Stories That End Well Part 14

"E. D. Russell, of course; why didn't I guess? You were there two years before me, but I daresay they are talking of you still; and the way you won a touchdown with a broken rib on you, and the time all the rest of the Glee Club missed the train at Fairport, going to Lone Tree, and you went on with the banjoes and were the whole thing for three-quarters of an hour! Well, I'm glad to meet you, Doctor. Let us have a good song or two together after business."

Russell unconsciously felt for the cravat which was not round his soiled and frayed collar; he b.u.t.toned his wreck of a frock coat. "Yes, we will," he began, but his voice stuck in his throat as the captain's rough grasp gripped his arm.

"I guess not," said the captain; "business first, young feller!"

Russell shook off the hand, muttering something too low for Robbins'

ear; but Robbins sidled nearer to him, so near that he was able to exchange a single glance and to see Russell's lips form the words, "Watch Orr!" They understood each other.

"Weren't you from Ann Arbor yourself, Captain?" said Robbins, grabbing at any straw of peace.

"I've been too poor ever since the war to remember whether I ever had a college education or not," retorted the captain with a sneer. "I belong to the people now; their cause is my cause. Where do _you_ belong? We've tended your folks when you were sick, and helped you lay by your crops, and driven the mortgage sharks off your stuff. Say, what are you doing now? Are you monkeying around to turn traitor or coward, or what's the matter?"

"We're all right, Captain," answered Russell, the western burr on his tongue as soft and leisurely as ever, and no hint of excitement in his manner; "but I see no harm in letting Mr. Wallace answer our questions before we fly off the handle." So saying, before the captain realized his purpose he edged through the crowd to Wallace's side. Robbins followed him; and the eyes of all the others turned to the three menacing and eager.

"All I ask is to answer questions and to make my proposition to you,"

said Wallace, his fearless young eyes running round the circle. "If you don't like it you can refuse and send me home--to make other arrangements."

"No, we ain't going to send you home," said Orr. It was the first time that he had spoken. Wallace flashed a keen glance at him and spoke his next words directly to him. "But I'm sure you won't want to do it. You see, I'm your last chance and you _have_ to examine it!"

They had not expected such an answer. A little vibration ran like a wave over the gaunt, ferociously attentive faces. Wallace's eyes were fixed on Orr's face, which did not change. Orr's hand was in the breast of his ragged waistcoat.

"You people have certainly had the devil's own time and through no fault of yours, unless it's a fault that you aren't quitters!"

"That's right," said Robbins. Orr's eyes narrowed a little. Wallace continued, not taking his own eyes off the farmer's:

"This country is all right when there's a good year, but the good years come so seldom! What you fellows need down here is not free silver, but free water. With plenty of water you can raise big crops; and down in this valley there is not the danger, if we dig ditches, of the river running dry; we can get--"

"And who'll pay for irrigation?" a voice demanded. Wallace did not shift his gaze to the speaker; he talked to Orr as if Orr were the only man in the room: "We expect to furnish the money."

"And what will happen till the ditches are digged?"

"There's alfalfa to be raised on all these abandoned fields."

"And what's to become of _us_?" said Orr. "I can see where you folks can git a holt and come out even; but what's going to become of us? Are we to move off the earth and let you stay here?"

Every one listened for Wallace's answer. Even the boy in the doorway, returning with Wallace's bag, stood half scared at the foot of the stairs, not daring to go forward.

"Why not stay and take pot luck with us?" said Wallace, coolly. "We bought the mortgages cheap, and we'll sell them cheap. We'll sell water rights cheap also. And you will make better colonists than any we could import--cheaper, too. It's for our interests as well as yours to make a deal with you and to make one that will be satisfactory. Isn't it?"

Orr's hand dropped to his side, he shuffled his feet, his eyes turned from Wallace to seek the captain. "I hadn't figured it out you was going to make any such proposition," said the captain.

