Jasper County Democrat, Volume 14, Number 85, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 February 1912 — THE MAN HIGHER UP [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE MAN HIGHER UP

By HENRY RUSSELL MILLER

TN the days that followed, while Bob McAdoo lay battling with death, I his city learned what a hold he had taken on its heart. Perhaps In its newly discovered love it unduly his finer qualities. Perhaps It too generously overlooked the sinister episodes in his career. His death had suddenly come to mean an irreparable loss, his recovery the thing most to be desired. The newspapers daily gave minute reports of the progress of the disease. In the I street cars men read first the account from his sickroom. It was the first question they asked each other when they met in street and corridor. “What is the latest word from McAdoo?” And when the discouraging word was spoken they shook their heads gravely. Prayers for his recovery were offered in the churches. As his condition grew worse the newspapers—even those owned by his enemies—hung out hourly® bulletins. Before these bulletins gathered great solemn crowds. There came a day when the news offered no hope. He had suffered two hemorrhages in quick succession. His temperature had fallen far below normal. Hjs heart was almost pulseless. Life was barely flickering. He could live but a few hours, read the doctors’ bulletins. . Before the newspaper offices the great crowds waited silently, stopping traffic in the streets, forgetting hunger, sadly waiting for the end. That night a womah who had braved the dark streets alone and on foot tapped lightly at the door of McAdoo’s home and asked to see Miss Flinn. Looking across the hall into the library, the visitor saw a strange group —John Dunmeade, governor of the , state; Patrick Flinn, ex-policeman, and Tom Haggin, ex-pugilist and saloon keeper—sitting silent together in a * common grief. There was a rustle of skirts along the hall, and then not Kathleen, but Mrs. Dunmeade, entered the parlor. She looked at the visitor in amazement. “Eleanor, dear!” “Katherine!” And the two women were in each other’s arms. “Is he”—,, Eleanor began. She could not complete the question. “The doctors say so,” Mrs. Dunmeade answered quietly. Eleanor disengaged herself from the embrace. « “Can 1 see Kathleen Flinn a minute?” Mrs. Dunmeade shook her head. "1 fear not. Eleanor. She is with him. And they are expecting any minute— I’ll ask her.” And Mrs. Dunmeade went upstairs. A few minutes later Kathleen Flinn entered—a new Kathleen, whose face was hard and stern. She looked at Eleanor coldly. Before Kathleen’s contempt Eleanor’s eyes quailed. But quickly she raised them again. “Miss Flinn.” she said, speaking haltingly. “1 won’t keep you long. I came—it’s about that affidavit. I want to say It was all my fault. It was my brother’s scheme. I didn't know about it until it was too late. But it would never have been done if I hadn’t first tempted Paul to leave—him. And I wanted—to say this. 1 can’t to him, but you’re nearest to him. And I—can’t you see?—l had to make my acknowledgment before”— She stopped, looking pleadingly at Kathleen. *"~"We knew it,” Kathleen said, still coldly, cruelly putting a slight emphasis on the “we.” • Eleanor began again, miserably. “I didn’t know what my brother was scheming. And I did it thoughtlessly, though that’s no excuse. It was utterly contemptible. When 1 found out —Saturday night 1 tried to warn Mr.— him—over the telephone, but he wouldn’t listen. And Monday I tried to dissuade Paul from doing it, but it was too late. I was so helpless—so helpless. But that doesn’t excuse me, eitheA 1 don’t expect you to forgive me. He couldn't. 1 can’t forgive myself. But I had to tell you that I know what I did and that all my life 1 shall have my punishment. It—it’s all I can do. Thank you for listening to me. And don’t let me keep you from him.” Kathleen’s face was not cold now. She took a step forward and looked closely into the younger woman’s eyes. “You—must care something for”— she pointed upward—“for him or you couldn’t have come.” A sob was the only answer. “You poor girl!” she murmured and drew Eleanor to her. And on Kath leen’s shoulder the young woman wept softly. Soon Kathleen said, “Would you like to see him?” “Yes.” ’ Together they went upstairs to the room where Bob McAdoo faced death. Eleanor knew that she would remember the scene always—for her punishment, she thought. A folded newspaper had been stuck in the chandelier to shade the face of the patient. The shadow accentuated the waxen pallor »f his face. - His head was shaven, a lough beard had grown out. the pinch-

