The Independence Day Horror at Killsbury Part 10

The next day after their departure Adelaide went to see Ruth and took her mother's journal as she had promised.

"You see how dearly I prize it," she said, taking off the rose-scented covering. "I have had it rebound and adorned with her own portrait and those of other Friends so far as I can find them--every one she mentioned in the Journal--William Penn, Elizabeth Fry, Lucretia Mott and many others."

She handed it to Ruth to look at the portraits. It was bound in soft gray plush and had bands and clasps of solid silver.

"O how delicate and shining!" exclaimed Ruth taking it tenderly from her hand--"like her quiet, cheerful spirit I fancy."

"Yes, that's the way I tried to have it seem," replied Adelaide brushing away a tear; "but I didn't know as you would understand it. Her dresses are all of this dove-like tint. Sometimes when I am alone I put them on."

"Did she wear the Friends' cap and bonnet?" asked Ruth.

"No, she did not think them essential; but she drew the line at adornments for the production of which human life is imperiled or animal life recklessly destroyed," replied Adelaide.

"And this is your mamma on the first page? How much you look like her!"

"Not mamma, but mother," said Adelaide. "She wanted me to call her mother--to speak of her and think of her as mother, and I always have. I call my second mother, mamma."

"How old were you when she died?" asked Ruth.

"Three years, and father married again when I was four."

Ruth handed back the journal and Adelaide began reading in a low tuneful voice like that of a mother talking to her child.

"MY DEAR DAUGHTER ADELAIDE: "The doctors say that I have consumption--the incurable disease, and that I cannot live many years at the longest. I can hardly believe it--I feel so well and happy and have such a desire to live and be ever near thee to guard thee against the evils and perils of this world; but lest I may not I will try to make it plain to thee what the evils and perils are that encompa.s.s us around and about--plain to thee according to my light, received through the teachings that have been handed down to me through a long line of ancestry, from such good and wise men as George Fox and William Penn. Remember that I do not say that they were the only wise teachers in the world or that their light is the perfect light or rather all the light; but that it is good so far as it goes has not as yet been gainsayed. Even thy father who was not reared in my faith, can find no flaw in it except that it is impracticable in the present imperfect conditions of the world. I trust he is beginning to see the light of Christ as it is and will be. Keep near him, dear child, very near him. Seek for the living light together, hand in hand. It is needed everywhere, in our daily walk and conversation and even in our dress and adornments. I am not one who thinks that the cut or style of a dress or hat is of great importance and yet I have been led to perceive that there is a line beyond which it would be a sin to go--that we should use nothing for personal adornment which calls for the cruel slaughter of animals or for vicious and degrading work from our fellow creatures. Lest words fail to express my meaning, I will give thee an experience of my own as an ill.u.s.tration.

"Thy father gave me a set of pearls for a wedding gift. All my friends both in and out of Friends Society said it was a beautiful and appropriate gift. I thought so too. Their gentle l.u.s.tre pleased me. They were in harmony with my silver-gray gown. We went to Paris for our wedding trip. One day we visited the famous oyster markets and parks which provide such a bountiful food supply for the sustenance of the human race.

"'What a blessing particularly to the working people,' said thy father. 'The ever-ready meat that unlike beef does not have to be killed and cooked.'

"But even while we were talking of the goodness of Providence in furnishing such a convenient sort of food, a shadow crossed our path, that startled us both. It was a man with a sallow complexion, bulging brow and piercing eyes. He was hurrying on at a wild and rapid pace but as he observed us he stopped stone still and glared at us--or rather at my pearl brooch and ring--glancing from one to the other with a greedy look that frightened me for I had read of people being robbed of jewels in the streets of Paris in broad daylight.

"'Oh! he's not dangerous,' laughed the guide. 'He's one of those scientific wretches who is on the watchout for pearl oysters. He goes prowling around the oyster beds and markets in search of them. He was looking at your pearls to see if they had a perfect skin and a fine orient.'

"'I see he is interested in oysters as pearl producers instead of food products,' said thy father.

"'He has curious ideas about pearls,' said the guide. 'He says they are the product of disease in the animal--that the disease is contagious and he is hard at work trying to spread the contagion!'

"'Spreading contagion among oysters! What a work for a sane man,' said thy father. 'How does he manage the business?'

"'He takes the oysters that are afflicted with the pearl disease and puts them in the bed with those that are not afflicted and keeps them there until they catch the disease. He says it is as easy to spread as the small pox.'

