Chapter 25

* * * * *

So at last I was reaping the fruits of my years of struggle for the poetic ideal--my years of poverty and suffering.

A belated student at college, twenty-five years of age ... a tramp for the sake of my art ... as I sat in my cold room ... propped up by my one overturned chair ... in bed ... betaking myself there to keep from freezing while I wrote and dreamed and read and studied,--I burst out singing some of my own verses, making the tune to the lines as I went along.

"John Gregory, you are a great man, and some day all the world shall know and acknowledge it!" I said over and over again to myself....

"And now, Vanna, my love, my darling," I cried aloud, so that if anyone overheard, the auditor would think I was going mad, "now, Vanna, you shall see ... in a year I shall have my first book of poetry out ... and fame and money for royalties will be mine ... then I will dare speak to you boldly of my love for you ... and you will be glad and proud of it ... and be happy to marry me and be my wife!"

* * * * *

In the meantime Vanna Andrews was daily seen driving down the streets with Billy Conway, whose father was Governor of a Western State ... as I saw her going by in her fragile beauty, I bowed my head to her, and in return came a slight nod of mere, passing acquaintanceship.

I made friends with Billy, as I had done with Vanna's homely room-mate ... who thought I was becoming interested in her--because I often spoke in Vanna's dispraise, to throw her off the track, and to encourage her to speak at greater length of the woman I loved and worshipped from a-far.

Now I sought through Billy Conway a nearer opportunity for her favour. He approached me one day while we were out on the football field, practicing formations. I was on the scrub team--whose duty it was to help knock the big team into shape.

"Johnnie, you know Vanna, don't you?... Vanna Andrews, the art student."

"Slightly," I concealed, thanking God I hadn't blushed straightway at the mention of her name ... "--met her when I posed for Professor Grant's classes."

"She's a beaut, ain't she?"

"Everybody thinks so."

"Don't you?"

"She'd be perfect, if she weren't so thin," I answered, almost smothering from the thumping of my heart.

"I've often wondered what makes you so cold toward the girls ... when you write poetry ... poets are supposed to be romantic."

"We have a good imagination."

"--wish you'd exercise your imagination a little for me ... I'd pay you for it."

"For what?"

"--writing poems on Vanna, for me."

My heart gave a wild jump of joy at the opportunity.

"I'll think it over. But if I do so, I won't take anything for it."

Billy shook my hand fervently.

"You're all right, Gregory ... it'll help me a lot ... I've got a case on her, I'll admit."

"Come on!" roared Coach Shaughnessy, "get on the job."

He began calling letters and numbers for a play.

And just for a joke, he took "Barrel" Way, the two hundred pound fullback, aside, and "Rock-crusher" Morton ... he whispered them, I afterward learned, to give me rough stuff, go through me with a bang....

"Rock-crusher" took the ball, with "Barrel" for interference ... they came flashing my way.

I was so frenzied with joy over the prospect of getting my poems through to Vanna, even if it was in another man's behalf, that I flung myself forward and brought both stars down with only a yard gained.

Shaughnessy gave a whoop of joyous amazement and the other boys shouted, and kidded "Barrel" and "Rock-crusher," the latter of whom won his nickname from the gentle way he had of hitting his antagonists with his hard knees as he ran into them, and bowling them over ... he was a recruit from the hurdles, who ran "high."

Shaughnessy came over to me.

"Gregory, I want to say right here, I wish you took enough studies, and you could make sub on the big team right off. You're skinny, but you've got the mettle I wish all my boys had."

No sooner was I out of my football clothes than I hurried to Kuhlman's, drank three coco-colas to stimulate me, and went to my room, to write my first poem for Vanna....

Nearly every day Billy received a poem from me. Henceforth, when I passed Vanna, I received a gentle, appreciative smile ... but I was too timid even to speak to her ... and too self-conscious of my clothes, which were worn and frayed....

* * * * *

There were a few negro students at Laurel. One of them, a girl named Matty Smith, approached me in the library one day, introduced herself as one of the chairmen of the entertainment committee of the First African Methodist Church, and asked me if I would come and give them a talk the following Saturday night....

The night came ... I found myself on the platform with the preacher by my side. They had seated me in the chair of honour.

First the congregation prayed and sang ... such singing, so clear and soaring and melodious. It rocked the very church, burst out through the windows in great surges of melody.

I was introduced as their friend, as the coloured man's friend.

I spoke. I read my poems simply and unaffectedly.

Afterward I shook hands all round.

Matty Smith, the negro girl, as black as soot, and thoroughly African, stood by me as introducer. If I had shut my eyes, her manner of speech might not have been told from that of any cultured white woman's. She was as refined and sensitive a human being as I have ever met.

As I walked back to my attic over the plumber shop, it was with head erect and heaving chest. I deemed myself a champion of the negro race. I was almost putting myself alongside of Lincoln and John Brown.

Their reason for inviting me was that I had had a scathing poem printed, in the New York _Independent_, on the lynching of a negro in Lincoln's home State of Illinois.

* * * * *

Within two days of my talk at the First Methodist African Church, I met simultaneously in front of the library, two women, each going in opposite directions....

"Good afternoon, Mr. Gregory!"

It was Matty Smith. She was hesitating for a cue from me. She wished to stop and thank me again for my speaking.

But from the other side Vanna Andrews was passing.

I ignored Matty with a face like a stone wall.

"Good afternoon!" I bowed to Vanna ... who ignored me ... perhaps not seeing me.

The fearful, hurt look in the negro girl's eyes made me so ashamed of myself that I wanted to run away and hide forever somewhere.

That night I was so covered with shame over what I had done to another human soul, a soul perhaps as proud and fine as any in Laurel, that it was not till dawn that sleep visited me....

So I was just as rotten, just as snobbish, just as fearful of the herd, as were these other human beings whom I made fun of as the bourgeoisie.

* * * * *

Speaking with Riley, one of the English professors, about the mixture of colours on the hill....

"I must confess," he admitted sincerely, "that I feel awkward indeed when a negro student walks by my side ... even for a few steps...."

Coach Shaughnessy declared himself boldly--

"I'll admit frankly to you, Gregory, but don't, of course, repeat what I say--that I'll never let a nigger play on the football team ... when they sweat they stink too badly ... no, sir, John Brown's State or not, the negro was never meant to mix with the white on terms of equality."

* * * * *

It was mainly out of consideration for Langworth, and desire to please him, that I now joined the Unitarian Church, of which all the old settlers of Laurel were members. This included a testy old gentleman named Colonel Saunders, who had been one of John Brown's company, had quarrelled with him,--and who now, every year, maintained, at the annual meeting of old settlers, that Brown had been a rogue and murderer ... a mad man, going about cutting up whole families with corn knives....

At this juncture in his speech, which was made undeviatingly every year, a sentimental woman would rise and cry out--

"John Brown, God bless him, whatever you say, Colonel Saunders, his soul still goes marching on--"

"I grant that, madam--that his soul still goes marching on--I _never_ contested that--but _where_ does it go marching on!"

Then the yearly riot of protests and angry disputation would wake.

And every spring, in anticipation of this mêlée, reporters from the Kansas City papers were sent to cover the story of the proceedings of the Old Settlers' Society.

* * * * *

Bob Fitzsimmons stopped off at our town, with his show. Though I couldn't afford to attend the performance, I did race down to the station, go up to him, and ask the privilege of a handshake.

His huge, freckled ham of a hand closed over mine in a friendly manner ... which disappeared up to the wrist. He exchanged a few, simple, shy words with me from a mouth smashed to shapelessness by many blows. He smiled gently, with kind eyes.

I was prouder of this greeting than of all my growing associations with well-known literary figures. And I boasted to the boys of meeting "Bob" ... inventing what I said to "Bob" and what "Bob" said to me, _ad infinitum_.

