7 The Chicago Invasion

“Here’s a notice that Dave Strong is going to speak at Plum Run tomorrow on the tobacco question,” said Dick Flynn that night.

“All right,” said Harry, “Put it in. News is news.”

He looked at the notice and found it to be merely a statement that Mr. David Strong, well known at a champion of the rights of the people would speak on the “burning question” of the farmers against the tobacco trust. The address would be delivered in the open in a grove at Plum Run. “I’ll hear that speech,” said Harry to himself.

His customary hour of rising was noon, and after breakfast he told his father and aunt that he intended to take a ride into the country. As he frequently went for a gallop in the afternoon his announcement excited no comment, and he mounted and rode away.

It was five miles to Plum Run, and the sun was warm. Midsummer had come and the deep growing heat was all over the land. The light green of the foliage had turned to a darker hue. The wheat was almost ready for the reaper, and the stalks of corn were growing thick and tall. How and then the fields gave forth a soothing rustle, as a wandering breeze swept over them.

But Harry’s eyes were not for the corn and wheat, it was the tobacco that interested him. These plants too had grown taller and stronger, but he saw once more the bent figures among them, feeding the tobacco Moloch, plant by plant.

He was glad when he reached Plum Run, as a tiny village at the crossing of Deer Creek was known. Here, extending to the bank was a magnificent grove of sugar maples, without underbrush, the ground well carpeted with green grass. It had been used more than half a century as a place for campaign or other speeches, and the crowd was already gathering to hear Dave Strong.

Harry dismounted, tied his horse to a swinging bough, and walked to the center of the grove, where a rude little stand for public speakers had been built long ago. About a hundred persons were now in the grove, and they were all farmers or their hired men. Harry knew by their appearance that they were men who depended almost exclusively on tobacco for their money. Generally their figures were bent, and their clothing was patched or needed to be patched. Their faces bore all the signs of discontent.

Harry knew several of the men and spoke to them in his friendly manner, but the greeting was not returned in kind. Always they frowned,and seemed displeased to see him there.

“Come to report the speech yourself for the Herald, I s’pose,” said one of the men.

“Partly that, Mr. Carver, and partly because I’m greatly interested in this question.”

“Well, you’ll hear the truth an’ you’ll hear it spoke right out. Dave Strong ain’t any mealy-mouthed man. He’s the farmer’s friend too.”

Harry made no reply, but sat down on the trunk of a fallen maple, waiting there while the people continued to gather. Strong himself had not yet come.

It was one of the most beautiful and romantic spots in the county. Deer Creek, a fine clear deep stream flowed between high rocky banks, except for the dip at the crossing, and off to the eastward Harry could see the dim, blue line of the low mountains, and the forests on their slopes, showing like tracery in the blazing sunlight. Within the grove itself it was dusky and cool.

Harry saw that the attendance was going to be large, very large indeed for a speech in the heart of the working season. They came from all directions, and from time to time, he idly noted figures. One, thick and powerful, with a swarthy bearded face above it, presently came into view, and that extraordinary thrill of anger and hate, intense and uncontrollable, shot through him. It was Cad Burke, but Burke did not come anywhere near him, keeping to the far side of the speaker’s stand, and some distance from it.

The crowd rapidly thickened now, and Harry believed that it numbered at least five hundred. The unfriendly looks bent upon him were numerous, and he saw men whispering to one another, obviously about him. But he affected to take no notice. Yet it was a hard thing to feel that one was unwelcome among one’s own people. Presently came the satisfied hum and murmur that showed the happening of the expected, and Dave Strong strode through the admiring crowd.

Harry, always keenly sensitive to impressions, read the story at once. Strong was among his followers. Whatever he might say, they were converted already, and he knew it. He regarded himself as a tribune of the people, and perhaps was thoroughly convinced that he was right. He had too the feeling of triumph; he showed it in every movement and gesture.

Strong mounted the speaker’s stand, and waited for the thunderous applause to die, raising one hand as a father would quiet his children. He stood there, a stalwart figure, a product of his own region, knowing and caring nothing for the world beyond it. He took a preliminary look around the circle of his auditors, in the approved manner of a speaker, and his eye met that of Harry Beauchamp. A momentary gleam, as of a new triumph, lighted up his face, and Harry knew that he had taken some sudden resolution. He knew moreover that it concerned himself, Harry Beauchamp, but he had no idea of going away.

