They Call Me Carpenter Part 16

x.x.xII

It came time when the rest of us were ready for dinner, but Carpenter said that he wanted to pray. Apparently, whenever he was tired, and had work to do he prayed. He told me that he would find his own way to Grant Hall, the place of the ma.s.s-meeting; but somehow, I didn't like the idea of his walking through the streets alone. I said I would call for him at seven-thirty and made him promise not to leave the Labor Temple until that hour.

I cast about in my mind for a body-guard, and bethought me of old Joe. His name is Joseph Camper, and he played centre-rush with my elder brother in the days before they opened up the game, and when beef was what counted. Old Joe has shoulders like the biggest hams in a butcher shop, and you can trust him like a Newfoundland dog. I knew that if I asked him not to let anybody hurt my friend, he wouldn't--and this regardless of the circ.u.mstance of my friend's not wearing pants. Old Joe knows nothing about religion or sociology--only wrestling and motor-cars, and the price of wholesale stationery.

So I phoned him to meet me, and we had dinner, and at seven-thirty sharp our taxi crew drew up at the Labor Temple. Half a minute later, who should come walking down the street but Everett, T-S's secretary! "I thought I'd take the liberty," he said, apologetically. "I thought Mr. Carpenter might say something worth while, and you'd be glad to have a transcript of his speech."

"Why, that's very kind of you," I answered, "I didn't know you were interested in him."

"Well, I didn't know it myself, but I seem to be; and besides, he told me to follow him."

I went upstairs, and found the stranger waiting in the room where I had left him. I put myself on one side of him, and the ex-centre-rush on the other, with Everett respectfully bringing up the rear, and so we walked to Grant Hall. Many people stared at us, and a few followed, but no one said anything--and thank G.o.d, there was nothing resembling a mob! I took my prophet to the stage entrance of the hall, and got him into the wings; and there was a pathetically earnest lady waiting to give him a tract on the horrors of vivisection, and an old gentleman with a white beard and palsied hands, inviting him to a spiritualistic seance. Funniest of all, there was Aunt Caroline's prophet, the author of the "Eternal Bible," with his white robes and his permanent wave, and his little tribute of carrots and onions wrapped in a newspaper. I decided that these were Carpenter's own kind of troubles, and I left him to attend to them, and strolled out to have a look at the audience.

The hall was packed, both the floor and the galleries; there must have been three thousand people. I noted a big squad of police, and wondered what was coming; for in these days you can never tell whether any public meeting is to be allowed to start, and still less if it is to be allowed to finish. However, the crowd was orderly, the only disturber being some kind of a Socialist trying to sell literature.

I saw Mary Magna come in, with Laura Lee, another picture actress, and Mrs. T-S. They found seats; and I looked for the magnate, and saw him talking to some one near the door. I strolled back to speak to him, and recognized the other man as Westerly, secretary of the Merchants' and Manufacturers' a.s.sociation. I knew what he was there for--to size up this new disturber Of the city's peace, and perhaps to give the police their orders.

It was not my wish to overhear the conversation, but it worked out that way, partly because it is hard not to overhear T-S, and partly because I stopped in surprise at the first words: "Good Gawd, Mr.

Vesterly, vy should I vant to give money to strikers? Dat's nuttin'

but fool newspaper talk. I vent to see de man, because Mary Magna told me he vas a vunderful type, and I said I'd pay him a tousand dollars on de contract. You know vot de newspapers do vit such tings!"

"Then the man isn't a friend of yours?" said the other.

"My Gawd, do I make friends vit every feller vot I hire because he looks like a character part?"

At this point there came up Rankin, one of T-S's directors. "h.e.l.lo!"

said he. "I thought I'd come to hear your friend the prophet."

"Friend?" said T-S. "Who told you he's a friend o' mine?"

"Why, the papers said--"

"Vell, de papers 're nutty!"

And then came one of the strikers who had been in the soup-kitchen--a fresh young fellow, proud to know a great man. "How dy'do, Mr. T-S? I hear our friend, Mr. Carpenter, is going--"

"Cut out dis friend stuff!" cried T-S, irritably. "He may be yours--he ain't mine!"

I strolled up. "h.e.l.lo, T-S!" I said.

"Oh, Billy! h.e.l.lo!"

"So you've denied him three times!"

"Vot you mean?"

