/
 
 IRON CITY
 
 IRON CITY 
 
 BY 
 
 M. H. HEDGES 
 
 BONI AND LIVERIGHT 
 NEW YORK 1919
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1919, 
 
 BONI & LlVERIGHT, INC. 
 
 Printed in the U.S.A.
 
 TO 
 RANDOLPH BOURNE
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 PROLOGUE n 
 
 I. AN AMERICAN CITY 15 
 
 II. JOHN COSMUS, STUDENT OF SOCIETY ... 23 
 
 III. SARAH 35 
 
 IV. MARGARET 50 
 
 V. CRANDON HILL COLLEGE FACULTY ... 64 
 
 VI. AN AMERICAN INDUSTRY 70 
 
 VII. THE SILL FAMILY 78 
 
 VIII. THE OUTCAST 90 
 
 IX. ON THE WORLD HORIZON 96 
 
 X. INFLAMMABLE YOUTH 107 
 
 XI. RAYMOND AND MARGARET 119 
 
 XII. SUBSTANTIAL CITIZENS 128 
 
 XIII. FAMILY COUNCILS 143 
 
 XIV. MISUNDERSTANDINGS 152 
 
 XV. A CONFERENCE OF RACES 163 
 
 XVI. THE WEDDING 174 
 
 XVII. THE ANARCH 185 
 
 XVIII. PROFESSOR EZRA KIMBARK 195 
 
 XIX. MARGARET S FATHER 207 
 
 XX. IRON CITY S CITIZENS ALLIANCE . . . 218 
 
 XXI. THE STRIKE 226 
 
 XXII. PASSION S WAKE 240 
 
 XXIII. A LETTER FROM FRANCE 253 
 
 XXIV. THE GENTEEL TRADITION 263 
 
 XXV. THE HAUNTED WOOD 275 
 
 XXVI. BONDS OF CLASS 288 
 
 XXVII. Two FUNERALS 297 
 
 XXVIII. UNDERSTANDINGS 302 
 
 XXIX. INTO WHOSE HAND 312 
 
 vii
 
 PREFACE 
 
 I have endeavored to depict the unspiritual side of 
 American life in the hope that when the details of the 
 picture are assembled we shall see how far we have 
 departed from our great tradition, and how at vari 
 ance we are to our unconscious life. 
 
 The characters in this novel are composite portraits 
 drawn from many diverse sources and should be read 
 in that light only.
 
 IRON CITY 
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 T ATE afternoon of a summer s day in a midwest- 
 * ern state. A young man, not over-tall, but 
 muscular, trudged along a telephone line that swept 
 triumphantly in stately strides down the dusty road 
 as far as he could see. The young man was weary; 
 his feet dragged. He lifted himself heavily up his 
 next post, and when he had crawled through the ten 
 tiers of wires and perched himself upon the last cross. 
 piece at a height of forty feet, he sighed and fell into 
 a position of relaxation. 
 
 The country swooned into the arms of the harvest. 
 As far as he could see there were fields of grain, gold 
 beneath the sun, peaceful, rich; and waving corn mel 
 lowing into fruitage. Into the distance, the fields 
 stretched in the drowsy afternoon sun, a picture of 
 bursting wealth; heavily uddered cows browsed be 
 neath the trees; he caught the hum of insects from 
 clover at the roadside; chickens cackled; hogs grunted 
 from the farmyard a stone s throw beyond., He was 
 lazily conscious of the white house behind the fruited 
 orchard, the ample barn, the windmill, the engine 
 shed, the dairy house near the spring. He saw beyond, 
 too, a neat school house, set well back from the road 
 near a brook. The sight of all this wealth and corn- 
 it
 
 12 PROLOGUE 
 
 fort was very familiar to him and very common 
 place. 
 
 But as he paused, resting, the imagination aroused 
 by the play of sunlight on all that rural beauty 
 lifted fields, cattle, houses into the high light of 
 understanding. He revived, his nostrils were taut 
 with deep breaths, he stretched out his arms in a 
 gesture of rapturous submission. For a moment 
 road, fields, barnyard, house, school building burst 
 upon his mind in a flood of understanding, as Amer 
 ica, his country. 
 
 Then incisively there cut across his revery the mem 
 ory of the camp of shacks he had left four hours 
 before at noon. The odor of long-used, unwashed 
 clothes, of garbage, of human waste, of tobacco, smote 
 him shudderingly, even in recollection. He remem 
 bered with a touch of aversion the row of thin, low 
 wooden buildings, roofed with tar paper. The black- 
 eyed passionate dagos, moody and suspicious, curs 
 ing, fighting, drinking, singing, lazy and repellent, 
 handsome and potential ; these seemed to intrude upon 
 the countryside with a note at once awesome and 
 discordant. 
 
 Who had brought them here? 
 
 The eyes of the young man followed the River of 
 Wires as they traveled over the striding poles to the 
 horizon s rim. Down the road to the edge of Dyer s 
 place, and beyond they went; when the road turned, 
 they turned; where the road crossed the river labori 
 ously by bridge, they leaped ; where the road mounted 
 the hill, they climbed. On, on over the fields, river, 
 through woods, to glittering cities, on, on, on. 
 
 He did not have it in his heart to condemn the 
 energy that had brought the Italians here to build the
 
 PROLOGUE 13 
 
 line. What would the country be to him without the 
 River of Wires? How it glistened in the sunshine! 
 How it sang in the breeze! How it went on inter 
 minably! It goldened, as nothing else goldened, the 
 commonplace countryside. It reached out its visible 
 voice to all the beautiful capitals of the world, to 
 Chicago, San Francisco, New York, Moscow, London, 
 Paris, Rome, Bombay the cities, the regal proud 
 cities. The young man, though tired, never seemed 
 alone when he worked along the great River of Wires. 
 He went with it in his mind across field and stream. 
 He pictured great avenues of the cities! He visioned 
 the palaces ! He mingled with the crowds ! He sank 
 himself in a great work there! He found minds like 
 his own, keen, hungering, visioning. 
 
 "God!" he said audibly. "The world comes to me 
 on those wires !" Suddenly he had an idea. He ran 
 quickly down the pole to his kit of tools below. He 
 selected a line-telephone, such as linesmen use in tap 
 ping wires. His nimble fingers soon had it adjusted 
 at the top of the pole to the continental wire. He 
 would listen to the world talk. First he heard a 
 strange buzzing, then, very clearly, the voices of two 
 men conversing. 
 
 "This is Collins in New York," one was saying. 
 
 "Hello, Collins," the other voice answered. "I am 
 at the Auditorium in Chicago. Did you get my man ?" 
 
 "No, I didn t," the first voice came again. "I don t 
 know of a man in the world just now who can fill 
 that job. Twenty-five thousand dollar brains are 
 scarce, you know." 
 
 A light came suddenly into the young man s face. 
 He disconnected the apparatus, and sat thoughtfully 
 for many minutes looking out over the fields ; then he
 
 14 PROLOGUE 
 
 climbed down the pole and picked up his tools. He 
 untied no more wires that day, nor thereafter. He 
 went back to the ill-smelling camp, past the dago 
 shacks, past their occupants, his comrades, to the 
 foreman s office. 
 
 "I want my time," he said simply. 
 
 "Why, John Cosmus, I hate to lose you," exclaimed 
 the bluff boss. "What are you going to do?" 
 
 "I am going to college, and become a twenty-five 
 thousand dollar brain." 
 
 The foreman did not laugh. "Johnny, my boy," 
 he said, "you ve got the right idea." 
 
 He paid the young man, and watched him go slow 
 ly up the hill toward the town. 
 
 He shook his head. "I lost my best climber there," 
 he said softly. 
 
 But Cosmus went on singing. At the top of the 
 hill he paused and looked back. He saw the blue 
 smoke curling from the shacks; he saw the swoon 
 ing fields, and beyond the River of Wires, shining 
 on, on to the proud cities, and further through his 
 dreams.
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 "1"X7"HEN Jones & Jones, merchants of Iron City, 
 * hung out their flag on the Fourth of July, the 
 event was of civic magnitude. The city editor of the 
 Republic-Despatch gave one column front to the hap 
 pening, for Jones & Jones had been in business in the 
 same building for forty-two years, and every year 
 had hung out at precisely the same hour the same 
 identical flag. Moreover, it had been recorded that 
 with Jones & Jones was an eminent clerk, who had 
 served the firm for thirty-two years at a salary of 
 $75 a month, who owned a Ford automobile, and still 
 had forebears in New England. Iron City boasted at 
 least one eminent maid ; she lived with the respectable 
 Taylor family and was a heavy tax-payer, for she 
 owned three houses and lots. And among the other 
 notables there was also Thomas J. Cruisenbarry, emi 
 nent sexton of the First Congregational Church. He 
 was the third generation of Cruisenbarry to have cus 
 tody of the city cemetery. His father before him had 
 served the city thirty years, and at his death had 
 received formal tribute from the city council for his 
 services, as had his father, in turn, before him. Cruis 
 enbarry III, in acknowledgment of the family s high 
 services, received one hundred dollars a month, an 
 increase of twenty-five dollars over the salary of his 
 father. No other facts reveal so clearly the stiffness 
 and inertia that imperceptibly was beginning to creep 
 
 15
 
 16 IRON CITY 
 
 numbingly over the foundation stratum of this pro 
 gressive American city. 
 
 Outwardly Iron City gave no evidence of the stiff 
 ness of its joints. To the sallow eye of the British 
 traveler, who once had stopped in the city and had 
 telegraphed back to his London journal, Iron City was 
 "new and uncouth." It had its "loop" district, built 
 in the form of crossed S s, in which were congested 
 all the shops, banks, hotels, hospitals and offices for a 
 city of thirty thousand. Bass River, cutting trans 
 versely the business section, freshened this quarter and 
 furnished water power for numerous mills. Nothing 
 was done to beautify the stream ; facing the banks were 
 back stoops and unsightly factories. The city park, 
 containing a statue of the donor, was up town, not 
 along the river. The residences lay further to west 
 and east, on the high bluffs and flats beyond. True, 
 along the Front road a few mansions had arisen and 
 the country club with golf links spread its august 
 length across one of these wooded knolls. Of course, 
 these residence districts were more pretentious than 
 the shops down town. These were small, and still did 
 business, as Jones & Jones did, on a personal basis. 
 Strictly speaking, there were few firms, no corpo 
 rations. It was Jones s store, or Dailey s store. Most 
 of the upper circle of Iron City had charge accounts 
 at Marshall Field s and at Carson s, some hundreds of 
 miles distant, and many of the middle class shopped 
 from large, fat catalogues of mail order houses. But 
 the local shops did not suffer. The upper circle was 
 small, and proprietors knew well how to cater to the 
 trade of the workers. They resented far more the 
 competition of Woolworth s Ten Cent Store, which 
 had set up its flaming front some ten years before.
 
 IRON CITY 17 
 
 In spite of these competitors, the shops were thriv 
 ing as the banks testified. There were four banks in 
 Iron City, all bulging at the sides. And if one were 
 looking for a metaphor to describe this American 
 town he could find none more accurate than the hack 
 neyed "bee-hive." 
 
 Iron City was a hive. The owners of the shops 
 were not at all aware of the city s importance. But 
 the seven millionaires, who sat well back in the shadow 
 of community affairs, or who perceived its life through 
 beveled glass of private office or limousine, knew that 
 Iron City was on the map. 
 
 These seven millionaires were not all Iron City 
 "boys," but most of them were, and they were proud 
 that seven nationally advertised industries had their 
 home offices in Iron City, and that four continental 
 railroads were kept busy carrying Iron City products 
 to Bombay and Damascus, as well as to Oklahoma 
 City and Portland, Maine. These captains of industry 
 were self-made; and to the inhabitants they were still 
 Tom and Joe. But though they did not live wholly 
 apart, they evinced little real desire to mingle closely 
 with Iron City life. They contributed money to the 
 new Y.M.C.A. building, and spent their winters with 
 their business. Iron City remained a middle class 
 town although no inhabitant would listen to its being 
 called middle-class. There were no poor, no slums. 
 There was no vice, no legalized home of prostitution 
 in all Iron City, though the curse of Babylon stalked 
 the streets. After all, its sin was not so much the sin 
 of ancient Nineveh or Tyre as the sin of Sybaris, 
 the sin of being too comfortable and too content. 
 
 R. Sill and Son owned the largest manufactory, a 
 plant worth five million, which employed five thousand
 
 i8 IRON CITY 
 
 men, mostly of alien birth, "foreigners." This was a 
 manufactory of engines ; and it lay sprawling out close 
 to the "swell" residence district along the river to the 
 north. Automobiles, paper, shoes, machinery and 
 clothing were the other premier products of the City. 
 It was these manufacturing concerns that were fast 
 giving the town the aspect of a metropolis, were feed 
 ing it and clothing it, erecting its public buildings 
 and churches and schools, uniting it with the great out 
 side world beyond the turn of the northern railroads; 
 but it was these same factories that were giving Iron 
 City its one problem, turning its sabbatical peace into 
 clamor, and reforming, with the thrust of a giant, the 
 entire social fabric of its life. 
 
 Factories to have existence must have workers, and 
 workers could not come from among the ranks of 
 Iron City s native population. And so industries be 
 gan to import workers; and the workers had to live, 
 and finally they began to trickle through the inter 
 stices of the older population. A series of importa 
 tions during a period of thirty years had brought 
 over thirty alien races to Iron City. Twenty-two 
 worked in the factory of R. Sill and Son alone. They 
 came of necessity, imperceptibly dogged, grave, gay, 
 licentious, potential, dreamy, dirty, diligent, lazy, pa 
 triotic and they stayed. And when the glacier of im 
 migration passed, one could find the story of their 
 coming in the strata of Iron City society. 
 
 One can see the symbol of that society in an in 
 verted cone. At the apex, the foundation stratum, 
 represented by merchants like Jones & Jones, and 
 eminent clerks and sextons, was the thinnest and
 
 IRON CITY 19 
 
 shortest; it was composed directly and purely of New 
 England stock. One evidence of its Puritan gen 
 esis was the three well established Congregational 
 Churches in the city, and the fact that the millionaires 
 belonged to the First Congregational, and not to St. 
 Luke s. This Puritan stock supplied all the preach 
 ers, teachers and most of the big professional men of 
 the community. It had built Crandon Hill College. 
 It was the Brahmin caste, the upper circle, ringed 
 round by thirty alien peoples. It saw its light 
 gradually darkened. The Blue Laws were broken. 
 Baseball and moving-drama became acceptable on Sun 
 days. Through various avenues new standards of 
 continental living began to shape its youth. 
 
 The president of the National Bank recorded the 
 change in standards in a letter to the Republic-Des 
 patch. 
 
 Mr. Editor: 
 
 The writer attended the "Follies" given in the as 
 sembly room of the High School last evening. While 
 Longfellow, Emerson, Bryant and Holmes looked on (and 
 perhaps heard) from their picture frames on the wall, 
 a very nice little girl was allowed to sing a song about 
 how her beau was all right, except that he didn t know 
 how to kiss. There were some other songs about love 
 and girls and kisses. There was no semblance of genu 
 ine talent or refinement in the program. 
 
 Puritanism is dying in Iron City, just as everywhere, 
 but I had not looked to see the schools push it so soon 
 into its grave. It is gone with the coming of "refined 
 ragtime," and moving drama, and automobiles. 
 
 And so, Mr. Editor, the new order comes to Iron 
 City. 
 
 OBSERVER.
 
 20 IRON CITY 
 
 Perhaps the President of the National Bank was 
 not honest enough, or perhaps he did not see that 
 the same industries that filled his vaults with treasure 
 had brought the alien and the new order to his native 
 city. And so the Puritans saw their influence wan 
 ing; the story was out of their hands. R. Sill, if he 
 saw, could not turn back; the wheels of industry had to 
 be kept going. 
 
 Superimposed upon this ground of New England- 
 ers, were the more ancient incomers, the Welsh, Eng 
 lish, French, German and Irish. They, except for a 
 greater moral liberalism and a sterner political con 
 servatism, were as much Americans as the older in 
 habitants. They worked in linen mills. The French 
 and Irish supported the three Catholic churches; the 
 English and Welsh went to St. Luke s, the Germans 
 to the two Lutheran churches. All these churches re 
 sented the most recent comer the white, substantial 
 Christian Science church. The children of these races 
 of the second stratum were to all appearances thor 
 oughly and utterly assimilated. Superimposed upon 
 this layer of alien life, were the Scandinavian, Swiss 
 and Scotch, to all appearances Americanized ; on them 
 a tier of Italians, large, dynamic, floating, but ever 
 present, though isolated from active participation in 
 the affairs of the city. True, a small church had been 
 built for them recently, the first mark of their per 
 manency. On these strata were superimposed, Greeks, 
 Lithuanians, Austrians and Slavs, scarcely English 
 speaking, and wholly foreign. The final tier of the 
 cone placed there by an exquisite stroke of irony was 
 the recent horde of American negroes. 
 
 The Puritans had built Crandon Hill College. It 
 should have been the chief agency for the integration
 
 IRON CITY 21 
 
 of the whole conglomerate. It was over a hundred 
 years old, rich, dignified and proud. Among its grad 
 uates were great editors, bishops and missionaries, au 
 thors, senators, congressmen, and governors, poets 
 and hymn writers, teachers and thinkers. Its faculty 
 had a national reputation. The trustees were million 
 aires, brokers and insurance magnates, in the neigh 
 boring metropolis. By their stewardship in Iron City 
 itself, it was connected with such well-known men as 
 P. O. Smithkins, president of the Utility Company, 
 and Senator Matt Tyler. It was the fine flower of 
 American civilization of a generation back. Its stu 
 dents came from the "good" homes of the city and 
 immediate vicinity. Perched on a hill overlooking 
 the river near Guy Street, the thoroughfare of "hun- 
 yocks," not far from the factory of R. Sill and Son, 
 it drew its skirts about itself and shrank from all the 
 sordid life of factory and immigrant. 
 
 But with all its Phariseeism, it was the great heart 
 of the city, lying still ; and it must receive most of our 
 attention in this little epic of an American common 
 wealth. 
 
 Iron City was traditionally though restrainedly 
 proud of its college. To tell the truth Iron City was 
 proud of all its institutions. It extolled its Carne 
 gie library, churches, public schools, Masonic Temple, 
 K. of P. Hall, banks, Modern Woodmen, National 
 Guard, saloons, of which there were fifty, street car 
 system, natural site, its city poet, who though forty 
 had never voted, its baseball teams, etc. It said noth 
 ing about its trade unions, its industrial fermentation, 
 its intellectual poverty, artistic barrenness, and re 
 ligious sterility. 
 
 Iron City was too busy and too comfortable to face
 
 22 IRON CITY 
 
 problems. It preferred to drift. It visibly had a des 
 tiny ; it somehow would be carried through. To men 
 tion problems was to "knock" and knocking was the 
 cardinal sin in Iron City. The Commercial Club, at 
 one time seriously alarmed, started secret propaganda 
 against any critics bold enough to find fault with Iron 
 City. "Boost, boost, boost; publicity, advertise" 
 these made up the creed of this American common 
 wealth. What if the aliens were not taken care of; 
 what if there were heavy murmurs out of the depths 
 of Sill s mill? Sill who was known to have spent 
 $30,000 to defeat the passage of the Workman s Com 
 pensation bill. What if gas was $1.30 per unit I 
 What if the city was unintegrated ? What if art was 
 a bastard among these people? What? What? 
 
 What? 
 
 If one were to figure in stone an image of the 
 commonwealth of Iron City, one could do no better 
 than to carve a youth in his first long trousers, neither 
 boy nor man. One would need to make this figure loll 
 back in a speeding machine, his face set with strength 
 not light, his hands strong, prehensile like a man s, 
 his eyes clear, filled with no dream, his destination 
 yet unknown.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 JOHN COSMUS, when he arrived in Iron City one 
 September morning in 1913 to take up his duties 
 as instructor in Sociology at Crandon Hill College, 
 could not by any chance have been taken for a person 
 ification of the city itself. He was young enough to 
 be sure, immature, if you will, but he was not lacking 
 in poise; he had also a quality, spiritual, not fully de 
 veloped perhaps but more than suggested by his firmly 
 knit figure, clean gray eyes, and thoughtful face. 
 Plainly he did not belong to the breathless nervousness 
 of Iron City ; he was not below nor above, but beyond 
 it. Without in the least degree suggesting the aca- 
 demian, he was in a homely way self-possessed and 
 distinguished ; he was distinct in outline, he was him 
 self. Seven years of arduous self-conquest had burned 
 out, even in one so young as he, the dross of insin 
 cerity. 
 
 But like all those who are direct, Cosmus saved 
 himself from priggishness by not knowing what he 
 was. As he stepped off the express from Chicago he 
 sighed with relief when he discovered few students 
 on the station platform. He was self-conscious. Hr.re 
 and there were groups of young men and won^n 
 laughing and gesticulating, assuming the boisterc ^S 
 prerogatives of the college student. John thou i- v t 
 that the young men were better dressed than himseU. 
 He glanced nervously at his somewht worn suit a : J 
 recalled a little bitterly the fact that manners a ^ 
 
 23
 
 24 IRON CITY 
 
 acquired before one is fifteen, and that the school of 
 experience, even when topped off with Harvard, does 
 not teach one how to wear clothes. He stood 
 awkwardly for a minute, lost in the unreality of all 
 those last seven years, his college course, his gradu 
 ate work, his first bitter experience in the far West 
 teaching, and now Iron City, "new and uncouth," but 
 impressive. He glanced regretfully at the rapidly 
 disappearing train and saw beyond the telegraph wires, 
 beckoning amicably. 
 
 A cab driver tried to take his bag; Cosmus objected, 
 saying that he was looking for Samuel Curtis. The 
 ancient cabman obligingly pointed him out and sim 
 ultaneously Curtis saw Cosmus. They looked at each 
 other, Curtis fleetingly, turning his shifty black eyes, 
 away at once, Cosmus searchingly as was his wont. 
 Cosmus wanted to cry out, "How sad you are !" He 
 had the habit, feminine he laughingly characterized it, 
 of seeing people in terms of vivid exclamation. And 
 sad Samuel Curtis was; that was the sum total of 
 him. His gray suit, old but well kept, his stiff shirt 
 with its high round collar, such as clergymen wear, 
 with its four-in-hand, half unclasped, could have no 
 affiliation with anything but a day that was dead and 
 gone and sad. His fine face, with its high brow, was 
 grown prematurely grave; the deep, black eyes under 
 their bushy brows, furtively searched one s face and, 
 instantly disappointed, searched elsewhere; his fea 
 tures suggested a thwarted personality; but when he 
 spoke, Cosmus could not believe that such a voice 
 came from such a man ; it was high and dull, it whim 
 pered and whined; it savagely butchered its native 
 English. 
 
 The two men paused for a moment on the plat-
 
 IRON CITY 25 
 
 form, and this gave Curtis a chance to say that he 
 was glad Cosmus had written to him ahead for rooms, 
 because "accommodations" were scarce; and allowed 
 him to get his guest s baggage and tumble them all 
 into a wide-seated phaeton, drawn by a wheezy red 
 horse. 
 
 Cosmus often thought afterwards that his triumphal 
 entry into Iron City had something peculiarly sym 
 bolic in it. The tedious pace of the nag, the rattling 
 wheels of the ancient vehicle, seemed to run counter 
 to Iron City life. Everywhere he saw flitting auto 
 mobiles, marks of influence and affluence, and well 
 dressed crowds, busy streets, and bustling life. The 
 city was at the height of its tide, moving serenely 
 toward its undemocratic destiny, and Curtis and Cos 
 mus, in their old-fashioned phaeton, seemed twin apos 
 tles, each in his way, of an ancient and dying and of 
 a new and budding democracy. 
 
 They did not talk much. After Curtis had asked 
 the customary questions concerning his guest s jour 
 ney, and how he had left his people, he relapsed into 
 silence. Nevertheless he fascinated Cosmus ; he seemed 
 to breathe out mystery as well as sadness. Finally 
 Cosmus said, "I was just thinking that it doesn t look 
 like the usual college town." 
 
 "Times do change. I remember," and Curtis be 
 gan and slipped garrulously into reminiscences of the 
 past, full of plaintive notes. Here Cosmus was first 
 aware of another strange attribute of Curtis; al 
 though but fifty he assumed on the slightest provoca 
 tion the role of the aged. Was that not the key to 
 him, thought Cosmus, as they drove along; is he not 
 a somnambulist of a vanished dream? 
 
 The Curtis house was located near the campus in
 
 26 IRON CITY 
 
 the "good" section of the town, on what was known 
 as the Bluff. Here was the center of the New Eng 
 land nucleus of the city s life. The Curtis house was 
 a great, rambling old mansion of the style of 1872, 
 overlooking a stagnant brook and the flats that 
 stretched in undulations to the far-off wooded 
 ground line. On the flats, near the brook, Curtis car 
 ried on extensive gardening. The house was as quaint 
 as its owner, clean, and airy. Cosmus "Professor 
 Cosmus," as Curtis called him was to have a large 
 bedroom overlooking the flats on the East. 
 
 Cosmus was delighted with Mrs. Curtis. She was 
 a hearty, motherly woman of great vivacity and irre 
 pressible cheerfulness, and she made him wonder ab 
 ruptly if the old saying, successful marriages are op- 
 posites, held true here. 
 
 "Now I just want you to make yourself at home, 
 Professor. Everybody does who comes here. You re 
 not much older than my boy, you know, and he is a 
 freshman just this year, too." John was doubtful 
 about the "too," but there could be no question of 
 her cordiality. "If you want anything," she went on, 
 "you must get it for yourself ; I am not going to make 
 you company, but if you need anything that you can t 
 find, just let me know." 
 
 She spoke with such warmth and sincerity, that 
 Cosmus was completely won. "It is good to find 
 a home so soon," he said sincerely, "I know I am going 
 to be happy here." 
 
 "I know you will," she smiled back. "Sarah Black- 
 stone says home is not a place but a spirit, and so one 
 can have more than one home perhaps." 
 
 Cosmus thinking that, perhaps, Sarah Blackstone 
 was a new author he had not read, asked,
 
 IRON CITY 27 
 
 "Who is this Sarah Blackstone?" 
 
 "You ll meet her, for she is on the faculty, too." 
 
 John was shown to his room, and soon had his 
 baggage unpacked and his things put away. He 
 found on the table a book that interested him. It 
 was the New Testament in Greek, margin-marked and 
 thumb-worn, and he wondered who could be reading 
 it. Perhaps it had been left by some former student- 
 occupant of the room. He tossed it carelessly into a 
 drawer. A little later after he was settled, Mr. Curtis 
 came up to the room and awkwardly invited him to 
 go for a ride in the afternoon "to see our little city." 
 John consented, but Curtis did not leave immediately. 
 
 "Say," he said nervously, "did you see anything of 
 an old book around here?" 
 
 "Yes, I did. This Greek testament, you mean?" 
 
 "Yes, that s it," said Curtis, taking it eagerly, and 
 preparing to depart. 
 
 "Do you read Greek?" called out Cosmus pleas 
 antly. Curtis was embarrassed. "Well well I 
 used to," he whimpered in the strange shrill way of 
 his; "I still read this old New Testament sometimes. 
 It s kind of a keep-sake." And he passed out in the 
 atmosphere peculiar to him. 
 
 After lunch, Cosmus threw himself down into a 
 chair to rest. He consciously tried to compose his 
 mind to make it fit into the hurly burly of new im 
 pressions. He wanted to feel at home, but he did 
 not. He felt awkward, and new; he lacked mastery. 
 He had not lived long enough to know what self lay 
 down deep beneath the folds of his being; he could not 
 forecast his own reactions; he was not sure what he 
 yet was, or was to be. Although he had had a so- 
 called higher education and a year in Harvard gradu-
 
 28 IRON CITY 
 
 ate school, he was still a ghost to himself, groping 
 tremblingly for a milieu to move in. He dreaded, 
 with positive pain, the thought of entering the class 
 room and facing the rows of upturned faces. He 
 dreaded to be called "professor." He cringed beneath 
 the imagined stares of the crowds at chapel. He was 
 a coward. Cosmus had taken up teaching (and here 
 he saw himself with a touch of irony), because he 
 imagined that the American college was the focal 
 point for the mother-brains, the creative minds of the 
 race ; he wanted to be a creative mind, and he wanted 
 to shape minds with the gift for creation. Ever since 
 the time long, long ago when he had heard over the 
 telephone wires, the call for a twenty-five thousand 
 dollar brain, he had shaped his career with that idea 
 dominating him; then he had eschewed business or 
 the law, accepting a position at twelve hundred dollars 
 a year, for the simple reason that he believed that the 
 American college was a place for the creative minds 
 of the age. He was very humble as he contemplated 
 his opportunity at Crandon Hill College; he looked 
 forward, with rosy pleasure, as the mind will, when it 
 hangs between sleep and waking, to a long life of un- 
 applauded service, to a home and perhaps later a wife. 
 His head nodded. He dozed. 
 
 He was awakened by voices. He tried not to 
 listen, but he could not help it. Samuel Curtis was 
 saying in his high shrill voice, "I can not do it, I can 
 not do it. It would be a travesty on father for me 
 to play his part. I can not." And then came Mrs. 
 Curtis s gentle voice, "I did not mean to hurt you, 
 dearie, but wouldn t it be a greater travesty for some 
 one else to act father s part !" "No, no, no," groaned 
 Samuel Curtis, "I can not. I can not." "There, there,
 
 IRON CITY 29 
 
 dearie," consoled Mrs. Curtis. Cosmus heard the 
 heavy steps of the master of the house, and a door 
 slammed. He arose and washed his face wonder- 
 ingly. 
 
 The carriage ride that afternoon was no less than 
 a personally conducted tour, Samuel Curtis, the least 
 dictative of men, seeming somewhat arbitrary in his 
 itinerary. Of course he drove Cosmus to the campus. 
 Nine or ten buildings, representing stages of archi 
 tecture from 1830 to 1900, from the grave ecclesiasti- 
 cism of Central Hall to the imitative Greek of the 
 Carnegie Library, impressed the stranger as unusually 
 handsome. Central Hall, Curtis explained, had been 
 built with the bare hands of the first trustees and 
 faculty. A significant fact, thought Cosmus. The 
 campus, from a rare vantage point on the bluff, over 
 looked the river. For miles the eye could go past the 
 dam and the mills, past the huge establishment of R. 
 Sill and Son, which was like one great, grimy forge, 
 lightened by lurid glares, beyond, to the cooling 
 angles of woodlands, and the hazy prairie hills. Cur 
 tis said that he never got tired looking at that view. 
 As they paused to look they were accosted by some one 
 evidently of authority; he ignored Curtis with delib 
 erate rudeness, Cosmus thought. 
 
 "Mr. Cosmus," he said, "don t you think this is the 
 prettiest campus you ever saw ?" Without giving time 
 for an answer he continued, "I am not waiting for an 
 introduction, because I am on official business. I am 
 Professor Reed, secretary to the faculty. Our good 
 colleague, Doctor Mather, died suddenly yesterday in 
 the Canadian Rockies ; he is to be buried here the third 
 day hence and the president is anxious for the new 
 men to be present at the funeral, both as a mark of
 
 30 IRON CITY 
 
 respect, and because Professor Mather summed up, 
 as it were, Crandon Hill spirit." 
 
 All this was said as if it had been learned, in the 
 mechanical feelingless tone of the functionary. 
 
 Bowing himself away, Professor Reed cut across 
 to Central Hall, without so much as acknowledging 
 Samuel Curtis s tardy salutation. Now that he was 
 gone, Cosmus turned and looked at his companion. 
 His face was very pale, and his lips worked without 
 forming words. Finally Curtis said, as though speak 
 ing to himself : 
 
 "So Chris Mather is dead. Yes, yes, dead. I went 
 to school with him. Fine boy. Fine boy." He seemed 
 lost in the past. He cast a spell over Cosmus s imag 
 ination. Sadness was the heart of him. It was 
 strange that this gardener, this boarding-house keeper, 
 could be so disturbing to one, who had not known him 
 twelve hours, even to the point of teasing him with 
 mystery. 
 
 Curtis, in a mechanical way, followed (throughout 
 the city) an itinerary which obviously had been care 
 fully mapped out. He drove from the campus to the 
 Historical House, a compact, gray frame building of 
 the Civil War period. Presidents and governors and 
 generals had been entertained there. Then to the 
 Crandon Iron Works, the second manufactory in size 
 and importance. As they passed, Cosmus caught a 
 glimpse of marble corridors through the awninged 
 windows of the office building. Hence to Iron City s 
 Savings and Trust Company, and then by the prettiest 
 residence street, home. 
 
 Three days later, John attended the funeral of Pro 
 fessor Christopher Mather. The Mather house had 
 manorial spaciousness, and the dignity of a day long
 
 IRON CITY 31 
 
 passed in house building. Austere, substantial, vener 
 able, it faced the campus like some ghostly guardian 
 of the past. 
 
 Curtis and Cosmus found seats in what must have 
 been the library, and the latter noticed, with fastidious 
 accuracy, every detail of the room. What dampness! 
 What sickening odors ! Hyacinths, with their mes 
 sage of death, suffused the air with their fragrance. 
 Sunlight seemed quenched in the heavy twilight of the 
 long rooms. The musk of books and rugs and closed 
 rooms mingled with the scent of flowers. Far away 
 in a shadowy part of the house, some rich male voice 
 was intoning : "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not 
 want." There were no songs. Only silence the rest 
 less silence of mourners, broken by the creak of chairs 
 under nervous masculine backs, the rustling of silk, a 
 slowly indrawn sigh, the buzz of an insect, the murmur 
 of leaves outside far away along the walk. The atmos 
 phere made John feel dull and heavy. His mind ran 
 along glassy surfaces of impressions and symbols. The 
 Past, he mused, this is the visible embodiment of the 
 Past. These are the sentient walls of an old house; its 
 history is, perhaps, the history of America s intellec 
 tual life, its pioneer hopes and fears, and frontier 
 struggles. Its walls went up when Emerson broke 
 the fetters of European intellectual dominance with 
 his "American Scholar"; its roof repelled rains when 
 Lincoln unbowed his head at Gettysburg and poured 
 out in three minutes the charity of his great heart; its 
 enfolding ivy was planted when James J. Hill began 
 his empire in the great Northwest. It has persisted 
 through storm, rains and change yet to persist? 
 Cosmus glanced up, almost as if he felt the gaze of 
 some one s eyes, to stare directly into a pictured face;
 
 32 IRON CITY 
 
 it was a Puritan face, at least "Puritan" as visioned 
 by French in his figure of stone calm, reverential, 
 unafraid. 
 
 "Is that a picture of Professor Mather up there?" 
 he whispered to Samuel Curtis. 
 
 "No," Curtis answered, "his father, the first presi 
 dent of Crandon Hill College," and then he added 
 irrelevantly, "There have been only three since." 
 
 Cosmus renewed his scrutiny of the painting with 
 fresh interest. So from father to son, the torch of 
 civilization had been handed! From son to whom? 
 
 And then as a postlude to these thoughts, a voice in 
 another room, far away and ghostly, began to read 
 the life of Christopher Dwight Mather: "Christopher 
 D wight Mather, son of Ellery Dwight Mather, first 
 president of Crandon Hill College, was born in Ir- n 
 City on September 14, 1864. He attended the public 
 schools of Iron City and the Plainfield Academy, and 
 later, in 1881, entered the college here. Professor 
 Mather was distinguished by an ardent love of litera 
 ture, and began at an early age to record his thoughts 
 and impressions in a journal. His life, so outwardly 
 calm, is best revealed through this chronicle." 
 
 Then followed some passages which showed vividly 
 the simplicity, the democracy, the ardent idealism of 
 the college of a generation ago. One passage stuck in 
 Cosmus s mind long after. 
 
 "March 5, 1897. The election of Major McKinley 
 illustrates conclusively the bad effect of the Civil War. 
 Most of us Americans, lost in sentimentalism, fail to 
 see that the Civil War was baneful. With no excep 
 tion, this war made every president up to Major Mc 
 Kinley himself, a soldier. It served as an excuse fof 
 a high protective tariff, which allowed expansion and
 
 IRON CITY 33 
 
 development of natural resources. It permitted tre 
 mendous condensation of capital in the hands of a few 
 and now all our problems, God help us, the prob 
 lems of living in New York City, and the prob 
 lems of education at Crandon Hill, turn on the greater 
 problem of condensation of capital. I am not sure 
 that old Professor Jason was not right when he said, 
 Science is from the devil. Science has invented 
 machines which have killed^ handicraft, and when 
 handicraft goes, art goes. Science has intertangled 
 nations with eloquent wires. Science, and its methods 
 of generalization, have taught men how to think in the 
 large, and build huge dynasties of riches. There are 
 hard times before you, O Republic, and before you, 
 O Crandon Hill College. Education is mechanized. 
 We have lost our soul. Why can t we go back to 
 the old ideals of my father!" 
 
 "The entries in the diary break off in 1901. Pro 
 fessor Mather served his college loyally up to this 
 year, 1913. He went last June to the Canadian 
 Rockies, never to return. Those of us who knew him 
 personally, who felt the daily electric shock of his 
 personality, can only bow our heads now, as he would 
 have us do, in silent submission." 
 
 The funeral made a deep impression upon Cosmus. 
 It brought him face to face with the college of the past 
 the sabbatical, simple, reclusive student life which 
 he had already dimly felt. He came to the swift con 
 clusion that if this funeral were typical of its life, 
 Crandon Hill College must be a fossil imprisoned in 
 a rock. 
 
 Long after he had blown out the kerosene lamp that 
 night, Cosmus sat in the dark, overlooking the moon 
 lit flats, thinking and planning. Life seemed so simple
 
 34 IRON CITY 
 
 and easy just then. For one who had met the jagged 
 edges of life in his earlier years, Cosmus was unusu 
 ally innocent of the world. He thought it a place for 
 the working out of simple justice; he had not yet 
 discovered that there were men who were utterly un 
 like himself in their patriotism. To him there were 
 no inscrutable mysteries, save the simple mysteries : 
 the passing of time, the perpetuity of the past in the 
 present; reproduction and love. All else was clear, 
 under the solvency of man s mind. He sat immersed 
 in his thoughts until he saw a figure come up from 
 the flat below, and stand for a moment, looking up 
 at the stars; silhouetted clear against the light, the 
 body could be clearly seen bent heavily, revealing as 
 the blurred features could not, utter dejection of 
 spirit. Cosmus could not take his eyes away; in the 
 stillness of the night he heard the sigh which fell front 
 the tired lips of the man under the trees below. Once 
 the figure lifted up its arms in silent implo ration, then 
 dropped them submissively, and disappeared in the 
 shadow of the house. The night was empty now : it 
 seemed impotent to speak its thoughts. Cosmus mused ; 
 he wondered if he must go on forever feeling sorry 
 for Samuel Curtis.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 ONE morning before school opened, while John 
 Cosmus was dressing in his room, Mrs. Curtis 
 came to him greatly agitated. When John had per 
 suaded her to be seated, and while he was still finish 
 ing shaving, he tried to disentangle the strands of her 
 snarled story. She had come to tell him that Sarah 
 Blackstone was to be relieved of her position as in 
 structor in history at Crandon Hill College, but her 
 indignation made her at times incoherent. 
 
 "And what I want you to do, Professor Cosmus, 
 is to go and plead her case." 
 
 "But I don t know Miss Blackstone," he protested, 
 "and I am a stranger here." 
 
 "So much the better. They will listen to you im-. 
 partially, because you can see the thing as right, not 
 personally, you know." 
 
 John could not help smiling at the naive absurdity 
 of Mrs. Curtis s request; but he took the thing too 
 lightly, perhaps, when he said, "But how do I know 
 that Miss Blackstone deserves to remain on the fac 
 ulty of Crandon Hill College? A faculty, you know, 
 Mrs. Curtis, is a very dignified, ultra-respectable body, 
 which must uphold the best traditions and noble cus 
 toms of the past." 
 
 "Sarah Blackstone," she broke in, not perceiving 
 the irony in his words, "is the truest, sweetest " 
 
 "Yes, but what is the charge preferred against her?"" 
 
 35
 
 36 IRON CITY 
 
 "That she don t go to church." 
 
 "Doesn t go to church?" 
 
 "Yes, and she is a religious person, Professor Cos- 
 mus. I know she has peculiar notions about church, 
 and I don t exactly agree with her, but that makes no 
 difference; she is really good. You see I belong to 
 Reverend Mr. Dingley s flock the First Congrega 
 tional, the biggest church in town. I have been serv 
 ing as deaconess visiting the sick, and relief work, 
 all that sort of thing," she interpolated, not sure that 
 he knew what the work of a deaconess was, "and, 
 would you believe it, everywhere I go I find myself 
 anticipated Sarah Blackstone has been there scatter 
 ing good not letting her right hand know what her 
 left hand doeth but Reverend Mr. Dingley don t see 
 that this is being religious. Well, I do wish Sarah 
 would go to church, too, and not cause all this bother." 
 
 "I can t believe that any such charge would relieve 
 Miss Blackstone of her position; Crandon Hill is no 
 longer a church school, it is on the Foundation. Are 
 you sure there is nothing else?" 
 
 "Well, there is something else. Sarah has been dis 
 tributing tracts on the limitation let s see well, on 
 not having so many babies, you know," she said, look 
 ing hard at John. 
 
 Cosmus thought a moment. "I see. Tracts on the 
 limitation of offspring?" Mrs. Curtis nodded. 
 
 Finally he said, "I will go, Mrs. Curtis, if you think 
 I can do anything." 
 
 But when Mrs. Curtis and John rapped at the door 
 of Sarah Blackstone s house a little later, they were 
 told that she had gone over to see President Crandon 
 at the college. John felt some reluctance in intruding 
 farther into such a matter, but the nature of the charge
 
 IRON CITY 37 
 
 against Miss Blackstone made it more than a private 
 affair. Any one with a social consciousness, he 
 thought, must feel an interest in this case. And then 
 Mrs. Curtis said: 
 
 "I don t mind going over to President Crandon*s 
 office one bit. I have known him all my life ; he was 
 a great friend of my father s, and Reverend Mr. Ding- 
 ley will not resent it besides this will be a good way 
 for you to see the real Sarah Blackstone." 
 
 John allowed himself to be led along. When they 
 arrived at the library, Mrs. Curtis knocked at the 
 President s office door, and when it was opened, 
 calmly walked in. Drawn up about the long mahogany 
 table, there were four persons. John recognized the 
 Reverend Mr. Dingley, a youngish man, fastidiously 
 dressed, singularly handsome. His voice was notice 
 ably deep and fine, and he seemed to delight in playing 
 upon it. Hugh Crandon, president of Crandon Hill 
 College, who sat at the head of the table, was a man 
 well toward sixty. He was the dominating figure in 
 Crandon Hill life. He looked his part, tall, square, 
 alert, with gray hair and mustache, and refined man 
 ner. His face had lost, if it ever had possessed it, 
 anything of ministerial look; it wore an expression of 
 calculating shrewdness. "A corporation lawyer," some 
 one once called him in John s presence. Yet with the 
 shrewdness, or rather as a part of it, was a kind of 
 immobility behind w^hich the real Hugh Crandon al 
 ways retreated. John felt this remoteness of person 
 ality in his first meeting with President Crandon and 
 at his last. The president now introduced Mrs. Curtis 
 and John to Miss Georgia Summers, Dean of women. 
 Though she smiled and dimpled, she did not conceal 
 her displeasure at Mrs. Curtis s intrusion. The other
 
 38 IRON CITY 
 
 person at the table was Miss Blackstone, whom John 
 met for the first time. 
 
 President Crandon was above annoyance; he said 
 that they were met there to consider some common 
 interests of the college, but that these could wait, if 
 the business of Mrs. Curtis and Mr. Cosmus was 
 urgent; he would retire with them to another room. 
 
 "With your permission, President Crandon," broke 
 in Miss Blackstone, "I would like to speak before my 
 friend, Mrs. Curtis, and before Mr. Cosmus, a mem 
 ber of the faculty. I am afraid we differ as to the 
 nature of this conference. I consider it wholly a pub 
 lic matter." 
 
 President Hugh Crandon was plainly disturbed. "A 
 public matter, Miss Blackstone? I don t understand. 
 
 It is customary, you know " He paused, as if 
 
 hoping she would understand, as if by telepathy, and 
 not prolong the disagreeable controversy. 
 
 "I understand," she said. "It is customary to con 
 sider Crandon Hill College a private institution, when 
 in reality, it is entirely a public one. It is my belief 
 that every member of the faculty should consider him 
 self a public servant." 
 
 "No doubt, they do," replied the president. 
 
 "I am sure they do," said Reverend Mr. Dingley. 
 
 "I am sure that duty to the public is uppermost, as 
 it were, in the heart of every one of Crandon Hill s 
 professors," chanted Dean Georgia Summers. 
 
 "Then there can be no possible reason why Mrs. 
 Curtis and Mr. Cosmus may not stay, and why I can 
 not explain at once very simply, why I have stayed 
 away from church, and have distributed tracts on the 
 limitation of offspring among the Italian and Lithu-
 
 IRON CITY 39 
 
 anian women of Iron City. Those are the charges, I 
 believe?" 
 
 President Crandon looked uncomfortable. 
 
 "There were no charges, Miss Blackstone. As is 
 the custom, we merely wanted to talk over certain 
 matters relative to your general effectiveness as a 
 teacher." 
 
 "May I ask what matters?" 
 
 "Yes," said Reverend Mr. Dingley. "Apart from 
 your ecclesiastical views, do you not think that you 
 would be a greater force in the community, a better 
 example to the students, if you united yourself with 
 some church of your choice? The college, I beg to 
 remind you, my dear Miss Blackstone, had its genesis 
 in the church, was furthermore fathered by the church, 
 and should still acknowledge, though superficially 
 estranged by the Foundation, its connection with the 
 church." 
 
 "May I ask you a personal question, Mr. Dingley ?" 
 
 "Yes, of course." 
 
 "How many sermons have you heard in the past 
 year?" 
 
 "Well, now, that is hard to say. One or two, I 
 judge." 
 
 "I have heard five. I hope you won t think I am 
 impertinent, if I point out that if goodness is depend 
 ent on hearing sermons" she paused. There was a 
 dazzle in Miss Blackstone s eyes that John liked to 
 see. 
 
 "But Miss Blackstone, the sermon is the smallest 
 part of church-going; the real thing is the acknowl 
 edgment of one s connection with the community." 
 
 "I agree, but I prefer to acknowledge my connec-
 
 40 IRON CITY 
 
 tion with the community by working in it by dis 
 tributing tracts, for instance." 
 
 John Cosmus was delighted with this little drama. 
 He was content to be a spectator; but he saw the eyes 
 of President Hugh Crandon meet those of Reverend 
 Mr. Dingley across the table in full understanding. 
 The president arose, and said affably, "I believe we 
 thoroughly understand each other, Miss Blackstone, 
 and I think there is no longer any reason to prolong 
 this discussion." 
 
 A change came over Miss Blackstone. She no 
 longer bantered, but hardened into seriousness. 
 
 "Before I am dismissed, President Crandon, I feel 
 as if as if I must justify myself before my friend, 
 Mrs. Curtis, and Mr. Cosmus, w r ho may be said to 
 represent the public. It has been my position in this 
 matter that a teacher should do more than keep classes, 
 that he should be a living link between the public and 
 the best thought of the moment. That is all I have 
 tried to do, and if I am discharged from Crandon Hill 
 College, I shall simply state the reasons as I see them, 
 to the press." 
 
 "Why, my dear Miss Blackstone," said Dean 
 Georgia Summers, "who ever thought of discharging 
 you? I am sure we all think of you as one of our 
 most effective teachers." 
 
 "Yes, indeed," said President Crandon. 
 
 "Then," said Miss Blackstone sweetly, "will you 
 please say I have resigned ? I am going home to ac 
 cept a position that Mr. Boyne of the Crandon Hill 
 Iron Works offered me this morning." 
 
 Cosmus later acknowledged that he was somewhat 
 amazed by Miss Blackstone s audacity. Had she 
 leaped beyond him? Had this young woman out-
 
 IRON CITY 41 
 
 thought him, determining educational values that were 
 unknown to him? To tell the truth, Cosmus was 
 shocked by her decisiveness. College to him had al 
 ways been something sacred, something to give his 
 life to, and her disloyalty, flippant on the surface at 
 least, seemed at this moment almost a sacrilege. Was 
 she courting trouble? Was this girl all head and no 
 heart? 
 
 President Crandon, urbane, immobile ever, ex 
 pressed, as in a sermon, perfunctory regret that the 
 college was to lose the services of Miss Blackstone and 
 bowed them out. 
 
 On the steps of the library Mrs. Curtis beamed upon 
 Sarah Blackstone and Professor Cosmus and re-intro 
 duced them. It was the beginning of what was to be 
 something more than a pleasant acquaintance. As she 
 stood talking for a few minutes with Mrs. Curtis, 
 Cosmus had an opportunity to study Sarah Black- 
 stone s face unobserved. It seemed to him that the 
 striking characteristic of her singularly delicate face 
 was clearness of design. Unlike hers, some faces are 
 distinguished by one or two> fine features; perhaps the 
 eyes are deep and large, while the chin may be weak 
 and slanting; sometimes the nose is regal, and the 
 mouth is a straight, short line. Not so with Sarah s 
 face; every feature stood out in relief. Rich brown 
 hair, distinct dark brows over deep blue eyes, skin of 
 warm, rosy texture. These features, clearly designed, 
 belonged together; the face was handsome; it was 
 beautiful because these parts formed a harmonious 
 whole. 
 
 Clearness of design bespoke clearness of spirit. As 
 the days of their acquaintance passed, when he was 
 away from her, Cosmus thought of her in cooling sym-
 
 42 IRON CITY 
 
 bols: a mountain lake, a snow-capped mountain of 
 soft contour, a Greek statue, symbols of beautiful, in 
 spiring things far removed. When he was near her, 
 he thought of a clean-lipped, clean-limbed little brother 
 that he once had had and lost. 
 
 But though she did not lack geniality or compan- 
 ionableness, she possessed a faint, impersonal quality, 
 a distantness, a vague elusiveness, which he felt but 
 could not analyze. On their walks, he was just as 
 happy to feel her bound alone up the hill beside him, 
 nostrils taut, her cheeks flushed, as he would have 
 been if he had dared to put his arm about her and 
 move up together limb to limb. 
 
 Cosmus sometimes longed for some show of weak 
 ness, of human need on her part. Such self-suffi 
 ciency was, he thought, uncanny in a woman. Often, 
 as a result of her aloofness, they engaged in badinage, 
 under which lurked a more solemn symbolism. One 
 day when he came down stairs at Mrs. Curtis s, he 
 found her at a window. She turned and faced him. 
 
 "You have come to play with me, little girl?" 
 
 She caught his mood. 
 
 "No, I don t play with little boys. I came to see 
 Mother Curtis." 
 
 "But I want you to play with me, to see the sun and 
 shining air. The hills are waiting for us. Let us go!" 
 
 "But I dare not. Old Grandmother Convention 
 said, Child, you must never go until you have 
 
 "I know what you are going to say, but grand 
 mother is dead now, and anyway, she never practiced 
 her own advice." Pleadingly, "If you will come I ll 
 show you something." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "Will you come?"
 
 IRON CITY 43 
 
 "Show me first." 
 
 "You promise?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "My crooked finger." He held up the marked 
 hand. 
 
 "Poor boy," she said. "How did you hurt it?" 
 This with exquisite solicitude. 
 
 They went out into the tonic air. Cosmus never 
 had seen such a splendid creature. With half the 
 length of stride, she kept pace with him; her eyes sharp 
 and clear; her breast deep and full; she looked like 
 an incarnate figure of Womankind. 
 
 "Where do you play oftenest?" he asked, to break 
 a silence that was not at all awkward. 
 
 "Wouldn t you rather go where I play best ?" 
 
 "Yes, please take me." 
 
 "Only he who has a boy s soul can go," she said. 
 
 He was silent. They went on past children dancing 
 on a lawn, where every grass-blade shook silver sun- 
 drops down. 
 
 "Have you a a boy s soul?" she asked mischiev 
 ously. 
 
 "I have a soul, I know it. I just discovered that 
 this evening." 
 
 "But a child s soul," she insisted. 
 
 "You answer that. You re sitting as judge !" 
 
 She laughed. 
 
 "Then you can hear my symphony." 
 
 "Your symphony? Then you play, do you?" 
 
 "There, you betrayed yourself. You can t make- 
 believe. Your soul is the soul of a man. Take me 
 home, sir." 
 
 Cosmus looked at her, and saw she had slipped into 
 seriousness.
 
 44 IRON CITY 
 
 They turned about, and silently tramped to town. 
 At the gate of the cottage, at which he left her, Cos- 
 mus, with deference, said : 
 
 "Miss Blackstone, have I been rude? When I find 
 the soul of a boy that is gone, may I come again?" 
 
 "I ll ask Grandad Convention," she retorted, and 
 flashed into the house. 
 
 John found rest and satisfaction in her. Without 
 reservation, he could give her full allegiance. She 
 seemed able to follow him into ways of tortuous 
 thinking, excursions he liked to take now and then 
 into abstract knowledge. Her spirit, too, it seemed to 
 him, was not cut off, as his was not, from the poet 
 heart of humanity. Yet, there was something lacking 
 in her, a baffling something that he searched to find. 
 It was her mystery. 
 
 One day, when they were in the midst of crowded 
 Cambridge Street, a dirty child toddled up and clutched 
 Sarah s dress. Its upturned face, tear-stained and 
 pitiful, its wistful helplessness, filled John at once 
 with the most intense pity. Sarah looked down at the 
 child, not unkindly, then bent and carefully unloosed 
 its hand. 
 
 "Go find your mother, child," she admonished. 
 
 Cosmus was not satisfied. Was that the key to 
 her mystery? Not that her body lacked vitality, but 
 that she had chastity, so profound, that she shrank 
 from motherhood? Was Sarah Blackstone but an 
 Attitude, a Spirit? 
 
 He tried to get her to talk about herself, but he 
 failed. Here, too, her self-sufficiency asserted itself. 
 She spoke of her home in the metropolis; of her fam 
 ily, of friends; but the allusions were always vague 
 and impersonal. She had a kind of wistful interest in
 
 IRON CITY 45 
 
 many persons in Iron City. She it was who told 
 Cosmus about old Professor Jason, first professor of 
 philosophy in Crandon Hill College, who had com 
 mitted suicide when science courses were first intro 
 duced into the curriculum. Her interest in people, 
 though, seemed to John more intellectual than friend 
 ly; more sociological than maternal. 
 
 He had no trouble in talking of himself to her. 
 When he congratulated her on her strength in re 
 signing from the faculty of Crandon Hill College, 
 she replied that she had merely suited her own pleas 
 ure, pointing out laughingly that he was still in prison 
 and she free. 
 
 "I ve discovered this week," he answered, "that I 
 am not getting along very well with my classes. It s 
 a questionable joy standing before a group of people 
 and pouring out the best you have on inattentive ears. 
 The students sit negligently for the hour, courteously 
 quiet, save for an audible breath, now and then, or 
 the scraping of feet. But not once can I strike fire. 
 The world is so wonderful to me," he asserted boy 
 ishly; "it is filled with so many problems and is dan 
 gerous with so many impending changes, so momen 
 tous with opportunities that I expect all young men 
 and women to be moved at the sight of it." 
 
 "I understand," she answered. 
 
 "I have a deep sense of limitation," he went on, "in 
 this new field at Crandon Hill College. It began my 
 first morning at chapel. I entered confidently in 
 flated perhaps, a little youthful, you know, and 
 mounted the platform to take a seat. I was met by, 
 President Crandon. Mr. Cosmus, he said, the 
 faculty are seated according to rank, and instructors 
 sit down there. His thumb pointed peremptorily to
 
 46 IRON CITY 
 
 a row of seats among the students. I colored; some 
 students laughed; and I obeyed his gesture. It was 
 awfully humiliating, if it was only a trifle. I have 
 tried to see the philosophy that lay behind it." 
 
 "The college, you know," Miss Blackstone replied, 
 not without a touch of irony, "is an emanation of the 
 home, and must be patriarchal in its form of govern 
 ment. You, as youngest in the family, must sit at the 
 foot of the table." 
 
 "So I discovered. There seem to be six tiers of 
 eminence in Crandon Hill life: assistants, instructors, 
 assistant professors, professors, deans and president 
 all rigidly observed. No professor s wife would make 
 the mistake of inviting a mere instructor to tea. I 
 thought," he concluded with a smile, "that I had grad 
 uated from the democracy of manual labor into the 
 democracy of learning years ago, and instead I find 
 it is a monarchy." 
 
 "Not a despotism?" she asked, smiling. 
 
