FHE A AN OF 
 
 
 
 
 
 OCTAVE THANET 
 
THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
HE CLASPED HER TIGHTLY, WHILE THEY COMFORTED EACH OTHER 
 
 P. 476 
 
THE 
 MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 By 
 OCTAVE THANET 
 
 Author of 
 
 Stories of a Western Town, The Missionary Sheriff 
 A Book of True Lovers, etc. 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY 
 
 LUCIUS WOLCOTT HITCHCOCK 
 
 INDIANAPOLIS 
 
 THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS 
 
COPYRIGHT 1905 
 THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 
 
 SEPTEMBER 
 
 PRESS OF 
 
 BRAUNWORTH & CO. 
 
 BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS 
 
 BROOKLYN, N. Y. 
 
m 
 
 TO THE MEMORY OF 
 
 R. T. F. 
 
 WORKINGMAN AND GENTLEMAN 
 
 285355 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 BOOK I 
 JOHNNY-IVAN 
 
 CONTENTS * AGE 
 
 I PEGGY 3 
 
 II THE HOUSE OF WINSLOW 16 
 
 III THE GOLDEN AGE 3 6 
 
 IV THE FAIRPORT ART MUSEUM 5 8 
 V A MESSAGE FROM RUSSIA 74 
 
 VI As GALLEY SLAVES, NOT COMRADES 86 
 
 VII IN WAR You MAY 102 
 
 VIII ST. LUKE S "4 
 
 IX THE END OF THE GOLDEN AGE 128 
 
 BOOK II 
 IVAN 
 
 I STRANGERS YET 145 
 
 II FATHER AND SON *74 
 
 III BY THE TERMS OF THE WILL 189 
 
 IV THE THOUGHTS OF YOUTH ARE LONG, LONG 
 
 THOUGHTS 2 4 
 
 V THE SOUTHERN WAY 216 
 
 VI THE PRINCESS OLGA S DAY 239 
 
 
BOOK III 
 JOHN 
 
 I PEAU DE CHAGRIN 251 
 
 II A" SCRAP" 273 
 
 III THE POWERS OF DARKNESS 284 
 
 IV IN HOSPITAL 300 
 V " ROGER MACK" 3^ 
 
 VI TYLER PASSES 33I 
 
 VII JOHNNY MEETS AN OLD FRIEND 337 
 
 VIII AN DIE FERNE GELIEBTE 361 
 
 IX HAST THOU FOUND ME, O MINE ENEMY? 381 
 
 X AMELIA ANN, HER HORSE 3 9 i 
 
 XI His FATHER S OWN SON 404 
 
 XII As IN THE DAYS OF NOAH 413 
 
 XIII IN THE CAMP OF THE ENEMY 425 
 
 XIV EXTRACTS FROM JOHNNY S LETTERS TO 
 
 ROGER MACK 431 
 
 XV WHEN AMELIA ANN WAS" IT" 441 
 
 XVI THE END OF THE DUEL 452 
 
 XVII JOSIAH WlNSLOW S DAY 465 
 
1 Spirits of old that bore me 
 
 And set me, meek of mind, 
 
 Between great deeds before me, 
 
 And deeds as great behind, 
 
 Knowing Humanity my star, 
 
 As forth of old I ride, 
 O help me wear with every scar 
 
 Honor at eventide ! " 
 
THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
BOOK I 
 
 JOHNNY-IVAN 
 
THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PEGGY 
 
 ^ 
 
 In the early eighties Fairport considered herself 
 a city; but she was, in fact, an overgrown, delight 
 ful town sprawling among the low hills of the Mis 
 sissippi Valley. 
 
 Near enough the town s origin still to distinguish 
 its outlines, but remote enough to idealize them, 
 the old settlers were a power, and could be found of 
 a sunny afternoon at Luke Barrel! s livery stable, 
 busy with the apotheosis of the days when they shot 
 quail before breakfast; true brotherly love pre 
 vailed among men; and the river was the highway 
 of commerce. 
 
 Despite the pioneers lamentations, Fairport was 
 a kindly town, where every one went to the High 
 School before his lot in life gave him college or work 
 for his daily bread; and old acquaintance was not 
 forgot. Like most middle-western towns, also, ob 
 scure though they may be, it was touched by all the 
 great issues of the world. This, indeed, is the sig- 
 
 3 
 
4 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 nificant trait of western life; to feel vividly things 
 which concern not the petty affairs of the indi 
 vidual, but the welfare of the commonwealth or the 
 race. 
 
 This breadth of sympathy and of vision is the 
 poetry of the Westerner s material and laborious 
 life, redeeming his crudity, his vanity and his often 
 brutal energy. Fairport, because of it, was thor 
 oughly western; its humor and its generosity also 
 were western; but at first glance it seemed singu 
 larly unlike the typical town of its section. It was 
 rich; it was conservative, almost slow moving in 
 some directions; it was not bustling or breezy or 
 lightsomely braggart; it never had a "boom." In 
 the early eighties the down-town streets must have 
 worn an idyllic air, paved with soft lime macadam, 
 disturbed by no harsher noise than the rattle of 
 farm-wagons or the occasional whistle and rumble 
 of a train, and scarcely darkened by the two- and 
 three-story shops. There was green grass a-plenty 
 as well as trees about the yellow jail and the red 
 brick court-house, rearing its Corinthian pillars 
 above a little flock of justice-seekers or attorneys, 
 who were used to tilt their pine arm-chairs (pol 
 ished smooth by occupancy) while they leisurely 
 awaited a moment of strong enough interest to 
 draw them back to the court-room. 
 
 Dwelling-houses dotted the hillsides. Fairport 
 contained some brick houses, ample and of a pleas 
 ant homeliness, built by southern settlers after the 
 St. Louis fashion, with steep roofs and a stay-wall 
 between the chimneys, which perched on the gable 
 peaks like miniature barbicans; and there were a 
 
PEGGY 5 
 
 few grandiose Georgian mansions. Of these the 
 Winslow house caught the eye most quickly. 
 
 It was a big pile, with the lofty portico which our 
 great-grandfathers loved. Its fluted Corinthian pil 
 lars and garlanded pediment shone white through 
 the trees; below, the flowering terraces stepped 
 down to the soft greenery of orchard and pasture; 
 above, the house was backed by wooded hills. 
 "Atherton s Folly" the Fairport people had named 
 the place ; for the house was built by the first mayor 
 of the town (Atherton, not Fairport, then), a 
 man of vast schemes that had discounted the future 
 too lavishly; wherefore he came to grief. His own 
 downfall he could have borne, being a stanch and 
 stout fighter; but the town was crippled a while 
 by the crash, and this broke his heart; he only 
 lived a few months after his failure. For years the 
 house stood empty, gray and haggard with neglect, 
 while time charred and twisted its shingles. Final 
 ly, Winslow, the plow manufacturer, bought the 
 estate for a song ; and it began a new career of pros 
 perity, as Overlook. 
 
 That was fourteen years ago, in the late sixties; 
 now, in 1881, a little smiling pale boy played in the 
 gardens and fed the pigeons. If he were pale, he 
 was not languid; his dark eyes sparkled and his 
 thick curls danced in the wind with his running; 
 and his nurse grumbled to her companions, "Oh, 
 yes, Yonny-Ivan, he s good-tempered, but if he 
 git one his naughty times my crachus, he get 
 arms an legs so stiff as iron !" Sometimes a stout 
 man of fifty, whose black eyebrows looked the 
 blacker for his graying hair, would pace at the little 
 
6 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 fellow s side. Often his thick brows were bent, but 
 always a ringer hung downward for the little hand. 
 Sometimes a slender and beautiful woman would 
 walk with the boy, bending a lovely dark head and 
 often stooping to give him a quick caress. Who 
 ever his companion chanced to be, the servants 
 would glance after the pair curiously. Every one 
 in Fairport knew that the Winslows were not a 
 happy pair and that their differences ran high over 
 their only child. His very name hinted their com 
 bats. His Russian mother called him "Ivan," or 
 Vanya,* his American father "Johnny" ; while the 
 servants fell upon the just compromise of "Johnny- 
 Ivan." 
 
 Johnny-Ivan knew nothing of the disputes be 
 tween his mother, whom he adored, and his father, 
 whom he respected and very cordially liked. His 
 beaming little face reflected only sunshine. 
 
 Now, when Johnny-Ivan and the writer are first 
 keeping company together, he is nine years old, so 
 big that he can almost dress himself, wears his 
 knickerbockers attached to his shoulders by suspen 
 ders the small image of his father s, and has come 
 to hate his babyish big collars. Only a month be 
 fore, he had a more carking grief in his curls, at 
 which the boys of the Patch used to jeer; but, 
 after deep consideration, he surrendered to an im 
 pulsive moment and snipped them off himself. 
 Thereby came his first movement of comradeship 
 toward his father ; his mother had almost wept and 
 he had been reduced to black, sticky depths of re- 
 
 * Russian diminutive of Ivan. 
 
PEGGY 7 
 
 morse in consequence ; but his father had smiled all 
 over his face. 
 
 "I like the looks of you, Johnny; the Mickies 
 were right; curls belong to girls and babies, not 
 to big boys," said he. 
 
 "But mamma feels awful!" Johnny-Ivan s con 
 science forced out of him. 
 
 "Oh, naturally ; Aunty will tell you it was dread 
 fully naughty of you, too; but they re ladies; they 
 don t know how men feel ; you and I are men." 
 
 Johnny-Ivan gravely wagged his little cropped 
 head. Here was a father worth having ! 
 
 He almost told him about the new book which 
 he had discovered in the library, almost, not 
 quite; confidence is a frail plant in children, need 
 ing tedious nurture and tendance ere it flower. 
 Johnny-Ivan went away, silently, to his new treas 
 ure. An hour later his mother discovered him on 
 the floor, both elbows propped on the leaves of a 
 huge folio. He answered her query about the 
 book with a matter of fact, "Richard Three." 
 
 "Who wrote it?" said she, amused. 
 
 "Shak-es-pary," spelled the reader. 
 
 "Mon Dieu! do you understand it?" 
 
 "Not everything" confessed the little boy, "but 
 I like it awful much ! it s all full of kings and queens 
 and fightings." Johnny-Ivan kept a martial soul. 
 
 Yet on this day, the first day you and I see 
 Johnny-Ivan, his ardor for brave doings has 
 brought humiliation upon him. -Really it has been 
 responsible for his first quarrel with his first com 
 rade; and he is standing on the Winslow side of 
 the high fence dividing the Overlook property from 
 
8 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 the Winter place, pressing a dismal little face 
 against the pickets. His eyes are dark with wistful- 
 ness ; his heart is full of woe. 
 
 Hilma, his nurse, has run up to him, having 
 loitered so long over her lace-making and been so 
 intent upon her linen wheels that she did not note 
 his vanishing; wherefore it is only after a hunt 
 through the stables, the chicken houses and the 
 garden that she has caught a glimpse of his blue 
 blouse and white collar, and appeared before him 
 breathless, in the natural ill-humor of a person who 
 has been frightened. 
 
 "Yonny-Ivan," cried Hilma, "you is worse as a 
 rat to run way. I tell you mummer. Wot you do 
 ing here?" 
 
 "Nothing," muttered Johnny-Ivan, scowling. 
 
 "I bet you looking for Peggy. And you was 
 looking for Peggy, yesterday, too, wasn t you? 
 And didn t she go by yoost upturnin her nose at 
 you!" 
 
 No response beyond a wriggle of pain and impa 
 tience. Relentlessly the inquisitor turned the screws 
 again. 
 
 "Wasn t you here, day before too, twicet? and 
 she tossed her red head at you. And didn t you take 
 over your new little spade and your red pail and 
 your best necktie, you naughty boy? I donno vot 
 you mummer say " 
 
 "Oh, mamma don t mind," the boy shrugged 
 himself out of some reminiscent attentions to his 
 cravat, "mamma letted me give the red one to a 
 poor little boy on the street." 
 
 Hilma put her own opinion into Swedish, get- 
 
PEGGY 9 
 
 ting 1 back to her auditor, however, with the English 
 addition : "Well, you popper he mind !" 
 
 "Anyhow, Peggy didn t take them," sighed the 
 boy. 
 
 "Vot you do to Peggy make her so mad?" 
 
 The boy only squeezed his slim body closer to 
 the pickets. 
 
 Hilma, seating herself, took out an interminable 
 piece of lace to begin her crocheting. "Veil, any 
 how, sie a mean little copperhead," said Hilma 
 artfully. 
 
 The boy, as she expected, fired at once. "No, she 
 ain t, neither ; I madded her first." 
 
 "Oh, you did, vot you do ?" 
 
 "I I bited her," confessed the little boy, with a 
 deep flush of shame. 
 
 "Oh my! Ain t you de bad boy, sometime! 7 
 helige verlden! I guess you come to git hanged 
 for dot ter ble temper you got sometime, Yonny- 
 Ivan! An sie ain t do notings to mad you?" 
 
 The boy looked miserable ; even when one is only 
 nine and doesn t so much as know the word by 
 sight, one may have foregleams of chivalry; 
 Johnny-Ivan hated to cast a reflection on Peggy, 
 whom he had wronged and before whom he would 
 willingly abase himself; at the same time, it was 
 ghastly to have Hilma think that there was no 
 palliation for his shameful behavior, which, like the 
 sins of later years, somehow loomed up so much 
 bigger and blacker and uglier when confessed than 
 when only remembered. After a second of anguish, 
 he stammered out his compromise. 
 
 "She didn t do nothin . She just said things." 
 
10 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 "Vot tings?" Hilma would not be denied. 
 
 "Well, she said she said I wouldn t be no good 
 in a Blood Feud." 
 
 "Vot s a Blood Feud?" 
 
 "Why, don t you know ? Those things they have 
 down South; when somebody shoots your grand 
 father and your father shoots him and his son 
 shoots you like that. Peggy s father s uncle got 
 killed that way, right in the street in Memphis, op 
 posite the park where the squirrels play." 
 
 Hilma grunted a comprehension far from ap 
 proval. "I hope you don t be," she remarked, while 
 her head wagged gloomily over her lace, "but I 
 don t be so sure." 
 
 Johnny-Ivan brightened; it was evident that it 
 had wrung his soul to be considered so ignominious- 
 ly peaceful. He opened his heart a little wider. 
 
 "It was only because, you know, a boy on the 
 Patch, he sassed Peggy and said her papa was a 
 old rebel and ought to be hanged, and she had 
 red hair, and I fought him and hit him and he 
 rolled over the bank. It was there in Winters , you 
 know, where the broke glass tumblers and tin cans 
 are in the ravine; and he didn t have no shoes on, 
 and he cut his foot on a piece of glass and it was 
 bleeding awful, and so I run down to help him and 
 said I d go for the doctor, for I didn t know maybe 
 he d bleed to deff or have the locker-jaw, you 
 can t tell, mammy says, if you run a rusty nail in 
 you, but you ll git locker- jaw; that s just like she 
 says. But Peggy said you can t bleed to deff from 
 cutting your toe, nohow, and it was glass and not 
 rusty nails; and anyhow he was our foe and I was 
 
PEGGY 1 1 
 
 pusserlanimous and ornery to go and and what 
 I did." 
 
 "Vot did you done?" Hilma s face expressed 
 no human interest and she counted in Swedish be 
 tween her questions, yet dimly Johnny-Ivan was 
 aware of sympathy. Nevertheless, he hung his head 
 in shame, as he confessed: "I tied his foot up in 
 my hangkerchif." 
 
 "Was it one you new vuns?" Hilma asked very 
 sternly. 
 
 "No, Hilma, truly it wasn t. It was one of my 
 real old ones." 
 
 "Humph! It yoost happen dot way. You take 
 you new vuns, yoost so quick. But Peggy didn t 
 done right." 
 
 "Oh, yes, she did, Hilma, that s the way you got 
 to do if you re quality and live down South !" 
 said Johnny-Ivan. His eyes lightened and he 
 smiled. "Maybe she ll speak to me to-day!" he 
 cried. Hilma could see that his lips quivered with 
 excitement, and his little fingers gripped the pickets 
 more tightly. 
 
 "Dot s sie now, ain t it?" said Hilma, "koomin* 
 down drive." There before them, just glimmer 
 ing past the clump of lilacs on the turn of the drive, 
 was Peggy, herself; Peggy, in her new white leg 
 horn hat with the flowered ribbon and her mother s 
 red parasol shimmering above the hat. Her white 
 frock was dainty-fresh and ruffled bravely; nor did 
 it in the least abate the impressiveness of the tiny 
 dame that she held her splendid sun protector at the 
 wrong angle. The boy caught his breath with the 
 beauty of her. 
 
12 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 "My! don t the sun make her hair red! * said 
 Hilma. 
 
 Stepping daintily over the dusty road, her daz 
 zling head well in the air, Miss approached. She 
 was taller than the boy by good right, being two 
 years older; thus she could lower her eyelids in his 
 direction. The little fellow bent quickly and fished 
 a basket from out the long grass, an enticing 
 basket with a load of figs. 
 
 "I got some figs for you, Peggy!" cried he; he 
 tried to make his voice bold and careless. 
 
 Not the slightest sign of hearing was vouchsafed 
 by the haughty damsel; she looked past the peace- 
 offering and the little arms which held it, to Hilma s 
 stolid front. 
 
 "Good evening, Hilma/ she cried with affable 
 sweetness, and passed on. 
 
 "Tantane " well, we all know Virgil s moan, 
 cruelty comes to women early. Peggy did not cast 
 a glance at the little figure or the wistful eyes and 
 the mouth which would tremble in spite of him. He 
 began to whistle. 
 
 "Well, if sie ain t up-stuck !" cried Hilma. 
 
 "It s just keeping her word ; she said she d never 
 speak to me again," explained Johnny-Ivan; "she s 
 got to keep her word, you know," then, choking 
 back a shake in his voice and quite forgetting his 
 logic : "Maybe she ll speak to me to-morrow!" he 
 cried hopefully. 
 
 Now, as it happened, Peggy the ruthless felt 
 what seemed to her degrading twinges of pity; be 
 sides, Johnny, although so much younger and, of 
 course, babyish, was nicer to play with than anybody 
 
PEGGY 13 
 
 else; he made believe better than anybody, and on 
 the donkey as Sir Lancelot charging on the paynim 
 foe, or with his father s cane as Ivan the Terrible, 
 he was perfectly splendid; Peggy, like many an 
 other proud heart, wasn t anywhere near the height 
 of hauteur that she assumed; but she was in the 
 chains of her own will there, again like many an 
 other. 
 
 "I said I wouldn t speak to him again to save his 
 life; and I won t !" determined Peggy, shutting her 
 teeth and walking hard on her heels, such was her 
 determination and stress of soul. She did not notice 
 the two men, who had been raking the grass, drop 
 their rakes and gesticulate. Neither did she get any 
 thing from them save a shout they were too far 
 away for articulate words. But she did hear a 
 pounding thump behind her, and a horrible hoarse 
 bellow. She flung a startled glance around the 
 handle of the red parasol. She was a fearless little 
 creature; but it wasn t in flesh and blood not to be 
 terrified by the great horned mass, with its glaring 
 eyes, bounding down the grassy slope, straight at 
 her! Her single wild sweep of the landscape told 
 her that the men were too far to help, and the 
 fence was a wall of bristling pickets! But that 
 same vision of terror had shown Johnny-Ivan fran 
 tically tugging at the pickets and crying out at 
 Hilma s unready motions: "Hurry! hurry! knock 
 em with the big stone ! Peggy ! here ! here!" 
 
 Instinctively she ran for the opening in the fence. 
 She felt the hot dust of the brute s onset; her heart 
 pounded in her breast as her feet flashed across the 
 road. Suddenly a form leaped before her ; the para- 
 
14 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 sol was wrenched from her hand and made a crim 
 son splash through the air. 
 
 "Get down! get down! Crawl through! Pull 
 her, Hilma!" She knew Johnny-Ivan s sweet high 
 pipe, shrill now with intensity. She obeyed; but in 
 the very act of kneeling, her wits righted them 
 selves, and she snatched Johnny s blue shoulder and 
 thrust it at Hilma. Before the boy could resist 
 if he had thought of any such action a strong 
 hand pulled him through the gap and returned 
 swiftly for the same service to Peggy. Peggy s 
 skirts, sad to say, caught on one of the loosened 
 nails ; but Hilma, usually so severe on the careless 
 treatment of clothes, never slackened her mighty 
 grasp. Rending, tearing, bruising, scratching, 
 Peggy was pulled through the fence. On the safe 
 side, she caught her breath; her eyes glued to the 
 whirling cloud of dust streaked with red and the 
 huge dun shape impelling the cloud. 
 
 "Oh ! look at mamma s pah sol !" wailed Peggy. 
 "Silas is just stomping and tearing it all to frazzles ! 
 An I didn t ask for it neither, Mymy! mymy! 
 won t mammy chastise me ! she ll be fahly rarin an 
 chargin !" Her clouded face cleared in a second. 
 "I reckon that Silas would be doing me that same 
 way wasn t it fo you t rowing the pah sol at him, 
 Jo nivan." 
 
 Johnny-Ivan blushed proudly, rinding no expres 
 sion save a feeble grin. 
 
 There are weak natures that might have been dis 
 concerted by such a situation : having a scorned ex- 
 friend risk his life to rescue them from danger. 
 Peggy was not one of these; she felt that she had 
 
PEGGY 15 
 
 been relieved of her rash vow in a thoroughly cred 
 itable manner, and rejoiced without dissimulation. 
 
 "Jo nivan," said she, in a dignified tone, "you 
 done I mean you have saved my life; of co se I 
 was obliged to thank you ; and so I had to speak to 
 you; and once I broke my word, why why, I am 
 just naturally obliged to be going on speaking to 
 you. Hadn t it been for that I reckon I couldn t 
 ever in this world, again, have pahted lips with 
 you!" 
 
 "But you did speak to me, Peggy !" Johnny-Ivan 
 interrupted in some trepidation; "it s all broked 
 now !" 
 
 "Of co se it is ; that s what I say ; so, now I beg 
 you pahdon, Jo nivan." 
 
 "Oh-h!" breathed Johnny-Ivan, deeply embar 
 rassed. 
 
 "Don t say, Oh! say: No gentleman could ask 
 more, sah ! 
 
 Johnny-Ivan readily repeated the words, and 
 with equal readiness, when prompted, apologized 
 for the original cause of offense. 
 
 "Now le s make up," said Peggy with a sigh of 
 relief. "Say, Hilma, can t you mend my frock ? and 
 my leg s bleeding, too; but you better leave that; 
 mammy won t be so mad if she sees I been hurt. 
 Say, Jo nivan, wasn t there a basket of figs ?" 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE HOUSE OF WINSLOW 
 
 "Josiah Curwen Winslow was born in Merfield, 
 Massachusetts, April i, 1830, eighth in descent from 
 the Pilgrim Father, Governor Edward Winslow. 
 Through his mother (Miss Lydia Ann Curwen), 
 our distinguished fellow citizen claims descent from 
 the first families of Salem and the noblest stock of 
 the Puritans." The writer quotes from the biog 
 raphy in a massive and expensive volume entitled 
 Prominent Citizens of W infield County, Iowa. 
 The book is the bulkier that it includes not only the 
 prominent citizens, but any gentleman of the coun 
 ty willing to be thus enshrined in the hearts 
 of his countrymen, at the publishers price. With 
 a grim smile Winslow signed a check and pushed it 
 across the desk, midway in the agent s glib ex 
 ordium. 
 
 "Awful trash !" he muttered to himself whenever 
 he remembered, "but never mind, maybe Johnny ll 
 like it ! and perhaps Olga ll see that there are other 
 folks with ancestors besides the Galitsuins." As a 
 matter of fact, no one could set less value on ancestry 
 than Mrs. Winslow, who was of the new order of 
 thinkers in Russia, and was proud of simplifying 
 herself. Nevertheless, it was imbedded in her hus- 
 
 16 
 
THE HOUSE OF WINSLOW 17 
 
 band s soul that she scorned him and his friends as 
 bourgeoisie,, because once that unlucky word had 
 slipped off her tongue. The occasion was an out 
 burst of her indignation over the absurd social 
 distinctions in America, where she had dreamed 
 all men were brothers, and found them hard 
 er in their contempt of the poor than Russian 
 boyars. But Josiah made small account of her 
 mood ; the word scorched him. That same day he 
 despatched a clever young art student of Boston to 
 Plymouth to secure large oil copies of his ancestors 
 portraits which deck the walls of the town s little 
 Temple of Fame. This is how the pensive Pilgrim 
 scholar, Governor Josiah, came to hang in the 
 Winslow library, side by side with his choleric 
 father, the second governor, and the portly, white- 
 wigged and red-coated general who won a poetic 
 infamy by obeying orders. 
 
 "When the Galitsuins were crawling on all fours 
 before your dirty Tartar khans," remarked Wins- 
 low frequently, in imaginary interviews with his 
 princess which never came off "my ancestors 
 were ruling free men !" 
 
 Few people (among the few was not his wife) 
 quite appreciated that Josiah possessed that which 
 every great man of affairs must possess, whether his 
 affair be with war, art, manufactures or business, 
 namely, imagination. In the first part of his life, this 
 concerned itself with piling up money. As a boy, the 
 only son of a poor New England minister in a with 
 ering parish, he dreamed of a great fortune. He 
 went West to make it; he lived on crackers and 
 chipped beef; he was often cold, he was generally 
 
i8 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 hungry ; but he was never discouraged. He was sure 
 of himself ; no surer after he became Winter s part 
 ner than when he was Winter s clerk. Before the 
 war his success was beginning ; even in the sixties he 
 was a rich man ; the war made him far richer. His 
 great factories could not turn out plows and sulky- 
 rakes fast enough for the teeming soil s demands. 
 Winter died, and his widow became partner in his 
 stead; but there was no halt in the vast onward 
 sweep of a great industry. Already, Winslow had 
 come to be the soul of it all. It occupied his imagina 
 tion; it almost contented his heart. At this period 
 he was the master of Overlook, his mother and his 
 only surviving sister living with him. He was proud 
 of his mother ; he loved his sister ; and he had the 
 Old Colony Plow Works. 
 
 Madam Winslow was born a Curwen. She was 
 a stately dame to whose high aquiline features a 
 "front" of raven hair and a white tulle turban lent 
 a really ducal air. Seeing her enthroned behind the 
 old silver and china, with a deferential black man at 
 her elbow, one found it hard to realize that in her 
 early widowhood, when the children were young, 
 she had not only washed the breakfast dishes and 
 made the puddings herself, but, with little Si s as 
 sistance, had put down carpets, mended furniture 
 and painted woodwork. The daughter was less 
 impressive; a pretty, gentle, softly humorous crea 
 ture, who filled her peaceful days with lessons in 
 everything taught by wandering teachers, from the 
 languages to embroidery. 
 
 Madam Winslow s sudden death came like a 
 thunderbolt to both sister and brother. The year 
 
THE HOUSE OF WINSLOW 19 
 
 following her death Josiah met the Princess Olga 
 Galitsuin. The meeting happened during his trip to 
 Russia, where he went to introduce the famous 
 Winslow chilled plows, now known from whitest 
 Siberia to darkest Africa. The plo\vs have been 
 turning the Russian furrows ever since; so far as 
 business goes, the visit was a tremendous success; 
 but Winslow s imagination was kinder to him in 
 business than in love. He admired his princess as 
 blindly and humbly as a raw country lad admires 
 the first beautiful summer visitor who flings him a 
 smile. She was the daughter of a noble and an 
 cient family. Her own branch was not rich, but 
 they had a property sufficient to maintain their 
 state in the country if not at court, and Winslow 
 could hardly believe his good fortune when his 
 suit was accepted by the head of the family, with 
 most flattering promptitude. Not until long after 
 ward did he come to understand the reason. 
 On her part, the princess told him frankly that he 
 offered her escape from a life which she hated and 
 an odious marriage. She confessed (with an 
 adorable blush) that she admired him more than 
 any man she had ever seen except Krapotkin, who 
 was a saint and a patriot, not a lover. Perhaps 
 yes, sometime, she would love him. 
 
 Such a confession impressed Josiah as the most 
 entrancing mood of a woman beginning to feel the 
 power of her own heart ; he was touched by her hon 
 esty ; his soul was on its knees before her purity and 
 her truthfulness. No doubt Olga was sincere; her 
 fancy had been kindled by the American s devotion, 
 his generosity, and the kind of calm power which 
 
20 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 she felt in the man, added to the glamour about his 
 nationality prevailing among Russian liberals at 
 that time. She was as disposed to dower her lover 
 with splendid virtues as he was to lavish all a wom 
 an s possibilities of charm upon her. The nuptials 
 came off, quietly, but with no lack of proper pomp 
 and state; none, at least, obvious to a stranger like 
 the bridegroom. Olga s parents were dead, but her 
 half-brother and two sisters were present to wel 
 come Josiah, saying all the proper and graceful 
 things expected of the moment; and the bridegroom 
 expressed his grateful happiness in a shower of gifts 
 which Prince Platen (the brother) chose for him. 
 He felt no misgivings save as to his own unworthi- 
 ness. 
 
 In fine, the hard-headed, daring, silent man of 
 business was in a golden dream. But the first jar 
 ring note came, soon. One day, on their wedding 
 journey, his wife gave away a priceless sable coat 
 to a beggar. "But the man was cold, dear boy," she 
 pleaded, opening her charming eyes wider ; "oh, bit 
 ter cold and he was from Little Russia. Can we 
 not buy another?" 
 
 Josiah gasped; did she have any idea how much 
 money such a cloak was worth ? 
 
 No, a great deal, no doubt, but smiling and pull 
 ing his ear she had plenty more wraps, she 
 wouldn t miss it. He tried to explain; she listened 
 with plaintive attention. At last, her eyes slowly 
 brimmed with tears. 
 
 "Do you, too, feel money is more than human be 
 ings? I thought you Americans were brothers, all 
 alike free and equal and kind to each other." She 
 
THE HOUSE OF WINSLOW 21 
 
 said the words in a level tone, and those lustrous wet 
 eyes were searching him. 
 
 "How long do you think we should have any 
 money to spend if we gave to every beggar?" he 
 protested ; but he felt the helplessness of the moder 
 ate man before the fanatic and the child. 
 
 "Ought we to have money to spend or only money 
 to give?" she wondered, then she tried to smooth 
 out the perplexed wrinkles on his frowning face. 
 "Ah, dear boy/ (she always called him thus, run 
 ning the words together, although her English, in 
 general, was singularly pure and fluent), "ah, dear 
 boy, I ask too much of you. I can not expect you to 
 simplify yourself in a moment, if you are an Ameri 
 can. I shall be patient." She had the air of forgiv 
 ing him, he could not help thinking, and began a 
 lively anecdote of her morning. She had never been 
 more charming ; he was in love ; he tried to forget. 
 
 "She is an angel, but she is a child, too," he re 
 assured himself; "she doesn t understand life, only 
 that hothouse in Russia. When I get her safe in 
 Fairport she will be all right." 
 
 Fairport, good, honest, western town, opened its 
 eyes wide at the exquisite toilets, the amazing 
 speeches and the bewildering habits of this exotic. 
 She took her breakfast in bed and gave her cook 
 music lessons. She never returned her formal vis 
 its ; but she called often at a few houses of a morn 
 ing or an evening, in any toilet which she happened 
 to be wearing, whether a dinner gown or a morning 
 wrapper. She discarded the beautiful moquette velvet 
 carpets which poor Miss Winslow had gone twice 
 to Chicago to select, replacing them by hard- 
 
22 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 wood floors waxed tip to a gloss that caused dis 
 tressing accidents to several friendly visitors, and 
 covered with dingy old rugs, some of them not 
 even whole, at least very plainly darned. She filled 
 the house with workmen who did awesome things to 
 Madam Winslow s treasures. There was tufted yel 
 low satin on the "big parlor" walls and not a pillow- 
 sham in the house. She made the whole town wel 
 come to her samovar of an afternoon; and Serge 
 Vassy so Fairport abbreviated Vassilovitch a 
 Russian who lived on the Patch and was an ineffi 
 cient mason when he wasn t an efficient drunkard, 
 might be seen touching elbows with Judge Rock- 
 ford who had tried him for murder. There was not 
 much doubt in any one s mind concerning Serge s 
 guilt, but the affair happened in a saloon brawl, with 
 all the witnesses drunk and contradicting one an 
 other ; whereby legal ethics, more merciful to crimi 
 nals than to honest men, gave Serge the benefit of 
 the doubt; hence he escaped. Judge Rockford al 
 most dropped his tea-cup when his near-sighted 
 gaze finally focused Serge s identity. He never 
 smiled again at Mrs. Winslow s teas. 
 
 "She s a very pretty woman," said the judge; 
 "very charming, very cultivated, but if Winslow 
 ever wants her sent to the lunatic asylum let him 
 come to me" 
 
 There was always a piquant story afloat regard 
 ing the household at Overlook especially after 
 Miss Winslow married and went away. While she 
 stayed, she was an unobtrusive influence for peace. 
 She kept the house. She was not a housewife of re 
 nown like her mother, still, as Mrs. Winter said 
 
THE HOUSE OF WINSLOW 23 
 
 dryly, she did have sweeping and baking days and 
 expected the beds to be made before dinner, while 
 Princess Olga didn t so much as know bread was 
 raised by yeast. 
 
 But there was an arsenal on the island in the 
 river, opposite Fairport; there were officers in the 
 arsenal; and, when Johnny was five, one of these 
 men of war bore the peaceful little lady away. Since 
 then, Overlook was become a topic more picturesque 
 than ever at the Fairport "tea parties." The cook 
 ran the house until, after a battle royal, the waitress 
 deposed her and sent her to the police court, the 
 constable having been summoned and a search hav 
 ing disclosed Mrs. Winslow s opal bracelet under 
 the sink and her string of pearls in the baking- 
 powder. At the time, Johnny was barely convales 
 cent from scarlet fever, and Josiah Winslow was be 
 ing patient and gentle with his wife. He took an 
 inventory of her jewels and only gulped when he 
 discovered that a sapphire ring, her second best 
 watch, two bracelets, an emerald necklace and a 
 diamond brooch were missing. 
 
 As the years and irritations went on he was not 
 always so patient. The love that he never ceased 
 to feel for his wife could not restrain his swelling 
 irritation, always ; it did restrain it often ; but anger 
 is like nitroglycerin : it explodes with none the less 
 violence that it has been frozen. These two, who 
 had hoped to be lovers, grew more and more un 
 happy, and the child who might have united them 
 became the prize of combat. 
 
 Yet after Fairport had laughed, criticized and 
 sorrowfully pitied, it invariably paid its tribute : the 
 
24 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 Princess Olga was charming. Her beauty, her wit, 
 her lovely graciousness conquered every one. Her 
 neighbor, Mrs. Winter, was a cold woman; but she 
 grew to love the Russian. With the double-headed 
 discretion of a very wise and rather selfish person, 
 she adventured tentative efforts after some manner 
 of conciliation between the two natures. She even 
 tried her hand at the conversion of Olga. Once she 
 said : "But your serfs are free, free as our niggers ; 
 why do you go plotting and conspiring with dis 
 gusting people who don t take baths?" 
 
 "It is one of the most expensive things in the 
 world to keep clean, my dear friend," Olga would 
 retort, "and not all nihilists are dirty." 
 
 "Most of them," said Mrs. Winter. "I took the 
 trouble to get Pisemeki s Troubled Sea and Gon- 
 charof s Abyss; and upon my word, a more obnox 
 ious, vaporing, bragging, bloody, futile, sickening 
 lot of creatures I never read about." 
 
 "They are vile books! And the French transla 
 tion is bad. Oh, most horrid! I know these peo- 
 pie." 
 
 "Are you a member of the Society?" asked Mrs. 
 Winter, smiling, but a chill took her at the sudden 
 hardening of Olga s face. 
 
 "Nu. Of course not," she answered, and changed 
 the subject. 
 
 "She is lying," decided Mrs. Winter. The thought 
 did not deter her, it only caused her to be more 
 guarded. But she was too shrewd to flatter herself 
 that she made much impression. 
 
 Josiah came to share her doubts. He came to ap 
 prehend that his wife s nature was not to be gaged 
 
THE HOUSE OF WINSLOW 25 
 
 by his Anglo-Saxon standards. It was not only that 
 she had the insatiable yearning for the secrets of 
 life which belongs to the Slav, heritage from his 
 Asiatic progenitors, and the relentless following of 
 logic to its end, whatever or however terrible such 
 end may be ; it was not only her blind and passionate 
 absorption in her social faiths which might lead her 
 any lengths ; there was always, also, the uncertainty 
 of her oriental nature, its mystery; he knew that 
 she had a conscience to which she was as faithful as 
 any Puritan can be to his; but her conscience was 
 unfathomable. Equally beyond any plummet of his 
 were the transitions from her soft Russian indolence 
 to violent energy ; and her gentle sweetness of man 
 ner might be banished by a frenzy of emotional re 
 volt and despair. 
 
 He could not understand his wife. And, little by 
 little, his love retreated before the irritation of de- 
 feat and the humiliation of constant repulse. He be 
 gan to suspect that she had carried her social prin 
 ciples so far that her own people were content to 
 give her to any honorable man who would take her 
 out of Europe. The mysterious facility of his court 
 ship unraveled itself. Like as not Olga had joined 
 one of the innumerable secret revolutionary so 
 cieties which had sprung up in Russia during Alex 
 ander s reign. In fact, Prince Platen Galitsuin, the 
 head of her branch of the family, admitted as much 
 when Josiah had been last in Russia, on a much-im 
 portuned visit in Johnny-Ivan s sixth year. 
 
 "My sister is adorable," said he, smiling, "and we 
 are so glad to have had this opportunity to see her ; 
 but may I, as your brother who is grateful to you, 
 
26 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 hint that we would better have our family gather 
 ings in Paris rather than in Russia oh, no harm 
 has been done ! Olga, thanks to you, is saved from 
 being a conspirator ; but the indiscretions of a noble 
 but ill-guided heart sometimes last in their effects 
 after the causes are removed. One takes so I am 
 told very tremendous oaths and vows, and my 
 sister is of a devoutness, although she has renounced 
 the orthodox religion. Frankly, my dear Winslow, 
 I would keep her away from Russia, no matter how 
 earnestly she may beg you to take her there ; these 
 snakes crawl in everywhere and they might ask im 
 possible things of her." 
 
 Winslow s face assumed the impassive mask it 
 wore when he was making a big contract. Not by the 
 twitch of an eyelid did he reveal a harsh disgust 
 mounting in his heart. 
 
 "I suppose," said he meditatively, between puffs, 
 "that Olga was mixed up with this damn stuff, 
 seven years ago." 
 
 "We have feared so since," admitted the prince 
 diplomatically. 
 
 "You were trying to marry her then, were you 
 not," Winslow asked, "to an old Russian one of 
 the Ivaslofs then wouldn t she have stayed in 
 Russia?" 
 
 "No, he was a great traveler that was his chief 
 recommendation; he would have mostly lived in 
 Paris ; but that was before we had the honor to con 
 sider your proposal. I assure you we were delighted 
 that our dear Olga should prefer you; and little 
 Vanya has won all our hearts. Did you know what 
 the grand duke said yesterday ?" 
 
THE HOUSE OF WINSLOW 27 
 
 "Did he see him?" said Winslow dryly, but he 
 felt his anger cooling. 
 
 "Yes, talked with the child, who behaved charm 
 ingly ; and the grand duke said, Russian and Anglo- 
 Saxon, you have two great races in. you, little one, 
 you should go far ! 
 
 In spite of himself the father could not swallow 
 his smile ; he expanded a little. 
 
 "A noble Russian race, true enough," said he, 
 "and I can tell you, Platen, the Winslows and the 
 Curwens are as long in America and have had as 
 much influence in their country as the Galitsuins 
 have had in yours." 
 
 "I do not doubt it, my dear Josiah," returned 
 Platen suavely, "and now about Michael ; my sister 
 wants to take him. I suspect if he doesn t go to 
 America, he may take a less agreeable trip ; however, 
 I understand there will be no objections to his choos 
 ing your country ; I m told by some of our all-know 
 ing fellows that your climate has moderated my sis 
 ter s views very noticeably. Michael this was 
 said to me privately Michael Michaelaivitch is not 
 bad-hearted, he has been led astray and he will do 
 well in America ; in Russia he will only be lost ! 
 "I ve promised Olga to take him, but I don t half 
 like the notion ; he strikes me as amiable and faith 
 ful ; but there is never any telling when one of your 
 mild-mannered, sleepy peasants will take a scythe 
 and mow your head off, because his infernal third 
 section has considered you obnoxious !" 
 
 "Oh, I think you can trust Mishka, and it will be 
 a pleasure for Olga to talk Russian ; you know she 
 couldn t take her maid, before." 
 
28 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 Winslow went away from the interview (his last 
 with Platen, for they were just leaving the coun 
 try) smiling grimly. "To think of those damn 
 smooth cusses doing me that way!" he muttered; 
 "and I thought myself so smart to win a beautiful 
 princess, a bald-headed old plow-maker like me, who 
 has made every dollar he has, himself. You re a 
 dunderheaded old fool, Si Winslow ! All they 
 wanted was a cart to carry off their dynamite bomb. 
 And all Olga wanted was escape!" But he showed 
 neither anger nor discomfiture to Platen. "This ain t 
 the first bad bargain you ve made in your life," he 
 told himself, "and it shan t be the first you whined 
 over. But they nor Olga shall get Johnny." 
 
 The only visible result of his discoveries was an 
 interest in his own ancestors. Formerly he had been 
 jocosely indifferent to his mother s tales of Wins- 
 lows and Curwens and Winthrops and Danforths 
 and their greatness in their world ; now he perceived 
 that he had believed them and been proud of them 
 all the time. He would give Johnny as good account 
 of his American ancestors as Michael could of his 
 Russian. Josiah s imagination undertook a new job. 
 
 He sent an order to a Boston correspondent for 
 histories and books about the Winslows and the Cur- 
 wens, with the result that he found a bulky box of 
 books awaiting him on his return to Fairport. 
 
 He attacked his information in a characteristic 
 way. He didn t dive into it unskilfully and flounder 
 among the torrents of dates and names; he simply 
 asked different people who would be a good person 
 to detach facts from books. 
 
 "I think Emma Hopkins, if she were willing, 
 
THE HOUSE OF WINSLOW 29 
 
 could do better than any one else ; but she would not 
 like to take the pay/ So Mrs. Winter pronounced. 
 Winslow spoke to Hopkins, the superintendent of 
 his shop and just taken into partnership. 
 
 "Let my little girl do it," said Hopkins, "she s 
 looking up those things all the time why, she s 
 traced me back to Stephen Hopkins who came over 
 in the Mayflower" he grinned a little sheepishly, 
 but Winslow looked pleased. 
 
 "I always knew you came of good stock, Billy," 
 said he. He was only too glad to accept Miss 
 Emma s services if he stumbled a little over the 
 compensation, but he thought he picked himself up 
 neatly with, "She can give it to her pet charity, you 
 know, if she won t buy a breastpin with it." 
 
 "Give it to thunder," growled Hopkins. "I guess 
 I know who pulled me out of the rut and believed in 
 my inventions ; and if you won t let my daughter be 
 a little useful first chance I get why, I ll I ll 
 I ll quit you!" 
 
 Hopkins secured his point. Emma did the work 
 (it was more work than Winslow had realized) and 
 she presented the results in a few weeks. The facts 
 were arranged in the neatest and most lucid form, 
 they were devoid of the slightest girlish struggle for 
 literary style, but they did not slight a man or a 
 deed ; and they related the Winslow Tory plots and 
 the brutal part played by the old colonial general in 
 Acadia, as minutely and frankly as the services of 
 Edward or Josiah. Josiah s own hardships began 
 when hers ended; he set to work nightly to learn 
 by heart a portion of the chronicles, and he kept his 
 memory green by relating the doughty deeds of the 
 
3 o THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 Kenelms and Edwards and Josiahs to the little wide- 
 eyed listener whom he took on drives. So Johnny 
 was told how Edward was the friend of Cromwell 
 who was not a king but greater, and how Josiah 
 stamped out the witchcraft fever, and how General 
 John fought bravely for his king. 
 
 "I guess my stories are not so nice as mamma s?" 
 fished Josiah once, artfully. To which the polite 
 child responded : "Oh, I don t know ; they are both 
 so nice and so different I can t tell which is nicer." 
 
 "And are Michael s stories nicer than either of 
 ours?" said Josiah, with the little compression of 
 his lips not quite a smile, which looked so odd some 
 times repeated on Johnny-Ivan s delicate features. 
 
 "They are nice, too," answered the little boy 
 diplomatically. 
 
 Michael Michaelaivitch had become the coachman 
 at Overlook. Michael was a big, fair man whose 
 thick yellow hair was cut straight around his head, 
 and who smiled when he did not want to answer 
 questions. He was a past master of narration. 
 Many an afternoon did Johnny-Ivan sit enthralled 
 in the harness room, while Michael s hands polished 
 the silver of the best harness, and Michael s tongue 
 blazoned the past magnificence of the Galitsuins. 
 But the ex-serf was always careful to tag a disap 
 proving addendum to his unctuous eloquence. 
 
 "But you understand, gospodi, those vick-ed days, 
 vick-ed days ekh-khe-khe! Nu s bogom!" Cer 
 tainly some of the stories dealt with wicked days, 
 those, for instance which told of Ivan the Terrible. 
 Unpleasantly suggestive, also, were those about 
 Leteoseka and his bag for the capture of naughty 
 
THE HOUSE OF WINSLOW 31 
 
 children. Nevertheless Johnny-Ivan loved the 
 shudder of them, and he loved the dreary, yet im 
 aginative legends of Russian folk-lore; how Baba- 
 Yago, the ogress, lives on the edge of the forest in a 
 house turning like a weather-cock with every wind ; 
 how Mikula Silianinovitch, the "Good Laborer," 
 toils for others while they sleep, and can be heard 
 a day s journey away, striking up the stones of 
 the furrows with his great plowshare; most thrill 
 ing of all, how the mythical Kaler swam the Gulf 
 of Finland, when the spirits of the North burned 
 up his vessel with their hot breath, and how 
 forthwith he builded him a ship of silver which 
 could not be burned. Johnny was always demand 
 ing the Variag rovers, especially Kaler. 
 
 Yet with all his fascinations Kaler was not so dear 
 to Johnny-Ivan as one of his father s heroes, his 
 very own ancestor, whose portrait hung in the li 
 brary, where the little boy saw it many times a day. 
 The subject was that Josiah Winslow, son of Ed 
 ward, who ruled the colony of Plymouth through 
 the witchcraft madness, and shrewdly headed off 
 the contagion by fining the first bewitched man ten 
 pounds for maliciously maligning his neighbors and 
 bringing evil ways into the colony. The dark and 
 beautiful face, with the thought in its pensive eyes 
 and the delicate, faint smile, bore little enough hint 
 that it belonged to a progenitor of Josiah of Fair- 
 port, who was sturdy and cold of mien and had a 
 well-fed, enduring countenance and keen, gray eyes. 
 But Johnny-Ivan s brows and large brown eyes and 
 sensitive mouth were enough like the Puritan schol 
 ar s to have belonged to his own son. 
 
32 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 Probably Josiah did not fully realize his own suc 
 cess in awakening" his son s imagination. There was 
 such a gulf between his son s and his own child 
 hood, where the din and strain of a hand-to-hand 
 fight with poverty had crowded out idle reveries or 
 romance and kept a boy s wits intent on material 
 things, that he felt like a blind man fumbling in his 
 child s soul. He had no light of experience to guide 
 him. At times he was as puzzled about his son as 
 about his wife. Doggedly he plodded through visi 
 ble and outward facts, trailing after some inward 
 and spiritual cause, precisely as he would have in 
 vestigated the signs of the market or his competi 
 tors schemes. 
 
 It was before the Russian trip that Olga s fever 
 of humanity was diverted to the people whom her 
 husband employed. She went on a personal tour of 
 investigation among their homes, an arduous and 
 tedious matter at this period, since the homes were 
 scattered and the Fairport ways miry, so that often 
 she was forced to leave her carriage and go afoot 
 in the mud. It was also thankless, the men at 
 the Plow Works being independent, self-respecting 
 American citizens who had no desire to be helped, 
 and an active repugnance to being patronized. Noth 
 ing came of her tenders except the scarlet fever for 
 Johnny-Ivan. It was brought back to him from a 
 little girl just convalescent, held by the Princess 
 Olga while she listened sympathetically to the 
 mother s tirade against a cruel and ignorant fore 
 man in the foundry, who had "pets." The little 
 girl s case was very light ; not so Johnny-Ivan s. In 
 wrath, Josiah demanded a quarantine and no visits 
 
THE HOUSE OF WINSLOW 33 
 
 to unknown households. To his surprise, his wife 
 did not rebel. 
 
 In truth, at this time, her whole nature was con 
 centrated on her child s peril. Nurses were not to 
 be obtained easily, nor were those at hand skil 
 ful. Day and night Olga watched over her boy. 
 She obeyed the doctor with such implicit faithfulness 
 and understanding, she had such keenness of ob 
 servation, such cheerfulness (before the patient) and 
 such self-control, that a cynical man of medicine 
 and the world never afterward ceased to be her 
 admirer. Josiah himself, with a grinding pain, felt 
 his own stunned and battered love stir again in his 
 heart. Meanwhile Olga hardly seemed conscious 
 that her husband existed. So soon as Johnny-Ivan 
 was convalescent, she made his state the unanswer 
 able pretext to keep him with her. Josiah would 
 watch on the wide portico for his little son, pacing 
 up and down, or would sit in his library, the door 
 open, on the chance of catching him as if by acci 
 dent when he came by, and proposing a drive or a 
 walk. 
 
 The house was too far out of town for informal 
 neighborly visits such as Fairport has always de 
 lighted to pay, passers-by halting on the way, neigh 
 bors "dropping in," as the kindly phrase has it. The 
 Winters to the right, the Lossings to the left, would 
 sometimes pull the great gong-like bell of the front 
 door, or cronies, by appointment, would drive under 
 the elms to take dinner with Winslow. But there 
 were many lonely hours for the husband and wife; 
 lonelier, it may be, for him than for her. After her 
 efforts at comradeship or charity had been thwarted 
 
34 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 among Winslow s people; after he had refused to 
 build a hospital and a free bath, and she had lost 
 both her rubbers in the mud, going for personal in 
 tercession for a workman to one of Winslow s fore 
 men who refused her appeal, and aired a strong 
 sense of injury, the next morning, to the superin 
 tendent, she found a welcome for her largess and 
 her sympathy among a few of her own people, set 
 tled on the common below Overlook. The quarter 
 was known as the "Patch." The Patch had no fine 
 houses and very few comfortable ones. It was dusty 
 in summer and miry in winter. Drainage and sew 
 age were left to the mercy of God and did not seem 
 to find it, since the Patch was the home of diph 
 theria at a time when diphtheria was more dreaded 
 than typhoid. If the Patch garbage overflowed the 
 inefficient shelter of back yards, occasionally there 
 would be a bonfire, exciting false hopes in town that 
 the whole Patch might be swept away; but, In gen 
 eral, what stray cats and dogs and fowls could not 
 devour was left to the weather. 
 
 On the Patch lived Serge Vassilovitch, in the 
 overflowing family of his sister. His sister s hus 
 band was not a patriot and reformer like Serge; he 
 was merely a peaceful vender of old iron, rags and 
 bottles, whose sole quarrel with the police was that 
 he would keep his wares piled in the alley. There 
 were, however, several comrades of Serge s own 
 household of political faith, who had listened to 
 emigration sirens and come to a land where all men 
 were to be like brothers and welcome the new lovers 
 of liberty with outstretched hands full of money. 
 They expected free lands, compassion and admira- 
 
THE HOUSE OF WINSLOW 35 
 
 tion ; they found an unconcerned multitude who de 
 manded as hard work from other people as they were 
 willing to give themselves. It were a pitiful story, 
 did any exile dreamer who has come to our shores 
 write it fully this malicious comedy of trust and 
 disillusion the dream of Utopia and the reality of 
 the same old human nature in the same old ruthless 
 grapple with nature and its kind. 
 
 Olga, who had been through all the acts, could 
 understand the bewildered disappointment of her 
 countrymen. They did not suspect her motives nor 
 were they indignant at her pity. With them she felt 
 at home. By degrees, she came to spend much time 
 in the Patch. She took Johnny-Ivan with her. 
 
 "After diphtheria, I suppose, this time," grunted 
 Josiah. Then he was sorry, but pride and helpless 
 ness to explain himself held him mute. 
 
 "I will not take Vanya anywhere unless I know it 
 is safe," promised Olga, who had changed color. 
 
 "Thank you," said Josiah, but in no thankful 
 tone, as he turned on his heel. 
 
 About this time came the trip to Russia. It was 
 after their return that Mrs. Winslow began to re 
 ceive a large number of letters all from across the 
 seas. These letters bore not a Russian but a Swiss 
 stamp. Josiah knew perfectly the hand of the prince 
 and of Olga s two sisters leading blameless lives, 
 according to Russian police standards. The letters 
 chirography belonged to none of them. Neverthe 
 less, he kept silence; his only token of interest was 
 his despatching Tim instead of Michael for the mail. 
 Josiah pondered. Nor were his ponderings without 
 results of many sorts. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE GOLDEN AGE 
 
 The Fairport mothers sometimes looked at 
 Johnny-Ivan with a pity which (had he perceived it) 
 would have bewildered him. 
 
 "Poor little lonesome chap!" said they. Really, 
 however, Johnny-Ivan was not lonesome not even 
 before Peggy came ; of course after she came he was 
 as contented as a child could be. Besides his own 
 resources, which were considerable, owing to an im 
 agination of power and the healthy energy of his 
 years which finds joy in any exercise, there were 
 four people whom he loved. 
 
 Paramount was his mother. He worshiped his 
 mother. As a rule, children have no acute percep 
 tion of human beauty; but Johnny-Ivan loved 
 the sight of his mother as he loved the sunset 
 or the flowers or the waving grass. Dimly he 
 realized that her charming figure in its invariable 
 white of a morning, summer or winter, and its 
 flashing jewels and rich, soft, shimmering stuffs of 
 an evening, was something of a quality more deli 
 cate and precious than belonged to the other ladies 
 who came to the house. Merely to be in her presence 
 was a deep and exquisite content. He would nestle 
 against her soft skirts by the hour, like a happy lit 
 tle dog, while she read or wrote or embroidered or 
 
 36 
 
THE GOLDEN AGE 37 
 
 played on the grand piano in the hall. He would 
 patter by her side on her long walks until his tiny 
 legs wabbled under him and his face was pale with 
 fatigue, and, with caressing Russian diminutives, 
 she would turn remorsefully to clasp him in her 
 arms and make him sit down to rest. 
 
 "Oh, I m all right," Johnny-Ivan would swagger; 
 "I could run if I wanted to." 
 
 He invested her with every attribute of splendor 
 or loveliness. Once he broke out : "Mamma, I wisht 
 you was a queen!" His mother laughed, but very 
 tenderly. "In Russia I was a princess once," she 
 said. Johnny caught his breath : "Oh, let s go back 
 and you be a princess again !" 
 
 "No, dear. It is wrong that there should be 
 princesses or queens or any such people. They only 
 oppress the poor. They have no right to have their 
 beautiful palaces and live in luxury while the poor 
 people toil for them, who haven t even black bread 
 enough to eat." 
 
 Johnny-Ivan s sigh was weighted with disappoint 
 ment. "I s pose not," he acquiesced sorrowfully. 
 But he offered his own compromise in his evening 
 petitions. Every evening he said his prayers, taught 
 him by the cook, who was of the Roman Catholic 
 faith, amended by Hilma, a stanch Lutheran, and 
 audited, as it were, by his father, who went regu 
 larly to the Episcopal church of a Sunday, carrying 
 Johnny. Josiah Winslow had not gone to church be 
 fore his marriage, and his later church-going was a 
 most unexpected result of matrimony, since Mrs. 
 Winslow never attended any church whatever. She 
 smoked her cigarettes peacefully at home and read 
 
38 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 Russian pamphlets. Nevertheless he did go, and his 
 little son stayed to Sunday-school, and said his 
 prayers at night at his mother s knee, while she 
 listened, thinking her own thoughts. 
 
 This night he added a private postscript to his 
 customary punctilious intercessions for "papa and 
 mamma and Peggy and Aunty Winter and all my 
 dear friends and relations and Michael and Hilma 
 and Lena and Nora Halloran and Teresa and the 
 woman who comes to wash (I forgot her name) 
 and Tim and Jerry and all papa s men at the works 
 and the president of the United States and Father 
 O Brien and all those in authority." He made a 
 slight pause, then said reverently : "And please God, 
 don t let there be any princes or kings or princesses 
 to oriss the poor; but if they ve got to be some, 
 please; let mamma be one of them!" 
 
 All times near his mother were lovely, so lovely 
 that did he hear his nurse call : "Your mamma, sie 
 want you, Yonny-Ivan !" he would even leave off 
 helping Michael curry the horses, without a pang, 
 and race to the tortures of Hilma s Swedish move 
 ment cure ; yet these were truly formidable, because 
 Hilma always washed up, with a torturing assault 
 on the nose; she also used a strong lather of suds 
 which no tightest shutting of a boy s eyes could op 
 pose. 
 
 "Well, den, you don git so dirty, I don must 
 wash you mit soap!" was her stern retort if the 
 sufferer whimpered. It shows, therefore, the 
 strength of his mother s attraction that Johnny-Ivan 
 should dare all the terrors of the toilet to reach her 
 side. 
 
THE GOLDEN AGE 39 
 
 On the whole, the least pleasant times with 
 mamma were at the piano, where she never played 
 pretty songs, like Peggy s, for instance, about the 
 Suwanee River and her old Kentucky home and 
 Nellie, who was a lady; but awful, queer music 
 that sounded like the wind moaning or lost children 
 hollering and crying in the woods, and made a boy 
 feel bad. It wasn t quite so pleasant, either, when 
 she sat having a "reverie" and he must not disturb 
 her, and her beautiful black eyebrows would knit 
 and her lip would curl and she would mutter 
 strange words in Russian. But soon she would 
 shake her head and smile; and like as not there 
 would follow the very most charming times of all, 
 because mamma, too, could tell lovely stories. 
 
 Some exalted the ancient valor of the warriors of 
 her line. Others there were of her own girlhood, of 
 the lonely steppes and battles with wolves and wild 
 races over the snow in sleighs drawn by three 
 horses. But the secret stories were the best of all. 
 They were about patriots, about "our people." 
 
 Very early, Olga had interested her boy in the 
 Russian political struggles. He was an ardent nihil 
 ist conspirator in kilts ; and his journeys to the Patch 
 with his mother were fraught with thrilling excite 
 ment. The Russian visit was a little disturbing. The 
 aunts and uncles and cousins were so nice, so kind 
 and generous ! Yet these delightful people did not 
 love free Russia. This was perplexing. How 
 ever, it made amends that Mishka, who was even 
 nicer than Uncle Platen or Cousin Saska, Mishka 
 belonged to the patriots. He was proud of the con 
 fidence reposed in him by his mother and Michael, 
 
4 o THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 and swore (on a sword stuck in the ground) never 
 to repeat any word told him. 
 
 The ceremony came off out by the summer-house ; 
 and the sword of the ritual was his father s, handed 
 down from a stiff old Tory, who might well have 
 turned in his grave at such misusage. Johnny re 
 membered, always, the swelling of his heart as he 
 laid his scrap of a hand on the big hilt, and the up 
 lifted, strange expression of Michael s face. 
 
 "He is one of us, Olga Ivanovna," said Michael. 
 He spoke in a new solemn voice. But maman clasped 
 Johnny so close he felt her heart beat; he was 
 stirred by an indescribable contagion of excitement. 
 
 "Not that, Michael, not that !" she cried, "he is 
 too young; and he is an American. But he is old 
 enough to keep a secret, the greatest of secrets !" 
 
 "Qui, maman" said Johnny-Ivan, "cross my 
 heart!" He crossed himself on his tiny shoulder. 
 "I won t tell even Peggy if you say so !" 
 
 "Not even Peggy," said his mother firmly; and 
 she added, averting her eyes, "not even papa; it s 
 our secret, because we are Russians. Papa is Ameri 
 can and he wouldn t understand !" 
 
 Were the truth known, Johnny felt it a harder 
 strain to keep from telling Peggy than his father. 
 He did not feel so well acquainted with his father. 
 He always put him in the second place of honor, 
 officially. "I love mamma, papa, you, Michael and 
 Aunty Winter," he used to say to Peggy ; neverthe 
 less, he experienced a vague constraint in his father s 
 presence. And a few days after the rite on the lawn 
 something happened which, slight though it was of 
 itself, deepened this feeling to a sorrowful degree. 
 
THE GOLDEN AGE 41 
 
 Winslow had taught his boy to drive; naturally, 
 so soon as the small John could turn the corner with 
 out upsetting the buggy, he yearned to drive alone. 
 He was sure that he only needed the opportunity 
 to convince the elders of his skill; and he often 
 pictured to himself his father s surprise and pleasure 
 if only such a chance came. The chance did come, 
 and Johnny seized it, but not with exhilaration; 
 rather out of a fine sense of duty. Thus did it be 
 fall : The cow-barn, back in the big pasture, caught 
 fire from an irresponsible cigarette, smoked by one 
 of the princess pensioners. Michael was over at the 
 stable proper when the alarm was given, just tak 
 ing out Mr. Winslow s buggy and the big gray. 
 He sped away over the hill with Tim and the stable- 
 boy, first hitching the horse to the post in front of 
 the stable. 
 
 Johnny knew his father ought to have the horse 
 hadn t he heard him cautioning Michael to fetch 
 it in "at three, sharp," because he had an important 
 engagement and must drive over the bridge? and 
 yet here was Mishka off to the fire! Johnny-Ivan 
 didn t blame him; he was longing to get into the 
 smoke himself, and help take the cows out (he was 
 sure he knew just the way) ; but how was papa to 
 keep his engagement! He recalled a conversation 
 with his father regarding engagements, which had 
 impressed him deeply as to their stern sacredness. 
 His mother was not at home; already he had dis 
 covered the inadequate workings of Hilma s mind 
 in emergencies; Johnny-Ivan felt that he must act! 
 With a somber backward glance at the clouds of 
 white and dun drifting over the trees, he stood on 
 
42 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 his short tiptoes and untied the horse; this accom 
 plished, he climbed into the buggy over the wheel 
 not risking the complicated manceuver of turning 
 the horse from the ground and drove away. 
 
 The first difficulty lay in wait at the gate. It was 
 a gate supposed to work itself; you drove on to an 
 iron spring and the weight of the wagon made the 
 spring work a lever and swing the gate open ; when 
 you went out you drove over another spring, which 
 neatly closed the gate behind you! Nothing could 
 be more convenient if the gate worked. It did not 
 work for Johnny s feather weight. He found his 
 wheel poised upon the unyielding steel and a mo 
 tionless wall of iron and wood before the horse s 
 nose. There was nothing for it but to descend, open 
 the gate and lead Romeo, the horse, through the 
 gateway. Unhappily, Romeo was an animal of 
 opinions ; he gazed upon the small figure tugging at 
 the gate and tossed his head in huge contempt when 
 Johnny would have caught the rein; probably he 
 concluded that so small a human being did not know 
 the secret of hurting a horse s mouth to force him to 
 go wherever the hurter willed; slowly, sedately, he 
 ambled off the drive on to the grassy hill and began 
 to nibble the dead grass. 
 
 Johnny-Ivan took in the situation and made up 
 his mind, which, though young, was masterful; he 
 did not try to lead the rebel; he knew better after 
 that one jerk of the head; he simply climbed into 
 the buggy again, climbed out on the thills, fished 
 up the reins and hauled up Romeo s head. Why 
 Romeo submitted no one knows ; he may have had a 
 sense of humor; submit he did and Johnny in tri- 
 
THE GOLDEN AGE 43 
 
 umph drove forth out of the gate. He did not at 
 tempt to close it ; he could not trust Romeo enough 
 for that feat ; instead, he drove down the road until 
 he met a boy, whom he asked in his politest man 
 ner to close the gate for him. Alas ! it was the boy 
 who had once called Peggy Rutherford a "red-head 
 ed copperhead" and been tumbled down the ravine 
 on to the tin cans, the same boy whose wounded 
 toe Johnny-Ivan had bound in his handkerchief for 
 Peggy s scorning. This youngster, by rights, should 
 have had a tincture of gratitude in his resentment; 
 but it was plain his was a base, unknightly nature ; 
 in other words, he was "mean," for he made a vul 
 gar gesture with his thumb on his nose, and bawled 
 to Johnny-Ivan that cows would run in and "tromp 
 up the garden." He said he saw them coming. 
 Johnny was minded to descend and fight the boy 
 again; but distrust of Romeo chained him to his 
 seat. So he told the boy he was smart, wasn t he? 
 and held on his way. 
 
 The next footman to whom he appealed was a 
 man. "Shet it yourself !" growled the man ; he was 
 in a hurry. Johnny-Ivan s brow began to show a 
 deep line ; but he hailed the third passer-by, this time 
 a girl. The girl owned a pleasant face; very likely 
 her nature was of equal pleasantness, but she talked 
 no English and Johnny spoke no German; hence 
 the colloquy was barren of result. He drove on, 
 thinking deeply. The end of this mental exercise was 
 his proffering the next comer, a very freckled little 
 boy, the sumptuous bribe of a knife with three 
 blades; one (admitted the honest Johnny-Ivan) a 
 little broken, just the point off, if he would go shut 
 
44 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 the gate. Thus did Johnny take his first step into 
 the mercenary mire of the world with entire suc 
 cess; for the boy sped to the gate, knife in hand, 
 and swung it safe with a vigorous click. 
 
 "It was an awful nice knife/ sighed Johnny; but 
 directly he smiled. "I bet he ll have a good time with 
 that knife! I bet he never had such a nice knife be 
 fore," thought Johnny-Ivan happily. 
 
 The journey was uneventful ; he, or Romeo, made 
 the passage through the most crowded street of 
 Fairport, and drew up at the office door without so 
 much as the graze of a wheel. Wouldn t his father 
 be pleased ! 
 
 But his father frowned; where was Michael? he 
 demanded. 
 
 Johnny-Ivan explained : Michael was putting out 
 the fire in the cows barn; he knew his father had 
 an engagement ; so he drove in, himself. 
 
 Mr. Winslow s black eyebrows knitted, nor did 
 they smooth until his questions had gathered the 
 whole story. Then Johnny heard him mutter, low : 
 "Well, you are my son as well as your mother s; 
 go off half-cock, but manage to hit, somehow." 
 Johnny-Ivan was not quite sure whether he should 
 consider this praise or reproof ; and an uncomforta 
 ble choke in his throat had succeeded the pleasant 
 glow of anticipation. "I thought you d like me 
 coming in," he said; "you said maybe I d learn to 
 drive all myself ; and I did ; and besides, it was your 
 engagement; you had to go, you said." 
 
 "That s all right; but I could have kept my en 
 gagement with another buggy didn t I tell you 
 never to get in without Michael ?" 
 
THE GOLDEN AGE 45 
 
 "But Michael wasn t there!" 
 
 "Then you shouldn t have got in ; I didn t tell you 
 to drive me ; I told Michael. Johnny, it will save you 
 a lot of trouble if you learn, right now, not to mind 
 other folks business unless they ask you, or you ve 
 got to, to protect yourself." Johnny s face fell. 
 "You might have broken the buggy or killed the 
 horse, or maybe killed yourself. You don t know 
 how to drive well enough. Remember, I mean what 
 I say. You are never to get into the buggy and 
 drive without my permission again. Do you under 
 stand?" 
 
 "Yes, sir," mumbled Johnny-Ivan, very subdued 
 now, his heart swelling with a painful sense of fail 
 ure and injustice. He had wanted to help papa, and 
 only been scolded for it; it wasn t fair. He had 
 never thought of his father as a severe man before; 
 nor was he in the least afraid of him ; but to-day an 
 unacknowledged assent to others reason for dread 
 was working in his childish mind, like the germ of a 
 disease. And an incident on the way home gave the 
 germ a chance to grow. Mr. Winslow drove to the 
 grocery, where the family supplies were bought 
 he had long ago discovered that his peace of mind, at 
 table, was best secured by attending to the provid 
 ing himself. While the grocer was writing the order 
 on his pad, Johnny-Ivan studied the sights of the 
 street. 
 
 Opposite the store a cottage of the older days 
 still kept its place and its teaspoonful of yard, 
 although long since the neighbors of its kind 
 had given way to brick blocks. Something strange 
 had happened In this cottage. Not a fire, for there 
 
46 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 was not a sign of smoke or water; yet behold, on 
 the sidewalk all the humble plenishing of the house 
 hold ! There they were : bedsteads, bureaus, a 
 ragged quilt, a red-cushioned rocking-chair, a baby s 
 cradle, some poor straw-ticks, a table heaped with 
 earthenware and gaudy, cheap dishes, a little broken 
 red wagon, the toy of some child ; not flung in the 
 reckless mass of fright and hasty moving, but ar 
 ranged with orderly economy of space, close to the 
 curbing. Yet one could perceive that it was for no 
 ordinary flitting these goods seemed to wait. A 
 flushed and disheveled woman was weeping on her 
 apron, behind the rampart of bedsteads; two very 
 dirty little children rocked and howled in the rock 
 ing-chair ; and a thick-set, baffled-looking man, with 
 his head down between his shoulders and his hands 
 in his pockets, stood on the edge of the sidewalk 
 and opposed laconic murmurs to a sobbing stream 
 of reproach. 
 
 Johnny-Ivan s curiosity and sympathy increased 
 every second. Now and then poignant phrases smote 
 his ear : "Six childer, God have mercy on me ! and 
 me man that should wurrk for thim, a misfortunate 
 drunkard! ... I ain t seen a well day for 
 three year ! Tis crippled I am wid the misery in me 
 bones. . . . No, I don t drink, and shame to 
 yous for the question ! You don t know how to trate 
 a lady, nohow ! There s me poor old mither s rock- 
 in -chair Oh, bless God she ain t alive to see this 
 day! ... I don t know where we ll go; the 
 neighbors is harder n stones of the strate. Oh, I 
 can t go to the poor us ! Me wid six childer. -. . . 
 Oh, he s gone, he s left me! He blacked me eye. 
 
THE GOLDEN AGE 47 
 
 . . . An if I did throw the flat-iron at him twas 
 to save me life an that old cat, Teresa Maclnarney 
 . . . Oh, tis a bloody lie. ... I don t care 
 if the judge did fine me ! I scratched her in silf-de- 
 fense I ain t got a livin cint in this wurld Twill 
 kill me! Twill kill me! Oh! Oh!" 
 
 Johnny-Ivan was too innocent to detect the 
 squalid truth under this tragic action; the woman s 
 sobs wrung his heart. 
 
 "Oh, papa, what is it? Can t we help her?" he 
 cried. He saw that both the grocer and his clerk 
 were grinning ; they were cruel. 
 
 His father, too, compressed his lips in irony if not 
 in humor. "What is it?" begged Johnny-Ivan. 
 
 "Why, just an eviction," said Winslow ; "they 
 wouldn t pay their rent and they ve been turned 
 out." 
 
 "But where will they go, papa? Have they got 
 any other house ?" 
 
 "Oh, I guess they ll find a place. That s all, Mr. 
 Black, good morning." Winslow, who was driving, 
 couldn t see it; but Johnny-Ivan got his head back 
 over his shoulder for a last glance; the grocer and 
 his clerk were exchanging grins again. 
 
 "Can t you give the poor woman some money, 
 papa?" said he. 
 
 "I ve done all that s necessary, Johnny," said his 
 father. 
 
 "She s running after us now, papa look! look!" 
 
 In fact, she was making a staggering dash after 
 the buggy which, had she been sober, she might 
 have recognized before. 
 
 Winslow gave Romeo a sharp clip with the whip ; 
 
48 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 he never turned his head. "Oh, papa, she wants us 
 to stop !" 
 
 "Can t you see" Winslow began the sentence in 
 a testy tone, but as he looked down at the innocent 
 little face he stopped short ; he couldn t tell the child 
 the truth. 
 
 The woman s shrill outcry beat up through the 
 rattle of wheels: "Oh, Mr. Winslow! Mr. Wins- 
 low ! For God s sake, don t turn me out on the street, 
 Mr. Winslow ! I ll pay you, if you ll only give me 
 time " Here the stout man caught up with her and 
 could be seen soothing her with mingled cajolery 
 and threats, while Romeo swung round the corner, 
 out of sight. 
 
 Johnny-Ivan s face had paled; he was stricken 
 dumb by his knowledge. It was his father, his 
 father, who was doing this terrible thing ! At once 
 he was indignant and frightened. Some instinct 
 warned him that he could do nothing by entreaty. 
 He would tell his mother; she would help the poor 
 woman. One single eye-blink he stole at his father s 
 stern face. He wished he knew what he was think 
 ing. It was rather a pity that he couldn t know, 
 since Winslow s comment ran as follows : "What 
 an idiot I was to go to Black s. Forgot. I know that 
 I told Holcomb to serve the writ, first pleasant day. 
 There s the woman fighting and drinking and beat 
 ing those poor children and the neighbors com 
 plaining but I didn t want to tell Johnny that! 
 He knows nothing about such things. I hope he 
 didn t take in what she was hollering, damn her! 
 Holcomb s got money to quiet her; why didn t he?" 
 Aloud he said : "You don t need to worry about 
 
THE GOLDEN AGE 49 
 
 those children, Johnny ; that officer will see to them. 
 He ll see to the mother, too." 
 
 "Yes, sir," replied Johnny-Ivan, with a child s 
 superficial, misleading docility. 
 
 But he carried the episode straight to his 
 mother, who was as moved as he could wish, and 
 promised to see about it and help the poor woman. 
 
 "Papa ll do what s right, when he knows the 
 truth," she assured Johnny-Ivan; and later, having 
 hunted up the woman and paid for the cartage of her 
 goods to a new domicile (in the Patch), she told 
 her son that the neighbors had told lies about the 
 woman to papa. There the incident closed. The 
 impression remained. Johnny-Ivan was not quite so 
 much at ease with his father ; he did not admire him 
 with such an unbounded trust. There was a 
 shadowy fear which had never been before. Of 
 nights, when he slept poorly, possibly on account of 
 the cook s remarkable choice of dainties for a child s 
 digestion, he would weary his head over problems 
 not good for his youth. He wondered why there are 
 poor people. One day he brought his puzzle to his 
 mother, who only sighed : "There are many cruel 
 and greedy people in the world; they want all the 
 luxuries and they are not willing to give their luxu 
 ries to let the poor people have plain bread." Later, 
 after much thought, he asked his father, who looked 
 at him sharply through his glasses, saying : "Well, 
 son, I am afraid you will be older than I am before 
 you understand that; you see, you treat any poor 
 people you meet decently, and don t worry about it ; 
 there aren t many poor people in Fairport." 
 
 "There s a very poor family down on the Patch," 
 
50 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 said Johnny he thought he wouldn t begin at once 
 with the evicted family, but try less obnoxious suf 
 ferers first "there s a little boy big s me ; can I give 
 him my coat?" 
 
 "No, nor anything else without asking. I ll see 
 he has a coat if he needs it. What s his name?" 
 
 "Serge Rodin." 
 
 "That hound s nephew? You keep away from 
 them, Johnny ; they are bad people, very bad. Mind 
 you don t go near them." 
 
 Johnny was silent ; his father took him on his knee 
 and gave him a simple, adapted-to-youth version of 
 nihilists and their dynamic ways; he was troubled 
 by the child s unresponsive attention. He asked no 
 questions; all his comment was an obedient, "No, 
 sir, I won t go !" making no sign of emotion over the 
 atrocities of bombs and bomb-throwers. Winslow 
 put him off his knee ; and Johnny caught a mutter : 
 "I believe she s begun." 
 
 Johnny was glad to be free to run to his mother. 
 Winslow s harangue was repeated with a child s 
 literalness, the tale ending, "And I didn t say a 
 word, mamma, like you said I never was to ; I sup 
 pose I might to papa, but I didn t; he don t know, 
 mamma ; you ll have to tell him. He thinks our nice 
 nihilists are wicked. He s been told lies, I guess, 
 just like he was bout Mrs. Wiggins." 
 
 His mother kissed him. "That s my own brave 
 boy who can be trusted ! Don t tell any one, galub- 
 chik; and if your papa wants you not to see Serge, 
 all very well ; don t you go ; / will get Serge what he 
 needs." 
 
 But the sorrows of the poor and the wrongs of the 
 
THE GOLDEN AGE 51 
 
 misunderstood nihilists could only disturb a healthy 
 child in passing; Johnny-Ivan was too busy with 
 his own crowded interests to be puzzled or saddened 
 long. Besides his father and his mother, there were 
 two other very dear friends of his in Fairport be 
 fore Peggy came. There was Mishka, who was al 
 most as splendid as Kaler. He was so strong he 
 could wrestle with the colt and throw the colt. He 
 never got cross ; he was always smiling and pleasant 
 and willing to let a boy ride behind him when he 
 went after the cows. He used to be good to the 
 horses. He would say, in Russian, "Forward, my 
 little pigeons!" so much nicer than "G lang," or 
 "Getup." Also he played on the harmonica and 
 sang Down the Little Mother Volga and other 
 beautiful Russian songs ; and he called Johnny gos- 
 podi Sir. Johnny loved Michael. 
 
 There was still another person of deep importance 
 in his little world whom he loved. Not Serge Vas- 
 silovitch, although his mother had told him that 
 Serge was a patriot and had been to Siberia ; he re 
 spected Serge deeply, but somehow he couldn t quite 
 love him ; he used to scowl and curse so much, and 
 the waft of whisky, always heralding his presence, 
 made Johnny s nose wrinkle. He admired her, but 
 he had no more ardent feeling for his nurse, Hilma, 
 whose character was very firm and who exacted 
 obedience by methods which Johnny was too hon 
 orable to carry to his natural protectors, but which 
 he disliked excessively. The new cook was a truly 
 superior woman; he liked the other maids; and the 
 gardener and Timothy Doolan and Fritz, the sta 
 ble-boy, all were kind, delightful, accomplished per- 
 
52 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 sons. Still he did not precisely love them; they 
 weren t like mamma and papa. 
 
 But he did love Aunty Winter. She lived all by 
 herself in a beautiful big house, as big as Overlook; 
 and she always gave a boy something nice to eat. 
 Likewise he enjoyed her conversation. "She seems 
 such a sprightly lady," he confided to his mother, in 
 his little old-fashioned phraseology. 
 
 Aunty Winter never had reveries ; but all "grown 
 ups" appeared to have some difficulties of approach. 
 In Aunty Winter s case the blight on real enjoyment 
 of her conversation came from solitaire. So often 
 when Johnny called she would be busy with her 
 cards spread before her, playing a most difficult 
 game of solitaire, called Penelope s Web. Later, 
 when he was older and not so happy, she taught him 
 the game. She used to say that Johnny Winslow 
 was the only being she knew (herself excepted) who 
 ever succeeded in conquering Penelope s Web three 
 times in one evening. "In consequence," said Mrs. 
 Winter, with a curious little uplifting of her beau 
 tiful eyebrows, w r hich all her friends knew as a kind 
 of ironic parenthesis around her marks of enthusi 
 asm, "when Hopkins dies I shall vote all my stock 
 to make him the next president of the Old Colony !" 
 
 If Johnny admired Mrs. Winter, he had company 
 a plenty. She was used to admiration, having 
 been a Southern belle before the war, a belle in 
 Washington during the sixties, and a very hand 
 some woman ever since. 
 
 Her age, at this time, was nearer fifty than 
 forty; but she looked a good ten years younger; 
 her erect, slim little figure moved as lightly as a 
 
THE GOLDEN AGE 53 
 
 girl s; her brilliant hazel eyes were undimmed by 
 even a transient screen of glass ; and her white teeth 
 flashed over her own or any one s else wit with a 
 youthful vivacity. 
 
 Fairport admired Mrs. Winter almost with aban 
 don : it quoted her epigrams, which shone the more 
 that the West is less given to epigram than to hu 
 mor, wherefore she had few rivals ; it laughed itself 
 into tears over her mimicries; it praised her house 
 keeping and her lavish entertainments; it accepted 
 her loyally for its social leader. Yet there was al 
 ways, deep down, an uneasy distrust. She was very 
 good-natured, but she "made fun" of people. And 
 the gifted imitator of Luke Darrell driving a horse 
 trade; or of old lady Carlisle, who was deaf as a 
 post, but insisted on conversing at funerals, might 
 make the auditors of one joyous hour the subjects 
 of another. So there was a reserve in Fairport s af 
 fection, although none in either its admiration or its 
 obedience. 
 
 Little did Johnny reck of any coldness or any 
 malice in his kind friend. He was proud to help her 
 deal her pretty pasteboards (the reversion of which 
 fell to him until Peggy s arrival, and fell often, as 
 Mrs. Winter was squeamish about the slippery 
 freshness of her cards), and with her ivory ruler 
 he would range the eight ranks of the solitaire 
 scheme in rectangular accuracy; or he would pa 
 tiently deal out an exact replica of her own problem 
 in order that if her first handling of the clues should 
 fail, she might try over again. 
 
 "You are a very useful little trick!" said Mrs. 
 Winter, "and you have your father s dogged pa- 
 
54 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 tience. Let us hope you won t fasten on to any 
 foolish purpose, for it will be no joke getting you to 
 loose your hold !" 
 
 Mrs. Winter acted the First Lady of the Ward 
 robe, as well as many another amiable role, toward 
 the little boy. It was she who designed those suits of 
 cotton or wool so nicely suited to the occasion that 
 one would know that they must have originated in 
 the mind of a woman of tact. They were pretty 
 yet comfortable, whereas the Princess Olga could 
 think of nothing but a toilet of state, blue velvet and 
 Irish point and a sash a boy couldn t run in if he 
 did, it would trip him! She was very glad to ac 
 cept her friend s kind offices. Nor did these stop at 
 sailor suits and pea-jackets and leather leggings; 
 Mrs. Winter had a pair of fine eyes, always on 
 scout duty for loose buttons or rents. Hilma was 
 kept on a wire edge of efficiency in regard to stock 
 ings by the slippers which Mrs. Winter was unex 
 pectedly forcing on her small visitor if his feet 
 looked wet or he "didn t seem quite comfortable in 
 those shoes." One could never tell when stockings 
 might be inspected; therefore, if the lace suffered, 
 stockings must be kept darned. 
 
 The result was that the friends of the family were 
 rather bewildered by the good estate of Johnny s 
 clothes ; but Mrs. Winter and the Winslows kept the 
 secret to themselves. Johnny, least of all, considered 
 the First Lady of the Wardrobe s services in this 
 line ; but he was too grateful to her on many other 
 counts to miss one. And when all is said, she was 
 nice enough in herself; and then, she was Peggy s 
 great-aunt. 
 
THE GOLDEN AGE 55 
 
 With Peggy s coming, life grew even more inter 
 esting. Peggy had visited Mrs. Winter the summer 
 before, because there was yellow fever in Memphis, 
 where the Rutherfords lived; and this spring they 
 came again, because Mrs. Winter was lonesome. 
 Peggy s mother was with her ; she was sick, and she 
 used to lie on the sofa and write letters every day, 
 on a block, to Peggy s papa. Peggy s papa was 
 a doctor, and he wasn t in the least afraid of yel 
 low fever or anything else on earth. Peggy said 
 so. Once a man had tried to shoot him, he prom 
 ised he d shoot him on sight ; and they all sent word 
 that the man was waiting on the sidewalk; they 
 wanted Doctor Rutherford to run out the back way ; 
 he was just eating his dinner; he wasn t feazed 
 a mite; he grabbed up the carving knife and went 
 jumping down the steps, hollering, "Where s he 
 at?" and when the man with the gun saw him com 
 ing he just lit out so fast he tumbled down and lost 
 his gun. Doctor Rutherford had it now. Oh, he 
 was a mighty brave man ! So was Peggy brave ; 
 she could take a toad right up in her hand; she 
 killed a garter-snake with a stick; she never had a 
 light burning in her room at night ; down South, on 
 her uncle s plantation, she used to ride horseback, 
 and she had a little gun of her own and shot birds, 
 and she pulled Johnny-Ivan s tooth out with a 
 string by tying the string to the door-knob and 
 slamming the door. It didn t hurt so awful much ; 
 he didn t cry. But he cried when he, himself, pulled 
 out a real big back tooth of Peggy s the same way. 
 
 Poor Johnny hated to do the brutal deed ; but he 
 was determined to show Peggy (this was shortly 
 
56 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 after, their reconciliation) that he would be useful 
 in a Blood Feud; and here was a chance to display 
 the coveted hardness of heart. He grabbed the knob 
 (Peggy, herself, had adjusted the string with a fine 
 air of callous indifference) ; he shut his eyes tight 
 and swung the door with frenzied energy. But when 
 Peggy s muffled moan drove his eyes open, the spec 
 tacle of mingled blood and woe on her beloved 
 countenance overcame his hardihood ; he wept aloud. 
 Peggy laughed at him; she declared she wasn t 
 hurt. 
 
 "But you you squealed !" sobbed Johnny-Ivan ; 
 "it sounded just like the piggy, when Tim took him 
 away to be killed." 
 
 "I didn t squeal," denied Peggy with heightened 
 color, "and you re a cry-baby! No, you ain t," she 
 instantly corrected ; "you never made a sound when 
 I pulled your tooth; and I didn t squeal, but I 
 reckon I did kinder grunt. It was so sudden." 
 
 Thus was peace restored, and so effectually that 
 Peggy told Johnny she should choose him to avenge 
 her, if any one should murder her in a Blood Feud. 
 
 Besides being so brave and so gifted, Peggy (al 
 though this mattered very little to Johnny-Ivan) was 
 the prettiest girl in town. Her hair wasn t at all red, 
 really; it was only a beautiful bright color, like the 
 copper boiler in the kitchen; and she could wrinkle 
 her forehead and make her whole scalp move up and 
 down as if her hair were a cap. Johnny-Ivan often 
 begged her to show him how to do this entrancing 
 feat ; but she said it was a "conjure trick," and she 
 couldn t tell. Any one can see how absorbing 
 Peggy s society must be. 
 
THE GOLDEN AGE 57 
 
 In this wise did Johnny-Ivan grow up, lonely 
 but not lonesome, taught by the careless but not un 
 kindly tongue of his father s domestics, finding, by 
 the magic of a child s alchemy, gold in everything, 
 and being a loving and happy child, although his 
 father and his mother had little happiness and less 
 love in their relations. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE FAIRPORT ART MUSEUM 
 
 After the war was over, the Middle West ad 
 dressed itself to Culture. Perhaps the husbands and 
 brothers and fathers might still be busy making 
 money; but the women of the West, whose energies 
 and emotions had been mightily roused, found life 
 a little tame when there were no more sanitary com 
 missions, no more great fairs or little fairs for the 
 soldiers, no more intense emotions over printed 
 sheets. Then it was that the Woman s Club lifted a 
 modest finger at the passing car of progress, and 
 unobtrusively boarded it. 
 
 Fairport was conservative, as always, but she 
 had no mind to be left behind in the march of femi 
 nine fashion. She did not rush to extremes, but she 
 had women s clubs in 1881. The chief of these 
 were The Ladies Literary Club and the Spinsters 
 Alliance. Both clubs tackled the same great themes 
 of ethics and art, and allotted a winter to the litera 
 ture of a nation, except in the case of Greek and 
 Roman literatures, which were not considered able 
 to occupy a whole winter apiece, so they were 
 studied in company. The club possessed a proper 
 complement of officers, and their meetings went from 
 house to house. They were conducted with artless 
 
 53 
 
THE FAIRPORT ART MUSEUM 59 
 
 simplicity, in a pleasant, conversational manner, but 
 with due regard to polite forms ; and only at a mo 
 ment of excitement was the chair addressed by her 
 Christian name. 
 
 Naturally, the women s clubs were deeply stirred 
 by the first great World s Fair in America. But 
 the whole West was moved. It turned to art with 
 a joyous ardor, the excited happiness of a child that 
 finds a new beauty in the world. Why had we not 
 thought of the artistic regeneration of our sordid 
 life before? Never mind, we would make amends 
 for lost time by spending more money! In very 
 truth the years following the Centennial witnessed 
 an extraordinary awakening of worship of beauty, 
 almost religious in its fervor. Passionate pilgrims 
 ransacked Europe and the Orient ; a prodigal horde 
 of their captives, objects of luxury and of art, 
 surged into galleries and museums and households. 
 No cold critical taste weeded out these adorable 
 aliens. The worst and the best conquered, together. 
 Our architecture, our furniture, our household sur 
 roundings were metamorphosed as by enchantment. 
 And the feature of mark in it all was the unparal 
 leled diffusion of the new faith. Not the great cities 
 only; the towns, the villages, the hamlets, caught 
 
 fire. 
 
 Of course, Fairport went to Philadelphia; and 
 Fairport was converted. It followed, at once, that 
 the women s clubs of the place should serve most 
 zealously at the altar; and nothing could be more 
 inevitable than that in course of time there should be 
 a concrete manifestation of zeal. Hence the mem 
 orable Art Museum, the fame of which to this day 
 
60 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 will revive, when there is a meeting of the solid 
 and gray-haired matrons who were the light-footed 
 girls of the Alliance, and the talk falls on the old 
 times. 
 
 The art collection would give its admirers shivers 
 to-day, but it excited only happy complacency then. 
 The mood of the hour was not critical. The homes 
 of the Fairport gentry held innumerable oil 
 copies of the great masters of different degrees of 
 merit, which they loaned secure of welcome; with 
 them came family treasures so long held in reverence 
 that their artistic value (coldly considered) had 
 been lost to comparison, and the gems of accom 
 plished amateurs who painted flowers on china cups, 
 or of rising young artists who had not as yet risen 
 beyond the circle of trusting friends in town. 
 
 In general, the donors expectation of gratitude 
 was justified, but even so early as 1881 there were 
 limits to artistic credulity ; and some offerings drove 
 the club president, Miss Claudia Loraine, and the 
 club secretary, Miss Emma Hopkins, to "the coal 
 hole." This was a wee closet under the stairs, where 
 the coal scuttles were ranged, until they should fare 
 forth to replenish the "base burners" which warmed 
 the Museum home. In real life the name of the 
 Museum s lodgings was Harness Block, and Mr. 
 Harness had proffered the cause of art two empty 
 stores, formerly a fish market and a grocery. As 
 there was no private office (only a wire cage), when 
 Miss Hopkins felt the need of frank speech she sig 
 naled Claudia to the coal hole. 
 
 She was closeted with her thus on the morning 
 of the second day. The subject of the conference 
 
THE FAIRPORT ART MUSEUM 61 
 
 was the last assault on the nerves of the committee, 
 perpetrated by the Miller twins not in person, but 
 with their china. The china, itself, had the outward 
 semblance of ordinary blue earthenware of a cheap 
 grade; but the Miller twins were convinced (on the 
 testimony of their dear old minister, who never told 
 a lie in his life, and who had heard the Millers 
 grandmother say and everybody knows that she 
 was a saint on earth, and she was ninety years old 
 at the time, and would she be likely to lie almost on 
 her dying bed? You might call it her dying bed, 
 averred Miss Miller, since she was bedridden for 
 two years before her death, on that same old four- 
 poster bedstead which belonged to her mother, and 
 at last died on it) that the blue ware had been the 
 property of George the Third, had been sold and 
 was on board the ship with the tea which was rifled 
 in Boston Harbor. They had insisted in pasting 
 these royal claims upon the china in the blackest 
 and neatest lettering. The awkward fact that earth 
 enware does not usually grace a royal board, or 
 that the saintly old grandmother mixed up dates 
 and persons in a wonderful way during her latter 
 days, made no difference to her loyal descendants. 
 Each platter with the black chipping betraying 
 plainly its lowly origin, each tea-cup mended with 
 cement, bore the paper-claim pasted securely upon it. 
 "It took us a whole afternoon," said Miss Tina 
 Miller, "but it s so precious and there might be other 
 blue ware and it might get mixed you ll insure it, 
 Miss Hopkins? not that money could replace such 
 things, but, at least" Miss Tina Miller always left 
 her sentences in the air, seemingly too diffident to 
 
62 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 complete them, once the auditors were assured of 
 their import. 
 
 The Millers kept a tiny little house on a tiny little 
 income; but gave of all they had to give, them 
 selves, without stint. They were public-spirited 
 women if Fairport ever held any such. Although 
 they had neither brothers nor cousins to go to the 
 war, they had picked lint and made bandages and 
 trudged with subscription papers and scrimped for 
 weeks to have money to spend at the patriotic fairs. 
 In consequence they were deeply respected, so re 
 spected that it was simply impossible to refuse their 
 unselfish offering of their dearest god. 
 
 "I think it just noble of you/ said Miss Tina. 
 "Sister and I felt we must help ; so we brought the 
 King George china and a little pencil head our sis 
 ter Euphrosyne did. The one who died, you know. 
 I m sorry all your art things aren t in yet. No, I 
 can t come to-morrow ; I shall be very busy sister 
 may come thank you." 
 
 Both the keen young listeners knew why Miss 
 Tina could not come; it was neither more nor less 
 than the admission fee. 
 
 "But I ll take care of that," said Emma to Claudia 
 in the coal hole. "Elly is going to give her and Miss 
 Ally each a season ticket." 
 
 "Then we re in for the King George china!" 
 groaned Claudia softly. 
 
 "We are," said Emma. "I ve put it in a good but 
 not too good a place, and Mr. Winslow is inspecting 
 it now." 
 
 "And he knows about china; he s sent lovely 
 things," mourned Claudia. 
 
THE FAIRPORT ART MUSEUM 63 
 
 "Oh, well, he knows about the Miller girls, too," 
 said Emma, smiling; "I think he ll forgive us." 
 
 "You d better go explain," urged Claudia, "and 
 throw in that landscape with the cow that seems to 
 have five legs and belongs to Mr. Harness. Perhaps 
 he ll forgive that, too." 
 
 Emma went, she was an amiable girl. She was 
 not pretty like her sister, Mrs. Raimund, who had 
 married the great railway man and was a power in 
 Chicago society; but there was something in the 
 radiant neatness and good humor of the plain sister 
 which made her pleasant to look upon. 
 
 Winslow s mouth and eyes relaxed at her greet 
 ing, and he smiled over her official quotation of the 
 Millers claims. 
 
 "King George s table? H mn ; which table, second 
 or third?" His eyes twinkled at Emma, whose own 
 eyes twinkled back. 
 
 "They re awfully good women," said she, in a 
 kind of compunction. 
 
 "None better," said he. 
 
 As he passed on, with his little son at his side, 
 she thought : "He isn t nearly so grim as I used to 
 think." 
 
 Mrs. Winslow and Mrs. Winter were a few paces 
 behind. They halted before the china, which Mrs. 
 Winter examined; but Mrs. Winslow s weary eyes 
 lingered hardly a moment before they found some 
 other object on which to rest and leave as briefly. 
 
 "It is to be hoped this priceless relic won t be 
 damaged in any way/ said Mrs. Winter. "Still" 
 she bent confidentially toward Emma "if such a 
 calamity should occur, I know a shop in Chicago 
 
64 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 where you can get plenty more for three dollars and 
 ninety-nine cents." 
 
 "I hope nothing will happen to it," said Emma, 
 with stolid reticence. 
 
 Mrs. Winslow had not listened, her listless face 
 had been transformed; it was illumined now by the 
 loveliest of smiles; she half put out her hand as a 
 little boy snuggled up to her silken skirts, with a 
 laugh. 
 
 "Papa letted me come," he said gaily, "and 
 Peggy s here, too, there !" 
 
 Peggy was attired with great care, her long red 
 curls were shining and her eyes sparkled. 
 
 Immediately both children were immersed in the 
 beauties of a collection of rejected models which 
 had been obtained from the patent office, and which, 
 surely, were the most diverting toys imaginable. 
 
 "Poor things, to them they are most valuable!" 
 sighed Mrs. Winslow. She was making conversa 
 tion about the Miller china; but Johnny-Ivan and 
 Peggy not unreasonably conceived that she spoke 
 of the beautiful churns and hayraking wagons and 
 cars and wheeled chairs and the like marvels which 
 Miss Hopkins was amiably explaining for them. 
 
 "The least chip would be irreparable, I suppose," 
 continued Mrs. Winter, "thousands couldn t pay if 
 one were broken !" 
 
 "Imagine the feelings of the custodian," said 
 Emma. "I m in a tremble all the time." 
 
 "I pity you," said Mrs. Winter, as the two ladies 
 passed on to Mrs. Winter s great-grandmother s 
 blue and white embroidered bedspread. 
 
 "Oh, Peggy, do be careful!" whispered Johnny- 
 
THE FAIRPORT ART MUSEUM 65 
 
 Ivan ; Peggy was sending a velocipede in dizzy cir 
 cles round the counter. 
 
 Now fate had ordered that at this critical instant 
 the children should be unguarded. Miss Hopkins 
 had stepped aside at the call of an agitated lady who 
 had lost one of her art treasures in carriage; for 
 the moment, there was no one near save a freckled 
 boy in shabby overalls, who eyed the toys wistfully 
 from afar. He was the same little boy whom 
 Johnny-Ivan had bribed with a jack-knife to close 
 the gate a few weeks before; and he was in the 
 Museum to help his mother, the scrub-woman of the 
 store. 
 
 Peggy grew more pleased with her play. The 
 velocipede described wider and wider gyrations with 
 accelerating speed ; its keen buzz swelled on the air. 
 
 "It ll hit somepin !" warned Johnny-Ivan in an ac 
 cess of fear. 
 
 But Peggy s soul was dauntless to recklessness. 
 "No, it won t," she flung back. Her shining head 
 was between Johnny and the whirling wheels. He 
 thought a most particularly beautiful little swing 
 ing gate in peril and tried to swerve the flying 
 thing; how it happened, neither of the children 
 knew ; there was a smash, a crash, and gate and ve 
 locipede lay in splinters under a bronze bust. The 
 glass of the show-case was etched with a sinister 
 gray line. 
 
 "Now look what you ve done !" exclaimed Peggy, 
 with the natural irritation of disaster. "Oh, my!" 
 squeaked the shabby little boy, "won t you catch it !" 
 Peggy s anger was swallowed up in fright and sym 
 pathy ; she pushed Johnny-Ivan ahead of her. "That 
 
66 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 Miss Hopkins is looking," cried she, "get behind 
 these folks down the aisle !" 
 
 She propelled the little boy out of the immediate 
 neighborhood of the calamity ; she forced a wicked, 
 deceitful smile (alas! guile comes easy to her sex) 
 and pointed out things to him, whispering, "Look 
 pleasant! Don t be so scared! They ll never know 
 we did it!" Already she was shouldering her share 
 in crime, with a woman s willingness; she said "we" 
 quite unconsciously; but she added (and this was 
 of direct volition) : "I did it more n you; you were 
 just trying to keep the nasty thing straight ; I was a 
 heap more to blame. Anyhow, I guess it ain t so 
 awful bad. Just those wooden things !" 
 
 Johnny-Ivan shook a tragic head; even his lips 
 had gone bluish-white. "She said thousands 
 wouldn t repair the damage," moaned he. 
 
 "You can t make me believe those mean little 
 wooden tricks are worth any thousand dollars!" 
 volleyed Peggy ; nevertheless, her heart beat faster, 
 grown people are so queer. "Are you sure she 
 meant them? Maybe it was those things in the next 
 glass case, they re her own things ! They re some 
 kind of Chinese china and cost a heap." Peggy s 
 sturdy womanly wits were rising from the shock. 
 
 "And the show-case is broked !" sniffed Johnny- 
 Ivan, gulping down a sob. 
 
 "It ain t broke, it s only cracked; sides, it was 
 cracked a right smart befo !" 
 
 "But this was a new place I know, cause I cut 
 my finger on the other, scraping it over." 
 
 "Well, anyhow, I reckon it didn t be much value/ 
 Peggy insisted. 
 
THE FAIRPORT ART MUSEUM 67 
 
 "I saw that young lady come back," Johnny- 
 Ivan had switched on to a new track leading to 
 grisly possibilities "maybe she ll find it!" 
 5 "Well, we re gone, all right." 
 
 "That little boy isn t." 
 
 Peggy gave an unprincipled giggle. "Maybe 
 she ll think it was him." 
 
 "Then we got to tell," moaned Johnny. 
 
 "No, we ain t. He ll run off and so she won t ask 
 him questions." 
 
 "But she ll think it s him. It ll be mean." 
 
 "No it won t." 
 
 "It s mean to have somebody else take your blame 
 or your punishment ; mamma said so." 
 
 The small casuist was too discreet to attack John 
 ny s oracle ; she only pouted her pretty lips and quib 
 bled: 
 
 " Tain t mean if the people who get blamed are 
 mean themselves like him. I don t care how 
 blamed he gets ; I wouldn t care if he got licked." 
 
 But Johnny s conscience was not so elastic. "I 
 don t care, either," he protested. "I I wouldn t 
 care if he was deaded" anxious to propitiate 
 "but it would be mean just the same. I got to tell 
 papa, Peggy, I truly have." 
 
 Peggy grew very cross. "You are just the foolest, 
 obsternatist little boy I ever did see," she grumbled ; 
 "you re a plumb idiot! I d like to slap you! Your 
 papa ll be awful mad." 
 
 Johnny-Ivan essayed an indifferent mien, but his 
 eyes were miserable. 
 
 "Say, Jo nivan," her voice sank to a whisper 
 that curdled his blood "were you ever spanked?" 
 
68 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 "Only Hilma sorter kinder not really spanking, 
 you know/ confessed Johnny with a toss of his 
 head. "I just made faces at her; I didn t cry!" he 
 bragged. 
 
 "Never your mamma or your papa?" 
 
 "Course not," said Johnny with a haughty air; 
 but, "Peggy," he said very low, "were you did " 
 
 "Oh, my, yes ! Mammy did when I was little. I m 
 too big now." 
 
 "I m too big, too, now, ain t I ?" 
 
 "I don t know," said Peggy. "Wulf Greiner was 
 licked by teacher, and he s thirteen. It s whether it s 
 mighty bad, you know." 
 
 Johnny-Ivan caught his breath and his legs shook 
 under him ; the horror of his father s "licking" him 
 came over him cold; it was not the pain; he had 
 never minded Hilma s sturdy blows and he had let 
 Michael cut a splinter out of his thumb with a 
 pocket-knife, and never whimpered; it was the ig 
 nominy, the unknown terror of his father s wrath 
 that loomed awful to him. As he looked down the 
 crowded room and suddenly beheld Winslow s face 
 bent gravely over Miss Hopkins, who was talking 
 earnestly, he could hardly move his feet. Yet he had 
 no thought of wavering. "I got to tell," he said, 
 and walked as fast as he could, with his white face, 
 straight to the group. 
 
 Winslow looked down and saw the two children ; 
 any one could discover the signals of calamity in 
 their faces : Peggy s a fine scarlet and Johnny-Ivan s 
 grayish-white. 
 
 "What s the matter, Johnny?" asked Winslow. 
 
 Johnny s eyelids were glued tight just as they 
 

 !< MAMMA, I WISHT YOU WAS A QUEEN 1 . 
 
THE FAIRPORT ART MUSEUM 69 
 
 were when he pulled Peggy s tooth he blurted 
 everything out breathlessly : " I ve done something 
 awful, papa! It ll cost thousands of dollars." 
 
 Emma Hopkins had considered Winslow an un 
 attractive man, of a harsh visage, but now, as he 
 looked at his little son, she changed her mind. 
 
 "What did you do, son?" said he quietly; his 
 hand found Johnny s brown curls and lay on them 
 a second. 
 
 He did nt do it, reajly ; it was me" Peggy broke 
 in, too agitated for grammar. " I was playing with 
 the little tricks on the table, the models, sah, and I 
 was making the v losipid run round and he was 
 fraid I d break it; but /did it, really, sah." 
 
 " And the model fell on to something valuable? 
 I see." 
 
 " But he was nt playing with it, he was only try 
 ing to keep me from breaking " 
 
 " Well, young lady, you two are evidently in the 
 same boat ; but you aren t a bit sneaky, either of 
 you. Let s see the wreckage ; I suppose you got into 
 trouble because you wanted to see how things 
 worked, and Johnny, as usual, couldn t keep out of 
 other folks hot water. Where s the ruin?" 
 
 "The show-case is broked, too," said Johnny- 
 Ivan in a woeful, small voice. 
 
 " But it was cracked before," interjected Peggy. 
 
 Winslow looked at her with a little twist. * That s 
 a comfort," said he, "and you have horse sense, 
 my little Southerner. I guess you didn t either of 
 you mean any harm " 
 
 " Indeed, no, sah, and Johnny was just as good ; 
 never touched a thing " 
 
70 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 "But you see your intentions didn t protect you. 
 Distrust good intentions, my dears ; look out for the 
 possible consequences. However, I think there is 
 one person to blame you haven t mentioned, and that 
 is one Josiah C. Winslow, who let two such giddy 
 young persons explore by themselves. Contributory 
 negligence is proved ; and said Winslow will pay the 
 bill and not kick." 
 
 So saying, he took Peggy s warm, chubby little 
 fingers in one of his big white hands and Johnny- 
 Ivan s cold little palm in tlie other, and nodded a 
 farewell to Emma. Emma watched him ; she did not 
 realize how vividly more than one emotion was 
 painted on her usually placid face, any more than she 
 was aware of Olga Winslow s dark eyes. 
 
 "I don t know why, but I dislike that girl," said 
 Olga to Mrs. Winter. 
 
 "Emma Hopkins? I shouldn t have said she had 
 enough distinction about her to be disliked; she al 
 ways seemed to me like apple dumplings, whole 
 some, but not intoxicating. You can t get up any ar 
 dent feelings about them ! Now, Mrs. Raimund " 
 
 "Mrs. Raimund" Olga waved her hands impa 
 tiently in a foreign gesture "she has a kind of 
 beauty, but she bores one, she is so shallow. Now 
 this young woman she s deep. And I do not like 
 her. I will tell you," she added directly. "I know 
 whom she resembles. Oh, immensely ! It is my hus 
 band, it is Mr. Winslow. I never understood him ; 
 she would never be at a loss. They are cut out of 
 the same piece of cloth." 
 
 "I never saw any resemblance," began Mrs. 
 Winter, a little amused, a little embarrassed. 
 
THE FAIRPORT ART MUSEUM 71 
 
 "Nor I until to-day. But do you believe in pre 
 sentiments ?" 
 
 "Not a bit," replied Mrs. Winter cheerfully. 
 
 "Me, I do believe. Well, cherie, I feel that young 
 woman will have, some day, everything I love best, 
 yes. So I I hate her!" 
 
 "You talk as if you thought she would marry 
 your husband." 
 
 "Some day she will. But she shall not have Ivan." 
 
 "My dear friend, this is well, you are not talk 
 ing sense !" 
 
 "No ? But you will see it. Ugh ! it bothers me ; 
 let us look at these strange artistic moods of our 
 town. Was there ever anything cruder ! You Amer 
 icans think you can buy anything. Art isn t bought, 
 it grows. The redeeming grace of an aristocracy is 
 its ah, what shall I say? its heritage of beauty, 
 luxury, splendor. Our daily life at home doesn t 
 put on these things, they are a veritable part of it. 
 Here, why, you are like an Indian in breech-clout 
 and a dress-coat, your pomp is so incongruous, so 
 assumed." 
 
 "Yet you say you revolt from your own coun 
 try s manner of living, for all it s so refined." 
 
 "Nu. We pay too high a price for repose and 
 refinement. We are unconscious vampires, whose 
 luxury and taste are drawn out of the veins of the 
 poor starved, stunted mujiks. That is why my heart 
 went forth to you Americans until I knew you. I 
 thought you were free, free in your souls, not only 
 just free to sell your votes. I thought you loved your 
 poor brothers and there was a chance for the poor 
 est" 
 
f2 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 "There is," said Mrs. Winter dryly, "if he is 
 willing to work and has brains. Just look at your 
 own husband ; he has made every dollar of his mil 
 lions." 
 
 "Ah, but look you ! he has brains and he can be 
 cruel, he can push the weaker aside. Even in Rus 
 sia a man with those qualities can win money and a 
 place. Bozhe moil* Does it not seem absurd to have 
 believed that Americans, the most brutally relentless 
 of all races but only the English, to have believed 
 that they would love and help the weak ? Yet I be 
 lieved it. Ah, can t you see the only valid reason, 
 the only living excuse for a democracy is that it 
 should share with the humblest? A democracy must 
 be crude and chaotic; it can t have the leisure and 
 the serenity to be beautiful ; but there is a beauty of 
 the spirit that is greater; kindness and sincerity 
 and truth and courage : they are the most beautiful 
 of all ! Do you think if I had found my dreams true, 
 and you were trying to deck the bare homes of the 
 poor with these bibelots, I should find anything of 
 the ridiculous ! Me, I should be on my knees to you ! 
 Nor would there be so much to ridicule ; the worst 
 art is born of pretense I speak your language so 
 poorly. I can t explain myself !" 
 
 "You speak English beautifully, my dear child," 
 said Mrs. Winter, "our real language well, I don t 
 know whether you can speak it or understand it, 
 either ; and there s the trouble why, Jo nivan, how 
 long have you been walking behind us ?" 
 
 * Great Heavens ! dear me ! a common Russian exclama 
 tion. 
 
THE FAIRPORT ART MUSEUM 73 
 
 "Ever so long," answered Johnny-Ivan calmly; 
 "but mamma says I mustn t int rupt. Papa says I 
 should tell you there s some nice tickings up stairs." 
 
 "Now, I wonder," thought Mrs. Winter, who was 
 an astute personage and did not share the almost 
 universal confidence in the deafness of children and 
 one s neighbors in street-cars. "I do wonder how 
 much of her ravings that poor little chap heard ; he 
 wouldn t understand the last part ; but the first was 
 plain English." 
 
 In point of fact, Johnny-Ivan had heard every 
 word, but the futile effort to comprehend the last 
 sentences had made him doubt his own interpreta 
 tion of the words before. Nevertheless, he was to 
 ponder on them often; and they were to have a 
 more clinging influence on his future than even Mrs. 
 Winter could forebode. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 r A MESSAGE FROM RUSSIA 
 
 On the morning after his misfortune at the Art 
 Exhibition, Johnny-Ivan was racing over the lawn, 
 filled with an exhilaration compound of a number 
 of pleasant happenings. For one thing his "aunty" 
 had come on a visit the evening before. In most 
 families there is one aunty and several aunts. Some 
 times, when there is a single aunt, she is not an 
 aunty. Sometimes, also, the aunty to one child in a 
 family is merely Aunt Helen or Anna to another. 
 The aunty may be designated as the reigning aunt, 
 the head of the order. Johnny-Ivan possessed sev 
 eral aunts, his Aunt Wanda, his Aunt Marie, his 
 Aunt Clara, and he was decorously fond of them all ; 
 but only Mrs. Burney, his father s sister, was 
 aunty, and aunty would be here for two weeks. 
 She had brought him candy, a five-dollar gold piece 
 and a wonderful fireman s suit with helmet and 
 breastplate, in which he intended presently to daz 
 zle Peggy. It was another delightful thing that 
 Peggy was coming over for the whole day. Then, 
 under all, wasn t it spring with the feel of spring in 
 the air, if not yet the tints of spring in the trees! 
 Altogether, Johnny-Ivan sang and shouted for the 
 joy of living that morning. 
 
 74 
 
A MESSAGE FROM RUSSIA 75 
 
 By consequence he smiled with great friendliness 
 at a small, well-freckled boy, whom he encountered 
 crossing the lawn. This boy carried a tin pail. It 
 was a battered pail of the haggard gray which an 
 cient tin will acquire, and it was mended with a 
 string. 
 
 "Say," hailed Johnny-Ivan, "who d you want?" 
 
 The boy dug his bare heel into the soft turf and 
 scowled at his little questioner. Instantly Johnny 
 recognized him. It was the boy to whom he had 
 given his knife, the boy who had jeered at him in 
 the Art Gallery. 
 
 "Hello !" cried Johnny, in a different tone. 
 
 "Didn t you git a lickin , yestiddy?" said the boy. 
 
 He regarded this sally as a masterpiece of irony; 
 and his sullen face relaxed. 
 
 Johnny-Ivan laughed. "Course not!" he tossed 
 his head easily "papa paid em. I told all about it. 
 I wasn t going to have you blamed." Johnny-Ivan 
 was not above bragging about his virtue; in fact, 
 the right to brag is one of the precious rewards of 
 virtue to his age. 
 
 "I run away; they couldn t have cotched me," 
 said the boy. 
 
 "You couldn t run d away from the p liceman! 
 He d catched you." 
 
 "Naw, he wouldn t. I kin beat the engine. Say, 
 didn t your pa lick you when you got home?" 
 
 "Naw," Johnny-Ivan essayed an imitation, not 
 in irony but in admiration of the other boy s accent 
 "my papa never licked me in my life." 
 
 The boy eyed him a minute, hammering a bare 
 heel into the soft sod ; his cynical air melted. "Say," 
 
76 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 said he, "it must be bully to have a sure nuff pa 
 like that !" 
 
 "Haven t you got any papa?" said Johnny, his 
 eyes wide. 
 
 "Naw, he s dead. I just got a step. My real 
 father, he was a awful nice man. On the river. This 
 one he ain t nothing jes loafs an bums an licks us !" 
 
 "Does he lick you?" 
 
 "Me an ma, too. / don t mind. But I m goin to 
 kill him fur lickin ma, sometime." 
 
 Johnny-Ivan stared at the boy s flushing cheeks 
 and knitted brow ; and his own cheek reddened. 
 
 "I would," said he firmly; "that s what Kaler d 
 do. You could stick him with my knife. It s awful 
 sharp." 
 
 The other did not receive this fiery counsel with 
 enthusiasm. Often, the onlooker is of more desper 
 ate mood than the actor. 
 
 "He d git the knife away and then he d murder 
 me sure n shootin ," he muttered. "Lots of times, I 
 have made up my mind to run away." 
 
 "Why don t you?" 
 
 "Only there s ma. He s so mean he d take it out 
 on her. Oncet he was lickin her with a hard wood 
 stick, and I jumped on him and bit him." 
 
 "Oh my!" gasped Johnny-Ivan, "what d he do?" 
 
 "He bust my head open," answered the boy with 
 somber pride, "and I didn t know nothin . They 
 called the police on us, that time, and he got thirty 
 days. We d a reel good time w ile he was in jail; 
 we painted the kitchen. Ma kep every cent she got 
 from scrubbing. But he come back ; and it was bad s 
 
A MESSAGE FROM RUSSIA 77 
 
 "Why don t you and your mother both run off?" 
 asked Johnny. 
 
 "It takes money," answered the boy; "ma, she 
 did save a little money, but she had to spend it all 
 buryin baby." 
 
 "Did your baby die?" 
 
 "Dipthery? Yes. He was mean to her when she 
 was sick cause she cried. Ma said she d never for 
 give him. I guess she d run fast nuff if we d got 
 the price." 
 
 Johnny was breathing quickly. Here was some 
 thing like the stories. "I got some money," he cried, 
 "my aunty gave me a five-dollar gold piece and I 
 got it here in my pocket see !" 
 
 His hand had dived into his pocket and was out 
 again with the coin glittering in the palm. He 
 pressed it upon the astonished lad. "You take it, 
 and run quick!" he cried; "somebody s calling me. 
 Mind you run!" 
 
 Not pausing for an answer, he sped like a deer 
 back to the lawn and his father. 
 
 The freckled boy, after a second, put the coin in 
 side his cheek and ran as swiftly in the opposite di 
 rection. 
 
 Johnny-Ivan s head was so full of the interview 
 that he almost bumped into a man, at that moment 
 mounting the steps where Mr. Winslow awaited his 
 son. 
 
 The man wore a red shirt. He had thick black 
 hair. Johnny-Ivan shied just in time; and, as he 
 sprang aside, he was aware of a paper waving in a 
 dirty hand. He recognized Serge Vassilovitch. 
 Serge it was, revealed rather than disguised by 
 
78 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 liquor, swinging the open sheet and .bellowing aloud : 
 "Where is the barina? Where is Olga Ivanovna?" 
 
 Winslow, who had a copy of the same paper in 
 his hand and whose face was unusually stern, took 
 two strides toward the Russian. In the hall behind 
 appeared Hilma and Abbie, the new waitress. 
 
 "What do you want at the front door?" demanded 
 Winslow, the blood mounting to his brow. No one 
 of the servants had ever seen him in a passion be 
 fore; James, the gardener, Michael, Tim, Hilma, 
 Abbie, the waitress, all stared at him; but Serge 
 stood his ground and shrieked in Russian that the 
 tyrant was removed ! 
 
 "Get out of these grounds, you murderer and tool 
 of murderers !" bawled Josiah. "If I see your dirty 
 face here again I ll set the dogs on you !" 
 
 Serge, whose legs had begun to wabble, swung 
 his arms and cursed in thick but voluble Russian. 
 "Get out of here !" Winslow repeated. His tone had 
 sunk ; he thrust his hand into the bosom of his coat ; 
 something menacing in his gesture and more menac 
 ing in his eye pierced Serge s thick wits: he sub 
 mitted to Michael, who whispered in his ear and 
 led him away. The audience was dazed. Tim, 
 alone, ventured comment. 
 
 "Is it true thim nahilists have blowed the legs aff 
 the poor sezar of Rooshy?" said he. 
 
 The reply came through Winslow s set teeth. 
 "That is just exactly what the damn idiotic assassins 
 have done; and, if they only knew it, kept Russia 
 out of a constitution for a generation, damn them ! 
 I d like to see the whole batch swing!" The last 
 word might not have been the last, had not Wins- 
 
A MESSAGE FROM RUSSIA 
 
 79 
 
 low seen his sister and his wife coming down the 
 stairway, and tried to put on his usual composed in 
 difference of manner. But there remained the in 
 definable throb of emotion in the air; and Mrs. 
 Burney knew her brother. 
 
 "What has happened, Si?" she asked in a low 
 tone. 
 
 "The nihilists have assassinated the czar/ said 
 Josiah; "good morning, Olga, would you like the 
 Gazette?" As he spoke he offered the paper to his 
 wife. She turned pale. 
 
 "What madness!" she muttered. "Oh, my poor 
 country !" 
 
 "I hope now, Olga," said he gravely, "we have 
 seen the last of Serge and of some others. You per 
 ceive what such methods come to." 
 
 She made him no answer. In silence they walked 
 together through the wide hall into the dining-room, 
 Johnny-Ivan following unnoticed, while their ser 
 vants exchanged significant glances. The breakfast 
 passed off in apparent amity, mostly promoted by 
 Mrs. Burney, who was interested in the Art Exhi 
 bition, the weather, the Winslow summer plans, 
 everything in sight except Russia. Josiah read the 
 paper as he ate, hurling horrid details of the tragedy 
 at the others between mouth fills, oblivious of 
 Johnny s glowing eyes or Mrs. Burney s pacific di 
 versions. Olga smiled and patted her sister-in-law s 
 hand ; not a word of sympathy or argument did she 
 offer her husband. But Johnny-Ivan s excitement 
 grew; it pulled him out of his chair and on to his 
 father s knee, where he could see the ghastly head 
 lines for himself. 
 
80 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 "Well, Johnny, let us men go off with the news 
 paper," proposed his father, "and leave mamma and 
 aunty to talk of the show." 
 
 Olga found them together, half an hour later. 
 Johnny was talking; she heard a single sentence. 
 "No, papa, they re not bad cruel men. I guess the 
 czar must have sent their friends to Siberia and that 
 was the trouble." 
 
 Olga could not catch the answer in her husband s 
 deeper tones, but she caught every word of the 
 child s sweet, high pipe. 
 
 "Yes, papa. I m awful sorry for the poor czar, if 
 he was bad !" 
 
 She did not listen further ; she went back to the 
 house, to her own little parlor, where she waited for 
 her boy. Her first horror was breaking under the on 
 set of her instinct to defend her party and her 
 friends. She resented this attack on a child s heart, 
 forgetting that she had attacked it, herself. 
 
 When the little fellow came, she smoothed his 
 dark curls, fondly murmuring soft Russian diminu 
 tives in his ear, and it was as if by accident she 
 asked finally : "What was papa telling you ?" 
 
 Johnny-Ivan blushed. "I guess I can t tell," said 
 he. His head was bent, so he did not see her cold 
 smile as she answered : 
 
 "Not if you promised not. But you didn t tell all 
 those secrets we have, either ?" 
 
 "Not one, maman, not one; I shutted my mouf 
 tight, and I didn t even breathe." Here he suited the 
 action to the word. 
 
 She smiled again. "He is mine," she was think 
 ing, "most of all he is mine !" 
 
A MESSAGE FROM RUSSIA 81 
 
 However, the father had his own grounds for en 
 couragement. That afternoon he strolled down to 
 a corner of his garden where the asparagus bed in 
 summer would make a mass of graceful greenery; 
 now it was only a square of freshly turned black 
 earth. On the edge a spot of clear turf was shaded 
 by a tall and richly spreading elm which had been 
 planted by Atherton s own hands; and Atherton 
 himself had shaped the rustic seat beneath its green 
 ery. To one side, a cluster of flowering almond 
 trees and Paris japonicas used to flower in masses 
 of crimson and pink for the April sun. That March 
 day no bright color tinted the shrubs ; but the grass 
 was greening, the tree twigs were faintly red and 
 an odor of earth and springtime exhaled from the 
 newly turned clods. The place was the children s 
 favorite playground; and now Peggy and Johnny 
 were there, playing a game which so deeply engaged 
 them that Winslow captured the seat behind the 
 japonicas, unobserved. He watched them, at once 
 aware this was a game out of the common. No or 
 dinary play could demand such high toilets. 
 
 Peggy was decked in a gold embroidered robe 
 (erstwhile a piano cover) ; the white silk handker 
 chief crowning her bright tresses was gathered into 
 folds by Mrs. Winslow s opal and diamond brooch 
 and further enriched by the chandelier chains, and 
 a pompon from a small red feather duster. She 
 bore a wand of white wreathed with yellow ribbon ; 
 her mien was of solemnest grandeur. Johnny was 
 no less resplendent, wearing his fireman s helmet, a 
 Roman sash of his mother s and a splendid cuirass 
 made of two tin steamer covers attached to his per- 
 
82 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 son and each other by gold and white curtain cords. 
 He brandished the Winslow sword and he was pale 
 with emotion. "Let the Russian army approach the 
 bier!" commanded Peggy, waving her wand. The 
 Russian army stiffened and stalked up to a wheel 
 barrow covered with an American flag, beneath 
 which could plainly be discerned the outlines of a 
 doll. 
 
 "I m sorry we didn t have a Russian flag," re 
 gretted the army as it surveyed the wheelbarrow. 
 
 "Well, you-all wouldn t take my Confederit flag," 
 retorted the mistress of ceremonies; "it s a flag, 
 that s the main thing." She elevated her tones: 
 "Let the Russian nobility and clergy approach !" In 
 response, she moved with dignity to the other side. 
 
 "Now the Royal Family!" She fell back to draw 
 out a large handkerchief (one of Winslow s own) 
 and bury her face in its folds while she tottered up 
 to the bier. The army was visibly affected. Its agi 
 tation, in fact, was so great that it only opened its 
 mouth at the next call : "Ambassadahs and minis- 
 tahs of the penitenchary !" Suddenly came the low 
 but stern command : Gimme my wreath !" whereat 
 the army scrambled under the wheelbarrow and 
 emerged with a wreath of artificial roses, much 
 past their bloom, apologizing, "It dropped off the 
 wheelbarrow." 
 
 "It ain t a barrah, it s a bcah!" said Peggy, with 
 the same hushed severity, then aloud: "Ambassa 
 dahs, you-all approach! Down in front! the am- 
 bassadahs are approachin !" 
 
 Majestically, the ambassadors and ministers plen 
 ipotentiary strode to the bier. Their gorgeous head 
 
A MESSAGE FROM RUSSIA 83 
 
 laid the wreath on the flag ; his tones swelled sono 
 rously : "We bring this votive wreath in token of 
 the grief and condolence of all nations. The de 
 ceased-was a good and great man and it is an awful 
 shame how he was killed, for he was basely mur 
 dered by cruel villins and traitahs." 
 
 The army fidgeted in an unmartial manner. 
 "You re so many things" it complained; "and I 
 ain t nothing but the army." 
 
 "Well, you didn t want to p nounce the funeral 
 rashun, you wouldn t call the nihilists miff 
 
 names " 
 
 "But I let you behead the worst one " 
 
 "You wouldn t let me behead em all. They d 
 ought to be." 
 
 "Well, one s enough, cause he s the worst one; 
 the others just did it to please him. Besides" there 
 was triumph in the little boy s tone; he felt that he 
 could justify his reprehensible softness of heart 
 "besides, we d lose the dolls !" 
 
 "Whose dolls are they?" was the haughty and 
 irrefutable reply. 
 
 "I know they re yours, but don t you hate to cut 
 your dolls heads off?" 
 
 "Not when it s right and your juty," declaimed 
 Peggy with an heroic air. She waved her hand at 
 the bier. "That s Annabel Lee," said she, "turned 
 into a man ; and he s got Annabel s stockings on 
 her w ite silk stockings." 
 
 "Oh, Peggy!" cried Johnny-Ivan, appalled at this 
 Spartan sacrifice, "your best doll!" But instantly 
 his brow cleared. "You we could wwbury him after 
 a while, you know !" he suggested. 
 
84 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 "No/ 5 said Peggy firmly, "I ain t no Injun 
 gifter!" 
 
 "But I don t think it s fair to Annabel Lee/ 
 ventured Johnny. 
 
 Unluckily, at this interesting turn of the drama, a 
 powerful sneeze caught and strangled the spectator ; 
 he fought it in vain; it exploded with a prodigious 
 reverberation. Both the children jumped; nothing 
 remained for the eavesdropper but to come forward. 
 
 "I m sorry I interrupted your game," he said. 
 "I m going off now, and, see here, little girl, I d 
 unbury the czar ; I think he d like it, and make him 
 over into Annabel Lee." 
 
 "Yes, sah, we will," said Peggy, in her politest 
 manner. 
 
 Josiah took his way homeward rather slowly; in 
 truth he would have been glad to see the play out; 
 he was curious regarding the fate of the condemned 
 nihilist; so curious that he questioned Johnny-Ivan. 
 
 "We exercutid him," replied the little boy solemn 
 ly ; "he paid the penalty of his crime ; .we cutted his 
 head off." Johnny s grandiloquence was always art 
 less; it came from simple trust in the language of 
 his books ; his face was full of tragedy, dashed with 
 pride. 
 
 "Who was the executioner ?" 
 
 "Peggy. She had the hatchet ; and she dipped the 
 head in red paint and held it up and hollered : Thus 
 perish all traitors. 
 
 "And you cried?" 
 
 "No, sir ; I didn t even shut my eyes ; I played the 
 Russian hymn on the comb, cause I was the band." 
 
 "Can you play a tune ?" 
 
A MESSAGE FROM RUSSIA 85 
 
 "Not ezackly, but if you hold your mouf close to 
 the comb and sorter sing the words it sounds like a 
 tune. Peggy can do it beautiful; she played soon s 
 she got done waving the head." 
 
 "So you had a very exciting time and enjoyed it?" 
 
 "I guess so," said Johnny-Ivan; but there was 
 some doubt in his tone. 
 
 "Poor little chap !" thought Winslow, "you need 
 an almighty lot of hardening. How am I going to 
 give it to you?" 
 
 Not seeing his path clear, he presented Johnny 
 with a silver quarter and told him never to borrow 
 the ancestral sword again. 
 
 "Mamma let me have it," said Johnny. 
 
 "And let Peggy have the brooch, too, I dare say." 
 
 "Yes, sir. Peggy took awful good care of it. We 
 gave it right back." 
 
 "Did mamma know what it was for?" 
 
 "No, sir. I thought Peggy would tell her what 
 for, but she didn t; she just said for a game, and 
 mamma said, Cela m est egal, cherie! So she took 
 it." 
 
 It was rather surprising, although very delightful 
 to have his father, of whose mood in regard to the 
 disposal of portable property Johnny-Ivan was never 
 quite secure, take these revelations with nothing 
 harsher than his odd widening of his lips, and im 
 mediately produce another quarter for Peggy. 
 
 "I think, Johnny," said Josiah Winslow, "when 
 you grow up, you d better marry Peggy. She ll be a 
 help to you in a good many ways." 
 
 "Oh, I m going to" said Johnny-Ivan. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 AS GALLEY SLAVES, NOT COMRADES 
 
 The great trouble with Peggy was Girls! Girls 
 were always tagging after Peggy. One warm after 
 noon two of the most obnoxious of the tribe came 
 to Hazelhurst and they all went off together and had 
 "sekruts." Johnny-Ivan was told to go find out 
 whether Milly, Mrs. Winter s cook, would open her 
 heart to the extent of freshly-baked ginger-snaps 
 and root beer. He accomplished his mission, one not 
 to his liking, for Milly always embraced him and 
 gave him a perspiring kiss of approbation for being 
 such a "sweet, pretty little boy" Johnny, himself, 
 all the while, intent on conspiracies and combats and 
 a blood-stained career of reformation of the world 
 and then, when he had honorably repaid the future 
 beneficence by reciting Barbara Frictchie, after all 
 this strenuous self-sacrifice, the perfidious Girls had 
 run away ! And he couldn t find them. He plodded 
 homeward, wanting very much to cry, but he knew 
 that boys didn t cry; so he whistled instead, and, 
 in a little space, became so interested, planning a 
 "sekrut" of his own about the ginger-snaps, that 
 he grew quite cheerful. By the time he reached his 
 favorite little crotch of shrubs on the lawn, just be 
 low the porch, he was laughing. The weeks had 
 
 86 
 
AS GALLEY SLAVES, NOT COMRADES 87 
 
 crept on into late April. The tulips were up and 
 the yellow jonquils gilded the flower beds on the 
 lawn which James had mowed smooth with the 
 new lawn-mower until it was like green velvet, 
 athwart which the sun sent shafts of emerald blaze. 
 The trees, in their lovely faint etching which was 
 not yet foliage, or their red softness of bough and 
 twig presaging the leafing, rose all along the slopes 
 below the terraces where the house stood, and lower 
 still, the little city with its shining church spires, 
 its thin red blocks and its multitude of softly gray 
 ing house-roofs, spread along the shining river. 
 
 For the first time in his life Johnny-Ivan looked 
 on a landscape with a definite sense that it gave him 
 pleasure. Even the Patch was glorified by the morn 
 ing and the spring. Its ungracious outlines melted 
 into formless, reticent blurs of brown and gray; its 
 card-house roofs were broken by the trees ; and 
 there were great splashes of white and pink amid 
 the bronzes of cottonwood and crab-apple trees. 
 
 Johnny-Ivan nestled in his corner, very warm and 
 tired with running. He felt rather than heard the 
 twitter of the robins and the shrill call of the blue 
 jay on the capital of the column ; his eyelids dropped 
 and immediately he dozed. 
 
 When he awoke it was with an indescribable sen 
 sation of shock and discomfort. Two people were 
 talking on the piazza. They could not see him ; but 
 he could see them, and he could hear them distinct 
 ly. They were his father and mother and they 
 were quarreling! Now, whatever their alienation, 
 the father and mother of Johnny had never permit 
 ted him to witness their disputes. He felt his whole 
 
88 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 little world reel about him when the two people 
 who could do no wrong lashed each other with bit 
 ter voices. 
 
 What they said was unintelligible to him, and 
 often afterward as he rehearsed the scene and 
 groped through his memory for the dimly recalled 
 sentences, he never could entirely comprehend them. 
 But his sickness of heart was as real as if he under 
 stood. 
 
 Winslow was walking up and down the piazza, 
 smoking. Mrs. Winslow sat in an easy chair, nor 
 did she ever rise. Her voice kept its musical, foreign 
 inflections and never but once was it ruffled. 
 
 The first words which broke into her son s com 
 prehension were: "If you are so dissatisfied with 
 me and I give you so much sorrow, why not let me 
 go away? I am willing to go ; I want to go." 
 
 "You want to go ?" Winslow s heavy black brows 
 were knit. 
 
 She drew a long shuddering breath. "I can t bear 
 it any longer," she said; "if I don t go I shall kill 
 myself. Take your choice." 
 
 "I guess not," said he (while Johnny s heart con 
 tracted with terror) ; "what are you driving at, 
 Olga? Try to talk plain sense, for once; I ve long 
 since ceased to hope you would ever care for me 
 and be a wife to me as other men s wives are. I 
 don t even ask you to keep the house decent; I shut 
 my teeth and let the girls throw the sweepings out of 
 the window, and when they break all the cut glass 
 I get some pressed glass that won t break so easy. 
 I don t bother you. I don t expect you even to return 
 the calls my friends have made you, or to see them 
 
AS GALLEY SLAVES, NOT COMRADES 89 
 
 when they take the trouble to come here. I don t 
 see that you are suffering, particularly. You have 
 your own rooms, your own allowance to fool away 
 on damn scoundrels, who make all the trouble they 
 can for me. All I ask is that you are civil to me be 
 fore Johnny and that you don t disgrace me openly. 
 Anything else you want I m willing to try to 
 meet" 
 
 "Will you let me go away to France, to Switzer 
 land?" 
 
 "That would be nonsense; you d find yourself 
 mixed up with your villainous crowd of assassins. 
 I will go with you, next fall " 
 
 She began to laugh, very softly. "Thanks, but 
 we should be too much together for the comfort of 
 either of us. Josiah, let me go, go entirely. The play 
 is played out; we haven t a thought in common " 
 "That may be, but we have a child. There s 
 Johnny." 
 
 "I have borne it so long because of Ivan. I can t 
 bear it any longer. Do you guess, you Americans, 
 how appalling is your life? I thought this was a 
 land where all our poor Russian dreams, that we are 
 so willing to die for, came true. And you are not 
 so f ree really as we. I weary myself to death of 
 this odious bourgeoisie, this intolerable, narrow ex 
 istence which is all a fight for money crushing, 
 crowding, strangling each other. These women, 
 your friends, they think of nothing but their toilets 
 and their houses and oppressing their poor servants 
 it gets on my nerves until I want to scream ! And 
 you, too ! You do not understand anything ! What 
 is life to me, is folly, madness to you. Life must 
 
9 o THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 mean something; it must have a secret; I have 
 sought for it in your scheme of living and I can 
 not find it; you only busy yourself with the husks 
 of life, the clothes, the houses, the power your money 
 gives you; for you, that is all; and work, struggle, 
 the conquering and trampling on weaker creatures, 
 that gives you your happiness. To me such triumph 
 is intolerable. It is against my nature. Why should 
 we go on, not comrades, only galley slaves? Oh, 
 Josiah, let me go !" 
 
 Winslow drove his hands deeper into his pockets 
 and his mouth hardened. The breathless little crea 
 ture, watching, was terror-stricken; he began to 
 crawl out, with a vague notion of protecting his 
 mother. Only his father did not move; he couldn t 
 hurt her unless he moved. 
 
 "You re polite to ask me. I wonder you haven t 
 bolted," said he, not even looking at her. 
 
 "But there was Vanya," she said. "I couldn t go 
 without Vanya." Johnny-Ivan caught his breath. 
 
 His father answered in a harsh tone : "You cer 
 tainly won t go with him. I mean to do the fair 
 thing by you, Olga; if I ve made mistakes, they 
 were mistakes, not intentional cruelty. It isn t fair 
 to me to take Johnny away from me, but let that go ; 
 the main point is, it isn t fair to Johnny, either ; you 
 don t know how to bring up a child properly. I m 
 not willing to let you have him." 
 
 In a tumult of feeling, Johnny beheld his mother 
 spring to her feet, flinging her beautiful arms up 
 ward, her cheeks afire, her calm voice breaking. 
 The anguished sweetness of it wrung his heart, as 
 she cried : "But I am his mother ! And I love him 
 
AS GALLEY SLAVES, NOT COMRADES 91 
 
 ah, mon Dieu, mon Dieu, how I love him, my 
 golden one! But you don t understand that. Un 
 derstand this, then : I will have him !" 
 
 "Stay here, like a decent woman, and have him, 
 then," scoffed Winslow. "Do try to see things as 
 they are, Olga. You re not trampled on, you are a 
 very much indulged woman. You have a handsome 
 house that you could make handsomer if you would 
 only buy things and see that your maids dusted 
 them. You may be tired of your husband, but he 
 doesn t ask any more of you than your coachman 
 does. You ve got a nice little chap for a son that you 
 aren t tired of yet." 
 
 "Do you think I ever shall tire of him ?" 
 
 "I don t know. You soulful, questioning-every- 
 thing sort of folks do get tired of everything in the 
 long run. Never mind; I only want to say that I 
 shan t under any circumstances let you take Johnny 
 away. I .think, myself, he d better go off somewhere 
 to school " 
 
 "Josiah! That little child!" 
 
 "He s little, and I don t want to send him, but it 
 might be best; you have been letting him see that 
 hound of a Vassil " 
 
 "Why are you so bitter against that poor man? 
 I heard I don t want to believe it that you set the 
 dogs on him Thursday night." 
 
 "I certainly did. He was skulking about the 
 chicken-house, and I set Rube on him; and the pa 
 triot ran. I think Rube got one bite out of his leg; 
 at least he got some of his trousers. Oh, he s a sweet 
 nature s nobleman ! I changed Rube to another ken 
 nel, and just as well. I found a chunk of meat loaded 
 
92 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 with strychnine in his old kennel this morning. 
 Threw it in, I suppose, and ran. And last week 
 there was a bundle of trash soaked in kerosene found 
 by Tim, not Michael in the stable. You have 
 nice friends, Olga." 
 
 "That was wrong. That was cruel, I admit it," 
 said Mrs. Winslow Johnny thought how noble she 
 was; and his instinctive dislike of Serge was 
 strengthened "but he had provocation, Josiah. 
 Treat a man like a brute and he will take a brute s 
 revenge." 
 
 Winslow made no answer ; he had turned his face 
 in the direction of the city and was listening. 
 
 "Fire bells," he exclaimed, "and there goes our 
 whistle ! Olga," he turned with a different expres 
 sion, "we can finish this talk some other time. I m 
 a little anxious about that fire. It s our district. I m 
 going in to try the new telephone. Big thing, those 
 telephones, if they work as well as they seem likely to 
 do. Last week I should have had to send a man to 
 town ; but I can find out now in two seconds." 
 
 Mrs. Winslow did not turn her head ; if he could 
 dismiss the situation so cavalierly, she could not; 
 but Johnny s thoughts were diverted as if a hand 
 had swung them round; for the quiet air was sud 
 denly throbbing with a confusion of bells and whis 
 tles. The noise had spread from its corner of 
 origin into all quarters of the city; and Johnny, 
 looking in a familiar direction, saw a thick black 
 column of smoke puff up over the roofs. 
 
 His mother s back was turned to him. He ran 
 up to her and clung to her soft gray skirts. What 
 ever he had felt was swept away, for the moment, 
 
AS GALLEY SLAVES, NOT COMRADES 93 
 
 by a new and overpowering excitement. Fire is 
 often the secret terror of a sensitive child. He never 
 talks about it, because sensitive children are reticent 
 to the point of sin; but it is his constant, darkling 
 attendant. Never did Johnny hear fire bells at night 
 that he didn t sit up in bed with his heart beating 
 wildly, listening with all his ears until he could be 
 certain that it wasn t his father s factory ; after that, 
 with a genuine but not distressing pity for the poor 
 people who were burning up, he would go to sleep 
 again. Very likely he would say his artless prayer : 
 "O God, please put the fire out, even if they are bad 
 people," and sleep the more readily for this shift 
 ing of the burden. 
 
 Fire by daylight wasn t so bad ; and Peggy really 
 liked it, she said ; and he did like to go to a fire with 
 her and Michael. Once they helped carry things 
 out ; that was grand ! But, of course, there was the 
 suspense until the fire was surely not papa s factory. 
 
 This time "O, mamma, it looks right on the 
 street papa s street," he whispered. 
 
 "Why, so it does," said mamma. But she didn t 
 seem in the least frightened ; she even smiled a little ; 
 at least her upper lip curled. 
 
 "Listen!" exclaimed Johnny-Ivan, "papa s tele 
 phoning." 
 
 They both listened and both heard. "You all 
 right, Hopkins? Is it bad? H mn, yes. I ll be 
 down. Shut all the windows. Turn off the naphtha 
 tanks !" The instrument went back with a click and 
 the bell rang dismissal, for the first telephones were 
 more formal and leisurely, one did not have one s 
 signals automatized for him. 
 
94 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 In a second there was a furious clang on the sta 
 ble bell. 
 
 "Oh, papa s works are afire ; they re burning up ! 
 Oh, mamma ! Oh, mamma !" screamed Johnny-Ivan, 
 his panic let loose for once. But his mother s hand 
 was on his shoulder soothing him. 
 
 "That s not being a brave boy!" she said; "be 
 quiet, Ivan, or I shall be ashamed of my son of 
 whom I used to be so proud." 
 
 The words were the strongest tonic to the sensi 
 tive little heart on which they fell. Johnny-Ivan bit 
 a sob in two and straightened himself; before she 
 guessed his intention he had darted across the lawn 
 and run like a hare around the house. The stable 
 yard was all motion and excitement. Tim was buck 
 ling straps on one side of the horse, Michael on the 
 other, and his father was already seated in the buggy 
 gathering up the reins. 
 
 "Good as the fire department, boys," praised 
 Winslow quietly ; "let her go ! Michael, get the gate 
 open !" 
 
 "Papa! papa! lemme go, too!" shouted Johnny- 
 Ivan ; but Winslow shook his head. 
 
 "No place for boys," he called. Johnny-Ivan, 
 wasting no time in entreaty, which would be lost on 
 the air, made for the first gate. He outstripped 
 Michael and swung it back. 
 
 "Please let me go, papa!" he shouted, "to hold 
 the horse! I don t weigh so much as Michael. 
 Please take me !" 
 
 He thought his father s answer didn t come quite 
 so quickly as before, but it came : "Can t risk you, 
 son, but I ll telephone you how we get on !" 
 
AS GALLEY SLAVES, NOT COMRADES 95 
 
 The next instant there was dust all about them, 
 and only the dark green wheels twinkling through. 
 "He might have let me," thought the little boy; "it 
 wasn t a bit risky; Romeo wouldn t run!" He felt 
 mightily aggrieved, and the resentment which had 
 been rising all through the hearing of his parents 
 dispute burned more hotly. Papa wasn t nice to 
 mamma, and he wasn t nice to him, Johnny ; he was 
 mean! Yet there grew a gleam of comfort; papa 
 was going to telephone to him about the fire. 
 Johnny-Ivan stationed himself by the telephone. 
 There he stayed and waited. He waited what 
 seemed to him a long time before the bell rang. 
 It was hard to wait, because there was the fire to 
 see outside, and every one in the household, as well 
 as Mrs. Winter, Mrs. Rutherford and Peggy, had 
 gathered to look. He could hear their exclama 
 tions: "The smoke s awfully black!" ... "I 
 don t think it s any blacker!" . . . "But it w, 
 mon amie, regarde!" . . . "Aw-w ! ain t it too 
 bad!" ... "I helige verlden!" . . . "Look 
 at the blaze!" . . . "There s the fire sure 
 enough. What s the matter with the department?" 
 . . . "Aw, tis manny a good man s losin his 
 job this day ; an a good man his money !" . . . 
 "Mamma, the fire s going down ! It is ! it is !" . . . 
 "But look at the smoke!" . . . "Oh, ain t it 
 too bad!" . . . "How it s pouring out! Jist 
 pouring!" 
 
 Yet Johnny, although every nerve was tingling, 
 clenching his tiny fist in his impatience, stuck to his 
 telephone, even when Peggy s clear tones clove the 
 din outside. "Oh, Jo nivan, come on out !" 
 
96 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 "I can t," he called back; "papa s going to tele 
 phone me !" 
 
 "But you can hear the bell out here !" 
 
 "I know, but I can t keep papa waiting." 
 
 As he stood on a chair to obtain a better reach 
 of the instrument he could hear louder sighs and 
 exclamations from the maids and the men. The fire 
 must be gaining. But at this moment the bell rang. 
 "Yes, papa," he cried before he got the receiver to 
 his ear. "Hello! You, Johnny?" the voice came 
 to him mixed with a dozen sounds, dulled into 
 echoes, shouts, the wash of water and the roar of a 
 crowd. "Fire s under control. Tell mamma." 
 
 "Hurrah !" cried Johnny, "did you was anybody 
 hurted?" But no answer came, and Johnny-Ivan 
 finally replaced the black horn and sauntered out on 
 the lawn, feeling himself the bearer of great news. 
 Straight to his mother he went with it. 
 
 "That s nice," she said quietly. 
 
 "Upon my word," cried Mrs. Winter, "you take 
 these excitements coolly, Olga. I don t think I, my 
 self, take on much ; but you are a Stoic !" 
 
 The Princess Olga sighed. "There are worse 
 things than fires in a factory, where no one is likely 
 to be hurt," said she. 
 
 Meanwhile the other minor members of the group 
 were disappearing to attend to their vocations or to 
 gossip more freely together, as the case might be. 
 Johnny-Ivan and Peggy departed to get a new Oli 
 ver Optic book, which had just been given to Peggy. 
 There was a boy in that book who wasn t afraid of 
 anything on earth. Yesterday Johnny- Ivan had been 
 keen for the adventurous Richard s perils, but to- 
 
AS GALLEY SLAVES, NOT COMRADES 97 
 
 day his imaginary world did not entice him ; he was 
 full of an uneasy excitement. Moreover, his 
 thoughts kept harking back to the scene of the 
 morning. 
 
 "Peggy," he said, "do grown-ups ever quarrel? 
 I mean grown-ups that are married." 
 
 "Why, of co se, certainly," returned the worldly- 
 wise Peggy; "I ve heard mammy and Uncle Dan , 
 myself. Mammy s terrible when she s r arin and 
 charging she called Uncle Dan a heap of bad 
 names " 
 
 "Don t she love him any more?" 
 
 "Why, cert y she does; she s just petted on him; 
 she d bake all night for him. But why, everybody 
 gets mad, sometimes. You get mad with me" 
 
 "That s so," Johnny-Ivan agreed with a long sigh 
 of relief ; he turned the talk on to the fire. 
 
 His father came back at noon. He was in a 
 strange good humor. Johnny-Ivan couldn t under 
 stand his laughter and jokes at the table ; he was too 
 young to know the intoxication of struggle and 
 victory. 
 
 "Those firemen" Winslow talked to Johnny, 
 rather than at Mrs. Winslow s languid politeness 
 "they were fooling when I got there afraid of the 
 naphtha; they d a notion it was going to explode, 
 although Hopkins turned it off, and it wasn t any 
 more danger than a chicken! Hopkins and I took 
 some hose into the shop, ourselves, and our own 
 men ran right after us. Luke Darrell was there, 
 happy s a boy to be at a fire again; he went, too. 
 Then the chief got his head at last and got a line into 
 the windows, and all was over in five minutes." 
 
98 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 "You did it, papa; you, yourself?" cried Johnny. 
 
 "I myself," laughed Winslow, "and it has ruined 
 one good suit of clothes, or I miss my guess." The 
 words were accompanied by a furtive eye-flash at 
 his wife s languid face. Possibly in his hot mood 
 of excitement he fancied that she would realize, at 
 least, that her husband was a man, even rejoice a 
 little that he should have saved his property ; it is so 
 hard to comprehend how what moves one s own be 
 ing profoundly can fall on another s soul as result- 
 less as firebrands on a snowbank. But Mrs. Wins- 
 low inclined her head with a formal courtesy more 
 chilling than indifference, saying, as if to a 
 stranger: il l hope you are not very tired;" and 
 Winslow s boyish gaiety fell off like a mask. He 
 smiled again, however, at Johnny s cry: "You re 
 just like a general, papa, leading your troops into 
 battle !" 
 
 "Humph! not so bad as that, Johnny, but I was 
 certainly under fire. And that reminds me, Olga," 
 this time the smile was his grim, straight line of 
 the mouth "I know how the fire happened." 
 
 "Was it an indecendary fire, papa?" inquired 
 Johnny, who read the newspapers and never hesi 
 tated to charge on a word familiar to his eyes, 
 whether his ears had ever heard it or not. 
 
 "Ce n est pas exactement juste, Vanya" began 
 Mrs. Winslow in gentle correction, with a foreign 
 er s polite seriousness; she always made any sug 
 gestions of reproof in French, which Johnny-Ivan 
 spoke as fluently as English. Winslow grinned, and 
 Johnny flushed. 
 
 "Yes, it was," said Winslow; "our old friend, 
 
AS GALLEY SLAVES, NOT COMRADES 99 
 
 Serge Vassy, was the incendiary. The tyrannical 
 hand of the law has already fallen upon him. He 
 was seen going into the lumber room with some 
 thing under his arm. And they found the wreck of 
 a nice bomb there, after the fire was out. You see, 
 the fire didn t quite work to order. Serge hadn t 
 counted on a shift of wind ; he expected the whole 
 shed would be burned and his pretty plaything with 
 it, but it wasn t. I guess we ve got a clear case." 
 
 Now at last he had roused his wife; the red 
 rushed into Mrs. Winslow s cheeks. She did not 
 look at her husband as she said : "Didn t you set the 
 dogs on the man? His revenge is just as brutal/ 
 
 "Well, perhaps. And mine, now, will not be 
 brutal, but effectual, for I shall have Serge sent up 
 for ten years, anyhow ; and I have bought the Patch 
 and am going to build a branch factory with decent 
 houses for the people working there." 
 
 "And the poor creatures on the place now ?" 
 "They will have to skedaddle." 
 "What will they do? Where will they go?" 
 "Be a nuisance somewhere else, I suppose. Not 
 under our eyes, however." 
 
 "I don t suppose you care. You would get the 
 police and drag out their poor bits of furniture and 
 beds and the little children and old people " 
 
 "They won t need dragging. They ll go and 
 poison some other place. It s a pity they can t be 
 dumped in the river, the whole pestilential, cut 
 throat outfit. Johnny, what do you think about 
 Serge? Shall we have Peggy chop off his head, by 
 proxy?" 
 
 "No, sir," said Johnny, in a singularly subdued 
 
ioo THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 tone; "but I think he s wicked; he ought to go to 
 prison." 
 
 "Quite right. He will, too. It s almost worth the 
 fire to get that damned that assassin out of the 
 way. Well, I guess, now I ve had a bath and clean 
 clothes and something to eat, I ll be getting back." 
 
 He rumpled Johnny-Ivan s hair in passing, and 
 hurried out, quite unconscious of the effect of his 
 last news about the Patch. 
 
 "Mamma, what does papa mean?" said Johnny- 
 Ivan. 
 
 "He meant," said Mrs. Winslow slowly, "that he 
 has bought all those poor people s homes and he will 
 turn them out." 
 
 "But maybe they want to go, mamma!" John 
 ny-Ivan was trying to defend his father, who had 
 been so brave at the fire, but he had a sickening light 
 on the situation coming from a never- forgotten 
 picture of furniture piled on the street, a shrieking 
 woman and weeping children. 
 
 "Would you want to go out with all you have in 
 the world and no place to put it?" 
 
 "Can t they rent some nicer place? The houses 
 are awfully tumbly and dirty, mamma, for a fact. 
 Some of them don t have any paper, but only just 
 newspapers. Can t they rent some of the nice houses 
 papa s going to build?" 
 
 "They haven t any money. Papa 11 charge 
 money !" 
 
 "But not if he knowed for sure they didn t have 
 any money." 
 
 Mrs. Winslow s lip curled ; she looked as she had 
 looked that morning. 
 
AS GALLEY SLAVES, NOT COMRADES 101 
 
 "Yes, Ivan, papa never lets poor people have 
 things for nothing. And he is angry at the Patch 
 because Serge lives there. He will turn out Serge s 
 brother-in-law, so Serge never can live there again." 
 
 "But the baby is sick." 
 
 "He won t care for that. Perhaps it will kill the 
 baby. He doesn t care." Never before had she criti 
 cized her husband to her child; she felt a cruel joy 
 as she flung off this last fetter of her marriage. 
 
 "And old Mrs. Kelly, mamma? she can t be 
 moved ! She s been in bed for seventeen years ; when 
 the Rodins woodshed was afire she wouldn t let em 
 move her ; she just wouldn t ! She grabbed the bed- 
 tick and held on; she said she d better die of the 
 smoke than the moving, and she d lived long enough 
 to be tired of this world anyhow, now she d no more 
 comfort of smoking, cause it hurted her. No, 
 mamma, she can t be moved. It s unpossible. / // 
 tell papa and he ll see." 
 
 "He will not care," returned the princess, "but 
 come, Vanya, I have much to say to you. Not here ; 
 in the summer-house." 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 IN WAR YOU MAY 
 
 The summer-house was so thickly shaded with 
 vines, woodbine, clematis and wistaria, that it kept 
 cool and dim through the hottest summer glare, a 
 property most desirable in the Middle West, where 
 the July and August suns know all the tricks of the 
 tropics. It was built of unhewn logs, but ceiled and 
 floored within; and it was set midway on the hill. 
 Above, the tall elms and maples dappled the clean 
 hillside with their shade; below, a dense under 
 growth of brambles, saplings and wild raspberry 
 and blackberry bushes transformed the coppice into 
 a jungle. 
 
 A single footpath was kept mowed; but often, 
 running along it, Johnny-Ivan s heart had jumped 
 at a sinuous flash of green and brown across the 
 tangle. The birds nested high above danger from 
 the stable cats, which hunted, in gleeful savagery, 
 through the thicket, their wild grace, as they leaped 
 and glided, proclaiming their origin. Orioles, 
 thrushes and robins found here a refuge from the 
 sparrow banditti, which clung to the haunts of men, 
 where corn and crumbs were to be had for the steal 
 ing. Blue jays took their dominion of terror, plun 
 dering nests at will; but they were fewer, hence 
 more merciful. So the woodland was full of 
 
 102 
 
IN WAR YOU MAY 103 
 
 singing birds, and the flaming head of the wood 
 pecker tapped on the bark, adding its tiny drum to 
 the forest concert. So long the squirrels had been 
 left unmolested that they would come to be fed out 
 of Johnny s hand; the quails hopped after crumbs 
 almost at his feet. Of a summer night the air would 
 seem to throb with the multitudinous whir of happy 
 creeping and flying things. Then the princess would 
 come, with her little lover, to sing her Russian 
 songs in the moonlight. 
 
 She did not dream that there was always a silent, 
 frowning guardian within reach, should there ever 
 be need. Winslow kept these vigils to himself. 
 
 Sometimes she would talk instead of sing, voic 
 ing the dreams and longings of a passionate mystic 
 who could not interpret her own soul, yet tried to 
 solve the riddle of the universe. But Johnny-Ivan 
 accepted all in reverence. Nothing is impossible or 
 preposterous to a child. Universal love seems to him 
 natural as his mother s tenderness ; and God is only 
 a more distant and powerful friend. 
 
 Johnny loved the little summer-house; he never 
 spoke of the talks there ; they were one of the secrets 
 shared with his mother. He had been glad when 
 the spring grew mild enough to allow again the 
 visits which winter had forbidden. There was 
 only the beginning of greenery on the soft dark 
 boughs of the deciduous trees; but the conifers, the 
 firs and the cedars held their somber bronze over 
 winter, the orange and vermilion blooms of the ma 
 ples struck a brilliant note of color amid the drabs 
 and browns, and the spring sunshine flooded every 
 thing. 
 
104 
 
 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 The little boy ran gaily along the path, between 
 walls of dead vines and shrubs and thorny brush 
 wood. He carried his Oliver Optic in his hand to 
 read in case his mother should have to go to speak 
 to any one; for very often of late "our people" 
 seemed to come to speak to mamma. 
 
 The princess, on her part, was unusually silent. 
 She sat down on the rustic chair by the table, and 
 he took a stool at her feet, his dark curls pressing 
 against her knee. She had brought her cross-stitch 
 work, but the gay silks lay untouched on the linen 
 as she sat with clasped hands and dreamy eyes. 
 
 All at once a shadow fell over her white skirts to 
 lie long and black over Johnny-Ivan s page. He 
 looked up. Serge Vassilovitch had made the 
 shadow; but never had Johnny-Ivan seen a Serge 
 like this. He was perfectly sober, pale and anxious- 
 looking, and the hands which he stretched forth 
 were trembling. Drops of sweat stood under the 
 black locks matted on his forehead. 
 
 "Barina, you are our fathers and mothers!" he 
 murmured. He said something more in Russian. 
 Johnny-Ivan could not understand the words, but 
 the tone was entreating. His speech came panting, 
 as if the speaker were spent with running. 
 
 Mrs. Winslow hesitated. She answered very low. 
 At once the man flung himself on his knees before 
 her, clutching her dress and stammering broken 
 sentences while his eyeballs rolled up at her in an 
 agony of pleading. 
 
 She drew a long sigh. "I can not refuse," she 
 said in English, "but how ? wait !" 
 
 He, too, sighed, but his was a sigh of relief. He 
 
IN WAR YOU MAY 105 
 
 scrambled to his feet. All this time he had not so 
 much as glanced at Johnny-Ivan; yet it was to 
 Johnny Mrs. Winslow turned ; then Serge s big eyes 
 devoured the pale, little, attentive face. 
 
 "Ivan," said Mrs. Winslow, in French, "do you 
 remember the oath you swore on the sword?" 
 
 A lump swelled in Johnny-Ivan s throat as he an 
 swered : "Yes, mamma." 
 
 "Little son, the time is come for you keep it. Do 
 you trust me?" 
 
 "Yes, mamma," said Johnny-Ivan. 
 
 She changed her tongue to English, perhaps for 
 Serge s better comprehension. "Do exactly as I say 
 exactly. Afterward I will explain. Now, time is 
 too precious. Serge belongs to its. We must pro 
 tect him. They d kill him if they caught him. They 
 caught him, but he got away; he he hurt one of 
 them and they will hang him if they catch him " 
 
 "A a i! yes!" mumbled Serge, moistening his 
 dry lips. 
 
 "I can t help him escape, but you can; you, my 
 darling little son, have the life of a man in your 
 hands." 
 
 Serge s shadow wavered as if Serge had shud 
 dered; the shadow was all that touched Johnny s 
 vision, for his big eyes were glued to his mother s 
 face. 
 
 "Get Serge under the chair and put the afghan 
 over him get under, Serge quick !" 
 
 An incoherent murmur came from Serge. Mrs. 
 Winslow replied imperiously : "It is the only way. 
 They suspect me at every turn. You must! Michael 
 will fetch food and money, later. Now " she lapsed 
 
106 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 into Russian, speaking rapidly and with a vehe 
 mence that cowed the fugitive. Submissive as a dog, 
 he moved at the beckoning of her jeweled white 
 hand, cramping his long legs under the rustic chair 
 which Mrs. Winslow shielded by an afghan, ere 
 she motioned Johnny into the chair and disposed his 
 feet on a pile of sofa pillows. 
 
 "So" she approved, "ires bien! Now, attend! 
 Dearest child! you must be brave and wise. The 
 officers will come here. They will ask questions. 
 Perhaps they will ask if any one has come here. You 
 will say, Only mamma. Where has she gone? 
 She has gone to the stables/ You will ask them, po 
 litely, to come in. Should they come, there is the 
 bench where they can sit. But do not fear! They 
 will not come." 
 
 "Mamma," said Johnny-Ivan, "am I to say no 
 body came ?" 
 
 "Yes, Ivan. Nobody. It is like in war, you know. 
 In war you may say things not true." 
 
 "Yes, mamma. I am to fool the officers because 
 Serge belongs to us." 
 
 "You are all right!" growled the man under the 
 chair. 
 
 "Then I will go. Remember, I said I was going to 
 the stables." 
 
 "I will remember, mamma." 
 
 He watched her figure dwindle along the dim 
 path until the narrow way twisted sidewise and it 
 was lost in the gray shadows. When his eyes gave 
 over their search they fell upon the book, which he 
 had retained mechanically. It was not a difficult part 
 to read the pages. Already he was taking on his 
 
IN WAR YOU MAY 107 
 
 role, his heart beating faster, lest unseen eyes should 
 have stolen up to peer through the trees. 
 
 "Batyushka moi "* the voice was meek. 
 
 "Shut up !" commanded Johnny-Ivan, "some- 
 body ll hear you." 
 
 Although he was obeying his mother and meant 
 to obey her and was keeping his oath, all of which 
 was very great and exciting, just like knights in a 
 book, he had not quite lost his repugnance to the 
 man ; only now it was smothered by pity. "I ll take 
 care of you all right," he added. He felt very old 
 and grand, also very scared; but, of course, that 
 wasn t to be admitted. The minutes crept on. The 
 fingers shifting the leaves of the book were fairly 
 steady. Maybe the officers wouldn t come. Still, if 
 they didn t it wouldn t make so much of a story for 
 Peggy. He wasn t sure that he didn t wish they 
 would come; but like a dash of cold water came the 
 afterthought, this story he couldn t tell Peggy. 
 Then, he was quite certain he hoped that the police 
 men wouldn t come. He hoped in vain. First, some 
 of the twigs crackled ; next, a branch broke ; then a 
 stifled voice called : "Be careful, now, he s got the 
 gun still !" This was quickly followed by a loud 
 shout : 
 
 "Hands up!" Three tanned and anxious faces 
 peered into the doorway, three pistols were leveled 
 at Johnny-Ivan s curly black head. 
 
 He rose involuntarily. "What t s the matter?" 
 he quavered. He wasn t afraid, but it was so sud 
 den ; and, somehow, he had lost his breath. 
 
 *My little father. 
 
loS THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 "Good Lord, it s only a kid !" cried the first man ; 
 "drop your guns !" 
 
 The pistols slanted lower; the men looked at the 
 little figure and the peaceful summer-house; they 
 smiled rather sheepishly, but the leader resumed his 
 official sternness. 
 
 "Who are you? Mr. Winslow s boy?" 
 
 "Yes, sir," said Johnny-Ivan. 
 
 "Wasn t any one else here ?" 
 
 "No, sir" he had never told a lie before in his 
 life, but he told it quite easily, admiring himself 
 "only mamma was here." 
 
 "Where is your mamma?" 
 
 "She s gone to the stable. She just went a little 
 while ago. She said she d be right back. Did you 
 want mamma? Won t you come in?" 
 
 The men whispered together. 
 
 "We re losing time," called the leader, "let s 
 watch the stable. He d try for a horse. Say, Johnny 
 Winslow, we re out after the man who set your 
 father s works afire. He was caught and shot officer 
 McNamara, who s like to die. Did you see anything 
 of him? It s Serge Vassy " 
 
 "I know," said Johnny-Ivan, "papa telled me 
 about him." He grew a shade paler. 
 
 "Did you see him anywhere in the woods ?" 
 
 "No, sir." 
 
 "If you do see him, run after us at the barn, 
 will you?" 
 
 "Yes, sir," said Johnny-Ivan. 
 
 The bluecoats withdrew from the doorway. 
 
 Johnny-Ivan heard the crunch of heavy boots 
 through the thicket. He went to the door, and as 
 
IN WAR YOU MAY 
 
 109 
 
 he stood there he became aware that his heart was 
 beating so fast that it hurt him. Recalling his false 
 hoods, he wondered fearfully if he could be going 
 to drop dead like wicked Ananias. But he had no 
 smallest thought of confession. 
 
 "It s like it is in war," he comforted himself, 
 "you got to in war. Sides, it s only to the cops, all 
 the boys tell stories to the cops ! They ain t like your 
 folks !" 
 
 "Are they gone, gospodi?"* a hoarse whisper 
 came to him. In some subtile wise it irritated him; 
 here he was doing all these wicked things for a mur 
 derer. He had seen McNamara once, at a circus, 
 and he helped him up to a seat. "Jump ! my little 
 man!" he had said. "Well, you are a jumper!" 
 when Johnny-Ivan had nimbly vaulted on to the 
 seat, which was a splendid place where you could 
 see way down to the horses feet! and he had 
 laughed such a nice, loud laugh. Now to have to 
 help his murderer off was pretty hard. 
 
 "You keep quiet!" commanded the boy sternly, 
 in a whisper; "you stay right here and draw your 
 foots in. I hear somebody coming." There was 
 some one coming. He came from the south by the 
 cow-path, some one who knew the wood. He came 
 rapidly, making so little noise that only Johnny-Ivan, 
 whose ears were of the very keenest, could have 
 been warned; but in a moment he turned from the 
 cow-path and broke, snapping and crushing the 
 underbrush, through the thicket, to the right. And 
 it was papa ! 
 
 *Sir. 
 
no THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 Johnny-Ivan showed no emotion. "Why, papa!" 
 he exclaimed with mild surprise. 
 
 Papa was hatless; he had torn his coat on the 
 briers and scratched his face; little flecks of blood 
 showed on his cheek amid the gray short whiskers ; 
 he was breathing hard, like Serge, and he looked 
 angry oh, but he looked angry ! 
 
 His eyes flashed over the dusky summer-house; 
 lucky Serge s boot was safe under cover ! 
 
 "Who s been here, Johnny?" said papa. 
 
 "The coppers, papa, the p lice. They re after 
 Serge-" 
 
 "I know. He s been seen in this wood. Did you 
 see him?" 
 
 "No, papa." It was said. It had to be said. It 
 was like in war. Johnny-Ivan shut his little teeth 
 firmly. 
 
 "Where s mamma? Was she here?" 
 
 "She went to the stable. She told me to stay " 
 
 "Ah-h!" papa interrupted, "when?" 
 
 "Just before the p lice" 
 
 "Did she hear any whistle or anything?" papa 
 wouldn t give you a chance to finish your sentence 
 at all. 
 
 "No, sir, I don t think" 
 
 "But the blue jays?" 
 
 "They re always whistling." 
 
 Only a second papa hesitated, then he turned to 
 Johnny-Ivan. "Come with me," he said. 
 
 "But mamma telled me " 
 
 "Mamma didn t know the danger you re in. If 
 that devil found you in the wood alone he s due to 
 swing anyhow; and he d strike me through you. 
 
 
IN WAR YOU MAY in 
 
 Come, we ll go to the stables together. Go on ahead, 
 Johnny, run ahead, I m coming." 
 
 Johnny-Ivan had never been so perplexed in his 
 life. To leave his charge when mamma had told him 
 to stay but it would be sure discovery for Serge 
 if he didn t go. Reluctantly he edged out of the 
 door; on the threshold he ventured a further pro 
 test : "Mamma might come back, and he might 
 hurt mamma " 
 
 "Oh, mamma s safe, he wouldn t hurt mamma. 
 Be quick f Johnny." 
 
 Johnny-Ivan ran out obediently; he ran a little 
 space and halted, transfixed by his father s stern, 
 quiet voice : 
 
 "Now, you! Come out of that with your hands 
 up, or I ll begin firing. I saw you move that afghan. 
 Out with you !" 
 
 The afghan fell in a heap as Serge crawled out. 
 His revolver shook in his hand. 
 
 "Drop it !" said Winslow. It was strangest of all 
 to Johnny-Ivan how quietly papa spoke. Serge 
 looked a second into the shining barrel; he picked 
 himself up. 
 
 "You got the drop on me," said he sullenly. 
 
 "I congratulate you on your mastery of American 
 idiom, Mr. Vassy," said Winslow, "I have. Stand 
 up. Now, Johnny, run to the stable and fetch the po 
 licemen. Hurry quick, for if you don t I shall shoot 
 Serge, because he ll try to escape. I don t mind ; but 
 he may. Hurry !" 
 
 "Please don t shoot Serge, papa!" pleaded 
 Johnny; "he was there all the time, and he never 
 hurted me." 
 
112 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 His queer smile widened Winslow s mouth; not 
 in the least a pleasant smile; nor was his voice 
 pleasant. "Then hurry back with the police, 
 Johnny," he said, "hurry!" 
 
 Johnny-Ivan shot a single glance at Serge ; it was 
 to ask for orders. 
 
 "Guess, yes, you hurry," said Serge; his hands 
 were uncomfortable in the air; he looked shrunken 
 and scared, and his dirty, pale face was miserable. 
 
 Johnny sped away like the wind. 
 
 As he raced stableward, his mind worked faster 
 than his feet. The only chance to save Serge was 
 mamma ; if he could only tell mamma first ! But out 
 side of the stable he encountered the leader of the 
 policemen and mamma. There was no help for it. 
 He blurted it out in a sentence: "Papa s caught 
 Serge; he says to hurry they re at the summer- 
 house." 
 
 "By hell !" swore the policeman joyously ; "come 
 on, boys!" 
 
 He called over his shoulder as he pelted over the 
 grass, the others hard on his heels : 
 
 "Best take the little boy into the house, ma am ! 
 Boys, have your barkers ready. We ve got him ; but 
 he s desperate !" 
 
 At last Johnny-Ivan could tell his mother, chok 
 ing piteously over his last words : "I did try, 
 mamma, but papa s so dreffle smart, and and 
 Serge was fraid of papa !" 
 
 "I don t wonder, Vanya," said Mrs. Winslow, 
 smiling sadly, "so am I. But it isn t hopeless for 
 Serge yet, even if he gets to jail." 
 
 "He s a drefHe wicked man, mamma, but I don t 
 
IN WAR YOU MAY u 3 
 
 want him hanged. I telled papa a lie, too. I guess 
 he knows it, too." 
 
 "Never mind, darling, it was to save life. I m not 
 excusing poor Serge. He was wicked. It s all a 
 terrible puzzle, Ivan. Come, let us go back to the 
 house, my poor little son." 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 ST. LUKE S 
 
 There was a scrap of dialogue very popular at 
 this period in Fairport : 
 
 "Have you been to church ?" 
 
 "No, I went to St. Luke s." 
 
 And should the speaker s wife reprove him, he 
 could answer: "Well, what shall I call him? his 
 name s St. Luke." 
 
 St. Luke Darrell was indeed the lawful name 
 \vhich the owner of Fairport s best appointed livery 
 stable still signed to legal documents, although Luke 
 Darrell was on his neat black sign. He himself was 
 a tall, thin man who was clean-shaven in a time of 
 luxuriant beards or mustaches. He had a gentle voice 
 and soothing manner, very successful with custom 
 ers and horses. He was fond of black alpaca coats 
 and white ties for summer, and in some respects he 
 was as austere in morals as in costume. He never 
 swore; he drank only in the presence of ladies (be 
 cause he was sure, so he explained, that if he made 
 that a rule he should never exceed moderation) ; he 
 was the devoted husband of one wife, and the ex 
 cellent father of two children, and there were two 
 things of which he used to boast : "I ve never in my 
 life," said Luke, inflating his chest with a modest 
 
 114 
 
ST. LUKE S 115 
 
 man s self-respect, "I ve never been fooled in a horse 
 trade, and I ve never fooled anybody else." 
 
 No one in Fairport doubted the absolute accuracy 
 of this vaunt. We all knew Luke was as honest as 
 he was shrewd; in consequence he bought horses 
 for most of the county and eventually for the gov 
 ernment. 
 
 This unparalleled, almost bizarre honesty when 
 one considers how the companionship of that noble 
 animal, the horse, appears to debauch the consciences 
 of even the godly themselves, when they come to 
 barter him was considered Luke s right to his 
 name. Luke attended church regularly by proxy; 
 that is, he sent his wife and his contribution. He 
 himself looked over the books at the office, and 
 talked with his visitors. Gradually the custom grew 
 up for men to gather, of a Sunday morning, in Luke 
 Darrell s ample office, which was warm in winter 
 and cool with western and southern breezes in sum 
 mer. There, on comfortably tilted chairs, in an easy 
 masculine undress of shirt-sleeves, Luke and his 
 friends would discuss the highest themes. This is 
 not saying that they did not relax into that natural 
 and casual gossip suggested by the turns of conver 
 sation ; but Luke always gave a philosophic or moral 
 twist to the most trivial episodes. The horseman 
 did his own thinking and expressed his thoughts as 
 one who, like John Knox, feared not the face of 
 man. If his similes and apologues made free with 
 Heaven and earth and if his thought itself was au 
 dacious, at least there was never a taint, anywhere, 
 of cruelty or of coarseness. He did offend the 
 straight-laced by his remark, one Sunday : "Lots of 
 
n6 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 orthodox ministers have a sight more John Milton 
 than Jesus Christ in their preaching, which is queer, 
 seeing that while some folks doubt about Jesus 
 Christ being inspired, everybody knows for sure 
 John Milton wasn t." But he made amends when a 
 certain famous clerical heretic came on the carpet. 
 Said he : "If the council don t put that feller out for 
 heresy they ought to put him out for foolishness. If 
 a man s outgrown his church s cloth why don t he 
 clear out to another gospel shop where he can get a 
 bigger suit? I say, if you re playing a game and 
 don t like the rules, quit! It s better n trying to kill 
 the umpire !" 
 
 On the afternoon succeeding the Winslow fire, 
 Luke was in his office with Jack Rand, the black 
 smith, and young Miles Standish, who was learning 
 the wagon business across the river. 
 
 Luke s office gave on the street. It was painted a 
 light blue as to walls, with oaken woodwork, and 
 was professionally decorated with pictures of fa 
 mous trotters, from Flora Temple to the equine idols 
 of the day, Dexter and Goldsmith Maid. There was 
 also a large lithograph of Alexis II, a horse of no 
 mean record, the glory of Luke s own stable. No 
 woman s drawing-room could be kept with more 
 rigid neatness than Darrell s office; a neatness ex 
 tending to the stable where the hose was sloshing on 
 the cement floor clay and night, and brass and silver 
 winked in the sunshine. 
 
 Darrell sat at ease by his desk, his eyes examin 
 ing the immaculate row of top buggies in the car 
 riage-room beyond, his tongue discoursing on the 
 public beneficence of the Art Museum. 
 
ST. LUKE S 117 
 
 "We got to have some interest besides making 
 money," said Darrell. "War s over now, and the 
 colored brother s got a lot more than was coming 
 to him, properly, and the public gaze is naturally 
 squinting round to find a new claim. The Phila 
 delphia show has stirred up the whole country. 
 We re all after Art, now." 
 
 "We would better be after good taste," interjected 
 young Standish, who was waiting for his horse and 
 buggy. 
 
 "Humph! Taste what is taste?" 
 
 "Yes, that s it. What is it?" echoed the black 
 smith, who was a man of sensibility but few words, 
 and commonly acted as a kind of Greek chorus to 
 Luke. 
 
 "What s your idea, Luke?" said Standish every 
 one called Darrell by his Christian name, a famil 
 iarity implying affection rather than light esteem, in 
 his case; he was simply a man whom no one could 
 regard formally "what do you make out of it?" 
 
 "Not much. All I m sure of is that mighty little 
 of it s inherited; none of it s made; the big major 
 ity s just contaged, like the measles. That s why 
 these expositions are so useful. Most anybody can 
 catch things. Why, 7 don t know no more bout 
 china than a horse; but after I d looked over that 
 lot of truck Mr. Winslow sent, I went home and got 
 my wife to give away our big china riggers for the 
 mantel-piece, and I got a set of china with blue 
 onions on it and not a mite of gilt. Mazing thing 
 was, she was right with me; she d been there, too. 
 And she was at the world s fair with me. There was 
 a show !" 
 
n8 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 "I don t see how you saw very much of it, Luke. 
 I heard you were only one day in Philadelphia." 
 
 "Well, I wasn t there long enough to take the ma 
 chinery to pieces, but I could see it all right. Ain t 
 that the telephone?" 
 
 "I ll answer it, Luke," said the obliging Tom. "I 
 know how." The others admired Rand boldly tak 
 ing down the receiver. "Hello ! Who wants twenty- 
 seven?" called Rand in a clear, loud voice. In 
 stantly he plucked off his hat and unconsciously as 
 sumed a courteous expression, for man was new to 
 the telephone in the early eighties, and could not 
 quite realize his protections. Rand said "Yes m," 
 three times, and reported : "Mrs. Winslow wants a 
 closed carriage at Oberheimer s store soon s you can 
 get it there." 
 
 Darrell whistled through the tube ordering the 
 carriage. When he returned to his seat, Standish 
 perceived that his face was extremely thoughtful, 
 not to say puzzled. He sat down again, but did not 
 pick up the thread of his remarks. 
 
 Standish started a new topic. "I hear Winslow s 
 bought the Patch." 
 
 "Good thing, too. He ll clean off the ground and 
 make a decent place of it. They ve needed cleaning 
 for a long while. They re mostly squatters, but the 
 ground belonged to an unsettled estate and couldn t 
 be sold, and the heirs were in St. Louis and Europe, 
 so nothing was done, though I guess they ve got 
 every known disease on tap there, and the place is a 
 perfect fire-trap. Start a fire once down there in the 
 west end near the lumber yards, and there s no 
 guessing where it would stop. Fire s like the wrath 
 
ST. LUKE S 119 
 
 of God, dreadful thorough, but ,not at all discrimi 
 nating." 
 
 "You know Winslow, don t you ?" 
 
 "I just do. Known him twenty year. Bought 
 every horse, or its dam, he s got for him. He lent 
 me money to go into business." 
 
 "He s a pretty decent fellow, isn t he?" 
 
 "You won t find much decenter when you git to 
 Heaven, though he covers up his goodness as care 
 ful as most folks their sins." 
 
 Although Darrell was talking easily, he gnawed 
 his lips and frowned in an absent way, at the first 
 pause, and his eyes kept straying to the clock. 
 
 "That telephone bothers him," was the observer s 
 conclusion; and he was right. 
 
 Darrell distrusted Mrs. Winslow with all his 
 shrewd and prejudiced wits; he suspected that she 
 was intent on some scheme to help Serge Vassilo- 
 vitch escape. It is one thing, however, to suspect 
 ladies of high standing, and perilously another to 
 express one s suspicion. 
 
 Finally, smiling a dry sort of smile, he repaired to 
 the stable, where he had a short colloquy with the 
 man who was putting the horses into the carriage. 
 
 Returning, he went to the telephone. The two lis 
 teners heard him plainly. 
 
 "Hello! Give me Mr. Winslow s residence. 
 Thirty-nine. This Winslow s? Mrs. Winslow in? 
 Oh, well, Mr. Winslow ll do. Ain t he? Well, when 
 he comes back, will you tell him to call up Darrell s 
 livery stable? Much obliged. That s all." 
 
 Darrell whistled softly as he took his chair again. 
 Standish thought that the men were a long while 
 
120 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 getting the horses into the carriage. His own buggy 
 was waiting, and he had time to ask and receive all 
 the details of the Winslow fire, and still the grooms 
 were buckling straps and dusting cushions and 
 finally rubbing the horses and joking with each 
 other. 
 
 "That s how you hitch up in a hurry, is it?" said 
 Standish. 
 
 Luke puckered his eyes over the leisurely stable 
 men, but without any rebuke. "I ain t quite sure of 
 the direction," said he. 
 
 "Tom took the message are you uncertain, 
 Tom?" 
 
 The blacksmith looked stolidly at Darrell. 
 
 "I guess so," replied he ambiguously. 
 
 "So you re waiting for Mr. Winslow to enlighten 
 you or be enlightened?" said Standish. "I catch 
 on." 
 
 "You young fellers are awful bright," said Dar 
 rell. 
 
 Standish laughed. "You might tell me the game." 
 
 "There ain t none," said Luke, "and where a 
 lady s concerned there hadn t ought to be, either." 
 
 "You re right," agreed Standish heartily. "Good 
 morning." 
 
 After he was gone Rand asked no questions and 
 Darrell read the paper. There was no sound in the 
 cool dark stable save the stamping of the horses feet 
 and the murmur of the voices of the two men still 
 harnessing the horses for Mrs. Winslow. 
 
 Ten minutes passed. Fifteen. The telephone Sell 
 rang. Darrell answered it. 
 
 "Yes. That you, Mr. Winslow? Why, Mrs. 
 
ST. LUKE S 121 
 
 Winslow just phoned she wanted a carriage sent to 
 Oberheimer s I think was the name, for her. Is it 
 Oberheimer s house or Oberheimer s store she wants 
 it? The house is off in the east end and the store s 
 west; I d hate yes, well, about thirty-five minutes 
 ago, it might have been longer. Wait a minute, 
 I ll ask the man who got the message. Was it two- 
 thirty when you got that phone, Tom?" 
 
 Tom Rand, with no sign either of curiosity or in 
 telligence, replied it was two thirty-two exactly. 
 
 The monologue at the instrument continued. 
 "Two thirty-two, exactly. . . . No, but it is 
 ready. I tried to get you before. . . . Oh, 
 that s all right ; don t want to make mistakes, that s 
 all. It ll be there in no time." 
 
 Luke smiled again as he issued his orders : "Go 
 in fifteen minutes." 
 
 Tom did not smile, but a glimmer of admiration 
 flickered in his eyes, and Luke passed him a cigar 
 out of the "good box." 
 
 All this while, at Oberheimer s little store oppo 
 site the Patch, Mrs. Winslow and Johnny-Ivan were 
 waiting. Johnny-Ivan didn t know why they were 
 in the store a modest combination of grocery and 
 bakery with which Peggy and he were quite fa 
 miliar, and many a nickel had they both spent upon 
 toothsome German dainties, the Berliner Pfann- 
 kuchen and coffee cakes, the sweet pretzels and 
 Marzipan; but munching a Pfannkuchen, his hand 
 kerchief spread on his knee for napkin, he was highly 
 content with the moment. His previous experience 
 was obliterated. He had followed his mother to the 
 house. Mamma had gone into her room (after she 
 
122 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 had locked the doors) ; she had come out with the 
 pretty leather bag with silver letters on it which he 
 helped, of course, by papa had given her for 
 Christmas, and she had told him to come with her. 
 First, though, she had dressed him in clean clothes. 
 Then she went out into the yard, leaving Johnny- 
 Ivan with the bag on the piazza. She threw some 
 cushions over the bag, and told Johnny-Ivan not 
 to speak about it. He felt sure something was on 
 foot to help Serge, but he asked no questions. After 
 a while, mamma came out again, and they walked 
 out of the yard together ; they walked all the way to 
 Oberheimer s. 
 
 "We ll rest here," mamma said. 
 
 They had a long rest, longer than mamma fan 
 cied, Johnny thought, for she kept going to the door 
 and glancing down the street. 
 
 Finally she went out ; she told Johnny she was go 
 ing to telephone ; when she came back she was look 
 ing less anxious ; before her arrival, however, a car 
 riage had drawn up to the door, a nice, shining, new 
 livery carriage with two black horses. Into this his 
 mother pushed Johnny and the bag, with an order 
 to the driver which he didn t catch. They drove in 
 the direction of Overlook. Johnny thought they 
 were going to return home ; but they halted outside 
 the drive and there, strange to say, was Michael in 
 the farm wagon, sitting on a trunk. And (which 
 was funny) Michael had his white collar and tie 
 under his blue blouse ; they were sticking out. 
 
 Mamma said something to Michael in Russian; 
 Johnny knew enough Russian to understand that 
 it was something about a trunk. Then Michael 
 
ST. LUKE S 123 
 
 hoisted the trunk on the back of the carriage. The 
 trunk was all covered over with a rubber cloth, so he 
 couldn t tell whether it was mamma s trunk, or what 
 it was. 
 
 "Now it won t get dusty," said mamma. 
 
 Michael came and stood by mamma and looked at 
 her and at Johnny. It was very strange indeed, but 
 Michael looked as if he wanted to cry. Of course 
 that was impossible, Michael being a big man and 
 there being nothing to cry about. Mamma said 
 more things in Russian, very low and very fast, and 
 then Michael stepped back to his own horses, and 
 their carriage turned around. 
 
 By this time Johnny-Ivan began to suspect that 
 there was something very strange in the air. 
 
 "Mamma, what are we doing?" asked he. 
 
 "We are running away, Ivan, you and I," she an 
 swered. 
 
 "Where?" said he. 
 
 "Where papa can t find us and put you in a school 
 far away from me, where you will be wretched and 
 homesick and they may oh, they may do anything 
 cruel to you, my darling!" She caught him in her 
 arms and held him tight to her. "Don t you know 
 how angry papa will be for what you have done this 
 morning?" 
 
 "I I told him a lie," said Johnny in an awestruck 
 voice, "but it was like in war, wasn t it, mamma ? I 
 had to, to save Serge." 
 
 "You did right, darling. I m proud of you. But 
 papa will not understand. Ivan, I m not going to 
 call him papa to you any more; I can t, it s too 
 dreadful ah, it s all too dreadful!" She flung her 
 
124 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 head down on his little shoulders, but instantly she 
 held it erect and dried her eyes. 
 
 The little boy kissed her. At this moment they 
 were passing the Winter place, and all at once 
 Johnny-Ivan realized that he was parting from his 
 comrade. 
 
 "Mamma," he whispered, "would there be any ob 
 jection stopping so I could tell Peggy good-by?" 
 
 Mamma understood : it was part of Olga Wins- 
 low s charm, this quick perception of distress how 
 ever different from her own. 
 
 "I m afraid not, Ivan, anyhow, it would be only 
 a few days maybe you can write to Peggy." 
 
 Johnny-Ivan did not understand, he could not 
 grasp the situation. He thought they were only to 
 go for a few days to help Serge escape somehow; 
 then papa would get over being angry and fetch 
 them back. He nodded his head, quite reconciled. 
 It would be rather grand to have an adventure to 
 tell Peggy, if only mamma would let him tell the 
 whole. Guess Peggy would reckon he was some 
 good in a Blood Feud, after all ! 
 
 In peace approaching complacency, therefore, he 
 sat by his silent mother, while the fields and the lit 
 tle houses and the flowering trees and all the loveli 
 ness of spring drifted past them. Soon they were in 
 the town, clattering through the streets. 
 
 They drew up before the tall red building with its 
 big unsheltered platform, on the side of the many 
 railway tracks. Mrs. Winslow got out of the car 
 riage with Johnny. The driver hitched his horses 
 and followed with the trunk. 
 
 "Don t seem in a hurry or frightened or any- 
 
ST. LUKE S 125 
 
 thing," mamma had whispered; so Johnny-Ivan 
 stuck his tiny fists in his pockets with a manly air, 
 and sauntered into the station. 
 
 No one they knew was there, nor did any one 
 come during the few minutes they had to wait. 
 
 But just as the long dingy line of cars pulled out, 
 Johnny, who was at the window (having a wild 
 hope, be the truth known, that Peggy might be pass 
 ing on the street with her mamma or Aunt Winter), 
 gave an exclamation: "Oh, mamma, there s our 
 wagon and the grays, but there s a boy driving. 
 Nor he don t know how to drive worth nothing!" 
 he concluded scornfully. 
 
 His mother did not lift her head. "It s too late 
 now," was her strange answer; "and he wouldn t 
 be in the wagon ; he d have the buggy." As the speed 
 of the cars slackened on the bridge Olga looked back 
 a moment and studied the little city spread along the 
 fair river which was barred with silver by the set 
 ting sun. Her eyes were dark with thought. 
 
 "For the last time," she said in Russian, "another 
 leaf of failure." But before the words ended, 
 Johnny touched her in some movement and she flung 
 her arm about him, saying softly : "Golden one, you 
 make up for the whole world !" 
 
 Johnny snuggled closer to her. But in a flash he 
 sat up, exclaiming excitedly: "Why, mamma, look! 
 there s Michael!" 
 
 Michael, truly enough, was coming down the 
 aisle of the car in his American Sunday coat and 
 white shirt. He looked deprecating and mild, and 
 bent his head before mamma and spread out his 
 hands which wore his driving-gloves. "Me, too, 
 
126 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 your mercy," he said in his own tongue, his voice 
 choking, "me, too. Ekk r ! Could not bear it !" 
 
 Then mamma and Michael talked a long while in 
 Russian, and there were tears in mamma s eyes and 
 they talked so fast Johnny-Ivan couldn t make out 
 very much they said, only that Michael wanted to 
 come. "Oh, let him!" begged Johnny-Ivan. 
 
 So finally mamma did let him stay. She wanted 
 to buy him a ticket, but he smiled and showed the 
 ticket to Chicago which he had bought already. 
 
 It was a good thing, too, Johnny considered, that 
 they brought Michael, for the train being a "local" 
 only went part way to Chicago, and they had to wait 
 three or four hours for another train, at a queer lit 
 tle place where they couldn t get any supper. So it 
 was dark night before they began to see villages on 
 the prairie and then long rows of streets, winking 
 stars at each other, and horse-cars and big factories 
 with black windows or flaming chimneys. Johnny 
 found it infinitely interesting to look into the back 
 yards and the curtainless, lighted rooms where men 
 in shirt-sleeves and tousled, black-haired women 
 were eating and laughing and smoking. The 
 wooden houses were painted a sooty gray with 
 smoke. There were a great many rags and tin cans 
 in the yards. The denizens of the quarter were un 
 clean, often almost repulsive; but (which surprised 
 Johnny) they all seemed to be cheerful. 
 
 "They re dreffle poor people, mamma, ain t they?" 
 he whispered. She nodded. "But they re lafftn , 
 mamasa* I guess they ll be rich pretty soon." 
 
 *Mamma. 
 
ST. LUKE S 127 
 
 But mamma paid no attention. She had risen to 
 her feet and Michael had taken the bags. The train 
 had left the houses; they were passing high, dark 
 walls, and now it was darker. And overhead were 
 iron rafters and a glass ceiling, and there was a noise 
 of shouting which no one seemed to heed. 
 
 "We re there, dear," said mamma. With her 
 words Johnny felt himself pushing in a crowd which 
 seemed to tower bulkily far above his small stature. 
 He was propelled forward and then down the car 
 steps and along a path between two shining, cough 
 ing engines up to a little gate. 
 
 On the other side of the gate stood papa ! 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE END OF THE GOLDEN AGE 
 
 It was most surprising, but papa did not seem in 
 the least surprised. 
 
 "Ah, Johnny!" he said. "Michael, take my bag, 
 too. Where are your checks, Olga ?" 
 
 "Why, papa !" cried Johnny-Ivan, "I didn t know 
 you were coming." 
 
 Papa made no answer; he had given Michael his 
 bag and taken Johnny s hand. His arm was offered 
 to mamma. 
 
 She accepted it without a word. Her veil was 
 down over her face. 
 
 "The Grand Pacific, Michael, if you get lost ; but 
 you won t ; keep close to us only a step yes, there 
 are the hacks. Make a dreadful racket, don t they? 
 It oughtn t to be allowed. Here, you ! take us to the 
 Grand Pacific." 
 
 In a daze between pleasure at the new sights and 
 sounds and a sense of calamity and fright which he 
 could not understand, but which none the less rested 
 heavy on his young heart, the boy was lifted into 
 the cab. He leaned his cheek against the window; 
 he was on the back seat with papa, and mamma sat 
 on the front seat. They had put Michael outside on 
 the box with the driver. 
 
 128 
 
THE END OF THE GOLDEN AGE 129 
 
 "What are you going to do?" said mamma. 
 Johnny was afraid she was still "mad" at papa, her 
 voice sounded so queer. 
 
 "Oh, I think we d better stop a day in Chicago, 
 long enough for you to do some shopping, and then 
 go back." 
 
 Mamma said nothing. 
 
 "I found out you had gone to the depot," said 
 papa, "and I calculated you would take this train. 
 I took the next one, the fast express, you waited for. 
 I was behind you all the time in a Pullman. I took 
 a state-room; that s how Mike didn t see me when 
 he went through the train." 
 
 Mamma never answered. Papa didn t seem angry, 
 however; he helped mamma out and showed her 
 their rooms in the hotel. They were very large, with 
 flowery velvet carpets and great windows draped in 
 lace and velvet. The splendor was prodigious, al 
 most like the royal palace in Saint Petersburg. More 
 magnificent, however, was a vast banqueting hall to 
 which his father took him at once, and where he 
 bestowed on him a lavish dinner, with ice-cream 
 and nuts and raisins. Mamma did not come 
 down. 
 
 After the meal the two stepped into a very little 
 room, and it moved right up through the floors in 
 a most amazing way. Johnny s hand found a fold 
 of his father s trousers and gripped it tightly, but 
 his stoical little face showed none of his terrors. 
 He did venture, however, to ask if Michael had 
 something to eat ; he had seen mamma s tray at the 
 door before they went down the great marble stair 
 case. His father reassured him as to Michael s case. 
 
1 30 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 Therefore, it was without any deep misgiving, on 
 the whole rather with relief that papa had come and 
 cut their journey short, since he seemed to have for 
 gotten all about Serge, that Johnny obediently let 
 his father undress him and put him to bed. 
 
 "Mamma has a headache, but she will come kiss 
 you good night," Mr. Winslow told him, and sus 
 pecting nothing, Johnny kept himself awake until 
 his mother appeared. She sat down on the bed and 
 he laid his head on her knee and sleepily kissed her 
 hand, which was very cold. 
 
 "You better come right to bed, mamma," he ad 
 vised; "won t you sleep with me?" 
 
 "No, Vanya, your father will sleep with you," 
 she said. 
 
 Johnny reared up in bed like a colt. "Why, 
 mamma, papa never slept with me in my life ! why 
 maybe maybe I d kick him! I do kick when I m 
 sleep." 
 
 "He is going to sleep with you to-night," his 
 mother replied. 
 
 "But mamma, I d rather have you! I do want 
 to have you. I kep thinking, now I ll sleep with 
 mamma ! and I was so glad." 
 
 Mamma was it possible mamma was crying? 
 He raised himself on his elbow. Not a word of all 
 the words in his heart did he say, for at this mo 
 ment Winslow walked into the room. He cast a 
 single swift glance at his wife and child before he 
 turned up the gas. He walked to the windows and 
 to the doors. He examined the windows as care 
 fully as the fastenings of the doors, and he looked 
 
THE END OF THE GOLDEN AGE 131 
 
 into the closet. Then, he shot the bolt on the out 
 side door. 
 
 "Josiah," said Johnny s mother, "may I stay with 
 Ivan to-night? But only to-night?" 
 
 "Come into the other room a few minutes, 
 Olga," said his father, "I want to have a little talk 
 with you." 
 
 But it was not a little talk. The murmur of their 
 voices came through the heavy closed door so long 
 that Johnny-Ivan s weariness conquered his desire to 
 be sure his mother would come back to him, and he 
 slept. Morning was breaking grayly through the city 
 smoke when his heavy eyelids lifted, and his mother, 
 completely dressed, was sitting on his bed, while his 
 father, also dressed, his hat in his hands, stood by 
 her side. And his father s face was darkened by the 
 blackest frown that Johnny had ever seen on any 
 living face. He tried to smooth it away when the 
 child shrank ; but Johnny had seen it. 
 
 His mother was crying, crying so that her tears 
 wet his cheeks and her beautiful white throat trem 
 bled. She caught him when he would have risen and 
 held him so close that he felt a pain in his ribs, but 
 he was so startled and wonder-stricken that it was 
 only afterward he remembered that he was hurt. 
 She said things in Russian, loving things which he 
 understood, because she had said them before, and 
 dreadful things which he only caught in snatches, 
 about some one who was ice and iron and cruel 
 crueler than death. 
 
 "Cut it short, Olga," said his father coldly. 
 
 His mother dropped her arms. She drew a long 
 
132 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 breath ; she looked into his eyes ; it was the Princess 
 Galitsuin, whose ancestors had been princes and 
 brave soldiers for centuries, who began to speak very 
 slowly, using the language which her son was surest 
 to understand. Her eyes glowed through their tears. 
 
 "Ivan, my dear little son," she began, "I have 
 to tell you something hard, and you must bear it 
 bravely." 
 
 "Yes, mamma," said Johnny-Ivan; his heart was 
 drumming in his ears. 
 
 "Listen," she went on, "can you hear me when I 
 whisper so?" 
 
 "Yes, mamma." But he felt cold. 
 
 "I have to save Serge, or else he would be 
 hanged. I thought I could take you with me ; but I 
 I can t. Papa will take you home Vanya, if you 
 look that way" (for in spite of him his lips were 
 quivering) "I can t bear it, I shall break down, I 
 shall give up and then poor Serge will be hanged, 
 and all my life, Ivan, I shall be a wicked, miserable 
 woman " 
 
 He made his stiff lips smile, saying: "I won t 
 look any bad way, mamma." 
 
 "I must go, Ivan." 
 
 "But but you ll come back, mamma?" 
 
 "I ll see you again, Ivan, be sure I ll see you again. 
 I can t tell when ; but I will. I surely will. And you 
 ah, thank you, my brave little son !" 
 
 It was only that Johnny-Ivan had made his chin 
 stay quiet and set his teeth. 
 
 "Now, my darling, you must promise to be good, 
 to remember what I have taught you, never to be 
 
THE END OF THE GOLDEN AGE 133 
 
 cruel to those who are weaker or poorer or more un 
 happy than you, and to try to help all who suffer. 
 Will you remember, my Ivan?" 
 
 He nodded, because he could not speak. 
 
 "And you will remember me?" she was not the 
 Princess Galitsuin, she was Johnny-Ivan s own 
 mamma now, and he was kissing her wildly and tell 
 ing her he would, he would, for ever and for ever. 
 
 "You will make the child sick," the voice 
 dropped into the tumult of the two excited creatures 
 passion of love and despair as an icicle drops into a 
 whirlpool. 
 
 Johnny-Ivan felt himself gently laid back on the 
 pillows. "It won t be long. Be brave! I ll come 
 back," mamma had whispered, and she was gone. 
 Winslow followed, scowling as darkly as the stern 
 est Puritan of his mother s stern race. 
 
 But although Johnny-Ivan lay awake a weary 
 long while, until the sun was shining brilliantly on 
 his white pillow, mamma did not come again. 
 
 At last he rose himself and went to the other 
 room, calling to her and to his father, asking if he 
 might get up. Neither of them answered; there 
 came in their stead a comely and cheerful Irish 
 woman, who said she was the assistant housekeeper 
 and his mamma and papa were gone out a bit, but 
 she would dress him, which she did, showing a really 
 marvelous knowledge of boys waists and buttons, 
 and being, besides, a very polite person who ar 
 ranged one s bath and respected one s feelings by 
 keeping her place on the outside while one bathed, 
 merely calling directions about the rough towels. 
 
I 3 4 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 She described a great many delightful and un 
 usual things about to happen to him, a cyclorama 
 of the Chicago fire (a cyclorama was ever so much 
 finer than a panorama), and a drive, and stores full 
 of beautiful things ; but when Johnny-Ivan asked : 
 "Will mamma stay to see them, too ?" she shook her 
 head compassionately. "Well, you know your 
 mamma will be going to your poor sick aunt, didn t 
 you know?" said she. 
 
 "But she ll come back she ll come back to say 
 good-by to me?" urged Johnny in a suffocated voice. 
 The kind creature said afterward that she fairly 
 couldn t stand the eyes of him. 
 
 "I know she s going away, she told me," cried 
 Johnny, with a forlorn pride, "but she isn t said 
 good-by. Oh, you ll see! she ll come back and say 
 good-by." 
 
 He would not ask questions about the "sick aunt," 
 because Johnny was already become a miniature 
 conspirator ; mamma was fooling them, somehow, so 
 he wouldn t give anything away ; but surely, surely, 
 mamma would say good-by. 
 
 Yet when he lifted his wistful eyes at his father s 
 entrance, a little later, and no one else was in the 
 doorway, the look in them cut Josiah keenly like a 
 knife. 
 
 The man tried to speak lightly : "Mamma s gone, 
 son. Aunt Wanda you know how sick Aunt 
 Wanda s been. She she didn t come back to say 
 good-by she d have missed the train. Michael s 
 gone with her to take care of her, and Augustine, 
 Mrs. Winter s maid s gone, too. She s glad to go 
 
THE END OF THE GOLDEN AGE 135 
 
 back to France. She ll take very good care of 
 mamma." 
 
 He hadn t the nerve to look at the child, whom he 
 felt he was striking with every sentence ; so he didn t 
 see the sensitive little features grow white and the 
 eyes scared. He swallowed a lump in his own throat, 
 nevertheless, as he concluded : "And mamma sends 
 her love and says Be brave ! and I m going to write 
 her how " 
 
 But he was shocked by an exceeding bitter cry. 
 "I can t ! I can t be brave any more !" And the little 
 boy dashed out of the room. 
 
 "Leave him to me, sir," said the housekeeper, 
 with a woman s instinctive scorn of man s inade 
 quacy in an emotional crisis. She followed too 
 quickly for Johnny to shoot the door-bolt. 
 
 He broke from her and flung himself on the bed 
 in a paroxysm of grief. 
 
 "Oh, your poor mamma !" said the wise woman ; 
 "how she ll feel when your papa writes the way 
 you ve cried !" 
 
 Johnny rolled over on one side. 
 
 "I ain t crying!" he sobbed; "I ain t going to 
 cry at all I I just got a stomach-ache. Please 
 lemme lone !" 
 
 "You sweet little brave lamb !" cried the woman, 
 "ain t there nobody you got to home to buy presents 
 for?" 
 
 "There s Peggy," said Johnny. "Oh, I want to 
 see Peggy !" He felt the sobs choking him again ; 
 but it was not only mamma urging him to be brave 
 and this strange woman he couldn t cry before, 
 
136 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 there was Peggy who missed her papa but never 
 cried. He sat up in the bed and wiped his eyes and 
 submitted to having the woman wash his face, and 
 after a while papa came in and talked about presents, 
 and said he could buy presents for everybody in 
 Fairport if he liked. 
 
 "There s a lady from Fairport here, you know/ 
 papa said. "She s here with her sister, who lives 
 here ; her sister s going to send her carriage for us, 
 and Miss Emma Hopkins that s the lady is going 
 to show us where we can get things." 
 
 Johnny-Ivan was a polite child and he tried to 
 be good; but Emma Hopkins long could see, too 
 vividly for her comfort, the wistful little face which 
 would suddenly cloud in the midst of its childish 
 distraction. He remembered all the maxims of be 
 havior in which he had been trained ; his cap was in 
 his hand as soon as the lady s face appeared at the 
 carriage window; he said, "yes, ma am," and "no, 
 ma am," punctiliously (according to Hilma s and 
 Maum Chloe s code) ; he always let the lady go first, 
 when she wasn t holding his hand, and he didn t 
 ask any questions ; but all the while there was that 
 dreadful, queer feeling inside him, all the while 
 he knew that mamma was gone. 
 
 Emma Hopkins was alone. It had not occurred to 
 her cheerful Western mind to bring Mrs. Raimund 
 with her, because she might be going shopping with 
 Mr. Winslow. She showed them both over the big, 
 crowded, gaily decked store, and she guided John 
 ny s choice of gifts. Johnny was perfectly docile; 
 he bought the cravats for Tim and Fritz, the beauti- 
 

THE END OF THE GOLDEN AGE 137 
 
 ful embroidered silk fichus for Hilma, the waitress 
 and the cook, and the richly flaming scarf for 
 mammy, at Miss Hopkins suggestion. And he 
 agreed that the white gloves would be nice for Aunt 
 Rebecca Winter; only when Miss Hopkins took a 
 pretty ribbon from the counter, saying, "And would 
 this do for Peggy Rutherford? You would like to 
 bring her something, wouldn t you?" Johnny shook 
 his head. "I picked out Peggy s present/ said he, 
 his little finger indicating an exquisitely painted 
 black lace fan on the opposite counter. "Peggy loves 
 lace fans, and she told me she was sure going to have 
 one when she was growed up." 
 
 "But that fan is twenty-five dollars, dear " 
 
 "Thirty-five," said the smiling saleswoman be 
 hind the fans; "it s all hand-painted and lovely 
 work" 
 
 "We ll take it," said Mr. Winslow. It was the 
 single sentence he had uttered since they came into 
 the store; and, for the first time, Johnny-Ivan 
 smiled. 
 
 "Oh, thank you, papa," he cried; almost uncon 
 sciously he shifted his clasp from Miss Hopkins 
 hand to his father s, which closed over his gently. 
 
 Johnny-Ivan felt better after the presents were 
 bought. He had not been able even to eat bread 
 and milk for his breakfast at the hotel, but he plied a 
 nimble fork at the luncheon at Kinsley s, and he 
 went with Mrs. Raimund and Miss Hopkins and 
 his papa to the cyclorama, storing every detail for 
 Peggy s use. Now and again the old horror of 
 loneliness would clutch him ; but he insisted to .him- 
 
138 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 self, in a child s flight of hope, that if mamma didn t 
 come back pretty soon he and Peggy would go after 
 her ; and, meanwhile, there was Peggy waiting, and 
 wouldn t she be glad to get the fan ! 
 
 He whipped up his courage in this fashion, until 
 his father and he were alone in the cars going home, 
 when he had to remember who had been with him 
 before in the cars. It grew harder to keep from cry 
 ing, harder every minute. His papa sat on the seat 
 beside him, looking very stern. By-and-by, maybe, 
 he would begin about Serge. Perhaps he would be 
 angry. No, he wasn t going to scold him, else he 
 would never have given him the fan. Papa was 
 kind, too. Why was mamma angry with papa? He 
 wanted mamma now, this minute; he wanted to go 
 to sleep close to her. Where was mamma ? 
 
 All at once he spoke. "I m glad mamma s got 
 Michael to take care of her," he cried. 
 
 "She ll be all right ; don t you worry," said Wins- 
 low. His voice sounded careless. Somehow, Johnny 
 felt a little chilled, and more lonesome than ever, 
 for papa was smiling. The poor man had forced a 
 smile to reassure the boy. When Johnny was un 
 dressed at night (by the united skill of the porter 
 and his father and at the expense of at least three 
 vitally important buttons) he crawled into the little 
 berth, so heavy-hearted that even his presents, which 
 he had taken to bed with him for consolation, 
 couldn t help him. He cried himself to sleep, while 
 the unconscious father smoked in the next car, and 
 the porter, appointed guardian pro tempore, dozed 
 happily. 
 
THE END OF THE GOLDEN AGE ^9 
 
 He was crying as his father came into the state 
 room, but he simulated slumber so successfully that 
 Winslow suspected nothing. 
 
 Equally ignorant of his father s feelings, Johnny 
 did not know with what a sorrowful and tender face 
 Josiah Winslow stood, long regarding the little 
 form only indicated by the heavy blankets, nor how 
 he extended his hand twice as if to touch the silky 
 curls on the pillow, only to draw it back lest his 
 caress disturb the sleeper. 
 
 Nor did Johnny-Ivan, whose pretense of sleep 
 had drifted into real dreams, know how long the 
 man opposite looked wide-eyed at the darkness and 
 the bolted door and his sleeping boy, while his 
 thoughts were rummaging the years; and the son 
 never heard the father mutter, at last: "Well, 
 there s Johnny. I ll save Johnny out of the wreck." 
 
 Johnny s first conscious feeling, in the morning, 
 was that he was lost ; his next was his father s face. 
 The curtains were up and it was broad daylight, and 
 papa and the porter were bending over him. The 
 porter was holding up his waist and talking. 
 
 "I done look ev ywhar, boss, and I kain t fin dem 
 buttons, nowhar. Reckon we-all got to pin em." 
 
 "But won t the pins ur stick into him?" This 
 was Johnny s father. 
 
 "Dey mought," admitted the porter, musing deep 
 ly; "but look-a-here !" he brightened "say, dars 
 a young married lady in number six, wid a baby. 
 I ll borry some pins fr m her, baby pins ; dey ll sho 
 stick an kain t hu t." 
 
 Thus, not nearly so neatly or so quickly as usual, 
 
140 
 
 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 but very firmly, Johnny was attired, and only one 
 really superfluous waist, which buttoned to nothing 
 and naturally was not missed, escaped the rites of 
 the toilet. 
 
 At Fairport the Winslow carriage was waiting, 
 driven by Tim in Michael s beautiful Russian hat 
 and caftan, but with his own honest overalls below. 
 Mr. Winslow s mouth widened grimly, though he 
 made no comment. 
 
 "All right at the house?" said he. 
 
 "Yes, sor. Splindid." 
 
 "Did they get Serge Vassy locked up all right?" 
 Mr. Winslow went on. 
 
 "They did, sor. But the copper, God be good to 
 him he s dead." 
 
 "I m sorry." 
 
 "They was talkin how they d be takin Serge 
 Vassy out an hang im. Twas a big crowd at the 
 jail, yesterday night, I m hearin " 
 
 "Oh! Weren t you there to see for yourself?" 
 
 Tim grinned feebly, and found something wrong 
 with the horses, which were very smoothly trotting 
 out of the town. 
 
 "Well, sor, tis best not to be to sech onlawful 
 gatherin s. But annyway they was makin a power 
 of noise outside; some dhrunk and all howlin . 
 Most loike ut scarit the cratur they re poor timore- 
 ous craturs, thim nihilists, at bottom. I m thinkin . 
 Annyway, afore they cu d git to him, he d taken 
 some stuff he d wid him consaled, and twas dead s 
 nails he was leanin forninst the door." 
 
 Mr. Winslow whistled. "Just s well, maybe," he 
 
THE END OF THE GOLDEN AGE 141 
 
 said finally; "that lets me out. He ll need no help 
 now. Tim, how is the new colt?" 
 
 "Couldn t be better, sor." The talk strayed into 
 Tim s province, the stable. 
 
 But Johnny stared at his father. This cold 
 strength affected the warm-hearted, impulsive child 
 like an incubus of terror; how could he escape it? 
 And mamma would feel so bad about Serge! Was 
 mamma going to Russia to beg the czar to save 
 Serge ? or was it true she was going to Aunt Wanda, 
 who had been ill ? 
 
 Johnny s childish wits sank bewildered in this 
 maze ; only one solid hope remained amid a quaking 
 bog of fear. There was Peggy; pretty soon he d 
 see Peggy! They were passing the Patch. The 
 smoke curled up from humble chimneys; the chil 
 dren were playing under the blossoming trees; at 
 some of the windows were gray heads. And his 
 father would turn all these poor people out on the 
 world. But there was Peggy ! 
 
 "Any other news?" said Mr. Winslow. 
 
 "Jest the Rootherfords, sor. You was hearin 
 fore you wint away bout the woord come how the 
 poor doctor was tuk bad ?" 
 
 "Yes, the telegram came in the morning. Mrs. 
 Winslow told me ; they were hoping for better news 
 before Mrs. Rutherford started. She s gone, I sup 
 pose?" 
 
 "They ve all gone, sor, Mrs. Rootherford and the 
 nagur woman and the little girl an Mrs. Winter, 
 she wint to St. Louis wid em. They wint Wednes 
 day night, sor." 
 
142 
 
 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 "That s too bad !" said Mr. Winslow in real con 
 cern ; "why, Johnny was fetching presents home to 
 them. I m sorry, son." 
 
 But Johnny hardly heard him.; he had sunk back 
 in the carriage. He was not crying ; he didn t want 
 to cry, not exactly; but his wistful eyes looked out 
 on a wide and lonesome world, where no comfort 
 was. 
 
BOOK II 
 
 IVAN 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 STRANGERS YET 
 
 The noon train from Chicago to the Pacific on 
 the "Great Rock Island Route" was an accommoda 
 tion train. Limited trains whirled over the prairies 
 before the day broke ; their iron chargers rode 
 
 "The late moon out of the skies 
 And their hoofs drummed up the dawn ;" 
 
 but the eleven-o clock local linked no glittering 
 Pullmans by dusty vestibules ; it was only a verte- 
 brated line of day coaches in which the plain people, 
 with their babies and their luncheons and their an 
 tique hand-luggage, could swell the revenues of the 
 railway the most for the least accommodation. 
 
 Few long-distance travelers took the local, so few 
 that the ticket-seller w 7 as moved to look a second 
 time at the handsome and very well dressed young 
 man who requested a ticket for Fairport. 
 
 "The four P. M. is an hour and a half quicker 
 and has a diner on," said he. 
 
 "Thank you," said the young man, "but it is a 
 case of sickness ; I can t wait." 
 
 There was something so winning in the young 
 man s voice and his ready gratitude for a slight 
 courtesy that the busy official spared time for a civil 
 
 45 
 
146 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 "That s too bad !" and a glance after a fine straight 
 back as it disappeared swiftly in the crowd. 
 
 "Say," said the chief ticket-seller, coming over 
 from a customer, who was buying a ticket to Cali 
 fornia and trying to obtain unlimited information 
 about the Pacific from a world-weary man who 
 knew nothing beyond Omaha, "say, I ll bet that 
 was young Winslow ; his father s taken awfully bad, 
 and we were to stop him if he came here and tell him 
 there s a special waiting for him; they must have 
 missed him, somehow ; Alan G. Raimund was down 
 here, himself, about it. You wait; I m going to 
 catch him !" 
 
 But the hand of the clock touched the hour and 
 the accommodation was slowly swinging out of the 
 great murky station as the official reached the gate, 
 while on a platform, smiling at a man who had 
 caught his arm and righted him from his leap, stood 
 the tall, slender, dark young man whom the agent 
 sought. All the men about the gate were swayed 
 by a ripple of gaiety. 
 
 " Is that the Fairport train? he says" a railway 
 attache seemed to be telling the story " you can t 
 get it, gate s shut, says I; he never said nothing, 
 just run and cleared the pickets like a race hoss, and 
 hopped on to the train as easy !" 
 
 "Bag and all," another man chimed in ; "he ain t 
 feazed, that feller." 
 
 Meanwhile, unconscious of the trail of admiration 
 sputtering after him like sparks after a rocket, 
 young John Winslow, who had beaten the college 
 record for hurdling at Harvard, was selecting the 
 cleanest of the spotted red plush settees. He brushed 
 
STRANGERS YET 147 
 
 off the peanut shells from his choice and, sitting- 
 down, instantly became absorbed in thought. The 
 seat in front was occupied by the young fellow who 
 had helped him on the platform, a short, wiry, 
 round-headed and deeply freckled young man. He 
 leaned his head on his hand, shading his face. 
 
 But he roused himself to greet a cheerful brake- 
 man, who show r ed exceeding joy at the meeting and 
 wrung the young man s hand. "I ain t seen you 
 since the Federation election," cried he ; "well, didn t 
 us boys make good? Ain t you in, all O K?" 
 
 "Sure," responded the other; "I don t mean to 
 forget who did the trick, either, you bet." 
 
 "Where are you going?" 
 
 "Fairport." 
 
 "Anything wrong there?" 
 
 "I m going to see my mother; she s had another 
 stroke." 
 
 "Pshaw!" exclaimed the brakeman softly, "I 
 didn t know. Say, is it pretty bad, Billy?" 
 
 "Couldn t well be worse. And this train is 
 slower n the wrath of God." He ground his teeth 
 in the irritation of his anxiety. 
 
 "That s so," agreed the brakeman, "but it ll git 
 in before number four. But it is awful, traveling 
 slow at such a time ; you know when Tim got his leg 
 mashed Lord! I thought I d never git to him 
 it was on this same old caterpillar, too. Well, I ll 
 see nobody bothers you." 
 
 Johnny Winslow looked at the man whose dismal 
 errand was so like his own. The brakeman had 
 called him Billy. Billy must be a Fairport boy, or, 
 at least, might have been one, since his mother lived 
 
148 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 in the town ; and anything connected with the little 
 city was of interest to Johnny now. Billy looked 
 prosperous; his light gray suit was new; his linen 
 was very clean; it was also gay, being striped with 
 red and blue ; and his silk cravat was of a rich, shot 
 scarlet. On the seat beside him rested a soft felt 
 hat of silver gray. He wore no gloves; his hands 
 were freckled, but they were well-kept, and there 
 was a diamond ring on one little finger, companion 
 to another diamond flashing from his cravat. 
 
 "Too fine for a workingman, yet he s got the little 
 ways of one," thought Johnny; "brushes his face 
 with the back of his hand, and his walk s like one. 
 Hands too white for machinist; may be a molder 
 or steel man." 
 
 Probably Billy would have wondered at Johnny s 
 confident opinions about mechanics. The truth is, 
 during his last vacation Johnny had tried a job in 
 a foundry. Here he had perspired happily all sum 
 mer, having a river for his bath-tub at night, and a 
 hot, dusty factory for his days, instead of taking the 
 North Shore of Massachusetts with his people, and 
 playing polo with the Myopia Club. 
 
 Therefore, Johnny knew a little of labor and felt 
 the responsibility of knowing a great deal, because 
 his knowledge was so new that it loomed up in the 
 forefront of his imagination. 
 
 Only for a second, however, did his thoughts 
 touch his companion; there was too much of grim 
 and anxious importance at hand for consideration. 
 As he sat, his dark eyes, which had not quite lost 
 either the innocence or the wistfulness of their child 
 ish regard, were fixed mechanically on the drifting 
 
STRANGERS YET 149 
 
 landscape; but they saw neither houses nor smiling 
 harvest fields. His thoughts did not concentrate 
 themselves enough to distil into words; rather they 
 were a dim and irrelevant procession of scenes, ris 
 ing like smoke wraiths out of the past. He saw a lit 
 tle, lonely boy playing about a great lonely house, 
 and always, all day long, watching, watching. No 
 one, at first, knew for what he watched, nor why 
 he would steal down to a corner of the hillside 
 whenever he surprised an unguarded moment; no 
 one knew of the letters with the foreign stamp which 
 came to another address and were brought to this 
 unsuspected mail-box. Dreary years of a child s un- 
 guessed sorrowing and remembrance how bleak 
 they drifted before him! Years in which Johnny 
 learned to hide his deepest affections and his keenest 
 hopes ; years in which he learned to meet his father 
 with a cheerful countenance of an evening, and 
 never to ask to stay up later than the legal hour of 
 bedtime, and to ride his pony at the sober paternal 
 pace; and to sit, a tiny, unconsciously pathetic fig 
 ure, beside Josiah s broad frame in the buggy, when 
 the latter drove on Sunday afternoons. Josiah never 
 guessed that his son was studying him, bewildered 
 by him, yet judging him this little docile son. 
 
 After Mrs. Burney, who was an unobtrusive 
 comfort, was obliged to go back to her husband 
 and children, there came a far-away cousin. She 
 was a prim but kindly New England gentlewoman, 
 who looked well after the ways of her household, 
 and Johnny learned to love her in a genuine if tepid 
 fashion. With her came her son to study for the 
 ministry in the infant theological seminary, just 
 
150 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 founded in Fairport. The cousin was a widow ; she 
 was greatly respected in Fairport, and she was strict 
 in the return of visits and the payment of "obliga 
 tions" in feasting. She was a cousin on Josiah Wins- 
 low s mother s side, and came from Salem. It was 
 she who had the front door remodeled, with a fan- 
 shaped glass light above and green blinds on either 
 side the brass knocker. She told Johnny-Ivan that 
 it made her homesick for Salem, yet she loved it. 
 
 "Yes, ma am," the child surprised her by say 
 ing, "I know ; I ve felt that way." 
 
 "What about, Johnny?" 
 
 "Oh, about the summer-house," said Johnny, 
 whom nobody ever called Ivan in these days. The 
 cousin understood. She remembered what she had 
 been told of the Princess Olga s favorite haunt. She 
 was too reticent a woman to express the sympathy 
 really in her heart; but she patted the curly head 
 under her hand, saying : "Well, Johnny, we know ; 
 but no matter how much we miss things we have to 
 try to be cheerful and not make other people 
 trouble." 
 
 Johnny-Ivan swallowed and winked his eyes be 
 fore he answered, properly, "Yes, ma am." 
 
 "And I m going to tell you a secret. You re go 
 ing to Switzerland with papa next spring." 
 
 "To see mamma?" Johnny-Ivan had turned sud 
 denly white with emotion. The cousin nodded. "But 
 you had better not say anything about it." 
 
 "No, ma am," breathed Johnny-Ivan very low. 
 Suddenly he lifted the cousin s thin, blue-veined 
 hand and kissed it in the foreign manner which he 
 had disused of late. "I love you !" said the little boy, 
 
STRANGERS YET 151 
 
 and ran swiftly away. When he reappeared his eye 
 lids were red ; but his eyes were shining and he was 
 tugging a great basket of shavings. He had whit 
 tled them with his knife, he explained; Hilma let 
 him. "You said you wished you had some shavings 
 for your fire," said Johnny; "you used to have 
 shavings in Salem." 
 
 He dated his affection for the New Englander 
 from that day, while as for Mrs. Parker, the cousin, 
 she pronounced him "a real Winslow, every inch of 
 him" ; nor did she ever swerve from her belief. 
 
 Then came, in scattered scenes, the visit to 
 Switzerland. The young man drew his breath sharp 
 ly over the child s remembered ecstasy of meeting. 
 How lovely his mother was ! How exquisite ! What 
 a beautiful life she led among the exiles, whom she 
 helped and comforted! The fortune that Aunt 
 Wanda had left her, was it squandered because it 
 went to a most noble if hopeless dream of liberty 
 and human brotherhood? Yet Johnny scowled, 
 because he found in his own mind a far-away echo 
 of his father s petulance. He recalled, almost with 
 sympathy, a single speech of Winslow s. 
 
 "Good Heavens, Olga ! let me take care of your 
 money; it s better to have me take it and double it, 
 while you can fool away the income on these ma 
 niacs, than it is for you to be dumping it all into 
 their insatiable maw ! Quite apart from the object, 
 it s sickening to see money wasted so !" 
 
 Not wasted, perhaps, since so large a sum was 
 needed at once ; but he dimly appreciated his father s 
 position. Even as a youth of fourteen he had begun 
 to see the futility of his mother s dreams. During 
 
152 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 the years between his first visit and that time, every 
 year (according to some never-mentioned but sa 
 credly-observed pact between his parents) Johnny- 
 Ivan had spent two months with his mother. Most 
 of the time not all of it his father was an inmate 
 of the household, an unexacting and silent spectator, 
 observing every form of distant courtesy toward his 
 wife, and never seeking his son s company. To-day, 
 he could see the grave unresponding face beside 
 them in theater boxes or fiacres or sitting amid other 
 guests at the table. His mother was always the 
 Princess Olga now, she was never addressed more 
 as Madam Winslow, and while the visit lasted 
 Johnny was with her all the time; he breakfasted 
 and had luncheon with her, and he always came in 
 with the dessert at dinner, where he made acquaint 
 ance with bearded, feverish-eyed dreamers who had 
 less harm than noise in them, and several mild and 
 well-behaved plotters, to whom murder was merely 
 a distasteful accessory. They found him the same 
 gentle, polite and interested child, and how kind 
 they all were to him ! His fingers touched the knife 
 in his pocket; it was a gift from the man who had 
 carried the bomb to and from the cheese shop that 
 blood-stained March morning when Alexander was 
 slain. One of his rings was the treasure of a nihilist 
 who slew a whole family in the effort to quench one 
 hated life. He still owned a book which came from 
 one conspirator, and a paper-weight from another; 
 and the most ruthless assassin in all the Russias had 
 spent hours whittling the little boy a ship. Toward 
 Mr. Winslow their attitude was different. 
 
 "They are a precious lot of egotistical cut- 
 
STRANGERS YET 153 
 
 throats/ he said to his wife; "I hope they know I 
 think so." 
 
 "Do not fear," she replied calmly, "they are not 
 ignorant of your good opinion, which really does 
 not require writing to be read !" 
 
 Swiftly came other scenes to the sad young eyes 
 at the window-pane, his mother s agony when they 
 must part, her happiness when they met, only two 
 months out of the year; but Johnny-Ivan lived in 
 those two months all the months between, and there 
 were always the letters ; not the weekly letter which 
 came to his father and was read with due respect 
 and ceremony to him; the reading always prefaced 
 with, "Here is a letter from mamma," as if a mother 
 who never came to her husband s home and saw her 
 child only two months in the year were the normal 
 parent. Once a week when the letter was read 
 Josiah Winslow would mention his wife; his lips 
 never touched her name at any other time. 
 
 The year Johnny-Ivan was fourteen his mother 
 seemed changed; she no longer lived in the beauti 
 ful villa which had been hers, but in a small house 
 with only Michael and a maid; and the things to 
 eat at dinner were not so good ; but the same faces, 
 lacking but a few to whom conspiracy had not been 
 kind, were over the samovar, every afternoon. 
 Michael and his father had frequent conversations 
 apart. It seemed to the boy that gradually Michael 
 had been growing more friendly to his father. His 
 mother was sadder, but no less beautiful, and she 
 wore the same charming costumes. Even then he 
 guessed the reason; 
 
 "Does papa give you your clothes, mamma?" he 
 
154 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 asked one day. Her lip curled. "Ai da! I should 
 have very plain clothes if he didn t; he pays for 
 everything now, galubchik; I have lost a great deal 
 of my money." 
 
 "Well, mamasa," said Johnny-Ivan with the 
 shrewd little frown that she called his Winslow 
 look, "I wouldn t give any more money to the patri 
 ots." 
 
 "Why not, Vanya?" 
 
 "Because, mamma, they only get sent to Siberia; 
 they don t hurt the government a bit ! They talk so 
 loud and they twirl their mustaches and drink so 
 many glasses of champagne, and they don t do any 
 thing, really!" 
 
 "But, Ivan," his mother returned, "shall we let 
 all this wickedness go on and the people be more and 
 more miserable?" 
 
 "No, maman, give them money to come to Amer 
 ica." 
 
 "Are they, then, so happy in America?" she 
 replied. 
 
 "They can t be sent to Siberia, in America, 
 maman!" 
 
 "But there is the penitentiary in America; and 
 don t you remember how Serge killed himself rather 
 than go there ? I went to Chicago to get our friends, 
 there, to help him. Papa had promised he would 
 help, too. Yet Serge killed himself rather than risk 
 it. Not all the oppressors are in Russia." 
 
 "Well, anyhow, it s easier to reform things in 
 America," the lad persisted; "that s where I m go 
 ing to try." 
 
 Sitting by the car window, the young man could 
 
STRANGERS YET 155 
 
 see the Swiss mountains, which caught his eye when 
 ever it strayed from the beautiful pale face before 
 him ; their opal peaks were strangely gilded by the 
 glow in a little grate. He could see his mother s slim 
 hands which wore no rings clasped over her knee 
 as she talked. That last year his mother was 
 changed she was sadder, gentler. He wished that 
 his father (who spent barely a week with them) 
 had stayed longer. When they came to part it was 
 harder. Her last miserable smile haunted him and 
 he felt an indefinable yet deepening gloom. The 
 letters were fewer, and they did not, as usual, re 
 gain the note of hope, for her temperament had as 
 much gift for joy as for pain. She reproached her 
 self with failure. She wrote to the boy of fourteen 
 as if he were a man : 
 
 "What is the Secret of Life? Do we need happi 
 ness ? Here is a strange poem by one of your Amer 
 icans, a woman. That is right. Women have the 
 crudest burden always, for they can never forget 
 pain in action. This poor woman, this Emily Dickin 
 son, I know, has suffered. Hear her : 
 
 " The soul asks pleasure, first, 
 And then excuse from pain, 
 And then the little anodynes 
 That deaden suffering. 
 
 And then a chance to sleep, 
 
 And then, if so may lie 
 The will of its inquisitor, 
 
 The liberty to die! 
 
 "Do you not find that dreary, my Ivan ? And that 
 last image! The will of its inquisitor is it not 
 
156 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 terrible? As if le bon Dieu were turning the rack 
 handle. You are so young* you do not consider the 
 pervasiveness of misery. Is it we, ourselves, that 
 make the world so horrible or this is where I am 
 affrighted is it our nature, in the constitution of 
 the world, that we should suffer? Do our very 
 struggles of frenzy to relieve the weight that is 
 crushing the soul out of a race do they but press 
 it the heavier ? Once I saw a horse in a quicksand 
 Ai, if I could forget it! Every struggle made him 
 sink deeper. A sight like that makes an infidel of 
 one. Yet that is only a particle in the vast total of 
 horror. How can any one, with a heart, be happy 
 after twenty-five ! But there have come moments bet 
 ter than happiness to me. One was when I bought the 
 release of a true woman, born a peasant but with the 
 soul of a princess, who has done more for Russian 
 womanhood than any of us ; and I never think that 
 because of my help all she did after her escape was 
 made possible, without an exquisite exaltation of 
 the heart. I have longed inexpressibly for happiness ; 
 I have felt only its wing brush my hot cheek as it 
 passed; but when I renounced hope for self and 
 sought only to gain release from pain for others, 
 then only did I find a deep and strange peace. Hap 
 piness is for the child, whatever his years, for some 
 are always children ; to the end, I think, your father, 
 who has many, many noble qualities, will yet be a 
 determined and blinded boy. But for men and 
 women who have lived, peace is our best. 
 
 "You will not understand me, my poor angel. I 
 forget your years; it is because in some ways you 
 are older than I. But keep this poor vague letter ; it 
 
STRANGERS YET 157 
 
 is the last cry of my soul. Read it when you are 
 older. I have failed, but you will succeed. You must 
 succeed. Begin where I surrendered; do not seek 
 the happiness of the senses or of the heart. But from 
 the beginning take the vows of a priest of humanity. 
 There is so great a multitude of downtrodden, help 
 less, hopeless, and, therefore, wicked people; there 
 is so great a multitude of strong, careless, joyous 
 souls who will pass to their own images of happiness 
 over the bodies of their fellows if need be, just as 
 boys will in games ; but the pitiful, the unselfish, are 
 so few. Alas! they often are so blind. And this is 
 the most terrible of mysteries; we not only harm 
 through cruelty and carelessness and ignorance ; we 
 harm most out of the blind folly of our best intents. 
 "Would it not seem that God might keep watch 
 above his own that they should not destroy where 
 they agonize to save ! But He does not always ! I 
 suppose we blunder, and to blunder is the only un 
 pardonable sin! My life has been full of good in 
 tentions and blunders. I saw too straight I did 
 not look to either side. But thou wilt be different. 
 I no longer ask thee to help in Russia. Thou art 
 more an American than a Russian. But help those 
 who need in America, my dear son, whom I have 
 loved with the one absorbing, passionate love of my 
 life. Do not grow hard with success. There is some 
 thing nobler than piling up gold. There is some 
 thing finer than your vulgar American power in pol 
 itics. Lead the working people, my darling. They 
 need a leader. Give your life to them. Be it in 
 America or Russia the end will be the same, for it is 
 true what the American poet says : 
 
158 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 " Tor humanity s vast frame 
 Through its ocean-sundered fibres feels the gush of joy or 
 
 shame 
 
 In the gain or loss of one race all the rest have equal 
 claim. 
 
 "There is one thing I wish to say to you. Be a 
 good son. I have not been all a wife should be to 
 your father. Pay my debts, my darling; give the 
 consideration, the patience, the forbearance, which 
 I did not give. There has been some talk in Amer 
 ica, in Fairport, of your father s obtaining a di 
 vorce. His longer absence this year, his staying in 
 the hotel, not in my house, these things would in 
 dicate that he wishes to break even the shadow of 
 a tie that has held us these many years. And I feel 
 that, should he break it (a thing very easy, I under 
 stand, according to your laws), he will wish to marry 
 again. I even surmise who is the lady. You will 
 think it strange that for these many years I, who 
 never willingly sought your father s presence, should 
 still be horribly jealous of this other. I am, I con 
 fess it to you. She is what the world admires as a 
 good woman. Nothing would induce her to do any 
 thing which the law and the church do not sanction. 
 Yet I believe she loves your father and will marry 
 him, so soon as he is free. I know that she is often 
 at the house. I have asked you about her, and the 
 pain it gave me to hear your artless confession of 
 liking her shames me. For I know that she will be 
 kind to you ; I know she will give your father all the 
 comfort which he needs and a companionship which 
 I aimable Madam Parker can not. Still this excru 
 ciating jealousy rends my poor heart. Little son, it 
 
STRANGERS YET 159 
 
 is not so much for thy father, it is for thee. When 
 she becomes his wife and my health is not strong ; 
 she may not need the courts to help free him then 
 see to it she is not thy mother. Only I am that. 
 Ah, God, how I have loved thee ! And it were such 
 a comfort when I go into the dark, to know I shall 
 not be all dead ; I shall still live in thy heart. And 
 there is no one besides you. These are such foolish 
 wild words and I began to write them, meaning 
 them to be calm and forgiving and patient Nu! 
 these qualities are too foreign to me even to be 
 feigned. Yet I know there is much in this woman 
 to which I don t do justice. Soit. I can not help it. 
 Be good to her, but do not love her. I will send 
 this, now, that it may catch the steamer, and to 
 morrow, again, I will write." 
 
 But there was never another letter, and this John 
 ny-Ivan read only after he came back to America, 
 having seen his mother laid in a foreign grave. It 
 must have been the day after its writing that 
 Michael s cable was received. The princess was ill, 
 dying, would not his mercy, the barin, send Ivan- 
 Josiahvitch ? 
 
 Johnny-Ivan did not see the message; but it is 
 questionable if he would have suffered more if he 
 had known what he guessed. His father was very 
 gentle to him. Johnny s eyes filled with tears, re 
 membering how gentle and how silent. 
 
 It was a ghastly journey and too late. The prin 
 cess may not have realized the seriousness of her 
 condition she was a skeptic about doctors; and it 
 is likely that an unknown affection of the heart com 
 plicated the mortal disease which she had suspected. 
 
160 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 It saved her months of pain, but it took her away 
 from her son without a parting message. A few 
 hours of unconsciousness slipped into the everlast 
 ing release. 
 
 The train groaned and panted over open trestle- 
 work ; the sky had darkened. Johnny-Ivan was won 
 dering how he lived through the year after his 
 mother s death. There are some losses which are 
 more than wounds; they are mutilations. The soul 
 is never the same afterward. He put his hand un 
 consciously against his breast. That last letter was 
 there, he had worn it all these years. For a long 
 time he read it almost daily. One day he read it with 
 a convulsed face and streaming eyes, for on that day 
 his father had told him that he was to marry Miss 
 Emma Hopkins. Not a word did Johnny say; he 
 simply turned pale and walked away. For the first 
 time, now on his way to his father s death-bed, he 
 was reproaching himself, not for the discourtesy of 
 his behavior for that he had apologized stiffly the 
 same morning but for its cruelty. 
 
 But during a long time he was too occupied with 
 his own torture to think of anything else. He was 
 in a frenzy of resentment and grief. He despised 
 himself because of his former weak liking for the 
 cheerful, ingenious, sympathetic "Aunt Emma/ 
 who used to tell stories of the Winslows and Endi- 
 cotts and play Indian massacres in his childhood 
 when he was so lonesome, and who was grand about 
 algebra in later days. The half-obliterated memory 
 of his mother s words to Aunty Winter at the Art 
 Museum was burnished into scorching brightness 
 
STRANGERS YET 161 
 
 by his knowledge, as brass is burnished by an acid. 
 All the jealous suspicion of the letter, which he had 
 glossed over as impossible, was justified. With the 
 hot unreason of youth he accused Emma Hopkins 
 (never more Aunt Emma, he swore) of being a 
 heartless and calculating schemer. All along, yes, 
 all along, she had meant to marry his father and 
 live at Overlook; she might, he could not help it; 
 but she should never rule over him ! His head was 
 throbbing with plans to escape, to run away, to 
 reach his mother s friends, plans which he was quite 
 reckless enough to have tried to put into some sort 
 of action had he not found a wise counselor in Mrs. 
 Winter. She was become a great comfort to him 
 since his mother s death. He knew that she loved 
 his mother. Three times she had made a special 
 pilgrimage to Switzerland to visit the princess. 
 Johnny always had a little moving of the heart when 
 he looked at the picture of his mother hanging above 
 the solitaire table in Mrs. Winter s own little sitting- 
 room. She had mourned the Princess Olga s death 
 with a depth of grief which astonished herself. She 
 said as much to Emma Hopkins. 
 
 "I thought," she said, "when my husband died, I 
 used up my capacity of misery. It was some com 
 pensation that if I could never feel any keen happi 
 ness again, neither should I ever suffer so I should 
 hate the sunshine. But I have been cruelly lonesome 
 since Olga died. And she had really learned to love 
 me; I had hopes I could help her." To Johnny she 
 said: "Your mother had a beautiful nature; I shall 
 miss her as long as I live." 
 
 So it was to Mrs. Winter that Johnny, grown a 
 
162 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 tall lad of fifteen, brought his news. Again, he could 
 see her narrowing her handsome eyes and nodding 
 her handsome gray head over it. 
 
 "Yes, I suppose so. Well, Johnny, you know Mrs. 
 Parker has to go to Keokuk, where Endicott has a 
 call; your father would be very lonely. He was 
 talking of your going to school." 
 
 "I want to go to school," said Johnny. "I want 
 you to ask father, will you?" 
 
 Mrs. Winter eyed him a moment, thoughtfully. 
 
 "I shan t ever like Miss Hopkins," said Johnny; 
 "if I stay I ll get so unhappy I ll run away. I mean 
 it, Aunty Winter." 
 
 "I see you mean it ; and of course you re unhappy, 
 Johnny " 
 
 "Won t you go on calling me Jo nivan? I want 
 to have you." 
 
 "And I dare say you are cooking up wild schemes 
 of running away." 
 
 "I don t want to run away, not if I can help it." 
 
 "Your father is uncommonly fond of you, Jo n 
 ivan." 
 
 "I am fond of him, but I shall never obey that 
 lady." 
 
 Mrs. Winter considered before she spoke: "I ll 
 make a bargain with you, Jo nivan. Be kind and 
 respectful to your father and polite to Miss Hop 
 kins. She is a clever woman. She won t ask any 
 thing more of you now. And keep your bad feel 
 ings to yourself. That s your part. On my part, I 
 agree to advise your father to let you go to school." 
 
 The young man at the window was sighing. He 
 felt a queer distant pity for the lonely lad fighting 
 
STRANGERS YET 163 
 
 his way through the hazing and fagging at a mili 
 tary school. Then he smiled faintly. The mild, slim 
 young Westerner had organized the new scholars. 
 By means of a secret society, at first covertly, finally 
 openly, he had defied the hazers. There had been a 
 bloody battle wherein clothes were torn and heads 
 were broken and the new society held its own until 
 the bugle for drill stopped the fray. The subsequent 
 assault with intent to "bed-slat" the chief offender 
 against school traditions ended Johnny s career, for 
 he repelled boarders with giant firecrackers, smug 
 gled to him by Michael, and set the building afire. 
 Johnny s father was summoned. He came, said very 
 little to Johnny, took long walks with the Head of 
 the school; finally he announced to Johnny that he 
 could come home with him. 
 
 "I d rather stay," murmured Johnny. He felt a 
 silly, childish longing to sit close to his father, to 
 cry and confess how lonely and miserable he had 
 been; but he choked it down, as unworthy of the 
 chief of the K. T. F. 
 
 "You can t," said his father, "don t you know you 
 could be arrested for setting the house afire? Be 
 sides, Kane, isn t that the captain s name? he 
 might arrest you for that big burn he has where the 
 cracker burned right through his shirt. It is almost 
 assault with intent to commit murder !" 
 
 "He came at me with a baseball bat; there were 
 six of them " 
 
 "Yes, I know. It was a dirty business. But you 
 shouldn t try any anarchist tricks with dynamite. 
 That s un-American " 
 
 "I tried to get a knucks or a pistol, sir, but I 
 
164 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 couldn t buy one in town, and they were coming, 
 and if they d finished me, they d gone on and chased 
 every one of the society " 
 
 "I see," groaned Winslow, "other folks messes, as 
 usual ! Well, never mind ; the upshot is, Johnny, I ve 
 agreed to take you out of school. You re not ex 
 pelled; there s no record against you. Kane grad 
 uates this year, anyhow ; he ll be allowed to gradu 
 ate, but he ll lose his bars. The other fellows will 
 lose their rank, too, and the sixth and fifth forms 
 have agreed, if things are dropped and your so 
 ciety is disbanded, they will see that hazing and fag 
 ging are stopped. On the whole, it is a pretty fair 
 deal." 
 
 "Then I ve stopped the hazing?" cried Johnny; 
 "they said there wasn t a boy or a teacher could do 
 it!" 
 
 "Yes, young crowing cock, you ve stopped it ; but 
 I advise you to let reform alone in your next school. 
 I think you d better make aunty a visit for a few 
 weeks. Then you can come home. No need of talk 
 ing of a thing of this sort, and next September we ll 
 try Phillips Exeter. You need a little Eastern con 
 servatism." 
 
 "Papa," said Johnny, unconsciously reverting to 
 his childish address he had called his father father, 
 ever since the announcement of his intent to marry, 
 "papa, I d like to stay at aunty s all summer." 
 
 To-day, with its background of waving corn, 
 Johnny-Ivan could see his father s face ; why hadn t 
 he understood, then, that he was hurting him ? Why 
 couldn t he have been touched then by his smothered 
 sigh and the undertone in his words : "Well, son, if 
 
STRANGERS YET 165 
 
 you wish it so much ; but I had been thinking a good 
 deal of what we d do this summer. Your mother 
 was planning a good many things." 
 
 Johnny-Ivan remembered : he knew why he had 
 not been touched : it was that last sentence ; well, he 
 was glad he had had the grace to keep from flashing 
 out: "My mother s dead, I don t want anything 
 from Mrs. Winslow." He shut his teeth tight 
 sulky little dog that he was and after a considera 
 ble pause his father had begun about the details of 
 the journey. 
 
 He regretted his coldness now it was too late. 
 He was in a mood to regret. All his past was col 
 ored with his doubt of self. Even his conduct to his 
 stepmother did not seem to him so unassailable as 
 usual. He had been scrupulously courteous to her. 
 He could not reproach himself with rebuffing ad 
 vances ; his attitude had been one to prevent any ad 
 vances being made. Every week when he wrote to 
 his father he added as the last sentence, "I hope 
 Mrs. Winslow is well." She began as Mrs. Wins- 
 low and she never came to be anything else. 
 
 His ingenuity (and Johnny was of an ex 
 treme and versatile ingeniousness) spent itself 
 during term-time at school in building water 
 proof excuses for absence from home through va 
 cation. Once he went to a room-mate s; once he 
 joined a bicycle party, for the bicycle was then 
 in the height of its first fascination. He was most 
 duteous to all his eastern kindred as well as to 
 his aunt, whose husband had come to the com 
 mand of an eastern arsenal. He needed a tutor for 
 his Harvard "finals," although his "prelims" had 
 
166 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 been passed without any such aid. By such con 
 trivances he had shortened marvelously his periods 
 of home-coming. Now he wondered with a pricking 
 pain whether his father had not missed him. But 
 then, he was accustomed to consider his father as 
 wrapped up in his colossal business, to the exclusion 
 of everything, save possibly his wife. He supposed 
 his father had been sorry when the baby girl born 
 to him died within the year. Johnny had seen the 
 little thing only during a single vacation, but a 
 strange feeling tugged at his heart when it first held 
 out its tiny arms to him. 
 
 "Why, she likes you, Johnny !" cried Mrs. Wins- 
 low, "take her, won t you?" For once he did not 
 secretly resent her words. He accepted the funny 
 little bundle with a secret tenderness. 
 
 "Hullo, little sister!" he whispered. No one (he 
 was sure) knew how many times during his brief 
 visit he had stolen to the nursery to chaff and romp 
 with the "Bunch," as he called her. She used to 
 jump with joy at his approach. Once, when she had 
 a passing illness, she went to him from the nurse. 
 He was queerly moved, and when no one was look 
 ing (he thought) he bent his black head over the 
 pale golden curls and kissed the round little cheek. 
 It quite startled him that Mrs. Winslow should come 
 in, directly afterward. Before Mrs. Winslow, he 
 maintained the proper nonchalance pertaining to an 
 Exeter Senior who was the head of the track team. 
 He called Baby Nelly "Miss Winslow," and whis 
 tled school songs at her, nor ever by any chance laid 
 a finger on her soft little cheek, before witnesses. 
 Yet when the telegram came that the baby was dead, 
 
STRANGERS YET 167 
 
 he took the first train home, and cried softly behind 
 his curtains, in the night, because he should never 
 feel those clinging little arms again. 
 
 But he was too young to master the embarrass 
 ment of sympathy, and the never-healed wound in 
 his heart for his mother was reopened by the atmos 
 phere of loss and death. He wandered desolately 
 amid the scenes which they had known together, and 
 his tears flowed anew in a lonely sorrow, hard 
 ening instead of softening the heart over which 
 they flowed. No one missed her but himself ; but he 
 should miss her for ever. Dimly he understood that 
 their common grief would draw husband and wife 
 closer together. Even in the darkened room with 
 the strains of the hymn on the air and the wee 
 white coffin so near, he was passionately pleading 
 his mother s cause, passionately resenting her 
 wrongs. Poor lad! he did not comprehend that his 
 resentment was the effort of an obstinately faithful 
 nature to repel its own compassion, because com 
 passion seemed to him disloyalty. 
 
 The morning of his departure for school he rode 
 out to the cemetery, to the baby s grave. He looked 
 down on the flower-heaped mound for a few sec 
 onds, then laid a cluster of violets and milk-white 
 iron-weed amid the hot-house lilies and smilax. He 
 had gathered them on the knoll by the summer- 
 house. They were the flowers his mother used to 
 love. 
 
 "My mother sends them to you, little sister," he 
 said. He who had lost his childish faith and who 
 wondered drearily whether he could ever behold his 
 mother again, unconsciously used the loving fictions 
 
1 68 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 which comfort the sore-hearted. And then the tall 
 lad rested his head against the shaft above his un 
 known grandmother s grave, while his tears flowed 
 out of a loneliness more bitter than grief. That 
 evening, as he was saying good-by, he felt a move 
 ment of pity toward the baby s mother. She kissed 
 him for the first time in years saying : "Johnny, 
 I shall never forget how good it was of you to come. 
 You were always good to her and she always 
 loved " But even her self-control, which had been 
 marvelous all along, could not finish the sentence; 
 she turned away. 
 
 "Where s Johnny s dress-suit-case? Is it on the 
 carriage ?" called Winslow. 
 
 "Yes, it s there," said Johnny. So he did not need 
 to use any reply save a "Thank you!" which the 
 habit of politeness forced out of him. 
 
 Perhaps she was not feigning, perhaps she was sin 
 cere ; good heavens ! it would be too ghastly to sus 
 pect feigning at that moment. And to do her jus 
 tice, she was as straight as a string; with lots of 
 sand, too, and a sense of humor which not all 
 women have. He could have been good friends with 
 his stepmother if he only were free to be. But he 
 wasn t free, and he shut the door of his heart, which 
 had been ajar for a second, with a resolute bang. 
 Yet she was assuredly a devoted wife to his father. 
 With that, his thoughts shifted again as thoughts 
 will shift. They left his stepmother to go to his 
 father. He wished he hadn t been well, so argu 
 mentative with his father. 
 
 "I m afraid I came awfully near being bump 
 tious," he repented, with a kind of discouraged dis- 
 
STRANGERS YET 169 
 
 gust. "I ll never learn to hold my opinions and my 
 tongue at the same time, I guess." 
 
 He went back to those long Sundays at Man 
 chester last year, and blended with the church-bells 
 and the moan of the surf were his father s testy criti 
 cisms of "socialist gas-bags" and flings at Tolstoi s 
 "inflammatory non-resistance." 
 
 At this time Johnny was studying political econ 
 omy, and waving the Tolstoi torch with ardor. He 
 was on fire with a passion of pity for suffering, and 
 his young brain boiled with visions. The insatiable 
 logic of his mother s race had begun to offer its 
 word. Argument was fuel to flame. Consideration 
 of impossibility, the magnitude of obstacles to his 
 Utopia only stirred up the courage of youth. How 
 many nights filled with wrangling could he remem 
 ber in that loveliest of spots, where one ought to 
 have sighed Symons delicate verses and dreamed : 
 
 "I have grown tired of sorrow and human tears; 
 Life is a dream in the night, a fear among fears; 
 A naked runner lost in a storm of spears. 
 
 I would wash the dust of the world in a soft green flood; 
 Here, between sea and sea, in the fairy wood, 
 I have found a delicate, wave-green solitude. 
 
 Here, in the fairy wood, between sea and sea, 
 
 I have heard the song of a fairy bird in a tree, 
 
 And the peace that is not in the world has flown to me." 
 
 But the fairy bird which sang to Johnny Wins- 
 low sang of conflict, not of peace. His soul was not 
 
I ;o THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 weary whatever he deemed it it was throbbing 
 tumultuously ; he was awakening to the glory of am 
 bition; his imagination and his soul were kindling, 
 at once. Had you known him, as a few, a very few 
 Harvard men knew him, he might have shown you 
 a portfolio most daintily carved with Russian de 
 vices, and reverently lifted from it two letters. 
 
 "One was to my mother from Tolstoi; one is to 
 me," he might say. Ah ! which of us has not had 
 our day of hero worship, that golden time when the 
 young soul prostrates itself in the purest of pas 
 sions ! Johnny had fixed his heart high. Some day 
 he would do something worthy of repetition to his 
 mother s noble friend; then he would write to him. 
 A hundred times he composed the exordium to that 
 letter which held all his dreams. The recital itself 
 would take little time because Johnny expected his 
 deeds to be in all the papers. Many a night had he 
 smiled and stared at the moonlit ceiling, while his 
 hopes and schemes chased sleep out of the window. 
 And many a morning the pale arrows of the sun 
 had pierced the artificial radiance of his lighted 
 room, to find two or three eager faces still burning 
 with the zeal of their themes while the overflowing 
 Asvhenbechcr revealed the length of their vigil. 
 
 Unfortunately, Josiah Winslow had missed many 
 things in not going to the paternal university be 
 sides a knowledge of dead languages ; he had never 
 known the dear delight of hero worship and litera 
 ture combined. He had his own heroes ; but they did 
 not adapt themselves to fervid eulogy over steins 
 and tobacco; he had never known the exercises of 
 soul which eat up the evening hours as an ocean 
 
STRANGERS YET 171 
 
 steamer eats coal. Indeed, it is doubtful if he ever 
 sat up unless to work ^beyond ten o clock, until 
 after he had made a fortune. He was ignorant, to a 
 degree, of the need of safety valves for the thunder 
 ous steam of youth. Any steam in him and there 
 was plenty had gone to keep the kitchen stove 
 burning with all the holes filled. He had crowded 
 his laboring days so full that sleep took him when 
 ever he sat down to breathe. When he stopped to 
 think it was how to get a new carpet, so his mother 
 would not have to patch the old one with her own 
 delicate hands, or how he should pay for his sister s 
 books, or buy flour cheaply by the barrel, instead of 
 easily and extravagantly by the pail; or how the 
 great sum suddenly owing the doctor should be paid 
 by instalments. His youth had walked heavily under 
 a sordid burden of care. His early manhood had 
 been absorbed in effort like that of the swimmer 
 in a storm who gains a boat and must steer it to the 
 shore. Then he was winning the mastery of riches 
 and the consciousness of power and command. 
 There was not such a gulf could either of them 
 have come to the measuring of it between Johnny, 
 exulting over his leadership of a handful of school 
 boys, and Josiah, walking through the foundry of 
 the plow factory the day he was made foreman, and 
 was nineteen years old. But Johnny was too young 
 to see any likeness, and Josiah did not come near 
 enough to his son to perceive any reflection of his 
 own traits. He was always dreading to bump 
 against some stubborn heritage from Olga. 
 
 Furthermore, at this time, the rugged captain of 
 industry was in stern straits of his own. He had 
 
I 7 2 
 
 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 begun to suspect that the hand of death was upon 
 him and the days of his mastership were numbered. 
 His first sensation was a kind of dull anger. He 
 found himself struggling with a besetment of irrita 
 bility which, oftener than not, would blaze out at his 
 son : "Johnny, does Harvard turn out many such hot 
 headed and well-meaning idiots as you?" he would 
 growl. "I tell you all your schemes come to, is de 
 vices to compel the thrifty and saving and industri 
 ous to pack the lazy scalawags on their shoulders! 
 You ll never make the poor prosperous by curtail 
 ing production. We can t all get rich by stealing 
 from each other! Don t you think it! . . . 
 We may be obliged to take care of the weak and the 
 damn fools; but we aren t obliged to take care of 
 them their way! . . . The best government is 
 the one that puts the smart men at the top and makes 
 the fools work their passage ! . . . Maybe I m 
 not to blame I was born blind; but I needn t brag 
 about it or expect to boss." 
 
 Thus would Josiah wave or rather kick 
 Johnny s arguments aside. 
 
 "Maybe I m not logical," he would snort. "I never 
 knew logic useful anywhere that horse sense couldn t 
 do the job a heap quicker ! I ve had enough wits 
 to leave you a rich man if I dare!" His voice 
 changed over the last word. He sighed heavily. 
 "The influence of the mother to the third and fourth 
 generation!" he muttered. "A man doesn t know 
 the extent of his folly when he marries against his 
 judgment." Johnny, pale with resentment, had held 
 his tongue by sheer will and been glad to see Mrs. 
 Winslow s substantial figure in the doorway. It 
 
STRANGERS YET 173 
 
 was not his first relief of the kind. She often inter 
 rupted hot disputes ; she often held both sides away 
 from dangerous subjects. Perhaps he owed her grat 
 itude as well as respect, Johnny admitted to him 
 self now; certainly all through the summer she 
 had been anxious. He could pity her to-day, and it 
 was with a weary sigh that he turned away from 
 the window, as if he could push his memories from 
 him with the action. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 FATHER AND SON 
 
 The brakeman was back again. Johnny found 
 himself idly looking up at his good-natured young 
 face. 
 
 "Say, are you Mr. John G. C. Winslow?" said 
 the brakeman, putting a slip of paper into Johnny s 
 hand. "Special waiting at Joliet." 
 
 The despatch was signed "Alan G. Raimund," 
 and it simply announced that a special would be in 
 readiness ; but it struck cojd on Johnny s heart, for 
 he argued, instantly, that had there been any change 
 for the better in his father s condition, it would have 
 been mentioned by his stepmother s brother-in- 
 law; nor would there be this ominous speeding of 
 his journey. He was settling back into his seat and 
 his dreary reverie, when his eye lighted on the man 
 in front. With sudden thought of his kindred er 
 rand, Johnny touched his shoulder. The face turned 
 on him struck some obscure nerve of memory. 
 
 "Aren t you going to Fairport to a sick mother?" 
 said Johnny. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "I have a special waiting for me at Joliet; will 
 you come with me ? It may be only an engine, but I 
 dare say you can get on, too." 
 
 174 
 
FATHER AND SON 
 
 175 
 
 So it happened that, at Joliet, the freckled young 
 man took a seat diagonally opposite Johnny, in the 
 car attached to the engine which was in waiting. 
 
 "Ain t you young Winslow?" said he; and on 
 Johnny s assent: "I expect you re going on to see 
 your father?" Johnny nodded. 
 
 "I was awful sorry to hear he was so sick. But 
 you can t tell; often things will take a turn, even 
 when the doctors have given a man up. And they 
 would send for you as soon as there was any dan- 
 ger." 
 
 "That s what I have been telling myself," said 
 Johnny. His eyes went gratefully toward the sensi 
 ble young man who recognized facts under the sur 
 face. 
 
 "You look some like you looked when you were a 
 boy," continued his new acquaintance. "I suppose 
 you don t remember the last time we talked together 
 up back of your house ? I came for milk, and you 
 gave me a five-dollar gold piece. My name is Wil 
 liam Bates." 
 
 "I do remember," Johnny felt a flicker of inter 
 est. "Did you run away?" 
 
 "Sure my mother and I. Went to Chicago 
 where I ve got on fairly well, and I am glad of this 
 chance to pay you back that V " 
 
 "I dare say you have paid it more than once al 
 ready, by giving it to some one that needed it." 
 
 "That doesn t count. Here it is." He tendered 
 Johnny the money. 
 
 "No," said Johnny; "I gave it, I didn t lend it. 
 Don t owe me money, owe me a kindness." The 
 young man replaced the bank-note rather reluc- 
 
1 76 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 tantly, more as if he did not know how to insist 
 courteously than as if he were convinced. 
 
 "I ve always felt that way," he explained, "but 
 I d sorter like to do something more direct. I did 
 smooth the boys over when the molders were getting 
 giddy and wanting to go on a strike at the Old Col 
 ony Plow Works. I guess your father s told you of 
 that. It was a year ago last spring. Your father is 
 all right. I wish there was more like him; though 
 some folks would say I might be out of a job if there 
 was." 
 
 "What is your job ?" asked Johnny politely. 
 
 "Business Agent of Chicago Local 25 of the 
 Holders Union. I was a molder started there, but 
 I found out pretty soon that it would take a devil of 
 a time to make a fortune on two-sixty a day; so I 
 went in as an organizer. The boys rather liked my 
 style, and I found I could work with my head as 
 well as my fists ; so I m what you folks call one of 
 those damned walking delegates." 
 
 Johnny did not show the expected shock. "Tell 
 me," said he, "is this union movement going on in 
 creasing, or will the men fall out?" 
 
 "It s going on all right," said Billy, "going to 
 grow like a prairie fire. And there s something 
 else will grow the men that run em. There s jest 
 as much politics and jest as much need of smartness 
 in unions as anywhere." 
 
 "Just as much," agreed Johnny, "and more need 
 for honesty. It seems to me about the meanest man 
 going is a labor leader who sells out his union." 
 
 The walking delegate looked at him keenly as if 
 suspicious of masked sarcasm, but he nodded, "Oh, 
 
FATHER AND SON 177 
 
 I m straight all right. There s a general impression 
 we fellers cook up most of the trouble; well, we 
 don t. More times than you d guess, we re as mod 
 erate as we can be and hold our jobs." 
 
 "Who does make the trouble, then?" 
 
 "The radicals and the kids. The radicals always 
 want the earth and the kids are always ready for a 
 row just for the fun of it! They ve no wives or 
 homes or responsibilities and a strike s just a bully 
 vacation." 
 
 "What do you mean by kids?" 
 
 "Oh, young larks between eighteen and twenty. 
 Twasn t for them we could hold the others down; 
 but they re just meat for the devil." 
 
 "You re not so very much older than twenty your 
 self, are you ?" said Johnny dryly. 
 
 "Well, I m not superannuated, that s a fact; but 
 I ve always had responsibilities, and I ve thought 
 the whole business out. I ve never swiped a dollar I 
 had trusted to me, and I ve never given my word 
 that I haven t kept it. Say, a reputation for always 
 delivering the goods without writing is worth 
 money, ain t it ? Another thing, I made up my mind 
 not to be a fool. I don t drink. I let the women 
 alone. I never bet a nickel. And I mean to get on. 
 I mean to have a nice house with a piazza and a 
 bath-room with a white china bath-tub, and a horse 
 and buggy and keep a hired girl for " He stopped 
 short with a sudden quiver of his face. "Say, how 
 does a feller f orgit for a minute ? I don t care much 
 whether I have a house or anything, now she can t 
 get the good of it !" 
 
 Johnny nodded a quick comprehension, and of- 
 
178 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 fered a cigar in mute sympathy which the other 
 acknowledged with a nod. The conversation flagged 
 after this, while the two men made pretense to read 
 their papers. But a kind of comradeship had grown 
 up between them. They talked at intervals. Billy 
 told of his boyish struggles and his privations; his 
 mother s joyous pride over his least little advance 
 ment ; her nursing him through a fever ; her happi 
 ness to go back to Fairport. 
 
 "I believe what she s always hoped for was that 
 I d make enough to git back to Fairport and be an 
 alderman and hire a buggy to go riding, at Luke 
 Darrell s, every Sunday." 
 
 "Ah, Darrell! is he still keeping his stable?" 
 
 "Bigger and better than ever. Say, he s a dry 
 one, ain t he ? His last cheerful greeting to me was : 
 Well, Billy, I hear you re getting on fine ; you ll die 
 a rich man if you don t get into the penitentiary ! 
 
 "Not very complimentary." 
 
 "Oh, he s got to have his little joke; but he let 
 me have a hack on credit when my mother was sick, 
 once. He s white." 
 
 Within the last hour of the journey both men be 
 came restless. Johnny felt the same gnawing impa 
 tience that he read in Bates abrupt movements. As 
 the familiar landmarks swung into sight, the hills 
 and the river and the low sky-lines of the three 
 towns, Johnny suddenly found himself trembling; 
 he looked over at Bates ; the paper before the dele 
 gate s eyes was rustling. 
 
 "It s hell, ain t it?" said Billy. 
 
 "Yes," said Johnny. 
 
 "I believe there ain t a mean trick I served her 
 
FATHER AND SON 179 
 
 or a sassy word I gave her that I ain t been going 
 over this damn ride. Looks like if she d jest say 
 she d forgive though I know she has I d feel 
 better !" 
 
 "Yes/ said Johnny. 
 
 "We re on the bridge," said Billy. "You ve done 
 me another awful good turn and I ain t likely to for- 
 git it." 
 
 "We re nearly there/ said Johnny. In an agita 
 tion beyond his disguising he flung himself out of 
 his seat. He strode to the platform. He looked on 
 the mighty river, silver-gray and almost waveless 
 in the calm of summer noon, and a depression, heavy 
 and subtile like the mist from its waters, penetrated 
 his being. He could not see Overlook. It was hid 
 den amid the foliage shrouding the far-away hills. 
 All the lonely grief of his childhood, all the conflict 
 and disillusion of his youth, surged over his head 
 as the waves surge over a defeated and sinking 
 swimmer. His mother was dead, his father was lost 
 and estranged, and now the grimmest of separations 
 would make the estrangement final. The prosper 
 ous, trim little cities gave him the weary feeling one 
 receives from the beauty of a cemetery; sun-dap 
 pled fields and waving woodlands were verily the 
 tomb of all his boyish hopes and loves. Then Johnny 
 smiled faintly ; no, not all, little Peggy remained ! 
 He had seen her a few times since that dismal day 
 when he ran away with his mother, on their futile 
 flight into the world. More than once she had vis 
 ited Mrs. Winter; she was grown into a handsome 
 girl with a train of admirers. Only a few months 
 ago he had heard of her mother s death. Why 
 
i8o THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 should he be reminded of Peggy now, and with such 
 a curious glow of comfort? The image of her helped 
 to steady him through the difficult moment when he 
 felt the jarring stop of the train, and he was back 
 again in the old town. 
 
 His first sweeping glance about from the plat 
 form showed him his father s carriage. His eye 
 brought back a blurred vision of clean-limbed, fiery 
 horses tossing their proud heads, a high, light 
 wagon, and a smart coachman in whipcord. He 
 wished that Michael had come to meet him; but at 
 that instant he heard his name. Looking down, 
 he saw a slim girl in black, with shining hair. 
 
 "Peggy !" he cried. 
 
 "I came/ she said. "Michael sprained his knee, 
 and Aunt Emma couldn t bear that some one 
 shouldn t come." 
 
 Johnny s throat failed him; but his eyes interro 
 gated her. 
 
 "There is a little change for the better. The doc 
 tors hope he will live through the night." 
 
 "Thank you." Johnny said no more, but his eyes 
 went after his companion, who was searching the 
 street for a cab, of which there seemed no sign at 
 that unusual hour. "He has come on a like errand," 
 Johnny explained in an undertone, and afterward 
 he smiled bitterly to remember how a faint quality 
 of apology was in it, the self-same quality that had 
 been so often in his tone to Peggy as a child, when 
 he excused his undue softness of heart. "I wonder, 
 could I take him with us ?" 
 
 Peggy glanced sidewise at the young man s silver- 
 gray hat which rested on the back of his head, and 
 
FATHER AND SON 181 
 
 her features almost imperceptibly stiffened; but the 
 eyes which turned upon Johnny were kind as well as 
 beautiful. 
 
 "I will drive him wherever he wishes to go," said 
 she. "I can go more quickly, and you don t want to 
 lose a minute " 
 
 "You drive?" 
 
 "Yes, I came in the runabout." She waved her 
 hand at a big bay pirouetting and jerking away from 
 a porter holding him gingerly at arm s length. 
 
 "Then perhaps you will drive me, and let the 
 man take Mr. Bates," said Johnny. 
 
 She hesitated almost imperceptibly; but he per 
 ceived it and divined the cause : it was kind and like 
 Peggy to meet him thus, to break that first desolate 
 moment of a home-coming so unlike his others, and 
 then to mean to slip away, leaving him unrestrained 
 by any demands of courtesy. She couldn t know 
 how she, of all the world, was the one he wanted. 
 
 "I don t in the least mind," she said. 
 
 "But I do," said he, approaching Bates. 
 
 "There s another favor," cried Bates in answer to 
 his offer; "depend on it, Mr. Winslow, I ain t go 
 ing to forget." 
 
 "I hope she ll be better than you fear," said 
 Johnny. Their eyes met; there was not time for 
 their hands, and with a run Johnny sprang into the 
 runabout, calling his message to the coachman as 
 Peggy drove him away. The big mare s great flanks 
 went out like the bolt from a bow. 
 
 "Is that horse of yours safe, Miss Rutherford?" 
 said Johnny. 
 
 "Oh, I can drive anything on four feet," she re- 
 
182 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 plied carelessly; "but Kentucky Babe s gentle 
 enough. That man fretted her." 
 
 They were going like the wind. A policeman lifted 
 his arm, but recognized the driver, glanced at 
 Johnny and let it fall. 
 
 "Don t be afraid, I shan t run over any children," 
 said Peggy. "I m keeping a sharp lookout." 
 
 "You re a dandy whip; still, on account of the 
 children, we might ease up a little here." 
 
 Peggy made no answer except to slacken their 
 pace. She let him know somehow without telling 
 that she did not expect talk from him. His few 
 questions about his father s state she answered with 
 concise intelligence more bracing than sympathy. 
 He felt grateful to her, afresh. 
 
 To steady his mind he forced himself to look at 
 the streets. They were changed and grown metro 
 politan since that other dreary day of arrival when 
 his father had borne the little fugitive back from 
 Chicago, although the line of shops and houses still 
 seemed quaintly low. There were many little varia 
 tions, many signs of the march of wealth. The court 
 house lifted gray stone walls and towers amid a vel 
 vet lawn and formal beds of geraniums and parti 
 colored bavadias and lavender and pink hydrangeas 
 in shining green tubs. In place of the old grove 
 there was a careful rank of elms, giving ample arm 
 room. A park looked down on him from the terrace 
 below his home, and the hills which had embowered 
 modest cottages were cleared to reveal glimpses of 
 new colonial mansions or gaily stained villas. By 
 some obscure law of association the change de 
 pressed him; he had not expected to find the old 
 
FATHER AND SON 183 
 
 town; indeed, most of these very changes he had 
 seen before; yet he was disappointed that the old 
 landmarks were gone. 
 
 The Patch was covered with little houses so fresh 
 with paint that they seemed of yesterday. He re 
 membered how the lonely child used to dread the 
 scenes of spoliation and dispossession which he im 
 agined; how he had stolen down to the Patch, to 
 find empty houses and busy carpenters, and could 
 get no easing of his pain, since loyalty to his father 
 (which he never violated save for his mother) for 
 bade him to inquire into the former s crimes. For 
 years he had brooded over possible tragedies. He 
 wondered where the outcasts had hidden their heads 
 and who would give them a crust; nor did he ever 
 discover how readily they had taken the peace of 
 fering given them and scattered into the country, 
 where most of them were thriving, or into other 
 streets, where the plague of their presence, being 
 scattered, was felt less. Now, recalling the squalor 
 of the past and contrasting it with the present scene, 
 he excused his father. Perhaps his father had al 
 ways meant well; surely he ought to have believed 
 in him, he, his only son. 
 
 One by one he numbered over the times of their 
 better acquaintance, the gifts which had been show 
 ered on him, the lavish generosity shown his college 
 days. How often had the two seemed only a hand s 
 breadth, a hair s breadth from each other! yet, al 
 ways, fate or the ineffaceable antagonism of tem 
 perament had intervened. Had his mother lived 
 there might have been moments when he would 
 have sided with his father against her; dimly, in 
 
184 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 this solemn hour, he realized that she was not always 
 just, not always merciful; alive, the battle between 
 the two was more equal than appeared; but dead, 
 every tender and loyal impulse of the boy who had 
 adored her rallied to her side. His imagination 
 helped her, with none of her living frailties to inter 
 fere, as the frailties of our dearest will interfere 
 with our ideals of them. Dead she won, where liv 
 ing she might have lost; when she was borne from 
 the field her husband found her memory stronger 
 than her living presence ; he was worsted by a shade. 
 The fancy flitted for a second through Johnny s 
 brain : Would his father, too, be the victor when he 
 seemed to have lost the fight ? 
 
 The horse s head had turned. Johnny came out 
 of a fantastic and somber reverie to feel the thicker 
 beating of his heart and the chill of the Overlook 
 trees. No sign of tension showed on the grounds; 
 the lawn-mower buzzed along the terraces, and a 
 man with a hand-mower supplemented it in corners 
 and near trees, pausing at intervals to wipe his brows 
 with a red and yellow handkerchief. Johnny felt the 
 unreasonable resentment of sorrow at the unmoved 
 world, at the inevitable progress of the routine of 
 life. The smoke was drifting from the kitchen chim 
 neys ; a grocer s cart rattled down the hill. But as he 
 passed the mowers, there was a simple sign that the 
 observers of the tragedy were not unmoved. The 
 men took off their hats to them, gravely; even the 
 grocer s boy gave a motion toward his head. 
 
 Johnny lifted his own hat. With the quick re 
 sponse of his nature, he felt the tacit sympathy. He 
 glanced at Peggy. 
 
FATHER AND SON 185 
 
 "You always were brave, Johnny," said she; her 
 own lips were held tightly. 
 
 "All right, Peggy," said he. 
 
 As they reached the house the atmosphere 
 changed. There was no one in the garden or on the 
 lawns. And the strange maid, who opened the door, 
 stepped with elaborate softness and gloom. A man 
 took Johnny s luggage silently, with a respectful 
 bow, before he went to the horse; but behind him 
 hobbled painfully a homespun figure that he knew, 
 and the rugged face with the tears streaming down 
 its cheeks he had loved all his life. Michael caught 
 him in his arms, with a sob. 
 
 "He would come; I told him not to," explained 
 the maid in the lowest tones that escape a whisper ; 
 they vibrated with the righteous indignation of a 
 person who knew the proprieties and observed them ; 
 "but he promised he d be quiet I hope you will, 
 Michael." 
 
 All the while she was steering both of them into 
 the room which had been Josiah Winslow s den. 
 "Mrs. Winslow will be down directly," she con 
 cluded, having shut the door and bestowed one 
 more eloquent glance of contempt on Michael, 
 weeping aloud in mingled Russian and English. 
 Johnny looked about the room. He recalled his 
 father s pleasure in it; now he would never see it 
 again. But Johnny did not weep, and he wondered 
 why Michael must be so moved, when he was calm. 
 When a dress rustled he turned composed and 
 melancholy eyes to the doorway. He had been 
 troubled by vague visions of Mrs. Winslow in some 
 strange new attitude of distempered excitement ; yet 
 
1 86 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 he knew that this quiet, almost stolid face, which 
 his eyes found for one glance and left precipitately 
 and feared to find again, was the face of his assured 
 expectation. The controlled, emotionless voice was 
 the voice he had known that he should hear. But 
 he had been afraid that he should have to kiss her, 
 at least to shake her hand ; it was inhuman how much 
 he had been afraid of this. And, really, she did 
 not expect him to touch her. She said : "Can you 
 come up stairs now?" Nothing else. He felt grate 
 ful to her as he had felt grateful to Peggy. 
 
 A young* woman in a white cap and apron and a 
 blue and white striped cotton gown opened the door 
 for them, while she herself passed into the hall. 
 Johnny caught a murmur that she would be outside. 
 Then he stopped on the threshold to get his breath, 
 which was coming very quick, as if he had been run 
 ning. 
 
 "Here s Johnny, dear," said Mrs. Winslow. 
 
 "Hullo, Johnny; you made good time!" 
 
 There was something in his eyes, and it was 
 harder than ever to breathe. His father s face wore 
 a strange waxen pallor, and the eyes had grown 
 bigger; but it was his father s old face, and it was 
 his father s old voice that hailed him. 
 
 He got his own voice and he said something 
 about the special ; he was glad to find it. 
 
 "Ought to have told you before she wanted me 
 to ; but the blamed thing has been going on so long 
 I got off my guard, and then it came all of a sud 
 den. Johnny, I ve a lot to say to you ; but I ll wait 
 have you had something to eat? I feel pretty 
 bad, Emmie." 
 
FATHER AND SON 187 
 
 When Mrs. Winslow hastily put a glass to his 
 lips, she motioned to Johnny, and he lifted his 
 father s head. 
 
 "You ve a nice touch, Johnny," murmured the 
 sick man. "You must take care of her ; and she ll 
 explain. I ve a lot to say to you, when you re 
 rested." 
 
 "Never mind, father dear ;" Johnny stumbled over 
 the lump that was choking him. He was aware that 
 the nurse had come back, that Mrs. Winslow had 
 beckoned to her, and that she was doing something 
 with a syringe and a spoon. 
 
 His father lay back on the pillows, smiling 
 strangely, when Mrs. Winslow bared his arm. 
 "There s little Peggy," said Winslow, "dear little 
 Peggy." His eyes opened brightly; he took John 
 ny s hand and laid it on his wife s. "Help each 
 other, you two," he whispered. 
 
 "She s been an awful good wife to me, Johnny. 
 You won t quarrel with her, Johnny?" 
 
 "Never, father ; never !" 
 
 "That s good. I ve a great deal to say to you, 
 son; but I want to get a little sleep first. He s go 
 ing to come out all right, Emmie ; our boy ll under 
 stand." 
 
 He closed his eyes in content ; and the two, who 
 loved him best and yet were so far apart, sat hand 
 in hand until he was quite asleep. 
 
 Before the sun set Josiah Winslow was safe from 
 all human perplexities. He never awoke again to 
 more than a fleeting recognition of Johnny s pres 
 ence or his wife s, over which he would always 
 smile; and a little space before he died he looked 
 
1 88 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 X 
 
 4 
 
 in Johnny s white and care-worn features with a 
 grave yet not unhappy look, saying: "It was be 
 cause I loved you, son; if I get well, it won t 
 need" 
 
 The sentence drifted into silence, only broken by 
 faint mutterings of a wandering mind, back again in 
 the past. After a while he lay very quiet, the sunset 
 on his face ; but of a sudden he lifted his hand and 
 his face was irradiated with a smile, as he cried in 
 a clear, pleasant voice : "Here, here, little Johnny ! 
 let papa help you climb !" 
 
 Still smiling, he laid his head on his wife s arm. 
 
 It seemed a long time before the doctor gently 
 raised the head; yet the sun of the same day was 
 dazzling on the river which the dead man had loved, 
 when Johnny led a silent woman from the room, 
 and saw Peggy Rutherford come swiftly out of the 
 brightness, to twine her arms about the other s waist 
 and walk with her into the shadow beyond. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 BY THE TERMS OF THE WILL 
 
 Every one who has been in Chicago recalls the 
 dressmaking department at Marshall Field s. In 
 1894 this important feature was on the fourth 
 floor. There was restfulness in the high ceilings, 
 which looked the higher for the red, low partitions ; 
 in the shining floors and wide spaces; in the ample 
 wicker arm-chairs wherein reposed tired-looking 
 women, usually of comfortable presence, gray hair 
 and rich clothing. The quietude was soothing after 
 the noisy bustle below ; nor was it disturbed by the 
 occasional apparition of a handsome woman in 
 black, who would emerge from one of the doors in 
 the red cherry wall which inclosed the court, fol 
 lowed by a youthful attendant bearing great bundles 
 swathed in white cambric, evidently a high priest 
 ess of beauty with her acolyte. 
 
 Two years after Josiah Winslow s death, on a 
 pleasant July morning, two gentlewomen entered 
 this temple of art. One was slim, graceful, languid. 
 Her exquisite toilet was the most perfect accom 
 paniment of a warm summer morning, and a carri 
 age, for the crisp freshness of an embroidered 
 lawn and a filmy hat would wilt into dingy limp 
 ness in the hot and grimy streets. Wearily, she 
 
 189 
 
I 9 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 drew a white silk glove from a white hand which 
 had no ornament save two priceless pearl rings. 
 The beautiful hand adjusted her hat on her brown, 
 wavy hair. Not a silver thread showed in the hair, 
 nor in that soft light did the minutest of wrinkles 
 disfigure the charming pink and white skin. About 
 her bearing and her motions, her gracious recogni 
 tion of the shop people s salute, her careless smile 
 for the cordial, almost florid, greetings of her ac 
 quaintance, there was the serene although gentle 
 pride of an amiable woman who has become so ac 
 customed to her social power and her personal 
 beauty that they are no longer a luxury to her only 
 a necessity. 
 
 The other lady was a contrast to her in almost 
 every way, unless possibly in her repose, being 
 frankly gray-haired, of large although well-propor 
 tioned figure, clad in widow s weeds, her sober bon 
 net draped in the lighter veil which succeeds the 
 suffocating fall of crape. As the two ladies sat, 
 it so happened that each had extended a foot a little 
 beyond the shelter of her skirts. Nothing could 
 symbolize the difference between them better than 
 these feet, one clad in open-work stockings of 
 black silk and wearing the least substantial of high- 
 heeled slippers; the other, shapely, not small, shod 
 in a substantial low shoe with a heel made for com 
 fort alone. 
 
 The woman with the shoe was Mrs. Winslow, 
 formerly Emma Hopkins, and her companion was 
 her sister, Mrs. Raimund. 
 
 Helen Raimund and Emma Winslow were the 
 two daughters and only children of a very able 
 
BY THE TERMS OF THE WILL 191 
 
 man who rose from the estate of a common day 
 laborer to that of superintendent and partner in the 
 Old Colony Plow Works. He was now the presi 
 dent. They were born in the same little village on 
 the Housatonic River, but with this difference: 
 Emma was born eight years earlier than Helen and 
 of another mother. The first Mrs. Hopkins was a 
 farmer s daughter who had thought it no disgrace 
 to work at her husband s side in the mill, and who 
 saved him many a dollar by her mechanical readi 
 ness when he was perfecting the inventions that 
 were to make his fortune. She was one of the best 
 women in the world, a patient, sweet-natured, 
 sound-headed creature, but no one ever called her a 
 lady, and no one ever called the second Mrs. Hop 
 kins anything else. For the second Mrs. Hopkins 
 was an army officer s daughter ; and it goes without 
 saying that when she married Benjamin Hopkins he 
 was a prosperous man. 
 
 Nelly grew up into an extremely pretty girl, who 
 was barely out of her teens and her expensive 
 "finishing school" and back in Fairport, where the 
 family had removed, when she met Alan Raimund, 
 whom she married after a short engagement. Rai 
 mund was a Chicago railway man, very wealthy 
 even then and since described in the newspapers as 
 "a magnate." They had one child, a handsome boy 
 of sixteen. The marriage entirely satisfied Mrs. 
 Hopkins, but she often said that she was not sur 
 prised by it ; she had always felt that Nelly, with her 
 beauty and her charm, would make a great match. 
 Emma s "great match," however, frankly abashed 
 her. Not so did it Nelly, who "didn t see any won- 
 
192 
 
 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 derful workings of Providence or inscrutable wan 
 derings of a man s fancy about the affair," saying 
 frankly that Winslow had sense and he wasn t a 
 particle too good for Emmie, who made him happy, 
 and very lucky he was to get her ! Nelly was fond 
 of her sister, and probably respected her more than 
 any one else in the world. 
 
 "Emma never nags you," she used to say, "and 
 she never bores you. Before you ve had enough of 
 her, she always goes away. I wish she d give les 
 sons in the Art of Leaving in Time, in Chicago! 
 I d treat a whole crowd of people to them at twenty- 
 five dollars a course, the proceeds to go to some 
 indigent chanty." 
 
 To-day she had just met her sister, who had 
 come to Chicago to see her, before she went to the 
 sea. Emma was to spend the summer in Fairport. 
 
 "And a hotter place," Mrs. Raimund affirmed, 
 "there isn t outside the tropics !" 
 
 "Not always," objected Mrs. Winslow placidly; 
 "and we always have a breeze at Overlook " 
 
 "From electric fans. Oh, yes, I know. And the 
 temperature stands at ninety when it s over a hun 
 dred outside. Still / consider ninety tolerably hot. 
 Why, it has to be hot! Fairport s in a corn state 
 where they brag they never have a crop failure, and 
 weather that s good for corn is awful for human 
 beings. Corn s insatiable ; it s not enough to swelter 
 all day for it; you must have nights like an oven, 
 too. Emmie, why don t you just take Peggy Ruther 
 ford and come visit me and be cool, not cooled off, 
 which is the best electric fans can do !" 
 
 Mrs. Winslow shook her head. 
 
BY THE TERMS OF THE WILL 193 
 
 "Perhaps you think I don t guess why you re 
 roasting yourself and Peggy it s all for that silly 
 boy oh, don t worry, nobody is anywhere near! 
 You are planning something awfully deep, and send 
 ing Peggy to be my secretary through Miss Starr s 
 vacation is part of the scheme." 
 
 "By the way," Mrs. Winslow did not trouble 
 herself to deny the accusation "by the way, isn t 
 Peggy nice ? Doesn t she keep your correspondence 
 and your accounts all straightened out?" 
 
 "Oh, she s nice, really very nice, but she s pestifer 
 ously proud. I can t give her a thing I can t even 
 lend her a thing. And she s just the figure one wants 
 to dress up. But she s so stiff about it, she s nasty. 
 I m positively ashamed of her, she s worn that one 
 black net dinner-gown of hers so often. If she didn t 
 have so much ingenuity about changing it, and 
 hadn t such a stylish figure, she would actually 
 look shabby." 
 
 "I think she always looks neat and trig and sweet 
 and distinguished." Mrs. Winslow s face softened 
 as she spoke. 
 
 "Yes, she does, that s the maddening part of it; 
 it shows she d be positively ramssante if she would 
 only let me dress her! But she won t, proud little 
 Southern fire-eater! Such a joke! your fastidious 
 socialist has fallen in love with her !" 
 
 "Johnny!" Emma Winslow s calm cheek was 
 mottled with spots of red which slowly widened un 
 til they blended in one flush. 
 
 Mrs. Raimund opened her beautiful eyes. She 
 laughed suddenly. "Emma, you absurd match 
 maker ! I believe that is why you sent her to me." 
 
! 94 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 "Certainly," nodded Emma ; "but respect my con 
 fidence. Is anything settled?" 
 
 "No, nor ever will be, I fancy. He s over head 
 and ears in the Pullman strike, which she hates." 
 
 "But she doesn t hate him?" 
 
 "I don t believe she s in love with him, if that s 
 what you want. She s as easy as another boy with 
 him; she is a sort of tomboy; well, all girls are 
 now. It s very tiresome. If I had a daughter I 
 should want to slap her. But to go back to those 
 youngsters. Is that truly your scheme to marry 
 them?" 
 
 "Yes. I wish Johnny would marry Peggy; mar 
 riage would straighten him out quicker than any 
 thing else. And" Nelly marveled over the change 
 in her voice "I promised my husband to try to 
 save Johnny." 
 
 "Oh, of course," Mrs. Raimund agreed vaguely. 
 "I suppose," she continued, "it was hard on him, 
 having Johnny abroad so much with with the prin 
 cess. Why did he let him go ?" She had never ven 
 tured to discuss Josiah s first wife with her sister; 
 it was forbidden ground which Emma could guard 
 in her own way ; but now she was made aware, sub 
 tly, that the gates were down. 
 
 "He was conscientious about it," Emma answered 
 with a little tightening of the lips ; she might be will 
 ing to discuss the subject, for reasons: but it was 
 none the less painful to her. "He knew how she 
 loved Johnny and how he loved her ; he couldn t bear 
 to hurt them both so much." 
 
 "Why didn t they send her to Siberia? She was a 
 nihilist, wasn t she?" 
 
BY THE TERMS OF THE WILL 195 
 
 "Hardly that. She was a socialist and worshiped 
 Tolstoi, and wanted to give every cent she had 
 away. I fancy she did. But I don t know that she 
 wanted to kill the czar or burn up property or any 
 such violent things. Besides, she lived in Switzer 
 land. They couldn t get her. After she died and we 
 were married, I hoped that Johnny would forget 
 what she must have taught him, and" Mrs. Wins- 
 low smiled a little sadly "I suppose I had all kinds 
 of nonsensical fancies that he would learn to care for 
 me. Well, he hasn t changed. And I haven t suc 
 ceeded in making him care for me." In spite of her 
 self-control, she sighed. 
 
 "Then he ought to be ashamed of himself!" cried 
 Mrs. Raimund, "good as you were to him ! But he 
 was a most obstinate boy, with a horrid will of his 
 own. Don t you remember that horse of his that he 
 had when I visited you? and say what I would, he 
 wouldn t have a bearing rein for it or have its tail 
 docked! How it looked!" 
 
 "But he has a good heart," said Mrs. Winslow, 
 "even if I couldn t win it. Well, now you under 
 stand why Mr. Winslow made such a will. It would 
 be no kindness to give Johnny such a great property 
 to squander in social propaganda. And it would be 
 a mischief to society itself. As a good citizen, Mr. 
 Winslow couldn t do it; he felt he had no right to 
 do it." 
 
 "Certainly not," agreed Mrs. Raimund cheerful 
 ly ; "a great deal better for you to have it, Emmie." 
 Mrs. Winslow did not seem to hear her, she was 
 looking absently out of the window. "Mr. Winslow 
 knew I would do my best," she said. 
 
196 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 Mrs. Raimund deemed it a good opportunity to 
 satisfy some queries that had been in her mind for 
 a long while. 
 
 Didn t the will give him a hundred thousand 
 outright and two-thirds of the property if he keeps 
 that sum intact until he is thirty?" 
 
 Mrs. Winslow nodded. 
 
 "And if he has lost it, or any part of it?" her sis 
 ter continued. 
 
 "It all goes to me." 
 
 "Well, I think you will get it, Emmie." 
 
 Mrs. Winslow smiled faintly; she changed the 
 subject. 
 
 "Perhaps not," she replied, "if he has really 
 fallen in love with Peggy Rutherford. When is 
 your fitting?" 
 
 "She s ready now, I think." 
 
 "I ll meet you here, then." 
 
 After Mrs. Raimund s dainty skirts had flitted 
 behind the red wall the older sister sat in frown 
 ing abstraction. She was roused by a man s voice, 
 speaking her name. 
 
 She looked up at a young man bowing before her, 
 a short young man with big blue eyes and long 
 fair lashes and freckles on the bridge of his nose. 
 
 "I guess you don t know me, Mrs. Winslow/ 
 said the young man, "but I used to live in Fairport, 
 and you used to know my mother. My name is 
 Bates, William Bates, Business Agent Molders 
 Union No. 25. I called at Mr. Alan G. Raimund s 
 to see you ; but the young man who waits on the door 
 told me you were both gone here to get some dresses 
 tried on ; so I took the liberty, as I thought my busi- 
 
BY THE TERMS OF THE WILL 197 
 
 ness would interest you, to come right here. I hope 
 I don t interrupt." 
 
 "Carstairs isn t usually so communicative/ 
 thought Mrs. Winslow, "but I imagine this young 
 man has his own ways of getting information." 
 Meanwhile she was inclining her head in a courteous 
 but not responsive manner ; she was trying to place 
 Mr. William Bates in her memory. 
 
 "My business," said the young man, "is about 
 Mr. Ivan Winslow ; I know him well." 
 
 "Ivan?" said Mrs. Winslow. "Do you mean Mr. 
 John Winslow?" 
 
 "Yes, ma am, but he signs his name Ivan now. 
 I wanted a word with you about him, if you please." 
 
 "Yes, I do remember you," said Mrs. Winslow; 
 "you had a very good mother." 
 
 "She did washing for you," his voice was care 
 fully subdued, "I can tell you, though, she had a 
 girl to do her washing before she died." 
 
 "I know she did ; she had a good son." 
 
 "Not so good s she deserved; she deserved the 
 best there was; and I know it better all the time. 
 Twas her told me about you. I know you are a good 
 woman. Good! If I didn t I wouldn t be coming 
 with this story. I ve heard all about the Winslow 
 will. It might seem as if you would be the last per 
 son in the world to stop that boy from making a 
 fool of himself and squandering his money; but 
 I m betting certain that you d do a lot to keep him 
 steady till he s thirty. You ve got a whole lot of 
 money, anyhow. And you haven t chick nor child 
 but him, and any woman would get soft on him* 
 He ll keep himself straight once he has that big for- 
 
198 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 tune to handle and gets into business. All this is 
 only to show why I m speaking to you, madam. I 
 expect you know that I ve seen a good deal of Ivan, 
 I may say I know him well." 
 
 "So I understand," said Mrs. Winslow composed 
 ly ; she did not show any emotion either of surprise 
 or incredulity; she had fixed her calm, keen eyes 
 on the young man s face and listened attentively, 
 but if in assent or in disbelief was beyond Billy 
 Bates guessing. He drove on doggedly to his ob 
 ject. 
 
 "He has got in with the socialists pretty deep. 
 And I m going to talk confidentially with you, Mrs. 
 Winslow, if you ll let me and keep what I say, my 
 opinions, I mean, to yourself. You know I have got 
 my position in labor circles to maintain. When I 
 think our folks are making a mistake I can t always 
 say so in the newspapers, can I?" He looked up at 
 her in a manner she found very winning. 
 
 "I understand. This is a confidential interview so 
 far as your opinions are concerned," said she. 
 
 "That s right. Thank you. I always heard you 
 were a perfect lady. You see I have got a lady friend 
 in Fairport well, no, ma am, she ain t quite that; 
 I don t know her quite well enough to call her that ; 
 I wish I did," he smiled in a kind of shamefaced 
 way first, but then openly, as if he tasted the humor 
 of his own embarrassment "well, she tells me con 
 siderable of the things which everybody knows, and 
 I always drop in at Darrell s when I m in town, so 
 I get more. Maybe I m wrong, but I ve sized it up 
 in my own mind that Mr. Winslow and you tried 
 to save Ivan, and this leaving the money conditional 
 
BY THE TERMS OF THE WILL 199 
 
 was your way to hold him in. I know I seem to be 
 taking a liberty, an awful big one, talking this 
 way " 
 
 "I suppose you have a reason," said Mrs. Wins- 
 low quietly. 
 
 "A good one, I think. I want that boy to have a 
 show for his white alley ! It ain t only the money ; 
 he s going to get most terribly disappointed; and 
 he ll take it hard. He s the sort that takes things 
 hard. I think he is beginning to find out we ve got a 
 slick lot of skates in labor circles here in Chicago, 
 and he squirms a good deal sometimes at the meet 
 ings ; but so long as he has any dough left to give, 
 the insiders are going to be easy on him and not let 
 him git on to any dirty work I mean what he d call 
 dirty these college folks are particular, you know." 
 William Bates gave her a smile of significance, so 
 confiding and humorous that Emma Winslow, whose 
 sense of humor never caught cold, returned it slight 
 ly. "Well, maybe you and I would, too," he went 
 on, warmed by the smile, "still, the sum total of it all 
 is : Ivan is getting just a little bit disgruntled. You 
 see, the lot here is pretty rabid, left over from the In 
 ternationals and the anarchist outfit of 1887. Ivan, 
 himself, started in out east with a nice mild lot called 
 Fabians. So he s rather sick of these bloody bums. 
 But that s the very time he s likely to do something 
 desperate, just because he begins to doubt every 
 thing he s believed in. He s pretty obstinate, you 
 know " 
 
 "Obstinate as a pig," said Mrs. Winslow calmly. 
 
 "And he ll be doing something to convince him- 
 off, -see?" 
 
200 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 Mrs. Winslow looked intently at the young man 
 beside her, sitting in Mrs. Raimund s chair, and 
 such a contrast to Mrs. Raimund! She had called 
 him, in her own mind, "ordinary looking" ; but there 
 was something in the set of his firm jaw and the out 
 line of his head which was not ordinary. 
 
 "Yes," she assented thoughtfully, "I see. Well, 
 what is he going to do ?" 
 
 "That s what I came about. I suppose, what with 
 one fool thing and another, he has dumped about 
 sixty thousand dollars in the dust-heap already " 
 
 "I dare say. He s had two years." 
 
 "But if he d take what he s got left, and put it into 
 a good business, these cheap times when things are 
 going for a song, he could get enough more to make 
 good by the time he s thirty. Besides, he s the right 
 to git a good position in the Old Colony, ain t he? 
 By the will?" 
 
 "Yes, if he will take it. And no one would be 
 gladder to welcome him than my father and I." 
 
 "I was sure you would. But you see," Billy 
 Bates was confused all at once, and fidgeted with the 
 arms of his chair "he ain t opened his mouth to 
 me, you understand; and yet I you ll excuse me; 
 I take it you want me to be frank and free, madam ?" 
 
 "I know what you mean, I dare say," said Mrs. 
 Winslow quietly; "he imagines that my father and 
 I want the Old Colony for ourselves. He is quite 
 mistaken." 
 
 "I knew he was. I knew it all along," exclaimed 
 Billy, with an enthusiastic blow on his knees, "but 
 I admit to you, ma am, I don t venture to intro 
 duce the subject to him ; except on the side. He is 
 
BY THE TERMS OF THE WILL 201 
 
 so high-strung I don t know what crazy act he 
 won t do if I was to mad him. But as I was saying, 
 if we could save that forty thousand and convince 
 him, at the same time, that you was his friend, why 
 we could begin to talk! See? * 
 
 "But how are we to save it?" Emma Winslow 
 had unconsciously accepted the tacit partnership 
 offered. "He has some scheme on foot to make 
 ducks and drakes of it, hasn t he?" 
 
 "Oh, sure," agreed Billy, grinning; "he s spent a 
 lot, already, on the Pullman strike, which" (his 
 voice sank almost to a whisper) "is on its last legs 
 now, and bound to lose ; and he has been persuaded 
 that if he ll give a big lot more they can win (but 
 they can t; they couldn t if he had a hundred thou 
 sand to squander!) ; and so he has sold out all his 
 stocks, and he has got the money." 
 
 "Has he given it to the Railway Union ?" 
 
 "Not yet. I m coming to that. A fellow named 
 Walter Tyler has done most of the work with him. 
 He s on the executive committee and (this is in 
 confidence) he s the man who has attended to most 
 of the riot business. He s hand in glove with some 
 of the old Spiess-Engel-Parsons gang; and he is a 
 pretty thoroughgoing rascal, to my mind. Maybe 
 I m prejudiced ; but if it hadn t been for him and his 
 influence, we might have got them to call off the 
 strike. There was Miss Addams, of Hull House, and 
 a newspaper man with a mighty level head and a 
 few of us who weren t fools, and we came almighty 
 near getting the fat out of the fire before it blazed. 
 Wally Tyler s more to blame than the pigheaded 
 fools on the Pullman side. But that s not the point. 
 
202 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 I only mentioned it to show you what Tyler s like. 
 Mr. Winslow thinks he s a high-minded patriot, 
 extreme in his views, perhaps, but awful unselfish 
 and self-sacrificing; while I give you my word, 
 madam, only two years ago he was treasurer of 
 a lodge and lost four hundred dollars, pretend 
 ed he was held up and robbed ! And he went out to 
 Pullman, only one year ago, and sold fake titles to 
 some Kensington lots. That s his kind " 
 
 "But why does the Union employ such a man ?" 
 
 "He s got a tongue, and it s amazing how much 
 more a man s tongue counts than his head mong 
 workingmen. He s a mighty slick one. And then, 
 too, he s awful clever with his hands. He can break 
 your head if he can t beat you talking, you know. 
 He d great luck ; he killed a man in an election row 
 in ninety. Got off, of course. He was bound to get 
 off for that. So that gives him a reputation of a bad 
 man to tackle. And there s no doubt he s got a big 
 pull. But I guess he s overreached himself this 
 whack. That s why I ve come here. He knows 
 about the money. He knows it is in Ivan s room 
 somewhere. And he could git into the room even if 
 it was locked, for Ivan s boarding at a hotel." 
 
 "What hotel ?" 
 
 "You wouldn t know it by name, ma am ; it s just 
 a cheap place, Chris Wulf s, off Clark Street. But 
 Tyler s well known there, and he could get in, on 
 some excuse. This evening Ivan was intending to 
 give over the money, and jolly up the boys. But, 
 meanwhile, I happen to know Wally has made prep 
 arations to light out I mean to escape, abscond. 
 He s bought clothes and a mustache " 
 
BY THE TERMS OF THE WILL 203 
 
 "But he may mean nothing worse than amateur 
 theatricals " 
 
 "This ain t no time for amacjuire theatricals ! He 
 means to skip I mean abscond. Now, if we was to 
 catch him and get the stuff and show him up, 
 wouldn t that kinder sicken Ivan of the whole 
 bunch?" 
 
 "Perhaps," said Mrs. Winslow meditatively, "but 
 what is your plan to catch him, presuming, for it is 
 only presumption, that he really is running away 
 with the money?" 
 
 "Of course he is; he wouldn t let such a chance 
 slip ; I only knew this morning that he knew about 
 this money, and then I caught on to his buying those 
 things. I sent word right straight to Ivan, but he 
 was out ; when he gits back, or the man I sent hunts 
 him up, they ll phone me if the money s gone. But 
 I know it is, all right. Next we ll swear out a war 
 rant; I ve a man in plain clothes shadowing Tyler, 
 now. We ll give him rope, and the minute he tries 
 to run we ll be on to him." 
 
 "But I don t quite take it in yet, Mr. Bates, what 
 you want of me," said Mrs. Winslow, with an ironic 
 smile which yet was not unfriendly. 
 
 Billy Bates own smile met it, gaily. "I rather 
 guess you do, Mrs. Winslow; I ve tried to explain 
 Ivan needs to have it proved you re his friend as 
 well as me ; and this ought to do it." 
 
 Emma held out her hands. "I trust you, Mr. 
 Bates ; do you want me to go with you now ?" 
 
 "Well, ma am, I ve a cab below, waiting," said 
 Billy, as he deferentially surrendered his own fin 
 gers to her firm, calm grasp. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE THOUGHTS OF YOUTH ARE LONG, LONG 
 THOUGHTS 
 
 "Jo nivan, you re a plumb idiot!" 
 
 Peggy was speaking, Peggy very flushed, with 
 her hazel eyes burning and her little firm chin in the 
 air. 
 
 She looked and the likeness flashed over her 
 beholder exactly as she had looked in their child 
 ish squabbles; excited, petulant, desperately in 
 earnest, although now the white, hand, which 
 whisked in the air, flashed jewels from its slim fin 
 gers ; but it was the gesture of the child Peggy, just 
 the same. 
 
 The young man on the same bench in Lincoln 
 Park with her viewed her actions w 7 ith an unac 
 countable gloom; for, certainly, the girl showed 
 affection even in her anger, and she was adorably 
 handsome. She had a charming, supple figure, that 
 loveliest and freshest of skins which goes with the 
 hair which painters worship ; and these same locks, 
 which Johnny had once likened to copper, now 
 were a warm bronze, with glorious lights; and lit 
 tle tendrils of them curled on her milk-white neck. 
 She had the carnage of the head, recalling a met 
 tled horse, which belonged to the child Peggy, the 
 same unconscious dilation of her nostrils when she 
 
 204 
 
SHE CAUGHT HIM WHEN HE WOULD HAVE RISEN AND HELD HIM CLOSE 
 
 P *3* 
 
THE THOUGHTS OF YOUTH 205 
 
 grew excited, and the same trick of opening her 
 eyes and bending her brows at once. A fair picture 
 she made amid the velvet grass with the gray-blue 
 lake before her, fading into a luminous blue-gray 
 sky. 
 
 Nevertheless Johnny Winslow sighed and 
 frowned. "Is it so foolish, then, to sacrifice a for 
 tune to help other people?" said he. 
 
 "Yes, when your sacrifice won t help them," re 
 torted Peggy sternly. "Oh, I know what I m talk 
 ing about. At first, when you began on me with 
 your grand schemes for making the world over, I 
 felt sure they were all hot air ; but I couldn t prove 
 it, so I kept quiet." 
 
 He smiled. 
 
 "When was that? I don t remember that quiet 
 time; I think you have been slating me ever since 
 we met, again " 
 
 "I may have thrown in a word, now and then," 
 interjected Peggy with hauteur, "but I didn t really 
 argue with you. I didn t know enough about the 
 subject. No, it s more than a year," she sighed 
 "think of it ! I went straight to Mr. Raimund and 
 asked him to tell me all about the labor question; 
 I was under the impression that I could gobble it 
 up in the hour after dinner. Well, I soon found out 
 my mistake ; I ve been at it ever since. I was bound 
 to convince you you were wrong, Jo nivan " 
 
 "And- that is why you took a class at Hull 
 House?" 
 
 "Of course. I taught the violin they were much 
 too grand for the fiddle. Nice little Italian mites, 
 .who loved candy and music ; I suppose they ll grow 
 
206 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 up anarchists, but they are very nice now. I ex 
 pected it would be awfully stupid; but it wasn t, 
 that part; it was the grown-ups jabber tired me. 
 There s one special socialist I met there I reckon 
 I could slay with my own hands, she s so tedious 
 in her violence ; but I listened politely, for I was de 
 termined to hear both sides. You said I was so 
 partizan; that isn t partizan, is it? I met your so 
 cial labor leaders and your socialist leaders and 
 every other kind of a leader who scorns a nail 
 brush; and I listened all around the subject; for, 
 after these, I would go straight back to the capital 
 ists and hear their side. And I tell you, Jo nivan, 
 the sensible men on both sides came to mighty near 
 the same conclusions. And they weren t your con 
 clusions a little bit !" 
 
 "I dare say not." 
 
 "I tell you, you are not going to pull people out 
 of the mire by jumping in and getting mired up 
 beside them; you d better keep on firm ground and 
 throw them a plank !" 
 
 "Won t it do to carry them the plank and get 
 close enough to pull?" 
 
 "Not nearly so well. You are simply going to 
 ruin yourself, without helping other people. I know 
 right well what you re fixing to do noiv; you have 
 got the notion that this strike will succeed if you 
 can dump a great heap of money in, just at this 
 moment when it is going to pieces." 
 
 "Who says it is going to pieces?" Johnny-Ivan 
 spoke softly, as he had spoken all the time; but a 
 flicker kindled in his dark eyes, a spot of red 
 burned on his olive cheek. 
 
THE THOUGHTS OF YOUTH 207 
 
 "I shan t tell you; but I will tell you that all my 
 information doesn t come from the Pullman crowd, 
 as you call them. Some of it comes from men who 
 hate Mr. Pullman, but don t shut their eyes to facts, 
 like you!" 
 
 Johnny-Ivan laughed. "Dear old Billy, he s the 
 frankest labor free-lance going ! Do you know what 
 an opportunist is, Peggy? I don t, I never could 
 make out when I was taking Economics, but I think 
 Billy s it." 
 
 "No, I don t, and I don t want to know. It s bad 
 enough to have to find out about American politics 
 without having to dabble in French nicknames. 
 Bates has sense. And it s true about the strike." 
 
 "But it comes too late, anyhow, your wisdom," 
 said Johnny-Ivan. "I have given my money almost 
 all away." 
 
 Peggy jumped as if he had hit her; she towered 
 above him in a flash of terror which had the show 
 ing of anger; her voice sharpened in pain. "You 
 don t mean it! You Jo nivan, don t! You scare 
 
 me! 
 
 u 
 
 I thought nothing would scare you," said he, 
 with the unmirthful smile that was beginning to 
 carve its fine wrinkles about his mouth, so often did 
 it flit there nowadays. "But I m in dead earnest, 
 Peggy. You see, dear, it had come to this, I had to 
 help them. The strike, as you very shrewdly guess, 
 is lost unless they get a lot of money immediately. 
 Well, I ve supplied the money." 
 
 "Jo nivan!" but Peggy clenched her tiny fists, 
 pressed her lips close and achieved an agonized 
 silence. 
 
2o8 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 "Oh, turn it all on, Peggy !" 
 
 "Jo nivan!" Peggy s voice was fine and small 
 and of an ominous mildness "when did you give 
 it?" 
 
 "Yesterday." 
 
 "How much was it?" 
 
 "Altogether it was thirty-nine thousand five hun 
 dred and twenty dollars and fifty cents, to be accu 
 rate. You see I couldn t get par for my stock these 
 hard times or it would have been more." 
 
 There was a thud ; it was the bump of two slender, 
 clenched hands falling on the wooden seat of the 
 bench. 
 
 "And to whom ?" It was marvelous Peggy could 
 keep her composure so well. 
 
 "To the proper men. The committee I want to 
 have it ; you don t know any of them, even by name, 
 unless it is Walter Tyler" 
 
 "Johnny, he s an unscrupulous villain. I do know 
 him." 
 
 "How? At Hull- House? Peggy, you ought to 
 be a little careful making acquaintances " 
 
 "Oh, ought I? How about you? But I never 
 spoke to your precious friend. Yet I know just what 
 he is, because, sitting in another room, I heard him 
 bragging about such a dastardly thing. Bragging!" 
 
 Johnny said nothing. All at once, as her proud 
 young head tossed, his mind fell away from the mo 
 ment ; it was seized by a sudden idiotic anguish, be 
 cause he would never now be able to give Peggy a 
 rope of pearls for that lovely neck! There was a 
 tiny pearl brooch at her throat, the simplest old- 
 fashioned trinket, which he had seen Mrs. Ruther- 
 
THE THOUGHTS OF YOUTH 209 
 
 ford wear. Her rings, also, had been her mother s, 
 relics of the old days when Peggy Rutherford had 
 not dreamed she would need to earn her own bread, 
 he thought bitterly. Perhaps some other man who 
 was not vowed to a hopeless quest it was here 
 Peggy saw Johnny set his teeth hard. She misun 
 derstood and took fire in a flash. 
 
 "You needn t get so angry," she cried, "it was 
 dastardly, vile! And I heard him bragging! He 
 was a picket on a strike and he did up a lame man ; 
 jumped on him from behind and pounded him so 
 his \vife had hard work to know him. That s how 
 he expressed it and laughed. Do you approve of 
 that?" 
 
 "A strike s war, and war s infernal," evaded 
 Johnny, "but don t you see if they didn t terrorize 
 the scabs, they would run in and steal all the jobs? 
 The union would fight and starve, and the scabs 
 would get the benefit of the rise in wages." 
 
 "And you think anything s fair in war, do you? 
 You don t believe in fighting fair ?" 
 
 "Yes, I do. And I think it was atrocious, if you 
 ask me," said Johnny doggedly; "but I should like 
 you to see that there is some excuse for men when 
 their passions get red-hot with injustice and suffer- 
 ing-" 
 
 "His weren t. I heard he sold out that very 
 strike." 
 
 "You hear all sorts of tommy-rot. But never 
 mind Tyler, he won t get it. I promised all but four 
 teen thousand of it yesterday and wanted to give 
 them checks then ; but for some reason they wanted 
 the money, notes and gold; so I got the whole sum 
 
210 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 in money yesterday, carried it home in the street 
 cars, and this morning I hunted up the committee 
 and handed them their twenty-five thousand. I 
 didn t mean to give any more, at least, not now ; but 
 they are in straits, so I promised to give the rest at 
 the meeting this evening, to jolly up the boys. I had 
 a rather theatrical notion I d like to give it myself; 
 being the last of my stake " 
 
 She caught the words off his lips : "Oh, Jo nivan, 
 it isn t too late, then ; you haven t really, truly given 
 it all, you ve a little left. Even a little will help. Oh, 
 Jo nivan, please, please listen to me and consider 
 before you throw away such a fortune, for you never 
 in this world can make a hundred thousand out of 
 nothing before you are thirty " 
 
 "I know it, Peggy ; I realize what I am doing, and, 
 of course, I know the terms of my father s will. 
 Mrs. Winslow will get it all. Frankly, I don t enjoy 
 that part of it a bit. She will have all she has been 
 scheming for." 
 
 "She isn t scheming. She s so good, and it is a 
 shame, a shame the way you have been so prejudiced 
 against her all your life. Jo nivan, you think your 
 self so awfully fine and high, and you are, too ; but 
 you have been mean as dirt to Cousin Emma! you 
 have been unjust and cruel ever since your father 
 married her. He had a right to marry her ; she made 
 him happy " 
 
 "I deny none of that. Peggy, can you talk this 
 over quite calmly, just as if it were a thousand in 
 stead of forty that I m giving?" 
 
 Peggy flashed her great eyes at him; he caught 
 his breath with her beauty and scintillating power. 
 
THE THOUGHTS OF YOUTH 211 
 
 Like a sword-thrust the consciousness came to him 
 that she was more precious to him than all the world 
 besides. And it was too late. 
 
 "Of course I can t, Jo nivan," she said with spirit, 
 "I should be a a stick if I could; but I can be 
 reasonable. Jo nivan, have you considered that if 
 you fling away your money you won t have anything 
 like as much to give to these people you want to help, 
 by and by?" 
 
 "Yes, Peggy, you crafty little temptress, I have 
 thought that all over. I see the bait my father holds 
 out. He counted on my being anxious to do big 
 things and be a leader in a new social state, and so 
 waiting until I could have several millions instead 
 of a bare hundred thousand, and meanwhile, I 
 would be tempted by the luxury I should live in 
 and by the chance of making money as well as 
 handling it, and by dealing with big things in a big 
 way; you see by his will I was to have a position 
 in the works at Fairport; if I kept that position 
 and kept the money, when I was thirty I was to have 
 two-thirds of the whole fortune. Well, of course he 
 counted on my getting to like my job. He knew 
 part of me awfully well. There is a fascination in 
 handling large affairs. It s tremendous. He reck 
 oned I d feel it, and I d be tempted. I d get con 
 servative. When a fellow gets hardened to the poor 
 devils sufferings outside, and determined to hang 
 on to all that he has, that s getting conservative. To 
 be conservative is to despair altogether of improve 
 ment" 
 
 "No, it isn t ; it is only finding out you can t mend 
 the world in a minute. Johnny, you ve got common 
 
212 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 sense; I do wish you wouldn t let your heart sit 
 down on it and squash it !" 
 
 "And, maybe, I wish you wouldn t let your com 
 mon sense, as you call it, which is only the conven 
 tional name for a mix-up of cowardice and selfish 
 ness which one generation hands down to another 
 as the secret of getting on in the world, getting on 
 over other people s necks I wish you wouldn t let 
 that sit down on your heart. It s such a good heart !" 
 
 "Never mind my heart," returned Peggy coldly, 
 "or rather assume I have a regular geyser of a heart 
 and can t see suffering without its spouting. My 
 heart isn t the question ; it is, What is the best way 
 to help people? It has puzzled the wisest men in 
 the world. Do you find it so easy to decide? Why 
 not go a little slow?" 
 
 The minute puckers of his under lip, so like his 
 father s, used to mean a quick shift of perception 
 with Johnny; she guessed that shooting at random 
 she had sent a bolt home ; like a woman, she pressed 
 her advantage. 
 
 "Wait, Johnny," she pleaded, "wait a year, six 
 months, try the life your father, who loved you so 
 dearly and who was such a good honorable man 
 himself, wanted you to try; only try it!" 
 
 "I admit I meant to try, Peggy," he said his 
 head was on his breast, his eyes fell before hers 
 "I thought I would give the life of a man with a 
 fortune who tried to make other people s lives a lit 
 tle less miserable, a fair trial; what my father said 
 to me last summer didn t impress me so much as 
 as when I came home and he died. Peggy, all at 
 once I realized that he had really loved me; it wasn t 
 
THE THOUGHTS OF YOUTH 213 
 
 his pride and his effort to keep a great fortune in 
 his name " 
 
 "I know, Jo nivan," murmured Peggy gently, "he 
 did love you mighty well. I always knew that. He 
 used to talk to me about you; he was so proud of 
 you oh, Jo nivan," she lifted eyes swimming in 
 tears, and both hands went out to him in an uncon 
 scious gesture of appeal "this would be awful to 
 him don t do it!" 
 
 Something was choking her just when she 
 needed to be calmest ; she bit her lips in a spasm of 
 self-disgust; but he hadn t lifted his eyes from the 
 blue sky-line; his lips twisted in the same way that 
 little Johnny-Ivan s lips used to twist when he was 
 carrying a heart-ache off, boastfully. 
 
 "But I didn t dare to wait, Peggy ; I was getting 
 such a lazy, luxurious dog and valuing the proper 
 ties of well, a gentleman s chances, so highly, that 
 if I d waited I might be a selfish sneak myself and 
 break all my promises to my mother; no telling. 
 Besides, this hundred thousand my father gave me 
 with his eyes open; he knew exactly what I might 
 do with it; but to save it and scoop in the big for 
 tune, only to use it in a way he would have detested 
 oh, you see I couldn t do that, Peggy, dear !" 
 
 "You re a nice boy, Jo nivan," sighed Peggy, 
 "but you never did see things all round them. You 
 have thrown away your chance of getting your 
 father s fortune; you don t need to worry about 
 that. But why must you throw away your chance 
 of making a fortune of your own? Why must you 
 strip yourself to the bone as well as bare ? Bless you, 
 honey, there will be plenty of distressed socialists 
 
214 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 waiting for your money next year ! Save a little for 
 them. Why not wait a year wait six months?" 
 
 "The strike would be lost then. I ll admit I hesi 
 tated, I wanted to be sure my little stake, which was 
 all the stake I had, wouldn t simply be swallowed 
 up ; but it s now or never with the boys ; so it s now 
 with me. I ve burned my bridges. There s another 
 thing : I never could quite win my mates confidence ! 
 They always have felt I was outside; I had this 
 money to fall back on. I was only a kind of curios 
 ity workman ; I m the real stuff now/ 
 
 He spoke lightly ; but Peggy detected the sadness 
 she was too irritated to regard. 
 
 "I reckon it is no use talking with you, Jo nivan, 
 you were always the very obstinatest boy on 
 earth!" She burst forth hotly: "Oh, of course I 
 know you are doing all this terrible foolishness from 
 the best motives. You think it s your Russian sym 
 pathy with suffering; but it isn t, it s your nasty 
 New England conscience twisted round. You re 
 getting over your Russian crazy sympathy, but your 
 hateful New England doggedness won t let you let 
 go ! And the worse it hurts the more you ll be sure 
 it s your duty to hang on ! I almost wish Tyler would 
 run away with all your money, then you d see 
 for yourself what an infatuated mule you are!" 
 
 Instead of answering, Johnny, who was facing 
 the stream of carriages while her face was averted, 
 sprang to his feet and raised his hat, with a bow 
 and a perfunctory smile, and Peggy was aware of 
 the blended flash of silver harness trappings and 
 the sleek satin skins of pawing horses, and of the 
 soft billowing of a lady s gown over a victoria. 
 
THE THOUGHTS OF YOUTH 215 
 
 "Why, Peggy !" exclaimed the lady. She smiled 
 mischievously. 
 
 "I happened on Miss Rutherford, here, by a lucky 
 chance, Mrs. Raimund," Johnny offered his ex 
 planation with a nonchalance that Peggy admired. 
 
 "Then you ve happened on me by an unlucky 
 one," said Mrs. Raimund, "for I must take her 
 away. There is barely time to get back to luncheon 
 and see me off unless she wants to desert me, like 
 my sister, who mysteriously disappeared at Field s/ 
 
 "On the contrary, it was a most lucky chance," 
 said Johnny, with the smile his friends liked, "for 
 I wanted to bid you good-by and thank you for be 
 ing so good to me, and it is impossible for me to 
 get down to the train." 
 
 "I got your note and the flowers. I didn t know 
 Tolstoi permitted flowers." 
 
 Johnny laughed. "I m afraid he doesn t. But, you 
 see, this is my last day as a gilded trifler. I ve got a 
 job, and I m going to be a mechanic for keeps to 
 morrow. So I m taking the privileges of farewell." 
 
 "Take more and come to luncheon and explain 
 yourself. Oh, that s too bad!" at Johnny s mur 
 mur of excuse "well, if you can t, why not come 
 up in the evening and dine with Mrs. Winslow and 
 Peggy and Mr. Raimund ? Emma and Peggy go to 
 Fairport to-morrow no, don t think up another 
 engagement. Come." 
 
 "I will, if if I may, Peggy?" 
 
 "Of course, do come, Jo nivan," said Peggy in a 
 carefully matter-of-fact way. But why, she de 
 manded angrily of herself, in the victoria, why need 
 she have blushed? 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE SOUTHERN WAY 
 
 Mrs. Alan Raimund was passing through the gate 
 which guarded the Michigan Southern and Lake 
 Shore railway tracks, at the Old Rock Island depot. 
 The procession was impressive. First came two 
 porters bearing (under the eye of Mrs. Raimund s 
 maid) dress-suit-cases, lizard-skin bags and a bun 
 dle of rugs, for Mrs. Raimund abominated "the 
 boards the Pullman Company calls blankets;" next 
 the maid laden with Johnny s flowers ; then the lady 
 of quality herself, dutifully escorted by her hus 
 band; and last, her son, Cecil, with Peggy Ruther 
 ford. 
 
 Cecil, for reasons of his own, had insisted on 
 carrying his hand-bag. He was chatting very busily 
 with Peggy, who was a great chum of his. Peggy 
 had forced her chagrin and actual misery out of 
 sight. She found it the easier assuming the mood 
 of her friends since Mrs. Winslow had not yet re 
 turned to Mrs. Raimund s vast annoyance, pep 
 pered with alarm, which expressed itself in so many 
 ways that every one had a chance of failing to as 
 suage it, and a slight dejection in the hearers seemed 
 no more than polite. 
 
 "What did she say in her note which was handed 
 216 
 
THE SOUTHERN WAY 217 
 
 you at Field s?" asked Raimund, taking his turn 
 at ineffectual comfort. 
 
 "Said that she was unexpectedly called away by 
 important business and would see me, she hoped, at 
 luncheon ; anyhow, at the train. Now we have had 
 luncheon, and she isn t here. I shan t wait for her. 
 I don t think it nice of her at all. You don t suppose 
 she could have been enticed away to be robbed?" 
 
 "Hardly," observed her husband dryly; "sister 
 Emma wouldn t be a healthy subject for kidnap 
 pers!" 
 
 "Of course the train couldn t be late ! Alan, won t 
 they wait the train if you say so? What if it isn t 
 your road, they might be a little obliging, I think. 
 I don t see what Emma was thinking of ! Why did 
 she come to Chicago to see me if she is going to 
 act this weird way?" 
 
 "There s eight minutes yet," said Raimund, "come 
 in and get settled. I ll watch for her outside." 
 
 It was really an unworthy device to escape from 
 his marital duties, and his wife detected it instantly. 
 He needn t do anything of the kind, she told him; 
 Peggy would wait. 
 
 "And I ll wait with Miss Peggy," volunteered 
 Cecil. 
 
 "And have some one kidnapping you!" inter 
 rupted Mrs. Raimund. "No, come in and let Peggy 
 keep watch. She won t come just as likely as not 
 it s some foolish old woman run over by the cars, 
 and she saw it and rushed down to help her. Emma 
 is too ridiculous sometimes, you know she is, Alan ! 
 I do think that she might have waited until I went ; 
 there were several things I really wanted to talk to 
 
218 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 her about, now I ll have to write, and that is a nui 
 
 sance " 
 
 In such bewailings and complaints her voice faded 
 plaintively and was lost within the car. Cecil was 
 giving his own last messages to Peggy, regarding 
 Aunt Emma, and Best, the coachman, who must 
 not allow Tom, the groom, to drive Arkansas Trav 
 eler (Cecil s own horse) ever; Best must exercise 
 him himself, and he was awfully sorry not to see 
 Aunt Emma and 
 
 "You really must go, Cis, honey, your mother 
 will be worried !" 
 
 "Oh, there s five minutes. Tell where are you 
 going?" 
 
 Peggy had darted from his side; he lost her in 
 the crowd at the gate and stared until a man pushed 
 him to one side with a curt : "Excuse me, but I m 
 going on this train." 
 
 "First Aunt Emma and now Miss Peggy !" cried 
 Cecil ; "what in thunder s up ! Mysterious disap 
 pearances are getting a lot too common here !" 
 
 He swung round to perceive Peggy at his elbow, 
 breathless, with curious burning spots on each cheek, 
 and their reflection sparkling in her hazel eyes. 
 
 "Cis, please go on, I m going with you." 
 
 "But how about Aunt Emma ?" 
 
 "I ll explain later; now get on, Cis, quick! I have 
 to see your father." 
 
 Cecil was so propelled by the impetus of a certain 
 suppressed but intense excitement in her manner, 
 that he obeyed without question. 
 
 In the car vestibule they brushed past the man 
 who had jostled Cecil. He was a tall man, very well 
 
THE SOUTHERN WAY 219 
 
 dressed, and he was carrying a dark red, russia- 
 leather bag with a silver monogram on the outside. 
 This man turned, giving Cis the sweep of a heavy 
 black mustache and the gleam of a full black eye, 
 before Peggy went by. 
 
 She saw Mr. Raimund at the state-room door ; he 
 read the scarlet mounting to her cheek and the fire 
 dancing in her eye with a better trained perception 
 than his son s, and quietly drew her apart. 
 
 "Anything doing?" he began. 
 
 "I haven t seen Mrs. Winslow. But" her voice 
 sank "don t show any interest in what I m saying ! 
 Do you see that man behind us, the tall man in the 
 light-brown suit, with a black mustache ? He is hold 
 ing a russia-leather bag with a silver monogram on 
 it. That bag belongs to Johnny Winslow and there 
 are fourteen thousand dollars in bank-notes and gold 
 in it ; I am almost certain the man means to steal it. 
 He has bought a ticket to Buffalo " 
 
 "Sorry to hurry you, Mr. Raimund," the porter 
 was bowing at one elbow. 
 
 "No hurry ; I m going on to Englewood," replied 
 Raimund, who had a business man s habit of hitting 
 a decision on the wing. 
 
 Peggy gave him a grateful glance. 
 
 "And I reckon a lady s trying to catch you-all s 
 attention," said the porter. 
 
 Peggy was at the window before Raimund; she 
 saw Mrs. Winslow hurrying toward the gate, too 
 late. Perceiving that it was, she gave over the ef 
 fort and smiled and waved farewell. Doubtless she 
 was not surprised at Peggy s presence with the 
 party, as Englewood is only twenty minutes from 
 
220 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 the central station, and Nelly might have taken a 
 notion to have company so far. She did not look 
 disturbed in any way. Mrs. Raimund was calling 
 out of the drawing-room window something about 
 sending a telegram. The great wheels were grind 
 ing faster ; the words were drowned amid the heavy 
 din of motion ; in a second Mrs. Winslow s face was 
 gone, lost in a blur of faces, replaced by the barren 
 spaces of steel arches and sheds and gleaming rails. 
 
 "And now, Miss Peggy," said Raimund, seating 
 himself, "get on with the tale." 
 
 Peggy glanced with apparent carelessness over 
 her shoulder before she sat down. 
 
 "He s safe in the seat," she breathed, "now tell 
 me, can you arrest him ?" 
 
 "What are the facts?" 
 
 Peggy gave them succinctly. 
 
 Raimund shook his handsome gray head and 
 smiled a little under his mustache. "I m afraid, Miss 
 Peggy, that you are relying more on your prejudices 
 than your facts. Tyler knows about the money. 
 Tyler is a villain. Tyler is carrying Winslow s bag. 
 There is the case. Suspicious, maybe, but nothing 
 proved. Winslow may have given him the bag. 
 We d be in a pretty box if we arrested him nd 
 found it full of clean collars and cigars." 
 
 "I noticed the way he carried it. Cigars and col 
 lars are light; that bag pulled his arm down." 
 
 "That may mean something. But there are other 
 heavy things besides gold, say revolvers and bottles. 
 These fellows are traveling all over, making mis 
 chief for us, but they generally go deadhead because 
 we ve been afraid to refuse them passes. But he 
 
THE SOUTHERN WAY 221 
 
 bought a ticket. That s suspicious, I grant you. I 
 think, Miss Peggy, we ve grounds to watch him but 
 not to arrest him until I can hunt up Winslow and 
 find out if the money has been stolen. If it has, then 
 I ll swear out a warrant and have him arrested at 
 the next stop the train makes. I ll speak to the con 
 ductor and the porter to watch him, and if he gets 
 off before you get my wire, why, wire me at once 
 zvhere he got off " 
 
 "Can t we stop him?" 
 
 "We could if we were sure he had the money. 
 The conductor could arrest him all right. But we 
 have to be sure the money has been stolen. You are 
 sure this man s Tyler? I know all about him, of 
 course, and a pestiferous rascal he is ; but I ve never 
 seen him." 
 
 "I m quite sure," answered Peggy steadily, 
 "though his hair s a different color and he has a 
 mustache, and he was clean-shaven; but he can t 
 change his eyes they are rather full, you notice 
 you can see him?" 
 
 "Distinctly. He is reading the Chicago Times." 
 
 "Don t you see his eyes are not what people call 
 pop-eyes, but prominent ; you aren t near enough to 
 see Another thing ; in one of them is a large brown 
 speck in the iris. I noticed that, and the way he 
 wrinkles his eyes when he smiles, the first time I 
 saw the man." 
 
 "You should be a detective, my dear Miss 
 Peggy!" 
 
 "Don t you notice little things about people? But 
 Mr. Raimund, don t you think his disguising him 
 self that way is suspicious, too ?" 
 
222 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 "Yes, rather. Although he may be on some other 
 scoundrelly business. But really, I m coming round 
 to your theory. You re sure of the bag as well as the 
 man?" 
 
 "Absolutely; it used to belong to the Princess 
 Olga ; I ve seen it a heap of times ; it has her coronet 
 on it, and initials. Part of the coronet has been 
 wrenched off, but I know the bag; there s a black 
 stain just under the coronet Johnny got it on, try 
 ing to black my shoes when we were little and I put 
 my foot on the bag. I remember I fairly loved the 
 princess ever after, because she didn t scold us that 
 day." 
 
 "Risky to take the bag ; that s against the theory. 
 But criminals are always taking fool risks, being 
 amazing subtile in nine out of ten ways, and then 
 idiotically rash in the tenth. But now about ways 
 and means? you ll want a section " 
 
 "A lower berth" 
 
 "A section, my dear young lady. You couldn t 
 keep awake in a lower; you would have to go to 
 sleep in self-defense to forget your misery. And you 
 ought to stay awake and watch every movement un 
 til the policeman gets him. I ll attend to that; they 
 are running light now, so there ought to be no trou 
 ble in getting into the same car with him. Does 
 he know you ? Has he seen you at Hull House ?" 
 
 "He may have; but I have never spoken to him." 
 
 "The chances are he knows you, as you know 
 him. But he won t know you have recognized him, 
 unless a guilty conscience is particularly far-sighted, 
 and he can t very well know that Winslow has con 
 fided in you. I hope we ll trap our gentleman; it 
 
THE SOUTHERN WAY 223 
 
 may sicken young Winslow of his crowd a bit. He 
 is too good stuff to waste on this socialistic rot. 
 Miss Peggy, if you have any influence, get him out 
 of Chicago as soon as you can!" 
 
 "I m afraid I haven t," said Peggy, "or he would 
 have gone long ago." 
 
 "A great city is always bad for men whose minds 
 are in any kind of ferment. There is the nervous 
 strain of the life, for one thing, and in a case like 
 his, the sight every day of a mass of misery and 
 howling discontent plays the mischief with a young 
 fellow who is sensitive and kind-hearted and has 
 his notions all upheaved, anyhow ; why, he is ready 
 for any scheme that promises the moon ! Yes, Cis, 
 tell your mother I ll be there in a minute. Well, 
 Miss Peggy, what shall I say about your presence?" 
 
 "Tell Mrs. Raimund the truth, please, she will 
 understand." 
 
 Raimund nodded approval. "And you ll get the 
 boy off to Fairport and green fields and general 
 prosperity as soon as you can, won t you ? He has 
 seen enough to give him bad dreams the rest of his 
 life, already. Well, I ll attend to your ticket and 
 your section ; but you will want money for your re 
 turn trip and to give the train-boys something, may 
 be. Fortunately, I brought a wad with me to the 
 station lest Nelly shouldn t have fetched enough; 
 no, best take a hundred ; one needs plenty, and you 
 can have Winslow return it; it s his affair, really." 
 "Thank you," said Peggy. The thought flitted 
 through her brain that if they failed and the money 
 was lost, Winslow would have as little as she to re 
 turn ; there was, strange to say, an obscure pleasure 
 
22 4 
 
 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 in lavishing dollars which came so hard to her for 
 her old playmate. She seemed to be back in the old 
 protecting elder-sisterly attitude. At Englewood, 
 Raimund left them, and Peggy had a lonesome 
 slump of the heart, as she watched his handsome 
 iron-gray head dwindle down the platform. 
 
 But Mrs. Raimund was in delightful spirits. She 
 was immensely relieved by the glimpse of her sister, 
 and she hailed the prospect of rescuing Johnny 
 Winslow s thousands from the Pullman strikers, 
 with a keener species of the same interest with which 
 she would have welcomed an exciting novel to read 
 on her journey. 
 
 "Of course," she explained, "I didn t really think 
 anything had happened to aunty, Cis, but those grip- 
 men are so irresponsible, and I had a friend once a 
 very sensible woman, too, and a member of the Fort 
 nightly and one of the Colonial Dames she had 
 her foot chopped off by a cable-car and never knew 
 it" 
 
 "How could she help knowing it?" Peggy shud 
 dered. 
 
 "I don t know how, but she did. She never knew 
 there was anything wrong until her husband cried 
 out, Look at your foot ! She was lame ever after. 
 I always think of her when Emmie will go off with 
 out the carriage. Where do you suppose she went ? 
 She is the most unexpected creature. Why didn t 
 she come on and go to Englewood with us?" 
 
 "One reason was she couldn t, mamma," said 
 Cecil, "the train was moving when Aunt Emma 
 came up." 
 
 "That was a good reason," admitted Nelly, who 
 
THE SOUTHERN WAY 225 
 
 had a sense of humor, "and I m awfully relieved, 
 anyhow, to know she was all right ; but I do wonder 
 \vhere she has been." 
 
 The porter s head was insinuated through the 
 open door: "One of you ladies Miss Rutherford?" 
 he purred in his soft negro accent. 
 
 Peggy nodded. 
 
 The porter smiled a smile in which abode a re 
 spectful and confidential intelligence. "Mr. Rai- 
 mund engaged number seven for you in the next 
 cyar. Gen lman with the bag we re keepin an eye 
 on, he s in number eight opposite. If you d like you 
 berth made up ruther early, you could go any time 
 you liked, and maybe not tract his tention, if he 
 was in the smoking-cyar. Make it up in one, I sup 
 pose, and all the pillows haid to the engine?" 
 
 "Yes. And you can tell me when to go in," said 
 Peggy, "and be sure to bring me any telegram 
 quietly, you understand." 
 
 "Yes, ma am, I do, ma am," said the porter, as he 
 permitted himself a flash of eyes and teeth together ; 
 they flashed again at the touch of a large round 
 silver coin on his palm. Peggy smiled back ; she felt 
 the mounting excitement of combat, the wild stir 
 of the blood which had sent the men of her race into 
 a hundred reckless adventures. 
 
 "He wouldn t in the least mind shooting me to 
 escape with that loot," she thought. 
 
 "Some of us ought to watch him all the time," 
 said Mrs. Raimund, while Peggy was considering 
 deeply. "When he goes into the smoking-room you 
 might go too, Cis ; but mind ! you are not to smoke. 
 Listen and pretend you re one of those preposterous 
 
226 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 boys who like to hear men s yarns. When he goes 
 back to his berth, Valerie can have her seat in that 
 car. Peggy would better not show any interest. 
 She and I can look out when the train stops." 
 
 Valerie, Mrs. Raimund s maid, was so new to the 
 country that she accepted amateur detective work as 
 a normal part of a highly paid lady s maid s duties, 
 and instantly went on guard, while Mrs. Raimund 
 tried to piece her own recollections of The Sign of 
 the Four and A Study in Scarlet with Peggy s 
 memories of the same and of Gaboriau. 
 
 "The main thing is not to rouse his suspicions," 
 said Nelly. "I hope they won t come roaring your 
 telegram through the car when it comes, the way 
 they have." 
 
 But the telegram did not come. The time slipped 
 by. Mrs. Raimund and Cecil took dinner at a table 
 behind Tyler. "And, mon enfant, he had that bag 
 with him at dinner," said Mrs. Raimund ; "he had 
 it in the smoker, too. There isn t a doubt in my 
 mind about him. He s a hardened villain ; I have no 
 sympathy with him; he actually seemed to like the 
 awful things they served us and ate the orange-col 
 ored butter ! He also drank a Martini cocktail and 
 a pint of champagne, and gave the waiter a quarter. 
 His table manners are only rather bad. What do 
 you think of me as a sleuth ?" 
 
 "You re great, Mrs. Raimund," laughed Peggy. 
 
 "No telegram, yet?" 
 
 "None yet." 
 
 "Have you seen the conductor ?" 
 
 "I ve had a heart-to-heart talk with him, he s a 
 most intelligent man." 
 
THE SOUTHERN WAY 227 
 
 "Has anything happened since I saw you?" 
 
 "No ; we are on time, and shan t stop again until 
 we reach South Bend." 
 
 Peggy was a particularly truthful person. Noth 
 ing really had happened, she would have said, yet 
 she felt much better equipped for adventure than 
 an hour ago. Then she had contemplated Tyler s 
 possibilities with misgiving. 
 
 "If he gets wind of anything, he ll jump off at 
 the next stop," she decided dolefully, "and where ll 
 we be if we let him ? I don t even know whether that 
 conductor has a gun. I reckon that fat porter has a 
 razor, but the chances are he d be too scared to use 
 it. / ought to have something." "Something" to the 
 Southern girl meant any kind of lethal weapon. It is 
 almost impossible for a Northerner, especially a 
 native of the older and more densely settled sec 
 tions, to understand the naive feeling of the South 
 erner about private bloodshed. He expects to de 
 fend his own as naturally as a Northerner expects 
 to be defended by the strong arm of the law. 
 Peggy s father had taught her to shoot a pistol the 
 first year they lived on a plantation. Her prowess 
 with small arms was not only a jest to him ; it gave 
 him a continual sense of security in their lonely and 
 isolated life. It was not from parental pride alone, 
 by any means, that he would call his negro tenants 
 and workmen to "watch Miss Peggy shoot the eyes 
 out of the scarecrow." 
 
 As for Peggy, she shot wild turkeys, but she 
 would not shoot quail ; she said they were too tame, 
 it was like shooting chickens in the hen-house; and 
 once she shot a panther in the sheep fold, thereby 
 
228 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 lengthening the days of several hound dogs that had 
 been under suspicion of a dog s worst crime. It was 
 characteristic of Peggy that she took the suspects 
 under her protection ever after. 
 
 Stories of valor and carnage Peggy had heard at 
 her nurse s knee. One of the vivid memories of her 
 childhood, not all unpleasant, either, in its strong 
 thrill, was of mammy s lifting her over a gutter in 
 Memphis, in the days when they had gutters, before 
 the yellow fever forced sewers upon them ; mammy 
 lifted her, and as she felt her little bronze slippers 
 dangling in space, she threw a glance downward. 
 
 "Mymy! mymy!" she squeaked, "the gutter s all 
 red !" 
 
 "Nev you min de red gutter, my lamb, an doan 
 you look roun ," warned mammy. Of course, 
 Peggy immediately "looked round," to behold two 
 men lying in a queer attitude, all crumpled up on 
 the sidewalk, and then she knew what was the mat 
 ter with the gutter. "Oh, poor men!" the child 
 cried ; "run quick, let s make haste and get papa to 
 make them well !" 
 
 But mammy answered sternly: 
 
 "No, you leave dem men lone ; dey ain t no f rien 
 you-alls ; dey is evil-doers, an you paw ll live de 
 longer kase dey is a layin dar ; you hark to me !" 
 
 So Peggy pleaded no more ; if the bad men would 
 have hurt papa it were well they should be "killed 
 up" ; children are not squeamish. 
 
 During her youth, she heard more or less of the 
 violent happenings which are the inevitable result 
 when a high-spirited race has its feudal state rent 
 from it by war and is forced into a new order of 
 
THE SOUTHERN WAY 229 
 
 things for which it is not ready. Therefore, in the 
 present stress, although Peggy was a gentle and 
 merry creature, her mind flew instinctively to fire 
 arms. She owned a beautiful pistol ; but it was ly 
 ing in a perfumed drawer of a dressing-table in her 
 chamber, at Mrs. Raimund s. She gazed wistfully 
 around the stuffy luxury of Drawing-room A; but 
 directly she chuckled. Her eye had fallen upon 
 Cecil s hat. It went from the hat outside the room, 
 to Cecil s section and a smart new bag on the seat. 
 Cecil wouldn t be a normal boy of sixteen, to South 
 ern thinking, if there weren t a revolver inside that 
 brown alligator skin. But hard on the thought came 
 the amendment that perhaps Northern boys were 
 not so fond of fire-arms as those in Tennessee. 
 "Never mind, he s a boy, and he spent a winter in 
 Arkansas," she comforted herself, and she recalled 
 how he had insisted on carrying his bag himself. 
 No sooner did Cecil come back than she made an 
 excuse to get him into his section, and very sweetly, 
 as his own chosen chum, she asked for the loan of 
 the pistol. 
 
 "How do you know I have one?" said Cecil. 
 
 Peggy laughed. 
 
 "Anyhow," with a man-of-the-world gravity 
 "I couldn t think of lending it to a lady, especially 
 if she might use it." 
 
 "Your mother would make an awful time, Cis, 
 if she knew you were carrying a revolver." 
 
 "But you wouldn t tell tales. There s nothing 
 mean about you." 
 
 "You see, if your mother knew," quite disre 
 garding this artful speech "she d confiscate it, and 
 
230 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 give it to me. I d hate to get it that way. But we 
 must have a pistol." 
 
 Cecil wriggled. Peggy pathetically set forth the 
 defenseless plight of the conductor. She promised 
 to give the latter the pistol if he needed it. In the 
 end, the lad capitulated and she obtained the pistol. 
 
 After this her mind was at rest and she despatched 
 Cecil to take his mother out to dinner. 
 
 She took the opportunity, so soon as she had the 
 drawing-room to herself, to examine the cylinders, 
 making sure it was loaded. "Mighty trifling little 
 pistol," sighed Peggy sadly, weighing it on the 
 palm of her hand. "Not even thirty-two caliber, I m 
 afraid, and short cartridges, too ! But what can you 
 expect of a boy ! Well, it s better than nothing." 
 
 At South Bend, Valerie appeared breathless in 
 her zeal to report : "II est parti, madame!" 
 
 But Mrs. Raimund, already at the window, merely 
 said "Re garde!" and pointed to the group outside, 
 Cis and Peggy looking at the car-wheels and the 
 conductor affably conversing with Tyler. "All 
 aboard !" shouted the conductor. Tyler swung him 
 self on to the platform, Peggy and Cis after him ; 
 last of all the conductor grasped the shining rail. 
 
 "The conductor is all right, mamma," reported 
 Cis, a moment later. 
 
 "Then do let us sit down together and be com 
 fortable," said Mrs. Raimund, "and let poor Valerie 
 finish her dinner in peace ; she can sit in the car aft 
 erward. What is it, porter?" 
 
 The porter was chewing an apologetic smile in 
 the door, a yellow envelope between his black fin 
 gers. 
 
 
 
THE SOUTHERN WAY 231 
 
 "Miss Margaret C. Rutherford? Telegram fo 
 you, miss." 
 
 Peggy had the envelope open and the telegram 
 under her eyes before the words left his lips : 
 
 "Money gone. Will have man arrested at Toledo. 
 Tell conductor to arrest him if he tries to leave train. 
 
 "A. G. RAIMUND." 
 
 "I m sorry, Miss Rutherford," said the porter, 
 "but the despatch jest being addressed to Lake 
 Shore Limited, the other cyar porter got it, and he 
 was going through the cyar hollering Telegram fo 
 Miss Margaret C. Rutherford ; but I stopped him 
 mighty briefly, I asshoo you. The gentleman didn t 
 seem to be payin no manner of attention." 
 
 "Well, he ll be arrested next stop; and he can t 
 get off the train before." 
 
 The porter grinned : "He sure can t, miss, that s 
 a fac !" 
 
 "Are we on time?" she asked. 
 
 "Well, no, ma am," he admitted. "We d a hot 
 box at South Bend; that s why we stayed so long. 
 Los thirty minutes, and we los bout forty with 
 the engine bein slow bef o ; altogether we are ovah 
 an hour behind ; but we ll make it up by the time we 
 git to Cleveland." 
 
 "Is there any trouble with the strikers any more 
 on this road?" asked Mrs. Raimund. 
 
 "No, ma am. We been running smooth for most 
 a week now." 
 
 "I thought so," Mrs. Raimund replied, "but I 
 wanted to be sure. You may shut the windows and 
 leave the ventilators open." 
 
 After the porter was gone Peggy summoned the 
 
232 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 conductor and showed him the despatch. He some 
 how inspired her with trust because he was bald- 
 headed and talked about his wife and his little girl. 
 The conductor promised to notify her at Toledo, 
 when the officers came aboard, in order that she 
 might identify the bag. 
 
 "But we must keep watching that man," said Mrs. 
 Raimund firmly, when the three were alone. "I ve 
 told Valerie on no account to go to sleep. The en 
 gine might stop to get water or something, you 
 know ; they are always stopping when it s not on the 
 folder!" 
 
 She continued in this mood of vigilance until she 
 tired of dummy whist, about ten, when she became 
 convinced that the engine had plenty of water and 
 Tyler would not run away, and she advised Peggy 
 to go to her berth. Valerie, also, was relieved from 
 guard duty. 
 
 "Only be sure you wake me at Toledo," said 
 Nelly. "It is no use depending on Valerie; she 
 sleeps like the dead; always has to have an alarm 
 clock, and she wouldn t hear one on the train if she 
 had it which she hasn t !" 
 
 Gladly Peggy departed. The porter notified her 
 that Tyler was in the smoker, so that she retreated 
 behind her curtains without being observed, the por 
 ter further shifting suspicion by hanging a well- 
 worn derby hat of his own from the large bracket 
 of number seven. 
 
 "Only two hours more," sighed Peggy; "that s 
 not long !" 
 
 But the time dragged heavily, watching and wait 
 ing. Peggy never forgot those hours ; in their aloof- 
 
THE SOUTHERN WAY 233 
 
 ness from all natural usual experience, they were 
 like the woeful night-hours by sick beds which had 
 been hers. Always her watches were sorrowful, for 
 always in her conflict with death she had been 
 worsted. Pale dramas of past struggle and sorrow 
 enacted themselves again, until she fled from them to 
 the landscape outside her window. It was a moon 
 light night, and she could see the shadowy stacks of 
 hay in the Michigan fields and the cascades where 
 the reaper had left a shining path. The train shud 
 dered and flinched and seemed to pull on the engine 
 as it slowed. They must be stopping! But cough 
 ing and panting, without halting, the engine pulled 
 out from the cavernous spaces amid the blue flashes 
 of electric light, swept past the black hulk of the 
 flaming chimneys of great factories and the scat 
 tered lights of sleeping streets, then, screaming as 
 if in sheer rapture of flight, tore out again into the 
 long, dark sweep of the prairies. 
 
 To keep her memories at bay Peggy took to song, 
 humming, under the whir of the wheels, all the old- 
 time songs which her mother had loved to hear her 
 sing. She wished, how she wished, that her mother 
 had lived to use the old piano after it had been 
 tuned ! Peggy had to save so long before they could 
 hire a man to come from Memphis to tune it, but 
 Mrs. Rutherford never came back to rock gently 
 on the creaking floor of the wide old veranda, where 
 the Japanese honeysuckle swayed its dim silhou 
 ettes over the cypress boards; and the cotton-fields 
 stretched, green in the moonlight, far away, up to 
 the wall of gum-trees and the black mysteries of 
 the bayou. 
 
THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 " Those dear old days are past and gone, 
 
 I sigh for them in vain ; 
 I want to see the cotton-fields 
 
 And the dear old home again ! " 
 
 sang the Southern girl with the tears on her cheeks, 
 and checked herself in a sob. 
 
 "That s worse than studying," cried Peggy ; she 
 burst into a popular jingle, heard, those days, on 
 every street-organ : 
 
 " Comrades, comrades, ever since we were boys, 
 
 Sharing each other s sorrows, sharing each other s joys/ 
 
 "That s like Johnny and me," giggled Peggy; 
 "he was a boy and I was a tomboy." 
 
 For a little she was silent, then she found herself 
 fitting an air to a poem not so well-known ten years 
 ago as now. She sang it, softly, while the moon rode 
 high in a wonderful cloudland of sky : 
 
 " Love blows as the wind blows 
 In the crowded mart 
 As the quiet close. 
 By ways that no man knows, 
 Love blows into the heart ! " 
 
 The night wore on. Still she sang ; and still the 
 train beat its even, tremendous rhythm of speed. 
 And still the moonlight flooded the earth, which 
 was no longer the work-stained scene of sorrow 
 and struggle and greed which the sun found every 
 morning, but a new world, such as love alone can 
 create, mystic, wonderful. 
 
 Lost in reveries of music, deep as sleep, Peggy 
 
THE SOUTHERN WAY 235 
 
 awoke with a start and a jar through all her nerves. 
 The car trembled under the vast purr of the engine ; 
 they had stopped. Yet outside was nothing but a few 
 cottages crouching on the ground like black ants, 
 and the moonlight flooding a wide, level landscape. 
 She went on sentry duty, instantly. Tyler s curtains 
 never moved, but a brakeman bustled through the 
 shrouded aisle, swinging his red lantern. Him the 
 porter encountered, and their colloquy was audible : 
 "Why we stopping ? To water? 
 
 "That s right." 
 
 "How long behind are we?" 
 
 "Oh, hour n half, mebbe hour and three quar 
 ters." 
 
 A hand, only a hand, came out of the curtains 
 which Peggy watched. The fingers unbuttoned a 
 flap. Next the curtains bulged. Finally they part 
 ed, letting Tyler step forth. He was completely 
 dressed, his hat on his head, and he was carrying 
 his heavy bag. 
 
 For the merest second he hesitated, peering to 
 right and left, before he briskly walked after the 
 brakeman. 
 
 Peggy slipped out of her section. She reached 
 the vestibule just as Tyler jumped off the steps. Al 
 most at the same moment the conductor appeared 
 out of the other car. He sprang after the man with 
 the bag. 
 
 "We ve only stopped to water," he called; "look 
 out for the engine !" 
 
 True enough, another engine was drawn up to 
 the huge dripping red tank on the parallel rails and 
 its headlight shed a luminous stream around its 
 
236 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 black nozzle. In the disk of light, Tyler s figure 
 showed plainly. He did not turn his head; but he 
 began to walk faster. His evident intention was to 
 get behind the engine of the freight train, where 
 were some sheds. 
 
 "Arrest him!" cried Peggy. 
 
 The conductor ran ; he called on Tyler in the name 
 of the law to halt. He caught one flap of his coat, 
 but Tyler wrenched it away and broke loose, run 
 ning at right angles. Instantly Peggy fired. She 
 aimed at his leg. He fell, dropping the bag, but was 
 up almost instantly. He snatched at the bag, but 
 could not reach it, for the conductor was on him 
 again; but all the railway man got was a blinding 
 blow between the eyes from his quarry, who had 
 whirled in a flash, struck, and darted across the 
 track. The conductor righted himself on his feet; 
 but he did not pursue, for the freight engine was 
 moving. He saw Peggy standing by the bag. She 
 had leaped from the car steps and run to it. She lift 
 ed it with an effort, and came toward him, stumbling 
 a little as she walked. 
 
 "Did he hurt you?" cried Peggy; "he was right 
 in line with you, and I didn t dare shoot again. 
 When you got out of range I couldn t see him. I 
 reckon he ll tumble down, anyhow ; I know I hit 
 him in the leg. Did he hurt you ?" 
 
 "Not worth mentioning. Just as well you didn t 
 fire again," responded the conductor philosophic 
 ally, "so long s you got the loot. Is it all right?" 
 
 "It feels all right," said Peggy, extending the 
 russia-leather bag. 
 
 "Thunder !" exclaimed the worthy man, surprised 
 
THE SOUTHERN WAY 
 
 2 37 
 
 out of his manners; "why, it weighs a ton! It s 
 locked all right." 
 
 "No, only a spring catch. I know it. This way/ 
 She suited the action to the word, and opened the 
 bag a narrow chink, wide enough for the conductor 
 to give a single glance ere he shut it with a snap, 
 muttering: "Best not let anybody see that again, 
 Miss Rutherford. I ll carry it in for you. You 
 folks best take charge of it ; you know where it be 
 longs. I ll have to report this at the end of my run, 
 and I guess Mr. Raimund will explain to the police." 
 He bent his head and lowered his voice. "Chuck 
 full!" muttered he; "gold! No, nothing s the mat 
 ter, Dan," to the engineer, who had clambered 
 down and was running up to him "just a thief 
 tried to sneak off with this lady s bag. Had to fire 
 a pistol to make him drop it. No, nothing wrong; 
 no strike," this to two dark heads protruding like 
 anaglyphs from the side of the car "just a thief. 
 Good Lord! here s a fresh batch of em!" as two 
 porters and a passenger panted into earshot "yes, 
 you did hear a pistol; but it wasn t of any conse 
 quence. A thief; fired to scare him; he d stolen a 
 lady s bag. No, Peter, I don t need your pop or 
 your razor, and it is against the rules for you to 
 carry a pop," he was now addressing Peggy s 
 friendly porter, who straggled up, last of all, armed 
 to the teeth, but less sanguinary of aspect than of 
 equipment ; for he was wearing a demoralized grin. 
 "Hullo, Mr. Raimund; you re too late for the ex 
 citement; but you can take the victor back to the 
 car. I ll carry the spoils." 
 
 Cecil looked deeply aggrieved; he explained that 
 
238 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 he had kept awake for hours, and then merely 
 dropped off for a minute, and nobody waked him. 
 
 "Never mind, honey," laughed Peggy, "you are 
 the one that really did it and saved the bag, for it 
 was your pistol hit him. Come on in !" 
 
 Her eyes were like stars, her face glowed even in 
 the moonlight. Every man in the group had a sud 
 den sense of her beauty, and at the same time of her 
 own unconsciousness of it; the bald-headed con 
 ductor smiled upon her with a kind of fatherly pride, 
 while Cis caught his breath and whispered : "Peggy, 
 you ve got sand to burn !" 
 
 But Peggy noticed nothing ; she had saved John 
 ny s money; she would win Johnny away from his 
 ruinous dreams; on the whole, she was glad that 
 she had not hurt Tyler much ; she did not want to 
 hurt anybody in the world. Away, far down the 
 horizon, she saw the western train, a wavering, 
 jointed worm of fire, crawl through the darkling 
 fields : she had never been so happy in her life ! 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE PRINCESS OLGA^S DAY 
 
 A tall young workingman stood in the Raimund 
 vestibule. His sack-coat was buttoned over his blue 
 flannel shirt and his heavy boots were varnished. 
 Carstairs, the second man, opened the door. "Other 
 door," he began in languidly haughty tones, view 
 ing the smiling artisan under his eyelids ; but at the 
 second glance he started palpably, a thing which he 
 had not been known to do during his five years of 
 office at Mrs. Raimund s. "Mr. Winslow! I beg 
 pardon, sir," he gasped. 
 
 Johnny smiled the grim sort of smile which recog 
 nizes rather than relishes the humor of a situation. 
 
 "I ve got a job, Carstairs," said he. 
 
 "And I m no glad to hear it, sir, if you ll pardon 
 me saying so, sir," said Carstairs. 
 
 Johnny laughed. "Jobs are good things, Car- 
 stairs. I hope I ll do mine as well as you do yours. 
 Are the ladies in ?" 
 
 "Mrs. Winslow is out, sir; but Miss Rutherford 
 is in, sir." 
 
 "Tell her I am here, please." 
 
 Johnny s hand stole to his pocket, fell on the 
 monition of his conscience, then defiantly went back, 
 and he slipped a coin into the Scotchman s hand. 
 
 2 39 
 
240 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 As Carstairs departed he wagged his head. "I 
 doubt he s no blate," commented Carstairs in his 
 own tongue, "but he s an awfu gran lad !" 
 
 Johnny sat down in the reception-room and 
 looked about him. The familiar splendor of the 
 noble hall, the vista of beautiful and stately rooms 
 came to him as if to a stranger, as if he were the 
 mechanic to whom his boots belonged. His eyes 
 strayed from the soft tracery of the lace curtains 
 to the rich hues of stained glass in the great stair- 
 window, and the duller but equally rich dyes of the 
 marvelous rugs woven centuries ago by a patient 
 skill that triumphed over time. In the mood of a 
 stranger he felt their taste, but more their luxury. 
 The shifting sea-green of the heavy silk, with which 
 the walls of the little salon were hung, was broken 
 by exquisite old French etchings in frames that 
 looked like carved ivory, etchings of the same date 
 as the curiously inlaid table and cabinet and formal 
 chairs, or the faintly tinted tapestries half hiding 
 the doorway. The whole room exhaled the at 
 mosphere of an alien pomp, the delicate arrogance 
 of a vanished generation of aristocrats who had 
 died for their pride, and died smiling. Beyond was 
 a court, with palms and hydrangeas and luxuriant 
 vines framing the white serene beauty of the foun 
 tain, a charming court in perfect harmony of detail, 
 but as alien as the charming room. 
 
 Johnny smiled. "Yes, I m outside," he said, 
 "clean outside. And I m afraid I don t like it." 
 
 "Miss Rutherford says, would you kindly walk 
 up stairs to Mrs. Raimund s parlor?" announced 
 Carstairs. 
 
THE PRINCESS OLGA S DAY 241 
 
 Meanwhile Peggy, in Mrs. Raimund s parlor, had 
 risen from the davenport and was standing. Thus 
 she awaited Johnny. She was beautiful in her simple 
 white gown, which, nevertheless, had been adjusted 
 in every fold, and immaculately fresh ribbons added 
 to its pleasantness. The faint shadows under the 
 oval of her cheek rounded her rose-white throat, 
 and her cheek flushed and faded with her thoughts. 
 
 Johnny s eyes grew darker; he wished he were 
 free to kneel at her feet. 
 
 But she was thinking that there never was a 
 knightlier young man than he. And with an inde 
 scribable glow of pride she, who was older two years 
 by the sun and ten by her knowledge of the world, 
 compared his stainless life with that of most of the 
 gilded youth that she had known. Her heart over 
 flowed with a half-maternal affection, dating back 
 so many years. She felt for him the love of his 
 mother or his sister, so she told herself. He smiled 
 up at her. The wind had ruffled the shallow waves 
 of hair on his shapely black head; his olive cheek 
 was as smooth as a woman s had he not spent an 
 hour shaving himself ! Indeed, never in his days of 
 luxury had he taken such thought and pains with a 
 toilet. 
 
 "Well, Peggy," said he, "accept my congratula 
 tions and a tremendous scolding for being so reck 
 less! You ll shorten my life, scaring me so! And 
 so you actually shot Tyler, you little fire-eater! 
 Oh, Peggy, it was horribly reckless ; he might have 
 shot you, dear !" 
 
 "He was too busy running," laughed Peggy. "I 
 did the shooting; but it was just a toy pistol, you 
 
242 
 
 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 understand, and he only stumbled and got up again. 
 Boys don t know anything about pistols." 
 
 "I know the kind. They say out West, If you 
 ever shoot me with that popgun and I find it out, 
 you ll get hurt F " 
 
 "Yes, just that kind. But do sit down, Jo nivan !" 
 
 She seated herself on the davenport and let John 
 ny get on one knee and kiss her hand, with a jest. 
 Johnny looked very nice in that attitude. But when 
 he rose he sat an unnecessary distance away, and of 
 a sudden he had grown very pale. 
 
 "Who told you?" said Peggy, returning to the 
 important subject. It was extremely entertaining 
 to have Johnny in such a proper frame of mind. 
 
 "Billy Bates. He got the story from Mrs. Wins- 
 low. Billy is pretty sore," said Johnny dryly; "I 
 can t help enjoying it a bit, for Billy always pulls 
 things off, you know, and he had Tyler s passing 
 so beautifully planned out : Rescue of the Lamb by 
 William Bates and Mrs. Winslow. Tyler sent to 
 the pen, and me weeping tears of gratitude on both 
 their noble shoulders ! Then Tyler was too slick for 
 him. But Billy s a real sport and he s wild over 
 you!" 
 
 "How was Tyler too slick? You tell me your 
 story, and I ll tell you mine. This is cozy and comfy, 
 like old times, isn t it?" 
 
 Now, why should a kind of shadow fall over 
 Jo nivan s face? Perhaps it was her fancy, for im 
 mediately he chuckled. 
 
 "Why, it was this way," said he; "Billy found 
 out that Tyler knew I had the money in my room, 
 early in the morning. He had seen Tyler buying a 
 
THE PRINCESS OLGA S DAY 243 
 
 money-belt at a pawnshop the day before, and also 
 a mustache at a costumer s, or barber s, or some 
 where, and Billy suspected him at once, for he has 
 locked horns with Wally before ; I am afraid he was 
 right about his not being square, now; I ll own up 
 and tell you that I didn t exactly like some things 
 about him, myself; yet he stood by me so stanchly 
 in some rackets I had that I wouldn t believe the 
 stories; and, to show my confidence in a friend, I 
 was a fool and told him about that money. Well, 
 he was the main one, I see now, who induced me to 
 get cash. It was a plot from the first, and he didn t 
 expect I would give away that twenty-five thou 
 sand, not he ; he meant to nab the whole. 
 
 "But to get back to Billy. He was confident 
 Tyler had stolen the money or would steal it 
 that day. So he set a man to shadow him. But 
 Tyler got on to the shadow game. I figure that 
 he got it out of the room that morning while I 
 was with you. It was easy enough for him to 
 get into my room, pretending I had given him 
 the wrong key and he was to fetch me some 
 thing. He had a horse and buggy waiting; and he 
 had an appointment with me to go to half a dozen 
 places, about the strike, all over the city. I say, 
 Peggy* ne na d his nerve with him, all right. He 
 drove around all day with that bag in the buggy 
 under the seat! I got on the wrong side once and 
 hit something with my feet must have been it! 
 And Billy s poor sleuth was roasting and frying, 
 running after us. Why, once, we met Billy himself 
 (in a cab), and I told him Tyler and I were just 
 going out to Pullman. That was almost five o clock. 
 
244 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 Billy naturally concluded Wally had put off swiping 
 the money until night. He made beautiful prepara 
 tions for passing the night at Wulf s, in the room 
 next to mine. Then, about ten minutes after, Tyler 
 stopped at a saloon to telephone to his sister, who 
 was ill. He wanted me to get out and take a 
 schooner with him; but I didn t feel a thirst, so I 
 stayed and held the horse and guarded that bag 
 without knowing, while he stepped inside. Hadn t 
 he his nerve with him ! He did send out the bar- 
 keep, though, to ask me some questions." 
 
 "Why did he go in?" said Peggy. 
 
 "To get his excuse. Don t you see? Sister was 
 worse; he d have to go straight over to the West 
 Side. He got me on the street-cars like a little lamb, 
 and then he sprinted over to the Rock Island depot, 
 picked up somebody to drive his buggy back to the 
 stable and just had time himself to change his hair 
 and his mustache in the depot, and hop on the 
 limited." 
 
 "Then that was how he risked taking that bag?" 
 said Peggy thoughtfully ; "it puzzled us a little." 
 
 "He had to take it. He hadn t time to make a 
 change. I suppose he meant to change his clothes, 
 too, but there wasn t time." 
 
 "How did the money happen to be in gold ? That 
 hampered him, too." 
 
 "Why, that was well, it was what you call my 
 theatrical streak, I suppose. There is a lot of rot 
 talked nowadays among workingmen about the de 
 monetization of silver, and I m an out-and-out gold 
 man; so I d a fancy to give the boys gold. Pure 
 nonsense, you know, but it turned out to be lucky 
 
THE PRINCESS OLGA S DAY 245 
 
 nonsense, for Tyler might have got off if he could 
 have wadded his money-belt with paper " 
 
 "Oh, Johnny, I meant to tell you there s an aw 
 ful oversight " 
 
 "That I m a thousand or two shy ? Yes, I couldn t 
 get it all gold. I dare say he stowed away the long 
 green the first thing. But there were a couple of 
 thousand he missed; I didn t put them in the bag. 
 I hope, Peggy, you remembered the train boys." 
 
 "Yes, Mrs. Raimund said she would if you 
 wouldn t. I hope you won t think we were too lav 
 ish. We gave the conductor a hundred ; he got such 
 a lump on his forehead where Tyler hit him, and he 
 was such a nice man with a large family, and he 
 wants to send his daughter to Smith College " 
 
 "That s all right. Thank you so much, Peggy. 
 And the porter?" 
 
 "Oh, we gave him twenty; he wasn t very ef 
 ficient, but he was watching then you don t really 
 mind so much, Jo nivan? I was afraid he might 
 have taken more. And there is a Very tidy stake 
 left ; Mr. Raimund says. You can make a lot more 
 out of it " 
 
 Johnny shook his head. "I shan t be in a very 
 money-making business," said he; "but no, I don t 
 mind, perhaps, as much as I ought, for the poor fel 
 lows needed every cent of the " 
 
 "Johnny!" Peggy almost screamed; "do you 
 mean oh, you can t mean that you have had this 
 warning and then this escape, and now you will go 
 on, the same Jo nivan, it isn t fair to me ! Do you 
 reckon I would have risked my life for the Railway 
 Union and those murdering lunatics that stoned 
 
246 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 women and little babies ? I d rather Tyler got every 
 last cent of it! I would so! You ve no right to give 
 the money that I ve fought and bled for," her 
 voice broke in a hysterical little laugh "you ve no 
 right to give it away!" 
 
 "I ve no right to keep it," said Johnny. 
 
 "You never did give it over to that horrid lot " 
 
 "I promised it; it truly isn t mine." 
 
 "And do you mean that after you have found out 
 how cruel and selfish these demagogues can be, 
 after you ve seen for yourself that they are just as 
 hard and grasping as the capitalists, and dishonest 
 to boot do you mean that you are not willing to 
 please the friends who have helped you in your 
 trouble and who care for you more than anybody 
 else, you are not willing to wait and think things 
 over and see for yourself whether these dangerous 
 experiments are going to help ? Jo nivan, I never did 
 ask you anything on earth ; but I ask you, now, one 
 thing, only one thing wait six months, only six 
 months ; then, if you feel that your honor and your 
 conscience demand you should throw away such 
 great opportunities and break all our hearts, I prom 
 ise you, on my honor, I will not say a word to 
 dissuade you. Won t you, dear Jo nivan?" 
 
 "The strike would be lost in six months, Peggy ; 
 and don t you see, dear, I have promised the 
 money? I have to give it. Besides, I ought to give 
 it. Tyler s being a rogue isn t the fault of the Rail" 
 way Union. He was stealing their money, not mine,, 
 really." 
 
 "Do you still cling to those anarchists?" Peggy 
 caught his words away, with a stamp of her foot 
 
THE PRINCESS OLGA S DAY 247 
 
 "and is that why you are wearing those ridiculous 
 clothes ? You have carried out the threats you made 
 me, have you? You have thrown in your lot with 
 the proletariat; you want to level us all; and your 
 money will go to help cut our throats and burn our 
 houses " 
 
 "Peggy, if you would just be calm, be reasona 
 ble" 
 
 "I am calm," declared Peggy, whose eyes were 
 flashing and cheeks burning, while Johnny looked 
 paler every moment, "and I say to you, now, Jo ni- 
 van, that if you refuse the first and only favor I ever 
 did ask of you, I will never speak to you again, to 
 save your life !" 
 
 "Is Miss Rutherford in Mrs. Raimund s parlor?" 
 The two excited young creatures heard Mrs. Wins- 
 low s voice ; the tones were particularly clear ; it was 
 almost as if the speaker gave warning of her ap 
 proach. Johnny sprang to his feet. 
 
 "I have to go," he cried. His voice was unsteady; 
 he had lost his temper a little, too. "I was wrong to 
 expect you to understand. But I will do the only 
 thing I can to show my gratitude. I will never 
 trouble you again." 
 
 "We re in here, Aunt Emma," called Peggy 
 sweetly, but she curled her lip for Johnny s bene 
 fit. 
 
 Johnny shut his teeth and darted out of the room ; 
 the red russia-leather bag lay on the sofa ; he would 
 have- left it in his haste had not his foot caught on a 
 rug which slid on the slippery floor under the im 
 petus of his plunge, and in his effort to save him 
 self he touched the sofa, and thus perceived the bag. 
 
248 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 He picked it up as his stepmother entered. He 
 greeted her with an effort at composure and the 
 gratitude which he had determined to have. 
 
 "I must go/ he said, "although I have not half 
 thanked Peggy for what she has done for me. 
 Thank you, too, for your efforts. I feel glad that 
 my father s estate will be in such honorable and 
 careful hands. It is as he would have wished. Good- 
 by." 
 
 "I understand," said Mrs. Winslow ; "please stay, 
 Johnny !" 
 
 But Johnny went. He held his head very stiffly 
 and did not turn back once, nor hesitate a second, 
 until he was in the hall below. There he paused; 
 he cast a defiant glance at the mocking beauty of the 
 Louis Seize room and the court. "This suits her 
 better, I dare say," said he, and his heart was hot 
 and bitter within him; but as his eye ran over his 
 own image in a mirror, from his rough clothing 
 to the bag in his hand with its faded and battered 
 elegance, something rose in his throat. He kissed 
 the broken initials. 
 
 "Oh, mamasa, mamasa!" he murmured, uncon 
 sciously reverting to the speech of his childhood and 
 his first passionate love, "I ve done my best to keep 
 my promise. If you only could come back a little 
 while!" 
 
BOOK III 
 
 JOHN 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 PEAU DE CHAGRIN 
 
 In the late autumn of the year 1895 John Wins- 
 low stood in the grim little Kensington street which 
 fronted a winter-stung prairie, looking across its 
 dreary acres, at the spirals of smoke curdling in the 
 sky above the factories of Pullman. The street was 
 in its winter disarray, the more unkempt for the 
 many windows gaping like blind eyes before empty 
 shops, and the litter of rubbish on the sidewalks. 
 The low wooden or brick buildings looked dwarfish 
 beside the broad roadway. There was the dinginess 
 of soft coal smoke about the paint, about the glass, 
 about the whole town. Bare trees and skeleton 
 shrubs could mask sordidness no longer, with the 
 transient gaiety of growing foliage. The place had 
 the battered and slinking mien of a drunkard on the 
 morning after. 
 
 From one of the vacant shops a footpath stretched 
 a line of yellow-brown through a hatching of 
 withered herbage. How many dragging feet had 
 traced, by infinite, weary pounding, that clear line" ! 
 Johnny, sadly and bitterly following its oblique 
 course, beheld again the procession of ill-clad, tired 
 men with their flour sacks, which had moved over 
 it a year ago. The load in the sack dwindled every 
 
 251 
 
THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 day ; but the heavy-hearted men trod the path stead 
 ily, through the pitiless heat of that rainless sum 
 mer, until the empty counter met their empty hands 
 and the curt scrawl in the window warned them 
 away. 
 
 Remembering the summer, Johnny s face dark 
 ened. It was a thinner and more haggard face 
 than when Peggy flung her parting flash of petu 
 lance at it. He was dressed in a dark suit which was 
 a little shabby, although tidily brushed and pressed. 
 (Johnny had pressed it himself.) At his elbow 
 stood Billy Bates, cheerful of countenance, but much 
 chastened in toilet since he had become Johnny s 
 friend. With more or less writhings of soul he had 
 relinquished divers snowdrift grays and vigorous 
 effects in plaids, as well as a diamond scarf-pin and 
 the general morning wear of a tall silk hat. He did 
 not yet know that he might wear his tile on Sundays 
 at any hour; wherefore his freckles were shielded 
 with a plain black derby, and a crimson neck-scarf 
 flaunted the only bit of gay color about him. 
 
 Billy continued the subject that had occupied 
 them. 
 
 "Well, I don t believe we are going to be able to 
 flag Bloker this bright, beautiful Sunday morning, 
 as the story-books say." 
 
 "How was he off when you heard last?" 
 
 "Bad enough. He stuck it out at Pullman to the 
 last ditch, run errands and was cat s-paw for the 
 slicker fellows, who saved something out of the 
 wreck. You know his wife died?" 
 
 "I don t know anything but the fact ; how was it?" 
 
 "Pneumonia. And the daughter killed herself " 
 
PEAU DE CHAGRIN 253 
 
 "What?" cried Johnny. "I knew she was dead, 
 but not not " 
 
 "Well, she fell into melancholy, and one night 
 when he was off she turned on the x gas. She meant 
 to kill the children, too, but they pulled through. 
 They offered to take em to an asylum, but he 
 skipped out with them. I wanted to dig up a fiver 
 for him, myself; but I couldn t find him. Some men 
 are so damned unlucky. Now, you wouldn t believe 
 it, but that fellow opposed the strike " 
 
 "I know he wanted to give in, at one time. That s 
 why I m after him now." Johnny rammed his hands 
 in his pockets and took a turn to warm himself. 
 
 "Why didn t you wear your overcoat ?" grumbled 
 Billy. 
 
 Johnny laughed, while a faint red crept up under 
 the pale olive of his cheek. 
 
 "Say! you ain t?" 
 
 "No, I haven t sent it to Poco. This weather 
 isn t cold enough for coats !" 
 
 "Did you give it away?" demanded Billy, in the 
 stern tones of a physician dragging out a patient s 
 misdemeanors in diet. 
 
 Johnny laughed peevishly. "Let my clothes alone, 
 Billy ! When was it" 
 
 "You tell me about that good overcoat, first. 
 Have you got it now ? No ? I can see you ain t. All 
 right. I tell you one thing straight from the shoul 
 der ; Ivan, you ain t fit to live in a city !" 
 
 "Well, if you will have it," Johnny s inextin 
 guishable sweetness of disposition had asserted it 
 self and he smiled as he laid a hand on Billy s 
 shoulder; thereat Billy grunted "it was this way. 
 
254 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 You remember when the boys got so discouraged 
 just before I plunked all my little pile into the hole?" 
 
 "You made more than you intended happy by 
 that virtuous but driveling act," observed Billy, pull 
 ing out his cigar-case. "Have one? Now," as 
 Johnny shook his head "now, there you are again, 
 carrying economy to a vicious extent ; you ain t pay 
 ing for those cigars !" 
 
 "I know, but I d be pampering an extravagant 
 taste, and maybe should want them when I couldn t 
 have them, smoking them; a pipe ll do me. But I 
 was going to tell you ; when I made that speech at 
 the meeting out there " 
 
 "I remember. Hell ! that was a jimdandy ! I knew 
 it was playing against a cold deck and the boys 
 would have to take their medicine, and the quicker 
 the better ; but when I heard you talking I felt like 
 a quitter; I was mad at myself for having good 
 judgment. Ivan, I ve heard a damned sight of slick 
 talkers, but I never heard a feller that pulled you 
 up by the roots like you did that night! It wasn t 
 the money you were giving, either, that only 
 proved you meant what you said. It was you. Why, 
 the men next me were crying out loud! And next 
 minute they were laughing! They d have followed 
 you straight to hell that night if you d asked them !" 
 
 "They did!" answered Johnny gloomily. "Poor 
 Bloker for one, anyhow. He came to me after the 
 meeting, his face quivering and his hair standing 
 up different ways all over his head " 
 
 "Red hair," explained Billy; "maybe that made 
 him so emotional. He was awfully easy worked, 
 too. Anybody down on his luck could get Bloker s 
 
PEAU DE CHAGRIN 
 
 2 55 
 
 last quarter. You ve got to be a little hard-hearted 
 in this world !" 
 
 "He said that he had about made up his mind to 
 give in and advise the others to give in. It was no 
 use ; the odds were too big ; but now, said he, you ve 
 put the sand in me, I m game to fight to a finish! 
 He did, too; and now I know what it cost him. 
 Billy, it s an awful shame; but there were so many 
 fellows clapping me on the back and hugging me 
 that night; and I had been feeling like a limp rag, 
 wondering whether I hadn t made a blooming idiot 
 of myself letting myself go the way I did, and when 
 I found out they didn t think so, I suppose it went to 
 my head, and I didn t notice things. Bloker was 
 just one of the crowd to me, and he slipped out of 
 my mind. Yet he was giving up more than I, for he 
 was sacrificing his wife and children " 
 
 "Which he hadn t no manner of right to do," 
 Billy amended through a puff of smoke; "there s 
 reason in all things." 
 
 "I led him on to do it. But for me he would have 
 given in and gone to work ; he d never have lost his 
 wife, or she d have died in comfort; and the girl 
 would never have worried herself crazy. Billy, I 
 saw their house once. It was such a pitifully neat, 
 comfortable little parlor, and that poor girl was 
 singing at the little melodeon ; they hadn t begun to 
 sell the things off bit by bit oh, damn me! And I 
 didn t even keep him in my mind ; I missed him and 
 forgot all about him until I almost ran into him on 
 the street last Thursday. He gave me one look and 
 ran as if I were a policeman. He was thin, he was 
 ragged, his eyes made me sick " 
 
256 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 "You didn t catch him?" asked Billy. 
 
 "No; if I d had more n my nickel for the cars 
 and hadn t got to get to my job too quick to run it, 
 I d have chased him ; but I hadn t had him in mind, 
 and it was so sudden, he was off before I really got 
 on to the situation. But I asked some of the boys, 
 and they told me what they had heard ; and well, I 
 was low in cash and that s where the coat went. I 
 sold it to an opulent rooster, who only gets one-fifty, 
 but has got it all summer and a cinch on it all win 
 ter." 
 
 "And you are hunting up Bloker to squander it 
 on ? Well, we ll come to that later. Just now I want 
 to find out why you re damning yourself." 
 
 "I ve ruined him; I ve broken up his home; I ve 
 killed his wife, driven his daughter crazy " 
 
 "Don t get excited! Say, what sort of nights do 
 you expect big generals and kings would have if 
 they got to thinking what happens to the soldiers? 
 You gave up everything you had; you know you 
 did; you re a gentleman, and you left your crowd 
 and your relations and and everybody. If he gave 
 up his wife, you gave up having a wife; you say, 
 yourself, you hold a man with your opinions ain t 
 got the right to ask a girl to marry him. You 
 worked like a dog. Damn it, you re no more n skin 
 and bone yourself ! You were perfectly honest, and 
 you didn t ask no more n you were willing to give ! 
 I m sorry for Bloker. I m sorry for all the Pullman 
 chaps, but I say he hasn t got the right to reproach 
 you, nor you haven t got any reasonable reason to 
 reproach yourself." 
 
 Johnny kicked a tin can off the sidewalk, scowl- 
 
PEAU DE CHAGRIN 357 
 
 ing-. "I ve gone over all that, Billy. In the first 
 place, while I went in, I thought unselfishly to help 
 the fellows who didn t have a chance; it wasn t all 
 to help them ; it was a good deal because long ago I 
 promised. Then, I wasn t going to be coerced by my 
 father s will. I resented it, and I resented having my 
 stepmother have the control of things, and I wanted 
 to be a leader and show the people who were sneer 
 ing at me what I could do oh, my motives were 
 mixed " 
 
 "Lord, ain t they always ! It s healthier and more 
 natural they should be. Don t you know you can t 
 work pure gold ? it s too soft !" 
 
 "In the second place, no man has a right to urge 
 other men into a fight that may ruin them without 
 having a reasonable assurance he is going to win. 
 A strike is a devilish thing. It was my business to 
 be sure it was a righteous strike in the first place, 
 and that there was a good chance of its winning in 
 the second. I didn t do either. I jumped in over my 
 head without knowing how I d get out. In short, 
 I ve been a damn fool and a damn scoundrel." 
 
 He kicked another tin, this time a sardine box. 
 "Don t you think we d better be heading for the 
 city? There ll be a lot of our fellows hanging 
 around the committee meeting, and though they ve 
 taken mighty good care not to put me on the com 
 mittee, I may get at the men all the same and head 
 off Tyler. Maybe I ll get a chance at Bloker at the 
 factory. I was told at his house that the shops were 
 doing a little repair work to-day, and he was at it. 
 So I think I ll try there after the meeting." 
 
 "I don t think/ mused Billy, they had turned 
 
258 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 and were walking toward the station, "you ll git 
 them to call off the strike at Wethers ." 
 
 "What s going to be the trouble, Tyler?" 
 
 "Tyler," pronounced Billy, puffing at his cigar. 
 
 "And what s his little game ?" 
 
 "After the dough, of course. As usual. I have it 
 pretty straight that he s dickering with the old man, 
 to settle. But they haven t come to his figure. Till 
 they do, he ll be hot for holding on, at least a while 
 longer. Besides, it makes him safer if there s any 
 talk. No, you won t get the strike called off before 
 the last of the week." 
 
 "That will mean bloodshed ; the boys are getting 
 desperate about the new men. Billy, what are you 
 here for?" 
 
 "Me? Oh, they want a sympathetic strike of the 
 molders in Fairport at the Old Colony ; that s in my 
 district now. They ve a contract to make Wethers 
 patterns, and they are naturally doing it. Some of 
 your crowd want them called out." 
 
 "Shall you let them go?" 
 
 "I shan t. I am down on monkeying with con 
 tracts. I m not altogether particular about keeping 
 the commandments; but I ll keep my word if it 
 busts me. It s kind of maddening, though, to be 
 playing Tyler s game, for he ll lay the strike failing 
 on to me, see if he won t, while he ll work to call it 
 off the minute he gets his price. Oh, he s a slick as 
 sassin ! Wouldn t it kill you dead, though, to see 
 that infernal plundering thief toddling back and 
 bossing the very fellers he stole from !" 
 
 "He knows our mouths are shut," said Johnny be 
 tween his teeth. 
 
PEAU DE CHAGRIN 259 
 
 "They are that," said Billy. "I didn t under 
 stand at first, but" he flushed over his high cheek 
 bones "I guess you ve made me enough of a gen 
 tleman now, Ivan, to understand that we can t drag 
 a lady s name into our fights. Oh, he got a good 
 bargain. Fifteen hundred for a game leg for a 
 month !" 
 
 Johnny laid his arm affectionately on the other s 
 shoulder. "You are a gentleman, Billy. And I 
 can t claim any credit. If I could it would only be 
 a fair deal, for if I have made a gentleman of you, 
 I hope you ll succeed in making a man of me." 
 
 "You re one already. Take away the taffy! 
 But I tell you, Ivan, if I am not a gentleman, now, 
 before God, I will be some day. We ve had them 
 in the family ; I ve heard mother tell of them. But 
 I ll tell you, Ivan, you ve done a thundering lot to 
 help me. I used to think the whole business was 
 a skin game; rich folks on one side, poor folks on 
 the other. The rich trying to skin the poor, and 
 the poor getting the knife in deep whenever they 
 got a show. Any slick trick was good enough so 
 long s it was real slick! If you were a mighty 
 decent feller (as I meant to be), you played fair 
 with your own gang, but the more you could fool 
 the other side the better ! But since I have known 
 you I have come to see that there are things you 
 can t talk about that count more than tin. You 
 can t cheat the other side. You ve got to keep your 
 word if you give it to a Chink ! It s your word just 
 the same, no matter who gets it, or what they do 
 with it." 
 
 "That s being a gentleman, Billy," said Johnny. 
 
260 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 "Well, besides," Billy was so full of his theme 
 he did not notice Johnny s growing abstraction 
 "besides, it has been beaten into my head that there 
 are lots of things the biggest union or the biggest 
 king, either, can t do ! Like this : if you ve got a 
 little corn crop, as we had last year, nobody can 
 make it into a big one. All the strongest union 
 could do would be to get a fair share. But the 
 biggest share of a small crop mightn t be as big as 
 a small share of a big crop. So I say this question 
 of bullying folks into giving big wages has got its 
 limits. The size of your share don t cut any figure 
 if you ve only got an empty basket to divide ! The 
 unions are a good deal like a lawyer. If you ve 
 got anything coming to you, he ll see you ain t beat 
 out of it. But he didn t make it for you. All the 
 same, lawyers are necessary; and so are unions. 
 Your boss, Wethers, for instance, always cuts wages 
 a little in winter after the men get settled, always 
 snooping about to see how much the fastest men can 
 do in a day; and then cuts the piece rate on that 
 basis. And he s making a fortune while decent men 
 have hard sledding to keep from failing. Well, I 
 guess he s lost money by this strike. I hope so. 
 Pretty mussy world, ain t it, Johnny I mean Ivan." 
 
 "Yes/ said Johnny, knitting his brows; "but I 
 guess Wethers and all of us have to pay for our 
 diversions. Billy, do you know what I was think 
 ing about just now? Not in relation to Wethers, 
 though he will have to pay his lawing, too, in one 
 way or another. But about myself." 
 
 "Ask me something easier," said Billy. 
 
 "Well, I found myself thinking of one of Balzac s 
 
PEAU DE CHAGRIN 261 
 
 novels that I had read in my French course in Har 
 vard" 
 
 "Never heard of him," Billy was puffing hard 
 on a nearly extinguished cigar "you never tolcl 
 me of any of the French duffers, except Hugo and 
 Corneille and Molly something and what s his 
 name ? sounds like troches- for-a-cold." 
 
 "De la Rochefoucauld? Balzac was different; he 
 wrote novels. This one my professor called his 
 most splendid novel. I didn t think so much of it 
 then. It is the story of a tremendously ambi 
 tious young man who is on the point of suicide when 
 he falls into possession of a piece of wild ass s skin, 
 a magical charm, which is well, you remember 
 Aladdin s lamp?" 
 
 "Yes, saw a play of it once. Play wasn t much, 
 but the ballet was out of sight. I expect the Skin 
 gave the Frenchman whatever he wanted, didn t 
 it?" 
 
 "Yes, but with a difference. Raphael that was 
 the sweep s name, and a full-blooded sweep he was, 
 too, with no sand in him Raphael can get anything 
 he wishes from the Skin; but with every granted 
 wish the Skin shrinks. When it is all gone that s 
 the end of him. So he gets fame and wealth and 
 love and dies horribly, in a little while." 
 
 "Why didn t he stop wishing?" 
 
 "He did try; but he couldn t stop. None of us 
 can. He was a selfish cur, and I didn t in the least 
 sympathize with him. Neither did I especially take 
 in the allegory. But I do now. You see, the 
 greater the wish, the more the Skin shrank. And 
 it is the same with us all. The bigger the thing we 
 
262 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 try to do, and the more intense our own feeling, the 
 more we have to pay. I tried to help turn the world 
 upside down. It was too big for me ; but I am pay 
 ing now, and it s a big price!" 
 
 "Look here, Ivan, you are getting daffy." 
 
 "If one could undo anything! But one never 
 can" 
 
 "Well, you and I, together, can do considerable 
 to help Bloker. One thing, let s get a good square 
 meal inside him before to-night." Johnny bright 
 ened. He began to discuss ways and means of help 
 with Billy. It was a pity the poor chap hadn t 
 waited. But Billy would persuade him to give up 
 scabbing for Wethers. They would get him a job. 
 All the way into the city Johnny was making plans ; 
 he did not look up once at the white towers and 
 golden dome of the West s dream of beauty as the 
 train passed them. They were growing a bit dis 
 colored and shabby now, and there were piteous 
 charred gaps where graceless tramps had destroyed 
 their shelter, either through carelessness or wanton 
 brutality. But still unconquered, that stately and 
 lavish architecture held its wonderful sky-line 
 against the pale November sky. Billy felt a thrill 
 and drew a long breath of approbation over his own 
 delight. 
 
 "I m coming on," sighed Billy. "Great Scott! I 
 can remember when I thought a mansard roof was 
 stylish. I m a long way from those days." 
 
 He wanted to talk about the trips Johnny and he 
 had taken to the Exposition together, but after a 
 single eye-blink at his friend s moody profile he 
 shook his head. "He ll have to have it put with 
 
PEAU DE CHAGRIN 263 
 
 himself," said Billy. "Well, he s got to, and I can t 
 help him. Damn it !" 
 
 He looked at Johnny with that admixture of wor 
 ship and familiar, protecting affection which is 
 about as unstained an emotion as our weak and 
 complex human nature allows. Johnny, to him, 
 was not only the most beautiful and noble gentle 
 man in the world and a leader by divine right; he 
 was the creature who needed him, Billy Bates, the 
 most, as well as the one who helped him the most. 
 His own elation of mood vanished in a compassion 
 so keen that it irritated him. 
 
 "Suffering! Suffering like hell, all the time," he 
 raged inwardly, "and he s got to. He s got to find 
 out we ain t a bit more saints than his own sort. 
 We re all cut out of the same piece, pants and coat. 
 The under-dog would chaw the top one s throat if 
 he could; tain t a sweet disposition s got him 
 under!" 
 
 So, unmolested, Johnny sat, his head on his 
 breast ; nor did he speak once until the magic of art 
 was displaced, first by the commonplace comfort of 
 the better-class residence section, and then by the 
 grimy ugliness of the work-a-day part of the down 
 town streets. 
 
 He followed Billy passively out of the train and 
 down the stairs of the station platform, but turned 
 sharply on the last step, with a low-spoken but 
 staccato query : "You don t suppose Tyler would 
 get the meeting put ahead half an hour so s to down 
 me before I got there ?" 
 
 "What s that?" said Billy sharply. 
 
 "He told me it would be at eleven-thirty at 
 
264 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 Einert s place/ Johnny explained. "Did you get 
 any word ?" 
 
 "I only came this morning, unexpected and un 
 welcome, I guess. I go anywhere, you know. I 
 took your word for the time. But Tyler is up {o all 
 sorts of dirty dodges." 
 
 They discovered that their suspicions did Tyler 
 no injustice when they reached the room above the 
 saloon where the meeting of the committee was to 
 take place. A crowd of men waited outside in the 
 undetermined hope of some news which always ani 
 mates strikers. 
 
 Johnny fancied that in spite of their truculent talk 
 they were secretly hoping for a recommendation of 
 peace. With a throb of admiration, Billy noted the 
 instant change in Johnny s own bearing. He was 
 smiling, cheerful, friendly. 
 
 "Do you get on to one thing, Ivan?" Billy whis 
 pered, as they neared the door of a closed room on 
 the third story; "the fellers here are the peaceful 
 crowd, mostly married men. The tough guys have 
 got their tip and are off raising hell somewhere. I 
 wish I knew where." 
 
 By this they were in the hall amid a crowd, star 
 ing at a closed door which ppened immediately. 
 There came out a stout man with bright blue eyes 
 and a head cropped so closely that it was a soft 
 mouse-color and wrinkled in the back. 
 
 "Hullo, Bates, you come to help us out?" cried 
 the man, a business agent for the molders local to 
 which Wethers men belonged, a good-natured, 
 shrewd fellow, who did his best to steer his own 
 craft in troublous waters. His name was Conrad; 
 
PEAU DE CHAGRIN 265 
 
 he was of American birth but German parentage. 
 He looked rather suspiciously from Billy to 
 Johnny. 
 
 Billy greeted Conrad cordially, but the next man 
 who came out he addressed formally as "Mr. Tyler." 
 "Well, what have you decided, Mr. Tyler?" said he. 
 
 "Oh, the strike s on, all right," replied Tyler, 
 striking a match on the sole of his shoe in order to 
 light his cigar. The shoes were varnished, his 
 clothes were new, his linen shone; he looked sleek 
 and prosperous; Johnny thought of Bloker, shabby 
 and disheartened, risking his bones that moment in 
 some striker s place, that he might earn a few dol 
 lars. 
 
 "The boys will be disappointed, won t they?" said 
 Billy mildly. 
 
 "I think they will," said Conrad. 
 
 "They ve got the remedy in their own hands if 
 they want to surrender," Tyler observed carelessly; 
 "I m not a quitter myself," and Billy, close to 
 Johnny, gave him an imperceptible nudge to call his 
 attention to this preparation for the future on the 
 labor diplomat s part. 
 
 "Unless it s worth your while," sneered Johnny 
 which Billy justly assured him afterward was rank 
 folly; but he was angry past weighing his words, 
 just then. 
 
 Tyler seemed as if he had not heard the words; 
 his features were behind a cloud of smoke ; he only 
 puffed a degree harder on his cigar. 
 
 "You didn t even make them a proposition?" 
 asked Johnny of Conrad, who merely shook his 
 head. 
 
266 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 "Course not ; they d know we was weakening" 
 this came from a big, black-browed admirer of 
 Tyler s. His name was Reilly ; he was the president 
 of the blacksmiths local ; he was personally honest, 
 but of a sensitive and pugnacious vanity. Before 
 Johnny found his measure, he had made fun of a 
 pet scheme of Reilly s, thereby earning his ill-will. 
 "We ve found out they ve got a new contract, and 
 they zvant to run." 
 
 "Not enough to keep wages fifteen per cent, higher 
 than they need," said Johnny; "besides, they ve got 
 some men now." 
 
 "Scabs," sneered Reilly, "and some of the old 
 bunks and the apprentices." 
 
 "They ll have protection, whatever they are; and 
 the public will stand by the cops," retorted Johnny. 
 "The company will win this strike, and our only 
 chance of getting our men their jobs is to let them 
 come back now. I believe if you propose to call the 
 strike off and let the boys go back Monday, they ll 
 take about all of them back." Johnny was very much 
 in earnest. 
 
 "Will you carry the proposition for the molders?" 
 asked Tyler with a grin. 
 
 "I m not eager for the job," said Johnny, the 
 red creeping up his cheek, "but rather than have the 
 strike go on another day, I ll take it now." 
 
 "They kicked you out of the shop when you went 
 to talk to them, didn t they?" said the chairman of 
 the committee. It was composed of representatives 
 of the various striking trades employed in the fac 
 tory. He was secretary of the machinists, a ready, 
 shrewd man, not top scrupulous, and very close to 
 
PEAU DE CHAGRIN 267 
 
 Tyler. He shot a keen glance at Johnny as he 
 spoke. Tyler laughed unpleasantly. 
 
 "They tried to," returned Johnny, who seemed 
 amused rather than abashed; but Billy s mellow, 
 rotund voice struck in for the first time, although 
 his eyes and ears had been busy. 
 
 "Yes ; the old man had three regular toughs who 
 call themselves plain clothes men. He got himself 
 in a wax, and told Galitsuin he couldn t go through 
 the shops. Galitsuin was simply bearing the answer 
 after fighting against it ; he was against striking, all 
 the while; but the old fellow for some reason was 
 mad s a hatter. He may have heard some lies about 
 Ivan," without malice or apparent intention, Billy 
 looked at Tyler "so they had a scrap; but Ivan 
 carromed one of the guys against the other, and 
 gave the other guy a job for his dentist before he 
 jumped out of the window. Take it all together, I 
 guess they hadn t anything to brag of." 
 
 Conrad and another man laughed; not so Tyler 
 or his two allies ; and the chairman judged Galitsuin 
 to have been insulted. 
 
 "It makes no difference. I m not in this business 
 for my health, and a few biffs don t cut any ice," 
 said Johnny. "It isn t the question whether I was 
 insulted " 
 
 "The union was insulted," Reilly burst in, "or 
 ganized labor was insulted. We had ought to re 
 sent that" 
 
 "We can t hunt up insults when our men s fam 
 ilies are down to dry bread and a potato apiece for 
 the day!" retorted Johnny. "I haven t a word to 
 say for the Wethers ; they are anything you like. 
 
268 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 And I hope I get a chance to hold them up some 
 time. But they ve got the drop on us now. Our 
 men have been out three weeks ; we haven t a cent in 
 the treasury ; we haven t had for not since Wednes 
 day, anyhow. What s the use ?" 
 
 Conrad looked uncomfortable; the others ex 
 changed glances. The hall was filling up with men. 
 They did not say much, but their murmurs were not 
 of approval of the committee. 
 
 "Well, we ve another meeting to-morrow," said 
 the chairman. "Wethers may see a great light be 
 fore then." 
 
 "I m convinced they re with Tyler, too," Johnny 
 muttered in Billy s ear ; "maybe not Conrad ; but the 
 others are greased, too, damn them!" 
 
 "Maybe not, maybe not," soothed Billy. "I m 
 getting on to their curves, though. The strike will 
 be called off by Wednesday, anyhow, if not to-mor 
 row. Wally is putting up some sort of a bluff to 
 bring Wethers to his terms. You best get a day 
 off, to-morrow, from your loading grocery wagons, 
 and watch em. You can out-talk em and out-fight 
 em, but you can t hold a candle to em playing poli 
 tics, and don t you forget it!" 
 
 "And till Monday" 
 
 "Well, being Sunday, Wethers won t be running 
 and there won t be any mischief " 
 
 "But they are running to-day," exclaimed Johnny. 
 "Billy, those fellows" 
 
 "Down there? Sure!" cried Billy. "Why didn t 
 you tell me before ! Let s get a move on !" 
 
 Johnny was hurrying after him when he was ar 
 rested by a decent, elderly man who caught at his 
 
PEAU DE CHAGRIN 269 
 
 sleeve. "I jest want to ask you in confidence, is 
 there any show for them calling the strike off?" he 
 whispered. "My woman s real sick and she needs 
 things ; if I knowed for sure it was to be called off, 
 I d raise a bit of money and git a bunch of grapes 
 and a bit of bacon." 
 
 "I m so sure it ll be called off to-morrow or next 
 day I ll lend you a dollar," said Johnny. 
 
 His face wore a tiny smile as he joined Billy. 
 
 "I d have given him more, but I think it belongs 
 to Bloker." 
 
 Billy merely wrinkled his nose. The two friends 
 stood out on the car platform, and as they ap 
 proached their destination the conductor illumi 
 nated the situation. 
 
 "Lively time at Wethers this morning, I guess," 
 he began. 
 
 "What they doing?" said Billy, between puffs of 
 his cigar. 
 
 "Pulling out the scabs, I guess. Heard they most 
 killed a feller last night. Well, I ain t sorry. If 
 folks won t stop scabbing from decency and regard 
 for other men s rights, they got to be scared out of 
 it. Stop here? Listen to the racket!" 
 
 The car landed them on the corner opposite Weth 
 ers shops. It was an unsavory neighborhood, filled 
 with mean shops and lean rookeries, grimy with soft 
 coal, and fluttering the ragged laundry of the occu 
 pants over the rickety platforms and staircases which 
 made fire-traps in the rear. The signs of the shops 
 were in strange languages and grotesque lettering, 
 and a polyglot din rolled out of any open shop-door. 
 iThe uneven pavement was diversified by a few raw 
 
270 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 piles of brick, which showed, by their presence, an 
 intention of the corporation to repair, but, by their 
 battered condition and the veil of mud and litter over 
 them, the remoteness of their coming and the uncer 
 tainty of their final end. 
 
 Over everything lay the shadow of the great, 
 dingy bulk of factories. The foundry chimney 
 rose out of the pile, volleying black smoke, such 
 as a raw fireman always spouts from his furnace. 
 Sooty clouds hung low over the stained thorough 
 fare, roaring, now, with a crowd of boys and 
 disheveled women. The women were bareheaded 
 in the sharp air; bare-armed, occasionally, as 
 they rushed out from their household toil; all 
 feminine softness, as well as feminine vanity, 
 ground off them in the fierce attrition of the daily 
 conflict for life. The boys were mostly half-grown 
 lads who had learned English and deviltry at the 
 public schools; but the women shrieked out their 
 fury in their native tongue ; wherefore an undistin- 
 guishable Babel swelled above the roofs, pierced con 
 tinually by one English word, "Scab ! scab !" 
 
 "They re at it," said Billy, shrugging his shoul 
 ders ; "they ve smashed the stockade." 
 
 Johnny had seen more than one such scene of mob 
 passions breaking their leash ; he looked for the 
 center of the storm and discovered it : one man with 
 glaring eyes and white face fleeing before a crowd 
 down the middle of the street, darting under horses 
 feet and worming himself between wagons. His hat 
 was gone, his clothes were torn, there was blood on 
 his face, but he ran with the swiftness of fear. 
 
 "Here!" yelled Johnny, "here! We ll protect 
 
PEAU DE CHAGRIN 271 
 
 you!" All the while he was forging his way 
 through the crowd, Billy at his elbow. 
 
 The fugitive turned. His eyes, staring like bits 
 of glass, went to Johnny s. Whether he had heard 
 or not, he suddenly swerved in his course, dove like 
 a rabbit under a wagon and made straight for the 
 two friends. But the pursuers were hot on his 
 heels, and the leader, a lad of eighteen who worked 
 at Wethers , in Johnny s own shop, sent out a shout : 
 "The bricks! Give him it with the bricks!" In 
 stantly a dozen hands were at the convenient pile 
 and a shower hurtled over the wagons. More than 
 one of the missiles went astray, but one hit the mark. 
 The fugitive toppled over at Johnny s feet. 
 
 A horse was plunging, a woman was screaming, 
 and Billy Bates robust tones penetrated the con 
 fusion, calling a halt to the fusillade. Johnny was 
 on his knees beside the fallen man. He lifted the 
 head, which sagged on his arm. A tiny thread of 
 blood trickled down the matted hair from one 
 temple. The hair was red and stiff, and on the 
 features was fixed a ghastly caricature of that 
 twitching, eager smile Johnny had seen before. 
 
 Billy threw a glance behind him, and turned a 
 grim and white face to the nearest of the crowd. 
 "Keep back!" said he. "He s dead; you ve killed 
 him, all right!" Then as he, too, knelt beside the 
 limp figure, he uttered an exclamation : "Hell ! If it 
 ain t Bloker!" 
 
 Johnny, with pale lips that stiffened, was fumbling 
 about the man s ragged shirt. 
 
 "Only one shirt," muttered Billy; "ain t he 
 dressed poor for this weather? Oh, damn them !" 
 
272 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 "Haven t you got any whisky?" said Johnny, in 
 an even, little voice. "Don t you worry, Bloker ! 
 You re all right. We won t let them touch you." 
 
 "They re skipping fast enough," muttered Billy, 
 "leaving us to be pinched. Don t rub him, Ivan; 
 all the whisky in the world won t help him. Look 
 at his eyes !" 
 
 Johnny shifted the head to an easier position. He 
 did not speak. Billy looked helplessly about him; 
 half the crowd had vanished, but shops and win 
 dows were full of them, gesticulating and chatter 
 ing; and a black-haired, white-toothed fruit-vender 
 was volubly and politely convoying two policemen 
 to the scene. 
 
 "Three lives," said Johnny in the same small, dry 
 voice, "three lives, thrown away because I made a 
 fine speech ! It s a good deal for a man, who tries to 
 be decent, to carry on his conscience all the rest of 
 his life." 
 
PEGGY 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 Mueller, the shipping clerk of Moulton and Com 
 pany, looked up and squinted his eyes dubiously; a 
 very critical man was the shipping clerk in those 
 days of abundant supply of "rooster" talent ; but he 
 liked the quick-witted, athletic, cheerful-tempered 
 new recruit whom he suspected both of another 
 name and far different previous surroundings. 
 "This morning off, Gleason?" said he. "Why?" 
 
 When he engaged the young man, he had won 
 dered to himself : "Is it a newspaper lark, a quarrel 
 with his friends, or has he got to this, spreeing?" 
 Before the new roustabout had been with him a 
 week he decided against the last theory. "Reporter 
 studying us at first hand to write us up in the 
 Record or the Herald 3 he mused; "but he never 
 takes out any pad, and he doesn t ask questions." 
 The shipping clerk crossed off number two from his 
 mind. "I guess it s a irow with the old man, and 
 young mister is on his uppers and going to show his 
 stuff," he decided finally; and he was confirmed in 
 his opinion when Johnny answered, "I don t mind 
 telling you, but I d rather not tell the whole crowd. 
 If you would be so very good as to step this way a 
 minute. 
 
 2 73 
 
274 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 "It is only this," Johnny explained. "I worked 
 at Wethers works until the strike; I opposed the 
 strike, but I didn t count. I went out with the boys ; 
 but I couldn t afford to stay idle, so I got a job here. 
 Now, they are going to discuss ending the strike 
 to-day. I was out late last night getting the boys 
 together and having them come " 
 
 "I thought the thing was left with the Executive 
 Committee." 
 
 "It was. But they would have to submit any 
 thing to the whole of us. And if I ve enough back 
 ing outside, they won t oppose me. I ve got it, too. 
 But they ve a meeting at nine-thirty, and I need to 
 be there." 
 
 "They had some pretty nasty rioting, didn t they, 
 yesterday ?" 
 
 "Yes," said Johnny. 
 
 "I suppose they ll take you back ; so really it don t 
 matter whether I give you the day or not, hey ?" 
 
 "It matters to me; I ll have to take the day, but 
 I don t want to lose this job, for they won t take me 
 back." 
 
 "Why? Did you stir up the trouble?" The 
 shipping clerk looked puzzled. 
 
 "No. I didn t think they ought to strike ; but " 
 the smile that won every one who met Johnny flick 
 ered over his face "do you mind my confiding a 
 bit in you ? The fact is, early in the business I got 
 into a scrap with the firm. I came to try to get 
 some agreement, but instead of getting even the least 
 little concession, which I could have used to persuade 
 the men to end the whole racket, they wouldn t give 
 a thing convinced me, in fact, that they wanted the 
 
A "SCRAP" 275 
 
 strike as an excuse to get out of a losing contract. 
 I said something they didn t like. They had some 
 Pinkertons handy we had a scrap." 
 
 "Who licked?" 
 
 "Both of us, I fancy. I jumped out of the win 
 dow, but I knocked some teeth out for one of the 
 Pinkertons." 
 
 "I see. You re persona non grata at Wethers . 
 But will they take the other men back?" 
 
 "I think so. I m told they have made a new deal 
 with their contracts, and some fresh ones have come 
 in. They want to run, and they ve only a third of 
 a force." 
 
 "But look here, if you don t get on there, and 
 you come here, will you be kicking up a row here? 
 It wouldn t be very bright of me to be hiring that 
 sort now, when I can get my pick. Our roosters 
 ain t organized, but you might be organizing them." 
 
 "Ah, but," suggested Johnny, "I m trying to make 
 peace. / didn t stir up the strike; I got into hot 
 water myself opposing it. All I want here is a steady 
 job until I can get something better, in steel or as a 
 molder, which is my trade. You needn t be afraid of 
 me as a mischief-maker." 
 
 The shipping clerk took a turn. "Ain t he the 
 slickest chap !" he was thinking, with a sort of ad 
 miration. "What is his little game?" He wheeled 
 on the young fellow suddenly and surprised, not a 
 smile, but a look of settled melancholy which gave 
 an unexpected twist to his calloused sympathies. 
 
 "I can t quite make you out," he cried sharply 
 the more sharply that he was touched ; the American 
 sympathy is likely to be irritable when it is not hu- 
 
276 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 morous. "You can t git back yourself, you say ; yet 
 you want to pull things up by the roots to get the 
 rest of the push back. Say, if I won t let you have 
 this morning off, what ll you do? Throw up your 
 job?" 
 
 This time Johnny smiled: "No, I ll take the 
 morning, but try to hang on to the job till you fire 
 me." 
 
 "What you so keen about freezing on to your job 
 for? You ain t married nor widowed?" 
 
 "I m not. But" he hesitated as he looked with 
 a kind of appeal at the clerk s shrewd, city-hardened 
 visage, "I do have some kids that look to me; the 
 poor fellow who was killed yesterday left three little 
 children, and some of us boys are looking out for 
 them." 
 
 "You best not go into the dry-nuss business in 
 this town you ll git too much on your hands ! Say, 
 tell me one thing. Ain t you a gentleman ?" 
 
 "I hope so," said Johnny. 
 
 "Didn t you have a pile of money, once ?" 
 
 "I did," said Johnny, "but this talk is in confi 
 dence." 
 
 "I guess I know who you are," said the clerk, 
 nodding his head. "Allow me to tell you you ve 
 been a damn fool !" 
 
 "I suspect as much myself," said Johnny. 
 
 "If you wanted to help other fellows you d best 
 have hung on to your rope to pull em up. But I 
 guess you ll come out, some way. Mind putting it 
 there?" He held out his hand, and Johnny, with a 
 little flush, clasped it. 
 
 "You can have the day if you like; but say, we re 
 
A "SCRAP" 277 
 
 pretty rushed. Load that truck first, will you ? Get 
 busy there, everybody !" 
 
 He did not know how gratefully Johnny s eyes 
 followed him, but he marked with a grin the mighty 
 heaves of the young man s muscles. And although 
 Johnny did not know it, he had made a good friend. 
 
 The truck was not long in loading under the im 
 petus of such energy, and Johnny found he had time 
 to run to the meeting, saving his car-fare. The 
 exercise of minute economies had lost its savor of 
 novelty and become habit, but this morning it 
 pricked with a fresh zest. How well and how 
 easily once he could have helped the poor little 
 Blokers! But that was the least of the remorse 
 which had robbed him of sleep the night before, and 
 which he doggedly put out of his mind until his 
 work should be done. It was beyond him to-day, 
 however, to assume the blithe mask of yesterday, 
 when he walked into the swaying mass of men at 
 Einert s. 
 
 He returned, gravely, salutations from men al 
 most as grave and stern-looking as he. To this 
 there were exceptions : Tyler s party made a clatter 
 of jokes and laughter; and Tyler himself moved 
 about the hall, his handsome, florid features dealing 
 smiles and his big fist hammering arguments, jocose 
 or belligerent, into his changing audience. Already 
 Johnny was grown quick to gather straws from 
 men s reticence as well as their talk ; he marked how 
 Tyler s hot confidence fell upon cold gloom; how 
 his hearers edged out of his way or slipped out of 
 the circle, or, unable to escape, returned vague and 
 non-committal murmurs instead of applause. These 
 
278 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 were men who would have cringed to him, alone; 
 but nothing is so bracing to courage as company. 
 Each man s known defiance emboldened the others. 
 Tyler s gang couldn t lick them all. Besides, they 
 were sick of the strike. They had begun to suspect 
 Tyler. And they had found a leader. Once or 
 twice Tyler shot lowering glances in Johnny s direc 
 tion, but he made no move to approach him. On 
 the contrary, he imperceptibly changed his own po 
 sition lest they collide. This, too, Johnny marked. 
 It puzzled him. But, had he known, the explana 
 tion was simply the presence of Mr. William Bates. 
 
 Billy was leaning against the bar, drinking the 
 sweet white soda-pop which had become the stand 
 ard subject for jokes about him in the daily journals. 
 He made no pretense to total abstinence, but no one 
 ever saw him drink anything stronger than soda 
 water. 
 
 Billy s garb was studiously chosen in black and 
 grays ; his clean-shaven, amiable, entirely unfathom 
 able countenance was serious. Even his cronies got 
 no more than the flicker of a smile. 
 
 "This is bad business, gentlemen," said Billy be 
 tween sips. "It s no affair of mine, only I can t let 
 my men get mixed up in it." 
 
 This neutrality and the neutral s known conserv 
 atism acted as a magnet to the older and colder men. 
 The group about Billy s innocuous glass swelled by 
 natural attraction. Forth from it, in thread-like 
 undertones, fluttered sinister reflections on Tyler. 
 Not Billy s reflections; Billy, the discreet, simply 
 listened, shook his head and settled himself, morally, 
 more firmly on his fence. But he denied as little as 
 
A "SCRAP" 279 
 
 he affirmed ; he admitted that he had heard things, 
 how true he could not vouch. 
 
 "Who s paying out all this here stuff bout Tyler ?" 
 finally demanded Reilly, wedging his big shoulders 
 between two of Billy s listeners. 
 
 "I don t know who began it," returned Billy, cut 
 ting the tip of a cigar with much nicety, "but 
 you can hear it all round. They say he s greased 
 or he wants to be, and he s holding out till they come 
 to his figure." 
 
 "I guess we ought to know by this time that 
 Tyler s all right ; he s done more to git us recognized 
 and git decent wages than any man in the union," 
 snapped the blacksmith. "I ll say that to anybody." 
 
 "I don t know what he s done, so I can t deny it," 
 answered the pacific viceroy of the molders. "I ve 
 no light on him at all. Gimme five cards !" 
 
 "I guess there ain t anybody in Chicago but knows 
 what Tyler s done and how he s worked and sacri 
 ficed for organized labor." 
 
 "What s he done?" came from the crowd in sev 
 eral sullen voices. One elderly man said that one 
 sure thing was Tyler hadn t raised wages " cause 
 look at em !" 
 
 "But he s kep em from fallin lower," urged 
 Tyler s supporter. 
 
 "Lord ! So ve I," said Billy, "but I ain t sending 
 out a brass band about it. You make me think of 
 a kid s composition : Tins have saved the lives of 
 many people, by their not eating em ! But I m 
 glad to hear you say these stories are all hot air. 
 Still, I guess we d best not send Tyler by himself to 
 dicker with the Wethers Company. You d be a 
 
2 8o THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 good one, and Ivan Galitsuin; there s no question 
 ing your squareness." 
 
 The friend was not beyond the shaft tipped with 
 honey ; he vociferated his belief in Tyler s impecca 
 bility, but he admitted that there might be wisdom in 
 the cautious course. 
 
 Billy s further persuasion was interrupted by a 
 telephone call. The barkeeper, with much defer 
 ence, said that somebody from Fairport wanted to 
 talk with Mr. Bates. And Billy, for once off his 
 guard, betook himself to a long and baffling wrestle 
 with a man whose name he couldn t gather, and who 
 purported to come from Fairport ("not in Fairport, 
 no, in Chicago came from Fairport") and wished 
 to relate a wondrous tale of a projected strike. 
 Three minutes sufficed to rouse Billy s suspicions, 
 two more to confirm them and to ring off with a 
 curt excuse; but in those five minutes and the addi 
 tional two which may be allowed for transit, some 
 thing had happened in the saloon. 
 
 Tyler had not avoided a clash with Johnny 
 through any disinclination to fight. Hitherto he 
 had beaten his way with the mailed hand (or, to 
 use the locution of the street, with "brass knucks"), 
 and he was not minded to abandon his tactics. He 
 could see his hold on his followers parting like a cut 
 rope; "Gleetzin" was openly and carelessly defying 
 him ; he knew only one way to quiet criticism ; that 
 was to send the critic to the hospital. If he could 
 pummel Johnny insensible, he could pass his meas 
 ures and keep his men in line, even with Bates 
 against him. He needed only a day longer, a show 
 of antagonism, and Wethers, who was wavering, 
 
A "SCRAP" 281 
 
 would come to his terms. It was only to keep Gleet- 
 zin quiet. Nor did he have much doubt of his suc 
 cess, for he was of Homeric prowess, and had stood 
 up two rounds with the mighty John in his prime. 
 Therefore, the instant Billy s soft gray hat swung 
 round the door-lintel Tyler made straight for his 
 man. 
 
 "I ve something to say to you, Gleetzin," said he 
 threateningly. 
 
 The bystanders hushed, as if by an incantation, 
 and stood on one another s toes to get nearer. 
 
 When Johnny perceived Tyler before him, with 
 the lust of battle in his eye, his own eyes lightened 
 and the corners of his mouth curved slightly, but 
 he inclined his head in all courtesy. 
 
 "I d like to understand what you mean" Tyler s 
 tones grew rougher "by sneaking around insinu 
 ating that I m a thief and a liar and trying to sell 
 out my best friends to these bloodsuckers ?" 
 
 "I suppose I mean that you are" said Johnny in 
 his gentlest tone. 
 
 Tyler s blow was like a flash, but it found John 
 ny s guard, not his head. It must have been given 
 with too furious an impetus, and thus unbalanced the 
 striker how else no one could explain for the 
 next second there was a swift rush of fists, a duck 
 ing of heads, Johnny s left, in scientific parlance, 
 jabbed Tyler over the heart, and, as he countered, 
 Johnny s right found the great fighter s neck just 
 under the jaw. There was a frightful crash, a big 
 man, a table and three beer glasses tumbled on the 
 floor together. The table and the glasses were in 
 pieces; the man lay as inert as the wood, covered 
 
282 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 with beer and blood, while slowly his florid face 
 whitened. 
 
 "You ve done for him, by hell !" gurgled a brick 
 layer, who had seen the fight. "He can t put up his 
 hands for one while !" 
 
 "He he ain t killed?" hesitated the barkeeper, 
 running around his counter, with first aid to the in 
 jured in the shape of a whisky bottle. 
 
 "No, worse luck !" said Johnny ; "he ll live to do 
 plenty more mischief." 
 
 "You all are witness he struck Galitsuin first," 
 called Billy Bates, from the door. To be truthful, 
 Billy had not seen either the first blow or the second ; 
 he spoke on those sound general principles of the 
 conduct of life which the natural leaders of men 
 follow by instinct, and which serve as a very good 
 proxy for experience. He had not seen the fight, 
 but he knew Tyler s trick of getting in the first 
 blow, and he knew that Johnny fought fair. "Call 
 you all to witness," bawled the astute Billy, "this is 
 a clean case of self-defense." 
 
 "So tis!" cried many voices. The spectators 
 stole admiring glances at Johnny. 
 
 He looked indifferent; he was indifferent. To 
 the mood which had held the lad since he lifted poor 
 Bicker s head off its cruel pillow, Tyler s slaying 
 was a duty rather than a crime. His heart, full to 
 bursting, was eased a little when he saw the fo- 
 menter of all the tragical strike lying dumb at his 
 feet. His color did not turn nor did his expression 
 change. An electric tingle of fear of the soft- 
 spoken, gentle fellow stirred the beholders. They 
 liked him for his generosity and his courage; but 
 
A "SCRAP" 283 
 
 they admired him to the verge of awe for his cal 
 lousness to bloodshed. 
 
 "He don t give a damn whether he s killed him or 
 not," one man whispered to another. "Wally s met 
 his match at last/ sniggered the bricklayer. What 
 ever the resentment of the Tyler men, it did not lead 
 them to reprisals, legal or otherwise; and any sym 
 pathy was blunted by Tyler s showing plain signs 
 of life under the barkeeper s skilful ministrations 
 with cold water and whisky. Billy looked on. 
 
 "I guess he got what was coming to him, all 
 right," observed the sagacious neutral, "and if I 
 was you, Carl," to the barkeeper "I d get him 
 off before the police get on to the scrimmage." 
 
 "Gentlemen," said Johnny, "I think it is time for 
 your meeting." 
 
 "I ll bet you a dollar to a nickel the strike s called 
 off," was the sentence Billy heard before he left the 
 room. But there were no takers, and the result 
 justified the wisdom of the better. Within the hour 
 the committee waited on Wethers; within an 
 other hour the general meeting had accepted the 
 manufacturers terms. As Johnny halted on the side 
 walk for his street-car, a hack drove away from 
 Einert s private rooms, and there flashed past him 
 Tyler s pale and sullen face. 
 
 "In some ways, Ivan," said Billy, linking arms, 
 "it s kinder a pity you didn t kill that skunk; he s 
 going to give us the devil of a time yet !" 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE POWERS OF DARKNESS 
 
 The misery of the months which followed the 
 Wethers strike neither time nor happiness ever ef 
 faced for Johnny. Remorse stamps the soul deep 
 with its sinister hall-mark. Never again, although 
 his perfect health and his natural elasticity of hope 
 restored him to daily cheerfulness, was life the same 
 light-hearted thing to him. He was caught in that 
 awful mesh of the evil consequences of the action 
 of good intent, which has bewildered conscience and 
 made the unhappy "follower of the gleam" doubt 
 God Himself. 
 
 Could a mistake, an honest mistake, be accounted 
 to a man for worse than sin? Rash he might have 
 been, he was ; impatient, not strong enough to wait ; 
 all sorts of idiotic dreamer; but not selfish or 
 cruel or base ; yet did the men whom he knew, the 
 careless sinners of his college days, who sought the 
 desire of the eye and the delights of the flesh at any 
 cost to their people at home, who were toiling and 
 stinting for them, did they suffer as he did ? They 
 couldn t. And Tyler, who lied and stole and dipped 
 his hands in blood, did he suffer ? Not a pang. 
 
 "It is not just!" groaned the wretched boy in 
 284 
 
THE POWERS OF DARKNESS 285 
 
 those terrible nights which would come, unless he 
 was so exhausted that he could not help sleeping. 
 
 One circumstance added incalculably to his tor 
 ture. He was never free from a view of the conse 
 quences of his folly. The first impulsive movement 
 of his remorse was to assume the charge of Bicker s 
 children. He was not earning enough to support 
 them, away. By boarding himself with Mrs. De- 
 laney, who had befriended the children, he could see 
 to them far more efficiently and at less cost. He 
 did not consider the consequences to himself, nor 
 could Billy, who was more far-sighted, dissuade 
 him. 
 
 "You ll be jest like those pilgrim guys," Billy s 
 journey to the higher education was now leading 
 him through the Crusades, in his leisure hours 
 "who used to wear sackcloth and put peas in their 
 boots; didn t do a mite of good, but made them 
 bloody uncomfortable every minute. You ll be hear 
 ing about Bloker all the time, and you won t make 
 them stop talking, because you ll think they mustn t 
 forget their father. I tell you, Ivan, it won t work; 
 it would be safer to take to drink." 
 
 "It s all I can do for him," said Johnny, "and 
 don t row me, else I ll get so I can t talk to you 
 about it. And you re the only one." The little muf 
 fling of his voice which was not a quiver, because 
 he held it, in time, quite routed Billy. 
 
 Johnny moved his trunk and bath-tub to Mrs. 
 Delaney s that night. Billy s only grain of consola 
 tion was that Johnny had agreed to let him contrib 
 ute to the children s maintenance. Had he known 
 it he might have claimed another ; he was more help 
 
286 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 than he or Johnny himself realized at the time, be 
 cause he insisted on Johnny s talking out his black 
 thoughts. "They won t hurt me," he urged, "I 
 haven t been to church since my poor mother died, 
 I m tough and you can t shock me." 
 
 He used to spend a deal of thought, himself, on 
 the situation, trying to work it out logically enough 
 to appease what he once called Johnny s "terrible 
 Russian imagination." 
 
 "They re so damn logical, but haven t got good 
 sense," he would grumble; "now look here, Ivan, 
 this is how I look at it. I see plain enough you 
 can t run away from this. You ve got to face it and 
 count every rib in the skeleton, and then you ve got 
 to down it, once for all ; smash it and bury it away. 
 Now, here s how it puts itself to me. Punishment is 
 what comes from breaking every law. Maybe the 
 feller who breaks the law don t get it, but somebody 
 does. If the world is a big machine, anything that 
 smashes a cog will make trouble, ^whether a man, 
 who means to make mischief, smashes it, or an in 
 nocent little kid. As for knowing, we can t know; 
 we ve got to find out to the best of our ability, and 
 then let her slide. Do better the next time, and not 
 worry/ is my motto, sonny. Why, hang it ! the only 
 use of repenting is to fix your good resolutions in 
 your mind. There ain t a bit of virtue in the bare 
 crying over things. When I lived in Fairport, there 
 was a family I used to work for, weed their garden 
 and carry coal for their base-burner. It was an 
 awful nice family and there were two little girls in 
 it, younger than me, Sadie and Lily ; Lily, when she 
 did anything bad, would weep and howl and go 
 
THE POWERS OF DARKNESS 287 
 
 without her dinner, she felt so awful bad ; the whole 
 house would have to turn in and chirk her up a little. 
 Then she d subside; but after she subsided, she 
 wasn t especially good, just same s usual, that s all. 
 Sadie was kinder offish, a proud little piece; she 
 pretended she didn t care so very much and had a 
 good appetite, and didn t need anybody to go up 
 stairs with her nights, but I noticed afterward she d 
 be a good, minding child, and think up things to do 
 for her mother for a long while. I ve often thought 
 of those girls. No, Ivan, don t use up your energies 
 feeling bad ; you ll need em all in your business." 
 
 "I do work as hard as I can, Billy," said Johnny 
 quite meekly, "and I don t whine." 
 
 "Sure!" cried Billy heartily, throwing an arm 
 around his neck but restraining a desire to be sym 
 pathetic. "For what he needs is brace" was Billy s 
 faith. "Sure, you re sandy! I saw you playing 
 blocks with the baby and I heard your funny stories. 
 That s the sort! It s only skin deep, I know; but 
 if you persevere, you ll find it ll work in !" 
 
 Billy s homely consolation did help ; but Billy was 
 away much of the time ; he had been elected a vice- 
 president of the molders, and the district head of a 
 labor union leads as peripatetic a life as a bishop. 
 When Billy was gone there was no one, so Johnny 
 worked the harder. Long afterward he told some 
 one who loved him, that neither love nor religion 
 was the salvation, of a man in despair, like work. 
 
 "Every case of melancholia needs to work until 
 he perspires freely," he said ; "perspiration is a great 
 moral agent. Billy thinks so, too; he expresses it 
 succinctly, but rather bluntly; he says, You can 
 
288 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 sweat a lot of meanness out of you ! And work is 
 a wonder. I used to work so hard I couldn t help 
 sleeping. And Sundays I would take the kids to 
 Lincoln Park. I didn t dare go to church. I used to 
 mend my clothes ; sometimes I helped Mrs. Delaney 
 wash." 
 
 Yet there were days when the heavy and weary 
 weight of all this unintelligible world crushed 
 everything save dogged endurance out of him. 
 Once, during such a mood, he read over his mother s 
 last letter; it seemed to him that he had never un 
 derstood it before. 
 
 "I have failed as she failed," he thought dully. 
 He was no longer angry with himself ; he felt numb 
 with despair. Yet in that self-same hour, a new pur 
 pose began to stir in him, for he felt a disgust at 
 his own apathy. "My father would want to kick 
 me," thus he scorned himself "well, in effect he 
 has kicked me already, good and hard !" There had 
 been a long time during which he had resented his 
 father s lack of confidence and resented his step 
 mother s assuming to guide him. When he left 
 Peggy he vowed to sink out of his old world, be 
 neath the wave entirely. Therefore, he had taken 
 his mother s name, the better to throw in his for 
 tunes with her. His father had disowned him, dis 
 inherited him. Very well, he would accept the dic 
 tum and live his life according to his own conscience, 
 not another man s. 
 
 But now, having let the idealist in him go its 
 length, the reaction came; he revolted at his own 
 impetuosity, and the silent, stubborn resentment 
 against the tyranny of a dead hand began to flake 
 
THE POWERS OF DARKNESS 289 
 
 away like a lump of coal in a furnace. After a while 
 he turned to the study of his father s motives. Per 
 haps it was to save him from mischance, huge and 
 woeful as this which had befallen him, that Josiah 
 Winslow had plotted. Little by little there came 
 changes in his image of that grim, undemonstrative, 
 strong man, whose awkward and reticent tenderness 
 he began to suspect. He went back, groping through 
 his childish memories. They showed him more than 
 he expected. How many times his father had been 
 gentle to him ! Once, on that tragic journey, after 
 his mother s death, he had fallen asleep on deck, and 
 he wakened, wrapped in his father s rug, his head 
 on his father s shoulder. He lay there, embarrassed, 
 yet finding a certain consciousness of rest and shel 
 ter. The tears which he had shed were still on his 
 cheek. He thought it the wind on his hair, the touch 
 of his father s lips was so light; but, now, he did 
 not think it was the wind. 
 
 "Pretty bad to be a disappointment to him, too," 
 said Johnny wearily; "not a thing I ve done but 
 would sicken him unless I wonder if he wouldn t 
 chuckle over my downing Tyler !" By a swift transi 
 tion, his thought went to another phase of Wins- 
 low s conception of life and duty; he wondered if 
 his father would not detect some alleviation in his 
 tragic blunderings. Might he not take some such 
 view as Billy s; if so, would he not find his son s 
 nightmare of gloom intemperate as his former 
 hopes? Johnny s first gleam of comfort came with 
 these fancies. He found an obscure satisfaction in 
 rating himself after his father s manner, giving his 
 father the role of judge, and repenting to him. "Oh, 
 
THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 if he only could come and whack at me as he used 
 to!" longed Johnny. Often he thought: "Peggy s 
 the only real person in the world who would under 
 stand why it dulls the pain for me to let my fancy 
 run away with me so ! Oh, Peggy, Peggy !" 
 
 Sometimes the homesick yearning he had for the 
 mere sight of Peggy so goaded him that, but for 
 the Blokers who took his every dollar, he would 
 have gone to Fairport only to steal a look at her by 
 night. He believed himself disguised enough by his 
 dress and his mode of life, which he fancied had 
 battered him out of all his former comeliness (John 
 ny still went to extremes while vowing warfare on 
 them), and his mother s noble name had been cor 
 rupted variously into Gleetzin and Gleason, while 
 Ivan was docked- into Van ; Van Gleason most of his 
 mates called him; surely there was nothing to call 
 the attention of the curious in Van Gleason. 
 
 Probably it was at this time that the plan of re 
 moving to Fairport began to shape itself in Johnny s 
 mind a mere adumbration of a plan, now, which 
 had not even the shadow of detail, but which never 
 left him. 
 
 Meanwhile, Billy puzzled over his friend s case 
 more than was good for business. He used to seek 
 counsel of the wisest of his acquaintances. Here is 
 the way he would put his puzzle. "Say, suppose you 
 know a man who has been as good a friend to you 
 as one man can be to another ; suppose he is straight 
 as a string, never did a mean trick in his life; but 
 terribly conscientious and sensitive, and suppose out 
 of sheer good-will and ignorance he gave some 
 bad advice to another man, who took it and came to 
 
THE POWERS OF DARKNESS 291 
 
 smash in consequence; in fact he got killed, poor 
 fellow, and the first man is about distracted over it 
 say, what would you propose to pull him out of 
 the hole?" 
 
 The wise men generally magnates of the labor 
 unions differed. One advised going to a new town 
 and getting a change. Another, of a drastic temper 
 ament, opined that getting religion or getting mar 
 ried would be enough of a change to divert from 
 despair. He admitted that it was a kill-or-cure pre 
 scription. Most of the counselors believed in work ! 
 "And whatever you do, Billy," said the youngest 
 man, "don t let him try to drown the grief." 
 
 "No danger," snapped Billy, "he s not that kind." 
 
 "Many mighty good fellows are," returned the 
 other quietly, and Billy remembered that the speaker 
 had won a hard fight against that enemy, himself. 
 
 "I know it," he amended in penitence ; "but he 
 why, he went to college, to Harvard College ; I guess 
 he had wine or beer to drink every day; he s used 
 to it and yet he doesn t care for it. He ain t that 
 sort." 
 
 "Sentimental lot?" 
 
 "No, sir; he s the best company you ever saw, and 
 you ought to see him put up his fists ! It s simply 
 lovely!" 
 
 "Where d he learn?" 
 
 "College." 
 
 "I didn t know they taught anything so useful in 
 college," observed Billy s friend thoughtfully; "can 
 he make speeches, too?" 
 
 "He made a speech that would get you to jump- 
 ing!" 
 
292 THE MAN OF THE HOUR " 
 
 "He must be a kind of a wonder." 
 
 "He just is." 
 
 "Nothing of a organizer, I expect ?" 
 
 "He euchred Wally Tyler out of a deal he was 
 trying to make in the Wethers strike." 
 
 "So?" said the other. "I guess I m on to the man 
 you mean. He doesn t belong with our crowd, Billy ; 
 try to steer him back to his own side ; he ll help us 
 more there." 
 
 "I think so, too, Hindman; but you see he s 
 broken with his folks and lost his money, and now 
 he thinks he s the cause of that unlucky Bloker s get 
 ting killed." 
 
 "Sensitive sort of man?" 
 
 "Very." 
 
 "Look here," the labor leader took out his pocket- 
 book with a half-embarrassed smile, and found in 
 it a printed slip. He tendered it to Billy. 
 
 "Funny sort of thing to carry round like a rabbit s 
 foot, isn t it?" he said. "But ever since I fell on it 
 in a newspaper, I ve kept it. I m not much on po 
 etry; I don t know anything about the fellow that 
 wrote it; but, say, it hits you in the neck, don t it?" 
 
 Billy read the poem; it was Henley s immortal 
 defiance of despair. For a moment both men were 
 silent. Billy drew a long breath. 
 
 "That s big!" said he in an undertone as if he 
 were in church. "That man knew how it feels to 
 be down. And yet he won." He repeated softly : 
 
 " It matters not how strait the gate, 
 
 How charged with punishments the scroll, 
 I am the master of my fate : 
 I am the captain of my soul. " 
 
THE POWERS OF DARKNESS 293 
 
 "Will you let me write it down, Hindman ? That s 
 my friend, exactly." 
 
 "Take it," said Hindman, "I know it by heart." 
 Billy carried it to Johnny, explaining : "I guess 
 Hindman knows what trouble is mighty well. He d 
 a brother he was saving his money to educate and 
 make a priest of, and one day when they were shoot 
 ing he accidently shot him killed him. Hindman 
 nearly went crazy ; took to drink and nearly lost his 
 hold. But somehow he s pulled out. Everybody 
 respects him now. I guess he knows about that first 
 verse though : 
 
 " Out of the night that covers me, 
 Black as the Pit from pole to pole ! " 
 
 Johnny finished the stanza : 
 
 " I thank whatever gods may be 
 For my unconquerable soul. " 
 
 "That s the stuff!" cried Billy, "and that next 
 verse, too : 
 
 " In the fell clutch of circumstance 
 
 I have not winced nor cried aloud. 
 Under the bludgeonings of chance 
 My head is bloody but unbowed. 
 
 "That s you, Ivan!" He stopped and his voice 
 changed a little : "Here s the summing up : 
 
 " It matters not how strait the gate, 
 
 How charged with punishments the scroll, 
 I am the master of my fate : 
 I am the captain of my soul/ 
 
294 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 "Ain t you, Ivan?" he said affectionately. "Say, 
 you ve got to be, for me. Cause you ve been all 
 the religion I ve got." 
 
 "All right, old chap," said Johnny, smiling. "I 
 will; just to oblige." 
 
 Yet under his affected lightness he felt a thrill. A 
 man does not serve honor or duty or his country 
 for reward; the constraint is upon him; he follows 
 the gleam, and if it lead to exceeding narrow ways 
 and the final plunge into night, that is the concern 
 of the Powers that were before him, not his at all ; he 
 acts a man s part because he is a man. 
 
 "After all, I ve something left to lose," said 
 Johnny; "I ve been a fool, but not a coward; my 
 father would tell me not to begin being pusillani 
 mous, now !" He took the little worn newspaper slip 
 thankfully, and placed it in his pocket, wearing it 
 over a heart only less sore than that of the man who 
 had sent it to him. "His luck was worse than mine," 
 thought Johnny, "I ought to consider I m not the 
 only one." 
 
 Meanwhile, a quarter, whence Billy had antici 
 pated excitement, showed none; Tyler was very 
 quiet. Half-hopefully, Johnny had expected repris 
 als. None came, although it was now a month past 
 the time of the fight. No one molested Johnny by so 
 much as a word. 
 
 For this, however, there was a good explanation. 
 It was no fault of Tyler s. His anger burned more 
 fiercely than ever. He caught a heavy cold when he 
 went out, the very day after his felling. Johnny 
 had nothing to do with the cold ; but very naturally 
 Tyler laid it at his door, as he caught it tramping 
 
THE POWERS OF DARKNESS 295 
 
 through the rain for a consultation with two doughty 
 followers, who were to help him "do up Van Gleet- 
 zin." The cold turned into bronchitis, so Tyler had 
 plenty of time to stoke his wrath. Considering his 
 purposes for Johnny, it was rather unreasonable 
 that he should make it a cause of grievance that the 
 latter did not pay him a visit ; but he argued : "If 
 he wasn t meaning to fight it out, he d have sent 
 round to see if I was going to pull through or have 
 the pneumonia. But he d rather I d die. Then he d 
 crow ! But I ll show him who s boss in Chicago !" 
 
 Harder to bear than the blow was the damage to 
 his prestige that it had wrought. He fancied that 
 associates, who had been close, neglected him during 
 his illness, while the commonalty were lukewarm. 
 And the election of officers in his local was coming 
 on. He wanted to be president. Some stroke was 
 necessary to hearten the faithful and intimidate the 
 backsliders. He watched his chance and was not 
 long in finding it. It came in the first week of De 
 cember, after a meeting of the Federation of Labor. 
 Conrad and Tyler had clashed over one of the in 
 numerable efforts of the socialists to drag the labor 
 unions into politics. Tyler was working with the 
 socialist wing at this time. Johnny had drifted 
 further and further from them during the year, and 
 he gave his best to Conrad. There sprang up one 
 of those unexpected squalls of discussion, to which 
 unwieldy assemblages are prone, and which may 
 disconcert the craftiest skippers. Thus it happened 
 that Johnny captured the floor from an inexperi 
 enced parliamentarian of the social labor party, and 
 succeeded in making a speech. His old friends, the 
 
296 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 socialists, interrupted him continually; but he kept 
 his temper and the rough and ready badinage learned 
 in college debates stood him in good stead. 
 
 "He s no workingman," yelled a socialist Johnny 
 knew and respected, for he was a very honest man 
 who nearly starved himself to help his household of 
 faith; "he graduated at Harvard College!" 
 
 There was a laugh ; but Johnny brought another 
 when he retorted, "Yes, that s true, I have been ex 
 posed to education ; but I only took a very mild type. 
 I don t know half as much as the gentleman who 
 interrupted me. But he is a doctrinaire and expects 
 the earth ; I m only a practical man and as a practi 
 cal man " He plunged into his argument. 
 
 "I see your finish, Wally," whispered one of 
 Tyler s friends, as applause and catcalls contended 
 when Johnny sat down. 
 
 "And I see his," said Tyler grimly; "you wait!" 
 
 His nearest friends exchanged glances and they 
 looked at each other again curiously, when the bal 
 lots were announced and Tyler s man proved him 
 self a true prophet of evil. Tyler simply ground 
 his teeth, rammed his .hands into his pockets and 
 left the hall. 
 
 His departure was unnoticed by Johnny. The 
 light had faded out of his eyes, and he sat pale and 
 unmoved amid his friends joyous tumult. Presently 
 he slipped away while they were celebrating their 
 victory, and walked, alone, to the cross-street which 
 he must traverse to reach his car. 
 
 Billy had cautioned him never to walk alone at 
 night. He was docile under the warning and tried 
 to obey it; but to-night he had been roused out of 
 
THE POWERS OF DARKNESS 297 
 
 his apathy, and the excitement drowned Billy s 
 warnings no less than his own resolution. 
 
 He plunged out of Clark Street, blazing with 
 electric lights and gaudy signs, reeking with stale 
 beer steaming through the iron gratings of its side 
 walks from basement restaurants, and roaring with 
 the unnamable din of street-cars, horses and human 
 ity, into a shambling, low-roofed, ill-lighted dwell 
 ing-street where the shadows of the houses de 
 voured the feeble space illumined by a single gas- 
 lamp. The street was so lonely that he was the only 
 wayfarer. It was so quiet that he could hear his own 
 footfall. As he walked, the brief elation of conflict 
 and oratory fell from him ; the deep abiding melan 
 choly of his common mood asserted its rights. 
 
 "How little I can help them !" he was thinking. 
 "I barely hold them; I ve given them my fortune, 
 my future, my chances of happiness, my peace of 
 mind, even; yet I m an alien still. They d like me 
 better, they d believe in me more if I d stayed where 
 I belonged !" 
 
 Just in front of him a shadow fell athwart his 
 path. His wits acted as alertly as a rabbit s; he 
 sprang with a mighty leap to one side and a man 
 staggered and stumbled on a thwarted blow. 
 
 "Put up your hands; we ll have it out now," 
 called a deep barytone which he knew. He saw the 
 two other men skulking in the shadow. When he 
 would have jumped back, one of these ran between 
 him and the street, the other kept his place. 
 
 "No running now; stand up and take it," cried 
 Tyler. 
 
 Johnny s coat was over his arm and his knife was 
 
298 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 in the pocket. He struck the guardian of the road 
 between his eyes, ducked the blow which Tyler 
 aimed at long range, and put enough space between 
 his assailants and himself to slip his closed knife 
 between his clenched fingers ! Tyler was able to land 
 two blows, while the smaller man danced between 
 Johnny and the light. Johnny struck Tyler only 
 once; but he reeled and Johnny gained a few steps 
 more in his retreat to the lighted highway. When 
 the second man would have stopped him Johnny s 
 armored fist struck straight, first at his arm, then at 
 his jaw, and as he fell a little space more was gained. 
 Tyler rushed forward again, followed by the third 
 man. He tried to clinch, but went down before his 
 follower s eyes. The third man darted at Johnny 
 as he whirled. Johnny felt a sharp prick in his side, 
 but he landed a swinging blow on his assailant s 
 eye, which stopped the onset for a second. 
 
 Then Johnny ran, ran for his life. Tyler was on 
 his feet again and they would use their knives if not 
 their pistols; it was either to get to the lights and 
 the crowd, or be stabbed to death under the shadow 
 of the rotten wooden porches. He ran as he never 
 ran on the track. Something whizzed by him, 
 what, he never knew, for he made the street and 
 hailed a car. No sooner was he seated than he real 
 ized what had befallen him, but he knew enough not 
 to ask for aid. Tyler had too many friends on the 
 police force. He sat in the car, holding his arm 
 tightly against his side, where he had jammed his 
 handkerchief. He sat until the car reached the 
 corner next a celebrated hospital; nor did the con 
 ductor suspect anything wrong until, a moment 
 
THE POWERS OF DARKNESS 
 
 299 
 
 after, the pale young man had stepped with careful 
 steadiness off the front platform and walked up 
 the street. 
 
 "Say, Mike," cried the motorman, "look at the 
 platform ; that feller s been stabbed !" 
 
 The conductor threw an experienced eye over the 
 boards in question. 
 
 "That s right," he answered carelessly; "well, 
 he s got his nerve with him; he s minding his own 
 business and not troubling the police, and he s 
 toddled into the hospital." 
 
 Nor did Johnny come out for a month. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 IN HOSPITAL 
 
 A hospital is a quiet place. Suppose one to go to 
 a public ward, say the surgical ward, and there be 
 the only patient during a large part of a four weeks 
 stay; he were like to have his fill of lonely gazing 
 on the white-coated walls, and white-spread cots, 
 and white-shaded windows; of the fugitive persist 
 ence of iodoform ; of straining the ear for a van 
 ishing footfall on the rubber-deadened passage 
 without,, a nurse s smothered, girlish voice, a young 
 house-surgeon s important tones, the soft swish of 
 unstarched skirts, or any of the hushed hospital 
 sounds which awaken out of the silence, at first 
 muffling everything. 
 
 Moreover, in such a case, too weak to read, too 
 poor to buy privacy with its consequent allowance of 
 company, seeing no visitors except on the bi-weekly 
 visiting day, one might have a surfeit of leisure to 
 think. 
 
 After Johnny passed the danger point, when his 
 mind crawled out of the mists of delirium and 
 deathly weakness, when the pain was gone and the 
 day nurse smiled every time she went to the window 
 with her thermometer, he thought a great deal. He 
 lay through the day and watched the morning sun- 
 
 300 
 
IN HOSPITAL 
 
 301 
 
 light flicker a diffused prism on the corner of the 
 white ceiling, and the afternoon sunlight paint gray 
 and violet shadows such as are made delicately by 
 a water-color brush. He used to puzzle out the ob 
 jects in the ward which they represented. He lay 
 through the night, and when he wakened he 
 watched the grotesque shadows of the night-light, 
 smudged on the white walls, as if by a crayon stub. 
 If he closed his eyes on the shadows, he drifted back 
 into the scenes of his life. In his delirium he had 
 been tormented by a vast longing for home, he 
 who had no home. He brought tears to the eyes of 
 the nurse by his appeals to take him home. 
 
 "Please let me go to my own room ; I could always 
 sleep in my own room !" he would say ; or : "This is 
 a very pleasant place and you are all kind ; but isn t 
 it nearly time for me to go home?" or: "After the 
 doctor goes is there any reason why I can t put on 
 my clothes and go home? I am very anxious to go 
 home." 
 
 Sometimes his sick fancy feigned his mother in 
 waiting ; she would bend over him and kiss him ; he 
 would see her eyelids half closing, in the way they 
 had when she smiled ; he would feel the cool satin of 
 her cheek. For the most part, however, he did not 
 lose his consciousness that she was dead. But often 
 his father walked out of the great hall to the portico 
 of Overlook to welcome him. Once he woke out 
 of a feverish dream and smiled and cried: "Why, 
 father dear, I thought you were dead, isn t this 
 corking! Oh, but I made a mess of things, just as 
 you said I would." Sometimes his stepmother would 
 give him his medicine or his milk, instead of the 
 
302 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 nurse. This did not in the least surprise him, be 
 cause nothing surprises us in delirium or in dreams ; 
 but he said once : "You are very kind ; I didn t know 
 you were so kind/ and then was vaguely worried 
 by the suspicion that he had been rude. 
 
 "I wouldn t say anything harsh to her," he ex 
 plained to the night nurse ; "you know I wouldn t 
 why, I promised my father." 
 
 Usually the night nurse was Peggy; not the 
 beautiful, haughty, grown-up Peggy, but little 
 Peggy with her red curls and her temper, his child 
 ish comrade. He never was a child again, himself; 
 nor did he ever lose the consciousness of the weight 
 on his heart, although he could not make its cause 
 distinct, and several times said : "It s very queer, 
 Peggy, very queer, why I am so unhappy ; but there 
 is a good reason if I could only remember." 
 
 With returning strength the visions faded, leav 
 ing him the lonelier for their loss. In their place he 
 had his relentless questions. There was no narcotic 
 of work to stupefy him. 
 
 "I m up against it," he told himself. "I must find 
 some way to brace me up, or I shall die, and I have 
 no right to die a man with a family like me!" 
 Therefore Johnny lay and let the Anglo-Saxon in 
 him have its word, at last. 
 
 At first, no one but the shipping clerk at the gro 
 cery and Mrs. Delaney came to see him. He had not 
 sent word to Billy. Billy was in Indianapolis try 
 ing to avert a sweeping cut of wages without a 
 strike, and Johnny would not "bother him." There 
 was no one else who cared enough about him to re 
 quire a notification so he thought. Conrad was an 
 
IN HOSPITAL 303 
 
 ally, rather than a friend. The other molders were 
 friendly acquaintances and comrades to whom he 
 was glad to render a kindness, but of whom he 
 never dreamed of asking one. Johnny had more 
 pride than he imagined. He loved to give and hated 
 to receive, which is a trait of the young. Either 
 they receive quite unconsciously, as their right, 
 since it is the business of the elders to make them 
 comfortable ; or they resent the oppression of a debt. 
 One college boy will borrow so long as his friends 
 good nature or ability holds out; another will live 
 on "hot dog" and oat-meal and pawn his overcoat, 
 or, worse, his dress-suit, rather than ask an ac 
 quaintance for a loan. 
 
 It is only living that teaches us the right of our 
 friends to help us. Mutual obligation is like rota 
 tion of crops and saves friendship from sterility. 
 But Johnny was too young for such philosophy. He 
 deemed his misfortunes of no importance save to 
 himself; indeed, he sent word to Mueller only lest 
 the latter should find his absence inconvenient. But 
 the next day (being Sunday) he was surprised by 
 a visit from the clerk. Johnny s fever had not yet 
 appeared in serious form, and he was allowed a 
 short interview. The clerk heard the particulars of 
 the fray. With difficulty he compressed his feelings 
 into language befitting the presence of the nurse. 
 
 "And you don t know who knifed you?" he asked 
 at the end. 
 
 "I can guess; but I couldn t swear to any one s 
 face," said Johnny. 
 
 "Then you can t have him arrested. What are 
 you going to do?" 
 
304 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 "Get well and thrash the man who put up the job. 
 Make him stand up to me with his two fists; drive 
 him out of his union." 
 
 "You ll do," Mueller approved, grinning; "say, 
 how are you fixed? This will take a week, most 
 likely," (the doctor had told him three). "Can you 
 send an understudy for your job?" 
 
 "Yes, I know a pretty good fellow, Mark De- 
 laney; he s young, but he s tough. I board with his 
 mother and she ll be glad to have him have the job." 
 
 "All right ; he ll keep it for you. I ll take him on 
 that understanding." 
 
 "You had better let him have it for keeps, Mr. 
 Mueller; he needs it." 
 
 "And I need you" grunted Mueller; "say, an 
 other thing ; how are you fixed for money ?" 
 
 "Oh, I can manage that all right," said Johnny, 
 smiling. He thought of his ridiculous dress-suits, 
 his cravats, his frock-coat, his books and pictures 
 only they, were in Fairport, and he could hardly, yet, 
 ask for them to be forwarded him. His watch his 
 father had given him, and his studs were gifts also, 
 as was most of his jewelry. The few trinkets 
 which he had bought himself had gone long ago; 
 but there was enough left. "Oh, I can manage!" 
 said Johnny cheerfully. 
 
 "Better sell em to me!" growled the clerk; at 
 which divination Johnny grinned and felt the better 
 for it. 
 
 Mueller s kindness took shape in more ways than 
 one. He sent the Fliegende Blatter and the best 
 grapes in the market, and (though Johnny was soon 
 beyond knowing it) he called daily. 
 
IN HOSPITAL 
 
 35 
 
 Another visitor was Mrs. Delaney, to whom John 
 ny intrusted the mission of turning his past pomp 
 of raiment into cash. 
 
 "I will if I have to; you rest aisy," she replied, 
 soothing him with a pat on his hair. Til git a whole 
 lot, I know that. Now, don t yous be talking, for 
 you do be raising your temperschure, the nuss says, 
 and then I won t be let to see you." 
 
 The next visiting day she returned, and he ques 
 tioned her. What had she sold? With placid men 
 dacity she described his tuxedo suit, and reported 
 that she had obtained thirty dollars for it. "Dirt 
 chape it was, but the bloody ould Shylock wouldn t 
 give a cint more. Will I kape it or bring it to yous ?" 
 she asked with calmness to be admired, in view of 
 the fact that she had but two dollars on earth, the 
 same being given her the day before by Mueller. 
 But Johnny made no demands. He sighed in con 
 tent and told her to keep it and see that the children 
 had all they needed. 
 
 "Sure, I will do that!" said Mrs. Delaney. She 
 wondered how she would do it. Johnny, however, 
 slept quietly for the first time since his entrance. 
 
 After this, for weeks, no one was allowed speech 
 of him; then, through Mueller, the news reached 
 Conrad, and he appeared laden with sympathy, 
 oranges and fresh eggs. 
 
 "Got em in the country myself," he explained; 
 "they re reasonably fresh, I guess." He told Johnny 
 that Tyler was in high spirits of late, and that he 
 had just got a tough friend a place on the force. 
 "Tyler s got a big pull in the City Hall, some way. 
 The boys do say it s the same man knifed you. He s 
 
3 o6 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 a dog named Gweesip Something." For years, it 
 may be added, Giuseppe was a terror to all penni 
 less or contumacious evil-doers. Finally he was 
 killed by one of his own countrymen ; why, there are 
 doubtless men who know ; but the newspapers have 
 never explained. 
 
 "Does Wally Tyler boast of doing me up ?" John 
 ny asked. 
 
 "Not exactly. He jest laughs and says you were 
 too fresh and got what was coming to you." 
 
 Johnny set his lips firmly ; he didn t speak. Con 
 rad changed the subject. That night he wrote a let 
 ter to Billy. It was a long letter. The next train 
 brought Billy to Chicago, although he stayed only 
 half a day. 
 
 After Billy s return from Indianapolis, the hours 
 did not drag so heavily. True, Johnny would not 
 let him hire a private room ; but Billy s influence re 
 laxed the hospital rules, the more readily that the 
 nurses and the hospital orderlies had become inter 
 ested in their patient. 
 
 "He s sandy. That s why I like him," said the 
 ward orderly to Billy. "Ought to have seen him 
 when the doctor was dressing his wound and prob 
 ing for the bit of knife in it broke off sharp in the 
 ribs, you know pyrexia threatened." 
 
 "He ain t dangerous?" cried Billy. "Conrad said 
 he was convalescing ; you don t mean " 
 
 "Oh, it s out all right ; but it was a close call. You 
 look rattled." 
 
 "He s the best friend I got in the world," returned 
 Billy ironically, "that s all. And probably not hav 
 ing had the advantage of a medical education like 
 
IN HOSPITAL 307 
 
 you, I m easy rattled by your damn technicalities. 
 But you were talking, I know how he took it. Did 
 everything he was told, never so much as said 
 cuss and thanked the doctors for hurting him. / 
 know." 
 
 "Well he did. He s mighty nice to everybody. 
 You ask him how he is, and he always says the 
 same: Pretty well, thank you/ Did all the while 
 he was sick. I don t care what kind of a ward he s 
 in, I know a gentleman when I see him. And he s 
 one. Mrs. Rand, the day nurse, says the same thing. 
 She s from Kentucky and she d ought to know." 
 
 Obscurely, Johnny was affected by the kindliness 
 about him. It comforted him, in a small measure, 
 and awakened his gratitude in a large one. Before 
 he left the hospital, he made Billy fetch some of his 
 belongings. He gave the pearl cravat-pin to one 
 nurse, and some sleeve-links to the other. They had 
 been his mother s and his heart contracted a little 
 as he handled them ; but he was sure that she would 
 not ask him to keep them. 
 
 "Nor would my father, either," he thought. He 
 had prepared a little bundle of his two best neck- 
 scarfs to give to the orderlies ; but Billy espied it on 
 the bed, and confiscated it imperiously. 
 
 "What s the matter?" asked Johnny, the color 
 rising to his pale cheek. "Do you think they look 
 second-hand ?" 
 
 "No, I don t; they re splendid," snapped Billy; 
 "much too splendid. They belong to you and you ve 
 got to keep em and wear em Sundays. You ll 
 give these guys this box of cigars." 
 
 "But what shall I give you for the cigars ?" 
 
308 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 "You ll give me a civil Thank you, something 
 you don t seem willing to give your friends a chance 
 to earn from you. Now, shut up and don t argue. 
 I ve got a carriage and I m going to take you to 
 ride." 
 
 The carriage had been carefully picked out by 
 Billy, in person, at the stable of his choice. "Coach 
 man in livery with cloth buttons, and no number on 
 the lamps. Plain and handsome like a private rig," 
 dictated Billy. 
 
 Johnny was properly enthusiastic; he said he 
 felt as an imported duke would feel going to be 
 married. 
 
 "Oh, it ll do," observed Billy carelessly; "not 
 half as good as you ll take me to ride in, if you fol 
 low my advice." 
 
 "What is your advice ?" 
 
 "Gimme back my word not to peach to your folks 
 They ll do the rest" 
 
 Johnny s lip curled. "I dare say. But don t do 
 that. I know I m a blooming ass. I know you ve got 
 to be just before you re generous, or you won t bs 
 able to be generous very long. I m learning, all right. 
 But don t call in my stepmother to be kind to me 
 and my old friends to tell me they knew just how it 
 would be, and they re glad I ve come to my senses. 
 I nearly drowned once, Billy; the drowning wasn t 
 hard, but coming back to my senses was the very 
 devil ; I fancy it is always. I don t care for an audi 
 ence; I like to be off by myself, so I can kick and 
 swear all I want !" 
 
 "Mrs. Winslow isn t that kind," said Billy. 
 
 "I know she isn t," Johnny agreed after a difficult 
 
IN HOSPITAL 309 
 
 pause; "but there are all the family friends. No 
 doubt they d improve the occasion. No, Billy, you 
 can roll me in a barrel and stand me on my head and 
 thump me black and blue all you like; but nobody 
 else, please, old man !" 
 
 Billy wagged his head in dismal reproof; but he 
 had not really expected success. Most likely he was 
 only after a bargaining basis. The man who refuses 
 the large demand is the more willing to grant the 
 small one. So, at the tail of a few picturesque re 
 marks about fools, he came to his real purpose, the 
 loan of some money to Johnny. 
 
 "I don t need it," said Johnny airily. "I ve sold 
 some truck." 
 
 Then, in a flash, doubt smote him. "Has Mrs. 
 Delaney been fooling me?" he cried ; he was so weak 
 that his voice trembled. 
 
 "N no, she hasn t, she s sold a lot of things!" 
 Billy stuttered in his eagerness. 
 
 "She s sold em to you, then," said Johnny. He 
 turned his head lest Billy should see the tears gath 
 ering under his eyelids. 
 
 "S posen she has?" said Billy sternly he winked 
 his own eyes and frowned out of the other window. 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "Because they don t fit" retorted Johnny, with a 
 queer squeak between a sob and a giggle. 
 
 "The tailor ll make them all right." 
 
 "He can t. You won t ask him. You are only 
 pretending. How much money have you spent on 
 me already?" 
 
 Billy folded his arms, casting a haughty eye up 
 ward at the satin tufting of the brougham. 
 
3 io 
 
 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 "I don t know and I don t care," said Billy; "if 
 I was down on my luck you wouldn t know how 
 much you put up, nor give a damn. You haven t got 
 the right to refuse to let me do for you what you d 
 d9 for me in the same case! You haven t!" Billy 
 repeated almost with ferocity. "You insult me! 
 What kind of a damn lop-sided thing do you take 
 friendship to be ? Are you so damn much above me 
 that you ve done everything on earth for me, made 
 a gentleman out of a mucker, and you won t let me 
 do a thing back! Damn you! 3 gurgled Billy, snif 
 fling. 
 
 As South Park is lonely in winter, no one was on 
 the drive to see an athletic looking but very pale 
 young man lay both hands on the slight shoulders 
 of the noted labor leader and try feebly to shake him. 
 
 "Tommy-rot!" cried Johnny. "Billy, you re a 
 lovely liar ! When you die you ll wheedle St. Peter 
 out of passes for all your friends ! I surrender ; you 
 shall lend me the money. It ll save you storage on 
 those suits. Only don t try that injured racket 
 when you know I love you better than any man in 
 the world, and you ve saved my soul alive." 
 
 "Oh, rats!" snorted Billy. "You don t be mov 
 ing about or you ll do yourself a mischief ; you know 
 you re all sort er wobbly inside yet. Lean back and 
 play you re the duke. Got your feet on the hot-air 
 box? Let me tuck you up." 
 
 He covered Johnny as tenderly as a woman, and 
 his heart leaped when Johnny gave him something 
 like his old merry smile. "You are chirking up!" 
 he exulted. 
 
 "I am," said Johnny seriously; "I m obliged to, 
 
IN HOSPITAL 311 
 
 as a Southern friend of mine would say. Billy, I ve 
 done a sickening lot of genuine thinking, not moon 
 ing or dreaming or slanging myself, but straight 
 thinking things out. And it comes to about this : if 
 I m ever going to be able to look Bloker in the face, 
 in another world I believe there is another world, 
 Billy, some sort or look myself in the face in this, 
 I ve got to do better by Bloker s children than he 
 ever could have done. Then he ought to forgive 
 me. To do that I have to make some money. I 
 have to make it, even if I abandon plans of another 
 sort. I shall have to quit reforming, except as an 
 ordinary good citizen, and go to hunting up cash, 
 just as my father did. He started with nothing, you 
 know. I don t expect to be as much of a man as he 
 was, but I ll try to be decent. I m going to learn 
 the implement business in all the branches ; and then, 
 when I m worth their taking, I m going to ask 
 Hopkins to give me the job my father would. But 
 not until I am worth it. And so I ve got to keep 
 my eyes open and be cheerful or at least be as 
 cheerful as I can." 
 
 "Good zvork!" cried Billy joyously; he had ab 
 sorbed Johnny s Harvard slang like a sponge. "I 
 knew you d come out all right." 
 
 "You remember that poem of Browning s you 
 read to me yesterday, Billy ?" 
 
 "Sure." 
 
 "And those lines, 
 
 " That I aspired to be 
 And was not, comforts me/ 
 
 "Well, that s my case, I guess. They made me 
 
3 i2 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 think of a remark of my father s. Some busybody 
 had come to him with a story about one of the men s 
 just coming out of the penitentiary. We ve got to 
 judge a man by what he does/ my father said, but 
 I guess the Lord will judge us more than our do- 
 ings/" 
 
 "He kept the man?" 
 
 "Oh, yes. He worked for the Old Colony until 
 he died. He was a very decent fellow." 
 
 "Your father was always a good man to the 
 poor," said Billy, unconsciously dropping into the 
 simple phrase which he had heard his mother use. 
 
 "Yes," said Johnny, "he was." There fell a si 
 lence ; the young dark eyes swept the desolate, wide 
 spaces and formless shrubbery of the Park ; but they 
 were seeing Overlook, with its white terraces, and 
 his father s rugged, ungraceful figure was in the 
 doorway, one hand shading his eyes, as he peered 
 down the road, watching for his only son. 
 
 "And, really, I never came," thought Johnny 
 heavily. "I m the Prodigal Son; I ve wasted my 
 substance in riotous giving, and I ve no father now 
 to meet me afar off." With a pang he recognized 
 that it was his father, not his mother, to whom he 
 would have turned, in this darkest passage of his life. 
 At last the hard-headed, faithful old Anglo-Saxon 
 ruler of men was claiming his own. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 "ROGER MACK" 
 
 There was a little room in Overlook which Peggy 
 Rutherford loved, yet it had witnessed some of the 
 saddest hours of her life. Nevertheless, she had 
 loved it when she was a little child, when it was the 
 Princess Olga s fitting-room, where Johnny and 
 she used to play with innumerable paper dolls, for 
 which they feigned wonderful romances; and she 
 never lost her childish sense of happiness in it, even 
 after the happiness, like the childhood, had dwindled 
 to a pensive memory. 
 
 The room was on the second story, with a Pallad- 
 ian window filling most of one wall and giving on 
 the river and the dim Illinois hills. Wainscoting 
 and mantel-piece, lintels and jamb, massive, tall 
 doors and crenulated molding on the ceiling and 
 under the mantel-shelf, all were as Peggy s child 
 hood knew them ; painted, to-day, the same smooth, 
 glossy, but not glittering white which always had 
 assembled in her mind the mingled sensations of the 
 white of lilies and of a certain delectable candy that 
 Johnny and she named "cream pull." 
 
 The house had been built before the days of grill- 
 work, and the interior construction was supervised 
 by an old German, a craftsman of no mean skill who 
 
3H 
 
 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 died ignorant that he was an artist, hence had never 
 muddled his vision with ambition; and, being an 
 honest man, used only well-seasoned lumber and 
 plenty of nails, and never trusted his rabbets or 
 mortises to any eye save his own. Stanch and true 
 Winslow found the old mansion, inside, whatever 
 havoc the weather had played without; and stanch 
 and true it was to-day. There was the same vista 
 past the door, which Peggy s childish eyes had ad 
 mired ; the ample hall with the well in the center, up 
 which wound the great spiral staircase with its 
 white balustrade and mahogany hand-rail. A long- 
 deserved paddling did she, Peggy, once receive from 
 dear old dead mammy for sliding down those balus 
 ters from the third story, closely followed by John 
 ny, with Hilma pursuing by the stairs, a bad third. 
 Through another door could be seen the mahogany 
 four-poster of the princess time, and the same low 
 boy and high-boy that she had used, with their glass 
 knobs and brass escutcheons. The curtains of chintz 
 and swiss muslin on the windows and the bed, and 
 the chintz on the chairs, as well as the wall-paper, 
 had been renewed often ; but so pious was the copy 
 of the past that Peggy seemed to see the same sheer 
 whiteness of the valance that she used to covet for 
 a frock, and the same sprawling roses on chintz and 
 walls. 
 
 In the room where she sat, the walls were tinted 
 grayly-green as of old, and the white curtains of 
 the window might have been the very curtains she 
 had watched the princess push aside, so many times, 
 to look down at the humble roof-trees of the Patch. 
 Almost with the vividness of reality Peggy could 
 
"ROGER MACK" 315 
 
 see that exquisite light shape in the trailing dove- 
 gray gown which made delicate shadows as it fell; 
 she could see the long arm in the elbow sleeve of the 
 period, the white, lovely forearm emerging from a 
 filmy fall of lace, and the beautiful hand with its 
 flashing rings ; she could see the shining dark head, 
 so like Johnny s, in that proud and graceful poise 
 which her son had inherited. The image in the 
 girl s mind was so strongly colored that it made the 
 portrait which hung in the bedchamber seem less 
 real than its spectral beauty. 
 
 The portrait was new. It had been painted since 
 Mr. Winslow s death, since Johnny s vanishing. 
 Mrs. Winslow had an enlargement made of the 
 miniature which was done of the princess during 
 her visit to Russia, after her marriage. Her hus 
 band never spoke of it; whether he ever looked at 
 it or not his closest friends, even the closest friend 
 of all, his wife, did not know ; but two years after 
 his death Emma came across it in a secret drawer of 
 his writing-desk. She planned to give it to Johnny 
 on his next birthday, and she had the water-color 
 copy made to give at the same time. She hung it 
 in Johnny s chamber, which had been his mother s, 
 placing it on the wall to the right of the bed, at such 
 an angle that the beautiful face would meet his eyes 
 as the sun met them, when he woke in the morning. 
 She took infinite pains with the gift, and perhaps 
 spent on it some hopes that his pleasure would in 
 cline his heart more kindly toward the giver. But 
 it was never given. Before his birthday Johnny 
 had disappeared. So the picture hung beside the 
 bed which was always kept daintily ready for the 
 
3 i6 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 son of the house, who never came. Always the 
 room was swept and garnished, but only the maids 
 entered it, unless Emma Winslow went there, alone 
 and unobserved, to think her own thoughts. 
 
 There were other pictures in the room where 
 Peggy sat, that Johnny and she did not see, as 
 well as some that they knew. Over them all dom 
 inated the portrait of Josiah Winslow, painted by a 
 great artist, during the last year of his life; a 
 rugged and yet indomitable face, wherein the marks 
 of care showed, but power showed, also, and a softer 
 look not always visible, but which his friends knew. 
 On another wall was a group of photographs, large 
 and small, all different images of Johnny; Johnny 
 as a laughing, dimpled baby; Johnny as a solemn 
 little boy ; Johnny in his cadet s uniform ; Johnny at 
 Harvard, smiling above his track sweater with its 
 hard-won H, or languid and elegant in his class 
 picture ; and, larger than the others, Johnny holding 
 the little sister that died, on Varonok, his own horse. 
 
 But the new pictures in the room and Peggy s 
 typewriter were almost the only changes. Peggy s 
 desk was the same George Washington which Mrs. 
 Burney had once given her brother, and the desk 
 which Mrs. Winslow used was the old "secretary" 
 purchased by Josiah s agent in Salem, in the eighties, 
 not only because of the beauty of its leaded panes of 
 glass above and its curiously inlaid drawers, but 
 because tradition gave it to a luckless Tory Wins- 
 low of Josiah s own line. On the mantel-shelf, now 
 as always, stood small copies of Marc Autocolski s 
 Ivan the Terrible, and his tremendous Mephisto- 
 pheles. Between the two, above them both, on the 
 
"ROGER MACK" 317 
 
 wall, was a bas-relief of Joraslav the Wise. The 
 princess had bought the Ivan, saying: "Ah! there, 
 there is the true spirit of despotism !" Josiah merely 
 grunted, but when the statuette was unpacked in 
 Overlook he took out another carefully shapeless 
 bundle and unwrapped the Mephistopheles, with the 
 remark : "You are right about Ivan ; he is the sym 
 bol of despotism ; now here is his pretty twin, Nihil 
 ism." Then, as the princess gazed in silence : "Your 
 countryman is great, Olga, great ! Look at this crea 
 ture; he s not Goethe s gentleman devil, not a bit; 
 he s a brute, with a head on him. Look at his clever, 
 sneering head and then at the horrible hands and 
 feet of him, an animal and a fiend oh, I ll chance 
 with his ugly stick, rather than him." 
 
 Their positions had never been altered. The 
 Mephistopheles and the Joraslav were Josiah s only 
 work in the room. Otherwise it was all Olga s. And 
 it had not been changed. There were the same 
 ikons on the wall, the same Russian bronzes of 
 troikas and wild horses, the same figurine of a 
 Tsigane, the same Venetian glass vases filled with 
 violets, as she used to keep them, although their 
 iridescent fragility had been the despair of a dozen 
 housemaids. And in the window-box, with the earli 
 est spring, bloomed hot-house azaleas and hyacinths 
 like those which had brought the Russian a per 
 fume of home. The waxed floors were polished to 
 the same perilous gloss that had been the small 
 Peggy s undoing more than once, as she skipped 
 recklessly across them, and on the floor were the 
 same Persian and Daghestan rugs from the Nijnii 
 Novgorod fair. The two strong souls that had 
 
3 i8 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 clashed and suffered, each in its own fashion, vio 
 lently or dumbly, had been defeated by the stronger 
 years and driven forth from the shining of the sun ; 
 but these insensate objects were scarcely marked by 
 time. Below, and in the other rooms, Emma Wins- 
 low had given her own taste or temperament some 
 indulgence ; but here the least detail was respected. 
 
 "Johnny will come back," she said once to Peggy. 
 "I want him not to feel strange in his own house, 
 especially in his mother s room." 
 
 In the Princess Olga s room, then, Peggy was sit 
 ting before her desk, a week after Johnny took his 
 convalescent s drive, the time lacking two days till 
 Christmas. She had dropped her pen, and her eyes 
 were exploring, idly, the snow-enchanted slopes, 
 slanting down to the chill, white roofs of the flat 
 fields below and a wide, frozen, opal-tinted plain 
 that had been the flowing river. The bend of her 
 head disclosed how fine was the texture and how 
 snowy the skin of her pretty neck, and what grace 
 ful tendrils of silky bronze hair had escaped from its 
 coil, to curl below. Her long lashes fell on a paler 
 cheek than Mistress Peggy had used to show ; there 
 was a sharper oval to the face, and the mouth was 
 set more firmly. 
 
 Mrs. Winslow, who was writing at the secretary, 
 watched her for a few moments, while she seemed 
 to be looking at the paper under her hand. 
 
 "Peggy !" she called ; but she did not look up. 
 
 "Yes, dear?" said Peggy. As she turned it was 
 as if she had slipped her features into a mask of at 
 tentive interest. 
 
 "Peggy, I suppose you had nothing in your mail 
 
ROGER MACK 
 
 about Johnny?" Had Mrs. Winslow been looking 
 she might have seen a flicker of color, like the shift 
 ing, luminous cloud of a cat s-eye, waver over the 
 nape of the girl s neck ; but Peggy s tones were clear 
 and cool : "No, Aunt Emma." 
 
 "There is nothing but the two letters from Billy 
 Bates, since he left Chicago," Mrs. Winslow went 
 on, "and he says he can t tell anything, except that 
 Johnny was well and he thought on the right road 
 to come to his senses, and the last of those was five 
 weeks ago, from Indianapolis. He hasn t answered 
 my last letter yet." 
 
 "You wrote to all the list that Harvard man sent 
 you, didn t you?" 
 
 "To every one, begging him, if he could, without 
 betraying any confidence, to tell me how I could 
 reach Johnny. I have written to his tailor, and his 
 haberdasher. I have hunted up his shoemaker. They 
 have never heard from him since last summer. He 
 closed up his account at the bank ; paid all his small 
 bills if he had any, and simply slipped under the 
 wave. His aunt hasn t heard a word nobody has 
 heard a word. You see, Johnny s most intimate 
 Harvard chum died." 
 
 "But Billy Bates?" 
 
 Mrs. Winslow thought a moment before she an 
 swered, rather slowly : "Yes, we ve Billy Bates. Do 
 you know what he has done? He came round to me 
 and asked me how he could get some of the Old 
 Colony common stock; he had a few thousands he 
 wished to invest. I gave him a chance to buy at a 
 reasonable figure " 
 
 "That is, you sold him some of your own, cheap ?" 
 
320 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 "Why not ? He was good to Johnny. I made him 
 promise that if Johnny should be ill or in trouble, 
 he would give us a chance to help him." 
 
 Peggy only nodded; but in a moment she made 
 an excuse for getting stamps for her letters, which 
 brought her near enough to drop a light kiss on 
 Emma Winslow s hair. The older woman put her 
 arm about the supple waist and held her tenderly 
 close. "I suppose you know, Peggy, you are a 
 great comfort to me ?" she said. 
 
 "It s my business to be/ laughed Peggy. "I get 
 a large salary for being; and then oh, I do love 
 you, Aunt Emma !" while she caught the hand and 
 held it to her cheek and her lips. 
 
 "Don t you suppose that s a comfort to me, too ?" 
 said the elder woman. "Plenty of people like me; 
 I trust a great many respect me ; but who loves me 
 besides my good old dad and you? Well, maybe 
 Elly and Cis a little, and Claudia Loraine and a 
 few friends. You see, it s not a long list." 
 
 "It s a heap longer than you know," said Peggy. 
 
 "Do you remember," Emma Winslow s tone 
 had changed "it was in this very room Johnny 
 came that day my husband died; and you stood, 
 there, in the other doorway? For months I hated 
 the shine of the setting sun on the river, just because 
 it was shining, shining in that blinding way, then. 
 And, do you know, the first thing that roused me 
 was that I must comfort Johnny, his father s only 
 son. But he wouldn t let me. He was perfectly 
 gentle, gentle as snow, but I couldn t reach him. 
 And yet he has so kind a heart, too kind, too 
 easily touched!" She turned away and stood with 
 
"ROGER MACK" 321 
 
 her back to Peggy, looking out on the snow. 
 "Christmas is a hard season," she said; "I don t 
 know how I am going to bear it without and 
 Johnny gone, too." 
 
 "Oh, Johnny!" Peggy broke in loftily; but her 
 heart ached for the uncomplaining pain that she 
 knew was in the other woman s face. "Johnny ll 
 come back all right. I ll answer for Johnny/ 
 
 Emma Winslow tried to laugh, but the laugh 
 broke ; she laid her head against the window-pane. 
 "Peggy," said she, "do you mind if I cry? I think 
 it s the season and the holly and the sleigh-bells; 
 they get on my nerves." 
 
 Now, never before had Peggy seen any intimation 
 of nerves about her friend and protector. Mrs. 
 Winslow s self-control seemed a fastness which none 
 of the afflictions or perils of humanity could storm. 
 
 Such conquering of her own spirit was beyond 
 Margaret Rutherford. It held her at arm s length, 
 as those qualities in our friends, which we admire 
 but have no hopes of imitating, generally hold us. 
 
 And now Peggy saw a tear splash on the clenched 
 hand at the window-pane ; and she was abashed. It 
 had not been philosophy or indifference, then, which 
 had kept Aunt Emma so tolerant, so uncomplaining 
 about Johnny. Johnny had hurt her all along, just 
 as he had hurt Peggy, and Peggy felt a sudden pain 
 in her throat sweep in a curve to the roof of her 
 mouth. 
 
 But even as Peggy thought this, Emma turned 
 her quiet face, wiping her eyes, with a kind of apol 
 ogy in her smile, and sat down calmly in an easy 
 chair. 
 
322 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 The chair was just under the large portrait of 
 Winslow. While his wife talked, she looked into his 
 face. On hers was almost the expression it might 
 have worn, had the painted man been a sentient 
 listener to her words. "I d like to have you under 
 stand/ she said, "how I feel about Johnny. I took 
 him to my heart from the first, when he was a little, 
 lonely creature mourning for his mother, but never 
 making any fuss about it. There never was such a 
 sweet little chap in the world !" 
 
 "No," said Peggy, "I reckon there never was." 
 
 "I think at first he did like me a little. He seemed 
 to." 
 
 "I know he did," said Peggy. 
 
 "But after I married his father it was different. 
 He never forgave me for usurping his mother s 
 place. I suppose that was how he put it. I tried to 
 understand his point of view. I think I do, in a way. 
 He wouldn t let himself grow attached to me. But 
 he loved baby, Peggy." 
 
 "I m sure," said Peggy. 
 
 "The day after we buried her he went out to the 
 cemetery. He gathered some wild flowers, and I 
 found them there on the little grave. That night, 
 when he went back, I thought there was something 
 different in his face. But when I saw him again it 
 was gone, or else I only imagined it. I don t deny 
 his coldness hurt me, but I tried to be reasonable 
 and never let his father suspect that it did hurt. I 
 felt all the time that if Si could only find his son 
 and Johnny find his father, and they could under 
 stand each other, I would have no right to grumble, 
 whether he ever cared for me or not. But while I 
 
"ROGER MACK" 323 
 
 feel convinced that Johnny really loved his father, 
 very deeply " 
 
 "He fairly adored him!" asserted Peggy stoutly; 
 "he somehow got all wrong about him ; but he was 
 awfully fond of him and admired him, just the 
 same." 
 
 "Yet they seemed to drift apart. And I could do 
 nothing to bring them nearer because he mistrusted 
 me" 
 
 "Shame on him !" exploded Peggy. "He was al 
 ways the pig-headedest little boy, even! Oh, the 
 things I am going to say to him when I once get 
 hold of him again!" 
 
 "It s his conscience, of course. I often told Si he 
 shouldn t blame Johnny for inheriting the Puritan 
 conscience. The trouble was, he had a Puritan con 
 science and a Russian imagination " 
 
 "And his own obstinacy." 
 
 "I don t agree with you ; I think he is open to con 
 viction, if it is only rubbed in hard enough. But, 
 Peggy, don t you see that with his convictions there 
 was danger that he would wreck not only his for 
 tune but himself, if he were trusted with it? The 
 times we have talked about it, Mr. Winslow and I, 
 thinking one plan and another ! The weight it was 
 on his father s heart I don t suppose anybody can 
 know. At one time Si made a will giving me every 
 thing for my life. I can trust Johnny with you/ he 
 said; but I tore the will up, and he made another 
 before he went to bed very similar to the one last 
 made. 
 
 "Our idea was to let Johnny see for himself. We 
 knew he would lose the hundred thousand. But we 
 
324 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 expected then that I should show him his father s 
 letter to him and his father s letter of trust to me. 
 See, I will show my letter to you, dear. I can t have 
 any secrets about Johnny with you." 
 
 She took the letter out of a locked box, in which 
 she replaced it after Peggy had read it. Peggy, with 
 a moving of the heart, perceived in the box a pile of 
 the small diaries which Mr. Winslow used, his 
 watch and chain, and such personal trifles. 
 
 "Well?" said Mrs. Winslow. 
 
 "It s very generous," said Peggy, "but I knew 
 you would be. I suppose meantime you meant to 
 help Johnny." 
 
 "I meant to lend him money, and let him show the 
 stuff he is made of. But we can t find him." 
 
 Peggy was standing by the window. "You said 
 we should have no secrets," she said slowly. "I 
 think so, too. There is a little thing. It didn t seem 
 worth while until I found out more but I m 
 going to tell you everything just as it happens. 
 There s Mishka* ; he must hear from Johnny." 
 
 "Yes, through Billy; no more than we know." 
 
 Peggy raised and dropped her eyes; she blushed 
 faintly, finally laughed. "I was trying to get round 
 to it. To-day well, to-day, Michael showed me 
 a letter from Johnny. I ll go get it." 
 
 And she hurriedly left the room. Emma smiled 
 and thought: "I dare say if I could follow her I 
 should find she was wearing it on her heart. Oh, 
 how ridiculous are girls!" 
 
 Then she looked from the baby girl on the wall 
 
 *Russian diminutive of Michael. 
 
"ROGER MACK" 325 
 
 to Johnny s last picture. Where was he now, this 
 Christmas-tide? With no money, no friends but 
 her dismal reverie halted on the word and she 
 smiled. Wherever he was, she knew right well that 
 Johnny would not be without friends. 
 
 Peggy returned with an open letter. "The paper 
 is off a block," announced she; "the envelope is a 
 stamped one and postmarked Chicago. That tells 
 nothing except that Billy Bates must have been in 
 Chicago last week." 
 
 "As I am hunting Billy, that s something," said 
 Mrs. Winslow. She unfolded the paper and dropped 
 it. "In Russian !" she cried. 
 
 "Of course. He always writes Russian to Mishka, 
 but I made him translate it. He says kind things to 
 Mishka and sends him a Russian picture-card and 
 tells him that he would send him more, but he has 
 been in hospital, ill for six weeks, and, while he 
 gets good wages, he has to spend a good deal, for he 
 is helping take care of three little children." 
 
 "Three children!" repeated Mrs. Winslow; 
 "whose children?" 
 
 "You wouldn t suppose Johnny could have car 
 ried his nonsense so far as as to marry some 
 body?" Peggy made the speech with elaborate care 
 lessness. 
 
 "No, I wouldn t," retorted Mrs. Winslow. 
 
 "A widow," suggested Peggy, who had never 
 harbored the suspicion until this moment, but in 
 stantly began to color it with the hues of life. "One 
 of those right helpless, silly, deplorable sort of crea 
 tures that look pathetic and always have their shirt 
 waists parting from their skirts. Husband probably 
 
326 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 killed by machinery and the children are all about 
 the same age, one born about every six months " 
 
 "That, Peggy," Mrs. Winslow interrupted, "is 
 impossible." 
 
 "Not to that sort of woman. They are bound by 
 no natural laws. No doubt she s pretty in a driveling 
 fashion " 
 
 "But, Peggy," Mrs. Winslow objected, "he says 
 he was in a hospital. If he were married his wife 
 would take care of him." 
 
 "Not that kind," said Peggy firmly; "she s too 
 trifling." 
 
 "But he says he takes part of the care of the chil 
 dren." 
 
 "She takes the other part; she s so trifling she 
 can t even take care of her own children; it s awful 
 to think what Johnny probably has to eat." 
 
 "Peggy," asked Mrs. Winslow, "do you believe 
 that rubbish, yourself?" 
 
 Peggy s white teeth flashed ; she owned up with a 
 laugh: "No, Aunt Emma, I only like to pretend, 
 just as Johnny and I used to, as children ; there is a 
 sort of joy flinging oneself thoroughly into a dra 
 matic situation. Don t you ever want to get into 
 some one s else skin? But Johnny? I m pretty sure 
 Johnny is taking care of some mate s kit of human 
 ity, and the man s dead. I reckon Billy s the other 
 partner in the kindergarten." 
 
 "That would be likely," mused Mrs. Winslow, 
 "and like Johnny. Peggy, do you suppose he was 
 very ill? Why didn t Billy Bates tell us?" 
 
 Peggy supposed because Johnny would not allow 
 him, and Billy was straitened in resources by 
 
"ROGER MACK" 327 
 
 some promise. But why couldn t there be a letter 
 sent through Michael ? 
 
 "You write a letter, you mean?" queried Emma 
 Winslow. 
 
 "Of course not," Peggy s tone and pose were 
 full of dignity "you write him a letter." 
 
 Emma smiled wearily. "But, you see, I have writ 
 ten, with no result. I only got profuse and humble 
 apologies from Bates because he had promised that 
 he would not forward any letters. Ivan considered 
 it was the same as if he had died " 
 
 "Oh, can t Johnny be mawkish, sometimes !" cried 
 Peggy, tossing her head. "I m glad I called him a 
 plumb idiot." 
 
 "I don t think Johnny even thought of opening 
 the envelope. He didn t." 
 
 "He d have to open this, for it would be inside 
 Michael s." 
 
 "He would know the handwriting; that would 
 stop him at the first sentence." 
 
 "I d typewrite it." 
 
 "And if he read it, read it to the close, he would 
 steel his heart against every word I say. If you 
 wrote it, he would read it in the first place, and it 
 would move him in the second." 
 
 Peggy took a turn up and down the room. "I 
 don t see how I can, Aunt Emma; I told him I 
 wouldn t ever speak to him again, to save his life! 
 It was so silly and cruel and horrid of me ; but I did. 
 And I don t see how I can break my word." 
 
 "It was only a foolish expression. You didn t 
 believe you would keep your word; he didn t be 
 lieve you would." 
 
328 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 "Oh, yes, ma am, he did. And Johnny never 
 breaks his word. Oh, I shan t break mine." 
 
 "But this isn t speaking, since you are so ab 
 surd." 
 
 "Besides I have written him," said Peggy in a 
 very little, soft voice. 
 
 "Peggy!" 
 
 "Oh, not as myself ; dear no ; that would break my 
 word. I wrote him (through Michael) as a a boy 
 a Fairport boy, who used to steal rides on the cars 
 and who was once chased by the constable and res 
 cued with two or three others by Johnny. That res 
 cue really happened. I said I was one of that crowd. 
 I was, in fact, hanging on to the caboose, and the 
 brakeman didn t know it until they slowed down, 
 and he spied us and signaled a policeman. I don t 
 know what we should have done; the prison doors 
 yawned for us, as they used to say in the stories; 
 but in the very instant of doom Johnny and Mishka 
 appeared. Mishka was driving the big landau and 
 Johnny s nice little face was at the window. The 
 policeman was pounding down the street after us. 
 We dived and doubled, shot into one shop and out 
 the back yard and came out behind him, and made 
 straight for Johnny, who had the door open. He 
 sheltered us; and Michael drove away while the 
 policeman hollered to stop. There were three boys 
 and I. I never saw any of the boys before or after ; 
 but I pretended to be one of those boys. I called 
 myself Roger Mack ; Mack, after my horse down in 
 Tennessee, and Roger I chose for pretty, as old 
 mammy used to say. I told him I lived in Fairport 
 and worked for my living and had half-way edu- 
 
"ROGER MACK" 329 
 
 cated myself. It would be a great help to me if he 
 would write me and tell me of any job he might 
 hear of in Chicago, if he was there. I was giving the 
 letter to Michael to post for me. What s more, I got 
 Michael to say Roger Mack is a good boy/ " 
 
 "But the handwriting; you couldn t disguise 
 that?" 
 
 "I didn t try. I consider that right clever of me. 
 You know the Martins? The older sister sews for 
 Cousin Rebecca Winter. Well, Sadie Martin is a 
 typewriter, and she taught me a little stenography; 
 she s giving me lessons, right along. She is really a 
 fine girl, and she s as trustworthy as trustworthy 
 as your William Bates, who admires her very much, 
 by the way. Sadie is my fellow conspirator ; that is, 
 she is one of them. She has heard so much about 
 Johnny from the fidus Achates that she is very in 
 terested. But the best is, she can hold her tongue." 
 
 "And she wrote the letter?" 
 
 "She did. She admired it very much." 
 
 "And whom else have you in the plot?" 
 
 "Why, Michael, of course ; and only Luke Darrell, 
 else." 
 
 Mrs. Winslow laughed a little. "We never can 
 seem to get along without Luke Darrell in Fair- 
 port. But what is he for?" 
 
 "Address place to send letters to. Care L. Dar 
 rell, Livery and Feed Stables, Fairport." 
 
 "I see, dear. What did Luke say when you told 
 him?" 
 
 "He was right nice. He screwed his eyes up 
 after he had put himself, his office, and his office 
 stationery at my service and he said : Well, Miss 
 
330 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 Rutherford, if you ll excuse me saying so, you re 
 showing good judgment. You can t drive a high- 
 stepping colt in harness, first jump; it s better to 
 start with a halter. Well, I don t know how much 
 we ll get out of it, but there is my secret, Aunt 
 Emma; I won t have any more." 
 
 Thus did Roger Mack begin his career, a longer 
 one than his sponsors foreboded. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 TYLER PASSES 
 
 Tyler was a cheerful man these days. It is doubt 
 ful whether he really meant murder by Johnny, al 
 though his comrades in the assault would not have 
 stopped short of it after their tempers were roused. 
 He was well content when the affair ended with 
 Johnny s losing five weeks and his job (as he 
 thought), besides having a bad time in the hospital. 
 He didn t hesitate to say to his intimates that he 
 had taught the young cub a lesson, maybe he d be 
 have himself now. 
 
 But it was with some misgivings that, one even 
 ing, peacefully playing poker in his favorite saloon, 
 and holding at that moment a full house of high 
 character, he perceived Johnny s dark head in the 
 doorway. 
 
 Johnny was accompanied by two molders, gener 
 ally leaders among the radical element. He was 
 still pale from his illness ; but he walked with a light, 
 springy step. He wore his working-clothes. 
 
 "I m out," said Tyler s neighbor, dropping his 
 cards. 
 
 Secretly Tyler wished that he were out, too. But 
 he studied his hand and then carelessly shoved a pile 
 of blue chips into the heap on the table. 
 
332 
 
 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 "Fifteen better," said he. 
 
 Two more men dropped out. 
 
 The fifth put out his hand with his cards in it, as 
 if to throw them on the table, but in the act hesi 
 tated, because he saw Johnny at his elbow. 
 
 "Hullo, Gleason!" he called; "glad to see you re 
 out." 
 
 "Don t let me interrupt your game," said Johnny, 
 "I only want to speak a word with Mr. Tyler when 
 the hand s out." 
 
 "That decides it," laughed the man. "I call; 
 Wally, take my pile." He pushed the last of his blue 
 chips into the center. 
 
 "Full house, queens up," said Tyler. 
 
 "Not good ; kings over here." Then, as he raked 
 in the swollen aggregation of rising and falling 
 jackpots he gleefully confessed: "I d made up my 
 mind Wally had fours and was going to pull out, 
 when I saw Van here, and my mind sort of shifted." 
 
 Tyler kept his easy smile (he prided himself on 
 being a good loser), but his thoughts were as raven 
 ing wolves. He greeted Johnny perfunctorily. 
 
 "I have only one word to say," said Johnny in 
 a low voice, with extreme gentleness. "I m not go 
 ing to ask you who was the man who stabbed me 
 last month, I don t care who he was. He was only 
 a tool " Tyler s strident tones overrode the other s 
 quiet tenor : 
 
 "Look here, young gentleman, Gleetzin, or what 
 ever you call yourself, I fought you with my hands, 
 nothing else ; and you fought me with knucks !" 
 
 "And I ll fight again with knucks, any time," re 
 turned Johnny in the same gentle accents, "when 
 
TYLER PASSES 333 
 
 three men jump out of the dark at me. At any 
 time you wish I am willing to fight you, fairly and 
 squarely, with bare knuckles or with gloves; and 
 may the best man win ! But if you set on me again 
 with knives or crowbars or pistols, I go ready to 
 protect myself, and I shall kill you. That s all. 
 Good evening." Johnny wheeled half around as if 
 to go. 
 
 "Aw, cool off," sneered Tyler; "I ain t righting 
 with a typewriter and can t keep up with your lingo ; 
 but I ll fight you, all right and this minute!" 
 
 He had been measuring Johnny; it came to him 
 that the young fellow was enfeebled by illness and 
 should prove an easy mark ; he was sure of it when 
 Johnny seemed about to depart so tamely. But he 
 found his mistake before the end of the first round, 
 suspected it the minute Johnny peeled off his coat 
 and showed his undershirt and the belt about his 
 waist. "He meant to pick a fight, by hell!" darted 
 through his brain, and his heart beat more quickly. 
 The next second a body blow sent him reeling. He 
 recovered himself and made a rush. 
 
 Tyler s terrible rushes, wherein by sheer force and 
 weight he broke down his opponent s guard, were 
 known wherever he was known. He hurled himself 
 on Johnny with the force of a battering-ram, but 
 what avails a battering-ram against a tiger which 
 leaps out of its way? Before he could rush again, 
 Johnny feinted with his right, and easily parrying 
 Tyler s half-hearted jab at his eyes, sent a crushing 
 left-handed blow straight at the big man s heart. 
 
 The fight was ended again. Tyler, who had top 
 pled over, got on to his knees ; but the barkeeper, the 
 
334 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 recognized representative of the Red Cross on such 
 occasions, hauled him behind the bar and held him 
 with arguments and arms, while he (secretly thank 
 ful for his bonds) made futile struggles to escape 
 and get at Johnny, and swore ungratefully at his 
 guardian angel. This latter simply winked at the 
 crowd in the door, whence emerged a tall and burly 
 policeman. 
 
 "Do yous make complaint, Mr. Tyler ?" asked the 
 tall policeman, with much civility. 
 
 "No, I don t make complaint," Tyler replied sul 
 lenly. "I can settle my troubles outside the City 
 Hall." 
 
 He hadn t lost all his shrewdness, and he knew 
 the popular view; moreover, to do him justice, he 
 had plenty of confidence in his own powers. 
 
 "Aw, go get the drinks on me," he added with 
 a forced grin. On the whole, he slipped out of the 
 humiliation of the occasion with considerable deft 
 ness. But never had Tyler hated a man as he hated 
 Johnny from that day henceforward. The hatred 
 was not violent, as it had been before, but it was 
 virulent. And when he lost his election as district 
 president he gave the credit where it belonged and 
 hated Johnny a little more. All the same, Johnny 
 won. Before six months had passed he had forced 
 Tyler out of the molders union. 
 
 They had only one interview. They were alone 
 together, with a newspaper man at the keyhole of 
 one door and Giuseppe, in Tyler s interests, at the 
 other. 
 
 Tyler came straight to the point : "What do you 
 want to let up on me?" said he. 
 
TYLER PASSES 335 
 
 "You to leave the molders and leave Chicago," 
 said Johnny. 
 
 "I m going into the machinists , anyhow," said 
 Tyler carelessly, "but why should I leave Chicago?" 
 
 Johnny s reply was given close to Tyler s face, so 
 low that the newspaper man could not catch it, 
 which was a sore chagrin to him. 
 
 "Because I know you made Evers and Hastings 
 pay you three hundred dollars to keep on hiring 
 non-union men. And I can prove it. Because I 
 know you sold out to Wethers ; and I ve got one of 
 your letters." 
 
 "Maybe you ll show it to me," jeered Tyler, but 
 his color turned. 
 
 "I ll show you a copy," said Johnny, and took out 
 a slip from his pocketbook, which (always keeping 
 his eye on the man), he handed to him. 
 
 Tyler read it. His face was undecipherable. He 
 pushed it back to Johnny. 
 
 "It s good," said he, in poker parlance, "but I was 
 going, anyhow. I m not stuck on Chicago. But 
 you re not through with me yet, Mr. John Wins- 
 low." 
 
 But Johnny was not disturbed. He was interested 
 in politics, for the most exciting presidential election 
 since the war was drawing near, and the entire 
 American people were studying political economy. 
 He was also interested in his work, which now was 
 in a steel mill ; and he frequently told Billy, with a 
 touch of his old enthusiasm, that steel was the most 
 wonderful and interesting thing in the world. He 
 got good wages. The little Blokers were no longer a 
 continual goad to his remorse; they were not only 
 
336 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 Bicker s children, they were their own often puz 
 zling but interesting selves. In short, he was re 
 covering his spirits. He was desperately unhappy 
 often, and lonely beyond expression; but his life be 
 gan to creep out of the pit. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 JOHNNY MEETS AN OLD FRIEND 
 
 Not long after Tyler s flitting, Johnny ran 
 against an old Fairport friend. Several times he 
 had seen familiar faces on the street, had dodged 
 them unobserved and, finally, fled from them 
 when he feared their notice; this time there was 
 no fleeing. The friend was Mrs. Winter, and he 
 met her in the last place which he would have feared 
 as holding any danger of that sort, a street-car, 
 since all Fairport knew Mrs. Winter s detestation 
 of street-cars. 
 
 "So long as I have fifty cents left in my pocket," 
 she was accustomed to remark, "I will never ride in 
 those disobliging pest-houses !" 
 
 But there are two things, besides the good will, 
 necessary to take a cab instead of the cars : one is 
 money, with which Mrs. Winter was amply sup 
 plied, the other (quite as necessary) is a cab to take. 
 This day she found that, by some mistake, the cab 
 on which she counted was not at hand ; rather than 
 be late for an appointment she stooped her proud 
 spirit to the plebeian transport. 
 
 The car was full. A young man gave her his 
 seat. He was a handsome, tall, clean-shaven, dark, 
 young fellow, who wore a blue flannel shirt and 
 
 337 
 
338 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 trousers that had seen trouble with grocery bar 
 rels; but his battered soft hat came off with the 
 grace of a courtier, as he said : "Will you take this 
 seat, madam ?" 
 
 "Thank you," she began with perfunctory cour 
 tesy; then she looked him full in the face. "Isn t it 
 Johnny Winslow?" she inquired calmly. Johnny 
 hesitated, he flushed. 
 
 "Don t bother to deny it," said she; "this isn t the 
 place for a talk, but won t you come to the Annex 
 after you ve got on some other clothes and take 
 dinner with me? Better. If you wish, I ll never 
 mention seeing you." 
 
 Johnny s wits were stampeded by the surprise; 
 moreover, he felt a traitorous weakness of the heart 
 at the sight of those kind, familiar features ; he was 
 disgusted with himself, but he was glad ; he was so 
 glad, he couldn t keep his lips from curling as he 
 stammered : "I can t come to dinner ; but I will come 
 in the evening, if you are not engaged." He did 
 come. He appeared in his workman s Sunday 
 clothes, and sat in front of Mrs. Winter, clasping 
 his hands over his knee and lifting his boyish smile 
 to her keen eyes. 
 
 "Well, Johnny-Ivan," she said, "have you been 
 knocked down in the crush yet?" 
 
 "Knocked down and trampled on," he answered, 
 "whichever way you mean." 
 
 "Mind telling me, or haven t you got there yet ?" 
 
 "I m not quite there yet, I think, Mrs. Winter; 
 I m too sore." 
 
 "Very well. Only you used to call me Aunty 
 Winter." 
 
JOHNNY MEETS AN OLD FRIEND 339 
 
 "You are such a very great lady " 
 
 "Provincial, only, Johnny-Ivan; but what if I 
 were? You haven t, I take it, done anything un 
 worthy of a gentleman or of Governor Josiah?" 
 
 "No, I hope not. Tell me, Aunty Winter, does the 
 portrait of the old governor still hang in the li 
 brary?" 
 
 "Just the same; Emma Winslow has good taste, 
 I will say, though she has stolen Peggy from me." 
 
 "Is Miss Rutherford with Mrs. Winslow?" He 
 looked at his boots. 
 
 "Peggy is with your stepmother, yes. Good 
 thing, too, although I wanted her myself, and she s 
 my kin. She makes Emma mighty comfortable; 
 and I think Emma means to do the right thing by 
 her." 
 
 "She s well, I hope," said Johnny constrainedly. 
 
 "Who? Mrs. Winslow, or Peggy?" 
 
 "Both." 
 
 Mrs. Winter smiled, and rumpled his hair. "It s 
 good to see your curly head again, Johnny-Ivan. 
 What are you up to?" 
 
 "I m a rougher in a steel mill." 
 
 "It sounds rather discreditable; but I suppose it 
 isn t." 
 
 "It isn t, at all. It s rather high up." 
 
 "What do you do, by chance?" 
 
 "I pull out red-hot billets from the furnace 
 and" 
 
 "Gracious ! Don t you get burned ?" 
 
 "Oh, I have some tongs." 
 
 "Jo nivan, will you give me your word you don t 
 get burned ?" 
 
340 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 "Not now. And, cheer up, the worst is yet to 
 come ! I m going to be a heater s helper, next week." 
 
 "That sounds dangerous, too." 
 
 "It s not. It s a big promotion. I shall earn four 
 and five dollars a day." 
 
 "Is that good wages ?" 
 
 "Very." 
 
 "Where do you live? Write it on a card, will 
 you ?" And as Johnny obeyed : "Take one of my 
 cards and tack it on to your clothes ; how many suits 
 do you have ? Take a number and tack one on each 
 coat, so if you meet with any accident I ll know it. 
 I don t think much of your trade for safety. Talk 
 ing of accidents, I wonder were you ever in the 
 Presbyterian Hospital ?" 
 
 . Johnny admitted that he had been in the Presby 
 terian Hospital. 
 
 Mrs. Winter nodded. "I heard of you; the nurses 
 and the superintendent were very taken with your 
 polite manners." 
 
 "I m glad I didn t discredit my class. Working- 
 men are fine fellows." 
 
 "You still think that, and still know more than 
 your father ?" 
 
 "I still think that; but so did my father, and he 
 knew a lot more than I." 
 
 "About labor?" 
 "About everything." 
 
 Mrs. Winter leaned back ; a strikingly handsome, 
 elderly woman past seventy, Johnny knew, did he 
 stop to think, but no one ever stopped to think about 
 Mrs. Winter s years. She did not defy the approach 
 of age for a good reason, age did not approach 
 
KEEP BACK!" SAID HE. "HES DEAD; YOU VE KILLED HIM ALL KIGHT! " /. 
 
JOHNNY MEETS AN OLD FRIEND 341 
 
 her. The supple and erect form on the red brocaded 
 sofa, which had waltzed with the blue and gold uni 
 forms of the Civil War, two years after this speak 
 ing was agile enough to tread a measure with the 
 clay-colored khaki of the Spanish volunteers; her 
 lustrous eyes were undimmed and her delicate skin 
 singularly free from wrinkles ; if her black hair had 
 turned gray, it was still, to all appearances, abund 
 ant, with a burnished gloss, not a dead or faded 
 grayness ; and when she smiled she showed her own 
 white teeth. She was not smiling now, but view 
 ing the young man with much gravity. 
 
 "Do you prefer your new class to your old class?" 
 were her first words. 
 
 "No," said Johnny. 
 
 "Do you prefer your new mode of life to your 
 old?" 
 
 "No," said Johnny. 
 
 "Well, why don t you give it all up and come 
 back?" 
 
 "Ah, that s too complicated. I can t get back, for 
 one thing." 
 
 "But you can. Have you ever thought, Johnny, 
 that the loss of your fortune isn t irretrievable? You 
 have until you are thirty. If you can make one hun 
 dred thousand dollars before you are thirty, you 
 will have all your share of your father s fortune." 
 
 Johnny studied the toes of his best shoes, and his 
 mouth puckered rather ruefully. "I have, since I 
 left college, up to date, been able to save just forty- 
 eight dollars and fifty cents," said he; "that doesn t 
 look as if I d be a bloated capitalist in a hurry, does 
 it? But I ll tell you my plan. I wanted to learn the 
 
342 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 plow business go through all the branches ; but the 
 union requirements for apprentices are pretty stiff; 
 so, as I had a chance to get into steel in an open 
 shop, I went in. I mean to learn the business, all the 
 branches, be able to be rougher, finisher, roller, 
 heater, melter, mechanic know the business. Then 
 with customary assurance I shall try to convince 
 some company that I m just the man they want to 
 put in charge of a rolling-mill or an open hearth 
 plant. I shall jump to three or four thousand a year 
 and have my dress-suit pressed, if the moths haven t 
 eaten it up. And then well, then, I shall have my 
 foot on the ladder. But it will take longer than five 
 years to make good so I could claim what I might 
 have had." 
 
 Mrs. Winter drew a deep breath. "Johnny, your 
 father would be mighty happy if he could hear you 
 talk that way. I believe, for all your charm, you 
 have a heap of sense." 
 
 "I m afraid you think I am expecting to get on 
 too fast. Very likely I am; but that is what I am 
 trying for. Then I have another chance. I can be 
 organizer, business agent, what you would call a 
 walking delegate, and try to make the unions stand 
 for something better than striking, be the kind of 
 labor leader Billy Bates is. That is what I set out 
 to be." 
 
 "Well, but" 
 
 "That s it. But. Maybe my but isn t the same 
 as yours, but it comes to the same conclusion. I am 
 not free to try. Maybe, anyhow, I can help them 
 better as an employer than directly on their side. 
 But some one, I hope Billy Bates, is going to show 
 
JOHNNY MEETS AN OLD FRIEND 343 
 
 the unions that they haven t begun to do half what 
 they can do for their men. Why, just take this one 
 point of protection; the union only protects the 
 workingman from his immediate employer, who, in 
 nine out of ten cases, is the mildest of his oppress 
 ors; the poor fellow has no shield against the in 
 stalment Shylock, who takes three or four prices out 
 of him, and then the goods, themselves, if the last 
 ounce of the pound of flesh isn t forthcoming! Or 
 against the rascally landlord who charges extor 
 tionate rent for pestilential fire-traps ! Or the charla 
 tans who fatten on the poor fellow s trustfulness in 
 those who profess to be his friends ! Or the sham 
 doctors who fleece him and poison him and kill him, 
 and charge his widow for the murder ! The destruc 
 tion of the poor is their poverty; there s nothing 
 truer in the Bible. But only in a few cases does a 
 man s union lift a hand for him, outside of his shop. 
 They ought. And, in the shops, the root of the whole 
 matter, as Billy says, is that the unions haven t yet 
 learned, though they have begun to learn, that the 
 real way to better the condition of workingmen is 
 to make them better workers! The unions have 
 taken about all they can from the share of the em 
 ployer. The only way for the men to get more, 
 permanently, is to produce more. It used to make 
 me tired when the boys kicked at my doing so much. 
 Putting up wages and prices all round helps no one 
 instead, it is apt to bring on a collapse but I beg 
 your pardon, Aunty Winter, I am going on like a 
 house-afire, not giving you a chance to escape !" 
 "Never mind me, Johnny ; I like to hear you." 
 "But I may be tiring you ; as for me, I never go 
 
344 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 to bed so long as I can get anybody to listen to my 
 artless prattle." 
 
 "But, Johnny-Ivan, tell me ; how do you expect to 
 convert your unions?" 
 
 "Well, I told you ; I don t ; there are Billy Bates, 
 and Arthur and Sargent, and there s a young fel 
 low named Mitchell coming on, that s the crowd 
 I expect to do the John-the-Baptist stunt. As I m 
 situated, I can only be the man behind the gun." 
 
 "It will amount, virtually," said Mrs. Winter 
 musingly, "it will amount to converting the unions ; 
 and, for that matter, the manufacturers are about as 
 stupid ; and sometimes I think they are not so willing 
 to learn. The trouble is, it is only a question of in 
 terest, and they haven t either of them the sense to 
 see where their interest lies." 
 
 But Johnny, who had jumped up and was pacing 
 the floor, spouting jets of oratory, like a perambu 
 lating volcano, broke in : "There is where I disagree 
 with you, Aunty Winter ; on all hands you hear the 
 same story; how materialistic we Americans are. 
 We are not! We are sentimental idealists! I know 
 the workingmen are " 
 
 "The socialists may be." 
 
 "All of us. There s a notion nowadays that most 
 of them are forced into the union. Undoubtedly 
 some are ; but a good many more pretend to be, to 
 stand in with the employers and carry water on 
 both shoulders. Do you think that it is the material 
 benefits of a union that attract the men most? My 
 dear Aunty Winter, a skilled workman doesn t need 
 the union ; he can get his price, even a bad year like 
 this, without paying dues and risking having to 
 
JOHNNY MEETS AN OLD FRIEND 345 
 
 stop work to help somebody else. Yet he joins. 
 Why ? Because he is an idealist. Because he is will 
 ing to sacrifice himself to help the others. He is the 
 fellow who goes into a strike last and gives it up 
 last ! Well, there is another reason why he believes 
 in the unions; it isn t such a high reason, but it is 
 purely sentimental, too. You don t know how lonely 
 a poor man is. He is so unfriended and so be 
 wildered. He is always being shoved aside. Some 
 times he is crushed by his loneliness; sometimes he 
 turns sullen. In either case, put him into a union. 
 He feels he is part of a great organization of 
 brothers. Send him on a committee to anybody, no 
 matter how unimportant; he is no longer insignifi 
 cant; he has a power behind him, and he can give 
 back talk freely. He does, too, if he is fresh, in a 
 new union. But you see that is all sentiment." 
 
 "Well, don t you think there is a heap of senti 
 ment in this envy and hatred of the poor for the 
 rich, which seems the fashion? Johnny, the manu 
 facturers don t continually grind the faces of their 
 men nowadays, whatever they used to do." 
 
 "Poor people have a hard time, you see; and 
 they don t always hit the right quarter guessing 
 where their misfortunes come from. Oh, yes, there is 
 a lot of sentiment about that, of course. Part of the 
 bitterness comes from the fact that the men and their 
 employers have so little personal intercourse. You 
 can t feel so bitter toward a man that calls you by 
 your name, and perhaps has advised you in difficulty, 
 or lent you a little money in trouble, as you can to 
 an unknown corporation. Why, even boys, who are 
 less accessible to compassion than any known ani- 
 
346 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 mal, I do believe, even boys show that. After they 
 get acquainted, they let up on their hazing. It never 
 lasts the year through. 
 
 "Another reason is not sentimental at first sight, 
 yet it has its ideal side. Unhappily, the old notion 
 that any saving, self-denying, industrious working- 
 man might rise to be something better and employ 
 men on his own account, is about gone. Most wage- 
 earners expect to live and die wage-earners, and it 
 makes an awful difference. Their whole effort, now, 
 is not to get on, which involves making their em 
 ployers interest their own; not at all; they don t 
 expect to get on; what they strain every nerve for 
 is to get as much money for as little work as possi 
 ble, so they will be able to work as long as possible 
 and lay up as much." 
 
 "That s short-sighted." 
 
 "Of course, but natural, almost inevitable. And 
 it is hard making them understand. I think I could 
 show the advantages of a good job as well to an 
 employer as a workingman." 
 
 "I do, too, Johnny. And now let s come to the 
 point. I believe in you. Why don t you let me lend 
 you some money " 
 
 Johnny stirred as if to speak, but she stopped him, 
 autocratically. "You ll refuse, of course, but let me 
 make the proposition. It will always be open. Let 
 me lend you ten thousand at six per cent, for ten 
 years. I ll lend it to you in Old Colony Plow stock 
 at par " 
 
 "It s worth more," interrupted Johnny. 
 
 "Not in the open market. You ll be a stock 
 holder ; you can go to the meetings ; you can look at 
 
JOHNNY MEETS AN OLD FRIEND 347 
 
 the books, and you can have a position with us. Oh, 
 we ll get the worth of our money, Johnny." 
 
 "Thank you, Mrs. Winter, but it s impossible." 
 
 "You needn t be cross and stiff, Johnny that s 
 better." Johnny was on one knee before her. 
 
 "You know I m grateful," he cried; "I can t tell 
 you how awfully good I think you are! I ll never 
 forget it and it will cheer me up always to think 
 of your having such confidence in me. But let me 
 make myself worth helping first." 
 
 Mrs. Winter rumpled his thick hair with her deli 
 cate hand, which did not look like an old hand ; she 
 smiled on him pensively, but he could not see the 
 smile, and her voice was light : "Very well. It will 
 all come right, Johnny. But tell me more about the 
 unions. They seem about as biggitty now as they 
 can be." 
 
 "That s your beautiful, feminine ignorance, 
 Aunty Winter," said Johnny, rising and sitting be 
 side her on the sofa. "Wait until we organize the 
 waiters and shut up the dining-rooms of the An 
 nex and the Metropole; wait until we organize the 
 teamsters and make you burn coal in summer in 
 stead of natural gas, so we can have the job of haul 
 ing it; wait until the retail clerks and the servant 
 girls are organized, and the organized laundry-work 
 ers shut off clean linen from Chicago; wait until 
 the cabmen and the undertakers men strike, and 
 you have to be buried in an express wagon or a 
 street-car you would dislike that " 
 
 "I certainly should ; but I don t think you will go 
 quite to such lengths; if you do, the long-suffering 
 public will organize, too, and put a stop to your 
 
348 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 foolishness, if not to your unions. I don t think you 
 take a very cheerful view of your case, after all." 
 
 "Well," Johnny corrected, "the cheerfulness isn t 
 on the surface, but it s there, all right. Whatever 
 their faults, the unions have done a great big lot 
 apart, quite apart, from any question of raising 
 wages; they have educated the men to work to 
 gether. The leaders can organize." 
 
 "Yes, they have organized plunder." 
 
 "You will admit it is organized," bantered John 
 ny, "and if they have learned to work together in a 
 bad cause (mind, / don t admit that), why shouldn t 
 they work together for something better?" 
 
 "Well, what else?" The situation pleased Mrs. 
 Winter. In the first place, she was genuinely de 
 lighted to capture Johnny. Her vanity was tickled, 
 and a certain softness, which she always felt for the 
 lad, grew with every glimpse of his handsome face. 
 On the whole, she liked the face better for the 
 changes in it, although the lines about the eyes irri 
 tated her. "The boy has been most absurdly misera 
 ble," she grumbled within herself. Mrs. Winter felt 
 repelled by suffering as by snow in spring. But it 
 was distinctly exciting to have found him, to have 
 succeeded, when Emma Winslow, who was so clever, 
 had failed. 
 
 "Well, we ve learned to respect our word, that s a 
 lot. We ve learned to obey, a lot more. We are 
 getting acquainted with our employers fighting 
 them. But it is better to get acquainted fighting 
 than not to get acquainted at all ! We re not dumb, 
 driven cattle any more, even if we re not heroes in 
 the strife. Our discontent has ceased to be inarticu- 
 
JOHNNY MEETS AN OLD FRIEND 349 
 
 late despair. Now all these things will not be lost 
 even though the high tide of unionism recedes. The 
 wrecking party will find them." 
 
 "Then, you have really got over your socialism, 
 Jo nivan?" 
 
 "I wouldn t say quite that, Aunty Winter," 
 Johnny corrected, his eyes narrowing as they always 
 narrowed when he was trying to think with exact 
 ness. "But laws have to be made for men as they 
 are, not as they ought to be. I have discovered, too, 
 that underneath a lot of this raging against great 
 fortunes is not so much pity and patriotism as 
 hatred, envy and malice. Some of this comes out 
 of real misery ; that s dangerous. But that will dis 
 appear in a great measure with better times. But 
 the feeling against these swollen fortunes isn t, by 
 any means, all selfish. It has ground. But it is 
 blind; it can t see that it isn t the size of a man s 
 fortune that is dangerous to the public ; it is how he 
 made it." 
 
 "For instance?" 
 
 "Well, to increase the production of the world, 
 whether that production shall make for beauty or 
 happiness or material comfort or moral elevation, 
 we need brains! And, as a rule, brains will not 
 work without reward ! Without big rewards. Now, 
 speaking only of the industrial world, I don t grudge 
 millions to the men who can get hard wheat planted 
 instead of soft, or run the corn-yield up from thirty 
 to fifty bushels an acre, or irrigate the desert, or 
 increase a man s capacity by machinery a hundred 
 fold, or devise ways of economy in manufacturing 
 or using up the by-products. Men who use other 
 
35 
 
 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 mens muscles and brains to increase the working 
 capital of the world are worth more millions than 
 the luckiest of them get I see that now. There s one 
 big division. Men who see clearly have no kick com 
 ing against the real captains of industry; but it is 
 the men who make their money, not out of the 
 earth, but Wall Street, who get more than is coming 
 to them. If the wreckers can make more money 
 than the ship-owners, it s bad ! And if manipulating 
 is a lot more profitable than producing, that is very 
 bad." 
 
 "You mean well, apply the case to the Old 
 Colony !" 
 
 "That s easy. If you can make rakes and culti 
 vators cheaper and better than your competitors, it s 
 for the public interest that you should have the most 
 business, all you can get. But if you get rebates 
 on the railways, so that you strangle your competi 
 tors who make just as good stuff as you that s 
 distinctly against the public weal. You get your 
 market not by production, but by manipulation." 
 
 "And you think the Government ought to inter 
 fere?" 
 
 "Yes. But here comes up another point. There 
 are public and private businesses. I am socialist 
 enough to think that if you mix these up you will 
 come to trouble. For instance, a railway is dis 
 tinctly a public business; as a public business it 
 should play fair to all. Every one ought to have as 
 much right to the highway as every one else; and 
 the railway is the highway to-day." 
 
 "Then you believe in Government ownership of 
 railways?" 
 
JOHNNY MEETS AN OLD FRIEND 351 
 
 "No. See how far I have traveled. I believe the 
 Government has a right to run the railways, but I 
 am sure it would be a stupendous folly for them to 
 use it. We want to encourage initiative, not repress 
 it; and our civil service has a long way to travel 
 before it can be trusted with any such job. Besides, 
 no more shaking of values. No more panics for me ! 
 I ve seen one, and it will do me. Wherever it starts, 
 it s the poor man always gets the ball at the heaviest ! 
 No; if railway stocks are watered, better evaporate 
 than squeeze. Let the Government regulate the rail 
 ways, not own them ! Give them a show for their 
 white alley ! Go slow !" 
 
 Thus Johnny unbosomed himself, and Mrs. Win 
 ter led him on. By degrees he confided some of 
 his experiences to her. Her cynical enjoyment of 
 the humor of them and her gliding over the deeper 
 emotions was better for him than sympathy, for it 
 made talk easy. Johnny came again, and more 
 than once. Some obscure fiber of pride in him 
 would not let him dine with her or go out with her 
 to amusements; but he would present himself later 
 in the evening, and the hospitable Southerner, who 
 could not conceive of friendly intercourse quite 
 bare of eatables or potables, was likely to have large 
 cups of coffee with cream, and liqueurs or cocktails 
 or wines on the table with the cigarettes. 
 
 By degrees Johnny slipped into confidences of the 
 lighter order. And one of his first subjects was 
 "his kidlets." 
 
 "What kind of clothes ought little girls to wear ?" 
 he asked one Sunday afternoon. 
 
 "Oh, any simple things," returned Mrs. Winter, 
 
352 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 who was innocent of much beyond the rudiments, 
 not having interfered with any child s toilet since 
 Johnny s childhood. 
 
 "Well, they ought to be fastened by buttons, not 
 by safety-pins and shoe-strings, oughtn t they? 
 Amelia Ann s got the greatest layout of shoe-strings 
 I ever discovered on one person ; she picked them up 
 in the street, I guess; she mends her clothes with 
 them that isn t quite good form, is it? Mrs. De- 
 laney told her it was naughty, and Amelia Ann, who 
 has considerable spirit, felt wounded and ran away 
 Amelia Ann s protest against the conventionalities 
 always takes the form of running away. Or rather, 
 she doesn t run away, she hides; and poor little 
 Franzy goes without his own piece to feed her. It 
 doesn t strike me as quite right child s going with 
 out her bath and skulking about out of school that 
 way, but I can t make up my mind to let Mrs. 
 Delaney beat her, as she hankers to do." 
 
 "How many children are there?" 
 
 "Three. Franzy and Thyrza are all right, but 
 Amelia Ann is a handful. Thyrza takes to house 
 work why, she s a wonder !" 
 
 "Does she mend with shoe-strings ?" 
 
 "Well, no; that s Amelia Ann s patent; but she 
 doesn t look just right in her clothes. Mrs. Delaney 
 is so afraid they ll outgrow their clothes that she 
 buys a size or two ahead; and she generally buys 
 the bargains that are left over and marked down and 
 have been shopworn or stained or saved from a fire 
 or whatever ; so poor little Thyrza, who has hair in 
 clining to red, usually trips about in a Harvard 
 sweater, or a blue and green Highland costume. 
 
JOHNNY MEETS AN OLD FRIEND 353 
 
 And once Mrs. Delaney purchased some off 
 numbers of union suits that had gone through fire 
 and water and been scorched in the legs. She cut 
 off the legs and took tucks in the arms, and Thyrza 
 wore the shirt as an outside rig. Exclusively for 
 the house, you know. I got her a little blue jacket 
 to go to school." 
 
 Mrs. Winter held an interview with her own par 
 ticular salesman at Field s, in Johnny s behalf. She 
 invested the money which he had given her. The 
 sight of the money, neatly inclosed in a pay en 
 velope, gave Mrs. Winter s seasoned old heart an 
 unexpected twinge ; it was so small a sum, yet it rep 
 resented so much self-denial. 
 
 "Johnny, Johnny," she exploded, "will you never 
 learn to look after your own troubles and let other 
 people s alone !" 
 
 "Ah, but, you see, these are my own troubles ; and, 
 bless you ! you needn t think I tote this load all by 
 myself ; there s Billy, who joshes me worse than you, 
 but has bought Mrs. Delaney a cook-stove and 
 given the kids their shoes I do wish Mrs. Delaney 
 wouldn t buy needle-toes because they re cheap 
 and he got the biggest boy on the city pay-roll and 
 the youngest apprenticed to a plumber, and helped 
 get Delaney into the pen." 
 
 "The pen?" 
 
 "Penitentiary; he s got fifteen years; so he s off 
 our minds for a while. Billy is the best ever ! You 
 must see Billy." 
 
 "I ve seen his picture. You know he s a sweet 
 heart in Fairport ?" 
 
 "Has he ?" parried Johnny. 
 
354 THE M AN OF THE HOUR 
 
 "At least he comes to see her often. She has a sis 
 ter who does dressmaking, and does all my simple 
 things. She has told me. He sends her candy and 
 flowers and books and I suspect valentines." 
 
 "Well, that looks serious," Johnny, having writ 
 ten the valentines, would have liked to question 
 further. 
 
 "I think it is serious, because she has never shown 
 the valentines." 
 
 "They were probably original and awful," sug 
 gested Johnny placidly. 
 
 "Maybe. Then, it s more serious, for she seemed 
 impressed with them. She s a nice, quiet girl, 
 pretty, too. And Peggy Rutherford says both the 
 girls have been very good to their mother. Peggy 
 and Emma Winslow both seem to take the most 
 amazing interest in your Billy Bates." 
 
 Johnny felt his heart grow warmer. "Billy s a 
 good one," said he, "and he is going to be a great 
 man. A labor leader like Arthur or Sargent is a 
 big force." 
 
 "I have noticed," Mrs. Winter looked, languidly, 
 full at Johnny as she spoke "I have noticed, 
 Johnny, you seem to know a heap about Fairport 
 doings. Does Billy Bates keep you so well in 
 formed ?" 
 
 Johnny laughed frankly. "Oh, Billy isn t my 
 only link with the good old town Roger sends me 
 the Fairport Citizen" 
 
 "Roger?" 
 
 "Roger Mack is his name. He s the link. Did 
 you ever hear of him? I think he is employed in 
 Luke DarreH s livery stable." 
 
JOHNNY MEETS AN OLD FRIEND 355 
 
 Mrs. Winter shook her head. "Never saw him." 
 
 "It s rather interesting. I never saw him, either 
 to remember. Last Christmas I got a letter from 
 Michael, and there was a letter from Roger Mack in 
 it. He s a Fairport boy who used to live near us and 
 steal rides on the railway. Once he got into our 
 carriage when the coppers were after him, and 
 Mishka, of course, was in sympathy with any victim 
 of the law ; so he whipped up and saved the crowd. 
 There were two or three of them. I don t know 
 whether Peggy was among them or not." 
 
 "Ah, I see !" murmured Mrs. Winter softly. 
 
 "He recalled the incident and wanted to tell me 
 oh, a lot of tommy-rot about my giving that money. 
 He was pretty nutty, there, and I told him so. Then 
 well, I thought it a good chance to hear a little 
 about Fairport, and I asked him a question or two, 
 which he answered. I ve had a number of letters 
 from him. I heard about your building from him, 
 and about Varonok having the fistula he calls it 
 tishulow and the big new horse you have." 
 
 "I see," said Mrs. Winter again. "Then you 
 know your stepmother has given up her plan of 
 going to Europe, much to Mrs. Raimund s disgust." 
 
 Johnny nodded, flushing a little. Then he be 
 gan to describe Roger Mack, who, it seemed, now 
 wrote him every other Sunday night regularly. 
 Roger appeared to be a bright boy. Johnny didn t 
 know his age, but he should judge he was about 
 twenty. He was an orphan who had been obliged to 
 hustle for himself ever since he was a little boy. It 
 was rather a pity, Johnny thought, that he should be 
 in a stable. Still, Luke Darrell was an exception 
 
356 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 and Roger Mack was a clean, decent, honorable little 
 horseman, to all appearances. He was trying to 
 educate himself, too; wrote a very fair hand, and 
 could use the typewriter ; trying to get into the office. 
 Yes, he had a letter of Roger s he kept the letters. 
 He would bring it round. 
 
 He brought the letter. Mrs. Winter was going 
 home on the following morning, and she had de 
 clined several rather tempting invitations for that 
 evening, not because Johnny had promised to come, 
 for he had not, but because she felt sure of seeing 
 him, since she had written him that she was going. 
 But it was nine and she was in a very testy humor 
 before the bell-boy brought her maid the card. 
 
 She did not see her path shining clear before her. 
 She had promised Johnny not to write or to speak 
 to any one about their meeting, if he would come to 
 see her. The reticence was easy enough in Chicago, 
 but to-morrow she would be returning to Fairport. 
 She had a well-defined suspicion in regard to Roger 
 Mack; her suspicions seldom played her false. Yet 
 there was a possibility that a real Roger might 
 shamble into Luke Darrell s office, to her confound 
 ing, or some other than Peggy might have stolen his 
 role. She guessed that both of her neighbors were 
 unhappy, however cheerful. She wanted to comfort 
 them; she also wanted to display her own success 
 with the prodigal. All of which increased her irrita 
 tion when Johnny did not appear early for the appeal 
 which she was plotting. Her good humor was so 
 far in arrears that even his coming did not restore 
 it, and she greeted him less cordially than usual. 
 
 "I had some very nice sandwiches and some coffee 
 
JOHNNY MEETS AN OLD FRIEND 357 
 
 ready for you at eight," she complained testily, "but 
 I don t know what condition they re in now." 
 
 "We had a rush order, you see," deprecated 
 Johnny. "I m awfully sorry ; I didn t know you ex 
 pected me." 
 
 "Of course I expected you, when I was going 
 away the next day." 
 
 Johnny sighed, looking around him. "How 
 lovely it looks ! How I am going to miss you !" 
 
 "Are you going to give me a chance to see you 
 some more?" 
 
 "I don t know." 
 
 "You would better know. Johnny, I ve been un 
 commonly patient for an impatient old woman, such 
 as I am. You might promise me something; will 
 you?" 
 
 "It seems most ungracious to bargain with a lady, 
 you know ; but won t you tell me what ?" 
 
 Mrs. Winter laid her hand on his arm; she was 
 not used to stoop to conquer, and she had never 
 studied persuasion ; but her tones were almost plead 
 ing. 
 
 "Let me tell your people, Mrs. Winslow and 
 Peggy about seeing you." 
 
 "If you wish," said Johnny. But although he 
 said it quietly, he was on his feet with the words, 
 professing a hunger for coffee and sandwiches. It 
 was evident that he did not want any discussion 
 of his surrender. After the repast he took out 
 Roger Mack s letter. By that time Mrs. Winter 
 judged it wise not to give him any chance to hedge 
 in his consent by conditions or reservations; hence 
 she avoided the subject as warily as he. However, 
 
358 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 Roger Mack s letter did something to enlighten her. 
 It ran as follows : 
 
 Fairport, October 15, 1896. 
 Friend Johnny : 
 
 Yours of the loth is at hand and contents duly 
 noted. I have learned the poetry by heart. I guess 
 I know how that man felt. I m a pretty lonesome 
 chap myself, with no near kin in these parts, though 
 I oughtn t to say that, for I have good friends. 
 Well, old Fairport is about the same, only dirtier 
 since the rain. It certainly did make a mess of the 
 country road, and I pity the washers these days. I 
 drove Mrs. Winslow and Miss Rutherford out yes 
 terday. They were down town and their carriage 
 broke down, and I drove them home, while their 
 man stayed and had the carriage mended ; it was the 
 whiffletree broke. They don t build carriages like 
 they did, Mr. Rand says. 
 
 I will remember what you say about betting on 
 horses. Right you are, too. I don t smoke much ; 
 and I don t care for whisky, it makss me sick. Once 
 in a while I take a glass of beer or such, but I never 
 got drunk in my life. There s no money in it. I 
 don t go with any girls, and I don t mean to. Mr. 
 Darrell has had his stable painted, and he has got the 
 loveliest new landau for pall-bearers. Mrs. Winslow 
 gave me a dollar yesterday. I wish I could get to 
 drive for them. They are such nice folks. Say, 
 maybe I hadn t ought to tell it, but I think they are 
 awful cut up about your leaving them. Miss Ruther 
 ford she said, as we were down below on the Hill 
 Road and looked up, "Don t the place look sweet, 
 
JOHNNY MEETS AN OLD FRIEND 359 
 
 Cousin Emma?" And I felt sorry for Mrs. Wins- 
 low, her voice sounded so sad when she answered, 
 "Johnny ought to see it. Do you think he will ever 
 come back, Peggy?" says she. But Miss Rutherford 
 spoke up as chipper, "Of course he ll come back, 
 honey; Jo nivan will come back soon s he finds how 
 sorely we need him." Then they spoke so low I 
 couldn t hear them. I guess they didn t know I 
 heard so much. Excuse the presumption of me giv 
 ing you advice, but I wish you d write to them or 
 something. It looked lonesome to me, that big 
 house and the gardens. The gardens look beautiful 
 now. Please write to me sometimes; I value your 
 letters very high and try to live according. 
 
 Your friend, ROGER MACK. 
 
 "Well, what do you think of Roger Mack?" said 
 Johnny, when the hand holding the letter dropped 
 in the lady s silken lap. 
 
 "He seems a niceish sort of boy," said Mrs. 
 Winter. "I hope you ll keep track of him. Another 
 thing, Johnny : I hope you ll keep track of me!" 
 
 Not until she was gone, not, indeed, until she 
 was speeding through the whitish-yellow cornfields 
 of Illinois, the next morning, did she recall that, in 
 all his pleasant gratitude and his affection Johnny 
 had made no promises. But she was jubilant over 
 her right to tell about her triumph. It was evening 
 on her arrival in Fairport; nevertheless, she was 
 driven directly to Overlook, and, finding Emma 
 alone, gave her the news. 
 
 Emma listened with her exasperating stoicism to 
 the recital, only interposing a question here and 
 
360 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 there. At the end she said: "Did you have any 
 address?" 
 
 "None," said Mrs. Winter; "he wouldn t give 
 me any, only promised if he had to go to the hos 
 pital again to let me know. And I couldn t spy on 
 him while he was trusting me. I did suggest some 
 clothes I bought for him should be sent to his ad 
 dress ; but no, he would tote them from my hotel." 
 
 "Certainly, you couldn t," agreed Emma, "but we 
 can. Only I m afraid, Mrs. Winter, that he let you 
 tell us because he meant to make another move, and 
 that if we find his lodging house or who employed 
 him, we shall find him gone." 
 
 Mrs. Winter s smile wilted. "The deceitful boy !" 
 she exclaimed, "and I had his superintendent s ad 
 dress all ready for you." 
 
 "He will be gone," said Mrs. Winslow sadly. 
 
 And she was right. They wrote to the superin 
 tendent, receiving a civilly curt reply to the effect 
 that Van Galitsuin had left the employ of the com 
 pany on the twenty-third. They had never had his 
 address. He was an industrious and skilful work 
 man. They were sorry to lose him, but understood 
 he was changing to better himself. 
 
 So the clue which promised so much broke off 
 short in their hands. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 AN DIE FERNE GELIEBTE 
 
 The golden woods of Overlook had crisped into 
 russet and drabs; once more the Christmas snow 
 was chalking the tree-boughs. Snow was every 
 where, on the fir-trees and the maples, shrouding the 
 forests, glorifying the hill-slopes, freshly fallen, 
 shadowed with the subtlest violet tints, or powdered 
 with diamonds in the sun, so beautiful, so mystical, 
 that the sense of its chill was melted by a poignant 
 thrill of delight. 
 
 On the twenty-third of December, with Christmas 
 two days away, Peggy and Mrs. Winslow sat to 
 gether in the Princess Olga s writing-room much 
 as they had sat, a year before, when Roger Mack 
 first stepped upon the stage. And both of them were 
 remembering that day. * 
 
 "How much longer is he going to keep it up?" 
 sighed Mrs. Winslow. They had not spoken John 
 ny s name, but there needed no speaking. 
 
 "He was always the most obstinate thing in the 
 world," declared Peggy; "he owns to Roger Mack 
 that he misses his people and his friends and his old 
 life, but he would despise himself, he says, and they 
 would have reason to despise him, if he returned be 
 fore he had shown that he had stuff instead of stuf 
 fing in him." 
 
362 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 "Did you get a letter to-day?" 
 
 "Yes. I was just bringing it to you to read." 
 
 When the initial letter from Johnny came (that 
 first intelligence direct from him, which was greeted 
 so hopefully and yet brought them so little), Peggy 
 would have handed it to Mrs. Winslow, but the lat 
 ter shook her head, saying : "No, dear, I ve thought 
 it all out. You must be able to speak freely to 
 Johnny, and he wouldn t speak so freely to you if 
 he knew I had the reading of his letters. I shouldn t 
 like to take that advantage of his ignorance. You 
 will make Roger Mack a nice boy, and Johnny will 
 get fond of him, and I hope you ll be very good 
 friends. Read me anything important, but keep the 
 letters." 
 
 She noticed how the color flickered on Peggy s 
 cheek, and she smiled within. "The child wants her 
 letters to herself," thought she; "there is no part 
 nership in love ! Thank God, I do believe Peggy is 
 in love! If she only doesn t coquette with him." 
 
 But Peggy scorned the^guile of the weak. If 
 Jo nivan came back he should come of his own free 
 will, not prodded by jealousy; and, indeed, since 
 they had seen Billy, during the summer, and he had 
 told them of Johnny s dreary hospital experience, 
 there had grown up in the girl an intensification of 
 the semi-maternal tenderness of her childhood; not 
 even to win him could she hurt him. It is not to be 
 inferred, however, because Peggy despised the help 
 of jealousy, that she was above setting feminine 
 snares. 
 
 Once Johnny had written to Roger : "You must 
 tell me all the gossip. I know there is mighty little 
 
AN DIE FERNE GELIEBTE 363 
 
 goes on in Fairport which they don t hear about at 
 Darrell s. Who die and who are married and who 
 give parties ? You can t find anything too trivial to 
 interest me. Why, I d like to hear what they have at 
 the Opera House, and what kind of clothes Mrs. 
 Winter or Mrs. Winslow or Miss Rutherford are 
 wearing, when you see them pass on the street. 
 Who goes to Overlook now? Have they any par 
 ties? You don t know how an exile loves all the 
 details." (Peggy giggled; "doesn t he think he s 
 mighty coony, the way he brings that in!") She 
 wrote in response: "I guess I know just how you 
 feel. There s a town I d like to hear the same sort 
 of thing about. And I ll tell you all I can. They 
 are pretty quiet at Overlook now. Folks drop in 
 considerable and they have some little dinners, but 
 no big parties. Several young men go there to see 
 the ladies, but nobody seems to be Miss Rutherford s 
 steady. Just friendly. Miss Rutherford has got a 
 new sealskin jacket. It s a bute. When I make some 
 money and get married, I mean to give my wife 
 a sealskin jacket; they make a girl look so stylish." 
 
 Peggy had, indeed, entered into her drama, and 
 the growth of the character of Roger Mack was re 
 markable. He read the books Johnny advised, he re 
 formed his grammar ; his morals and political views 
 reflected his mentor s counsels to a degree that was 
 flattering, if it were not suspicious. And as Emma 
 had predicted, Johnny grew fond of the lad, send 
 ing him quantities of carefully studied advice and 
 occasional magazines, and once he inclosed a note 
 to Mrs. Winslow (very civil but a little cool and 
 curt; poor Johnny was having a bad attack of nos- 
 
364 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 talgia, and not daring to be anything- else), request 
 ing her to give Roger Mack, the bearer, for whose 
 responsibility Mr. Luke Darrell could vouch, cer 
 tain books of his which had been left in Fairport. 
 There was no place of writing on the note, only a 
 date. 
 
 Some of Johnny s advice, over which he had 
 plainly taken vast thought and pains, Peggy did not 
 read to Mrs. Winslow, but as she read it, herself, 
 the tears rose to her eyes. "Jo nivan," she whis 
 pered, "you are just the decent est boy since Gala 
 had, and I m afraid, Jo nivan, he s the only gentle 
 man I know who can run in your class !" 
 
 She told Mrs. Winslow a little, although she could 
 not bring herself to repeat Johnny s words, in which 
 a man showed very simply his heart and his aspira 
 tions. 
 
 "His father would be proud of him!" was all 
 Mrs. Winslow s comment; but she began so irrele 
 vantly to talk about sending Johnny his winter 
 flannels, that Peggy was sure she was touched. 
 
 "Has he any flannels here?" Peggy asked inno 
 cently. 
 
 "Not exactly," returned Mrs. Winslow; "there 
 were some worn things which I gave away. But I 
 shall get him some in place of them and send them 
 by Roger Mack." 
 
 "Roger has to send everything to Billy Bates. 
 But he ll get them in time. He always gets the let 
 ters sharp on time." 
 
 "I think," said Mrs. Winslow after a little pause, 
 her eyes on Josiah s portrait, "if I could only know 
 where he was, so that I could be sure he was having 
 
AN DIE FERNE GELIEBTE 365 
 
 proper food, and getting his stockings mended and 
 putting on his warm underclothes when it first be 
 gan to be cold, I think I could be reconciled, and let 
 him take his own time about coming to us." 
 
 "Oh, I ve no doubt somebody is pampering him," 
 said Peggy. 
 
 Johnny consented to receive some of his own 
 books and pictures and any clothes which might be 
 in Overlook. 
 
 Roger Mack covered his large sheets of office 
 paper mainly with apologies for the box. "It s 
 kinder a whale," he wrote, "but the ladies kept 
 thinking of things, and I couldn t seem to stop them. 
 They really got excited, and Mrs. Winslow would 
 keep saying to Miss Rutherford, Don t you think 
 we might venture to send some preserves for the 
 children? You see Mrs. Winter told them a lot 
 about you and Melia Ann and Thyrza (I m glad 
 Thyrza liked the cook-book I sent) and Franzy. 
 Then Miss Rutherford wanted cans of soup put in 
 and hard water-crackers and some smoking tobacco. 
 I told her you smoked Cowboys Delight and / got it 
 for you, but she said you used to smoke Hymans 
 and she would put it in. They put in a doll, too, that 
 Miss Rutherford said used to be hers and you and 
 she played with it, and once you were going to cut its 
 head off or something, but your father stepped in 
 and saved it. There s some hair-ribbons, too, for 
 Thyrza and Melia Ann and a shawl for Mrs. De- 
 laney and a pair of skates for Franzy used to be 
 yours when you were little. I had to stop them 
 finally and ask them if they wanted me to hire a car. 
 But I hope you won t feel you can t take them, for it 
 
366 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 would hurt them awful. Please don t hurt them so 
 bad as that." 
 
 Johnny did not hurt them. His letter in return 
 was the one which Peggy brought to Mrs. Wins- 
 low the snowy day which was so like the day of a 
 year before. 
 
 "That s not all," explained Peggy, whose glowing 
 eyes showed her suppressed excitement, "there s a 
 box! Johnny is sending Christmas gifts !" 
 
 The two women bent over the box with flushed 
 cheeks, in an excitement that was almost joyous. It 
 was a starch-box, packed with great care and at the 
 expenditure of a large amount of tissue paper. There 
 was a white silk muffler marked "Roger," a Russian 
 ikon ("I suppose he got it at Field s," muttered 
 Peggy) for Michael, and three envelopes of ample 
 size addressed respectively to Mrs. Winslow, Mrs. 
 Winter and Miss Rutherford. 
 
 Peggy lifted up the muffler; she unwrapped it 
 with delicate, almost caressing touches; she looked 
 at the shop-mark and giggled, a half-choked, 
 tremulous giggle which was close to a sob. "I feel 
 like a thief, but I m going to keep it, just the same," 
 said she. 
 
 "Johnny ought not to spend his money on that 
 Roger Mack!" Mrs. Winslow reproved. But Peggy 
 laid her finger on the little gilt circle on the white 
 satin lining. "Noyes Brothers," she announced. 
 "Do you think he would send to Noyes Brothers for 
 Roger? I reckon not! It is a relic of his past 
 splendor. Jo nivan used to be mighty gorgeous, you 
 remember. He maybe has worn it once or twice, and 
 he had Mrs. Delaney press it; I reckon I can see 
 
AN DIE FERNE GELIEBTE 367 
 
 some shiny marks where the iron went on the 
 wrong side. Very nice and sensible of Jo nivan !" 
 
 Mrs. Winslow smiled from her own gift, which 
 was not a Christmas card, but a calendar. It was an 
 ingeniously contrived bit of work. The gray mat 
 was cut into a frame and a photograph, evidently 
 taken by a kodak, but with considerable skill in pos 
 ing and lighting, made the oval above the little pad 
 of the months to come. Three smiling, childish faces 
 met Emma Winslow s half-wistful eyes, and she 
 read, on the obverse of the card, the words which 
 Johnny had written: "Three little children, whom 
 you have made happy, wish you a Merry Christ 
 mas." 
 
 "It is better than nothing, said she. 
 
 Peggy was reading her own card; she was de 
 termined not to be disappointed if Johnny made the 
 small Bickers his interpreters in her own case. 
 
 "But I do think it is not exactly polite ; he ought 
 to say Thank you, himself," thought she. He had 
 said it. Peggy s was a Christmas card, very simple; 
 a single passage of Scripture, illuminated in the 
 medieval manner : "Glory to God in the Highest ; 
 on earth Peace and Good-will to men!" And when 
 she turned the card over she read, between smiles 
 and tears : "Dear Peggy, you were right and I was 
 wrong; but I have begun over again; won t you 
 wish me well? When I feel I have the right I am 
 going to thank Mrs. Winslow and you for your 
 kindness. But that takes time. Peggy, I stole the 
 doll from little Thyrza; she never could appreciate 
 a doll with associations ; I got her a perfect horror 
 she adores, and I m keeping yours for a mascot." 
 
368 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 "That," said Peggy, "requires an answer, per 
 Roger Mack." 
 
 "He certainly is softening," said Mrs. Winslow. 
 "If we only could wire him to come to Christmas 
 dinner." 
 
 "He would wire back that he hadn t the proper 
 clothes, most probably," said Peggy; but they made 
 their jests out of lighter hearts. 
 
 Yet for months Peggy did not hear from Johnny 
 nor write to him. 
 
 Billy Bates came to Fairport, and his heart 
 swelled within him, for he was asked to dine at 
 Overlook. Billy had been less flattered by an invita 
 tion from the rulers of the earth. He telephoned to 
 Chicago for his new dress-suit, and he waited after 
 hours to walk home with Miss Sadie and seek coun 
 sel of her as to the weightier matters of etiquette. 
 Thanks to that noble invention, the telephone, he 
 put himself into communication with Johnny, ex 
 citing, be it said, a lively though transient appre 
 hension when the superintendent of Johnny s shop 
 understood the quality of the invisible visitor who 
 would not be denied. 
 
 In the event, Billy displayed a tempered mag 
 nificence of toilet, a radiant neatness, and an anxious 
 and vigilant politeness. He contrived to seat both 
 ladies before the butler; after dinner, if either of 
 them moved in her chair, he was on his feet; his 
 manners were admirable. It was apparent to Peggy 
 that he had not only been tutored for this special 
 trial, but that he was well-grounded in the daily use 
 of the spoon and the fork. He said little and he 
 watched Wilton, the butler, narrowly; it was not 
 
AN DIE FERNE GELIEBTE 369 
 
 that Billy s bold spirit was cowed by the function 
 ary s imposing presence or his irresponsive atten 
 tion ; rather he was silently armoring any vulnerable 
 points of decorum about himself against a possible 
 sally of criticism. 
 
 "He ll see I can behave as pretty as any blamed 
 dude of them all !" Billy was declaring within. 
 There was another reason why one ought not to 
 lose oneself in the pleasure of the moment, the ex 
 quisite sheen of the damask, the lights, the wine, the 
 flowers and the silver, all so deftly blending that 
 there was but one impression on the brain, a soft 
 harmony of splendor. Billy felt that he enjoyed it 
 and that with familiarity he should enjoy it more. 
 "I always did like things clean !" was the way Billy 
 expressed it to himself. But because of the butler, 
 whose respect he coveted almost angrily, and of the 
 other reason, Mr. Bates held his esthetic glow well 
 in hand. The other reason was his dread lest the ex 
 pansion of the hour would be used to find out some 
 thing about Johnny s whereabouts. 
 
 Such inquisition, however, did not comport with 
 his hostess ideas of hospitality, and as little with 
 Peggy s. Johnny, who was in all their thoughts, was 
 not once mentioned during the meal. Afterward it 
 was Billy, himself, who spoke the name, in a casual, 
 accidental way. Then said Mrs. Winslow : "We 
 don t want to ask you any questions, Mr. Bates, but 
 you know we shall be glad to hear anything Johnny 
 would be willing to have you tell." 
 
 After that, conversation flowed easily, and while 
 Billy never forgot his guard over names and lo 
 calities, he told innumerable anecdotes of Johnny 
 
THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 and of the small Blokers, to an audience as eager to 
 hear as he could be to tell. 
 
 "Amelia Ann s a handful/ he declared frankly, 
 being safe out of the bonds of Johnny s remorseful 
 compassion ; "she will either go on the stage or as 
 tonish the police court. Sometimes she takes to pur 
 suing Thyrza with the carving-knife or any old 
 thing, and, one time, she threw a can of hot lye 
 at Mrs. Delaney. It was lucky Mrs. Delaney had 
 the boiler cover in her hands she was lifting it off 
 the boiler and she held it up for a shield, so it got 
 the hot lye instead of her. That was the day Amelia 
 Ann did get paddled, good and plenty. The wooden 
 stick you stir clothes with, you know, was right at 
 her hand, and Mrs. Delaney simply walloped Amelia 
 Ann. I don t know that I blame her." 
 
 "Did it do Amelia Ann good?" Peggy asked. 
 
 "It ought to," said Billy, "but as Ivan Mr. 
 Winslow says, Amelia Ann is not as all other 
 women are, like the lady in the poem. She took the 
 beating to heart so much that she borrowed a quarter 
 Thyrza had accumulated in pennies, and went out 
 and got some carbolic acid, which she tipped to her 
 mouth after she got Mrs. Delaney in front of her 
 and swallowed it " 
 
 "My word!" cried Peggy; "did it kill her?" 
 
 "Why, no, ma am. Mrs. Delaney knocked the bot 
 tle out of her hand, giving her a good box on the 
 ear, and Johnny, who happened in, by good luck, at 
 that time, tickled her throat with a feather and gave 
 her white of egg and flour and mustard water until 
 she nearly had convulsions. She was the limpest 
 little rat you ever saw ; but Johnny s the only crea- 
 
AN DIE FERNE GELIEBTE 371 
 
 ture she has any regard for, so she stood it. He 
 was perfectly gentle and quiet. He always is, you 
 know ; but he didn t sleep all night, he was so wor 
 ried. The next night, if he didn t take the kid and 
 Mrs. Delaney to the theater and let them see By 
 Mistake of Law, a fool play where the villain takes 
 poison and half an hour to die in, and dies all over 
 the stage. That s how you d a been! says Mrs. 
 Delaney, who likes to rub it in hard. I suppose she 
 gets that way washing. Amelia Ann only stuck 
 out her tongue. Mr. Winslow didn t say a word. 
 But the kid sidled up to him, going home, and said : 
 You won t let me git killed, Johnny, will you? He 
 seems to know how to manage her. She used to wear 
 the craziest things and look like a rag-bag. Mrs. De 
 laney couldn t get her to keep her clothes decent. 
 But one day Ivan comes in with a dress that Mrs. 
 Winter had helped him buy at Field s and she put 
 it on and he said : What a pretty little girl ! Isn t 
 it a pity she ll go back to those ragged clothes ! I 
 won t/ says she; Tin going to wear pretty clothes 
 all the time! What s more, she has. She makes 
 Thyrza mend them. But she sings and dances for 
 Thyrza. She can dance to beat the band, and twist 
 herself into more shapes than a rubber jumping- 
 jack, and mimic ! she can imitate anything from the 
 Mooney s dog fighting the Sigelfritz s cat to Mrs. 
 Delaney s brogue, scolding. She s better than the 
 Barnyard on the graphophone." 
 
 "Is she fond of study?" said Mrs. Winslow. 
 
 "Hates it," said Billy; "hasn t got only to words 
 of one syllable, and Thyrza can beat her figuring; 
 but she can climb better than any boy on the street, 
 
372 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 and she can ride the goat that the Dago fruit-man 
 keeps to draw his cart, and she can smoke a pipe 
 and not be sick. As Ivan says, her stunts aren t ex 
 actly lady-like, but they re striking." 
 
 "Poor child!" said Mrs. Winslow. 
 
 "Well, I don t know, madam; you see, Ivan has 
 taken her in hand, and he seems to have a way with 
 people. She s improved. She chews gum instead of 
 tobacco now, and she only makes faces at Mrs. De- 
 laney instead of shying things at her. Mr. Winslow 
 thinks she will come out all right." 
 
 "She needs to go out in the country," said Peggy; 
 "the city is too stimulating for her." 
 
 "That s right. I mean you re quite correct, Miss 
 Rutherford. But they have gone out in the coun 
 try," he grinned over some recollection "Amelia 
 Ann tried to ride a cow ; I don t think the cow let 
 her ! So Amelia Ann tried the calf because, she said, 
 she wouldn t have so far to fall, and she d learn on 
 the calf. She hadn t learned at last accounts ; but she 
 was persevering." 
 
 In such anecdotes, the evening passed before Billy 
 realized; he forgot the discomforts of his state col 
 lar and his new shoes; he forgot even Wilton s 
 hauteur, and permitted him to slip on his coat at 
 parting quite as if he were a waiter at his favorite 
 restaurant. But he never forgot to keep Johnny s 
 secrets. He spoke with feeling and sense about his 
 friend. Although his argument was against them, 
 his hearers felt some touch of conviction from it. 
 Mrs. Winslow had said: "These privations which 
 he must feel, this actual suffering he has, isn t it all 
 unnecessary?" 
 
AN DIE FERNE GELIEBTE 
 
 373 
 
 "No, ma am," Billy had answered, "I don t think 
 it is. It s hard and God knows I have tried hard 
 enough to send him back to his folks where he be 
 longs, for he seemed to me like a lobster with his 
 shell off, and the new one not grown, and everything 
 could bite him. But these last months I have seen 
 something. He s learning. He s learning fast. He s 
 getting to be a large-minded, tolerant man. Yet he 
 hasn t lost his gift of being sorry for people in trou 
 ble ; he has only found out that the loudest squealers 
 aren t always the ones the worst hurt. Twas a true 
 word he once said: You have to be just before 
 you re generous, or you won t be able to be generous 
 long ! He has naturally got an open hand, and he s 
 never had to tie it up until lately. He has learned 
 a plenty of other things to manage men, for one. 
 He s maybe a bad politician, but anyhow he s a born 
 leader." 
 
 "But isn t a good politician a born leader?" 
 queried Peggy, whose eyes shone bright with amuse 
 ment. 
 
 "No, ma am," said Billy scornfully, "he s a born 
 dickerer. He leads if he can, but he follows and 
 dickers when he can t. When I was a kid, here in 
 Fairport, and used to trundle my infant piety about 
 among the Sunday-schools, as long as the Christ 
 mas-tree season lasted, there was a fat chump named 
 Easterly; his mother or his aunty promised him a 
 Rugby football, which he was keen for, if he d get 
 to the head of his class. Do you know that duffer 
 paid us a cent apiece for missing; he learned just one 
 question and for nine cents he got that ball. Well, 
 he was a politician." 
 
374 THE MA N OF THE HOUR 
 
 "Yet you are a good politician, Mr. Bates, at 
 least, so reputed." 
 
 "Oh, I m a good dickerer," Billy waved the im 
 plied question aside. "I follow when I must. If I 
 didn t I couldn t keep my job. There isn t a labor- 
 leader going who doesn t have to swap some of his 
 opinions for his place. He d lose it if he didn t. Not 
 only that, he d have a successor who wouldn t re 
 strain the men at all, while he can, a little. And if he 
 waits and dickers, his time will come." 
 
 Then Billy added in a different tone : "But there 
 is a limit. Mr. Winslow has taught me that, and 
 no honorable man can either conceal or betray his 
 convictions past that limit. Some things are ex 
 pedient, and some things are right; you can give 
 in on questions of prudence, but you can t on ques 
 tions of honor. I can see why. I couldn t always; 
 but he has taught me that among many things. I 
 owe him a lot ; a terrible lot it would be, if I didn t 
 care so much for him." 
 
 "I think," said Mrs. Winslow, "he owes as much 
 to you. We may be grateful he has so good a friend. 
 I know he is." 
 
 Billy left Overlook that night with a sense of 
 knowing Johnny better than before, and, curiously 
 enough, he left the reflection of his own feeling be 
 hind him. Perhaps he left some tinge of resignation 
 also. Peggy and Mrs. Winslow settled themselves 
 into helping Johnny indirectly. Peggy wrote to him. 
 It was the same kind of letter which she might have 
 written to him had they never quarreled. He was 
 her dear Jo nivan on the first line; she forgave his 
 being too good for this selfish world on the second, 
 
AN DIE FERNE GELIEBTE 375 
 
 and told about Fairport and Overlook for three 
 pages. 
 
 Johnny got the letter in the evening when he came 
 home from his work. He didn t open it in the fam 
 ily circle where Amelia Ann, having just slapped 
 Franzy, was doing penance (and making faces) in 
 a corner, and Mrs. Delaney was frying bacon, while 
 Franzy sniffled and Thyrza comforted him, between 
 the placing of dishes on the table. 
 
 Johnny carried his letter into his own bare room. 
 How many times he kissed the dear, familiar hand 
 writing, how he opened the letter on his knees as if 
 before his queen, any lover can fancy. But he sighed 
 as he read. This Peggy, who wrote, was not quite 
 the gentle creature of Roger Mack s picture, sending 
 him the doll which was the sign of their old child 
 ish amity. In a moment, however, he smiled just as 
 in his childish days he would smile when he was 
 hurt, for some whim of consolation. 
 
 "Well, anyhow, she has spoken to me!" he said, 
 "or doesn t she call this speaking? Oh, Peggy, 
 Peggy > how sweet you are !" 
 
 Billy s visit was in the winter. On Valentine s 
 Day a box of violets came to Peggy with a sealed 
 envelope beneath their fragrant masses. The single 
 sheet of paper, within, contained only Emerson s 
 lyric, which once Peggy had sung for Johnny : 
 
 "Thine eyes still shined for me, though far 
 
 I lonely roved the land or sea, 
 As I behold yon evening star, 
 Which yet beholds not me." 
 
 There was no word, no signature; none was 
 
376 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 needed. Peggy told Mrs. Winslow that she had had 
 some poetry with the flowers, and the wise woman 
 did not even smile. 
 
 The winter softened into a muddy slush of spring ; 
 the spring opened like its own flowers into aureolin 
 sunshine and emerald hillsides and the homely 
 sweetness of newly turned earth; almost unawares, 
 the summer came with the breathless western heat. 
 But Peggy, herself, had not written to Johnny. 
 Perhaps she thought that Roger Mack did enough 
 writing for two. Roger had taken to the typewriter 
 of late. It was only in the beginning that Sadie 
 Martin copied the letters. Peggy had known Sadie 
 since she was a little girl. In the simple democracy 
 of Fairport, they often met. Sadie knew more than 
 Peggy about Johnny s life and conduct, for many 
 months, because Billy Bates used to talk to her. She 
 was more than willing, when Peggy proposed her 
 part in the scheme. 
 
 "I would do anything in the world for Mrs. 
 Winslow," Sadie said instantly, "she has been so 
 good to mother." And Peggy was rather glad to 
 have the onus of obligation thus shifted. The 
 Southern girl was far too wise to suggest any busi 
 ness basis ; she accepted the proffered aid gratefully, 
 and took Mrs. Martin to drive and asked her fellow 
 conspirator to luncheon or to the play. 
 
 But a disinclination to have the kind Sadie read 
 Roger s letters to Johnny naturally she had never 
 read Johnny s letters to Roger had increased; the 
 solution of the matter was simple ; Roger learned to 
 use a typewriter. That he had not used it in the be 
 ginning was due to Peggy s supersensitiveness ; she 
 
AN DIE FERNE GELIEBTE 377 
 
 was always trying to imagine possible suspicions, 
 and she fancied Johnny might suspect a typewriter ; 
 a written letter in a strange hand was much more 
 plausible. 
 
 But Johnny s possible suspicions having been 
 lulled by seeing the strange hand, there was not the 
 slightest objection whatever to the typewriter, and 
 Peggy kept advance sheets ready signed, always by 
 her. 
 
 Was it her fancy, Peggy asked herself, that either 
 Johnny was growing attached to this mythical 
 Roger, this hard-working, poor wight, with his pa 
 thetic story of a neglected childhood, or Peggy 
 blushed and did not pursue the question. The change 
 was intangible ; but she felt it with every letter. In 
 some ways he was more reserved ; gone entirely 
 were those austere moral reflections which frankly 
 admitted some of the more elemental of man s temp 
 tations, even while they warned against them 
 Johnny s present letters could have been read to a 
 girls club but gone also was the attitude of a 
 teacher. Johnny never had a particle of condescen 
 sion in him; he never put on pedagogic airs with 
 Roger, but he had talked of the simpler matters of 
 the intellect. If he spoke of an author, he was likely 
 to fling in a bit of biography, and he was particular 
 to keep his terms of logic very simple. Now he 
 wrote as one educated person might write to an 
 other. But more important than all : hitherto John 
 ny had been reserved, in the midst of his sympathy. 
 He never had spoken of himself, his own fortunes, 
 his own daily round, or his own feelings. Now, he 
 was equally silent about the material concerns of his 
 
A1\C 
 
 378 THE MAN\OF THE HOUR 
 
 life, but half-shyly he was unpacking his heart of 
 its faiths and its problems. 
 
 He wrote every Sunday, that being his one leisure 
 day. Roger wrote Fridays, in order to give Johnny 
 a chance to answer his letters at once. The interest 
 of the situation increased all the while. By degrees, 
 Peggy dropped any talk about Roger Mack s per 
 sonal experiences; a certain shamefaced doubt in 
 her audience s credulity held her fingers; but she 
 wrote out Roger Mack s heart, which was much the 
 sort of heart Margaret Rutherford had had in a 
 poor boy s place. 
 
 She also contrived to get in the daily life of Over 
 look and Fairport. And with a skill she did not 
 realize, she sketched most delicately, in half-tones 
 which could not offend, the character of the only 
 woman to whom Johnny had been unkind. Grace 
 was given her to do it with so light a hand, in so 
 few if strong lines, that Johnny himself never sus 
 pected her purpose. Mrs. Winslow appeared in the 
 letters, because there was no telling the incidents 
 without her. As for her character, it revealed it 
 self. Because his attention was not asked, Johnny 
 gave it without reserve. He did not come to the 
 reading critical, but interested, out of his armor and 
 off his guard. "Could you have wronged her, dear?" 
 he asked once, to the image of his mother that he 
 summoned so often to his thoughts ; "we made mis 
 takes, you and I. And let us be just she had a 
 right to marry my father if she loved him. She did, 
 mamasa* She made him happy; I fear we didn t." 
 
 *Darling. 
 
AN DIE FERNE GELIEBTE 379 
 
 These changes in the correspondence Peggy came 
 eventually to date back to a certain day of July. 
 It was the day she found a note from Luke Darrell 
 in her mail, after reading which she telephoned 
 Michael not to unharness her horse, but bring it 
 around again, although she had just returned from 
 town. Within half an hour she was in Luke Dar- 
 rell s private office, and Luke was hastily shoving 
 his white shirt-sleeves into his clerical-looking black 
 alpaca coat. 
 
 "About Roger Mack?" said Peggy. Luke had 
 been her faithful and willing confederate on almost 
 the same terms as Sadie. He did not know whether 
 Peggy or Mrs. Winslow was Roger Mack. He for 
 warded the letters to Overlook marked "For Mrs. 
 Winslow or Miss Rutherford," and kept any sur 
 mises to himself. Now, he rubbed his clean-shaven 
 jaws and looked solemn as usual, as he remarked : 
 
 "I m afraid, Miss Rutherford, they are on to 
 Roger Mack." 
 
 "Why?" said Peggy. 
 
 "Well, I was out this morning, and everybody 
 else ; we had two funerals, and only the new washer 
 and Henderson were in. Henderson stepped out for 
 his dinner, come to think, so he ittam t in. A young 
 fellow strolled in and asked for Roger Mack. The 
 washer said he didn t work here. Then the young 
 fellow asked had he left? The washer had never 
 heard of him; but he said he was new, himself. 
 Then the young fellow left." 
 
 Peggy held herself impassive by an effort : "That 
 was this morning?" 
 
 Luke said it was. 
 
380 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 "And what was the young man like? A working- 
 man?" 
 
 "That man who saw him August his name is; 
 he s got another but it s too long to be handled on 
 work-days he said he was a gentleman. I asked 
 him how he looked and he said : Oh, like any gen 
 tleman. I asked him how he talked : Oh, just like 
 any gentleman. I couldn t git a mortal thing out 
 of the dumb tyke, he couldn t tell so much as the 
 color of his eyes or whether his hair was curly. It 
 was just as I wanted it. Were they brown? Yes, 
 maybe. Or perhaps they were blue ? He wasn t sure ; 
 they might be blue. He s as dumb as they make em, 
 even Dutchmen and they re next to a wooden In 
 jun, if they want to be. But I thought I d ought to 
 tell you." 
 
 "Do you think the gentleman could have been 
 Mr. Winslow?" 
 
 "I haven t got enough of a tip to give odds, it s 
 even money who it was. That stick couldn t be sure 
 whether he was tall. Might be little Billy Bates 
 only he d be likely to stay and chin with me." 
 
 The unknown never returned to unravel their puz 
 zle. But Roger Mack wrote that he had been in the 
 interior of the state buying horses and was back that 
 day. Johnny did not speak of coming to Fairport 
 or Darrell s ; but it was after that unexplained visit 
 that his letters began to strike a more personal note, 
 at first faintly, one may say tentatively, then with a 
 firmer tone. 
 
 And this is why Peggy did not write to Johnny 
 nor Johnny to Peggy. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 HAST THOU FOUND ME, O MINE ENEMY 
 
 The office-boy was not in the habit of eavesdrop 
 ping; he was a decent little creature, as office-boys 
 go, and his mother considered him the best boy in 
 Fairport. Nevertheless, on a certain May morning, 
 a year later, Axtel, the boy in question, made un 
 necessary excursions to the large office out of which 
 opened Mr. Hopkins private room; and when 
 ever the typewriter was looking the other way he 
 glued a very sharp ear to the keyhole under pretext 
 pf picking up something. The typewriter, the slen 
 der young men at the tall desks, the foremen and 
 other workmen who came in with messages or ques 
 tions, all wore the same air of suppressed emotion. 
 And Axtel knew, as well as the others, that the ex 
 citement in the office was only a reflex of the excite 
 ment lurking in the two thousand eyes bent appar 
 ently on their work in the great shops outside ; from 
 the "daubers" who dipped machines in their first 
 coat of paint to the foreman and superintendent, an 
 electric agitation was spreading in tingling waves. 
 Axtel was not the only one with ears and eyes open. 
 
 Within the office three men sat smoking. The 
 tall, portly, white-haired man, whose noble dome of 
 brow was nearly bald, was William Hopkins, presi- 
 
 38: 
 
382 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 dent of the Old Colony ; the shorter but more rugged 
 figure, topped by a Roman head with a thatch of 
 iron-gray hair above beetling brows and keen steel- 
 gray eyes, belonged to Jabez Rivers, head of the 
 Edgewater Steel Works, across the river ; the third 
 man s features showed (as the other men s faces did 
 not show) the plain marks of care; he was vice- 
 president and largest owner in a great Chicago cor 
 poration, manufacturing farm machinery. "Yes, 
 I guess we are in for it, Dunham/ Hopkins re 
 peated. 
 
 A grunt was Mr. Jabez Rivers only comment. 
 Rivers feelings never were much more than semi- 
 articulate. 
 
 Dunham, the Chicago man, glanced from the 
 plow manufacturer to the steel man. 
 
 "Then I understand you ll both stand with me?" 
 he asked. 
 
 Hopkins laughed. "I guess we have to ; we kept 
 our foundry about running on your castings, all 
 through the dull seasons ninety-six and seven, and 
 you ve got the contract from us for this year ; what 
 else is there for us to do but keep it, whether the 
 molders like it or not?" 
 
 "Well, that s the way it strikes us, of course," the 
 Chicago man said, nodding his head and waving his 
 cigar; "but how about you, Mr. Rivers?" 
 
 "The Edgewater has a contract to supply the Old 
 Colony with steel," grunted Rivers; "none of our 
 business how they use it." 
 
 "Well, I thought you d feel that way," the Chi 
 cago man spoke more rapidly in his relief "but of 
 course I wanted to make sure. It s such an abom- 
 
HAST THOU FOUND ME, O MINE ENEMY 383 
 
 inable trickery the whole business that you don t 
 know what to expect next. We, ourselves, haven t 
 had a bit of trouble with our men, and have always 
 tried to treat them fairly. Why, last winter old 
 Wethers was chuckling to me about how he d cut 
 his wages forty per cent. Just took it right out of 
 the men s skins and put it into his own pocket. We 
 hardly cut wages at all. And the trouble began at 
 Wethers . His men struck for a rise and a recog 
 nition of their union ; then the Colworthy men struck 
 and the thing spread till we have a peck of trouble ; 
 it s way beyond the original cause. Been going on 
 a month, and now a vile anarchist they used to have 
 in Chicago, who used to be a molder, but now is a 
 light among the machinists and can make more 
 trouble than a candle in a powder factory, has taken 
 a hand, and we re roped in. No reason on earth 
 except that we sell to Colworthy and Wethers. I 
 am about certain that this Wally Tyler, who used 
 to be the most corrupt and mischievous labor-poli 
 tician in Chicago " 
 
 "That s a big contract," interjected Rivers. 
 
 "He ll fill it, never mind. He s the kind that 
 holds us up with his right hand and steals from his 
 union with his left. He s killed one man himself, 
 with his own good right arm, they say, and two or 
 three by proxy, and I d hate to guess how many men 
 his gang has done up. Regular hospital feeder. It 
 was a mercy when he cleared out; now he s back. 
 He must needs take a hand for the machinists, and 
 demand that we stop selling to Wethers or Col 
 worthy. We refused. We re not yet asking the la 
 bor unions to run our business for us. It s bad 
 
384 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 enough to have them virtually hiring and discharg 
 ing our men. We were perfectly civil about it, but 
 we refused. Next day our machinists walked out. 
 We don t mind a partial shut-down, though orders 
 are coming in with a rush now. But we can man 
 age. We ve got considerable stuff on hand, and 
 we re delivering it ; and we ve got a few fellows that 
 will stick to us. If we can only get our stuff from 
 you on time." 
 
 "You can," said Hopkins. 
 
 Rivers grunted something, presumably assent. 
 
 "But they ve served notice on you, too ?" 
 
 "Served notice and got their answer, and Mr. 
 Walter Tyler is in town, raising all the hell he can. 
 How much," Hopkins blinked at the clock on the 
 wall "we shall know in about ten minutes." 
 
 "Say they ll walk out then?" 
 
 Hopkins nodded. 
 
 "And how about Edgewater, Mr. Rivers ?" 
 
 It was an open secret in business circles that the 
 Edgewater had made a deal with the Old Colony, 
 being virtually their silent partner. 
 
 "Well, we ve no machinists to hurt, and what we 
 have don t belong to the union," said Rivers; "but 
 Tyler got at our strand boys, and the bumptious 
 little beggars, who are always making trouble, went 
 out last night and came back this morning." 
 
 "Indeed ? How was that ?" 
 
 "We ve a brand new superintendent at the Open 
 Hearth young feller who went through the mill. 
 Used to be in Chicago. I have had my eye on him 
 for two years. Didn t say much for fear of giving 
 him the big head before he was old enough to stand 
 
HAST THOU FOUND ME, O MINE ENEMY 385 
 
 the disease, but I watched him. He s been a strand 
 boy, a rougher, a finisher, a roller, a heater; he 
 knows the whole business; what s more, he knows 
 the men. Those little cubs knew they could shut 
 down the whole shop, and they were mighty cocky. 
 He said he thought he could call them down. He 
 did. I don t know how, but I ve a notion he got at 
 some of the older and more responsible men and 
 they did the trick for him. I guess they promised 
 the boys a good hiding. Lord, they need it ! Cubs! 
 Still, some of them are decent, Gleason says; he s 
 teaching them to box." 
 
 "Has he a head on him?" 
 
 "He has. Good head, but he s modest." 
 
 "Say, lend him to me for a while," laughed Hop 
 kins. "I m always on the lookout for young men 
 that can work and haven t got the swelled head." 
 
 "Want him myself," rejoined Rivers. 
 
 "I guess we could use him somewhere, too," the 
 Chicago man jested; his spirits were rising. 
 
 Rivers had lumbered to his feet and was looking 
 at the clock. "Five minutes of" said he. 
 
 The three men left the office together so precip 
 itately that Axtel barely had time to jump to the 
 screw of the hot-water pipes for a lawful reason for 
 his presence. They walked through the office and 
 across the narrow street to the largest shop. The 
 huge building, with its iron beams and cement floor, 
 was penetrated by the staccato hum of machinery 
 and luridly aglow with myriad flaming blasts, in 
 front of which stood the dark figures of the artisans. 
 
 The three halted in the great doorway. Usually 
 their presence would not have attracted a turn of the 
 
386 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 head. Absorbed in their work, the men would have 
 hardly known that they were there. To-day more 
 than one man cast a backward glance. The man 
 next Hopkins smothered an oath, as he threw some 
 thing into the scrap at his feet. 
 
 "Spoiled that bolt," argued Hopkins; % all of em 
 rattled this morning. Who s that young feller just 
 come in?" 
 
 "He s all right ; he s my young man. I told him 
 to come here." Jabez Rivers, with his hands in his 
 pockets, was grimly unmoved. But the Chicago 
 man s eyeballs glittered in the flare. 
 
 Mr. Hopkins gave the young man a long look. 
 A handsome young man he was, over six feet tall, 
 well-knit and erect, with a clean-shaven, young, oval 
 face, and his head carried well in the air with the 
 chin down. The head was covered with wavy 
 black hair, which would have curled were it not 
 cropped so short. He wore a negligee shirt and 
 yellow belt, and there were straps on his trousers, 
 as if he had just dismounted from a wheel. The 
 president of the Old Colony Plow Works whistled 
 softly. 
 
 "T-there s Tyler h-himself !" stammered the Chi 
 cago man, whose hands were clinching and open 
 ing, he was so nervous. 
 
 Tyler swung through a side door almost opposite 
 the group, with his accustomed jovial swagger. His 
 toilet had been made for the occasion, which he 
 anticipated would be one for display rather than 
 action. Therefore he had a red silk handkerchief 
 peeping out of his coat pocket, a new tweed suit and 
 tan-colored shoes to be seen across the shop. In- 
 
HAST THOU FOUND ME, O MINE ENEMY 387 
 
 stantly he took in the trio in the big doorway. He 
 knew Rivers, whom he respected as a good fighter, 
 and whose gruffness put him rather at his ease, 
 being quite comprehensible to him; he knew Hop 
 kins, of whose quality he was yet in doubt; and he 
 knew the Chicago man. Their presence was an 
 unexpected tidbit for his vanity. He felt sure of 
 at least three-fourths of the busy hammers dropping 
 at his whistle. He hoped for more. All the men 
 leaving mightn t remain out ; indeed, he had passed 
 the tip that there would not be a long strike, and if 
 the non-union men would but walk out they could 
 go back in a few days, should the strike not suc 
 ceed, as he felt it must. He calculated that Hop 
 kins, who had never had serious trouble with his 
 men, and who had rush orders of great magnitude, 
 would be frightened by the stampede. He counted 
 on the obscure yet enormous force of contagion and 
 the mightier force of clan prejudice. On the whole, 
 he was fairly sure of his stroke. His confidence 
 curled on his mouth as he turned and saw the 
 young superintendent from the Edgewater. 
 
 The latter looked at him with grave, almost sol 
 emn eyes. Nothing passed between the two but 
 the single glance. Then Tyler lifted his whistle to 
 his sneering mouth and blew a blast that cut, knife- 
 like, through the vast buzz of toil. As if in answer 
 to a magician s call, every arm fell. The very 
 belts above slackened their mighty revolutions. The 
 noise of machinery dulled. One would say that the 
 heart of the great engine had been struck and was 
 staggering slowly into dumbness. Like statues, the 
 men stood, holding their breath, their eyes glued on 
 
 
388 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 Tyler. Before Tyler could send a second blast the 
 new superintendent (to whom Rivers had nodded, 
 after a swift colloquy with Hopkins) strode in front 
 of him and laid a hand of iron on his arm. 
 
 "Didn t you see that sign?" he demanded, but in 
 the gentlest of voices. " No admittance. We mean 
 it. You ve no business here. Kindly go away." 
 
 "If I say no?" 
 
 "I ll fling you out." 
 
 Tyler looked at his antagonist, and the pith went 
 out of his courage. He knew himself to be the 
 weaker man, and he had no mind to be discomfited 
 before his following. He shrugged his shoulders. 
 "We ll all go," he gibed. "Come on, boys!" 
 
 "The molders have refused to go. Don t be 
 fooled, boys !" shouted a voice from the doorway. 
 Tyler marched out, his shoulders back and chest 
 expanded. About half the men followed him. The 
 moment Tyler s back was over the sill the door 
 swung, and the Edgewater young man, whose move 
 ments were of exceeding swiftness, turned the key 
 and slipped it into his pocket. This stratagem 
 obliged the striking employees to file down the aisles 
 and pass out the large door under the very eyes of 
 their employers. A clerk in his shirt-sleeves, with 
 hair parted symmetrically in the middle and cut 
 regularly around his girlish face, was taking down 
 on his pad the names, which a perspiring young man 
 in a flannel shirt,, with an unintentional smudge on 
 his nose, was repeating to him in a low voice. This 
 procedure had a dampening effect on the finish of the 
 drama, since a number of the malcontents flagged, 
 a few even slipped back to their benches ; only about 
 
 
HAST THOU FOUND ME, O MINE ENEMY 389 
 
 a third of the men held steady. These walked dog 
 gedly past Hopkins, staring straight ahead. But 
 one halted and turned his face, where toil and years 
 had whitened the bristle of a stubbly beard, up at 
 Hopkins, and the tears rose to his tired blue eyes. 
 
 "That man broke his leg and was laid up for three 
 months, and the company paid his doctor s bills and 
 full wages/ the clerk recited. "Look at him now !" 
 
 "I m sorry to see you quitting, Dennis," said 
 Hopkins. 
 
 The man drew his hand across his eyes. 
 
 "Thirty years," he muttered ; "I never quit before, 
 never. You mind that. But I belong to the union, 
 and the word s gone out." 
 
 "Oh, damn your union!" snapped the Chicago 
 man; "much your union would do for you if you 
 were in trouble." 
 
 "The union s all right," called a cheerful voice; 
 "the thing to do is to get the union to send all you 
 boys back in a hurry." The young superinten 
 dent had crossed the room and was standing behind 
 the elders. The words drew from the Chicago man 
 a freezing look, but Rivers clapped him on the back. 
 
 "Right, sonny; you ve sized up the situation," his 
 deep bass grumbled. 
 
 The young man sent back a bright smile and a 
 "Thank you, sir," as he took his own way outside. 
 He could hear Hopkins thanking the machinists and 
 the others who had remained, in the language of a 
 man who had not forgotten that once he had worked 
 with his own hands. The young fellow linked his 
 arm in that of one of the strikers, a man he knew, 
 who had recently been in trouble. 
 
390 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 "I was sorry to hear about it, Ellison," he said. 
 "I knew what a good wife she was and what a good 
 woman." The man s chin quivered. 
 
 "That s right," he muttered. "Say, I ain t 
 thanked you for the flowers. Say, they give me the 
 day off and jest the same in the envelope, Wednes 
 day." 
 
 "Too bad you had to go out," the young man con 
 tinued; "get the boys out of this ridiculous notion 
 as soon as you can." 
 
 "I didn t know but you d be mad, me going out " 
 
 "When a man belongs to a union he has to obey 
 orders ; but you can do your best to get them back " 
 He stopped, perceiving Tyler in front of him, a man 
 on either side. 
 
 "You damn renegade!" he drawled with a 
 kind of ferocious simper. "I ll be even with you 
 this deal, Ivan Gleetzin !" 
 
 "I m no renegade, and you know it," William 
 Hopkins, in the doorway, heard the voice with its 
 neat, clipped Eastern modulations strike every word 
 clearly, although its pitch was not raised "and 
 don t call me Ivan ; my name is John Winslow." 
 
 None of the men quite took in the significance of 
 the speech except Rivers and Hopkins. Rivers 
 wagged his great head without a sound, but Hopkins 
 strode up to Johnny, extending his hand. 
 
 "Glad to see you back, Johnny," said he heartily* 
 "will you come round this evening and dine with 
 Mrs. Winslow and us or ain t you quite ready for 
 that?" 
 
 "Not yet," said Johnny; "but thank you. Thank 
 you, awfully." 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 AMELIA ANN, HER HORSE 
 
 The manner of Johnny s coming to Fairport was 
 this : Mueller, the shipping clerk, had a wife and 
 family. The wife was accustomed to declare that 
 the city was no place for growing children. After 
 the cable-car ran over the baby under his mother s 
 very eyes, Mueller was of his wife s opinion. 
 Granted the baby was not hurt, being run over purely 
 as a figure of speech, since the fender caught the 
 chubby three-year-old body and rolled it into its 
 beneficent lap, while Mrs. Mueller gazed in horror 
 passing speech, still there was no gainsaying the aw- 
 fulness of the risk ! 
 
 To complete the chain of conversion in Mueller s 
 mind, his brother-in-law, who was a bookkeeper at 
 the Edgewater, wrote him of a shipping clerk s po 
 sition vacant there, and, with the American facility 
 of shift, Mueller turned from groceries to rounds 
 and ovals and scrap-iron. 
 
 It was a natural sequence of events that he should 
 write to Johnny and praise the Edgewater as the 
 best place on earth for a young man to learn the 
 steel business. "Open shop, and you won t have 
 no trouble about apprenticeships ; and you ll find the 
 old man will push you as fast as you re worth it !" 
 
 Therefore Johnny came. From the first he got 
 
392 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 on. He went through the customary steel workers 
 horse-play in trial of his fortitude and his good hu 
 mor ; these, to a man who had "run for the Dickey" 
 in Harvard, were but artless fooling; he was soon 
 matriculated as "not afraid of hot iron" and always 
 good-natured. His strength and dexterity counted 
 as such manly traits count wherever life comes down 
 to its elemental basis. His sweet temper and his 
 sense of humor won him friends from the first. In 
 his new experiment he made no secret of his inten 
 tion to become a master instead of a man. To his 
 surprise, the frankness, which he had expected to 
 alienate, seemed rather to attract confidence. As 
 a social reformer, a little brother to the poor, who 
 would strip himself and share their lot to the dregs, 
 he had met an intangible barrier of suspicion, a 
 nameless doubt whether there were not some ulte 
 rior motive of ambition behind this reckless philan 
 thropy. Just before he left Chicago a socialist came 
 to bid him farewell. He was a man whom Johnny 
 regarded with loving respect because of his purity 
 of soul, his absolute devotion to his cause and his 
 unlimited self-sacrifice; and never did any change 
 of faith or alienation of circumstances affect the feel 
 ing. Writing to Roger Mack of this man, Johnny 
 said, "I feel like calling him St. Francis, for he 
 comes nearer that gentle and broad-minded saint 
 than any one I ever saw." St. Francis had suffered 
 when Johnny fell away from his first ardor, but his 
 soul clave to the boy, even after he became a casta 
 way. Several times he had visited Johnny in the 
 hospital, always bearing him some gift of flowers 
 out of his poverty, for he was very poor not that 
 
AMELIA ANN, HER HORSE 393 
 
 he did not earn a good sum, for this he did, being 
 an expert and exquisitely careful silversmith, but 
 he spent all but the barest subsistence on the needs 
 of his party. St. Francis looked sadly at Johnny 
 when he bade him farewell. 
 
 "You will never come back/ he said. "You will 
 go to your own class. You didn t know it, but you 
 never really left it. You were never a socialist ; you 
 were only an adventurer in benevolence." 
 
 "And my adventure has failed," said Johnny, at 
 tempting no useless denial. 
 
 "It ought to fail," replied his friend, with a ges 
 ture of his thin hands, one passing swiftly over the 
 other, as if flinging something away; "it ought to 
 fail. The redemption of humanity is not an alms; 
 it is a religion." 
 
 Perhaps an undefined resentment against the com 
 passion under Johnny s impulsive generosity may 
 have worked with the men whose friendship he 
 coveted most, and the taint of it may have affected 
 his fellow workmen, at least at first. Whatever the 
 reason, he never quite lost his sense of their unex 
 pressed, unconquerable distrust. But, now, as a 
 workingman who meant to strain every nerve to rise 
 out of his class, he met with the friendliest sympa 
 thy. His lovable qualities were loved without ques 
 tion. He found himself nearer his mates than ever 
 before, and at the same time he felt a keener interest 
 and more brotherly compassion for them than when 
 interest and compassion were his imperious duty. 
 
 It was about this time he wrote to Roger Mack : 
 "I believe Amiel was right : What is normal is, at 
 once, most convenient, most honest and most whole- 
 
394 
 
 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 some. Cross-roads may tempt us for one reason or 
 another, but it is very seldom we do not come to 
 regret having taken them/ The whole socialistic 
 scheme is abnormal. It would only be possible in the 
 millennium when we were all saints and then it 
 would be unnecessary." 
 
 Peggy sighed from pure delight as she read the 
 letter. "And he forgot to explain who Amiel was ! 
 Or else he was ashamed to take the airs of a teacher," 
 she cried. 
 
 The very Saturday before the strike Johnny won 
 his promotion. He was nearer at rest in his mind 
 than he had been in years. To celebrate the occa 
 sion he took all the children to drive in the country. 
 They enjoyed the occasion beyond words, particu 
 larly Amelia Ann, who was allowed to drive. 
 
 Amelia Ann, also, was less unhappy than she 
 had been. When she first came to their neat new 
 abode, where they had the whole of five rooms, a 
 yard and a pump of their own, Amelia Ann was a 
 rebel who loathed her lot. She did not take to the 
 country. She was an urban child. For her the 
 multitudinous din, surging all day and far into the 
 night about their tenement, which reared its eight 
 wooden stories against the brick walls of the great 
 brewery, was soothing as the hum of the water- 
 wheel to a miller. The sickly sweetness of stale 
 beer which was wafted from the gutters, the ether- 
 like odor of banana and the pungent savor of the 
 restaurant onion stung her nostrils pleasantly in re 
 membrance, and she sniffed contemptuously at the 
 pastures smelling of new-mown hay. 
 
 "Ain t it nasty?" said Amelia Ann. She pined 
 
AMELIA ANN, HER HORSE 395 
 
 for the incessant variety of the pavements, the mot 
 ley crowd, the blare of the brass bands, the thrill of 
 the plunging fire-engines which could run over 
 people and the driver never be arrested, the occa 
 sional glorious pageant of a military procession, the 
 breathless interest of a street fight. 
 
 She yearned for the vanished audiences before 
 which she danced or sang or was the "India Rubber 
 Gymnast." The stout policeman often flung her an 
 orange or an apple they cost him naught uncon 
 scious of the times a gurgle of laughter had followed 
 her mimicry of his pomp as she followed his stately 
 passage down the street. The saloon-keeper, oppo 
 site, served her a dainty from his free lunch. Even 
 Tony of the push-cart would sometimes part with a 
 banana over her Bella Napoli. She didn t under 
 stand a word, but she gave an absolute copy of an 
 Italian s rendering, homesick pathos and all. Yes, 
 no doubt, unpleasant as Mrs. Delaney could be, 
 Amelia Ann had enjoyed her city life. Here she had 
 Mrs. Delaney still a larger dose of Mrs. Delaney 
 for she only took in fine washing and kept the house, 
 now with none of the compensations of Chicago. 
 
 They lived out of the town, past the shops at 
 least, if not past the houses, on a street-car line 
 which ran twice an hour only, and the motorman 
 would stop the car if you stood on the track ! What 
 kind of street-car was that! She asked one of the 
 motormen how many people he had run over, and 
 he said, "Not one," and that he never meant to. 
 Secretly she despised this pusillanimous mercy. 
 
 The first week of her exile Amelia Ann was so 
 wretched that she had serious thoughts of setting 
 
396 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 fire to the house a drastic measure which she final 
 ly abandoned as useless, since Johnny would only 
 rent another. Besides, it would worry him, and 
 Amelia Ann was fond of Johnny. He was, also, for 
 all his gentleness, the only being w^hom she feared. 
 He made her want to cry when she had been bad. 
 But with the second week came relief ; she discovered 
 the cow, the calf and the horse of the Millers. The 
 Miller twins lived in the next house the same 
 Miller twins whose priceless old delft Johnny re 
 membered as the cause of some of his liveliest emo 
 tions when he was a child. They were grown older 
 and, thanks to a departed kinsman, richer, although 
 far from rich ; and they had purchased a "place." A 
 venerable cousin lived with them. Their larger in 
 come also permitted a maid-of-all-work and a boy, 
 who tended the horse and cow and worked in the 
 garden out of school hours. The family consisted 
 of the three women, the maid, and the horse, which 
 was named Ally after one of the twins. Neither of 
 the sisters recognized Johnny, but he recognized 
 them, and his heart warmed to them. An occasion 
 pf acquaintance soon presented itself. 
 
 One winter evening Miss Tina appeared at the 
 fence and hailed Mrs. Delaney. She was much per 
 turbed. She explained that the boy hadn t come, 
 although it was now half-past six; the cow ought 
 Miss Tina had her old habitude of deserting her sen 
 tences at the crucial phrase really the cow ought, 
 the young man who boarded at Mrs. Delaney s, did 
 he know how to milk? Johnny volunteered to try, 
 vaguely recalling milking under Michael. 
 
 "If you would attempt the manual part," stam- 
 
AMELIA ANN, HER HORSE 397 
 
 mered Miss Tina, "sister and I are acquainted with 
 the theory; we could direct and hold the lamp. One 
 of us could hold the lamp, and another have a pail 
 of water in case but our cow never kicks. Per 
 haps, together " 
 
 Amelia Ann admired Johnny s careless ease. He 
 said he could manage. He let her (Amelia Ann) 
 hold the lantern. The sisters only flitted in and out, 
 in shawls, their white hair blowing. Amelia Ann 
 heard one of them whisper to the other that he 
 (meaning Johnny) seemed a very respectable young 
 man, how much ? And the other returned, "Oh, 
 I don t know ; he seems almost a gentleman ; do you 
 think ?" Johnny helped them out of their di 
 lemma by cutting into Miss Tina s hesitating : "You 
 have been so very good, we feel we ought 
 may " with a smiling : "Oh, don t mention it ; we 
 are your nearest neighbors, you know. Good even 
 ing." 
 
 Next day the sisters sent over a hot steamed apple 
 dumpling, and Amelia Ann thought better of them. 
 From this time there gradually grew a depend 
 ence on Johnny. When the horse was cast in her 
 stall, he rescued her and got her on to her feet with 
 out a scratch. One night the Millers chased sleep 
 from the cottage by an alarm of fire screamed by 
 Miss Tina out of the window. On Johnny s appear 
 ance (clandestinely followed by Amelia Ann), Miss 
 Tina and Miss Ally appeared, clutching each other, 
 and clad mostly in quilts, and Miss Ally explained 
 that the alarm of fire was a "subterfuge." "There 
 were burglars breaking in, and we thought " The 
 burglars proved to be the calf, which had escaped 
 
398 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 from its pen and, with bovine stupidity, was trying 
 to find its mother under the front porch, where she 
 could not possibly squeeze; however, there was no 
 less need of a manly arm, since the bewildered and 
 desolate calf must be restored to its home. 
 
 But it was as an amateur veterinary that Johnny 
 was most resplendent. 
 
 The day after the calf s unsuccessful attempt to 
 "break and enter," Miss Tina appeared at the fence. 
 It was a point of dignity with her never to go 
 farther than her own fence, the gifts of small fruits 
 and vegetables, which set in with the coming of sum 
 mer, being always borne over by the Swedish maid- 
 of-all-work, with Miss Miller s compliments. Mrs. 
 Delaney cherished a bed of pansies near the Miller 
 fence. When she weeded it, what more natural 
 than for her neighbor to approach and forget the 
 difference of station in an amiable effort to instruct ? 
 What more seemly than that the welfare of the dif 
 ferent households should be approached politely; 
 that, by degrees, Miss Tina should learn the sicken 
 ing rapidity with which the young Blokers wore out 
 their shoes, the housewifely virtues of Thyrza, the 
 sweetness of Franzy and the heart-breaking "devil- 
 ishness, no less," of Amelia Ann, or, on the other 
 hand, that Mrs. Delaney should discover that the 
 Millers girl broke more dishes than any other the 
 household had ever had ("and when my dear mother 
 was alive we kept two," said Miss Tina), and that 
 Cousin Matilda was such a terrible sufferer from 
 nervous dyspepsia, that Miss Tina feared it might 
 go to her heart ! 
 
 Mrs. Delaney was full of sympathy; Miss Miller 
 
AMELIA ANN, HER HORSE 399 
 
 with dignity responded kindly. Having never 
 been married, naturally she had distinct theories re 
 garding the management of children, which Mrs. 
 Delaney received with respect. By temperament 
 Miss Tina was of a plaintive cast, Miss Ally inclin 
 ing to hope and even liking to joke at broken dishes. 
 As Mrs. Delaney s Celtic politeness made her take 
 the color of the other s mood, Miss Tina and she 
 would often wade in sorrow up to their eyes. Con 
 sequently, this morning, perceiving the sad approach 
 of Miss Tina, Mrs. Delaney s smile fell off and her 
 brow puckered into decent gloom. 
 
 "And sure, what is it has happened, Miss Miller?" 
 she hailed, so soon as it was decent to speak, for 
 some sentiments it is not decorum to shout; "I can 
 see plain yous have a new grief. Don t be tellin 
 me your poor cousin " 
 
 "Oh, no, no," choked Miss Tina, with an inflec 
 tion which almost hinted that the trouble was worse 
 than Miss Matilda s demise ; "no oh, Mrs. Delaney, 
 a most dreadful, dreadful calamity " 
 
 "Whist, now!" deplored Mrs. Delaney. "I 
 knowed it the minute I seen you come by. But what 
 wit?" 
 
 Miss Tina s utterance was broken; she almost 
 sobbed : "Our Ally our Ally" 
 
 Not for a second did honest Mrs. Delaney recall 
 the Miller horse, which was like one of the family. 
 
 "Oh, what s come to her?" she gasped in real con 
 cern, for she had a true regard for the cheerful, 
 hard-working, frivolous Miss Ally. 
 
 Miss Tina gurgled the words behind her hand 
 kerchief: 
 
400 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 "She she plunges at sheets!" 
 
 "Hivins!" groaned Mrs. Delaney. Exactly why 
 poor Miss Ally should plunge at sheets the sympa 
 thizer could not imagine, but such behavior in an 
 elderly gentlewoman could portend but one awesome 
 fact. She glanced compassionately at Miss Tina 
 dabbling at her eyes. 
 
 "And your poor cousin mabbe on her dying bed !" 
 she bemoaned. "Have yous had the doctor?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, I had him twice. Poor cousin doesn t 
 know, yet." 
 
 "Oh, tis most distressing! What doctor was it, 
 plase?" 
 
 "Doctor Smith." 
 
 "What Doctor Smith?" 
 
 "The good Doctor Smith." 
 
 "What was he saying? Maybe tis a passing dis 
 order that will yield to the good tratement ?" 
 
 "He says," bewailed Miss Tina in a fresh access 
 of grief, "he says she s going blind, and and she ll 
 have to be killed!" 
 
 Horror and amazement struck Mrs. Delaney 
 dumb one second ; then "The murtherin villin !" she 
 cried hotly; "you ain t manin oh, ma am, try the 
 asylims " but in the very flood-tide of her protest 
 her ear caught a squeak of ungovernable mirth pro 
 ceeding from the wood-pile, and a rapid glance that 
 way discerned the tip of an untidy shoe. It could 
 belong to but one person only the abominable little 
 Amelia Ann could giggle over murder! Mrs. De- 
 laney s outraged soul overflowed. Three strides 
 brought her arm into focus, one masterly spring 
 caught and clutched the skirts of the fleeing. The 
 
AMELIA ANN, HER HORSE 401 
 
 other arm rose for a box that should make Amelia 
 Ann s head ring; but Amelia Ann ducked, grinning 
 and squealing: "Asylums for bosses! It s Ally, 
 the hoss, she means! Oh, my!" and went into 
 impish cachinnations. 
 
 Now, another than a Celt might have been 
 abashed, and, in her embarrassment, have loosened 
 her grip; but the Celt s wits are nimble. Mrs. De- 
 laney took mental breath while she shook Amelia 
 Ann. 
 
 "You re a wicked child and me heart s fair broke 
 wid yous," she bawled, "laffin over a kind lady s 
 misforchunes wid a beautiful hoss that s like her 
 own kin! Take shame, ye hard-hearted little viper!" 
 
 Then, still firmly holding the writhing little 
 shoulders, she made her apology to Miss Tina, who 
 had ceased to \veep, in the shock of the spectacle. 
 "You ll pardon me, plase, ma am. But this wicked 
 little cratur drives me out of me mind. Sure, don t 
 be so desparit about the poor hoss. They d orter be 
 asylims or hospitils twas the \vord in me mind. 
 I m not eddicated like you, ma am hospitils for 
 hosses, if they ain t. But, annyhow, don t give up 
 till you ve seen Mr. Gleason; he ll know. And I 
 mind me, now, he cured a hoss of the blind staggers, 
 no less, in Chicago ; twas a hoss in the brewery near 
 us, and he said at the time that he got the way of it 
 from a man lives right here, keeps the big livery 
 stable in Fairport, his name s Durrill, or some sech 
 like" 
 
 "I know him" ejaculated Miss Tina; "this is 
 wonderful, really providential ! My poor sister Ally 
 was saying this morning, she couldn t bear we ve 
 
402 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 been so fond of the horse, you know. I ll speak to 
 Mr. Gleason this afternoon. He ll know what s best." 
 
 "He will that. And now, I ll bid you good day, 
 ma am, for me arrm is aching wid the pullin and 
 scratchin of this little wild baste and I ll take her 
 in and lick the stuffin outer her, plase God. Don t 
 be dishturbed when yous hear the screeches." 
 
 Amelia Ann cast a frantic glance townward, but 
 it was too soon for Johnny s car, and the present 
 angering of Mrs. Delaney was but the cap-sheaf 
 of days iniquities. Even her stubborn courage 
 quailed at the glint in the matron s eye. But help 
 came from an unexpected quarter; Miss Tina her 
 self interceded for the little girl who didn t mean 
 any harm to poor horsey, she was sure. 
 
 "You ain t seen her trying to ride your caff, then, 
 I m thinking?" 
 
 Miss Tina s compassion was proof. "I m sure she 
 wouldn t hurt it," said she. "I m not so sure the calf 
 mightn t hurt her," she added, for the dejected Miss 
 Tina owned a saving streak of humor. Eventually 
 she foiled justice, and Amelia Ann had the grace to 
 feel a tepid shame, remembering how she had mis 
 used the cherished Miller calf with a limber switch. 
 
 Johnny, however, repaid all favors. He carried 
 the day against the "good" veterinary ; he persuaded 
 Miss Miller to take Ally to Luke Darrell s and, later, 
 he took charge of that gentle plunger himself. Thus 
 it fell out that Amelia Ann became acquainted with 
 a horse. Johnny knew too much to leave any unpro 
 tected beast in the path of Amelia Ann s reckless 
 curiosity. He met the danger in his own way, by 
 disarming the foe. He took the child out to the lit- 
 
AMELIA ANN, HER HORSE 403 
 
 tie pasture where the horse was; he told Amelia 
 Ann what a faithful, kind horse Ally had been al 
 ways; he described the sorrowful fate menacing her. 
 "But I think," said Johnny very seriously, "if you 
 will help me, I can cure her." 
 
 "Why don t you ask Thyrza? sneered Amelia 
 Ann; "she s a good girl, I m a devil." 
 
 Johnny smiled and patted the thin shoulders 
 shrugging out of her frock. 
 
 "Thyrza is a good little girl, but she doesn t know 
 so much about some things as you and I, and I have 
 more confidence in your judgment about horses. 
 Now listen." He detailed all the simple measures 
 of care, the feeding and giving the horse drink, the 
 flax-seed in the food, the bathing the eyes. Would 
 she attend to them and not let anybody bother Ally ? 
 
 "Yes, I will," said Amelia Ann carelessly, but 
 with inward mounting pride; "you show me, once." 
 
 So Johnny took Amelia Ann by the hand and led 
 her up to Ally. He patted Ally s neck while he spoke. 
 "Ally, this is your own particular vet. She is going 
 to take care of you and never let any of the boys 
 ride you, or the flies vex you ; she ll never let you be 
 hungry or thirsty, and she will help me bathe your 
 poor eyes every morning and evening. And when 
 you get well, we will ask Miss Tina and Miss Ally 
 to let her drive you." 
 
 This is the way Amelia Ann learned that she had 
 a heart, and grew to love a horse, which, in her case, 
 was the beginning of wisdom. 
 
 None suspected the part Ally and Amelia Ann 
 were to play in the fortunes of Johnny and the Old 
 Colony Plow Company. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 HIS FATHER S OWN SON 
 
 The morning after the strike, Johnny sat in the 
 office of the president of the Old Colony Plow Com 
 pany, which had been his father s, and looked about 
 him with a strange moving of the heart. How fa 
 miliar it all was ! The oaken wainscoting, dull and 
 substantial, the walls calcimined in serviceable 
 brown, the ceiling of a lighter shade, the comfortable 
 leather-covered arm-chairs built for men of gener 
 ous mold; the map of the river, the island and the 
 three towns hanging beside the pen-and-ink draw 
 ing of the Old Colony shops in their modest be 
 ginnings, between the windows, and the good old 
 war governor of Iowa, wearing the famous 
 "dickey" and shoe-string black tie, on which John 
 ny s childish eyes used to gaze. 
 
 The sole change he could find was a large photo 
 graph of the portrait of Josiah Winslow, the origi 
 nal of which hung in Mrs. Winslow s writing-room. 
 Johnny looked from it to the red baize-covered table, 
 by which Rivers and Hopkins sat; the same table 
 where he had seen them both, aforetime, because the 
 business relations between the Old Colony and the 
 Edgewater had always been intimate; the same 
 table, the same group save one. But it was that 
 one Johnny saw more clearly than the living, breath- 
 
 404 
 
HIS FATHER S OWN SON 405 
 
 ing men before him. He sat as he used to sit, one 
 arm flung over the back of his chair, one elbow on 
 the table, untidily chewing the end of his cigar as he 
 smoked, his heavily molded, patient, tired face in 
 its undecipherable mask of attention, broken now 
 and then by a dry sort of smile. 
 
 The child Johnny used to be allowed to play with 
 the catalogues, even to cut out the dazzling two- 
 horse plows and cultivators with a pair of round- 
 pointed scissors which his father kept for him. The 
 young man was beginning to remember how his 
 father never seemed to weary of his company, but 
 rather, in a shy and awkward fashion, devised en 
 tertainments which should keep him content in the 
 shops. Many a tour had he made, holding on to his 
 father s big hand, through the roaring machine- 
 shops and the flaming, beautiful, terrible foundry to 
 the peace of the painting room, which proved most 
 dangerous of all, since after he had tipped a pail of 
 green paint on his white sailor trousers and got red 
 paint in his hair, the shop visits were forbidden. 
 Yet, usually, his disasters to clothing were treated 
 most leniently by the Princess Olga. There was a 
 closet in the wall yes, it was there now ; very likely 
 it held bottles of the same stout aspect, the same lit 
 tle tumblers, and in the cigar boxes with the ships 
 sailing over the cover, were big, brown, moist cigars 
 with bands of paper about them, such as a little boy 
 had admired; and there used to be a box of gum- 
 drops, which wouldn t stick his hands up or do very 
 much harm to his stomach, and which were always 
 fresh. Johnny used to wonder at a big man s being 
 so fond of gum-drops. 
 
406 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 Rivers and Hopkins sat as they always sat ; Rivers 
 all over his chair, glooming at his big boots, Hop 
 kins figuring and drawing on a pad, as he talked. 
 In his youth he had had a taste for drawing, soon 
 diverted to mechanical art; but a trick of sketching 
 idly as he thought clung to him, and by the time a 
 business meeting of the Old Colony directors was 
 finished, the table would be littered with stray sheets 
 covered with primitive landscapes, heads of men 
 and beasts, or very capable machines. 
 
 Winslow had a habit of drawing these illustra 
 tions to him, when the meeting was over. On such 
 occasions Hopkins face wore a singularly mixed 
 expression. It was a blend of amusement and ad 
 miration, with a dash of apprehension. 
 
 "Humph ! that s what you were thinking, was it?" 
 Winslow was apt to say, after his examination, lay 
 ing one square-tipped finger on some particular ob 
 ject depicted. This object would meet the eye on 
 most of the pages. It was a key to thought which 
 Josiah alone knew how to turn. 
 
 The fancy wandered through Johnny s mind now, 
 as he watched Hopkins fingers busied with his red- 
 ink pen and his pad, that he should like to see the 
 pictures and try his luck at the cryptic iteration of 
 the shrewd old plow-maker s thought. Just then 
 Hopkins spoke : 
 
 "I sent for you, Johnny, because I guess you ve 
 got some stuff in you and want a chance to show it. 
 Hey?" 
 
 "Thank you, sir," said Johnny. 
 
 "Your father would be glad to see you here to 
 day," said Hopkins. 
 
HIS FATHER S OWN SON 407 
 
 Johnny s olive skin grew a thought paler; that 
 and the darkening of his eyes were his only signs 
 of emotion, yet he felt strangely shaken. 
 
 "I miss your father a good deal, a good deal," re 
 peated Hopkins. "I m a kind of ordnance officer 
 trying to be general-in-chief. It s not my best hold, 
 this bossing the whole show. It was his. A great 
 organizer, Johnny, great, and nobody had better 
 judgment about the markets. There was nothing 
 small about him either ; he saw things in a big way ; 
 he had a long look ahead. We re doing things, now, 
 he planned before he left us." Hopkins sighed. 
 "We d never had a strike if he d been here, think, 
 Rivers?" 
 
 "Don t know," said Rivers ; "he d a lot of sense 
 and he held the men well m hand ; but this thing is 
 getting too big for any of us to hold." 
 
 Johnny was silent, attentively listening, struggling 
 underneath with a great rush of memories. He 
 looked at the map of the river and the arsenal be 
 tween the towns. His father had held a little boy 
 up before it and pointed out the one building on the 
 island, nucleus for the vast storehouses of destruc 
 tion which were drawn up on their own streets now ; 
 he had traced the river s course and come to their 
 own town and to some tiny rectangles. Johnny 
 found that he was recalling his very words : "Here 
 we are, sonny, our shops, mine and yours. I had 
 hard work to get them, Johnny; be careful with 
 them when they come to you." 
 
 All at once the unreasoning hopes of youth swelled 
 his heart. "Some day," he swore to himself, "I ll 
 have a stake in this again. Here is where I belong." 
 
408 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 "Well, Johnny," said Hopkins, "I guess Rivers 
 has explained the situation. We thought we had 
 piled up a whole lot of cultivators and sulky rakes, 
 but we underrated the shortage. Everybody cleaned 
 up clean. We have got a sickening lot of rush 
 orders, and some of them are new customers in 
 Australia and Japan. If we can t fill the orders we ll 
 lose em. They ll go elsewhere. Of course, we are 
 keeping a stiff upper-lip ; but a strike just now hurts 
 like the very devil. We are like to lose seventy thou 
 sand dollars if it lasts a week and no counting how 
 much if it lasts longer. We ve got to keep the shops 
 running." 
 
 "Yes, sir," said Johnny. 
 
 "Well, what s your notion? You know the men 
 better n we do." 
 
 "I think you re right in what you were thinking 
 of doing," said Johnny. As he spoke he drew a sheet 
 of paper toward him and the tip of his index finger 
 rested on a scrawl. 
 
 Rivers and Hopkins exchanged glances. They 
 were smiling, but there was something solemn and 
 moved in their elderly faces. 
 
 "His father, over again," Rivers muttered under 
 his breath. 
 
 "Did you see his hand? He moves it just the 
 same way," Hopkins whispered. He turned to John 
 ny with his question : 
 
 "What was I thinking?" 
 
 "Thinking of getting men in and lodging them 
 in the new sheds." 
 
 "How do you figure that out?" Hopkins re 
 plied. 
 
1 
 
 BUT HF SAYS HE TAKES PART OF THE CARE OF THE CHILDREN" 
 
 p. 3*6 
 
HIS FATHER S OWN SON 409 
 
 "That cot, sir. You ve drawn a cot, half a dozen 
 times." 
 
 "But the new sheds ?" 
 
 "There s nowhere else for them to go," said 
 Johnny. 
 
 Hopkins drew a deep breath. Rivers smoked 
 hard. 
 
 "Got a good many of the old man s ways," said 
 he. 
 
 "Well, how does it strike you?" Hopkins voice 
 had a queer little vibration; it was like the shiver 
 that lingers in the metal, after a gong has been 
 struck and the ring is over. 
 
 "I m sorry," said Johnny. "I wish we might have 
 a chance to influence the men; but you haven t got 
 the time. I suppose you have some new men in mind. 
 Negroes, I judge." His ringers touched a sheet of 
 paper. 
 
 "Yes, there s a nigger s head in the pile," admit 
 ted Hopkins; "we can get a lot of em if we want 
 them, down the railway. Don t know a washer from 
 a bolt-head, regular forest primeval of blockheads; 
 but the Association will send us a dozen strike 
 breakers who are A No. i workmen. We shall have 
 to pay them big money, though. You know the man 
 ufacturers have a Protective Association, I sup 
 pose?" 
 
 "I was a union molder once," said Johnny lacon 
 ically; "but these fellows, how soon can we get 
 them? We ought to have them in time to blow 
 the whistle Monday. They aren t expecting any such 
 move, and the pickets will go home. We could have 
 them come in on the three A. M. train, march them 
 
410 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 up to the shops and get them inside before they 
 know anything about it." 
 
 Hopkins grinned. 
 
 "You are a hustler ! I thought of waiting a week 
 for the boys to come to their senses. And I expected 
 you to approve. I thought you d be for handling 
 them with padded gloves and offering em ice-cream. 
 You were so soft-spoken to those fellows yester 
 day." 
 
 "They re all right. We want those decent fellows 
 back, don t we? And I believe they couldn t help 
 themselves. In their places, I should do as they did. 
 When I was a union molder at Wethers I did my 
 best to prevent a strike; but I went out with the 
 others when the firebugs won. But I didn t rest until 
 the conservatives got them to declare the strike off. 
 The union men have to strike together, or give up 
 their cards. We ll have to try to undermine Tyler 
 and get the strike called off. That s our best hold 
 now. The non-union men will come dribbling back 
 as soon as we can protect them." 
 
 "There ll be trouble about that," Rivers remarked 
 casually; "the mayor s going to run for Congress; 
 he s laying his pipes now." 
 
 "Then the policemen won t work," groaned Hop 
 kins; "they ll see the pickets pounding our men " 
 
 "No, they won t; they won t see a thing if it s 
 right across the street. They re blind," growled 
 Rivers. 
 
 Johnny struck in : "Excuse me, only in one eye. 
 You ll find if our men resist and seem likely to win, 
 they ll see fast enough. But we can keep the new 
 men inside, and take care of them pretty well, can t 
 
HIS FATHER S OWN SON 411 
 
 we? The main thing is to prevent the whole shop 
 catching the fever and going out. They ll all go to 
 the meeting to-night, of course, and Tyler s got 
 some good news for them " 
 
 "Not about Wethers?" 
 
 "Yes, sir. Wethers has signed the scale." 
 
 "The damn skunk !" was all Hopkins comment. 
 
 "You got it from a sure source, Johnny?" said 
 Rivers. He had begun to call his young friend 
 Johnny, almost unconsciously. 
 
 "Sure, sir, though I can t give it." 
 
 "Probably. The surer the less likely you could 
 give it. Well, I suppose now Wethers, who made the 
 trouble by his damned greediness, has pulled out, 
 they ll concentrate on Collamer and us. Collamer 
 called me up this morning, William, and told me 
 Wethers was dickering; he d get his pelt under 
 cover and the whole pack would be yapping and 
 yarring on Collamer s heels." 
 
 "Well, the Association is helping him and it will 
 have to help us/ said Hopkins. 
 
 "Do you mind explaining to me about the Asso 
 ciation?" asked Johnny; "you see, I m a tender 
 foot." 
 
 Hopkins smiled soberly. His associates con 
 sidered him to have a fad for clever young men; 
 in fact, to push them too fast and make too much 
 of them. "Gone daft over young Winslow," he 
 knew they were whispering among the gray-beards. 
 If they heard that speech they would consider 
 him reckless to intrust great interests to a tender 
 foot. "The Association," he explained, "is merely 
 a protective combination among manufacturers in 
 
412 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 our lines to help out each other in case of strikes. 
 We don t entirely lie down and let these gentlemen 
 walk over us, though we are pretty meek. But to 
 get back to business. Shall we let this young tender 
 foot run the men in, neighbor?" 
 
 "Can you ?" said Rivers. 
 
 "Yes, sir ; I think so," said Johnny. He turned his 
 bright smile, not at the two elderly men who were 
 gazing at him with extreme friendliness under their 
 brusque business manner, but at the portrait of his 
 father. 
 
 "Well, get busy !" said Hopkins ; "have Miss Ed 
 gar in and the correspondence." 
 
 Both men looked after the young fellow as he 
 passed out of the door on his errand. 
 
 "Favors the old man a lot," murmured Rivers. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 AS IN THE DAYS OF NOAH 
 
 There is no doubt of the advantages of the min 
 gling of ages in social functions, the old and the 
 young and the great middle classes of the years, 
 making merry together; but how to win these un 
 doubted benefits was beyond Fairport until Dupli 
 cate Whist went down the best resident streets, like 
 scarlet fever. After that, Peggy was as likely to 
 meet Mrs. Winter at a whist party as any of her 
 young friends. 
 
 Mrs. Winter was a whist player of renown. She 
 played an heretical short-suit game; but was 
 not the less to be dreaded, since she had learned 
 every painstaking signal of "American leads" and 
 could read her opponents resources while she hid 
 her own. Were it necessary she could play as de 
 corous and conventional a game as any one ; but she 
 was quite capable of leading a singleton, and she 
 would sacrifice an established suit to a cross ruff, 
 without a qualm. 
 
 "But," gently complained Miss Tina of the Mil 
 ler twins, who religiously followed rules and was 
 what is known as a "safe" partner, yet somehow 
 never won points, "but how do you know when to 
 do that way or do you just guess?" 
 
414 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 "I count/ replied Mrs Winter; "whist strategy 
 is only a matter of arithmetic. The long-suit game 
 is not inspired. If I can make more tricks by a sneak 
 I make therm That s all." 
 
 "But it s so deceiving to your partner and she 
 might be " 
 
 "She ll be much crosser if you come out behind in 
 the score. Well, Miss Tina, it is time to begin." 
 
 Miss Tina was her partner, as it happened; and if 
 ever unmerciful disaster followed fast and followed 
 faster on imprudent advice, it did in this case; for 
 Miss Tina, rashly emboldened, played a wild, mad, 
 passionate game of sneaks and false cards, relent 
 lessly forcing her partner, who had a suit of six es 
 tablished, and keeping her in the dark about her own 
 good suit with three court cards at the head, all of 
 which were squandered after trumps were exhaust 
 ed in Miss Tina s mind, but unhappily, not in the ad 
 versary s hand. The slaughter was so pathetic that 
 it is remembered to this day. But Mrs. Winter bore 
 it with a grim and great composure. She had rea 
 son ; those who had the pleasure of seeing Mrs. Win 
 ter s rendition of Miss Clementina playing the short- 
 suit game and her final collapse were in hysterics of 
 laughter ; it was worth the five points she lost on the 
 hand. 
 
 But poor Miss Tina went home and wept. Thence 
 forward and for ever, she forswore short leads in 
 whist. "They aren t honest!" said Miss Tina. 
 Nevertheless she did not think it Christian to be 
 angry with Mrs. Winter, the cause of her woes, as 
 she always felt; and she attended the next meeting 
 of the Whist Club at Hazelhurst, Mrs. Winter s 
 
AS IN THE DAYS OF NOAH 415 
 
 place, exactly the same, although with inward trem 
 ors and a heavy heart. 
 
 Mrs. Winslow was there, with Miss Margaret 
 Rutherford, and her good fortune gave her that kind 
 young lady for a partner. It further assisted her to 
 remember trumps correctly, and when the first inter 
 mission came and the players were refreshed with 
 claret cup, Miss Tina had several points to her 
 credit. Conversation, which had been sternly sup 
 pressed before, now buzzed on all sides. Peggy 
 leaned back in her chair and let the various streams 
 of talk converge on an indifferent ear. She felt list 
 less and worried and sad, that day. Quite without 
 reason, she knew ; for, of course, there was no reason 
 to care that a few days over the usual week had 
 elapsed since Roger Mack had heard from Johnny. 
 Neither Peggy nor Mrs. Winslow knew of Johnny s 
 return, as yet; for Hopkins had promised to say 
 nothing. Peggy, therefore, did not connect Johnny 
 with any of the perils of the strike. 
 
 The talk went on cheerfully from various quar 
 ters, its subject varying with its source. 
 
 "No, I don t belong to the Colonial Dames 
 though I could. 
 
 "I don t think much of the society, myself ; noth 
 ing but social function and snippy ways I belong 
 to the Daughters. There is some sense to them and 
 real patriotism. They ve put up another tablet over 
 the river." 
 
 "Did you tell me, Mary Bee, that your cook wants 
 a place when you go to Europe ?" 
 
 "I haven t had a cook for three weeks, Elsie, and 
 she wouldn t want a place if I had. They never seem 
 
416 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 to want places, now; they only condescend to take 
 them" 
 
 "Three yards, if you ve a careful dressmaker. 
 Three and a half is ample. There are some perfectly 
 lovely taffetas down at Camden s." 
 
 "Yes, I m on the committee. I suppose they ll 
 take Decorative Household Art." 
 
 "Well, I think we oughtn t to educate ourselves 
 so heavily. It s so depressing to know how impos 
 sible light oak furniture is artistically, when you ve 
 got three sets in the house, and can t afford to throw 
 them away." 
 
 "Did you play the seven before the six? Well, I 
 never saw it. I beg your pardon. I never do see 
 trump signals." 
 
 "Oh, it was no consequence ; only if you d led out 
 trumps I could have given you back your diamond, 
 and that would have put us three more tricks to the 
 good." 
 
 "Well, no, Clara, I don t think that when you have 
 ace, king, queen and three small ones, you should 
 underplay your ace !" 
 
 "She told me distinctly that they were going to 
 have an Easter sale ; and they would take orders for 
 night-gowns. You can t buy anything you d be will 
 ing to wear ready-made, except French, and the 
 price is simply awful." 
 
 "Well, you know, I m pretty busy these days, with 
 Mabel s wedding only a month off. Did you know 
 poor Ralph has the measles ? He s nearly wild." 
 
 "Is he so ill?" 
 
 "No, he isn t even in bed ; but you know they have 
 a strike on at the Old Colony, and he can t bear to 
 
AS IN THE DAYS OF NOAH 417 
 
 stay home. But he has to. Mr. Hopkins told him he 
 wouldn t have him give the measles to all those col 
 ored men." 
 
 "They have negroes working?" 
 
 "Yes, have them shut up in the shops. That new 
 young man they have smuggled them in about three 
 o clock in the morning; had the train stop before it 
 got to the depot and marched them all in before the 
 strikers pickets knew anything about it." 
 
 "Well, it is hard for Ralph to keep out of it at 
 such an exciting time. He s so conscientious. You 
 must often think, Mrs. Mallory, what a comfort it 
 is when you are going to give your daughter to his 
 keeping, that he is such an honorable, conscientious 
 young man." 
 
 "I do feel that way. And he s good-tempered. All 
 the family are good-tempered ; I don t know as I ever 
 knew a better-tempered woman than his mother. 
 She was a dear woman. Do you remember the lit 
 tle yellow tomato preserves she used to put up? 
 With ginger. I guess nobody had sense to get the 
 recipe while she was alive and willing. And, now, 
 it s too late." 
 
 "Why, no, I didn t read it. To tell the truth, all 
 last week, I was saturated with Carlyle s French 
 Revolution. You ve read it, of course, Mrs. Win 
 ter. I was talking with father last night about it 
 and he said he supposed all through those terrible 
 days, the ordinary life, the buying and selling, and 
 marrying and having your friends to dinner went on 
 quite the same." 
 
 "Of course, it did," said Mrs. Winter. "And easy 
 enough to understand. We have murder stalking 
 
418 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 among us at every labor conflict ; do we get excited ? 
 There is a sky-scraper I was in, in Chicago, where 
 nine men were killed and forty injured (more than 
 in a battle) while it was building. They had strikes 
 on every floor. Critics talk of life not being dra 
 matic, these days, of its being tame; if bloodshed 
 and murder and sacrifice and heartbreak and hero 
 ism are tame, our life is tame. Not otherwise. I 
 drove down town yesterday, and saw the men pa 
 trolling every street near the Old Colony." 
 
 "Did they stop your carriage?" 
 
 "No; why should they? I m not a scab. They 
 don t stop Mr. Hopkins or Mr. Rivers. Any poor 
 workman under them who tried to step in and earn 
 a few dollars for his family would risk his bones if 
 not his life ; but the head man they are fighting never 
 is molested. It is the same way with the departments 
 that haven t been ordered out, the painters and 
 blacksmiths and foundry men ; they go by cheerfully 
 with their dinner-pails." 
 
 "They say the strike s hurting business a great 
 deal. And if it spreads, as the walking delegate 
 who s running it threatens, it will be a bad thing. 
 He says maybe he ll tie up the arsenal." 
 
 "Good gracious ! Why ? Mrs. Winter, I will ; the 
 claret cup is delicious." 
 
 "Oh, I don t know ; they buy some things from the 
 Old Colony or the Edgewater or whatever. These 
 labor things are awfully mixed up in my mind." 
 
 Several ladies had drawn near the table where 
 Mrs. Winter sat, looking her handsomest in black 
 velvet and lace and wearing her famous rubies. 
 There were pink ribbons in her lace cap which 
 
AS IN THE DAYS OF NOAH 
 
 419 
 
 matched a roseleaf flush in her delicate cheek, and 
 her eyes flashed like the jewels in her rings as her 
 hands moved in quick Southern gestures. 
 
 "They seem to be in most people s minds," said 
 she scornfully. 
 
 "Well, 7 believe in arbitration," explained a tall 
 lady with a Roman nose. "Mrs. Winter, I don t 
 want to criticize, but can t we women do something 
 to stop this fearful strike? If we add our pleadings 
 to those of the clergy, won t Mr. Hopkins and Mr. 
 Rivers listen? If you and Mrs. Winslow " 
 
 "I and Mrs. Winslow?" began Mrs. Winter in a 
 freezing tone ; then her eye took in her stately rooms 
 in their new Empire dressing; she bethought herself 
 that she was in her own house, and smiled gracious 
 ly. "My dear Mrs. Weekham, you forget we are 
 your friends, the enemy, the Old Colony s loss is 
 our loss ; the Old Colony strike hits us." 
 
 "Ah, then, all the more, dear madam, the better 
 right you have to stop this most awful struggle. 
 There are two strikers families live opposite us, 
 down in the ravine on St. Katharine Street ; I don t 
 suppose they ve had a good meal for a week ! I send 
 them in skim milk every day, and in fact I tell Nan 
 nie to give them anything we ve left over. And 
 they re only two families out of how many? I m 
 told the clergy went in a body to Mr. Hopkins this 
 morning to beg him to arbitrate." 
 
 "They did," said Mrs. Winter; "and shall I tell 
 you what he said ? He said, We can t arbitrate our 
 contracts. The only thing to be done with a contract 
 is to keep it. I suppose I m only an unprincipled 
 aristocrat; but I thought that rather neat. You so- 
 
420 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 cial reformers seem to think you can put the ten 
 commandments to vote any time they bother you. 
 But I disagree with you there. You can t arbitrate 
 your word, as Mr. Hopkins says." 
 
 "Did you hear, Mrs. Winter," Emma Winslow 
 spoke quietly, but every one stopped to listen "they 
 have fallen upon another poor man ? He had nothing 
 to do with the Old Colony, but they wouldn t be 
 lieve him. They fractured his skull and kicked and 
 beat him so the doctors think he will die. He s at 
 St. Margaret s Hospital." 
 
 "And some people wonder at life going on at the 
 time of the French Revolution !" said Mrs. Winter. 
 
 "But we haven t any people in whom we are in 
 terested," a young girl ventured, and instantly 
 blushed at her boldness; "that would make all the 
 difference. Of course it s very pitiful, the poor peo 
 ple suffering so, but it s not like your own " 
 
 "Well, it will come uncommonly near my own," 
 spoke up the mother of Mabel, who was to marry 
 the superintendent of the Old Colony, "if things get 
 worse and there s a fight and they bring home Ralph 
 Holman all beaten to a pulp." 
 
 "I don t, myself," said Mrs. Winslow, "feel so ab 
 solutely secure that no harm may come to my father. 
 You see, I am not so used to strikes. The Old Col 
 ony never had one before. My poor father used to 
 be so proud of it." 
 
 "But I don t understand," ventured another in 
 quirer, "what makes the men so bitter. They really 
 haven t any special grievance, at least they hadn t 
 at first I understand they have injected some ques 
 tions of wages and hours since but, at first, it was 
 
AS IN THE DAYS OF NOAH 421 
 
 simply a strike because the Old Colony sold goods to 
 Collins, or some such name, in Chicago. Why should 
 the men get so angry and furious about that ?" 
 
 "Because they re fighting, my dear," answered 
 Mrs. Winter; "just fight any one for three weeks 
 and I reckon you will get bitter, however trivial the 
 cause of the scrimmage. Besides, as I understand, 
 the machinists leader, Taylor what is it, Emma? 
 Oh, yes, Tyler. Tyler is a storm king. He throws oil 
 on the fire. He gets the men to fighting. He has 
 brass bands and meetings and processions and keeps 
 the air full of electricity." 
 
 "Where does he get his money?" 
 
 "Oh, all the labor unions help him a little bit, some 
 from fear, some from policy, and some from friend 
 liness. But I think his supplies are running low. 
 Shall we go back to the game, ladies ?" 
 
 Little Miss Tina had listened eagerly, but said 
 nothing. She turned to Peggy. "I hope Mrs. Wins- 
 low and you realize where sister and my sympathies 
 are, Miss Rutherford. We feel as if expression we 
 can t quite express. And we have a a kind of 
 stake, I may say I mean not holding stock so much, 
 although sister Ally has six shares of the common, 
 and I have sixteen, Miss Rutherford, and we always 
 bring our proxies down ourselves to Mr. Hopkins. 
 He says we needn t, but the mail isn t always but I 
 don t mean that. We know some one, the very nicest 
 young man, sister Ally and I and cousin often say 
 we ever .knew, except of course, poor dear Rufus 
 Goddard, who was betrothed to Ally and died. I 
 guess you have heard of him, a very promising 
 young man Mr. Gleason s ways so often remind 
 
422 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 us of him, though he isn t like him in physique, for 
 Rufus was rather short and very blond, while Mr. 
 Gleason must be six feet, and dark eyes and hair. 
 But we certainly have grown to esteem Mr. Gleason 
 very highly and a a nephew couldn t be kinder. So 
 we do feel worried about him ; and sister Ally and I 
 used to watch for his car you feel better to know 
 any one s safe home at night, and safe in " 
 
 "To be sure," Peggy agreed politely, when she 
 was sure Miss Tina had modestly abandoned her 
 sentence. "Is Mr. Gleason in the Old Colony? I 
 don t remember the name." 
 
 "Not regularly, Miss Rutherford, not as a general 
 thing; he is the superintendent of the Open Hearth 
 isn t that, somehow, such a pleasant, hospitable 
 sounding name, Miss Rutherford? over at the 
 Edgewater, but they have loaned him to the Old 
 Colony through this strike, someway, I don t under 
 stand quite how ; but they have and we can t help 
 feeling anxious about him, especially since he has 
 taken to staying all night in the shops. Mrs. Delaney 
 is frightened, too, I can see it what say ?" 
 
 "Excuse me," said Peggy, "I dropped my cards. 
 Who is Mrs. Delaney, Mr. Gleason s mother-in- 
 law?" 
 
 "Oh, dear, no ; he isn t married ; she s no relation ; 
 indeed, although a very worthy, respectable woman, 
 oh, very, she is not not at all Mr. Gleason is 
 very much of a gentleman. Sister and I both saw 
 that when he was working with his hands, for he 
 rose from the ranks ; but he is an educated man ; and 
 Thyrza says he sings a Latin song. I asked her how 
 she knew and she said she asked him if it was Ital- 
 
AS IN THE DAYS OF NOAH 423 
 
 ian (Dago, the poor child calls it; they used to live 
 in Chicago, in rather a poor neighborhood, I infer; 
 I know Amelia Ann said it was fierce) where 
 oh, yes, excuse my rambling ; he told her no, it was 
 Latin. Oh, are they beginning to play?" 
 
 And the game began again. 
 
 Mrs. Winter glided up behind Peggy to watch her 
 play. After the game was over there were coffee and 
 chocolate and cakes, beaten biscuit and salad and 
 hot pates and ice-cream ; Mrs. Winter kept to her old 
 bountiful fashion of an afternoon meal. "There 
 isn t a quarter of them have late dinners," said she, 
 "and your lemonade tea and hopes of a sandwich 
 and fairy gingerbread only spoil their supper with 
 out taking the place of it, why not give them a 
 good meal?" 
 
 Mrs. Winter looked over the table, splendid with 
 the Winter plate; and the great black sideboard, 
 more resplendent still ; and her eyes ran around the 
 animated and cheerful faces. She smiled subtly to 
 herself, and let the smile extend to Peggy, at her el 
 bow. 
 
 "I suppose," said she, "that up on the hills there 
 are plenty of women making a fire for supper with 
 as little wood or coal as they can use, and wonder 
 ing, maybe, where to-morrow s supper is to come 
 from ; and down below the railroad, in the saloons 
 or at their rented headquarters, the men are plotting 
 battle and maybe murder; and we" she flirted up 
 ward the palms of her little, flashing hands "well, 
 it was so in the time of Noah, in the days before the 
 French Revolution, in the days after ; it will always 
 be so. Life is too big to care." 
 
424 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 "I dare say/ said Peggy absently. 
 
 Mrs. Winter gave her one of the glances which 
 Peggy nicknamed to Johnny her "circular-saw 
 looks" because, she said, they seemed to go clear 
 through and rip up one s innermost thoughts. 
 
 "Peggy," said Mrs. Winter, "I don t think I ever 
 saw you play quite such a casual game, as you did 
 this afternoon; I should think your mind had had a 
 stroke!" 
 
 Peggy slipped her round, strong, young arm about 
 the little waist and whispered : 
 
 "Oh, Cousin Rebecca, I don t care, I don t care 
 about the days of Noah either ; maybe I ought, but I 
 don t ! Cousin Rebecca, Johnny s come back; he s in 
 the Old Colony; he has come to his own again!" 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 IN THE CAMP OF THE ENEMY 
 
 On the same afternoon that Mrs. Winter enter 
 tained the Whist Club, Mr. Walter Tyler had his 
 feet under a table in a room of Burkholm Hall, with 
 an open box of cigars and some schooners of beer 
 to ease the cares of counsel, and four of the execu 
 tive committee of the Old Colony strikers were 
 grouped about him. The details of the conference 
 the writer obtained from Billy Bates. How did he 
 obtain them? Any frank answer to this question 
 might imperil his sources of information. Enough 
 that he controlled them. 
 
 When these helps from Billy allowed me to see 
 the committee-room, Tyler was summing up the 
 situation after three weeks warfare. 
 
 "The pickets warming up?" said Tyler. 
 
 "They re hard propositions," was the answer ; "I 
 never saw such snowbanks. Couldn t rouse em 
 worth a cent. Let one feller git most into the alley 
 just because he d some hard-luck story bout a sick 
 boy he was trying to send to Colorado. I had to 
 knock him down before I got him to see we was his 
 true friends." 
 
