They Call Me Carpenter Part 21

"We only use one eagle," I said, somewhat feebly.

To which he answered, "The soul of one eagle is the same as the soul of two."

Now, I had felt quite certain that Carpenter would not get along very well with the Brigade, and I was more than ever decided that he must be got out of the way somehow or other. But meantime, the first task was to get him away from this crowd which was rapidly collecting. Already he was in the full tide of a speech. "Those sharp spears! Can you not see them thrust into the bowels of human beings? Can you not see them dripping with the blood of your brothers?"

I whispered to Everett, thinking him one among this company of enthusiasts who might have a little common sense left. "We had better get him away from here!" And Everett put his hand gently on the prophet's shoulder, and said, "The prisoners in the jail are hoping for us." I took him by the other arm, and we began to lead him down the street. When we had once got him going, we walked him faster and faster, until presently the crowd was trailing out into a string of idlers and curiosity seekers, as before.

XLVI

The party came to the city jail, and knocked for admission. But no doubt the authorities had taken consultation in the meantime, and there was no admission for prophets. The party stood on the steps, baffled and bewildered, a pitiful and pathetic little group.

For my part, I thought it just as well that Carpenter had not got inside, for I knew what he would find there. It happens that my Aunt Jennie belongs to a couple of women's clubs, and they have been making a fuss about our city jail; they have kept on making it for many years, but apparently without accomplis.h.i.+ng anything. The place was built a generation ago, for a city of perhaps one-tenth our present size; it is old and musty, and the walls are so badly cracked that it has been condemned by the building department. It is so crowded that half a dozen men sometimes sleep on the floor of a single cell. They are devoured by vermin, and lie in semi-darkness, some of them s.h.i.+vering with cold and others half suffocated. They stay there, sometimes for many months unheeded, because the courts are crowded, and if Comrade Abell's word may be taken in the matter, every poor man is a.s.sumed to be guilty until he is proven innocent.

I have heard Aunt Jennie arguing the matter with considerable energy. Our banks are housed in palaces, and our Chamber of Commerce and our Merchants and Manufacturers and our Real Estate Exchange and all the rest of our boosters have commodious and expensive quarters; but our prisoners lie in torment, and no one boosts for them.

Did Carpenter know these things? Had the strikers or his little company of agitators, told him about them? Suddenly he said, "Let us pray;" and there on the steps of the jail he raised his hands in invocation, and prayed for all prisoners and captives. And when he finished, Comrade Abell suddenly lifted his voice and began to sing.

I would not have supposed that so big a voice could have come out of so frail a body; but I was reminded that Abell had been practicing on soap-boxes a good part of his life. He was one of these shouting evangelists--only his gospel was different. He sang:

Arise, ye pris'ners of starvation!

Arise, ye wretched of the earth!

For justice thunders condemnation, A better world's in birth.

I think I would have shuddered, even more than I did, if I had known the name of this song; if I had realized that this group of fanatics were sounding the dread Internationale on the steps of our city jail! I suspect that what saved them was the fact that the guardians of the jail had no more idea what it was than I had!

The group had sung a couple of verses, when the iron-barred doors were opened, and a policeman stepped out. He addressed Carpenter, who was not singing. "Tell that bunch of nuts of yours to can the yowling."

To which Carpenter replied: "I tell you that if these men should hold their peace, the stones of your jail would immediately cry out!" And he turned, and looked up and down the streets of the city, and suddenly I saw that he was weeping. "Oh, Mobland, Mobland! If you had known even at this time the way of justice! But the way is hid from your eyes, and you will not see it, and now the hour is coming, the horrors of the cla.s.s war are upon you, ruin and destruction are at hand! Your towers of pride shall fall, your own children shall destroy you; they shall not leave you one stone upon another, because you knew not the time for justice when it came."

The doors of the jail opened again, and three or four more policemen came out, with clubs in their hands. "Get along, now!" they said roughly, and began poking the prophet and his disciples in the back; they poked them down the stairs and along the street for a block or so--until they were sure the ears of the jail inmates would no longer be troubled by offensive sounds. But still they did not arrest them, and I marveled, wondering how long it could go on. I had an uneasy feeling that the longer the climax was postponed, the more severe it would be.

There was quite a crowd following us now, hoping that something sensational would happen. And presently a woman saw us, and rushed into the house, and came out leading a blind man, and appealing to Carpenter to restore his sight; and when he stopped to do this, there were a couple of newspaper men, and an operator with a camera, and more excitement and more crowds! So we started to walk again, and came to Main Street, which in our city is given up to ten cent picture-shows, and p.a.w.n-brokers, and old clothes shops, and eating-stands for workingmen. A block or so distant we saw a ma.s.s of people, and something warned me--my heart sank into my boots.

Another mob!

XLVII

There was shouting, and people running from every direction. The throng would surge back, and a few run from it. "What's the matter?"

