Loe raamatut: «In the Heart of a Fool», lehekülg 38

“Because,” he answered passionately, “you should know, and Lila should know and your mother should know. Your father and I and my father all think so.”

Mrs. Nesbit sat back further in her chair. Her face showed anxiety. She looked at the two others and when Laura’s eyes met her mother’s, there was a warning in the daughter’s glance which kept her mother silent.

“Grant,” said Laura, as she stood beside the gaunt figure, on which a mantle of shame seemed to be falling, “there is nothing in the world that should be hard for you to tell me–or mother.”

“It isn’t you,” he returned, and then lifting his face and trying to catch the elder woman’s eyes, he said slowly:

“Mrs. Nesbit–I’m Kenyon’s father.”

He caught Laura’s hand in his own, and held her from stepping back. Laura did not speak. Mrs. Nesbit gazed blankly at the two and in the silence the little mantel clock ticked into their consciousnesses. Finally the elder woman, who had grown white as some old suspicion or fatal recollection flashed through her mind, asked in an unsteady voice: “And his mother?”

“His mother was Margaret Müller, Mrs. Nesbit,” answered the man.

Then anger glowed in the white face as Mrs. Nesbit rose and stepped toward the downcast man. “Do you mean to tell me you–” She did not finish, but began again, not noticing that the door behind her had let in her husband: “Do you mean to say that you have let me go on all these years nursing that–that, that–creature’s child and–”

“Yes, my dear,” said the Doctor, touching her arm, and taking her hand, “I have.” She turned on her husband her startled, hurt face and exclaimed, “And you, Jim–you too–you too?”

“What else could I do in honor, my dear? And it has been for the best.”

“No,” she cried angrily; “no, see what you have brought to us, Jim–that hussy’s–her, why, her very–”

The years had told upon Doctor Nesbit. He could not rise to the struggle as he could have risen a decade before. His hands were shaking and his voice broke as he replied: “Yes, my dear–I know–I know. But while she bore him, we have formed him.” To her darkening face he repeated: “You have formed him–and made him–you and the Adamses–with your love. And love,” his soft, high voice was tender as he concluded, “love purges everything–doesn’t it, Bedelia?”

“Yes, father,–love is enough. Oh, Grant, Grant–it doesn’t matter–not to me. Poor–poor Margaret, what she has lost–what she has lost!” said the younger woman, as she stood close to Grant and looked deeply into his anguished face. Mrs. Nesbit stood wet-eyed, and spent of her wrath, looking at the three before her.

“O God–my God, forgive me–but I can’t–Oh, Laura–Jim–I can’t, I can’t, not that woman’s–not her–her–” She stopped and cried miserably, “You all know what he is, and whose he is.” Again she stopped and looked beseechingly around. “Oh, you won’t let Lila–she wouldn’t do that–not take that woman’s–that woman who disgraced Lila’s mother–Lila must not take her child–Oh, Jim, you won’t let that–”

As she spoke Mrs. Nesbit sank to a sofa near the door, and turned her face to the pillow. The three who watched her turned blank, inquiring faces to one another.

“Perhaps,” the Doctor began hesitatingly and impotently, “Lila should–”

“What does she know–what can a child of twenty know,” answered the grandmother from her pillow, “of the taint of that blood, of the devil she will transmit? Why, Jim–Oh, Jim–Lila’s not old enough to decide. She mustn’t–she mustn’t–we mustn’t let her.” Mrs. Nesbit raised her body and asked as one who grasps a shadow, “Won’t you ask her to wait–to wait until she can understand?”

A question passed from face to face among those who stood beside the elder woman, and Dr. Nesbit answered it. Strength–the power that came from a habit of forty years of dominating situations–came to him and he stepped to his wife’s side. The two stood together, facing the younger pair. The Doctor spoke, not as an arbiter, but as an advocate:

“Laura, your mother has her right to be considered here. All three of you; Kenyon himself, and you and Lila–she has reared. She has made you all what you are. Her wishes must be regarded now.” Mrs. Nesbit rose while the Doctor was speaking. He took her hand as was his wont and turned to her, saying: “Mother, how will this do: Let’s do nothing now, not to-day at any rate. You must all adjust yourselves to the facts that reveal this new relation before you can make an honest decision. When we have done that, let Laura and her mother tell Lila the truth, and let each tell the child exactly how she feels; and then, if you can bring yourself to it, leave it to her; if she will wait for a time until she understands her grandmother’s point of view–very well. If not–”

“If not, mother, Lila’s decision must stand.” This came from Laura, who stepped over and kissed her mother’s hand. The father looked tenderly at his daughter and shook his head as he answered softly: “If not–no, I shall stand with mother–she has her right–the realest right of all!”