"Three times--and the c.o.c.k hasn't crowed yet! That man's a prophet for sure, T-S!"

The magnate pretended not to understand, but the deep flush on his features gave him away.

"How dy'do, Mr. Westerly," I said. "What do you think of Mr. T-S in the role of the first pope?"

"You mean he's going to act?" inquired the other, puzzled.

"Come off!" exclaimed Rankin, who knew better, of course.

"He's going to be St. Peter," I insisted, "and hold the keys to the golden gate. He's planning a religious play, you know, for this fellow Carpenter. Maybe he might cast Mr. Westerly for a part--say Pontius Pilate."

"Ha, ha, ha!" said the secretary of our "M. and M." "Pretty good!

Ha, ha, ha! Gimme a chance at these bunk-shooters--I'll shut 'em up, you bet!"

x.x.xIII

The chairman of the meeting was a man named Brown, the president of the city's labor council. He was certainly respectable enough, prosy and solemn. But he was deeply moved on this question of clubbing strikers' heads; and you could see that the crowd was only waiting for a chance to shout its indignation. The chairman introduced the president of the Restaurant Workers, a solid citizen whom you would have taken for a successful grocer. He told about what had happened last night at Prince's; and then he told about the causes of the strike, and the things that go on behind the scenes in big restaurants. I had been to Prince's many times in my life, but I had never been behind the scenes, nor had I ever before been to a labor-meeting. I must admit that I was startled. The things they put into the hashes! And the distressing habit of unorganized waiters, when robbed of their tips or otherwise ill-treated, to take it out by spitting into the soup!

A couple of other labor men spoke, and then came James, the carpenter with a religious streak. He had a harsh, rasping voice, and a way of poking a long bony finger at the people he was impressing. He was desperately in earnest, and it caused him to swallow a great deal, and each time his Adam's apple would jump up.

"I'm going to read you a newspaper clipping," he began; and I thought it was Judge Wollcott's injunction again, but it was a story about one of our social leaders, Mrs. Alinson Pakenham, who has four famous Pekinese spaniels, worth six thousand dollars each, and weighing only eight ounces--or is it eighty ounces?--I'm not sure, for I never was trusted to lift one of the wretched little brutes.

Anyhow, their names are Fe, Fi, Fo, and Fum, and they have each their own attendant, and the four have a private limousine in which to travel, and they dine off a service of gold plate. And here were hundreds of starving strikers, with their wives, also starving; and a couple of thousand other workers in factories and on ranches who were in process of having their wages "deflated." The orator quoted a speech of Algernon de Wiggs before the Chamber of Commerce, declaring that the restoration of prosperity, especially in agriculture, depended upon "deflation," and this alone; and suddenly James, the carpenter with a religious streak, launched forth:

"Go to now, you rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you! Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten! Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust on it shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as if it were fire. You have heaped treasure together for the last days.

Behold the hire of the laborers, who have reaped your fields; you have kept it back by fraud, and the cries of the reapers have entered into the ears of the Lord! You have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; you have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter. You have condemned and killed the just--"

At this point in the tirade, my old friend the ex-centre-rush, who was standing in the wings with me, turned and whispered: "For G.o.d's sake, Billy, what kind of a G.o.dd.a.m.n Bolshevik stunt is this, anyhow?"

I answered: "Hush, you dub! He's quoting from the Bible!"

x.x.xIV

President Brown of the Western City Labor Council arose to perform his next duty as chairman. Said he:

"The next speaker is a stranger to most of you, and he is also a stranger to me. I do not know what his doctrine is, and I a.s.sume no responsibility for it. But he is a man who has proven his friendship for labor, not by words, but by very unusual deeds. He is a man of remarkable personality, and we have asked him to make what suggestions he can as to our problems. I have pleasure in introducing Mr. Carpenter."

Whereupon the prophet fresh from G.o.d arose from his chair, and come slowly to the front of the platform. There was no applause, but a silence made part of curiosity and part of amazement. His figure, standing thus apart, was majestic; and I noted a curious thing--a shining as of light about his head. It was so clear and so beautiful that I whispered to Old Joe: "Do you see that halo?"

"Go on, Billy!" said the ex-centre-rush. "You're getting nutty!"

"But it's plain as day, man!"

I felt some one touch my arm, and saw the little lady of the anti-vivisection tracts peering past me. "Do you see his aura?" she whispered, excitedly.