Part 30 (1/2)
”Heap o' steam for the size of the load and weight of your biler, Tom.
Better hoop 'em up!”
And with a laugh, shaking his little round stomach, he toddled out of the room into the corridor, and began whistling the tune that tells what will happen when Johnny comes marching home.
So the Doctor whistled about his afternoon's work and did not realize that the whistling was a form of nervousness.
That evening the Doctor and Laura began to read their Browning where they had left off the night before. They were in the midst of ”Paracelsus,” when the father looked up and said:
”Laura, you know I'm going to fight Tom Van Dorn for another term as district judge?”
”Why, of course you should, father--I didn't expect he'd ask it again!”
said the daughter.
”We had a row this afternoon--a miserable, bickering row. He got on his hind legs and snarled and snapped at me, and made me mad, I guess. So I got to thinking why I should be against him, and it came to me that a man who had violated the decencies as he has and whose decisions for the old spider have been so raw, shouldn't be judge in this district. Lord, what will young fellows think if we stand for him! So I have kind of worked myself up,” the Doctor smiled deprecatingly, ”to a place where I seem to have a sacred duty in the matter of licking him for the sake of general decency. Anyway,” he concluded in his high falsetto, ”old Browning's diver, here, fits me. He goes down a pauper and, with his pearl, comes up a prince.”
”Festus,” cried the Doctor, waving the book, ”I plunge.”
Thus through the pique of pride, and through the sting of scorn, a force of righteousness came into the world of Harvey. For our miracles of human progress are not always done with prunes and prisms. The truth does not come to men always, nor even, generally, as they are gazing in joyful admiration at the good and the beautiful. Sudden conversions of men to good causes are rare, and often unstable and sometimes worthless.
The good Lord would find much of the best work of the world undone if he waited until men guided by purely altruistic motives and inspired by new impulses to righteousness, did it. The world's work is done by ladies and gentlemen who, for the most part, are largely clay, working in the clay, for clay rewards, with just enough of the divine impulse moving them to keep their faces turned forward and not back.
Public opinion in the Amen Corner, voiced by Mr. Brotherton, spoke for Harvey and said: ”Well, say--what do you think of Old Linen Pants bucking the whole courthouse just to get the hide of Judge Van Dora? Did you ever see such a thing in your whole life?” emphasizing the word ”whole” with fine effect.
Mr. Brotherton sat at his desk in the rear of his store, contemplating the splendor of his possessions. Gradually the rear of the shop had been creeping toward the alley. It was filled with books, stationery, cigars and smoker's supplies. The cigars and smoker's supplies were crowded to a little alcove near the Amen Corner, and the books--school books, pirated editions of the standard authors, fancy editions of the cla.s.sics, new books copyrighted and gorgeously bound in the fas.h.i.+on of the hour, were displayed prominently. Great posters adorned the vacant s.p.a.ces on the walls, and posters and enlarged magazine covers adorned the bulletin boards in front of the store. Piles of magazines towered on the front counters--and upon the whole, Mr. Brotherton's place presented a fairly correct imitation of the literary tendencies of the period in America just before the Spanish war.
Amos Adams came in, with his old body bent, his hands behind him, his shapeless coat hanging loosely from his stooped shoulders, his little tri-colored b.u.t.ton of the Loyal Legion in his coat lapel, being the only speck of color in his graying figure. He peered at Mr. Brotherton over his spectacles and said: ”George--I'd like to look at Emerson's addresses--the Phi Beta Kappa Address particularly.” He nosed up to the shelves and went peering along the books in sets. ”Help yourself, Dad, help yourself--Glad you like Emerson--elegant piece of goods; wrapped one up last week and took it home myself--elegant piece of goods.”
”Yes,” mused the reader, ”here is what I want--I had a talk with Emerson last night. He's against the war; not that he is for Spain, of course, but Huxley,” added Amos, as he turned the pages of his book, ”rather thinks we should fight--believes war lies along the path of greatest resistance, and will lead to our greater destiny sooner.” The old man sighed, and continued: ”Poor Lincoln--I couldn't get him last night: they say he and Garrison were having a great row about the situation.”