And so it came to pass that the course of true love in the hearts of Lila Van Dorn and Kenyon Adams had its first sharp turning. And all the world was overclouded for two souls. But they were only two souls and the world is full of light. And the light falls upon men and women without much respect for class or station, for good deeds or bad deeds, for the weak or for the strong, for saints or sinners. For know well, truly beloved, that chance and circumstance fall out of the great machine of life upon us, hodge podge and helter skelter; good is not rewarded by prizes from the wheel of fortune nor bad punished by its calamities. Only as our hearts react on life, do we get happiness or misery, not from the events that follow the procession of the days.

Now for a moment let us peep through the clouds that lowered over the young souls aforesaid. Clouds in youth are vastly black; but they are never thick. And peering through those clouds, one may see the lovers, groping in the umbrage. It does not matter much to us, and far less does it matter to them how they have made their farewell meeting. It is night and they are coming from Captain Morton’s.

Hand in hand they skip across the lawn, and soon are hidden in the veranda. They sit arm in arm, on a swinging porch chair, and have no great need for words. “What is it–what is the reason?” asked the youth.

“Well, dear”–it is an adventure to say the word out loud after whispering it for so many days–“dear,” she repeated, and feels the pressure of his arm as she speaks, “it’s something about you!”

“But what?” he persisted.

“We don’t know now,” she returns. “And really what does it matter, only we can’t hurt grandma, and it won’t be for long. It can’t be for long, and then–”

“We don’t care now,–not to-night, do we?” She lifts her head from his shoulder, and puts up her lips for the answer. It is all new–every thrill of the new-found joy of one another’s being is strange; every touch of the hands, of cheeks, every pressure of arms–all are gloriously beautiful.

Once in life may human beings know the joy these lovers knew that night. The angels lend it once and then, if we are good, they let us keep it in our memories always. If not, then God sends His infinite pity instead.

CHAPTER XLIV
IN WHICH WE SUFFER LITTLE CHILDREN, WITH GEORGE BROTHERTON, AND IN GENERAL CONSIDER THE HABITANTS OF THE KINGDOM

Mr. Brotherton had been pacing the deck of his store like the captain of a pirate ship in a storm. Nothing in the store suited him; he found Miss Calvin’s high façade of hair too rococo for the attenuated lines of gray and lavender and heliotrope that had replaced the angular effects in red and black and green and brown of former years. He had asked her to tone it down to make it match the long-necked gray jars and soft copper vases that adorned the gray burlapped Serenity, and she had appeared with it slopping over her ears, “as per yours of even date!” And still he paced the deck.

He picked up Zola’s “Fecundité,” which he had taken from stock; tried to read it; put it down; sent for “Tom Sawyer”; got up, went after Dickens’s “Christmas Books,” and put them down; peeped into “Little Women,” and watched the trade, as Miss Calvin handled it, occasionally dropping his book for a customer; hunted for “The Three Bears,” which he found in large type with gorgeous pictures, read it, and decided that it was real literature.

Amos Adams came drifting in to borrow a book. He moved slowly, a sort of gray wraith almost discarnate and apart from things of the earth. Brotherton, looking at the old man, felt a candor one might have in addressing a state of mind. So the big voice spoke gently:

“Here, Mr. Adams,” called Brotherton. “Won’t you come back here and talk to me?” But the shopkeeper felt that he should put the elder man at his ease, so he added: “You’re a wise guy, as the Latin fathers used to say. Anyway, if Jasper ever gets to a point where he thinks marriage will pay six per cent. over and above losses, you may be a kind of step-uncle-in-law of mine. Tell me, Mr. Adams–what about children–do they pay? You know, I’ve always wanted children. But now–well, you see, I never thought but that people just kind of picked ’em off the bushes as you do huckleberries. I’m getting so that I can’t look at a great crowd of people without thinking of the loneliness, suffering and self-denial that it cost to bring all of them into the world. Good Lord, man, I don’t want lots of children–not now. And yet, children–children–why, if we could open a can and have ’em as we do most things, from sardines to grand opera, I’d like hundreds of them. Yet, I dunno,” Mr. Brotherton wagged a thoughtful head.

But Amos Adams rejoined: “Ah, yes, George, but when you think of what it means for two people to bring a child into the world–what the journey means–the slow, inexorable journey into the valley of the shadow means for them, close together; what tenderness springs up; what sacrifices come forth; what firm knitting of lives; what new kind of love is bred–you are inclined to think maybe Providence knew what it was about when it brought children into life by the cruel path.”

Mr. Brotherton nodded a sympathetic head.

“Let me tell you something, George,” continued Amos. “It’s through their hope of bettering the children that Grant has moved his people in the Valley out on the little garden plots. There they are–every warmish day thousands of mothers and children and old men, working their little plots of ground, trudging back to the tenements in the evening. The love of children is the one steady, unswerving passion in these lives, and Grant has nearly harnessed it, George. And it’s because Nate Perry has that love that he’s giving freely here for those poor folks a talent that would make him a millionaire, and is running his mines, and his big foundry with Cap Morton besides. It’s perfectly splendid to see the way a common fatherhood between him and the men is making a brotherhood. Why, man,” cried Amos, “it refreshes one’s faith like a tragedy.”

“Hello, Aunt Avey,” piped the cheery voice of the little old Doctor, as he came toddling through the front door. “It’s a boy–Joe Calvin the Third.” The Doctor came back to the desk where Amos was standing and took a chair, and as Amos drifted out of the store as impersonally as he came, the Doctor began to grin.

“We were just talking of children,” said Brotherton with studied casualness. “You know, Doctor,” Brotherton smiled abashed, “I’ve always thought I’d like lots of children. But now–”

“I see ’em come, and I see ’em go every day. I’m kind of getting used to death, George. But the miracle of birth grows stranger and stranger.”

“So young Joe Calvin’s a proud parent, is he? Boy, you say?”

“Boy,” chuckled the Doctor, “and old Joe’s out there having a nervous breakdown. They’ve had ten births in the Calvin family. I’ve attended all of ’em, and this is the first time old Joe’s ever been allowed in the house. To-day the old lady’s out there with a towel around her head, practically having that baby herself. The poor daughter-in-law hasn’t seen it. You’d think she was only invited in as a sort of paying guest. And old lady Calvin comes in every few minutes and delivers homilies on the joys of large families!”

The Doctor laughed until his blue old eyes watered, and he chirped when he had his laugh out: “How soon we forget! Which, I presume, is one of God’s semi-precious blessings!”

When the Doctor went out, Brotherton found the store deserted, except for Miss Calvin, who was in front. Brotherton carried a log to the fireplace, stirred up the fire, and when he had it blazing, found Laura Van Dorn standing beside him.

“Well, George,” she said, “I’ve just been stealing away from my children in the Valley for a little visit with Emma.”

“Very well, then,” said Mr. Brotherton, “sit down a minute with me. Tell me, Laura–about children–are they worth it?”

She was a handsome woman, with youth still in her eyes and face, who sat beside George Brotherton, looking at the fire that March day. “George–good old friend,” she said gently, “there’s nothing else in the world so worth it as children.”

She hesitated before going so deeply into her soul, perhaps picking her verbal way. “George–no man ever degraded a woman more than I was degraded. Yet I brought Lila out of it, and I thank God for her, and I don’t mind the price–not now.” She turned to look at Mr. Brotherton inquiringly as she said: “But what I come in to talk to you about, George, was Grant. Have you noticed in the last few months–that growing–well–it’s more than enthusiasm, George; it’s a fanaticism. Since he has been working on the garden plan–Grant has been getting wilder and wilder in his talk about the Democracy of labor. Have you noticed it–or am I oversensitive?”

Brotherton, poking idly in the fire, did not answer at once. At length he said:

“Grant’s a zealot. He’s full of this prisms, prunes and peace idea, this sweetness and light revolution, this notion of hitching their hop-dreams to these three-acre plots, and preaching non-resistance. It’s coming a little fast for me, Laura–just a shade too many at times. But, on the other hand–there’s Nate Perry. He’s as cold-blooded a Yankee as ever swindled a father–and he’s helping with the scheme. He’s–”

“He has no faith in the Democracy of Labor. He hoots,” interrupted Laura. “What he’s doing is working for a more efficient lot of laboring men, so that when the time comes when the unions shall ask and get more definite control of the factories and mines, in the way of wage-setting, and price-making, they will bring some sense with their control. He’s merely looking after himself–in the last analysis; but Grant’s going mad. George, he actually believes that when this thing wins here in the Valley–the peaceful strike, the rise of labor, and the theory of non-resistance–he’s going over the world, and in a few years will have labor emancipated. Have you heard him–that is, recently?”