"Perhaps you thought we intended to chuck you all out in the cold and hog everything. We are neither such pigs nor such fools. You fellows can help us more than anybody else. Here is Johnny. Now, let's come to business; but first, Johnny, get some gla.s.ses. We'll all drink to the new deal."

And afterwards they told with chuckles how even the captain, who was an original Prohibitionist before he became a Populist, touched his lips to the gla.s.s that was pa.s.sed over the big map.

"All you folks here need is _hope_," said the cheerful young Iowan; "you have plenty of pluck and plenty of sense and oodles of experience; and we stand ready to put in the capital. Now, what do you say; does it go?"

After an hour of talk over the maps, he repeated the question, and the captain himself led the chorus, "It goes. We'll all stand by you!"

The blizzard had not come, and the moon was shining when George Robbins and Wesley Orr drove home from town. A basket was carefully held on Orr's knees. Robbins was caroling the chorus to "Johnny Harvard" and wishing a health to him and his true love at the top of a hoa.r.s.e and husky voice. Orr looked solemnly ahead into the little wavering disk of radiance that their lantern cast. Once he shivered violently, but he was not cold. Suddenly he spoke. There was a quiver in his face and his voice, but all he said was: "Say, he was dead right. We was so desperate we was crazy. Hope, that was what we needed, and he give it to us; but how some fellers would have messed that job, getting round to that same proposal we all wanted to hug him for! And--I'm glad he didn't. I'm almighty glad we didn't git a chance to do what we set out to do. He was slick. Say, what is it they call them newspaper boys? Spellbinders?

That's him--a first-cla.s.s, A-number-one spellbinder!"

THE OBJECT OF THE FEDERATION

"I joined a woman's club in the Federation a little over two years ago,"

said Mrs. Hardy. "I didn't know what was the object then; and to tell you the truth, I am no wiser now."

"You know as much as I," was her neighbor's reply, politely given, the neighbor, however, feeling no real interest, at the moment, in anything outside the approaching election of president, and the gossip regarding a possible "dark horse" which was buzzing behind her, between some better informed members of the delegation.

The babble of mighty waters is like the noise that filled the theater.

It surged from the plant-bedecked platform (where it might be likened to nothing more resonant than the hum of insects of a summer night) through the auditorium, to the dais under the balconies. The dais was noisy, always, not because its occupants were any more inclined to talk than other women, but because it was the rarest thing in the world for them to hear anyone either on the stage or the floor; and generally, they had to vote by their eyes, watching the advocates of their pet measures; and rising or sitting by their example; hence they solaced themselves with conversation.

At this moment, however, the quiet gentlewoman with the gavel, behind the long table, had not lifted her hand; and the upper part of the hall (which being in good hearing distance, was used to keep silence and criticise the talkers) was as busy with tongues and hands as its neighbors. So Mrs. Hardy, smiling a little at her neighbor's absent glance, listened until her thoughts wandered far afield. She only half caught the enthusiasm of the neighbor to her right, over an address on village improvement, or the indignation of the dames to the left, who were rehearsing the political baseness of Ma.s.sachusetts. She was recalling a day thirty-three years ago. She did not see the secretary behind the table, whispering to the president; she did not notice a little group to the left near where the silk banner of Ma.s.sachusetts fluttered, putting their heads together and gesticulating above their whispers. She forgot her surroundings and saw only a tall young man whose ardent eyes sank as they met her own, a handsome young fellow, who caught her hand in his, as they sat alone in the carriage, driving to the depot, and kissed the fingers and the wedding-ring, crying out he was not half good enough for her. "He was in love with me, _then_!" she thought. But now? Well, it was not to be expected a man with a great business and cares and money to think about and political affairs (for they were importuning Darius to go to the senate) should be paying romantic compliments to his middle-aged wife. Nevertheless, Darius had never forgotten their anniversary until last year. On her reminding him, he had whistled and laughed. "So it is," says he, "we ought to spend it together; it's a shame I have to go to Chicago; why don't you come with me?"