"O how horrid! I cried. How satanic! To think of going to work deliberately to introduce disease and contagion, even among the lower forms of life! And he does all this, not to benefit the hungry poor but to hang more and more pearls around the necks of the greedy rich!

"Thy father laughed; but it was no laughing matter for me. I cried over my wedding pearls that night and resolved to lock them up out of my sight as soon as I returned home.

"The next day I was strengthened in my resolution by meeting with a pearl diver. The poor man was worn out before his time by this dreadful business. He sat day after day by the sea looking out upon its sparkling surface and dreaming and talking of the perils he had encountered down below in its green gloom--of the hideous armor he wore when he went forth to war with its savage army of sharks and devil-fishes, in order to win pearls for the Queens of the world and the queens of men's hearts.

"Will you show us your awful armor? I asked.

"'Certainly, madam, and get my son to trick me out in it, though I've never worn it since the day that the shark cut off my air pipe and the terrible pressure blew out my eye b.a.l.l.s and ear drums to the bursting point.'

"O don't put the horrid thing on, I pleaded, only show it to us.

"But put it on he would--the ply upon ply of clothing, the heavy weights for the feet, back and breast and the awful barred helmet, which was screwed up at last like a lid to a coffin, making him deaf and dumb to the outside world! O, my child, I cannot tell thee of the sensations I felt as I looked upon that manacled denuded specimen of the human being sent out to fight the vain war for pearls!

"But the worst of all is the war between governments and nations. It is the giant murder. It impoverishes and brutalizes humanity. It is the cardinal sin against which the Society of Friends have always striven. George Fox began the good fight, and William Penn though reared for the army and tempted by rewards of glory and honor, renounced all and joined the blessed Brotherhood of Peace. Not only that but he came to this new world and put his principles into practice, as thou wilt see when thou are old enough to read his life which thou wilt find in my little library that I have willed to thee. Read it and ponder it in thy heart, dear child. It will tell thee far better than I can of the sin and horror of war and the beauty and loveliness of peace.

"Look about thee and search out the apostles and prophets of peace the world over and establish spiritual or visible communion with the friends of peace everywhere. Those that preach and write and paint--foremost among whom at the present time are Count Tolstoi and Va.s.sili Verestchagin of far off Russia. I had read much about Tolstoi and knew of his great influence for peace; but it had never occurred to me that an artist could make the painted lesson fully as effective until we met Va.s.sili on our trip abroad and talked with him face to face. He was educated for the navy even as Penn was, but he laid aside the sword for palette and brushes and painted the horrors of war so truly and in such living colors that no one with a soul could look upon them without being converted to peace--so truly that the German soldiers were not permitted to look upon them! So truly that the Russian soldiers fled their country rather than be compelled to join the army. So truly that he was counselled by the Government to destroy one of his greatest truth-tellers--a large picture of Alexandre II. sitting safely on a hill watching the awful slaughter of his soldiers at the battle of Plevua.

"The truth seems terrible to behold, especially to 'the powers that be,' said Va.s.sili as we stood by the ghastly picture of the 'Frozen Sentinel in the Shipka Pa.s.s,' but I can't help that, I must paint the truth or nothing. I wade through the inferno of the most hideous battles for the precious kernel of truth, and when I find it I can't gloss it over and make it appear what it is not. If you ever have another awful war in America I shall have to come over and paint it truly."

"'You need not wait for another war,' said I, 'to get material for a warning truth. We have a glorification of war every year--yes, twice a year now; that is more dangerous than war itself, because it begins at the root. It takes hold of the children.'

"'I shall be there in good time,' were his last words to us. I believe that he will come, dear child, and that thou wilt see him and help him in his mission of truth.

"Next to the giant murder of war there is another murder that is like unto it. It is not wholesale murder like that which is done by the Government army, but it is worse in some respects. It is surely worse for the one who strikes the death blow--for the man that is hired by the Government to murder its criminals inasmuch as such a life-taker is abhorred not only by the criminals whom he releases from life as gently as possible, but by the people whose instrument he is; while the other murderer, the army officer who leads hundreds of splendid young men and horses over wounded bodies of friends or foes to cruel slaughter is applauded on all sides and covered with honor and glory.

