Part 60 (2/2)

The old man showed his colorless gums as he opened a raging mouth.

”You--you--eh, you blasphemer!” He shook as with a chill and screamed, ”But we've got you now--we'll fix you!”

The car for Harvey came, and the Adamses climbed in.

Amos Adams, sitting on the hard seat of the street car looking into the moonlight, considered seriously his brother-in-law, and his low estate.

That he had to be helped into his limousine, that he had to be wrapped up like a baby, that his head was palsied and his hands fluttering, seemed strange and rather inexplicable to Amos. He counted Daniel a young man, four years his junior, barely seventy-nine; a man who should be in his prime. Amos did not realize that his legs had been kept supple by climbing on and off a high printer's stool hourly for fifty years, and that his body had buffeted the winds of the world unprotected all those years and had kept fit. But Daniel Sands's sad case seemed pathetic to the elder Adams and he cut into some rising stream of conversation from Grant and the Bowmans inadvertently with: ”Poor Daniel--Morty doomed, and Daniel himself looking like the breaking up of a hard winter--poor Daniel! He doesn't seem to have got the hang of things in this world; he can't seem to get on some way. I'm sorry for Daniel, Grant; he might have made quite a man if he'd not been fooled by money.”

Clearly Amos was meditating aloud; no one replied and the talk flowed on. But the old man looked into the moonlight and dreamed dreams.

The next day was Grant's day at his carpenter's bench, and when he came to his office with his kit in his hands at five o'clock in the afternoon, he found Violet Hogan waiting with the letters he was to sign, and with the mail opened and sorted. As he was signing his letters Violet gave him the news of the day:

”d.i.c.k Bowman ran in at noon and asked me to see if I could get Dr.

Nesbit and George Brotherton and Henry Fenn down here this evening to talk over his investment of little Ben's money. The check will come to-morrow.” Grant looked up from his desk, but before he could ask a question Violet answered: ”They'll be down at eight. The Doctor is that proud! And Mr. Brotherton is cutting lodge--the Shriners, themselves--to come down.”

It was a grave and solemn council that sat by Grant Adams's desk that evening discussing the disposal of little Ben's five thousand. Excepting Mr. Brotherton, no one there had ever handled that much money at one time. For though the Doctor was a man of affairs the money he handled in politics came easy and went easy, and the money he earned Mrs. Nesbit always had invested for him. So he and Lida Bowman sat rather apart while d.i.c.k and Brotherton considered the safety of bonds and mortgages and time deposits and other staple methods of investing the vast sum which was about to be paid to them for Ben's accident. They also considered plans for his education--whether he should learn telegraphy or should cultivate his voice, or go to college or what not. In this part of the council the Doctor took a hand. But Lida Bowman kept her wonted silence. The money could not take the bitterness from her loss; though it did relieve her despair. While they talked, as a mere incident of the conversation, some one spoke of having seen Joe Calvin come down to the Wahoo Fuel Company's offices that day in his automobile. Doctor Nesbit recalled having seen Calvin conferring with Tom Van Dorn and Daniel Sands in Van Dorn's office that afternoon. Then d.i.c.k Bowman craning his neck asked for the third time when Henry Fenn would show up; and for the third time it was explained that Henry had taken the Hogan children to the High School building in Harvey to behold the spectacle of Janice Hogan graduating from the eighth grade into the High School.

Then d.i.c.k explained:

”Well, I just thought Henry would know about this paper I got to-day from the constable. It's a legal doc.u.ment, and probably has something to do with getting Benny's money or something. I couldn't make it out so I thought I'd just let Henry figure on it and tell me what to do.” And when a few minutes later Fenn came in, with a sense of duty to the Hogans well done, d.i.c.k handed Fenn the paper and asked with all the a.s.surance of a man who expects the rea.s.surance of an affirmative answer:

”Well, Henry--she's all right, ain't she? Just some legal formality to go through, I suppose?”

Henry Fenn took the doc.u.ment from Bowman's hand. Henry stood under the electric, read it and sat thinking for a few seconds, with widely furious eyes.

”Well,” he said, ”they've played their trump, boys. Doc Jim--your law's been attacked in the federal court--under Tom Van Dorn--d.a.m.n him!”

The group barked a common question in many voices. Fenn replied: ”As I make it out, they got a New York stockholder of the Wahoo Valley Fuel Company to ask for an injunction against paying little Ben his money to-morrow, and the temporary injunction has been granted with the hearing set for June 16.”

”And won't they pay us without a suit?” asked Bowman. ”Why, I don't see how that can be--they've been paying for accidents for a year now.”

”Why, the law's through all the courts!” queried Brotherton.

”The state courts--yes,” answered Fenn, ”but they didn't own the federal court until they got Tom in.”

Bowman's jaw began to tremble. His Adam's apple bobbed like a cork, and no one spoke. Finally Dr. Nesbit spoke in his high-keyed voice: ”I presume legal verbiage is all they talk in h.e.l.l!” and sat pondering.

”Is there no way to beat it?” asked Brotherton.

”Not in this court, George,” replied Fenn, ”that's why they brought suit in this court.”

”That means a long fight--a big law suit, Henry?” asked Bowman.

”Unless they compromise or wear you out,” replied the lawyer.

”And can't a jury decide?”

”No--it's an injunction. It's up to the court, and the court is Tom Van Dorn,” said Fenn.

Then d.i.c.k Bowman spoke: ”And there goes little Ben's school and a chance to make something out of what's left of him. Why, it don't look right when the legislature's pa.s.sed it, and the people's confirmed it and nine lawyers in all the state courts have said it's law,--for the attorney for the company holding a job as judge to turn over all them forms of law. Can't we do something?”

<script>