A Poor Wise Man

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  CHAPTER XV

  On the first day of May, William Wallace Cameron moved his trunk, theframed photograph of his mother, eleven books, an alarm clock and Jinxto the Boyd house. He went for two reasons. First, after his initialcall at the dreary little house, he began to realize that something hadto be done in the Boyd family. The second reason was his dog.

  He began to realize that something had to be done in the Boyd family assoon as he had met Mrs. Boyd.

  "I don't know what's come over the children," Mrs. Boyd said, fretfully.She sat rocking persistently in the dreary little parlor. Her chairinched steadily along the dull carpet, and once or twice she brought upjust as she was about to make a gradual exit from the room. "They act soqueer lately."

  She hitched the chair into place again. Edith had gone out. It was heridea of an evening call to serve cakes and coffee, and a strong andacrid odor was seeping through the doorway. "There's Dan come home fromthe war, and when he gets back from the mill he just sits and staresahead of him. He won't even talk about the war, although he's got a lotto tell."

  "It takes some time for the men who were over to get settled down again,you know."

  "Well, there's Edith," continued the querulous voice. "You'd think thecat had got her tongue, too. I tell you, Mr. Cameron, there are mealshere when if I didn't talk there wouldn't be a word spoken."

  Mr. Cameron looked up. It had occurred to him lately, not precisely thata cat had got away with Edith's tongue, but that something undeniablyhad got away with her cheerfulness. There were entire days in the storewhen she neglected to manicure her nails, and stood looking out past thefading primrose in the window to the street. But there were no longerany shrewd comments on the passers-by.

  "Of course, the house isn't very cheerful," sighed Mrs. Boyd. "I'm asick woman, Mr. Cameron. My back hurts most of the time. It just achesand aches."

  "I know," said Mr. Cameron. "My mother has that, sometimes. If you likeI'll mix you up some liniment, and Miss Edith can bring it to you."

  "Thanks. I've tried most everything. Edith wants to rent a room, so wecan keep a hired girl, but it's hard to get a girl. They want all themoney on earth, and they eat something awful. That's a nice friendly dogof yours, Mr. Cameron."

  It was perhaps Jinx who decided Willy Cameron. Jinx was at that momentoccupying the only upholstered chair, but he had developed a strongliking for the frail little lady with the querulous voice and the shabbyblack dress. He had, indeed, insisted shortly after his entranceon leaping into her lap, and had thus sat for some time, completelyeclipsing his hostess.

  "Just let him sit," Mrs. Boyd said placidly. "I like a dog. And he can'thurt this skirt I've got on. It's on its last legs."

  With which bit of unconscious humor Willy Cameron had sat down.Something warm and kindly glowed in his heart. He felt that dogs have acurious instinct for knowing what lies concealed in the human heart, andthat Jinx had discovered something worth while in Edith's mother.

  It was later in the evening, however, that he said, over Edith's bakerycakes and her atrocious coffee:

  "If you really mean that about a roomer, I know of one." He glanced atEdith. "Very neat. Careful with matches. Hard to get up in the morning,but interesting, highly intelligent, and a clever talker. That's his onefault. When he is interested in a thing he spouts all over the place."

  "Really?" said Mrs. Boyd. "Well, talk would be a change here. He soundskind of pleasant. Who is he?"

  "This paragon of beauty and intellect sits before you," said WillyCameron.

  "You'll have to excuse me. I didn't recognize you by the description,"said Mrs. Boyd, unconsciously. "Well, I don't know. I'd like to havethis dog around."

  Even Edith laughed at that. She had been very silent all evening,sitting most of the time with her hands in her lap, and her eyes onWilly Cameron. Rather like Jinx's eyes they were, steady, unblinking,loyal, and with something else in common with Jinx which Willy Cameronnever suspected.

  "I wouldn't come, if I were you," she said, unexpectedly.

  "Why, Edie, you've been thinking of asking him right along."

  "We don't know how to keep a house," she persisted, to him. "We can'teven cook--you know that's rotten coffee. I'll show you the room, if youlike, but I won't feel hurt if you don't take it, I'll be worried if youdo."