The elder stroked his ragged beard meditatively. Finally he said: ”George--did you ever hear our Kenyon play?”
The big man nodded and went on with his work. ”Well, sir,” the elder reflected: ”Now, it's queer about Kenyon. He's getting to be a wonder. I don't know--it all puzzles me.” He rose, put back the book on its shelf.
”Sometimes I believe I'm a fool--and sometimes things like this bother me. They say they are training Kenyon--on the other side! Of course he just has what music Laura and Mrs. Nesbit could give him; yet the other day, he got hold of a piano score of Schubert's Symphony in B flat and while he can't play it, he just sits and cries over it--it means so much to the little fellow.”
The gray head wagged and the clear, old, blue eyes looked out through the steel-rimmed gla.s.ses and he sighed: ”He is going ahead, making up the most wonderful music--it seems to me, and writing it down when he can't play it--writing the whole score for it--and they tell me--” he explained deprecatingly, ”my friends on the other side, that the child will make a name for himself.” He paused and asked: ”George--you're a hardheaded man--what do you think of it? You don't think I'm crazy, do you, George?”
The younger man glanced up, caught the clear, kindly eye of Amos Adams looking questioningly down.
”Dad,” said Mr. Brotherton, hammering his fat fist on the desk, ”'there's more things in Heaven and earth than are dreamed of in your philosophy, Horatio'--well say, man--that's Shakespeare. We sell more Shakespeares than all the other poets combined. Fine business, this Shakespeare. And when a man holds the lead in the trade as this Shakespeare has done ever since I went into the Red Line poets back in the eighties--I'm pretty nearly going to stay by him. And when he says, 'Don't be too d.a.m.n sure you know it all--' or words to that effect--and holds the trade saying it--well, say, man--your spook friends are all right with me, only say,” Mr. Brotherton shuddered, ”I'd die if one came gliding up to me and asked for a chew of my eating tobacco--the way they do with you!”
”Well,” smiled Amos Adams, ”much obliged to you, George--I just wanted your ideas. Laura Van Dorn has sent Kenyon's last piece back to Boston to see if by any chance he couldn't unconsciously have taken it from something or some one. She says it's wonderful--but, of course,” the old man scratched his chin, ”Laura and Bedelia Nesbit are just as likely to be fooled in music as I am with my controls.” Then the subject drifted into politics--the local politics of the town, the Van Dorn-Nesbit contest.
And at the end of their discussion Amos rubbed his bony, lean, hard, old hands, and looked away through the books and the brick wall and the whole row of buildings before him into the future and smiled. ”I wonder--I wonder if the country ever will come to see the economic and social and political meaning of this politics that we have now--this politics that the poor man gets through a beer keg the night before election, and that the rich man buys with his 'barl.'”
He shook his head. ”You'll see it--you and Grant--but it will be long after my time.” Amos lifted up his old face and cried: ”I know there is another day coming--a better day. For this one is unworthy of us. We are better than this--at heart! We have in us the blood of the fathers, and their high visions too. And they did not put their lives into this nation for this--for this cruel tangle of injustice that we show the world to-day. Some day--some day,” Amos Adams lifted up his face and cried: ”I don't know! May be my guides are wrong but my own heart tells me that some day we shall cease feeding with the swine and return to the house of our father! For we are of royal blood, George--of royal blood!”
”Why, h.e.l.lo, Morty,” cut in Mr. Brotherton. ”Come right in and listen to the seer--genuine Hebrew prophet here--got a familiar spirit, and says Babylon is falling.”
”Well, Uncle Amos,” said Morty Sands, ”let her fall!” Old Amos smiled and after Morty had turned the talk from falling Babylon to Laura Van Dorn's kindergarten, Amos being reminded by Laura of Kenyon and his music, unfolded his theory of the occult source of the child's musical talent, and invited George and Morty to church to hear Kenyon play.