On the evening of July third, a week later, Gabriel Armstrong found
himself at Rochester, having tramped the hundred miles from Syracuse, by
easy stages. During this week, old Flint took good care not to reopen
the subject of the break with Waldron; and his daughter, too, avoided
it. They two were apparently at an impasse regarding it. But Flint
inwardly rejoiced, knowing full well the plot now under way. And though
Waldron urged him to take some further action and force the issue, Flint
bade him hold his peace, and wait, telling him all would yet be well.
Outwardly calmer, the old man was raging, within, more and ever more
bitterly, against Armstrong. On July first, Slade had reported in person
that his operators who were trailing the quarry had—in the
night—discovered in one of his pockets a maple leaf wrapped in a fine
linen handkerchief marked "C. J. F." Flint, recognizing his
daughter's initials, well-nigh burst a blood-vessel for wrath. But he
instructed Slade not to have the handkerchief abstracted from
Armstrong's possession. By no sign or hint must the victim be made aware
that he was being spied upon. When the final blow should fall, then
(reflected the Billionaire, with devilish satisfaction) all scores would
be paid in full, and more than paid.
July third, then, found Gabriel at Rochester, now seventy-five or
eighty miles from Niagara Falls, his goal, where—he had already
heard—ground was being actually broken for the huge new power plant of
which he alone, of all outsiders, understood the meaning. Gabriel
counted on spending the Fourth at Rochester where a Socialist picnic and
celebration had been arranged. Ordinarily, he would have taken part in
the work and volunteered as a speaker, but now, anxious to keep out of
sight, he counted merely on forming one of the crowd. There could be
little danger, thought he, in such a mass. Despite the recent stringent
censorship and military rule of the district by the new Mounted Police,
a huge gathering was expected. The big railway and lake-traffic strikes,
both recently lost, had produced keen resentment, and, as political and
economic power had been narrowed here, as all over the country, in these
last few months of on-sweeping capitalist domination, the Socialist
movement had been growing ever more and more swiftly.
"It will be worth seeing," thought Gabriel, as he stood outside the
lodging-house where he had taken a room for the night. The workers are
surely awakening, at last. The spirit I've been meeting, lately, is
uglier and more determined than anything I ever used to find, a year or
two ago. It seems to me, if conditions are like this all over the
country, the safety-valve is about ready to pop, and the masters had
better look out, or some of them are going to land in Hell!
"Yes, I'll stop over here, one day, and look and listen. Sorry I can't
take part, but I mustn't. My game, now, is to travel underground as it
were. I've got a bigger job in view than soap-boxing, just now!"
He ate a simple supper at an "Owl" lunch-cart, totally unaware that,
across the street, a couple of Cosmos men were waiting for him to come
out. And, after this, buying a Socialist paper, he strolled into Evans
Park to sit and read, a while, by the red light of the descending sun.
Here he remained till dark, smoking his briar, watching the dirty,
ragged children of the wretched wage-slaves at play; observing the
exploited men and women on the park-benches, as they sought a little
fresh air and respite from toil; and pondering the problems that still
lay before him. At times—often indeed—his thoughts wandered to the
maple-grove and the old sugar-house, far away on the Hudson. Memories of
the girl would not be banished, nor longings for her. Who she might be,
he still knew not. Unwilling to learn, he had refrained from looking up
the number he had copied from the plate of the wrecked machine. He had
even abstained from reading the papers, a few days, lest he might see
some account of the accident. A strange kind of unwillingness to know
the woman's name possessed him—a feeling that, if he positively
identified her as one of some famous clan of robbers and exploiters, he
could no longer cherish her memory or love the thought of how they two
had, for an hour, sat together and talked and been good, honest friends.
"No," he murmured to himself, "it's better this way—just to recall her
as a girl in need, a girl who let me help her, a girl I can always
remember with kind thoughts, as long as I live!"
From his pocket he took the little handkerchief, which wrapped the
leaf, once part of her bed. A faint, elusive scent still hung about
it—something of her, still it seemed. He closed his eyes, there on the
hard park bench, and let his fancies rove whither they would; and for a
time it seemed to him a wondrous peace possessed him.
"If it could only have been," he murmured, at last. "If only it could
be!"
Then suddenly urged by a realization of the hopelessness of it all, he
stood up, pocketed the souvenirs of her again, and walked away in the
dusk; away, through the park; away, at random, through squalid, ugly
streets, where the first electric-lights were just beginning to flare;
where children swarmed in the close heat, wallowing along the gutters,
dodging teams and cars, as they essayed to play, setting off a few
premature firecrackers and mocking the police—all in all, leading the
ugly, unnatural, destructive life of all children of the city
proletariat.
"Poor little devils!" thought Gabriel, stopping to observe a dirty group
clustered about an ice-cream cart, where cheap, adulterated,
high-colored stuff was being sold for a penny a square—aniline poison,
no doubt, and God knows what else. "Poor little kids! Not much like the
children of the masters, eh? with their lawns and playgrounds, their
beaches and flowery fields, their gardens and fine schools, their dogs,
ponies, autos and all the rest! Some difference, all right—and it takes
a thousand of these, yes, ten thousand, to keep one of those.
