In the Heart of a Fool

by William Allen White

Amos did not reply, but the big voice of Grant spoke very softly: “Uncle Dan, Morty’s got tuberculosis–you know 534that. Tuberculosis has made you twenty per cent. interest for twenty years–those hothouses for consumption of yours in the Valley. But it’s cost the poor scores and scores of lives. Morty has it.” Grant’s voice rose solemnly. “Vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord, I will repay. You’ve got your interest, and the Lord has taken his toll.”

The old man showed his colorless gums as he opened a raging mouth.

“You–you–eh, you blasphemer!” He shook as with a chill and screamed, “But we’ve got you now–we’ll fix you!”

The car for Harvey came, and the Adamses climbed in.

Amos Adams, sitting on the hard seat of the street car looking into the moonlight, considered seriously his brother-in-law, and his low estate. That he had to be helped into his limousine, that he had to be wrapped up like a baby, that his head was palsied and his hands fluttering, seemed strange and rather inexplicable to Amos. He counted Daniel a young man, four years his junior, barely seventy-nine; a man who should be in his prime. Amos did not realize that his legs had been kept supple by climbing on and off a high printer’s stool hourly for fifty years, and that his body had buffeted the winds of the world unprotected all those years and had kept fit. But Daniel Sands’s sad case seemed pathetic to the elder Adams and he cut into some rising stream of conversation from Grant and the Bowmans inadvertently with: “Poor Daniel–Morty doomed, and Daniel himself looking like the breaking up of a hard winter–poor Daniel! He doesn’t seem to have got the hang of things in this world; he can’t seem to get on some way. I’m sorry for Daniel, Grant; he might have made quite a man if he’d not been fooled by money.”

Clearly Amos was meditating aloud; no one replied and the talk flowed on. But the old man looked into the moonlight and dreamed dreams.

The next day was Grant’s day at his carpenter’s bench, and when he came to his office with his kit in his hands at five o’clock in the afternoon, he found Violet Hogan waiting with the letters he was to sign, and with the mail opened and sorted. As he was signing his letters Violet gave him the news of the day:

535“Dick Bowman ran in at noon and asked me to see if I could get Dr. Nesbit and George Brotherton and Henry Fenn down here this evening to talk over his investment of little Ben’s money. The check will come to-morrow.” Grant looked up from his desk, but before he could ask a question Violet answered: “They’ll be down at eight. The Doctor is that proud! And Mr. Brotherton is cutting lodge–the Shriners, themselves–to come down.”

It was a grave and solemn council that sat by Grant Adams’s desk that evening discussing the disposal of little Ben’s five thousand. Excepting Mr. Brotherton, no one there had ever handled that much money at one time. For though the Doctor was a man of affairs the money he handled in politics came easy and went easy, and the money he earned Mrs. Nesbit always had invested for him. So he and Lida Bowman sat rather apart while Dick and Brotherton considered the safety of bonds and mortgages and time deposits and other staple methods of investing the vast sum which was about to be paid to them for Ben’s accident. They also considered plans for his education–whether he should learn telegraphy or should cultivate his voice, or go to college or what not. In this part of the council the Doctor took a hand. But Lida Bowman kept her wonted silence. The money could not take the bitterness from her loss; though it did relieve her despair. While they talked, as a mere incident of the conversation, some one spoke of having seen Joe Calvin come down to the Wahoo Fuel Company’s offices that day in his automobile. Doctor Nesbit recalled having seen Calvin conferring with Tom Van Dorn and Daniel Sands in Van Dorn’s office that afternoon. Then Dick Bowman craning his neck asked for the third time when Henry Fenn would show up; and for the third time it was explained that Henry had taken the Hogan children to the High School building in Harvey to behold the spectacle of Janice Hogan graduating from the eighth grade into the High School. Then Dick explained:

“Well, I just thought Henry would know about this paper I got to-day from the constable. It’s a legal document, and probably has something to do with getting Benny’s money or something. I couldn’t make it out so I thought I’d just let 536Henry figure on it and tell me what to do.” And when a few minutes later Fenn came in, with a sense of duty to the Hogans well done, Dick handed Fenn the paper and asked with all the assurance of a man who expects the reassurance of an affirmative answer: