Before it reached the pillow the doctor bent forward and dried it softly with his silk handkerchief. She opened her eyes wide at the touch. ""Be quiet?"" she repeated, ""stop thinking?" Oh, yes; _I_ will be quiet, but the rest, the others? Those with whom you do not charge yourself, who find no work, no joy? Will _they_ be quiet, will they stop thinking? Oh, yes; I can be quiet, very quiet, but the rest, the rest? The others who think too much--_all, all?_"
There was a wild look in her dry eyes. The doctor touched her wrist again and said softly to the men beside him, "It is working now. She will sleep. But the shock of all her trouble has left her mind unhinged, poor child. "The rest? the others?" _We_ cannot care for all the countless poor. Her brain is surely touched, poor child, poor child. How can we tell whether the others will stop thinking, or how, or when? Her mind was wandering, and now she sleeps, poor child. Come out. She is best alone."
They closed the door gently behind them and stood a moment in awkward silence outside, each one afraid to speak and yet ashamed of his own tender helplessness. At last Mr. Winkle looking steadily in the crown of his hat, said huskily, "By gad, boys, there is something rotten in the state of Denmark." They all three laughed with an effort, but kept their eyes averted.
"It is a rat in the wainscoting of the storeroom," said John Boler, with a desperate attempt to regain his old manner and tone, "and I"ve got to go and look after it or there"ll be the devil to pay with the Boler House." And he ran down the stairs three steps at a time heartily ashamed of his own remark, but determined not to allow the tears to show themselves either in his eyes or voice, and feeling that his only safety was in flight.
But Mr. Winkle had not stood silently behind the doctor"s chair all that time for nothing, and if his nature was somewhat light, and if he had taken life so far as something of a jest, he was by no means without a heart. He did not now trouble himself very greatly about the tangled problems of existence, but he felt quite equal to dealing with any given case effectively and on short notice. With systems he was helpless, with individuals he could deal promptly. Therefore he, in common with the doctor and Mr. Boler, and, indeed, with most of us, occupied himself with the girl he saw suffering and in need.
When she had cried out, "But the rest, the others, what of them?" he had said nothing, because he had nothing to say. He was vaguely aware that when the smallpox broke out on one of Dr. Ralston"s patients that astute pract.i.tioner did not essay to treat each individual pustule separately as the whole of the disease and so devote his entire skill and mind to each in turn until it was cured. But then he could not undertake to cure the whole human race of its various social ailments any more than Dr.
Ralston could hope to look after all of its physical pains. So Mr.
Winkle took this one little social pustule upstairs as his particular charge, and in his own peculiar way went about securing better conditions for her, leaving the "others who think too much" to somebody else, or to fate, as the case might be. Therefore, when Mr. Winkle reached the street door and met an officer of the law who had come prepared to learn the whereabouts of the would-be suicide or else take Mr. John Boler and Dr. Ralston into custody, the old gentleman made up his mind to begin his part in the future proceedings without further delay.
Unknown to Mr. Winkle himself, literature had lost a great novelist when he had gone into the mercantile business, and the surprises which he now sprang upon the policeman were no less astonishing and interesting to himself than they were to that astute guardian of the public morals.
"Want to know where she is, do you? Well, don"t worry Johnnie Boler any more. They"ve already got him so his mind is a little affected. I"ll tell you all about that girl. Her name is Estelle Morris. She worked for me for nine years as a nursery governess. Last month my youngest child died, and it upset Estelle so that she has been out of her head ever since. I thought if I"d bring her to the city maybe she might get over it, but she didn"t, and the doctor gave her some stuff and she took a double dose by mistake, and all the row came from that and the long tongues of the servants, pieced out by the long pencils of the reporters. See!"
"Is that so?" exclaimed the officer. "Where is she now?"
Mr. Winkle had not thought of that, and he did not know exactly what to say; but he agreed to produce her in court on the following day if so ordered, and there the matter dropped for the moment.
