Part 29

"All over our fair land the granite monoliths of _Flamsted_, beacon or battle, point heavenwards. The transcontinental roads, that track and nerve our country, cross and re-cross the raging torrents of western rivers on granite abutments from the _Flamsted_ quarries! The laws, alike for the just and unjust,"--the Colonel did not perceive his slip, but Elmer Wiggins smiled to himself,--"are promulgated within the stately granite halls of the capitals of our statehood--_Flamsted_ again! The gospel of praise and prayer will shortly resound beneath the arches of the choir and nave of the great granite cathedral--the product of the quarries in The Gore!"

Deafening applause, clinking of glasses, and cries of "Good! True--Hear--Hear!"

The Colonel beamed and gathered himself together with a visible effort for his peroration. He laid his hand on his heart.

"A man of feeling, gentlemen, has a heart. He is not oblivious either of the needs of his neighbor, his community, or the world in general. Although he is vulnerable to wounds in the house of his friends,"--a severe look falls upon Wiggins,--"he is not impervious to appeal for sympathy from without. I trust I have defined a man of feeling, gentlemen, a man of heart, as regards the world in general. And now, to make an abrupt descent from the abstract to the concrete, from the general to the particular, I will permit myself to say that those aspersions cast upon me fourteen years ago as a mere promoter, irrespective of my manhood, hurt me as a man of feeling--a man of heart.

"Sir--" he turned again to Elmer Wiggins who was apparently the lightning conductor for the Colonel's fourteen years of pent-up injury--"a father has his feelings. You are _not_ a father--I draw no conclusions; but _if_ you had been a father fourteen years ago in this very room, I would have trusted to your magnanimity not to give expression to your decided views on the subject of the native Americans' intermarriage with those of a race foreign to us. I assure you, sir, such a view not only narrows the mind, but constricts humanity, and ossifies the heart--that special organ by which the world, despite present-day detractors, lives and moves and has its being." (Murmuring assent.)

"But, sir, I believe you have come to see otherwise, else as my guest on this happy occasion, I should not permit myself to apply to you so personal a remark. And, gentlemen," the Colonel swelled visibly, but those nearest him caught the shimmer of a suspicious moisture in his eyes, "I am in a position to-night--this night whereon you have added to my happiness by your presence at this board--to repeat now what I said fourteen years ago in this very room: I consider myself honored in that a member of my immediate family, one very, very dear to me," his voice shook in spite of his effort to strengthen it, "is contemplating entering into the solemn estate of matrimony at no distant date with--a foreigner, gentlemen, but a naturalized citizen of our great and glorious United States. Gentlemen," he filled his glass again and held it high above his head,--"I give you with all my heart Mr. Luigi Poggi, an honored and prosperous citizen of Flamsted--my future son-in-law--the prospective husband of my youngest daughter, Dulcibella Caukins."

The company rose to a man, young Caukins assisting Quimber to his feet.

With loud and hearty acclaim they welcomed the new member of the Caukins family; they crowded about the Colonel, and no hand that grasped his and Luigi's in congratulation was firmer and more cordial than Elmer Wiggins'. The Colonel's smile expanded; he was satisfied--the old score was wiped out.

Afterwards with cigars and pipes they discussed for an hour the affairs of Flamsted. The influx of foreigners with their families was causing a shortage of houses and housing. Emlie proposed the establishment of a Loan and Mortgage Company to help out the newcomers. Poggi laid before them his plan for an Italian House to receive the unmarried men on their arrival.

"By the way," he said, turning to the new head of the Upper Quarry, "you brought up a crowd with you this afternoon, didn't you?--mostly my countrymen?"

"No, a mixed lot--about thirty. A few Scotch and English came up on the same train. Have they applied to you?" He addressed the manager of the Company's sheds.

"No. I think they'll be along Monday. I've noticed that those two nationalities generally have relations who house and look out for them when they come. But I had an application from an American just after the train came in; I don't often have that now."

"Did you take him on?" the Colonel asked between two puffs of his Havana.

"Yes; and he went to work in Shed Number Two. I confess he puzzles me."

