Part 51 (1/2)

”So old Henry hasn't been around since--isn't that joyous? Well--anyway, he'll show up to-day or to-morrow, for he's got the new coat; he got it this morning. Jasper was telling me.”

In an hour Grant, returning after his morning's errands, was standing by the puny little blaze that John Dexter had stirred out of the logs in the Serenity. The two were standing together. Mr. Brotherton, reading his Kansas City paper at his desk, called to them: ”Well, I see Doc Jim's still holding his deadlock and they can't elect a United States Senator without him!”

A telegraph messenger boy came in, looked into the Serenity, and said, ”Mr. Adams, I was looking for you.”

Grant signed the boy's book, read the telegram, and stood dumbly gazing at the fire, as he held the sheet in his hand.

The fire popped and snapped and the little blaze grew stronger when a log dropped in two. A customer came in--picked up a magazine--called, ”Charge it, please,” then went out. The door slammed. Another customer came and went. Miss Calvin stepped back to Mr. Brotherton. The bell of the cash register tinkled. Then Grant Adams turned, looked at the minister absently for a moment, and handed him the sheet. It read:

”I have pledged in writing five more votes than are needed to make you the caucus nominee and give you a majority on the joint ballot to-night for United States Senator. Come up first train.”

It was signed ”James Nesbit.” The preacher dropped his hand still holding the yellow sheet, and looked into the fire.

”Well?” asked Grant.

”You say,” returned John Dexter, and added: ”It would be a great opportunity--give you the greatest forum for your cause in Christendom--give you more power than any other labor advocate ever held in the world before.”

He said all this tentatively and as one asking a question. Grant did not reply. He sat pounding his leg with his claw, abstractedly.

”You needn't be a mere theorist in the Senate. You could get labor laws enacted that would put forward the cause of labor. Grant, really, it looks as though this was your life's chance.”

Grant reached for the telegram and read it again. The telegram fluttering in his hands dropped to the floor. He reached for it--picked it up, folded it on his claw carefully, and put it away. Then he turned to the preacher and said harshly:

”There's nothing in it. To begin: you say I'll have more power than any other labor leader in the world. I tell you, labor leaders don't need personal power. We don't need labor laws--that is, primarily. What we need is sentiment--a public love of the under dog that will make our present laws intolerable. It isn't power for me, it isn't clean politics for the State, it isn't labor laws that's my job. My job, dearly beloved,” he hooked the minister's hand and tossed it gently, ”my job, oh, thou of little faith,” he cried, as a flaming torch of emotion seemed to brush his face and kindle the fanatic glow in his countenance while his voice lifted, ”is to stay right down here in the Wahoo Valley, pile up money in the war chest, pile up cla.s.s feeling among the men--comrades.h.i.+p--harness this love of the poor for the poor into an engine, and then some day slip the belt on that engine--turn on the juice and pull and pull and pull for some simple, elemental piece of justice that will show the world one phase of the truth about labor.”

Grant's face was glowing with emotion. ”I tell you, the day of the Kingdom is here--only it isn't a kingdom, it's Democracy--the great Democracy. It's coming. I must go out and meet it. In the dark down in the mines I saw the Holy Ghost rise into the lives of a score of men.

And now I see the Holy Ghost coming into a great cla.s.s. And I must go--go with neither purse nor script to meet it, to live for it, and maybe to die for it.” He shook his head and cried vehemently:

”What a saphead I'd be if I fell to that bait!” He turned to the store and called to Miss Calvin. ”Ave--is there a telegraph blank in the desk?”

Mr. Brotherton threw it, skidding, across the long counter. Grant fumbled in his vest for a pen, held the sheet firmly with his claw and wrote:

”You are kindness itself. But the place doesn't interest me.

Moreover, no man should go to the Senate representing all of a State, whose job it is to preach cla.s.s consciousness to a part of the State. Get a bigger man. I thank you, however, with all my heart.”

Grant watched the preacher read the telegram. He read it twice, then he said: ”Well--of course, that's right. That's right--I can see that. But I don't know--don't you think--I mean aren't you kind of--well, I can't just express it; but--”

”Well, don't try, then,” returned Grant.

However, Doctor Nesbit, having something rather more than the ethics of the case at stake, was aided by his emotions in expressing himself. He made his views clear, and as Grant sat at his desk that afternoon, he read this in a telegram from the Doctor:

”Well, of all the d.a.m.n fools!”

That was one view of the situation. There was this other. It may be found in one of those stated communications from perhaps Ruskin or Kingsley, which the Peach Blow Philosopher sometimes vouchsafed to the earth and it read:

”A great life may be lived by any one who is strong enough to fail for an ideal.”

Still another view may be had by setting down what John Dexter said to his wife, and what she said to him. Said he, when he had recounted the renunciation of Grant Adams:

”There goes the third devil. First he conquered the temptation to marry and be comfortable; next he put fame behind him, and now he renounces power.”