_ CHAPTER XVI. FARR HAS A VISION AND CLOSES HIS LIPS
Walker Farr put aside papers upon which he had been working since he had eaten his modest supper, and pulled on his coat and went forth into the evening. He strolled up one of the streets in the Eleventh Ward of Marion, manifestly glad to be out among the people.
He stopped at the curb and hailed the driver of a truck-wagon which was loaded down with kegs and jugs.
"Marston," he said, when the driver halted, "it's good to see the noble work going on."
"Yes, and now that the babies aren't dying off so fast old Dodd's newspapers are claiming that the new filtering-plant is doing all the good, sir."
"Well, it shows that our work is worth while if they're claiming it, Marston. But we'll wake up the folks all in good time. Do what we can for first aid, that's the idea! The people are waking up to what we're doing. And they are waking up in other places. I took a little run up state last week. Five other cities are going to try this co-operative scheme of getting good water to the poor folks until something better can be done."
"You've got a head on you," commended the driver. "It's a little tough on tired horses to work at this after a day's trudging on regular business, but my nags seem to understand what it's all about--honest they do. I have hauled five hundred gallons this week. But I'd like to haul old Dodd up to Coosett Lake and drown him, if it wasn't for spoiling water that the poor folks are drinking."
Farr shook his head and walked on.
He was a rather striking figure for a New England city as he strolled along. It did not seem to be affectation for this man to wear a frock-coat without a waistcoat, a flowing black tie setting off his snowy linen. The attire seemed to belong to his physique and manner.
Women smiled at him in friendly fashion; men gave respectful and affectionate salutation.
Soon he stepped off the street into a room where a group of men were waiting for him, so it appeared, because they all rose when he entered.
He called the little meeting to order promptly, informing them that he would detain them only a short time.
"I rise to make a motion," said a man at one stage of the proceedings. "There have been so many volunteers in the work and the folks have been so ready to pay for real water in place of that stuff we get from the taps, that three hundred dollars have accumulated in the treasury. We all know that there is just one man who had been responsible for this whole plan and has given his time and has run about our state and hasn't charged anything but expenses for doing it all. I move we give that sum to Mr. Farr--wishing it was more."
The speaker was loudly applauded.
Farr was so quickly on his feet and spoke so promptly that he clipped the man's last words.
"A moment, my friends, before that motion is seconded." He held up his hand and checked their protests against what his air told them. "Because my little plan has succeeded better than I hoped is not due to me, but to the generous co-operation of good men who have given their time. We are saving the babies, thank God! But do you know what else we have done by our hard toil and our devotion? We are propping up the Consolidated Water Company in this state. Understand me! I am not attacking that company because it is a corporation. If it were now making preparations to pipe down to us clean water from the hills I would gladly go on giving my time to this cause in order to help the case of the Consolidated. But the men in control are deliberately shutting their eyes to the real situation. Now that folks aren't dying, they claim all the credit--when we know the credit is due to weary men who go on working after their day's toil is over. It isn't right--it isn't just! My friends, I have got hold of a bigger thing than I reckoned on when I started out to wake those poison-peddlers up. Now that we are cleaning up the typhoid, the Consolidated is simply riding on our backs--refusing to see the real truth. If they give Marion pure water it will be only at more exorbitant rates, because the nearest lake is twenty miles away. I'm not an anarchist--I want to see capital get its just reward. But when a syndicate takes a franchise from citizens and makes them pay over and over for what was their own the citizens have a right to rise in self-defense. When we force the Consolidated to give us what we're paying for--pure water--they evidently propose to make us pay for what they call our cheek in asking." He paused for a moment, and his smile succeeded his earnestness. "I beg your pardon for saying 'we.' I must remember that I'm still a stranger in this city."
"I'll have to dispute you there," interposed a man. "You're one of us. And we're going to prove it to you a little later."
"My friends," went on Farr, "until the cities and towns of this state own their own water-plants and take their own profits they will be paying double tribute to a merciless crowd."
"But we can't own our plants till the millennium, sir. There's that five-percent-debt-limit clause in the constitution."
Farr smiled--this time wistfully. "I've--I've had a sort of vision in regard to that," he said. "I don't dare to explain myself just now, friends. It may be only a vision--but I think not. I'll not say any more at present. I did not intend to say as much. What was on my mind when I got up was this: I will not accept that money in the treasury--on no account will I take it. Because I believe that strange days are coming upon us soon in this state--days when we shall need money. Keep that nest-egg and guard it." He picked up his hat and started for the door. "The meeting is adjourned," he informed them. He smiled at them over his shoulder in such a manner that they wondered whether he joked or was in earnest. "Guard well that money--for the only way my vision can be realized, I fear, is by turning this state's politics upside down, and that will be quite a job for a rank outsider fighting Colonel Symonds Dodd--and fighting without money. Good night!"