"What was he like?" asked the head of the Upper Quarry.

"Tall, blue eyes, gray hair, but only thirty-four as the register showed--misfit clothes--"

"That's the one--he came up in the train with me. I noticed him in the car. I don't believe he moved a muscle all the way up. I couldn't make him out, could you?"

"Well, no, I couldn't. By the way, Colonel, I noticed the name he entered was a familiar one in this part of Maine--Googe--"

"Googe!" The Colonel looked at the speaker in amazement; "did he give his first name?"

"Yes, Louis--Louis C. Googe--"

"My God!"

Whether the ejaculation proceeded from one mouth or five, the manager and foreman could not distinguish; but the effect on the Flamsted men was varied and remarkable. The Colonel's cigar dropped from his shaking hand; his face was ashen. Emlie and Wiggins stared at each other as if they had taken leave of their senses. Joel Quimber leaned forward, his hands folded on the head of his cane, and spoke to Octavius who sat rigid on his chair:

"What'd he say, Tave?--Champ to home?"

But Octavius Buzzby was beyond the power of speech. Augustus spoke for him:

"He said a man applied for work in the sheds this afternoon, Uncle Jo, who wrote his name Louis C. Googe."

"Thet's him--thet's Champ--Champ's to home. You help me inter my coat, Tave, I 'm goin' to see ef's true--" He rose with difficulty. Then Octavius spoke; his voice shook:

"No, Uncle Jo, you sit still a while; if it's Champney, we can't none of us see him to-night." He pushed him gently into his chair.

The Colonel was rousing himself. He stepped to the telephone and called up Father Honoré.

"Father Honoré--

"This is Colonel Caukins. Can you tell me if there is any truth in the report that Champney Googe has returned to-day?

"Thank God."

He put up the receiver, but still remained standing.

"Gentlemen," he said to the manager and the Upper Quarry guest, his voice was thick with emotion and the tears of thankfulness were coursing down his cheeks, "perhaps no greater gift could be bestowed on my sixty-fifth birthday than Champney Googe's return to his home--his mother--his friends--we are all his friends. Perhaps the years are beginning to tell on me, but I feel that I must excuse myself to you and go home--I want to tell my wife. I will explain all to you, as strangers among us, some other time; for the present I must beg your indulgence--joy never kills, but I am experiencing the fact that it can weaken."

"That's all right, Colonel," said the manager; "we understand it perfectly and it's late now."

"I'll go, too, Colonel," said Octavius; "I'm going to take Uncle Jo home in the trap."

Luigi Poggi helped the Colonel into his great coat. When he left the room with his prospective father-in-law, his handsome face had not regained the color it lost upon the first mention of Champney's name.

Emlie and Wiggins remained a few minutes to explain as best they could the situation to the stranger guests, and the cause of the excitement.

"I remember now hearing about this affair; I read it in the newspapers--it must have been seven or eight years ago."

"Six years and four months." Mr. Wiggins corrected him.

"I guess it'll be just as well not to spread the matter much among the men--they might kick; besides he isn't, of course, a union man."

"There's one thing in his favor," it was Emlie who spoke, "the management and the men have changed since it occurred, and there are very few except our home folks that would be apt to mention it--and they can be trusted where Champney Googe is concerned."

The four went out together.

The grill room of The Greenbush was empty save for Augustus Buzzby who sat smoking before the dying fire. Old visions were before his eyes--one of the office on a June night many years ago; the five friends discussing Champney Googe's prospects; the arrival of Father Honoré and little Aileen Armagh--so Luigi had at last given up hope in that direction for good and all.

The town clock struck twelve. He sighed heavily; it was for the old times, the old days, the old life.

VIII

It was several months before Aileen saw him. Her close attendance on Mrs. Champney and her avoidance of the precincts of The Gore--Maggie complained loudly to Mrs. Googe that Aileen no longer ran in as she used to do, and Mrs. Caukins confided to her that she thought Aileen might feel sensitive about Luigi's engagement, for she had been there but twice in five months--precluded the possibility of her meeting him. She excused herself to Mrs. Googe and the Sisters on the ground of her numerous duties at Champ-au-Haut; Ann and Hannah were both well on in years and Mrs. Champney was failing daily.