“Well, yes, a week or so ago,” answered Brotherton, “and he was going it at a pretty fair clip for a minute then. Well, say–I mean–what should we do?” he asked, drumming with the poker on the hearth. “Laura,” Brotherton ran his eyes from the poker until they met her frank, gray eyes, “Grant would listen to you before he would listen to any one else on earth or in Heaven–I’m sure of that.”

“Then what shall we do?” she asked. “We mustn’t let him wreck himself–and all these people? What ought I–”

A shadow fell across the door, and in another moment there stood in the opening of the alcove the tall, lean figure of Thomas Van Dorn.

When Laura was gone, Van Dorn, after more or less polite circumlocution, began to unfold a plan of Market Street to buy the Daily Times and bring Jared Thurston back to Harvey to run it in the interests of the property owners in the town and in the Valley. Incidentally he had come to warn George on behalf of Market Street that he was harboring Grant Adams, contrary to the judgment of Market Street. But George Brotherton’s heart was far from Market Street; it was out on the hill with Emma, his wife, and his mouth spoke from the place of his treasure.

“Tom–tell me, as between man and man, what do you think of children? You’re sort of in the outer room of the Blue Lodge of grandfatherdom, with Lila and Kenyon getting ready for the preacher, and you ought to know, Tom–honest, man, how about it?”

A wave of self-pity enveloped the Judge. His voice broke as he answered: “George, I haven’t any little girl–she never even has spoken to me about this affair that the whole town knows about. Oh, I haven’t any child at all.”

He looked a miserable moment at Brotherton, perhaps reviewing the years which they had lived and grown from youth to middle age together and growled: “Not a thing–not a damned thing in it–George, in all this forty years of fighting to keep ahead of the undertaker! Not a God damned thing!” And so he left the Sweet Serenity of Books and Wall Paper and went back to the treadmill of life, spitting ashes from his gray lips!

And then Daniel Sands toddled in to get the five-cent cigars which he had bought for a generation–one at a time every day, and Brotherton came to Daniel with his problem.

The old man, whose palsied head forever was denying something, as if he had the assessor always in his mind, shut his rheumy eyes and answered: “My children–bauch–” He all but spat upon their names. “Morty–moons around reading Socialist books, with a cold in his throat and dishwater in his brains. And the other, she’s married a dirty traitor and stands by him against her own flesh and blood. Ba-a-a-ch!” He showed his blue, old mouth, and cried:

“I married four women to give those children a home–and what thanks do I get? Ingrates–one a milk-sop–God, if he’d only be a Socialist and get out and throw dynamite; but he won’t; he won’t do a thing but sit around drooling about social justice when I want to eat my meals in peace. And he goes coughing all day and night, and grunting, and now he’s wearing a pointed beard–he says it’s for his throat, but I know–it’s because he thinks it’s romantic. And that Anne–why, she’s worse,” but he did not finish the sentence. His old head wagged violently. Evidently another assessor had suddenly pounced in upon his imagination. For he shuffled into the street.

Mr. Brotherton sat by the fire, leaning forward, with his fingers locked between his knees. The warning against Grant Adams that Tom Van Dorn had given him had impressed him. He knew Market Street was against Grant Adams. But he did not realize that Market Street’s attitude was only a reflex of the stir in the Valley. All Market streets over the earth feel more or less acutely changes which portend in the workshops, often before those changes come. We are indeed “members one of another,” and the very aspirations of those who dream of better things register in the latent fears of those who live on trade. We are so closely compact in our organization that a man may not even hope without crowding his neighbor. And in that little section of the great world which men knew as Market Street in Harvey, the surest evidence of the changing attitude of the men in the Valley toward their work, was found not in the crowds that gathered in Belgian Hall week after week to hear Grant Adams, not in the war-chest which was filling to overflowing, not in the gardens checkered upon the hillsides, but rather in the uneasiness of Market Street. The reactions were different in Market Street and in the Valley; but it was one vision rising in the same body, each part responding according to its own impulses. Of course Market Street has its side, and George Brotherton was not blind to it. Sitting by his fire that raw March day, he realized that Market Street was never a crusader, and why. He could see that the men from whom the storekeepers bought goods on ninety days’ time, 3 per cent. off for cash, were not crusaders. When a man turned up among them with a six-months’ crusade for an evanescent millennium, flickering just a few years ahead, the wholesalers of the city and the retailers of Market Street nervously began thumbing over their rapidly accumulating “bills payable” and began using crisp, scratchy language toward the crusader.