* * * * *

Though the great athlete shared my admiration with the great writer, yet my staying awake at night writing, my but one meal a day, usually,--except when I was invited out to a fraternity house or the house of a professor--and my incessant drinking of coffee and coco-cola to keep my ideas whipped up--all these things incapacitated me from attaining any high place in athletic endeavour. I was fair at boxing and could play a good scrub game of football. But my running, on which I prided myself most--I entered for the two-mile, one field day, and won only third place. I had gone back in form since Hebron days.

Dr. Gunning, head of our physical instruction, informed me that, exercise as I might, I could never hope to be stronger or put on more weight ... "you had too many hardships and privations in your growing years ... and you are of too nervous a temperament."

* * * * *

But my love for Vanna had regularised me somewhat. I discarded my sandals and bought Oxford ties. And I preserved a crease in my trousers by laying them, folded carefully, under my mattress every night. And I took to wearing shirts with white linen collars....

And I kept a picture of the girl I adored, secretly, among my manuscripts--it was one I had begged of "Con" Cummins, frankly taking him into my confidence as to my state of heart toward Vanna. Which confidence "Con" never abused, though it might have afforded endless fields of fun.

"Con" framed the picture for me.

When alone with it, I often actually knelt to it, as to a holy image. And I kissed and kissed it, till it was quite faded away.

* * * * *

Emma Silverman, the great anarchist leader, came to Laurel, with her manager, Jack Leitman. I went to the Bellman House, the town's swellest hotel, to see her. I had never met her but had long admired her for her activities and bravery.

I found her a thick-built woman, after the gladiatorial fashion ... as she moved she made me think of a battleship going into action. There was something about her face ... a squareness of jaw, a belligerency, that reminded me of Roosevelt, whom I had seen twice ... once, at Mt. Hebron, when he had made a speech from the chapel platform ... (when I had determined not to join in the general applause of one whom I considered a mere demagogue--but, before I knew it, found myself on my feet roaring inarticulately as he strode in) and again, after he had returned from his African expedition, and had come to Laurel to dedicate a fountain set up for the local horses and dogs by the S.P.C.A.

Jack Leitman looked to me like a fat nincompoop. Such a weakling as great women must necessarily, it seems, "fall for." But he was an efficient manager. Possessed of a large voice and an insistent manner, he sold books by the dozen before and after Emma Silverman's lectures....

Miss Silverman already knew of me through Summershire, the wealthy socialist editor and owner of _Summershire's Magazine_, and Penton Baxter. It thrilled me when she called me by my first name....

Her first lecture was on Sex. The hall was jammed to the doors by a curiosity-moved crowd.

She began by assuming that she was not talking to idiots and cretins, but to men and women of mature minds--so she could speak as she thought in a forthright manner. She inveighed against the double standard. When someone in the auditorium asked what she meant by the single standard she replied, she meant sexual expression and experience for man and woman on an equal footing ... the normal living of life without which no human being could be really decent--and that regardless of marriage and the conventions!

"The situation as it is, is odious ... all men, with but few exceptions, have sexual life before marriage, but they insist that their wives come to them in that state of absurd ignorance of their own bodily functions and consequent lack of exercise of them, which they denominate 'purity.' ...

"I doubt if there is a solitary man in this audience--a married man--who has not had premarital intercourse with women."

All the while I kept my eye on Professor Wilton, who sat near me, in the row ahead ... he was flushing furiously in angry, puritanic dissent ... and I knew him well enough to foresee a forthcoming outburst of protest.

"Yes, I think I can safely say that there is not one married man here who can honestly claim that he came to his wife with that same physical 'purity' which he required of her."

Wilton leaped to his feet in a fury ... the good, simple soul. He was so indignant that the few white hairs on his head worked up sizzling with his emotion....

"_Here's one!_" he shouted, forgetting in his earnest anger the assembled audience, most of whom knew him.

There followed such an uproar of merriment as I have never seen the like before nor since. The students, of course, howled with indescribable joy ... Emma Silverman choked with laughter. Jack Leitman rolled over the side table on which he had set the books to sell as the crowd passed out--

After the deafening cries, cat-calls and uproars, Emma grew serious.