Smiling (yet a foolish something not merry was twitching at her nerves), she had declined. But she made a good excuse; Darius never guessed that she was so silly as to mind; and he brought her a sweet pigeon-blood ruby ring, set in diamonds, from Chicago; and he kissed her when he slipped it on her finger--kissed her cheek, not her hand. She wondered, at this minute, why she should wish that he had kissed the hand instead; an elderly woman ought to be content with a calm, a.s.sured, faithful affection, and let beautiful youngsters have the frills. That evening, she planned a dinner carefully to his liking, and she would not let herself be disappointed when he brought a political magnate, who talked politics, from the terrapin to the coffee. She smiled again, as she thought how much more of interest she would have found in the conversation, to-day, after the club's year on Our Colonial Policies.

This last anniversary Darius had clean forgotten. In fact, he had advised her to go to the Federation meeting; saying, lightly, that it came at an opportune moment because he must be away that week, himself.

"Milwaukee is a pretty city," he ended amiably, "and there will be lots of hen-functions and you'll enjoy yourself; but what's the object of it all, your Federation?"

"I don't know"--she astonished him with her frank levity--"when I do, I'll tell you."

"Well, don't get into any rows you can help," said he easily; "want any more money? Got plenty?"

"Plenty, thank you," said she, "although I am going to be rather extravagant and get some very smart toilets."

He looked over his gla.s.ses at her; and she was not able to decipher his smile. Didn't he approve of her clothes? She sent her fine eyes into the mirror of her dressing-table, after he had gone, and studied the picture there with a frown and a smile, at last with a moisture over her eyes.

But, although he said nothing, when she next examined her bank-book she found her credit larger. "Maybe he _does_ like my spending more money on my gowns," she thought.

She went to Milwaukee. She did not remind him of the anniversary. She said to herself that she would seriously try to discover the object of the Federation; then she would tell Darius. Her daughter-in-law accompanied her, and her daughter was to meet her. "Quite a family party," said her son; "well, I hope you girls will have a good lark!

And, I say, Hester, find out what it's all about--if you can!"

At first, Myrtle Hardy was more bewildered than excited. The scene was unlike anything in her experience. The hotels glittering with feminine finery and humming with feminine voices; the placards over doorways in rotundas or corridors, announcing headquarters; the vast crooning bulk of the lake, the iridescent gleam of water that came to one in glimpses as one was whirled down the wide and breeze-swept avenues, amid a dazzle of lovely fabrics and smiling faces, blooming like flowers in swiftly pa.s.sing victorias or rattling cabs, or rippling over the sidewalks into the wide vestibules where Milwaukee welcomed her guests; the noisy rush of the city; the ceaseless rattle and clang of the electric-cars which were like an orchestral accompaniment to the magnetic excitement pulsing under the decorous calm of the meetings, in the flower-decked theaters, or eddying through the foyer; these at first dazed the woman unused to clubs. But only for a brief time. Presently, she began to be consulted; her advice was asked; she made a speech in a meeting of the state delegation. There was, in the speech, her natural clear sense--which goes for something always and everywhere--there was, also, the mark in voice and speech and pose, of her years' training with the teachers. "I believe you could be heard all right, in the theater," said the president of the state delegation, afterward, "will you make a motion or two for us, this afternoon?" She made the motions; and, strangely enough, she wasn't so frightened as she had been in the state delegation; in fact, she proposed a simple short cut through an unnecessary dilemma with not much feeling beyond wonderment that so many clever women could get themselves into such a tangle. The applause and delight of her companions of the delegation touched her. "I'm in it, again," she thought, railing at her own vanity, but curiously pleased.

Now, her thoughts were back, groping through the years when she was not "in it." Not the days of her youth, not at all; she had been the leader of her mates, an ingenious, tolerant, easy-going leader, admired and loved, shining among them by right of two years in an eastern boarding-school and a trip to Europe.