That evening there appeared in a paper this "want:" "A good-looking young woman who is willing to lie like a pirate for the s.p.a.ce of one hour for the sum of $50. May have to go to court." The number of handsome girls who were anxious to lend the activity of their tongues for the purpose named and the amount stipulated was quite wonderful. One particularly bright young miss remarked that she had been in training for just that position for years. She was confidential correspondent for a broker. Mr. Winkle accepted her on the spot.
"Now," said he, "look solemn and sad. That is right. You do it first rate. Whatever I tell about you you are to stick to. Understand that?"
"Perfectly. Years of practice," she responded, with entire simplicity and without a suspicion of humor.
"Your name is Estelle Morris, and you have been the governess of my children for nine years. How old are you?"
"Nineteen," said Estelle Morris demurely.
"Good gracious, girl, what could you teach at ten years of age? You"ve got to be older. Take the curl out of your hair in front and put on a bonnet with strings. I heard my niece say that made her look ten years older. Mind you, you are not a day under twenty-six. Not a day."
"All right," said Estelle Morris thoughtfully.
"You are to look sick, too, and--"
"Oh, I can fix _that_ easy enough. I"ll--"
"Well, then fix it and come back here at exactly two o"clock this afternoon."
At the appointed hour, Mr. Winkle met Miss Estelle Morris and took her with great dignity and care to the Boler House, where he was joined by another gentleman--an officer of the law--and the three started out together.
"The examination was strictly private in deference to the wishes of the parties first implicated, John Boler and Dr. Ralston, and because it is now believed that the girl is more sinned against than sinning," wrote the reporter for the morning rival of the _Screamer_. "It is the object of justice to help the erring to start anew in life wherever that line of action is consonant with the stern necessities of the blind G.o.ddess.
Neither of the male accomplices appeared in the case, but Mr.
Silas Winkle--whose name has figured somewhat conspicuously in the matter--produced the princ.i.p.al, who, it must be confessed, is pretty enough to account for all the chivalry which has been displayed in her behalf. She confessed to twenty-six years of single wretchedness, although she could easily pa.s.s for a year or two younger. It would appear that she had lived in Mr. Winkle"s family for nine years as governess to his children and came to the city with him about two weeks ago. The justice accepted this explanation of the relations existing between them, and that there was no attempt at suicide at all, but only an accidental overdose of a remedy prescribed by Dr. Ralston, which explained satisfactorily the doctor"s connection with the unsavory case, and places him once more in the honorable position from which this unfortunate affair so nearly hurled him. In short, the justice said in substance, "not guilty, and don"t do it any more." The young woman bowed modestly, and Silas Winkle led her from the court-room a sadder, and, let us hope, a wiser woman. Such as she must have much to live for. Many a man has braved death for a face less lovely than hers. This ends the "Boler House Mystery," which, after all, turns out to be only a tempest in a teapot, with a respectable father of a family and his children"s governess for _dramatis persono_ and a fresh young reporter on a certain sensational morning contemporary as general misinformer of the public as usual." This was headlined, "_Exploded--Another Fake by Our Esteemed Contemporary_."
That night John Boler rubbed his eyes when he read the report. "I thought you were a bachelor, Mr. Winkle," said he, "and here you produce in court a governess--"
"I am," said Mr. Winkle, laughing, and then he showed his "want"
advertis.e.m.e.nt. "That is the whole case, Johnnie, my boy, but it is all over now. Don"t you worry; it might go to your head again. You saved the girl and I saved you, and it only cost me $50. I"d pay that any time to get ahead of the _Screamer_, and I rather think I salted that enterprising sheet down this time, don"t you? But what is to become of that girl?" added he, without waiting for a reply to his first question.
"You"ve taken the liberty to save her life, which she had decided she did not want under existing circ.u.mstances. Has she simply got to go over the same thing again? I told her that I"d look after her, but I don"t see how in thunder I"m going to do it. She won"t take money from me and _I"ve_ got nothing for her to do. Is there nothing ahead of her but a coffin or a police court?"
