Collected Works of Booth Tarkington

by Booth Tarkington

  He spoke to an attendant, and was directed to an office, which he entered without delay. There were five men in the room, three of them engaged in conversation near the door; another, a young surgeon, was writing at a desk; the fifth drowsily nodding on a sofa. The newcomer bowed as he entered.

  “Mr. Barrett?” he said inquiringly.

  One of the men near the door turned about. “Yes, sir,” he answered, with a stem disfavor of the applicant; a disfavor possibly a perquisite of his office. “What’s wanted?”

  “I think I have met you,” returned the other. “My name is Meredith.”

  Mr. Barrett probably did not locate the meeting, but the name proved an open sesame to his geniality, for he melted at once, and saying: “Of course, of course, Mr. Meredith; did you want a talk with me?” clasped the young man’s hand confidentially in his, and, with an appearance of assuring him that whatever the atrocity which had occurred in the Meredith household it should be discreetly handled and hushed up, indicated a disposition to conduct him toward a more appropriate apartment for the rehearsal of scandal. The young man accepted the hand-clasp with some resignation, but rejected the suggestion of privacy.

  “A telegram from Plattville reached me half an hour ago,” he said. “I should have had it sooner, but I have been in the country all day.”

  The two men who had been talking with the superintendent turned quickly, and stared at the speaker. He went on: “Mr. Harkless was an old — and—” He broke off, with a sudden, sharp choking, and for a moment was unable to control an emotion that seemed, for some reason, as surprising and unbefitting, in a person of his rubicund presence, as was his gravity. An astonished tear glittered in the corner of his eye. The grief of the gayer sorts of stout people appears, sometimes, to dumfound even themselves. The young man took off his glasses and wiped them slowly. “ — An old and very dear friend of mine.” He replaced the glasses insecurely upon his nose. “I telephoned to your headquarters, and they said you had come here.”

  “Yes, sir; yes, sir,” the superintendent of police responded, cheerfully. “These two gentlemen are from Plattville; Mr. Smith just got in. They mighty near had big trouble down there to-day, but I guess we’ll settle things for ’em up here. Let me make you acquainted with my friend, Mr. Smith, and my friend, Mr. Homer. Gentlemen, my friend, Mr. Meredith, one of our well-known citizens.”

  “You hear it from the police, gentlemen,” added Mr. Meredith, perking up a little. “I know Dr. Gay.” He nodded to the surgeon.

  “I suppose you have heard some of the circumstances — those that we’ve given out,” said Barrett.

  “I read the account in the evening paper. I had heard of Harkless, of Carlow, before; but it never occurred to me that it was my friend — I had heard he was abroad — until I got this telegram from a relative of mine who happened to be down there.”

  “Well,” said the superintendent, “your friend made a mighty good fight before he gave up. The Teller, that’s the man we’ve got out here, he’s so hacked up and shot and battered his mother wouldn’t know him, if she wanted to; at least, that’s what Gay, here, says. We haven’t seen him, because the doctors have been at him ever since he was found, and they expect to do some more tonight, when we’ve had our interview with him, if he lives long enough. One of my sergeants found him in, the freight-yards about four-o’clock and sent him here in the ambulance; knew it was Teller, because he was stowed away in one of the empty cars that came from Plattville last night, and Slattery — that’s his running mate, the one we caught with the coat and hat — gave in that they beat their way on that freight. I guess Slattery let this one do most of the fighting; he ain’t scratched; but Mr. Harkless certainly made it hot for the Teller.”

  “My relative believes that Mr. Harkless is still alive,” said Meredith.

  Mr. Barrett permitted himself an indulgent smile. He had the air of having long ago discovered everything which anybody might wish to know, and of knowing a great deal which he held in reserve because it was necessary to suppress many facts for a purpose far beyond his auditor’s comprehension, though a very simple matter to himself.

  “Well, hardly, I expect,” he replied, easily. “No; he’s hardly alive.”

  “Oh, don’t say that,” said Meredith.

  “I’m afraid Mr. Barrett has to say it,” broke in Warren Smith. “We’re up here to see this fellow before he dies, to try and get him to tell what disposal they made of the — —”

  “Ah!” Meredith shivered. “I believe I’d rather he said the other than to hear you say that.”

