Chapter 37

"Now, now, my dear boy," he replied very gently, "I am older than you say ... I am a very, very old man ... and I know life--"

"But do you know the woman you speak of?"

"I have met Mrs. Baxter casually with her husband several times." He stopped short. He paused, gave a gesture of acquiescence.

"Oh, come, Mr. Gregory, you're right ... quite right ... I had no right whatever to speak to you as I have--

"But please interpret it as my serious concern over your career as a poet ... it seems such a pity ... you had such a good start."

"You mean?--" I began, and halted.

"Precisely ... I mean that for the next two or three years all the reputable magazines will not dare consider even a masterpiece from your hands."

"In other words, if Shelley were alive to-day and were the same Shelley, he would be presented with a like boycott?"

"If his manner of living came out in the papers--yes."

"And François Villon?"

"Undoubtedly."

"I'm in good company then, am I not?"

"You should thank me for being frank with you."

"I do thank you ... that explains why the atmosphere up at the office of the _National_ was as cold as the refrigerator-box of a meat car, when I was up there an hour ago ... but they were not as frank as you ... they acted like a company of undertakers officiating at my funeral."

* * * * *

I was glad to find myself back in my little cottage, that same night--back in my little cottage, and in the arms of the woman who was everything to me, no matter if they said she spelled the ruination of my career.

For any man, I held, and still hold, who lets a woman ruin his career, ought to have it ruined.

I did not tell her of what Dr. Ward had told me. Why cause her unnecessary worry?

* * * * *

After all, the magazine world was not the only medium to present my literary wares to the public. There remained the book world, a less narrow and prejudiced one.

Kennerley had written me that he waited eagerly the completion of my Biblical play.

And Zueblin, of the now defunct _Twentieth Century_ had just sent me a twenty-five dollar check for a poem called _Lazarus Speaks_.

* * * * *

I brought back with me from New York two books as a present for Hildreth ... Mary Wollstonecraft's _A Vindication of the Rights of Woman,_ and _The Life of Mary Wollestonecraft_ ... these were two books she had long desired. She was thoroughly pleased with her resemblance to the frontispiece picture of the celebrated woman radical, in the _Life_.

"You possess all her vivacity, all her intelligence ... but you are beautiful where she was plain ... she is like a plainer sister of yours."

* * * * *

While in New York I had also paid a visit to the editor of one of the biggest sensational magazines in the city, and I had arranged with him, acting as Hildreth's agent, for a thousand dollars advance on her unfinished novel. The editor had dictated a letter in which he promised to deliver the thousand on receipt of two-thirds of the book....

Hildreth kissed me again and again when I gave her the letter....

"Johnnie, you really are wonderful ... and quite practical, after all."

* * * * *

"And now, my darling Hildreth, we'll take this old world and shake it into new life, into the vital thing I have dreamed!" I boasted grandiloquently....

"Here in this little sequestered dream-cottage of ours you and I will carry out, popularise, through novels, poems, plays, essays, and treatises, the noble work that Ellis, Key, and Rosa Von Mayerreder, and others, are doing in Europe ... and we ourselves will set the example of true love that fears nothing but the conventional legal slavery."

"It will soon be very cold down here," commented Darrie, irrelevantly, "this is only a summer cottage, and they say--the old settlers--that we are to have a severe winter ... the frost fish are already beginning to come ashore."

* * * * *

It was generally known, sub rosa, that Hildreth and I were living together. But, as long as she pretended it was not so, as long as I lived seemingly in another house, pretending, under another name, to be Mrs. Baxter's literary adviser, the hypocrisy of the world was satisfied.

I was, in other words, following the accepted mode.

It was a nasty little article by a fellow literary craftsman from the Pacific coast, that set me off, brought me to the full realisation that I was but playing the usual, conventional game,--that roused me to the determination that I must no longer sail under false colours.

This writer retailed how, after a brief, disillusioning few weeks together, Hildreth had grown tired of the poverty and spareness of the living a poet was able to make for her ... of how I was lazy, impliedly dirty ... of how, up against realities, we had parted ... I had, he stated, in fact, deserted her, and was now on my way back to Kansas, riding the rods of freights, once more an unsavoury outcast, a knight of the road ... he ended with the implication, if I remember correctly, that the reception that awaited me in Kansas, would be, to say the least, problematical.

Of course this story was made up out of whole cloth.

'Gene Mallows afterward informed me that the big literary club in San Francisco that this hack belonged to had seriously considered disciplining him by expulsion for his unethical behaviour toward a fellow-writer.

* * * * *

But I maintain that it was good that he penned the scurrilous article. For I had allowed happiness to lull my radical conscience asleep. It was now goaded awake. I held a conference with Hildreth.

"There is now only one thing for me to ... to come right out with it that you and I are living here together in a free union, and that the love we bear each other not only justifies, but sanctifies our doing as we do--as no legal or ecclesiastical procedure could....

"That here we are and here we intend to abide, on these principles--no matter what the rest of the world does or says or thinks."

"I admit, Johnnie, that that would be the ideal way, but--" interrupted Darrie--

"But nothing--I'm tired of sneaking around, hiding from grocers and butcher boys, when everybody knows--

"And besides, Hildreth," turning to her, taking her in my arms, kissing her tenderly on the brow--"don't you see what it all means?

"As long as I pretend not to be living with you I'm considered a sly dog that seduced his friend's wife and got away with it ... 'served him right, the husband, for being such a boob!' ... 'rather a clever chap, that Gregory, don't you know, not to be blamed much, eh?' ... 'only human, eh?' ...--'she's a deuced pretty little woman, they say!'

"Can't you see the sly looks, the nudges they give each other, as they gossip in the clubs?"

"Don't let your imagination get the better of you, please don't!" urged Darrie....

"No," I went on, "I'm going to send right now for Jerome Miller, a newspaper lad I knew in Kansas, who's now in New York on a paper, and give him an interview that will set us right with the stupid world once and for all. Miller was a fellow student of mine at Laurel ... he's a fine, square chap who will give me a clean break ... was president of our Scoop Club."

"Darling, darling, dearest," pleaded Hildreth, "I thought you had about enough of the newspapers ... you've seen how they've distorted all our ideals ... how our attempt to use them for propaganda has gone to smash ... how they pervert ... the filth and abuse they heap upon pioneers of thought in any direction--why wake the wild beasts up again?"

"What's the use believing in anything, if we don't stick up for what we believe?"

"Oh, go ahead, dear, if you feel so strongly about it, but--" and her tiny, dark head drooped, "I'm a little wearied ... I want quiet and peace a little while longer ... I'm getting the worst of it--not you so much, or Penton.

"I'm the woman in the case.

"Remember the invitation the other night, from the Congregational minister--for tea? He invited you for tea, you remember, and left me out?"

"--remember, too," I replied fondly, caressing her head, "how I didn't even deign to reply to the ---- ---- ---- ----!"

"Sh!" putting her hand gently and affectionately over my mouth, "don't swear so ... very well, poke the wild beasts again!... but we'll only serve as sport for another Roman holiday for the newspapers."

I wrote Miller to come down, that I had an exclusive interview for him.

He arrived the very night of the day he received my letter.

Darrie stepped out over to the Ronds', not to be herself brought into what she had so far managed to keep out of.

Hildreth consumed the better part of two hours fixing herself up as women do when they want to make an impression....

"Your friend from Kansas must see that you haven't made such a bad choice in picking me," she proclaimed, with that pretty droop of her mouth.

"No, no! be a good boy, don't muss me up now!"

She wore a plain, navy-blue skirt ... wore a white middy blouse with blue, flowing tie ... easy shoes that fitted snug to her pretty little feet ... her eyes never held such depths to them, her face never shone with such beauty before.

I wore a brown sweater vest with pearl buttons ... corduroy trousers ... black oxfords ... a flowing tie....

A large log fire welcomed my former Kansas friend.

"Well, Johnnie, it's been a long time since I've seen you."

"Jerome, let me introduce you to the only woman that ever lived, or shall live, for me ... Hildreth Baxter."

