The poet never made a sound. Peter got one glimpse of his face inthe blazing white light, and in spite of the fact that it wassmashed and bloody, Peter read Tom Duggan's resolve--he would diebefore they would get a moan out of him. Each time the lash fell youcould see a quiver all over his form; but there was never a sound,and he stood, hugging the tree in a convulsive grip. They lashed himuntil the whip was spattering blood all over them, until blood wasrunning to the ground. They had taken the precaution to bring alonga doctor with a little black case, and he now stepped up andwhispered to the master of ceremonies. They unfastened Duggan, andbroke the grip of his arms about the tree, and dumped him downbeside Glikas.
Next came the turn of Donald Gordon, the Socialist Quaker, whichbrought a bit of cheap drama. Donald took his religion seriously; hewas always shouting his anti-war sentiments in the name of Jesus,which made him especially obnoxious. Now he saw a chance to get offone of his theatrical stunts; he raised his two manacled hands intothe air as if he were praying, and shouted in piercing tones:"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!"
A murmur started in the crowd; you could hear it mounting to a roar."Blasphemy!" they cried. "Stop his dirty mouth!" It was the samemouth that had been heard on a hundred platforms, denouncing the warand those who made money out of the war. They were here now, the menwho had been denounced, the younger members of the Chamber ofCommerce and the Merchants' and Manufacturers' Association, the bestpeople of the city, those who were saving the country, and chargingno more than the service was worth. So they roared with fury at thissacreligious upstart. A man whose mask was a joke, because he was soburly and hearty that everybody in the crowd knew him, took up thebloody whip. It was Billy Nash, secretary of the "Improve AmericaLeague," and the crowd shouted, "Go to it, Billy! Good eye, oldboy!" Donald Gordon might tell God that Billy Nash didn't know whathe was doing, but Billy thought that he knew, and he meant before hegot thru to convince Donald that he knew. It didn't take very long,because there was nothing much to the young Quaker but voice, and hefainted at the fourth or fifth stroke, and after the twentiethstroke the doctor interfered.
Then came the turn of Grady, secretary of the I. W. W., and here aterrible thing happened. Grady, watching this scene from one of thecars, had grown desperate, and when they loosed the handcuffs to getoff his coat, he gave a sudden wrench and broke free, striking downone man after another. He had been brought up in the lumber country,and his strength was amazing, and before the crowd quite realizedit, he was leaping between two of the cars. A dozen men sprang uponhim from a dozen directions, and he went down in the midst of a wildmelee. They pinned him with his face mashed into the dirt, and fromthe crowd there rose a roar as from wild beasts in the night-time,
"String him up! String him up!" One man came running with a rope,shouting, "Hang him!"
The master of ceremonies tried to protest thru his megaphone, butthe instrument was knocked out of his hands, and he was hauled toone side, and presently there was a man climbing up the pine treeand hanging the rope over a limb. You could not see Grady for thejostling throng about him, but suddenly there was a yell from thecrowd, and you saw him quite plainly--he shot high up into the air,with the rope about his neck and his feet kicking wildly.Underneath, men danced about and yelled and waved their hats in theair, and one man leaped up and caught one of the kicking feet andhung onto it.
Then, above all the din, a voice was heard thru the megaphone, "Lethim down a bit! Let me get at him!" And those who held the rope gaveway, and the body came down toward the ground, still kicking, and aman took out a clasp-knife, and cut the clothing away from the body,and cut off something from the body; there was another yell from thecrowd, and the men in the automobiles slapped their knees andshrieked with satisfaction. Those in the car with Peter whisperedthat it was Ogden, son of the president of the Chamber of Commerce;and all over town next day and for weeks thereafter men would nudgeone another, and whisper about what Bob Ogden had done to the bodyof Shawn Grady, secretary of the "damned wobblies." And every onewho nudged and whispered about it felt certain that by this meansthe Red Terror had been forever suppressed, and 100% Americanismvindicated, and a peaceful solution of the problem of capital andlabor made certain.