Strong began, and, save for his voice, there was intense silence in the grove. He had many of the subtle qualities of the orator, particularly of the stump speaker, and he opened with allusions to his hearers, as his brethren and fellow sufferers, identifying himself at once with them and their interests. Then he told them of their wrongs, and this is a subject to which a man will always listen. He said that they were being ground into the dust by a great trust, and that the devil must be fought with his own weapons.

He became impassioned, fiery, convinced by his own words, and communicating his own heat to all. He made use of homely allusions, which every man understood, and he was received with continuous approval. Harry noted the quality of the applause. It was not the loud crackling cheer of a good-natured crowd, but a low, ominous growl, the voice of wrath. Strong was inflaming their passions and that was what he wanted to do.

He spoke violently in this vein, for at least half an hour and then he paused as if gathering new strength. Slowly he turned his eye around the circle, until it met that of the young editor and Harry knew that the moment had come.

“And now” thundered the orator, “I’m glad to say these things to you today, because there is one man here who ought to hear, a representative of the capitalistic press. I’m speaking of young Mr. Beauchamp, the owner and editor of the Groveton Herald, which has been denouncing you.”

He levelled one thick accusing finger, and everybody turned to look, as if Strong had nailed their attention to the presence of a poisonous snake. Under that general accusing look he felt guilty for a moment, but it was only a moment. He met Strong’s look steadily and said nothing.

“Those who are not for us are against us!” shouted Strong. “If Mr. Beauchamp condenns his own people, then he is a traitor and our enemy. He is for the trust, he’s been bought up.”

He paused for breath, and, in the silence that followed, Harry said deliberately and loudly:

“That you know is a lie!”

Strong’s dark face flushed darker, and the crowd took a deep long breath. It meant something to call a man a liar in that region, but Strong, with all his passion, was crafty or rather cunning. He knew that the crowd was with him, and it was no part of his plan to be drawn into a personal difficulty just then. He laughed lightly, sneeringly and shrugged a brawny shoulder.

“You’re only a boy,” he replied. “I could break you in two across my knee, but I came here for something else, and something else is what I’m going to do.”

A derisive laugh arose from the crowd, and Harry knew that it was intended for him. His face blazed. The hot Mason blood was leaping in his veins, but he said nothing. Strong, satisfied to have shot his bolt at Harry, launched into another and furious attack upon the trusts and the money power. Harry knew that it was a compound of campaign exaggerations, wild reports, and of things true in themselves, but taken out of their proper setting. But he knew also that the speech was striking home in the hearts or rather the passions of the hearers. He knew too that his dismal forebodings would come true. These men were not alone urged to combine for action, but they were incited to hatred as well. Strong’s rude eloquence was of the very kind that they understood. It appealed to all their emotions. Burke led the applause, and the most violent statements were those that pleased him most. But he remained on his side of the speaker’s stage. Seemingly, he had no wish to come near Harry.

Strong presently renewed his attack upon the young editor, but this time only by indirection, not calling him by name, but talking of plutocrats and the capitalistic press. When he concluded he received tremendous applause, and dozens of people pressed forward to shake the hand of their champion.

Harry was still hot with anger. He had never made a speech in his life, outside of the university, but he walked boldly through the crowd, ascended the speaker’s stand, and said:

“As a direct charge has been made against me today, I should like to say a few words to you.”

He was received with a groan of derision, but when the groan died, one or two called for fair play, and all turned to listen. Harry spoke briefly but with heat—he could not restrain himself. He said that the Herald was his own private property. It was in no sense a representative of capitalistic interests.

“Didn’t you borrow money from Chris Lucas of the First National Bank?” interrupted Strong.

A laugh arose.

“I did,” replied Harry flushing, “but it is the business of a bank to loan money, and I borrowed it just as anybody else would. I’ve paid part of it, and I expect soon to pay it all. Mr. Lucas and his bank have no more voice in the policy of the Herald than you have.”

But he saw incredulity on the face of his hearers. They wanted to believe all Strong charged, and Strong they believed. He said a little more, warning them earnestly against violence, which always made a good cause look bad, and then he left the stand, amid hostile glances. Strong gave him a triumphant look, but did not say anything, striding away to his horse, followed by admiring friends.

Harry went alone toward his own horse. He was fully conscious that he had failed. He did not believe that he had made the slightest impression upon a single man present.

He mounted and rode swiftly away. The afternoon was now far gone, and much of the heat was gone with it. He urged his horse to greater speed and his spirits returned, as the wind rushed by, cooling his temples. Soon the houses of Groveton appeared and he slowed down to a walk. He had taken the street that led by Judge Braxton’s home, and at the bottom of his mind, hidden from himself, was a hope that Cynthia would be on the lawn.

