CHAPTER XX
On a day late in June of 1919 Wilbur Cowan dropped off the noon trainthat paused at Newbern Center. He carried the wicker suitcase he hadtaken away, and wore the same clothes. He had the casual, incurious lookof one who had been for a little trip down the line. No one about thestation heeded him, nor did he notice any one he knew. There was a newassemblage of station loafers, and none of these recognized him.Suitcase in hand, his soft hat pulled well down, he walked quickly roundthe crowd and took a roundabout way through quiet streets to thePenniman place.
The town to his eye had shrunk; buildings were not so high as heremembered them, wide spaces narrower, streets shorter, less thronged.On his way he met old Mr. Dodwell, muffled about the throat, though theday was hot, walking feebly, planting a stout cane before him. Mr.Dodwell passed blinking eyes over him, went on, then turned to callback.
"Ain't that Wilbur Cowan? How de do, Wilbur? Ain't you been away?"
"For a little while," answered Wilbur. "Thought I hadn't seen you forsome time. Hot as blazes, ain't it?"
He came to the Penniman place at the rear. The vegetable garden, lyingbetween the red barn and the white house, was as he had known it,uncared for, sad, discouraged. The judge's health could be no better. Onbare earth at the corner of the woodshed Frank, the dog, slumberedfitfully in the shade. He merely grumbled, rising to change his posture,when greeted. Feebly he sniffed the newcomer. It could be seen that hismemory was stirred, but his eyes told him nothing; he had a complainingair of saying one met so many people. It was beyond one to place themall. He whimpered when his ears were rubbed, seeming to recall afamiliar touch. Then with a deep sigh he fell asleep once more. Hismaster took up the suitcase and gained, without further encounters, thelittle room in the side-yard house. Yet he did not linger here. He keptseeing a small, barefoot boy who rummaged in a treasure box labelled"Cake." This boy made him uncomfortable. He went round to the front ofthe other house. On the porch, behind the morning-glory vine, JudgePenniman in his wicker chair languidly fanned himself, studying athermometer held in his other hand. He glanced up sharply.
"Well, come back, did you?"
"Yes, sir," said Wilbur, and sat on the top step to fan himself with hishat. "Warm, isn't it?"
The judge brightened.
"Warm? Warm ain't any name for it! We been having a hot spell nobodyremembers the like of, man nor boy, for twenty years. Why, day beforeyesterday--say, I wish you'd been here! Talk about suffering! I washaving one of my bad days, and the least little thing I'd do I'd bepanting like a tuckered hound. Say, how was the war?"
"Oh, so-so," answered the returned private.
"You tell it well. Seems to me if I'd been off skyhootin' round inforeign lands--say, how about them French women? Pretty bold lot, Iguess, if you can believe all you--"
The parrot in its cage at the end of the porch climbed to a perch withbeak and claw.
"Flapdoodle, Flapdoodle, Flapdoodle!" it screeched. The judge glaredmurderously at it.
"Wilbur Cowan, you bad, bad, bad child--not to let us know!" Mrs.Penniman threw back the screen door and rushed to embrace him. "Youregular fighting so-and-so!" she sobbed.
"Where'd you get that talk?" he demanded.
Mrs. Penniman wiped her eyes with a dish towel suspended from one arm.
"Oh, we heard all about you!"
She was warm, and shed gracious aromas. The returned one sniffed these.
"It's chops," he said--"and--and hot biscuits."
"And radishes from the garden, and buttermilk and clover honey andraspberries, and--let me see--"
"Let's go!" said the soldier.
"Then you can tell us all about that war," said the invalid as withgroans he raised his bulk from the wicker chair.
"What war?" asked Wilbur.
* * * * *
He spent the afternoon in the little room, where he would glance up tofind the small, barefoot boy staring at him in wonder; and out in thePenniman front yard, where the summer flowers bloomed. Thesesurroundings presented every assurance of safety, yet his restless,wide-sweeping gaze was full of caution, especially after the aeroplanewent over. At the first ominous note of its droning he had broken forcover. After that, in spite of himself, he would be glancing uneasily atthe Plummer place across the road. This was fronted by a hedge ofcypress--ideal machine-gun cover. But not once during the long afternoonwas he shot at. He brought out and repaired the lawn mower, oiled itsrusted parts and ran it gayly over the grass. At suppertime, when DaveCowan came, he was wetting the shorn sward with spray from a hose.
"Back?" said Dave, peering as at a bit of the far cosmos flung in hisway.
"Back," said his son.
They shook hands.
"You haven't changed any," said Wilbur, scanning Dave's placid faceunder the straw hat and following the lines of his spare figure down tothe vestiges of a once noble pair of shoes.
"You only been away two years," said Dave. "I wouldn't change much inthat time. That's the way of the mind, though. We always forget howslowly evolution works its wonders. Anyhow, you know what they say inour trade--when a printer dies he turns into a white mule. I'm no whitemule yet. You've changed, though."
"I didn't know it."
"Face harder--about ten years older. Kind of set and sour looking. Everlaugh any more?"
"Of course I laugh."
"You don't look it. Never forget how to laugh. It's a life-saver. Laugheven at wars and killings. Human life in each of us isn't much. It'slike that stream you're spreading over the ground. The drops fall backto earth, but the main stream is constant. That's all the life forcecares about--the main stream. Doesn't care about the drops; a few moreor less here and there make no difference."
"Yes, sir," said Wilbur.
Dave Cowan scanned the front of the house. The judge was not in sight.He went softly to lean above the parrot's cage and in low, wheedlingtones, uttered words to it.
"Flapdoodle, Flapdoodle, Flapdoodle!" screeched the parrot in return,and laughed harshly. The bird was a master of sarcastic inflection.
Dave came back looking pleased and proud.
"Almost human," he declared. "Kept back a few million years byaccident--our little feathered brother." He gestured toward the house."Old Flapdoodle, in there, he's a rabid red these days. Got tired ofbeing a patriot. Worked hard for a year trying to prove that Vielhaberwas a German spy, flapping his curtain at night to the German ForeignOffice. But no one paid any attention to him except a few otherflapdoodles, so then he began to read your brother's precious words, andnow he's a violent comrade. Fact! expecting any day that the workerswill take things over and he'll come into money--money the interestshave kept him out of. He kind of licks his chops when he talks about it.Never heard him talk about his wife's share, though. Say, that brotherof yours is making a plumb fool of himself!"
"He didn't understand."
"No--and he doesn't yet."
"Where is he now?"
"Oh"--Dave circled a weary hand to the zenith--"off somewhereholy-rolling. Gets his name in the papers--young poet radical thatabandoned life of luxury to starve with toiling comrades. Say, do youknow what a toiling comrade gets per day now? No matter. Your brotherhasn't toiled any. Makes red-hot speeches. That Whipple bunch reared atlast and shut off his magazine money, so he said he couldn't takeanother cent wrung from the anguished sweat of serfs. But it ain't hishands he toils with, and he ain't a real one, either. Plenty of realones in his bunch that would stand the gaff, but not him. He's a shine.Of course they're useful, these reds. Keep things stirred up--humanyeast cakes, only they get to thinking they're the dough, too. Thatbrother of yours knows all the lines; says 'em hot, too, but that's onlyso he'll get more notice. Say, tell us about the war.
"It was an awful big one," said his son.
* * * * *
Soon after a novel breakfast the following morning--in that it was lateand leisurely and he ate from a chair at a tabl
e--he heard the squealingbrakes of a motor car and saw one brought to a difficult stop at thePenniman gate. Sharon Whipple, the driver, turned to look back at themachine indignantly, as if it had misbehaved. Wilbur Cowan met him atthe gate.
It became Sharon's pretense that he was not hugging the boy, merelyfeeling the muscles in his shoulders and back to see if he were as gooda lightweight as ever. He pounded and thumped and punched and even madeas if to wrestle with the returned soldier, laughing awkwardly throughit; but his florid face had paled with the excitement.
"I knew you'd come back! Old Sammy Dodwell happened to mention he'd seenyou; said he hadn't noticed you before for most a month, he thought. ButI knew you was coming, all right! Time and time again I told people youwould. Told every one that. I bet you had some narrow escapes, didn'tyou now?"
Wilbur Cowan considered.
"Well, I had a pretty bad cold in the Argonne."
"I want to know!" said Sharon, much concerned. He pranced heavy-footedlybefore the other, thumping his chest. "Well, I bet you threw it off! Ahard cold ain't any joke. But look here, come on for a ride!"
They entered the car and Sharon drove. But he continued to bubble withquestions, to turn his head and gesture with one hand or the other. Thepassenger applied imaginary brakes as they missed a motor truck.
"Better let me take that," he suggested, and they changed seats.
"Out to the Home Farm," directed Sharon. "You ain't altered a mite," hewent on. "Little more peaked, mebbe--kind of more mature or judgmaticalor whatever you call it. Well, go on--tell about the war."
