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The Web of Life, a novel by Robert Herrick |
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Part 1 - Chapter 20 |
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_ Part I Chapter XX "When the men confront bayonets, you know, they'll give in quick enough. I have reason to believe that the President has already ordered United States troops to protect lives and property in Chicago. The general managers will get an injunction restraining Debs and his crew. When the courts take a hand--"
"Oh! you know this thing can't go on. It's a disgrace. I was called to go to Detroit on an important case; it would mean two thousand dollars to me,--but I can't get out of the city." Dr. Lindsay was in an ill humor, having spent three early morning hours in driving into town from Lake Forest. Sommers listened to his growling, patiently if not respectfully, and when the eminent physician had finished, he spoke to him about a certain operation that was on the office docket for the following week. "You haven't asked my opinion, doctor," he said, in conclusion; "but I have been thinking over the case. I was present at General Horr's examination, and have seen a good deal of the case these last days while you were out of town." Lindsay stared, but the young man plunged on. "So I have ventured to remonstrate. It would do no good, and it might be serious." The day was so hot that any feeling sent beads of perspiration to the face. Sommers paused when Lindsay began to mop his head. "I may say to start with," Lindsay answered, with an irascible air, as if he intended to take this time to finish the young man's case, "that I am in the habit of consulting my attending physicians, and not having them dictate to me--" "Who is dictating?" Sommers asked bluntly. "That old man can't possibly get any good from an operation--" "It will do him no harm?" Lindsay retorted, with an interrogation in his tone that made the younger surgeon stare. What he might have said when he realized the full meaning of Lindsay's remark was not clear in his own mind. At that moment, however, one of the women employed in the office knocked at the door. She had a telephone message. "Somebody, I think it was Mrs. Prestess or Preton, or something--" "Preston," suggested Sommers. "That's it. The message was she was in trouble and wanted you as soon as possible. But some one is at the wire now." Sommers hastened out without making excuses. When he returned, Dr. Lindsay had dried his face and was calmer. But his aspect was sufficiently ominous; he was both pompous and severe. "Sit down, doctor, will you. I have a few words--some things I have been meditating to say to you a long time, ever since our connection began, in fact." Sommers did not sit down. He stood impatiently, twirling a stethoscope in his hand. He had passed the schoolboy age and was a bit overbearing himself. "As a young man of good promise, well introduced, and vouched for by some of our best people, I have naturally looked for great things from you." Sommers stopped the rotation of the stethoscope and squared about. His face was no longer flushed with irritation. Some swift purpose seemed to steady him. As Sommers made no reply to this exordium, Lindsay began again, in his diagnostic manner: "But I have been disappointed. Not that you haven't done your work well enough, so far as I know. But you have more than a young man's self-assurance and self-assertion. I have noticed also a note of condescension, of criticism in your bearing to those about you. The critical attitude to society and individuals is a bad one for a successful practitioner of medicine to fall into. It is more than that--it is illiberal; it comes from a continued residence in a highly exotic society, in a narrow intellectual circle. Breadth of mind--" Sommers made an impatient gesture. Every sentence led the florid practitioner farther and farther into the infinite. Another time the young surgeon would have derived a wicked satisfaction from driving the doctor around the field in his argument. To-day the world, life, was amove, and more important matters waited in the surcharged city. He must be gone. He said nothing, however, for another five minutes, waiting for some good opportunity to end the talk. But Lindsay had once lectured in a college; he did not easily finish his exposition. He vaguely sketched a social philosophy, and he preached the young specialist successful as he preached him on graduating days of the medical school. He was shrewd, eloquent, kind, and boresome. At last came the clause: "If you are to continue your connection with this office--" "I should like to talk that over with you some other day," Sommers interposed positively, "when I have more time. I am sorry that I shall have to leave at once." After a moment, he added, "And if you have any one in mind for my place, don't bother--" Lindsay waved his hand. "We never have to 'bother' about any member of our force." "Oh! very well. I didn't want to leave you in a hole. Perhaps I was presumptuous to suppose I was of any importance in the office." Sommers stepped briskly to the door, while Lindsay wheeled to his desk. Before he opened the door, he paused and called back pleasantly: "But really I shouldn't operate on the General. Poor old man! And he hasn't much money--'the usual fee' would come hard on him." Lindsay paid no attention to the remark. Sommers had passed from his world altogether; there would be a long, hard road for this young man in the practice of his profession in Chicago, if Dr. Lindsay, consulting surgeon at St. Isidore's, St. Martha's, the Home for Incurables, the Institute for Pulmonary Diseases, etc., could bring it about. Sommers hastily rifled certain pigeonholes of his desk, tossing the letters into his little black bag, and seizing his hat hurried out. He stopped at the clerk's desk to leave a direction for forwarding his mail. "Going away for a vacation?" Miss Clark queried. "Yes, for a good long one," the young surgeon answered. As the door slammed behind him, the black-haired Miss Clark turned to the assistant stenographer with a yawn. "He's got his travelling papers. I knew there was a fuss when I called him to the 'phone. I guess he wasn't tony enough for this office." Sommers was now sinking down to the heated street, unmindful whether he was "tony" enough for the Athenian Building or not. Mrs. Ducharme had whispered over the telephone: "He's gone. Come quick. Mrs. Preston wants you bad." For an instant he asked himself if he had made a mistake when he had given Preston the injection of morphine two days before. A glance at the little instrument reassured him. Perhaps the woman meant merely that he had got away again from the cottage. Why, then, such agitation over the creature's disappearance? But _she_ wanted him "bad." He hurried into the torrid street out of the cool, marble-lined hall, like a factory hand dismissed from his job. It was the first break with the order of things he had grown into. But he had no time for regrets. He crossed the deserted streets where the women usually shop, and turned into the strip of park bordered by the Illinois Central tracks. Possibly a train might be going out, under a heavy guard of deputy sheriffs, and in that case he would save much time in reaching Ninety-first Street. Exhilarated by his new freedom, he walked briskly, threading his way among the groups of idle workmen who had gathered in the park. As he skirted a large group, he recognized Dresser, who was shouting a declamatory speech. The men received it apathetically, and Dresser got off the bench on which he had stood and pushed his way through the crowd. "Well," Sommers said, as Dresser came by him. "How does the good work move? You've got the courts down on you, and pretty soon there'll be the troops to settle with. There's only one finish when the workingmen are led by a man like Debs, and the capitalists have an association of general managers as staff. Besides, your people have put the issue badly before the public. The public understands now that it is a question of whether it, every one of them, shall do what he wants to or not. And the general public says it won't be held up in this pistol-in-your-face fashion. So Pullman and the others get in behind the great public opinion, and there you are!" "All that newspaper talk about riot and destruction of property is a mass of lies," Dresser exclaimed bitterly. "Which, way are you going? I will walk along with you." As the two men proceeded in the direction of the big station, Dresser continued: "I _know_ there isn't any violence from the strikers. It's the tough element and the railroads. They're burning cars themselves so as to rouse public opinion." Sommers laughed. "You don't believe it? I suppose you won't believe that the general managers are offering us, the leaders, money,--money down and a lot of it, to call the strike off." "Yes, I'll believe that; but you won't get any one to believe the other thing. And you'd better take the money!" "We'll have every laboring man in Chicago out on a strike in a week," Dresser added confidentially. "There hasn't been a car of beef shipped out of the stock yards, or of cattle shipped in. I guess when the country begins to feel hungry, it will know something's on here. The butchers haven't a three days' supply left for the city. We'll _starve_ 'em out!" Sommers knew there was some truth in this. The huge slaughter-houses that fed a good part of the world were silent and empty, for lack of animal material. The stock yards had nothing to fill their bloody maw, while trains of cars of hogs and steers