It was perhaps five months after his return that she was sitting one afternoon in Mrs. Champney's room, in attendance on her while the regular nurse was out for two hours. There had been no conversation between them for nearly the full time, when Mrs. Champney spoke abruptly from the bed:

"I heard last month that Champney Googe is back again--has been back for five months; why didn't you tell me before?"

The voice was very weak, but querulous and sharp. Aileen was sewing at the window. She did not look up.

"Because I didn't suppose you liked him well enough to care about his coming home; besides, it was Octavius' place to tell you."

"Well, I don't care about his coming, or his going either, for that matter, but I do care about knowing things that happen under my very nose within a reasonable time of their happening. I'm not in my dotage yet, I'll have you to understand."

Aileen was silent.

"Come, say something, can't you?" she snapped.

"What do you want me to say, Mrs. Champney?" She spoke wearily, but not impatiently. The daily, almost hourly demands of this sick old woman had, in a way, exhausted her.

"Tell me what he's doing."

"He's at work."

"Where?"

"In the sheds--Shed Number Two."

"What!" Paralysis prevented any movement of her hands, but her head jerked on the pillow to one side, towards Aileen.

"I said he was at work in the sheds."

"What's Champney Googe doing in the sheds?"

"Earning his living, I suppose, like other men."

Almeda Champney was silent for a while. Aileen could but wonder what the thoughts might be that were filling the shrivelled box of the brain--what were the feelings in the ossifying heart of the woman who had denied help to one of her own blood in time of need. Had she any feeling indeed, except that for self?

"Have you seen him?"

"No."

"I should think he would want to hide his head for shame."

"I don't see why." She spoke defiantly.

"Why? Because I don't see how after such a career a man can hold up his head among his own."

Aileen bit her under lip to keep back the sharp retort. She chose another and safer way.

"Oh," she said brightly, looking over to Mrs. Champney with a frank smile, "but he has really just begun his career, you know--"

"What do you mean by that?"

"I mean he has just begun honest work among honest men, and that's the best career for him or any other man to my thinking."

"Umph!--little you know about it."

Aileen laughed outright. "Oh, I know more than you think I do, Mrs. Champney. I haven't lived twenty-six years for nothing, and what I've seen, I've seen--and I've no near-sighted eyes to trouble me either; and what I've heard, I've heard, for my ears are good--regular long-distance telephones sometimes."

She was not prepared for the next move on Mrs. Champney's part.

"I believe you would marry him now--after all, if he asked you." She spoke with a sneer.

"Do you really believe it?" She folded her work and prepared to leave the room, for she heard the nurse's step in the hall below. "Well, if you do, I'll tell you something, Mrs. Champney, but I'd like it to be between us." She crossed the room and paused beside the bed.

"What?"

She bent slightly towards her. "I would rather marry a man who earns his three dollars a day at honest work of quarrying or cutting stones,--or breaking them, for that matter,"--she added under her breath, "but I'm not saying he would be any relation of yours--than a man who doesn't know what a day's toil is except to cudgel his brains tired, with contriving the quickest means of making his millions double themselves at other people's expense in twenty-four hours."

The nurse opened the door. Mrs. Champney spoke bitterly:

"You little fool--you think you know, but--" aware of the nurse, she ended fretfully, "you wear me out, talking so much. Tell Hannah to make me some fresh tamarind water--and bring it up quick."

By the time Aileen had brought up the refreshment, she had half repented of her words. Mrs. Champney had been failing perceptibly the last few weeks, and all excitement was forbidden her. For this reason she had been kept so long in ignorance of Champney's return. As Aileen held the drinking tube to her lips, she noticed that the faded sunken eyes, fixed upon her intently, were not inimical--and she was thankful. She desired to live in peace, if possible, with this pitiable old age so long as it should last--a few weeks at the longest. The lesson of the piece of granite was not lost upon her. She kept the specimen on a little shelf over her bed.