I cried to one of these, and the answer was, "They're cleaning out the reds!" Comrade Abell, who knew the neighborhood, exclaimed in dismay, "It's Erman's Book Store!"

"Who's doing this?" I asked of another bystander, and the answer was, "The Brigade! They're cleaning up the city before the convention!" And Comrade Abell clasped his hands to his forehead, and wailed in despair, "It's because they've been selling the 'Liberator'! Erman told me last week he'd been warned to stop selling it!"

Now, I don't know whether or not Carpenter had ever heard of this radical monthly. But he knew that here was a mob, and people in trouble, and he shook off the hands which sought to restrain him, and pushed his way into the throng, which gave way before him, either from respect or from curiosity. I learned later that some of the mob had dragged the bookseller and his two clerks out by the rear entrance, and were beating them pretty severely. But fortunately Carpenter did not see this. All he saw were a dozen or so ex-soldiers in uniform carrying armfuls of magazines and books out into a little square, which was made by the oblique intersection of two avenues. They were dumping the stuff into a pile, and a man with a five gallon can was engaged in pouring kerosene over it.

"My friend," said Carpenter, "what is this that you do?"

The other turned upon him and stared. "What the h.e.l.l you got to do with it? Get out of the way there!" And to emphasize his words he slopped a jet of kerosene over the prophet's robes.

Said Carpenter: "Do you know what a book is? One of your poets has described it as the precious life-blood of a great spirit, embalmed and preserved to all posterity."

The other laughed scornfully. "Was he talkin' about Bolsheviki books, you reckon?"

Said Carpenter: "Are you one that should be set to judge books? Have you read these that you are about to destroy?" And as the other, paying no attention, knelt down to strike a match and light the pyre, he cried, in a louder voice: "Behold what a thing is war! You have been trained to kill your fellow men; the beast has been let loose in your heart, and he raves within!"

"One of these G.o.d-d.a.m.n pacifists, eh?" cried the ex-soldier; and he dropped his matches and sprang up with fists clenched. Carpenter faced him without flinching; there was something so majestic about him, the man did not strike him, he merely put his spread hand against the prophet's chest and shoved him violently. "Get back out of the way!"

I well knew the risk I was taking, but I could not refrain. "Now, look here, buddy!" I began; and the soldier whirled upon me. "You one of these Huns, too?"

"I was all through the Argonne," I said quickly. "And I belong to the Brigade."

"Oh ho! Well, pitch in here, and help carry out this b.l.o.o.d.y Arnychist literature!"

I was about to answer, but Carpenter's voice rang out again. He had turned and stretched out his arms to the crowd, and we both stopped to listen to his words.

"Shall ye be wolves, or shall ye be men? That is the choice, and ye have chosen wolfhood. The blood of your brothers is upon your hands, and murder in your hearts. You have trained your young men to be killers of their brothers, and now they know only the law of madness."

There were a dozen ex-doughboys in sound of this discourse, and I judged they would not stand much of it. Suddenly one of them began to chant; and the rest took it up, half laughing, half shouting:

Rough! Tough!

We're the stuff!

We want to fight and we can't get enough!

And after that:

Hail! Hail! The gang's all here!

We're going to get the Kaiser!

The crowd joined in, and the words of the prophet were completely drowned out. A moment later I heard a gruff voice behind me. "Make way here!" There came a policeman, shoving through. "What's all this about?"

The fellow with the kerosene can spoke up: "Here's this d.a.m.n Arnychist prophet been incitin' the crowd and preachin' sedition!

You better take him along, officer, and put him somewhere he'll be safe, because me and my buddies won't stand no more Bolsheviki rantin'."

It seemed ludicrous when I looked back upon it; though at the moment I did not appreciate the funny side. Here was a group of men engaged in raiding a book-store, beating up the proprietor and his clerks, and burning a thousand dollars worth of books and magazines on the public street; but the policeman did not see a bit of that, he had no idea that any such thing was happening! All he saw was a prophet, in a white nightgown dripping with kerosene, engaged in denouncing war! He took him firmly by the arm, saying, "Come along now! I guess we've heard enough o' this;" and he started to march Carpenter down the street.

"Take me too!" cried Moneta, the Mexican, beside himself with excitement; and the policeman grabbed him with the other hand, and the three set out to march.

XLVIII

I no longer had any impulse to interfere. In truth I was glad to see the policeman, considering that his worst might be better than the mob's best. About half the crowd followed us, but the singing died away, and that gave Comrade Abell his chance. He was walking directly behind the policeman, and suddenly he raised his voice, and all the rest of the way to the station-house he provided marching tunes: first the Internationale, and then the Reg Flag, and then the Ma.r.s.eillaise:

Ye sons of toil, awake to glory!

Hark, hark! What myriads bids you rise!

Your children, wives, and grand sires h.o.a.ry-- Behold their tears and hear their cries!