“Now, Baldwin—I mean the fellow—well, damn it!” Holman suddenly exploded in his exasperation, “it was Baldwin! He had a bill he was trying to pass, a crooked bill, of course, one of those bills like this street-car bill I heard of to-day, to take something that by rights belonged to the people of the city, a street, or the ground under a street, or the air over a street, or the room in the middle of a street, and give it to half a dozen eminently respectable and pious citizens to use for themselves and exploit and get rich on. Baldwin was trying to pass that bill, and the session was nearly done, and he needed just one vote. And he looked around and he settled on this young friend of mine; he knew his hopes, his wants, his necessities—knew all about him, for that’s Baldwin’s business and his way. I needn’t go into the details; he worked with him a whole day and nearly a whole night; explained that it was really a good thing for the city, that this young fellow’s constits were not interested in the city, anyway, didn’t know anything about it, nor care anything about it. ‘It can’t hurt you,’ Baldwin would say. ‘Your people won’t know or care; of course, if it was something they were interested in it might be different’—and all that. And then, finally, ’way in the night, when the young fellow was worn down in will, and tired and weak and dazed anyway, Baldwin began to count the money down on the table, among the stinking whisky glasses and cigar butts, thousand-dollar bills, green as that grass there, one—two—three—like that.” McCray, with a kind of fascination, watched Holman as with slow gesture of his long hands he turned over, as it were, and laid down one after another those thousand-dollar bills. “And the young man fell,” said Holman at last. And then he was silent, his gaze fixed afar on some light across the fields.
“Well,” Holman resumed, “Baldwin was right in one way, at any rate; the people, the young fellow’s people down home, didn’t care. They never do care; they don’t take the trouble. They never knew, anyway, and they elected him again and re-elected him. And he got married and things seemed to go along all right with him; you would have said he was to be envied. But, while nothing seemed to change outside, something did change inside the young man; and the worst of it was, it was a change that he didn’t know or realize. It was like some disease, working away, working away there inside of him, without any pain or any symptoms even; he had no idea of it. But there it was, working away, working away. He found, at first, that it was easy enough to get money, and he got it and he spent it and it never did him any good, never a bit, neither him nor his family. Easy money, they call it; but there’s no such thing. All money, even easy money, is hard; you got to pay somehow, you got to pay!
“He changed by slow degrees; first he got careless and slovenly in his thoughts, and, after a while, didn’t think much anyway, and couldn’t; he just talked and talked and talked and made loud speeches—became a windbag, a blatherskite, a bore and a nuisance in the land, to himself and everybody. There’s a lot of them in this land; all they need to make a speech is room enough to work their jaws in. His old wishes and longings to be of some use in the world died out of him; he had no aims, no mark to head for, no place to go. He became ineffectual; after while all there was to him was that one vote of his in the house, and by and by that wasn’t worth much; it kept declining in value, he got cheaper and cheaper, and finally—just naturally petered out.
“Then, when he was slouchy in morals and mind and character, he got slouchy in person; his habits weren’t bad, perhaps; he was no drunkard or anything like that, but just—oh, sloppy, every way. And his wife, his little wife—she was a fine, pretty girl, McCray, when he married her—she, of course, had to pay, too, along with him; he dragged her down. She was patient and kind and always hopeful, but they were poor, and under the stress of their necessities he would get peevish and cross, and sometimes when, say, a Saturday night would come and there wasn’t anything in the house to eat—well, he’d look at the children and get mad—mad at himself, primarily, though he didn’t say so or admit it even to himself—and he’d take it out in nasty, mean ways with her and the children. Finally, she gave up; she didn’t know why, she never knew what had happened, or, if she did, she never even hinted it—and the whole family was just going down to hell and the devil. There wasn’t any outward tragedy to make it striking or dramatic or even interesting.
“And then, after everybody half knew or half guessed, and had ceased to respect him, he came back here to Springfield once, as we all do, and happened to see Baldwin, and found him the same, scarcely a day older, though he himself was gray and withered. It hadn’t hurt Baldwin; he was well-dressed, respectable, popular, received everywhere—clubs, society, church and all, just as the men were whose dirty money Baldwin handled. And Baldwin’s wife, she wasn’t old and sad and hopeless; she was going out in society, president of a big woman’s club, talked about safe little reforms, charities and philanthropies. And Baldwin’s daughters were over in Europe getting the last finish on their education.”
Holman had a feeling that McCray was no longer listening and, glancing aside, saw that McCray’s face was buried in his hands. And with pity in his long, gray face he looked at him a little while, then laid a hand on McCray’s shoulder.
“Do you know,” he said, “why I told you this story? You see, I didn’t want to make you feel bad; I only wanted to show you. Because there’s a lot in you—a big, beautiful future.”
“Oh, don’t say that,” cried McCray. “All but that last—all but that last.”
“Why not that?”
“Because it’s too late. Oh, Holman, it’s too late—too late! If it were only yesterday! But now—it’s too late!”