She went down stairs into the library to answer a telephone call; it was from Maggie McCann who begged her to come up that afternoon to see her; the matter was important and could not wait. Aileen knew by the pleading tone of the voice, which sounded unnatural, that she was needed for something. She replied she would go up at once. She put on her hat, and while waiting for the tram at The Bow, bought a small bag of gumdrops for Billy.

Maggie received her with open arms and a gush of tears; thereupon Billy, now tottering on his unsteady feet, flopped suddenly on the floor and howled with true Irish good will.

"Why, Maggie, what _is_ the matter!" she exclaimed.

"Och, Aileen, darlin', me heart's in smithereens, and I'm that deep in trouble that me head's like to rend--an' Jim's all broke up--"

"What is it; do tell me, Maggie--can I help?" she urged, catching up Billy and endeavoring to smother his howls with kisses.

Mrs. McCann wiped her reddened eyes, took off her apron and sat down in a low chair by Aileen who was filling Billy's small mouth, conveniently open for another howl upon perceiving his mother wipe her eyes, with a sizable gumdrop.

"The little gells be over to the kindergarten with the Sisters, an' I thought I'd clane go out of me mind if I couldn't have a word wid you before Jim gets home--Och, Aileen, dearie, me home I'm so proud of--" She choked, and Billy immediately repudiated his gumdrop upon Aileen's clean linen skirt; his eyes were reading the signs of the times in his mother's face.

"Now, Maggie, dear, tell me all about it. Begin at the beginning, and then I'll know where you're at."

Maggie smiled faintly. "Sure, I wouldn't blame you for not knowin' where I'm at." Mrs. McCann sniffed several times prefatorily.

"You know I told you Jim had a temper, Aileen--"

Aileen nodded in assent; she was busy coaxing the rejected ball into Billy's puckered mouth.

"--And that there's times whin he querrels wid the men--"

"Yes."

"Well, you know Mr. Googe bein' in the same shed an' section wid Jim, I says innercent-like to Jim:--'I'm glad he's in your section, Jim, belike you can make it a bit aisier for him.'

"'Aisy is it?' says Jim.

"'Yes, aisy,' says I.

"'An' wot wud I be after makin' a job aisier for the likes of him?' he says, grouchy-like.

"'An' why not?' says I.

"'For a jail-bird?' says he.

"'Deed,' says I, 'if yer own b'y had been breakin' stones wid a gang of toughs for sivin long years gone, wouldn't ye be after likin' a man to spake wan daycint word wid him?' says I.

"Wid that Jim turned on quick-like an' says:--

"'I'll thank ye, Mrs. McCann, to kape yer advice to yerself. It's not Jim McCann's b'y that'll be doin' the dirthy job that yer Mr. Champney Googe was after doin' six years gone, nor be after takin' the bread an' butter out of an honest man's mout' that has a wife an' three childer to feed. He's a convic',' says Jim.

"'What if he is?' says I.

"'I don't hold wid no convic's,' says Jim; 'I hold wid honest men; an' if it's convic's be comin' to take the best piece-work out of our hands, it's time we struck--to a man,' says Jim.

"Niver, niver but wanct has Jim called me 'Mrs. McCann,'" Maggie said brokenly, but stifled a sob for Billy's sake; "an' niver wanct has he gone to work widout kissin' me an' the childer, sometimes twice round--but he went out yisterday an' niver turned for wan look at wife an' childer; an' me heart was that heavy in my bosom that me b'y refused the breast an' cried like to kill himself for wan mortal hour, an' the little gells cried too, an' me bread burnin' to a crisp, an' I couldn't do wan thing but just sit down wid me hands full of cryin' childer--an' me heart cryin' like a child wid 'em."

Aileen tried to comfort.

"But, Maggie, such things will happen in the happiest married lives, and with the best of husbands. Jim will get over it--I suppose he has by this time; you say it isn't like to him to hold anger long--"

"But he hasn't!" Maggie broke forth afresh, and between mother and son, who immediately followed suit, a deluge threatened. "Wan of the stone-cutters' wives, Mrs. MacLoughanchan, he works in the same section as Jim, told me about it--"

"About what?" Aileen asked, hoping to get some continuity into Maggie's relation of her marital woes.

