Elder Conklin by Frank Harris (free e reader txt) 📕

At this moment Mrs. Gulmore re-entered the room.

“To think of it! Sal left the gas-stove flarin’. I made her get up and come downstairs to put it out. That’ll learn her! Of all the careless, shiftless creatures, these coloured people are the worst. Come, Ida, it’s long after nine, and I’m tired. You can read in your bedroom if you want to.”

After the usual “good night” and kisses, Ida went upstairs. While Mrs. Gulmore busied herself putting “things straight,” Mr. Gulmore sat thinking:

“She takes after her mother in everythin’, but she has more pride. It’s that makes her bitter. She’s jest like her—only prettier. The same peaky nose, pointed chin, little thin ears set close to her head, fine hair—the Yankee school-marm. First-rate managin’ women; the best wives in the world to keep a house an’ help a man on. But they hain’t got sensuality enough to be properly affectionate.”

*

On the following afternoon Roberts stopped before the door of his house and looked back towards the University. There on the crest of the hill stood the huge building of bluish-grey stone with the round tower of the observatory in the middle—like a mallet with a stubby handle in the air.

While gazing thus a shrill voice reached him, the eager treble of a newsboy:

“Great Scandal!” he heard—and then “Scandal in the University! Full Report! Only five cents! Five cents for the ‘Herald’s’ Special!”

He hastened to the gate and beckoned to the little figure in the distance. His thoughts were whirling. What did it mean? Could the “Herald” have issued a special edition with the report of the meeting? Impossible! there wasn’t time for that. Yet, he had walked leisurely with Krazinski, and newspapers did wonders sometimes. Wonders! ‘twould be a breach of confidence. There was an honourable understanding that no one should divulge what took place in a Faculty meeting. “Honourable” and Gulmore—the two words wouldn’t go together. Could it be?

A glance at the contents-bill brought a flush to his face. He gave a quarter for the sheet, and as the boy fumbled for change he said, taking hold of the bill:

“I want this too; you can keep the rest of the money,” and hurried into the house.

May met him at the door of the sitting-room, but did not speak, while he opened out the paper, and in silence showed her the six columns, containing a verbatim report of the meeting.

“What do you think of that?” he asked, and without waiting for an answer he spread the contents-bill upon the table.

“This is better,” he went on, bitterly. “Read this!” And she read:

RUCTIONS IN LEARNING’S HOME.

THE PRESIDENT’S FLANK ATTACK.

FOURS TO A PAIR.

THE PAGAN RETIRES AND THE POLE.

“Oh, the brutes! How could they?” May exclaimed. “But what does it mean?”

“You have it all there,” he said, touching the bill; “all in two or three lines of cheerful insult, as is our American fashion. In spite of the opinion of every leading lawyer in the State, sixteen—fanatics, to give them the benefit of the doubt, voted that a disbelief in Christian dogma was the same thing as ‘open immorality.’ The Father of Lies made such men!”

“Did no one vote for you?”

“Two, Krazinski and some one else, I think ‘twas little Black, and two papers were blank. But fancy the President speaking against me, though he has a casting-vote. All he could say was that the parents were the only proper judges of what a student should be taught. Let us grant that; I may have been mistaken, wrong, if you like; but my fault was not ‘open immorality,’ as specified in the Statute. They lied against me, those sixteen.”

May sympathized too keenly with his indignation to think of trying to allay it; she couldn’t help asking, “What did you do after the voting?”

“What could I do? I had had enough of such opponents. I told them that if they dismissed me I’d take the case into the courts, where at the worst their reading of the words ‘open immorality’ would be put upon record, and my character freed from stain. But, if they chose to rescind their vote I said I was willing to resign.”

“They accepted that?”

“Krazinski forced them to. He told them some home-truths. They dared not face the law courts lest it should come out that the professorships were the rewards of sectarian bigotry. He went right through the list, and ended by resigning his position.

“Then Campbell got up and regretted his speech. It was uncalled-for and —you know the sort of thing. My colleagues, he said, would have preferred to retain my services if I had yielded to the opinion of the parents. Under the circumstances there was no course open but to accept my resignation. They would not enter the vote upon the minutes; they would even write me a letter expressing regret at losing me, etc. So the matter ended.

“Coming down the hill I tried to persuade Krazinski not to resign on my account. But the dear old fellow was obstinate; he had long intended to retire. He was very kind. He thinks I shall find another place easily.

“Now, May, you have heard the whole tale, what is your opinion? Are you disappointed with me? You might well be. I’m disappointed with myself. Somehow or other I’ve not got hate enough in me to be a good fighter.”

“Disappointed? How little you know me! It’s my life now to be with you. Whatever you say or do is right to me. I think it’s all for the best; I wouldn’t have you stay here after what has passed.”

May meant all she said, and more. At the bottom of her heart she was not sorry that he was going to leave Tecumseh. If she thereby lost the pleasure of appearing as his wife before the companions of her youth, on the other hand, he would belong to her more completely, now that he was cut off from all other sympathy and no longer likely to meet Miss Gulmore. Moreover, her determination to follow him in single-hearted devotion seemed to throw the limelight of romance upon her disagreement with her father, which had been much more acute than she had given Roberts to suppose. She had loved her father, and if he had appealed to her affection he could have so moved her that she would have shown Roberts a hesitation which, in his troubled and depressed condition, might have brought about a coldness between them, if not a rupture of their relations. But Hutchings, feeling that he was in the wrong, had contented himself with depreciating Roberts by sneer and innuendo, and so had aroused her generous partisanship. The proceedings of the Faculty naturally increased her sympathy with her lover, and her enthusiastic support did much to revive his confidence in himself. When they parted in the evening he had already begun to think of the preparations to be made for his journey Eastwards.

*

A few weeks later a little knot of friends stood together one morning on the down-platform of the Tecumseh station, waiting for the train to come in. Professor Roberts was the centre of the group, and by his side stood dainty May Hutchings, the violet eyes intense with courage that held the sweet lips to a smile. Around them were some ten or a dozen students and Krazinski, all in the highest spirits. They were talking about Roberts’ new appointment at Yale, which he attributed to Krazinski’s influence. Presently they became aware of an unwonted stir at the entrance-door behind them. As they turned in wonder they saw that the negro hands had formed a lane through which, heralded by the obsequious station-master, Mr. Gulmore, with his daughter on his arm, was coming towards them. Heedless of their astonishment, the Boss walked on till he stood in front of Roberts.

“Professor, we’ve heard of your good fortune, and are come to congratulate you. Ida here always thought a pile of your knowledge an’ teachin’, an’ I guess she was right. Our little difference needn’t count now. You challenged me to a sort of wrastle an’ you were thrown; but I bear no malice, an’ I’m glad to offer you my hand an’ to wish you— success.”

Roberts shook hands without hesitation. He was simply surprised, and had no inkling of the reason which had led Gulmore to come to the station and to bring Ida. Had he been told that this was the father’s plan for protecting his daughter against the possibility of indiscreet gossip he would have been still more astonished. “Nor do I bear malice,” he rejoined, with a smile; “though the wrestling can hardly be considered fair when twenty pull one man down.”

“‘Twas my crowd against yours,” replied the Boss indifferently. “But I’m kinder sorry that you’re leavin’ the town. I’d never have left a place where I was beaten. No, sir; I’d have taken root right there an’ waited. Influence comes with time, an’ you had youth on your side.”

“That may be your philosophy, Mr. Gulmore,” said Roberts lightly, as the other paused, “but it’s not mine. I’m satisfied with one or two falls; they’ve taught me that the majority is with you.”

Gulmore’s seriousness relaxed still further; he saw his opponent’s ingenuousness, and took his statement as a tribute to his own power.

“My philosophy,” he began, as if the word pleased him, “my philosophy—I guess I ken give you that in a few words. When I was a boy in Vermont I was reckoned smart at figgerin’. But one day an old farmer caught me. ‘See here, boy,’ he said, ‘I live seventeen miles out of town, and when in late fall the roads are bad and I drive in with a cartload of potatoes, the shakin’ sends all the big potatoes to the top and all the little ones to the bottom. That’s good for me that wants to sell, but why is it? How does it come?’

“Well, I didn’t know the reason then, an’ I told him so. But I took the fact right there for my philosophy. Ef the road was long enough and rough enough I was sure to come to the top.”

“I understand,” said Roberts laughingly. “But I’ve heard farmers here say that the biggest potatoes are not the best; they are generally hollow at the—in the middle, I mean.”

“That’s weak,” retorted Gulmore with renewed seriousness. “I shouldn’t hev thought you’d hev missed the point like that. When I was a boy I skipped away from the meanin’ out of conceit. I thought I’d climb high because I was big, and meant gettin’ up more’n a little un could. But before I was a man I understood the reason. It isn’t that the big potatoes want partic’lar to come to the top; it is that the little potatoes are determined to get to the bottom.

“You may now be havin’ a boost up, Professor, I hope you are; but you’ve gone underneath once, an’ that looks bad.”

“The analogy seems perfect,” replied Roberts thoughtfully. “But, by your own showing, the big men owe their position to the number of their inferiors. And at the bottom lie the very smallest, helpless and bruised, supporting their fortunate brethren. A sad state of things at the best, Mr. Gulmore; but unbearable if the favoured ones forget their debt to those beneath them.”

“Sad or not,” said the Boss, “it represents the facts, an’ it’s well to take account of them; but I guess we must be goin’, your time’ll soon be up. We wish you success, Professor.”

SEPTEMBER, 1892 AND