The Web of Life Part 17

He explained to her the situation of the Ninety-first Street cottage, and what Mrs. Preston needed.

"You take this note there to-morrow morning, and tell her that you are willing to work for a home. Then I'll attend to the wages. If you do what I want,--keep that fellow well locked up and relieve Mrs. Preston of care,--I'll give you good wages. Not a word to her, mind, about that. And when you want to hunt Ducharme, just notify Mrs. Preston and go ahead. Only see that you hunt him in the daytime. Don't leave her alone nights. Now, let's see your eye."

The woman took the brief note which he scribbled after examining her, and said dejectedly:

"She won't want me long--no one does, least of all Ducharme."

Sommers laughed.

"Guess I better go straight down," she remarked more hopefully as she left.

He should have taken the woman to the cottage, he reflected after she had gone, instead of sending her in this brusque manner. He had not seen Mrs.

Preston since his return, and he did not know what had happened to her in the meantime. To-morrow he would find time to ride down there and see how things were going with the sick man.

There was much mail lying on his table. Nothing had been forwarded by Dresser, in accordance with the directions he had telegraphed him. And he had seen nothing of Dresser yesterday or to-day. The rooms looked as if the man had been gone some time. Dresser owed him money,--more than he could spare conveniently,--but that troubled him less than the thought of Dresser's folly. It was likely that he had thrown up his position--he had chafed against it from the first--and had taken to the precarious career of professional agitator. Dresser had been speaking at meetings in Pullman, with apparent success, and his mind had been full of "the industrial war,"

as he called it. Sommers recalled that the man had been allowed to leave Exonia College, where he had taught for a year on his return from Germany, because (as he put it) "he held doctrines subversive of the holy state of wealth and a high tariff." That he was of the stuff that martyrs of speech are made, Sommers knew well enough, and such men return to their haven sooner or later.

Sommers sorted his letters listlessly. The Ducharme affair troubled him. He could see that a split with Lindsay was coming; but it must not be brought about by any act of professional discourtesy on his part. Although he was the most efficient surgeon Lindsay had, it would not take much to bring about his discharge. Probably the suggestion about Porter was merely a polite means of getting him out of the office. Lindsay had said some pointed things about "the critical att.i.tude." The "critical att.i.tude" to Lindsay's kind was the last crime.

Ordinarily he would not have cared. The sacrifice of the three thousand dollars which Lindsay paid him would have its own consolation. He could get back his freedom. But the matter was not so simple as it had been. It was mixed now with another affair: if he should leave Lindsay, especially after any disagreement with the popular specialist, he would put himself farther from Miss. .h.i.tchc.o.c.k than ever. As it was, he was quite penniless enough; but thrown on his own resources--he remembered the heavy, sad young man at the Carsons', and Miss. .h.i.tchc.o.c.k's remark about him.

Yet this reflection that in some way it was complicated, that he could not act impulsively and naturally, angered him. He was shrewd enough to know that Lindsay's patronage was due, not to the fact that he was the cleverest surgeon he had, but to the fact that, well--the daughter of Alexander Hitchc.o.c.k thought kindly of him. These rich and successful! They formed a kind of secret society, pledged to advance any member, to keep the others out by indifference. When the others managed to get in, for any reason, they lent them aid to the exclusion of those left outside. So long as it looked as if he were to have a berth in their cabin, they would be amiable, but not otherwise.

Among the letters on the desk was one from Miss. .h.i.tchc.o.c.k, asking him to spend the coming Sat.u.r.day and Sunday at Lake Forest. There was to be a small house party, and the new club was to be open. Sommers prepared to answer it at once--to regret. He had promised himself to see Mrs. Preston instead. In writing the letter it seemed to him that he was taking a position, was definitely deciding something, and at the close he tore it in two and took a fresh sheet. Now was the time, if he cared for the girl, to come nearer to her. He had told himself all the way back from New York that he did care--too much. She was not like the rest. He laughed at himself. A few years hence she would be like the rest and, what is more, he should not find her so absorbing now, if she were not like the rest, essentially.

He wrote a conventional note of acceptance, and went out to mail it.

Possibly all these people were right in reading the world, and the aim of life was to show one's power to get on. He was worried over that elementary aspect of things rather late in life.

CHAPTER XV

These days there were many people on the streets, but few were busy. The large department stores were empty; at the doors stood idle floor-walkers and clerks. It was too warm for the rich to buy, and the poor had no money.

The poor had come lean and hungry out of the terrible winter that followed the World's Fair. In that beautiful enterprise the prodigal city had put forth her utmost strength, and, having shown the world the supreme flower of her energy, had collapsed. There was gloom, not only in La Salle Street where people failed, but throughout the city, where the engine of play had exhausted the forces of all. The city's huge garment was too large for it; miles of empty stores, hotels, flat-buildings, showed its shrunken state.

Tens of thousands of human beings, lured to the festive city by abnormal wages, had been left stranded, without food or a right to shelter in its tenantless buildings.