It made Brotherton pause when he thought how they might involve and envelop him–as a family man. For as he sat there, the man’s mind kept thinking of children. And his mind wandered to the thought of his wife and his home–and the little ones that might be. As his mind clicked back to Amos Adams, and to the strange family that would produce three boys as unlike as Grant and Jasper and Kenyon, he began to consider how far Kenyon had come for a youth in his twenties. And Brotherton realized that he might have had a child as old as Kenyon. Then Mr. Brotherton put his hands over his face and tried to stop the flying years.

A shadow fell, and Brotherton greeted Captain Morton, in a sunburst of mauve tailoring. The Captain pointed proudly to a necktie pin representing a horse jumping through a horseshoe, and cried: “What you think of it? Real diamond horseshoe nails–what say?”

“Now, Captain, sit down here,” said Mr. Brotherton. “You’ll do, Captain–you’ll do.” But the subject nearest the big man’s heart would not leave it. “Cap,” he said, “what about children–do they pay?”

“That’s just it,” put in the Captain. “That’s just what I said to Emmy this morning. I was out to see her after you left and stayed until Laura Van Dorn came and chased me off. Emmy’s mighty happy, George–mighty, mighty happy–eh? Her mother always was that way. I was the one that was scared.” George nodded assent. “But to-day–well, we just sat there and cried–she’s so happy about it–eh? Wimmin, George, ain’t scared a bit. I know ’em. I’ve been in their kitchins for thirty years, George, and let me tell you somepin funny,” continued the Captain. “Old Ahab Wright has taken to smoking in public to get the liberal vote! Let me tell you somepin else. They’ve decided to put the skids under Grant Adams and his gang down in the Valley, and the other day they ran into a snag. You know Calvin & Calvin are representing the owners since Tom’s got this life job, though he’s got all his money invested down there and still advises ’em. Well, anyway, they decided to put a barbed-wire trocha around all the mines and the factories. Well, four carloads of wire and posts shows up down in the Valley this week, and, ’y gory, man,–they can’t get a carpenter in town or down there to touch it. Grant’s got ’em sewed up. But Tom says he’ll fix ’em one of these days, if they get before him in his court–what say?”

“I suppose he will, Captain,” replied Mr. Brotherton, and took up his theme. “But getting back to the subject of children–I’ve been talking all morning about ’em to all kinds of folks, and I’ve decided the country’s for ’em. Children, Cap,” Mr. Brotherton rose, put on his coat and took the Captain’s arm, “children, Captain,” he repeated, as they reached the sidewalk and were starting for the street car, “children, I figure it out–children are the see-ment of civilization! Well, say–thus endeth the reading of the first lesson!”

As they stood in the corner transfer shed waiting for the car, Grant Adams came up. “Say, Grant,” called Brotherton, “what you goin’ to do about that barbed wire trocha?”

“Oh,” smiled Grant, “I’ve just about settled it. The boys will begin on it this afternoon. A lot of them were angry when they heard what the owners were up to, but I said, ‘Here: we’ve got justice on our side. We claim a partnership interest in all those mines and factories down there. We contend that we who labor there now are the legatees of all the labor that’s been killed and maimed and cheated by long hours and low wages down in the Valley for thirty years, and if we have a partnership right in those mines and factories, it’s our business to protect them.’ So I talked the boys into putting up the trocha. I tell you, George,” said Grant, and the tremor of emotion strained his voice as he spoke, “it won’t be long until we’ll have a partnership in that trocha, just as we’ll have an interest in every hammer and bolt, and ledge and vein in the Valley. It’s coming, and coming fast–the Democracy of Labor. I have faith, the men and women have faith–all over the Valley. We’ve found the right way–the way of peace. When labor has proved its efficiency–”

“Ah–you’re crazy, Grant,” snapped the Captain. “This class of people down here–these ignorant foreigners–why, they couldn’t run a peanut stand–eh?”

Dick Bowman and his son came up, and not knowing a discussion was in the wind, Dick shook hands around. And after the Captain had taken his uptown car, Grant stood apart, lost in thought, but Dick said: “Well, Benny, we got here in time for the car!” Then craning his long neck, the father laughed: “Ben, here’s a laboring man and his shift goes on at one–so he’s in a hurry, but we’ll make it.”