  Mr. Horner felt the need of defending a fellow-townsman, and came to the rescue, flushing painfully. “It’s mighty bad, I know,” said the sheriff of Carlow, the shadows of his honest, rough face falling in a solemn pattern; “I reckon we hate to say it as much as you hate to hear it; and Warren really didn’t get the word out. It’s stuck in our throats all day; and I don’t recollect as I heard a single man say it before I left our city this morning. Our folks thought a great deal of him, Mr. Meredith; I don’t believe there’s any thinks more. But it’s come to that now; you can’t hardly see no chance left. We be’n sweating this other man, Slattery, but we can’t break him down. Jest tells us to go to” — the sheriff paused, evidently deterred by the thought that swear-words were unbefitting a hospital— “to the other place, and shets his jaw up tight. The one up here is called the Teller, as Mr. Barrett says; his name’s Jerry the Teller. Well, we told Slattery that Jerry had died and left a confession; tried to make him think there wasn’t no hope fer him, and he might as well up and tell his share; might git off easier; warned him to look out for a mob if he didn’t, maybe, and so on, but it never bothered him at all. He’s nervy, all right. Told us to go — that is, he said it again — and swore the Teller was on his way to Chicago, swore he seen him git on the train. Wouldn’t say another word tell he got a lawyer. So, ‘soon as it was any use, we come up here — they reckon he’ll come to before he dies. We’ll be glad to have you go in with us,” Horner said kindly. “I reckon it’s all the same to Mr. Barrett.”

  “He will die, will he, Gay?” Meredith asked, turning to the surgeon.

  “Oh, not necessarily,” the young man replied, yawning slightly behind his hand, and too long accustomed to straightforward questions to be shocked at an evident wish for a direct reply. “His chances are better, because they’ll hang him if he gets well. They took the ball and a good deal of shot out of his side, and there’s a lot more for afterwhile, if he lasts. He’s been off the table an hour, and he’s still going.”

  “That’s in his favor, isn’t it?” said Meredith. “And extraordinary, too?” If young Dr. Gay perceived a slur in these interrogations he betrayed no exterior appreciation of it.

  “Shot!” exclaimed Homer. “Shot! I knowed there’d be’n a pistol used, though where they got it beats me — we stripped ’em — and it wasn’t Mr. Harkless’s; he never carried one. But a shot-gun!”

  An attendant entered and spoke to the surgeon, and Gay rose wearily, touched the drowsy young man on the shoulder, and led the way to the door. “You can come now,” he said to the others; “though I doubt its being any good to you. He’s delirious.”

  They went down a long hall and up a narrow corridor, then stepped softly into a small, quiet ward.

  There was a pungent smell of chemicals in the room; the light was low, and the dimness was imbued with a thick, confused murmur, incoherent whisperings that came from a cot in the corner. It was the only cot in use in the ward, and Meredith was conscious of a terror that made him dread, to look at it, to go near it. Beside it a nurse sat silent, and upon it feebly tossed the racked body of him whom Barrett had called Jerry the Teller.

  The head was a shapeless bundle, so swathed it was with bandages and cloths, and what part of the face was visible was discolored and pigmented with drugs. Stretched under the white sheet the man looked immensely tall — as Horner saw with vague misgiving — and he lay in an odd, in
human fashion, as though he had been all broken to pieces. His attempts to move were constantly soothed by the nurse, and he as constantly renewed such attempts; and one hand, though torn and bandaged, was not to be restrained from a wandering, restless movement which Meredith felt to be pathetic. He had entered the room with a flare of hate for the thug whom he had come to see die, and who had struck down the old friend whose nearness he had never known until it was too late. But at first sight of the broken figure he felt all animosity fall away from him; only awe remained, and a growing, traitorous pity as he watched the long, white fingers of the Teller “pick at the coverlet.” The man was muttering rapid fragments of words, and syllables.

  “Somehow I feel a sense of wrong,” Meredith whispered to Gay. “I feel as if I had done the fellow to death myself, as if it were all out of gear. I know, now, how Henry felt over the great Guisard. My God, how tall he looks! That doesn’t seem to me like a thug’s hand.”

