Part 40 (2/2)

Now perhaps it was not this article that inspired the Peach Blow Philosopher. It may have been another item in the same paper hidden away in the want column.

”Wanted--All the sewing and mending, quilt patching, sheet making, or other plain sewing that the good women of Harvey have to give out. I know certain worthy women with families, who need this work. Also wood-sawing orders promptly filled by competent men out of work. I will bring work and the workers together. H. Fenn, care Brotherton Book & Stationery Co., 1127 Market Street.”

Or if it was not that item, perhaps it was this one from the South Harvey _Derrick_ of January 7, that called forth the Peach Blow Philosopher's remarks on Heaven:

”Mrs. Violet Hogan and family have rented the rooms adjoining Mrs. Van Dorn's kindergarten. Mrs. Hogan has made arrangements to provide ladies of South Harvey and the Valley in general with plain sewing by the piece. A day nursery for children has been fitted up by our genial George Brotherton, former mayor of Harvey, where mothers sewing may leave their children in an adjoining room.”

Now the Heaven of the Peach Blow Philosopher is not gained at one bound.

Even the painted, canvas Heaven of Thomas Van Dorn cost him something--to be exact, $100, which he took in ”stock” of the _Times_ company--which always had stock for sale, issued by a Price & Chanler Gordon job press whenever it was required. And the negotiations for the Judge's painted Heaven made by his partner, Mr.

Joseph Calvin, of the renewed and reunited firm of Van Dorn & Calvin, were not without their painful moments. As, for instance, when the editor of the _Times_ complained bitterly at having it agreed that he would have to mention in the article the Judge's ”beautiful wife,”

specifically and in terms, the editor was for raising the price to $150, by reason of the laughing stock it would make of the paper, but compromised upon the promise of legal notices from the firm amounting to $100 within the following six months. Also there was a hitch in the negotiations hereinbefore mentioned when the _Times_ was required to refer to the National Bar a.s.sociation meeting at all. For it was notorious that the Judge's flouris.h.i.+ng signature with ”and wife” had been photographed upon the register of a New York Hotel when he attended that meeting, whereas every one knew that Mrs. Van Dorn was in Europe that summer, and the photograph of the Judge's beautifully flouris.h.i.+ng signature aforesaid was one of the things that persuaded the Judge to enter the active practice and leave the shades and solitudes of the bench for more strenuous affairs. To allude to the Judge's wife, and to mention the National Bar a.s.sociation in the same article, struck the editor of the _Times_ as so inauspicious that it required considerable persuasion on the part of the diplomatic Mr. Calvin, to arrange the matter.

So the Judge's Heaven bellied on its canvas, full of vain east wind, and fooled no one--not even the Judge, least of all his beautiful wife, who, knowing of the Bar a.s.sociation incident, laughed a ribald laugh.

Moreover, having abandoned mental healing for the Episcopalian faith and having killed her mental healing dog with caramels and finding surcease in a white poodle, she gave herself over to a riot of earth thoughts--together with language thereunto appertaining of so plain a texture that the Judge all but limped in his strut for several hours.

But when the strut did come back, and the mocking echoes of the strident tones of ”his beautiful wife” were stilled by several rounds of Scotch whisky at the Club, the Judge went forth into the town, waving his hands right and left, bowing punctiliously to women, and spending an hour in police court getting out of trouble some of his gambler friends who had supported him in politics.

He told every one that it was good to be off the bench and to be ”plain Tom Van Dorn” again, and he shook hands up and down Market Street. And as ”plain Tom Van Dorn” he sat down in the shop of the Paris Millinery Company, Mrs. Herd.i.c.ker, Prop., and talked to the amiable Prop. for half an hour--casting sly glances at the handsome Miss Morton, who got behind him and made faces over his back for Mrs. Herd.i.c.ker's edification.