But there proved to be little to tell, and Sharon gradually wearied fromthe effort of evoking this little. Yes, there had been fights. Big ones,lots of noise, you bet! The food was all right. The Germans were goodfighters. No; he had not been wounded; yes, that was strange. The Frenchwere good fighters. The British were good fighters. They were all goodfighters.
"But didn't you have any close mix-ups at all?" persisted Sharon.
"Oh, now and then; sometimes you couldn't get out of it."
"Well, my shining stars! Can't you tell a fellow?"
"Oh, it wasn't much! You'd be out at night, maybe, and you'd meet one,and you'd trade a few punches, and then you'd tangle."
"And you'd leave him there, eh?"
"Oh, sometimes!"
"Who did win the war, anyway?" Sharon was a little irritated by thisreticence.
The other grinned.
"The British say they won it, and the last I heard the French said itwas God Almighty. Take your choice. Of course you did hear other gossipgoing round--you know how things get started."
Sharon grunted.
"I should think as much. Great prunes and apricots! I should think therewould of been talk going round! Anyway, it was you boys that stopped thefight. I guess they'd admit that much--small-towners like you that wasready to fight for their country. Dear me, Suz! I should think as much!"
On the crest of a hill overlooking a wide sweep of valley farmland thedriver stopped the car in shade and scanned the fields of grain wherethe green was already fading.
"There's the Home Farm," said Sharon. "High mighty! Some change since mygrandad came in here and fit the Injins and catamounts off it. I wonderwhat he'd say if he could hear what I'm paying for farm help rightnow--and hard to get at that. I don't know how I've managed. See thatmower going down there in the south forty? Well, the best man I've hadfor two years is cutting that patch of timothy. Who do you guess? It'smy girl, Juliana. She not only took charge for me, but she jumped inherself and did two men's work.
"Funny girl, that one. So quiet all these years, never saying much,never letting out. But she let out when the men went. I guess lots havebeen like her. You can see a woman doing anything nowadays. Why, theygot a woman burglar over to the county seat the other night! And I justread the speech of a silly-softy of a congressman telling why theyshouldn't have the vote. Hell! Excuse me for cursing so."
Unconsciously Wilbur had been following with his eyes the course of thewillow-bordered creek. He half expected to hear the crisp little tackingof machine guns from its shelter, and he uneasily scanned the wood athis left. It was the valley of the Surmelin, and yonder was the Marne.
"I keep thinking I'll be shot at," he explained.
"You won't be. Safe as a church here--just like being in God's pocket.Say, don't that house look good to you?" He cocked a thumb toward thedwelling of the Home Farm in a flat space beyond the creek. It was thehouse of dull red brick, broad, low, square fronted, with many windows,the house in a green setting to which they had gone so many yearsbefore. Heat waves made it shimmer.
"Yes, it looks good," conceded Wilbur.
"Then listen, young man! You're to live there. It'll be yourheadquarters. You're going to manage the four other farms from there,and give me a chance to be seventy-three years old next Tuesday withouta thing on my mind. You ain't a farmer, but you're educated; you canlearn anything after you've seen it done; and farming is mostlycommonsense and machinery nowadays. So that's where you'll be,understand? No more dubbing round doing this and that, printing officeone day, garage the next, and nothing much the next. You're going tosettle down and take up your future, see?"
"Well, if you think I can."
"I do! You're an enlightened young man. What I can't tell you Julianacan. I got a dozen tractors out of commission right now. Couldn't getany one to put 'em in shape. None of them dissipated noblemen round theMansion garage would look at a common tractor. You'll start on them.You're fixed--don't tell me no!"
"Yes, sir," said Wilbur.
"You done your bit in a fighting war; now you'll serve in a peacefulone. I don't know what the good Lord intends to come out of all thisrumpus, but I do know the world's going to need food. We'll raise it."
"Yes, sir."
Sharon glanced shrewdly at him sidewise.
"You're a better Whipple than any one else of your name ever got to be."
"He didn't understand; he was misled or something."
"Or something," echoed Sharon. "Listen! There's one little job you gotto do before you hole up out here. You heard about him, of course--theworry he's been to poor Harvey and the rest. Well, he's down there inNew York still acting squeamishy. I want you should go down and put thefear of God into him."
"I understand he's mixed up with a lot of reds down there."
"Red! Him? Humph!" Sharon here named an equally well-known primarycolour--not red. Wilbur protested.