  Mrs. Boyd watched them perplexedly as they went out, the tall young manwith his uneven step, and Edith, who had changed so greatly in the lastfew weeks, and blew hot one minute and cold the next. Now that she hadseen Willy Cameron, Mrs. Boyd wanted him to come. He would bring newlife into the little house. He was cheerful. He was not glum like Dan ordiscontented like Edie. And the dog--She got up slowly and walked overto the chair where Jinx sat, eyes watchfully on the door.

  "Nice Jinx," she said, and stroked his head with a thin and stringyhand. "Nice doggie."

  She took a cake from the plate and fed it to him, bit by bit. She felthappier than she had for a long time, since her children were babies andneeded her.

  "I meant it," said Edith, on the stairs. "You stay away. We're a poorlot, and we're unlucky, too. Don't get mixed up with us."

  "Maybe I'm going to bring you luck."

  "The best luck for me would be to fall down these stairs and break myneck."

  He looked at her anxiously, and any doubts he might have had, born ofthe dreariness, the odors of stale food and of the musty cellar below,of the shabby room she proceeded to show him, died in an impulse tosomehow, some way, lift this small group of people out of the slough ofdespondency which seemed to be engulfing them all.

  "Why, what's the matter with the room?" he said. "Just wait until I'vegot busy in it! I'm a paper hanger and a painter, and--"

  "You're a dear, too," said Edith.

  So on the first of May he moved in, and for some evenings PoliticalEconomy and History and Travel and the rest gave way to anxious cuttingsand fittings of wall paper, and a pungent odor of paint. The old housetook on new life and activity, the latter sometimes pernicious, as whenWilly Cameron fell down the cellar stairs with a pail of paint in hishand, or Dan, digging up some bricks in the back yard for a border theseeds of which were already sprouting in a flat box in the kitchen, rana pickaxe into his foot.

  Some changes were immediate, such as the white-washing of the cellar andthe unpainted fence in the yard, where Willy Cameron visualized, lateron, great draperies of morning glories. He papered the parlor, andcoaxed Mrs. Boyd to wash the curtains, although she protested that, withthe mill smoke, it was useless labor.

  But there were some changes that he knew only time would effect.Sometimes he went to his bed worn out both physically and spiritually,as though the burden of lifting three life-sodden souls was too much.Not that he thought of that, however. What he did know was that the foodwas poor. No servant had been found, and years of lack of system hadleft Mrs. Boyd's mind confused and erratic. She would spend hoursconcocting expensive desserts, while the vegetables boiled dry andscorched and meat turned to leather, only to bring pridefully to thetable some flavorless mixture garnished according to a picture in thecook book, and totally unedible.

  She would have ambitious cleaning days, too, starting late and leavingoff with beds unmade to prepare the evening meal. Dan, home from themill and newly adopting Willy Cameron's system of cleaning up forsupper, would turn sullen then, and leave the moment the meal was over.

  "Hell of a way to live," he said once. "I'd get married, but how can afellow know whether a girl will make a home for him or give him this?And then there would be babies, too."

  The relations between Dan and Edith were not particularly cordial. WillyCameron found their bickering understandable enough, but he was puzzled,sometimes, to find that Dan was surreptitiously watching his sister.Edith was conscious of it, too, and one evening she broke into irritatedspeech.

  "I wish you'd quit staring at me, Dan Boyd."

  "I was wondering what has come over you," said Dan, ungraciously. "Youused to be a nice kid. Now you're an angel
one minute and a devil thenext."

  Willy spoke to him that night when they were setting out rows ofseedlings, under the supervision of Jinx.

  "I wouldn't worry her, Dan," he said; "it is the spring, probably. Itgets into people, you know. I'm that way myself. I'd give a lot to be inthe country just now."

  Dan glanced at him quickly, but whatever he may have had in his mind, hesaid nothing just then. However, later on he volunteered:

  "She's got something on her mind. I know her. But I won't have hertalking back to mother."

  A week or so after Willy Cameron had moved, Mr. Hendricks rang the bellof the Boyd house, and then, after his amiable custom, walked in.

  "Oh, Cameron!" he bawled.

  "Upstairs," came Willy Cameron's voice, somewhat thickened with carpettacks. So Mr. Hendricks climbed part of the way, when he found his headon a level with that of the young gentleman he sought, who was nailing arent in the carpet.

  "Don't stop," said Mr. Hendricks. "Merely friendly call. And forheaven's sake don't swallow a tack, son. I'm going to need you."

  "Whaffor?" inquired Willy Cameron, through his nose.

  "Don't know yet. Make speeches, probably. If Howard Cardew, or anyCardew, thinks he's going to be mayor of this town, he's got to thinkagain."

  "I don't give a tinker's dam who's mayor of this town, so long as hegives it honest government."

  "That's right," said Mr. Hendricks approvingly. "Old Cardew's beenrunning it for years, and you could put all the honest government he'sgiven us in a hollow tooth. If you'll stop that hammering, I'd like tomake a proposition to you."

  Willy Cameron took an admiring squint at his handiwork.

  "Sorry to refuse you, Mr. Hendricks, but I don't want to be mayor."

  Mr. Hendricks chuckled, as Willy Cameron led the way to his room. Hewandered around the room while Cameron opened a window and slid the dogoff his second chair.

  "Great snakes!" he said. "Spargo's Bolshevism! Political Economy,History of--. What are you planning to be? President?"

  "I haven't decided yet. It's a hard job, and mighty thankless. But Iwon't be your mayor, even for you."

  Mr. Hendricks sat down.

  "All right," he said. "Of course if you'd wanted it!" He took two largecigars from the row in his breast pocket and held one out, but WillyCameron refused it and got his pipe.

  "Well?" he said.

  Mr. Hendrick's face became serious and very thoughtful. "I don't knowthat I have ever made it clear to you, Cameron," he said, "but I've gota peculiar feeling for this city. I like it, the way some people liketheir families. It's--well, it's home to me, for one thing. I like togo out in the evenings and walk around, and I say to myself: 'This is mytown.' And we, it and me, are sending stuff all over the world. I liketo think that somewhere, maybe in China, they are riding on our railsand fighting with guns made from our steel. Maybe you don't understandthat."

  "I think I do."

  "Well, that's the way I feel about it, anyhow. And this Bolshevist stuffgets under my skin. I've got a home and a family here. I started in towork when I was thirteen, and all I've got I've made and saved righthere. It isn't much, but it's mine."

  Willy Cameron was lighting his pipe. He nodded. Mr. Hendricks bentforward and pointed a finger at him.

  "And to govern this city, who do you think the labor element is goingto put up and probably elect? We're an industrial city, son, with abig labor vote, and if it stands together--they're being swindled intoputting up as an honest candidate one of the dirtiest radicals in thecountry. That man Akers."

  He got up and closed the door.

  "I don't want Edith to hear me," he said. "He's a friend of hers. Buthe's a bad actor, son. He's wrong with women, for one thing, and when Ithink that all he's got to oppose him is Howard Cardew--" Mr. Hendricksgot up, and took a nervous turn about the room.

  "Maybe you know that Cardew has a daughter?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, I hear a good many things, one way and another, and my wife likesa bit of gossip. She knows them both by sight, and she ran into them oneday in the tea room of the Saint Elmo, sitting in a corner, and the girlhad her back to the room. I don't like the look of that, Cameron."

  Willy Cameron got up and closed the window. He stood there, with hisback to the light, for a full minute. Then:

  "I think there must be some mistake about that, Mr. Hendricks. I havemet her. She isn't the sort of girl who would do clandestine things."

  Mr. Hendricks looked up quickly. He had made it his business to studymen, and there was something in Willy Cameron's voice that caught hisattention, and turned his shrewd mind to speculation.

  "Maybe," he conceded. "Of course, anything a Cardew does is likely tobe magnified in this town. If she's as keen as the men in her family,she'll get wise to him pretty soon." Willy Cameron came back then, butMr. Hendricks kept his eyes on the tip of his cigar.

  "We've got to lick Cardew," he said, "but I'm cursed if I want to do itwith Akers."

  When there was no comment, he looked up. Yes, the boy had had a blow.Mr. Hendricks was sorry. If that was the way the wind blew it washopeless. It was more than that; it was tragic.

  "Sorry I said anything, Cameron. Didn't know you knew her."

  "That's all right. Of course I don't like to think she is being talkedabout."

  "The Cardews are always being talked about. You couldn't drop her ahint, I suppose?"

  "She knows what I think about Louis Akers."

  He made a violent effort and pulled himself together. "So it is Akersand Howard Cardew, and one's a knave and one's a poor bet."

  "Right," said Mr. Hendricks. "And one's Bolshevist, if I know anything,and the other is capital, and has about as much chance as a rich man toget through the eye of a needle."

  Which was slightly mixed, owing to a repressed excitement now makingitself evident in Mr. Hendricks's voice.

  "Why not run an independent candidate?" Willy Cameron asked quietly."I've been shouting about the plain people. Why shouldn't they elect amayor? There is a lot of them."

  "That's the talk," said Mr. Hendricks, letting his excitement have fullsway. "They could. They could run this town and run it right, if they'dtake the trouble. Now look here, son, I don't usually talk about myself,but--I'm honest. I don't say I wouldn't get off a street-car withoutpaying my fare if the conductor didn't lift it! But I'm honest. I don'tlie. I keep my word. And I live clean--which you can't say for LouAkers. Why shouldn't I run on an independent ticket? I mightn't beelected, but I'd make a damned good try."

  He stood up, and Willy Cameron rose also and held out his hand.

  "I don't know that my opinion is of any value, Mr. Hendricks. But I hopeyou get it, and I think you have a good chance. If I can do anything--"

  "Do anything! What do you suppose I came here for? You're going to electme. You're going to make speeches and kiss babies, and tell the ordinaryfolks they're worth something after all. You got me started on thisthing, and now you've got to help me out."

  The future maker of mayors here stepped back in his amazement, and Jinxemitted a piercing howl. When peace was restored the F.M. of M. had gothis breath, and he said:

  "I couldn't remember my own name before an audience, Mr. Hendricks."

  "You're fluent enough in that back room of yours."

  "That's different."

  "The people we're going after don't want oratory. They want good,straight talk, and a fellow behind it who doesn't believe the country'sheaded straight for perdition. We've had enough calamity bowlers. You'vegot the way out. The plain people. The hope of the nation. And, by God,you love your country, and not for what you can get out of it. That's athing a fellow's got to have inside him. He can't pretend it and get itover."

  In the end the F.M. of M. capitulated.

  It was late when Mr. Hendricks left. He went away with all the oldenvelopes in his pockets covered with memoranda.

  "Just wait a minute, son," he would say. "I've got to make some speechesmysel
f. Repeat that, now. 'Sins of omission are as great, even greaterthan sins of commission. The lethargic citizen throws open the gates torevolution.' How do you spell 'lethargic'?"

  But it was not Hendricks and his campaign that kept the F.M. of M. awakeuntil dawn. He sat in front of his soft coal fire, and when it diedto gray-white ash he still sat there, unconscious of the chill of thespring night. Mostly he thought of Lily, and of Louis Akers, big andhandsome, of his insolent eyes and his self-indulgent mouth. Into thatcurious whirlpool that is the mind came now and then other visions: Hismother asleep in her chair; the men in the War Department who hadturned him down; a girl at home who had loved him, and made him feeldesperately unhappy because he could not love her in return. Was lovealways like that? If it was what He intended, why was it so oftenwithout reciprocation?

  He took to walking about the room, according to his old habit, andobediently Jinx followed him.

  It was four by his alarm clock when Edith knocked at his door. She wasin a wrapper flung over her nightgown, and with her hair flying looseshe looked childish and very small.

  "I wish you would go to bed," she said, rather petulantly. "Are yousick, or anything?"

  "I was thinking, Edith. I'm sorry. I'll go at once. Why aren't youasleep?"

  "I don't sleep much lately." Their voices were cautious. "I never go tosleep until you're settled down, anyhow."

  "Why not? Am I noisy?"

  "It's not that."

  She went away, a drooping, listless figure that climbed the stairsslowly and left him in the doorway, puzzled and uncomfortable.

  At six that morning Dan, tip-toeing downstairs to warm his left-overcoffee and get his own breakfast, heard a voice from Willy Cameron'sroom, and opened the door. Willy Cameron was sitting up in bed withhis eyes closed and his arms extended, and was concluding a speech to adream audience in deep and oratorical tones.

  "By God, it is time the plain people know their power."

  Dan grinned, and, his ideas of humor being rather primitive, he edgedhis way into the room and filled the orator's sponge with icy water fromthe pitcher.

  "All right, old top," he said, "but it is also time the plain people gotup."

  Then he flung the sponge and departed with extreme expedition.