458That night, long after the midnight which ended the day’s triumph, Grant and the Doctor were sitting on a baggage truck at a way station waiting for a belated train. Grant was in the full current of his passion. Personal triumph meant little to him–the cause everything. His heart was afire with a lust to win. The Doctor kept looking at Grant with curious eyes–appraising eyes, indeed–from time to time as the younger man’s interminable stream of talk of the Cause flowed on. But the Doctor had his passion also. When it burst its bonds, he was saying: “Look here, you crazy man–take a reef in your canvas picture of jocund day upon the misty mountain tops–get down to grass roots.” Grant turned an exalted face upon the Doctor in astonishment. The Doctor went on:
“Grant, I can give the concert all right–but, young man, you are selling the soap. That’s a great argument you have been making this week, Grant.”
“There wasn’t much to my argument, Doctor,” answered Grant, absently, “though it was a righteous cause. All I did was to make an appeal to the pocketbooks of Market Street all over the State, showing the merchants and farmers that the more the laboring man receives the more he will spend, and if he is paid for his accidents he will buy more prunes and calico; whereas, if he is not paid he will burden the taxes as a pauper. Tom couldn’t overcome that argument, but in the long run, our cause will not be won permanently and definitely by the bread and butter and taxes argument, except as that sort of argument proves the justice of our cause and arouses love in the hearts of you middle-class people.”
But Dr. Nesbit persisted with his figure. “Grant,” he piped, “you certainly can sell soap. Why don’t you sell some soap on your own hook? Why don’t you let me run you for something–Congress–governor, or something? We can win hands down.”
Grant did not wait for the Doctor to finish, but cried in violent protest: “No, no, no–Doctor–no, I must not do that. I tell you, man, I must travel light and alone. I must go into life as naked as St. Francis. The world is stirring as with a great spirit of change. The last night 459I was at home, up stepped a little Belgian glassblower to me. I’d never seen him before. I said, ‘Hello, comrade!’ He grasped my hands with both hands and cried ‘Comrade! So you know the password. It has given me welcome and warmth and food in France, in England, in Australia, and now here. Everywhere the workers are comrades!’ Everywhere the workers are comrades. Do you know what that means, Doctor?”
The Doctor did not answer. His seventy years, and his habit of thinking in terms of votes and parties and factions, made him sigh.
“Doctor,” cried Grant, “electing men to office won’t help. But this law we are fighting for–this law will help. Doctor, I’m pinning the faith of a decade of struggle on this law.”
The Doctor broke the silence that followed Grant’s declaration, to say: “Grant, I don’t see it your way. I feel that life must crystallize its progress in institutions–political institutions, before progress is safe. But you must work out your own life, my boy. Incidentally,” he piped, “I believe you are wrong. But after this campaign is over, I’m going up to the capital for one last fling at making a United States Senator. I’ve only a dozen little white chips in the great game, five in the upper house and seven in the lower house. But we may deadlock it, and if we do,–you’ll see thirty years drop off my head and witness the rejuvenation of Old Linen Pants.”
Grant began walking the platform again under the stars like an impatient ghost. The Doctor rose and followed him.
“Grant, now let me tell you something. I am half inclined at times to think it’s all moonshine–this labor law we’re working to establish. But Laura wants it, and God knows, Grant, she has little enough in her life down there in the Valley. And if this law makes her happy–it’s the least I can do for her. She hasn’t had what she should have had out of life, so I’m trying to make her second choice worth while. That’s why I’m on the soap wagon with you!” He would have laughed away this serious mood, but he could not.