"You don't get him," persisted the old man. "Listen, now! He cast offthe family like your father said he would. Couldn't accept another centof Whipple money. Going to work with his bare hands. Dressed up for itlike a hunter in one of these powder advertisements. All he needed was ashotgun and a setter dog with his tail up. And everybody in the houseworried he'd starve to death. Of course no one thought he'd work--thatwas one of his threats they didn't take seriously. But they promised tosit tight, each and all, and bring him to time the sooner.
"Well, he didn't come to time. We learned he was getting money from someplace. He still had it. So I begun to get my suspicions up. Last night Igot the bunch together, Gid and Harvey D. and Ella and Juliana, and Itaxed 'em with duplicity, and every last one of 'em was guilty aspaint--every goshed last one! Every one sending him fat checksunbeknownst to the others. Even Juliana! I never did suspect her. 'I didit because it's all a romance to him,' says she. 'I wanted him to go hisway, whatever it was, and find it bright.'
"Wha'd you think of that from a girl of forty-eight or so that cantinker a mowing machine as good as you can? I ask you! Of course I'dsuspected the rest. A set of mushheads. Maybe they didn't look shamedwhen I exposed 'em! Each one had pictured the poor boy down there alone,undergoing hardship with his toiling workers or whatever you call 'em,and, of course, I thought so myself."
"How much did you send him?" demanded Wilbur, suddenly.
"Not half as much as the others," returned Sharon in indignant triumph."If they'd just set tight li
ke they promised and let me do the little Idone----"
"You were going to sit tight, too, weren't you?"
"Well, of course, that was different. Of course I was willing to shellout a few dollars now and then if he was going to be up against it for asquare meal. After all, he was Whipple by name. Of course he ain't gotWhipple stuff in him. That young man's talk always did have kind of anutty flavour. You come right down to it, he ain't a Whipple in hide norhair. Why, say, he ain't even two and seventy-five-hundredths per cent.Whipple!"
Sharon had cunningly gone away from his own failure to sit tight. He wasproving flexible-minded here, as on the links.
They were silent, looking out over the spread of Home Farm. The redhouse still shimmered in the heat waves. The tall trees about it hungmotionless. The click of the reaper in the south forty sounded like adistant locust.
"Put the fear of God into him," said Sharon at last. "Let him know themchecks have gosh all truly stopped."
"Yes, sir," said Wilbur.
"Now drive on and we'll look the house over. The last tenant let it rundown. But I'll fix it right for you. Why, like as not you'll be having amissis and young ones of your own there some day."
"I might; you can't tell."
"Well, I wish they was going to be Whipple stock. Ours is running down.I don't look for any prize-winners from your brother; he'll likely marrythat widow, or something, that wants to save America like Russia hasbeen. And Juliana, I guess she wasn't ever frivolous enough formarriage. And that Pat--she'll pick out one of them boys with a headlike a seal, that knows all the new dances and what fork to use. Trusther! Not that she didn't show Whipple stuff over there. But she's arattlepate in peacetime."
"Yes, sir," said Wilbur.
He left a train at the Grand Central Station in New York early thefollowing evening. He had the address of Merle's apartment on lowerFifth Avenue, and made his way there on foot through streets crowdedwith the war's backwash. Men in uniform were plentiful, and he was manytimes hailed by them. Though out of uniform himself, they seemed toidentify him with ease. Something in his walk, the slant of hisshoulders, and the lean, browned, watchful face--the eyes set for widerhorizons than a mere street--served to mark him as one of them.
The apartment of Merle proved to be in the first block above WashingtonSquare. While he scanned doors for the number he was seized and turnedabout by a playful creature in uniform.
"Well, Buck Cowan, you old son of a gun!"
"Gee, gosh, Stevie! How's the boy?"
They shook hands, moving to the curb where they could talk.
"What's the idea?" demanded ex-Private Cowan. "Why this dead part oftown for so many of the boys?"
Service men were constantly sauntering by them or chatting in littlegroups at the curb.
"She's dead, right now," Steve told him, "but she'll wake up pronto.Listen, Buck, we got the tip! A lot of them fur-faced boys that hurl themerry bombs are goin' to pull off a red-flag sashay up the Avenoo. Getit? Goin' to set America free!"
"I get it!" said Wilbur.
"Dirty work at the crossroads," added Steve.
"Say, Steve, hold it for twenty minutes, can't you? I got to see a mandown here. Be good; don't hurt any one till I get back."