Not in her early married life, either; although, at first, Darius was poor and the great wagon manufactory was but a daring experiment. In those days she knew all her husband's hopes and plans as well as his troubles. He used to say, often, that she had a good business head.

Those days they lived in a little brown wooden house with a five-foot piazza; and Darius mowed the tiny lawn himself; and she put up her own preserves and made all the children's clothes--pretty clothes they were, too; she was a housewife whose praise was in all the churches. But it does not follow that she had ceased to be a leader, far from it; she was the president of the "Ladies' Sewing Society" of her church; and of the first woman's club, cla.s.sically named the "Clionian." She was a progressive spirit; she it was who introduced the regular motion into the business meetings; before her reign it having been the artless custom of the societies to talk until the discussion either languished or grew too violent, when some promoter of harmony would call out, "Let us put it to vote," whereupon there would be a few timid ayes and a self-respecting silence instead of no; and the measure would be adopted.

Pertaining to this custom was an inevitable sequel of plaintive criticism from all the modest souls who "didn't like to speak," but who were full of foreboding wisdom. Myrtle Hardy was one of the few who could speak; and she was considered to speak very much to the point.

Those days, she was keenly interested in all the life of a young, hopeful, bustling little western city. She belonged to a musical society and would rise at five in the morning to practice, and she was one of an anxious band of women who had bought a library and were running an amateur entertainment bureau to support it. Then, Darrie was in home-made knickerbockers; Myrtie was a sweet, little, loving hoyden who was her mother's despair because she would climb trees in her white frocks; Ralph was a baby, and the two little girls that died were their mother's tiny helpers, with the willingest little hands and feet.

Sitting there in the crowded and noisy theater, a quiver ran over the mother's face. Her friends had forgotten, the brothers and sisters had forgotten, even Darius seemed to forget; but, day and night, she remembered the eager little faces, lighting so happily at her praise, the shining little heads that used to nestle against her heart. The two died of scarlet fever in one terrible week. In that week, the first gray threads had crept into Myrtle Hardy's beautiful brown hair. She was nurse and comforter and helper, then, to Darius. She felt her eyes cloud with the vision of him, as he flung himself on the babies' little bed, sobbing in the terrible, racking pa.s.sion of a man's grief. "Not now, dear, not now, not till the others are safe," she had whispered; "we have them still; they need us."

She wondered was it after the babies went that she began to drop out of things. Somehow she was so busy comforting Darius and nursing the others back to health, and crowding back her own ceaseless grief out of sight; and thinking of cheerful things to say and new interests for the others, that the library pa.s.sed out of corporate existence and into endowed rest with hardly a thought from her. Nearly at the same time, the musical society perished in a cataclysm, due to the sensitive musical temperament, and the literary society died of inanition, after browsing through literature from Milton to Dante; and after each member had written one or two papers, thus sating the natural curiosity of the other members. Myrtle did not lift a hand to save either of the societies. She heard the wrathful accusations of the musical warriors, and put in the unappreciated word for peace, but did not resent its failure. She consoled the literary mourners with the reflection that they could read up about things in the magazines or the books of the new library; and masked her secret listlessness with perfunctory regret.

Long after, she came to wonder whether it was not she who went into prison, then; rather than the world that left her on one side. Did she not gently but rigidly exclude the friends who would have called upon her and shut herself apart with her own? Continually, she used to pray for cheerfuless, for patience; but it never occurred to her to pray for interest. When other societies were formed, she did not care to join them; she followed her own advice and read apart by herself. By and by, although so much more of a personage, she was no longer beset with invitations. The younger women organized a new club with new methods; and Myrtle Hardy read her books, peacefully, on her wide piazzas, amid her plants and flowers. When Myrtie came back from college, Darius asked her wasn't she going to help Myrtie by joining the club with her?

"Dear, no," said she, blithely, "they are all so young."