In the Heart of a Fool Part 67

He cleared his throat as he sat on the bunk, and after dropping Grant's hand and glancing at the book t.i.tle, said: "Great, isn't it? Where'd you get it?"

"The brother they ran out last night. They came after him so suddenly that he didn't have time to pack," answered Grant.

"Well, he didn't need it, Grant," replied Morty. "I just left him. I got him last night after the mob finished with him, and took him home to our garage, and worked with him all night fixing him up. Grant, it's h.e.l.l.

The things they did to that fellow--unspeakable, and fiendish." Morty cleared his throat again, paused to gather courage and went on. "And he heard something that made him believe they were coming for you to-night."

The edge of a smile touched the seamed face, and Grant replied: "Well--maybe so. You never can tell. Besides old John Kollander, who are the leaders of this Law and Order mob, Morty?"

"Well," replied the little man, "John Kollander is the responsible head, but Kyle Perry is master of ceremonies--the stuttering, old coot; and Ahab gives them the use of the police, and Joe Calvin backs up both of them. However," sighed Morty, "the whole town is with them. It's stark mad, Grant--Harvey has gone crazy. These tramps filling the jails and eating up taxes--and the _Times_ throwing scares into the merchants with the report that unless the strike is broken, the smelters and gla.s.sworks and cement works will move from the district--it's awful! My idea of h.e.l.l, Grant, is a place where every man owns a little property and thinks he is just about to lose it."

The young-old man was excited, and his eyes glistened, but his speech brought on a fit of coughing. He lifted his face anxiously and began: "Grant,--I'm with you in this fight." He paused for breath. "It's a man's sc.r.a.p, Grant--a man's fight as sure as you're born." Grant sprang to his feet and threw back his head, as he began pacing the narrow cell.

As he threw out his arms, his claw clicked on the steel bars of the cell, and Morty Sands felt the sudden contracting of the cell walls about the men as Grant cried--

"That's what it is, Morty--it's a man's fight--a man's fight for men.

The industrial system to-day is rotting out manhood--and womanhood too--rotting out humanity because capitalism makes unfair divisions of the profits of industry, giving the workers a share that keeps them in a man-rotting environment, and we're going to break up the system--the whole infernal profit system--the blight of capitalism upon the world."

Grant brought down his hand on Morty's frail shoulder in a kind of frenzy. "Oh, it's coming--the Democracy of Labor is coming in the earth, bringing peace and hope--hope that is the 'last gift of the G.o.ds to men'--Oh, it's coming! it's coming." His eyes were blazing and his voice high pitched. He caught Morty's eyes and seemed to shut off all other consciousness from him but that of the idea which obsessed him.

Morty Sands felt gratefully the spell of the strong mind upon him. Twice he started to speak, and twice stopped. Then Grant said: "Out with it, Morty--what's on your chest?"

"Well,--this thing," he tapped his throat, "is going to get me, Grant, unless--well, it's a last hope; but I thought," he spoke in short, hesitating phrases, then he started again. "Grant, Grant," he cried, "you have it, this thing they call vitality. You are all vitality, bodily, mentally, spiritually. Why have I been denied always, everything that you have! Millions of good men and bad men and indifferent men are overflowing with power, and I--I--why, why can't I--what shall I do to get it? How can I feel and speak and live as you? Tell me." He gazed into the strong, hard visage looking down upon him, and cried weakly: "Grant--for G.o.d's sake, help me. Tell me--what shall I do to--Oh, I want to live--I want to live, Grant, can't you help me!"

He stopped, exhausted. Grant looked at him keenly, and asked gently,

"Had another hemorrhage this morning--didn't you?"

Morty looked over his clothes to detect the stain of blood, and nodded.

"Oh, just a little one. Up all night working with Folsom, but it didn't amount to anything."

Grant sat beside the broken man, and taking his white hand in his big, paw-like hand:

"Morty--Morty--my dear, gentle friend; your trouble is not your body, but your soul. You read these great books, and they fascinate your mind.

