CHAPTER XXIV

The invitation to walk in the parade had not been given easily. Fred had forced herself to ask Laura, for very shame at the ache of resentment which neither reason, nor her old habit of affection for her cousin, could conquer. Laura's refusal gave her a sort of angry satisfaction. "Of course! What could you expect? She's a sweet little thing, but she has no mind to speak of. Poor Howard! She must bore him to death." As for Howard's not liking parades,—well, that was queer. He never had quite realized their value; probably because he hadn't really thought about them. She would talk it over with him sometime, and make him understand. She was not in the least annoyed with Howard, but it was all she could do to hide her contempt for Laura; "Why do women grovel so before men? It makes me perfectly sick!" Even when Laura, with the old, puppy-like devotion, offered, one morning, to go with her to Hazelton where Fred was to address the strikers, it was not easy to be cordial.

"I'll tag around after you, and clap," Laura said.

"Howard willing?" Fred said, sarcastically.

Laura laughed: "I haven't asked him. He's in Cincinnati. Won't be home until this afternoon."

"I suppose you wouldn't go if he wasn't?"

[Pg 260]

"I suppose I wouldn't," Laura said, simply.

Fred's lip drooped. But she only said, good-naturedly, "Come along!" They went to Hazelton by trolley, Fred having vetoed Laura's limousine: "It's too much 'Lady Bountiful.' Your gasolene for a week would pay a girl's board for a month."

In the long ride, spinning and jouncing through the countryside until they reached the squalid outskirts of the little town, Frederica listened to Laura's talk of Europe—and Howard. Of Paris frocks—and Howard. Of the voyage home—and Howard.

"I won't be horrid, I won't! I love her just exactly the same—" Fred was saying to herself, staring out of the window at the flying landscape, at the woods where the leafless trees were showing the haze of swelling buds, at the snow, melting in the frozen furrows. "Yes...." "No...." "Really?" she would say, when sometimes Laura's chatter paused. ("Oh, how bored Howard must be by this sort of thing!" she thought. She couldn't help remembering how differently she had talked to Howard—the big things, the real things! "Poor old Howard!") Once there was quite a long pause, and Fred stopped watching the racing landscape and looked at Laura. It was then that Laura softly told her a piece of news:

"Of course, Howard's awfully pleased. He wants a girl, but I want a boy."

Frederica was silent for a moment: then, very gentle and tender, "I'm awfully glad," she said, and squeezed Laura's hand.

Then the chatter began again, and Fred looked out of[Pg 261] the window at the snow melting on slopes that faced the sun.

The hall in Hazelton where the strikers were awaiting Frederica was terribly hot and stuffy, and packed with women crowding so closely about the melon-shaped iron stove that the air was stifling with the smell of scorching clothes. It occurred to Laura, opening a window surreptitiously, that the girls were here as much for the sake of the glowing stove as for the chance to hear Fred. She watched her cousin with shrinking admiration. What she said did not particularly interest her, but Frederica's intimacy with the girls made her wonder. "She touches them!" Laura thought, with a quiver of disgust.

When Fred had made her speech—which Laura vociferously applauded—they all trooped out into the street, but paused while Frederica (Laura skulking behind her) stood in the doorway for a further harangue. Unfortunately—because the knot of listening girls obstructed the sidewalk—a police officer, shoving them out of the way, happened to show some rudeness to a little Italian, who, in return, jabbering shrilly, struck at the man's patient and restraining arm, which caused him to gather her two delicate wrists in one big, vise-like hand, and hold her, a little, kicking, struggling creature, who made about as much impression on his large blue bulk as a sparrow might make upon a locomotive.

"There, now, keep quiet, sissy," he said, wearily.

But Catalina kicked harder than ever, and the officer shook her, gently. It was at that moment that Fred's eye fell upon him.

[Pg 262]

"I'll stop that!" she said, between shut teeth.

"Oh, Fred, don't do anything," Laura entreated,—but Fred was at the man's side.

Her anger disconcerted him. "It's against the law to obstruct the sidewalk," he explained.

"I had no hand in making the law, and therefore I shall not obey it!"

"Better can that talk, and keep it for the Court," said the man, beginning to get red in the face. To which Frederica retorted by telling him her opinion of men in general and policemen in particular.

