p^^ 
 
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THE HOME-COMING OF CONRAD 
 
THE HOUSE OF 
 CONRAD 
 
 BY 
 
 ELIAS TOBENKIN 
 
 AUTHOR OF *^WITTE ARRIVES" 
 
 Of suns and worlds I've nothing to be quoted; 
 How men torment themselves, is all I've noted. 
 
 — Goethe's Faust 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS 
 
Copyright, iqi8, by 
 Frederick A. Stokes Company 
 
 AU rights reserved, including that of translation 
 into foreign languages 
 
TO 
 
 THE MEMORY OF 
 
 MY MOTHER 
 
 7988G2 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 BOOK I 
 GOTTFRIED CONRAD 
 
 CHAPTKR PAGB 
 
 I Vesper Bells 3 
 
 II Freddy Recalls 18 
 
 III The Web of Life 35 
 
 IV As the Years Rolled On 50 
 
 V The Return or Conrad 63 
 
 VI Desires 80 
 
 VII A Country Girl 94 
 
 VIII Fred Makes A Speech Ill 
 
 IX Elsie 121 
 
 BOOK II 
 FRED CONRAD 
 
 X Fred Speaks His Mind 137 
 
 XI When the Light is Low 157 
 
 XII The Measure of Fred Conrad . . . .170 
 
 XIII KoLB Quotes Faust 179 
 
 XIV The Widow 199 
 
 XV The Hand of Bill Triggs 217 
 
 XVI Prison 225 
 
 XVII Peace 245 
 
 BOOK III 
 RUTH CONRAD 
 
 XVIII With the Eyes of Youth 265 
 
 XIX The Song of the Flesh 276 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XX Clipped Wings 301 
 
 XXI GoTTPRiED Ruminates 319 
 
 XXII The Death of Fred Conrad . . . . .342 
 
 BOOK IV 
 
 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 XXIII The Housewarming 369 
 
BOOK I 
 GOTTFRIED CONRAD 
 
THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 VESPER BELLS 
 
 SHE stood in the open doorway listening to the peal of 
 the church bells, which were summoning the residents 
 of New York's young German colony, Kleindeutschland, to 
 Sunday service. A mild June breeze was sweeping in invis- 
 ible ripples through the atmosphere. From a vacant lot upon 
 which grass had grown a foot high, a faint odor of unmown 
 hay rose to her nostrils and in its wake came memories — 
 memories of home drilhen, of her village over there on the 
 bank of the Rhine. 
 
 *' Drilhen! " Her lips barely moved as she spoke the 
 word. " Over there! " Her wistful eyes pierced the haze 
 that hovered in front of her like a canvas. The ringing of 
 the bells became indistinct. . . . Her home rose before her 
 eyes. . . . The village, the Rhine — Old Father Rhine — 
 
 Along the unpaved street leading to the church the villagers 
 were moving in family clusters. In one of these groups she 
 recognized a girl friend. She was about to wave to her, but 
 she caught herself : it was not seemly. Her father was choos- 
 ing his way carefully along the street and was keeping a 
 sharp eye on his children to see that they did likewise. He 
 could think of nothing more sacrilegious than to enter the 
 House of God with dusty boots. Dear old Father! She no- 
 ticed how small their family circle had grown: two of her 
 
 3 
 
4 1'HE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 brothers had left home. And she — she too would be going 
 soon to America, to him — 
 
 " AchI " She woke from her reveries with a shrug. 
 " Dreams, vain dreams." All this was over now — forever. 
 She was not home, not in the Old World, not on the Rhine — 
 but in New York, in America. She was no longer a carefree 
 girl, no longer Annchen Launitz. Now she was Anna Con- 
 radi — Frau Conradi to her German countrywomen, and 
 Mrs. Conrad to her Irish neighbors. Yes, she was a wife and 
 a mother. There, in the crib, lay her child, her two weeks' 
 old son, who had not been baptized — May the Lord be 
 merciful! . . . 
 
 Her thoughts turned to her husband. Gottfried was obsti- 
 nate. Ach, those Prussians, those Prussians, how intense they 
 were, how stubborn! Nevertheless she would try once more 
 
 — to-day. He was in such a festive mood — perhaps he 
 would yield to her. He did yield to her wishes on occasions 
 
 — he loved her so. She would appeal to him, tell him how 
 it would grieve her, would give her no rest to have their child 
 go through life — a heathen. 
 
 The tears — they were coming readily since her confine- 
 ment — welled up in her eyes. She stepped back from the 
 door lest she be seen weeping, and going over to where the 
 crib stood, she bent over her sleeping infant and kissed him 
 lightly. Her husband's footsteps sounded far down the hall. 
 She wiped her eyes and face hastily. 
 
 The Conradi household was young. Gottfried Conradi 
 had been in the New World only two years. He arrived in 
 the spring of 1866 — one of the first of the *' Lassalleans " 
 to come to America. He had been a bookbinder in the Old 
 World. But the Germans in New York, at least those with 
 whom he came in contact, were nearly all cigarmakers, so he 
 started in to learn a new trade. It was six months before 
 
VESPER BELLS 5 
 
 Gottfried Conradi was earning a man's pay. He was eco- 
 nomical, however, and in spite of his small wages — he aver- 
 aged only $9 a week — he managed by the end of his first 
 year to save up passage money for his Annchen, and sent for 
 her without delay. 
 
 She arrived on a Wednesday in July. Gottfried declared 
 a holiday for the rest of the week and proceeded to feather 
 a little home for himself and his sweetheart. There were 
 plenty of " nests " to rent in Kleindeutschland, and they all 
 looked alike and cost about the same. The home of a young 
 couple consisted of two rooms, or rather of one room, a 
 kitchen, with a bedroom built in at the farther end. A rear 
 flat cost six dollars a month; a front flat was a dollar a 
 month higher. Conradi took a rear flat. It was cheaper, 
 and Annchen liked it even better. For the windows in the 
 rear flat looked out into the yard, and into other people's 
 yards. Some of these yards had grass, and here and there 
 even a tree, while the street had nothing but cobblestones and 
 dirt. 
 
 The furnishings of the room were simple. They consisted 
 of a bed, a table, three chairs, a second-hand sofa, and a 
 hand-made cabinet which was to serve as a dresser and a 
 bookcase. By Friday evening the little home was in order 
 and Conradi and his bride of a few hours moved into it. 
 
 It was into this home that their first-born had come the 
 last day of May, 1868. That Sunday afternoon the little 
 flat was to be the scene of a celebration the exact nature of 
 which Conradi had surrounded with much mystery and 
 secrecy. He was planning to surprise his wife. It was to 
 be their day of days. That afternoon the " House of Con- 
 radi " was to be founded in the New World — was to be 
 formally launched. It was to be a day of dedication. The 
 " House of Conradi," as personified in his two weeks' old 
 
6 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 son, was to be dedicated to the " Cause." Gottfried's eyes 
 filled with a haze every time he thought of this future House 
 of his, what it would stand for, what it would mean to the 
 cause of the proletariat in America. 
 
 His wife had asked him daily since the child was bom 
 what he intended to name the boy. But that, too, he kept a 
 secret. That afternoon it would all come out. 
 
 All morning he had been busy trying to supplement his 
 meager household for the occasion. He had borrowed chairs 
 from one of the neighbors and spoons from another. He 
 had provided himself with half a dozen glasses and extra 
 plates. The refreshments were properly cared for. The bot- 
 tles of beer were carefully laid out in the washtub, which 
 served as an ice-box for the occasion. But the ice had melted 
 sooner than Gottfried calculated it would and he had gone 
 down to look for an iceman. He returned presently with a 
 pailful of ice. 
 
 " There, that will hold them," he said, rising and straight- 
 ening himself out. He had arranged the pieces of ice in the 
 washtub to his entire satisfaction. He now looked up at his 
 wife. In the excitement of the preparations for the day's 
 event he had hardly noticed her all morning. She could not 
 be of any help to him, as she was still weak, so he went 
 about arranging things alone. 
 
 "What now? " he asked abruptly, as he perceived traces 
 of tears in Anna's eyes. She was not strong enough to hide 
 successfully her troubled mind, and broke down under his 
 searching gaze. 
 
 " Gottfried — " She took a step forward, but halted. 
 " Gottfried, I — I thought — perhaps — maybe you would 
 change your mind about — baptizing the child — I — " 
 
 The gleam, hard and irritated, that came into his eyes 
 froze the words in her throat. 
 
VESPER BELLS 7 
 
 " Was? " he hissed. " You want a priest, ein Pfaff, here 
 in my house? I, have my son baptized? Absurd! " 
 
 She made no attempt to stem his words, which came in 
 torrents. What! Had all his harangues with her been in 
 vain ? She still failed to understand him 1 And he thought 
 he had made it plain to her! He was through with the 
 church, with priests, forever through ! He wanted her to re- 
 member this. They were through with that humbug — they, 
 the Lassalleans. They were, in fact, the sworn enemies of 
 priestcraft, they, the socialists. That was what they had or- 
 ganized the Freidenkerverein of New York for — to fight 
 against religion, against the influence of the priests, who were 
 seeking to instil in the New World the same religious poisons 
 that had festered the Old. Enlightenment — that was what 
 the Free-thinking Society of New York was aiming at. They 
 would enlighten the people about the clergy. They would 
 show the masses how priestcraft at all times and in all coun- 
 tries had ranged itself on the side of the exploiters and against 
 the workers, against the common man. They, the disciples 
 of Ferdinand Lassalle in the New World, would not rest until 
 the spooks of religion had been driven off the earth. He 
 baptize his son! How could such a thought enter her 
 mind! 
 
 " But," he continued after some time, and his voice lost its 
 harshness, " I thought, Annchen, you understood it long ago. 
 I explained it all to you — it is so simple. We revolutionists 
 are fighting the old order of things. The church, the priests, 
 are the pillars of this order, its chief support, its greatest 
 source of strength. They are the worst enemies of the pro- 
 letariat. Do you see, Liebchen? " 
 
 She was looking at him with her large, liquid eyes, which 
 seemed even larger now since her confinement. Her face was 
 thinner, much thinner, and pale. Her lips were bloodless. 
 
8 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 But her braids of golden hair which twined themselves about 
 her head were as alluring as ever. 
 
 " My poor, dear Annchen ! " he murmured, taking her in 
 his arms. " Don't worry your little head about these things. 
 It will all come out right. Just leave it to me." 
 
 He picked her up like a child — he was a head taller than 
 his wife — and carried her to the sofa. He noticed how 
 frail she had grown and was seized with pity for her. He 
 sat down beside her, took her blond head into his lap and 
 played with her hair. 
 
 The day was drawing to a close and in the kitchen of the 
 Conradi home the shadows were gathering. But the guests 
 who came to participate in the celebration had no thought of 
 leaving. They were all of an age with Gottfried, all under 
 twenty-five. That the noise they were making and the strain 
 of the day might have been too much for the convalescing 
 Mrs. Conradi never entered their heads. They were thought- 
 ful, sensitive, and considerate men, but in such matters they 
 were still inexperienced. 
 
 " That was well done," said Heinrich Kolb to Mrs. Con- 
 radi upon entering, and shook hands with her much too 
 heartily for her still raw frame. "It is good of you to have 
 given Gottfried a son. We shall need boys in this country 
 for our work. There is a great struggle ahead and we shall 
 need men — fighters." 
 
 Heinrich Kolb was the most intellectual man in the small 
 group of socialists who carried the theories of Lassalle to the 
 New World. He was the son of a landowner in Silesia and 
 was a student at the University of Berlin at the time Lassalle 
 organized the Universal German Workmen's Association. 
 His enthusiastic praise of the new labor organization was 
 not looked upon with favor by the University authorities, but 
 
VESPER BELLS 9 
 
 Kolb gave them the slip, as he expressed it, by throwing his 
 academic career overboard and becoming a labor agitator. 
 With a number of other Lassalleans he drifted to Switzerland, 
 where the propaganda of socialism was given greater free- 
 dom than in the Fatherland. But here, too, Kolb found 
 himself hemmed in by too many limitations. The field was 
 too narrow. His mind's eye looked longingly toward the 
 New World, and one fine day he boarded one of the pioneer 
 steamers of the time for New York. It was on this steamer 
 that he made the acquaintance of Gottfried Conradi, an ac- 
 quaintance which was to ripen into a lifelong friendship, 
 despite the disparity in the standing, character, and educa- 
 tion of the two. 
 
 For Conradi at that time had no more than the rudiments 
 of an education. He could read and WTite, knew a smatter- 
 ing of history and with this his education ended. What at- 
 tracted Kolb to Conradi was the fact that, like himself, Gott- 
 fried was a Prussian and could become enthusiastic and hate 
 with the intensity of a Prussian. While Conradi was trav- 
 eling through the Rhine provinces as a journeyman, he had 
 attended several meetings called by the Universal German 
 Workmen's Association. At one of these meetings he had 
 heard Ferdinand Lassalle speak; and the influence of the 
 man never left him from that moment. He read all the 
 socialist pamphlets he could find, and while he knew noth- 
 ing of political economy Gottfried nevertheless was thor- 
 oughly familiar with Lassalle's " iron law of wages " and the 
 bearing this iron law had upon the fortunes of the working 
 class. 
 
 Kolb was convinced that he had found in the Prussian 
 workman an ally in the cause of socialism of uncommon worth 
 and power. An intimate friendship grew up between them. 
 For years Kolb looked after the education of Conradi, di- 
 
10 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 rected his reading, was initiating him into every branch of 
 knowledge with which he himself was familiar. 
 
 Mrs. Conradi accepted the congratulations of Heinrich 
 Kolb with a happy smile. She was never quite able to fol- 
 low Kolb. He was such a handsome man and so well edu- 
 cated. His gait, his carriage, was that of a nobleman. 
 Several girls in the colony were casting longing eyes at him; 
 but he seemed oblivious to feminine charms. In his eyes 
 there was always a pursuing gaze — not, however, for the 
 objects near at hand, but for things far off, unseen, intangible. 
 Mrs. Conradi was glad to see Kolb. She was proud that 
 her husband should know such a man, should count him as 
 a friend. 
 
 The other five men were cigarmakers with whom Gottfried 
 worked. They were all unmarried and were frequent visitors 
 at the Conradi home, which they regarded rather worship- 
 fully. They had not yet found their love. Each of them 
 had brought with him half a dozen of the finest Havanas 
 he could make, as his contribution to the day's festivities. 
 
 The cake and fruit had been eaten and the beer was drunk 
 between volleys of speech and strains of full-throated song 
 that rolled and thrilled and defied its way out of the little 
 flat, and the confines of their own tenement walls, into the 
 neighboring houses. The strong, massive voices brought the 
 neighbors to the windows to see whence these strains of song 
 came and- what the occasion was. 
 
 " Ich will die Freiheit nicht verkaufcn," they sang lustily. 
 No! Never would they bow to a tyrant, never betray, never 
 sell Freedom. . . . And then Heinrich Kolb spoke. The 
 " springtime of nations " which inspired this revolutionary 
 hymn of Herwegh's had been crushed in Germany by reac- 
 tion. But a new Volkerfriihling was coming. This newer 
 springtime of nations would be ushered in by the proletariat. 
 
VESPER BELLS ii 
 
 It would be ushered in on American soil. America was to 
 be the new Jerusalem of the working classes. The New 
 World had long ago rid itself of kings ; it would be the first 
 to rid itself of economic injustice and capitalist oppression. 
 And it was up to them who had sat at the feet of the " Mes- 
 siah of the working class " to let their voices be heard here. 
 They, the Lassalleans, must be the first to raise the banner 
 of the social revolution in the New World. 
 
 No one noticed when Kolb ceased speaking, but all sud- 
 denly found themselves singing the martial strains of the 
 Banner Song: 
 
 " Up, and let the banner wave, 
 Hosts of toilers, rise in mass! 
 Be ye victors, or in death 
 Guard the banner of your class." 
 
 Yes, they would hold the banner of the proletariat high! 
 They would defend it to a man, they, the Lassalleans. It 
 was Gottfried speaking. He stood up the length of his full 
 six feet, and he stood there tense, rigid, towering above his 
 guests. Mrs. Conradi was sitting on the edge of the bed, 
 waving the smoke away from her child's face. As her hus- 
 band's speech became more fluent and incisive her cheeks 
 flushed. She listened to him with palpitating heart. She 
 did not understand all he was saying; it sounded strange to 
 her. Where did he get so much knowledge, such a gift of 
 speech, she wondered. She was recalling how he came into 
 her life, their first meeting. 
 
 He came to their village a wandering mechanic and found 
 work with a neighbor of theirs, a book-binder. They met — 
 they could not help meeting — he passed their house several 
 times daily. Once he asked for a flower and they talked. 
 And after that she was his. She loved him from the first. 
 She could not resist him. Ah, what a lover he was ! 
 
12 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 Her father objected to him at first. A son of the Rhine, 
 old Launitz did not like the Prussians. But he gave in to 
 her: he had to. She told him she could not live v^^ithout 
 Gottfried. Conradi did not cherish the idea of going into 
 the army for three years and leaving her alone. So he went 
 to America and she followed him after a year. But what a 
 change had taken place in him during that year! What 
 bitterness had come over him ! Gottfried was always hating 
 now, always denouncing some one, something: the rich, his 
 employers, the government. What was it that was eating 
 his heart away? Was it disappointment with the New 
 World, disillusionment? She, too, was disillusioned. She 
 was missing the village, their home with the flowers and trees 
 and the bench in front of it. She was missing these things 
 greatly. Was it this that was troubling her husband, too? 
 But, no, it was something more ! That alone could not make 
 Gottfried so unhappy. Were they not treating him right at 
 the shop — he was so bitter against employers ? 
 
 Her husband's voice meantime had risen higher and 
 higher and his eyes had assumed a fierce, threatening blaze. 
 He was assailing, denouncing, reviling, the capitalists, the 
 priests, the church. He was speaking of a new religion, hail- 
 ing a new god, the god of vengeance, the god of fury, who 
 would wipe out old scores between oppressors and op- 
 pressed. . . . 
 
 " We are on the eve of great events in this country," Con- 
 radi said, and was followed by the breathless attention of 
 every one present. " We have just seen the close of a civil 
 war that has put an end to human slavery forever. Many 
 German immigrants have distinguished themselves in this 
 war. They have given freely of their blood that the shackles 
 of the black slaves might be broken forever. 
 
 " But," and his voice vibrated with fierce eloquence, " there 
 
VESPER BELLS 13 
 
 is another slavery in this country, an economic slavery, cap- 
 italist slavery. Another war is coming, a war upon this 
 newer slavery. The workers are recruiting their legions. 
 We Germans, we Lassalleans, must be in the forefront in this 
 coming struggle of right against might. In this struggle 
 against capitalism one of the fortresses first to be demolished 
 is religion. The church, priestcraft, is as strong in the New 
 World to-day as it is in the Old, and it must go. We must 
 defy priestcraft not merely with words, but with deeds. 
 Here " — with a wave of his arms he pointed to the crib 
 where his two weeks' old son was slumbering peacefully. 
 " Here," he began once more; but his speech was broken by 
 the wild, terrified look with which his wife stared at him. 
 
 Anna had listened to her husband's speech with growing 
 horror. She did not mind his denunciations of the rich and 
 the powerful. She knew that America was a free country, 
 that one could speak one's mind here and not be bothered by 
 the police, not be arrested. But when Gottfried began speak- 
 ing without the slightest restraint, or the least reverence, about 
 the church, about God, it was the last straw. She could stand 
 it no longer. She would have cried out, but her voice failed 
 her. 
 
 Anna never grasped her husband's irreligion. She could 
 not follow him in his fierce hatred of the church and the 
 clergy. On the other hand, she could not combat it. She 
 could not argue with Gottfried. Mentally she was a child 
 compared to him. 
 
 When Gottfried pointed to the crib, to their son, in the 
 midst of his vituperations against the church, against the 
 Deity, a terrible fear seized her — fear for her child. It 
 seemed to her that her husband would draw down the wrath 
 of Heaven momentarily, and that this wrath would strike 
 her infant. . . . Her husband was drawing down Calamity 
 
14 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 upon their child. . . . She stood speechless, paralyzed with 
 terror and pain. 
 
 What her voice refused to do, however, her eyes did. They 
 had spoken. The look of agony, of wild alarm, in them had 
 broken her husband's flow of oratory. The men in the room 
 sensed the awkward situation. Kolb was about to rise and 
 go over to Mrs. Conradi to explain to her, to calm and assure 
 her, but Gottfried waved him to remain in his seat. 
 
 Conradi could not again master his eloquence, but he was 
 still master of his defiance. In a few sharp, provocative sen- 
 tences he announced that he was here and then dedicating 
 his young son to the cause of the proletariat, that his child 
 would be a living defiance to the church and priestcraft — 
 he would go unbaptized! This son of his which he was 
 dedicating to " the Cause " would be named after their great 
 leader and teacher, the torch-bearer of socialism and free- 
 dom — Ferdinand Lassalle. 
 
 A shout of joy came from every breast. Everybody now 
 rushed over to Anna to congratulate her. In the hubbub that 
 arose the child awoke and as she lifted him out of the crib 
 every one of the men took a swift look at the wrinkled, cry- 
 ing face with mingled feelings of humility and reverence. 
 In an instant Conradi had risen in their eyes, and his child 
 with him. 
 
 Anna meantime was hugging the infant and muttering un- 
 der her breath, *' Fritzi, Fritzchen, Lieber Fritzchen." She 
 was in ecstasy. At last her child had a name ; she could now 
 call him, talk to him. 
 
 The noise and excitement which arose was not at all 
 in accord with Conradi's plan. His speech was only half 
 finished; there were other things he wanted to say. He 
 wanted to tell them that he was here and then founding the 
 " House of Conradi " on American soil, that he meant that 
 
VESPER BELLS 15 
 
 house, his house, to stand for great things in the life of the 
 American proletariat, that he would make the House of 
 Conradi a house of defiance, a house of revolt, a house that 
 would value freedom above all. . . . 
 
 But he was not allowed to finish his speech. He had 
 spoken too long already. Every one of his guests was clamor- 
 ing for expression. Their hearts were brimming over. 
 Even speech now seemed a slow, inadequate vehicle for their 
 overpowering emotions. They vibrated with song. They 
 said not a word, but some one started a tune and in an in- 
 stant they were singing loudly, wildly, passionately, Hein- 
 rich Heine's " Silesian Weavers." 
 
 " A curse on the God to whom vainly we prayed 
 From pangs of hunger and winter's cold — " 
 
 They hurled out anathema as if the God whom they were 
 thus menacing were there in person, were offering resistance. 
 
 " A cuxse on the king, the king of the rich, 
 Who was deaf to our anguish, who scorned our pain — " 
 
 It seemed as if the walls would give way to the pressure 
 of the fierce volume of song. 
 
 The neighbors from the tenement house opposite were at 
 the windows peering across the yard into the Conradi flat, 
 more amazed than ever. No one noticed this, however. 
 The men sang not only with their lungs but with their aching, 
 homesick hearts. 
 
 " We're weaving, we're weaving ! " 
 
 The last quivering line of the triple curse of the " Silesian 
 Weavers " was dying in the fast falling shadows of the night, 
 when the bells in the church directly around the corner from 
 the Conradi tenement began to peal their summons to vespers. 
 An instant silence fell over all. Place and distance seemed 
 
i6 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 obliterated. Exactly thus church bells were now pealing 
 their vesper call in the villages of Bavaria, in Mecklenburg, 
 on the Rhine. The thought of home, parents, friends, flitted 
 through the minds of every one. . . . And of the church, the 
 dear old village church in the shadow of whose oaks they 
 played as boys. Their hatred of priestcraft, bellowed out so 
 fiercely a few minutes earlier, somehow did not seem to 
 apply to this church of their childhood. The vesper sounds 
 now seemed to have lost all significance as messengers of 
 religion. The ringing of the bells fell on their ears softly, 
 reminiscently, like memories of childhood. It went to the 
 heart like a parent's blessing — 
 
 " O bells of folly, bells of creed, 
 How sweetly you resound home ! " 
 
 Anna lit the lamp. The shadows were gone and with 
 them the memories. Every one rose to his feet. Each of 
 the guests shook hands with Gottfried and his wife heartily. 
 But there was also a slight embarrassment in the leave-taking. 
 For each felt that he had been just a little soft toward the 
 end, a trifle sentimental. He did not mean to be so, but he 
 could not help it. In fact, he knew he would go on being 
 sentimental the rest of the evening. It was a moonlight 
 night — he would go to his room and read Heine or play 
 the concertina. . . . 
 
 When the dishes were cleared away and Anna Conradi, 
 thoroughly worn out by the noise and excitement of the day, 
 sought the old sofa and lay down for a brief rest, Gottfried 
 came up quietly. He bent over her, brought his face close 
 to hers, kissed her fervently, passionately, and began speak- 
 ing. At first he spoke in broken sentences. Then — then 
 he was making a speech to her, the speech he had meant to 
 
VESPER BELLS 17 
 
 make that afternoon — about the " House of Conradi," about 
 their son Ferdinand Lassalle, about his future. All defiance 
 had left him. There was no hatred in his voice, no bitter- 
 ness, only a sadness and a longing, an immense yearning. 
 He was painting to her the " House of Conradi." And it 
 sounded wonderful, like a fairy tale. It was to be a house 
 of brave and honest men, a house that would be respected by 
 Americans and would be looked up to with envy and admira- 
 tion by their countrymen. 
 
 His voice grew husky. He could not go on. He sought 
 his wife's face. But her cheeks, too, were wet with tears. 
 She had been crying for some time without his noticing it. 
 She was happy. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 FREDDY RECALLS 
 
 THE name Ferdinand Lassalle which Gottfried Con- 
 radi bestowed upon his infant son amid much solem- 
 nity and vehemence, was short-lived. When on a morning in 
 the latter part of June his wife ventured out into the yard 
 with the three weeks' old baby, her Irish neighbor, Mrs. 
 Maguire, who lived on the floor below, rushed up and began 
 showering compliments at her and cooing to the tiny young- 
 ster. 
 
 " And what be ye calling him, Mrs. Conrad? " she asked, 
 all smiles. 
 
 " Fer-di-" Anna started to pronounce the name slowly. 
 
 " Freddy," Mrs. Maguire snapped, giving her no chance 
 to finish. She was familiar with her German neighbor's 
 linguistic failings. Anna was frequently misplacing her 
 vowels and splitting her English words into syllables. The 
 Irish woman took it for granted that it was Freddy that 
 Mrs. Conradi had meant to say. 
 
 "Freddy," Mrs. Maguire went on with enthusiasm; 
 " that's a fine American name. I'm glad. I was afraid you 
 might name him Fritz or Hans or some other foreign name 
 which is no good in this country. But Freddy is a nice 
 name. I have a nephew by that name, Fred O'Rourke. He 
 is a roundsman for this district, as fine a police officer as 
 you ever saw." 
 
 Mrs. Maguire's two little girls, who for some time had 
 
 i8 
 
FREDDY RECALLS 19 
 
 vainly sought to gain their mother's eye, could restrain their 
 hankering no longer and began pulling her apron and asking 
 that they be allowed to see the baby. Mrs. Conradi was 
 pleased by the eagerness of the children. Radiating good 
 nature, she lifted the bonnet to show the whole of the child's 
 face and head. 
 
 " There, that's little Freddy," Mrs. Maguire was saying 
 to her youngsters with a benign voice and look, as if in giv- 
 ing the name of the infant she was making a present of some- 
 thing very precious to the little girls. 
 
 It was this offhand christening of the infant by the Irish 
 woman that in the course of events was to take precedence 
 over the solemn naming of the child by his father on that 
 memorable Sunday afternoon. Neither Ferdinand, which 
 Anna tried to call her infant, nor Lassalle, which Gottfried 
 insisted on calling him, could hold their own beside the brief, 
 crisp, buoyant, " American " Freddy. For Freddy, like 
 everything else that emanated from Mrs. Maguire, at once 
 came to stand in Mrs. Conradi 's mind for the Americanized 
 version of her son's German name. True, when alone with 
 her child, when holding her baby close to her breast, or when 
 crooning him to sleep, Anna would speak to him in German, 
 call him Fritzchen and Fritzi and Fritzli. These German 
 diminutives went so well with her German songs and lulla- 
 bies, they went well with her overflowing maternal emotions. 
 But in the yard, in the street, to her neighbors, to the strange 
 American world in which she now lived, in which she was 
 trying to fit, her infant son was Freddy, Fred. 
 
 And to fit into her surroundings Anna was trying hard — 
 much harder than her husband. She had to. She was in 
 fact living in a different world from that in which her hus- 
 band lived. Kleindeutschland, as the district in which they 
 lived was facetiously called, to Gottfried literally was a Little 
 
20 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 Germany. He worked with Germans. In the cigar factories 
 only an occasional English word or phrase crept in, the rest 
 was all German. At the meetings he attended German was 
 spoken. To Anna, on the other hand, Kleindeutschland was 
 largely a misnomer. Even in the tenements which were sup- 
 posed to constitute the heart of Little Germany, the Irish 
 tenants were still in the majority. The exodus of the Irish 
 from the district was not to come for a few years yet. Mrs. 
 Conradi was constantly compelled to acquire new English 
 words and phrases, to add new sentences, new combinations 
 to her small linguistic collection. When no one was about 
 she would even venture to speak English to her baby. 
 
 One Sunday morning as she was busying herself pre- 
 paring a bottle for the child it began to cry. 
 
 " In a minute, Freddy dear," she sang out cheerily. Her 
 husband heard this. 
 
 " Where do you get this Freddy from ? " Gottfried asked, 
 irritated. " His name is Ferdinand Lassalle." 
 
 " Freddy — that is English," his wife said with a ravish- 
 ing smile. The wrinkles disappeared from Gottfried's brow. 
 She was so much of a child herself still; she was so irresist- 
 ible, his Anna. 
 
 He made no further remonstrance against her calling their 
 child Freddy, but he thought about it often in the weeks 
 and months that followed. He also began to pay more at- 
 tention to the progress his wife was making in the acquisition 
 of the English language and customs. He noted the appear- 
 ance of several distinctly American trinkets in the house. 
 Her Irish neighbors were reshaping Anna's mind. At times 
 he was amazed at the flexibility of her tongue and vocal 
 organs. Anna was pronouncing with the ease of a native 
 English words that to him felt like a disagreeable mouthful. 
 
 In the midst of such brooding, Gottfried once caught sight 
 
FREDDY RECALLS 21 
 
 of himself in the mirror and was not a little shocked by his 
 appearance. His face was stern. There was no trace of 
 the boy in him and yet he was scarcely twenty-four. His 
 wife, though only two years younger than himself, looked 
 like a little girl beside him. His mustache had come up 
 rapidly of late and was giving him a much older appearance. 
 
 Gottfried's habit of persistent reasoning soon crystallized 
 his vague uneasiness into a definite fear. He was fearing 
 in all seriousness for his Lassalle (in his thoughts Gottfried 
 always called his infant Lassalle). He feared the influence 
 of the Irish neighbors and even of Anna herself upon the 
 child. Anna was young and was Americanizing so fast. 
 She would carry the child along with her; that was to be 
 expected. But would she not carry him too far? It would 
 be terrible to have barriers between himself and his son, 
 barriers of language or thought. He and his Lassalle must 
 be as one. They were to be companions. The boy was to 
 be a man after his own heart — not narrow, not clannish. 
 
 He was constantly running up against *' American narrow- 
 ness and clannishness." The New World was so intolerant 
 of the newcomer. It was forever trying to remodel him, to 
 pattern him after its own fashion, after its own likes and 
 whims. 
 
 He was himself being made the victim of this intolerance 
 by the New World. Thus his name Conradi was now being 
 mutilated, wiped off. Again Mrs. Maguire was at the root 
 of it. She would not bother with suffixes and insisted on 
 addressing her German neighbor as Mrs. Conrad. Just then 
 gas was introduced into their row of tenements. Mrs. Ma- 
 guire, as always, made herself the spokesman for her Ger- 
 man neighbor and gave the name to the gasman as Conrad. 
 That was decisive. Letters now began to come, and adver- 
 tisements, all addressed to Conrad. For a while these things 
 
22 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 infuriated Gottfried. Then his anger gave way to grief. 
 It simply had to be so — the New World would have its way. 
 
 Little by little the name Conradi joined the name Lassalle 
 in the realm of family heirlooms. Only among his intimates, 
 the charter members of the Freidenkerverein and the like 
 was Gottfried still addressed and put down on the books 
 by that name. In everyday life he had, like his wife and 
 son, become a Conrad. 
 
 While Gottfried Conrad frequently upbraided America, he 
 was himself yielding to the New World far more than he 
 suspected. A strange restlessness was coming over him, a 
 restlessness that was American in spirit, American in its 
 quickness, energy and enterprise. It was part of the same 
 restlessness and zeal which at the time was spurring on thou- 
 sands of men both natives and immigrants to heroic pursuits 
 of wealth, fortunes, possessions; part of the spirit which was 
 building railroads that were to span the country from coast 
 to coast and was dotting the broad prairies of the far west 
 with cities and hamlets. 
 
 This spirit which Chicago was expressing with " I will " 
 and which others had expressed with " Pike's Peak or Bust," 
 this spirit of turbulent energy had seized Conrad and his 
 group of Lassalleans, and was given expression in a fiercely 
 vigorous agitation they were carrying on against capitalism, 
 against the church, against their employers. In a short time 
 they organized the " Arbeiter Liedertafel," the " Spread Light 
 Society," the " German Workingmen's Sick Benefit Society." 
 They were now planning the establishment ' of a German 
 weekly that was to spread the ideas of socialism. Heinrich 
 Kolb was breaking ground for the paper. 
 
 Conrad, while cooperating with Kolb in the plans for a 
 socialist weekly, was carrying on single-handed an agitation 
 for a subject in which he had suddenly developed a great 
 
FREDDY RECALLS 23 
 
 interest — cremation. He was agitating among his country- 
 men for the establishment of a " German Cremation So- 
 ciety." The agitation for such a society was only another 
 phase of Conrad's unremitting hatred of Pfaffenthum. 
 What greater blow could be given the church than to 
 eliminate its potency in one of its important fields — 
 burial ! 
 
 While Gottfried was ardently addressing audiences of 
 German immigrants on the benefits of cremation, pointing 
 out to them how much more scientific, more progressive, it 
 was to burn the dead than to bury them in the fashion pre- 
 scribed by the church, his wife was making ready to re- 
 ceive a new life. Anna was expecting another baby. The 
 child, a boy, came as Freddy was rounding out his second 
 year. 
 
 In her heart Anna was trembling lest the coming of the 
 boy spur Gottfried to a repetition of the scene on the Sunday 
 when he named and dedicated little Freddy. But she was 
 spared this. A few days before the arrival of the baby, 
 trouble broke out in the shop where Gottfried worked. A 
 new system of dividing up the work had been installed and 
 this sliced off the wages of Gottfried and a number of other 
 men by a dollar and a quarter a week. It was five or six 
 weeks before the difference was finally adjusted. Under 
 these circumstances Gottfried was in no mood for celebra- 
 tion. The infant was quietly named Henry, Conrad letting 
 slip an occasion for a fresh onslaught on the church and 
 Pfaffenthum. Anna was much relieved over this and 
 guarded against saying or doing anything that might bring 
 up even an allusion to the subject. 
 
 In after years Freddy frequently tried to recall the details 
 of the accident to his little brother, but could not. With 
 
24 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 regard to the first events of the catastrophe his mind was a 
 blank. What he did have a vivid recollection of was a 
 blinding flash of terror and intelligence that in a moment 
 destroyed the fairyland of childhood in which he lived, and 
 bared his vision to the gray world of realities which he was 
 to know henceforth. 
 
 This inability to recall the first details of the accident that 
 doomed little Henry, an accident for which he was unwit- 
 tingly responsible, annoyed Freddy all the more because he 
 did remember things that happened months previous to the 
 accident. He recalled, for instance, the winter mornings 
 when he would wake to the pricking odor of what he later 
 came to recognize as smoke and before opening his eyelids 
 would call, " Mama! " A fumbling like that of one getting 
 up would follow and he would feel his mother's arms about 
 him. She would take him into her bed and snuggle him up 
 close to her. He recalled her kisses and caresses, her soft 
 arm upon which he loved to put his cheek and dream with 
 eyes shut. He recalled how after a time he would open his 
 eyes, would meet the ecstatic gaze of his mother, would ask 
 where Papa was, and how Mother would pucker her lips in 
 imitation of his own, and would tell him that Father had 
 gone to work long since. 
 
 All this which had taken place at least five months prior 
 to the accident to little Henry he recalled, but for a picture 
 of the terrible moment of wreck and ruin to his brother and 
 to his family he could go only to his mother's incoherent 
 memories. It was evening. Father had gone to a meeting. 
 Anna recalled that she had neglected her breakfast for the 
 next day. She could not wait until her husband's return, 
 Gottfried would come too late. So she entrusted little Henry 
 to him, to Freddy, warned him to look sharp after his little 
 brother and he promised to do so. She was back in a trice 
 
FREDDY RECALLS 25 
 
 — but the thing had happened. The yard was filled with 
 screaming women and children. One of them was holding 
 little Henry. The child looked in the distance like a red 
 ball. He had fallen a flight and a half of stairs to the base- 
 ment, was covered with blood from head to foot and was un- 
 conscious. 
 
 From then on Freddy recalled things distinctly. He re- 
 membered the horror in his father's face; for Gottfried had 
 been called back from the meeting by one of the neighbors. 
 He recalled the sobs and hand-wringing of his mother, the 
 tense face of the physician and the hoarse gasps of his little 
 brother. His father was holding the lamp, his mother a 
 candle. Lamp and candle were moved about in conformity 
 with the orders of the physician, who was concentrating the 
 light now on one, now on another part of the child's body 
 which he was tapping and sounding. 
 
 At this point his memory was a trifle blurred. But he 
 recalled distinctly the visits of the physician in the weeks 
 that followed. A window sill had been set aside for medi- 
 cines. Upon it were heaped small porcelain jars and bot- 
 tles, gauze, bandages, cotton. The house smelled of medi- 
 cine. Mother moved about the house like a shadow, weep- 
 ing, always weeping. Father stayed home evenings now. 
 But he seldom played with or even talked to him. Only 
 once after days and days in which he seemed to have com- 
 pletely forgotten his little son did Gottfried take Freddy on 
 his knees. The child was overcome with happiness. He 
 took hold of a button on his father's vest and drew Gott- 
 fried's attention to himself. 
 
 "Are you angry, Papa?" Freddy asked. He had often 
 heard his mother speak so to Gottfried. 
 
 His father was fairly lifted out of his chair by the ques- 
 tion. " No, my son, I am not angry," he answered. 
 
26 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 Freddy leaned his cheek against his father's shoulder and 
 lay quiet for a long time. 
 
 Once Freddy observed his mother holding his little brother 
 in her lap and studying him with mournful eyes. It oc- 
 curred to him that he had not seen little Henry walk in a 
 long time. 
 
 " Why don't he walk, Mama ? " he asked. 
 
 Anna answered through tears. "He can't walk; he is 
 sick." 
 
 " He is sick," the child repeated; " why is he sick? " 
 
 " Because he injured his spine." 
 
 " Oh," said he, as if this cleared matters, and he rushed 
 to the window to watch the rain beat against the panes. 
 
 Several days later Freddy came up to where little Henry 
 lay and began telling him a story. He made noises and 
 gestures, the kind of noises and gestures that ordinarily would 
 set his little brother giggling and clapping his hands, but 
 there was no response from the child now, not an exclama- 
 tion, not a sound. Freddy turned to his mother. 
 
 " Why don't he laugh. Mama? " 
 
 " He can't laugh." Anna swallowed hard. 
 
 " Because he injured his spine," he said, half questioning, 
 half explaining. 
 
 Anna drew him up to her and clasped him in her arms. 
 
 One day as Freddy was sitting on the floor playing, little 
 Henry emitted a strange cry. Freddy looked up at his 
 mother with a frightened, questioning gaze. It was not his 
 little brother's wonted cry. It was more like the lowing of 
 a little beast in pain. Anna noticed the expression in her 
 son's face and turned aside to wipe her tears. 
 
 The doctor was agonizingly indefinite about the child's 
 condition. Would little Henry get well? He might; such 
 things happen. How soon might he get well? That he 
 
FREDDY RECALLS 27 
 
 could not tell; no one could. Would the child be in this 
 imbecile condition a year? Oh, yes, surely. Might he re- 
 main in that state for many years? He might. Might he 
 never recover from it? That, too, was likely. 
 
 Conrad now owed the doctor a considerable bill and the 
 physician ceased calling. He was to be summoned only in 
 case the child became violently ill, or something out of the 
 ordinary happened. Otherwise there was no need of a physi- 
 cian. 
 
 No sooner had the doctor's visits ceased, however, than 
 Anna began making the rounds of dispensaries. Twice and 
 three times a week she would visit various free clinics, in 
 spite of the wet, drizzly fall days. Freddy invariably ac- 
 companied her on these journeys. She could not leave him 
 alone in the house. Besides, the boy was a real help to her 
 now that little Henry had become a " lump of flesh," as Anna 
 often sobbed to herself. 
 
 Gottfried would listen to his wife's tales of what the doc- 
 tors had to say about little Henry in silence. He was a 
 little afraid of Anna — afraid that she might break down. 
 She had become worn and unstrung. He spent much time 
 home now, brooding. Remorse was gnawing at him. Anna 
 never reproached him, but he felt that he was largely, if not 
 entirely, responsible for the injury to his child. Of course 
 accidents would happen. Still had he stayed home that 
 evening, his child might have been well; they might all have 
 been spared that misfortune. 
 
 Little Henry apparently was none the worse off for being 
 dragged about by his mother. He was eating well and get- 
 ting stouter, heavier. But there was not the slightest sign 
 of a return of intelligence into his vacant face and eyes. 
 
 The fall passed and Christmas came. Conrad was fond 
 of Christmas in spite of his irreligion. It was such a 
 
28 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 " gemiithlicher " holiday, it was so filled with memories of 
 home and childhood and happy bygone days. It was to him 
 the least churchly of all church holidays. But there was 
 next to no celebration at the Conrad home that Christmas. 
 There was no holiday spirit in the house. 
 
 Mrs. Conrad left off going to dispensaries during the holi- 
 days. But the first week in January she not only went her- 
 self with the child, but insisted that Gottfried, who was not 
 working that week, go along with her to a hitherto untried 
 clinic. He went, and when he remained alone with the 
 physician he implored him for the truth about his child. He 
 was ready to face anything, Gottfried assured him. The 
 doctor would make no out and out prediction. He hinted, 
 however, that " in such cases death is frequently the greatest 
 specialist." Gottfried tried hard to meet his wife with a 
 look of feigned unconcern. 
 
 The women in the tenement house were now in frequent 
 communication with Anna. They brought her news of every 
 specialist or professor they heard about. They brought her 
 stories of cases similar to her own. Anna's head would be- 
 come dizzy from the description of diseases and the sickening 
 details of suffering. It would seem to her at times as if the 
 whole world were a huge hospital and that her share of 
 misery and suffering were indeed light beside the horrifying 
 agonies her neighbors and friends described. 
 
 She could not of course think of visiting the specialists and 
 professors the women told her about, because they charged 
 such prohibitive prices, but she longed to visit them, espe- 
 cially one, a Dr. Homer Blakely, concerning whom she heard 
 much. But Dr. Blakely, it was said, charged twenty-five 
 dollars a visit. So that was out of the question. 
 
 One day in March the neighbor who had been indefatigable 
 in her stories about Dr. Blakely fairly flew into the Conrad 
 
FREDDY RECALLS 29 
 
 flat, so eager was she to impart the good news. Dr. Blakely 
 could be seen free. Yes, twice a week the professor was at 
 the Mount Horeb hospital. He was there only an hour and 
 there were hundreds waiting every time to see him. He was 
 there from ten to eleven. But if Mrs. Conrad meant to see 
 him she would have to be at the hospital at eight o'clock in 
 the morning. 
 
 Anna's eyes lighted up at this news. She would be there 
 at eight o'clock; she would be there long before eight. And 
 she was — the following Friday. 
 
 It was a cold, biting morning, one of those mornings which 
 give the month of March the characterization of coming in 
 like a lion. But this did not deter her. While his father 
 was eating breakfast, she woke Freddy up and dressed him 
 by lamplight. Then she got busy with the invalid, wrap- 
 ping little Henry up tightly and securely. Before starting 
 she looked Freddy over again. She thought she had him 
 dressed amply warm for the ride. But she was unaware of 
 the long walk there was between the street-car and the hos- 
 pital dispensary. When she was still several blocks from 
 the hospital, little Freddy's hands were numb and the tears 
 were freezing on his cheeks. He cried bitterly. The inva- 
 lid, too, began a series of awful shrieks. The wind and 
 sleet cut Mrs. Conrad's bare wrist, but she would not for a 
 minute relinquish Freddy's hand. Thus, holding one child 
 to her bosom and dragging the other one, she finally reached 
 the hospital. Breathlessly she sank on the first bench she 
 saw. It was not yet 7:30. Attracted by the cries of the 
 two children, an attendant came out, a middle-aged man. 
 He was accustomed to such sights, but not so early in the 
 morning. This must be a desperate case, he thought, and 
 departed for the moment from his cold, official manner. He 
 took hold of Freddy and rubbed his stiff fingers back first to 
 
30 
 
 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 pain and then to relief. Anna was doing all she could to 
 quiet little Henry. 
 
 The attendant took in the strange sound the child was 
 making, looked at him and then at Anna and said nothing. 
 
 " I want to see Professor Blakely," Anna began as soon 
 as the children were quieted. " I must see him. I beg you 
 to let me see him." Her misfortune had for one of its re- 
 sults the acquirement by Anna of a sharper, better command 
 of English. She simply had to elbow her way through the 
 English language as she had to do it through the crowds in 
 the dispensaries if she were to get anywhere. 
 
 " Yes, yes," the attendant sought to quiet her, " you shall 
 see him. You shall see him first," he added as he was 
 leaving the room. Several other hospital attaches came into 
 the room one by one in the next hour and a half. All eyed 
 Mrs. Conrad and her invalid curiously and all were nice to 
 Freddy. Meantime the waiting-room was rapidly filling up 
 with patients. They were talking under their breath, whis- 
 pering. All eyes were fixed on the door leading to the inner 
 room. Finally it opened. An attendant looked over the 
 crowd and disappeared again inside the closed door. He 
 came out a moment later, went half way across the room 
 and motioned Mrs. Conrad to follow him. Anna's heart 
 stood still. 
 
 In spite of Dr. Blakely's attempted smile every time he 
 looked at her or asked a question, Anna was trembling. She 
 felt that she was in the presence of a man who was different 
 from all the doctors she had visited. The others were so 
 sure and brief. Dr. Blakely seemed utterly undecided. He 
 was taking Mrs. Conrad into his confidence, was asking her 
 opinion, seemed to be seeking her approbation, as if she too 
 were a doctor. There was no gruff ness in his voice, he made 
 no attempt at showing authority. On the contrary, he 
 
FREDDY RECALLS 31 
 
 seemed apologetic, and acted as if he felt guilty of some- 
 thing. She could have cried out, could have thrown herself 
 at the man's feet and begged him to save her son. If he 
 could not save him, no one could. But she controlled her- 
 self. She was afraid to make the least disturbance. The 
 physician's eyes had become so thoughtful. 
 
 The examination of the child by the Yankee doctor indeed 
 was not a superficial one. Little Henry was undressed and 
 the physician's fingers traveled over every limb. Then came 
 various probes and sounds. He looked into his ears and 
 eyes, pulled back the hair from his forehead and observed it 
 for a long time. 
 
 Then, while the nurses were tending to the invalid, the 
 physician turned to little Freddy. He tickled the youngster 
 under the chin and a smile spread over Dr. Blakely's clean- 
 shaven face, a kindly, grandfatherly smile. 
 
 " I have a little grandson who is just your age," he was 
 telling Freddy. " You want to come and play with him ? " 
 
 Freddy did not answer. The tears were fast gathering in 
 Anna's eyes. Dr. Blakely turned his attention to her. He 
 began asking questions, what dispensaries she had been going 
 to, how often she went. She answered quickly. Once she 
 got her tenses badly mixed. A faint smile flickered over the 
 physician's face. He asked how long she had been in the 
 country, where she came from. The Rhine? Oh, yes, he 
 knew the Rhine very well, liked it; tramped through the 
 whole Rhine country as a student. He dropped into Ger- 
 man so simply and naturally that Mrs. Conrad hardly noticed 
 the change of language. 
 
 He was warning her not to go out on such cold days to 
 dispensaries. It might make little Freddy ill. And she, too, 
 was not overly strong, and not overly well dressed. She 
 must be careful. She was apt to catch cold. ... He was 
 
32 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 sidestepping the real issue, Anna felt. He was hedging. 
 He did not wish to speak to her about little Henry. 
 
 " But, Herr Doktor," she broke in excitedly, " what about 
 my child — will he get well ? Will he, Doctor ? I — I can- 
 not stand it any longer." 
 
 Her thin frame was trembling with sobs. Dr. Blakely 
 spoke. He urged her to calm herself, to control her feel- 
 ings. She must not take it so hard. She had another child 
 to look after, her little boy there. She must spare her health 
 for his sake. Besides, she was still so young, she would 
 have other children, many children, nice children like little 
 Freddy. ... He smiled. 
 
 She recovered her self-possession in an instant. The 
 doctor's words sounded so strange. Was her child going to 
 die? 
 
 Dr. Blakely regarded her for a moment. Finally he 
 spoke: "No, not so soon." 
 
 " He will die, he will die," she mumbled, a hunted look 
 coming into her eyes. 
 
 The doctor was looking at little Freddy and seemed to 
 weigh something in his mind. The child was dressed in a 
 coat of cheap, shoddy material. His patched shoes, the 
 flannel pants and waist he wore, his mittens, all were un- 
 equal to the rigors of the weather outside. And he spoke 
 to Mrs. Conrad. He spoke with the same attitude and feel- 
 ing with which he was wont to plunge the scalpel deeper 
 and deeper into a wound, knowing that that way alone lay 
 relief and safety. 
 
 " Liebe Frau," he said, speaking in German to her, " you 
 must not forget that you have another child to look after. 
 You must save your health for him and for yourself, for 
 your future children. There is no use in my leading you 
 on with false hopes. You might as well face the truth and 
 
FREDDY RECALLS 33 
 
 save your energy, save tramping to dispensaries in such 
 weather. Your child will never be well. There is only one 
 way out for cases like this — death. Doctors can do noth- 
 ing for it. It is entirely in the hands of nature. Nature 
 may sometimes work out a cure in spite of the physician's 
 diagnosis. Such cures, however, are not frequent. His 
 brain has been disturbed and his spine is injured. There is 
 nothing to be done for him but to make his lot as easy as 
 possible as long as he is with us." 
 
 She was sobbing. The nurse was dressing the invalid. 
 The physician walked up and down the room a few times, 
 then stood directly in front of Mrs. Conrad. His gray hair 
 had been disturbed. The rings under his eyes were showing 
 with marked prominence. He never liked such scenes. 
 They aged one. 
 
 " This," he said, looking at the sad, helpless woman before 
 him, " this, my dear woman, is a time to show your Christian 
 fortitude. Brace up." 
 
 She had a long day for tears and moans so that they were 
 well spent by the time her husband came home for supper. 
 As soon as Gottfried saw his wife's face he knew that some- 
 thing had happened. He looked at Freddy. The child was 
 sitting at the table awaiting his father. Little Henry lay in 
 his crib asleep. All was seemingly as usual, but something 
 had happened. He sensed it clearly. 
 
 They ate in silence. Gottfried did not take his eyes off 
 Freddy during the meal. He kept asking him whether he 
 wanted more of this or that. But the boy did not have 
 much of an appetite that evening. When the meal was fin- 
 ished, Gottfried asked: 
 
 " What did the doctor say? " 
 
 Anna pretended not to hear him. She did not wish to 
 
34 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 speak in Freddy's presence. She rose and walked over to 
 where little Henry lay sleeping and stood at the foot of the 
 child's bed. Gottfried followed and stood beside her. 
 
 " What did the doctor say? " he asked as he put his arm 
 about her waist. Anna bent her face and head lower. 
 
 " He said," she spoke with a throat that was filling with 
 tears, " he said, this is the time to show Christian fortitude/* 
 
 Gottfried lifted his eyes from his wife's heaving shoulders 
 and stared at the sleeping child in the crib. Six years of 
 idiocy had made their entry into the Conrad home. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE WEB OF LITE 
 
 WITH the definite realization that their child was a 
 hopeless idiot, there settled over the Conrad house- 
 hold a subdued quiet. Had little Henry died Gottfried 
 would not have been wanting in words of consolation for 
 himself and for his wife. Little Freddy was still too young 
 to have a sustained impression of the tragedy. 
 
 But of what avail could words be when the child was 
 there, lying in the crib, or sitting humped together in an im- 
 provised chair, a mass of vegetating tissue, with' a hopeless, 
 idiotic gaze and a voice like that of a bullock? Gottfried 
 could endure pain, torture, death, if it only came with a vio- 
 lent rush. The slow, torturesome agony of helplessness was 
 driving him mad. When he woke in the morning and went 
 about his ablutions he would try hard to avoid chancing his 
 gaze upon little Henry as he lay in the crib. When he re- 
 turned from work in the evening he maintained a sullen 
 silence. He had not lost his sensitiveness for his wife. On 
 the contrary, it was this very sensitiveness for her suffering 
 and torture that was turning him into a bear. The dull gaze 
 of the invalid was turning the house into a torture chamber 
 for him, and Gottfried fled. 
 
 He fled to his societies. He sought relief in consuming 
 activity in the various socialist and labor organizations. 
 Gottfried, who leaped from one impulse to another, was now 
 
 35 
 
36 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 slighting his wife. He brought his wages home, to be sure, 
 but not himself. He spent little time in the house. Anna 
 saw the change that was coming over her husband, but 
 she had been too much battered and beaten by misfortune to 
 have energy left for consecutive thought or contemplation. 
 She was devoting herself to her invalid and to Freddy with 
 passion and tenderness; to the invalid because he was help- 
 less, because he was no longer of this world but was merely 
 lingering on before taking his departure; and to Freddy be- 
 cause he was her hope for the future and companion for the 
 present. The boy was bright, sensitive, and was compen- 
 sating her for many hurts and neglects by his father. 
 
 But Gottfried hardened in a measure also toward Freddy. 
 Time and again when his five-year-old son would come up 
 to his father for a word or caress, Gottfried would speak to 
 him or touch him grudgingly. His sense of justice, which 
 he carried to extremes at all times and on all occasions, would 
 tell him that a caress for Freddy might indeed be a dis- 
 crimination which little Henry, were he in possession of his 
 faculties, would resent. So little Freddy came to depend 
 more and more upon his mother. He clung to Anna with all 
 the fervor of his sensitive and neglected heart. 
 
 Time and events combined to make it easy for Gottfried 
 to neglect his home and family and yet not incur any re- 
 proaches in doing so from Anna or even from his own con- 
 science. For Conrad was in great demand these days. 
 There was a quickening of activity among the German work- 
 men in New York and in America generally. Immigration 
 from the fatherland had increased and most of the newcom- 
 ers were workingmen. Some of them had belonged to Las- 
 salle's organization in the Old World; others were members 
 of Karl Marx's recently formed Internationale. The Ger- 
 mans in New York were now organizing in trade unions. 
 
THE WEB OF LIFE 37 
 
 Grievances were discussed, ultimatums to employers decided 
 upon, strikes planned. 
 
 Another event that stirred the German colony to its founda- 
 tions was the appearance in America of Karl Marx's work 
 " Das Kapital." The book had already been accepted by 
 the socialists of Europe as their gospel. Its appearance in 
 New York had transformed over night the halls and bar- 
 rooms of Little Germany into popular forums for the dis- 
 cussion of surplus value, rents and profits. Scores of clubs 
 had sprung up for the systematic study of the treatise. Con- 
 rad was a zealous student of the book and among the first 
 to master it. 
 
 The interest in Karl Marx's book was still at white heat 
 when the panic of 1873 set in. There were thousands of 
 unemployed walking about the streets of New York City, 
 hungry. The approaching rigors of the winter made their 
 sufferings even more acute. Protest meetings, demonstra- 
 tions, parades were held. At each of these Conrad was in the 
 forefront as the orator of the day. There were other speak- 
 ers in the colony, but none of them had the earnestness and 
 convincingness of Gottfried Conrad. His friends, the Las- 
 salleans with Heinrich Kolb at the head, noticed that. Con- 
 rad had indeed grown in the half-dozen years since he left 
 Germany. No one could drive an argument or a picture 
 home to the workingman so well as he. To Kolb, who would 
 sit on the same platform with him, it would often seem as if 
 Gottfried was pouring out his own heavy heart to his listen- 
 ers; as if he were baring his own cruel fate and bitter disap- 
 pointment to them. His sympathy and understanding of 
 suffering and tragedy were almost divine. His sincerity and 
 directness savored of the apostles. Kolb watched Conrad 
 with pride. He w^as not deceived in him. Gottfried had 
 more than come up to his expectations. He was indeed a 
 
38 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 great orator — the best socialist speaker among the Germans 
 in New York. His, Kolb's, teachings and influence had 
 fallen on fertile soil. . . . 
 
 "Nun Ja, der Conrad! " the listeners would say to each 
 other — and that explained it all. That was just exactly 
 what they expected of him. Conrad's reputation as a 
 scourger of oppression had for some time been definitely ac- 
 cepted. 
 
 But the vehemence which marked Gottfried Conrad on the 
 platform was beginning to find expression in his personal 
 relations with people and especially with his family. He 
 had always been somewhat autocratic; he was becoming more 
 and more so now without noticing it. Anna watched her hus- 
 band with sad eyes. Gottfried was growing quarrelsome, 
 hard and domineering. There was a set, elderly expression 
 about his face now, despite the fact that he was not yet thirty. 
 His long, sandy mustache framed a mouth that had lost 
 nearly all of the tender sensitiveness that endeared him to 
 her back in Germany, that made him such a wonderful lover 
 there. 
 
 Sometimes on a Sunday Conrad would sit home and read. 
 But no longer as in the past was he calling Anna to read 
 her a love story in the paper or to tell her an anecdote. His 
 reading now was as gray as his life. At least such was the 
 impression the books and pamphlets he devoured made upon 
 Anna. She found them full of figures. They read for all 
 the world like a tradesman's bill. 
 
 Anna's sadness was taking on a tinge of self-pity. When 
 Freddy was out playing in the yard, she would often sit by 
 the window and cry. She was lonely. Friends and neigh- 
 bors were all right in their place. But now she needed more 
 than friends. She needed Gottfried — his sympathy, his 
 love and caresses. She was expecting another baby. And 
 
THE WEB OF LIFE 39 
 
 while Gottfried was considerate and relieved her of much 
 work, she sought his eyes for something more than mere 
 consideration, but she did not find it there. Gottfried was 
 too embittered. 
 
 In August the child came, a little girl. But she died at 
 the end of three weeks. There was an epidemic in the dis- 
 trict at the time and the child succumbed to it. The birth 
 and death of the child made a fleeting impression upon the 
 Conrad household. It was soon again in its accustomed 
 rut — with a slight deviation. 
 
 Freddy, who was now six years old, started school 
 and there was no one to help her with Henry during the 
 day. The invalid child had developed a ravenous appetite, 
 and his paralytic body with its large head, curved back, and 
 face of leaden hue, was taking on much flesh. In her still 
 delicate condition she could no longer lift or carry him with- 
 out doing violence to her own health. 
 
 Not to deprive little Henry, however, of his wonted airing, 
 Mrs. Conrad contrived a new scheme. As soon as Freddy 
 came back from school they would take him up on the roof 
 of the house together and keep him there the rest of the 
 afternoon, and even a good part of the evening. 
 
 It was less than a half-dozen blocks from the tenement in 
 which the Conrad family lived to the East River. In the 
 late afternoon and evening during the few weeks before fall 
 set in, the breeze from the river would make the roof of the 
 tenement a delightful place. After supper, when Conrad 
 would go away to his meetings, she would go up to the roof, 
 spread out a blanket and lie down with little Freddy, the 
 invalid lying on one side of them. Mother and son would 
 talk together as they watched the city become studded with 
 electric lights, and listened to the whistles of steamers, or 
 gazed at the stars in silence. These few fall evenings and his 
 
40 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 mother's face remained bound together in Freddy's memory 
 to his dying day. 
 
 From the roof they had a view of several of the big sky- 
 scrapers on one side. On the other side towered the steeple 
 of a church. The church was blocks away, but the gold- 
 roofed steeple seemed near, especially after dark. In the 
 evening it would often seem to Freddy that he needed but to 
 walk over to the edge of the roof and he could touch the 
 steeple. 
 