stood unswitched on the hundreds of sidings about the city. The world would shortly feel this stoppage of its Chicago beef and Armour pork, and the world would grumble and know for once that Chicago fed it. Inside the city there was talk of a famine. The condition was like that of the beleaguered city of the Middle Ages, threatened with starvation while wheat and cattle rotted outside its grasp. But the enemy was within its walls, either rioting up and down the iron roadways, or sipping its cooling draughts and fanning itself with the garish pages of the morning paper at some comfortable club. It was a war of injunctions and court decrees. But the passions were the same as those that set Paris flaming a century before, and it was a war with but one end: the well-fed, well-equipped legions must always win. "They're too strong for you," Sommers said at last. "You will save a good many people from a lot of misery, if you will sell out now quietly, and prevent the shooting." "That's the cynicism of _your_ crowd." "You can't say my crowd any longer; they never were my crowd, I guess." "Have you been fired?" Dresser asked, with childish interest. "Not exactly, but I fancy Lindsay and I won't find each other's society healthy in the future." "It isn't the same thing, though. Professional men like you can never get very far from the rich. It isn't like losing your bread and butter." "Pretty much that, at present. And I think I shall get some distance from the rich--perhaps go out farther west into some small town." Dresser did not reply; he kept on with Sommers, as if to express his sympathy over a misfortune. The court that led to the Park Row station was full of people. Men wearing white ribbons were thickly sprinkled in the crowd. The badge fluttered even from the broad breasts of the few apathetic policemen. The crowd was kept off the tracks and the station premises by an iron fence, defended by a few railway police and cowed deputy sheriffs. Every now and then, however, a man climbed the ugly fence and dropped down on the other side. Then he ran for the shelter of the long lines of cars standing on the siding. A crew of men recruited from the office force of the railroad was trying to make up a train. The rabble that had gained entrance to the yards were blocking their movements by throwing switches at the critical moment. As Sommers came up to the fence, the switching engine had been thrown into the wrong siding, and had bunted up at full speed against a milk car, sending the latter down the siding to the main track. It took the switch at a sharp pace, was derailed, and blocked the track. The crowd in the court gave a shout of delight. The switching engine had to be abandoned. At this moment Sommers was jostled against a stylishly dressed woman, who was trying to work her way through the seething mass that swayed up and down the narrow court. He turned to apologize, and was amazed to see that the young woman was Louise Hitchcock. She was frightened, but keeping her head she was doing her best to gain the vestibule of a neighboring store. She recognized Sommers and smiled in joyful relief. Then her glance passed over Sommers to Dresser, who was sullenly standing with his hands in his pockets, and ended in a polite stare, as if to say, 'Well, is that a specimen of the people you prefer to my friends?' "You've got one of your crowd on your hands," Dresser muttered, and edged off into the mob. "What are you doing here?" Sommers demanded, rather impatiently. "I drove down to meet papa. He was to come by the Michigan Central, and Uncle Brome telephoned that the railroad people said the train would get through. But he didn't come. I waited and waited, and at last tried to get into the station to find out what had happened. I couldn't get through." Sommers had edged her into a protected corner formed by a large telephone post. The jostling people stared impudently at the prettily dressed young woman. To their eyes she betrayed herself at a glance as one of the privileged, who used the banned Pullman cars. "Whar's your kerridge?" a woman called out over Sommers's shoulder. A man pushed him rudely into his companion. "Why don't you take your private kyar?" "The road is good enough for _me_!" "Come," Sommers shouted in her ear, "we must get out of this at once. Take my arm,--no, follow me,--that will attract less attention." The girl was quite at ease, now that this welcome friend had appeared opportunely. Another prolonged shout, almost a howl of derision, went up by the fence at some new trick played upon the frantic railroad officials. "What people!" the girl exclaimed scornfully. "Where are the police?" "Don't speak so loud," Sommers answered impatiently, "if you wish to escape insult. There the police are, over there by the park. They don't seem especially interested." The