"I don't know who you are," she cried to Professor Wilton, "but I'll take chances in telling you that you're a liar!"

Again Wilton was on his feet in angry protest.

"Shame on you, woman! have you no shame!" he shouted.

This sally brought the house down utterly. The boys hooted and cat-called and stamped again....

Emma Silverman laughed till the tears streamed down her face....

* * * * *

During the four days she remained in Laurel her lectures were crowded.

* * * * *

Walking up the hill one day, I overtook Professor Wilton, under whom I had studied botany, and whom I liked, knowing he was sincere and had spoken the incredible though absolute truth.

"That woman, that anarchist friend of yours, Gregory, is a coarse woman!"

I rose to Emma's defence ... but he kept repeating ... "no, no ... she is nothing but a coarse, depraved woman."

* * * * *

At my instigation, the Sig-Kaps gave an afternoon tea for her. And I was proud to act as her introducer. The boys liked her. She was like a good gale of wind to the minds and souls of us.

* * * * *

I saw Emma and Jack off at the train. I carried two of her grips for her.

"Take Johnnie with you!" jovially shouted some of the boys--a motor car full of them--Phi Alphs--as we stepped to the station platform....

She answered them with a jolly laugh, a wave of the hand....

"No, I'll leave him here ... you need a few like him with you!"

* * * * *

"I have something on my conscience," remarked Miss Silverman to me, "Johnnie, do you really think that old professor was speaking the truth?"

"I'm sure of it, Miss Silverman."

"Why, then, I'm heartily sorry ... and it was rough of me ... and will you tell the professor for me that I sincerely apologise for having hurt his feelings ... tell him I have so many jackasses attending my lectures all over the country, who rise and say foolish and insincere things, just to stand in well with the communities they live in--that sometimes it angers me, their hypocrisy--and then I blaze forth pretty strong and lay them flat!"

* * * * *

Professor Wilton was a Phi Alph. From that time he was spoken of as "the only Phi Alph Virgin."

* * * * *

The periods when I had rested secure in the knowledge of where my next meal was coming from, had been few. Life had pressed me close to its ragged edge ever since I could remember.

Now I was accorded a temporary relief. Penton Baxter wrote me that he had procured me a patron ... Henry Belton, the millionaire Single-Taxer, had consented to endow me at fifteen dollars a week, for six months. I had informed Baxter, in one of my many letters to him--for we had developed an intimate correspondence--that I had a unique fairy drama in mind, but could not write it because of the harassment of my struggle for bread and life.... I had laid aside for the present my projected "Judas."

* * * * *

Singing all the time, I packed my books in a large box which the corner grocer gave me, and, giving up my noisy room over the tinshop, I was off to the Y.M.C.A., where I engaged a room, telling the secretary, who knew me well, of my good luck, and enjoining him not to tell anyone else ... which I promptly did myself....

I selected one of the best rooms, a corner one, with three windows through which floods of light streamed. It was well-furnished. The bed was the finest I had ever had to sleep in.

Immediately I went to Locker's, the smart students' clothier, and put on a ready-made suit of clothes, of blue serge. And I charged new shirts and little white collars ... and several flowing ties. And a fine, new pair of shoes.

"You sure look nifty," commented Locker, who himself waited on me.

Then I went to a bookstore and plunged recklessly, purchasing Gosse and Garnett's _Illustrated History of English Literature_, in four volumes, an expensive set.

I charged everything on the strength of my endowment, and, of course, in order to gain the credit I sought, I showed Baxter's letter, and pledged each storekeeper not to spread the story....

Before nightfall practically the whole student body knew of my good luck. And Jack Travers had found me, lying back, luxuriously clad in my newly acquired, big blue bathrobe, in my morris chair....

He looked me over with keen amusement.

Somehow, for several years, my one dream of luxury and affluence had been to own a flowered bathrobe to lounge in, and to wear on the athletic field. I had hitherto had to be content with a shabby overcoat.