 Once Freddy asked his mother why they were not going 
 to church; all the people he knew were. Anna gave him 
 the best answer she could think of, and the child forgot the 
 subject. He came back to it, however, some evenings later. 
 
 " Mama," he asked, " are we foreigners? " 
 
 Anna studied his little face in the moonlight. " Why do 
 you ask this ? " she said finally. 
 
 " 'Cause Jackie Carroll says we are foreigners 'cause we 
 don't go to church." 
 
 " Is that what he says? " She tried to draw him out. 
 
 " Yes," said Freddy, enthusiastic over his mother's inter- 
 est. " Jackie says his mother says all them foreigners are 
 bad people. They don't pray at the table and don't go to 
 church." 
 
 Anna was silent. 
 
 " Why don't we never go to church, Mama? " Freddy came 
 back with the question that never was satisfactorily an- 
 swered. " Is it 'cause you got to tend to baby ? " They were 
 calling their invalid " baby." 
 
 " Yes," she said, not knowing what answer to make. 
 
 " Then why don't Papa take me to church? Lots of chil- 
 dren go to church with their papas." 
 
 " When you are a big boy you will know," Mrs. Conrad 
 replied, and Freddy wondered why he could not know now. 
 
THE WEB OF LIFE 41 
 
 But he did not wonder too long. A moment later he was 
 asking her about the stars and where they came from, and 
 why God had chosen to live in heaven. In spite of the fact 
 that the word God was never mentioned by Conrad, and that 
 he forbade his wife to mention it in his child's presence, 
 Freddy had picked up all sorts of words and phrases about 
 God and heaven and was trying to construct the fragments 
 of information into one whole, into a something that would 
 have logic and would not puzzle his childish brain. 
 
 Mrs. Conrad, who had been thinking to herself while her 
 little son was rambling, suddenly said to him as if in response 
 to a question : 
 
 " No, you are not a foreigner, my child — you are an 
 American. Papa and I were born in the old country, but 
 you were born right here in New York. You are an Amer- 
 ican; you are as good an American as Jackie Carroll or 
 anybody else. Americans too don't go to church if they 
 don't want to. You don't have to go to church if you don't 
 wish to." 
 
 Anna had not at all been converted to her husband's free- 
 thinking views. She approved of them no more than ever. 
 But she would not let any one hold these views against him 
 and especially against her child. It was just such ques- 
 tions that she feared during those weeks immediately fol- 
 lowing Freddy's birth when she was pleading with Gottfried 
 to have the child baptized. She would shield her son, how- 
 ever, against such annoyances, she would shield him to the 
 best of her ability. 
 
 Freddy had studied the decisive mien of his mother for 
 some time, then came back at her trying to make sure. 
 
 " I'm not a foreigner nohow? " he asked. 
 
 A glint of merriment came into Anna's eyes. She replied, 
 " You are not a foreigner, nohow; you are an American." 
 
42 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 The boy was quiet for a long time. He was thinking. 
 
 Two days later Freddy ran up the stairs in the afternoon 
 with several ugly scratches on his face and wrists. His 
 waist was torn and one ear was dirt-covered, as if he had 
 rolled on the ground. 
 
 " Did you fight again? " Anna asked anxiously. 
 
 " Yes," he said quietly. 
 
 "With whom?" 
 
 " With Jackie," he replied, and dropped his monosyllabic 
 tone. There was a glow in his eyes, a glow of triumph. 
 He continued, fairly shouting as he spoke, "I bit him and 
 I punched him and then I kicked him in the stomach." 
 
 "< Why did you do this? " His mother glowered at him. 
 Mrs. Carroll was a neighbor of hers whom she did not espe- 
 cially like. She was one of the old Irish tenants in the 
 neighborhood. The invasion of the district by German im- 
 migrants had caused an exodus of the Irish. Mrs. Carroll 
 resented this and she " made the dutchies feel it," as she 
 expressed it. She was a quarrelsome neighbor; Mrs. Con- 
 rad always avoided her. 
 
 " I warned you," Anna chid her son, " not to play with 
 Jackie and not to fight with him." 
 
 "I did not begin it," burst out Freddy; "he did. He 
 said I was a foreigner and I was no Christian, and called 
 me names, and there was a lot of children about and they 
 laughed. Then I punched him and I rolled him on the 
 ground and I kicked him until he cried. I did not cry; I 
 won't — " and he broke out in stifling sobs. 
 
 Freddy's starting school brought about a significant change 
 in the Conrad household. It brought Gottfried back to his 
 family with remarkable suddenness. The wound caused by 
 the misfortune to little Henry was not healed, but it was not 
 
THE WEB OF LIFE 43 
 
 festering. Both Gottfried and his wife were becoming recon- 
 ciled to their fate — their son's fate. Conrad had calmed 
 down. He could now look at his invalid son, go up to him 
 and try to make him comfortable. His paternal feelings for 
 the child were dulled. Whenever his thoughts turned on the 
 future, on his family, he saw only Freddy. 
 
 Conrad did not curtail his activity in the union and various 
 socialist organizations to which he belonged, but his heart 
 was home once more, things in the house resumed a cheer- 
 fulness which had not been there since that fatal evening of 
 the accident nearly two and a half years back. The holi- 
 day feeling would be introduced at supper when Gottfried 
 would open a conversation with Freddy about school and 
 his teachers. Gottfried was taking his six-year-old son seri- 
 ously now. So far Freddy was the only prop upon which 
 his house, the House of Conrad, was to rest. Gottfried 
 looked sharp after the progress the boy was making in his 
 studies, in his surroundings. He was more than ever on 
 guard now lest his son be torn from him, torn by a training, 
 by a psychology and point of view which would have nothing 
 in common with his. He was determined to keep his son. 
 There must be no gap between them. Of course, Freddy was 
 an American: English was his native language. But why 
 could not Freddy think in English that which his father was 
 thinking in German? The theories and ideals for which he, 
 Gottfried, stood, which he preached, were universal. They 
 were international. Socialism was preaching the brother- 
 hood of men and nations. That he must make clear to the 
 boy, with that his son must become inoculated. There 
 should be no difference in thought between him and his son 
 even if a difference in tongues could not be avoided. 
 
 Of course Gottfried had no intention of talking socialism 
 to his six-year-old son; that would be ridiculous. But he 
 
44 
 
 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 determined to look after his mental and moral bringing up 
 otherwise. Among the socialist tracts he had read there 
 were several which contained interesting information about 
 the growth of the child's mind and habits of thought. These 
 Conrad read and reread and now proceeded to put them into 
 practise. His son was to grow into a socialistic viewpoint. 
 He would not let his boy out of his sight. 
 
 The struggles which Freddy went through because the 
 Conrad family was not going to church did not escape 
 Gottfried's keen eye. This, in spite of the fact that Anna 
 never mentioned such things to him. She carefully re- 
 frained from narrating to her husband the various questions 
 little Freddy asked her during the beautiful fall evenings 
 they spent on the roof. But Gottfried suspected these things. 
 He had reason to. Twice or three times he caught Freddy 
 making remarks which showed that the subject of religion 
 had been discussed somewhere, possibly in school. Once 
 Freddy asked his father whether he could go to Sunday- 
 school. Teacher was telling him about it. All the other 
 children went. 
 
 " You better wait," said Conrad. " Soon v/e shall have 
 a Sunday-school of our own." 
 
 Freddy did not seem pleased by it, or overly interested in 
 the Sunday-school that was to be. But he submitted with- 
 out further protest. 
 
 At the very next meeting of the Freidenkerverein Conrad 
 got up and spoke at length about the need of a Sunday-school 
 for the children of the free-thinking German immigrants. 
 There were by this time more than a dozen married men in 
 the society and they heartily approved Conrad's suggestion. 
 Conrad did not come empty-handed to the meeting. He had 
 several newspaper clippings and a little pamphlet telling of 
 
THE WEB OF LIFE 45 
 
 the work which Free-thinking Germans in the West were 
 doing in that direction. 
 
 A committee was appointed to get in touch with these 
 Western Germans and to see how far they had progressed 
 with their free-thought schools and instruction. The greater 
 part of the winter was consumed in correspondence. In 
 March a program and course of study were finally agreed 
 upon. The first Sunday in April the Sunday-school that 
 was " to train children as future soldiers in the army of 
 the brotherhood of man, freedom and equality " was to open. 
 
 Conrad and Kolb supplemented each other in outlining the 
 course of study. The word " God " was eliminated and 
 " Nature " was substituted for it. The children were to be 
 taught reason and human dignity — Vernunft und Mensch- 
 Uche Werde. They were to be taught pure morals and ethics 
 — Reine Moral und Sittlichkeit. Instead of being taught 
 the miracles of the Bible, they were to be taught the wonders 
 of science: Precepts of humanity were to take the place of 
 the catechism of religion. 
 
 The long awaited Sunday came. Gottfried himself took 
 his little son to Sunday-school. The school was housed in 
 the hall where the Freidenkerverein held its semi-monthly 
 meetings. But the hall had been specially adorned for the 
 occasion. Several new pictures were added to those already 
 on the walls. Across from the picture of Ferdinand Lassalle 
 there now hung a picture of Alexander von Humboldt. A 
 supposed likeness of Copernicus was hung next to that of 
 the agitator Weitling. Across the length of the wall, which 
 faced the audience, freshly painted was the legend Und Sie 
 Bewegt Sick Doch. 
 
 The preceptor was a young German student who had re- 
 cently arrived from the Old World. He did not speak a 
 
46 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 word of English. He made an introductory speech which 
 the parents present fully approved, and were even enthusiastic 
 over. But little Freddy and the half-dozen other boys and 
 girls who were present understood scarcely a word. They 
 sat wondering what it was all about. The first session of the 
 Sunday-school was a disappointment to them. They had 
 heard from other children what their Sunday-school was like. 
 They had seen the children come home from school laugh- 
 ing, chatting, happy. But there was nothing here to make 
 one happy. 
 
 The didactic tone of the young student and the evident lack 
 of interest on the part of the children made Conrad uneasy. 
 He could not exactly say how and where the fault lay, but 
 there was something wrong with the school. He confided his 
 misgivings to Kolb. The latter took a broader outlook. 
 
 " The boy," Kolb said, referring to the teacher, " is not 
 at fault. It is a difficult job we have undertaken. The 
 other Sunday-schools, those of the church, have back of them 
 centuries of method, tradition, manners. They have been 
 molded and adapted for generations. They are now second 
 nature with children. Their teachers travel over a beaten 
 track. We, on the other hand, have to build up something, 
 we have to construct something out of our theories. That is 
 no easy matter." 
 
 Indeed it was not easy. For six Sundays in succession 
 Gottfried Conrad, in common with several others of the faith- 
 ful members of the Freidenkerverein, compelled their chil- 
 dren to sit through an hour and a half every Sunday morning 
 at the Sunday-school and listen to stupid speeches by the 
 young student. The children conceived during these weeks 
 a hatred not only for the young man, but for the German 
 language in which he was speaking. If the man had only 
 spoken English, perhaps they would have understood him, 
 
THE WEB OF LIFE 47 
 
 perhaps the sessions would have ceased to be such an agoniz- 
 ing boredom ! 
 
 In the middle of May the experiment was dropped. Kolb 
 and Conrad saw that the school was a failure and their keep- 
 ing it up was only antagonizing the children. Gottfried was 
 pondering over the lesson the experiment had taught him. 
 He was running up against a stone wall in this struggle of 
 his against the church and priestcraft. The New World 
 would not take his ideas seriously. There was a long strug- 
 gle ahead of him, a sad, bitter struggle. However, he did 
 not despair. He was young; they, the Lassalleans, were 
 young; and their cause was young, so young. . . . Courage, 
 nur Muth and they would get ahead — yes, they would! 
 They had reason on their side and science. Marx's Capital 
 was showing plainly that they could not lose! Yes, if 
 Freddy were only bigger and his questions could be an- 
 swered in grown-up terms. But Freddy was a child and the 
 questions were numerous and annoying. 
 
 One day, more than a year later, Freddy suddenly became 
 involved in a quarrel with two boys his own age — eight 
 years. A sister of one of the boys, a girl of ten, took her 
 brother's side against Freddy and called him a liar. 
 
 " You are a liar yourself," Freddy replied. 
 
 " What if I am? " the girl said archly. " I can lie if I 
 want to, you can't — you mustn't! " 
 
 "Why?" Freddy queried, perplexed by the odd twist 
 which the quarrel between them had taken. 
 
 " Why, why ? " the girl mimicked him. " I can lie be- 
 cause I go to church. When I confess that I lied, I am for- 
 given. All my sins are forgiven. But your sins are never 
 forgiven. When you lie you become more and more wicked. 
 You don't go to church, you have no one to save you. You 
 
48 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 and your father and mother are heathens, see! Just like 
 them heathens in the Bible. See! " 
 
 Freddy had forgotten the quarrel and ran home to his 
 mother. 
 
 "Are we heathens, Mother? Mabel Ryan says we are 
 heathens," he said darkly. " What is a heathen? " 
 
 Anna did not quite grasp the significance of her son's 
 question and made him tell her all that had transpired be- 
 tween himself and Mabel. 
 
 She was expecting Conrad any moment and made no an- 
 swer. At the table, before Gottfried had taken a mouthful 
 of food, Freddy rattled off the story to him of his fight with 
 Mabel and her brother which culminated in her calling them 
 all heathens. 
 
 Conrad had had a bad day at the shop. Several alterca- 
 tions with the foreman had arisen. This made him unusually 
 weary that evening. He was curt with his son, so curt that 
 Freddy, who was accustomed to have more attention paid to 
 him, was taken aback. He was pained, grieved. Conrad 
 had made no denial that they were heathens. He merely 
 told him not to enter into discussions with foolish girls. 
 Freddy was consumed with rage. 
 
 In vain did Gottfried try to placate his son as the meal 
 progressed and his weariness subsided. Freddy ate in si- 
 lence and slunk out of the house as soon as the meal was 
 finished. 
 
 He was raving mad with his father. Mabel's brother had 
 once called his father " Greenhorn " and Freddy had sent 
 the boy home bleeding. But now — now he was himself 
 thinking his father was a greenhorn. Yes, his father was a 
 greenhorn, he was a foreigner, he was a heathen — Mabel 
 was right. 
 
 Was she? His fists clenched together. He was boiling 
 
THE WEB OF LIFE 49 
 
 over with rage. He would show them ! They couldn't taunt 
 him ! He was an American. He was born here. He would 
 teach them a lesson. Just let them come on — come on ! 
 
 He could not stand still. He had to do something, to give 
 vent to his pent feelings, and ran down the street. 
 
 Half-way down the next block he came upon a company 
 of boys his own age who had got hold of a little dog and 
 were tormenting him. They pulled his tail, pinched his 
 ears, dug into his ribs, and howled for joy when the emaciated 
 mongrel showed his teeth. 
 
 " What are you torturing that dog for? " Freddy shouted. 
 " It is not your dog." He shoved his way through the 
 crowd, released the mongrel and waited until it was well 
 out of the reach of its captors. Then, putting his hands in 
 his pockets, he swaggered past the group of little boys in si- 
 lence. 
 
 They all gazed at him, but no one seemed to have any 
 desire to respond to his challenging attitude. When he was 
 well to the end of the block Freddy heard derisive laughter 
 and knew it was intended for him. But he was too weary 
 to go back. His craving to fight was gone. 
 
 It was dark and his mother had already been looking for 
 him. She wanted to make up to him for the rudeness of 
 his father. She took him in her arms — a thing she had 
 not done in a long while. He wanted to cry, but was 
 ashamed. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 AS THE YEARS ROLLED ON 
 
 HIS father stood at his bedside fully dressed. His 
 face was tense. Freddy sat bolt upright. 
 
 " Mother is ill," Gottfried said with a slight huskiness in 
 his voice. " Better sit by her side while I go for a doctor." 
 
 Freddy hurried into his trousers, threw his sweater over 
 his shoulders and slipped into the bedroom. It was two 
 o'clock in the night and his mother was moaning. As he 
 was looking at her, her face suddenly became distorted with 
 pain, her lips began to twitch and tears rolled down her 
 cheeks. He was alarmed and would have screamed, but he 
 recalled that he was alone in the house now, that his father 
 had left him as the guardian of his sick mother, and he 
 mastered his fear. 
 
 The contortions and twitching of Anna's face and mouth 
 left as suddenly as they came. She became aware of her son, 
 smiled through her tears and motioned to him to come closer. 
 He sat on the edge of the bed and she drew him to her. 
 
 Freddy knew that he ought not to lean his head against 
 his mother, that it must be heavy for her. But he was all 
 tenderness — he could not make a move. What if his 
 mother should die! His father had gone for the doctor. 
 What if this were the last time they two were together, he 
 and his mother. ... He experienced a great desire to weep, 
 to weep right there on his mother's shoulder. But — 
 
 The hand which clasped him had suddenly grown limp. 
 
 50 
 
AS THE YEARS ROLLED ON 51 
 
 He rose up quickly. His mother was writhing in pain. She 
 rolled her head like an animal that had been mortally struck. 
 He sprang to his feet. He was trembling. He looked to- 
 ward the door — If Father only came — His mother, 
 however, was again smiling at him; the paroxysm had sub- 
 sided. 
 
 The waves of pain came and went, their arrival accom- 
 panied by spasmodic groans; their receding marked by the 
 weak smiles of his mother. 
 
 Vaguely Freddy realized what it was all about. He had 
 heard the neighbors say that his mother would soon give birth 
 to a child. But from that point on he was not clear. He had 
 never thought about the subject before. He wished Father 
 would return. He listened eagerly to every noise. What, 
 were the elevators running at night, too? He was going to 
 ask his mother and checked himself. Then there was a 
 rumbling of a wagon rolling by. Strange that people should 
 be riding so late at night — what business compelled them 
 to? Oh, maybe they were doctors going out to sick people 
 in the middle of the night. . . . Would the doctor, would 
 his father ever come? 
 
 His feet were cold. He put them under the quilt and 
 was warm, comfortable. But he had to change his position 
 a bit. He twisted about; he was reclining now. His body 
 was resting on the chair, his feet in his mother's bed. It 
 was great, the warmth delightful. He felt so nice and happy. 
 He swam in a sea of joy. His mother was petting him . . . 
 and she showed him the baby, his little sister. He insisted 
 on carrying her. Mother objected, but he gained his point. 
 He carried his little sister out into the street and showed her 
 to the neighbors' boys. They tickled her and she puckered 
 up her lips and gurgled so funnily. Then he put the little 
 girl in the carriage again and wheeled her — he came down 
 
52 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 the street, very haughty, very important. All the children 
 were envying him. 
 
 His father was lifting him in his arms. Freddy was 
 awake again but his head was heavy. He saw another man, 
 the doctor, he thought! Gottfried carried him to his bed. 
 He pulled the quilt over his head — he was chilly now. The 
 doctor was calling for hot water. Gottfried got busy with 
 the stove. Freddy heard him remove the covers and then 
 he smelled coffee, and his mother handed him jelly rolls 
 which tasted delicious. ... 
 
 When he woke Freddy heard a shrill little cry coming 
 from the bedroom. A big, fat woman was busying herself 
 about the stove. His father stood in a corner of the room 
 undecided, apparently not knowing what to do with him- 
 self. 
 
 " Oh, you are up," said Gottfried when he perceived 
 Freddy fully dressed. He cleared a place for him at the 
 table, which was cluttered up with all sorts of things. While 
 Freddy was munching a roll Gottfried poured the coffee. 
 
 " Here is some cheese," Conrad said as he shoved a paper 
 in front of his son. He was helpless in domestic matters 
 and felt apologetic. While Freddy was eating, his father 
 went into the bedroom. The woman — Mrs. Miller was her 
 name — was there too. Anna apparently was drowsing. 
 Both Gottfried and Mrs. Miller were looking at a pillow 
 which lay at the foot of the bed. It was from the pillow 
 that the faint cry was coming. 
 
 Mrs. Miller came out of the bedroom and Gottfried fol- 
 lowed. 
 
 " How long do you think he will last? " he asked in a 
 whisper. 
 
 " He will be going soon now," Mrs. Miller replied. 
 " They usually last five or six hours when they are born 
 
AS THE YEARS ROLLED ON 53 
 
 that early. He is all tired out, poor little one. It'll be a 
 relief to him. But he was a strong little child — what a 
 pity this had happened." 
 
 Gottfried stepped back into the bedroom and Freddy saw 
 his father bend over the pillow in which the tiny infant was 
 fighting against death, fighting bravely, as the woman was 
 telling, with his wee little frame that had come into the 
 world prematurely. 
 
 Freddy was wondering what all this meant. Why could 
 not his brother live? Why was he born too early? What 
 did it mean anyway? His coffee was getting cold and his 
 cheese lay untouched. Even the jelly roll which Gottfried 
 had laid to one side for him left him indifferent. He was 
 watching his father's every motion. Gottfried stood stoop- 
 ing over the pillow. It seemed to Freddy that his father 
 trembled. It could not be that he was crying? 
 
 It was time to go to school and Freddy went down. When 
 he came home to dinner, the pillow he had seen at the foot 
 of the bed in the morning was missing, and with it the shrill, 
 weak cry. His mother was lying in bed apparently asleep, 
 but he heard her moan from time to time. Gottfried tried 
 to look cheerful. He smiled at Freddy several times as he 
 was serving him a delicatessen dinner and urging his son 
 to take a little more of that or the other thing, 
 
 Gottfried's smile did not set Freddy at ease, however. He 
 wanted to ask his father about the baby, where it was, what 
 had become of it, when it had died — he felt that it had 
 died — but he was ashamed. Only grown people talked 
 about such things. He ate quickly and ran down the 
 stairs. He lingered longer about the house. Several of the 
 neighbor women asked him about his mother. Was she 
 resting well? None of them mentioned the baby. 
 
 He was glad when school was over and he could go home 
 
54 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 again. He found his father busying himself with Henry. 
 Gottfried had just fed the invalid and was now adjusting 
 him in a sort of overgrown baby chair in which Henry spent 
 the hours he was not in bed. There was a meekness, a sub- 
 missiveness about his father's manner which made Freddy 
 uneasy. He was keyed with anxiety. 
 
 " Hungry? " Gottfried turned from the invalid, when he 
 had made him comfortable in his chair, to Freddy. He was 
 glad to see him, and he showed it. 
 
 Freddy did not answer. He looked at his father in em- 
 barrassment. Gottfried's eyes were tender and patient. 
 Freddy was overv/helmed by a sense of tragedy. 
 
 His father now settled in a chair and pulled him up to him- 
 self by the arm. He took off his son's hat and began to part 
 his hair with his hand in orderly fashion. 
 
 " Can I see him? " Freddy gasped. 
 
 " See who? " Gottfried asked, gazing steadily at the child. 
 He was wondering whether his son was old enough to be 
 initiated into the mystery of existence. 
 
 "The baby — can I see the baby? " Freddy said, as his 
 eyes filled. 
 
 " He is gone," said Gottfried, still gazing at him. " He 
 is dead." 
 
 The unhappy look that came into the child's eyes unnerved 
 him for the moment. He longed to tell little Freddy that 
 the baby had gone to heaven, whence it came, to play with 
 the angels there. He had been told such stories when he 
 was a child. And death seemed to lose so much of its grim- 
 ness when one knew that it merely meant going to heaven 
 to play with the angels. ... It would have been nice to re- 
 lieve the tragedy in his son's face and eyes by putting such an 
 angelic border about the cold, awful fact of human disso- 
 lution. But no! Conrad sobered and purged the thought 
 
AS THE YEARS ROLLED ON SS 
 
 from his mind. He must raise his son free of all religious 
 superstitions, no matter how much relief these superstitions 
 afforded. It was hard to deviate from the beaten track. 
 But that was what the free-thinker had to do. 
 
 He picked up Freddy and set him on his knee. He 
 smiled at him, talked to him, told him not to worry over the 
 baby. In a year Mother would have another baby, another 
 little brother for him. That other little fellow would be 
 nice. He would not be born too soon and would not die. 
 
 Gottfried's words and caresses had the opposite effect upon 
 the child from that intended. Freddy's suppressed emotions 
 burst and swept everything before them. He was shaken 
 with sobs. 
 
 Anna heard this and called him weakly. Gottfried led 
 Freddy to her bed. She put her arm about his neck, brought 
 his face close to hers, and kissed his tears away. She did 
 not speak, but the pressure of her hand, her caress, had a 
 quieting effect upon her son. He was himself again. Gott- 
 fried lit the gas and began talking about supper. 
 
 Mrs. Conrad left the bed at the end of a week, but the 
 next morning, at the urgent advice of the physician, she 
 took to it again. She was not well; her strength was lim- 
 ited, the doctor said, and he proscribed all work and strain 
 for a month. Also she must not worry. There was some- 
 thing in the doctor's attitude and manner of speech which 
 warned Gottfried that things were not well with his wife. 
 
 He was home again in the evening now. Often, indeed, 
 he would come an hour earlier from the shop and relieve 
 Anna of whatever work he could. His father's anxiety com- 
 municated itself to Freddy. He was at his mother's beck 
 and nod. 
 
 As Anna watched her husband and son do much of the 
 
56 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 work that normally should be hers, she was frequently over- 
 taken with a longing for home and friends. If her sisters 
 had only been near. But they were all marrying in the 
 Old World and they were marrying into the tradesman class. 
 They and their husbands would never come to America. 
 Her brothers, likewise, had all drifted out of the classes 
 which supplied emigrants to the New World. They were 
 engaged in commercial pursuits. Correspondence with her 
 family was becoming increasingly rare. Soon she would be 
 entirely alone in the New World, except for Freddy and 
 Conrad. 
 
 In the midst of these gloomy reflections there stood out 
 like a bright light the changed attitude of Conrad, his kind- 
 ness toward her, toward his family. It moved her deeply to 
 see Conrad tend to their invalid son, trying to make good to 
 the child, as much as this was possible, the temporary loss 
 of his mother's care. April was drawing to a close and on 
 Sunday Gottfried took the invalid out for an airing. Freddy 
 stayed with his mother, who was still in bed. 
 
 The first week in May the doctor permitted Anna to leave 
 her bed. But he warned her against work and strain of 
 any kind. Infractions of these rules would mean that she 
 would have to take to her bed again. 
 
 " These miscarriages," the physician said, " sometimes 
 batter a woman up worse than the hardest case of child- 
 birth." 
 
 Anna had got off easy, he said. For a while he had 
 feared more serious consequences. 
 
 The doctor's predictions were only too true. Anna could 
 not tax her energies in the least. The moment she did so 
 she at once became fagged and exhausted. Her physical 
 fatigue would promptly communicate itself to the brain; and 
 she would become depressed. She was not gaining. Her 
 
AS THE YEARS ROLLED ON 57 
 
 skin was assuming a permanent yellow. Her frame, too, 
 was changing. Her formerly straight shoulders now showed 
 a slight stoop. The lines of her body were rapidly disap- 
 pearing. She was becoming very thin. The girlish waist, 
 which she had retained up to this last childbearing, now 
 seemed to have vanished. She often surveyed herself these 
 days in the mirror ruefully. 
 
 His wife's condition troubled Conrad. He, too, longed 
 for a friend with whom he could talk over his domestic wor- 
 ries. But he was too sensitive about letting any of his 
 comrades in arms know of these things. Once, however, his 
 great worry got the better of his pride and he bared his trou- 
 bles to Heinrich Kolb, who was now editing a socialist 
 weekly, Der Kampf. Kolb immediately had an idea. 
 Whatever Mrs. Conrad's condition was, she must at least 
 have good medical attention. She must see a doctor who 
 could be trusted. He knew such a doctor. He was a Ger- 
 man, a radical, a forty-eighter. While this physician was 
 not taking part in socialist agitation openly, he had a heart, 
 Kolb said. On the quiet this doctor — Seelenfreund was his 
 name — helped the paper with frequent financial contribu- 
 tions. Dr. Seelenfreund was always ready to help a fellow- 
 countrj^man in distress. Kolb gave Gottfried a letter to this 
 physician. 
 
 With all his kindness and humanity Dr. Seelenfreund could 
 do little for Mrs. Conrad. He too laid stress upon the neces- 
 sity of good food, plenty of rest, no worry and — time. Time 
 was the main thing. The untimely birth of her child had 
 upset Anna internally, he said. It had that sort of effect 
 upon women sometimes. Such cases did not yield to radical 
 treatment. Time and nature alone were the best remedy. 
 In time she would get stronger. But nature could be greatly 
 assisted by good care and little exertion. 
 
58 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 After supper Freddy followed his father into the street. 
 " What did the doctor say ? " he asked. 
 
 Again Gottfried was debating with himself whether to 
 give his son an evasive answer or to tell him the truth. He 
 decided to tell the truth. 
 
 " It will be a long time," he said, *' before Mother gets 
 well — it may take a year. In the meantime, we can do a 
 lot to help her get well by letting her do as little work as 
 possible." 
 
 A slight twitching ran over Freddy's face. He turned his 
 head away from his father as if attracted by something. 
 In reality he was trying to hide the tears which he could not 
 keep back. 
 
 " Run along and play," said Gottfried, and started off, 
 pretending that he was in a hurry to go to the store for his 
 tobacco. 
 
 Freddy went around the block. In front of a blacksmith 
 shop, now closed for the night, he stopped and let his tears 
 and sobs have full sway for a brief space. Then he wiped 
 his face and ran home again. 
 
 Freddy now completely relieved his mother of the care of 
 his invalid brother. He carried Henry down the stairs or 
 up on the roof. He took him out for an airing; he dressed 
 and undressed him. Under no circumstances would he let 
 his mother strain herself in the lifting of the invalid who was 
 as immovable as a log. He did his chores as if they were 
 the most natural thing for him to do. Gottfried would often 
 look at his son and ponder. There was a pronounced streak 
 of kindliness in Freddy which he himself had never had. 
 The boy must have got it from his mother. 
 
 It was the middle of April. The day had been unusually 
 mild, Freddy felt lighthearted and made the three blocks 
 
AS THE YEARS ROLLED ON 59 
 
 from the school to his home at a run. He had an idea. He 
 would take little Henry down for an airing and Mother must 
 come with them. They would go to the East River and 
 thence to the Park. They would take a long, long walk. 
 It would be delightful. 
 
 As he was running up the steps to his home he passed a 
 woman in the hall who looked at him queerly. He felt that 
 something had happened, and wondered what. He opened 
 the door of the house in haste, but he shut it very slowly — 
 he had taken in the situation. Little Henry was sick. The 
 doctor was there, standing beside the bed speaking to his 
 mother. Freddy caught these words: "Oh, yes," the doc- 
 tor was saying, " he must have been sick for some tiipe, but 
 you did not notice it. That is the way it goes with these 
 cases. They go on ailing for a long while, but we become 
 accustomed to their distorted features and so fail to notice 
 any difference. It is an abscess on the liver and it has burst. 
 He may last a few days yet, or he may go sooner." 
 
 Freddy sat up a good part of the night with his father, 
 watching little Henry gradually yielding himself up to death. 
 Anna was in bed, pretending that she wanted to rest. In 
 reality she was crying. Freddy and his father spoke little 
 to one another; each was busy with his own thoughts. 
 Freddy was trying hard to recall how his brother looked and 
 acted before that fateful accident. He had heard his mother 
 tell about little Henry, how nice and lively he had been, and 
 from her description of him, he was now constructing pictures 
 that he thought were memories. 
 
 And Gottfried looked at the wan face of his invalid son, 
 which was becoming more and more corpselike, and thought 
 of the thirteen years he had been in America. They had 
 been hard years. Of course, there were flashes of happiness. 
 Also they had been years of growth — he had broadened in 
 
6o THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 these years — had learned much. But he had drunk his gall 
 and wormwood. His family life was beaten and battered. 
 Anna was a sick woman. 
 
 Freddy felt his father's gaze upon him and when he looked 
 up, questioning, Gottfried turned his eyes on the invalid once 
 more. He had been looking at Freddy, and thinking of that 
 Sunday when he had so solemnly founded the House of 
 Conrad in the New World. Inwardly he laughed sadly and 
 bitterly at the memory of that day. How deceitful life was ! 
 He had pictured to himself his future house, the House of 
 Conrad, as being a milestone in the New World, a landmark! 
 And now a part of that House of Conrad was about to be 
 taken out of his home and to be buried in the ground — his 
 interest in cremation had not waned, but somehow it did not 
 extend to his invalid child — and Freddy alone, eleven-year- 
 old Freddy, was his only promise for that much-longed-for 
 house. 
 
 Conrad quickly bent over his dying son. It seemed to 
 him that little Henry had ceased breathing. But, no, he was 
 mistaken. His overwrought nerves had deceived him. He 
 turned his attention to Freddy once more. It was past 
 eleven o'clock, time for him to go to sleep. Freddy made no 
 remonstrance. He was tired. He crawled under the quilt 
 and was asleep. 
 
 He woke with a holiday feeling. He could not explain how 
 or why, but it seemed to him as if it were a Sunday. The 
 sun was streaming into the house and through the raised 
 window came a delightful breeze. His father was home. 
 He was talking with another man, a stranger. His mother 
 stood by, silent. 
 
 In an instant the holiday feeling fled. In the parlor on 
 two chairs stood a coffin, and in it lay Henry. He was 
 washed and dressed and his hair was coRibed, His eyes were 
 
AS THE YEARS ROLLED ON 61 
 
 closed and his face now looked more normal and natural than 
 Freddy ever remembered seeing it. 
 
 Late in September of the same year, Gottfried and his 
 wife sought Dr. Seelenfreund once more. Their mission 
 was a delicate one. Both Anna and Gottfried were lonesome 
 since Henry died. There was a sense of something miss- 
 ing in the house. Freddy was a big boy — was in fact get- 
 ting to be a little man. Gottfried and his wife were still 
 young — They wanted a child. 
 
 Dr. Seelenfreund pretended not to notice the crimson in 
 Gottfried's face as he stated his wish to the physician. The 
 doctor questioned Anna minutely about the general condition 
 of her health ; made her tell circumstantially the story of the 
 miscarriage. Then he ordered her into the examining room, 
 where she remained for twenty minutes while Gottfried, in 
 the next room, shifted uneasily in his chair as he studied the 
 pictures on the wall and the instruments in the glass case. 
 
 The verdict of the physician — for such was the spirit in 
 which Gottfried and Anna took his words — was not favor- 
 able. Mrs. Conrad would not have a child — not for some 
 time anyway, he said. Such accidents as the one she had 
 gone through, often, and in an unaccountable manner, unfit 
 women for future childbearing. It was even likely that she 
 would never have a child at all. 
 
 Gottfried stared stonily from the physician to his wife. As 
 he helped Anna with her coat he felt her trembling. The 
 physician tried to cheer them. They were really not so 
 badly off, he was saying, better off than thousands of others. 
 For they had a son. Many a well-known family had been 
 started by an only son. 
 
 They had plenty of time to ponder over the doctor's words, 
 for it was Saturday and Gottfried was home the rest of the 
 
62 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 day and all day Sunday. They moved about the house 
 quietly, and whenever Freddy came near one or the other of 
 his parents he felt their eyes rest upon him with a pathetic 
 tenderness he had never observed in them before. He was 
 wondering what the meaning of it could be. He wanted to 
 ask his parents, but he felt awkward. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE RETURN OF CONRAD 
 
 WELL, it has been a pretty long furlough," Conrad 
 murmured to himself as if in response to a 
 question. He was returning from a meeting of the board 
 of managers of the Arbeiter Zeitung late on a November 
 evening. He had been a member of the board of managers 
 of the socialist paper ever since it was started nearly two 
 years back, but had rarely attended meetings. What had 
 transpired at the meeting that evening was giving him food 
 for reflection and memories. 
 
 He felt as if he had remained behind. The movement had 
 grown apace and the youngbloods he met that evening cer- 
 tainly made him feel strange. He went over in his mind 
 the last few years. He was home night after night, 
 tending to his ailing wife and his invalid son. Only on 
 occasions of unusual character did he deviate from tliis course 
 and ascend a platform to make an address. And now he 
 was coming back to the movement. The invalid was dead; 
 Anna, while not entirely well, was much stronger. It seemed 
 as if, with the departure of the invalid, a cloud had been 
 raised from before their eyes. Freddy was a big boy already. 
 
 Conrad mused. He saw ahead of him a life of activity in 
 the socialist and labor movement. He welcomed activity 
 now. Especially since Dr. Seelenfreund said that they would 
 have no more children. The youngbloods in the movement ? 
 
 63 
 
64 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 They had made him feel uncomfortable for a while. But 
 now he laughed; his confidence was back. They and he 
 would be speaking in different tongues. They were fresh 
 from the Fatherland; he had gone through much in the New 
 World. His speeches would deal with life as he had known 
 it, with the problems of the poor as he had seen them, suffered 
 them. His thoughts went back to the meeting. For nearly 
 two years now they had had a socialist newspaper in New 
 York, the Arbeiter Zeitung. For two years this paper had 
 been thundering daily against oppression and injustice ; every 
 issue was a threat of vengeance to the exploiters and oppres- 
 sors . . . And this from such small beginnings. He looked 
 back fourteen years when they, the handful of Lassalleans, 
 with Heinrich Kolb and himself at the head, laid the foun- 
 dations of a socialist movement among the German work- 
 men of New York. . . . Not bad, not bad. 
 
 His memory, like the lense of a telescope, was now adjusted 
 on that evening when the first number of the Arbeiter Zeit- 
 ung was to appear. In spite of the troubled state of his home, 
 he had slipped out of the house and spent the greater part of 
 the night in the office of the socialist paper that was about 
 to be born. He recalled distinctly the tense, solemn expres- 
 sions on the faces of the writers, the editors, as they prepared 
 the copy for that first issue. He had gone to see the composi- 
 tors at work; had read the first editorial in proof which was 
 still wet. . . . And then came the rumbling of the press. 
 . . . His eyes were moist, but he need not be ashamed of 
 that. Editors, writers, compositors, in fact every one who 
 was in the rooms was cutting a sorry figure trying to appear 
 calm. Some one brought up a handful of papers and dis- 
 tributed them; Kolb, the editor, receiving the first copy; he, 
 Conrad, the second. In one corner of the paper he found 
 a list of names of the board of managers, of the men who 
 
THE RETURN OF CONRAD 6$ 
 
 for years had worked to make possible the publication of this 
 socialist organ. His name headed the list of these founders. 
 It was inscribed for posterity to look at — to remember. 
 
 Conrad's return to active participation in the socialist 
 movement was hailed with joy by Heinrich Kolb. These 
 were stirring times for the socialist organ and its editor. The 
 effects of Bismarck's anti-socialist laws in Germany were be- 
 ginning to make themselves felt in the New World and 
 especially in New York. Thousands of German socialists 
 had fled to America. While Kolb and his comrades in 
 the socialist movement welcomed these newcomers as addi- 
 tional recruits in the army of the American proletariat, Kolb 
 was just a little apprehensive of the viewpoint of these men. 
 In theory they knew socialism to perfection. But their 
 ignorance of American conditions, American industries, 
 American laws, manifested itself only too often and clumsily. 
 It was for this reason that Kolb welcomed the return of 
 Conrad to the movement. His fourteen years in American 
 shops and factories gave Conrad an experience which was 
 worth while impressing upon the younger men. Conrad 
 knew American life from many angles. He had paid rent 
 in the New World for fourteen years and knew the evils of 
 the tenements. He had led strikes and helped build organi- 
 zations. 
 
 The first speech Conrad made was, upon Kolb's order, 
 given two columns in the paper. Kolb himself wrote an edi- 
 torial about it which consisted largely of a eulogy of the 
 speaker and of his work as one of the pioneers of the social- 
 ist movement in America. 
 
 " The Arbeiter Zeitung," Kolb wrote, " is happy to see this 
 indefatigable champion of the American proletariat return 
 to his wonted place on the public platform. We have missed 
 his good counsel for some years. We hope henceforward to 
 
66 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 see our comrade retain his place in the front ranks unin- 
 terruptedly." 
 
 Whenever an issue arose dealing with a practical phase of 
 city life, Kolb would warn the writer of the particular article 
 to consult with Conrad and get his views on the question be- 
 fore writing about it. The attitude which Conrad took on 
 the particular question became the policy of the Arbeiter Zeit- 
 ung, and Kolb soon found out that this attitude was right, 
 that his readers approved of it. Conrad was close to the 
 hearts and the sentiments of the German workers of New 
 York. 
 
 At meetings Conrad's name would invariably be placed 
 at the bottom of the list now. He was a drawing card; the 
 younger and less important speakers came first — for him 
 people would wait. In introducing Conrad the chairman 
 would always preface his remarks with a few words about 
 the length of Conrad's activity in the socialist movement in 
 America for the benefit of those in the audience who were 
 hearing and seeing the man for the first time. And at almost 
 every meeting there were scores of such men, newcomers who 
 had been driven to the New World by the Prussian anti- 
 socialist laws. 
 
 At times these newcomers would make Conrad feel old. 
 As he walked through the streets of Little Germany he 
 would often hear himself pointed out as "that Conrad." 
 These younger men were actually drawing barriers between 
 him and themselves — barriers of respect, admiration, rever- 
 ence. Conrad, Kolb and their pioneer friends were now 
 frequently referred to as the " Fruhen," " the early ones," 
 by the younger socialists. The younger men were compelling 
 them to take themselves seriously. They had to have some 
 one to look up to. 
 
 The calls upon Conrad were becoming so frequent that he 
 
THE RETURN' OF CONRAD 6) 
 
 was hardly ever home evenings. The excitement of this 
 constant coming and going, the applause and approbation 
 that he received nightly from large Jiumbers of people, 
 crowded the memory of the visit to Dr. Seelenfreund and his 
 " verdict " well to the back of his brain. It was compara- 
 tively easy now for Gottfried to dismiss the troublesome 
 thought. But it was not so to his wife. 
 
 Anna Conrad, spending the long winter evenings and fre- 
 quently even Sundays alone, was brooding over the fact that 
 never again would she have babies in her house. Other 
 women might wheel baby carriages, but not she. She had 
 often in the first years of her married life wished a rest from 
 the children. She was tired of the work they gave her. She 
 complained then — Well, she would have plenty of rest 
 now, plenty of leisure. God, how much leisure! She 
 shuddered. 
 
 She could not free herself from the thought of babies. She 
 could not stifle her desire for them. And then — then one 
 day she found that she could think of babies all she wished 
 to, could get really excited over them. Why, how foolish of 
 her not to have thought of it sooner! Why, Freddy — he 
 would marry, perhaps only in half a dozen years, he would 
 have children and then she would have babies again. There 
 would never be any more lonely Sundays. She would not 
 let Freddy's wife bother about making meals on Sunday. 
 No, she wouldn't. She would have them — her daughter, her 
 son and their little infants, with her Sundays, always. They 
 would all eat at her house. And the babies would be playing 
 right there on the floor in front of her. 
 
 From the rocker in which she sat, plunged in visions, she 
 was looking at the floor. She was alone in the house and it 
 was Sunday afternoon. Gottfried was gone, Freddy was 
 gone. It was spring outside. The laughter of children rang 
 
68 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 through the open window. And she looked at the floor and 
 saw them there — the babies — her Freddy's children. They 
 were learning to walk, falling, getting up, gurgling sweetly 
 and extending their pudgy little hands. It was so much 
 pleasure, so much pleasure. . . . Gottfried, Gottfried, he 
 must see this. . . . 
 
 She woke from her dreams. Freddy had slipped into the 
 house noiselessly. He saw his mother's transported gaze 
 and halted. She now smiled at him through her dim eyes. 
 
 "Are you ill, Mother? " he asked. 
 
 " I'll be all right in a minute," she said, and she took 
 both his hands in hers and pressed them to her cheek. 
 
 Freddy was twelve years old. Outwardly he strongly re- 
 sembled Gottfried. He had something of the military state- 
 liness of his Prussian parent. Like Gottfried, too, he was 
 quick to grasp a situation, and he was thinking. But he 
 had not his father's fervor. He had plenty of enthusiasm 
 but no abandon. He was calculating, cautious almost be- 
 yond his years. Gottfried noted this trait in his son and 
 ascribed it to the child's long association with his invalid 
 brother and with his ailing mother. This he thought might 
 be responsible for Freddy's letting his enthusiasm be guided 
 by reason and calculation first. The sight of suffering makes 
 one thoughtful. 
 
 " All the same the boy is no thickhead," Conrad would 
 say to himself whenever he took stock of his son. And he 
 was taking stock frequently. Gottfried Conrad was making 
 a place for himself in the socialist movement of the New 
 World. Would his son follow in his footsteps? Whenever 
 this thought occurred to Conrad he invariably experienced a 
 yearning to get home as quickly as possible. He wanted to 
 be near his boy. A father should be in closer association with 
 
THE RETURN OF CONRAD 69 
 
 his growing son than he was with his Lassalle, he would 
 chide himself. 
 
 In such moments Conrad would recall with a pang his own 
 mother and his conduct toward her. His father had died 
 when he was a year old and his mother remarried soon after. 
 She found a home with her second husband. They had eight 
 children. Gottfried was treated by his mother no differently 
 than the other children. But he somehow never felt much 
 kinship with the rest of the family, especially as he grew 
 older. There was something missing somewhere. He real- 
 ized it all the more keenly as he was growing up and was 
 earning his own livelihood. And then he left home and never 
 came back. He had never written to his mother, did not 
 know whether she was alive or not. That was a horrible re- 
 lation between parent and child, he thought. There must 
 never arise such a relation between himself and his Freddy. 
 
 He was anxious about his boy's studies. But he would 
 never question Freddy much about his school work. The sit- 
 uation had greatly changed since the days when Freddy jQrst 
 started school. He was now studying history and geography. 
 He was studying American literature. He answered his 
 father's questions about everyday things in German easily 
 enough. But anything concerning his education he would 
 have to answer in English. German had become the lan- 
 guage of the kitchen to Fred. It was the back door language 
 to his little world. The front door was English. It was 
 the reverse with Conrad. Only about the simplest things 
 would he speak to his son in English. A real conversation 
 he could only hold in German. 
 
 To question his son about his studies with any degree of 
 detail would thus merely serve to emphasize the difference 
 between the German-speaking father and the English-speak- 
 ing son. Conrad was not eager to raise a situation where this 
 
70 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 difference between himself and his son would be made to 
 stand out sharply. 
 
 Even with the care which Conrad was exercising not to 
 allow the difference in language to creep in between himself 
 and his son nor to permit it to color or in any way affect their 
 relations, such differences were constantly arising. 
 
 Thus Freddy once overheard his teachers discuss a graft 
 scandal about which the whole city was talking. 
 
 " What can you expect," said one of the teachers, a New 
 England Yankee to whom Freddy always looked up as to a 
 typical American, " what can you expect in a city ruled by 
 foreigners. It is the aliens who debase our government and 
 demoralize our public life. We are ruled directly and in- 
 directly by immigrants or sons of immigrants. They do not 
 speak our language; they are foreign to our ideals; they are 
 strangers to our manners." 
 
 In the evening Freddy kept on plying his father with ques- 
 tions about the graft scandal. Conrad had got the facts 
 from the Arbeiter Zeitung, which told in a few simple words 
 how public funds had been appropriated by politicians under 
 various guises. He repeated the things he had read in the 
 paper to his son. 
 
 "Are the foreigners to blame for it? " Freddy asked. 
 
 " Why foreigners? What makes you ask this question? " 
 Gottfried searched his son with a look. 
 
 Freddy narrated the conversation between his teachers 
 which laid the graft at the door of the alien population. 
 
 Conrad did not answer at once. It was a delicate matter. 
 Freddy had great respect for his teachers, especially the one 
 who had attacked the foreign population. Conrad contented 
 himself therefore with a brief, calm statement. 
 
 " Well," he said, " all of the men who are involved in this 
 scandal are speaking English. Most of them, in fact, have 
 
THE RETURN OF CONRAD 71 
 
 American names. But whether natives or immigrants they 
 could not get their jobs in the City Hall if they did not 
 speak English. They are citizens, Americans." 
 
 The logic of it struck the boy. His father was right. 
 Nevertheless he did not feel quite at ease. The words his 
 teacher had spoken rankled within him. On a rainy day 
 soon after Freddy observed a woman teacher eating her lunch 
 in the office. She was eating sandwiches of white bread. 
 The entire sandwich was in every case thinner than a single 
 slice of bread their German neighbors would cut. The sand- 
 wiches were wrapped in a napkin. A small glass jar con- 
 tained jam. Beside it lay a neat little spoon. He detected 
 a pickle near one of the sandwiches — but what a difference 
 in girth between the tiny sweet pickle of the American teacher 
 and the massive dill pickles which came to their own table! 
 
 It dawned upon him that that was in part at least what 
 the teacher meant when he said that the foreigners were 
 strangers to American manners. He recalled the last picnic 
 to which he and his parents had gone that summer. It was 
 a terribly noisy affair. People carried lunch baskets on their 
 arms as if they were going for a journey half across the con- 
 tinent. The little park where the picnic was held reeked of 
 beer, of strong smelling cheese and of blood pudding. Noise, 
 noise everywhere. Noise and beer, noise and bologna, that 
 was the atmosphere at their meetings, at every festival. 
 
 He once blurted out as much to his father. Gottfried 
 looked at his son long and then answered slowly: 
 
 " Yes, I guess we do lack manners." After a while he 
 added, " Will you come to a meeting with me to-night ? I am 
 going to speak." 
 
 Gottfried thought he would try this method of bringing 
 his son closer to himself. 
 
 Freddy went to the meeting with his father and he went 
 
72 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 to other meetings after that. Conrad would find a conven- 
 ient nook for his son on the platform and the boy would sit 
 there hour after hour watching, observing, listening. In the 
 audience he would recognize men and women of their 
 acquaintance. But from the platform they looked so differ- 
 ent. His father seemed superior to them all. They listened 
 to him, drank in every word he said, applauded him. 
 
 As Conrad stood there before the audience in his Sunday 
 clothes, his hair grown somewhat long, hurling words of de- 
 fiance, painting injustice, arraigning, pleading, rousing the 
 people in front of him, he was impressive. At such mo- 
 ments Freddy forgot that his father was speaking in German 
 — what did language matter ? His father was speaking the 
 truth. Conrad was not mistaken in his experiment of tak- 
 ing Freddy with him to the halls and meeting places on the 
 nights he spoke. He was winning the boy over to his cause, 
 to his ideas. He was happy. He was building great hopes 
 upon his son. A faint glimmer of the splendor of the House 
 of Conrad was beginning to loom on the horizon. 
 
 But it did not loom for long. A rift in the relations be- 
 tween father and son occurred within the next few days 
 which neither years nor reason could make whole again. 
 
 It was before election and the district teemed with political 
 meetings. A meeting at Cooper Union to which the resi- 
 dents of Kleindeutschland were specially invited was to be 
 addressed by a United States senator. Conrad had no inten- 
 tion of going to that meeting of a sworn enemy of the 
 working class, as he called the senator, but Freddy, w^ho 
 had read the posters and had seen the picture of the senator, 
 asked his father to go with him to Cooper Union that evening. 
 
 He was impressed from the start. The ushers impressed 
 him and the crowd impressed him. For the ushers at the 
 meeting were Americans and the crowd, in spite of the special 
 
THE RETURN OF CONRAD 73 
 
 appeal made to the German element, was American. Every- 
 body spoke English. A polite cordiality vibrated through 
 the hall instead of the free and easy camaraderie to which 
 Freddy was accustomed at German meetings. Freddy and 
 his father occupied seats in the second row. 
 
 The chairman made a brief speech and then the speaker 
 of the evening came forward. Freddy's eyes were riveted 
 upon the man. The senator — Alden Burr Willett — was 
 a tall man with a closely trimmed, dark grayish beard. His 
 frock coat and creased trousers hung on him with a peculiar 
 grace. But what gave him an air of distinction above all 
 else were his shoes. Soft shoes they were, wide-toed and not 
 too shiny. Freddy had never seen such shoes before. They 
 were as fine as the man ; and how they clung to his feet ! He 
 had never seen shoes cling that way before. The tops, the 
 soles, the tips, responded like well behaved servants to every 
 motion from the man's foot. The shoes were the man. 
 Freddy was positive they never touched the sidewalk on a 
 rainy day without goloshes. His father had called the sena- 
 tor a tool of the capitalists and a deadly enemy of the plain 
 people. Freddy sought confirmation of his father's words 
 in the man's voice. His appearance thus far had been all 
 gentleness. 
 
 The senator's voice harmonized with his appearance. It 
 was soft. He was not shouting. He was not trying to cram 
 anything down the throats of his hearers. God forbid ! He 
 was talking to the audience gently, as one talks to one's 
 neighbors on the veranda of one's spacious and comfortable 
 home. He jested, told stories about the farmer and the cow 
 and about Pat the Irishman. The audience laughed; they 
 enjoyed themselves hugely. Everybody was at ease. 
 
 And then the senator's voice grew a trifle somber. He was 
 serious now. But still his voice was not harsh. He spoke 
 
74 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 like a father giving friendly though earnest counsel to his 
 children who are about to leave him. He was enumerating 
 the blessings which the country was enjoying, the prosperity 
 which was shared by the whole American people, and espe- 
 cially by the workingmen — this was supposed to be a meet- 
 ing for workingmen. To insure this prosperity it was para- 
 mount to elect the candidates of his party. It was especially 
 the duty of the working people to vote for his party. It was 
 to their interest, to the interest of their wives and children. 
 
 The senator's voice rose higher and higher and its echo 
 came back from every part of the hall. He was a master 
 speaker; the senate knew him as such. He was holding the 
 people in the hall spellbound. Freddy watched him breath- 
 lessly. And now came the climax. The senator thrust his 
 chest forward, stood on the tips of his toes — his shoes bent 
 with wonderful grace — and challenged the other party, the 
 other candidates, the whole world, any one in the audience, 
 to show him a place where the workingman was living in so 
 much happiness and prosperity, under such ideal and idyllic 
 conditions of industry — where, where outside this land of the 
 free ? He sank into his chair to a storm of applause. 
 
 Freddy looked up at his father for the first time in half 
 an hour, and was taken aback by the enraged look in his 
 parent's eyes. Had the senator been standing face to face 
 with Conrad, Freddy had no doubt but that his father would 
 have sprung at the man with his fists. As it was, Gottfried 
 sat erect, every nerve in his body tense with expectation. 
 Conrad was apparently waiting for something. Now it 
 came. 
 
 The chairman of the evening, who had been waiting for 
 the applause to subside, was now calling upon the audience 
 to ask questions. The senator would gladly answer ques- 
 tions. Conrad was on his feet in a flash, waving his hand 
 
THE RETURN OF CONRAD 75 
 
 wildly. He was given the floor. It all happened in a mo- 
 ment, and before Freddy realized what was taking place, 
 he heard his father's voice with his strong German accent 
 resound through the hall. His father was speaking. 
 
 What about the tenements, Gottfried was asking, where 
 men and women worked from six o'clock in the morning until 
 nine and ten o'clock at night for a meager subsistence? 
 Was the senator aware of these? He could point out to the 
 senator thousands of such tenements, tens of thousands of 
 people struggling, slaving, dying in them. And about the 
 shirtwaist strikers — was the senator aware of them ? Ten 
 thousand women and girls had been on strike for five weeks 
 now against a system of inhuman sweating and exploitation. 
 Why did not the senator speak of that? That too was tak- 
 ing place under the Stars and Stripes. Thus far Conrad's 
 words were intelligible in spite of the accent with which they 
 were spoken. But here excitement got the best of him. He 
 began to pour out a flood of words, facts, statistics about 
 sweatshops and poverty in New York, facts and statistics 
 which he had at his fingers' ends, which none of them 
 could dispute. And no one did dispute them. For only a 
 few men in the audience now understood him. The rest 
 could not make out a word he was saying. Freddy noticed 
 the smiles appearing on the faces of men all about them. 
 His face burned with shame. If they were only outside — 
 if he could only run away. In the meantime, a murmur was 
 arising, a murmur of anger. 
 
 "Aw, sit down!" some one shouted. "Nobody under- 
 stands a word you are saying." 
 
 " Sit down, sit down! " came from every part of the hall. 
 
 " Throw him out, that Dutchman! " 
 
 " We don't speak that language here — this is the United 
 States! " 
 
76 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 *' Sit down; you are creating a disturbance." An usher 
 was at his side. 
 
 Conrad, his face red and bewildered, was trying to explain, 
 but no one would listen to him. 
 
 "Sit down," the usher was saying: "sit down or I will 
 throw you out." 
 
 The senator meantime rose, apparently to restore order. 
 But he was not exerting himself too much. He would not 
 deprive the audience of a chance to have its fun. Besides, 
 these socialists were getting troublesome. He saw at once that 
 the man before him was a socialist. It wouldn't do any harm 
 to give that fellow there a lesson. It was some time before 
 the senator spoke up. 
 
 " Gentlemen," Senator Willett was saying, his soft shoes 
 beating tune to the velvet of his voice, *' gentlemen, this man 
 has a perfect right to ask questions." And he proceeded to 
 " answer " Conrad. In spite of the accent with which Gott- 
 fried spoke, the senator readily caught the drift of his ques- 
 tions. 
 
 " This gentleman," he said suavely, as he swept his eyes 
 over the place where Conrad was supposed to be sitting, 
 " this gentleman is a socialist. Any one can see that." 
 There was a wink in the speaker's eyes as he said this. The 
 audience caught it and a ripple of laughter ran through the 
 hall. The senator went on with apparent seriousness, but 
 behind this seriousness there lurked a bantering tone that no 
 one could mistake. Senator Willett was now demolishing the 
 socialist theory with great ease. He knew all about these 
 visionaries. Men will run off sometimes; it takes all sorts of 
 people to make a world. Too bad, however, that this should 
 happen in a country whose opportunities are unlimited, whose 
 very name spells hope and freedom. Has he answered the 
 speaker's questions? 
 
THE RETURN OF CONRAD 77 
 
 Senator Willett looked in the direction of Conrad. Of 
 course he had not even come anywhere near the questions 
 about the tenements and sweating that Conrad had raised. 
 His seeming earnestness was the acme of sarcasm. Gott- 
 fried was too sick of the whole thing to reply. He detested 
 the man and his cleverness. 
 
 " I assume," said the speaker, " that the gentleman's ques- 
 tions have been answered satisfactorily." The meeting was 
 closed. 
 
 Conrad's neighbors poured out their contempt for him in 
 their looks. He edged his way through the crowd. Freddy, 
 who followed his father without looking at any one, heard 
 some one remark: "There is that Dutchman! " The rest 
 was drowned in a guffaw of laughter. 
 
 They walked in silence. Neither of them could bring him- 
 self to speak. To Freddy only one thing stood out clear. 
 His father was right, but he was made the laughing-stock 
 of the audience because he could not speak English, because 
 he was a foreigner. Another man in his place, he reasoned 
 feverishly, a man speaking English, a man who was not a 
 foreigner, could have made his argument stand out formid- 
 ably. The senator would have had difficulty in answering 
 it. Yes, he would. The more Freddy recalled the senator 
 with his soft, yielding shoes, the more convinced he was that 
 the senator knew nothing about the problems of the men and 
 women who worked for a dollar and a quarter a day, prob- 
 lems with which he, Freddy, was already familiar. Yes, the 
 whole thing resolved itself to the matter of not being a for- 
 eigner, of speaking like an American. 
 
 While Freddy was revolving these thoughts in his mind, 
 Conrad's heated feelings were giving way to thoughtfulness. 
 He was no longer angry with the senator and with the Ameri- 
 can audience which refused to listen to the truth. The insult 
 
78 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 meant nothing to him now. It was war on capitalism they, 
 the socialists, would make. The senator was one of the pil- 
 lars of the capitalist system. What else but insult could a 
 socialist expect from a capitalist senator and a capitalist- 
 minded audience? But he was worried about his son. 
 
 The events of the evening had become but a symbol of a 
 greater struggle to come. Senator Willett, glib-tongued, slick- 
 mannered, speaking artfully but without the least sincerity, 
 was the type of the great run of American politicians. The 
 audience of the evening, too indolent for earnest thought, 
 feeding on flattery, was the type of the great run of Ameri- 
 cans. They were America. And this America was seeking 
 his son's soul. There was danger ahead — danger for the 
 House of Conrad. 
 
 " Hypocrites," Conrad spat to one side, " hypocrites, that 
 is what they are. They make a pious face about liberty and 
 equality while they are forging an iron ring of capitalism 
 about the public. They prate about the welfare of the masses 
 — where is this welfare? Ten thousand girls who have been 
 getting starvation wages for years are on strike for an in- 
 crease in wages of twenty-five cents a day, an increase of 
 about a quarter of a cent or less on a shirt. They need this 
 extra quarter a day for bread, for clothes, for a little more 
 light in their homes. Are these benevolent Americans -giv- 
 ing the girls the increase ? No. * Take it or go,' that is 
 their attitude. * We can get plenty of slaves to fill your 
 places.' 
 
 " Hypocrites," Conrad lowered his voice as if he wer« 
 speaking to himself, but Freddy caught his father's every 
 word. *' They tell you it is * Ladies first ' in this country. 
 They speak of the chivalry of American men. Nice chivalry 
 this is. ' Ladies first,' yes, to the river — or the brothel. " 
 
 They reached the house. Conrad paused a moment. 
 
THE RETURN OF CONRAD 79 
 
 Then, as if in response to a remark which his son once made, 
 and which he never quite forgot, he said : 
 
 " Yes, they have nice manners, but where is the heart? " 
 
 It was late and Anna was sleeping. They were glad, for 
 it was an excuse for silence. Freddy went to bed and was 
 soon asleep; the excitement of the evening had wearied him. 
 But Conrad tossed, wakeful, for a long time. 
 
 When Freddy opened his eyes the following morning, he 
 was surprised to see his mother go about in the kitchen in her 
 wonted manner. He had been dreaming that he was a man 
 and was working. His disappointment at waking up to 
 be a boy again, a boy not yet thirteen, was keen. In 
 school that day he could not fix his mind upon his work. 
 At first he seemed to be listening to a speech, in English, 
 which kept resounding through his ears. When the teacher 
 woke him out of his dreams, he realized that it was he him- 
 self that was making the speech, and abruptly the smoothly 
 flowing English sentences were cut off. 
 
 Then he looked about the room, and although school had 
 been on for nearly six weeks, he realized for the first time 
 that he missed two of his friends, boys of his own age. They 
 had gone to work. He was eager to get home to speak to 
 his mother about going to work too. And when he did so 
 Anna looked at him speechlessly. She was utterly unable to 
 respond to his questions. When she was alone she cried. 
 After supper when the boy went downstairs she told her hus- 
 band about it and Conrad, too, felt shaken up by the thought. 
 He had intended to go over to the hall that evening, but 
 changed his mind and stayed home. He was waiting for 
 Freddy to come back, not to talk to him, but just to see him. 
 He would take a good look at his son who was thinking of 
 going to work. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 DESIRES 
 
 IN the bakeshop of Hermann Keller the employees seldom 
 reckoned time by the clock. When the last of three hun- 
 dred loaves of rye bread had been despatched into the oven 
 they knew it was midnight and therefore mealtime. Each 
 rushed to the rear of the shop to grab his lunch which lay 
 next to his street clothes. Each man, too, would rinse his 
 tin pail and hand it to the " helper " without a word. The 
 *' helper " knew the rest. 
 
 On this particular May night the helper was not there to 
 take the pails from the workmen. The helper was a new 
 boy. He had come to work that evening and was not yet 
 familiar with the routine of his job. He had washed and 
 scrubbed the pans as he was told. He had watched one of 
 the men cook the yeast so as to be able to do it himself the 
 next day. But he was not yet aware of the midnight meal 
 and of the beer. 
 
 " Hier, Junge! " the shop foreman, or " first hand," called, 
 and a blond lad of thirteen, who had been leaning against a 
 large sack of flour, came up. 
 
 " Hier," said the foreman, " take these pails and run across 
 the street to Schultz's — the saloon — and have them filled. 
 It is all right about paying. Just tell him you are from Kel- 
 ler's and that you are the new boy." 
 
 While waiting for the beer they unwrapped their lunch and 
 laid it on the benches. One or two nibbled at the bulky 
 sandwiches; the rest sat waiting for the boy. When the 
 
 80 
 
DESIRES 81 
 
 helper had returned each grabbed his pail from him and 
 began to drink the cold beverage avidly. Working in front 
 of a hot oven half the night makes for thirst. 
 
 For a few minutes there was complete silence in the room; 
 the men were munching their sandwiches without a word. 
 When the first strong craving for food had been allayed, con- 
 versation was in order. It began with the helper. The lad 
 was sitting on one of the tubs, eating a cold beef sandwich and 
 shyly looking away from the rest of the workmen, when the 
 foreman called him. 
 
 " There is a glass," the foreman pointed to the sink and the 
 lad brought it on the jump. The foreman poured a glassful 
 of beer from his own pail and gave it to the boy. 
 
 " There, drink it," he said. " If you want to be a good 
 baker you got to drink. You'll sweat it out soon enough by 
 the fire." 
 
 The foreman then turned to one of the younger men, the 
 words rolling from under his long mustache jovially: " You 
 are hardly eating to-night, Freddy," he said. " What's the 
 matter? Thinking of your girl, eh ? " 
 
 " Freddy is lovesick," another of the workmen bantered. 
 A third added with a sly wink, " Yes, he's been chasing 
 around with the girls something fierce lately." 
 
 " Anybody else got anything to say? " the youth who was 
 thus made game of responded calmly and in clear, sharp Eng- 
 lish, in contradistinction to the German in which the others 
 had dressed their remarks. He was looking with an air of 
 expectancy at two workmen, likewise older than himself, who 
 had laughed at the jests of the others, but had not themselves 
 spoken. Did they too have any jests at his expense? He 
 was waiting. 
 
 But they had none. The clear, incisive English in which 
 he had spoken had the effect of dampening the mirth of the 
 
82 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 men. The English language carried with it a weight and 
 authority in the cellar bakeshop to which even the " first 
 hand " yielded. In spite of his bantering the foreman at 
 all times felt a certain respect for the youth who was the only 
 American in the shop; who was the only baker in Klein- 
 deutschland to whom English was the mother tongue. The 
 bantering ceased; the bakers bit into their sandwiches more 
 vigorously. Left alone, Fred returned to the reminiscences 
 which the sight of the new helper, standing in one corner of 
 the bakeshop with a lone, forlorn look, had stirred within 
 him. 
 
 Five years had passed since that morning when the not yet 
 thirteen-year-old Freddy woke with the definite desire to go 
 to work. His parents insisted that he give up all thought 
 of work until he had graduated from the public school. This 
 he did, and then he loafed the whole summer, loafed trying 
 to think what he would like to do, what occupation he would 
 rather choose. His father did not give him much help in the 
 matter. Conrad wanted his son to follow his own inclina- 
 tions. And Fred followed not so much his inclination as a 
 certain vision which had taken hold of his boyish brain, an 
 illusion, as he now knew it to be, and hired out as a baker's 
 apprentice. 
 
 That his son's inclinations were in the direction of being a 
 workingman pleased Conrad. It was in accord with his 
 plans for his boy, for his Lassalle. Not that he did not wish 
 his son to be an educated man! On the contrary. They, 
 the socialists, were for an education first to last, but for an 
 education differently obtained and used differently. At pres- 
 ent, Conrad observed, education was most often used by the 
 children of the poor, not for the benefit of their oppressed and 
 exploited brethren, not as a lever with which to lift up their 
 kind to a higher level of prosperity and happiness, but as 
 
DESIRES 83 
 
 a stepladder for their own entry into the " parasitic class." 
 That was the philosophy of the schools, that was the spirit 
 which the child imbibed there — to improve his own condi- 
 tion and forget the rest, forget or even wink his eye at the 
 existence of wrong and injustice, so long as he managed to 
 escape them. 
 
 Under other circumstances, Conrad often thought to him- 
 self, under another regime, he would have sent his boy to 
 high school and to college. But not now, not under the capi- 
 talist system under which they lived. To send the boy to 
 high school and to college now could have but one result I He 
 would be lost to the working class. No, Fred must seek to 
 complete his education outside the school buildings and in- 
 fluences. His son should stand with the proletariat! 
 
 The circle from which Fred might choose an occupation was 
 a narrow one. The Germans in New York followed four 
 principal trades at the time. They were cigarmakers, brew- 
 ery workers, carpenters and bakers. In these trades the work- 
 ers were strongly organized; in others they were not. Fred 
 no more than his father would consider entering a trade where 
 the men were unorganized. It was about these four trades 
 therefore that his thoughts were revolving during the summer 
 months when he was taking what was to prove his last long 
 vacation. 
 
 As these last free days of childhood were drawing to a close 
 and the first breath of autumn had swept over the tene- 
 ments, Fred was seized with a sudden and pathetic longing for 
 the free days and especially the free afternoons which were 
 about to come to an end — forever. Along with his craving 
 to be a workman, to be independent, to be considered a 
 man, there went the thought that this meant renouncing for- 
 ever his days, his afternoons, sacrificing one half of his life, 
 the best half. He would now watch the men and boys in the 
 
84 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 district as they returned from work at seven o'clock every eve- 
 ning. He knew that they had been away from home since six 
 in the morning and his heart sank within him. To go to 
 work meant to say good-by to daylight in the open forever. 
 He would not even have the three hours in the afternoon which 
 he had while he went to school. The shop employment, which 
 he had looked up to as a source of independence, exacted a 
 severe toll for this independence. It took one's days from 
 one. 
 
 As he was brooding over these things gloomily one day, he 
 observed Anton Schwabiger, a neighbor of theirs, going over 
 to the saloon with a pitcher. In a few minutes the neighbor 
 was returning, his pitcher filled. And then for the next 
 quarter of an hour Freddy saw Schwabiger sitting at the table 
 near the window, drinking down glass after glass of the beer 
 with evident relish. 
 
 It was three o'clock in the afternoon — what was Schwab- 
 iger doing home at this time ? Schwabiger's son had been his 
 playmate for some time. The bits of information on his do- 
 mestic affairs which the boy occasionally volunteered now 
 pieced themselves together with clearness and coherence. 
 Everything was explained; the conclusions were drawn; his 
 own decision made. 
 
 Schwabiger was a baker; he worked nights. Freddy saw 
 him leave his house about six o'clock every evening. He had 
 often seen Schwabiger's boy enter the house on tiptoe in the 
 daytime because his father was sleeping. Schwabiger slept 
 until about half-past two in the afternoon and then he sat 
 around the rest of the day. 
 
 Freddy's imagination fevered at the discovery. That 
 solved his problem for him. He would be a baker and would 
 steal a march on Father Time. He would have the whole 
 afternoon to himself. He could do with six hours' sleep 
 
DESIRES 85 
 
 easily. He would come home at six in the morning, eat his 
 breakfast and go to sleep. He would rise at one or half-past 
 and then would have until six o'clock to himself. 
 
 When Freddy told his father that he wanted to be a baker, 
 he hid from him the reason for choosing this trade. He did 
 not know exactly why, but he had a vague fear that his 
 parent might somehow frustrate his plans. His father was 
 penetrating. 
 
 Gottfried was caught off guard. The bakers had been 
 much in the limelight then. They had just won a prolonged 
 strike. As was natural, the strike was led by the Arbeiter 
 Zeitung, and the victory for the men was a triumph for the 
 paper and for the socialist cause it championed. Besides, the 
 bakers had won real concessions. Their hours were short- 
 ened; new sanitary regulations were adopted. One of these 
 was the abolition of the boarding system. The bakery work- 
 ers were no longer to be compelled to board with the boss and 
 sleep in the rear of the moist, unsanitary cellar bakeshops. 
 The union of the men had emerged from the strike stronger 
 than ever. 
 
 It was of these things Conrad was thinking when his boy 
 told him that he wanted to be a baker. His son, he thought, 
 was inspired by the victory of the bakers, by their strong 
 union, and that was the reason he wanted to enter the bakers' 
 trade. From the standpoint of his, Conrad's, plans for his 
 son, the bakery trade would not be a bad one for his boy to 
 enter. The baker's organization was made up largely of 
 socialists. The boy would drink in the spirit of revolt with 
 his milk, so to speak. What worried Gottfried was the fact 
 that his son would be away from home evenings. He would 
 see him so seldom, only a few minutes in the morning before 
 he left for work. Anna too was worried over it. But she 
 was now learning to submit to the will of her son, as she had 
 
86 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 once learned to submit to the will of her husband. And 
 Freddy was determined to be a baker. His mind was set on 
 it. They came to wonder a little why he was so enthusiastic 
 over the prospect of being a baker. But Fred kept his dream 
 of saving his afternoons secret. And one day soon after- 
 ward his fate was sealed with his entry as a helper in the 
 bakeshop of Hermann Keller. 
 
 The murky light of the cellar deepened the shadows in 
 Freddy's face as he recalled the events of the past three and 
 a half years. He had long ago become accustomed to the odor 
 of the place — had become hardened against it. But as he 
 watched the nostrils of the thirteen-year-old boy, who was now- 
 being broken in as a helper, quiver and tug and struggle as if 
 revolting against the steady quaffing in of the sour fumes of 
 the bakeshop, the nauseating smell of the place revolted him 
 too as on the night he entered the cellar for the first time. 
 
 The appearance of the shop had not changed in the three 
 and a half years. Two big ovens, built into the wall, 
 faced each other. Between these were the benches, boxes, 
 pans and dough receptacles of all sorts, which contained, in 
 various stages, the bread, rolls and cakes that were fed nightly 
 to these ever hungry ovens. Along one of the walls, piled to 
 the ceiling, were sacks of flour. The other wall was lined 
 with barrels and kegs of various sizes. To one side stood 
 jars of syrups and jellies which went into the making of vari- 
 ous rolls and other dainties — food and colic for the children 
 of the district. Paper bags of sugar, raisins, cinnamon, lay 
 scattered on all sides. A big bowl of cheese mixed with eggs 
 that was to go into the making of cheese cake stood fermenting 
 on a shelf. A stale, rat-like smell and the sweat from the 
 half-naked men cemented all of these odors together. 
 
 Fred forgot the odors and was harking back in his memory 
 to the days when he saw the life of a baker tinted with a 
 
DESIRES 87 
 
 glow of romance because, as he thought, it offered a chance 
 to save the afternoons. Foolish child that he was! He 
 thought of the afternoons and forgot the evenings. He would 
 have given much now to have entered three and a half years 
 back an occupation which would have left his evenings free. 
 Evenings! Evenings! Evenings were life. Evenings were 
 soft whispers. Evenings were tender looks. Evenings 
 were girls in fresh linen dresses. Evenings were trim waists. 
 Evenings were hands that caressed, eyes that languished. 
 Evenings were the wine of life — the wine he had never 
 tasted. His life had been dry and barren. 
 
 He had finished eating. Throwing a coat over his bared 
 shoulders he walked up eight stairs to the sidewalk. 
 
 It was a beautiful night. The air was clear and balmy. 
 The blue, starry sky for a moment caused Fred to forget the 
 big tenements and the narrow street, and to think of green 
 fields and trees and fresh water running, rushing over shiny 
 pebbles. He had read of such a scene in a book once. 
 
 He was aroused by the sight of a couple coming. He 
 looked at them intently. The woman was dressed in white. 
 Her laughter suddenly rang out in the night like a silver bell. 
 It was a boy and girl — coming home so late. They must 
 have been out to a park, been together all evening. The 
 couple passed on into the next block. Freddy was peering 
 wistfully after them. 
 
 Another couple came. They were drunk and were hold- 
 ing each other, clinging to one another as they wabbled along. 
 There was a saloon around the corner and they had evidently 
 just emerged from it. Freddy knew of the saloon. Several 
 of his boy acquaintances frequently went there. The man 
 and woman were now directly across the street from the bake- 
 shop. They stood still and were caressing each other. The 
 woman^s hair was falling over her flushed face. She held 
 
88 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 her hat in her hand. She was young, under thirty, and 
 buxom. Her companion clung to her plump body. 
 
 The drunken pair started off. Fred turned sharply to go 
 down into the basement and bumped into one of his shop- 
 mates who, like himself, had been watching the drunken 
 couple speechlessly. Fred had not heard the man come up. 
 
 The midnight lunch hour was over and Fred Conrad was 
 standing near his bench rolling the pieces of dough mechan- 
 ically. Before his eyes still lingered the picture of the first 
 couple, the boy and girl who were coming home one o'clock 
 at night, who had been by themselves all evening. Again and 
 again he heard the girl's laughter. It was an innocent laugh- 
 ter, a laughter that told of love and dreams and joy. These 
 things had not yet come into his life. And the other, the 
 drunken couple — He turned his thoughts from them with 
 a feeling of revulsion. 
 
 Fred Conrad was a full-fledged baker by this time. He 
 was " second hand " now and was earning ten and twelve 
 dollars a week. But while he was earning a man's wages, he 
 was a curious mixture of man and child in his relations to 
 his parents and to the world. He knew many things — heard 
 them from the men in the shop. But he shrank from them 
 with an unaccountable loathing. His boy friends had often 
 when he had a night off, asked him to go out with them. 
 They knew certain saloons, certain Weinstubes. And they 
 kept running from one to another of these. They were spend-' 
 ing their evenings there. Often they would point out girls 
 to him on the street, girls they knew and who, they said, were 
 of " that kind." They would offer to introduce him. But he 
 would decline with a shrug of alarm. His friends at first 
 teased him about his shyness, and made jokes about it. Later 
 they left him alone. They ceased calling him. He was sel- 
 dom seen in company. His aloofness, especially from girls 
 
DESIRES 89 
 
 and women, made Fred the object of an occasional pun even 
 among his shopmates. During the lunch hour they frequently 
 bantered him about his puritanic tendencies until rudely si- 
 lenced by him, 
 
 Fred, on the other hand, was puzzled by the attitude of 
 these boys and of his shopmates toward women. He could 
 not reconcile himself to it. Nearly all of them thought of 
 women in only one sense. They spoke of them disrespect- 
 fully; often appraised women as one does animals, and used 
 vile epithets apparently for the mere pleasure of speaking 
 these words. 
 
 He thought of his mother. He hoped she would never 
 suspect that he had to listen to such talk. He could not look 
 her in the face if she were suspecting it. 
 
 At the thought of his mother an atmosphere of grayness 
 would settle over him. Mrs. Conrad was never violently 
 ill these days, but she was never well. Her haggard fea- 
 tures occasionally inspired both Conrad and Freddy with un- 
 easiness. When he left for the bakeshop at six o'clock in 
 the evening he would often cast back at his mother a tender, 
 misty gaze. He would hope fervently that he would find her 
 well when he came home from work in the morning. His 
 mother's health was the pivot about which his thoughts, his 
 existence revolved. 
 
 It was Fred's turn to go to the oven. This job always re- 
 quired attention. A moment's neglect and a pan of rolls 
 was burned. He worked away briskly with the peel, shoving 
 pans into the oven, changing their position there, bringing 
 them nearer the fire or moving them farther away. There 
 was no time to think when one was at the oven. Time went 
 fast, too. Before one realized, it was four o'clock. At that 
 hour the boss came down into the shop. Hermann Keller 
 always attended in person to the delivery end of the business. 
 
90 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 With the entry of the boss there came an hour of intense 
 vigorous work for everybody, including the new helper. The 
 wagons were loaded in haste with the heaping baskets of fresh 
 rolls and bread, and while these were cleared away, the men 
 were rounding out their night's work with the completion of 
 the day's order of cakes and pies. It was half-past five 
 o'clock when the last delivery wagon rolled away and all the 
 bakers but one were now free to take a deep breath, to wash 
 up and go home. 
 
 Fred Conrad traversed the length of the basement and 
 through the rear door emerged into the yard. There was 
 grass in the yard and it was bathed in morning dew. The 
 air was cool now and tingled the blood. The helper brought 
 him his pail of beer out there. Fred drained nearly half the 
 can before his thirst, which had been accumulating in front 
 of the oven, was slaked. Then, placing the can on a barrel, 
 he leaned against the wall to rest himself. 
 
 The neighborhood was up. Men, women and children were 
 getting ready for the day's call. Beds were being folded, 
 tables set, water splashed. Here a man was clamoring for 
 soap. There a girl and a boy, evidently sister and 
 brother, were quarreling over a towel. The aroma of coffee 
 was rising on all sides. 
 
 Fred was listening lazily to these morning noises, he was 
 accustomed to them. They were an everyday occurrence. 
 He stretched out his hand for the pail with the cooling drink. 
 His outstretched hand, however, came back empty and fell 
 limp by his side. 
 
 His eyes were riveted on the figure of a girl who was 
 washing on the rear porch of the opposite tenement. He had 
 never seen the girl there before. He recalled now that people 
 had moved from the flat a few days previous. The girl must 
 have just moved in. She was there for the first time. He 
 
DESIRES 91 
 
 had not yet seen her face. She was standing sideways, wash- 
 ing in a bowl of water. Every time her face and neck came 
 in contact with the cold water her entire body responded with 
 a joyous quiver, which the frail, tightly wrapped kimono 
 would outline distinctly. Now the water trickled down the 
 girl's bosom. She cried out gleefully and looked up as if 
 searching for some one to share the joy of the prank with her. 
 Her eyes met those of Fred. 
 
 She was his own age, not over seventeen and a half or 
 eighteen. Her face was pretty and mischievous. He stood gaz- 
 ing at her. The girl gave him a prolonged look as if trying 
 to make out just what he was like. In his overalls, his hands 
 and face covered with flour, he was not easy to make out. 
 Then she drew the kimono tighter about her and continued 
 her cleansing operations. The lines of her body stood out 
 even more sharply. Fred had seen a picture of a mermaid in 
 one of his school books. The girl reminded him of that 
 picture — and of the sea, the cold sea. 
 
 He was chilled and tired ; he had gone out without throw- 
 ing anything over his shoulders. He picked up the pail, but 
 the beer made no appeal to him now. 
 
 In the three and a half years which he had been working 
 as a baker his father never left the house in the morning be- 
 fore Fred came home. Gottfried had on several occasions 
 been late to his work, but he would not miss seeing his son 
 before the latter went off to sleep after his night's work in 
 the bakeshop. 
 
 The weary look in Fred's eyes did not escape his father 
 that morning. Anna, too, was at his side with anxious ques- 
 tions. Was he ill? What had happened to him? Was 
 there anything he wanted — anything in particular? Fred 
 made light of his indisposition. He was just a trifle tired, 
 h^ said. Conrad, eased by his son's words, went to work. 
 
92 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 Anna watched over him, however. She saw him linger over 
 his food and her mind was filling with apprehensive thoughts. 
 But Freddy made no complaints whatever. 
 
 In spite of the long night's toil and the weariness of his 
 body, he did not fall asleep at once. A sad, painful, yearn- 
 ing came over him. He was thinking of the evenings he was 
 sacrificing to his trade, of the joys that could never be his, 
 he was thinking of the girl he had just seen, the outlines of 
 her body, her neck, her arms as they shivered when they came 
 in contact with the cold water. An intense loneliness seized 
 him. It seemed to him that he was at sea, drifting help- 
 lessly, and would never reach land, but would always be 
 drifting, drifting in semi-twilight, benumbed — tired — 
 
 In the weeks and months that followed, the thought of mar- 
 riage often recurred to Fred. More than ever the escapades 
 of which his friends boasted seemed hideous, offensive to 
 him. In a corner of his brain hung as if in a frame a por- 
 trait of a little home. It was a three-room flat in one of the 
 newer tenements. There was a sink and water in the kitchen 
 — such an improvement over the home he had spent his life 
 in thus far, where the water had to be pumped in the yard. 
 The sink was of white enamel and the gas was burning 
 bright. Yes, there was even a mantle over the gas jet, as he 
 had seen it in some of the homes of the more up-to-date, 
 richer people in the neighborhood. The mantle made the 
 room so light and cheery. 
 
 The picture of the little flat always came to him strongest 
 at dawn when the night's work was drawing to a close and the 
 morning air was chilly. With the thought of the little flat, 
 of home, was associated the thought of warmth, comfort, rest. 
 He was eager then to have the work over with, to get to the 
 house quickly, have done with breakfast and crawl into bed. 
 
DESIRES 93 
 
 For sleep was kind to him. Dreams lent such reality to his 
 yearnings. They clothed them with substance. In his 
 dreams he was the possessor of that light, cozy little flat with 
 the white enameled sink, and he yielded himself up to the 
 softness and the warmth of the home — and of her. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 A COUNTRY GIRL 
 
 ANNA CONRAD could not always translate her feel- 
 ings into proper words or even clear thoughts. She 
 realized, however, clearly and painfully the sadness and 
 tragedy of her son's life. It was not normal for the boy to 
 work nights. She recalled her own evenings at home on the 
 Rhine. They held some of the pleasantest moments of her 
 life. To a boy of eighteen what treasures of thrills did not 
 a summer night offer ! 
 
 But to her son these thrills never came. His youth was 
 frigid, barren. Yet try as she might she could not deceive 
 herself into the belief that her son's plight and sadness was 
 something the New World was to blame for. Evening was 
 evening here too. By day the boys and girls toiled in the shops 
 and factories. At night, however, the children of the tene- 
 ments drank from the fountain of youth and happiness. In 
 the New World, too, evening was the hour of the gods, the 
 hour of dreams, a time of bliss and forget fulness. Tired as a 
 girl might be when she was dragging herself home from work, 
 after supper she was dressed neatly, attractively, and was 
 out with her sweetheart or a friend for a ride to the park, or 
 for a walk along the river, or to an amusement place. There 
 were amusement places galore in New York. 
 
 The more Mrs. Conrad brooded over these things, the 
 more convinced she was that it was not America that was to 
 blame for her son's loneliness — it was herself. Freddy had 
 been devoting himself too much to her. He had tended to 
 
 94 
 
A COUNTRY GIRL 95 
 
 her ever since he was a child. The sight of his ailing mother, 
 the ever-present dread that she might die at any time and he 
 be left alone, had subdued all exuberance in the boy. His 
 soberer feelings had taught him to stem his emotions, to stifle 
 his longings. No, it was not America, but her own dim 
 strength that was lending such a somber background to Fred's 
 life. 
 
 When she sat on the sidewalk near the house on a hot sum- 
 mer's evening her thoughts went out to her son, who was now 
 standing in front of a blazing oven. She would sigh and 
 moan to herself, lamenting over the joy of life her son was 
 missing. Once or twice she asked her husband, through 
 tears, if it were not possible to get Freddy into some other 
 occupation where they did not work nights. But Conrad, 
 with his more analytical mind, dashed her hopes. Fred was 
 by this time master of his trade, earning a man's wages. He 
 was already a member of the union and ready to lead a 
 man's life. The baking occupation was a bad choice to begin 
 with. But now, he feared, the boy would do best to stick to 
 it. 
 
 Conrad had long been waiting for the day when his son 
 would be eligible to the union. The day came. As soon as 
 Fred passed his eighteenth year his auxiliary standing in the 
 bakers' organization automatically changed to full member- 
 ship. Fred was now a full-fledged union man. Conrad fol- 
 lowed his son eagerly. He was convinced that he had sown 
 the seeds of working-class thought in the boy's mind and was 
 awaiting the first fruits. He refrained from advising Fred 
 too much with regard to his union affairs. He was deter- 
 mined to let his son stand on his own feet. Nothing would 
 please him more than to see the boy strike out by himself on 
 the road to leadership in the proletarian army. 
 
 Fred's increasing wages brought about improvements in 
 
96 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 the home life of the Conrads. For some time now the family 
 had lived outside the more congested blocks. Their flat 
 was lighter, larger. The neighborhood was a trifle more 
 American. Mrs. Conrad, especially, liked it here. As for 
 Fred, his new surroundings were soon to exercise a far-reach- 
 ing control over his destinies. 
 
 A few doors away from the new Conrad home there was a 
 painters' and decorators' shop. It was housed in an old two- 
 story frame building, of the type which was then rapidly dis- 
 appearing in the neighborhood and making room for three- 
 and four-story tenement houses. The man who kept the shop, 
 Warren G. Gardner, was an old New Englander and walked 
 with a decided limp. The place was not a busy one. Mr. 
 Gardner, who was doing contracting in the painting and dec- 
 orating lines, was not working himself. He was supervising 
 the work of the three men he employed and that took only a 
 few hours a day. The rest of the time he sat in front of his 
 shop deriving a great deal of pleasure from the study of and 
 association with his neighbors. 
 
 Mr. Gardner had come to New York from a small town in 
 Massachusetts nearly a generation back. But he never lost 
 the atmosphere of the small town merchant. He soon got to 
 know his neighbors, and knowing them would never fail to 
 greet them with a " good morning " or a " good afternoon." 
 This persistent attempt on his part at being neighborly now 
 and then resulted in ridiculous situations. More than once 
 such a foreign neighbor would look puzzled when greeted by 
 the old Yankee. Here and there a man would hasten on 
 suspiciously, as if fearing that he was either being made fun 
 of or that the old man was trying to ensnare him or trap him 
 into something, else why should he try to speak to him? Mr. 
 Gardner was amused by the suspicion of his neighbors, but 
 he did not swerve from his custom. And in the end he would 
 
A COUNTRY GIRL 97 
 
 win out. People would get to see his bonhomie and not only 
 would they answer his greeting, but he soon taught them to 
 respond to his remarks about the weather and such-like. 
 Every time Mr. Gardner had thus " tamed " one of his neigh- 
 bors he felt a little better for it, felt as if he had contributed 
 his mite toward presenting the New World in a friendly, 
 pleasant light to the newcomer. 
 
 Mr. Gardner was extremely fond of children. He and his 
 wife had no children of their own and it was the one great 
 disappointment of their lives. As the years went on Mrs. 
 Gardner had grown hard. Her features were strong; her 
 manners almost masculine. She wasted no words on any one. 
 A smile on her lips was a rarity. While her husband sat in 
 his chair in front of the shop, or limped about on the side- 
 walk, smiling, nodding, speaking to every one, she stayed in 
 their living-rooms above the shop and embroidered or knitted. 
 
 Fred liked his Yankee neighbor from the first. In spite 
 of the iron gray of his hair, there was something youthful 
 about Mr. Gardner. He took care of his appearance like a 
 young man. Fred never saw him in the street without a col- 
 lar, a laid down collar with a black cravat. He wore a white 
 shirt with starched cuffs every day, and his vest and trousers 
 looked Sunday-like, though they showed considerable wear. 
 He never rolled up his sleeves, but held them up with arm 
 bands. 
 
 But it was the democracy of the man that drew Fred toward 
 him, though Fred did not come to realize this until later in 
 life. There was a world-wise look in Mr. Gardner's eyes, but 
 not a trace of cynicism despite that. To him living seemed 
 to be a serious business, and a nice business. Life was nice, 
 and it was up to the people to keep it nice and help make it 
 nicer wherever possible. Years after they first met, he ex- 
 plained these things to Fred Conrad, these and many more 
 
98 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 things. In the meantime, Mr. Gardner enjoyed talking to the 
 boy merely because he was level-headed and rather earnest 
 for his age and refined for his surroundings. 
 
 Mr. Gardner knew Fred's father. He had known Gott- 
 fried even before the Conrads moved next to his store, for he 
 followed the life of the German Colony and studied its 
 leaders and spokesmen. Indeed, the study of these things 
 had been a kind of religion with Mr. Gardner all through his 
 life. After a fashion he considered himself a steward for 
 the newcomers with whom he was thrown in contact. He was 
 here ahead of them, had come of Revolutionary stock. It was 
 up to him, he felt, to help elucidate America to his immigrant 
 neighbors. His native Anglo-Saxon reserve was always there 
 to hold his activities within proper bounds, so that he never 
 became a pest or bore to his alien friends. 
 
 Mr. Gardner had thus known Gottfried Conrad for many 
 years and he now studied his son curiously. They would 
 talk together in the few free hours Fred had in the after- 
 noon about a great many things, and the boy never failed to 
 get a new idea, a new viewpoint from his Yankee neighbor. 
 
 It was at this time that the entire country was following the 
 Haymarket case in Chicago with turbulent excitement. In 
 the German Colony of New York interest and partizanship 
 over the case were at white heat. The men condemned to 
 death were labor men and most of them German. Protest 
 meetings, denouncing the verdict, were held nightly. Gott- 
 fried Conrad's fiery oratory resounded at every mass meet- 
 ing, at every gathering. 
 
 Fred was familiar with the details of the case from printed 
 reports and from his father's discussions with him. He lis- 
 tened to his father's denunciations of the verdict as legal 
 murder and shared his father's conviction. But he somehow 
 could not work up enthusiasm about the matter. He felt that 
 
A COUNTRY GIRL 99 
 
 despite the fact that he was convinced that the Haymarket 
 prisoners were innocent of the crime charged to them and for 
 which they were facing death, he yet could not be moved to 
 that depth of passion in their behalf to which his father was 
 stirred. Occasionally his own passivity in the matter irri- 
 tated him. Chicago was a neighboring city and yet he felt 
 about the case as if it were a far-off affair taking place in the 
 depth of India or in the African Jungle. 
 
 He was talking over the anarchist case with Mr. Gardner 
 one afternoon. The old shopkeeper listened to the boy ear- 
 nestly for some time. Then a gleam of satisfaction came into 
 his eyes. His chance had come to say to the youth that which 
 he had for some time wished to say to him, but which his 
 native caution and respect for the principle of minding one's 
 own business had kept him from saying. This time, however, 
 his chance was there and he would take advantage of it. 
 
 Gardner had himself followed the anarchist case closely. 
 He had decided opinions about it, though he never confided 
 them to any one. 
 
 " The clamor for the blood of these men," Fred had been 
 saying, " comes largely because people don't understand them, 
 don't understand their aims, their temper. What people don't 
 understand, they are hostile to." 
 
 At these words of the boy, Gardner's face lit up. " You 
 have said something there, young man," the old Yankee — • 
 Gardner was nearly sixty — cried enthusiastically. " You 
 have said something which you will do well to remember. 
 You might write it down ; it is worth writing down : * What 
 people don't understand they are hostile to.' 
 
 " My boy," Gardner warmed up, " I have lived in this 
 part of town for thirty years, barring the four years I was 
 in the War. I have seen the first German refugees come here 
 after the revolution of 1848. I have seen the labor movement 
 
100 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 rise up. I have seen the Germans, your father among them, 
 come here and sow the seeds of working-class socialism, and 
 I have seen the seeds sprout. I have seen the bread riots of 
 1873. I have seen scores of meetings of workingmen, and 
 especially of German workingmen, broken up by the police, 
 and the speakers dragged from the platform. I have seen all 
 that, and I have sympathized with the men — I always sym- 
 pathize with the under dog. I have often tried to account for 
 these clashes and differences. It took me years and years 
 before I realized that which you have just put in one sen- 
 tence : ' What the people don't understand they are hostile 
 to.' 
 
 " Have you ever seen," the old man continued, " any one 
 crucified to-day because he professes to be a Christian ? No. 
 Yet the Romans crucified men and women who professed to be 
 Christians. They threw them into the arena as food for 
 ravenous beasts. They soaked their garments in oil and 
 burned them alive. And yet the Romans were not barbarians. 
 They had a most wonderful civilization. They had philos- 
 ophers and sages. They had lawgivers. They had poets 
 and artists. Many of their institutions are still at the bot- 
 tom of our institutions. Roman law is at the foundation of 
 our law. Why, then, were they so intolerant toward the 
 early Christians? The answer is: Because they did not 
 understand them, and * What people don't understand they 
 are hostile to.' " 
 
 There was a pause, and as Fred said nothing the old Yan- 
 kee resumed: 
 
 " The ills of our country, the ills of our age and of every 
 age, in the final analysis, resolve themselves to this one thing : 
 the lack of understanding on the part of the various classes of 
 society. The policeman clubs the alien strikers with zest, 
 with gusto, not solely on account of the command he has to 
 
A COUNTRY GIRL loi 
 
 preserve order — his clubbing them does not make for the 
 preservation of order — but because he does not understand 
 them, and what one doesn't understand one is hostile to. The 
 foreigner does not speak the language of the country. His 
 conduct is odd at times, it is ridiculous at other times; and 
 sometimes it is annoying. A thoughtful man knows that a 
 stranger in a new country is like a child in a new world and 
 much must be overlooked and forgiven until the child grows 
 up. But most people are not thoughtful, and our policemen, 
 and the city officials who give them orders, are perhaps the 
 least thoughtful of all. The oddity of the foreigner in them 
 provokes only resentment. That is the situation in Chicago 
 and that is the situation here. 
 
 " I have followed the case of the Chicago anarchists, as 
 they call themselves. Many of the wrongs they denounce are 
 things for which our forefathers would have fought and bled, 
 for which I, an American of many generations, would be 
 ready to fight. The trouble comes in, however, in the lan- 
 guage, in the method, in the manner these men present their 
 grievances. They state their grievances in a foreign tongue, 
 in a foreign press. They state them in foreign terms, in a 
 foreign psychology. They give their kernel of justice a shell 
 that is unattractive to the American eye, and the resentment 
 toward the shell is unconsciously extended to the kernel it- 
 self." 
 
 Again there was a pause. But Fred was staring ahead of 
 him, letting the words of the old Yankee sink in his mind. 
 The old man observed this with a smile of satisfaction and 
 continued : 
 
 " To come to things nearer home, there is your father. I 
 have great admiration for him. I know him to be honest 
 and earnest. And I know his ideas are right. I agree with 
 most of them; perhaps if I understood your father's language 
 
102 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 I would agree with all of them. How can one take exception 
 to the truth when one understands it? Here we are in a 
 country whose government is scarcely more than a hundred 
 years old. We are on a continent that is virgin soil. Two 
 hundred years back the ills of the Old World, greed, corrup- 
 tion, caste lines, with the abhorrence of work on the one hand 
 and the desire to enslave whole tribes of people and to live 
 off their labor on the other, were utterly unknown on this 
 continent. We have here a country of vast resources that 
 are still untapped. The first immigrants to this country 
 came to seek freedom, to seek justice, to propagate the ideas 
 of equality, to live and let live, to found new El Dorados 
 of human peace and happiness. 
 
 "And now, what has happened? Men have come here 
 and have transplanted, and adapted to the new conditions, 
 the Mephistophelian system of exploitation which is current 
 on the old continent. They have built factories and shops 
 here, they are operating mines and mills, not to keep the 
 wants of all supplied, but for personal enrichment. They 
 operate not on the principle of justice, but on the principle 
 of might. They turned this country into a dog-eat-dog 
 world. The wages they pay are arbitrary and the worker 
 must live accordingly. If he fights back he gets a little 
 more; if he is quiet they may try to reduce his meager stipend. 
 In a land which is the youngest country on earth we have 
 more windowless rooms, greater congestion, more poverty, 
 consumption, crime, insanity than are to be seen in the cities 
 of the Old World. And all this has been built up in the 
 space of a generation. It is being built and aggravated daily. 
 This poverty and want and horrible lists of suicide are all 
 man-made. It is proper that men should protest against such 
 a system. Indeed, it is the pith of New World civilization 
 
A COUNTRY GIRL 103 
 
 that such wrongs should be protested against, should be de- 
 nounced, uprooted. But denounce them as Americans, in the 
 American language, with American address. Your father, 
 the Haymarket prisoners in Chicago, all of the German 
 socialists in this country, are attacking real evils. Their 
 cause is just, but they fail to make it appear so to the Ameri- 
 can public. They have reversed the sequence of things. 
 They should have learned our ways, our language, should 
 have become a part of us first and started in converting 
 us to their ideas afterwards. Then too they might have 
 Americanized their ideas a little, they might have presented 
 them to us in American cut garments. ' When in Rome do 
 as the Romans.' " 
 
 The following Sunday afternoon Conrad addressed a mass 
 meeting in behalf of the Haymarket prisoners. Fred was in 
 the hall listening to his father's speech. 
 
 " I am not an anarchist," Conrad had said; " in fact, I 
 am a bitter enemy of the anarchist philosophy. But these 
 men in Chicago were not sentenced to be hanged for their 
 professing an anarchist view of society, but for being repre- 
 sentatives of the working class. The courts had not proved 
 that they had committed an anarchist act. Even the police 
 dared not credit these men with the actual throwing of the 
 bomb in the Haymarket. If they are hanged it will be for 
 championing the cause of the workingmen. If they are 
 hanged it will be because they have made a too persistent 
 fight for the eight-hour day with which employers have no 
 sympathy. If they are hanged it will be because the cap- 
 italist class wants them to serve as a warning to other 
 workingmen, to other leaders of the oppressed and the down- 
 trodden — " 
 
104 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 Throughout the speech women wept, men sat in a daze. 
 The plight of seven laboring men, immigrants like them- 
 selves, had come home. 
 
 When Fred picked up the English papers the next morn- 
 ing, he found a description of the meeting to the length of 
 a column. The reporter told of a " wild-eyed, frenzied 
 crowd, shouting, gesticulating, threatening death and destruc- 
 tion to the authorities if they dared to carry out the law and 
 hang their comrades." Mention was made of his father. 
 But all the reporter saw in Gottfried Conrad's speech was 
 " a harangue in the German vernacular." 
 
 Fred pondered long over this line. His father told him 
 that nothing else could be expected from the capitalist press. 
 But he was wondering what the reporter might have said if 
 the speech had been made in English, by an American. 
 Henceforth he deliberately and completely cut the " German 
 vernacular " from his speech, much to the surprise of his 
 fellow workers in the shop and in the union. At home he 
 had been speaking English for years now. 
 
 Fred now visited the old decorator often. One afternoon 
 Mr. Gardner closed his shop and led his visitor upstairs into 
 a little study. In that room Fred found several diplomas and 
 certificates from a leading college which gave Mr. Gardner 
 the right to teach. He learned that Mr. Gardner had been 
 a teacher prior to the Civil War. His injured thigh, which 
 old Gardner spoke of jocularly as his " war decoration," 
 made it necessary for him to give up teaching and go into 
 some other occupation. The painting and decorating busi- 
 ness had been in the family for years. It was an easy matter 
 to step into it. His store was giving him and his wife a 
 livelihood. And that was all they needed. 
 
A COUNTRY GIRL 105 
 
 " And these are my companions," Mr. Gardner laughed as 
 he pointed along the wall to shelf upon shelf of books. 
 Fred examined two or three of them. The names of the 
 writers were new to him and the books were different from 
 anything he had ever read or seen. A feeling of humility 
 came over him. 
 
 Fall had set in early that year. The first week in Septem- 
 ber it began to rain and for three weeks in succession wind 
 and storm raged unabated. Then, just as people were re- 
 signing themselves to the death of summer and were begin- 
 ning to take an inventory of last year's winter garments, sum- 
 mer returned. It came back overnight and greeted the city 
 on a Sunday morning with dazzling sunshine. By noon the 
 tenements spilled out their inhabitants by scores of thou- 
 sands into the parks, amusement places, the seashore. 
 
 Fred Conrad, too, would make the most of that October 
 Sunday. As he had worked until five that morning, he was 
 not up until one-thirty, and it was nearly three o'clock in the 
 afternoon when he started out for Central Park. Mr. Gard- 
 ner was leaning back in a rocker in front of his store enjoy- 
 ing the sunshine. Fred stopped to talk to him. 
 
 " Out for a stroll? " Mr. Gardner asked. 
 
 " Yes," said Fred; " I thought I would take a look at Cen- 
 tral Park again; there may not be many nice Sundays left." 
 
 " No, there may not be," the old man agreed. 
 
 Fred made a move as if to continue on his walk when a 
 girl stepped out of the hallway leading to the living-room 
 of the Gardner family. Upon perceiving a stranger, she 
 halted. 
 
 " Come right over, Elsie; don't be scared of Fred here; 
 he is almost a part of the family." Mr. Gardner was smil- 
 
106 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 ing, and as the girl came up he introduced them to each 
 other. " My niece, Elsie Whitney, and this is Mr. Conrad, 
 our neighbor." 
 
 Fred extended his hand with a " Pleased to meet you." 
 
 " Fearfully warm out here, isn't it? " the girl broke the 
 silence which followed the greeting. 
 
 " Yes, it is warm," said Fred. He was looking straight 
 at her. It was wonderful to be addressed as a man, to be 
 looked upon as a man by a woman. He was in the habit 
 of still considering himself a boy. 
 
 Mr. Gardner infused life into the conversation. 
 
 " My niece," he said by way of explanation, " has come 
 from Vermont only yesterday." And turning to the girl he 
 continued: "After you get used to the town, Elsie, you 
 won't mind the heat so — nor the elevated either." 
 
 This last the old man said with a twinkle. The girl sup- 
 pressed a giggle. 
 
 " No," she said, and Fred could not tell whether she was 
 mocking or serious, " no. Uncle, I'll never get used to the 
 elevated, and I'll never let you take me on it again." 
 
 Mr. Gardner laughed as if he enjoyed the joke hugely. 
 He was telling Fred how he had sprung a surprise on the 
 girl the previous day. He met her at the railway station 
 and took her home on the elevated. He thought a journey 
 over the roofs of New York would amuse her. Instead it 
 gave her the shivers. 
 
 " I'll give you just about a month," the uncle continued, 
 " and you will know New York as well as you know Main 
 Street in Belfair, and you will like it. Everybody feels about 
 New York the way you do when they first come here." 
 
 " I suppose so," said Miss Whitney wistfully. A rem- 
 iniscent look came into her eyes. She seemed to be visual- 
 izing something. Fred wondered whether she was thinking 
 
A COUNTRY GIRL 107 
 
 of her home, or whether it was her future in New York that 
 she was painting with her eyes in space. Suddenly he spoke. 
 
 " You have not seen the town yet? " 
 
 " No," said the girl absently. Fred continued hastily, as 
 if wishing to have it over with : 
 
 " I'm going to Central Park. If — do you want to come 
 with me? " 
 
 He was amazed at his own boldness. He would have 
 swallowed the words if he could. But it was too late. The 
 girl meantime had cast a perplexed look at her uncle and 
 the latter answered for her: 
 
 " Certainly go with Mr. Conrad. Very good of you, Fred. 
 Central Park will be worth seeing to-day." 
 
 " I'll be down directly," the girl smiled back to Fred as 
 she ran up the stairs to the living-rooms. 
 
 Fred, who remained alone with the old man, was con- 
 fused. Mr. Gardner was not angry with him, that was 
 certain. His heart beat furiously and then it stood still. 
 He felt that he had taken a momentous step. 
 
 Mr. Gardner, speaking commonplaces, took his mind off 
 his now thrilling, now embarrassing thoughts. 
 
 " All right, Mr. Conrad," and the girl stood by his side, 
 her face rosy under the drooping summer hat. On her arm 
 hung her jacket. 
 
 Fred took the jacket from her. Courage surged through 
 his veins. She took him for a man; he would be a man, 
 not a boy, not a child. 
 
 " So long," Mr. Gardner called after them, and with a sly 
 solemnity added, addressing both, " And mind the elevated! " 
 
 It was a day of days. The mantle of boyhood had fallen 
 from Fred's shoulders. The thrill of his manhood was 
 coursing through his veins. He was a man now with a 
 
io8 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 man's strength. In the many Sundays when strolling alone 
 through Central Park he had observed the manners of men, 
 of boys, as they walked through the park with women, girls. 
 He had studied and watched those things abstractedly, merely 
 to keep his mind busy. It had never occurred to him that 
 a time would come when he might stand in need of just such 
 niceties. Such things seemed so remote from him. Now all 
 these niceties of conduct came to him like a chant of triumph. 
 He was not a stranger to the ways of the world. From the 
 moment he transferred the girl's jacket from her arm to his, 
 he was showering her with attentions. He took her arm at 
 every street crossing and helped her up the sidewalk. At 
 first a queer sensation would run through him at such fa- 
 miliarities. But he was fortified every time with the thought 
 that this was the proper thing to do. In the Park proper 
 his attentions appeared quite the thing. Miss Whitney, 
 who to begin with had felt rather strange at the attentions 
 of the young man whom she had known scarcely an hour, was 
 more at ease here. It was the city — that was to be expected. 
 City young men were so much more polite, so much more 
 refined than the boys of Belfair. 
 
 Fred was solicitous. He would not let her get tired, he 
 was always on the lookout for a bench or nice spot to sit 
 down. He had an eye, too, for the lemonade stands in case 
 she was thirsty. Then he suddenly discovered that it was 
 seven o'clock. And in the manner in which he had often 
 enviously watched other young men gaily escort their ladies 
 to the pavilion where they served sandwiches and pies and 
 coffee and ice-cream, he escorted Miss Whitney, and there 
 watched her eat as if she were a sick child and her life 
 depended upon taking a taste of everything that he ordered. 
 
 They found a bench and sat down. The moon sent fur- 
 tive glances through the branches of the tree as if a trifle anx- 
 
A COUNTRY GIRL 109 
 
 ious about the inexperienced couple and fearing that they 
 might not take their full share of the joy of living that eve- 
 ning. But if such were the moon's misgivings, they were 
 entirely unwarranted, for Fred and Elsie spent a delightful 
 evening together. They talked of many things. She of her 
 life in the country town, of the interminably long and quiet 
 evenings, the dull Sundays, the dreams and pining for the 
 city, which the old resented but which was the only thing 
 that kept the hearts of the young people bright and warm. 
 
 Her frank wonderment filled him with hope and a little, 
 too, with pride. He was born in the city. There was much 
 he would be able to show her. He thought gratefully of his 
 father, who had always urged him to visit the museums, 
 aquariums, the zoological gardens, and the like. Gottfried 
 Conrad saw in these things education for his son, while Fred 
 now anticipated the thrills which the sight of these things 
 would bring her, and was suffocating with the joy these an- 
 ticipations were giving him. 
 
 It had grown late and they started for home. They were 
 tired and happy. Along the way he pointed out various 
 buildings to her and scarcely noticed how time went. When 
 the car reached their corner both instinctively regretted that 
 such a pleasant evening had to be broken up. 
 
 Mr. Gardner had been waiting for them and not alone. 
 He was standing near the entrance to the Conrad home 
 speaking to Mrs. Conrad. 
 
 " Here they come," Mrs. Conrad said joyously at the sight 
 of the couple. She observed her son before he noticed her. 
 The change in him from boy to man was clear to her on the 
 instant and sent a long expected thrill through her heart. 
 There was no need to introduce Miss Whitney to her. Mr. 
 Gardner had been talking about the girl just as she and 
 Fred were approaching. Fred's mother extended her hand 
 
no THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 to the girl warmly. She asked her whether she liked New 
 York. Miss Whitney felt like leaning upon somebody's 
 chest and crying — that was how she felt about New York. 
 But that she could not do or say, so she dropped into prose 
 and said yes, she liked New York, and everything was 
 commonplace again. 
 
 When Fred entered the house, followed by his mother, the 
 sense of his new-found self had not left him. He was, in 
 fact, more conscious of it than ever. But with that man- 
 hood there had come over him a strange sadness, an un- 
 wonted melancholy that was torturesome and pleasant. 
 
 His mother was putting his supper on the table, but he 
 was not hungry. She tried to speak to him, but he only 
 answered in monosyllables. With palpitating heart she at- 
 tempted to get at the events of the day. Did he have a 
 pleasant time? " Yes, very pleasant," he answered, and pre- 
 tended to be very tired. His father had not yet returned 
 from a meeting and he was glad of it. 
 
 He began to undress. He liked the sensation of getting 
 up at six o'clock Monday morning and having the whole day 
 to himself. As he was unlacing his shoes, he heard his 
 mother sigh. He looked up at her quickly and was a little 
 startled. He had never noticed before: She was an old 
 woman. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 FRED MAKES A SPEECH 
 
 LOCAL UNION NO. 9 of the Bakers' Amalgamated 
 Association had nearly twelve hundred members and 
 every one of these was in the hall that Sunday afternoon, 
 despite the bitter cold. The union was on the eve of a crisis. 
 For two years it had had an agreement with the baker bosses 
 specifying the hours of work, wages, sanitary and other 
 conditions in the bakeshops. The contract was to expire 
 within ten days and the employers refused to renew it. 
 
 It was the first crisis in union affairs at which Fred Con- 
 rad sat as a member with an equal voice. The meeting be- 
 gan at two-thirty in the afternoon. At the opening of the 
 session the business agent had outlined in a few words his 
 fruitless negotiations with the baker bosses. It was five 
 o'clock now and Fred Conrad was listening wearily to the 
 second of the two " principal " speakers of the occasion. 
 One of the speakers was an associate editor of the Arbeiter 
 Zeitung; the other was the ex-secretary of a socialist Local 
 in Germany, who had been in the United States only a short 
 time. 
 
 For more than two hours these men had been hurling ora- 
 torical javelins against the wall of capitalism which was 
 surrounding modern society, and denouncing wage slavery, 
 rent interest and profit. They vied with one another in their 
 display of erudition. They invoked Lassalle, they quoted 
 Marx. They traced the wrongs of the working class from the 
 day when " Adam wove and Eve span." They delved into 
 
 III 
 
112 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 Roman history and resurrected the great rebel Spartacus. 
 They tossed back and forth such words as Feudalism, the 
 Wealth of Nations, Materialism. They conjured up the 
 Shades of Proudhon and Saint-Simon to bear witness to the 
 injustice of the system of private property. They called upon 
 the workers to rise to a man, " rise like lions " to abolish 
 capitalist society and inaugurate the cooperative common- 
 wealth. The throng applauded eagerly every time the 
 speaker made a telling point. 
 
 Fred was fidgety and to hide his impatience was studying 
 the audience. He knew most of the men by sight if not to 
 speak to. He had seen them at meetings, meetings which 
 his father had addressed and at which Gottfried had said 
 precisely the same things the speaker was saying now. These 
 men must have heard the same statements, the same denuncia- 
 tions, the same proof of the wrong and iniquity of private 
 property for the hundredth time. And still they were listen- 
 ing eagerly to it, they were applauding these speeches and 
 sentiments. What a tiresome spectacle! What a waste of 
 time and energy ! He knew all of these men to be socialists. 
 Each of them had long been converted to the theories the 
 speakers were expounding. Where was the sense in trying to 
 convert people who have long been converted? Didn't the 
 speakers see the uselessness of their propaganda here ? Was 
 not the audience aware of it ? Instead of saying these things 
 over to themselves for the hundredth time, why did not both 
 speakers and audience go out and try to gain new recruits to 
 their ideas ? Why did not they try to convert the great Amer- 
 ican masses, if they really meant to accomplish the economic 
 and social changes they were preaching, if they were serious 
 in the war they were declaring upon modern society? Were 
 they all mere dreamers? Were they mere children in the 
 practical affairs of life ? 
 
FRED MAKES A SPEECH 113 
 
 He checked his meditations. Was he not going too far in 
 his criticisms? His father had warned him not to fall too 
 much under the influence of his Yankee neighbor. Old Man 
 Gardner no doubt was honest and well meaning, but he had 
 no first-hand knowledge of industrial conditions, Gottfried 
 had explained to him. He had never worked in a factory. 
 Gardner's life and viewpoint went back to an older genera- 
 tion, a generation reared in small American towns, a genera- 
 tion which knew nothing of the relentless tyranny and ex- 
 ploitation of the factory system in the modern city, in New 
 York. It was all very well for Gardner to be philosophical 
 about things, to be critical of his German neighbors, to chide 
 them for not acquiring manners, polish. He had no children 
 working in sweatshops. He never experienced the lash of 
 the foreman, he never knew the petty tricks of employers 
 for squeezing out more work while at the same time bring- 
 ing down your wages. Before the poor can acquire manners 
 they must have bread, they must have better homes, more 
 air, more sunlight, they must have a little something saved, 
 so as not to be haunted by the specter of unemployment and 
 starvation. 
 
 " With all his humanitarianism, and his love of fair play," 
 Gottfried once said to his son, " Mr. Gardner is himself a 
 member of the exploiting class. He has never worked with 
 his hands. It is easy to be calm and philosophical when the 
 shoe pinches somebody else's foot." 
 
 Fred recalled these words of his father now. He was try- 
 ing to be just to the men to whose ranks he had only recently 
 been admitted. Nevertheless, impatience was rankling in 
 him. His American directness was asserting itself. No, he 
 was not altogether wrong. His impatience was justified. 
 Why could not these speakers reserve their addresses for some 
 other time? They could be delivered at any other time just 
 
114 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 as well. Right now the union had important business to set- 
 tle. A strike was imminent : it was inevitable. They should 
 have employed these hours toward making the strike effective. 
 Most of the recent strikes in the colony had been miserable 
 failures, fiascos, because they were mismanaged. He was 
 shaken out of his ruminations by a storm of applause. The 
 last of the two speakers had finished. Fred noted the ex- 
 pression of relief that came into the chairman's face. The 
 president of the union, Theodore Lange, presided. He was 
 now rapping for order furiously, eager to get down to busi- 
 ness. 
 
 Lange minced no words. The refusal of the bosses to re- 
 new the agreement with the union could have but one mean- 
 ing, he said: the employers were out to break the union. 
 There was but one response the union could make — strike. 
 He would appoint a committee to visit the employers. If 
 they did not sign the agreement before next Sunday the union 
 would resort to the only alternative and order the men to 
 quit work. 
 
 The chairman appointed the committee, three men who 
 stood high in the councils of the organization. He then 
 looked about the hall. If there were no further questions, 
 or any other business, the meeting would be declared ad- 
 journed. 
 
 " A point of information, Mr. Chairman." Fred Conrad 
 was up from his seat. His words electrified the audience. 
 It was the first time a member had addressed the chairman 
 in English. Most of the men spoke English after a fashion 
 in street-cars, in stores, or wherever else they came in contact 
 with Americans. Many of them even spoke it at home; they 
 were compelled by their American-reared children to answer 
 them in English now and then. But in their societies, in their 
 
FRED MAKES A SPEECH 115 
 
 lodges and unions, they spoke German. It was not merely 
 that they could express themselves better in their native 
 tongue. They were ashamed to speak English among them- 
 selves — it seemed to them clownish to drop their native 
 tongue and attempt to speak in a foreign language which 
 they knew but imperfectly. They did not mind exposing 
 their accent to an Irishman or a Yankee, but they feared to 
 expose it to one of their own kind. Germans who " tried to 
 play Yankee " were burlesqued in the papers and on the 
 stage. 
 
 All eyes, therefore, were riveted upon young Conrad, who 
 seemed not at all conscious of having done anything extraor- 
 dinary. He was accustomed to think in English even when 
 listening to speeches in German. The chairman, Theodore 
 Lange, was one of the younger men, and was pretty well 
 Americanized. He quickly overcame a momentary embar- 
 rassment and now that the ice was broken he answered Fred 
 likewise in English. 
 
 " What is your point of information, Brother Conrad ? " 
 he asked. 
 
 It was the first time Fred had been addressed as " Brother 
 Conrad." It was the first time he was addressed as a col- 
 league by a man twice his age. He was the equal of all of 
 these men now. It was a glorious feeling. But he had no 
 time to surrender himself to the sensation of joy which his 
 own self-assertion and the recognition of it by others was 
 giving him. The chairman had asked him a question. He 
 was answering it: 
 
 " My point of information is this : If a strike is called, 
 this is the last meeting at which preparations for such strike 
 should be made, is it not? " 
 
 The eyes of the entire audience were now fixed upon the 
 
ii6 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 slender youth who was questioning the chair. Had Fred 
 spoken German he would have had scant attention. His 
 English speech distinguished him. 
 
 " I don't quite grasp your question, Brother Conrad," the 
 chair answered. " Will you please state it a little more 
 clearly? " 
 
 "My question," said Fred, " is this: What preparations 
 have been made to meet the situations and difficulties that 
 are likely to arise if a strike is called ? The contracts expire 
 in ten days. If they are not renewed before the end of this 
 week the strike will be ordered at next Sunday's meeting. 
 There will be no time to make preparations for the strike 
 then. The time to make such preparations is between now 
 and then, between to-day and next Sunday." 
 
 The chairman surveyed the crowd as if seeking light in the 
 faces of his audience. But there was no word coming from 
 any one. The audience was looking from Fred to the chair- 
 man and from the chairman to Fred. 
 
 " What are the preparations you have in mind, Brother 
 Conrad? " the chairman asked, still dubiously. 
 
 Fred's answer came readily. He had had it in his mind 
 for some time. 
 
 " A lawyer," he said. " The first thing we ought to do is 
 hire a lawyer." 
 
 " Will Brother Conrad please step up to the platform, so 
 we can all hear him ? " The voice was that of August Mil- 
 ler, a well-known figure in the German Colony and a friend 
 of Fred's father, Gottfried Conrad. 
 
 " On the platform! " Several others approved Miller's 
 suggestion, and Fred made his way to the rostrum. 
 
 " What I wish to say," Fred resumed after the palpitating 
 of his heart had settled to normal in the half minute which 
 the journey from his seat to the platform occupied, " is this: 
 
FRED MAKES A SPEECH 117 
 
 We ought to get a lawyer to look after our interests. There 
 has not been a strike in this city recently that has not been 
 interfered with by the police. Now there are certain rights 
 which every one of us, which every one in this country has, 
 such rights as free speech, free assembly. Any man has a 
 right to patrol the street — that is what picketing amounts 
 to. When the police annoy a man who is walking along the 
 street peacefully, they are violating the law. In every recent 
 strike the police have curtailed these rights of the men. 
 This must not happen in the next strike. We ought to know 
 just what our rights as citizens are. We ought to know just 
 what we have a right to do, and what not. A lawyer could 
 tell us that. And when a policeman violates our rights we 
 ought to know that he is violating them and tell our lawyer. 
 Let him take action and bring the offending officer to jus- 
 tice. The policeman has no more right to break the law 
 than a striker has. We live in a country governed by laws. 
 It is imperative, to my mind, that we have a lawyer to advise 
 us with regard to our rights and to warn us away from 
 interfering with the rights of others. That's all." 
 
 It was a remark of Mr. Gardner's that Fred had developed 
 into this little speech, and he thought of the old Yankee as 
 he was descending from the platform. 
 
 August Miller, in the rear of the hall, clapped his hands 
 and in a moment the entire building resounded with ap- 
 plause for Fred. When the hand-clapping subsided, the 
 chairman, addressing Fred, who was now in his seat among 
 the audience, asked whether he wanted to put his remarks in 
 the form of a motion. 
 
 " You can take it as a motion," Fred replied. 
 
 A score of men in various parts of the hall seconded the 
 motion and when it was carried the chairman concluded : 
 
 *' And now I appoint Brother Conrad a member of the 
 
ii8 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 committee which is to take up negotiations with the employ- 
 ers and I widen the scope of the committee so that it may 
 undertake such preparations for a strike as Brother Conrad 
 has outlined." 
 
 There was another outburst of applause. The meeting 
 was over, and men now crowded about Fred, shook hands 
 with him, praised and approved his ideas, and all of this 
 approval somehow came in English. Fred was embarrassed 
 at heart, but he did not show it. The training in facing 
 audiences which his father had given him by taking him on 
 the platform with him ever since he was a little boy, now 
 stood Fred Conrad in good stead. Still he was greatly re- 
 lieved when he extricated himself from the crowd and 
 started for home. 
 
 Gottfried had not yet returned from the meeting which he 
 was to address and Fred was glad of it. He wanted a few 
 minutes to himself to think it over, to visualize all that had 
 taken place that afternoon. He settled down in a rocker and 
 tried to recall just what he had said and how he had acted 
 on the platform. He could find no fault with himself. 
 Everything had gone well. He had not only stated his 
 point, but it was carried, and what's more he was now a 
 member of the committee which was to conduct negotiations 
 with the bosses. To-morrow at eleven o'clock in the morn- 
 ing the committee would hold a special session. The presi- 
 dent of the union had reminded him to be on hand at the 
 meeting as they were leaving the hall together. 
 
 Besides the honor there was another significance in this 
 thing — a significance which had just occurred to him. The 
 men who were appointed on such committees were not sup- 
 posed to work in the shop during the time they were working 
 for the union. The union paid them the wages they earned 
 in the shop and even their expenses. This meant that for 
 
FRED MAKES A SPEECH 119 
 
 a whole week he would not be working at night, he would 
 have the nights to himself — he would see Elsie every eve- 
 ning. 
 
 And then he forgot everything else and thought of Elsie. 
 How beautiful she had become in the three months she had 
 been in New York! She had unfolded like a flower. 
 Everything she saw in the city thrilled her. And whatever 
 she had seen had been in his company. He had taken her out 
 every Sunday. And now he would be free in the evening a 
 whole week in succession — he must rush to see her at once. 
 Supper? He looked about and saw his father enter. 
 
 At a glance Fred realized that something very pleasant 
 had happened to his father. He, too, must have scored a 
 great triumph that afternoon, he thought. And his surmise 
 was right. Only the triumph which Gottfried Conrad 
 scored was his son's triumph. August Miller, who was re- 
 sponsible for hustling Fred up on the platform to make his 
 little speech there before the entire union membership, had 
 stopped in at the hall where Gottfried Conrad had spoken 
 and congratulated him upon Fred's achievement. 
 
 " You can be proud of your boy," Miller had said after 
 telling of Fred's speech and his appointment to the strike 
 committee; " he is a bom leader, a chip of the old block." 
 
 In the three blocks from the hall to his home two other 
 men, bakers who knew him, stopped Gottfried Conrad to tell 
 him about his son, how he had leaped into leadership at a 
 stroke. 
 
 The words of praise for his Fred were ringing in Conrad's 
 ears as they sat down to the evening meal. His face beamed. 
 From time to time he would send furtive glances at his son, 
 which caused Fred to suspect that his father might have heard 
 something of the afternoon's happenings. Conrad was wait- 
 ing for the boy to speak, to tell him. But Fred was not 
 
120 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 making the least reference to the meeting. They talked 
 commonplaces. Fred was looking at the clock constantly. 
 He was anxious to get out — to Elsie. 
 
 As they rose from the table Gottfried could contain him- 
 self no longer. 
 
 " I hear you have been appointed on the committee which 
 is to handle the next strike," Gottfried said. 
 
 " Yes," Fred replied calmly, " they added my name to 
 the list." 
 
 Gottfried would have liked to hear in detail about the 
 little speech which his son had made, but Fred was non- 
 committal on that. And the reticence of his son suddenly 
 assumed a significance in the father's eyes. That was the 
 spirit of true leadership — to make light of its own achieve- 
 ments, to look forward to newer conquests instead of basking 
 in the glory of the old ones. Yes, his Lassalle was showing 
 real character. He would be heard from. 
 
 When Fred left the house, Gottfried Conrad shook up the 
 fire, threw in a few coals and, bringing his chair close to 
 the stove, sat down. He was not going out that evening to 
 any meeting. That was triumph enough for one day. He 
 picked up the paper as a pretense for staying home, but he 
 did not read. He did not even open it. He sat rapt in vi- 
 sions. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 ELSIE 
 
 ELSIE WHITNEY was six months older than Fred. 
 She was the youngest of eight children, but only one 
 of them was living besides herself — her brother George. 
 The others had died, some in infancy and some later. One 
 of them, a sister, had died five years back, at the age of 
 twenty-one, and this sent her mother to a comparatively early 
 grave. Mrs. Whitney was only fifty-two when she died. 
 
 Mathew Whitney, Elsie's father, owned a blacksmith shop 
 on the outskirts of Belfair and had been assisted in the 
 management of the place by his only son ever since the boy 
 was twelve years old. After his wife's death, Mr. Whitney's 
 attacks of rheumatism came on with increasing frequency. 
 For two and a half years he still looked after the shop, 
 though his son did all the work. Then he was laid up for 
 six weeks in succession. It was feared he would die ; he was 
 in the sixties. But he recovered. When he again left his 
 bed, however, his career as a blacksmith was over. His 
 muscles would no longer obey him. 
 
 From the day her mother died the house had rested upon 
 Elsie's shoulders. It was monotonous work, but she did it 
 without a murmur. Her responsibilities sobered her beyond 
 her years. She was critical of her surroundings, and girls 
 her own age seemed to her mere children in comparison with 
 herself. What did they know of life's bitterness and hard- 
 ships? These girls could still make their dreams of the fu- 
 ture rhyme, as it were, with their little town ; not she. There 
 
 121 
 
122 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 was no future in Belfair for her. Her girl friends were long- 
 ing for homes of their own. She had one. She had been 
 keeping house for three years. She knew what it meant. 
 It was a dull business. Marraige would add to the routine, 
 but she doubted whether it could bring her happiness — in 
 Belfair. She knew all the boys in the town — the avail- 
 able ones. They were all good " hewers of wood and draw- 
 ers of water " — she had carried off many prizes in the Sun- 
 day-school and knew her Bible well — but that was all they 
 were. She had not known many people outside her little 
 town, but she knew, she felt, that there were somehow other 
 people in the world, people who did things, people whose life 
 was not one round of monotonous plodding. She read books 
 occasionally. In the books the men were so irresistible — 
 they could just make a girl's heart melt. She would do any- 
 thing for such men. But these men were mostly in New 
 York. Ah, New York! She thought of it wistfully for 
 hours, dreamed of it. . . . 
 
 And then it happened, as it always happens. Brother 
 George got himself engaged to the very girl his sister would 
 least have him marry. She and Mary Brennon never would 
 tolerate each other. She would not stay in the same house 
 with Mary. But the house was George's, he was the only 
 one who worked and he was twenty-eight, and he knew his 
 own mind. So Elsie thought and thought for a long time 
 and then opened the chest where her mother had kept her 
 letters and family heirlooms. After a prolonged search she 
 found a faded scrap of paper with the address of her moth- 
 er's brother, her uncle Warren G. Gardner, in New York. 
 It was a week before she had composed the kind of letter 
 she thought proper. 
 
 Her mother had never said anything derogatory about her 
 husband's family, about the Whitneys. But there was a 
 
ELSIE 123 
 
 memory rooted in Elsie's brain, a memory of a sad look at 
 times, and of a disdainful curl of her mother's lip when she 
 and her husband would talk family. Though Mrs. Whit- 
 ney would never say it, Elsie was certain that her mother's 
 family was superior to her father's. The Gardners were 
 nicer people. Elsie had heard, too, though for the life of her 
 she could not recall who told her this, that she took after the 
 Gardners, while George took more after his father's family. 
 Whenever she had a run-in with her brother she was more 
 than willing to believe and even proclaim this difference be- 
 tween them. 
 
 The letter which she received from her uncle in New York 
 by return post scattered Elsie's poise to the winds. She 
 could hardly finish it. She wept and then she kissed it and 
 folded it against her breast. It was as if her mother had 
 come back to life and was taking her tired little head in her 
 arms, and soothing her and assuring her that everything was 
 well, that everything would come out right. The superiority 
 of the Gardner family spoke through every line of her uncle's 
 letter. She had no longer any doubt of it now. 
 
 Mr. Gardner welcomed his niece with open arms. They 
 were not rich, he wrote, just getting along. But she was 
 more than welcome to what they had. He had often, since 
 his sister's death, wished that he might have her, his sister's 
 child, with him. Yes, he — they would be indebted to Elsie 
 if she came to live with them. They were rather lonely in 
 New York. It would brighten their old age to have their 
 niece near them. They would do all they could to take the 
 place of her parents to her — of her dead mother. She was 
 to write at once when she would come. 
 
 From the moment Fred Conrad took the jacket from Elsie's 
 arm on that Sunday of their first meeting when he was taking 
 
124 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 her to Central Park, he had become Elsie's mentor. Much of 
 the tender solicitude which characterized his relations with 
 his mother, now with a single stroke went over to the girl. 
 On the first afternoon of their meeting Elsie had made known 
 to him her purpose not to be a burden upon her uncle. She 
 would be self-supporting. She meant to go to work at some- 
 thing as soon as she had a look at the town and saw what 
 she could do. She had asked Fred about the occupations of 
 girls in the city, the conditions of work, pay, and the like. 
 But he did not know any girls intimately and could not tell 
 her about these things offhand. He would try to find out, 
 and he did. Whenever he heard something about girls and 
 their work he reported it to Elsie at the first opportunity. 
 
 Elsie took this interest of Fred without any embarrassment 
 or diffidence largely because of the familiarity with which 
 her uncle had introduced him to her when they first met. Mr. 
 Gardner had spoken of Fred Conrad as " almost " a member 
 of the household. That at once removed all barriers between 
 them and put them on a footing of friendship, almost relation- 
 ship. The name Fred was constantly on her lips and fre- 
 quently, in speaking to him, Elsie had difficulty in keeping it 
 back and addressing him as Mr. Conrad. 
 
 For a month in succession after her arrival Fred saw her 
 every day for a little while in the afternoon. On Sundays 
 he would invariably spend the evenings with her, strolling 
 through the streets when weather permitted and at home or 
 in a music hall when it was bad. Then Miss Whitney found 
 a place in a store and thereafter his meetings were reduced 
 to once a week — on Sundays only. 
 
 After a fight of three weeks the strike was won. The 
 baker bosses not only renewed the old agreement, but even a 
 few additional concessions were gained by the men. Not a 
 
ELSIE 125 
 
 small share of this victory was ascribed to the influence and 
 personality of Fred Conrad. As a member of the strike com- 
 mittee he had been invaluable. He had given this strike 
 a tenor which no other bakers' strike had had hitherto. His 
 reputation among the union members was established. He 
 was talked about throughout the German colony. 
 
 As he had suggested, a lawyer was engaged by the union. 
 The strikers were told just exactly what their rights were in 
 the matter of patrolling the streets as pickets. During the 
 first days of the strike Fred would stroll through the strike 
 zone and wherever he perceived trouble between the strikers 
 and a policeman he appeared on the scene and introduced 
 himself to the officer as a member of the strike committee that 
 was appointed to see that order was maintained by the union 
 men. He was anxious to cooperate with the officer in all 
 that pertained to maintaining order, he explained. 
 
 The tall American youth, speaking a clear-cut English, 
 often much clearer than the officer spoke, had a peculiar ef- 
 fect upon the police. They were accustomed to handle 
 foreign-speaking strikers like a herd of cattle, which meant 
 to shoo them off the sidewalk like vagabonds, to bulldoze 
 and intimidate them. They could not do it now. Word 
 somehow got around quickly that the strikers had a lawyer, 
 and that the lawyer had instructed them just what things 
 they could or could not do, and that the policeman who in- 
 fringed upon the legal rights of any one of them would be 
 held legally responsible by the union. It was something new 
 and had a dampening effect upon the zeal of many an officer. 
 
 During the weeks the strike was on, Fred had visited 
 Elsie every evening. At times these visits were short, last- 
 ing no more than a quarter of an hour. Their very short- 
 ness, however, would add to the intensity of their delight. 
 It was a joy to see her, to talk to her. He waited eagerly 
 
126 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 twenty- four hours for these short visits; he was dreaming of 
 them. The busier he was, the greater the demands upon 
 him, the more poignant his longing for the girl was. 
 
 Time and again when he was in a committee meeting at 
 which strike measures were decided on, his mind would wan- 
 der to the little parlor in Old Man Gardner's home. The 
 thought of Elsie traveled side by side with whatever he did 
 or talked of or thought. Now these delightful nightly visits 
 were ended. He would have to content himself with seeing 
 her once a week again. But he could not content himself. 
 Weekly visits to her would no longer suffice. He was pining 
 for the girl. His yearning for her was wrecking him. From 
 Monday morning until Saturday night he was sickly, morbid. 
 He began to feel pains, in the head, the groin, the chest. 
 His parents were worried. But he would say nothing, would 
 not listen to talk of seeing a doctor. In the middle of March 
 he broke down. He caught a severe cold and was ordered to 
 bed. He was laid up ten days. It was another week before 
 he was able to go to work. Mr. Gardner and Elsie came 
 to see him twice. By that time, he was able to visit them. 
 And then it was spring. 
 
 It was the last Sunday in April. The balm of spring was 
 in the air even on the congested East Side of New York. It 
 came with the breeze from the East River; it came from the 
 distant fields of Long Island and the bare tracts of grass- 
 covered ground in Brooklyn. Elsie was restless all morn- 
 ing. She was thinking of home, of Belfair. The gusts of 
 wind sounded to her like the blowing of the bellows in her 
 father's blacksmith shop. The house and garden danced 
 before her eyes and her heart ached. Mary was there now, 
 in the place where she had been, where her mother had been 
 before her. 
 
ELSIE 127 
 
 It was afternoon. George and his wife were out riding 
 in the buggy. Father was left alone. He hobbled about the 
 yard aimlessly. His body was bent, twisted with rheumatism. 
 His eyes were bleared, as if hung over with a transparent 
 curtain. How horrible old age was. What a contrast the 
 distorted human body offered to the freshness and delights 
 of nature. 
 
 She was not aware for some time that she was crying. 
 Only when her heart had, of a sudden, experienced a sooth- 
 ing ease, a feeling of tender melting and soft relaxation, did 
 she become conscious of her tears. But she did not try to 
 stem them. She felt as if she were in somebody's arms, rest- 
 ing, relaxing, swinging into eternity to her mother, to the 
 angels. The tears were kind to her. She sobbed out her 
 thankfulness aloud to them. And there was no one to dis- 
 turb her. . . . 
 
 When he called after dinner, Fred was struck with the 
 delicacy and serenity of her features. As she stood there in 
 her simple linen dress, which she wore that afternoon for the 
 first time, she looked to him as if she had stepped out of the 
 past, a child of the mist, of the clouds, an Evangeline, a 
 daughter of the Pilgrims. A line began to buzz in his ears, 
 a line from a poem he had once learned in school, " She was 
 a phantom of delight." He had never been able to get a good 
 picture out of that line. He had it now. It was Elsie, that 
 the poet had meant. 
 
 " We'll go into the country to-day," he whispered to her, 
 and he could see her thrill. She had been aching to go out 
 to the country. She was on the point of asking him to take 
 her there. He had divined her longings. Her eyes sent 
 forth waves of silent gratitude. 
 
 But the afternoon was short. By the time they reached the 
 Jersey coast it was nearly four o'clock. They strolled for 
 
128 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 some time through the fields. Crowds of people were stroll- 
 ing, shouting, singing. There were couples like themselves. 
 They clung to each other and spoke in whispers. 
 
 It was growing late. Everybody was turning back toward 
 the city. They followed. They went down a hill, climbed 
 another. They panted for breath, but not from tiredness. 
 Near the edge of a hill that was sloping right into the Hud- 
 son River they found a big stone. It seemed to be made for 
 two to sit on. And many had sat there on that stone; there 
 were still fresh tracks on the wet ground. 
 
 They sat down and looked out upon the city across the 
 Hudson — New York. In the water steamers were gliding. 
 Ferries were crossing and recrossing, their whistles shrieking 
 fear, warning through the air. 
 
 The sun was setting. Its glittering red beams were fall- 
 ing across the houses on Riverside Drive, falling into the wa- 
 ter of the Hudson. They were laying the beautiful spring 
 Sunday to rest. In the morning it would be work again for 
 Elsie, and to-morrow at the same hour he would be entering 
 the bakeshop for a night's labor. 
 
 Fred was looking straight ahead. He was listening. He 
 could hear Elsie breathe. The wind was carrying her breath 
 to him, the fragrance of her. ... He was faint. . . . His 
 whole life danced before his eyes. What a painful mess it 
 had been! At first his sick brother, then his mother with 
 doctors, always doctors, dispensaries, moaning. . . . And 
 then the shop which had robbed him of his nights. For the 
 moment he forgot the girl beside him. A pity seized him, 
 a pity for himself. He could weep for himself, for his lost 
 youth, for his wasted life. . . . What was the meaning of it 
 all? To what end? He had passed a cemetery once. Row 
 after row of little mounds, six by three, with the grass grow- 
 ing green over them. He gave a deep si^h. 
 
ELSIE 129 
 
 "What is it, Fred?" 
 
 Even before she caught his look she flushed. It was the 
 first time she had called him by his first name. . . . She 
 had been alarmed by his sinister face. He seemed oblivious 
 of everything. In her excitement she gripped his arm. . . . 
 
 Fred was awake. ... He was aware of her presence as 
 he had never been before. She had called him by his first 
 name ! She gazed at him with eyes full of tender solicitude. 
 He could not hold all this happiness alone; his heart would 
 burst. 
 
 " Elsie," he whispered. His arms wound themselves about 
 her waist, her shoulders. He buried his yearning eyes and 
 face on her breast. 
 
 It came to Gottfried as an afterthought as he stood at 
 his bench in the shop, and it staggered him. It would be 
 appalling if it happened. . . . And yet it very likely would 
 happen, was sure to happen, unless he took action. Elsie 
 and the Gardners were making all arrangements for the wed- 
 ding. It would be held at the Gardner home. Elsie had 
 gone to Sunday-school when a little girl. She came from a 
 New England town. Most everybody belonged to a church 
 in these small places. They would be sure to invite a min- 
 ister to perform the marriage ceremony. 
 
 It was three o'clock. Gottfried worked until six. He 
 thought of quitting an hour earlier and going home to see 
 Fred, to ask him, but changed his mind. He must not act 
 too hastily in the matter. There would be plenty of time to 
 see Fred. The wedding of his son and Elsie would not take 
 place for three weeks yet. 
 
 As he worked on mechanically he took stock of his son. 
 He presumed that Fred was a free-thinker like himself. He 
 had never heard anything to the contrary from Fred. The 
 
130 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 boy never went to church, never showed any interest for mat- 
 ters associated with religion. He was indifferent and Gott- 
 fried thought it best to leave him alone. He could not ex- 
 pect Fred to be an active or even rabid church-hater. The 
 church did not enter into his son's life with the same oppres- 
 sive poignancy it did in his own. The church in America 
 altogether was so unlike the church of the Old World. Like 
 everything else it was new here. It had none of the Bastille- 
 like cathedrals and monasteries that it had in Germany. 
 The clergy had none of the arrogance here that it had in the 
 Old World. His son's neutrality in religious matters was 
 on the whole fairly satisfying to Conrad. 
 
 But this was a different situation. One could not be neu- 
 tral in such a matter. It would be disappointing, it would 
 be, indeed, a humiliation if the Gardners and Elsie could 
 succeed in forcing upon his son, upon the Conrad family, a 
 church wedding, a wedding ceremony performed by a min- 
 ister and all the other religious trimmings that went with 
 it. . . . 
 
 He put the question up to Fred bluntly. His son was taken 
 aback. He had never thought of how the ceremony was to 
 be performed. It was a matter of no consequence to him. 
 He had been going about in a state of blissful excitement 
 in anticipation of his union with Elsie. All the trappings 
 pertaining to this union he had put out of his mind as things 
 that were of no concern to him, a man. Let Elsie and the 
 Gardners bother with these ! 
 
 Fred now listened to his father wide-eyed. Gottfried ex- 
 pected his son, of course, to go to the city hall and there have 
 a civil marriage performed. There could be no thought of 
 inviting a clergyman and dragging the church into the matter. 
 
 "I'll talk to Elsie and see what arrangements they are 
 making," Fred replied. He knew how opposed his father 
 
ELSIE 131 
 
 was to anything that savored of religion. He was indiffer- 
 ent to such things, but his father no doubt had good reason 
 for hating the church and its emissaries. And he would not 
 hurt his father in such matters, he would not! 
 
 It was not easy to broach the subject to Elsie. She was as 
 gay as a lark. She had given up her work and was at home 
 fitting out her modest trousseau. She was consulting con- 
 stantly with Mrs. Gardner and her uncle. 
 
 When Fred found a favorable moment and gathered up the 
 courage for it, he approached the subject of the wedding cere- 
 mony. She — they did not expect to have a priest per- 
 form it? 
 
 Elsie looked at him wide-eyed. What did he mean? — 
 she did not understand him. The ceremony would be per- 
 formed by a minister — how else ? 
 
 She was worlds removed from ideas like those entertained 
 by Gottfried Conrad. Fred saw at once that it would be 
 hopeless to try to argue her out of a church ceremony. He 
 had previously talked with Mr. Gardner and acquainted 
 himself with the atmosphere of the small New England town. 
 A civil marriage of the kind that was performed in the city 
 hall of New York by the thousands was utterly unknown in 
 these small towns. Marriage was a church, family, almost 
 town, affair. Nothing short of a marriage ceremony per- 
 formed by a minister would satisfy Elsie. It was a case of 
 violating his father's principles or throwing Elsie completely 
 off her mental balance. With her bringing up, with her 
 small-town prejudices, a civil marriage would be equivalent 
 to no marriage at all. She would never consent to it. It 
 would be cruel to ask her to consent to it. 
 
 When Fred explained the situation to his father, Gott- 
 fried turned livid. He read the inevitable in his son's ex- 
 planation. He had no thought of reproaching Fred: the 
 
132 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 boy was uncomfortable enough as it was. It was an un- 
 fortunate combination of circumstances, very unfortunate. 
 
 For days Gottfried Conrad hardly spoke to his son or to 
 his wife. He was depressed and went about alone with his 
 thoughts as if in a dream. Anna was grieved to see her 
 husband take things to heart so. But she was happy over 
 Fred's action, she was fairly thankful to him for what he 
 had done, for not letting anything mar his bride's happi- 
 ness. 
 
 Mr. Gardner took pains to give the wedding as little of a 
 religious tinge as possible. He had requested the minister 
 not to put on his vestments and to solemnize the marriage in 
 his street clothes. The latter acquiesced. But when the 
 minister began to read the long ritual of the solemnization of 
 matrimony as prescribed by the Episcopal church, Gottfried 
 Conrad quailed and sought to hide his emotion by looking 
 out of the window. 
 
 He was shamed, he was humiliated. His son, his Lassalle, 
 was going through the prescribed church formula, answering 
 the prescribed questions which the minister was droning out. 
 Eh, what a jester fate was ! He had thought he would mold 
 the New World to his ideas, he would mold it through his 
 son. Instead America was taking him in hand. It was 
 molding, had already molded his son. He had no fault to 
 find with Fred. He was a fine boy, a boy to be proud of. 
 But there was something missing in him, something which 
 he feared would prevent his boy from becoming the Lassalle 
 which he had pictured him in his mind. 
 
 He glanced at the minister. He was so different from the 
 stout-bodied, aggressive priests to which Gottfried Conrad 
 was accustomed in the Old World. The clergyman was 
 spare. His pale features plainly betrayed the worry of mak- 
 ing a living, Gottfried thought. His hair was gray prema- 
 
ELSIE 133 
 
 turely. Gottfried had no ill feeling against the man per- 
 sonally. By no stretch of the imagination could the sub- 
 dued individual be construed into a cunning and designing 
 Machiavelli plotting the enslavement of the human race to 
 the rule of priestcraft. 
 
 " Nevertheless," Gottfried mused, " he stands for the same 
 thing. The shell is different, but the essence is the same. 
 Clergy is clergy everywhere. Its aims are the same." 
 
 The ceremony was over. Mr. Gardner asked the minister 
 to stay for the wedding supper, but the clergyman had sensed 
 the hostile atmosphere and, pleading that he was busy, he left 
 hastily. 
 
 In spite of his efforts not to appear sulky at the supper 
 table, Gottfried Conrad could not entirely suppress his feel- 
 ings. Gloom was written on his face. He felt as if he were 
 a stranger there. He sat there not participating in the joy 
 of the occasion, but as a critic. He was examining every 
 one, his son, his daughter-in-law. He was not angry with 
 Fred. The boy could not be blamed. And he liked Elsie 
 — liked her very much. Besides, he believed in perfect free- 
 dom in such cases. He had himself married the girl of his 
 choice, regardless of everything. It was his choice in mar- 
 riage that had taken him to America. No, he had nothing 
 against Fred, or Elsie. But — The House of Conrad was 
 crumpling. For a time, for a few brief months, since that 
 Sunday when Fred made his celebrated speech in the union, 
 the House of Conrad seemed to him to be in the ascendency. 
 He could see it rising, faintly hovering in the gray, misty dis- 
 tance. It cheered him, it warmed his heart. It was begin- 
 ning to gain in clearness, this coveted house of his. It 
 seemed to be nearing. Now — the House of Conrad was fast 
 receding in the distance, becoming indistinguishable. Amer- 
 ica was reducing everything to a dead level. His boy was be- 
 
134 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 ing reduced, devitalized by his surroundings. Elsie would 
 help reduce him — she would do it lovingly. And Gardner 
 would help reduce him. He would do it by teaching the boy 
 prudence, American prudence. The old man was sincere, no 
 doubt. He was learned and a good specimen of an Ameri- 
 can. But he was poor company for his son, if his boy, his 
 Lassalle, was to be the leader of the proletariat he had hoped 
 he would be. . . . 
 
 The future looked gray, misty. Gottfried Conrad was 
 no longer sure of his dreams. He was not sure of himself. 
 Late that evening as Fred and Elsie were bidding him good- 
 night before starting for their own little flat, Gottfried pulled 
 his son over to one side, took him in his arms, gazed deep into 
 his eyes for some moments and kissed him, with the tears 
 coursing down his cheeks. 
 
BOOK II 
 FRED CONRAD 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 FRED SPEAKS HIS MIND 
 
 THE yawn spread from one of the reporters to the others 
 and the boredom in the eyes of the five " labor edi- 
 tors " of Chicago's five morning newspapers gave way to a 
 glint of amusement at their own defection. It was a tiresome 
 business, this sitting through an entire July afternoon in a 
 stuffy hall, listening to speeches and grievances that had 
 been aired a dozen times before. Moreover, the import of 
 these grievances seemed no different from what these news- 
 papermen were accustomed to hear day in and day out at la- 
 bor meetings and assemblies which they had been attending 
 for years. 
 
 But sit through the meeting the reporters must, that day 
 especially. There were several reasons for it. First, it was 
 Saturday. News was scarce and there was a big paper on 
 Sunday. They would have to let their copy run full. Sec- 
 ond, the strike of the bakers was nearing the close of its third 
 week. There were a couple of first-page strike stories immed- 
 iately after the tie-up was declared. Then the strike news 
 was relegated to the inside pages. It was about time now for 
 another first-page story. 
 
 To save their ruffled dignity after that round-robin yawn, 
 the newspapermen quickly straightened out in their chairs, 
 relit their old cigars, or took out fresh ones, and sat alert. 
 
 In spite of the three weeks which the strike of the bakers 
 had lasted; in spite, too, of the fact that there was " a piece 
 in the paper " about it every day, the Chicago public had no 
 clear notion of what the strikers wanted. The first day the 
 
 137 
 
138 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 men walked out the newspapers said something about higher 
 wages, shorter hours and better conditions. Thereafter, how- 
 ever, the newspaper accounts of the strike concerned them- 
 selves almost exclusively with " law and order." The stories 
 in the papers told either of " violence " on the part of the 
 strikers, or else gave long accounts of the police activities in 
 connection with the strike, how splendidly order was main- 
 tained by Captain So-and-So, and the like. That the strikers 
 were citizens and voters; that they paid taxes, supported 
 schools, churches; that they were a part of the American 
 people toward whom the papers ordinarily exhibited great 
 respect, was lost sight of in most of the strike stories. In 
 reading the newspaper accounts about the bakers one some- 
 how got the impression that these men, most of whom were 
 middle-aged, nearly all of whom were fathers, and many of 
 whom were grandfathers, were a lot of irresponsible boys, 
 street-corner loafers out for mischief, and were it not for the 
 prudence, patience and vigilance of the police, heaven only 
 knows what mischief these men would do to the public and the 
 city. 
 
 Had the strike of the bakers taken place a few years later 
 the sociologists and reformers of that day would have dug 
 out its significance and dragged it into the newspapers. At 
 that early date, however — the middle of the Nineties of the 
 past century — the sociologist and reformer of a later day 
 were still unknown and the newspapers and the public saw 
 only the exterior manifestations of the strike, not the deep- 
 rooted causes of the dissatisfaction among the workers. 
 
 Higher wages and a decrease in the working hours were 
 not the main issues. What the men assailed most bitterly 
 was an institution — the underground bakeshop. The bak- 
 ing industry in Chicago and in every large city in the country 
 was at that time located underground, in cellars. Because 
 
FRED SPEAKS HIS MIND 139 
 
 of the absence of sunshine and fresh air, because of the per- 
 petual dampness, filth and mold, consumption and various 
 other bronchial diseases were making heavy inroads among 
 the workmen in the baking industry. The strike of the bakers 
 was the first of a long series of struggles which brought about 
 the abolition of many of the basement bakeries and the im- 
 provement of others. 
 
 The reporters, who had been listening to the various speak- 
 ers for two hours, were beginning to lose heart. The set- 
 ting for a big story certainly was there. Five thousand men 
 crowded into a hall that had a normal capacity for only half 
 that number. With all this, however, the prospects for a 
 first-page story were slim because nothing had been done so 
 far, no startling action had been taken by the union. 
 
 " Gab and more gab," one of the journalists, a middle-aged 
 man, remarked c}Tiically to his neighbor. At that very mo- 
 ment, however, a man who was a stranger to the reporters 
 entered through a side door and, led by the president of the 
 Bakers' Union, ascended the platform. The indifference of 
 the newspapermen, the relaxed, lazy feeling vanished. The 
 big story they had been aching for all that afternoon had 
 arrived; they sensed it. They were all attention — eye, ear, 
 memory, pencil. They were not losing a moment. They 
 were studying this newcomer at long range, making a mental 
 picture of his wiry frame, of his clear complexion, clean-cut 
 features. They were appraising his probable standing in the 
 labor movement. 
 
 The newcomer on the platform was indeed a curious mix- 
 ture. He was seemingly a workingman. Yet a slight change 
 in his clothes could have made him look anything but a 
 workingman. He was about thirty or under, but the gaze in 
 his blue eyes was sedate, settled. They had not heard his 
 voice, but his manner, his gestures were not of the spell- 
 
140 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 binder. There was nothing of the visionary about him. He 
 was a simple, everyday sort of man, free even from the few 
 poses and airs which some of the more important labor 
 leaders were assuming. 
 
 The stranger was introduced by the chairman of the 
 meeting as " Organizer Fred Conrad from New York.'* 
 Conrad, he explained, had been in Chicago for nearly a week. 
 The organizer from New York and a committee from the 
 union had been conducting an investigation, the results of 
 which Brother Conrad would now outline. 
 
 Fred Conrad came forward and laid some papers on the 
 table. 
 
 " I am not going to make a speech to you this afternoon," 
 he began without preliminaries. " The day is too hot — too 
 hot even for bakers. I will merely report to you what the 
 committee to which I had the pleasure to belong, and which 
 has chosen me as spokesman, has accomplished in the past 
 week. I shall tell you what we intend to do before we give 
 up this, struggle. . . ." 
 
 " We don't give up, we don't, by God, Brother Conrad — " 
 some one in the hall shouted. Conrad lifted his hand warn- 
 ingly. 
 
 " Let me go on. Brother," he continued coolly, " and make 
 the situation clear to you. You can criticize me afterward. 
 We may have to give up this fight. We depend upon wages 
 for a living. We may not be able to hold out against our em- 
 ployers much longer. There is a limit beyond which many of 
 us may not be able to go. There are little children to be con- 
 sidered — we cannot starve them. I say, therefore, that we 
 may have to give up this struggle. But before we give up 
 we shall do one more thing: we shall state our case to the 
 public fully and clearly and we shall see whether the public 
 approves our fight or sides with our employers. 
 
FRED SPEAKS HIS MIND 141 
 
 " We have drawn up here a statement of grievances. It is 
 a statement of evidence against the bakeshops of this city. It 
 makes clear our position. Our fight is not merely for a few 
 more pennies in wages, though these are needed badly enough. 
 It is a fight for life, for health. We are arrayed against dis- 
 ease and death. The cellar bakeshops of Chicago are death 
 houses for the men who work in them. They are filthy, reek- 
 ing places. The walls are slimy from perpetual moisture and 
 from lack of sunshine. They are infested with vermin, 
 roaches and rats. They are hotbeds of disease. 
 
 " It is our view that this strike should not be your fight 
 alone. It should be the public's fight. For the public suf- 
 fers from these horrible conditions as well as you, if not as 
 much as you. The basement bakeries give you sickness and 
 condemn you to an untimely death. But we live in a world 
 of mutual progress and mutual deterioration. Death stalks 
 in the bakeries of Chicago not alone for you but for the public 
 as well, for it is with your sick frames, with your consumptive 
 sweat, that you bake the public's bread. 
 
 " We have decided, therefore, to let the public be the arbiter 
 of tliis strike. We are going to let the public know of the 
 contaminating, unspeakable conditions under which its bread 
 is baked and we shall let the public decide whether the baking 
 industry should be lifted out of its underground pestholes or 
 whether it should stay there. 
 
 " We have tabulated data and statistics which speak for 
 themselves. We have figures showing the frightfully high 
 percentage of consumptives among you men. We have figures 
 showing how abnormally high among you is the percentage of 
 other diseases that are directly due to your being locked up 
 under ground year after year, without sunlight, without air, 
 without ventilation. We have a list of neglects and offenses 
 by employers in the way of sanitation, neglects which make the 
 
142 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 eating of bread revolting to those who know how it is pro- 
 duced. 
 
 " These documents, the results of our investigations, we 
 shall, with your approval, submit to the health authorities of 
 this city and state. Let the Health Department make an in- 
 vestigation and check up on us. Let the newspapers of this 
 city inquire and see whether we are speaking the truth. 
 
 " If the public is willing that we should return to the old 
 conditions of work, if it is willing to eat the bread baked 
 under such conditions, we will submit to the verdict of the 
 public and give up this fight without further starving our 
 wives and children." 
 
 Fred had spoken without flourishes, though he had spoken 
 with clearness and effectiveness. The crowd waited for a 
 final oratorical round-up — the ending of the speech was so 
 abrupt. But when it saw Conrad returning to his seat, it 
 burst out in belated and thunderous applause. 
 
 The reporters leaped to the platform before Fred had 
 gained his chair. From that moment the strike had become 
 the affair of the city and of the newspapers — and it was 
 won. It had been a much duller day for news than even the 
 reporters had anticipated, and in every case word had come 
 from the managing editor that the story about the conditions 
 prevailing in Chicago's bakeshops be played to the limit. 
 And it was played. It was too late to find the commissioner 
 of health at the city hall, so he was rung up at his home. He 
 was not in : he had gone out to his country club for the week- 
 end. He was rung up there and the gist of the charges made 
 by the " New York Organizer " against the cellar bakeshops 
 was read to him over the telephone. Would he take 
 action ? 
 
 The commissioner knew by the voice over the wire that an 
 enthusiastically affirmative reply was expected, and he an- 
 
FRED SPEAKS HIS MIND 143 
 
 swered accordingly. Action ? of course he would take action. 
 Why, he had been planning for some weeks now to look into 
 these very conditions. The pressure of other business alone 
 had kept him from ordering just such an investigation. He 
 would issue directions at once for a thorough clean up. It 
 was very commendable of the union to call his attention to 
 these abuses, 
 
 " Fine, fine," said the editor when the reporter gave him 
 the gist of the health commissioner's statement. " Now get 
 the mayor." 
 
 The mayor was apprised of the union charges and of the 
 health commissioner's approval of the same. What did His 
 Honor have to say? " What did he have to say? " Why, 
 His Honor, the Mayor, was for a most thorough investigation, 
 most thorough. He would give the health commissioner every 
 help possible. He would issue orders to all related city de- 
 partments to cooperate with the health commissioner. Such 
 conditions were a disgrace to the city and must be abolished 
 at once. The city's bread must be baked under clean, health- 
 ful conditions. 
 
 When Chicago citizens opened their Sunday papers the next 
 morning the headline " Death Stalks in City's Bakeshops " 
 smote them in the face. It stood out in the boldest, blackest 
 type the papers could command. The figures of consump- 
 tion among bakers and the statements of the commissioner of 
 health and of the mayor were boxed at the top of the page. 
 After perusing these headlines the toast on the breakfast table 
 assumed an offensive appearance. The baker bosses scurried 
 about from one place to another in panic. If they could only 
 silence the union leaders, silence the papers! They would 
 give in to all the demands of the strikers. ... In the mean- 
 time they had ordered a hasty but thorough clean-up of the 
 shops. Some were running for plumbers. The city inspect- 
 
144 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 ors must not be allowed to see the horrible sanitation of their 
 places; it would be ruin. 
 
 The New York newspapers were greatly interested in Fred 
 Conrad's arraignment of the underground bakeshops of Chi- 
 cago. The story came over the wires too late to make exten- 
 sive inquiries into the conditions under which bread was 
 baked in New York. Local labor leaders and the city 
 authorities were interviewed, however, and the brief state- 
 ments obtained from them were not at all reassuring. It was 
 likely, the newspapers hinted, that New York could show in 
 its bread-making shops conditions not dissimilar to those 
 that startled Chicago. 
 
 Heinrich Kolb, the editor of the Arbeiter Zeitung, was gray 
 and ailing. Age was fastening its grip upon him rapidly 
 and prematurely. He was barely fifty-five years old, yet he 
 frequently failed to appear at his office for two or three days 
 at a time, sending over his editorials by boy. Late that Sat- 
 urday afternoon, however, he dropped into the office and 
 stayed for the evening. As he was fingering a batch of proofs 
 he ran across the name " Conrad " in a headline. His in- 
 terest was aroused and he read the story. 
 
 He was moved to tears. For the moment he had forgotten 
 that it was news and that he was an editor. It seemed a 
 personal matter to him. Freddy, the son of his lifelong friend 
 Gottfried, the little boy whose " christening " he had attended 
 at the dawn of their career in the New World, Freddy, to 
 whom he always acted and felt like an uncle, that Freddy had 
 now made his voice heard from one end of the country to the 
 other. His instinct as an editor told him that the story of 
 the startling conditions prevailing in Chicago bakeshops 
 would be on the first page of every newspaper in the country 
 the next morning. A glow of warmth transfused itself 
 
FRED SPEAKS HIS MIND 145 
 
 through Kolb's veins. He walked over to where his news 
 editor, a fat, phlegmatic Mecklenburger, sat and said: 
 
 " Put every word of the Conrad story on the first page; it 
 is the biggest labor story of recent years." 
 
 And then he returned to the further end of the room where 
 his own desk stood, screened from view by several bookcases. 
 He settled in his chair and began to read the story once more. 
 And as he read a peculiar feeling came over him. The speech 
 was typical of Fred Conrad. He had been watching the 
 boy's rise in the bakers' union and later in the labor move- 
 ment for nearly ten years. The speech had the breath of 
 humanity, but all reference to socialism had been carefully 
 eliminated from it. There was not a stock socialist phrase 
 in it. Fred had not questioned the right of private property, 
 of rent, profit, interest. 
 
 Kolb had never married and he clung to the friendships of 
 his youth with touching tenderness. His thoughts now re- 
 verted to Gottfried Conrad. His lifelong friend and comrade 
 in arms had drawn into himself of late. Gottfried was sorely 
 grieved by his son's obstinate refusal to join him in socialist 
 councils. Kolb now realized the keenness of the father's 
 grief. Fred was cut out for leadership, but the socialist move- 
 ment would probably never count him as an active pro- 
 pagandist of its theories. He mused over the irony of life. 
 The dreams and ideals for which the fathers went into exile, 
 faced prison and even death, these ideals were indifferently 
 put aside by their Americanized children. The socialist 
 movement was not gaining adherents among the American- 
 bom workers. And yet many of these labor leaders like Fred 
 Conrad were faithful and big-hearted men. How account for 
 their stubborn indifference to the international movement of 
 the proletariat ? 
 
146 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 He perused Fred's speech for a third time. There was 
 humanity in every word he had spoken. It was a working- 
 class document of first magnitude, regardless of the fact that 
 it did not seemingly subscribe to the socialist ritual. It was 
 a speech the socialists should recognize. It was an achieve- 
 ment that ought to warm^ the heart of old Gottfried. 
 
 Kolb wiped his spectacles and took pen and paper. There 
 was still time to get an editorial in the paper. He put down 
 the caption " Fred Speaks His Mind." And the half column 
 editorial that followed had a reminiscent touch and a personal 
 warmth that was not at all in accord with Kolb's otherwise 
 rigid and uncompromising editorial judgment. 
 
 He eulogized Fred Conrad, called him a " son of the 
 masses " and a " tribune of the proletariat." His Chicago 
 speech, he said, would stand out as a masterpiece of working- 
 class thought and sentiment. Then he went over to Fred's 
 father, " our old and faithful Comrade, Gottfried Conrad," 
 and congratulated him upon his son. He expressed the fer- 
 vent wish that Gottfried's boy (he used the familiar German 
 " Junge ") might rise to yet greater heights as a leader of the 
 working class, that he might rival the fame of the great cham- 
 pion of the proletariat after whom he was named — Ferdi- 
 nand Lassalle. 
 
 The paper trembled in Gottfried's hands as he read the 
 account of the storm raised by his son's activity in behalf of 
 the striking bakers in Chicago. He doubted his vision. 
 What he saw in the paper was too much like the dream he 
 had been dreaming all his life. In his flights of fancy he had 
 often in his younger days seen his son, his Lassalle, towering 
 as the great tribune of the American proletariat. But so many 
 of his dreams had been wrecked by the New World; he must 
 not let an illusion get the best of him now. His misty gaze 
 
FRED SPEAKS HIS MIND 147 
 
 clung to the paper desperately, tragically. It seemed to him 
 that if he once lifted his eyes the contents of the page would 
 change, the deep, dark letters spelling his son's name would 
 vanish, his dream would burst like a bubble. And the 
 illusion was so sweet, he wanted to hang on to it a little 
 longer. 
 
 But it was no dream. His son's name was staring at him 
 not only from the headlines of the Arbeiter Zeitung but from 
 numerous places in the three and a half columns which the 
 story occupied. One paragraph, in particular, held his gaze. 
 It read: 
 
 " Fred Conrad's speech has shaken the capitalist class of 
 America out of its complacency. His words have been tele- 
 graphed from one end of the country to the other and the 
 authorities, not alone of Chicago, but of every large city, 
 have announced that they would investigate the bakeshops to 
 make sure that such conditions as exist in some parts of Chi- 
 cago are not duplicated in their cities. In laying the strike 
 of the bakers squarely at the door of the public and of the 
 authorities, Fred Conrad has with one stroke won for the 
 union the fight for healthful and humane working conditions 
 which the organization has been waging unsuccessfully for 
 years." 
 
 The press of the entire country was talking about his son. 
 The capitalist press was compelled by his son's resourceful- 
 ness and simple eloquence to take note of the grievances of 
 the workers and of the heartlessness and brutality and greed 
 of the baker bosses. The dear boy. . . . 
 
 Gottfried's eyes suddenly blazed. This was his opportun- 
 ity — there was no mistake about it. He would prevail upon 
 his son this time. Fred could not consistently stay out of the 
 socialist movement any longer. His Chicago triumph was 
 only a beginning. He would be a leader of great masses of 
 
148 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 workmen henceforth. He must have a " Richtung," a goal 
 to which to lead the working class. 
 
 He wiped the haze from his eyes and looked once more 
 at the paper. Then he looked toward the kitchen. Anna 
 was busy with their Sunday dinner. He was about to call 
 her, but refrained. He did not see things quite clearly yet. 
 He was thinking once more. 
 
 Gottfried's relations to his wife had undergone marked 
 changes since Fred had married and left them eight years 
 back. He had grown more tender toward Anna and was not 
 averse to showing it. They were companions now. They 
 were nearer to each other than they had ever been. They had 
 so many things to talk about. Gottfried was shoving much 
 of his work in the socialist movement on to the shoulders of 
 younger men and was spending his evenings at home more 
 often now. He and Anna would stroll down to the river or 
 to the park on a warm summer night. In the winter they 
 would often sit side by side in front of the kitchen stove and 
 analyze their ailments or talk and think of the past. 
 
 He recalled the eight years since Fred had married. On 
 several occasions father and son had been estranged from 
 each other for months at a time because of disagreements over 
 socialism. Anna worried herself sick at such times. She 
 longed to see Fred and his children. Fred, too, felt keenly 
 his father's displeasure. But these estrangements did not 
 bring him nearer to his father's political faith. 
 
 For it was not ignorance of the socialist theories, nor 
 motives of fear or gain that kept Fred from joining his father 
 in the councils of socialism. It was something else, some- 
 thing that was bred in the blood, something that had to do 
 with America, a " something " that was not open to argument. 
 
 As a child Fred had seen socialism preached in the German 
 language. It was argued in German beer halls and at Ger- 
 
FRED SPEAKS HIS MIND 149 
 
 man picnics. It was defended in a German newspaper. 
 Every meeting of socialists was a meeting of Germans, of for- 
 eigners. His father's political associates were foreigners. 
 When a socialist meeting was broken up it was American 
 policemen who broke it up and they jeered and taunted 
 the " Dutchmen *' and the " foreigners." The police had the 
 better of the situation always and the socialists invariably 
 fled from the hall. There was no dignity in their flight. 
 Since childhood the conviction had grown upon Fred that, like 
 his father, socialism was born abroad and came to America 
 too late to acclimatize itself to American surroundings. Like 
 his father's accent, socialism was not a thing desirable of cul- 
 tivation by the American-born, Fred felt vaguely but early in 
 his life, and such early feelings can never be quite eradicated. 
 
 Later he had learned from books and pamphlets that social- 
 ism was international, that socialist teachings were as applic- 
 able to America as they were to England or Germany. And 
 he believed it, too. Nevertheless he could not work up en- 
 thusiasm for the socialist movement. He could understand 
 it, respect it, just as he understood and respected his father, 
 but he could not make it a part of himself or become a part 
 of it any more than he could become his father or his father 
 him. Socialism had gone hand in hand with his father's 
 foreign accent and un-American ways all through his child- 
 hood and had caused him much pain and humiliation. It 
 still cast a gloom over him to recall those days when he was 
 lonely and depressed and jeered at because his father was 
 " different " and never went to church or Sunday-school. 
 His impressions of socialism and the chilling memories of 
 those days had become as one to him. 
 
 Gottfried had gradually come to see these almost physical 
 barriers which stood between him and his son. He was be- 
 ginning to realize that it was not intellect but feeling that 
 
150 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 was swaying Fred in his attitude toward the socialist cause. 
 It was tragic to see his dreams shattered, but it was an even 
 greater tragedy for his son. Fred had in him the making of 
 a great leader. But a great leader must have a great cause 
 to promote, and what was the improvement of the lot of five 
 thousand bakers in comparison with the reshaping of society 
 and the recasting of civilization which socialism contem- 
 plated ! 
 
 He had been turning the pages and his eyes fell upon the 
 heading, " Fred Speaks His Mind." He read the half-col- 
 umn editorial without moving an eyelash. He quaffed it 
 without a let-up, as a thirsty man drains a glass of water, 
 without stopping to breathe. Kolb's words of praise for his 
 son, and of recognition for him, the boy's father, left Gott- 
 fried prostrate for the moment. That was too much happi- 
 ness at one time. 
 
 " Anna! " he called with subdued excitement. " Anna! " 
 He was holding the paper in his hand with great care now, 
 as if it were something very precious and fragile. 
 
 " See," he pointed the place out to his wife, " they are 
 writing about our Freddy — nice! " 
 
 He had frequent recourse to his handkerchief as he read 
 the editorial to her, clearing his throat and wiping his gray 
 mustache constantly. He read Fred's speech to her, as much 
 of it as the paper gave. He read it dramatically, as if he were 
 making the speech, delivering it before an audience. Anna 
 was in tears. 
 
 " I say," Gottfried roused himself from his reveries, " may- 
 be you could hurry with the dinner, Anna, and we go to see 
 the children. They are alone now since Fred is in Chicago." 
 
 Anna's eyes glowed with happiness. To visit her grand- 
 children was the one great delight of her ebbing life. But of 
 late these visits had become infrequent. Elsie had tired of the 
 
FRED SPEAKS HIS MIND 151 
 
 noise and surroundings of the East Side and Fred had found 
 a small house in the Bronx which had a porch and a garden. 
 Since they had moved there it was not easy for Anna, whose 
 strength was very limited, to visit her grandchildren often. 
 She could not go by herself and it was not always possible to 
 prevail on Gottfried to go with her. There were times 
 when his son would appear to Gottfried as an apostate, a 
 renegade to his, Gottfried's, faith in the destiny of man. At 
 such times Anna would swallow every reference to her son 
 or to their grandchildren with a stifled sob. 
 
 She was all excitement now. What luck!^ Everything 
 she had to-day was of the best and was cooking splendidly. 
 Dinner would be ready in a twinkling. 
 
 While Anna was speeding things up in the kitchen, Gott- 
 fried had gone down into the street and was making the 
 rounds of the stands and stores. He never went to his grand- 
 children empty-handed. That day he was especially profuse 
 in his purchases. 
 
 Their grandchildren descried Gottfried and Anna a block 
 away and ran to meet them. Elsie, who was in the dining- 
 room clearing away her dinner dishes from the table, heard the 
 children's jubilant cries and stepped into the front room just 
 in time to see Gottfried come up the stairs of the porch 
 heavily laden with baskets and bundles. Anna followed him, 
 flushed and smiling. 
 
 It was a joyous day. The house was at once enlivened. 
 Ruth, Fred's oldest child, now in her seventh year, clambered 
 up on one of Gottfried's knees, and Robert, who was two 
 years younger than his sister, on the other. Just as Gott- 
 friend's presents had been more abundant on this occasion, so 
 also he gave his indulgence wide latitude. The children, 
 especially Robert, jumped and crawled all over him. Once or 
 twice Elsie admonished her little son not to be so rough with 
 
152 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 his grandfather, but Gottfried laughed away her fears every 
 time. Rough? The boy was not rough enough! He in- 
 vited all the pranks his grandson could play and when they 
 were exhausted Gottfried began to teach him new tricks. 
 
 Anna watched her husband with delight. Gottfried seemed 
 like a boy once more. Half of his fifty-odd years seemed to 
 have rolled off his shoulders. He was spry and nimble again, 
 catching the ball which Robert was tossing to him with ease, 
 or picking up the little fellow on a run and swinging him 
 high over his head, while Ruth choked with laughter. 
 
 Anna, who was always grieved, but never took sides, in 
 the standing quarrel between father and son over matters of 
 politics, now felt as if the last layer of resentment was thaw- 
 ing in Gottfried's heart and that henceforth Fred and his 
 father would once again live in harmony and understanding 
 with each other. Yes, a secret hope even came to her that 
 she might prevail upon her husband to move to the Bronx so 
 that they might be near the children and Fred and Elsie and 
 see them every day. The subject of moving from Klein- 
 deutschland was not an easy one to broach. Gottfried had 
 lived there ever since he came to America. The halls where 
 he spoke were there, the union headquarters were in the neigh- 
 borhood, and the Arheiter Zeitung was only a short distance 
 from their home. He would miss his friends, he would miss 
 the atmosphere, to be sure, but it was not impossible, not now, 
 not after the way he was playing with his grandchildren! 
 
 Anna half listened to her daughter-in-law. The smile 
 which played upon her thin, wizened face and bloodless lips 
 — the face and lips of an old woman who had been an invalid 
 all her life — was there not in response to what her daugh- 
 ter-in-law was saying, but because of the picture she was con- 
 juring up in her mind. She could swear that Gottfried would 
 move to the Bronx. Why, she had never seen the man look 
 
FRED SPEAKS HIS MIND 153 
 
 so happy in years. The grandchildren were making him 
 happy. The pent paternal longings were loosened. Gott- 
 fried was a boy again, the boy she knew under the lime trees 
 on the Rhine. 
 
 Gottfried, meantime, had left the house, followed by his 
 two grandchildren. They needed more room to play in than 
 the house afforded and there was plenty of it outside. Only a 
 few rods distant the fields began. Little Bob insisted that 
 his grandpa race with him and Gottfried agreed to it readily, 
 much to the surprise of Ruth who, being older, thought that 
 her brother had overstepped the limits in asking his grand- 
 father to run with him as he was wont to ask his father 
 to do. 
 
 Gottfried raced. After a few jumps his thin, wiry frame 
 became supple again and a reserve of youth which the gray- 
 ness of his life had never permitted to come to the surface, now 
 bubbled up and ran over in all his actions. When a boy, 
 Gottfried could whistle well. He now tried it and it came 
 back to him. The children were delighted. He whistled an 
 old German song. Bob and Ruth watched for some time; 
 then they began to clamor, Ruth for the words of the song, 
 she wanted to learn it, and Bob wanted his grandfather to 
 teach him how to whistle. 
 
 Elsie had always been fond of her mother-in-law. She 
 loved and pitied her. Without words the two women under- 
 stood each other. Elsie surmised her mother-in-law's lot 
 through the thirty years of married life and often sighed when 
 she contemplated it. But never had a word or sign passed 
 her lips in her mother-in-law's presence. Against Gottfried, 
 Elsie cherished a slight resentment for her father-in-law's 
 everlastingly belligerent attitude toward Fred. It was not 
 easy for Fred to be conscious that he was a disappointment 
 to his father. It made him sulky and at times bitter to see 
 
154 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 his father turn their differences in ideas into protracted and 
 painful quarrels. 
 
 As they sat at supper that evening, however, all of these 
 ancient grievances and sorenesses were forgotten on both sides. 
 The absence of Fred from his accustomed place at the table 
 turned all thoughts to him all the more tenderly. Gottfried 
 now spoke with Elsie about her husband, about his Chicago 
 speech. He was reserved in his praise, letting his words 
 fall judiciously. He was analyzing his son's speech and 
 action like a trained critic. He was trying to be impartial. 
 It was this exaggerated restraint, however, this fear of being 
 carried away by his own emotions, by his own happiness, 
 that showed his daughter-in-law how deeply proud Gottfried 
 was of his son, how he valued and appreciated the great honor 
 which Fred had done him by letting his plea for the striking 
 bakers in Chicago ring out through the whole country. And 
 Elsie loved her father-in-law, loved him for that very pride 
 and consistency which she had assailed on other occasions. 
 Gottfried had such ambitions for his son, for Fred. In the 
 face of this passionate attachment of the father for his son 
 one could overlook everything, one could forgive everything. 
 It was after ten o'clock when Gottfried and Anna reached 
 their home. The flat looked out upon the street, and through 
 the raised window children's voices came. Gottfried thought 
 of his grandchildren and the house seemed to him more deso- 
 late than ever. 
 
 Elsie had given them a photograph of Ruth and Robert 
 which had come from the studio only a few days previous. 
 Gottfried and his wife sat gazing at the picture by turns. 
 Anna wanted to approach the subject of moving to the Bronx, 
 but checked herself. She must not be too hasty, Gott- 
 fried was apt to resent it. Her husband was changing, he 
 was softening toward Freddy, toward their grandchildren. 
 
FRED SPEAKS HIS MIND 155 
 
 He would come around. She must be cautious. For such 
 happiness she could well afford to be patient a little longer. 
 Her heart was trembling for joy. . . . 
 
 It was past midnight when Gottfried heard a hushed sob 
 escape Anna's breast. 
 
 " You are not sleeping ? " he asked. 
 
 " No,'' she said. " I don't seem to feel a bit tired now, 
 and I was so tired on the train." 
 
 "You know," Gottfried said a little later, "Ruth is 
 going to look just like you — exactly the way you looked once, 
 at home. She is going to have your hair and her nose is 
 like yours." 
 
 Anna did not answer. The tired feeling which she had 
 been vainly wooing for the better part of two hours had come 
 upon her very suddenly and left her completely enervated and 
 exhausted. Gottfried saw her doze off and spoke no more. 
 He was staring at the wall, and suddenly he beheld a boy- 
 hood companion he had not thought of in more than forty 
 years. He was delighted to see him. The fellow was a 
 traveling apprentice and Gottfried joined him. It was pleas- 
 anter to travel in company. His friend was jolly and they 
 sang old songs about love and longing. And then it was 
 moonlight and he had a narrow escape. He was going to 
 meet his Annchen, and dodged behind a bush just in time to 
 escape the eagle eye of her father, Old Launitz. And how 
 they laughed, he and his Annchen, over his lucky escape. 
 She twined her golden braids about his neck and brought 
 his face so close to her that his head began to swim and sank 
 down on her breast. And then they stole along the hedges 
 toward the house, talking in whispers, when suddenly his 
 Annchen tripped and clasped his arm violently. . . . 
 
 He woke and felt that his wife's fingers had that very 
 instant become limp about his arm. He turned about and 
 
156 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 gazed at her. It was morning. A ray of sunlight was fall- 
 ing across the room. Anna was asleep, but there was a 
 strange expression on her face. He wondered where he had 
 seen that expression before. He was positive he had seen it 
 somewhere, sometime. He looked again. ... An exclama- 
 tion stiffened in his tongue and jaws. . . . His wife was 
 dead. ... 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 WHEN THE LIGHT IS LOW 
 
 THE murky light of the sleeping car made reading tire- 
 some. Fred Conrad laid aside the convention report 
 he had been studying, and, leaning back in his seat, watched 
 the colored porter make up a bed at the farther end of the 
 car; a woman wished to put her baby to sleep for the night. 
 After some time Fred thought he felt a drowsiness come over 
 him and he hastened to yield himself up to it. He was very 
 tired and would welcome even a brief sleep. He had been 
 on the train all day and had been up early that morning. In- 
 deed, he had had very little rest in the three weeks since his 
 mother's death. With her demise a host of new domestic 
 problems had arisen. 
 
 But the drowsiness was deceptive. Sleep did not come to 
 him. He was too tired to drop off readily into rest and for- 
 getf ulness. So he moved over to the window and watched the 
 shifting panorama. It was a clear, moonlight evening in 
 August. The breath of the country was sweet. But the soft 
 wind seemed to Fred Conrad to be fraught with sadness. 
 The trees, and here and there a lonely stack of hay, stood 
 silent, dark gray, as if contemplating the mystery of existence, 
 the shortness of life and the ugliness of death, which is the 
 inevitable epilogue of all handiworks of nature. Fred's 
 thoughts turned inward. 
 
 With all his domestic griefs and trials of the past few 
 weeks, he had had to tend to business. There was no letting 
 
 157 
 
158 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 up. Life thought only in terms of living and had no time for 
 tears and regrets. He made his report on the Chicago vic- 
 tory to the Executive Council of the Bakers' Amalgamated 
 Association. The officers of the Council called a mass meet- 
 ing of all the baker unions for Sunday afternoon. The rank 
 and file was to hear from Fred Conrad's own lips the story of 
 what their Chicago comrades had achieved. A rousing speech 
 was expected of Conrad. With his mother's fresh grave con- 
 stantly before his eyes, however, Fred could only speak evenly 
 and moderately. He was not underestimating the triumph of 
 the Chicago strikers. Far from it! But he passed over 
 lightly his own part in it. He said not a word about his own, 
 and by this time, celebrated speech. 
 
 To the few men in the audience who knew that Fred Con- 
 rad had buried his mother in the early part of that week, his 
 subdued demeanor on the platform was justified and they 
 watched him with sympathetic eyes. The very softness of 
 his speech, however, the complete absence of even the most 
 legitimate bit of pride or swagger, in the end piled up great 
 strength and the cumulative effect of it did not miss the audi- 
 ence. The men had come there to be thrilled by an exultant, 
 fiery speech of defiance. They found themselves inspired by 
 the earnest words of the speaker and by the unassuming, 
 democratic way in which they were spoken. Fred Conrad was 
 the lion of the occasion. Every one in the audience was eager 
 to hear the next step, for a next step there must be to such an 
 occasion, to such a victory. The union must make good use 
 of Fred Conrad. He should be given the means to do things. 
 
 Ed Linden, the president of the Executive Council, phrased 
 these thoughts of the mass of workingmen in proper form. 
 Linden spoke straight from the shoulder. The Chicago vic- 
 tory must be capitalized by the Bakers' Amalgamated Asso- 
 ciation. The bakers in other cities must gain similar con- 
 
WHEN THE LIGHT IS LOW 159 
 
 cessions. They must at once begin a campaign of organiza- 
 tion. There should be a branch of the Bakers' Amalgamated 
 Association in every city in the United States. 
 
 Here Ed Linden expanded his chest, a trick of his which 
 invariably denoted triumph and which the audience well 
 knew. It was he, Ed Linden, who had first advanced the 
 suggestion to the Executive Council to send Fred Conrad to 
 co-operate with the Chicago strikers. Well, he now had 
 another idea. The Executive Council, without delay, should 
 appoint Fred Conrad national organizer and send him out on 
 a campaign of organization throughout the country. 
 
 It was as National Organizer of the Bakers' Amalgamated 
 Association that Fred was now on his way to St. Louis to 
 take charge of a strike there. When he had settled matters 
 in St. Louis, he was to start in on his organization tour which 
 was to extend as far as the Pacific Coast. The union figured 
 that it would take him at least three months to cover the 
 ground. Fred was now thinking about this. It was the 
 first time he was to be away from his family for so long. 
 He mused about the prospective trip cheerlessly. 
 
 The train was now cutting through a small Pennsylvania 
 town. As it passed the main street it slowed up a trifle and 
 bits of life came into view. It had been a sultry day and 
 every one seemed tired, weary. On a deserted street, a ragged 
 urchin stopped in his slow, even walk to examine the passing 
 train. The boy was looking at the Pullmans reflectively, as 
 if trying to fathom what life in these sleeping-cars might be 
 like. The car passed him and a little farther on Fred saw 
 a young woman lift a four-year-old boy from the steps of 
 the porch where he had fallen asleep. As they disappeared 
 from view, Fred caught a final glimpse of the mother holding 
 the face of her sleeping child close to her own and kissing 
 it tenderly. It was children's bedtime. He thought of 
 
i6o THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 Ruth and Robert. Elsie must be putting them to bed now. 
 
 A yearning for his wife came over him. Elsie meant so 
 much to him. He would never dare tell how much his wife 
 meant to him. Most people would not understand it. They 
 might even laugh at him, think him weak. A friend of his, 
 a union official, had told him recently of certain troubles he 
 was going through. He wanted Fred's advice and sympathy. 
 He had to have a living soul to talk to, the man had said. 
 
 " What does your wife do in the matter? " Fred had asked. 
 
 The friend had looked up at him amazed, almost offended. 
 
 " Wife? " he had said. " Why, she knows nothing of it. 
 I never talk to her about such things." 
 
 Fred had wondered how such a state of affairs could exist 
 in a family. As for himself, he talked over everything with 
 Elsie; his work, his family affairs, his conception of the labor 
 movement and what its aims should be. It was a relief to 
 have her take a situation apart, thread by thread, and then 
 put it together again. In that process, somehow, his mind 
 would clear and his heart would lighten. Things never 
 seemed quite so grave or difficult after he had talked them 
 over with Elsie. 
 
 His thoughts of Elsie were becoming painful; the twelve 
 weeks ahead loomed like an interminable vista. It would 
 be hard, but he was not complaining. One had to take life 
 as it comes — he had long ago learned that lesson. But it 
 was a great pity none the less. He and Elsie had never really 
 had enough of each other's company. In the first two years 
 of their married life he still worked in the bakeshop at night. 
 Then he was made business agent of the union and he had 
 stayed in various official capacities ever since. That ended 
 his night work in the shop, but his evenings were taken from 
 him, nevertheless, by union business. There were endless 
 committee meetings, agitation meetings, conferences with em- 
 
WHEN THE LIGHT IS LOW 161 
 
 ployers. They were held in the evening mostly. Later, 
 when his name as a level-spoken man had gone beyond the 
 limits of the bakers' association, the Central Labor Board, an 
 organization of the combined labor unions of New York, to 
 which he was a delegate, would frequently appoint him on 
 committees to help adjust strikes and grievances in trades out- 
 side his own. They needed clear-minded men in the labor 
 movement. The employers were sharp; they never made a 
 move without consulting an attorney. The union leaders had 
 to think fast and be on guard. 
 
 With all these demands on his time, Elsie was forced to 
 stay at home in the evening pretty much as his mother had 
 done during his childhood. Only, of course, there was this 
 vast difference: his mother had been alone in a strange land; 
 Elsie was at least in her own country. She was at home here. 
 And then again she was not nearly so lonesome as his mother 
 had been. It was not yet three years since Old Man Gardner 
 had died. Up to the last Elsie's uncle had come to their 
 house every evening. He would put Ruthie and, later, Robert 
 to bed and would tell them stories. It was a pity the old man 
 could not have lived longer. They all needed him so much. 
 The children missed in him a grandfather, and Fred, a friend 
 and adviser of deep insight and keen judgment. He, Fred, 
 was indebted to the old family uncle for many of his de- 
 cisive moves and policies. The old man had had a part in 
 framing his attitude on most questions and matters of im- 
 portance. It was remarkable how Old Man Gardner could 
 clinch a situation. Thought with him was never merely a 
 gymnastic exercise. It was utilitarian, definite, leading some- 
 where, to something. He was so characteristically American. 
 He would never lose himself in a haze of ideas as his father, 
 Gottfried Conrad, did, for instance. It was a saying of 
 Gardner's that while dreams must precede action, dreams were 
 
i62 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 injurious when not crowned by achievements. Fred Conrad 
 never forgot these words. 
 
 Too bad he died so early, Fred mused. He was thinking 
 about life; how treacherous it was, how it always gave way 
 when one thought one was on a sure footing. There was 
 his mother, a young woman compared to Mr. Gardner. At 
 the very moment when she might have enjoyed life, might 
 have compensated herself for her years of suffering and silent 
 torture, her existence was snuffed out like a candle that is 
 blown out by the wind. 
 
 The thought of his mother was crowded out by the thought 
 of Mrs. Gardner. Fred had been so busy since his mother's 
 death that he had forgotten to ask Elsie when she had last 
 heard from her aunt. Upon the death of Mr. Gardner, his 
 widow went to live with a sister in Boston, though Elsie and 
 Fred had implored her to stay with them. Elsie was cor- 
 responding with her from time to time. 
 
 While Fred Conrad's thoughts, in the dim lamplight of the 
 sleeping-car, were turning in a circle about his family — the 
 living and the dead — his father was finishing his evening 
 meal in a humble restaurant on one of Little Germany's side 
 streets. Most of the men about the tables were in the twen- 
 ties, unmarried young immigrants. They were steady patrons 
 of the place and every one knew every one else. Gottfried 
 Conrad was the only elderly person in the room and his dis- 
 tracted, but impressive, appearance aroused considerable in- 
 terest. 
 
 Gottfried had purposely passed by several of the better 
 known German restaurants in the district in favor of this 
 humble place because he did not wish to take chances of 
 meeting people he might know. He was in no mood to meet 
 and talk to any one. It was hard for him to get accustomed 
 
WHEN THE LIGHT IS LOW 163 
 
 to taking his meals in a restaurant. It seemed undignified 
 to be sitting a stranger at a strange table after so many years 
 of married life. Even more depressing was the thought of be- 
 coming a " boarder " somewhere. It was no easy matter to 
 cease being the head of the house after more than thirty years. 
 
 Several of the men who entered the restaurant at the same 
 time with Conrad had already left. Gottfried was conscious 
 that he was lingering too long. But he did not hurry to leave 
 the table. It had been a warm day and he was completely 
 enervated. It was pleasant to yield oneself up to the rest- 
 fulness of a cigar and to one's thoughts a little longer. 
 
 Once in the street he started for home. But when he 
 reached the tenement where he lived, he changed his mind. 
 What was the use of hurrying to his flat ? He did not expect 
 any one that evening. Fred had left the city in the morning. 
 Elsie could not possibly come at this time of night. He 
 stepped into Vogelsang's hall. 
 
 Gottfried sat at one of the tables and ordered a glass of 
 beer, but he did not touch it. He was ruminating and turning 
 over in his mind the problem of his own future. Since the 
 day of the funeral, his children, Fred and Elsie, had been 
 clamoring for him to make his home with them. But he had 
 been delaying. He invented various excuses for this delay. 
 Matters of delicacy alone prevented his son and daughter-in- 
 law from exposing his excuses as sham and hollow. They 
 did not wish to press him too hard. Perhaps he needed time 
 and solitude to reconcile him to the fact of his wife's death, 
 and accustom his mind to the rearrangement of his existence. 
 But why was he delaying? What was he planning to do? 
 Yes, what? 
 
 He stared ahead of him through the hazy atmosphere. The 
 room was filled with people and everybody was talking, but 
 he did not seem to be aware of it. He was facing a hard 
 
i64 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 problem and his mind was concentrated upon its solution. 
 
 He was aroused by the eager voice and hearty greeting of 
 Otto Bachman. 
 
 Gottfried was glad to see Bachman at all times. It was 
 a relief to see him now. He and Bachman had been friends 
 for more than thirty years. With Gottfried Conrad and 
 Heinrich Kolb, Otto Bachman was one of the little group of 
 pioneers of the socialist movement in America. He was one 
 of the founders of the socialist organ, the Arbeiter Zeitung. 
 Less intellectual than either Kolb or Gottfried, Bachman pos- 
 sessed that quality which the Germans call " Treue," faith- 
 fulness to a cause and to a friend, faithfulness unto death. 
 
 " So you are not staying with your son," Bachman repeated 
 in a daze, when Gottfried came to that part of his story. He 
 was moved to tears by the recital of his friend's trials, by 
 Gottfried's complicated, broken life. 
 
 " No," said Gottfried. " I have been beating about the 
 bush, trying to invent all sorts of excuses for refusing to live 
 with my son. It has been hard on Fred — he is heartbroken 
 over it. He expects me to move to him soon; I half promised 
 him that I would. 
 
 " But I am afraid I won't," Gottfried added after a mo- 
 ment. 
 
 Bachman sat gazing at him intently. He had always 
 admired Gottfried's directness of speech and thought. Con- 
 rad always faced the truth unflinchingly, even when it hurt. 
 He was facing it now. 
 
 " You see," Gottfried was saying, and his eyes filled, " it 
 is like this: Fred and I both need room — for ideas, I mean. 
 I am not yet ready to give up the struggle physically or in- 
 tellectually. I am not yet fifty-five. I am still strong. I 
 think as clearly as ever and I am as firm in my convictions 
 as ever. I can and will be of use to the movement as much 
 
WHEN THE LIGHT IS LOW 165 
 
 as ever — perhaps more. . . . For I no longer have obliga- 
 tions. I have no one to look after. . . ." 
 
 Bachman broke a momentary silence. 
 
 " But," he said, " why can't you stay with your son and 
 go on with your work in the movement just as you are plan- 
 ning? Fred surely would not interfere with you. I know 
 the boy. It is not in him to impose his will upon another 
 by force." 
 
 Gottfried laughed, a sad, weary chuckle. 
 
 " No," he said, " it is not in him, but it is in me. I am 
 not afraid of Fred's trying to force his convictions upon me, 
 but I am afraid that I may be trying to impose my ideas 
 upon him. It is myself I fear, my — my — " 
 
 Gottfried stopped short, trying to find the right word. 
 Then he continued : 
 
 " I have lived all my life in a world of ideas. I struggled 
 for ideas. On the battlefield of ideas I cannot stay neutral, 
 not even with my own son. There has been a standing in- 
 tellectual feud between my son and myself. ... As long as 
 my wife lived there was always some one to patch up our 
 differences. There is no one now. So we must not quarrel, 
 my son and I. . . . But what German will not bite and scrap 
 for his convictions, even with his own son, even if his heart 
 bleed to death in the process ? I am afraid to move to Fred's 
 — afraid of myself." 
 
 There was a note of extreme bitterness in Gottfried's last 
 words. Bachman was seized with great pity for his com- 
 rade. How fine the fates were grinding, he mused. The 
 powerful Gottfried broken in two in what should be his best 
 years. Had Bachman been a believer, he would have thanked 
 God, for his heart was overflowing in him. Life had been 
 kind to him. His wife, his Marie, had never had a sick day. 
 
 " There is no use taking things so hard," Bachman said 
 
i66 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 after some deliberation. " You don't have to go to your son 
 at once. And after a time things may straighten out of their 
 own accord. But you cannot go on living by yourself." 
 
 Gottfried shifted uneasily. Since his wife's death and his 
 refusal to move to his son's, Elsie had come down every other 
 day, and sometimes oftener, to look after his little flat. Now 
 that Fred was out of town, it would be a strain on her. It 
 was too much to let her do. Moreover, she was expecting him 
 to move to her every day. 
 
 " Gottfried," Otto Bachman broke his friend's revery, and 
 as he continued speaking there was in his voice that rare 
 quality of friendship between man and man that has its roots 
 in a primitive, epic age, " Gottfried, I — we have only one boy 
 at home now. All our other children are gone — married. 
 Until you can see your way clear toward staying with your 
 son, come to us. We shall be delighted, Marie and I. Marie 
 has often spoken about your plight since your wife's death. 
 Come with me; it will make things like old times again." 
 
 Gottfried looked up at Bachman in a daze. His conver- 
 sation had left him exhausted, helpless for the moment. In 
 his friend's words he sensed rest, shelter, protection. And 
 he was too weary not to yield. 
 
 Otto Bachman hustled him out of the hall and in a few 
 minutes they were at his home and Mrs. Bachman piled re- 
 freshments on the table, sufficient to make a good-sized meal 
 for a good-sized family. 
 
 Mrs. Bachman was a woman in the fifties. She had raised 
 six children. Life was hard during the first fifteen years of 
 her married life. But as she had never had a day's illness 
 in her house she managed things. Then when the children 
 were old enough to go to work the Bachman family began 
 to enjoy a degree of prosperity that told particularly on Mrs. 
 Bachman. Her complexion was clear and florid, and she 
 
WHEN THE LIGHT IS LOW 167 
 
 always looked fresh and rested, as if she had just had a good 
 nap. Even her gray hair seemed but to intensify this impres- 
 sion of rest and repose which she radiated. 
 
 Bachman urged Conrad to move the next morning. But 
 Gottfried postponed it until the end of the week. It was hard 
 to break up his home ; he would proceed about it slowly. He 
 would be at strange tables long enough — too long. He 
 spent the next few days in gloomy meditations. Saturday 
 afternoon he hunted up an expressman and asked him to 
 come bright and early the next morning. He had disposed 
 of most of his furniture to a second-hand man. He did not 
 want to let his friends know that he was breaking up his 
 home, though he would gladly have given some of the things 
 away to people in the neighborhood. He spent the last night 
 in his bare flat, sleeplessly. At six o'clock the expressman 
 came. By seven he had moved. All the things he cared to 
 take with him went into the family trunk. In addition, he 
 took with him a small bookcase which he had cherished for 
 years and a little table upon which stood the family album. 
 With these he would not part. 
 
 He avoided looking at the Bachmans. As soon as he had 
 arranged everything to his satisfaction in his room, he pleaded 
 an engagement and left the house. He started northward 
 almost at a run. He was going to the Bronx, to his grand- 
 children. But he was in no hurry to take the elevated. He 
 had to think out a defense for himself, for his action, to 
 Elsie. It would be a staggering blow to his daughter-in-law, 
 to Fred, his moving to strangers. He must smooth it over, 
 explain it. For a moment he thought of returning and re- 
 storing everything to its former place. His mind would not 
 stay still. He was not sure of himself. But the impossibil- 
 ity of the thing was too patent. He must find an excuse, a 
 proper excuse, to make to Elsie. And his grandchildren — 
 
i68 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 what if they should ask him when he was coming to stay 
 with them ? Their mother might have told them that he was 
 coming ! 
 
 It was hot, but he walked faster and faster, beads of per- 
 spiration coming to his forehead. Suddenly he came upon 
 large numbers of people. He wondered what had happened. 
 He stopped and looked about. Then he recalled — it was 
 Sunday. People were going to church. They were going in 
 families, just as in the Old World, just as they did years ago, 
 thirty years ago. The church was surely holding its own! 
 He noticed several men his own age among the churchgoers. 
 One of these was leading a child of six, apparently a grand- 
 son, by the hand. How rested all these people looked, how 
 contented ! Life had apparently been kind to them. . . . 
 
 He passed the church-going crowd and came upon a little 
 park. He had not eaten that morning and realized that he 
 was tired; he sought a shady bench to sit down. He still 
 had no proper excuse for Elsie, for Fred. . . . And he had 
 to have it, by all means. He must not let this step of his 
 cause a quarrel between them. ... It would never do to have 
 a quarrel. ... If Anna had only lived, she would have 
 pulled him out of this trouble. She could always appeal to 
 Fred and Elsie with a look. She could make them do any- 
 thing. . . . Anna — Annchen. ... He wept. . . . 
 
 Elsie, too, had slept ill that night. She was thinking of 
 her father-in-law. She felt guilty about him. It was ex- 
 cusable in Fred not to see it — he was a son. But she — she 
 should have understood at once. 
 
 They should not have pressed her father-in-law to make 
 his home with them. Gottfried Conrad was still hale and 
 vigorous. Some might even consider him in the prime of life. 
 He could have a home of his own for a good many years 
 
WHEN THE LIGHT IS LOW 169 
 
 yet — why rush into the arms of old age ? Why cease to lead 
 an independent existence? Perhaps her father-in-law was 
 thinking these things when he made such pitiful excuses for 
 not coming to stay with them. Perhaps he was considering 
 the possibility of remarrying at some later date. Such things 
 were not at all uncommon. She was not so sure that they 
 were wrong. She had known some very nice people who had 
 remarried after some time. 
 
 She would write Fred about it. He must see it. He must 
 view the situation with an open mind. He must not be unjust 
 to his father. Why had she not thought about it a day or two 
 sooner ? Such things are so much better spoken than written. 
 
 Would her father-in-law come that day? She hoped fer- 
 vently that he would. She wished to see him. She would 
 not importune him any more. She would make it plain to 
 him that their home was his home — if he wished it. But 
 if not, they were with him in whatever his desires were. Her 
 concern, and Fred's, was chiefly about his happiness, about 
 his well-being. If he did not wish to part with his home, 
 with his old surroundings in Little Germany, they were with 
 him in his decisions. They understood him; their sympathies 
 were with him. There should never be any misunderstand- 
 ing between them. She would see to it, she must see to it, 
 now that her mother-in-law was dead. She must take up the 
 cloak of family peace that her mother-in-law had left behind. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE MEASURE OF FRED CONRAD 
 
 IT was two days before Christmas. Gottfried Conrad had 
 insisted on buying the Christmas tree for his grandchil- 
 dren and that evening he was to bring some of the trimmings 
 for it. He was expected to supper and would probably stay 
 over night in view of the weather. It had been snowing 
 heavily all day. Ruth and Robert had been in a state of 
 excitement all afternoon. The coming of their grandfather, 
 though it was of frequent occurrence of late, was an event of 
 supreme thrill and excitement to them every time. 
 
 Fred had come home earlier than usual that evening and 
 as soon as Elsie saw his face she knew that something had 
 happened. 
 
 " What's the trouble? " she asked, leading the way to the 
 kitchen. 
 
 " Why, does it look like trouble? " Fred smiled wanly as 
 he seated himself in the old oak rocker which summered on 
 the porch and wintered near the stove. 
 
 " You seem worried," his wife said as she moved the boil- 
 ing kettle to one side to make room for a fresh pot. 
 
 *' I don't know as I can call it worry," he replied. " I'm 
 just thinking. I may experience a change of employers 
 soon." 
 
 Elsie waited. 
 
 " Arthur Bayes," Fred continued after a brief pause, 
 " called at the office and had a talk with me to-day. He 
 wants me to have lunch with him and with Mark Gelder 
 
 170 
 
THE MEASURE OF FRED CONRAD 171 
 
 to-morrow. Mark Gelder has been wanting to see me for 
 some time, Bayes said, so he thought he would arrange a little 
 luncheon for us to meet and talk." 
 
 " You think Gelder might offer you a job with the Federa- 
 tion? " Elsie asked quickly. 
 
 " Yes," said Fred. " I'm almost certain that that is what 
 he wants to see me about. The Federation voted the other 
 day to put five additional organizers in the field and I was 
 told that Mark Gelder has been keeping an eye on me. I 
 suppose he is coming to town to-morrow to take my measure. 
 That is his way of doing things." 
 
 Mark Gelder was the president of the General Labor Fed- 
 eration of America. To become an organizer for the Federa- 
 tion was the next logical position for Fred Conrad to be 
 called to. It was an honor and it meant advancement finan- 
 cially and otherwise. Of course Fred Conrad would not 
 reject it. But he was not keen for it. He was uneasy and 
 would have been more satisfied if they had passed him by, 
 had overlooked him for some time yet. He was at home in 
 the bakers' union, and was afraid of the Federation. He 
 did not feel himself quite suited to it. A job with the Feder- 
 ation often meant politics fully as much as work. And he 
 detested politics. . . . Moreover, he was a little apprehensive 
 of Mark Gelder. The president of the General Labor Fed- 
 eration had of late been launching crusades against the social- 
 ists. Mark Gelder, Fred feared, might prove as fanatically 
 against socialism as his father was for it. And he was tired 
 of crusades in either direction. He was weary of politics. 
 Ever since he could remember politics was the cause of strife 
 and discord in their home, the bane of his existence. . . . 
 
 " It will mean staying away from home much more often 
 and for longer periods." Fred broke a prolonged silence. 
 " But it will mean more money. . . . We could save quite a 
 
172 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 little toward an education for the children. . . . And we 
 might be able to buy a home perhaps. . . ." 
 
 A pot needed attention and Elsie was busy for some mo- 
 ments, Fred turned about and glanced into the front room. 
 Ruth and Robert were sitting on the sofa and between them 
 were endeavoring to teach the cat good manners. 
 
 " A home of their own. ..." Fred's mind had been revolv- 
 ing about this thought much of late. While he did his work 
 as an organizer for the bakers well and faithfully he had no 
 violent ambitions in the labor movement. It was in his 
 home and his children, rather, that his ambitions reached their 
 limit. He meant to educate his children. He had hoped 
 that his boy would be spared the necessity of doing manual 
 labor. He would never permit his Robert to work nights as 
 he did, to go to work at an early age. As for Ruth, he often, 
 on the way to the office, passed girls who were going to busi- 
 ness college. They looked nice and fresh — so different from 
 the girls who passed in an endless stream on the way to the 
 factory at seven in the morning. He meant to send Ruth to 
 business college. 
 
 He was not forgetting Elsie. He had ambitions for her 
 too. He pictured her standing on the sidewalk in front of 
 their own home waiting for him. She would look good on the 
 green lawn on a summer afternoon. . . . They were selling 
 cozy middle-class homes at reasonable prices in their immedi- 
 ate neighborhood. People were paying off such homes with 
 their rent. . . . 
 
 Elsie was thinking of the long lone winter nights that 
 awaited her, for she too saw that Fred must take the job with 
 the Federation. It was promotion. It was the only chance 
 a man in the labor movement had to advance. The 
 money . . . 
 
 She was not letting her thoughts interfere with her work. 
 
THE MEASURE OF FRED CONRAD 173 
 
 She watched over the roast and turned over the potatoes with 
 undivided attention. Elsie was very proud of her baked 
 potatoes. They came out as soft as butter and she never 
 burned them. 
 
 Supper was ready. She looked at the clock and was seized 
 with anxiety. It was past seven. They were so absorbed in 
 conversation they had not noticed how late it was. Gott- 
 fried should have been there for some time. Outside the 
 snowstorm of the afternoon was turning into a blizzard. 
 Fred too had grown uneasy. 
 
 " The elevated must be making slow time," he sought to 
 reassure Elsie and himself. 
 
 The anxiety of their parents now communicated itself to 
 Ruth and Robert, and they stood pressing their faces against 
 the window-pane in the hope of catching sight of their grand- 
 father. Presently Bob let out a yell of joy. Because of the 
 blinding snowstorm he had not recognized his grandfather 
 until Gottfried's tall form stood on a level with the window. 
 Gottfried smiled when he beheld the children waiting for him 
 and waved his hand to them, but Ruth and Bob were already 
 in the hall and held the door wide open. 
 
 Thanks to Elsie, an understanding had sprung up between 
 father and son without the two interchanging a word on the 
 subject. The relation between the two had resolved itself to 
 this : Gottfried was always welcomed in his son's home, but 
 he was never importuned. He came and went as he pleased. 
 Sometimes he would come on Saturday evening and stay until 
 Monday morning. Then again he would come merely for 
 the evening. When Fred was away from home for long, Gott- 
 fried would come and help Elsie and the children with the 
 rougher work about the house — they still lived in that small 
 family house in the Bronx. In the winter months he would 
 bring the coal up from the basement and chop kindling wood 
 
174 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 for them. In the spring he would fence their little garden, 
 dig up the ground and make the seed beds. Gottfried rather 
 enjoyed working with a spade or ax, digging the soil and ham- 
 mering nails. It was so reminiscent of the dim past back in 
 Germany. 
 
 Part of this tacit understanding between father and son 
 was never to speak of politics. As if by agreement, the two 
 always veered their conversation away from anything that was 
 not intimately connected with their daily lives and personal 
 affairs, anything that might stir up discussion. Fred suf- 
 fered at times keenly for want of such conversation. There 
 were so many things in connection with his work that he was 
 eager to talk about with his father, but he feared to risk 
 speaking about them lest an unguarded utterance rouse the 
 old antagonism between himself and his parent. The field 
 of ideas and ideals was ground dangerous to tread on. Gott- 
 fried, too, suffered from these self-imposed restrictions. 
 There were times when he felt that his advice, suggestions 
 from him, might be of value to Fred. But he feared to ven- 
 ture outside the field of commonplace family conversation. 
 His slumbering feelings might wake and run away with him. 
 
 Gottfried was devoting himself to his grandchildren with a 
 concern and tenderness that Fred had never known when he 
 was a child. It was not exactly a case of age mellowing, 
 softening him. Back of Conrad's softness was helplessness, 
 the realization of his own impotence and a tragic submission 
 to fate. America had trained his son away from him. Life 
 had broken him and life was the victor. Like a good fighter 
 it was up to him to concede victory and to yield to his oppo- 
 nent gracefully. And he did this. The old cigarmaker — 
 for Gottfried had aged much in the two and a half years since 
 his wife's death — sought now to make the most of the few 
 sunshiny days that were still to be had. His son was a man 
 
THE MEASURE OF FRED CONRAD 175 
 
 and was a thing apart from him. But his grandchildren still 
 clung to him. They loved him, and he delighted in them. 
 He might as well drink in what little joy this attention to 
 Ruth and Robert gave him, for soon they too would outgrow 
 play — and him. 
 
 So he would lie awake for hours planning little surprises 
 for his grandchildren. He would watch the stands for nice 
 tidbits and the stores for new toys for them. His pockets 
 were never empty when he came to his son's house. 
 
 The period of intense preoccupation with union affairs 
 which followed closely upon his mother's death did not per- 
 mit Fred to follow attentively the change which was coming 
 over his father. But Elsie noticed it and she watched its 
 progress guiltily. She could never quite cease blaming her- 
 self for misjudging her father-in-law soon after he lost his 
 wife. She had ascribed his disinclination to live with them 
 to a desire on his part to remarry at a later date, when, as she 
 now saw it, nothing was further from Gottfried's mind than 
 such a thought. He was not running away from old age. 
 On the contrary, he seemed to be welcoming it with open arms. 
 Death seemed to have attached him closer to his wife, to the 
 memory of her. Once on a Sunday afternoon in the fall, Fred 
 proposed that they ride out to the cemetery to visit his 
 mother's grave. When they got there they found that they 
 had been preceded. There was a fresh wreath on the grave 
 and the shrubs and grass had been trimmed with great skill 
 and care. His father had left the cemetery an hour before 
 they arrived. 
 
 All through the evening Fred was tormented by an irresist- 
 ible desire to break the self-imposed silence about matters of 
 importance. He was consumed with longing to tell his 
 father about the proposed luncheon the next day with the 
 president of the General Labor Federation and that in all 
 
176 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 likelihood he would go to v/ork for that body. . . . He was 
 not in agreement with all of Mark Gelder's policies and still 
 less with his prejudices. ... He looked upon the whole thing 
 as a job, as work only. ... He would not mix in the Fed- 
 eration's politics. He would stick to organizing work pure 
 and simple. The Federation was in need of just that sort of 
 an organizer. It had more than its share of politicians. . . . 
 
 It would have done him good to have told his father all 
 this and to have got Gottfried's acquiescence, if not consent, 
 to the probable change. He would have felt so much better 
 about taking the job. But he checked himself every time he 
 attempted to speak. They had been dwelling apart so long 
 mentally that he feared it would almost seem theatrical for 
 him to attempt to become confidential with his father once 
 more. . . . 
 
 Gottfried had not failed to observe his son's knitted 
 brow. He sensed that Fred was in trouble — was prob- 
 ably struggling with a momentous decision. For a mo- 
 ment he was on the verge of giving way. He was yearn- 
 ing for a heart to heart talk with his son, to see how the boy 
 was getting on, what problems he was facing, to help him face 
 or solve them. It would ease him so to have an intimate 
 talk with Fred once more. But then his caution returned. 
 There was so little joy in his life outside of these evenings 
 with his grandchildren. Why run even the remotest chance 
 of spoiling such an evening with vain if not painful talk? 
 Why? Gottfried stifled his yearnings. He and Fred spoke 
 a few commonplaces and retired for the night. In their 
 separate rooms each gritted his teeth in pain and went on 
 struggling with his unspoken thoughts. 
 
 The luncheon the next day proved much less of a bugbear 
 than Fred had anticipated. Mark Gelder had not come alone 
 to take the measure of the organizer of the bakers. He 
 
THE MEASURE OF FRED CONRAD 177 
 
 brought with him the Federation's vice-president, Jim Mor- 
 gan. Gelder, Morgan and Bayes put Conrad through a 
 catechism during the luncheon, but Fred had to admit that 
 they had done their work not only cleverly but tactfully, very 
 considerately. 
 
 Gelder was of course interested in Fred Conrad's views of 
 the socialists. But the Federation's president was always 
 careful in his choice of terms. He had no quarrel with the 
 philosophy of socialism. Philosophies, whether good or bad, 
 are in themselves of no consequence in life. It was with the 
 spokesmen of socialism that he had a bone to pick. He men- 
 tioned several labor leaders of pronounced socialist tendencies 
 who were just then attacking him hotly in print and on the 
 platform. He exposed the weak sides of these men — all of 
 them were alien born — the inability of most of them to speak 
 the English language smoothly, their ignorance of America, 
 their oratorical flights which were not always supported by 
 facts, the clumsy foreign atmosphere which attached itself 
 to everything they said or did. 
 
 Fred listened to the plaint of the head of the Federation 
 sympathetically. Most of what Gelder was saying coincided 
 with his own experience. There was nothing rabid in his 
 statements, nothing to take exception to. It sounded more 
 like hard practical common sense. 
 
 While Gelder was sounding Conrad with regard to his 
 politics, the Federation's vice-president was searching him for 
 something different. 
 
 Morgan was anxious to find out how much of a " good 
 fellow " Conrad was likely to prove. Being in direct charge 
 of the organizers of the General Labor Federation, the vice- 
 president knew the value of team work. It was essential that 
 there be cooperation between the various organizers, for it 
 was necessary from time to time to send two and three men 
 
178 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 to the same city, and sometimes even on the same job. To 
 get the best work out of them under such circumstances it was 
 vital that they be congenial to one another. 
 
 Two days after Christmas Fred Conrad received the offer 
 of a job as organizer for the General Labor Federation of 
 America, as he had expected. He accepted by wire, as in- 
 structed. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 KOLB QUOTES FAUST 
 
 THE third anniversary of Anna's death was nearing and 
 Gottfried experienced great difficulty in keeping his 
 thoughts at the bench, on his work. Several Sundays in suc- 
 cession he went out to the cemetery and after every such visit 
 to his wife's resting place the incongruity of his position was 
 brought home to him more painfully than ever. ... It was 
 as if Anna, from her grave, were chiding, reproaching him, 
 were urging him to be more tolerant toward his son — their 
 Fred. . . . 
 
 No, he had no business staying with strangers. He was 
 aware of the sorrow which his conduct was causing Fred and 
 Elsie. If they refrained from further urging him to live 
 with them, it was solely because they feared their persistency 
 might annoy him. ... In the past he found refuge from 
 these vexatious thoughts in exciting plans for a return to 
 socialist activities with his one-time vigor. . . . Now he was 
 becoming sorely aware that there was a lack of driving force 
 back of his thoughts, that they were not going over into ac- 
 tion. ... He had not attended a socialist meeting since 
 Anna's death. He was completely out of the movement. 
 And yet these had been stirring years in the history of the 
 country. A war had been successfully fought by the United 
 States. European immigration was breaking all records at 
 Ellis Island. Great strikes were rending the country in two. 
 The world was moving ahead feverishly. . . . 
 
 He was reading the Arbeiter Zeitung as usual one Sunday 
 morning when an announcement covering half the page stirred 
 
 179 
 
i8o THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 him. It was a call to socialists to come to a party rally at 
 Freedom Hall. Freedom Hall! Gottfried failed to recall 
 the place. He was certain he had never been there, had 
 never spoken there. Then it came to him as if in a 
 dream. . . . 
 
 For years the socialist workmen of Little Germany had 
 been planning the erection of a Temple of Labor, of a home 
 for their societies and activities. This temple was to be 
 known as Freedom Hall. For more than a decade money 
 had been collected for this home at every gathering, meeting, 
 and picnic of socialists. Gottfried had himself frequently 
 contributed to it. And now this Freedom Hall was a reality. 
 . . . Mass meetings were held there. He must go up that 
 afternoon. He was curious to see the building. Besides, it 
 was high time he attended a socialist meeting. He had 
 stayed away from the movement for three whole years ! And 
 he had been thinking all the time that he was getting nearer 
 to socialist activity. . . . 
 
 The conductor whom he had asked to let him off in the 
 neighborhood of Freedom Hall took him a mile beyond his 
 destination. Gottfried walked the distance back to the Hall 
 and when he got there found the meeting in progress. 
 
 At first he thought he was in the wrong place. The crowd 
 was different from any of the socialist audiences he was ac- 
 customed to. There was here a preponderance of persons of 
 distinctly non-Teutonic appearance. On the platform a man 
 was speaking in English. The chairman of the meeting was 
 a bearded Yankee who looked and talked like a professor. 
 The speaker and the chairman both mentioned the word 
 socialism several times in the brief few minutes in which 
 Gottfried heard the former finish his address and the latter 
 introduce the next orator, and that reassured him, but not 
 ^r long. 
 
KOLB QUOTES FAUST 181 
 
 The next speaker was a lawyer. He spoke with the same 
 intonation with which he might defend a prisoner at the bar. 
 As nearly as Conrad could make out, the speaker was dis- 
 cussing certain passages from Marx's "Capital"; was in- 
 terpreting these passages for the benefit of the audience, and 
 took issue with certain socialists who were putting a different 
 interpretation upon the same text. The address was entirely 
 theoretic. The speaker was evidently a man who had no 
 connection with working people and their problems. He 
 discussed wages, rent and profit, the trinity of socialism, in 
 as abstract a manner as a scientist might speculate about a 
 star. There was just about as much warmth in his speech 
 as there is in a text book on astronomy. Gottfried was glad 
 when the chairman announced the next speaker. 
 
 A pale, delicate individual, who looked as if he had just 
 come out of the seclusion of a cloister, stepped upon the plat- 
 form. He mentioned the word socialism in the very first 
 sentence, but his speech and mannerisms gave Gottfried the 
 impression that the man, if not actually a clergyman, had 
 something to do with the church, and his instinctive hatred 
 of clergy at once set him on guard. He strained his ear to 
 catch every word the speaker was saying. He had missed 
 his name and was sorry; the name might have given him a 
 clue to the personality of the speaker. 
 
 His suspicions were well founded. The man was a 
 clergyman. He traced the socialist theories to the New Tes- 
 tament. He gave a sly little dig to those who thought that 
 in the socialism of Karl Marx they had discovered something 
 new. They were wrong. Long before Karl Marx there was 
 another Great Jew — and a socialist. The speaker's liquid 
 voice rose and fell with emotion when he spoke of the era of 
 brotherhood which " our great cause " would usher in. As 
 he proceeded his address took on more and more the color- 
 
i82 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 ing of a sermon. He spoke of the commandments, the dog- 
 mas and the articles of faith of socialism. Gottfried Con- 
 rad expected almost any moment to hear the man wind up 
 his sermon-like address with the sign of the cross and a 
 prayer. But the speaker at this point shifted dramatically, 
 and instead of assuring the audience of a reward in heaven, 
 announced that obedience to the principles of socialism would 
 bring the kingdom of God upon earth. 
 
 "Who was this speaker?" Gottfried asked of a young 
 man who sat next to him. 
 
 " That," the youth responded eagerly, " is the Rev. Dr. 
 Wesley, Smythe Wesley of the Fifth Avenue Church. 
 
 " Comrade Wesley has been converted to socialism within 
 the last two months and this is his first public appearance," 
 the youth further enlightened Gottfried. 
 
 " Converted? " the word slipped Gottfried's tongue. But 
 he had already surveyed his youthful neighbor. The boy 
 was of the Wesley kind himself, over-refined, frail, delicate, 
 like a girl. His fingers were long, his hands soft. Gottfried 
 suspected the boy of being a college student — perhaps even 
 a student of divinity — and choked all further questions down 
 his throat. His old hatred of the " parasitic class " was 
 aroused. He drew into himself and sat through the rest 
 of the meeting without saying a word. Other speakers fol- 
 lowed. They were men of various nationalities. For the 
 most part they were scholarly individuals from the profes- 
 sional classes. Nearly every one had a penchant for dia- 
 lectics. 
 
 In spite of their vehemence it seemed to Gottfried that 
 there was a lack of sincerity in some of the speakers. They 
 were moved less by the question they were discussing than 
 by the desire to make an impression, to appear cleverer and 
 more authoritative than their rivals. In the case of one of 
 
KOLB QUOTES FAUST 183 
 
 the speakers this petty egotism and personal vanity came to 
 the surface with such hideous effrontery that the blood rushed 
 to Gottfried's face. He was sick at heart. 
 
 When he was in the street again he stood in a daze for 
 some time. He had read in the Arbeiter Zeitung of the 
 eternal splits and quarrels within the socialist movement. 
 He recalled, too, having read of the party's reorganization, 
 of the younger element taking control. So that was the new 
 socialist party. . . . That was the successor to the move- 
 ment which he, Kolb and their friends, the Lassalleans, had 
 nursed and fondled and fanned into life. He was stirred 
 as he had not been in years. He recalled a little story from 
 the second or third reader. It told of a duck that had hatched 
 a little chick along with her ducklings. When she came to 
 a pond with her brood, the little ducks slid into the water 
 after her. But the chick shied and would not be coaxed into 
 the pond. Like the perplexed mother duck, he now failed 
 to recognize his brood. It was strange to him, this scholastic 
 socialism that the lawyers and ministers had kept tossing 
 from the tips of their tongues all afternoon, adroitly, cleverly, 
 as a football player would toss a ball. He had listened to 
 socialist speeches for three hours and had not heard a word 
 or suggestion which had any intimate bearing on the fate of 
 the toiling masses. . . . 
 
 The news that Heinrich Kolb was at home ill was brought 
 to him by Peter Reinecke, a shopmate, late in the afternoon, 
 and Gottfried did not go home to supper, but took a bite in 
 a restaurant and went straight to the Willmarts', with whom 
 Kolb was rooming. Mrs. Willmart greeted Gottfried cor- 
 dially. He was an old friend and she had not seen him in 
 years. He had not been to visit Kolb since his wife's death. 
 To Gottfried's anxious question about Kolb she whispered 
 
i84 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 that the editor was in a bad way. He was in the parlor. 
 . . . Gottfried could go right in. 
 
 Illness had reduced Heinrich Kolb to a shadow. He was 
 sitting in a chair in front of the open window, a comforter 
 wrapped about his limbs despite the fact that it was a warm 
 summer evening. He made a move as if to get up when his 
 friend entered, but Gottfried would not let him raise him- 
 self. After the first greeting he pulled up a chair and sat 
 opposite Kolb. Gottfried was so moved by the helplessness 
 of his friend that he was unable to speak for some moments. 
 Kolb's features were drawn and his lips bloodless. The 
 color of his skin was the color of death. Only his gaze re- 
 tained its youthful enthusiasm. In his eyes softness and 
 humanity were fighting their way to the surface through the 
 undercurrent of suffering. 
 
 Kolb dismissed questions about himself, his health, rap- 
 idly. What was there to say about it ? He was ill, and ill- 
 ness was not a pleasant thing to talk about. But Gottfried, 
 what news did he have? He was eager for news. Gott- 
 fried's presence was so reminiscent of bygone days. 
 
 The editor was gazing at his visitor delightedly. He had 
 not had an intimate talk with any one in years. Never hav- 
 ing married, he had no family; and the friends of his youth, 
 the comrades of another day had dwindled down to almost 
 none. They had families, these friends, children and grand- 
 children, and each now confined himself to his own imme- 
 diate circle. Family life does narrow a man so. Gottf"ied 
 was the least settled of all his friends. He had remained 
 closer to the ideals of their youth than any one of the rest 
 of their group of socialist pioneers. He was still an unbend- 
 ing rebel, uncompromising. . . . 
 
 They were talking over their friends — the movement — 
 Neither was the same — Things had changed so. Gott- 
 
KOLB QUOTES FAUST 185 
 
 fried described the socialist meeting he had attended at Free- 
 dom Hall, the audience of " doctors, lawyers and ministers '* 
 — the speeches. He did not hide his disappointment. 
 
 Kolb laughed a sad, pathetic laugh. He reached over to 
 a table near by, took hold of a little book, opened it and 
 read: 
 
 "Grau, theurer Freund, ist alle Theorie, 
 Und Griin des Leben's goldner Baum. . . ." 
 
 " There is the answer, Gottfried." Kolb spoke slowly, 
 with a tragic smile about his thin, bloodless lips. " Theories 
 are gray, life is green. Life is the victor. It is the final 
 arbiter. It has its way over man, over everything. Life 
 will have the things it wants. It will have the sort of social- 
 ism it wants, regardless of theories — your theories, my 
 theories. ..." 
 
 Gottfried protested. It was not socialism the younger 
 generation had espoused, not the working-class socialism that 
 they had preached. ... It was but a shadow of the great 
 dream they had once dreamed, the great ideal they cher- 
 ished. . . . 
 
 " I dare say it is," said Kolb, " but then it is probably 
 the sort of socialism that America seems to want, that it is 
 able to digest at this time. 
 
 " I suppose," Kolb continued after a breathing spell, 
 " every reformer comes to see and feel the things you and 
 I are feeling now — if he lives long enough. I wonder if 
 Jesus would recognize in the Christianity of to-day the ideal 
 for which He once bled and died. Nor is the irony of fate 
 at all new. . . . Jesus aimed at Jerusalem and captured 
 Rome. You and I fought priestcraft, the clergy, with the 
 weapon of socialism. Now the clergy flock into the socialist 
 fold ; they are becoming its apostles and preachers. . . . Yes, 
 time is a great jester. ..." 
 
i86 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 As Kolb was speaking patiently, kindly, ready to forgive 
 every one, to make peace with the world, to make peace even 
 with the new socialist party which was becoming honey- 
 combed with aristocrats and was led by clergymen, Gottfried 
 gazed at his friend with mingled feelings of pathos and 
 solemnity. . . . Poor Heinrich! The service and sacrifices 
 of a lifetime to an ideal were nobly, eloquently written in the 
 editor's face and forehead. And now he was dying, alone, 
 friendless. An intrepid fighter was dying — and he was 
 submissive — He had put his sword into the scabbard. . . . 
 
 He lapsed into memories. He forgot what it was they had 
 been talking about. But Kolb came back to it. It was so 
 long since he had talked to any one, since he had been asked 
 for an opinion. . . . 
 
 " I am coming more and more to the conclusion," the edi- 
 tor was saying, " that the business of the reformer is to start 
 things only — the finishing Life will do. The business of 
 the reformer is to break ground and sow the seed of new ideas. 
 What the harvest will be he would better not try to determine 
 beforehand. Life, nature, a million forces and accidents will 
 determine that. With the sowing his calling ends. . . ." 
 
 And then the conversation became intimately personal. 
 The two friends sat for a long time talking over many things 
 that had been a part of them during the thirty-five years 
 they had been living, agitating and fighting side by side in 
 the New World. Kolb asked about Fred. He had been 
 watching the boy's rise as a labor leader and was mildly 
 exhorting Gottfried not to appraise too lightly his son's ef- 
 forts in behalf of the organized workers of the country. 
 Fred, though he did not avow himself a socialist, was a 
 builder of progress, aye, even of socialist progress none the 
 less. His work might not set his name resounding from one 
 end of the country to the other, but it was the work of hu- 
 
KOLB QUOTES FAUST 187 
 
 manity he was doing in raising the standard of living for the 
 workers wherever he put his shoulder to the wheel. 
 
 Upon leaving his friend Gottfried did not go straight 
 horae, but walked on aimlessly block after block. The 
 streets teemed with men and children though it was nearing 
 ten o'clock; everywhere noise, laughter. A sadness seized 
 him. He went to the nearest elevated station. He would go 
 to the Bronx to spend the night under the same roof with his 
 family — with Fred. The rumbling of the train above his 
 head sobered him, however. It was so late. They would 
 no doubt be sleeping by the time he got there. What excuse 
 would he give for his unexpected visit? He started back 
 for home ; he was ashamed. 
 
 It was shortly after his visit to Heinrich Kolb that Gott- 
 fried Conrad experienced a sudden change of occupation. 
 Otto Bachman — Gottfried was still living with the Bach- 
 mans — brought word one evening that Jonas Klein was go- 
 ing to St. Louis to live with his children. 
 
 " He is looking for a buyer for his store," Bachman said 
 as they were finishing their meal. 
 
 But Conrad was not in the least aware that the remark 
 was intended for his special benefit, and Bachman, after a 
 short interval, blurted out: 
 
 "Why don't you buy it, Gottfried? It is a good little 
 business. There is hardly any work connected with it; bet- 
 ter than sticking in the factory all your life." 
 
 Conrad did not reply at once; he did not know what to 
 say. The thought of quitting the factory for something else 
 had not come to him before. Bachman's suggestion, how- 
 ever, never left him the rest of the evening. 
 
 Jonas Klein's bookstore was an institution in Little Ger- 
 many. It was located near one of the largest halls in the 
 
i88 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 district and it drew its trade from the workingraen and so- 
 cialists who came to their meetings there. In the pioneer 
 days of the German settlement, Klein's store was the library 
 of the neighborhood. Now the book trade in it was neg- 
 ligible. The books stood on the shelves well to the rear of 
 the store, yellow with age and thick with the dust of years. 
 The nearest to a book trade Klein had was the selling of 
 socialist pamphlets and socialist periodicals in the German 
 language and the German newspapers. The chief staples 
 in the store consisted of cigars, tobacco, and the personality 
 of the owner. 
 
 For to Jonas Klein's bookstore men did not come merely 
 to buy a paper or cigar and go out again. They came to 
 talk things over with the proprietor, to exchange views, to 
 give and get an opinion. Every evening the place was filled 
 with men and the heated conversations and discussions in it 
 lasted well into the night. The more people there were in 
 the store, and the more vehement the arguments became, the 
 more Jonas Klein felt at home. He would indeed feel disap- 
 pointed if one of the old-timers in the district would come in, 
 get his paper and leave without exchanging a few words about 
 the day's news and happenings with him. 
 
 Conrad and Jonas Klein had belonged to the same circle 
 of old-timers which was now fast beginning to scatter. He 
 knew the store, too; had been there many a time, and had 
 had many a discussion with its proprietor. As he lay on 
 his bed at night Gottfried turned the matter over in his 
 mind. It was not a bad idea, this getting hold of the store. 
 He would go up to see Klein. The daily running to factory 
 and standing at the bench was becoming a little difficult. A 
 change would do him good. He wondered how it would feel 
 to have all day to himself to do nothing, practically nothing. 
 He could be reading if he wanted to. 
 
KOLB QUOTES FAUST 189 
 
 As Jonas Klein was showing him around, Gottfried sud- 
 denly stood still in front of a hidden shelf to which Klein had 
 not called his attention, and a spark of mischief fairly shone 
 in his gray eyes. The hidden shelf would be a secret of his 
 own — a secret from his grandchildren. He would hide all 
 sorts of tidbits there and when Ruth and Robert came to 
 visit him he would bring these things out and his grand- 
 children would not know whence they came. Klein showed 
 him the living quarters. There were two large rooms in the 
 back of the store. Gottfried had difficulty in suppressing 
 his joy. He would fix up the two rooms nicely, he would 
 have Elsie fix them up for him, so that the children could 
 come to him often and stay with him for days at a time, espe- 
 cially when they did not go to school. The bargain was 
 closed and the very next morning Gottfried took his place 
 behind the counter and Jonas Klein was introducing his 
 successor to those of his customers who did not know Con- 
 rad. There were few such, however, and all of the cus- 
 tomers greeted Gottfried with delight. He felt at home in 
 the little store at once. For the first time in many years 
 Gottfried experienced a feeling that was akin to rest and 
 happiness. 
 
 From time to time he ran across his son's name in the 
 newspapers. Fred was nearly always on the road now. He 
 was in one part of the country one week and in another the 
 next. The nineteenth century was drawing to a close amid 
 an unprecedented wave of social restlessness and discontent. 
 The country was dotted with strikes and lockouts from the 
 Atlantic to the Pacific. There was bitter and desperate war- 
 fare on both sides. 
 
 Fred Conrad's days and nights were occupied with con- 
 ferences and appointments. The heads of the General La- 
 bor Federation of America had soon discovered that his great- 
 
190 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 est usefulness was in the committee rooms. There were 
 plenty of oratorical firebrands in the labor movement, but 
 there were few men who could sit at a table in conference 
 with employers and uphold labor's interest keenly and clearly 
 and at the same time inoffensively. Fred Conrad was one 
 of tlie few and so he was rushed from city to city and from 
 conference to conference to word the final agreement, clinch 
 the final settlement between workers and employers and make 
 these settlements yield to the worker the maximum of benefit 
 they possibly could be made to yield. 
 
 Often when Fred Conrad sat in conference with employers 
 he would picture Old Man Gardner sitting in his place. 
 He could hear the old man's voice, always polite, but firm, 
 arguing a point, the point which he, Fred, had in mind. 
 Unconsciously he would find himself acting out the role 
 which he pictured the dead Gardner as acting. The men at 
 the table, who presumed that they came from a superior 
 sphere to that of the workingmen and their representatives, 
 often found themselves outdone in courtesy and breeding by 
 the labor leader. Their respect for Conrad grew, and also 
 their apprehension. It was always pleasant to deal with 
 Fred Conrad, but not always profitable. With a more blus- 
 tering, but a less keen man than the New York baker they 
 might have done better when it came to drawing up the 
 actual clauses of an agreement. 
 
 While Fred was working such long hours that he would 
 frequently fall asleep with his clothes on, his father was com- 
 ing into unprecedented leisure. There was little trade in 
 Gottfried's store during the day, only in the evening. So 
 he spent his days reading, and thinking. A rest from the 
 shop and the cigarmaker's bench was restoring his mental 
 and physical poise. The nightly gatherings and discussions 
 at the store had put an end to his brooding. Gottfried was 
 
KOLB QUOTES FAUST 191 
 
 himself again. He was reading and watching the signs of 
 the times. 
 
 Summer went and autumn came. The last days of No- 
 vember had arrived and one morning four inches of snow lay 
 on the ground. Winter was here; and the year 1899 was 
 dying. The twentieth century was knocking at the gate. 
 Gottfried sat in front of the burning stove and took stock 
 of the world's progress: what did the old century stand for? 
 And what was the mission of the new ? He was thinking in 
 terms of humanity once more, and a quiet content was com- 
 ing over him. 
 
 On Christmas Day Gottfried spent only a few hours at 
 his son's home. Less for business reasons than for the sake 
 of the men who would be almost homeless if he stayed away, 
 he came back before nightfall and opened the store for the 
 evening. But for the New Year, Fred Conrad exacted a 
 promise from his father that he would keep the store closed 
 the entire day and would spend it with them. On the eve 
 of the New Year Fred came to take Gottfried home to sup- 
 per. 
 
 There were joyful, chattering crowds on the elevated, but 
 Fred and his father were thinking. Fred had rounded out 
 two years of hard, faithful work with the General Labor 
 Federation, but he was not happy. The Federation and the 
 men at the head of it were not as congenial as he had hoped 
 they would prove. He had not made friends among them. 
 They did not mix well together, and this was beginning to 
 trouble him. ... He was alone in the Federation and at 
 times this gave him a chilly feeling. . . , 
 
 Fred wanted to tell these things to his father, but Gott- 
 fried was deep in meditations which were closely akin to 
 Fred's own thoughts. Gottfried, too, was musing over the 
 activities of his son for the past two years. He was count- 
 
192 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 ing — the lost opportunities. Fred was not rising. . . . 
 There had been more than one occasion when Fred, had he 
 spoken the right word, would have had the ear of the coun- 
 try, would have become a leader of the masses of Lassallean 
 dimensions. But Fred had missed those opportunities. He 
 had not seen them. His son was a good, honest enough 
 labor leader, Gottfried mused, but he lacked vision, the 
 prophetic vision which he had once hoped his son would 
 have, the vision that lifted men to greatness, to leadership. 
 
 Late that evening, when supper was over and Elsie was 
 putting the children to bed, Fred broke the chains of self- 
 imposed silence and abruptly turned the conversation to the 
 labor movement. He sketched to his father the strikes he 
 had handled in the preceding two years. It was an unprece- 
 dented number. The employers were lining up against the 
 labor movement as they had never done before. Trouble- 
 some times were ahead and there was no promise of a let-up. 
 The years to come certainly would be making history for the 
 labor movement. 
 
 " And for mankind," Gottfried added with suppressed 
 feeling. There was a smoldering fire in his voice. Fred 
 looked at his father with a curious uncertainty. Was his 
 father going to speak once more as in the old days when 
 Mother lived? A thrill ran through him. He was longing 
 for such a talk from his father, had been yearning for it for 
 years. They had been so estranged from each other. Such 
 a talk would bring them closer. He wished for it fervently. 
 
 As for Gottfried, he was like a lion who after years in 
 captivity had smelled blood — he was beyond restraint. He 
 had broken the invisible seal that had closed his lips and 
 now he was speaking. He was speaking with pain and sor- 
 row. They were entering a new century and a great era in 
 the history of the working class, in the history of mankind. 
 
KOLB QUOTES FAUST 193 
 
 And his Fred must realize the significance of the new cen- 
 tury. It would be criminal 'on his, Gottfried's, part not to 
 enlighten his son, to let him grope in the darkness much 
 longer. He threw caution to the wind. . . . 
 
 Gottfried was pacing up and down the room. Now and 
 then he would stop in front of his son to emphasize a point. 
 Fred looked at his father and was fascinated. It was good 
 to feel the old man's burning breath upon his face once 
 more, it was reminiscent of the past, of the happy days when 
 his mother sat by their side. He listened speechlessly. 
 
 "It is the beginning of the end," Gottfried was saying 
 significantly, " and you would better make no mistake about 
 it. Read the signs of the times aright. Don't think that 
 this piling up of strikes is accidental, that these industrial 
 upheavals will be smoothed over and that everything will 
 return to its former state, will assume its wonted stability. 
 No! These strikes are the beginning of a titanic struggle 
 for the possession of the earth and it will not end until the 
 masses are emancipated and are the masters of the world." 
 
 Elsie had entered the room, but Gottfried went on with- 
 out a break. 
 
 " The nineteenth century has brought political equality to 
 mankind. It gave political democracy to the world. For the 
 world is democratic to-day in spite of a czar or a kaiser. The 
 republican spirit is at work in every country and it is but 
 a question of decades when this spirit will dominate the 
 whole earth. 
 
 " To democratize government — that was the task of the 
 preceding century. The century that we are ushering in to- 
 night, the twentieth century, will democratize industry. It 
 will usher social democracy into the world. The nineteenth 
 century abolished political serfhood, the twentieth century 
 will abolish wage slavery. The nineteenth century de- 
 
194 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 throned feudal lords and slave holders; the twentieth century 
 will dethrone capitalism. The twentieth century will be the 
 century of labor's revolt and labor's final domination of the 
 world." 
 
 Gottfried swayed and his son caught him in his arms. A 
 cry from Fred brought Elsie to his side and they laid the old 
 man on the couch. It was a trifling spell of dizziness, and 
 a sip of water refreshed Gottfried and brought him to. But 
 the conversation was not resumed. Fred and Elsie hovered 
 about him, quivering with anxiety. Gottfried, too, was med- 
 itating soberly. It was the first time in his life he gave way 
 under excitement. . . . 
 
 An impending strike of street-car men in Cleveland would 
 keep Fred away from home during the Easter holidays and 
 Gottfried planned to devote himself that day to his grand- 
 children and to try to make up to them for the unavoidable 
 absence of their father. He came to his son's home much 
 earlier than was his wont that Sunday morning, but Elsie 
 and the children were already out. They had gone to church 
 and he waited for the better part of two hours before they 
 came back. 
 
 Ruth and Robert looked fresh and trim in their Easter 
 clothes. The new suit made Robert seem taller, older than 
 he was. In his face there was an earnestness, left there per- 
 haps by the church service, or possibly it was the absence 
 of his father that clouded the holiday for the boy. Ruth was 
 sweet and tender and, as was usual with her, clung to her 
 grandfather delightedly. . . . 
 
 Gottfried was not interfering with the bringing up of the 
 children by his daughter-in-law, with their religious training. 
 It was a principle with Elsie and he would not intervene. He 
 
KOLB QUOTES FAUST 195 
 
 preferred not to think of these things; it was not leading 
 anywhere. . . . 
 
 Elsie would spend the afternoon home, and Gottfried 
 started off for Central Park with Ruth and Robert. It was 
 a balmy day and the gray tenements turned out their inhab- 
 itants into the streets by the hundred thousands. The park 
 was crowded with men, women and children, all foreign- 
 looking, talking in foreign languages, shouting, gesticulating, 
 drinking in the mild breeze, welcoming the sun and basking 
 in its warm rays. 
 
 They found a bench and Gottfried sat silently watching 
 the sea of faces that was surging back and forth. Ruth and 
 Robert were running up and down the grass, Ruth trying to 
 catch her brother and he eluding her. Presently they came 
 and sat down near their grandfather. The earnestness in 
 Gottfried's face communicated itself to the children. They 
 too were watching the crowds, studying the foreign faces and 
 odd dress, trying to make out the strange foreign sound of the 
 languages the men and women were speaking. 
 
 Suddenly Ruth moved up close to her grandfather and 
 said: 
 
 " You came from the old country too, Grandfather, didn't 
 you?" 
 
 " Yes," Gottfried nodded. 
 
 " But you don't look like them ; you look like us,'* Ruth 
 said defensively. 
 
 " I have been here so long," Gottfried explained, amused 
 by the slight apprehension in his granddaughter's voice. It 
 was as if the child would not tolerate having any one con- 
 found him, her grandfather, with the men about them, the 
 " foreigners." 
 
 " And you don't talk like them," Robert's voice seemed to 
 
196 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 brace his sister's unspoken argument. " You talk Eng- 
 lish." 
 
 Gottfried did not answer. He was thinking. Yes, he 
 was speaking English, had spoken it for a long time now. 
 He tried to recall for how long. It was since his wife's 
 death. It seemed as if with the death of Anna the German 
 language had also died for him. Except for the interchange 
 of a few phrases in German with a customer he had no one 
 to talk the language to now, 
 
 " Why don't you tell us something about your country, 
 Grandpa ? Why don't you ever talk about it ? " Robert 
 asked. Ruth joined. Would Grandpa tell them something 
 of the country he came from, of Germany? She saw some 
 pictures of German houses and German people in a geog- 
 raphy. They looked so quaint. 
 
 For answer Gottfried played with Ruth's curls. He was 
 thinking. His son had never asked him to talk to him 
 about Germany. Germany, Gottfried's foreign manners and 
 foreign tongue, were too much of a reality to Fred. They 
 had caused his boy pain too frequently, as on that night in 
 Cooper Union when the whole audience jeered and laughed 
 at him, Gottfried, and drove him out of the hall with hisses. 
 He had not forgotten that night and the humiliation in 
 Fred's eyes. 
 
 But now this Germany of old, and he, the Gottfried of old, 
 the foreigner, had become a dim distant echo to himself and 
 a myth to his grandchildren. They were anxious to hear 
 of that distant, almost legendary, life of his. What was pain 
 and suffering to him once, would be but an interesting, ex- 
 citing story to Ruth and Robert. . . . That was the way of 
 life. . . . Tears and suffering of the sires when reduced to 
 story form furnish thrills and pleasure to later genera- 
 tions. . . . 
 
KOLB QUOTES FAUST 197 
 
 He gazed at Ruth and more especially at Robert intently 
 for some moments. Fred's course in life was irrevocable. 
 His son had not come up to his dreams. He had no quarrel 
 with the boy. Fred was honest, scrupulously so, and at 
 heart was an idealist, as radical perhaps as he, Gottfried, 
 was. . . . But — Fred would be no leader, no great leader, 
 at any rate. He had given up all hope of that. As to the 
 House he dreamed of, the House of Conrad. . . . 
 
 As Gottfried gazed at his grandchildren, he saw his dream, 
 the House of Conrad, dissolve into mist. Fred was not doing 
 anything for the perpetuation of such a House. It was not 
 a House of Conrad but a House of Gardner that was growing 
 up before Gottfried's very eyes. Elsie was exercising the 
 chief influence over Ruth and Robert. Elsie's uncle, the 
 dead Gardner, had molded Elsie's mind, had to a large de- 
 gree molded Fred, and was now molding his grandchildren. 
 . . . But was he himself free from blame? Fred was on 
 the road most of the time. . . . Was it not up to him, Gott- 
 fried, to take a hand in the bringing up of his grandchildren, 
 to assist in furthering the House of his desires? Yes, it was 
 high time he began to look after Ruth and Robert, to mold 
 their thoughts, direct their vision. They were at the age 
 when children get away from their mother's apron strings 
 physically and mentally. He must not leave it to chance, 
 this House of his. He must take a hand in its molding. 
 Fred was out of his reach forever, but the children . . . 
 
 It seemed to him that his grandchildren could be brought 
 nearer to him in thought and feeling and understanding than 
 his son. There were fewer differences between him and his 
 grandchildren than there were between him and Fred when 
 his son was at the age of Ruth or Robert. . . . He had 
 changed much. He was no longer the Gottfried of old. He 
 had learned much. The school of life had taught him un- 
 
198 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 derstanding, tolerance. He was beginning to long for peace 
 now, peace with the world, with himself. He was not as 
 extravagant in his expectations as he had formerly been. 
 And he was nearer to the heart of America than he had been 
 in Fred's boyhood. He was a part now of the country and 
 its civilization. . . . 
 
 Ruth and Robert were sitting on each side of him. Ruth 
 was still eager for a story about Germany. . . . Robert 
 wished Grandfather to tell about his father's boyhood. 
 Mother was saying the other day that when Grandpa came 
 to New York the city was only about one tenth of its present 
 size. Would Grandfather tell them about those days? 
 
 Gottfried gazed into the faces of Robert and Ruth with 
 a tenderness they had never seen there before. . . . 
 
 " Some other time," he said, " I will tell you. Not now. 
 The spring sun never warms for long. It is getting colder 
 already. We had better start for home at once. Some other 
 time. . . .» 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE WIDOW 
 
 THERE was a sudden falling off in the number of 
 strikes. Citizen organizations sprang up in every 
 part of the country which sought to act as intermediaries be- 
 tween employers and employees. These reform agencies 
 made the words " mediation and arbitration " their slogan. 
 Neither capital nor labor was to be pushed to the wall. Both 
 sides must agree to arbitrate their differences. 
 
 This lull in union activity afforded Fred Conrad a needed 
 rest. For a time, at least, his duties were lightened. His, 
 trips through the country for the Federation were neither as 
 long nor as strenuous as the preceding. He spent more time 
 with his family. It was a breathing spell and was welcome. 
 It enabled him to do some looking about. Hitherto he had 
 known only the work side of the General Labor Federation; 
 he was now getting nearer to its human — one might almost 
 say family — side. This intimate view of the Federation 
 and its personnel did not make him happier. On the con- 
 trary it filled him with restlessness and at times even with 
 melancholy, for it brought certain fundamental antipathies 
 to the surface. The nearer he got to his associates the greater 
 the distance seemed to grow between them. He was begin- 
 ning to disapprove of many of their counsels, though he still 
 refrained from giving utterance to such disapproval; he was 
 not strong enough to make his views count. For certain of 
 the Federation's spokesmen he conceived a pronounced dis- 
 
 199 
 
200 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 like. It was purely a matter of feeling, of taste; his and 
 their tastes were at variance. These leaders were of coarse 
 texture; there was no fineness about them. They reduced 
 everything to a level of crude materialism. Their interest in 
 the working class, if it had a soul once, was a purely mechan- 
 ical matter now — there was no vision to it, no ideal. 
 
 There were times when Fred regretted his entry into the 
 Federation. He should have stayed with the bakers. There 
 was a bare living in the former job, it was true. But there 
 was peace of mind and an untroubled conscience. It was the 
 other way about in the Federation. 
 
 To Fred Conrad the calling of a strike was a responsibility 
 and an ordeal not to be taken lightly. For even if the strike 
 was victorious, it meant for a time at least the pinched faces 
 of little babies, mothers worn with excitement, want, fear. 
 ... It was not so with a number of his associates. They 
 were different. The " personal equation " which counted 
 for so much with him was frequently lost sight of by them. 
 They seemed to lack in sympathy, in understanding. Some 
 of them even enjoyed a strike for its own sake; for the fight- 
 ing, for the excitement. It gave them a chance to assert 
 their authority — and, having long played the part of the 
 underdog, they loved to assert authority even to the extent 
 of bullying their own people. A strike filled them with self- 
 importance. It meant staying at hotels, being interviewed 
 by reporters, seeing their names in the newspapers. The 
 petty tyranny and unbridled vanity of these men on such 
 occasions greatly depressed him. 
 
 If his father and his socialist crowd were guilty, now and 
 then, of permitting their idealism to break loose from its 
 anchor in the solid affairs of men, many of his colleagues 
 in the labor movement were going to the other extreme. He 
 came to know several labor unions that maintained their 
 
THE WIDOW 201 
 
 strength largely through resort to violence and terrorism. 
 Then there were labor leaders who sold strikes to employers, 
 who were in the pay of manufacturers. 
 
 No one knew the tactics of these selfish, grasping labor 
 leaders better than Mark Gelder and Jim Morgan. Never- 
 theless they refrained from criticizing them publicly. They 
 feared partly the violence of these men and partly the press. 
 If the newspapers got hold of these facts all organized labor 
 would be besmirched. The good would suffer with the bad; 
 the condemnation of union labor would be universal. So 
 Gelder and Morgan kept silent and permitted this corrupt 
 and lawless element in the trade union movement to roam 
 at will, rather than expose them and risk scathing publicity. 
 " Labor — right or wrong " was their slogan. 
 
 Fred's sense of quiet, unostentatious idealism, of whose ex- 
 istence he was scarcely aware formerly — he had always 
 considered himself thoroughly practical — was sorely tried 
 by many other things, which, while they had no direct bear- 
 ing on his work, nevertheless made the atmosphere in the 
 Federation less and less agreeable. It was an open secret 
 that a number of his associates were leading loose lives. 
 Just as the boys he had known in his youth had had only 
 girls in their thoughts, so these men constantly had women 
 on their minds, not their wives, but other women. 
 
 Along with the gossip about these men went, of course, 
 various stories calculated to mitigate and even excuse their 
 conduct. In the first place, their loyalty to the cause of labor 
 was emphasized most eloquently. And to a degree this was 
 true. Nearly all of the labor men who were lax in their 
 personal affairs, were most loyal to their cause and very de- 
 pendable in business matters. Then came the stories of do- 
 mestic infelicities. Each of these men was supposed to be 
 unhappy in his home life; the wife was uncongenial, failed 
 
202 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 to take an interest in her husband, did not understand him. 
 
 There was truth in that too. Fred Conrad had occasion to 
 meet the wives of several of these labor men and he was 
 astounded at the utter lack of congeniality between them and 
 their husbands. Husband and wife were like strangers. 
 There was such an utter want of understanding, of com- 
 radeship, between them that Fred wondered how two per- 
 sons having so little in common could ever have become at- 
 tached to one another sufficiently to broach the subject of 
 marriage. He always returned home after such an occasion 
 with a feeling of relief and gratitude. He was thankful for 
 his wife, for Elsie. She not only shared every one of his 
 thoughts; she often anticipated them. She was such a faith- 
 ful companion, so happy in his triumphs, and when things 
 did not go well with him she was more of a comfort than 
 ever. 
 
 And his children — there was such understanding be- 
 tween them, such harmony. They were growing up to be 
 such affable, refined youngsters, his Ruth and Robert. When 
 he was in the midst of his family circle Fred would often fall 
 to musing about these men, most of whom were older than 
 he — middle-aged or elderly men running loose with women 
 and being talked about — and pity would seize him. He 
 could not help feeling in such moments of serene domestic 
 bliss that the life of each of these must be an abyss, a tragic, 
 horrible nightmare. It could not be otherwise. Could there 
 be a more ghastly punishment than not to have a congenial 
 home, than to have to reduce man's most sacred, intimate 
 feelings to barter? . . . And when he and Elsie were left 
 alone at such moments he would embrace her with a tender- 
 ness and devotion that invariably brought tears to her 
 eyes. ... 
 
THE WIDOW 203 
 
 He had to work with these people, however, and sought to 
 adapt himself more or less to these conditions. He assumed 
 an attitude of complete disinterestedness in all personal mat- 
 ters. That was the safest course. He gave no attention to 
 gossip. He wished to hear nothing about the private life 
 of his colleagues. He was not sitting in judgment over any 
 one. He came to see more and more truth in what his father 
 once told him about man being largely the product of his 
 environment. The newspapers were daily bringing to light 
 family skeletons in high places. Society was steeped in 
 filth, corruption and degeneracy. The labor movement, being 
 a part of this demoralized society, had its own skeletons. 
 One could hardly expect anything else. 
 
 But Fred Conrad was to have his fiery ordeal. 
 
 His aloofness from all matters pertaining to the personal 
 side of his associates had its penalty; it made him poor com- 
 pany. The other organizers came to realize that a trip with 
 Conrad as a working partner was a one-sided affair — it was 
 all work and no play. Of course they knew that Conrad 
 was " safe." He was not a man to gossip or backbite; he 
 was not a telltale. They could go their way without the 
 slightest interference — and they did. 
 
 But this had its unpleasant and even embarrassing fea- 
 tures. One of these was the matter of expense. Fred Con- 
 rad's expense bills were bone dry, and these men, while they 
 were strictly honest in money matters, yet had certain unwrit- 
 ten privileges in the matter of expenditures which they made 
 good use of. Many a little present which a labor man 
 bought for a " lady friend," the expense of many an outing, 
 was charged up to the Federation under the heading of " in- 
 cidental expenses," which a knowing auditor O. K.'d with- 
 out question. In Fred Conrad's company it was extremely 
 
204 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 embarrassing to ring in such blind expenses into one's ex- 
 pense bill; and when one had to pay for one's diversion out 
 of one's own pocket the fun was spoiled. . . . 
 
 This " one-sidedness " of Fred Conrad did not escape Jim 
 Morgan — such things never escaped the Federation's vice- 
 president. He was there to have teamwork in the labor 
 movement and his keen eye soon detected the slightest hitch. 
 Fred Conrad's want of sociability worried Morgan. But 
 Mark Gelder looked upon Fred's " one-sidedness " as a 
 teacher looks upon the poor deportment of a brilliant pupil — 
 he overlooked it. Conrad, to use a current phrase, always 
 came back with the goods. Every one of his trips brought 
 results. The Federation needed just that sort of man. 
 There were many who could carry out orders, but Fred Con- 
 rad threw light upon everything he came in contact with. 
 So he was left undisturbed. 
 
 Just then the president of the Federation had Fred in mind 
 for a special job. He was holding his plan in abeyance be- 
 cause he was looking for an organizer who would be a good 
 working mate for Conrad on this mission. He did not see 
 such a man among his own staff of organizers and had to 
 go outside for him. He found the man in Bill Triggs, the 
 vice-president of the Transport Workers' Union. 
 
 Conrad and Triggs were to go down to Chicago to find 
 out what effect the new immigration from Slavic Europe and 
 Hungary was having upon union labor. Gelder supplied 
 them with a few details; the rest they were to find out for 
 themselves. 
 
 Late that evening Bill Triggs, in the barroom of the Kai- 
 serhof, was telling Al Ryan, a lifelong friend of his, and 
 one of the organizers of the Federation, of the proposed trip 
 to Chicago and how pleased he was with it. He wanted to 
 see that city again; had not been there in two years. Ryan 
 
THE WIDOW 205 
 
 shared his friend's enthusiasm for the Windy City and 
 thought the job splendid. There was no definite task to 
 achieve, no strike to guide through, no victory to fight for. 
 It was a mere scouting proposition, a regular visit to the old 
 town, one might call it. When Bill Triggs mentioned his 
 working partner, however, Ryan's enthusiasm took an un- 
 mistakable drop. 
 
 " What's the trouble, Al? " Triggs asked. 
 
 " Nothing. Only I don't like that man Conrad." 
 
 Triggs was greatly surprised; Gelder had spoken highly 
 of Fred. 
 
 "He is a good enough organizer," Al Ryan explained. 
 " But a trip with him is like a funeral ; he is stricter than a 
 nun." 
 
 " Oh," Triggs said with a significant gleam in his slightly 
 bleared eyes. He had been drinking steadily all evening. 
 
 " Well," he added after a pause, " if that's the kind of 
 man Conrad is, then I think I shall like the job all the more. 
 I like to break them in. . . ." 
 
 Al Ryan ignored the ripple in his friend's voice and coun- 
 seled earnestly. 
 
 " I would leave him alone if I were you. Bill," he said. 
 " Fred Conrad is a queer sort. I guess it runs in the fam- 
 ily. His father, too, is queer — one of those eccentric Dutch- 
 men." 
 
 " There you go again with your prejudice against the Ger- 
 mans," Triggs bantered him. " I tell you, Al, they are all 
 right. I know some mighty good fellows among them — 
 and the girls are better still." 
 
 He laughed aloud at his own joke, but Ryan was in no 
 mood for hilarity. He had been out with Fred Conrad on 
 business trips a number of times and had had his " disagree- 
 able " experiences with him. Ryan was one of the men 
 
2o6 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 with whom Conrad especially avoided going into other than 
 business relations. 
 
 It was nearly midnight and Al reminded his friend that 
 if he meant to take that nine o'clock train for Chicago the 
 next morning it was time for him to turn in. The friends 
 parted, Al Ryan starting for home while Bill Triggs climbed 
 two flights of stairs to his room. 
 
 The vice-president of the Transport Workers was a man 
 in the forties. He was well built and, in spite of his heavy 
 drinking, was robust. His job agreed with him. The ex- 
 citement of his life, the change from place to place, the fre- 
 quent being in the limelight, kept him young. He was mar- 
 ried and had two children of whom he was very fond. He 
 was nice to his wife, and his children did not want for any- 
 thing. But in the matter of morals Bill Triggs had fol- 
 lowed his own inclinations. He had thrown all restraint to 
 the wind. 
 
 At first he had had his qualms. In time, however, his 
 brooding had crystallized into a philosophy. He had talked 
 to people, read a few books, had gone to hear radical speak- 
 ers, and gradually his feeling of guilt disappeared and in 
 its place came a feeling of justification. He did not believe 
 in God, not in a personal God that looked after your actions 
 and wrote them down in a big ledger. In the books he had 
 read it was explicitly and rather convincingly shown that 
 most of the institutions we are taught to regard as sacred and 
 God-given are in reality the handiwork of man. Most of 
 the rules of conduct were laid down by men in past genera- 
 tions, and other men — stronger men — of to-day were often 
 disregarding these rules and following their own choices and 
 dictates. Such men were a law unto themselves. And the 
 more he thought about it, the more he felt convinced that 
 these men were right. There was little in life outside the 
 
THE WIDOW 207 
 
 pleasures one could derive from it, and he yielded himself to 
 the pleasures of life. His unbounded energy and almost boy- 
 ish restlessness made him many friends. He was welcome 
 everywhere. 
 
 They had put in a week's work in Chicago. Fred Conrad 
 had traced the beast to his lair, as he told Triggs. He had 
 spent days and nights studying the immigrant laborers at 
 their homes, in the little colonies which surrounded the plant 
 of the Pan-American Steel Company. He watched them 
 going to and coming from work. He mingled with them in 
 the saloons at lunch time. He learned what their pay was 
 and what their hours were. He was satisfied that he had 
 the problem these unskilled laborers represented reduced to 
 exact dimensions. His mind was made up as to the proper 
 attitude the Federation should take toward these workers. 
 His mission in Chicago was accomplished; their work was 
 practically finished. Triggs, too, had had all the time he 
 needed to fill his part of the bill. They would start for 
 Washington within a day or two. 
 
 There was an evening ahead of them, a warm September 
 evening, and their calendar was blank. Triggs mulled over 
 this fact as he sat in the hotel lobby sniffing contemptuously 
 the stuffy atmosphere of the room. Fred was sitting in a 
 large leather chair reading an evening paper and seemingly 
 was quite comfortable and indifferent. As he observed his 
 road partner, a feeling of envy stole over Triggs. It must 
 be good, he mused, to be of a disposition like Conrad's, to 
 be calm and at rest on such a warm September evening; not 
 to want any compensation in the way of pleasure and excite- 
 ment for the eight days of hard work they had put in. 
 
 Bill Triggs had been thinking all day long about the 
 evening. He knew two or three places where he would be 
 welcome. If Fred Conrad were not such a poor specimen of 
 
2o8 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 a sport, there was no end of fun they could have. Of 
 course, he could leave Conrad and go by himself. But it 
 hurt his pride to slink away from the hotel. It looked cheap 
 and the next morning he would feel as if he owed Conrad an 
 apology. . . . Triggs grew morose and fidgety. Fred no- 
 ticed this and laid aside the paper. 
 
 He looked like any one of a thousand men Triggs had 
 known. There were men who had just as austere an appear- 
 ance as Fred, but who, upon occasion, could outdo the devil. 
 Triggs wondered what Conrad would do if placed in cer- 
 tain circumstances. Still water runs deep, he mused. He 
 had never talked religion to Fred, but he had heard that 
 Conrad was " no fool " in such matters. He certainly must 
 realize, Triggs mused, that life is not going to pay him in 
 different coin than it was paying others. . . . Triggs' in- 
 stinct for mischief was rising within him. It was fortifying 
 itself with seeming reason. Should he risk taking Conrad 
 along with him ? He would ; he'd take a chance. . . . 
 
 He suggested that they take a trolley ride and get out into 
 the open. Fred agreed. They started northward and were 
 soon speeding through the heart of an Italian district. Con- 
 rad watched the crowds of foreign-looking men and women 
 who lined the sidewalks, observing, thinking. Every few 
 minutes the conductor sounded the gong and a flock of little 
 children, who were playing in the street, scampered in every 
 direction for safety. Triggs, in turn, was studying his part- 
 ner closely and with a gleam of satisfaction. What a laugh 
 he would have at Al Ryan and the others who looked upon 
 Conrad as a little tin god. The fools ! 
 
 At a transfer point Triggs stepped into a drug store to 
 telephone. After a short ride on the second car they got out. 
 They strolled along for several blocks. The residential at- 
 mosphere of the streets, as distinguished from the slums 
 
THE WIDOW 209 
 
 through which they had passed, was pleasing. The middle- 
 class homes, with the well-cared for lawns, looked decidedly 
 attractive. 
 
 Triggs, apparently by accident, discovered that they were 
 but a short distance from where some friends of his lived. 
 They were in plenty of time for a visit. Would Fred care to 
 accompany him? Fred had no reason to cherish suspicions 
 and agreed to everything Triggs proposed. They turned 
 into a side street and stepped upon the porch of a neat two- 
 story brick building. Triggs rang the bell. 
 
 A matron in the forties opened the door for them. She 
 greeted Triggs cordially and like an old friend. It was good 
 to hear his voice again, she said. Triggs introduced Conrad 
 and Mrs. Myers — that was the woman's name — assured 
 him that he was welcome. She led the way into the parlor 
 and after pointing out a comfortable seat for Conrad, she pro- 
 ceeded to question Triggs about friends in New York, Wash- 
 ington, Philadelphia. She apologized to Conrad for neg- 
 lecting him; he must excuse her, the desire to hear from 
 Triggs about mutual friends in various parts of the country 
 was interfering with her duties as hostess, but she wouldn't 
 be long. 
 
 Mrs. Myers stepped into the next room and Fred heard her 
 telephone to a friend of hers, a Mrs. Stengel. She re- 
 appeared with two bottles of beer, a tray and glasses. As she 
 was bringing the tray toward him, Conrad observed her 
 closely. She had a remarkably fair face. Her complexion 
 was clear; her features, while showing unmistakable strength 
 of outline, glowed with seeming refinement and gentleness. 
 She was magnificently built. She was not forward, but there 
 was a natural voluptuousness about her full white neck, her 
 well-rounded bust and ample hips. Her carriage and mam 
 ners were those of an aristocrat. She seemed decidedly a 
 
210 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 woman of leisure. She did not look like the wife of a work- 
 ingraan, not even of a labor leader. She looked too much 
 petted, too well taken care of, too perfectly preserved for that. 
 The house was furnished after the fashion of wealth. The 
 furniture, drapery, curtains, bric-a-brac — all were expen- 
 sive and out of the workingman's reach. Fred wondered who 
 the woman might be, what relation she was to Triggs. She 
 had spoken so familiarly about some of the best-known labor 
 leaders in the country, mentioning them by their first names. 
 
 There was a ring at the door and Mrs. Stengel was ushered 
 in. She was a brunette — that was the first thing one noticed 
 about her. Her hair, the kind German poets delight in de- 
 scribing as raven black, was parted in the middle and gave 
 her an appearance of child-like innocence and purity. Fred 
 had once had a school-teacher who looked like this woman and 
 he had been very fond of her. She was German, the daugh- 
 ter of a pioneer, a 'forty-eighter, and she was kind to the chil- 
 dren, especially the children of aliens. Instinctively Fred 
 was well disposed toward this Mrs. Stengel and upon being 
 introduced to her, shook her hand warmly. It was a pleas- 
 ant memory of his childhood that the sight of her had con- 
 jured up. 
 
 Mrs. Myers left Mrs. Stengel to entertain the men while 
 she went into the dining-room to improvise a little lunch for 
 them. She still stuck to the good old German custom, she 
 explained, and with her entertainment always began with 
 eating. But Conrad soon discovered that the eating was in- 
 significant beside the drinking. Bill Triggs was gulping 
 down glass after glass of a French wine. Mrs. Myers and 
 even the demure Mrs. Stengel, it seemed to him, were drink- 
 ing far beyond the proper limit for a woman to drink. 
 
 Fred drank moderately on all occasions. Here he drank 
 even less than usual. He felt apologetic for participating 
 
THE WIDOW 211 
 
 in the little celebration at all. He did not know the people. 
 They were friends of Triggs, but that did not justify his mak- 
 ing himself at home there as if they were his friends. 
 
 Triggs gulped down a large glass of wine, and Fred ob- 
 served his bulging eyes with alarm. He sought to convey to 
 his friend a warning to stop drinking, or he would have to be 
 taken to the hotel in a cab, and that would be disgraceful in 
 company. 
 
 The next instant, however, Triggs' arms closed about Mrs. 
 Myers' neck and he kissed her repeatedly on the mouth. Mrs. 
 Myers tried to free herself from his embrace, but not too 
 energetically. She feigned embarrassment and scolded him, 
 but there was something in her words and actions that belied 
 her embarrassment and her displeasure. Mrs. Stengel 
 clapped her hands and, laughing heartily, turned a look full 
 of significance upon Fred. In a subtle and seemingly unin- 
 tentional manner she swung about so that her side rested 
 against Fred's arm, against his chest. 
 
 The relations between Triggs and Mrs. Myers flashed upon 
 Fred Conrad, but he still could not bring himself to desig- 
 nate the woman and the place by their proper names. It 
 seemed unthinkable that they were — that he was in a house 
 
 — it must be something else — What? 
 
 Had Fred Conrad been less self centered and less indiffer- 
 ent to the stories that were floating around in labor circles — 
 stories of good times in Pittsburgh and of larks in Chicago 
 
 — the personality of Mrs. Myers, her home and her friends, 
 would have been no mystery to him. Mrs. Myers was known 
 in the labor movement widely, though exclusively, as " the 
 widow." An introduction to " the widow " even after one 
 knew of her character was not easily obtained. She was not 
 of the common herd. Only select men enjoyed her favor. 
 
 Mrs. Myers was the widow of Bert Myers, who in his day 
 
212 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 was a noted labor leader in Chicago. Before her marriage, 
 she was an actress attached to a German stock company. 
 When Bert Myers married her he saw at once the need of 
 extending his income — if he was to keep his wife — and he 
 extended it. After Bert Myers' death — he was shot in a 
 brawl — there were stories in the newspapers about graft he 
 collected from employers — blackmail and the like. How- 
 ever, as he was dead, that was the end of things. 
 
 The union gave Bert Myers a splendid funeral. A neat 
 sum of money was voted to his widow, and Charlie Fry, a 
 lifelong friend of Bert's, headed the committee which took the 
 money and condolences up to Mrs. Myers. The Myers had 
 had no children and that was something to be thankful for, 
 under the circumstances. Thereafter Fry was a frequent 
 visitor at the Myers home. 
 
 One evening, a month after her husband's death, Fry found 
 Mrs. Myers at her home, in low spirits. It was raining and 
 the gloom of the elements readily communicated itself to the 
 human mind. Fry was explaining these things to Mrs. Myers 
 and was urging her to cease worrying. It was imperative 
 that she cease wearing herself out. It would ruin her health. 
 And health was just exactly what she needed. God knows 
 she did, if she were to take care of herself — a woman alone 
 in the world. . . . 
 
 At the last words, spoken by Fry in great sorrow, Mrs. 
 Myers could not keep back her emotion. She wept. Fry 
 comforted her, and in that way the greater part of the evening 
 passed. It was nearly midnight when Fry rose to go. Mrs. 
 Myers went with him to the window. The rain was beating 
 savagely against the porch and glass panes. The warmth 
 of the house felt good. She shuddered lightly; there was just 
 the least coyness in her shuddering; she was irresistible. Fry 
 clasped her in his arms. Her head drooped upon his breast 
 
THE WIDOW 213 
 
 like that of a tired child. The rain did not let up and Mrs. 
 Myers was convinced that it would be a shame to let a man 
 go out so late at night in such a rain, especially when there 
 was a spare bedroom in the house which he could have just 
 as well as not. . . . 
 
 That was the beginning of Mrs. Myers' fame in the labor 
 movement. Her circle of friends grew with years, but it grew 
 discreetly. Her friends were as cautious about her reputation 
 as she was herself. The little parties which were held at her 
 home several times a week never deviated from the outward 
 signs of respectability. Mrs. Myers had cultivated a number 
 of pleasant, discreet young women like Mrs. Stengel, divorcees 
 and widows, whom she invited from time to time to make these 
 parties a success. 
 
 All of these things Fred Conrad might have known. How- 
 ever, once the curtain of respectability was drawn aside, the 
 nature of the place had become clear to him, and his immed- 
 iate concern was how to get away. He could think of nothing 
 else. His disgust, shock and disappointment were quickly 
 subordinated to the thought of getting away. He no longer 
 heard what they were saying. He was alarmed and ashamed. 
 
 They had moved into the parlor. Mrs. Stengel, embold- 
 ened by drink, was casting challenging glances at Conrad. 
 She could not quite make out the man. She had been far 
 more forward with him than she had ever been with any one 
 else. Yet he stood there and seemingly failed to understand 
 her suggestive remarks and veiled invitation. She gazed at 
 him perplexed, puzzled. She did not know what to do, how 
 to treat him. 
 
 Mrs. Stengel's boldness revolted Conrad. He was furious. 
 He had conjured up the pure and lovely image of his teacher, 
 only to compare it with a lewd, wanton woman. He choked 
 with rage. He would have liked to get his fingers at Bill 
 
214 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 Triggs' throat. He would have liked to tell Triggs what he 
 thought of him. As for the women — If he hadn't been a 
 guest at their house and eaten and drunk at their table he 
 would have insulted them. He did not feel justified in doing 
 so now. They had not invited him and they had been nice to 
 him, according to their understanding, to their ways. . . . 
 He was angry clear through. Outwardly, however, his sti- 
 fling resentment manifested itself merely in embarrassment. 
 Mrs. Stengel interpreted his embarrassment in her own way 
 and whispered a suggestion that they go home. 
 
 " Yes," he nodded. He meant to explain to her that he 
 did not have in mind the things she had, but he could not 
 speak. Mrs. Stengel was doing the talking now. She was 
 taking leave of Mrs. Myers and of Triggs. Mrs. Myers 
 shook hands warmly with Fred and Bill Triggs slapped him 
 on the back confidentially. Both he and Mrs. Myers were 
 too drunk to read aright the expression on Fred's face. 
 
 It was one of Mrs. Myers' unbreakable rules to keep regu- 
 lar hours. No matter how little she slept the night before, 
 she had to be up in time the next morning, just like every 
 other woman in the neighborhood. It was this fact of her 
 keeping strictly to the standard of middle-class conventions 
 that enhanced her value with her admirers. At Mrs. Myers' 
 house one was always safe from scandal and from any un- 
 pleasant occurrence. It was strictly a " home " and she was 
 strictly a " home woman." 
 
 Accordingly at eight o'clock the following morning, only a 
 short time after Bill Triggs had left the house to take a car to 
 the hotel, Mrs. Myers was busy in front of her range getting 
 her breakfast, when there was a ring at the door. It was 
 " Crazy Emma," as she affectionately called Mrs. Stengel. 
 Mrs. Myers was curious and a bit perturbed. What was 
 
THE WIDOW 215 
 
 Emma doing there at such an ungodly hour ! As usual, how- 
 ever, her calm exterior did not betray her ruffled mind. 
 
 Mrs. Stengel raged like a tornado. It was not the first 
 Jittle party she had attended at Mrs. Myers' home, but never, 
 never had she drawn such a " dead one " as she had in that 
 man Conrad. Why, she could not sleep all night. He had 
 insulted her, frightfully. Imagine, he had been sitting there 
 all evening, gaping like an idiot, until, exasperated, she took 
 the initiative and suggested that they go home. It was hard 
 to be so forward, but she thanked her stars when it was over. 
 They had started for home. He walked with her to the end 
 of the block, bade her good-night — and walked away! 
 The—! 
 
 In spite of all caution and training by Mrs. Myers, Mrs. 
 Stengel gave way to a paroxysm of profanity. Mrs. Myers 
 listened to it at first smilingly; she relished a good bit of 
 temper now and then. But when Mrs. Stengel threatened 
 to become too noisy she warned her to calm herself; it 
 wouldn't do to lose all caution. Mrs. Myers took down a 
 fresh jar of jam from a shelf in the pantry and Mrs. Stengel 
 at once became interested. Jam was her weak point. . . . 
 
 Mrs. Myers, in the meantime, called the hotel and got 
 Triggs on the wire. She gave him a version of Mrs. Stengel's 
 story. There was no anger in her voice — she never lost her 
 poise over the telephone or elsewhere — but it was serious, so 
 serious in fact that Bill Triggs cut the conversation short and 
 started back to her house in hot haste. He wanted to get 
 every detail of the happenings of the preceding night in per- 
 son. 
 
 When Fred Conrad came down to the hotel lobby in the 
 morning he failed to find Triggs and waited for him. His 
 anger had subsided. He had made up his mind to treat the 
 whole matter lightly. He was not going to reproach his part- 
 
2i6 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 ner for the unpleasant situation in which he had placed him; 
 he would treat it as a joke. That was the best way out of it. 
 He could not afford to quarrel with Triggs, to make an enemy 
 of him. But Triggs was nowhere to be seen. Fred went to 
 breakfast by himself and lingered at the table longer than 
 usual, thinking that perhaps Triggs would come in any mo- 
 ment. He returned to the lobby of the hotel and sat around 
 until nearly eleven o'clock, when the vice-president of the 
 Transport Workers came in. 
 
 L Triggs' voice was dry and metallic. He made not the 
 slightest allusion to the night before and plunged right into 
 business. There was nothing more for them to do. Their 
 investigations were closed. Triggs communicated some of the 
 information he had obtained the day before to Conrad. 
 There was an object in this : he was not going back to Wash- 
 ington with Fred. He had a little matter in St. Louis to at- 
 tend to and would take a night train for that city. Fred could 
 make the report to the Federation by himself. 
 
 Conrad was a bit awed by the turn affairs had taken. 
 There was blood in Triggs' eyes — there was no mistaking it. 
 By noon their business was wound up. Triggs went out. 
 Fred went to his room and packed his grip. He took the first 
 train out of the city. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE HAND OF BILL TRIGGS 
 
 THREE days after the episode at the widow's house, as 
 Fred Conrad opened his morning paper, Triggs' pic- 
 ture was staring him in the face. It was on the front page. 
 The accompanying story told of the appointment of Wil- 
 liam Hawley Triggs, the noted labor leader, to a high post 
 in the National Citizens' Alliance. Triggs was to head the 
 newly founded " Division of Labor and Industry " of that 
 organization. The record of the man as a labor leader and 
 a citizen followed at some length and was couched in glow- 
 ing terms. Triggs' character was described as lofty and 
 high-minded, his reputation unblemished. 
 
 A smile which played about Fred Conrad's mouth as he 
 read these lines vanished. The matter was not to be 
 disposed of lightly. It was of great consequence to him. 
 The National Citizens' Alliance was an organization that was 
 much in the limelight and was variously viewed in the labor 
 movement. The Alliance was financed by the leading manu- 
 facturers of the country, and had the word " reform " for its 
 slogan. According to its spokesmen, the mission of the Citi- 
 zens' Alliance was to end all industrial strife and abolish class 
 bitterness in America. Leaders of labor and representatives 
 of capital were urged to " get together " at conferences, lunch- 
 eons, dinners which the Alliance was arranging. They were 
 to talk over at these " get together " dinners their common 
 problems and differences and to realize that there was a 
 
 217 
 
2i8 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 " community of interest " between employers and employees. 
 Such a realization, the Alliance believed, would tend to abol- 
 ish strikes and to further the peaceful settlement of all diffi- 
 culties between labor and capital. 
 
 The radical element in the labor movement looked upon 
 the Citizens' Alliance and its millionaire backers with mis- 
 trust. Its confabs between labor leaders and capitalists 
 were jeered at as " pink tea " affairs intended to dazzle 
 certain trade unionists. The motive of the Alliance, the radi- 
 cals declared, was to gain a dominating influence in the Labor 
 Federation by turning the heads of a handful of its leaders. 
 The socialists especially were vehement in their denuncia- 
 tion of the Alliance. They called upon the trade unions to 
 be wary of the " gift-bearing Greeks." Back of these " so- 
 ciety " dinners and entertainments, they warned, was the sin- 
 ister design to devitalize the class solidarity of the workers 
 and thereby draw the fangs from the trade union movement. 
 
 Fred Conrad had his strong misgivings about the Citizens* 
 Alliance, but would not accept the socialist view of it hastily. 
 The entry of Bill Triggs into the Alliance's highest councils, 
 however, removed all doubt. The fact that Triggs was for the 
 Alliance automatically put Fred Conrad against it. He and 
 Triggs were at the opposite ends of the pole in their attitude 
 toward the labor movement. Triggs looked upon the move- 
 ment as a vehicle for his personal ambitions. It was some- 
 thing that was to serve him first and foremost. Triggs' 
 entry into the councils of the Citizens' Alliance meant that 
 in a short time he would dominate the labor movement of the 
 country. Mark Gelder and the rest would be pawns in 
 his hands. . . . 
 
 Fred recalled the evening at Mrs. Myers' home, the re- 
 pellent appearance of Bill Triggs as he was drunkenly kiss- 
 ing the woman. He recalled Triggs' face the next morning 
 
THE HAND OF BILL TRIGGS 219 
 
 when they met at the hotel. Triggs' eyes had blazed with 
 suppressed anger. There was murder in them. As an enemy 
 Bill Triggs was known to be relentless, deadly. . . . Triggs 
 was his enemy, and he was in power now. There was trouble 
 ahead and plenty of it. . . . Fred had a feeling of a storm 
 slowly gathering. . . . However, he would preserve his calm. 
 . . . He would wait and see. . . . 
 
 Within a week of the appointment of Bill Triggs to the 
 Citizens' Alliance, two labor leaders, who had for years been 
 prominent in the Federation, received political appointments. 
 One of the men was made the head of a newly created bureau 
 of labor for the State of New York. The other received a 
 similar appointment with the Federal Government. It was 
 common talk about the offices of the Federation that both men 
 received their appointments at the suggestion of the Citizens' 
 Alliance. The effect of this was electrifying. 
 
 All sorts of extravagant rumors with regard to further 
 appointments of labor leaders were afloat. With the same 
 disgust with which Conrad in the past had often seen certain 
 of his colleagues groom and primp for " dates " with women, 
 he now watched them groom and primp for possible political 
 jobs. Just as in the past these men had cultivated their looks, 
 so now they were attempting to cultivate manners. Their 
 speech frequently was affected. A grammar made its ap- 
 pearance on the desk of one of these labor men ; another spent 
 days and days trying to make his signature look more busi- 
 nesslike, the letters in his name stubbornly refusing to be 
 joined together. On another occasion Conrad found the 
 vice-president of the teamsters' union, Timothy McGraw, ab- 
 sorbed in a little book entitled " Manners of Polite Society." 
 The veneer of idealism with which these men from time to 
 time shielded themselves was discarded. They were in the 
 labor movement for selfish, grasping reasons. And now they 
 
220 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 were using the movement to climb to still better and softer 
 jobs. They were more and more guarded in their speech 
 about employers and about men of wealth generally, as if 
 fearing that an occasion might arise when their words would 
 be taken against them. Bill Triggs had become the inspira- 
 tion of these men. They swore by him, and shielded the 
 Citizens' Alliance from all attacks and criticism. 
 
 The attacks on the Citizens' Alliance and the criticism of 
 the labor men who were participating in its councils were 
 gaining, however, in frequency and in vituperation. The 
 radical element in the labor movement, headed by tlie socialis- 
 tic Voice of Labor, was pouring vitriolic abuse upon " Mark 
 Gelder, Bill Triggs and Company " for " hobnobbing with 
 the plutocratic Citizens' Alliance." 
 
 " The Citizens' Alliance would make you believe," the 
 Voice of Labor jeered editorially, " that it is trying to usher 
 in the day when the lion and the lamb will lie down together. 
 Blind leaders of Labor, beware of the mockery of future 
 generations! The Citizens' Alliance is a wolf in a sheep's 
 skin. It is here not to propagate the golden rule but to de- 
 stroy the labor movement, to slay it from within. . . . 
 
 " They fought the union movement when they thought they 
 could crush it in a fight. Now that organized labor is too 
 strong to be crushed in open battle, they have changed their 
 tactics. Instead of strangling you with a rope they are trying 
 to smother you with kisses. Mark Gelder, Bill Triggs and 
 Company, before you sit down to the next dinner with the mil- 
 lionaire members of the Citizens' Alliance just go over in your 
 minds the Alliance's recent activities in the labor movement. 
 Take stock of these activities and see what they amount to. 
 Has not the Citizens' Alliance weakened every strike it has 
 put its finger in? Has it not emasculated every victory of 
 the union? Has it not weakened the labor movement by 
 
THE HAND OF BILL TRIGGS 221 
 
 diluting the class consciousness of the working people with 
 such phrases as * the community of interests between capital 
 and labor ' ? 
 
 "Who supports the National Citizens' Alliance? No 
 secret is made of it. It is an organization financed by em- 
 ployers — the very employers who have been the bitterest 
 enemies of labor in the past, who resort to spies and thugs 
 and are introducing the dreaded Pinkertons into our ranks to 
 intimidate and imprison labor leaders, and to break the labor 
 movement. When these men come and tell you they have 
 experienced a change of heart toward the trade union move- 
 ment, why don't you ask them whether they have discharged 
 their detectives, whether they have fired a single spy ? They 
 have not — and you know it. These employers are as brutal 
 as ever. They eat with you, they flatter you because it pays 
 them. 
 
 " The labor leaders who feast at the tables of the Citizens' 
 Alliance are either fools or crooks. Either they are deliber- 
 ately hoodwinked or else they crawl to the Citizens' Alliance 
 because they see the prospect of a fat political job in it. The 
 labor movement sooner or later will see through the folly or 
 the crookedness of these, its false leaders, and then will come 
 a bitter day of reckoning." 
 
 Mark Gelder, as President of the General Labor Federa- 
 tion, could not ignore the attack of the socialists. He did 
 not defend the Citizens' Alliance, but he defended his position 
 and the position of his colleagues toward it. He never at- 
 tempted to deny that the Citizens' Alliance was financed by 
 capitalists, by employers. He did not care how it was 
 financed, by whom. He, Mark Gelder, was ready at any time 
 to answer questions concerning labor to all comers. If the 
 capitalists of the country wished to know about the aims of 
 the labor movement he was willing to enlighten them. Yes, 
 
222 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 he was willing to go among these capitalists, as a missionary 
 goes among the heathen, to bring the words of truth and jus- 
 tice to them ! 
 
 The Federation was now definitely divided on the issue 
 of the Citizens' Alliance. The younger radical element was 
 arrayed against it. The older and conservative unionists 
 passively followed their leaders. Fred Conrad decided to 
 take no part in these wranglings. He would stand aside. He 
 had work to do. It was a relief to be busy, to have to take 
 orders and not to bother with the raising of issues and the 
 framing of policies. 
 
 He was not quite sure that this shrinking attitude of his 
 was entirely right. It certainly was not heroic. It might 
 even be construed as selfish. He was becoming critical of 
 himself. Where did he stand? The foreign speech, man- 
 nerisms, of the socialists he had known in his father's house, 
 had roused in him an antipathy toward the advocates and 
 spokesmen of socialism. But in this case he shared their 
 viewpoint. He saw through the Citizens' Alliance; he de- 
 tested it. What should he do? He knew what his father 
 would have done in his place. He could see his father stand 
 up single-handed and carry on a struggle against the Citizens' 
 Alliance, against Mark Gelder and the rest, from the plat- 
 form and through the columns of the Voice of Labor. 
 
 Fred could not picture himself doing these things. He 
 knew it would be futile. Were he to start a campaign against 
 the Alliance, against Mark Gelder and Bill Triggs, his cam- 
 paign would come to nothing. He could see the results shape 
 themselves logically, clearly. Of course, his father's struggle, 
 too, would have been futile. But while his father could 
 readily and ardently undertake a futile struggle and not see 
 its hopelessness, not believe in defeat, he could not. It 
 seemed to him, at times, that in this respect he was older 
 
THE HAND OF BILL TRIGGS 223 
 
 than his father. His blood ran cooler. He was harder to 
 thrill. His mind was disenchanted. 
 
 That came from his mother, Fred mused — the fear of 
 being unpractical, the fear of losing out, or going against 
 the stream. From Mother, yes, and a little from Uncle 
 Gardner. Old Man Gardner was so cautious, so hard- 
 headed. He always took a tolerant but a condescending 
 view of his father and Gottfried's Don Quixotic dreams, as 
 Gardner phrased it. Yes, he had been a shrewd, calculating 
 Yankee — Uncle Gardner. 
 
 And when he was impotent to defend himself against his 
 self-criticism, Fred would brood over his fate which had not 
 brought him into the world with nerves like his father's, with 
 blood like his father's. He could see injustice as quickly as 
 his father; he resented it as sharply, but he could not pounce 
 upon it as readily and recklessly as the old man would. He 
 was too much of a calculating American. That and his 
 mother. . . . Blood would tell. She was always so timid — 
 crushed all her life long. 
 
 At such times of introspection and self-criticism, he felt 
 painfully the want of friends, men friends. It was hard to 
 be alone with one's thoughts always. He had kept Elsie in 
 ignorance of many, perhaps too many, of his difficulties. His 
 sense of delicacy and refinement prevented him from telling 
 her about the coarser side of some of his colleagues. It was 
 sufficient that he had to know it, had to put up with it. 
 She should be spared even the suspicion of these things. . . . 
 
 One day Conrad made a discovery that at first he tried to 
 make light of, but which upon closer investigation alarmed 
 him. It seemed to him that certain persons about the offices 
 of the Federation were shunning him. When he talked to 
 them they showed impatience. He thought perhaps his brood- 
 ing had put him in a disagreeable mood and that his own 
 
224 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 harshness reflected itself in the conduct of others toward him. 
 He assumed a friendlier attitude and sought to mingle more 
 with the people about him. The shock was even greater. 
 His attempt to be pleasant was resented. It seemed to him 
 that every one was eager to be rid of him. One or two looked 
 upon him as if he were an intruder, a person not to be trusted. 
 Some passed him on the street without recognizing him. The 
 whole thing had the earmarks of gossip. Some one had slan- 
 dered, calumniated him. Who? What had he done? What 
 could they say about him ? 
 
 He had a brief furlough and went to New York to spend 
 it with his family. Home and family always set him right. 
 After a few days he felt his poise returning. The happenings 
 at the Federation headquarters did not seem so serious at a 
 distance. He had a pretty good notion whence these libels 
 against him emanated. The invisible hand that was strik- 
 ing at him was curiously like the hand of Bill Triggs. It was 
 Bill Triggs' policy to belie and libel every man he feared. 
 He did it in a roundabout way — always the same way. Fred 
 Conrad had no difficulty in recognizing it. Bill Triggs had 
 not forgotten the incident at the widow's; that was plain. 
 And he was trying to disarm him, trying to make him harm- 
 less, in case he talked. 
 
 This tracing of the gossip about him to its lair had a 
 quieting effect upon Conrad. After all, Mark Gelder was 
 the head of the Federation, not Bill Triggs. He would go 
 back to his job with his accustomed energy and he would let 
 the results of his work speak for him. As far as he was 
 concerned, the incident at the widow's home was dead and 
 buried. He would never mention it; he had never thought of 
 mentioning it. Triggs might even get to see this and cease 
 campaigning against him. 
 
 It was false security Fred Conrad had lulled himself into. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 PRISON 
 
 AT the outset of his career in the Citizens' Alliance it 
 was made clear to Bill Triggs that his work and the 
 aims of the Alliance could be furthered most effectively if 
 he kept alive his friendships in the labor movement. Friend- 
 ship was the keynote. He was not only to keep his old 
 friends, but to cultivate new ones. That way lay success for 
 him and for the Alliance's plans and undertakings. 
 
 The doors of Bill Triggs' imposing and spacious office, in 
 consequence, stood open to all comers. The friends who 
 came to visit him were impressed by the office, impressed by 
 the importance of his job, and impressed still more by his 
 democracy. Success seemingly made no change in him. He 
 was the same old Bill. Every such visitor sent another. 
 The ex-vice-president of the Transport Workers was a capi- 
 tal fellow. His new job but served to show up his sterling 
 qualities. Triggs was a stanch friend of the labor movement 
 generally and of every labor man individually. He was 
 worth calling upon — and he could do a man a favor. He 
 had influence ; he walked with the great. . . . 
 
 One day Al Ryan dropped in on him. Al had come from 
 Washington on a little confidential mission for Mark Gelder. 
 Ryan's stock as an organizer was rapidly going up and Triggs 
 was glad to hear that : he was always glad to see a " friend " 
 rise. He closed his desk and they went out to have a drink 
 and to lunch. 
 
 They talked over many things as they ate. Al Ryan was 
 
 225 
 
226 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 full of news about men in the forefront of the labor world. 
 Fred Conrad's name came up. Ryan had not changed his 
 opinion about the man ; he had no use for Conrad. 
 
 " He does act queer at times/' Triggs agreed. " I have 
 been wondering why Mark Gelder does not drop him. He 
 has not the temperament for an organizer. Didn't you say 
 that his father was an eccentric old German? '* 
 
 What Ryan knew about Fred Conrad's father was mostly 
 hearsay. He did not know Gottfried Conrad personally, but 
 he had heard that he was one of the pioneers in the German 
 colony. 
 
 " The old man was quite a celebrity in his young days,'^ 
 Ryan said. V He was one of those German exiles, a revolu- 
 tionist or something on that order. Now he keeps a little 
 bookstore on — " the name of the street escaped him, but the 
 old man could be located easily. Any one of the old-timers 
 in the German colony would know where old man Conrad's 
 little store was. 
 
 Triggs, though he was eager to get more detailed informa- 
 tion about Fred Conrad's father, turned the conversation to 
 something else. He meant to get at Conrad, to destroy not 
 only any influence he might have, but his very usefulness, if 
 possible. However, it was just as well to use caution even 
 among friends. 
 
 His duties as the head of the Division of Labor and Indus- 
 tries had been made exceedingly light for Bill Triggs. The 
 plans of the Department were laid by Walt Kinsley, the 
 secretary-manager of the Citizens' Alliance. Triggs' func- 
 tions were largely advisory. The secretary consulted with 
 him and submitted things to him now and then for an opin- 
 ion, or approval. Triggs, too, was to spend considerable of 
 his time outside the office. He was to accept invitations to 
 all sorts of luncheons and dinners and was to make addresses. 
 
PRISON 227 
 
 The subject of these addresses was to be the growing need of 
 harmony between capital and labor, and how the National 
 Citizens' Alliance was planning and promoting this harmony. 
 These speeches were written out for him by Walt Kinsley 
 and the secretary-manager of the Alliance likewise saw to it 
 that they got into the newspapers. 
 
 One day when his duties were more than usually light, Bill 
 Triggs thought of Fred Conrad's father. He would go down 
 into the German colony and try to locate him. It might be 
 worth while to have a look at the old man. He stopped on 
 Third Avenue in front of a quaint little harness shop. The 
 place had an Old World atmosphere. Triggs imagined that 
 precisely so a harness shop must look in a German town. In 
 such a quaint place, too, a man would probably be found to 
 correspond. He was not mistaken. A white-haired individ- 
 ual who walked with a slight limp from too much sitting 
 came out from the rear room, which was the workshop, and 
 greeted him. The aged German mechanic perceived at once 
 that his visitor was not a customer. Well, of what service 
 could he be to the stranger? 
 
 Triggs explained his mission. He wished to know the 
 whereabouts of a man named Gottfried Conrad, an old-timer 
 in the German colony. Could the harness-maker perhaps 
 help him out? 
 
 Gottfried Conrad? The old German beamed with pleas- 
 ure. Who would not know Gottfried? He gave Triggs 
 specific directions. He was to walk straight ahead to the 
 third corner, turn to the right and walk on the left side of the 
 street. About two thirds down the block Conrad's little book- 
 store was situated. He could not miss it. 
 
 The harness-maker did not look as if he would be averse 
 to a brief chat about old times, and Bill Triggs seemed to 
 possess a fair knowledge of the leather industry. It was a 
 
228 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 nice little shop the old German had, Triggs suggested. There 
 were not many small harness shops left these days. Yet in 
 former years harness-making was quite a trade. Of course, 
 it was still a big industry, only now it was in the hands of the 
 big leather companies and they were forcing the small man to 
 the wall. 
 
 The reference to the injustices of the big leather companies 
 struck a sympathetic chord in the old German. Yes, the big 
 factories were at your throat all the time. They had taken an 
 industry and killed it. The harness they were putting out 
 these days with their advanced machinery could not last half 
 as long as a handmade set. The factories had played havoc 
 with the trade. Of course, the old harness-maker person- 
 ally did not mind their competition much. He had his cus- 
 tomers who would not look at a factory-made harness ; he had 
 his trade. Besides, he did not need much. His children 
 were all grown, married. He could retire any time he wished 
 to. His children were always after him to retire. But he 
 declined. It was not easy to give up a business one had spent 
 a lifetime to build up. He had been in that one place for 
 thirty-five years. When he came there there were vacant lots 
 a-plenty in the neighborhood. His oldest son used to play 
 right there where the gray tenement stood — 
 
 Oh, yes, Gottfried Conrad was the same age as he was. 
 They came over about the same time from the old country. 
 Perhaps Conrad was here a year ahead of him; not much 
 more though. Yes, Conrad had been a very important figure 
 in the colony in his day, mostly among the socialists, of course. 
 ... A good-natured smile spread over the old German's 
 face. In his youth he, too, had been a socialist, but business 
 success had forced him little by little to withdraw from the 
 movement. One could not very well be a business man, deal 
 with business people, and be seen at socialist meetings. But 
 
PRISON 229 
 
 he was not at all averse to the socialists and he could not 
 understand the hostility toward socialism on the part of 
 Americans. He was wondering what his visitor's attitude to- 
 ward the socialists might be. Bill Triggs noticed his inquisi- 
 tive smile and assumed a lofty, benevolent air. If he did not 
 agree with the socialists he was tolerant of them. Every man 
 was entitled to his opinions. He was greatly interested in the 
 old times the harness-maker was speaking of, in the social- 
 ists of those times and in what Gottfried Conrad was then 
 doing. 
 
 It was during the Haymarket Riot in Chicago, the old man 
 narrated warmly, that Gottfried Conrad was at the height of 
 his fame. There was no one that could make a speech like 
 him. He would pick the case against the anarchists to pieces 
 and assail the police and authorities until he had his hearers 
 wild with indignation. Whenever Gottfried spoke, police 
 were massed in the street; the reporters from the big English 
 papers always were present, and there was a column in the 
 paper after every such meeting. 
 
 But Gottfried was no longer what he used to be. Since 
 "his wife's death he had been keeping to himself a good deal. 
 His little store? Well, he was mostly busy evenings. His 
 customers were all working people. They were the freethink- 
 ers, socialists, anarchists, among the old-timers, and they 
 hung out at Gottfried's bookstore nights, talking and dis- 
 cussing things. Yes, Gottfried was a match for them, all 
 right. He was mighty well educated for a workingman. 
 
 Triggs found Gottfried's little store, observed it in passing, 
 came back some minutes later and entered it. He bought a 
 cigar, and while taking the first few puffs, glanced at the 
 walls covered with shelves of old, dusty books. He hastily 
 examined the newspapers and pamphlets that lay spread on 
 a table. They were socialist papers and pamphlets. The 
 
230 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 Voice of Labor was among them. On its front page was an 
 attack on the Citizens' Alliance and his name figured in the 
 headline. Alongside of it lay a stack of anarchist pamphlets. 
 Triggs started for the door without speaking to the old man 
 behind the counter, though he had observed Gottfried care- 
 fully. He thought it best to leave no recollection of himself 
 with Fred Conrad's father. 
 
 He had plenty of time and went over to the library. In 
 the newspaper files covering the period of the anarchist case 
 in Chicago he found a description of a meeting at which the 
 German workers of New York protested against the trial 
 and execution of the Haymarket prisoners. Gottfried figured 
 as one of the chief speakers. A long paragraph was devoted 
 to an especially vehement denunciation by him of the Chicago 
 authorities and of the capitalist class. Triggs copied the 
 paragraph. He found a few more quotations from Gottfried's 
 speeches in subsequent issues and copied them, too, carefully, 
 making note of the date and the publication. He whistled 
 to himself as he left the library. Well, well! What would 
 Mark Gelder say to this? With the socialists attacking him 
 for years and years, attacking him even more fiercely now for 
 his connection with the Citizens' Alliance, he was keeping a 
 socialist — he had no doubt that Fred Conrad was a social- 
 ist at heart — in the councils of the Federation. No, there 
 would be no trouble in getting rid of Conrad now. But he 
 must use discretion; he must not rush. He would bide his 
 time; he could afford to wait. 
 
 He did not have long to wait. 
 
 Triggs had barely seated himself at his desk when Mr. 
 Kinsley entered. The secretary-manager of the Citizens' 
 Alliance handed him a morning paper and pointed to a 
 marked item. He waited while Triggs read it. The item 
 
PRISON 231 
 
 was headed " New York Labor Leader Jailed in Indiana " 
 and told briefly of the arrest at Red Bank, Indiana, of Fred 
 Conrad, a labor leader of New York and Washington, who 
 came to take charge of the strike at the plant of the Durham 
 Machinery Company. The arrest came at the close of a 
 turbulent demonstration which followed an address to the 
 strikers by the eastern labor man. 
 
 Did Bill Triggs know anything about the situation in In- 
 diana ? It was rather strange that this should happen at the 
 Durham Machinery Works. Cyrus M. Durham, the head of 
 the company, was a member of the National Citizens' Alli- 
 ance. He was a generous contributor to its funds and an 
 enthusiastic supporter of the harmony idea between capital 
 and labor. Mr. Durham was a broad-minded man and a fine 
 citizen. He stood for law and order at all times. There 
 must have been a strong provocation for the seeming bitter- 
 ness of the labor struggle in his plant. Did Mr. Triggs 
 know this man Conrad ? Kinsley had no recollection of the 
 name, had never run across it. What manner of man was 
 this Conrad? Was he a bona fide labor leader? Was he 
 well known in the labor movement? 
 
 Kinsley had a peculiar way of speaking. He spoke fast, 
 as if he were always in a hurry, had to catch a train or some- 
 thing of the sort. His speech, too, had a certain intonation 
 which in an unaccountable manner conveyed to the person 
 addressed a very decided suggestion as to the sort of answer 
 he looked for. 
 
 Bill Triggs caught this intonation. He sensed the nature 
 of the answer Kinsley expected of him. It was a pleasure 
 for him to give the desired answer, especially since it con- 
 cerned an enemy of his, a man he hated bitterly. Yes, that 
 was his chance to " get " Fred Conrad, to clear him out of the 
 way once for all. His plans were growing, maturing, mo- 
 
232 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 mentarily. They were becoming clearer and more positive 
 as he spoke. 
 
 Triggs was speaking slowly and with seeming apology. 
 One might easily have believed that he was greatly grieved 
 by the item in the paper — grieved for Conrad, grieved even 
 more for the good name of the labor movement which was 
 being dragged into the mire. . . . 
 
 Did he know Conrad ? Yes ! He had had some dealings 
 with him at one time and upon this particular occasion had 
 vainly tried to steady the man's violent views. But after he 
 learned of Conrad's antecedents, he gave up having anything 
 to do with him. Of course, he saw what a danger the man 
 was to the labor movement. However, he expected that Mark 
 Gelder and Jim Morgan would themselves wake up to it. 
 They would no doubt wake up now that Fred Conrad had 
 dragged the name of the General Labor Federation in the 
 mire. 
 
 Still, Triggs did not wish to be hard on either Mark Gelder 
 or Jim Morgan for failing to see through Fred Conrad sooner. 
 The Federation had grown to immense proportions of late. 
 In such a movement it was inevitable that a hair-brained, 
 yes, even bad, man would smuggle his way up to the top now 
 and then. . . . 
 
 The tone of seemingly deep sorrow for the Federation, for 
 Mark Gelder and even for Fred Conrad, with which Triggs 
 spoke, his vague allusion to Conrad's antecedents, set Kins- 
 ley on edge. What were Conrad's antecedents? He was 
 anxious to know more about the strike leader, the type of man 
 he was. 
 
 Bill Triggs obliged him with a description of the book- 
 store in Little Germany which was kept by Fred Conrad's 
 father, " the well-known German anarchist, Gottfried Con- 
 rad." The little store was really not a store at all, Triggs 
 
PRISON 233 
 
 explained. It was a blind, a hang-out for anarchists. Gott- 
 fried Conrad himself was an old man now and no longer 
 active, but in his younger days he was a notorious character. 
 During the Haymarket riot, especially, this old man drew to 
 himself nation-wide attention. He nightly addressed meet- 
 ings in defense of the Chicago anarchists, his comrades. 
 These speeches, because of their violence against the rich and 
 vituperations against law and order, against all government, 
 frequently led to riots. ... It was a strange coincidence, 
 Triggs said smilingly, but only recently he had occasion to 
 look over some newspaper files in the library and he ran 
 right into several of this man Conrad's speeches. They were 
 so astounding and so violent that he was moved to copy a 
 paragraph here and there. He believed that he had one or 
 two of these paragraphs in his desk; he would see. ... He 
 fumbled for some moments and produced the paper which 
 contained the excerpts from some of Gottfried Conrad's 
 garbled speeches of long ago. 
 