Men whom Walker Farr met as he strolled ducked amiable greetings. They grinned admiringly after him as he passed on.
If a woman asked in regard to him or a stranger in the ward questioned a native they were informed with gusto that he was "the boy who stood in City Hall and talked turkey to the mayor and all the bunch, and said a good word for the poor people, and twisted the tail of the Consolidated and lost a good job doing it--and that's more than any alderman would do for those who elected him."
At a street corner children of the poor were dancing around a hurdy-gurdy. Farr gave the man at the crank a handful of change and told him to stay there and keep the kiddies happy. Shrill juvenile voices promptly proclaimed his praises to all the neighborhood, and mothers and fathers beamed benedictions on him from windows.
He stopped at another street corner where a dozen youths were congregated. They were heavy-eyed, leering cubs, their hats were tipped back, and frowzled fore-tops stuck out over their pimply faces--types of youths whom modest girls avoid hurriedly by detours.
"Boys, folks are writing to the newspapers complaining that young chaps are insulting girls on the street corners of Marion. But it must be those high-toned loafers up-town. You're not up to any of that business down here, of course."
"None of us would ever as much as say 'shoo' to a chicken," protested one of the group.
"You're Dave Joyce's boy, aren't you?"
"Yes, sir."
"The fifty men he bosses at the ice-house like him because he's square. Here's a good motto: 'Square with the boys and nice to the girls.' But keep off the street corners, fellows, or they'll get you mixed up with some of that masher gang."
The Joyce boy pulled his hat forward and marshaled the retreat from the loafing-place.
"Naw, he ain't no candidate, nuther," he informed his associates when they were out of hearing. "He ain't canvassing for no votes. My old man says he ain't. He ain't a four-flusher. He's the guy that stood for the poor folks up at City Hall and doped out the spring-water stuff."
At the side of a street where traffic raged to and from the city's Union Station Farr came upon two shriveled old ladies who were teetering on the curbstones, waiting tremulously for an opportunity to cross. They put down into the roaring street first one apprehensive foot and then another, like children trying chilly water. The big fellow offered an arm to each and led them safely across.
"You're a real knight-errant, sir," squeaked one of the two, looking up into the kindly face.
He laughed, doffed the broad-brimmed hat with a low bow, and strolled on his way.
"Knight-errant," he muttered, still smiling. "Guess not. They don't have 'em these days. The stories about 'em read well. Wonder what kind of a feeling it was that started those boys off on the hike! Perhaps there wasn't enough doing in politics. It must have been a fine game, though, rescuing distressed damsels. And all for love and not for pay!"
A poster in the window of an empty store caught his eye just then. It advertised a woman's-suffrage rally.
"The girls would paint rally signs on a knight's tin suit these days and send him off on an advertising trip," was his whimsical reflection.
At that moment, with this thought of knight in armor in his mind, he was attracted by a flare of red fire in a blacksmith shop located just off the street. The one worker in the place was revealed by the forge fire. The glow lighted the features of the man. There was no mistaking him--it was Friend Jared Chick. And Farr turned off the street and went into the shop and greeted his one-time traveling companion.
"How does thee do?" replied Jared Chick, quietly, his Quaker calm undisturbed. He drew forth a white-hot iron and deftly hammered it into a circle around the snout of the anvil.
"So you have given up knight-errantry and have gone back to the old job, have you, Friend Chick?"
"No. This is a part of my service. The man who owns this shop is a good man who works hard here all day. And after he has gone home he allows me to work here in the evening."
He pounded away industriously and Farr walked up to the anvil to inspect the nature of the work, for the iron rod was assuming queer shapes.
"A new kind of armor, Friend Chick?"
If there was a bit of sarcasm in Farr's tone the Quaker paid no apparent heed.
"No," he said, quietly and meekly, "this is a brace for the leg of a little lame boy. I have found many children in this city who cannot walk. Their parents are too poor to buy braces. So I come here nights, when the good man is away from the forge, and I make braces and carry them with my blessing. I have some knack with the hammer. I hope to find other ways of doing my bit of good."
"I beg your pardon, Friend Chick," said Farr, a catch in his voice. "I will not bother you in your work. Good night!"
"Good night to thee!" said the Quaker, swinging at the bellows arm.
Farr went back upon the street, his head bowed. "We all have our own way of doing it," he pondered, contritely.
He met a man and greeted him with a friendly handclasp. It was Citizen Drew, that elderly man with the earnest face.
