Port Argent: A Novel

by Arthur Colton

Aidee sat brooding and troubled in his study that afternoon. Nobody cared what Carroll said. Carroll could not hurt him. A man was not his brother's keeper any further than he could keep him. It was his business to do his best, and not cultivate an invalid conscience. Wood had been a likeable man. Whatever his qualities, he had a right to his life. Aidee had seen men drop and die in Nevada of sudden holes through the chest. If somebody from the Third Ward undertook to emphasize Carroll's paragraphs by applying a club to Alcott Aidee, it would be no business of Carroll's either, whose business was with his paragraphs, and with seeing that they said what he meant, or that he meant what he caused them to say.

But the thing tasted badly.

He would see this Hicks, and discover at what point of discipleship a man translated “Down with the devil!” into “Go shoot Wood!” and became ready to take another's life and give over his own in exchange.

He stood at the window and saw Alberta Keys enter the Tillotson door, followed by Ted Secor, later by Ralbeck and Berry. They would be sipping Mrs. Tillotson's coffee presently, and discussing the Wood murder, and giving voluble opinions. They were driftwood people. Berry's “brotherly love” was a personal luxury he indulged himself with, a billowy divan that his soul reclined on. He had both brains and education, and played dolls with his sympathies. Ralbeck cursed the “Standard Oil” by way of relaxation, his earnest business in this world being connected with thorough-bass. Mrs. Tillotson's pretence was only a little more evident. A lot of zig-zag waterflies! That poor muddy humanity which had no opinions, except they came directly out of its sins and pains, was better than these, whose opinions were their mental entertainments. And who were the bulk of those who listened to him weekly? What real men followed him now or believed in him utterly, except some poor madman like the murderer, Hicks? The masses of men in Port Argent did not care for him, Aidee. They liked Marve Wood better, and young Hennion. He knew of no one person in Port Argent who loved Alcott Aidee. The Assembly was a collection of the half-curious, the half-sincere, the half-educated, the drunken with a little philosophy; some driftwood from the churches, and a percentage of socialists from the shops, with opinions like Scotch plaids. What dedication was there in any of them?

What was there in them that was genuine, as a mother with her child is genuine, or a man at his set task and knowledge of instant need? It was one of Aidee's dark hours. The Wood murder was a jarring discord. One could not deny that.

Ah, there came times to every man, he thought, whatever his success, when he looked on his success with a dull dislike. He remembered one day in Nevada, when he had sat unnoticed hours on water-dribbled rocks on the edge of his claim—which was paying at that time—and felt the same mental nausea. Another time was at Allen's prison door in St. Louis.

Disillusion was no more rational than illusion. Sometimes the morning stars sang discordantly, and knew not why, any more than they knew why at other times their voices were effortless and sweet.

On that day of the water-dribbled rocks of Nevada, it was the loss of Allen which had caused the mood, and the thought that the loss was final, and that the yellow fleck ore in the pit paid back no minutest percentage of the loss. Then the discovery that he could speak and move men had come, and brought with it the longing to move them to certain ends, and he had thought:

“All men are brothers. But some are lost and some are seeking. One is afraid and is condemned; one is not afraid and is called righteous; but neither of them can save himself alone; he can only do it because of the other. He can't do it without the other, for salvation is not the solitary issue they say it is. Salvation is a commonwealth. This is my message.” Then he had lifted himself from the rocks and the ore pit, and had faith.

Now, if faith in his ends should fail, and the springs dry up! Faith and doubt were three-fourths irrational. Someone would be proving them bacteria. They passed from man to man—they floated in the air—one caught them from events and objects as one caught the cholera—they were apt to be epidemic.