But as Mrs. Herd.i.c.ker, Prop., made it a point--and kept it--never to talk against the cash drawer, ”plain Tom Van Dorn” didn't learn the truth from her. So he pranced up and down before his scenic representation of Heaven in the _Times_, and did not know that the whole town knew that his stage Heaven was the masque for as hot and cozy a little h.e.l.l as any respectable gentleman of middle years could endure.

However clear he made it to the public, that he and Mrs. Van Dorn were pa.s.sionately fond of each other; however evident he intended it to be that he was more than satisfied with the bargain that he had made when he took her, and put away his first wife; however strongly he played the card of the gallant husband and ”dearied” her, and however she smirked at him and ”dawlinged” him in public when the town was looking, every one knew the truth.

”We may,” says the Peach Blow Philosopher in one of his dissertations on the Illusion of Time, ”counterfeit everything in this world--but sincerity.” So Judge Thomas Van Dorn--”plain Tom Van Dorn,” went along Market Street, and through the world, handing out his leaden gratuities.

But people felt how greasy they were, how heavy they were, how soft they were; and threw them aside, and sneered.

As for the Heaven which the Peach Blow Philosopher may have found for Henry Fenn and Violet Hogan, it was a different affair, but of slow and uncertain growth. Henry Fenn went into the sewer gang the day after he found Violet in the railroad yards, and for two weeks he worked ten hours a day with the negroes and Mexicans in the ditch. It took him a month to get enough money ahead to pay for a room. Leaving the sewer gang, he was made timekeeper on a small paving contract. But every day he sent through the mails to Violet enough to pay her rent and feed the children--a little sum, but all he could spare. He did not see her. He did not write to her. He only knew that the money he was making was keeping her out of the night, so he bent to his work with a will.

And at night,--it was not easy for Violet to stay in the house. She needed a thousand little things--or thought she did. And there was the old track and the easy money. But she knew what the pittance that came from Henry Fenn meant to him, so in pride and in shame one night she turned back home when she had slipped clear to the corner of the street with her paint on. When she got home she threw herself upon the bed and wept like a child in anguish. But the next night she did not even touch the rouge pot, and avoided it as though it were a poison. Her idea was the sewing room. She wrote it all out, in her stylish, angular hand to Mr. Brotherton, told him what it would cost, and how she believed she could make expenses for herself and help a number of other women who, like her, were tempted to go the wrong road. She even sent him five spoons--the last relic of the old Mauling decency, five silver spoons dented with the tooth marks of the Mauling children, five spoons done up in pink tissue that she had always told little Ouida Hogan should come to her some day--she sent those spoons to Mr. Brotherton to sell to make the start toward the sewing room.

But Mr. Brotherton took the spoons to Mr. Ira Dooley's home of the fine arts and crafts, and then and there, mounting a lookout stand, addressed the crowd through the smoke in simple but effective language, showing the spoons, telling the boys at the gaming tables that they all knew Denny Hogan's wife and how about her; that she wanted to get in right; that the spoons were sent to him to sell to the highest and best bidder for cash in hand. He also said that chips would count at the market price, and lo! he got a hat full of rattly red and white and blue chips and jingly silver dollars and a wad of whispering five-dollar bills big enough to cork a cannon. He went back to Harvey, spoons and all, considering deeply certain statements that Grant Adams had made about the presence of the holy ghost in every human heart.

As for the bright particular Heaven of Mr. Fenn, as hereinbefore possibly hinted at by the Peach Blow Philosopher, these are its specifications:

_Item One._ Job as storekeeper at the railroad roundhouse, from which by specific order of the master mechanic two hours a day are granted to Mr. Fenn, to take his hat in his hand and go marching over the town, knocking at doors and soliciting sewing for women, and wood-sawing or yard or furnace work for men; but

_Item Two._ Being a generous man, Mr. Fenn is up before eight for an hour of his work, and stays at it until seven, and thereby gets in two or three extra hours on the job, and feels

_Item Three._ That he is doing something worth while;

_Item Four._ Upon the first of the month he has nothing;

_Item Five._ Balancing his books at the last of the month he has nothing,

_Item Six._ And having no debt he is happy. But speaking of debt, there is

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