"I saw them standing side by side one day--these two kinds of murderers. One was plainly dressed and carried a grimy black bag in his white bony hand. He was wrinkled and old before his time. He was nervous and shrinking, as though the fingers of the living were pointing at him and the curses of the dead following him.

"The other man was richly dressed and had a sword at his belt. He was large, full-fleshed and florid. He was bold, brazen and bulging, as though the whole world were at his back, pushing him forward and encouraging him to cultivate every b.e.s.t.i.a.l faculty to the full extent.

"Yes, dear Adelaide; I saw these two men standing side by side one day at a railway station. It was before thou wert born. I knew well enough who the man with the sword was, but the other!--the frightened, woe-begone looking man? Thy father did not want to tell me about him at first. He thought it might hurt thee and me. He was foolish about such matters as kind husbands are apt to be. It cannot hurt anyone to talk and think freely at any time about anything that is worth thinking or talking about. It hurts them and those born of them to suppress the truth."

"O how true!" exclaimed Ruth! "Ralph ought to hear that."

Adelaide nodded as she went on.

"And I did think of those men until my journey was ended, and I have thought of them many times since. Thanks to my righteous teachers I was able to see them as they were. They filled my soul with horror and pity--pity, for I perceived that they were the monsters the Government (which is ourselves) had made. But I pitied the scared looking man with the grimy black bag in which his weapon of death lay concealed more than I did the man with the glittering sword that he wore boldly in the eyes of all. He looked so wretched, so oppressed and conscience stricken, that I thought the time would surely come when he would throw off the terrible yoke that had been put upon him and refuse to use the bolts of heaven for the extinction of human life. But when I heard that he was working by night and day on an awful chair--a veritable throne of death on which the criminal will sit and die without looking upon his executioner's hated presence; my pity was mingled with loathing, for I perceived that he was a willing instrument instead of a terrible necessity, and that he cared nothing for the victims of the law except that he might be spared from their cursings and hate. That he was plotting against them while he was hiding away from them and making of that death-machine a life-work.

"Beware of all such men, my dear daughter. Believe thy mother when she tells thee that the life-taker is sure to be a brute. Trust not thyself least of all to the so-called capable brute. See to it that the occupation of the man that would marry thee be not of their kind.

"In short, marry no one unless the spirit moves thee strongly. Remember that the credit is not to those who bring the most children into the world but those that bring the best or take the best care of those that are already here."

Adelaide paused and looked at Ruth questioningly.

"She meant that the Krupp guns, torpedo boats and all those horrible war implements were inventions of the capable brute, did she not?" asked Adelaide.

"Yes, and more too. She meant all those dangerous things that are made for boys to celebrate with," said Ruth.

"And the capable brutes are such inventors as Krupp and Pang--and Bombs," added Adelaide hesitatingly, as though averse to including him in the same cla.s.s.

"Yes," replied Ruth; "but Mr. Bombs is young and perhaps you can influence him to do better things."

Adelaide shook her head vigorously. Ruth had not quite caught her meaning but she did not know just how to explain it, so she went on with the journal.

"Next to the cruel game of war are the celebrations that glorify war or warriors. They are murderous at the core and they are growing worse and worse every year. Notably our Independence Day. I was never so fully conscious of it as now. I have just been to see a little boy who is dying of Teta.n.u.s. His sufferings were terrible to witness. His father gave him that invention of the evil one, a toy pistol. No father in our society would have done such a thing. O how I wish Va.s.sili had been there to paint the scene in its true horror and exhibit it all over this reckless American continent.

"Last of all come the games of chance. Many of them are dangerous to life and limb and all of them are more or less sinful. They are wrong in principle inasmuch as they are a waste of energy--the great Divine energy that was given us for the regeneration of the world and the building up and beautifying of the G.o.d-given body instead of tearing it down, defacing it, brutalizing it and arousing within it the murderous spirit of resistance and revenge. Such games are too numerous to mention. Thou wilt know them by their signs. They are among the perils that encompa.s.s thee around and about.

"Look at them with an unclouded vision. Let not custom blind thee to their sinuousness and wrong. Set an honest face against them. Cast out the devil that is in them and invent new ways of amusing the young and entertaining the old.

"Think of these things, dear child. Think of the women and children that are shivering and starving while millions and millions are being spent in battleships and hideous inventions for the destruction of human life. Raise thy voice against them and do whatsoever thou canst to avert or heal the poverty and misery that follow in their track.

