CHAPTER L
JUDGE VAN DORN SINGS SOME MERRY SONGS AND THEY TAKE GRANT ADAMS BEHIND A WHITE DOOR
After arguments of counsel, after citation of cases, after the applause of Market Street at some incidental obiter dicta of Judge Van Dorn’s about the rights of property, after the court had put on its tortoise-shell rimmed glasses, which the court had brought home from its recent trip to Chicago to witness the renomination of President Taft, after the court, peering through its brown-framed spectacles, was fumbling over its typewritten opinion from the typewriter of the offices of Calvin & Calvin, written during the afternoon by the court’s legal alter ego, after the court had cleared its throat to proceed with the reading of the answer to the petition in habeas corpus of Grant Adams, the court, through its owlish glasses, saw the eyes of the petitioner Adams fixed, as the court believed, malignantly on the court.
“Adams,” barked the court, “stand up!” With his black slouch hat in his hand, the petitioner Adams rose. It was a hot night and he wiped his brow with a red handkerchief twisted about his steel claw.
“Adams,” began the court, laying down the typewritten manuscript, “I suppose you think you are a martyr.”
The court paused. Grant Adams made no reply. The court insisted:
“Well, speak up. Aren’t you a martyr?”
“No,” meeting the eye of the court, “I want to get out and get to work too keenly to be a martyr.”
“To get to work,” sneered the court. “You mean to keep others from going to work. Now, Adams, isn’t it true that you are trying to steal the property of this district from its legal owners by riot and set yourself up as the head of your Democracy of Labor, to fatten on the folly of the working men?” The court did not pause for a reply, but continued: “Now, Adams, there is no merit to the contentions of your counsel in this hearing, but, even if there was mere technical weight to his arguments, the moral issues involved, the vast importance of this ease to the general welfare of this Republic, would compel this court to take judicial notice of the logic of its decision in your favor. For it would release anarchy, backed by legal authority, and strike down the arm of the State in protecting property and suppressing crime.”
The court paused, and, taking its heavy spectacles in its fingers, twirled them before asking: “Adams, do you think you are a God? What is this rot you’re talking about the Prince of Peace? What do you mean by saying nothing can hurt you? If you know nothing can hurt you, why do you let your attorney plead the baby act and declare that, if you are not released to-night, a mob will wait on you? If you are a God, why don’t you help yourself–quell the mob, overcome the devil?”
The crowd laughed and the court perfunctorily rapped for order. The laugh was frankincense and myrrh to the court. So the court clearly showed its appreciation of its own fine sarcasm as it rapped for order and continued insolently: “See here, Adams, if you aren’t crazy, what are you trying to do? What do you expect to get out of all this glib talk about the power of spiritual forces and the peaceful revolution and the power greater than bullets and your fanatical ranting about the Holy Ghost in the dupes you are inciting to murder? Come now, maybe you are crazy? Maybe if you’d talk and not stand there like a loon–”
Again the crowd roared and again the court suppressed its chuckle and again order was restored. “Maybe if you’d not stand there grouching, you’d prove to the court that you are crazy, and on the grounds of insanity the court might grant your prayer. Come, now, Adams, speak up; go the whole length. Give us your creed!”
“Well,” began Adams, “since you want–”
“Don’t you know how to address a court?” The court bellowed.
“To say ‘Your honor’ would be a formality which even your friends would laugh at,” replied Grant quietly. The crowd hissed; the court turned purple. Grant Adams stood rigid, with white face and quivering muscles. His jaws knotted and his fist clenched. Yet when he spoke he held his voice down. In it was no evidence of his tension. Facing for the first few moments of his speech the little group of his friends–Dr. Nesbit, George Brotherton, Captain Morton, Nathan Perry and Amos Adams–who sat at the lawyers’ table with Henry Fenn, Grant Adams plunged abruptly into his creed: “I believe that in every human adult consciousness there is a spark of altruism, a divine fire, which marks the fatherhood of God and proves the brotherhood of man. Environment fans that spark or stifles it. Its growth is evidenced in human institutions, in scales and grades of civilization. Christ was a glowing flame of this fire.” The court gave a knowing wink to Ahab Wright, who grinned at the court’s keen sense of humor. Adams saw the wink, but proceeded: “That is what He means when He says: ‘I am the resurrection and the life,’ for only as men and nations, races and civilization by their institutions fan that spark to fire, will they live, will they conquer the forces of death ever within them.”