ed features were big and bony and ugly. He migiii u;t\e been already dead, so motionless was tie. Eleanor gave him one long look. She could not repress a sob. The doctor at the bedside looked up with a frown. Then she turned away and crept blindly from the room. Kathleen compassionately followed her. Eleanor sank into a chair and sobbed unrestrainedly. “It’s horrible!” she moaned. "He was so strong!” “My poor girl!” Kathleen murmured soothingly. Eleanor looked up wanly. "Why are you so kind to me when I have deserved so little?” “Because,” Kathleen answered softly, “t think 1 understand. You con-

demn yourself too harshly, as I did. Forgive me." Then she added: “Do you care to wait here? You are welcome.” “If 1 may.” And Kathleen left her alone. Eleanor lay back in her chair. Subconsciously she took in the details of this room—the room of a man who worked. Mechanically'fingering a pile of unopened letters lying on the desk, she caught the address of the one on top, "Robert McAdop.” ,It was bls room! Here the big, ipnely man, shut off from his fellows, had in anticipation fought' out the battle w + hose issue so vitally concerned his fellows. Here perhaps, with hatred and contempt, he had thought (ft her. Here—she saw the telephone—he had beaten down his pride and humbled himself before her 1 whose idle, selfish vanity had brought such sorrow to him. And now he must die. “Ah, no!” her heart protested. “It ■ can’t be true. He was so strong! He will beat back death, as be has beaten all his enemies. He will not die!” And the faith was justified. The force had further use for Robert McAdoo. Toward morning his heart action became perceptibly stronger and his temperature began to rise gradually. Two of the doctors left, first shaking hands with all in the room and congratulating them with an air that said. “Congratulate us!” The morning newspapers carried the good news out to the cityIt was Kathleen who went in to tell Eleanor, saying simply, “He will live.” And Eleanor smiled. “1 have known It.” “You put us to shame,” Kathleen said. “We have had too little faith. Won’t you lie down and get some rest? You are tired.” Eleanor pointed to the window. "No, it Is morning now, and I can go home. You should rest yourself. And.” she added simply, “I can never forget your generosity to me.” Kathleen pressed her hand gently. “When he has recovered I want you to come to him and tell him what you told me." “YeS. But,” she added in k frightened tone, “please never tell him that I was here tonight” The crisis past, the woman in her reasserted itself. “I understand—dear.” Walking wearily homeward in the gray morning, Eleanor thought: “I will make my acknowledgment to him and then will go away fprever." And "forever” seemed a long, drqaryi time Indeed. One day when his strength was beginning to creep back into his body Kathleen came to his bedside. “You haven’t asked how the election came out,” she said. He smiled wearily. “I’d forgotten. I lost, didn’t I?” 1 “Lost!” Kathleen laughed proudly. “No, indeed! You won—and by nearly 10,000. Aren’t they the dear, good people?” And it was true. Sanger had miscalculated. Paul’s declaration had been received by many with the skepticism with which eleventh hour charges generally are received. Others had seen only the treachery in Paul’s deed and had become even more set in their determination to vote for McAdoo. Thousands had defiantly said that they care and had been ready to find excuses for the bribing of the delegates And the news of his collapse and his critical condition had been an unanswerable appeal to sympathy. But Bob beard the news apathetically. “I don’t seem to care. I almost wish I had lost. Then I shouldn’t have to

go on with the fighting. 1 worn,., why they did it?” “Don’t you know?” "What they charged was tfue. The delegates were bribed. They ought to have repudiated nie.” “Ah,” Kathleen answered proudly, “but they love you!” He shook his head wearily. “It was because they didn’t realize.” Another day—it was the first time he was allowed to sit up in bed—when the nurse had gone out of the room for a few minutes he began the conversation himself. “Kathleen”— he began abruptly, then stopped. “I—l talked a good deal?” “Almost continuously.” “And you learned—everything—about —about Mrs. Gilbert?” “Yes.” “Even what a cowardly brute I Ayas to her at the Dunmeades’?” A faint flush came to his sunken cheeks. ’ "Yes, even that,” she answered. Ills next question came after a long pause. “A woman couldn’t forgive that, could she, Kathleen?” “Kot many women, I think.” His voice became husky. “I’ve been thinking of that a good deal. I—l’d like to make that up to her if I could, Kathleen.” “You m'ay have the change some day,” Long afterward, thinking over this, scene, he seemed to remember that her voice -was very tired; he'supposed it was because the strain of the watching had been too much for her. And he thought of many things besides his relation to Eleanor Gilbert. When Tom Haggin, in his rough way, told him of the: sorrow the people had shown for his sickness Bob . felt his heart suddenly expand ’in a deep, strong affection for them. They were his people—his not because his machine had whipped them into submission, bitt because he, though unworthy, lived in their hearts. He knew that over the land were a hundred million others like those of his city-all struggling always, producing always, giving to humanity the equivalent for the right and means to live, giving more than the equivalent, giving more and better than they received from the world. A brave, pa-tient,-hardworking, faithful, deserving people these! Pity the man who could not feel a, thrill of pride that he was one of them! Bob suddenly knew that love of one’s people is a distinct, definite, overmastering emotion which exalts a man and dwarfs his-petty self. He knew of the great “common” people of the land, whose lives are being worn out in the effort to produce far more than they consume, at the end having nothing but the necessity for increased, harder effort, looking about them in dazed wonder and plaintively demanding: “Why is it that we cannot rest? Why have we nothing? Whithgr has it gone—that which we have created?”

Whithei’ had it gone? He knew the •answer. It gloomed solemnly down at him, from million dollar palaces, honked hoarsely through the streets from costly imported automobiles. Hashed brilliantly from bejeweled fingers, kept gleaming necks and shoulders warm in the face of shivering poverty, gurgled in goblets of precious vintages, raced panting under the wire. Above all. he read the answer in -the terrific power of the modern feudal system, concentrated wealth, 'whose machinery was slowly crunching, crunching, crunching, his people into helpless subjection. How had such things come to pass? Ah, that question he could answer, since he himself had once been a part of the system! He knew far better than did his patient, blinded people the enormous sums of money needed to fire the engines that run the nation’s political machinery and whence that corruption fund came. ' A nation, a great people, was being bought, was being sold into slavery. Arid all this was wrong, in denial of the ideals of the commonwealth, in disobedience of the natural law which says, “Let a man’s reward be measured by his value to humanity.” He would do nothing to disturb the just balance of the state. To his executive brain organization and equilibrium yvere prime essentials. But there was —there imist be—some means by which the injustice could be corrected, the world’s happiness and the reward of effort more equitably distributed. He could not then propound the remedy. But one thing he knew—the remedy when found could never be applied so long as the machinery of government remained in the power of those against whoih the remedy was to apply.

What was to be his part? That question had been answered when Haggin told him of his city’s sorrowing in his suffering. These people—his people! He was humbled to the dust. And then, even in his humility, he was raised again by the inspiration that was never to forsake him. “I have been a failure,” thought thss man whose brilliant success a nation was considering wonderingly, “since I have missed the real meaning of life. These are'my people; they need me. Let me serve!” “Let me serve!” Kathleen repeated slowly. It was easy to lay one’s heart bare to Kathleen. “Kathleen” and his volte was husky, as it bad been when he had spoken the same words of a woman whom he had hurt—“ Kathleen, I’ve many things to make up to many people. And I want to do it. I have misused myself. I see it all now—what I’ve refused to see all my life. leen, something has gone put of me.” “You mean,” she said gently, “that something has come into your heart—the greatest of all things.”

He smiled at her. It seemed to Kathleen that his thin, ugly face, alight with his new inspiration, was the most beautiful in the world. “And you will be happy, Bob, as you have never been.” There was a catch in her voice. “Kathleen,” he answered gravely, “it was once my boast that I thought nothing of happiness. I’m not thinking of happiness now.” He lost himself once more in his vision, forgetting her. .. She left him and went to her room to stifle, if she could, the vain hunger that had never died out of her heart. (To be Continued.) j ■ i

ELEANOR GAVE HIM ONE LONG LOOK.