A man can stand kicks from little feet, but "lip"—after a certain point of forbearance has been reached, is another matter. Fred punctuated her remonstrances by putting an abrupt hand on his arm, and instantly there was an unseemly scuffle, in which Laura, running out from the shelter of the doorway, tried to draw Fred away. The result was that before they really knew what had happened, the little Italian, Miss Frederica Payton, and Mrs. Howard Maitland found themselves in a patrol-wagon rumbling and jouncing along over the icy Belgian blocks, a taciturn man in a blue coat sitting in the doorway of the van to prevent any possible leap to liberty.

The whole thing was so sudden that the cousins were perfectly bewildered. Even as they were being hustled into the wagon, a crowd had gathered, springing up, apparently, out of the ground. There had been a sea of faces—good natured, amused, unconcerned faces; a medley of voices, jeering and hooting, or raucously sympathetic; a vision of the striking girls—for whose cause they were[Pg 263] there!—forsaking them, melting away, fleeing around corners and up side-streets; then, the jolting along through the noon emptiness of the streets, toward the station-house.

Frederica, getting her breath, after the suddenness of it all, grew very much excited. She scented the fray—the contest between man-made laws and unconsulted woman! It occurred to her—though Laura said, in despairing tones, "Oh, Fred, please don't"—to fling some suffrage literature into the street over the head of the officer; she did it until he told her to "set still, you!" At which Catalina, hearing her defender reproved, kicked him, causing him to turn around and grab her ankle; he held it in one great paw, and whistled, absently.

Fred was furious. "Don't touch that girl's ankle!" she said.

"Shut up," he replied, calmly; and, oblivious of both of them, still holding Catalina's little kicking feet, he began to talk over his shoulder to the driver of the van about the price of cucumbers. "Here, you!" he interrupted himself—"stop biting, sissy! Gee! this chippy has teeth—" and he poked Catalina, playfully, with his club. Frederica whitened with rage, but Catalina lapsed suddenly into such abject fright that when they reached their destination she had to be lifted out of the wagon, and pushed—not too gently—up the steps into the station-house. Laura, who got out next, was shaking so that the officer put a friendly hand under her elbow to assist her. Frederica followed the other two, her head high with anger and interest.

[Pg 264]

In the station-house, the receiving-room, with its one dirt-incrusted window, was dark, even at one o'clock—perhaps because, shoulder-high on the long-unwashed paint, was a dado of grime left by innumerable cringing backs. There was one back against it now; a drunken man, with wabbling head and glassy, half-shut eyes, was whining and sobbing, and trying to keep on his legs. When the sergeant asked his name, he answered by a hiccough which the officer, as indifferent and efficient as a cog in some slowly revolving and crushing wheel, translated into "Thomas Coney." "Come, stop crying; be a perfect gentleman, Tommy, be a perfect gentleman!" he said, yawning. And, curiously enough, Tommy straightened up and swallowed his sobs.

"Look at him!" Fred whispered to Laura; "he's getting hold of himself! I suppose that's his idea of a perfect gentleman."

Laura, rigid with misery, made no answer. When Thomas had been disposed of—watched by Frederica's intent eyes—she and Laura, whose knees were plainly shaking, and Catalina, who was sobbing and calling upon God, lined up in front of the sergeant's desk. Frederica answered the usual questions with brief directness; her attitude toward the big, bored officer was distinctly friendly and confidential; as he closed the blotter, she began to tell him that she had been urging the girls to demand the bal— Before she could finish the word, she found herself, to her angry amazement, being moved along toward the corridor.

"But—stop! I have not finished. And I want to telephone, and—"

[Pg 265]

"What number?"

Both girls spoke at once, Frederica giving Mr. Weston's number, and Laura, stammering with apprehension that Howard might not go directly home from the train, naming her own house. "Ask Mr. Weston to hunt Howard up," she implored her cousin. The telephoning was fruitless, as neither gentleman could be found.

"You can try 'em again over at the House of Detention," the man said, not unkindly. "Move on! Move on!"

They moved on, in spite of themselves, assisted by the impersonal pressure of an officer's hand on Fred's shoulder—Laura shivering all over, Fred's face red with displeasure at the affront of not being listened to, Catalina perfectly happy and inclined to giggle.