As the spring months moved on in unseasonable, torrid heat, all the sores of the social system swelled and began to break. The bleak winter had seen mute starvation and misery, and the blasts of summer had brought no revival of industry. Capital was sullen, and labor violent. There were meetings and counter-meetings; agitators, panaceas, university lecturers, sociologizing preachers, philanthropists, politicians--discontent and discord. The laborer starved, and the employer sulked.

"The extravagant poor are unwilling to let the thrifty reap the rewards of their savings and abstinence," lectured the Political Economist of the standard school. "The law of wages and capital is immutable. More science is needed."

"The rich are vultures and sharks," shrieked the Labor Agitator.

"And will ye let your brother starve?" exhorted the Preacher.

"For it is as clear as the nose on your face that corporations corrupt legislatures, and buy judges, and oppress the poor," insinuated the Socialist.

"It's that wretched free trade," howled the hungry Politician, "and Cleveland and all his evil deeds. See what we will do for you."

"Yes, it's free trade," bawled one newspaper.

"It's nefarious England," snarled another.

"It's the greed of Wall Street, the crime against silver, the burden of the mortgage," vociferated a third.

"It's 'hard times,'" the meek sighed, and furbished up last year's clothes, and cut the butcher's bill.

"Yes, it's 'hard times,' a time of psychological depression and distrust,"

softly said the rich man. "A good time to invest my savings profitably.

Real estate is low; bonds and mortgages are as cheap as dirt. Some day people will be cheerful once more, and these good things will multiply and yield fourfold. Yea, I will not bury my talent in a napkin."

Thus the body social threw out much smoke, but no vital heat; here and there, the red glare of violence burst up through the dust of words and the insufferable cant of the world.

The first sore to break, ironically enough, was in the "model industrial town" of Pullman. That dispute over the question of a living wage grew bitterer day by day. Well-to-do people praised the directors for their firm resolve to keep the company's enormous surplus quite intact. The men said the officers of the company lied: it was an affair of complicated bookkeeping. The brutal fact of it was that the company rested within its legal rights. The unreasonable people were dissatisfied with an eighth of a loaf, while their employers were content with a half. Then there was trouble among the mines, and the state troops were called out. Sores multiplied; men talked; but capital could not be coerced.

But while politicians squabbled and capitalists sulked and economists talked, a strong tide of fellowship in misery was rising from west to east.

Unconsciously, far beneath the surface, the current was moving,--a current of common feeling, of solidarity among those who work by day for their daily bread. The country was growing richer, but they were poorer. There began to be talk of Debs, the leader of a great labor machine. The A. R. U.

had fought one greedy corporation with success, and intimidated another.

Sometime in June this Debs and his lieutenant, Howard, came to Chicago. The newspapers had little paragraphs of meagre information about the A. R. U.

convention. One day there was a meeting in which a committee of the Pullman strikers set forth their case. At the close of that meeting the great boycott had been declared. "Mere bluff," said the newspapers. But the managers of the railroads "got together." Some of them had already cut the wage lists on their roads. They did not feel sure that it was all "bluff."

It was the first day of the A. R. U. boycott. Sommers left the Athenian Building at noon, for Dr. Lindsay's clients carried their infirmities out of town in hot weather. He took his way across the city toward the station of the Northwestern Railroad, wondering whether Debs's threats had been carried out, and if consequently he should be compelled to remain in town over Sunday. On the street corners and in front of the newspaper offices little knots of men, wearing bits of white ribbon in their b.u.t.tonholes, were idling. They were quiet, curious, dully waiting to see what this preposterous stroke might mean for them. In the heavy noonday air of the streets they moved lethargically, drifting westward to the hall where the A. R. U. committees were in session. Oblivious of his engagements, Sommers followed them, hearing the burden of their talk, feeling their aimless discontent, their bitterness at the grind of circ.u.mstances. This prodigal country of theirs had been exploited,--shamefully, rapaciously, swinishly,--and now that the first signs of exhaustion were showing themselves, the people's eyes were opening to the story of greed.

Democracy! Say, rather, Plutocracy, the most unblushing the world had ever seen,--the aristocracy of THOSE WHO HAVE.

Thus meditating, he jostled against a group of men who were coming from a saloon. All but one wore the typical black clothes and derby hats of the workman's best attire; one had on a loose-fitting, English tweed suit. In this latter person Sommers was scarcely surprised to recognize Dresser. The big shoulders of the blond-haired fellow towered above the others; he was talking excitedly, and they were listening. When they started to cross the street, Sommers touched Dresser.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded abruptly.

"What are _you_ doing? You had better get out of town along with your rich friends." He motioned sneeringly at the bag in Sommers's hand.

"I fancied you might be up to something of this kind," Sommers went on, unheeding his sneer.

"I had enough of that job of faking up text-books and jollying schoolteachers. So I chucked it."

"Why did you chuck me, too?"

"I thought you might be sick of having me hang about, and especially now that I am in with the other crowd."

"That's rot," Sommers laughed. "However, you needn't feel it necessary to apologize. What are you doing with 'the other crowd'?"

"I'm secretary of the central committee," Dresser replied, with some importance.

"Oh, that's it!" Sommers exclaimed.

"It's better than being a boot-licker to the rich."