"How I wish I could be spared to go with thee, for I feel that thou wilt go about doing good to souls in need. Yes, the spirit tells me so, dear child, and I must listen and be content."

Truly thine, ELEANOR TOWNSEND SCHWARMER.

"How I wish she could have been spared; and how I wish I could see Va.s.sili Verestchagin!" whispered Adelaide as she closed the journal.

CHAPTER XXII.

A WONDERFUL CHANGE IN KILLSBURY.

In less than four years after the events recorded in the last chapter a young man of fascinating appearance stepped off from the train at the Killsbury station. His name was Alfonso Bombs. He had just returned from his trip abroad. He had seen the Russo-j.a.panese army fighting like fiends--setting h.e.l.lish traps for each other and blowing whole regiments into eternity. Va.s.sili Verestchagin had lost his life in the terrible explosion of the Petropavlovsk and thousands of men had died awful deaths through the same satanic agencies that had s.n.a.t.c.hed this n.o.ble truth-painter from his needed work. The commercial world was being made hideous with the manufacture and transportation of monstrous battleships and explosives. Mr. Schwarmer had been blown to atoms by a dynamite explosion on a railroad train and his widow had married a military man and was deeply interested in "The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals." She contemplated giving a fine building for its use and enlarging its scope by adding an infirmary for disabled war-horses; but Mr. Bombs was not thinking of these things nor of the immense army of youth that was being prepared for the annual slaughter although it was Independence Day and the nation's flag was flying from every train. He refused the proffered carriage and walked leisurely through the town, stopping here and there and looking around in pleased surprise. It seemed to him that the whole atmosphere of the place had changed. The gardens were full of flowers, the lawns were green and velvety, the crooked old fences had disappeared, the sidewalks were in a perfect condition, the roads were gravelled, and the ugly hollows filled up.

When he got to Library Street, he stopped and surveyed it critically. The improvement was still more apparent there. The Adelaide Library was handsomely winged. He wondered how it would be with Adelaide herself. He felt that she would have wings spiritual if not visible--quite after his heart's desire. He reasoned that if all these improvements had been made through her influence, she must be a very rare woman and well beloved--so well that she would not need any other love perhaps. Then the little viper of jealousy slid into his heart; but he cast it out with the lash of self-a.s.surance. He would not think that he could not win her if he should approve of her and really wish to have her for his very own.

Up to this point he had not met any one he knew and he was glad he had not. He went on noting changes until he found himself at the point, where the street branched off for the "Round About Way" to Schwarmer Hill. He avoided it instinctively. He took the Straight Road; but his reverie as he ascended the hill had a tragic element in it that robbed it of its charm.

After that, the reign of disappointment set in. Schwarmer mansion had not improved in the least--rather the reverse.

If he had expressed his thought he would have said: "It looks as though it had doffed a turret and were reaching down to bring the buildings below up to its own stature."

The truth was, Adelaide had ordered one of the most useless and imposing turrets to be taken down as it was found to be unsafe.

The Queery buildings remained intact and the grounds were greatly improved; but he saw at a glance that it was an improvement in which he and his Pyro-pieces had not been taken into account. Little children were playing on the gra.s.s, small boys and girls were running from the fountain to the garden and baby carts were being wheeled about the numerous walks. He hastened on to the mansion and rang the bell.

Mary Langley opened the door and started back.

"O I see that you remember me," laughed Bombs. "Is Miss Adelaide at home?"

"Miss Adelaide is down at the college. Will you come in and wait for her?"

"Thanks. I will wait on the veranda or roam about. I find many changes of interest."

He sat down and rested from his walk while he looked out over the handsome grounds and inhaled the odor of violets and mignonette. After he had rested he went out to the brow of the hill. There was always a strong breeze on the brow of the hill; but there was something else this morning--something more stirring than the rustling leaves. There were musical sounds. His first thought was that they were from the throats of young orioles. He listened intently and heard instead of warblings, fine strains of music like those of an aeolian harp.

"Yes a hundred aeolian harps!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed and the fancy possessed him that Adelaide had taken advantage of the situation and had strung aeolian harps in the tops of the trees for the winds of heaven to play upon. He did not try to find out if it were so. If it were a delusion he preferred to enjoy it instead of dispelling it. He stood still and listened intently.