  The surgeon nodded. “Of course, if there’s a mistake to be made, you can count on Barrett and his sergeants to make it. I doubt if this is their man. When they found him what clothes he wore were torn and stained; but they had been good once, especially the linen.”

  Barrett bent over the recumbent figure. “See here. Jerry,” he said, “I want to talk to you a little. Rouse up, will you? I want to talk to you as a friend.”

  The incoherent muttering continued.

  “See here, Jerry!” repeated Barrett, more sharply. “Jerry! rouse up, will you? We don’t want any fooling; understand that, Jerry!” He dropped his hand on the man’s shoulder and shook him slightly. The Teller uttered a short, gasping cry.

  “Let me,” said Gay, and swiftly interposed. Bending over the cot, he said in a pleasant, soft voice: “It’s all right, old man; it’s all right. Slattery wants to know what you did with that man down at Plattville, when you got through with him. He can’t remember, and he thinks there was money left on him. Slattery’s head was hurt — he can’t remember. He’ll go shares with you, when he gets it. Slattery’s going to stand by you, if he can get the money.”

  The Teller only tried to move his free hand to the shoulder Barrett had shaken.

  “Slattery wants to know,” repeated the surgeon, gently moving the hand back upon the sheet. “He’ll divvy up, when he gets it. He’ll stand by you, old man.”

  “Would you please not mind,” whispered the Teller faintly, “would you please not mind if you took care not to brush against my shoulder again?”

  The surgeon drew back with an exclamation; but the Teller’s whisper gathered strength, and they heard him murmuring oddly to himself. Meredith moved forward.

  “What’s that?” he asked, with a startled gesture.

  “Seems to be trying to sing, or something,” said Barrett, bending over to listen. The Teller swung his arm heavily over the side of the cot, the fingers never ceasing their painful twitching, and Gay leaned down and gently moved the cloths so that the white, scarred lips were free. They moved steadily; they seemed to be framing the semblance of an old ballad that Meredith knew; the whisper grew more distinct, and it became a rich but broken voice, and they heard it singing, like the sound of some far, halting minstrelsy:

  “Wave willows — murmur waters — golden sunbeams smile, Earthly music — cannot waken — lovely — Annie Lisle.”

  “My God!” cried Tom Meredith.

  The bandaged hand waved jauntily over the Teller’s head. “Ah, men,” he said, almost clearly, and tried to lift himself on his arm, “I tell you it’s a grand eleven we have this year! There will be little left of anything that stands against them. Did you see Jim Romley ride over his man this afternoon?”

  As the voice grew clearer the sheriff stepped forward, but Tom Meredith, with a loud exclamation of grief, threw himself on his knees beside the cot and seized the wandering fingers in his own. “John!” he cried. “John! Is it you?”

  The voice went on rapidly, not heeding him: “Ah, you needn’t howl; I’d have been as much use at right as that Sophomore. Well, laugh away, you Indians! If it hadn’t been for this ankle — but it seems to be my chest that’s hurt — and side — not that it matters, you know; the Sophomore’s just as good, or better. It’s only my egotism. Yes, it must be the side — and chest — and head — all over, I believe. Not that it matters — I’ll try again next year — next year I’ll make it a daily, Helen said, not that I should call you Helen — I mean Miss — Miss — Fisbee — no, Sherwood — but I’ve always thought Helen was the prettiest name in the world — you’ll forgive me? — And please tell Parker there’s no more copy, and won’t be — I wouldn’t grind out another stick to save his immortal — yes, yes, a daily — she said-ah, I never made a good trade — no — they can’t come seven miles — but I’ll finish you, Skillett, first; I know you! I know nearly all of you! Now let’s sing ‘Annie Lisle.’” He lifted his hand as if to beat the time for a chorus.

  “Oh, John, John!” cried Tom Meredith, and sobbed outright. “My boy — my boy — old friend — —” The cry of the classmate was like that of a mother, for it was his old idol and hero who lay helpless and broken before him.

