The Plum Tree. David Graham Phillips
at once—congratulated me on being able to get you. I knew it'd be so. He has his eyes skinned for bright young men—all those big men have. Whenever a fellow, especially a bright young lawyer, shows signs of ability, they scoop him in."
"I can't believe it," said I, dazed. "I've been fighting him for four years—hard."
"That's it!" said he. "And don't you fret about its being a case of trying to heap coals of fire on your head. Roebuck don't use the fire-shovel for that sort of thing. He's snapping you up because you've shown him what you can do. That's the way to get on nowadays, they tell me. Whenever the fellows on top find the chap, especially one in public office, who makes it hot for them, they hire him. Good business all around."
Thus, so suddenly that it giddied me, I was translated from failure to success, from poverty to affluence, from the most harassing anxiety to ease and security. Two months before I should have rejected the Power Trust's offer with scorn, and should have gloried in my act as proof of superior virtue. But in those crucial two months I had been apprentice to the master whom all men that ever come to anything in this world must first serve. I had reformed my line of battle, had adjusted it to the lines laid down in the tactics of Life-as-it-is.
Before I was able to convince myself that my fortunes had really changed, Ed Ramsay telegraphed me to call on him in Fredonia on business of his own. It proved to be such a trifle that I began to puzzle at his real reason for sending for me. When he spun that trifle out over ten days, on each of which I was alone with Carlotta at least half my waking hours, I thought I had the clue to the mystery. I saw how I could increase the energy of his new enthusiasm for me, and, also, how I could cool it, if I wished to be rash and foolish and to tempt fate again.
"Oh, the business didn't amount to much," was my answer to one of my mother's first questions, on my return. She smiled peculiarly. In spite of my efforts, the red came—at least I felt red.
"How did you like his sister?" she went on, again with that fluttering smile in the eyes only.
"A very nice girl," said I, in anything but a natural manner. My mother's expression teased me into adding: "Don't be silly. Nothing of that sort. You are always imagining that every one shares your opinion of me. She isn't likely to fall in love with me. Certainly I shan't with her."
Mother's silence somehow seemed argumentative.
"I couldn't marry a girl for her money," I retorted to it.
"Of course not," rejoined mother. "But there are other things to marry for besides money, or love—other things more sensible than either. For instance, there are the principal things—home and children."
I was listening with an open mind.
"The glamour of courtship and honeymoon passes," she went on. "Then comes the sober business of living—your career and your home. The woman's part in both is better played if there isn't the sort of love that is exacting, always interfering with the career, and making the home-life a succession of ups and downs, mostly downs."
"Carlotta is very ambitious," said I.
"Ambitious for her husband," replied my mother, "as a sensible woman should be. She appreciates that a woman's best chance for big dividends in marriage is by being the silent partner in her husband's career. She'll be very domestic when she has children. I saw it the instant I looked at her. She has the true maternal instinct. What a man who's going to amount to something needs isn't a woman to be taken care of, but a woman to take care of him."
She said no more—she had made her point; and, when she had done that, she always stopped.
Within a month Ed Ramsay sent for me again, but this time it was business alone. I found him in a panic, like a man facing an avalanche and armed only with a shovel. Dunkirk, the senior United States senator for our state, lived at Fredonia. He had seen that, by tunneling the Mesaba Range, a profitable railroad between Fredonia and Chicago could be built that would shorten the time at least three hours. But it would take away about half the carrying business of the Ramsay Company, besides seriously depreciating the Ramsay interest in the existing road. "And," continued Ed, "the old scoundrel has got the capital practically subscribed in New York. The people here are hot for the new road. It'll be sure to carry at the special election, next month. He has the governor and legislature in his vest pocket, so they'll put through the charter next winter."
"I don't see that anything can be done," said Ed's lawyer, old Judge Barclay, who was at the consultation. "It means a big rake-off for Dunkirk. Politics is on a money basis nowadays. That's natural enough, since there is money to be made out of it. I don't see how those in politics that don't graft, as they call it, are any better than those that do. Would they get office if they didn't help on the jobs of the grafters? I suppose we might buy Dunkirk off."
"What do you think, Harvey?" asked Ed, looking anxiously at me. "We've got to fight the devil with fire, you know."
I shook my head. "Buying him off isn't fighting—it's surrender. We must fight him—with fire."
I let them talk themselves out, and then said, "Well, I'll take it to bed with me. Perhaps something will occur to me that can be worked up into a scheme."
In fact, I had already thought of a scheme, but before suggesting it I wished to be sure it was as good as it seemed. Also, there was a fundamental moral obstacle—the road would be a public benefit; it ought to be built. That moral problem caused most of my wakefulness that night, simple though the solution was when it finally came. The first thing Ed said to me, as we faced each other alone at breakfast, showed me how well spent those hours were.
"About this business of the new road," said he. "If I were the only party at interest, I'd let Dunkirk go ahead, for it's undoubtedly a good thing from the public standpoint. But I've got to consider the interests of all those I'm trustee for—the other share-holders in the Ramsay Company and in our other concerns here."
"Yes," replied I, "but why do you say Dunkirk intends to build the road? Why do you take that for granted?"
"He's all ready to do it, and it'd be a money-maker from the start."
"But," I went on, "you must assume that he has no intention of building, that he is only making an elaborate bluff. How do you know but that he wants to get this right of way and charter so that he can blackmail you and your concerns, not merely once, but year after year? You'd gladly pay him several hundred thousand a year not to use his charter and right of way, wouldn't you?"
"I never thought of that!" exclaimed Ed. "I believe you're right, Harvey, and you've taken a weight off my conscience. There's nothing like a good lawyer to make a man see straight. What an infernal hound old Dunkirk is!"
"And," I went on, "if he should build the road, what would he do with it? Why, the easiest and biggest source of profit would be to run big excursions every Saturday and Sunday, especially Sunday, into Fredonia. He'd fill the place every Sunday, from May till November, with roistering roughs from the slums of Chicago. How'd the people like that?"
"He wouldn't dare," objected Ramsay, stupidly insisting on leaning backward in his determination to stand straight. "He's a religious hypocrite. He'd be afraid."
"As Deacon Dunkirk he wouldn't dare," I replied. "But as the Chicago and Fredonia Short Line he'd dare anything, and nobody would blame him personally. You know how that is."
Ed was looking at me in dazed admiration. "Then," I went on, "there are the retail merchants of Fredonia. Has it ever occurred to them, in their excitement in favor of this road, that it'll ruin them? Where will the shopping be done if the women can get to Chicago in two hours and a half?"
"You're right, you're right!" exclaimed Ed, rising to pace the floor in his agitation. "Bully for you, Harvey! We'll show the people that the road'll ruin the town morally and financially."
"But you must come out in favor of it," said I. "We mustn't give Dunkirk the argument that you're fighting it because you'd be injured by it. No, you must be hot for the road. Perhaps you might give out that you were considering selling your property on the lake front to a company that