Tramping on Life Part 82

And I kept a picture of the girl I adored, secretly, among my ma.n.u.scripts--it was one I had begged of "Con" c.u.mmins, frankly taking him into my confidence as to my state of heart toward Vanna. Which confidence "Con" never abused, though it might have afforded endless fields of fun.

"Con" framed the picture for me.

When alone with it, I often actually knelt to it, as to a holy image.

And I kissed and kissed it, till it was quite faded away.

Emma Silverman, the great anarchist leader, came to Laurel, with her manager, Jack Leitman. I went to the Bellman House, the town's swellest hotel, to see her. I had never met her but had long admired her for her activities and bravery.

I found her a thick-built woman, after the gladiatorial fashion ... as she moved she made me think of a battleship going into action. There was something about her face ... a squareness of jaw, a belligerency, that reminded me of Roosevelt, whom I had seen twice ... once, at Mt. Hebron, when he had made a speech from the chapel platform ... (when I had determined not to join in the general applause of one whom I considered a mere demagogue--but, before I knew it, found myself on my feet roaring inarticulately as he strode in) and again, after he had returned from his African expedition, and had come to Laurel to dedicate a fountain set up for the local horses and dogs by the S.P.C.A.

Jack Leitman looked to me like a fat nincomp.o.o.p. Such a weakling as great women must necessarily, it seems, "fall for." But he was an efficient manager. Possessed of a large voice and an insistent manner, he sold books by the dozen before and after Emma Silverman's lectures....

Miss Silverman already knew of me through Summershire, the wealthy socialist editor and owner of _Summershire's Magazine_, and Penton Baxter. It thrilled me when she called me by my first name....

Her first lecture was on s.e.x. The hall was jammed to the doors by a curiosity-moved crowd.

She began by a.s.suming that she was not talking to idiots and cretins, but to men and women of mature minds--so she could speak as she thought in a forthright manner. She inveighed against the double standard. When someone in the auditorium asked what she meant by the single standard she replied, she meant s.e.xual expression and experience for man and woman on an equal footing ... the normal living of life without which no human being could be really decent--and that regardless of marriage and the conventions!

"The situation as it is, is odious ... all men, with but few exceptions, have s.e.xual life before marriage, but they insist that their wives come to them in that state of absurd ignorance of their own bodily functions and consequent lack of exercise of them, which they denominate 'purity.'

"I doubt if there is a solitary man in this audience--a married man--who has not had premarital intercourse with women."

All the while I kept my eye on Professor Wilton, who sat near me, in the row ahead ... he was flushing furiously in angry, puritanic dissent ...

and I knew him well enough to foresee a forthcoming outburst of protest.

"Yes, I think I can safely say that there is not one married man here who can honestly claim that he came to his wife with that same physical 'purity' which he required of her."

Wilton leaped to his feet in a fury ... the good, simple soul. He was so indignant that the few white hairs on his head worked up sizzling with his emotion....

"_Here's one!_" he shouted, forgetting in his earnest anger the a.s.sembled audience, most of whom knew him.

There followed such an uproar of merriment as I have never seen the like before nor since. The students, of course, howled with indescribable joy ... Emma Silverman choked with laughter. Jack Leitman rolled over the side table on which he had set the books to sell as the crowd pa.s.sed out--

After the deafening cries, cat-calls and uproars, Emma grew serious.

"I don't know who you are," she cried to Professor Wilton, "but I'll take chances in telling you that you're a liar!"

Again Wilton was on his feet in angry protest.

"Shame on you, woman! have you no shame!" he shouted.

This sally brought the house down utterly. The boys hooted and cat-called and stamped again....

Emma Silverman laughed till the tears streamed down her face....

During the four days she remained in Laurel her lectures were crowded.

Walking up the hill one day, I overtook Professor Wilton, under whom I had studied botany, and whom I liked, knowing he was sincere and had spoken the incredible though absolute truth.

"That woman, that anarchist friend of yours, Gregory, is a coa.r.s.e woman!"

I rose to Emma's defence ... but he kept repeating ... "no, no ... she is nothing but a coa.r.s.e, depraved woman."

At my instigation, the Sig-Kaps gave an afternoon tea for her. And I was proud to act as her introducer. The boys liked her. She was like a good gale of wind to the minds and souls of us.

I saw Emma and Jack off at the train. I carried two of her grips for her.

"Take Johnnie with you!" jovially shouted some of the boys--a motor car full of them--Phi Alphs--as we stepped to the station platform....

She answered them with a jolly laugh, a wave of the hand....

"No, I'll leave him here ... you need a few like him with you!"

"I have something on my conscience," remarked Miss Silverman to me, "Johnnie, do you really think that old professor was speaking the truth?"

"I'm sure of it, Miss Silverman."

"Why, then, I'm heartily sorry ... and it was rough of me ... and will you tell the professor for me that I sincerely apologise for having hurt his feelings ... tell him I have so many jacka.s.ses attending my lectures all over the country, who rise and say foolish and insincere things, just to stand in well with the communities they live in--that sometimes it angers me, their hypocrisy--and then I blaze forth pretty strong and lay them flat!"

Professor Wilton was a Phi Alph. From that time he was spoken of as "the only Phi Alph Virgin."

The periods when I had rested secure in the knowledge of where my next meal was coming from, had been few. Life had pressed me close to its ragged edge ever since I could remember.

Now I was accorded a temporary relief. Penton Baxter wrote me that he had procured me a patron ... Henry Belton, the millionaire Single-Taxer, had consented to endow me at fifteen dollars a week, for six months. I had informed Baxter, in one of my many letters to him--for we had developed an intimate correspondence--that I had a unique fairy drama in mind, but could not write it because of the hara.s.sment of my struggle for bread and life.... I had laid aside for the present my projected "Judas."

Singing all the time, I packed my books in a large box which the corner grocer gave me, and, giving up my noisy room over the tinshop, I was off to the Y.M.C.A., where I engaged a room, telling the secretary, who knew me well, of my good luck, and enjoining him not to tell anyone else ...

which I promptly did myself....

I selected one of the best rooms, a corner one, with three windows through which floods of light streamed. It was well-furnished. The bed was the finest I had ever had to sleep in.