The Landloper Part 29

"Marston," he said, when the driver halted, "it's good to see the n.o.ble 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 fas.h.i.+on; 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 acc.u.mulated 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--wis.h.i.+ng 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 G.o.d! 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 const.i.tution."

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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sociates when they were out of hearing. "He ain't canva.s.sing 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 a.s.suming 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.