Part 49

“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 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.”