“Dick,” began Brotherton, looking at the thin shadow of a man who was hardly Brotherton’s elder by half a dozen years. “Dick, you’re a kind of expert father, you and Joe Calvin, and to-day Joe’s a granddaddy–tell me about the kiddies–are they worth it?”

Bowman threw his head back and craned his long neck. “Not for us–not for us poor–maybe for you people here,” said Bowman, who paused and counted on his fingers: “Eight born, three dead–that’s too many. Joe Calvin, he’s raised all his and they’re doing fairly well. That’s his girl in here–ain’t it?” Bowman sighed. “Her and my Jean played together back in their little days; before we moved to South Harvey.” He lowered his voice.

“George, mother hasn’t heard from Jean for going on two year, now. She went off with a fellow; told us she married him–she was just a child–but had been working around in the factories–and, well, I don’t say so, but I guess she just has got where she’s ashamed to write–maybe.”

His voice rose in anger as he cried: “Why didn’t she have a show, like this girl of Joe’s? He’s no better than I. And you know my wife–well, she’s no Mrs. Joe Calvin–she’s been as happy about ’em when they came as if they were princes of the blood.” He stopped.

“Then there’s Mugs–I dunno, George,–it seems like we tried with Mugs, but all them saloons and–well, the gambling and the women under his nose from the time he was ten years old–well, I can’t make him work. Little Jack is steady enough for a boy of twenty–he’s in the Company mines, and we’ve put Ben in this year. He is twelve–though, for Heaven’s sake, don’t go blabbing it; he’s supposed to be fourteen. And little Betty, she’s in school yet. I don’t know how she’ll turn out. No, George,” he went on, “children for us poor, children’s a mighty risky, uncertain crop. But,” he smiled reflectively, “I’m right here to tell you they’re lots of fun as little shavers–growing up. Why, George, you ought to hear Benny sing. Them Copinis of the Hot Dog found he had a voice, and they’ve taught him some dago songs.” Ben was a bright-faced boy of twelve–big for his age, with snappy, brown eyes and apples of cheeks and curly hair. He slipped away to look into a store window, leaving the two men alone. Mr. Brotherton was in a mellow mood. He put his great paw on the small man’s shoulder and said huskily:

“Say, Dick, honest, I’d rather have just one boy like that than the whole damn Valley–that’s right!”

The car came bowling up and the South Harvey people boarded it. Grant Adams rode down into the Valley with great dreams in his soul. He talked little to the Bowmans, but looked out of the window and saw the dawn of another day. It is the curse of dreamers that they believe that when they are convinced of a truth, they who have pursued it, who have suffered for it, who have been exalted by it, they have only to pass out their truth to the world to remake the universe. But the world is made over only when the common mind sees the truth, and the common heart feels it. So the history of reform is a history of disappointment. The reform works, of course. But in working it does only the one little trick it is intended to do, and the long chain of incidental blessings which should follow, which the reformers feel must inevitably follow, wait for other reformers to bring them into being. So there is always plenty of work for the social tinker, and no one man ever built a millennium. For God is ever jealous for our progeny, and leaves an unfinished job always on the work bench of the world.

Grant Adams believed that he had a mission to bring labor into its own. The coming of the Democracy of Labor was a real democracy to him–no mere shibboleth. And as he rode through the rows of wooden tenements, where he knew men and women were being crushed by the great industrial machine, he thought of the tents in the fields; of the women and children and of the old and the sick going out there to labor through the day to piece out the family wage and secure economic independence with wholesome, self-respecting work. It seemed to him that when he could bring the conditions that were starting in Harvey, to every great industrial center, one great job in the world would be done forever.

So he drummed his iron claw on the seat before him, put his hard hand upon his rough face, and smiled in the joy of his high faith.

Dick Bowman and his boy left Grant at the car. He waved his claw at little Ben when they parted, and sighed as he saw the little fellow scampering to shaft No. 3 of the Wahoo Fuel Company’s mines. There Grant lost sight of the child, and went to his work. In two hours he and Violet Hogan had cleaned off his desk. He had promised the Wahoo Fuel Company to see that the work of constructing the trocha was started that afternoon, and when Violet had telephoned to Mechanics’ Hall, Grant and a group of men went to the mines to begin on the trocha. They passed down the switch into the yards, and Grant heard a brakeman say:

“That Frisco car there has a broken brake–watch out for her.”