He caught a glimpse of white in the hammock, under the great beech. It was Cynthia reading a novel, and, tying his horse to the hitching post, he opened the gate. She heard his footsteps on the grass and sat up, noticing at once the grave look upon his face.

“What is it, Harry?” she asked. “Why are you so solemn?”

There was a chair on the lawn, and, drawing it near the hammock, he sat down.

“I’ve just made a speech,” he replied, “that’s why.”

She looked at him with amusement.

“Did it affect your hearers the same way?” she asked, “Did it give them the same sad feelings?”

“No, it made them laugh.”

“Ah, it was a humorous speech?”

“Not at all. I was never more serious in my life, but it made them laugh all the same.”

Then he told her the whole story, and she listened attentively.

“Now, what am I to do Cynthia?” he asked. “That was an incendiary speech of Strong’s. Those men are going to do big damage, and the Herald can’t endorse such a thing.”

“Why not wait and see what they do?”

“But I can’t. All of us want to save our section from disgrace. Look what they are always saying about us: Fighting again in Kentucky.”

“They exaggerate.” “Mostly, but not always.”

“To lecture them now might make them all the angrier. People don’t like to be told that they are going to do a thing, and that they ought not to do it. Sometimes it makes them do it.”

“That’s so, but it seems to me we ought to scotch the snake if we can. A newspaper, like the Herald, should speak out.”

She did not say anything more in opposition and Harry remained thoughtful. He began to be conscious that Cynthia had an intuitive, almost prophetic knowledge of the people among whom she lived, and to whom she thoroughly belonged. They were a determined race, and soft ways might be best, yet he could not persuade himself to refrain.

“I must tell the facts about that meeting, Cynthia.” he said.

“Yes,” she replied “if you feel that way I suppose you must. One has to follow one’s own judgment after all.”

She did not speak in any critical tone, but as if convinced that he must abide by his own belief, although hers might be different. Harry said no more upon the subject, but spoke of two or three new books that he had just received from the publishers.

“They are sending them down here to be reviewed,” he said lightly. “It shows that the Herald is getting something of a name. Now I wonder if you wouldn’t review them for me. Become a member of our staff.”

“I will,” she replied “if you’ll send them over. But I don’t know whether I can write.”

“Say what you think, just as if you were talking. Most people think that written language is wholly different from spoken language, or ought to be. But it isn’t.”

“I’ll try to follow your advice” she said.

Harry rose reluctantly. He knew that he was expected at home about this time; but he did not want to go. His views and Cynthia’s were not always the same, yet her presence invariably inspired him with a certain buoyancy. Some people are depressing, but others uplift because of their own cheerfulness and courage, and Cynthia Braxton had inherited all her father’s sanguine temperament and brave outlook. He remembered too that Henderson had pushed too far and long since had been sent about his business.

Harry kept his word, and that night he again wrote severely against the Band of Justice, condemning its methods rather than its aims. He reported Strong’s speech, and criticized its incendiary character, stating that Mr. Strong was not, by temperament, a good man to lead any movement.

His course brought him many letters of abuse and some threats, but Groveton itself generally upheld him. The interest of the town were now many and diverse. Capital was coming in from larger places, and the people did not wish to see any check in the pleasant flow. Tom Kidd’s railroad into the hills was progressing steadily, and of all the civilizers that ever entered the Kentucky mountains the railroad has been the greatest. As soon as trains were running over the Kidd line Groveton expected to see it bring down from the higher regions a great and permanent volume of new trade. Law and order took on an increased importance, and the advertisers who dropped out of the Herald were more than replaced by others. Harry was pleasantly surprised by his ability to make another payment on the press.

He was sitting in his office a week or so later, when Wentworth entered, took the best chair, eased his collar and fanned himself with a copy of the Herald. This was the dullest time of the year for the Groveton lawyers, and Wentworth’s fondness for talking took him often to the Herald office.

“I wish you’d stop writing Harry,” he said. “Such industry in this weather—it’s 100 in the shade outside—makes me terribly tired.”

“All right” replied Harry, shoving paper and pencil to one side. “I’ve finished it. anyway. Now what do you want to talk about, the political situation in Russia, the raising of more corn and less tobacco, or was Thackeray or Dickens the greater novelist?”