girl closed her lips tightly and followed Sommers. It was no easy task to penetrate the hot, sweating mob that was packing into the court, and bearing down toward the tracks where the fun was going on. Sommers made three feet, then lost two. The crowd seemed especially anxious to keep them back, and Miss Hitchcock was hustled and pushed roughly hither and thither until she grasped Sommers's coat with trembling hands. A fleshy man, with a dirty two weeks' beard on his tanned face, shoved Sommers back with a brutal laugh. Sommers pushed him off. In a moment fists were up, the young doctor's hat was knocked off, and some one threw a stone that he received on his cheek. Sommers turned, grasped the girl with one arm, and threw himself and her upon the more yielding corner of the press. Then he dragged his companion for a few steps until the jam slackened at the open door of a saloon. Into this the two were pushed by the eddying mob, and escaped. For a moment they stood against the bar that protected the window. The saloon was full of men, foul with tobacco smoke, and the floor was filthy. Flies sluggishly buzzed about the pools of beer on the bar counter. The men were talking excitedly; a few thin, ragged hangers-on were looting the free-lunch dishes surreptitiously. Miss Hitchcock's face expressed her disgust, but she said nothing. She had learned her lesson. "Wait here," Sommers ordered, "while I find out whether we can get out of this by a back door." He spoke to the barkeeper, who lethargically jerked a thumb over his shoulder. They elbowed their way across the room, Miss Hitchcock rather ostentatiously drawing up her skirts and threading her way among the pools of the dirty floor. The occupants of the bar-room, however, gave the strangers only slight attention. The heavy atmosphere of smoke and beer, heated to the boiling point by the afternoon sun, seemed to have soddened their senses. Behind the bar the two found a passage to the alley in the rear, which led by a cross alley into a deserted street. Finally they emerged on the placid boulevard. "Your face is bleeding!" Miss Hitchcock exclaimed. "Are you hurt?" "No," Sommers answered, mopping his brow and settling his collar. "They were good enough to spare the eye." "Brutes!" "I wouldn't say that," her companion interrupted sharply. "We are all brutes each in our way," he added quietly. The girl's face reddened, and she dropped his arm, which was no longer necessary for protection. She raised her crushed and soiled skirt, and looked at it ruefully. "I wonder what has become of poor papa!" she exclaimed. "This strike has caused him so much worry. I came in from Lake Forest to open the house for him and stay with him until the trains begin to run again." She seemed to expect sympathy for the disagreeable circumstances that persisted in upsetting the Hitchcock plans. But Sommers paid no attention to this social demand, and they walked on briskly. Finally Miss Hitchcock said coldly: "I can go home alone, now, if you have anything to do. Of course I should like to have you come home and rest after this--" "I shall have to return to my room for a hat," Sommers replied, in a matter-of-fact way. "I will leave you at your house." Miss Hitchcock insensibly drew herself up and walked more quickly. The boulevard, usually gay with carriages in the late afternoon, was absolutely deserted except for an occasional shop-boy on a bicycle. Sommers, hatless, with a torn coat, walking beside a somewhat bedraggled young woman, could arouse no comment from the darkened windows of the large houses. As they passed Twenty-second Street, Miss Hitchcock slackened her pace and spoke again. "You don't think _they_ are right, surely?" "No," the doctor replied absent-mindedly. He was thinking how he had been delayed from going to Mrs. Preston's, and how strange was this promenade down the fashionable boulevard where he had so often walked with Miss Hitchcock on bright Sundays, bowing at every step to the gayly dressed groups of acquaintances. He was taking the stroll for the last time, something told him, on this hot, stifling July afternoon, between the rows of deserted houses. In twenty-four hours he should be a part of _them_ in all practical ways--a part of the struggling mob, that lived from day to day, not knowing when the bread would give out, with no privileges, no pleasant vacations, no agreeable houses to frequent, no dinner parties at the close of a busy day. He was not sorry for the change, so far as he had thought of it. At least he should escape the feeling of irritation, of criticism, which Lindsay so much deplored, that had been growing ever since he had left hospital work. The body social was diseased, and he could not make any satisfactory diagnosis of the evil; but at least he should feel better to have done with the