But they don't grip your soul; you see these brutal injustices, and they cut your heart; but they don't reach your will." The strong hand felt the fluttering pressure of the pale hand in its grasp. Morty looked down, and seemed about to speak.

"Morty," Grant resumed, "it's your money--your soul-choking money.

You've never had a deep, vital, will-moving conviction in your life. You haven't needed this money. Morty, Morty," he cried, "what you need is to get out of your dry-rot of a life; let the Holy Ghost in your soul wake up to the glory of serving. Face life barehanded, consecrate your talents--you have enough--to this man's fight for men. Throw away your miserable back-breaking money. Give it to the poor if you feel like it; it won't help them particularly." He shook his head so vigorously that his vigor seemed like anger, and hammered with his claw on the iron bunk. "Money," he cried and repeated the word, "money not earned in self-respect never helps any one. But to get rid of the d.a.m.ned stuff will revive you; will give you a new interest in life--will change your whole physical body, and then--if you live one hour in the big soul-bursting joy of service you will live forever. But if you die--die as you are, Morty--you'll die forever. Come." Grant reached out his arms to Morty and fixed his luminous eyes upon his friend, "Come, come with me," he pleaded. "That will cure your soul--and it doesn't matter about your body."

Morty's face lighted, and he smiled sympathetically; but the light faded. He dropped his gaze to the floor and sighed. Then he shook his head sadly. "It won't work, Grant--it won't work. I'm not built that way. It won't work."

His fine sensitive mouth trembled, and he drew a deep breath that ended in a hard dry cough. Then he rose, held out his hand and said:

"Now you watch out, Grant--they'll get you yet. I tell you it's awful--that's the exact word--the way hate has driven this town mad." He shook the cage door, and the jailer came from around a corner, and unlocked the door, and in a moment Morty was walking slowly away with his eyes on the cold steel of the cell-room floor.

When his visitor was gone, Grant Adams went back to his book. At the end of an hour he went to the slit in his cell, which served as window, and looked on a damp courtyard that gave him a narrow slice of Market Street and the Federal court house in the distance. Men and women walking in and out of the little stereoscopic view he had of the street, seemed to the prisoner people in a play, or in another world. They were remote from him. At the gestures they made, the gaits they fell into, the errands they were going upon, the spring that obviously moved them, he gazed as one who sees a dull pantomime. During the middle of the morning, as he looked, he saw Judge Van Dorn's big, black motor car roll up to the curb before the Federal court house and unload the spare, dried-up, clothes-padded figure of the Judge, who flicked out of Grant's eyeshot. A hundred other figures pa.s.sed, and Ahab Wright, with his white side-whiskers bristling testily, came bustling across the stereopticon screen and turned to the court house and was gone. Young Joe Calvin, dismounting from his white horse, came for a second into the picture, and soon after the elder Calvin came trotting along beside Kyle Perry with his heavy-footed gait, and the two turned as the Judge had turned--evidently into the court house, where the Judge had his office.

Grant took up his book. After noon the jailer came with Henry Fenn, who, as Adams' attorney, visited him daily. But the jailer stood by while the lawyer talked to the prisoner through the bars. Henry Fenn wore a troubled face and Grant saw at once that his friend was worried. So Grant began:

"So you've heard my cell-mate's message--eh, Henry? Well, don't worry.

Tell the boys down in the Valley, whatever they do--to keep off Market Street and out of Harvey to-night."

The listening jailer looked sharply at Fenn. It was apparent the jailer expected Fenn to protest. But Fenn turned his radiant smile on the jailer and said: "The smelter men say they could go through this steel as if it was pasteboard in ten minutes--if you'd say the word." Fenn grinned at the prisoner as he added: "If you want the boys, all the tin soldiers and fake cops in the State can't stop them. But I've told them to stay away--to stay in their fields, to keep the peace; that it is your wish."

"Henry," replied Grant, "tell the boys this for me. We've won this fight now. They can't build a fire, strike a pick, or turn a wheel if the boys stick--and stick in peace. I'm satisfied that this story of what they will do to me to-night, while I don't question the poor chap who sent the word--is a plan to scare the boys into a riot to save me and thus to break our peace strike."

He walked nervously up and down his cell, clicking the bars with his claw as he pa.s.sed the door. "Tell the boys this. Tell them to go to bed to-night early; beware of false rumors, and at all hazards keep out of Harvey. I'm absolutely safe. I'm not in the least afraid--and, Henry, Henry," cried Grant, as he saw doubt and anxiety in his friend's face, "what if it's true; what if they do come and get me? They can't hurt me.

They can only hurt themselves. Violence always reacts. Every blow I get will help the boys--I know this--I tell you--"

"And I tell you, young man," interrupted Fenn, "that right now one dead leader with a short arm is worth more to the employers than a ton of moral force! And Laura and George and Nate and the Doctor and I have been skirmishing around all day, and we have filed a pet.i.tion for your release on a habeas corpus in the Federal court--on the ground that your imprisonment under martial law without a jury trial is unconst.i.tutional."

"In the Federal court before Van Dorn?" asked Grant, incredulously.

"Before Van Dorn. The State courts are paralyzed by young Joe Calvin's militia!" returned Fenn, adding: "We filed our pet.i.tion this morning.

So, whether you like it or not, you appear at three-thirty o'clock this afternoon before Van Dorn."

Grant smiled and after a moment spoke: "Well, if I was as scared as you people, I'd--look here. Henry, don't lose your nerve, man--they can't hurt me. Nothing on this earth can hurt me, don't you see, man--why go to Van Dorn?"

Fenn answered: "After all, Tom's a good lawyer in a life job and he doesn't want to be responsible for a decision against you that will make him a joke among lawyers all over the country when he is reversed by appeal." Grant shook his dubious head.

"Well, it's worth trying," returned Fenn.

At three o'clock Joseph Calvin, representing the employers, notified Henry Fenn that Judge Van Dorn had been called out of town unexpectedly and would not be able to hear the Adams' pet.i.tion at the appointed time.

That was all. No other time was set. But at half-past five George Brotherton saw a messenger boy going about, summoning men to a meeting.

Then Brotherton found that the Law and Order League was sending for its members to meet in the Federal courtroom at half-past eight. He learned also that Judge Van Dorn would return on the eight o'clock train and expected to hear the Adams' pet.i.tion that night. So Brotherton knew the object of the meeting. In ten minutes Doctor Nesbit, Henry Fenn and Nathan Perry were in the Brotherton store.

"It means," said Fenn, "that the mob is going after Grant to-night and that Tom knows it."

"Why?" asked the thin, sharp voice of Nathan Perry.

"Otherwise he would have let the case go over until morning."

"Why?" again cut in Perry.

"Because for the mob to attack a man praying for release under habeas corpus in a federal court might mean contempt of court that the federal government might investigate. So Tom's going to wash his hands of the matter before the mob acts to-night."

"Why?" again Perry demanded.

"Well," continued Fenn, "every day they wait means acc.u.mulated victory for the strikers. So after Tom refuses to release Grant, the mob will take him."

"Well, say--let's go to the Valley with this story. We can get five thousand men here by eight o'clock," cried Brotherton.

"And precipitate a riot, George," put in the Doctor softly, "which is one of the things they desire. In the riot the murder of Grant could be easily handled and I don't believe they will do more than try to scare him otherwise."

"Why?" again queried Nathan Perry, towering thin and nervous above the seated council.

"Well," piped the Doctor, with his chin on his cane, "he's too big a figure nationally for murder--"

"Well, then--what do you propose, gentlemen?" asked Perry who, being the youngest man in the council, was impatient.

Fenn rose, his back to the ornamental logs piled decoratively in the fireplace, and answered: