The Price

by Francis Lynde

XXIV

THE FORWARD LIGHT

During the days which followed his setting up of the standard of independence in Mrs. Holcomb's second-floor front, Griswold found himself entering upon a new world—a world corresponding with gratifying fidelity to that prefigured future which he had struck out in the waking hours of his first night on the main-deck of the Belle Julie.

Wahaska, as a fortunate field for the post-graduate course in Experimental Humanity, was all that his fancy had pictured it. It was neither so small as to scant the variety of subjects, nor so large as to preclude the possibility of grasping them in their entirety. In strict accord with the forecast, it promised to afford the writing craftsman's happy medium in surroundings: it would reproduce, in miniature, perhaps, but none the less in just proportions, the social problems of the wider world; and for a writer's seclusion the village quiet of upper Shawnee Street was all that could be desired.

When he came to go about in the town, as he did daily after the pleasant occupation of refurnishing his study and bed-room was a pleasure past, he found that in some mysterious manner his fame had preceded him. Everybody seemed to know who he was; to be able to place him as a New Yorker, as an author in search of health, or local color or environment or some other technical quality not to be found in the crowded cities; to be able to place him, also, as Miss Margery Grierson's friend and beneficiary—which last, he surmised, was his best passport to the good graces of his fellow-townsmen.

Coincidently he discovered that, in the same mysterious manner, everybody seemed to know that he was, in the Wahaskan phrase, "well-fixed." Here, again, he guessed that something might be credited to Margery. Beyond a hint to Raymer, he had told no one of the comfortable assurance against want lying snugly secure in the small strong-box in the Farmers' and Merchants' safety vault, and he was reasonably certain that Raymer could not have passed the hint so fast and so far as the town-wide limits to which the fact of the "well-fixed" phrase had spread.

All this was very nourishing, not to say stimulating, to the starved soul of a proletary. Not in any period of the past had he so fully understood that an acute appreciation of the wrongs of the race is no bar to an equally acute hungering and thirsting after the commonplace flesh-pots, or to a very primitive and soul-satisfying enjoyment of the same when they were to be had. Nevertheless, the reaction into self-indulgence proved to be only temporary. God had been good to him, enabling him to realize in miraculous fulfilment the ideal environment and opportunity: therefore he would do his part, proclaiming the holy war and fighting, single-handed if need be, the battle of the weak against the strong.

So ran the renewed determination, dusted off and re-pedestaled after many days. As to the manner of conducting the war against inequality and the crime of plutocracy, the plan of campaign had been sufficiently indicated in that white-hot moment of high resolves on the cargo-deck of the Belle Julie. For the propaganda, there was his book; for the demonstration, he would put the sacred fund into some industry where the weight of it would give him the casting vote in all questions involving the rights of the workers. It was absurdly simple, and he wondered that none of the sociological reformers whose books he had read had anticipated him in the discovery of such an obviously logical point of attack.

With the re-writing of the book fairly begun, he was already looking about for the practical opportunity when the growing friendship with Edward Raymer promised to offer an opening exactly fulfilling the experimental requirements. Raymer had over-enlarged his plant and was needing more capital. So much Griswold had gathered from the talk of the street; and some of Raymer's half-confidences had led him to suspect that the need was, or was likely to become, imperative. It was only the finer quality of friendship that had hitherto kept him from offering help before it was asked, and thus far he had contented himself with hinting to Raymer that he had money to invest. From every point of view a partnership with the young iron-founder promised to afford the golden opportunity. The industry was comparatively small and self-contained; and Raymer was himself openly committed to the cause of uplifting. Griswold waited patiently; he was still waiting on the Wednesday afternoon when Raymer called him over the telephone and made the appointment for a meeting at the house in Shawnee Street.