As Hildreth gave Miller her hand, I could see that he liked her, and that he inwardly commented on my good taste and perhaps said to himself, "Well, Johnnie is not so crazy after all!"

After I had given him the interview, he asked her a few questions, but she begged to be left out, that it was my interview.

"Mr. Miller, you are a friend of Johnnie's ... I have often heard him speak highly of you; can't you dissuade him from having this interview printed ... no matter if you have been sent by your paper all the way down here for it?"

Jerome liked what Hildreth had said, admired her for her common sense. He offered to return to the city, and risk his job by stating that he had been hoaxed.

"I will leave you to argue it out with him, Mr. Miller." And Hildreth excused herself and went off down the path to the Ronds' too.

"Johnnie," my friend urged, putting his hand on my shoulder, "your little lady has a lot of sense ... it _will_ kick up a hell of a row ... it's true what you say about them rather approving of you now, some of them, considering you a sly dog and so forth.... Yes, I'm sorry to say, what you're doing, much of the world is doing most of the time."

"I beg your pardon, Jerome, but there you've made my point ... do you think I want a sneaking, clandestine thing kept up between me and the woman I love?"

"Then why not stay apart till the divorce is granted, then marry her like a regular fellow?"

"Damn it, Jerome, you don't understand, you don't get what we radicals are driving at...."

"I'll take a chance with my job and quash this interview--that's how much I like you, Johnnie."

"Oh, I know you mean well enough ... most of you boys have treated me rather well, according to your lights ... it's the damned lead-writers and re-writers and editorial writers--they're the ones that do the damage."

"You want me to go ahead then?"

"Yes, that is the only way."

"It is a big story, a real scoop." Miller was again the newspaper man who had scored a beat on rival newspapers....

"Can't you stay over night, Jerome? We can make room."

"I must catch the next train back ... I'm off now ... there's the taxi I arranged to have come and take me ... it's out there now ... good-bye, Johnny, and God help you and your little girl."

* * * * *

Hildreth came in soon after Miller's departure, looking like a fresh-faced girl of twelve.

"Did--did your friend think I was good-looking?"

"Yes, I am sure he thoroughly approved of you."

"To-morrow another Roman holiday begins."

* * * * *

The result of that interview was worse than I could have surmised. All the batteries opened fire again. The Kansas papers called me "the shameless tramp" ... reporters spilled from autos and rigs all over the front stoop. After giving a few more interviews in the mad hope that this time they would get it straight, I saw that the harvest was even greater abuse and defamation ... and, as Hildreth had predicted, she came in for more than her share of the moral indignation of people who sold that precious ware at so much a line, or were paid salaries for such work....

We practically deserted our house so the reporters could not find us....

Many of the reporters never came near the house. Instead, lurid stories were concocted in the back rooms of nearby roadhouses. And, failing to find us at home, interviews were faked so badly that they verged on the burlesque ... where not vulgar, they were vicious ... words were slipped in that implied things which, expressed clearly, had furnished ample grounds for libel.

Hildreth and I were pictured as living on frost fish almost entirely; the fish that run along the ocean shore, and, growing numb with the cold of autumn, are tossed up on the sand by the waves....

I was depicted as strident-voiced ... belligerent ... waving my arms wildly. It was said that, full of threats, I had taken a shotgun menacingly from a rack ... that a vicious bull dog lay between my feet, growling ... that I went, sockless, in sandals ... had long, flowing, uncombed hair....

Once a party of three reporters, from a big metropolitan paper,--two men and a woman, after stopping at a nearby road house till they were well lit,--drove about in a livery rig till they finally located us at the house of Mrs. Rond....

All the old nonsense was re-written ... things we had never said or even had in our thought ... vulgarities alien to Hildreth's mouth or mine....

The final insinuation--a sly touching on the fact that the Rond family was on intimate terms with me, and that the young daughters were attractive-looking, and seemed to favour the ideals I expressed with murmurs of approval ... thus the story afterward appeared....

Mrs. Rond, after a peculiarly impertinent question of the woman member of the party, realised by this time that the three reporters were more than a little tipsy, and ordered these guardians of the public morality out of the house....

In the first place, they had wormed admittance through a fraud to Hildreth and me ... the woman falsely pretended that she was a friend of Hildreth's mother ... a great stroke of journalistic enterprise.

Mrs. Rond's rebuke was so sharply worded that it got through even their thick skins....

I must say, though, that the behaviour of these three was not characteristic ... generally the newspaper men and women were most considerate and courteous ... even when they afterward wrote unpleasant articles about us. And often I have had them blue-pencil wild statements I had made, which, on second thought, I wished withdrawn ... and during all the uproar I never had a reporter break his word, once given.

"Say, Mr. Gregory, that's great stuff, do let us keep that in the interview."

"Please, boys, draw your pencil through that ... it doesn't sound the way I meant it."

"Oh, all right"--a sigh--"but it's a shame to leave it out."

The last and final outrage--perpetrated by the papers by orders from above, I am sure....

Even the second uproar had died down.

Always the "natives" in West Grove and round about, our neighbours, behaved considerately, let us alone ... we were greeted politely wherever we went....

But now, Mrs. Rond informed me, strange men were appearing on the street corners, conducting a regular soapbox campaign against us....

Some of them were seen to get on and off trains going to and coming from New York....

Goaded and spurred by these mysterious outsiders, the village people began to act aloof, and the more ignorant of them sullen toward us ... but as yet it was only in the air, nothing concrete to lay hold of.

* * * * *

Mrs. Suydam had run away with her plumber ... the interviews she gave out showed that it was our case mainly that had impelled her to launch forth in imitation ...

Others, in a wave of sex-radicalism, were running off together all about the country ...

But it was Mrs. Suydam's case that interested me and Hildreth most ... she was a dainty, pretty little slight thing, as Hildreth was--I could judge by her pictures....

"Hildreth," I urged, "let's drop Mrs. Suydam a note encouraging her ... she's probably without a friend in the world, she and her man ... they're trying to oust her from her flat ... she's being hounded about."

"My God, Johnnie dear, let's _don't!_ ... they'll only give our letter to the papers ... let's let well enough alone once more ... the grocer boy passed me in the street to-day and didn't tip his hat to me."

* * * * *

I was sitting at Mrs. Rond's tea-table having afternoon tea with her. She had sent one of her girls over to the cottage to tell me she wished to see me "alone" ... "on a matter of great importance."

The cats, who had trailed her eldest daughter, Editha, across to our place, followed us back again with sailing tails in the air.

Mrs. Rond poured me a cup of strong tea.

"Drink that first, then I'll give you a little information that won't be so very agreeable to you."

The glimmer of satiric yet benevolent humour that was never long absent from her eyes, lightened there again, as she rolled and lit a "Plowboy."

"Have you noticed a change in the weather? A storm is blowing up. I'm speaking figuratively ... I might as well out with it, Johnnie,--there's a report, growing in strength, that a mob of townspeople is scheduled to come your way to-night, some time, and treat you to a serenade of protest and the traditional yokel hospitality of mobs ... a coat of tar and feathers and a ride on a rail beyond the town limits."

"So it's come to that, has it?"

"Johnnie, it isn't the townsfolk that started it ... of that I am certain ... left alone, they would still have been content to mind their business, and accept you and Hildreth on a friendly basis...."

She brought up the story of the strange men haranguing from street corners again....

"It's the New York newspapers, or one or two of the most sensational of them, that are back of this new phase."

"You mean, Mrs. Rond, that they would dare go so far as to instigate an attack on me and Hildreth ... with possibly fatal results?"

"Of course they would ... they need more news ... they want something more to happen ... to have all this uproar end tamely in happy, permanent love--that's what they couldn't endure....

"Well," she resumed after a pause, "what are you going to do? You're not afraid, are you?"

"To tell the truth I am, very much afraid."

"You and Hildreth and Darrie would best take the three o'clock train back to New York then."

"I haven't the least intention of doing that."

"What are you going to do?"

"--just let them come."

"You won't--fight?"

"As long as I'm alive."

"You just said you were afraid."

"Where a principle is considered, one can be afraid and still stick by one's guns."

"You're a real man, John Gregory, as well as a real poet, and I'm going to help you ... if it was the townspeople alone I would hesitate advising you ... but it's dirty, hired outsiders who are back of this feeling. Here!" and she stepped over to the mantel and brought a six-shooter to me and laid it in my hand, "can you shoot?"

"A little, but not very well."

"It's loaded already ... here is a pocketful of extra bullets."

She filled my coat pocket till it sagged heavily. I slipped the gun in my hip pocket.

"You're really going to stand them off if they come?"

"As long as no one tries to break into my house I will lie quiet ... the minute someone tries to break in, I'll shoot, I'll shoot to kill, and I'll kill as many as I can before they take me. I'll admit I'm frightened, but I have principles of freedom and radical right, and I'll die for them if necessary."

Mrs. Rond put her hand on my shoulder like a man.

"You have the makings of a fine fanatic in you ... in the early Christian era you would have been a church martyr."

* * * * *

I held immediate consultation with Darrie and Hildreth and they were both scared blue ... but they were game, too.

Darrie, however, unfolded a principle of strategy which I put into immediate effect ... she advised me to try a bluff first.

When I walked downtown within the hour, to obtain the New York papers, there was no doubt, by the even more sullen attitude of the inhabitants that I passed on the street, that something serious was a-foot....

I sauntered up to the news stand, took my _Times_ ... hesitated, and then tried the bluff Darrie had suggested:

"Jim," I began, to the newsdealer, who had been enough my friend for us to speak to each other by our first names, "Jim, I hear the boys are planning a little party up my way to-night!"

"Not as I've heard of, Johnnie," Jim answered, with sly evasion, and I caught him sending a furtive wink to a man I'd never seen in town before.

"Now, Jim, there's no use trying to fool me. I'm _on_!"

The newspaper stand was, I knew, the centre for the town's dissemination of gossip. I knew what I said would sweep everywhere the moment I turned my back.

"As I said," I continued, "I'm on!" And I looked about and spoke in a loud voice, while inwardly quaking, "Yes, I know all about it, and I want to drop just this one hint ... tell the boys they can come. Tell them they'll be welcome ... So far I've had no trouble here ... everybody has been right decent with me," affecting a Western, colloquial drawl, "and I've tried to treat everybody, for my part, like a gentleman,--ain't that true?"

"That's true, Mr. Gregory" (it was suddenly "Mr. Gregory" now, not "Johnnie"). "As I was saying just the other day, there's lots worse in the world than Mr. Gregory that ain't found out."

"I want to leave this message with you, Jim. I'm from the West. I'm a good shot. I've got a six-shooter ready for business up at the cottage. I've got a lot of extra bullets, too. As I've said, I ain't the kind that looks for trouble, but when anybody goes out of their way--Well, as I said before, as soon as the boys begin getting rough--I'll begin to shoot ... I'll shoot to kill, and I'll kill everybody I can get, till someone gets me."

"Yes, Mr. Gregory!"

"Mind you, Jim, I've always considered you as my friend. I mean what I say. I'm a householder. I'm in the right ... if the law wants me that's another matter ... but no group of private citizens--"

"Good-bye, Mr. Gregory."

* * * * *

I walked rapidly back to the cottage. I was thinking as rapidly as I walked. For the space of a full minute I thought of packing off ignominiously with my little household.

But before I stepped in at the door something murky had cleared away inside me.

"Oh, Hildreth! Darrie!"

The women came dragging forward. But with them, too, it was a passing mood.

My indignation at the personal outrage of the impending mob incited me as them ... till I think not one of the three of us would have stepped aside from the path of a herd of stampeding elephants.

"The yokels," and Darrie's nostrils flared, her blue blood showing, "to dare even think of such an action, against their betters!"

* * * * *

We lit a roaring log fire. We sat reading aloud from Shelley. As the hours drew by ... eight ... nine ... ten ... eleven ... there is no doubt that our nerves grew to a very fine edge....

And at twelve o'clock--