“I believe that all those questions came under the head of unfinished business,” replied Wentworth calmly, “If I’m not mistaken they were left over from, the last time, but I didn’t come here to get the better of you in any argument. My purpose is wholly benevolent. I’ve an item of news. Mr. Richard Flynn will probably arrive with it later, but I’ve got here first. It has blown in.”

“What do you mean when you say ‘it has blown in?’”

“I mean that at 2.10 this afternoon, when the Louisville train arrived in Groveton three minutes late, there alighted from it a figure that became at once the cynosure of all eyes–and Groveton eyes are not dull. It wore a light plaid suit, low quartered shoes, silk socks, with clocks on the ankles, a wonderful, colored silk shirt of brilliant hue, tie ditto, and the most rakish straw hat you ever saw. It said in a voice of command to one of our most important hackmen! ‘Take me to the best hotel, driver;’ and it is at the Commercial now, making a fresh and equally gorgeous toilet.”

“You don’t mean”—began Harry leaning forward with sudden interest.

“That’s exactly what I do mean. Mr. Herbert Newton, the son of the great Chicago steel king, has struck our town. As they would say in less cultivated communities, he is now in our midst. Now what do you think he has come for, Harry? To buy up and syndicate our tobacco warehouses, after the manner of his illustrous father, or to put money into Tom Kidd’s railroad? Which do you think?”

Harry flushed suddenly, in spite of himself, but he answered frankly:

“Neither, Charlie, and you know it.”

“I suppose I do,” drawled Mr. Wentworth. “Well, Harry, he’s our guest and we must show him Kentucky life. You’ve met him and I’ve met him, and, at first, it must fall largely upon us. The reputation of Groveton hospitality must be sustained. First tiling you must do, is to write a flattering personal, telling who Mr. Herbert Newton is, and what he is.”

Harry accepted the task. He did not delegate it to Mr. Flynn, but stated with his own hand that Mr. Herbert Newton, the son of Mr. John Newton, the great Chicago steel millionaire, was in Groveton on a tour of inspection, and would probably stay some days. As Mr. John Newton was making heavy investments in various parts of the country, his visit was likely to prove of great benefit to the Groveton section. Harry showed real courage and self-sacrifice when he wrote the paragraph, which was duly published next morning.

Meantime the subject of the paragraph was creating a proper sensation at the Commercial Hotel. The loungers in the lobby had seen him enter, and then they duly inspected the register to see whence he hailed. “Chicago!” It was a mighty name, that, “Chicago.” Anything could come out of it. In the memory of men living in Groveton it had suddenly shot from an Illinois swamp into one of the world’s greatest cities. Its name spelled magic. Huge fortunes had been made there. The loungers chuckled to one another. Groveton, was looking up. Steel kings now found it worth while to come there.

Two hours later Mr. Herbert Newton himself burst upon them, and they gasped in admiration.

He had nade a complete change of raiment, but it was perhaps a bit more gorgeous than his traveling costume. Kentuckians were still rather sober in attire, and the full splendor of summer ties and shirts was unknown to them. No such brilliant bird of passage, as Mr. Herbert Newton, had ever alighted upon their lawn before. They tipped their chairs further back, drew deeper breaths and stared.

Mr. Newton was not at all abashed, and his manner, airy and indifferent, impressed them as quite the proper thing on the part of a wonderful Chicago steel king. He, bought a Herald at the stand, drew a chair to the coolest place, tipped it against the wall in the approved fashion, and began to read.

“Look at his socks,” whispered one of the awed loungers to another. “They’re silk, an’ they’re blue, an’ they’ve got enbr’idery on ’em.”

“Of course,” replied the other “I hear that everybody wears that kind in Chicago.”

Mr. Newton merely deepened the sensation, when he came down to the hotel dining room to dinner in evening dress. Evening dress was not by any means unknown in Groveton, but for any one to indue himself in such raiment, merely to take dinner in a hotel dining room, was to stamp himself an extraordinary character, a leader in another and more fashionable world. Mr. Newton’ s manner at dinner heightened the effect. It was characterised by the same lofty indifference that had marked him in the lobby. He could not only look over the head of the waiter, but could also look through him.

The sensation reached its zenith, when it became definitely known that after dinner Mr. Newton carelessly threw a light overcoat over his resplendent attire, called one of the vehicles locally known as a “hack,” and drove straight to Judge Braxton’s. The information was added, although the authority for it was not given, that upon his arrival there he sent his card to Cynthia, the Judge’s beautiful and accomplished young daughter, and that they sat for some time in the parlor, conversing in the most friendly manner.

It was known all over Groveton the next day that Cynthia Braxton had captured the great Chicago steel king’s son. The wedding would take place shortly after Christmas, and she would have a mansion on the Lake Shore Drive, and, later on, a cottage at Newport. Well, it was no more than one could expect. Kentucky women were the loveliest, and among Kentucky women Groveton’s were the loveliest of all. That Newton was a lucky man.

Mrs. Leroy read the paragraph in the Herald, announcing Mr. Newton’s arrival, and it aroused her interest. She had never travelled much and her world was limited in its orbit, but she was a keen-witted woman.

“Now I wonder if that young man has really come here to build a railroad,” she said to Mr. Beauchamp at the breakfast table. I’ve an idea that he isn’t the kind of a young man who builds railroads.”

“Why not?” said Mr. Beauchamp speaking from some mystic meridian of meditation. “What else could he have come for.”

Mrs. Leroy sniffed. Men, at best, were dense, and absentminded musicians had no intelligence at all about everyday affairs. She would speak to Harry about it, but her nephew was then asleep in his room, and she must wait until luncheon. Meantime she began to hear the Groveton news, which was sputtering in from every point of the compass. But at luncheon she asked Harry with every appearance of taking the first exploring step:

“Is it true, Harry, that this rich young Mr. Newton has come here to help Tom Kidd build his railroad?”

“For all I know, it is Aunt Emma,” Harry replied, flushing faintly.

“You’ve met him before?”

“Yes, once.”

“In Louisville, I suppose?”

Harry saw that it was useless to attempt evasion.

“Yes I saw him at Miss Payson’s commencement when Cynthia Braxton was graduated.”

“Ah!” said Mrs. Leroy, and then, after a moment’s pause, she added; “I don’t believe he has come here to build any railroad; from what I have heard of him he is more of a clothes horse than a railroad builder.”

She regarded her nephew with an eye, at first contemplative, and then proud. He was tall, well-knit and strong. His light hair was thick, ard his face, refined by work and thought, bore the unmistakable stamp of intellectual courage and purpose. He could build a railroad, if his mind turned that way. He wore good clothes, but they were not his only thought. Mrs. Leroy was fiercely loyal to her own, ard above all to the Mason clan.

“We’ll see,” she said enigmatically.

Harry and Wentworth, obeying their instincts of courtesy and hospitality, called upon Mr. Newton at the Commercial Hotel, and were received by him with condescending kindness. In the opinion of Mr. Newton they were not really bad fellows; “Take ’em to Chicago! Give ’em a year or two of training! Send ’em to the right tailor, and they could make a fair appearance.” He chatted with them quite agreeably for an hour, doing most of the chatting himself, about his own greater world. It was a pleasant little town, he confided to them, and he would stay perhaps a week.

The sensation of Mr. Newton’s presence was heightened that afternoon by the arrival of his automobile and chauffeur, both French. The automobile was a magnificent dark red affair and the chauffeur was an equally magnificent brown affair. Automobiles were not unknown in Groveton, but they were mostly runabouts and Mr. Newton’s machine was in a class by itself. Two hours after its arrival he was spinning down into the Dark Tobacco region with Cynthia Braxton by his side, and the news was all over Groveton. when Mrs. Leroy heard it she looked very grave.

“I didn’t reckon on a ten thousand dollar automobile,” she said to herself.

Cynthia returned from her ride, just as the cool air of twilight had come. Her face was rosy from the long dash over a good road, and Mr. Newton’s car was really magnificent. She had plenty of feminine pride, and the splendid completeness of the equipment, put at her service, appealed to her. It was in a way a triumph, such as no other girl in Groveton had achieved, and she was under twenty. She glanced gratefully at Mr. Newton, and she was conscious of a wish that his neck was not quite so long, and that his forehead did not have so much slope.

“It was a fine ride Mr. Newton,” she said as sprang out of the car at her own gate, “and I’ve enjoyed it so much!”

Mr. Newton’s face lighted up with a pleasant glow, a reflection perhaps from hers, and he said eagerly:

“Can’t we try it over again tomorrow, Miss Braxton?”

She was not prepared for such a quick repetition and she shook her head doubtfully.

“Not tomorrow, Mr. Newton,” she said, “I’m afraid I have an engagement, but—”

“But we will the next day,” he interrupted, his eagerness sharpened by the delay.

“Yes, the next day,” she said.

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