On my new sectional bookcase stood a statue of the Flying Mercury, that my eye might continually drink in my ideal of physical perfection. Opposite that, stood my plaster cast of Apollo Belvedere, as indicative of the god of song that reigned over my thoughts and life.

* * * * *

"Jack, I want you to come and have supper with me!"

"Johnnie, you are just like a big baby ... all right, I'll dine with you, after I've shot in the story about your endowment to the _Star_."

"Hurry up, then,--it's after five now. I've never had enough money before, to treat you ... it's you that have always treated me."

"Where'll we dine?"

"At the swellest place in town, the Bellman House ... Walsh will charge me." Walsh Summers was the proprietor.

* * * * *

Big, fat Walsh welcomed me and Travers.

"No, Johnnie, I won't charge you. Instead, you and Jack are dining as guests of the house."

And he would have it no other way.

* * * * *

Ally Merton was right about appearances. To have your shirts laundered regularly makes a man a different being. People that only noticed me before with a sort of surreptitious mockery now began to treat me with surprised respect. Professors invited me even more--the more conservative of them--to dine at their homes.

And it was delightful to have living quarters where there was both hot and cold running water. I took a cold bath, every morning, after my exercise, and a hot bath, every night, before going to bed.

The place was well-heated, too. I no longer had to sit up in bed, the covers drawn to my chin to keep from freezing, while I read, studied, wrote. Nor did I need sit on my hands, in alternation, to keep one warm while I rhymed with the other, during those curious spells of inspiration, those times of ecstasy--occurring mostly in the night--when I would write and write so rapidly that morning would find me often not able to decipher the greater part of what I had written ... five or ten poems in a night ... scrawled madly almost like automatic writing....

* * * * *

William Jennings Bryan came to talk to us at our school auditorium. His lecture, _The Prince of Peace_, soon degenerated into an old-fashioned attack on science and the evolutionary theory.

The professors sat bored and mute on the platform beside him, while he evacuated the forty-year-old wheeze of "your great-great-great-grandfather might have been a monkey, but, thank God, mine was not!" he won the usual great response of handclapping and laughter with this....

And then he held out a glass of water, to prove that miracles might happen, because God, being omnipotent, could, at will, suspend natural laws.

"Look at this glass of water. I hold it out at arm's length, so. If I did not hold it, it would drop to the floor and shatter into pieces. Thus I, by a human act, suspend the law of gravitation ... so God!--" There was huzzaing and applause. Several professors uneasily shifted the crossing of their knees ... one or two stared diplomatically at the ceiling.

I grew angry and sent forth several sharp hisses before I knew what I was doing ... the effect was an electric stillness for the moment. Then a roar of indignant applause drowned my protest. And I stopped and remained quiet, with much craning of necks about me, to look at me.

As the crowd poured out, I ran out into the road, from group to group, and, wherever I found a professor walking along, I vociferated my protest at our allowing such a back-water performance at the State's supposed centre of intelligence.

"But, Gregory, it makes no difference ... the argument is settled, let platform orators like Bryan tilt at windmills all they may."

"The hell it doesn't make a difference! if you professors are worth your salt, you won't let a Chautauqua man get by with such bunco."

* * * * *

The writing of my fairy drama progressed amain.

I mailed a copy of it to Penton Baxter, who said that it had genuine merit. Was not great, but showed great promise.

Henry Belton, from London, wrote me that it was beautiful and fine, but too eccentric for production in even the eccentric theatre.

And Belton kept deluging me with Single Tax pamphlets. And I wrote him hot letters in reply, villifying the Single Tax theory and upholding revolutionary Socialism. And he grew angry with me, and informed me that he had meditated keeping me in his patronage longer, but I was so obdurate that he would end my remittance with the six months ... as, in fact, was all that was originally promised me.

I replied that it made no difference ... that I would be always grateful to him. His letters stopped. The money stopped. But I went on living at the Y.M.C.A., charging up rent ... said that I was nearing the end of my rope again, glad because I had shown to myself that I was capable of sustained creative effort.