In the Heart of a Fool

by William Allen White

The slag was hard and needed blasting. Hogan looked up, said “What?” and before the dump boss could speak again Hogan had started down and around the dump to the powder house, near the saloon. He went into the powder house, and then came out, carrying a heavy box. At the sidewalk edge, Hogan, who was yawning, stumbled–they saw him stumble, two men standing in the door of the Hot Dog saloon a block away, and they told the people at the inquest that that was the last they saw. A great explosion followed. The men about the dump huddled for a long minute under freight cars, then crawled out, and the dump boss called the roll; Hogan was missing. In an hour they came and took Mrs. Hogan to the undertaker’s room near the smelter–where so many women had stood beside death in its most awful forms. She had her baby in her arms, with another plucking at her skirts and she stood mutely beside the coffin that they would not open. For she knew what other women knew about the smelter, knew that when they will not open the coffin, it must not be opened. So the little procession rode to the Hogan home, where Laura Van Dorn was waiting. Perhaps it was because she could not see the face of the dead that it seemed unreal to the widow. But she did not moan nor cry–after the first scream that came when she knew the worst. Stolidly she went through her tasks until after the funeral.

Then she called Laura into the kitchen and said, as she pressed out her black satin and tried to hide the threadbare seams that had been showing for years: “Mrs. Van Dorn, I’m going to do something you won’t like.” To Laura’s questioning eyes Violet answered: “I know your ma, or some one else has told you all about me–but,” she shut her mouth tightly and said slowly:

“But no matter what they say–I’m going to the Judge; 359he’s got to make the railroad company pay and pay well. It’s all I’ve got on earth–for the children. We have three dollars in my pocketbook and will have to wait until the fifteenth before I get his last month’s wages, and I know they’ll dock him up to the very minute of the day–that day! I wouldn’t do it for anything else on earth, Mrs. Van Dorn–wild horses couldn’t drag me there–but I’m going to the Judge–for the children. He can help.”

So, putting on her bedraggled black picture hat with the red ripped off, Violet Hogan mounted the courthouse steps and went to the office of the Judge. A sorry, broken, haggard figure she cut there in the Judge’s office. She would have told him her story–but he interrupted: “Yes, Violet–I read it in the Times. But what can I do–you know I’m not allowed to take a case and, besides, he was working for the railroad, and you know, Violet, he assumed the risk. What do they offer you?”

“Judge–for God’s sake don’t talk that way to me. That’s the way you used to talk to those miners’ wives–ugh!” she cried. “I remember it all–that assumed risk. Only this–he was working ten hours a day on a job that wouldn’t let him sleep, and he oughtn’t to be working but eight hours, if they hadn’t sneaked under the law. They’ve offered me five hundred, Judge–five hundred–for a man, five hundred for our three children–and me. You can make them do better–oh, I know you can. Oh, please for the sake–oh!”

She looked at him with her battered face, and as her mouth quivered, she tried to hide her broken teeth. He saw she was about to give way to tears. He dreaded a scene. He looked at her impatiently and finally gripping himself after a decision, he said:

“Now, Violet, take a brace. Five hundred is what they always give in these cases.” He smiled suavely at her and she noticed for the first time that his lip was bare and started at the cruel mouth that leered at her.

“But,” he added expansively, “for old sake’s sake–I’m going to do something for you.” He rose and stood over her. “Now, Violet,” he said, strutting the diagonal of his room, and smiling blandly at her, “we both know why I shouldn’t 360give you my personal check–nor why you shouldn’t have any cash that you cannot account for. But the superintendent of the smelter, who is also the general manager of the railroad, is under some obligations to me, and I’ll give you this note to him.” He sat down and wrote:

“For good reasons I desire one hundred dollars added to your check to the widow of Dennis Hogan who presents this, and to have the same charged to my personal account on your books.”

He signed his name with a flourish, and after reading the note handed it to the woman.