He stopped and although not a trained orator, the pause could have been no more effective. Dick looked around him. The faces of those nearest were grave and unmoved, as if carved from the mother rock of the country in which they delved; but he saw a light in their frowning eyes that told how deeply their sympathies were stirred.
“I didn’t get up here to talk to you so much about them, however,” the doctor went on, quietly, “as I did to remind you that out of thirty-three of these men there were twenty-six who left widows, or widows and children behind them. The boys over there did all they could. There were a hundred and fifty men who tried to save them. They are now working merely to get their bodies. We couldn’t be there to help in that; so we do what we can here. And that doing shall consist in helping out those women and children. There’s a box down here in front of me. I wish you’d put what you can on it.”
Bill, staring over the heads of those around him, saw a movement among those nearest the orator’s stand, and into the ring of light stepped The Lily. Apparently she was speaking to the 143 doctor, who leaned down to listen. He straightened up and called for silence.
“Mrs. Meredith,” he said, “says that any man here who has no money with him can sign what he wants to give on a piece of paper, and that she will accept it as she would a pay-check and forward the cash. Then on pay-day the man can come and redeem his paper pledge.”
There was a low murmur of approval swept round over the crowd which began to move forward with slow regularity. The doctor dropped down from his rostrum as if his task were done. The torches lowered as their bearers followed him and planted them beside the box on which coins, big round silver dollars and yellow gold-pieces, were falling, with here and there a scrap of paper. No one stood guard over that collection. The crowd was thinning out. Dick turned toward his friend and looked up at him to meet eyes as troubled as his own. Each understood the other.
“I wish I had some money of my own,” the younger man exclaimed; “but I haven’t a dollar that actually belongs to me. I am going to borrow a little from Sloan.”
“I can’t do that much,” was the sorrowful reply. “And there ain’t nothin’ I’d rather do 144 in the world than walk up there and drop a couple of hundred on that pile. I’m––I’m––”
His manner indicated that he was about to relapse into stronger terms. He suddenly whirled. A hand had been laid on his sleeve and a low, steady voice said, “Excuse me, I heard you talking and I understand. I know what you feel. I want you to permit me.”
It was Mrs. Meredith who had walked around behind them unobserved and now held out her hand. They fell back, embarrassed. She appeared to fathom their position.
“I know,” she said. “I wasn’t eavesdropping. I saw you here. I wanted to talk to you both and so, well, I overheard. Take this, won’t you? Please permit me.”