--but sincerity." So Judge Thomas Van Dorn--"plain Tom Van Dorn," went along Market Street, and through the world, handing out his leaden gratuities.

But people felt how greasy they were, how heavy they were, how soft they were; and threw them aside, and sneered.

As for the Heaven which the Peach Blow Philosopher may have found for Henry Fenn and Violet Hogan, it was a different affair, but of slow and uncertain growth. Henry Fenn went into the sewer gang the day after he found Violet in the railroad yards, and for two weeks he worked ten hours a day with the negroes and Mexicans in the ditch. It took him a month to get enough money ahead to pay for a room. Leaving the sewer gang, he was made timekeeper on a small paving contract. But every day he sent through the mails to Violet enough to pay her rent and feed the children--a little sum, but all he could spare. He did not see her. He did not write to her. He only knew that the money he was making was keeping her out of the night, so he bent to his work with a will.

And at night,--it was not easy for Violet to stay in the house. She needed a thousand little things--or thought she did. And there was the old track and the easy money. But she knew what the pittance that came from Henry Fenn meant to him, so in pride and in shame one night she turned back home when she had slipped clear to the corner of the street with her paint on. When she got home she threw herself upon the bed and wept like a child in anguish. But the next night she did not even touch the rouge pot, and avoided it as though it were a poison. Her idea was the sewing room. She wrote it all out, in her stylish, angular hand to Mr. Brotherton, told him what it would cost, and how she believed she could make expenses for herself and help a number of other women who, like her, were tempted to go the wrong road. She even sent him five spoons--the last relic of the old Mauling decency, five silver spoons dented with the tooth marks of the Mauling children, five spoons done up in pink tissue that she had always told little Ouida Hogan should come to her some day--she sent those spoons to Mr. Brotherton to sell to make the start toward the sewing room.

But Mr. Brotherton took the spoons to Mr. Ira Dooley's home of the fine arts and crafts, and then and there, mounting a lookout stand, addressed the crowd through the smoke in simple but effective language, showing the spoons, telling the boys at the gaming tables that they all knew Denny Hogan's wife and how about her; that she wanted to get in right; that the spoons were sent to him to sell to the highest and best bidder for cash in hand. He also said that chips would count at the market price, and lo! he got a hat full of rattly red and white and blue chips and jingly silver dollars and a wad of whispering five-dollar bills big enough to cork a cannon. He went back to Harvey, spoons and all, considering deeply certain statements that Grant Adams had made about the presence of the holy ghost in every human heart.

As for the bright particular Heaven of Mr. Fenn, as hereinbefore possibly hinted at by the Peach Blow Philosopher, these are its specifications:

_Item One._ Job as storekeeper at the railroad roundhouse, from which by specific order of the master mechanic two hours a day are granted to Mr. Fenn, to take his hat in his hand and go marching over the town, knocking at doors and soliciting sewing for women, and wood-sawing or yard or furnace work for men; but

_Item Two._ Being a generous man, Mr. Fenn is up before eight for an hour of his work, and stays at it until seven, and thereby gets in two or three extra hours on the job, and feels

_Item Three._ That he is doing something worth while;

_Item Four._ Upon the first of the month he has nothing;

_Item Five._ Balancing his books at the last of the month he has nothing,

_Item Six._ And having no debt he is happy. But speaking of debt, there is