  The brougham lamps and the apathetic sparks of the cab gleamed in front of the hospital till daylight. Two other pairs of lamps joined them in the earliest of the small hours, these subjoined to two deep-hooded phaetons, from each of which quickly descended a gentleman with a beard, an air of eminence, and a small, ominous black box. The air of eminence was justified by the haste with which Meredith had sent for them, and by their wide repute. They arrived almost simultaneously, and hastily shook hands as they made their way to the ward down the long hall and up the narrow corridor. They had a short conversation with Gay and a word with the nurse, then turned the others out of the room by a practiced innuendo of manner. They stayed a long time in the room without opening the door. Meredith paced the hall alone, sometimes stopping to speak to Warren Smith; but the two officials of peace sat together in dumb consternation and astonishment. The sleepy young man relaxed himself resignedly upon a bench in the hall had returned to the dormance from which he had been roused. The big hospital was very still. Now and then a nurse went through the hall, carrying something, and sometimes a neat young physician passed cheerfully along, looking as if he had many patients who were well enough to testify to his skill, but sick enough to pay for it. Outside, through the open front doors, the crickets chirped.

  Meredith went out on the steps, and breathed the cool night air. A slender taint of drugs hung everywhere about the building, and the almost imperceptible permeation sickened him; it was deadly, he thought, and imbued with a hideous portent of suffering. That John Harkless, of all men, should lie stifled with ether, and bandaged and splintered, and smeared with horrible unguents, while they stabbed and slashed and tortured him, and made an outrage and a sin of that grand, big, dexterous body of his! Meredith shuddered. The lights in the little ward were turned up, and they seemed to shine from a chamber of horrors, while he waited, as a brother might have waited outside the Inquisition — if, indeed, a brother would have been allowed to wait outside the Inquisition.

  Alas, he had found John Harkless! He had “lost track” of him as men sometimes do lose track of their best beloved, but it had always been a comfort to know that Harkless was — somewhere, a comfort without which he could hardly have got along. Like others he had been waiting for John to turn up — on top, of course; for people would always believe in him so, that he would be shoved ahead, no matter how much he hung back himself — but Meredith had not expected him to turn up in Indiana. He had heard vaguely that Harkless was abroad, and he had a general expectation that people would hear of him over there some day, with papers like the “Times” beseeching him to go on missions. And he found him here, in his own home, a stranger, alone and dying, receiving what ministrations were reserved for Jerry the Teller. But it was Helen Sherwood who had found him. He wondered how much those two had seen of each other, down there in
Plattville. If they had liked each other, and Harkless could have lived, he thought it might have simplified some things for Helen. “Poor Helen!” he exclaimed aloud. Her telegram had a ring, even in the barren four sentences. He wondered how much they had liked each other. Perhaps she would wish to come at once. When those fellows came out of the room he would send her a word by telegraph.

  When they came out — ah! he did not want them to come out; he was afraid. They were an eternity — why didn’t they come? No; he hoped they would not come, just now. In a little time, in a few minutes, even, he would not dread a few words so much; but now he couldn’t quite bear to be told he had found his friend only to lose him, the man he had always most needed, wanted, loved. Everybody had always cared for Harkless, wherever he went. That he had always cared for everybody was part of the reason, maybe. Meredith remembered, now, hearing a man who had spent a day in Plattville on business speak of him: “They’ve got a young fellow down there who’ll be Governor in a few years. He’s a sort of dictator; and runs the party all over that part of the State to suit his own sweet will, just by sheer personality. And there isn’t a man in that district who wouldn’t cheerfully lie down in the mud to let him pass over dry. It’s that young Harkless, you know; owns the ‘Herald,’ the paper that downed McCune and smashed those imitation ‘White-Caps’ in Carlow County.” Meredith had been momentarily struck by the coincidence of the name, but his notion of Harkless was so inseparably connected with what was (to his mind) a handsome and more spacious — certainly more illuminated — field of action, that the idea that this might be his friend never entered his head. Helen had said something once — he could not remember what — that made him think she had half suspected it, and he had laughed. He thought of the whimsical fate that had taken her to Plattville, of the reason for her going, and the old thought came to him that the world is, after all, so very small. He looked up at the twinkling stars; they were reassuring and kind. Under their benignancy no loss could befall, no fate miscarry — for in his last thought he felt his vision opened, for the moment, to perceive a fine tracery of fate.