And—and she was one of the rich and dainty children! Her beauty,
health and grace were bought at the price of ten thousand other
children's health, and joy and lives! Ah, God, what a price! What a
cruel, awful, barbarous price to pay!"
Saddened and pensive, he passed on, still thinking of the woman he could
not banish from his mind, despite his bitterness against her class.
So he walked on and on, now through better streets and now through
worse, up and down the city.
Here and there, detonations and red fire marked the impatience of some
demonstrator who could not wait till midnight to show his ardent
patriotism and his public spirit by risking life and property. The
saloons were all doing a land-office business, with the holiday
impending and the thermometer at 97. Now and then, slattern women, in
foul clothes and with huge, gelatinous breasts, could be seen rushing
the growler, at the "family entrance" of some low dive. Even little
girls bore tin pails, for the evening's "scuttle o' suds" to be consumed
on roof, or in back yard of stinking tenement, or on some fire-escape.
The city, in fine, was relaxing from its toil; and, as the workers for
the most part knew no other way, nor could afford any, they were trying
to snatch some brief moment of respite from the Hell of their slavery,
by recourse to rough ribaldry and alcohol.
Nine o'clock had just struck from the church-spires which mocked the
slums with their appeal to an impassive Heaven, when, passing a foul and
narrow alley that led down to the Genesee River, Gabriel saw a woman
sitting on a doorstep, weeping bitterly.
This woman—hardly more than a girl—was holding a little bundle in one
hand. The other covered her face. Her sobs were audible. Grief of the
most intense, he saw at once, convulsed her. Two or three by-standers,
watching with a kind of pleased curiosity, completed the scene, most
sordid in its setting, there under the flicker of a gas-light on the
corner.
"Hm! What now?" thought Gabriel, stopping to watch the little tragedy.
"More trouble, eh? It's trouble all up and down the line, for these poor
devils! Nothing but trouble for the slave-class. Well, well, let's see
what's wrong now!"
Gabriel turned down the alley, drew near the little group, and halted.
"What's wrong?" he asked, in the tone of authority he knew how to use;
the tone which always overbore his outward aspect, even though he might
have been clad in rags; the tone which made men yield to him, and women
look at him with trustful eyes, even as the Billionaire's daughter had
looked.
"Search me!" murmured one of the men, shrugging his shoulders. "I
can't git nothin' out o' her. She's been sittin' here, cryin', a few
minutes, that's all I know; an' she won't say nothin' to nobody.
"Any of you men know anything about it?" demanded Gabriel, looking at
the rest.
A murmur of negation was his only answer. One or two others, scenting
some excitement, even though only that of a distressed woman—common
sight, indeed!—lingered near. The little group was growing.
Gabriel bent and touched the woman's shoulder.
"What's the matter?" asked he, in a gentle voice. "If you're in trouble,
let me help you."
Renewed sobs were her only answer.
"If you'll only tell me what's the matter," Gabriel went on, "I'm sure
I can do something for you."
"You—you can't!" choked the woman, without raising her head from the
corner of the ragged shawl that she was holding over her eyes. "Nobody
can't! Bill, he's gone, and Eddy's gone, and Mr. Micolo says he won't
let me in. So there ain't nothin' to do. Let me alone—oh dear, oh dear,
dear!"
Fresh tears and grief. The little knot of spectators, still growing,
nodded with approval, and figuratively licked its lips, in satisfaction.
Somewhere a boy snickered.
"Come, come," said Gabriel, bending close over the grief-stricken woman,
"pull together, and let's hear what the trouble is! Who's Bill, and
who's Eddy—and what about Mr. Micolo? Come, tell me. I'm sure I can do
something to straighten things out."
No answer. Gabriel turned to the increasing crowd, again.
"Any of you people know what about it?" he asked.
Again no answer, save that one elderly man, standing on the steps beside
the woman, remarked casually:
"I guess she's got fired out of her room. That's all I know."
Gabriel took her by the arm, and drew her up.
"Come, now!" said he, a sterner note in his voice. "This won't do! You
mustn't sit here, and draw a crowd. First thing you know an officer will
be along, and you may get into trouble. Tell me what's wrong, and I
promise to see you through it, as far as I can."
She raised her face, now, and looked at him, a moment. Tear-stained and
dishevelled though she was, and soiled by marks of drink and
debauchery, Gabriel saw she must once have been very beautiful and still
was comely.
"Well," he asked. "Aren't you going to tell me?"
"Tell you?" she repeated. "I—oh, I can't! Not in front of all them
men!"
"Very well!" said he, "walk with me, and give me your story. Will you do
that? At all events, you mustn't stay here, making a disturbance on the
highway. If you knew the police as well as I do, you'd understand that!"
"You're right, friend," said she, hoarsely. "I'm on, now. Come along
then—I'll tell you. It ain't much to tell; but it's a lot to me!"
She glanced at the curious faces of the watchers, then turned and
followed Gabriel, who was already walking up the alley, toward the
brighter lights of Stuart Street. For a moment, one or two of the men
hesitated as though undecided whether or not to follow after; but one
backward look by Gabriel instantly dispelled any desire to intrude. And
as Gabriel and the woman turned into the street, the little knot of
curiosity-seekers dissolved into its component atoms, and vanished.