"Do my best," said Steve, "but they're down there in the Square nowstackin' up drive impedimenta and such, red banners, and so forth,tuning up to warble the hymn to free Russia. Hurry if you want to joinout with us!"
"I'll do that little thing, Steve. See you again." He passed on, makinga way through the jostling throng of soldiers and civilians. "Just myluck," he muttered. "I hope the kid isn't in." Never before had hethought of his brother as "the kid."
He passed presently through swinging glass doors, and in a hallway wastold by a profusely buttoned youth in spectacles that Mr. Whipple wasout. It was not known when he would be in. His movements were uncertain.
"He might be in or he might be out," said the boy.
He was back in the street, edging through the crowd, his head up,searching for the eager face of Steve Kennedy, late his sergeant.Halfway up the next block he found him pausing to roll a cigarette.Steve was a scant five feet, and he was telling a private who was ascant six feet that there would be dirty work at the crossroads--whenthe fur-faces started.
"We're too far away," suggested Wilbur. "If they start from the Squarethey'll be mussed up before they get here. You can't expect peoplefarther down to save 'em just for you. Where's your tactics, Steve?"
They worked slowly back down the Avenue. It was nine o'clock now, andthe street was fairly free of vehicles. The night was clear and thestreet lights brought alert, lean profiles into sharp relief, faces ofmen in uniform sauntering carelessly or chatting in little groups at thecurb. A few unseeing policemen, also sauntering carelessly, were to beobserved.
"Heard a fur-face speak last night," said Steve. "It's a long story,mates, but it seems this is one rotten Government and everybody knows itbut a few cops. If someone would only call off the cops and let thefur-faces run it we might have a regular country."
From the Square singing was now heard.
"Oh, boy!" murmured the tall private, dreamily; "am I glad I'm here?"Stretching a long neck to peer toward the Square, he called in warm,urgent tones: "Oh, come on, you reds--come on, red!"
They came on. Out from the Square issued a valiant double line ofmarchers, men and women, their voices raised in the Internationale. Attheir head, bearing aloft a scarlet banner of protest, strode acommanding figure in corduroys, head up, his feet stepping a martialpace.
"I choose that general," said the tall private, and licked his lips.
"Not if I get him first," shouted Steve, and sprang from the walk intothe roadway.
But ex-Private Cowan was ahead of them both. He had not waited forspeech. A crowd from each side of the Avenue had surged into the roadwayto greet the procession. The banner bearer was seen to hesitate, to losestep, but was urged from the rear by other banner bearers. He came onagain. Once more he stepped martially. The Internationale swelled involume. The crowd, instead of opening a way, condensed more solidlyabout the advance. There were jeers and shoving. The head of the lineagain wavered. Wilbur Cowan had jostled a way toward this leader. Helost no time in going into action. But the pushing crowd impaired hisaim, and it was only a glancing blow that met the jaw of the corduroyedstandard bearer.
The standard toppled forward from his grasp, and its late bearer turnedquickly aside. As he turned Wilbur Cowan reached forward to close a handabout the corduroy collar. Then he pulled. The standard bearer came backeasily to a sitting posture on the asphalt. The crowd was close in,noisily depriving other bearers of their standards. The Internationalehad become blurred and discordant, like a bad phonograph record. Theparade still came to break and flow about the obstruction.
Wilbur Cowan jerked his prize up and whirled him about. He contemplatedfurther atrocities. But the pallid face of his brother was now revealedto him.
"Look out there!" he warned the crowd, and a way was opened.
He drew back on the corduroy collar, then sent it forward with a mightyshove. His captive shot through the opening, fell again to the pavement,but was up and off before those nearest him could devise furtherentertainment. Among other accomplishments Merle had been noted incollege for his swiftness of foot. He ran well, heading for the north,skillfully avoiding those on the outskirts of the crowd who would havetackled him. Wilbur Cowan watched him out of sight, beyond the area ofcombat. Then he worked his own way from it and stood to watch thefurther disintegration of the now leaderless parade.
The tumult died, the crowd melted away. Policemen became officious. Fromareaways up and down the Avenue forms emerged furtively, walkeddiscreetly to corners and skurried down side streets. Here and there acrimson banner flecked the asphalt. Steve and the tall private issuedfrom the last scrimmage, breathing hard.
"Nothing to it!" said the tall private. "Only I skun my knuckles."
"I was aimin' a wallop at
that general," complained Steve, "butsomething blew him right out of my hand. Come on up to Madison Avenoo. Iheard they was goin' to save America up there, too."