 "Guess it s the same man I caught trying to sneak 
 by as a bench molder. He s had two sons die of 
 
 4 2 5 
 
426 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 consumption and he s kinder looney. I told him 
 we d give him a lift and started him with ten dol 
 lars." 
 
 The offer was like Tyler. He was always free 
 with his money, or any one s else money on which 
 he could lay hands, and this debonair generosity and 
 a certain rough sympathy for distress immediately 
 under his eyes increased his hold on his following. 
 Now he was working at his very best, his temper 
 well in leash, and his wits sharpened to a cutting 
 edge. He perfectly understood the average con 
 servative mechanic who resembles the average con 
 servative citizen, fearing to lead, and only daring to 
 follow in a crowd, in short, possessing the coward 
 ice of his opinions. Tyler had played on their fears 
 all his life as a labor politician. He himself followed 
 the advice which stared at Britomart from the walls 
 of the Enchanted Palace : "Be bold ! Be bold, and 
 evermore be bold !" He knew nothing of the inner 
 room and the final word, "Be not too bold!" His 
 policy was to stir up his men to fury. Anger is a 
 contagious passion. There were too many people 
 about asking why were they striking, anyhow? ar 
 gued Tyler. Once get the men fighting over any old 
 thing, they would not be so captious about griev 
 ances. Grievances indeed? they had plenty; what 
 did they want more for ? 
 
 So Tyler had had meetings and parades and 
 pickets watching the plant and turning back the 
 workmen; and he talked at every street-corner 
 about the power of the labor vote until the mayor 
 could not sleep nights, and the chief of police told 
 his men not to be too rough with the strikers; the 
 
IN THE CAMP OF THE ENEMY 427 
 
 Old Colony was more to blame than they, import 
 ing niggers and toughs, instead of waiting. Those 
 strike-breakers better not be too fresh! They d ar 
 rest em for carrying concealed weapons. 
 
 This very thing was done. One of the strike 
 breakers, who had gone into town to see his sick 
 sister, was set upon by a crowd of city hoodlums, 
 led by a striker. He was hit by a brick and, to save 
 his bones, pulled out a revolver, with which he held 
 the crowd at bay, retreating all the time, until he 
 was rescued by Johnny Winslow in Mr. Rivers 
 buggy. The policeman, who saw the affair, made 
 no move to save him, but arrested him on the con 
 cealed weapon charge as soon as he was safe. The 
 company gave bail for his appearance. Such petty 
 annoyances were worked at every turn. And the 
 whole power of that odious word, which working- 
 men fear more than sin or starvation, was invoked 
 to guard the road to the shops. 
 
 "Yes, the pickets are getting half worth some 
 thing," said Tyler. 
 
 "I don t call em worth much yesterday night," 
 growled one of the committee. 
 
 "How s that?" 
 
 "Why, some kind of a fakir got the boys listening 
 to his patter and, by hell! a whole lot of fellows 
 come a-walking down the alley six abreast with that 
 Gleason at the head, and they made a kind of V 
 and just simply rushed the boys. They didn t git 
 any show at all." 
 
 Tyler swore a minute. 
 
 "Worst is, I guess they were fellers in town, 
 sneaking in under cover." 
 
428 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 "The hell they were!" Tyler expressed his opin 
 ion of the workingmen of Fairport in vitriolic 
 terms, which Billy took care, later, should come to 
 every ear. 
 
 "I can go you one better/ said another man, 
 coming out of a cloud of smoke, " bout that Glea- 
 son. You know this morning when those guys from 
 the churches and the Business Men s Association 
 went with our play for position, that arbitration 
 offer?" 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "He had the nerve to run in a dozen wood-work 
 ers in hacks with that there crowd of goozoos." 
 
 "How d he do that? I saw the hacks come back 
 myself," cried a man who had been on the pickets. 
 
 "Easy. The boys were all dressed up in their 
 Sunday clothes and you took em for bankers. The 
 hacks took back the real jays, and you didn t notice 
 there were two or three instid of four in a carriage." 
 
 "Ain t he slick?" chuckled a young committee- 
 man. He was a foolish youngster who did not know 
 how to restrain his feelings, and was suspected to 
 be growing lukewarm. 
 
 "He thinks he is," sneered Tyler; "he, maybe, 
 won t be so satisfied with himself before he gets 
 through." 
 
 "Billy Bates turned up yesterday," said the first 
 speaker. "I guess that ends any chance of our get- 
 tin the molders out this time." 
 
 "Damn Billy Bates !" Tyler swore savagely ; "and 
 damn that molasses-blooded president of the labor 
 council, Harry Leroy ; you d think he was a corpora 
 tion lap-dog to hear him whining about keeping the 
 
IN THE CAMP OF THE ENEMY 429 
 
 men orderly. I tell you the unions will never run 
 the whole shooting match as they can, until we 
 squeeze out such rotten snakes." 
 
 "That s right !" chanted the two satellites of Ty 
 ler on the committee. 
 
 "Who made that driveling motion not to give any 
 strike wages to anybody with money in the savings 
 bank?" 
 
 "I know," said the young committee-man; "it 
 was Ellison, one of the machinists." 
 
 "I bet he got egged on to it by Bates, then." 
 
 "Well, he was talking to Bates." 
 
 Tyler swore vituperatively. He asked the young 
 man why he kept such white innocence as his on 
 earth Heaven was his home. Couldn t he see 
 swinging furiously out of sarcasm into direct brutal 
 ity that if the motion had carried, which it was 
 damn near doing, all the savings-bank men would 
 begin kicking? "That s it! That s it!" he cried, 
 clenching his fists, foaming and almost sobbing be 
 tween rage and liquor; "you re all asleep! You re 
 letting Billy, who is the very scholar of the devil for 
 dirty, lying cowardly tricks, jest make bad blood 
 all the time !" Thus he raged and taunted. 
 
 But he was not so wrought upon by his rage that 
 he lost his prudence. His secret plans he kept for 
 other ears than the committee. He and they, how 
 ever, realized that the strike had reached a critical 
 stage. Disintegration, once fairly started, gets the 
 men into a panic which may be as contagious as the 
 strike-fever which it cures. And disintegration was 
 beginning. 
 
 He knew that it had been all that his influence 
 
430 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 and his bitter tongue and the fear of him could do 
 to hold the men firm at the last meeting; he dared 
 not chance another. He knew, furthermore, that the 
 letters he was receiving from the higher officials of 
 his own union would make cheerful reading to Billy 
 Bates, whom he cursed for inciting them. The 
 others were even beginning to suspect that the Fair- 
 port end of the strike was waged to gratify private 
 animosities of Tyler s own. Tyler foresaw that only 
 success, and success at once, could save him from 
 being quietly pushed out of the machinists union, 
 in spite of the efforts of the socialist wing. 
 
 "It s a fight to a finish, by God !" he swore. Since 
 the Fairport white-livered cowards wouldn t help 
 him, he would find his help elsewhere ; but there was 
 nothing mean about him; he d let the Fairport 
 sneaks get all the credit of doing something worth 
 while ! 
 
 "It s up to us to do something," growled Tyler 
 to the man of the pickets whom he trusted most, 
 after he had fully collated the gallsome reports of 
 the week ; "we have got to make a ten-strike !" 
 
 The man s mouth sagged at the corners. "How?" 
 said he. 
 
 "You leave that to me, Brother Finn," said Ty 
 ler. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM JOHNNY^S LETTERS TO ROGER MACK 
 
 Dear Roger : 
 
 Let up a little ! I didn t know what was the wisest 
 or the kindest way to do. You know I am always 
 too impetuous, acting in haste and repenting at 
 leisure, I wanted to think this over. Don t jump 
 on a penitent sinner! And don t look me up, just 
 yet, if you please. 
 
 The poor fellow at the hospital has regained his 
 senses enough to tell the story of his hard luck. He 
 was attacked on his way from the train. He protest 
 ed he wasn t a scab, he wasn t going to work in town 
 at all, but a hammer fell out of his pocket, and then 
 they nearly murdered him. Some of our men found 
 him on the railway embankment just below the 
 depot. You can guess who did it. But which one, or, 
 rather, which two or three or four ? I think I have a 
 clue. Four of the strikers were seen on the railway. 
 One of them was a Finn whose name no one knows, 
 but he is called Adam Finn. He is so nicknamed be 
 cause he was continually saying : "I don t like you a 
 damn !" He is a sulky sort when sober, and a bloody 
 maniac when drunk. And he is left-handed. The 
 hammer wounds seem (so the doctors say) to have 
 
432 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 been made by a left-handed man. As to the other 
 three, we ll find them. 
 
 We are making a sort of slogan of Hopkins 
 words : "We can t arbitrate our contracts/ I think 
 the people, generally, are getting at the real facts. 
 Tyler got their ear at first. The shopkeepers natu 
 rally took fright at a loss of custom. The business 
 men hate strikes as they hate bad crops or contagious 
 disease ; all hurt business. They want to stamp them 
 all out quickly and get to making money again. And 
 they don t ask too many questions about the rights 
 of the matter. But as Billy says, "Wrong things are 
 almost always too expensive to be tolerated very 
 long." We don t find out their cost because it is in 
 direct, but we pay it just the same. Formerly the 
 employers were tyrannical and ate up the poor as it 
 were bread ; some of them still are when they dare. 
 Thanks to the unions, they don t often dare ! They 
 have learned it costs too much to skin their men per 
 sistently. It would cost too much, anyhow, for a 
 man on starvation wages can t do his best; and we 
 want his best. But, to-day, the union is the stronger 
 and it often is a tyrant. I think we are a case in 
 point ; so does Billy. Billy is the best ever ! 
 
 The poor fellow at the hospital may die. The 
 doctors can t tell. Was there ever such irony of 
 fate ! He isn t a machinist, but a union molder, sec 
 retary of a local in Illinois. The molders were going 
 to send the strikers $300, but Billy feels now that 
 he can t encourage such a gift until the cloud is off 
 the machinists fair name; while as to striking for 
 
JOHNNY S LETTERS TO ROGER MACK 433 
 
 such fellows, that s out of the question! Good old 
 Billy! 
 
 Of course, Machinists Union No. 183 met and 
 denounced the assault as opposed to the "peaceful 
 methods which they have always advocated." I like 
 that, don t you? And I suppose you observed that 
 Brother Adam Finn moved to offer a reward of 
 $25 for the information leading to the arrest and 
 conviction of the "miscreants." There s cold nerve 
 for you. Tyler is sure that the assault was com 
 mitted by strike-breakers in order to cast odium on 
 the machinists union. According to Tyler such at 
 tacks are always planned by employers to get pre 
 texts for calling out the militia and "crushing la 
 bor." 
 
 The poor fellow at St. Margaret s is better; he 
 will get well. I wish you d ask Miss Rutherford to 
 send him some home things. He has described his 
 assailants, and we ve got Finn nailed, I hope. Of 
 course, he ll be bailed out. 
 
 Roger, you are quite mistaken. I run no danger. 
 I don t go home, now. I tremble when I think of 
 how Amelia Ann may be straining Mrs. Delaney s 
 patience. Mark Delaney is a molder here, so far un 
 molested, for they don t interfere as yet with the 
 other departments; and he says Amelia Ann has 
 bargained with Thyrza to do her mending; in re 
 turn Thyrza will be allowed to ride Ally as soon as 
 I permit. So I hope the horse is keeping her straight. 
 
 She really is trying to be good. She made a pie 
 for me yesterday, poor child! And I ate it! I 
 
434 THE MA N OF THE HOUR 
 
 couldn t say it was good, and I wanted to say some 
 thing encouraging, so I ate the truck, cooked and 
 uncooked (I never did like underdone pastry!), and 
 told her she had pleased me very much, and I had 
 eaten every crumb. But "what a tangled web we 
 weave," and so forth. She is going to make an 
 other ! 
 
 I assure you, my dear friend, I am cradled in Ro 
 man luxury. I have fine food except when poor, 
 dear Amelia Ann s affection makes a culinary spurt ! 
 I have a porcelain tub in the office. ( Bless Hopkins 
 for his passion for bathing!) Think of that! Do 
 you know how long since I have -stepped into a 
 porcelain tub ? 
 
 The darkies amuse me. They take the confinement 
 very cheerfully. Play cards and craps. I tell them 
 stories. And do you know what they like best ? The 
 Bible and Homer. I don t know how many Penel 
 opes and Helens and A j axes and Calypsos I shall 
 have on my conscience, when they go home to the 
 "right new babies" they tell about. One of them is 
 going to take Cassandra May for his. "I ben goin 
 to take Oh my but now I ll take this heah," says 
 he. "Oh my !" I repeated stupidly. 
 
 "Yes, boss. Doesn t you member dat ar ole Bible 
 Oh my, de mudder of Rufe?" Naomi, Roger; if 
 you please. 
 
 The head strike-breaker is an interesting personal 
 ity (as we used to say in Harvard, where they are 
 always discussing Personality with awe and a cap 
 ital P). He is a simon-pure Vermont Yankee. He 
 
JOHNNY S LETTERS TO ROGER MACK 435 
 
 belonged to a union in some Eastern state. They 
 went on a strike, the strike failed and the union 
 washed its hands of him later, when he couldn t pay 
 the dues. I don t understand. Usually they are 
 very lenient in such cases. He had exhausted his 
 savings in the strike. Finally he got a good job, 
 but he didn t try to get reinstated in the union. 
 There was trouble between him and some of the la 
 bor politicians, which ended in a fight. That was 
 how he got his curious scar from a cold chisel. 
 His son tried to help him, just a mere slip of a boy, 
 and he was killed by a chance blow. Matthew hates 
 the unions. He is bitter, not in any vituperative 
 fashion, he is the stillest man I ever saw; but he 
 never lets up. I don t know how many fights he has 
 seen. He risks his life for the fun of it, he says. 
 He and I have funny arguments about the unions. 
 I hope to convert him and switch him on to a better 
 life. Tyler and he are sworn enemies. He has a 
 funny little volume of Poe which he carries around 
 with him and reads at intervals, and he knows Burns 
 by heart. When he has any spare time he plays on 
 the accordion. He has a grand one with him. And 
 the coons flock round him like flies round molasses. 
 
 The trouble in getting food for our strike-break 
 ers has not been so bad as Tyler wishes. He started 
 round, betimes, to warn off butchers, bakers and 
 candlestick makers; but we simply had the things 
 sent in the original package style of prohibitory 
 states to the express office, and sent an armed escort 
 to get them, made up of our own police, special dep 
 uties, duly sworn in. The mayor had to let us have 
 
436 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 them. He didn t want to, crawling demagogue that 
 he is ! but we simply cowed him. We hadn t a bit of 
 trouble. And as Tyler can t find out who sells us 
 the stuff, he can t boycott anybody. Naturally, we 
 sometimes take in a few men with our hams and 
 loaves and meat and candy. Yes, candy. Tobacco, 
 too. And sometimes kegs of beer. The darkies are as 
 fond of candy as of beer. And they dote on trials of 
 strength and such things. But you know all that, 
 you Southern fire-eater. I have been surprised that 
 they don t chafe more under their imprisonment. 
 Our output this week is almost two-thirds what it 
 should be. Pretty good for new hands ! 
 
 This morning occurred a nasty thing. Some one 
 put poison in the big well from which we get all our 
 washing water. Since the strike we have issued 
 strict orders that only the water out of the carboys 
 should be drunk. This from no fear of poisoning, 
 but because the well gets too much miscellaneous 
 seeping in this belt of manufacturing shops. Of 
 course, there was the usual idiot to disregard orders 
 and drink out of a faucet. Poor fellow ! he paid for 
 it. The doctor pumped him out and he had the time 
 of his life. It was fierce! After that we analyzed the 
 water. There s no doubt of it. The well was poi 
 soned. I don t accuse Tyler, and assuredly our old 
 men wouldn t stoop to such a Dago trick; but the 
 rancor runs so high that all sorts of outside riffraff 
 have been welcomed in. Every city has its loathsome 
 undercurrent. The fiend who tried to do this may 
 have belonged here or been imported. Who knows ? 
 The men were less affected than you would think. 
 
JOHNNY S LETTERS TO ROGER MACK 437 
 
 The strike-breakers took it as a part of the business, 
 and the blacks take my word for their safety. 
 
 Tolstoi is a great soul, a vast soul ; like Russia in 
 both these qualities, and like Russia, furthermore, in 
 his formlessness and his carelessness for the detail 
 of result, once assured his principle is right. Yet it 
 is these details, these minor things that decide 
 whether a reform shall be successful. He has no 
 working plan, ever. The Anglo-Saxon always 
 strikes for a working plan first. He always demands 
 the works without which faith is dead. I used to 
 worship Tolstoi; I shall always admire him, love 
 him and infinitely respect him; but I can t follow 
 him any more. Sometimes I almost agree with 
 Billy s irreverent and not at all refined comment 
 after he had conscientiously read War and Peace 
 and My Religion "That fellow," says Billy, "has 
 bitten off more than he can chew." 
 
 Well, Roger, whether he s right about Tolstoi or 
 not, he is right about a very humble young fool who 
 is writing to you. There are some problems in this 
 universe too big for any one man, I almost had said 
 any one generation, to tackle. They can t be solved 
 by machinery. They have to grow out of their 
 tangle. All that can be done is to start the growing 
 right and tend it patiently. You can t make a tree 
 in a minute. But unhappily you can blow one up 
 with dynamite and destroy it in a minute easy ! To 
 me that is the awfulest thing I know; how slow is 
 growth and how swift destruction ! 
 
 There are times when I understand how a man 
 might go crazy merely out of self-disgust at his own 
 
438 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 asinine presumption! When I think of my own 
 folly, I think, oh, the impudence of me! a young 
 cub of twenty-two thinking he had the right to try 
 to shape matters which meant happiness and misery 
 and sin and death to human beings! What a prep 
 trick ! It s the wicked blind cruelty of it that breaks 
 you all up ; but it is the rotten, slushy, grinning con 
 ceit of it that humiliates you and makes you want 
 to run and hide ! 
 
 Does it seem strange to you that I should be 
 nearer light-hearted than I have been since my 
 mother died, here working tooth and nail against all 
 I fervently applauded three years ago? It seems 
 strange to me, sometimes. I am too busy to analyze, 
 but I wonder if it isn t that I recognize that I have 
 had what St. Paul calls a warring in my members. 
 The Anglo-Saxon in me has conquered. And at 
 whatever expense, I am thankful the battle is over. 
 I believe my mother would be, too. 
 
 At least, I seem to be back to myself, in my right 
 place. I can t tell you how good to me Mr. Hopkins 
 and Mr. Rivers have been. I love that gnarled old 
 Spartan ! 
 
 Every night, before I go to bed, I write you a few 
 words. It makes me sleep better. Some day I ll see 
 you and tell you a lot of things. To-night I ve a feel 
 ing, a presentiment you might call it. I m going to 
 write this, but I ll only send the first sheet. After 
 ward, when all this racket is over, you may have this 
 to laugh over. Or if my silly presentiment comes 
 true it will be in my pocket for you, Peggy ; Peg- 
 
JOHNNY S LETTERS TO ROGER MACK 439 
 
 gy, my own darling little playmate and queen, my 
 love all my life. You see, I can t pretend any more. 
 You won t get this if I am alive to-morrow night; 
 and if I m not, you will forgive me, won t you, dear, 
 for telling you that I love you, love you, love you ! 
 There has never been anybody but you. Do you re 
 member you promised to marry me once ? You did, 
 sweetheart. Our solemn troth was plighted in that 
 little plot of grass near the japonicas. We had been 
 talking about what we should do when we were 
 grown up. I said (in deep confidence) that I should 
 be a conspirator and set poor people free. You said 
 you thought that would be very stupid. I said: 
 "What are you going to be, Peggy?" You said: 
 "Oh, I shall have to be a married lady, I suppose, 
 and give balls." "Oh," I said, feeling very misera 
 ble. Then I asked you whom you would marry (I 
 undoubtedly said who), and you answered: "I sup 
 pose I ll have to marry you to keep you out of 
 mischief !" On this I cheered up tremendously, and 
 we arranged all the details of the wedding, and I 
 gave you twas my little all a small carnelian 
 ring, which I had bought from a boy with my most 
 precious alley tor. You gave me a watch-charm 
 which my father had given you, ungraciously as 
 suring me it was much nicer than my carnelian ring. 
 So, my darling, you see, if I am presumptuous, I 
 have a wee excuse. Let me be presumptuous, this 
 once, which you will never see if I am able to 
 blush for my nonsense. Peggy, I have been so 
 homesick, so infernally homesick! I longed for the 
 hills and corn-field and the river and oh, I longed 
 for you! If I live I ll make a foothold, and then I ll 
 
440 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 ask you to forgive me and keep me out of mischief. 
 Good-by, Peggy; there never was a nobler or 
 sweeter or dearer woman in the world. There 
 never will be for me, never. No matter how many 
 worlds I may have to go through after this, I ll 
 claim you at last. 
 
 Your Jo nivan. 
 
 Billy has my insurance policy. I took it out for 
 the children. I had to, you know. Only there s just 
 a little for you, to whom I would love to give the 
 whole world. And Peggy, won t you look after 
 Amelia Ann a bit more than the others ? She needs 
 it. 
 
 Please tell Billy he was the best friend on earth to 
 me, and give him my love; I ve said it in my will, 
 but I want you to tell him for me. Oh, Peggy, dear, 
 I love you. Tell dear old Mishka it will be all right ; 
 he must take care of you. Please give my love to my 
 stepmother. 
 
 When Johnny wrote this last letter he hesitated, 
 holding the paper, as if to tear it apart. Then, with 
 the queer smile that was like his father s, he folded 
 it carefully and placed it in an envelope, addressing 
 it firmly, "Miss Margaret Gary Rutherford," and 
 after addressing, he kissed the name. "One for me, 
 one for my mother, who loved you, my darling," he 
 whispered. And he placed it in the pocket of his 
 shirt, with a watch-charm which he always wore. 
 
 Then, smiling, he lay down dressed as he was, 
 wrapped the blankets about him, and almost imme 
 diately fell asleep. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 WHEN AMELIA ANN WAS "ix" 
 
 At that very hour (it was on the stroke of mid 
 night) Amelia Ann was groping her way over the 
 shorn pastures blue-green with the dew. Nor was 
 Amelia Ann s conscience in the least agog. On the 
 contrary, it approved her, with a very rare approval. 
 So did her self-respect. Always in all the games, 
 Amelia Ann wanted to be "It" ; now she was being 
 "It," and enjoying the occasion, immensely. 
 
 Who can guess how tiny a hand may disarrange, 
 may destroy wide-reaching schemes! Had Tyler 
 passed Bloker s little daughter on the street it would 
 never have occurred to him that she was to be the 
 vehicle for the lame Nemesis to reach him. Yet such 
 was the ordering of the Fates. 
 
 That afternoon, Amelia Ann had been sent to 
 town by Mrs. Delaney to buy a certain brand of 
 baking-powder which the worthy woman affected, 
 and which, out of sheer perverseness, the hill gro 
 cery would not keep. Many were the injunctions 
 given Amelia Ann to be sober, to be diligent, and to 
 be in the constant fear of the street-cars. Silver coin 
 to the amount of the purchase-money required, with 
 two half-fare car tickets, were tied up in her little 
 red-bordered handkerchief. Amelia Ann had begged 
 
 441 
 
442 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 for more; she had pleaded to have her little bank 
 broken, wherein was the large treasure of sixty 
 cents; but Mrs. Delaney was adamant. "Yous can 
 pop corn and boil molasses when ye git back, if 
 you re good," was her final summation; "that s bet 
 ter than sweeties. Run along!" 
 
 "I don t want it for candy," Amelia Ann sniffled. 
 
 "What for, then?" 
 
 "For a present for Johnny." 
 
 Mrs. Delaney indulged in no illusions regarding 
 Amelia Ann s truthfulness ; she credited or discred 
 ited the child, according to circumstances ; and cir 
 cumstances did not favor her to-day. Therefore, 
 she tossed her head and retorted : "You ll wait till I 
 help you pick out presents. And you best quit calling 
 Mr. Gleason Johnny that disrespectable way. 
 G wan now, and come back quick, or how ll you 
 have biscuit for supper ?" 
 
 Amelia Ann s silent obedience might have warned 
 her guardian that some plan was brewing ; but Mrs. 
 Delaney was busy with her spring" house-cleaning 
 and her whole soul was on soft soap and scrubbing- 
 brushes. The little girl departed, unsuspected. She 
 bought the baking-powder, honorably, and at once 
 carried out her plan. She entered the most preten 
 tious saloon she could find. The saloon-keeper 
 looked up in surprise at the neatly-dressed little girl 
 with the red tam-o -shanter, and legs like black 
 slate-pencils, whose soft, childish pipe was asking: 
 "Do you want to see me sing and dance?" 
 
 "Good lord, no, child!" snapped he, frowning. 
 But at the same time he put a nickel in her palm. 
 
 "Can you dance ?" asked another man, a tall man 
 
WHEN AMELIA ANN WAS "IT" 443 
 
 with big eyes that stood out, and a wonderful dia 
 mond pin in his scarf. 
 
 "Betcher life!" returned Amelia Ann. She knew 
 the man, although he had forgotten her. He used to 
 come to see her papa. He was mean to Johnny. 
 
 "All right, dance!" 
 
 "For money?" inquired Amelia Ann. 
 
 Tyler (for it was he) laughed and showed a quar 
 ter. 
 
 Amelia Ann promptly laid aside her tidy little 
 brown coat and emerged like a redbird, in her crim 
 son frock. She knew that her dancing was good; 
 and with some amusement she felt the change in her 
 audience from indifferent toleration to applause. 
 She swung, she swayed, she flung her arms out, she 
 circled triumphantly on a single toe ; light as a bird, 
 she pirouetted over the sanded floor, caroling to her 
 steps the song which Johnny had taught her : 
 
 " Hard luck for poor old Eli, 
 
 Tough on the Blue ; 
 Now, all together, smash em and break through. 
 
 Gainst the line of Crimson 
 They can t prevail. 
 
 Three cheers for Harvard, 
 And down with Yale ! " 
 
 The listeners did not catch the words; but the 
 martial lilt of the air pleased them ; soon they took it 
 up, and the melody swelled out to the street. Dimes 
 and nickels came out of pockets, with the clapping 
 of hands. Amelia Ann was used to such triumphs; 
 she took the silver and praise calmly. "I want it for 
 Johnny and Ally," she explained, packing her gains 
 
444 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 in her handkerchief; and not for the first time Ally 
 was supposed to be a human being. 
 
 "You re a nice little kid," one man said, "look 
 ing out for the young ones !" 
 
 "Don t you want me to do a dog-and-cat fight?" 
 asked Amelia Ann kindly ; she always gave her audi 
 ence their money s worth. The idle listeners were 
 ready for anything ; they proposed sending for some 
 absent "Jerry" who would like the show ; and, pend 
 ing his arrival, they placed Amelia Ann inside the 
 bar in a most comfortable chair next the half-closed 
 door of an adjoining room. Now, Amelia Ann had 
 the ears of a hare, and when she perceived that there 
 were two men talking, and that their voices lowered, 
 she instantly perked up those sharp ears, under 
 standing that something which she ought not to 
 hear was being discussed. 
 
 She peered through the crack of the door and saw 
 Tyler. Since she knew that Tyler was mean to 
 Johnny, she hated him with exceeding hatred. She 
 listened the harder. It was Tyler who spoke, first : 
 
 "All ready, then?" 
 
 "O K," replied the other man; "there ll be a big 
 crowd from over the river. They ain t rabbits like 
 our fellows. That miner s a whole orchestra !" 
 
 "But they don t know ?" 
 
 "Oh, no. Only know there s something up. It s 
 great. Wally, we ll clean the whole nest of damned 
 scabs up, and do up Gleason or Winslow or what 
 ever his name is, jest accidental." 
 
 "It ll do," Tyler was more moderate of accent 
 "if none of the outside fellers make a bungle. Write 
 to Adam. He wanted the date." 
 
WHEN AMELIA ANN WAS "IT" 445 
 
 "I sent him a postal." 
 
 "A postal! Hell!" 
 
 "Don t get giddy, Wally. I only said Twelve 
 Nineteen, in riggers, and ran em together. He ll 
 catch on all right." 
 
 "The new men understand ?" 
 
 "All they need. They re to meet at twelve and git 
 their orders." 
 
 "Which window 11 they leave open?" 
 
 "Next the foundry, left side. I ve marked it." 
 
 At this most exciting moment the saloon-keeper s 
 arm beckoned. Amelia Ann must go. Her whole 
 soul was in a tumult; but she was an artist first of 
 all ; secondly, she was a woman-child ; and to both of 
 these, acting comes like breathing. She glided for 
 ward with her chilly little stage smile on her color 
 less little face. The puppy and the kitty evoked 
 shrieks of laughter. More dimes were handed to 
 Amelia Ann. She thanked the kind gentlemen, 
 courtesying as Johnny had taught her ; but she could 
 not be moved to repeat her exhibition. 
 
 "I got to go home now," said she; "I can t do no 
 more stunts." 
 
 "Jest the nicest little kid going," said one man; 
 "ain t it queer, the tricks them little innocent things 
 will think up." 
 
 But she did not go home directly. She bought a 
 pair of brass cuff-buttons for Johnny, and asked the 
 baker s boy what day it was. He was rather a 
 stupid boy, who did not read the papers. He said : 
 "The eighteenth." 
 
 The little girl thanked him very properly. Re- 
 
446 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 lieved, she sought the street-car for home. She pon 
 dered much whether to tell Mrs. Delaney, but she 
 remembered how many times and in what a forcible 
 manner she had been forbidden to dance in public, 
 and the remembrance tied her tongue. Johnny had 
 been almost as outspoken as Mrs. Delaney, but, to 
 do Amelia Ann justice, no dread of Johnny s dis 
 approval withheld her, although a glance from him 
 carried worse punishment to the strange little crea 
 ture than all Mrs. Delaney s cuffs. But Johnny was 
 to be over the river all the evening until late with 
 Mr. Rivers. She knew it, because he had said so in 
 a note to Mrs. Delaney about his clean clothes, and 
 Mrs. Delaney had left the note on the bureau. Ame 
 lia always took her information where she found it. 
 She had acquired the useful habit at school when 
 "Teacher" used to pin notes to her frock for her to 
 take home. 
 
 She rested easy on the baker boy s assurance; a 
 big boy, in a store, must know things. Therefore 
 she had until to-morrow morning to decide how 
 she should get at Johnny. Her plan was simple: 
 to go over to the Millers , who had a telephone, 
 and call up the Old Colony and Johnny, and tell 
 Johnny over the wire. Amelia Ann knew all about 
 pickets and their obstructing communication by 
 feet ; but they couldn t stop the telephone. Moreover 
 and this weighed with the culprit Johnny could 
 not scold much over the phone ; anyhow, he couldn t 
 look! Maybe she wouldn t tell him at all how she 
 happened to overhear the talk; just say it was a 
 "secret," and of course she couldn t tell. Amelia 
 
WHEN AMELIA ANN WAS "IT" 447 
 
 Ann chuckled to herself at her own sagacity. She 
 was placid and comfortable. She divined what the 
 men had meant, as only a city child brought up amid 
 strikes and rumors of strikes could have divined ; old 
 Tyler was going to try to get into the shops and 
 drive the men out and "do up" Johnny. Oh, Amelia 
 Ann understood. But her confidence in her one hero 
 was boundless; to defeat "old Tyler" it merely 
 needed that Johnny should know. 
 
 Hence, peacefully, Amelia Ann composed her 
 mind to slumber that night in her warm little bed, 
 with Thyrza already asleep beside her, the door 
 open, and the flames in the base-burner of the room 
 beyond making glowing eyes at her through its tiny 
 mica windows. April nights were still cold some 
 times, for it was a late spring, and the base-burner 
 was not yet allowed to go out. To-night the wind 
 was rising. To Amelia Ann, warm and comforted 
 by biscuits and jam, the sound was delicious. 
 
 "Ain t it blowy outside! Oh, my, ain t it!" was 
 her last waking thought. She slept a long time; 
 when she awakened the room was dark but for the 
 firelight. The wind was higher, and the limbs of the 
 trees in the Millers yard creaked and crackled. A 
 little chill crept in by the window, which Johnny 
 made her keep open at night. She did not feel quite 
 so comfortable, and she could not go to sleep. She 
 went over the events of the afternoon. Presently 
 she began to question: was the baker s boy right 
 about the date ? She felt less confidence in a boy in a 
 store being infallible. Why hadn t she looked in a 
 paper? Papers always had the day of the month on 
 
448 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 the top of the sheet; at least, the Pair port Citizen 
 had. Amelia Ann was observant, her wits were al 
 ways at the window. She hadn t the least doubt of 
 the meaning of the numbers on the post card; she 
 had known of exactly that method of conveying in 
 formation being used. No, the attack would be at 
 twelve o clock on the nineteenth of April. Was to 
 day or to-morrow the nineteenth? Amelia Ann 
 knew there was a Citizen, for since they came to 
 Fairport, and Johnny got such big wages, they had 
 the Fairport Citizen every day, and Mrs. Delaney 
 had been reading about the strike in it that very 
 evening. How stupid not to have looked, then! 
 Well, she d have to look now. So, very crossly, 
 Amelia Ann obeyed her conscience, crept out of her 
 warm nest and explored the kitchen, in the dark, for 
 the paper. Amelia Ann didn t mind prowling in the 
 dark; her finger-tips saw, Johnny said. She found 
 the paper, carried it into the light of the mica eyes 
 and the number on the top of the page was nineteen ! 
 Amelia Ann stood motionless. Through her stu 
 pid trust in a boy, Johnny might be killed ! But the 
 child did not weep ; she did not stand still, even, for 
 more than a second. The line of her firm little 
 mouth straightened, her faint, childish eyebrows 
 knit. Then Amelia Ann sat down and put on her 
 stockings. Mrs. Delaney slumbered heavily, and lit 
 tle Franzy less heavily, but as soundly, while the 
 little girl dressed herself with extraordinary swift 
 ness. As she slipped out of the house the clock 
 struck twelve. She glanced over at the Miller cot 
 tage, a shadowgraph only, softly dark, with no detail 
 
WHEN AMELIA ANN WAS "IT" 449 
 
 of window or door; so on, to the dark bulk of the 
 stable where Ally, no doubt, was sleeping, like every 
 one else. The idea of rousing that peaceful house 
 in order to telephone never so much as stirred in 
 Amelia Ann s mind ; too carefully had Mrs. Delaney 
 inculcated a noiseless tread and a hushed voice if one 
 crossed that threshold where any noise might send 
 the poor lady up stairs into convulsions ! No ; Ame 
 lia Ann stole on tiptoe over the plank walk and 
 made for the stable-door, always left unlocked on 
 account of Miss Tina s consuming terror of fire. 
 Often had she said: "Ally much better be stolen 
 than burned alive !" 
 
 Thus no barrier met her noiseless approach. In 
 side the stable, she called the horse, and Ally s 
 friendly neigh told her she might safely enter the 
 stall. Once she was obliged to strike one of the 
 matches she had brought with her; but she blew it 
 out and stepped on it two times to make sure it 
 would stir up no harm. She put the bridle on Ally, 
 but she put nothing else, for by this time the little 
 acrobat rode like a cowboy, and it was easy enough 
 to leap on the horse s back from the oats box. 
 
 She had to ride carefully until she was out of 
 earshot of her home. Then she let Ally go, go her 
 best, her wildest! Down the long hill her horse s 
 hoofs clattered. A film of rain glistened on the 
 brick pavement, under the white electric lights. Ally 
 slipped, but she did not fall, and Amelia Ann turned 
 into another street with macadam paving, but she 
 never slackened her speed. Miss Tina would have 
 wrung her hands and sobbed could she have wit- 
 
450 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 nessed that nightmare ride. Amelia Ann hadn t en 
 joyed herself so much since she left Chicago. To 
 ride like that with a clear conscience was worth her 
 numb hands and her chattering teeth. 
 
 Wakeful creatures on the road of that furious 
 flight, nurses or mourners or toilers, heard and 
 marveled over the pounding hoofs. They roused, for 
 a second, many a sleeper, but ere he could harken 
 enough to understand they were swept into silence. 
 The pickets, patroling the side alley-way to the 
 works, cursing the damp chill of the night air and 
 relieving each other from their fortalice of "Oscar s 
 Sample Rooms," had nearly let her pass out of 
 sheer surprise. But they had been cautioned, that 
 night, not to let a mouse go by them, and the leader 
 shouted: "Halt!" lifting something which glinted 
 in the street lights. 
 
 The man next him exclaimed not to shoot the 
 child; the bar was down. The bar was a great log 
 resting on trestles, spanning the narrow way. What 
 the police thought of this obstruction of traffic no 
 one knew, because they did not tell. They probably 
 judged it one of the rights of labor. 
 
 "Whoa!" bawled the nearest picket; "whoa! 
 you ll break your horse s neck!" 
 
 But Amelia Ann s blood was up; so was Ally s; 
 many a time in her Kentucky youth had she leaped 
 the pasture fence ; she went over the log like a bird ; 
 she never so much as grazed it with her heels. 
 
 "Damn her! Shoot the horse!" screamed the first 
 picket, who was in Tyler s secret plans. There was 
 a shot, but it went wild. Raw marksmanship is usu- 
 
WHEN AMELIA ANN WAS "IT" 451 
 
 ally uncertain at night. Amelia Ann saw the low 
 fence, the alley between high brick walls and be 
 yond Johnny s men and Johnny. Without an eye- 
 blink of pausing, crouched low over Ally s neck, 
 she put the horse to the fence; she rushed her over 
 the litter of a foundry; she turned her so sharply 
 that her feet slipped about in a sickening lurch, and 
 then, while the useless fusillade still woke the 
 echoes, she rode up to the watchman at the foundry 
 door. 
 
 "Please let me in; I got to speak to Johnny," said 
 Amelia Ann. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE END OF THE DUEL 
 
 It was the chief strike-breaker who came out to 
 receive the limp little form as it rolled in a heap off 
 the trembling horse. The strike-breaker had had a 
 little daughter of his own, who died when she was 
 Amelia Ann s age. Very gently he carried her into 
 the hall, through the office, to Johnny s room. 
 
 "Hurry! hurry!" she kept demanding, and the 
 strike-breaker first walked swiftly, then more swift 
 ly ; at last he ran. 
 
 Johnny sat up in bed, fully dressed; one hand 
 flashed out a revolver, the other turned on the elec 
 tric lights. 
 
 The strike-breaker had conceived an admiration 
 for the young fellow ; he registered it justified when 
 he heard Johnny s even tones : 
 
 "Well, Amelia Ann, what s up?" 
 
 The shivering little mite lifted undaunted eyes, 
 and clung to the iron side of the bedstead to hold 
 herself on her tingling, tottering feet. Her teeth 
 chattered, but her voice was the undaunted, "sassy" 
 voice of Amelia Ann : "Johnny, I got something 
 terrible important to tell you, but you got to promise 
 not to scold me first." 
 
 Johnny knew his girl ; he wasted no precious min 
 utes. "All right, I promise. Get on !" said he. 
 
 45 2 
 
THE END OF THE DUEL 453 
 
 Then, Amelia Ann, with remarkable directness, 
 for a child, blurted out her tale and its conclusion. 
 
 "I seen em a-comin , too, down by the river, an 
 awful big lot! And the foundry winder s open on 
 the alley." 
 
 "Very well/ was Johnny s comment; "ring the 
 bell, Mat," to the strike-breaker. "Look out for 
 the window, first. That means we ve spies inside " 
 
 "I ll fix em. I ll put the man I suspect where he ll 
 get a dose," answered the strike-breaker; "I ll see to 
 the window and be back." 
 
 He was back before Johnny had finished telephon 
 ing Hopkins and Rivers. The strike-breaker caught 
 his last words : "Yes, sir. Do as we agreed ? Good- 
 by ; we re all right." 
 
 "You ve planned this all out beforehand?" said 
 the strike-breaker, who had been touching a bell or 
 two, himself, sending his own prearranged signals. 
 
 "Of course, it was such a probable thing. And 
 you know Tyler skipped off to-day as if to Chicago 
 only went as far as Gillmansie. We shadowed 
 him. So we are all ready ; but it was blooming lucky 
 the little girl gave us warning about the window; 
 we had it boarded up and we shouldn t have given it 
 a thought, until too late. Mr. Standish and Lossing 
 have stiffened up the mayor or scared him, more 
 than Tyler can, and Company K boys are all ready 
 to turn out for a hurry call. Mr. Hopkins will at 
 tend to that. In a minute you ll hear the bell. 
 There!" He caught up the receiver. "You have?" 
 he called; "it s all right? . . . That s good. 
 . . . Has he? Ready to call the fire department 
 if I give the signal, please! That s all right." He 
 
454 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 laid down the receiver, smiling. "Hopkins has sent 
 in the call. He s on his way. He has called on the 
 police, also. Now, if we can hold out twenty-odd 
 minutes we shall send them flying." He looked at 
 the little messenger spreading bird-like hands over 
 the glow in his grate; his brows met, but only for 
 an instant. "Amelia Ann," he called, and she turned. 
 "You want to take a hand in this scrimmage?" 
 
 "Betcher life," Amelia Ann observed calmly. 
 
 "Then listen ! Don t stir out of this room unless 
 it gets afire. If it does, skip! But call 340 first, if 
 you can. That s the fire department. Say: They 
 need you at the Old Colony. Come a-running! 
 Then you get out. But don t go unless you have to. 
 Mr. Hardy or I will tell you if you have to do any 
 thing else. Now, say it over about 340." Amelia 
 Ann, never taking her eyes off Johnny s, repeated 
 the message. 
 
 "Very well. Don t mind if you hear brickbats on 
 the shutters. They re iron and bolted, and the walls 
 are thick. Don t mind gun shots. We have guns as 
 well as they. You re the sentry in charge. I salute 
 you, sentinel." Gravely he lifted his hand in a mili 
 tary salute. Amelia Ann as gravely saluted in re 
 turn. She was quite sure, now, she was "It." 
 
 "Please, Johnny, I mean Captain, kin I sing?" 
 she asked. 
 
 "Sing away. Good night, sentinel. I ll see you 
 later." 
 
 With the last word he turned swiftly and drew 
 the other man out of the room. As the door closed 
 behind them, they both paused ; of a sudden, the 
 white electric light blocked out all the upper win- 
 
THE END OF THE DUEL 455 
 
 dows below, the heavy shutters were like closed 
 eyelids and gave no sign the long aisles flashed 
 innumerable brushes of flame over half -dressed ne 
 groes, who were making for their posts as rapidly, 
 and with as little excitement, as in their nightly 
 drills. Perhaps some of them deemed it no more, 
 for the white teeth shone all along the sable line. 
 
 "Guns and hose ready?" asked the young com 
 mander. He had forgotten all his foreboding of the 
 afternoon; his veins ran the warmer for the sheer 
 Anglo-Saxon joy in fighting; he chuckled at poor 
 Holman s hard luck, sick at home with the measles ; 
 secretly, he hoped Graves, the next in office, 
 wouldn t get to the spot in time. His eye was every 
 where; his mind whirled through all the possibili 
 ties of attack. "Guns and hose ready?" said he. Mat 
 Hardy nodded. 
 
 "Water first, you know; don t shoot unless you 
 must, then at their legs." 
 
 "There s a tough gang from over the river," re 
 ported the strike-breaker, "not workmen, just river 
 scum. They ll be bound to fall in for the chance of 
 stealing something and the fun of scaring a nigger. 
 Then, some of Danbury s men are pretty hard citi 
 zens. They struck this afternoon, you know. Lot 
 of boys in there, too. And there are some miners 
 out." 
 
 "Yes, listen!" 
 
 Hardy sunk his chin on his breast with a grim 
 smile. He knew the sound; many a time had he 
 harkened to that broken, hollow murmur as of the 
 wind rising in the forest, as of the pounding of 
 muffled hammers, the marching of a mass of men, 
 
456 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 not keeping step. The day force which slept had 
 joined the night force which worked. Johnny and 
 his lieutenant saw that every man was at his post. 
 With that ominous, pounding roar in all their ears, 
 Johnny jumped on an anvil, and smiled around the 
 shop. 
 
 "The soldiers are coming," his clean-cut tones 
 reached every man "stand these fellows off a few 
 minutes, and the soldiers will be here ! We ll break 
 the strike, to-night. Hot coffee and cold beer will be 
 served as soon as the retreat is over. Three cheers 
 for Hopkins. Now ! All together !" 
 
 The men cheered, the negroes with a will, the 
 strike-breakers rather tamely ; but there was a good, 
 steady glint in their eyes. 
 
 While the cheer yet rang, Johnny and the second 
 in command exchanged glances. Something banged 
 against the great arch of the foundry door. A voice 
 demanded admission. 
 
 "What cjo you want here?" called Johnny back; 
 "do you know that you are breaking and entering a 
 house that doesn t belong to you, and that we, the 
 lawful, legal guardians of the premises" (Johnny 
 flung all his frail possessions in legal lore into his 
 sentences) "that we have the right to shoot and kill 
 you, if, being warned, you do not desist? In the 
 name of the state of Iowa, I call upon you all to dis 
 perse !" 
 
 "Aw, go chase yourself!" a voice retorted. There 
 rose the hideous outcry of a mob, as of a pack of 
 wolves, heating its own fury with yells and shouts 
 and the screaming of savage and filthy threats. 
 
 "Say, they got that there log the pickets had," 
 
THE END OF THE DUEL 457 
 
 said Mat Hardy ; "they are going to make a batter 
 ing-ram of it, I guess." 
 
 "I don t see hardly any of our men," said Johnny ; 
 "they re all outsiders !" 
 
 Above the tumult, Tyler s voice boomed like the 
 clang of a great bell: "Open the doors and clear 
 out, we won t touch a hair of your heads ! Stay in 
 
 there, and we ll pound the scabs to 
 
 rags!" 
 
 "Guess we better cool those hot heads off a bit," 
 said Johnny ; "turn on the hose." 
 
 He stood behind a window protected with heavy 
 iron wire, and watched for the spouting streams; 
 only two came, and Hardy reported: "That fool 
 inside has cut the hose !" 
 
 "Do you know who he is?" 
 
 "I made a guess at it. We ve a brother-in-law of 
 Adam Finn who come in Monday, pretended he run 
 the pickets. I got him tied up and a nigger settin 
 on him." 
 
 "They mean something worse than cutting hose; 
 see that banana cart with the sacks and the spades ?" 
 
 "I ve seen it: the miners mean to dig holes and 
 blow up something, most likely the shed we sleep in. 
 That s what s the matter with the darkies; they re 
 scared blue, fraid of dinnymite. Told em coal 
 miners didn t use dinnymite ; but they got it in their 
 heads that every miner here s got his boot-legs 
 crammed with sticks of the damn stuff and that the 
 cart s full of bombs. Told em they couldn t do 
 nothin with sticks, if they had em; but you might s 
 well reason with a mule !" 
 
 Even the two streams held the mob back a mo- 
 
458 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 ment, and when a rashly venturesome soul got the 
 full force in his chest and went sprawling, his own 
 comrades screamed with laughter. But the second 
 after, an explosion shook the windows with a crack 
 ling noise as of splintered glass, made the heavy 
 doors chatter on their hinges, and turned the black 
 faces a drabbled gray in their terror. 
 
 "Say, boss !" gurgled one, "I ain t aitnin to fight 
 no dinnymite bums. I draws de line, right dar; I ll 
 fight humans w ile I kin stan , but dat ar s conjure 
 work, and I gits!" 
 
 A groan of assent betrayed how well he spoke for 
 his race. They were past argument. They needed a 
 demonstration. 
 
 "Ten men to follow me!" called Johnny. "I ll 
 finish this nonsense !" 
 
 Every strike-breaker ran forward, and half a 
 dozen blacks. "First ten!" shouted Johnny; "no, 
 Mat Hardy, you can t go ! You ve got to run the de 
 fense. This is my job! Throw the door open and 
 shut it behind me ; but be ready to pull that cart in 
 the little door, when we get it. Now! Out of the 
 way of the door !" 
 
 Johnny and his ten fell, like the bolt of a catapult, 
 on the push-cart. They drenched the cart with their 
 hose before a pick, wielded by a blackened, red- 
 shirted fellow from the coal mines over the river, 
 drove three or four leaks into the hose and sent the 
 water spurting at right angles. The push-cart was 
 wrenched from its guard and surrounded by the 
 sallying party. Ere the assaulters quite understood 
 the object of the sally, the cart was surrounded by 
 drawn revolvers ; until, suddenly, the small door, at 
 
THE END OF THE DUEL 459 
 
 which they had not looked, swung inward and their 
 best weapon was inside, out of their reach, while a 
 child s keen, sweet high pipe cleft the uproar: 
 
 " Gainst the line of crimson 
 
 They can t prevail ! 
 Three cheers for Harvard 
 And down with Yale!" 
 
 "Lord !" thought Johnny ; "if I only had a few of 
 the boys here, we d show them !" It was strange 
 how the old college cries went to his head with a 
 kind of intoxication. He found himself yelling 
 "Har-vard!" as he smote, and out of his little for 
 lorn hope, bleeding already from the missiles too 
 easily found in the yard, came an answering shout 
 of "Yale! Yale!" The shouter was a little strike 
 breaker, whom Johnny had found out, at odds with 
 his people and his own foolish past, and ready for 
 any desperate endeavor. Johnny sent him a single 
 glance, and the two men knew each other. 
 
 The door had closed the instant the cart was 
 drawn in, as Johnny had ordered. But Tyler had 
 time to rush a score of men between Johnny s men 
 and the door. Two men had gone inside with 
 the push-cart ; all might, perhaps, have entered, had 
 not one been felled by the pick of the giant in the 
 red shirt. He lay, with a ghastly wound in his head, 
 but still breathing. 
 
 "We can t leave him, boys," cried Johnny, "pull 
 him along with us! We can hold out for the sol 
 diers! But push back for the door!" The men 
 shouted. Tyler s men yelled back, and there was a 
 rush ; but the revolvers barked. The mob gave back. 
 
460 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 "Aim at their legs, men! Legs!" commanded 
 Johnny, who was looking a dozen ways at once. The 
 brickbats fell about the men s heads ; but so wedged 
 into the crowd was the little hollow square that 
 Tyler did not dare bid his own guns to fire. The 
 best policy seemed to him to overpower the half- 
 dozen fighters by the sheer impetus of a great mass. 
 But there where the revolvers shot into so dense a 
 crowd they could not miss. Half a dozen men lay 
 on the ground ; they had to be helped away, and the 
 constant volleys from the upper windows of the 
 factory had driven back the parties attacking the 
 other doors. None was killed, but a score had been 
 wounded by the riot-guns buckshot. 
 
 Tyler drew the big fellow in the red shirt, aside. 
 He was a man who had lost his two sons in a mine 
 accident, caused simply and solely by the parsimony 
 of the mine owners; he, himself, had been injured 
 on the head and was never after wholly sane; a fight 
 acted on him like whisky ; he became a raging Ber 
 serker, absolutely reckless of life, and he hated the 
 strike-breakers as a settler, whose family has been 
 murdered in an Indian outbreak, hates Indians. His 
 pick had made more than one hideous mark. 
 
 "Go for the young fellow with the light-blue shirt 
 and the cap, right there in the middle, Luke," said 
 Tyler. "Get him down, the others will run !" 
 
 "I ll kill him!" said Luke, "he s the boss." 
 
 "The rest of you, on this side, make for that big 
 door! These fellows can t move, and the door s 
 shaking; the hinges are broken. Get out that log 
 and smash it in ! They ll run like rats when they see 
 us inside !" 
 
THE END OF THE DUEL 461 
 
 It was not so bad a plan, although it did not make 
 enough account of the riot-guns; but at this mo 
 ment a shout and waving hands turned the eyes of 
 the crowd to Shop A, the big wood-working shop, 
 next the sheds where the shop force was sheltered. 
 One of its second story windows was glowing blood- 
 red and purring smoke through every crevice of the 
 casement. The same glance discovered a figure 
 creeping up the fire-escape toward the glass. The 
 creeping figure was that of a gray-haired little man, 
 and his dried-up, wrinkled Irish face, with its stub 
 ble of gray beard, was illumined by the spouting 
 light. Some of the mob knew him, Dennis Fogar- 
 ty, who had worked in the Old Colony for thirty 
 years. He had a length of hose flopping clumsily 
 after him. For a second the storm of battle was 
 stricken dumb, and Johnny as well as Tyler caught 
 his strained, cracked voice pleading: "Boys, turn 
 on the water, turn it on! She s on fire! The Old 
 Colony that s kept us all s on fire! You wouldn t 
 want her to burn up! I b long to the union, I m 
 striking, too ; but I can t let the Old Colony burn ! 
 You re burning up your jobs, boys !" 
 
 The hose was only a garden hose, kept in the yard, 
 and, of course, turned on from the outside. Some 
 one, of the few Old Colony men present, must have 
 felt the force of the appeal and responded, for a cas 
 cade spirted up through the nozzle. 
 
 Probably the fire, with its presumable demorali 
 zation of the defenders, was part of Tyler s scheme 
 of battle, and was started by the same hand which 
 had ripped off the boards from the alley window and 
 slashed the hose ; Tyler may have intended but slight 
 
462 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 damage to the works ; however that may be, the fire 
 was essential to his plans ; he snatched a musket from 
 the man next him. 
 
 "Let the old man alone!" shouted Johnny; "he s 
 one of your own men oh, you damn mucker!" 
 Tyler, safe beyond Johnny s reach, had taken care 
 ful aim and fired. The old man screamed. He stag 
 gered on his narrow perch ; but, with a mortal effort, 
 he jammed his hose nozzle through the window- 
 pane, between the iron bars; then his muscles 
 shrank, his hands opened and shut, clutching for 
 the rounds of the ladder, his arms flew out, and he 
 plunged downward, in a hideous bat-like dart. 
 
 "Now! he ain t looking!" cried Tyler to Luke. 
 
 But Johnny, although his face had gone white 
 and he felt horribly sick for a second, was not off his 
 guard. He dodged all but a graze of the terrible 
 pick, and his left hand shot out the wickedest blow, 
 which he had ever dealt in his life; it caught the 
 miner where it was aimed and felled him as would 
 a hammer. As he fell, the Yale boy, whose revolver 
 was empty, caught the pick from his hands and dealt 
 furious blows to right and left with it, which cleared 
 a circle, for the mob fell back beyond its swing. 
 Adam Finn alone sprang at Johnny with his knife, 
 got the butt of a revolver in his face, and staggered 
 back. One of Johnny s men, who had tasted Adam s 
 knife, already, shot his last cartridge at him; it 
 missed, but the man smiled grimly, for it went 
 straight to the heart of the miner in the red shirt, 
 at that moment lifted by a comrade. 
 
 Johnny s men were fighting now for their lives. 
 There had been no real fury, at first, in the great 
 
THE END OF THE DUEL 463 
 
 body of the attackers ; but the combat, the ferocious 
 hand-to-hand struggle, had roused the elemental 
 savagery of both sides. Now, the mob fought not 
 for their first object, which was simply to chase the 
 strike-breakers out of the building, but out of sheer 
 blood-hunger. Johnny s little band was dwindled to 
 half a dozen, all bleeding from ugly wounds, two of 
 them only keeping their feet out of their desperate 
 determination not to fall. On the ground, which 
 they guarded, lay two of their comrades, one of 
 whom still gasped feebly; the other would never 
 be disturbed by the rage about him. Adam Finn s 
 aim had been too true. Their revolvers were empty 
 save one shot that was still in Johnny s pistol. He 
 was saving it for Tyler, but Tyler kept well out of 
 range on the other side. The main body of the strik 
 ers was at the foundry door, toward which John 
 ny s men now wedged their way inch by inch. He 
 could hear, to the left, the cries of the rescue party 
 which Mat had sent in spite of orders; but they 
 were engaged by the other wing. Tyler had sent 
 all his guns there, but, luckily, most of them had 
 been fired, already, in such excitement that they had 
 done little damage, and their holders, half of them, 
 did not know how to reload. Johnny could hear an 
 other sound. Amelia Ann s nose had not been idle ; 
 she had smelled smoke, she had seen the light; she 
 had summoned 340, and now she screamed, "The 
 firemen are coming ! I hear them a-coming ! I hear 
 the hosses ! I hear the hosses !" 
 
 Tyler ground his teeth. "Put the bar up!" he 
 cried to Adam Finn. "Have the boys keep em back ! 
 Now, Bud, stand by me, it s us to the bat !" 
 
464 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 The man addressed was an old river-rat from the 
 southwest, thief, pirate, and cut-throat. He had 
 come to see the fun, and found more fun than he ex 
 pected. 
 
 With Bud on one side and two sure hands on the 
 other, Tyler led his rush. Simultaneously, three men 
 struck with their clubbed guns at the little Yale 
 man. They believed Johnny s revolver empty, but 
 flinging his own assailant back as if he were a sack 
 of wheat, he sprang at Tyler. He shot and shot 
 straight. Their eyes crossed in one flash of deadly 
 recognition. It was the end of their long duel. 
 
 "Bud!" shrieked Tyler. And he sank against his 
 friends. Bud responded. His knife flashed. As 
 Johnny half wheeled, it glanced against his side, 
 stinging only a second; at the same time, he felt a 
 blow on his head. He had stuffed his cap with en 
 gine waste, and well the rudely armored helmet had 
 served him ; but so mighty was Adam Finn s stroke 
 that it bore him to his knees. "Har vard!" he 
 cried, unconscious of his cry, putting all his ebbing 
 force into one blow at the man above him, ere the 
 crowd and the brick walls and the lights wavered, 
 and the roar of conflict swung into the shrill cry of 
 the fife, the roll of drums and a widening, dizzy 
 ringing, as of bells. He knew that the soldiers were 
 come, but come too late for him. Yet knowing it, 
 his stiff lips smiled the smile the little boy used to 
 give. It wouldn t be too late for the Yale boy and 
 the others. And Bloker might forgive him now, and 
 his father, and Peggy would know that he was some 
 good in a Blood Feud. Then it was not only dark 
 but still, and he was very glad to be so sound asleep. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 JOSIAH WINSLOW S DAY 
 
 When Johnny came out of the darkness, he was 
 sure that he was not yet awake, for he lay in his own 
 bed in his own room, and to his dazzled and darkling 
 senses there was nothing incongruous in the new 
 picture of his mother, while he remembered well the 
 portrait of his father, whose rugged features faced 
 him from the wall of the opposite room and seemed 
 vaguely to welcome him. The room looked exactly 
 as it used to look in his college vacations. There 
 were all the old belongings of the room : the folio, 
 the pistols, the sword of the ancient governor, the 
 pictures which he had known from a child, the big 
 arm-chair, the lounge at the foot of the bed, the writ 
 ing-table on which Peggy and he had scratched 
 their childish initials Hilma had curled them both 
 impartially for that same act the samovar, which 
 was his mother s, on her table. Through the side 
 door, he could view the white tiles of his bath-room, 
 and the very same old brown bath-robe of his Har 
 vard days was flung over a chair. It was so like 
 the old time and all so dreamlike that he wondered 
 if he could not make his mind work more marvels, 
 as he had made it at the hospital. Once to feel his 
 mother s arm under his neck as he used to feel it in 
 
 4 6 5 
 
466 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 his childish hurts, once to hear his father s gruff 
 whisper: "Hullo, son, feeling better?" once to see 
 Peggy s radiant head tossed at him, he wouldn t 
 mind, then, having been killed, just when life meant 
 something ! 
 
 Perhaps his mind would feign images for him 
 yes, it was obeying him ! With a thrill, he was con 
 scious that an arm was under his pillow, that a tear 
 splashed on his hair to roll over his forehead, that 
 a woman s soft tones trembled on the words : "My 
 dear boy ! my dear boy !" Yet it was not quite, not 
 quite tnamasa s violin sweetness of voice. Who else, 
 who else ? Not Peggy that was Peggy who flitted, 
 white, silent, past the doorway down the hall! Oh, 
 Peggy, please come back! But if not his mother, 
 not Peggy, who could it be ? It wasn t dear, strong 
 Hilma, who was wedded and happy, and had a boy 
 named after him; her crisp Swedish accents there 
 would be no mistaking. And it wasn t the tall, smil 
 ing nurse in the blue and white stripes, like, yet 
 faintly unlike, the stripes which his wandering gaze 
 had always found at the hospital. 
 "He s awake," said the nurse. 
 The lady s voice spoke, quite changed, quite com 
 posed and cheerful : "May I give it to him, please?" 
 Johnny sighed ; he knew the voice ; it was only the 
 emotion in it which had changed it for him. "My 
 dear boy ! my dear boy !" And a tear. Could Mrs. 
 Winslow care that he must die? He felt himself 
 gently lifted, so gently yet so strongly; the rim of 
 a glass touched his lips at precisely the right angle. 
 He drank without question. "Thank you, Aunt 
 Emma," he said and closed his eyes. It was the old 
 
JOSIAH WINSLOW S DAY 467 
 
 name which he had given her years ago, before she 
 took his mother s place and he had no right to be 
 fond of her. What a mess life was! Being very 
 pleasantly tired, however, he left it and went to 
 sleep. The sun grew brighter while he slept. Its 
 brightness rested on the nurse s and the doctors 
 faces, when he woke. He had known the older doc 
 tor ever since he was a lad, and he had seen the 
 younger man at his father s bedside. 
 
 "Well, Johnny-Ivan," said the old doctor, "ready 
 for something to eat ?" 
 
 "Did they kill Dennis Fogarty?" said Johnny. 
 
 "By all good rights he ought to be dead, but he 
 isn t. Not by a long shot. He ll be around by the 
 time you get out, and from the way you re doing 
 that will be pretty quickly." 
 
 "How did he know" 
 
 "Oh, he s been prowling round the shops ever 
 since he had to leave them, like a lost cat. Mr. 
 Hopkins and Hoffman both went to see him, and it 
 helped him more than medicine. You can rest your 
 mind about him. Drink your milk !" 
 
 Obediently, Johnny quaffed the milk. 
 
 "How about the strike?" said he. 
 
 "The strike s over ; most of the men back. You ve 
 saved the Old Colony Plow Company a pretty 
 penny, young man. Now, be quiet for half an hour." 
 
 "Then may I ask some questions?" 
 
 "Humph ! yes, if you won t get excited." 
 
 "I won t. But I have to ask one more. Did Billy 
 Bates get back from Chicago?" 
 
 "Yes, and did as much as the National Guard to 
 quiet things." 
 
468 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 "How many men " 
 
 /That ll do," interrupted the young doctor, "you 
 are not going to go over the whole strike. Shut your 
 eyes for half an hour if you can t sleep." 
 
 Johnny shut his eyes. He only opened them once 
 to take a thermometer in his mouth, and later watch 
 the old doctor grin over it by the window. "Pulse 
 down to eighty- four, temperature and respiration 
 normal. Young man, you re doing fine!" called the 
 doctor. "Mrs. Winslow, I congratulate you." He 
 shook hands with Johnny s stepmother, who had 
 just entered the room. 
 
 Johnny s eyes went from her quiet face to the 
 little picture of the baby whom they had both loved, 
 and then to his father s portrait; almost he seemed 
 to feel his father s hand guiding his fingers to hers. 
 He could almost hear his father s voice begging him 
 never to quarrel with her. He turned his head and 
 looked long and sadly at his mother s beautiful, 
 weary features. But, at last, he faintly smiled. "You 
 would wish it, now, I know, maman, dearest/ he 
 was thinking as his eyes went to Mrs. Winslow, and 
 he held out his thin hand. "I m glad to see you, 
 Aunt Emma," said he. 
 
 "I m glad to see you, Johnny," said Mrs. Wins- 
 low in her clear tones. 
 
 "Sensible woman!" one doctor hummed to the 
 other, in the hall ; "perfectly safe to leave her with 
 him." 
 
 The sensible woman was sitting by the bedside, 
 her head out of Johnny s range of vision, and she 
 was very quietly wiping a tear first from one eye and 
 then from the other, smiling all the time. 
 
, JOSIAH WINSLOW S DAY 469 
 
 "Is Amelia Ann all right?" asked Johnny; "and 
 I hope no harm happened to Ally." 
 
 "None at all; I think she destroyed a pattern or 
 two by stepping on them ; they put her in the foun 
 dry ; but she is unharmed. Amelia Ann is perfectly 
 fit and has taken a great fancy to Peggy. They had 
 some difficulty in getting her out of the room, I un 
 derstand; but she was very useful there, having 
 summoned the fire department and done miscel 
 laneous telephoning, to order." 
 
 "They didn t hurt the works much ? The fire was 
 put out ?" 
 
 "Only a few windows broken. The fire didn t 
 amount to anything. Dennis hose had done good 
 work." 
 
 "I hope they let all the men come back," said 
 Johnny presently. 
 
 "Billy Bates interceded for them; yes, they are 
 all back who wanted to come." 
 
 "Was Tyler killed?" 
 
 Mrs. Winslow hesitated, she remembered John 
 ny s old-time softness of heart ; but Johnny read her 
 halt in speech aright, and spoke before she could 
 frame a subterfuge. 
 
 "I m rather sorry," he said, but without any acute 
 feeling; "he was a dandy fighter." 
 
 After a second, he started another line of ques 
 tions. Was there a a letter found in his inside 
 pocket or or any papers? But here Mrs. Winslow 
 was prepared. "I ll see," she said glibly ; "were the 
 papers valuable?" 
 
 "Only to me, I m afraid," said Johnny with a dry 
 smile. 
 
470 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 Presently he asked: "How is Michael? When 
 can I see Michael ?" 
 
 Mrs. Winslow promised that he should see Mich 
 ael to-morrow. 
 
 It may be related, here, that Michael paid him the 
 visit on the day. He made a toilet of state in his 
 new caftan, scrubbed and polished and brushed. 
 Every member of the household cautioned him to 
 be cheerful, to be quiet and to say very little. Most 
 politely, even gratefully he received the admonitions, 
 promising obedience. When the word came to him, 
 he tiptoed from the house-door, but lost some of the 
 advantage of this noiseless entrance by tumbling 
 over a chair in Johnny s room. He fell on his knees 
 by Johnny s bed, kissed the bedclothes, kissed the 
 pillows, kissed Johnny s hand, sniffling all the time 
 and the tears rolling down his cheeks on either side 
 of a smile like a gargoyle s, which he never allowed 
 to fade. To every question he answered gospodi, 
 batyushka, quite regardless of its import, and he 
 stayed until he was led away by the scandalized 
 nurse, whose hand he insisted on kissing. She had 
 intended to tell him he could not come again for a 
 week, but after this tribute of a humble and loyal 
 heart, she relented to the limit of three days. Such 
 things are women ! 
 
 But this was to-morrow ; to-day Johnny was skirt 
 ing the desire of his heart. He asked (carelessly) 
 how was Miss Rutherford. Rather tired, but very 
 well, Mrs. Winslow told him ; as soon as he was a 
 little stronger he should see her. 
 
 "You wouldn t mind asking her just to step by 
 the door, would you, Aunt Emma ?" asked Johnny 
 
JOSIAH WINSLOW S DAY 471 
 
 in his old wheedling voice, which made Mrs. Wins- 
 low want to kiss him. "I won t say one word to her, 
 not one" 
 
 So Peggy did pass by the door and throw one be 
 wildering, lovely glance as she passed, and that was 
 all Johnny saw of her until the next day. The next 
 day he found her sitting in the room, in a far corner. 
 He was quite content merely to look at her, happily. 
 "When you are stronger you can speak to her," the 
 nurse promised. He grew stronger, fast; so fast 
 that one day, after he was sitting every day in the 
 big chair, he began to talk business. He had thought 
 it all out in his mind. He had even mentioned 
 something of it to Billy, who came among the earli 
 est admitted, and announced on his second visit, 
 with simulated ease, but a glowing face, that he was 
 going to be a married man. 
 
 "And I ll tell you who helped me to it," said he. 
 "Roger Mack! Bless that boy! You listen. You 
 can t talk. I went to Darrell s after Roger Mack, 
 too. I suspected a nigger in that wood-pile, too. The 
 worst was, one day, after you were hurt, I was look 
 ing over your traps a bit and I came across all 
 Roger Mack s letters. There was one on the top 
 written, most of them were typed. Of course, I 
 didn t read a word. But, Ivan, I wanted to, like 
 the devil ! I did. Because, you see, that handwriting 
 I knew; it was the handwriting of of a young 
 lady a friend of mine. Johnny, I felt awfully 
 queer and mean. Because, you see, I had rather 
 sized it up in my mind that Roger Mack was Miss 
 Rutherford; but if it was Miss Martin, my friend, 
 why, that supposition would fit all the facts of the 
 
472 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 case just about as well, and I was sure if if any 
 girl got letters from you I wouldn t have a ghost of 
 a show 1 . I oughtn t to have, either " 
 
 "Billy, you old chump, it wasn t and you re a 
 better" 
 
 "I m not and I know it ; but you keep cool. I went 
 to my friend, and I opened the subject. In five min 
 utes she put me wise : I found out she had never 
 read a letter from you, and only written half a 
 dozen and and then Johnny, I don t know how 
 I ever did it, but I blurted out how I had set my 
 heart on her ever since I was a gawky boy ; I got ex 
 cited, I forgot the speech I had been making up for 
 years, I m awfully afraid I forgot to speak good 
 grammar, but" Billy was on his feet, swinging 
 his arms "my God, wasn t it wonderful! She 
 didn t mind, she said she said she preferred me to 
 any man Say, Johnny, how m I ever going to be 
 half as big a man as she thinks I am?" 
 
 One can understand that this conversation gave 
 Johnny a pleasant half-hour; but he told Billy that 
 he had no use for such an irrationally ecstatic being 
 as he was, for a business adviser. There was only one 
 other person whom he could consult, namely, Mrs. 
 Winter, who came in with her very best cards, and 
 recommended Penelope s Web as a light yet engross 
 ing solace for the sick-room. Certain obvious rea 
 sons restrained his tongue with her; not until he had 
 spoken to Mrs. Winslow could he take a decisive 
 step. Therefore, one day, he plunged into the mat 
 ter in his direct fashion. "Aunt Emma, I m think 
 ing of buying some Old Colony stock. Aunty Win 
 ter is willing to lend me some money, and I think, 
 
JOSIAH WINSLOW S DAY 473 
 
 between my salary and the dividends, I can pay for 
 it in time. But I wanted to tell you first." 
 
 "Thank you, Johnny," said Mrs. Winslow she 
 seemed to have a curious difficulty in speaking; but 
 her voice was as serene as usual, when she did speak 
 "I think it would be a good thing if if you 
 needed to borrow money. But you don t. You have 
 plenty of your own." 
 
 "How, Aunt Emma?" said Johnny very quietly. 
 He did not think anything; he felt of a sudden a 
 curious awe and surprise, the sense of something 
 coming which would move him, but what it was he 
 did not in the least know. "How, Aunt Emma?" he 
 said. 
 
 She rose and went out of the room. She did not 
 speak, and he understood that the reason was that 
 she couldn t, for the moment, speak calmly. In a 
 moment she returned, carrying a letter in her hand. 
 She had regained her usual composure, but her face 
 was paler than Johnny s. 
 
 "Johnny," she said, "I want you to remember 
 when you read the letter that if we your father and 
 I have made mistakes in our dealing with you, they 
 were made out of love. And I do not think your 
 father did make a mistake; he felt that you must 
 see for yourself that which he could not see for 
 you. But he loved you, always, more than you can 
 understand. And his last word, his last thought, 
 was of you. You won t let your pride defeat his 
 lifelong hopes, now, will you?" 
 
 She laid the letter in his hand and turned; but 
 even as she turned, she yielded to her feelings and 
 came back to give him the first caress she had dared 
 
474 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 to give him openly since he was a little child. She 
 kissed him lightly on his dark curls where they 
 touched his forehead, saying again and in the same 
 tone : "My dear boy ! My dear boy !" 
 
 After she left him it was minutes before he opened 
 the letter; he was standing again by his father s 
 bed ; he felt the touch of the nerveless hands which 
 had been so strong, and he heard his father s voice : 
 "There, there, little Johnny, let papa help you 
 climb !" With a long difficult sigh, he opened the 
 letter. This is what he read : 
 
 My dear Son : 
 
 When you read my will, you will think I might 
 be more fatherly, maybe. Maybe I hope not, you 
 are a pretty fair-minded chap, Johnny you will 
 be unjust to my wife. But here is the cause. I have 
 been going over it for years, trying to find a way out 
 of it without hurting you. I can t find it. There isn t 
 any. The only way for you to find that the ground 
 is hard, is to get a fall. You won t take my word 
 for it. I don t blame you. A man has to do what 
 he believes is right, whatever it costs him. You be 
 lieve a lot of rotten nonsense, in my opinion, but 
 that you ve got to find out, yourself. All I can do is 
 to prevent your squandering all your fortune in 
 finding it out. A hundred thousand is a good deal 
 of money to pay for discovering there is no short 
 cut to the millennium ; but I don t believe less would 
 satisfy you. My only worry, son, is that you ll get 
 some knocks on your heart and your conscience 
 which no money is worth. I can t help you, there. 
 
JOSIAH WINSLOW S DAY 475 
 
 All I can do is to save you the money, so you can 
 help other people in the only true, sensible, Ameri 
 can way, by giving them a show to help themselves. 
 I leave the fortune you would have had to your 
 stepmother, who loves you truly, and whom you will 
 truly love some day, in trust. So soon as she is con 
 vinced that you can manage the money and the busi 
 ness (or any business but I somehow feel you ll 
 want to run the Old Colony, and you can do it!) she 
 will give you a hundred thousand. That hundred 
 thousand I feel sure you won t lose ; so you will in 
 herit your fortune all right, in five years. Try 
 again, Johnny. You ll make it this time. If in your 
 business plans you should need more, she ll give you 
 more. I trust you, my son; you are going to be a 
 better business man than I was. You ve got my 
 head ; but head is not going to be all the great busi 
 ness man of the future needs ; he will have to have 
 a heart or he can t understand and manage his men ; 
 you have your mother s heart, and you will have 
 learned to know the best fellow in the world, the 
 American workingman; you ll know him and re 
 spect him and you won t be fooled about him. And 
 you can help him and he will help you better than I 
 ever could manage. 
 
 Johnny, son, I expect before very long I shall see 
 your mother. I hope she will forgive me ; whatever 
 I have to forgive her, I forgave, long ago. You will 
 have to make up for any mistakes we have made. 
 All our lives we both tried to win you. I guess in the 
 end we ll both succeed, and be reconciled. 
 Your affectionate father, 
 
 Josiah C. Winslow. 
 
476 THE MAN OF THE HOUR 
 
 P. S. I don t believe I ever told you, son, how 
 glad I was you were so fond of your little sister; 
 I ll give her your love, shan t I ? Somehow, I guess 
 I ll meet them all, and I think a good deal about it. 
 I get a great deal of comfort out of it, too. There s 
 another thing. Your stepmother has a notion that 
 you will marry Peggy. That s right. She s the girl 
 I should pick out for you, myself. But maybe it will 
 be another girl. Whoever it is, you can trust Emma 
 Winslow to do the right thing by her and by little 
 Peggy* too. It has been a big comfort to me, some 
 how, writing this letter. Big. Be good to your step 
 mother, Johnny, won t you? I hope I can manage 
 to get around to see you when you read this. Don t 
 feel too bad about your nonsense, after you get over 
 it ; you re a fine fellow, Johnny ; I am proud of you. 
 
 As Johnny s wet eyes made out the last word 
 through their blur, he lifted them and was aware of 
 Peggy in the doorway. If she had meant to go at 
 the sight of his tears, the arms he unconsciously ex 
 tended were enough ; she came straight to him, and, 
 still holding his father s letter, he clasped her tightly 
 while they cried together, comforting each other, 
 as they had comforted each other in their childish 
 griefs. It was Peggy who spoke first : 
 
 "I got the letter, Jo nivan." 
 
 "And you ll help me, Peggy?" 
 
 "Of course, Jo nivan." 
 
 "And speak to me again?" 
 
 "I reckon I ll have to if if I m" 
 
 "Going to marry me? I reckon you will, dear. 
 Oh, Peggy!" 
 
JOSIAH WINSLOW S DAY 
 
 "Jo nivan, you ll do awful things to yourself if 
 you try to to be so ridiculous. Put your arms 
 down this minute. Oh, Jo nivan, look !" 
 
 She pointed with her slim, white hand. The glory 
 of sunlight reflected from the river flooded the por 
 trait on the wall of his mother s writing-room where 
 he sat, flooded almost equally the delicate and beau 
 tiful face on the wall of the chamber beyond. 
 
 "Oh, Jo nivan," whispered Peggy in a voice of 
 tender awe, "they are both smiling!" 
 
 THE END 
 
A LIST */ IMPORTANT FICTION 
 THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 
 
A ROMANCE OF AMERICAN CHIVALRY 
 
 M THE LAW v 
 OF THE LAND 
 
 Of Miss Lady, whom it involved in mystery, and of 
 
 John Eddring, gentleman of the South, 
 
 who read its deeper meaning 
 
 By EMERSON HOUGH, Author of The Mississippi Bubble 
 
 Romantic, unhackneyed, imaginative, touched 
 with humor, full of spirit and dash. 
 
 Chicago Record Herald 
 
 So virile, so strong, so full of the rare qualities of 
 beauty and truth. New Tork Press 
 
 A powerful novel, vividly presented. The action 
 is rapid and dramatic, and the romance holds the 
 reader with irresistible force. 
 
 Detroit Tribune 
 
 Pre-eminently superior to any literary creation of 
 the day. Its naturalness places it on the plane of 
 immortality. New Tork American 
 
 Illustrated by Arthur I. Keller 
 I zmo, cloth, price, $1.50 
 
 The Bobbs- Merrill Company, Indianapolis 
 
A THOROUGHBRED GIRL 
 
 ZELDA DAMERON 
 
 By MEREDITH NICHOLSON 
 Author of The Main Chance 
 
 Zelda Dameron is in all ways a splendid and 
 successful story. There is about it a sweetness, a 
 wholesomeness and a sturdiness that will commend 
 it to earnest, kindly and wholesome people. 
 
 Boston Transcript 
 
 The whole story is thoroughly American. It is 
 lively and breezy throughout a graphic description 
 of a phase of life in the Middle West. 
 
 Toledo Blade 
 
 A love story of a peculiarly sweet and attractive 
 sort, the interpretation of a girl s life, the revelation 
 of a human heart. New Orleans Picayune 
 
 With portraits of the characters in color 
 
 By John Cecil Clay 
 izmo, cloth, price, $1.50 
 
 The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis 
 
LOVE IN LIVERY 
 
 >THE MAN 
 ON THE BOX 
 
 By HAROLD MAcGRATH 
 Author of The Puppet Crown and The Grey Cloak 
 
 This is the brightest, most sparkling book of the 
 season, crisp as a new greenback, telling a most 
 absorbing story in the most delightful way. There 
 never was a book whch held the reader more 
 fascinated. Albany Times-Union 
 
 The best novel of the year. 
 
 Seattle Post- Intelligencer 
 
 Satire that stops short of caricature, humor that 
 never descends to burlesque, sentiment that is too 
 wholesome and gennine to veige upon sentimentality, 
 these are reasons enough for liking The Man on the 
 Box, quite aside from the fact thas it is a refreshing 
 novelty in fiction. New York Globe 
 
 Illustrated by Harrison Fisher 
 1 2mo, cloth, price, 1 . 50 
 
 The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis 
 
HEARTS, GOLD AND SPECULATION 
 
 BLACK FRIDAY 
 
 By FREDERIC S. ISHAM 
 Author of The Strollers and Under the Rose 
 
 There is much energy, much spirit, in this 
 romance of the gold corner. Distinctly an opulent 
 and animated tale. New Tork Sun 
 
 Black Friday fascinates by its compelling force 
 and grips by its human intensity. No better or 
 more absorbing novel has been published in a decade. 
 
 "Newark Advertiser 
 
 The love story is handled with infinite skill. The 
 pictures of "the street and its thrilling, pulsating 
 life are given with rare power. 
 
 Boston Herald 
 
 Illustrated by Harrison Fisher 
 I2mo, cloth, price, $1.50 
 
 The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis 
 
WANTED: 
 
 A COOK 
 
 BY ALAN DALE 
 
 An uproariously funny comedy -novel of a self- 
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 " A good story well told. In every sentence a 
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 mirth." New York American 
 
 Bound in decorated cloth, izmo, 1.50 
 
 The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis 
 
FULL OF DAINTY CHARM 
 
 THE GIRL AND 
 THE KAISER 
 
 BY PAULINE BRADFORD MACKIE 
 
 "An amusing love story, which is certain to win 
 instant favor. Fresh, enthusiastic, and daintily 
 lyrical." Philadelphia Item 
 
 "A charming little book, artistically made, is 
 The Girl and the Kaiser ; one that can be recom 
 mended for pleasing entertainment without reserve." 
 St. Louis Globe-Democrat 
 
 Here is a beautiful and delightfully seasonable 
 volume that everybody will want. The story is a 
 Bubbling romance of the German imperial court 
 with an American girl heroine. 
 
 Decorated and illustrated in color by 
 
 John Cecil Clay 
 izmo, cloth, $1.50 
 
 Thr Bobbs- Merrill Company, Indianapolis 
 
A STORY OF THE SIMPLE LIFE 
 
 THE 
 
 HAPPY AVERAGE 
 
 By BRAND WHITLOCK 
 Author of The 1 3th District and Her Infinite Variety 
 
 Mr. Whitlock has done more than simply repeat 
 his earlier success. He has achieved a new one. 
 In The Happy Average he has voiced a deep-seated 
 human sympathy for the unheroic. Life 
 
 A most delightful romance that is as fresh as the 
 flowers of May. Pittsburg Leader 
 
 As an example of a good, healthy, entertaining 
 and human story, The Happy Average must be 
 given a place in the front rank. 
 
 Nashville American 
 
 Not only the best book that has come from Mr. 
 Whitlow s pen, but a really noteworthy achieve 
 ment in fiction. Chicago Tribune 
 
 I2mo, cloth, price, $1.50 
 
 The Bobbs-Merrill Companv, Indianapolis 
 
THE LIFE AND LOVES OF LORD BYRON 
 
 THE 
 CASTAWAY 
 
 "Three great men ruined in one year a king, a cad and a 
 castaway. " Byron. 
 
 BY HALLIE ERMINIE RIVES 
 Author of Hearts Courageous 
 
 Lord Byron s personal beauty, his brilliancy, his 
 genius, his possession of a title, his love affairs, his 
 death in a noble cause, all make him the most mag 
 netic figure in English literature. In Miss Rives s 
 novel the incidents of his career stand out in ab 
 sorbing power and enthralling force. 
 
 The most profoundly sympathetic, vivid and true 
 portrait of Byron ever drawn. 
 Calvin Dill Wilson, author of Byron Man and Poet 
 
 Dramatic scenes, thrilling incidents, strenuous 
 events follow one another; pathos, revenge and 
 passion ; a strong love ; and through all these, under 
 all these, is the poet, the man, George Gordon. 
 
 Grand Rapids Herald 
 
 With eight illustrations in color by 
 
 Howard Chandler Christy 
 1 2mo, cloth, price, $ I . oo everywhere 
 
 The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis 
 
A BOOK TO MAKE THE SPHINX LAUGH 
 
 IN THE BISHOP S 
 " CARRIAGE 
 
 BY MIRIAM MICHELSON 
 
 From the moment when, in another girl s chin 
 chilla coat, Nance Olden jumps into the unknown 
 carriage, and, snuggling up to the solemn owner, 
 calls him "Daddy,* till she makes her final bow, 
 a happy wife and a triumphant actress, she holds 
 your fancy captive and your heart in thrall. 
 
 If jaded novel readers want a new sensation, they 
 will get it here. Chicago Tribune 
 
 For genuine, unaffected enjoyment, read the ad 
 ventures of this dashing desperado in petticoats. 
 
 Philadelphia Item 
 
 It is beguiling, bewitching, bristling with origi 
 nality ; light enough for the laziest invalid to rest his 
 brain over, profound enough to serve as a sermon 
 to the humanitarian. San Francisco Bulletin 
 
 Illustrated by Harrison Fisher 
 1 2mo, cloth, price, $1.50 
 
 The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolii 
 
AN ANGEL OF THE TEXAS PLAINS 
 
 HULDAH 
 
 Proprietor of the Wagon-Tire House and Genial 
 Philosopher of the Cattle Country 
 
 BY ALICE MAcGOWAN 
 
 and 
 
 GRACE MxcGOWAN COOKE 
 
 A book that will brighten your hope, broaden 
 your charity, and keep you mellow with its humor. 
 
 Minneapolis Journal 
 
 It is cram full of human nature. There is nobody 
 like Aunt Huldah in any other book, and it is a good 
 thing that she got into this one. Washington Times 
 
 The book with its western breezes, homely phi 
 losophy, queer characters and big hearts, is almost 
 as exhilarating as the heroine must have been herself. 
 
 Baltimore Herald 
 
 Aunt Huldah is the kind of a woman loved by 
 the whole world, and the novel is the most attractive 
 since the days of David Harum. Indianapolis Star 
 
 izmo, cloth, price, $1.50 
 
 The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis 
 
For the man who can rejoice at a book that is not trivial. 
 For the man who feels the power of Egypt s marvelous past; 
 For the man who is stirred at heart by the great scenes of 
 
 the Bible; 
 For the man who likes a story and knows when it is good. 
 
 THE YOKE 
 
 A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed 
 
 the Children of Israel from the 
 
 Bondage of Egypt 
 
 A theme that captures the imagination: Israel s 
 deliverance from Egypt. 
 
 Characters famous for all time : Moses, the 
 Pharaoh, Prince Rameses. 
 
 Scenes of natural and supernatural power; the 
 finding ot the signet, the turning of the Nile into 
 blood, the passage of the Red Sea. 
 
 A background of brilliant color: the rich and 
 varied life of Thebes and Memphis. 
 
 A plot of intricate interest: a love sto,y of 
 enduring beauty. Such is "The Yoke." 
 
 Ornamental cloth binding. 626 pages 
 Price $1.50 
 
 The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis 
 
ART AND ARIZO N A 
 
 A GINGHAM 
 ROSE 
 
 BY ALICE WOODS ULLMMN 
 Author of Edges 
 
 The author has a strange power of looking into 
 the workings of her own mind and heart, and of setting 
 down what she finds there with freedom, humor and 
 justice. The result is "something new under the 
 sun" a book with the tang of originality. Nothing 
 could be more refreshing than this story of a girl 
 who turned a cad into a man and a man into a hero. 
 
 Bizarre, fantastic, intensely individual, bright and 
 interesting, with characters that have a trick of saying 
 and doing unexpected things. Washington Times 
 
 A remarkable book, sustained in power and inter 
 est, strong in its characterization and picturesque in 
 its treatment of life. It is human, palpitating with 
 reality, tensely alive. Harper s Weekly 
 
 Frontispiece by the author 
 I zmo, cloth, price, $1.50 
 
 The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis 
 
A ROMANCE OF LOVE AND POLITICS 
 
 THE 
 PLUM TREE 
 
 A New Novel 
 
 BT DAVID GRAHAM PHILLIPS 
 Author of "The Cost, * "Golden Fleece," Etc. 
 
 In this new novel the author of " The Cost " 
 sounds a trumpet call to American patriotism and 
 integrity. 
 
 First and last "The Plum Tree " is a love story 
 of the highest order interesting, ennobling, puri 
 fying. 
 
 Senator Depew says: "Well written and dra 
 matic, as might be expected from the pen of 
 Phillips." 
 
 Senator Frye says: " A wonderful story of 
 American political life." 
 
 Senator Beveridge siys: " Plot, action, color, 
 
 vitality, make The Plum Tree thrilling. 
 
 " .iijy 
 Drawings by E. M. Ashe 
 
 Bound in Cloth, izmo, $1.50 
 The Bobbs- Merrill Company, Indianapolis 
 
"AN ADMIRABLE TALE." 
 
 THE 
 
 MILLIONAIRE 
 m BABY 
 
 BY ANNA KATHARINE GREEN 
 Author of "The Filigree Ball" 
 
 "This stirring, this absorbing, this admirable 
 tale." New York Sun 
 
 "A thrillingly sensational piece of fiction The 
 Millionaire Baby. St. Paul Pioneer Press 
 
 " Certain to keep you up to the wee sma 
 hours. * Chicago Journal 
 
 " Handled with consummate dexterity, adroit 
 ness and fertility of invention." Brooklyn Times 
 
 " A detective story that is a detective story." 
 
 Judge 
 
 (< One reads from page to page with breathless 
 interest." New York Times 
 
 " The reader is kept in a state of tiptoe expec 
 tation from chapter to chapter. Boston Herald 
 
 "Anna Katharine Green shows, in The Mil 
 lionaire Baby, a fertility of brain simply marvel 
 ous. Philadelphia Item 
 
 Beautifully Illustrated by A. I. Keller 
 izmo, $1.50 
 
 The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis 
 
FOURTEEN DAY USE * T 
 
 RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROX^D 
 
 This book is due on the last date stamped below, 
 
 on the date to which renewed. 
 Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. 
 
 AUG 1 1962 
 
 LD 21-100m-2 55 
 
 General Library 
 University of California 
 
 Berkeley 
 
 
YB 73B74 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY