BLIND 
 
 A STORY OF THESE TIMES 
 
 BY 
 
 ERNEST POOLE 
 
 SJem 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 1920 
 
 All Rights Reserved 
 
V 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1920, 
 
 BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1920. 
 
To M. A. 
 
 424743 
 
BLIND 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 LATE on a warm cloudy night in April, 1919, upon 
 a hill in Connecticut a few miles inland from the Sound, 
 a large capacious spreading old house of brick and frame 
 loomed like a great squat shadow there. Upstairs were 
 many people asleep. Below there was not a light nor a 
 sound except in one room, where in the darkness the 
 click of a typewriter was heard. 
 
 So this narrative was begun : 
 
 1. 
 
 I am blind but no blinder than is the mind of the 
 world, these days. The long thin splinter of German 
 steel which struck in behind my eyes did no more to 
 me than the war has done to the vision of humanity. 
 In this year of deep confusion clutching, grabbing,-* 
 spending, wasting, and in Europe plague and famine, 
 desperation and revolt mankind is reeling in the dark. 
 And in these long queer crowded nights, half waking 
 and half sleeping, it has seemed to me at times as 
 though the bedlam of it all were pounding, seething 
 into me. I was once a playwright and vividly there 
 comes to me a memory of the Broadway crowds on a 
 big rush Saturday night. A sightless beggar stood by 
 the curb, and in a harsh shrill piercing voice he kept 
 repeating, "Help the blind!" The Soul of Man is like 
 him now. 
 
 But this is against doctor s orders. The medical chap 
 who lifted me out of my recent darkness is taking no 
 
4 ;} ; >:; :/ t : \ . :: E L, i N D 
 
 chances of a return to that black melancholia. He still 
 hopes that I may regain my sight. In the meantime, he 
 has given orders, and I have agreed, that in this writ 
 ing I shall leave the present and take a long trip for 
 my health back into the distant past, and that only after 
 working through the memories of some forty years 
 shall I come again to this baffling age please God, with 
 a new pair of eyes, and a deeper vision of it all. 
 
 My doctor s name is Steve McCrea, and I have known 
 him all my life, for we were boys together here. In the 
 months that have just gone by, he knew how I dreaded 
 the nights alone. From my newspaper days, I had been 
 an owl. In the army I had learned to sleep, but again I 
 had lost the trick of it. And knowing this, from his 
 home nearby almost every evening Steve motored over 
 for long talks. At first we talked about the war; but 
 already we were beginning to see that the roar of guns 
 had been only a part of a deeper mightier process which 
 had ploughed up the whole world, and strange new har 
 vests had appeared. We wondered what still lay ahead. 
 In seeking the answer we groped in the past. Back 
 ward along the devious paths of our two lives we jour 
 neyed far; and the memories rose haphazard the big 
 movements and events all mingled with personal hopes 
 and schemes, ambitions, family quarrels, small comedies 
 and tragedies. As we talked we would often chuckle or 
 laugh. Again there would be silent spells ... At last 
 I would see him to the door, listen to his motor start, 
 and with these queer new sensitive ears I would follow 
 it by the diminishing sound down the long winding 
 country road. Then I would come back to this room, 
 put out the lamp I did not need, re-light my pipe and 
 for a time I would sit here remembering and thinking 
 of this book of mine while the house I once knew so 
 well by sight grew familiar again by sound, by its tiny 
 creaks and stirrings, the numberless whispers of its life. 
 
BLIND 5 
 
 It drew close like an old friend from the past, evoking 
 the scenes and the faces. 
 
 So now, if you will, escape with me out of the glare 
 and the din of these days far back into the years gone by. 
 
 2. 
 
 In that world of long ago which existed before the 
 war, on a peaceful Sabbath morning in 1875, Steve s 
 father, who was the clergyman in our Presbyterian 
 church, sprinkled some cold water on my innocent bald 
 baby head, stopped while I sneezed violently, and then 
 declared in solemn tones, "Lawrence Carrington Hart, 
 I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, 
 and of the Holy Ghost." So much for my age and 
 name. My friends call me Larry Hart. 
 
 With a sister and two small cousins, I was brought 
 tip by my Aunt Amelia. From ever since I could 
 recall, she had been the head of the family. Her hus 
 band, my father s elder brother, had been -the country 
 doctor here. My father, John Hart or J. Carrington 
 Hart, as he was known later in New York had devel 
 oped a small foundry in a town on the Sound five miles 
 away. Meanwhile, he had married, and my sister Lucy 
 and I were born in a house on the edge of the town. 
 But our mother died when we were small, and we came 
 to Aunt Amelia s. A few years later, our uncle died; 
 and then Dad sold the house in town and came out to 
 live with us. And until I went away to school, my mem 
 ories are all wrapped up in this family home of ours, 
 which was known as Seven Pines. 
 
 It is an old Connecticut house set firmly on a low 
 green hill, with seven pines around it, a wide meadow 
 extending down to the road. Below in the distance on 
 sunny days gleam the blue waters of the Sound. The 
 house is of brick painted white, with four slender white 
 wooden columns in front and a frame wing on either 
 
6 BLIND 
 
 side; and there are stables and a barn and various other 
 buildings. Inside the house are many rooms and nar 
 row halls, steps up and down. It has been here for a 
 hundred years, sending the quiet smoke of its hearths 
 to the sun by day and the stars by night, the heavy 
 stones of its foundations grown to be like part of the 
 soil of rocky New England. "How firm a foundation, 
 ye Saints of the Lord." As a boy I used to connect that 
 hymn with the huge gray and yellow boulders by our 
 cellar door. 
 
 But if founded on the rocks of New England, the 
 house, when we were children, was filled with the spirit 
 of the West brought in by my Aunt Amelia. 
 
 Here is a brief sketch of her life. In 1854, her fam 
 ily left the Mohawk Valley to join the vast migration 
 west. They settled in Wisconsin. A little girl of nine 
 years old, the trip by rail, canal boat, wagon, was her 
 first immense adventure with thrilling incidents, day 
 and night. Wolves, Indians, flocks of pigeons that dark 
 ened the entire sky, woods full of game, rivers teeming 
 with fish. Age of myth and endless stories which she 
 told to us as children. One of my "best favorites" was 
 the story of Indian John. A tall shaggy half-witted old 
 man, they had known him back in the East, where he 
 was one of the last of his tribe. He would came stalk 
 ing up to the farm-house, put his fingers to his mouth 
 and say hoarsely, "Hungry! Haw!" After he had been 
 given his supper he would lie down by the hearth for 
 the night, and my aunt and her two little brothers would 
 shiver at his mutterings and his big dull smouldering 
 eyes. Then the family moved west. It was like a trip 
 around the world. But six months later, at sunset, a tall 
 gray familiar figure stalked up to their home, put his 
 hand to his mouth and said, "Hungry ! Haw !" He had 
 trailed them for a thousand miles! 
 
 She told us of the slow hard growth of that lonely 
 
BLIND 7 
 
 little Wisconsin town. Her father had a saw-mill there, 
 and later he developed a thriving lumber business. Their 
 neighbors were a rugged lot, native Yankees and 
 Germans, too, who had escaped from their country after 
 a struggle which they called "the Great Revolution of 
 Forty-Eight" but which to Aunt Amelia seemed but 
 a poor and doubtful affair compared to the momentous 
 war that began when she was still in her teens What 
 vivid idealized stories she told of the call to arms, the 
 recruiting and drilling, swift love affairs and brave 
 goodbyes, and busy groups of women and girls working 
 for the soldiers. Idealized, yet real in a sense, filled 
 with convincing human details, for she had a rich sense 
 of humor. But though she often smiled as she talked, 
 her eyes grew bright and moist at times and her voice 
 took on a reverent tone. For around that war, in her 
 memory, above the tiny human folk with their many 
 faults and weaknesses, hovered mighty figures unseen, 
 formless spirits with such names as the Union, the 
 Republic, Liberty, Emancipation. And when my Aunt 
 Amelia sang "Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory of the 
 Coming of the Lord" she meant it, every word of it. 
 She was singing of her youth. 
 
 Later, on a trip to the East, she met our uncle, Dan 
 iel Hart, who had served as a surgeon in the war. They 
 married and made this house their home. But although 
 she came to love it here, she still looked to the West 
 as the land of her dreams and of great openings and 
 ideals. Many of her friends and relations had since gone 
 still farther out to the prairies and the mountains, to 
 farm, ranch, lumber camp and mine. And her eager 
 fancy followed them, in the numberless letters that she 
 wrote and in long absorbing talks with those who came 
 to see her here. She lovecf to have such visitors. 
 
 She had been to Europe only once. When still a girl 
 in her twenties, her father had taken her abroad; and 
 
8 BLIND 
 
 she liked to tell how meeting men of various nations 
 over there, in his hearty ringing voice he would urge 
 each one of them to come and visit him in Wisconsin. 
 That was the most wonderful part of this whole coun 
 try, she declared. It had welcomed all the peoples of 
 Europe; and over in never ending tides they had poured, 
 to prove what stuff they were made of. 
 
 Aunt Amelia has always been to me the most won 
 derful woman I ve ever known and one of the few 
 great Americans. In this narrative it will be hard for 
 me not to idealize her for she herself has always ideal 
 ized her country. As I write, she is slowly dying 
 upstairs a staunch feeble woman of seventy-five but 
 the hour I spend each day by her bed is a time that I 
 look forward to. For she is so happy about her life. 
 Ranging through her memories, she has such a good 
 time in them all. Again and again will her keen humor 
 shatter some pretension or sham in someone we both 
 knew in the past; but hardly has the smile of relish left 
 her wide firm sensitive mouth and her blue eyes, before 
 she will go placidly on idealizing this life she has known 
 not so much the people themselves as certain deep 
 emotions in them, yearnings, hungers and ideals more 
 or less submerged in their lives but in which she has had 
 an astounding faith, and which she has put together into 
 what she calls "the Soul of the West." This is her Holy 
 of Holies, and here no humor is allowed. 
 
 She has always been to me like that. When I was a 
 boy, she was a great mother. We little youngsters were 
 in luck. A small woman with a resolute mouth, her hair 
 already touched with gray was worn low down over her 
 ears and bound with a blue ribbon. She had rather 
 stubby busy hands which as a rule were knitting or 
 sewing and I remember her shelling peas. She had 
 eyes that made a friend of a boy. She laughed little 
 but smiled a great deal. There was something so eager 
 
BLIND 9 
 
 and wide awake in that smile and in those eyes of hers. 
 From the breakfast table at seven o clock to the time 
 when she kissed us goodnight in our beds, I could feel 
 her watching us. In her busy active life for she had 
 many interests outside she still found time to explore 
 us all, and with us to explore the world. Oh, the long 
 solemn talks we had, and the jokes and the conspira 
 cies ! How young she was and how very gay. I once 
 heard her say to a tall thin woman who came in to talk 
 over a sin that someone had committed, "I m afraid I 
 don t care half as much as I should about seeing people 
 good, my dear. I \vant to see them happy." 
 
 Again, the richest woman of our neighborhood came 
 in to tell of a cottage she had built near her home for 
 worn out working girls from New York. Complacently 
 the stout dame described what a treat it would be for 
 the poor young things. As Aunt Amelia listened, her 
 lips set in a vicious smile; and when the woman was 
 gone, she declared. 
 
 "I don t see how she can face those girls when they 
 come to her charity cottage! Right beside her own 
 house, too! If she wants them, why not invite them 
 there?" 
 
 She herself was always inviting people, many of 
 whom for some reason or other were for the moment 
 down on their luck. 
 
 3. 
 
 With such a woman we were reared. In this old house 
 or out on the farm, through the four seasons of the year, 
 we little shavers Lucy and I, with our cousins Ed and 
 Dorothy packed our lives with work and play, our 
 lessons, games, discoveries, thrilling adventures, hopes 
 and plans, dark guilty deeds. Small memories that once 
 loomed large. I pick but a few at random : 
 
 I remember one night when I woke up in the room 
 
10 BLIND 
 
 where I slept with my cousin Ed. The room was very 
 dark at night, for a big tree outside the window shut 
 out even the light of the stars. I woke up with a start. 
 My pillow was gone! Burglars, goblins! I lay there in 
 terror. Then shutting both eyes I reached out in the 
 darkness. My fingers clutched a pillow, jerked it in, 
 and I buried my face. Golly! What relief I felt. But 
 just as I was dropping asleep the pillow was jerked away 
 from me! At this my heart gave one big throb and 
 felt like a lump of ice. Goblins, unmistakable goblins! 
 I was quaking to my toes. I tried hard to scream for 
 help, but I could not make a sound. For some moments 
 I lay waiting there to be seized and carried out into the 
 night. There was a chance, just a chance for me then 
 to grab a branch of the tree outside! The moments 
 passed but nothing happened. I mustered courage and 
 reached out; once more my fingers clutched the pillow, 
 yanked it back. And the next instant there burst forth 
 a perfect roar of terror from little Ed in his bed next 
 mine. It was his pillow I had grabbed each time. Mine 
 lay on the other side of my bed where it had dropped 
 upon the floor. When this fact dawned upon us both, so 
 deep and glad was our relief that we rose together as 
 one man, sneaked downstairs to the pantry, stole some 
 crackers and jam, and came back to feast by candle 
 light while we talked over the great event. 
 
 "Why didn t you yell ?" he asked me in awe. I sneered 
 at him disdainfully. 
 
 "Only little fellers yell," I replied. Ed sneezed and 
 sneezed. What a cold he caught! 
 
 My next recollection is ugly enough. It is of a sum 
 mer s afternoon when with Lucy and Dorothy we chased 
 a gopher into its hole. Eagerly we brought pails of 
 water; and when the wretched half-drowned little beast 
 came out, Ed and I fiercely kicked it to death. The next 
 
BLIND 11 
 
 moment Dorothy, who was little more than a baby then, 
 was sobbing as though her heart would break. Lucy 
 promptly followed suit; Ed caught the contagion and 
 sniffled, too while I, with a big lump in my throat, 
 demanded resentfully of the girls, 
 
 "Well, why didn t you stop us? Why did you help 
 us carry the pails? Yes, you did you know you did!" 
 
 Aunt Amelia did not punish us but after the talk 
 she gave us that day I sneaked off alone to a certain 
 secret tree in the wood, where I used to expiate my 
 crimes, and I whacked my shins and thighs till they 
 ached. As a rule, I whacked gently, but this time when 
 ever I stopped I would recall something else she had 
 said and then I would whack sternly on. 
 
 I remember one good spanking I got not because 
 of the pain involved but because of the look on my 
 father s face. He was trying hard to look stern but he 
 was laughing deep inside, and this rankled in my soul. 
 Here I was being punished for having furnished amuse 
 ment to all! It was pretty darned tough. What had I 
 done? I had simply dropped a grasshopper down Lucy s 
 neck in church that day. But as it happened, Steve s 
 father had paused in his sermon just then to ask: 
 
 "What is the Lord Jesus doing for you?" 
 
 And Lucy had screamed: 
 
 "He s tickling me!" 
 
 I had dug my elbow into her ribs. "Now you ve done 
 it! I m in for it!" But to my glad astonishment there 
 had been such laughter in that church as was never heard 
 before. Even the bilious tenor had laughed. Suddenly 
 it had dawned on me that I had done something pretty 
 cute. This conviction still remained. And while my 
 father spanked me, my young soul was filled with gloom 
 at the injustice of the world. I had afforded those people 
 in church the only gleam of pleasure in many dreary 
 
12 BLIND 
 
 Sabbath morns and now to be spanked for it, spanked 
 for it! And by Dad o>f all men! I gulped down my 
 tears. For he was the fellow that I loved. 
 
 I saw little of him in those days. He liked fast horses; 
 and when I was small, to my great joy he would some 
 times let me drive with him in his buggy five miles to 
 the mill town. How we flew along the road! At first 
 I believed him when he said that such rides could only 
 be given as prizes when I had been good. But I found 
 this had nothing to do with the case. I could be as 
 good as gold, but when I came to get into the buggy he 
 would scowl over his cigar (thinking no doubt of some 
 business snarl) and would say harshly. "Not today" > 
 while on some other mornings when I had been dis 
 tinctly bad, he would wink at me in a jovial way and 
 say, "Come on, son." How I loved him then! 
 
 Toward evening all four of us, under my lead, would 
 wait by the corner down the hill. I would be the farthest 
 outpost; the rest stood at intervals up the road. At last 
 I would hear the thud of hoofs and catch a glimpse of 
 the buggy twinkling swiftly through the trees. I would 
 shout to the next scout, 
 
 "There he is!" 
 
 And all of us in wild excitement, with small fat Dor 
 othy in the rear frantically screaming, "Wait for me!" 
 would race up the winding road for the house while 
 closer and closer came the thuds, and my father s ring 
 ing genial bass: 
 
 "I ll win this race I ll win this race " 
 
 But he always managed to lose it just 
 
 As time wore on, he grew more remote. He spent 
 more and more of his nights in New York; and when 
 he came home, to my chagrin, it appeared that I was no 
 longer his pet. To my sister Lucy, a dark slender little 
 girl of twelve, and to Dorothy, who was only five and 
 round as a little button, with light curly hair and vivid 
 
BLIND 13 
 
 blue eyes, Dad gave nearly all of his jokes and atten 
 tions. Ed and I were left out in the cold, grimly won 
 dering what he could see in "nothing but a couple of 
 girls." But it did not weigh very hard on our souls, for 
 we were now going to school in the village. With the 
 village boys we ranged the fields and wooded hills, fish 
 ing, trapping, hunting with "sling shots," going iri 
 swimming, nutting, coasting. Vaguely I knew from 
 gossip we heard that my father was growing richer fast; 
 but although I boasted of it at times, it made little im 
 pression on my mind except through the delightful fact 
 that we all had handsome presents at Christmas and on 
 birthdays; and still more through my keen interest in 
 the rebuilding of the house. A wing was added on either 
 side, a windmill was put up close by, and the stables 
 and our farmer s house were considerably enlarged. 
 I remember helping the carpenters and listening to their 
 jokes and stories, some of which were distinctly broad. 
 I was a hungry listener. One of them caught me at it 
 one day, and said with a grin, 
 
 "Now he ll go and tell his father." I reddened to my 
 very ears. 
 
 "Like hell I will," I stoutly declared. Another car 
 penter, my good friend, smiled approvingly and said, 
 
 "That s right, sonny, use your ears instead of your 
 tongue, and you will learn a heap sight more than 
 you ll ever get in school. He s a mixer that s what 
 Larry is." 
 
 A mixer! I hammered proudly on. I went on listen 
 ing^ growing, mixing. I recollect dimly a wild trip with 
 a bibulous and fascinating old horse dealer friend of 
 mine, on a freight train to New York. I started off like 
 a little man and came back the next day like a scared 
 little boy. But after Aunt Amelia s talk I did not go to 
 my secret tree for. that grim institution had been dis 
 carded long ago. 
 
14 BLIND 
 
 Small memories that once loomed large, in a world 
 which is now so far behind a world without a tele 
 phone, a movie show or a Sunday paper, an automobile, 
 an airplane, an ocean flight, a wireless, a war or any 
 revolution. Small memories, an endless chain. But I 
 shall skip the period when Lucy and I went away to 
 school, and come to the momentous time when we 
 learned that Dad was to marry again. 
 
 4. 
 
 At Thanksgiving, Lucy and I came home to meet the 
 bride-to-be. Our small plump cousin Dorothy breath 
 lessly met us at the door. She was seven now and 
 extremely important, and so thrilled by the event that 
 her very curls were quivering. She had read about these 
 stepmothers ! 
 
 "Oh she is just too horrible!" Her whisper could be 
 heard through the house. "She s perfectly lovely to look 
 at but she has the cruelest eyes " 
 
 With this encouragement we went in; and though 
 our future mother did not quite come up to Dorothy s 
 picture, I promptly disliked her nevertheless. What a 
 gorgeous creature she appeared. Age, twenty-six of 
 medium size. Blonde, sleekly gracious, expensive, good 
 looking, smiling and cocksure of herself. "Every inch 
 a born New Yorker!" was my sister s instant verdict. 
 At Lucy s school over half the girls were Westerners 
 who pretended to have little use for New York; and 
 now resentment and disdain smouldered deep in Lucy s 
 gray eyes as she faced this girl only ten years older, 
 who had smilingly captured Dad. He looked so much 
 younger, spick and span "though he is well on in his 
 forties!" I thought his heavy figure set off by new 
 clothes, his beard trimmed close and his hair cut shorter 
 utterly changed and lost to us both. 
 
 At the wedding in the Park Avenue house of her 
 

 BLIND 15 
 
 family we were a doleful pain Our father took his 
 bride abroad, and Lucy and I went back to school. Dur 
 ing the Christmas vacation Aunt Amelia comforted us. 
 She would still be our mother and this our real home. 
 We must make t^e best of things and be friends with 
 Dad s new wife. What to call her? Mother? No. We 
 decided at last on "Aunt Fanny." So far, so good. For 
 the present at least she was out of the way. The Christ 
 mas vacation went on as before, and then the routine 
 life in school and soon we had almost * forgotten our 
 trouble. But the next June when we came home, we 
 heard another bit of news. Aunt Fanny was to have a 
 baby. 
 
 "Confound the woman," I exclaimed, "why can t she 
 let well enough alone?" 
 
 Aunt Amelia laughed at me, but I strode angrily up 
 and down, while Lucy fairly snorted with wrath. 
 
 "We won t stay!" she declared. For the trouble was 
 this. Our new mother had not yet inveigled Dad into 
 purchasing a country house, and so they were to come 
 here for the summer while our aunt was to go to her 
 old home in Wisconsin, taking Dorothy and Ed. In 
 vain we begged her to take us, too. 
 
 "No," she decided firmly, "I always believe in facing 
 things. You must not make a wrong start, my dears. 
 Your father is more fond of you than you have any idea 
 of. He has written that he wants you here, and he ll 
 be hurt if you^go away. You don t want to lose such a 
 father as that, and you must begin by doing your best 
 to be nice and friendly with his wife." 
 
 On leaving us Dorothy gripped my hand. 
 
 "Don t yr>u ever let her degratiate you into calling 
 her Mother !" she enjoined. 
 
 So they departed from Seven Pines and left us to 
 face the music alone. The music was no small affair. All 
 day long by every train Aunt Fanny s servants and 
 
16 BLIND 
 
 things kept arriving a regular butler and six maids, 
 and trunks from Paris without end while down in the 
 stable I stood about with my old chum the farmer, Bill 
 Flynt, his son and Steve McCrea, and watched the Eng 
 lish coachman install himself with his two grooms, the 
 horses and rigs. Dad still loved good horses there 
 could be no doubt of that. But what fool surries, traps 
 and dogcarts! Plainly these had been her choice! . . . 
 In brief, in a swelling harmony of wealth and ease and 
 elegance, in a few days the house was transformed from 
 a simple old American home to the country place of a 
 "born New Yorker." Aunt Fanny presided, good- 
 humored and gay, filling awkward silences, admiring all 
 Lucy s clothes and making suggestions, which Lucy 
 rejected, but which I could see impressed my kid sister 
 who seemed to me to be watching intently every stitch 
 that Aunt Fanny wore, every trick in her manners and 
 speech. 
 
 "We re getting on," I heard my young mother say 
 to Dad one evening. 
 
 We were, eh? We would see about that! She had a 
 constant succession of guests and told us to ask our own 
 friends, too but grimly I declined with thanks. I was 
 off to college in the fall, and meanwhile I was taking 
 no chances of "queering myself" with my boarding 
 school chums by bringing them to such a home. A fel 
 low couldn t be too careful. For like them I was booked 
 for Yale, and I had big sacred thoughts about real Yale 
 democracy. "These infernal snobs!" I sneered. 
 
 For this democratic passion in me, two people were 
 responsible. One was, my Aunt Amelia ; the other, Steve 
 McCrea. The minister s son, he had been for years the 
 leader of the village boys; and if I ever tried to play the 
 snob with the ragged ones in the gang, Steve soon froze 
 it out of me with a dry ironic smile or a devastating 
 twinkle in his clear brown eyes. He was some years older 
 than I, and when I went away to school he went to a medi- 
 
BLIND 17 
 
 cal college; but in the summers he worked for us. He 
 slept at home and had his meals with old Bill Flynt, our 
 farmer; but Aunt Amelia would O ften ask him to stay 
 for supper up at the house. He worked for us and was 
 one of our friends. 
 
 But this summer his position was changed. In that 
 amazing transformation which the household under 
 went, Steve became "the stable boy." I heard Aunt 
 Fanny call him that, and instantly I was furious. My 
 democratic instincts surged up ready for a fight. But my 
 thunderous indignation collapsed before Steve s quiz 
 zical eyes. He smiled at me and said, "Oh, my." And 
 so "the stable boy" he became. 
 
 5. 
 
 I come now to a night in early September. I had 
 been riding Lord Jim that day. We had had a fall and 
 as a result he had a nasty gash in one leg, and in the 
 stable by lantern light Steve was carefully dressing the 
 wound. On account of his medical work he was known 
 in the stable as "Doc." On one side the English coach 
 man and on the other old Bill Flynt were each giving 
 him advice. Whatever suggestion one of them made 
 was promptly opposed by the other, with a withering 
 contempt. Between them sat Steve on a box, with the 
 bruised quivering leg of the horse between his knees. 
 Twenty-three and six feet two, sleeves rolled up, arms 
 spattered with blood on his lean face not a sign of 
 attention to the advice from either side, except now and 
 then a slow ironic smile of content as he worked calmly, 
 carefully on. At times he would direct me to shift the 
 lantern this way or that. I was standing close behind 
 him an overgrown youngster of seventeen, all arms 
 and legs, already six feet and thin as a rail, stoop shoul 
 dered, with a quick flashing smile (so I am told) and 
 little humorous twinkly eyes. 
 
 "Larry!" 
 
18 BLIND 
 
 I turned sharply. My father s strong figure was in 
 the doorway. His voice was low, but the hard set of his 
 wide jaws and a brusque gesture of his hand made me 
 follow him quickly outside. There he told me. In going 
 upstairs my young stepmother had tripped and fallen, 
 and it seemed more than likely that her child would be 
 born before morning. What to do? There was no 
 telephone in those days. 
 
 "Go to town and send this wire," said Dad. It was 
 to a New York specialist. "Then get Rainey and bring 
 him back." Rainey was the doctor in the mill town five 
 miles away. 
 
 "All right, Dad." I was greatly excited. I have a 
 sensitive streak in me, and something volcanic deep in 
 Dad rose up through his low gruff voice and went 
 through me with a thrill. He returned to the house, 
 and in the stable I rushed about giving orders pell mell. 
 First I told them to saddle Dad s hunter, a big bay 
 mare. 
 
 "Hold on, though, wait! That won t do! I ve got to 
 bring the doctor back! Put her into the buggy!" I 
 cried. 
 
 "Who s sick, son?" I heard somebody ask. I did not 
 answer. Too late I remembered that Dad would want 
 no gossip down here. I scowled and lit a cigarette, 
 plunged my hands in my pockets and strode about. My 
 dislike of my young stepmother was gone. Vaguely I 
 felt like a young knight-errant, though if any kind friend 
 had told me so I would certainly have knocked -him 
 down. I leaped into the buggy. 
 
 "Stand clear, boys! Let her go!" 
 
 The next moment we were out of the uarn and tear 
 ing down the starlit road. 
 
 From talks that I had later with Steve I gathered 
 what happened while I was gone. In the stable the 
 speculation on who was sick up at the house soon nar- 
 
BLIND 19 
 
 rowed to Aunt Fanny; and knowing of her condition, 
 the men with a slow deliberate relish began to 
 discuss possibilities. A memory came to old Bill Flynt. 
 
 "Now comin to think of it," he drawled, "Doc 
 Rainey ain t to hum tonight. He s gone to New York 
 to take a hand in the annual meetin of the Elks." 
 
 This at once redoubled the interest and gave a new 
 spice to the whole affair. Bill s boy -was sent up to the 
 house with the news. He returned on the run to an 
 nounce that the servants were "jest a buzzin ." The 
 Duchess (my stepmother) had fallen half down the 
 stairs, he declared, and had been carried to her room. 
 She was in a bad way, no doubt about that. How did 
 the Boss take the news about Rainey? "He jest said, 
 God damn the Elks ! " Now the gossip centered on the 
 one absorbing question. Would the New York special 
 ist be able to get here in time? A time-table was pro 
 cured, and when that had been thoroughly discussed, 
 the drawling nasal voices began to bring up memories 
 of children born into the world without medical assist 
 ance. In vain did the English coachman try to squelch 
 this ribald talk. His lofty contempt only deepened their 
 relish. All the men were now in the barn, standing or 
 sitting, grouped round the lantern, smoking, chewing, 
 stopping to spit. Suddenly there was a silence. And 
 when Steve, who had taken no part in the talk, looked 
 up tensely from his work, he saw that all were watch 
 ing him. In their intent and motionless eyes he caught 
 a look of awed delight. Old Bill Flynt spoke softly : 
 
 "As soon as you re through with that horse s leg, 
 Doc there s another job waitin up at the house." 
 
 Steve said nothing. He bent to his work. Slowly he 
 wrapped the bandage tighter. What a chance ! But he 
 did not want it. Savagely he told himself he was only a 
 kid in a medical school. What did he know? What had 
 he done? He had delivered two women just two a 
 
20 BLIND 
 
 Dago and a Pollack. And at the thought of the 
 gorgeous young mistress of the house, the beads of sweat 
 came out on his temples. He heard a low chuckle and 
 the remark, 
 
 "And she calls Doc the stable boy ." 
 
 The discussion went on for a few moments longer, 
 and then abruptly it stopped again, as my father quickly 
 enteYed the barn. He spoke to Steve, who put on his 
 coat and went with Dad up to the house. There were 
 few better gamblers than was my father in his day; 
 and having once decided on Steve, he lost no time in 
 showing, by brief questions and remarks, how he relied 
 upon him now. Steve s confidence began to come back. 
 A list of essentials was made out and sent to the village 
 drug store. At last my father went upstairs, leaving 
 Steve in the library. 
 
 And then he noticed Lucy there a girl of sixteen, 
 dark and slender, undeveloped and still rather plain 
 but she had strikingly beautiful eyes. As she sat with a 
 book at the end of the room, every few minutes he could 
 feel her shoot a quick glance up at him. Unobserved 
 she had listened eagerly to the talk between the two men. 
 It was she who had suggested to Dad that we had a 
 doctor on the place; but later she confessed to me that 
 she had her misgivings now. The odor of the stable 
 had come with Steve into the room, and she simply 
 could not see him upstairs. Still, for that matter, she 
 could picture nothing of what would happen up there. 
 Nor did she try. She had been bred not to think about 
 that. And it was just this breeding which appealed to 
 Steve that night. For he, too, had had his bringing up 
 by a Puritanical father and he told me what a clean 
 fresh relief it was to him that evening, coming from the 
 coarse talk in the stable, to feel the way Lucy was tak 
 ing it. Her big gray eyes showed her sense of the 
 drama but no realization of its details. Her silent deep 
 
BLIND 21 
 
 excitement gave him a new glow of strength. A subtle 
 current passed between them, vibrant with youth and 
 eager life, hunger for experience. 
 
 The man who had gone to the village returned, and 
 he brought a change of clothes for Steve. Dad came 
 downstairs, and at sight of his heavy anxious face Lucy 
 jumped up and went to him. He smiled and patted her 
 shoulder and told her she d better go to bed. Then he 
 took Steve to an upper room to wash and change his 
 clothing. Later, as they were going together to Aunt 
 Fanny s room, my father stopped in the hall and said, 
 
 "I know you re going to handle this right. My wife 
 is not so sure of you but you will make her feel so 
 from the moment you enter the room. Understand? 
 She s a woman you re a man. And you know your 
 business. Now come in." 
 
 A moment later Steve faced two women, a capable 
 looking English maid and Aunt Fanny, who was stand 
 ing with her small hands gripping the back of a chair. 
 Her bright tortured angry eyes searched his and found 
 the steadiness that Dad had put there for the crisis. 
 
 In the meantime I had returned from town. Lucy 
 had not gone to bed, and for what seemed hours we 
 waited here, in this room where I am writing now. 
 Lucy and I had been close chums. In a low strained 
 voice she asked me certain questions. The things I had 
 heard from boys and men had not included this part of 
 it but I answered what I could. Then there fell long 
 silences. I got up and moved restlessly about. Lucy sat 
 motionless by the lamp. . . . Death! What a smash 
 ing blow to poor Dad! . . . No, Steve could take care 
 of this. . . . "The stable boy." ... I smiled at that 
 ^-then cursed myself for smiling. "What a damned 
 hard thing for a woman it is. What a queer mysteri 
 ous thing life is." . . . Lucy drew a quivering breath. 
 I glanced at her. Like a flash came the thought : "She ll 
 
22 BLIND 
 
 go through a night like this herself I* And a lump rose 
 sharply in my throat. She looked so slender, a mere 
 kid. Then she looked up and smiled at me, and the lamp 
 showed her face was wet with tears. 
 
 It was dawn when we heard the child s first cry; and 
 the light was still dim in the room when Steve s tall 
 awkward powerful form loomed in the open doorway. 
 
 "It s all right now," he said. "A girl." 
 
 We had both come close to him, and I noticed again 
 Lucy s big eager eyes. 
 
 "Oh, wonderful!" she whispered. A slight answer 
 ing gleam passed over his face. With a little smile he 
 turned to me: 
 
 "Your father wants coffee and so do I. Will you see 
 to it? Have it sent upstairs." 
 
 He squared his shoulders as though they ached, and 
 went back to his patient. Lucy sat down and began to 
 cry, smiling blissfully all the while. 
 
 About two hours later, the New York specialist ar 
 rived; and he lost no time In revealing to us just how 
 petty and how mean a big specialist could be. When he 
 heard the good news, he was plainly peeved. He roused 
 Aunt Fanny out of a sound sleep to examine her and 
 with an expression of grave concern he prescribed a 
 course of treatment to repair the "serious damage" done. 
 He talked to Dad and the nurse he had brought. Steve 
 he ignored completely. I remember the hard smile of 
 disillusionment and disgust that came over the face of my 
 chum. He went home to the village to get some sleep, 
 and I found him there in the afternoon in the yard 
 behind his father s house. He was lying on his back in 
 the grass staring grimly at the clusters of crab-apples 
 over his head. He spoke little, but the few things he 
 said showed me a side of him I had not known. With 
 Steve I had learned to fish and swim, hunt, use an axe 
 or hammer or saw, cook in the open, sleep out at night, 
 
BLIND 23 
 
 ride a horse, be friends with a horse. I had known him as 
 honest, shrewd and kind, plucky, cool and practical, with 
 a dry humor living his life. But by what he said that 
 afternoon, I was given vaguely to feel something deeper 
 in him, which I did not clearly understand. 
 
 Living alone with his father, day by day and year by 
 year he had seen the Christianity which his parent 
 preached in church come up against life in the village 
 and, as he put it "kind of bounce back." Life had 
 seemed the more real of the two; and because Steve liked 
 real things he had stuck to life and dropped religion. 
 This had opened a gap between father and son. Later 
 his medical studies had cleared up many things in his 
 mind. Here the facts of life were explored and shown 
 up in a cold clear light. And because for all his keen 
 practical thinking, Steve was an idealist with much of 
 the old Puritan left deep down inside of him, he had 
 made a new religion of Science. In his first years at 
 the medical school, working on a schedule of from five 
 o clock in the morning till eleven or twelve at night, he 
 had felt himself become a part of this hard clear world 
 of realities. Already he had dreams of New York and a 
 hospital appointment. He looked to the big men there 
 as gods. . . . And now one of these gods had been petty 
 and mean ! In the new religion, as in the old, again the 
 disillusionment. 
 
 Grimly he lay there in the grass and gave me rough 
 intimations of this in brief and blunt disjointed remarks. 
 Then my father came into sight around the corner of 
 the house. 
 
 "Hello, boys." He came over and stood looking down 
 at Steve. "Don t get up you ve earned a rest." There 
 was a quizzical look on Dad s face. "You re learning 
 things, eh? All big men have queer little streaks, and 
 show em at times. As to last night well, I don t claim 
 to be a doctor, but I have a kind of a feeling that a 
 
24 BLIND 
 
 woman s life was saved by a clean splendid piece of 
 work. Here s your first fee, son may there be 
 many more. And remember, if ever you need a boost, 
 that I m a fellow you once helped. I don t want to for 
 get it and never will. In the meantime, you had better 
 drop your job and take a rest before you go back to 
 college." 
 
 At this I shot a quick look up at Dad. For as clearly 
 as though he had told me I knew that this was my young 
 stepmother s idea. "The stable boy" must disappear. 
 
 "Coming, Larry?" 
 
 "No. Not yet." 
 
 I wanted to stay and see that check. It was for a 
 thousand dollars. Steve s dream of a career in New 
 York drew suddenly so close and real that for a few 
 moments he did not speak. Silently our youngster minds 
 went back together over the night, and the curious com 
 pounding of reality and sham, of mystery, of agony and 
 of grim irony in it all. 
 
 "Life sure is queer," said Steve at last. 
 
 "You bet it is," I answered. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 1. 
 
 IT was not until three years later that Steve and I 
 came together again. 
 
 I had a great time at college a wonderful time, all 
 by itself. I did little work; I was neither a student nor 
 was I one of those intense and important chaps who 
 rush about from morning till night engaged in the busi 
 ness of college athletics, the Yale News, the glee club 
 and class politics but I lived in them all. I gave sage 
 advice; I listened and talked; I smoked and gossiped 
 half the night. I fairly basked in the joy of those years 
 "gliding smoothly swiftly by." Why then did I 
 break away at the beginning of senior year? 
 
 Mainly because of my father. I could feel that Dad 
 was planning to have me go to work in his mills, and 
 I meant to get ahead of him, and go on a paper in New 
 York. I felt that I had it in me to write. In college I 
 read hungrily, hit or miss, all kinds of short stories, 
 novels and plays. But to sit down like an earnest young 
 soul and wrestle with the art of writing did not appeal 
 to me in the least. All well enough for a girl or a poet. 
 For me a real man-sized job on a paper. To jump in 
 and be made to write, to feel myself part of a big 
 machine, learn at first hand the life of the town, grow 
 wise as a serpent, swift as a hawk, dash off copy, swoop 
 about ! This glamorous picture was filled in by the many 
 trips I made to New York. 
 
 On these train rides to the city, slouching comfortably 
 down into a seat of the "smoker," I would stare out of 
 the window, smiling expectantly to myself over the night 
 
 25 
 
26 BLIND 
 
 that was waiting ahead. A gloomy rainy afternoon 
 would only increase my anticipation. As my train rushed 
 smoothly on, over the sodden darkening landscape I 
 would watch impatiently for the glow of the city lights. 
 . . . Not that there was anything very wild about my 
 adventures there. My father gave me plenty of money, 
 and vaguely I felt that he rather believed in sowing the 
 wild oats while you are young. But although I saw 
 wild oats enough oats as wild as oats could be I 
 sowed about me little or nothing but the keen shrewd 
 smiling looks of a youngster very rapidly and self-con 
 sciously growing "wise to the town." I was a good fel 
 low and stuck with the gang; in many awful places I 
 breathed delightedly, "God, this is life!" and then 
 went home and slept like a top. For I was a chap with 
 the habit of almost always putting things off even dissi 
 pations and my glad existence was like one long train 
 ride to me, bright with whirling glimpses of the life I 
 was to lead. 
 
 That this would be unhampered by any lack of ready 
 cash was now a pleasing certainty. The solid old Park 
 Avenue house where my father lived with his gorgeous 
 young wife, left no doubt in my mind as to that. Money, 
 position, dinners, dances, week-end parties and the like 
 these were plainly in the picture. All very nice and 
 cozy. But I would not be a snob, nor would I be 
 inveigled by some sweet confiding girl into marriage 
 before my time. No sir, I proposed to get this whole 
 great thriller of a town into the picture before I was 
 through. A mixer and a democrat. A rebel against 
 I didn t know what but a rebel all right! 
 
 Back at college, in one of my rebel moods, I created 
 a terrible scandal one night. There were several secret 
 societies there, the pillars of our college life. So sacred 
 were their meetings, which came every Wednesday 
 night, that after leaving the secret halls the members 
 
BLIND 27 
 
 were bound by fearful oaths to utter no word again that 
 evening either to each other or to> any humbler mortal. 
 Solemnly in derby hats they paraded, those great broth 
 erhoods, from their halls to the dormitories where they 
 bade each other a silent goodnight. So much for the 
 gods. Now for the fiend. From a blacksmith I pro 
 cured an enormous chain and padlock, and with this 
 one Wednesday night I chained and locked the iron 
 gates at the entrance to the court of our largest dormi 
 tory. The rumor spread. Heads came out of windows; 
 eyes looked expectantly up the street. And here came 
 the first batch of Olympians, arm in arm, in their derby 
 hats. They came to the gate and silently stopped. How 
 to get to their rooms? In pantomime they tried to con 
 sult, and one of them went for the janitor. Another 
 brotherhood hove in sight and another and another; 
 and as they all stood waiting there, chuckles were heard 
 from the windows above, and a drunken senior leaning 
 out kept asking the most sympathetic questions as to 
 their awful plight. Majestic silence. The janitor came. 
 More gestures. Off he went for an axe. More chuckles, 
 and advice from the senior. College tradition crumbling 
 fast. When the janitor returned, my padlock proved too 
 stout for his axe; and now the chuckles waxed and 
 swelled into ribald peals of mirth. One by one the out 
 raged gods climbed in through lower windows and 
 sneaked quickly to their rooms. Busted was their holi 
 ness! Social positions gone to pot! With several "boon 
 companions I feasted joyously that night. 
 
 And as I was a rebel in college, so I was one in New 
 York. When my affable young stepmother offered to 
 entertain for me, I declined. I had not come to town for 
 mere conventional affairs. When Lucy was home from 
 boarding school I would take her to the theatre, and 
 then to some remote cafe for a forbidden Bohemian 
 feast that made my sister s eyes grow round. There 
 
28 BLIND 
 
 was no end to the devil in me. I took her one night 
 behind the scenes at a musical show where I had a 
 friend, an enormous man at whose rubicund visage the 
 whole city rocked with mirth. I had other friends, an 
 astonishing lot, but I can barely recall them now. A 
 stout old actress lady and a slim young one from 
 Detroit, a scene shifter at Weber and Fields who was a 
 Christian Scientist, and a police reporter "Pop Jehos- 
 ophat" he was called a dark featured, stout, good- 
 natured Jew. I met him in the nick of time when I 
 sorely needed aid for a friend who had unharnessed a 
 horse from a cab and was trying very earnestly to ride 
 the beast into a cafe. I had Pop down to college several 
 times in the following year, and hungrily learned about 
 life on a paper. Yes, a newspaper job for me! 
 
 But I loved college life and I drifted on, and I m not 
 at all sure that I would not have drifted on into my 
 father s mills, if it had not been for an uncanny scare 
 that I got one October night. It had nothing to do with 
 my plan, and yet it gave me the jerk and the shock that 
 I still needed to pry me loose. 
 
 To the theatre in our college town there came one 
 Saturday evening a hypnotist, whose performance inter 
 ested me so keenly that with a few companions I took 
 him later to my rooms, where he used his psychic power 
 on two or three of our number. When he left he turned 
 to me and said, 
 
 "My young friend, I am convinced that all I do you 
 can do yourself. You have rare powers in my line." 
 
 This was a fascinating thought. And on the follow 
 ing evening, with four or five fellows in my room, I 
 selected a slender delicate chap and fixing him with a 
 ferocious, stare I launched into the world of masic. At 
 first I had little or no success, but after a few minutes I 
 saw his eves grow fixed and queer, his body rigid as 
 a post. What next? I grew uneasy. In a voice a bit 
 
BLIND 29 
 
 unsteady I told him to wake up, I was through. But 
 not a glimmer in those eyes. They were glassy as death. 
 What had I done? To what mysterious region had I 
 consigned this chap I loved? I looked at my friends. 
 They were silent, uneasy, all remote. This was my job 
 all up to me ! And what knowledge had I to guide me 
 here? For all I knew he might stay in this state for days 
 might even die of it ! To call in a doctor might easily 
 mean my expulsion from college. Besides, I thought 
 excitedly, a doctor could do nothing now. I had got 
 him into this and I alone could get him out! Suddenly 
 I felt the sweat trickling down my temples. I, who was 
 a mixer, had mixed this fellow s will and mine and 
 made a beastly mess of it. I owned him owned him 
 body and soul! I felt weak, exhausted, faint. "Cold 
 feet! Come on now, be a man!" I glared at him and 
 gripped his hands and kept repeating, "Come out of 
 this, Danny come out of this now!" At last with a 
 rush of relief I saw the eyes in front of me change and 
 glimmer, grow alive. A few moments more and he was 
 out, while I sank limply into a chair. 
 
 "Never again," I vowed that night, "will I monkey 
 with this kind of thing." 
 
 A weird little incident, you may say, but hardly 
 enough to change a man s life. I reply that I was not a 
 man but a half-baked youngster drifting- alone; and that 
 until you yourself have had the uncanny sense of abso 
 lute power and loneliness I experienced then, you can 
 be no judee of its effect. That nifht I took a long, long 
 walk, and my thoughts had grown amazingly clear. 
 What did I really want in life? To go on a paper, only 
 that. And much as Dad might want me to go to work 
 in his tiresome mills, his wish was not half so intense as 
 mine. He had his own life to absorb him. This was my 
 life, mine alone. Back with a rush came the memory of 
 how desperately alone I had felt in the incident of a few 
 
30 BLIND 
 
 hours before. Those other chaps in the room how 
 remote they might have been millions of miles away. 
 Each one of us riding his planet through space. All 
 right then, no more drifting! Ride! 
 
 The following week-end I went home to Aunt Amelia 
 to get her advice. From the start she had warmly 
 approved of my plan to become a writer. "Oh, Larry, 
 dear," she had told me, "that s what I have wanted to 
 do all my life !" With her help now I got Dad s consent. 
 I went back to New Haven and spent a few days, during 
 which more than once I was sorely tempted to let things 
 slide and go on as before. But I had already committed 
 myself. My friend Pop had found me a job. And a week 
 later, in New York, I went on his paper as a cub. 
 
 2. 
 
 Then for long weeks I failed and failed, and I was 
 filled with a grim dismay. My wise knowledge of the 
 city melted as I rushed about. What a boundless laby 
 rinth of a town. What scurrying millions of men and 
 women, half of them barely speaking English. What 
 dull faces greeted me, what suspicious, cautious eyes. 
 How to get the facts when out on a story? How to 
 untangle the truth from the lies ? How to write it how 
 to write? ... I sat at a long narrow table, the edge of 
 it notched and whittled deep. Around me was the click 
 and hum of machines, and doors kept slamming, and 
 men bustled in and out. Piles of paper lay knee deep, 
 and at times a boy would push it down through an enor 
 mous hole in the floor. This floor shook and rumbled. 
 Desperately I tried to write. But when I handed in my 
 story at the city editor s desk, that terrible man with 
 his hard brown eyes would either pencil it up with a 
 sneer or worse, he would shout savagely to some other 
 member of the staff, 
 
 "Here, Billy, write this for Christ s sake!" 
 
BLIND 31 
 
 Deep and utter gloom for me. Weddings, funerals 
 and the like soon became my daily lot, until I loathed 
 the very thought of marrying or dying. At intervals 
 I would get a chance at a suicide or a burglary. Eagerly 
 I would let myself out. Blandly he would cut me down 
 to a "stick" or a tiny paragraph and look at me 
 hopelessly. My rebel instinct saved me then. Was he 
 always right, I always wrong? No, by God, and I 
 would show him! Feverishly I hunted the town. To 
 wring out of its coldness warm living stuff and get it 
 past that editor s desk, I worked at all hours, grew thin 
 as a rail. And then, when I was almost done, the gods 
 were suddenly kind to me. 
 
 On the street one afternoon I met my old friend, 
 Steve McCrea. While in college I had occasionally 
 looked him up in his hospital here, but in these last des 
 perate weeks I had found no time for friends. As we 
 stood together now, in response to his questions about 
 my work, I tried to put a good face on it. But watching 
 me in his shrewd quiet way, Steve laid his hand on 
 my shoulder. 
 
 "The place for you, my son, is in bed." 
 
 I protested. Though I had been feeling infernally 
 sick for the last few days, I was crossly determined not 
 to give in. 
 
 "You ll have to, though." He felt my pulse. "If you 
 won t go home, come along with me." 
 
 Despite my further protests he took me to his hospital 
 and put me to bed in a private room. That evening in a 
 quiet talk he got the full truth out of me. Then he 
 said, 
 
 "All right, you re making good." To my look of 
 surprise he answered, "You ve found that any job 
 worth while is like a cat s claws at the start. You ve 
 stood the scratching and come through. I ll bet you re 
 through the worst of it. Forget it now and take a rest." 
 
32 BLIND 
 
 These words from Steve were like a drink of cool clear 
 water to me then, and he followed it up by telling me 
 about his own experience. At the start he, . too, had 
 found it hard. In the hospital the pace was terrific 
 everyone was overworked; and finding Steve, the tall 
 young giant, only too ready to lend a hand, some of the 
 other internes began to load their work on him. He 
 slept in snatches. Over his cot was a loud bell that 
 roused him by its call for help at any hour, day or night. 
 In that small world with its acrid smells, its silent and 
 unending struggle with the claws of death, he led a 
 weird absorbing life. In a whirl they passed, those first 
 swift weeks; and then like a smashing blow in the face 
 one night came the realization that he had blundered 
 with his knife. A man lay dead, through his mistake. 
 The nurse said nothing. Did she know? He went back 
 to his bed and lay in the dark. "I nearly quit my job 
 that night." But he pulled himself together. And now 
 as he watched he realized that he was not alone in his 
 blunder. In the gossip of the place he heard of other 
 mistakes in plenty. Young internes flippant, over 
 worked. Free patients always pouring in, many so hys 
 terical that you had to hold em down. Some couldn t 
 speak English. How to get answers, things that you 
 must learn like a flash? Guess and let it go at that. 
 Couldn t always be careful, day and night, sleep or no 
 sleep. Why didn t the city pay more for the job? In 
 those days, as orderlies they were still using convicts 
 from Blackwell s Island often drunk. Bedlam would 
 break loose in the wards. What a hospital what a 
 town! What a science struggling on in the dark! 
 
 Steve was "riding the ambulance" now. On breath 
 less August evenings, on freezing January nights, the 
 ambulance answered calls for help from the Tenderloin, 
 from the theatre crush, from big hotels, dark tenements, 
 or from the ships along the docks. And back it came 
 
BLIND 33 
 
 with inanimate forms in which was locked the stuff of 
 life its comedies, its tragedies, crimes and vices, 
 schemes and dreams, devotions and delusions now 
 silent and now jibbering. Often the driver beat up his 
 horse, for it was a disgrace in the hospital world not to 
 bring in your man alive. If he died on the way you 
 were met with jeers. 
 
 A hard cynical streak developed in Steve as he grew 
 wise to the great town. The old feeling of disillusion* 
 ment? Yes. But the worst of it was over. For each 
 life he lost, he saved a score. He had exceptional hands 
 for the knife, and attracted the notice of his chiefs. As 
 the months went on he began to see that, despite the 
 blunders and mistakes, there was hard clean work for 
 the most part here; and at times a miracle was per 
 formed that made a man bow down to his science and 
 dream dreams of all it could do. Death had scratched 
 her bloodiest. Steve could feel himself getting on. 
 
 He did not tell me all this at the time, but in bits he 
 gave me enough of it to accomplish his purpose to 
 make me feel that my own little struggle was nothing to 
 be so intense and solemn about, that I was but one of 
 the thousands from all over the U. S. A. and even 
 from across the sea who every day and every night 
 poured into the city to fight for a place. Fuel for 
 the furnace but we were young. And I was through 
 the worst of it. Though I had no proof what 
 ever of this, I had a certainty that it was so. Some 
 thing tight in my head relaxed, and in my quick 
 reaction I became a convalescent so genial that to my 
 bedside came internes, nurses, orderlies. For here is a 
 secret of hospital life. A laugh is quickly multiplied. To 
 any room where a laugh is heard come people from all 
 over the building. So a hospital keeps itself sane. 
 
 My brief illness at an end, although back at work on 
 the paper, I put in every spare hour here; for it seemed 
 
34 BLIND 
 
 to me that I had turned up the rich new vein of human 
 stuff for which I had been searching glimpses from 
 this angle back deep into the life of the town, into the 
 stories that lay behind the fights and the murders, the 
 feuds of gangs and the wild sprees of roisterers come 
 to this city from ranch and plain; the lonely suicides in 
 hotels or down along the river front, the rescues, the 
 heroics of life savers of all kinds. I made my sketches 
 brief and rough, but in them was the glamor with 
 which I was looking on life in those days. My editor 
 was not enthused. 
 
 "Death has been done to death," he remarked. 
 
 But I was not to be discouraged. Old or new, this 
 was fresh to me. In a month or so, on an inside page 
 he gave me a column "Behind the Knife." And by 
 degrees he assigned to me those bigger stories actual 
 news celebrities of diverse kinds, men and women, 
 rich and poor, who for countless human reasons killed 
 or stabbed or poisoned or tossed lightly out of windows 
 their own bodies or those of their friends. The hos 
 pitable hospital gathered them in and patched them up 
 for appearance in court, while big policemen sat by 
 their beds, and through my pen the ravenous town was 
 fed the stories of their lives. Doctors and nurses helped 
 me with what they called my "headline patients." In 
 return I had nothing but praise for their work. And 
 as for Steve, I dragged into my yarns the name of "that 
 brilliant young surgeon, McCrea," until the hospital 
 authorities learned of it and called a halt. Sternly Steve 
 forbade me to give him more publicity. 
 
 "All right," I agreed with a cheerful grin. "But why 
 are all good doctors snobs? Here I hang your doctor s 
 sign where it can be seen all over the town ; and all I get 
 for it is a Stop when the thing you ought to do at 
 once is to run a daily ad in our sheet to take full advan 
 tage of what I have done." 
 
BLIND 35 
 
 He gave me then the calm disdain of a surgeon and a 
 scientist, but I smiled back with the hardened eyes of a 
 cynical old reporter. For I was a real journalist 
 now. When college chums came down to town, I took 
 them about and sagely talked and made them feel how 
 I had grown. A deeper wider mixer, aged twenty-one, t 
 tall, stoop shouldered, homely, lank, with a ridiculous 
 little moustache and a voice even deeper than before 
 entranced with my freedom I ranged the town and 
 burned the candle at both ends. I was an omniverous 
 reader. Kipling was my favorite, but I read a lot of 
 trash as well. Reaching home about one in the morn 
 ing and reading in bed w r hen I knew very well that I 
 should have been sleeping, I would scowl at the admon 
 ishing hands of my precise old fool of a clock, and light 
 ing my pipe again read on. Breakfast in bed at eleven 
 and down to my paper about noon. So the crowded 
 winter passed, and by spring I was nearly ready again 
 for a bed in Steve s hospital. 
 
 Moreover, Dad was worried about me. More than 
 I had realized, he was following my work. He had 
 told himself that he hoped I would fail, but uncon 
 sciously he had backed me to win, and when I first began 
 to make good, his relief and satisfaction were almost as 
 great as mine. In a casual way I would point out a story 
 of mine in the paper. Casually he would glance it 
 through and make some jocose remark. But his pride 
 was plain to see. Later, however, as he saw my little 
 successes go to my head, he grew worried over the life 
 I was leading. He sized me up as the sort of lad who 
 might very easily, some fine day, wake up and find him 
 self married to one of those young Broadway birds who 
 swoop at the sons of millionaires. I was the son of J. 
 Carrington Hart, and a very cocky son at that, gaily 
 accepting every smile as a tribute to my own beaux 
 yeux instead of my father s bank account. Moreover,, 
 
36 BLIND 
 
 at best, my drinking and smoking and talking and writ 
 ing were wearing this lank body of mine down to 
 nothing but skin and bone. 
 
 And having heard me speak often of Steve, my father 
 turned to him for help. They had a talk about my case. 
 Aunt Amelia was in it, too; and if Dad still had an idea 
 of my taking a job in his mills, that hope was promptly 
 killed by my aunt. 
 
 "He wouldn t consider it," she declared, "and I don t 
 see why on earth he should. He has made a fine start 
 and he ought to go on. All he needs is someone to 
 steady him." 
 
 She suggested to Steve that when he left the hospital 
 in June, he and I should try living together awhile. 
 Steve agreed, and went on to tell of an offer he 
 had had from his chief. John Bannard, the big surgeon, 
 was a pioneer in the health crusades through which, 
 back in the Nineties, medical men were just beginning 
 to tackle this great yowling cat of a town. He had pro 
 posed that under his guidance Steve should spend the 
 following year down in a crowded tenement block, and 
 make a careful survey of the ravages of T. B. which is 
 short for Tuberculosis. Steve had- agreed, and he felt 
 now that the idea of living with him there would appeal 
 to my hungry writer s soul, and that a look into that 
 grim world might tone down my exuberance. My 
 father was against it at first, for "the slums" were con 
 nected with strikes in his mind; but Aunt Amelia stoutly 
 declared that a good hard honest look at the poor could 
 do no harm to anyone. A writer should learn the whole 
 truth about life. Then she brought Dickens into the 
 talk, and when she saw that this idea was making quite 
 an appeal to Dad she followed it up by dwelling upon 
 Steve s steadying influence. In the end my father gave 
 in, and my aunt went home to Seven Pines with visions 
 of "Oliver Twist" in her head. May the gods reward her 
 
BLIND 37 
 
 for that day. For although I never became a novelist, as 
 she had dreamed, the year that I spent in that tenement 
 block did more to fill in the picture for me than anything 
 else in my whole life the picture of humanity groping, 
 struggling, surging on to war and revolution. 
 
 One night not long after that, Steve had me to dinner 
 with his chief; and to us youngsters Bannard talked of 
 the changes he saw coming. He spoke of the rush to our 
 cities and towns of people from all over the earth, of the 
 unbelievable crowding here and the sharp restlessness, 
 discontent, the growth of wealth, the swiftly awakening 
 bitterness among the poor. To head it off, each had his 
 part. On us both he urged that while we were still young 
 and free we go down to the tenements and find out for 
 ourselves what was there. 
 
 "You won t find it very gloomy," he smiled. "You ll 
 find it full of all the queerest sparks of human nature. 
 Take it in and keep your heads. You ll meet a lot of 
 wild ideas. Duck them. Try and stick to facts. For the 
 facts have in em the power that will shake the world 
 one of these days." 
 
 Gripped by curiosity, I was more than ready to agree. 
 And Steve and I began to plan for the next big chapter 
 in our lives. 
 
 3. 
 
 That summer I got a month s leave from my paper and 
 came to Seven Pines for a rest. In the meantime Steve 
 had finished his course and came back to the village for 
 his first vacation in years. Aunt Amelia welcomed him 
 to the house, and eagerly she entered into our plans for 
 the coming year. After the months I had just spent in 
 the dizzy fascinating town, it was good to be back in 
 this rambling house of brick and frame that I knew so 
 well. Though vaguely aware that its traditions and the 
 things it stood for were now rapidly passing away, still 
 
38 BLIND 
 
 the stout planks I felt under my feet gave me a sense 
 that despite all change and innovation the essential spirit 
 dwelling here was not dead but living in the land. Exactly 
 what that spirit was, I could not have put into words. 
 Democracy in work and play let everyone prove the 
 stuff that was in him. Religion but no rigid dogma. 
 Tolerance, openmindedness, zest and hunger for new 
 things but a deep sentiment for the old. Generous 
 thoughts and feelings. A canny shrewdness, a ready 
 laugh. Of such elements the spirit of this house and this 
 woman had been made. No average woman. She was 
 one of those whose names are scarcely ever seen in print 
 but whose influence is felt by hundreds. Every one of us 
 has known a few of these great Americans. Aunt Amelia 
 was one of mine. 
 
 We talked to her by the hour now or rather, Steve 
 sat listening and throwing in a word at times, while I 
 did the talking for us both. With what fresh vital interest 
 she fed the expectancy in each of us as we looked 
 ahead up the opening vistas of our lives. What a listener, 
 what a friend for all young people and their plans! . . . 
 And yet my aunt was growing old. In speaking of the 
 crowded slums she gave us her cure for the troubles there. 
 Clean out the cities, send such people out to the prairies 
 and the farms to build free splendid lives for themselves 
 and for their children. But while she spoke, with a 
 twinge of regret as at something gone out of my life, 
 I felt that the West of her distant youth was already for 
 the most part filled, that the cities and towns so rapidly 
 growing marked a new stage in our national life, and 
 that my aunt s religion was quickly being left behind. 
 
 Even here, this summer would see perhaps the last 
 reunion of those she had reared. Soon Dorothy, who was 
 twelve years old, would be the only one left of us all 
 Aunt Amelia s children. Did she feel it, too? She gave 
 no sign; but from Dorothy I learned how her mother 
 
BLIND 39 
 
 and she had excitedly made ready for our coming. If this 
 were to be the last long gathering, she was resolved it 
 should be a success. 
 
 We were the first comers, Steve and I. For a week 
 we had the stage to ourselves, and then my cousin Ed 
 arrived. Twenty years old, a stolid good-humored bull 
 of a youngster, looking as though he belonged out of 
 doors already he had finished his course at the agricul 
 tural college in the quiet town in Wisconsin where his 
 mother had lived as a girl. In a few months more he 
 would make his start on a ranch belonging to one of his 
 uncles. As he spoke of this and she watched him, I 
 thought I saw in his mother s face a twinge of realization 
 and wistful regret. "Young man go west." He was 
 one of the last in that mighty migration of which her 
 own youth had been a part. A new era of crowded cities 
 was here, with new standards, dreams, ideals or rather, 
 no strong new ideals old anchors loosed and everything 
 changing, all in a stage of transition now. 
 
 My sister Lucy was like that. In her nothing was 
 settled, nothing sure. Restless, temperamental, gay, 
 demanding and receiving attention everywhere she went 
 when she arrived at Seven Pines she at once took the 
 center of the stage. Lucy was now twenty years old 
 dark, slender, undeveloped still, with big eyes and mobile 
 features, subtle transformations that were always puzzling 
 me. Now for the smallest reason she would be ready to 
 flash out and we would fight like cats and dogs; again 
 she was all sisterly love and we would have long quiet 
 talks. She lived most of the winter in New York; and 
 loving Dad, she was jealous and unjust to his wife; but 
 in vain she tried to make her the stepmother of the story 
 books. Aunt Fanny was so decent to Lucy, getting her 
 clothes and "bringing her out," giving dinners and dances 
 for her friends that in spite of her hostility, Lucy 
 modelled after her in a way that made me smile. Saga- 
 
40 BLIND 
 
 ciously I told myself that now I had my sister placed. 
 But after going about like mad to dinners and dances 
 for two years, she began to get sick of it, restless again. 
 She loved to come out to Seven Pines, and here I found 
 a different girl, modelled on Aunt Amelia lines. She 
 would have serious talks with our aunt, and she would 
 take long rides with me. Young Dorothy adored her, 
 and Lucy loved to be adored. She was sensitive to what 
 people thought I mean if she really cared for them. 
 And here with her aunt and her cousin, their adoration 
 and belief brought out the best things in her. 
 
 Now again she came under the spell of the house, and 
 her coming brought an instant change. She was the one 
 we had waited for to start this last reunion, this last 
 gathering while we were young. Each of us felt that 
 very soon he would be almost hopelessly old. We must 
 make the most of life while it lasted ! And make the most 
 of it we did. Deep tides and streams of gaiety now 
 joyous, swift, now deliciously slow were felt all over 
 this happy old house. There was indoor baseball out 
 in front, under the wide spreading elms, and tennis four 
 somes, tournaments, swims in the river, rides and drives 
 to the county fair and to dances in the houses upon the 
 surrounding hills. Various friends of ours arrived. The 
 house was packed till it creaked and sighed. I recall a 
 tennis game at night which was a little idea of my own. 
 With phosphorus on the tennis balls, back and forth they 
 flew like stars. Shrieks and breathless voices. Mid 
 night supper in the house. "There s to be some punch to 
 this party !" I vowed, and I went to the piano. "Put out 
 the lights!" I shouted. We had a cotillion in the dark! 
 
 And there were sunset picnics on the rocks down by 
 the Sound, with a huge bonfire there which as night drew 
 on sent fiery messages up to the stars. A scene for seri 
 ous "two-some" talks and songs, good old ones yes, 
 God help me, songs of my day, "before the war," None 
 
BLIND 41 
 
 of this jazz or ragtime. For dances, Sousa two-steps; 
 for sentiment, Seeing Nelly Home. Then there was Danc 
 ing at Oddfellow s Hall, and Suwanee River, Old Black 
 Joe and Oh, That Little Old Red Shawl. What is there 
 now to take their place ? I have wonderful ears for hear 
 ing, in these silent nights alone; and often when the 
 honk and thunder of an automobile has passed, I seem 
 to hear a more leisurely sound, compounded of the thud 
 of hoofs, the rattle of wheels, the strum of guitars and 
 a rich swelling harmony of gay singing voices Unreal 
 and ghostly. That is gone. 
 
 But enough of my sentimental ears! In those days, 
 when her mother would let her, young Dorothy who 
 was as round as before, a stout little girl curly headed 
 and blonde, with an anxious air of enormous importance 
 eagerly trailed after us. With Lucy she adored to 
 have long joyous talks in corners. The two would 
 whisper and giggle till you would have thought them 
 both of an age. And emerging from such confabs, 
 Dorothy s shining vivid blue eyes would eagerly rove 
 from her cousin to every young man in the room. Not 
 a sign of a romance yet, but she watched on excitedly. 
 
 I had not had a chance at Lucy alone, but both of us 
 knew that before very long we would certainly take a 
 long ride together. It had to be done. We never missed. 
 And so, one lovely afternoon, we mounted our horses, 
 (gifts from Dad) for a twenty mile ride back through 
 the hills. And after a few good canters, we walked our 
 horses and we talked. 
 
 At first we spoke of the giddy dance Aunt Fanny was 
 leading poor old Dad. She was getting ready, Lucy said, 
 to make him build in Newport soon. I snorted. Things 
 were getting pretty rotten in this country. Steve was one 
 of the last of those who could fight their way up from 
 the bottom, I said, and the masses were all getting sore. 
 Strikes and slums and anarchists and on top, the mil- 
 
42 BLIND 
 
 lionaires. Look at us. From Aunt Amelia s home, which 
 was the good old American stuff, where were we going? 
 I to the slums. Lucy to the society crowd. 
 
 That s America," I said gloomily. Then Lucy s voice 
 with a chilling note: 
 
 "You talk as though I liked it." 
 
 "Like what?" I had forgotten her. I was thinking of 
 what a great writer I d be. How I would thunder at it 
 all! My sister answered sharply. 
 
 "The life I have back there in town." 
 
 "You do like it." 
 
 Angry silence. Then she gave a sudden laugh. 
 
 "How young you are!" 
 
 I started frowned. 
 
 "I am, am I?" 
 
 "Very!" 
 
 "How am I?" 
 
 This started a long discussion on what we meant by 
 being young. Steve was dragged in. He was twenty- 
 seven. I seemed "a mere child" beside him, she said. I 
 asked her to prove it. We analyzed Steve and then Aunt 
 Amelia. She would always be young, we agreed. We 
 analyzed ourselves and the nation youthfully and 
 solemnly and came back to the fact that we were young. 
 
 Then Lucy gave her horse a cut and we raced joyously 
 down the road. Around a turn we met a steam roller. 
 Both horses swerved and Lucy was thrown. In a farmer s 
 buggy I took her home. She had broken her arm, and 
 Steve set it that evening, while she clinched her teeth 
 and smiled. Once or twice she whispered, "Damn!" 
 Even to a brother she looked rather oeautiful and Steve 
 was having no easy cirpe. When he hurt her, he went 
 rather white; though he kept smiling all the while and 
 talking in a low steady voice. He had not been much 
 with Lucy here. All that he had heard from me about 
 her giddy doings in town had made her a figure so 
 
BLIND 43 
 
 remote from the hospital world in which he lived. This 
 sudden intimacy was a jolt. And Lucy made the most 
 of it. In the days that followed, she took a devilish delight 
 in this doctor-and-patient business. She treated him with 
 a deep respect, mischievous flashes in her eyes. And 
 poor old Steve was taking it hard. Despite his friendly 
 casual tone and the jokes with which he tried to< meet 
 that maddening deference of hers, I could feel he was 
 swearing under his breath. 
 
 I was not the only observer. Young Dorothy looked 
 eagerly on. Not a word or a look or a quiver escaped 
 her. Breathlessly she confided to me that the two were 
 "madly in love with each other. I m positive perfectly 
 positive!" And off she pranced to peek through the 
 door After this, she made herself just as helpful as she 
 could be. Anxiously, before he came, she would suggest 
 to Lucy what gown to wear, a brooch, a ribbon, a new 
 way of doing her hair. She would do this in the most 
 casual way. And by merest accident, too, she would 
 meet Steve upon the stairs and abruptly she would drop 
 remarks. She was at her piano practice one afternoon 
 when he arrived and at once she began to play, "Drink 
 to Me Only With Thine Eyes." In brief, she encour 
 aged this affair with a conspicuous secrecy that told the 
 very trees outside, "They are madly in love with each 
 other!" Lucy, of course, was highly amused, and even 
 encouraged the fat little imp. Steve shortened his visits 
 to the house. 
 
 But when her arm was out of the cast, Lucy all of a 
 sudden grew very nice and friendly. She asked Steve to 
 stay to supper, and she insisted until he gave in. Aunt 
 Amelia was away and Dorothy was sent to bed. And 
 giving us coffee in front of the fire, in the most friendly 
 way in the world she inquired about our plans, what 
 vkind of a place we were going to live in, just how we 
 meant to furnish the rooms and get our meals. She 
 
44 BLIND 
 
 laughed at our answers, called us "poor lambs," and 
 offered to help. She became serious, talked of Steve s 
 work and grew sympathetic, much impressed at the 
 thought of the lives he would help to save. And she did 
 it nicely, sensibly. She threw no embarrassing halo about 
 him. Instead, she envied him his job and contrasted his 
 life with her own. Without saying too much, she made 
 him feel how discontented she was with her life, made 
 him feel her warm and intimate, with a beauty and a 
 temperament such as he had never known. She played 
 the devil with poor Steve. 
 
 And she left the next day for a house party over on 
 Long Island. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 1. 
 
 I AM finding that this book of mine, a crowded, rest 
 less narrative, is to turn this way and that, its personal 
 figures seized upon by influences from outside, its story 
 often left on the road while it wanders into enormous 
 fields of life for certain memories which in my present 
 state of mind take hold upon my interest. So in this 
 chapter it will be. 
 
 Down into "the slums" to live for a year. There was 
 "punch" to that. I was twenty-one. What did I know 
 of poverty? My newspaper work had given me only 
 glamorous glimpses of that long tedious desperate drama 
 which is entitled "Being Poor." But even in those callow 
 days, I did not go down to the poor to "uplift" them; 
 I went for what I considered then a perfectly good and 
 legitimate reason to dig stories out of their lives. 
 And if those stories and those lives could make me any 
 wiser to the truth about the town, I was quite ready to 
 be shown. Vaguely I had heard about the socialists and 
 anarchists. A little exploration now into something dark 
 and grim, but tense and fascinating, too. 
 
 Not to be discouraged by the tall bare tenement build 
 ings, stinking streets and dirty crowds, every hour I 
 could spare I spent in exploring the neighborhood where 
 Steve was to do his work; and toward the end of August 
 I found a promising place for our home. Our rooms 
 looked on a little square which extended down to the 
 river front, to a ferry house with wharves on each side, 
 steamers, tugs and barges, fishing schooners and "deep 
 water" sailing craft the last of their kind their great 
 
 45 
 
46 BLIND 
 
 bowsprits reaching in over the street. Here were little 
 restaurants, shops, saloons and brothels. At night weird 
 cries and songs were heard, and sometimes a shot rang 
 out. High over all reared the dark sweeping arch of the 
 Bridge against the stars. In the tenements close by were 
 people from all over the world. Seventeen nationalities 
 were packed into a single block. Here indeed was the 
 melting pot! 
 
 I had rented an old sail-loft up over a ship chandlery. 
 Under my direction, plumbers and carpenters went to 
 work; and when they got through, the dim dusty old 
 loft had become a kind of studio with a couple oi bed 
 rooms and a bath and a kitchenette built in behind. I 
 discovered a Danish woman nearby who agreed to come 
 and cook for us. To heat the studio I procured a tall 
 monster of a stove, and on the walls I hung dusky old 
 pictures of ships that I found in the neighborhood. And 
 I found ancient seamen s chests and outlandish vases, 
 strings of old ship signal flags. After the whole scene . 
 was set, I lit the lamps and then my pipe, and settled 
 down with a sigh of content. Steve said, "It ll do," and 
 went to bed. To my imprecations he called back. 
 
 "I like it, sonny damn fine place. But I m dead tired. 
 Me for the slats." 
 
 He had already begun his survey of the big tenement 
 block close by. Several generations ago, the buildings 
 there had been the homes of the "best families" in New 
 York. Now they were rotting to decay. In the small 
 yards behind them, more tenements had been built in, 
 leaving rear courts that were nothing but wells. The 
 privies were there, and bedraggled children, babies, cats, 
 and a few peevish hens. Year by year the air and sun 
 light had been crowded out of the block. The spacious 
 rooms of the old mansions had been divided long ago into 
 cramped little chambers, where T. B. germs by millions 
 thrived. In a slow deliberate accurate way Steve traced 
 
BLIND 47 
 
 the records of these rooms; and the story of each rotten 
 old flat read in his record something like this : 
 
 "1891 Sweeney family in. Man heavy drinker 
 contracted T. B. lost job family moved out. 1892 
 Harmon family in man, wife, mother and two children 
 wife contracted Pul. T. B. refused hospital child 
 T. B. Laryngitis family out. 1894 Schwartz family 
 in widower, sister and five children baby and two 
 children contracted T. B. two dead i cripple family 
 out. 1896 Giuseppi Manetti and wife bride and groom 
 wife pregnant T. B. complications mother and child 
 both died man out." 
 
 So ran these naked histories definite proofs that the 
 Great White Plague, instead of being a hopeless heredi 
 tary disease, was contracted through infection and could 
 be done away with. A message of hope and a challenge. 
 
 "Once we have driven it home," said Steve, "it s up 
 to the people to do the rest; clean out these stinking 
 tenements. I wonder if they care a damn?" Then he 
 looked at me with a bright idea. "Why don t you have 
 a try at this ? Help us reach the public mind. Take these 
 records, the dry bones, and dress em up in flesh and 
 blood. Make these little corpses talk, and tell how they 
 were murdered by the town. Write some thrillers." 
 
 And I did. I persuaded my editor that this was the 
 start of a big crusade, that our paper ought to take the 
 lead. And I spent my days and nights in the block, in 
 and out of those dark, stuffy rooms while Steve, to 
 my immense disgust, made me drink a quart of milk and 
 take a half dozen raw eggs a day. From neighbors, 
 priests, policemen, druggists, I filled in the records with 
 their memories of the dead. And I talked with the dying. 
 Nearly all of them clung to the hope that this was only 
 a common cough. Even those who lay on their beds and 
 fought for breath held on to that hope like a gleaming 
 cross till the priest arrived with the crucifix. 
 
48 BLIND 
 
 "It used to be called the Long Block," I wrote in my 
 first article. "The people call it the Lung Block now." 
 
 This was a lie, for the new name was my own inven 
 tion. But it took hold and stuck to the place, to the right 
 eous indignation of every landlord round about. My 
 stories were read by the citizens, and soon I was known 
 through the neighborhood. Promptly I was invited to 
 join the genial district club that ran the local politics; and 
 two young socialist tailors, mere boys, enticed me into 
 a cafe and there in a long fervid talk urged me to join 
 their brotherhood and free the world from slavery. But I 
 was too absorbed in this block to have time for the whole 
 world s salvation. Here were a dozen men, women and 
 kids who had become good friends of mine and were 
 slowly dying of T. B. What could I do? After much 
 trouble I secured a free bed in a hospital uptown, and 
 one afternoon I took a thin little Jewish tailor up on 
 the Third Avenue El. On the ride he was silent, he 
 looked at his hands. He had a fat wife and five children. 
 He was twenty-six years old. At the hospital when they 
 stripped him, I wished I had not stayed in the room. A 
 little skeleton, thin as a rail, skin drawn tightly over the 
 bones. 
 
 "Gloomy stuff, this/ I wrote that evening. "Yes, my 
 friend, but you ll have to bear up under it, sitting in your 
 easy chair." 
 
 I was bitter that night. I had no faith in world-wide 
 revolution then all such talk seemed piffle to me. The 
 people uptown were the only ones who could clean up 
 this mess, and they didn t care. And so in my story I 
 stormed a bit and made that little living corpse say bitter 
 things to this land of the free. As a matter of fact, he 
 had said only "nein." He would not stay in the hospital, 
 and on the El he sat by my side quite motionless, looking 
 at his skinny hands. After his death I got money from 
 Dad and shipped his family out to St, Joe, where they 
 
BLIND 49 
 
 had some relatives. I used what money I could raise on 
 other T. B. citizens. But what an exasperating lot! Fix 
 it all up for a hospital bed. The proposed patient would 
 shake his head and die with his wife and children, mean 
 while giving them his disease. 
 
 "The hospital is a bad place, my boy," said one old 
 Irish woman. "Have ye heard of the Black Bottle now? 
 It s that the doctors make ye drink when they re sick of 
 seein yez around. Then ye die like as not without any 
 priest." 
 
 A trip to the country was not so bad. It was hard to 
 get grown "lungers" to go, but they would often send a 
 sick child if the money was forthcoming. Still, even here, 
 there were stumbling blocks. In November I had it 
 arranged to send a little Irish girl to a sanitarium 
 up-State; but first, on Steve s orders, I took her to a 
 dispensary nearby, to have her adenoids out. Years 
 later I saw this operation performed on a small half- 
 brother of mine. That kid had two doctors and a nurse, 
 and they gave him ether. This kid was simply put down 
 in a chair, was seized and held, and while she screamed 
 like a wild little beast the adenoids were torn out of her. 
 She went stone deaf the following week. 
 
 Blame that doctor? Not at all. He was young and 
 poor, he was over-worked, and he did this sort of thing 
 free of charge, because the town wouldn t pay enough to 
 have such jobs done decently. Why should the doctors 
 give themselves? Nobody else did. How about me? 
 Yes, I actually worked for awhile and maybe I saved a 
 life or two. But meanwhile I was writing all this, build- 
 Ing up my own career. And back in my lamplit studio, 
 engrossed in the writing I would get rid of the dull and 
 commonplace despair. To get the "punch" and color I 
 would haunt those sinister rooms with ghosts those of 
 the present quite ignored by the fastidious fantoms of a 
 hundred years ago, I would catch the faint clear echoes 
 
50 BLIND 
 
 of the stately minuet. Some of those ghastly wrecks of 
 homes still had the beautiful doorways of the late Colonial 
 days "doorways leading in to death." With a blush I 
 heard my editor s growl : 
 
 "Look here, Larry, cut this out. Ghostly figures are 
 O. K. but nix on the death stuff. Understand ? Repres 
 sion, my boy. You re learning, though coming on pretty 
 fast." And with an envious grunt he said, "Wish 7 were 
 your age." 
 
 That was it I was young. And though I learned 
 repression now, it only made the more fresh and deep the 
 exuberant fancy underneath. Even old Steve could say 
 things that would give me sudden ideas. One muggy 
 night the end of October, he rose and wearily stretched 
 himself. 
 
 "God," he muttered, "how I wish that one of those 
 great winds we knew, when we were kite-flying kids at 
 home, would come with a rush and a roar and a yowl into 
 this stinking city block." 
 
 And in the studio half the night, I sat writing, "A 
 Great Wind." I pictured a mighty wind from the sea 
 sweeping into the stifling town and working countless 
 miracles cooling ugly tempers down, giving life and 
 hope to the dying, and to all the self important scurrying 
 little pigmies here bringing visions of the stars. People 
 had grown small and mean. I remembered what my 
 aunt had said about the generous passions born in the 
 years of the Civil War. Gone and forgotten. Petty 
 people, sordid times, dreams of the dollar and nothing 
 beyond it. Yes, great winds were needed now. 
 
 "I ll keep this sketch," I told myself, "until some fine 
 big windy night then turn it in." 
 
 2. 
 
 I was through with writing of T. B. For two months 
 I had cried the shame of the Lung Block from the house- 
 
BLIND 51 
 
 tops. I had done my bit, and I did not propose to get 
 morbid and see things out of proportion. So I turned to 
 the ships close by. By day and by night, from the far 
 corners of the heaving ocean world came seamen, stokers, 
 engineers, cooks, cabin boys and I met quite a few; for 
 the stout Danish woman who cooked for us took sailor 
 boarders in her flat just around the corner. Though a 
 deeply religious Lutheran who could spend an hour on 
 her knees and get up fresh as a daisy, she was a woman 
 of liberal views, and she mothered these lads in a way 
 of her own. When a sailor came ashore, she would give 
 him a good hot supper; and while he told his story, a 
 few stiff drinks could do him no harm. Then if she could 
 start him off with a friend to a good stiff prize fight 
 somewhere, the chances were that after the fight, well 
 tired out, he would come straight back and go to bed. 
 When she was able to put through this little religious 
 program, she would be happy as a lark. For didn t she 
 know the she-devils about, who would rob a poor sailor 
 of his last cent? 
 
 Yes, she knew the life of the sea. Starting as a cap 
 tain s wife, on tossing ships she had nursed the sick and 
 heard their last confessions. She knew the tricks of 
 quarantine; she knew the ways of epidemics. In India 
 she had fought the Plague, the Cholera in Egypt. As a 
 nurse she had taken part in the Gordon Relief Expedi 
 tion. Later she had settled down in one port after 
 another; and in these ports she had mothered her boys 
 until now she had a family of wanderers from all over 
 the world, who would drop in at her small flat with 
 stories to tell and gifts for her shawls, queer vases, 
 heathen gods, old rings and brooches, tiny ships, dolls, 
 babies shoes, and last letters from lads who had died in 
 distant ports. Around these things were clustered tales 
 of the world of wanderlust. And I wrote them under the 
 title, The Things in Mrs. Dagmar s Flat," 
 
52 BLIND 
 
 There was one little book that had been left by a tall 
 serious engineer. Its pages were soiled and thumbed with 
 reading. Its title was, "Good Manners Ashore." I 
 remember one chapter, "A Dinner Party," wherein you 
 were directed to begin your conversation by turning to 
 the guest at your side and affably remarking, 
 
 "So you, too, are a friend of our charming hostess." 
 
 What hands had thumbed those pages so? 
 
 As I delved into the neighborhood, the word "slums" 
 dropped out of my mind, and with it any vestige of my 
 fancied superiority. When a certain wretched yellow 
 sheet ran a story on how the son of J. Carrington Hart, 
 the millionaire, had gone to live among the poor, I took 
 this story over to the political club down there, and while 
 the songsters in the club hummed a sweet low accom 
 paniment I solemnly chanted the noble words which the 
 woman reporter, who had never seen me, quoted as mine 
 in the interview : 
 
 "It shall be my aim to live for awhile down among 
 the lowly and bring a little sunshine to those whose 
 lives are full of clouds." 
 
 A roar of laughter from the poor. Then somebody 
 ordered up the drinks and they sang, "For He s a Jolly 
 Good Fellow." 
 
 Here was the gang in politics, a baffling mixture of 
 good and bad. The club leader, a young Irishman, was 
 tall, slender and clean cut. I never saw him drink or 
 smoke. His only vice was gambling. He sat in frequent 
 little games and was well known out at the tracks. I 
 remember him, one autumn night, coming back from the 
 races to the club. Walking rapidly down the long pool 
 room, he threw remarks this way and that. "All right, 
 Jim, I saw the Judge" "Say Tony, I landed that job 
 for your brother" and so on all the way down the line. 
 At the end of the room on a low platform I sat with him 
 at his desk while he went through his evening mail. 
 
BLIND 53 
 
 There were nearly a hundred letters that night. Men 
 wanting jobs for themselves or their friends, wives whose 
 husbands were in jail, widows who could not pay the 
 rent, all appealed to the boss for aid. In other letters 
 were tickets to tenement balls and other affairs; and not 
 only would he buy the tickets, but he or one of his 
 henchmen would be present at each affair. For he and 
 his kind were mixers. They not only did things for their 
 friends but did them in human intimate terms. And 
 though the power thus secured was used to* steal the 
 public money and protect the landlords of foul old tene 
 ment buildings, brothels, "creep holes," gambling dives 
 still they kept in power. Why? 
 
 Because the reformers from uptown, gentlemen who 
 now and then tried to clean up the city, were not mixers 
 but uplifters. Did they care to eat or drink, laugh or sing 
 or dance with the poor? No, they simply exhorted them 
 to be good and vote for reform. And when the benighted 
 poor refused to be uplifted, the gentlemen sighed and 
 went back uptown; and in commerce and in high finance 
 they, too, did favors for their friends at the expense of 
 the public. So the genial gang idea ran through the 
 warp and woof of life in American cities, east and west, 
 until in high circles as in low the word "graft" became 
 a familiar term. And there were millions of nameless 
 victims who in poverty undeserved, and in vice, disease 
 and death, paid the vast grim price of it all. 
 
 3. 
 
 I helped the "Sporting Parson" in his boys club down 
 the street. In the past, from Minnesota to Maine this 
 big-hearted preacher had tramped his way through the 
 northern lumber camps. Here he had a couple of rooms, 
 where every night some forty boys met to shout and sing 
 round an old piano, and to fight. For the Sporting Par 
 son had broad views. We would chalk a ring on the floor, 
 
54 BLIND 
 
 and within it two lads who had put on the gloves would 
 go at each other, cheered by the crowd. Dimes, nickels 
 and pennies quickly changed hands. Faces grew bloody. 
 Deafening din! So this minister of the gospel shielded 
 his little flock from harm. Vigilantly he would watch 
 for foul play. With a roar he would grab the offender. 
 
 "If any feller thinks he can hit below the belt or use 
 his knees or a knife," he would shout, "and get away 
 with it in this club, he s mistaken ! Understand ?" 
 
 Night after night and week after week, he taught the 
 principles of fair play to the toughest and the wildest 
 youngsters in the neighborhood. 
 
 "The way to succeed with a boys club and make a fine 
 big hit uptown," he said to me as he puffed his old black 
 briar pipe one evening, "is carefully to gather in all the 
 very good little boys; and when they have come with their 
 knitting, send for your supporters uptown and show 
 what a miracle you have performed. They ll build you 
 a big club house then and have you up to dinner or to 
 talk in churches; and with a solemn look they ll say, 
 That man is doing a great work. But if Christ Almighty 
 were here tonight, it s dollars to doughnuts he d say to 
 me, You re all right, pal go after the tough ones the 
 fellers that are headed for jail ." 
 
 These chaps were not only headed for jail but many got 
 there frequently. For drunkenness, for petty theft and 
 even burglary and assault, they were always getting 
 "pinched." Sometimes he would get them off. More 
 often they would be sent away; and from such lads, on 
 their return, I heard hair-raising little yarns of prison 
 life told in the club while the younger boys listened 
 respectfully. Yes, they were tough, from a wild little 
 world. There was a feud raging in those days. The 
 Italians, known as "Wops," were moving into the neigh 
 borhood, and the indignant Irish were up in arms to keep 
 them out. Street battles between gangs took place, and 
 
BLIND 55 
 
 often a boy would appear at the club with a black eye or 
 a bloody arm. 
 
 I remember one called Harpy. He was a short swarthy 
 Wop with dull heavy features. A bit of a burglar in his 
 day, he had "done time" and had reformed. By day he 
 drove a wagon, by night he played the piano here, pound 
 ing out the ragtime with a gleam in his dull eyes. For 
 the glory of Italy, more than once he came in with his 
 shirt soaked in blood, but this did not seem to trouble 
 him. What made him brood by the hour on his driver s 
 seat by day and on his dirty bed at night where he lay 
 breathing hard in the dark was the way his girl was 
 treating him. 
 
 The plain fact of the matter was that she would not 
 be his girl at all. Nor did I blame her. I caught sight 
 of her first at a public school entertainment one night. 
 The school, in its baffling task of trying to stop racial 
 enmities and fuse into one new nation the children of 
 many races here, was giving a Dance of All Nations 
 that night. And Harpy s girl danced for Italy. A lithe 
 supple creature of seventeen, her dusky beauty and black 
 hair set off by the vivid colors of the peasant costume, 
 she seemed to move on velvet springs bending, sway 
 ing, tossing her head. And hearing the heavy breathing 
 of Harpy close behind me, I thought, 
 
 "You poor devil, what chance have you got?" 
 
 I found that she was going about with a handsome 
 young bartender, "Little Dan," a friend of mine. And 
 through him I met the girl one night. I had been quite 
 a dancer at college "proms," but never at college or 
 uptown had I held a creature like this in my arms 
 velvety, yielding, drifting along like a dream of a most 
 maddening kind. I had many dances with her that night; 
 and on other nights in crowded halls in various parts of 
 the city, with Little Dan and an extra girl or even with 
 this one alone, I drifted through that warm glad world 
 
66 BLIND 
 
 made up of the sons and daughters of the tenements of 
 New York. And Little Dan allowed it. Why ? In those 
 unregenerate days, with "white slavers" thick as bees, 
 in the deafening rocking halls where the liquor flowed so 
 free and a gent danced with his derby hat tilted rakishly 
 to one side to keep out of trouble it had grown to be 
 a rigid custom that a youth, if honest-intentioned, kept 
 his girl strictly to himself. But Little Dan was a friend 
 of mine and he felt that I was "on the level." Besides, 
 he was in a puzzled mood. 
 
 "It s like dis, Larry," he said to me. "I like her she s 
 some goil, all right an j I don t want to start anyt ing. 
 See ? I never yet started a goil to de bad an I don t intend 
 to now. Understand? An if I ring de wedding chimes, 
 me dad an me mudder will raise hell. She s a Wop. 
 Understand? Dat s de hell of it!" 
 
 So he was puzzled. Which way to jump? He was in 
 love up to his ears but she was a Wop and he was 
 Irish. Her father peddled from a cart, his father owned 
 a big saloon. Could he ever bridge the gap? He needed 
 time to think it out. So he welcomed me into the affair; 
 and I found myself a go-between. For the lady confided. 
 Though as a rule she would dance the whole evening 
 without a word, on the way home with her strong supple 
 fingers clutching my arm she would abruptly flash out, 
 in her broken English, some question about Little Dan. 
 Though well aware of the obstacles to making such an 
 ambitious match, she counted on her glossy hair, her 
 warm red lips and her gorgeous young body, to bring 
 him to terms. If only she could do it in time ! She would 
 soon be old ! She was seventeen I 
 
 So through those first crowded months she moved, a 
 gay, disturbing figure. And it never crossed my mind 
 the tragedy lurking just ahead. 
 
 She told me abruptly one evening how Harpy the Wop 
 was bothering her. Twice on the street he had come up 
 
BLIND 57 
 
 behind and hugged her in his dirty arms. She had 
 grown to hate him passionately. She would have him 
 "pinched" if he kept on. I told her I d see what I could 
 do. He promised me to leave her alone, and apparently 
 he did so. She never spoke of him again. But one night 
 through my window I heard a commotion down the 
 street shouts, shrill whistles, people running. One of 
 the usual fights, I thought. But as the uproar swiftly 
 grew, I looked again, and saw at the head of the noisy 
 mob, between two cops, with torn disheveled dress and 
 hair that girl my dancing partner! I got to the 
 station-house just in time to hear the charge. Motionless 
 and statuesque, charged with murder she replied in a 
 queer quiet voice which was broken at times by a violent 
 sob. Harpy had come into her home and found her alone. 
 She had fought him off at first with her hands, with the 
 unwashed supper plates and knives. Then, driven into a 
 corner, she had snatched her father s pistol. 
 
 "I got him. I am glad," she said. 
 
 I went to see her in the Tombs, and it gave me a cold 
 feeling to see her there in Murderers Row. Till then I 
 had not realized how close we had been just dancing. 
 I did not write her story then, but others did, and at her 
 trial I was brought into the affair. On the stand, in 
 cross-examination the young assistant district attorney, 
 turning to me with a cynical smile, said pleasantly, 
 
 "You have testified that you know the defendant. Now 
 will you tell this court and jury whether you ever took 
 her out to dance halls, Mr. Hart?" 
 
 "I did." 
 
 "How often?" 
 
 "I don t remember." 
 
 "So many as that. Did you ever take her alone, Mr. 
 Hart?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "To what halls did you take her?" I mentioned three. 
 
58 BLIND 
 
 "Did you ever hear those halls described as the toughest 
 joints in town, Mr. Hart ?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Did you dance late with her there ?" 
 
 "Sometimes I did." 
 
 "And after that?" 
 
 "I took her home." 
 
 "Always, Mr. Hart?" 
 
 "I did." 
 
 A chuckle from the jury. "Wise kid," muttered one. 
 The attorney smiled: 
 
 "Now, Mr. Hart, will you tell the jury whether this 
 girl ever told you the reason why although she 
 was willing and eager to go with you, the son of a well 
 known millionaire, to the toughest joints in the city and 
 dance there with you half the night she had nothing 
 but rebuffs for the young Italian lad who came to her in 
 his working clothes to tell her of his love for her?" 
 
 "Yes," I replied, "she told me the reason. She said 
 that he often came to her drunk and that twice on the 
 street he came up from behind and hugged her was 
 the word she used." 
 
 "Did you never hug her, Mr. Hart ?" 
 
 "I did not." 
 
 Loud mirth from tne jury. I heard the whisper 
 "lucky boy." Large headlines in the evening papers. 
 Disgust and consternation up at Dad s Park Avenue 
 home. He sent for me that evening. 
 
 "Well, Larry?" 
 
 "Well, Dad?" 
 
 "Pretty raw stuff." 
 
 "Rotten, Dad. And I m sorry about it on your account, 
 disgusted with the whole affair." 
 
 "Don t you think," he asked me hopefully, "it s time 
 you went to work in the mills?" 
 
BLIND 59 
 
 "Sorry Dad. I want to write and I m getting a lot 
 of real stuff down there." 
 
 "So it seems," he answered. 
 
 The girl was acquitted the next day and was brought 
 home in an open carriage decked with flowers. But in 
 that triumphant reception I was able to keep out of sight, 
 like Little Dan. For the lady had no need of us now. 
 She had been so wonderfully advertised. An avalanche 
 of letters came pouring in upon her, demands for her 
 picture and offers of marriage. Up sailed the market 
 value of her beauty in the town. And many high class 
 brothels through their agents did their best. They failed 
 to get her only because she married Little Dan? Oh 
 no. She was far above him now. She signed up with a 
 Broadway musical show. 
 
 And then, feeling older and wiser, I wrote the story 
 of "Harpy s Girl." But I did not publish it at the time. 
 
 4. 
 
 Numberless other stories came to me in the spring of 
 that year. At the precinct station I would sit in the cap 
 tain s room, watching through the open door the events 
 of a Saturday night. Long stretches of silence, the fat 
 desk sergeant drowsing over the heavy books in which 
 were recorded so many grim tales that there seemed to 
 be no room for more. But from outside came sudden 
 shouts and laughing curses, peals of mirth, the shuffle of 
 feet; and from that ceaseless hurly-burly, figures stalked 
 abruptly in, or were dragged in protesting. Mere frag 
 ments in my memory now: 
 
 A scared but defiant boy of ten. A pickpocket in the 
 first stage of the game, he had followed a stout old woman 
 up a steep dark flight of stairs and had tried to pick the 
 purse out of her stocking. But she had grabbed him. 
 "Aw she lied she did so!" he declared. "I never! . . . 
 Naw!" were his replies. At the door to the cell room 
 
60 BLIND 
 
 he turned back, gave a tense little laugh, then disap 
 peared. 
 
 A thin young German came in on a stretcher. His 
 hands, bound together with a cord, lay on his stomach, 
 waxy white. Face the same color. Around his neck was 
 still the bit of clothes-line with which he had hanged 
 himself. "D-D^D," was inscribed in the blotter. "Dutch, 
 Drunk and Despondent." Off to the Morgue. 
 
 A young Swedish girl about eighteen, rather stout, 
 very rosy, came in one night. She had merry little 
 twinkling eyes and lips that did not need the paint. She 
 smiled at the young cop at her side and up at the sergeant, 
 too. She seemed to me to be asking them, "But what 
 would you do without me?" They seemed to be answer 
 ing, "God knows." 
 
 A terrified little Russian Jew. Street peddling without 
 a license. With intense dismay on his face, he craned 
 his neck up at the desk and screwed all his features tight 
 in the effort to understand. He poured forth a torrent of 
 Yiddish words, and sobbing he was dragged to the cell 
 room. "Oy-oy-oy!" The door banged to. 
 
 A bony little woman, a Wop, rushed into the station 
 excitedly with gestures, shrugs, a volcano of talk and 
 wild appeals. Her bambino had swallowed a fish bone! 
 Was choking to death ! Oh Mother of God ! 
 
 A silent smiling youngster came stalking in with a 
 lofty air. Blood from a bullet hole in his arm. Who did 
 it? "Say do I look like a squealer?" He wanted no 
 help from the law of the land, for there was a deeper 
 law down here which said to him, "This is your affair." 
 He turned with a sharp jerk, straining his ears. From 
 the distance several shots were heard. I ran out, 
 and looking up to the dark sky-line of the Lung 
 Block against the glow of the city beyond, I thought I 
 saw small shadowy forms dart over the roofs. More 
 pistol shots. The law of the land was doing its best. 
 
BLIND 61 
 
 But little by little the uproar subsided. The cops came 
 back to the station house. And the youngster with the 
 bloody arm smiled at them still in his lofty way, as 
 though he were saying, "Leave him to me." 
 
 Long before this, Pop Jehosaphat had taken me about 
 with him on wider explorations into the criminal life 
 of the town. And through him I met Charley Gear. 
 
 Charley had come into hard times. A fine crook once, 
 a pickpocket living off the fat of the land, known and 
 respected by thousands he had reformed and married 
 a widow and settled down as the janitor of an old office 
 building. Dismally his tedious days were spent in virtu 
 ous overalls; but often in the evenings, in a frock suit 
 with a lavender scarf, he would take me about to certain 
 cafes where you had to knock in peculiar ways in order 
 to gain admittance. Charley was a handsome man, with 
 a drooping brown moustache. He had an excellent tenor 
 voice, and urged to the piano he would sing such yearn 
 ing songs as, "Please, Mama, Buy Me a Baby," and 
 would be encored many times by the clever crooks who 
 sat at the tables with expensive young dames at their 
 sides. They treated him as they would a friend who has 
 tamely let some woman nag him into giving up cigarettes. 
 But they liked him still. Good old Charley. They knew 
 he would not be such a sneak as to smuggle a "squealer" 
 Into their midst. And they were right. He made me 
 agree to write nothing that could get any friend of his 
 into trouble. As a rule, he read my copy. 
 
 So it happened, late in the spring, that through a tip 
 from Charley I was able to pull off a "scoop" that made 
 my paper proud of me. And because of this I was called 
 downtown. At police headquarters a certain official, 
 whose name was known all over the land, eyed me for 
 a moment and said, 
 
 "Mr. Hart, a house on Fifth Avenue" and he men 
 tioned the address "was entered at four o clock this 
 
2 BLIND 
 
 morning. Among other things they got a pearl necklace 
 valued at forty thousand." 
 
 "Yes, sir/ 
 
 "Your paper ran the story." 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "You wrote it." 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "And your paper went to press at one o clock." 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "What have you to say for yourself ?" 
 
 For a moment or two I thought very hard. 
 
 "My paper pays me to get the news." 
 
 "It does but when you pick up news of a crime abotit 
 to be committed/ 
 
 An ominous pause. 
 
 "What should I have done, sir?" 
 
 "Why not have informed the police ?" 
 
 I looked back at him, undecided, and then took a 
 chance : 
 
 "But look here, Chief, this thing was so* big. How 
 could I have any idea that the whole New York police 
 force would be asleep to a thing so big that even a cub 
 reporter knew it?" I stopped, with a genial little smile. 
 There was no response. I went farther. God help me, it 
 was my only hope. "If you don t agree with me, Chief, 
 why not test it out in court ? Hold me as accessory to the 
 crime. Let my paper run the story of my trial from day 
 to day; and see if the people of New York don t agree 
 with me that I, a mere cub reporter, ought not even to 
 have dared to suspect that I could tell the police force 
 anything they didn t know." 
 
 Thank Heaven, I had him smiling now. The smile 
 broke into a gruff little sound between a grunt and a 
 chuckle. 
 
 "I knew your father. You re like him," he said. 
 
 Thank you, sir." 
 
BLIND, 63 
 
 And I was free. Royally was I feasted by gleeful 
 journalists that night, and back in the Lung Block I was 
 loved as "the kid who put one over on B ." 
 
 s. ; 
 
 And I was cocky for a time. A precocious mcky 
 youngster, I had made a remarkable start; and there 
 were many people only too ready to flatter the son of 
 Carrington Hart. With such an easy quick success, how 
 could I get any real understanding of how it feels to be 
 down and out? I was only an eager hungry boy picking 
 up impressions. But thinking myself extremely profound, 
 I would argue by the hour with Steve about graft, 
 politics, and prostitution. And Steve with that dry smile 
 of his would take me down a peg or two. His grim job 
 would jerk me back from the glamor to the naked truth 
 that in spite of all the drama here, these people were 
 getting a raw deal. 
 
 We had long talks in a small cafe. It was next door 
 to a book shop, where to my astonishment I found mixed 
 in with the popular stuff such authors as Darwin, Spencer, 
 Karl Marx, Tolstoi, Kropotkin, and Zola. Half at least 
 I had never read, but I knew the names. Deep fellows, 
 regular highbrows in fact. Who the devil read them 
 here? The chap who kept the little shop turned out to 
 be an anarchist. And that struck me as funny, for he 
 was such a mild little man. At first he did not welcome 
 us but later, learning of Steve s work, he let us into his 
 circle of readers in the small cafe next door. For me they 
 had nothing but contempt, but Steve s work was dif 
 ferent. Like a pack of publishers hunting a "best seller" 
 down, so these fellows fairly itched to get Steve s cold 
 bare record of deaths and publish it in their radical 
 press. More black evidence against the capitalistic sys 
 tem! Anarchists and socialists, they argued on into the 
 night; and listening to the news they gave of similar 
 
64 BLIND 
 
 groups large and small, in cities, towns and mining camps, 
 and in the stoke-holes out at sea, I grew vaguely con 
 scious of a vast world-wide revolt brewing among the 
 masses. The Proletariat. There was fascination in that 
 word. And the feeling of impending drama, great as 
 all humanity, came to me at times as they talked. 
 
 But only for a moment. They seemed such insignificant 
 chaps, so obstinate, dogmatic; so half-baked were their 
 theories. Steve calmly riddled them full of holes by the 
 shrewd keen questions that he asked. He went back to 
 his job and I to mine. And in the local political club 
 where I was wise to politics, and in the precinct station 
 where I had learned the power of cops I felt those 
 dreams of revolution through the ballot or the bomb fade 
 away into thin air. Crazy highbrows of the slums. I 
 wrote them up occasionally. 
 
 So through that turgid crowded year, Steve and I 
 came face to face with poverty, vice and crime and death, 
 and the first grumbles of revolt. But though engrossed 
 in these ominous scenes, I can see now as I look back 
 that we were still more absorbed in ourselves, in our 
 youth and our deepening friendship. Both of us knew 
 that we ourselves were going to escape all this, to rise 
 lip out of it, forge ahead. We saw long splendid vistas 
 opening. Steve, intense and "scientific" (to a degree that 
 he smiles at now) down there in the jungle fighting 
 disease could look out of it to a surgeon s career while 
 I, beneath my bitter moods and my warm friendship for 
 the poor, knew that I was coming on rapidly as a writer 
 now. And as the son of Carrington Hart I knew what 
 was waiting for me uptown. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 
 
 1. 
 
 FOR I was already in demand. In the eyes of many 
 girls uptown, I was "Bohemian," "clever," "queer." 
 Moreover I was an exuberant youngster, apt to be the 
 life of a party. When I left the slums I left them. I 
 refused to be inveigled by solemn young maids into 
 accounts of how and why and wherefore I was cham 
 pioning the poor. I told dialect stories rather well, I 
 could laugh till the tears rolled down my cheeks, I could 
 sing, I could dance, and I was precocious, mixing with 
 older girls and men. So by mail and telephone the invita 
 tions began to pour in. And though I often told myself 
 that all this was very tame compared to the life I was 
 leading downtown, I liked it exceedingly nevertheless. 
 I liked to go to a dance uptown, pick out a pretty well- 
 dressed girl and "rush" her until the excited young thing 
 and I were all but engaged to each other. Then in the 
 hours before the dawn back to the tenements, grim and 
 dark, except for a few lighted windows that set me to 
 imagining the early risers, the late watchers. Yes, by 
 God, this world was real the other, merest fluff and 
 sparkle. Up into my studio home, off with my dress 
 suit, into pajamas. Then a last pipe and drowsy 
 thoughts; and so into the deep, deep sleep of a shamelessly 
 happy and lucky young man. 
 
 But my job on the paper made parties like that rather 
 few and far between. More often I went to my father s 
 home. Lower Park Avenue, in those days, was a fash 
 ionable quarter still. Dad s house or rather, Aunt 
 Fanny s, for it had been her family home was a large 
 
 65 
 
66 BLIND 
 
 compact affair as solid as brown stone could make it. 
 It stood on a corner, with a capacious yard behind. And 
 even the stables in the rear had an air of assurance, as 
 though they were saying, "There will always be car 
 riages, horses and a large fat coachman here/ The house 
 itself with its great brown stones appeared to be demand 
 ing, "Who speaks of apartment buildings? * The spacious 
 halls and rooms within, and the broad winding stairway, 
 seemed to murmur discreetly, "There will always be the 
 rich." While back in the dining room certain very digni 
 fied but genial old decanters said casually, "There will 
 always be wine." 
 
 I would drop in about five o clock; and when, with a 
 fine reserved smile of greeting, the butler took my hat 
 and coat, I liked to go into a large dim room with the 
 glow from a fire at one end, sink into an easy chair, take 
 a paper and light a cigarette, feel everything inside of 
 me relax and drift. I would fall asleep, to be wakened 
 by a servant lighting the lamps or putting another log on 
 the fire. It was so very restful here. 
 
 Then a merry burst of laughter would come down from 
 the nursery, and I would go up to play with the children, 
 who welcomed me in a joyous way that was good for 
 any young man s soul. Louise was now a plump and 
 winsome little girl of .five; and her brother Carrington, 
 who was not quite four years old, made up for any lack 
 of stature by the stiff determination in his thick black 
 hair, brushed straight back, and by the roguish gleam 
 in his eyes as he watched his "brudder Larry" to see 
 which way the pillow would fly, and by the terrific twist 
 and heave of his stout limbs and tummy as he hurled the 
 missile back. With what roars of delight he entered into 
 those "rush-house" games of ours while our sister 
 squealed and clapped her hands, and the head nurse and 
 the nursemaid tried to look amused and pleased as we 
 smashed things all about. "Rush-house! Rush-house! 
 
BLIND 6T 
 
 Rush-house!" shrieked that embryo millionaire. Why 
 should he care what he smashed? Toys? There were 
 toys all over the room, and three orderly closets stacked 
 with them. On a doll s hat, just arrived, I caught a 
 glimpse of the purchase tag. Eight dollars! And the 
 whole room was like that. Still, by a miracle escaping any 
 hint of vulgar display, the nursery had somehow achieved 
 a simple cozy childlike air the white painted little beds 
 and chairs all just as innocent as lambs. 
 
 And when Aunt Fanny appeared in the doorway 
 whether in furs, just in from the street, or in a wrapper 
 of soft silk, or already dressed for dinner there was in 
 rny father s attractive young wife a gracious good-nature 
 and content that left no doubt as to who had created this 
 nursery, who had given these children life. Nor could 
 there be any question as to the Tightness and fitness, in 
 this easy wealthy world, of the unobtrusively costly lives 
 that she was planning for them both. 
 
 Aunt Fanny and I were on intimate terms. Gone was 
 my early dislike of her. I was twenty-two she was 
 thirty-one. But while at times delightfully young, she 
 could change in a flash and mother me. And at such 
 moments, in some subtle way, she could make me feel 
 very much a boy herself immeasurably more wise in 
 what she called "the things that count." Her life was 
 so nicely rounded out. She persuaded me to go with her 
 to church late one afternoon in Lent; and beneath the 
 benevolent radiance of the serene old saints in the 
 windows, listening to the organ and the rich sweet choir 
 voices and to Aunt Fanny s voice at my side softly 
 chanting the responses, I got an impression of deep 
 wells of gracious assurance within her soul as to her 
 social position both in heaven and on earth. Reverence? 
 Yes, she was reverent here, humbly worshipping at the 
 feet of a Great and Perfect Gentleman. "Do unto 
 others ?- u ,Yes, she was tactful in the daily snarls of life 
 
8 BLIND 
 
 She could help her friends in situations she described as 
 "difficult," she could keep her own troubles to herself, she 
 could smile a beastly headache away, she could bravely 
 and quietly endure the bearing of children. She was gen 
 erous in her charities, especially those of a personal kind. 
 The poor ye have with you always." 
 
 A mighty pleasant chloroform her effect on me was 
 rather like that. She agreed that it was a good thing for 
 a writer to have a close look at the poor. "Heaven knows 
 they need all the writing and all the help we can give 
 them, poor things." But from such talk she would soon 
 turn to a more cheerful topic, my own life and my career. 
 She was the first to whom I confessed my secret ambition 
 to write plays. We discussed it in her box at the opera 
 one evening when she had no guests. 
 
 "Poor lonely boy," she would smile at me, "when I ve 
 studied you and studied you till I know exactly what you 
 need then, Larry, I shall find you a wife." 
 
 At dinner parties sometimes she would ask me to fill 
 in. On such evenings, with what easy charm she would 
 preside at her table, all the while letting nothing escape 
 her. For all my young sagacity, I missed so many innu 
 endoes, sudden revelations of little volcanoes raging 
 there. But after the guests had departed, my shrewd 
 young mother would put me wise. 
 
 "Oh, Larry, Larry, what would you do without your 
 mother?" she would smile. "My advice to you, poor 
 dear, is never to marry without my consent." 
 
 I liked my young stepmother friend. 
 
 But how that young woman could get away with what 
 is vulgarly known as cash ! For the benefit of those mor 
 tals who will presently live in a world from which both 
 the extremely rich and the damnably poor have disap 
 peared, I hereby put it on record as a matter of historic 
 fact how Aunt Fanny spent her day and what it cost 
 the world at large 
 

 BLIND 69 
 
 In a house run smoothly to the tune of about a hun 
 dred thousand a year, she was awakened at nine o clock 
 in a carved antique affair which on account of my ignor 
 ance I shall simply call a bed. For the same reason I 
 shall not attempt to describe that luxurious room, nor the 
 clothes, nor any of the rites performed by a skilful lady s 
 maid about the person of my aunt. Her children came in 
 to see her there. Later, several times a week, she went 
 out in her carriage or coupe, with two men on the box 
 and a crest on the door; and in every conceivable kind of 
 shop, greeted with the deference of America, England, 
 Germany, France, Russia, Italy and Japan, Aunt Fanny 
 selected clothes, hats, gloves, shoes, slippers, jewels and 
 furniture, rugs, toys, flowers and pictures from all over 
 the face of the earth, and had them charged to her 
 account. She loved to send little gifts to her friends, 
 flowers to people sick or in trouble. Her wedding gifts 
 alone, I learned, came to some fifty thousand a year. 
 
 Having spent a thousand dollars or two, she would 
 lunch and rest for a little while. Then forth she would go 
 to a dressmaker s or perhaps for a drive in the Park. 
 Then tea at a friend s, or back at home she would sit with 
 her children at their supper. And the later events of the 
 evening a dinner, the opera or a dance were mere 
 details compared to the plans which in that "children s 
 hour" she made for those expensive kids and the larger 
 and more costly household that she saw ahead. 
 
 Even now, I learned toward the end of the winter, she 
 was expecting another child. And because she was hav 
 ing a "difficult" time, I saw less of her than I had before. 
 
 2. 
 
 But more than Aunt Fanny, it was my father who 
 attracted me to the house. For rather to my own surprise 
 and his, too, I fancied there quickly developed 
 between us a very deep and real affection. We liked to be 
 
70 BLIND 
 
 in the same room smoking, reading a book or a paper, 
 throwing out occasional questions. Grunted answers. 
 Silence again. But at times amazingly intimate talks. 
 For now I could talk with him man to man, and it began 
 to dawn upon me that my father was not old. I was 
 struck repeatedly by the fact that he was "a comer" still, 
 considered one of the rising figures in the world down 
 town. 
 
 At forty-eight he was short, thick-set, with grayish 
 hair, smooth face, wide jaw and a voice as deep as mine. 
 In his voice and in his shrewd blue eyes was a very human 
 quality. He had taken a great liking for Steve and 
 encouraged me to bring him to dine. Steve was at first 
 reluctant; but discovering that in her condition Aunt 
 Fanny kept to her room when he came, he let me bring 
 him more and more. And my father took a keen interest 
 in drawing us out. Not only did he like young men, but 
 if he found them promising he was glad to help them, 
 too. There were numberless such whom he had helped, 
 and he liked to talk about them both to take pride in 
 what he had done and to prove the truth of his belief 
 that young men of this kind were the strength of the 
 nation. For the common herd of weaklings he had little 
 but contempt. He put small faith in the new and elab 
 orate plans of organized charity to do away with poverty 
 by teaching the poor to help themselves. They could 
 never help themselves. "It s all damned pooh-ba," he 
 declared. He agreed that of course they should be helped, 
 but he liked to do it in big-hearted fashion a Thanks* 
 giving turkey, a ton of coal, and not too many questions 
 asked. I remember one night his quoting that little bit by 
 O Shaughnessey : 
 
 "Organized charity, measured and iced 
 
 In the name of a cautious statistical Christ." 
 
 His attitude toward my work was a flattering surprise 
 to me. He had a queer respect for writers. He was not 
 
BLIND 71 
 
 bothered in the least by the vague radical views I aired, 
 so long as I made good as a writer. The ideas were mere 
 wild oats. I think he hoped that I might end as manag 
 ing editor of a paper to be owned and controlled by him 
 self, and so play an active part in the big struggles he 
 saw ahead. Upon my expanding opinions he acted like a 
 great balance wheel. Apparently open-minded, he would 
 draw me out with ease; and then to my surprise I would 
 find that he, too, had once been through all this. Strikes, 
 socialism, anarchy he had come up against them in 
 his mills. So far, he had been able to keep his plant an 
 open shop; but watching every sign of unrest among the 
 Irish and Italians, Poles, Germans and Hungarians there, 
 he knew he was only postponing trouble, and he was 
 always looking about for some safe way of meeting it. 
 He had installed an insurance system and he was build 
 ing homes for the men. 
 
 "Only a starter," he remarked. "We ll have to do 
 much more than that." 
 
 Here in New York in the meantime, that great immi 
 grant, Jacob Riis, had started the slogan, "Clean up the 
 slums." And Dad was a strong backer of Riis. He 
 admired the hope and vitality, the boundless energy of 
 the man. And he felt the same way toward T. R., who 
 was then Police Commissioner. I remember one night 
 he had several men to dinner to talk of Roosevelt. These 
 men subscribed to a Roosevelt fund; and their talk 
 opened my eyes to the fact that even among the very 
 rich there were certain liberal-minded ones who knew all 
 about the slums I described and were only too ready to 
 push reforms. They enlarged upon the idea I had 
 received, first from the radical dreamers downtown and 
 later from my father, about the stormy times ahead. 
 Sagaciously I listened and wisely I sized up my Dad: 
 
 "He doesn t really belong with these chaps, for he s a 
 mixer like myself. He would get on fine with the crowd 
 
72 BLIND 
 
 down in my political club, but their methods are too raw 
 for him. Now, thank God, he has found in T. R. a 
 reformer and a gentleman and a great mixer all com 
 bined." 
 
 I became a Roosevelt "fan." But if anyone had told me 
 that Dad had brought me around to this, I would have 
 been most indignant. 
 
 This father of mine was full of surprises. His almost 
 boyish hunger for life was the thing in him that appealed 
 to me most. He took a bad cold that winter, which ran 
 into pneumonia. It was a light case but it gave him a 
 scare. And Steve, who was taking care of him, said, 
 
 "He s as superstitious as an old woman." 
 
 When Steve effected a rapid cure, they became even 
 better friends than before. Already Dad was backing 
 him. But though seeing the value of his work, what my 
 father liked in him most was the fact that Steve regarded 
 it as a mere stepping-stone in his career. Not that Steve 
 was a climber in any selfish sense of the word; he meant 
 to spend a large part of his life in service for the common 
 good. But his work was to lie in surgery. For the knife 
 he had a passion which to me was almost weird. And 
 this surgeon s attitude made a strong appeal to my father. 
 
 "We need more surgery and less dopp all through the 
 nation," he once said. 
 
 3. 
 
 Of my sister I saw very little that winter. It was not 
 until spring that Lucy and I had any of our usual long 
 and confidential talks. 
 
 Full of contradictions still, though frequently declar 
 ing herself sick and tired of this life, she had neverthe 
 less gone drifting on through another season in New 
 York. Drifted? Dashed is the better word; for Lucy 
 had, if anything, gone at it harder than before packing 
 so much into her day that she was forever being late for 
 
BLIND 73 
 
 one fool thing or another. As she came hurrying down 
 stairs one night, I heard her murmur angrily, 
 
 "Every clock I look at is faster than the one before!" 
 A bang at the door, and she was off ! To this frantic 
 rush-about was added now a deeper zest; for a new 
 suitor had appeared, known as "Kelly" Wallace. A rising 
 young lawyer, he was a chap with a very decent sense of 
 humor; but his genial friendly smile hid a law book 
 underneath. A good fellow hard as nails, bristling with 
 ideas as old as the Rock of Ages. Such was the impres 
 sion I had from occasional glimpses when Lucy brought 
 him to the house obviously to be looked over. Aunt 
 Fanny was non-committal, but Dad and I said stoutly, 
 "No!" Uneasily we watched the affair, for the fellow 
 was making headway fast. He was pushing her hard 
 and it worried her. She knew that she was a drifter and 
 that by a rush he might carry her off and this made 
 her quick changing moods more contradictory than 
 before. Now angrily absorbed in deciding a thing she 
 had always hated to do; again all ease and unconcern, 
 gaily letting things drift on. 
 
 Almost always when Steve was there she would come 
 down and sit with us before going out to dine; and to 
 Dad s ironic questions as to her giddy goings-on she 
 would reply with a tolerant smile. She knew that he was 
 proud of her. Moreover, she was well aware that not only 
 Dad but Steve and I were all more than glad to have her 
 there. So she flirted with all three of us. She looked very 
 fascinating, those nights. Dark and slender with an 
 air. A beautiful neck and shoulders generally under 
 some chiffon stuff. Black hair very soft no shine to it. 
 Large features. Brows and lashes black, making a queer 
 attractive contrast with those big gray eyes of hers, that 
 would shimmer with amusement or contract and grow 
 intent, as though she were asking, "What time is it 
 now?" 
 
74 BLIND 
 
 With a frank and friendly interest she would throw 
 questions at Steve and me. She wanted to come down 
 to our rooms, but smilingly I put her off. I knew Steve 
 did not want her there. Or did he? Often I would glance 
 from him to my young sister. What little thing was she 
 tip to here? Although she seldom looked at Steve, I 
 could see she was perfectly conscious of the disturbing 
 effect upon him of her very fetching gown, her eyes and 
 the quick friendly smile which at times without warning 
 she would flash on this surgeon chum of mine. Often he 
 would redden a bit and almost stammer his reply. But 
 again he would take his time to it, looking back deliber 
 ately and holding Lucy s soft gray eyes with his own, 
 which would smile in a curious fashion as he quietly 
 answered her question. At such moments I would see a 
 look absentminded and absorbed come on my young sis 
 ter s face. What was she up to? Flirting with Steve? 
 
 "Not at all," I decided. Up out of the profundity of 
 my knowledge of women came this thought: "She isn t 
 thinking of Steve at all she s thinking of that lawyer 
 man. She s trying to size him up as a man by comparing 
 him with the rest of us, and her feeling for him with her 
 feeling for every other man she knows. And Steve is a 
 fellow she has known ever since she was a ki9. So she s 
 using him as a measuring stick." 
 
 Pleased with my own perspicacity, it suddenly 
 occurred to me that Lucy was my sister, that I was very 
 fond of her, and that now it was decidedly up to me to 
 take a hand. So I had a firm talk with her one day, 
 wherein it appeared that to begin with she was more and 
 more discontented with her present life. Aunt Fanny she 
 detested. 
 
 "There s something so sweetly cocksure about her, so 
 sleek and contented !" Lucy exclaimed. "And the way she 1 
 uses her charms on poor Dad is sickening, perfectly sick 
 ening ! At his age ! I d like to wring her neck !" 
 

 BLIND 75 
 
 So much for home. Outside of that, the endless round 
 of clubs and classes, parties of every conceivable kind. 
 She had had three seasons, more than enough. Now she 
 wanted to break away, get a home of her own and make 
 a fresh start. And she had known Kelly Wallace for 
 years. He was a thoroughly good sort honest, kind and 
 always good fun. 
 
 That may be true," I retorted. "But there s no get 
 ting around the fact that the fellow is a lawyer." She 
 threw at me a quick look of surprise. 
 
 "Well, what of it? What do you mean?" 
 
 I did not know exactly. 
 
 "Oh, I mean he s the kind that will never let anyone 
 open his eyes to anything new that, comes along. He s a 
 lawyer and for all you know he may even become a 
 judge some day. Would you enjoy being a judge s 
 wife?" 
 
 "I don t know," she said in a half startled tone. "I ve 
 never stopped to think of it." 
 
 "Well," I warned her glumly, "you d better think of 
 it now while there s time." 
 
 Then she gave a little laugh. 
 
 "When did you get this hatred of lawyers?" 
 
 "Oh, I ve always hated the brutes." 
 
 "Larry! You haven t any such thing!" 
 
 On my attractive sister s face came a look of pleased 
 affection. And I did something then which I do rather 
 well a trick few Yankees ever attempt, and when they 
 do they bungle it. I had learned it from a friend, a 
 drunken English actor. I bent over Lucy s hand and 
 kissed it very nicely. And then I said, 
 
 "Oh yes, I have ever since one of em tried to get 
 you." 
 
 "That s very sweet of you, dear," she murmured. 
 
 "Well, how about it?" 
 
 "I don t know." 
 
76 BLIND 
 
 "You haven t accepted him, have you ?" 
 
 My sister s look was reminiscent. 
 
 "No yes," was her reply. Up i bounded. 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 She smiled at me queerly. 
 
 "I ve come pretty near it, I guess," she replied. 
 
 "Confound him " 
 
 "Larry!" 
 
 I took her this time by the shoulders. No fool gallan 
 try now! 
 
 "Do you love him?" I demanded. "Enough to live 
 with him all your life?" 
 
 "Oh, how do I know?" 
 
 And Lucy looked so doleful then, so young and for 
 lorn and alone in the world, that I then and there deter 
 mined to show her "real life" as compared to the fluffy 
 existence she led, and at the same time to reveal to her 
 what infinitely finer and deeper and more fascinating 
 things there are to do in this modern world than to 
 become a lawyer s wife. She seemed more than ready to 
 come along. Shamelessly breaking appointments with 
 "the Judge," as I called Wallace now, she showed herself 
 so eager to explore the larger world with me, that I was 
 at once embarrassed. How was I going to make good ? It 
 is easy to talk about all that; but to start out at seven 
 o clock of an evening with a hungry young thing who 
 expects to be transformed for life by the great seething 
 world you show her let me tell you it s no easy job. 
 The world won t seethe to order. 
 
 Crime. The weird tragic dramas of life. She at once 
 suggested a look into that. I was dubious ; and when I 
 advised with my old friend Pop Jehosaphat, he was even 
 more doubtful than I. Pop knew nothing of uptown girls: 
 He had met one once, he told me; but at the time, having 
 murdered her father, she was in far too excited a state to 
 give him any broad insight into her normal habits of 
 
BLIND 77 
 
 thought. He demurred. It was far from easy to get him 
 even to dine with us; and when he did join us at Mou- 
 quin s one night, having had a hair-cut and donned a 
 dress suit that caught him under the armpits, he heavily 
 refused to thrill. With a forced smile, in a pompous 
 tone, this chap who could hold a crowd of men for hours 
 listening to his talk, his tales and his philosophies, now 
 cut them down to stories and remarks so very trite, that 
 I looked on him with gloomy surprise which only 
 increased his awkwardness. It was a dismal evening. 
 
 I gave up Crime it wouldn t do. Vice? It was impos 
 sible. The Wanderlust? More promising. Suppose I 
 brought my sister in touch with the heaving ocean world ? 
 Certainly that was large enough, and it ought to make 
 "the Judge" look tame. 
 
 "Lucy," I said, "you must meet the Great Dane." 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 "Mrs. Dagmar, the woman who looks after our 
 
 rooms." 
 
 "An right," said Lucy promptly. "It s about time you 
 asked me there." 
 
 And I took her down the following week. Mrs. Dag- 
 mar was at first rather cold and ungracious ; for the fact 
 of the matter was that her ideas of cleanliness were as 
 sensible as Steve s and mine, and no doubt she expected 
 insulting remarks as to trivial dust and what not. But 
 when Lucy showed nothing but delight in our lamp-lit 
 studio home, the Great Dane warmed to her at once. She 
 cooked a delicious supper, and though Steve was not at 
 home that night we had a successful evening. The Great 
 Dane talked of the Seven Seas with a convincing earnest 
 ness and a wealth of vivid detail. Later we went to her 
 flat; and she told such stories there, to fit the various 
 curios, that my sister was entranced. 
 
 "Who ever would have dreamed/ she said, "that there! 
 
78 BLIND 
 
 was such a woman in New York or such a home or 
 such a life?" 
 
 "How can a girl dream anything in that stuffy little 
 Fifth Avenue world?" 
 
 An excellent start, and greatly encouraged I took her 
 out for a look at the slums. Poverty and the masses, the 
 surging anger of the poor I tried earnestly to get this 
 feeling over to my sister. In that small radical cafe I 
 sketched the rotten state of things, the rank injustice in 
 the world, the hopelessness of any appeal to the smug and 
 easy people uptown, the deep exciting hope in the thought 
 that all over the earth a million groups were rousing to 
 the great revolt. I surprised her. I surprised myself. I 1 
 caught a look on her face that said, 
 
 "Why Larry! You believe all this!" 
 
 And then in astonishment, I thought, 
 
 "She s right about it. By Golly, I do!" 
 
 Things went splendidly that night until, as my voice 
 grew rather loud, I attracted attention of others there; 
 and before I knew it, Lucy and I were facing looks of 
 utter contempt from all over the little room. 
 
 "Look at him," they seemed to say. "A young million 
 aire showing his girl the slums and trying to pose as a 
 genuine Red." 
 
 My sister grew uneasy. 
 
 "Shall we be going, Larry?" she asked. I growled 
 assent. And gloomily, as I paid the bill, I muttered, 
 
 "The revolution is all right but the chaps who are in 1 
 it have two-spot minds." 
 
 They had taken the wind out of my sails. With the 
 revolution sagging fast, I walked her around the streets 
 for a while. I was close to getting sick of this job. Why 
 should not Steve lend a hand? An old friend of Lucy s, 
 wasn t he? And yet he had been a quitter he had not 
 lifted a hand to help! I threw a glance at my sister. 
 
BLIND 7 
 
 Ever since we left the cafe she had been silent. Barely 
 a word. What was going on in her mind? Girls were 
 queer. I heaved a sigh. It was one of those warm lifeless 
 nights that come sometimes in April. 
 
 "Let s go over to the rooms and see if Steve is back/* 
 I proposed. And this time we found him there. Bending 
 over a table under a green-shaded light, with his coat off 
 and his sleeves rolled up, he was working on his report. 
 
 "That you, son?" he growled comfortably. 
 
 "Here s Lucy." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 He turned with a start. 
 
 "Oh hello good evening." Voice husky and dis 
 tinctly tense. My sister smiled. 
 
 "Good evening, Steve don t put on your coat I 
 won t be here but a minute," she said. "I ve: wanted so 
 long to see how you lived." 
 
 Instantly I was out of the picture. The whole atmos 
 phere of the evening changed. Lucy was a different girl. 
 Though giving her assurance that she would not "bother 
 him long, she let that promise slip her mind, became 
 intensely serious and questioned him about his work; and 
 presently with her color high she was telling what she 
 had seen that night a thin young mother white as a 
 sheet, with a baby in her arms, a crowd of small girls try 
 ing to dance, a larger girl exceedingly drunk, a number 
 of sick people "looking like ghosts." Apparently it had 
 hit her hard. She did not blame these people at all for 
 being bitter. "I should certainly be, in their place ! J As 
 Lucy talked, Steve watched her with a queer steady light 
 in his eyes. The end of it was that abruptly she asked us 
 now, before she went home, to take her up into the Lung 1 
 Block. 
 
 "Just for a minute. I m not being morbid. But I ll 
 never come here again and I want to remember. Just 
 one look." 
 
80 BLIND 
 
 We both held back, but she insisted. And a few min 
 utes later, having entered the open door of one of the 
 worst of the tenements and climbed a flight of the filthy 
 stairs, in the dark stinking hall above we stood for a 
 moment listening to the heavy creaking steps, low cries, 
 laughter, muttering voices, that came from various parts 
 of the house. It struck me as even worse than it ever 
 had before. Then she whispered, 
 
 "Let s go now." 
 
 Outside she seemed a little faint. Because it was such 
 a muggy night, we went out to the end of a dock. And 
 out there on the shadowy river, with the big bridge over 
 head, the slap of little waves beneath, lights white and 
 red and green on tugs and barges moving by, we said 
 nothing for awhile. 
 
 "This is better," ventured Steve. 
 
 "Yes," she murmured. "Wonderful." Then her voice 
 was sharp and clear. "But how soon are those perfectly 
 rotten old tenement buildings to be torn down?" 
 
 Again silence. 
 
 "I don t know," said Steve. 
 
 "And how soon is something really big to be done," 
 she demanded, "about the poor?" 
 
 Steve slowly turned and looked at her. 
 
 "Nothing really big will ever be done. It ll be a slow- 
 tiresome job," he said, "a long string of little things 
 clean-up jobs, like this of mine." 
 
 "But you re soon going to leave all this !" 
 
 "How am I?" 
 
 "You re going uptown !" 
 -Yes, but " 
 
 "Larry, too," she interrupted. "That s just it! I m 
 not blaming you both I d do the same because I m 
 like you I can get away! That s just the awful part 
 of it!" 
 
 "Awful?" 
 
BLIND 81 
 
 "Oh, I mean unfair! Take those little socialists that 
 Larry showed me in the cafe. They really mean to 
 change all this and not take ages to do it, either 
 because they are in it and can t get out! But for that 
 very reason their thinking must be so muddled and blind 
 while you two boys, who really have minds and train 
 ing, and could do so much you ll get out of this 
 because you can !" 
 
 Steve started to speak, but she broke in : 
 
 "You will! You ll both have your own careers!" 
 
 "How about you?" he asked intensely. She gave a 
 sharp little laugh and said, 
 
 "Oh I am not worth thinking about a mere girl from 
 uptown come down for a thrill !" 
 
 "Well, now that you ve had it, why not look around 
 for a job?" 
 
 "What for instance?" She had him there, and she 
 knew it. This was over twenty years ago, and jobs for 
 women were still few. She pressed her point maliciously : 
 % Join the Salvation Army? Or be a Bible reader? No, 
 thanks!" 
 
 "There are other jobs." He was silent then, and I 
 could feel him thinking quickly of other kinds of work 
 down here. Settlement worker, visiting nurse, investi 
 gator it wouldn t do. Nothing like that would appeal 
 to her. "No," he said, "I guess you re right." 
 
 "Thank you. I ll go back uptown." 
 
 She did not come to our rooms again. The next week 
 I gave Steve eight hundred dollars proceeds of a neck 
 lace she had sold. With this money he saved three lives. 
 When I told her about them, Lucy said, "I m glad I ve 
 got them off my neck!" So much for Lucy and Pov 
 erty. A few days later I brought him the news that she 
 was engaged to her lawyer friend. So much for Lucy 
 and a career. 
 
 Steve and I were a gloomy pair. In glum silence he 
 
S2 BLIND 
 
 wound up his work, and I heartily damned the world 
 uptown for having spoiled things for us so. My gloom 
 was deepened by the fact that in spite of those raw eggs 
 and milk I was running a temperature each night. 
 
 So the last weeks of our year together dragged on 
 slowly to an end. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 1. 
 
 STEVE finished his work the middle of May. It had 
 been a bleak, heart-sickening job, and he showed the 
 strain not so much in his tall powerful figure as in his 
 face. He looked mentally fagged. He went home for a 
 rest, and about a week later I followed him. On account 
 of that slight touch of fever, he insisted that I spend at 
 least a month at Seven Pines. 
 
 I arrived on a Saturday evening, had a long refresh 
 ing sleep, and got up in time to go to church with my 
 aunt and Dorothy. It was good to sit in the family pew, 
 listen to the chirping of birds and the stamping of 
 horses hitched outside, and drowsily dream back into the 
 days when Steve and Lucy and I were small. I caught 
 sight of Steve. He was watching me. And to my little 
 start of surprise that asked, "What the devil are you 
 doing here?" his smile replied, "I m the minister s son." 
 And his eyes turned back to his father. That afternoon 
 I went with him for a walk back through the hills, which 
 were lovely and fresh in the late spring. As we tramped 
 along we began to remember various things we had done 
 as boys. But then he spoke of his father, and his expres 
 sion became grim. 
 
 "What s the trouble?" I inquired. "Has he been sav 
 ing your soul again ?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, the usual wrestling match. But I expected 
 that rather liked it, in fact. This is home, I thought 
 as I went to bed. It was good, the first few days, to feel 
 everything so exactly the same. Then I found I was 
 
 83 
 
84 BLIND 
 
 wrong. I ve been jogging about in his buggy with him 
 and although he didn t talk much, the little he said 
 made me ask him more. I tell you, son, this place has 
 changed. The cheery faith and habits of our Puritan 
 fathers are going, busted high as a kite. Your dad s 
 mill town has filled up with Wops and Huns and Pol 
 lacks. There are Catholic priests; there are anarchists 
 who get together in saloons and shout all night against 
 the rich. My father started a mission there, but the 
 priests and the Reds between them drove him out. He 
 f^ll back to the village but even here, a half dozen fam 
 ilies of Wops have started market gardens; and at night 
 along the road, if you were Dad in his parsonage, you d 
 hear loud voices coming by foreign voices, laughing, 
 shouting, singing their queer foreign songs especially 
 Saturday night when they re drunk, and Dad s trying to 
 write his sermon inside. Those chaps are gangs of labor 
 ers, building homes for millionaires. For the boom is 
 creeping out from New York, and the old farms are 
 being bought and turned into big estates. There ll soon 
 be a large and very expensive country house on every 
 hill. They re planning to build an Episcopal church. 
 
 "And against all this," Steve went on softly, "my 
 father is as bitter as hell. In the past Le was a stand-pat 
 ter. Now he s a rebel he s lost in the woods or the 
 wilderness, as he would say. He has only just hinted it to 
 me but it s queer, this business of father and son. For 
 all the two quite different worlds we have inside each one 
 of us, still there s some queer blood tie that makes me un 
 derstand him. A word or two, and I get the rest. Thank 
 God for those buggy rides. Things ease up then. We 
 talk of the Gerps. That s one thing we have left between 
 us we both like to watch things grow. Oats have no 
 souls for Dad to save, and so he gets on fine with oats 
 shows em his decent human side. 
 
 "I wonder what we re coming to. I m glad the hard 
 
 
BLIND 85 
 
 old Puritan days are gone for good with their heaven 
 and hell but if in their place we are to get nothing 
 more inspiring than a rich man s house for heaven and a 
 T. B. slum for hell, I don t know as we ve moved a lot. 
 Science is the answer, I guess. There isn t much hope in 
 anything else. Anyhow I ll be glad to get back." He 
 laughed and ended shortly, "I m a poor philosopher. Be 
 glad to quit thinking and handle a knife." 
 
 It was good to see him brighten up when I took him 
 home to supper. My aunt had always been friendly to 
 Steve, but tonight her welcoming smile had something 
 uncommon about it. She was all keyed up, fairly beam 
 ing with life; while as for Dorothy, aged fourteen, she 
 was bursting with significance. There were two women 
 visitors from the West, and they seemed to be in the 
 secret, too. All four had the refreshed and satisfied 
 appearance which only a long afternoon of the very live 
 liest gossip can bring. My aunt s two friends both of 
 them married, with children grown were like school 
 girls off on a spree. It was their first trip East in years, 
 and they were making the most of it. The day before, 
 she had taken them on a shopping trip to the city. She 
 keenly enjoyed these trips to New York. In spite of her 
 talk against the place, she loved to see the new fashions, 
 the shops with all their brilliant display, the bustle and 
 sparkle and dash of the town. It was a wonderful city 
 to visit. The only trouble was, she said, that so many 
 Americans stayed in New York, and there they brought 
 tip children who had no connection with any real life. 
 
 "Take Lucy, for example." 
 
 At that, with a queer little snort, my cousin Dorothy 
 turned to Steve; and when she saw him stiffen a bit, she 
 fairly wriggled with delight. Her mother was talking 
 placidly on. Lucy was such a dear girl, she declared. 
 This was her real home, and when she was here she at 
 once became so different that you realized the pity of the 
 
86 BLIND 
 
 empty artificial life the girl was leading in New York. 
 It made an orchid of a girl with no roots in anything. 
 At that, Steve said abruptly, 
 
 "Well, she s going to marry now. And when she gets 
 a home of her own " 
 
 "I doubt if she ll ever marry that man," Aunt Amelia 
 interrupted. "He isn t half good enough for her, and 
 I ve as good as told her so. She is coming up here the 
 end of the week, and I want you boys to help me keep 
 her here till she knows her own mind. No need to give 
 advice to her. Her home will do the talking." 
 
 A little later, Steve rose to go. 
 
 "Bring your father to supper tomorrow night," said 
 Aunt Amelia cordially. "It s time we were deciding on 
 plans for Decoration Day." 
 
 After Steve had left us, my aunt s two visitors went to 
 bed. 
 
 "Now, Larry," she informed me, in a brisk but rather 
 tremulous tone, "I ve some news for you. Your sister has 
 broken her engagement." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 Aunt Amelia nodded her head. 
 
 "She was here last week and we had a long talk. She 
 asked my advice and I gave it. Then she went back to 
 New York to decide. And this afternoon she telegraphed, 
 You were right. I am coming home ." 
 
 Young Dorothy and I grabbed hands and gayly 
 waltzed about the room. She stopped and declared 
 impressively, 
 
 "Now we ll marry her off to Steve McCrea!" 
 
 "Dorothy/ said ,her mother, "it s high time you were 
 in bed. Lucy will marry nobody whatever." 
 
 "Oh, yes, she will, darling," Dorothy drawled; and 
 then with a little squeal she rushed at her mother and 
 hugged her tight. 
 
 On the morrow my aunt s two visitors left. In the 
 
BLIND 87 
 
 evening Steve and his father came; and at first the con 
 versation was of Decoration Day, which ever since I 
 could recall had been a great time in our family. Aunt 
 Amelia s husband, whose army surgeon s uniform hung 
 in a tall glass case in the hall, had headed the small pro 
 cession of Civil War veterans to the graves in the ceme 
 tery up the hill. Since his death, my aunt and Mr. McCrea 
 had been the leading spirits in making the arrangements. 
 The old clergyman had been a mere boy in 1861, and to 
 his keen disappointment had not been able to join the 
 army until just at the end. But ever since then, in his 
 somber way, he had been a staunch upholder of the War s 
 traditions here. And now his present bitterness was fur 
 ther deepened by the fact that this annual memory day 
 was being neglected. The few old veterans still alive 
 marched to the graves with their families, but the for 
 eigners who had come in knew little or nothing about the 
 War. Tonight, however, it appeared that- a German mili 
 tia company composed of working men in Dad s mills 
 had offered to join in the parade. Old Mr. McCrea was 
 against it; he was for turning their offer down. But 
 Aunt Amelia disagreed. She spoke of the splendid rec 
 ord the Germans in Wisconsin had made in the war of 
 long ago. Why not welcome their countrymen into the 
 march? What was America, anyway, if not a country 
 that welcomed into its very heart and soul all new 
 comers from over the seas? 
 
 Finally she won her point. She turned the conversa 
 tion then to Steve and the work he had done in New 
 York "fine practical Christianity." She went on to link 
 his work with mine. She had been a great reader of Bel- 
 amy, Howells. I was following in their footsteps now. 
 From books she jumped to ranches. Her son Ed had 
 already left his uncle and started a hog ranch of his own. 
 My father was helping him to start. She dwelt on Dad s 
 keen liking for self-made young Americans, and on his 
 
88 BLIND 
 
 equally keen dislike for Lucy s young men friends in 
 New York "young fly-up-the-creeks," she called them 
 who danced all night and as a result were good for 
 nothing the next day. Aunt Amelia was nearing her cli 
 max now, and her voice was taking on the gentle quiet 
 tremulous tone it had when breaking some big news. 
 Lucy was such a dear girl, she declared. She "came out" 
 so when she was here. And she would be here in a few 
 Jdays more. ... At this point my cousin Dorothy, 
 excitedly rigid in her chair and with her vivid round blue 
 eyes fixed on Steve, said slowly and impressively, 
 
 "Not only here but marriageable ! She has broken her 
 engagement" 
 
 And when at that Steve s big hands left his knees with 
 a startled jerk, she placidly folded her plump arms and 
 winked at her mother and at me. 
 
 2. 
 
 On the eve of Decoration Day, Lucy and Dad came 
 out from town; and together the next morning, with 
 piles of wreaths and flowers, we drove to the small grave 
 yard. Steve was waiting for us. As had been our cus 
 tom, very little was said at first; an expectant hush hung 
 over the graves. There were several "old families" here, 
 and in buggies or wagons or afoot others were arriving. 
 Remembering what Steve had said, I began to notice 
 newcomers groups of foreign laborers, their women and 
 children dressed up for a holiday and plainly curious to 
 know what we were waiting for. At first they spoke 
 in loud gay voices; but meeting the frowns and disap 
 proving looks of the old families, they caught the funereal 
 hush of the place. Their children giggled, whispered, 
 squirmed. A "horseless carriage" came puffing up 
 doubtless from onei of the new estates. This arrival, too, 
 was greeted by frowns from all but Aunt Amelia, who 
 welcomed it with a sunny smile. Then suddenly her face 
 
BLIND 89 
 
 assumed that solemn tender \ reverent look which had 
 often thrilled me as a boy. ^ 
 
 "Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory of the Coming of 
 the Lord."* 
 
 The music of the little band could be heard far down 
 the hill, and as we rose to our feet we caught sight of the 
 small procession winding up the hillside road. Behind 
 the band came a score of old men in faded blue uniforms, 
 bearing a flag. Steve s father led them ; and the rear was 
 brought up by the German militia, some fifty husky look 
 ing lads with rifles on their shoulders, their good-natured 
 faces grown solemn and stern for the occasion. 
 
 When we had come close around a little row of sol 
 diers graves, Steve s father standing with bared head 
 repeated Lincoln s great address : 
 
 "Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought 
 forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, 
 and dedicated to the propositon that all men are created 
 equal." 
 
 As he went on, I glanced around and caught the look 
 on the face of my aunt. She was standing very straight, 
 her head nodding slightly, and on her lips was a smile 
 that said, 
 
 "Yes, it has always been, and is and ever shall be, a 
 country so great and wonderful, that if I am not very 
 careful I shall soon be crying a little, my dears/ 
 
 The smile was still there when a few minutes later she 
 came forward out of the crowd, and stooping very care 
 fully placed a big wreath of apple blossoms at the head 
 of her husband s grave. 
 
 Later, at a sharp guttural order, up went the German 
 rifles firing a salute for the dead. A bugle gently blowing 
 Taps Figures moving slowly about heaping flowers on 
 the graves. And the ceremony was at an end. 
 
 On the drive home young Dorothy placed herself 
 beside me, She wanted to talk of Lucy and Steve, 
 
90 BLIND 
 
 "Larry/* she said, "if you don t help me see this 
 though, I ll never forgive you! I m all alone! Lucy is 
 thinking of going abroad and Mother will simply not 
 lift a hand. We ve got to get very busy !" 
 
 We did. When Steve stopped coming to the house, 
 we arranged parties to lure him there; but we made so 
 little progress that Dorothy fairly ground her teeth. 
 "Nothing I can do or say will induce those two to be left 
 alone!" We went to Aunt Amelia for help. "Mother! 
 What on earth can we do?" 
 
 "Do nothing, my dear. It is none of our business." 
 
 And knitting very slowly at first but faster and faster 
 as she talked, Aunt Amelia proceeded to make it our 
 business. With deep enjoyment we entered into one of 
 those family councils so dear to the hearts of us all. 
 
 "Neither of them," she declared, "is in condition to 
 come to any clear decision on anything." 
 
 "Then they re in just the condition to get engaged!" 
 cried Dorothy. Her mother looked at her dryly. 
 
 "That s quite precocious in you, my dear. But how do 
 we know they re in love with each other ?" 
 
 With zest and deliberation we proceeded to analyze 
 them both. Steve, we decided, had every reason against 
 asking Lucy to marry him. Her father was rich and 
 Steve was poor. He still had his way to make. No, not 
 quite for Bannard, his chief, had taken him on as one 
 of his surgeon assistants uptown. Hundreds of other 
 young doctors probably envied him his chance. How 
 much was he likely to earn the first year? Not over three 
 thousand at the most very little for Lucy to live on. 
 
 "But it would do her good to live on it!" cried Dor 
 othy, almost with a wail "And besides, she wouldn t 
 have to! She d still have her allowance and clothes 
 enough for years and years! And the wedding presents 
 would furnish the house!" 
 
 We bent our minds on Lucy now. It would be the 
 
BLIND 91 
 
 best thing in the world for her to marry a chap like 
 Steve McCrea. At home she was far from happy. Aunt 
 Fanny and she simply could not get on. This much was 
 in favor of the match. But on the other hand was the 
 fact that Lucy had just rejected a man who, in spite of 
 being a lawyer, was an undeniably decent sort. She was 
 used to him, she liked him, she might have been happy 
 as his wife. No doubt she was telling herself that now, 
 half angry at having given him up. 
 
 "And who knows?" I put in, with the irony of a man 
 who is twenty-one years old and has seen the devil of a 
 lot "Who knows but what, woman fashion, she s 
 blaming her broken engagement on Steve?" 
 
 "In addition to which," cried Dorothy, "she has been 
 invited to go abroad. She has that to decide and she 
 hates to decide just hates it!" 
 
 We emerged from our council no farther on then 
 when we began, but with the restful feeling which only 
 such confabs can give. We came back to our starting 
 point. It was none of our business. Leave it alone. 
 
 The next day I took Lucy and Steve for a walk. I 
 suggested it in the most genial mood, as though prom 
 ising they could count on me to be the life of the party. 
 But once we were off, I dropped all effort to keep up the 
 talk; and after a few impatient looks cast in my direc 
 tion, my kid sister, obeying the law of her world which 
 ordained that silence. was a crime, began to fill in with 
 small talk ; and when this failed, she went on to display a 
 kind sisterly interest in the futures of us both. Mine, 
 however, was soon dropped and our attention was 
 focussed on Steve. What kind of a life did he really 
 want? Would he live uptown or still with me? Who 
 would be his patients? What people did he want for 
 friends? On call at all hours day and night, how could 
 he have any life of his own? 
 
 I was more than satisfied. Plainly she was trying to 
 
92 BLIND 
 
 picture herself as a surgeon s wife. Moreover, they were 
 talking now. 
 
 "What chances you men have/* she said. 
 
 "So do you," retorted Steve. "You can do anything 
 you like." 
 
 She indignantly denied it. Both Dad and Aunt Fanny 
 held her back. 
 
 "They do nothing of the kind," he replied. He had 
 her there, and she dropped the point. Her whole bring 
 ing up was the trouble, she said. 
 
 "You ve had a mighty good bringing up right here 
 at your Aunt Amelia s," said Steve. 
 
 She threw an angry look at him. Next she blamed 
 her boarding school. It had been "too useless for any 
 words." 
 
 "All right," he answered doggedly, "but the boarding 
 school was your own idea. Yes, it was I remember per 
 fectly well how you kept at your aunt till she let you go." 
 
 A furious silence followed that, and glancing at Steve 
 with keen relish I saw he was worried under his smile, 
 cursing himself for having been so all-fired blunt with 
 this girl. He was in a hole and could see no escape. I 
 caught a glimpse of Lucy s face. Her anger was gone. 
 She read Steve like a book, and looked not only amused 
 but pleased at his evident uneasiness. 
 
 "Well, then," she said gravely, "having been such a 
 perfect fool from start to finish, apparently what do 
 you think I d better do?" 
 
 He told her that he didn t know. So I came in with 
 suggestions. One after the other she tossed them aside. 
 
 "Well, Sis," I said finally, "I see nothing else for you 
 but to marry and settle down." Lucy answered gloomily : 
 
 "I can imagine nothing worse." 
 
 Then Steve pulled himself together. With a smile that 
 was almost natural he said, 
 
 "Look here, Lucy, the thing for you is to spend the 
 
BLIND 93 
 
 whole summer right where you are 4 . Get strong and for 
 get your city nerves. Talk with your aunt and think 
 yourself out." 
 
 "I guess you re right," said Lucy. "Yes, I think that s 
 what I ll do." 
 
 The next day she announced she was going abroad. 
 At once in wild excitement Dorothy summoned her 
 mother and me to another family council. 
 
 "I tell you," she cried angrily, "something simply must 
 be done!" 
 
 "But what?" I rejoined. She racked her brains. Her 
 mother serenely darned a sock. 
 
 "Your father is coming out tonight," she told me, 
 "and he s bringing a friend Doctor Bannard." I looked 
 at her sharply: 
 
 "You mean Steve s chief?" 
 
 "Exactly." I leaned forward: 
 
 "And you mean?" 
 
 "That s twice you ve said You mean ," said Aunt 
 Amelia composedly. Young Dorothy was shaking her. 
 
 "What is it?" she demanded. 
 
 "Well," said Aunt Amelia, "Steve seems to me to be 
 suffering from a little too much modesty. And I think 
 it may do him good to hear, from a man whose opinion 
 he respects, what kind of a future he s likely to have and 
 how soon he is likely to have it." 
 
 "In other words," cried Dorothy, "how soon he ll be 
 able to marry!" 
 
 "What a very subtle child you are," her mother 
 said admiringly. 
 
 "Is Dad in this?" I inquired. 
 
 "No," said she. "Your father and Doctor Bannard 
 have come to be very good friends, that s all. So he s 
 bringing the doctor out for the night." 
 
 The plan worked splendidly. Steve was invited over 
 to dinner; and sitting here by Lucy s side he heard things 
 
34 BLIND 
 
 said about himself that would have encouraged any 
 young man to take half a dozen wives. Old Bannard 
 beamed upon my aunt, who had captivated him at the 
 start, and in response to her questions he enlarged upon 
 his pride in the record Steve had made in New York. 
 He envied Steve his youth, he declared. Jobs so tremen 
 dous loomed ahead. People from all over the earth were 
 crowding by millions into our cities. An ominous rest 
 lessness was there, which was bound to play the devil 
 unless we went after its cause with a knife. Clean out the 
 sweatshops and the slums, build hospitals, dispensaries, 
 and open parks and playgrounds! My aunt resumed her 
 questions now, and from the answers it appeared that not 
 only was Steve to save the world but to lead an exceed 
 ingly wonderful life with money in plenty, a big posi 
 tion, friends of the most brilliant kind, ideas crackling all 
 about. When Bannard finished, there was no doubt that 
 whoever married Steve would be a mighty lucky girl. 
 And it was all I could do, by a good grip on Dorothy s 
 arm, to keep her from stating that fact aloud. Lucy 
 looked distinctly tense. 
 
 "That," said Bannard enviously, "is the chance ahead 
 for this boy and his like that is, if they re backed as 
 they ought to be." 
 
 "They will be," said my father. 
 
 Whereupon Aunt Amelia smiled and said we would 
 have our coffee outside. 
 
 So we went out under the stars for awhile. 
 
 3. 
 
 Lucy had planned to leave the next day, and Steve 
 came over to say goodbye. I happened to be with her 
 when he abruptly entered the room. I made for the door, 
 but before I got through it I heard him say, 
 
 "Look here, why are you going abroad ?" Voice quiv 
 ering but very strong. I went on up the hallway, but 
 
BLIND 95 
 
 through an adjoining room their voices came to me 
 again. 
 
 "Yes, you do," he said in a low sharp tone. "Or if you 
 don t, I m done for. I want you so I can t go on. You 
 care for me, Lucy yes, you do* look up at me it 
 means so much! You re unhappy you want something 
 else ! I can give it I mean I ll try so hard !" His voice 
 became so husky and low I could make nothing of it 
 now. "You are like that," he ended. 
 
 "Oh Steve, I m not ! I m really not ! If you only knew 
 me through and through " 
 
 "I do !" he cried. "What do I care for the last few 
 years? I knew you, didn t I, here as a kid from the 
 time when you were nothing at all! And that s what 
 counts what makes a girl! You ve known me, too, in 
 just that way! And nothing else under the moon and 
 the stars " 
 
 I heard a heavy step outside, and sneaking frantically 
 to the door I reached it just as it was thrown open by 
 Ed, my young cousin, arrived from his ranch, stout and 
 hearty as a bull. He had not seen his home for a year. 
 As he opened his mouth to shout, "Hello!" I stopped 
 him by a terrible contortion of my features. Ed shrank 
 back, then grabbed my hand. 
 
 "What the hell s the matter?" he whispered. 
 
 "Sh-h!" 
 
 "Mother sick?" 
 
 I gripped his arm, and tip-toeing like a Wild Indian 
 I got him down into the yard. Briefly I explained to 
 him. And because, though he was slow in speech Ed 
 was a fellow quick to act, he conducted me to the living- 
 room window and boosted me up for a look inside. In 
 an instant I dropped to the ground. Around the house we 
 hurried and up to Aunt Amelia s room, and a scene of the 
 most frenzied kind took place in the next few moments 
 there. Ed s coming was a complete surprise; and no 
 
96 BLIND 
 
 sotmer had his mother begun to take in the astonishing 
 fact that her beloved son was home, than into the tumult 
 I lightly tossed the news from below. Joy redoubled. 
 Prancing round like a young goat, Dorothy turned 
 abruptlly, rushed out and down the stairs to explore; and 
 presently there came to our ears from the piano, sweet 
 and low, the stately Lohengrin Wedding March. 
 
 The rest of the day I recall as a bedlam of laughter, 
 kisses, wedding plans, ranches, hogs and white tulle over 
 satin. My aunt was getting Ed in one ear and Lucy and 
 Steve in the other. I remember Dorothy throwing the 
 gowns joyously out of Lucy s trunks, to the tune of "Oh 
 That Golden Wedding!" The wedding was to be right 
 here. That much was decided at the start. The talk ran 
 on far into the future, into a jumble of plans and dreams 
 till Aunt Amelia brought us back. 
 
 "Steve," she said, "I think you had better go to see 
 Lucy s father tonight." Steve sobered quickly: 
 
 "I d thought of that. I m going to town this after 
 noon." 
 
 "He ll be perfectly radiant!" Dorothy cried. Her 
 mother smiled a bit queerly and said, 
 
 "He will be eventually, my dear." 
 
 I went with Steve that afternoon. In the city I left him 
 to his fate, but meeting him later that evening I learned 
 about his interview. 
 
 My father, it seemed, had sharply changed from the 
 most genial friendliness to dumbfounded indignation 
 over the outrageous news that Steve wanted Lucy for a 
 wife. The idea had never entered Dad s head. And his 
 love for Lucy, his deep dislike of changes in his house 
 hold, his dread of how Aunt Fanny would take it, all 
 combined to bring on an explosion that pretty nearly 
 sent Steve away in a volcanic state of mind. It was 
 Aunt Fanny who saved the day. Hearing the voices, she 
 came in; and on learning the news, she declared herself 
 
BLIND 97 
 
 ar once in favor of the match. Engrossed as she was in 
 her newborn babe and her two other children; and after 
 a long confinement pleased to be once more beginning 
 the luxurious life she loved, it was hard to make Aunt 
 Fanny feel that any event was a tragedy least of all 
 one that involved setting her smooth household free from 
 its sole disturbing element. She had honestly tried her 
 best to make Lucy happy. She had failed. So she gladly 
 gave Steve her blessing and advised Dad to do the same. 
 Then Steve 1 , who was still on his high horse, said that 
 he wanted it understood that if he married Lucy they 
 would live on his earnings from the start. Snort 
 from my father. Frown from Steve, who insisted 
 that Bannard be called in "to give you the facts as to 
 whether or not I ll be able to support a wife." This was 
 done. And old Bannard was so strong and convincing in 
 his backing, that as soon as he left the house my father 
 gripped Steve by the hand. 
 
 "All right, my boy I talked like a fool. And I like 
 the way you took it." 
 
 Well over his astonishment, the more Dad thought 
 about the match the better he liked it. Thank Heaven the 
 girl had shown the sense to steer clear of her titty-tatty 
 friends and pick for a husband a real young man. He 
 told her so when she came the next day; and to his sur 
 prise this grown daughter of his, who had always been 
 far from demonstrative, suddenly threw herself into his 
 arms and wept on his shoulder. 
 
 "Oh Dad, Dad it means so much so much to have 
 you feel like that !" 
 
 Even with her stepmother Lucy got on famously now, 
 for the two were bound together by the weird conviction 
 that, no matter how many hundred thousand articles of 
 clothing a girl has in her wardrobe, she must begin shop-, 
 ping all over again if she is to become a wife. So they 
 bought clothes; and after that they set about furnishing 
 
98 BLIND 
 
 a house, a small one down near Washington Square, 
 which Lucy and Steve had selected after looking at scores 
 of apartments. 
 
 Steve was back in the city and working hard. They 
 were to be married the end of August. Only one week 
 for a wedding trip, for that was all they could afford 
 and Lucy, when not buying things, was firmly enthused 
 at the prospect of being "poor," of living downtown, 
 with a mere box of a house for a home, and only a cook 
 and one other maid. Everything goes by comparison. She 
 could talk like that in our father s house; but with Steve 
 and me in our old rooms, when the Lung Block on those 
 stifling nights like some enormous creature alive would 
 glare out of a thousand eyes, belch heat and stinking 
 odors, and in a raucous quivering roar would declare 
 "I am Poverty. I am the fiery furnace of all the ages. I 
 am Hell" then would my young sister vow that it 
 seemed perfectly criminal for Steve and herself to have 
 so much. Recalling Bannard s dream for the city, she 
 would demand the full details of how it was to be worked 
 out. Hospitals, settlements, public schools she was 
 eager to learn of them all parts of a world in which she 
 was sure that Steve would play a tremendous role. But 
 her sense of humor and his own would soon come to the 
 rescue; and dropping all thought of science or the salva 
 tion of mankind, they would go off on radiant sprees. 
 
 They came out often to Seven Pines to talk it over 
 with our aunt. But here Steve s silent father was some 
 times a disturbing note; for although he said nothing 
 openly, it was plain that he saw complications ahead. 
 From him and his forefathers, figures reaching back into 
 the hard and bleak and rugged beginnings of New Eng 
 land, Steve had inherited a contempt for any fellow weak 
 enough to become a rich girl s husband. Newspaper 
 stories had already appeared about the engagement, and 
 it got on his nerves at times. In New York he could meet 
 
BLIND 99 
 
 it by hard work and the determination to make such a 
 thundering success that all thought of money would go 
 by the board. But here in the country with his father he 
 was not so confident. They had trouble, too, as to his 
 religion; for before old Mr. McCrea would consent to 
 marry them, he had to be shown that his son had retained 
 enough of his faith to justify the church in sanctioning 
 the union. And this was not easy. It took all Aunt 
 Amelia s powers of persuasion. Finally it was arranged. 
 
 4. 
 
 As the wedding day drew near, this old house at Seven 
 Pines took on a thrilled expectant air. For Aunt Amelia, 
 a bit blue because all of us but Dorothy were now grown 
 up with lives of our own, had set herself determinedly to 
 make us feel that this was the one spot on earth where 
 each of us would want to come back with our joys or our 
 troubles. This was home. Rapidly it began to fill with 
 bridesmaids, friends and relatives. Gifts were arriving. 
 Plans were made. The house was a perfect hubbub now, 
 fairly bursting with guests. Dorothy was in a state of 
 bliss quite impossible to describe. Outdoors and within, 
 by day and by night, the great exciting time went on. 
 Even the homely little church had been given a bright 
 festive air. 
 
 On the wedding day, as Steve s best man, I reached 
 the church before anyone, else, except his father and him 
 self. Both of them were on their knees. With his hand 
 on the shoulder of his son, the old preacher s face was 
 turned upward, his eyes were closed and the voice of his 
 prayer so husky and low I could not hear. 
 
 Of the wedding service I have no clear recollection. 
 It is but a blur in my memory. 
 
 "To love and to cherish, till death us do part." I 
 remember the hushed expectancy in the church on that 
 lovely summer s day. It was as though for the moment 
 
100 BLIND 
 
 brought under the spell of those marriage vows to be 
 binding on the years ahead, our senses, too, though we 
 knew it not, were turned toward the future. How deeply 
 shocked we would have been had we been told of the 
 great winds which with the roar of a tempest world-wide 
 were to beat upon all churches, homes and courts of law, 
 banks and seats of government, and challenge each to 
 show good reason why it should not be struck down, 
 swept into the raging flood and left to founder in the 
 past. "For richer, for poorer." In those days there was 
 such wealth on the one hand, such poverty on the other, 
 that the hope of winning the one and of escaping the 
 other crept up to the very altar like a god invisible. But 
 with the children s children of those unions how will it 
 be? Life is simplified for a man who is blind. For me at 
 least the war overseas, abruptly as a thunderbolt, has cut 
 off the past from the future. I am between, and I am 
 in the dark. I look ahead, and it seems to me that even 
 now there begins to appear in mighty outlines, vague and 
 dim, the world of these children and their sons. Great 
 wealth and poverty are not there. What then ? A perfect 
 brotherhood? Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, all in mel 
 low glow? Far from it. Rather the hard clear light of 
 early dawn, and climbers up a mountain side builders, 
 workers, seekers, dreamers meeting the old obstacles, 
 Greed, Envy, Sloth and many more rocks in the path 
 to the perfect day. "For better, for worse." How can we 
 be sure ? But it is the dawn, not the dark, that I feel. 
 
 "I pronounce you man and wife." 
 
 Abruptly the spell was broken, and soon back at home 
 to the music of a little orchestra we were crowding* 
 around the bride and groom a laughing, chattering, 
 joyous mob. Did we dance later? I am not sure. But 
 when Steve and Lucy had gone upstairs, I remember that 
 I led the singing song after song till the walls and the 
 low ceilings rang. Then down the stairs with a rush they 
 
B L / tf "p / * ;;- 101 
 
 came. Shouts, rice in showers and, old shoes, and a car 
 riage rolling down trfe hill, Lucy s 4raa& from the win 
 dow waving goodbyes. 
 
 In the twenty years that have gone since then, there 
 have been other happenings here both dark and bright. 
 We shall come to them. But tonight the house is very 
 still. And this house and I have grown to be such inti 
 mate companions, that in these silent times it seems as 
 though we were dreaming not apart but together into the 
 past and on into the years ahead, in which there will be 
 other festivals, matings, births, long solemn talks, bright 
 visions, plans and resolutions. Of this much we can be 
 sure. For the rest, the light is still too dim. But though 
 the world be strange and new, the house is old. So is the 
 race. Some elements will never change. May the happi 
 ness be deeper, the tragedies more wide apart. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 1. 
 
 STEVE AND LUCY asked me to live with them. I 
 declined but was there continually, for not only was I 
 fond of them both, but deeply curious as well. In what 
 happened to them I could get premonitions of what 
 might befall my precious self should I ever take the 
 plunge. It was an engrossing spectacle. Single married 
 presto change! In a twinkling Steve s personal life 
 was seized and bent and twisted, complicated, crowded 
 up in the most delightful, torturing and fascinating man 
 ner. "And they lived happy ever after." Ha, ha, ha! 
 The laughter of the ages here! For happiness, it now 
 appeared, could be a thing of fever, shivers, dazzling 
 light and utter darkness, flare-ups over smallest trifles, 
 brooding thoughts and fancies hatching, anxious search 
 ing, sudden finding, celebrations, hoping, dreaming, 
 babies crying. 
 
 The queer little brown house 1 two floors and a half, 
 with white frames to its long narrow windows, quaint 
 low doorway leading in was fairly quivering with new 
 life. Shocks, large and small, came in rapid succession. 
 A shock at the start for them to find how little they 
 really knew one another. Suddenly they were intimate 
 strangers who looked at each other with startled eyes. 
 Steve had his anxious moments. Of what they were 
 going through Lucy had known little or nothing. She 
 was what is called a well bred girl, full of susceptibilities 
 some to be expected, others to bring a man up with a 
 jerk. It took careful steering. But luckily Steve had in 
 tuitions far from common in our sex. He took her 
 
 102 
 
BLIND 103 
 
 through without disaster. And as a result, instead of a 
 somewhat bruised and dulled or secretly disillusioned 
 young wife, he had a radiant creature. She had never 
 been quite beautiful, but now she came into her own. 
 Her large gray eyes had a shimmering light that she 
 would turn upon old Steve; and when at such times 
 the whole soul of him grew queerly tense, she would 
 laugh or smile, talk rapidly and move about doing fool 
 ish things or making him do them. All the furniture in 
 the place was tried here and there and then again here 
 while I helped, advised and criticized, or stirred the 
 Rarebit for our feast and meditated on married life. 
 
 So far, so good. But now they went exploring deep, 
 each one into the love of the other. Neither had any 
 patience with shams or concealments. The veils were 
 down. All thoughts and feelings, points of view, not in 
 order but haphazard, were eagerly turned inside out. 
 There were arguments growing decidedly heated, quar 
 rels comic, quarrels grim. He was working hard and she 
 urged him on; but there came sudden jealous moods. 
 That detestable Bannard!" she would cry. "Can t he 
 give us a moment of our own?" After the flare-ups or 
 spells of gloom came reconciliations so dazzling that I 
 felt in the way ; and forth I went into the world, a lonely, 
 wistful, lorn young man. But again there were drops to 
 the commonplace, when they had little to say to each 
 other. And I was a welcome figure then, for my young 
 sister was resolved that marriage should not narrow 
 them. She wanted all the very latest gossip from News 
 paper Row; and she loved to sit up half the night plan 
 ning what we meant to do in the years so brightly open 
 ing. In mind and fancy, in those days, I had exuberance 
 enough; but in our ardent long discussions it added an 
 agreeable zest to feel about me the love of these two. It 
 was always there just under the surface, so intense, so 
 warm and deep, so human in its weaknesses, its grop- 
 
104 BLIND 
 
 ings and its twists and turns, its way of suddenly bursting 
 up, rending, tearing, quickly healing, deepening and 
 reaching out an uncanny and mysterious force in these 
 people I had known so well. 
 
 I saw more of Lucy than of Steve. Often I found her 
 alone in the evenings, and this delightful sister of mine 
 attracted me enormously. With her small house she had 
 fallen in love. As a writer will carry a story about with 
 him in the back of his mind, so did Lucy with her home ; 
 and out of her consciousness she evolved a constant 
 stream of new ideas, until under her touch the little place 
 assumed a warm living personal charm. The daily rou 
 tine of its life had been arranged to run smoothly now. 
 That is, it should have. It did not. Like some mysterious 
 engine, it would at times "kick back" or "stall." But 
 these accidents, in Lucy s mood, were only things to 
 laugh at. So were the struggles month by month firmly 
 to keep expenses down. Each morning she went with a 
 basket to a large market not far off, where a squeaky 
 little orchestra of musicians from the street gave music 
 to the marketing; and going about to the various booths 
 she handled with an authoritative manner meat and fish 
 and vegetables, and chatted with the people who sold 
 them. Many she vowed to be "characters." I wrote them 
 up, they read my sketches, and the popularity of my sis 
 ter was increased for I painted them all in high col 
 ors, just as we saw them in those days, a thoroughly 
 human, likable lot. 
 
 On the edge of the tenement quarter just below 
 her neighborhood, she discovered a small Italian church, 
 and took me there on a festival night when the little place 
 was all aglow with tinsel and soft candle light. A Sicil 
 ian wine shop was close by, with huge foreign looking 
 casks of wine from California; and upstairs was a pup 
 pet show or "marionettes," as they were called. The 
 white-headed old showman became our friend and let us 
 
BLIND 105 
 
 in behind the scenes. Back of one wittg we stood with 
 him. Close .above, from a dark little loft, two gorgeous 
 youths stripped to the waists would glare at one another 
 as with wires they worked the heads and limbs, the 
 swords and shields of the doughty warriors fighting 1 
 below. Kings and queens, knights, lovely maids the 
 old showman himself had made them all. Standing 
 beside us, his big black eyes fixed upon their antics, in a 
 voice oi deep resonance he would roll off the rhythmic 
 lines. The play was hundreds of acts in length, it took 
 three months to play it through and yet for the male 
 characters he knew all the lines by heart, and would sing 
 them off sonorously; while over in the other wing his 
 stout old wife, who seemed to be drowsing over a large 
 and ancient book, would somehow always waken in time 
 to read each fine lady s part. And across the crude gas 
 footlights, peering into the darkness there, we could see 
 lines of swarthy faces, hungry fascinated eyes. 
 
 Romance, glamour, mystery. To one who has the eyes 
 to see, the turgid city of New York becomes a glamor 
 ous treasure house. Greeks, Turks, Armenians are there 
 and an Arabic daily paper ! Spaniards, South Ameri 
 cans, Hungarians, Bohemians, Chinamen, Hindoos, Rus 
 sians and Jews from all over the face of the globe. And 
 they have their newspapers and cafes, shops piled up with 
 curios, churches, temples, synagogues, mosques. There 
 are whispering magicians there secret rages, endless 
 crimes, unspeakable vices dances, songs there are 
 theatres weddings babies born. And a kind of a roar 
 sweeps over it all. 
 
 And in those days it seemed as though all that touched 
 on my sister s life revealed a romance of its own. Even 
 the furnace did its part. Now a furnace is not a roman 
 tic thing. Yet the furnace man I found for her was a tall 
 Russian with close-shaved head who wore an old gray 
 belted blouse with a flower embroidered on each shoul- 
 
106 BLIND 
 
 der. A village school teacher over there, he had left home 
 and started out upon a world-wide pilgrimage to gather 
 the teachers of the earth into one great brotherhood. His 
 name was Oberookoff. He barely spoke English and 
 knew still less about furnace drafts. He had terrible 
 times he had marvelous dreams. One morning when 
 the house was freezing, Steve found him sprawled on the 
 cellar floor trying to read by candle light the paper with 
 which an hour before he had come down to start the fire. 
 ... I saw much of him later on. 
 
 It was a cheerful neighborhood, with little wretched 
 ness to be seen. On balmy evenings groups of boys and 
 girls would come by singing. Among the low old-fash 
 ioned dwellings several big tenement buildings had 
 already been put up. One of them reared its shadowy 
 bulk just behind Lucy s little house; and from her bed 
 room window she could hear voices drop out of the dark 
 angry, peevish, laughing, low ; they seemed to go on all 
 through the night, in a babel of many tongues. Across 
 her backyard was a low brick house an affair as dull as 
 the furnace, it seemed. Yet a notorious "fence" was 
 there. A "fence," ladies and gentlemen, is a man who 
 trades in stolen goods. When Lucy learned this she was 
 filled with disgust; for a whole barrel of wedding gifts 
 that she detested, yet must keep, because the donors at 
 any moment might come spying about the house, had 
 been left on the back porch one night. Why couldn t her 
 neighbor have helped her out ? 
 
 Steve s doctor s sign was in the window. Occasion 
 ally a possible patient would come up and ring the bell. 
 And at such times, if Steve were out his wife would 
 receive the visitor, cordial, friendly, sympathetic, and 
 would beg him to call again. 
 
 Both Steve and I brought our friends to the house. 
 With a few exceptions they belonged to the world old 
 Bannard had described; and while they did not quite 
 
BLIND 107 
 
 come up to the picture he had painted, they were inter 
 esting nevertheless. For the age of my youth was an era 
 when hundreds of young Americans, like the youth in 
 far away Russia, began a movement "to the people." 
 Some of them lived in "settlements;" others took tene 
 ments of their own. Of the Russian Intelligenzia I 
 learned a good deal later on so much that I would have 
 been astounded had I been told what I should see. But 
 the movement here was different. Little or nothing very 
 wild or world-embracing in its scope. Not revolution but 
 reform. A practical, hardworking lot, though you would 
 not have guessed it to hear them talk. Bernard Shaw was 
 then the rage, and they would talk Shaw by the hour at 
 night. To listen, you might have fancied that each and 
 every one of them had nothing but scorn for small re 
 forms. What a absurdly rotten old world ! Get a grip 
 on the roots of it, jerk and heave, and bring it down with 
 a glorious crash ! But the next morning back they would 
 go to the steady jobs which their practical souls loved 
 above all things else on earth. 
 
 So the country began to be saved in those days. From 
 those few hundred pioneers have sprung thousands of 
 wild young things to whose godlike spirits the world is a 
 ball spinning round so fast that only the boldest thoughts 
 and acts can be seen or heard in the seething whirl. 
 Meanwhile, as in the age of my youth, from far beneath 
 them can be felt a prodigious heave and quiver, as from 
 a mass of humanity dull and common as the earth, and as 
 unlikely to burst up. And yet earthquakes are not 
 unknown. 
 
 But if we had any such thoughts, they only added zest 
 to our talk. And Lucy, keenly interested, was a delightful 
 hostess. Aunt Amelia often came in from the country to 
 spend the night, and she warmly approved of everything 
 of the house, the change in Lucy, her new life and her 
 new friends. It was fine to see young people working for 
 
108 BLIND 
 
 the good of the country in such useful practical ways. 
 Sometimes she brought Dorothy, too, who was soon to 
 go to college and was thrilled at meeting here such 
 entrancing persons as magazine writers and suffragettes, 
 and above all women who earned their own living. 
 
 "That s what I mean to do!" she declared. She was 
 working hard at her piano and had dreams of a career. 
 
 But more often her mother came alone; and because 1 
 our aunt was interested far less in jobs than in people 
 themselves whom she loved to study until she knew 
 them, not as they would like to appear but as they really 
 were underneath having approved, she set herself to 
 watch them with a keen delight, their vanities and weak 
 nesses, quirks and twists of every kind. And when they 
 had gone she and Lucy would talk them over for hours. 
 Lucy had so much to tell her aunt. She was changing 
 much more deeply now. There came long times when she 
 kept to herself. As the spring drew rapidly on, there 
 were fewer visitors at the house. Aunt Amelia came 
 more and more. She was there when Lucy s son was 
 born. 
 
 Abruptly then the atmosphere changed. Dad and 
 Aunt Fanny came to the house, and many of Lucy s old 
 girl friends. Some were already wives and mothers. 
 Small dainty garments and other gifts poured in from 
 uptown. It was as though the old life of my sister were 
 reaching out for her once more. 
 
 As soon as she was strong enough, she came out with 
 her baby to Seven Pines. 
 
 2. 
 
 She spent a long quiet summer here, and under the 
 leisurely routine her sense of pronortions began to 
 chan.ee. She was ill for a time and that colored her 
 thinking, made her crave familiar things. In rambling 
 talks with Aunt Amelia to whom the word "family" 
 
BLIND . 109 
 
 meant so much; and to whom, for all her love of new 
 things, it was "such a mistake" to drop the old Lucy s 
 formless cravings began to assume a definite form. She 
 was deeply pleased by the fact that Dad, when he came 
 to his mills nearby, would almost invariably motor over 
 to see his little grandson. Her love for him came back 
 tenfold. The boy made such a difference. The winter 
 before, in Lucy s home, our father and Aunt Fanny had 
 been almost wholly ignored; but when she returned to 
 town in October, Lucy was anxious to have him come, 
 especially without his wife. And out of this anxiety there 
 gradually developed a complicated tangle, a fast deepen 
 ing conflict. It was the old, old struggle between two 
 women for a man but it had a queer new twist to it. 
 Aunt Fanny wanted a husband; Lucy, a grandfather for 
 her boy. 
 
 Aunt Fanny, still in her early thirties, had now decided 
 apparently that three children were enough, and was 
 making preparations for an exceedingly gorgeous career. 
 She was prettier than ever before, and if anything more 
 smartly dressed. It was a constant marvel to me to see 
 what satin, silk and velvet and oh damn it, just plain 
 cloth! could do to a woman. One night I humbly 
 begged her to give me some small inkling of the mys 
 teries of it all. And after stating emphatically that most 
 men writers made a perfectly ludicrous failure of dress 
 ing the women in their books, gracious she took me 
 upstairs and showed me large closets filled with gowns, 
 and one with hats and another with slippers, shimmering 
 upon long shelves and twinkling mischievously down. 
 She talked of clothes. She opened a safe and gave a little 
 lecture on jewels. To be "over-dressed" was the thing 
 she abhorred. A quiet expensive English maid looked ori 
 discreetly, smiling, and added a little sage advice. In 
 brief, my young mother did her best to help me on in my 
 writer s career and as usual flirted with me a bit. 
 
110 BLIND 
 
 As for Dad, she could twist him around her finger. In 
 his tense busy crowded life, his wife was a tonic, a 
 draught of wine. Though fifty now, he was still young 
 still one of "the big new men" downtown. His imag 
 ination, vital force and will were turned on vistas ex 
 tending out all over the land, and he was making money 
 so fast it was all Aunt Fanny could do to keep up. But 
 she did pretty well. Already she had coaxed him out of 
 his plan for a house on the Sound; they were building at 
 Newport instead. And here in town she entertained more 
 lavishly than ever before. Her dinners, dances, musi- 
 cales were, like her clothes, expensively simple, in the 
 very best of taste. It is true that among her guests were 
 men who only a little before had been running factories, 
 mills and mines in distant parts of the country. But they 
 had become New Yorkers now. Their wives had taken 
 them firmly in hand and had polished rough, rough dia 
 monds into- such nicely finished gems that nothing 
 remained of the past but a smile with a hard shrewd 
 wisdom underneath. There were distinguished foreign 
 ers come overseas in quest of graft, who met such men 
 in homes like these and sized them up as easy marks; 
 then met them in their offices and emerged with scared 
 faces like bad little boys. 
 
 Under Aunt Fanny s skillful hand my father, too, had 
 taken on a decidedly polished air. He grew younger and 
 younger. He learned to dance! And to Lucy this 
 dancing was the last straw. Disgusting and ridiculous! 
 The way that creature twisted him ! The waste of money, 
 the useless waste, the utterly empty senseless life for a 
 grandfather! There was the rub. She wanted Dad not 
 young but old plain, simple, kindly, old fashioned in 
 dress. "At his age" she was constantly saying. At his 
 age he should have what he really craved, a home like 
 Aunt Amelia s. At his age he should be thinking not 
 only of gathering money in but of spending it for the 
 
BLIND 111 
 
 common good to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, 
 heal the sick in short, back Steve. What perfectly daz 
 zling chances to make the whole world happy, these days 
 and what a perfectly wicked shame that money which 
 should have been spent on such work was merely "thrown 
 about like air." 
 
 Dad met this point by good-naturedly contributing to 
 everything for which Lucy asked his aid. But the out 
 rageous part of it was that he was making money so fast 
 he could meet both his wife s and his daughter s demands. 
 He went farther he even offered to build a hospital for 
 Steve. But here the complications grew. For Steve 
 declined the offer; and when Lucy asked me to talk with 
 him, it was revealed that Steve still felt his silent old 
 father s contempt for his position as a rich girl s hus 
 band. He was resolved more than ever before to keep 
 free of his father-in-law. 
 
 "Look here, Larry," he said, "I love my wife and I 
 want to take this but I can t. If I choose this very easy 
 way and go up as the son-in-law of your father, it would 
 take all the ginger out of me I am like that. She would 
 feel it soon it would half spoil our lives. And why 
 should I ? I don t need to ! I ve got chances enough as it 
 is! So many, it s bewildering! And if Lucy will only 
 wait awhile God knows we re happy enough even now 
 or were, till she got this fool idea. I don t understand 
 it!" 
 
 "It s the boy." 
 
 "The boy," Steve answered doggedly, "is to be my son 
 and not the grandson of Carrington Hart!" 
 
 The effect of this on Steve was to make him work the 
 harder, and to feel a bitter impatience at times over the 
 fact that Bannard, his chief, in order to put through his 
 plans must forever "toady" to men of wealth. This feel 
 ing in Steve did not last, but while it did it was intense. 
 He had a big generous streak in him ; and grumble as he 
 
112 BLIND 
 
 often did against the obstinate ignorance of people in the 
 tenements, he paid many free visits to tenement 
 homes, in the meantime working hard on various com 
 mittees. He so devotedly threw himself into the hard 
 slow realization of Bannard s big dreams, that even when 
 he refused to attempt to get large subscriptions out of 
 Dad, his chief could not find fault with him. Old Ban- 
 nard begged the money and Steve slaved to make it 
 count. Through the dark tides of people in the evening 
 hours surging through the tenement streets, he moved 
 with a grim deep satisfaction. 
 
 "An honest-to-God job," he called it. "And if we had 
 a real government instead of a lot of bum politicians, 
 chaps like me would be salaried so that we could give all 
 our time to such work without begging help from the 
 millionaires." 
 
 As it was, he had his own living to earn, and as Ban 
 nard s assistant he was constantly paying visits to people 
 uptown. He was soon in great demand especially 
 among the women to his annoyance and chagrin. I 
 remember one night when he came home looking like a 
 thundercloud; and after much questioning I learned that 
 a certain dazzling songstress, who was cheering the older 
 years of one of Bannard s patients, had suddenly 
 required an operation which Steve performed but her 
 nerves were still in such a state that she had somehow 
 inveigled him into standing behind a wing at Weber and 
 Fields music hall while she went on to do her turn. "I m 
 strong while you are here!" she had whispered. Con 
 found the little idiot, he would never go to her again! 
 But in spite of his growls his practice grew. 
 
 "Any amount of these women," he said, "are human 
 enough when they get the chance. But most of them 
 don t need me. If they would only quit milking men 
 and go to milking cows instead, half their ills would soon 
 be cured, and fellows like me would have the time for the 
 
BLIND 113 
 
 real jobs waiting all over town. . . . But I need the 
 
 money," he ended. 
 
 At home the bills were piling up. It was astounding, 
 the extra expense involved in rearing Tommy, their boy. 
 When Steve increased the monthly allowance, Lucy 
 quickly discovered more things that were essential. As 
 a rule, she could keep such items from coming to his 
 attention; and when he did take notice and angrily pro 
 tested, in the same tone she would rejoin that so long as 
 she had her own money she could see no earthly reason 
 for not spending it on her own child. For the old com 
 plication was there. How could she help noticing all that 
 Aunt Fanny s children had? They had two really able 
 nurses not mere ignorant chits of girls and a gov 
 erness, a coachman and a small coupe painted orange and 
 blue. There were special teachers for Louise, and there 
 were such adorable clothes, and dolls and countless toys 
 and games in that love of a nursery. They had the best 
 of everything! While as for Tommy, the poor little 
 lamb, cooped up in this small box downtown, with no 
 friends, no playground, teachers oh ! With a swift com 
 pression of her lips, his mother would then sally forth 
 and buy something for him. 
 
 She started a process that she descried as "getting 
 things in proportion again." This involved lunches, 
 shopping sprees, and the going to concerts and to plays, 
 with various former friends of hers. She began to 
 require "clothes fit to be seen in" both on the street and 
 at home in the evenings. For now a few choice spirits 
 were asked with their husbands down to dine. And 
 snarl and grumble though he would, Steve had to "doll 
 himself up" on such nights. 
 
 "What I want and what I mean to have," she con 
 fided to me, "is friends of all kinds, to broaden us out. 
 I m not going to let him get into a rut I don t care how 
 big a rut it is !" And she went on to say ominous things 
 
114 BLIND 
 
 about getting sooner or later "a background for my chil 
 dren." Now a background may be anything, but it 
 sounded large to me that night. 
 
 For the present, however, she was content to live as 
 they were with the slight changes already described. 
 And though there were still, between them, frequent 
 flares and discords, the reconciliations were quite as 
 happy as before. Steve and I still brought our friends. 
 There was no discouragement, no gloom. There was 
 impatience, pettiness, and jealousy, but beneath it all was 
 the sense of growth, expectancy, the feeling of deep, 
 boundless youth. 
 
 There was the added joy in the child. Young Tommy 
 had now grown to be a rather enormous urchin. At the 
 age of five he required the clothes of a boy of seven. His 
 voice was almost deep as mine, and his large brown 
 reflective eyes would meet my own and suddenly gleam 
 with the secrets shared between us. In the summer up 
 at Seven Pines I had, with a dark mystery conveyed 
 by winks and warning gestures, guided him to the secret 
 places I had known there as a boy and many I had 
 never known; and he had shown me some of his own, 
 including a great rose bush where he had seen fairy lan 
 terns one night. In New York our most wonderful secret 
 place was at the circus, where through a press agent I 
 knew we had been able to penetrate far back into those 
 regions where clowns and acrobats, giants, dwarfs and 
 elephants dress for the ring. A weasened little old cow 
 boy there had winked at Tommy and whistled in a most 
 peculiar way. This whistle we had learned with care, 
 and it became our very own. We developed it into a sys 
 tem of signals. Often when I came to the house after 
 Tommy had gone to bed, I would sneak out in the back 
 yard and whistle; and from his room in reply would 
 come two short whistles that announced, "It s no use. 
 Annie is in the next room" or else a long one and a 
 
BLIND 11& 
 
 short, which meant, "She s not here! Come on up with 
 the stuff!" By "the stuff" we meant invariably two enor 
 mous gumdrops, which we devoured in the dark. While 
 I sat on his bed he would at moments grasp my hand and 
 squeeze it hard. 
 
 And there were times when I envied Steve and vaguely 
 resolved to get me a wife. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 1. 
 
 BUT this proved to be no simple affair. Not from any 
 lack of girls, for in the great city of New York were per 
 fect swarms of eager maids who would have tripped 
 themselves up in their haste to get to the altar by my 
 side. At least so I liked to remark to my sister for it 
 always got a rise. When she tried to wither my conceit, 
 I would patiently cite to her case after case in my own 
 life and those of my friends. No credit to us, I argued, 
 we were all mere average men ; but even an average man, 
 it seemed, was so devilish attractive to girls that well, 
 just to give one example of many, once on a lovely sum 
 mer s night I had had to jump out of a buggy and run. 
 And if Lucy had not stopped my story with an unbeliev 
 ing snort, I might have told her a lot o>f things. The only 
 point that worried me was the danger to my precious 
 self. I was a mighty happy young man. I had already 
 begun to write plays; and for a future dramatist to go 
 and tie himself up ahead to a wife, a home and babies, 
 was unimaginative to say the least. So I remained a 
 bachelor. I still lived in my old rooms downtown; it 
 would have been hard to give them up. I was free as the 
 winds. There were week-end visits close to the city and 
 journeys far out to the West, where several ranches knew 
 me well; and there was a wild little mining town out in 
 Colorado, to which my paper had sent me at the time of 
 a big strike. 
 
 In New York and careering about the land I was get 
 ting large sweeping radical views. The work and lives 
 of the people gathered around Lucy and Steve had lost 
 
 116 
 
BLIND 117 
 
 their hold. They were mere reformers. I was out for 
 larger vistas, bolder thinking, deeper plans. Rapidly I 
 made my way into the radical circles among the foreign 
 ers in New York who proclaimed the Great Revolution. 
 I delighted in bringing such people like bombs into my 
 sister s quiet home and exploding them there among the 
 reformers. The Russian furnace man and I had become 
 the best of friends. I took him out to supper at times. 
 His plan for a world-wide brotherhood of teachers was 
 a big idea. And the fact, as pointed out by Steve, that 
 the only thing Oberookoff had done toward realizing his 
 great dream was to make friends with the German jani 
 tor of a public school nearby, only drew from me the 
 retort that I thanked God this Russian chap was not as 
 practical as ourselves. We Yankees were always doing 
 things ! Wait a minute ! Dream a few dreams ! 
 
 Through him I met a heroic old woman who from the 
 time when she was a girl had worked for the freedom of 
 Russia. Twenty-seven years she had spent in prisons and 
 Siberia. She was to me then, as she is still, one of the 
 few great people it has been my luck to know and one 
 of the most lovable. When I brought her to Lucy s 
 home, she plumped down on the floor with the children 
 and played with them to her heart s content. She made 
 such a hit not only with Lucy but even with Steve and 
 later with Dad, that the latter gave her a large contri 
 bution which went, as I learned later on, into assassin 
 ation expenses. The Grand Duke Sergius killed by a 
 bomb at Dad s expense! I relished the thought. 
 
 Later I interested myself in a troop of Russian players 
 who gave some very wonderful performances in Rus 
 sian of Ibsen, Strindberg, Tolstoy. I remember vividly 
 the night when they did Gorky s "Night Lodging." The 
 sheer grip and force of the piece, in its sombre Rem 
 brandt setting, left me breathless. How could I hope to 
 write like that ? They let me in at rehearsals ; and watch- 
 
118 BLIND 
 
 ing, I made up my mind to learn Russian and go over 
 there. The leading man of the company became a kind 
 of god of mine. I remember one night in a little cafe 
 down in the heart of the Ghetto, this Russian, very drunk 
 at the time, reciting a thing by Pushkin describing some 
 hens in their safe little yard cackling maliciously up at 
 an eagle sailing high in the heavens before a lowering 
 storm. But the eagle from on high answered them dis 
 dainfully. Let hens and their like stick to their yards. 
 For him the great heavens, the storms and the winds! 
 The chap was the eagle himself that night. And listening 
 I vowed that I would keep out of the hen yards of this 
 life. 
 
 2. 
 
 I wrote a play, a labor play, and rilled it with a seeth 
 ing concoction of my new ideas. My setting was the Col 
 orado mining town where I had been. The miners were 
 a mixture of foreigners and native born. A good deal has 
 been said of late of how all radical doctrines are imported 
 from abroad but it was all here long ago. In this par 
 ticular mining town rebellion was a home-made brew. 
 Instead of "the hated bourgeois and "the bloated capi 
 talist," they used the term "the God-damned-boss;" and 
 in place of the Great Revolution, they confined their 
 thoughts to strikes but these were often such affairs 
 as would have aroused the admiration of the wildest 
 Bolshevik, while the methods of the employers would 
 have brought an approving smile from any chief of police 
 of the Czar. The employers bought and owned the legis 
 lature, judges, courts, the sheriffs and militia. The 
 strikers studied the fine art of the manufacture and hurl 
 ing of bombs; they stored up rifles, shotguns, machine 
 guns, powder and plenty of lead then seized locomotives 
 and rode about, spreading rebellion through the State. 
 They blew things up, they fought pitched battles, held 
 
BLIND 119 
 
 whole towns against the troops. And all this was 
 directed by native born Americans. 
 
 I talked with one leader, Mat Welles by name, a lean 
 man of thirty, rather small, with a slow gentle drawling 
 voice. One of his uncles, years before, had died in a 
 fight on the Border, and another had been sent to jail 
 for having killed five hundred sheep. Being a cattle man 
 himself, he had looked upon the invading sheep as so 
 many Bolsheviki; and so he had deported them over a 
 cliff on a pitch dark night, and had then sat down and lit 
 his pipe and listened to the noise below. The nephew 
 knew little and cared less for Karl Marx or Bakunin, 
 but he took a keg of T. N. T. and an old clock and a slow 
 fuse and made a kind of little toy boat, which he put 
 into a water sluice far up on a rocky mountain side. This 
 sluice, which was covered, led two thousand yards down 
 into the stockaded plant of a mine owner known as 
 "Zink-Eye Brown." And Mat, like his uncle, lit his pipe 
 and listened to the noise below. He had also invented 
 a fluid which was called "Greek fire." You sprinkled a 
 few drops on a "scab," then crossed the street and 
 watched him burn. 
 
 In brief, there was material here for a play with a 
 good deal of action. But like most beginners I filled it 
 with talk. The radical views of these low-voiced Reds, 
 couched in vivid and picturesque phrase, were irresistible 
 to my pen. And then, because the mine owner was a 
 distant cousin of ours, I crowded in his views as well. 
 His mine was no worse than the others in fact, rather 
 better for he had employed a German chemical engineer 
 thoroughly to examine it and recommend means o*f fight 
 ing certain poisonous gases there. This engineer, whose 
 name was Sonfeldt, had already spent several years in 
 American mills and mines. He was still a good deal of 
 a youngster, a decent sort with friendly eyes, though 
 rather precise and pompous at times and blind to any 
 
120 BLIND 
 
 idea but his own. His own idea, which had already put 
 tense lines in his thin dark sensitive face, was to the 
 effect that for a nation rich as ours to allow its mines and 
 factories to kill or maim or poison over half a million 
 people a year, was a disgrace to its government. Where 
 upon I confided my plan of arousing the nation by my 
 play. He eagerly caught at the idea and gave me 
 startling figures and lurid incidents to put in. But when 
 the play was written and he had read it carefully through, 
 he was aghast at what we had done. I had a good title, 
 "Underground." But now with a groan Sonfeldt 
 exclaimed, 
 
 "Ach Gott! The whole play is underground the 
 propaganda has buried it deep! You must so arrange 
 that the propaganda will stay beneath and be not seen 
 and the story and action strongly go!" 
 
 Long after I had come back East, I slaved like a dog 
 on that child of my brain. At last it was done. I took 
 it to a manager, who read it and informed me that there 
 were two subjects under the sun which could never make 
 a cent on the stage. One was the Labor Movement and 
 the other Jesus Christ. "Leave em alone," he advised 
 me. Two other managers turned me down. In disgust 
 I gave the play to an agent and came out to Seven Pines 
 for my summer s vacation. But here, some two weeks 
 later, I was summoned one night by a boy in a buggy 
 to come to the "general store" in the village, where was 
 a long distance phone. And there I learned from my 
 agent that a certain manager wanted my piece on the 
 following terms. As he named them, I said, "Yes" 
 "Fine" "I agree" in a state of mounting excitement. 
 With Dorothy and her mother I had a big celebration 
 that night. 
 
 "Seriously !" cried Dorothy. "Wouldn t it be too won 
 derful if you become a dramatist and I can reach the 
 concert stage! Oh dear, if only I weren t so old!" 
 
BLIND 121 
 
 "Eighteen?" I smiled. 
 
 "Yes, eighteen and most musicians have arrived by 
 that time ! While I am simply nowhere ! Oh mother, why 
 must I go to college this fall?" 
 
 "Because," said her mother, "you re only a child and 
 before you attempt the piano in earnest I want you really 
 to know your own mind." 
 
 Then they turned again to my play and praised it to 
 my heart s content. 
 
 "Read it to us !" Dorothy begged. And we were at it 
 half the night. 
 
 I threw up my job on the paper and gave my whole 
 time to revising the play. In New York, at my manager s 
 office nobody had any time for me; they had a whole 
 string of plays to put on, and mine must wait. But when 
 its turn did come, in the fall, the whole office in a 
 twinkling centered its attention here. In a fine frenzy the 
 piece was cast and put in rehearsal. In charge was a kind 
 of a panther man, lithe, wiry he moved on springs. He 
 had a thin sardonic face and eyes that looked as though 
 all the thrills of the world had scorched them long ago. 
 Hughey Gore knew little of Colorado mines, but a lot 
 about giving a piece "the punch." For the careful facts 
 and figures of my friend from Germany, he showed not 
 the slightest respect. Out they went or around they were 
 twisted. 
 
 "Who ll know the difference?" he asked. "Say what 
 is this, anyhow a piece or a sermon ? Put it across !" 
 
 He ruled supreme. I had signed away my power to 
 oppose him. Moreover, the players, who rehearsed for 
 over a month without any pay, were so eager to "put the 
 piece across" and thereby get salaries, that soon I was 
 everybody s slave. Scene by scene we put in the "pep," 
 till we had it fairly racing along to a picture or a crash 
 at each curtain. Came dress rehearsal. At ten a. m. the 
 curtain was up for the first act, and at eleven o clock that 
 
122 BLIND 
 
 night we wearily left the theatre. The next day we 
 started out on the road, and now not only Hughey Gore 
 but the great manager himself and all his advisers sat 
 in front. More changes were ordered. Hughey and I 
 would have supper after the play and re-write till three 
 a. m. then sleep a few hours, breakfast, call the company 
 at ten and hammer the new stuff into their heads in 
 time for the night s performance. One night we put in 
 a new third act and left the fourth act as it was. The 
 two had no connection, but this did not trouble Brother 
 Gore. He wanted to see the effect of our new act upon 
 the house. When the curtain was down we went to bed, 
 leaving a puzzled audience to wonder what the final act 
 had to do with the rest of the piece. 
 
 This weird life went on for three weeks. The morale 
 of the crowd grew shaky. Though Hughey held them 
 sternly in line, fights and jealousies broke out. In several 
 towns we got barely a hand. Funereal gloom behind the 
 wings. But again the house was plainly pleased, and then 
 there was joy and hope and pride, and a rush for the 
 notices the next day not the reviews of the whole play 
 but the tiny passages at the end referring to the per 
 formances of this and that player "puffs" or "roasts" 
 as the case might be. The strain grew tense. The leading 
 woman confided to me that she had been in two failures 
 that year, and if this "perfectly wonderful play" did not 
 succeed she did not know how she would ever meet her 
 bills. She and I very nearly had an affair. 
 
 At last we came into New York. On the opening 
 night, as the theatre filled, a fervent desire to fade away 
 combined with a numb fascination that held me rooted 
 to the spot. But when the orchestra struck up I abruptly 
 left, crossed Broadway and stood upon the opposite side 
 watching the crowds that poured along in the yellow 
 glare like a swift river, wave on wave, bobbing, surging 
 this way and that, hurrying, hurrying, shoving, laugh- 
 
BLIND 123 
 
 ing. In a harsh gay deafening hubbub on they came 
 bright colors in hats and cloaks and dresses while from 
 the cabs and carriages and automobiles that jammed the 
 way came dainty glittering creatures whose lifted skirts 
 showed satin slippers, silky ankles. As one of them got 
 out of a taxi, I heard her say with a laugh to her friends, 
 
 "San Antonio was nevah like this!" 
 
 I had been in San Antonio, and somehow the mention 
 of that town in faraway Texas came to me with a queer 
 little shock. A picture of its principal street rose up clearly 
 in my mind, and I had a sudden sense of the many towns 
 and cities from which these noisy people had come. On 
 they hurried some of the faces friendly and appealing, 
 other faces hard as nails. Hurrying, hurrying to what? 
 To see my piece? Far from it! Nearly all of them passed 
 our theatre by. I recalled the lean sardonic smile of 
 Hughey Gore as he had said, 
 
 "What do they care for your ideas? They re a lot of 
 God-forsaken sheep. Make em bleat and you ll sell out 
 the house. But real thinking? Ba ba ba!" 
 
 I went into the theatre. I found the house was nearly 
 full; but as the gay hubbub increased, again I asked 
 what such people cared about a play all underground. 
 They wanted to laugh, squeal, shriek and shiver! Noth 
 ing more ! 
 
 A slowly deepening hush, a glow, and the curtain rose 
 abruptly. 
 
 It is a terrible ordeal to sit and watch a piece of your 
 own, and feel every laugh and thrill instantly approved 
 or damned. They come so fast, and you know they are 
 coming. Growing tense and taunt you wait. A burst of 
 laughter. "It got across !" But before you have had but 
 a moment of triumph, along comes another a thriller 
 this time. And it fails to thrill it misses fire there are 
 snickers all about ! And the cold chills go creeping down 
 the author s spinal column ! 
 
124 BLIND 
 
 But now as act by act went by I began to sense about 
 me a feeling that here was something out of the common. 
 I caught approving nods and looks from various radical 
 friends of mine who applauded certain red-hot lines. The 
 big scene came twelve men and a boy trapped in a 
 chamber underground. Walls of black, wet, glistening 
 coal and heavy timbers stark as death. Their struggles, 
 their wild bitter talk ending up in a big speech. Down 
 came the curtain. A moment s pause and it rose again 
 "two days later * to disclose the same grim scene with 
 its thirteen dead. Then from one damp dripping wall an 
 enormous chunk of coal suddenly fell with a loud crash. 
 Little shrieks from all over the dark house! A satisfied 
 grunt from Hughey Gore. A slow silent curtain, up went 
 the lights, and all about me I could see tense faces. Rising 
 waves of applause and a roar for the author ! 
 
 My curtain speech was brief that night, but later on in 
 a cafe with many friends and relatives I responded to the 
 toast, and it was hard for me to hide my deep, deep 
 exultation. I remember my father s glow of pride, Aunt 
 Amelia s smiling face, and my German friend who was 
 happy as I. "Great, great propaganda !" he cried. Beside 
 him sat young Dorothy, back from college for the event. 
 She was an adorable kid that night. While eagerly dis 
 cussing with him her hope to study music in his beloved 
 Fatherland, she kept darting radiant looks at me. Obvi 
 ously I had arrived ! 
 
 Later in their little brown house I talked for hours 
 with Lucy and Steve, and told of the plays I meant to 
 write. The brilliant future loomed so close I had it almost 
 in my hand. I told them why our American drama had 
 been such a trivial thing. It was because the managers 
 had never sized up the public right, had never got to the 
 heart and soul of the great warm splendid American 
 people, for whom that night I felt a boundless grateful 
 
BLIND 125 
 
 love . . I noticed that Steve and Lucy were yawning. 
 
 "Great Scott, what a young fool I am keeping you 
 people up! It s three o clock!" 
 
 Lucy kissed me good-night. 
 
 "Oh my dear," she said, "I hope the play is such a 
 splendid big success!" 
 
 I laughed and went on up to bed. They had asked me 
 to stay with them that night. I slept a few hours, awoke 
 with a start, and in a moment remembering and feeling 
 a sharp chill of suspense, I threw on my clothes, hurried 
 downstairs, and found the nine morning papers which I 
 had ordered the day before. And on that dark December 
 morn, without any breakfast, empty and cold, I read one 
 after another the notices that killed my play. 
 
 "Highbrow" "morbid" "deadly dull" "amateur 
 ish" "preachy" "doomed." 
 
 I read them sitting very still. All at once I fiercely 
 rebelled. What did these fool critics know ? Had not the 
 house gone wild at the piece at every act, at every line? 
 But as though in answer, I read this : 
 
 "House packed with friends and radicals who did their 
 best to save the play, but with the general public it will 
 never have a chance." 
 
 All right, all right, we would see about that ! I walked 
 excitedly up and down. I heard Steve and Lucy coming 
 downstairs. Now they were reading. My head ached. 
 How cold it was ! That infernal OberookofT had forgotten 
 the furnace again! He, too, had gone to my opening; 
 this morning he had been here before me, had read the 
 papers and in his depression all thought t of the furnace 
 had slipped his mind. Savagely looking for him now, I 
 found him out in the vestibule perched on a step-ladder 
 there and very gloomily cleaning the small window over 
 the door. Abruptly I cried, 
 
 "Look here, Oberookoff ," 
 
126 BLIND 
 
 But he gave such a start that he lost his balance. Down 
 he came! And a few moments later Steve announced, 
 
 "The poor boob has broken his arm." 
 
 Still no breakfast. On the whole a very dismal morn 
 ing. And it was followed by dreary nights when arriving 
 at the theatre and anxiously asking, "What is the house?" 
 from the box office would come the growl, "Less than a 
 hundred dollars tonight." I watched that Broadway 
 throng go by laughing, chattering, bleating sheep. In 
 the theatre, night after night, I sat in the half empty 
 place and heard the snickers and weary sighs. Behind 
 the scenes was an awful gloom. 
 
 But one evening in the lobby a fat serious radical friend 
 gripped my hand and said to me, 
 
 "A wonderful piece, old fellow ! If it doesn t get over, 
 your next one will!" And he added impressively, "The 
 Single Tax would have saved your play." 
 
 At once growing interested then in the theory of the 
 Single Tax, I took him out to have a drink, and he 
 enlarged on his statement. Land values in New York, he 
 said, had risen so outrageously that the rent of a Broad 
 way theatre was a thousand dollars a week. So a strong 
 fine intellectual play could not live unless it appealed at 
 once to the rich vulgar common herd. In an hour he had 
 persuaded me to become the dramatic critic of "The 
 Single Taxer." This soothed me a bit. More balm 
 arrived in the form of flattering notices in various radical 
 papers and so-called "high-brow" magazines. I was "a 
 hope," "a portent," and even "a light on the horizon." 
 My play was "the first rumble from the proletarian 
 depths"; it was "the first wind of the dawn." 
 
 In my family it was not so. Dad plainly considered 
 the piece a frost; Aunt Fanny was beautifully sympa 
 thetic; Lucy and Steve were friendly and kind; even 
 Aunt Amelia was depressed. But there was one of them 
 at least who still gave me what I craved. On the night 
 
BLIND 127 
 
 my play was taken off, my cousin Dorothy came to town. 
 She had saved her money, bless her, and bought two 
 boxes and filled them with friends, blooming college girls 
 and boys. She persuaded me to join them there. And 
 they looked on me with such evident awe and admiration 
 as a journalist who lived in the slums, a socialist, an 
 anarchist, and above all a writer of plays that I was 
 soon placidly acting a part. I took them behind the 
 scenes, where they did not notice the gloom; and after 
 the play I rushed them down in taxis to my studio for a 
 shadowy supper dance. 
 
 3. 
 
 In the next two weeks I saw much of "my niece," as 
 I called Dorothy at the time. It made her perfectly furi 
 ous. "I m not your niece I m your cousin !" She would 
 turn away, and then swinging around she would implore. 
 "Oh Larry, please be nice to me!" The stout- waisted, 
 merry, solemn, emphatic kid of a few years back had 
 been transformed by magic her figure softly rounded 
 out, small hands and feet, and soft blonde hair curling 
 down into her eyes, to be blown back impatiently. Her 
 eyes were still a vivid blue. They would never meet mine 
 for more than a moment, then dart away. She was an 
 intimate lovable girl, all filled with new intensities. She 
 was not so sure of her music now, although she was 
 working hard at it still and had not given up her plan 
 of going abroad to study. 
 
 "For the pure joy of playing yes; but for a life pro 
 fession no. Or at least I m not so certain. I m afraid 
 oh I don t know I simply cannot see myself in 
 Carnegie Hall making a really big success ! I m too old I 
 The others have such a start! And I want it real or 
 nothing no matter what it is I do ! And I find there 
 are so many things!" 
 
 From Seven Pines we took long walks back into the 
 
128 BLIND 
 
 Christmasy hills, and she talked of her friends at college. 
 Some were "perfect wonders;" some, "too detestable for 
 words." She talked of the long talks they had, and then 
 of long talks about these talks with her mother, whom 
 we both agreed was, "simply a human miracle." She was 
 such a "practical" mother. Without having been to col 
 lege herself, she could so wonderfully "enter in" and give 
 such mighty sound advice. What Dorothy wanted to do, 
 I learned, was to make such a place for herself in college 
 that her daughter later on but at this point she reddened 
 a bit, called herself a little goose, and began to ask me 
 rapid questions as to my work and the life I led with 
 anarchists. 
 
 "What do they really want and mean?" 
 
 But this sort of talk went better in town. When she 
 came to Lucy to spend the night, I took her to the theatre 
 and after that to a cafe; and there she asked the most 
 unexpected and the most surprising things as to life in 
 this roaring world today, in which college girls she was 
 convinced would soon play a tremendous part. "So we 
 simply have to know things, you see!" I began to tell 
 her things. When she went back to college I sent her 
 books she ought to read ; and when she came again to the 
 city I read her a new play of mine and took her to several 
 radical meetings, where she sat bolt upright, round-eyed, 
 missing not a trick. In Lucy s home we had long dis 
 cussions, and Dorothy eagerly told her plans. She wanted 
 to work, to have a real job, to do something, get some 
 thing, be something. Good-naturedly I told her that she 
 ought to be my wife. 
 
 "I can t !" she exclaimed. "I m your cousin !" At our 
 laughter she blushed crimson. "Larry, I hate you!" she 
 declared. 
 
 Just before the beginning of summer, one night out at 
 Seven Pines, her mother spoke of her and said, 
 
 "I want you to be careful, Larry." 
 
BLIND 129 
 
 I looked at my aunt in blank surprise, then started to 
 laugh, and at her look of discomfiture I laughed till the 
 tears were in my eyes. My arm was around her and I 
 said, 
 
 "My dear but sentimental aunt " 
 
 "I am not sentimental !" 
 
 "Then learn the truth. For your nephew is a wise old 
 guy and he knows young Dorothy like a book. If she 
 marries at all it will not be till after forty such affairs. 
 My only fear for that lovable kid is that she ll live and 
 die an old maid." 
 
 "I should not be displeased not displeased in the 
 least," said Aunt Amelia stiffly. "You talk as if it were 
 a disgrace. I should think, Larry, that with your views 
 views of the most modern kind, and some of them boyish, 
 to say the least the idea of a self-respecting, freedom- 
 loving woman s remaining single if she likes " 
 
 "Gosh but you re modern!" I exclaimed. And we 
 laughed and kissed each other. For all my attempts to 
 make fun of her, I could not conceal my admiration for 
 the way she kept up with the times. She helped me con 
 stantly with my plays a keen discerning critic and 
 friend. She was forever reading new books, and such 
 affairs as suffrage meetings did not phase her in the 
 least. She even marched in a parade. Her old hunger 
 for new things was almost deeper than before. She now 
 had a car which she declared had restored the wings of 
 her youth. In this she frequently flew to town. Her 
 chauffeur knew her love of speed, and I regret to tell it 
 my dear patriotic aunt was "pinched" one day for 
 breaking the laws of her beloved country. 
 
 "You re absolutely right, young man," she said bravely 
 to the cop. 
 
 4. 
 But if my Aunt Amelia had splendidly retained her 
 
130 BLIND 
 
 youth, there was somebody else in the family whose 
 aging filled me with regret. Where was my chum of long 
 ago? Steve was growing middle-aged. There was a time 
 when he could be stirred to mirth or pity, wonder, anger, 
 by the numberless miracles to be seen in this hodge-podge 
 of a town. And once he had shown an open mind to the 
 big startling ideas expressed by radical friends of mine, 
 who knew the truest thing in the world that only by 
 the sweeping statements, the courageously shouted half- 
 truths, of the few daring pioneers is the path cut through 
 the jungle for the accurate chaps behind. But Steve s 
 mind was closing now. Not that he was sleepy or dull 
 the fact was, he had hit his stride and his mind was 
 simply racing along. The passion of our nation for speed 
 had got him and he was narrowing down although, as 
 often happens, to himself he seemed to be broadening. 
 
 That is one of the great queer secrets* of this strenuous 
 life of ours. Broad-minded foreign visitors see fellows 
 like Steve with a look upon their faces as though they 
 were driving racing cars, and the smiling foreigners 
 never suspect that each of these racing Yankees is in 
 reality broadening rapidly and feverishly in a world 
 to him so wonderful that he gladly shuts out all other 
 worlds as annoying obstacles in the way of the bright 
 and limitless vistas before his keen and hungry eyes. 
 
 I met a wholesale plumber once who had narrowed 
 down to bathtubs. In a single hour s talk he took my 
 mind and fancy soaring after him over our land. Out 
 over the sultry deserts and plains we flew on the wings 
 of the morning like gods, showering bathtubs on man 
 kind. Then he spoke of the market of the world. Hef 
 took me to Russia, Italy, France, Africa, China and 
 India. His mind had roved all over the earth, swooping 
 down upon filthy Russian huts or stinking cities in the 
 Far East. He had learned how many times a year thef 
 peoples of the earth took baths indoors in tubs or 
 
BLIND I3t 
 
 clouds of steam and in the sea, the lakes and the 
 rivers. He had done this to the neglect of his business. 
 
 The fact is," he confided, "it has become a hobby 
 of mine." 
 
 It was more than that, it had become a great world 
 wide crusade of his. Hundreds of millions of poor devils 
 needed a bath and didn t know it. But they would ! 
 
 "I want to say," he told me, "that the people of this 
 earth, my friend, are headed straight for democracy a 
 square deal for every little kid from his birth clear 
 through to his funeral. I don t care whether he s a Wop 
 or a Greaser, a Nigger, a Hindoo or a Chink, or a Christ- 
 forsaken little Turk. They re all going to wake up to the 
 fact that they ve been stung from the days of the Ark 
 that they need baths clean decent homes, good schools 
 for their kids, the right to vote for the president, gov 
 ernors, congressmen and oh hell, all that stuff! And 
 they re going to get it!" 
 
 This was but his starting point, mere elemental justice. 
 He went on to reveal to me what things of beauty baths 
 could be. He took me to the unfinished house of a brand- 
 new millionaire and showed me a spacious chamber there, 
 its walls and ceilings rosy with nude joyous dancing 
 maids, its lighting artfully contrived to simulate that of 
 a woodland glade and in its floor broad marble steps 
 led down to a bath the like of which I had not dreamed 
 existed. 
 
 "I ve been studying Roman history lately," said my 
 narrow Yankee friend. 
 
 To return to Steve, he was like that narrowing, but 
 all the while feeling the world he had chosen broaden 
 out before his eyes in a way so swift and dazzling that 
 his days and nights became one long exciting race to 
 keep up. 
 
 "If your revolutionist friends," he said, "would quit 
 looking way ahead to a little toy impractical world con- 
 
132 BLIND 
 
 cocted out of their own heads and would wake up and 
 see what s here they d realize we are rushing along as 
 humanity never rushed before. To keep up with my job 
 today, there are a thousand books I should read, and a 
 hundred magazines a month most of em in foreign 
 languages." 
 
 Then he would describe to me, in terms cold and 
 technical, the triumphs, the discoveries and still more the 
 baffling and therefore doubly fascinating unsolved prob 
 lems in his world. It was exasperating to be tied so 
 closely to his job. But Bannard, his chief, was getting 
 old. He was turning over more and more of his most 
 serious cases to Steve, and was loading on him besides 
 the graceless job of begging funds for the large busy 
 hospital of which Bannard was in charge. Steve was 
 forever scouting about some millionaire or other, learn 
 ing how to approach the man and coax the money out 
 of him. He had lost his dread of being known as a rich 
 girl s husband now, for by hard work he had made good, 
 his position was secure; and so he no longer balked at 
 asking aid from men like Dad. The government ought 
 to back such work, but Steve s contempt for the politi 
 cians was even deeper than before. His attitude was 
 shown one night at a meeting of doctors in his house. 
 Most of them were from the tenements. I forget what 
 the meeting was about, but I remember clearly how a 
 little Russian Jew raised a terrible storm by his speech. 
 
 "In New York if a doctor is honest, he gotta admit 
 he s a grafter," he said. "I don t blame him understand 
 I got a family of my own an I gotta earn a living 
 an half my patients don t pay me a cent. So when I get 
 a patient who pays, what can I do? I get what I can. 
 Sometimes I try to stop myself. Last month I took out 
 an appendix. The operation was O. K. Now you gentle 
 men know that after the first few days in a case like 4 
 that no complications everything nice you don t 
 
BLIND 133 
 
 need to see the patient each day. But the boy s mother 
 was crazy about him. She said to me, Doctor, please 
 come twice a day . I said to her, Mrs. Weinstein, your 
 boy s doing well, he s all out of danger and you are poor. 
 Be sensible. Keep your money . So I tried to stop 
 myself. But did I fool myself? Not at all. Even while I 
 was talking I thought to myself, This will make her 
 think what an honest doctor. He tries to lose money*. 
 And sure enough. Mrs. Weinstein smiled on me like a 
 mother. Doctor, she said, you re an honest man. I 
 want everything done for my little boy understand? 
 all the modern improvemnts. I leave it to you . So she 
 left it to- me. An she got all the modern improvements ! 
 
 "An take it again when you have a patient who is a 
 case for a specialist. You take him there, and it s ten to 
 one you never get from the patient a cent. If he lives 
 he pays the specialist, and if he dies his family pays 
 but you they forget, you were only the doctor called in 
 at the start. So the specialist sends in a bill with your 
 fee included in his own, and then he sends you your 
 percentage. If he don t he knows damn well you ll never 
 take him a patient again. All right it s legal but it s 
 graft. I want to be honest with myself. Am I worse 
 than the rest? Am I even as bad? Not at all. On my 
 street I m the only doctor who won t take abortions 
 and I m the only doctor there who don t own a big auto 
 mobile." 
 
 His speech was interrupted by a perfect storm of pro 
 test. Doctors jumped up all over the room to express 
 their utter disdain for this wretched little grafter who 
 judged others by himself. His face grew red and he rose 
 again. 
 
 "I am ashamed of you !" he cried. "A few of you are 
 born in New York their talk I can understand. But half 
 of you come from Russia and there a man may graft 
 like hell, but at least he is honest with himself. He don t 
 
134 BLIND 
 
 fool himself. When he looks at himself he sees himself. 
 He even learns to enjoy himself by telling himself what 
 a God-damn mess he has made of himself ! I don t mean 
 we should do that here. Here I am an American I have 
 reached the Promised Land. I am in a free country, and 
 I say, Well, what are you going to do with yourself? 
 Stop talking do something do it quick! And what I 
 want we should do is this. We should have a campaign 
 and say to the people, Why should we spend half our 
 time on cases that don t bring a cent? We are men like 
 you, with families we need the money so we graft. 
 And this is bad for us and you. The sick are the business 
 of you all for if the sick aren t treated right, you get 
 epidemics and so on. The city should pay us for our 
 work so that we can get out of the rush for the dollar 
 and give our whole lives to our science, to study and keep 
 ourselves up to date and for any patient, rich or poor, 
 give the best treatment to be had !" 
 
 I remember the uproar that followed his speech, and 
 how Steve rising lean and tall among those excitable for 
 eigners began in his quiet Yankee way. 
 
 "To a certain extent I agree," he said, "with much 
 that the previous speaker has said. I ll talk like a Rus 
 sian and admit that I can remember a case or two where 
 I used all the modern improvements/ But the remedy he 
 suggests makes me think that he has forgotten the habit 
 of looking facts in the face, which he learned to enjoy so 
 deeply over there in his native land. For although he 
 cannot trust himself he wants to trust his government. 
 My advice to our analytical friend is that, instead of 
 fooling himself by declaring joyously, Here I am in the 
 Promised Land, a great free country let him ask. 
 What is this country? How much do the mass of the 
 people really care for their government? What have 
 they made it? Is there such honor and wisdom in the 
 
BLIND 135 
 
 gang at City Hall, that we doctors want to place ourselves 
 and all our patients rich and poor entirely under their 
 tender care, their wise and intelligent control? If we give 
 the Health Department a hundred million dollars a year 
 to be paid in doctors salaries, how long do you think the 
 politicians will leave the Health Department alone? 
 
 "I wasn t born in Russia, but all my life it seems to 
 me I ve been facing the facts and getting bumped. I 
 haven t many illusions left; I have lost one by one nearly 
 all of my gods. But one thing is left to me, and that is 
 my deep humble faith in the astounding progress made 
 by medical men in every land. I find myself constantly 
 out of breath from trying to keep up with them. And 
 so amazingly swift is their march, and so dazzling is the 
 hope for all humanity in their work, that although I 
 myself began at the bottom I say, Tor the sake of the 
 health of mankind don t slow up science by binding it 
 down to the dull slow mind of the average man don t 
 make it wait for democracy ! The average man is a poor 
 little cuss who can t see farther than his nose. The great 
 common mass of the people are sheep, and their govern 
 ments are poor affairs. And at least for many years to 
 come our science must look for support not to the com 
 mon masses but to those big men at the top who have 
 the minds and vision to see the importance of our work, 
 and the money with which to drive it on !" 
 
 To this view Steve had arrived. When we were left* 
 alone that night I told him heatedly that he was wrong 
 that things were just the other way, that people were 
 not sheep but men, with angry and impatient eyes that 
 democracy was unlikely to wait for his science, which 
 was slow ! But his only answer was a smile. 
 
 That our points of view were miles apart, was apparent 
 again in his hospital for the city poured in and was 
 mirrored there. 
 
136 BLIND 
 
 In another hospital years ago, I had seen only "head 
 line patients" meek old clergymen side by side with 
 Tenderloin girls and young millionaires, furious tene 
 ment housewives, murderers, burglars, Wall Street 
 brokers, brooding inventors and poets half mad some 
 of them singing as they came, or groaning, laughing, 
 gibbering. But it seemed to me now I saw deeper than 
 that. I saw a few people in private rooms with special 
 nursing, the best of care; while the common herd were 
 in long crowded wards where delirious patients or those 
 who were dying made the night hideous for the rest. 
 I saw the wrecks of over-work in sweat-shops and in 
 factories; I saw men crippled or paralyzed from accidents 
 along the docks; and one afternoon I watched the arrival 
 of ambulances and even trucks loaded with what at first 
 appeared to be enormous bundles of rags, with long 
 human hair hanging out at the ends they were girls 
 from a factory fire. I saw a case of blood-poisoning 
 there, a man castrated by his wife. It had been done with 
 his consent because, she said, they could not afford to 
 risk having any more children. I saw people of all races 
 there. They arrived dressed like Americans; but in the 
 life-and-death crises inside, the thin veneer of Ameri 
 canism disappeared, and in many tongues, in torrents of 
 words now gutteral, now sweet and low, was revealed the 
 vast dark background of memories from foreign lands, 
 beliefs and superstitions, habits, customs, loves and hates, 
 that looms over the city of New York ... In brief, I 
 saw wealth and poverty, and the races of the earth all 
 there. 
 
 But Steve saw nothing of the kind. As he went about 
 the hospital immersed in his work of every day, he was 
 to all appearances as blind as a practical man can be; and 
 like so many practical men he was a hardened optimist. 
 To my talk he replied impatiently by comparing the 
 
BLIND 137 
 
 hospital of today with that of twenty years before. The 
 world was growing better, not worse. His hospital, he 
 admitted, was a mere oasis still. The sick went back into 
 tenement homes to convalesce in dirt and din; they often 
 had relapses and died. But he had his remedy for that. 
 With his chief he was planning a service of visiting 
 nurses and doctors to watch these convalescents, and he 
 looked to a time not far ahead when every tenement in 
 town would have a "health station" close at hand. Prac 
 tically all sick people, unless they had exceptional homes, 
 would be taken to hospitals where they belonged. Epi 
 demics would be squelched at the start. 
 
 "We propose," he said, "not only to heal them after 
 they re sick, but to keep the damn fools healthy." 
 
 At this, in my most withering tone, I asked how it 
 felt to be God Almighty. Though I was nearly thirty 
 now, my old instinctive love, as a boy, of mixing with 
 all sorts and kinds, was become a fierce religion. It was 
 called Democracy. But even in those fiery days, there 
 came to me at moments a glimmering of what it was that 
 made Steve s secret inner life. It was his ever deepening 
 passion for the use of the knife. The deftness of his won 
 derful hands and the miracles which they performed 
 were the talk of surgeons all over town. And engrossed 
 in this never ending fight, in the weird mystery of it 
 all, for him such trivial little things as classes, races and 
 the like, dwindled away. Though money came to him 
 quickly now, he seemed to have no thought of it. He saw 
 less and less of his family. There were moments when 
 he came out of his trance and realized the pace he was 
 hitting. But it could not be helped, he said; there was 
 so much to do and learn, and he had so little time. 
 
 "In these days if a surgeon reaches the top, he does it 
 only by work so hard that he hasn t the stuff left in him 
 to stay there over twenty years." 
 
138 BLIND 
 
 For him those years lay just ahead. Already old Ban- 
 nard was stepping down and generously doing all he 
 could to leave the younger man in his place. 
 
 And so in the year 1905, this tall, powerful, low-voiced 
 Yank, who in 1893 had been Aunt Amelia s "stable boy," 
 was on the eve of immense success. 
 
 For such things do still happen here. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 1. 
 
 BUT it s queer how things will happen even to these 
 scientists. There is something so damnably savage at 
 times in the way this universe is run. Here was a man 
 who probably saved hundreds of lives every year. I had 
 seen him narrow into his rut, which became to him a 
 race-course high up on a mountain ridge, from which he 
 saw big visions of what his science was to do. But now 
 in a twinkling that was changed by a slip, the merest 
 little chance. 
 
 Early on a winter s night he left the house of a patient 
 and was driven to his hospital. He had eaten no lunch 
 and was tired and hungry, but he still had before him a 
 case that required immediate operation. It was a most 
 unusual case, and for all his fatigue he was eager to start, 
 to open up his patient and find if his diagnosis were 
 right. In spite of the late hour, many of the students 
 had waited to see the operation, which was to be a clinic 
 affair. Several other surgeons were there, and the 
 internes of the hospital. The patient was already inside, 
 being given the anaesthetic. His wife, a thin dark middle- 
 aged Jewess, suddenly seized Steve s arm in the hall. 
 He glanced down at her frightened face, and to her 
 incoherent entreaties he made a quick gruff kind reply. 
 His fatigue was forgotten. For the last time in his life 
 he felt that tightening of the energies, that tense and 
 quiet feeling of power. 
 
 The operation turned out to be even more than he had 
 expected. There were complications. An hour passed. 
 In the crowded little theatre, he forgot the mass of faces 
 
 139 
 
140 BLIND 
 
 steeply sloping all about him and the rows of straining 
 eyes. He spoke only to mutter quick requests; more 
 often he merely reached out his hand, and his eager 
 slaves divined what he wished. From time to time he 
 glanced at the man who was giving the ether. Then on 
 with the race. And all so silent. Barely a sound. 
 
 When at last his work was done, he noticed that the 
 rubber glove on his right hand had been slightly torn, 
 and on one of his ringers was a scratch. He scowled with 
 annoyance. These things happen. He scrubbed up with 
 disinfectants and went home for a light supper. He went 
 to bed, he was fearfully tired and almost instantly 
 dropped asleep. But toward dawn he awoke with a start. 
 
 "Who is it?" he asked abruptly. 
 
 For a moment there was no reply. Then he felt a dull 
 little pain in his ringer. Asd as he lay there in the dark, 
 his annoyance changed to uneasiness. He got out of bed 
 and went down to his office, used a lance and did various 
 things. Now his head was aching, too, and the rest of 
 the night he could not sleep. The next day he was 
 running a temperature. "It s nothing!" he said impa 
 tiently; but Bannard being summoned ordered him to 
 stay in bed. There his condition grew rapidly worse ; and 
 in the week that followed, all his everyday plans and 
 worries grew trivial, small and dropped away. For Steve 
 his whole life had all at once become terribly plain and 
 simple. 
 
 "Will they be able to save my hand?" 
 
 At the end of a week they had come to a time when a 
 decision must be made. A slight local operation would 
 save his life but cripple his hand. There was still a 
 chance, a slim one, that without operation he could pull 
 through; and Steve fought hard to take this chance; but 
 the others over-ruled him. He felt his own control of his 
 life slipping suddenly away. He could hear our low 
 voices in the next room, and we seemed mere outsiders. 
 
BLIND 141 
 
 Even Lucy was like that. Into his mind there flashed the 
 thought, 
 
 "She has the power to decide. Why should she have 
 it? How can she judge? What does she know of the 
 hell it will be to live without the use of my hand?" 
 
 But soon after this she came into the ,room and he 
 caught a glimpse of her face, white and strained. He 
 pitied her, and then he began to feel relaxed and drowsy 
 he let go. They operated the same night. Although 
 he was soon out of danger, his fever continued for 
 several weeks; and Steve, who had never been sick in his 
 life, was kept to his bed his room like a prison. Surgery 
 gone forever ! At lightning speed his fancy would range 
 out over the world of science, up the glorious vistas there 
 into that bright promised land. Ever since he was a boy 
 he had dreamed of surgery, and now to> have to give it up 
 drove the poor devil nearly insane. One afternoon when 
 I was there, I heard a thick low cry from his room, and 
 went in and found him on his bed, his face and hair all 
 wet with sweat, teeth clinched, eyes glaring this way and 
 that. He greeted me with a quick hard laugh and in 
 incoherent phrases gave me a glimpse of his torment 
 the strenuous Yankee stricken down. 
 
 In vain Lucy racked her brains to find some other, 
 work for him. All the wider field of his science, includ 
 ing those big social dreams with which Bannard had 
 once summoned us both into the service of mankind, had 
 been to Steve mere things outside, goals and purposes, 
 all very fine to fill in one s religion but not for one s 
 job! And his job was gone! 
 
 "He s so horribly kind and gentle!" Lucy exclaimed 
 to me one night. "Poor boy and so bitter underneath! 
 This feeling of his for his surgery has all the oh I don t 
 know how to say it -all New England back of it ! Steve 
 could have easily been a fanatic. And now with his life 
 taken away he ll no longer be himself. He will try 
 
142 BLIND 
 
 hard enough he ll try too hard don t you see? that s 
 just the kind he is. But unless he really finds something 
 else I m afraid he ll be quite a different man." 
 
 As she looked into the future, there was something in 
 my sister s face that made me vow we d get this right. 
 We had long consultations with Bannard, and each of us 
 had talks with Steve but at first without a sign of suc 
 cess. Although he insisted on getting up before it was 
 time, his mental condition appeared to be worse. Still 
 sunk in his tragedy, he rebelled; but like his silent old 
 father he kept his bitterness to himself. Doggedly each 
 morning he went to his hospital. He tried to follow 
 Bannard s advice and take up the administrative work; 
 but in his depleted condition and his shaken mental state 
 the associations of the place made him look older every 
 week. So consuming were the memories there. Lucy 
 still hunted desperately for other kinds of work for him, 
 and suggested this and that. Her failure weighed upon 
 her, till at last worn out by the long ordeal she went to 
 Aunt Amelia s "to get a little rest," she said in reality 
 to go over it all with our resourceful loving old aunt. 
 
 2. 
 
 I did not care in her absence to leave Steve too much 
 alone, so I went to the hospital that night to get him 
 to walk home with me. I had not seen him for some days, 
 and I was surprised when he fell in at once with my 
 proposal; and as we walked through the crowded streets 
 it was a still greater surprise to find in his talk the indi 
 cations of a most significant change. 
 
 Steve was getting out of himself. He had entered the 
 hell of failure; and out of the first deep black hole of 
 loneliness in his tragedy he had come to a wider con 
 sciousness of the failures upon every side. He began to 
 see how blind he had been, how he had hardened with 
 success. He reminded me of the year we had spent 
 
BLIND 143 
 
 together on the Lung Block; he spoke of a little Galician 
 Jew who had hanged himself one August night, of a 
 hopelessly sodden Irish boy with an irresistible sense of 
 humor who had been known as Dopey George, and of 
 other human calamities there. He had become with his 
 swift rise like a god above the dreary mass of common 
 place humanity; but he felt their vast reality now, for he 
 himself was one of them. Hedging him in on every side, 
 they seemed to fill the universe. He began to- get their 
 point of view in many ways so much more human and 
 more real than that of the few gods above. What a fool 
 he had been to imagine that men of his kind could cure 
 the world by an operation, so to speak, to cut the failure 
 out of it! On the other hand, he had little hope that the 
 masses could ever lift themselves. It was as though, in his 
 dark gloom, India and China had breathed on him from 
 around the globe. And so prodigious was the weight of 
 inertia he felt crushing down, that his fierce tensity was 
 allayed. He had begun to relax, to rest and a certain: 
 grim deep humor had crept into his view of it all. How 
 blindly he had raced along. As for his future, he did not 
 care. A new job was bound to come. That had lost its 
 importance. For the moment he wanted just to stop and 
 take time to look about him. 
 
 It may be that in my rush of relief I exaggerated the 
 change in Steve, or it may have been only a mood that 
 made him talk as he did that night. Still, he was differ 
 ent. The desperate tensity was gone. 
 
 On reaching home that evening, we found OberookoflF 
 there. We asked him to stay to supper; and this Russian 
 friend of ours, who in a dumb devoted way had watched 
 Steve in his crisis, now glanced at him from time to time 
 and noticing at once the change, his own face glowed 
 with happiness. Outside, a snowstorm had begun. It 
 reminded him of his native land, and he spoke of his love 
 for such great winds, his joy in the feeling of powerless- 
 
144 BLIND 
 
 ness and tiny insignificance when blindly driven in a 
 storm. 
 
 "And human life it is like that." Here he rose 
 abruptly to his full enormous height. "I am so small, I 
 am nothing!" he cried. "And life is a blizzard each 
 piece of snow is my blind brother small as I. But all 
 of us together ah! we are making clouds of white 
 between the earth and those high stars that nobody can 
 see but God!" 
 
 Steve watched him with a curious smile. Later, when 
 Oberookoff had gone, he took up a book and began to 
 read but from time to time, idly puffing his pipe, he 
 would stare into the coals of the fire, drowsy, relaxed. 
 fThe room was warm. 
 
 About ten o clock the old-fashioned door bell jangled 
 loudly. It was Dad. Dining out with Aunt Fanny, he 
 had left early to come here. 
 
 "I was sitting between two women so outrageously 
 fat," he declared, "that I suddenly yearned for a quiet 
 smoke with two thin men. So here I am." 
 
 He lit a cigar and settled back. But his genial manner 
 jwas rather forced; and as he sat in his evening clothes 
 Jwith his well-fed air and shrewd keen eyes, I thought to 
 myself, "How blind he is to everything in the world but 
 success." And, remembering my talk with Steve, I could 
 not help smiling to myself. My father did not belong here 
 tonight. Sitting between the two stout dames, after din 
 ing long and well he should have stayed with their hus 
 bands to gossip about stocks and bonds. He had nothing 
 in common now with Steve. Though he had been friendly 
 and kind as you please ever since the tragedy, he had 
 revealed his pity for Steve as a man who* had dropped 
 out of the race. What had he come for tonight? No 
 doubt he had some definite aim, some practical way to 
 put Steve on his feet and give him a chance to go limp 
 ing on. Already he was leading up to it and Steve, in 
 
BLIND 145 
 
 the strangely quiet mood of a race-horse who has decided 
 just to wonder at life for a while, was looking at Dad 
 with the same half-smile with which he had watched 
 Oberookoff. Another human specimen. 
 
 My father was speaking of his mills. They were still 
 expanding so rapidly, it was hard to keep up with their 
 growth and head off certain wild ideas. He told us of the 
 things he was doing to improve conditions there, and 
 ended with his latest plan which was to build a hospital 
 to handle industrial accidents. Dad leaned forward with 
 a smile. 
 
 "Well?" he asked. "Do I make myself clear?" 
 
 "You do." 
 
 "How about it?" 
 
 Steve shook his head. 
 
 "What s the matter?" 
 
 "Nothing at all. It s mighty decent of you and 
 kind." 
 
 "Then in God s name why not take me up? You know 
 I ll give you a free hand. You can build it any way you 
 like " 
 
 "Better think twice, Steve," I suggested. "This will 
 be a very big thing. To take care of all the thousands of 
 men that Dad is planning to mangle and maim " 
 
 "Oh you go to the devil," said my good-humored par 
 ent, and he went on to press his point. On account of the 
 infernal carelessness of employees, there was to be a tre 
 mendous future for hospital work of just this kind ; and 
 the man who got in at the start, and made himself an 
 authority on industrial accidents, would take a big place 
 in the national life. 
 
 "You re right," said Steve. "It s plain as day. And I 
 don t see why I m turning it down. But I seem to be." 
 
 Dad shot a puzzled look at him. 
 
 "What else have you in mind?" he asked. 
 
 "I don t know as I can tell you yet." 
 
146 BLIND 
 
 "All right, my boy, take plenty of time but I ll hold 
 this over for a while." 
 
 And he turned the conversation to Lucy and the chil 
 dren. But he was growing- uncomfortable now. 
 
 "Am I feverish?" he demanded. "Or is it as hot in 
 this room as it feels?" 
 
 "No, you re not feverish," said Steve. "The fact is, 
 we ve a furnace man who loves to dream he s a snowball 
 in hell I mean a snowflake in a storm. He had supper 
 with us tonight, and forgot to close the furnace draft." 
 
 This finished my father. He rose to leave, with an 
 uneasy glance at his son-in-law. We chuckled together 
 when he was gone. 
 
 "How could I tell him," Steve remarked, "that the 
 career I had in mind was to be a snowflake for awhile? 
 Now I ll fix that furnace and then I move we go to bed." 
 
 3. 
 
 When Lucy came back the following day, she was sur 
 prised as I had been at the apparent change in her hus 
 band. She said that Aunt Amelia wanted them to bring 
 the children for a long stay at Seven Pines, where Steve 
 could have an abundance of time to get back his strength 
 and think things out. Lucy felt so sure, she said, that he 
 could do this best alone but Aunt Amelia s advice was 
 always so worth listening to. She always had such good 
 ideas and besides, she knew people, knew Steve so well. 
 As Lucy anxiously enlarged upon the advantages of the 
 place, Steve went over and kissed her and said, 
 
 "Been pretty tough, hasn t it, little wife? No need to 
 talk of this any more. It s a mighty good plan. Go as 
 soon as you like." 
 
 The relief and delight on Lucy s face were good to see. 
 They came out to the country that same week, and from 
 time to time I saw them here. He had relapses, days 
 on end when the old fierce hunger was on him again 
 

 BLIND 147 
 
 but most of the time it was not so. Lucy and Steve both 
 loved the country, and over hard and snowy roads they 
 took tramps back through the hills. I went with them 
 several times, and I sat in at long, long talks in the even 
 ing with our wise old aunt. 
 
 And whether the first suggestion came from Lucy or 
 our aunt, or from Steve himself, I do not know. But as 
 the winter changed to spring a new idea took root in his 
 mind. There came lazy balmy days, reminders of his 
 boyhood. Men and boys were at work on the fields or 
 repairing barns and fences. Their voices and their dis 
 tant calls, and the sound of hammers, axes, saws, were to 
 be heard on every side. What a contrast to the work in 
 the city. The birds began coming up from the South, and 
 great patches of vivid green began to be seen in the mead 
 ows. Steve could feel his life renewed. What strange 
 deep healing power old Mother Nature still possessed. 
 How much better than all the drugs and the glittering 
 knives of the surgeons. 
 
 The idea soon took definite form. About three miles 
 from Seven Pines, on the side; of a half wooded ridge 
 there was an abandoned farm, with an old mill and dam 
 on the creek that came rushing down from the hills 
 behind. It had long been in Steve s family, and his father 
 gladly gave his consent that it should be developed now 
 into a sanitarium. Steve went to Bannard in New York, 
 who gave his warm approval. For serious surgical cases, 
 he said, on account of Steve s long experience his place 
 would be a godsend to the surgeons of New York. 
 
 I sometimes feel that over our country hovers a great 
 creature, spare and lean, with quivering wings, who 
 might be called the God of Speed. If such there be, a 
 grim delight would have come in his great dark gleam 
 ing eyes, had he looked down on Seven Pines. For now, 
 in spite of his deep change, this strenuous Yankee sur 
 geon, who had left the fever and speed of the town for 
 
148 BLIND 
 
 the peace of country life, began to regather his energies, 
 speed up again and narrow down ! He was studying sani 
 tariums, making frequent flying trips to study them bet 
 ter at first hand. Then with the eager help and advice of 
 Lucy and Aunt Amelia, the plans he made were changed 
 and changed. Soon the work was under way, and Steve 
 was heartily cursing the calm deliberation of the masons 
 and the carpenters. He plunged into a thousand details, 
 and through them all he drove his way, unregenerate, 
 zealous as before ! 
 
 And yet there was a difference. Life was deeper, sim 
 pler now. Instead of rushing about in town from one dis 
 ease to another, here he was working out of doors, upon 
 the house or about the grounds. He regained his health 
 of body and soul. Oberookoff had been sent for, and he 
 was enchanted with the spot. With Steve he worked from 
 dawn until dark, and remained serenely untroubled by 
 the lack of progress that he made. The idea of the work 
 was what appealed. 
 
 "We shall give to sick people God s work out of doors 
 and they shall be well!" he told me. For these sick 
 brothers of the future he was constantly thinking up jobs. 
 To rebuild for them the saw-mill was OberookofFs own 
 idea. "There they shall saw the logs," he declared, "and 
 daily swallow fresh the air, and the smell of the logs, 
 and the beautiful noises from the stream." 
 
 He worked happily at the little old mill. He had a 
 fearful tussle with the broken water wheel; more than 
 once it hurled him into the pond. But he was unruffled. 
 Never mind. The idea had been started, and we should 
 see! Oberookoff liked the workmen here. They were so 
 ready to stop work and enter into long talks with him. 
 And these fellows fed him with the most outrageous lies. 
 He told them that for several years he had been writing 
 constantly to his countryman, "Mister Tolstoy," in order 
 that through Tolstoy s pen Russia might learn the splen- 
 
BLIND 149 
 
 clid truth about life in America. This set their imagina 
 tions to work on tales to which he listened with an eager 
 brotherly smile. One teamster told him solemnly that he 
 never beat his horses and that he gave each animal forty 
 quarts of oats a day. Whereupon Oberookoff sat down 
 in delight and wrote, 
 
 "Dear Mister Tolstoy: America is a wonderful land! 
 Here all the men are kind to their beasts!" 
 
 It was Steve who told me this incident. He now called 
 Oberookoff "Doc," and stoutly declared that the Rus 
 sian would prove a treasure as a guide and friend for 
 convalescents here. 
 
 "And more than that," he added. "Our friend the Doc, 
 for all his blunders, has a lot of truth in him; and it s just 
 the kind of truth we need for the Tired Business Man. 
 We think ourselves so practical but what ridiculous lives 
 we lead." 
 
 Yes, Steve had changed. He could look back with Lucy 
 now and realize the madness of the years he had left 
 behind. The old causes of discord between them were 
 gone. There was a good school for Tommy nearby ; and 
 moreover, Steve had time for his son, and he drew close 
 again to his wife. Here she could enter into his work. It 
 was so much broader than surgery ; and, together with the 
 humanity gained in the recent crisis, it was making him 
 more human and kind. For after the first strenuous rush 
 the place took on a quiet air. He had to deal with conva 
 lescents for whom the really critical work had already 
 been done with the knife. It was not until years later 
 that he went in for nerve complaints and built his national 
 reputation. In the beginning his work was small. 
 
 And while I liked to come out to his home and rest 
 from my own mad life in town, half consciously I looked 
 on his work as pretty small potatoes, on Steve himself as 
 a "has been/ a chap who had dropped out of the game. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 1. 
 
 FOR now I myself, after many years with little progress 
 in my work, had taken a spurt and was rapidly rising to 
 fill my little tinsel place in that glittering world, the 
 theatre. Since my labor play I had written others, pos 
 sibly fifteen in all. Five of them had been produced, and 
 three had been successful. I had left my downtown rooms 
 and taken a small apartment high up in an old brick build 
 ing over on Fifty-Ninth Street, looking down into the 
 Park. There a Jap looked after me. I was constantly 
 dining out. Tall and thin, a bit more stooped, mood 
 often "blue," I keenly enjoyed my life, nevertheless; and 
 out of my explorations, ideas for plays or single scenes 
 and character bits were constantly coming up in my mind. 
 
 Although the heaving under-world had lost its novelty 
 for me, I still called myself a Red, contributed to radical 
 movements and took an interest in strikes. This was due, 
 perhaps more than I realized, to my cousin Dorothy. For 
 turning over and over in her extremely attractive young 
 head the ideas I had given her, on leaving college at 
 twenty-one Dorothy had surprised us by resolutely tak 
 ing a job in a big New Jersey mill town notorious for its 
 radicals. 
 
 "I ve thought it all out thoroughly," she said, "and I ve 
 decided that I need something really hard and ugly even. 
 I think a girl ought to know how it feels to live like that 
 I don t suppose I ll be much use, but I bet I ll learn an 
 awful lot, and I mean to help as much as I can." 
 
 It was quite a shock to her mother at first, but she made 
 a success of it from the start. In the little "settlement 
 
 150 
 
BLIND 151 
 
 house" she had charge of the girls clubs. By years of 
 work she had made herself a really fine pianist and this 
 helped; for the girls in her clubs were Italians, French, 
 Hungarians and Austrian-Poles. They could sit by the 
 hour hearing her play, and almost every evening she 
 would play for them to dance. At times she had long talks 
 with them. I was one of her principal backers, and going 
 out to see her there I picked up the story for The 
 Woman in The Shawl" a play in which I tried to show 
 a Sicilian girl reaching New York, changing into Amer 
 ican clothes and assuming a veneer of American talk and 
 manners, under which however still ran the hot Sicilian 
 blood ; and this blood at the proper time boiling into action 
 gave me such a big third act that the piece had a successful 
 run. I had promised my cousin in case of success to give 
 half the proceeds to her work. Ruefully I stuck to my bar 
 gain, and her settlement benefited to the extent of fifteen 
 thousand dollars. Feeling as though I owned the place, I 
 still kept up my visits there, and as time went on I began 
 to meet various wild young foreigners who seemed to be 
 more than determined to blow the whole world to smither 
 eens, but who in the meantime were ready enough to drop 
 In at Dorothy s club for a dance. She beamed on them in 
 a friendly way and went serenely on with her work. They 
 considered her "bourgeois," and they were right; but her 
 influence steadily increased for in addition to giving her 
 girls a good time she was always glad to talk things 
 out and get their views, not only about their jobs in the 
 mills but about their many love affairs. She was con 
 stantly helping girls who were sick. 
 
 "The conditions in these mills are simply outrageous !" 
 she told me. 
 
 When she had been there about three years, a strike 
 broke out in the mill town. In a week it had grown so big 
 that a national organization, led largely by my former 
 friends from the mines in Colorado, considered this a 
 
152 BLIND 
 
 promising place for breaking into the eastern field. They 
 arrived in force and directed the struggle with such suc 
 cess that it was soon being featured high in the papers. 
 The family was at once alarmed on Dorothy s account, 
 and despite my protestations I was sent to try to induce 
 her to drop her work for the time and come home. But I 
 did nothing of the kind. I found the small club-house 
 transformed, crowded with long tables and troops of 
 merry children. Dorothy with her sleeves rolled up was 
 helping her chief and one other woman to manage a soup 
 kitchen there. I went with her to a great out-of-door 
 meeting and saw a whole hillside vivid and gay with the 
 bright colored clothes of some thirty thousand men and 
 women and children, listening to the speakers who from 
 a high platform shouted down their prophecies of a new 
 freedom on the earth. I stayed over night; and in the 
 dawn, with a light rain drizzling down, I watched the 
 pickets along the mills and witnessed a few scuffles 
 between them and the militia. I saw one lad who shouted 
 "Scab" knocked down by the butt end of a rifle. Blood 
 oozed slowly from over one ear. From there I went to 
 Dorothy s place and breakfasted with two hundred kids. 
 Then I took the train to New York and telephoned Aunt 
 Amelia that there was nothing to worry about. 
 
 "She is being quite sensible/ I said, "and the work she 
 is doing is perfectly safe." 
 
 I sat down in my studio and tried to go on with the sec 
 ond act of a play called, "His Impossible Wife." But I 
 could not work. In a few days Dorothy telephoned me to 
 come back, and I was soon drawn into preparations for 
 an enormous pageant which they planned to give in New 
 York. So fundamentally deep and true was their dra 
 matic instinct, that in rehearsing I soon found it was bet 
 ter not to interfere, but to let them work out in their own 
 way the big mass scenes depicting their strike. We had 
 
BLIND 153 
 
 hired the Garden in New York. It held twenty thousand 
 people, and the expenses were so high that unless we could 
 pack the house there would be a heavy money loss. The 
 arrangements seemed to have no end. Many committees 
 were organized, made up for the most part of foreign rad 
 icals in New York. Chaos seemed to reign in all. Money 
 was spent like water quarrels raged the time was short. 
 
 Our two thousand actors arrived in town just in time 
 for a last rehearsal. It was a tumultuous affair. Masses 
 of men and women and children, singing dirges and 
 strange songs in foreign tongues about the Great Revolu 
 tion, came marching down the long middle aisle, ascended 
 the big platform with a huge drop curtain behind to rep 
 resent the jail-like mills, and there they simply did again 
 what they were doing day by day in the stark drama of 
 their strike. They did not act, they simply lived. The per 
 formance that night was a great success. I remember the 
 restless sea of faces filling the dim arena and the galleries 
 lip to the roof. Red flags of all countries waving them 
 A babel of voices in many tongues wild cheering, wave 
 on wave of it, till the air quivered with the sound. 
 
 Dorothy sat by my side. She barely spoke. Her look 
 was fixed, her color high; and as those deeply stirring 
 songs, French, Polish and Italian, rose in a weird minor 
 key filling the tremendous hall, her face contracted and I 
 felt the slowly tightening clutch of her hand. It grew cold 
 in mine and I wished I were still young enough to feel 
 this so intensely. 
 
 But to that dramatic night there was a dismal after 
 math. For expenses had mounted up so high that our net 
 profit was almost nil; and when it was handed over to 
 the strike committee, there was a fearful whoop-dy-do. 
 This was what came of allowing the "bourgeois intellig- 
 gentzia" to have any part in the sacred war being waged 
 by the proletariat! As the son of a well-known million- 
 
154 BLIND 
 
 aire, I came in for the greatest share of the yowl. And 
 having by now expended a good deal of time and money, 
 I dropped out of the strike in disgust and went on about 
 my business. 
 
 One night some two weeks later Dorothy came to my 
 rooms. 
 
 "Larry, tell me what I can do. The strike is almost 
 lost," she said. She had changed to a startling degree, 
 grown pale and thin in a losing fight. She told how the 
 affairs of the strikers had rapidly gone from bad to worse. 
 
 "There were nearly five hundred children today and 
 barely a single one of them laughed. And they ve got to 
 be fed, you know and somehow the strike has got to be 
 won ! I ve never been good at economics, but the simple 
 human truth about this fight is clear as day ! Those peo 
 ple have been worked too hard and paid too little ! And 
 it s wrong !" 
 
 Suddenly her look met mine ; and as though she read 
 my feeling that the strike was hopeless now, into her 
 angry bright blue eyes came a flash of reproach that 
 seemed to say : 
 
 "You got me into this long ago! Why can t you be 
 as young as I ? Why can t you still be angry?" 
 
 "What do you want me to do?" I asked. 
 
 "Help them us!" 
 
 "I ll do what I can. But if you re still to be any use 
 in this fight, the first thing for you to do is to realize it 
 has grown so big that you can t affect it very much one 
 way or the other. Stick to your job those five hundred 
 children. There will probably be a thousand soon, and 
 your job is to feed them. Stop worrying over getting the 
 food. I ll get it I ll raise the money here. Those kids, 
 no matter how many there be, will be fed each day right 
 through to the end that is, they will be if you keep 
 yourself in hand, my dear." 
 
 As I put my hand on her small shoulder, I could feel 
 her trembling stop. 
 
BLIND 155 
 
 "You re right, Larry you re perfectly right. I ll stick 
 to that and thank you." 
 
 "It s nine o clock. Have you had any supper?" 
 
 "No " 
 
 "Let s have some." 
 
 After that, I took her in a hansom for an hour s drive 
 In the park, where a light soft rain was falling and the 
 lights from the great hotels glimmered from the misty 
 heights. And we planned out the work to be done and 
 then talked of ourselves for a while what each of us 
 wanted most in life. When I left her at the ferry boat 
 for she would not let me take her back I wished again 
 that I were young. 
 
 "Goodnight, Larry "dear." 
 
 "Goodnight. Good luck." 
 
 In the weeks that followed, in spite of what I could do 
 to help I felt the strain on her tighten each day, as the 
 number of children grew and grew, and gloom and despair 
 spread through the town. She stuck grimly to her post. 
 But when the strike ended in defeat, and her working 
 girls club closed down, Dorothy had a severe collapse and 
 went home to Seven Pines to rest. 
 
 She was months in getting back her strength. More 
 over, her mother was growing old. And because, for all 
 her new ideas, Dorothy was at bottom a personal home- 
 loving soul, she put off getting a new job until the life at 
 Seven Pines had a hold on her that was hard to break. 
 
 "At her age," said Aunt Amelia, "three solid years of 
 that life is enough. She s only a girl of twenty-four, and 
 she ought to be having a good time." 
 
 So she packed her off on visits to college friends, both 
 East and West, and out to Ed on his ranch in Nebraska 
 and to the old family home in the big college town in Wis 
 consin. And Dorothy did have a good time for she 
 was quite capable still of being the life of a party. Gayly 
 and intensely, too, she went through several affairs that 
 nearly ended in engagements but not quite. For the 
 
156 BLIND 
 
 years in that New Jersey town had left their mark. She 
 still wanted a job and proposed to get it. Only it was 
 hard to choose. Life was so exceedingly pleasant, her 
 days were all so crowded now. Often at first she came 
 to New York and I gladly took her on sprees as of yore 
 as a rule to the opera or a play, but again we went 
 to meetings in Cooper Union or Carnegie Hall and heard 
 the wrongs of the masses discussed; and once we spent 
 an April day out on Ellis Island watching ten thousand 
 immigrants enter into this promised land. 
 
 There are many such girls and women about. They are 
 such blithely personal souls, you never suspect what they 
 have been until suddenly in this shifting changing 
 national panorama there comes a strike, a flying machine, 
 a farmers rising against the Trusts, or some other little 
 thing like that and then you are dumbfounded at the 
 views so stoutly expressed by your demure delightful 
 friend. She smiles at your astonishment and explains that 
 she herself once went through a strike and was sent to 
 jail or that she spent a year or two as assistant to a chap 
 who was trying to make a flying machine or that as a 
 school teacher in Kansas she led a parade of farmers once 
 under the slogan, "Bust the Trusts !" She looks like a per* 
 feet lady; but in these days when women at last have bul 
 lied the men into letting them vote, many a staunch con* 
 servative old crook of a politician, who beams upon her 
 with approval as she demurely enters the polls, would 
 start back in amazed disgust could he see how she marks 
 her ballot inside. 
 
 My cousin Dorothy was like that. 
 
 2. 
 
 But I did not see so much of her now. For I was writ 
 ing plays again in a life still filled with fascination, tense, 
 uneven ups and downs. Long times of easy living, writ 
 ing then with a rush into rehearsal and a swiftly deepen- 
 
BLIND 157 
 
 ing strain. And so engrossed did I become in my narrow 
 ing little world, that I was barely conscious of how I 
 dropped my former friends. With the warm radical faith 
 of my youth I did what so many of my busy countrymen 
 did with their religion. They did not become atheists 
 they simply forgot to go to church. I did not become con 
 servative I simply forgot to go down to the "slums." I 
 was too busy. Ideas and scenes and characters kept 
 crowding into my fertile brain, enough for a dozen plays 
 ahead. The managers kept pushing me. I was writing two 
 or three plays a year and the fact, that for every success 
 I had at least two failures, only increased my impatient 
 zeal. I was far from satisfied with my work. Good spots 
 in it here and there, but on the whole so far below the 
 European standard that at times I was ashamed of the 
 stuff which came out of rehearsal. 
 
 But if I was humble about my work, it was not so in 
 the life I led. For I had become in the great panorama 
 one of those innumerable and constantly emerging gods 
 whom the people delight to honor. Even now when I am 
 old and blind, and alone in the silent creaky night in this 
 dearly haunted old home of my boyhood (observe the 
 pathos of the above, for I was always so good at that) 
 I redden a bit as I look back to those years when I was 
 flattered all up and down the Avenue. For my stepmother 
 had become more smilingly gracious than ever before At 
 forty-two, Aunt Fanny had kept her beauty to such a 
 degree that, together with her husband s money and her 
 own good-humor and tact, it had landed her very high 
 indeed in that magic vaudeville circuit known as New- 
 port-and-New York. Into this life she launched me then; 
 and as I went about to dinners, dances and week-ends, in 
 the course of time I was more and more pleased to play 
 the dark mvsterious role of the all-knowing dramatist who 
 with a partly pitying but still more derisive smile looks 
 down upon this fevered life, these tragedies and come- 
 
158 BLIND 
 
 dies, all of which he knows so well. In fact, I got myself 
 into a state where even Aunt Fanny frowned a bit. She 
 hinted that I was getting spoiled and that I needed fresh 
 ening up, and she urged upon me a young wife and 
 babies howling in the night. 
 
 Each time she tried to marry me off, I smilingly shook 
 my wise old head. But I did marry, all the same though 
 not in the way that she had planned. And my marriage, 
 though a brief affair, gave me such a shock of disgust 
 with my wife and still more with myself that it did for 
 me what a certain nasty little germ had once done for poor 
 old Steve. 
 
 Her stage name was Mabel Grey, and we came together 
 at one of those times when a score of people, half mad at 
 the start and growing madder every day, rehearse a piece 
 for the theatre and do their worst to "p ut it across." The 
 play was His Impossible Wife. I had been writing it at 
 the time of the big strike two years before. It was the 
 common story of the self-made American who in his 
 youth, while he is still a miner or a butcher, a puddler in a 
 steel mill or something equally grimy and rough, marries 
 a cook in a mining camp or a girl in a steam laundry. 
 Later he climbs the American ladder. What then becomes 
 of the wife at his side? A number of things can happen. 
 First she is so quick and smart that she keeps pace with 
 her husband and, though ponderous ladies of wealth may 
 frown or sneer at first at her breaks, she worsts them in 
 each tussle and emerges triumphant at the top. Second- 
 she is impossible. With no more work for her big red 
 hands, she sits around and eats too much, grows heavy 
 and dull. Her hats are a joke. Her children go away to 
 school, and when they come home they re ashamed of 
 "ma." Her husband s new friends and their wives smile 
 at her discreetly. She glowers back, and to herself rips 
 out fine old Yankee oaths or folds her hands in mute 
 despair. 
 
BLIND 159 
 
 Her husband then does one of three things. Denoue 
 ment one he is staunch and true. For her sake he gives 
 up the frivolous world and sits at home in his slippers 
 with "ma," drunk or sober. I knew a manufacturer 
 whose wife had become a perfect old souse, but when a 
 jovial friend of his suggested a charming young mistress 
 instead, he answered. 
 
 "No, I ll stick to my wife. That old bitch stood 
 by me when I was at the bottom, and I propose to stand 
 by her now." And he gloomily added, "Right into the 
 coffin." 
 
 But if such bright and appealing devotion is often seen 
 in our national show, there are still two other denouements 
 as common. Denouement two the man takes up with one 
 fluffy young female after another, pays their rent and buys 
 them pearls and evening clothes and satin slippers leads 
 a devil of a life. Wife knows it, grins and bears it, and 
 settles heavily into her grave. Denouement three the 
 husband stays perfectly respectable. He forsakes the Cath 
 olic faith, becomes a serious vestryman in a fashionable 
 Episcopal church, meets a delightful young woman there, 
 well groomed, clever and discreet, and after various talks 
 and scenes, in her home, in his own and later in court, 
 leads her solemnly to the altar and takes her for better or 
 for worse while his original wife is left, with a gener 
 ous alimony, comfortably to meditate on the immortality 
 of man. 
 
 This last plot was the one I selected. Although I was 
 quite well aware of its disadvantages grim, no happy 
 ending, immoral, no young lovers in fact, almost sure to 
 fail in one of my lofty artist moods I heroically chose 
 this story as the most powerful of the lot. I went at it 
 hard. Each time I grew stale, I put it aside. I re-wrote the 
 piece again and again, I worked my big scenes up too high 
 and then brought them sternly down. This should be real 
 or nothing! This should be one honest picture of our cha- 
 
160 BLIND 
 
 otic national life from the bottom right up to the top. But 
 simple. No ranting plenty of laughs but none of them 
 forced and absolute justice to all involved. No vam 
 pire stuff for the second wife, no martyr s halo for the 
 first. At last with a heroic take-it-or-leave-it scowl on 
 my face I gave the script to my manager. He read it 
 and talked to me like a son. But I held out so doggedly 
 for the piece just as it was no monkeying with it, under 
 stand ! that with a curious smiling light in his large gray 
 and yellow eyes, he munched his cigar and said to me, 
 
 "All right, Larry, I ll take a chance. Got anyone yet in 
 your mind for the girl ?" 
 
 "She isn t a girl !" I shot back at him, my suspicions 
 instantly aroused. "She s a big heavy woman of forty- 
 five. Her stage business is to sigh, clear her throat and 
 fold her hands on her stomach. Her corsets don t fit 
 her." 
 
 "Christ," he murmured sadly, "what a frost this piece 
 will be." 
 
 "Then why put it on?" I retorted. "Let me try it 
 somewhere else !" Up went his hand. 
 
 "Look here, son how about this? Put a little more 
 speed in your husband. Get him up to the top at thirty- 
 five, and let his wife be thirty." 
 
 "No!" 
 
 "We re a speedy country, boy. You can see just such 
 fellahs all about. I got up myself at thirty-five." His look 
 grew pathetic. "And let me tell you, Larry, that when I 
 put on this piece my old woman will yowl like a pirate. 
 The wife is real enough don t worry. And they re just 
 as real at thirty as they are at forty-five." 
 
 In the end he carried his point. He even brought me 
 to admit that the wife was rather overdone. In my fear 
 of making her attractive I had erred on the other side. 
 
 "As you ve got her now, she s a laugh," he said. "And 
 the laughs will kill the piece." 
 
 So I agreed. A woman of thirty, fairly large, but neatly 
 
BLIND 161 
 
 dressed and obviously one who still had good looks enough 
 if only she knew how to bring them out. But when in a 
 reflective tone he suggested Mabel Grey for the part, 
 instantly I balked again. 
 
 "Mabel Grey? She s twenty-two! Gorgeous figure 
 little feet cheeks like roses big blue eyes " 
 
 "Aw forget em," he replied. "She can make em any 
 thing you like. Same way with her face. As for her feet, 
 you re blind, my son her shoes are so tight she can 
 hardly walk. And as for her figure, ain t there impos 
 sible wives enough like her? She aint petite she s big 
 de luxe. And when she lets out her corsets " 
 
 "But she won t!" I almost shouted. "And she won t 
 make up her face and eyes to look the part !" 
 
 "Why won t she ?" he snapped back at me. "What is 
 she but an unknown kid ? Never been in New York till a 
 month ago. And when I tell her, "Mabel I ve got a big 
 star part for you* she ll do anything for the chance. If 
 she don t I ll know the reason why. And besides/ he 
 added casually, "in your first act she s twenty-three. Let 
 her show herself as God made her then, and she ll be meek 
 and fat as a lamb all the way through the rest of the 
 piece." 
 
 Rather glumly I agreed that at least we should try 
 Mabel out. 
 
 3. 
 
 And in my talk with her that week, my doubts began 
 to drop away. For Mabel was such a radiant kid, so 
 blithely eager to play the part, so grateful to me for choos 
 ing her. In a month we were on intimate terms. 
 
 "Believe me, Larry, please !" she implored. "I was born 
 in Colorado I know how big and true to life this piece of 
 yours is and to put it over I ll do simply anything ! Just 
 look at my eyes and mouth and nose, or any other part of 
 me, and tell me what it is you want and I ll do anything 
 on earth ! Only please, please believe in me !" 
 
162 BLIND 
 
 I took her often out to dine and for long rides on sum 
 mer evenings. Far up the Sound on a strip of beach she 
 cooked a supper for me one night. And after a delicious 
 meal she lay back upon the sand, scowled reflectively at 
 the stars over her small cigarette, and talked about "our 
 chances" discussed our play, her faith in it, her knowl 
 edge of Colorado life where our man and his impossible 
 wife had met and loved and married. The wife was a 
 cook in a mining camp, and so we talked about cooks fo r 
 awhile. Very sensibly Mabel demanded to know what it 
 was people thought so comic in cooks. They had the 
 power of life or death over all the rest of us, didn t they? 
 As a little girl in Colorado she had driven about with her 
 father, who was a country doctor; and in lonely mountain 
 cabins, she had seen things that would turn your hair. 
 "Such meals! Such grease! But how could you blame 
 them? Life was a pretty stiff proposition for a woman 
 with children there !" She told of one young widow who 
 to save her baby s life had fetched a cow from the next 
 ranch, tramping twenty-four miles in the rain. She had 
 caught pneumonia and nearly died. 
 
 "But she didn t, she lived, and so did her baby. And 
 you know, Larry, the more I think about that wonderful 
 life in the West, the more I feel that such happy endings 
 are the rule. Such women simply cannot fail." 
 
 I glanced at her with a sharp suspicion, but she was 
 talking earnestly on. 
 
 "And believe me, I have seen enough to make a girl 
 almighty wise. My father died and I had to fight for 
 every inch of the ladder I climbed at first as a juvenile 
 in stock and then in cheap road companies. You know 
 what that means what some managers are especially 
 with a girl like me. I m not sitting here as a sweet little 
 saint I went over the line and I had to. And I even 
 wanted to, sometimes. After all, it s the deepest thing in 
 life and the blood in my veins runs pretty warm. You 
 
BLIND 1$S 
 
 see, Larry dear, I m trying my best to be honest with you. 
 No posing that s me. But I ve been pretty decent 
 through it all decent in the real sense, I mean. And I ve 
 tried to be real and see things real." 
 
 "Then you re one in a thousand," I said. "I ve never 
 yet met a girl on the stage who could see or even care to 
 see one thing in the world but her own little part. Of all 
 the narrow people with nothing but shop talk, envy, 
 scheming, vanity " 
 
 "Oh fiddlesticks. You know we re not so bad as that." 
 She turned on her elbow in the sand. "Mr. Weary New 
 York Cynic," she smiled, "lift up thine eyes unto the hills 
 I mean to the mountains in the West and get a little 
 of my faith. An American actress, like everyone else, is 
 a mixture of pettiness and oceans of good qualities, too 
 kindness, pluck, generosity and no end of others- 
 bounded on the north, perhaps, by a not very enormous 
 brain, on the east and west by an evening gown as sketchy 
 and transparent as her manager can find any excuse for, 
 and on the south by stockings which he insists must be of 
 silk and the thinner the better. That s the whole trouble. 
 She s like all other women, poor thing but her whole 
 body and her soul are so rigged up and shone upon by the 
 calcium that you see her all. And she gets so used to being 
 seen that at moments she forgets her mother s little old 
 red shawl. Otherwise," said Mabel gravely, "she s a per 
 fect lady." 
 
 She turned her mischievous eyes on mine. 
 
 "To come back to me," she suggested. I started then 
 to tell her that she was different from the rest but 
 before I had time to get very intense, she cut me off. 
 "Don t start it, Larry please !" she said. "You re differ 
 ent, too I mean to me. And I m just as I said I was 
 when I let go and we mustn t now. We ve got a big 
 play to put over." 
 
 "And after that?" 
 
164 BLIND 
 
 She was too quick for me. 
 
 "You look right out at that ocean !" she cried. I did so. 
 "Now Mr. Hart/ said the voice at my side, "I ve a littlt 
 question to ask you. Will you marry me, Larry dear?" 
 
 "Mabel, you re acting," I rejoined. She lay back laugh 
 ing on the sand. 
 
 "Oh you poor idiot of a boy of course I am and so 
 are you. We can t help it, can we? It s our job, our 
 precious bread and butter." 
 
 "Oh damn our bread and butter !" 
 
 "Why Larry, how can you speak like that of our 
 own dear child I mean our play?" 
 
 "Drat the play!" 
 
 "Look here, Mr. Author, it strikes me that I m getting 
 all the good lines in this scene. All you have to say is, 
 Drat the play and Damn our bread and butter/ 
 Larry dear, as a playwright you ought to be ashamed of 
 yourself." 
 
 I knelt beside her on the sand. 
 
 "Mabel," I said solemnly, "you have asked me to be 
 your husband. But before I trust myself to you, there is 
 one question, dearest, that I feel sure my good old father 
 if he had lived would wish me to ask." 
 
 "That s pretty good, Larry," she murmured. "Almost 
 sure to get a laugh." 
 
 "This is not a laugh," I said sternly. "My question is 
 this. If you marry me will you keep me? I m a pretty 
 sensitive little boy " 
 
 "You re six feet two " 
 
 "Never mind if I am! I m sensitive from head to toe! 
 If you shake me you ll simply ruin my life!" 
 
 "But I won t I ll stay married, you poor darling, just 
 as long as you want me hard enough to make you behave 
 in such a way that Til keep enjoying being your wife." 
 
 I have written enough of this fluff to show how we 
 were getting on. In various cafes in town, Mabel, who 
 
BLIND 165 
 
 loved dancing, appeared in a smart little costume of silk 
 and tulle that matched the blue of her eyes and set off her 
 rather full but ravishing figure, neck and arms. Skirt 
 short, of course, blue dancing slippers laced up high above 
 the ankles. We played our scenes in various moods now 
 talking gayly of nothing at all, now flirting most outrage 
 ously. Again in a warm intimate tone she would speak 
 about our play. 
 
 "We ll make it such a great big hit that I ll be here 
 five hundred nights ! Five hundred nights ! Oh Larry ! 
 And so far as I ve seen it I love the town. Don t talk to 
 me of wretched old laws to keep its glorious skyscrapers 
 down I wish to God they were twenty times higher 
 and all its dance music just going like mad ! I want every 
 thing in it to stay way up ! And will it? Will it? Or am 
 I just dreaming and is it because I m still quite young? 
 Oh Larry, I don t want to get stale ! I know what I am, 
 and what I ve got in me what I want to do on the stage, 
 and all I want to get out of life! It s endless perfectly 
 endless, dear ! And so much of it comes from this play of 
 ours and so much comes from loving you !" 
 
 Was Mabel faking? I don t think so. It was not so 
 simple as that. Her feeling for me was like mine for her 
 we began by acting but grew rapidly more real. Time 
 and again she would face herself and try her best to be on 
 the square, not only with me but with my play. She 
 worked like a dog in rehearsals. On muggy stifling August 
 days she would smile a headache down, and smooth out 
 quarrels that arose and endless hitches here and there. Of 
 a nature warm and exuberant, even though she was work 
 ing so hard I don t doubt for a minute that in our sprees 
 she let herself go and enjoyed to the full the loving and 
 the being loved in fact, she went so far at times that 
 enjoyment is too cold a word. We did not wait till the 
 opening night. 
 
 "Yes," she said one evening, 
 
166 BLIND 
 
 "Tonight ?" 
 
 "Why not?" she answered tensely. There was a little 
 silence. 
 
 "Look here, Mabel I don t care a fig for getting mar 
 ried myself. But how about you? Are you quite sure you 
 really don t? Because if you do, it s so simple," I said. 
 She looked back at me squarely : 
 
 "Lawrence Hart do you take this woman to be your 
 wife for just so long as you both agree ?" 
 
 "I do." 
 
 "And will you be square with her all the while?" 
 
 "I will be." 
 
 "Oh you darling boy, how nice it is to be your wife !" 
 
 But a few hours later she whispered, 
 
 "Remember, Larry dearest, there can t be many nights 
 like this. There s the play, you know, and it s to be made 
 the biggest success you ve ever had. All the more because 
 of tonight." 
 
 So much for Mabel s honesty. And even with the play 
 itself she was honest from her point of view. For Mabel 
 was an actress. To her the way to build a piece was to 
 make her own role in it strong. And why was it not 
 stronger to let our woman from the West, after grimly 
 watching the wiles of the lady in New York, rise at last 
 in all the glory of her Colorado "zip," wrench her hus 
 band loose from the toils and then turn on her rival ? "This 
 man is mine ! What do you know of loving a man ? What 
 do you know of anything real ? What do you know of the 
 
 life we led " and a whole list of other things. It was 
 
 absolutely true to life and so, while being square with 
 the author, the ambitious young actress could secure a 
 Samson-pulling-the-temple down Third Act curtain for 
 herself, and a Fourth Act with her charms restored, which 
 would make her a star for the rest of her days. 
 
 To give the details of how it was done, unobtrusively, 
 bit by bit, through the long crowded weeks of rehearsal 
 
BLIND 1S7 
 
 and later during our month on the road, would take more 
 space than I have here. "What Mabel Did," might well 
 be made a separate little volume describing in a nutshell 
 our American stage today a glamorous reflection of our 
 hurly-burly life. But because this meandering book of 
 mine is only a string of memories, each one unfinished, 
 incomplete, I shall force myself again to be brief. And 
 briefly, what she did was this : In Act I, by little changes 
 more in the "business" than in the lines, she 
 built the young wife to symbolize the fresh keen vigor 
 of the West. This quality, once planted, kept cropping up 
 in our scenes in New York. Meanwhile the girl I had 
 chosen to play the role of the Easterner, a good looking 
 able sort, found herself in such disaccord both with Mabel 
 and the manager that one day she threw up her part ; and 
 her successor was so commonplace, so tame and acquies 
 cent, that it became increasingly hard to make it seem 
 convincing that the husband could prefer such a clod to 
 his dynamic Western wife. And though in rehearsals 
 Mabel seemed to be doing her best to act her part sulk 
 ing, rapidly growing fat, hating New York and going 
 about in a continual state of grouch, relieved by shrewd 
 keen bits of irony every one of them a sure laugh there 
 was nevertheless a gleam in her eyes that showed she was 
 going to start something soon. In short, the Happy End 
 ing was looming rapidly into view. 
 
 As I saw what she was driving at, there were hot dis 
 cussions, angry times. Again she would promise to do 
 her best. But she simply could not act the part of a woman 
 going dully and impassively to defeat. Or if she could, 
 she wouldn t. The only way to save my story would have 
 been to put her out. And then goodbye to Mabel. And 
 between the play and the girl I probably would have cho 
 sen the latter. But I came to no such choice. For after all, 
 she had truth on her side. We re an optimistic country 
 still, bristling with men and women of the kind that are 
 
168 BLIND 
 
 bound to succeed. So I salved my conscience. The 
 new story was as real as the old. Only it was not so 
 deep.. Why is it that tragedy is always deeper than suc 
 cess? Steve, perhaps, could have told me why. But I 
 had no time for him, those days. I was trying desperately 
 to save both my play and my love affair I was in swift 
 waters now. And because the new story had to be grafted 
 onto the old, there was so much re-writing, twisting and 
 turning to be done, that what we finally produced for all 
 its apparent truthfulness was a combination of the two, 
 as shallow and as shrewdly false as that crude formless 
 labor pageant had been deep and fiercely real. 
 
 4. 
 
 But I did not see it at the time ; and even now as I look 
 back, it is not that which makes we wince. For I have 
 been more interested in living than in writing. I have not 
 followed a writer s career on the contrary my poor 
 career has always had to follow me. And it was on this 
 side of the footlights that I now received a jolt. 
 
 As I loved this gorgeous youngster, I strained every 
 nerve to help her climb to her place among the tinsel stars, 
 taking for my very own her eagerness and glad belief in 
 the game which she made glorious. Years of success 
 had left me stale. She swept me back into my youth. So 
 together we put over our piece and our impossible wife, 
 transformed, played to crowded houses. For hundreds of 
 nights she was acclaimed as a great American figure, true 
 symbol of our national rush and scramble. Mabel was a 
 star. But in the months that followed, I saw my vivid 
 fresh young goddess quaff deep of that exhilarating brew 
 which is compounded of the adoration of college youths, 
 the flattery of women reporters, the smiles and wiles of 
 photographers, the hungry eyes of managers, and through 
 it all the joyous din of curtain calls innumerable. She had 
 her own press agent now, a resolute brazen looking lad 
 
BLIND 169 
 
 with pompadour hair so absurdly light that we called him 
 "the Albino." To me he personified the whole ravenous 
 thirsty town. To drain her dry of her freshness he ran 
 sacked her early life, her long rides with her father over 
 the mountains to lonely cabins. He even faked a daguer- 
 rotype of Mabel as a little girl. He drew on her mem 
 ories of the West, her years in stock and on the road, hints 
 of various love affairs. And it was all that I could do to 
 keep our own story out of print. For she laughed at my 
 outbursts. At times she would simply overwhelm all 
 efforts at bad temper by the impulsive warmth of her love. 
 Again, as one fellow to another, she would very sensibly 
 ask, 
 
 "Oh Larry, now why shouldn t I ? Why be a prig and a 
 little fool and refuse to please the public, dear ?" 
 
 So she blithely scrawled her name to the most awful 
 piffle which Albino Charley wrote on Modern Love, on 
 Suffrage, on Cooking, Christian Science, the Boundless 
 West and so on. She let herself be photographed in all the 
 good old poses, and also with a baby mountain lion in her 
 arms. It had been borrowed from the circus. "Mabel 
 Grey and Her Favorite Pet." She had taken an apartment 
 with one enormous studio room, and there she began to 
 give parties galore. In one of these a film was shown of 
 a dense African jungle, with tigers and lions, at which her 
 guests shot with silver mounted rifles, to the popping of 
 the corks of many bottles of champagne. "Mabel Grey 
 Gives Jungle Shoot." There were other occasions equally 
 dizzy. Invitations to parties of many kinds poured in, and 
 she accepted them all. Why shouldn t she? Here was 
 "zip" and thrill. By these the town was kept "way up." 
 And Mabel dancing was a joy to make the stalest sinner 
 smile. But the pace was fast and furious. She was not 
 only playing every night but working with me on her next 
 play, "Rouge." 
 
 "Mabel, for God s sake," I would cry, "why can t you 
 
170 BLIND 
 
 see that to get anywhere you ve got to cut these parties 
 out ? I ve nothing against em now and then but look at 
 
 your friend Elsie B . She has made a hit as big as 
 
 yours, but does she let it turn her head? It s a rare night 
 when little Elsie doesn t go straight home to bed." 
 
 "Let her sleep !" snapped Mabel. She kept it up. And 
 even one season left its marks. Not on her looks she had 
 them still and they were enhanced by all the filmy lacy 
 stuff, the penciled shadows, paint and curls by which the 
 city s beauty makers their mysterious tricks perform. The 
 change was in the soul of her restless moods and bursts 
 of temper, endless craving for applause, for something 
 new, then something newer. Her old honesty dropped 
 away, and with it her sense of humor. God help her, she 
 even came to believe the mush Albino Charley wrote. 
 
 All this picture, you may say, is that of a man insanely 
 jealous. You are right. But the jealousy was not all on 
 one side. I was still the son of Carrington Hart, with 
 hosts of friends to whom the rumor of my affair with the 
 prize new lady of the year only increased my attractive 
 ness. Hence ominous flashes from Mabel, questions 
 asked with gleaming eyes, and dark threats uttered. But 
 she did not carry them out. I was still the only favored 
 one. And I think she clung to me, not only for the sake 
 of the new play on which we were working, but quite as 
 much because I had been her companion through the daz 
 zling time on which already, so swift was the pace, she 
 looked back as the peak of her youth. She wanted desper 
 ately to keep that. I was in Act One and she hated to 
 close it. To put off bringing the curtain down, she exerted 
 herself so ardently that she fooled not only me but her 
 self. The work on our new comedy went particularly well. 
 On the strength of this the old comradeship, and in its 
 wake, the old passion, returned. So we drifted through to 
 the time when "Rouge" was at last completed and the 
 
BLIND 171 
 
 contract for it signed. And then one night in a cafe, 
 where some idiots were watching us, whispering and 
 smiling, Mabel said impulsively, 
 
 "I m getting rather sick of this being whispered at, I 
 mean. How about getting married? You spoke of it once 
 and if you haven t changed your mind I think it would 
 be quite nice and amusing." 
 
 "All right. When?" 
 
 "Tonight, of course." 
 
 "And the license?" I reminded her. She concealed a 
 little yawn and said, 
 
 "Oh I guess you can get it, Larry dear. Pay enough 
 to get somebody out of bed, or else let it go until morn 
 ing. But I want to be married tonight and I think a 
 church wedding would be nice. I have a little pull I ll 
 work." 
 
 She called up a few of her friends, and they became 
 so delightedly busy that within an hour or so 
 Mabel and I were man and wife. So far, so good. 
 But when we emerged from the little church, it 
 seemed as though all the photographers and movie 
 experts in the town were gathered to do their 
 deadly work. I saw the Albino in the crowd, and it came 
 over me in a flash that this impulsive wedding was simply 
 another publicity stunt, which he had carefully worked up 
 to get full advertising value out of me and my family 
 name. There was nothing to do but run the gauntlet, grind 
 one s teeth and so get through the supper party thank 
 God for the noise. But when we reached her apartment 
 at last, though she flew instantly into my arms and sobbed 
 and begged me to believe that she had known nothing 
 about it at all, would not for worlds, and so on I said 
 nothing in reply. I was grimly determined to play with 
 her no scene that night. My thoughts went over the head 
 lines and front page pictures to appear on the morrow, and 
 
172 BLIND 
 
 the films. I decided to leave town for awhile. I was sud 
 denly sick of Mabel Grey. The end of our affair had come, 
 and instinctively I tried to get out in time to skip the last 
 big scene. 
 
 But she insisted on playing it through. She would not 
 let me get away, she threatened to scream and raise a row, 
 and in hopes of avoiding still more noise I agreed to let 
 her talk it out. This she did in her bedroom. Lights way 
 down, room almost dark. Business of beautiful heaving 
 bosom, filmy garments torn in shreds. She flew from one 
 pose to the next. She played the scene at her dressing 
 table, watching me in the mirror of course comb sav 
 agely tearing at her hair; and she played it on her knees. 
 It was as cheap as cheap could be. Moreover, I was cross 
 and tired. Each moment deepened my disgust. With her 
 the glamor of the town had grown to a gorgeous bubble 
 and burst. In her as in a mirror I saw what had been hap 
 pening in myself. All freshness and sincerity and honesty 
 gone out of life, together with real faiths and dreams 
 all made a show of and brought down to a basis of pub 
 licity, stale and artificial. In me the change had taken 
 years in her one year had done the trick. 
 
 But she could not see it. Loudly furious, she declared 
 that the little publicity stunt of the evening was none of 
 her planning but something fresh, spontaneous, warm, all 
 in the game of Broadway life. Where was the harm in it, 
 anyhow ? 
 
 "Oh Mabel," I said wearily, "can t you be honest even 
 now? There was nothing: fresh or spontaneous here. It 
 was all a cold-blooded fake from the start. You waited 
 till the new play was finished and the contract signed. 
 Then you let Albino Charley take this whole affair of 
 ours, bring it to a climax tonight and turn that into head 
 lines with a cold cash value. You did it without letting me 
 know, because you knew I wouldn t agree that in fact it 
 
BLIND 173 
 
 would probably end our affair. You took something in 
 us once fresh and real, and traded it off for a big free ad. 
 And in doing that you showed yourself stale. I don t 
 claim to be any better, my dear I m probably staler even 
 than you, because I ve been here longer. But so long as 
 there s nothing fresh or real left in the feeling between us 
 now, can t you see that the only way is to drop it?" 
 
 In short, disgusted and tired out, instead of being sen 
 sible and smoothly ending the affair by falling in with 
 Mabel s whim, and playing the last scene vivid and big 
 right up to the curtain, I stuck to the facts and let it all 
 down with the result that my young actress wife, by 
 now so beautifully dressed for the part in creamy silk 
 pajamas, became abruptly just plain mad, and with an 
 ugly smile she said, 
 
 "All right, dearie, if that s how you want it, I ll make 
 it easy as I can. There are about a thousand would-be co 
 respondents, and I ll let Albino Charley pick the most 
 promising of the lot just to let you see how stale I am ! 
 And when the thing gets into court, it will be Just as far 
 from stale as Charley can make it! Do you get me? 
 There s a hell of a lot of publicity left in this thing yet, 
 my love !" 
 
 When later the case came to trial, although I did not 
 appear in court, it was hard to escape the headlines. They 
 rang all the changes upon "His Impossible Wife." The 
 play had become a reality. Mabel was the girl from the 
 West, crude, genuine, warm-blooded, real whom I, the 
 young New York millionaire, was about to throw aside 
 like a discarded mistress. It was very raw stuff, but they 
 put it across. With the aid of her several lawyers, Mabel 
 worked up skilfully to the big scene where she took the 
 stand and told the story of her young- life. And she played 
 it so effectively that it was all my attorney could do, with 
 the help of a sympathetic judge, to hold the jury in line 
 
174 BLIND 
 
 for me. When at last my divorce was granted, one gray- 
 headed old fool of a juror, who had held out in Mabel s 
 favor, laid a trembling hand on her bowed head and said, 
 
 "God bless you, little woman!" 
 
 "Rouge" was an enormous success. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 1. 
 
 As to the annoyance and disgust of my family through 
 the whole affair, there is no need to dwell on that. They 
 said nothing about it to me. I remember my father s look 
 when I went to him at the start but he was grimly prac 
 tical. Would she take money and keep still? She would 
 not. Then he hoped I would leave this to his lawyer and 
 get out of town. I promptly agreed. I was sick of New 
 York ^and as Steve had done before me, I came out here 
 to Seven Pines, to think it all over, take stock of my 
 life. 
 
 And at first it was not cheerful thinking. I felt stale 
 from head to foot. My wise old Aunt Amelia left me 
 pretty much alone. 
 
 "Larry," she said quietly, "there is so much in this 
 affair I wouldn t be apt to understand, that I see no use 
 in talking it over. And anyway I am always so very much 
 more interested in what young people are going to do 
 than in what they have done. You have certainly lived 
 pretty hard. I m so glad now you ve come back home to 
 think it over and find yourself and get ready to do some 
 thing better than you ve ever done before." 
 
 So she left me to myself. Dorothy was away on a visit, 
 and I was glad she was not here. I had not seen her for 
 nearly a year. But one evening soon after I arrived, my 
 young cousin came home unexpectedly; and as she looked 
 in from the hall, at sight of me she gave a little start. 
 
 "Oh why, hello, Larry nobody told me you were 
 here." 
 
 Though her voice was natural enough, her expression 
 
 175 
 
176 BLIND 
 
 was so strained that when she had gone up to her room I 
 made up my mind to leave the next day. But in the morn 
 ing I learned she had gone "on another visit," her 
 mother said. So again I was left to my thinking. 
 
 And this old house where I had been reared began to 
 make its presence felt, by subdued and unobtrusive whis 
 perings and creaking sounds which suddenly took my 
 memory back. Long ago in college days a man had told 
 me I was "psychic" and he was right to this extent 
 that sometimes this home of mine, so filled with the pres 
 ence of my aunt, would seem to speak to me for her, and 
 yet with a personality more masculine and all its own, 
 compounded of the presences of others still remembered 
 here. Like a kind but gossipy old friend, fairly bursting 
 with curiosity, it seemed to listen all intent while I went 
 over my affair and cheerfully it seemed to say, 
 
 "All right, my boy, you ve been a fool. But is that any 
 thing new in your life ? Remember the time you ran away 
 to New York with a drunken horse-dealer? Yes, you 
 have been a mixer and an adventurer, my son; and now 
 you have gone and done it again. It will be well for you 
 some day to stroll down to that old tree in the wood, 
 where a repentant little lad once used to beat himself on 
 the shins." 
 
 "But I m not repentant," I replied. "You miss the 
 point entirely." And I gave a peevish sigh. "But what 
 lse should I have expected? A puritanical old house " 
 
 "I am not a puritanical old house," came the stiff 
 rejoinder. "I am decidedly modern! In the past, if you 
 had come with any such story of carnal love, you would 
 have got it hot and heavy and it would have done you 
 good ! As it is, being thoroughly up to date, I treat the 
 matter lightly as a mistake, an escapade, a thing to be a 
 bit ashamed of. And you reply " 
 
 "I m trying to tell you that instead of being ashamed, 
 
BLIND 177 
 
 on the whole I m glad I had it! I needed it to open my 
 eyes!" 
 
 "Then what s worrying you?" 
 
 "What s worrying me is that I ve been getting so stale 
 and dry, so spoiled by being popular and by cheap living 
 in New York, that I can no longer get a grip on anything 
 real!" 
 
 "Very well, let s go into this thoroughly. Go back 
 through the last twenty years and tell me the story of your 
 life." 
 
 With the greatest relish it listened to everything I had 
 to tell. 
 
 "Well, young man, if you want to write some exceed 
 ingly hectic books and plays, you can sit down and start 
 right in. God knows you have the material you have 
 crowded forty lifetimes into twenty feverish years. But 
 you have been living on whiskey, and now you had better 
 take the cure. You ve been seeing life from an automobile 
 look at it from a buggy instead. Stay with me for a few 
 years." I made a restless movement. "Oh I doubt if 
 you ll be very bored. There may be sentimental fools who 
 sing of me as Home, Sweet Home; but behind my sweetly 
 simple air I m a pretty wise old citizen. I am packed full 
 of a hundred years and ready for a hundred more. 
 Through the mortals who come within my walls, all things 
 human and divine sooner or later enter my doors. Abide 
 with me a little while, and from an old American home 
 let us look at what is brewing in this chaotic world today. * 
 
 Rather ungraciously I agreed. I still wanted to be 
 alone for a time. I got a horse and took long rides along 
 familiar country roads. So several quiet weeks went by. 
 
 2. 
 
 And after that, in Steve s home only a few miles away, 
 I found a new companion. With Lucy and Steve I had 
 
178 BLIND 
 
 little in common or rather, too much. They knew too 
 much, and behind their kind forbearance I knew what 
 they were thinking. But with Tommy it was different. 
 Quite obviously delighted to have his Uncle Larry back, 
 he took me right into his life, depths fresh and radiant 
 and new. 
 
 Tommy at the age of twelve was no longer fat but tall 
 and thin, all angles, bone and hard young muscle. His 
 voice was fully as deep as before, and his grave brown 
 eyes as eagerly intent on all the ways and means by which 
 a boy contrives to feed the swiftly changing desires of his 
 lusty body and soul. Tommy s desire to be out of doors 
 was a veritable passion. Although he had been out all 
 day, supper was barely over at night before he was earn 
 estly thinking up "something I gotta do tonight" that 
 would keep him safely out of range of the hated bedtime 
 call. It was "to close my chicken house" or "to bed my 
 pony down." But long after such tasks were accom 
 plished, he would remain out under the harvest moon, 
 prowling like an Indian scout, standing still and listening 
 hard, visiting various secret spots, sniffing vigilantly for 
 skunks. I sniffed one with him one evening sniffed it to 
 an awful extent. 
 
 "Gosh!" whispered Tommy breathlessly. "There s 
 going to be hell tonight !" 
 
 We got a lantern from the barn and excitedly inspected 
 the intricate fortifications by which my nephew s hen 
 house and his coops for "baby chickens" were protected 
 from marauders. 
 
 "You can t be too careful," Tommy said. "A skunk has 
 a big head on his shoulders. And if he does find a hole to 
 crawl through, he s not like a mink, satisfied with one hen 
 no sir, he ll suck the blood out of em all ! I lost seven 
 teen hens and a rooster once, and I m taking no chances I" 
 
 When the defences were found intact, we went on to in 
 spect the skunk trap. This was a barrel so arranged that 
 
BLIND 179 
 
 when a skunk entered to get the bait the barrel tipped tip 
 and there he was! There then remained the question, 
 how to get him somewhere else. 
 
 "It s no easy job," said Tommy. "Dad s patients here 
 are nervous people. They come to the country for fresh 
 air and if it isn t fresh every minute, they can t be con 
 tented till I get a licking although I happen to be the 
 one who gives em eggs for breakfast. But I tell you what 
 I do. If I find Mister Skunk in the barrel, I don t pretend 
 to notice him. The least little scare and he ll start right 
 in. So I sneak up and all of a sudden I clap on a good 
 tight-fitting lid. I nail it down, then tip over the barrel 
 and start it rolling down the hill. And it rolls way down 
 to the farm of a man who is sensible about such things." 
 
 We came rather cautiously back to the house, and look 
 ing through the kitchen window we found it was long 
 after nine o clock. Whereupon "so as not to get mother 
 excited" we fetched a ladder from the barn; and noise 
 lessly mounting to his window, Tommy crept carefully 
 into his room. In a moment he stuck out his head and 
 whispered, 
 
 "It might be a pretty good idea to take that ladder back 
 to the barn." 
 
 "All right, old boy, I ll see to it." 
 
 "Gee, Uncle Larry, I m glad you re here! Why don t 
 you come and live here?" 
 
 I came over often after that. With the money that we 
 earned from eggs and fowls and broilers, ducks and fine 
 big Belgian hares, we climbed into the pony cart and rat 
 tled down to the village store; and there we bought the 
 things we needed a good strong hammer or an ax, a 
 bag of good strong candy, glue, elastic bands for sling 
 shots, nails, spikes, shingles, fishing hooks, kite string and 
 a food for hens called "Lay or Bust." We stopped at the 
 village smithy and had our faithful pony shod. We drove 
 back home and were late for lunch. We were nearly 
 
180 BLIND 
 
 always late for lunch. There were so. many things we had 
 to do. We built a small log cabin far up on the wooded 
 ridge, and on starry autumn nights we went up there with 
 Oberookoff, fried our bacon and eggs and potatoes, and 
 later lay back in the balsam listening to our friend s ac 
 counts of the wailing howls of Russian wolves and the 
 blood-curdling conjuries of a village sorcerer he had 
 known. 
 
 Long before this I had slipped back into my old place 
 in the family. I was on good terms with Emmy, a shy 
 moon-faced little daughter of nine; and I drew closer to 
 Lucy and Steve. I felt Steve s new attitude toward his 
 son. Surprised and touched to discover Tommy s admira 
 tion and love for him, Steve had begun some years before 
 to enter into Tommy s life, and had been my predecessor 
 in many fine adventures here. He it was who had taught 
 the lad to use an axe, to ride and swim. Often they would 
 disappear for a whole day together and Steve had lain 
 by Tommy s side on that great still momentous night 
 when for the first time in his life the boy had slept out 
 under the stars. So it was through Tommy that Steve 
 and I came together again. I had fallen into the habit of 
 thinking of him as "poor old Steve," the brilliant chap 
 who had lost his chance. Now however by degrees I real 
 ized that I was wrong. A good deal heavier in build, with 
 iron gray in his thick hair and more perceptible markings 
 in his powerful sunburned face, I could not miss the 
 impress there of a new grip, a deeper assurance and quiet 
 poise. Steve was just as busy as he had ever been in 
 New York. For the place had grown and its work had 
 changed. "Dad s patients here are nervous people/ Tom 
 my had said, and he was right. For Steve was a nerve 
 specialist whose fame was spreading far and wide; and 
 they came from straining feverish towns and cities all 
 over the U. S. A. twitching jerky specimens or people 
 as inert as logs, still others with obsessions that put a 
 queer light in their eyes. 
 
BLIND 181 
 
 "Poor people," Oberookoff said. "No wonder they are 
 nearly mad. In cities they have lost their roots. In Russia 
 we have country homes ; and though people go to Peters 
 burg they still return to their estates, where they were 
 children, where they know the peasants and their songs 
 and tales, the church, the priest, the sorcerer. But these 
 poor Americans have no homes. In apartment buildings in 
 New York who is there to sing folk songs ? Only the ele 
 vator boy, and he sits reading a false magazine. There is 
 nothing real. They have no roots. They have lost them 
 in the city life." 
 
 In this sweeping deep analysis, he was supported by 
 Aunt Amelia. In fact, the idea was her own. But one day 
 Steve, who had regained his old sense of the irony of 
 things, led them both to a cottage window and gave them 
 a glimpse of a tall lean man who, violently twitching, sat 
 in a chair and glared fiercely at the wall. Plainly here 
 was a victim of the hectic life of towns. 
 
 "Poor fellow," breathed Oberookoff. 
 
 "Is he from New York?" inquired my aunt. 
 
 "No, he s from a ranch in Montana," Steve replied 
 maliciously. 
 
 From such widely scattered regions of our country 
 did these people come, that as I look back on them they 
 make a most significant part in the picture I have of our 
 national life as it was when the Great War began a rest 
 less straining heaving mass composed of untold millions 
 struggling upward dreaming, scheming, each in his rut 
 a few engrossed in big ideals, like Steve, for human 
 happiness; more reaching out lean strenuous hands for 
 money and when money came, flinging it blindly here 
 and there. Blind to any real happiness, blind to the dis 
 carded past and to the future even then so rapidly loom 
 ing into view. A nation dragging anchor, breaking from 
 old faiths, restraints and ways of living, crowding into 
 noisy towns and groping madly for the new. A great 
 people in transition and, through its immigration, its com- 
 
182 BLIND 
 
 merce and its travel abroad, bound up in a world that was 
 crowding the transformations of ages into a few tumultu 
 ous years. There was seething restlessness over the land 
 and though there were still the millions, on farms, in 
 drowsy little towns, whose lives appeared to be out of 
 the reach of the whirl and rush and pull of the storm so 
 swiftly gathering in reality it was not so. For the 
 newspapers and magazines, the railroads and the motor 
 cars, the movies and the travelling men, came out from 
 the big cities and the life of the farms and little towns 
 began to stir with change impending. There was no 
 village in the land in which some restless boy or girl was 
 not dreaming of the cities. 
 
 And out of this prodigious whirl, all kinds of people 
 came to Steve. Not only the rich came here to be cured, 
 for he took free patients constantly. Machinists from my 
 father s mills and wealthy brokers from New York came 
 with the same nerve diseases, working girls with the same 
 complaints as the wives and daughters of millionaires. 
 Nerves nerves ! Some had to be kept in bed for weeks, 
 and a few of these poor specimens died. But most of them 
 kept out of doors. Some took tramps or horseback rides, 
 others worked upon the farm. I remember one bank pres 
 ident perched upon a mowing machine and clucking anx 
 iously to his team. I recall a shrewd-looking woman, 
 the society leader of a thriving western town, briskly 
 weeding onions here and a traction promoter milking 
 cows and a stout dowager from Detroit calmly but 
 earnestly flying a kite which Tommy had loaned her one 
 hot day. In every conceivable fashion did these mad 
 people try to relax. 
 
 3. 
 
 My father often came here to rest; and I began to 
 notice in him a change that made me wince a bit. To me 
 at least he had always shown a vitality inexhaustible, but 
 
BLIND 183 
 
 the limits now began to appear. Steve was his physi 
 cian as before, and Dad obeyed him anxiously. He did 
 light work out of doors. With Oberookoff becoming good 
 friends, he had tackled that crazy little mill and put it 
 into running shape ; and while sawing small logs into fire 
 wood, they had long soul-exploring talks. After such days 
 out of doors, he would often come over to Seven Pines. 
 He and I were no longer so far apart. He had grown 
 more liberal in his views, and I less radical in mine; 
 and we came together again on T. R. and the new Pro 
 gressive Party. Dad had taken Aunt Amelia out to the 
 Chicago convention. She had listened to the speeches 
 there, the impassioned declaration of a new faith in the 
 soul of the nation. She had heard that great assemblage 
 sing "Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory of the Coming of 
 the , Lord" with a deep crusader s zeal that carried her 
 far back to her youth and the days of the Civil War. And 
 radiant at this justification of her life-long belief, she said, 
 "There is nothing new in this I saw it as a little girl. 
 No matter how keen and shrewd and hard the American 
 people may seem to be deep down in every one of them 
 is a God-given fire that never goes out. And when they 
 are summoned to some great cause, then my dears these 
 people are all at once so wonderful, so ready to lay down 
 their lives, that oh to me it is like a promise of how the 
 whole world is going to be. Years ago in Chicago I felt 
 this promise in the Fair. I shall never forget to my dying 
 day the White City on those nights in June. I remem 
 ber saying to myself, All cities some day will be like 
 this/ And now again out there in the West I have seen 
 the vision. New things are stirring. Men and, thank 
 Heaven, women, too are firmly making up their minds 
 that all that is ugly and selfish and mean in our politics 
 and business life and in our smoky factory towns shall be 
 cleared away that every boy and girl in the land shall 
 be given a good fair start and be brought up with such 
 
184 BLIND 
 
 ideals that the nation they shall build at last " She 
 
 paused for a moment, looked down at her hands which 
 were locked together in her lap, and ended in a reverent 
 tone, "It shall be such a nation that to all the weary grop 
 ing peoples of the earth, my dears, it shall at last have 
 earned from its Master the right to tell them, Follow 
 me / 1 
 
 I remember that evening vividly still. My father was 
 here. We were sitting together in this room where I am 
 writing these memories down ; and where, when at last I 
 reach the end, I shall try I can feel it in my bones to 
 take stock of our part in the vast struggle which to some 
 seems ended, to others only just begun. Have we 
 advanced one step on the road to Aunt Amelia s promised 
 land? Have we made it all worth while? For it cost 
 some twenty million young men their lives or their limbs 
 or their eyes, you know. And though you may lay us 
 aside with pensions or in soldiers homes while you go 
 on in the same old way, as though there had never been 
 any war, putting all those big ideals of service and devo 
 tion out of sight upon a shelf, while in your business or 
 profession or your lucrative plumber s job you join in the 
 merry scramble for all the money you can get then, if 
 I read the times aright, you or your children will come 
 to a crash such as no country but Russia has seen. 
 
 Oh, what a solemn book, you may say. But it is sol 
 emn to be blind to have the whole distracting panorama 
 of today wiped out of your view, and so be able to look 
 back on what you have seen of your country s 
 life, and a great war and a great revolution. The 
 cause of this brief outburst was that "God-given 
 fire" in which my brave old aunt believed, and 
 which was soon so amazingly to burst into a mighty 
 flame. And as my story now draws near to those great 
 winds that swept the world, looking back to the days on 
 the eve of the storm two American figures stand out in 
 
BLIND 185 
 
 my mind. One was Aunt Amelia, speaking her faith in 
 the soul of the nation; the other was my father, watching 
 her affectionately with a look half sad upon his face, as 
 though he were thinking of his life and all the other lives 
 he had known, in nearly half a century of such money- 
 grabbing as the world has never seen, and were saying, 
 "What a damned pity America is not like that." 
 Which one was right? My life of late had not been of 
 a kind to foster illusions. My father s view now seemed 
 to me close to the grim reality. And though like him I 
 could be stirred of an evening by an old woman s dream, 
 my faith in the Progressive Party was built largely on 
 the fact that so many of its leaders were men of my fath 
 er s kind liberal, broad-minded, but with their feet on 
 solid earth. For I had reached a stage in life where I 
 was betwixt and between. As I drew close to forty, I 
 felt myself both young and old, now one and now the 
 other. Could I ever again be swept off my feet by any 
 tremendous human appeal? In some moods, yes in 
 others, no. Would I ever write anything really worth 
 while? Again hopes, doubt, uncertainty. For although I 
 did write several plays, and one at least, The Nerve Farm, 
 was a better piece of work than anything I had done 
 before I was still blindly feeling about for a grip on the 
 deeper realities; still groping, as my country was. I saw 
 the Progressive Party fail to hold together; I saw it 
 crumble and go down. And it seemed as though all the 
 social forces I had felt gathering in my youth as if for 
 some achievement world-wide, were scattering now, 
 grown old and stale and utterly impotent to control the 
 surging rush of these modern times. I became almost a 
 fatalist. 
 
 4. 
 
 But I was not always so, for in my memories of that 
 time there is one great vivid picture which came to 
 
186 BLIND 
 
 me through Dorothy. Though never quite the same with 
 me as she had been in the years before my luckless love 
 affair, my cousin was again my friend; and I welcomed 
 this the more because she still kept her old eagerness for 
 life and new experience. The last few years of dashing 
 about had left her still determined to find a job and set 
 tle down. Vigorously she protested against my fatalistic 
 mood. 
 
 "Larry," she cried, "you are growing old! Without 
 making the slightest effort to stop it, cooped up here in 
 the country, you re drifting straight into middle age! 
 You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" 
 
 And she liked to drag me off with her on little excur 
 sions into scenes in which, with very little said, her buoy 
 ancy, so warm and deep, could overwhelm my discourag- 
 ment now to town for a concert in Carnegie Hall upon a 
 Beethoven evening; and again up to the Polo Grounds, 
 for she was the only girl I have ever had the luck to know 
 who really loved a baseball game. But our most suc 
 cessful time was the Saturday in April, 1914, when Dor 
 othy persuaded me to go with her again to Ellis Island, 
 to the immense red building there through which in the 
 years gone by men, women and children by millions had 
 pressed forward hungrily with a passion of hope in their 
 eyes. So deep and so tumultuous, so fresh and filled with 
 the vigor of life, was that passion in those immigrants, 
 that I had gone there in the past as to some giant fountain 
 of youth. And now with Dorothy once again I came 
 under the spell of what they called "a big day" on the 
 Island. 
 
 Out of the barges that had brought them from the ocean 
 liners, they were pouring onto the dock, gathering in two 
 long lines, and crowding, pressing eagerly on. Hope in 
 the strange old visage of a white-bearded giant, hope in 
 the excited face of a young girl before him, hope in the 
 stout manfulness of the queer little boy by her side who 
 
BLIND 187 
 
 lugged a heavy sack on his shoulders. Hope in the very 
 evident fact that these people had burnt their bridges, had 
 brought all their worldly goods along, not only bags and 
 satchels but their pillows and their bedding in big bulging 
 packages. Hope in the very clothes they wore, for this 
 was gala attire. 
 
 "Oh Larry, just look at that lovely old shawl P 
 
 And Dorothy kept pointing out the kerchiefs and the 
 streaming scarfs, the skirts and bodices, jackets and vests. 
 What a crude rich medley of purples and greens and reds 
 and blues ! All faces were impatiently turned to the gates 
 that led into the building. 
 
 "What is that man in uniform up to?" they appeared 
 to be asking. 
 
 The army surgeon by our side held a small stick in his 
 hand, and with this stick and a finger he deftly rolled up 
 eyelids. "Here s another one. Look," he would say, and 
 on the underside of a lid he would show us the red lines 
 of trachoma. On the backs of the afflicted he would mark 
 with a piece of chalk; and each of them, unaware of his 
 fate, would go blinking, laughing, hurrying on. Other 
 officials were waiting ahead, and there were searching 
 looks, quick prods, in the business of weeding out the dis 
 eased. In a dozen different tongues, they kept repeating, 
 
 "Don t get frightened !" 
 
 For here, while the main throng poured on up a long 
 steep flight of stairs, those suspected of being unfit were 
 pushed and jerked and thrown to one side. "What brutal 
 officials !" Dorothy cried. But these men had to handle ten 
 thousand people in a day, as cowboys in a human herd. 
 And the herd grew frenzied here, with shrieks and wails 
 of wild distress as friends and relations were torn apart. 
 
 Watching our chance we slipped by an official, and with 
 the more fortunate ones we went quickly up the stairs into 
 the immense main hall. There was something terrible in 
 the power of this surging throng in the coarse heavy 
 
133 BLIND 
 
 faces, the quiver of muscles and the pressure of big limbs, 
 the rough eagerness of voices that spoke in a clamor of 
 many tongues. "Look! Quick!" my cousin whispered. 
 Close by us in its mother s arms a child with scared wide- 
 open eyes stared fixedly up at the stars and stripes of the 
 flag which hung high over all. The crowd was constantly 
 being herded into twenty-two long lanes divided by steel 
 fences. We passed along the side of the hall and came to 
 the head of one 1 of these lanes, where at a high desk 
 sat an inspector writing busily in a huge book, one of 
 thousands of such books stacked away in dusty rooms, in 
 which are recorded year by year the strange names of 
 these inpouring recruits to a strangely growing American 
 race. An interpreter was helping him decide on each 
 new candidate. Fit or unfit to be one of us ? 
 
 "How much money have you got?" The answers came 
 in paper bills, in silver, gold or copper coins, in rubles, 
 lira, francs and marks, in kronen, guilders, ora. 
 
 "Where are you from?" In answer, rough voices 
 uttered the names of sombre ancient cities and towns, vil 
 lages on rocky coasts, hamlets perched in mountains or 
 far out on Russian steppes. 
 
 "Where are you going?" The replies sent one s mind 
 and fancy leaping over the new world. And as they were 
 admitted here, with sudden laughter and loud cries, quick 
 shouldering of heavy bags and gathering of children, off 
 they went, most of them running pell mell. 
 
 "Don t forget your luggage!" was shouted at them 
 from all sides. Those who were not carrying their be 
 longings in their hands must pick out trunks and bags 
 and boxes in the baggage room below. Beside it, a long 
 waiting room was packed and crammed with people. 
 Through the high windows a setting s"ri painted prHen 
 the dust in the air. The odors grew heavy and stifling. 
 Children lay dead asleep on the floor, babies everywhere 
 
BLIND 189 
 
 rolled underfoot. The talking, shouting and laughing 
 filled the whole place with a steady roar, and endlessly 
 various parts of the throng would surge towards the open 
 baggage room door. But the room inside was already 
 full ; and so in the doorway, throwing them back, stood a 
 doughty little official with broad stocky shoulders and 
 black moustache. He was French, but he talked many 
 languages. 
 
 "Ze towair of Babelle, c est moi !" he shouted gayly into 
 our ears. "I have stood in thees place eleven year! 
 Regardez done, I am still alive ! Booh !" he cried to a rag 
 ing old woman who charged down upon him. He snapped 
 his fingers in her face. "You are a writair? Shut your 
 eyes ! Write anything you can imagine, monsieur ! For if 
 it has not happened here already it will do so ! They are 
 mad! These people are insane! They have been out of 
 bed since two in the morning. The floor, it is tipping 
 under their feet. They have had no food, and they have 
 been pushed! So!" And he sent an indignant Swede 
 staggering back into the crowd. "They have been asked 
 each moment questions that to them seemed utterly mad ! 
 And to their own questions nobody replies! Bah!" he 
 shouted to three small Italians who were clamoring in 
 his ears. He clapped his hands and winked at them 
 impressively; then he turned back with a shrug: 
 
 "But they are courageous people, madame!" he 
 declared to Dorothy. "To sell all you have and go to a 
 world you have heard is full of frightful Indians! But 
 they come! They are like that! Then why keep one of 
 them out of your land? If they have diseases what does 
 it matter? Have you not diseases waiting for them 
 in your slums? If they have not all their legs and 
 arms, what does it matter? Have you not the Peetsburg 
 mills waiting to kill them? Quoi done?" he screamed to 
 a dusky mother who rushed up with a brood of children. 
 
190 BLIND 
 
 "Ah ! It is Armenian !" He talked to her hard and fast in 
 her tongue. "You see ? She has lost both her ticket and 
 money! It is somewhere on the floor!" 
 
 "Oh but can t anything be done? Can t it be found?" 
 cried Dorothy. 
 
 "Can it be found? Can the ocean be asked to step to 
 one side while we look upon the bottom, madame?" 
 
 Both hands pressed to her temples, the thin woman 
 moaning rushed away. 
 
 "I tell you I propose to find that woman s money!" my 
 cousin exclaimed; and she darted away into he crowd. 
 I followed, but as I seized her arm she gave a little scream 
 of joy and dived down into the mob. There were the 
 tickets and money, quite safe pinned tight to the small 
 pantaloons of the woman s oldest boy ! She had forgotten ! 
 At sight of them now the immigrant mother fell on her 
 knees and hugged my cousin s skirt in a frenzy. And 
 while she and Dorothy happily cried, the Frenchman 
 turned to me with a shrug that almost lifted him from the 
 floor. 
 
 "Did I not tell you? Quite insane! . . . But let them 
 in!" he continued. "With their children let them into your 
 land ! For they shall grow up and make a new life ! Let 
 them forget, let them start again! I have no use for 
 things of the past, or books or creeds that are behind! 
 Or drinks! I mix my own, monsieur! Let all these 
 people mix their own ! They will go up or they will go 
 down, but they will have new lives, monsieur!" 
 
 Before we left the Island we went back to the main 
 hall, climbed to the visitors gallery and stood a moment 
 looking down. A new multitude pressed forward; the 
 human river still flowed on. And as we watched that field 
 of colors, felt all those excited hopes rising to the flag 
 above, the hand of my companion tightened slowly on 
 my arm, in a manner that reminded me of the labor 
 pageant years before. And Dorothy s lips were tight com- 
 
BLIND 191 
 
 pressed; on her face was a smile that was half of pain. 
 For here was one of the grandest sights that we had seen 
 or would ever see; part of the endless throng of millions 
 who from all corners of Europe, afoot and in wagons, on 
 trains and ships, day and night on land and sea kept corn 
 ing, coming through the years. ... A faint shrill little 
 laugh rose out of it all. It came from a chubby red-jack 
 eted urchin perched on the broad shoulder of a sturdy gray 
 old man. The boy was pulling his grandfather s ear. The 
 latter looked up with a quick smile, and then as the long 
 dense line moved forward just a step, he turned his face 
 to the gate ahead. 
 
 "How much money have you got? Where are you 
 from ? Where are you going?" 
 
 "To the mills and factories, the tenements, the crowded 
 streets, the docks, the railroads and the mines, the prairies 
 and the mountains. We will do the rough work of your 
 land. And some will be killed and all will die. But our 
 children s children and yours will be friends." 
 
 5. 
 
 My cousin was not the only one who held me back from 
 middle age. My old companion, Tommy McCrea, was 
 growing at an astonishing speed; and his deep voice was 
 beginning to change, jumping from bass to high falsetto. 
 But he was the same eager lovable kid who had pulled me 
 out of my former gloom; and his fresh new attack on 
 life was as keen a joy to me as before. I took him on little 
 trips to New York, to the Hippodrome, the Aquarium, 
 and now and then to a game at New Haven. Already 
 Tommy was "strong for Yale." But now, in the summer 
 of 1914, the atmosphere of Tommy s home grew pregnant 
 with the consciousness of a great event about to happen. 
 He was going away to school. In June he had completed 
 his course in the village school nearby; and as the only 
 available high school in the neighborhood appeared to be 
 
192 BLIND 
 
 a poor affair, his mother had reluctantly decided to send 
 the boy away. Poor Tommy took the news very hard. He 
 loved the life in this home in the hills and begged her to 
 let him stay. Gone were all his dreams of Yale. 
 
 "I ve got all the educating I need out of regular 
 classes," he declared. "I want to be a farmer." 
 
 "Then," said Lucy cheerfully, "you must go to an agri 
 cultural college." 
 
 At this he discarded a farmer s career, and in the weeks 
 that followed he announced one ambition after another. 
 He wanted to be a carpenter, an "expert saw-mill man 
 ager," a veterinary doctor, a "chauffeur for nervous peo 
 ple." In brief, he put up a plucky fight and when at last 
 he knew he was beaten, it was with a grim fortitude that 
 he faced the unknown world ahead. He kept his troubles 
 to himself. But when I came out in July, in the welcome 
 that he gave me there was an anxious eagerness that led 
 to some long serious talks, in which I described my own 
 days at school and gave a deal of sage advice. As he lis 
 tened, his brown eyes at times gleamed with anticipations, 
 but again an exceedingly forlorn and homesick look crept 
 into them. 
 
 "It s pretty tough to be fourteen," said poor old 
 Tommy gruffly. "An it s worse than that. I look 
 sixteen. I m so darned tall." 
 
 He had always been proud of his height before; he had 
 carefully measured himself as he grew. But now in the 
 evenings there came times when this ungainly big little 
 boy, all tanned and freckled and hardened and scarred by 
 the out of door life that he loved, would linger awkwardly 
 over his goodnight to his mother; and it was hard for 
 Lucy then to stick to her plan for him. 
 
 Toward the end of July, one evening we motored over 
 to Seven Pines. Dorothy was on a visit out west, but Ed 
 had arrived with his wife and children, and after supper 
 there was a big time. For remembering that hilarious 
 
BLIND 193 
 
 party nearly twenty years before, I had fixed up some 
 tennis balls with phosphorous. In the deepening dark, 
 luminous they flew back and forth ; and the game was fast 
 and furious, with piercing cries and yowls of glee from 
 Tommy and his cousins. 
 
 It was interrupted for a time by the arrival of my 
 father. He had come over from his mills to give us a 
 rumor he had heard of impending trouble overseas. Aus 
 tria and Serbia. An ultimatum perhaps a war. It did 
 not seem very ominous. Dad saw the chance of complica 
 tions, but it was so far away. Still, the word "War" had 
 a magic sound. It brought Tommy and his cousins close 
 about us listening hard. How potent was race feeling in 
 these sensible modern times? My father thought it was 
 still pretty strong; he cited the race quarrels and brawls 
 among the workers in his mills. I replied with a picture 
 of Ellis Island as Dorothy and I had seen it only a few 
 months before. In that host of immigrants, face feeling 
 had seemed small indeed, lost in the gigantic hope for 
 happier and more prosperous lives. In this my aunt sup 
 ported me, and between us we soon carried the day. In 
 a half an hour the war was over and the tennis game 
 went on. 
 
 But on the way home that evening, Tommy sat beside 
 me ; and it soon grew plain that he had plunged into one 
 of the thinking spells which he had often in these days. 
 I asked him what it was about. 
 
 "Ellis Island," he replied, and his voice had a solemn 
 tone. "I went there once with Aunt Dorothy, too and 
 I got a queer new feeling there never had it before." 
 He paused, then added slowly, "I get exactly the same 
 kind of a feeling now when I think about school." 
 
 Casually I dropped my hand upon his bony shoulder; 
 I drew him a bit closer, and we talked of school for a 
 time until the spell was over. 
 
 But after I had gone to bed, the picture came again to 
 
194 BLIND 
 
 me. Half waking and half in my dream, I saw again 
 that human sea tumultuous with bobbing heads and 
 quick excited gestures, bright vivid colors everywhere; 
 I heard that harsh and thrilling roar making the very 
 air alive with hopes and fears, uncertainties the feel 
 ings Tommy had about school. I had again the con 
 sciousness of countless places left behind old world 
 cities, ancient towns and bleak little villages with grim 
 oppression, hopeless toil, heavy taxes and the loss of 
 sons forced into conscript armies. I felt again the deep 
 tremendous passion of hope in the new free world. And 
 in my sleep I dreamed that night, in the most out 
 landish dazzling ways, of how in a world of the future 
 this hope of all peoples would be fulfilled. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 1. 
 
 IN the next few years, I have no doubt, there will be 
 Cook s tours innumerable to European battlefields; and 
 this will be called "Seeing the War." But the blinding- 
 vast tornado, with the deep changes that it wrought, will 
 really not be seen at all till a generation or two have 
 gone and other turbulent events have taken place upon 
 the earth. God pity the poor devils who have to write its 
 history now. 
 
 But while I have been working in this room alone at 
 night, gradually I have grown aware of the presence 
 close about me of many silent monitors, who seem to ask, 
 "How honestly can this American friend of ours write 
 about his country?" They are men I knew in Germany, 
 in France and England, Russia meeting them along the 
 path my own little life made through the war. And they 
 have come so close to me that almost imperceptibly I 
 have found myself writing for them. We have been a 
 strange little group in this room some of us rich and 
 others poor; some of us warm and comfortable, others 
 frozen and half starved; some of us living, others dead 
 who together have tried to look back through the 
 war into the long years behind. We have taken up my 
 story first; and though it is not finished yet, it is the 
 turn of these others now. More and more they will come 
 in. I wish I had known them better and could set down 
 their full stories here; but our meetings were so brief, 
 in the midst of such exciting scenes, that I have the 
 merest fragments. These I shall piece together, and in 
 the coming chapters try to confine my memories to my 
 
 195 
 
196 BLIND 
 
 meetings with these men, and to the way that some of 
 them have affected my own life and the lives of other 
 people already familiar in this book. 
 
 2. 
 
 The war at first seemed far away. I was still with; 
 Steve and Lucy in their home in the Connecticut hills 
 one of millions of those quiet spots, scattered all over 
 the face of the globe, into which the great winds in their 
 rising sent the merest breath of alarm. One could picture 
 such scenes innumerable the stopping of the daily train 
 at a lonely jungle station down in the heart of Africa, 
 the meeting of two caravans on a silent desert of the 
 East. ... I remember a lovely afternoon on a terrace 
 of the hillside. Under the trees before the house some 
 patients were discussing whether England would go in. 
 One was reading aloud from a paper. He finished and 
 the voices grew animated for a time. Then a portly old 
 citizen glanced at his watch. It was time for him to 
 work in the garden. He had his nerves to think about. 
 After his departure the discussion was renewed. A tall 
 thin manufacturer of picture post cards, from Detroit, 
 was in a pitiable state. The poor man had come here 
 for a rest, but there was little rest in his anxious face. 
 The picture post card business was international, he 
 explained, and the war would play the mischief with 
 but here our attention was drawn from his plight to that 
 of a large florid dame who from hour to hour was work 
 ing up a fine case of nerves. Her daughter with a 
 chaperon was over in Hanover studying German. The 
 German spoken in Hanover, she tearfully explained to 
 us, was supposed to be the very best and purest in the 
 world. Oh dear! What was happening to the poor girl 
 now? A quiet wiry little man, whose hair was gray at 
 forty, kept telling her not to worry. He seemed the most 
 unconcerned of the group, He was a broker in New 
 
BLIND 197 
 
 York. Things were very wild on the market and he 
 was leaving to go back. Presently his car came up and 
 his luggage was brought out from the house. He said 
 goodbye to the people there, then strolled to his car 
 and got into it. We watched it slide heavily down the 
 hill. In the next three years, as I happened to learn, 
 this chap made several million dollars. Later he was 
 killed in France. 
 
 Aunt Amelia came over for supper that night. She 
 wanted to get the latest news and "talk it over thor-, 
 oughly." She was deeply disturbed and indignant about 
 it. "A perfectly awful butchery, without rhyme or 
 reason!" she declared. She spoke of the war she had 
 seen as a girl and recounted some of the horrors the 
 price. That had at least been worth the price; a great 
 ideal had been at stake. But what this terrible struggle 
 was for she could not for the life of her make out. 
 
 "If it does come about," she said, "there is just one 
 thing for us to do keep perfectly friendly to both sides 
 and help bring peace as soon as we can. Larry," she 
 demanded, "what do those socialist friends of yours mean 
 by not putting a stop to this ? I should think they would 
 be ashamed to look each other in the face! After all 
 they have said about brotherhood and the rights of the 
 common people! The common people don t want this 
 war " 
 
 "They re beginning to," I said, and I read to her 
 descriptions of surging crowds in city streets, and a 
 million little village groups of men excitedly talking, 
 talking, singing patriotic songs. . . . Aunt Amelia rose 
 to leave. 
 
 "I am going home," she said solemnly, "to thank God 
 we are out of this !" 
 
 I went over to stay with her for a while, for Dorothy 
 was still out west. The next afternoon I motored over 
 to my father s mills, and found him very busy there. 
 
198 BLIND 
 
 Work had been thrown into confusion by the unexpected 
 loss of several hundred workingmen Hungarians, 
 Poles, Bohemians, Germans, Scotch and English/leaving 
 now by every train. With a grim smile Dad said to me, 
 "This seems to be the answer to that socialist bugaboo. 
 Here were these fellows a few days ago thinking of 
 nothing but hours and wages how to give the least 
 possible service for the highest possible pay. But look 
 at em now. It s a miracle." An uncertain expression 
 crept over his face. "Not that I like it understand. 
 I tell you this war is letting loose more than most 
 people have any idea of." 
 
 "Yes," I said. All through those days I had had a 
 sense of the solid earth heaving under me. But when 
 that night I went to the station and stood there while a 
 train pulled out, with a score of young workingmen 
 shouting goodbyes, while their women and children 
 waved and cheered and some of them cried I felt the 
 first big tug of the war. 
 
 Til have to get over and see it," I thought; and at 
 once I began to plan for the trip. No doubt my old 
 paper would send me. The only real difficulty was time. 
 The fighting no doubt would be over by Christmas, and 
 I had a play which was just about to go into rehearsal. 
 Perhaps I could hurry it a bit. The only snag was my 
 fourth act. I decided to tackle that at once. And so for 
 the next day or two I shut myself up at Seven Pines and 
 wrestled with my heroine. 
 
 3. 
 
 And then the distant war abroad struck into our 
 family. 
 
 Aunt Amelia came up to my room, and with a sharp 
 resolute effort to keep her trembling voice in control, 
 she read a special delivery letter that had just arrived. 
 Dorothy had been visiting the Colorado cousin in whose 
 
BLIND 109 
 
 little mining town I had gathered the material long ago 
 for "Underground." There she had met again my old 
 friend Max Sonfeldt, whose acquaintance she had made 
 on the opening night of my play in New York. Since 
 then, while in my giddy career I had leaped about from 
 pillar to post, Sonfeldt had gone steadily on with his 
 one idea, his dogged crusade against the deadly gases in 
 American mines and mills. Largely through his efforts 
 the lives of thousands had been saved. And the deep 
 sincerity of the man, that had kept him a lonely figure 
 traveling all over the land, had evidently made its appeal 
 to my impulsive warm hearted young cousin, who treas 
 ured still the memory of her own industrial work and 
 was eager now, she wrote, "to stop this eternal gadding 
 about and try to make my life really count." She went 
 on to speak of his big ideals, his kindliness, "his pathetic 
 delight in finding somebody who treated him as a man 
 with a life of his own, something more than a chemical 
 engineer." He had had almost no women friends. She 
 had found him hungry to talk with her of German 
 music, which he loved. They had that in common, and a 
 whole lot of other things. There was more in the letter 
 that I forget. It came down to this that because he 
 had saved thousands of lives "with barely any recog 
 nition" and yet had had no life of his own, and was now 
 suddenly called back home to his Fatherland, perhaps to 
 die this queer affair had suddenly come to a swift 
 dramatic climax which had swept her off her feet, He 
 had proposed she had spent a sleepless night deciding 
 then had found she loved him and was "too happy for 
 any words." They had already started east and would 
 reach home on the following day, stop just long enough 
 to be married, and then sail for Germany ! 
 
 Here was a pretty kettle of fish ! I had never realized 
 till now what Dorothy had meant to me, and it came 
 over me in a flash that I was responsible for this. I had 
 
200 BLIND 
 
 given her those ideas; it was through me she had met 
 this man. Instantly I forgot his good points. What an 
 infernally selfish brute to want to take her over there ! 
 
 "How can she be in love with him? I don t believe 
 she is !" I cried. 
 
 "Oh Larry," said my distracted aunt, "the older I get 
 the less I m surprised at the marriages that do take 
 place!" 
 
 Together we tried to picture Dorothy living in Berlin 
 but all Europe to our eyes went suddenly under clouds 
 of smoke from which was heard the roar of guns. She 
 had been such a warm blithe lovable girl, and such an 
 intimate part of this house. It was as though the long 
 arm of the war were suddenly reaching down into the 
 very foundation stones of this peaceable old building, 
 making it quiver with alarm. Gone was Aunt Amelia s 
 hope of our keeping friendly to both sides for already 
 this news had fanned into flame the vague instinctive 
 feelings that had been in me from the start against the 
 German side of it. I had never been to Germany knew 
 very little about it, in fact but now I began to inveigh 
 against the entire Teuton race, their pig-headed ways, 
 their intolerance. Then noticing the anxiety in Aunt 
 Amelia s restless eyes, I grew grimly practical. 
 
 "We must nip this thing right in the bud. You must 
 stop her," I declared. "She won t marry without your 
 consent " 
 
 "Larry," said Aunt Amelia sharply, "when you re old 
 as I am, I hope you will have succeeded in getting a 
 little American breadth of view and a sense of the rights 
 of others! Dorothy s marriage is her affair! She s not 
 a child she s twenty-nine!" 
 
 "You mean to say you won t even- " 
 
 "Talk to her? Of course I will! But if she really 
 loves the man and feels it s her duty and her choice to 
 go with him, then most certainly I shall give her my 
 
BLIND 201 
 
 consent! And help her make it easier!" Again with 
 a quick anxious frown she seemed to be trying to picture 
 Dorothy over there in Berlin. She gave it up and came 
 back to the present : The first thing is to do as she asks 
 in her letter arrange about the license. I wish you 
 would attend to that." 
 
 I agreed and went to Steve s father; and with the old 
 minister I arranged for the marriage I hoped would not 
 take place. Meanwhile Steve and Lucy had been sum 
 moned to Seven Pines. From every angle we discussed 
 Dorothy s wild decision and ways and means to induce 
 her to change it. If she insisted on marrying, at least 
 we hoped to keep her here. 
 
 "How about her passport?" said Steve. "The chances 
 are she can t get it in time to go with the Dutchman 
 anyhow." 
 
 "You don t know him," I gloomily answered. "These 
 Germans think of everything." 
 
 And in fact, when the couple arrived, it developed he 
 had seen to that. 
 
 Dorothy seemed to me strikingly changed. Though she 
 looked older, stronger, with a determined set expression 
 she was plainly disturbed and excited, and trying 
 bravely to fight down the dread with which she faced the 
 unknown. In the hall she drew me aside, and with a 
 swift appealing flash in her vivid blue eyes she whis 
 pered, 
 
 "Remember, Larry dearest, I m counting on you to 
 see me through! Help me with mother with them all! 
 And be friends with Max! I m counting on you!" 
 
 "Oh, Dorothy! Are you sure of this?" Before she 
 could answer, her mother was there. She went up to her 
 mother s room; and when they emerged from that long 
 talk the eyes of both were suspiciously bright. Aunt 
 Amelia, having argued in vain, was so resolute in her 
 efforts to show Dorothy we were back of her still, and 
 
202 BLIND 
 
 to make this day "a happy time," that we all tried to 
 fall in with her wishes. With a busy obvious cheerful 
 ness we were making the best of it now. As I welcomed 
 Sonfeldt into the family rather awkwardly calling him 
 "Max" I told myself I had been unfair. Here was a 
 man whose life so far certainly put my own to shame. 
 "How she must compare us," I could not help thinking 
 bitterly. But I threw it off. Could he make her happy? 
 "That s none of my business! Her mind is made up, 
 and I ve got to help her put this through! . . . What a 
 decent looking chap he is!" 
 
 Since I had last seen him, although his slender figure 
 looked no older than before, grayish streaks had come in 
 his hair, and his thin dark sensitive face looked more 
 intense, more deeply lined. In his eager smile, his kindly 
 eyes, I could see he was doing his best to be friendly. 
 But he was in an unsettled state. One moment he would 
 anxiously try to make us feel that he realized how hard 
 it was for a girl to be torn away from her home; and 
 awkwardly and earnestly he would speak of his love for 
 Dorothy. Then abruptly his face would contract and he 
 would grow as anxiously absorbed in the effort to make 
 us see that his Fatherland was in the right. He was 
 talking now to Steve and me, for the women had gone 
 with Dorothy upstairs to help in her packing. He assured 
 us that the war would be brief. 
 
 "A few weeks months at most," he said. Then he 
 looked up with a quick smile. "I want you fellows to 
 understand how we Germans feel. Just think of my 
 case. One week ago I was a man doing all that he could 
 to save human life. Now I shall work as hard to destroy 
 it. Why, you may ask and I reply, it is because it 
 must be so. Until there is order in the world, war will 
 continue to occur. And there is still such confusion in 
 these blind industrial days, that if you are honest you 
 must admit that the facts of peace are perhaps as ugly 
 
BLIND 203 
 
 as those of war. In your industries over five hundred 
 thousand are either killed or injured or badly poisoned 
 every year. Peace has its bitter passions, too. Not only 
 here but in Europe, strikes break out and every year 
 they have become more ominous. And peace develops 
 selfishness men whose only aim in life is to get money 
 for themselves. For their country they are not ready to 
 make the smallest sacrifice. But in war these very men 
 will soon be so profoundly changed that they will cheer 
 fully give their lives. For while in peace their bodies 
 have grown soft, their spirits small, in war they are 
 given strength and courage and devotion to ideals. They 
 are taught cooperation." 
 
 "They are taught blind obedience, too," I retorted. 
 "All the independence in a man is rooted out. In your 
 country that is so, even in time of peace, I hear. You 
 have no democracy." His face lit up. 
 
 "One moment !" he cried. "Have you any real democ 
 racy here?" 
 
 "We think we have!" 
 
 "But do you know what democracy really means?" 
 
 "We think we do!" 
 
 "Hold on, Larry," Steve put in, for I was getting 
 decidedly warm. "Look here Max," he said to the 
 German, "can t you fellows understand that it s just by 
 taking such a tone you antagonize us over here?" 
 
 "Please! I don t mean to antagonize!" The man s 
 dark sensitive quivering face was strained and eager 
 again in appeal. "God knows we want you for our 
 friends and there is much that is wonderful and splen 
 did in your country! But have you real democracy?" 
 In spite of himself he returned to his point. "Do the 
 people all the people really rule America? No! They 
 will even laugh and tell you themselves, Our politics are 
 rotten! When they say Democracy they mean Indi 
 vidual Liberty ! All that every American asks is that his 
 
204 BLIND 
 
 government let him alone in the making of money for 
 himself, regardless of the good of all. And this is no 
 longer possible! To allow him his freedom is the same 
 as to permit one little cog or piston in some great machine 
 to jump out of place and do as it likes the result is 
 instant chaos ! And so I say you have your choice. You 
 must either follow Germany and advance with civiliza 
 tion which means that every one of you must become a 
 willing cog in your national machine or else you must 
 follow Tolstoi back into a peasant s hut." 
 
 "Give me Russia !" I put in, but he did not hear me. 
 He stopped abruptly, controlled himself and went on 
 with a deepening earnestness : 
 
 "But I would not have you think me blind to the good 
 in other countries. I have no use for what some fools 
 are preaching now in Germany. As every scientist 
 should be, I am an internationalist. The good of all 
 humanity, the world-wide brotherhood, is my goal. But 
 what is the only practical plan for assuring such a peace 
 of the world? If you honestly face the facts, the first 
 step is a group of nations strong enough to control the 
 rest. Only so can we avoid the two big perils confront 
 ing mankind. One is the deepening menace of revolu 
 tion from below. The other is the danger that the mul 
 titudes in the East will rise united under Japan and 
 sweep west like the Huns of old. Against these two big 
 dangers, in Germany at least we saw that the only prac 
 tical safeguard lay in a close union between the three 
 most powerful nations the German and British 
 Empires and your great United States. We could have 
 sat around one table and controlled the rest of the earth. 
 And the reason why we Germans feel so bitter against 
 England now, is that she has destroyed the chance of 
 that immense alliance. She has betrayed not only us 
 but the entire civilized world! Dearly she will pay for 
 
BLIND 205 
 
 her crime! And in her ruin men will learn that indi 
 vidual liberty, in the narrow British sense, has become a 
 thing of the past! For her system every man for him 
 self is so rotten to the core, that she will blunder to 
 her doom ! She can by no possible chance prevail against 
 the sure scientific cooperation which is ours !" 
 
 As he talked on, his face grew pale. To my biting 
 interjections he paid little or no heed. So engrossed had 
 he become in his defence of the Fatherland, he did not 
 even notice that Dorothy and her mother and Lucy had 
 come into the room and were sitting motionless there. 
 The atmosphere of this quiet room, long so familiar to 
 us all, had filled with an emotional tensity it had never 
 known as though all the bitter passions of Europe, and 
 the quarrels ages old, were crowding hotly, fiercely in. 
 I looked at Aunt Amelia. Her alert and anxious eyes, 
 now turning to the German and now to her daughter s 
 face, revealed to me her desperate effort to think clearly, 
 quickly, to grasp it all and understand not Germany s 
 purpose in the war but Dorothy s life in Germany. 
 What chance of safety, happiness? I could see a wave 
 of bewilderment sweep over her. What a bridegroom! 
 "Has he completely forgotten his bride?" she seemed to 
 demand indignantly. Steve s father appeared in the 
 doorway, with his Bible in his hand. And after one 
 quick look of dismay from him to the German talking 
 on, she rose and said in a trembling voice which tried 
 to be brisk and cheerful, 
 
 "This is deeply, deeply interesting. But I think we had 
 better leave it now at least for a few moments Max 
 and think about getting married, my dears," 
 
 He looked up in a startled fashion, as though he had 
 been far away. Then he smiled, and with a drop in his 
 voice said quietly, 
 
 "Yes you are quite right." 
 
206 BLIND 
 
 What a very foreign foreigner. Did Dorothy feel 
 what we were thinking? Probably. When the wedding 
 was over she turned quickly to her mother and hugged 
 her tight without a word. But soon she was talking 
 rapidly, and in the hour that remained she was so 
 desperately eager to have us like her husband, that again 
 we were all doing our best. 
 
 "He does love her," I told myself. "He loves her in 
 his German way. And though I don t like his way I ve 
 got to make up my mind to this and do as she says 
 be friends with him." 
 
 I got on with him better now. I could feel her closely 
 watching us, while she talked with Lucy and Steve; and 
 once more before she left she managed to get me alone 
 for a moment. 
 
 "Will you come to Germany, Larry? You ve said you 
 were going abroad for your paper. Won t you come to 
 Germany, too?" 
 
 "Yes I ll come and as soon as the war is over, 
 you must come back. We want you here both 
 you and Max." At that she gripped my hand very hard 
 and whispered, 
 
 "Thank you, Larry!" 
 
 I went with her mother the next day to the boat to 
 see them off. As we stood with them on the dock, by 
 our side a group of Germans were discussing their 
 chances of getting safely through the blockade. Two of 
 them had wives who were obviously Americans. And 
 there came to me a disturbing sense of the countless ties 
 of birth and marriage by which we were bound to the 
 nations at war. Then sharply I forgot all that and sup 
 ported my aunt in her brave attempt to smile and make 
 the best of this. Just before the last goodbyes, I heard 
 her say to Dorothy : 
 
 "I m sure you will be happy, dear true to the best 
 
BLIND 207 
 
 that is in you and to the wonderful country which is 
 still your home, you know." 
 
 4. 
 
 Two weeks later a cable announced that Dorothy and 
 her husband had landed safely in Holland. But no letter 
 reached us for nearly two months after that. Meanwhile 
 my play had been produced, and I had arranged to go 
 abroad as a special correspondent. I planned to sail in 
 a fortnight now, and being pretty well worn out I came 
 back for a week to Seven Pines. Over at my sister s 
 home two familiar figures were gone. Tommy was away 
 at school; and immersed in the importance of his first 
 great adventure, he wrote frequent letters home, in 
 moods now homesick and forlorn, now gaily filled with 
 school-boy slang or solemnly self-conscious. For him 
 the war was far away. Not so with Oberookoff. In a 
 highly emotional state he had already started back to 
 Russia. He had not meant to go at first, but one day 
 he had received a shock in a letter from his mother. 
 From the village where she was teaching school, she 
 wrote of the resistless tides of patriotic fervor sweeping 
 Holy Russia. She called upon her son to come home. 
 And after a frenzy of packing, excited talk of great 
 ideals, tears at leaving, last goodbyes, Oberookoff with 
 his steel-bound trunk had gone forth to war in a Ford, 
 courageously smiling and waving his hand. 
 
 I could feel that Aunt Amelia, beneath her resolute 
 cheerfulness, was having a terribly difficult time. The 
 blatant arrogance of Berlin and the savage work in Bel 
 gium were having their effect on her; but meanwhile a 
 long letter from Dorothy had just arrived, anxiously 
 pleading the German cause, describing the devotion that 
 had swept away all pettiness and made life wonderful in 
 Berlin. "If you could only see the women here!" 
 
208 BLIND 
 
 "Oh Larry," Aunt Amelia said, "I know that she is 
 writing me the truth exactly as she sees it. That is just 
 the most awful part of this war. On each side they are 
 so sure they are right that it s driving the whole world 
 insane! It s awful enough to see one side. But both 
 sides both together!" 
 
 Both together had entered her house. Already she 
 began to show the signs of the strain upon her. What 
 were the darkening years to bring? By instinct she still 
 clung to her faith. Somehow it would work out for the 
 best. In the meantime, how to help her daughter? I had 
 told her of my promise to go to Germany while abroad, 
 and already she was giving me messages for Dorothy. I 
 was almost ready now. And as the last days went by 
 more and more the attention of the family centered 
 on me. 
 
 But again the unexpected happened. Steve in his 
 secluded nook, engrossed in work with his patients, had 
 found but little time for the war. But one balmy after 
 noon, while he and I were having a quiet smoke out 
 under the trees, Lucy came hurrying from the house and 
 said that someone in New York wanted him on the tele 
 phone. And after he had left us, she confided to me her 
 plan. For nine years Steve had stuck to this work ; and 
 to continue in this rut without ever getting any change 
 was mighty bad for any man, especially a scientist. So 
 with her old friend, Bannard, and also with our father, 
 both of whom had influence in the American Red Cross, 
 she had worked for an appointment. ... At this moment 
 Steve came back, looking cross and worried. 
 
 "What s the matter, dear?" she asked. 
 
 "The matter is," her husband growled, "that Bannard 
 wants me to take charge of one of our Red Cross units 
 abroad in Germany! Of all places! It seems the fellow 
 they sent over first is sick and wants to be recalled. 
 Bannard tried to bulldoze me into getting ready to start 
 in a week ! The man s crazy and I told him so !" 
 
BLIND 209 
 
 "What?" cried Lucy in alarm. He threw an angry 
 look at her. 
 
 "This is your little party," he declared. "When I said 
 I wouldn t think of it, he replied that he wouldn t take 
 a refusal till I d spoken with my wife!" 
 
 The talk that followed was fast and hard. Stirred 
 with uneasiness at the chance of being wrenched away 
 from his work, Steve suddenly discovered a deep and 
 violent detest of the Germans both in peace and war. 
 He had never liked the brutes, and now to traipse over 
 and help in their war But Lucy sternly cut him off. 
 He couldn t get out of it like that! His feeling against 
 the Germans was merely a trumped up excuse I She even 
 remembered hearing him say that he hoped the medical 
 men at least would keep their sanity, not rave at each 
 other like mad dogs. Their job was simple to take 
 care of the wounded on both sides and keep at least a 
 few young men alive in Europe after the war! Those 
 had been his very words. Moreover, there was Dorothy, 
 What a comfort it would be to her, to join with Steve 
 and help in his work while her husband was away at 
 the front. 
 
 "You mean," Steve almost shouted, "that I am to 
 spend the rest of my life chaperoning Dorothy?" 
 
 "I do not!" was the sharp reply. "You know as well 
 as I do that the war will be over in a few months " 
 
 "I don t know it\" 
 
 "Then you re rather a fool. Now, Steve, don t be an 
 idiot. Here is your one and only chance to see the most 
 tremendous thing in all your lifetime. Don t let it go by. 
 Please, dear, please! Just think what it means. You 
 know how I feel, how I m always wanting things for 
 you. And my instinct has been right almost every time 
 it has. This work you are doing was my idea " 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "Oh you didn t know it, my love, but it was my own 
 little plan from the start. The wonderful way you have 
 
210 BLIND 
 
 built it up has made me very proud of you. But Steve, 
 you have stuck right here nine years without a single 
 break or change!" 
 
 "All right, that s the only reason why it has been a 
 success ! And I m going to keep on sticking here !" 
 
 "Yes, after a few months abroad that will give you 
 a jolt " 
 
 "I don t want a jolt!" 
 
 "Please, dear, please! I know what you need. And 
 this will be such a tremendous thing and such a com 
 fort to Dorothy and you can so easily get recalled. And 
 meanwhile Doctor Baker" who was Steve s assistant 
 "has been so thoroughly trained in your work that we 
 can keep things going here!" 
 
 While he was still holding out, I threw my weight 
 into the balance. I had not meant to go to Germany till 
 after I had been to France, but now I proposed to go 
 with Steve. Lucy eagerly seized on this and together we 
 began to talk of the trip as though it were decided. 
 
 "I ll admit I have no hankering after Germany," I 
 said. "But so long as one of them has come into the 
 family, I guess we ll have to give em a show and try 
 to see their side of this." 
 
 "It will be such a comfort to Aunt Amelia," Lucy 
 urged, "to know that you both are over there, if only 
 for a little while." 
 
 "And besides, there s the Russian end of it. That ought 
 to be interesting," I said. "I m a bit hazy as to the map, 
 but I rather think this Red Cross station is close up to the 
 Russian frontier. They ll bring Oberookoff in some day, 
 wounded and a prisoner and while Steve sews up his 
 head, I shall take his story down." 
 
 "What did you say was the name of the town?" Ris 
 ing excitedly to her feet, Lucy spoke the sentence which 
 in those days was being uttered all over our land : "Wait 
 a moment I ll get a map!" 
 
BLIND 211 
 
 Soon we three together were poring over the map 
 of Europe. The end of it was that Steve gave in. He 
 tried at first to reserve the right to come back in three 
 months time. This proved to be impossible, but by then 
 he was far along in the rush of preparations. 
 I was busy as well, and it was not till the day before 
 sailing that we came out again to the country. Here 
 we were met by Tommy, who had been allowed to 
 come home. With a kind of solemn eagerness he 
 inspected our equipment, and he breathed in envious 
 tones, 
 
 "Say, but you are lucky! Wish I were going!" 
 
 Whereupon, in a startled way, Lucy s hand closed 
 on his arm. Aunt Amelia arrived just then, and soon she 
 was entrusting us with various letters and small gifts. 
 There was a family council which lasted until late that 
 night. 
 
 The next day Lucy and Tommy came to New York 
 to see us off. 
 
 "Thank God it will soon be over," she said. "But oh, 
 Steve and Larry, too I m so glad you are going to 
 see it!" 
 
 Suddenly it came over me then that in spite of her 
 love for her home in the hills she had never lost our 
 father s deep hunger for the game of life in the very 
 center of things, had never gotten over quite her keen 
 disappointment that Steve had dropped out of it all. She 
 was glad to have him in it again. Standing with Tommy 
 on the dock, she smiled up as the ship moved out. Two 
 more of the family going. There was no smile on Tom 
 my s face. His feelings were all serious now. Looking 
 exceedingly young and small, for all his fourteen years 
 of growth, his eyes were fixed on us intently. So he 
 stood until our ship had moved far out into the river. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 1. 
 
 ON our journey to Berlin we met three men who, like 
 Dorothy s husband, have often since come into this room 
 to join the strange assembly here. 
 
 When Steve and I reached London, in a drizzly win 
 ter s dusk, we were met by a wiry little man, by birth 
 half English and half Welsh, with sharp black eyes, thin 
 sandy hair. I had known him in New York, where he 
 had been the correspondent of a London paper. And now 
 on the way to our hotel, in the frankest possible manner 
 he began snapping out facts about England. 
 
 "We re in the most awful mess !" he declared. But he 
 did not seem in the least disturbed. His cheerfulness was 
 something prodigious. 
 
 As he talked I kept looking out of the window. The 
 narrow, crooked, crowded streets were dark and dirty. 
 dripping wet, and only yellow blurs of light shone from 
 the shop windows on the shadows hurrying by. Our 
 taxi abruptly stopped by the curb to make way for some 
 volunteers; and I have a vivid impression still of one of 
 them as he went by. An older man, about my age, tall 
 and lank, in a golf suit, his gun carried awkwardly over 
 his shoulder, his head bent forward in an anxious 
 frowning way he was looking into the darkness ahead. 
 His companions for the most part had no guns. Now 
 they halted in the rain while the traffic on either side 
 went hooting, squawking, grinding past them. What a 
 muddle London seemed that night! My journalist friend 
 talked cheerfully on. Things at the front were in fright 
 ful shape, while here the British government, like a 
 
 212 
 
BLIND 213 
 
 decrepit old machine, was creaking, slipping, lurching, 
 repeatedly stalled by somebody s blunder. I recalled 
 what Dorothy s husband had said of England blundering 
 to her doom. But when I spoke of this to my friend, he 
 smiled and said, "Oh Tommyrot!" 
 
 We dined with him that evening at the Piccadilly 
 Grill. The great low room was crowded with officers in 
 khaki, most of them splendid looking chaps with an air 
 of easy concern. Their women were in evening dress, 
 some of them gorgeous creatures. The quick animated 
 movements, the laughter and the hum of talking in those 
 musical English voices, seemed to come together here in 
 tune and in time w r ith the orchestra, which as a back 
 ground to it all kept up a deep and rhythmic throb of 
 blithe assurance. A fellow with a bandaged arm was 
 laughing into the eyes of a girl; and she was talking 
 eagerly, rapidly, smiling over her cigarette. In and out 
 of the throng strolled husky lads with lazy amused 
 expressions that said, 
 
 "England going to her doom? Oh really. Do you 
 think so?" 
 
 In the meantime, with his sharp black eyes fixed upon 
 our faces, our little host was saying, 
 
 "You chaps must rip your minds wide open if you 
 want to see this war. An American correspondent was 
 grousing here the other day because he couldn t get to 
 the front. I tried to tell him there was a good deal 
 worth his notice back of the line. But he withered me. 
 Oh that, he said, has been done to death! It s nothing 
 but near-war stuff ! All Europe is seething in a pot, and 
 the gods are cooking a future that will astound us when 
 it comes yet my conservative Yankee friend called it 
 all near-war stuff. His orthodox mind was back in the 
 past, when wars were mere affairs of guns while the 
 fact of the matter is, you know, that in politics, in mines 
 and mills and laboratories, churches, homes, all our old 
 
214 BLIND 
 
 beliefs and habits like a lot of silly old women are being 
 tossed up in a blanket seventy times as high as the 
 moon! 
 
 "But if your German brother-in-law talks again of 
 England s doom, tell him to try to smile a bit. This isn t 
 a simple matter of doom for any nation not even 
 his own. It s a damnably glorious muddle a matter of 
 revolution change! But it won t be as the Socialists 
 planned. That looks the merest twaddle now and you 
 must drop it out of your mind, together with all your 
 preconceptions, if you hope to see what s here. You ll 
 find it hard enough as it is. The world is a bristling jun 
 gle of war-lies in every land, and every conceivable 
 prejudice and distortion of the facts. All patriotic Brit 
 ishers will give you the most awful stuff about the 
 doings of the Boches; but that is nothing when com 
 pared to the whoppers you will hear in Berlin about 
 the cant, hypocrisy and selfish greed of England 
 doomed !" 
 
 He stopped for a moment, and then in a low voice 
 he said, 
 
 "Last week I was at Oxford, and out in front of the 
 library on a misty moonlit night I saw a couple of hun 
 dred chaps in mufti undergraduates standing at ease 
 with their cigarettes, chatting and laughing. Then I 
 heard the order passed back, No lights no smoking 
 absolute silence. And a few moments later they went 
 off into the mist so quietly. It was as though they were 
 passing out of existence." 
 
 I never saw this man again, for in the last year of 
 the war he was killed in Flanders. 
 
 2. 
 
 We came into Germany on a clear still Christmas Eve. 
 We were unable to get berths, but we had a compart 
 ment to ourselves. I put out the light and sat by the win 
 dow watching the fields. They were white with frost. 
 
BLIND 215 
 
 The moon sailing high in the heavens shone down on 
 woods and little hills, on rolling meadows, narrow roads, 
 at times on a lonely peasant cart with a lantern under 
 neath the wheels. Snug old barns and dwellings 
 appeared, and quaint slumbering villages ; and I thought 
 of the peaceable, prosperous* order-loving people of 
 whom I had heard so much ever since I was a boy, when 
 my aunt had talked of her friends in Wisconsin, and 
 our old Bavarian nurse had told us of Bavaria, its fairy 
 tales, its music, and the many delightful things that hap 
 pened to small boys and girls. She had often spoken of 
 Christmas Eve in Munich, with the little trees twinkling 
 in the windows, the gifts and cakes, the games and the 
 singing. ... I fell asleep. 
 
 But towards midnight I was aroused by a loud com 
 motion just outside. We had come to a junction with a 
 road which led down to the Belgian frontier; and as our 
 train rolled into the station, a strange and grim but the 
 atrical scene burst upon our startled eyes. Under the 
 great steel arches and lofty vaulted roofs of the station 
 was a roaring sea of men. Gray green uniforms every 
 where, spiked helmets, guns and bayonets, loud harsh 
 voices, bursts of laughter and the tramp of heavy boots. 
 And all along the platforms were brilliantly lighted 
 Christmas trees loaded down with tinsel and little stars 
 of Bethlehem, while a dozen enormous gramophones were 
 blaring forth the time-honored hymn of the German 
 Christmastide, "Heilige N acht." A little knot of women 
 and girls were working like tigers, serving coffee and 
 sandwiches. In a few moments a train pulled out. Big 
 German boys leaned from the windows, some of them 
 laughing, whistling, others staring dismally. Then, as 
 though at a word of command, in a perfect roar of 
 voices all in time and harmony, they sang about that 
 calm and peaceful "holy night" of long ago as their 
 train slid out into the dark on its journey into Belgium. 
 
 Learning that we would be here for some time, we 
 
216 BLIND 
 
 wandered up and down through the crowds. The Red 
 Cross women in mad haste were unpacking big hampers 
 and huge wicker trunks; and another train came thun 
 dering in, with a thousand deep fresh voices singing, 
 "Stille nacht heilige nacht" as though for the whole 
 German army that hymn were an order of the night. 
 Out of the crowded cars they tumbled, boisterous rol 
 licking hungry lads and after their hunger had been 
 appeased, to each was given a Christmas package tied up 
 in a red handerchief. Twelve thousand of these pack 
 ages were given out in the station that night. Packed 
 with men and horses, huge dirty guns with muddy 
 wheels, and automobiles and squealing pigs, train after 
 train came rushing through with deafening din at the 
 rate of fifty miles an hour freight cars groaning, rat 
 tling, lurching, screaming at the headlong pace. I had a 
 paralyzing sense of being but a tiny atom whirled about 
 in an orderly storm. 
 
 I felt a sudden grip on my arm, and turning met the 
 furious glare of an elderly man in civilian clothes, short, 
 stocky, every muscle tense, gray hair in disorder over his 
 face, wide jaws clamped together tight, as in a snarl he 
 poured out a torrent of German so fast that at first I 
 could not get a word. At last I had it. I was a spy, an 
 "Englander," sneaking in here to watch an important 
 movement of troops. But he had me ! Ach ! He had me ! 
 Now he was violently shaking my arm. 
 
 "Es geht schlecht mil ihnen!" he screamed. 
 
 And he laughed. I would be shot at dawn! A couple 
 of station guards came up, and in a moment I was 
 marched off between their glinting bayonets, with my 
 captor close behind. 
 
 "Es geht schlecht mit ihnen! So!" 
 
 Then Steve appeared with a surgeon friend, and we 
 went to the Commandant, who was a quiet smiling man. 
 He looked carefully through my passport, and the little 
 
BLIND 217 
 
 farce was soon at an end. My captor, in profound dis 
 gust, muttering angrily to himself, went back to the 
 platform to keep up his watch. 
 
 I could not get him out of my mind. A nation 
 strained, its people charged with patriotic dynamite, and 
 all together as one man the grip of Berlin on their 
 very souls. But as my mind was coming to this sweep 
 ing generality, I found an exception to the rule. For 
 the incidents of this crowded night were not yet over. 
 
 Into our compartment, as our train was starting on, 
 came a fellow whom I took to be a young German offi 
 cer. He seemed to have a mean cold in his head, for over 
 his gray field suit he wore a green muffler that swathed 
 his neck and almost covered his shoulders. He lit a 
 cigarette and leaned back, but I could feel his keen gray 
 eyes now on me and now on Steve, who had fallen asleep 
 in one corner. For a few minutes the train rushed on. 
 Then abruptly he turned to me and said in perfect 
 English, 
 
 "Your friend is American Red Cross?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And you?" 
 
 "A correspondent." 
 
 "Ah ! You are going to write of all this !" 
 
 "Perhaps. It looks rather hopeless so far." He shot 
 a quick glance at me : 
 
 "How do you mean?" 
 
 "There s so much of it," I answered. 
 
 "So." He studied me for a while. "But what is your 
 point of view?" he asked. 
 
 "You mean as to who started the war?" I questioned 
 a bit wearily. 
 
 "No!" he snapped. "I do not mean that! I am sick 
 of these national pros and cons. What is your point of 
 view, I ask, on life in general? You are a writer. What 
 did you write before the war?" 
 
218 BLIND 
 
 "Plays," I said. And at this word the whole face of 
 the man lit up in a flash. 
 
 "So," he replied. "As for me," he added, "I was a 
 dramatic critic." 
 
 "The devil you were !" 
 
 "Yes long ago." His voice had a wistful hungry 
 tone. "Before the world got into this mess." For a 
 moment we looked at each other in silence. " 
 
 "From what I have known of critics," I said, "you 
 ought to make an exceedingly successful German officer 
 of the kind described in the English press." He smiled 
 back at me : 
 
 "Brutal." 
 
 "That s about it." he chuckled. 
 
 "The critics slaughtered you, eh?" 
 
 "Quite often. And how they enjoyed it!" He chuckled 
 again, in a tense eager way, and offered me a cigarette. 
 
 "You called me an officer," he said. "But I am not." 
 He threw off the scarf he was wearing. "You see? I 
 am only a man in the ranks. But by this little trick I 
 pass to be an officer and so I get a seat in here. How do 
 you say in America?" He frowned in the effort to rec 
 ollect. "You have such an excellent word for it. Grayft 
 grooft?" 
 
 "Graft," I replied. "You are a grafter. You graft a 
 first-class compartment." 
 
 "So!" With great satisfaction at this chance to per 
 fect his English, he repeated after me, "Graft. I am a 
 grafter," Then abruptly he changed the topic. "Now let 
 us speak about plays," he said ; and he talked rapidly for 
 some time. His favorites were Strindberg, Ibsen, Tchek- 
 kof, Synge, Shaw, Schnitzler others that I forget. 
 Some I had never heard of before. He spoke of a new 
 school in France. In brief, he was a modern of mod 
 erns, an international highbrow. Even Suderman, I 
 learned, was hopelessly bourgeois to his taste. 
 
BLIND 219 
 
 "Do you know ?" he said. "In five long months I have 
 not been alive I have not thought my mind is dead 
 it has been drowned. I shall remember this hour with 
 you as a light a spot-light in the dark." 
 
 Now we began to speak of the war. 
 
 "Tell me really what you think," he said, with his 
 ironic smile. "Be frank. I am no chauvinist." 
 
 "I have seen so little," I began. 
 
 "You are lucky," he interrupted. "With me it is dif 
 ferent I have seen ! For months I have been like a 
 man submerged in a flood of blood and hatred. It is what 
 no man but a paranoiac could have pictured coming over 
 the world. But it has come! The hatred rising in all 
 men has already butchered millions and will butcher 
 millions more! And not only that!" he cried. "It is not 
 even hatred well expressed ! I read not only German, but 
 Russian, English, French, Italian and whenever I had 
 a chance I have searched for one book, one play, one 
 song! I find nothing but cheap drivel the most fright 
 ful patriotic bosh !" 
 
 "You don t call yourself a patriot, then " 
 
 "I am a patriot!" he declared. "I can imagine noth 
 ing more dismal than a world with nationalities merged 
 in one all of us talking Esperanta. What a flat dreary 
 future for art! No, I wish to stay German. And as a 
 German I wish to compete with Frenchmen, Russians, 
 English Swedes, Norwegians, Chinamen in my own 
 world, the theatre! Yes, I am a patriot! But all this 
 silly nonsense about white papers and red blood what 
 is it? What does it decide? Shall I tell you? It decides 
 for us all that every little lieutenant is God not only 
 here but in England and France! And so long as we 
 live, this ignorant fellow will be the god to whom we bow 
 down excuse me, I should say, salute! Around him 
 will be written plays that make a man sick to think 
 about! Through him and his standards the crowd will 
 
220 BLIND 
 
 be a hundred-fold more ignorant and brutalized even 
 than before the war they will cultivate prize fighters 
 souls! And I who am a patriot I am against this 
 bloody farce! And," he ended grimly, "my bitterness 
 does me no good for I must keep it all inside. I cannot 
 speak. It is an ocean. I am drowned." 
 
 When we came to his station, he got up and held out 
 his hand. 
 
 "Thank you," he said, "for letting me talk." 
 
 "Tell me," I asked, curiously, "are there many in Ger 
 many like you?" 
 
 "Did I not tell you/ he rejoined, "that this hour is 
 the only time in five months that I have been alive ?" 
 
 3. 
 
 Abruptly he left us. The train was packed to burst 
 ing now; and a moment later, with a rush, some six or 
 eight soldiers, dirty and worn, came into our compart 
 ment. They looked like peasants or laborers. A strong 
 animal odor filled the place. In a few minutes, on the 
 seat where the highbrow critic had talked about Art, 
 a row of bedraggled weary men sat with mouths open, 
 fast asleep. And I felt as though that "ocean" had swept 
 over me again. I wondered how many critics of the 
 Great War I should find. I remembered the little Welsh- 
 Britisher and tried to compare what he had said with 
 the talk of this German. But I was dull and drowsy now. 
 Crowded into my corner, I must have slept for an hour 
 or more. When I awoke, the dawn had come. The sol 
 diers were all asleep but one. He had taken a news 
 paper out of his pocket and was reading with a frown. 
 He did not look like a peasant, but more like a factory 
 hand. At once I watched him closer, for I thought I 
 had seen his type before. His face was lean and over 
 wrought, and I caught a bitter expression there. He did 
 not notice me watching him; for now he himself had 
 
BLIND 22t 
 
 put down his paper and was intently studying the faces 
 of his companions. 
 
 Presently we stopped at a station, and in the bustle 
 some awoke and went out for coffee and sandwiches. 
 They scrambled back when the train moved on, and now 
 the group began to talk. They took no notice of Steve 
 or me, for in our corners, motionless, we pretended to be 
 asleep. They spoke of their homes and villages. What 
 would Christmas be like this year? But the trench life 
 was still in their minds, and their talk soon came ta 
 that. It was of mud and icy water, long cold nights. 
 Many grumbles were heard. Then somebody wondered 
 how long the war was going to last. And at that, the 
 lean-faced man began to talk to these comrades whose 
 faces he had studied so very carefully one by one. His 
 talk at first was careful, too. 
 
 "We re a hard crowd to beat," he declared, and to 
 this the others promptly agreed. "But so are the French 
 and English," he added. 
 
 "No," said a peasant, "not the English. They are pigs 
 and bastards!" 
 
 "But they can fight," the man went on, "and I think 
 the war will last for years." 
 
 "Well, they are to blame for it," said a stout good- 
 natured peasant. "They started it, the devils!" 
 
 "Their government did," the other rejoined. "But I 
 have talked with some of those men when we. took them 
 prisoners. The French are good fellows like ourselves." 
 
 "Yes, they are good fellows," the stout peasant 
 promptly agreed. 
 
 "And they did not start the war. In Russia the Czar 
 he started it off because up there in Petersburg the 
 workingmen were making him trouble the} even had 
 barricades in the streets. So he started the war to stop 
 their strikes. And in France it was the fat Catholic 
 priests and the rich people who want a king. In 
 
222 BLIND 
 
 England I read in the papers that they have had a hard 
 time to get their workingmen to enlist." 
 
 "They are cowards," said a peasant. 
 
 "Yes, but they did not start the war. I tell you it was 
 started by a lot of fat rich people. And we are the fel 
 lows who have to get killed. And if we don t get killed, 
 by God, we will have to pay war taxes! And think 
 of the widows we ll have to help! All the fellows who 
 are killed are leaving in every village widows and old 
 mothers and little brats who will have to be fed! And 
 the village will have to feed them!" 
 
 "Well, we re in for it," somebody sighed. 
 
 "All the same," said the lean-faced man, "I ll be glad 
 when there s peace. I ll be glad when we jump out of 
 the trenches and the Frenchmen do the same, and we 
 run across and shake hands with each other." 
 
 "That will be fine," said the good-natured peasant. 
 "We ll do it as soon as the war is over." 
 
 "Some fellows have done it," the speaker replied. 
 
 "What?" Instantly all were wide awake. 
 
 "Some fellow told me that where he was, our men held 
 up spades and the French did the same and then they 
 ran out and all shook hands. And they did like this at 
 the trenches." He thumbed his nose, and at this they 
 laughed. But the laugh soon stopped and there was a 
 silence. 
 
 "You can t do that to your officers," said one man 
 uneasily. 
 
 "It is a lie and it never happened," said another peasant. 
 "You are making it up." 
 
 "Perhaps it is a lie," said the speaker. "But that is 
 what the fellow said." He threw a vigilant glance along 
 the row of faces. "And when you come to think of it," 
 he continued quietly, "it is not so bad, what those fel 
 lows did. You must obey your officers because this is 
 
BLIND 223 
 
 war. If we didn t obey, everything would be all mixed 
 up, and the French would charge and kill us all. But if 
 whole regiments everywhere jumped out of the trenches, 
 as he said, and the French and English did the same, 
 and we met in the middle of the field then there would 
 be war no more and no need of officers." 
 
 There was a long silence. 
 
 "I don t like this talk at all," muttered the good- 
 natured peasant. "It is not good to talk of this." 
 
 "You are right, brother," another growled. "You will 
 get us into trouble!" he said, turning angrily to the 
 speaker. "Look out!" 
 
 "Oh, there s no trouble," the speaker replied. "I just 
 told you what that fellow said. Perhaps he was wrong 
 and perhaps he was right. Let s talk about something 
 else instead." 
 
 The talk ran on to other things. But from time to 
 time I noticed two or three of the group would grow 
 silent and frown and stare out of the window. The lean- 
 faced man had resumed his paper with a relieved expres 
 sion, as though he had put through his job for the day. 
 
 I exchanged a little look with Steve and saw he had 
 been listening, too. Again I thought of our little Welsh 
 friend, the journalist in London. Yes, there was cer 
 tainly more in this than battles, I thought. I compared 
 his eager optimism to the fatalistic gloom of the Frank 
 fort critic. Which was right? . . . Revolution? .. . . 
 Far away. . . . Yet here in Germany, in one night, I 
 had found two revolutionists! A most amazing state of 
 things. How many more was I to find in this land of 
 blood and iron? 
 
 But it was just one of the queer surprises, the uncanny 
 twists and turns by which the Great War played with 
 me, that this talk of rebellion, given me in one dose at 
 the start, was the only talk of its kind that I heard. Many 
 
124 BLIND 
 
 hard bleak months went by before I saw in Germany 
 the least glimmer of revolt. 
 
 4.. 
 
 As I look back upon Berlin, a vivid memory comes to 
 me of a certain rainy night. We were sitting at a cafe 
 window on the Friedrichstrasse. In that narrow crowded 
 thoroughfare with its sparkling shop windows, a winter s 
 dusk had fallen, though it was not yet five o clock. 
 It was the coffee hour, and the huge hall behind us was 
 packed full of people, but our eyes were on the street. 
 Outside the window, on the curb, her gray woolen dress 
 and shawl sodden and dripping wet with rain, stood a 
 stout old woman with a bundle of newspapers under one 
 arm. The glare from a sputtering arc-light just above 
 her fell on the title, "Die Zukunft" And as though it 
 were a message of ill-omen that she carried, the old 
 crone kept peering sharply at the passing crowds, and 
 every few moments darting out she would display this 
 title and scream it in their faces : 
 
 The Future ! The Future !" 
 
 The life of Berlin swept endlessly by. Along the nar 
 row street behind came wagons, drays and taxis, in one 
 of which as it stopped in a jam I caught a glimpse of a 
 couple inside, a most absorbed young officer with a slen 
 der young person in brown in his arms. The old woman 
 saw them too, and thrust her newspaper into their win 
 dow. "Die Zukunft! Die Zukunft!" A score of 
 wounded soldiers passed, arms in slings, heads bandaged, 
 with a Red Cross nurse as guide. Laughing, pushing, 
 jostling, they entered a "movy" across the way. A girl 
 of the street came gaily dressed, from under her small 
 blue silk umbrella anxiously watching the faces of the 
 men. She and her like had been through hard times. 
 Ordered off the streets at the start of the war, since then 
 the police repression had been modified only to a degree, 
 
BLIND 225 
 
 and in all the relief work there was no helping hand for 
 her. So she kept smiling eagerly, as though afraid to 
 stop for a moment. "Die Zukunft!" Then she was gone. 
 A woman with three children came up the street on the 
 other side. She looked worried, thin and worn to the 
 bone. She stopped before a window marked, "Christ 
 mas gifts for men in the field." As she quickly scanned 
 these gifts, one of the children, a little boy, kept tugging 
 her arm and pointing to a window rilled with toys. She 
 shook her head and he started to cry. Anxiously watch 
 ing the crowded . street, she hurried her small brood 
 across. As they came close to our window, we noticed 
 how seedy and patched were their clothes. The old 
 woman, as though she had noticed too, screamed in their 
 faces, "Die Zukunft!" 
 
 All Germany seemed to be passing. Stolid family 
 parties, men, women and small children, soldiers, 
 sailors, business men, Lutheran preachers, scientists, 
 writers and musicians, one with his fiddle under his arm, 
 all poured by our window talking as they went along. 
 And as they talked of their affairs the army and the 
 navy, the business, homes and churches, the science, lit 
 erature and music of this German people we could hear 
 nothing of it all but a deep vibrant humming, out of 
 which like a challenge the old woman s voice rose harsh 
 and clear: 
 
 "The Future!" 
 
 What would it be? 
 
 Dorothy sat by my side, and for me the whole grim 
 city had centered around this one girl s life. 
 
 "What does she think of all this?" I asked. "And how 
 does she feel toward her husband now?" 
 
 The antagonism I had felt against him back at Seven 
 Pines was sharper even than before, for I could see she 
 was far from happy. As she talked on rapidly with a 
 strained unnatural friendliness, I kept watching her face. 
 
226 BLIND 
 
 From the days when we were small, we had been so 
 close that now beneath the surface I could feel her deep 
 uncertainty. Her husband was away at the front. 
 Would he come back? If he came, would she want him? 
 Did she love him ? I could not be sure. For all her eager 
 welcome, I had come up against a wall of reserve sud 
 denly risen between us two. We had been together for 
 hours, and still I could not get to her real thoughts and 
 feelings. What was wrong? 
 
 So it had been ever since with Steve I had met her 
 on the day before. When we found her in the apart 
 ment of a German neurologist and his wife, friends of 
 her husband s with whom he had left her, Dorothy s 
 relief and joy had at first swept everything else aside. 
 In a tense starved fashion she had asked for news from 
 home and had kept the talk on Seven Pines. It was 
 Christmas ! She began to speak of other Christmases long 
 gone by but in spite of herself, as though by chains, 
 her mind was drawn to the Christmas here. A forlorn 
 little tree stood by the window, and she tried to make 
 us believe "what fun" they had had the night before. 
 But the atmosphere of the empty rooms was grim and 
 cheerless to a degree. The German couple were not at 
 home; they were both out working for the war, even 
 on this holiday. 
 
 "All Germany is like that!" she said. 
 
 Bit by bit we drew out of her the story of the last few 
 months and, make light of it as she would, it was a 
 stark little narrative. She told of the anxiety of that 
 long ocean voyage. Their Dutch ship had been stopped 
 and searched, and only his Dutch passport had saved her 
 husband from arrest. Max had taken her at first to the 
 Prussian village where he was born, where his father 
 owned the bank and the store. She had found it "ter 
 ribly dreary" there and had begged to be taken to Ber 
 lin. This had met with harsh disapproval in the family 
 
BLIND 227 
 
 circle a needless expense in war-time. But Max had 
 stood by her and brought her here. She eagerly 
 impressed upon us how "kind and dear" to her he had 
 been. His work kept him most of the time at the front, 
 and of course that had been hard for her; but meanwhile 
 she had made some friends, Germans and Americans, 
 and now she was getting on "finely." But all the time 
 she was speaking, I could feel what a strange lonely time 
 poor Dorothy had been going through. Did she love him, 
 or was she simply trying to show a plucky front? She 
 asked us how the people at home were feeling now about 
 the war, and disturbed by our replies phe was soon anx 
 iously doing her best to gr^e us the German side of it. 
 She was bitter against "English lies." When I told her 
 that in London we had heard the shops in Berlin 
 described as being empty of goods, Dorothy was indig 
 nant. 
 
 "I will show you!" she declared, and once more in 
 that tense eager way she talked of Germany in the 
 war loyal to her husband, loyal to his country. Again 
 she impressed upon us how finely she was getting on. 
 
 But when at leaving I gave her a small package of 
 gifts and letters, I caught the homesick flash in her eyes. 
 
 "She d give her life to be back," I thought. 
 
 The next day she took me to the shops; and surely 
 things looked prosperous there but in the handsome 
 windows all along Untcr den Linden the articles we saw 
 displayed were almost entirely for men warm fur vests 
 and sweaters, boots of oiled leather, cigars, cigarettes, 
 liquor flasks and pocket lights, wrist watches and revolv 
 ers. In nearly every window the women had been quite 
 shut out. 
 
 "But it s good for the women," Dorothy said. We 
 were sitting now in the big cafe on the Friedrichstrasse, 
 with the old woman just outside harshly screaming "Die 
 Zukunft." "Before the war, Berlin had gone half mad 
 
223 BLIND 
 
 with too much money," she said. The neurologist with 
 whom she lived had had among his patients scores of 
 wealthy young married women who kept apartments of 
 their own for their various love affairs. "And one young 
 girl of seventeen came to him with her nerves in shreds 
 she had just been through her third affair! He had 
 all sorts of neurotics to treat, and every kind of hysteria. 
 The little stories he told me were enough to turn one s 
 hair!" She broke off with a jerk. "Of course," she 
 added earnestly, "most German women aren t like that. 
 I was speaking c.f the Smart Set, which is very much 
 the same I gue:s in London or in Paris, and certainly in 
 Petrogrpr*. Berlin has been no worse than the re?t." She 
 returned to her neurologist friend : "But now he smiles 
 rind says he is ruined, his practice almost entirely gone. 
 His patients are so hard at work they ve forgotten they 
 ever had any nerves." 
 
 For a time we watched the people outside. And as my 
 voting cousin commented on the passers-by, I could tell 
 by the figures that she chose how intensely she was try 
 ing to make these people appear likable and sympathetic. 
 But as the old woman s cry broke harshly in upon us, 
 into Dorothy s vivid blue eyes again came that uncer 
 tainty. 
 
 "I wonder," she asked sharply, "what s to become of 
 the youn<^ girls in Europe if the war goes on? Who 
 will be left to marry them? Will they be wiring to live 
 like nuns, or will they want to have normal lives?" She 
 frowned. "We ve been pretty old-fashioned about such 
 things rt home, I think." She gave me a queer little 
 r.mile. "Do you remember in those sprees of ours how 
 we would sit in a cafe just as we are doing now and 
 nir our views, and feel how liberal we were, and how 
 emancipated about such things? But we weren t really." 
 She stopped short and caught her breath. She had 
 remembered rr> ?^air. In an instant she recovered her- 
 
BLIND 229 
 
 self. "And most Americans are like that. But over here 
 it s different their views are broad, to say the least. I 
 wonder what these girls will do?" 
 
 "I wonder what you will do?" I thought. "Do you 
 love him? What is wrong? Just before I left Seven 
 Pines, Dorothy s mother, in counseling me as to how I 
 could help the girl, had hinted that in a letter home Dor 
 othy had told her that she would not have a child not 
 while life was "still so strange." But was that the only 
 reason? Now I told her cf our plan to take her with us 
 t:> the place where Steve s hospital work would be. And 
 the flash of joy that came on her face gave me a swift 
 tingling shock Then it vanished 
 
 "I don t know," she said, in a low voice. "I d love to 
 be v/ith you and Steve but I have work here." 
 
 "You would have it there. Steve would see to that," 
 I urged. She r tared out of the window. 
 
 "I wonder if Max would like me to? You see, I m 
 here among his friends and I m really getting on so 
 well. I wonder if it wouldn t hurt him just a 1 ttte 
 if I went with you and Steve? I don t want to hurt 
 him, Larry. He means so very much to me," she ended 
 with her lips compressed. 
 
 We were interrupted then, for talking* we had grown 
 so absorbed that we had forgotten the time. It was the 
 supper hour now and the place was packed to bursting. 
 A big lad dressed in a black leather suit made a stiff bow 
 and sat down r.t our table. He had a handsome florid 
 face with an impassive dull expression. He was a 
 motorcycle Fcort and had been in Belgium, he explained. 
 We ordered some supper and talked with him. He was a 
 bit reserved nt first ; but when he learned that Dorothy 
 had married one of his countrymen, he grew more com 
 municative. H Q had been not only in Belgium and 
 France but in East Prussia too, he said. He showed me 
 his small "Browning," and I asked how many he thought 
 
230 BLIND 
 
 he had killed. With a reminiscent smile on his face he 
 began to count on his fingers. 
 
 "Eight/ he replied. "And one was a girl." Dorothy 
 made a quick little movement. 
 
 "Why a girl ?" I asked him. He looked at me calmly : 
 "What else could I do? I was with my comrade in 
 front of a farm. It was hot we had stopped for a 
 drink of water. There was a shot from behind the hedge 
 not ten meters off, and he fell dead. I turned and saw a 
 Belgian girl taking aim at me with her rifle. Both of 
 us fired and she missed. It was very lucky for me," 
 he said. "I had some very important dispatches. 
 
 "On another day," he continued, "we found a 
 wounded German inside a big brick oven that stood beside 
 a farm-house. We pulled him out but he was dead. His 
 face was brown. He was baked to death. We found 
 three peasants in the barn, and first we made them dig 
 their grave. Then we threw them into the hole and 
 finished them with our bayonets." 
 
 I caught the look on my cousin s face and tried to stop 
 this German youth, but at first he paid no heed. On he 
 went in his stolid voice : 
 
 "In East Prussia we entered a village from which a 
 troop of Cossacks had just been driven by our men. 
 They had left four German women and three little girls 
 stripped naked all nailed by their hands and feet to a 
 barn. They were dead, but their bodies were still warm." 
 
 Dorothy gave a little cry. That stopped him. There 
 was an awkward pause. He quickly finished his supper 
 and then with another punctilious bow he rose and left 
 us. I turned to her. 
 
 "Have you heard much of this?" I asked. She shook 
 her head. "I wonder how much of it is true?" 
 
 "It sounded true," was her tense reply. 
 
 "So did the tales I heard in London and at home," I 
 
BLIND 231 
 
 said. "But for every atrocity there are probably fifty 
 such stories that start." 
 
 "But even if most of them are lies," my cousin 
 answered passionately, "don t you see the hideous harm 
 they do? This boy, for example, he tells them tells 
 them everywhere he goes! And thousands of others do 
 the same in Germany, France and England, too! In 
 every village, every hut, such hideous things are being 
 told and being told to children making their small 
 hands grow cold and icy as they feel that the world is 
 full of monsters fiends called Cossacks, Frenchmen, 
 Germans, Boches enemies to be stamped under foot! 
 That s the hideous part of this war!" she breathed. 
 
 I noticed how tired and strained she was. I proposed 
 that we go to a concert that night, and she shot a grate 
 ful look of relief. 
 
 "Oh, Larry dear, let s go!" she exclaimed. We got a 
 paper and looked up the evening s list of entertainments. 
 "Here it is a symphony concert in Beethoven Hall." We 
 took a taxi and set out. It was still raining. As we passed 
 along Unter den Linden, we heard the cry, "Ein Luff- 
 schiff!" And looking up we saw a dark phantom with 
 spectral eyes of red and green drift by under the stars 
 above. On a dark side street we stopped to make way 
 for two or three hundred recruits, in citizens clothes 
 with satchels and boxes, heavy boots strung over their 
 shoulders. They made me think of the little crowd of 
 volunteers in London. But Dorothy was not thinking 
 of that. The street was empty except for a girl. Hold 
 ing an umbrella over the baby in her arms, she hurried 
 along beside one of the men. I caught a glimpse of her 
 face as she passed, and she looked terribly alone. Then 
 I felt Dorothy s clutch on my arm, and it was as though 
 she were saying sharply : 
 
 "That is why I won t have a child!" 
 
232 BLIND 
 
 But the next moment she was smiling, and telling what 
 wonderful music she had been hearing in Berlin. When 
 we came to Beethoven Hall the concert had already 
 begun. They were playing a Haydn symphony, and in 
 seats or at tables behind sat a thousand men and women 
 a few with steins before them, some of the women 
 knitting, some of the men with heads in their hands. 
 The old symphony was so peaceful, so sweet and 
 gracious and tender and gay, rising up out of the Ger 
 many of a hundred and fifty years ago. I could feel 
 Dorothy relax. Those hideous stories were left outside. 
 I forgot the thundering trains filled with troops and can 
 non, the ugly modern industrial towns, the foundries 
 working day and night, for modern Prussia s place in 
 the sun. Watching the men and women there, all under 
 the spell of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, they 
 appeared as though transformed a peaceful, music-lov 
 ing race. They were playing "The Eroica" now, and 
 Beethoven loomed before my mind as the epitome of "die 
 ordnung" for all the tremendous passions in that grand 
 old symphony were held down by an iron restraint. And 
 so it was with the people around me. From time to time 
 my cousin s eyes turned in a happy way to mine, as 
 though she were begging me to believe that this was the 
 real Germany. 
 
 "Oh how I hate this war!" she whispered. Later as 
 I took her home, she spoke again of her husband of 
 how kind he was to her and of the risks he ran at the 
 front. 
 
 "And it s more than that," she said. "You know how 
 he is he s the sensitive kind, with a deep imagination. 
 He sees so much the others miss and it hurts him so. 
 He s oh so changed! You ll find his views so differ 
 ent! I want you to be friends, you know it will mean 
 so much to me! Goodnight, Larry dear what a won 
 derful day!" 
 
BLIND 233 
 
 "You ll think over that plan of coming with us ?" Her 
 face contracted. 
 
 "Yes," she said. 
 
 Did she really care for him? I came back to my first 
 question. "Is she happy when he s here? Or does she 
 simply pity him and half feeling her mistake but fight 
 ing off admitting it not happy with him, not willing 
 to bear him the child that he wants for that very reason 
 is she not all the more determined to be loyal to him, * 
 I asked, "in this crisis of his life?" 
 
 Die Zukunft what would it be? I saw much of her 
 in the next few days, and most of the time we were 
 alone, for Steve was busy seeing officials to arrange for 
 the work ahead. 
 
 Our next evening was one I shall never forget. I 
 learned of a meeting in Beethoven Hall and persuaded 
 her to go with me there. Had I known what was on 
 the program I would not have taken her. The whole 
 stimmung of the place had changed. The hall was 
 crowded to the doors, and in place of the orchestra on 
 the stage stood one of Prussia s foremost actors. A 
 stout man with pallid face, his appearance was greeted 
 with applause. He recited poems and songs of war, and 
 he seemed to hold the crowd in his hand. Rising at last 
 to his climax, he began the chant that was known all 
 over Germany: 
 
 French and Russian, they, matter not; 
 A blow for a blow and a shot for a shot; 
 We love them not, we hate them not; 
 We hold the Weichsel and Vosges-gate. 
 We have but one and only hate, 
 We love as one, we hate as one, 
 
 We have one foe and one alone 
 
 ENGLAND! 
 
 He is known to you all, he is known to you all. 
 
 He crouches behind the dark gray flood, 
 
 Full of envy, of rage, of craft, of gall, 
 
 Cut off by waves that are thicker than blood. 
 
234 BLIND 
 
 Come, let us stand at the judgment place, 
 
 An oath to swear to, face to face, 
 
 An oath of bronze no wind can shake, 
 
 An oath for our sons and their sons to takel 
 
 Come hear the word, repeat the word, 
 
 Throughout the Fatherland make it heard! 
 
 We will never forego our hate; 
 
 We have all but a single hate; 
 
 We love as one, we hate as one, 
 
 We have one foe and one alone 
 
 ENGLAND! 
 
 In the captain s mess, in the banquet hall, 
 
 Sat feasting the officers, one and all. 
 
 Like a sabre blow, like the swing of a sail, 
 
 One seized his glass held high to hail. 
 
 Sharp snapped like the stroke of a rudder s play, 
 
 Spoke three words only: "To the Day!" 
 
 On he went, verse after verse. His face red and dis 
 torted now, his two clinched fists held high in air the 
 actor finished this hideous chant in a veritable scream of 
 rage. And then those stolid German men and women 
 rose from their seats, and we heard a burst of cries that 
 set the air to quivering. I felt Dorothy s hand on my arm. 
 Slowly it tightened. 
 
 "Let s get out of this," I whispered. 
 
 "Please!" 
 
 In the street she walked along in silence breathing the 
 cold night air in a slow resolute fashion, as though she 
 were bracing herself again for the effort to bring 
 together, in her own thoughts and loyalties, two nations 
 already so wide apart. 
 
 "It s hard for you to realize," she said to me after a lit 
 tle, "how such hatred can arise. You don t know how 
 it feels to keep hearing every day and every night of 
 more friends and relatives killed! You have no idea of 
 the strain of it all !" 
 
 5, 
 And to give me an idea of that, she took me the next 
 
BLIND 235 
 
 afternoon to a large building of red brick which had 
 
 once been the War Academy. As we climbed the broad 
 stone stairs inside, a stout middle-aged woman was 
 coming down, supported by two others. She was sob 
 bing; her face was a fiery red. On the floor above was a 
 lofty chamber with lead colored columns at either end 
 and pictures of Prussian heroes upon the walls and ceil 
 ing; and though this place was crowded, all was 
 strangely hushed and still. Upon a placard on one wall 
 was written in heavy letters, "Walk softly and speak 
 low." In the center of the hall was a semi-circular coun 
 ter, behind which sat many elderly clerks, most of them 
 in black frock suits they looked like undertakers. And 
 facing this counter in rows of chairs, several hundred 
 men and women, tense and silent, motionless, as though 
 at some gripping tragedy, sat watching a great red cur 
 tain, which was restless, never still. Every few moments 
 it leaped apart, as a messenger came quickly through. 
 Then a name would be called out, and some man or 
 woman would jump up and go to the counter would 
 stand there rigid, listening. Here Germany learned of 
 her dead. 
 
 Forty-five hundred hospitals reported to this place 
 each week, pouring in the details which in scores of 
 rooms men and girls by hundreds, writing and typewri 
 ting, copying, comparing, checking, classifying, with 
 Prussian precision were building up into neat typewrit 
 ten little tales, which on post cards every day were sent 
 out by the thousands to German towns and villages. 
 
 There was a "prisoner s section" here, the walls 
 massed solid with card catalogues in which was kept a 
 record of every enemy taken or killed. An official opened 
 a heavy safe and lifted out an enormous ring on which 
 were strung hundreds of medals of lead and as he put 
 them in Dorothy s hands he told us that each medal had 
 been taken from the body of a Frenchman killed on the 
 
236 BLIND 
 
 field. With a quick start she handed it back. He showed 
 us, too, an amulet from the body of a Russian. It was a 
 little block of wood, old and worn at the edges, bearing 
 in faded blue and gold the picture of some Russian 
 Saint, with a dim crude suggestion of Holy Moscow 
 and the Kremlin rising in the background. Some sim 
 ple peasant of the North had worn this faded holy thing 
 to guard him from machine guns. There were other 
 amulets from France with pictures of the Mother of 
 Christ. There had been hundreds of them here. And all 
 these little safeguards, day by day and night by night, 
 through bureau after bureau and city after city, were 
 constantly travelling back into the enemy countries, to 
 towns and little villages, to come at last into the hands 
 that had placed them once around the necks of many 
 simple men now dead. 
 
 As we left this clearing house of death, along a dim- 
 lit hallway we found a group of motionless women sit 
 ting on chairs in front of a door. Over it I read the 
 sign, "Apply for death certificates here." Out of doors, 
 a huge bright moon hung just over the end of the street. 
 And by its light, on the wall outside, I saw a long narrow 
 band of white made up of newspaper pages, where in 
 thousands of columns of solid type were the names of the 
 wounded, the missing, the dead. And almost imper 
 ceptibly moving along this band of white were dark fig 
 ures, men and women slowly searching- page by page. 
 
 How to keep up the morale of the c c slnw searchers in 
 the dark? Upon our last afternoon in Berlin we went 
 into an olrf Lutheran chapel. It v/cr> painted white 
 inside and it had a low gallery running around. Here 
 they were about to hold a service of prayer for the men 
 at the front and the small church was rapidly filling 
 with women. In groups or alone, silently they came in 
 and sat down in the stiff wooden pews. A few of them 
 wore heavy crepe, and most of the others were dressed 
 
BLIND 237 
 
 in black. They sat looking up at the chancel, where with 
 a candle on either side stood a small white figure of 
 Christ. Close by stood a larger figure, tall and stern and 
 robed in black, the pastor of the Kaiser. He was an old 
 man and slightly stooped, his face was lean and power 
 ful, and his voice though very low had a deep magnetic 
 note, as he stood by that small figure in white and inter 
 preted the will of Christ to those long rows of silent 
 women. As he slowly explained to them how this was 
 a war in Jesus name, I wondered what my compan 
 ion was thinking of her new adopted land. Germany 
 seemed very grim. And I spoke of that when we came 
 out. 
 
 "But it isn t only here," she said. "As that terrible 
 old man talked on, I was thinking of other clergymen, 
 In Russia, France and England, all standing up in 
 churches before long rows of women in black. And I 
 wondered," she said softly, "how much harm they will 
 do to the influence of the little white figure there." 
 
 How her mind kept shooting ahead. As I looked at 
 her, it seemed to me that her thoughts turned sharply 
 inward then to the question so many millions were ask 
 ing: "And what will this war do to me?" It had done 
 so much already. How changed she was from the impul 
 sive warm hearted girl of a few months before. What 
 enormous breaches had been made in her old standards 
 and ways of living, what devastating vistas had opened 
 up before her v ; ew. 
 
 "And yet," I thought, "if she really loved him, she d 
 have that to hold to some solid ground beneath her 
 feet. ... Or does she? And is all this only my imag 
 ining because I dislike these Germans so?" 
 
 6. 
 
 That night Dorothy, Steve and I were dining together 
 in a cafe when her husband came and found her there. 
 
238 BLIND 
 
 In case he came home she had left word at her apart 
 ment where she would be. "For often," she said, "he can 
 be here only for a few hours, you know. He has to work 
 so frightfully hard." He had strikingly changed since I d 
 seen him last. His face had a grayish color, and there 
 were haggard markings about his mouth and kindly 
 eyes. He had been on the western front watching the 
 effect of certain high explosives. He looked like a man 
 coming out of a trance, or some deep inward torturing 
 struggle. Months afterward I learned what it was. He 
 was thinking of the first gas attack. It was to take place 
 in the spring, and he was involved in the preparations 
 but he could give us no hint of that. Sharply, as he 
 came out of his trance, I thought I saw a little pang of 
 jealousy stab into him at sight of Dorothy with us. Her 
 back was turned when he came in, and smiling she was 
 reading aloud the solemn boyish letter which Tommy 
 had written her from school. It was Steve who spied her 
 husband first, and at his quick low exclamation I saw 
 Dorothy look up with a startled jerk of her head. The 
 next moment she had risen and gone to meet him; and 
 when they came back to our table, both their faces were 
 smiling masks. He gave us a warm welcome. 
 
 "I am so glad you fellows are here ! It has been lonely 
 for my wife. She has been so plucky about it," he said. 
 
 "Oh fiddlesticks, Max." As he looked at her then, 
 there was no doubt of his love for her. He wanted at 
 once to know our plans; and when I spoke of our idea 
 of taking her with us, a sharp little contraction came on 
 his dark sensitive face. 
 
 "That is good," he answered quickly. "That is fine 
 the very thing!" He did not look at her as he spoke. 
 She was watching him intently. 
 
 "But Max," she said, "I ve been getting on so much 
 better now I have work and I m making friends. Are 
 
BLIND 239 
 
 you sure you wouldn t rather have me stay?" she asked 
 him. 
 
 "No!" he said. "You want to go! Why shouldn t 
 you? What could be more natural? If you know they 
 are there, you won t be happy here and I want you 
 happy, Dorothy. If you stay I shall worry about you. 
 I want you to go! Please do as I ask! Besides," he 
 added, "my work, too, is often on the eastern front." 
 
 She caught eagerly at this point. Perhaps he could 
 even come to her there more often than if she stayed in 
 Berlin. He agreed that he could; but as I watched, I 
 pitied him; and in the questions that she asked I could 
 feel Dorothy pitying, too, and mothering him. My aver 
 sion left me. What a decent sort he was, after all. 
 Now for her sake he was trying hard to be very friendly. 
 He asked me what I had seen in Berlin, and he said that 
 this was nothing compared to what I should see at the 
 front. 
 
 "When I met you last in America, I tried to tell you 
 how it would be but I myself had no conception of this 
 grip of war," he said. "No will of my own I only 
 serve. So it is with us all the rich and the poor, the 
 wise and the foolish, the good and the bad. All are 
 working for an idea. What is the idea? Is it wholly 
 good? Is it entirely just and right? By no means! On 
 the other hand, it is not what our enemies would have 
 you believe it. They lie and we lie; they hate and we 
 hate. There has been blame upon both sides, and the 
 issues are in a muddle now. But one thing is clear the 
 effect of this on all the peoples of Europe," he said. 
 "Everyone has been transformed by a force so resist 
 less, that no man if he is not a fool can look on without 
 such anxiety as he never felt in his life before! When 
 the war is over, how shall it be? Shall the world plunge 
 around like a ship in a storm, with the old anchors cast 
 
240 BLIND 
 
 aside shall we have revolutions then? Or will men, 
 who are such patriots now, go blindly back to their little 
 ruts of selfish, selfish living, and be no better than 
 before? How can we keep the middle course? How can 
 we get such a peace as will bring us all together in the 
 one great job of building a world where war will be 
 gone and tyranny and ignorance and all this 
 hating?" 
 
 There was a wistful look on the face of this man 
 who had given his life thus far to humanitarian ideals. 
 
 "What kind of a world will it be?" he asked. "All 
 that must be for the present unknown. We look ahead 
 and see nothing familiar everything strange. Mean 
 while we fight. How hard it is how strange it is!" 
 
 Dorothy had been watching him in a strained and self 
 absorbed sort of way, as though she were thinking hard. 
 
 "How soon must you go back to the front?" 
 
 "I must go tomorrow," he said. 
 
 I saw her wince. He saw it too and a flash of joy 
 came in his eyes. 
 
 "Poor devil," I thought. "Yes, you love her all right 
 " and she pities you." 
 
 Would love grow out of this pity, I wondered. Only 
 time would tell. At least she was going with us now. 
 And soon we four together were discussing the details 
 of the trip to the town near the eastern front, and of 
 how he would manage to join us there, with that keen 
 animation and relief with which so many millions of 
 people, amid the strangeness and the strain, the terrible 
 bigness of the war, kept turning aside to little arrange 
 ments affecting their own pigmy lives. It was only so 
 that they kept themselves from going utterly insane. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 1. 
 
 STEVE S hospital was in a town in a flat bleak region 
 of mines and mills, where at times you could hear from 
 the eastern front the deep rumble of the guns. The 
 hospital had been a theatre. Gilt signs on either side 
 the door, "Parkett Rechts" and "Parkett Links," directed 
 spectators to their seats. But the seats were gone. Gone 
 too was all the tinsel, the cheap plush, the tawdry trim 
 mings of this house of laughter and of tears; and as 
 we entered that first day the place was bare and strangely 
 still. Through the tall windows on one side the sun 
 threw long soft bars of light. On the ceiling upon bil 
 lowy clouds lay Venus under a canopy, with nude attend 
 ants around her and pudgy cupids shooting darts. In 
 the rear were two steep galleries. And in front, over the 
 stage which had mirrored the life of a nation in peace, 
 a gray steel curtain had come down. Overhead there 
 hung two flags, German and American, and between 
 them a great banner, pure white with a heavy cross of 
 red. Above this cross two huge masks, Comedy and 
 Tragedy, looked down upon the scene below looked 
 down upon long lines of beds crowded close together. 
 On small black boards above them were the names of 
 many battlefields. And men and boys with close cropped 
 heads, stretched out or with their legs and arms held up 
 in slings by pulley weights, lay motionless and silent 
 there some looking up at those leering masks, others 
 with their eyes tight closed. 
 
 And though five years have gone since then, some of 
 
 241 
 
242 BLIND 
 
 those men in the last few months have often come into 
 my room at night to join our silent company. 
 
 On a bed near the door lay a small thin man of middle 
 age, with shaven head, a sharp eager face, high cheek 
 bones and hollow cheeks. He lay there restlessly watch 
 ing and trying by moans and gestures to attract some 
 one s attention. Each time that he caught my glance, 
 he jabbered Polish imploringly. No one of his neigh 
 bors could understand, but at last an Austrian peasant 
 called from his bed up the line, 
 
 "I know his talk. I know what he says. He is from 
 Galicia." 
 
 They spoke Polish back and forth, while the men in 
 beds nearby at once grew deeply curious. Then the 
 Austrian translated: 
 
 "He says he had a little farm and he had a wife and 
 two grown sons and he says he had four cows. His 
 sons they took for the army. His wife, he don t know 
 where she is but he wants to know about his cows. If 
 the cows are gone away, he says, how can he plough 
 his field this spring? He will have to harness in his wife, 
 and she will be cross, the old devil. I guess he will never 
 see those cows. I know because I passed that way, and 
 it was bad as we marched along. The women ran out 
 of their houses and held up their little brats in their 
 arms, squalling at us for some bread. We gave them all 
 the bread we had, but we had to go thirty miles that 
 day and half of us almost fell down we got so weak 
 with nothing to eat. So the next day we kept our bread 
 and let them go on with their squalling, the brats. How 
 they grabbed their little bellies and howled ! It s bad for 
 children in a war, but " 
 
 "Stop talking about what you saw," called a wounded 
 soldier. "What does the Galician say ?" 
 
 "He says he drove a wagon in an ammunition train. 
 
BLIND 243 
 
 One night both his feet froze hard, and the next day 
 they began to ache and grew as big as devils. So then 
 he says he was sent here, and now they have cut off all 
 his toes, and his feet are good for nothing. He says 
 that if his cows are lost it will be hard and very slow to 
 go with such feet over ploughed ground and hold his 
 plough and drive his wife. He thinks he cannot do it. 
 He says his old woman is too weak he does not want 
 to make her pull. But what can he do? His sons are 
 gone and he thinks they are killed. He says war is bad 
 for a peasant. He says he is feeling very bad. His feet 
 are spoiled he cannot walk. He says, How can I walk 
 back to my farm before the armies get my cows ? 
 
 Steve had come up and was listening. 
 
 "Tell him," he said kindly, "that when he is well he 
 can ride home free on a railroad." 
 
 When this was translated, the peasant doubtfully 
 shook his head. He lay there all day thinking, with 
 anxious moans from time to time. Again he seemed 
 fairly bursting to talk. 
 
 "He thinks," explained the Austrian, "that they will 
 not let him ride free on a train. He says that he has 
 thought it out and that on a train you must always 
 pay. And he says that when he came here he had some 
 good boots, but they cut them off. He asks you, will 
 you get those boots? He thinks they are out in the beer 
 garden where the Sisters pile our things. You take them 
 to a shoemaker, he says, and fix them so they fit his 
 club feet, so he can walk home and hunt up his cows. 
 He says that if his cows are gone he and his old wife 
 will die. He says they will sit in their house and die. 
 He says he is feeling very bad." 
 
 2. 
 
 But it was not so with all of them. Most of the con- 
 
244 BLIND 
 
 valescents were a contented looking lot In a bed not 
 far away sat a tall self-satisfied youth to whom the war 
 was a fine game. 
 
 "You see," he told me earnestly, "war is very good for 
 me for I can get promoted fast. In my military school 
 they would have kept me working years, but as soon 
 as the fighting began I ran away from school with my 
 friend. He was only fifteen years and three months. We 
 heard troops marching by at night and all the boys got 
 crazy. They sat up in bed and talked, but all except us 
 were afraid to go. We climbed from our windows out 
 on the roof, we slid down a pipe to the ground and 
 ran to the road and hid in a bush ; and when some more 
 troops came by in the dark we fell in and marched along. 
 My friend is now an officer. He writes me he is very 
 glad. You see in the army," he ended, "in peace promo 
 tion is very slow you must wait for officers to die 
 while now they are killed by thousands!" 
 
 "You get used to seeing them killed, I suppose." But 
 he quite missed my irony. 
 
 "Oh yes," he replied, "you soon become so you do 
 not mind it at all. What is the use of thinking of them ? 
 In war you must not think of that. You must just learn 
 to do as you re told." 
 
 Learn to do as you are told. There was another 
 youngster here who had learned this so thoroughly, that 
 in one dramatic flash he gave me the whole stimmung 
 of war. A bullet had shattered his right jaw. As they 
 prepared to operate, he fought hard against the ether, 
 and they could barely hold him down. He thought he 
 was in the trenches ; the Russians in a night attack were 
 pouring down upon him. He fought them off and 
 strained to rise, and with glaring mad delirious eyes he 
 kept shouting, "Die Russlander!" Then a little German 
 dentist, who was to assist in the operation, leaned over 
 and snapped into his ear the one sharp order, "Achtung!" 
 
BLIND 245 
 
 And instantly this German boy stiffened out as though 
 on parade! 
 
 They had learned to do as they were told. The Great 
 War towered over these men and boys, crushing down 
 upon their minds and stamping their thinking all of a 
 piece. They were under its spell; they could not think. 
 At the order "Achtung!" each one grew rigid in body 
 and soul. System, order, discipline. Was the whole 
 world becoming like that ? 
 
 But surely, I thought, among all these men, many of 
 them so silent, there must be questioning going on. 
 There was one who had lain on his back for ten weeks. 
 Though he had been growing worse of late, he did not 
 complain of his sufferings. He slept little. Day and 
 night he stared at the flags and the laurel wreaths, and 
 often he seemed to be thinking hard. But he gave not 
 a sign of what he was thinking until one day he spoke 
 to a priest. It was on a Sunday morning. A table altar 
 had been placed at the end of the aisle just under the 
 stage, with two tall altar candles and a large gilt cru 
 cifix. The priest in his white surplice and embroidered 
 vestments, attended by his acolyte, had been saying 
 mass. After it was over, he strode up and down the aisle 
 furiously declaiming against Russians, French and Eng 
 lish, as all men accursed of God. And then this wounded 
 soldier, who for ten weeks had lain so still, raised on 
 one elbow and shook his fist. 
 
 "Leave us alone! Stop your shouting!" he cried, in a 
 loud shrill quivering tone. "You are only making every 
 one worse! Stop talking of war! What do you know? 
 We re all so tired! Leave us alone!" 
 
 Late that evening Steve and I went into one of the 
 upper stage boxes where a doctor slept each night. Here 
 was a small iron cot with an old red quilt upon it, and 
 Steve made ready to go to bed while I sat watching the 
 scene below, There was but one soft little light down 
 
246 BLIND 
 
 there, on a table by the entrance door. The night nurse 
 sat beside it. All the rest was indistinct and dim in heavy 
 shadows. The beds looked like so many gray ghosts. 
 Out of them, with uncanny effect, the legs and arms that 
 were in slings pointed up into the dark. The place was 
 motionless and still, except for deep rough breathings 
 and occasional moaning cries. From a bed back under 
 the gallery came a monotonous pleading voice. 
 "Schwester," it kept saying. "Sehwester, Schwester, 
 Schwester." Suddenly out of the shadows burst a sav 
 age beast-like scream. I saw the dim white figure of 
 the nurse as she went to the bed. Then morphine and 
 then silence. A lung-shot case began to cough blood. 
 It was a long bubbling horrible cough, and he kept it up 
 at intervals. From another corner presently came a sud 
 den shout of "Charge!" Then came another: "Die 
 Lazaret!" And in a moment the place was bedlam. I 
 heard the most infernal shrieks. Men suddenly jumped 
 up in bed crying, "Die Russlander!" Others yelled, 
 "Hurrah! Hurrah!" This lasted for some minutes. By 
 degrees they quieted down; but out of the silence came 
 a sound that made me lean out of the box. On a bed 
 directly under me lay a sleeper tensely whispering. 
 Abruptly it stopped and in his dream he gave a quick 
 delighted laugh. Again the whispering went on. 
 
 And listening there, I got startling hints of the vast 
 and dazzling feverish universe of dreamland that was 
 hovering every night over thirty million fighting men 
 not only dreams of horror but human, comic, intimate 
 dreams, compounded of the memories, the inner thoughts, 
 desires, passions, hopes and schemes of these tiny atoms 
 caught into the storm. I thought of four thousand 
 hospitals like this scattered over Germany, and of other 
 hospitals in Austria, Russia, England and France, and 
 of the men by millions who lay on their backs and 
 silently stared at bare ceilings and at walls, at flags and 
 
BLIND 247 
 
 wreaths and garlands, and at the huge red cross of 
 Christ. And I wondered what they thought about war. 
 What would they say to their wives at home and what 
 would they teach to their children? Would they say, 
 like that tall smiling boy who had run away from school, 
 "War is very good for us" or would they, like the 
 silent man who had lain for ten weeks dying, shake 
 their fists at the powers that be, and cry, "We are tired ! 
 Leave us alone 1" 
 
 3. 
 
 Though I had seen much of Dorothy, there is little 
 that I can recall. The other impressions pouring in were 
 so vivid and tumultuous. I made trips down into 
 Austria and along the eastern front. Each time I came 
 back to the hospital I found my cousin working hard. 
 Plainly it was an immense relief for her to be here 
 among her own people; and I could see she was grate 
 ful to Max for having so promptly urged her to come, 
 in spite of the pang that it cost him. And as though she 
 grudged herself the relief she felt in being here, Dorothy 
 worked the harder. At all hours day and night I would 
 find her at a bedside or going on some nurse s errand, 
 or smilingly serving coffee to a group of convalescents, 
 or down on her knees scrubbing the floor with a deter 
 mined little scowl. Weeks passed and her husband did 
 not come. She seldom spoke to me of him now, but I 
 knew he was constantly in her mind. Why did he stay 
 away so. long? Was it only his work, or did he think 
 that she could be happy only with us? 
 
 She hinted this not to me but to Steve, and told him 
 how it tortured her. I noticed that she avoided me. Gone 
 was the warm intimacy of the days we had spent in 
 Berlin. She turned to Steve. He was her chief, and she 
 slaved for him. Old Steve was in his element here, talk 
 ing little, working hard. He had two young surgeons 
 
248 BLIND 
 
 under him. His predecessor had left loose ends. He 
 brought them together. Through the punctilious eti 
 quette and the rigid German system, his work was more 
 or less bound up with that of other hospitals in the town. 
 He found certain holes in this German perfection, and 
 he began to fill them up, or to evade the endless red tape. 
 
 "God pity the world," he said to me once, "if these 
 people win the war." 
 
 But this was the only expression of that kind I can 
 recall. Here were wounded men, and he was a surgeon 
 - and he had time for nothing else. Let the surgeons 
 stick to their jobs and try to keep a few young men in 
 Europe alive when the struggle was over. 
 
 And this attitude in Steve made Dorothy turn to him 
 now as a tower of strength. With me it was different. 
 We often jarred on one another. For with that vague 
 self reproach for having left Berlin to come here, more 
 determined even than before to be loyal to her husband s 
 land, at first she had been doubly anxious that in the 
 stories I sent home I should miss nothing good and see 
 nothing bad in these wounded German boys. This made 
 me obstinately dwell on my deepening feeling against 
 Berlin. And the very fact, that my cousin and I had 
 meant so much to each other before, made it all the 
 harder now brought quarrels so sharp that for days 
 together she would leave me severely alone. Then I 
 would remember the position she was in; I would get 
 a sense of her loneliness, admire her pluck and cheer 
 fulness. And Dorothy s old personality, so warm and 
 blithe and intimate, would cast its spell upon me. 
 Humbly I would try my best to be friends with her 
 again, and for a time I would succeed and we would be 
 nearly as before. But I could feel the thought of her 
 husband always in the back of her mind. This pity for 
 him, and this gratitude, was it bringing her to care for 
 the man? 
 
BLIND 249 
 
 When he arrived one afternoon, she was busy at some 
 work by a window. Her back was turned. All at once, 
 though he had not spoken a word, I saw her give a 
 little start. She jumped up, and with a sharp cry went 
 to him quickly and into his arms. I remember the look 
 of joy on his face as I saw it for a moment then. 
 
 "By bringing her here," I thought grimly, "and mak 
 ing her feel she deserted him, we have thrown her into 
 his arms." 
 
 We did not see them again until night. 
 
 He had just come from the western front, and all 
 were eager to question him. His replies were deter 
 minedly cheerful, but I kept watching his gaunt face and 
 the queer self-absorption there; and I felt Steve and 
 Dorothy doing the same. What had happened to the 
 man? What inner thought was haunting him? He was 
 thinking of that gas attack. He could still give us no 
 hint of the plan; he had to keep it to himself; and it 
 must have been like fire inside. For despite his little 
 faults, Max was a chap of fine instincts; he had given 
 his whole life so far to the work of saving other lives 
 and looking back now, I think I can get an inkling of 
 the struggle that had aged him in this startling way, 
 made him so thin and gaunt and gray. But I doubt if 
 he had any feeling of guilt. In his logical German way 
 he had struggled hard to bring his new work into line 
 with the old. This, too, would save lives millions. For 
 he believed and he had good reason that gas would 
 speedily end the war. He hinted at this by what he said 
 of his work on high explosives. The more murderous 
 they were, he declared, the sooner the butchery would 
 cease. 
 
 "I was wrong in what I said before. War is sheer 
 murder," he declared. "And the very worst of it is its 
 disguise, its camouflage all the splendid elements that 
 hide what it really is ! You draw far away and you look 
 
250 BLIND 
 
 back and you can see it is only blood but when you 
 are there, your very mind is blinded by the flashes 
 flashes from the souls of men flashes from the soul of 
 war! And yet it is false and it is wrong!" 
 
 "If it were only over!" breathed Dorothy. She was 
 sitting beside him. I saw his hand close quickly on hers ; 
 and with that new look of happiness which I had seen 
 when he arrived, he said, 
 
 "It cannot last much longer now. We shall soon go 
 back to America." 
 
 4. 
 
 I drew close to him in the next two weeks, and to his 
 view of the conflict for Max had been able to arrange 
 to take me to the western front. I shall give but a few 
 of the memories: 
 
 It was still dark and the stars were out, for we had 
 made an early start. In a big gray army car we had left 
 the old city of Lille and were speeding down a long- 
 straight road between two endless rows of trees, tall 
 delicate gray phantoms, the poplar trees of France. But 
 I saw no French people there except once when in the 
 dim blue light we came up to a woman and a huge dog, 
 together dragging a cart through the mud. On the cart 
 sat a small boy wrapped to his ears. As we passed them, 
 with an angry jerk the woman turned her cart into the 
 ditch, while the big dog barked good-naturedly and 
 slowly wagged his bushy tail a friendly international 
 wag that had nothing whatever to do with the case. 
 
 We were running along the Bavarian lines about three 
 miles behind their front. The fields lay still in the 
 starlight, with little blueish veils of mist rising out 
 of the hollows flooded from incessant rains. We sped 
 through ruined villages, empty, silent, bleak as death. 
 From the east came a stronger glow of light, and from 
 
BLIND 251 
 
 over there by the rising sun .the noise of big guns grew 
 louder. We passed a battalion of men and boys, unkempt 
 and gaunt, clothes yellow with mud; and a few minutes 
 later we stopped our car near a deep muddy hollow. 
 Here was a German battery. By each one of the four 
 guns stood some thirty shrapnel shells in their tall wicker 
 cases. The fire was being directed by an officer in the 
 tower of a church some distance off. His orders came 
 by telephone to an officer in a dugout close by, and the 
 latter kept calling them out to his men. 
 
 "Fertig!" 
 
 Then a leaping roar and a deep long swishing sigh as 
 the big shell went rushing off. It took on a savage animal 
 sound, and in a few seconds we heard the crash as it 
 burst in the midst of the enemy. Had men been killed? 
 The man in the church tower knew but these men 
 here might go through the war and never see one of 
 their victims, I thought. Murderers? No machinists! 
 They glanced at me from time to time with that same 
 superior smile I have had from other men in skilled 
 trades, in mills and automobile shops. 
 
 Later that morning Max took me down into a bomb 
 proof chamber. The roof had been of heavy concrete, 
 and over that ten feet of earth but a great French 
 shell had struck above and ploughed down through into 
 the midst of some forty soldiers sleeping below; it had 
 burst and blown everything to bits. The big hole was 
 open to the sky. Beneath was a mass of concrete, dirt 
 and ragged bits of uniforms. Many dead bodies were 
 still down there. From one a yellow fist stuck up with a 
 lead pencil clinched in it tight. Over all was the smell of 
 iodoform. 
 
 "This is ugly. This is war. But this had to be," Max 
 said to me. "As time goes on, it will get worse. New 
 ways of killing will be invented. It is the business of 
 
252 BLIND 
 
 war to kill and the quicker the killing the sooner the 
 end. Remember that when you get home and you read 
 of the work we still must do." 
 
 I looked at the dark strained face of the man and won 
 dered of what he was thinking. 
 
 In a little French village that day we came to a small 
 hospital, in what had been a children s school. In one 
 room on a rough pine bed a young French prisoner lay 
 on his back; and as he stared up at the ceiling, there 
 were big beads of sweat on his face. Both his legs, on 
 the night before, had been amputated above the knees. 
 He looked at me, gave a quick stern frown and then 
 went on staring as before. I felt an intruder and turned 
 away. Above his bed, filling half the wall, was a large 
 school map of France, and near it hung "The Rights of 
 Man," writ large in French for children. 
 
 As we went on that afternoon, everywhere to the 
 horizon crawled dark sluggish masses made up of 
 wagons, horses, men. There was deep intensity in it all 
 and an elemental bleakness. Everything that men had 
 made in ages in this peaceful land was stripped naked, 
 jagged, rough. The .villages through which we passed 
 were nothing but mire, ruined homes. Yes, the French 
 had a right to be bitter! And the savage irony of it was 
 that now they were being forced to continue the work 
 of destruction themselves. They were shelling- their own 
 villages. In one we entered a little church. There were 
 shell holes in the walls and the shattered figures of Saints 
 on the floor. We climbed by rickety ladders a hundred 
 feet to the bells above, and from there looked off to the 
 westward. The sun had just gone below the horizon. 
 Outlined against the afterglow stood a line of delicate 
 poplars ; and nearer, over a village nestling into the edge 
 of a wood, moment by moment rose lovely little clouds 
 of white that went wreathing up to the heavens the 
 afternoon fire of the French, which the Germans called 
 
BLIND 253 
 
 "The Evening Prayer." These little prayers hung lov 
 ingly around the church this side the village. From each 
 came a dull sullen boom. Suddenly there was a cloud of 
 brown dust, and when it cleared we saw that a part of 
 the church tower had come down. 
 
 The twilight deepened rapidly, and it was night when 
 we left our car and started on foot for the front line, 
 splashing heavily through the mire of a narrow country 
 lane. It had begun to rain again. For some time I heard 
 only the crash of big guns. Then came the swift ugly 
 .buzz of a bullet over our heads and another and 
 another. Before us a rocket shot up in the dark. In the 
 flare that it made I saw a small farm-house about a half 
 a mile away, the place where we were to spend the night. 
 Over it with long weird sighs the shrapnel shells were 
 flying. 
 
 When we arrived, both the house and the barn were 
 perfectly dark. Not a glimmer of light through the 
 windows to attract shell fire here. Only bullets from 
 French rifles struck with a smack on the side of the 
 barn or whizzed through the narrow open space between 
 it and the farm-house. I looked toward the sound of the 
 firing. At first there was nothing but dense rain. Then 
 up went a rocket again, throwing a wild uncanny light 
 on a bleak expanse of watery mud, on fields and trees 
 and gleaming pools and roused afresh by this sight of 
 their world, the men down there in the hollow fiercely 
 redoubled their fire. Here the French and German lines 
 were close together. Plenty of blood had been spilled 
 in these fields; but in all this time, the Germans had 
 pushed forward only two hundred yards. And I got the 
 feeling of No Man s Land as a broad brown band of mud 
 reaching for nearly three hundred miles and winding 
 like some monstrous snake, which as the line swaved 
 back and forth was always slowly writhing. 
 
 Later I heard soldiers singing, faintly as though far 
 
254 BLIND 
 
 away but then I discovered that the sound came from 
 underneath our feet; and by a ladder I followed Max 
 down into the "Villa Sorgen Frei," deep under a manure 
 pile. It was a hole with walls of logs and a ceiling so 
 low we could not stand. A small stove made it stifling 
 hot. But here we stayed for an hour or so with eight 
 or ten Bavarian boys. A drum, a mouth organ and a 
 flute, an old iron gong and a clumsy guitar with tele 
 phone wires for the strings, made up this soldier orches 
 tra. Leading them was a dark little man, who in Munich 
 had played in a cafe. With an old hat on the side of his 
 head, spectacles on the end of his nose and a drumstick 
 for a baton, he sternly rapped for order, and carried his 
 small orchestra through "Puppchen" for our benefit. 
 After that came folk songs "Roslein auf der Heide," 
 "Morgen Rot" and many more. Then they shouted out 
 a song that he himself had written, to the glory of that 
 bomb-proof hole and the courage of men "in the iron 
 rain." The refrain was to the machine gun. Another 
 folk song for Germany. 
 
 A little after midnight we went into a bomb-proof 
 under the barn, where a couple of old mattresses had 
 been spread for us on the floor; and I lay for hours lis 
 tening to the rifles and machine guns that sounded like 
 steel riveters on the high buildings of New York. What 
 was it they were building here? Half waking and half 
 sleeping, the images of what I had seen kept rising pell 
 mell in my dreams, and confusedly I grappled for some 
 meaning in it all. But things looked black to me that 
 night. If war were hell and nothing else, one might 
 have hoped that in sheer disgust men would learn their 
 lesson and this struggle would be the last. But I saw 
 little hope of this disgust for I had seen what Max 
 had called the flashes from the soul of war, its iron grip 
 on the souls of men. Millions of them would forget the 
 dreariness, the weariness, the icy mud, the stinking death, 
 
BLIND 255 
 
 and in after years would remember only the glory and 
 the thrills. Such men would not want disarmament. 
 
 "And who are you," a great voice asked, "to talk to 
 these men of my ugliness? What have you in your 
 little life ever known that can call to men as I call, pull 
 ing them out of their creeds and greeds to give up their 
 lives by the millions, to shake the entire civilized world? 
 There are many shams, many idols of peace, that will 
 come down before I am through. You will have to be 
 sure of what you believe before you can stand against 
 me sure as you never were before. For things are 
 going to crash, these days, and the world is going to be 
 reborn." 
 
 Just before daylight we got up and started down the 
 narrow lane. Already the stars were growing faint and 
 the pools of water on the fields slowly turned to silver. 
 Masses of wagons, horses and men were still crawling 
 over the landscape, as they had crawled all through the 
 night, and would crawl through weary years to come. 
 As we reached our car and started on, the light grew 
 steadily stronger and uglier and drearier grew the 
 world around us. It was Sunday morning. A little after 
 sunrise, we met two peasant women in black picking their 
 way toward a village church. They stepped into the 
 ditch and glared at us as our car spattered mud upon 
 their clothes. Suddenly I remembered the millions of 
 women in empty homes ; and I wondered what they were 
 thinking what they were going to teach to their sons? 
 
 5. 
 
 All through the spring and into the summer I stayed 
 on in Germany, and I paid frequent visits to Steve and 
 Dorothy in those months. Meanwhile the gas attacks 
 had begun, and I remember clearly still an intense dis 
 cussion with Dorothy in which she defended her hus 
 band s work as a means of ending the slaughter and of 
 
256 BLIND 
 
 making war impossible for the generations to come. I 
 could feel that for my cousin it had become a nightmare 
 now. She had lost her eagerness to make me see the 
 German side. Waking and dreaming she was obsessed 
 by one idea to get it over and go home. To go to 
 America with Max and help him take up his old work 
 that was the goal on which she had turned homesick 
 eyes. There was no doubt of her loving him now. 
 
 Then one day they brought him in on a stretcher from 
 the train. He had contracted typhus during his work on 
 the eastern front. For several weeks his life hung in the 
 balance, Steve watching him like a brother, and Dorothy 
 barely leaving his side. I came there on a visit when 
 he was convalescing; and I can remember him vividly 
 still propped up in his bed, his face thin and pallid with 
 hollow cheeks, something softened in his smile, and a 
 new gentleness in his eyes. He was like a man come 
 through a fire in which his spirit had been purged, his 
 vision cleared. Much of what he told me then I have 
 long since forgotten; but often in a startling manner, 
 late at night in this silent room, I seem to hear him 
 speak again at times in a tone precise and sure, again 
 in a groping searching way of the change that had 
 come over him. 
 
 "Before the war," he told me, "I was a man with one 
 idea to stop the waste of human life. But what a ruth 
 less world it was. It was over there in your mines and 
 mills that I learned to know the deadly w r ork of the 
 gases we are using now. Your countrymen are indig 
 nant now, but then they did not seem to care how 
 many thousands were choked to death and for me the 
 world of peace became a dark jungle of complications. 
 So war was like a dazzling flash, and its stark sim 
 plicity blinded me. Here almost in a moment was a 
 world on a higher plane men lifted out of their selfish 
 lives. But now I am changed. In a year I have seen too 
 
BLIND 257 
 
 much of its horror, the ruin and havoc in humble homes, 
 the unscrupulous scheming in the high places. There is 
 a deep falsity in it all. It has been not food but brandy. 
 We must get back to a world of peace in spite of its 
 perplexities. We must find tolerance again, and as 
 brothers all together we must work our problems out, 
 slow and toilsome though it be. I put my hope in Science 
 acting through a wider and more generous education 
 upon all the ignorant masses of humanity, upon a new 
 generation with these hatreds left behind. 
 
 "I do not believe that the war will end in any lasting 
 dominance by the drill-masters in Berlin, or in Paris or 
 in London. I believe it has let loose forces which will 
 rise against those gentlemen and throw off their despotic 
 rule. You talk against our gas attacks but they are 
 only a first step in developments more startling. Let the 
 drill-masters plan as they please. We men of science, 
 whom they despise, are going to kill the thing they love. 
 We shall invent such instruments for the annihilation of 
 life, that to the blind foolish people of all countries we 
 shall demonstrate that war is no longer possible and so 
 this butchery will stop. But I do not like to think/ 
 he said, "of our drill-masters in Berlin in the first brief 
 years of their triumph. For they will seem to triumph at 
 first before the new forces against them rise and in 
 those brutal rigid years I don t want to live in this coun 
 try. It will not be my Germany, it will be theirs. How 
 they will rule ! They will claim all the credit for winning 
 the war. In their blindness they will crush us down the 
 scientists, the thinkers without whose aid they would 
 have been beaten." 
 
 In his own case this prophecy was realized with a 
 
 tragic abruptness. Long before he was fully recovered 
 
 from his serious illness, he received a telegram ordering 
 
 him back to his work. And a few weeks later, from that 
 
 building in Berlin with the big red velvet curtain, a post 
 
258 BLIND 
 
 card came to Dorothy telling of her husband s death. 
 
 Steve wired to me the same day. When I came I found 
 her in her room, and at sight of her face I went to her 
 iquickly. 
 
 "Oh my dear girl I m so sorry!" I whispered. She 
 was shaking in my arms. But only for a moment. Then 
 she drew away and said, in a low hard unnatural voice, 
 
 "It was murder nothing but murder, you know. 
 They couldn t wait till he was out of bed. They just 
 took him and killed him. No need at all Just plain 
 stupid German tyranny!" She stopped for a moment, 
 and then she asked, "Will you help me now to get home, 
 Larry? I hate this country I hate war. I want to be 
 back at Seven Pines." 
 
 I promised I would take her home. But first there was 
 his funeral. And so long as I live I shall not forget that 
 bleak Prussian village where Max Sonfeldt had been 
 born, and where on that October day his people laid him 
 in the earth. 
 
 The village was a small affair of some forty houses, 
 most of them of brick and white plaster, straggled along 
 a broad main street which was a slough of water and 
 mud. Above were heavy autumn clouds. The bare trees 
 on either side were blown by a raw cold wind from the 
 North. We went to the home of Max s father, who ran 
 both the savings bank and the general store of the village. 
 We found him in the rear of his store, in a small stuffy 
 dwelling-room but half heated by a stove. He was a 
 harsh old Prussian, with short bristling gray hair and 
 beard. His little blue eyes were cold and unfriendly. He 
 had not approved of his son s marriage, and since then 
 he had grown to hate the very name of America, the 
 country which was supplying munitions to all Germany s 
 foes. His wife came in, a stout old woman dressed in 
 black. Her face looked red from crying, and it quivered 
 violently as she took Dorothy s hand and led her into 
 
BLIND 259 
 
 another room. Steve and I were left with the father. 
 For a time he spoke of his son s death and his own undy 
 ing hate of England. 
 
 "Now in a few minutes the funeral will begin," he 
 said. "I must ask you to excuse me. My wife will need 
 me by her side. On the march to the church," he added, 
 "the widow will go with us." He paused a moment. 
 Then he asked, "Will she return to America?" When 
 we told him that she would, he nodded grimly and 
 opened the door. 
 
 We walked to the small village square. In the middle 
 rose a monument, a stark granite column with a brazen 
 eagle overhead. Close by was an old Lutheran church, a 
 long low building of gray stone with a heavy square 
 tower at the front. Life stirred on the village street. It 
 was a Sunday morning. Old men in queer-shaped tall 
 silk hats began gathering on the commons. Most of them 
 wore medals. With bearded faces harsh and set, these 
 old Prussian countrymen looked what they were, shrewd 
 hard-working farmers who had spent their entire lives 
 struggling with a stubborn soil and had wrung a living 
 out of it. Some had fought in France as boys, and the 
 medals glittering on their chests took on a grim signifi 
 cance. Some women and children had gathered, too, but 
 they had formed a group of their own which kept to the 
 other side of the street. The bell began tolling. A man 
 arrived, bearing an iron funeral wreath; and in the 
 meantime up the street came a thin old man with a white 
 mustache. At sight of him all the men formed in line. 
 He faced them for a moment, issued a sharp order, and 
 they went marching down the street to a house not far 
 away. They came back with a large black-eagle flag and 
 went to the old merchant s house. The pall-bearers went 
 inside. Presently they came out with the coffin, followed 
 by Max s parents with Dorothy between them; and 
 slowly they made "the march to the church," 
 
260 BLIND 
 
 It was a cramped and narrow place. On both sides 
 were galleries of ugly varnished yellow wood. Little 
 gusts of chill raw air came sifting in through the high 
 windows. The organ had begun to play, and the old 
 men in the front rows began to sing in harsh thin voices. 
 Now in this freezing holy place I could see the breaths 
 of the women around me, and these little clouds of breath 
 began to grow unsteady. 
 
 I caught a glimpse of Dorothy s face. She sat rigidly 
 staring up at the pastor, who in his long black gown had 
 risen and begun his address. He spoke of Max, the boy 
 they had known, of his childhood in the village. He 
 spoke of "the bereaved young widow" and of "the 
 mother of the deceased." Thousands of brave men, he 
 said, had given their lives for the Fatherland, and many 
 thousands still must die for the sake of their country and 
 their God. And this was hard and terrible. But their 
 cause was just. I saw my cousin look sharply down; 
 then she stared up at him as before. Among the German 
 mothers and wives the tiny clouds of breath were coming 
 still more unsteadily now, and I could hear some of them 
 sobbing. Again my cousin bowed her head. 
 
 He finished and began to pray to "the great all-seeing 
 God" for aid against the Russians and the French and 
 English. When the prayer was over, they began to sing 
 a hymn which since the outbreak of the war had been 
 sent from Berlin to churches throughout the entire land 
 to be used in such services. "What God does is well 
 done," was the refrain. 
 
 At last it was over. We left the church and on the 
 village commons outside we gathered on the muddy 
 ground around the granite monument. There on a cop 
 per plate were the names of men killed in the Franco- 
 Prussian war. The name of Max Sonfeldt had been 
 added to the list. The thin old man with the white mus 
 tache, who had fought in 1870, came forward and spoke 
 
BLIND 261 
 
 to the people. And then the men took off their hats and 
 stood with bare heads in the cold wind. All faces turned 
 to Dorothy, as the big iron wreath was placed in her 
 hands. She had been told of this in advance, and I 
 could feel her brace herself. Quickly she came and 
 placed the big wreath at the base of the monument. As 
 she stepped back she swayed a little. I drew quickly 
 near her in the crowd, but by a slight motion she kept me 
 away. She had vowed she would go through with this 
 exactly as his parents wished. 
 
 "He would want me to," she had said. 
 
 Now they were marching off to the grave. We fol 
 lowed them; but looking back during a pause in the 
 slow march, I saw on the empty commons only that 
 granite monument, with the brazen eagle on top glaring 
 down voraciously upon the names on the copper plate 
 like some savage idol of long ago. 
 
 When the burial was over, after a brief sobbing good 
 bye from the stout old woman in black, Dorothy was 
 given back to us, and we took her to the train. What a 
 relief to be alone. At first she sat by the window staring 
 out at the windswept trees but racking my brains for 
 some way of relaxing the intensity in her eyes, I remem 
 bered a letter from Aunt Amelia which had come the 
 day before. I laid it upon Dorothy s lap. In a few 
 moments she noticed it there. She began to read and 
 read it through. She read it through a number of times. 
 
 In Berlin the next day, at our embassy I had trouble 
 in getting her passport. We had planned to go through 
 England, and she was a German citizen now. At last 
 the trouble was arranged. We left Steve to go back to 
 his hospital and set out on our journey home. 
 
 On the voyage back across the Atlantic she kept to 
 her cabin most of the time. There was little I could do 
 for her. And as I tramped the decks alone I grimly tried 
 to clear my thoughts, get some perspective on it all. But 
 
262 BLIND 
 
 mine was gloomy thinking. The thought of her disaster 
 was ever there before me; and the memories arising out 
 of my year in Germany kept piling up and gathering 
 into one impression of an overpowering force, precise 
 and systematic, rigid, hard, relentless. How long could 
 humanity stand the strain? I thought of how Max 
 before his death had begun to rebel against it all. I 
 thought of the dramatic critic and the lean workman 
 on the train, and of that chap on the hospital bed who 
 had shaken his fist at the priest. I remembered the 
 Galician peasant who had begged for his old boots and 
 I wondered if he had found his cows. In those wide 
 regions of despair, what bitter feelings must be brew 
 ing! Or had all power of revolt been crushed out of 
 their hearts and minds? Was the thing too prodigious 
 for any rebellion? Were men to become mere fatalists, 
 slaves ? 
 
 The thing kept spreading, spreading. Would America 
 come in? The ocean, dark and empty, seemed to me to 
 answer, "No." But I began to feel that we must. There 
 was nothing else for us to do. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 1. 
 
 "LARRY," said Aunt Amelia, in a voice stern with 
 anxiety, "I m afraid that it is going to be very hard for 
 Dorothy here." 
 
 We had been home but a few hours. Dorothy had 
 gone to bed. Her mother had been with her but had 
 now come down to me, and in response to her searching 
 questions I had told her all I knew from my talks 
 with Dorothy in Berlin through to the village funeral. 
 When I spoke of how they had made her place that iron 
 wreath on the monument, I saw my aunt s face grow 
 harsh with pain; and suddenly as I looked at her then I 
 realized that she was an old woman, past her seventieth 
 year. Her head bobbed nervously at times. But there 
 was something indomitable in the expression on her 
 face, and in her questions a poignant tone that made me 
 feel how she had gathered her energies for this supreme 
 struggle of her life. Emersed in the war in the last year, 
 my thinking had grown impersonal; but I was back in 
 the family now, with its small deep intimate life, and 
 I began to realize what a struggle this would be. Our 
 country drawn inexorably into the Great War s bitter 
 ness, the people here growing tense and strained and 
 Dorothy the wife of a German, loyal to his memory. The 
 facts were grim. 
 
 My aunt s low voice broke in on my thinking : 
 
 "Did she love him?" 
 
 "Yes and no. I think it was more pity than love." 
 And I went on to give details. "She mothered him," I 
 ended, Dorothy s mother frowned and said, 
 
 263 
 
264 BLIND 
 
 "That feeling can go very deep." 
 
 The words sent my thoughts leaping back to the years 
 when we had been children here and then ahead into 
 Dorothy s future. How was it going to be in this house ? 
 
 "But think what kind of a girl she has been !" Quickly 
 I ran back over her life her buoyancy, impulsiveness, 
 warm interests, vitality. As I talked I must have grown 
 intense. I caught her mother watching me with a curious 
 gleam in her eyes. 
 
 "Larry, I m counting on you," she said. "What Doro 
 thy needs is a chance to forget and I mean that she 
 shall have it. But it will not be easy. For very soon she 
 is going to feel that half at least of her old friends and 
 the greater part of her family already look on her as a 
 disgrace, a blot upon the family name because she 
 married a German." 
 
 "Even now that he s dead ?" I asked. Again her voice 
 jvas sharp and strained. 
 
 "You have no conception of how they feel! Wait 
 till you talk with them!" she said. "It began with the 
 Lusitania !" She broke off. Her head was bobbing. She 
 steadied herself and looked at me: "How do you feel, 
 Larry? Do you think this country should enter the war?" 
 
 I hesitated, watching her. I recalled her words, "I m 
 counting on you." 
 
 "Yes," I said. She flinched a little : 
 
 "What are your reasons?" 
 
 As I tried to explain, I could feel her mind on Dorothy 
 still, as though at everything I said her forebodings grew 
 more clear. 
 
 "Still I am against it," she said steadily at the end. 
 "The Lusitania Belgium Serbia I know all that. 
 I ve heard so much month by month while her letters 
 gave me the other side. But I can t believe they will go 
 on. I think of those Germans I knew so well back in 
 Wisconsin long ago." 
 
BLIND 265 
 
 "But they were revolutionists driven out by the same 
 autocracy that is ruling Prussia today," I said. I saw 
 her hands clinch tight in her lap. Her face was pale. 
 
 "Oh Larry," she said softly, "I m bitter bitter 
 against them now! . . . But how can you be sure their 
 people won t rise ? Is bitterness the only way ? I ve been 
 re-reading Lincoln s life." 
 
 "He went to war," I said gently. 
 
 "Yes and we may again." Her look went back half 
 a century. "The flags may have to come out," she said. 
 "But they re terrible flags." 
 
 There was a pause, and then she asked, 
 
 "Have you told Dorothy how you feel ?" 
 
 "No " 
 
 "Please don t. Wait till you have been here awhile. 
 I m counting on you, Larry, to help me give her that 
 chance to forget." 
 
 2. 
 
 The next night in my father s house in town I was 
 made to feel how hard it would be. With Dad himself 
 this was not so. He said he was sorry for Dorothy and 
 then went on to speak of the war. 
 
 "The plain fact of the matter is," he said, "that we 
 are being kicked in the face have been for the last 
 two years. And as soon as we get a President who ll 
 open the nation s eyes to that fact, we are going in to 
 finish this war finish it good and plenty. The only 
 thing to worry about is whether or not we ll be in time." 
 With keen interest he began to ask me questions as to. 
 Germany s strength. I was surprised at the knowledge 
 he showed of the making of shells. "I m making em 
 now at the mills," he explained. 
 
 But we were interrupted there by Aunt Fanny and 
 her daughter, Louise; and at once the atmosphere grew 
 tense with the spirit of inquisition. I could feel them 
 
266 BLIND 
 
 both impatient to get through all talk of such tiresome 
 things as food supplies, shells, petrol, guns, and come 
 to the question of Dorothy, who had disgraced the 
 family name. But I parried their questions for awhile. 
 I wanted to get their view of all this. 
 
 Louise was a tall pretty blonde with rather irregular 
 features but her mother s violet eyes. Nearly twenty- 
 three years had passed since the night when she had 
 been brought into the world by plain Steve, "the stable 
 boy." But there had been nothing plain since then. A 
 small fortune had been spent on her dress, her health, 
 her complexion, her "breeding," her "simplicity." She 
 had "come out" the year before. But how different from 
 the debutantes with whom I had danced ten years ago! 
 For Louise like her mother was "in the war" and could 
 talk or think of nothing else. Enthusiastic workers for 
 various ultra- fashionable pro-Ally organizations, they 
 had taken the war ardently into their small glittering 
 world and there had made it glitter, too. War was the 
 fashion. War was a pageant, a thing of romance, of 
 titles, decorations, uniforms of many kinds and national 
 costumes for bazaars. What had they to do with the 
 poor dirty devils I had seen in the mud of the trenches, 
 or gasping their lives away on rough cots? What did 
 these women really know ? They loved to hear of atroci 
 ties, if committed by "the Bodies" ; but when in reaction 
 against their talk I started in to tell them of the Galician 
 peasant whose feet had been frozen and cut off, Aunt 
 Fanny interrupted. 
 
 "I hope you are not planning to publish such stories, 
 Larry," she said . "They may do a great deal of harm 
 rouse sympathy for the German side. It s perfectly 
 senseless to attempt to make any distinction whatever 
 between the German Government and the German 
 people," she went on decisively. "It s the German people 
 
BLIND 26? 
 
 every single one of them who are killing those poor 
 boys in France!" 
 
 "For my part," cried young Louise, "I ll never speak 
 to a German again! I wish they were all wiped off the 
 earth every man and woman and child!" I said I did 
 not feel that way. "Why not?" Louise demanded. Then 
 they tried to make me confirm the hideous things they 
 knew to be true about the people in Germany. And when 
 in my answers I refused fully to satisfy their demands, 
 and in my obstinate mood that night I even went on to 
 mention all the good points I could think of in the 
 German nation, I could see them give me up. Obviously 
 I was a "pro-German" another disgrace to the family 
 name. 
 
 They were coming now to Dorothy. 
 
 "I m afraid," said Aunt Fanny gently, "that you have 
 let your sympathies be influenced by Dorothy s trouble 
 and her views." 
 
 I pulled myself together then. I remembered what 
 Dorothy s mother had said. How to make these women 
 leave her alone? 
 
 "Oh Dorothy," I said quietly, "is bitter enough against 
 Germany now." I could see they did not believe me. 
 
 "In what way?" inquired Louise. "Does she feel 
 that we should go into the war?" 
 
 "No she hates the thought of war. She s against 
 it all." 
 
 "I see," said Louise, in a tone which said, "Pro- 
 German." 
 
 "What is she going to do ?" from Aunt Fanny. 
 
 "Stay with her mother at Seven Pines and try to 
 forget. And if she s only left alone " 
 
 "Where are you going to stay, Larry dear?" my 
 young half-sister asked me. 
 
 "At Seven Pines." 
 
268 BLIND 
 
 "I see," she said. And what she saw was Dorothy 
 helping me write such German lies as would serve the 
 infamous aims of "the Bodies." 
 
 Her brother came in, and for a few moments there 
 was a truce in the attack. This youth was even more 
 intense, but his talk ran on practical lines. He was twenty- 
 years old, and small and hard, with close-cut hair thick 
 and black, and a little black mustache. He had left Har 
 vard the June before, had gone to Plattsburg to harden 
 up, and was drilling now two nights a week; he was 
 working long hours in Dad s mills, and his talk was all 
 of guns and shells. In his keen hungry Yankee way he 
 was "cramming" for the fight. "I m headed for the 
 artillery." With him the war was no mere fashion but 
 as real as mud and steel, and in comparison with the 
 women there was a ring of honest thinking on his part 
 that made me drop my obstinate pose and come out with 
 my real attitude which was that the German people, in 
 spite of all their many good points, had got themselves 
 into a state where they needed a licking and needed it 
 bad, and that it was very plainly up to our country to go 
 in. This cleared the atmosphere a bit, and from my new 
 vantage point I tried again to do what I could for 
 Dorothy. Once more I spoke of her bitterness against 
 the war gang in Berlin. Young Carrington frowned 
 when I spoke her name. 
 
 "How about Steve?" he inquired. 
 
 "He feels about as I do, I guess." 
 
 "Then why does he stay there?" 
 
 "Would you be in favor of cutting off our Red Cross 
 work in Germany?" 
 
 "You bet I would!" 
 
 "Well, I guess you re right. We ll come to that in a 
 few months more " 
 
 "Months!" he snorted. 
 
BLIND 269 
 
 "And Steve will come home." There was a strained 
 little silence. 
 
 How about the chap she eloped with!" Carrington 
 asked abruptly. I waited a moment. 
 
 "He s dead," I said. 
 
 "Yes, thank God. Did you see much of him?" 
 
 "And was he against the war gang, too?" 
 
 "Yes." He looked at me sharply. 
 
 "How do you mean?" I tried to explain but he cut 
 me short : "I see. You mean he was a pacifist. Then why 
 the gas?" 
 
 I tried to explain that, too and to my surprise he 
 supported me there. 
 
 "That s all right enough," he said. "This talk of going 
 easy in war and being nice and ladylike is all piffle," he 
 declared. "Let em be as rough as they like. It ll make 
 us rougher later on. But what makes me boil a bit is 
 for a chap to let loose gas and pacifist talk at the same 
 time! Where s Dorothy?" 
 
 "At home with her mother." 
 
 "I hope to God she stays there! 1 
 
 "She will," I said intensely. "And her mother wants 
 her left alone." I glanced at the women as I spoke. 
 
 "Well, I won t bother her," Carrington said. And 
 then he and Dad took me off to smoke and question me 
 farther on Germany s strength. 
 
 I stayed over night, and the next day my young half 
 brother took me downtown to the great American bank 
 ing firm which was buying munitions for England and 
 France. As we entered the crowded lobby I stopped for 
 a moment to look about. At once a man in a derby hat 
 touched me on the shoulder and asked whom it was I 
 wanted to see. Carrington promptly gave a name; and 
 as we turned to the elevator, "Detectives all over the 
 
270 BLIND 
 
 place," he said. "Taking no chances." Upstairs he had 
 to see several men about a shrapnel contract; and inter 
 ested at once to learn that I had been in Germany, these 
 keen youngsters fired questions and in return they 
 answered mine. They spoke of the "spirit" in their office 
 and the wonderful system to eliminate profiteering. Ten 
 per cent and nothing more. 
 
 "Seems sometimes," said one of them "as if every 
 crook and shyster on the face of the planet were trying 
 to get in his dirty work here. Nothing doing. Ten per 
 cent, and a rigid inspection of the stuff. There s plenty 
 of phoney stuff, God knows but we have nothing to do 
 with that. It s all being bought at enormous prices by 
 the Russians and the Wops. England and France are 
 buying through us, and our chiefs have let the word 
 come down that there s to be no side money for any 
 little mother s son in this whole place, from the roof to 
 the cellar. We get tips on contracts which if used on 
 the market would net each one of us thousands. See? 
 But none of that. Not a dollar. This thing is rigid as 
 the church. Whole war depends on it. That sort of 
 talk." 
 
 Carrington and he were drilling in the same armory at 
 night; and they spoke of the propaganda of the League 
 to which they belonged. Listening I got an idea of 
 small groups springing up in the East and even scattered 
 through the West. But as I read the papers and talked 
 with various friends of mine, I was made to feel that 
 the main tides of sentiment in the country were still 
 against going into the war. In coming home, I had 
 dropped out. This was both a disappointment and a deep 
 relief to me. Dorothy would have more time. 
 
 3. 
 
 As I look back now on the months that followed, I 
 think I can see how she would have recovered, if her 
 
BLIND 271 
 
 mother and I had been able to give her that chance to 
 forget. Too battered and dulled and tired at first to feel 
 anything intensely, she seemed to settle with relief into 
 this familiar home ; and our anxiety dropped away. But 
 as time wore on, the memories of the horrors she d seen 
 came back to her; and she grew restless, nerves on edge. 
 In an instant without warning at some mention of the 
 war, she would bite her lips, the tears would come and 
 she would make quickly for her room. Her mother would 
 find her on the bed and would try to soothe and comfort 
 her, but she could not bridge the gap between. It was 
 wide as the ocean we had crossed. 
 
 "Oh mother, mother you don t know!" 
 
 Her mother turned to me for help. Again and again 
 for hours together Dorothy would go over with me all 
 those German memories; and feeling her warm loyalties 
 for the man who was dead and her desperate gropings 
 for something strong and real and true to hold to in her 
 darkness, I was drawn to her as never before not even 
 in the days in Berlin. There was nothing "pro-German" 
 about her now for remembering what Max had said, 
 at times she talked so bitterly of "the drill-masters" in 
 Berlin, that even the bitterest anti-German would have 
 been satisfied had he heard. 
 
 But this point of view was quickly changed when 
 Dorothy was confronted by the attitude of Aunt Fanny, 
 Louise and other relatives and friends. And this we 
 could not keep from her long, for in her overwrought 
 condition she insisted on seeing them. 
 
 "I want to know how they feel," she exclaimed, "and 
 what can still be done over here to keep this country out 
 of the war and help bring it to an end! If there s any 
 thing I stand for now, it is what Max believed in!" 
 
 With this loyalty, in her restless mood, she saw her 
 friends and relations, and she read the papers every day. 
 She found a readiness to believe anything horrible of 
 
272 BLIND 
 
 "the Boches." The German people one and all were 
 either grotesque imbeciles or fiends incarnate. To this 
 attitude she reacted by passionately defending them. 
 
 "The German people are no worse than any others!" 
 she declared. "And if such lies are being believed, it is 
 our duty to tell the truth just what we really saw over 
 there!" 
 
 Apparently forgetting the quarrels we had had before, 
 she seemed to take it for granted that I was for neutrality 
 still. And this made it hard, for she counted on me. 
 "You can reach millions with the truth!" To her this 
 truth was the tragic contrast between the German Gov 
 ernment and the blind driven people. So far I was ready 
 to agree, but her next step I could not take. 
 
 "If America goes in," she said, "it will only prolong 
 the fighting and keep in power the very men in each 
 country who are to blame for it all! And the hating, 
 hating, hating will start up all over again! The pec pie 
 are getting sick of it now, and if we only leave them 
 alone they ll force their governments to make peace !" 
 
 "But any peace they can make now will mean that 
 Germany wins," I said. 
 
 "Let them! What harm can it do ?" she cried. "Those 
 brutal idiots in Berlin are too stupid and blind to keep 
 their power ! Their own people will turn them out ! As 
 soon as their men get home from the army they ll make 
 a government of their own !" 
 
 "I don t believe they will, my dear not if Germany 
 wins," I said. But in vain I tried to make her listen to 
 my point of view. I can remember clearly still the 
 desperate tortured look in her eyes, as dropping all 
 efforts to argue she pleaded with me in intimate fashion, 
 reminding me of the nights long ago when she had come 
 down from college and gone about with me in New 
 York, and I had given her my dreams of a brotherhood 
 world wide. 
 
 "Oh Larry, to be like that again !" 
 
BLIND 273 
 
 It grew harder. I was bitter against Aunt Fanny and 
 the rest who by their talk were forcing Dorothy into 
 this position, while I by the inexorable trend of events 
 in those anxious days was being forced the other way. 
 Clashes came between us now, and this only made her the 
 more intense. Her mother looked on but could do little 
 She herself could feel she must soon take sides perhaps 
 against her daughter and her suffering at such times 
 of premonition made me try again to do my best to 
 bridge the gap. But I cared for Dorothy in those days 
 in a way that made me, in spite of myself, argue with 
 her and we fought. Though the stories I was pub 
 lishing made me a "pro-German" to my father s family, 
 to Dorothy I was a traitor to the whole international 
 cause. 
 
 At last I wrote an article in which I came out with my 
 belief that America should go in. I showed it to 
 Dorothy s mother. She read it and looked up at me. 
 
 "You re sure you must?" 
 
 "That s how I feel." 
 
 "Then please let her see it now. It will be worse if 
 you publish it first." 
 
 But I doubt if it could have been much worse. Thank 
 God I have forgotten the long talk with her that night 
 her outburst against "the haters here and there and 
 everywhere!" and the way she begged me to destroy 
 "these lies" that I had written. At the end she grew 
 suddenly quiet and said, 
 
 "If you feel like that, please don t stay here." 
 
 4. 
 
 I went to Lucy s the next day and was with her for 
 some weeks, finishing my articles. But the thought of 
 my cousin tormented me still. Lucy often went over 
 there and came back and told me how one by one all 
 Dorothy s friends were dropping away. 
 
 "And it is worse than that," she said. "For her 
 
274 BLIND 
 
 mother s friends keep coming still and they are getting 
 the war point of view. They make it a matter of prin 
 ciple and with Aunt Amelia you know what that 
 means. I saw a look on her face last night that will 
 haunt me to my dying day! She s struggling with her 
 conscience so, and. her old memories of the West in the 
 days of the Civil War and trying so desperately now 
 to be honest and clear in her thinking. Lucy, she told 
 me, almost with a groan, it s like being Abraham, my 
 dear except that my Isaac is a girl, who needs me more 
 than ever before since she was my baby ." 
 
 "She is counting on Steve," my sister went on. 
 "Dorothy has talked so much about his calm neutrality, 
 that I dread his coming home!" 
 
 "When is he due?" 
 
 "Next month, I think." 
 
 Steve s home-coming was delayed; but meanwhile 
 another member of the family appeared, to drive my 
 aunt a little farther on the path she dreaded so though 
 his aim was just the opposite. In March my cousin Ed 
 arrived from his ranch in Nebraska. Strong as a bull, 
 with heavy features and clear stolid practical eyes, he did 
 not look like one easy to change. I remember the night 
 when with his mother he came over to dine with Lucy 
 and me. 
 
 "This country will never get into this fight," he 
 declared decisively. "The whole West is dead against it. 
 The farmers are more prosperous than they ve ever been 
 before buying autos, and not Fords at that. And the 
 patriotic yowls of these wealthy Wall Street leagues only 
 make us more set in our minds. In order to pile up 
 profits for them, we don t propose to lose billions of 
 dollars and maybe millions of our boys in a fight we have 
 nothing to do with. There "are so many pros and cons 
 to this war. There are so many foreigners out our way, 
 and from them we hear both sides we hear it till we re 
 
BLIND 275 
 
 sick of it! To us it s all a tangle, a rotten diplomatic 
 snarl! We can thank God we are out of it and we 
 propose to stay out, too! We re prosperous and con 
 tented; and there s not a chance on God s earth, or an 
 argument, that can bring us in !" 
 
 "I don t agree with you, Edward!" said his mother 
 sharply. We looked at her in surprise. Her lips com 
 pressed, her color high, she spoke in a stern unnatural 
 tone. "If it does grow clear, as it may, that this war is 
 really for justice and liberty all over the earth, the West 
 will certainly respond. The West is deep in its real 
 devotions it takes time to rouse that side. But if it 
 ever is aroused, then neither its prosperity nor any such 
 selfish motive as that nor even the lives of its dear sons 
 will keep it from following the flag as it has always 
 done before !" 
 
 He looked at her in blank dismay. In spite of his 
 heaviness, Ed was very fond of his mother. Some 
 inkling of the trouble ahead came into his thinking. 
 
 "What will Dorothy say to this?" he asked in a low 
 anxious tone. "If we ever should get into this " 
 
 "Not now !" She stopped him with her hand. "I won t 
 face that till I m sure," she said. "It may still be that 
 you are right. But I cannot and will not sit still," she 
 ended, with another stern glance at her son, "and allow 
 the West to be described simply as a prosperous land!" 
 
 The family confab soon broke up; but there were 
 other family talks, in ours and countless other homes 
 throughout the land in those groping days; and the 
 balance swung this way and that. Steve came back late 
 in the spring; and at once, as I had been before, he 
 became the target for questions from the family. Tommy 
 had come home from school. Huskier, harder, tougher, 
 it seemed as though the boy had grown a foot in the year 
 since I d seen him last. His left arm was in a sling. 
 "Hockey," said Tommy briefly. With his big homely 
 
276 BLIND 
 
 freckled face all aglow with eagerness he fired questions 
 at his Dad; and the rest of us did the same. As Steve 
 quietly tried to answer us all, a quizzical look was in 
 his eyes; but then with a grim expression he said, 
 
 "I don t like the Germans never did but no one 
 who honestly faces the facts can be there and not admire 
 the way they re making their resources count. It s a 
 damnable miracle, that s what it is damnable because 
 it s wrong. It s all so clearly for the sake of forcing our 
 whole civilization into the most infernally scientific 
 systematic comfortable slavery that the world has ever 
 seen. I don t believe you people here even dream of 
 what a danger there is that we ll be driven into that 
 unless America does her share!" 
 
 Three little personal tragedies or rather, their begin 
 nings flashed out for a moment then. 
 
 "You mean we ought to fight, Dad?" Tommy asked, 
 in a queer tense voice. Steve turned with a start and 
 looked at him. 
 
 "Yes, son, I think we should," he said. 
 
 The next instant I saw Lucy s hand close like a vise on 
 Tommy s arm. 
 
 And then I heard Aunt Amelia ask, 
 
 "Are you sure of that, Steve absolutely sure?" 
 
 She had risen rigid, quivering. Steve went to her 
 and took her hand. 
 
 "Don t you want me to go home with you now? I 
 want to see Dorothy," he said. 
 
 "Thank you, Steve." 
 
 He took her home ; and when he came back to us that 
 night, he said quietly, 
 
 "I had a long talk with them both, and at least the 
 suspense is over. Dorothy knows that her mother is for 
 our going into the war and she knows how we feel 
 and she admits that there is some sense in our point of 
 
BLIND 277 
 
 view as I admit there is in hers. As soon as I can, 
 I ve promised to take her out to her brother s ranch. 
 In the meantime you d better leave her to me. She s a 
 case for a neurologist now. That s what these so-called 
 patriots who fight their battles all at home have suc 
 ceeded in doing to her," he said. 
 
 5 . 
 
 So in millions of family groups the discussions went 
 on through the summer; and in at least a million 
 homes were people who felt as Dorothy did. That 
 is what the people of France and England will never 
 understand. In the autumn I had a chance to see the 
 result of these numberless arguments. For long before 
 this the idea for a play dealing with Germany in the war 
 had come into my head ; and soon the old play fever had 
 me once more in its grip. I tried to be fair to the Ger 
 mans still; but the arrogant tyranny of Berlin kept 
 crowding into all my scenes; and the more I wrote the 
 deeper grew my feeling that, if Germany won, it was 
 goodbye to democracy or peace or progress in the world 
 for many generations to come. Moreover, in rehearsal 
 the actors got out of control. The British hero insisted 
 on being all hero, while the villain from Berlin would 
 be nothing but double-dyed. And so, watching the 
 crowded houses to which we played in small cities and 
 towns was like feeling the pulse of the country, at least 
 in the East. And even the East that autumn showed 
 itself still balancing. Though the villainous Prussians 
 were properly hissed, even by the gallery, I saw many 
 that smiled at the hisses or whispered angrily to their 
 friends ; while as for the British hero, the applause was 
 dangerously light, and his lines were even greeted at 
 times by a few titters or even a laugh. But among the 
 well dressed New Yorkers who came to our play on 
 
278 BLIND 
 
 opening night, there was no such neutrality. The house 
 went wild against Berlin; and the British hero, with a 
 French and Belgian victim upon either side of him, 
 responded to such curtain calls as made my anxious 
 manager chuckle and clap me on the back. 
 
 I went out then to Seven Pines. Dorothy had already 
 gone west and was slowly getting herself in hand; but 
 as the great crisis drew steadily closer, her mother s wor 
 ries for her increased. The Christmas gathering that 
 year was a good deal of a mockery. The future was 
 dark, unsettled, confused. Tommy alone was in high 
 spirits. He told how some of the boys at school had 
 already formed a company. His mother sharply cut him 
 off. I could see her watch him anxiously. Aunt Amelia, 
 still unbeaten, with a plucky attempt at her old smile, 
 but with a slight tremor in her voice, said at the end of 
 the evening, 
 
 "I hope that when next Christmas comes, the world 
 will be happier, my dears." 
 
 But now for me all personal feelings were lost in the 
 deepening national strain. As the messages went back 
 and forth between Washington and Berlin, I could feel 
 the pulse of the nation beat with a swifter warmer throb. 
 I saw other plays like mine playing to crowded houses. 
 The bookshop counters were piled high with war books 
 of every description. The newspapers seemed nothing 
 but head-lines. Flags appeared in front of some houses; 
 and when I went out to dine, people could talk of noth 
 ing but war. Yet still there were forces holding us back. 
 I went to many crowded halls down in the tenement 
 sections and found a sea of passions there. Bitter pro- 
 Germans spoke their contempt for the many German- 
 Americans "running to cover" on every side; Irishmen 
 shouted furious orations on the "British tyrants"; Jews 
 declaimed against the Czar; Socialists of every race 
 
BLIND 279 
 
 hung doggedly to their creed of the past and thundered 
 the old Marxian phrases into the on-rushing storm. It 
 was the same in the meetings of the patriots uptown. 
 The thinkers were being forced to the rear; the shouters 
 had the platforms. But under all the surface where these 
 little pigmies stormed, I could feel the tides beneath 
 steadily forcing us into the conflict. What all the leagues 
 engineered from New York had failed to effect with 
 their warnings, the President of the United States was 
 now swiftly bringing about by an appeal to the old 
 ideals of liberty and justice, together with the summons 
 to a crusade to end all war and make the world safe 
 for democracy. This perhaps would not have succeeded, 
 had not the Imperial Government hastened the process 
 by a display of such contempt for America, such blatant 
 open assurance that we could not count in time, that the 
 Yankee righting blood was roused. 
 
 "To hell with those damned Dutchmen!" 
 This summed up the gist of it for many exasperated 
 men. Even Ed s letters from the West showed a dis 
 turbed uncertainty and a deepening wrath against the 
 Germans for "acting like such pig-headed fools." Even 
 the people out his way were getting sick of it, he said. 
 Every day it grew more sure. America was going in. 
 And then goodbye to the morale of the German people, 
 I told myself. 
 
 With this hope I tried to allay the anxiety of my 
 aunt. She had fully made up her mind to the war- 
 but how would it be with Dorothy ? My cousin was still 
 with her brother out west, but even the West was chang 
 ing now; and we saw deeper complications ahead if the 
 fighting should go on to the days when American boys 
 from all over the land were upon the firing line. When 
 the lists of killed and wounded arrived, how would they 
 treat "pro-Germans" here? Resolutely my brave old 
 
280 BLIND 
 
 Aunt Amelia put such fears aside and held grimly to 
 the hope that the war would come to an early close. In 
 this hope I supported her. The German people could 
 never hold out. By autumn we should see the end. 
 
 6. 
 
 But the vast struggle overseas, ever widening and 
 changing, with startling new developments, now gave to 
 little men like me another of its mighty jolts brought 
 me up with a jerk, as it were, upon the edge of a preci 
 pice and grimly bade me look again into the strange 
 years ahead. 
 
 I was lunching at my club one day when suddenly the 
 word went round that the Russians had risen against 
 their Czar. In a moment the whole room was a-buzz, as 
 eagerly we launched upon a new ocean of war-guessing. 
 In our state of mind, those days, determined to make alt 
 news good, we were soon assuring each other that noth 
 ing better could have been imagined. High time those 
 chaps got rid of their Czar and built up a free country 
 like our own. Moreover, the Czar and his court had 
 been pro-German to the core. This revolt was led by 
 men who proposed to carry the war straight through to 
 a finish; in Petrograd a strong group was already in the 
 saddle. Yes, decidedly we approved of this Russian 
 revolution! It cleared the issue so nicely just as we 
 were coming in. For the dark old Russian government 
 had been an embarrassing ally. . . . But at crowded 
 meetings large and small in the foreign sections of New 
 York, I was given an impression of the Slav upheaval 
 which would have shocked my countrymen. This was 
 no mere bourgeois coup d etat to help the Allies against 
 Germany. This was the blow-off of the lid ; this was 
 to be a rising against all bourgeois governments in 
 every country on the earth, to sweep the capitalists 
 aside and bring the proletariat of the world into 
 
BLIND 281 
 
 its own! Talk like this I heard down there; and dis 
 count it though I did, I could feel that the Great War 
 had changed. Risen to a climax in that rigid system I 
 had seen in Germany, now it was apparently about to 
 swing to the other extreme. Old memories rose up in 
 me of the socialist dream for mankind. How much of 
 it was possible? How much was possible in this way 
 all at jump through violence? 
 
 But events here followed thick and fast, and I had no 
 time for Russia now. I remember taking the Presi 
 dent s big war speech off the ticker one night. That 
 settled it we were in at last. I went down to the 
 crowded streets below. People from the theaters were 
 hurrying as usual along Forty-second Street to catch the 
 suburban trains. I heard or saw few signs of excite 
 ment. The newspaper vendors along the way shouted 
 extras into their faces, and snatching the papers the 
 crowds hurried by. Suddenly I remembered those other 
 crowds on the Friedrichstrasse, hurrying, hurrying, 
 hurrying, each intent on his little affairs, while the old 
 woman had flourished her papers and screamed, "The 
 Future!" at them. The future what would it be? 
 
 I turned into Park Avenue, walked a few blocks and 
 then stopped short for through the open window of 
 an old-fashioned red brick house came the sound of a 
 piano and voices singing a marching song of the Civil 
 War. I thought of Aunt Amelia. "The flags may have 
 to come put again. But they re terrible flags." In front 
 of the houses down the street they hung motionless in 
 the still night air. The street was almost empty. Only 
 a dump cart passing by. 
 
 In my father s home I found the family gathered 
 around young Carrington and two of his friends, with 
 whom he was discussing the merits of three army rifles 
 which were passed from hand to hand. His face was 
 set in an eager scowl. Young Carrington was practical. 
 
282 BLIND 
 
 His thoughts were bent on how to "get over" just as 
 soon as possible. On account of his previous training he 
 felt sure of getting into the first officers training camp, 
 and he had a hundred things to attend to. When his 
 friends were gone he rapidly unloaded various business 
 details on Dad, who was plainly proud of his son. Then 
 my young brother turned to me. 
 
 "How about you, Larry?" he asked. "What are you 
 planning ?" 
 
 "I haven t decided." 
 
 "How old are you?" 
 
 "Forty-two." The youngster looked at me critically. 
 
 "You might have a chance," he said. "But the hell of 
 it is that in your case they would probably keep you 
 on this side." 
 
 "Oh, I m not so sure of that," I replied. The fact was 
 that the idea of enlisting had never entered my head 
 till then. But this night was rapidly changing things 
 and besides, I was decidedly peeved to have this young 
 ster so obviously lay me on the shelf. 
 
 "Once you re in," he reminded me, "they ve got you, 
 and you lose your chance of making any choice of your 
 own. You d hate to get stuck at a desk job in the army 
 over here. While as a correspondent," he added, "you ve 
 got a name and you re needed in France. You can get 
 right across and see the whole show." 
 
 "I m getting sick of seeing things," I retorted 
 doggedly. And this idea of enlisting began to take hold 
 in the next few days. At my club I found that scores 
 of my friends were asking the same question: "How 
 about me?" The war had become abruptly a personal 
 matter to each one. Some bored me with their pros and 
 cons. Others kept their thoughts inside, but you could 
 see it in their eyes. Quite a few looked veritably tor 
 tured. With me it did not get that far. I was six-feet- 
 
BLIND 283 
 
 two, thin, stoop-shouldered, with long bony wrists and 
 hands and when I tried to see myself dolled up as a 
 fighting man, my sense of humor entered in. Besides, 
 what I did seemed so unimportant. All my life I had 
 been a watcher; and there were such big things happen 
 ing now, events following one another pell mell. More 
 and more I had a sense of being swept along on the tide. 
 Let my own little future take care of itself. 
 
 7. 
 
 I had a telephone call one day from the editor of my 
 paper. 
 
 "How about going over to France and seeing our first 
 preparations there? * 
 
 "It doesn t appeal to me." 
 
 "How about Russia?" 
 
 "I m thinking of that." 
 
 "Good. Come down and talk it over." 
 
 "All right in a day or so." 
 
 But the days passed and I did not go. The two plans 
 kept pulling opposite ways to go to Russia and see all 
 that, or to quit my writer s job and get into the army, 
 lose myself. Already quite a few men I knew were 
 reading army manuals and cramming up on how to 
 fight; and to keep that path still open I joined a train 
 ing corps in town. I remember the first drill night in 
 a big shadowy armory. Several thousand would-be offi 
 cers had already come into the hall, paid five dollars and 
 entered their names, and were crowded against the walls, 
 some with serious faces, others with fixed unnatural 
 smiles, while a few score officers and non-coms from the 
 regular army shouted out orders. 
 
 "All those men who drilled last week go down to that 
 end of the hall!" 
 
 "Come on," said the fellow next to me, an angular 
 
284 BLIND 
 
 alert little chap who had just remarked that this was his 
 first evening. "Let s take a chance and bluff it out! 
 We ll get on faster!" 
 
 We moved down to the end of the hall, where amid 
 quick shouted orders many platoons were being formed. 
 In half an hour the whole hall was a mass of marching 
 men. And to the sharp, explosive, "Right left!" of 
 the officers, and the heavy tramp of feet, an American 
 army was being born. But what an army ! As my squad 
 went by a huge gun, I saw two officers sitting on top 
 and surveying us with quizzical looks. I smiled up at 
 them, and the younger man smiled back in a way which 
 made me say to myself in disgust, 
 
 "Fat chance I have of getting across. I ll get in and 
 there I ll be sidetracked somewhere in a camp while 
 over in France the fighting ends, and in Russia the whole 
 radical movement of the world will be settled one way or 
 the other! I ll miss that too!" 
 
 But tramp, tramp all over the hall. I was in the spell 
 of it again. 
 
 I remember a lovely afternoon out on Governor s 
 Island. The big bare aviation field jutting out into the 
 harbor was dotted with small groups of men marching 
 about with wooden guns. "Rest!" cried our sergeant 
 abruptly. We wiped off the sweat and talked for a 
 while. There were sixteen of us, mostly clerks. The 
 wiry little man on my right turned out to be a dentist. 
 
 "This is the biggest thing I ve seen," he confided earn 
 estly, "since I left Peoria." 
 
 On my left was a stout youth with a good-natured 
 freckled face, who said, 
 
 "I m out here because of the boss. He told the whole 
 office this morning that anyone who d come out and 
 drill could always get his afternoons off. And that s 
 me," he added with a wink. "Why not? It s pleasant 
 weather. And I dunno but what I ll enlist. Maybe I 
 
BLIND 28 
 
 will and maybe I won t. But say ain t we a peach of 
 an army?" 
 
 My eyes followed his out over the field, and watching* 
 those awkward little squads I remembered the regular 
 tides of men I had seen sweep by in Germany. How 
 could we hope to get ready in time? As the sun sank 
 into the haze of the west we heard the boom of the 
 sunset gun. Then a bugle call. "Attention !" The word 
 was shouted far and near. And a moment later all over 
 the field those several hundred pigmies stood rigid as so 
 many pegs hats off while in the distance the band 
 played the national anthem. 
 
 "Gee!" said the little dentist. "That got me!" 
 
 It was only a few days later that my editor called me 
 up: 
 
 "Look here, I m getting tired of this. When are yoti 
 coming down to talk?" 
 
 I went to see him late that night. The paper was 
 already going to press. He came out in his shirt sleeves, 
 with a contented scowl on his face, his gray hair tumbled, 
 pipe in his teeth. 
 
 "Come on into my den," he said, and there he soon 
 got at my indecision. "Don t be a damn fool, Larry,* 
 he urged. "The war can t last long, now we re in it 
 their whole show will soon break down. And all that 
 you ll get out of it will be a health cure here in camp. 
 You ll have thrown away your one big chance which is 
 to go to Russia, son. You re fitted for that, it s right 
 in your line you ve mixed with the Reds and know 
 their game. Go over and get under the skin of what 
 they re really doing there. That s what we all want to 
 know. What are they up to ? What does it mean ? This 
 thing is bigger now than war. If in Russia, why not 
 somewhere else? God only knows where it ll stop. Come 
 on, now, look at it sensibly." 
 
 That week a long letter came to me from my old 
 
286 BLIND 
 
 friend Oberookoff. In the most extravagant terms he 
 described the glories of the great new soul of Russia 
 now all factions uniting, quarrels ending, gloom and 
 suspicion and despair and bitterness all swept away in 
 a dazzling tide of hopes and dreams. Russia freedom 
 justice brotherhood a queer new world. How much 
 of it was really true? 
 
 I started for Russia early in June. 
 
 "Oh, Larry," said Aunt Amelia, with a shining light 
 in her eyes, "what a tremendous experience you are going 
 to have, my dear!" 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 1. 
 
 THE Russian Revolution, that sombre vast adventure, 
 is so far from finished still, its measureless possibilities 
 for the happiness or the misery of all humanity so 
 obscure, that I can get no large clear view. With some 
 men this is not so. They feel they can speak with 
 authority; and taking one side or the other, they are 
 quite sure about it all. As a rule they have never been 
 in Russia, but this does not hamper them; they take 
 all the bad or all the good they hear of the Soviet 
 Regime the rest they disdainfully throw aside, and so 
 building their high mountains, they look down with clear 
 superior eyes. But each of us has his own mountain to 
 build ; and in these times of censorship, of passion, preju 
 dice and lies, the humbler mountain builders have not 
 yet raised their little hills high enough to see over the 
 trees. So at least it has been with me. I look back into 
 Russia and I see a dark prodigious tumult with blind 
 ing flashes, dazzling vistas then again clouds. What is 
 happening there ? Why did not these "civilized govern 
 ments" send into Russia long ago hundreds of fair- 
 minded men really equipped to get the facts? There 
 are so many things I want to know! I am blind. I sit 
 here and look back. I have but a chain of memories, 
 impressions of a foreigner who without even speaking 
 the language plunged into that stormy land. 
 
 But dreaming of my memories, gradually I have 
 grown aware of the presence in this room of a few new 
 figures, men and women, whom I met in the Great Revo 
 lution. Some I had almost forgotten. Strange how close 
 
 287 
 
288 BLIND 
 
 they seem to me now, as with those other monitors they 
 gather around me : 
 
 "Brother the truth." 
 
 I will do the best I can. 
 
 2. 
 
 Our small Norwegian boat was packed with Russian 
 Reds returning home, and I struck up an acquaintance 
 with a fellow in the steerage who had come from a 
 Nevada mine. Years before as a boy he had escaped 
 from a Siberian prison, crossed the Pacific, found work 
 in the mines and had been pretty much all over the 
 West. He spoke a broken choppy English. Stunted and 
 tough, he was almost a dwarf; but he had friendly 
 twinkling eyes, and the soul of him was big with 
 dreams. He was not for peace with Germany. 
 
 "Fight the Kaiser fight like hell because if we 
 don t, and Germany wins, he ll march right in with 
 T. N. T. and our whole revolution then won t be worth 
 a God damn cent. Understand? We ve got to fight till 
 his people kick him off his throne and give him a job in 
 the subway," he said. "Then give all kings and all rich 
 people jobs in subways understand? at good fair 
 wages. Treat em right for they are fellows like our 
 selves and they must have not any more, not any 
 less than all of us. If they work they can vote if they 
 don t they are bums. And so we fellows all together 
 miners too will make a new world. No French Revo 
 lution no chopping off heads it s out of date. We ll 
 do it right- we ll get together plan it out get every 
 thing running. No more wars, no diplomats, no people 
 starving, no little kids dying, no more strikes. We 
 won t get mad. Whenever we do we ll quit it. Now 
 fellows be sensible, get together/ That kind of talk. 
 We ll run the mines and railroads, and factories and 
 cities, too we ll plan it out. Slow work understand 
 
BLIND 28& 
 
 all kinds of trouble. But by God, when we get 
 through," he ended in a husky tone, "we ll have a world 
 free from one end to the other!" 
 
 Months later when I met him, this chap was gaunt 
 and worn /to the bone, but his wide jaws were clamped 
 like a vise. He was in a uniform dirty and torn; he had 
 fought at first in the trenches, and later as the chaos 
 spread he had gone along the front, speaking to crowds 
 of mutinous soldiers, urging them to keep up the fight. 
 A job where a man took his life in his hands. I won 
 der if he is living now? 
 
 As our ship with its load of dreamers sped up toward 
 the midnight sun, it was as though all darkness were 
 being left behind us. Vividly I remember one night. Just 
 to the south were the Faero Islands, black, mountainous, 
 rising out of the sea. To the north the great sun sank 
 out of sight below the shining horizon, in a brief hour to 
 rise again. There was not a breeze to ruffle the waters. 
 The gleaming golden ocean took on iridescent hues that 
 melted into those in the sky, until there was no dividing 
 line between the heavens and the sea. All the world was 
 bathed in color, strange, unreal, a mighty dream. In the 
 steerage, a small group of men, and two women and a 
 child, were at the rail staring off to the north. In low 
 intense voices these men had been talking. One of the 
 women stopped them now. And as they stared in silence 
 at that golden ocean, there seemed to be a promise there 
 of some distant golden age. 
 
 But the dream was brief. In a hard garish jumble 
 come the memories of the next few days, as on crowded 
 trains we went far up to the head of the Bothnian Gulf, 
 ferried across to Tornea and so came to the Russian 
 frontier. A fresh new glorious land of the free? No, a 
 nation sick and tired, worn with its heavy heritage of 
 war and tyranny behind. My first impression was like 
 that. For as we waited for our train, I took a stroll 
 
290 BLIND 
 
 along the tracks; and reaching far as I could see back 
 into the forest were enormous piles of boxes, barrels, 
 war supplies, machinery, food. They were sorely needed 
 in Russia now, but the war and the revolution had 
 broken the railroad system down. I heard the gay music 
 of a band, and looking down to the ferry dock I saw a 
 small group of Red Cross doctors and nurses there. 
 Another boat had just come in; and in a few minutes, 
 up the slope across the tracks to a line of box cars in 
 the yard, came a long slow procession of ghastly figures, 
 men and boys. A few of them hobbled along by them 
 selves; more lay on stretchers, waxen-faced, mere skele 
 tons, consumptives, cripples. They were from German 
 prison camps, had been exchanged and were coming 
 home, many to die, and all to add to the load of gloom, 
 disease and despair that the war had bequeathed to the 
 revolution. I heard one of them gibber as though insane. 
 I went back to the station and found the platform 
 crowded now. Soldiers and trainmen with dull faces but 
 intent and serious eyes were listening to the speeches 
 shouted upon every side by my fellow travelers from 
 New York. Certainly they had lost no time in getting 
 into the argument! I learned that a railroad strike was 
 just about to be called on this line. God only knew when 
 we should get on. But this was nothing; the minds of 
 the speakers had soared tip to larger spheres. Land fof 
 the peasants, bread for the workers, peace for all! So 
 shouted a little Bolshevik who had come over in the 
 steerage, while a large angry Jewess who had come in 
 the first cabin shook her Menshevik fist in his face, 
 denouncing him as a German spy and a traitor to the 
 socialist cause. Was there not already confusion enough? 
 The only chance for socialism was to apply it with com 
 mon sense and moderation, she declared. The gist of 
 these speeches I managed to get through the little man 
 
BLIND 291 
 
 from Nevada. I followed him down the platform to a 
 group of trainmen there. He talked to them rapidly, 
 earnestly. What about this railroad strike? He had no 
 doubt that they were in the right but why not let this 
 one train start? Here was a big crowd of Reds come to 
 help in the revolution. Let them get on to Petrograd! 
 And there up the track were two hundred poor devils 
 from the German prison camps, who would die if left 
 in the woods. 
 
 "And they are fellows like ourselves. Give them a 
 chance, brothers. Don t leave them here to die like 
 dogs." 
 
 His words began to have effect. Finally it was voted 
 that the train should be allowed to start. So, with our 
 wheezing old locomotive and a long train of dirty cars 
 half of them filled with wrecks of the war, the other 
 half with pioneers and prophets of the revolution 
 with puffs and pants and screeches of wheels, we pulled 
 out into the yards, past those acres of war supplies, and 
 started down through Finland into Holy Russia. 
 
 All the next day and part of the night we travelled on 
 with many stops, and about one in the morning we came 
 into Petrograd. The sun had not yet risen, and in a gray 
 uncertain light we came out of the long low dirty station 
 into an equally dirty square. Here was a row of small 
 open hacks, all in a state of dilapidation, with huge 
 wooden yokes over the necks of the wretched little 
 horses. The drivers were all bundled up in thick wadded 
 filthy clothes; like their horses, they looked dead with 
 sleep. And in my tired mood that night the whole city 
 seemed oppressed with the dirt and sin of generations. 
 The very air was heavy with the wood smoke from the 
 chimneys. With another correspondent I got into a little 
 hack; and rattling over the cobbled streets between tall 
 silent tenements we kept passing shadowy groups of 
 
292 BLIND 
 
 inen and women, boys and girls, who walked along talk 
 ing in that strange tongue, their loud voices beating 
 against the walls. 
 
 We came to the old Hotel de France. Grim greeting 
 from the proprietor. The waiters and porters and cham 
 bermaids had gone on strike that day, he said. Wearily 
 lugging our bags along we followed him up broad flights 
 of stairs and through a dark smelly labyrinth of long 
 narrow carpeted halls. In the room allotted to me, dirty 
 water stood in the wash-bowl, empty bottles lay on the 
 floor, and the bed had not been made. On the tumbled 
 sheets lay an old pink corset. Peevishly I threw the 
 thing into a dusty corner. I undressed and got into bed. 
 Broad daylight now, the cold gray dawn. All Russia, I 
 decided, was like the morning after. As I drifted into 
 dreams, the bed grew larger, larger. 
 
 "This bed is Russia," I growled to myself. "Millions 
 of people have slept in it, millions of people have lived in 
 this room. And the dirty little chambermaid has swept 
 everything under the bed. Nice birthplace for a clean 
 new world." 
 
 3. 
 
 On hot sultry days and nights I wandered down the 
 Nevsky watching its tumultuous life its ugly rasping 
 trolley cars bulging with humanity, its dense street traf 
 fic crowding, crowding, countless little open cabs, army 
 trucks and ambulance cars, long processions of peasant 
 carts piled with sheep, hogs, bags of grain, mounted Cos 
 sacks with their caps stuck jauntily down over one ear. 
 On either side this teeming way were slowly moving 
 throngs of people the dullness of civilian clothes relieved 
 by gaudy uniforms and the garb of Gypsy women, monks 
 and beggars, Black Sea sailors, Tartars, Georgians, many 
 more half the races of the planet, talking a harsh babel 
 of tongues. Soldiers everywhere in the throng tramped 
 
BLIND 293 
 
 along with slouching gait, a few saluting officers, more 
 passing with derisive grins. No limousines, no liveries, 
 no sparkle or dash of fashion here. Long lines of people 
 at shop doors, waiting for a chance to buy a little sugar, 
 bread, tobacco. Thinking of the revolution ? Not by any 
 manner of means. People scuttling for trains, mothers 
 with children, mischievous boys, and prostitutes, and 
 gay young people, chattering, laughing, crowded by. 
 Happy people, scowling people, worried, peevish, busy 
 people each engrossed in his own affairs. In an open 
 cab a woman passed with a tiny blue coffin in her arms. 
 And at night, in one of the canals that intersect this 
 thoroughfare, upon a barge piled high with logs I 
 watched a peasant and his little son stolidly cooking sup 
 per over a stone fireplace in the stern of the clumsy craft. 
 Faces quiet as the forests out of which those logs had 
 come. And even the city seemed quiet that night. 
 
 But beneath this quiet I could feel the ever deepening 
 suspense. The revolution was four months old; the first 
 great burst of happiness and hope and faith was left 
 behind; and while the government of Kerensky already 
 tottered to its fall, every little citizen of the groping new 
 republic asked, "What next? And what will it mean 
 to me ?" In a dark corridor of my hotel I came around a 
 corner and nearly ran into a woman who was coming 
 the opposite way. With a quick start and gasping breath 
 she broke into violent sobs and went running down the 
 hall. Just a woman with nerves? But I saw so many 
 faces with nerves, not alone but in hundreds. On the 
 street in an instant crowds would form. Loud furious 
 talking, hysterical eyes speakers arguing on all sides 
 some well-dressed and others ragged, men and women 
 and even young boys, who flourished their thin little 
 arms and pierced the din with their shrill cries. And 
 before the newspaper bulletins stood throngs of people 
 day and night reading the news from the Russian front, 
 
294 BLIND 
 
 news of the widening revolt, strikes and upheavals of all 
 kinds Russia strained to the breaking point with the 
 Great War and the Great Revolution bursting out, then 
 dying down. I thought of the crowds three years before 
 upon the Friedrichstrasse, and of the old crone who had 
 screamed the name of her newspaper into their ears. Die 
 Zukunft what would it be ? 
 
 Suddenly there burst like a storm the first Bolshevist 
 insurrection. All one sultry afternoon thicker and thicker 
 gathered the crowds, until by night the Nevsky was 
 packed for a mile with a black solid mass, through which 
 in two narrow lanes rushed big trucks and automobiles 
 bristling with bayonets, packed with students, workmen 
 and soldiers, shouting and scattering proclamations over 
 the heads of the multitude. Speakers ranted on all sides, 
 red flags appeared by hundreds, songs were heard; and 
 as night drew on, denser, denser grew the throng. All 
 at once from just ahead of me the hard deep rattle of a 
 machine gun started instant panic here, and I felt the 
 wild power of the mob. No shrieks or calls, but rush 
 ing feet, the hiss of bullets overhead and the heavy 
 crash of plate-glass windows as the frenzied people 
 hurled themselves into the shops. Every fellow who had 
 a gun seemed to be shooting at random now. I had 
 thrown myself face downward, and others were flop 
 ping all about. Two landed right on top of me. In a 
 moment I felt a hand grasp mine and I swear I cannot 
 tell you whether it was a man or a woman whose hand 
 I held through the rest of the storm! 
 
 In a few minutes the firing ceased almost as abruptly 
 as it began. Gone were the crowds, and on the curbs 
 sat soldiers and workingmen in long lines quietly smok 
 ing cigarettes and talking things over. What a people! 
 Again and again in the next few days did these street 
 battles suddenly start and as quickly end till at last 
 the Kerensky government once more got the upper 
 
BLIND 295 
 
 hand. I lived in the streets till one afternoon, in a cab 
 with a friend, I heard him say, 
 
 "Hello, old man, what the devil s wrong?" 
 
 And then I pitched into his arms. 
 
 4. 
 
 "It s the water and the black bread and all the rest 
 of their rotten food," the English doctor told me. But 
 he was wrong, for I have a digestion like a goat. It was 
 the revolution. For a week I kept to my room, in bed at 
 first and then at the window, glad to quiet down and 
 rest. I re-read Kipling s "Kim" and smoked, and 
 watched the life in the courtyard a great square well 
 with entry-ways like tunnels to the world outside. Here 
 were enormous piles of wood, and in a slow and leisurely 
 way two men were adding to the pile with logs brought 
 in on huge wheeled carts. At an open window across 
 the way a woman watered geranium plants; in another 
 three Scotch Red Cross nurses sat chatting and laugh 
 ing over their tea, and on Sunday sang "Lead Kindly 
 Light." At a window just above them, a large black- 
 bearded Russian in a red silk blouse sat smoking, and 
 once in a rich baritone he sang some plaintive Russian 
 airs. Below in the court from time to time the hotel bus 
 would rumble in, and as the old driver unharnessed his 
 horses he talked to them softly or made a whistling hiss 
 ing sound. The deep voice of the city was a rough low 
 hubbub here, but out of it came sudden voices, laughter, 
 shouting, day and night. 
 
 What were they all up to? A turgid ocean of dreams 
 out there, and hopes and passions, feuds and quarrels, 
 surging up on every side, and extending out in wave on 
 wave to the North of China, down to Persia. How could 
 I dig into it all? Oh, for an interpreter and guide! 
 There were plenty such to be had. but each was set on 
 interpreting from his own little point of view Bol- 
 
296 BLIND 
 
 shevik or Menshevik, Kadet or Czarist take your 
 choice. 
 
 "What I m looking for," said one of my friends, "is 
 just a simple plain damn fool." 
 
 I thought of Oberookoff. I wired to the small town 
 where he lived, and at the end of another week he 
 arrived to show me the revolution. He limped as he 
 came into my room, for he had been badly wounded in 
 the first year of the war. He looked much older; at 
 forty-eight his hair was almost wholly gray. But he was 
 still tall and powerful. With the old familiar genial 
 smile, he lugged in an enormous bag, in which in addi 
 tion to books and clothes there was a pillow and a 
 blanket. He would sleep right here on the floor, he 
 declared. He was so happy he all but hugged me. With 
 tears in his eyes he poured out his questions about Steve 
 and Lucy, Tommy and my Aunt Amelia. Then we came 
 to the business in hand. 
 
 "Well the revolution! It goes splendidly!" he 
 cried. "We must not stay long in Petrograd, but go to 
 Moscow Russia is there ! Then we shall go to the little 
 towns and the villages. The deep Russia is there ! Here 
 it is like the funeral place of a weak sick unhappy old 
 man. All the diseases are left in the room. The first joy 
 of our freedom is gone and in America you would say 
 that in this city there is a great grouch. Men scheme and . 
 criticize till they are sick. Then they throw up their 
 hands and say, Neechevo which means, It is noth 
 ing. What is the use ? They are like that. They were t 
 made like that ever since they were born by the bad 
 education of their souls. For they got such a habit of 
 criticizing the rotten government everywhere that they 
 cannot lose this habit now, even when the government 
 is one that they have made themselves. This bad habit 
 they must lose. They must come together like sensible 
 brothers, every man s spirit strong with faith and they 
 
BLIND 297 
 
 must push the government on. But this means education. 
 We must start with the littlest kids. Schools by thou 
 sands must be built, and great splendid colleges, in every 
 corner of the land. And these must send students all 
 over the world to learn and make friends in other lands. 
 Then wars will cease." 
 
 "But how about this war?" I asked "My newspaper 
 keeps cabling. They want to know if Russia will fight." 
 
 "Of course we must fight!" Oberookoff declared. "We 
 must fight to the last drop of blood! But what do you 
 Americans know about the cost of fighting?" he con 
 tinued sadly. "You have yet not even begun. Three 
 years ago I was wounded. It is nothing. Most of my 
 friends are dead. I saw them give their souls to God. We 
 have given more blood than all the Allies ten million 
 killed or wounded, or dead of diseases and fearful 
 plagues. But of course we must fight. If we do not, the 
 Kaiser will spoil our revolution. We must fight till his 
 people are free men. And we must make our own coun 
 try so beautiful, so strong with work and strong with the 
 happiness of all, that other nations will do the same 
 and then we shall come together as friends. But this 
 means education," he repeated impressively. 
 
 He repeated it from time to time, all through those 
 discouraging weeks we spent together in Petrograd. The 
 deeper the chaos, gloom and despair, the warmer burned 
 this villager s faith. He was wonderful, this "simple 
 damn fool," this lame country teacher with his great 
 dream. A child, a father, a kind quiet friend, bearing 
 with all my impatience and irritable outbursts I remem 
 ber clearly still his homely face and smiling eyes. Often 
 he seems to be here while I write. But I remember little 
 or nothing of the men with whom we talked in the big 
 government buildings. In dreary succession, they rise in 
 my mind unreal as so many phantoms now. Some of 
 them had been working hard for long weary baffling 
 
298 BLIND 
 
 weeks, but they felt themselves so hampered and bound 
 that they were ready to throw up their hands. For the 
 great machine of government was hopelessly stalled; it 
 would not start. On the one side, the prodigious con 
 fusion coming from the war; on the other, the swiftly 
 deepening chaos of the revolution. 
 
 "How can we attend to both at once ?" one official bit 
 terly exclaimed. "Why do you Americans and French 
 and English keep demanding of us only, Will you fight ? 
 We have Russia on our hands with a mighty revolu 
 tion here ! And to us and to you this is more vital even 
 than the war itself. For if you will not help us now, this 
 nation will go whirling down into such confusion as 
 will spread like fire over the earth !" 
 
 So spoke these men who were vainly trying to hold 
 the great rebellion back. Oh, for a sensible revolution! 
 In those hot and stagnant weeks the practical Yankee 
 soul within me boiled with exasperation at times. If only 
 these queer people would get rid of their "great grouch/ 
 their "neechevo" their shouted dreams clashing each 
 upon the others; pick one radical scheme from the lot 
 and give it a fair try, work it out and meanwhile keep 
 their armies a little longer at the front a few months 
 more and the world would be safe from the Kaiser s 
 little dream for us all! But the mood would pass; and 
 drawn again into the vortex close about, my mind would 
 be held spellbound by this gigantic whirl of events, out 
 of which a new world was being born. 
 
 5. 
 
 I was watching now the Soviet. Late one afternoon 
 we came to the rambling palace of yellow stucco built by 
 Katherine the Great for one of her lovers long ago. 
 There was a lovely park behind it, with a little lake; 
 and in front was a courtyard, in which the grass and 
 shrubbery had recently been trampled down. There were 
 
BLIND 299 
 
 wings on either side this court, with huge columned 
 porticoes. We entered between the bayonets of two sol 
 diers there on guard, and went through to the Catherine 
 Hall, long, immense, rectangular, with high narrow gal 
 leries on each side and lofty windows at the ends. 
 Through these windows streamed the sunlight, and the 
 shining paths it made were swarming thick with mil 
 lions of tiny particles of dust, which rose like smoke 
 from the chaos below, in which millions of bitter mem 
 ories, passions, hopes, desires, dreams, had swarmed 
 and whirled in these last months. 
 
 For the Great Revolution had centered here. Here, 
 where in the days gone by the immense ballroom had 
 been filled with the wealth and glitter and gaiety, the 
 dancing, gambling, drinking of Russia in Great Kather- 
 ine s time, now the common herd had come in; and the 
 place still seethed and smelled and echoed with the dirt 
 and din. Long lines of soldiers, their guns stacked, lay 
 dead asleep upon the floor. Others were drinking tea or 
 soup from huge pails and kettles, and eating chunks of 
 black bread. Bits of food and refuse, rags and old papers 
 still littered the floor; heavy animal smells hung in the 
 air; and amid a harsh vibrating din, soldiers and sailors, 
 workmen and peasants, tramped about or stood in a 
 crowd which was being addressed by a pale-faced youth 
 who shouted down from a stairway. 
 
 With difficulty getting a pass to the chamber where 
 the Deputies met, I succeeded at last and took my seat, 
 with Oberookoff beside me, in the small press gallery. 
 It was a square low ceilinged hall. A skylight threw a 
 soft gray light on the men below, in long semi-circular 
 rows, a few of them writing or reading, some leaning 
 back with cigarettes but more with elbows on their desks 
 and scowls of absorption, listening hard to the man in 
 the high speaker s box. This was the All Russian Coun 
 cil of Workmen s and Soldiers Deputies. Four hundred 
 
300 BLIND 
 
 men in sober gray suits or in blouses white or brown or 
 black. The broad white and blue collars of sailor suits 
 gave some color here and there. To my surprise I 
 noticed some fifty officers uniforms; and nearly a third 
 of the Deputies wore on their breasts the small white 
 cross of the university graduate. Far from riotous, this 
 crowd, intent and silent, listening to speeches which for 
 the most part lasted but a few minutes each and were 
 delivered in tense low tones. 
 
 Here was the real seat of government, the storm cen 
 ter of ideas. The life of a nation in fever surged into 
 this old palace, and I grew absorbed in these messen 
 gers from the turbulent land outside. From cities, ugly 
 factory towns, from villages buried in forests or scat 
 tered along rocky coasts or over the limitless rolling 
 steppes, petitioners came clamoring in. What costumes! 
 Men from all over the North of Europe and Asia seemed 
 to be here ! Whole delegations, in they marched. From 
 mines and mills and factories, to demand that all these 
 be given at once into the hands of the workers them 
 selves. Down with the bosses! Why throw out the 
 Czar, if the real tyrants were still to be left in control of 
 the daily lives of the people? Others came from Fin 
 land, Esthonia and the Ukraine, from Poland and 
 Siberia, demanding freedom and self-rule. And from 
 the Russian fleets they came to demand that admirals be 
 arrested and insurgent leaders freed; and from the 
 armies at the front, to inveigh against the reforms of 
 Kornilov. No more discipline! No more war! 
 
 And from the numberless villages, where more than a 
 hundred million peasants toiled on wretched plots of soil 
 with tools and ploughs all worn and broken from the 
 long strain of the great war, they came to demand both 
 land and tools. Let the land of the private estates be 
 seized and given to their use. Let peace be made and 
 their young sons sent back to the farms that needed them 
 
BLIND 301 
 
 so. Else Russia would soon be a starving land! And 
 then let the revolution cease; let the workingmen go 
 back to their jobs, to make the clothing and the shoes, 
 the tools and ploughs and horseshoes, and all the other 
 simple things the peasants needed on their farms. Else 
 they would no longer sell food to the cities ! 
 
 Oh for a sensible revolution! One might as well ask 
 the Great War to be nice. There were moderates in the 
 Soviet, but though still in the majority they went about 
 with worried eyes. For the eighty Bolsheviki here, 
 though downed by overwhelming vote in every trial of 
 strength they made, still with a cheerful arrogance con 
 tinued their insistent cry: 
 
 "Bread for the Workers! Land for the Peasants! 
 Peace for the World 1" 
 
 For they knew that the surging masses outside were 
 back of them in their demands. A group intense, devoted, 
 arrogant, intolerant, ready to tear the whole world 
 down. Nothing half way, no compromise, no careful 
 adapting, no deliberate change. The whole business at a, 
 jump ! I disliked them because, as it seemed to me, they 
 were doing such an easy thing. It is easy to touch a 
 match to a house. How about the women and children 
 inside ? As the great Mirabeau once said, "To tear down 
 is the work of pigmies. It takes giants to construct." 
 And these men did not seem to me giants; they seemed 
 rigid, narrow, small. As my little miner friend from 
 Nevada told me bitterly one night, when he had come 
 back from the front. 
 
 "They want to hog this whole revolution! Not a 
 chance for your view or mine ! I am a Red, too under 
 stand but I belong to a different crowd of Reds from 
 theirs. So to hell with me I must swallow their view 
 or get a bayonet stuck in my throat! God damn these 
 Bolsheviki !" 
 
 So much for my first impression. My feeling was 
 
302 BLIND 
 
 changed to some degree, and not a little clarified, by a 
 man I met about this time. I needed a new interpreter. 
 In that dirty old palace of din, poor Oherookoff had 
 become so depressed, so glum and wretched, that he was 
 almost useless now. I must hire another pair of ears. 
 And through the inquiries I made I came upon a large 
 tall man with thick brown hair and beard, brown eyes 
 with a steady clear expression looking directly into mine. 
 He spoke English with barely a trace of accent, in a 
 deliberate manner, with frequent stops, each word articu 
 lated clearly. His voice was invariably low. He was 
 one of the Bolsheviki. This fact he stated frankly during 
 the first talk we had. 
 
 "All right," I said, "I should like to get the point of 
 view of you fellows." 
 
 "That should be easy," he answered calmly. Then he 
 looked at me. "But it will be hard." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "You are different," he said. 
 
 I went with him to the Soviet. Through many long 
 tense sessions I remember his low voice in my ear, in 
 brief phrases now and then giving me the run of the 
 talk; but the speeches that I heard are a mere jumble to 
 me now. They all group together in my mind behind 
 one talk I had with him. While eating a greasy supper 
 in a dirty restaurant, we happened to be speaking of the 
 Russian calendar, different by thirteen days from the 
 calendar in other lands. It must of course be changed, 
 he was saying. 
 
 "Hello," I remarked with a little surprise. "This hap 
 pens to be my birthday." My companion smiled at me. 
 
 "Yes? And it is mine," he said. "In what year were 
 you born?" I told him. "So was I," he answered. 
 
 Then for a time we tried to picture the two spots on 
 the face of this earth where we two men had begun our 
 lives on that day of long ago. In reply to his questions I 
 
BLIND 303 
 
 told him something of Seven Pines, of Aunt Amelia, 
 Dad, my boyhood, school and college and New York. 
 
 "My experience was not the same," he said quietly 
 at the end. "On that same day I was born in a room 
 which was damp and hot, half under the ground, in a 
 very poor little town near the Baltic Coast. As you 
 know, I am a Lett. My father ran a small restaurant. 
 It was poor and filthy. Workingmen came there to eat, 
 and to drink tea and vodka. Often at night they would 
 shout and fight till the smell of their sweat was bad to 
 breathe. We lived behind in two dark rooms. The first 
 thing in my life I remember is a journey I made one 
 night by creeping in under the restaurant tables. I got 
 a kick from a man who was drunk." He broke off and 
 looked calmly back. "It was like that," he continued. 
 "Later I went to a little school but the teacher was a 
 drunkard and had a disease in his stomach besides. I 
 learned almost nothing. At fourteen I joined a circle 
 of students and young workingmen. We talked of revo 
 lution. I borrowed books of many kinds and read them. 
 Then my father died, and by working hard with my 
 mother I made our restaurant pay enough so that I could 
 go to a gymnasium (high school). After that I hoped 
 in some way to get into a university. 
 
 "But in 1905 came the first revolution. It failed 
 because we allowed the bourgeois liberals to control. 
 Take the safe and sane road/ these gentlemen said. 
 Their road led back to such a reaction as made even 
 them indignant but by that time they were helpless 
 the Old Regime was again on top. Thousands of revolu 
 tionists were executed or died in prisons. Hundreds of 
 thousands were exiled. I was one. I was sent to Irkutsk 
 which was not so bad, for we have a large city there* 
 I became a teacher in one of the schools. I already knew 
 German. Now I learned French and English, too and 
 I taught these languages. They are useful to Internal 
 
304 BLIND 
 
 tionalists. Later I escaped to Berlin, and taught Russian, 
 French and English there until last March. Then I came 
 back." He was silent for a moment. "Yes," he con 
 cluded, "from that day when you and I came into the 
 world, my experience has been different." 
 
 "As different," I ventured, "as Russia and America." 
 
 "As different," he corrected me, "as being rich and 
 being poor. As a writer you have to some extent left 
 the bourgeois world of thought. But your life has been 
 easy, and for that cause you cannot deeply feel the need 
 of changes sharp and sweeping at any risk come what 
 may. Like our liberals of 1905, you would have us take 
 the safe sane road. But we know where that led us in 
 1905 and where it is leading us today. Kerensky and 
 his moderate friends, both socialists and liberals, are sin 
 cere and they mean well. Why is it they do noth 
 ing but talk? Because they re afraid to make the great 
 changes, take the leap into the dark stop the war, give 
 the peasants the land and the workingmen the factories, 
 take over the whole government. My party will win," he 
 continued, "because we are ready to take that leap. 1 
 
 "Into the dark," I reminded him. He looked at me 
 calmly. 
 
 "Yes, you are right. But we are ready to assume the 
 full responsibility. Long ago we saw clearly the fatal 
 mistake that was being made by socialists in every land 
 to wait patiently till they had v;on a majority at the 
 polls. We decided this was foolish that all real prog 
 ress in the past had been made by minorities, courage 
 ous enough to take the leap; and that it was also dan 
 gerous, because the bourgeois governments would force 
 the issue to civil war before they would let it come to the 
 polls. So we shall seize the power at the first opportunity 
 now and within a few years the mass of men, with 
 fear and oppression off their backs, will come around 
 to our point of view. Then we shall have democracy. 
 
BLIND 305 
 
 "If we wait till the end of the war, it will be too late," 
 he said. "The bourgeois in the meantime will have come 
 into control. So we must make peace at once and begin 
 to build a new Russia here. Let Germany win the war, 
 we say. It will make no difference. For our idea is 
 stronger than that of the Junkers in Berlin. It will pierce 
 into Germany and all other lands as well. And the world 
 will then be safe for the masses who have for cen 
 turies performed all the dirty heavy labor and had only 
 poverty in return." 
 
 So this man summed up his creed. And he was so 
 blunt and honest that I think if he were with me now 
 (and often he seems indeed to be here) he would admit 
 that his party has been driven by events to yield the 
 rigid principles for which they fought the moderates 
 and "hogged the revolution." For out of all the rumors 
 and lies about the Soviet Regime, this much at least 
 seems to be clear. They have built up their power by 
 compromise all along the line forced by grim realities 
 to give up, at least for years to come, their communistic 
 scheme for the land and let the property-loving peasants 
 practically own their little farms; forced to take back 
 the old employers; managers and engineers, at enormous, 
 salaries, into the factories, mines and mills, to bring some 
 semblance of order out of the committee mob-rule; and 
 in the army and navy forced to restore rigid discipline, 
 including even the peine de mort against which in former 
 days they stormed as the very essence of the formef 
 tyranny. They have compromised. And among them 
 selves a new minority group has arisen; bitter against 
 the "bourgeois gang" surrounding Lenine in his govern 
 ment. 
 
 So by upheavals, jerks and turns, this queer old world 
 moves slowly oh. But who can say they were wholly 
 wrong? Was the Bolshevist seizure of power a* happen- 
 ing good or bad for the essential progress and happiness 
 
306 BLIND 
 
 of all mankind? It is perhaps too soon to tell. But to 
 me it seems, as I sit here and quietly try to think it out, 
 that the deep angry forces which have shaken the world 
 since then were let loose by the war itself and not by 
 any one group of men, and that what is happening today 
 would have happened in any case. It was bound to be 
 so. To that extent at least this war has made of me a 
 fatalist. 
 
 6. 
 
 In such a mood there comes to me the memory of a 
 little man I chanced to meet in Moscow. We spent an 
 unforgettable night. 
 
 There with Oberookoff, for some days I had given in 
 to the charm of that lovable friendly old town, which 
 seemed so quiet and serene in the face of the impending 
 storm deep sunk in ancient memories, with its crooked 
 hilly streets, its palaces, its theatres, its churches, 
 churches everywhere, their shining spires, rounded 
 domes, green or a deep vivid blue. Their bells, some 
 harsh and jangling, but others low sepulchral booms, 
 kept summoning all Russians still to turn their eyes 
 tip to the heavens and the everlasting God. How deep 
 it seemed to burn, this faith. Even in the busy streets 
 I would come upon a motionless throng gathered before 
 some holy shrine like a cavern set among the shops, with 
 its candles large and small gleaming softly from within. 
 The sweet heavy odor of incense would come out of the 
 dark little place, and a wailing burst of voices singing. 
 And it seemed as though the whole revolution had for 
 the moment dropped out of their lives. But on the faces 
 of passers-by I noticed smiles of derision for this fuss 
 and mummery. One day in a shadowy old church I 
 found a woman kneeling before a tiny figure of the 
 Christ-Child in a coffin there. She was whispering 
 tensely, rapidly. Close by in the semi-darkness sat two 
 
BLIND 307 
 
 young soldiers watching her one of them solemn and 
 round-eyed, the other with a puzzled frown. 
 
 And I saw this same puzzled look upon many faces 
 one lovely summer s afternoon in a courtyard of the 
 Kremlin, which rises out of the heart of the town, its 
 palaces and churches encircled by old fortress walls. 
 Here in ages long gone by the Czars of All the Russias 
 had come to receive their power from God. I sat with 
 Oberookoff near a dark grandiloquent giant, a great 
 bronze statue of a Czar. Three middle-aged soldiers, 
 dirty and ragged, came and stood staring up for a 
 moment ; then they turned without a word and wandered 
 aimlessly away. A man and a woman came with their 
 child, a little girl in a blue cotton dress. They sat down 
 on the bench and looked up at the Czar, talking in low 
 voices. The small girl kept solemnly gazing up, till a bird 
 lit on the outstretched arm. Then she nudged her 
 mother and pointed to it silently. A whole crowd of 
 young soldiers came tramping along, smoking, spitting; 
 and talking in loud confident voices. They stopped and 
 for a moment I saw again those puzzled scowls. Then a 
 low laugh and various jokes, and much amusement over 
 this Czar. Later two little Chinamen came and stood 
 squinting up at that dark face. An old man and a boy 
 in peasant clothes stopped longer here than all the rest; 
 and as they slowly went away, several times they turned 
 to look back as though some specter were behind. 
 
 "It is interesting," said a voice. 
 
 Not far away sat a thin little man with a pointed 
 black beard and quizzical eyes. He spoke English very 
 brokenly. With a smile and a shrug he gave it up and 
 spoke in his native tongue : 
 
 They are like children. Is it not so? What have 
 we done? they are asking. And what shall we do? 
 What shall we build in place of this?* All Russia is 
 like that, * he said. "Frankly, I see nothing ahead. 
 
308 B L I N TJ 
 
 Samson is shaking the pillars, and the whole temple is 
 crashing down. As for me, I closed my office this week. 
 My workingmen demand so much that I cannot go on. 
 Better hide what little money is left and so keep alive as 
 long as I can. But after all, why should I complain? 
 For I was an architect, and when I think of what I tore 
 down and of what I built in its place, I see that I, too, 
 was bringing about a revolution." He smiled and said, 
 "Perhaps it would amuse you to come and see what I 
 have done." 
 
 He took us to his apartment, and though it was but 
 four o clock he asked his servant to get us some supper. 
 The walls of his rooms were crowded with pictures, 
 photographs of paintings, and worn bits of tapestry. He 
 brought out some heavy folios filled with old engravings 
 of Moscow homes in years gone by and country homes 
 on the great estates. He was called away to his tele 
 phone, where he entered into a long conversation inter;- 
 spersed with jokes and chuckles. 
 
 "She is a wonderful girl!" he declared, when at last 
 lie had finished. "So bright and gay and full of life 
 and such a clever comedienne that already at nineteen 
 she has made an enormous success !" 
 
 Surely the Great Revolution did not weigh heavily on 
 his soul. After a very sketchy meal, we went out, and 
 in the deepening dusk and on into the evening we 
 explored the quieter streets of the town, where he showed 
 me many lovely homes of faded pink or yellow stucco, 
 hidden treasures of the past, many half in ruins now. 
 He talked of the balls and banquets there and the 
 grandeur of long ago. Many of these houses had large 
 cobbled courts behind, surrounded by long rows of huts. 
 In days gone by, the owners had driven in from their 
 country estates each autumn bringing many serfs not 
 only household servants but carpenters and blacksmiths, 
 
BLIND 309 
 
 shoemakers and tailors, bakers and these courtyards 
 with their huts had been like walled in villages. 
 
 He asked what Russian books I had read; and while 
 we talked of Tolstoy, he took me to a garden shut off 
 from the street by a high wall. Looking through the 
 gateway, far back across the garden I saw a great low 
 building of faded yellow stucco with a wing on either 
 side and many slender columns of white. Built into one 
 end was a little chapel. 
 
 "It was there, in War and Peace/ that Natasha was 
 married to Pierre." 
 
 What a curious little man to come across in a revolu 
 tion! And yet, for all his love of old homes, he had 
 torn dozens of them down and had built in their places 
 large six floor apartment buildings in the style of modern 
 Berlin. 
 
 "Moscow is doomed she must become a town of 
 apartment buildings," he said. "This is the revolution 
 that I have helped to bring about and so I have no 
 right to complain." 
 
 Other invaders had pushed in huge garish gorge 
 ous modern homes built by the rich manufacturers and 
 merchants of this changing town. Slowly but surely, 
 year by year, they had crowded the old families out. 
 But now, before they had time to finish, they in turn 
 were being pushed and crowded by their workingmen. 
 
 "Their serfs have risen," said my guide, "and mean 
 while out in the country the children of the serfs of the 
 past are looking at the old estates with greedy and impa 
 tient eyes. So it goes on, this Great Revolution. The 
 beginning was in France more than a hundred years ago. 
 It is but half finished now, it has only reached its climax. 
 People in the future will look back on these two hundred 
 years as one immense transition from the world of 
 serfs and nobles to what? Ha ha, my friends, to 
 what?" 
 
310 BLIND 
 
 It was quite dark when we stopped in front of an 
 immense old palace, once the home of a Grand Duke. 
 Now a throng of soldiers and workingmen poured in 
 and out; for it was become headquarters of the Moscow 
 Soviet. 
 
 "This is history," said our guide. "But I am hungry. 
 Shall we eat?" 
 
 At first it seemed that we would not, for it was close 
 to midnight and even the small cafes were dark. But at 
 last upon a side street we found a wretched little hole 
 frequented by cab-drivers. Several cabs stood at the 
 curb, and around the narrow entrance were grouped a 
 dozen women and girls with skirts to their knees and 
 bright colored shawls drawn over coarsely painted faces. 
 Oberookoff did not like it, but we pulled the poor devil 
 into the place and found seats at one of the bare dirty 
 tables. Greasy dishes stood about. The floor was wet 
 and filthy, and there were flies innumerable on the low 
 ceiling and the walls. The room was crowded to the 
 doors with drivers, workmen, soldiers, peasants, drink 
 ing tea and eating bread and villainous sodden cutlets. 
 The prostitutes were kept outside by order of the gov 
 ernment, but a number of big peasant women were here 
 with baskets of vegetables at their feet. Near us sat 
 a heavy old peasant with long curly hair nearly down 
 to his shoulders, a filthy sheepskin over his back; and 
 over in one corner sat a man with a withered leg and 
 arm, a pale lean face and big feverish eyes. He was in 
 ragged, working clothes with a soldier s cap on the back 
 of his head. At a table crowded close to ours a tall 
 young soldier with sandy hair was smiling at two others 
 who had just come in with bags on their shoulders. 
 
 "From the front?" he asked them. 
 
 "Yes," said a short dumpy one. "I had the rheumatics 
 in my back such pains as would have wrung groans 
 from a horse. For three years in all kinds of weather 
 
BLIND 311 
 
 I did nothing but shoot and throw bombs and each 
 bomb cost as much as a sheep and I killed nobody, 
 brother. Now I am going back to my village to get my 
 share of the new land." And they talked about the land 
 for awhile. "I am glad to get out of the army/* he con 
 tinued presently. "Such shouts and kicks you must 
 walk just so every move of leg or arm. And I got so 
 used to that it was hard, when the revolution came, 
 to keep down my hand from saluting my captain to let 
 him understand I am free," he added with a dignified 
 frown. "Before the revolution, my captain used to taF 
 to me and I used to say, Just so - But now he says 
 am a free man and he smiles at me, the devil ! An 
 what did he do for his country? All through the wa 
 he slept every night with a beautiful Red Cross sister- 
 while I was leading all the time the hard life of 
 soldier! Yet now he only smiles at me, and asks s: 
 many questions it is hard to think them out. You mus ; 
 not reply, Just so/ he says, for now you are a free maix 
 my boy, and all Russia is in your hands/ And he put: 
 many things together into my head in such a way, it K 
 hard for me to think at all. And then he smiles, the 
 villain! And one night when he was smiling so, he 
 puts his pistol to his head and crack! he gives his 
 soul to God !" 
 
 Such bits of talk were translated for me by the quiz 
 zical little man at my side. How much was true, I could 
 not tell. The crowd as a whole was quiet enough, but 
 underneath the hubbub of rough low voices all about I 
 could feel a pent-up tensity. A spruce young sergeant 
 with black mustache and clear kindly smiling eyes kept 
 walking about among the tables. He was here to keep 
 order, I learned. All at once a dispute arose close to the 
 door. A soldier was trying to bring in one of the prosti 
 tutes from the street ; and the proprietor of the place was 
 excitedly protesting. A dozen men jumped to their feet 
 
 
312 BLIND 
 
 and surrounded the trio, laughing- and shouting. Then 
 the young sergeant pushed into the group, laid his hand 
 on the newcomer s shoulder and smiled, said a few 
 friendly words and got the girl out There was quiet 
 again in the restaurant. But a few minutes later the 
 same fat painted red-faced girl came in with a jaunty 
 young officer who, when the sergeant came up to them, 
 gave him a haughty stare and said, 
 
 "You need not tell me of the law. I am a Russian 
 officer. I take full responsibility." 
 
 With a troubled hesitating look the young sergeant let 
 him by; and he took the girl to a corner table, where iri 
 a few moments they were joined by two young ensigns. 
 Then a middle-aged workman in a black suit growled to 
 his companions: 
 
 "Fine way to help the revolution. There was never a 
 time when every man should obey the law as he should 
 now!" 
 
 "It s all wrong!" said a soldier loudly. "He says he 
 is an officer and can do anything he likes ! But he can t, 
 by God we re as good as he is! The law is for all!" 
 Up came the sergeant. 
 
 "Never mind, boys. Now never mind " 
 
 "Why never mind? Why should we obey? Why is 
 this law needed anyhow?" 
 
 "To stop the syphilis, brother. It is eating up the 
 whole army here. You know how it is." 
 
 "Then why let him bring in a girl?" 
 
 "Wait, wait I will soon get them out." 
 
 But a moment later in limped the tall thin workingman 
 with the withered leg and arm. He, too, had a girl ; and 
 when he was stopped, his pale sick face went suddenly 
 red, and he shouted furiously, 
 
 "If they can do it, why can t I?" 
 
 "Well, tovarisch (comrade)," said the sergeant 
 steadily, "are you going to fight me?" 
 
BLIND 313 
 
 "No ! I have nothing against you ! Let me come in !" 
 
 "Not with the girl." The sergeant held him by the 
 arm. "And as for those officers, brother, it will be bad 
 for them later on," he added in a lower tone. 
 
 "Yes, it will be bad for them !" the tall cripple shouted 
 in a high tense quivering tone. He shook his fist at the 
 ensigns. "You are a fine dirty crowd!" he screamed. 
 "You defended the Czar and now the whores!" 
 
 The young officers smiled, tried to look unconcerned 
 but half the crowd was on its feet. 
 
 "Kill the bloody monarchists!" "Let them obey the 
 law like us!" "Throw them out!" "They wear the 
 red badge of the revolution but they want the Czar back, 
 the Czar!" "Here, boys, grab them! Lend a hand!" 
 
 Out of the scuffle, din and blows, the shouts and 
 shoves, the screams of a girl, a dense throng surged 
 toward the door. And the three young ensigns, red with 
 rage, were pushed and kicked out into the street while 
 after them a workingman and a stout peasant woman, 
 who had the painted girl between them, sent her with 
 a shove from the man and a resounding slap from the 
 woman. 
 
 "Let s go out and kill them, boys!" the tall cripple 
 yelled, brandishing his arm. But the sergeant managed 
 to quiet him down. Soon the whole crowd had sub 
 sided, chuckling over the affair. 
 
 "Let us go," said OberookofT. The little architect 
 smiled at him and said in broken English, 
 
 "The past you see? those officers. The present 
 the young sergeant. The future the man with the sick 
 arm." 
 
 "You are wrong!" Oberookoff cried, his kindly face 
 all quivering. "The real Russia is not in a hole like 
 this! Even here you see how kind they are and how 
 they obey among themselves the laws of the revolution! 
 They are children ! All they need is schools ! You will 
 
314 BLIND 
 
 see when we go to the country how the peasants love the 
 land. And there they are shrewd they know the soil. 
 They are not stupid cattle but wise men ! Look at their 
 proverbs and their songs! All is going well, my friend 
 this revolution will not fail ! All they need is a chance 
 to earn their bread and not starve, as they have in the 
 past and schools to teach their children!" 
 
 The little architect laid his hand on OberookofFs arm 
 and said, 
 
 "I hope it will be like that, brother." 
 But I could still see the smile in his eyes. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 1. 
 
 THE next day we set out for the country district in 
 which Oberookoff had been born. We left the city early 
 at night. It was raining, and under the wooden shed 
 that covered the platform by our train arc lights at 
 long intervals threw yellow glares on the crowds below. 
 We had come early to get a place, and having piled our 
 bags on our seats we came out again on the platform. 
 It was of cement, worn deep in places, and it oozed with 
 damp and mud. There was a train on either side, and 
 the platform teemed with people. Among them gleamed 
 the bayonets of the soldier station guards. There were 
 Cossacks here and there, and a group of Tartars play 
 ing cards on a packing box. One of them, a huge squat 
 soldier, joked in a hard gutteral voice. A bright-faced 
 little woman sat on a pile of bags nearby. She was 
 pregnant. A baby lay in her arms and two small girls 
 lay asleep at her skirts upon the muddy pavement. A 
 bottle of milk was by her side, and a small chunk of 
 black bread. The bottle was. empty. They had been 
 here since five o clock in the morning, she said, smiling 
 up at us. There was such a rush for every train that 
 each time they had been crowded back. Oberookoff 
 went to the open windows of a car that was literally 
 jammed with men, women and children, sitting and 
 standing. No chance of getting her in through the 
 door; but he made an appeal on her behalf, and through 
 an open window the two little girls, the baby, the bags, 
 and finally the small mother herself, were boosted up 
 into the mass inside, amid much laughter and kindly 
 
 315 
 
316 BLIND 
 
 advice. "Easy with her easy boys!" What a time 
 for a woman big with child! 
 
 The first bell had clanged, and the second; and now 
 with three harsh whangs on the gong the train moved 
 out with screeching wheels amid a tumult of good-byes, 
 with its heavy load of humanity bound for distant cities, 
 towns and little villages to what strange stirring scenes 
 of change ? some to go down in the chaos ahead, others 
 to survive and live on into the new Russia. I think of 
 the bright little woman now, and I wonder if her child 
 were born? 
 
 A few minutes later, we took our places on our train. 
 The people in this stifling car were a cheerful animated 
 lot. They kept calling, laughing, gesturing to friends 
 below the windows, and passing out money for cigarettes 
 or small kettles to be filled from a steaming faucet 
 nearby. Many were drinking tea inside. It was dark 
 and hot in here, with blue clouds of tobacco smoke; but I 
 heard the twang and tinkle of a balalaika and several 
 voices singing, and there was a constant hubbub of talk 
 from soldiers, sailors, peasants, priests, workingmen, 
 shopkeepers. From the narrow berth just over our seat 
 the tousled head of a soldier could be seen, and his 
 snores were heard. A perfectly enormous man, who had 
 been an artillery officer, was joking with two young 
 Jewesses in our double seat below. A woman doctor, in 
 blue silk cloak thrown over a white uniform, soon gayly 
 entered into their talk, and now they were all going it 
 hard while on a valise in the aisle, a slim youngster of 
 sixteen in a blue student uniform listened with dark eager 
 eyes. They talked of the land and the peasants and the 
 failure of the crops, the lack of food in the cities, the 
 dearth of wool and cotton goods, the graft and specula 
 tion, the break-up of the armies. Dismal news at every 
 turn yet they seemed thoroughly to enjoy this gossip 
 
BLIND 317 
 
 of the debacle. The stout artillery officer was so 
 solemnly ironical and his jokes were appreciated so. 
 
 The slim young student in the aisle still smiled as he 
 listened to the talk, but there was a worried gleam in 
 his eyes. He was living alone on his country estate with 
 his mother and two sisters, he said; and though he 
 joked about the demands the peasants were making on 
 them now, plainly he felt anxious, this only man in a 
 lonely house, with a revolution surging on. He was rest 
 less. He kept going from group to group along the 
 aisle, listening intently and with that same unnatural 
 smile to what each group was saying. All up and down 
 the dim hot car the grim gossip of disaster went cheerily 
 on without a stop, as the train rushed through the humid 
 night, between dripping, motionless forests. 
 
 2. 
 
 About midnight we left our train at a desolate little 
 station upon the outskirts of a town, and in a dilapidated 
 cab we were driven to an inn. It was a small square 
 building, two and a half stories high. The proprietor, a 
 black-haired little man, led us up steep flights of stairs, 
 his candle flaring in the draught, and ushered us into an 
 attic room with two little old beds, a white tile stove 
 and three rounded deep-cut windows. Although it was 
 midnight, he cheerfully said that of course we could have 
 supper; and in a few minutes a stout peasant girl came 
 up the stairs in her bare feet, with a tray on which was 
 a bowl of soup, fried steak and potatoes, cucumbers, and 
 a generous loaf of white bread the first I had seen 
 for many weeks. 
 
 "You see?" cried Oberookoff, beaming. "We are in 
 the country!" 
 
 The proprietor soon followed with a large brass 
 samovar; and after we had eaten he drank tea and 
 
318 BLIND 
 
 smoked with us, and settled down for a good Russian 
 talk. Angrily jerking out his words, he complained of 
 the high prices, graft and confusion everywhere. 
 
 "If there is not bloodshed soon, it will be a miracle!" 
 he said. "The peasants have their fists in the air. You 
 know how the Russian muzhik is. You say, Do this 
 and he does it. But always if he sees a chance he will 
 come on your fields at night and mow your clover, steal 
 your tools. And now he is quite drunk with his chances. 
 The younger peasants and soldiers have chosen deputy 
 devils here their Soviet/ they call it. But things can 
 not go on like this. The men of my kind in every town 
 will unite all over Russia and there will be a monarchy ! 
 Do you imagine that the Czar abdicated of his free will? 
 No, they grabbed him by the nose and said, Sign here 1 
 How blind he was! He should have persuaded the 
 Allies to send in their armies, and he himself should have 
 led them all against the Germans. This for a show. 
 But to the Allies he should have whispered, My throne 
 is shaking! Help me with troops to keep order here! 
 
 "We are not fit to be a republic. Look at all these 
 soldier bums! It is harvest time! Yet here they loaf, 
 while the crops are spoiled and we who must suffer 
 next winter say, Oh, you free eaters!* How they eat! 
 Of honest work they know nothing whatever. They 
 shout and quarrel, these hooligans, and don t even know 
 how to carry out the wild rules of their own revolution. 
 Prices, taxes, orders, laws all are mere words and 
 figures that buzz in their stupid heads like flies till they 
 scratch their thick skulls and seem to be asking, Who 
 are all these little birds flying around in my poor head? 
 
 "But a strong man will come in Russia. So it has 
 always been in the past. When Ivan the Terrible abdi 
 cated, the Boyars made a great hurrah and went on a 
 regular spree. But the next day he said to them, So 
 you thought I had gone, you devils! May fiends with 
 
BLIND 319 
 
 their claws scratch the souls of your mothers! He cut 
 off their heads and put them on spikes, so that all the 
 people could understand. And so it will be. These 
 bums will eat and loaf and shout until at last starvation 
 comes and then a strong man will arise to put us in our 
 places, by hunger and the lash, my friend !" 
 
 Throughout this angry tirade, poor Oberookoff again 
 and again threw into his interpretations such little bits 
 of his own as these : "He is wrong absolutely !" "This 
 is not true !" And when our host had left, he said, "Wait 
 till we get to the country." 
 
 "I thought we were already there," I remarked malici 
 ously. 
 
 "This the country?" he said with contempt. "No, this 
 is nothing but a town ! Tomorrow we shall drive twenty 
 versts out into the real Russia !" 
 
 For a little while I lay in the dark listening to the occa* 
 sional voices and the tramp of feet below, bursts of 
 laughter, distant cries, and men s voices singing. Then 
 I heard a hard clear rattle. It stopped, but was repeated 
 and each time louder, nearer. I asked my companion 
 what it was, and he answered sleepily, "The watchman 
 going about on his rounds." Presently it died away, 
 that thin little sound which stood for the law and order 
 of generations now gone by. ... All Russia waiting, 
 drifting, swept along on an ocean tide. ... I fell 
 asleep. 
 
 3. 
 
 The next day was bright and sunny, and we set out 
 to find two men to whom I had letters of introduction. 
 One of them was a liberal prince who had been the head 
 of the Zemstvo (district legislature) here; the other was 
 a young Bolshevik who belonged to the local Soviet. It 
 was a large and straggling town, with cobbled streets and 
 dwellings of brick or stout brown logs, with deep little 
 
320 BLIND 
 
 windows the frames of white or red or blue. Every 
 where tramped soldier lads with dull good-natured faces, 
 dirty clotHes. At one point on the narrow main street, 
 hundreds of them were standing about or sitting on the 
 curbs in rows, or crowding up to the open windows of 
 a big log school house listening to the voices that came 
 from a room inside. Here was the local Soviet. I 
 caught but a glimpse of them at a table. One was pound 
 ing it with his fist. 
 
 "We must have a look at this," I said. 
 
 Over the kindly features of my interpreter, guide and 
 friend, there spread a patient abused expression. As a 
 lamb to the slaughter he led the way to the room inside, 
 ;where a dozen young soldiers and peasants sat with maps 
 and ledgers in which they were entering all the private 
 estates of the locality, with the amount of woodland, 
 swamps and cultivated soil in each; and they were mak 
 ing lists of the peasants among whom all was to be 
 divided. Some were arguing angrily, their hot hair 
 soaked and matted with sweat. A sallow- featured 
 shrewd young man sat listening, smoking a cigarette. 
 He turned out to be my Bolshevik. Reading my letter 
 quickly, he led the way to a quieter room; and into my 
 little opening speech he broke with an impatient smile. 
 
 "I don t care who you are," he said. "We have noth 
 ing to hide. Ask your questions." He was a Moscow 
 workingman who had been born in a village nearby. "I 
 know these peasants like myself." He was one of 
 thousands sent from the cities to organize the little 
 towns. "And the joke of it is, we are strong enough 
 to make our old employers pay us wages while we are 
 here. We are forcing the bourgeois of the towns to 
 pay to destroy the bourgeois of the country districts," 
 he said. It was high time. For the landowners were 
 using the priests and the richer peasants to strengthen 
 their party, the Kadets, and so hold back the revolution. 
 
BLIND 321 
 
 He was here to head that off. Already they had turned 
 the landowners out of the local Zemstvo and filled it 
 with men whom they could trust. And now the real 
 power was right in this room. 
 
 "There are two big jobs to put through," he said. 
 "Get peace and give the land to the people. Both are 
 easy, the peasants want both. They are shouting for 
 peace in every village; and they want land and they 
 want it all. And that is just what the landowners won t 
 give them. For fifty years in the Zemstvos these gentle 
 men have spouted Humanity and Progress here 
 reforms, reforms! But the one reform that is needed 
 most lis that they should give up their land to the 
 peasant get off his back , as Tolstoy said. In many 
 ways he was an old fool, but there at least he spoke the 
 truth. What right have they to their estates? Did they 
 ever sweat to till the soil? So now we are going to take 
 their land and make it national property, and lease it to 
 the peasants the rent to be counted into their taxes." 
 
 While Oberookoff, glum and troubled, translated what 
 had been said to me, the young workingman listened 
 with a grim smile. 
 
 "How long are you here?" he asked; and when I 
 replied that I wanted a look at the big estate of Prince 
 Ivan Petrovitch, his smile broadened and he said, "By all 
 means go to his estate. Let him tell you all the reforms 
 he has made and then look at his peasants in their 
 huts, and see what good it has done them." He added, 
 "And remember besides that this old Prince is at least 
 an honest liberal. There are others in this district who 
 are working day and night to put us back under the 
 Czar. That is why we keep troops here in the town." 
 
 Abruptly he rose and went back to his work. And 
 Oberookoff, quivering with righteous indignation, fol 
 lowed me out to the street. 
 
 "Here in the town he thinks himself strong but wait 
 
322 BLIND 
 
 till we get to the villages ! Twenty versts from here you 
 will find that they never even heard of this fellow ! Then 
 
 you will see " 
 
 "The real Russia," I said. "All right, Oberookoff, 
 lead the way !" 
 
 4. 
 
 Ivan Petrovitch was standing in front of the small 
 courthouse, looking absent-mindedly at the soldiers 
 down the street. A tall massive stoop-shouldered 
 elderly man with a heavy beard and spectacles, in an 
 old linen duster and slouch hat, with a black portfolio 
 under his arm, he looked to me more like an old fashioned 
 professor than a prince. At sight of OberookofT, his 
 kind heavy features lighted up in a friendly way. He 
 grasped my hand and in broken English urged me to 
 come and make him a visit; and early in the afternoon 
 he came for us in an open carriage, a low creaking little 
 vehicle, the cushion leather worn away and the old har 
 ness patched with rope. The two rotund little ponies 
 were owned by the peasant driver. The Prince had sent 
 his own horses long ago out to the front, where one of 
 his sons had already been killed and two others had not 
 been heard from in months. As we clattered through 
 the cobbled streets we passed three schools and a hospital, 
 built largely through his efforts. But now his work was 
 at an end. The crowds of young peasant soldiers idly 
 smoking cigarettes glanced at him as though to say. 
 
 "Who the devil is this old gent?" 
 
 We had a long drive that afternoon. The little dirt 
 road climbed low wooded hills and wound down through 
 the meadows along the edge of a small quiet river. From 
 time to time Ivan Petrovitch pointed to seme lovely bit 
 of meadow, hill or river bend. He seemed to love this 
 country well, as one who had taken thousands of such 
 drives by day or night. For over twenty years, he said, 
 
BLIND 323 
 
 he had stayed here through the winters. His Zemstvo 
 work had kept him here, but he did not talk of it now. 
 It was over. Every now and then we passed a peasant 
 village, two lines of straggling wretched huts. I remem 
 bered the words of the young Bolshevik : 
 
 "Look for yourself and see what good all his reforms 
 have done them." 
 
 Very little, it appeared. Of the peasants we passed, a 
 very few doffed their caps and smiled a greeting; most 
 of them looked with sullen eyes. And as in Petrograd, 
 so here, I felt the heavy heritage the Past had left to 
 these critical days. There had been so much oppression. 
 By a small creek, he pointed out a great pyramid of 
 boulders some forty or fifty feet in height. This had 
 been an ice house. 
 
 "You see," he said, "in the days of serfs Count 
 
 B , who owned this large estate, made them build 
 
 such nonsense just to suit his idle whim." 
 
 And now he and his kind were to pay for such 
 whims. Reforms, reforms they were not enough. It 
 was land the peasants wanted. Yet there seemed to be 
 such an abundance of land. We went through dark 
 glorious forests of pine and came out onto great land 
 scapes of wide rolling meadows; and again I had the 
 feeling, that had come to me so often before, of the 
 vastness of this country its boundless resources barely 
 scratched. An enormous clumsy barge, pulled by nearly 
 a score of mules, came slowly up the river; and this 
 gave Oberookoff his cue for a talk about the rivers of 
 Russia, large and small, innumerable. 
 
 "They are our friends, these rivers. More than the 
 roads they carry our freight. We don t need so many 
 ugly railroads as in America. We are not in such a 
 hurry here. And look how beautiful it is !" He pointed 
 down to the river. "All day your barge goes slowly on, 
 and you have time that is good for your soul. And such 
 
824 BLIND 
 
 power, too, as we have in these rivers for electric force 
 some day! In the Ural Mountains and down in the 
 Caucasus the power of the waters is a mighty thing to 
 see! And the real Russian people, too, are like that. 
 You have heard too many ugly lies. There is a deep 
 power in their souls! I tell you and tell you they only 
 need schools!" 
 
 The sun was setting over the hills. It shone clear and 
 bright into a miserable group of huts through which 
 we passed, and it made a group of peasants scowl as 
 they watched our little old carriage go by. We plunged 
 into a forest then, where in the slowly deepening dusk 
 the tall pines and lovely birches loomed like phantoms. 
 Not a sound. A rabbit scampered from the road and 
 disappeared in the shadows. We emerged on a wide 
 field, and upon the opposite side we came through a 
 little park to the home of Ivan Petrovitch. 
 
 It was a large white house of wood, with a square 
 middle section two stories high, slender white columns 
 at the front and a low wing on either side. It was a 
 beautiful old place. Back of the house was an oval 
 garden, on either hand were tall graceful silver birches, 
 and behind from a low wooded bluff you looked down 
 across the river to a rolling meadow. We walked along 
 the edge of the bluff under the pines and Siberian 
 larches. It was cool and silent here, peaceful with a 
 mellow beauty, glimpses down across the stream. Deep 
 and smooth, with barely a murmur, it swept out of view 
 in a lovely bend. I saw the swirl of a fish down there; 
 and later I spied the boys of the family, each with a long 
 fish-pole, standing on a sandy point. We met no peas 
 ants on our walk, but the benches all along the path had 
 been thrown into the water below. 
 
 "The peasants do that. By day they are friendly, but 
 at night they come and throw these benches down. When 
 
BLIND 325 
 
 we put them back, they do it again," said Ivan Petro- 
 vitch, with a smile. 
 
 We retraced our steps and had a look through the 
 gardens and the stables and barns. Of the seventy 
 peasants who had formerly worked the estate, only eight 
 were left, and only a dozen cattle remained. We came 
 on an old nurse out there with a wee grandson of the 
 Prince, who was squealing with delight over a litter of 
 black and white puppies and a small Swiss calf in the 
 yard, of whom the pups were in terror and kept scam 
 pering for their lives. Neither the war nor the revolu 
 tion bothered this sturdy little boy or these fascinated 
 frantic pups. They had the present on their hands ! 
 
 What kind of a future would it be? There must be 
 deep anxiety here; but still they did not show it, this 
 friendly happy family. That evening at supper there 
 was no meat, but dishes heaped with vegetables, huge 
 mushrooms, a potato salad, plenty of fresh butter and 
 cheese, black bread and jam. The big brass samovar 
 hummed and glowed, and we lingered long over our 
 tea, smoking many cigarettes. 
 
 The mother of Ivan Petrovitch was a small woman 
 with snow-white hair, a fine wrinkled face and bright 
 indomitable eyes that reminded me of Aunt Amelia. 
 His wife looked younger than himself, a tall dark slender 
 woman with a friendly and appealing smile. And there 
 were three grown daughters, a son-in-law, a large stout 
 uncle, and three boys the youngest a little lad of ten 
 dressed in a rough patched blouse and pants, feet bare, 
 head tousled, hunger enormous. These people all wore 
 simple old clothes. Two of the daughters served the 
 meal, for of a dozen house servants nobody but the 
 cook remained. The daughters washed the dishes, swept 
 the rooms and helped with the mending. No more 
 clothes to be had in the town, so these old ones must 
 
326 BLIND 
 
 be made to last. Till when ? Till what ? No one spoke 
 of that. They took it all as a great lark. Within a 
 brief hour these friendly people made me feel as though 
 I had known them a long time. It all seemed so familiar 
 here, this home so like to Seven Pines. Different? Yes, 
 in a hundred ways. But these were my kind of people. 
 They were liberals, and deep down in my heart I damned 
 the hide-bound despots whose sins had been visited on 
 this home. 
 
 Now they talked about the war. They were eager to 
 hear all I could tell of American preparations. As for 
 Russia ? There was silence then a low growl from the 
 stout uncle and a little laugh at that. This uncle was 
 the family wit. He was the one Tory here, and his 
 ironic comments brought forth laughter from the rest. 
 The new commissaire of police in the town was a com 
 mon convict, he declared, who had served ten years 
 for burglary. Now this chap was chief of police, and 
 this was entirely proper and right. For socialism was 
 robbery, and therefore socialist police he stopped with 
 an expressive shrug. The others had more liberal views. 
 They maintained that the only hope for Russia lay in a 
 coalition between the more moderate socialists and pro 
 gressives like themselves. But meanwhile in the town 
 nearby the Bolsheviki had arrived, and their proclama 
 tions were eagerly read, while those distributed by the 
 Prince were scowled upon and thrown away. 
 
 "How amazing! * said the fat uncle. One might 
 have thought that these wise peasants would have pre 
 ferred the truth to the lies !" 
 
 He spoke of estates in the district that had already 
 been attacked. Two or three had been burnt down. 
 Here the three men of the family and the tall slim lad of 
 sixteen all slept with rifles by their beds. 
 
 For the two little boys it was bedtime now. They 
 came around the table and raised their mother s hand to 
 
BLIND 327 
 
 their lips, while she pressed their faces for a moment 
 against her own. Then they went to their grandmother 
 and to their three sisters. Their older brother later on 
 went through the same simple gallantry. Still the talk 
 continued. At last affectionate goodnights, and lighted 
 candles disappearing down the hall and up the stairs. 
 In my room I found an old copy in French of Les Trois 
 Mousquctaires. And I read it awhile, till the deep quiet 
 drowsy voice of the forest made me toss it aside. 
 
 5. 
 
 The next day we breakfasted on the porch, and there 
 was much joking over the latest bit of news of the revo 
 lution. The chicken house had been raided! Only five 
 old hens were left. "What shall we be eating a month 
 from now?" They faced it in a genial way all except 
 the stout uncle. Plainly he had loved his meals, and he 
 scowled as he sipped a bitter concoction made of rye and 
 chicory. "The chicory, too, will soon be gone!" He 
 detested tea, which the others were drinking. Black 
 bread, butter, cheese, and honey the simple meal was 
 soon at an end; and presently Oberookoff and I were 
 left with Ivan Petrovitch, who in his soft heavy voice 
 talked to me for an hour or two about "the great slow 
 revolution" which in Russia had already been going on 
 for fifty years, under the lead of the Zemstvos. Schools, 
 hospitals, doctors, midwives, veterinary surgeons and 
 agricultural teachers these had been gradually intro 
 duced through the slow patient efforts of liberal noble 
 men like himself. But the war and the revolution had 
 broken the whole system down. 
 
 "Now the peasants are crying for land," he said. 
 "What good will it do them? They do not even cultivate 
 the land which they already possess. Much of it is quite 
 unused, and the rest is tilled by little ploughs which cut 
 but three inches into the soil. What they need is not 
 
328 BLIND 
 
 land but modern ploughs, model farms and agricultural 
 schools. And all this means intelligence. What hope 
 in these Bolsheviki for that ?" 
 
 He took me over the estate. The huge barns, the 
 stables, the dairy, the grist mill and the threshing barn 
 were built of logs; and there were huts for the laborers 
 strangling off along the dark uneven edge of the forest. 
 And I had an impression here of a leisurely helter-skelter 
 growth, like that of a southern plantation at home, all 
 very easy-going, based on the labor first of serfs and 
 later of peasants to whom were paid such low wages 
 that there had been little need of careful planning till 
 now all at once that labor was gone. 
 
 We came out on a great clover field, warm with 
 patches of red and blue flowers; the air was sweet and 
 fragrant, and bees were humming on every hand. It had 
 been mowed three weeks ago, but the clover was already 
 nearly up to our knees again. 
 
 "This soil was no richer than that of the peasant land 
 nearby/ said our host. "But it has been plowed deep 
 for many years, with a five year rotation of crops while 
 the peasants with their poor little ploughs turn a furrow 
 but three inches deep, and plant oats, rye, potatoes or 
 flax until the soil is exhausted. And that is not the only 
 trouble. Look how their land is divided." 
 
 A strange looking landscape met my eyes. A wide 
 rolling field about a mile square was all cut up in long 
 thin strips of rye, oats, timothy, flax or potatoes 
 striped like a zebra, gray, yellow and brown. Some 
 strips were only ten feet wide. The peasants of the vil 
 lage, a cluster of huts not far away, owned this land in 
 common and divided it up among themselves for a 
 period of some twenty years. Then the village Mir 
 (town meeting) after days of excited discussion made a 
 re-division according to the changing size of the fami- 
 
BLIND 329 
 
 lies. To each family was given several small plots of 
 land or strips like these, often a mile or two apart. 
 
 "You see what a waste this means," he said. "Between 
 each strip is a border of a foot or two in width. These 
 borders alone waste a tenth of the land. And besides, 
 what good does it do a peasant to toil day and night on 
 his narrow strip, if his lazy neighbor lets the weeds and 
 thistles grow? Here are strips that have been neglected 
 for years their owners have died or moved away, but 
 they cannot sell, and it is not time for the re-division 
 by the Mir. There is waste in the plowing, waste in the 
 reaping, wasted labor all the year round. And now, if 
 they do seize my estate, they will soon with a terrific 
 amount of shouted discussion divide it into strips like 
 these, and back it will go to a primitive state. With their 
 wretched ploughs and ancient methods, the crops of 
 Russia will go down to an extent that will mean famine 
 to large sections of Europe. And it is by no means 
 improbable," he said very quietly, "that this is going to 
 happen soon though at present they are friendly." 
 
 So they seemed as we talked to them in the village 
 over across the field. All greeted us pleasantly enough, 
 and they were as pleased and excited as children when 
 I used my kodak there. An old peasant showed me his 
 stable and barn, while his daughter dressed in frantic 
 haste in her Sunday clothes for a picture, and then at the 
 last moment ran away blushing and waving her hands. 
 After that a friendly old granny took me into her hut 
 nearby. It was fairly clean but stifling hot, and it stank 
 from the stable and pigsty built right onto the side of 
 the hut. In the kitchen was a huge stove and oven of 
 white plaster; and above it was a bed of planks on 
 which she slept in winter. In the hot front room was a 
 baby in a swinging cradle tightly covered with a cloth 
 to keep out the swarms of flies. In one corner hung 
 an icon with a tiny lamp burning beneath it. Broad 
 
330 BLIND 
 
 heavy planks were upon the floor and bits of rag carpet 
 here and there, and an old carved chair that I much 
 admired. The old woman beamed upon me then; and the 
 group of six or eight women and girls and two or three 
 men, who had gathered outside, all talked and joked and 
 laughed with their Prince as amicably as though there 
 were no Great Revolution, no chicken house raided the 
 night before, no benches thrown down into the river. 
 
 "Look at their faces how friendly they are," said 
 Ivan Petrovich, smiling. "Yet every night they drive 
 their cattle onto my fields. In the revolution of 1905 
 they came from several villages in a great noisy crowd 
 one night and set fire to one of my barns. I came out 
 and tried to stop them, but not one would come to my 
 aid. In a perfectly friendly fashion they said to me, 
 No, Ivan Petrovitch, this is now the revolution and we 
 must burn your barns and your home/ One old peasant 
 sighed very deeply and said, It is the will of God/ They 
 began to pull furniture from my house in order to throw 
 it into the flames. My sons and I ran for our guns, and 
 so we managed to save the house. .... Soon they may 
 try the same thing again. . . . They are children." 
 
 Still they smiled at him. 
 
 "They won t work for me. They won t even sell me 
 the eggs of the hens they have stolen." 
 
 Humbly one of the men then asked if he might borrow 
 the Prince s cart to haul some lumber to the mill. 
 
 "Of course," said the Prince; and turning to me, "God 
 knows if I shall get it back." 
 
 All looked curiously at me. 
 
 "Ivan Petrovitch," said an old woman, "why did you 
 bring an enemy here ?" 
 
 "He is not an enemy. I told you he is an American, 
 and his country is now in the war." 
 
 "But are they not on the German side?" one of the 
 men asked quietly. To the Prince s explanation they 
 listened with deep interest. 
 
BLIND 331 
 
 "The Americans," he ended, "are going to send over 
 three million soldiers soon to France." 
 
 "They are going to," said a peasant sagely. "Then 
 they are not yet our Allies. For who knows when they 
 will get their men over?" He sighed, " While the sun 
 is getting ready to rise, the dew will eat away our eyes ." 
 And when the Prince went on to tell how hard the Allies 
 were fighting in France, while Russians were disgracing 
 their country, "Well, let them fight," sighed the peasant. 
 "We are tired out with this war." Instantly there came 
 murmurs of agreement from the women. One of them 
 said, "Now for so many years we have had to do all the 
 work on our fields. So the crops are bad and we shall 
 starve if our men do not come back to us." 
 
 "But they are back ! They have left the front already 
 by millions! Yet they sit idle in the town! And soon 
 their Soviet," said the Prince, "will come and take away 
 your grain !" 
 
 At this they all looked at him with shrewd cunning in 
 their faces. 
 
 "Oh my darling," said the old granny softly, "I have 
 so little grain left in my barn and so many little brats 
 of grandchildren have been left with me and no help 
 from anyone. I must watch and hide it all way. God s 
 will be done." And she crossed herself. 
 
 He spoke to them again of the war. Soon the Ger 
 mans would march into Russia, seize control of the gov 
 ernment and then lay a heavy tax on every peasant in 
 the land. "Where you have paid fifty roubles, you will 
 pay hundreds," he declared. The peasants looked at him 
 cunningly. 
 
 "Yes?" said one of them sadly. "Oh, how hard for 
 us that would be." 
 
 6. 
 
 Presently we left them and started for OberookofFs 
 home in a village three miles down the river. On the 
 
332 BLIND 
 
 way we stopped at a grist mill to see the notorious sor 
 cerer there. The mill stood on a high river bank, with 
 a yawning gravel pit close by in which at night, the 
 people said, he communed with the powers of darkness. 
 A shaggy old man, stout as a bull, with deep-set little 
 shrewd blue eyes to me he looked far from a mystic. 
 Proudly he showed me into his mill ; and as in that dark 
 dusty place I listened to the swish and whine of the big 
 stone as it ground the rye, I could feel his eyes eagerly 
 fixed on mine. He could barely wait to show me the 
 new turbine he had bought to replace the clumsy old 
 water wheel. 
 
 "See how smoothly it goes," he said fondly. "As 
 though all the blessings of God were upon it." 
 
 A practical old sorcerer! For over ten years, in spite 
 of the law forbidding his use of the water here, he had 
 kept open his little canal partly through bribes to the 
 local police, still more because no peasants could be 
 induced to take the job of closing up his small canal 
 and so incurring his wizard wrath. 
 
 "He has real hypnotic power," said Ivan Petrovitch, 
 "and he employs it just enough, upon the peasants when 
 they are sick, to keep them all in awe of him. I have 
 seen him stop a flow of blood simply by hypnotic force. 
 But his only real passion is for his mill to him the 
 whole war and the revolution are nothing at all com 
 pared to this. And the future may show that he is right. 
 For in the months that are coming, he who can keep 
 that going, will be the real wizard in our land," said the 
 Prince, with his large kind spectacled eyes fixed on the 
 little torrent of meal that kept gushing out of the mill. 
 
 We walked on down the river, and at a spot where the 
 high banks were muddy and trampled by cattle we came 
 to the village in which Oberookoff lived a row of log 
 dwellings, with stables and barns clustering behind them. 
 There were two white stucco buildings one, the church. 
 
BLIND 333 
 
 with its cupola dome of green and gold; the other, 
 OberookofFs school. The rows of desks were empty, 
 for this was vacation time. Here, since he was wounded 
 in 1915, with his mother and his sister he had taught 
 the boys and girls of this and three other villages but 
 of what he said about his work I have no recollection. 
 So much more strong and vivid is my memory of his 
 mother s face as she talked to me in their home nearby 
 a large cabin of two stories, the upper floor of white 
 plaster, the lower one of smooth brown logs. The small 
 living-room, clean but disorderly, had a personal and 
 homelike air, with the invariable big white stove, an icon 
 in one corner, a few pictures on the wall including one 
 of Seven Pines geranium plants in the deepcut win 
 dows, a tall cabinet filled with dishes and cups, a lamp 
 on a low table and some book-shelves by the wall. It 
 had been her home for twenty years. 
 
 Born on a small estate nearby, which under the care 
 less management of her father had dwindled away until 
 even the house was gone, she had married a school 
 teacher and in various villages they had made the hard 
 fight of the first pioneers in the work of educating the 
 peasants. Her husband had been exiled and had died in 
 Siberia. She had carried on their work alone, until 
 twenty years ago with her daughter she had come back 
 to her birthplace here. All this I had heard many times 
 from her son, who idolized his mother. I had been 
 eager to meet her nor was I disappointed now. A 
 brown wrinkled woman in gray cotton dress, at seventy 
 odd she still looked strong, and she showed in her large 
 black eyes a force that held me spellbound as she talked 
 Her daughter was away at present, working in a neigh 
 boring town. With her three little grandchildren she 
 welcomed us into the room; and at first she had very 
 little to say; but when the Prince had left us to see to 
 some work on his estate, in response to questions from 
 
334 BLIND 
 
 her son she began to tell of her teacher s life. And into 
 the rosy picture Oberookoff had given me of Russian 
 education she broke with the realities of a teaching life 
 of fifty years. 
 
 "Most of our country teachers were not fit to teach at 
 all. It was as though the Government felt that any 
 teacher was good enough for mere peasants* children," 
 she said, with a quiet bitterness. "A teacher for a vil 
 lage school should have such a wide practical training 
 that he can answer all the questions as to their daily 
 work and life which the peasants here keep asking. He 
 should show such a knowledge of farming that the peas 
 ants soon would say, Here is no mere man of books 
 but the wisest peasant of us all. But in Russia it has 
 not been so. There have been splendid exceptions, of 
 course and in all our land there have been no more 
 devoted idealists than our country teachers. But their 
 position, bad at the start, became almost unendurable. 
 They soon won the peasants contempt. These ineffec 
 tual men and women, who knew nothing of practical 
 work and could only teach children out of books, were 
 met by scowls and grins of derision. 
 
 " What s the good of this? the peasants asked. And 
 we must pay for it out of our taxes! 
 
 "They did all they could to keep salaries down. The 
 teacher was lodged in some peasant s hut, a filthy place 
 to live in. For days she would get almost nothing to 
 eat. . What was the good, they argued, of keeping such 
 a fool alive? They did not like her to laugh or joke. 
 When she did, some peasant would often growl, It is 
 not her business to be so gay ! Let her earn this salary 
 we pay! And many older peasants said, See what 
 comes of taking our children away from the priest. In 
 his school, though he taught nothing useful, at least he 
 made them fear God and the Saints, and he saved their 
 souls while now, with this new weak schooling, off go 
 
BLIND 335 
 
 the boys and girls to the towns, and the Devil creeps 
 deep into them there ! 
 
 "So these teachers struggled on. Many of us took 
 pupil boarders, children from other villages too small 
 to walk in the winter storms. They went home on Sun 
 days for a supply of bread and uncooked vegetables; and 
 these they brought back to the teacher, who often had to 
 cook for them and wash their filthy clothes as well. All 
 together they crowded into a peasant s hut, on top of the 
 family, chickens and pigs. Often in a winter s storm or 
 when a pack of wolves was about, she would have older 
 children, too a dozen or more upon her hands. All 
 this was hard it was very hard. Yet in my own case 
 I was amply rewarded by seeing the real development 
 these little boarder pupils made when I had them day 
 and night. I taught the girls to cook and sew, and I 
 taught the boys as much as I could of farming and the 
 care of live-stock and a little carpentry. 
 
 "These are the things they need to know. For there 
 is a tremendous power here and a deep beauty in this 
 life. These peasants seem to be stubborn and hard and 
 very dark with ignorance; yet out of them come wise 
 shrewd proverbs, fables and miraculous legends that 
 show what a treasure-house of wisdom and imagination 
 is within their shaggy heads. And out of a filthy little 
 hut comes a piece of lace or embroidery that shows what 
 the peasant woman could do, if her life from dawn to 
 darkness were not weighed down by dirt and toil. It is 
 not book learning they need. We must build on real foun 
 dations, go straight to their real interests and teach them 
 what they need to know to escape from all this filth and 
 toil. 
 
 "Ivan Petrovitch," she went on, "is a kind and very 
 liberal man. But like many others in charge of the 
 Zemstvos, he was not very practical. Those liberal land 
 owners lacked force. Most of them have managed their 
 
336 BLIND 
 
 own estates so badly that half their fields and forests 
 have been sold to pay their debts. And now the peas 
 ants will seize the rest, and there will be great confusion 
 here," said the stern old woman quietly, "till at last 
 some way is found out of it all. In the meantime my 
 daughter and I will have her three little children to 
 keep alive. My son had better be with us this autumn. 
 Perhaps they will let us open the school. And, if we can 
 manage it, I shall take back the nine little boarders we 
 had last year. For life will be hard for them in their 
 huts. 
 
 "Now all is moving quickly back to the older days," 
 she ended. "For years there has been no spinning here 
 they went to buy their clothes in the town. But every 
 old granny is now getting ready her spinning wheel in 
 every hut. They will make their own clothes and shoes 
 this year, and hide their wool and their rye in the ground. 
 The village will draw into its shell till the cities come 
 to their senses." 
 
 She left us to see to some work in the house. 
 
 "You see what a woman she is," said OberookofT 
 proudly. And looking at him I realized whence had 
 come his passion for schools. 
 
 7. 
 
 I lunched with them, and after that we visited several 
 huts in the village. Then, as with my companion I sat 
 on the high river bank, a voice hailed us from below. It 
 was the brother of Ivan Petrovitch, the stout uncle of 
 the night before. He had come for me in a skiff, to 
 propose that we go fishing. It was a soft fragrant after 
 noon. As I sat at the oars and let our boat drift slowly 
 down the river, my stout companion casting now and 
 then from side to side, I watched the life along the 
 banks. On the edge of a dark forest of pines, a gnarled 
 shaggy old man and a red-headed boy were cutting wood. 
 
BLIND 337 
 
 We drifted slowly around a bend and came on a steep 
 little meadow. A woman was plowing with one little 
 horse, urging him on up the slope with a shrill, monoto 
 nous cry, her bare feet sinking deep in the furrows 
 while a little girl nearby was throwing clods of earth into 
 the stream to see them splash. On and on we drifted. 
 We met fishers in old boats or ashore. What numberless 
 men and women had passed along this river, I thought, 
 by day and night, by skiff and barge and by rough 
 sledges on the ice. For generations this small stream 
 had been a highway of human life, with its labor, dreams 
 and prayers, its priests and wandering "holy men," its 
 tramps and its philosophers, its bargemen and its 
 peddlers, its doctors and its sorcerers, all bent 
 on various errands. What real change would 
 there be in it all? The Great Revolution dwindled 
 here before the vast mysterious force of the working, 
 living, dreaming, of over a hundred million people of 
 the villages this life that flowed on smooth and deep, 
 like the dark whispering water. 
 
 A loud grunt from the fat uncle. His long rod was 
 bent double now, and his line cut the water with a swish. 
 Rapidly I rowed the boat into the middle of the stream, 
 away from dangerous weeds and snags. He grunted 
 his approval; and after playing his fish for a time, at 
 last he heaved him into the boat a big glistening yellow 
 pike. And then my stout companion, this Prince of Old 
 Russia, this gloomy man who scowled on the revolu 
 tion, mopped his red perspiring brow with a look of 
 placid pride, and by another grunt and gesture indicated 
 a small sand beach. We landed there. He began to 
 undress. Promptly and gladly I did the same ; and soon 
 in the cool soft water we were swimming about with 
 deep content. How far away from Petrograd! Little 
 fish nibbled at my toes. 
 
 But this peaceful mood of mine was soon to be pro- 
 
338 BLIND 
 
 foundly changed. For we finished our swim and started 
 home; and now, as the slow minutes dragged, all my 
 friendly feeling for my huge fellow fisherman changed 
 to one of keen dislike and deepening indignation. For 
 there he sat, an enormous lump sinking the stern deep 
 into the water while I, grown doubly lank and lean 
 from the wretched meals in Petrograd, rowed him slowly 
 up the stream. What a current! What a load! Every 
 stroke was a back-breaking heave ! And an hour passed 
 and the dusk set in, and my back was one long ache and 
 throb and I cursed him, the damned parasite! Why 
 couldn t he take his turn at the oars? "So this is how 
 the peasant feels!" I was a Bolshevik that night; and 
 as I heaved and bent and swore, I grew steadily Bolshe- 
 vikier! 
 
 But supper that evening at nine o clock dispelled my 
 aches and angry gloom. And later, in a restful room 
 with a piano at one end and two tall candles burning 
 there, one of the grown daughters who had a rich sympa 
 thetic contralto voice sang many old songs of Russia; 
 while at the piano, eyes shining in the candle-light, her 
 grandmother played the accompaniments. And these 
 old songs from the forests and fields and from the 
 Mother Volga she seemed to know them all so well. 
 The others in the family sat listening as peacefully as 
 though there were no rifles stacked behind the entrance 
 door, no excited multitudes in stifling halls in Petro 
 grad, no rebellious mob of soldiers in the district town 
 nearby, no groups of stolid peasants talking in low voices 
 outside the door of some log hut in the village less than 
 a mile away. 
 
 I recalled what the young Bolshevik had said to me 
 the day before. How much good had Ivan Petrovitch 
 done the peasants by his reforms? And few land 
 owners in the past had been as liberal as he. There had 
 been serfdom, heavy toil, the overseer, the jail, the 
 
BLIND 33$ 
 
 knout. And so now, for a time at least, there was to 
 be little place or chance for kindly liberal people like 
 these. Their faces are dim in my memory dim as in 
 the candle glow. For as I sit here in this room and look 
 back, the faces of workmen and peasants keep rising up 
 before my eyes hard, strong and clear in the glare of 
 the day. 
 
 8. 
 
 I remember the night in Petrograd when OberookofF 
 came to the train to bid me good-by. With a good deal 
 of trouble I had secured a berth on the Trans-Siberian. 
 On the wet dirty platform was a dense throng of peo 
 ple, part of the panicky multitude leaving the city by 
 every train; for this was only a little before the Bol- 
 sheviki seized control. As our express moved slowly out, 
 I caught a last glimpse of my friend. With a forlorn 
 affectionate smile he waved his hand, then turned away 
 and was lost in the confusion. 
 
 The village will draw into its shell till the cities 
 come to their senses." 
 
 I have not heard from him since that night; but often 
 I can feel him here, watching anxiously my work to see 
 that I don t forget the schools. 
 
 The long journey eastward is dim and unreal as a 
 dream to me now. At first fearfully tired, I slept in 
 long stretches or sat for hours at the window, my mind 
 a blank, staring out on the autumn landscape. All the 
 confusion and the din and the fever of change was left 
 behind. Deep silent forests, rolling meadows, autumn 
 colors, autumn leaves upon the ground and the sweet 
 smell of burning wood. Stout log huts and stolid faces. 
 Men and women plowing, chopping, driving carts or 
 trudging slowly with loads on their shoulders stopping 
 to stare at us as we passed. Most of the people of Rus 
 sia, and all the peasants of Europe, I thought, were folk 
 
340 BLIND 
 
 like these, with lives hard, quiet, deep and slow. Such 
 people might riot and burn and kill, but for only a little 
 moment in time. Then again the deep sure pull of daily 
 habits centuries old would draw them back, and their 
 hard qu et lives would go on very much as before. 
 
 For changes that look tremendous in printed procla 
 mations and laws grow small in these vast tides of life. 
 Their significance melts away, as their effects for weal 
 or woe are fused in the prodigious whole. The ills they 
 cure are soon forgotten, and the improvements they 
 effect are taken as a matter of course. Small trans 
 formations here and there, new gleams and glimmers of 
 vision, new pleasures and worries, quarrels and schemes. 
 But the day from sunrise until dark would see little dif 
 ference here, I thought. For all this would be slow 
 only a part of the Great Slow Revolution which, as the 
 little architect said, had already taken a hundred years 
 and would doubtless fill a century more. The present 
 upheaval would be brief. Then back to some order, 
 both old and new, which would meet the desires at least 
 in a measure of the stolid millions like these. God grant 
 the world would have moved on a peg when that season 
 of quiet came again. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 1. 
 
 I REACHED home in the fall of 1917. The following 
 June I left for France. Of the months intervening, my 
 memories are uneven a few of them clear and dis 
 tinct, the others already dim and unreal. This is partly 
 due, I am told, to what happened to me later on; but 
 it is due still more, I think, to the fact that I had seen 
 so much of war and revolution that my mind was packed 
 and jammed and could take in little more. I felt the 
 whole prodigious struggle speeding to a climax now, 
 with bloody death and pestilence and famine spreading 
 far and wide, and deep passions of revolt the whole 
 world groaning with it all. 
 
 But over here it was not so. For my trip across this 
 continent gave me glimpses of a nation fresh and only 
 beginning to feel the seemingly boundless powers that 
 came with the "get together" idea. From a Russia gone 
 half mad with its new dreams and liberties, I came home 
 to a swiftly tightening order of things in my native land. 
 Like the German discipline? No a hundred per cent. 
 American uneven and emotional, rising out of the peo 
 ple themselves. But it was intense, intolerant toward 
 any obstructing minority. The men on the train all 
 talked like that. This was no time for an easy hand; 
 the liberty of the world was at stake; and pacifists and 
 strikers and little skunks of every kind who dared to 
 knock the government were pro-Germans and should be 
 in jail. "Win the War!" I heard that magic slogan in 
 every crowded smoking car, and talk of war jobs by the 
 score. These jobs were of a hundred kinds, but all con- 
 
 341 
 
342 BLIND 
 
 verged on the one resolve, "Get together and do it 
 quick!" 
 
 At the stations more than once I saw troop trains 
 thunder in, with voices singing, cheering, boohing; and 
 women and girls in Red Cross garb or the uniform of 
 the Canteen served coffee and sandwiches, cigarettes, 
 with smiles and quick excited talk that made me think of 
 the night long ago when I had entered Germany upon a 
 starlit Christmas Eve. And yet it was so different here. 
 At one station we were held to clear the track for a long 
 train, which came in with a load of lads just drafted, 
 on their way to camp. They were inclined to swagger, 
 these youths. Most of them came from a rival town, 
 and one of them asked with withering scorn, 
 
 "Say ain t there one real man in this town who 
 ain t afraid of the Kaiser s guns?" 
 
 At that there was a terrible row. But suddenly a 
 piercing voice rang out above the tumult. High up on a 
 baggage truck stood an old man with a crutch. 
 
 "Heigh there, damn ye, listen to me!" When silence 
 came, he rolled his quid, spat on a trunk and then 
 drawled, "Say. If you brave fellers want to know why 
 our boys ain t here to join ye, I m the man to tell ye. 
 They ain t here because every ding blasted fighting 
 mother s son of em is gone already. Understand? They 
 didn t wait to be drafted no more n I did in the Civil 
 War. Now shet up an go on back into your train or 
 I may mob ye !" 
 
 I remember a glimpse we had of the principal street 
 in a little town. A hundred flags were waving there and 
 a home band was crashing away as though the whole 
 war depended upon it. It stopped, and a speaker s voice 
 was heard : 
 
 "Your country needs your money, friends it needs 
 your money and your lives !" 
 
 A roar of cheers from the farmer crowd and I 
 
BLIND 343 
 
 thought of my Aunt Amelia. Her beloved West had 
 roused at last. We passed a lonely farmhouse out on a 
 rolling prairie. It was nearly midnight, but lights still 
 shone from its windows ; and upon a field nearby, a huge 
 tractor with its searchlight throwing a bright path ahead 
 was dragging a gang of ploughs along. It reminded me 
 of my cousin Ed. My train was to pass not far from 
 his ranch, so I sent him a wire; and sure enough, the 
 next afternoon at a prairie station he got on the train. 
 What a change from the man of a year before. He 
 looked tense and overworked. Half the men were gone 
 from his ranch, he said, and his son was on a destroyer. 
 A drive for the Loan had just begun, and it was a devil 
 of a rush to bring up the County s quota to double what 
 had been asked for. "Practically every farmer is buying 
 more bonds than he ought to and if he don t, we see 
 that he does!" One "pro-German slacker" had been 
 ridden on a rail, another thrown into the creek and 
 the rest had learned their lesson. "No bolshevik has a 
 chance out here!" For my accounts of Russia he had 
 nothing but impatient disgust. When I tried to give 
 him some idea of what our friendship for the Slavs 
 could mean if it were given in time to head off a Rus 
 sian-German entente, he interrupted bluntly. 
 
 "That may be well enough for the millennium," he 
 said. "But we ve got one job to lick the Huns! And 
 Russia s a quitter ! So leave her alone !" He jerked out 
 his watch. "I ve got to jump off right here and now 
 I m to speak at a meeting tonight back home! Good 
 luck, Larry, glad you re back ! But as for helping those 
 Rooskies now, I wouldn t give em the smell of my 
 hogs!" 
 
 2. 
 
 Coming from such talks as this, such glimpses of our 
 strong new land as I was whirled across it eastward, 
 
344 BLIND 
 
 when at last I reached New York it struck me like a for 
 eign town. As our train came into the city, it seemed 
 as though every window had a foreigner leaning out; 
 the streets were filled with crowds of them; and in the 
 Grand Central the whole gigantic hubbub had a foreign 
 accent to my ears. A queer home town for a man in 
 this war! I dropped my luggage at Dad s home; and 
 finding none of the family in, I went on down to News 
 paper Row. 
 
 "Go by Fifth Avenue," I said. 
 
 "Slow going, boss," said the taxi man. 
 
 "Never mind, I want a look at the street." 
 
 It was worth seeing. With the Drive well under way, 
 big vivid banners and the flags of the Allies hung over 
 head; there were brightly colored booths below, and 
 men and women and even small boys were orating on 
 every street corner to crowds. There were uproarious 
 bursts of cheers, the crash of bands, the honk of horns. 
 But under all this surface flood of color and sound I kept 
 noticing the endless tides of foreign faces pressing by. 
 When we stopped in the jam I could hear their voices, 
 harsh, guttural, shrill, as the case might be. Faces florid, 
 stolid, pasty, swarthy faces, gleaming eyes and quick 
 excited gestures. Down into Washington Square we 
 came, into crowds of Italian women and children. We 
 turned into the Ghetto a hubbub of guttural Yiddish 
 there. What a vulgar hodge podge of a town! But the 
 great buildings towering ahead made me suddenly feel 
 like a little snob. 
 
 "Who the devil are you," they seemed to ask, "Mr. 
 Hundred Per Cent American? Who built this town? 
 We are made of steel which was mined and milled by 
 Pollacks and Hungarians, and was put into place by Irish 
 steel workers under contractors who are for the most 
 part Jews." 
 
 "I know, I know," I answered, "the Jews own the 
 
BLIND 345 
 
 city and the Irish own the votes. The Jews make our 
 clothes and the Chinamen wash em. The Germans run 
 our music and " 
 
 "Here, you, quit your kicking. Is there any other 
 city on earth that can touch me? * 
 
 "No," I answered humbly. And soon I was under the 
 spell of my town. 
 
 I reached my father s house that day in time for tea 
 with Aunt Fanny. A big flag rippled softly above the 
 front door, and I noticed a service flag in one of the 
 front windows. Young Carrington had gone to France. 
 There was no foreign accent here nothing swarthy, 
 dirty, coarse. Low voices, softly lighted rooms, luxury 
 and restful ease, a fire burning cosily. While Aunt Fanny 
 poured the tea, I settled back in a soft chair and asked 
 myself, "What s the matter now? Can t you ever feel at 
 home?" But within me a small guttural voice such as 
 I had heard on the streets, insisted, "Say. A hell of a 
 fine home this is for American democracy. Look at the 
 pin she s wearing." This was a lovely enamel affair. It 
 was worn, she explained, by all those women who 
 belonged to the Mayor s Committee for the National 
 Defense. In this defense she was helping by working 
 with others like herself to "Americanize" the foreigners. 
 Each day she went to a busy office from which a stream 
 of orators poured forth into the dirty slums and talked 
 to the people about the flag and all the freedom and jus 
 tice and democracy it stood for. 
 
 I kept watching her while she talked. What a handsome 
 woman still, and what exquisite taste and gracious assur 
 ance. A new light was in her eyes. Yes, Carrington 
 had gone to France, and she was proud and glad to give 
 him to his country. Giving, giving it was in the air. . 
 My father had gone into the Loan to a ruinous extent, 
 she smilingly informed me. In the house they had let 
 all the servants go but six, including the head chauffeur. 
 
346 BLIND 
 
 And the meals had been cut down. She had kept her 
 box at the opera, in order to use her influence to keep 
 German music out. German propaganda and German 
 spies were everywhere. Her daughter Louise was work 
 ing as a clerk in a branch office of the Military Intelli 
 gence. And the things she hinted at! Presently Louise 
 came home, elated by several arrests for which she had 
 helped to gather the facts. When Dad came in, he looked 
 to me years older, under a heavy strain. In addition to 
 the work in the mills, he was deep in the Red Cross and 
 several other organizations. 
 
 "Glad to see you, son," he said, with a warm grip 
 on my hand. "I d begun to think you d not get out alive. 
 The sooner we give up those Russians, the better. 
 They re a poor bet!" he declared. 
 
 We went into his study, and there I tried to give him 
 some idea of what I thought Russia needed from us and 
 of how important it was still to keep some vestige of 
 influence there. But he answered grimly, 
 
 "It has all come to one question now. Can we get 
 our men to France in time? Everything else must go 
 by the board. Besides," he said in a lower tone, "it does 
 make a difference to have a boy of your own over there, 
 and know that those skulking Russian Reds are making 
 peace and setting free three million Huns for a drive in 
 France! Leave Russia alone! We ll attend to their 
 case later on!" 
 
 3. 
 
 Soon after that I took my departure, for Dorothy, 
 who was in town, had already telephoned, and I had 
 promised to go with her out to Seven Pines that night. 
 I dreaded meeting my cousin now. I had not seen her 
 for nearly a year. My going to Russia had mollified her 
 feeling against my stand in the war; but remembering 
 how she had placed her hopes in revolution overseas, I 
 
BLIND 347 
 
 felt that the news I was bringing from Russia would 
 lead again to trouble between us. And so it was a relief 
 to me when something or other delayed her in town and 
 I did not find her on the train. 
 
 When I came to Seven Pines it was Aunt Amelia who 
 greeted me. And here at last in this old house I found 
 what I was hungry for. The flag flying on the hill 
 looked so thoroughly at home. It reminded me of so 
 many Decoration Days gone by, from the time when I 
 was a little chap. And Aunt Amelia in the hall, stand 
 ing near the tall glass case where hung the faded uni 
 form of the army surgeon in the war of long ago, gave 
 me a warm welcome home, led the way into the living 
 room and settled down for a good long talk. The news 
 from Russia was twisted so she was sure it was, and 
 she wanted the truth. 
 
 "Your father gives me one view of it and Dorothy 
 another," she said. 
 
 "How is Dorothy now?" I asked. Her mother s 
 face contracted sharply. 
 
 "It s the old trouble/ she replied, "but so much worse 
 than it was before. She s the wife of a German and 
 therefore a spy !" My aunt s voice quivered with indig 
 nation. "In a struggle so tremendous how can people 
 be so small so stupidly hysterical ? They seem to think 
 there is no way of expressing their own loyalty except 
 by hounding day and night the scattered few who oppose 
 the war ! And they ve done their worst with Dorothy 
 and this has made her bitter again. She is always talk 
 ing of Russia now, as though the revolution there were 
 the only hopeful thing in the world. She has been so 
 anxious to have you back." 
 
 "I m afraid I haven t very good news." 
 
 "Oh Larry if you haven t please be careful what 
 you say." 
 
 Soon after this, Dorothy arrived, and in her eager 
 
348 BLIND 
 
 welcome I felt again the trouble ahead. Remembering 
 her tragedy, some realization came to me of what she 
 must have suffered here, as the widow of a German 
 and one who was passionately honest in her hatred of all 
 war. And I tried at first to keep from a clash. But at 
 the various points I made, both for and against the 
 Bolsheviki, by eager interjections she supported all that 
 I said in their favor, but when I talked against them 
 she pursed her lips and looked disdain as though I were 
 simply proving myself a traitor to the whole radical 
 cause. When I spoke of the peace they were planning 
 to make, she said, 
 
 "Oh, if only they can succeed!" 
 
 "They will," I answered grimly. 
 
 "Then you ll see how all the workingmen in Germany 
 will respond!" she exclaimed. "And then in France 
 and Italy, and even in England everywhere but over 
 here !" She started in to give her view of the deepening 
 intolerance here. But Aunt Amelia, rising and speaking 
 in a troubled voice, said, 
 
 "Please, dear, please you mustn t now not when he 
 has just come home." 
 
 Dorothy looked at her mother a moment, and then 
 quickly left the room. There was a brief strained 
 silence. 
 
 "I d better not try to see her," I said. "I seem to do 
 more harm than good." My aunt was deep in her own 
 thoughts. 
 
 "It will work out, Larry it will work out," she said 
 in a low resolute tone. 
 
 She turned the conversation back to my Russian 
 experience; and after the rebuffs I d had from others in 
 the family, all of whom without going to Russia knew 
 so much more about it than I, it was a joy to talk with 
 her now. The quick anxious tone of her questions, the 
 determined eagerness in her eyes to believe that even the 
 
BLIND 34* 
 
 Great Revolution, which to her was so strange and grim, 
 was "all for the best" and would work out eventually to 
 a splendid end are with me still as I look back. The 
 world made safe for democracy. The old religious 
 fervor of her forefathers burned in her faith in that 
 phrase. 
 
 "Larry, this is a war," she said, "which before it is 
 through will change the whole point of view of the 
 country. Oh, I daresay we are only human, and there 
 will be many backslidings, of course; but Larry dear, 
 you and Dorothy for all her present bitterness will 
 live to see the people here really feeling themselves a 
 part of a family reaching around the earth and 
 stopping all wars, and steadying down all revolutions 
 by the growing, growing, growing determination to be 
 fair and work it all out together this very puzzling 
 life of ours!" 
 
 To her sympathetic ears I outlined what I thought 
 should be our Russian policy; and if my Aunt Amelia 
 had been President of the United States, there is no 
 doubt but what my plan would have been carried out at 
 once. At the end she told me earnestly, 
 
 "Your duty is very plain, my dear. Our people are 
 turning against Russia simply because they don t know 
 the truth. You must write as you never wrote before !" 
 She hesitated. "But not here. It will be wiser, as you 
 say, to keep away from Dorothy now. Why don t you 
 go over to Lucy ?" 
 
 4. 
 
 I stayed with my sister for some weeks. Poor Lucy 
 had had an anxious time. Steve was already over in 
 France, on a big job for the Red Cross; and it had been 
 hard for her to keep the place running since he left. I 
 liked her smiling quiet pluck. She was glad to have me 
 with her while I did my Russian articles. Quickly I set- 
 
350 BLIND 
 
 tied down to work. The editor of my paper had not been 
 encouraging. He agreed however to run my stuff, and 
 to syndicate my stories to papers all over the country. 
 I wrote hard and fast, for I wanted to finish and at last 
 get over to France. I tried my pigmy damnedest to 
 make people understand that this was no longer a 
 struggle to be finished in a year, but part of a mighty 
 process of change which would still be unfinished when 
 we died, and could never be finished right until the Rus 
 sians were our friends. This led to several angry talks, 
 as the editor s pencil, red, white and blue, crashed 
 through "this millenium stuff" of mine. Drop such ideas 
 and narrow down to the one big desperate job of getting 
 our men to France in time! That was the one great 
 feverish passion. More and more I realized the hope 
 lessness of my attempt, and I made up my mind to get 
 into the army. 
 
 Nor was I the only one. When Tommy came home 
 for Christmas, in spite of his bouyant youth I could 
 feel that this old chum of mine was unnatural, tense to 
 a degree that brought a queer set look on his face. 
 
 "What is it, Tommy?" I asked him once. 
 
 "Nothing," he answered brusquely. And then after a 
 moment s pause, "What s the use of trying to think this 
 out? It isn t like football I mean to say, you don t 
 feel like the player, you feel like the ball." Poor Tommy 
 gave a little smile. "The game is so darned big, you 
 see. But there s one advantage in being a ball you 
 don t have to worry as to your future. By the way," he 
 asked abruptly, "what do you think you re going to do ?" 
 I said I hoped to go to France. 
 
 "Army?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 A critical look that said very plainly, "You re thin as 
 a rail and forty-two." 
 
 "Do you think you can make it?" Tommy asked. 
 
BLIND 351 
 
 "I ve been tipped off that there s a chance." My 
 nephew eyed me anxiously. 
 
 "Look here, Uncle Larry couldn t you wait till Dad 
 comes back?" 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Why " he hesitated "it leaves Mother all 
 
 alone." I looked at him with a quick suspicion. 
 
 "She has you, hasn t she?" 
 
 "Maybe so, and maybe not. How can a ball tell 
 where it ll be?" 
 
 "I can tell where you will be, my son," I admonished 
 sternly. "You stick right at school where you belong, 
 till your country is ready to use you!" 
 
 "Wait till I m drafted two years more? Say, what 
 are you giving me?" Tommy rejoined, with the old 
 twinkle in his eye. 
 
 "Exactly," I retorted. "You re a ball and you ve got 
 to wait till you re kicked." 
 
 "All right, all right," he agreed. "But this particular 
 little ball is not being kicked by some fool rules that a 
 lot of Congressmen have laid down, but by something a 
 lot bigger than that ! I tell you I can t help myself no 
 more than you. I m sorry for poor Mother but after 
 all, that s up to Dad. He has done his bit and he ought 
 to come home ! I ve waited eight months " 
 
 "You re barely eighteen, Tommy " He grinned 
 
 and rose to his full height. 
 
 "Couldn t I pass for twenty-one?" 
 
 "If you want to lie about it," I groaned. 
 
 "Oh, thunder," he said cheerfully, "I m one of the 
 best little liars you know. In fact there s quite a crowd 
 of us, in the senior class at school. We call ourselves 
 The Liars. We know every question they ll ask by 
 heart." 
 
 "Look here, old man," I ventured. "How about the 
 Navy?" 
 
352 BLIND 
 
 "Navy, nix," was his quick reply. They re all right 
 as far as they go but it isn t far enough. Me for the 
 trenches !" 
 
 There came to me a memory of that night of rain 
 and din out along the German Front. 
 
 "Tommy," I said earnestly, "I won t tell your mother 
 about this " 
 
 "You bet you won t!" he threw in. 
 
 "But you ve got to promise not to make a move in this 
 without letting me know." 
 
 "All right, that s fair enough," he agreed. 
 
 But only a few days after he had left us to go back to 
 school, a letter came from a training camp; and with a 
 sinking feeling I recognized his handwriting. 
 
 "Sorry, old man but it is just as I told you," Tommy 
 wrote. "I am one of the best little liars you know. 
 When I gave you that promise I meant to keep it- 
 honest I did but the game is so big and it got me 
 right on the street in New York. A crowd of our fellows 
 were going by and right there was a recruiting tent for 
 the U. S. Regular Army which still thank God takes 
 volunteers. Here is where this little ball takes a stitch 
 in time I remarked. It is time young cousin Carrington 
 quits patting his snobby little chest as the only fighting 
 man in the Hart connection, So in I went and I lied 
 so well that here I am. What s done is done and I count 
 on you to keep Mother or anyone else in the family 
 from raising a howl about my age. I am such a husk, 
 Uncle Larry you see how it is I am such a husk. 
 So I count on you. One good lie deserves another. I 
 want you to lie to Mother now. Tell her I will prob 
 ably not get over for a year and the war will be ended 
 long before that. And tell her I am in fine shape a 
 corporal first crack out of the box ! Gee but it is good to 
 be through with all that making up your mind ! Thank 
 God I used my self-starter! Be sure to emphasize to 
 
BLIND 355 
 
 Mother that when all is said and done after all I am such 
 a husk!" 
 
 Lucy took it hard at first. After a long talk with me 
 and another with Aunt Amelia, she decided that if Steve 
 were home he would not try to get Tommy out. But it 
 was not easy. She grew silent and preoccupied, or too 
 obviously cheerful. It was weeks since she had heard 
 from Steve. 
 
 5. 
 
 Soon after this I left her to make a trip to Washing 
 ton, there to seek some help in my scheme to get into 
 the Army Intelligence without being stuck at a desk on 
 this side. I had hopes of landing a job as regimental 
 intelligence officer. This meant going into a camp and 
 taking the regular officer s training. The physcal exam 
 ination would be hard for me to pass, but I hoped to 
 offset deficiencies by my knowledge of French and Ger 
 man. I did not find it easy. It seemed as though every 
 friend I had was so infernally occupied that it was 
 hours before he could see me; and when he did, he cheer 
 fully sent me on to somebody else. For the drowsy old 
 seat of government was become a seething stew of 
 change. I got so many impressions that I wrote them 
 for my paper one night; and part at least of what I 
 wrote seems worth while including here if only to 
 remind us, in these fat puffy prosperous days, of how 
 we felt two years ago. I called it, The Great Invasion. 
 
 "Washington has been invaded," I wrote, "by an army 
 of ideas a host of strange new aims and methods born 
 in the clash and din abroad and now entering here to 
 bore and burrow their devious ways deep into our na 
 tional institutions. We are being driven to drastic 
 powers of control over the whole nation s life. The 
 country has gone service mad and mobilization crazy. 
 For as the Great War rushes into its crisis, we are con- 
 
354 BLIND 
 
 fronted by the fact that Europe is facing starvation, not 
 only a dearth of food supplies but of all its capital as 
 well. The world s resources are being destroyed with a 
 speed that forces upon us the question, How is the 
 world to get going again ? We know that we are a part 
 of it now; we are learning to think ourselves out with 
 a map of the planet before our eyes; and we are begin 
 ning to dream new dreams. Yesterday Europe sneered 
 at us for being money-grabbers, for waxing fat while 
 Europe starved and bled and died for big ideals. Well, 
 we are waxing lean these days in our strenuous Yankee 
 fashion, reaching out for those ideals and then adding 
 some of our own demanding nothing for ourselves but 
 what we ask for everyone else, peace and brotherhood 
 for the world and safety for democracy in all lands and 
 on all seas. We have pledged ourselves to an under 
 taking wider than most of us guess. One feels the 
 impact every day of a tremendous tonic force on minds 
 that react in such different ways minds cautious and 
 conservative; minds dogmatic, narrow, hard; minds 
 open, warm and generous. All men are by no means 
 heroes here; there is much petty meanness, egregious 
 blundering and graft. But the comedie humaine I have 
 seen is immeasurably deeper than that, and wider in its 
 implications. As in the plays of the ancient Greeks, so 
 here you feel blind forces and tremendous destinies 
 working their will upon us little mortals. 
 
 "For in this year of stress and strain, two giant shapes 
 appear to me to be hovering over our heads. The first 
 one is the grim old god of war and savage force and 
 death. The other one is high above, like some huge 
 creature of the air, its outlines still but dimly seen, the 
 spirit of a super-nation which some call a League of 
 Peace. While we blindly worked and schemed in our 
 little gardens of civilization, suddenly war burst upon us 
 like a bleak October gale. It has stripped off the foliage, 
 
BLIND 355 
 
 has swept away the rich soft earth and brought us down 
 with a jar to bed-rock. We are made to feel that this 
 world of ours is no longer safe as we thought it to be. 
 But we are meeting the challenge. We are answering, 
 If there must be war, let it be the last. There must be 
 peace and justice and freedom for all nations. And to 
 this task we dedicate our somewhat money-ridden lives, 
 our somewhat misused liberties, our not wholly sacred 
 happiness. For this is no mere calamity, but one of the 
 grandest chances that has ever come to Man*." 
 
 Two years have gone since I wrote that sketch, and 
 till Dorothy read it to me last night I had almost for 
 gotten how I used to feel in those days. I did feel like 
 that I distinctly recall, the night when I wrote it, my 
 grim resolve not to let myself be carried away in all this 
 patriotic glow; I remembered my talk on the German 
 train with the young dramatic critic, and I tried to be 
 sincere and real, admitting our faults and weaknesses, 
 and writing only what I had seen, what I honestly felt 
 to be there. But it was there, to a degree that most of us 
 have forgotten now that tremendous national will. 
 Keep up morale throw off all gloom! The whole 
 nation was unconsciously taking to Christian Science, 
 treating itself in great warm waves of determined 
 optimism and faith. In my stuffy hotel room that night 
 I wrote what I saw but I saw what I wanted. I saw 
 my whole country roused and stirred as never before in 
 my lifetime, I saw the war as a crusade for human liber 
 ties everywhere, I saw a future of glorious change mov 
 ing all humanity on to inexpressibly better days. 
 
 And as I look back I am quite ready to defend that 
 point of view. For all its exaggeration, on the whole 
 there was more truth in it than most people now 
 believe, in these blind and prosperous days. It had its 
 faults, its tyranny, intolerance and stupid waste but 
 without its driving force we might have lost just those 
 
356 BLIND 
 
 few weeks which would have allowed the Germans to 
 break through at Chateau Thierry. And as for the cru 
 sade part of it, those glorious changes for the world- 
 this thing is far from finished yet! 
 
 6. 
 
 So much for my feeling in Washington. But in spite 
 of my optimism there, it was wonderful nevertheless to 
 get out of that immense welter of plans, of good and bad, 
 of weak and strong, and suddenly to find myself in an 
 officers training camp; to have cast to the winds my 
 freedom of choice and become a cog in the machine; to 
 have ceased the endless straining to envisage the whole 
 Big Show and narrow to one little part; to learn my job, 
 to rise at dawn and all day long try to do one thing after 
 the other just exactly as I was told; to feel my aching 
 body and nerves respond to this life, to sleep like a log 
 for the first time in years to sleep without dreaming. I 
 remember being pleased as Punch with almost every 
 thing in sight pleased with the first aches and pains, 
 stiff muscles, joints and blistered feet for I was in just 
 the mood for that. I was pleased with the endless little 
 jobs and the small gossip of the camp, and the jokes and 
 songs and games of these glorious youngsters. I liked 
 the furious digging into books and manuals, and the 
 classes and the lectures. It took me back to New Haven 
 at times, and yet how different! Lordy God, how these 
 kids worked! 
 
 But the pictures have grown dim behind the memories 
 of other camps. I got my commission soon and was 
 transferred to a cantonment how immense it seemed to 
 me then ! I was attached to a regiment of the field artil 
 lery. I remember how they rushed the work, how from 
 the start we were made to feel that in another month or 
 so we d get our orders to entrain and the deepening 
 impatience! They kept us right up on our toes. Each 
 
BLIND 357 
 
 morning with the captains, most of them hardly more 
 than boys, I lined up before our colonel, a pent-up 
 dynamo of a man who snapped and snarled and shouted, 
 knew nothing of fatigue himself and spared nobody, 
 hurled us on. Soon I could feel the tightening strain in 
 the nerves of the lads who stood rigid there waiting for 
 his next explosion. Out of fourteen captains, two went 
 out of their heads that spring. One I have heard is still 
 insane. The other was an actor, who had once been in a 
 play of mine. 
 
 "You know, Hart, old man," he confided, "I never get 
 over the feeling that this whole business is a show. 
 Damn it, I m acting all the time. When the Colonel 
 bawls me out and I m there at attention stiff as a post, 
 I m acting, by God! When I drill my men it s just as 
 bad. I sat in a court-martial the other day. But was I 
 judging ? Not a bit ! I was playing the part of a judge ! 
 And if I do say it," he added, complacently stroking his 
 small mustache, "I played the part damn well, old chap." 
 
 Even when the pace got him at last, and he was led 
 off one day in April gibbering like a crazy fool, I could 
 not keep from wondering whether he were not acting 
 still. In a week he was back with us, gay as a lark ; and 
 when drill time came around, out he marched to play his 
 part He was killed in the Argonne. 
 
 The other one, who went insane and stayed insane, 
 was a slim tense sober youngster who seemed to hold 
 the whole war in his eyes. A lad with too much imag 
 ination. He and I were close chums for a time. I do 
 not like to think of him now and almost always I suc 
 ceed in keeping him out of this room. 
 
 7. 
 
 I remember a week-end in March when I came back 
 to Seven Pines. My cousin Dorothy was not here ; but 
 Steve had just come home from France, I had not seen 
 
358 BLIND 
 
 him for nearly a year, and the many questions he asked 
 about my trip to Russia took my thoughts far back. But 
 I could not hold my mind to it. Now he in turn was tell 
 ing of the seething- restlessness of labor in France and 
 England ; but try as I would, I could not keep from fairly 
 yawning in his face. It was ten o clock, my bedtime. 
 With a jerk I pulled up from a doze. Steve smiled over 
 his cigarette, and drowsily I heard his voice : 
 
 "Healthy as a dormouse, eh?" 
 
 The insult woke me up a bit, and I questioned him for 
 a few minutes more. Then back came my mind to the 
 one grim job. Now in a few weeks we d be off. Steve 
 asked what I d seen of Tommy in camp; and catching the 
 anxiety in that quiet voice of his, I kept awake for a half 
 hour more while I told of the glimpses I d had of the 
 boy and the brief talks with him now and then. 
 Tommy s infantry regiment was in the same Division 
 as mine. Already made a sergeant, he was doing splen 
 didly. I tried to enlarge on the details of his unfailing 
 genial cheer and his popularity. But I had seen him 
 scarcely at all, and it was very hard to draw on my imag 
 ination that night. A few minutes later somebody 
 laughed and told me to go to bed. I did. 
 
 The next day I went to church with my aunt; and 
 there I heard Steve s father, who was nearly eighty 
 years old, urge the village on to the war. Taking slavery 
 for his theme, he spoke first of our Civil War. With 
 the sword we had set the black man free; and now we 
 were on a greater crusade, to emancipate all the slaves 
 in the world. He spoke of the Armenians and described 
 the day in this village when we had sent a missionary 
 out to that unhappy land. We had been like that. But 
 the Germans ? They had always supported the Turks and 
 had even instigated the massacres in Armenia. He drew 
 a lurid picture of the butcheries over there and of the 
 Belgian atrocities. Germany stood for despotism and 
 
BLIND 359 
 
 for bloody conquest. But the vengeance of the Lord 
 would soon be upon them; for we, his chosen instru 
 ments, must crush this German nation, break its strength 
 and shatter its pride, so that never again could it menace 
 the world! 
 
 But it did not seem to me that the congregation 
 responded to this terrible old Puritan s darkly emotional 
 appeal. As we came out I heard somebody murmur, 
 "How he does love to paint pictures of Hell whether 
 in this life or the next." And a red-haired youngster 
 home from camp demanded in a loud clear voice, 
 
 "Gee, Mother, can t you think up something a little 
 more cheerful in the way of entertainment when I come 
 home?" 
 
 A minority there, I think, thoroughly approved of the 
 sermon; and later this minority grew. But through the 
 conflict to the end, the view of most Americans was 
 more nearly expressed, I believe, by Aunt Amelia and 
 her kind. Sorely wounded deep inside by the attacks on 
 Dorothy, she had no use or patience for the haters all 
 about. Hiding her own trouble as something she must 
 bear alone, patient and kind with this daughter of hers 
 in the faith that out of these bitter days there would 
 come a happier time, convinced of the Tightness of the 
 cause for which her country had entered the war, she 
 took it into her religion now. "Mine Eyes Have Seen 
 the Glory of the Coming of the Lord." My Aunt Amelia s 
 eyes were fixed upon the great awakening, the new 
 vision in the land. Rumors of possible defeat, of blun 
 ders, graft, red tape and the like, made little or no 
 impression upon her. She felt the great work forging 
 on, and she was sure we should be in time. 
 
 "We must never let ourselves doubt it not for one 
 moment!" she declared. 
 
 But she saw more than winning the war. In countless 
 little ways she felt how the village through its sons was 
 
360 BLIND 
 
 opening its eyes to the world. She watched the service 
 flags appear in almost every window; and she knew the 
 stories behind them, for the Red Cross work she was 
 doing kept her in touch with the women and took her 
 frequently into their homes. Many letters came to her 
 from the West, and eagerly she gleaned the news of the 
 Great Coming Together, not only in work for the sol 
 diers but out on the ranches and the farms. Here was 
 brotherhood at last, and brotherhood of a practical kind 
 a kind that would work, yet did its work not for any 
 selfish profit but for a world-wide ideal! Even New 
 York had discovered its soul. From the big shop win 
 dows all along Fifth Avenue, the rich gowns and hats 
 and jewels were giving way to make room for other 
 appeals. She told of one large window which had for 
 merly been arranged to represent a boudoir. "Every 
 thing," my aunt declared, "that no decent woman wants 
 was there." Now it was gone and in its place was the 
 inside of a Belgian hut, with a woman and some starv 
 ing children. Even New York had become like that! 
 What must the rest of the country be? She read me a let 
 ter from the West describing a farmer s auction for the 
 benefit of the Red Cross. During the auction a flock of 
 wild geese passed high overhead on their way up North. 
 The auctioneer was quick to act. 
 
 "How much am I offered," he shouted, "for them 
 geese up in the clouds? Lively now! It s for the Red 
 Cross!" And the bidding was so fast, that while the 
 geese were still in sight he was shouting, "Ninety dol 
 lars for the flock ! Ninety dollars for the flock ! Make it 
 a hundred! Do your bit! A hundred I m offered! 
 Going at that! Going, going, going gone!" And the 
 geese disappeared in a distant cloud. 
 
 She had many similar incidents. As the troops 
 poured into the port to embark, the sons of her many 
 friends in the West came to see her at Seven Pines ; and 
 
BLIND 361 
 
 they told her what she wanted to know. Already she 
 was writing to several who had gone to France; and as 
 she sat at her desk by a window, her fancy often trav 
 elled far. 
 
 "Sometimes it seems to me, Larry," she said, "that 
 I can feel the women at windows all over the world, my 
 dear writing letters to men and boys, or knitting or 
 rolling bandages, or at cradles or by the beds of the sick 
 women in those moments when as we work we can 
 very quietly think and think about it all. And I have 
 such a feeling then of our all thinking and feeling 
 together. A kind of a world sense it is. I never have 
 had it before in my life." 
 
 This was what the war had done, she said. From 
 this time forth all peoples would understand each other 
 better, and with that would come a friendliness so vast 
 that the enemy countries, too, would be swept into the 
 brotherhood. 
 
 In brief, like so many of her kind, she saw only what 
 she wanted to see and what she wanted was only 
 good. 
 
 8. 
 
 But others could see only the bad and Dorothy was 
 one of them. On my brief visits home she was not 
 here. I could feel her mother arranged it so, and I was 
 grateful. It would have been hard. Not that I blamed 
 her. I do not still. The persecutions she had to endure, 
 although as petty as they were stupid, still were very 
 real to her and kept the wound of her bitterness open 
 by vicious little thrusts. One of her tormentors lived in 
 the next house down the hill. With two sons already in 
 France, this woman in her searching for some way to do 
 her bit had made of herself an amateur sleuth, and 
 almost everything she did was comic until vou saw its 
 effects. She simply could not understand why Dorothy 
 
362 BLIND 
 
 was not in jail. The evidence was so complete! Here 
 was a girl who had married a German, had gone with 
 him to Germany and there no doubt had encouraged him 
 in preparing gas attacks. Not content with that, she had 
 inveigled her two American cousins over to the land of 
 the Huns one aiding as a surgeon to put disabled sol 
 diers back at the front to kill our Allies, the other by 
 his writings helping to spread the German lies. Then 
 this. writer had gone to Russia; and shortly after he 
 arrived, that unhappy country had gone over to the Ger 
 man side! Moreover, now the surgeon was in his sani 
 tarium high up on a hill overlooking the Sound. Signal 
 lights had been seen on that hill while Dorothy, also on 
 a hill, had raised or lowered her window shades and had 
 kept her bedroom lighted often until nearly dawn! 
 
 Not once but half a dozen times did this patriotic 
 neighbor send officials of various kinds to Dorothy s 
 home to arrest her. They were met by Dorothy s mother 
 here, and after she had talked with them they went away 
 quite satisfied. But the woman then went over their 
 heads; she sent letters and petitions to government 
 agencies far and near. A friend of mine in the M. L, 
 with whom I dined one night in New York, said to me 
 in exasperation, 
 
 "Confound these hysterical women! They pour in so 
 many false alarms that our office is swamped, and we 
 waste the time that we ought to spend in running the 
 real enemy down!" 
 
 Against such constant torment, Dorothy reacted by 
 growing steadily more intense. From her own experi 
 ence she made sweeping generalities. Reading the news 
 papers each day, her mind and imagination seized upon 
 all evidence of injustice and oppression. God knows 
 there was enough of that. But she made no allowance 
 for the terrific rush of those days; nor did she seem to 
 have any sense of the real treason in the land, the 
 
BLIND 363 
 
 thousands of German agents here who succeeded in blow 
 ing up mills by the score and would have blown up 
 hundreds had not they been caught in time. Moreover, 
 the truth as I saw it then about our country in the war, 
 in spite of all the blunders and the needless tyrannies, 
 still held so much of the widening vision and the mighty 
 stimulus which Dorothy s mother felt in it all, that even 
 now as I look back, her view idealized though it was 
 seems immeasurably nearer the truth. 
 
 And at the time I could see nothing else; for in those 
 anxious months of spring the German armies were 
 rapidly driving deeper into France; the morale of the 
 French and English seemed at last about to break; and 
 the question "Can we be in time?" was the one big topic 
 in the camps. Down in my cantonment, caught in the 
 general tensity, the same change had occurred in myself 
 which I had noticed in others on my return from Russia. 
 How remote it seemed, all that, and how unimportant, 
 compared to the grim urgency here! 
 
 On my last leave of absence, I came home to Seven 
 Pines so dog-tired that right after supper I went to bed. 
 For a little while I lay awake listening to the quivering 
 hum which came from Dad s munition mills, and to the 
 endless motor trucks thundering along the road at the 
 foot of our hill on their way to New York. All over 
 the country, day and night, I could feel the work, the 
 Straining to build, to forge, to drill. 
 
 "In a month I shall be over there." 
 
 I had strained my arm the day before. It was stiff, 
 and after I fell asleep I must have thrashed about a bit 
 for I awoke with a slight start. My pillow was gone. 
 I lay there a moment in the dark vaguely groping in my 
 mind^ for some dim memory from the past. Ah, now I 
 had it! Goblins! A night nearly forty years before 
 when I was a little shaver, and Ed and I had slept in 
 this room. This time I did not shut my eyes; but when 
 
364 BLIND 
 
 I had picked up the pillow from the floor beside my bed, 
 I lay for some time longer drifting in the memories of 
 that little stranger of long ago. How many goblins had 
 come since then, creeping up in the darkness then slip 
 ping away. And now the war. 
 
 I heard a car come up the hill; it stopped at the door, 
 and a little later I heard Dorothy s voice on the stairs. 
 I was wide awake now. Did she know I was here? 
 After all, we had been together here so many years 
 ever since we were children. She had been like a kid 
 sister. ... I heard her stop before my door. 
 
 "Is that you, Dorothy?" 
 
 "Oh, you re awake. ... I was afraid I d miss you. 
 Mother says you have to leave early tomorrow." 
 
 "Yes at five." There was a pause. 
 
 "Are you very sleepy ?" 
 
 "No, no I ll be right down." 
 
 "Oh, don t do that you must be so tired." The door 
 opened, and in the path of light I saw her like a shadow. 
 "Let me just come in for a moment," she said, "and then 
 I ll let you go to sleep." 
 
 "I m not sleepy now. Wide awake as an owl." As 
 she came in and sat down in the dark, I told about my 
 pillow and the goblin night of long ago. We laughed 
 a little. 
 
 "I ve brought you something. Listen," she said. And 
 a moment later I heard the tinkle of little chimes. "It s 
 the watch Mother gave me to use over there. Don t you 
 remember? You brought it with you to Berlin. 
 Wouldn t you like it?" 
 
 "Yes," I said. She came and put it in my hand, and 
 I held hers for a moment. 
 
 "You understand?" she whispered. "I can t feel as 
 you do about the war but I ll be so glad so glad when 
 it s over, and you are back again with us, dear!" 
 
 "Don t go yet," I begged her. "There s a whale of 
 
BLIND 365 
 
 a goblin here tonight. He has been hanging round for 
 the last six months trying to spoil all we ve been to 
 each other. The only way to chase him out is to laugh 
 at him, and talk and talk." 
 
 So we talked of the jolliest foolishest times, and we 
 did not speak of the war at all. But I spoke again of 
 that goblin night and then of goblins large and small, 
 friendly ones and nasty ones that come leering and pok 
 ing and elbowing into good people s lives to torment 
 them then get tired and slink away. 
 
 "I won t see you again before you go," she said softly, 
 at the end. "Goodnight, Larry dear." 
 
 I saw her once more for a moment in the path of light 
 through the door. Then she shut it, and again it was 
 dark. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 1. 
 
 JUST before we left for France, Steve brought Lucy 
 and Aunt Amelia out to Camp Mills to say goodbye. It 
 was a hot muggy day in May. The big embarkation 
 camp had space for two divisions, some sixty thousand 
 men and boys. It was already nearly full, and into that 
 big city of tents along the dusty roads and paths still 
 more troops were pouring in. Their tramping feet kept 
 clouds of yellow dust in the air dust on the tents and 
 the low buildings, dust on the boots and uniforms, dust 
 on the very flags they bore, -dust on faces, lips and eyes 
 dust of the everyday labor of war, the hard bleak job 
 of learning to kill. And as this dust hung in the air, so 
 too it seemed to lie thick on the minds and feelings of 
 these fighting men. 
 
 I glanced at Aunt Amelia. What a pity she had 
 come out here, bang up against realities. I could see her 
 flinch a bit at first but adjust herself as time \vent on; 
 and in the questions that she asked I could feel her 
 getting down through the dust to some of the deeper 
 feelings here. As I recounted various significant little 
 things I had heard from these big dusty sweating boys, 
 I could feel her making them a part of her own dauntless 
 vision. All the dust that was here, I thought, would 
 soon drop away in her memories, and all would be ideal 
 ized as her beloved West had been. And I was glad 
 that it was so. 
 
 But our thoughts were mainly of Tommy that day. 
 His regiment was camped next to mine. Soon he joined 
 
 366 
 
BLIND 367 
 
 our little group; and after leaving in his tent the choco 
 late and cigarettes and other gifts from his family, 
 young Sergeant McCrea came back to us. In every word 
 he uttered he was consciously and deliberately and very 
 youthfully commonplace. He did not propose to let us 
 think that he felt himself a hero now. To remove any 
 possible semblance of a halo from his close-cropped head, 
 Tommy scratched it from time to time and made various 
 jocose remarks which his mother considered "disgust 
 ing." But we who knew the boy so well could feel in 
 the conscious genial tone, and again in his occassional 
 brusque and self-absorbed replies, what a mere youngster 
 he was still grimly keeping himself in hand, not allow 
 ing his mind to dwell upon what loomed so close ahead, 
 at moments half exultant and eager for the Big Show 
 over there, again uncertain and afraid. He was still 
 inarticulate, but the whole honest soul of him was grop 
 ing for a few big thoughts, a few strong driving reasons 
 as to why all this must be. And above all, "nerve" no 
 flinching! 
 
 At last a bugle call was heard. 
 
 "That means me," said Tommy, getting quickly to 
 his feet. He hesitated for a moment. "Well, goodbye, 
 Mumsy see you soon." One after the other he kissed 
 the women, with a gruff goodbye to each. For an 
 instant he gripped his father s hand, then turned to do 
 the same with me, and caught himself only just in time. 
 He reddened, loudly cleared his throat, and the next 
 moment he was hurrying off. In long lines the com 
 panies were forming in the lanes between the tents. We 
 watched him forming his platoon into their place in the 
 dusty ranks; and for a moment after that we watched 
 him rigid as a post. Then in a voice abrupt and low, 
 Lucy said, 
 
 "Let s go now, Steve." 
 
 I walked with them to their car at the gate, where 
 
368 BLIND 
 
 after another round of goodbyes they left me to go back 
 to town. 
 
 2. 
 
 With a number of other officers I embarked the day 
 before we sailed. Our ship was one of the big fellows 
 it took nearly ten thousand men that trip and to my 
 delight I discovered that Tommy s regiment was on the 
 list. I telephoned the news to Steve, and he succeeded 
 through the Red Cross in gaining admittance to the 
 pier. He came down that evening, and for some time we 
 walked in the big shadowy dockshed. We talked very 
 little. From time to time more troops poured in, and the 
 big keen eyes of my companion kept searching the faces 
 as they came bobbing, lurching by. Still no Tommy. 
 Our huge ship was already swarming with brown-clad 
 men, and under the hard blue quivering glare of the arc 
 lights more brown figures were pressing, pressing in long 
 files slowly up the gang-planks. I knew how Steve felt 
 for this only son, become so abruptly one of the mil 
 lions of atoms hurled into the storm. Steve had seen so 
 much of the horrors of war. It had aged him. Though 
 his powerful figure was as tall and erect as before, there 
 was more gray about his temples, heavier markings 
 beneath his eyes. And they looked deeper into things. 
 All at once he gave a little start, and then stood very 
 quietly watching Tommy pass close by in the din and 
 confusion, his face excited, tired, strained, eyes fixed on 
 two smiling women serving coffee just ahead. Soon he 
 was laughing with one of them, as she filled his big tin 
 cup. Then he pressed on up into the ship. 
 
 We had quite a hunt till we found him there. Because 
 many of these sons of the land, from inland cities, towns 
 and farms, had never seen the ocean before, to each one 
 as he came on board was handed a card which gave the 
 location of his bunk and named the various parts of the 
 
BLIND 369 
 
 boat. And as they searched for their places, the whole 
 vessel seemed to shake with the constant tread of heavy 
 feet. It had a naked look, this ship; but it teemed and 
 hummed with activities. Through long narrow passage 
 ways and up and down steep flights of stairs we made 
 our way. And at last, deep down in the vessel, in a 
 bunk-room crowded with steel framed bunks by hun 
 dreds, four tiers high, from the floor close up to the 
 ceiling, in one we found Tommy sound asleep. It was 
 stifling hot down here; and though his brown shirt was 
 open, his neck and face were wet with sweat. But his 
 respiration was long and deep, and he was snoring peace 
 fully. 
 
 "No use in waking him up," muttered Steve. For a 
 few moments he stood looking down. Just as he was 
 about to go, with a sudden toss of one arm and a snort, 
 Tommy opened his eyes, saw his father there, blinked 
 hprri anc | f ast j n startled surprise, and uttered a thick 
 whisper : 
 "Dad!" 
 "Hello, son." 
 
 They were gripping hands. 
 
 "How did you get here ?" Tommy asked. For a time 
 they talked in whispers, and then after a brief hesitation 
 and obvious struggle, "Look here, old man," Tommy 
 blurted out, "there s a thing I meant to speak about 
 and didn t couldn t get a chance." 
 "Say it," said Steve, with a tense smile. 
 "Oh, it isn t much. It s only that well, I just want 
 you to know that I m on to the fact of how you feel. 
 You d give your coat and pants and vest for a chance 
 to be with us. Darned pity you can t." Tommy spoke 
 in a low hurried tone, scowling down at his father s 
 crippled hand. "It s your own fault," he muttered. "So 
 long as you would be a surgeon, and cripple your hand 
 in time of peace hero of peace that sort of stuff " 
 
370 BLIND 
 
 Tommy grinned to show he was joking "you can t 
 expect to have all the fun. But anyhow," he added, "if 
 I d run as many hospitals in this war as you have, I 
 guess I d feel I d done my bit. Sorry, though, you can t 
 be with us. ... Gee, how hot it is down here! Why 
 the devil can t the War Department open the portholes 
 while we re in port!" Tommy was more natural now. 
 "Say, Uncle Larry, don t you suppose they d let me up 
 on deck with you, just for a couple of minutes or so?" 
 
 We went on deck. It was cool and fresh just day 
 break. The light was misty, blue, unreal. Sharp orders, 
 and long gangs of men at the huge hawsers on the pier. 
 It was sailing time. Steve left us; and a few minutes 
 later, as the big vessel moved slowly out, he stood in a 
 gangway of the pier looking steadily up at us, with a 
 quiet smile that reminded me of the days when Steve 
 was Tommy s age nearly thirty years ago. Suddenly 
 he was swept from our view, and now I grew conscious 
 of Tommy s big hand which had been tightly gripping 
 my arm. He let go and cleared his throat. Then he said 
 a bit thickly, 
 
 "Much obliged, Uncle Larry, for fixing it getting 
 me up on deck, I mean." He looked about in a lost sort 
 of way. "Gee, but I m tired. Me for the slats." 
 
 3. 
 
 With an empty let-down feeling, for a time I walked 
 the decks, where in place of the long double rows of 
 steamer chairs of former days were only a few benches, 
 and not even these were occupied long. Nobody seemed 
 to care to sit down. Soon I joined the restless throng 
 of big-booted boys who tramped and tramped all over 
 the boat now stopping for long silent stares out over 
 the rail toward the shore-line which was rapidly sinking 
 behind; then again tramping, tramping on, alone or in 
 couples or larger groups, exploring the big liner, curious, 
 
BLIND 371 
 
 prying, laughing, joking. The boat had been built by 
 the Germans, and in the narrow passageways the painted 
 panels were still on the walls. In front of one, a floral 
 design rather "Dutchy" in style, I saw two young Bud 
 dies pause with an air of determined disapproval; and I 
 heard one of them say to the other, 
 
 "You know, these Germans just naturally make every 
 thing ugly that they touch. That s a hell of a bunch of 
 pansies, that is !" 
 
 And the pair moved slowly on. 
 
 I came to what in peace time had been a gorgeous 
 dining saloon. Now there were long board tables there at 
 which sat boys playing checkers or cards or writing 
 letters. More were about the gramophones, and a crowd 
 was singing around the piano. The bunk rooms that I 
 visited were half filled with sleepers, but in one an anxi 
 ous-looking boy was scowling over ^a notebook and 
 repeating determinedly, 
 
 "Je vowdrais oon cigarette je vowdrais oon ciga 
 rette " 
 
 Close by lay Tommy in his bunk, with hands locked 
 behind his head, scowling and staring straight above 
 him. Plainly he wished to be alone. 
 
 I slept the greater part of the day. When I came out 
 on deck that night, the land lights were already gone, and 
 at first I saw only a dark expanse the same empty 
 ocean I had known on previous voyages during the war. 
 But as my eyes grew used to the darkness, looking ahead 
 and then behind, with a sudden start and thrill I dis 
 covered a long procession of blurred misty little lights 
 extending off into the night. The convoy was in single 
 file a dim spectral bridge of lights reaching out across 
 the sea. 
 
 I remember little else of the trip, except a talk with 
 Tommy one day when the voyage was nearly at an end. 
 I had seen little of him till then; I could feel he was 
 
372 BLIND 
 
 avoiding me. Plainly he did not care to be seen making 
 capital of the fact that his uncle was an officer. He him 
 self was one of the crowd, and he enjoyed it thoroughly. 
 In his regiment all kinds and races, rich and poor, had 
 been thrown together and rapidly welded into a mass, 
 which had developed a life of its own; and into this life 
 Tommy entered with a genial zest and vim. They 
 seemed more like a crowd of boys off to some big college 
 game. Their spare time was filled with jokes and songs. 
 They joked even over the life-boat drill. And how they 
 dozed and blinked in the sun, or leaned lazily over the 
 rail and idly spit into the sea. . . . But with Tommy one 
 afternoon, as we stood at the rail together, I asked him 
 to give me his idea of how the Buddies looked at it all. 
 And after a long frowning stare out over the ocean, 
 Tommy said: 
 
 "I ll tell you, Uncle Larry the way I size it up is this. 
 All this talk about how we are going to make a new 
 world kind of heaven on earth, so to speak is mostly 
 trimmings to most of the fellows. They re pretty hazy 
 about it they don t think much, they haven t time. You 
 know the life how it has been in camp and I guess 
 there ll be more n enough to do when we get over." 
 
 He stopped for a moment. Tommy had such honest 
 eyes. 
 
 "Put the Kaiser out of business," he went on reflect 
 ively. "Then the Austrian Emperor What s-his-name 
 and show the Turks where they get off. And after that, 
 use all our pull to get a whole bunch of good free coun 
 tries started up all over the map. Democracy? Sure. 
 
 But " again he stopped and his voice dropped low 
 
 "with all due respect to the President, he does lay it on 
 just a little bit thick about America, doesn t he now? Oh, 
 it s all right, I suppose good for morale keeps the 
 whole business kind of way up. And there s a whole 
 lot of truth in it, too. I m not knocking my country, 
 understand and I m proud of it, proud as hell I ll 
 
BLIND 373 
 
 bet we re a whole lot decenter than any other country 
 on earth. But we just aren t perfect that s what I 
 mean never were and never pretended we were. I 
 used to listen to you and Dad talk about that year in 
 the slums. And when a fellow thinks of that slums 
 and strikes and so on and the way Aunt Fanny throws 
 money about well, we aren t angels that s what I 
 mean. Take young Carrington. What in thunder does he 
 care about democracy?" Here again Tommy paused 
 and scowled. "It s a complicated business," he said. 
 "Take Russia, too, on the other hand. From what you 
 say of these Bolsheviks, there s such a thing as being too 
 free with everybody losing his head. What s Europe 
 coming to, anyhow? We certainly don t want to be like 
 that. And so I say when you try to stop and figure what 
 this war s about, you re up against a mighty big ques 
 tion! 
 
 "But that s not worrying us a lot," he continued, in an 
 easier tone. "You know what the war has done to us? 
 It has made us feel like kids again." 
 
 I r shot a quick startled look at him. There he stood, 
 nearly six-feet-two, with set jaw and serious eyes. 
 
 "Take my case," this man went on. "I d just about 
 grown up, so to speak. I was free to do about as I liked 
 smoke and so on think for myself. And it was the 
 same with the rest we d all begun to lead our own 
 lives. Then, biffo, zowie, came the war and jerked us 
 in and we ve lost our lives." He suddenly reddened. 
 "I mean, we re not free. You know how it has been 
 in camp. You re a drop in the bucket, ordered around. 
 Every minute of your day is your country s. You re 
 fed and clothed and if you re not, there s no use kick 
 ing none at all. You re a two-spot and your life is 
 small. The war has happened and scooped you in. So 
 what s the use of worrying? . . . Anyhow, that s about 
 how we feel more or less," he muttered. 
 
 "That s about it, son." 
 
374 BLIND 
 
 And we lit cigarettes. 
 
 It was only one day after this that we came into the 
 danger zone. We met a destroyer that morning, our own. 
 Then a British hydroplane appeared. The rumor spread 
 that an enemy U-boat was close by, and the tension 
 quickly deepened. No more waiting, no more guessing. 
 Here at last was the Big Show. And it was as though, 
 from the continent still invisible ahead, a great grim 
 inner voice had come out to meet us, and of every man 
 and boy on the ship was demanding, 
 
 "Well, son , how s your nerve?" 
 
 Of our two days in England, I remember only crowded 
 trains, long delays and hasty meals and sleep in snatches. 
 Late at night we embarked for France on a little boat 
 that wallowed deep in the trough of a rough nasty sea. 
 It was raining hard, and the seasick Buddies lying in 
 piles on the crowded decks were soaked to the skin. It 
 was pitch dark. But as in the early morning we came to 
 the shores of France, the heavy rain clouds broke away 
 and a great radiant dazzling sun rose over the hills of 
 Havre. In the confusion of landing, I came upon 
 Tommy and gripped his hand. 
 
 "Good luck, Tommy !" 
 
 "Same to you !" And he hurried away. 
 
 The colonel of his regiment must have had something 
 of the dream of Aunt Amelia in him then. For he 
 ordered out the band, and up along a winding road he 
 took his regiment into the hills, toward that clear glori 
 ous morning sun, to the tune of, "Mine Eyes Have Seen 
 the Glory of the Coming of the Lord." 
 
 And that was the last I ever saw, or will ever see, of 
 Tommy. 
 
 4. 
 
 All through July and August, my regiment was bil 
 leted in a little village through which ran a long straight 
 
BLIND 375 
 
 road. Close by the road was a railroad track ; and along 
 the track and along the road came a double procession 
 day and night trains, motor lorries, wagons, carts; 
 men, provisions, shells and guns. But the village seemed 
 so used to it all, and took it, in the heat and dust, as it 
 had done these four long years. How hot it could be in 
 that tiny town, and at times how desperately still. Only 
 one store, a tobacco shop, and two dirty little cafes. On 
 either hand a straggling row of frame and stucco dwell 
 ings. Behind, a level landscape dotted with tent villages. 
 Here the Yanks soon settled down. Gone was the grim 
 tension now. Curious and glad to be here, boasting of 
 what they would do, and quickly learning a few words 
 of such French as was never heard before, the Buddies 
 talked and laughed with the girls and were free with 
 their money at the cafes, offering it in handfuls and 
 joking over the change they got. But soon this cheer 
 fulness disappeared. They grumbled at the prices and 
 were unutterably bored in this dull little place with its 
 dust and heat. 
 
 "I thought there was once somthin said about our 
 coming here for a war!" growled a fat little Buddy one 
 day. 
 
 There were growls, not only against the French but 
 against the British Tommies, too, who as they passed 
 through the place made ribald jokes at our expense. The 
 first exhilaration was gone. The days were crowded with 
 hard work, and it was amazing how quickly these lads 
 settled into the new routine of work, drill, gossip, jokes 
 and grumbles, games as in the camp at home. 
 
 Although I was busy as the rest and entered into the 
 work with zest as a relief from useless thinking, still 
 there were times when memories rose of what I had 
 seen in the last four years. One day to our camp came 
 a large stout chap with a desperately worried air, who 
 confided to me that he had a contract to write the his- 
 
376 BLIND 
 
 tory of the war. So far, he had planned for some forty 
 large volumes and was organizing a staff of writers all 
 over the face of the earth. In touch with him by mail 
 and cable, these men were gathering great stacks of 
 original documents, giving all the causes back to about 
 the time of the Flood. 
 
 "Even Argentina s part is so damned interesting I" 
 he groaned. 
 
 My talk with him brought back the thoughts of how 
 the world was breaking into a vast confusion now, of 
 which the war was but a part. How many years or 
 generations till things finally settled down? A new 
 world order to be builded out of the turgid chaos here, 
 in other wars and revolutions, endless talk and speeches, 
 books, political campaigns and strikes. . . . Two or three 
 times with the officers I tried to talk of these gropings 
 into what the war would bring; but I found little inter 
 est in such ideas or vistas. Here was only the daily 
 grind ; they were all businesslike, these chaps ; and when 
 evening came they were tired out. They made me think 
 of other men who long ago on Broadway had come to 
 our theatres at night wanting only to be amused. The 
 tired business man of the past had become the tired 
 soldier. 
 
 Early in August came a change. Into the dusty vil 
 lage swept the new tidings from the front. The Huns 
 had been stopped! The Big Push was on! The tide 
 had turned, and now at last the war was rushing to its 
 end ! The effect upon us was deep and sharp. Men and 
 officers, old and young, had but one thought : "Can we 
 get there in time?" I was caught in that deep eagerness, 
 the strain kept tightening, tightening, and other thoughts 
 were swept aside. When at the end of another month 
 the order came and we entrained, as the crowded cars 
 moved out the Buddies all began to sing. And there 
 flashed into my mind the picture of those German lads 
 
BLIND 377 
 
 singing "Heilige Nacht" on Christmas Eve. Soon we 
 would be facing their line! 
 
 From that night on, as I look back, it is all a blur 
 in my memory the scattered incidents jumbled in, one 
 upon another. Here and there is a face or a phrase that 
 caught my attention at the time, together with various 
 names of towns, villages and little streams. And endless 
 numbers I recall, numbers of hills, divisions, regiments, 
 batteries and guns; and names of officers high and low, 
 and bits of orders of the day. 
 
 As the sun set over a level plain, out of the west came 
 rushing a long line of army trucks, fantastic in their 
 camouflage and packed with husky noisy Yanks. Two 
 French peasants in a field at first waved caps and then 
 threw kisses but the genial Yanks replied derisively, 
 with thumb to nose. . . . Boom boom from the distant 
 guns. A battalion coming back from the trenches, wip 
 ing from their faces the sweat and the thick yellow dust. 
 Some lurched by as though asleep. One of them 
 stumbled and fell on his shoulder, uttered a quick 
 startled "Hell!" and got up and hurried back into line. 
 . . . We met small groups of wounded men, with hands 
 or arms or heads bound up, and others limping slowly 
 along. . . . We came behind a long low hill and passed 
 a quiet meadow with hundreds of graves all overgrown 
 with cornflowers, poppies, buttercups. ... In the deep 
 ening dusk, the distant booms changed to jarring crashes 
 now. On the road ahead came a flash and a roar and 
 I saw a horse screaming and kicking up dust with his 
 hind legs, straining hard to raise his head, with terror 
 in his greenish eyes. . . . But again we left the noise 
 behind. Our road wound through deep ravines and up 
 long wooded hillsides. And in a dark drizzling rain 
 we came to a spectral hill town where part of our divi 
 sion had been billeted for the night. 
 
 After that, a long blank in my memory. 
 
378 BLIND 
 
 Then a dugout in a hillside a long delicious sleep in 
 there and out at night, feeling like a new man. The 
 muggy drizzle of the day had been swept away by a cool 
 strong wind, and the stars were glorious in the sky. It 
 was brilliant in the valley below, with rockets white and 
 green and red, and the sudden flare and glow of guns. 
 Crash and boom and crackle, the long sharp rattle of the 
 machine guns, all came rolling up together in an angry 
 sea of sound. From one of our batteries close above 
 me came a roar that shook the hill. I climbed up by a 
 steep little path through the pines and what I did there 
 I cannot recall. I think I had a message from the colonel 
 down below, and that later I smoked a cigarette with the 
 young lieutenant in charge of the guns. I must have 
 been there until dawn, for I have a picture sharp and 
 clear of a dwarfed little pine in the first raw light, its 
 needles silvery with dew, and a sodden old bird s nest 
 clinging to one of its wet branches. A German shell 
 must have burst close by for there was a dazzling 
 flash, and up sailed my little tree into the skies. Some 
 thing seemed to crackle and crash somewhere deep 
 inside my head. Then it stopped and I drifted rapidly 
 down into the silent dark. Not a glimmer or a sound. 
 
 5. 
 
 I was roused by a headache sharper than any I had 
 ever known. I heard a voice and opened my eyes and 
 they opened all right, but still there was nothing but the 
 same blackness as before. I felt a dull pain in one leg. 
 "Easy with him, easy now." I felt them lift me. Then 
 I fainted. ... I remember an ambulance ride, and dress 
 ing times when the pain bit in. I felt a hand wiping 
 the sweat from my forehead, and I heard a woman s 
 voice as she jabbed a needle into my arm. Suddenly 
 the pain was gone. I lay on the ground in the cool 
 outer air and smiled to myself. It was wonderful. I 
 
BLIND 379 
 
 heard that woman s voice again. What did it remind me 
 of? Ah, now I had it Dorothy in a theatre all filled 
 with beds. But what a damn fool place for beds ! Now 
 I knew I was out of my head. For a theatre wait a 
 moment yes, a theatre was a place filled with women 
 in evening clothes! "No, sir beds! Packed full of 
 em! Hell, yes! War! Now Tyc got it all right!" I 
 gave a low laugh and dropped again down into the 
 soundless dark. 
 
 I heard voices singing, and the sound took me career 
 ing up to the stars. Now and then I nearly hit one. 
 Golly, but that was a narrow escape! . . . Queer how I 
 could soar like that, and yet know all the while I was 
 on a train, in a hot narrow bunk, with wounded men 
 and boys about. I could hear them groan and swear at 
 times, and I heard a chap close by me die. I heard his 
 rapid gasping breath, with now and then a "Betty, 
 Betty!" whispered so close it seemed right in my ear. 
 All at once his breathing stopped. "He s dead," I 
 thought. . . . How that wretched little French car 
 bumped and lurched as it bore us on. And my body was 
 so devilish light I could not keep- it in the bunk. Bump, 
 bump, bump the car would bump me up again into the 
 stars. . . . Once I came down to find it still. We must 
 have been at a station, for just outside my window I 
 could hear an old French woman very slowly and care 
 fully giving somebody her special receipt for soup a 
 I onion. I listened as though my very life depended on 
 not missing a word. 
 
 Now I was in a bed with sheets. I could move my 
 limbs to cooler spots, and I smiled with a drowsy dull 
 content. The pain in my leg was half asleep, and the 
 ache in my head was so much better! If only that 
 surgeon would leave me alone ! Once when he came and 
 J lay waiting, quivering, tense, I heard him say, 
 
 "A long thin splinter went in at one temple. The 
 
380 BLIND 
 
 eyes tnemselves are not affected. The trouble is in the 
 optic nerve region." 
 
 Only the nerves ! So that was it ! How long would I 
 be blind, I wondered? Then the dressing! Then the 
 morphine! These were the two big events of my day. 
 The dressing once; the needle twice. Dorothy s watch 
 was under my pillow, and the chime of its tiny bells 
 was a godsend in the dark. Slowly I became aware, in 
 this strange new inner life, that my other ties with the 
 outside world were rapidly growing more acute. 
 Eagerly I sniffed the odor of coffee or of cigarettes, and 
 the slightest whiff of tobacco smoke was an exasperating 
 delight. But this was nothing compared to what my 
 good old ears were up to. I could tell the step of the 
 nurse I liked from the creaky tread of the one I detested. 
 I grew to know the whole life of the ward by the sounds. 
 Some were loud and obvious, but others that came in the 
 night were subtle, low, uncanny, like thoughts drift 
 ing into me. I began to grow proud of these ears 
 of mine. I won five dollars on a bet that I could hear 
 a handkerchief dropped at the other end of the ward. 
 
 Into the ward every day or so came fresh arrivals 
 from the front. Hungrily we gleaned from them the 
 latest news of the Big Push that was throwing the Ger 
 mans out of France. But I dreaded the nights when 
 these chaps came, because invariably the ones who had 
 been badly wounded raved in nightmares like lost souls, 
 with savage piercing bestial cries that came without 
 warning out of their darkness into mine. Early one 
 evening I was roused by a commotion in the next ward, 
 which was full of enlisted men. Our nurses were called 
 in to help, and soon I learned that the boys in there were 
 being moved out to make room for a crowd that was 
 coming. I caught the word, "gassed." My mind leaped 
 back to Dorothy s husband; and though he was dead, I 
 grew bitter against his work that night. For through 
 
BLIND 381 
 
 the thin door to my sensitive ears came a stifled bedlam 
 of groans and cries. A nurse hurried in to ask for help 
 from some of our convalescents. Two young Irish- 
 American second lieutenants followed her back; and all 
 through the rest of the night I could hear them holding 
 tight in their arms the poor devils who died. Once I 
 caught the words: 
 
 "All right, old man I m right here with a pencil and 
 paper. . . . What s that? . . . I ve got it. Now what 
 next?" 
 
 There were other nightmares in that place. Thank 
 God, I ve forgotten most of them. The days and nights 
 wore into weeks, and I grew thoroughly sick of it all; 
 tired of being shut up in my head. If only I could get 
 out through my eyes ! But they were still bandaged ; and 
 the ache above them, though for days it would leave me 
 in peace, would then tackle me again like a mean vicious 
 little dog. My thinking grew bitter. I was old. While 
 the youngsters around me quickly recovered, I was little 
 better than before. I had moods of a desperate hunger 
 to get back home and live again, start something dif 
 ferent, fresh and new! 
 
 I awoke abruptly one afternoon, straining my ears. 
 What had I heard? I caught the hum and murmur of 
 voices from all over the ward, an occasional laugh, 
 someone singing a song but that was only old, old 
 stuff. Why had I wakened, listening so ? 
 
 "Who spoke to me?" I asked aloud. 
 
 Then I felt a hand on mine, and I heard Tommy speak 
 my name. 
 
 6. 
 
 Tommy had stopped a rifle bullet two weeks after I 
 was hit, on the same sector of our line, where the Bodies 
 were slow in giving way. He had won his second 
 lieutenant s commission only a few days before. While 
 
382 BLIND 
 
 leading his men he had been hit and had pitched into a 
 funk-hole that was partly full of gas. A wounded 
 man had pulled him out just in time to save his life; 
 but Tommy, like me, had been left blind. In the hospital 
 here, however, the wound in his shoulder had quickly 
 healed. These kids, what quick recoverers! And as 
 for his eyes, a surgeon had told him the chances were a 
 hundred to one that he would soon see again. Already 
 out of the dark room, though he still wore a bandage, 
 his old buoyancy had returned. 
 
 "Golly, what damned queer glorious luck, our getting 
 together!" Tommy cried. "I thought there might be 
 some fellows I knew, so I got the nurse to read me the 
 names of all the fellows in the place. And when your 
 name came out of the list, I had a riot all by myself! 
 So here I am, by Jimminy !" 
 
 Our talk that day, and others that followed, did so 
 much to buck me up that soon I was getting about on his 
 arm. Feeling his way along with a stick, Tommy called 
 gayly down the aisle, 
 
 "Make way for the lame, the halt and the blind!" 
 
 Then came the news of the Armistice, and after the 
 celebration that night we thought of little but getting 
 home. The days dragged on. Why this delay? And 
 why no word from our family? There had been not a 
 single home letter for weeks, and we cursed the con 
 fusion of government mails. Had they all forgotten us 
 back there? 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 1. 
 
 No, they had not forgotten us; but it was not until late 
 in October that they learned we had been wounded. Up 
 to that time, one letter from me and a couple of post 
 cards from Tommy were all the messages that reached 
 home of the many we had written. The others were 
 either lost or delayed. Meanwhile, despite their anxiety, 
 the life of the family had gone on. 
 
 After seeing us off in June, life sagged dismally for 
 Steve. Twice he tried to get over to France, but his 
 work kept piling up at home. Already the wounded were 
 coming back, and the big receiving hospitals in New 
 York were still in confusion; Steve was drawn into that 
 work and was soon hopelessly involved. In August, 
 Aunt Amelia was taken suddenly very ill; but after an 
 anxious period, through the sheer force of the will that 
 was in her, she fought her way back into life. During 
 her brief illness my father was almost constantly there, 
 and Steve and he had several talks. Dad was one of 
 those whom Steve described as Lost Americans. For 
 him the old familiar ways and standards had been swept 
 aside. Government officials were forever coming in to 
 interfere with his business; and meanwhile in his own 
 war work he found himself constantly interfering with 
 the business of other men. Half consciously he was 
 taking part in radical sweeping changes, and vaguely 
 aware of this at times, he confessed to Steve his uneasi 
 ness over what he felt was ahead. 
 
 But no such grim uncertainties troubled Aunt Fanny 
 or Louise. They had closed the place in Newport and 
 
 383 
 
384 BLIND 
 
 were spending the summer in town. They were still 
 working hard all day, but as a rule their evenings were 
 free for the dinners, balls and pageants, through which 
 patriots like themselves were doing their bit. For the 
 pageants Louise was in great demand; she was always 
 having new costumes made. One night she was a Sister 
 of Mercy, again a ragged Belgian girl, and again the 
 Spirit of France. Once she was perfectly furious 
 because a very catty friend had handed her "Portugal" 
 as a part. Europe sent many Tories here, quite a few 
 of them with titles, and many of these were welcome 
 guests at delightfully informal dinners in my father s 
 home. Among them was a young Britisher, a very 
 decent likable lad, who had been wounded several times. 
 Louise and he were soon well launched in a promising 
 love affair. 
 
 Young Carrington came home from France early in 
 September. Having been slightly wounded and sent 
 back to help train troops, he was welcomed in his home 
 like a young god come down to earth. And his war 
 talk had no nonsense about it. Crush the Huns and then 
 get back to the sunny well bred world that they had 
 known before the fight. , Moreover, a brief talk with 
 him left Steve with the impression that in the mind of 
 this youngster his duty toward society had been filled 
 completely for the remainder of his life. He had offered 
 his life for his country, and thereby had justified not 
 only his own existence but the entire old order of things. 
 To preserve it was his one thought now. With the 
 Huns already practically licked, he proposed to devote 
 his energies to rooting out the Huns in our midst, and 
 the sneaking Bolsheviki, too ! 
 
 These opinions he declared on a visit to Aunt Amelia, 
 and he was keenly annoyed by the presence of his cousin 
 Dorothy there. She listened with a look in her eyes that 
 set his blood to boiling. Quite honestly convinced of the 
 
BLIND 385 
 
 truth of his own convictions, he went to such extremes 
 in his talk that at last in a sharp quivering voice Dorothy 
 interrupted. The Germans were no worse, she cried, 
 than any other people at war ! France and England had 
 their faults! And as for the Russian revolution, it was 
 the one big hope for the world ! At this young Carring- 
 ton got up and remarked that she ought to be in jail. 
 Then he said goodnight. 
 
 But Dorothy did not have a good night. A few hours 
 later her mother telephoned Steve to come over at once ; 
 and he found her nearly out of her mind. This cousin 
 of ours, who had once been such a personal lovable 
 figure, now lay on her bed and raved against life. What 
 was the use of living in such a perfectly rotten world? 
 Let them shoot her and be done with it ! If they put her 
 in jail, she would go insane ! 
 
 "Don t let them! Oh, Steve, I d go mad! It s not 
 death I m afraid of I want to die! But to lose my 
 mind! Oh Steve Steve !" 
 
 He held her steadily for a while, until the paroxysm 
 passed. 
 
 "Now I m going to help you," he said, "and we re 
 going to stick together as close as we were in Germany. 
 But I won t be able to help you much unless you do just 
 as I say. You re frightened and you have a right to be ; 
 you re in a very dangerous state. But most of the 
 trouble comes from inside. Nobody is going to put you 
 in jail. You re either going to stay right here or else 
 come over to Lucy and me. In a way, remember, we re 
 in the same boat. I m often called a pro-German because ( 
 of the work we did over there. But it seems so very 
 small, such talk, compared to the big things happening 
 now. In your case, I ll admit it has been worse the 
 things they ve said have been more raw. But they re 
 only stings on the surface. The real trouble is beneath. 
 And we ve got to get to that we ve got to have it out, 
 
38 BLIND 
 
 my dear. You re too big a person to have come to this 
 condition through such little stings. What are they 
 compared to the things we saw?" 
 
 Talking quietly by her side, he forced her mind back 
 through the horrors day and night in that old German 
 theatre, until they came to her husband s death and his 
 vision, at the end, of the only thing that could save the 
 world a determined coming together of all liberal- 
 minded men and women in every land, to build a new 
 order out of the old. 
 
 "That is the one big hope," he said. "That is what 
 our kind of people in every land are fighting for." 
 
 "But you ll be beaten !" she broke in. "This hating 
 it has gone too far ! Can t you remember how they were 
 in Berlin how they hated England ? And in that Prus 
 sian village at his funeral!" She stopped sharply and 
 seemed to shake from head to foot. 
 
 "Yes," he said steadily, gripping her hand. "That 
 funeral was the deepest root of all this trouble you re 
 having now. We ve got to the bottom at last, my dear." 
 
 "But it s spreading I tell you it s spreading!" she 
 cried. "I ve seen it rise even over here, where we had 
 least reason or excuse no millions killed or wounded! 
 We might have been the very ones to end it make the 
 hope come true! Instead we are the very worst of all 
 the haters in the war!" 
 
 She was back again at her starting point. In vain he 
 argued with her, and he realized that she was in for a 
 pretty serious time. Her mother, he knew, could help 
 very little. After the illness she had been through, Aunt 
 Amelia was in no condition to act as a nurse for Dorothy ; 
 and besides, she only excited the girl. So Steve took 
 her over to his place and kept her in bed for several 
 weeks. At times he came and talked with her or sat 
 quietly by her side. Lucy slept in the room at night. 
 They were afraid to leave her alone. 
 
BLIND 387 
 
 But there was in the atmosphere of this place the 
 same feeling that existed in thousands of hospitals all 
 over Europe in those days. The hatred and hysteria, 
 which to Dorothy s half crazed mind had loomed like 
 a black specter darkening the entire earth, was here like 
 a nightmare left behind. For these recovering men and 
 boys were turning their thoughts away from the war 
 and were eager to get back to their homes. In the room 
 next to Dorothy s, there were two young officers who 
 talked at intervals all day long, and Dorothy could hear 
 them. They swapped stories of trench-life and dis 
 cussed by the hour the merits of various guns and 
 generals. They had been keenly interested in this job 
 of killing Germans ; but it had been an ugly job. They 
 spoke with contempt of those people at home who shouted 
 about the glory of war. They were devilish glad it was 
 near an end. One was from Minnesota and the other 
 from Illinois; one had worked in a wood pulp mill, the 
 other on his uncle s big farm. And they talked about 
 farming and forestry, and girls they knew, and hoped to 
 God they would get home for Thanksgiving dinner. 
 Letters from home were read and discussed; and gifts 
 arrived among them a ukelele. The chap who knew 
 how to play the thing gave lessons to the other, and 
 showed how much handier it was than a banjo or guitar. 
 
 Listening in spite of herself to such talk as this day 
 after day, my cousin s mind began to relax; her sense of 
 proportions began to change. Then came the news of 
 Tommy and me and something broke in Dorothy. For 
 the first time in months she had a good cry she and 
 Lucy together, in each other s arms. And only a few 
 days after this she felt abruptly the grip and urge of a 
 sudden sharp emergency. For the "flu," which in this 
 country was to cause ten times the death and desolation 
 brought by the war, had already spread throughout the 
 land. Over-worked as he already was, Steve had been 
 
388 BLIND 
 
 drawn into the fight. Worn out at last from the double 
 strain, he himself contracted it and reached home danger 
 ously ill. Pneumonia developed, and on the fourth day 
 he nearly died. Meanwhile it had broken out among 
 the patients. There were some thirty cases, and things 
 looked desperate for a time. With Steve s assistant 
 doctor, Lucy bravely held the fort. She worked and 
 never seemed to tire, and she told me that everyone else 
 who was not sick was doing the same. 
 
 "Everyone helped each other, those days. It was very 
 wonderful," Lucy said. 
 
 But to return to Dorothy. In those desperate days and 
 nights, Lucy had forgotten her until one evening she 
 appeared and said, 
 
 "I m well now, Lucy and I want to help you." 
 : Soon she was busy as the rest. 
 
 Steve recovered rapidly. As he told me later on, 
 recovery was in the air. The epidemic was dying down; 
 and as for the war, the end of it was now only a matter 
 of days. Revolution in Germany at last! If it proved 
 to be real and they set up a decent free republic, and 
 we stood by our big ideals and could bring the Allies to 
 do the same, there would be such a chance as never before 
 in all the ages to build up such a new world order as 
 would make the terrible sacrifice worth while. Too good 
 to be true? But it did seem true in those wonderful 
 days ! Every hour the news poured in. Then one night 
 came a cable from Tommy: 
 
 "Home in two weeks. Doing fine." 
 
 Lucy ran with the message into Steve s room. 
 
 2. 
 
 Tommy got home just in time for Thanksgiving, and 
 I came a week or so after that. 
 
 My blindness made a difference, but not so much as 
 one might think. For I had acquired super-ears. I 
 

 BLIND 389 
 
 did not see the harbor, but I could hear it from down the 
 Bay. As we came up through the Narrows, I heard the 
 distant bursts of cheers; and suddenly I had it all the 
 crowded basin and its shores, the hills of Staten Island, 
 the Liberty statue far ahead and the tall buildings of 
 Manhattan. Our big ship covered with little brown men 
 moved slowly up the River now. Another burst of 
 cheers from a ferry. I took off my cap and yelled with 
 our boys. It was good to be home ! 
 
 At last we drew in to the dock. And though I did 
 not see Steve and Dad, I heard their two voices clear 
 and distinct rise out of the tumult of welcome below. 
 A few minutes later on the pier I heard a splendid bit 
 of news. I had dreaded another hospital, but Steve had 
 been able to arrange to take me directly out to the coun 
 try. We were to go that afternoon. 
 
 I did not see Fifth Avenue, but I heard it vividly 
 the women s voices, chatter, laughter, gay quick cries, 
 the roll of wheels, the grind of brakes, the soft thunder 
 of the engines, the tread and shuffle and patter of thou 
 sands of booted and slippered feet. Coming from 
 Russia, I had thought, "What a vulgar town it is." This 
 time I did not think at all ; I was simply glad to be home. 
 It seemed to me as though for years I had been living 
 tense and taut. Now, the relapse; the slump was on. 
 I stopped for an hour or so to rest in Dad s big luxuri 
 ous house, with Aunt Fanny to give me the petting I 
 wanted, 
 i "Oh Larry, dear, I m so glad you are back !" 
 
 I wanted a lot of just such talk. And damn it, why 
 not? I had earned it! I leaned far back in the cosy 
 chair and felt the glow of the fire. Would I have a 
 second cup of tea? I would, and a little more rum in it, 
 please ! 
 
 But it was better still, when we motored out to the 
 country that day, to feel Lucy come into my arms, to 
 
390 B L-I N D 
 
 grip Tommy s hand, and other hands God only knows 
 how many that reached out from every side and wel 
 comed me back to the joy of my home. Nobody spoke 
 of my being blind but later, as Dorothy said good 
 night, her hand closed tight on mine and she whispered, 
 
 "Oh, Larry! Steve says you are going to see!" 
 
 A warm vital current of life went tingling all through 
 me. Early to bed for a long long rest, with the crunch 
 of feet on the snow outside, a voice now and then, the 
 distant bark of a dog and a bell from the village. I pic 
 tured the hillside, white and still, the black outlines of 
 the trees against a big round rising moon, and the twink 
 ling lights in the valley below. 
 
 For several long days and nights I rested, drowsily 
 content. I came suddenly out of that with a sharp sur 
 prising restlessness and vague anticipation, hunger for I 
 knew not what. I wanted people, people I knew; I had 
 long talks with Dorothy, and Lucy and Steve> and with 
 my Aunt Amelia. Though she did not ask me to tell 
 her of France, I could feel her eagerness to learn ; and so 
 one day I started in. In the picture that I painted, uncon 
 sciously I tried to bring out what I knew she wanted to 
 hear. Nor did I find this difficult. For in spite of the 
 blunders and needless petty tyrannies, there had been in 
 truth a miracle in our armies over there. This miracle 
 was the record of how the American doughboy, in heat 
 and dust, in mud and rain, in bloody sweat, against shot 
 and shell, had fought and endured for this great cause 
 of which he said so little. And Aunt Amelia was satis 
 fied. 
 
 Learning that she was planning for such a Christmas 
 at Seven Pines as we had not had in years, in my new 
 restless eager mood I entered into the preparations with 
 an exaggerated zeal; and as in those summers of long 
 ago, Dorothy was my right hand and my fellow con 
 spirator. I must have gifts for everyone, so she took me 
 
BLIND 391 
 
 in to town to shop. Then back I came to Seven Pines 
 to help with the holly and mistletoe. For all such work, 
 as in days of old, I was a treasure, she declared. I was 
 so very conveniently tall, I could hold a wreath so high ! 
 ... It was an immense relief to me to find how 
 Dorothy had changed. Not that she was converted from 
 the views she held before. She was simply so glad the 
 war was over, that Tommy and I v/ere safely home, and 
 that her old spectre, hatred, seemed to be losing its grip 
 on the world. The people were rising in many lands; 
 democracy was coming! Gladly I agreed with her, for 
 I was in the mood those days to believe in anything good ; 
 and it was so good to be back again on the old warm 
 intimate terms with this delightful cousin of mine. We 
 laughed as we worked, and she bossed me about. Once 
 when I stumbled she caught my hand, and after a tense 
 little silence she said very quietly, 
 
 "I ll be so glad when you can see. Now let s put some 
 green up over that door." 
 
 As the members of the family began to arrive on 
 Christmas Eve, I started a family confab over the effects 
 of the war in this and other countries. Eagerly Aunt 
 Amelia joined in our discussion. And she was so hungry 
 for assurance of wide happy vistas opening into the 
 future, that the others did their best to give her what 
 she wanted. But the gap was so obvious and deep 
 between the views of Aunt Fanny and Dad, and of Lucy, 
 Steve, Dorothy and me, that by tacit consent the discus 
 sion was stopped Dad remarking grimly, 
 
 "I m sick and tired of world events. And if the 
 world can t understand that it has intruded long enough 
 outrageously into my private life well, so much the 
 worse for the world! It will simply have to be shown 
 the door!" 
 
 Now came the Christmas tree, the gifts, the old 
 familiar hubbub of cries; and after supper we all sang 
 
392 BLIND 
 
 Aunt Amelia s favorite songs. On the ride back with 
 Steve and his family, something went wrong with his 
 engine. We stopped for a moment. Sleepy remarks, 
 then silence, and there came to my ears the crackle of 
 the frosty ground, the tinkle of icicles on a fence and the 
 bells of a distant sleigh. And a vivid picture came, and 
 I turned my face up to the stars. 
 
 3. 
 
 In the two weeks that I had been home, Tommy and I 
 had come closer to each other than ever before ; and this 
 great husky lovable kid was a perfect Godsend in the 
 dark. We developed various words and phrases that 
 nobody understood but ourselves. How could they under 
 stand, those others? Poor devils with eyes, how could 
 they know how it felt to have such ears as ours, such a 
 sense of touch, "such smellers, by Golly!" Tommy 
 proudly boasted of these great advantages; and he 
 caused it to be understood that, though we would soon 
 regain our sight, it was good fun nevertheless to act as 
 though we should always be blind, and learn to live with 
 out our eyes. We soon managed to get about, not only 
 indoors but all over the hillside. We made explorations, 
 arm in arm, with Tommy s old dog hitched to a string. 
 We learned to shave and tie our scarfs. Tommy tried 
 the carpenter shop, and I my old typewriter; and to my 
 delight I discovered that I could manage fairly well. 
 Closer and closer we drew together into a world that 
 was all our own. 
 
 But a little after Christmas I felt a change in Tommy. 
 The easy intimate comradeship was gone. In his voice 
 I could feel an awkwardness, an anxious vigilant 
 reserve and preoccupation. For the bandage was now off 
 his eyes; and as the old familiar world, blurred and 
 queer in those first days, began to appear before him, 
 mingled with his joy and relief was a sharp regret and 
 
BLIND 393 
 
 embarrassment. He was figuring desperately on how 
 he was to break the news. Meanwhile, quite uncon 
 sciously, he did it through his grip on my arm. For by 
 degrees I could feel that grip carefully steering me 
 along. Then one day with a quick jerk, Tommy said, 
 "Look out, old man!" And a moment later my foot 
 struck a stone. In the little talk that followed, I tried 
 to tell him how glad I was ; but men are selfish animals, 
 and it was a damnable time for me as I felt that kid 
 slip out of our darkness. Later he left to go to school, 
 and one by one the other war patients said goodbye and 
 went away. I could feel the world pick up, move on. 
 I had been scrapped and thrown aside. 
 
 Should I ever see again or was the hope which Steve 
 held out merely a tonic to keep me up until I could be 
 told the truth? As the weeks wore into months, there 
 came to me a bitterness I do not like to think of now. 
 Millions of people, I suppose, were feeling that after- 
 the-war slump. In my case it was pretty desperate 
 ugly, sharp and morbid. 
 
 I remember the parade of our Division in New York. 
 At first I thought I would not go, but at the last I 
 changed my mind, for I craved excitement. On the 
 train I pictured how it would be. But as we came up 
 the Avenue, I heard very little excitement. Looking 
 back upon it now, I cannot blame those stolid crowds. 
 The thing had not been dramatized. In the next parade 
 they staged it right. With captured guns, with tanks 
 and floats, machine guns rattling, rockets shooting and 
 gas clouds of vivid hues, they made a roaring flashing 
 pageant and the New York crowds went wild. But 
 in our case there was no show, nothing but monotonous 
 files of men and boys who had fought in France. And 
 though all along the line were scattered bursts of cheer 
 ing from groups of friends and relatives, the big crowd 
 soon grew dull and cold. They were sick and tired of 
 
894 
 
 BLIND 
 
 world events. Back to business as usual, back to their 
 old normal lives. But with me in an ambulance sat five 
 youngsters who were blind, who saw no normal lives 
 ahead, not even the certainty of a job. And as like me 
 they listened to that apathy along the lines, the eager 
 gay excitement with which they had begun the day died 
 out of their voices. There were frequent halts, and at 
 such times we had ears so devilish acute that in those 
 apathetic crowds we could hear all kinds of side 
 remarks. Two men with harsh incisive voices were dis 
 cussing a business deal; a couple of shop-girls were 
 absorbed in talk of some corsets they meant to buy. 
 There were little critical remarks. 
 
 "How much more of it is there?" somebody asked. 
 And we heard a man say to his wife, 
 
 "It s one forty-five. How about dinner?" 
 Then the blind boy next to me muttered, 
 "Go on back to your dinners, God damn you I" 
 And another disappointed kid said simply. 
 "Gee, but it s hell to be home." 
 
 Farther up the Avenue there was more cheering to be 
 heard, and the boys brightened up a bit. But I was 
 deeply bitter still. The hardships, all the pluck and 
 nerve, the patient grim endurance, to which I had been 
 a witness in France, rose up in my memory here; I 
 remembered how on stifling roads or on beds of long, 
 long agony I had heard the Buddies say, "Just you wait 
 till we get home! There ll be something coming to us 
 for all this !" And I cursed these people who were bored, 
 who had lost so little in the war and were now going on 
 so comfortably with their fat dull regular lives. I 
 was bitter against profiteers, and against the new era of 
 glitter and flash I could feel coming back on the Avenue. 
 It was only a little after this that I listened to the 
 wedding of my young half-sister, Louise. I had not 
 expected to go at first, but Lucy inveigled me into it, 
 
BLIND 395 
 
 and I motored in with Steve and herself. On the ride 
 our minds went back to the night when Steve had 
 brought Louise into the world. And the irony of that 
 occasion was enlarged by the present event. The world 
 made safe for democracy. Oh, ye ancient gods and 
 devils, what a smile for you this day ! In the church my 
 ears gave me the scene, and I thought, "There s a billion 
 dollars here." Then that billion dollars in furs, gowns, 
 jewels, in uniforms, in boots and spurs, with decorations, 
 titles imported from abroad poured into Aunt Fanny s 
 home; and they had a wedding breakfast that would 
 have made a starving Europe smack its lips and strain its 
 eyes with a rather crazed intensity, as it looked upon 
 this land of the free. 
 
 I did not need to mix in the crowd; from my father s 
 den I could hear it all. And as the vibrant hubbub of 
 voices, laughter, sudden cries, the Jazz music and the 
 scent of many roses and perfumes came drifting in, it 
 seemed to me as though I had the picture, not only of 
 these wedding guests but of the very souls of them. 
 Cold, hard, cynical? Not at all. Warm, exultant, vic 
 tory blind, cocksure of their fine patriotism, relieved 
 that certain foolish but rather dangerous messages that 
 had come out of the White House of late, concerning 
 the New Freedom and the Brotherhood of Mankind, 
 were already melting into thin air. The war was over 
 and we were back back, thank God, in the same old 
 pleasant gentleman s world, which was safe for a billion 
 dollars still! 
 
 There was a glow and a kick to it all, like the glass of 
 champagne I took that day. Some of the young people 
 were dancing now, and I wished I could do a bit of that. 
 But I was booked for another role. From time to time, 
 Aunt Fanny or Dad would bring back into the den some 
 body who wanted to grip my hand. I was a hero. I was 
 one of the sons and brothers and husbands who by get- 
 
396 BLIND 
 
 ting killed or crippled had justified our right to all this ! 
 
 Young Carrington was another. He, too, had stopped 
 a bullet in France. Again and again there came to my 
 ears the gay tone of his voice as he hurried about. He 
 was running this show. Deeply fond of Louise and his 
 mother, he was resolved in his practical soul that this 
 wedding should be as happy a time as he could make it. 
 When at last, with a sudden bursting tumult of voices 
 and laughter in the hall, the bride and groom departed, 
 and the guests soon went away, young Carrington came 
 back to smoke in the den with Dad and Steve and me. 
 And as we talked of the wedding and of his mother 
 and sister, I felt that this lad would shoot to kill, to pro 
 tect them in their property. 
 
 He spoke of the raids against the Reds, in New York 
 and other cities. These were only a starter, he said. 
 He himself was working hard at the job of re-adapting 
 our father s mills to the needs of peace; but there was 
 war in Carrington s tone as he grimly joked at Dad s 
 policy of conciliating the men. Fight every strike, root 
 out every Red, hit every union between the eyes! That 
 was Carrington s advice. And the great mass of the 
 workmen could soon be brought into line, he declared. 
 Nothing the matter with the men, if agitators would 
 leave em alone. Hadn t he seen in the army how they 
 responded to discipline? And it could be the same in 
 peace. He loved machines and the forging of steel, and 
 in the very soul of him he was convinced that all men 
 were the same. I could almost see him as he talked 
 small, straight, hard, clean-cut and keen, pleasant, loyal 
 to his friends, shrewd, practical and obstinate a strong 
 recruit to the Tories here. "For my country and my 
 family, and our right to what is ours." With this 
 slogan he was starting in. How far would he go? It 
 was hard to tell. But that afternoon it seemed to me 
 
BLIND 397 
 
 as though there were thousands like him springing up 
 all over the land. 
 
 From time to time my father threw in a brief com 
 ment, and by the sound of his voice I could tell he was 
 feeling blue and lonely. It was not only that his daugh 
 ter was gone; it was the realization that he himself had 
 felt and looked and acted old all through the wedding. 
 Young Carrington s talk disturbed him, too. Anxiously 
 he looked ahead and saw trouble brewing on every side. 
 His old world had not come back. Even in his own mills 
 he could sense something new. In spite of his son, he 
 had settled one strike, but he expected others. For there 
 was something new in the air, he said, in a puzzled tone. 
 Disturbing tips had come to him concerning the radical 
 movements sweeping over Europe. 
 
 "How the devil can we stave em off, with the world s 
 exchange in such a state? No sound credit anywhere, 
 no sense of anything under your feet. Problems crop 
 ping up on all sides and people not facing em, going 
 it blind! The fact of the matter is," he said, "that we re 
 like men standing on a bridge that we are building as 
 we go. Our backs are to the sunny side, and there s 
 nothing but thick fog ahead." 
 
 Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory of the Coming of 
 the Lord. 
 
 Poor old Aunt Amelia. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 1. 
 
 BLIND for life! Or would I see? Back in the coun 
 try with Lucy and Steve, I grew terribly depressed. In 
 vain they tried to give me hope that my sight would be 
 restored. I thought that I knew better. The old pain 
 above my eyes would tackle me viciously again, and 
 down I would plunge into the dark. 
 
 Gloomy writing this, you say? Then let me remind 
 you that I write not of myself alone but of a million 
 others in this country and abroad wrecks of the war 
 who cannot die. And if you were in favor of the war, 
 if you pledged yourself to those great ideals, then it 
 will not do you harm to think of these men who are pay 
 ing the price. I was more lucky I m happier now; but 
 many of them are still in that black slough of despond 
 where they have been left forgotten! 
 
 In my bitter mood those days the thought of these 
 men and the millions dead became an obsession; and in 
 their name I demanded of the living what they were 
 doing to make it worth while. The great mass of the 
 people here had sunk back into their little lives; while 
 over there where we had fought, Civilization was break 
 ing down, amid forces so overpowering that what each 
 one of us pigmies did seemed no longer of any account. 
 What had I left to live for? At times I tried to hide 
 my gloom from the rest of the family, and for the 
 moment I would respond to their obvious efforts to cheer 
 me up. But again I would rebel against that. It seemed 
 so false. They had their lives and were eager to live 
 them. Then in God s name leave me alone I My melan- 
 
BLIND 399 
 
 cholia increased, and with it their anxiety. A family 
 conference was called, with the result that Aunt Amelia 
 asked me over to Seven Pines. 
 
 So I came back to this old house, but at first it did 
 little to help me. In the daytime it was not so bad. 
 There were various small distractions and events to fill 
 the time. Half consciously I grew interested in learn 
 ing to find my way about ; I had a sharp repugnance for 
 being dependent on others. But I dreaded the long 
 nights alone. From the days when I had worked on a 
 paper, I had always been an owl. Though I had learned 
 to sleep in the army, I returned to my old habits now; 
 and the pain in my head came back again; and in the 
 silence of the night, this house that I could no longer see, 
 that had lost all outer aspect and become an inner pres 
 ence, seemed like a pathetic old friend. In vain it tried 
 to carry my mind back over the forty odd years of my 
 life. 
 
 "It is not finished. As then, so now, you will go on," 
 it seemed to say. 
 
 "No," I replied, "I m done for. And so are you, 
 Democracy. The world has cast us both aside." 
 
 I would lie awake in the darkness, my fancy making 
 leaps at times across the sea to the grim old palace in 
 Petrograd filled with surging crowds of men, Oberoo- 
 koff and his mother in the lonely village, and the old 
 Prince with his family marooned upon their large estate. 
 In the prodigious chaos there how many were still left 
 alive? I remembered others I had known, in Germany, 
 France and England, the men and boys who had paid 
 the price. And in my bitter darkness half mad I had 
 long talks with them. Often they came to me in my 
 dreams both the living and the dead Max Sonfeldt 
 with his tragic eyes, and the Galician peasant who had 
 begged us for his boots; and the young dramatic critic 
 came, the chap I had met that night on the train, and with 
 
400 BLIND 
 
 him the little journalist with whom we had dined in the 
 London cafe he had been killed in Flanders. And some 
 of them talked intensely, but others said to me nothing 
 at all silent enigmas in the vast puzzle "What was it 
 for? What will it bring?" Figures from a host of mil 
 lions all forever silent now. But what eyes they had! 
 They seemed to say, 
 
 "What a pity you are blind, all you who are living 
 blind to the forces that struck us down, blind to what 
 lies just ahead." 
 
 Why live on in such a world? In my morbid gloom 
 I asked why not join the Silent Army? 
 
 . 2. 
 
 Sometimes in a dressing-gown I would come softly 
 down the stairs and settle deep into a chair before the 
 fire. One night growing chilly I groped for a log and 
 put it on the embers. A moment later, with a thrill, I 
 felt that the sleeve of my gown had caught fire. I hesi 
 tated then put it out. But the odor of the burning wool 
 must have reached a room above, for presently I heard 
 Dorothy coming. How did I know it was Dorothy? 
 Through these super-ears of mine. I heard her come 
 quickly as though in alarm, then stop and look over the 
 banister. 
 
 "Isn t something burning, Larry? * 
 
 "No it s all right now/ I said. 
 
 "What is it?" She came to my chair, and I felt her 
 hand on my burnt sleeve. "Now she s worrying," I 
 thought. Poor girl, it wasn t easy to have a chap like 
 me in the house. 
 
 "Pretty hard, isn t it, dear," she said. "I used to sit 
 in this chair myself." I turned my head quickly, then 
 felt her hand. "I used to come down here often at 
 night. ... It seems so far behind me now. Thank 
 God the war is over." 
 
BLIND 401 
 
 "It isn t" I said, "not the worst of it." 
 
 "Yes things still look black I know. But it hasn t 
 always been like this and I don t believe it will be 
 long." Her hand slowly tightened on my own and sud 
 denly, as though she had spoken, two pictures flashed out 
 of the past. One was of that labor pageant where she 
 had sat by my side; the other was of that multitude of 
 men and women and children out at Ellis Island with a 
 passion of hope in their eyes. Just so her hand had tight 
 ened then. 
 
 "It s pretty black," I heard her say, "until you try to 
 get out of the present look way back and then ahead. 
 I feel so sure that in a few years it will grow better," she 
 went on. "I don t believe people in any country will 
 ever want any war again at least not for so long a time 
 that meanwhile there will be a chance for sanity to come 
 to us all." I was silent. "You don t think so?" 
 
 "I m afraid you re not facing this," I said. 
 
 "Perhaps I m not. But I think I ve learned some 
 thing, Larry. Until I worked out of my trouble I was 
 a pretty poor judge of the world and I think it will be 
 the same with you. You can t feel it now but remem 
 ber that I know you so well. I ve been thinking a good 
 deal lately, dear. You re so much stronger than you 
 know and I m sure you will come through all this." 
 Again there was silence, and she said, "It s Mother that 
 I m anxious for." 
 
 "How do you mean?" 
 
 "She s almost dying, Larry. Already she has to keep to 
 her room and you had barely noticed that. In another 
 year she may be gone. And what I want to ask is this. 
 I want you to make a better record than I did a year ago. 
 So far you ve been just like me wrapped up in your 
 own troubles. Oh I know how hard it is I know, I 
 know ! But how I wish I could have spared Mother the 
 perfect hell I made her go through just by not trying, 
 
402 BLIND 
 
 not realizing! For think what it means; All her life 
 Mother has been what you know. Then the war came 
 a frightful shock but she met that by building up a 
 great house of new ideals to live in, a house 
 that took in the whole world. It was pretty 
 plucky at seventy, Larry. But now that house is falling 
 down and she won t have time to build another nor 
 the strength. She s trying to I shouldn t wonder if 
 even tonight she were lying awake upstairs trying so 
 hard to work it out. But she can t do it without our help 
 and that s why I m asking you to make a better record 
 than I did. That s why I m not facing this, as you 
 say. You may be right and you may be wrong there ll 
 be time enough to find out later on. But there isn t much 
 time for Mother. If she s to see any victory she ll have 
 to see it very soon and she ll have to see it in her chil 
 dren. She s like that she has always been. She has 
 got to see our lives working out to some kind of hope 
 and happiness." 
 
 She waited. 
 
 "I ll do my best," I said. 
 
 But I was not thinking of my aunt. I was thinking 
 of Dorothy. For in a flash it came over me that she 
 spoke only half the truth; that she, too, was thinking not 
 of her mother but of me; that as I slipped down into the 
 dark she was trying to hold me back with this slowly 
 tightening hand of hers and this appeal to my love for 
 my aunt; and with that queer pity women feel she was 
 even coming to care for me! And I wanted her so 
 sharply and so desperately then, that for a few moments 
 I sat very still. 
 
 "I ll do my best," I repeated. "Won t you please- 
 please leave me now?" 
 
 After she had gone, my thinking went on rapidly. 
 
 "She s ready to do it again," I thought. "But she 
 mustn t! To spend the rest of her life with a shattered 
 
BLIND 403 
 
 wreck like me morbid, blind in body and soul? No!" 
 I decided savagely. But I thought of the forces here 
 drawing us together. Her mother dying? No, not yet 
 but she had not very long to live. And then what? 
 Dorothy and I, left in this house where we had been 
 reared. A vista opened suddenly. I was afraid and 
 turned away. Desperately I began to think what I could 
 do where I could go. But it is not easy for one who is 
 blind. I sent for Steve and asked him to help me. 
 
 "No, you must stay here," he said. "It s your only 
 chance to come out of this. I m seeing hundreds of men 
 like you in hospitals the blind, the insane it s like a 
 black inferno there. And even with me you only grew 
 worse. No, your only chance is here here in this house 
 that holds so much of your life beside the present." 
 
 "It holds too much!" I answered. I gave him some 
 hint of the night before. 
 
 "You re right," he said, when I had finished, "and 
 I ll help you get away just as soon as I know you re a 
 hopeless case. But you re not so now, you re going to 
 fight. There s a good chance still and you re going to 
 take it." I made no reply. Then I heard him say, 
 "Your eyes are already as well as mine." I caught his 
 hand. 
 
 "What do you mean? Good God, Steve " 
 
 His voice went on in a curious tone of concentration, 
 tense and low, 
 
 "I mean the trouble is in the nerves as I ve told you 
 before and they may be cured. I don t say it is likely, 
 but I say there is a chance and this gloom of yours is 
 spoiling it. For the more we grope along in our science, 
 the more mysteries we find in the ties between a man s 
 mind and his body. We see miracles performed. . . . 
 But if there s one here it will have to be soon. I m not 
 
 lying to you, Larry " His voice, still low, grew 
 
 sharp and clear. "You haven t much time. In a few 
 
404 BLIND 
 
 months it will be too late. Even now I say there s just a 
 chance! But I m asking you to go over the top! You 
 will never get back your sight without your inner vision, 
 too your hope in life! So let s look at this world 
 again, you and I, and see if it is dark as it seems !" 
 
 "You mean that I m to to learn to say, God s in his 
 heaven all s well with the world ?" I demanded harshly, 
 I was quivering. In my shaken state, with shattered 
 nerves, I could not keep down the rising excitement. 
 I clinched my hands! They were icy! 
 
 "Steady, now I know it s hard. But listen come 
 along with me." His steady hand and arm went around 
 me. "See it real. I don t want you to lie to yourself 
 I m asking you to fight for the truth. Have you got it 
 now? Are you sure you have? Or is this black view 
 of yours all colored by what you ve been through? 
 Remember I was a surgeon once " 
 
 Steve s right hand closed on mine. With a shock that 
 went tingling through me, I felt the strength of that 
 crippled hand ! Back went my thoughts in one great leap 
 to the time of his agony long ago. 
 
 "And I came through," I heard him say. "Will you 
 fight this, Larry?" 
 
 "Yes," I said. 
 
 3. 
 
 Our talk went on half through the night. He lifted 
 me and forced me on; he took my mind careering with 
 his out over the earth to the widely scattered multitude 
 of lonely figures like ourselves in cities, towns and vil 
 lages and out under the silent stars the watchers 
 among the sleepers who, while most of the people went 
 on blindly as before, alone or in pairs or little groups 
 were groping and searching for a way out of the pres 
 ent darkness. And though they were so scattered now, 
 
BLIND 405 
 
 the future lay in their hands, he said. Slowly at first, 
 then rapidly, they would increase in every land. 
 
 "And then they will combine. They must. For the 
 war at least has taught one thing the immense poten 
 tialities in cooperation!" he said. "I look back into the 
 ages and I see the whole world game as a war between 
 light and darkness, life and death. And nothing else 
 can really count. For this instinct in all people to live 
 and see and understand resistless as the ocean tide in 
 spite of all reactions, moves inexorably on to coopera 
 tion within each land and cooperation between them all, 
 in the struggle out of darkness, the war against disease 
 and death !" 
 
 He reminded me of the miracles of vitality we had 
 seen in the war, the startling revelations of reserve 
 forces hidden in men and brought forth by the mighty 
 stimulus of this cooperation, this working and enduring 
 all together as parts of a whole. This whole had been 
 the nation. Soon it would become the world an entity 
 so much more complex and bristling with uncertainties, 
 but boundless possibilities, too! Harshly I reminded 
 him that cooperation could work both ways that if a 
 few liberal-minded men were getting together in every 
 land, so were the extremists combining upon either side, 
 to drive us back into despotism or on into a chaotic mob 
 rule. Let them, Steve retorted. They would never be 
 satisfied until they had fought it out. And the triumph 
 of either extreme would be brief. If the Reds won out, 
 they would be forced by life itself to moderate. Already 
 in Russia they were doing that. And if the reaction 
 aries won, their triumph would be briefer still. For 
 humanity wanted a sane middle course. Soon the cry 
 would go up in the world for the real builders, healers; 
 and one by one the great engineers would appear to lead 
 us all in the gigantic era of reconstruction and progress 
 
406 BLIND 
 
 ahead. Changes? Yes, prodigious changes! Thank 
 God for this restlessness ! 
 
 And as with nations, so with men. Through all his 
 talk in that long night I could feel Steve approach my 
 case. He spoke of the patients in his care, widely dif 
 ferent kinds of men who were being built up after the 
 storm. So many of them were being forced to take 
 stock of their lives and make fresh starts. But without 
 such jolts and changes, how blind and arrogant was suc 
 cess. Again he spoke of his own life. "What a great 
 god I thought myself, till suddenly I was brought down." 
 The socalled great ones we had known, what uninspir 
 ing chaps they were compared to those still struggling up. 
 In restlessness, in hunger, in groping and searching lay 
 the hope, and the only hope, of any real growth. He 
 turned abruptly to my work. 
 
 "How about those plays you wrote?" 
 
 "Half the work was done in rehearsal," I said. 
 
 "You mean that you can t handle em now. But think 
 a minute. Are you sure that what you wrote was so 
 worth while? I don t know much about your work, but 
 you ve told me enough to make me sure that the Broad 
 way theatre is no place for a man who wants to write 
 God s honest truth. And that s what you want to do 
 now, old boy. It s the biggest thing in you, this passion 
 to write. It s your chance, the only chance you ve got 
 but it s big a chance for a big honest book ! Not about 
 the war don t tackle that yet. Go way back into your 
 life from there work slowly through the years and 
 when you reach the present you may not find it quite so 
 dark." He was silent for a moment. "You may even 
 find you can see," he said. 
 
 Once more those words went through me like a sud 
 den flare of light. Although at first I dismissed the idea, 
 he came back to it again and again. At last he got me 
 to promise to try; and in the days that followed, with a 
 
BLIND 407 
 
 deepening glow of surprise I found that under all my 
 gloom the old will to write was in me still. And thi? 
 sharp hungry instinct, this weird mysterious craving to 
 put one s self on paper, soon had such a powerful hold 
 that I began to get my grip on the hope which Steve had 
 given. 
 
 I let Dorothy help me now. I had avoided her before, 
 and I meant to still but in spite of myself the talks we 
 had grew longer. We kept them to this book of mine. 
 As though we were both a little afraid of the present 
 and the future, we travelled far back into the years, 
 evoking the scenes and the faces. The spring had come ; 
 we sat under the trees or again, Dorothy would pro 
 pose, "Let s go up to Mother s room" and there the 
 talk would go on, with my aunt. And Steve still came 
 to me often at night. For they seemed afraid to leave 
 me alone. 
 
 Slowly the numberless scattered ideas came together 
 and took form, in a long chain of memories leading me 
 back an escape from the present into the past, from an 
 ominous tense oppressive country into a far distant land. 
 
 4. 
 
 So this narrative was begun. As I sat here late in the 
 evening alone, the pictures from that distant land became 
 more vivid than ever before. It was as though from a 
 dark passage I looked into a lighted room. And by 
 degrees I began to feel that it was not now but in the 
 past that I had been blind. My life had been hasty, 
 crowded, assaulted upon every side by a storm of impres 
 sions, sights and sounds, the chatter of people as blind 
 as I. But now the million and one details of life upor 
 the city streets the masses of faces sweeping by, the 
 chatter, surge and roar and quiver, that I had felt even 
 day wns p^ne. In this silent room at night, forced r 
 against realities asking, "What was it all about? 
 
408 BLIND 
 
 What have I been up to all my life? To what were we 
 rushing so?" I looked back into the turgid years. 
 Steadily and calmly, with clear vision? No, indeed. I 
 was still only groping. Again and again I had to stop, 
 destroy what I had written and make a fresh start. For 
 all those haunting monitors, gathered close around me 
 still, kept sternly saying, "Brother the truth!" We 
 were so close together here that by degrees I found 
 myself writing my whole book for them. And uncon 
 sciously at first, in the relief of my escape, I glorified my 
 country s past as compared to these fat puffy days. I 
 pictured the America that had gone to war with no selfish 
 aim; the powerful nation sanely free and showing a 
 bewildered world a safe middle ground between either 
 extreme of anarchy on the one hand, autocracy on the 
 other; a mixing bowl for all the races, an asylum for 
 the oppressed. But as I continued along these lines, I 
 could feel my smiling monitors say: 
 
 "The world is too weary and battered and wise, too up 
 against realities, to believe in such radiant romance now. 
 Brother the truth !" 
 
 And I tried for that. I began my book again. Grimly 
 I stuck to what I myself had seen and heard in this 
 country, ever since those eager days when I was a small 
 boy at Seven Pines. One by one I collected the mem 
 ories of my own little life and what it had touched upon 
 as it wound this way and that. "For this is all that I 
 really know." And many scenes and incidents came in 
 to mar my picture of the Great Democracy. Some were 
 just petty and commonplace things that the people I 
 had known had said or done or schemed to do ; but other 
 scenes were pretty black Steve s hospital, our year in 
 the slums, cops, ward heelers, crooks and bums and pros 
 titutes, arrogant little Reds and equally arrogant fat 
 heads uptown; and towering over all of these, the big 
 
BLIND 409 
 
 stout man with yellow eyes who had produced those 
 plays of mine and had colored them up to tickle the 
 palate of the tired business man. Like ghosts they rose 
 between me and the effort to glorify my land. 
 
 Moreover, my memories of the past were colored by 
 the present. It was hard to boast of our people now. 
 Again in waves my bitterness would come back and 
 engulf me still. For long periods I stopped writing and 
 tried to wrestle out the truth. We who had proclaimed 
 to the stars a mighty generous league of nations, a new 
 world order of mutual aid, what in the name of the 
 lads who had died were we doing to fulfill our promise ? 
 We had left the powers at Versailles, the good old diplo 
 matic rats, to gnaw to shreds the big ideals that had swept 
 our country into the war; and while our politicians were 
 squabbling over what was left, each little American citi 
 zen was back in his Yankee rut. "How are you helping 
 our friends overseas!" my monitors seemed to demand. 
 To feed and clothe the starving shivering millions of 
 victims "over there," were we stinting ourselves? Not 
 at all! Such an orgy of spending had set in as was 
 never seen in this land before. And when the masses went 
 on strike in order to double their wages and join in the 
 merry spending game, the patriots who were still on 
 top, faced by this seething restlessness, replied by shriek 
 ing "Bolsheviks !" and spreading hysteria over the land. 
 For the moment my country had gone blind. How could 
 such pigmies build a new world? Where was the hope 
 in a league of nations, if when the plans had been written 
 on paper only such little little men in the world to 
 work them out? What possibility was left of any wide 
 generous vision ? 
 
 Nor did I feel like a god looking down upon all this. 
 In my desperate searching I came to feel a part of it. I 
 cried ^to myself, "Like my age I am blind! The war like 
 
410 BLIND 
 
 a great dazzling flame has seared my eyes and left me 
 in darkness! Where shall I go? Where is light by 
 which to see the road?" 
 
 But as I slowly groped my way through the memories 
 of my life, at last the years began to reply. For had 
 not humanity from the start been made up of just such 
 pigmies? And yet when you looked at them not alone 
 but as dark little silhouettes against the glowing back 
 grounds of their achievements on the earth, what stu 
 pendous changes these blind little men and women had 
 wrought, even in my lifetime in the twinkling of an 
 age! I could look back into the days when the world 
 was not bound so distractingly close by the steamship 
 and the railroad, the automobile, the aeroplane, the tele 
 phone, cable and wireless, the newspaper, the magazine, 
 the book, the film, the swiftly growing cities and towns. 
 Even I could remember a time when most of these phe 
 nomena would have been thought the wildest dreams. 
 Yet they had come. And they were the Changers, they 
 were the Blind Revolutionists, transforming the world 
 for better or worse themselves mere products of the 
 minds of pigmy men and women. So men had loosed 
 the forces which reacting on themselves had utterly 
 transformed their lives and were still rushing us on at 
 a pace that made the whole fabric of civilization quiver 
 and shake as at the impact of a storm. 
 
 Blind blind! Yet through it all, it seemed to me 
 now, as I slowly regained my vision, that ever since my 
 boyhood these chaotic tides of change had moved in one 
 direction. I thought of Ellis Island and the grand 
 migrations of people, surging on from East to West. 
 Out onto the prairies the homeseekers poured, and up 
 into the mountains, swiftly peopling the land my Aunt 
 Amelia loved so well, the pioneer West with its hard 
 rough life, its crude democracy, hopes and dreams and 
 crimes and schemes and lusts of eager hungry youth. 
 
BLIND 411 
 
 But as the open country filled, there came a rush back to 
 the towns, the sons and daughters of our farms joining 
 the incoming tides from abroad to crowd our cities and 
 mining towns and mill and factory centers with an omin 
 ous discontent. I thought of the packed roaring streets 
 of New York dirty stinking streets at night down in 
 the restless teeming slums; Fifth Avenue at five o colck, 
 one long gorgeous gleam of cash; and Broadway at the 
 theatre hour, opening nights of plays of mine. I thought 
 of Dad s luxurious home, and of that big New Jersey 
 strike. What a city, what a country crowding, crowd 
 ing, crowding up, dividing into rich and poor, chaotic, 
 every man for himself, and the devil take the hindmost! 
 
 Then came the Great Interruption. For with a blind 
 ing flash of guns the pigmy millions overseas rushed 
 together; and jerked from its old isolation my country 
 was relentlessly drawn into the bloody family. War to 
 the death! And in this war the old class bitterness 
 drowned out, in every land all classes fused together 
 in a rigid whole. Discipline. Authority. I recalled the 
 German army. Husky boys with obedient eyes crowd 
 ing into trains and lorries, tramping along muddy roads. 
 Night in the trenches colored lights, the long weird 
 whines and sudden screams and crashing din of 
 shells above and around me those obedient eyes Cold 
 ghastly little villages in Belgium and in Northern France, 
 in Poland and Galicia; throngs of refugees on roads, 
 starving, sick, the victims of war. On they went in the 
 mud and the dark the powers above them pressing them 
 down. My mind went back to teeming cities, out to 
 lonely hamlets and to ships upon the sea. Ironclad dis 
 cipline everywhere. 
 
 And then the tides beneath swept on. For what the 
 war had interrupted, it accelerated now. If for a little 
 moment in time it had increased authority, it had 
 strained the patient endurance of the peoples to the 
 
412 BLIND 
 
 breaking point; it had brought them together as never 
 before. And so came Russian memories where these 
 people from below, from slums and starving villages, 
 surged along the city streets in immense processions or 
 poured into old palaces to organize crude parliaments, 
 with shouted dreams of liberty, equality, fraternity. A 
 vast confusion starting there the Spirit of the Com 
 mon Herd stalking blindly out to meet the Spirit of Vio 
 lence and War. And that fierce restlessness swept down 
 all over Europe and over the seas until in every land 
 it seemed that men by countless millions were being 
 hurled together for some titanic struggle now! 
 Such were the changes I had seen ! 
 
 5. 
 
 Then I tried to look ahead, 
 
 I thought of those Gentlemen Hounders, so conspic 
 uous in these days, so self -righteously resolved to clamp 
 down the national lid and see that this damned process 
 of change is put a stop to once and for all. And I won 
 dered if, while still there was time, these men would 
 open their eyes and look back into the grim ironic past. 
 Let no more radical pioneers be allowed to disturb this 
 peaceful land? They speak as men spoke long ago of 
 Wendell Phillips and his kind. Mob them, lynch them, 
 throw them out! No more of this labor discontent! 
 And as for a league of nations, this talk of a world 
 brotherhood, let that be deported, too. Let every new 
 thought be kept out of our country, that the old may 
 prosper here. It has been tried, gentlemen, it has been 
 tried. In Ancient Rome, in Spain, in France, in Ger 
 many and Russia, men of your kind have again and 
 again clamped down the lid. It will never do. Deport 
 our Bolsheviki? As well deport thermometers. Throw 
 them out of the sick rooms ! Damn the things, they scare 
 us so ! Go at the patient with whips instead, in the good 
 
BLIND 413 
 
 old medieval style, and beat the devils out of him! But 
 what a dangerous policy. If the patient were normal, 
 gentlemen, the thermometer would not scare you so. 
 But there is a fever here, made up of wrongs both old and 
 new, not only in the slums of our cities and our ugly 
 factory towns but even out on the farms as well a deep 
 burning discontent. You can t deport it, gentlemen, nor 
 can you by injunctions force it to dig coal out of the 
 ground. That way leads to civil war. 
 
 Then I thought of the Bolsheviki, and I wondered 
 what would become of their dreams. I did not believe 
 they would come true. For though in every country the 
 signs already begin to appear of such forces as may 
 soon result in astounding transformations, I do not think 
 they can be controlled by any one group or any one 
 creed so narrow as to say to all others, 
 
 "You are all blind. We alone have eyes. We will be 
 your eyes and your brains and hearts in this crisis of 
 mankind." For people are not made like that. 
 If our Gentlemen Hounders have their way, then 
 indeed it may come to a crash. But it seems to me 
 that these brief years of blind reaction will soon pass, 
 and that the Bolsheviki will find themselves confronted 
 then by the numberless hosts of the Great Slow Revolu 
 tion here. On every hand there will arise millions of 
 men and women, in labor unions, farmers leagues and 
 radical parties of various brands. These people will say 
 to the Bolshevik, 
 
 "Well, brother, if you think you ve got the Great Idea, 
 go ahead and hire a hall." 
 
 And then these men will go busily on with their own 
 revolutions. The Bolshevik will find himself competing 
 with many strenuous groups, each one of whom will 
 shamelessly steal a little of his thunder. For the Great 
 Slow Revolution, which began before we were born and 
 will continue doubtless long after we are dead, will be 
 
*14 BLIND 
 
 driven on its course by all kinds and conditions of men, 
 and its disordered army will offer no united front. No 
 solid proletariat, but a mighty hodge-podge composed 
 of clashing masses, each with a different outlook, differ 
 ent interests and aims. Not united but in factions, in 
 confusion and in bitter sweat, with grim and vexing 
 problems crowding in upon all sides, they will make their 
 try for democracy. 
 
 And only in part will they succeed; the mills will still 
 grind slowly on. So it has been through the ages. What 
 numberless millions have worked and planned completely 
 to cure all the ills of mankind, to make life easier, richer, 
 to glorify it in our eyes. All a failure? No, indeed. 
 But how different was the reality from what they had 
 seen in their dreams. So it has been and so it will be. 
 It is only through the slow unconscious widening of this 
 Vast Entente as angry nations, classes, creeds are inex 
 orably bound closer together through the changing years 
 that the great dim straining eyes of humanity will see 
 the light. Single "great men" will arise, and sects and 
 unions, parties, nations, to cry to us all, "We have the 
 secret, we alone ! The League ! The Republic ! The 
 Soviet ! We have what will save the world !" And each 
 will be right, and each will be wrong. The deep life pro 
 cesses will go on unfinished, still unfinished. 
 
 But what building there will be! Even now there 
 comes to me a warm glorious certainty of the presence 
 of new peoples springing up in every land. They were 
 children when I saw them last, in Russia, France and 
 Germany. Even in Russia I saw them play ; even in Bel 
 gium I heard them laugh. They were irrepressible. 
 Many of them have died, no doubt, and more are dying 
 as I write because we will not give them food. But in 
 spite of the famine and despair, I feel just as sure as 
 though I were with them that all through the bleak deso 
 lation of Europe multitudes of children are creeping, 
 
BLIND 415 
 
 playing, laughing and gayly scampering about. By mil 
 lions they are growing up, and like the children of our 
 land they begin to look at the life ahead with fresh antici 
 pations, vivid indignations, eager demands for a richer 
 life and a world more free. And I put my hope in those 
 lives ahead, and I see great vistas gleaming there. For 
 these years of war and revolution, in spite of all their 
 horrors, have given us a profoundly startling glimpse of 
 what powers lie in men. What my Aunt Amelia believed 
 so firmly to exist in the spirit of her nation, is true of all 
 peoples on the earth. In us all is a reserve of idealism, 
 courage, devotion and endurance, the presence of which 
 we barely suspect, we who are so tragically blind. A 
 Russian engineer once said, 
 
 "We are beggars sitting on bags of gold." 
 That is true of all humanity. And through the years 
 that are coming the gold will appear to our opening 
 eyes. 
 
 6. 
 
 And what of my own little life? Have I recovered the 
 use of my eyes? No, I shall be blind for life but in 
 spite of that I am happier now than I d ever hoped to be 
 again. For when my inner vision at last had been 
 restored to me, one day Aunt Amelia sent for me to 
 come up to her room. I found my cousin Dorothy there. 
 And her mother said to us quietly, 
 
 "Larry dear, and Dorothy, I m afraid that I am going 
 to try to interfere in your lives. I ve always tried not to 
 do it before but now I am getting near the end. You 
 and Dorothy are my children. You ve both been 
 wounded in the war. I am wondering what you are 
 going to do. I feel so sure that in this house you could 
 be happy " she broke off. "I m asking you to prom 
 ise me that you will take care of each other, my dears. 
 I ve been wondering how you can do it best. It would 
 
416 BLIND 
 
 be unwise, I think, to try to go on living here unless you 
 marry but watching you both, I know you have come 
 to care for each other, so deeply and so certainly, that 
 this could not be a mistake. It was only your own 
 trouble, Larry, that has been standing in the way your 
 feeling that you might be a burden. But though in your 
 eyes you are still blind, in your spirit you are no longer 
 so. And so there is nothing left in the way of the victory 
 I ve waited for." 
 
 We did not keep her waiting long. 
 
 And now as I sit here late at night alone in this famil 
 iar room, with my own little agony left behind and my 
 new life opening ahead, it feels so quiet and serene, it is 
 hard to believe the war was real. Yet once again these 
 monitors, as though fearing that I might forget, seem 
 whispering, 
 
 "Revolution. The world that you have seen with 
 your eyes has amazingly changed since you were born. 
 And even more astounding will be the turgid tidings of 
 change that will come to your ears before you are dead." 
 
 THE END. 
 
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