"Can't," said Wilbur. "Got to see a man."
"Well, so long, Buck!"
He waved to them as they joined the northward moving crowd.
"Gee, gosh!" he said.
* * * * *
"No, sir; Mr. Whipple hasn't come in yet. He just sent word he wouldn'tbe back at all to-night," said the spectacled hall boy. But his mannerwas so little ingenuous that once again the hand of Wilbur Cowan closeditself eloquently about the collar of a jacket.
"Get into that elevator and let me out at his floor."
"You let me alone!" said the hall boy. "I was going to."
He knocked a third time before he could hear a faint call. He opened thedoor. Beyond a dim entrance hall the light fell upon his brother seatedat a desk, frowning intently at work before him. The visible half of himwas no longer in corduroy. It was incased in a smoking jacket ofvelvet, and his neck was conventionally clad in collar and cravat. Thelatter had been hastily tied.
"Why, Wilbur, old man!" cried Merle in pleased surprise. He half rosefrom the desk, revealing that below the waist he was still corduroy orproletarian. Along his left jaw was a contusion as from a glancing blow.He was still breathing harder than most men do who spend quiet eveningsat desks.
Wilbur advanced into the room, but paused before reaching the desk. Itwas an invitingly furnished room of cushioned couches, paintings,tapestries, soft chairs, warmly toned rugs. The desk at which Merletoiled was ornate and shining. Ex-Private Cowan felt a sudden revulsion.He was back, knee-deep in trench bilge, tortured in all his being,looking at death from behind a sandbag. Vividly he recalled why he hadendured that torture.
"You're all out of condition," he announced in even tones to Merle. "Alittle sprint like that shouldn't get your wind."
Merle's look of sunny welcome faded to one of chagrin. He fell back inhis chair. He was annoyed.
"You saw that disgraceful outbreak, then?"
"I was in luck to-night."
"Did you see that drunken rowdy strike at me, and then try to get medown where he and those other brutes could kick me?"
Wilbur's stare was cool. He was feeling the icy muck about his numbedlegs.
"I was the one that struck at you. Too many elbows in the way and Iflubbed it." He noted his brother start and stiffen in his chair. "And Ididn't try to get you down. When I saw it was you I got you up and shotyou out where you could run--if you wanted to. And I wasn't drunk, andI'm not a rowdy."
Merle gazed with horror upon the apparently uncontrite fratricide. Twicehe essayed to speak before he found the words.
"Do you think that was a brave thing to do?"
"No--but useful. I've been brave a lot of times where it didn't do asmuch good as that."
"Useful!" breathed Merle, scathingly. "Useful to brutalize a lot ofbrave souls who merely sought--" he broke off with a new sense ofoutrage. "And not a policeman there to do his duty!" he finishedresentfully.
Wilbur Cowan sat in a carven chair near a corner of the beautiful desk,hitching it forward to rest his arms on the desk's top. He was newlyappraising this white-faced brother.
"Whining!" he suddenly snapped. "Get up and boast that you're outlaws,going to keel the Government off its pins. Then you get the gaff, andthe first thing you do is whine for help from that same Government! Yousay it's rotten, but you expect it to watch over you while you knock itdown. If you're going to be an outlaw, take an outlaw's chance. Don'tsqueal when you get caught. You say the rules are rotten, then you fallback on them. What kind of sportsmanship is that?"
Wearily but with a tolerant smile Merle pushed back the fallen lock withone white hand.
"What could you understand of all this?" he asked, gently. "We merelyclaim the right of free speech."
"And use it to tell other people to upset the Government! That crowdto-night did what you tell your people to do--went against the rules.But you can't take your own medicine. A fine bunch of spoiled childrenyou are! Been spoiled by too easy a Government at that!" He broke off tostudy Merle again. "You're pasty, out of condition," he repeated,inconsequently.
Again his brother's intolerant smile.
"You have all the cant of the reactionary," he retorted, again gently."It's the spirit of intolerance one finds everywhere. You can't expectone of my--" he hesitated, showing a slight impatience. "I've been toolong where they are thinking," he said.
"Aren't you people intolerant? You want to break all the rules, andthose same rules have made us a pretty good big country."
"Ah, yes, a big country--big! We can always boast of our size, can't we?I dare say you believe its bigness is a sign of our merit." Merle hadrecovered his poise. He was at home in satire. "Besides, I've broken norules, as you call them."
"Oh, I'll bet you haven't! You'd be careful not to. I see that much. Butyou try to get smaller children to. I'd have more patience with you ifyou'd taken a chance yourself."
"Patience with me--you?" Merle relished this. His laugh was sincere."You--would have more patience with--me!" But his irony went for littlewith a man still at the front.
"Sure! If only you'd smashed a few rules yourself. Take that girl andher partner they arrested the other day. They don't whine. They'rebehind the bars, but still cussing the Government. You've got to respectfighters like that Liebknecht the Germans killed, and that RosaWhat's-Her-Name. They were game. But you people, you try to put on alltheir airs without taking their chances. That's why you make me sotired--always keeping your martyr's halo polished and handy where youcan slip it out of a pocket when you get just what you've been askingfor."
"You're not too subtle, are you? But then one could hardly expectsubtlety--"
Merle was again almost annoyed.
"Subtle be jiggered! Do you think you people are subtle? About as subtleas a ton of bricks. All your talk in that magazine about this being aland of the dollar, no ideals, no spirituality, a land ofmoney-grubbers--all that other stuff! Say, I want to tell you this isthe least money-grubbing land there is! You people would know that ifyou had any subtlety. Maybe you did know it. We went into that scrap foran ideal, and we're the only country that did. France might have gonefor an ideal, but France had to fight, anyway.
"England? Do you think England went in only to save poor littleBelgium? She herself was the next dish on the bill of fare. But we wentin out of general damfoolishness--for an ideal--this country you saiddidn't have any. We don't care about money--less than any of thosepeople. Watch a Frenchman count his coppers, or an Englishman thatcarries his in a change purse and talks about pounds but really thinksin shillings. We carry our money loose and throw it away.
"If this country had been what your sniveling little magazine called itwe'd never have gone into that fight. You're not even subtle enough toknow that much. We knew it would cost like hell, but we knew it was agreat thing to do. Not another nation on earth would have gone in forthat reason. That's the trouble with you poor little shut-ins; youdecide the country hasn't any ideals because someone runs a stockyardout in Chicago or a foundry in Pittsburgh. God help you people if you'dhad your way about the war! The Germans would be taking that nonsenseout of you by this time. And to think you had me kind of ashamed when Iwent over! I thought you knew something then." He concluded on a notealmost plaintive.
Merle had grown visibly impatient.
"My dear fellow, really! Your point of view is interesting enough, evenif all too common. You are true to type, but so crude a type--so crude!"
"Sure, I'm crude! The country itself is crude, I guess. But it takes acrude country to have ideals--ideals with guts. Your type isn't crude, Isuppose, but it hasn't any ideals, either."
"No ideals! No ideals! Ah, but that's the best thing you've said!"
He laughed masterfully, waving aside the monstrous accusation.
"Well, maybe it is the best thing
I've said. You haven't any ideals thatwould get any action out of you. You might tear down a house, but you'dnever build one. No two of you could agree on a plan. Every one of youis too conceited about himself. If you had the guts to upset theGovernment to-morrow you'd be fighting among yourselves before night,and you'd have a chief or a king over you the next day, just as surelyas they got one in Russia. It'll take them a hundred years over there toget back to as good a government as we have right now.
"You folks haven't any ideals except to show yourselves off. That's myprivate opinion. The way you used to tell me I didn't have any form ingolf. You people are all gesture; you can get up on a platform and takeperfect practice swings at a government, but you can't hit the ball. Youused to take bully practice swings at golf, but you couldn't hit theball because you didn't have any ideal. You were a good shadow golfer,like a shadow boxer that can hit dandy blows when he's hitting atnothing. Shadow stuff, shadow ideals, shadow thinkers--that's what youpeople are--spoiled children pretending you're deep thinkers."
Merle turned wearily to a sheaf of papers at his hand.
"You'll see one day," he said, quietly, "and it won't be a far day.Nothing now, not even the brute force of your type, can retard the sweepof the revolution. The wave is shaping, the crest is formed. Six monthsfrom now--a year at most----"
He gestured with a hand ominously.
Wilbur briefly considered this prophecy.
"Oh, I know things look exciting here, but why wouldn't they after theturnover they've had? And I know there's grafting and profiteering andhigh prices and rotten spots in the Government, but why not? That'sanother trouble with you people: you seem to think that some form ofgovernment will be perfect. You seem to expect a perfect government fromimperfect human beings."
"Ah," broke in Merle, "I recognize that! That's some of the dear oldDave Cowan talk."