"You'll make Mr. Weston find Howard?" Laura said, in a frantic whisper, as they walked across the courtyard to the little jail back of the station-house. "Oh, I was going to meet him,—and I am here!"

Fred shrugged her shoulders: "Why did you come, if you mind it so? (Married women are awfully poor sports," she thought.)

"Do you think I'd funk and leave you?" Laura retorted; and Fred's face softened.

"Howard will be so upset—" Laura said, quivering.

"Nonsense! He'll see the fun of it," Fred assured her. In matters of this kind, she understood Howard better than little Lolly ever could....

Her face was glowing with excitement! This meant something to the Cause! An old phrase ran through her mind, "The blood of the martyrs is the seed,"—"I tell[Pg 266] you what, Laura," she said, under her breath, "this ridiculous business is the seed of a big thing; it has given me a great idea: let women refuse to obey the laws, until they are allowed to make them!"

"This way," said the officer, and herded them into the receiving-room of the House of Detention. The next few minutes stung even Fred's aplomb—they were searched! The indignity of hands passing down her figure—hands not rough, not unkind, not insulting, merely mechanical,—made her unreasonably, but quite furiously, angry. Laura was a little shocked, but her dignity was simple and unshaken. Catalina, her dirty, streaky face puffed with crying, laughed loudly with amusement.

"This is abominable!" Fred said, her voice shaking. The matron, making notes on a pad, paid no attention to the protest. It was all in the day's work—human wreckage washed up out of the gutter, rose in this bleak, stone-lined room every day; rose, flooded into the surrounding cells, where it vociferated, wept, pleaded, stood rigid with fury and shame, or else collapsed into sodden slumber. Then, by and by, it ebbed away. And the next day, and the next, the same drift and ruin of humanity flooded in and drifted out.

After further telephoning had been promised by the matron, the three girls were placed in a cell. Catalina at once flung herself full length on the bench that ran along two sides of it; Fred sat down and took out her note-book. "I mustn't forget one incident," she told herself. The experience had penetrated below the theatrical consciousness of martyrdom, and roused a primitive anger,[Pg 267] not for herself, or the other two (of whom, to tell the truth, she thought very little), but against the wastefulness of a system which permitted this wreckage to sweep in and sweep out—unchecked, unchanged, over and over. She saw, as she had never seen before, the righteousness of woman's demand that she should have a hand in the making and the administering of Law. She was impressed, not so much by the injustice of leaving the punishment of women to men, as by the irrationality of it.

"There ought to have been a woman in that station-house," she said; "and there ought to be women police officers and judges. Just wait till we get the vote, Laura—we'll stop this idiocy! That's what it is: idiocy, not justice."

Laura was not concerned about terms; she stood, tense and trembling, gripping the iron bars of the door. "Howard will be so upset, and Father will be dreadfully angry!"

"Oh, yes," Fred agreed, carelessly, "Uncle William will have a fit, of course. But I'll bet on Howard! Mother will almost die of it, I'm afraid," she said, her face sobering; "I'm sorry about that. But, of course, Laura, that's the penalty of progress. We—you and I and Howard—are moving the world, and the old people have got to get out of the way or get run over!"

Laura was silent.

"The thing that hits me hardest," said Frederica, "is the way women won't stand together. Every one of those girls took to their heels."

"Oh, when will Howard come?" said Laura, with a sobbing breath. She was not sorry she had stood by Fred[Pg 268] when all the rest of them "took to their heels," only—"I'll die if he doesn't come soon!" she thought, shaking very much. Once she glanced over her shoulder at Frederica, who was straining her eyes (the cell was lighted only from the hall) over her note-book, and she felt a faint thrill of admiration. Imagine, making notes at such a moment!

The afternoon passed; hours—hours—hours.

"Oh, when will somebody come?" Laura said, in a whisper. Frederica had put up her note-book, and seemed absorbed in thought. Catalina was asleep.

There came a sound of voices in the outer court, and again Laura clutched at the iron bars. (She had been at the grating ever since the lock was turned upon them.)

"It's Howard!"

Even Fred was moved to stand up and peer out into the whitewashed corridor—then both girls shrank back; a drunken negress was being pulled along over the flagstones of the passage to the receiving-room; a few minutes later, she was pulled back again, and they heard the clang of a cell door; then yells, then evidently sickness; then cries upon God and the devil, and a torrent of unspeakably vile invective. Even Fred quailed before it, and Laura clung to her in such a paroxysm of fear that they neither of them heard the hurrying feet outside on the flagging—then the lock was flung out, and Howard caught his wife in his arms.

"I just got word," he said, hoarsely; "Weston caught me at the club. My darling!"

The tears were in his eyes and his face was as white as[Pg 269] Laura's. Behind him, Arthur Weston looked grimly over his head at Frederica.

"I had to chase him all around town," he said, "or we'd have been here before. And it's taken time to bail you out."

"I'm sorry to have bothered you," Fred said; "but it's been an awfully valuable experience to Laura and me. I wouldn't have missed it for anything!"

The matron, faintly interested, was standing by to see the end of it. "Them swells will learn something," she whispered, to her assistant; "I guess that thin one ain't bad. I thought she was. Well, good-by, ma'am," she said, listlessly; and went back to work on a piece of dingy embroidery until the next dumping of human rubbish should claim her attention.

Out in the courtyard Frederica made a little delay. Where was Catalina to go? What was she to do? "Out on bail? Does that mean she's got to come back here again?"

"It means that she's got to report at the municipal criminal court," Mr. Weston instructed her; "and so have you and Laura, unless I can patch things up."

"Good!" Fred said, eagerly, "I wanted to know the end of this silly business!"

She got into the limousine, where Laura, still very white, had been placed by Howard, who put an unabashed arm about her. His impatience at Fred's delay was obvious.

"Mr. Weston! for the Lord's sake, shut her up!" he said, angrily.

Frederica, sitting down beside him, gave him an [Pg 270]astonished look. "It was I who was talking, not Catalina," she explained; "I was telling her what to do. Of course I couldn't go away and leave her to shift for herself. Howard, this has been a great experience!"

Howard's jaw set: "Laura, dear," he whispered, "it's all right. Don't shake so, Kitty! It's all right. Mr. Weston will fix it up so you needn't go to court."

"You see," Fred began, volubly, "it all happened because of the policeman's rudeness to that poor little Catalina; Laura and I had to protect her, and—"

"Look here"—Howard turned a fierce face upon her—"you can make a fool of yourself, all you want to, but I'll thank you not to drag my wife into your damned nonsense!"

Frederica stared at him, open-mouthed.

"Maitland," the other man said, gravely, "I am sure you will apologize for that."

Howard's hand clenched over his little Laura's; he swallowed, and set his teeth. "If I have been rude, I apologize. But the fact remains; Fred ought not to have dragged Laura into any such disgusting and indecent business!"

"Oh, Howard!" Laura protested; "she didn't. I did it myself. It wasn't Fred's fault."

Frederica was silent, but Weston saw her face fall into lines of haggard amazement. As they went spinning along back to town, Howard gave himself up to whispering to Laura. Arthur Weston asked one or two questions, and Frederica told him, briefly, just what had caused the disturbance that ended in the "interesting experience." For the most part no one spoke.

[Pg 271]

At the Maitland house, Howard almost lifted his little wife out of the car; he was quivering with pain at her pain—at the thought that her ears had heard the moans of Life, that her eyes had seen its filth and horror; he was so angry at Frederica that he could not trust himself even to look at her. Of course he made no farewells. He closed the door of the limousine with a bang, and said, through the open window:

"Mr. Weston, do anything, anything! so that Laura won't be dragged into it. Any amount of money, of course! And the newspapers—good Lord! Can we fix them?"

"I'll see what can be done," Weston said; and the car spun away.

Frederica turned a bewildered face upon him. She stammered a little:

"He didn't"—her voice fell to an astonished whisper—"understand."

They scarcely spoke until they reached the Payton house; it was dusk when they went up the steps together and rung the front-door bell. ("I am coming in to explain things to your mother," he said, quietly.) But as they stood waiting for the door to be opened, Frederica, looking at him with miserable eyes, made a gesture of finality.

"I never knew him," she said.

As they heard the feet of the parlor-maid coming through the hall, she gripped his arm with her trembling hand:

"Arthur," she said, in a whisper; "just think! I asked—I asked him to marry me. And this is what he is!"