Strange as it might seem, there was one member of the I. W. W. whoagreed with them. One of the victims of that night had learned hislesson! When Tom Duggan was able to sit up again, which was sixweeks later, he wrote an article about his experience, which waspublished in an I. W. W. paper, and afterwards in pamphlet form wasread by many hundreds of thousands of workingmen. In it the poetsaid:
"The preamble of the I. W. W. opens with the statement that theemploying class and the working class have nothing in common; but onthis occasion I learned that the preamble is mistaken. On thisoccasion I saw one thing in common between the employing class andthe working class, and that thing was a black-snake whip. The buttend of the whip was in the hands of the employing class, and thelash of the whip was on the backs of the working class, and thus toall eternity was symbolized the truth about the relationship of theclasses!"
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Peter awoke next morning with a vivid sense of the pain and terrorof life. He had been clamoring to have those Reds punished; butsomehow or other he had thought of this punishment in an abstractway, a thing you could attend to by a wave of the hand. He hadn'tquite realized the physical side of it, what a messy and bloody jobit would prove. Two hours and more he had listened to the thud of awhip on human flesh, and each separate stroke had been a blow uponhis own nerves. Peter had an overdose of vengeance; and now, themorning after, his conscience was gnawing at him. He had known everyone of those boys, and their faces rose up to haunt him. What hadany of them done to deserve such treatment? Could he say that he hadever known a single one of them to do anything as violent as thething they had all suffered?
But more than anything else Peter was troubled by fear. Peter, theant, perceived the conflict of the giants becoming more ferocious,and realized the precariousness of his position under the giants'feet. The passions of both sides were mounting, and the fiercertheir hate became, the greater the chance of Peter's beingdiscovered, the more dreadful his fate if he were discovered. It wasall very well for McGivney to assure him that only four of Guffey'smen knew the truth, and that all these might be trusted to thedeath. Peter remembered a remark he had heard Shawn Grady make, andwhich had caused him to lose his appetite for more than one meal."They've got spies among us," the young Irishman had said. "Well,sooner or later we'll do a bit of spying of our own!"
And now these words came back to Peter like a voice from the grave.Suppose one of the Reds who had money were to hire somebody to get ajob in Guffey's office! Suppose some Red girl were to try Peter'sdevice, and seduce one of Guffey's men--by no means a difficulttask! The man mightn't even mean to reveal that Peter Gudge was asecret agent; he might just let it slip, as little Jennie had letslip the truth about Jack Ibbetts! Thus Mac would know who hadframed him up; and what would Mac do to Peter when he got out onbail? When Peter thought of things like that he realized what itmeant to go to war; he saw that he had gained nothing by staying athome, he might as well have been in the front-line trenches! Afterall, this was war, class-war; and in all war the penalty for spyingis death.
Also Peter was worried about Nell. She had been in her new positionfor nearly a week, and he hadn't heard a word from her. She hadforbidden him to write, for fear he might write somethinginjudicious. Let him just wait, Edythe Eustace would know how totake care of herself. And that was all right, Peter had no doubtabout the ability of Edythe Eustace to take care of herself. Whattroubled him was the knowledge that she was working on another"frame-up," and he stood in fear of the exuberance of herimagination. The last time that imagination had been pregnant, ithad presented him with a suit-case full of dynamite. What it mightbring forth next time he did not know, and was afraid to think. Nellmight cause him to be found out by Guffey; and that would be nearlyas horrible as to be fou
nd out by Mac!
Peter got his morning "Times," and found a whole page about thewhipping of the Reds, portraying the job as a patriotic dutyheroically performed; and that naturally cheered Peter upconsiderably. He turned to the editorial page, and read a two column"leader" that was one whoop of exultation. It served still more tocure Peter's ache of conscience; and when he read on and found aseries of interviews with leading citizens, giving cordialendorsement to the acts of the "vigilantes," Peter became ashamed ofhis weakness, and glad that he had not revealed it to anyone. Peterwas trying his best to become a real "he-man," a 100% red-bloodedAmerican, and he had the "Times" twice each day, morning andevening, to guide, sustain and inspire him.
