"Have you done it in your paper?"
"But this may be her life," argued the advocate desperately. "Think! If it were your sister, or--or the woman you cared for."
Dr. Merritt"s fine mouth quivered and set. "Kathleen Pierce is quarantined with Esme," he said quietly.
The pair looked each other through the eyes into the soul and knew one another for men.
"You"re right, Merritt," said Hal. "I"m sorry I asked."
"I"ll keep you posted," said the official, as his visitor turned away.
Meantime, Esme had volunteered as an emergency nurse, and been gladly accepted. In the intervals of her new duties she had received from her distracted cousin, who had been calling up every half-hour to find out whether she "had it yet," Hal"s message that he would not be able to see her that day, and, not having seen the "Clarion," was at a loss to understand it.
Chance, by all the truly romantic, is supposed to be a sort of matrimonial agency, concerned chiefly in bringing lovers together. In the rougher realm of actuality it operates quite as often, perhaps, to keep them apart. Certainly it was no friend to Esme Elliot on this day.
For when later she learned from her guardian of his attack upon Hal (though he took the liberty of editing out the _finale_ of the encounter as he related it), she tried five separate times to reach Hal by "phone, and each time Chance, the Frustrator, saw to it that Hal was engaged.
The inference, to Esme"s perturbed heart, was obvious; he did not wish to speak to her. And to a woman of her spirit there was but one course.
She would dismiss him from her mind. Which she did, every night, conscientiously, for many weary days.
CHAPTER x.x.xVI
THE VICTORY
Nation-wide sped the news, branding Worthington as a pest-ridden city.
Every newspaper in the country had a conspicuous dispatch about it. The bulletin of the United States Public Health Service, as in duty bound, gave official and statistical currency to the town"s misfortune. Other cities in the State threatened a quarantine against Worthington.
Commercial travelers and buyers postponed their local visits. The hotel registers thinned out notably. Business drooped. For all of which the "Clarion" was vehemently blamed by those most concerned.
Conversely, the paper should have received part credit for the extremely vigorous campaign which the health authorities, under Dr. Merritt, set on foot at once. Using the "Clarion" exposure as a lever, the health officer pried open the Council-guarded city tills for an initial appropriation of ten thousand dollars, got a hasty ordinance pa.s.sed penalizing, not the diagnosing of typhus, but failure to diagnose and report it,--not a man from the Surtaine army of suppression had the temerity to oppose the measure,--organized a medical inspection and detection corps, threw a contagion-proof quarantine about every infected building, hunted down and isolated the fugitives from the danger-points who had scattered at the first alarm, inspired the county medical society to an enthusiastic support, bullied the police into a state of reasonable efficiency, and with a combined volunteer and regular force faced the epidemic in military form. Not least conspicuous among the volunteers were Miss Esme Elliot and Miss Kathleen Pierce, who had been released from quarantine quite as early as the law allowed, because of the need for them at the front.
"We could never have done our job without you," said Dr. Merritt to Hal, meeting him by chance one morning ten days after the publication of the "spread." "If the city is saved from a regular pestilence, it"ll be the Clarion"s" doing."
"That doesn"t seem to be the opinion of the business men of the place,"
said Hal, with a rather dreary smile. He had just been going over with the lugubrious Shearson a batch of advertising cancellations.
"Oh, don"t look for any credit from this town," retorted the health officer. "I"m practically ostracized, already, for my share in it."
"But are you beating it out?"
"G.o.d knows," answered the other. "I thought we"d traced all the foci of infection. But two new localities broke out to-day. That"s the way an epidemic goes."
And that is the way the Worthington typhus went for more than a month.
Throughout that month the "Clarion" was carrying on an anti-epidemic campaign of its own, with the slogan "Don"t Give up Old Home Week." Wise strategy this, in a double sense. It rallied public effort for victory by a definite date, for the Committee on Arrangements, despite the arguments of the weak-kneed among its number, and largely by virtue of the militant optimism of its chairman, had decided to go on with the centennial celebration if the city could show a clean bill of health by August 30, thus giving six weeks" leeway.
Furthermore, it put the "Clarion" in the position of champion of the city"s commercial interests and daily bade defiance to those who declared the paper an enemy and a traitor to business. In editorials, in interviews, in educational articles on hygiene and sanitation, in a course of free lectures covering the whole city and financed by the paper itself, the "Clarion" carried on the fight with unflagging zeal.
Slowly it began to win back general confidence and much of the popularity which it had lost. One of its reporters in the course of his work contracted the fever and barely pulled through alive, thereby lending a flavor of possible martyrdom to the cause. McGuire Ellis"s desperate fight for life also added to the romantic element which is so potent an a.s.set with the sentimental American public. Business, however, still sulked. The defiance to its principles was too flagrant to be pa.s.sed over. If the "Clarion" pulled through, the press would lose respect for the best interests and the vested privileges of commercial Worthington. Indeed, others of the papers, since the "Clarion"s"
declaration of independence, had exhibited a deplorable tendency to disregard hints. .h.i.therto having the authority of absolutism over them.
In withholding advertising patronage from the Surtaine daily, the business men were not only seeking reprisals, but also following a sound business principle. For according to information sedulously spread abroad, it was doubtful whether the "Clarion" would long survive. Elias M. Pierce"s boast that he would put it out of business gained literal interpretation, as he had intended that it should. Contrary to his accustomed habit of reticence, he had sought occasion to inform his friends that he expected verdicts against the libeler of his daughter which would throw the concern into bankruptcy, and, perhaps, its proprietor into jail. No advertiser cares to put money into a publication which may fail next week. Hence, though the circulation of the "Clarion" went up pretty steadily, the advertising patronage did not keep pace. Hal found himself hard put to it, at times, to cling to his dogged hopes. But it was worth while fighting it out to the last dollar.
So much he was a.s.sured of by the messages of praise and support which began to come in to him, not from "representative citizens," but from the earnest, thoughtful, and often obscure toilers and thinkers of the city: clergymen, physicians, laboring-men, working-women, sociological workers--his peers.
Then, too, there was the profound satisfaction of promised victory over the pest. For at the end of six weeks the battle was practically won; by what heroisms, at the cost of what sacrifices, through what disappointments, reversals, and set-backs, against the subtleties of what underground opposition of political influence and twelve per cent finance, is not to be set down here. The government publications tell, in their brief and pregnant records, this story of one of the most complete and brilliant victories in the history of American hygiene. My concern is with the story, not of the typhus epidemic, but of a man who fought for and surrendered and finally retrieved his own manhood and the honor of the paper which was his honor. His share, no small one, in the wiping-out of the pestilence was, to him, but part of the war for which he had enlisted.
But though the newspapers, with one joyous voice, were able to announce early in August, on the authority of the federal reports, "No new case in a week," the success of Old Home Week still swayed in the balance.
Outside newspapers, which had not forgotten the scandal of the smallpox suppression years before, hinted that the record might not be as clear as it appeared. The President of the United States, they pointed out, who was to be the guest of honor and the chief feature of the celebration, would not be justified in going to a city over which any suspicion of pestilence still hovered. In fact, the success or failure of the event practically hung upon the Chief Executive"s action. If, now, he decided to withdraw his acceptance, on whatever ground, the country would impute it to a justified caution, and would maintain against the city that intangible moral quarantine which is so disastrous to its victim. Throughout, Hal Surtaine in his editorial columns had vigorously maintained that the President would come. It was mostly "bluff." He had nothing but hope to build on.
Two more "clean" weeks pa.s.sed. At the close of the second, Hal stopped one day at the hospital to see McGuire Ellis, who was finally convalescent and was to be discharged on the following week. At the door of Ellis"s room he met Dr. Elliot. Somewhat embarra.s.sed, he stepped aside. The physician stopped.
"Er--Surtaine," he said hesitantly.
"Well?"
"I"ve had time to think things over. And I"ve had some talks with Mac.
I--I guess I was wrong."
"You were right enough from your point of view."
"Think so?" said the other, surprised.
"Yes. And I know I was right, from mine."
"Humph!" There was an uncomfortable pause. Then: "I called names. I apologize."
"That"s all right, then," returned Hal heartily.
"Woof!" exhaled the physician. "That"s off my chest. Now, I"ve got an item for you."
"For the "Clarion"?"
"Yep. The President"s coming."
"Coming? To Old Home Week?"
"To Old Home Week."
"An item! Great Caesar! A spread! A splurge!! A blurb!!! Where did you get it?"
"From Washington. Just been there."
"Tell me all of it."
"Know Redding? He and I saw some tough service together in the old M.H.S. That"s the United States Public Health Service now. Redding"s the head of it; Surgeon-General. First-cla.s.s man, every way. So I went to see him and told him we had to have the President, and why. He saw it in a minute. Knew all about the "Clarion"s" fight, too. He went to the White House and explained the whole business. The President said that a clean bill of health from the Service was good enough for him, and he"d come, sure. Here"s his letter to the Surgeon-General. It goes out for publication to-morrow. There"s a line in it speaking of the "Clarion"s"
good work."
"Great Caesar!" said Hal again, rather weakly.
"Does that square accounts between us?"