Part 47 (1/2)
she said, looking the man in the eyes with a hard, mean, significant stare, ”you let the boy alone--do you understand? Do what you please with Grant or Jasper or the old man; but Kenyon--hands off!”
She rose, slipped quickly to the stairway, and as she ran up she called, ”Good night, dawling.” Before he was on his feet he heard the lock click in her door, and with a horrible doubt, an impotent rage, and a mantling shame stifling him, he went upstairs and from her distant room she heard the bolt click in the door of his room. And behind the bolted doors stood two ghosts--the ghosts of rejected children, calling across the years, while the smudge of the extinguished torch of life choked two angry hearts.
CHAPTER x.x.xVIII
GRANT ADAMS VISITS THE SONS OF ESAU
”My dear,” quoth the Doctor to his daughter as he sat poking his feet with his cane in her little office at the Kindergarten, after they had discussed Lila's adventure of the night before, ”I saw Tom up town this morning and he didn't seem to be exactly happy. I says, 'Tom, I hear you beat G.o.d at his own game last night!' and,” the Doctor chuckled, ”Laura, do you know, he wouldn't speak to me!” As he laughed, the daughter interrupted:
”Why, father--that was mean--”
”Of course it was mean. Why--considering everything, I'd lick a man if he'd talk that mean to me. But my Eenjiany devil kind of got control of my forbearing Christian spirit and I cut loose.”
The daughter smiled, then she sighed, and asked: ”Father--tell me, why did that woman object to Tom's use of Kenyon in the riot last night?”
Doctor Nesbit opened his mouth as if to answer her. Then he smiled and said, ”Don't ask me, child. She's a bad egg!”
”Lila says,” continued the daughter, ”that Margaret appears at every public place where Kenyon plays. She seems eager to talk to him about his accomplishments, and has a sort of fascinated interest in whatever he does, as nearly as I can understand it? Why, father? What do you suppose it is? I asked Grant, who was here this morning with a Croatian baby whose mother is in the gla.s.s works, and Grant only shook his head.”
The father looked at his daughter over his gla.s.ses and asked:
”Croatians, eh? That's what the new colony is down in Magnus. Well, we've got Letts and Lithuanians and why not Croatians? What a mix we have here in the Valley! I wouldn't wash 'em for 'em!”
”Well, father, I would. And when you get the dirt off they're mostly just folks--just Indiany, as you call it. They all take my flower seeds.
And they all love bright colors in their windows. And they are spreading the glow of blooms across the district, just as well as the Germans and the French and the Belgians and the Irish. And they are here for exactly the same thing which we are here for, father. We're all in the same game.”
He looked at her blankly, and ventured, ”Money?”
”No--you stupid. You know better. It's children. They're here for their children--to lift their children out of poverty. It's the children who carry the banner of civilization, the hope of progress, the real sunrise. These people are all confused and more or less dumb and loggy about everything else in life but this one thing; they all hope greatly for their children. For their children they joyfully endure the hards.h.i.+ps of poverty; the injustice of it; to live here in these conditions that seem to us awful, and to work terrible hours that their children may rise out of the worse condition that they left in Europe.
And they have left Europe, father, spiritually as well as physically.
Here they are reborn into America. The first generation may seem foreign, may hold foreign ways--on the outside. But these American born boys and girls, they are American--as much as we are, with all their foreign names. They are of our spirit. When America calls they will hear and follow. Whatever blood they will shed will be real American blood, because as children, born under the same aspiring genius for freedom under which we were born, as children they became Americans. Oh, father, it's for the children that these people here in Harvey--these exploited people everywhere in this country,--plant the flowers and brighten up their homes. It's for their children that they are going with Grant to organize for better things. The fire of life runs ahead of us in hope for our children, and if we haven't children or the love of them in our hearts--why, father, that's what's eating Tom's heart out, and blasting this miserable woman's life! Grant said to-day: 'This baby here symbolizes all that I stand for, all that I hope to do, all that the race dreams!”
The Doctor had lighted his pipe, and was puffing meditatively. He liked to hear his daughter talk. He took little stock in what she said. But when she asked him for help--he gave it to her unstinted, but often with a large, tolerant disbelief in the wisdom of her request. As she paused he turned to her quickly, ”Laura--tell me, what do you make out of Grant?”
He eyed her sharply as she replied: ”Father, Grant is a lonely soul without chick or child, and I'm sorry for him. He goes--”
”Well, now, Laura,” piped the little man, ”don't be too sorry. Sorrow is a dangerous emotion.”
The daughter turned her face to her father frankly and said: ”I realize that, father. Don't concern yourself about that. But I see Grant some way, eating the locusts and wild honey in the wilderness, calling out to a stiff-necked generation to repent. His eyes are focussed on to-morrow.
He expects an immediate millennium. But he is at least looking forward, not back. And the world back of us is so full of change, that I am sure the world before us also must be full of change, and maybe sometime we shall arrive at Grant's goal. He's not working for himself, either in fame or in power, or in any personal thing. He's just following the light as it is given him to see it, here among the poor.”
The daughter lifted a face full of enthusiasm to her father. He puffed in silence. ”Well, my dear, that's a fine speech. But when I asked you about Grant I was rising to a sort of question of personal privilege. I thought perhaps I would mix around at his meeting to-night! If you think I should, just kind of stand around to give him countenance--and,” he chuckled and squeaked: ”To bundle up a few votes!”
”Do, father--do--you must!”
”Well,” squeaked the little voice, ”so long as I must I'm glad to know that Tom made it easy for me, by turning all of Harvey and the Valley over to Grant at the riot last night. Why, if Tom tried to stop Grant's meeting to-night Market Street itself would mob Tom--mob the very Temple of Love.” The Doctor chuckled and returned to his own affairs. ”Being on the winning side isn't really important. But it's like carrying a potato in your pocket for rheumatism: it gives a feller confidence. And after all, the devil's rich and G.o.d's poor have all got votes. And votes count!” He grinned and revived his pipe.
He was about to speak again when Laura interrupted him, ”Oh, father--they're not G.o.d's poor, whose ever they are. Don't say that.