Peter had been told by McGivney to fix himself up and pose as one ofthe martyrs of the night's affair, and this appealed to his sense ofhumor. He cut off the hair from a part of his head, and stuck someraw cotton on top, and plastered it over with surgical tape. Hestuck another big wad of surgical tape across his forehead, and acriss-cross of it on his cheek, and tied up his wrist in anexcellent imitation of a sprain. Thus rigged out he repaired to theAmerican House, and McGivney rewarded him with a hearty laugh, andthen proceeded to give some instructions which, entirely restoredPeter's usual freshness of soul. Peter was going up on Mount Olympusagain!
The rat-faced man explained in detail. There was a lady of greatwealth--indeed, she was said to be several times a millionaire--whowas an openly avowed Red, a pacifist of the most malignant variety.Since the arrest of young Lackman she had come forward and put upfunds to finance the "People's Council," and the "Anti-ConscriptionLeague," and all the other activities which for the sake ofconvenience were described by the term "pro-German." The onlytrouble was this lady was so extremely wealthy it was hard to doanything to her. Her husband was a director in a couple of NelseAckerman's banks, and had other powerful connections. The husbandwas a violent, anti-Socialist, and a buyer of liberty bonds; hequarrelled with his wife, but nevertheless he did not want to seeher in jail, and this made an embarrassing situation for the policeand the district attorney's office, and even for the Federalauthorities, who naturally did not want to trouble one of thecourtiers of the king of American City. "But something's got to bedone," said McGivney. "This camouflaged German propaganda can't goon." So Peter was to try to draw Mrs. Godd into some kind of "overtaction."
"Mrs. Godd?" said Peter. It seemed to him a singular coincidencethat one of the dwellers on Mount Olympus should bear that name. Thegreat lady lived on a hilltop out in the suburbs, not so far fromthe hilltop of Nelse Ackerman. One of the adventures looked forwardto by Reds and pacifists in distress was to make a pilgrimage tothis palace and obtain some long, green plasters to put over theirwounds. Now was the time at all times for Peter to go, saidMcGivney. Peter had many wounds to be plastered, and Mrs. Godd wouldbe indignant at the proceedings of last night, and would no doubtexpress herself without restraint.
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Peter hadn't been so excited since the time when he had waited tomeet young Lackman. He had never quite forgiven himself for thiscostly failure, and now he was to have another chance. He took atrolley ride out into the country, and walked a couple of miles tothe palace on the hilltop, and mounted thru a grove of trees andmagnificent Italian gardens. According to McGivney's injunctions, hesummoned his courage, and went to the front door of the statelymansion and rang the bell.
Peter was hot and dusty from his long walk, the sweat had madestreaks down his face and marred the pristine whiteness of hisplasters. He was never a distinguished-looking person at best, andnow, holding his damaged straw hat in his hands, he looked not sofar from a hobo. However, the French maid who came to the door wasevidently accustomed to strange-looking visitors. She didn't orderPeter to the servant's entrance, nor threaten him with the dogs; shemerely said, "Be seated, please. I will tell madame"--putting theaccent on the second syllable, where Peter had never heard itbefore.
And presently here came Mrs. Godd in her cloud of Olympianbeneficence; a large and ample lady, especially built for the roleof divinity. Peter felt suddenly awe-stricken. How had he dared comehere? Neither in the Hotel de Soto, with its many divinities, nor inthe palace of Nelse Ackerman, the king, had he felt such a sense ofhis own lowliness as the sight of this calm, slow-moving great ladyinspired. She was the embodiment of opulence, she was "the realthing." Despite the look of kindliness in her wide-open blue eyes,she impressed him with a feeling of her overwhelming superiority. Hedid not know it was his duty as a gentleman to rise from his chairwhen a lady entered, but some instinct brought him to his feet andcaused him to stand blinking as she crossed to him from the oppositeend of the big room.
"How do you do?" she said in a low, full voice, gazing at himsteadily out of the kind, wide-open blue eyes. Peter stammered, "Howd-dy do, M--Mrs. Godd."
In truth, Peter was almost dumb with bewilderment. Could it really,possibly be that this grand personage was a Red? One of the thingsthat had most offended him about all radicals was their noisiness,their aggressiveness; but here was a grand serenity of looks andmanner, a soft, slow voice--here was beauty, too, a skin unlined,despite middle years, and glowing with health and a fine cleanness.Nell Doolin had had a glowing complexion, but there was always a lotof powder stuck on, and when you investigated closely, as Peter haddone, you discovered muddy spots in the edges of her hair and on herthroat. But Mrs. Godd's skin shone just as the skin of a goddesswould be expected to shine, and everything about her was of a divineand compelling opulence. Peter could not have explained just what itwas that gave this last impression so overwhelmingly. It was notthat she wore many jewels, or large ones, for Mrs. James had beatenher at that; it was not her delicate perfume, for Nell Doolinscattered more sweetness on the air; yet somehow even poor, ignorantPeter felt the difference--it seemed to him that none of Mrs. Godd'scostly garments had ever been worn before, that the costly rugs onthe floor had never been stepped on before, the very chair on whichhe sat had never been sat on before!
Little Ada Ruth had called Mrs. Godd "the mother of all the world;"and now suddenly she became the mother of Peter Gudge. She had readthe papers that morning, she had received a half dozen telephonecalls from horrified and indignant Reds, and so a few words sufficedto explain to her the meaning of Peter's bandages and plasters. Sheheld out to him a beautiful cool hand, and quite without warning,tears sprang into the great blue eyes.
"Oh, you are one of those poor boys! Thank God they did not killyou!" And she led him to a soft couch and made him lie down amidsilken pillows. Peter's dream of Mount Olympus had come literallytrue! It occurred to him that if Mrs. Godd were willing to playpermanently the role of mother to Peter Gudge, he would be willingto give up his role of anti-Red agent with its perils and itsnervous strains; he would forget duty, forget the world's strife andcare; he would join the lotus-eaters, the sippers of nectar on MountOlympus!
She sat and talked to him in the soft, gentle voice, and the kindblue eyes watched him, and Peter thought that never in all his lifehad he encountered such heavenly emotions. To be sure, when he hadgone to see Miriam Yankovich, old Mrs. Yankovich had been just askind, and tears of sympathy had come into her eyes just the same.But then, Mrs. Yankovich was nothing but a fat old Jewess, who livedin a tenement and smelt of laundry soap and partly completedwashing; her hands had been hot and slimy, and so Peter had not beenin the least grateful for her kindness. But to encounter tenderemotions in these celestial regions, to be talked to maternally andconfidentially by this wonderful Mrs. Godd in soft white chiffonsjust out of a band-box _this _was quite another matter!
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Peter did not want to set traps for this mother of Mount Olympus, hedidn't want to worm any secrets from her. And as it happened, hefound that he did not have to, because she told him everything rightaway, and without the slightest hesitation. She talked just as the"wobblies" had talked in their headquarters; and Peter, when hethought it over, realized that there are two kinds of people who canafford to be frank i
n their utterance--those who have nothing tolose, and those who have so much to lose that they cannot possiblylose it.
Mrs. Godd said that what had been done to those men last night was acrime, and it ought to be punished if ever a crime was punished, andthat she would like to engage detectives and get evidence againstthe guilty ones. She said furthermore that she sympathized with theReds of the very reddest shade, and if there were any color redderthan Red she would be of that color. She said all this in her quiet,soft voice. Tears came into her eyes now and then, but they werewell-behaved tears, they disappeared of their own accord, andwithout any injury to Mrs. Godd's complexion, or any apparent effectupon her self-possession.
Mrs. Godd said that she didn't see how anybody could fail to be aRed who thought about the injustices of present-day society. Only afew days before she had been in to see the district attorney, andhad tried to make a Red out of him! Then she told Peter how therehad come to see her a man who had pretended to be a radical, but shehad realized that he didn't know anything about radicalism, and hadtold him she was sure he was a government agent. The man had finallyadmitted it, and showed her his gold star--and then Mrs. Godd hadset to work to convert him! She had argued with him for an hour ortwo, and then had invited him to go to the opera with her. "And doyou know," said Mrs. Godd, in an injured tone, "he wouldn't go! Theydon't want to be converted, those men; they don't want to listen toreason. I believe the man was actually afraid I might influencehim."
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