"For this individual girl, yes. Dr. Ralston has already secured work for her; but for all the thou-sands of her kind--" John Boler"s voice trembled a little and he stopped speaking to hide it. He in common with most men was heartily ashamed of his better nature.
"For all the thousands of her kind," broke in Mr. Winkle, "there are just exactly three roads open--starvation, suicide, or shame, with the courts, the legislature, and the newspapers on the side of the latter.
I just tell you, Johnnie, it makes my blood boil. I--I don"t see any way out of it--none at all. That is the worst of it."
"I do," said Mr. Boler.
"_You do!_" exclaimed Mr. Winkle excitedly, and then looked hard at his old friend"s son to see if he had gone crazy again.
"Yes, I do. Those same newspapers you are so down on will do it. They"re bound to. The boys go wrong sometimes, as they did in this case; but that only makes sensible people indignant, and, after all, it called attention to the law that makes such things possible. _More light on the laws_. That"s the first thing we want, and no matter which side of a question the papers take, we are bound to get that in the long run.
Silence is the worst danger. We get pretty mad at the boys if they write what we don"t like, but that isn"t half so dangerous as if they didn"t write at all. See?"
Mr. Winkle turned slowly away and shook his head as he murmured to himself: "Who would have believed that old John Boler would have been the father of a lunatic? Dear me, dear me. I"m going back to Meadville before I get touched in the head myself." And he started to his room to pack his valise. John Boler followed him to the elevator.
"I don"t blame you for feeling pretty mad about all the stuff they put in the _Screamer_ about you; but--oh, the boys _mean_ all right--"
"So does the devil," broke in the old man. But Mr. Boler gave no evidence of noticing the interruption nor of observing the irascibility of his guest.
"The trouble is with the system," he went on, entering the elevator after Mr. Winkle. "Why, just look at it, man. What I say or do, if it is of a public nature, I"m responsible for _to_ the public. What you write you put your name to; but it"s a pretty big temptation to a young fellow who knows he has got the swing in a newspaper and doesn"t have to sign his name to what he says, to make an effort to "scoop" his rivals at whatever cost. The boys don"t mean any harm, but irresponsible power is a mighty dangerous weapon to handle. Not many older men can be trusted to use it wisely. Then why should we expect it of those young fellows who don"t know yet any of the deeper meanings of life? Great Scott, man!
_I_ think they do pretty well under the circ.u.mstances. I"m afraid I"d do worse."
Mr. Winkle stroked his chin reflectively.
"No doubt, no doubt," he said abstractedly, as they stepped out of the elevator.
John Boler looked at him for a brief s.p.a.ce of time to see if he had intended the thrust and then went on:
"That girl"s life or death just meant an item to the boys, and it didn"t mean much more to you or me until--until we stood and heard her talk and saw her suffer, and were made personally uncomfortable by it. Yet we are old enough to know all about it for her and others. We _do_ know it, and go right along as if we didn"t. We are a pretty bad lot, don"t you think so?"
Silas Winkle unlocked his door before he spoke. Then he turned to his old friend"s son and shook his hand warmly.
"Good-bye," he said, looking at him steadily. "Good-bye, Johnnie. I see it only comes on you at odd spells. Come up to Meadville for a while and I think you will get over it altogether. Your father was the clearest-headed man I ever saw and you seem to have lucid intervals.
Those last remarks of yours were worthy of your father, my boy," and the old man patted him softly on the back.
John Boler whistled all the way downstairs. Then he laughed.
"I wonder if old Winkle really does think I am off my base," said he, as he took down his hat. "I suppose we are all more or less crazy. He thinks I am and I know he is. It is a crazy world. Only lunatics could plan or conduct it on its present lines." And he laughed again and then sighed and pa.s.sed out into the human stream on Broadway.
THE TIME LOCK OF OUR ANCESTORS.
_"Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation._"--Bible.