"The fight at the sheds."

"What fight?" Aileen put the question with a sickening fear at her heart.

"The fight betwixt Jim an' Mr. Googe--"

"What do you mean, Maggie?"

"I mane wot I say," Maggie replied with some show of spirit, for Aileen's tone of voice was peremptory; "Jim McCann, me husband, an' Mr. Googe had words in the shed--"

"What words?"

"Just lave me time an' I'll tell you, Aileen. You be after catchin' me short up betwixt ivery word, an' more be token as if't was your own man, instid of mine, ye was worrittin' about. I said they had words, but by rights I should say it was Jim as had them. Jim was mad because the boss in Shed Number Two give Mr. Googe a piece of work he had been savin' an' promisin' him; an' Jim made a fuss about it, an' the boss said he'd give Jim another, but Jim wanted _that wan piece_; an' Jim threatened to get up a strike, an' if there's a strike Jim'll lave the place an' I'll lose me home--ochone--"

"Go on, Maggie." Aileen was trying to anticipate Maggie's tale, and in anticipation of the worst happening to Champney Googe, she lost her patience. She could not bear the suspense.

"But Jim didn't sass the boss--he sassed Mr. Googe. 'T was this way, so Mrs. MacLoughanchan says--Jim said niver a word about the fight to me, but he said he would lave the place if they didn't strike--Mr. Googe says, 'McCann, the foreman says you're to begin on the two keystones at wanct--at wanct,' says he, repating it because Jim said niver a word. An' Jim fires up an' says under his breath:

"'I don't take no orders from convic's,' says he.

"'What did you say, McCann?' says Mr. Googe, steppin' up to him wid a glint in his eye that Jim didn't mind he was so mad; an' instid of repatin' it quiet-like, Jim says, steppin' outside the shed when he see the boss an' Mr. Googe followin' him, loud enough for the whole shed to hear:

'"I don't take orders from no convic's--' an' then--" Maggie laid her hand suddenly over her heart as if in pain, '"Take that back, McCann,' says Mr. Googe--'I'll give you the wan chanct.'--An' then Jim swore an' said he'd see him an' himself in hell first, an' then, before Jim knew wot happened, Mr. Googe lit out wid his fist--an' Jim layin' out on the grass, for Mrs. MacLoughanchan says her man said Mr. Googe picked a soft place to drop him in; an' Mr. Googe helps Jim to his feet, an' holds out his hand an' says:

"'Shake hands, McCann, an' we'll start afresh--'

"But, oh, Aileen! Jim wouldn't, an' Mr. Googe turned away sad-like, an' then Jim comes home, an' widout a word to his wife, says if they don't strike, because there's a convic' an' a no union man a-workin' 'longside of him in his section, he'll lave an' give up his job here--an' it's two hundred he's paid down out of his wages, an' me a-savin' from morn till night on me home--an' 't was to be me very own because Jim says no man alive can tell when he'll be dead in the quarries an' the sheds."

She wept afresh and Billy was left unconsoled, for Maggie, wiping her eyes to look at Aileen and wonder at her silence, saw that she, too, was weeping; but the tears rolled silently one after another down her flushed cheeks.

"Och, Aileen, darlin'! Don't ye cry wid me--me burden's heavy enough widout the weight of wan of your tears--say something to comfort me heart about Jim."

"I can't, Maggie, I think it's wicked for Jim to say such things to Mr. Googe--everybody knows what he has been through. And it would serve Jim McCann but right," she added hotly, "if the time should come when his Billy should have the same cruel words said to him--"

"Don't--don't--for the love of the Mother of God, don't say such things, Aileen!" She caught up the sorely perplexed and troubled Billy, and buried her face in his red curls. "Don't for the sake of the mother I am, an' only a mother can know how the Mother of God himself felt wid her crucified Son an' the bitter words he had to hear--ye're not a mother, Aileen, an' so I won't lay it up too much against ye--"

Aileen interrupted her with exceeding bitterness;

"No, I'm not a mother, Maggie, and I never shall be."