And as he had in the past, he turned, caught step with Farr, and they walked together.
Their stroll took them into the broader avenues of up-town.
As they talked, Farr caught side glances from his companion. The glances were a bit inquisitive.
"Well, Citizen Drew," asked the young man, "what is on your mind this evening?"
"Since I have known you and studied you I have been thinking that you have the spirit of knight-errantry in you," stated Citizen Drew.
Farr laughed boyishly.
"Two very nice old ladies have just got ahead of you with that accusation, my friend."
"Laugh if you feel like it. But there are so few men who can do anything unselfishly in these days that when a chap like you does come along he gets noticed--at any rate, I notice him." He stopped dealing in side glances and stared at Farr fully and frankly. "Other men who would do the things you are doing so quietly in this state have been playing politics--and I have made it my business to watch politicians. And as soon as men have been elected to office by fooling the people--well, those men have simply been set into the Big Machine as new cogs. Are you like the rest, Mr. Farr? Nobody knows where you came from. Everybody who sees you knows you're above the jobs you have been working at. They're talking you up for alderman in our ward. But we have been fooled so many times!"
Farr replied to this wistful inquisition in a way there was no misunderstanding.
"I am not a candidate for anything, Citizen Drew. And I'll tell you how I can prove I am not. I am not a voter here. I have intentionally failed to have myself registered. Whenever you hear another man talking me up for office you tell him that. Therefore, it makes no difference to anybody where I came from or what job I work at."
Citizen Drew accepted the rebuke humbly and walked on in silence.
"You have always been fooled, you say, when you have elected men to office. Haven't you any men in this state whom you can elect to high office, knowing for sure that they'll stay straight?"
"No," returned Citizen Drew.
"I'm a stranger--I don't know your big men--you do know them, and I suppose I ought to take your word. But I don't believe you, Citizen Drew."
"But I told you the truth. We have big men who are honest men. But they won't go into politics. They feel too far above the game. Therefore, how can we elect them to office? I say I told you the truth. The men who go out and hunt for office are the ones who work the thing for their own profit--and that means they stand in with the bunch and the head boss."
It was the same old lament which is everlastingly on the lips of the voters of America! Citizen Drew had again epitomized the average politics of the great Republic!
Walker Farr smiled--and he could express in a smile more than most men can express in speech.
"An original idea has just occurred to me, Citizen Drew," he said, with humorous drawl in his tones. "I'm sure nothing like it has ever been thought of before. There ought to be a new party formed in this country--a party outside all the others. No, not a party, exactly! What should I call it? You see, the idea has just come to me, and I'm floundering a little." His tone was still jocular. "You're right about most of the able and big men staying out of politics except when the highest offices are passed around. Now, how's this for a scheme? Organize a loyal band and call it--well, say the Purified Political Privateers, the Sanctified Kidnappers, the People's Progressive and Public-spirited Press Gang. Go around and grab the Great and the Good who insist on minding their private business and who are letting the country be gobbled up--just go and grab 'em right up by the scruff of the neck and fling them into politics head over heels. They would sputter and froth and flop for a little while--and then they'd strike out and swim. They couldn't help swimming! They'd know that the folks were looking on. And then a lot of the sinking and drowning poor devils, like you and me and the folks in the tenements, could grab onto the Great and the Good and ask 'em to tow us safely ashore; and by that time their pride and their dander would be up and they'd swim all the harder--with the other folks looking on. Hah! An idea, eh? You see, I feel rather imaginative and on the high pressure and in a mood for adventure this evening! Probably because the nice old ladies called me a knight-errant."
Citizen Drew was not ready with comment on this amazing suggestion. He clawed his hand into his sparse hair and wrinkled his forehead in attempt to decide whether or not he ought to resent this playful retort to his lament. The next moment he dealt Farr a swift jab in the ribs with his elbow.
"Take a good look at this man coming," he mumbled.
The oncomer was close upon them, and in spite of the dusk Farr's sharp gaze took him all in.
In garb and mien he was a fine type of the American gentleman who is marked by a touch of the old school. There was a clean-cut crispness about him; the white mustache and the hair which matched it looked as if they would crackle if rubbed. His eyes were steely blue, and he held himself very erect as he walked, and he tapped the pavement briskly with his cane.
He passed them, marched up the steps of a large building, and disappeared through a door which a boy in club uniform held open for him.
