The Memoirs of an American Citizen Part 44

With that he bade me good night and went away. I sat on by myself for some time afterward, thinking, thinking of it all! Very likely if Sloc.u.m could have had his desire, and gone on the Supreme Bench, he would not have found it all he had painted it as a boy. But whether it was foolish or not for him to set such store by that prize, it was beyond his reach, and the man who had done most to put him out of the race was I. I had needed him, and I had taken him--that was all there was to that. He had sold himself to me, not just for money, but for friendship and admiration,--for what men of his kind sell themselves. For in all the world there was not enough money to pay him for selling himself--he had as much as said so to-night. Now, when I wanted to give him the gift that he had earned by years of devotion, there was nothing in my hands that was worth his taking!

Thinking of this, I forgot for the time being that I was Senator from the state of Illinois.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

FURTHER COST

_I go to see May--A cottage on the West Side--May comes to the door--Pleading--Stiff-necked virtue--A discussion of patriotism--We wash dishes and dispute--Old times--One woman's character--Possibilities--Hard words--Rejected gifts--Even to the children--Who shall judge?--Another scale and a greater one_

The cab drew up before a one-story frame house that stood back in the lot, squeezed between two high brick buildings. This was the number on Ann Street, over on the West Side, that Will had given me when I had pressed him for his address. The factories had pretty well surrounded this section of the city, leaving here and there some such rickety shanty as this one. There were several children playing in the strip of front yard, and as I opened the gate one of them called out, "h.e.l.lo, Uncle Van!"

It was Will's second son, little Van. He said his mother was at home, and, taking my hand, he showed me around the cottage to the back door.

The boy pounded on the door, and May came to see what was the matter.

"Is that you, Van?" she asked, as if she expected me. "Will said he saw you the other day."

She did not invite me in, but the little boy held open the door and I walked into the kitchen. The breakfast things were piled up in the sink, unwashed. A boiler of clothes was on the fire, and May had her sleeves rolled up, ready to begin the wash. Her arms were as thin as pipe-stems, and behind her gla.s.ses I saw deep circles of blue flesh. She had grown older and thinner in the three years since she and Will left my house for good.

"Will's gone to the city," May remarked.

"He don't look strong, May. It made me feel bad to see him so--changed, not a bit like himself."

She seemed to bridle a little at this.

"He hasn't been real well since he had the fever at Montauk. He was reinfected at the hospital, and nearly died. When he got out he tried farming down in Texas, but his strength didn't come back as we expected, and the climate was too hot for him. So we came North to see if he could get some easier work."

"How are the children?" I asked, seeing a strange baby face peep around the corner of the clothes-basket.

"We lost the baby boy while Will was at Montauk. Another little girl has come since then. We call her Sarah."

She waited a moment, and then asked hesitatingly:--

"How's your Sarah? She didn't look well when I saw her last."

"No--she's been delicate some time--since our boy died, last summer.

She's gone to Europe with the girls for a change."

Then we were silent; there was not much more we could say without touching the quick. But at last I burst out:--

"May, why wouldn't you take that money I sent you while Will was away at the war?"

"We could manage without it. It was kind of you, though. You have always been kind, Van!"

"You might have known it would make us happy to have you take it. It was only what I owed to the country, too, seeing that I was so placed I couldn't go to Cuba. I wanted then to leave everything and enlist. But it wouldn't have been fair to others. I sent some men in my place, though."

Perhaps it sounded a little like apologizing. May listened with a smile on her lips that heated me.

"You are just like that preacher!" I exclaimed. "You can see no good in folks unless it's _your_ kind of good. Don't you believe I have got some real patriotism in me?"

"It's hard to think of Van Harrington, the new Senator, as a patriot,"

she laughed back. "Those men you sent to the front must have come in handy for the election!"

I turned red at her little fling about the Senatorship: my managers _had_ worked that company I equipped for all it was worth.

"I guess there are a good many worse citizens than I am. I wanted to fight for those fellows down in Cuba. And you wouldn't let me do the little I could--help Will to take my place."

"After all that happened, Van, we couldn't take it."

"And I suppose you don't want to touch anything from me now! See here, May, I came over this morning to do something for you and Will. Did he tell you about my wanting him to go down to my place in the country until he got well and strong?"

"He's much interested in this paper, and thinks he can't get away," she said evasively.

"Darn his paper! You don't believe Will was cut out to be a thinker?

Anyhow, he ought to get his health back first, and give you an easier time, too."

"I am all right. Will is very much in earnest about his ideas. You can't get him to think about himself."

"Well, I don't mind his trying to reform the earth. If later on he wants a paper to whack the rich with, I'll buy him one. Come, that's fair, isn't it?"

May laughed at my offer, but made no reply.

"If you folks are so obstinate, if I can't get you to go down to my place, I'll have to turn it into a school or something. A fellow I was talking with on the train the other day gave me an idea of making it into a sort of reform school for boys. What would you think of that?

Sarah is taken with the idea--she never liked the place and won't want to go back, now that the baby died there."

"That's a good plan--turning philanthropist, Van? That's the right way to get popular approval, Senator."

She mocked me, but her laugh rang out good-naturedly.

"Popular approval never worried me much. But, May, I want _your_ good-will, and I mean to get it, too."

For the more obstinate she was, the more she made me eager to win my point, to bring her and Will back to me. She understood this, and a flash of her old will and malice came into her thin face. She got up to stir the clothes on the fire, and when the water began to run over I stripped off my coat and put my hand to the job. Then I stepped over to the sink.

"Do you remember how I used to wash while you wiped, when we wanted to get out buggy-riding, May?"

"Yes, and you were an awful shiftless worker, Senator," May retorted, fetching a dish-towel from the rack and beginning to wash, while I wiped. "And you had the same smooth way with you, though in those days you hadn't ten cents to your name. And now, how much is it?"

"Oh, say a quarter!"

"Then it must have cost you a sight of money to become Senator."

"It did some, but I kept back a little."

When we had finished the dishes we began on the clothes. A child's dress caught on the wringer and tore. It was marked in a fine embroidery with the initials, J.S. II., for Jaffrey Sloc.u.m Harrington--as we had thought to call the little chap. May saw me look at the initials.