The Landloper: The Romance of a Man on Foot
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