"That man," explained Citizen Drew, complacently displaying his boasted knowledge of public men in minute detail, "is the Honorable Archer Converse, whose father was General Aaron Converse, the war governor of this state. Lawyer, old bach, rich, just as crisp in talk as he is in looks, just as straight in his manners and morals and honesty as he is in his back, arrives every night at the Mellicite Club for his dinner on the dot of eight"--Citizen Drew waved his hand at the illuminated circle of the First National clock--"leaves the club exactly at nine for a walk through the park, then marches home, plays three games of solitaire, and goes to bed."
"I know him!" stated Farr.
Citizen Drew's air betrayed a bit of a showman's disappointment.
"I never saw him before--never heard of him. But I mean I know him now after your description--know his nature, his thoughts. You have a fine touch in your size-ups, Citizen Drew."
"I've studied 'em all."
"What has he done in politics?"
"Never a thing. He is one of the kind I was complaining about. Too high-minded."
"But, ho, how a man like that would swim if he were once thrown in!" declared Farr.
"He never even tended out on a caucus."
"I know the style when I see it," pursued Farr. He did not look at Citizen Drew. He was talking as much to himself as to his companion. "Spirit of a crusader harnessed by every-day habit! Righteousness in a rut! Achievement timed to the tick of the clock. But, once in, how he would swim!"
"Think how our affairs would swing along with a man like that at the head of the state!"
"Why hasn't he been put at the head?"
"I have been in delegations that have gone to him"--he waved his hand--"he said he couldn't think of being mixed into political messes."
"He looked on you wallowing in muddy water and you invited him in. I don't blame him for not jumping."
"He's a good man," insisted Citizen Drew. "He gives more money to the poor than any other man in town. The only way I found that out is by having a natural nose for finding out things. He doesn't say anything about it."
"How he would swim!" repeated Farr. "Steady and strong and straight toward the shore, Citizen Drew, and he wouldn't kick away the poor drowning devils, either."
"He probably thinks he has paid his debt to the world when he hands out his money," stated Drew. "When he looks around and sees so many other men holding the poor chaps upside down and shaking the dollars out of their pockets he must think he is doing a mighty sight more than is required of him. But sticking plasters of dollar bills onto sore places in this state ain't curing anything." He stopped. "I've walked with you farther than I intended to, Mr. Farr. But somehow I wanted to talk with you. There's a meeting of the Square Deal Club this evening at Union Hall. I didn't know but in some way we might--It was thought you might be going to run for office."
"The registration-office will prove that I'm not. Pass that word!"
"I'll go back--to the meeting. It doesn't seem to be much use in holding the meetings," said the man. "We hear one another talk--we know we are talking the truth. But nobody listens who can help us poor folks. Well, I'll admit that the politicians come in and listen and promise to help us and we give our votes; but that's all: they give nothing back to us."
Farr broke out with a remark which seemed to have no bearing on what Citizen Drew was saying.
"He comes out at nine o'clock, eh?"
"Who?"
"The Honorable Archer Converse. Leaves that clubhouse then, does he?"
"Regular to the tick of the clock."
"Citizen Drew, hold your club in session until half past nine or a little later. My experience with those meetings is that you always have troubles enough to keep you talking for at least two hours."
Citizen Drew glanced at the face of Farr and then at the big door of the Mellicite Club.
"You don't mean to say--"
"I don't say anything. I seem to be in a queer state of mind to-night, Citizen Drew." Again there was an odd note of raillery in his voice. "A lot of odd ideas keep coming to me. Another one had just popped into my head. That's all! Keep your boys at the hall."
He swung off up the street.
He turned after a few steps and saw the elderly man standing where he had left him. Drew was a rather pathetic figure there in the brilliantly lighted main thoroughfare, a poor, plain man from the Eleventh Ward of the tenement-houses--this man who had been striving and struggling, reading and studying, endeavoring to find some way out for the poor people; some relief--something that would help. Farr knew what sort of men were waiting in the little hall. He had attended their meetings. It was the only resource they understood--a public meeting. They knew that the important folks up-town held public meetings of various sorts, and the poor folks had decided that there must be virtue in assemblages. But nothing had seemed to come out of their efforts in the tenement districts.
Farr stepped back to where Citizen Drew stood.
"I think I will say something to you, after all. Tell the boys in Union Hall to be patient and I'll bring the Honorable Archer Converse around this evening."
He smiled into the stare of blank amazement on the man's face, flung up a hand to check the stammering questions, and went off up the street.
"A decent man's conscience will make him keep a promise he has made to a child or to the simple or to the helpless," Farr told himself. "I have undertaken a big contract, I reckon, but now that I have put myself on record I've got to go ahead and deliver the goods. At any rate, I feel on my mettle." Then he smiled at what seemed to be his sudden folly. "I think I'll have to lay it all to those nice old ladies who were foolish enough to put that knight-errant idea into my head," he said. _