"Well, don't turn it down just on that account. Sometimes he isn't socrazy. He sees through you people. He knows you would take all youcould get in this world just as quick as the rest of us. He knows thatmuch."
Merle waved it aside.
"Six months from now--a year at the most! A thrill of freedom has runthrough the people!"
Wilbur had relaxed in his chair. He spoke more lightly, scanning theface of his brother with veiled curiosity.
"By the way, speaking of revolutions, there's been kind of a one atNewbern; kind of a family revolution. A little one, but plenty of kickin it. They want you to come back and be a good boy. That's really whatI came down here to say for them. Will you come back with me?"
Merle drew himself up--injured.
"Go back! Back to what? When my work is here, my heart, my life? I'velet you talk because you're my brother. And you're so naively honest inyour talk about our wonderful country and its idealism and thecontemptible defects of a few of us who have the long vision! But I'velet you talk, and now I must tell you that I am with this cause to theend. I can't expect your sympathy, or the sympathy of my people backthere, but I must go my own way without it, fight my own battle--"
He was interrupted in a tone he did not like.
"Sympathy from the folks back there? Say, what do you mean--sympathy?Did I tell you what this revolution back there was all about? Did I tellyou they've shut down on you?"
"You didn't! I still don't get your meaning."
"You cast them off, didn't you?"
"Oh!" A white hand deprecated this. "That's Sharon Whipple talk--hisfamous brand of horse humour. Surely, you won't say he's too subtle!"
"Well, anyway, you said you couldn't accept anything more from them whenyou left; you were going to work with your hands, and so forth. Youweren't going to take any more of their tainted money."
"I've no doubt dear old Sharon would put it as delicately as that."
"Well, did you work with your hands? Have you had to be a toiler?"
"Oh, naturally I had resources! But might I ask"--Merle said it withchill dignity--"may I inquire just what relation this might have----"
"You won't have resources any longer."
"Eh?" Merle this time did not wave. He stared stonily at his informant.
"That was the revolution. They called each other down and found thatevery last one of them had been sending you money, each thinking he wasthe only one and no one wanting you to starve. Even your dear old SharonWhipple kicked in every month. No wonder I didn't find you in atenement."
"Preposterous!" expostulated Merle.
"Wasn't it? Anyway, they all got mad at each other, and then they allgot mad at you; then they swore an oath or something." He pausedimpressively. "No more checks!"
"Preposterous!" Merle again murmured.
"But kind of plausible, wasn't it? Sharon wasn't any madder than theothers when they found each other out. Mrs. Harvey D. is the only onethey think they can't trust now. They're going to watch that woman'sfunds. Say, anything she gets through the lines to you--won't keep youfrom toiling!"
"Poor Mother Ella!" murmured Merle, his gaze remotely upon the woman."She has always been so fond of me."
"They're all fond of you, for that matter, I think they're fonder of youthan if you'd been born there. But still they're rank Bolsheviks rightnow. They confiscated your estates."
"I didn't need you to tell me they're fond of me," retorted Merle withrecovered spirit. He sighed. "They must have missed me horribly thislast year." There was contrition in his tone. "I suppose I should havetaken time to think of that, but you'll never know how my work here hasengrossed me. I suppose one always does sacrifice to ideals. Still, Iowed them something--I should have remembered that." He closed on a noteof regret.
"Well, you better go back with me. They'll be mighty glad to see you."
"We can make that eleven-forty-eight if we hurry," he said. "I'll haveto change a few things."
He bustled cheerily into a bedroom. As he moved about there he whistledthe "Marseillaise."
Ten minutes later he emerged with bag, hat, and stick. The last item ofcorduroy had vanished from his apparel. He was quietly dressed, as anexploiter of the masses or a mechanic. He set the bag on the desk, andgoing to a window peered from behind the curtain into the street.
"Some of those rowdies are still prowling about," he said, "but thereare cabs directly across the street."
He pulled the soft hat well down over his brow.
Wilbur had sat motionless in his chair while the dressing went on. Hegot up now.
"Listen!" he said. "If you hear back home of my telling people you're adangerous radical, don't be worried. Even the Cowans have some familypride. And don't worry about the prowling rowdies out there. I'll getyou across the street to a cab. Give me the bag."
As they crossed the street, Merle--at his brother's elbow--somewhatjauntily whistled, with fair accuracy, not the "Marseillaise," but aninnocent popular ballad. Nor did he step aside for a torn strip of redcloth lying in their way.
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