Without knowing it he stood on the very spot where Mary Langley had lost her baby. He hit his toe against a stone and looking down he saw that, it was fringed with moss and bore a name and date in tiny artistic letters. The name was Adelaide S. Langley and the date was July 4th, 1902. He knew then that he had been doubly remembered; but it was not flattering to his vanity to be remembered so strongly in this case, any more than it was to be entirely forgotten in the matter of transforming The Queery grounds into a children's park. He turned away abruptly and saw Adelaide Schwarmer coming up the hill.

He knew her at a glance; but he was a trifle disappointed. His first thought was, that like the mansion she had been holding herself down to the level of the Killsbury people.

"You surprise me," he said. "You have changed so very, very little."

"And you do not seem to have changed at all; and yet I am not surprised."

"But you were at the changeable age and I was not."

"And you have been changing places and peoples and views constantly. I should think you would be changed by reflection if nothing more."

"There is something in that apparently," laughed Bombs. "Then it must be because you have lived in the same place and with the same people that you look the same. If the theory is true you should move on in order to attain a full development. That would be in accordance with Goethe's idea would it not?

'Keep not standing fixed and rooted. Briskly venture--briskly roam.'

"Perhaps I didn't 'foot it freely' enough to receive a benefaction of bronze and muscle that the ladies admire."

"From the Occident to the Orient even on wheels, there must be much to see and learn, Mr. Bombs."

"Yes, Miss Adelaide, and much that is not worth learning. When I was in Turkey, I learned nothing of more interest than that the Sultan had finished his forty days fast at Ramazar and taken a new wife."

"But the treacherous war, with its horrid weapons! You must have seen how awful it was, Mr. Bombs?"

"It was the same old story, Miss Adelaide; men were made to kill each other with fists or dynamite--no matter which."

"You are caustic as ever, Mr. Bombs. You must have spent your time chiefly with chemicals and in lurid laboratories--looking inward instead of outward--trying to find out and master the hidden forces. Father told me of your investigations only the day before he died," said Adelaide closing her eyes and leaning back in her chair.

There was silence for a few moments, then she added: "Please tell me what you have discovered, Mr. Bombs."

"There isn't much to be told at present date, Miss Adelaide, except that I have discovered or think I have, the long sought for and greatly to be desired explosive--the ideal force which combines the highest known power with perfect safety in use; an explosive which when put upon the market and used in the place of dynamite will make such accidents as that which cost your father his life, practically impossible."

"I don't believe such awful things can be made safe, any more than the arch-fiend himself, Mr. Bombs."

"But they can be, Miss Adelaide, if properly harnessed and handled--at least my explosive can be. It will not explode unless rightly treated or en-treated. It is very particular about that," laughed Bombs. "It won't respond to hard knocks or kicks or a shower of bullets, and a child might treat it to a lighted match and coals of fire and it would do no more than burn with a gentle blue flame. An ounce of it would make a safe and satisfactory firecracker in a boy's hands; while the same quant.i.ty in skilful hands, could be made to blow up an immense battleship!"

"How horrible!" exclaimed Adelaide. "What need have we for such powerful explosives? Are we commanded to wreck the world--or grind it into powder? I heard a few days ago of a man who had invented a machine that would crunch up great rocks in its horrible jaws in less time than it takes a dog to eat a bone. At that rate there wouldn't be a rock left in a few years' time and the blessed earth would be little else than a succession of pitfalls!"

"Pretty good," laughed Bombs. "It's time for the inventor of safety appliances to come to the rescue, eh! Miss Adelaide."

"We cry safety! and yet there is no safety with such monsters all around us. If we were all good and wise--full grown savants, we might talk of safety--but there are the children who don't know how to use safety appliances and the criminal who is using dynamite to terrorize the railroads."

"There's where my explosive has the advantage. There isn't but one way to explode it; and there's too much science about it for the child, the idiot or the railroad dynamiter. He couldn't be on hand with an electric battery; and it can't be exploded by accident.

"Let me show you something," said Bombs, fumbling in his pocket and bringing forth a small piece of reddish brown substance. "You see how harmless it looks; and so it is ordinarily but by employing certain agencies it could be made to blow up as large an establishment as your library building."

She shuddered involuntarily.

"I see you have no confidence in it, Miss Adelaide," he said tossing it up and down in his hand. "I have some larger pieces in my traveling case. I will prove them to you some day if you like."

"No! no! Mr. Bombs. I don't want any proof! This is no longer a fit place for proving grounds, as you will see."