The Landloper: The Romance of a Man on Foot
Muttering an oath of passion he leaped up, hurried across the room, and
began to kiss her fiercely.
He crushed back with his lips all her protests; standing over her, he
held her upon the piano-bench until by main strength and with all the
force of her resentment she tore away from him.
“And now you are going to blame me because I can't help it,” he gasped.
“I don't in the least understand why normal persons can find any
pleasure in that kind of folly.”
“Is your idea of loving anybody rubbing noses like Eskimos?”
“I'd endure that kind of loving in preference to that kind of kissing,
Richard. That isn't love which you're offering--not the kind of love I
want. I am going out for my walk--you filched it from me. No, I'm going
alone. Go and talk with mamma, if you like.”
She escaped the clutch he made and hurried out and to the elevator.
Flushed and angry, Dodd made his way to an inner room where Mrs. Kilgour
was reading a novel, sunning herself with feline indolence. She put the
book by with evident regret.
“Oh, Kate, has so much poise!” she lamented, breaking in on the young
man's complaints. “She is so like her father. No one except myself could
do anything with him at all. Sometime it was very hard for me! He would
set his mind and his teeth! But I always won in the end.”
“Well, go ahead and win now,” commanded the surly lover. “You are simply
letting this thing run along.”
“I know Kate's nature, Richard. It's only a matter of the right time.”
He sat down at her feet on the end of the couch.
“The time is here--now!” he told her. “I insist that you make Kate
understand. I have been patient and reasonable for a year. You have
promised me that you will bring everything around all right. Why don't
you do it?”
“But delivering a daughter into marriage isn't like delivering groceries
on order!” Her tone showed a bit of impatience. “Be reasonable!”
“I don't want to say anything to hurt your feelings, but we must get
down to cases. I'm not asking you to deliver anything to me except what
was promised long ago--promised by Kate herself. And you know what you
said when I loaned you five thousand dollars to help you save those
stocks. Excuse me, Mother Kilgour, but I can't always control my nature;
I've been in the game with the bunch for a long time and I'm naturally
suspicious--I have seen a good many chaps trimmed, and I don't propose
to have anything put over on me.”
“You are insolent and cruel,” she cried, her cheeks pale.
“I don't mean you--I believe you want to help me. But it's time to be
up and doing. She doesn't give me one good reason why she will not be
married right away. It's only jolly and putting it off.”
“But you are twitting me about the service you have done me! I am not
selling my daughter!”
“That isn't it at all! But you must agree that I have been good to
you. I want you to be a friend to me. But I don't get anything that's
definite. If this thing drags on and on the first thing I know some
fellow will come along and she'll fall for him. That's the girl nature!”
“You are talking about my daughter, Richard! She has her father's
disposition and she is true blue. She has given her promise and she will
keep it.”
“When?” he demanded, curtly.
“I can't drive her.”
“You said you could,” he insisted. “You said a year ago when I advanced
that money that you knew just how to handle her.”
“Are you going to keep twitting me about that money?”
“No; only I'm going to say that you haven't even told me about what
stocks you were protecting. You haven't said anything about repaying the
loan, Mother Kilgour. It has been a sort of general stand-off all around
for me. Hold on! I'm not making a holler! But I like to be taken in
right. I'm a Dodd, and I can't help playing to protect myself.”
“It will come around all right, Richard. You don't know Kate as I do.
I understand her because I understood her father. She is rather
self-centered. But she is romantic underneath! But you know you're so
sort--sort of--well, just a business man--so matter-of-fact. A girl like
Kate needs to be stirred--her poise shaken--something like that!”
“Lochinvar business, eh?” he sneered.
“It must be something a little bit out of the ordinary to hurry her,
Richard. Go away, please. Let me think. I have an idea. I must spend a
little time on it.”
“How much time?”
“Oh, I don't know just how much. Be patient.”
“Mrs. Kilgour, if this thing cannot be put through by you I want you to
say so. I'm at the end of that patience you're appealing to. I won't be
fooled.”
“You don't need to say that you're Colonel Dodd's nephew,” she retorted.
“You have all the family traits.”
“Well, there's one I haven't got: I loaned you five thousand dollars
without taking security--and that's the act of a good friend. Excuse me,
but I've got to speak of it--you need a little reminder. Four days from
now I'll have my marriage license from the city clerk. And when I have
it in my hands I shall come to you and shall expect that you'll do your
part.”
“I will,” she said.
“How? I want plain statements from now on.”
“I will write you a letter to-morrow,” she faltered. “I will give you
directions what to do. You'd better not come here till--till I have it
all arranged. You know what they say about absence!”
“I know what they say about a good many things. But I want something
besides say-so.”
“I will tell you in my letter what to do. Then you follow instructions.”
“I don't like to go into a thing blind. What is the plan?”
“Oh, if I tell you all about it you'll go and do something to spoil it,”
she protested, impatiently. “A woman knows about such matters better
than a man does. I will write to you at the State House. Now be
patient!”
“I'll be going before you preach any more patience to me,” he said,
sourly. “I might be provoked into saying something you won't like.”
After he had gone she rose and touched up her cheeks.
“The fool! They are all alike,” she muttered, viciously. “They pay. They
never forget they have paid. Then they stand with their hand out--and
just remember that they have paid. I am glad I bought this novel,” she
added, taking the book from the couch and settling herself to read. “The
woman who wrote it must have known human nature. If the plan worked in
the case of the girl she writes about it ought to work in the case of
Kate. If it doesn't it will be his fault because he has hurried me so. A
poor, persecuted woman can't do everything.”
And she applied herself to her recently discovered manual of procedure
in the case of stubbornness in a maid.
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