Loe raamatut: «The Way of the Strong», lehekülg 23

CHAPTER VI
IN TORONTO

The street care hummed in the still summer air. The sun awnings were stretched out from the endless array of stores, across the super-heated sidewalk. A busy life perspired beneath them. Toronto's central shopping areas were always crowded about midday, not with the smart woman shopper, but with the lunching population of the commercial houses.

It was more than a month since Frank's memorable journey from the hopeless precincts of Alston to one of Canada's gayest cities; a month during which he had found his days far easier than he expected, if more full of the responsibilities of life. From the moment of his meeting with Austin Leyburn he had permitted himself a looking forward, if not with anything approaching youthful hope and confidence, at least to a life full of that work which his understanding suggested to him might serve to deaden bitter memories, and help him to face a useful future.

His new aspirations, his new convictions, sprang from a simple, impulsive heart rather than from any deep study of Socialistic doctrine. He had no logic on the matters of his beliefs, he needed none. It was sufficient that he had seen, had felt, and he hugged to himself the thoughts thus inspired.

For the moment the man Leyburn, with his narrow eyes, his purposeful face, was something little less than a god to young Frank. Here was a champion of those very people whom he believed needed all the help forthcoming. Here was a man who, from sheer belief in his own principles, had devoted himself, nay, perhaps, sacrificed himself, to those very ideals which he, Frank, had only just awakened to. His official positions in the organized societies of labor surely testified to the sincerity of his purpose. Thus it was certainly the work of Providence that he, Frank, had been thrown into such contact at the moment of his need.

On that eventful train journey, Leyburn had promised to enroll him among the workers for the good of the submerged ranks of labor. Moreover he had proved as good as his word. He had done more. For some unexplained reason he took Frank into his own personal office, keeping him under his direct supervision, associating with him, and treating him to a confidence that was by no means usual in one of the most powerful heads of the labor movement in Canada.

It was a strange association, these two. On the one hand a man of great organizing powers, of keen, practical understanding of Socialistic principles; and, on the other, a youth of lofty ideals which had little enough to do with the bitter class hatred belonging to the sordid modern product of Socialism. Yet the older man's interest was very evident, and was displayed in many different ways. He frequently lunched with his protégé, and never failed to take him to any demonstration of labor at which it was his duty to speak.

Frank responded readily to this kindly treatment. Nor did it ever occur to him to wonder at it. So it came about, that, bit by bit, this kindly man with the narrow eyes and hard smile, drew from him the complete story of his life's disaster.

It was on the occasion when the last detail of the story was passionately poured into his apparently sympathetic ears that Austin Leyburn treated his protégé to something of his platform oratory.

"Out of evil comes good – sometimes," he said, with a twisted, satirical smile. "You certainly have been the victim of the class against which all our efforts are directed. Think of it," he went on, thrusting his elbows upon the luncheon table which stood between them – they were in the fly-ridden precincts of the cheap restaurant which Leyburn always affected – and raising his voice to a denunciatory pitch. "Think of it. Every man with power to think, with power to work, who comes within the web of this wealthy man you speak of – whoever he is – is open to the possibilities for evil of his accumulations of wealth. That man, a millionaire, openly confesses to being able to buy the law sufficiently to legally crush the moral, almost the physical life out of those who offend him." Then he smiled whimsically. "Can you wonder at the class hatred existing, and of which I know you do not wholly approve?" Then he shrugged, as though to dismiss the matter. "As I said, good out of evil – sometimes. But for that experience you would undoubtedly have joined the ranks of the oppressors and assimilated their creed."

"Yes, yes," cried Frank eagerly. "I see all that. I see the iniquity of it all that such tyranny should be possible. I agree entirely. It is against the very principles of all creation that any one man should possess such power. No man, woman, or child is safe with such possibilities in our midst. But this class hatred. The opposition of labor is not directed sufficiently against the principle. It is directed against the individual, and so becomes class hatred."

"Remember you are dealing with human nature," Leyburn objected. "When such forces as we control are put into active protest against a principle, the principle must become merged in the individual who represents it. It is the tangible evidence which an ignorant mass of labor needs of the existence of offense against the principle which causes the bitterness of its lot."

"My objection is against that fact," Frank persisted, in the blindness of enthusiasm. "Class hatred! It is dreadful. Christ never preached class hatred; and no man who ever walked this earth had a greater understanding of real life than He. Listen, I read in one of your books, written by a man reputed to be a great thinker, that – if the working men and women of the world were wiped out, capital and its class would become useless, paralyzed. He also said that if, on the other hand, those who represent capital were wiped out, if all but the working men and women were exterminated, the world would still go on undisturbed, because of the worker left behind."

Leyburn nodded.

"That is one of the strongest bases of the labor movement. Why should the man or woman who lives by the sweat of others enjoy the luxury which is denied to the people who make that luxury possible? Is the argument not perfectly, humanly just?"

Frank leaned back in his hard chair. This man was damping some of his enthusiasm by the argument which seemed to him as purely selfish as were the existing conditions of the methods of capital.

"Then the husbandman in the vineyard was all wrong?" he demanded.

"On the contrary, he was quite right – if he could got no more than the penny he engaged for," replied Leyburn cynically.

Frank returned again to the attack.

"Now you are preaching for the worker the very methods of present-day capital. You are telling him to – grab."

"So long as capital – grabs, labor must do likewise. Unfortunately this is an age of grab, and until evolution carries it away, like any other pestilential influence, we must all grab, or die in the gutter."

Frank shook his head.

"No, no," he cried desperately. "I can't believe it. This war of classes is all wrong. It is against all the ethics of brotherhood. It is the war of body against brain. Leave out the individual and stick to the principle. If the working class were wiped out to-morrow the brain, which is really the life of the world, would only change its tactics. After a brief stagnation it would evolve a fresh condition of things. It would throw itself into the necessary work, and, after a while, its powers would contrive a means whereby the world's work would still go forward. On the other hand, if the great minds, the thinking minds of those who represent capital, were wiped out, after a brief spell of chaos, the vitality of the body would recreate a guiding system, and things would become the same as they were before. There would again be capital and labor, with its endless problem. All that we can humanly demand is equality and brotherhood for the human race in their various conditions of life. If a man works his best he must be able to enjoy life as he sees life. The rest belongs to a Divine Power over which we can have no control. The world's goods must be proportionately divided, according to all requirements. Nor do we all need the same, because of that unequal distribution by divine hand of the power to do. Oh, maybe I cannot make it plain. But I can see it all, if only man will work in a common interest, as I feel sure he was intended to do. It is a government of common good we need. One that will provide as well for the laborer as the thinker. They are two portions of one whole, without either of which the other cannot exist. Sever them, destroy either, and the lot of the other is to be deplored."

Frank waited with flushed face and anxious eyes for the other's reply.

Leyburn's cynical eyes looked up from the stained tablecloth on which the remains of the meal were still scattered.

"And in the meantime?" he inquired.

"What do you mean?"

"How are you going to achieve this government, this good and merciful government that is going to provide for us, each according to our needs? By sitting down and submitting to the sweaters who rule the lives of the present-day laboring world, making its condition just what their own quality of selfishness demands, just because the Divine Hand has bestowed upon them a greater power to think than It has upon the worker? I tell you, boy, we are fighting for all that which you have outlined; and we are fighting – which is the only way. I said that this was an age of grab – and, as far as I can see, it is a pestilential influence that must remain for years to come. The brain must be forced to yield up its selfish desires by the body; it will never be persuaded. You used the analogy. I will use it, too. As you say, the brain represents the thinkers. In human life the brain thinks, it is selfish in its desires, and its desires grow. They frequently grow beyond the endurance of the body, and finally it submits the body to such conditions of disease that at last the poor stricken thing rebels. Harmony and well-being cannot endure in human life with the domination of any one part of it. Capital is dominating labor now, so that the disease of hopelessness has spread to every section. Life is a burden. Therefore labor has rebelled, is rebelling, will continue to rebel, until capital is abolished and the harmony of equality is restored. Believe me, I am only viewing your ideals through practical eyes. Come, my boy, we must to work again. There is that case of tyranny to be looked into. The discharge of that fireman for drinking when off duty on the North Saskatchewan Railroad. There is also the question of colored agricultural workers to be considered. You, my friend, are young. You are enthusiastic and idealistic, and I like you for it. But you will soon see that that which a long experience has taught me is right."

Leyburn rose from his seat and beckoned the waiter. He settled the bill, while Frank picked up his hat. The youngster had no longer need to press it down to his ears. His hair was rapidly growing to that luxuriant, wavy mass, which had always been Monica's pride.

At the door of the restaurant, Leyburn turned to him with his peculiarly ungracious smile, and sniffed the sickening atmosphere of hot food.

"We've satisfied our appetites, and now we hate the smell," he said, with a laugh. "Human nature is ungrateful. By the way, you'd best go on to the Saskatchewan Railroad offices and ask for that report they promised to send me. I'll go back to the office." Then, as an afterthought: "Say," he added, with a laugh, "I'm going to send you up West later. Along the line. To do some – talking. But you'll need to cut all that stuff right out. I mean the ideal racket. So long."

He turned sharply away, and hurried down the heat-laden street.

Left alone, Frank looked after him. He shook his head.

"He's a good feller," he said to himself. "But he's wrong – dead wrong – in some things."

At that moment somebody bumped into him, and he turned to apologize. Seeing it was a woman, he raised his hat. Then an exclamation, half joyous, half of dismay, broke from him.

"Phyl!" he cried. "You? In Toronto?"

In her turn the girl started and stared.

"Frank!" she cried incredulously. Then, regardless of the passers-by: "Thank God, I've found you! Oh, Frank, I'm so – so glad. We have been hunting Toronto these weeks; and now – now – "

"We?"

The girl's delight and evident love almost seemed to have passed Frank by. With a rush all the old pain of parting from her, all the dreary heartache he had endured when writing his farewell to her, was with him once more, as his troubled eyes searched the sweet face looking so radiantly up into his.

"Yes, 'we,' dear."

Phyllis, her pretty face wreathed in a happy, confident little smile, was studying him closely.

"Well?" she cried, as the great fellow stared back at her, rather like a simple babe.

Frank tried to pull himself together. It was like the ponderous shake of a St. Bernard dog, rousing himself to activity.

"I don't know what to say or do." The man's dilemma was struggling with the joy of this unexpected reunion. "Why have you come here? Oh, Phyl, it is so hard. It has been so terribly hard. I tried to explain it all in my letter, I never thought – "

The girl nodded. Not for a moment did she permit any other emotion than her delight at seeing him again, appear in her smiling eyes. She tilted her head slightly on one side, so that the shadow of her wide-brimmed hat was removed from her face. Frank became aware of the movement, also of the hat. He also became aware of the smartly tailored costume she was wearing, even the pointed toes of her exquisite shoes, and the white kid gloves upon her hands. She intended him to notice these things.

"Oh, Frank," she cried, deliberately ignoring his protest, "Toronto's just the loveliest place ever to buy dress fixings. Mrs. Hendrie has just made me buy and buy, till – well, till I don't know how much she's spent on me. You see," she went on naïvely, "she said I just couldn't get hunting my beau in Toronto with hayseed sticking all over my hair. Don't you think I – I look better this way?"

This strange child from a "way-off" western farm had her own methods of campaign. She was playing for a big stake, the biggest she could think of – the man she loved.

Frank breathed a deep sigh.

"You – you just look wonderful, Phyl," he cried, for a moment all else smothered in the background.

"True? Sure?"

"True? Say, you just couldn't look more lovely," the boy cried.

Phyllis laughed.

"Then come right along. See, we're bumping folks, standing here. I'm going to take you to where your – where Mrs. Hendrie is waiting for you. The – "

But the mention of Monica left Frank once more alive to realities.

"No, no, Phyl," he cried. "It is useless. Don't you understand? I love my – I love Mon as dearly as ever son loved a mother, but – the barrier has been set up between us, and can never be removed. Oh, believe me, it is no resentment, or bitterness against her. She just belongs to a different world from mine – now. It would give her pain. I know what she would say – and I know what I must say."

In spite of all his protests, Frank was walking beside Phyllis, moving unquestioningly in the direction she selected.

The girl looked round laughingly. Phyllis had never perhaps smiled so joyously, so sweetly as she was smiling now. But every look, every word she spoke, was full of definite purpose.

"I haven't recovered from the shock you handed me – in that – that letter," she said, without a shadow of distress in her smiling eyes. "I haven't, true as true. Say, I just kind of wonder if you've got half a notion how it feels for a girl to be thrown over by letter? Say, I just won't be thrown over by – by letter. That's why I've come here to Toronto. I've come right here so you can tell me with your own two very determined lips, I'm not wanted. When you've told me that I'm not wanted, that you just don't love me any more, then I'm going right away to Gleber, and get on with my plowing. I'll just pack up all the elegant suits Mrs. Hendrie's bought me, and never see them again. Then I'll fix myself up in black and bugles – whatever they are – and be a widow woman for the rest of my life. Now, truth! You don't love me – any more; and you don't want me?"

Just for a moment the girl's mask was dropped as she made her final demand.

It was only for a moment, but long enough for Frank to see the depth of her love for him shining in her dark eyes. The desire then and there to take her in his arms, and throw every resolution to the winds, was well-nigh overpowering, but he put it from him, and the effort left him speechless.

"Frank?" she urged.

But still the man remained silent.

"Do you know, dear, you'd have been more merciful if you'd brutally struck me in the face with your great big fist, instead of sending me that letter. You see, you'd sure have left me senseless."

The subtle appeal was too much for the man. His face flushed with a shame that swept through his heart.

"But what could I do, Phyl? I had to tell you. I had to give you – your freedom. You could never marry a – convict."

Phyllis's mask of lightness returned to her face. She meant to hit this man she loved, hard. It took all her courage to do it, and the only possible chance she had was to laugh with it.

"A convict?" she cried. "Oh, Frank, I could marry a convict far, far easier than a – present-day Socialist."

The thrust drove straight home, and, witnessing the havoc she had wrought, the girl consoled herself with the thought that hers had been the plunging of the surgeon's knife that the healing of this man might be the surer, the more complete.

"Phyl!"

The man's look was one of dreadful pain. He felt as if every ideal and honest feeling he had ever had, had fallen upon him, crushing him beneath its burden. Phyl's ridicule was worse, far worse than any suffering he had endured, however unjust.

"You can't – you don't mean that," he cried hoarsely. "No, no, Phyl, you don't mean it. You – "

"But I do – I do," the girl cried, with sudden passion. "Oh, I know you've suffered. God only knows just how you've suffered! And since I've heard all you've gone through, I've suffered every moment of it with you. Yes, I know I've hurt you now, and I meant to hurt you – not because you hurt me, not because of all you wrote me in your letter, but because I want to tell you all I feel about – about this new life you figure to mix up with. Frank, your own honest notions are just too big for words. They're like you – all of them. But how – how are you going to carry them out? Say, I'll tell you. Maybe I'm just seeing things as they happen, and not as folks guess they're going to figger out. You're going to help fix things right by tying yourself to the ranks of labor, so as to fight capital. That's how you're going to bring about brotherly and sisterly love in the world! By fighting! Say, you said you were going to enlist in the army. You have. And it's a fighting army, facing all the horrors of a war far more dreadful than the life-and-death struggle of nations. Do you need me to tell you of the wretched, self-seeking leaders of the working men? The men who lead them like a flock of silly sheep so they may personally prosper and feed on them? Do you need me to tell you, what every paper in the world tells you, of the awful sufferings the helpless women and kiddies go through? All just because these grabbing leaders, yearning for publicity and power, order their men-folk to stop work, and resort to violence for a few odd cents more pay, or because some wretched scallawag, who richly deserves it, no doubt, has fallen under the rules of his employers. That's not your Socialism, if I know you. Oh, this horrible, horrible bitterness and hatred going on everywhere about us. Why should it be? You ask that, too, and you get right up against one little fact of life – the power of money – and guess that's the root of it. It isn't! It isn't! I tell you there's just one cause. It's selfishness. It's the selfishness of one class just as sure as it's the selfishness of another. And they bring all sorts of arguments about principle to prop themselves up on. There's no principle about it. It's just self, self, self, all the time. Everybody wants something they don't honestly earn. And when they can't get it, if they think they're strong enough, they just start right out to fight for it, like a lot of savages, while those who look to them for support and comfort are left to starve, and put up with all the horrors caused by savage passions, inflamed to frenzy by those leaders who are the only creatures to obtain worldly advantage and benefit from their disgraceful doings. Oh, Frank, it's just awful to think that you have become one of these – these – villains."

The girl's passionate denunciation came to an end just as she halted at the foot of the great flight of steps leading up to the entrance of the Eldorado Hotel. But she waited for no comment from her silent companion. She just glanced up and pointed at the building. Then, with an almost kaleidoscopic return to her lightest, smiling manner, she announced their arrival at their destination.

"Say, Frank," she cried, with an air of absurd importance. "This is my hotel. We've a suite of elegant apartments right on the first floor. And, dear," with a sudden tenderness, "Mrs. Hendrie – Monica – your Mon, who loves you nearly as much as I do, is just waiting right there – for you. You'll come along in?"

Frank looked up into the tenderly pleading eyes, and his last objection melted before them.

He nodded.