Part 50 (2/2)
The day had pa.s.sed in the elder's life when he could rise to the younger man's emotions. He looked curiously at Grant and said softly:
”Oh, to be young--to be young--to be young!” He rose, touched the strong arm beside him. ”'And the young men shall see visions.' To be young--just to be young! But 'the old men shall dream dreams.' Well, Grant, they are unimportant--not entirely pleasant. We young men of the seventies had a great material vision. The dream of an empire here in the West. It has come true--increased one hundred fold. Yet it is not much of a dream.”
He let the arm drop and began drumming on the truck as he concluded: ”But it's all I have--all the dream I have now. 'All of which I saw, and part of which I was,' yet,” he mused, ”perhaps it will be used as a foundation upon which something real and beautiful will be builded.”
Far away the headlight of their approaching train twinkled upon the prairie horizon. The two men watched it glow into fire and come upon them. And without resuming their talk, each went his own wide, weary way in the world as they lay in adjoining berths on the speeding train.
At the general election the Doctor's law was upheld by a majority of the votes in the State, but the Doctor himself was defeated for reelection to the State Senate in his own district. Grant Adams waited, intently and with fine faith, for this law to bring in the millennium. But the Doctor had no millennial faith.
He came down town the morning after his defeat, gay and unruffled. He went toddling into the stores and offices of Market Street, clicking his cane busily, thanking his friends and joking with his foes. But he chirruped to Henry Fenn and Kyle Perry whom he found in the Serenity at the close of the day: ”Well, gentlemen, I've seen 'em all! I've taken my medicine like a little man; but I won't lick the spoon. I sha'n't go and see Dan and Tom. I'm willing to go as far as any man in the forgiving and forgetting business, but the Lord himself hasn't quit on them. Look at 'em. The devil's mortgage is recorded all over their faces and he's getting about ready to foreclose on old Dan! And every time Dan hears poor Morty cough, the devil collects his compound interest. Poor, dear, gay Morty--if he could only put up a fight!”
But he could not put up a fight and his temperature rose in the afternoon and he could not meet with his gymnasium cla.s.s in South Harvey in the evening, but sent a trainer instead. So often weeks pa.s.sed during which Laura Van Dorn did not see Morty and the daily boxes of flowers that came punctiliously with his cards to the kindergarten and to Violet Hogan's day nursery, were their only reminders of the sorry, lonely, footless struggle Morty was making.
It was inevitable that the lives of Violet Hogan and Laura Van Dorn in South Harvey should meet and merge. And when they met and merged, Violet Hogan found herself devoting but a few hours a day to her day nursery, while she worked six long, happy hours as a stenographer for Grant Adams in his office at the Vanderbilt House. For, after all, it was as a stenographer that she remembered herself in the grandeur and the glory of her past. So Henry Fenn and Laura Van Dorn carried on the work that Violet began, and for them souls and flowers and happiness bloomed over the Valley in the dark, unwholesome places which death had all but taken for his own.
It was that spring when Dr. Nesbit went to the capital and took his last fling at State politics. For two months he had deadlocked his party caucus in the election of a United States Senator with hardly more than a dozen legislative votes. And he was going out of his dictators.h.i.+p in a golden glow of glory.
And this was the beginning of the golden age for Captain Morton. The Morton-Perry Axle Works were thriving. Three eight-hour s.h.i.+fts kept the little plant booming, and by agreement with the directors of the Independent mine, Nathan Perry spent five hours a day in the works. He and the Captain, and the youngest Miss Morton, who was keeping books, believed that it would go over the line from loss to profit before gra.s.s came. The Captain hovered about the plant like an earth-bound spirit day and night, interrupting the work of the men, disorganizing the system that Nathan had installed, and persuading himself that but for him the furnaces would go dead and the works shut down.
It was one beautiful day in late March, after the November election wherein the Doctor's law had won and the Doctor himself had lost, that Grant Adams was in Harvey figuring with Mr. Brotherton on supplies for his office. Captain Morton came tramping down the clouds before him as he swept into the Serenity and jabbed a spike through the wheels of commerce with the remark: ”Well, George--what do you think of my regalia--eh?”
Mr. Brotherton and Grant looked up from their work. They beheld the Captain arrayed in a dazzling light gray spring suit--an exceedingly light gray suit, with a hat of the same color and gloves and shoe spats to match, with a red tie so red that it all but crackled. ”First profits of the business. We got over the line yesterday noon, and I had a thousand to go on, and this morning I just went on this spree--what say?”
”Well, Cap, when Morty Sands sees you he will die of envy. You're certainly the lily of the Valley and the bright and morning star--the fairest of ten thousand to my soul! Grant,” said Brotherton as he turned to his customer, ”behold the plute!”
The Captain stood grinning in pride as the men looked him over.
”'Y gory, boys, you'd be surprised the way that Household Horse has. .h.i.t the trade. Orders coming in from automobile makers, and last week we decided to give up making the little power saver and make the whole rear axle. We're going to call it the Morton-Perry Axle, and put in a big plant, and I was telling Ruthy this morning, I says, 'Ruth,' says I, 'if we make the axle business go, I'll just telephone down to Wright & Perry and have them send you out something n.o.bby in husbands, and, 'y gory, a nice thousand-mile wedding trip and maybe your pa will go along for company--what say?'”
He was an odd figure in his clothes--for they were ready-made--made for the figure of youth, and although he had been in them but a few hours, the padding was bulging at the wrong places; and they were wrinkled where they should be tight. His bony old figure stuck out at the knees, and the shoulders and elbows, and the high collar would not fit his skinny neck. But he was happy, and fancied he looked like the pictures of college boys in the back of magazines. So he answered Mr.
Brotherton's question about the opinion of the younger daughter as to the clothes by a profound wink.
”Scared--scared plumb stiff--what say? I caught Marthy nodding at Ruth and Ruthy looking hard at Marthy, and then both of 'em went to the kitchen to talk over calling up Emmy and putting out fly poison for the women that are lying in wait for their pa. Scared--why, scared's no name for it--what say?”
”Well, Captain,” answered Mr. Brotherton, ”you are certainly voluptuous enough in your new stage setting to have your picture on a cigar box as a Cuban beauty or a Spanish senorita.”
The Captain was turning about, trying to see how the coat set in the back and at the same time watching the hang of the trousers. Evidently he was satisfied with it. For he said: ”Well--guess I'll be going. I'll just mosey down to Mrs. Herd.i.c.ker's to give Emmy and Marthy and Ruthy something to keep 'em from thinking of their real troubles--eh?” And with a flourish he was gone.
When Grant's order was filled, he said, ”Violet will call for this, George; I have some other matters to attend to.”
As he a.s.sembled the goods for the order, Mr. Brotherton called out, ”Well, how is Violet, anyway?” Grant smiled. ”Violet is doing well. She is blooming over again, and when she found herself before a typewriter--it really seemed to take the curve out of her back. Henry declares that the typewriter put ribbon in her hair. Laura Van Dorn, I believe, is responsible for Violet's s.h.i.+rt waists. Henry Fenn comes to the office twice a day, to make reports on the sewing business. But what he's really doing, George, is to let her smell his breath to prove that he's sober, and so she runs the two jobs at once. Have you seen Henry recently?”
”Well,” replied Brotherton, ”he was in a month or so ago to borrow ten to buy a coat--so that he could catch up with the trousers of that suit before they grew too old. He still buys his clothes that way.”
Grant threw back his red head and grinned a grim, silent grin: ”Well, that's funny. Didn't you know what is keeping him away?” Again Grant grinned. ”The day he was here he came wagging down with that ten-dollar bill, but his conscience got the best of him for lavis.h.i.+ng so much money on himself, so he slipped it to Violet and told her to buy her some new teeth--you know she's been ashamed to open her mouth now for years.
Violet promised she would get the teeth in time for Easter. And pretty soon in walks Mrs. Maurice Stromsky--who scrubs in the Wright & Perry Building, whose baby died last summer and had to be buried in the Potter's field--she came in; and she and Violet got to talking about the baby--and Violet up and gave that ten to Mrs. Stromsky, to get the baby out of the Potter's field.”
Mr. Brotherton laughed his great laugh. Grant went on:
”But that isn't all. The next day in walks Mrs. Maurice Stromsky, penitent as a dog, and I heard her squaring herself with Violet for giving that old saw-buck of yours to the Delaneys, whose second little girl had diphtheria and who had no money for ant.i.toxin. I never saw your ten again, George,” said Grant. ”It seemed to be going down for the last time.” He looked at Brotherton quizzically for a second and asked:
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