Part 42 (1/2)

”I don't want to, Edith. You wait and do it yourself.”

But Edith made an insistent gesture, and Ellen, flushed and wretched, had to tell. He made no sign, but sat stroking Edith's hand, only he stared rather fixedly at the wall, conscious that the girl's eyes were watching him for a single gesture of surprise or anger. He felt no anger, only a great perplexity and sadness, an older-brother grief.

”I'm sorry, little sister,” he said, and did the kindest thing he could think of, bent over and kissed her on the forehead. ”Of course I know how you feel, but it is a big thing to bear a child, isn't it? It is the only miracle we have these days.”

”A child with no father,” said Ellen, stonily.

”Even then,” he persisted, ”it's a big thing. We would have this one come under happier circ.u.mstances if we could, but we will welcome and take care of it, anyhow. A child's a child, and mighty valuable. And,”

he added--”I appreciate your wanting me to know, Edith.”

He stayed a little while after that, but he read aloud, choosing a humorous story and laughing very hard at all the proper places. In the end he brought a faint smile to Edith's blistered lips, and a small lift to the cloud that hung over her now, day and night.

He made a speech that night, and into it he put all of his aching, anxious soul; Edith and Dan and Lily were behind it. Akers and Doyle.

It was at a meeting in the hall over the city market, and the audience a new men's non-partisan a.s.sociation.

”Sometimes,” he said, ”I am asked what it is that we want, we men who are standing behind Hendricks as an independent candidate.” He was supposed to bring Mr. Hendricks' name in as often as possible. ”I answer that we want honest government, law and order, an end to this conviction that the country is owned by the unions and the capitalists, a fair deal for the plain people, which is you and I, my friends. But I answer still further, we want one thing more, a greater thing, and that thing we shall have. All through this great country to-night are groups of men hoping and planning for an incredible thing. They are not great in numbers; they are, however, organized, competent, intelligent and deadly. They plow the land with discord to sow the seeds of sedition.

And the thing they want is civil war.

”And against them, what? The people like you and me; the men with homes they love; the men with little businesses they have fought and labored to secure; the clerks; the preachers; the doctors, the honest laborers, the G.o.d-fearing rich. I tell you, we are the people, and it is time we knew our power.

”And this is the thing we want, we the people; the greater thing, the thing we shall have; that this government, this country which we love, which has three times been saved at such cost of blood, shall survive.”

It was after that speech that he met Pink Denslow for the first time.

A square, solidly built young man edged his way through the crowd, and shook hands with him.

”Name's Denslow,” said Pink. ”Liked what you said. Have you time to run over to my club with me and have a high-ball and a talk?”

”I've got all the rest of the night.”

”Right-o!” said Pink, who had brought back a phrase or two from the British.

It was not until they were in the car that Pink said:

”I think you're a friend of Miss Cardew's, aren't you?”

”I know Miss Cardew,” said w.i.l.l.y Cameron, guardedly. And they were both rather silent for a time.

That night proved to be a significant one for them both, as it happened. They struck up a curious sort of friends.h.i.+p, based on a humble admiration on Pink's part, and with w.i.l.l.y Cameron on sheer hunger for the society of his kind. He had been suffering a real mental starvation.

He had been constantly giving out and getting nothing in return.

Pink developed a habit of dropping into the pharmacy when he happened to be nearby. He was rather wistfully envious of that year in the camp, when Lily Cardew and Cameron had been together, and at first it was the bond of Lily that sent him to the shop. In the beginning the shop irritated him, because it seemed an incongruous background for the fiery young orator. But later on he joined the small open forum in the back room, and perhaps for the first time in his idle years he began to think. He had made the sacrifice of his luxurious young life to go to war, had slept in mud and risked his body and been hungry and cold and often frightfully homesick. And now it appeared that a lot of madmen were going to try to undo all that he had helped to do. He was surprised and highly indignant. Even a handful of agitators, it seemed, could do incredible harm.

One night he and w.i.l.l.y Cameron slipped into a meeting of a Russian Society, wearing old clothes, which with w.i.l.l.y was not difficult, and shuffling up dirty stairs without molestation. They came away thoughtful.

”Looks like it's more than talk,” Pink said, after a time.

”They're not dangerous,” w.i.l.l.y Cameron said. ”That's talk. But it shows a state of mind. The real incendiaries don't show their hand like that.”

”You think it's real, then?”