privileged assertive classes, to have taken up his part with the less Philistine, more pitiably blind mob. With the absolute character of his nature and the finality of youth, he saw in a very decisive manner the plunge he was about to make. He was to leave one life and enter another, just as much as if he should leave Chicago and move to Calcutta--more so, indeed. He was to leave one set of people, and all their ways, and start with life on the simplest, crudest base. He should not call on his Chicago friends, who for the most part belonged to one set, and after a word from Lindsay they would cease to bother him. He would be out of place among the successful, and they would realize it as well as he. But he should be sorry to lose sight of certain parts of this life,--of this girl, for example, whom he had liked so much from the very first, who had been so good to him, who was so sincere and honest and personally attractive. Yet it was strange, the change in his feelings toward her brought about in the few days that had elapsed since they had parted at Lake Forest. It was so obvious today that they could never have come together. While he had tried to do the things that she approved, he had been hot and restless, and had never, for one moment, had the calm certainty, the exquisite fulness of feeling that he had now--that the other woman had given him without a single outspoken word. If things had gone differently these past months,--no, from his birth and from hers, too,--if every circumstance of society had not conspired to put them apart, who knows! They might have solved a riddle or two together and been happy. But it was all foolish speculation now, and it was well that their differences should be emphasized at this last chance meeting; that she should be hostile to him. He summed the matter up thus, and, as if answering her last remark, said: "_They_, my dear Miss Hitchcock, are wrong, and you are wrong, if we can use pronouns so loosely. But I have come to feel that I had rather be wrong with them than wrong with you. From to-day, when you speak of 'them,' you can include me." And to correct any vagueness in his declaration, he added,-- "I have left Lindsay's shop, and shall never go back." He could feel that she caught her breath, but she said nothing. "I should never be successful in that way, though it wasn't for that reason that I left." "Do you think you can do more for people by putting yourself--away, holding off--" Her voice sank. "That is a subterfuge," Sommers answered hotly, "fit only for clergymen and beggars for charities. I am not sure, anyway, that I want 'to do for' people. I think no fine theories about social service and all that settlement stuff. I want to be a man, and have a man's right to start with the crowd at the scratch, not given a handicap. There are too many handicaps in the crowd I have seen!" Miss Hitchcock pressed her lips together, as if to restrain a hot reply. She had grown white from the fatigue and excitement and heat. They were almost at her father's house, walking along the steaming asphalt of the quiet avenue. A few old trees had been allowed to remain on these blocks, and they drooped over the street, giving a pleasant shade to the broad houses and the little patches of sward. Just around the corner were some rickety wooden tenements, and a street so wretchedly paved that in the great holes where the blocks had rotted out stood pools of filthy, rankly smelling water. "I have merely decided to move around the corner," the young man remarked grimly. Miss Hitchcock's lips trembled. She walked more slowly, and she tried to say something, to make some ill-defined appeal. As she had almost found the words, a carriage approached the Hitchcock house and drew up. Out of it Colonel Hitchcock stepped heavily. His silk hat was crushed, and his clothes were covered with dust. "Papa!" his daughter exclaimed, running forward anxiously. "What has happened? Where have you been? Are you hurt?" "No, yes, I guess not," the old man laughed good-naturedly. "Howdy do, doctor! They stopped the train out by Grand Crossing, and some fellows began firing stones. It was pretty lively for a time. I thought you and your mother would worry, so I got out of it the best way I could and came in on the street cars." "Poor papa!" the girl exclaimed, seizing his arm. She glanced at Sommers defiantly. Here was her argument. Sommers looked on coolly, not accepting the challenge. "Won't you come in, doctor?" Colonel Hitchcock asked. "Do come in and rest," his daughter added. But the young doctor shook his head. "I think I will go home and brush up--around the corner," he added with slight irony. The girl turned to her father and took his arm, and they slowly walked up the path to the big darkened house. _ |
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