Thus far Grant Adams had been speaking slowly, addressing himself more to his friends and the court stenographer than the crowd. Now he faced the crowd defiantly as he let his voice rise and cried: “This is no material world. Humanity is God trying to express Himself in terms of justice–with the sad handicap of time and space ever holding the Eternal Spirit in check. We are all Gods.”
Again Market Street, which worshiped the god material, hissed. Grant turned to the men in the benches a mad, ecstatic face and throwing his crippled arm high above his head, cried aloud:
“O men of Harvey, men with whom I have lived and labored, I would give my life if you could understand me; if you could know in your hearts how passionately I yearn to get into your souls the knowledge that only as you give you will have, only as you love these men of the mines and mills, only as you are brothers to these ginks and wops and guinnies, will prosperity come to Harvey. ‘I am the resurrection and the life’ should ring through your souls; for when brotherhood, expressed in law and customs, gives these men their rightful share in the products of their labor, our resurrected society will begin to live.” He stopped dead still for a moment, gazing, almost glaring, into the eyes of the crowd. Ahab Wright dropped his gaze. But John Kollander, who heard nothing, glared angrily back. Then leaning forward and throwing out his claw as if to grapple them, Grant Adams, let out his great voice in a cry that startled Market Street into a shudder as he spoke. “Come, come, come with us and live, oh, men of Market Street, you who are dead and damned! Come with us and live. ‘I am the way and the life.’” He checked his rising voice, then said: “Come, let us go forward together, for only then will God, striving for justice in humanity, restore your dead and atrophied souls. Have faith that as you give you will have; as you love, will you live.” His manner changed again. The court was growing restless. Grant’s voice was low pitched, but it showed a heavy tension of emotion. He stretched his hand as one pleading: “Oh, come with us. Come with us–your brothers. We are one body, why should we have different aims? We are ten thousand here, you are many more. Perhaps we are only dreaming a mad dream, but if you come with us we shall all awake from our dream into a glorious reality.”
Market Street laughed. John Kollander bawled: “He’s an anarchist–a socialist!” Grant looked at the deaf old man in his blue coat and brass buttons adorned with many little flags, to advertise his patriotism. Taking a cue from John Kollander, Grant cried: “I am moving with the current of Heavenly love, I am a part of that love that is washing into this planet from the infinite source of life beyond our ken. I am moved, I know not how. I am inspired to act, I know not whence. I go I know not where–only I have faith, faith that fears nothing, faith that tells me that insomuch as I act in love, I am a part of the Great Purpose moving the universe, immortal, all powerful, vital, the incarnation of Happiness! I am trying–trying–ah, God, how I am trying, to bring into the world all the love that my soul will carry. I am–”
“That’s enough,” snapped the court; and turning to Joseph Calvin, Judge Van Dorn said: “That man’s crazy. This court has no jurisdiction over the insane. His family can bring a proceeding in habeas corpus before the probate court of the county on the ground of the prisoner’s insanity. But I have no right to take judicial notice of his insanity.” The Judge folded up his opinion, twirled his heavy glasses a moment, blinked wisely and said: “Gentlemen, this is no case for me. This is a crazy man. I wash my hands of the whole business!”
He rose, put away his glasses deliberately, and was stepping from his dais, when up rose big George Brotherton and cried:
“Say, Tom Van Dorn–if you want this man murdered, say so. If you want him saved, say so. Don’t polly-fox around here, dodging the issue. You know the truth of the matter as well as–”
The court smiled tolerantly at the impetuous fellow, who was clearly in contempt of court. The crowd waited breathlessly.
“Well, George,” said the suave Judge with condescension in his tone as he strutted into the group of lawyers and reporters about him, “if you know so much about this case, what is the truth?” The crowd roared its approval. “But hire a hall, George–don’t bother me with it. It’s out of my jurisdiction.”
So saying, he elbowed his way out of the room into his office and soon was in his automobile, driving toward the Country Club. He had agreed to be out of reach by telephone during the evening and that part of the agreement he decided to keep.
After the Judge left the room Market Street rose and filed out, leaving Grant standing among the little group of his friends. The sheriff stood near by, chatting with the jailer and as Brotherton came up to bid Grant good-night, Brotherton felt a piece of paper slip into his hands, when he shook hands with Grant. “Don’t let it leave your pocket until you see me again,” said Grant in a monotone, that no one noticed.
The group–Dr. Nesbit, Nathan Perry, George Brotherton and Captain Morton–stood dazed and discouraged about Grant. No one knew exactly what note to strike–whether of anger or of warning or of cheer. It was Captain Morton who broke the silence.
“’Y gory, man–free speech is all right, and I’m going to stay with you, boy, and fight it out; but, Grant, things do look mighty shaky here, and I wonder if it’s worth it–for that class of people, eh?”
From the Captain, Nathan Perry took his cue. “I should say, Grant, that they’ll make trouble to-night. Shouldn’t we call out the boys from the Valley, and–”
Grant cut in:
“Men, I know what you fear,” he said. “You are afraid they will kill me. Why, they can’t kill me! All that I am that is worth living is immortal. What difference does it make about this body?” His face was still lighted with the glow it wore while he was addressing the court. “Ten thousand people in the Valley have my faith. And now I know that even this strike is not important. The coming Democracy of Labor is a spiritual caste. And it has been planted in millions of minds. It can never die. It too is immortal. What have guns and ropes and steel bars to do with a vision like this?” He threw back his head, his blue eyes blazed and he all but chanted his defiance of material things: “What can they do to me, to my faith, to us, to these Valley people, to the millions in the world who see what we see, who know what we know and strive for what we cherish? Don’t talk to me about death–there is no death for God’s truth. As for this miserable body here–” He gazed at his friends for a moment, shook his head sadly and walked to the jailer.
For an hour after the sheriff took Grant to his cell as the town went home and presumably to bed, George Brotherton with Henry Fenn and Nathan Perry, rolled his car around the court house square in the still, hot June night. The Doctor stood by his electric runabout, for half an hour or more. Then, the Doctor feeling that a false alarm had been spread, whirred up the hill. The younger men stayed on Market Street. They left it long after midnight, deserted and still.
As the watching party broke up, a telephone message from the offices of Calvin & Calvin winged its way to Sands Park, and from the shades there came silently a great company of automobiles with hooded lights. One separated from the others and shot down into the Valley of the Wahoo. The others went into Market Street.
At three o’clock the work there was done. The office of the Harvey Tribune was wrecked, and in one automobile rode Amos Adams, a prisoner, while before him, surrounded by a squad of policemen, rode Grant Adams, bound and gagged.
Around the policemen the mob gathered, and at the city limits the policemen abandoned Grant and Amos. Their instructions were to take the two men out of town. The policemen knew the mob. It was not Market Street. It was the thing that Market Street had made with its greed. The ignorance of the town, the scum of the town–men, white and black, whom Market Street, in thoughtless greed the world over, had robbed as children of their birthright; men whose chief joy was in cruelty and who lusted for horror. The mob was the earth-bound demon of Market Street. Only John Kollander in his brass buttons and blue soldier clothes and stuttering Kyle Perry and one or two others of the town’s respectability were with the mob that took Grant Adams and his father after the policemen released the father and son at the city limits. The respectables directed; the scum and the scruff of the town followed, yelping not unlike a pack of hungry dogs.
John Kollander led the way to the country club grounds. There was a wide stretch of rolling land, quiet, remote from passing intruders, safe; and there great elm trees cast their protecting shade, even in the starlight, over such deeds as men might wish to do in darkness.
It was nearly four o’clock and the clouds, banked high in the west, were flaming with heat lightning.
On the wide veranda of the country club alone, with a siphon and a fancy, square, black bottle, sat Judge Thomas Van Dorn. He was in his shirt sleeves. His wilted collar, grimy and bedraggled, lay on the floor beside him. He was laughing at something not visible to the waiter, who sat drowsing in the door of the dining room, waiting for the Judge either to go to sleep or to leave the club in his car. The Judge had been singing to himself and laughing quietly at his own ribaldry for nearly an hour. The heat had smothered the poker game in the basement and except for the Judge and the waiter the club house was deserted. The Judge hit the table with the black bottle and babbled:
“Dog bit a rye straw,
Dog bit a riddle-O!
Dog bit a little boy
Playing on a fiddle-O!”
Then he laughed and said to the sleepy waiter: “Didn’t know I could sing, did you, Gustave!”
The waiter grinned. The Judge did not hear a footstep behind him. The waiter looked up and saw Kyle Perry.
“Oh, I know a maid
And she’s not afraid
To face–
“Why, hello Kyle, you old stuttering scoundrel–have one on me–cleanses the teeth–sweetens the breath and makes hair grow on your belly!”
He laughed and when Kyle broke in:
“S-s-say, T-T-Tom, the f-f-fellows are all over in the g-g-golf l-l-links.”
“The hell they are, Kyle,” laughed the Judge. “Tell ’em to come over and have a cold one on me–Gustave, you go–”
“B-b-but they d-don’t want a drink. The p-p-poker b-b-bunch said you were here and th-th-they s-s-sent m-m-me to–”
“S-s-s-sure they d-d-did, Kyle,” interrupted Van Dorn. “They sent you to read the Declaration of Independence to-morrow and wanted you to begin now and get a g-g-good st-st-start!” He broke into song:
“Oh, there was an old man from Dundee
Who got on a hell of a spree,
Oh, he wound up the clock,
With–
“Say, Kyle,” the Judge looked up foolishly, “you didn’t know that I was a cantatrice.” He laughed and repeated the last word slowly three times and then giggled.
“Still sober. I tell Mrs. Van Dorn that when I can say cantatrice or specification,” he repeated that word slowly, “I’m fit to hold court.”
“Oh, the keyhole in the door–
The keyhole in the door–”
he bellowed.
“Now, l-l-listen, T-T-Tom,” insisted Perry. “I t-t-tell you the bunch has g-g-got Grant Adams and the old man out there in the g-g-golf l-links and they heard you were h-h-here and they s-s-sent me to tell you they were g-g-going to g-g-give him all the d-d-degrees and they w-w-want to t-t-tie a s-s-sign on him when they t-t-turn him loose and h-h-head him for Om-m-ma-h-ha–”
“B-b-better h-h-h-head him for h-h-hell,” mocked the Judge.
“Well, they’ve g-got an iron b-b-band they’ve b-b-bound on h-h-him and they’ve got a b-b-board and some t-t-tar and they w-w-want a m-motto.”
The Judge reached for his fountain pen in his white vest and when the waiter had brought a sheet of paper, he scribbled while he sang sleepily:
“Oh, there was a man and he could do,
He could do–he could do;
“Here,” he pushed the paper to Perry, who saw the words:
“Get on to the Prince of Peace,
Big Boss of the Democracy of Labor.”
“That’s k-k-kind of t-t-tame, don’t y-y-you think?” said Kyle.
“That’s all right, Kyle–anyway, what I’ve written goes:
“Oh, there was an old woman in Guiana.”
He sang and waved Kyle proudly away. And in another hour the waiter had put him to bed.
It was nearly dawn when George Brotherton had told his story to Laura. They sat in the little, close, varnish-smelling room to which he called her.
She had come through rain from Harvey. As she came into the dreary, shabby, little room in South Harvey, with its artificial palms and artificial wreaths–cheap, commercial habiliments of ostentatious mourning, Laura Van Dorn thought how cruel it was that he should be there, in a public place at the end, with only the heavy hands of paid attendants to do the last earthly services for him–whose whole life was a symbol of love.
But her heart was stricken, deeply, poignantly stricken by the great peace she found behind the white door. Yet thus the dust touches our souls’ profoundest depths–always with her memory of that great peace, comes the memory of the odor of varnish and carbolic acid and the drawn, spent face of George Brotherton, as he stood before her when she closed the door. He gazed at her piteously, a wreck of a man, storm-battered and haggard. His big hands were shaking with a palsy of terrible grief. His moon face was inanimate, and vagrant emotions from his heart flicked across his features in quivers of anguish. His thin hair was tousled and his clothes were soiled and disheveled.
“I thought you ought to know, Laura–at once,” he said, after she had closed the white door behind her and sat numb and dumb before him. “Nate and Henry and I got there about four o’clock. Well, there they were–by the big elm tree–on the golf course. His father was there and he told me coming back that when they wanted Grant to do anything–they would string up Amos–poor old Amos! They made Grant stoop over and kiss the flag, while they kicked him; and they made him pull that machine gun around the lake. The fools brought it up from the camp in South Harvey.” Brotherton’s face quivered, but his tears were gone. He continued: “They strung poor old Amos up four times, Laura–four times, he says.” Brotherton looked wearily into the street. “Well, as we came down the hill in our car, we could see Grant. He was nearly naked–about as he is now. We came tearing down the hill, our siren screaming and Nate and me yelling and waving our guns. At the first scream of our siren, there was an awful roar and a flash. Some one,” Brotherton paused and turned his haggard eyes toward Laura–“it was deaf John Kollander, he turned the lever and fired that machine gun. Oh, Laura, God, it was awful. I saw Grant wilt down. I saw–”
The man broke into tears, but bit his lips and continued: “Oh, they ran like snakes then–like snakes–like snakes, and we came crashing down to the tree and in a moment the last machine had piked–but I know ’em, every man-jack!” he cried. “There was the old man, tied hand and foot, three yards from the tree, and there, half leaning, half sitting by the tree, the boy, the big, red-headed, broken and crippled boy–was panting his life out.” Brotherton caught her inquiring eyes. “It was all gone, Laura,” he said softly, “all gone. He was the boy, the shy, gentle boy that we used to know–and always have loved. All this other that the years have brought was wiped from his eyes. They were so tender and–” He could go no further. She nodded her understanding. He finally continued: “The first thing he said to me was, ‘It’s all right, George.’ He was tied, they had pulled the claw off and his poor stumped arm was showing and he was bleeding–oh, Laura.”
Brotherton fumbled in his pocket and handed an envelope to her.
“‘George,’ he panted, as I tried to make him comfortable–‘have Nate look after father.’ And when Nate had gone he whispered between gasps, ‘that letter there in the court room–’ He had to stop a moment, then he whispered again, ‘is for her, for Laura.’ He tried to smile, but the blood kept bubbling up. We lifted him into an easier position, but nothing helped much. He realized that and when we quit he said:
“‘Now then, George, promise me this–they’re not to blame. John Kollander isn’t to blame. It was funny; Kyle Perry saw him as I did, and Kyle–’ he almost laughed, Laura.
“‘Kyle,’ he repeated, ‘tried to yell at old John, but got so excited stuttering, he couldn’t! I’m sure the fellows didn’t intend–’ he was getting weak; ‘this,’ he said.
“‘Promise me and make–others; you won’t tell. I know father–he won’t. They’re not–it’s–society. Just that,’ he said. ‘This was society!’ He had to stop. I felt his hand squeeze. ‘I’m–so–happy,’ he said one word at a time, gripping my hand tighter and tighter till it ached.” Brotherton put out his great hand, and looked at it impersonally, as one introducing a stranger for witness. Then Brotherton lifted his eyes to Laura’s and took up his story:
“‘That’s hers,’ he said; ‘the letter,’ and then ‘my messages–happy.’”
The woman pressed her letter to her lips and looked at the white door. She rose and, holding her letter to her bosom, closed her eyes and stood with a hand on the knob. She dropped her hand and turned from the white door. The dawn was graying in the ugly street. But on the clouds the glow of sunrise blushed in promise. She walked slowly toward the street. She gazed for a moment at the glorious sky of dawn.
When her eyes met her friend’s, she cried:
“Give me your hand–that hand!”
She seized it, gazed hungrily at it a second, then kissed it passionately. She looked back at the white door, and shook with sobs as she cried:
“Oh, you don’t think he’s there–there in the night–behind the door? We know–oh, we do know he’s out here–out here in the dawn.”