 By this time, the two had made a detour and had 
 come again to the city. The town lay in the valley, 
 cut by the sweeping river; there were the towers of 
 the college on the Bluff, a few scattered church spires, 
 bridges, the red-bricked shops, and the smoldering 
 factories. It lay still frozen into calm, like a painted 
 thing far removed from the sordidness of daily life, 
 as beautiful as Wordsworth s London, as tranquil as 
 Keats s marble town. For a moment it seemed to John 
 a dream, with Sarah the only reality. Then he re 
 membered the streets filled with busy life, the gutters 
 running with filth, the factories full of restless, dis 
 contented thousands, the churches, unattended, the 
 cramped quarters for the negro, the dago shacks along 
 Guy street. "Submerged hatred, decaying democracy,
 
 IRON CITY 47 
 
 class feuds, social parasitism, gross materialism" 
 these broken phrases flowed through his mind, and 
 when he glanced at Sarah, she seemed rilled with the 
 same emotion. They passed down into the town, trod 
 the busy streets, and came to her door, both conscious 
 of the difference between the painted city of the hill 
 and the city of reality ; and they felt very near to each 
 other. 
 
 Cosmus spent much of his spare time with Sarah 
 Blackstone in the first months of his struggle at Cran- 
 don Hill College. She was an inspiration to him, and 
 so he did not heed the inevitable buzz of censure that 
 arose from his colleagues on the faculty. But one 
 evening on returning from a walk, Mrs. Curtis ac 
 costed him at the door. As usual she treated him to a 
 long recital of petty happenings in her customary de 
 lightful vein of motherliness. She was one of those 
 women with a deep, unsatisfied, maternal feeling; per 
 haps this accounted for both her charm and her unat- 
 tractiveness; her quick human sympathy and her gos 
 siping restlessness. This evening amidst the flow of 
 small things, there was one question the significance 
 of which did not strike him until nearly an hour later. 
 
 "Has Sarah ever told you about her friend Sidney 
 Haynes?" 
 
 When that question suddenly returned to him, he 
 was sitting at his table reading a new treatise on the 
 Single Tax. He immediately went in search of Mrs. 
 Curtis, and asked her what she had meant. 
 
 "Why, you dear boy," she said, "Sarah has referred 
 so often to Sidney Haynes, I thought maybe you ought 
 to know about him." She paused, and then added, 
 "Seeing that you are with her so much."
 
 48 IRON CITY 
 
 The explanation was worse than the question, and 
 Cosmus was uncomfortable. 
 
 After this conversation with Mrs. Curtis he went 
 out for a walk. He followed the lighted street until 
 there were no lights, and he went into the country, 
 down the dim road, past the brown fields and the 
 silent brown farm houses. When he returned the city 
 was asleep. All the houses were dark, save where 
 panted the great factories on the edge of town. At 
 the corner of College and Zackary Streets, a patch of 
 light in a large square house indicated that some one 
 was stirring behind the blind. As John passed op 
 posite, the blind was raised and a girl in a night 
 gown, her hair in two flowing braids, paused for a 
 moment to look out into the night. Cosmus stepped 
 into the shadow of the tree. The girl was beautiful; 
 he could see her limbs beneath the diaphanous folds 
 of her gown, like a nymph s through water; she was 
 almost a vision. He stood tremblingly staring until 
 the lamp winked out, and it was dark in the great 
 house, too. 
 
 Just as Cosmus turned into the Curtis yard a few 
 minutes later, he detected the figure of Samuel Curtis 
 down in the flats below, walking among the corn- 
 rows. Sad and strange as ever. 
 
 John lay awake long after midnight that night. He 
 could hear clearly the throb of the engines, the clang 
 of steel on steel, from the great factory of R. Sill and 
 Son blocks away to the north. His senses alert, his 
 mind strangely pitched in a mood of wonder, as it 
 often is at midnight-waking, he felt a sudden warm 
 intimacy between himself and the unseen workers yon 
 der. He tried to visualize the great dusty, lurid work 
 rooms, the glare of molten metal, the buildings tower-
 
 IRON CITY 49 
 
 ing up in the smoke and flame like shadowy shelters, 
 the noise, the wonder, the fatigue, the inarticulate 
 marvel of industry. He seemed to know the men, 
 their mute loyalty to the task, their aching discontent, 
 their sullenness; their dogged tenacity, simplicity, 
 comradeship. 
 
 He seemed to understand for the first time their 
 narrowness, pettiness, Mightiness. He thought of the 
 college, dumb and quiet on the Bluff; its richness of 
 life, its ideals, its dreams. 
 
 And as he lay wondering, his mind racing with 
 symbols, inarticulately as waking minds at midnight 
 will do, he heard the wind beat against the wires, in its 
 old chant of progress. 
 
 The River of Wires, Cosmus thought, flowing on 
 and on, between the cities between Iron City and 
 Chicago, New York and London on and on. 
 
 And he thought, suddenly thrilled, "What is the 
 River of Wires going to bring to the boys and men in 
 the factory on the hill ?" 
 
 But when he slept he did not dream of factories or 
 cities, but of a forest glade, and a girl more beautiful 
 than all the rest.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 COSMUS put the question guiltily at the breakfast 
 table. 
 
 "Who lives in the large square house at the corner 
 of College and Zackary?" 
 
 "Carl Morton," Mrs. Curtis told him. 
 
 Strange to say, that same morning in the Carl Mor 
 ton house at the corner of College and Zackary, a girl 
 was asking to go to college in order to take courses in 
 sociology. 
 
 Carl Morton was foreman of the smithy gang in 
 the factory of R. Sill and Son. He was a type of 
 man that it is good to see. A life of labor had given 
 his body a massiveness and symmetry and his face re 
 finement. He might have been figured by St. Gaud- 
 ens, to fit into a drawing of industry by Fennel. Of 
 English stock, he had been brought to Iron City from 
 Yorkshire, when he was eight years old, a half cen 
 tury before, and his services at the Sill plant were al 
 most coincident with its life. Therefore he could be 
 pardoned, perhaps, for his over-warm pride in the 
 Sill manufactory. Some inherited respect for author 
 ity, coupled with a sense of proprietorship in a busi 
 ness in which he had no real share, made him an ar 
 dent supporter of R. Sill. He invariably spoke of 
 "our plant"; and he always justified every arrange 
 ment that Sill made in his own favor with his men. 
 Every morning Morton walked through the office and 
 said "Good morning, Mr. Sill," and got in reply a
 
 IRON CITY 51 
 
 brusque, but not unkindly, "Good morning, Morton," 
 or "Good morning, foreman." Morton never had had 
 any sympathy with organized labor, he was one of the 
 chief agents through which the office that vortex of 
 mystery and authority worked in resisting the en 
 trance of unions in the plant of R. Sill and Son. When 
 the company was buzzing over the clash between the 
 Railroad Brotherhoods and the magnates over the 
 eight-hour plan, Morton stood for the railroads. 
 
 "If a man can t work ten hours, he s a weakling 
 that s all he is." He drew himself up to his full height 
 and knotted the great muscles about his neck and 
 chest. "I have worked ten hours a day for thirty- 
 eight years, and I haven t suffered." And then wag 
 ging his head sadly, he concluded, "I don t see what 
 the laboring man is coming to." 
 
 No one who saw Carl Morton could question his 
 views. The fine product of a system, he and old Sill 
 were the flowers of the feudalistic, industrial order 
 fast falling into decline: master and man, the baron 
 and his squire. 
 
 But if Morton resisted any sort of organization 
 among the men, he carried his conservatism no farther 
 at the factory. Like a hound, he smelt out faults in 
 the composition of his department. He improved 
 here, and improved there; he espoused the tactics of 
 efficiency, and lived them mercilessly, yet kept the 
 regard of his men. He saw the smithy grow from 
 a hand-operated forge to the great, roaring furnace 
 room with ten forges and pneumatic hammers that did 
 the work of hundreds. Every day Carl and his as 
 sistants put into the fire and beneath the great six-ton 
 hammer, four three-thousand-eight-hundred pound 
 engine shafts. Such work, day in and day out, amidst
 
 52 IRON CITY 
 
 the white glare of the forges, and the drumming of 
 the huge hammers, commanding and guiding, flowered 
 Morton into a leader of men. 
 
 Carl carried his conservatism into the education of 
 his only child, Margaret. To him, the rearing of a 
 child was simple. Reared himself under a somewhat 
 simple regime, in an environment that might be best 
 described as pioneer, it never occurred to him that in 
 complex Iron City a hundred forces beyond his con 
 trol played upon his child, which in a way had never 
 touched his own life. The movies, countless story 
 magazines, innumerable associates, a flux of undi 
 gested opinions, new standards of sex, new judgments 
 in religion ; these, unreckoned with by the parent, were 
 calculated to offset much of the old-fashioned training 
 that Morton clung to. He believed implicitly in Mar 
 garet because he loved her madly, to a point little sus 
 pected by himself, and because he judged that his own 
 excellent example, and the constant inculcation of a 
 few well-tried maxims, would hold her true. "Serve 
 God," "Mind your manners" and "Respect your bet 
 ters" were the elements of Morton s teachings. And 
 it must be said that "Respect your betters" received 
 the most emphasis. Morton left the first precept to 
 St. Luke s, the second to Mrs. Morton, a frail woman, 
 who was a recent convert to Christian Science, much 
 to Carl s comfort and chagrin, and the last to himself. 
 
 Hence he was horrified when Margaret came home 
 from a party and said, "I had five dances with Ray 
 mond Sill, and I think he is horrid." 
 
 "Tut, tut, daughter." 
 
 "And he flunked out at Yale, too." 
 
 "What have I told you, daughter, about respecting 
 Mr. Sill s son?" Carl Morton did not see the impish
 
 IRON CITY 53 
 
 tongue thrust out at him through his daughter s pretty 
 teeth. 
 
 Margaret tried to obey her father in all things; but 
 when obedience to the axiom "Respect your betters" 
 stood in the way of membership in the Country Club, 
 and an automobile, she rebelled. Her father, applying 
 his own philosophy to himself, hesitated about allow 
 ing himself the illustrious privileges of automobiles 
 and a country club, questioning whether it became a 
 foreman of a smithy gang to assume such airs. Old 
 Sill himself, at one time, had belonged to the Country 
 Club, and Morton wondered whether it would not be 
 an affront to his master if he belonged. Margaret 
 did not care for such twaddle, yet she was puzzled to 
 know how to encompass her designs. Then suddenly 
 she discovered her father s loyalty to her. She fell 
 sick with a high fever, and Carl sat by her bed night 
 and day, taking one of his rare absences from the 
 factory, that he might nurse her. One night she 
 watched him through half-closed eyes, and saw the 
 profound paternity shining in his face; it startled, 
 frightened and pleased her. 
 
 When she recovered, she again took up the question 
 of the automobile, and found him obdurate. With 
 out hesitation, she went to the Rex Garage and left 
 word that Carl Morton wanted an agent to call that 
 night at seven, that he was on the market for a ma 
 chine. When the agent arrived, he inadroitly stated 
 that "your daughter, Mr. Morton, says you want a 
 machine." 
 
 Carl s loyalty to Margaret, and an innate fineness, 
 kept him from betraying his daughter. He accepted 
 the agent s statement, and in a few days Margaret had
 
 54 IRON CITY 
 
 her car, and in a few weeks the Country Club mem 
 bership. 
 
 The mistake Carl Morton made was in not taxing 
 his daughter with deceit. 
 
 That had happened two years before. The educa 
 tion of Carl by Margaret went on, and when she 
 asked to go to college, largely because the Theta 
 Kappa Chis were rushing her, he did not demur, al 
 though to him the world seemed somewhat strange 
 when the daughter of a foreman no longer kept her 
 distance from her betters. And so it was finally ar 
 ranged that she should enter the second semester. 
 
 It was inevitable that John Cosmus would find 
 Margaret Morton out. She was in his elementary 
 course and he often found her great eyes disconcerting 
 as he set forth the principles upon which society was 
 based. He noticed her immediately the first morning. 
 Fire in form, was what Cosmus thought of first in 
 reference to Margaret Morton. She was not large, 
 but well developed, massive in daintiness. He loved 
 to watch her move as one would a fine animal; at 
 times he caught a glimpse of a clean slender ankle and 
 the bulging calf above her shoe tops. The taut folds 
 of her waist over a full breast, the depth of chest and 
 the shoulders wide like a boy s; the movements of 
 well-formed hips set him to answering, deep within 
 him, undisguised calls. One day it became necessary 
 to meet her in conference on an assigned topic. Cosmus 
 sat in his office waiting. Outside he could hear the 
 water dripping from the eaves, and the sing-song of 
 the wheels from the paper mills across the river. 
 
 All the time that Margaret and John were talking 
 surface talk, routine of school matters each was 
 saying to the other deep, unuttered, primitive things.
 
 IRON CITY 55 
 
 John thought, "What great eyes, how exquisitely 
 molded her nose and mouth!" 
 
 They were very happy. They seemed floating in a 
 great sea of pleasure, a sea that was electric with cur 
 rents that throbbed and beat in one heart as well as 
 in the other. The same yellow sunshine fell through 
 the dusty window, the same shadows quivered on the 
 wall, the same sing-song of the engines came in 
 through the window, the same harsh voices of distant 
 teachers beat in upon both of them. It was a day 
 very commonplace and drab, but to them how differ 
 ent; they knew not that it was drab. He watched her 
 lips perceptibly parted, her lids fallen low over her 
 eyes as if they were curtains to shut in the out-peering 
 soul, her startled breath moving the lace which fell 
 low over a swelling bosom. Images floated in his 
 mind like music. He saw a stream and two bodies 
 moving in unison with the shining water; a garden 
 sweet and fragrant, and they two lying close together 
 looking up at the flying clouds; a Norwegian bath 
 house, and he smiting her flushed flesh with odorous 
 pine boughs. 
 
 She seemed a different creature, breathing marble, 
 flesh surcharged with impelling power eloquent. 
 She, who was so mute, spoke now in this moment a 
 language which he understood too well. 
 
 If any one had looked in at that moment, at No. 12 
 Central Hall, he would have seen only young Profes 
 sor Cosmus pausing in his learned discourse to catch 
 his breath for a moment, and a confused freshman 
 girl, wisely inattentive. In reality a man and woman 
 were sitting there shaken by the eternal whirlwind so 
 full of passionate meaning. 
 
 "You see, Miss Morton," he was saying perfunc-
 
 56 IRON CITY 
 
 torily, "sociology in a sense may be thought of as the 
 philosophy of philosophy. The biologist makes cer 
 tain generalizations about life, the psychologist does 
 likewise; the theologian, the economist, just in so far 
 as they generalize are to be thought of as philosophers. 
 Then it is the office of the sociologist to take all of 
 these views, and harmonize them in respect to one 
 unifying standard, namely their practical significance 
 to human society to our living together." 
 
 Wisely she did not raise her eyes, nor close her lips, 
 nor steady her trembling limbs. She just sat mutely 
 calling to him. When he stopped his formal discus 
 sion, she did not even feel it incumbent upon her to 
 take up his conversation where he left it, but feverishly 
 began to rattle off little vague frivolities incident to 
 school life. 
 
 "You see, Doctor Wheaton put me in his advanced 
 French class, and I have had only one year." Cosmus 
 thought she must speak French delightfully. "And 
 French is so musical. Did you know that Professor 
 Palmer is sick?" she asked. "Isn t Mr. Kimbark a 
 strange, dear, green man ?" 
 
 And then they lapsed into meaningful silence until 
 they were conscious again of the inaudible world 
 about them, and feebly tried to break the chains 
 which bound them, making an effort to speak. The 
 words were flat and blatant in their ears. She at 
 length rose to go and Cosmus with an uncontrollable 
 gesture reached out as if to take her hand. He could 
 not see, his breath struggled in his throat. He groped 
 for a chair and sat down heavily, his face hooded with 
 his hands, his frame shaking as with cold. 
 
 He felt her hand on his head. It calmed him. He 
 looked up into her deep eyes, and saw her transformed.
 
 IRON CITY 57 
 
 "Why, you, you are a woman," he said. 
 
 She smiled down on him, and touched his hot fore 
 head with what he thought was indescribable gentle 
 ness. He took her hand ; again they were conscious of 
 the inaudible world, eloquent with vast meanings, 
 shutting down over them. John Cosmus fixed his 
 eyes on the shadows that quivered on the wall. They 
 seemed almost like a coil of serpents. He dared not 
 look at her, but he could feel her heart throb in her 
 hand. 
 
 Then true to another impulse, he arose suddenly 
 and said, unsteadily, "Yes, Miss Morton, if you 
 should take that subject, and give it some thought, I 
 believe you would find it advantageous." 
 
 Mere trite phrases that floated in his whirling mind. 
 
 "Good afternoon, Miss Morton." 
 
 She stood in the doorway, the light of the inaudible 
 world still on her face, her eyes afire, it seemed, be 
 neath her lowered lids, her bosom tossed by her 
 breathing. 
 
 "Won t you come and see me sometimes?" she 
 asked, and then he heard her light foot on the stairs. 
 
 When she had gone, Cosmus looked at his watch 
 abstractedly, and brushed his hand across his eyes and 
 forehead; he experienced a sense of deep loss, of 
 want. One question stirred in his mind, "What am I 
 doing? I, John Cosmus? ..." 
 
 Margaret Morton possessed an unconscious gift for 
 unchastity. From some obscure ancestor had descended 
 into her all the pull and witchery of sex. She be 
 longed to the dynasty of beautiful women. She was 
 two women. Her surface self ran slightly above the 
 average; she was only an ordinary girl, prattling of 
 dances, engagements, machines, her favorite actress.
 
 58 IRON CITY 
 
 Her unconscious self ran into racial deeps; she ex 
 celled all her friends in that she had a genius for at 
 tracting men ; and she never knew by what power she 
 held them. She knew she affected them profoundly, 
 but she did not know just how she affected them. If 
 she had been called a girl with a capacity for evil, she 
 would have been as much shocked as her father would 
 have been. She attributed her popularity to personal 
 charm. She did not know that she had concealed in 
 her a mystery that had undone statesmen, leveled 
 thrones and desolated empires. 
 
 So she affected Cosmus. In contrast to the thought 
 of Sarah Blackstone, the thought of Margaret Morton 
 made him restless. She awakened in him moods, such 
 wild gypsy longings that life in Iron City suddenly 
 ran stale. He wanted to be off to another fatter 
 place; his work was drudgery; life a sham. And yet, 
 never to him before had the world of tree, sky, and 
 field looked so enchanting. This world was a dazzle 
 of changing loveliness. How could he endure so much 
 beauty? He felt stirring within an impulse to go to 
 Margaret, confess his love, and elope with her. And 
 all this time, his keen, dry intellect sneered and 
 chuckled over him. 
 
 About this time he came to know Ezra Kimbark 
 better. Kimbark was the Professor of English Lit 
 erature, and to Cosmus the most interesting man in the 
 faculty. They had met the fall before, in a manner 
 that afterwards to the friends seemed dramatic. Cos 
 mus had been caught in a storm on the campus, and 
 Kimbark appearing suddenly, apparently from no 
 where, had taken him home with him. 
 
 "I am Ezra Kimbark, and you are Cosmus. Some 
 rain, isn t it?"
 
 IRON CITY 59 
 
 Cosmus had known, in that moment, that he would 
 like Ezra Kimbark; there began then that intercourse 
 of minds that men of intellectual tastes crave and 
 delight in. 
 
 But Kimbark was not an antidote for Margaret. 
 That malady had to run its course. One day Cosmus 
 received a note from President Crandon calling at 
 tention to the unwritten custom at Crandon Hill that 
 the instructors should not have any social intercourse 
 with students. He had written Cosmus that while it 
 was, of course, far from his purpose to impose his will 
 upon another, yet he felt sure that Mr. Cosmus would 
 be sensitive to the fine standards of the institution. 
 
 Nevertheless, though not unconscious of the pro 
 prieties, and fully aware of the weight of sentiment 
 against his friendship with the Mortons, John called 
 frequently at the house to see Margaret. He was 
 delighted with her father; Carl s poise and simplicity, 
 his ready tongue, and his familiarity with a field that 
 is alluring to every young man Big Business made 
 the blacksmith interesting to the teacher. Cosmus 
 accepted with alacrity Morton s invitation to visit the 
 Sill manufactory "our plant," the foreman said. 
 
 The presence of Margaret did not satisfy. She was 
 like some delicious poison, distilled in the blood, that 
 only blurred one s powers. He could not find peace 
 away from her. He who had not known women was 
 at last helpless before this girl. 
 
 He knew fits of depression, too. The world, he 
 watched with keen eyes; and he felt a tightening of 
 world consciousness in the early months of 1914. Was 
 it possible that in this strange subjective passion for 
 Margaret, he was merely feeling the strain and tug of 
 the world consciousness ready to pass into momentous
 
 60 IRON CITY 
 
 changes? There was a furor of dancing all over the 
 country, and Margaret, unrestrained by college restric 
 tions, tangoed every night. Cosmus intervened in 
 behalf of her health. They quarreled. She called him. 
 "an old mossback," and he replied in kind and then 
 repented and then quietly philosophized that the 
 dancing craze was but another manifestation of the 
 cosmic nervousness of which he was so aware. Strikes, 
 vast aggregations of men in commotion; syndicalism, 
 socialism, internationalism, world peace, to the keen- 
 eyed student of society were but phenomena that re 
 flected like mirrors impending cosmic changes. 
 
 "If you want to get spiritual chorea," he said to his 
 friend Ezra Kimbark, "pick up any one of the Ameri 
 can magazines which purports to be a review of the 
 week or month; let opinions, controversies, counter- 
 opinions, hopes, fears, discoveries, scepticism beat in 
 upon you, without finding in all that swirl of talk one 
 authoritative note. What America needs is a single 
 commanding voice in the name of the spirit, and I 
 fear that the very nature of our commonwealth for 
 bids its rise." 
 
 Seeing so clearly the trend of the world, and by 
 nature being dynamic rather than receptive, it was 
 exquisite torture to Cosmus to sit still and do nothing. 
 Some one has said that college professors as a class 
 are the unhappiest individuals in the world; it is be 
 cause they see and can not do. 
 
 How far should one be docile? Did the analogy 
 between a mother and a college hold entirely? Should 
 one love his college as one would his mother, because 
 he had no other? Was education no great, vital func 
 tion? Should the college be its own judge and jury, 
 always acquitting itself?
 
 IRON CITY 61 
 
 John s reasoning broke down. He was at sea. Of 
 this, however, he was sure Crandon Hill College was 
 not affecting the life of its generation to the point 
 of exercising social control. He came to recognize 
 his malady, and resolved to shake it off, and act, and 
 then fell upon him the blighting vividness of Margaret 
 again. 
 
 Strange to say, in this condition, he craved once 
 again the companionship of Sarah Blackstone, whom 
 he had seen only occasionally for the last few months. 
 
 Yet he saw no irrelevancy in the fact that he felt a 
 passion so low in the physical order as jealousy, in 
 reference to a creature so much a spirit as Sarah ! He 
 avoided her company when he craved it so much, for 
 he had never questioned the truth of Mrs. Curtis s 
 insinuation concerning Sidney Haynes. 
 
 One Friday, late in February, on an excuse to be in 
 the open air, he took a gun and went into the country 
 to hunt. Ten miles east of Iron City there lay a 
 rolling country of uncultivated fields and oak woods, 
 of a wildness which exhilarated him. The morning 
 was cold and brilliant; snow lay in a light crust over 
 the ground. Cosmus walked briskly. He felt freer 
 and stronger than he had for weeks ; than at any time 
 since he had begun his strange relations with Mar 
 garet, pretending he was her teacher, when in reality 
 he was but a lover. He saw little game, but he tramped 
 on enjoying the wild road as it climbed and wound 
 through the heavily oaked hills. Soon after noon the 
 wind shifted suddenly to the south, and in an hour it 
 was raining a warm rain for February, but chilling 
 to John as he slushed along in the melting snow. At 
 three he was ten miles from home, in a wild strip of 
 country, with the winter day, hastened by the storm,
 
 62 IRON CITY 
 
 fast drawing to a close. He had not yet entered the 
 strip of heavy forest which he saw ahead, when he 
 heard a shrill whoop from behind, a cheerful honk- 
 honk, and a machine, with lights aglow, slipped up 
 beside him. It was Margaret, who had come out to 
 look for him. 
 
 In the car it was comfortable and cozy. Margaret 
 could not drive fast because of the mud, but he did 
 not care. He was glad to have her beside him, in the 
 wiM romantic country, certain of her regard for him. 
 It seemed to him a charming instance of her growing 
 thoughtfulness that she had come out in the storm to 
 guide him in. She looked more beautiful and more 
 dangerous than ever in her rubber-coat, her rich hair 
 tucked under the round rain cap, its wet tendrils blown 
 about her flushed face. The jolt of the car threw her 
 warm, heavy body against his, and he felt an impulse 
 to hold it there. By this time they were passing 
 through the oak-woods. Cosmus suddenly remem 
 bered that when he had passed there that morning, he 
 had seen a log cabin some paces from the road; and 
 now he had it on his lips to suggest that they get out, 
 go to the cabin and build a fire to dry their clothes. 
 
 Suddenly there flashed through his mind the real 
 motive for that suggestion. His face flushed. He 
 spoke almost sharply. 
 
 "I must get out and walk," he said, without looking 
 at her, "I m cold." 
 
 For a moment she did not understand ; then struck, 
 perhaps, through the avenue of her quick instinct by 
 something in his face or manner, she answered, "Oh, 
 I know what you can do. You get in the back seat, 
 and wrap the buffalo robe around you." 
 
 Tremblingly, he did as he was told, and they rode
 
 IRON CITY 63 
 
 home in silence. At the outskirts of the city she 
 stopped the car. 
 
 "I guess you had better get out here, and walk," she 
 said. "I don t want President Crandon to fire you." 
 
 When he had climbed down, he stood for a moment 
 with his hand on the open car door, trying to trace her 
 beautiful features in the dark. For a moment their 
 spirits met in indissoluble bond, then she said, in a 
 tone that was not strange then, but in his memory 
 was strange ever after, "Isn t it hard to be good, e^en. 
 when one wants to be?" 
 
 He stood on the road watching the red light of her 
 car blur away in the rain. 
 
 In that moment his brain cleared in regard to Mar 
 garet Morton.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 V 
 
 A S Cosmus stood in the cold rain watching the 
 * * light of Margaret s machine blur away into the 
 distance, he remembered suddenly that he must go 
 that night to a reception at the home of President 
 Crandon. It was good to get into clean linen, and to 
 assume the respectability of evening clothes. At re 
 ceptions Cosmus hid his shyness under the guise of 
 the amused spectator. Cynical, as youth ever is when 
 it sees pure idea shatter itself against superficiality 
 and convention, and with senses alert, he watched the 
 life of the whole college flow by like a procession. 
 
 He had learned much in six months and he hac! 
 been disappointed. Idealist though he was, he was 
 not a thin idealist, and consequently he resented the 
 monkish remoteness from life, the abject worship of 
 the past, the class feeling of the American College; 
 he himself was a victim of it. As an instructor, Cos 
 mus held low rank in the college life, and he was never 
 allowed to forget it. Even at the reception, ladies 
 seeking him out in his corner patronized him until he 
 felt complete loss of self-respect. He was made to 
 feel by many of the faculty that sociology was a raw 
 and untried subject, of such modernity as to make it 
 suspicious, and President Crandon never failed to let 
 him know in many various subtle ways that he had 
 incurred the administration s displeasure in his inde 
 pendent ordering of his own private affairs. Feeling 
 himself entirely an outsider, it was no wonder that 
 
 64
 
 IRON CITY 65 
 
 Cosmus, as he stood alone surveying white necks 
 against broadcloth shoulders, numbed by the chatter 
 in treble and bass, smiled a bit cynically at the scene 
 about him; he watched young Mr. James, assistant in 
 the chemical laboratory, at one thousand a year, father 
 of two, expecting a third, listen respectfully to the 
 Professor of Latin, father of none, pompously expa 
 tiate on the evils of birth-control, and his sixth tour to 
 Europe. As two men passed, he caught a fragment 
 from their conversation it was the Professor of His 
 tory defending high protective tariff; to one side he 
 could hear the Professor of German denouncing the 
 "Masses;" and the Professor of French decry voca- 
 tionalism and Max Eastman; and above all the other 
 voices there rose Dean Georgia Summers s, ecstatically 
 chanting "Music is love in search of a word." How 
 many, Cosmus thought, of all these masters of arts 
 were really masters of anything at all? 
 
 The reception took on extra interest, due to the 
 fact that the president and host gathered the men in 
 an upper room, and announced that he found it neces 
 sary "to intrude upon their merriment to transact a 
 modicum of business which came too late for the last 
 faculty meeting and was too urgent to postpone." 
 Professor Reed, as secretary of the faculty, then arose 
 and read a resolution. 
 
 "Whereas Guy Street, once a respected thorough 
 fare fronting the campus of Crandon Hill College, 
 had lately become foul through Greek, Italian and 
 negro tenantage, be it resolved that the faculty sug 
 gest to the board of trustees, as agents of the corpora 
 tion, to petition the city council for permission to close 
 Dover Street, which transversely cuts the campus, in 
 .order thus to divert much of the overflow from these
 
 66 IRON CITY 
 
 tenements on the way to the factories from the campus 
 into Sixth Street." 
 
 The resolution was passed without demur, for in 
 structors had no vote; and the social felicities were 
 resumed. There was music and recital. Dean Georgia 
 Summers sang one of "Schumann s exquisite heart 
 songs." 
 
 Sought out in his vantage corner, Cosmus was 
 spoken to, though often very briefly, during some 
 part of the evening by every individual present. Hither 
 flowed Mrs. Dingley, wife of Reverend Mr. Dingley, 
 a grande dame minus the pince nez, discoursing on the 
 "perquisites and immunities" of a minister s wife and 
 the joys of having once lived in New Haven ; elongat 
 ing her white arm toward him, she said to Cosmus, 
 "You know New Haven, do you not, Mr. Cosmus?" 
 
 "No, I am a Westerner." 
 
 "Oh," and she passed on, obviously disappointed. 
 
 "I was just saying to Mrs. Reed," said Mrs. Stokes, 
 a thin lady in black with penciled eyebrows, "that the 
 new incumbent in archeology was a Dwight, and you 
 know the Dwights, Mr. Cosmus, are directly descend 
 ed from Jonathan Edwards." 
 
 She also moved on, and then came Dean Amos 
 Witherspoon, a noble figure of Roman calm and quiet 
 sadness. He spent five minutes explaining to Cosmus 
 his plan of making Crandon Hill a rich man s school. 
 
 "We must do it; it is the next step in the develop 
 ment of the privately endowed college. We simply 
 can not compete with the state schools, and we must 
 find a field distinctly our own in education. We 
 must serve only the best families." 
 
 Dean Witherspoon was replaced by Charles Henry 
 Clarke, professor of history. Of all his colleagues,
 
 IRON CITY 67 
 
 Clarke struck Cosmus as the strangest specimen of 
 the academic mind; he always thought of him as a 
 medieval Tory, if there were Tories in the middle 
 ages. The psychology of Clarke was beyond his com 
 prehension. How he could daily interpret the radicals 
 of the past, and daily reject the radicals of the present, 
 Cosmus could not see. It seemed to Cosmus that 
 Clarke considered the middle ages a kind of Utopia 
 from which mankind had moved forwards like a crab. 
 To-night Clarke said something of the "lack of back 
 ground in the West"; he thought it no wonder that 
 the students were vulgar and listless, for they had no 
 appreciation of intellectual things. 
 
 "Just look at the state building at the capital," he 
 exclaimed. "Actually, Mr. Cosmus, they have carved 
 beeves on its facade raw, beefy beeves rather than 
 the stately figure of Justice." 
 
 Across the room, Cosmus saw the president, looking 
 his part, tall, handsome, still wearing the mask of im 
 mobility behind which Hugh Crandon lived. And 
 Cosmus wondered what was the secret power of the 
 man, what was his ruling motive and hope? Was it 
 true that an institution was the shadow of one man? 
 Hugh Crandon, then, had a heavy responsibility on 
 his shoulders. 
 
 Like most men, John Cosmus saw what he looked to 
 see, but it must not be supposed that he did not see 
 justly enough to perceive the spots of color in all this 
 drabness. His eyes rested with tranquillity on the 
 young professor of Economics, his back against the 
 wall, as if defending something. Cosmus knew him 
 as an incorrigible democrat; and even then, he caught 
 his words : "The harder the lid is clamped down, the 
 bigger the explosion." Cosmus was not content until
 
 68 IRON CITY 
 
 he spied little Professor James, of philosophy, disciple 
 of Dewey, whose life had been one long struggle to 
 interpret democracy and give America a soul. While 
 he was thinking of these two pioneers of the new; 
 order, he was joined by Kimbark. 
 
 "You re smiling," he said as he came up. 
 
 "I was just wondering what would happen if a 
 faculty were suddenly endowed with a sense of hu 
 mor," Cosmus answered. 
 
 "Be sober, perhaps." 
 
 "Or laugh themselves to death at their own collec 
 tive unwisdom." 
 
 "That s treason." 
 
 "From me? There s something wrong with all 
 this. What is it?" Cosmus spoke with sudden 
 earnestness. 
 
 "I just heard Professor Clarke say that the Ameri 
 can college is being assassinated in its own household." 
 
 "By a woman, I suppose," Cosmus answered cyn 
 ically. 
 
 "You mean Sarah Blackstone? I wish she were 
 here." 
 
 "She doesn t." 
 
 "Does she puzzle you, too, with her self sufficien 
 cy?" Kimbark asked. "I never saw a woman who was 
 so utterly a woman, and yet so much a man. You 
 know she has been ostracized by her own sex. She 
 thinks too much. I hear she is doing great things at 
 the Iron Works." 
 
 There flashed into Cosmus mind the image of 
 Sarah, as she had stood that evening on the hill, pliant, 
 strong, and the memory of their fugitive understand 
 ing. What wonderful power she had to make him 
 strong! How he needed her!
 
 IRON CITY 69 
 
 At that moment Dean Georgia Summers was 
 quacking in his ears. "Ah, my dear Mr. Cosmus, 
 have you heard that Dame Rumor is connecting Mr. 
 Boyne s name with Sarah Blackstone s ? Too bad, 
 isn t it, that Mr. Boyne is not college bred. You were 
 speaking of the dear good working men, I suppose?" 
 she asked, including Kimbark in her stereotyped smile. 
 "Isn t it strange they persist in defiling our campus? 
 One would think they would move to some better 
 part of the city." 
 
 Cosmus s loyalty to the college snapped completely. 
 There was something wrong. He must find where 
 the wrong lay. 
 
 On his way home that night, he saw the light in the 
 Mather house, guarding the campus like the torch of 
 ancient culture, and across the city to the North, the 
 red tinge of the factory over the black pipes, and up 
 above, the line of wires purling along between the 
 world cities.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 TPHE morning after the reception, Carl Morton 
 was to take Cosmus to the factory. When he 
 called at the Mortons he found Margaret in the ga 
 rage washing the machine. Apparently she did not 
 mind the cold; she looked robust and pretty in her 
 snug, red jersey; and for the first time, Cosmus no 
 ticed that wistfulness of figure which is the poetry of 
 girlhood. He knew, then, what he had experienced the 
 night before in reference to her was that she was a 
 human soul, with its serious frailties, struggles and 
 aspirations, and that she possessed something of that 
 high spiritual quality that Sarah Blackstone had. He 
 wanted to say, "Little soul, you are safe with me." 
 Instead, he said, "Were you late for supper?" 
 
 "No. Were you late to your party?" and seeing 
 him shake his head, she added: "A faculty party 
 must be funny. Do you dance or play kissing games?" 
 
 He was aware of her vulgarity. 
 
 When finally her father came out and they were 
 leaving, she called out after them, "I hope you like 
 the bull-dog." 
 
 Carl flashed her an angry glance, as he said, "Mag 
 gie, how many times have I told you not to speak of 
 Mr. Sill in that way?" 
 
 "How do you know I meant Mr. Sill," she retorted, 
 laughing. "Perhaps I meant Buster!" 
 
 Night after night, day after day, at any moment 
 midnight or noon wherever he was, John could 
 
 70
 
 IRON CITY 71 
 
 pause for a moment in work or play and hear above 
 the usual hum of Iron City life the pant and throb, the 
 whistle and bell of the Sill plant. Twice a day, at five 
 o clock, crowds of men, on bicycle or afoot, carrying 
 dinner pails, streamed from its gates. 
 
 Until this morning that was all that Cosmus knew 
 of the manufactory save, of course, that it occupied 
 blocks of buildings to the North, and turned its high 
 picket fence, surmounted with barbed wire, formidably 
 to the world. What was the motive power behind 
 this tremendous activity? Production? Was it food 
 to fill mouths? Shoes to clothe feet? Lumber to 
 build houses? None of these. The answer lay in 
 the hundreds of automobiles that lined Iron City s 
 streets on Saturday night. 
 
 When man discovered the energy that lay in wood 
 and coal, seething under water, he ushered in the age 
 of steam; when he discovered that explosive power 
 lay in a fluid a mobile energy which he could 
 safely carry in a tank, he ushered in the age of gaso 
 line which made possible the lighter-than-wood and 
 heavier-than-air machines. John knew before he put 
 foot into the office of R. Sill and Son that no man 
 could take in account any national culture, art and 
 philosophy that did not find a background in the 
 great industrial order. R. Sill was re-forming as well 
 as clothing and feeding Iron City. And Cosmus was 
 sensitive enough to share Carl Morton s admiration 
 for this great throbbing center of life that stretched 
 its nerves out to the cities of the world. 
 
 "We shall be visitors, and make a complete tour," 
 Carl said. 
 
 The office building was a great brick, oblong, 
 arsenal-like, with awninged windows and a flag-staff.
 
 72 IRON CITY 
 
 In the vestibule, a girl at a switchboard near a barred 
 gate coordinated the life outside with the many de 
 partments within. On Carl s magic request a ticket 
 was issued to Cosmus, click went the gate, and they 
 stepped into a corridor, connecting great, well-lighted 
 rooms filled with busy typewriters; then into a court. 
 It was here that a curious thing happened. In the 
 empty court they saw a man in overalls, bareheaded 
 and carrying a dinner pail, rapidly approaching them. 
 Cosmus s curiosity was instantly aroused because 
 the man seemed drunk, or sick, or crazy; his intelli 
 gent face was very pale, and from his mouth came 
 a stream of incoherent sentences. Instead of passing 
 he stopped abruptly in front of the foreman; and 
 slamming his dinner pail against the wall, he began to 
 curse so passionately, yet quietly, that Cosmus won 
 dered at the force of it. He was a powerful man in a 
 kind of steel-like, wiry way; not tall but admirably 
 built, dark-eyed, and smooth-faced. A single lock of 
 gray hair, flowing down through jet black locks, like 
 a kind of anadem, and a deep scar above the left eye 
 made him particularly striking looking. Facing around 
 to see if he were attracting attention from the office, 
 he stuck his face close to the foreman s, and delivered, 
 almost in a whisper, a tirade that was terrible. "You 
 are at the bottom of this, you damned rat. You spied 
 
 on me, you sneaking, dirty, son-of-a ". 
 
 As he stood there stamping and cursing there was 
 such hatred in his face that John feared violence. He 
 was surprised to see that Morton flinched under the 
 words and trembled, but that he showed no anger. 
 Instead he tried to calm the man by ignoring his mad 
 ness. "Come, Walt. This is Professor Cosmus of 
 the college."
 
 IRON CITY 73 
 
 The man stopped short, and shot a hot glance from 
 under his brows straight into John s eyes. John saw 
 his white hands he wondered that they were white 
 working spasmodically. 
 
 "Damn such a school as that is; it ought to be 
 burned to the ground." Wheeling on his heel, he 
 picked up his dented bucket, entered the office and 
 was gone. 
 
 "He s been warned several times to keep still," ex 
 plained Morton, not wholly untroubled. "He s al 
 ways shooting off his mouth among the men, and 
 now they have caught him, and given him the walk." 
 
 "Who is he?" 
 
 "A socialist, probably; anyway, he s been caught 
 several times talking union. Why can t he leave the 
 men alone; they re satisfied. We can t have them 
 tampered with. It s demoralizing to business." 
 
 "What s his name?" 
 
 "Kuhns Walt Kuhns." 
 
 With that Morton dismissed the matter, and led the 
 way up a flight of steps to a lookout window. 
 
 As Cosmus looked out over the Sill plant, he felt a 
 thrill of admiration for all the energy mobilized in 
 this single teeming center of trade. He saw a settle 
 ment of black, low buildings, pierced by thousands of 
 sooty windows, stretching for many blocks to the 
 north, meeting on its eastern and western rim a belt 
 railroad, upon which trains were moving. Above 
 these buildings was a cluster of tall black pipes, belch 
 ing smoke, which even amidst the grime, strangely 
 resembled the tubes of a great organ. Colossal steel 
 girders and huge derricks in the yards belittled the 
 locomotives and cars creeping beneath them. Clang 
 ing bell, shrill whistle, snorting engine, whirling
 
 74 IRON CITY 
 
 wheel, ringing hammer beat up to them, where they 
 stood enthralled. How vast, how powerful, how 
 beautiful! Who would not thrill to be a part of this 
 great movement in productive cooperation ? Had not 
 R. Sill been a giant to build this with the sweat of 
 his own human brain? 
 
 There was pride in Morton s voice as he pointed out 
 shop after shop, this time-saving device, that wise 
 utilization of natural power, and in particular, when 
 he succeeded in making John see the smithy, a squat 
 stone building on the farthest side of the yards. 
 
 They descended. Morton was careful to lead his 
 guest into every department of the business. They 
 entered the pattern-room, comparatively quiet, leisure 
 ly, well-lit; beyond, the core-room, with its well-tended 
 garden of trenches. In the pouring room adjoining, 
 giant kettles, carrying tons of white, molten metal, 
 suspended from moving cranes, glided swiftly from 
 mold to mold, filling them. Men, like demons, pushed 
 tiny wagons not wholly unlike tea-carts, filled with 
 the glowing stuff, and there where the kettles were 
 filled, a river of lava danced over by thousands of 
 fireflies flowed from the furnace s crimson mouth. 
 John could scarcely tear himself away from the fas 
 cination of this spectacle. 
 
 Next they came to the assembly room a vast build 
 ing almost one-third of a mile in length (a corridor 
 not unlike our national capitol s in dignity) filled with 
 moving cranes built on a tremendous scale. The raw 
 material in the form of heavy ingots came in at one 
 end and emerged at the other as living engines. 
 
 Thence the visitor passed to a smaller building 
 the finishing room. Here workmen, like gnomes in 
 masks, scraped and brushed parts of engines. Morton
 
 IRON CITY 75 
 
 shouted above the roar, "We can t get only foreigners 
 to work here. It gets em." The forge room with 
 its colossal automatic hammers, its white-hot furnaces 
 and Vulcan-like workers came next, and here Morton 
 had Cosmus see every detail of the intensely interest 
 ing work. What handsome fellows the smiths were! 
 How they belittled the work of the mind John s 
 work at the desk playing with ideas. 
 
 Cosmus saw it all : the paint-room where large en 
 gines were sprayed in ten seconds with smooth coats 
 of paint; the shipping room, the efficiency, advertis 
 ing and chemical departments. And the last section. 
 The last section visited was the hospital, clean and 
 white and spacious. 
 
 "How many do you serve a day?" John asked the 
 nurse. 
 
 "Averaged 80 a day, last year," she answered with 
 a show of pride. 
 
 Eighty a day it made John suddenly sober. 
 
 Then, as if saying "Let s see the man behind all 
 this," Morton led Cosmus back to the office, through 
 swinging doors of leaded glass, where they were fi 
 nally admitted to R. Sill. 
 
 He was not what Cosmus expected to see this 
 baron; from appearance, he little deserved the name 
 bull-dog, which the ready tongue of Margaret had 
 given him that morning. There was nothing in his 
 look and manner that suggested ruthlessness, cruelty 
 or vulgarity qualities which have been attributed to 
 the entrepreneur of Sill s eminence. He suggested 
 respectability, quiet power, and a poise that put to 
 shame the creature trembling and cursing, beside itself 
 with rage, which they had met in the yard an hour 
 before. R. Sill was tall and massive with a large and
 
 76 IRON CITY 
 
 fine head; features a trifle soggy, and eyes not too 
 clear, nevertheless suggesting strength. There was 
 no lordliness in his manner, no haughtiness. 
 
 "I have just one thing against you college people," 
 he said, leveling a look straight at Cosmus. "You 
 don t keep up with the times. After all, a college is 
 just another factory like this one. The trustees, I take 
 it, are the board of directors; the president is the gen 
 eral superintendent; you faculty are the business-get 
 ters, and the students are the patrons. Are you all 
 the time studying how to bring in the greatest return 
 on the dollar? Now, do you people up there on the 
 bluff have an efficiency department?" 
 
 He smiled, somewhat morosely. "From the samples 
 of your men I get there, I take it you don t. Do you 
 know, Mr. Cosmus, that some of my foremen won t 
 accept college men in their departments." 
 
 Cosmus asked why. 
 
 "They don t stay; they are discontented and un 
 trustworthy." 
 
 This concluded their conversation but as they turned 
 to go Morton tarried for a minute at the mahogany; 
 desk. Through the glass doors John heard the two 
 voices. 
 
 "You know about Kuhns?" the foreman asked. 
 
 "I gave orders this morning." 
 
 Cosmus detected a new note in R. Sill s voice, the 
 husky quivering "C" of deep emotion, ending in metal 
 lic hardness. 
 
 "Those fellows get worse all the time," Morton 
 ventured to add. 
 
 "Let them. What have I told you? Their efforts 
 are spasmodic, and will end. They can t hold out.
 
 IRON CITY 77 
 
 Everything s against them. We ll break them this 
 way always." 
 
 At the door opening into the court, Morton left 
 Cosmus, who decided to take a turn about the engine 
 room before passing out of the yard-gate which the 
 workmen used. Crossing the court, he turned sharply 
 to the left, and stood marveling at the wheels revolv 
 ing noiselessly through their magnificent orbits. 
 
 "May I see your ticket, sir?" 
 
 The voice in John s ear was meticulously tuned to 
 carry insult. Looking up, Cosmus saw a squat, heavy 
 figure of a young man in a fashionable suit that 
 seemed glaringly fresh and clean in contrast to the 
 surroundings. His round, tilted head with its coarse 
 pompadour was without a hat; the eyes were narrow 
 and shifty; the nose pug and strong. A young busi 
 ness man s mustache, a gold tipped cigarette in a 
 mouth of straight line; this much John took in as he 
 turned and faced the custodian. Coarse, flat-footed 
 independence, a kind of worldly charm and conscious 
 power, delighting in authority, emanated from him. 
 
 He stood coolly sweeping Cosmus up and down 
 with his keen eyes, carelessly knocking the ashes from 
 the cigarette with a little finger. 
 
 "Have you a ticket, sir?" This time more patron 
 izingly. 
 
 Cosmus at once recognized old Sill s son and knew 
 that Raymond must have known him. This was stud 
 ied insult then. 
 
 The two stood looking at each other, aroused to an 
 tagonism. Biologists interested in personality assert 
 that behind a single sentence may be an inherited back 
 ground of special characteristics. Was the sentence 
 that Raymond Sill cast in the face of John Cosmus 
 that afternoon the product of inheritance or training?
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE Sills," R. Sill the first was wont to boast, 
 "have an instinct for strong women." It was a 
 mature acknowledgment of woman s place in his own 
 life and affairs. This R. Sill, the first, Raymond s 
 paternal grandfather, was a country physician a 
 graduate of Dartmouth medical school in the class of 
 1843. Like many a second son of a New England 
 farmer, he left the homestead to take up a profession, 
 equipped with strong nerves, keen mind and a con 
 venient theology; no tenet of Calvinism forbade saga 
 cious manipulations of the law of supply and demand, 
 or the exacting of compound interest. At Millers 
 Falls, Mass., where the young physician settled, he 
 found promise of a fair field of development in his 
 profession and Patience Conway. Patience Conway 
 was the miller s daughter. She received silks and 
 satins every half-year from Paris, and she was the 
 belle of the neighborhood, pretty and substantial. She 
 had been to Boston to school. Dr. Sill paid her at 
 tention, of course, and they drifted into a relationship 
 that old Mr. Conway, who considered Dr. Sill a good 
 match, wanted to force into an understanding. Sill 
 might have married Patience Conway, had he not met 
 Maude Randolph, a school mistress from the back 
 lands, whose birth was shadowed in mystery. A 
 "strong woman," she made Patience Conway seem 
 insipid. As youth will, away over the hills in the 
 doctor s chaise, they went one afternoon before tea 
 
 78
 
 IRON CITY 79 
 
 to Attleboro, and married suddenly. Then by some 
 inexplicable whim, some gypsy in the blood aroused 
 by romance, they never returned to Millers Falls. 
 
 The winter of 48 they started west in a sleigh, 
 stopped off in Vermont to see Sill s parents, thence 
 on to Montreal, to Detroit, to Chicago, finally settling 
 near Iron City, which was called Nassau then. In all 
 that wild wedding journey, in the dead of winter, un 
 der chill December stars, over unbroken tracks, 
 through wolf-packed forests, in sad, silent places, the 
 doctor never once was disappointed in his bride. She 
 never whimpered, never complained, but arose every 
 morning ready for the far places. At Iron City they 
 found Indians, a French trader married to a squaw. 
 And a few men from Ohio had started a mill. Stay 
 ing until midsummer, the doctor s Maude died in child 
 birth, and was buried under an old oak not far from 
 the campus of Crandon Hill College. The doctor 
 never escaped her sweet influence. It was a tribute 
 to her memory that kept this man lonely and single 
 until he was fifty years old. What share Maude 
 Randolph might have had in his subsequent career as 
 a financier can not be guessed. She was a strong 
 woman, and might have saved him from the pursuit 
 of power which he now began. 
 
 Young Dr. Sill did not stay in Nassau, but went 
 back to Chicago, and later became a kind of circuit 
 physician throughout northwestern Illinois. Here he 
 laid a basis for his fortune. With a keen sense of 
 values in human nature, a steady temper, and ambi 
 tion in a country wild and new what could not be 
 accomplished ? 
 
 He became an incorrigible backer of Illinois soil. 
 He used to ride along the heavy roads, leap from his
 
 80 IRON CITY 
 
 horse, pick up the spongy dirt between his fingers, 
 press it tightly into his hands, and wonder at its give. 
 "That is an Eden," he would say, sweeping his long 
 arm over the flat dreary prairie land. 
 
 The inhabitants did not believe him. They found 
 the land only a treacherous bog, from which lifted a 
 miasma by dawn and sunset, that bred disease and 
 death. They believed in nothing; they were incorri 
 gible pessimists, as malaria-ridden folk always are. 
 Doctor Sill, in his dry, casual way, later used to say, 
 "The inhabitants of Illinois were so full of malaria 
 that they never needed to call me ; all I had to do was 
 to ride by their cabins and, if their windows shook, 
 I went in!" For these pioneer farmers, Dr. Sill had 
 three prescriptions; he gave them quinine; he gave 
 them money; he dispensed optimism. Out of the 
 saddle bags came a pile of the drug; out of the doctor s 
 boot came the long black purse; across the shrewd 
 face came the inevitable smile. "That is an Eden," 
 he would say over and over again. And the quinine 
 and the money and the smile won. The malaria was 
 conquered, the fields tilled and prosperity reigned. 
 
 R. Sill, the first, suddenly found himself an itin 
 erant bank. The long black purse became an institu 
 tion founded on personality. The convenient the 
 ology allowed the physician, when he was dispensing 
 optimism, to charge twelve and fifteen per cent inter 
 est, until, one day in the early fifties, he found him 
 self rich and looking for investments. His mind re 
 verted to youth, to the wedding journey with Maude 
 Randolph, and he remembered the rich timber lands in 
 Michigan, through which they had driven with clasped 
 hands under the still Western stars. 
 
 In 1864, he took two important steps in his career.
 
 IRON CITY 81 
 
 He made his first investment in Michigan woods, and 
 he married Maude Stone, his secretary. Maude was 
 never the first Maude to him, but through long associ 
 ation she knew his idiosyncrasies and shared his aims. 
 And she gave him what he counted his right to have 
 a son. 
 
 Long before 1882, R. Sill the first had given up 
 his practice and retired. He lived in Chicago a 
 backwoodsy pioneer type afloat in the new great 
 metropolis. What a spectacle he had seen! What a 
 colorful, various procession of men and events had 
 streamed across his retina. What a miracle to be 
 hold a frontier fort leap into a world metropolis. 
 
 About Chicago, he ever remained an eccentric 
 figure. He appeared at the best clubs and cafes in 
 the same old boots, carrying the same old long black 
 purse. He was petulant and impudent. He thought 
 nothing of saying to a clubman, 
 
 "I don t like that tie ; take it off, sir," or of squab 
 bling with the cashier about a penny, and of tipping 
 him with a gold-back. He was rough, honest, shrewd ; 
 one of those rare specimens of the individualist which 
 the frontier so often breeds. 
 
 One night in his eightieth year, he dreamed of 
 Maude Randolph, and on arising, a prayer of his 
 mother s ran through his troubled brain. He wrote 
 a letter that morning. 
 
 Two days later, on May 2, 1882, to be exact, young 
 Reverend Hugh Crandon, newly elected president of 
 Crandon Hill College, hitched up the horse to the 
 surrey and drove through the drowsy streets to the 
 post office for mail. Reverend Mr. Crandon was 
 already facing a crisis in his affairs. The college was
 
 82 IRON CITY 
 
 on the verge of bankruptcy. Founded by the church, 
 it had served the good purpose for which it was in 
 tended by furnishing ministers, and teachers to a 
 nation rapidly becoming self-conscious. The college 
 was able, then, to adumbrate America s crudeness with 
 a feeble but genuine culture. But in 1882, that era 
 was closing. There were vague world-whispers of 
 other needs and moments. Science had brought new 
 ideas and tools; and a few mighty empire-builders 
 were conscious of the vast wealth of this America, 
 and of the leverage that lay in cooperation of capital, 
 in the utilization of labor. These world-whispers 
 were disturbing to sabbatical colleges. Neighboring 
 institutions had heard, and were active in tapping the 
 rapidly accumulating fortunes of the overnight million 
 aires. Crandon Hill College was tottering under the 
 guidance of a board of trustees composed of min 
 isters only. As Reverend Mr. Crandon rode along 
 through the elm fringed streets, he cogitated. How 
 could he re-place his present trustees with wealthy 
 and influential laymen, and how could he unite the 
 field of education, the center of light and culture, with 
 the youthful and powerful industrial aristocracy 
 about to mature? And as he cogitated, an answer 
 was dropped into his lap. The post-girl brought him* 
 Dr. Sill s letter, and he read: 
 
 Reverend Hugh Crandon, 
 Crandon Hill College, 
 
 Iron City. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 If I give you $100,000 could you raise a like sum? 
 For God s sake don t blow about it. I m that kind. 
 
 R. SILL.
 
 IRON CITY 83 
 
 Perhaps it was the grim Calvinistic conscience at 
 work in Dr. Sill, perhaps it was the memory of the 
 grave under the oak tree near Cranclon Hill campus; 
 at any rate, he kept his promise, and Crandon Hill 
 College was saved. That was only the beginning of 
 a series of gifts. 
 
 In 1882 R. Sill, the first, owned eight million dol 
 lars. He vowed that he and his wife would die with 
 out a cent in the world. And so R. Sill the second 
 became penniless. 
 
 R. Sill, the second, was an active, handsome boy 
 interested in machinery. He turned his room into an 
 experimental station for dynamos and engines; he 
 never gave his father any trouble. When Dr. Sill 
 told him that he intended to give all his fortune away 
 and thus set him free to make his own mark in the 
 world, the son merely commented impersonally. 
 
 "I didn t know you had as much as eight million, 
 Father." 
 
 Like his father, he seemed more interested in mak 
 ing money than in spending it. He went to Crandon 
 Hill College at his own suggestion, and worked his 
 way through; and there it was that he met Patience 
 Conway Wood, of Millers Falls. It was not until 
 several years later that he learned that she was the 
 daughter of Patience Conway. She it was, who dis 
 covered his passion for engines, and though she loved 
 the arts and was a musician and painter herself, she 
 advised him to give up college. He quit at the end of 
 the freshman year, married Patience Wood and took 
 a job with the then newly organized Enterprise Pump 
 ing Company of Iron City. In ten years he had di 
 verted the energies of the plant into making gasoline
 
 84 IRON CITY 
 
 engines, and he had acceded to managership and pos 
 session. 
 
 Everywhere he found helping hands stretched 
 toward him; he seemed born in the right generation; 
 he was asked to swim with and not against the cur 
 rent. 
 
 His particular virtues enterprise, taciturnity, ex 
 pert knowledge in a new field, thoroughness were 
 everywhere in demand. Brother manufacturers spoke 
 to him of identical interests; brilliant Judge Matt 
 Tyler went out of his way to talk with him on the 
 street; Haskell, editor of the Republic-Despatch, 
 offered him space in his columns free, merely in order 
 to boost Iron City business. Even the government 
 consented to high protective tariffs to encourage his 
 lusty business. No wonder R. Sill, the second, in time 
 developed a philosophy of radiant optimism. He and 
 Iron City and America were favored by God; he 
 knew, because they all were prospering; also, there 
 somehow arose in his mind the notion that business 
 was sacrosanct. He thrilled with secret joy when he 
 heard enthusiastic advertising men speak of the Ro 
 mance of Business, the Internationally of Business, 
 the Empire of Business and even the Religion of 
 Business. 
 
 All this was in the first two decades of his career 
 the happiest of his life. His son Raymond was grow 
 ing up, a strong, promising boy, and his wife had not 
 yet fallen ill. The novelty of commanding vast mate 
 rials and men and the novelty of success had not worn 
 off. It was just after the Spanish war that he struck 
 his black year. Moving with the current, pursuant 
 of the common policy of consolidation, he established 
 factories at Toronto, Three Rivers and Dallas. Then
 
 IRON CITY 85- 
 
 it was that R. Sill, the second, first became aware that 
 there was such a thing as envy in the world. A spirit, 
 at least, which he called envy. There were persons 
 vulgar enough not to appreciate the sacrifices he had 
 made, not to enjoy his success, not to perceive the 
 beauty of Big Business. These persons were rais 
 ing their heads in politics, and they made R. Sill ner 
 vous. He was not a statesman, he admitted that; 
 he was a specialist, and all he asked was to be let 
 alone. In the first clash with envy in his state, he 
 lost, and he then decided that it was time to give the 
 new menace careful attention. He gathered his 
 friends together Haskell of the Republic-Despatch, 
 Judge Matt Tyler and others, and laid the situation 
 before them. They saw as he did, the danger to ex 
 panding industry, to the "very life of the Nation," 
 as Tyler put it, and they decided because of that 
 phrase, that Tyler ought to go to the Senate. The 
 little matter was carried through without a hitch and 
 Sill breathed easier. 
 
 It was after this black year, that President Crandon 
 approached Sill to fill a vacancy on his Board of 
 Trustees. 
 
 "I ll give you five thousand dollars toward a busi 
 ness college," Sill told him, "but I haven t time or in 
 clination to serve as a trustee." 
 
 President Crandon did not allow his annoyance to 
 be seen; he smiled, expressed adequate regret that 
 "a business man, so eminent, and an alumnus, and a 
 son of a noble friend of the college" could not serve 
 on more intimate terms with the institution. When 
 he learned that business college in Sill s mind meant 
 a department of stenography and book-keeping, he
 
 86 IRON CITY 
 
 delicately steered clear of the offer and the matter was 
 closed. 
 
 Long before Sill became delegate to the National 
 Republican Convention for his district, one of the 
 way stations in his career, he stopped going to church. 
 He still contributed to Reverend Mr. Dingley s sal 
 ary each Sunday, but he would say, "Mother, I am 
 tired this morning. You go." And he and Raymond 
 would take the small car and go for a ride, or he 
 would work in his office. 
 
 When John Cosmus met R. Sill, the second, that 
 February afternoon, he crossed Sill s career when it 
 was already past the zenith. Sill was a hammerer on 
 the will. He was just a little tired of life, and vaguely 
 certain that he had missed something, he knew not 
 what. He still clung tenaciously to his optimism; he 
 thought himself a great patriot; he was a believer in 
 law and order, but he was not above breaking the 
 law, when by so doing he saved trade, the life of 
 the nation, from the zealous and envious; he was a 
 good husband, a good citizen, a fair employer. In 
 short, Sill was a specialist with illusions, playing a 
 large part in a large world, yet moving narrowly in a 
 little world, barren of great ideas. 
 
 Somehow Sill s weariness and sense of loss were 
 connected in his own mind with his son, Raymond. 
 After Raymond s rather disasterous career at Prepara 
 tory School, he watched the boy narrowly for signs 
 of revolution. He longed to see him assert his will, 
 and make a choice of a career. But he waited in vain. 
 Raymond was twenty before Sill gave up hope. Then 
 they had a talk. 
 
 "You must go to work in the plant," R. Sill told his 
 son.
 
 IRON CITY 87 
 
 "Send me to Yale instead," was Raymond s an 
 swer. 
 
 Sill secretly was so pleased at the boy s mani 
 fested desire, that Raymond was sent, but stayed 
 only a year. In the vague background of that year 
 at Yale, which the father later saw, a woman moved 
 darkly, and the boy came home. He did not seem 
 even to catch the subtle insult in his father s question, 
 when old Sill asked at their midnight interview, 
 "Raymond, did you learn anything from those aca 
 demic fellows about inheritance? Can some old an 
 cestor from a generation or more back affect a son? 
 Your grandfather was a great man, you know." 
 
 Wasn t R. Sill, the second, wrong? Moving 1 un 
 certainly among ideas, had he not failed to see? 
 Wasn t Raymond after all a Sill? 
 
 R. Sill, the first, given the freedom of frontier life, 
 suddenly expanded through native shrewdness to mas 
 tery, into a financier. In a half century, he made and 
 dispersed a vast fortune. R. Sill, the second, though 
 he treasured the illusion that he had surmounted great 
 obstacles, in reality climbed an easy grade against no 
 opposition. He swam with the current. Grandfather 
 and father both loved power. But no more than did 
 Raymond. Raymond loved power better than any 
 thing else in the world. But he felt unconsciously, 
 in the capitalistic world, which his father had helped 
 to mold, certain centrifugal forces of unexpe^ed 
 strength, and he shrank from them and therefore fi-pm 
 a business that did not offer him the expansive field 
 of freedom that it had offered his father. To be sure, 
 Raymond did not reason about the situation; he felt 
 it. He was not weaker in will than his progenitors;
 
 68 IRON CITY 
 
 he merely faced more opposition and more competi 
 tion than they had. 
 
 The only other talent, buried in the folds of Ray 
 mond s personality, which might have swept into 
 fruition and made him a man was the artistic. From 
 Patience Conway Wood, he had received a love of 
 beauty. Even after she became an invalid, his mother 
 still painted. She lay in her bed, a sweet, slender 
 figure that carried the fragrance of roses, making 
 little sketches of scenes from Millers Falls. "What 
 did you daub to-day, Mother?" old Sill would say 
 tenderly, and she would hold up some bit of field or 
 wood, delicately tinted. "I always try, Father, to make 
 trees just like Corot s but I never, never can." What 
 impetus was there in Raymond Sill s enviroment to 
 make him an artist? What use had Iron City for art? 
 And so he hid effectively his too warm love of beauty. 
 
 Raymond had at hand adequate instruments for the 
 expression of his love of power and his love of beauty, 
 now deteriorated into mere love of sensation. When 
 the big Stutz was added to their garage, the boy was 
 almost satisfied. With that he could sweep over high 
 ways like some great new creature neither bird nor 
 beast, drinking in color and loveliness in huge gulps of 
 power. But even the Stutz did not hold Raymond 
 entirely. One day he was moved to confide in Mar 
 garet Morton. "I think I ve just about got the Big 
 Chief in the notion of letting me have a plane," he 
 told her. 
 
 With the accumulation of great capital had come 
 machines which satisfied, too easily perhaps, the sense 
 of power and beauty. At any rate, Raymond was 
 a Sill. 
 
 And yet, how can he who believes in democracy,
 
 IRON CITY 89 
 
 who has come to believe too in that float of ideas, 
 that great sea of human consciousness, which in one 
 manifestation or another, we call public opinon, how 
 can he doubt that Raymond s environment shaped 
 him, and crushed him into that meanest of all things 
 a parasite? Raymond, a product of the capital 
 istic order, had become the chief element in its dis 
 integration. He was the great anarch. 
 
 It was he then, R. Sill, the third, who stood there 
 coldly measuring John Cosmus. And perhaps Cosmus, 
 through avenues of unconscious power, understood 
 something of what Raymond was, in lineage and in 
 effect; at any rate, he had an impulse to strike him as 
 he would a puppy. But the fetters of civilization 
 held, and instead he quietly handed out his card of 
 entrance. 
 
 As he turned away, Raymond said, 
 
 "You will need this to get out, Professor Cosmus." 
 
 But Cosmus did not return to take the ticket.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 the engine room, where Cosmus had left 
 Raymond Sill, to the yard-gate it was perhaps 
 two hundred feet. A warm blooded man could walk 
 that distance in about thirty-three seconds, long 
 enough for one, brimming with indignation, to store 
 his mind with many images. A moving picture of 
 Cosmus s mind those seconds would have been inter 
 esting. 
 
 Pictures of the factory, and workmen, simple, child 
 like, weary; Margaret dimpling and radiant; Old Sill, 
 not as he had seen him, but as he imagined his face 
 must have looked, to match the hardness in his voice 
 when he had said, "We shall break them this way al 
 ways"; Morton, faithful and honest; Raymond, pug- 
 like, sneering, hiding his best self in some dark corner 
 of his soul; but clearest of all, Walt Kuhns, his eyes 
 deep and fine, a crown upon his head, but with cour 
 age enough to rebel. 
 
 Somehow as he walked ashamedly away from Ray 
 mond Sill, Cosmus felt very near to Walt Kuhns. 
 
 He expected to be held up at the yard-gate, but 
 when he got there he found the gate unguarded; in 
 the street a few steps away, there was a group of 
 excited men gathered around a police ambulance. 
 Cosmus caught muttered imprecations and a groan; 
 he saw the glitter of brass buttons, and police stars in 
 the early winter twilight. He drew nearer. Two of 
 ficers were lifting a man into the ambulance; the other 
 
 90
 
 IRON CITY 91 
 
 men seemed to be employees of the Sill plant. Cosmus 
 heard the door click, and saw the machine bound 
 away. 
 
 The workmen were returning slowly up the walk 
 toward the gate talking excitedly. As they passed 
 Cosmus, he heard one of them say, "He had the nerve 
 to try and walk in ; what does he think we are ?" 
 
 "I got him one square between the eyes " 
 
 And then another man broke in, 
 
 "I don t care, Walt Kuhns is a good scout after 
 all." 
 
 The next morning Cosmus scanned the pages of the 
 Republic-Despatch, but he found no word of a fracas 
 at the plant. Buried away in the court items he did 
 find notice of a case of the State -vs. Walt Kuhns, for 
 malicious trespass. 
 
 Moved by a hidden bond of sympathy and by natu 
 ral curiosity, Cosmus resolved to call on Kuhns at 
 the cell. He had no difficulty in gaining entrance to 
 the man. Judge Carr, who granted the order, and 
 with whom he chatted a few minutes, seemed to see 
 nothing more in the incident than bad blood between 
 some working men ; he thought Kuhns would probably 
 go up for ninety days. 
 
 When Cosmus entered the lock-up, he had to look 
 twice at the man sitting in repose next to the iron 
 barred window before he recognized him. Was that 
 Kuhns? The light that trickled through the windows 
 fell upon a face of singular calmness; the prisoner was 
 unagitated, and filled with a dignity and submission 
 which were quite noble. He did not seem surprised 
 at seeing Cosmus and there was no trace of resent 
 ment in his voice as he greeted him. 
 
 "Come in," he said, "I remember, you were with
 
 92 IRON CITY 
 
 Morton yesterday morning. Cosmer, Comer was 
 it?" 
 
 Cosmus told him his name. 
 
 "You saw me at my worst yesterday. It s my fail 
 ing. I m like that when I get tired fighting. Those 
 spells of wrath are like drunks, I guess. But they re 
 mistakes ; they make me less fit for the work." 
 
 "Would you believe me, Mr. Kuhns, if I told you 
 that I took quite seriously what you said about the 
 college yesterday morning?" 
 
 "What did I say?" 
 
 "You said you wished all such colleges as Crandon 
 Hill " 
 
 "Yes, don t repeat it; I remember. I m not a col 
 lege man, and perhaps you think I was presumptuous 
 that I ought not to judge " 
 
 He paused, as if recollecting, 
 
 "Mr. Cosmus," he said earnestly, "I d like to make 
 
 you see this thing as we do. It s a long story " 
 
 he paused and seemed to hesitate. Then feeling the 
 interest and sympathy in Cosmus s manner, he went 
 on again. "Let me tell you a little incident one of 
 the things which has made me feel as I do 
 
 "Can you see a room in a miner s hut on a late 
 spring night ? A man is sitting there with grave, thin 
 face and burning eyes, writing. He has just given 
 orders to the striking miners to resist the militia. It 
 has hurt him to do it because he is an idealist, and 
 hates bloodshed, and all these men are his comrades; 
 he has worked in the mines with many of them. There 
 is a knock at the door, and he says, like a friend, Come 
 in. A man dressed in cool flannels, and a lieutenant 
 of the guards enter. The man is from Pittsburgh 
 of the higher-ups ; he believes as they all believe, that
 
 IRON CITY 93 
 
 every man has his price. He is carrying a satchel 
 crammed with bills of large denominations and gold 
 coin. He has come to buy out the leader of the 
 miners; he wants him to sell out his comrades. The 
 higher-up takes a chair; the two men talk; they even 
 laugh; they touch on every subject imaginable but 
 not once upon the subject nearest them. Why doesn t 
 the Higher-up get busy? Why doesn t he open the 
 mouth of his satchel and pour its glittering contents 
 upon the bare table? He doesn t, he is sizing up his 
 man. He is using strategy; all the time the Master 
 is calm, courteous, sincere. Presently the Higher-up 
 gets up and it looks as though he were going to open 
 his satchel. But he doesn t. Instead, he puts on his 
 hat, shakes hands with the leader, takes his satchel 
 and goes out. Pie is beaten. For once he finds a 
 man who has no price ; he did not even open his propo 
 sition. The lieutenant of the guards stays; he goes 
 to the leader and shakes his hand; but that is not 
 enough; he says something. It is this, T promise to 
 resign from the guard, and enlist with you ! 
 
 John Cosmus filled the pause with a question, "He 
 kept his word, of course?" 
 
 "I am that lieutenant," Kuhns answered. "I was a 
 boy then. I enlisted in the militia for a lark, and it 
 was no lark. That fall I should have entered a semi 
 nary of the Protestant Episcopal church. I didn t, 
 and I am not sorry. I am in a nobler army, a higher 
 church." 
 
 The eyes of Walt Kuhns burned, but he showed 
 no other signs of excitement. He was calm and un 
 affected. These statements seemed from him the 
 merest commonplaces.
 
 94 IRON CITY 
 
 "It is great to work with a man like the Master. 
 He says that each one of us is a pioneer, a Columbus. 
 We are in the van of democracy. He offers no re 
 ward save the service. What he did for the Higher- 
 up, he does for all men; he impresses them with his 
 nobility, and honesty. He is another Lincoln it seems 
 to me, an obscurer Lincoln." 
 
 "Is this war so large?" 
 
 "Large? Why, friend, when the first blood was 
 spilt on the bodies that were brought in, it seemed to 
 me, after having seen the Master, that this skirmish 
 was greater than Bull Run." 
 
 Cosmus was thinking of R. Sill when he asked the 
 next question, 
 
 "And the movement is not sporadic ?" 
 
 "The Master does not say much when he is moved 
 deeply, but that night as he cowered over the body of 
 a comrade, he said, It is a holy thing to die for lib 
 erty! When a man talks like that" Kuhns finished 
 with a gesture. 
 
 "I see," said Cosmus. 
 
 When Cosmus had left Walt Kuhns and found the 
 street, Iron City life was at its flood. Machines were 
 honking, newsboys crying extras, shoppers carrying 
 their packages, children in carriages, all were hurrying 
 past in prosperity, peace and indifference. 
 
 John Cosmus, a student of society, was thinking 
 of two faces, the face of R. Sill as it must have looked 
 when he said, "We shall break them in this way al 
 ways," and the face of Walt Kuhns when he had re 
 peated his master s words, "It is a holy thing to die 
 for liberty." 
 
 Then he remembered that he had not received an
 
 IRON CITY 95 
 
 answer from Kuhns to his question, "What of the 
 college ?" 
 
 Here was a pretty problem, indeed, for a student of 
 society.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 T N June, after the close of the first year at Crandon 
 * Hill College, John Cosmus went to Lake Kee- 
 wasee, near to the capital of a neighboring state, for 
 the summer. Here was the middle west at its fairest; 
 leagues of blue water, green rolling fields, commodious 
 farms, golden harvest fields upon which the visitor 
 suddenly emerged from coverts of deep, cool woods, 
 amber-dim, rich with the hum of bees. Here was 
 range enough for his cramped spirits and mind; he 
 could regain normality and adjust perspectives. Os 
 tensibly he had decided on this retreat to write his 
 Book, "Theory of the Standardization of Wages," 
 but in the first weeks he slept, ate, swam, played ten 
 nis, or loafed with the imperturbable animals. 
 
 He liked to cast his eyes over the fifteen miles of 
 blue water to the city at the side of the lake, where 
 rose the capital like a marble lily; not far beyond, 
 peeping above the trees, were the towers of the Uni 
 versity. A boat from the city with a faint flavor 
 of habitations, business and the world of men, stopped 
 at the pier before the Burkhardt cottage every morn 
 ing to bring mail and papers. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Adolph Burkhardt and their two 
 young sons Karl and Gustav, were his hosts. He had 
 met Mr. Burkhardt in a Chicago reference library, 
 struggling with a book on business psychology. Burk 
 hardt was a mild, self-conscious, little man, a first vio 
 linist in the Symphony Orchestra. 
 
 96
 
 IRON CITY 97 
 
 "Perhaps, you can help me with this," he had said 
 to Cosmus, placing a page on "Sensation" before the 
 student. "I can t understand Miinsterberg in Eng 
 lish. You see I must be more practical in America 
 and so I take a course in beesiness at the University." 
 
 Burkhardt s self-conscious effort to become prac 
 tical was the evidence of his impracticality. But he 
 was generous, kind and hospitable. His love of music 
 was unaffected, and his loyalty to Cosmus genuine. 
 Mrs. Burkhardt was motherly and refined; the sons, 
 Karl and Gustav, were two young Indians, who pre 
 ferred any sport to music, and often used Cosmus 
 as a buffer against their ardent father. They did not 
 want to practice, but they always did. Day and night 
 Cosmus heard the scrapings of the violin. Sometimes 
 the father would improvise little vagrant melodies that 
 caught the very spirit of the place harvest fields, lit 
 tle crinkly waves, and swirling leaves; or he would 
 draw the face of night itself in his great sweet sound 
 waves. One favorite piece that he loved, and which 
 he played well, too, was Massenet s "Elegie." Often 
 before sleep came, Cosmus in his cottage adjoining 
 heard the first breathing of this great song. He 
 always saw a procession of women mourning, the pro 
 cession of the ages, passing through desolate streets 
 of desolate towns. Adolph never played this save 
 at night; it was then that Cosmus was most glad for 
 the music. Sometimes in the midst of morning work 
 it was disconcerting. 
 
 Cosmus thought most of Margaret Morton in such 
 moments as the "Elegie" inspired. Margaret s wom 
 anliness in spite of her youth, maternity shadowed 
 deep beneath, linked her with the profound. When 
 he had left her some weeks before, they had been on
 
 98 IRON CITY 
 
 no different basis. He had asked her to write and 
 she had given no definite promise. "I ll send you a 
 postal from Pike Lake. Raymond and I are going 
 there to a house-party, you know." She had not sent 
 a letter or a postal. Cosmus, in a spirit of banter, had 
 been sending her postal cards ever since. When he 
 was in the city he sought out the gayest conceits, as 
 he would for a child. After all, wasn t that what his 
 changed relations with Margaret since that night 
 when she had picked him up in her machine meant? 
 Hadn t he found the child in her? Somehow he had 
 never since been so shaken by the winds of passion. 
 Still Margaret was for the night. She haunted the 
 moonlit wood, bent above him in the lake; her body 
 must have slept on that tuft of moss ; his drowsy head 
 must have been pillowed on her bosom. The earth- 
 deep witchery of sex crossed darkened distances; ab 
 sence only sharpened desire, however chastened by the 
 soul. 
 
 Margaret for the night, and Sarah for the day. 
 Cosmus had left Iron City one June morning by the 
 electric. He was glad to go "darned glad" as he 
 told Kimbark, who was to study in France that sum 
 mer for, although Mr. and Mrs. Curtis were kind 
 to him, Cosmus was not happy in Iron City. The 
 straightened, artificial life shut down on him like a 
 prison. As the car sped North past the Crandon Hill 
 Iron Works, he saw Sarah at an awninged window, 
 evidently superintending the placing of more window 
 boxes, gay with geraniums. A desire to see her be 
 fore he left, seized him. He signaled the motorman, 
 and left the interurban at the next corner. He never 
 had any trouble in being direct with Sarah.
 
 IRON CITY 99 
 
 "I am going away for the summer; may I write?" 
 he asked. 
 
 She flashed him a look of such friendliness that Cos- 
 mus for a moment imagined that it was tender. 
 
 "Oh, I wish you would," she answered. 
 
 Then he did not stay. He plead some errand, and 
 walked the streets about the factory waiting for the 
 next car. 
 
 They had been writing all summer in an irregular 
 fashion. Whatever whim or mood dictated, they put 
 down on paper and sent. Sometimes Cosmus drew 
 pictures to illustrate his own wit and humor. Some 
 times he culled paragraphs from his "Theory of Stand 
 ardization of Wages" and sent them intact; once he 
 sent her a red-clover blossom, and she replied with a 
 leaf. In return she sent him newspaper clippings and 
 once a poem which had pleased her. Her letters were 
 always vivid, gay, penetrative, impersonal. She con 
 nected him with the outer world; occasionally there 
 was a reference to the heat and the men sweating at 
 the machines; she told him of her successful effort to 
 get Mr. Boyne to install motor-driven fans in all de 
 partments, etc., etc. Her letters would not let him 
 forget the submerged struggle between Walt Kuhns 
 and R. Sill, the second. 
 
 One day, pondering on Walt Kuhns, Cosmus sud 
 denly saw what he thought was a solution to the prob 
 lem. He wrote to Sarah Blackstone : 
 
 "Here we moderns are utterly neglectful of the 
 most powerful instrument in the hands of society the 
 float of ideas, which is the sum total of the thoughts 
 and feelings of men. The sea of accumulated con 
 sciousness is society; it affects men against their will 
 penetrating to the sub-conscious. Through it, men
 
 ioo IRON CITY 
 
 become automatons. Once in a generation, this force 
 breathes through a nation in time of war, and we see 
 men, the creatures of this Great Spirit, throw them 
 selves willingly into the abyss of death. The problem 
 is to get men to feel the Spirit in time of peace. The 
 problem in a democracy is to let loose this wash of 
 ideas, without despotic control of press and school. 
 Indeed this great float of ideas is the only medium in 
 which democracy can exist. 
 
 "When I look at America, the sanctuary of national 
 faith, fragmentized by scores of aliens, broken into 
 political parties, criss-crossed by feuds between labor 
 and capital, cut into fifty commonwealths, I wonder 
 how we can ever imagine that we have a democracy. 
 
 "We are children yet in our understanding of this 
 great instrument, which is mastering us, but which 
 we may master. The thoughtful, the creative minds, 
 must fill the strategic positions of the world in order 
 consciously to control this solution of ideas, not for 
 themselves but for society. 
 
 "In other words, the next great movement of so 
 ciety, as I see it, is from an ego- and class-centric into 
 a socio-centric world. 
 
 "R. Sill is ego-centric ; Walt Kuhns, perhaps, is ego 
 centric; President Hugh Crandon is ego-centric; 
 (more the shame, for the college, now groping for a 
 mission in the world, should serve to usher the nation 
 peacefully into a socio-centric era) all are shut up 
 in their stifling class worlds, gasping for the larger 
 spaces of a socialized world. 
 
 "In this way we will achieve this democracy. This 
 is America s job, and the fact is, that when we stand 
 for this kind of democracy we are pleading for in 
 ternationalism, too, the ultimate world-consciousness."
 
 IRON CITY 101 
 
 Sarah s letter in reply contained one sentence a 
 personal one which made Cosmus think. "Your let 
 ter," she had written, "cheered my day." He got a 
 vision of her straight, strong figure, and he wondered 
 if Sarah ever needed cheering. She seemed so self- 
 contained. Was she after all often weary? Did she 
 go home from the stifling office tired and broken ? He 
 tried to fancy Sarah weary crumpled, perhaps, and 
 depressed. He was filled with shame. He was here 
 where it was cool, thinking ; she was there in the heat, 
 doing. Something of the loveliness and need of the 
 woman became clear to him. He knew an impulse to 
 take her in his arms ; to make her his child too. . . . ; 
 
 The morning that the news of the invasion of Bel 
 gium reached Cosmus, he was thinking that he had 
 never seen so peaceful a world. He had arisen earlier 
 than usual and had gone before dawn through the 
 dewy woods up through the newly-cut fields, where 
 the wheat stood gold in the shock, the pigs grunted 
 and chickens clattered comfortably. A farm-girl and 
 boy were starting off to the barn with pails and a 
 man hallooed melodiously to a neighbor a quarter of 
 a mile away. The sun burst up out of the lake, and 
 he watched it mount the dome of the capitol until it 
 flashed on the gold image of justice at the far top. In 
 that moment Cosmus experienced again the sense of 
 identity with the earth, with the general life of the 
 people, and with this, his country, and as he stood, 
 there at the farthest mist-robed hill, the River of 
 Wires glinted in the sun. 
 
 When he got back to the cottage, the mail boat had 
 just come to the Burkhardt pier. Adolph was stand 
 ing with trembling hands and livid face, scanning the 
 first page of the paper. He turned to Cosmus. "Der
 
 102 IRON CITY 
 
 must be some meestake some meestake," he said, still 
 pondering over the paper. 
 
 Cosmus read as in a dream. Adolph Burkhardt 
 went mechanically into the house, and soon Cosmus 
 heard the strains of "Elegie" the procession of 
 women mourning through desolate streets of war- 
 emptied towns. 
 
 Cosmus read the paper greedily inside and out where 
 he stood, and then he went back to the cottage. It 
 was not the same world that he had moved so con 
 fidently in a moment before. 
 
 Student that Cosmus was, familiar as he was with 
 the situation in Europe, the initial impression of the 
 unreality of the war never left him. It was a dream 
 no more real than the flow of images inspired by 
 Adolph s music. He consciously tried to bring his 
 mind to bear upon it as a reality an event at that mo 
 ment enacting; he tried to close his eyes and force 
 his imagination to see the imperial army like a gray 
 mist floating down over Belgium every soldier iden 
 tical with the rest, a tin cup as the paper said, "dan 
 gling at the same identical angle from each soldier s 
 belt." But he could not. War could not be, this was 
 merely some gigantic cinema unrolling before his eyes 
 not reality not the actual drama of modern civil 
 ization. The world was too far advanced for that; 
 the soldiers themselves would come to their senses in 
 time; the socialists would save the day; this would 
 stop! But it went on. 
 
 The next morning unwonted constraint hung over 
 the Burkhardt household. There was no practicing of 
 music ; by unseen power of gravitation the whole fam 
 ily, including Frau Burkhardt and Cosmus, were 
 drawn to the pier to await the coming of the boat
 
 IRON CITY 103 
 
 "Any extras?" Cosmus called out to the boatman. 
 
 "None this morning." 
 
 They had to be content with one paper. Breakfast 
 went cold on the table. They shared the sheet in 
 silence, and then sat down to eat. Unable to think 
 through this catastrophe, one by one they fell back 
 upon their instincts. 
 
 "Dis German Armee," Herr Burkhardt volunteered, 
 "ist one fine machine, hain t it?" 
 
 Cosmus thought that the eyes of his host had never 
 looked so small, and yes, overnight they had grown 
 cunning, and his spine-thick face, coarse and greasy. 
 He did not answer Burkhardt s question; something 
 inhibited complete acquiescence. He tried to bring 
 his mind around to the scholarly ideal of neutrality; 
 he wanted to weigh each side, and arrive at a just con 
 clusion, but something within him rebelled; a deeper 
 something recoiled in horror at the sight of conquest 
 and devastation. 
 
 When Adolph said again, "It was Russia; she has 
 been planning this for years. Germany will save the 
 world from the Bear," Cosmus answered, "Belgium 
 attacked Germany, I suppose?" 
 
 When Sunday came they were left without a paper. 
 The mail boat did not make the trip. Cosmus ac 
 tually suffered. He could not understand how news 
 from Europe had become so important in his eyes. 
 
 He remembered the Balkan Wars in 1907, and how 
 they scarcely ruffled the surface of public opinion in 
 America. But this was different. He did not have 
 to be very wise to deduce that this war was destined 
 to change the very fabric of the world, to reach out 
 and touch him directly, to modify Iron City and 
 America. All morning he was restless. He tried to
 
 104 IRON CITY 
 
 read, or to write. He abandoned tennis with Karl 
 because it was too hot. At noon he decided to walk 
 over to the Boy s camp, a mile distant, to borrow a 
 paper. Arriving there he was again disappointed; 
 they had been into town but had been unable to buy 
 a single paper. Vague rumors were afloat. The Ger 
 mans were in Brussels and some said that there had 
 been a great sea-battle which left the Prussian fleet 
 free to bombard London ; their cavalry were even ap 
 proaching Paris. 
 
 Cosmus went back to the Burkhardt cottage. On 
 the porch Frau Burkhardt was reading a German 
 Bible; she looked up, her kind eyes filled with tears. 
 
 "Oh, Johnny," she said, "I wish it hadn t come. 
 It s so useless." 
 
 By evening Cosmus felt he must have news. The 
 lights of the city winked on one by one ; Cosmus was 
 sure that some terrible thing was impending. He 
 asked Frau Burkhardt if she thought it foolish for 
 him to walk to the city. 
 
 "I need exercise," he said. 
 
 She told him to go. The still road followed the 
 lake; now and then he met an automobile; but, walk 
 ing, he had time to think, and as he walked he became 
 calmer, more dispassionate and less fanciful. About 
 ten o clock he caught a car at the outskirts of the city 
 and rode down town. At the Journal office he found 
 turmoil, but he succeeded in getting a paper. There 
 was no news; the situation on the Belgian front re 
 mained unchanged. 
 
 The next morning, Cosmus did not go back to the 
 Burkhardt cottage. He wrote an elaborate letter, ex 
 plaining his need to do some work in the University 
 library.
 
 IRON CITY 105 
 
 As a matter of fact there was work in the library 
 for him to do. He was bent on finding out the truth 
 behind the war. He began a systematic study of Eu 
 rope of the nineteenth century. That became his sum 
 mer s task. Day after day went by in August and 
 September, and he was there turning over many books 
 and periodicals. He did not allow the heated current 
 articles which were beginning to flood periodical litera 
 ture, to prejudice him. He read the books that were 
 conceived and written before 1914. Books on Ger 
 man education, books on German philosophy, books 
 on German trade theories and practices, appraisals of 
 German literature; German socialism and state theo 
 ries; lives of Krupp, Ballin, and the Hohenzollerns ; 
 German art and religion these books were studied, 
 mastered. As he read, three truths began to stand 
 out truths to him patent and undeniable; first, the 
 war should not have been a surprise, for it was fore 
 seen by prophets; secondly, the war was not inevita 
 ble; and thirdly, if any human force was guilty, that 
 force was Germany. Germany was guilty. 
 
 But what did the war mean? Could any one say? 
 Was there any explanation to be had? The force of 
 such racial movement left the individual weak almost 
 cowering in the sense of his own insignificance. One 
 night before it was time to go back to Iron City, Cos- 
 mus stood watching the traffic twinkle by through the 
 rainy streets. Yes the crowd was that a key to 
 the war after all? 
 
 He thought of signs; an editorial written with a 
 believing heart by a young reporter; a novel of proph 
 ecy written by a young man not yet thirty; a book 
 store hidden away in an obscure city street, which had 
 but one purpose, the dissemination of radical social
 
 io6 IRON CITY 
 
 theories; the discharge of a college professor for fac 
 ing his duty; establishment of new magazines dis 
 tinguished for radicalism; the tremors of the artistic 
 life of America; the surge and thrust of labor and 
 capital. 
 
 And now the mass movements of men in turmoil, 
 of continental battles which split the universe asunder. 
 
 These were signs that stirred, that lifted up and 
 cast down. 
 
 No man had a right to think only of himself in such 
 a year, for if these signs, that flared up and painted 
 the horizon, meant anything, they meant this : 
 
 The individual is nothing. 
 
 The race is all. 
 
 The race the future demands all: love, peace, 
 pain, possession, comfort, culture, life. 
 
 Did the war then not mark the passing of the ego 
 centric world, and the beginning of the new society?
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 it s you." 
 
 She stood with Boyne s great black safe for 
 a background, a trim figure in steel-blue tailor made, 
 a jaunty feather in a toque that fitted tightly her head 
 which some called too large, but which could not be 
 thought anything but magnificent. Sarah was some 
 thing to find satisfaction in, a beautiful woman. Cos- 
 mus had never realized before that a figure not over 
 five- feet-five could carry such dignity. Her smile was 
 reassuring. 
 
 "Of course, I ll go," she answered. She slammed 
 down the rolled-top of her desk, covered the type 
 writer, and they raced like children down a corridor 
 to the street. September night; they found an acrid 
 smell of burnt leaves in the air, a great moon, and a 
 spirit of adventure everywhere. They found, too, 
 suddenly as they laughed together over nothing in 
 particular, that they had grown closer together dur 
 ing absence. Those letters so frank yet so imper 
 sonal had linked them mysteriously, and they were 
 feeling in unison, pulsing together over trifles. It 
 was as if they were strangers to Iron City s familiar 
 streets, and were seeing them in the light of a fresh 
 new romance. The shop windows were interesting; 
 the long rows of automobiles lining the thoroughfare 
 were interesting. Through the fresh air they paced 
 rhythmically apart, step by step as two men might in 
 the exhilaration of physical exercise. 
 
 107
 
 io8 IRON CITY 
 
 Here were negroes in the gaudy colors they liked 
 so well ; Italians, their olive skin and dark eyes set in 
 passionate faces, no longer attracting attention; Chi 
 nese, cues gone, immaculately dressed in American 
 pinch-backs, intelligent, alert less immobile than their 
 wont; they passed a Hindoo, still in native costume, 
 dignified, mysterious; Jews and Greeks vociferating; 
 gaunt faced, solemn-eyed Slavs; large, placid, blonde 
 Scandinavians and Germans. Here in provincial Iron 
 City on Saturday nights was enacted the pageant of 
 nations. Its immense implications silenced them. 
 Cosmus felt again that nearness to the general life 
 and loyalty to America, which like a mother enfolded 
 all the races. 
 
 Sarah, seeming to understand his thoughts, said, 
 "Oh, yes, I know a German who has married a Greek ; 
 a Greek who has married an Irishman; an Irishman, 
 who has married a Russian Jew. What is to become 
 of the races? It s the unification of the world!" 
 
 They always seemed to find each other, somehow, 
 in that mood in that passion for the general life. 
 
 "Do you know Dickens Street?" she asked. 
 
 "No, take me." 
 
 She turned sharply off from Main Street, swarming 
 with shoppers, into a by-street, to which somehow, 
 Cosmus never before had penetrated. Here they found 
 twilight, stillness; three streets converged to form a 
 triangular plot, where stood a statue; these streets 
 were lined with dingy ware-houses, with staring win 
 dows, quaint shops, which had the unmistakable air of 
 something distinctly antique and foreign. 
 
 "Look sharp, sir," Sarah said gayly, "or Mr. Mi- 
 cawber will walk out of that door to allow you the
 
 IRON CITY 109 
 
 inestimable pleasure of contributing to an indigent 
 gentleman s happiness." 
 
 There was the joy of living in her laugh. Cosmus 
 first became aware of two virtues in Sarah Black- 
 stone. She carried her own world with her, and her 
 happiness did not depend on things. 
 
 They found a restaurant up a flight of stairs, to 
 which music and a Japanese waiter added a touch of 
 the outre slightly beyond Iron City s convention. It 
 was the only place in town which might by the most 
 charitable stretch of the mind be called Bohemian. 
 Here one could sit as long as he liked over tea or cof 
 fee, listening to Hungarian music, chatting undis 
 turbed. 
 
 They stood for a moment before the window and 
 watched the throngs below jam in and out of shop and 
 theater. 
 
 "This is pay-night," Sarah explained. "That ac 
 counts for the crowd. It s strange how all our life 
 whirls not about the college but about R. Sill and 
 Son s plant." 
 
 "Iron City doesn t seem much affected by the war." 
 
 "It isn t really; when the first news came the Re 
 public-Despatch got out an extra, and Mr. Sill in an 
 interview stated that he would not manufacture muni 
 tions. I learned later from Mr. Boyne that his Dallas 
 and Toronto plants were transferring all their engine 
 business here, and that they were doing the manufac 
 turing of shells we don t scorn war-brides in Iron 
 City, but that is all we care about the war. It s mean 
 ing as for that well!" 
 
 She removed her coat, and sat down ; their eyes met 
 across the table. 
 
 "But that is being serious, and I promised myself
 
 no IRON CITY 
 
 not to be serious to-night." Then she added, "We 
 don t play enough, Mr. Cosmus." 
 
 He was doubtful about the "we." Who do not? 
 He and she? or Iron City folks in general? 
 
 "Suppose I tell you, you are unusually beautiful to 
 night." 
 
 It was a clumsy attempt at play, he afterwards rec 
 ognized. She looked frightened, annoyed, and he de 
 spised himself for his bluntness of perception. He 
 was afraid that he had rudely brushed away the tenu 
 ous threads that subtended their happiness. But she 
 smiled back bravely. 
 
 "Let s not do that either, we both are too poor at 
 it." 
 
 After that there was a little breathless silence while 
 the waiter brought the tea; then they settled back in 
 comfort. They were happy, shyly happy in a calm, 
 natural manner. There was no storm of feeling beat 
 ing up through him for expression; he was content; 
 completely harbored ; totally answered. 
 
 "Do you know," he said suddenly, "this makes me 
 think of home." 
 
 Her lids fluttered again a moment, then her eyes 
 faced him squarely in man-fashion. 
 
 "It does, doesn t it? One gets so tired of cafeterias 
 and boarding houses." 
 
 He liked to see her eat unashamed of hunger. He 
 liked her strong hands, like a mother s he thought. 
 To be in her presence was as a walk at dawn in fresh 
 rain-cleared air. And yet her imperious innocence 
 was there to guard against every advance of sex. 
 
 She broke a piece of white bread; she broke a piece 
 of brown bread and dexterously made a sandwich. A 
 third virtue ; she was herself.
 
 IRON CITY 111 
 
 Five minutes later, on the street, they were filled 
 again with magnetism borrowed from the crowd 
 folk intoxication and allowed themselves to be car 
 ried gayly along to the entrance of the Green Jewel. 
 They went in. Ah, here was magic. Dimness am^ 
 music, and an interesting story inducted into the mind 
 with meticulous ease. Here was reading together 
 reading of no high order to be sure but reading to 
 gether under the most thrilling conditions; a 
 kind of Grand Opera of Fiction. On the screen, in 
 bewildering array, were flashed processions of Arabs 
 in white solitopias, cities by the sea, stretches of beach 
 and breakers, mountain roads, cities burning, a harem 
 with realism carried almost too far sea nymphs, led 
 by the Modern Venus ; one saw the flash of her naked 
 body like the blade of a fish in the shining water and 
 then she stood dripping on the sands clothed in noth 
 ing but her innocence and hair. There were battles 
 and shipwrecks, and finally the last close-ups of lovers 
 in each other s arms. 
 
 "If you will pardon the intrusion of a sociologist 
 upon this American Night s Entertainment, I must 
 remark," Cosmus said mockingly, "that if this be a 
 revelation of our national life then America is a 
 cross between a child and a roue. This show was 
 nothing but a fairy tale held together by a thread of 
 sensuality." 
 
 "I suppose so," she answered, "but nudity somehow 
 seems no more objectionable on the screen than it does 
 in the Louvre. And you must remember that that 
 film was not made for professors but for girls say 
 like Margaret Morton." 
 
 Cosmus felt uncomfortable. He searched her face. 
 Surely she was not piqued.
 
 112 IRON CITY 
 
 "You know Margaret then?" 
 
 "Yes, I see her often at the Country Club, and I 
 think she is one of the two really beautiful women 
 I ever saw outside the movies." 
 
 "Yes, she is beautiful," returned John thoughtfully. 
 
 The crowds were thinning in the streets when they 
 came out. Iron City, after all, was but a country 
 town pushed into the pose of a metropolis. The 
 crowds were thickest at nine, and from then on 
 thinned; at eleven all of the pretentious bustle was 
 over. 
 
 "Well, Mr. Sociologist, if you are in the high 
 brow mood, let s go and see the paintings." 
 
 "Paintings?" 
 
 "Yes, paintings an exhibit from the Chicago Art 
 Institute, with a real-live lecturer attached." 
 
 They arrived too late for the formal address, but 
 they found the lecturer commenting informally on the 
 pictures. The exhibit was Iron City s first venture 
 into the field of art; and Iron City had ventured bold 
 ly. Of course, the Woman s Club had brought the 
 exhibit as a part of its "uplift program." Iron City 
 needed art, not a shallow imitation but a virile, living 
 art that could reproduce the wonder of factory pipes 
 against the autumn sky. In a world as it might be, 
 Raymond Sill might have been such an artist ; he had 
 virility and life and love of beauty. 
 
 The small auditorium in the Carnegie Library, where 
 the pictures were hung, was crowded with women. 
 Besides the lecturer there were three men in the place. 
 A ministerial personage, a helpless drooping individual 
 with his wife, and a homeless, shabby painter with 
 eager face. The last was holding a sketch, evidently 
 his own, up to the lecturer for criticism. Sarah
 
 IRON CITY 113 
 
 touched Cosmus s arm, "Oh, I want you to meet 
 Silly Dodd." 
 
 She meant the painter. They sought him out and 
 Cosmus was introduced. John saw the sketch. It 
 was done on a piece of wall-paper with pencil, and 
 filled in with smeary pigments. The criticism the 
 lecturer offered was that Dodd had used black where 
 he ought to have used purple. 
 
 "But, sir, I had no purple." 
 
 Dodd spoke thickly and indistinctly; there was 
 something feeble and underfed about his person, some 
 thing feeble in his manner, but no intimation of im 
 becility. 
 
 "Why do they call him Silly?" John inquired of 
 Sarah, when they were in the street again. 
 
 "I suppose because he doesn t know enough to keep 
 clean. Dodd isn t a success, but I find him interest 
 ing. He won t work. They tell me he was in the 
 Spanish War, had the yellow, and worked at 
 Sill s plant until they put in the efficiency system. He 
 was married once, married a widow who owned an 
 apple orchard in Michigan; but Dodd wouldn t pick 
 apples; he preferred to paint them, and she sent him 
 about his business. I laugh yet when I think of what 
 that marriage must have been. I suppose Dodd is the 
 least desirable person in Iron City. I suppose moth 
 ers hold him up as the pattern of shame to their chil 
 dren, and yet, Dodd s whole life has been one long 
 passionate pursuit of a spiritual ideal. Think of 
 painting on wall-paper with colors bought at Wool- 
 worth s!" 
 
 "Has he had any training?" 
 
 "Yes,, he worked with Charles Francis Browne
 
 a 14 IRON CITY 
 
 years ago. Suppose he were a great artist ? Wouldn t 
 it be just the same for him in Iron City ?" 
 
 They had lost their gayety; folk intoxication had 
 gone with the crowd. Carloads of shoppers passed 
 them, and the streets were emptying. They were 
 aware of the expansive night, the remoteness of the 
 skies and the vastness of the world. But they had 
 lost none of their sense of comradeship. Silence did 
 not bother them. They drifted homeward. In the 
 Park where a few leaves were fluttering down over 
 the newly erected statue of R. Sill, M.D., they sat 
 down on a bench. They were loth to go in ; here was 
 peace. 
 
 Sarah took a pin from her hat and rolling her 
 collar up around her white throat, pinned it snugly. 
 The air was sharper. John watched her, fascinated. 
 Every move of hers was decisive, strong. She knew 
 well how to take care of herself. When she spoke, 
 after a time, it was of Dodd again. 
 
 "It must be no picnic for Dodd to be so impractical 
 when every one around him is so practical." 
 
 "True." 
 
 "Iron City must stifle him. I sometimes think that 
 the school, the church and money-getting are great 
 conspiracies against freedom. It must be terrible to 
 lose one s love of freedom," she paused, "I suppose 
 when one does, one is old." 
 
 That she would get old seemed preposterous to him. 
 
 "You ll never get old," he told her. 
 
 "It is very nice of you to say that, but already I 
 feel that I have missed something, and the pity of it 
 is, I don t know what it is." 
 
 A note of wistfulness had crept into her voice. She 
 seemed reaching out to him like a child, but when he
 
 IRON CITY 115 
 
 looked at her she was marble. Her clean-cut beauty 
 was remote; her charm was power. She did not, 
 could not need him. She was a refuge. She was to 
 be respected, adored, not loved as men love women. 
 
 He failed to answer her. 
 
 She said, "There, I was serious, and I had promised 
 not to be serious." And when she said that a barrier 
 closed between them and she arose and started home. 
 Cosmus was not ready to go in, but he did not say 
 so; he walked along beside her content. The last 
 few steps in the vast moonlight seemed to him like 
 a benediction. At the gate, they parted quickly. She 
 turned back as if to shake hands; he didn t see her 
 outstretched hand in time; then embarrassed by his 
 blindness she went into the house without a word. 
 
 Cosmus was happy. In bed he fell asleep quickly, 
 and slept soundly, but not before he had time to think; 
 her presence seemed everywhere round him, her lips, 
 her eyes, throat and hair. Then he laughed, "Funny, 
 and I have never touched even her little finger." 
 
 Sarah did not sleep. She sat in the dark by the 
 window and watched the moonlight. As Ezra Kim- 
 bark had said, Sarah was a man s woman. Like 
 many another modern woman, she had acquired that 
 reputation because she let her mind rule her heart. 
 Such a reputation must have come with her up from 
 childhood, but it wasn t quite authentic. 
 
 When she was two years old her father had died. 
 As far back as she could remember, his absence made 
 her heart ache. Even her mother did not know how 
 she missed him, for little Sarah began building up 
 an outer armament of steel. She envied the fathers 
 of the other girls and shyly tried to adopt one, but 
 never succeeded. "A self-willed little miss," they
 
 n6 IRON CITY 
 
 called her. On rainy afternoons she often went up to 
 the attic to the big trunk, and looked over her father s 
 photographs. She built together fragmentary impres 
 sions of him until she had a preternatural grasp upon 
 his personality; but such a fleshless parent did not 
 answer her need. 
 
 When Sarah was seventeen, her mother died. To. 
 her mother death did not come suddenly, but slowly 
 and cruelly. Mrs. Blackstone had taught school for 
 fifteen years after her husband s death, and teaching 
 had brought on a slow disease. The two of them, 
 Sarah and her mother, in the last three years of her 
 life had moved from sanitarium to sanitarium, from 
 east to west seeking a hopeless relief. Sarah was 
 forced to live with strangers, and to assume mature 
 duties when all the time her child s heart was crying 
 for understanding. The child s uncle in Cleveland 
 said, when mother and daughter were at San Antonio, 
 "Oh, sister will be safe down there, for Sarah is just 
 like a grown-up and assumes responsibility with de 
 light." On her death-bed Mrs. Blackstone gave Sarah 
 a letter to be opened after the funeral. It was a wild, 
 passionate cry such as only a stricken mother could 
 have made. It frightened Sarah. She sat with white 
 face and did not weep for days. Then she silenced 
 her heart, locked up the child she was in a dungeon 
 and riveted another layer of steel about her clinging 
 womanhood. Sarah could not recall those days now 
 without pain. 
 
 She went to live with the uncle in Cleveland, who 
 had five daughters, and although he said, "Dear, you 
 will be just like my own little girls," somehow, Sarah 
 never fitted into the machinery of the household. 
 They never understood her and she suffered much.
 
 IRON CITY 117 
 
 "She is independent," the uncle said, "she doesn t need 
 much fathering." And so Sarah at nineteen was just 
 a little unwomanly that is unlike most women with 
 a vein of cynicism running deep, and an atheistic 
 bent. 
 
 At college, she distinguished herself in debate, 
 eschewed belles-letters, took a course in economics and 
 history, and became the leader of her set. She was the 
 all-around girl. Men did not care much for her \ 
 though not quite that. She was popular with them, > 
 but popular differently; she never seemed to need 
 them. They counted her their pal. She could de-< 
 feat them at their own peculiar game of logic, and she 
 played tennis with exceptional vigor. When she re 
 ceived her master s degree the president said : "Sarah 
 Blackstone will be a great dean in five years." So 
 she would have been, no doubt, if she had not run 
 counter to the artificial thinking of Reverend Mr. 
 Crandon. In business, she found the contact with liv 
 ing reality, which she craved, but was it calculated to 
 save her from dying inwardly, as she had told Cos- 
 mus she was afraid she would? 
 
 With all her perspicacity, her interest in and knowl 
 edge of other persons, Sarah Blackstone did not know 
 what she lacked. She was blind to that quality of 
 hers, which held men off, just as much as Margaret 
 Morton was unconscious of the mystery that allured 
 them. 
 
 She sat at the window a long time and thought of 
 John Cosmus. She considered him but a boy, but it 
 was his inflammable idealism, his faith in life which 
 attracted her. She had had a broader experience than 
 his, and she knew that idealism and faith in an age 
 of agnosticism were all too uncommon.
 
 n8 IRON CITY 
 
 When she finally arose, she did not undress in the 
 dark as was her wont. She turned on the light, and 
 cast little sly glances at herself in the glass. What 
 she saw did not displease her. 
 
 "I don t care, I am not scrawny," she thought, and 
 then added, "I suppose I am just a natural-born old 
 maid." But she did not sigh. Something stirred 
 within her. Inflammable youth tingled in her veins; 
 life and power beat up from unprobed depths. Her 
 heart fluttered in her throat, and a blush dyed her 
 silver flesh. Then laughing, she turned off the light, 
 threw open all the windows, stood gulping in a deep 
 draught of air, then jumped into bed and slept.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 "IVf ARGARET MORTON sat at her dressing table. 
 *" Her room was the most luxurious in the great 
 old-fashioned house. Soon after she had won the 
 automobile and the membership to the country club 
 from her father, she had asked him to allow her to re 
 model and decorate two rooms under her own super 
 vision. Carl had, of course, consented. Margaret 
 sent for a contractor, and had hardwood floors, now 
 handsomely waxed, laid over the old, soft pine, pre 
 viously covered with carpet. She hung mahogany 
 doors and had the woodwork finished in white; with 
 soft curtains, a few rich rugs, she managed to throw 
 over the rooms the air of sweetness and refinement. 
 She had bought her furniture at Field s one day, when 
 she was in the city, a few pieces of bird s-eye maple 
 which to her seemed very fine. Her ideas for the 
 room she had gotten from a house at Pike Lake, 
 where she had gone to a house party. From off the 
 room a bath with showers was elaborately appointed. 
 Margaret had just emerged from the shower, and 
 sat in her flowered kimono before her dressing table, 
 doing nothing in particular. She was waiting for 
 Raymond; they were to drive over to Spotswood for 
 supper, and return in the October dusk. She was not 
 thinking of any one or anything. It was a bother to 
 think. She had a sense of warmth and well-being. 
 The shower must have been a little too warm, for 
 she was languorous. Ideas refused to climb up above
 
 120 IRON CITY 
 
 the threshold of consciousness. Her lids drooped 
 down over her eyes, but did not touch her cheek. She 
 could peep out beneath the lashes; with satisfaction, 
 she saw how long and dark the lashes were; the per 
 fect curve of the lips, and of the shapely arms. She 
 smiled the dimples came. She tried posture after 
 posture, expression after expression, all beautiful, all 
 satisfactory to her, for she laughed out loud like a 
 child. It must have been a rehearsal. 
 
 "I must dress," she thought, "Raymond will soon 
 be here; shall I put a patch on to-day? How soft 
 silk is. I wonder if Professor Cosmus is in town. 
 Lavender always becomes me. How I love old rose." 
 
 Then she sank back again into relaxation warm, 
 comfortable, her senses alert, drinking in all the sweet 
 ness of the little room. She took up a silver file, and 
 opened a scented box, but her hand stopped midway in 
 the act, her lashes drooped again ; she was all rosy in 
 her dream. She brushed her nails languorously ; then 
 she trailed across the room, and opened a wardrobe 
 door. From an array of dresses, she selected two; a 
 lavender and an old rose. These she laid fastidiously 
 on the bed and stood pondering, her hands above her 
 head, the sleeves falling back from her lovely arms. 
 Which should she wear? She moved back to the 
 dressing table, fumbled in a jewel case and produced a 
 dingy copper cent. 
 
 "Heads for rose; tails for lavender." 
 
 She tossed. The penny struck the head of the bed, 
 rolled across the floor, spun awkwardly, and set. 
 
 "Just my luck tails." 
 
 She knit her brows, then laughed, tossed her head 
 in defiance, and put the lavender dress back into the 
 press.
 
 IRON CITY [121 
 
 She sat at the edge of the bed, holding a silk stock 
 ing listlessly, her eyes caught by something out of the 
 windoAV. They rested on an uncompleted Gothic 
 church, the new St. Luke s. The spire rose like a 
 carved needle into the sky, and the gaping windows 
 seemed like beautiful slits the shears had made in the 
 lovely granite fabric. Margaret crossed herself de 
 voutly. Then her eyes closed in a dream again; she 
 saw the church finished ready for a bridal party; a 
 new awning led from the curbing to the door; con 
 trary to all precedent it was hung with flowers ; a lim 
 ousine drew up at the church; it was followed by a 
 score of machines all glistening; from the first, a 
 beautiful girl alighted there was a gasp from the 
 crowd; was there ever such a lovely bride? And the 
 groom ! As he gleamed and danced in and out of her 
 dreams, first, he was Raymond Sill and then John 
 Cosmus, or some mysterious, more wonderful per 
 sonage, whose face was not clear. Up the steps 
 
 The dream was interrupted by her mother s voice. 
 
 "Maggie, Raymond s here." 
 
 "Already? Tell him I ll be down in three minutes." 
 
 "Can I help you?" 
 
 "Oh, no, Mother, I m almost dressed. Tell him he ll 
 find the last Cosmopolitan under the pillow on the 
 davenport." 
 
 And in twenty minutes, Margaret came down stairs 
 in the old rose dress, her eyes all mirth. 
 
 Raymond sat on the davenport with the magazine 
 in his hand talking to Mrs. Morton, looking like a 
 sportsman in his neat tweed. Outside the big Stutz 
 still panted impatiently, stroked down to ten miles. 
 
 Mrs. Morton was the kind of woman who was ad 
 mirable for her insincerity. By chance revelation some
 
 122 IRON CITY; 
 
 years before she had suddenly seen what she really 
 was, and had at once decided to build herself over. 
 Though she was timid, she sought to appear aggres 
 sive something of the executive; hurt and frightened 
 by life, she pretended that she was strong and un 
 afraid; preferring to keep silent, she talked volubly; 
 anything but strong or well, she preferred to boast 
 of her good-health. But wasn t all this feigning ad 
 mirable, when she was thereby improving nature s 
 handiwork ? 
 
 "Now children let s see," she examined her wrist 
 watch, "it is a quarter of five. I shall expect you back 
 not one minute later than eight o clock. You will 
 have plenty of time even then, and will not have to 
 drive like mad." 
 
 "All right, Mother," replied Margaret, "but if the 
 machine should break down, or something don t for 
 get your Christian Science." With that, they were 
 off. 
 
 There was an irrepressible gayety about Margaret 
 Morton that was wholly natural, not attained. Some 
 secret spring of energy seemed to supply her with 
 a superabundance of spirits which no reserve could 
 hold in check. She laughed and talked ceaselessly, 
 but melodiously. It was good to hear her not for 
 sense but for music. No doubt, this was one of her 
 great points of attractiveness. 
 
 She was saying to Raymond : 
 
 "You can t guess what I dreamed last night. I 
 dreamed that I was walking along College Street, and 
 I saw men and girls staring at me, and shaking their 
 heads. They whispered, too, and giggled. Finally 
 I heard one say gloomily what a shame, such a fine
 
 IRON CITY 123 
 
 girl, too, could go with any man she pleased, and all 
 that, and now she is a grind/ 
 
 Margaret s voice trilled off into laughter. "What 
 do you think of me as a Phi Beta?" 
 
 "I thought you wanted to be, Mag?" 1 
 
 "How s that?" 
 
 "You stick so close to Professor Cosmus." 
 
 "Anyway, he s not rude to me like you are," she 
 pouted. 
 
 Spotswood lay twenty miles west over good roads, 
 through a region of quiet farms, and wooded hills. 
 Raymond drove like mad. 
 
 "You ll kill yourself some day," Margaret shrieked 
 in his ear, as they swerved down a hill, and around a 
 corner. 
 
 "Not in an auto." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "A hunch is a hunch, you know. Just can t do it." 
 
 She liked best to dash through villages, Raymond 
 to take the hills. To her there was a thrill in drop 
 ping down upon a cluster of human habitations, so 
 swiftly that the houses seemed to leap to the eyes, 
 and to sweep through the streets with the gaze of all 
 the inhabitants upon the strange machine. She de 
 lighted in attention. That was the joy in these trips 
 for her. She was playing the grand lady grandly. 
 Raymond seemed touched by the beauty of the autumn 
 world more often than she. Sometimes he slowed 
 down to a walk, and pointed out a field or glade, some 
 stretch of painted woods, or farmhouse that she might 
 have missed. It was at such moments that Raymond 
 felt nearest to Margaret; he would let his arm drop 
 on her shoulder and she would let it rest there. Though 
 he was not unsusceptible to her charms, theirs was not
 
 124 IR N CITY 
 
 yet a sentimental relationship; it was one that had 
 begun in childhood s comradeship and had thus far 
 stopped at reciprocal interests. Raymond gave her 
 excitement; she gave him gayety. 
 
 Spotswood reached at sundown, they found the 
 Spotswood House, a hotel that tried to capitalize its 
 dingy antiquity by the sign, "The House that Lin 
 coln Chose." They hurried into the dining room, 
 and found the table reserved for them. Margaret did 
 not remove her veil; she liked the air it gave her. 
 They lingered long over their meal these two young 
 hearts, finding joy in pretending that they were world- 
 travelers, oblivious to the real world; the world of 
 war and struggle that lay behind the gloomy embers, 
 which they were watching in the west. 
 
 When they came out upon the hotel piazza, the last 
 red of the sun had died at the end of the street. The 
 air was sharp and fragrant. They must be off. Mar 
 garet felt free and strong. She could go on like this 
 forever. Why should they go in ? She loved the night 
 the flight through its mystery on winged wheels. 
 
 "Say," she said, "we ve just got to go home by 
 way of Trinway." 
 
 He glanced at his watch. It was nearly seven. At 
 the best they could not touch Trinway to the east and 
 get back to Iron City before ten. He looked at Mar 
 garet, the pretty, teasing face atilt to him. 
 
 Soon they were careening over the star-lit roads, 
 silent, impassioned,,, thrilling. Once they narrowly 
 missed collision with a wagon, once they would have 
 capsized in a ditch had it not been for Raymond s 
 cool twist of the wheel. But such escapes were part 
 of the pleasure. On the edge of the village precincts, 
 Raymond always slackened speed a trifle. It was
 
 IRON CITY 125 
 
 near Twelve Mile that they met the major adventure 
 of the evening. Although Raymond had slowed down, 
 it was not enough to give him easy control of the 
 heavy car. As they turned a corner they saw a boy 
 dart into the lane of light made by their lamps, falter, 
 hesitate; Raymond whirled the wheel, they paused. 
 There was a scream behind. Visions of a crumpled 
 human form swept through Raymond s brain. He 
 slowed down. Margaret grasped his arm, frantically. 
 
 "Don t stop, Ray, don t stop; Mother must not 
 know w r e were out here." 
 
 He touched the throttle and they fled guiltily out 
 of the town upon an unfrequented road. Mile after 
 mile they put between them and the village. Finally 
 Raymond felt that he could slow down to a walk. 
 They were sober and silent; some awful calamity 
 suddenly towered above them. By some reflex of 
 Margaret s gayety, she laughed nervously and said, 
 
 "I don t believe we struck him; I looked back quick, 
 but I couldn t see." 
 
 "He screamed." 
 
 "He was only scared. Please don t be worried, 
 Ray." 
 
 They reached home soon after ten. They saw there 
 the lights of Raymond s factory painting the sky; 
 there were lights in the Morton house, too. 
 
 Mrs. Morton met them at the door. 
 
 "What did I tell you, Maggie," she began severely. 
 
 "Well, Mother, we couldn t help it. We had to 
 carry water a half a mile to cool the engine." 
 
 "Why, you poor children, you actually look fagged 
 out." 
 
 Margaret did not sleep. She lay staring up at the
 
 126 IRON CITY 
 
 ceiling, calculating the chances of their being found 
 out. Oh ! What if they had killed the boy? 
 
 The next morning she had a headache, and yet she 
 dressed to go down to breakfast. She was on the 
 stairs when she heard her father s big voice above 
 the clatter of coffee-cups say, 
 
 "The Republic-Despatch says that a boy was run 
 down by a strange machine at Twelve Mile last night. 
 Lots of excitement; the whole town is indignant be 
 cause the driver did not stop. A person who would 
 do that," he said emphatically, "is nothing more or less 
 than a human skunk." 
 
 Margaret did not go down. She crept back to her 
 bed-room, undressed and lay still, white and dis 
 traught. 
 
 At his father s office, Raymond scanned the morn : 
 ing papers. Yes, there it was a news story and an 
 editorial on "vampires of the road." Raymond s face 
 flamed behind the paper. Thank God ! only the boy s 
 leg was broken. 
 
 About eleven Margaret received a telephone call. 
 She lay still, feigning sleep, inwardly fearful that it 
 was an officer of the law. Her mother called. 
 
 "Raymond wants you, Maggie." 
 
 "Oh." 
 
 At the phone Raymond was saying, 
 
 "The boy only had a leg broken." 
 
 "Oh, I m so glad." 
 
 "And they don t know who did it." 
 
 "Gee, I m so glad, Ray." 
 
 That night when Ray dropped in to see Margaret, 
 they suddenly saw themselves in a new relationship. 
 They had a secret. They were linked by a common 
 guilt; some vaster, darker fate had joined them. They
 
 IRON CITY 127; 
 
 saw themselves in the livid light of melodramatic 
 romance. They enjoyed its novelty. When Ray 
 mond left, he stooped and kissed Margaret s willing 
 lips for the first time. With that kiss, they laid aside 
 the boy-and-girl relationship; it sealed their entrance 
 into manhood and womanhood, and opened an allur 
 ing and mysterious world.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 JOHN COSMUS, in his room at the Curtis house, 
 one November evening, held open before him a 
 letter from Frau Burkhardt, which said "Six weeks 
 after you left, our dear Karl sailed from New York 
 to Sweden. He is only an under-officer in the 346th 
 Prussian Guards, but it does us good to know that 
 we can do that much for our Vaterland." 
 
 The letter brought with it the turmoil of a world 
 at war. To be sure Cosmus had been wrestling with 
 the abstract problems which such a catastrophe would 
 usher into a mind of his type; but here in this quiet 
 letter was concrete contact with the blood and stir 
 and havoc of the battle itself. 
 
 Karl little Karl was perhaps at that moment 
 either giving or taking life. Outside a November 
 moon congealed the world to marble. There trailed 
 through his mind, by some irrational connection, 
 thoughts of Babylon, the strong, which had ravished 
 beauty from the world and had, in passing, not left a 
 stone; the mystery of time; the passing of civiliza 
 tions; and the unfathomable mystery of war. 
 
 He turned from the window, picked up the news 
 paper clippings, which Frau Burkhardt had so gra 
 ciously sent him, glanced over them, and tossed them 
 into the grate. 
 
 "Mere propaganda!" 
 
 He found in Iron City many persons more suscepti- 
 
 128
 
 IRON CITY 129 
 
 ble than he to the seduction of the Continental Times, 
 and other pro-German media. There was a mild in 
 difference generally, as Sarah had said, but of those 
 who thought at all, many strongly sympathized with 
 the Prussian government. Why shouldn t they? They 
 found in that magnificent military machine that glided 
 down over Belgium and France the embodiment of 
 much of what they worshiped in their own civiliza-- 
 tion ; largeness, speed, efficiency, and conscious destruc 
 tion of competitors. Iron City had been paying 
 obeisance for years to the same Gods as Germany. 
 As one citizen put it, "Fritz can lick the world be 
 cause he is the best business man in the world." 
 
 To all this Cosmus returned surprise. He had trav 
 ersed a large field of thought, history, economics, 
 science, religion and literature; and before the war, 
 he had been striving to do what thoughtful men of 
 his generation everywhere were consciously or un 
 consciously trying to do; to adjust society to the sud 
 den wrench which Darwinism had given the world 
 two generations back; to build a philosophy, firmly 
 imbedded in fact, yet inclusive of spiritual values. 
 Forced as he had been from boyhood into contact with 
 hardship, he had had to work with his hands, he 
 had grown to respect things as they are. He recog 
 nized the immutable laws of the universe. But he 
 never failed to see the pulsing inner life of man, its 
 needs, intentions, shadowy passionate aspirations; he 
 believed that man was the arbiter of his own destiny. 
 The hope of society, he believed, was the attainment 
 of mobility a propensity for flowing, with the least 
 wrench, into the convolutions that the immutable powef 
 of the universe had set for it. Cosmus saw Germany, 
 therefore, a detriment to the larger mobility because,
 
 130 IRON CITY 
 
 in the transition from class-thinking to social think 
 ing, Germany was just another colossal class-mind, 
 inimical to socialization. But subtly specious Ger 
 many was, because she seemingly had attained social 
 ization within herself. As a matter of fact, she had 
 not; in a nation where there was no free, quick cir 
 culation of ideas, there could be no real socialization. 
 
 When Cosmus found so much sentiment for Ger 
 many in Iron City, he was troubled. He could not 
 understand how Americans could fail to see the issue. 
 Was Democracy decadent? He concluded that Iron 
 City was the victim of class thinking, being, as it was, 
 but an emanation of Sill s factory the embodiment 
 of largeness, efficiency, and conscious destruction of 
 competitors. 
 
 He sat thoughtfully in his room late one night by 
 the fire troubled. America was jeopardized ; whether 
 she saw it or not, she was imperiled by her own supine- 
 ness. Shut in, in provincial Iron City, he seemed 
 alone in his passion for America. But if he had only 
 known it, young hearts and minds East and West 
 were throbbing with the new dream of a great De 
 mocracy. 
 
 The next evening he sought out Sarah Blackstone. 
 He had formed that habit lately; she was so much 
 that which Iron City was not. They were sitting 
 over coffee in the little cafe, with its half-Bohemian 
 flavor. He was tired; the eternal grind of the class 
 room, relieved only occasionally by inspiration, had 
 exacted its toll. His mind beat feverishly in and out 
 of abstract problems as a teacher s mind will spin 
 ning wildly in the web of dilemma, seeing only the 
 everlasting return of circumstance. Only vigorous 
 altercation with a medicine ball, or contact with the
 
 IRON CITY 131 
 
 cooling presence of Sarah was able to cure him when 
 he was in that state. 
 
 "Why is it," he was saying nervously, "that, when 
 the solution of all social problems depends on edu 
 cation, we do nothing whatsoever with the problem 
 of education?" 
 
 She pushed her chair back from the table, folded 
 her hands in her lap in her peculiar way, smiled across 
 at him, and said, 
 
 "Tell me about it." 
 
 "Well, President Crandon informed me yesterday 
 that there had been several complaints against my ap 
 proach to Labor Problems." 
 
 "So?" 
 
 "Oh, of course, he didn t say so directly; he never 
 does. Ostensibly he came to commend me for the way 
 I edited the catalogue, but he said, by the long road 
 around, We must guard our departments from any 
 taint or suspicion of class prejudice. 
 
 Sarah smiled. 
 
 "Oh, the blindness of the man. Class-prejudice." 
 John was getting shrill, then recollecting himself, he 
 stopped, shrugged his shoulders, turned out his hands. 
 "You know," he said quietly, "that they got the in 
 junction through to close Dover Street." 
 
 "Yes, I know." 
 
 "Dean Georgia Summers s eyes will no longer be 
 assailed by the sight of the dear working men." 
 
 "You despise that woman?" There was half-con 
 cealed amusement in Sarah s voice. 
 
 "She seems to me to have fed her life-long on the 
 dregs of Victorianism. After all," John continued, 
 "the problem is summed up by your own phrase 
 private and public duty. Crandon Hill College acts as
 
 132 IRON CITY 
 
 a private institution, existing of and for and by a class, 
 whereas education by its very nature, if its object 
 is attained, is a public enterprise. Think of our oppor 
 tunity here in Iron City to do something for the alien 
 peoples, and to extend the democratic principle. Think 
 of our duty to adjust America to the colossal events 
 of war. But if we so much as broach the subject, a 
 hue and cry of socialism is raised, until one feels like 
 kicking himself out of the professon." 
 
 "Which I should never do being a man," Sarah 
 said with a smile. She liked Cosmus for his vehe 
 mence. 
 
 "The college should be pouring such a flood of im 
 personal, scientific knowledge upon the situation, re 
 flecting truth so clearly without the aberration of 
 class-minds, that the disintegration of America would 
 be impossible." 
 
 "They don t see, Mr. Cosmus that s all. You for 
 get that you are an expert in social conditions. And 
 say what you will, truth is illusive, metaphysical. 
 Take old Mr. Sill, do you fancy that he looks upon 
 himself as a vile plutocrat? No, he treasures the 
 pretty illusion that he is a leader in society. Does 
 President Crandon consider himself a failure as an 
 educator? Hardly. He has his pretty illusions, too. 
 The whole problem is to make them see." 
 
 "See!" John answered bitterly. "In other words 
 to solve the problem of education one must educate. 
 Just so. You have brought me back to where I started 
 this morning. I have been moving in that toxic circle 
 all day. You, even you, have failed me." 
 
 Sarah did not let this emphasis on "even you" go 
 unnoticed. 
 
 "I suppose I have," she said, sad for no reason
 
 IRON CITY 133 
 
 whatsoever. "But you forget youth. You forget 
 yourself, and the thousands like you, young and 
 strong, and seeing. They will bring the new age 
 soon, very soon." 
 
 As she spoke Cosmus saw past her face now ra 
 diant, through the window to where the River of 
 Wires gleamed, a link between unseen cities. 
 
 "And you ll never stop trying to make them see 
 that I know. You won t get tired; you won t fail, 
 you ll go on." 
 
 It wasn t what she said that renewed John s 
 strength, it was she. Something passed from her to 
 him, it seemed, and made him strong. He felt the 
 fever and the fret vanishing, and ambition renewed. 
 
 That reminds me of an experience I had with Pro 
 fessor Clarke yesterday," he said smiling; "Clarke, 
 you know, believes in the divine right of professors. 
 He was deploring the rising ripple of self-government 
 among the students, and he said : God gave Moses 
 to the children of Israel, and they took him. I 
 answered, But that was God! And he didn t see 
 the joke." 
 
 They laughed. The atmosphere was cleared and 
 they were happy. When they arose to go, before leav 
 ing the room, Cosmus turned to her fervently. 
 
 "You did help me after all, Sarah." 
 
 Perhaps he did not know that he had called her 
 Sarah for the first time, so seldom had he called her 
 anything else in his mind. But Sarah knew. It filled 
 her with strange exultation, and when he turned to 
 her again, her eyes were dancing, her cheeks ra 
 diant. . . . 
 
 As John Cosmus looked back upon that second win 
 ter at Crandon Hill College it seemed one long stretch
 
 134 IRON 
 
 of exasperation. Upon one side, he saw America s 
 pitiable need of a great unifying passion, on the other, 
 the immobility of the college, its servile worship of 
 the past, its short-circuiting of great ideas. He did 
 not escape despair, or that withering sense of failure, 
 which comes to all men who see principles rather than 
 things, masses rather than individuals. He would 
 awake out of his struggle trying to reassure himself : 
 Wasn t he making quite too much of this? Iron City 
 was perfectly happy. There was no problem at R. 
 Sill s plant! The college was contributing a trained 
 citizenry, minds capable of facile changes of thought 
 and of social control. Why should one take educa 
 tion seriously when no one else did? Then he would 
 return to the round of duties to run face to face with 
 indifference, provincialism, and class-hatred. If it had 
 not been for Sarah Blackstone, Cosmus might have 
 despaired utterly. She furnished much of the motive 
 force that drove him on in those months.. He turned 
 to her habitually, and yet, he always found the same 
 barrier between them. They were greater friends, but 
 lesser lovers. 
 
 One wintef evening when he called for her at 
 Boyne s office, he found her bowed over the desk, her 
 head resting on her arms. She arose with a start, 
 and a none-too-brave smile. 
 
 "You re tired," he said. "You d better not go out 
 to-night. I m a dog to think of asking you." 
 
 "I m all right. I can go." 
 
 "What is it, Sarah?" Strange, to him she often 
 seemed two women one, masterful, and strong, one 
 only a child. 
 
 "Nothing." Then she added, with that quick smile 
 of hers, "when I was a child, I did not receive a single
 
 IRON CITY 135 
 
 gift on my tenth birthday, and I remember still how 
 I felt. I still feel that way sometimes." 
 
 He experienced again the impulse to take her in 
 his arms, and again the thought intervened, that there 
 would be something preposterous in caressing Sarah 
 Blackstone. When he spoke it was quite impersonally, 
 
 "Come in and get a cup of coffee. That will brace 
 you up." 
 
 And he was not above laying upon her his own 
 vexing problems. 
 
 In late November before Senator Matt Tyler, trus 
 tee of Crandon Hill College, went to Washington, 
 Cosmus had an opportunity to talk with him con-> 
 cerning the educational situation. 
 
 "My dear son," replied the Senator, not unkindly, 
 "like most boys you are taking the whole matter quite 
 too seriously. If you ll just ease up a bit, things will 
 come out all right. They always do. You will find 
 that the college is still the bulwark of the state, that 
 there are a lot of older and wiser heads than yours 
 thinking on these same problems. What our noble 
 public document, the Declaration, says about all men 
 being created free and equal, you will find is quite true 
 in these United States." 
 
 Senator Tyler was scrupulous in his personal attire. 
 Broadcloth, linen, a rose in his buttonhole, were evi 
 dences of exacting taste. He was ruddy and not port 
 ly a handsome figure. Cosmus had his eye on the 
 diamond shirt stud as he asked, 
 
 "Don t you sometimes suspect, Senator, that our 
 Declaration and Constitution as ready-made plans are 
 not quite adequate for all present needs? And don t 
 you ever grow impatient at the lack of large, general-
 
 136 IRON CITY 
 
 izing minds that should come out of schools? Aren t 
 we producing specialists, rather than administrators 
 real leaders in the state?" 
 
 Senator Tyler smiled broadly, and tapped Cosmus s 
 knee with his elegant finger. 
 
 "It s a good thing you talk that treason only to 
 one who is as good natured as I am, young fellow." 
 He winked jocosely. "No, you go back and get in 
 terested in the development of your own department, 
 and let these vexing matters go. They will take care 
 of themselves." He arose and saw Cosmus to the 
 door. "Don t judge these matters too important. 
 Good-by, come again." 
 
 Senator Matt Tyler evidently did not consider this 
 interview unimportant. He was sober when he sat 
 down in his swivel chair; his brows were knitted; and 
 he scribbled something on a pad of paper. Two or 
 three days later when he met President Hugh Cran- 
 don at dinner, he whispered in the midst of Haskell s 
 best story, "Young Cosmus seems a little restive." 
 
 "Yes, he hasn t put himself in harmony with the 
 large historical background of the college." 
 
 "Oh, that s it, is it ?" The Senator murmured ; their 
 eyes met understandingly. 
 
 One evening after the Christmas vacation, Mrs. 
 Curtis told Cosmus that her friend, Mrs. Hilton, 
 matron of Mather Hall, had been discharged. 
 
 "I wonder if you can t do something to get her 
 place back?" Cosmus smiled; Mrs. Curtis was always 
 attributing to him influence in the college which he did 
 not have. 
 
 "I m afraid not, Mrs. Curtis. Why was she dis 
 charged?" 
 
 "Well, she wanted to buy fresh supplies that is
 
 IRON CITY 137 
 
 milk, butter and meat from Holdon & Holdon, and 
 the college authorities wanted her to buy them from 
 the Iron City Consumer s Company." 
 
 "She gets them cheaper, I suppose," Cosmus asked, 
 "from the Consumer s Company." 
 
 "No, dearer." 
 
 "Dearer?" 
 
 "Well," Mrs. Curtis spoke almost defiantly, "Mrs. 
 Hilton told me that she had it straight from one of 
 the clerks at the Consumer s, that Mr. Smithkins holds 
 the controlling interest in the Consumer s Company." 
 
 "You mean in the Utility Company ?" 
 
 "No, both." 
 
 "I can do nothing, Mrs. Curtis." 
 
 Cosmus remembered where he had last seen P. C. 
 Smithkins; it was at prayer-meeting at the First 
 Church. Tall, elderly, volatile, Mr. Smithkins, trustee 
 of Crandon Hill College, was asserting, apropos of 
 nothing, that "We have no literature in America, be 
 cause America is too prosperous." 
 
 By such indirect means, Cosmus was inducted into 
 the central fact of college life. He knew that when 
 one formed an opinion about anything so subtle as 
 the spirit of a place, there was always danger of al 
 lowing the personal equation to count too much, but 
 here fact piled itself on fact in convincing preponder 
 ance. Though hot with the impatience of youth, he 
 was never blind enough to attribute to Sill, Crandon, 
 Tyler and Smithkins, conscious collusion, or even so 
 much as tacit understanding. To Cosmus, the most 
 culpable of all was President Crandon. Under his 
 guidance, the college should have been creating a quick 
 current of large ideas, which would have purged so 
 ciety of injustice and made democracy real. But
 
 138 IRON CITY 
 
 President Crandon, amiable and formal, made edu 
 cation a mere massing of conventionalities and intri 
 cate artificialities. Some mysterious antipathy drove 
 him, the youthful instructor, and Hugh Crandon, the 
 president, asunder. From Crandon, the president, 
 from Tyler, the trustee, from his colleagues, Cosmus 
 received only antagonism. Even Ezra Kimbark, 
 though friendly, Cosmus found did not understand. 
 To Kimbark, education was the passionate pursuit of 
 an aloof and painted past. 
 
 The only element which saved Cosmus from com 
 plete discouragement was a few students. He thought 
 often of the words of Sarah, "But you forget youth. 
 You forget yourself, and the thousands like you, young 
 and strong seeing. They will bring the new age 
 soon, very soon." There was Jenkins, a freshman, 
 whose father was a coal operator in Illinois; Jenkins 
 openly sympathized with the men when they were out 
 on a strike and sought to bring them and his father 
 into an amicable settlement. There was Weaver, 
 dynamic and brilliant, fearlessly setting himself to 
 the study of society in the hope of arriving at some 
 practical egress from the maze of social problems. 
 These and others like them gravitated to Cosmus, and 
 compensated for hours of discouragement. 
 
 Not so Raymond Sill. His entrance into college 
 in the fall was a signal for rejoicing on the part of 
 football enthusiasts. No one ran the team like Ray 
 mond, nor played the mandolin so pleasingly. Under 
 Margaret Morton s urging, he elected Labor Prob 
 lems with Cosmus. In the classroom Raymond sat 
 back often with a mocking expression on his dark 
 handsome face ; or he would mischievously try to side-
 
 IRON CITY 139 
 
 track all discussion of current problems into considera 
 tion of abstractions. 
 
 He would interrupt: "Don t you think selfishness 
 is at the bottom of all acts? Should one man be 
 blamed then more than another?" 
 
 He had a sluggish but, when aroused, trenchant 
 mind, and a disconcerting gift for analysis. Cosmusj 
 honestly tried to answer his difficulties until he was con 
 vinced that Raymond was quibbling. Then he turned 
 upon him the full battery of his anger and impatience. 
 Raymond relapsed into silence and later tried to pre 
 cipitate a mutiny. Often he did not appear for days. 
 
 When the semester ended, Cosmus was forced to 
 flunk Raymond Sill. There was a rule which auto 
 matically cut off any student who failed from partic 
 ipation in college activities. When the mandolin club 
 went on its spring trip, however, to his surprise, Cos 
 mus discovered that Raymond was the leader. 
 
 "By special courtesy of the president," he was told 
 by Dean Witherspoon. 
 
 There is no deliberative body so little understood as 
 a college faculty. Formed of individualists and spe 
 cialists, it feeds on technicalities; it has no sense of 
 humor, and no soul. It is inclusive of all points of 
 view, but incapable of accepting any. Every member 
 insists on speaking on every subject. Its individual 
 wisdom is rivaled only by its collective unwisdom. It 
 rivals the German Reichstag as a debating society. 
 In the two years in which John Cosmus had sat on the 
 faculty of Crandon Hill College, he had never once 
 seen the ghost of an educational policy stalk across 
 the well-set stage, upon which so many orators strut 
 ted and fretted. He, however, had heard the faculty 
 spend two hours discussing whether "successive" had
 
 140 IRON CITY 
 
 logical or chronological meaning. President Hugh 
 Crandon, polished and forbearing, patiently guided 
 the orators through the Daedalian maze of parliamen 
 tary procedure. Now and then Cosmus thought he 
 saw the wraith of a twinkle in the president s eyes. 
 What was this president s power? What was the real 
 Hugh Crandon who hid behind the mask ? Once Cos 
 mus had heard Mrs. Crandon indiscreetly say, "Yes, 
 Mr. Crandon allows all the faculty to have their say, 
 then he does as he pleases anyhow." 
 
 At one of the regular faculty meetings early in the 
 spring, Cosmus, goaded by the indifference of his col 
 leagues into bringing before them problems of Iron 
 City s life, made his maiden speech. Direct always, 
 he said: 
 
 "Mr. President, I consider the greatest mistake 
 Crandon Hill College ever made was the closing of 
 Dover Street to the alien workers that used to pass 
 through the campus. In itself, it seems nothing; in 
 reality it has become a symbol of our aloofness from 
 the vital life of our city. We have stamped ourselves 
 with the insidious insignia of class." 
 
 Such sincerity, interpolated into an assembly whose 
 policies were masked by insincerity and politeness, 
 was freezing. For a moment, it looked as if no one 
 were to accept the challenge. President Crandon, calm 
 and dignified always, recoiled ; his eyes contracted into 
 hot slits. Then Professor Clarke, the whip of the 
 house, arose. 
 
 "Mr. President, I do not wish to prolong this dis 
 cussion (Professor Clarke always preluded his re 
 marks thus) but I feel " Here he paused, drew 
 
 himself up to his full height, threw back his head as 
 if about to deliver a blow with it, and then thundered,
 
 IKON CITY 141 
 
 "that such remarks are out of order. Indeed, I con 
 sider them a violation of professional etiquette. The 
 closing of Dover Street had the due consideration of 
 the faculty, Mr. President, and of the administra 
 tion, Mr. President, and of the Board of Trustees, 
 Mr. President. Such unanamity makes Mr. Cosmus s 
 remarks nothing short of impertinent." 
 
 There was a general rustle of applause. The "whip" 
 continued to strike. "Moreover, gentlemen of the 
 faculty, you have been all witnesses to the vulgar in 
 trusion upon the privacy of this institution. Actually, 
 Mr. President, I myself have seen foreign mothers 
 sitting upon the senior bench suckling their infants. 
 What a spectacle for the young women of this col 
 lege!" Dean Georgia Summers tried hard not to 
 blush. Professor Clarke was just a little outspoken. 
 "In view of these facts, I consider Mr. Cosmus s re 
 marks ill-taken." 
 
 He sat down. Others clamored for the floor. Pro 
 fessor Erickson was recognized. 
 
 "It seems to me," he said caustically, "that Mr. 
 Cosmus when he spoke of education had a Chautau- 
 qua, not a college, in mind." 
 
 There is something damning in a phrase. Profes 
 sor Erickson s was of that kind. It dissolved all op 
 position into laughter. And it endured. Thereafter 
 the "Chautauqua brand of education" appeared in 
 every one s mind when Cosmus s name was men 
 tioned. 
 
 So Cosmus failed to make them "see." Three 
 months of the second year went by in sight and hear 
 ing of the great outer drama of a world in flux. Never 
 a note seemed to pierce the calm of Crandon Hill 
 College, or the complacency of Iron City. Cosmus,
 
 142 IRON CITY 
 
 alone save for Sarah Blackstone, despaired. Many 
 a day he resolved to resign, and go to France for serv 
 ice. After the faculty meeting that course seemed 
 more imperative. But he was loyal to the few stu 
 dents who were seeing, and he was aroused into a 
 fighting humor. And above all there was Sarah, 
 he met Walt Kuhns, labor leader, again.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 RAYMOND, son, how should you like to go to 
 Massachusetts and spend the summer with 
 grandfather Wood?" 
 
 Mrs. Sill, in laces, reclined on a chaise longue; sun- 
 shine fell through the beveled glass of French win 
 dows in spots of iridescence. Raymond saw them 
 from where he was sitting near the window overlook 
 ing the street. He had willingly stayed home from 
 chapel to talk to his mother. 
 
 "I don t know, Mother, it is pretty there." 
 
 Patience Wood Sill with her daintiness and tran 
 quillity always brought to the surface in Raymond a 
 sense of peace and loveliness. 
 
 "You ll go then?" She spoke eagerly. 
 
 "No, I think not, Mother; it s too dull." 
 
 She was disappointed. 
 
 "How about the trip up the Allegash that Stephen 
 Tyler spoke of?" 
 
 "Why should I leave my own home town at all, 
 Mother?" He said this as one would give a chal 
 lenge. For he was familiar with his mother s tact; 
 he knew that something deeper than appeared lay in 
 her solicitude for his summer plans. 
 
 She replied, "Raymond, I have never forgiven your 
 grandfather, Dr. Sill, for not marrying my mother. 
 She wasn t happy, you know, with Father." Raymond 
 had not known this particular side of that episode, and 
 what had that to do with vacation ? 
 
 i43
 
 144 IRON CITY 
 
 "Well, Mother?" 
 
 "The Sills are no judges of strong women, that s- 
 all?" 
 
 "You, Mother, were " 
 
 "I m not sure, son; I think I married your father." 
 
 Patience Sill often resorted to frankness when it 
 was needed to carry an argument. 
 
 "But, Mother?"" 
 
 "You, Raymond, are a Sill." 
 
 He saw now what was coming, and yet he would 
 do nothing to avoid it. 
 
 She went on, "You are seeing too much of the 
 Morton girl " 
 
 No third person, least of all a mother, is capable of 
 understanding the relation which exists between two 
 souls. By implication, Patience Sill thought Margaret 
 Morton weak, and nothing, therefore, that Raymond 
 could say would alter her opinion. This he knew. He 
 was silent. 
 
 "What do you see in her?" 
 
 "She s a good kid." 
 
 "Yes, I know, but not half as attractive as Hazel 
 Tyler." 
 
 "It s according to your point of view." 
 
 "The Morton girl, Raymond, is the kind that women 
 are instinctively suspicious of." 
 
 "Jealous of, you mean?" 
 
 His mother s talk had served to give Raymond an 
 objective on his relationship with Margaret. For the 
 first time, he was seeing it from the outside. Pre 
 viously he had accepted Margaret as something he 
 wanted as he accepted food and air. She fed some 
 thing deep within him, something that had to be fed, 
 and something he did not purpose to leave unfed.
 
 IRON CITY 145 
 
 And he was surprised, in a sense, at his mother s seri 
 ous consideration of his association with Margaret, 
 as much, perhaps, as he would have been if she had 
 said, "Why, Raymond, you are breathing air!" But 
 now that he saw himself and Margaret as a third 
 person saw them, there was an impulse to resent his 
 sweetheart. It was the same impulse which makes a 
 little boy turn and slap the little girl that he is caught 
 playing with. Whatever regard Raymond had for 
 Margaret it was not one that would make him sacri 
 fice for her. 
 
 "Don t you think you are taking this too seriously, 
 Mamma?" 
 
 "You are a Sill, dear." 
 
 She said this significantly. 
 
 Raymond suddenly saw that here was an oppor 
 tunity to get something he had wanted for a long 
 time. Perhaps, by making a concession to his mother 
 in regard to Margaret Morton, he could win her alle 
 giance to a new project ; so he said, 
 
 "Mother, when I leave Iron City the next time, I 
 go to France." 
 
 "To France! What are you thinking of? To 
 fight?" 
 
 "Yes, to fight." 
 
 Perhaps Raymond was not wholly serious. What 
 he wanted was not to go to France, but to get an 
 aeroplane. 
 
 "But before I go, I want to learn to fly in this coun 
 try. Can t you get Father to let me have a plane?" 
 
 She answered shrewdly. 
 
 "So that you can break your neck, and thus rid 
 yourself of that Morton girl?"
 
 146 IRON CITY 
 
 "No, Mother. I should have to go to Chicago to 
 learn, you know. It would take six months." 
 
 Both enjoyed this bout of wits. 
 
 "We ll see, Raymond." 
 
 Raymond knew, and had known since he was a lad, 
 that when his mother said "We ll see," the thing was 
 settled in his favor. He went over and kissed her. 
 
 At the door she called him back. 
 
 "You won t get mixed up with her, will you, dear?" 
 
 She said this imploringly. Raymond was touched 
 by her concern. He said seriously more seriously 
 than he had said anything else : 
 
 "Never fear, Mamma. I ll not marry Margaret. 
 She s a jolly kid, but " 
 
 He went out. She heard his short, heavy step on 
 the stairs, and his whistle. But she did not appear at 
 rest; she had not liked something which she had seen 
 in her son s face when he had said "Margaret." 
 
 If Patience Sill could have followed Margaret Mor 
 ton s thoughts during the chapel service at college 
 every morning, she might have had evidence against 
 her son s sweetheart more tangible than mere instinct. 
 That morning Margaret had not heard a word of the 
 service ; in fact, she scarcely ever did unless the speak 
 er was young and good-looking. Then she listened 
 after a fashion. She often wondered why John Cos- 
 mus never led chapel, for she was not aware of the 
 precise distinctions in rank in the college hierarchy. 
 While Scripture was being read, Margaret often 
 stared amicably at him, hoping to get in public a re 
 sponse which was intimate. She was not given to 
 analysis, but if she had been, she would probably have 
 been aware that she regretted that she no longer held 
 Cosmus by bonds of intimacy. And she probably
 
 IRON CITY 147 
 
 would not have been honest enough to confess that it 
 was her own fault that she no longer continued to hold 
 him. Somehow he forced her to turn her better side 
 toward him. Her ruminations consisted not so much 
 of ideas, as recollections, sensations and promised 
 pleasures. 
 
 Often when she returned home from chapel, Mrs. 
 Morton would say, "Who talked at chapel this morn 
 ing, Margaret?" 
 
 And invariably Margaret would answer, "Let s see, 
 I forget." Or she would supply the deficiency of 
 memory by any name that came to mind. Once she 
 had said, "That funny Professor Kimbark." 
 
 "What did he say?" Mrs. Morton had persisted. 
 
 "I couldn t hear well; you know he barks ." 
 
 "Margaret," Mrs. Morton exclaimed impatiently, 
 "I wish you would be more serious, and take more 
 interest in religion." 
 
 "I m waiting until St. Luke s is completed," and 
 her daughter glanced out of the window to where the 
 handsome Gothic church, the center of much of her 
 dreaming, still stood windowless. 
 
 Mrs. Morton was usually routed in these contests. 
 
 If Margaret did not care for Scriptural exhortation 
 at chapel, music did have meaning for her. The organ 
 with its breadth of feeling, and deep reaches into the 
 unconscious, awoke in her, selves she did not know she 
 possessed. She veritably believed that this was true 
 religious feeling; it was the nearest approach that 
 Margaret, in the flower of adolescence, ever made to> 
 religious feeling. In reality music spoke to her in 
 terms of images; spirit voices spoke to her. On the 
 largest stained glass window behind her, little leaves 
 danced in the morning wind. They let a soft amber
 
 148 IRON CITY 
 
 light through; Margaret could hear them sigh and 
 rustle. Under the spell of music these leaves became 
 countless hands that caressed and loved her. She 
 could close her eyes, and sink back in an ecstacy of 
 experience, seeing and hearing nothing. Often at 
 home she spoke of the pleasure organ music gave her. 
 She said that it made her feel so religious, which 
 pleased her father. 
 
 On the particular morning when Raymond had 
 failed to appear at chapel because of the conference 
 with his mother, Margaret, on returning home, was 
 confronted by Mrs. Morton and a letter. 
 
 "Oh, I know what it is, Mother from Dean With- 
 erspoon. Are they going to jerk me up on the green 
 carpet?" 
 
 "Daughter, this is serious. He says you are in dan 
 ger of failing in three subjects." 
 
 "Did that Professor Cosmus flunk me?" 
 
 "No, his is a C." 
 
 "It s history, then?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Mrs. Morton was perturbed. She thought her 
 daughter on the verge of disgrace, and what was more 
 she dreaded Carl s anger should Maggie be forced to 
 leave school. 
 
 "Now, Mother, you know as well as I do that this 
 is not serious," Margaret reassured her. "It s mere 
 bluff on the part of the office. They always do this 
 in order to get you to study harder. No one is ever 
 fired." 
 
 "But, Maggie, that isn t the point You ve got to 
 do better for your father s sake." 
 
 "I suppose I should, but studying is so beastly dull." 
 
 "You are going out too much."
 
 IRON CITY 149 
 
 "Not half enough." 
 
 "Maggie, when I was a girl your age one date a 
 week until ten o clock sufficed." 
 
 "No wonder, there was nothing to go to." 
 
 This angered Mrs. Morton for some reason, and 
 once in a while, in a fit of anger, she would exert pa 
 rental authority. 
 
 "Well," she said firmly, "just the same, you can 
 not have another date this week, you understand." 
 
 Margaret, seeing what she held dearest suddenly 
 taken away, burst into tears, and delivered herself of 
 an unmaidenly storm of words, ending by throwing 
 herself headlong on the davenport. From the depths 
 of the pillow, she struck back. 
 
 "Yes, yes, yes. I suppose you want me to be old 
 and ugly like you are before I m twenty. All right, 
 Mrs., I will, I will." 
 
 More tears this time Mrs. Morton joined in. She 
 had been insulted by her own daughter. She sat down 
 limply in a rocker, and put her handkerchief to her 
 eyes. Oh, the cruelty of youth! In time she con 
 trolled herself and said with feigned composure, 
 
 "I suppose you will never know how cruel you have 
 been until you have a little girl of your own. You 
 will never appreciate your mother till then." This in 
 self-pity; then in a kind of jealous scorn, "Suppose 
 you had a mother like Patience Sill, always lying 
 around in laces, and mixing paints ; who d take care of 
 the house while you were gadding round then? I m 
 twice as sick as she is." 
 
 Some hidden chord of sympathy sprang up between 
 mother and daughter. Perhaps Margaret suddenly 
 saw the pathos of her mother s position, or rather 
 she perhaps caught some glimpses of herself Mar-
 
 150 IRON CITY 
 
 garet, gay, color-loving, exuberant suddenly struck 
 down by disease. Perhaps, she even saw the truth 
 in her mother s words. Margaret knew that her 
 mother was really a sick woman. Many a time, Mrs. 
 Morton was on the verge of losing her feeble hold on 
 Science, almost determined to consent to an operation. 
 Instantly she was on her mother s side. 
 
 "Of course you are, Mother dear," she said, "and 
 you are a thousand times better than Mrs. Sill. I hate 
 that woman." 
 
 That was a good deal for Margaret, and it content 
 ed Mrs. Morton. Reparation had been made. They 
 gradually lowered their tones, dried their tears and by 
 the time Carl came home all signs of the storm had 
 vanished. Morton looked tired. 
 
 "Margaret, get my slippers. It s a wonder you 
 don t think of your father once in a while," he said. 
 He never would have spoken to Margaret thus, had 
 he not been very tired. 
 
 "What is it, Carl?" said his wife. 
 
 Morton seldom "brought business home." 
 
 "I am not sure," he said. "I fear trouble. Sill 
 thinks it is nothing, but I know." 
 
 "Oh, I guess it ll come out all right, Father," Mrs. 
 Morton replied with her usual optimism. 
 
 At the supper table, the telephone rang. Margaret 
 answered it eagerly. Mrs. Morton listened. 
 
 "Oh, is that you, Ray?" 
 
 * * * * 
 "Oh, quit your kidding." 
 
 * * * * 
 "Why, Ray, I " 
 
 * * * *
 
 IRON CITY 151 
 
 "What time?" 
 
 * * * * 
 
 "Yes, I guess so." 
 
 * * # * 
 "Of course, I m crazy to." 
 
 * * * * 
 
 "Good-by." 
 
 She heard Margaret s voice trail off into tender 
 ness. She suddenly saw her daughter in a new light. 
 
 Mrs. Morton understood. She got Margaret s eye, 
 when she came back to the table. That look seemed 
 to say, "Say nothing to father. He s tired." 
 
 Margaret knew that she had won. 
 
 In the kitchen, Mrs. Morton asked, "You made a 
 date for to-night?" 
 
 "Yes, I thought you wouldn t mind. It s the Coun 
 try Club dance. I ll swear off to-morrow." 
 
 "Is it with Ray?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "All right."
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 "CURING the winter that followed, Cosmus won- 
 *~^ dered often about P. C. Smithkins s remark : 
 "We have no literature in America because America 
 is too prosperous." Indeed Iron City, as part of 
 America, seemed too prosperous to know in any way 
 the depths of life. Gloom or tragedy, it could not 
 know; hustling, energetic, progressive, it was for all 
 the world like a boy who had never encountered grief, 
 poverty, death. The dim corners of a vast world gave 
 back vaguely echoes of a world-war. Iron City lay 
 with its specious sides turned up to the sun a warning 
 to knockers, muckrakers and agitators. Problems? 
 There could be no problems; for proof, look and see. 
 There were no slums at least save that bad row of 
 houses along Guy Street ; the street cars ran regularly ; 
 gay crowds thronged well-paved streets; the factories 
 had more than they could do ; the banks were bursting ; 
 there had never been a panic in the city. Where were 1 
 the problems? For the onrush of the human tide 
 seeps through the social break-waters so gradually 
 that one scarcely discerns in the tiny capillary at one s 
 feet the beat of the agitated sea beyond. Even Cos 
 mus, trained student of society that he was, often was 
 tempted to close his eyes and drift, so trifling at times 
 are the concrete incidents through which the great 
 principles beat, and reveal themselves. 
 
 One evening at work in his room, Cosmus was in 
 terrupted by the shambling feet of Samuel Curtis upon 
 
 152
 
 IRON CITY 153 
 
 the stairs. In the two years that Cosmus had lived 
 at the Curtis home, he had come no nearer to solving 
 the mystery of the landlord. Sad always, retiring al 
 ways, thwarted by life, Curtis remained an enigma. 
 
 Was he going by ? Cosmus listened. No, he stopped 
 outside the door. This time Curtis, always formal, 
 did not knock. He slowly opened the door, and stood 
 nervously upon the threshold. Without looking once 
 at John, he began in his high, shrill voice to stumble 
 into a denunciation. 
 
 "You ll have to leave this house, Mister Cosmus. 
 I m sorry, but we can t keep you here any longer. 
 You ll have to leave. I understand that the Missus 
 across the street wants roomers. You had better go 
 over there. I ll set you in the street in a minute, do 
 ye hear me?" 
 
 Cosmus thought it was some ill-timed joke. He 
 tried to smile. Curtis in a kind of subjective agita 
 tion continued his shrill invective, his voice rising 
 higher and higher, finally breaking at the top, then be 
 ginning the crescendo all over again. 
 
 "This house can t shelter you any longer, Mister 
 Cosmus. This is the house of Curtis, sir, and it can t 
 shelter you any longer. It always has had the pleas- 
 antest relations with the college, with Crandon Hill 
 College. But times do change " 
 
 "But, Mr. Curtis, explain yourself." 
 
 "You can get other rooms across the street, Mister 
 Cosmus. We can t shelter you any longer. Please go, 
 or I ll set you in the street; I ll set you in the street 
 myself." 
 
 Anger, so foreign to Samuel Curtis, seemed to rack 
 his frame. He stood so sad and antique, so trem 
 blingly in the doorway, that Cosmus could only pity
 
 ii54 IRON CITY 
 
 him. It was useless to argue with him while in this 
 unnatural humor. 
 
 "You know me well enough, Mr. Curtis, to know 
 that I don t deserve insult at your hands. I refuse 
 to budge until you prefer some charge that I can an 
 swer." 
 
 "This house can t shelter you any longer " 
 
 "Yes, I know. But why?" 
 
 "I m sorry to say it, Mr. Cosmus, but you hain t 
 fit to teach at Crandon Hill College you with your 
 notions about woman s freedom, labor and anarchy 
 you with your villifying of good President Crandon 
 behind his back, and your talk about a world-order. 
 You hain t fit, that s all. I m sorry to put you in tin 
 street, sir, but the Curtis family have always had pleas 
 ant relations with the college. You go." 
 
 Samuel Curtis had never seemed more of an enigma 
 than he did in that moment. Cosmus, accustomed as 
 he was to the analysis of human nature, found himself 
 baffled. He stood irresolute, his mind running back 
 over the months he had spent in Iron City, the first 
 impression of Curtis at the station, his ride with him 
 about town, his cry "It would be a travesty on Father," 
 his nocturnal vigils in the garden. With these reflec 
 tions came, too, a mild melancholy, always incident to 
 reminiscence and the sudden realization of change- 
 growth. He had come two years ago into this room 
 an uninformed boy; he was leaving it a man a rebel, 
 made so by men like Samuel Curtis. 
 
 "Very well," Cosmus said. "Come back in fifteen 
 minutes, and you can help me set my trunk into the 
 street." 
 
 Curtis seemed surprised. He turned and paused.
 
 IRON CITY 155 
 
 "I hate to do it, Mr. Cosmus," he said haltingly, 
 "but Father would " 
 
 "No trouble at all. I thank you for the diversion." 
 
 And so it happened that Cosmus found himself bag 
 and baggage in the street, the long rays of the after 
 noon sun falling across the lawn and Sarah Blackstone 
 coming up the walk. 
 
 She seemed to take the situation in at once. At any 
 rate, she paid no attention to the baggage. 
 
 "You haven t seen anything, Mr. Cosmus, of a 
 Bertha Livinsky, age sixteen, have you ?" She smiled. 
 "You see I have been out adventuring this afternoon, 
 looking for a lost Polish girl." 
 
 Curiously enough, in that moment Cosmus remem 
 bered that he had never asked Sarah about Sidney 
 Haynes. 
 
 "Here is a nice problem in practical sociology for 
 you, Professor Cosmus." Her humor was irresistible; 
 she stood before him the highly trained, sagacious 
 woman of the new century; and yet to Cosmus the 
 rare delicacy of her beauty was never more ingra 
 tiating. 
 
 "I m always interested in problems." He wanted 
 to call her Sarah. "Go on, tell me." 
 
 "It s strange," she answered, "but the whole prob 
 lem of Bertha Livinsky of all Berthas, Gretchens, 
 for that matter is pretty much a question of priest 
 and lover. I was talking to Father Sobieski the other 
 day and he said quite philosophically, I try to collect 
 Easter money, I can t. But wait, at death I get 
 them. The pressure of our economic world is too 
 much for some of the aliens; they find that they are 
 not so efficient when they come from the parochial 
 schools; so they go over to the public."
 
 156 IRON CITY 
 
 "They learned the meaning of our phrase, It 
 pays. " 
 
 "Yes, and little else. They are pitiable in their ig 
 norance. This morning when I went to see Mrs. Liv- 
 insky, across the lower St. Paul tracks, she was sitting 
 on the back-porch looking dismally out over the filthy 
 yard. 
 
 " Where s Bertha? I asked. 
 
 " Don t know. Gone to get work/ she said sul 
 lenly. 
 
 " When? 
 
 " Three days/ 
 
 " What work? 
 
 " Don t know. She read in paper. 
 
 " Which paper? 
 
 " Don t know, and that is all that I could get out 
 of her at first. She just sat there stolid and suspicious 
 until she found out that I wasn t from the Board of 
 United Charities, and that I had known Bertha at the 
 Machine Works. Then she crumpled up and cried." 
 
 "And you have found no trace of Bertha?" 
 
 "Oh, yes. I ve learned something. You see here s 
 where the lover enters; in most cases there s a man." 
 
 She did not pause here, but Cosmus s mind strayed 
 for a moment away from Bertha to the woman before 
 him. At times, he was apprehensive of the energy 
 contained in her the thrust and whip of her mind. 
 "And who is the man in your case, Sarah Blackstone?" 
 he was thinking. And then he remembered again that 
 he had not asked her about Sidney Haynes. 
 
 "You see marriage in most European nations is a 
 social and family matter. Here in America it is in 
 dividual and romantic. Bertha s mother can not ad 
 vise her, because she was not wooed as Bertha is
 
 IRON CITY 157 
 
 wooed. And Bertha can not help herself, because she 
 has lost touch with the social significance of marriage. 
 Affairs like hers as a rule are little short of seduction. 
 If she is lucky, poor thing, she gets money for her 
 child, and then she begins all over again to conquer 
 that world where woman s happiness begins and 
 ends." 
 
 John was thinking of education, and the part Cran- 
 don Hill College might play in the life of Bertha Liv- 
 insky. 
 
 "And if you found Bertha?" 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders impatiently. "If I did, 
 I could do little. That s the pity of it. Sometimes I 
 suspect myself, am afraid that I m out to find happi 
 ness for myself only. You see, when a person is en 
 dowed with energy, sitting at a desk all day does not 
 satisfy her; I am afraid that in the vague hope of help 
 ing Bertha, I am trying to do something for Sarah." 
 
 She had analyzed that social problem, Cosmus 
 thought, with a directness and objectivity quite mas 
 culine, and yet he was keenly aware again of an almost 
 child-like wistfulness in her tone and face. 
 
 "If you know the man there s marriage." 
 
 She shot him a swift glance. 
 
 "Marriage! Do you think I should want to con 
 demn her to life with a man like Bill Daggett?" 
 
 "You know him, then?" 
 
 "Yes, it no doubt was Daggett." 
 
 "Who is he?" 
 
 "A foreman at Sill s plant, and, to tangle your skein 
 of things the more, philosopher, a college man for two 
 years." She paused, and became self-conscious a mo 
 ment, as if aware of what Samuel Curtis would think 
 of her if he knew what subject they were discussing.
 
 158 IRON CITY 
 
 "No, I think too much of marriage to condemn Ber 
 tha to slavery. She s better off alone. When she 
 comes back, I shall try to show her, if I can, that she 
 has not strayed into unpardonable shame, and save 
 her from the despair that has been woman s lot all 
 these years." 
 
 Cosmus was never more sure of the fineness of the 
 woman before him. Before they could resume, a dray 
 drove up for his trunk. 
 
 "I m moving, you see," he explained. 
 
 She did not answer. 
 
 The drayman bawled, "Where to?" 
 
 Cosmus was at a loss. He did not know what to 
 say. In the excitement that Curtis had caused him, he 
 had overlooked the important trifle of a roof over his 
 head. He hesitated. The drayman repeated his ques 
 tion, impatiently. 
 
 Sarah whispered, "Why don t you go to the Y. M. 
 C. A.?" 
 
 Why, of course. Just the thing. He felt grateful to 
 her, spoke to the drayman, and turned. "May I walk 
 along with you?" 
 
 When they were out of sight of the Curtis house, 
 she turned to him eagerly and said, "You mustn t be 
 too hard on Samuel Curtis." 
 
 "You know all about it, then ?" 
 
 "No, I only guessed. You see, knowing Samuel 
 Curtis, I knew the clash was inevitable." 
 
 "I can t make him out. He s queer , isn t he?" 
 
 "Yes, queer, if to live in a world apart from the 
 real is to be queer. You see, Professor Cosmus, you 
 are aiming to destroy the last vestige of his older 
 world." 
 
 "I ?"
 
 IRON CITY 159 
 
 "Yes. Curtis was once owner of the R. Sill plant 
 ^long ago and Sill destroyed the semblance of the 
 thing he loved. Now you are laying your hand on 
 the college his college." 
 
 "His college? I don t understand." 
 
 "Well, you see the elder Curtis was a promoter of 
 the finest type. He was a professor in the college, but 
 in addition, an organizer outside. He established the 
 Iron City Savings Bank and Trust Company it took 
 him ten years to create the sentiment, write the bills, 
 introduce them in the legislature, and establish the in 
 stitution. He secured patents for pumps that laid the 
 foundation for the Enterprise Pumping Company, 
 which R. Sill later acquired. He went to the legisla 
 ture and was a candidate for governor. . . . Well, 
 it s not easy to be the son of a father like that." 
 
 Cosmus recalled vividly his drive with Samuel Cur 
 tis, and the man s careful itinerary, reviewing all his 
 father s monuments. "But I can t understand why it 
 should make Curtis a fool." 
 
 "Curtis the son, I mean had a controlling share 
 in the Enterprise Pumping Co. and could have passed 
 on into Sill s regime, but he shrank from the sordid- 
 ness of business. His wife didn t help him any she 
 was an Eastern woman. Curtis saw that R. Sill wasn t 
 a gentleman ; at least after his father s kind. Business 
 oppressed him, Sill towered over him. The game 
 wasn t worth the candle he let the business go for 
 nothing. Such things happen, you know." 
 
 "I see. Curtis is an ancestor worshiper, or a sort 
 of 1 Aiglon?" 
 
 "A misfit, I should say ; a product of culture for its 
 own sake. They say he was the best Greek scholar
 
 160 IRON CITY 
 
 in the college. What that plant might have been up 
 there, if he, not Sill, owned it." 
 
 "It s curious, but there seem to be just two facts in 
 Iron City; that factory and this college." 
 
 "It s our bias, I suppose." 
 
 They had come to Sarah s door, but had passed on 
 by tacit understanding out the leafy street to the fields. 
 Sarah had managed even by her dispassionate narra 
 tive to rehabilitate the Curtis Cosmus first had known, 
 the night wanderer on the flats. After all, there is 
 nothing more thrilling or sobering than vagrant 
 glimpses into other personalities and Cosmus felt 
 that he had at last seen the real Samuel Curtis. All 
 impatience with the man was gone. 
 
 "I suppose," he said, "that I should respect Samuel 
 Curtis for setting me in the street. For a man who 
 inherits his ethics, theology and manners, that was a 
 pretty bold act. For once he was original. But the 
 college, what of the college?" 
 
 Sarah turned to him, her face alight, and impulsive 
 ly clasped his arm. "I wanted you to say that," she 
 said. 
 
 "You re a good friend, aren t you?" 
 
 She did not answer. He was sensible of her warm 
 touch upon his arm, and in a minute, when she dropped 
 her hand, he reached down and drew it through his 
 arm again. 
 
 "You might fall," he said. 
 
 They both seemed satisfied with that explanation. 
 Sincere as they were with each other in all human 
 matters, they practiced deception when it came to emo 
 tion. Tremblingly they were reaching along racial 
 avenues of speech, groping dimly for each other like 
 children in that vaster world of instinct and love. So
 
 IRON CITY 161 
 
 they walked silently, thrilling to the beauty of later 
 evening. It seemed to Cosmus as if he had passed out 
 of the world of factories, crowds, problems, into a 
 great, wide plain peaceful and dim, where he walked 
 with one whose mind he knew without speech. And 
 that one was almost God. 
 
 And yet, how far apart these two were. They were 
 of such natures that they could not trust mere feeling 
 or sentiment; they had to translate those sublime stir 
 rings of sex into words and deeds. And so they were 
 kept apart. If Cosmus had trusted his mood, and had 
 lifted her then in his arms, and kissed her, he would 
 have found the eager passion of a deep and pure wom 
 an meeting his. He did not. Out of such relations as 
 theirs may come poetry; but the ecstasy of passion is 
 postponed and perhaps never comes. So Carlyle 
 missed the fullest union and broke Jane Welsh s heart. 
 
 When Cosmus had brought her to her^gate, he had 
 courage to say: 
 
 "Sarah, who is Sidney Haynes?" 
 
 He heard the quick intake of her breath, but there 
 were no signs of embarrassment when she said : 
 
 "Mother Curtis told you; she s so curious." 
 
 She paused. He waited. 
 
 "John, I d rather not tell you. You might not un 
 derstand and he s no " 
 
 It was the first time she had called him John, but 
 that did not make up for his disappointment. He 
 felt as if she were obliged to tell him, if she had had 
 another lover. That was the trouble with them ; since 
 they depended on a medium so treacherous as words, 
 words so many had to pass between them, that they had 
 to suffer much before they reached that higher ground 
 of sure and permanent understanding. With her re-
 
 162 IRON CITY 
 
 fusal, the inexplicable barrier was erected again be 
 tween them. The chords that were flowing like music 
 from one to another snapped. He seemed to see her 
 only as the keen, self-contained, above all forbidding 
 woman of the world. Perhaps jealousy, or some sub 
 lime sense of being thwarted, aroused him ; at any rate, 
 he was angry coolly, but passionately angry. He in 
 tended to hurt her when he said : 
 
 "Some people are all mind and no body, and they 
 somehow have a great capacity for hurting their 
 friends." 
 
 He could see her figure, even in the dim light, 
 straighten and tighten. 
 
 "What?" she said in startled tones. 
 
 He was ashamed. He did not want to see her that 
 way. He turned to look up the street where the colo 
 nial spire of the First Church scraped the sky, and 
 then he spoke again, as calmly as he could : 
 
 "Oh, yes, I have been waiting to tell you that Walt 
 Kuhns has come back to organize a union, and I have 
 decided, if I see a way, to help him all I can." 
 
 He paused, "It s only right." There was no an 
 swer. What was the matter? Was she going to be 
 a fool? He turned. She was gone!
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 ONE morning when Jerry Mulvaney, machinist, 
 walked into the machine-shop at the Sill plant, 
 he found Bill Daggett, foreman, bending over the 
 form of his pal Callahan. The big foreman s knee 
 was planted on Cally s chest, and his heavy fingers 
 were closing over the little workman s windpipe. Al 
 ready Cally s eyes had begun to bulge., 
 
 "What cher call it, Bill," Mulvaney said to Dag 
 gett, "a Jew picnic?" 
 
 "No, Callahan here says that during Lent he s game 
 not to swear, and I just bet him a dollar that he would 
 swear before seven o clock." 
 
 Mulvaney was not a Catholic, but his ire was 
 aroused at the sight of the punishment his pal was 
 getting. 
 
 "Auh, no, you don t. Take your knee off his chest, 
 you big stiff." 
 
 Daggett looked up, mystified, his little eyes blinking 
 in his large head, the great bellows of his chest work 
 ing beneath his sweater. He was a huge man all of 
 six feet four in height, and close to three hundred and 
 twenty pounds. Princeton College remembers him as 
 the star fullback of the late nineties. 
 
 Mulvaney was near the lathe, fingering a piece of 
 lead pipe, and looking nasty about the gills. 
 
 Daggett relaxed his hold on Callahan s throat, rose 
 heavily, and stood eyeing the two Irishmen. He was 
 
 163
 
 164 IRON CITY 
 
 mad with humiliation, and what had begun in cruel 
 jest gave promise of ending in war. 
 
 "Whew!" snarled Daggett through set teeth. "I 
 can whip both of you little devils." 
 
 "No, you can t either, you big tub," said Mulvaney 
 coolly. "You can t even handle me." 
 
 Daggett, like a huge bear, moved cautiously towards 
 Mulvaney. Callahan arose dizzily, and, paying no at 
 tention to the irate foreman, went to the hydrant to 
 wash his face; Mulvaney threw down the lead pipe, 
 and retreated behind the lathe. 
 
 "What s the matter, splinter, fraid of me?" asked 
 Bill. 
 
 "No, you hogshead, I m not afraid of you," said 
 Jerry. "I m going to wear you out chasin me, and 
 then I am going to sail in and give you the worst 
 lickin of your life." 
 
 Daggett, all the angrier, tried to reach across the 
 machine to seize his antagonist. The light-footed 
 Irishman easily eluded him. Round and round the 
 machine they went, Mulvaney smiling derisively, and 
 keeping up a spirited fire of insult. 
 
 "Go to it, log-foot." 
 
 "Don t spill your guts. Tub." 
 
 "Hi, there, fire-truck." 
 
 In time the tactics of the Irishman began to accom 
 plish their purpose. Already, either from anger or 
 weariness, Daggett s breath was coming in gasps; and 
 passion had risen to blind his eyes with confusion. 
 
 "Tongue hanging out, bullock," sneered Jerry. 
 
 He suddenly moved easily out into the clear space 
 between the lathe and the door. Daggett lunged for 
 him; there was another round of foot-work. Like 
 master wrestlers, feinting for a hold, little Irishman
 
 IRON CITY 165 
 
 and giant foreman circled back and forth. Other 
 workmen came in, and stood grouped about the 
 benches, enjoying the fight. The room was awe 
 somely silent. 
 
 Suddenly Mulvaney s arm shot out fiercely, straight 
 to Daggett s vitals. Down came the big man s hands 
 over his stomach, and his breath sang through his 
 teeth. 
 
 "Ah." 
 
 In a flash, Mulvaney s arm swept through an arc 
 from his heel to his opponent s chin in an uppercut 
 that was a marvel to all who saw; and down went 
 Daggett s big form to the floor. It was a wicked 
 blow, and the foreman lay dazed under the lathe, like 
 a pitiable thing. 
 
 He was not desperately hurt. In five minutes he 
 had picked himself up and had the men at work. 
 
 That noon Bill Daggett was taking bets that Jerry 
 Mulvaney could whip any man in the plant. The 
 news of the fight spread as on underground cables, 
 and no one covered the offer. Daggett and Mulvaney 
 became friends. Daggett, with the large geniality of 
 big men, found in the smaller one much to fear and 
 admire, and Mulvaney, shrewd and self-seeking, ac 
 cepted and enjoyed the homage. Daggett was not a 
 bad fellow. He seldom showed his brutish nature 
 and he hid his passions well. He sang tenor, pounded 
 the piano, and recounted gridiron exploits with con 
 siderable rough charm. 
 
 Not long after the fight, Mulvaney said to his new- 
 *y-made friend : 
 
 "Look-a-here, Bill, you ve got to come into the 
 
 "Go to hell, will you; none of that crowd for me.
 
 166 IRON CITY 
 
 They re crooked, all of them and it costs too damned 
 much." 
 
 It was said that Daggett could swear longer and 
 louder than anybody in the plant. He himself was 
 reported as having said : 
 
 "My English prof used to say that my vocabulary 
 was damned limited, but he was mistaken. I can talk 
 to men all right with these" here he held up his heavy 
 fists, and let loose a string of oaths. 
 
 But Mulvaney, knowing his man, was not to be 
 frightened by the vigor of his expletives. "That s all 
 right, Bill ; I understand how you feel. But have you 
 looked into this matter ? You ve never been a member 
 of the union, have you?" 
 
 "Naw, don t want to be. I was beaten up in Dayton 
 once by a crowd who was just going out, and I don t 
 intend to forget it very soon." 
 
 Daggett looked ugly. Mulvaney was not discour 
 aged. He saw the advantage of having Bill Daggett 
 with them. Daggett was popular, huge, and a fore 
 man, and moreover, he was a particular friend of R. 
 Sill s. Sill was inclined to have favorites among the 
 foremen. 
 
 Bill continued, "I d advise you, Mulvaney, to leave 
 this business alone. That man Kuhns don t know how 
 to manage men, and anyway, he s an intruder never 
 worked in a factory in his life, did he?" 
 
 "Leave that to me, I ll stand by Kuhns, but, by God ! 
 if you peach on us, I ll smash every bone in your 
 body." 
 
 Daggett knew that Mulvaney meant what he said. 
 
 "Who s goin to peach ? But as a friend, I d advise 
 you to keep out of it. Look here, you can get what 
 you want if you ll only handle old Sill right. Why,
 
 IRON CITY 167 
 
 I ve made him look like a monkey for four years. 
 Shine up to him and say Morning, Mr. Sill, wonder 
 ful plant you ve got here. It gets him every time; 
 all these God-Almightys love taffy." 
 
 "Yes, you re a hell of a college man, you are," Mul- 
 vaney answered, "gettin your way by bunk and graft. 
 But what of us others; there are four thousand men 
 getting only $2.65 a day, and eighty of us go to the 
 hospital a day." 
 
 "Well, you don t get me," he said defiantly. 
 
 Mulvaney was disgusted. He turned away, for a 
 moment beaten, and then he bethought himself of an 
 other approach to the big foreman. He came back, 
 and stood solemnly in front of Daggett. 
 
 "Daggett," he said slowly, "once more, you better 
 come in." He paused and then added with heavy fi 
 nality, "I know about Bertha Levinsky." 
 
 The face of the big foreman was a picture of woe, 
 anger, humiliation. He looked as if he would like to 
 destroy his companion. 
 
 " damn you, for mentioning that to me." He 
 
 couldn t speak further. Taking a stogie out of his 
 pocket, he bit at it savagely, then lit it. 
 
 Mulvaney stood coolly staring at him. 
 
 Daggett spoke at last, smiling. "Well, when do 
 you meet?" 
 
 "To-night, above Willard s saloon." 
 
 So it was that Daggett was won for the union. It 
 might have been better if he had stayed out, but Mul 
 vaney in his zealousness for the cause, and in his 
 Celtic eagerness for power, thought well of forcing 
 Daggett in. No one could doubt Mulvaney s loyalty 
 to the union idea (his father had suffered years be 
 fore at Bridgeport for the cause). But the project
 
 i68 IRON CITY 
 
 afforded, too, an outlet for his peculiar love of persua 
 sion, and when that failed, of coercion, and Daggett 
 presented a subject for coercion hard to resist. 
 
 That night Walt Kuhns drew his comrades about 
 him. There were Mulvaney, and Daggett, and a so 
 cialist by the name of Grover, and Duke, a negro, and, 
 most interesting of all, Mary, the Lithuanian woman. 
 
 Mary, as everybody called her, was a statuesque, 
 queenly sort of a woman, with quick comprehension, 
 broad grasp upon human affairs, and a passionate re 
 gard for what she called her community. She spoke 
 thirteen languages fluently, and had done much 
 through them to hold the more recent aliens to a re 
 sponsible citizenship. From her small grocery store 
 presided over by Peter, her husband she reached 
 out in every direction into Iron City s life. 
 
 There was a kind of stubborn fearlessness, a vivac 
 ity of utterance, a fervid love of fellows that marked 
 her as exceptional. Though she had been reared a 
 Catholic, she had rebelled against the Church and was 
 sending her children to the public schools and to the 
 Baptist Sunday School. Kuhns had given her a Cause, 
 a something that appealed to her quick maternal feel 
 ing. 
 
 Next to her was Duke. He was a recent negro ac 
 quisition to Iron City. All his life had been spent in 
 migratory occupations. He knew the rolling popula 
 tion of America as few knew it. He had been born in 
 an Iowa boarding house for transient negroes ; he had 
 sold papers on the streets of New Orleans, threading 
 the maze of the underworld. And for thirty years a 
 porter on transcontinental trains, he had seen the 
 white man off his guard away from his own town 
 in the first abandon of vacations. He had seen bish-
 
 IRON CITY 169 
 
 ops drunk, preachers seeking the alluring immunities 
 of women, statesmen seduced by flattery. He always 
 saw human nature weary from travel, turning upper 
 most its petty side, and he had come to believe that 
 the white man shared the frailties of the negro and 
 had merely arrogated to himself, through numbers, 
 the position of superiority. 
 
 And yet Duke was not filled with race hatred. By 
 fraternizing with the whites, he became like them. He 
 had erased all accent from his speech; was alert and 
 affable in manner, yet reserved and self-contained. 
 He took genuine pride in his race and family "The 
 Dukes of Virginia, sir," not "sah"; and he had be 
 come a rare judge of men and women. He had ob 
 tained, too, much information in his travels, and, by 
 becoming the official intimate of cultivated people, the 
 frequenters of Pullmans, he had come into vivid touch 
 with the thought, the trend of public sentiment, and 
 the gossip of the day. 
 
 Duke had quit portering to set up a store on Osgood 
 Avenue, where the negroes were segregated. He saw 
 a good business chance, but he saw, too, a chance for 
 helpful leadership among the blacks. He was ambi 
 tious to play an elegant part in the race drama. He 
 often said that Booker T. Washington s relegation of 
 the negro to mere manual labor was wrong ; the Af ric 
 imagination was fit for literature, the arts and politics. 
 
 He had come to Walt Kuhns s conference at his own 
 request, to plead for the inclusion of the colored work 
 ers in the Union. Across from him sat Grover. He 
 was not of the caliber of the others, but a studious 
 local personage, who had an intellectual interest in 
 labor and socialism. 
 
 Walt Kuhns sat at the head of the table, which with
 
 170 IRON CITY 
 
 the chairs were the only pieces of furniture in this 
 rough room above Willard s saloon. He was intense 
 ly conscious of the power represented in this little 
 group of people. Mary could speak for the Slavs, 
 Austrians, Italian and Greek peoples of the city ; Mul- 
 vaney and Daggett for the Irish, Welsh and English; 
 and Duke for the negro. 
 
 He, as leader, was not unaware, though, of the ra 
 cial antipathies current at that moment. It was Mary 
 who had slipped into the vacant chair beside the negro 
 after Grover, Daggett and Mulvaney had passed it by. 
 Daggett sat back, silent and bored. Between even 
 them the big foreman and Kuhns, the leader there 
 were repellent forces at work. 
 
 Duke was saying : "Gentlemen, eighty per cent of 
 my blood is white, fifteen per cent Indian, and five 
 black, and yet I am to be discriminated against as a 
 negro. Some people don t like Duke because he speaks 
 out, but I believe in being plain. You will make a 
 mistake if you don t let the colored man in the union. 
 He has come to Iron City and has come to stay." 
 
 Daggett sat back, his surly eyes not intent upon the 
 negro, but upon Walt Kuhns, as though to forbid his 
 granting Duke s request. Kuhns treated Duke with 
 courtesy, and promised to take the matter up with the 
 council as soon as it was formed. With that the negro 
 bowed himself toward the door with a good deal of a 
 flourish. "The war, gentlemen," he continued, "has 
 given the colored people a chance, and they have come 
 to Iron City to stay. Don t forget that." 
 
 "The hell we won t," growled Daggett softly. 
 
 Mulvaney, to cover up Daggett s ill-nature, began 
 to inquire at once into the details of organization. In 
 stantly Kuhns was besieged with questions: "Who
 
 IRON CITY 171 
 
 was going to be shop-committee man ? When were the 
 street meetings to start? What did he hear from 
 Boyne s factory? Was he in touch with the head 
 council ?" 
 
 Mary made a brief report of her activity amorfg the 
 Italians that day. Daggett sat in silence, sucking on 
 an unlighted cigar. Kuhns s strategy was to secure 
 secretly the allegiance of the mechanics the higher 
 grade workmen in the various plants and then when 
 these men were enlisted, to announce openly that 
 chapters were to be formed in Iron City. Having 
 won the skilled labor, he expected to enlist the others 
 with ease and to be strong enough to force recognition 
 of the union principle. He counted greatly upon the 
 scarcity of all kinds of labor to carry the campaign 
 through. A newspaper was to be established and a 
 trades council ; there was also to be a dynamic execu 
 tive committee unifying all the working classes. 
 
 "I don t believe you can do it," put in Daggett. 
 "The time hain t right. There are too many ignora 
 muses in that shop to join the unions, honyocks and 
 niggers." 
 
 "Shut up, Bill. You know we can," responded Mul- 
 vaney quickly. Kuhns fastened his quiet eyes upon 
 the big foreman. 
 
 "Mr. Daggett does not believe in our cause, perhaps. 
 If not, he is in the wrong place. We want only be 
 lievers here, men willing to sacrifice." 
 
 "Sure, Bill s all right," Mulvaney assured him. 
 
 "Of course I m with you," Daggett asserted, "or I 
 wouldn t be here. Do you realize that I may lose my 
 job to-morrow morning?" 
 
 There were other parleys; then Walt spoke quietly 
 to them about the larger aspects of their cause. He
 
 172 IRON CITY 
 
 was a prophet by nature, and he had the gift of speak 
 ing sincerely and deeply without sentimentality. He 
 told the story again of his conversion to unionism, re 
 peated the words of his master, advised moderation, 
 patience, and above all, largeness of view. How Iron 
 City, with its closely "in-bred" control of industry, 
 was one of the few communities of importance where 
 union labor was not recognized. Then they went 
 home. 
 
 Kuhns lingered at the table. As he turned his head 
 toward the dusty, narrow window, he could see the 
 crowd in the street below the tide of life running, 
 even here in this backwater of the world, apparently 
 aimlessly. A big automobile mark of power and 
 affluence swept by; he could see it preempt the 
 thoroughfare; the smaller machines as if by instinct 
 gave it way. It stood in his mind for the facile, mo 
 bile power he was fighting. How strong and sure it 
 was! It daunted him! 
 
 He felt for a moment the staleness of living that 
 all brave men feel now and then when they suddenly 
 relax their hold upon the engaging task of their whole 
 life. With that relaxation comes disillusionment, the 
 re-grouping of men and things about another ideal. 
 He saw Mary, Duke, Mulvaney, Daggett and Grover, 
 as they really were petty souls reaching for a 
 greater share of the world s things; incapable of ris 
 ing above the immediate needs of themselves and their 
 class. And worse, he saw himself as a mere senti 
 mental seeker after an unattainable end. He felt tired 
 and beaten, incapable of accomplishing the coalition 
 of the alien crowds of Iron City. Why go on ! Why 
 give one s self to insult, defeat and despair, sacrific 
 ing family, home and peace! Let the world drift to
 
 IRON CITY 173 
 
 hell. The strong were too strong, and would have 
 their own way in spite of him and his kind. God! 
 What a nasty world it was, with its nuzzlers, slaugh 
 terers, flatterers, seducers and kings. 
 
 Then by some irrelevant twist of mind he thought 
 of Cosmus, and the thought gave him comfort. Cos- 
 mus was fighting the battle too, there among the 
 strong, and for the first time the labor leader felt as 
 if his movement were at last being recognized and 
 given a semi-official endorsement. 
 
 "Comer," he murmured; he never could remember 
 Cosmus s name. "Comer is all right. He is working 
 there, too." 
 
 And he went down the rickety stairway, past the 
 saloon from which the fumes of stale beer emerged, 
 to the attic room at the Johnson House, strong again. 
 
 In six weeks there were thirty-four hundred union 
 men in Iron City.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 SPRING came, with its pagan spirit waking the 
 gypsy in the blood. It is as if it furnished anew 
 the wide dingy chamber of the world with fresh 
 scents, dainty chintz of flowers, soft green coverlet 
 and sky-flung windows, and said: "Children, here 
 is the place of nuptials." And youth always enters 
 with sighs and kisses, and suddenly finds itself in new 
 accord with nature. All its veiled mysteries earth 
 and body, night and stars, desire and frustration, cov 
 etous longings and killing despairs, seed and soil 
 stand naked and revealed. 
 
 From the moment that Raymond and Margaret en 
 tered the mysterious world whose sesame is a kiss, 
 silence entered. As they drove past the black stacks 
 of Sill s factory, out upon an unfrequented road to 
 Pike Lake they did not talk much; and what they 
 said was fragmentary, yet charged with heavier mean 
 ings. Margaret lay in the hollow of his arm, feeling 
 the heart of the engine beat through them until it 
 seemed at times as if they were one mechanism. That 
 fancy was characteristic of her in this new world : she 
 suddenly found herself playing with fantasy moving 
 in a land of shadows and illusion. All of her old 
 gayety, her thoughtless badinage, seemed deployed in 
 achieving a new dignity of womanhood. She was 
 happy. Raymond was her lover, won and possessed. 
 And with that came abandon not wantonness. If 
 one could have looked into Margaret s mind and seen 
 the image of herself which was there, one probably 
 
 174
 
 IRON CITY 175 
 
 would have seen only another heroine, like those who 
 are flashed upon the screen every night before countless 
 thousands. She was true to her ideal and standard. 
 She was living up to the world that most nearly an 
 swered her desire. To ride along the dim road, pressed 
 close to Raymond s body, seemed quite the natural 
 thing to her. 
 
 "I m glad you don t drive fast," she whispered. 
 
 He bent over her tenderly. His arm tightened. 
 
 "You mean," he said, "so I can " 
 
 "Yes, of course, that too; but I was thinking of the 
 accident at Twelve Mile." 
 
 "Boys ought not to be allowed to play in streets." 
 
 "Sure not. But I m glad he got well." 
 
 Somehow their secret did not lose its potency. 
 Through that they began anew the luxury of walking 
 down the long avenue of common experiences. 
 
 Pike Lake, which they reached soon after sunset, 
 was an unusual stretch of water for the Middle West. 
 Spring-fed, crystal clear, it lay between great bluffs, 
 like a mountain pool. No one could suspect that, re 
 ceding from this water, the prairies broke away in un 
 ending monotony. The lake was a glorious geograph 
 ical blunder, which furnished a haven for the prairie- 
 fagged inhabitants of Iron City and also for Chicago 
 millionaires. Lining the east shore of Pike Lake were 
 imposing estates, with pretentious piles of masonry 
 and ornate gardens. All private all shut off from 
 the gaze of the vulgar. But Raymond knew just 
 where to drive to get forbidden glimpses, across wide 
 lawns, at awninged mansions. Such views gave them 
 a thrill, put them in touch with the gay life of the 
 metropolis, which they both craved. The banality of 
 middle-class Iron City preyed upon them. Although
 
 176 IRON CITY 
 
 R. Sill was rich enough to keep up such an establish 
 ment, he had no desire to do it. He loved the shop and 
 factory too much to dawdle over a country home. 
 But Raymond! 
 
 "I understand, Mag," he said, "that you can buy 
 any of these places for a song." 
 
 "You can!" 
 
 "Yes, you can. You see they were built by the 
 packers and those people long ago, and the younger 
 set don t care for em." 
 
 "They don t? Those lovely places?" Margaret 
 was incredulous. 
 
 "I don t blame em; take Lake Superior it s al 
 ways cool up there, and you know Pike Lake sure 
 can get hot." 
 
 "It can, can t it?" she agreed. 
 
 "But what s their loss is our gain. I ve been think 
 ing that when we are married, we might take one of 
 these for a few summers. It would be good enough 
 for a while." Raymond said this with the assumed 
 dignity of manhood. 
 
 "Oh, Raymond!" 
 
 They had spoken often of marriage lately; they had 
 drifted into it, first in jest, then in reality. It some~ 
 how seemed the natural thing and, perhaps, the 
 proper thing. But it meant little. They made no 
 plans; they were never formal in vow or promise. It 
 was part of the drama. To Margaret, marriage meant 
 scarcely more than the vision of an "adorable wed 
 ding" at St. Luke s. To Raymond, it meant nothing 
 more explicit perhaps, but something more concrete. 
 It thrilled him with a sense of power and ownership, 
 and inspired a vague forward-reaching ecstasy. He 
 looked down at Margaret; he could see her round
 
 IRON CITY 177 
 
 head, sweet profile, and tapering figure, and he was 
 satisfied. Margaret was a beautiful girl and Ray 
 mond loved beauty. 
 
 They went to one of the smaller hotels the Yale 
 Hostelry, to which Raymond had telephoned ahead 
 for reservations. As they entered, Margaret experi 
 enced as always the stir of delight at feeling admiring 
 eyes upon her. She walked boldly up to the desk with 
 Raymond, and stood quietly waiting while he got the 
 tickets. She preferred that course to being hidden 
 away in the "Ladies Parlor." Margaret never lost 
 her poise. She seemed made to inhabit just this en 
 vironment. She heard the clerk say: 
 
 "Oh, yes Mr. Sill?" 
 
 "I telephoned at ten from Iron City," Raymond ex 
 plained. 
 
 "Let s see," the clerk answered as he ran through 
 the list. "How many, just you and wife?" 
 
 Without hesitation, Raymond replied, "Yes, two. " 
 
 Margaret s heart beat fearfully! How sweet and 
 strange it sounded. But outwardly she never flicked 
 an eye. There she stood in her long blue motor-coat, 
 like incarnate ice. 
 
 "Did you hear what he said ?" whispered Raymond. 
 
 "Yes, and you didn t correct him, naughty boy." 
 
 "I didn t acknowledge it, did I ?" 
 
 They laughed joyously. At the table, Raymond 
 would not let Margaret forget. He liked to see her 
 blush. 
 
 "Maggie." 
 
 She did not take her eyes off the soup. 
 
 "Oh, Maggie." 
 
 "What is it, sir?" she answered, still refusing to 
 meet his gaze. 
 
 You are my wife, aren t you?"
 
 178 IRON CITY 
 
 She glanced up aflutter at what she saw in his face. 
 
 "You hungry man ! Eat your fish." 
 
 An inexplicable bond was laid between them in that 
 moment. In silence they spoke to each other some 
 thing never uttered before. 
 
 As Margaret whispered to him later, as they 
 wheeled slowly home, in the dark, "It was just as 
 if we were married, dear." 
 
 "Married?" 
 
 Somehow the word from her frightened Raymond 
 now. 
 
 "We can t be, you know, until after I return from 
 France !" 
 
 "You ll not go to France." 
 
 "Oh, yes, I will. I m serious." 
 
 "No, you won t." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 She reached a tender arm around his neck, pulled 
 his ear down to her lips and whispered : 
 
 "Because you re so spoony, you couldn t." 
 
 They were emerging from a deep wood, and sud 
 denly turning a corner, they found themselves looking 
 across leagues of unbroken prairie lands. A new 
 moon swam up in the filmy sky, over which fleecy 
 clouds sailed. Directly before them a daisy field 
 trembled in the sweet light. A breeze sprang up, like 
 a voice, and thrilled them. Raymond drew up the 
 car to the side of the road. They climbed out and 
 stood, their arms around each other, looking into the 
 face of nature s mystery. The world suddenly seemed 
 alive. It flowed through them, and it crushed their 
 bodies together in passionate embrace. They crossed 
 the fence, Raymond lifting Margaret over. Through 
 the mystic light they walked, among the daisies, limb
 
 IRON CITY 179 
 
 to limb. As Margaret stooped to pick a flower, the 
 moon slipped beneath a cloud, a breeze sprang up, a 
 hot lush breeze from the south, that seemed to burn 
 them. 
 
 "Why, it s like summer," she murmured. 
 
 Raymond did not hear. He swayed toward her, 
 groping, their lips met. He lifted her in his arms, 
 she pressed close to him, then suddenly they turned 
 and walked fast to the machine. The engine started, 
 he threw open the throttle, and they dashed on for 
 minutes at full speed as if fleeing from something 
 which, alas, they carried with them. 
 
 That event in the daisy field opened door after door 
 into a more alluring, more mysterious world. Mar 
 garet said: 
 
 "What did you run away for?" 
 
 "I won t the next time." 
 
 And so they confidently stepped on further into the 
 world of mystery and danger. 
 
 It must have been ten-thirty when the lovers reached 
 town. Stillness had already settled over Iron City, 
 and the early evening fire had gone out of the factory 
 pipes. In the calm they heard the clinkle and clang 
 of forge and derrick, blended into nocturnal music. 
 They were vividly alive these two to sound and 
 color and odor. The senses, dilated with the turbulent 
 breath of desire, drank in the night s charm. They 
 seemed to belong to the night the machine slipping 
 along in the dark, carrying limp bodies tortured by 
 tempestuous hearts. Hurrying through still streets, 
 they yearned to each other, loath to go in. 
 
 At last Margaret remembered that her father and 
 mother had gone to one of their few parties at the 
 Country Club.
 
 i8o IRON CITY 
 
 "If that s the case," Raymond suggested, "let s drive 
 the old boat to our garage, and walk home." 
 
 "Then the neighbors won t know," she replied. 
 
 Somehow a sense of guilt was ushered in guilt 
 that was pleasurable. In the garage, they stood for 
 a moment, their arms about each other ; then they went 
 hand in hand through the Sill garden, careful to step 
 only on grass. They took the long way to the Mor 
 ton house, and when they reached there, they sat upon 
 the porch in the heavy shadow of the oaks. Some 
 thing would not let them go the world of mystery 
 shut down over them, like the night, its currents sen 
 sitizing their bodies to every touch and sound and 
 breath. How beautiful everything was! 
 
 "I didn t know an arc light could look like that," 
 Margaret whispered. 
 
 "Nor I." 
 
 They heard the clock in the college tower strike 
 eleven. Somehow the experience on the lonely road, 
 long before, with John Cosmus, flashed through Mar 
 garet s mind. She leaned her head against Raymond s 
 shoulder. How far away college seemed! That 
 world of books, classes and parties had retreated into 
 obscurity; the world of mystery was the only reality 
 now. 
 
 The clock recalled Raymond to duty. He must go. 
 Yes, he must go. It was eleven-thirty before he stood 
 up to depart, but she pulled him down beside her again, 
 as if to keep her warm, whispering: 
 
 "Father and Mother are not home yet. Stay." 
 
 He obeyed, until the clock again intruded. Then 
 he arose quickly, said good-night, went down the path 
 without a word, and disappeared in the shadow. Was 
 he gone ? No, he must not be gone !
 
 IRON CITY 181 
 
 Margaret stood tremblingly on the porch, every 
 sense expanded, listening. Was he gone? Why had 
 he gone? There came to her as she stood there, her 
 wild young heart yearning, some knowledge of the 
 fragility of pleasure and the brittleness of life and 
 beauty. And she sighed. 
 
 "Maggie!" She turned. There was Raymond at 
 the other end of the porch, holding out his arms to 
 her. 
 
 "Dearest." 
 
 "I couldn t go." 
 
 "I m so glad." 
 
 "Take me for a walk," she whispered. 
 
 "Oh!" 
 
 With their arms around each other, they went down 
 the shadowy street, their senses dulled to every sight 
 and sound, save to each other s body. 
 
 It was a mad walk ; they knew not where they went. 
 They only knew they had to be together. Through 
 the spring night, avoiding zones of glare, and any 
 late pedestrians, they stumbled on into the world of 
 mystery. In time the moon went out, and a wind 
 sprang up, with rain in it, and suddenly all the lamps 
 winked out. 
 
 "One o clock." 
 
 "Where are we?" 
 
 "You re hurting me." 
 
 They looked around in amazement. Big drops of 
 rain began to fall and the wind was fitful and cold. 
 Raymond s arm tightened about her waist. They 
 got their bearings. 
 
 "Three blocks from home." 
 
 "Let s not go in." 
 
 "I could go on forever."
 
 182 IRON CITY 
 
 "You little thing." 
 
 They had been walking in a circle. They quickened 
 their steps and then Margaret saw dimly as through 
 tears that they were not turning into her yard, into 
 her house, but were mounting the steps of the new St 
 Luke s. Could she hesitate? There beat in upon her 
 brain the image of the wedding party awnings 
 decked with flowers, the big line of limousines glisten 
 ing, the bridal procession, music, flowers, the bride. 
 She went up the steps. She saw the night sky, wild 
 and fitful, through the unglassed windows ; her heart 
 beat frantically, but she went in ; she went up the aisle. 
 Her dress caught on something; she pulled it loose. 
 She could feel Raymond breathing deep beside her. 
 The rain fell. 
 
 By some stroke of irony, by some strange crossing 
 of associations, the last conscious idea which came to 
 Margaret, to whom books meant nothing, was the 
 story, read long ago, of an ill-fated queen, chanted 
 by a Roman poet: 
 
 "The queen and prince as love or fortune guides, 
 One common cavern in her bosom hides, 
 Then first the trembling earth the signal gave, 
 And flashing fires enlighten all the cave ; 
 Hell from below and Juno from above, 
 And howling imps were conscious of their love. 
 From this ill-omened hour in time arose 
 Debate and death and all succeeding woes." 
 
 At the altar. Raymond and Margaret sank down 
 together into a sea of ecstasy. 
 
 Arrived home, the Mortons sat for a moment in the 
 parlor wondering if Margaret had preceded them. 
 They did not see her "things" hanging in the hall.
 
 IRON CITY 183 
 
 "I bet she is, Mother," said Carl, and mounted the 
 stairs to peep into Margaret s room. His tender hand, 
 fumbling on the bed, found it smooth and soft. 
 
 Slowly and thoughtfully he came down stairs. 
 
 "Yes, she is in, Mother. You go to bed. I shall 
 be up in a minute. I want to look over these papers 
 of Sill s." 
 
 Mrs. Morton took him at his word, and went to bed. 
 Carl sat down in the Morris chair, flung a paper 
 over the lamp to dim it, and waited. His mind ran 
 on education, training "home-training," he called it 
 and he wondered if Margaret were really getting 
 what she ought to get. He was troubled he did not 
 understand the generation in which he found himself, 
 and he still clung passionately to his three broad 
 axioms of education : "Serve God ; mind your man 
 ners ; respect your betters." So he sat. He fell asleep, 
 and when he awoke the day was just about to dawn. 
 He stooped and removed his shoes, and went softly 
 to the door, opening the screen. The morning was 
 fresh and sweet; birds were beginning to awake and 
 to tinkle in the trees. He went out. In the porch- 
 swing his little daughter Margaret lay asleep, her arm 
 tucked under her pretty head, as he had seen her sleep 
 ever since she was the tiniest child. She stirred. 
 
 "Sh," he said, putting his finger on lip. 
 
 She rubbed her eyes and sat up. 
 
 "I lay down here, Father, because I couldn t get in. 
 I didn t want to wake you." 
 
 "Go up to your room softly. Don t wake Mother." 
 
 Together they tiptoed up the stairs, neither to sleep. 
 Margaret lay watching the sunlight slowly creep into 
 the room. She tossed back and forth until her brown 
 hair was a tangle of curls. She got up, drew up a
 
 184 IRON CITY 
 
 blind, and looked out. St. Luke s glistened in the 
 sun. 
 
 "Oh! my wedding!" she thought, passing her hand 
 weakly across her mouth, as persons often do who are 
 confused in thinking. 
 
 Was everything quite right after all? There was a 
 sickening sense of loss of missing something, and 
 alas! of having nothing to which she could look for 
 ward. It seemed almost as if it were the end of life s 
 perpetual picnic. 
 
 She crossed the room and sank heavily on the bed, 
 her hot head buried in her arms. 
 
 Carl s mind, as he lay stiffly beside his wife, still 
 beat feverishly on the problem of Margaret s educa 
 tion. Shouldn t the movies be stopped? Perhaps 
 Margaret might do better at a girls school in the East? 
 Had Margaret been asleep, he questioned ? Was Mar 
 garet honest? Shame on you, Carl Morton, for ques 
 tioning her. And Raymond Sill? 
 
 Yes, Raymond Sill. How many moralists less aus 
 tere than Carl Morton would have extenuated Ray 
 mond Sill? Yet after all, Raymond, by the uncon 
 scious gleaning of the mind, had only caught the 
 spirit of his age. The predatory philosophy of his 
 father and his father s world had unconsciously be 
 come his own. To take what you want where you 
 find it, seemed simple enough, washed around as Ray 
 mond was by such ideas. Wasn t Margaret beautiful, 
 and didn t Raymond love beauty? 
 
 Perhaps, too, by the way of chance, Margaret, de 
 flecting her father s teaching through her own per 
 sonality, was merely living in her own way the axiom : 
 "Respect your betters." At any rate, there were at 
 least two troubled hearts in Iron City that morning.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 TiyTARGARET was surprised, when she awoke, 
 I* A soon after noon, on the day after the ride to 
 Pike Lake, that she was charged with such a sense of 
 well-being. The world was no different. That sense 
 of loss, which she had experienced a few hours before, 
 was gone. Life stretched before her with the same old 
 possibilities of sensation. The same? With added 
 zest and danger. And with added meaning? Hardly. 
 To Margaret, the meaning of life was unimportant. 
 She did not discern that meaning might include sen 
 sation. There was her room, sweet and clean, and 
 the cool, white bath-room, and her lovely dresses, and 
 the soft, white bed, just the same. Mother did not 
 know, and Father ! Father had been so good and kind 
 last night; he always was. A throb of something like 
 remorse made her start. No, Father would be proud 
 and happy that the son of R. Sill loved her. Dear 
 Dad! 
 
 How good it was to bathe, and don fresh linen ! It 
 never had felt cleaner! How good it was to come 
 down into a darkened parlor, where it was still and 
 cool, and to find Mother ready with a kiss, and not a 
 sign of rebuke. How good it was to find a bite to 
 eat in the pantry! The world was no different, after 
 all. 
 
 "Has Raymond called up?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Are you sure?" 
 
 185
 
 i86 IRON CITY 
 
 "The phone hasn t rung this afternoon, Maggie." 
 
 Perhaps he was sick! She trembled at the possi-* 
 bility ! She put by every other thought. He must be 
 sick or he would have called. He had to be sick. 
 
 The afternoon dragged by. She tried to read a 
 magazine; she forced herself to be unusually amiable 
 to her mother. Poor Mother, how pale she looked. 
 
 Some girl friends came in and there were the usual 
 giggles, confidences and gossip. They played and 
 danced and sipped lemonade. One of them who knew 
 her better than the others demanded suddenly, "Is 
 Ray going to France, Mag?" 
 
 Margaret did not reply at once. Somehow she did 
 not feel quite so confident as she had last night that 
 he would not go. She hesitated, until another girl 
 put in: 
 
 "Don t break your neck to answer, kid; when is it 
 comin off?" 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "I bid for maid of honor, Mag." 
 
 Laughter followed. There was interchange of ban 
 ter, and more confidences. Margaret showed them 
 some "fancy work" she was doing. 
 
 "You ought to be knitting for the soldiers," one said 
 significantly. There was a shout of merriment. 
 
 When they left, Margaret was glad. They seemed 
 so noisy somehow and Ray might call up at any 
 time. 
 
 Ray did not call before supper. The three Mortons 
 sat at the table pretty much in silence. Margaret 
 thought that her father must be worried about the 
 men at the plant. She tried to be amiable. She talked 
 well, telling them about Pike Lake, and related many 
 amusing incidents, mostly fabricated; but pretense did
 
 IRON CITY 187 
 
 not bring back old times. If her father only would 
 not be so silent! 
 
 They pushed back the chairs, left the dishes stand 
 ing, and went to work in the garden. Presently Mar 
 garet slipped off, went into the house, to the telephone, 
 and called the Sill residence. 
 
 "Is Raymond there ?" 
 
 The maid found Raymond in his mother s room. 
 They were laughing over the latest volume of Pro 
 fessor Leacock. Previously Patience Sill had re 
 opened the question of his going to Massachusetts for 
 the summer. 
 
 "When you come back, Raymond son, I promise to 
 have Father get you the plane." 
 
 The proposition did not seem so bad. 
 
 "Do you want me to go very badly?" he asked. 
 "I ll think it over, Mother." 
 
 "The phone, Mr. Raymond," the maid announced. 
 
 "For me?" 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 He went out, closing the door softly behind him. 
 At the telephone a voice said : 
 
 "Ray, this is Margaret." 
 
 There was a pause of expectancy. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "Aren t you coming up?" 
 
 "Why, Mag, I just promised Steve and Hazel Tyler 
 that I d go to the Green Jewel with them." 
 
 "But, Ray." 
 
 "I ll see you soon, dear." 
 
 What business had she to cry like that? What bus 
 iness had she to call him up anyhow? Couldn t he 
 have one evening alone? He had been awfully good 
 to go down to the Mortons as much as he had in the
 
 i88 IRON CITY 
 
 past three months. He had spoiled her, that s what 
 he had, and she didn t appreciate it. 
 
 Raymond was all resentment. It seemed a pretty 
 affair that Margaret should have shown such feeling 
 over just one evening at home. With him there was 
 not the dawn of obligation. Margaret, no doubt, could 
 look out for herself. She always had. 
 
 When he returned to his mother s room, he stood 
 for a moment in the doorway, to light a cigarette. 
 Then he said: 
 
 "Mother, I guess I ll take you up on that proposi 
 tion, after all." 
 
 Her face lighted up. 
 
 "I knew you d come to your senses, Raymond son." 
 
 When R. Sill came home an hour later than usual, 
 Mrs. Sill called him into her room. 
 
 "Well, what is it?" he said roughly. 
 
 She gave Raymond a meaningful look, and said 
 something about her last painting; she did not want 
 to approach R. Sill when he was in this mood. 
 
 "What s wrong, Father?" asked Patience Sill. 
 
 R. Sill had something he wanted to say to Ray 
 mond. 
 
 "Let s go out and look over the Stutz together," he 
 said to his son, more as a command than a request. 
 Then added, "We ll be back in a minute, Mother." 
 
 Raymond s first thought was, "I wonder what s 
 eating the Big Chief now?" 
 
 Something had disturbed R. Sill that afternoon. 
 Morton had come to him shortly before the hour to 
 leave the office, with a surprising bit of news; Mor 
 ton was white when he announced it. 
 
 "I have just learned that this whole town has been 
 unionized, that a labor sheet called The Labor De-
 
 IRON CITY 189 
 
 fense will appear to-morrow for the first time, an 
 nouncing the organization of the Iron City Trades 
 Council, which is only a union of unions and a mass 
 meeting to be held in the Opera House Tuesday." 
 
 R. Sill s first impulse was to be angry, to strike out 
 and wound something, some one, for allowing this 
 terrible menace to exist. But he restrained himself. 
 He made it a rule never to show fear or anger before 
 subordinates. True to his type, he surrounded him 
 self with something of the pomp and show of kings. 
 
 "Where did you get this?" 
 
 "From Daggett." 
 
 "You know Daggett likes his little lie!" 
 
 "This is straight. He belongs to the Machinists 
 Union himself! Here s the list." 
 
 Morton handed a memorandum to his chief. 
 
 "Nearly six hundred of ours affected!" Sill ex 
 claimed. 
 
 "Mostly machinists," Morton said significantly. 
 
 Sill read: 
 
 "Team drivers 36 
 
 Molders 40 
 
 Painters 100 
 
 Blacksmiths 47 
 
 Pattern-makers 32 
 
 Machinists 312 
 
 Core-makers 32 
 
 599 
 
 Morton was plainly worried. 
 
 "We simply can t fire that bunch," he said. "It s 
 all our skilled labor." 
 
 R. Sill fixed his hard eyes on his foreman, dropped
 
 190 IRON CITY 
 
 his chin on his chest. He spoke in the metallic tones 
 of angry hate. 
 
 "Don t say can t , Morton. I don t like it. We 
 will fire every one of them." He stood up proudly. 
 "You know, my father died a poor man. He threw 
 a million dollars away on education. I ll be willing 
 to spend every cent I ve got in breaking them. They 
 can t run me. It s a cause, Morton, that s what it is !" 
 
 Morton had never seen his chief quite so moved, and 
 he gazed at him in admiration. R. Sill was magnifi 
 cent. Sill himself felt that he somehow had distin* 
 guished himself ; he had struck just the right note. 
 
 "Send Daggett in!" And, being pleased with him 
 self, he added, "And, Morton, don t you worry!" 
 
 Morton, thus dismissed, went out satisfied. 
 
 In five minutes Daggett came in, smiling and genial. 
 
 "Daggett," said R. Sill coolly, "how did it happen 
 that you were so late in putting us next to this union 
 business?" 
 
 "I wasn t late, Mr. Sill. Kuhns " 
 
 "It s Kuhns, is it?" 
 
 "He s been in town but a few weeks." 
 
 As a matter of fact, Daggett had just been able 
 to shake himself free from fear of Jerry Mulvaney; 
 it had been a struggle between fear and cupidity 
 cupidity had won. 
 
 "All right, Daggett! I guess that won t make any 
 difference. Keep us in touch, will you?" 
 
 "Sure. I believe, Mr. Sill," returned the big man 
 obsequiously, "that those fellows have no right to 
 strike when you ve been treatin em so well. I don t 
 know any plant where the men get so much for their 
 diggin s." 
 
 Sill smiled.
 
 IRON CITY 191 
 
 "You see, Daggett, not all of them are so sensible 
 as you." 
 
 "So long, Mr. Sill." 
 
 "Good afternoon." 
 
 Creature of habit, inspired by a sense of leadership, 
 Sill had merely acted in his usual decisive fashion. In 
 reality, he was not so confident or so sure as he ap 
 peared. Instinctive fear of the crowd, so prevalent in 
 his type, stirred him to uneasiness. A massed force 
 of six hundred men was different from the impact of 
 isolated workers and agitators. And Sill felt that 
 there was something in the situation that was new; 
 this perception of difference worried him most of all; 
 the habit-mind, ruled by custom, cannot brook change. 
 Somehow the formation of six hundred men into an 
 organization in six weeks indicated to him a mysteri 
 ous madness in men, which he connected dimly with 
 the war. And to Sill, though it was doubling his 
 wealth, the war stood as the great unexplained. Sill 
 was afraid as men always are of that which they 
 cannot understand. 
 
 He sat crumpled in his chair feeling tired and 
 misused. He felt resentment toward Morton, Dag 
 gett, Kuhns and toward Iron City. It was the in 
 gratitude of men that allowed them to unionize at this 
 evil time. They were unappreciative and unpatriotic. 
 
 He nestled there, a lonely man, old before his time. 
 The stenographer in the outer office came and tapped 
 on the door, but he did not hear. The late afternoon 
 sunlight fell through the windows, and the five o clock 
 whistle blew before R. Sill stirred himself. 
 
 Then all his resentment, all his weariness, the defec 
 tion of the men, the madness of the generation, cen 
 tered themselves in Raymond. Raymond was the
 
 J92 IRON CITY 
 
 weak point in his defense. If he only were a proper 
 son, like Steve Tyler; if he only were ready to meet 
 these new forces, which R. Sill did not understand. 
 He groaned in self-pity and humiliation. Raymond 
 was a failure. 
 
 It was this mood which R. Sill brought home with 
 him into the peaceful sitting room of Patience Sill, 
 and which he carried out into the garage, lest his wife 
 should see. 
 
 When father and son had reached the privacy of 
 the garage R. Sill said without preliminary: 
 
 "Ray, I want you to stop all this nonsense about 
 going to Massachusets, this running round with the 
 Morton girl, and this folly of college and come into 
 the business with me." 
 
 "But, Dad, I don t want business " 
 
 "I don t care what you want. It s time that you 
 tied yourself to something." 
 
 Raymond, quickly detecting a new spirit in his par 
 ent, and realizing that his mother was not near to 
 abet him, looked around helplessly. 
 
 "I suppose I ll become treasurer, or something?" 
 he added. 
 
 "No. You go into the Efficiency Department." 
 
 "But, Dad, Mr. Boyne made Al treasurer right off 
 over at the Iron Works." 
 
 "I m not Boyne and, what s more, you re not Al. 
 You ll go where I put you." 
 
 Raymond, seeing that he was routed, fell back upon 
 Fabian tactics, often employed. He had learned that 
 if he did not resist his father, he gave a chance for 
 the despotic in R. Sill to subside and a chance for the 
 parental to assert itself. At any rate, delay would 
 give him time to see his mother. So he said meekly :
 
 IRON CITY 193 
 
 "All right, Father. I suppose you need me the 
 whole town is buzzing about that Walt Kuhns s new. 
 gang." 
 
 Sill reacted at once as Raymond supposed. 
 
 "That s sensible; now you go in the house and tell 
 Mother." 
 
 R. Sill felt better after this conference; he was 
 handling the new situation, and Raymond no doubt 
 would turn out to be a Sill after all. 
 
 That night, though, he did not find sleep readily; 
 darkness magnified his fears, and getting up, he 
 knocked softly at Patience Sill s door. 
 
 "Is that you, Ray?" 
 
 Her answer sent a pang through Sill. 
 
 "No, it s me Father." 
 
 "Come in. What s wrong?" She was anxious. 
 
 He came over and sat down upon her bed. 
 
 "Mother," he said, "I ve been thinking that per 
 haps I was a little hard on Raymond this evening. You 
 can tell him to-morrow that he can have the plane." 
 
 "I knew you would, Father." 
 
 "But he ought to tie to something." 
 
 "He s only a boy yet." 
 
 "But I don t like a floater, Patience." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "Down at the mill, the workman s a floater when 
 he don t stay at a job for any length of time. He 
 floats from one factory to another; he s no good he 
 never ties to an employer." 
 
 "Ray s not like that." 
 
 R. Sill answered sadly. "I m afraid sometimes he 
 is." 
 
 Whatever R. Sill s faults were, his great virtue was 
 loyalty. He was intensely loyal. To be sure, loyalty
 
 194 IR ON CITY 
 
 to his country merely meant loyalty to his class, to 
 business still he was primarily loyal vicariously 
 loyal. He would suffer for a cause and suffer long. 
 
 Patience Sill stroked his hand. 
 
 "Don t worry, Father." 
 
 Sill went out and closed the door. That night he 
 lay awake for hours suffering as only a disillusioned 
 parent can suffer. Was he right? Was Raymond 
 without loyalty? 
 
 It would seem that he and Margaret Morton had 
 discovered the same fact about Raymond on the same 
 day.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE mass meeting at Johnson s Opera House, un 
 der the auspices of the Iron City Trades Union, 
 brought but one question to John Cosmus the same 
 question he had been asking himself for weeks: What 
 of the college? He had become fully aware of the 
 inert mass of sentiment that lay within the college 
 circle, reflected as it was by the unprecedented action 
 of Samuel Curtis, a person only remotely connected 
 with the college, in ejecting Cosmus himself from his 
 house, and yet he could not believe that thinking men 
 would withdraw themselves from an event as moving 
 as the unionization of Iron City s workers. If noth 
 ing more, it was dramatic a flaming bit of contem 
 poraneous history. 
 
 Besides himself, there had been just three members 
 of the college community present at the meeting, Pro 
 fessor James and two students, Jenkins and Weaver. 
 
 Cosmus was going home pondering on this indif 
 ference when he was attracted by a crowd of boys 
 congregating at the entrance of an alley. The fitful 
 light from the arc across the street was bright enough 
 to reveal a man lying prostrate in the mud. Drunk or 
 sick? As Cosmus came nearer, he saw that the boys 
 must have decided that the man was drunk. Moved 
 as boys are by an instinct to mutilate a personality 
 already desecrated by drink, they were making sport 
 of him. For them it was amusing to throw pebbles 
 and sticks at the heavy form, and at the same time to 
 
 195
 
 196 IRON CITY 
 
 speculate whether the still figure moved a finger, or 
 perceptibly stirred. 
 
 "There! His foot shook." 
 
 "No, it didn t." 
 
 "It did, too ! I saw it." 
 
 "Say, fellows, is he breathin ?" 
 
 "Drunks never do." 
 
 When Cosmus came up, one boy, bolder than the 
 rest, had lifted the leg of the sleeper, much as a black 
 smith does for a horse he is shoeing, and was pound 
 ing vigorously on the sole of the shoe. The man 
 groaned, and laughing, the boy dropped the lifeless 
 limb. Cosmus saw that the foot was small, and en 
 cased in good shoes. There was something, too, fa 
 miliar in the whole figure, as it lay stretched comfort 
 ably there in the shadow. Cosmus pushed his way 
 through the crowd, and turned the man over. He 
 gave off an odor of brandy. He lifted the face into 
 the light. What he saw startled him. It was Ezra 
 Kimbark. 
 
 In a few minutes he had frightened the boys away, 
 sent the oldest after a cab, and had driven to the side 
 entrance of the Y. M. C. A. Inside Cosmus explained 
 the case to the secretary, and had Kimbark helped to 
 his room. 
 
 There was something pathetic in the limp figure, 
 sprawled heavily on the bed, the strangely gnarled 
 face, the dark rings under the myopic eyes, the oozy 
 lips, the degradation of the whole form in a kind of 
 brutish impotence. As best he could Cosmus loos 
 ened the soggy shoes and socks, damp coat and waist 
 coat covered the sleeper over with comforters and 
 rug, and sat down to wait. 
 
 As he waited, the ironic humor in the situation came
 
 IRON CITY 197 
 
 over him and he laughed. Professor Ezra Kimbark, 
 of all men drunk! 
 
 In the months past, in which acquaintance with 
 Kimbark had become a friendship founded on admira 
 tion, there was nothing that would prepare him to 
 see his friend like this. And yet he was not aston 
 ished. Kimbark always had somehow a gift for sur 
 prise that might well be called theatrical. It had 
 characterized their first meeting in the storm, when 
 Kimbark had broken upon him like an apparition; 
 that seemed now a prelude to the man. He was a 
 vivid being, carrying his atmosphere with him, with 
 enough reserve to make Cosmus never sure of him. 
 In the limbo which lay behind his vivid personality 
 there was room, Cosmus thought, for drunkenness, 
 women, yes, and perhaps wrong. The human heart 
 is always willing to suspect evil and romance and 
 genius of its fellows. 
 
 In the last year, because Cosmus had been en 
 gaged in what Kimbark called "stirring the froth of 
 modernity" (Kimbark loved such metaphors), the two 
 had not seen so much of each other. Kimbark did 
 not care for problems; Cosmus was not much inter 
 ested in abstract beauty. So the two had fallen apart. 
 
 Now, Cosmus, dozing in his chair, was suddenly 
 awakened; Kimbark had stirred; his unseeing eyes, 
 now of a luster like a fish s, were peering out of half 
 closed lids. The effect was horrible. Cosmus went 
 down the hall, and came back with a glass of water; 
 he tried to get the sleeping man to drink. Kimbark s 
 brow was burning; he stirred restlessly. The night 
 was long; in the morning, early, Cosmus brought a 
 physician. After examining the patient, he turned 
 to Cosmus and said, gravely :
 
 198 IRON CITY 
 
 "I am afraid of pneumonia." 
 
 Cosmus did not want to remove his friend to a hos 
 pital because he was afraid of talk. To avoid it he 
 assumed the responsibility of nursing him, and an 
 nounced to the college that Professor Kimbark was 
 confined to his home with a bad cold. 
 
 Late in the afternoon of the third day, Kimbark s 
 fever broke. Cosmus, sitting in the room alone, sud 
 denly found his friend s eyes, previously so wild, now 
 questioning and sane. His first words were: 
 
 "Well, what do you think of me now?" 
 
 Cosmus smiled and answered jocosely : 
 
 "You re a sly dog, but you mustn t bark now. To 
 sleep with you." 
 
 Cosmus could see that Kimbark was troubled con 
 siderably, not with physical pain but by the thought 
 of his moral weakness. When he awoke two hours 
 later, he resumed the topic where he had left it. 
 
 His mind seemed impaled upon the one thought of 
 disgrace. 
 
 "I m done, Cosmus : I ll never go back." 
 
 "Pshaw! You re taking the matter too seriously. 
 You re not a drunkard and you re too valuable to 
 lose." 
 
 "You don t understand. I m a failure, that s all." 
 
 "Because you slipped up once?" 
 
 "It s another case of the preacher s son gone 
 wrong," Kimbark answered grimly. "Some men 
 drink for taste. I drink for exhilaration. I find re 
 laxation in it, a recovery of much of what I want to 
 be and cannot. I m not going to entertain you with a 
 story of debauch. The drinking, John, is but a symp 
 tom. I know myself. The malady lies deeper and 
 there is no remedy."
 
 IRON CITY 199 
 
 As men at rare times will, Kimbark began to con 
 fide in Cosmus. 
 
 "Father was a preacher in Indiana yes, I was 
 born midst the flat, dingy Middle West, and I guess 
 nature shouldn t produce my kind; at least we were 
 never intended for America. Business, industry, with 
 its refinement on nature s bitter law of survival, 
 doesn t mean for us to survive. But there are lots of 
 us, nevertheless. 
 
 "Well, I accepted Father s plan to enter the church, 
 but all the time I was pursuing my own little private 
 end: to see beauty, and then to create it. Well, I 
 didn t find much beauty in the corn lands, but I man 
 aged to find it in books and personality. Words I 
 loved ; I love them still. I smile at the students some 
 times. I seem but a fossil floating in a thin, watery 
 existence. In reality, I am tinglingly alive, a denizen 
 of life s thick, sensuous medium. All through words, 
 I get all men s experience through these windows of 
 life." 
 
 John interrupted. 
 
 "Aren t you a little hard on the Middle West, Ezra? 
 I have often wondered why so little of just that stuff, 
 cornfields, barn yards, pigs, tranquil mediocrity, 
 ever got into American books?" 
 
 "Thank God !" 
 
 Cosmus let him go on ; it was doing him good. 
 
 "In the Eastern Seminary I found a good deal of 
 bad theology and little religion; and then I had a 
 genuine religious experience. At least that is what I 
 call it. At any rate, I felt in a new way. It was 
 when I saw the sea for the first time at night; it lifted 
 me into new regions of generalization, the parts of 
 the world flowed into one, and I knew peace. After
 
 200 IRON CITY 
 
 that I couldn t go into the church ; it was too narrow, 
 and if I ever was free, it was in that moment on the 
 shore. I wrote and told Father. It nearly killed him, 
 I guess, and strange to say, I began drinking then, for 
 I switched over into the graduate school, and there 
 was plenty of chance." 
 
 John Cosmus remembered Walt Kuhns and his 
 story of giving up the church. 
 
 "By the way, what do you think of the church, 
 Cosmus ?" 
 
 "I think a good deal about it." 
 
 "You never go." 
 
 "You know President Crandon has taken me to 
 task for that." 
 
 "I guess I go out of habit, or something," Kimbark 
 admitted. 
 
 "I stay away out of principle." 
 
 "How s that? I suppose you think Christ but a 
 myth?" 
 
 "On the contrary, I believe in Him, in my way, and 
 believing in my way makes the church idolatrous." 
 
 "Idolatrous ! You re a devil of an iconoclast, Cos 
 mus." 
 
 "What I mean is this. The church seems to be 
 lieve in only Christ s body. I believe in Christ s 
 spirit. Ritual, creed, belong to the body. If men 
 would give up these things to the understanding of 
 the spirit, why, I believe that we would not have a 
 dis-united and fossilized institution, but a great broth 
 erhood." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "The great contribution of Jesus is not an idea, but 
 a mood. As I see it, it is pity for the world, coupled 
 with great consuming desire to work a change, and
 
 IRON CITY 201 
 
 work inspired by pity is but sacrifice. And what is 
 the crucifixion and resurrection but sacrifice dram 
 atized? If Jesus had never lived, crucifixion and 
 resurrection would still be a universal symbol of the 
 soul s perennial willingness to work and to die for 
 the race s good. Christ is in our bosoms." 
 
 "Where did you get this?" 
 
 "Look within you. It is there." 
 
 "Then there are Christians everywhere, John?" 
 
 "Of course, in places we least expect to find them 
 the Italian mother in Guy Street, among the sol 
 diers in the trenches." 
 
 "And in the churches ?" 
 
 "I wish I could believe you yes, there too. But 
 I have a suspicion of institutions. They get so set. 
 Many men go to church, sit in silence, soothed with 
 music, luxuriate in emotion and come away satisfied 
 that they have sacrificed what? A few moments of 
 egotistic pleasure. On Monday they solve their bus 
 iness problems after the way of all flesh. Take Smith- 
 kins." 
 
 "There. There. I ll take your word for Smith- 
 kins." 
 
 "But I am interrupting you. What about the grad 
 uate school?" 
 
 "That can wait." 
 
 "No, it can t. I may not see you again." 
 
 Kimbark beat the coverlet with nervous fingers. 
 "Well, it was torture. I had to do something and so 
 I chose literature. You know the system. Endless 
 dissection, cold linguistics, suspicion of passion. I 
 stuck at it. I went through the mill, and came out 
 a professor. My impulse to create was there all right."
 
 202 IRON CITY 
 
 He leaned on his left elbow, clenching the fist of 
 his right hand above his head, as one who curses. 
 
 "You know, Cosmus, all tragedies are subjective. 
 There are no others. That s the reason we Americans 
 have never written great drama. We care too little 
 for souls and too much for things. I have suffered. 
 I suffer yet. When I start to write, my failures stand 
 up before my eyes, and stare and stare. There is Mil 
 ton before me sneering, and Wordsworth. They rid 
 icule every word I pen. Demoniac ghosts, they drive 
 me out of my room, under the stars, to recover in the 
 great heart of nature the soul I would have been if 
 sophistication had not laid its syphilitic kiss upon 
 me. . . . That s what education has done for me. 
 . . . Drink! Why shouldn t I drink?" 
 
 "Write your own story, man." 
 
 "I am too weak even to dramatize my own failure." 
 
 There was genuine pathos in the man, lying weak 
 and trembling, his terrible face spasmodic under the 
 stress of his own pity. For want of something kinder 
 to say, Cosmus suggested, platitudinously : 
 
 "Perhaps, Ezra, that is what you must sacrifice." 
 
 "I get your argument. I must sacrifice the only 
 talent worthy of contribution to the race to God. No 
 irony in that, to be sure," he said contemptuously. 
 "That s the trouble with you, Cosmus. You do noth 
 ing but think. You and the rest have ceased feeling." 
 
 John was silent. He had to acknowledge the truth 
 of his friend s accusation. Kimbark ushered him into 
 the presence of life s vast disharmonies. When the in 
 dividual is forbidden by the very forces which the 
 race creates to make contribution to the race that 
 is tragedy indeed. But why murmur? Why com 
 plain? The individual was nothing.
 
 IRON CITY. 203 
 
 He looked up. Ezra was sleeping heavily, like one 
 exhausted. 
 
 When they resumed their conversation the next day, 
 Kimbark said wearily, "Can t you see that the only 
 thing for me to do is to go to France? I love her. 
 She alone gives me the beauty I crave. Perhaps there 
 I shall find the fulfillment I seek. If not, then the 
 lovely sacrifice you speak of." 
 
 It seemed to Cosmus as if Kimbark had grown 
 doubly bitter in the last few days. 
 
 "You know, Cosmus, the State guards its scientists 
 
 behind the lines, but its poets " he snapped his 
 
 fingers. "Anyway, I m not a poet. I m a dog-gone 
 failure." 
 
 And so, three days later, when Cosmus came hur 
 riedly into his room, he was not altogether surprised 
 to find it empty. Upon the table was a book; in the 
 book a note. 
 
 Dear John: 
 
 I leave you holding the bag. Be a good sacrificial beast, 
 and tell old Crandon I have gone to France. God bless 
 you, Cosmus. Keep up the fight. I feel better than I 
 have for months. 
 
 KIMBARK. 
 
 It was then that Cosmus saw the book plate. It 
 bore the image of a dungeon window, solidly barred, 
 cut in heavy stone, opening on a sea of far horizons; 
 on the sea s rim a ship danced and beckoned in airy 
 freedom. 
 
 Poor Kimbark! 
 
 The night that Cosmus heard that the machinists of 
 the city had walked out he went home with Margaret
 
 204 IRON CITY 
 
 Morton from the college library. Margaret had been 
 suddenly taken sick in the stacks and the librarian 
 had asked Cosmus to help her home. 
 
 As she walked beside him she was unusually silent. 
 She seemed like a little gray mouse in her oils, steal 
 ing along in the mist. Cosmus attributed her silence 
 to a headache, but she would not let him call a taxi. 
 Presently she said, "Father s all worked up about the 
 strike. It s a new thing for Iron City this union 
 business." 
 
 Cosmus was non-committal. She continued: 
 
 "Somehow I don t much blame the men." 
 
 "I don t, either." 
 
 Then they lapsed into silence again. The magic 
 and the mystery of Margaret were gone with the 
 laughter in her voice and the spring in her step. Cos 
 mus wondered. At the gate, she said quietly: 
 
 "Professor Cosmus, I m not doing well in school. 
 Wouldn t you advise me to stop ?" All this was color 
 less ; then a new note crept into her voice, a beseeching 
 note, near anguish. "What I need is a fresh start. I 
 need to begin over again. Don t you suppose that 
 if I should go to France to nurse, I would come back 
 more ready for college?" 
 
 Cosmus did not guess the depth of feeling behind 
 those questions. 
 
 "You re too young, Margaret," he said. 
 
 "But I want to be older; that is, I want to be dif 
 ferent." 
 
 "If I were you, I would fight it out here." 
 
 He left her standing on the veranda, watching the 
 lights tremble and blur in the tiny pools of water in 
 the streets. Cosmus walked the wet streets, his mind 
 in a turmoil. To him only the potentialities of men
 
 IRON CITY 205 
 
 seemed important, and the only tragedy tm fulfillment. 
 
 In Margaret, Samuel Curtis, and Ezra Kimbark, 
 thwarted as they were, rested the problem of educa 
 tion. They had never been led out. The unfathom 
 able sea of energy in them had never been sounded. 
 In that sense, and that sense only, they were lost 
 souls. 
 
 Before his eyes they merged and blended into rank 
 on rank, file on file, of the great unfulfilled the 
 masses the people the thwarted of the ages. All 
 pity for Kimbark or Curtis or Margaret was engulfed 
 now in the larger pity for the crowd, the human foun 
 dation upon which all art, culture, science, progress, 
 had been vicariously built. The struggle of Walt 
 Kuhns against R. Sill, minimized by comparison, 
 shrank to a trifle, in this larger perspective of the 
 ages. Unions! What of the trade guilds of the 
 Middle Ages? Socialism! What of the syndicalism 
 of Wycliff ? In the tedious and painful spiral ascent 
 of society upwards, life renewed itself in similar 
 forms. The people were always struggling for ful 
 fillment. And the one common impulse which could 
 never die was the democratic. He only who loved 
 the people had any immortality: he alone reached 
 backward into the past and forward into the future. 
 
 Democracy was the struggle of society to fulfill it 
 self. Education was but the process of that fulfill 
 ment. And up to this moment the haphazard educa 
 tion of the masses had been sealed and sanctified by 
 blood. Oh, the pity of the struggle of the crowd 
 against the class-mind. Oh, the horror of shattering 
 life, in a passion for freedom, larger spaces, and ideas, 
 against organized and powerful ignorance. 
 
 Cosmus felt himself his projects shrink down
 
 206 IRON CITY 
 
 into their true proportions. This sweeping view of 
 the whole the pitiable struggle the past was ex 
 hilarating, and yet it dulled the fine edge of effort. 
 Something was gone. It was hope. He knew that 
 success would not come to-morrow or the next day. 
 They he and Kuhns and youth everywhere all were 
 but skirmishers in the eternal army. 
 
 As he went on in the moonlight, thinking these 
 things, the sweefmale voice of some worker broke 
 the silence, in a plaintive song, that Cosmus followed 
 into the night. It was an old song, but until now 
 Cosmus had never understood it. 
 
 "My eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the 
 Lord." 
 
 The music ceased on the edge of the factory which, 
 stained with color, shouldered up in the mist, all its 
 daylight ugliness gone a thing of strength and beau 
 ty. This creation of the strong industry the new 
 empire what had democracy to do with it? 
 
 Democracy, it seemed to him, after all, was but the 
 promise of the strong not to exploit the weak ! 
 
 When he went back home, he called up Sarah Black- 
 stone, to ask if he might call and be forgiven. 
 
 "For what?" she asked. 
 
 "For my rudeness!" 
 
 "Oh, were you rude?" 
 
 After a few commonplaces, she said casually: 
 
 "By the way, I have been thinking all week of going 
 to France." 
 
 She, too? 
 
 Strange that all the world individuals and races 
 were seizing upon the war as an instrument of self- 
 fulfillment! They were but moths in a flame! But 
 Sarah was not going. She must not go. He would 
 not let her.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 TV/I" ARGARET found that events record their 
 A* A changes but gradually. The sense of loss, of 
 difference, that had crept into her mind the first 
 morning after the major experience of her life, had 
 vanished; then it appeared again with keener sting, 
 after Raymond s indifference over the telephone. She 
 now found that it was a constant companion, boring 
 ceaselessly into her consciousness. Things were no 
 different; the difference lay only in her attitude to 
 ward them. For the first time she was thrown upon 
 herself, and she found herself helpless. What had 
 she to do with thoughts? She became morbidly con 
 scious of functions that were merely normal. She 
 heard blood pounding in her ears; her heart seemed 
 to beat in her throat ; she thought she heard bells ring 
 ing; and her eyelids twitched nervously. She couldn t 
 study; she could not play. Her old self-assurance 
 was gone. If she went to a dance, she trembled when 
 she danced, grew confused, and missed her step. Gay- 
 ety was but forced, halting and conscious. 
 
 When her girl chums noticed the defection from 
 her old manner, they nudged each other, and said, 
 "Mag s got it bad." Or they came to her, teasing. 
 "What s wrong, Maggie?" they asked. "Have you 
 heard that Ray s going for sure?" 
 
 And she would answer, trying to smile, 
 "Wait till you get as old as I am, then you ll under 
 stand!" 
 
 207
 
 208 IRON CITY 
 
 Then she would catch herself wondering if she 
 were getting old. Did age come this way? Old, and 
 never married! 
 
 With all this self-examination, Margaret felt no 
 guilt because of responsibility to society; and she felt 
 no remorse because of a responsibility to a Higher 
 Being, who, having invented desire, then contrived 
 social institutions to curb it. Calvinism held no sway 
 over her. 
 
 How revealing of changing standards it would 
 have been to know what empty meaning Margaret 
 would have found in that epic of an earlier day, "The 
 Scarlet Letter." Surely, austere self-torture, in the 
 presence of an unseen, angry God, was not a part of 
 her reaction. And as for the law Margaret would 
 have been willing to stand up before Iron City at 
 any moment, with Raymond, and say, "This is my 
 man," or go off with him, without so much as paying 
 a license fee at the county clerk s office. But why 
 this sense of loss? It must have been because Ray 
 mond despised her. 
 
 In her way Margaret suffered. 
 
 In spite of her precocious knowledge of sex, she 
 was innocent. Sophistication was instinctive, not ac 
 quired. And, too, she became morbidly curious about 
 this mysterious extra-equipment of her body called 
 sex. She craved more knowledge about it. There 
 was something pitiable in her feeble research meth 
 ods. Cut off from her mother, and from any scien 
 tific treatment of the subject, she seized upon the few 
 words that came into her mind laden with meaning, 
 and began to trace them by cross references, from 
 dictionary to encyclopedia. This task had engaged 
 her the night she became sick at the library. She had
 
 IRON CITY 209 
 
 suddenly come upon a plate depicting vividly all the 
 naked truth of reproduction, under the caption, "Ob 
 stetrics." She plunged into night, ineffably alone; 
 she waded through seas of sickening darkness. Would 
 that unspeakable experience come to her? God! She 
 couldn t stand it. She was too young, too much alone. 
 
 The next morning at chapel she was acutely aware 
 of what the organ said. It seemed to roll billows of 
 black sound over a bruised and tortured body and 
 to bellow dismally of lost things. Loss, loss, loss. 
 Margaret leaned her head on the back of the seat in 
 front of her and trembled like a craven. John Cos- 
 mus, seeing her at that moment, thought that she was 
 praying. When the organ ceased, Margaret knew 
 that she must tell her mother. Confidently, a half 
 hour later, she went into the living-room, where her 
 mother sat sewing, and said, 
 
 "Mother, I ve something to tell you " 
 
 Then she could get no farther; she could utter no 
 other word; she combed her mind for some sentence 
 some fragment of news to interpolate at this point, 
 and all she could say was, 
 
 "Well, I forget what it was now. Isn t that funny?" 
 
 Then began a battle a miserable struggle to tell. 
 She knew she must, and she knew she would. She 
 became obsessed with the notion that she would some 
 time blurt out the whole story before her father, 
 or before some guest. She tried to formulate a laconic 
 message that would reveal all, in unshocking terms. 
 
 Finally one morning, she said abruptly, "Mother, 
 you d better get Raymond Sill to marry me." 
 
 She had done it. 
 
 Mrs. Morton looked up from her sewing, under 
 stood, but did not answer. She went to the telephone
 
 210 IRON CITY 
 
 and called for Carl Morton, and then for Doctor 
 Carr. 
 
 "Come to my room, Maggie; I m going to bed. 
 I m afraid I shall have to have an operation." 
 
 "Oh, Mother, don t." 
 
 But Mrs. Morton had fainted. 
 
 Carl Morton, living with facts all his life, thought 
 until the moment he discovered his daughter s train 
 ing had been inadequate to meet the stress of her gen 
 eration, that a fact was the hardest foe in the world to 
 face. But now it was not the fact of Margaret s se 
 duction, but its unreality that crushed him. He could 
 not believe it. He would not accept it. 
 
 He was always seeing his little girl as he wanted 
 her to be, never as she actually was. Margaret looked 
 no different; indeed she was more beautiful, if any 
 thing and more considerate. She hung over his 
 chair at night, with a light for his pipe, as he had 
 longed to have her do ; he sat back luxuriating in the 
 comfort of it, and immediately the Great Shame which 
 was so unreal became the bitterest reality of his life. 
 
 Carl said no word directly or indirectly to Mar 
 garet that led her to believe that he knew her trouble. 
 Some delicacy some sentiment made him mute in 
 the presence of this fact. He tried hard not to let it 
 make any difference in his relations. For a time he 
 succeeded so well that Margaret inquired of her 
 mother, now confined to her bed, whether her father 
 really knew. 
 
 "Yes, he does and you have nearly killed him." 
 
 One day when Margaret came down to the living 
 room, she found her father, not reading as was his 
 custom, but sitting very still, his hands gripping the 
 arms of the chair fiercely, and his eyes dull and dis-
 
 IRON CITY 211 
 
 tant. She knelt down beside him, laying her head on 
 his knee. 
 
 "Oh, Father, don t. Please don t. Do you hate 
 me?" 
 
 He got up hurriedly, with a swift gesture at his 
 eyes, and walked quickly out of the room. 
 
 After that, he seemed farther away from her than 
 ever; something of her mother s resentment seemed 
 to show itself in him. 
 
 To make matters worse Carl Morton was dispos 
 sessed of all normal functions. The men at the fac 
 tory thought that "the Strike had got the old boy." 
 It had not, but it had left him free to brood over per 
 sonal troubles. He was torn between two courses, 
 the desire to succor his little girl, and his respect for 
 law and custom. Margaret, now that trouble had 
 come to her, seemed to need him more than ever; 
 she was like a child again. At the same time the 
 weight of custom, that brutal collective opinion of the 
 mass, to which he was so acutely sensitive, grew in 
 his imagination, to some gigantic monster standing 
 ready to ruin them. He must not be tender to Mar 
 garet, for that would be encouraging social crime ; and 
 yet, always, he saw her as a child reaching out tiny, 
 supplicating arms to him. 
 
 So he struggled pitiably until the chronicle of his 
 suffering showed itself in his carriage and face. The 
 four weeks that followed Margaret s confession Mor 
 ton spent pretty much alone at home, trying to con 
 vince himself that the Trouble was real. There was 
 no work for him to do at the factory; it was shut 
 down. Morton did not understand his master. He 
 had gone to Sill early in the strike, and had shown
 
 212 IRON CITY 
 
 him how they could run along with half force and 
 seventy per cent production. Sill had replied, 
 
 "By God, no! This town is going to get its belly 
 full of strike and they ll never want another one." 
 And Morton saw Sill thrive on the struggle. 
 
 One afternoon Morton, driven to confusion with 
 the thought of Margaret s disgrace, suddenly came to 
 a realization of its reality. In one of his brown 
 studies, as Mrs. Morton called them, there floated up 
 from the deeps of memory a picture of the past. He 
 saw, with the sharpness of first impression, the first 
 time that he had performed all the rites of mother 
 hood for the baby. It was Sunday, and Mrs. Morton 
 had taken suddenly to bed; from the pillow, she di 
 rected him, as he awkwardly bathed and dressed lit 
 tle Margaret. His fatherhood, hitherto so shy, 
 warmed with tenderness, and he felt for the first time 
 that the baby was his. That very afternoon a cousin 
 of Mrs. Morton s had come in, bringing her son, not 
 quite three. In the course of his rompings, the boy 
 had struck little Margaret upon the head with a stick. 
 The blow seemed to fall a hundred times upon his 
 own head. 
 
 There was an impulse to rend little Billy limb from 
 limb, to snatch up his own child and flee; and still 
 he smiled at the guest, and pretended that the blow 
 had not much hurt the baby. Sitting there this after 
 noon, he reexperienced, with redoubled pain, the force 
 of the boy s assault upon Margaret. 
 
 Groaning audibly, he found his hat, and dragged 
 his feet out into the street. He went straight to the 
 factory, and found R. Sill. As Sill saw his fore 
 man, wild eyed and haggard, stumble into his office, 
 his mind at once jumped to his own affairs.
 
 IRON CITY 213 
 
 "Why, Morton, what have you been doing to your 
 self worrying about this strike? It s as good as 
 won. Do as I do; thrive on it." 
 
 Morton sat down feebly in a chair and said bluntly, 
 
 "Raymond s got Margaret in trouble, Bob " 
 
 "You mean ?" 
 
 Morton nodded his head. 
 
 "Why, the damned fool." 
 
 That was all from Sill. 
 
 To tell the truth, R. Sill was not greatly surprised; 
 his real concern was for Raymond. What incon 
 venience would this escapade entail ? Now that he had 
 his son comfortably settled in the Efficiency Depart 
 ment, he didn t want to send him away. 
 
 In the silence that intervened Sill got up and called 
 Raymond. 
 
 He said significantly to Morton, 
 
 "Say nothing; I ll handle him." 
 
 In a moment, the young man stood before his 
 father, entirely ignoring Carl Morton, like a soldier 
 at attention in the center of the room. 
 
 "Well, what is it?" he said defiantly. 
 
 "You know very well, Ray," answered his father. 
 
 Raymond was startled for a moment, then he re 
 covered his composure. 
 
 "Well," continued Sill, "what are you going to do 
 with this problem?" 
 
 Raymond had no trouble in finding words. 
 
 "I don t know what this man has been telling you, 
 Father, but I don t see that there is a problem. He d 
 better get the others first." 
 
 Others ! 
 
 That word fell on Morton cruelly. 
 
 "That s an insulting lie, young man" he snapped
 
 214 IRON CITY 
 
 and he sprang up, roused instantly from his lethargy. 
 
 "No scene here, Morton. That ll do, Ray." 
 
 When Sill turned from the door that shut Raymond 
 out, he saw Morton dejectedly looking at his feet, tears 
 running down his cheek. He did not know that it was 
 only years-old respect for himself the master that 
 had kept Morton from braining Raymond with a 
 chair. 
 
 Carl began agitatedly, 
 
 "You won t believe him. You can t believe him, 
 Bob. Margaret loves him. Margaret s innocent. I ll 
 bring her here to tell you herself " 
 
 "Now, now, now, man," growled Sill behind up 
 raised hands, "don t get excited, Morton. This, like 
 all problems, must be approached coolly." 
 
 "But you ll make him marry her !" 
 
 "Sit down, Morton, sit down let s go over this to 
 gether." 
 
 "Think what people will say." 
 
 "People be damned." Sill leaned back in his swivel 
 chair, picked up a paper weight, measured its pro 
 portions carefully, then said reflectively, 
 
 "Morton, you and I are back numbers in these mat 
 ters; time was when the fuss you are making would 
 be just about the thing, but people are seeing things 
 different now." 
 
 Morton looked as if he would contradict him. 
 
 "No, don t interrupt till I m through." It was the 
 master talking. Morton kept silent, humped in a chair 
 like one who is old and freezing. 
 
 "Life is a fight, that s all. All this rosy mythology 
 about the brotherhood of man goes very well in 
 churches, but between men it don t go. Why, you 
 know how it is in business; the strong win, don t they?
 
 IRON CITY 215 
 
 You and I have been through enough scraps together 
 to understand that, haven t we?" This he said ex 
 pansively, with his heartiest note of comradeship. 
 
 "Now I figure," he continued, "that the young peo 
 ple haven t bgged behind, and are seeing life pretty 
 much as it is these days. They re older at sixteen than 
 we were at twenty-four and they know very well that 
 love hain t only a matter of holding hands." 
 
 Morton was not following very well, for Sill s 
 analysis of the world he was living in ran so counter 
 to Morton s own conception that he could not grasp it. 
 
 Sill went on. 
 
 "With divorces, and small apartments, the home 
 ain t what it used to be. Why, I remember that grand 
 father s house in Vermont had thirty rooms in it. The 
 family meant more then. Just take the case of Ray 
 mond and your girl. I bet she is not all cut up about 
 this, is she now?" 
 
 "It made her mother sick." 
 
 "Your girl probably understands better than 
 you " 
 
 "You mean, what?" 
 
 "I mean that I can t make Raymond marry her. 
 It isn t necessary." 
 
 Morton sat speechless, his eyes on Sill s face. 
 
 "Love is a fight, too," Morton s master went on, 
 "and the strong win." He turned out his hands. "Of 
 course, I m sorry it hit your girl, Morton, but it 
 needn t ; we can fix that. She can go away for a few 
 months, and we can fix up the bill." 
 
 Morton s confused mind did not completely grasp 
 the fact that the philosophy Sill was expounding so 
 fluently, was merely that through which they both.
 
 216 IRON CITY 
 
 had gained their power. Sill was expressing what 
 he saw everywhere around him, the invasion of the 
 home by the economic law of the survival of the fit 
 test. Morton himself had been a lieutenant in many 
 great struggles; but from a higher motive than Sill, 
 out of respect and admiration for a friend; therefore, 
 he would not be expected to see all so clearly. But 
 something of Sill s truth he began to grasp, and he 
 found it changing the shape of his whole world. For 
 some inexplicable reason he found himself thinking 
 of Walt Kuhns. 
 
 Rising, he said wearily, 
 
 "I don t want your money, Bob, nor your counsel 
 either. You know that." 
 
 "Well, we understand each other anyway, don t 
 we?" Sill demanded. 
 
 Morton evaded the question. "After the strike is 
 over, Bob," he said curtly, "you better look for an 
 other man for the forge room. I m done." 
 
 "You re a fool, Morton." 
 
 "I m done." 
 
 He went out tremblingly. Margaret might better 
 be dead! How noisily an empty life runs! 
 
 What a tragedy it is to build a life upon another 
 life, only to find both shattered because of one. What 
 prolonged agony may lie beneath the seamed face and 
 quiet manner of the man next you in the car, or facing 
 you in the street! Walt Kuhns was such a man, per 
 haps. 
 
 "Here s your cap, Mr. Morton." It was Mr. Sill s 
 stenographer. How sweet she looked ! How clean ! 
 
 "Thanks, Miss Effie." 
 
 And Carl Morton found himself on the street.
 
 IRON CITY 217 
 
 Perhaps Margaret was not serious about going to 
 France; at any rate, she made no effort to leave col 
 lege, and to enter war work. That atmosphere of 
 ideas that had enfolded her like a fate, gave her an 
 other toss into bitter experience, the night after Carl s 
 interview with R. Sill. 
 
 In the hope of regaining some of her old happi 
 ness, Margaret went to the Green Jewel with the girls. 
 From the moment that they entered she, tense and 
 fearful, was unable to take her eyes from the screen. 
 The play was "Adam Bede." 
 
 Through the medium of the play Margaret now 
 began to see that she had taken her affair with Ray 
 mond too lightly, whereas the proper thing, the in 
 evitable course, was to destroy herself. All heroines 
 did that. She must die. 
 
 She made that resolution and afterwards she was 
 filled with exultation. The girls found, on the way 
 home, that Margaret Morton had recovered most of 
 her old gayety.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 WHAT we need is a Horse-Thieves Associa 
 tion." 
 
 It was Haskell speaking at a conference of the lead 
 ing citizens of Iron City over the "appalling state of 
 our fair city due to the blind greed and voracity of 
 certain workers, misled by mercenary and brutal walk 
 ing delegates." 
 
 The last phrases were those of Senator Matt Tyler, 
 in whose office had gathered Sill, Boyne and Haskell. 
 
 Haskell continued, 
 
 "When I was in Idaho, I saw just how effective 
 such a little alliance could be. We all belonged from 
 editor to bar-tender; and when we caught the thief, 
 zip, he was strung up." 
 
 Perhaps Haskell was not serious. What he lacked 
 was imagination. The fatality of the class-mind is 
 to forget that those outside the charmed circle are 
 human beings. 
 
 "But you didn t have to face two thousand thieves," 
 said Boyne, who was inclined to be pessimistic. 
 
 "There s only one," Sill s big voice boomed. 
 
 "Kuhns, of course," Haskell explained, anxious to 
 bring the meeting into his own hands again. Sill 
 did not answer. He despised Haskell for dealing in 
 the obvious. 
 
 "But we can t hang him," Boyne continued. 
 
 "Still there is a strong point in Haskell s sugges- 
 
 218
 
 IRON CITY 219 
 
 tion." Senator Tyler always considered his particular 
 function to be the judicial. 
 
 "Well, we ve got to do something," Boyne con 
 tinued; "in spite of optimism in some quarters (this 
 was meant for a thrust at Sill) the strikers have had 
 the best of the bargain, and are carrying the senti 
 ment of the town." 
 
 "That s because of Cosmus young fool," put in 
 Haskell, "but they re not carrying sentiment outside 
 of the city." 
 
 "Thanks to the Republic-Despatch,, I suppose," 
 sneered Boyne. 
 
 "Listen here" Haskell went on, ignoring Boyne s 
 thrust. "This from the Trinway Globe! 
 
 " Iron City is enjoying unusual prosperity with all the 
 luxuries thrown in. Strikes are daily occurrences. Hun 
 dreds of men with families are anxious to work and pay 
 for their homes ; but the powers that be say no. Trin 
 way is content to go a little slower and manage her own 
 business. 
 
 "That ought to fetch em. I am running that on 
 the front page to-morrow. If once the public sees that 
 the strike is ruining its " 
 
 "Gentlemen," R. Sill inquired, "is this a meeting 
 of the Ladies Aid?" 
 
 It was the signal they were waiting for. The bal 
 ance of power in any assembly always gravitates to 
 the strongest will. With alacrity Boyne, Tyler, and 
 Haskell made themselves attentive, and the conference 
 took on an air of greater formality. They all knew 
 that Sill carried the solution of the problem behind 
 his ears; and instinctively they knew that the battle
 
 220 IRON CITY 
 
 lay now, and had lain, between just two champions, 
 Sill and Kuhns. 
 
 Sill, unable to conceal his satisfaction in his own 
 power, spoke again. 
 
 "I suppose you know that the core-makers asked 
 to go back to work this morning." 
 
 "Is that so?" asked Boyne. 
 
 "Bully!" Tyler exclaimed. 
 
 "Like whipped dogs," chuckled Haskell. 
 
 "That, gentlemen, is the close of the first stage of 
 our campaign. It means that our method of attrition 
 is working; if the core-makers are sick of the strike, 
 the merchants and the public soon will be. And let 
 me point out that some gentlemen, you remember ( Sill 
 was looking directly at Boyne) were anxious to stag 
 ger along for months on half an output, and give the 
 strikers the satisfaction of seeing us stagger; that 
 would have been mere foolishness. Nothing short of 
 complete paralysis of trade would be effective." 
 
 Sill raised his voice slightly, "I repeat, this is no 
 mere local disturbance; this is a nation-wide move 
 ment, and we ll teach the country how to rid itself 
 of these jackals. I venture to say, gentlemen, that 
 after we are through with them, there will never be 
 another strike in Iron City." 
 
 He lit a cigar and Tyler, clearing his throat, said, 
 
 "We find in the interference of the constitutional 
 rights of citizens by organized labor, that the freedom 
 of individuals has been restricted and personal liberty 
 assailed." 
 
 Sill turned gratefully to Senator Matt Tyler; he 
 found that Tyler never failed to clothe his beliefs and 
 practices in the high sounding language of the legal 
 tradition. It was as if the toga concealed the brutal
 
 IRON CITY 221 
 
 sinews of a war-god in ks softening folds. For this, 
 Sill found Tyler indispensable, and loved him as a 
 comrade and brother. 
 
 "That s just it, Matt, and you re the man to put 
 that across to the people. The second step in our 
 campaign is to take advantage of the restless senti 
 ment of the public against the strikers, and crystallize 
 it into action. Yes, you re right, Haskell, we need a 
 Horse-Thieves Association. What do you think of 
 an Iron City Citizens Alliance?" He turned to 
 Boyne. "When once we get the public behind us, we 
 can go the limit, and even hang Kuhns!" and Sill 
 smiled grimly at his own humor. 
 
 Everywhere in this materialistic civilization of ours 
 we see evidence of the mathematical imagination at 
 work. Bridges are built, canals dug, abysses spanned, 
 buildings lifted the great and terrible cities laid down 
 by the vivid precision of the scientific mind. But 
 what we lack is poetic imagination, that kind of in 
 sight which lets us into other lives. This faculty and 
 this only may make our civilization safe and democ 
 racy real. 
 
 Sill had mathematical imagination; he lacked woe 
 fully the poetic. Perhaps he was not serious when he 
 spoke of hanging Walt Kuhns, only blind. 
 
 There followed more discussion. Sill made clearer 
 his plans. Tyler was to draw up the manifesto, which 
 would serve as the keynote speech, for the formation 
 of the Citizens Alliance. A young lawyer chosen to 
 be vice-president, would deliver the speech and Sen 
 ator Tyler would lend his name to the movement as 
 president. The alliance would seek to embrace all the 
 manufacturers and merchants of the city. But first 
 they must be won, and the only way to win them was
 
 222 IRON CITY 
 
 to show them that the strike had ruined trade, and 
 had blackened the fair name of the city. 
 
 Pens and paper were brought out, and soon in neat 
 long-hand, Matt Tyler, U. S. Senator, was drafting 
 page after page of eloquent argument. 
 
 Sill leaned over the table. 
 
 "One word, Matt. This Alliance must be entirely 
 democratic." 
 
 "Of course, coincident with the ideals of the na 
 tion." 
 
 "I was thinking," returned Sill, "that we could use 
 some such plan as this. We could vote according to 
 establishments, say, each establishment to have one 
 vote for every four employees. Let s see, that would 
 give you, Boyne, three hundred, and me one thou 
 sand." 
 
 "We can fix that" 
 
 There was more scratching, and more consultation, 
 and then, at length, with dignity and formality, Sen 
 ator Tyler arose and read : 
 
 "The Alliance concedes the absolute right of all persons 
 to organize for the protection and furtherance of their 
 common interest by proper methods, but it denies the 
 right to organize for an unlawful purpose by unlawful 
 means. If the purpose of any organization, whether of 
 capital or labor, is to hamper or restrict the freedom of 
 the individual to follow what association he will, to coerce 
 other persons to become members of such organizations 
 and to come under its rules and regulations, under pen 
 alty of a loss of employment or of business, then such 
 organization is unlawful, is contrary to the spirit of our 
 government, and to the spirit of American institutions." 
 
 When Tyler reached the last phrases he mouthed 
 them melodiously.
 
 IRON CITY 223 
 
 There was a rustle of applause. Haskell, lean and 
 fulsome, was clapping his hands softly, even Boyne 
 caught something of the spirit of the attempt, while 
 Sill was visibly elated. 
 
 "We find in the interference of the constitutional 
 rights of citizens by organized labor, that the freedom of 
 the individual has been restricted, and personal liberty 
 assailed. Men have desired the right our merchants 
 and tradesmen of managing their own business affairs 
 and they have doubtless, as a matter of policy, submitted 
 to this, and more than this, have paid tribute, by way of 
 advertising, through channels which sought to forge the 
 chains tighter and tighter, and further encroach upon 
 their legitimate rights and liberties as men and citizens." 
 
 As Senator Tyler was moistening his lips to pro 
 ceed, there came a rattling knock on the office door. 
 The Senator frowned, but as the summons continued, 
 he walked resentfully across the carpeted room and 
 threw open the door. 
 
 On the threshold stood Walt Kuhns. The Senator 
 looked embarrassed. Haskell blessed "Jesus Christ!" 
 under his breath and began to laugh as boys do who 
 are caught in mischief. Boyne was preoccupied with 
 something out of the window. Then Tyler, having 
 brushed his hair three times with his unencumbered 
 hand, opened his lips to speak, but Walt Kuhns, who 
 was standing at ease in the hall, anticipated him. 
 
 "Is there room for a representative of the press, 
 gentlemen?" 
 
 Sill, alone unperturbed, his eyes glittering and keen, 
 answered as a general should, 
 
 "Men have been shot for an intrusion less insult 
 ing than this press or no press." 
 
 Kuhns never flinched, though the words were bitter.
 
 224 IRON CITY 
 
 "Oh well," he answered smiling, "please to re 
 member that if you happen to be interested in unions, 
 gentlemen, the Labor Defense is at your service, 
 and the Trades Council keeps open house." 
 
 "Shut the door, Tyler," commanded Sill, bluntly. 
 
 The door was closed, but to a keen observer, some 
 thing close to admiration for a moment flickered in 
 the eyes of R. Sill, then was gone. Tyler marched 
 back to the end of the table, while Haskell, pale and 
 trembling, began to curse. 
 
 "He ll give me hell in that sheet of his now 
 the black-hearted " 
 
 "Don t swear, Haskell, are you afraid ?" 
 
 Tyler began again, 
 
 "The sacred and inalienable rights of citizen- 
 ship- 
 
 "All right, Senator," Sill broke in, "that win do 
 very well. We understand each other," and picking 
 up his hat, he strode out. The meeting was over. 
 
 Three days later at a mass meeting at Johnson s 
 Opera House the Iron City Citizens Alliance came to 
 life. Cosmus, a spectator, in the back of the hall, was 
 interested to see on the platform, between Matt Tyler 
 and Martin Boyne, President Hugh Crandon of Cran- 
 don Hill College. The meeting was unreeled as re 
 hearsed in Tyler s office a week before; the young 
 lawyer, mouthing Senator Tyler s words, drew ap 
 plause from the audience at the proper moment, so 
 that R. Sill, at the vantage point behind the scene, 
 surveying the whole drama, asi the mover of the 
 strings, knew that the second battle of the campaign 
 was duly won. 
 
 The following Sunday, Reverend Mr. Dingley, of
 
 IRON CITY 225 
 
 the First Congregational Church, preached on the text, 
 "Be of the same mind, one with another." 
 
 Although the strike had been in progress for two 
 months, and Iron City had writhed in anguish, this 
 was the first Sunday that Reverend Mr. Dingley had 
 referred to the subject so near to all hearts. Now he 
 said: 
 
 "Organizations have underestimated the rights and 
 the place of the individual man, whether in the form 
 of a mob of lynchers, or trusts or labor unions. Labor 
 unions have underestimated the relation of religion 
 to the individual man, and have chosen to shape their 
 movements in the saloon rather than under the pro 
 tecting mantle of the Church. Perforce, union men 
 for we may think of men only as individuals have 
 been misguided, and have mistaken violence, rather 
 than love, for an instrument of persuasion." 
 
 Over at St. Peter s, Father Gregory, after reading 
 this union pledge : "My fidelity to the union and my 
 duty to the members thereof shall in no sense be in 
 terfered with by any allegiance that I may now or 
 hereafter owe to any other organization, social, po 
 litical, religious, secret, or otherwise " thundered, 
 
 "No Catholic taking such an oath can receive absolu 
 tion from me or any other priest." 
 
 Only two men arose and walked out. 
 
 By these signs public sentiment, always fickle, was 
 due to veer and Walt Kuhns, lashing back coolly and 
 sagaciously in his paper, burning in his cause, threat 
 ening here, imploring there, was telling the strikers 
 that their cause was won. But in truth it was lost 
 the moment the public, moving along habitual chan 
 nels press, the church, and the school transferred 
 its unstable allegiance.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 AT the college, that other channel of public opin 
 ion, the strike was taboo. No word concerning 
 it appeared in the college paper, though two students, 
 Weaver and Jenkins, catching its meaning, became 
 sympathetic followers of the working men. Presi 
 dent Crandon once referred to the "horror and vul 
 garity of violence and of narrow-minded anarchism." 
 Professor Charles Henry Clarke spoke on the "beauty 
 of self-control, and the ill-fated French Revolution"; 
 while Dean Georgia Summers rhapsodized over "that 
 idyllic time when the rustic and artisan would re 
 joice in their noble share in the labor of the land." 
 
 Watching anxiously, John Cosmus found that Iron 
 City considered the strike monotonous. It was not 
 so interesting as a baseball game. Nothing happened. 
 There was no violence. Day after day, the men 
 picketed the empty factories in a grim effort to rally 
 flagging public attention. One by one, some of the 
 workmen grew discontented, and dropped off, moving 
 away to other towns for work. But the majority 
 were faithful the six hundred held true behind their 
 leader. Him Cosmus found always vivid and inter 
 esting. As he saw more and more of Walt Kuhns, he 
 was astonished to find him possessed of the very quali 
 ties that made Ezra Kimbark so attractive. What 
 friends these two vagrants, lost to the church, would 
 have been if the gulf of class feeling had not opened 
 between them! Kuhns was everywhere imparting 
 
 226
 
 IRON CITY 227 
 
 his spirit to the men. He implored them to respect 
 property and to use no violence. He strove to lift 
 the strike into the abstract realm of principle. He 
 had confidence enough in this riff-raff of human life 
 to instruct them in "the art of striking in order to 
 focus public opinion on the justice of their cause." 
 And he succeeded! There had been no violence and 
 no destruction of property. Picketing was peaceful. 
 A negro, said to be a worker, had been beaten up 
 because the men had learned that all the former negro 
 workers were still in Sill s pay, waiting for the factory 
 to open. This was the only instance of violence. Has- 
 kell s paper made much of this assault of doubtful 
 significance. 
 
 Cosmus was scarcely more than a benevolent spec 
 tator of the struggle. Once or twice he contributed 
 letters to the "Labor Defense" and brought disap 
 proval down upon his head. He did not see Kuhns 
 often because Kuhns was too busy. But the glimpses 
 he had of the man won him to loyalty. The labor 
 leader was no selfish demagogue, but a far-seeing, 
 fearless, patient patriot. Cosmus marveled at his pa 
 tience, coolness and deep capacity for indignation. 
 
 Inseparably linked with the strike in Cosmus s mind 
 was the war. Both upheavals the stupendous there 
 and the miniature here were but manifestations of 
 the same spirit beneath; both represented destruction 
 of barriers, and the perceptible union of large masses 
 of men. Inevitably the war was to mean interna 
 tionalism was meaning it, as nation after nation in 
 alliance groped toward each other for understanding. 
 How was Iron City, then, ever going to become a part 
 of that glorious post-bellum world, if it could not ac 
 cept understandingly mass movements at home?
 
 228 IRON CITY 
 
 There were the usual drawn faces of men, who 
 found themselves in the midst of an ordeal severe be 
 yond their calculation; there were patient, sharp- 
 tongued, conservative women, eager for the comforts 
 that the strike would bring, but hating the cost ; there 
 were children with puzzled faces, and aching bellies; 
 there were men made bitter by the sharp sense of dif 
 ference between those who were up, and those who 
 were down and under; there were men grown cynical, 
 convinced that there was no justice or kindness in the 
 world and that conditions could never be bettered; 
 there were men grown vengeful and cruel, eager to 
 hurt and destroy; and there were men ready to make 
 their leaders suffer for failure which had come too 
 soon. 
 
 To this spectacle of woe, Iron City was indifferent. 
 Jealous of its reputation, interested only in business, 
 blind to principle, it prided itself on the respectability 
 of the strike. It rejoiced in surface sight. 
 
 Cosmus saw one day a little girl in clean pinafore 
 eating refuse from a neighbor s garbage pail. Here 
 was symbol enough of the social order. 
 
 "Here in America, metaphysics have fallen into 
 disrepute. The science once described as the search 
 in a dark room for a black cat that isn t there is quite 
 too impractical for the modern world. Yet, in so far 
 as metaphysics means passing beyond the physical, 
 seeing beneath the surface, democracy rests upon it. 
 Only when men become metaphysicists to the extent 
 of seeing principles behind masses, and quivering, pal 
 pitant minds beneath externals, may democracy be j 
 come actual." 
 
 As usual it was Sarah Blackstone who shared Cos- 
 mus s doubts and hopes during this period.
 
 IRON CITY 229 
 
 One day in the third month of the strike R. Sill 
 called up his friend, Senator Matt Tyler. 
 
 "Can t you come down, Matt?" 
 
 "What s up now victory?" 
 
 "Better than that revenge." 
 
 In a half-hour Tyler s roadster stood in front of 
 the factory and Tyler was mopping his brow in the 
 quiet office of the manufacturer. 
 
 Lighting a fresh cigar, R. Sill took from a strong 
 box, the key of which hung to his watch chain, a legal- 
 looking document; he patted it fondly, and then said, 
 handing it to his friend. 
 
 "There ain t that a beauty?" 
 
 Tyler s quick eye ran over the paper. Amazement 
 shone in his face, then admiration, and fear. He 
 whistled increduously. 
 
 "Aren t you going too far, Bob? Be careful." 
 
 Sill leaned back in his chair, as he had done when 
 he talked to Carl Morton, several weeks before, and 
 the same proud look of power came into his face. 
 But now he was jubilant. 
 
 "Stand up, ye great barrister, and be catechized. 
 Who maketh the laws of the state?" 
 
 "Public Opinion." 
 
 "Who executeth the laws of the state ?" 
 
 "Public Opinion." 
 
 "Of course, and we have carefully prepared Public 
 Opinion for Judge Dunbar s injunction. Read it." 
 
 Senator Tyler began to read. The injunction, is 
 sued by Judge Dunbar, of the Circuit Court, named 
 Walt Kuhns, Jerry Mulvaney, Mary Levinsky and 
 Wilson Grover. The plaintiff was designated as R. 
 Sill and Son. There were seven clauses, and as the
 
 230 IRON CITY 
 
 Senator read them, Sill exultingly translated them into 
 the concrete. 
 
 "From at any time, in any manner, or at any place 
 interfering or meddling with any persons whomsoever 
 who may desire to enter into the employ of the plain 
 tiff, R. Sill and Son." 
 
 "That s for Mulvaney and his pickets." 
 
 "From threatening or coercing " 
 
 "That s for the low-down guy who beat the nigger." 
 
 "From gathering in bodies, or coercing or accost 
 ing " 
 
 "That s for Wilson Grover, and his anarchists " 
 
 "From publishing or causing to be published " 
 
 "That s for Kuhns." 
 
 "From writing or distributing " 
 
 "That s for that Cosmus." 
 
 "From boycotting " 
 
 "That s for that he-woman." 
 
 "From committing any acts of which the plaintiff, 
 R. Sill and Son, complains." 
 
 "That for the whole gang no matter what they 
 do. What do you think, Tyler ain t she a beauty? 
 Just about air-tight. Eh?" 
 
 Senator Tyler wrinkled his regal nose and frowned 
 disconcertingly. 
 
 "Yes, if you don t care what you do. Extremes 
 usually act as boomerangs. You d better get Dunbar 
 to ease it up a bit. That s my advice." 
 
 Sill put the injunction carefully back in the box, 
 and the box into the safe. Then he turned and faced 
 Tyler. 
 
 "Oh, well, Matt, you see I m not running for the 
 Senate or anything, and I guess that ll have to stand 
 as it is."
 
 IRON CITY 231 
 
 "When do you spring it?" 
 
 "At the psychological moment." 
 
 But Tyler, on his way home, still shook his head 
 and muttered, 
 
 "That s going too far, quite too far." Perhaps 
 the Senator had babbled so long about the inalienable 
 rights of the people that he had come to believe in 
 them. 
 
 * * s(e s|e * :{= 
 
 When John Cosmus came around the corner ap 
 proaching the factory, he heard laughter epic laugh 
 ter the great tittering of a good-natured crowd, 
 ending in ragged calls and bickerings. As he drew 
 nearer, he found instead of a few pickets the quota 
 of strikers in the past a large irregular patch of 
 men, gaunt and severe. They stood carelessly about 
 before the gate of R. Sill and Son s plant, laughing 
 in derision. In a few minutes, as he joined the men 
 on the outskirts, he discerned Kuhns among the men, 
 and a few women and children hanging on the edge of 
 the crowd. Standing in front of the gate was a man 
 who, one could see at a glance, by clothes and man 
 ner, was not of the strikers. He was evidently the 
 object of the laughter, and evidently between him and 
 the crowd was passing much talk and banter. 
 
 He was saying, 
 
 "I can lick any ten of you." 
 
 Replies came thick and fast from the crowd. 
 
 "Lick Sill s boots." 
 
 "Who let you out?" 
 
 "Dust off your think-tank!" 
 
 "You ve got dirt in your carburetor!" 
 
 The man answered. 
 
 "If any of you think you can keep me from work,
 
 232 IRON CITY 
 
 step up like a man, and try it. I can lick seventy-five 
 of ye, fed up on bad whiskey." 
 
 To this more laughter. Cosmus was surprised at 
 the good humor of the crowd its discipline. He 
 knew that Kuhns must be proud of these men, his 
 disciples of non-resistance. Soon John had the satis 
 faction of seeing the man pass into the factory. 
 Thinking the incident closed, and seeing Jenkins and 
 Weaver on the other side of the street, he was ap 
 proaching them, when he heard that peculiar raucous 
 dissonance, somewhere between a murmur and a 
 shriek, which issues from a crowd in anger. It was 
 a terrible noise, and he saw, as he turned, the men, 
 like black ants, coalesce by instinct to form a human 
 battering ram. What had happened? He mounted a 
 stone, and leaped to a fence, holding to a branch of 
 an overhanging tree, to steady himself, and looked. 
 
 His limbs trembled beneath him as the crowd, fast 
 taking on the beastly exterior of the mob, was flowing 
 toward the factory gate. Cosmus saw that a man a 
 much larger man in the posture of challenge and 
 defense, had taken the place of the first decoy. It 
 was evidently his presence that had worked the change 
 in the strikers. 
 
 Cosmus saw Kuhns, too, rush from the side to in 
 tercept the crowd, motioning them back like a traffic 
 policeman. There were shouts, 
 
 "Get him ! Get Daggett ! Get the skunk !" mingled 
 with the threatening roar of mad men; the crowd en 
 veloped Kuhns, passed on and stormed the gate. The 
 lone aggressor waited to take one lunge at the fore 
 most assailant, then slipped into the safe precincts of 
 the yard. Stones began to fly. Curses, maledictions, 
 the terrible moody buzz of mob anger and impotence,
 
 IRON CITY 233 
 
 beat in Cosmus s ears. He saw futile battering with 
 bare hands against barred doors. Then the gate of 
 the factory opened and the snouts of two fire hoses 
 emerged; from them heavy streams of water began to 
 pour. Cosmus was dazed. The water was hot. Steam 
 arose as it met the air. Strikers were rolling on the 
 ground, shrieking and cursing. Women and children 
 screamed; he saw Kuhns run back and forth before 
 the wavering line of men, as if to push them into the 
 street by sheer physical force. But the men did not 
 heed. Twice they charged the gate in the face of 
 the steam, and then tumbled shrieking to the pave 
 ment. Then seizing stones and sticks, they hurled 
 volley after volley, in impotent anger at the conquering 
 foes. The water never failed two streams of siz 
 zling rain, cut a circle about the factory gate three 
 hundred feet back, ringed around by murmuring , 
 threatening men; Walt Kuhns stood just without the 
 fluid shot, facing the crowd. 
 
 Suddenly the water ceased. Then Cosmus saw the 
 women and children on the edge of the crowd dash 
 to the curb, and where they parted, running, he saw 
 up the street, an oncoming automobile, at full speed, 
 swaying back and forth almost from curb to curb. 
 It had set up a loud honking, but nevertheless it came 
 on, deliberately, straight for the factory gate; pre 
 empting the street as its right. It was a blind thing, 
 for it narrowly missed a child as it swung on two 
 wheels around the short corner and bore down upon 
 the crowd of men. By magic the crowd parted, and 
 Cosmus was thanking God that the way was so easily 
 cleared, when something happened. The water had 
 wet the street. The wheels skidded, the car leaped
 
 234 IRON CITY 
 
 a tangent straight for the mass of men, who scatter 
 ing, scampering, parted again. 
 
 Another cry from the crowd! This time of pity 
 and dismay. The machine seemed to swerve and then 
 stopped tremblingly, glued to the pavement by heavy 
 brakes. Cosmus jumped down and ran where the 
 crowd was thickest; elbowing through, his breath both 
 ering him, his imagination over-wrought. Expect 
 ing to see death, he at last fought his way to the 
 machine. The automobile was clogged by angry 
 strikers. White and distraught, Raymond Sill sat 
 behind the wheel. In the arms of two men was the 
 limp form of Walt Kuhns, blood running from a still 
 mouth. 
 
 Before Cosmus could, show pity or resentment, 
 more machines appeared, and officers pushed men and 
 women, now thoroughly cowed, back to the pave 
 ment. The sheriff took command and howled orders. 
 
 "Line up, Mulvaney; line up, Kuhns;" and then, 
 paying not the least attention to the wounded leader, 
 the sheriff served his injunctions and made arrests. 
 
 Suddenly Cosmus found his tongue, in a high and 
 squawky voice, he cried, 
 
 "My God such law; don t arrest Kuhns. There s 
 your man he s a murderer." And he found himself 
 the center of an excited throng, for he was shaking 
 his finger in the white face of old Sill s son. 
 
 Without a word the sheriff motioned the strikers 
 down off the big Stutz, muttering something to Ray 
 mond about "getting out of here." Raymond, still 
 white and trembling, slowly drove the car toward the 
 factory gate, which opened as if by magic to receive 
 him. Contemptuously, bitterly, silently, the crowd let 
 him go.
 
 IRON CITY 235 
 
 Awesome stillness settled down over the street At 
 the summons of a whistle a police ambulance, the one 
 which had once before carried Walt Kuhns, nosed its 
 bleak, black way into the crowd. 
 
 "Officer, I protest," Cosmus said, his voice still 
 husky. "This man is not fit for the police station." 
 
 "Who said he was?" the sheriff answered gruffly j 
 then turning to the driver he directed, "To the Emer 
 gency Hospital." 
 
 The limp form of Kuhns was lifted not untenderly 
 into the ambulance. Cosmus turned away, sick with 
 the pity of it all. He saw the women, with aprons 
 at their eyes, little children clutching frantically at 
 their mothers skirts, men cowed and sullen. Sud 
 denly somewhere in the factory, a whistle began to 
 blow shrill and long, and there was the sound of 
 revolving wheels. Sill had won. Industry the 
 world s business had been resumed. "That is indus 
 try s voice," thought Cosmus. "Shrill, superior, soul 
 less. And these men are soulless, too." 
 
 He saw the strikers dispersing wearily, and as he 
 turned, at the end of the street beckoning, there was 
 the River of Wires reaching toward the cities and be 
 yond. 
 
 A hand on his shoulder brought Cosmus to the 
 realization that the student Weaver was trying to 
 say something to him. 
 
 "Don t you want to come with me, Professor, to the 
 Iron Works there s more trouble down there, they 
 say." 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 "At Crandon Hill Iron Works." 
 
 That brought Cosmus up with a jerk. Sarah!
 
 236 IRON CITY 
 
 Riot ! The two students saw the professor dash mad 
 ly after a jitney, relieve the man at the wheel, after 
 emptying his own pockets of coin, and drive off at a 
 speed something in excess of all limits. 
 
 Cosmus lurching back and forth in the unsteady 
 seat, had time to curse all strikes and violence that 
 touched the innocent; and he received at the same 
 time the blows of his own merciless intellect as it 
 saw and measured the law of compensation. "That s 
 what you get," intellect was saying, "for preaching 
 strikes; the woman you think the most of shall pay." 
 
 He drove the car on furiously. Once he saw a traf 
 fic man, gesticulating wildly, but it did not occur to 
 him that it might be he whom the policeman wished 
 to stop, until he had left the blue-coat, semaphoring 
 foolishly far behind. 
 
 The Crandon Hill Iron Works were built close to 
 the pavement at the intersection of Fourth Avenue 
 and Fifth Street, and as Cosmus wheeled around the 
 corner he came suddenly upon the crowd, beating at 
 Boyne s windows and doors. He saw at once the fu 
 tility of trying to press through that throng, and 
 turned away from the shouting mob, up a side street. 
 He sped off to the left upon the railroad switch track, 
 that cut the Iron Works in two. Within the factory s 
 great yard, he found no manifestation of excitement. 
 The place was still. No guard was at the wide door 
 of the foundry to bar its entrance, and he threaded 
 his way through the deserted shop, not without a sense 
 of the pathos of abandoned and disused things which 
 the stale coal-scents invoked. He managed finally to 
 come out into a narrow dark passageway, that opened 
 upon the wide marble corridor, where mahogany doors
 
 IRON CITY 237 
 
 glistened. Here Cosmus was upon familiar ground, 
 and he had no trouble in finding the luxurious offices 
 of the president, where Sarah worked. 
 
 He threw open the wide door, the guttural com 
 plaints of the strikers, cruel, soulless, and urgent, came 
 in through the broken windows from the street. Was 
 the office empty! Undisturbed, save for bits of shat 
 tered glass, and scattered stones and cans, the large 
 room had never seemed more attractive; and even in 
 the midst of his excitement Cosmus felt break over 
 him, surge after surge of tender feeling, and welling 
 memories of Sarah. The great office throne of might 
 and injustice meant to him only her! It was the 
 place where Sarah worked. 
 
 It was irony that he saw Boyne first, a crumpled 
 figure caught between the brick jamb and the half- 
 closed French window that opened upon the narrow 
 portico overhanging the street ; Boyne s head dangled 
 sickeningly toward the floor, where black blood had 
 clotted. Cosmus glanced away, to see Sarah lying 
 clear and beautiful behind the desk. As he bent over 
 her, he noticed an ugly, discolored bruise above her 
 right eye. But for that, she seemed asleep! Thank 
 God! And comfortable. 
 
 Cosmus turned around quickly, answering impulse, 
 and lifted Boyne clear of discomfiture, which though 
 only apparent, nevertheless was so pathetic. It eased 
 him to see the limp figure lying straight and still. 
 "He must be dead he is so limp," he thought. 
 
 As he did so the mob beneath, as if detecting the 
 movement at the window, set up a swelling howl of 
 anger. For a moment, something like fear and hatred 
 beat at Cosmus s heart. He hesitated. Some impulse
 
 238 IRON CITY 
 
 drove him toward the portico to thrust out at that vio 
 lent thing in the streets. 
 
 Then, turning away, he lifted Sarah in his arms 
 and lurched into the hall. She was heavy for him and 
 he staggered but he knew infinite satisfaction in that 
 moment. Beneath excitement, conflicting ideas, phys 
 ical exertion, he was aware of the sweet appeal of her 
 person. Saddened, exultant, he staggered down the 
 long hall, into the passage way, and threaded the maze 
 of deserted walks of the foundry to the yard, where 
 the Ford still panted. He lifted her in, started ab 
 ruptly, stalled his engine, and pushed futilely at the 
 self-starter. Then pillowing her tenderly with his 
 over-coat, which he stripped off, he whirled the engine 
 into action, jumped in, backed daringly over the tracks, 
 and wound his way out of the yards again. Soon they 
 were in the street, and Cosmus dashed off through an 
 alley into Jenkins Street, now empty, toward home. 
 
 In her own room, under the wise administration 
 of the landlady, Sarah opened her eyes. There was 
 no wonderment only weariness and pain in that 
 look, Cosmus thought. But she smiled, too, up at him. 
 
 "I m all right," she said, "it was you who came?" 
 
 They made her comfortable. 
 
 "I must tell you," she said, "when the men attacked, 
 Boyne and I rushed to the window. I think they shot 
 him, and a stone or something hit me," her lips trem 
 bled. 
 
 "Oh, John, I never want to see another strike 
 again." 
 
 That night, with Sarah recovered, Cosmus on his 
 way to the hospital to see Walt Kuhns, saw an extra 
 Republic-Despatch. Black lines flared across the page.
 
 IRON CITY 239 
 
 JUDGE DUNBAR PUTS END 
 
 TO REIGN OF TERROR 
 
 Serves Injunction on Violent Mob 
 Outraging Public Decency 
 
 ONE STRIKER SERIOUSLY INJURED IN FRACAS MAY DIE 
 
 Boyne, President Crandon Hill Iron Works, 
 Shot, but Will Recover. 
 
 STRIKE REGIME OVER: PUBLIC REJOICES! 
 
 Cosmus read; paused and wondered. So Walt 
 Kuhns pays. 
 
 How the city streets swarmed! and he heard the 
 sound of careless laughter!
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 ONE evening soon after the ending of the strike 
 Raymond came home from the factory by foot. 
 He was disturbed. He knew that Margaret had re 
 cently seen his father, and that she had made a plea 
 for Mr. Sill to use his influence to keep President 
 Hugh Crandon from discharging Cosmus for his part 
 in the strike, and that, strangely enough, she had suc 
 ceeded. He was aware that she had been impertinent 
 brazen his father had characterized her and he had 
 concluded that Margaret must have threatened to ex 
 pose him publicly. He had received, too, a note from 
 her saying that if he did not take her to the dance at 
 the Country Club she would come alone and "make a 
 scene." These facts were unpleasant, but they did not 
 account entirely for the deep sense of foreboding 
 which he carried home with him that night. There 
 was something profound and ominous in the gloom 
 which enveloped him something beyond his mind 
 to control. And he had not ridden home; in fact he 
 had not ridden in a car since since the ending of 
 the strike. Somehow he could not go near the big 
 Stutz. It made his nerves jumpy. He did not go in 
 to dinner, but went straight to his room, where his 
 mother found him soon after. 
 
 "Son boy," she said, "are you ill?" 
 
 "No, Mother. Just plagued tired." 
 
 "Would you like a cup of tea?" 
 240
 
 IRON CITY 241 
 
 "No, Mother. It keeps me awake. I guess that s 
 what does it," and he tried to speak naturally. 
 
 "You re working too hard," his mother said anx 
 iously. 
 
 "Yes, Mother." 
 
 With a deprecating gesture of impatience, his 
 another moved toward the door. Before turning the 
 knob, she paused and said, 
 
 "Hazel said she would go to the club dance with 
 you." 
 
 "I am glad, Mother." 
 
 When she was gone, Raymond threw off coat and 
 collar, sank into a great chair, and smoked cigarette 
 after cigarette. At 10 130 he went to bed. 
 
 He awoke with a clear mind ; through the open win 
 dow came the sound of singers trailing home through 
 the misty night; a lively wind was stirring in the 
 trees, and when the college clock struck some minutes 
 later, he counted, "One, two, three" only three hours 
 to lie awake, he thought. 
 
 "Four, five" and so on to twelve o clock. Then 
 he remembered what had awakened him so soon. It 
 was a dream. He was in a court-room thronged with 
 familiar faces. He saw them from the prisoner s 
 box. In front of the Judge s bench was a black cof 
 fin. He was being arraigned by some one whom he 
 thought was Cosmus, but when he looked up there 
 was Margaret, clad in black crying "murderer, mur 
 derer." The sound of that awful word had wakened 
 him. 
 
 He shivered under the covers. The wind crashing 
 among the autumnal trees came to him freighted with 
 notes profoundly hostile. Nature seemed some sar 
 donic machine, and in the rhythmic pause of the wind,
 
 242 IRON CITY 
 
 he heard the clang of the machine of his father s 
 creation on the other side of the town and he won 
 dered about the men working there. It would be al 
 most good, he thought, to be there with them to- 
 night ! 
 
 He tried to bring his mind around to the point of 
 realization that the world outside, the factory yonder, 
 the wind clattering dolefully in the trees, his room 
 here filled with shadows, were just the same as they 
 were by day. But he could not. They were not the 
 same. By day the world was open ; the houses of the 
 town, the people, enveloped him in friendliness. Now 
 the night, save for the din of the factory, shut them 
 out. He was alone. 
 
 As one who clambers fearfully along a crumbling 
 edge for one peep into the troubled depths of a vol 
 cano, Raymond peered into himself. What he found 
 there made him lie sleepless, and stare through fear 
 at the wall of darkness above him. . . . 
 
 About four, before he fell asleep, he had resolved 
 to go to Margaret and offer some kind of reparation. 
 ... But Walt Kuhns ? 
 
 When Margaret Morton arrived at the Country 
 Club on the trolley alone, she found the great stone 
 house aglare. The last party of the season in late 
 October was often the gayest, and to-night Iron City, 
 as if feeling released from the bondage of the strike, 
 had gathered as if by agreement, in a finale of social 
 splendor. A long line of glistening limousines, open 
 cars of every type and model, including Fords, de 
 noted something of the size and catholicity of the 
 crowd. 
 
 Already the orchestra was crashing out a two-step 
 in syncopation. Rag-time from its barbaric lairs in
 
 IRON CITY 243 
 
 South America, for the first time, seemed out of place 
 to Margaret. Outside the night was still, save for 
 complaining leaves, rustling dryly along upon (the 
 heavy current of damp winds. As she went up the 
 path, past the leaden lagoon now smeared with blurred 
 images of vari-colored lanterns from the windows, 
 she shuddered. The pool looked very cold and very 
 deep. 
 
 "I hope they have a fire," she thought. 
 
 When she entered she saw that logs were crackling 
 in the two big fireplaces in the ball-room; she paused 
 in the hall a moment, sweeping the room from length 
 to length, letting her glance rest on jeweled and bril 
 liantly gowned women, and soberly attired men. Then 
 she saw Raymond with Hazel Tyler. An ineffable 
 sense of loss, the vanishing of youth and the staleness 
 of the world cut through her icy calm. She trem 
 bled; tears came, and she set her lips to keep back 
 sobs. Too soon the fullness of life had flown. In 
 that look cut off as she was from all pleasure that 
 she loved Margaret realized remotely the staggering 
 price one pays who precociously yields herself to the 
 urge of sex. 
 
 She did not go to the ladies s retiring room. She 
 found, instead, as she had hoped, the library unoccu 
 pied. No fire had been kindled in the narrow grate, 
 but she did not hesitate to enter. She kept her heavy 
 cloak muffled around her, and without flashing on the 
 lamp, sank down in the Morris chair, just outside 
 the zone of light cut by the chandelier in the hall. 
 Here the blatant music, and the ting-tong of merry 
 mingled voices came to her, and here she had time to 
 think. 
 
 In the last months, during which Iron City had
 
 244 IRON 
 
 been convulsed with the strike, Margaret had passed 
 into a kind of sublimation of grief. Save for spas 
 modic wildness, such as her championing of John 
 Cosmus before R. Sill, much of her old gayety of 
 manner had returned. But it was the gayety of tragic 
 exultation. In the perception of a solution to her 
 problem, she had become elated but morbid. To 
 herself, she seemed two persons one bitterly suffer 
 ing, the other a solicitous witness of grief. All her 
 acts were dramatic. It was this theatrical sense which 
 had elements of danger, for it would sustain her in 
 participating in roles of even tragic outcome to her 
 self. 
 
 In the few minutes in which she sat alone in the 
 cold room of the club, she thought bitterly of her 
 father. Carl Morton had not weathered the storm; 
 he sat at home even now, feeble and old, plunged fu- 
 tilely in treatises on education. Would he never take 
 her back again? It was the look of mute appeal in 
 his eyes puzzled, searching, dog-like that gave her 
 nerves. He ought not to look that way! He ought 
 not to take on so! He never could see things as he 
 ought to. 
 
 And Raymond? 
 
 She had come to see Raymond; she must find a 
 maid and send for him. She arose, and stepped into 
 the hall. At the other end, she saw him alone peering 
 about as if looking for some one. She beckoned and 
 he came towards her. 
 
 "I was looking for you, Mag; I have come to take 
 you out of this." The words were decisive, prompted 
 by deep feeling, but it was not given these two thus 
 to recover so easily by a phrase the alluring rapturous 
 world which they had lost, for Margaret misunder-
 
 IRON CITY 245 
 
 stood. Highly strung as she was, she thought it was 
 some scheme of his to get her out of the way that 
 evening. 
 
 "Oh, no, you don t," she answered. "I am going 
 to stay. And what is more you are going to dance 
 with me." 
 
 She had raised her voice in excitement, and during 
 a lull in the music and dancing below, it sounded un 
 natural and too loud. He glanced nervously around, 
 and she, seeing his perturbation, thought that her sus 
 picions were confirmed. Raymond had come up to 
 intercept her, to keep her away from the ball-room. 
 
 "Come in here," she said, "if you are ashamed to 
 be with me." 
 
 Ignoring her tone, he followed her back into the 
 library; she shut the door behind them, and after 
 fumbling at the curtain at the window, switched on 
 the light. There were cigar stubs and ashes on the 
 table and the room looked cold and uninviting. Ray 
 mond snatched up the waste basket, emptied its con 
 tents into the grate, throwing in a few magazines for 
 good measure, and struck a match. She watched him 
 narrowly. How wasteful he was; the fire gave out 
 only a little heat and a sickly light. She coughed; 
 and he glanced at her apprehensively. 
 
 "How have you been?" he demanded. "Sick any?" 
 
 A gleam of satisfaction shone in her face. He was 
 concerned about her then. 
 
 "I ve been in bed a lot," she answered. 
 
 "Well enough to travel?" 
 
 "That depends on where." 
 
 "Anywhere," he continued, "away from Iron City. 
 I hate it. I keep the plane out here, you know. Here 
 at the County Club there is a fine field for landing.
 
 246 IRON CITY 
 
 We ll find some place, Mag. You don t know how 
 sick and tired I am of this efficiency business Dad gave 
 me, and of this Walt Kuhns mess." 
 
 He spoke without passion, mechanically, and his 
 words and tone made Margaret almost pity him. He 
 did not seem very much like a lover. But when she 
 answered, she was precipitate. 
 
 "I don t want to go away, Ray. I won t go. You re 
 ashamed of me. You know it. We ought to stay here 
 together, be down there dancing, happy like the 
 others." 
 
 He stretched out his hands toward the flimsy ashes 
 in the fireplace as if for warmth, then turned toward 
 her, his eyes awake, and interested. 
 
 "But I thought you were sick and couldn t." 
 
 "Maybe you did and maybe you didn t. You could 
 have come to see me, couldn t you?" 
 
 His eyes shifted. 
 
 "If you ll go with me, Mag, I ll make it all up." 
 
 "But you can t make it up that way. There s only 
 one way, to take me down there." 
 
 "But you can t go when you re sick." 
 
 "But I am not sick; I m just like I was." 
 
 He turned to her eagerly. 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 She said again emphatically, 
 
 "Like I always was." 
 
 He understood, and suddenly he felt warmly happy, 
 happier than he had been for months. Life, after all, 
 was as it ought to be ; he did not need to pay for that 
 blind moment in the church. There were no conse 
 quences to be met. The great God Law had slipped 
 its orbit. There was justice in the world at last. His 
 manner changed. He arose and stood leaning against
 
 IRON CITY 247 
 
 the mantle, something of his old dashing spirit re 
 turned. 
 
 Before he spoke, Margaret saw the change in him 
 and began to cry. "There is nothing to cry about, 
 
 Mag. We re well out of it now, and " Without 
 
 finishing, he sat down beside her on the couch, and 
 drew her close to him. 
 
 She pushed him away questioningly, searching his 
 face. 
 
 "Don t," she said. 
 
 The one thing which had sustained her for weeks 
 had eluded her in the moment of her need. The dra 
 matic in this scene with Ray had vanished. He, not 
 she, was playing the grand role and going free. She 
 wiped her eyes clear of tears, and said very simply, 
 
 "Ray, I have decided to kill myself unless you own 
 me before the others." 
 
 She had rehearsed those words many times in the 
 last few weeks, nevertheless they came spontaneously 
 now. They sprang out at him with vivid force, and 
 they seemed alive to Margaret, too. It was as if 
 some inner urge had uttered itself through them. She 
 saw Raymond start, look queerly at her, and tremble. 
 
 "You just couldn t be such a fool, Mag. You 
 were as much to blame as I, and you have not suffered 
 more." 
 
 "Look at me, Ray." 
 
 She waited until his eyes met hers. 
 
 "Now do* I look as if I meant it?" 
 
 "You couldn t be such a fool," he reiterated spirit 
 lessly, his face white and drawn, his whole frame 
 trembling; he was thinking of the last time he had 
 seen Walt Kuhns. 
 
 Margaret did not enjoy her triumph; she had
 
 248 IRON CITY 
 
 thought she would. In her the sense of loss renewed 
 itself. Could the world ever again be as it was? 
 
 Suddenly Raymond turned on her meanly. 
 
 "You fool, you d like to make me a murderer, too, 
 like that God damn Professor Cosmus." 
 
 "Oh, Ray!" 
 
 They could hear the music of the dance and feel 
 the timbers of the whole house swing in rhythm to 
 the lilting feet. But something had whisked them 
 afar off from all that merriment. 
 
 After a moment, Ray said, 
 
 "Well, damn it, why don t we go down?" 
 
 He arose and stood facing her. 
 
 She saw him in that moment in a new light the 
 bullet head, the narrow eyes, the well-kept mustache, 
 the figure somewhat squat all seemed hideous repul 
 sive as passion always is. Then she knew that it 
 wasn t Ray that she wanted. He did not cure the in 
 sistent sense of loss. She began to understand that it 
 was an inner rather than an outer loss and must be a 
 permanent one. What was she going to do now? 
 What if he did consent to go down with her even 
 to live with her, could she be happy ? It was not Ray 
 that she wanted, and the realization left her weak and 
 distraught. 
 
 She arose quietly, and drew her cloak about her 
 tightly, 
 
 "No, I m not going down. You go, Ray." 
 
 "Come to your senses, have you?" 
 
 "Yes," she said simply. "Go." 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders, drew out a silver case, 
 selected a cigarette and jabbed it fiercely between his 
 lips. He did not light it. With the bearing of one 
 who is well rid of a bad situation, he strode out.
 
 IRON CITY 249 
 
 Margaret stood for a moment thoughtfully, then 
 she turned out the light. Going to the French win 
 dow, she unloosed the clasp, and stepped out on the 
 balcony. The night was dull and dark, and the lagoon, 
 save for splashes of color, seemed as leaden and un 
 fathomable as ever. She followed the balcony around 
 to the steps that led to the ground on to the tennis 
 court. Then she went hurriedly and purposefully 
 through the wet grass, brushing the sere bushes as she 
 passed, to a solitary bench by the water. Here she 
 sank down gratefully. The sky had opened, and a 
 star or two, and a crooked moon showed themselves. 
 Afar off as in a daze, she heard the clang of brass, 
 the clinkle of strings and the creak of floors under 
 swinging feet. 
 
 She was honestly trying to understand the situa 
 tion; she was groping as well as she might with her 
 imperfect equipment, toward a solution of this 
 dilemma in her young life. Hurried into maturity 
 by precocious passion, she was confused by the unex 
 pected paths that distended from passion s center. She 
 could not choose. 
 
 There was her father; he had once so loved her. 
 That congenital affinity which from baby-hood seemed 
 to unite them, had suddenly snapped and left them 
 groping. The great outer world of convention had 
 drifted between them, and she could not understand 
 how he could care more for a social law than for his 
 own daughter. And now his eyes hurt her. His 
 broken efforts to be as he always had been struck 
 terror in her heart. His allegiance to a social stand 
 ard of another day remained inexplicable to her. To 
 her it seemed that her father had never known about 
 life. He had wanted her to have happiness, but he
 
 250 IRON CITY 
 
 had not shown her how or where to find it All he 
 had ever said was, "Don t, don t, don t," until her 
 ears ached. All the pretty world of pleasure had 
 seemed closed by "don t." Then there was her mother 
 so spiritless, so utterly lost to life. Margaret, as she 
 thought on those two quenched lives at home, was 
 filled with pity and resentment and the hopeless fu 
 tility of turning back to them for aid. 
 
 She sat gnawing her nails, torn by the music from 
 the Club, and the swish of leaden waters before her. 
 She heard, too, above and beyond the brass and 
 strings, the pervading monotone of industry the 
 whisper of wheels and whine of whistles expansive 
 and dim, the faint note of her environment. She had 
 known that factory all her life and only during the 
 strike had she ever failed to hear the beat of its wheels. 
 Could she look to it for help? Her hands clenched 
 at her face and she turned hot at the recollection of 
 old Sill s arrogance. How she hated him. His fac 
 tory had sucked her father dry and then scrapped 
 him! 
 
 As usual Margaret was not thinking. She could 
 not think; only aim to, and beat about in futile ef 
 forts to reason. She was drifting hopelessly along on 
 the river of images that flows through the subjective 
 world. 
 
 From the factory her mind flowed to that other 
 group of buildings on the hill, still and calm, under 
 the young moon, so aloof from the life that surged 
 around it. How impotent to help her the college 
 seemed in this complex crisis in relation with other 
 humans and with herself. Strange, when she thought 
 of the college, she always thought of Cosmus. 
 
 She recalled that meeting long ago on the road east
 
 IRON CITY 251 
 
 of the city, and his suggestion that they go to the 
 secluded cabin. What if she had gone? Would life 
 have been different? A wave of self-pity broke over 
 her, and she leaned against the cold bench and sobbed. 
 Cosmus had not helped her; no one had. She was 
 alone, lost. 
 
 With sudden resolution she stood up, and threw 
 off her heavy cloak. Her limbs were tense, like an 
 animal s, ready to leap as she stood looking down into 
 the pool. It was deep here she knew, for the heavier 
 launches came up from the river. She wondered how 
 quickly it would be over, whether she would strug 
 gle ; then as the cold wind struck her, she put her cloak 
 on again. It would help drag her down, she thought. 
 
 Calmer now, she had turned to leap into the water, 
 when her ear caught the persistent drumming of a 
 motor. Was a launch coming up the river? No, it 
 seemed behind her. Just behind. Just above. Sud 
 denly against the open sky she saw a flying shadow; 
 and then a floating rag against the moon and stars; 
 and then a vast leaf wafted eastward. Raymond in 
 his plane ! She followed his flight, all vibrancy. Sud 
 denly his motor seemed to stop, the great leaf swerved, 
 veered and disappeared in shadows behind the trees 
 across the river. How dangerous to fly at night. 
 Why wasn t he going toward the city ? 
 
 Margaret sat down on the bench trembling. A light 
 broke in upon her. Perhaps Raymond was running 
 away. She was all resentment toward him now. Until 
 this evening she had thought that she wanted to make 
 him suffer; but she had suddenly realized in that last 
 interview that after all what he felt or thought no 
 longer made any difference to her. She hated him for 
 his selfishness and for what he had done to her life,
 
 252 IRON CITY 
 
 for what he had made her suffer alone! If only he 
 were really gone she could forget and begin again ; she 
 need never be reminded of what had happened. After 
 all, what did it matter a little slip like that? There 
 was to be no baby no one need ever know. 
 
 If only he were really gone! She looked up in the 
 sky where he had disappeared suddenly she felt free 
 suddenly she chose to live. 
 
 Some one must have opened a window in the house, 
 for the music blew out to meet her mood. She must 
 be free! The moon and stars, the orchestra said so! 
 How she wanted to be happy! How she loved life! 
 Far away the foolish thought of death receded. She 
 knelt softly by the lagoon, and dropped her handker 
 chief into its waters, and bathed her burning face. 
 
 It made no difference. Who would say it did? 
 Who was to deny Margaret this easy egress from her 
 problem? After all it was not a matter of bad and 
 good. Only a simple matter of discrimination. It 
 was not what Margaret had suffered, it was only what 
 she had missed. 
 
 She went exultantly toward the house. On the bal 
 cony in a patch of shadow, a woman was standing 
 looking into the night. Margaret craved human inter 
 course. 
 
 "Oh, aren t you happy!" she cried impulsively. 
 
 "No, child, I can hardly say that I am," a voice re 
 plied. 
 
 And then Margaret saw that it was "that Sarah 
 Blackstone."
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 IT was broad daylight in Cosmus s room, clear and 
 quiet like the rare days of childhood. The post 
 man had just brought the mail. At the top of the 
 letter when he opened it he read in a strange hand 
 writing, "Sergeant Ezra Kimbark died with honor in 
 the recent offensive at ." 
 
 Cosmus held before him the saddest of all war s 
 ironies, a letter from the dead to the living. It seemed 
 to be poor Kimbark s daily jottings, made into a let 
 ter. He had written : 
 
 "I know your insatiable appetite for war stories; 
 you have read them all, so I am not going to enter 
 tain you with any close-ups of the front. My case is 
 pretty typical. War is all body. That I have found 
 out. I find myself overeating, lusting and under- 
 sleeping. The first relief I get from service, I gorge 
 myself on chocolate or wine and cakes if I can get 
 them; and I have a hard time turning away from 
 the women that infest all camps even the best. Life 
 is cheap as nothing else in the world, and therefore 
 one can t have very much respect for himself. It is 
 only during the infrequent lulls in the battle when 
 an unbelievable silence floats down on a fetid world, 
 and peace glides in that I ever seem myself; you 
 wouldn t know me. 
 
 "One dream has recurred nearly every time I sleep. 
 Myself falling in a charge. I always see him, Ezra 
 Kimbark, that was I, from the outside. I am the 
 
 253
 
 254 IRON CITY 
 
 i 
 
 spectator, never the participator in the battle and al 
 ways I fall from a bullet, face forward toward the 
 enemy s trench. 
 
 "Yesterday when we took ten yards of trench, I 
 saw a French boy refuse to plunge his bayonet into 
 the breast of an enemy, when he cried kamerad, 
 and lose his life from a bomb from somewhere be 
 hind. I bent over him. Don t stop, he cried, Tm 
 just a little out of luck. Go on, go on. He tried 
 to wave his arms. 
 
 "Sometimes one has insistent visions these come 
 at the most impossible moments; in an interval of 
 quiet, or in the rush and stir of charge. 
 
 "The other day when the Germans drove us back, 
 I was filled with the hallucination that I was accom 
 panied by a figure that was large and paternal, shel 
 tering me. I knew it was an illusion, and yet I liked 
 it. And more strange, I saw just behind me the ma 
 terialization of a picture I once had seen of Lin 
 coln high hat shawl about his shoulders, large and 
 paternal. We had not eaten anything for nearly three 
 days; got caught between fires, and you know they 
 say hunger produces visions. 
 
 "And yet I am not sure this Lincoln wasn t an ob- 
 jectification of my recent musings. All my life-long 
 I have been trying to find America, my country, and it 
 has only been in these few days of horror that I have 
 come into any realization of what America is to me. 
 I flatter myself that this is not merely the usual ex 
 perience of the expatriate, but peculiar to me. The 
 guns have pounded something into my head at last, 
 John. 
 
 "The tangled truth of the war reveals this fact: 
 Nations will no longer exist because of geographical
 
 IRON CITY 255 
 
 boundaries, or the natural bonds of race and tongue. 
 America is not fifty states, or the central part of North 
 America. She isn t even a language, or a form of 
 government. She is a current of ideas nothing more. 
 The Germans did right in emphasizing kultur at the 
 beginning of the war, for kultur, and not the Uber 
 Rhein States/ is Germany. And American kultur is 
 America. All that this movement toward interna 
 tionalism can mean, is reinterpretation of nationalism. 
 
 "We have been thing-minded in America, and im 
 agined that a pseudo-democracy and a million square 
 miles of pay-dirt made us America. We have neg 
 lected, too, the great embodiment of our kultur in 
 our native genius. Lincoln, with his passionate vision 
 and his practical power, his malice toward none and 
 his ability to prosecute the Civil War to a successful 
 conclusion, is American kultur incarnate. America, 
 formed of the liberals of the world, has shown a pro 
 pensity for putting into practice the loftiest concepts 
 acquired through world-experience. And the whole 
 question at stake is whether we prefer Lincoln to 
 Frederick the Great. This is a war of kulturs. 
 
 "What of America and the war? 
 
 "Turned a preacher, haven t I? why shouldn t I? 
 That you at home should see this in time is worth 
 something more to me than my miserable life. 
 
 "I have thought a good deal lately about my talk 
 with you just before I left, my whining and groaning 
 all that sort of thing. I guess I must have been 
 weepy-drunk and I have concluded that I was not 
 so much of a poet as I thought I was. If I had been, 
 I should have created something in spite of the Sills 
 and Crandons that rule America. And yet I still hold 
 a grudge. I had as much genius as John Hay, born
 
 256 IRON CITY 
 
 ten miles from my home, and he succeeded. All of 
 which seems petty in the light of this candle, here in 
 this dug-out, amidst the bellowing of these guns." 
 
 Here the scribbling stopped. The letter remained 
 unfinished. There were enclosed a few details from 
 the sender about how Kimbark had met his death, his 
 popularity in the squad, and his unfailing good humor. 
 That was all. 
 
 So Kimbark was dead! The news was not a sur 
 prise and yet it was particularly disconcerting to Cos- 
 mus. It seemed at the moment of its coming, the last 
 straw of grief in a burden of heavy sorrows. Cosmus 
 was sick at heart. 
 
 There are some natures who find their happiness in 
 the farther reaches of the spirit; in patriotism and in 
 religion, and love of humanity. Cosmus was of such 
 disposition. It seemed more important to him that 
 justice triumph than that his own body be comfortable. 
 
 Unfortunately the modern world furnishes such a 
 mind as his with a medium for watching the progress 
 of justice in the world; the newspaper with its chron 
 icle of events is but a mirror of human society. With 
 a perverse gift of imagination, Cosmus lived through 
 every event recorded until his mind was a convulsive 
 heap of tragic stories. Rape of Belgium, German 
 atrocities, Armenian disasters, strikes, riots, plagues 
 and poisonings; the continual thwarting of the wish 
 of the majority by the few, the cunning, the bribery 
 of the ruling class; an impending national crisis of 
 portentous implications, restive classes, and at home 
 in Iron City, Walt Kuhns, mangled and broken; the 
 city gagged by the patrol of injustice. Now Ezra 
 Kimbark s death! 
 
 Tears? John Cosmus had not cried for years. His
 
 IRON CITY 257 
 
 grief was not of that sort, but he felt the brooding, 
 smoldering sorrow of intense contemplation. 
 
 His mind was seismographic in its recording of 
 world tremors; and the incoming year of 1917 seemed 
 full of grave forebodings. This weight of the uni 
 versal, resting heavily on his mind, told on his physical 
 strength. He found himself going home from classes 
 utterly fatigued, and Sarah Blackstone told him he 
 looked ten years older. He could not rest. His sleef) 
 was broken and fretful. His mind was a cinema of 
 frightful close-ups. More than ever he craved amuse 
 ment, relaxation and play, and yet every effort to get 
 away from the sorry circle of ideas he counted wasted. 
 He took pleasures guiltily. 
 
 His only reading was newspapers. Newspapers ob 
 sessed him. Through them he watched every move 
 of the opposing armies on the Western front, and 
 when the morning paper was read he waited for the 
 noon edition, and passed, after its perusal, to antici 
 pation of the evening. 
 
 In keeping with the popular vogue of vers libre he 
 became addicted to the habit, and drolly conscious of 
 his unscholarly effort, set down lines to "The News 
 paper." They were of no interest, except as repre 
 sentative of his intimate union with the world. He 
 wrote : 
 
 "I rush out of my house, 
 
 And drag you in, 
 
 You foul thing: 
 
 Reeking with the sweat and filth, 
 
 The putrid slime of all the dirty world. 
 
 I devour you through my eyes, 
 
 Incorporate you into my life: 
 
 Incorporate you into our composite life.
 
 258 IRON CITY 
 
 Why do I lust after scandal, and you. 
 
 Man s poor failures, miserable delinquences, tragic 
 
 horrors and you. 
 Why can t I rest until I have brought you in!" 
 
 Cosmus did not show his "poem" to any one; it 
 might have been better if he had. He was fast losing 
 grip on social principles, and he needed the steadying 
 experience of laughter at himself. 
 
 He went to see Walt Kuhns, who gave him deep 
 concern. He was allowed to be with the leader of 
 the strikers only for a few minutes and the visit was 
 unsatisfactory. Though Kuhns had recovered con 
 sciousness in the three days intervening, he still was 
 weak and still spit blood. He seemed pitiably insen 
 sible to the fact that the strike had utterly failed. On 
 the table was a pad of paper and a pencil. 
 
 "I m glad you came, Comer," he whispered. Then, 
 seeing Cosmus s questioning glance, said, "The De 
 fense comes out just the same, you know." But it 
 didn t, Cosmus knew. That was only a merciful fic 
 tion which the nurses had fabricated. 
 
 From the hospital that night, he went forth out 
 wardly calm, but inwardly troubled. It s so hidden 
 this tragedy of daily life this slow invisible burning 
 at the center of personality with no outward vent. 
 One can carry grief and transact the surface duties 
 of daily routine, with no more manifestation than 
 quickened pulse, heightened blood 1 pressure or un 
 changing color in the cheek. Even these evidences 
 were not present in Cosmus. His trouble manifested 
 itself only in hopeless wrath, deep enervating anger, 
 at forces that pinioned Kuhns to his bed; in a petty 
 aversion for the crowds and jungle of the city.
 
 IRON CITY 259 
 
 "God! what a noise!" he thought. "The people are 
 so aimless. They push so! There is no room on the 
 sidewalks. Those mustard colored coats are hideous. 
 Women will show their ankles. I must get out of 
 this quick, or I ll smother." 
 
 He turned off Main Street, and thought of home. 
 Then, he knew he would not sleep. He must go on. 
 He must tramp, tramp, tramp until he was tired. He 
 was not tired now, only nervous. And he had a head 
 ache, too. 
 
 He craved something. What was it? Ah, he knew. 
 A talk, a rousing talk with a friend on some such ab 
 stract theme as "Is suicide ever legitimate?" With 
 a friend ? Say, with Kimbark. 
 
 Then his mind jerked back to the letter he had re 
 ceived that morning, and to the bitter realization 
 more keen than at any time that day that Kimbark 
 would not ever talk with him again. 
 
 His mind resumed its pounding. Yes, the war had 
 brought changes even in the city. There s millionaires 
 row yonder built out of munitions. Every brick in 
 
 those mansions is a human life. And Mrs. B says, 
 
 "If the war holds out another year, we ll be multi 
 millionaires." 
 
 But this will not do. One s mind must have rest. 
 Play is an excellent tonic. One should play. He 
 would go and get Sarah Blackstone. He retraced his. 
 steps, turned up the chief residential street, and in the 
 course of ten minutes stood before Sarah s door. 
 
 Once there, he could not go in and he felt a strong 
 resentment toward her. He had been quite right, 
 Sarah was all mind. She lacked warmth, humanity, 
 body or something. But he loved her. Yes, he loved 
 her but he would not marry her. Some one, per-
 
 260 IRON CITY 
 
 haps Sidney Haynes, would do that. He turned back 
 and went over to the park and sat on the bench be 
 neath the statue of R. Sill, the first, where they had 
 sat together the first night three years ago. They 
 had seemed so near then, and now their relations were 
 just a long series of vain gropings toward each other. 
 But he wanted her. He needed her. 
 
 Why couldn t she be like his mother? Why couldn t 
 he go to her to-night now and creep into her arms 
 and feel the quietude of deep maternity? Instead, if 
 he went she would make him think, and arouse his 
 will to action and make him feel that he must do some 
 thing at once or the world would tumble, a black cin 
 der, into a sea of oblivion. 
 
 No, he didn t want Sarah to-night. He wanted rest. 
 
 He sat on the bench in the deserted park for perhaps 
 an hour. "Trying to relax," he called it; and then a 
 loaded street-car jangled by ; above the wheels he could 
 hear the laughter of people in pursuit of pleasure, and 
 he could see that not all were going home from toil. 
 In that moment the crowds seemed identified with 
 himself in want, and hunger for something, they knew 
 not what. 
 
 He arose, and followed the path, crisp under foot 
 with bronze oak leaves, down through the hollow in 
 the park, across the street, through a darker street, 
 across the railroad tracks, out into the open country. 
 Near a creek, that found its destination in Bass River 
 below, he discovered a sycamore tree, ghost-like, in 
 the dark, its roots spread out like a woman s skirts. 
 He sat down on these roots in utter fatigue, and 
 waited. 
 
 His mind worked in and out of problems, experi 
 ences, memories and impressions. He thought of the
 
 IRON CITY 261 
 
 day now nearly ten years before, when he had climbed 
 the telephone post, tapped the trans-continental wire, 
 and had got his inspiration to go to college. He 
 thought of college, graduate school, his hopes for edu 
 cation, Margaret Morton, Raymond Sill, Walt Kuhns, 
 Ezra Kimbark, President Crandon, these vivid per 
 sonalities that crowded his life and then the factory 
 whose faint clangor he could still detect in the 
 night; and the war. How different, how vastly dif 
 ferent the world was now from the world as it then 
 seemed to be ! 
 
 In some moment of this thinking he became aware 
 of the vast night stretching around him, the earth so 
 wide and patient, the stars, infinite and tender, the 
 expansive stillness of the world. The valley yonder, 
 the heavy speech of the running water, the city lights 
 behind they, too, were part of the peace of the wider 
 upper universe. Behold, the night was paternal and 
 enfolding. 
 
 Suddenly as he sat there all fatigue was gone. It 
 slipped from him mysteriously. He was strong, ca 
 pable. Even the war that inexplicable orgy seemed 
 potential with good. Somewhere in his thinking, some 
 idea, some raveling of feeling, had brushed his soul 
 clean of fear, anguish and hatred. He had let go and 
 slipped into Life. 
 
 At length he remembered: that cleansing thought 
 was the thought of God. 
 
 Behind him, breaking the stillness, he heard a voice 
 calling far away, indistinct, then nearer. Rested, 
 he arose, and went toward the city. As he approached, 
 he could detect the words borne by the voice : "Extra, 
 Extra." 
 
 Should he buy a newspaper ? Yes, he was strong to
 
 262 IRON CITY 
 
 face reality again. An extra edition of the Republic- 
 Despatch gave another start to Iron City s jaded at 
 tention. The headlines read : 
 
 MILLIONAIRE S SON MISSING 
 
 Raymond Sill, Only Son of the Head of Iron 
 City s Premier Manufacturing Establish 
 ment, Disappears 
 
 NOT SEEN FOR THREE DAYS 
 
 FOUL PLAY ON PART OF 
 
 STRIKERS FEARED 
 
 WALT KUHNS MAY HAVE INSTIGATED REVENGE WILL BE PUT 
 UNDER SURVEILLANCE 
 
 "Here is hell to pay," Cosmus thought. "If Walt 
 Kuhns is held in any way responsible for this, all hu 
 man justice fails. How utterly, how criminally pre 
 posterous." 
 
 But what was to be done? Who dared to affront 
 the law, or who was subtle enough to thread the webby 
 forces that lay behind the Law? "That damned Ray 
 mond Sill, he deserved all he got, whatever it was. He 
 was wicked all through," Cosmus thought resentfully. 
 
 But did that touch the problem? In searching for 
 a solution, he thought of Hugh Crandon before he 
 saw his tall form ahead of him in the thinning crowds. 
 It took but a minute to overtake the president, present 
 his request, and march along with the affable gentle 
 man to his palatial office.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 DO you smoke?" 
 With a flourish President Crandon took a box 
 of fine cigars from his desk and offered them to his 
 caller. 
 
 "I keep these here for my trustees when they call; 
 of course, I don t use the weed." 
 
 Cosmus declined the luxury, and wondered how 
 any one could imagine that Crandon would taint his 
 elegant lips with tobacco. 
 
 "Look over this, then, will you for a moment, Mr. 
 Cosmus? I was just on my way to the office when 
 you accosted me, and I should like to get some work 
 out of the way first." 
 
 President Crandon was handing a copy of "The 
 Classical Ideal" toward his guest. Cosmus took the 
 book, opened it casually, but occupied his mind with 
 his own reflections. 
 
 The office of President Hugh Crandon always 
 seemed so impossibly shiny, so unused and unusable, 
 so formidable and uninviting to John Cosmus that he 
 smiled at his own temerity in approaching the head of 
 Crandon Hill College. Yet he did not about-face. 
 
 Something had happened to him that night. The 
 deep emotionalism into which war and the death of 
 Ezra Kimbark had plunged him, had passed at length 
 into fighting spirit. If this office, finer even than 
 R. Sill s, was just like its owner, showy and formid 
 able, still it could not turn Cosmus back from the 
 
 263
 
 264 IRON CITY 
 
 job in hand. Walt Kuhns must be saved the least in 
 convenience now; and it was time, moreover, that 
 Cosmus make himself felt in this institution. He was 
 beginning to forsake the role of spectator, for that of 
 actor. 
 
 Piqued, too, by curiosity, a curiosity that had never 
 forsaken him in these years at Crandon Hill College, 
 Cosmus was anxious to peep behind that mask of 
 immobility that President Crandon wore. 
 
 What was this Puritan s will to power? What 
 logic could sustain the actions of this petty monarch 
 of this little world? 
 
 Cosmus, student of society that he was, had his 
 own pet theories about President Hugh Crandon. He 
 had evolved them months previous, when he learned 
 that Reverend Mr. Crandon had called on a young in 
 structor and demanded that he have children, and that 
 he, Crandon, often dictated just what the few women 
 teachers should wear. The era just past, the student 
 of society cogitated, was especially conducive to grow 
 ing a variety of despots in the national garden. Men 
 addicted to the disease of power were common ; what 
 R. Sill was in civil life, Crandon was in domestic. 
 R. Sill chose to dictate public morals, Hugh Crandon 
 to regulate private manners. For to Cosmus, Cran 
 don had always seemed bent on weaving and preserv 
 ing a network of personal relations. Form, manners, 
 the machinery of life, never its spirit and principle, 
 seemed his chief concern. He chose his faculty 
 from among the husbands of his wife s friends, or 
 from the sons of eminent professors, who had gone 
 before; and he strove with all that in him lay to pre 
 serve that fine mass of college traditions which finally 
 resolved themselves into personal reminiscences, or
 
 IRON CITY 265 
 
 the history of a few illustrious families. Many a time 
 Cosmus had heard the president of Crandon Hill tell 
 how he had won the allegiance of so illustrious a 
 financier as R. Sill to a noble institution. There was 
 no out-looking vision in his educational addresses. 
 
 President Crandon seemed utterly suspicious of an 
 idea. An idea was so impersonal. It usually cut 
 through the fabric which he was energetically trying 
 to erect and worse it was no respecter of persons. 
 When Cosmus had gone to the president with a plan 
 for reaching the aliens in the city with elementary 
 courses in social hygiene, he had answered, "Well, 
 now that is a very novel idea, Mr. Cosmus, very novel 
 indeed, and I shall keep it in mind." 
 
 This mind must have been an inward-opening store 
 house, for no ideas ever got out. Cosmus often 
 thought, if an idea could be properly sexed, clothed 
 in immaculate linen, and presented at an afternoon 
 tea, or at a meeting of the board of trustees, then 
 Crandon might accept it, especially if it appeared with 
 proper references. But usually ideas appear in such 
 gross nudity, at such unexpected times, in such out 
 landish places, it were best to taboo them always. The 
 >old, the tried, the well-bred these must be the cus 
 tom of the college. At whatever cost, the fabric of 
 personal relations must not be rent. 
 
 And yet, when Cosmus saw President Crandon 
 turn toward him with the engaging smile which he 
 knew so well how to use, so infectious was the charm 
 of the man that he wondered if he had read the riddle 
 of his personality aright. 
 
 "And what can I do for you?" he asked. "It s a 
 pleasure to have you come in this way. I always 
 crave frank relations with my faculty."
 
 266 IRON CITY 
 
 This was disarming. If Cosmus had expected cold 
 ness and deceit, he was to be disappointed. 
 
 "I have come about the strike that is, the disagree 
 able aftermath of the strike." 
 
 "Yes, yes, it was very unpleasant, indeed vulgar 
 and damaging, wasn t it? Iron City has been very 
 fortunate up to this year to have no such disgraceful 
 labor disturbances. But it is all over now, I under 
 stand, and quite localized. No doubt, we can con 
 gratulate ourselves on our successful emergence from 
 this chaos, Mr. Cosmus." 
 
 Cosmus was astounded. Though he was armed 
 with previous impressions of Reverend Hugh Crandon, 
 still he could not adjust his mind readily to the presi 
 dent s easy acceptance of conditions as they were. 
 Surprise prompted him to put his remark in the form 
 of a question. 
 
 "So you, too, think it was spasmodic?" He was 
 thinking of R. Sill. 
 
 "What else? The working man has never been so 
 prosperous, so well-informed, and I should say so 
 content. It is only when he is tampered with by well- 
 intentioned but misguided reformers, who urge him 
 to break the law, that he becomes a nuisance. We 
 must have, therefore, laws to discipline the reformer. 
 And we will, no doubt." 
 
 Was this some colossal jest? Fresh from the sight 
 of Walt Kuhns, from the reality of war in Ezra Kim- 
 bark s death, as Cosmus was, to him President Cran 
 don seemed some poor automatic thing chanting plat 
 itudes. The riddle of his personality was more tangled 
 than ever. Cosmus had not lived long enough to know 
 that men can be good local citizens, and know nothing 
 of national problems or responsibilities. He did not
 
 IRON CITY 267 
 
 know that President Crandon gave widely to charity, 
 and was the donor of the very room at the free hos 
 pital where Walt Kuhns lay. He did not know that 
 he was the greatest authority on Church Law in Amer 
 ica. How could he gauge the struggle and heart-burn 
 ings that Hugh Crandon had suffered to keep alive 
 this institution in an inimical industrial environment? 
 All Cosmus could feel was indignation and despair; 
 the impulse to strike, and the temptation to flee, and 
 his only thought was, "Can all this suffering be for 
 nothing?" 
 
 There was abrupt silence in the room, for Hugh 
 Crandon was waiting for his caller to speak. But 
 John Cosmus did not speak. Instead he arose as if to 
 go, hopeless of presenting his plea to such a judge. 
 Then the president said : 
 
 "I am glad you brought up the strike, Mr. Cosmus, 
 for it gives me an opportunity I have long wanted." 
 
 He paused; Cosmus braced himself. "If he re 
 bukes me," he thought, "I ll flail him." 
 
 "Of discussing," Crandon continued, "your con 
 nection with it. It has been a matter of great pain 
 with me, with all of us faculty and trustees alike, 
 that you have transgressed though not maliciously, 
 I know the noble traditions of the college by abetting 
 law-breakers. But I have been patient. I have re 
 membered your youth, and your ability, and in the 
 face of strong opposition have clung to you, for I have 
 been confident that in the end you would put yourself 
 in harmony with the large historical background of the 
 institution." 
 
 President Crandon was almost warm in his manner 
 and he allowed the ghost of a good-humored smile to 
 flit across his impassive countenance, as he continued :
 
 268 IRON CITY 
 
 "You see, I am something of a radical after all. I 
 include radicals. When I find a man opposing me, 
 I draw a circle and take him in. I can t hate him, you 
 know ; that wouldn t be Christian." 
 
 "The genteel tradition in American life," Cosmus 
 inwardly commented, "is here embodied admirably 
 in you, and is this the key to your riddle?" But he 
 answered innocently : 
 
 "Couldn t you draw a circle, and take Walt Kuhns 
 in, too?" 
 
 Crandon s placidity snapped. 
 
 "No," he answered sharply, "he is outside the law 
 and all human respect." 
 
 "But he stands for the new day." 
 
 "That s just it. The new! The new! A man is 
 sufficiently condemned nowadays if he does not seek 
 to put into practice every random idea of an irrespon 
 sible tramp. A man is nothing nowadays unless he is 
 in accord with the new era an era of mad chaos, 
 cheap morals and ugly manners. A man is subject to 
 the criticism of every callow youth if he does not fa 
 miliarize himself with every fashionable cult, every 
 social theory, every literary whimsy, every transient 
 morality whether they run counter to age-old prin 
 ciples or not. What would become of the world if it 
 were swayed by every vagrant mind? This institu 
 tion, Mr. Cosmus, stretches back into the past for 
 over a century; I expect it to stretch for 
 ward into the future, endlessly. Can it endure if it 
 flirts with ignorance? Should it shuffle off its her 
 itage to take on the social theories of a Walt Kuhns? 
 I have received this institution as a sacred trust from 
 the hands of noble ancestors; I have slaved under its 
 burdens, in the face of a thousand crises, to hand it on
 
 IRON CITY 269 
 
 untouched by the ephemeral to the future. Colleges 
 
 must embody the tried, the right, the eternal I 
 
 love this college, and by God! I shall protect it from 
 all adventurers." 
 
 Cosmus was deeply impressed for the moment by 
 the president s earnestness. For the first time he had 
 peeped behind the mask which Hugh Crandon wore. 
 But the imperturbable institutionalism of Crandon 
 was not sacrosanct to youth. 
 
 He answered hotly : "It is either hypocrisy or stu 
 pidity that can make you pretend that democracy is 
 not an age-old, well-tried principle; and Walt Kuhns 
 represents the new democracy and out yonder in the 
 world that you ignore, masses of men are preparing 
 to burn this sacred institution down about your ears, 
 if you don t listen. Education is for all, not some." 
 
 And he turned on his heel and walked out. Then, 
 pausing in the hall, he retraced his steps to add another 
 word. In the doorway he paused. The form he had 
 left so proud and defiant was crumpled in a chair, 
 old wrinkled hands pressed tightly against forehead, 
 eyes closed, lips mumbling as in prayer. Had the 
 cause of Walt Kuhns won? Cosmus backed out 
 thoughtfully. 
 
 Cosmus did not leave the administration building 
 which contained the office of Hugh Crandon without 
 a sense of awe at the unavoidable pain of the world. 
 He could not soon forget the anguish on the old pres 
 ident s face, and he would have willingly spared him 
 that but there was a new generation the breed of 
 Walt Kuhns which must be looked after. Youth, 
 impatient and strong. Ah ! there is nothing so cruel as 
 youth save, perhaps, old age. 
 
 It was not yet ten o clock when Cosmus turned in
 
 270 IRON CITY 
 
 at the Y. M. C. A. At the desk the clerk told him 
 to call 2440. 
 
 2440? Who was that? Then he remembered 
 Margaret Morton. 
 
 "How long ago was this call rung in ?" he asked. 
 
 "About ten minutes ago and she seemed awfully 
 anxious." 
 
 Cosmus called Morton s and had Margaret on the 
 wire at once. She wanted him to "come up now 
 at once please." With some reluctance he decided 
 to go, not without misgivings, however. He remem 
 bered; and as he walked along he discovered that the 
 old fragrant charm of Margaret still lingered near 
 him. 
 
 She opened the door before he could ring the bell, 
 and ushered him into the dim empty parlor. He looked 
 around expectantly, and she explained that her father 
 and mother had gone to a neighbor s. 
 
 "They don t go anywhere any more unless I urge 
 them." She paused. Cosmus was conscious of the 
 murmur of her silken skirts. "And besides, I wanted 
 to talk with you alone." 
 
 Cosmus marveled at her. Her face was paler and 
 thinner, and she looked older, yes, and her figure was 
 matured, but the old unfathomable witchery of eyes, 
 bosom and hair had not faded in the slightest. Mar 
 garet Morton would always be a beautiful woman, 
 yes, and a dangerous one. She sat easily on the edge 
 of the chair, after the first conventional greeting, not 
 embarrassed (Margaret never was) but sunk into 
 thought fulness a state quite unnatural to her. In 
 his heightened imagination, she seemed like a gay 
 butterfly, water-soaked and wind-blown in some dark 
 retreat. Suddenly she explained why she had sent for
 
 IRON CITY 271 
 
 him. She said, without perturbation save for a quick 
 fluttering, sideways glance : 
 
 "Oh! Professor Cosmus, I m afraid Raymond Sill 
 is dead." 
 
 "Dead? What do you mean?" he answered. 
 
 "Killed. I ve always been afraid he would be. He 
 was so reckless. I ve warned him, but he paid no at 
 tention. He said he had a hunch he couldn t be and 
 all that. Now I m afraid he is dead." 
 
 "You re excited and perhaps justt imagining Stj. 
 What makes you think so?" 
 
 "No, I m calm," she answered, "and I think I m 
 glad. You see, he was not very good to me." 
 
 Then she told him, not too coherently, of when she 
 had last seen Raymond three nights before at the 
 Country Club: she said nothing of their quarrel, but 
 she told him of the aeroplane against the moon, tipsy, 
 careening into the shadow of the trees. 
 
 "You see, I thought it always flew that way until 
 I read this." She held up the extra edition of the 
 Republic-Despatch. "And then I remembered it did 
 seem funny even then and how something took hold 
 of me here inside, some fear some joy. Oh, to think 
 he may be lying out there now !" 
 
 "This is serious, Margaret. Have you called up 
 the police?" 
 
 "I didn t dare. Maybe he s in Chicago, only gone 
 away, and then he would laugh at me." 
 
 "But a man s life might hang on this information; 
 perhaps " 
 
 She looked up, startled. 
 
 "Raymond s, you mean?" 
 
 "No; some one must be held." 
 
 "But I want you to go and look for Raymond. It s
 
 272 IRON CITY 
 
 just out Trimway Road, next to the big hill. Can t 
 you go, won t you go, now? At once early in the 
 morning?" 
 
 "I ll go on one condition, Margaret that I can no 
 tify the police of my intentions. Let s see to-mor 
 row s Friday. I have only one class, but there s regu 
 lar faculty meeting. Still, I ll go. Of course, I ll go." 
 
 "I knew you would help me." 
 
 He made her go into details as to the approximate 
 position of the falling plane. "Wait, couldn t you go 
 with me?" he interrupted. 
 
 She shrank back, visibly startled. 
 
 "No, oh no. We might find him." 
 
 The look on her face the fear, awe, amazement, 
 were almost laughable. 
 
 At the open door they paused for a moment, look 
 ing out. The mild December night, the same that had 
 enfolded John two hours before in the bliss of solitude, 
 enfolded them both now. How responsive nature can 
 be, colored by human moods. The night, which two 
 hours ago seemed to him paternal, now was palpitant 
 with passion. 
 
 "Almost like spring," Margaret said, "and there s a 
 moon." 
 
 "It s been a wonderful day," he answered. 
 
 She came close to him and looked out. They stood 
 for a moment crowded in the frame of the door, think 
 ing of other such moments, and the might-have-beens 
 of the yesterdays. She laid a warm, soft hand on 
 his arm, and said : 
 
 "Do you think, Professor Cosmus, that a girl who 
 has committed a great, great wrong, ever has a right 
 to marry?"
 
 IRON CITY 273 
 
 Somehow the question did not come as a surprise to 
 him. It was the kind of a question he would expect 
 of Margaret. She was looking up at him eager, deep- 
 eyed, receptive; he marked how her bosom curved 
 under the sway of her breath. Margaret was serious. 
 
 "Why, of course, all of us sociologists believe that, 
 provided " 
 
 "Provided what?" 
 
 "Well, that she doesn t make the same mistake over, 
 is refined and chastened by her first experience, and 
 perfectly frank in her confession of fault." 
 
 "I confess, then," she answered softly. "Raymond 
 was the man, and if you find him dead " 
 
 He did not get the full significance of her quick 
 retort at first, and when he did, he trembled wonder- 
 ingly, drew back, afraid of her challenge, and pushed 
 past her to the walk. He stopped there, for she was 
 saying almost with something of her old gayety : 
 
 "Aren t you going to say good-night?" 
 
 "Good-night, Margaret and don t marry too 
 quickly, not unless the right man comes along." 
 
 She did not answer. He heard the door close be 
 hind her. 
 
 In his room, a quarter of an hour later, the open 
 letter of Ezra Kimbark recalled the grief that had 
 started the day. He threw himself, without undress 
 ing, full length upon the bed. 
 
 "What a day it has been !" he said. 
 
 It seemed to him that he had experienced all things 
 in that narrow cycle of twelve hours grief, exalta~ 
 tion, hate, love no, not love he had not seen Sarah 
 Blackstone. 
 
 Hours later, when he arose to undress, he could
 
 274 IRON 
 
 see from the open window the streets below, and far 
 across the city, above the silent houses, in the moon 
 light, the expansive fields and the hills so enduring 
 and so still.
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 THE next morning Cosmus donned his corduroy 
 hunting suit, took his gun, and after a light 
 breakfast set out to follow up Margaret Morton s clue. 
 He stopped at the police station and placed his evidence 
 before the chief. Contrary to his expectations, he 
 found the officer more than interested. 
 
 "I never did believe that the strikers had anything 
 to do with the boy s disappearance. Kuhns wouldn t 
 have stood for it it hain t like him anyway," Chief 
 Garrigan said. 
 
 "You know him, then?" 
 
 "Every one does." 
 
 "And the strike has fallen through completely?" 
 
 "They closed the Labor Defense office yesterday." 
 
 Chief Garrigan was giving orders as he spoke, and 
 two officers and a machine soon stood at the door. 
 The men were introduced as Officer Clark and Officer 
 Stillson. Cosmus at once agreed with them that they 
 should all part company at the Stillwell farms, which 
 lay across the river from the Country Club, and comb 
 the land thoroughly for sight of the fallen plane. All 
 three were to keep in touch with each other by report 
 ing every hour or so by rural telephone to Chief Gar 
 rigan. 
 
 Iron City was hardly awake when they left the 
 town and followed the winding river road north. As 
 they climbed the ridge they saw across the still water, 
 Sill s factory smoking at their feet and Cosmus won- 
 
 275
 
 276 IRON CITY 
 
 dered if Raymond s father had gone down to work 
 yet. Of what was the great power thinking now? 
 
 Clark and Stillson, not inclined to include "the per 
 fessor" in their talk, were discussing that very point. 
 
 "The old man," Clark was saying, giving his stiff 
 thumb a jab toward the factory, "don t say much, but 
 I guess he feels it, though." 
 
 "I heard he laid it on the election," answered Still- 
 son maliciously. "He thinks the world is coming to 
 the end, now that Hughes got it in the neck." 
 
 "He told Daggett yesterday that he would have 
 rather lost the strike than his boy." 
 
 "I suppose so, but he didn t bring him up right. 
 That boy ought to have been in France this very day." 
 
 "Then he would have been a sure enough goner." 
 
 "But that s different." 
 
 The machine had cut down through a valley where 
 a few banks of snow choked the hollows, and had left 
 the smoking factory behind. The morning was clear 
 and still, the crows flapped over the brown fields, and 
 Cosmus was conscious again of the teasing wires run 
 ning along ahead of them, in undeviating lines, on and 
 on. What did the River of Wires mean to him ? Was 
 this common thing his beauty? He concluded, "Eve 
 ry one must have his moments of mysticism and those 
 wires give mine to me." 
 
 At the Stilwell farms, the officers were inclined 
 to kid "the perfessor" about his gun. 
 
 "Perfessor," said Clark, "I have a feeling in my 
 bones that you will find the corpse. You won t get 
 scairt, will you, at the sight of a body, being not used 
 to it? A dead body gives queer feelings, you know." 
 
 "Oh, you forget the gun, Stillson," put in Officer 
 Clark.
 
 IRON CITY 277 
 
 "If I find it, gentlemen, I shan t need the gun, you 
 know." 
 
 "Save for the crows; they re nasty birds," Stillson 
 returned. 
 
 "And say, Perfessor, there are some old quarries 
 off there near the river; don t you be falling into them, 
 and breaking your neck." 
 
 Cosmus replied pleasantly: "To be frank, men, I 
 don t believe any of us will find Raymond. After all, 
 Miss Morton has very little reason to believe she saw 
 the plane fall. It s what you call a hunch, you know. 
 Now, look, it would be that spot over yonder, accord 
 ing to her description. Just in line with that old 
 sycamore tree." 
 
 They made for that section of the field lying along 
 the wood, but they saw only bare ground. Farther 
 on they saw something which looked like debris, but 
 it proved to be only an old white log. They moved 
 off from this center in diverging radii, scanning every 
 foot of ground. It was slow and harrowing work. 
 John could see that the officers even in spite of their 
 jocularity were sobered by the thought of coming 
 upon the soulless body of a man. John himself felt 
 uncomfortable, and the thought crossed his mind that 
 this must be the way scavengers feel; crows were 
 flapping blackly across the white hollows of the wood. 
 He did not allow the distaste, however, to decrease 
 his watchfulness. Conscientiously, rod by rod, he 
 scanned every field and wood in turn, moving far off 
 from the others until about noon, when he came upon 
 a farm house. 
 
 He entered and called Chief Garrigan. The chief 
 advised him to come in. 
 
 "Clark and Stillson have been in for half an hour,"
 
 278 IRON CITY 
 
 he told Cosmus. "They said that they had combed 
 their two sections with a fine-toothed comb, and found 
 nothing. We ll send a machine for you." 
 
 "Never mind about the machine and tell Clark," 
 Cosmus replied, "that I was wise after all about the 
 gun. For if I can get a bite to eat, I m going hunting. 
 I ll send him some game." 
 
 The farmer s wife had already set out ham and 
 eggs and buckwheat cakes with thick corn-syrup on 
 the table, and when Cosmus had satisfied his hunger, 
 he went out into the fields again with none of his old 
 feelings of awe. He was done with this gruesome 
 business, and the sun was glistening on river and 
 field and wires and he was strong. 
 
 As he walked along he thought of Walt Kuhns. He 
 must devise a way of saving Kuhns from any impli 
 cation in a murder for vengeance. But how? He 
 racked his mind in vain. After an hour of fruitless 
 devising, under the spell of rhythmic walking, he 
 slipped into a more pleasant vein of thought. Reced 
 ing far behind him were the city, the strike, the war, 
 and he carried something of the sense of aloofness to 
 life, a mood which had come to him so vividly the night 
 before when he had sat alone under the sycamore. He 
 saw that Walt Kuhns was not to be greatly pitied 
 even if the strike had failed, for his day was coming, 
 was dawning, even as Sarah Blackstone had declared. 
 He saw, too, more plainly than he ever had before, 
 that Kuhns had within himself the profound poten 
 tialities of happiness. He was self-urged, and noth 
 ing no, not even Sill, or the defection of the strikers 
 could touch the leader. It seemed, too, to Cosmus 
 as he recalled Kuhns so noble in form that nature 
 itself had favored this man whom society had cast
 
 IRON CITY 279 
 
 out. From these thoughts he passed to Sarah again. 
 He had seen her only once in the five days since the 
 fracas at Boyne s shops; she had recovered from the 
 shock completely, but she was not going back to 
 Boyne s office. "I just can t, John," she had said. 
 Cosmus remembered these words vividly now, and 
 the look of pure helplessness in her eyes. "I ve been 
 a fool," he thought. "I ll go to her to-night. How 
 lovely she is." 
 
 He must have been walking two hours, and he had 
 reached a large knoll; as he looked back he could see 
 no sign of the city, but strange to see, caught in the 
 contour of the hills, there was the Country Club miles 
 away. And when he turned to look forward he saw 
 beneath him a road and beyond a gray valley, bare 
 save for a great clump of tamarack trees, the kind 
 that appear occasionally in the Middle West. 
 
 He had not once thought of Raymond Sill or Mar 
 garet Morton since noon. As he came down the knoll, 
 he remembered them; but he had dismissed them 
 from his mind again by the time he reached the 
 fence that bordered the road. There was not a hu 
 man being nor a house in sight. Gray stillness nof 
 quite peace. 
 
 He put his hand on the fence post, to leap over, 
 but did not leap. A thought, irrationally emerging, 
 arrested him. It was of America. He had been 
 watching Washington narrowly since the recent elec 
 tion of Mr. Wilson, and he had detected an unwonted 
 nervousness on the part of the administration. What 
 did it mean? Then the thought, which had arrested his 
 leap. "What if Germany resumes unrestricted sub 
 marine warfare?" He leaned against the post. "War!. 
 But would America be ready?"
 
 280 IRON CITY 
 
 He clambered over the fence, and crossed the road, 
 for the first time aware that he was tired. If he 
 were going to get any game, he had better get it 
 quickly. He decided to skirt the tamarack grove on 
 the left, but found it much larger than he had thought. 
 He left the road behind and was about to plunge into 
 the woods when he came upon two country boys. They 
 seemed to be doing nothing. 
 
 "Any game hereabouts, boys?" he asked. 
 
 The older answered : 
 
 "Yes, in the woods, but you mustn t go in." 
 
 "Doesn t your father like to have hunters?" 
 
 "He don t care." 
 
 "Then why shouldn t I go where the game is?" 
 
 "It s haunted." 
 
 Cosmus smiled. 
 
 "Father told us all about it. A great white bird 
 was shot through the heart while it was still in the 
 air, and when a bird on the wing is shot through the 
 heart, its body flies straight up and its spirit comes 
 down to stay in the woods." 
 
 "But why should I fear the bird?" John answered, 
 "when I want a rabbit? Is there a road on the other 
 side that will lead me back to Iron City?" 
 
 "Sure, but it s shorter to go back that way," the 
 little boy answered, pointing over his shoulder. 
 
 John smiled, and started off pushing the bushes 
 aside with one arm. It was a good place for a ghost, 
 green and still, and now snow-covered. He had 
 not gone far when suddenly he was out in a circular 
 clearing, and he saw what he did not want to see. 
 The sight almost stopped his breath. There in the 
 white snow was something not snow or brush, with 
 something dark beneath it.
 
 IRON CITY 281 
 
 Shocked, he ran forward. Raymond Sill was lying 
 there. The fragile airship was now but a heap of 
 rags and staves; its occupant had evidently loosened 
 the straps, which held him in, and when the machine 
 struck, had fallen, dead before he lit, face forward, 
 one arm beneath his head as if asleep. There was 
 something pathetic in the posture. Cosmus bent over 
 the thing that had been life. Raymond s face was 
 bruised and grim and terrible. 
 
 The gun had fallen from the hunter s hand, and he 
 stood upright, wondering and helpless. He saw for 
 the first time why men praise the living after they 
 die. In truth it is but praise of death. This mysteri 
 ous going-away of the breath, this subtle thieving of 
 motion, light and energy one can not come into the 
 presence of this with evil upon his lips. Let the black 
 world of wrong recede far away from this all-master 
 ing mystery. The hunter looked around, and was 
 aware of the beauty of Raymond s sepulcher. The 
 falling plane had barely scraped the trees above and 
 brought the wayward occupant into a haven, still and 
 immortally green. But the loosened straps? Had 
 Raymond taken his own life? 
 
 Cosmus s thoughts went back to the morning, to 
 what Officer Stillson had said: "That boy ought to 
 have been in France this very day." That was the 
 pathos of it, the pathos of unfulfillment. Raymond, 
 the parasite, was parasite still. How different all 
 would have been, if he had been Pilot Sill of the 
 French Aviation Corps ! 
 
 These flashing thoughts left Cosmus with the real 
 ization that some one was tittering behind him. 
 
 Startled, he turned; it was only the two boys he 
 had left at the edge of the wood.
 
 282 IRON CITY 
 
 "Does it stink?" they called, and ran back tittering. 
 But one was pale and sick before he reached the covert 
 of the trees. 
 
 "Boys, boys," Cosmus called, "have you a phone at 
 your house? No, don t come back here. Lead me 
 to it." 
 
 He glanced again at the corpse, and then started 
 with the boys across the fields. They did not talk 
 much. The boys confessed that they had known that 
 the body was there. "We found it three days ago, 
 but was afraid to tell Dad, and Mother is sick of the 
 fever." That was all. 
 
 The winter s day was almost ended as they hurried 
 across the fields. The boys had to run to keep up 
 with Cosmus, who was busy with his own thoughts. 
 His mind, though clear, was not untroubled. He was 
 thinking; this heap of rags and sticks and bones, was 
 this all there was left of the proud human bird, which 
 sat upon a cloud and rode the ranging winds? How 
 like a fable of all our civilization; the vanity of flight; 
 the lofty fabric of man s scientific imagination 
 brought down to this overpowering bathos ! 
 
 In a few minutes he was talking to Chief Garrigan. 
 
 "I ve found him," Cosmus said. 
 
 "What? The king of the Jack-Rabbits?" the chief 
 bellowed good-naturedly. 
 
 "No, man, Raymond Sill dead." 
 
 "Honest to God? Where?" 
 
 "At Burgund s place six miles west of Stillwell 
 farms. Send an ambulance and help." 
 
 In two hours the sad cortege entered Iron City. 
 What the other men thought, Cosmus did not know, 
 but all he could think of was who was to tell R. Sill. 
 
 At the police station, besides the chief there was
 
 IRON CITY 283 
 
 Margaret, a very pale and restrained Margaret, and 
 her father, Carl Morton, dim and sad. 
 
 "Margaret thought that you would find him," Mor 
 ton said, "though it seems impossible." 
 
 "Has any one telephoned Mr. Sill?" Cosmus asked. 
 
 The chief and Morton looked at each other signifi 
 cantly. 
 
 "No doubt the chief has," Margaret answered. 
 
 "No," Carl Morton said slowly, "I told the chief 
 that I would go up. Mr. Sill has not treated us well, 
 but he s a father, too, and I m going up to him." 
 
 Carl said to the men hovering hesitantly around the 
 back of the ambulance, "Wait a few minutes, then 
 bring the body to his house." And Cosmus, somewhat 
 amazed at the turn events had taken, saw the foreman 
 fade away in the gathering darkness. 
 
 When he had told the chief the particulars of the 
 search; the accidental discovery of the body; when 
 he had described the spot in the tamarack wood where 
 the corpse lay; retold the story of the two boys; and 
 had offered the hypothesis of suicide, Cosmus added 
 thoughtfully : 
 
 "At any rate, chief, this clears Walt Kuhns." 
 
 Garrigan s eyes met his sharply for a moment and 
 turned away ; then he answered gruffly, 
 
 "Well, that won t make a damned bit of difference 
 now Kuhns is dead." 
 
 Cosmus wanted to say "No, no, that s unfair; that s 
 unjust." But he only looked blank and asked, "When? 
 How? I thought he was getting along all right." 
 
 "Just kind o faded away, I guess. A nurse found 
 him sitting up in bed, leaning against a pillow, stone 
 dead, an hour ago." 
 
 "I ll go over there," Cosmus answered.
 
 284 
 
 On the street, a few minutes after, he found him 
 self caught in the five o clock rush, but gratefully he 
 plunged into the current of humanity sweeping by. 
 He welcomed the contact wlith lifq. He enjoyed 
 touching elbows with living men. He delighted in 
 the faces of joy and eagerness flowing past. He felt 
 the old primordial joy of gregariousness, the sense of 
 companionship in time of trouble, the mystic union 
 through words unspoken, or hands untouched, with 
 brother souls everywhere. 
 
 How good, how common, how joyous was this 
 great turbulent sea of the general life. 
 
 And for the first time Iron City did not seem in 
 different to Walt Kuhns. It was Walt Kuhns, and he 
 was it. 
 
 The hush of carpeted corridors, the swish of muffled 
 doors, the tread of padded feet at the hospital fell 
 upon his senses with peculiar poignancy. It was al 
 most as good a place to die in as Raymond had had 
 yonder in the evergreen grove. Like a shuttle, Cos- 
 mus was weaving these two lives, so estranged, to 
 gether. Of this office he was conscious. Some sud 
 den flood of meaning enveloped life. The events of 
 the day were no longer mere links in a nightmare of 
 death, but great realities. Are all men thus lifted out 
 of the commonplace at sight of death? 
 
 A nurse explained to Cosmus that the hospital had 
 been trying to get in touch with him by telephone for 
 an hour; that Kuhns had died much as Chief Garri- 
 gan had said. She concluded, 
 
 "He must have been writing when his heart stopped. 
 We have left the papers just as he had arranged them 
 for you to see. You can come in." 
 
 She led the way to the room, which bore the plate,
 
 IRON CITY 285 
 
 though Cosmus did not know it, "The gift of Reverend 
 Hugh Crandon, LL.D." 
 
 He was grateful for the screens around the bed 
 that shut out the sight of the still thing behind. The 
 nurse left them alone. 
 
 Half-guiltily, he glanced at the papers. The)r did 
 not seem to be of much importance, just scribblings, 
 in the nervous, weak hand of a sick man. One seemed 
 to be an editorial. It was headed, 
 
 "WHO KEEPS THE LAW?" 
 
 Then followed a brief statement that R. Sill had 
 taken back to his factory all union men, provided they 
 made affidavits to the effect that they had severed 
 their allegiance to any and every labor organization. 
 
 Following this, in cold irony, was a section from 
 the injunction which Judge Dunbar had granted to R. 
 Sill, which had been served on the strikers on that 
 fatal afternoon of the riot. 
 
 "Or who shall coerce or compel any person to enter 
 into an agreement not to unite with or become a mem 
 ber of any labor organization as a condition of his 
 securing employment or continuing therein, shall be 
 punished by a fine of not more than $500 nor less 
 than a hundred dollars." 
 
 That was all. 
 
 Cosmus sought another page. Scrawled feebly 
 across its face was 
 
 "My eyes have seen the glory of the coming of " 
 
 The words trailed off into indecipherable marks. 
 But they had power to recall to Cosmus eight months 
 before, a night when he had heard a voice a man s 
 voice singing through the darkness. Had that voice 
 been the voice of Walt Kuhns?
 
 286 IRON CITY 
 
 Cosmus went softly into the hall and found a seat 
 in the shadow, where he could be quiet for a moment. 
 He saw the nurses, like white dreams, slipping silently 
 in and out of rooms. He heard a suppressed groan; 
 subdued laughter; hushed whispers. He caught the 
 cloying sweet of ether. He was bent on bringing his 
 mind back to normality, on seeing things as it was 
 fitting for a college professor, a student of society, 
 to see them. 
 
 He was surprised to discover how little he had seen 
 of Walt Kuhns; he was startled to find how near the 
 man was to him. That outlaw dead was to him like 
 a brother. In his death there was no pain, only the 
 full sense of possession, of having gained something. 
 He remembered the first time he had seen Kuhns at 
 the factory, cursing; he remembered the man s in 
 ability to remember his name; "Comer" he would say 
 invariably instead of Cosmus; he recalled his passion 
 ate allegiance to his Master; his patience, his capacity 
 for indignation, his cool logic, courage and fairness; 
 he remembered his eloquent face with the scar, and the 
 crown of gray hair. Cosmus found that he knew 
 this man better than he knew all his colleagues at the 
 college with whom he had daily intercourse. What 
 was Walt Kuhns s power? Was it giving all he had 
 for a cause? And his charm? That was a deeper 
 problem which belonged to the incalculable powers 
 of personality. But it was probably his gift for gre- 
 gariousness. He knew better than all other men the 
 common touch. And the common touch? Who had 
 it? Who, in this onrushing age of cities and inter 
 nationalism, dare be without it? 
 
 Cosmus s meditations were broken by the shriek 
 ing of factory whistles. They drove into that sub-
 
 IRON CITY 287 
 
 jective world of his the iron wedge of reality. Who 
 dare be without the common touch ? Such men as R. 
 Sill and Hugh Crandon? He, Cosmus, himself lacked 
 it pitiably. He himself lacked all of Kuhns s virtues, 
 his passionate surrender to a cause, his gift for gre- 
 gariousness. But he would lack them no more. He 
 could give something, too, to the age that was yet to 
 come. 
 
 It was about 5 130 ; there was a faculty meeting that 
 night, and he had time to bring Walt Kuhns to Cran 
 don HilL 
 
 As he went down the hospital steps, he met a line 
 of workmen from the factory, and they seemed, too, 
 almost like brother men.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 JUST as he was, in hunting suit of corduroy, fresh 
 from the deaths of Raymond Sill and Walt 
 Kuhns, with their profound significance, John Cos- 
 mus entered the meeting of Crandon Hill s faculty. 
 He was unaware that his tardiness and unusual cos 
 tume and his eerie appearance seemed singularly out 
 of place in that dignified assembly. He had forgotten 
 completely about them. He sat down in an obscure 
 corner trying to collect his thoughts, staring some 
 what blankly at the painting of Professor Mather, de 
 ceased, lately added to the walls, beside those dim 
 Puritanic faces of the other Mather, first president, 
 and the old philosopher, Professor Jason. To Cos- 
 mus, there was encouragement in the benignant face 
 of Professor Mather. 
 
 Across the room, Dean Georgia Summers was whis 
 pering to her neighbor, "It was just like that Mr. 
 Cosmus to plan this dramatic entrance. He is always 
 seeking the unusual." 
 
 For a moment Cosmus thought that the faculty had 
 deviated into a discussion of some essentials of educa 
 tion, for he heard many grandiloquent words concern 
 ing the "welfare of our students," the "psychic factors 
 in education," "the amenities of human life," "the 
 sine qua non and raison d etre of." But as 
 he became more familiar with the controversy, and 
 as his mind lost the edge of its excitement, he dis 
 covered that the question in hand was whether class- 
 
 288
 
 IRON CITY 289 
 
 bells should ring ten or seven minutes before the hour. 
 Over this all-important question, the faculty of the 
 college was divided, and the learned school men were 
 having the time of their lives. The somewhat fragile 
 nature of the subject did not deter them ; they showed 
 no pity; they allowed the glitter of their minds to play 
 in and out of the delicate fabric with all the brilliancy 
 of fine needle-like instruments. 
 
 Cosmus heard explained the science of bell-ringing, 
 the philosophy of bell-ringing, the psychology of bell- 
 ringing and the social etiquette of bell-ringing. No 
 one could question the excellence of the minds thus 
 employed ; here was masterful logic, splendid imagery, 
 and subtle reasoning. Here was the learning of twen 
 ty centuries, lifted to a crowning height by the sheer 
 intellectual force of thirty well-trained intellects, and 
 dashed upon a flea. It was as if Darwin were writ 
 ing his immortal book on whether five or six o clock 
 was the best time for dinner; it was as if Plato, lost 
 in the maze of scholasticism, were discussing the ques 
 tion of how many devils may dance on the point of a 
 needle; or as if Jesus were sitting with the Pharisees 
 in the temple drawing up a code forbidding the pluck 
 ing of corn on the Sabbath. It was all of this and 
 more. It was solemn, it was pompous, and bitter 
 with never a glint of the salt of humor. 
 
 But human nature is not made of iron, and after a 
 while the contestants wore themselves out, and the 
 ball of controversy, put so vigorously into play, came 
 back to rest. The resolution was laid on the table. 
 
 Then President Crandon, who had sat quietly 
 through the debate, asked passively if there were any 
 more business. There was a moment of silence in 
 which Cosmus suddenly found himself upon his feet
 
 290 IRON CITY 
 
 looking around into the faces of his colleagues. They 
 were not sympathetic faces nor even comprehending 
 faces; most of them were openly hostile or contemptu 
 ous. And for a minute, he looked uncertainly and 
 timidly around, as persons acting upon impulse often 
 do when facing an audience, and found himself won 
 dering foolishly and futilely, "Why am I standing up 
 here?" And he moistened his lips and said nothing. 
 
 But President Crandon had recognized him. Then, 
 gasping as one suddenly plunged into cold water, Cos- 
 mus began to speak quite automatically and with the 
 first word, uncertainty in his mind, like clouds, rolled 
 back and disclosed a discourse so orderly in plan that 
 he was surprised that it was his. 
 
 With the first sentence, he regained assurance, and 
 when Professor Erickson, on the other side of the 
 room, began to whisper and titter, he stopped short 
 and said : 
 
 "Mr. President, have I the floor?" 
 
 "You have." 
 
 "Then, if I am disturbed again, I shall take the in 
 terruption as a personal insult, and by all that s de 
 cent, I ll act accordingly." 
 
 There was no more disturbance. 
 
 It was not an oration that Cosmus was giving, but 
 a plain talk. It lacked the polish of either Pro 
 fessor Clarke s or Professor Erickson s set speeches. 
 Often it was disjointed, but as he progressed he found 
 that they were listening in spite of themselves. 
 
 * "Fellow-teachers, Americans," he began. "Gold- 
 miners in the Klondyke fields of Alaska have looked 
 across the frozen thread of Behring Strait, this winter, 
 
 * There is here no attempt to report John Cosmus s speech 
 in full.
 
 IRON CITY 291 
 
 and seen the great plains of Siberia towering away 
 in the distance. The farthest verge the last frontier 
 of this new world has suddenly come upon the back 
 door of the old; and for once, for the first time, in 
 the history of mankind, we are one world geographic 
 ally. The frontiers of the world are gone. Where are 
 the New Zealands, the Australias, the West of these 
 United States? Where are the new worlds for Eu 
 rope? Suddenly we people of this age are turned in 
 upon ourselves, face to face with the problem of 
 human relationships. No more, as our fathers did, 
 can the democrat secede from a native autocracy and 
 seek a new world, there to build a happier home. De 
 mocracy, liberalism, cooperation all the virtues of 
 the pioneer must fight now for existence throughout 
 the world. The frontiers are gone! 
 
 "Geographically one, the states of the world are 
 also a commercial unit. Interlocking directorates, 
 vast shipping interests, swift couriers of electricity 
 and steam, a flood of books, explorers and travelers, 
 have leveled all distances and made Pekin a suburb 
 of London. 
 
 "We citizens of Iron City God help us have 
 been given not a town but a world to live in. The 
 citizens of Berlin, Hull and Bordeaux have been given 
 the same world." 
 
 He paused and was aware of the stillness of the 
 room, and he wondered why his hearers did not in 
 terrupt. Their faces showed displeasure ; but no sound 
 came from them. The president lounged tolerantly 
 in his deep armchair. 
 
 "And we have no more known how to adjust our 
 selves to world-relationships than children would. The 
 world is geographically, commercially one, but the
 
 292 IRON CITY 
 
 world s people are more various than the world s races. 
 They are separated by corroding prejudice, and su 
 perstition, by medieval symbolism and prehistoric im 
 pulses, by barbaric ideals and predatory interests. The 
 art of erecting bonds between men, which is educa 
 tion, has not yet kept pace with the art of destroying 
 barriers between men, which is science applied. 
 
 "In the first experiment of living together we have 
 failed utterly, failed miserably, made angels weep, and 
 fallen to scrapping like school boys over the ruins of 
 the world. 
 
 "For Germany, the bully, with all gift for organiza 
 tion, has learned first how to live in gangs. An ex 
 pert in socialization, it has socialized more error than 
 truth. A super-trust, it would monopolize all trade. 
 A great community, it would Germanize the universe 
 by means of the sword. It is the narrow, local mind 
 of the villege butcher nationalized. It is the apotheo 
 sis of class-thinking. It is the dog-in-the-manger try 
 ing to ascend a world throne." 
 
 Here a thin rustle of applause blew about the room. 
 The audience seemed less impatient, less hostile, but 
 only for a moment. 
 
 "But not all Prussians live in Germany, not all 
 Prussians are Prussians by blood. We have Prus 
 sians in Iron City, in America. All men who stand 
 for class are Prussians. The misguided manufactur 
 ers, who broke the strike with the heavy rod of priv 
 ileged law, and destroyed Walt Kuhns, are Prussians. 
 We who in our Pharisaism closed Dover Street to 
 the traffic of aliens are Prussians. All men who are 
 not respecters of human personality of whatever color, 
 custom, race or religion are Prussians." 
 
 Dean Georgia Summers was fumbling with her hat ;
 
 IRON CITY, 293 
 
 Professor Erickson was drumming almost audibly 
 upon his teeth with the frayed end of a lead pencil; 
 President Hugh Crandon was sitting up straight 
 with flushed face. But no one interrupted. 
 
 "It is plain, gentlemen, that what is needed is a deep 
 abiding liberalism a flood of ideas of truth that 
 will make class-mindedness impossible. We must 
 erect bonds between men as fast as science destroys 
 barriers. We must increase justice. We must lay 
 bare the sham of democracy, the hypocrisy, that makes 
 us talk of the land of the free and then deprives men, 
 however humble, of the right of free labor. Our only 
 hope is to make our colleges evangels of world-mind- 
 edness." 
 
 Cosmus saw Professor Clarke raise his head as if 
 to deny, and his hands twitch nervously. 
 
 "Ah, yes, we speak of liberal education, better say 
 illiberal. How can this college be liberal, when R. 
 Sill,, if not in name, is in actuality the president of 
 this institution? How can the Crandon Hill of Pro 
 fessor Mather be liberal if it closes its gates to Serb 
 and Slav and Italian because they are not New Eng 
 land born? Are we the protector or betrayer of the 
 average mind? 
 
 "We are seeing this world thrown into a crucible, 
 the old barriers leveled, the old lines erased, and we 
 are presuming that the world will come out with pretty 
 much the same patterns traced upon its face. It can 
 not ; it will not. All the barriers of race, color, geog 
 raphy will be burned away. Out of this world war 
 will come just two peoples the people who believe in 
 all, and the people who believe in cliques; the liberal 
 minded and the class-minded ; the kaisers like R. Sill, 
 and the common man like Walt Kuhns. Out of the
 
 294 IRON CITY 
 
 world struggle will come one or the other as victor. 
 
 "Americans, it lies with Crandon Hill College to 
 bring the world to Iron City. Provincialism, once 
 the virtue of American life, is now its curse. If Amer 
 ica is to endure, it must leave America and go over 
 to the world. We keepers of ideas must forsake ma 
 chine-made formalism and go over to life. We must 
 forsake the past and go over to the future. Yes, 
 gentlemen of the faculty, we must adopt the Chautau- 
 qua brand of education, if that means reaching the 
 people with world-ideas, for on such education real 
 and not fancied democracy depends." 
 
 He paused, there was a rustle of skirts and Dean 
 Georgia Summers had haughtily swept out of the 
 room. The speaker grew confused, groped for some 
 conclusion, failed, and sat down glowing with an in 
 ward sense of relief. 
 
 "Any further business?" snapped President Cran 
 don. 
 
 "Mr. President, I move we adjourn." The voice of 
 Erickson was impatient and severe. 
 
 The motion was seconded, and before it could be 
 formally put, every member of Crandon Hill s faculty 
 fled out of the room without so much as a glance at 
 John Cosmus. Once Cosmus caught the eye of Pro 
 fessor James, disciple of Dewey, flashing encourage 
 ment; but the little professor, too, passed out. 
 
 "Five children and a debt on a house make a man 
 cautious of expressing opinions. Thank God! I m 
 free," thought Cosmus. Then he was alone. 
 
 But with solitariness came reaction. He felt lonely 
 and useless. All action seemed futile. He sat down 
 in the empty room foolishly staring at his hands, and 
 past them to the hunting suit; in that moment he got
 
 IRON CITY 295 
 
 the other man s point of view. He saw the faculty 
 as they streamed out into the dark, warm with the 
 sense of well-being; he experienced with them the 
 acute sense of difference between them and him; he 
 saw them as they saw themselves, the tried guardians 
 of the tried, backed by the authority of the past and 
 the prestige of the great universities, and of public 
 opinion; he saw them glowing in the sense of com 
 radeship, arm in arm, thirty to one, sneering and in 
 dignant. He could hear them say, "How utterly 
 sophomoric." He saw himself in contrast a mere 
 boy projecting an untried revolutionary scheme. No 
 wonder he had failed ; the difference made him laugh. 
 Some day, he consoled himself, some great crisis will 
 shake them out of their lethargy. 
 
 He found his hat, and went out. Loneliness did 
 not disappear in the darkness. In his mind, he fol 
 lowed his colleagues home to smiling wives and cheer 
 ful hearths ; and the thought did not make him strong 
 er. Did it pay? Did discrimination pay? Long ago, 
 he might have been on the road to a scholarly, clois 
 tered life, with no problems, save lovely hypothetical 
 problems of pure mathematics. And a wife. 
 
 Like a sensible young man, realizing that he was 
 hungry, famishing, he went not to the little Bohemian 
 cafe where he and Sarah had had so many cups of 
 tea, but to the hotel and ate as youth should. After 
 this meal, in spite of languor of body and mind, he 
 went out into the streets again, because he could not 
 face his lonely room. He went straight to Sarah s 
 house. She alone seemed capable of destroying this 
 loneliness, and of uniting him with men again. He 
 would be very kind to Sarah to-night. With this re 
 solve, he ran up the steps and impatiently rang the
 
 296 IRON CITY 
 
 bell. He could not believe what the woman who 
 opened the door told him that Sarah had left town. 
 
 "She has gone to Chicago, I think," she added, "as 
 much as three days ago." 
 
 Cosmus stood a moment indecisively at the gate, 
 smiled, shrugged his shoulders, and said softly to 
 himself, "Damned if I care." But care he did; before 
 he reached his room, he had resolved to go to France.
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 THERE were two funerals in Iron City on the 
 same day. R. Sill, with Carl Morton and Mar 
 garet, sat together before the great crowd at the First 
 Church, mourning Raymond. His funeral was the 
 most costly and grand Iron City had ever seen. There 
 was pomp and ritual. 
 
 Out Osgood way, Walt Kuhns was buried in the 
 negro cemetery. Cosmus went. There he met for 
 the first time, Alary, the Lithuanian woman, Duke, 
 the negro statesman, Grover, and Jerry Mulvaney. 
 There were many others whom Cosmus did not meet 
 or know; he had not realized before that there were 
 so many strange faces in Iron City. Girls, who looked 
 as if they were stenographers, or shop clerks; men 
 who might have been bookkeepers ; the entire chapters 
 of the carpenters, barbers and tinsmiths unions ; scores 
 and scores of workmen from Sill s plant, which had 
 shut down in honor of Raymond; every one of the 
 city s thirty nationalities was represented ; a few mer 
 chants; these made up the assembly. They stood with 
 uncovered heads out under the gray sky, and listened 
 to a deacon in the Greek church chant a simple requi 
 em. A chorus of men s voices sang "My eyes have 
 seen the glory of the coming of the Lord." 
 
 Jerry Mulvaney, a chastened and sombered Mulva 
 ney, in a melodious voice read a psalm, and a verse or 
 two "from a poet," he said; Cosmus recognized the 
 lines as Whitman s "I Dreamed in a Dream." That 
 
 297
 
 298 IRON CITY 
 
 was all. No, not quite all. In truth, there was no 
 pomp and ritual but every love has its ritual, and the 
 love of these men for Walt Kuhns expressed itself in 
 a rite, which may have lacked beauty, but not sincerity 
 or dignity. As the plain coffin was lowered into the 
 grave, Jerry Mulvaney said : 
 
 "Friends of Walt Kuhns, in recognition of his serv 
 ices to us all, and in the faith in him and in his cause, 
 with its ultimate triumph, I have pleasure to inform 
 you that I have here for distribution mementoes of 
 our noble and honored brother." 
 
 With that he distributed from a basket into eager 
 hands buttons from Walt Kuhns s coat, locks of hair 
 and other souvenirs. Then the damp sand was dashed 
 upon the coffin, and the crowd solemnly dispersed. 
 
 As Cosmus turned away, with the full sense of 
 Kuhns s final triumph, Jerry Mulvaney whispered in 
 his ear. 
 
 "Say, Professor, we ve handled Daggett all right. 
 He is on his way now by foot to Dayton, where he 
 can find fellows more to his liking." 
 
 That night, on his return to town, John Cosmus 
 wrote the following letter to Sarah Blackstone: 
 
 Dear Sarah, 
 
 (That was the first and fifth salutation that he had 
 penned. The other three were, "Dear Playmate," "Dear 
 Friend," "Sweetheart." The separate notes to each salu 
 tation were in harmony with the keynotes he struck.) 
 
 I was surprised to hear that you had left Iron City, 
 and I am writing to ask if you are to return. If so, 
 when? 
 
 You will be interested to know that I have made my 
 one grand effort "to make them see," and that I have 
 failed. Now Iron City is a tomb.
 
 IRON CITY 299 
 
 There seems nothing for me to do, but go to France. 
 But before I go, I must see you. 
 
 Yours ever, 
 
 COSMUS. 
 
 He waited three days for an answer, and then he 
 wrote again. 
 
 In those three days he tasted the bitter fruit of so 
 cial ostracism. The boycott set up by his colleagues, 
 on the evening of his talk at faculty meeting, was of 
 long duration. At first Cosmus tried to convince him 
 self that the coldness he detected in his acquaintances 
 was fancied, a projection of his own mood. But after 
 he had tried to break through it several times, he could 
 not doubt its reality, or its sharpness. Nothing was 
 going to happen as a result of his speech, save ostra 
 cism, and that was worse than open hostility. 
 
 Cosmus was hardly honest enough to acknowledge 
 the justice of this punishment. He did not at once 
 see that he had boldly cut across the precious bonds 
 of class, and yet that he still expected his colleagues 
 to include him amicably in the pleasant circle of social 
 relationships. He had failed to show proper respect 
 for the age and honored service of Reverend Hugh 
 Crandon, president of the college. He, a mere youth, 
 a teacher with only an instructor s rank, had taken 
 upon himself to instruct his superiors and seniors. To 
 his colleagues, he was a kind of vagrant, tramping the 
 highways of the world, indifferent to the ties of fam 
 ily, church and state. To them, he seemed intent 
 merely on destroying, not on creating. Suspicious 
 ever of ideas, they suspected the bearer of them. They 
 could not exonerate him from ulterior selfish motives. 
 And yet, they were not strong enough ; they were too 
 thin and watery in feeling, too utterly lacking in con-
 
 300 IRON CITY 
 
 viction, to strike at him openly, and to dislodge him. 
 There might be something in what he said after all! 
 
 Cosmus was in danger, too, he saw now, of becom 
 ing a mere Abstraction, a thin bloodless Idea striding 
 menacingly across the world. That was the trouble of 
 espousing principles, one was likely to forget all hu 
 man ties, all the lovely, joyous personal relationships 
 which made life not a mere battle, but a song. 
 
 He might have known the passion of sacrifice for a 
 cause; or the brotherly abnegation that a comrade 
 might lift the flag one hillock higher; or the solemn 
 lunacy of surrender to an ideal beyond greed and 
 grasp; but could he know the exquisite spirit of sit- 
 and-talk, which unites friends, the gentle blending of 
 spirit in spirit, which is the fine flavor of all family 
 companionship? There was Ezra Kimbark, cut off 
 from him too completely by a devotion to a romantic 
 past, and Walt Kuhns, dead before his time; had he 
 made enough of these chances for human compan 
 ionship ? 
 
 By some such reflections as these, Cosmus came to 
 see, by means of the truly painful ostracism of his 
 professional coworkers, something of what he was 
 missing, and when he did see it, he was filled with 
 bitter remorse that he had not bound Sarah Black- 
 stone to him by more lasting filaments of friendship. 
 Passion the warm grasp of hands, the impact of 
 lips these are the winged messengers of the intel 
 lect and soul, and these must leap between lovers be 
 fore they really may become friends, 
 
 He recalled all the happy moments he had spent 
 with Sarah and he remembered with positive pain the 
 many times when her joyous, child-like spirit had
 
 IRON CITY 301 
 
 seemed crushed by the too weighty problems of the 
 world, which he had mercilessly laid upon it. 
 
 "Sarah, Sarah," he thought. "Have you been a 
 child all this time, longing for play and laughter?" 
 
 He knew that it was more necessary than ever that 
 he see Sarah Blackstone before he went to France, but 
 all he could do was to wait and suffer, for much gen 
 uine misery is wrapped up in thwarted social instincts. 
 He had almost decided to go to Chicago and seek her 
 when he received a note, postmarked Iron City, stat 
 ing that she was at the home of Mother Curtis.
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 T JUST ran away from all this," Sarah said simply. 
 She and John stood on a hill which had not yet 
 lost all its heritage of winter snow, overlooking the 
 city. The slate hues of a March twilight were sifting 
 down over the spires and stacks of the town; to the 
 north the sky was all red almost like blood from 
 the furnace fires of the Sill plant. They could see 
 railroad trains and interurban cars slip in and out 
 among the trees, and farther on, disappear into the 
 precincts of the town itself, but they did not catch 
 the murmur of traffic or industry where they stood. 
 All was silence, peace. 
 
 Sarah finished, "though I must confess that it does 
 not look so hideous now from the hill." 
 
 "It never seemed so beautiful to me," answered 
 John. 
 
 He glanced at her questioningly. Somehow their 
 first walk, since her return, had not been a complete 
 success. He had not found it easy no, not so easy 
 as formerly to confide in her. Constraint tied their 
 tongues, and missing the speech of hands intertwined, 
 these two speechless lovers were tossed rudderless 
 upon the untried sea of passion. This afternoon they 
 had not welcomed silences. So Sarah was saying 
 hastily : 
 
 "I just had to hear some good music. Do you 
 realize that music, the one art that is peculiarly non- 
 class, is wholly a class project in America? One can t 
 
 302
 
 IRON CITY 303 
 
 hear anything save ragtime outside of the large cen 
 ters." 
 
 John was not especially interested in sociology at 
 that moment. 
 
 "Some day," she continued, "the government will 
 realize that it is more essential to control the arts 
 music and the drama for its people than it is to 
 carry mail." 
 
 He nodded assent, absentmindedly, wondering if 
 he and she would ever find that moment of under 
 standing for which he knew they were both groping. 
 And he despaired. She seemed too impersonal; and 
 yet, he could vividly recall those moments in the past 
 when their spirits somehow had met and merged. She 
 seemed to be the only human being who shared with 
 him union with the general life. Perhaps that was 
 all. Perhaps Sarah was just another comrade like 
 Walt Kuhns? 
 
 She was saying, "How dark it is already. Hadn t 
 we better be going?" 
 
 "I suppose we had." 
 
 It was over then? This was the end? He looked 
 away from the town across the fields, and suddenly 
 his eye was arrested by a path which led to the wooded 
 hills beyond. It seemed to invite exploration and to 
 offer escape from the town and problems into the 
 passionate quietude of love. 
 
 "Are you tired?" he asked. 
 
 "No, but I thought you were of my talk." 
 
 He ignored her petulance. 
 
 "Let s stay out a while longer, then. Will you, 
 Sarah?" 
 
 "If you want to." 
 
 And so they turned to take the path.
 
 304 IRON CITY 
 
 Sarah was vaguely angry and hurt. In fact, with 
 out in the least understanding the dark tangle of her 
 own moods and impulses, she felt deep resentment to 
 ward Cosmus. He seemed to hurt her intentionally. 
 He was entirely self-centered, and at times she was 
 almost certain that his passion for people was just 
 another manifestation of his selfishness. This accusa 
 tion was going pretty far, and she was wise enough 
 to count it a momentary aberration of mind, but she 
 did not know that it was due to some stirrings of the 
 thwarted sex self deep down in the folds of personal 
 ity. No woman can be won by an abstraction. Ar 
 thur or Launcelot? Inevitably Guinevere will make 
 the age-old choice. For the tragedy which shadowed 
 these two young persons as they followed the path 
 together in the fast falling twilight was not new ; other 
 souls best capable of being friends have been tragically 
 incapable of mastering the intricate riddle of sex. 
 
 As they tramped the hills, something in the mysttry 
 of dawning spring, innate in the dying winter, the 
 shell-gray sky, trees soft with mystery, gave a flutter 
 ing promise of better things. For the first time that 
 day they found silence unembarrassing, and when 
 they spoke, it was with the consciousness of intimacy. 
 To them, it seemed in this new mood as if just beyond 
 the hill, at the end of this staggering path, a new 
 world lay a world of certitude, and smiles, the haven 
 of lost and forgotten things. But when they had 
 nearly brushed its domain with their feet, they, not 
 it, fled away into the work-a-day world. Sarah broke 
 the silence. 
 
 "I wonder if the war will ever stop?" 
 
 "Did you see to-day s paper?" 
 
 "Yes."
 
 IRON CITY, 305 
 
 "It looks as though we should get into it," Cosmus 
 said thoughtfully. 
 
 "John," she answered gravely, "I think I should 
 be glad, for them and for us." 
 
 "Yes?" he answered uncertainly. 
 
 "Have you ever sung in a large chorus, and ex 
 pressed yourself through some great harmony fully, 
 in unison with many other voices of your kind? There 
 is no other emotion like it. It has nothing in common 
 with the herd-instinct of fear; it is sublime, cleansing, 
 empowering. That, I fancy, is what war is like. The 
 mistake that the pacifists make is that they have asso 
 ciated patriotism with the vulgar herd-instinct, not 
 with this choral experience." 
 
 "In spite of the horror and blood?" 
 
 "In spite of the horror and the blood," she an 
 swered. 
 
 They had entered the wood, and they seemed to 
 have passed suddenly into darkness. They lost the 
 path and dropped into an unfamiliar land, a land of 
 rolling hills and many valleys, out of sight of town 
 and all human habitation. They turned to retrace 
 their steps, but in the darkness, they found themselves 
 walled in by rough hills carrying the sound of falling 
 water. They came together by instinct and grasped 
 hands, and walked breathlessly in silence. Were they 
 lost? They fumbled about here and there, hoping to 
 find the opening that had let them into this unfamiliar 
 land. They grew confused, and tried to resume their 
 conversation where they had left it, each hoping to 
 hide from the other the concern that was rising in 
 their minds. 
 
 "And you really think war a good thing?" John 
 asked coolly.
 
 306 IRON CITY 
 
 "Of course not. How could I? It is hideous. But 
 it does bring the sluggish mind into contact with the 
 general life." 
 
 They stopped to listen instinctively, thinking per 
 haps to catch some sound that would guide them back 
 to town. But only the heavy silence of the out-of- 
 doors met their ears. They must have come upon one 
 of the hilly sections south of Iron City, but they could 
 not determine now which was south and which was 
 north. To make matters worse, a shifting wind swept 
 a heavy mist, almost like rain, across the world, blot 
 ting out all common objects, and bathing the land 
 scape in mystery. They suddenly found themselves in 
 a sublime world of vast shadowy proportions, unfa- 
 miliarity and soft sounds. 
 
 Sarah laughed nervously. "How vexing," she ex 
 claimed, "I believe we re lost." 
 
 "I ve known that for the last half-hour," Cosmus 
 admitted. "Funny we can t be two miles from the 
 city, and yet for the life of me I can t find a path out 
 of this pocket of hills." 
 
 "It won t be so funny if we have to wait until morn 
 ing," and Sarah made an effort to laugh. 
 
 He tried to see her through the mist. All he could 
 discern was a shadowy form, very opaque, without 
 any distinct features. He did not answer, but he re 
 doubled his efforts to devise a way of regaining their 
 bearings. Once when they stumbled down a path, 
 they found themselves ankle deep in water. 
 
 "We must keep walking," he whispered. "Are you 
 cold?" 
 
 "Oh, no," she answered, but he could feel her 
 shiver. 
 
 As they threshed about in the mist, up hill and
 
 IRON CITY 307 
 
 down, they were aware suddenly of a great light 
 dawning in their faces. It permeated the mist, made 
 radiant the dreary, dripping world, for all reality like 
 a rising sun. Some dread took hold of them for a 
 moment; though not superstitious, they felt the shud 
 der all men feel at the sight of the supernatural. Spell 
 bound, they watched; then they saw and understood. 
 What thrilled them so mysteriously was only the head 
 light of a common interurban car. But was it going to 
 or coming from Iron City? After a debate, they de 
 cided that it was going to the city and they made off 
 in that direction. 
 
 Feeling relieved at the prospect of finding their 
 way home, they threw off all concern, and raced along 
 hand in hand like children. Wet branches of low 
 trees beat their faces, and they found themselves 
 pushed together as they twisted and turned to avoid 
 this rock or that clump of bushes. Suddenly, without 
 warning, Cosmus took Sarah in his arms and kissed 
 her again and again. 
 
 Then he half-flung, half-pushed her from him, for 
 he found her stiff and unyielding in his embrace, her 
 mouth turned from his, her bosom heaving with sobs. 
 
 "God," he cried, "I hate you." 
 
 He half -staggered, half-ran in the opposite direc 
 tion, anywhere to be rid of her. Sarah heard him 
 stumbling through the bushes, dislodging stones as he 
 went; then she heard a sound as if he had fallen, and 
 what sounded like a groan. 
 
 "John, John," she called, "Come back." 
 
 No answer. She cautiously felt her way after him, 
 came to a ledge, let herself down carefully, feet first, 
 and landed beside him where he lay. 
 
 She leaned over him, and spoke his name. At first
 
 S o8 IRON CITY 
 
 he did not answer. And before he did in that fleet 
 ing moment something happened to Sarah Black- 
 stone. 
 
 All the old weight of loss and longing, wistful dis 
 appointment, fled and she knew peace. There was 
 something infinitely good in being here, in the still 
 dark, dripping night, bending over him. New life 
 stirred; something dead broke from her and slipped 
 away. A great current of Life pinned her to the 
 ground, made her a part of the growing things, and 
 the deep, maternal earth. She seemed to be opening 
 door after door of meaning. She was enfolded by the 
 presence of her mother and for the first time she un 
 derstood the wild out-reaching passion of her mother s 
 death-bed letter. It was as if she were her mother. 
 Her mind went joyously free, rollicking among child 
 hood memories old orchard days, hollyhocks and 
 pansies, and dolls had she ever played with dolls? 
 It was as if she had known nothing else as a child but 
 dolls, for she felt tearing at her bosom the old ecstasy 
 of early girlhood in mothering dolls. 
 
 She reached down and began to rub John s hands; 
 she bent over and kissed him. He did not stir or 
 speak. 
 
 She tried to bring her mind back to the present, to 
 understand the seriousness of the silly predicament in 
 which they found themselves ; lost within a mile of the 
 city, in the cold and rain, the possibility of an all-night 
 vigil, her reputation gone, and John hurt. But in 
 that first moment before he spoke, all these considera 
 tions were brushed aside, and she only knew that it 
 was well with her. She was saying, "That kiss has 
 made him mine. I am alive. I am happy. There is
 
 IRON CITY 309 
 
 no death, war or grief. Life is entrancing. I shall 
 go on opening happy doors forever." 
 
 Something had indeed happened to Sarah Black- 
 stone. 
 
 Then John said heavily, "It s my leg, I think." 
 
 "Can you stand?" 
 
 She helped him to his feet, but the minute she with 
 drew her support, he was down on his knees again 
 with a groan. 
 
 "You must leave me and go back for help," he said. 
 
 "Listen," Sarah exclaimed, "isn t that the bark of a 
 dog?" 
 
 Somewhere not far distant over the hill a hound was 
 baying. She called loudly several times, vainly. For 
 a bad three minutes she was afraid she had silenced 
 the dog, but again they heard its welcome baying. 
 
 "We must follow it," she said. "Come." 
 
 She took his arm and drew it over her shoulder, and 
 together, slowly and painfully they skirted the bowlder 
 in front of them and scrambled up the hill. It was 
 painful work for John. It was pleasure for Sarah. 
 She never flinched when he stumbled and threw his 
 whole weight upon her. She stood up tremblingly, 
 but strong. Now and then they paused to rest, or to 
 wait for the dog s howl. Over hill and hillock until, 
 when they had climbed the highest hill of all, they 
 came suddenly upon a little house and barn. There 
 was no light. The dog s bark changed to snarls. 
 Sarah could see the beast bristling and fierce against 
 the wall of mist. She was afraid to go in. She called 
 out, as she remembered girls did in books. 
 
 "Hello, the house ! Help." 
 
 After repeated calls, a dim light flickered at a win 
 dow, and the back door cautiously opened. Sarah ex-
 
 310 IRON CITY 
 
 plained quickly that Mr. Cosmus was hurt, and that 
 they needed a carriage to get back to Iron City. 
 
 "Tain t far," said the man. "Wait till I get my 
 shoes on." 
 
 He came out in a few minutes with a lantern, and 
 hitched an old horse to a family carriage. He was 
 gruff but not unkind, and gently helped Cosmus into 
 the back seat. 
 
 "Will you ride with me, Missy, in front?" 
 
 Sarah answered simply, "He may need me," and 
 climbed in beside Cosmus. 
 
 The farmer clucked to his mare, the carriage rattled 
 forth, through the barnyard, out of the gate, down a 
 long, dark lane, and then upon a road they both knew. 
 Lights flickered now before them, danced in their 
 mist-blurred vision, and soon they caught the sound of 
 the city. They did not talk. Cosmus was in pain. 
 Once he said: 
 
 "It s broken, I guess," referring to his leg. 
 
 Then he ignored the pain and his companion. He 
 lay back thinking, "I ve been a fool, that s all; this 
 is the end." 
 
 And Sarah was thinking, "This is only the begin 
 ning; it will go on like this forever. I ll tell him to 
 morrow." 
 
 And so they came to the hospital. 
 
 But the next morning, in the glaring daylight, Sarah 
 found it harder to tell than she had thought. The 
 whole affair looked different. If she had followed 
 her desire, she would have gone to Cosmus, and 
 begged to nurse him as her right. 
 
 But the world of broad daylight is not the world of 
 romance; reason entered, and convention. She tele 
 phoned to the hospital, cried a little when she learned
 
 IRON CITY 311 
 
 that his leg was broken; sent him flowers, wrote him 
 pretty, stiff little notes. But in the days that followed 
 she did not see Cosmus, or hear from him. Although 
 she had found love, she began to wonder whether she 
 had not found it too late.
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 GROPING in the debatable lands of experience, 
 John Cosmus d,uring the weeks that parsed, 
 while he was convalescing, knew the bitterest failure. 
 He had come to a point in his career, he vaguely real 
 ized, where events come in full cycle, but within or 
 without himself he could get no new impetus forward. 
 Sunk in deep negation, nothing made any difference. 
 He was like one set adrift in an open boat, too loyal to 
 life to leap to death into the black waters, too passive 
 to raise a signal of distress for safety. He lay for 
 hours in his bed in the hospital, still and calm, and 
 even flippant, but never enkindled, never himself. The 
 accident, which had enforced this idleness, seemed to 
 him the last affront from a particularly enigmatic and 
 malevolent world. And like many another modern 
 in this era of stress, he had erected a shell of stoicism 
 about a nature perhaps over-ardent and sensitive, and 
 was playing the snail. 
 
 To be sure, at the seat of all this trouble was Sarah. 
 If he had had her, he argued, the rest would have 
 been bearable. Studiously avoiding sentiment, he still 
 was forced to admit that she was necessary to his hap 
 piness. Together, they might have ignored the world 
 and built an ivory tower above and beyond all this 
 stress. . . . But he was without her. That was the 
 end. 
 
 At this time Cosmus s world was walled around by 
 the lurid fires of war. War was the most real reality 
 
 312
 
 IRON CITY 313 
 
 of his life as it was all men s. And he, like so many 
 men with broken anchor, was being held firm by the 
 routine of common work. 
 
 But not for long; one day after he had been in the 
 hospital a couple of weeks, he received a note from 
 President Crandon. He wrote: 
 
 Dear Mr. Cosmus: 
 
 Please accept regrets from me in behalf of the whole 
 college. I am sure you have been missed from your ac 
 customed place. 
 
 It is my unpleasant duty to inform you, however, that 
 the trustees are forced to dispense with your services 
 henceforth, due to certain retrenchments revealed as 
 necessary at the close of the last fiscal year. Your salary 
 will be continued until you are out again. 
 
 Believe me, 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 HUGH CRANDON. 
 
 This letter evoked only derisive laughter from Cos 
 mus. He was now, he told himself, practically cut off 
 from all human society, for the newspaper drab 
 thing united him only with war. 
 
 So days passed in which his mind lay fallow, and 
 his heart was torn by pain. 
 
 One April morning he had a visitor. Much to his 
 surprise, Samuel Curtis, sad and dim, bobbed in 
 through the door. 
 
 "Glad to see you gitting along so well, Professor. 
 You ll be out soon ?" 
 
 "I could go out now, I suppose," Cosmus answered, 
 "but, you see," and he spoke somewhat bitterly, "my 
 salary stops when I go out, so I guess I ll just keep 
 this room, and bunk here for life." Then, seeing the
 
 IRON CITY 
 
 perplexity on his caller s face, he continued : "You 
 see, I m fired, Mr. Curtis; you were right; I m not 
 fit to teach on Crandon Hill s faculty." 
 
 Curtis was not disturbed by this earnest exposition. 
 His eyes merely shifted from the table to the window. 
 
 "Pretty day. You ought to be out would do you 
 good. Suppose I hitch up the old mare, and bring 
 him around to the door. You can drive out alone, 
 if you want to." 
 
 Cosmus s mind leaped back to that September day 
 four years before when he had arrived in Iron City. 
 There came to him in a flash all the aims and hopes 
 and dreams which he had had then and which were 
 now shattered and gone, and he was smitten with 
 fear and pain; fear that the world was but a mad 
 place, and pain at his failures. To himself more than 
 to Curtis, he said : 
 
 "Has it been four years since I rode behind the old 
 mare? My God, and Iron City has not changed one 
 bit." 
 
 "Oh, yes, it has much," Curtis answered quickly. 
 
 "You mean, it s bigger and richer?" 
 
 Curtis did not answer directly, and in the silence 
 that intervened a joyous bird-note floated into the 
 room, and charmed away all sadness. 
 
 "Say," Curtis said finally, "that Walt Kuhns wasn t 
 such a bad fellow, was he?" 
 
 Was that the old man s answer? It was mighty 
 decent of him to have come in, anyhow. 
 
 "You know, Mr. Curtis," John said, "I never held 
 it against you that you put me into the street." 
 
 Curtis did not answer at once. Instead he said, 
 
 "Will you go for a ride, Professor? The mare s 
 outside now."
 
 IRON CITY 315 
 
 "Outside now ? Why not go ? Why fester in bed ?" 
 
 "Surely, I ll go," Cosmus spoke heartily. 
 
 Crutches were brought and he limped down after 
 his lugubrious caller. They emerged from the dismal 
 hospital. April! with rich earth scents, feathery 
 leaves, broad sunshine, and vibrant currents of hope 
 in the air. Cosmus gulped the freshness in greedily. 
 Then he saw who was in the Curtis phaeton holding 
 the lines over the broad back of the old red mare. 
 Sarah ! 
 
 Slowly it dawned upon him. She had sent Samuel 
 Curtis and she had come for him then. Perhaps, 
 perhaps? He allowed Curtis to help him into the 
 phaeton and as in a dream, he and Sarah drove down 
 the shadowy street, out the sleepy road. The world 
 seemed a very decent place to live in. 
 
 They drove in silence. Black birds tinkled in downy 
 covert, farmers were turning heavy furrows in the 
 fields ; pigs grunted, roosters crowed in the barnyards ; 
 the soil awaited the seed; and over the hills and fields 
 glinted the River of Wires. Once again he felt con 
 tact with the general life; and he knew this common 
 sight as America, his Country. 
 
 "Stop a minute, Sarah, won t you?" he said finally. 
 "There on the hill. For the first time, I know what 
 those wires are saying. All my life long they have 
 been teasing me to guess their meaning. Now I 
 know. How simple. They mean this, There are no 
 races, nor countries, only brotherhoods of men. We 
 unite the world. Shall it be slave or free? Think of 
 that, it s the old fight, ever the old fight." 
 
 Sarah turned the mare s head into a flowery lane. 
 He was half -sorry that he had broken the silence, for
 
 316 IRON CITY 
 
 he feared she might vanish before his eyes. He 
 asked, 
 
 "Where are we going?" fearful lest they be going 
 home. 
 
 "To my Symphony." 
 
 For a moment he did not remember; then he re 
 called that other day long ago when they seemed to 
 have entered a child-like world guilelessly, and had 
 found each other there. He turned toward her 
 eagerly. 
 
 "Sarah!" 
 
 "Wait," she said, "I hurt you very mucli that night 
 when you broke your leg, didn t I?" 
 
 "Let s not think of that now." 
 
 "Let s talk it out, John, first, while we can. That s 
 always been the trouble with us. Our tongues have 
 been so awkward." 
 
 "What is there to say? I love you." 
 
 "It s been my fault all along," she answered, trying 
 to recover the reins that had dropped from her hands 
 when John had taken them; "you see, it was my 
 bringing up, I guess. I was locked so into myself. I 
 was not complete, whole, I never could give myself 
 to any one. I drove you off. Sidney Haynes was 
 just another part of my loneliness. I made him up. 
 He existed as a mythical love." 
 
 How sad, John thought. 
 
 "And then, that night when you broke your leg, 
 it seemed as if I had changed." She paused. "John," 
 she added decisively, "it was as if all at once I had 
 found my body at last, had found the joy of living, 
 had found life." She turned to him slowly, her face 
 suddenly shy for all its radiance. "I love you," she
 
 IRON CITY 317 
 
 said breathlessly. And he took her in his arms at 
 last 
 
 They rode for a long time together, and saw the de 
 scending sun tint the half -a wakened earth with beauty, 
 until at last the long beams shattered themselves 
 against the mystery of dark-blue woods, and a tender 
 twilight, upon whose bosom a young moon fluttered, 
 fell like a lullaby over the land. 
 
 They found still roads where no hint of other hu 
 man souls penetrated; little private roadways, theirs 
 alone, down which the old horse seemed to trot de 
 lightedly. Sometimes like all lovers they did not 
 speak in words for minutes; but mostly they talked 
 passionately together; of life, love, experiences, and 
 dreams, each trying to impart to the other something 
 which grew more inarticulate at each word. 
 
 Once as the road skirted a wood and mounted an 
 upland, they looked down upon a valley where waters 
 twinkled through white mists, and impenetrable 
 shadows lay. Something formless, even abysmal, in 
 the prospect struck in them a mood of wonder. It 
 was as if they looked upon the twilight of a world- 
 dawn, upon the first creation, they, the first man and 
 woman. Perception awakened in John. 
 
 In that moment he seemed to become a part of the 
 race as it had been and is and was to be. And he 
 knew himself a part of all Life. He drew Sarah to 
 him passionately, 
 
 "You will want children, Sarah?" he asked. 
 
 "Will I!" she answered. "Oh, John!" 
 
 A moment later the horse drew the phaeton around 
 a turn in the road and they caught the sound of the 
 city, until this moment unheard. Sarah could not 
 restrain a shudder. She thought of the children which!
 
 318 IRON CITY 
 
 were to come, and of the world of cruelty in which 
 they were to have their life. Even he, as he heard the 
 undertone of trade, felt return upon him the weari 
 ness of the morning, the pain, the impotency and de 
 spair. Why deceive themselves by the romance of 
 love? 
 
 Whither sped the old world while they, with young 
 hearts, clattered along in an antique shay of another 
 generation? Whither drove they? This they knew 
 as they sat with clasped hands; that it was into a tur 
 bulent world. And they were sad. For them there 
 were just two facts : the perennial wrongness of cruelty 
 and greed, and the eternal Tightness of love. 
 
 Oh, if they could only know to whose hand the fu 
 ture would be committed! 
 
 FINIS
 
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