 Kinsley glanced through these items and ordered his stenog- 
 rapher to run them off on the typewriter. . . . Well, it seemed 
 to him that there was work to do right there and then for the 
 Citizens' Alliance and for Bill Triggs too. It was a crime 
 to have the better, law-abiding element of the labor movement 
 misrepresented by the escapades of such men as Fred Con- 
 rad. It was these Conrads, these anarchists that constantly 
 put the labor movement in the wrong light before the public 
 and fastened upon it the stigma of lawlessness. . . . 
 
 They had a little heart-to-heart talk, Walt Kinsley and 
 Bill Triggs. Did he think Mark Gelder and Jim Morgan 
 would look upon the situation in Red Bank, upon the exploits 
 of Fred Conrad, as they, Triggs and Kinsley, were looking? 
 Would the Federation have no objection if Fred Conrad were 
 brought to justice, were made an example of? Bill Triggs 
 
234 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 thought that Mark Gelder and Jim Morgan would stand on 
 the side of law and order. Moreover, he would apprise Mark 
 Gelder about Conrad's antecedents, distasteful though it was 
 for him to carry talk about any man in the movement. 
 
 " It won't be necessary to do that," Kinsley assured Bill 
 Triggs. " The newspapers will give Mark Gelder all this 
 information and spare you the trouble. I shall give the facts 
 you told me and the excerpts from these speeches to the press 
 as soon as I have communicated with Mr. Durham." 
 
 Bill Triggs shrugged his shoulders, still sorrowfully. 
 
 Kinsley hastened to his own office. He at once dictated a 
 telegram to Cyrus M. Durham, the president of the Durham 
 Machinery Company. The National Citizens' Alliance, the 
 burden of his message was, had come into possession of im- 
 portant information showing that Fred Conrad did not rep- 
 resent the best element in the labor movement. He, Conrad, 
 was known as a dangerous visionary and anarchist and the 
 law-abiding element of the labor movement had for some time 
 been looking askance at his activities and recognized that he 
 was a self-seeking, dangerous demagogue. If the Durham 
 Machinery Company cared to proceed further against the 
 labor leader, the Alliance would cooperate with it to the full- 
 est extent. It would not be an unpopular fight, as there was 
 no doubt that the law-abiding element of the trade union 
 movement would unhesitatingly throw the anarchist over- 
 board. Particulars followed by mail. 
 
 To begin with, the arrest of Fred Conrad was of no signifi- 
 cance. The Durham Machinery Company expected nothing 
 from it; it was purely an act of reprisal. The strike was 
 going against the company, and Armour Britten, the manager 
 of the concern, for want of more effective weapons, took to 
 harassing the strikers. A number of pickets were arrested. 
 
PRISON 235 
 
 Fred Conrad made capital of these " provocative tactics " of 
 the company, interpreting them as signs of weakness. If the 
 men held together quietly and patiently a little longer they 
 would win, he exhorted them. Armour Britten saw himself 
 losing out and pushed these raids upon the strikers with 
 greater vigor. He sent a number of his hired strikebreakers 
 to a mass meeting which Conrad was to address. They could 
 start no trouble at the meeting, but their opportunity came at 
 the demonstration that followed. The strikebreakers started 
 fights in several places. One of the men aimed especially at 
 Conrad. Though he could not get into a fight with the labor 
 leader, he asserted that Conrad struck him, and the latter was 
 arrested along with a number of strikers. 
 
 Conrad demanded a jury trial and was released on bail. 
 It was the first time in his career as a labor man that he had 
 been arrested, and it annoyed him. Nevertheless, he felt 
 certain of the outcome. He would never have to stand trial. 
 As soon as the strike was over the charges against him would 
 be quashed. That was the way such matters usually ended. 
 
 Nor did the company officials think differently. Mr. Dur- 
 ham himself looked rather askance at the tactics of his man- 
 ager. Armour Britten was a new man with the company 
 and had come but recently from Chicago. It was quite evi- 
 dent that he was trying to run things at Red Bank as they 
 were run in the big cities, and Mr. Durham was rather nerv- 
 ous about it. 
 
 As a wide-awake employer, Cyrus M. Durham knew, of 
 course, that manufacturers were resorting to just such tactics 
 as his manager was employing in order to break a strike. 
 He knew this and he knew more. He had among his ac- 
 quaintances and friends men who did not hesitate to attempt 
 to trump up charges and send strikers and their leaders to 
 jail on false accusations if a strike could thereby be broken. 
 
236 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 He knew these things and he knew the detective and strike- 
 breaking agencies which, for proper remuneration, were 
 willing to assist in such " framing up " of strikers and labor 
 leaders by supplying false witnesses and manufactured evi- 
 dence. He had always hoped that he would be spared the 
 necessity of having anything to do with these agencies and 
 their breed. But now Armour Britten had made his plant a 
 headquarters for just such loathsome individuals. Really 
 Armour Britten might manage things a little more quietly, a 
 little more diplomatically, Mr. Durham kept saying to him- 
 self. It was different in large cities. There a man did not 
 know his employees. There if an employee went to jail it 
 meant nothing to his employer. It was only a name. But 
 here there was an individual behind every name. Why, he 
 knew nearly every one of his employees personally. . . . No, 
 Red Bank was no place for such high and mighty tactics as 
 were employed in Chicago. . . . Mr. Durham was going to 
 speak to his manager. He meant to tell Britten that he was 
 laying it on a bit too thick, with his hired guards and de- 
 tectives and sluggers. . . . 
 
 The telegram from Walt Kinsley changed the aspect of the 
 situation entirely. Armour Britten was on top once more. 
 He was the sagacious, brilliant manager again; Durham ad- 
 mitted that. Yes, Britten knew more of the lawlessness of 
 organized labor than Cyrus M. Durham ever dreamed. Brit- 
 ten now had a free hand. He was to go ahead with the 
 strike any way he saw fit. 
 
 The manager at once sent for the company's attorney, 
 Clifford S. Wellman. Mr. Wellman read and re-read the 
 telegram carefully. 
 
 " That word * anarchist,' " he announced finally, " sounds 
 good. It will win the strike for us before the week is over." 
 He dictated a reply to Walt Kinsley. The Durham Macliin- 
 
PRISON 237 
 
 ery Company, the telegram stated, had proceedings under 
 way against Fred Conrad. The charge of disturbing the 
 peace, upon which the labor leader was arrested in tlie first 
 place, was only a preliminary. The case was going to the 
 grand jury for action. While the company had all the evi- 
 dence necessary to ask for an indictment of the labor leader, 
 it would none the less welcome whatever aid the National 
 Citizens* Alliance could give it in its fight on lawlessness 
 and anarchy. Would Mr. Kinsley please forward all infor- 
 mation concerning this man Conrad by wire to avoid unneces- 
 sary delay? 
 
 Toward evening of the third day following his arrest, Fred 
 Conrad was approaching his hotel when a friend, a union 
 man, tapped him on the shoulder. The man held out a copy 
 of the Red Bank Evening News. Across the entire page ran 
 an announcement that the grand jury had indicted Conrad on 
 charges of conspiracy and inciting to riot. He had no time to 
 assimilate the shock, when in the lobby of the hotel he was 
 approached by two men who flashed a shield and a warrant. 
 He was under arrest. They would not permit him to write 
 out a telegram or to telephone the union's lawyer. They 
 hustled him into a waiting cab and made a dash for the jail. 
 
 Conrad expected the union's attorney the entire evening, 
 but he did not come. It was a long night and the morning 
 was even longer. It was past nine o'clock when the union's 
 lawyer, Mr. Seymour, finally put in an appearance. 
 
 The lawyer was flushed and angry, as if he had just 
 emerged from a scuffle. The officials had put all sorts of 
 obstacles in his way, he explained. He was there last eve- 
 ning trying to see Conrad, but they gave him no access. 
 
 " There is something very sinister behind this thing," the 
 attorney said with uneasiness. " Somebody has cooked it all 
 up very skilfully. It is the most beastly frame-up I ever 
 
238 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 heard of. This town is on the map all right, all right. ..." 
 
 He had a batch of newspapers with him, the Chicago morn- 
 ing papers, and he handed them to Conrad. 
 
 " The story is the same in all of them, word for word," the 
 lawyer explained. " It was all cooked in the same kettle 
 apparently. The headlines are a trifle different — one more 
 lurid than the other." 
 
 Had the account which he was reading been a chapter in a 
 novel it would have held Fred Conrad spellbound. But it 
 was not a novel he was reading. It was the first page of a 
 big metropolitan daily. It was supposed to be the truth, the 
 world would take it for fact. And yet it was a devilishly 
 concocted mass of lies about him, Fred Conrad. His breath 
 was short, his throat dry, his lips parched. The lawyer asked 
 him whether he wished a glass of water. The question itself 
 had a cooling, sobering effect. Conrad went on reading. . , . 
 
 The story had been written with the intention to thrill. It 
 seemed from the account in the Chicago newspaper that the 
 peaceful little community of Red Bank, Indiana, was experi- 
 encing a civil war on a small scale. The forces of law and 
 order there were fighting against the forces of anarchy. A 
 trifling disagreement between the Durham Machinery Com- 
 pany and its employees had been seized upon by these forces 
 of lawlessness which were personified in the fiery leader of 
 the strikers, Fred Conrad, and the little local grievance had 
 been turned into a war on all law, and order, and govern- 
 ment. . . . 
 
 Then came the story of " this man Conrad." Nobody was 
 exactly able to account for the man. In some mysterious 
 manner this anarchist had managed to smuggle himself into 
 the ranks of law-abiding trade unionists and was using his 
 position as a labor leader to promote his erratic ideas and 
 dangerous anarchistic aims. . . . The supposed biography of 
 
PRISON 239 
 
 Conrad followed. He was born in the slums of New York 
 and was the son of the notorious old German anarchist, 
 Gottfried Conrad, the bosom friend of John Most, etc, 
 etc. . . . 
 
 Intertwined with the story of Conrad's " lurid past " were 
 quotations from his father's speeches in defense of the Hay- 
 market anarchists — the excerpts which Bill Triggs had dili- 
 gently copied from the files of the New York newspapers. 
 The wedging in of these excerpts had been so manipulated as 
 to convey the impression that it was a quotation from a speech 
 of " this man Conrad " that the reader was perusing and not 
 a speech by his father a score of years back. . . . The brazen 
 falsification, the boldness of the distortion, were stagger- 
 ing. . . . 
 
 The story left Fred Conrad so stunned that the lawyer had 
 to assist him in composing the telegram to Mark Gelder stat- 
 ing that the whole thing was a frame-up and asking for 
 prompt assistance by the Federation. The lawyer took the 
 telegram to send it off forthwith. He would be back at two 
 o'clock in the afternoon. 
 
 Mark Gelder needed no telegram to tell him that the thing 
 was a frame-up. He saw it at a glance. But he saw some- 
 thing else, too. Whoever was reaching out for Fred Conrad 
 was making a determined job of it. The labor leader seem- 
 ingly had made a mighty enemy; he had antagonized power- 
 ful forces. Prison was ahead of Fred Conrad, unless . . . 
 
 The alternative was to throw the weight of the entire Labor 
 Federation in defense of Conrad. It meant a long and costly 
 battle to assail the mighty forces that were arrayed against 
 him, to expose the frame-up. Such a fight would draw in- 
 ternational attention. Conrad would be made an interna- 
 tional figure, a marytyr. . . . 
 
 Was the General Labor Federation ready for such a fight 
 
240 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 in behalf of Conrad? Could it afford to antagonize forces 
 that could so array the press and the country against the man ? 
 Was Fred Conrad worth making such sacrifices for ? Gelder 
 scoffed at the suggestion that Conrad was an anarchist. But 
 the president of the General Labor Federation had noticed that 
 there was a lack of what he termed wholesomeness in Fred 
 Conrad's devotion to the labor movement. Fred was well in- 
 tentioned, but he did not seem to mix well with the labor 
 element. He did not seem one of the men. He always 
 stood apart, soared a trifle above the rest of the crowd. . . . 
 
 Mark Gelder was pondering over these things when the 
 telephone rang. A newspaper was asking for a statement on 
 the Conrad case. " Not in," he murmured, and the girl at 
 the telephone echoed it across the wire. Jim Morgan and Al 
 Ryan arrived, each with a stack of morning papers under his 
 arm. They had been reading every word they could find 
 about Conrad. 
 
 Gelder called them into his private office. What was their 
 view ? What stand should the Federation take in the matter? 
 The papers had already been asking for a statement and it 
 would have to be forthcoming soon. 
 
 Al Ryan was the first to speak. It was too bad, but it was 
 the sort of thing to expect from Fred. Conrad was well 
 meaning. He was honest. He, Al Ryan, would vouch for 
 his honesty. But he was a bear — a German bear. He 
 could choke you with his honesty. The thing was a frame- 
 up, no doubt. But this only showed that Fred Conrad had 
 been rousing animosity, had been provoking people. Bill 
 Triggs had often remarked that he was surprised that the 
 Federation had not dropped Conrad long ago. Triggs con- 
 sidered the labor organizer a sort of iconoclast, a fanatic in 
 certain ways. Instead of making friends, Fred Conrad was 
 
PRISON 241 
 
 antagonizing people. He was eccentric, like his father, an 
 old German radical. 
 
 Mark Gelder listened thoughtfully. What Ryan was say- 
 ing was common sense. The labor movement was no battle- 
 ground for gladiators of isms, of radical theories on the one 
 hand, or for eccentric, impractical people on the other. It 
 had no use for iconoclasts. It needed men who could get 
 along with people. Yes, Fred Conrad had no business an- 
 tagonizing such forces as he had. Mark Gelder had moie 
 than an inkling who the forces fighting Conrad might be. 
 He had heard from several sources that Fred Conrad was 
 considered out of place in the councils of the Federation. He 
 had himself more than half suspected that all these sources 
 went back to Triggs. Triggs was against Conrad; the Na- 
 tional Citizens' Alliance was against him — powerful forces, 
 bitter enemies. ... In this world every man was paying a 
 price for the place he was holding. Every man had to com- 
 promise more or less to get on. He, Gelder, had paid a price 
 and a large price, too, for his place. He had gained his posi- 
 tion as a leader of the laboring masses by permitting himself 
 to be led in turn by his lieutenants. He could defy capital- 
 ism, defy the newspapers, now and then, but he could not defy 
 the picked men of the labor movement, the officers of the vari- 
 ous organizations, who were making him what he was. . . . 
 He had to give in to their desires frequently, to suit his words 
 and deeds to their convictions — or lack of convictions. Yes, 
 if a man wished to get on he must stick to the crowd. . . . 
 
 What did Jim Morgan have to say. 
 
 Morgan agreed with Ryan. Al was talking sense. There 
 was a queer streak running through Fred. He was not popu- 
 lar. In certain quarters there was a pronounced dislike for 
 him. Morgan was inclined to believe that the choice of Con- 
 
242 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 rad as organizer was a mistake to begin with. He was a mis- 
 fit in the labor movement. His stand against the Citizens' 
 Alliance, too, left much to be desired. Conrad never was out- 
 spokenly against it, but it was no secret where his sympathies 
 lay. He was not a socialist in his politics, but he was one 
 in temper, in his fanaticism on certain things. ... It was 
 conceivable that the Federation might be called to defend 
 labor leaders of greater value than Conrad from just such a 
 situation as the latter was in, and it might be well not to waste 
 ammunition now. ... 
 
 Mark Gelder listened attentively. It was evident, con- 
 vincingly evident, that Fred Conrad had no friends among his 
 associates. Were he, Mark Gelder, even favorably disposed 
 to the organizer he would have to listen to the voice of his 
 lieutenants, to Morgan, Al Ryan, Bill Triggs. They were 
 against Conrad. They all refused to stand by him. The 
 Federation therefore could not stand by him. It was not 
 pleasant to reach this decision. But then Conrad should 
 have looked out. . . . He should not have made enemies. 
 He should have paid the price, whatever it was. . . . 
 
 Twice during the conference Mark Gelder had been in- 
 formed by his stenographer that the reporters were outside, 
 waiting. " Send them in," he called to her. 
 
 " Gentlemen," Mark Gelder addressed the newspapermen, 
 waving aside all questions, "I presume you wish to know 
 where the General Labor Federation stands with regard to the 
 Red Bank case. I can say to you what I have said on numer- 
 ous other occasions. The labor movement has always stood 
 for law and order and opposed violence of any description. 
 Its attitude is unchanged to-day. Any member of organized 
 labor who violates the law lays himself open to the same 
 consequences as any other citizen. The Federation sees no 
 reason for any action on its part in the case of Fred Conrad. 
 
PRISON 243 
 
 ^ 
 
 It can trust the courts to deal with him as fairly as they 
 would with any other citizen and it will let justice take its 
 course." 
 
 Jim Morgan and Al Ryan exchanged glances. They knew 
 what Mark Gelder's statement meant. Fred Conrad had been 
 thrown overboard by the Federation. ... He would have 
 to fight his battle alone. . . .They were glad to be rid of Con- 
 rad, but the thought of the prison sentence that awaited him 
 left them scared and uncomfortable. 
 
 The lawyer was an hour late. As he came in he handed 
 Fred a telegram. He opened it nervously. It was from 
 Elsie. His father had locked the store and had just come 
 over to elude reporters and photographers. The New York 
 papers were filled with all sorts of lies about him, Fred. She 
 was going to the bank to draw money. She would leave the 
 children in care of his father and start for Red Bank that 
 night. 
 
 " Anything from Gelder? " Fred asked. 
 
 Without a word the lawyer handed him an afternoon paper 
 with Mark Gelder's statement. Fred read it and his face 
 was ashen. He did not speak. 
 
 " They have put your bail up to $20,000." The lawyer 
 spoke in a lifeless manner. *' I had expected that the Feder- 
 ation would come to our assistance. The union alone can 
 never raise such a sum." 
 
 Fred Conrad failed to notice when the lawyer went or how 
 he got back to his cell. He had a feeling that he was in water 
 up to his chin and that the ground was slipping from under 
 the tips of his toes. He could not even make an outcry. . . . 
 
 He sat motionless for a long time, then he rose and walked 
 up to the window. The sun had already set and a gray 
 autumn mist was descending upon the roofs of Red Bank's 
 
244 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 middle-class residences. ... He had always dreamed of 
 such a middle-class home for himself and Elsie. . . . One 
 by one lights appeared in the windows. . . . Here and there 
 a family was sitting down at the table. . . . Evening was 
 coming, evening and peace — to fathers, to wives, to children. 
 Children — Elsie — Somebody was moaning, somebody 
 inside of him seemed affrighted, alarmed. . . . Now that 
 somebody was pulling his jaws apart — was trying to make 
 him laugh. No, never! He would not laugh by force. No I 
 He fell face to the pillow and bit into it hard — harder. . . . 
 He would break his jaw but he would not laugh — No, sir! 
 He stamped his feet — he raved. . . . 
 
 Somewhere some one was talking in a loud voice. ... It 
 was coming nearer. . . . His arm felt as if it had been 
 clamped by a vise. ... He sat up. A man was speaking — 
 shouting. Was he addressing him? Oh, he understood — 
 he remembered now. It was the jail attendant. He had 
 brought him his supper. . . . 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 PEACE 
 
 IT was the second letter Elsie was writing to her husband 
 since they parted in the Red Bank jail, and it was to 
 reach Fred in prison a day or two before Christmas. She 
 had been a long time planning it. She wanted it to be a 
 cheerful letter, one that would set him at ease — hence her 
 extravagance with coal that evening. As soon as she assured 
 herself that the children were asleep she put an extra half- 
 pail full of fuel into the stove and the warmth quickly diffused 
 itself through the room and through her blood, attuning her 
 sweetly, tenderly. . . . 
 
 But she kept her tenderness within bounds. It was not as 
 in the past when she wrote for Fred and Fred only. Her 
 letters to him now were read by the prison authorities first 
 and it was well to moderate the expression of one's feelings. 
 Besides, there was a great deal of news to be crowded into 
 the letter. In her first writing to him she had had little 
 to tell; she was still unsettled, dazed by the trial. Things, 
 however, had turned out much better than they had feared in 
 their parting hour. They had feared the worst, but, thank 
 God, it had not come to that. She was spared all coarse labor 
 and did not even have to leave the house all day. The chil- 
 dren were looked after by her as usual, and yet she was 
 earning a livelihood for them. Of course they had to live 
 very close for the time being, but when she became more 
 proficient in her work she would earn more and things would 
 ease up all round for them. 
 
 245 
 
246 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 As for her work, it was astounding what luck she had had. 
 Fred, no doubt, remembered how fond she was of embroid- 
 ering, especially during the first year of their marriage, just 
 before the child came. Fancy sewing had been a hobby of 
 hers since she was a little girl. She had picked it up from 
 her mother in the long winter evenings in Belfair and on 
 warm summer afternoons. . . . Well, she had put this ability 
 to account. She went up to a factory where they made the 
 finer articles of women's wear and applied for a job. She 
 was set to work making boudoir caps. After two days' prac- 
 tise in the shop she was permitted to take the work home. 
 That was good fortune. At home she was her own boss; she 
 could choose her hours. In fact, she never sat down to work 
 before Ruth and Robert were off to school. She was there to 
 give them their dinner at noon and supper in the evening. 
 After supper, she went back to her task and Ruth frequently 
 sat by her side and watched her. She liked to handle the 
 satins, ribbons and laces that go into the making of these 
 caps. Before long Ruth would be a help to her. . . . 
 
 It was a fortunate move she made in leaving the Bronx and 
 taking rooms on the East Side. Of course they had no con- 
 veniences in their two rooms. They were cramped, too. 
 But they were near his father, and that was worth every- 
 thing. Gottfried's store had become a second home with 
 Robert. . . . The boy spends every spare moment there, talk- 
 ing with his grandfather or browsing among the books. Most 
 of these books were in German, and Robert, of course, could 
 not read them. But for that very reason they provoked ques- 
 tions and Gottfried was always telling the boy something. 
 The child comes home every day with some story about for- 
 eign countries and peoples which Grandfather had put into 
 his head. In the house Robert had become so much easier 
 to manage, docile. ... He obeys everything she tells him 
 
PEACE 247 
 
 without question. This also was due to the influence of the 
 little store, to the talks with his grandfather. 
 
 " Father," she wrote, " never tires speaking of you. He 
 drops in daily, even if only for a moment, and it is so good 
 to see him. One does not feel the loneliness so. Saturday 
 it rained and Robert spent the entire day with Grandfather 
 in the store. For the first time he talked to the child about 
 your plight as one would talk to a grown-up, explained the 
 reasons for your absence. ... He told him it was an honor 
 to suffer imprisonment for truth and right. ... He spoke of 
 ancient peoples, and how from the beginning of time such 
 things had happened. ... In Greece, he said, a philosopher 
 was made to drink poison because he would not desist from 
 teaching the truth. . . . And it was not at all new for honest 
 men, the best, to be sent to jail along with thieves and cut- 
 throats. ... He read to the boy from the New Testament 
 where Jesus was crucified between two thieves because He 
 flayed the hypocrites and scourged the money changers, the 
 capitalists of his day. . . . 
 
 " There was a wistful look in the child's eyes when he came 
 home. He talked about you all the evening and he has been 
 talking about you every evening since, so that I sometimes 
 have difficulty in getting him to sleep until late. He keeps 
 telling me and Ruth how nice it will be when you get back 
 home. He is planning what he is going to say to you, and 
 what we are all going to do, when we are together again. . . . 
 I love to hear him talk so and to see his brow wrinkle in seri- 
 ous thought. . . . But when he begins to ask too many ques- 
 tions Ruth scolds him and calls him a chatterbox. She suf- 
 fers keenly for want of you, but she does not let on readily, 
 she does not speak. She keeps her troubles to herself like a 
 grown person. She is already becoming a regular little 
 woman. . . ." 
 
248 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 The closing lines of her letter were a plea for peace. She, 
 his father, they all had found peace, and she begged him to 
 find it too. Revenge was not for the poor man — he must 
 realize it by now, after what had transpired in those three 
 days they had sat side by side in the court at Red Bank. 
 She realized that his life was trying, but she entreated him to 
 be patient, to offer no resistance, to make no protest. He was 
 to keep in mind always that his two-year sentence meant only 
 eighteen months if they could find nothing against his con- 
 duct. He must give them no chance to detain him a day 
 longer. They were waiting for him — waiting, counting the 
 days. . . . 
 
 It was midnight when she finished the letter to Fred. In 
 the stove the fire was dying and the house air was becoming 
 colder. She still had an hour's work to do but decided to 
 leave it for the next day. She felt as if it were a holiday. 
 . . . The room seemed permeated with her husband's pres- 
 ence. She read her letter over once more and she was satis- 
 fied. It was a good letter. . . . She had put the best appear- 
 ance on everything. She went over to the cot where Robert 
 was sleeping and tucked the quilt snugly about him — it 
 was going to be a cold night. Then she slipped into bed 
 quietly so as not to wake Ruth, pulled the quilt over her 
 head — as she used to do when she was a little girl — and 
 wept. ... 
 
 As the train was speeding Fred Conrad to the state peni- 
 tentiary on a warm afternoon in the late autumn, the smell of 
 the freshly-plowed soil rose to his nostrils. Fred had fre- 
 quently ridden on trains through beautiful fields, but never 
 before had the odor of the soil seemed so sweet and balmy. 
 He drank deep of the breeze and it felt good. It soothed him 
 and lifted his despair. . . . But there was more than sweet- 
 
PEACE 249 
 
 ness and balm in the breeze that swept across the open, soft 
 earth. Language seemed to emanate from it and speak to 
 Fred, telling him of great wonders that hitherto had remained 
 unknown to him. It told of vast plains and of a wide world 
 where he had never set foot. He listened to the breeze and 
 his heart seemed to be knitting together — healing. Yes, 
 life was beautiful — and he would not surrender the smallest 
 claim to life. . . . The sentence which he had received that 
 morning no longer seemed so formidable — he would over- 
 come it. . . . And at home things would order themselves 
 somehow until he got back. . . . And then — when he got 
 back — he would be a wiser man. . . . The freshly-plowed 
 fields were shedding a new light upon life and its prob- 
 lems. ... 
 
 He was impregnable to prison atmosphere, indifferent to 
 prison discipline. Nothing surprised him, nothing shocked 
 him. . . . Everything was as it should be — as he had ex- 
 pected. He did as he was told, lived as he was ordered — 
 bodily. But his mind had found wings. In his mind he was 
 free, free as he had never been before, and serene. . . . He 
 dreamed with his eyes open and he dreamed in his sleep. . . . 
 He dreamed of forests and streams and rivulets which he and 
 his son Robert were exploring. ... He dreamed of a little 
 house, a log cabin, hidden by giant pine trees, where he sat 
 of an evening smoking his pipe before retiring for the night. 
 . . . The noises of the prison just before waking frequently 
 translated themselves in his very last moment of slumber into 
 a neighing of horses and a tinkling of cowbells, and he would 
 wake with the odor of pastures in his nostrils. . . . 
 
 He liked best to think of a farm in California. It was at 
 the other end of the country, California — away from New 
 York; far removed from the East, from the scenes of his many 
 labors and final disillusionment. He wished to be as far 
 
250 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 away as possible from these places, and from the men he had 
 known, had dealt with — to forget them. They were not 
 worth remembering, not worth thinking about. ... In the 
 prison library he found an old geography and he read all it 
 contained about California. He studied the illustrations, the 
 ox-teams and man-trails of the distant land, and was trans- 
 ported. There was a map of the United States in the book. 
 Between New York and California lay many states, many 
 hundreds, thousands of miles. . . . His heart beat wildly at 
 the thought of the distance that would lie between himself and 
 the scenes and places of his past. . . . 
 
 Overnight, Indian summer had come to an end. The sky 
 overhead was leaden; it rained and drizzled. In the prison 
 corridors it was always twilight now — in the cells, always 
 night. Every one was gloomy; men spoke with a scowl. 
 Two or three prisoners who were friendly to Fred in the first 
 few days now ignored him. Every one seemed more than 
 usually preoccupied and did not wish his path crossed by any 
 one, for no reason. The prison authorities redoubled their 
 watchfulness. 
 
 There were extra guards in the shop during the day. . . . 
 Several prisoners seemed to be looking for trouble, but the 
 guards studiously overlooked them. The rains which pre- 
 ceded the first snow always brought depression and hysteria 
 into prison. Men were ready for trouble at the slightest prov- 
 ocation, or no provocation at all. 
 
 Fred Conrad told himself of the necessity for keeping his 
 nerves steady, of not yielding to the gloom which had swooped 
 down upon the prison. And it seemed to him that he was 
 successful — that he was exercising control over himself. 
 But the prison melancholy had taken hold of him none the 
 less. He became aware suddenly that he had been acting 
 
PEACE 251 
 
 like a thoughtless youngster and not at all like a man who 
 was in as much trouble as he was. He was dreaming, he 
 was letting his imagination run riot. He was lulling himself 
 into a false security. Take the thought of California, of a 
 farm there. What a beautiful dream! Never once had he 
 taken into account the obstacles that were in the way of his 
 plans. He pondered all day in the shop over these obstacles 
 and did not sleep half the night. ... It was his first sleep- 
 less night in prison and the reality of his life was beginning 
 to weigh him down with its ghastly fingers. The air in the 
 cell was choking. ... He rose and stepped up to the door. 
 There was no use trying it — it was barred. He was caged 
 in like an animal. He was a prisoner just like the rest of 
 them, and he had been taking things calmly, indifferently, all 
 this time, as if he were there merely as an observer who 
 could come and go as he pleased. ... He had been dream- 
 ing beautiful dreams. . . . Bubbles. . . . Reality was hard, 
 crass, maddening. . . . 
 
 He was struck by a peculiar submissiveness in the eyes of 
 most prisoners. They moved out of the way of officials, 
 guards, keepers in much the same manner as a cat or a dog 
 gets out of the way of a large and suspicious looking boot. 
 He recalled the first time he had disciplined his little son 
 Robert. Robert was then only four years old and after the 
 pain of the chastisement had subsided, the child had sidled 
 up to him hesitatingly, submissively, and had looked at him 
 with big, scared eyes. Amid uncontrolled sobs he was woo- 
 ing his father's forgiveness, suing for peace. The expression 
 in his son's face had cut Fred like a knife. He had taken 
 the child in his arms, kissed him, fondled him until they 
 were friends once more. But he had felt guilty toward his 
 son, guilty for having frightened him with his superior, tow- 
 
252 THE HOUSE OF COKRAD 
 
 ering force. The dog-like expression in his child's face was 
 stamped indelibly on his memory. Time could not efface it. 
 The recollection of it pained. 
 
 The prisoners looked to him just like such chastised chil- 
 dren who were suing for peace. There was the look of the 
 beaten dog in their faces. They realized that they were hope- 
 lessly defeated by the superior, invincible forces that were 
 arrayed against them. Their eyes curried favor and forgive- 
 ness of every one who had the power to make their lot easier. 
 
 A new prisoner was brought in. He was a lad of nine- 
 teen and was to serve a ten-year sentence for burglary. He 
 was pale and thin and looked as if he had gone hungry for 
 a long time. His features were frail, almost feminine, and 
 he gazed about him hopelessly. The details of the charge 
 against the boy soon filtered through the prison. There was 
 nothing heroic, nothing exciting, about the case. It was the 
 old story, too common to arouse interest. He was out of a 
 job, his room rent had not been paid and he had not had a 
 full meal in days. ... He stole some silver and the police 
 got him. . . . 
 
 Fred was now studying the faces of the men about him. 
 There were many young men among the prisoners. He 
 learned the story of several. Their crimes were connected 
 with money, the illegal procuring of money. Want had 
 landed most of them behind prison bars. Some of these 
 boys were sadly deficient in education. They were in need 
 of training, the kind of training that would enable them to 
 hold their ground in the crush and struggle for bread. In- 
 stead they were kept rotting in jail. The injustice of the 
 world and the stupidity of men were indeed appalling. The 
 more he observed and thought the more the prison appeared 
 to him as evidence, not so much of man's depravity, as of 
 society's incompetence. 
 
PEACE 253 
 
 One afternoon his brooding took an unexpected turn. The 
 new boy prisoner had been put to work beside him, and Con- 
 rad needed but to take his eyes off the boy for a moment and 
 at once he would begin to see, feel, at the bench next to him, 
 not the boy prisoner, who was a stranger to him, but his own 
 child, his son Robert. ... He tried to engross himself in 
 his work and knock the foolish thought out of his brain, but 
 it would not be knocked out. It stuck fast. . . . Yes, his 
 son Robert was standing at the bench. . . . Robert, in prison 
 stripes, serving a ten-year sentence for burglary. ... He had 
 been hungry and his room rent was not paid and there was 
 a chance to take some silver, so he took it — and they caught 
 him, and jailed him, caged him for ten years — ten years! 
 
 A terrible thought seized Conrad. He could not bring his 
 mind under control. . . . He looked about. There was no 
 one he could ask assistance of, talk to. . . . He was afraid 
 — he feared he was losing his mind. Was that the way peo- 
 ple went insane? No, really he must compose himself. It 
 was nothing, just weakness. Of course Robert was not there, 
 could not be. He was a child and was with his mother now, 
 with Elsie. He must think of Elsie. . . . Elsie would not 
 fail him now. . . . She never failed him. . . . She seemed 
 to hover about him until it was five o'clock and then the day 
 was over. 
 
 He welcomed the cell. He threw himself on his bed, buried 
 his face in the filthy sack of straw and kissed Robert's feet 
 and begged forgiveness of his son, forgiveness for the crime 
 he had committed against him. He had no business bring- 
 ing the child into the world. ... It was a crime to bring 
 human life into a world that cared so little for human life. 
 It was a crime to have children in a society that crushed and 
 ground and devoured its own offspring. ... He cried and 
 moaned and tossed on the narrow cot, vainly imploring sleep 
 
254 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 to come to his relief. . . . And then he was making a speech. 
 . . . He was pleading for the boy prisoner, for Robert, for 
 all children. . . . The world must not trifle with childhood, 
 he warned threateningly. . . . 
 
 When he awoke he at once felt the change in the at- 
 mosphere. It was frosty and bracing. The maddening pat- 
 ter of the rain had ceased through the night. . . . His health 
 and poise were coming back to him. It was a narrow escape 
 from madness he had had. Late that day they handed him 
 a letter, Elsie's letter. And his mind recovered its wings. 
 , . . He could dream once more. ... 
 
 The week between Christmas and New Year he was a 
 very normal and a very sympathetic prisoner. He had a 
 benign look as if he were on the verge of giving a present to 
 every one who crossed his path. The peace and patience 
 Elsie urged in her letter had descended upon him. And it 
 was well that it had. For he had been under observation 
 all week, though he was not in the least conscious of it. 
 The prison officials, from the warden down, had found an 
 excuse for taking a good look at him. And on the afternoon 
 of New Year's Day the good news was brought to him. He 
 was to report to the bakeshop the next morning. One of the 
 men who worked there was to be discharged in a few days 
 and Fred was to take his place. They were in need of a real 
 baker; they had not had a professional for years. And if 
 Fred was such a professional baker, then he was the man 
 the prison authorities were looking for; things would go well 
 with him. There was no doubt about Conrad being a pro- 
 fessional baker. The entire prison knew it when they tasted 
 the bread of the next baking. At the end of a week he was 
 in complete charge of the bakeshop. It felt good to give or- 
 ders and to be consulted, to be a leader once more. The 
 prison did not weigh so heavily. . . . 
 
PEACE 255 
 
 Whatever it might be in the summer, in the winter months 
 the bakeshop was the pleasantest room in prison and Fred 
 would occasionally hum to himself mentally, if not vocally, 
 as he worked. With the mental humming went the thought 
 of freedom and the dream of the future — of California, of 
 a farm. . . . One night, when his heart was overflowing with 
 longing, he made these visionings a part of his monthly letter 
 to Elsie. He wrote about the house he was dreaming of, a log 
 cabin hidden by giant pine-trees, and of the excursions into 
 the woods he and Robert would make to kill their meat, as 
 most pioneers in California had done. But when he read the 
 letter over he was ashamed and was in doubt about mailing it. 
 It was a foolish letter, more fit for a boy than a man, a father 
 of children. . . . However, he mailed it. Elsie would un- 
 derstand. ... In her presence he always was a boy. And 
 she had been in his thoughts so much lately, so much. . . . 
 
 Of course Elsie understood. The letter brought a cheer- 
 fulness into her face that had not been there for many months. 
 She was thankful that Fred was able to maintain his boy 
 spirit in prison, that he was able to shed the radiance of 
 dreams over sordid reality. . . . 
 
 As for Robert, he laid special claim to and appropriated 
 the letter. He straightened out its folds and meant to keep 
 it forever. . . . His father was nearer to him now than he 
 had ever been — the boy spirit of the missive brought him 
 nearer. The log cabin in California was an accomplished 
 fact with the child. ... He slept in it nights. ... In a 
 store window on the Bowery he had seen a rifle and he set 
 his mind on it. . . . That was the rifle he was going to go 
 hunting with, for he and his father would go hunting. They 
 would have to, for they meant " to kill their meat " as all 
 the pioneers had done. ... He and his father — ah, what 
 a life they were leading in Robert's dreams! 
 
256 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 Robert used his father's letter to gain a point. Elsie, too, 
 had been thinking of the future. Nightly, after she had 
 completed her day's work, which was seldom before ten 
 o'clock, she would go to the sink, wash her hands, face, and 
 neck in cold water to banish sleep, and would sit down to 
 work again for an hour, and work fast, as if she were just 
 starting on a new day's work. It was this hour's work she 
 was giving to the future. . . . Ruth, too, was beginning to 
 contribute toward this family future. She had learned to 
 make the artificial roses out of ribbon and the little knots 
 and bows with which some of the more expensive boudoir 
 caps were trimmed. And Elsie now ordered more of these 
 caps — they paid better — and let Ruth relieve her of the 
 delicate finger work which went into the making of these 
 roses and bows. Ruth's labor, Elsie figured, was adding a 
 dollar and a half a week to the family income. Robert, 
 alone, was not contributing anything. His mother would not 
 permit him to sell newispapers. She did not want him to 
 roam about the streets at all times of day or night, she said. 
 And now she also thwarted his plan to go along with the 
 other boys of the district in search of wood, stray boxes and 
 boards which could be picked up about the warehouses in the 
 wholesale districts, and in this way cut the family coal bill. 
 Fred's letter, however, had the effect of strengthening Rob- 
 ert's plea. His father was already considering him a sort 
 of an equal. He talked of going out to kill game with his 
 young son. Elsie relented. Henceforth Robert could go 
 after wood — if he were careful. 
 
 These expeditions to the wholesale district set Robert aglow 
 with happiness. They seemed to him like a foretaste of the 
 hunting expeditions he and his father would make together 
 " out there," as he was now speaking of California and the 
 West. 
 
PEACE 257 
 
 Robert made these expeditions after school. One warm 
 afternoon in March he returned from such a trip in half an 
 hour. He had happened upon huge piles of boxes. He 
 brought one load upon the little cart he had improvised for 
 himself and was going again to clear up the rest. Elsie 
 urged him to content himself with that one load, but Robert 
 would not hear of it. He would be back in three quarters 
 of an hour with another load. She watched the face and 
 features of her son with a flood of happiness. Excitement 
 was making him handsome; he seemed so brave. She gave 
 in and let him go. Only he must keep his coat well but- 
 toned. . . . But the day was altogether too summery for 
 Robert to heed the warning. He returned with a second load 
 of boxes and boards at six o'clock, tired. In spite of his 
 exercise he did not have much of an appetite for supper and 
 went to bed without her urging. During the night he awoke 
 and asked for water. He was ill in the morning and at ten 
 o'clock she called a doctor. He prescribed medicine, gave 
 instructions, and said he would come again in the evening. 
 He came. The child had pneumonia. 
 
 Elsie ran a race with death. For two weeks she did not 
 undress, and took her sleep in snatches on the edge of the 
 bed. Robert now lay in bed, while Ruth occupied the cot. 
 The first week in April he was out of danger. Warm 
 weather, the doctor said, would soon remove all fear of after- 
 effects. She was afraid of after-effects. Nothing of the 
 disease must remain lurking in her son. She was tireless 
 in her attentions to the child. Just as the boy was becom- 
 ing normal, she contracted a cold. It proved to be influenza. 
 She did not call the doctor. She expected it would pass in 
 a few days, and it did. Only her chest and bronchial tubes 
 remained a trifle sensitive. She had not had enough cover- 
 ing. She was still giving all her best blankets to Robert, 
 
258 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 leaving but a single cotton one for herself. She thought of 
 buying an extra blanket, but April was three weeks gone. 
 The warm weather ought to set in any day, she figured, and 
 she did not feel like spending another three or four dollars 
 on a quilt. She would not buy a cheap one; they were a 
 waste of money. . . . But the warm weather lagged. May 
 was cold, unusually so. It was not until the first week in 
 June that summer weather set in in earnest. 
 
 Elsie was thankful. The cool weather had exasperated 
 her. The sensitiveness in her bronchial tubes and chest 
 persisted. She coughed and now and then was a little 
 hoarse. The warm weather, she hoped, would knock it all 
 out. And it did seem to be doing her good. But she was 
 not getting rid of her pain entirely. In August she got an- 
 other cold. It was more severe than the first, harder to get 
 rid of. It dragged into September and then there was a 
 spell of fall weather to aggravate it. 
 
 Gottfried noticed her cough one afternoon and looked Elsie 
 over uneasily. He spoke reproachfully to her for not having 
 seen a physician. It was not wise to let a cold persist so 
 long. She promised him that she would see a doctor the 
 next morning. 
 
 The physician listened to her chest for some moments, 
 stopped and looked at her hard, glaringly. He listened 
 again. Then he asked questions. Why had she not come 
 sooner — sooner? For a moment the physician looked as 
 if he were going to strike her. Elsie was alarmed. Was it 
 anything bad? 
 
 Bad? Of course it was bad. There was no time to lose 
 in mincing words. The doctor spoke bluntly — she had to 
 know the truth if she were to save herself. Her lungs were 
 affected, seriously affected. A sanitarium at once would be 
 the very best thing. . . . 
 
PEACE 259 
 
 The blood left her cheeks and her hands were trembling. 
 She stammered out her circumstances to the physician. She 
 was the sole support of her children. Her husband would 
 not be back before spring. A sanitarium was out of the 
 question. She would have to be treated at home. . . . The 
 doctor outlined a course of treatment for her and the care 
 she was to take with the children. She must keep her dis- 
 tance from them if they were to be spared. 
 
 Gottfried ran in earlier than was his wont. He was anx- 
 ious to hear what the physician had to say. What the doctor 
 had said was written all over Elsie. Since the night before 
 she seemed older by ten years. The doctor's words had 
 stamped the consumptive look on her. 
 
 Gottfried was deep in thought for some moments and then 
 — then he took charge of the house, of Elsie and the chil- 
 dren. He, too, had been saving for Fred's future, their fu- 
 ture, he informed his daughter-in-law. He had several hun- 
 dred dollars in the bank with which he had meant to put 
 Fred in business when he came out. Well, the future would 
 have to take care of itself now. Henceforth she was not to 
 work. She was to live on that money. She was not to 
 worry. He would look after everything. His store was 
 giving him far more than he needed. She must do exactly 
 as the doctor had ordered. Things would find themselves. 
 They would manage. ... He took the prescriptions from her 
 and hastily went to fill them. He was losing control over 
 himself. . . . Poor Elsie, poor Fred! . . . 
 
 March winds were blowing. Spring was approaching, the 
 spring Fred Conrad had looked forward to painfully, long- 
 ingly, for two winters and a summer. He had thought that 
 when he was within six — four weeks of his release from 
 prison every moment of his day would be a song. . . . But 
 
26o THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 it was not. A somber, sinister look had come over him. 
 
 His friends — he had made several friends among the 
 prisoners — ascribed Conrad's gloom to his worry over the 
 future. The world was a pretty cold place for an ex-convict. 
 Fred might have difficulty in getting on his feet again, they 
 mused. But it was not this that was worrying him. It was 
 a sudden and uncanny feeling that something had gone 
 wrong at home, with his family. Since Christmas this feel- 
 ing had been vaguely boring its way into his heart. There 
 was something about Elsie's letters that was not reassuring, 
 not entirely. They were nice, of course, but they did not 
 seem so vigorous. Elsie's handwriting, too, had undergone 
 certain changes. At times it was not at all like her writ- 
 ing. It seemed weak, uncertain, as if she might have found 
 it hard to lift the pen. . . . Was it because she was tired — 
 he was under the impression that every letter of hers was 
 written in the evening — or was she sick ? 
 
 His suspicions were confirmed in Elsie's final letter to him 
 in prison. Within three weeks he would be out. There was 
 no hiding things much longer from him. So she broke the 
 news to him gently. She wrote that she had not been well 
 a good part of the winter. Her chest was troubling her. 
 Her lungs had not been as strong as they might. But she 
 expected that she would get better now that spring was com- 
 ing and he would be home once more. . . . 
 
 Fred was thunderstruck. The lack of firmness in her 
 handwriting was unmistakable. He gazed at the letter and 
 knew that it had cost his wife great effort. Elsie was ill, 
 broken by fate, by him. The Elsie of the letter was not the 
 Elsie he had known, that he had left a year and a half ago. 
 Her spirit was gone; her flesh was wasting. . . . He went 
 about in a daze and did his work mechanically. He ceased 
 reading, dreaming. ... He was conscious of only one de- 
 
PEACE 261 
 
 sire — to be home, among his own, once more, to face what- 
 ever had come upon them. . . . 
 
 He wrote one last letter. It was brief. He would com- 
 municate again with them when he was outside the prison 
 walls. . . . 
 
 The telegram from Fred came at six o'clock in the eve- 
 ning. He was telegraphing from the railway station, a free 
 man. He was starting for home that night and would ar- 
 rive in New York early on the second morning. . . . Elsie 
 did not sleep a wink that night. She wept. In the morn- 
 ing they had to have the doctor. He forbade all excitement 
 and gave her something to put her to sleep. But she was 
 up again in the afternoon. As evening approached she be- 
 came restless. She talked as if she were in a dream. Ruth 
 became frightened and sent Robert to call their grandfather. 
 Gottfried came and sent for the doctor at once. But before 
 the physician arrived, Elsie had a hemorrhage. A nurse was 
 necessary. Elsie could not be left alone a moment. . . . 
 
 Fred stepped off the train and looked about. He had still 
 hoped that Elsie would be there to meet him. He had been 
 looking forward to that meeting since they had parted in 
 the Red Bank jail. With all his gloomy forebodings he was 
 unable to conceive that Elsie might be fatally ill — lost to 
 him. So he gazed about, thinking that perhaps she might 
 have been looking for him a car or two ahead. . . . Then 
 he saw the gaunt form of his father searching for him in 
 the crowd. Ruth was at the old man's side. 
 
 Fred made no motion to grasp his father's extended hands. 
 He gazed at them speechless, horrified. 
 
 " She is living. Papa! " Ruth burst into tears as she per- 
 ceived her father's terrified eyes. " She is just a little sick 
 
262 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 this morning. But the doctor said she would soon be all 
 right. Robert is home with her. ..." 
 
 Fred grabbed his daughter and held her in his arms. . . . 
 She was just like Elsie — the child. She understood his 
 questions before he asked them. 
 
 In the car father and son were absorbed in earnest con- 
 versation. It was a sad welcome for his son, but the thing 
 could not be hidden any longer and it was best to prepare 
 Fred. So Gottfried spoke to his son without looking at him. 
 . . . He told him the whole truth. 
 
 Ruth pointed out to her father, who was holding her hand, 
 the house they lived in. She ran into the hall and up the 
 stairs ahead of them. . . . Elsie heard their footsteps and 
 made an effort to rise. But the nurse remonstrated with her 
 and gently put her head back on the pillow. ... As the 
 nurse stepped aside Elsie saw her husband standing in the 
 middle of the room. . . . She summoned all her strength 
 and stretched her hands out to him. . . . But Fred made no 
 move. He could not see for tears. . . . 
 
BOOK III 
 RUTH CONRAD 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 WITH THE EYES OF YOUTH 
 
 ELSIE lingered for fifteen months. For some time she 
 was at a hospital, but when the end was nearing she 
 begged to be taken home. She wanted to be near her chil- 
 dren, near Fred. . . . The children worried her. What 
 would become of them? She would soon be lost to them, 
 and Fred. ... As she watched her husband with her fevered 
 eyes it seemed to her that the children were already father- 
 less. . . . Fred was so changed; he was no longer him- 
 self. . . . 
 
 Shortly upon his return home Fred had found work in 
 one of the large bakeries. Nearly a thousand men were em- 
 ployed in the bread factory and few if any of them belonged 
 to the union. No one there had the slightest notion who 
 Conrad might be, nor cared. The work was done on a strict 
 factory basis. Men went to their benches with the whistle 
 and quit with the whistle. There was no talking during 
 working hours, no passing of jokes, as was the case in the 
 small bakeries where only half a dozen or so men were 
 employed and a new man was known from the start. A 
 man could lose himself easily here. It was a splendid place 
 for self-effacement and that was precisely what Fred in his 
 broken mood wanted. 
 
 The dream of California, of a farm there, of going far 
 away from New York, from the men and places he had 
 known, had remained fixed with him throughout his impris- 
 
 265 
 
266 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 onment. Even Elsie's letter telling him of her sickness could 
 not down this dream. On the contrary, now more than ever 
 California was the place for him. He read in the prison 
 library stories of men broken in health, men with their lungs 
 eaten away, who had found a new lease on life in the high 
 altitudes of California mountains. That was the very place 
 for Elsie. ... He had meant to spend only a week or less 
 at home and then he would start for the West. . . . But the 
 dream was shattered. Elsie's life was ebbing. . . . 
 
 Outwardly Fred Conrad was seemingly normal. Prison 
 had aged him rapidly, but that apparently was all. Inwardly 
 however he was changed. His mind lost much of its mobility. 
 There was a fixed gaze in his eyes. He was trying to be 
 sensitive and considerate, but this immobility got the best 
 of him every time. His talk was as remote as his gaze. He 
 always seemed as if he had something on his mind, some- 
 thing troublesome; that he was about to reach a momentous 
 decision. Men just before they decide to commit suicide 
 often talk and act that way. And Gottfried for some time 
 was apprehensive of his son. He inquired after Fred's going 
 and coming from Robert, his alarm not always successfully 
 concealed. ... 
 
 In time Gottfried became accustomed to Fred's apathetic 
 ways. There was no occasion to fear suicide — it was not 
 that bad. Fred's spirit was broken, but his mind was not 
 unbalanced. Such things frequently happened. Gottfried 
 had himself known such cases. Only men of extraordinary 
 character could throw off the effect of imprisonment lightly. 
 Most men were shaken loose by it. The thing was entirely 
 mental, spiritual, and life was the only physician, time the 
 only cure. Time, he hoped, would bring Fred around to 
 normal again. 
 
 Late one night Gottfried was sitting at Elsie's bedside, 
 
WITH THE EYES OF YOUTH 267 
 
 He came in every evening after closing his store. The chil- 
 dren were sleeping. Fred was not home; he was working 
 nights and would not return before six in the morning. 
 Gottfried made some fresh tea, helped Elsie prop herself up 
 in bed and gave it to her. He asked after Fred; he had not 
 seen him that day. She answered in a feeble voice. . . . 
 Suddenly she gave Gottfried back the half full cup and lay 
 down. She was weeping. Gottfried was gazing through 
 the open window at the tenement across the street. ... He 
 had no heart to take from his daughter-in-law the relief which 
 tears brought her. . . . Words of cheer were so meaningless 
 now. She was dying and she knew it. It was a question 
 of weeks, perhaps only days. . . . 
 
 Her voice was so low that it was several moments before 
 Gottfried became aware that Elsie was speaking to him. 
 He leaned over close to her. 
 
 She was speaking about the children. They were still so 
 young — and Fred was in such a bad way himself — They 
 would need looking after — and she was so alone — She 
 had no sisters — And her brother she had not seen in 
 years — Gottfried would have to look after the children — 
 He was the only one — It would be hard for him, but he 
 would have to do it — for Fred was so — so — 
 
 But — And slowly, every move costing her great effort, 
 she brought her face close to Gottfried's and looked into his 
 eyes, as if trying to give emphasis with her gaze to the words 
 which her tongue was uttering feebly. But — he would have 
 to look after the children with the eyes of youth — with 
 the eyes of youth — She repeated the phrase. . . . She 
 wanted a sign of recognition from her father-in-law, a 
 sign that he understood her — understood what she meant — 
 with the eyes of youth — She sank back exhausted, moan- 
 ing— 
 
268 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 Gottfried bent over still nearer, took her frail bony hand 
 in his and stroked it gently. Big tears fell from his eyes. 
 
 Elsie's death seemed to have thawed Fred back to life. 
 He was looking after the children more. Upon returning 
 from work in the morning he would help Ruth with her 
 work — the girl had left school and was keeping house for 
 him. He supervised Robert's breakfast and v/ould not go 
 to sleep until after the boy had left with his school books. 
 He had the flat whitewashed and began to put his neglected 
 household in order once more. . . . 
 
 Gottfried observed these things with relief. He was hop- 
 ing that the crisis in Fred's life was passed, that his son 
 would pull himself together once more. Gently, without un- 
 due intrusion, he was trying to veer Fred around to a proper 
 sense of his new duties. It was part of his faithfulness to 
 Elsie's memory, Gottfried was saying, for Fred to hold his 
 ground. . . . The children needed care. He must make up 
 to Ruth and Robert for their great loss. . . . Fred must be 
 both father and mother to them now. . . . He must not let 
 grief sweep over him, and inundate his sense of duty. 
 
 The years of Fred's imprisonment and of Elsie's illness 
 had weighed heavily upon Gottfried. He was tired. During 
 these trying years he had been robbed of many a night's 
 sleep. Many were the days he went breakfastless. Fre- 
 quently sudden grief would cause him to forget his supper. 
 ... He was yearning for a rest and was glad to see his son 
 returning to normal again, ... He could relax a bit. . . . 
 
 It was the reaction from the years of watchfulness and 
 worry that lulled Gottfried into a sense of too great security ; 
 for Fred's interest in the house began to wane in a short 
 time and the whole burden of it fell upon Ruth's shoulders. 
 The girl struggled bravely with it. . . . She never com- 
 
WITH THE EYES OF YOUTH 269 
 
 plained, never crossed her father with a word. . . . She was 
 looking at him with the eyes her mother set into her. Her 
 father had been wronged by life. He had been imprisoned, 
 martyred. It was up to her mother, when she was living, 
 and to Ruth now, to assuage her father's suffering as much 
 as possible. . . . When Gottfried came he found everything 
 in the house in seeming order. Ruth had not a word to say 
 to her grandfather about her father's neglect, about his slip- 
 ping back into the state of chronic brooding which character- 
 ized him during her mother's illness. Gottfried's optimism 
 about the state of affairs in his son's household grew per- 
 ceptibly. The awakening was terrible when it came. 
 
 The trouble began with Robert. He had become negligent 
 in his school work. In the latter part of February the 
 teacher wrote a letter of complaint to the boy's father. But 
 Fred never saw the letter. Robert, who expected such a let- 
 ter, had lain in wait for the postman and upon securing the 
 missive tore it up. A few days before Easter another letter 
 came. The charges against Robert were more serious. He 
 was unruly and had absented himself from school alto- 
 gether too frequently. He brought excuses, to be sure, but 
 these frequent absences were endangering his chances for 
 advancement. Ruth read the letter, talked it over with Rob- 
 ert. Both were terrified and decided to hide the matter from 
 their father. 
 
 But it was weighing on Ruth's mind. Her nerves were on 
 edge from the winter's drudgery. She had no decent clothes 
 and her appearance as well as Robert's was sadly neglected. 
 Frequently at night, when her father was at work and Rob- 
 ert was sleeping, she would lie awake and cry over their 
 difficult lot. Why was Mother taken from them so early? 
 Why was Father so strange in his actions? Why was Rob- 
 ert always in trouble with his teachers ? Why — 
 
270 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 Spring came unusually early that year. The last part of 
 April summer was in the street. Ruth could not stand stay- 
 ing in the house at night alone, brooding. She would wait 
 until Robert was asleep and then would steal out of the 
 house into the street below and sit until midnight and some- 
 times until daybreak, so that Fred would have difficulty in 
 waking her in the morning when he returned from his night's 
 work. 
 
 Across the street from the Conrads lived a Mrs. Shannon, 
 a widow, with a half dozen children to support. Mrs. Shan- 
 non's oldest son, Danny, a year older than Ruth, worked as 
 a messenger boy during the day. Mrs. Shannon herself 
 would leave home at five in the afternoon and would not 
 return before two in the morning. She was scrubbing offices 
 in the business district. Danny Shannon, after putting his 
 younger brothers and sisters to sleep, would go down into the 
 street and loaf around the block, or sit on a garbage can and 
 smoke a cigarette and dream. He observed Ruth sitting 
 alone several nights. She saw him taking care of his younger 
 brothers. They were neighbors and they soon became friends 
 and would sit up together. Danny said he was waiting for 
 his mother, but he always managed to slip into the house just 
 a few minutes before Mrs. Shannon's return. 
 
 In the course of his work as a messenger boy, Danny would 
 pick up a few nickels every day in tips. Mrs. Shannon was 
 always on the lookout for tliese nickels, but the boy man- 
 aged to divert one or two from time to time. He would buy 
 fruit or candy with it and he and Ruth would share it long 
 after the street was asleep. . . . 
 
 Ruth's ardor for the house was gone. There were more 
 letters from school about Robert. But no one paid attention 
 to letters now — it was too fearful a subject to broach. Ruth 
 and Robert both waited for the worst with stolid fatalism. 
 
WITH THE EYES OF YOUTH 271 
 
 . . . The teacher called on the Conrad home. She called 
 around six o'clock and no one was in. There were more 
 calls, investigations. Agents of the Juvenile Society were 
 making inquiries among the neighbors. The plight of the 
 Conrad household traveled from tongue to tongue. It reached 
 Gottfried's ears and struck him like a knife. . . . His prom- 
 ise to Elsie. ... He was to look after the children. . . . 
 Instead he had been indulging in rest and sleep. . . . He 
 hardly knew where he was that afternoon and evening. A 
 little before nine he could not keep himself back any longer. 
 He closed the store and started almost at a run for Fred's 
 house to have a look at Ruth and Robert. He was too late. 
 The agents of the Juvenile Society had been there ahead of 
 him and had gathered them in. . . . 
 
 The case as presented to the court by the Juvenile Society 
 looked sinister enough. It was an appalling record of neg- 
 lect that the household of Fred Conrad presented. The fa- 
 ther was working nights. The boy and the girl, both of 
 adolescent age, when the vigilant eye of parents is absolutely 
 essential, were left alone with every facility for wrong- 
 doing. And mischief there was a-plenty. Robert's record 
 in school was a sufficient indictment. But bad as the record 
 was it was a marvel that it was not worse. For, after all, 
 it was a record of mischief only. The Juvenile Society gladly 
 gave the boy credit for that. The wonder was that with 
 every opportunity for it the boy had not actually drifted into 
 crime. . . . 
 
 Upon Ruth the officers looked with greater concern. She 
 was older than Robert. She was sixteen, or near it. In 
 many ways she was still a child, but in many other ways she 
 might be looked upon as a woman. The agents would not 
 make any rash accusations against her — it was not policy 
 
272 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 with the society to be reckless in the use of language against 
 a girl of such tender age, and a first offender. They in- 
 tended to be charitable, very charitable. But then, Danny 
 Shannon, the boy with whom she had been roaming nights, 
 was a messenger boy, " a boy about town," and was known 
 to be too sophisticated for an innocent young girl to be 
 friendly with. Besides — there came whispered testimony by 
 one of the society's agents. He had trailed the children one 
 night and had found Ruth sitting with Danny, her head in 
 his lap, sleeping. . . . Serving as a sinister background in 
 the written record of the case was Fred Conrad's term in the 
 penitentiary. . . . 
 
 Fred Conrad was called to the witness stand. From the 
 day his children had been taken from him two months had 
 elapsed. They had been terrible months. Day in and day 
 out he dragged himself from one branch of the society to the 
 next, from one official to another in search of his children, 
 pleading in vain for their restoration. He begged, made 
 promises, but his pleas were ignored. And now his children 
 were there in open court. His woes had been dragged out 
 before the eyes of the world. The agents of the Juvenile 
 Society were laying bare his most intimate life with utter 
 unconcern. The only thing that seemed to interest them was 
 to justify their interference in his family affairs before the 
 Judge. 
 
 Hardly had his interrogator finished framing his ques- 
 tion when Fred Conrad went to pieces. He had lost all con- 
 trol over his feelings. He hissed and gesticulated. He as- 
 sailed, denounced, threatened. ... It was injustice, the rank- 
 est cruelty. . . . The Juvenile Society was tyrannous. Its 
 agents were insincere, prying busybodies! They were out- 
 raging all human decencies. They were turning the law into 
 
WITH THE EYES OF YOUTH 273 
 
 an instrument of torture. . . . They were barbarous inquisi- 
 tors. . . . 
 
 The investigators of the Juvenile Society smiled frigidly at 
 these remarks of the irate father. The Judge — Smiley was 
 his name — listened to Fred with an air that seemed just the 
 least bit bored. He was accustomed to such outbursts by 
 angry parents. Fred Conrad had convicted himself. The 
 case was closed. The Judge reserved decision. Ruth and 
 Robert were taken back to the detention-room for the present, 
 while Fred looked on helplessly. . . . 
 
 Gottfried had listened to Fred's incoherent speech with 
 bowed head. His son had not had a good night's sleep in 
 these two months. It was inevitable that he should go to 
 pieces as he did. But the children must not be made to 
 suffer for the shattered state of their father's nerves. The 
 Judge must know something of his son's life, of his suffer- 
 ing. He would go to the Judge himself. He would lay the 
 matter before him in the right light. The Judge was hu- 
 man, all men were. He would be susceptible to pity. . . . 
 
 Judge Smiley was a young man not more than thirty-five. 
 He was put in charge of the Juvenile court because of his 
 reform tendencies. He was looked upon in certain quarters 
 even as a sort of socialist. . . . When Gottfried Conrad was 
 shown into his chambers he half rose. The tragic dignity 
 with which the tall white-haired man carried himself lifted 
 him out of his seat. 
 
 Gottfried apologized for his son's outbreak. He was not 
 attempting to excuse it but to explain it. Fred Conrad had 
 suffered a great deal since the death of his wife and prior to 
 her death. He was a sick man. It was not really his son 
 but he, Gottfried Conrad, who was to blame for the condi- 
 tion Ruth and Robert were in. He had neglected them and 
 he had no business to neglect them. However, if the court 
 
274 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 would entrust Ruth and Robert to him, would award him the 
 custody of his grandchildren, he would take the very best 
 care of them in the future. His means were sufficient. His 
 store was giving him a livelihood. 
 
 Judge Smiley looked at him. He was greatly moved by 
 the man's speech, by the innate nobility of his manner. But 
 Gottfried was old, he was past sixty. The jurist studied the 
 papers in the case for some moments and fell to thinking. 
 
 " I see," he addressed himself to Gottfried finally, " that 
 your wife is not living. And you reside back of the store. 
 It is a business place you would bring the children into, and 
 with no woman to look after them. I am afraid it is no 
 place for your granddaughter. About the boy it is different. 
 I should have no hesitancy whatever about giving you the 
 boy. But the girl, at Ruth's age — it is a delicate mat- 
 ter. . . ." 
 
 Gottfried began speaking about Ruth. He knew the child, 
 had helped raise her. He could vouch for her. She had 
 had a splendid mother. In all the testimony of the agents 
 for the Juvenile Society nothing vitally derogatory to the 
 girl's character had been disclosed. The child in her loneli- 
 ness had accepted the company of a lad as lonely as herself. 
 She was found sitting beside the boy at midnight, tired 
 asleep, her head against his breast, on his lap. ... It was 
 more pitiful than criminal. . . . 
 
 Judge Smiley agreed with Gottfried as to the pitifulness of 
 the case. It was far from his mind to condemn Ruth. But 
 the problem was to safeguard the girl in the future — that 
 was his chief concern, that was what the Juvenile court was 
 there for. Now, his son's home beyond all question was no 
 place for the girl. And he, Gottfried Conrad was an old 
 man. A girl at Ruth's age is a problem in a city like New 
 York even when she has a mother. She is doubly so when 
 
WITH THE EYES OF YOUTH 275 
 
 the mother is dead and the father's state is such as in this 
 case. . . . 
 
 The Judge was pondering, and Gottfried was silent, wait- 
 ing. 
 
 " Is there any church or denomination your granddaughter 
 or her mother adhered to? " The Judge turned upon Con- 
 rad suddenly. 
 
 Gottfried felt a warmth rise to his face. A weak protest 
 died in the fragment of an instant. He recalled Fred's wed- 
 ding — the Episcopal minister. 
 
 " Episcopalian," he said faintly. 
 
 The Judge brightened instantly. Episcopalian! That 
 was very fortunate. He would not send Ruth to an insti- 
 tution — that would be out of all proportion to her offense. 
 There was an Episcopalian home — the Home of Redemp- 
 tion — just the place for cases such as Ruth. Of course the 
 Home of Redemption may be full up just now. But he would 
 call Sister Agatha on the telephone personally and would see 
 to it that she made a place for Ruth. He would give the 
 girl an indeterminate sentence. As soon as conditions at 
 home improved she would be permitted to return without 
 delay. It was a very fortunate outcome. . . . 
 
 To Gottfried the outcome was far from fortunate. In fact 
 so depressed was he by it that he had almost got home before 
 he recalled that the Judge had given him an order which was 
 to free his grandson. He fumbled in his pocket and found 
 the envelope with the order in it. He took the car back to 
 the Juvenile Society. In a few minutes he had Robert in 
 his custody. The boy was greatly frightened and was heart- 
 broken over his parting from his sister. . . . 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE SONG OF THE FLESH 
 
 TWO years had passed. It was Ruth's birthday — she 
 was eighteen years old — and Fred Conrad obtained 
 permission from Sister Agatha, the superintendent of the 
 Home of Redemption, to spend an hour with his daughter. 
 Sister Agatha was averse to the slightest infraction of the 
 institution's discipline, but she granted Fred Conrad per- 
 mission to see his daughter that morning right gladly. Ruth 
 was convalescing from a week's illness, and the superintend- 
 ent knew from experience that nothing restored a girl more 
 quickly than a visit from a relative. The strain of confine- 
 ment and the dreariness of seclusion were at the bottom 
 of many of the ailments to which the girls succumbed period- 
 ically, and these yielded to nothing so readily as to a familiar 
 voice, a loved face. The girls were always more agreeable 
 after a visit from a relative or friend. 
 
 Fred and his daughter were alone in the big dormitory 
 that April morning; Ruth was the only patient that day. 
 The hospital room had the choicest location in the entire 
 building; it overlooked the Hudson. Father and daughter 
 stood for some time in front of the grated window, observing 
 the silvery waves on the water, listening to the hiss and tear 
 of a fast motor-boat and to the more ponderous noises of a 
 steamer. Fred gazed on the water and on the craggy shore 
 of New Jersey sadly. . . . Poor Ruth! How tantalizing it 
 was to be so near these things, so near freedom, and yet to 
 
 276 
 
THE SONG OF THE FLESH 277 
 
 be a prisoner. His position was equally humiliating. It 
 was maddening to think that he had to accept his daughter's 
 imprisonment helplessly. . . . He, her father, could do noth- 
 ing for her, had no say over her. . . . Permission to see her 
 that morning was a privilege for which he was expected to 
 be thankful. She was in the hands of the law ; the law took 
 her from him. . . . What a terrible law — to take a daugh- 
 ter from a father! 
 
 Ruth, on her part, was observing her father. It did not 
 escape her how bad he looked. He was going down fast. 
 The hair about his temples was all white and only the last 
 time he had visited her it was still gray. There was no 
 strength about him physically, and mentally things were 
 worse. She wanted to talk to him about the future, her fu- 
 ture, their future. She should be leaving the institution soon 
 now. . . . But she refrained from speaking about this. Her 
 father looked so weak; she did not wish to tax him with 
 further troublesome thoughts. They would talk these things 
 over some other time,- perhaps when he and her grandfather 
 came to visit her together. . . . 
 
 Fred gazed at his daughter and was both happy and em- 
 barrassed. . . . Ruth, his little Ruth, was a woman now; she 
 was eighteen years old. If Elsie could but see her ! Elsie — 
 Ah, yes! If Elsie had lived they would not be sitting there 
 in that room with grated windows. He stared at the bars in 
 front of him with a peculiarly reminiscent look. He was try- 
 ing to think of something, recall something. ... Ah, yes, he 
 had it. . . . It was that night in prison — the night when 
 he nearly went mad, because he could not rid himself of the 
 vision of his son Robert in prison stripes, Robert behind 
 prison bars. Ah, he remembered that night. . . . But it was 
 Ruth, not Robert, who was destined to feel life's iron hand. 
 ... He had wept for the wrong child. . . . 
 
278 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 The hour was nearly up and Ruth began speaking to her 
 father hastily. Always at the last moment she had a thou- 
 sand questions ready. And she would think of many others 
 after he had gone. She clung to his arm in these last mo- 
 ments tenderly, pathetically. ... 
 
 There was no mirror in the ward and Ruth studied her 
 arms, her limbs, her form, separately, and then tried to com- 
 pose a picture of herself in her mind. . . . She was pleased 
 with the imaginary picture; she was handsome. She felt 
 strength coming to her, shooting upward through her limbs. 
 Her skin was abloom. Life was confiding its secrets to her; 
 it was whispering hope. All trials end — her prison term, 
 too, would end and freedom would be hers once more. The 
 world would be before her. . . . 
 
 She gathered up her gingham dress of faded blue — the 
 regulation garb of the institution — and surveyed her hips. 
 They were shapely, magnificent. . . . She studied her bust. 
 Through the sack-like waist her breasts were clearly outlined. 
 She watched their rhythmic rise and fall for some moments 
 and blushed with satisfaction. . . . She was a woman grown 
 
 — she was eighteen. . . . There was jubilee in her brain. 
 Her body was making its debut to the world. Her blood 
 was singing a paean to the flesh. . . . 
 
 The spell of the day was on her — she dreamed dreams. 
 There was a lonely rocker in the hospital room. She moved 
 it to the window and sat down. She undid her hair and let 
 the wind play with her tresses. Wonderful tresses they were 
 
 — long and soft, of lustrous brown. . . . Her mother had al- 
 ways been so fond of her hair, had taken such care of it. . . . 
 Poor Mother ! She thought of that little mound in the ceme- 
 tery. . . . She had not been there for so long, so long. . . . 
 A tear ran down her cheeks; others followed, but she made 
 
THE SONG OF THE FLESH 279 
 
 •no effort to wipe them. It was sweet to lean back in the 
 chair and long and dream and let the tears soothe her 
 pain. . . . 
 
 A faint sigh coming from some one near her broke the 
 spell. Sister Agatha was standing in the room with another 
 woman, a visitor. Ruth arose and remained standing. In 
 Sister Agatha's presence the girls were at attention. In her 
 surprise at not having heard the superintendent and visitor 
 enter, Ruth forgot her tears. 
 
 " What makes you so sad, child? " the visitor asked, com- 
 ing up close to the girl. Ruth studied the stranger as care- 
 fully as the latter studied her. The woman's voice was soft, 
 as if from suffering. Ruth's own voice sounded that way at 
 times, and she wondered what the cause of the other's sad- 
 ness might be. 
 
 " You have been crying," the visitor continued. " Why 
 have you been crying? " 
 
 " It is my birthday," Ruth blurted out. The thought had 
 been uppermost in her mind and she spoke it. 
 
 " How old are you ? " 
 
 " Eighteen." 
 
 " May I ask your name? " The woman spoke apologet- 
 ically as if she feared that she was becoming too inquisitive, 
 too personal. But Ruth answered gladly. She liked the 
 woman, liked her for her unhappy eyes. It was unusual — 
 an unhappy look in a woman so beautifully gowned, so rich. 
 Sister Agatha never brought visitors to the institution unless 
 they were very wealthy. 
 
 " Ruth Conrad," she replied. ** Ruth, my name is." 
 
 " Ruth ! " the visitor exclaimed, and her eyes filled. 
 " Ruth — it is such a nice name. My sister was called 
 Ruth. She was just a year older than you. She died last 
 winter. She was thrown from a horse and killed. 
 
28o THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 " May I come to see you again ? " the woman said as she 
 extended her hand to Ruth in farewell. 
 
 Ruth looked embarrassed. The visitor's conduct was so 
 unusual. Most women visitors made a spectacle of the girls 
 in the institution, looked upon them as an experiment. She 
 detested these women, detested them and their riches. But 
 this woman was different. 
 
 It was not for Ruth, however, to say whether the visitor 
 could call again or not. She looked in embarrassment to 
 Sister Agatha. The superintendent gently piloted the visitor 
 out of the room. 
 
 The following afternoon a carriage drove up and Mrs. 
 Avery's maid — that was the visitor's name — gave the su- 
 perintendent a parcel for " Miss Conrad." Sister Agatha in 
 person took the package to Ruth. It was a birthday present 
 from Mrs. Avery, a beautiful hair brush and several other 
 toilet articles. ... It seemed to Ruth that the superintend- 
 ent's attitude toward her was changed; there was a defer- 
 ence in it. And Ruth was right. Sister Agatha had had 
 much experience with people. She had watched Mrs. Avery 
 as the latter was talking to Ruth and immediately sensed 
 that the society woman's interest in the girl was likely to 
 prove more than a transient fancy. Something would come 
 out of it. Ruth might not have been bom with a spoon in 
 her mouth, but her birthday had been a lucky one for 
 her. . . . 
 
 Few girls at the Home of Redemption stayed there as long 
 as Ruth had. It was policy with the institution to return a 
 girl to her parents after the lapse of a year or so, when it was 
 thought that the girl, or her parents — or both — had re- 
 formed sufficiently for the family to be reunited. Where a 
 girl had no home to return to, or where the home appeared 
 
THE SONG OF THE FLESH 281 
 
 unsuitable to the institution's investigators and officials, a 
 new " home " was found for her. Finding a home for a girl 
 usually meant turning her over to some family outside of 
 New York City, and preferably outside of the state, to be- 
 come a servant. 
 
 As there was no visible improvement in Fred Conrad's 
 health and affairs Sister Agatha repeatedly had tried to 
 place Ruth in such a " home," but the girl fought it off every 
 time. She would rather serve the maximum term the law 
 could hold her to — three years — and then be returned to 
 her family than gain freedom through exile from her peo- 
 ple. Fred sided with his daughter in this view, and though 
 Sister Agatha took great pains to make it clear to Conrad 
 that he had no say whatever in the matter, that his daughter 
 was a ward of the institution and entirely within the hand 
 of the law, nevertheless the father's protest was not without 
 moral effect. Ruth stayed on at the Home awaiting the 
 day when the law would relinquish its grip on her. 
 
 When, after several visits and talks with Ruth, Mrs. 
 Avery expressed to Sister Agatha her wish to take Ruth un- 
 der her roof, to give the girl a home, and asked the latter's 
 advice, the superintendent viewed the matter very sympa- 
 thetically. Sister Agatha had come to have quite a regard 
 for the girl. Ruth was a model inmate and was of a 
 finer character than most of the other girls in the place. 
 There was no question that she would make good. Mrs. 
 Avery would be well served, Ruth would be given a splendid 
 start and the institution could be benefited. . . . The credit 
 for Ruth's fine behavior could, to a degree at least, be trans- 
 ferred to the Home of Redemption, to the training, counsel, 
 friendship the girl had received there. . . . Sister Agatha, 
 in her mind, already saw large donations to the institution 
 
282 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 from Mrs. Avery and her friends, and perhaps even a legacy. 
 And legacies were what the institution needed. They were 
 its principal support. 
 
 To Ruth the offer of a home with Mrs. Avery seemed like 
 a dream — and that was why she asked time to think it over. 
 Young though she was, life had already played havoc with 
 her dreams and she was mistrustful. She wanted to consult 
 with her father — and with her grandfather. When Sister 
 Agatha saw what was troubling Ruth, she modified Mrs. 
 Avery's offer. She eliminated the fairy aspect of it and 
 made it appear more of a business transaction. What Mrs. 
 Avery wanted was a lady's maid. Good maids were hard 
 to get; the best of them were obtained by training only, and 
 Mrs. Avery meant to train Ruth for the job. That put a 
 different complexion on the matter. 
 
 Gottfried recoiled when the proposition to have Ruth go 
 to work in a rich home was laid before him. The thought 
 was abhorrent to him. He had a dislike for personal service 
 of any kind. It was undemocratic. In an ideal society 
 there would be no domestics. For Ruth to become the serv- 
 ant of a rich family was especially humiliating. He was 
 coming to have such a high regard for her. It was not only 
 the girl's suffering that endeared her to him. He was com- 
 ing to see a likeness, a link between himself and his grand- 
 daughter. It seemed to him that Ruth was temperamentally 
 nearer to him than either his son or grandson, though he had 
 no complaint to make of Robert; the boy was growing up 
 firmly under his grandfather's watchful eyes. But the girl 
 was of sterner stuff. He had faith in Ruth, faith in her 
 ability to meet a situation. She would bear up under diffi- 
 culties much better than her father. She would not break. 
 Fred's inability to pull himself together was gall and worm- 
 wood to the old man. He was brooding over it constantly. 
 
THE SONG OF THE FLESH 283 
 
 It was this faith in the girl, however, that in the end pre- 
 vented Gottfried from expressing himself strongly against the 
 girl's proposed entry into the Avery home. After all, it was 
 Ruth who was imprisoned — for the institution life by what- 
 ever name it might be called was imprisonment; she had been 
 imprisoned for two years. The girl's inherent strength, he 
 hoped, would save her from going to extremes, from becom- 
 ing either servile or snobbish. Freedom was the most pre- 
 cious thing in life. It was especially precious to a girl of 
 eighteen. Ruth might save a whole year by accepting the 
 Avery offer. Gottfried was silent. 
 
 Fred urged his daughter to accept the offer. It would 
 give her her freedom at once and would not take her away 
 from New York, from him. Yes, it might even lead to a 
 future. Connections were everything in this world, and his 
 influence was nil. 
 
 The great tragedy in Mrs. Avery's life was the fact that 
 she had no children — would never have any, though she 
 had not passed the age when women normally do have chil- 
 dren. Her husband, William Orcutt Avery, was the presi- 
 dent of a Western railroad. He was director and vice-presi- 
 dent in a dozen or more mining and manufacturing corpora- 
 tions, all of which were located west of Denver. Money was 
 literally flowing to him faster than he could keep track of it, 
 but the more he accumulated the less time he had for his 
 home and his wife. 
 
 In the early years of their married life, when Mr. Avery 
 was the vice-president of a New York bank and before he 
 had gone into the railroad business, Mrs. Avery was rather 
 glad that children had not come. They needed to entrench 
 themselves socially and it was a great help to be unencum- 
 bered, It w^s when her husband had left the bank for the 
 
284 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 wider field of building and running railroads, when their 
 social position was assured, that she began to think about 
 having a child. She consulted a physician. He advised her 
 to take extra care of her health. She must begin building 
 up her body, making it fit and inviting for motherhood. 
 Mrs. Avery became engrossed in the study of proper living. 
 She discarded the corset and followed fads in food and 
 dress. Five years passed in such preparations. She became 
 impatient and sought out a specialist. He held out no hope ; 
 she would never be a mother. She might as well make up 
 her mind to it and spare herself unnecessary pain. 
 
 That was nearly ten years back, but she had never recov- 
 ered from the blow. Society had lost its charm. It had, in 
 fact, become irksome to her and she quickly transferred her 
 interest to social service, which was then in the ascendancy 
 and to which many rich women were turning their attention. 
 She contributed generously to the building of a settlement 
 house in one of the poorer districts, helped finance the Young 
 Women's Christian Association, became a sustaining mem- 
 ber in several clubs which aimed to help the struggling chil- 
 dren of the slums, and lately had been taking an interest in 
 unfortunate young women and girls who had " fallen by the 
 way." She visited the various institutions which she helped 
 support, and tried to give " something of herself," as she 
 expressed it, to the poor. It was almost second nature with 
 her to be democratic, yes, even apologetic to the poor with 
 whom she came in contact, as if she felt herself at least 
 partly responsible for their condition. It was this innate 
 humility of hers that made Mrs. Avery a welcome visitor at 
 every institution. The unfortunates she talked to felt no 
 resentment against her. 
 
 At the death of her mother some four years previous — her 
 father had died long ago — Mrs. Avery had transferred all 
 
THE SONG OF THE FLESH 285 
 
 her unused motherly affections to her family — Edward 
 Sumner Channing, a brother and her sister Ruth, both of 
 them considerably younger than herself. Edward had mar- 
 ried two years back and only the previous winter her only 
 sister met with a tragic death. She went out riding in Cen- 
 tral Park one afternoon. An hour later she was brought 
 home with a broken neck. 
 
 With the death of her sister, Mrs. Avery was thrown once 
 more upon herself for company, interest, consolation. Her 
 husband was more than ever away from home. Mr. Avery 
 often complained that he was like the man who had " caught " 
 a bear. When asked why he was not coming, he explained 
 that the bear was holding him. Mr. Avery, too, was held — 
 in the grip of business pressure. Though he could well af- 
 ford to take a rest, business would not permit it. Time and 
 again he had made plans for a trip around the world, but 
 always the right man upon whom he could shoulder his work 
 and duties either could not be found or was not available just 
 then, and the plans had to be abandoned. Mr. Avery con- 
 tinued to spend his nights in Pullman compartments or ho- 
 tels and his days in conferences, giving orders, signing con- 
 tracts — and his wife became lonelier than ever. Her 
 sister's death had thrown her off the beaten track completely. 
 The house was abhorrent to her. She tried to escape from 
 herself. She made frequent trips to the slums, talked to 
 poor people, listened to their sorrows and tragedies, and by 
 comparison her pain was often stilled. . . . 
 
 But these excursions into the nests of misery and suffering 
 could not make her forget entirely. The house was lonely. 
 She missed a human voice, familiar footsteps. She hated 
 dogs. She considered it a travesty to make a pet of an 
 animal when so many children were drying up for the want 
 of a caress. She thought for a time of adopting a child. 
 
286 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 but could not bring herself to make some one else's child her 
 own. She could not love it as she would her own. If she 
 could only adopt some one's company, some one's friendship, 
 sympathy, without adopting the person itself ! She had been 
 thinking of these things when she came upon Ruth in the 
 hospital ward of the Home of Redemption. The girl's face, 
 the tears not intended for a stranger's eye which ran down 
 her cheek, and her name — the name her dead sister had 
 borne — accentuated the longing for a person in the house, 
 a person who would banish that awful stillness there. Ruth 
 was the very person. There was such a softness about her 
 eyes. She was so different from any of the other girls. And 
 she was good to look at, presentable. She wouldn't be out 
 of place anywhere. Mrs. Avery would make a friend of her, 
 a real friend. However, Sister Agatha was right; there was 
 no harm in using caution. It might be well not to tell the 
 girl the whole truth. She would ask Ruth to come to her 
 as a maid, as Sister Agatha urged. She would lift the barrier 
 between them gradually. . . . 
 
 Margaret Channing — Mrs. Avery's maiden name — came 
 from a family that had figured strongly in the Abolitionist 
 cause. There were legends in the family about Edward 
 Sumner Channing, her grandfather, who had had a hand in 
 the escape of many a negro slave and whose money had 
 financed many an Abolitionist publication. Mrs. Avery, as 
 a child, had listened to these stories about her grandfather 
 with a fond pride. It had been her hope to tell them to her 
 own children. This was not to be, but the memory of her 
 Abolitionist grandfather urged her on to many an act of 
 kindness toward her fellow men. 
 
 Her brother, Edward Sumner Channing, was named after 
 the grandfather and with the name the boy seemed to have 
 inherited his grandfather's love of freedom, as well as of 
 
THE SONG OF THE FLESH 287 
 
 adventure. Young Channing had been brought up in afflu- 
 ence — his grandfather had amassed a great deal of property 
 which yielded the family a large income. He was sent to 
 Yale and, as he was not fond of athletics, his love of free- 
 dom and adventure passed over into a vague, restless moodi- 
 ness which he could not always explain to himself. At times 
 he deplored the age he was living in. His grandfather had 
 been more fortunate; there were slavery and a civil war in 
 his day. There was work for a man to do, a wrong to 
 right, while in his own day everything was small, warped. 
 Men either gave vent to their passions by going after gold, 
 or else learned to deaden their yearnings with whiskey. . . . 
 Into this latter class young Channing had fallen as a student. 
 An interest in socialism, which was just then prominently 
 asserting itself among a certain class of wealthy Americans, 
 was awakened in him by his sister's ramblings among the 
 poor. But it was soon overshadowed by another interest — 
 a girl. Being of a tempestuous nature, his love for the girl 
 — the daughter of a banker, an associate of Mrs. Avery's 
 husband — was extremely passionate. In six months he and 
 Emmeline French, one of the season's debutantes, were mar- 
 ried. But they did not " live happy ever after " and Chan- 
 ning was turning more and more to his sister for advice and 
 sympathy in his unhappy union. . . . 
 
 He had heard of his sister's " adventure," as he called it, 
 with Ruth Conrad, but he had been out of town at the time 
 and it was not until Ruth had been at the Avery home for 
 nearly a month that Channing saw her. He drove up one 
 afternoon. Mrs. Avery was in her boudoir and Ruth was 
 alone in the music-room. Channing extended his hand cor- 
 dially. 
 
 '' You're little sister, aren't you? " he asked. 
 
 " I am Ruth," she replied, embarrassed. But he would 
 
288 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 not let her explain further. He chattered away carelessly 
 about his affairs, his prolonged absence from the city, as if 
 she had been a member of the family. As he talked he ob- 
 served the girl with a well-concealed amazement. Ruth ex- 
 ceeded even the glowing description Mrs. Avery had given 
 of her. There was a grace of carriage in her that many 
 a girl born to the home and society in which Ruth had lived 
 but a month could not show. 
 
 " She's a thoroughbred, all right," he mused as he studied 
 her. What a wonderful figure! And her hair — he had 
 never seen its equal. She radiated health and restfulness. 
 There was nothing nervous about her. It was evident that 
 she would not go into hysterics over trifles. She had a sound 
 mind in a sound body. It was thus he had always pictured 
 to himself the ideal woman — calm, self-possessed, strong, a 
 Venus who had no frazzled nerves and whose moods were 
 as healthy as her body. She seemed thoughtful beyond her 
 age, and while she was not shrinking, and seemed to have 
 set the proper value upon herself, she was considerate. She 
 was like a mother respecting the privacies of her son, like 
 a sister keeping the proper distance from her grown brother. 
 
 " By Jove! " Channing exclaimed, and swallowed the rest 
 of his thoughts. They were rather confused thoughts, re- 
 flecting upon many things, denting many an ironclad con- 
 ventionality. . . . 
 
 " Oh, you know each other already," Mrs. Avery said as 
 she entered the room. She was pleased at her brother's cor- 
 diality to Ruth, at the utter lack of superiority in his conduct 
 toward the girl. It was just what she might expect from 
 Edward. He was such a democrat — and she was proud of 
 his democracy. 
 
 As his sister came in, Channing's face clouded. 
 
 " More trouble? " she asked uneasily. 
 
THE SONG OF THE FLESH 289 
 
 " Yep, same old trouble." He tried to be careless. But 
 in the next instant his feeling got the better of him. It was 
 impossible — he and Emmeline would never get along. 
 They could never agree. There was no common ground be- 
 tween them. 
 
 Mrs. Avery pretended to be angry with him, with both of 
 them. They were acting like children. They were chil- 
 dren, that was what was the matter with them. It was time, 
 they became sensible and stopped scrapping and quarreling 
 over nothing. 
 
 " Now, sister, you know you don't mean all you say," 
 retorted Channing. " You know Emmeline and I can't get 
 along. What is the use of playing the same old game. 
 You are not deceiving me and you know you are not deceiv- 
 ing yourself. You know Emmeline as well as I do. You 
 know her constitution, you know her temper, her nerves." 
 
 " There you are! " cried Mrs. Avery in despair. " That's 
 what comes of marrying a season's debutante ! '* 
 
 Ruth was uncomfortable. She felt that she was out of 
 place at this airing of family troubles and started to leave 
 the room, but Channing called her back. 
 
 " It's no secret," he said. " Everybody knows that Em- 
 meline and I don't get along. You will hear of it every time 
 I come here; you can't escape it." He said these last words 
 with a bitter laugh. But he turned the conversation to more 
 agreeable subjects. 
 
 Channing was a frequent visitor at his sister's. There 
 was an office on Fifth Avenue whose glass door bore his 
 name as the head of the Channing Estate, but his presence 
 in or absence from that office made little difference. The 
 business of the Channing Estate was carefully and properly 
 transacted by its trustees and agents. And into any corpo- 
 ration business which would require his active participation, 
 
290 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 Channing steadfastly refused to be inveigled. In part his 
 refusal to go into business was to be accounted for by his 
 general disposition, which did not incline him to amass 
 money. In part, however, it was due to the fact that it was 
 his father-in-law who was most insistent in his attempts to 
 get Channing connected with a bank or corporation. Chan- 
 ning disliked his father-in-law and took malicious pleasure 
 in turning down every one of the old man's carefully worked 
 out plans. 
 
 With boyish glee he would narrate how he was side- 
 stepping his father-in-law's plans to tie him to an office 
 and the latter's discomfiture at finding that the bird had 
 flown. He visited his sister almost daily, and her brother's 
 increasing troubles now supplied Mrs. Avery with a fresh 
 fund of worries. She was talking to Ruth constantly about 
 Sumner's — they always called him by his middle name — 
 marital troubles, blaming society for the way it brought 
 up girls in frivolity, without a thought for the serious 
 things of life. Mrs. Channing she called a spoiled child, 
 a girl of a season. Emmeline had ruined her brother's life. 
 The boy was becoming too unsettled to do anything, to con- 
 centrate on anything. 
 
 Ruth listened to Mrs. Avery's plaints and at first they only 
 evoked in her general reflections on life. She, the other girls 
 in the Home of Redemption, had always thought that the 
 poor alone are not happy. Mrs. Avery's sad face taught her 
 that the rich too may have their troubles. And now she was 
 learning more and more of these troubles. Happiness, ap- 
 parently, was a capricious bird and insisted on building its 
 nest wherever it pleased its fancy. . . . Her ideas about 
 many things were undergoing great changes. 
 
 Gradually, and through her unbounded sympathy for Mrs. 
 
THE SONG OF THE FLESH 291 
 
 Avery, her thoughts veered around from the general to the 
 concrete. Channing's fate was beginning to take a foremost 
 place in her thoughts, as it had taken in the thoughts of 
 Mrs. Avery. It was the family worry, the great tragedy 
 of the Avery home, and she was now a part of this family, 
 of this home. They were treating her as such. . . . Mrs. 
 Avery was treating her like a sister. . . . She was open- 
 hearted with her. . . . She was baring her soul before her, 
 her most intimate pains and griefs. . . . 
 
 Ruth felt herself growing day by day. Her vision was 
 broadening. Her heart was swelling with sympathy. As 
 the stricken member of the family, the one whose life had 
 been dislodged from its proper orbit and whose happiness 
 was being marred daily, Channing came in for a good share 
 of this sympathy. It was indeed hard not to sympathize 
 with him. He was so much of a boy, just an ordinary boy, 
 human, eager, simple. (She had never seen his wife; Mrs. 
 Channing never came to the Avery home.) His wealth was 
 of little consequence to him. At least his relations to other 
 people, to Ruth, made it seem so. His relations to her . . . 
 Ruth often thought of them at night, just before falling 
 asleep, or in the morning when she lay in bed awake and 
 dreaming ... It was unbelievable that such a thing could 
 be true, but true it was. Channing treated her like one of 
 the family; like a sister. Mrs. Avery was grateful to her 
 brother for his generous attitude toward Ruth; she thought it 
 so manly and democratic. . . . 
 
 The automobile was still more or less of a novelty in those 
 days and Channing had the best runabout on the market. He 
 frequently took his sister out riding. Once he asked Ruth 
 to go with him. Mrs. Avery was out and he had to have 
 some one to listen to his troubles, he had pleaded. As the 
 
292 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 summer progressed the rides became more frequent. It was 
 hard for Ruth to refuse him; he always seemed so distressed, 
 disconsolate; he was suffering. 
 
 And then out of the clear sky it came — a subtle change 
 in their relations. ... At first Ruth was unwilling to admit 
 it to herself. . . . Channing had said nothing, done nothing 
 to change their relations. But the change was there none the 
 less. ... It was in the atmosphere. There were moments 
 when Channing's prolonged gaze would send the blood mount- 
 ing to her cheeks. ... At other times, when he spoke to her, 
 she was aware that he was merely making conversation; his 
 thoughts were not in what he was saying. . . . They con- 
 cerned themselves witji some part of her — her form, her 
 arms, her hair. . . . 
 
 The change frightened her. One night she could not fall 
 asleep for hours. She tossed on her bed and wept. She 
 wanted to be near her father, her grandfather. She felt so 
 unsafe alone among strangers. . . . After all these people 
 were strangers to her; they were not her kind, not of her 
 class. . . . She had made up her mind to ask Mrs. Avery 
 the very next day to release her and to secure her discharge 
 from Sister Agatha and from the court. There was so much 
 red tape to go through before she could gain her freedom. 
 But perhaps Mrs. Avery would feel for her and would use 
 her influence. She had no doubt that Mrs. Avery had in- 
 fluence. ... In the morning, however, confidence returned 
 and prudence. . . . She had better let well enough alone 
 until the three years were up; then she would find her way 
 home all right. . . . They could not hold her then. . . . 
 
 But her doubts kept recurring. After a day of ease and 
 pleasure night would find her alone in her room, brooding. 
 At times she was alarmed. She had made a mistake; she 
 should not have gone into a rich home. ... It would make 
 
THE SONG OF THE FLESH 293 
 
 the return to the humble surroundings in which her people 
 lived all the harder. . . . She wished she had never met 
 Channing. . . . She could not get him out of her mind. . . . 
 She was always comparing the boys she had known in her 
 neighborhood with him. . . . She felt that she must not do 
 it; it was unfair to the boys of her class, of her kind, this 
 comparison, but she made it. And what sorry figures these 
 express drivers, plumbers, painters, cut beside Channing. . . . 
 Yes, her going into the Avery home was a grave mistake. . . . 
 It would take her so long to forget her new surroundings, to 
 get used once more to the people of her class, to their humble 
 lives. . . . The more she became accustomed to her new 
 surroundings, the more the feeling grew upon her that things 
 would not last. . . . She would have come back to her people. 
 . . . She should have gone there in the first place. ... A 
 grave mistake. . . . 
 
 But there were other moments, moments when she yielded 
 to the ease and softness of her surroundings. The physical 
 delight of her existence in such moments swept aside her 
 mental scruples. ... It was sweet to live as she was living, 
 sweet to be treated as she was treated. . . . Channing was 
 spending so much of his time at his sister's now. . . . His 
 subtle conduct was manifesting itself more and more. . . . 
 There was a vague challenge in it. . . . She would lie with 
 closed eyes for a long time trying to make out the challenge. 
 ... It was like the faint echo of a far away song. ... It 
 was nice to dream even if one's dreams could never come 
 true. . . . 
 
 Rain had kept Channing in at Mrs. Avery's one whole 
 afternoon and he was talking to Ruth and gazing at her. 
 Though he had known her for months he found something in 
 her every time to surprise him. She seemed to him the most 
 
294 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 complete woman he had ever seen. She seemed to radiate 
 poise, self-possession. In her presence he felt cheered, 
 strengthened. And yet she was so young. In spite of her 
 studied poise he felt that she was as vibrant as a bow, sensi- 
 tive to human suffering, alive with sympathy. Her innocent 
 eyes were always big with feeling. 
 
 He was wondering what combination in the girl's life had 
 served to hammer her out thus. He knew her history. She 
 had been an inmate of an institution. She had known and 
 experienced things he had never dreamed of. Was it this 
 that made her so charming, so human, so lovable? 
 
 " So your father went to prison for preaching violence," 
 he said, gazing at her through ringlets of smoke. 
 
 Ruth crimsoned from ear to ear and he made haste to ex- 
 plain himself. He did not hold this against her father. On 
 the contrary — he — 
 
 " My grandfather missed going to jail — and perhaps to 
 the gallows — by a hair's breadth," he explained, " and I 
 have always been proud of him for it, for the stand he took 
 against slavery. I often wish an opportunity had come to 
 me such as came to my grandfather, such as came to your 
 father — an opportunity to fight for a cause and to suffer 
 for it. I want to meet your father. I should be happy, 
 honored, to meet him. I hate the pack myself. I mean 
 Wall Street, the traders on the Exchange who gamble in the 
 sweat of the farmer and the laborer. I would like to see 
 them wiped out. The world would be better for such a house- 
 cleaning. . . . 
 
 " I suppose you think I am crazy to talk this way," he 
 continued; " I who am a man of wealth, who do not have 
 to do a thing and yet can have all the food and drink and all 
 the luxuries of life. But I tell you I curse my money every 
 day. My people sent me to school, to college. They thought 
 
THE SONG or THE FLESH 295 
 
 education would do me good, would make life sweeter for me. 
 But it did the very opposite. It made me unhappy. It made 
 me despise my class — myself. Through every one of my 
 studies — history, literature, science — there seemed to run 
 a contempt for money and for the men who possessed money. 
 We were taught to admire Socrates and Plato, and they were 
 poor people. We were taught to admire the poetry of Mil- 
 ton and he had written his ' Paradise Lost ' when he was 
 blind and poor. They taught us to go into ecstasies over 
 Burns, and he was a raw, common peasant, ostracized by 
 * good society.' The scientists and philosophers of the 
 Middle Ages whom we hold in high esteem either were in jail 
 or were having the time of their lives dodging it. Almost 
 every man who got into history as a big statesman, a big 
 leader, had at one time or another been a prisoner, an exile, 
 or, like Cicero, had had his head cut off and hung on a pole 
 for the mob to gape at. You hear precious little about the 
 sons of the upper classes in Egypt, Greece, Rome, or, in our 
 own day, about the pampered sons of the French aristocracy 
 or of the Russian nobility. But you do hear of Proudhon, 
 you hear of Bakunin; and a poor, starved epileptic like Dos- 
 toyevsky is winning fame in Europe and one of these days 
 will capture America. History seems to be especially partial 
 to the poor. Or maybe it is not partial, but simply just. 
 The poor struggle and suffer and know life. They are denied 
 justice and hence they learn to love it, to fight for it pas- 
 sionately, heroically. And it is only by becoming a votary 
 of justice that one begins to penetrate the charmed circle of 
 fame and happiness. ..." 
 
 One morning in September, Channing came up just after 
 Mrs. Avery had left the house. He was disappointed; he 
 had wanted to talk to his sister, he had to talk to her, he 
 said, He sank into a chair moodily and lighted a cigarette. 
 
296 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 " You look lovely this morning, sister," he remarked as 
 Ruth passed him. 
 
 She was beautiful. There was a certain ease in her walk, 
 in her carriage. 
 
 " Got anything special on for this morning ? " Channing 
 asked a few minutes later. There was a furtive look in his 
 face. He was profoundly unhappy. Ruth felt sorry for 
 him. Another quarrel, she thought. 
 
 No, she had nothing special to do that day. 
 
 " Suppose you come for a ride with me? " he suggested. 
 " It is a perfect morning and I'm crazy to go somewhere — 
 and talk." 
 
 Yes, she saw that he was crazy to talk, and she was not 
 averse to listening to him, if there was any comfort in it for 
 him. But she thought Mrs. Avery might be back soon, 
 might perhaps want her. 
 
 " It's all right about sister," he said. " I'll leave a note 
 for her." 
 
 Before she realized it, they were forty miles out of New 
 York, and it was noon. He found a quiet inn and they had 
 luncheon. There was not a person in the dining-room be- 
 sides themselves. Channing puffed away at his cigarette 
 and looked at Ruth. It was strange, very strange, that he 
 should be sitting there with her, and, what was even 
 stranger, that he should be happy, should be grateful for her 
 company. But for Ruth he would have had a miserable day. 
 She had saved him from torture — from himself. 
 
 The afternoon was going to be as perfect as the morning. 
 They would not waste a minute of it. They climbed into 
 the machine. In response to his mood, Channing rode 
 slowly. They passed a brook. Urchins from a nearby 
 town were splashing in the water. He stopped the machine 
 and they watched the youngsters for some minutes. Two 
 
THE SONG OF THE FLESH 297 
 
 or three miles farther on they came to a grove. A couple 
 was lying under a tree, talking confidentially — lovers or 
 maybe newlyweds honeymooning. 
 
 The spell of the woods was irresistible. Channing picked 
 out a quiet spot, stopped his car and they sat down on the 
 trunk of a fallen tree. . . . Out there under the spell of the 
 trees it seemed almost unbelievable that only thirty or forty 
 miles distant lay one of the world's greatest cities, where 
 millions of men, poor and rich alike, were struggling like 
 mad, were suffering, dying. . . . Ruth remarked this to 
 Channing dreamily. Unconsciously they had come to share 
 each other's views and opinions about society, about life. 
 
 Channing looked at the girl and he felt as if he had 
 known her for years. She was like a sister of his — she was 
 nearer. She shared his thoughts, she felt his pain. He saw 
 it in her eyes. 
 
 His mood was on him again. He talked — he talked to 
 her more freely about himself, about Enmieline than he had 
 ever done before to any one. He bemoaned his fate; he 
 fairly sobbed out his grief. What a fate, what a tragedy at 
 twenty-seven to have one's life crossed and torn as his 
 was. . . . 
 
 Ruth had not tried to interpose a word during his long 
 speech. His sincerity, his suffering, were intense. She 
 thought of this suffering. She forgot their difference in 
 station, her own position. He was a man, a good man, 
 and he was in torture — tortured by life. She would not 
 change places with him for anything. What good was 
 money when it handicapped one so? At least she was free 
 — and he was not. But he was suffering. Was there any- 
 thing she could do for him? Nothing? . . , 
 
 " I often wish," Channing was concluding one of his 
 paroxysms, " I often wish I could fall asleep and wake to 
 
298 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 find myself a different man, just a human being with, say, 
 fifty dollars in my pocket. I would go out and get work 
 in a factory or a warehouse, or maybe I would go on a farm. 
 And then I would meet a girl — I know now the kind of 
 girl I would like to meet — and I would marry and we would 
 be happy for twenty or thirty years — that is all a man lives 
 these days. 
 
 " But it is only a dream," he continued; " I have made my 
 bed, as the saying is, and I must lie on it. I loved, or 
 thought I loved, a hothouse plant, and I married for show, 
 for a little society gossip, for a write-up in the papers, and 
 now I am repenting every day of my life. God! If there 
 were only a way of putting me and Emmeline where we were 
 three years ago, and leaving us there ! God ! If things could 
 be undone! " 
 
 Ruth felt it her duty to defend his wife. But his sincer- 
 ity, the evidence of deep-felt pain, were in the way. She 
 could not find words to upbraid him. It was not for her 
 to judge. It was one of those tragedies of life where words 
 are best left unspoken. She rose and turned away. It 
 seemed to Channing that he saw tears in her eyes. . . . He 
 was up in an instant and clasped her in his arms, kissing 
 her face, eyes, hair. . . . She was inert, as if in a faint, for 
 some moments. Then she began to plead with him to re- 
 lease his hold on her. . . . But he was deaf to her entreaties. 
 He held her closer, closer. . . . 
 
 A wild look came into her face. She concentrated the 
 force of all her young body into her arms, planted her el- 
 bows against his chest, and his clasp came apart. Then she 
 ran. He overtook her. She was going to walk to the near- 
 est town and take a train to New York. He pleaded with 
 her to return with him in his car. He gave her his word of 
 honor he would not talk to her, not say one word to her, 
 
THE SONG OF THE FLESH 299 
 
 but would have her home in forty minutes. He would not 
 delay a moment. 
 
 He kept his word. She avoided looking at him all through 
 the journey. When they reached home she ran upstairs to 
 her room without gazing at Channing, without speaking 
 to him. . . . 
 
 It was four o'clock. Mrs. Avery had left word that she 
 would not be home before six. Channing got into his ma- 
 chine and started off. After driving a dozen blocks he 
 turned back to his sister's house. He would wait for her. 
 He lounged about in the library, lit a cigarette, but tossed 
 it aside half smoked. He picked up a book. He meant to 
 read till his sister came. He was tr>'ing to fix his mind on 
 the printed page. ... He threw the book aside, ran up a 
 flight of stairs, and knocked at Ruth's door. 
 
 " Come in," she called. She thought it was the maid. 
 He opened the door. She was in a loose gown and was 
 braiding her hair. Upon seeing him she trembled. . . . The 
 blood suffused itself through her face, her neck, her bosom, 
 which she had not had time to cover. 
 
 Channing closed the door behind him. Ruth turned her 
 head away and took a step forward. She was facing the 
 wall. There was no escape. He was at her side. She felt 
 his chest against her shoulders. He put his arms about her. 
 . . . She was pleading under her breath, incoherently. . . . 
 He was drawing her down to the sofa. . . . Her struggles 
 ceased; she begged in wild alarm . . . she threatened . . . 
 she would cry out . . . scream, faint . . . she would — 
 He was kissing her lips and shoulder. . . . Her speech grew 
 faint, a hoarse whisper. . . . She could not move. Her 
 body was limp. . . . Her eyelids were heavy. . . . When a 
 child she often felt that way after a long day at play in the 
 street, just so limp, paralyzed. . . . She was trying to recall 
 
300 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 how long it was since she felt — arms about her — her moth- 
 er's arms — and a face pressed against her cheek, throat, a 
 burning, caressing face. . . . But her mother never caressed 
 her so. . . . These caresses were like fire, strange — as if 
 they came from another world. ... 
 
 Something within her was responding to these caresses, 
 drinking them in like quaffs of living water. Somewhere in 
 her head there was a boring, a buzzing — " father," " grand- 
 father," " wife," " married man," " wrong." But — within 
 her heart, all through her body, a song was resounding. It 
 was an irresistible song, and it was familiar. She had heard 
 it somewhere before. . . . Where? When? Ah, she re- 
 membered ! On her eighteenth birthday. It was the song of 
 the flesh. . . . But it resounded mightier, stronger now. . . . 
 It filled the universe with its strains. ... It was sweeping 
 everything before it, drowning all voices. . . . Everything 
 was a song. . . . The buzzing in her head had turned to 
 song. Channing's breath was a song. ... It had become 
 one with the song of her flesh. . . . 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 CLIPPED WINGS 
 
 IN the subway, people were saying that it was going to be 
 an ideal Thanksgiving Day. It snowed all afternoon 
 and toward evening it turned cold. Girls, on the way home 
 from work, who sat or stood beside Ruth, were talking of en- 
 gagements that night and the next day and evening. It was 
 to be a joyous time. The toil in stores, offices, factories was 
 forgotten. For the next thirty hours every one was to drink 
 his or her fill of delight and happiness from the bountiful 
 breasts of life. 
 
 " If things could be undone," the words hammered through 
 Ruth's head as she listened to the merry chatter of the girls 
 and gazed in their faces, which were happy with anticipation. 
 It was Channing's phrase. Two months had elapsed since 
 that day when he had sat beside her on the grass and talked 
 and talked and talked. . . . 
 
 Two months! But they seemed to her like years — dec- 
 ades. What had not she thought of in those months! 
 Doubt and despair had been her inseparable companions. 
 The torment of sleepless nights was hers, who used to sleep 
 so sound. Even in the institution, in the Home of Redemp- 
 tion, night invariably brought rest and forgetfulness. Every- 
 thing was changed now. . . . 
 
 " If things could be undone," Channing had wailed that 
 afternoon; if he and his wife could but be put back where 
 they were three years ago — Ruth recalled the expression 
 
 301 
 
302 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 with which he had spoken those words. She would never 
 forget that expression. She had never seen a man so tortured, 
 so unhappy. She recalled how she had thrilled at the thought 
 of her own freedom from such entanglements as bound him. 
 She was poor, she was not yet entirely released from the insti- 
 tution sentence, but at least her person was free, while Chan- 
 ning's was not. Her sympathy for him that afternoon was 
 endless. But to change places with him — never ! Nothing 
 in the world could induce her to part with her peace of mind. 
 . . . And then — and then — 
 
 She w^as eating her dinner in a quiet restaurant on one of 
 the side streets off Broadway when the memory of it came to 
 her and her jaws suddenly refused to do her bidding. She 
 could not swallow the mouthful. The knife and fork fell 
 from her hand. Then — yes, then. . . . 
 
 Well she had lost her freedom. Her wings were clipped. 
 Channing's burden had become her burden; his tragedy had 
 become her tragedy. Fate linked them together. From the 
 first she had tried to break the link, but after two months of 
 struggle it was still unbroken. She and Channing were still 
 held together as if by an invisible hand. All her efforts to 
 free herself were vain. Why were they vain? 
 
 Yes, why were they vain? Resting on the couch in her 
 apartment an hour later Ruth sought an answer to this ques- 
 tion. She sought the reason for her being there, for her not 
 being with her father, with Robert, with their grandfather in 
 some little flat on the East Side. The reason? Channing 
 was the reason. Channing held her in his grip. But he 
 wouldn't hold her much longer. Her life must be her's. 
 She would speak to him. She would insist. What did he 
 propose to make of her? She had pitied him enough, more 
 than enough. She would grow harsh, if necessary. The 
 thing had to come to an end. She must be released from this 
 
CLIPPED WINGS 303 
 
 gilded cage. She must be allowed to return to her peo- 
 ple. . . . 
 
 When Channing on that September afternoon released 
 Ruth from his arms and she stood dazed and trembling before 
 him she begged to be allowed to go home — at once. She 
 could not stay under Mrs. Avery's roof another day. She 
 would go back to her father and he could obtain her release 
 from Sister Agatha and send it to her. . . . 
 
 With his sister — well, he would have to fix up matters 
 with her by himself. She, Ruth could not look Mrs. Avery 
 in the face. 
 
 Channing's answer was a plea for time — and immediate 
 silence. He would arrange everything satisfactorily, if she 
 gave him time. Meanwhile she must put the room in order. 
 He helped her straighten things up. She must dress and 
 come down to dinner — as if nothing had happened. He 
 would stay to dinner and the next morning he would come for 
 her. He would arrange everything, if she only gave him 
 time — and maintained her calm, preserved appearance. . . . 
 
 He came the next morning and took her in his car. He 
 drove to a family hotel on Broadway. . . . She was to stay 
 there for a few days while he was arranging things for her. 
 
 The days passed over into weeks. Channing pleaded for 
 time, more time. His affairs were muddled. He needed 
 time to straighten them out. She must not be so angry with 
 him, it made him unhappy, it hurt him. Why was she hurt- 
 ing him ? . . . 
 
 He was a pitiable sight. His eyes were never at rest. 
 He spoke and acted as if the whole world were after him, 
 were persecuting him. His brain was always in a fever. 
 The sight of his torments unnerved her. She could not see 
 him suffer so. She would wait a little longer, give him time. 
 He thanked her. He was kind to her, hysterically kind. 
 
304 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 There were moments of passion and forgetfulness. . . . She 
 loved him. 
 
 But a climax had to be reached. For more than two 
 months now the thing had been dragging — it must not drag 
 any longer. She was expecting Channing that night. He 
 wrote that he would come, even if only for a few minutes. 
 She steeled herself. She would not be swayed by pity, she 
 would not yield to caresses. . . . 
 
 He brought her flowers and a book he wanted her to be sure 
 to read. ... He talked about the weather — it was bracing — 
 she must go for a ride with him. He had more time than he 
 thought he would have. She must go with him. 
 
 He did not at once observe the immobile expression in 
 Ruth's face, but when he finally did notice it his chatter 
 ceased. He took her hand, but she withdrew it. He gazed 
 at her apprehensively. He feared to utter another word. . . . 
 In Ruth the thoughts and feelings were welling. Finally she 
 spoke. 
 
 " I want to go home," she was saying. " How soon can 
 I go? Have you talked with your sister yet? How soon 
 can you two arrange it with Sister Agatha to release me, to 
 let me go? " 
 
 Channing hardly knew what to say. 
 
 " Why do you want to go? " he asked sheepishly. 
 
 " Why? " Ruth repeated with suppressed excitement. Had 
 she not known Channing better she would have thought him 
 base to ask such a question. As it was, she charged it up to 
 his general helplessness. He simply did not know what else 
 to say. " Why ? Because I want to go to my family. I 
 want to settle down. I want to look after my future — " 
 
 He tried to put his arms about her. But she pushed him 
 back firmly though without anger. 
 
 " There is no basis for the thing we are doing," she pro- 
 
CLIPPED WINGS 305 
 
 tested. "You are married. It is unfortunate that things 
 should have happened to us as they did. Maybe I am to 
 blame for it all — " she spoke in a low voice, her eyes fixed 
 on the floor. " However, there is no returning the past. But 
 arrange it so that I can go now. I am sure your sister can 
 procure my discharge from the institution, from court without 
 any trouble. Please get it for me and let me go back to my 
 people. I must begin to look after myself, after my own 
 life. . . . Other girls of my age are far ahead of me." 
 
 He was gazing at her with agonized eyes. He had wronged 
 the girl. But heaven was his witness he had not meant it 
 that way. He had intended. ... He had been keeping his 
 thoughts from her. Should he tell her and set her at ease? 
 No! No! He must not speak prematurely. It was not all 
 clear to him yet. He must act first; then speak. He was 
 full of tenderness once more. 
 
 " But you said you loved me — didn't you mean it then ? " 
 He was gazing into her eyes. " Don't you love me any 
 more? " 
 
 She was silent. His suffering had not escaped her. But 
 the thing had to be settled. It might as well be settled at 
 once. 
 
 " Don't you love me any more," he pleaded again, and took 
 her hand and kissed it. 
 
 " I do," she whispered. 
 
 " Then why leave me? " 
 
 " Because you don't belong to me. ... I can't claim you. 
 . . . Please — I want to go away as soon as you can arrange 
 it. . . . Please let me go. . . ." 
 
 He was weeping. The girl's attitude unnerved him 
 utterly. She had not a word of reproach for what he had 
 done to her. The poor child! He kissed her hands, he 
 begged her forgiveness. She must not think him bad. . . . 
 
306 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 He would rather blow his brains out than have her think him 
 one of the rich men who went after poor girls, who took 
 advantage of them. ... He was not that kind of man. He 
 loved her — wanted her. He wanted her above everything 
 in the world. . . . 
 
 He lay at her feet, a crumpled heap. She helped him raise 
 himself and he laid his head on her lap. She did not object. 
 But she did not relinquish her calm insistence. He need 
 not rob himself of his peace of mind. She was not blaming 
 him, nursed no grievances against him. All she wanted was 
 to be allowed to go. She could not go without a paper from 
 court, from Sister Agatha. It was up to him to get the paper 
 for her. That was all she asked of him. She had given 
 him time enough to straighten out his affairs. There had 
 been plenty of time. She could not wait much longer. . . . 
 
 She was daily expecting a letter from Channing telling of 
 the progress he was making toward obtaining her release. 
 Instead he rushed in one evening, ten or twelve days later, 
 and announced that he had left home. 
 
 " Emmeline and I have separated," he said. 
 
 Ruth looked at him dumbfounded. 
 
 "Aren't you glad?" he asked, irritated. In his fevered 
 brain he had foreseen a different welcome. 
 
 Ruth pleaded that she was tired and he left shortly. He 
 did not come the next evening. A letter on the following day 
 informed her that he did not come because he was being 
 shadowed by detectives. Mr. French, his father-in-law, had 
 put them on his trail. She did not see him for a week. 
 Then he sauntered in one evening with seeming boldness, 
 though Ruth noticed that his hand trembled. A detective, 
 he said, had followed him right into the hotel. But he did 
 not care. 
 
CLIPPED WINGS 307 
 
 " Now they know it," he said, vainly striving to look un- 
 concerned. " Let them go ahead and get a divorce, and I'll 
 marry you." 
 
 Ruth stepped back and grasped a chair for support. 
 
 " But I can't marry you," . . . she finally regained her 
 speech. "Your marrying me is entirely out of the ques- 
 tion." 
 
 She was hurt, terribly hurt — and alarmed. What did 
 he want of her ! He had pleaded with her to wait — wait. 
 ... He needed time to adjust things, straighten out every- 
 thing. And instead of extricating himself from his difficul- 
 ties he was creating new ones. He was wading deeper and 
 deeper into mud and was dragging her with him. . . . The 
 detetctives had seen him come there. . . . Every one would 
 know it now. . . . 
 
 Ruth was on the verge of fainting, but strength came to 
 her with a rush — and anger. 
 
 " You have not considered me at all in this," she glared 
 at him. There was despair in her gaze, disillusionment. 
 " You have not thought of me in the least. Please let me 
 get away from here. Let me go home. I don't want my life 
 shattered, ruined, any more than it has been already — " 
 
 " But — why can't you — marry me? " Channing's voice 
 was thick and lifeless. 
 
 " Have you consulted your sister about it ? Have you 
 talked to Mrs. Avery ? Would she care to have me for a sis- 
 ter-in-law? " There was something terribly pathetic about 
 Ruth as she spoke the words which brought her own stand- 
 ing into question. It seemed as if she were pronouncing a 
 verdict against herself. 
 
 The blunder, the horror and hopelessness of the situation 
 in a flash came to Channing. He had been mad, mad! 
 What had he done! And there was no way out of it. It 
 
3o8 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 could not be retrieved, undone. Never! He gazed around 
 — at Ruth, at the room — with eyes not unlike those of an 
 animal that has reached the end of a trail, with death closing 
 in on it — and a precipice and death in front of it. He left 
 the room without a word. 
 
 Ruth sat up and wept until late. . . . Steps in the next 
 room woke her at two o'clock in the morning. Channing was 
 there. She called to him; he did not answer. She heard 
 him trying to open the window to the balcony. It occurred 
 to her that he might not be in a condition to be standing on 
 the balcony. He had come in slightly intoxicated on two or 
 three occasions before. Hastily she slipped into a gown and 
 stepped into the next room. The window leading to the bal- 
 cony was wide open. Channing was not there. In the next 
 instant there was a terrific thud in the courtyard — cries, ex- 
 clamations. ... A policeman and the elevator attendant 
 found Ruth on the floor, unconscious. . . . 
 
 In the newspapers the following afternoon Channing's 
 death was described as an accident. " The scion of the 
 famous Channing family," one of the reports read, " has for 
 some time been in poor health. Craving rest and isolation 
 he took an apartment on the top floor of the beautiful Avon 
 Hotel. His apartment commanded a wonderful view of the 
 Hudson. Relatives of the deceased believe that he stepped 
 upon the balcony for a breath of the cool night air and that 
 vertigo, from which he was known to suffer, overtook him 
 and he fell. As death was instantaneous, the exact facts in 
 the tragedy will probably never be known. . . ." Of Ruth 
 Conrad there was no mention. 
 
 Not only the French family and Mrs. Avery, but the man- 
 agement of the Avon, worked frantically with the captain 
 of the police to have the detail that Channing was living with 
 a young woman at the hotel suppressed. The Avon was a 
 
CLIPPED WINGS 309 
 
 high-class family hotel. It would never do to put the slight- 
 est stain on its respectability. While acceding to the relatives 
 of the dead man and to the hotel management in giving Chan- 
 ning's death to the press as an accident rather than a suicide, 
 the police captain — Captain Baer — nevertheless ordered 
 Ruth Conrad taken into custody and held incommunicado un- 
 til he had had time to question her minutely. 
 
 Mrs. Avery v^as frenzied. She blamed herself for the 
 tragedy. It was her craze for making all sorts of experi- 
 ments with the poor and unfortunate, she kept repeating to 
 herself, that had cost her brother's life. Had she not taken 
 Ruth into her house the tragedy would not have occurred. 
 And now her own reputation was at stake. For if the truth 
 about her brother's relation to the girl came out — if it be- 
 came known that Channing had ruined Ruth — the thought 
 was too terrible for Mrs. Avery to continue to the end. . . . 
 No, it must not come out. Ruth must be silenced; her father 
 must be silenced. They must be satisfied. Money would 
 do it. But how ? Who could manage it, arrange it for her ? 
 It must be done at once — quickly. And she could not even 
 see the girl — could not talk to her. The police held her 
 in custody. The police. . . . 
 
 In Mrs. Avery's sphere, in her home, they had always been 
 accustomed to look upon the police as friends. Mr. Avery 
 had often spoken of the police gratefully. In one state the 
 police were defending his property against lawlessness from 
 strikers; in another the police were doing splendid work in 
 rounding up tramps who had been stealing and damaging 
 freight, and saved the railroad company many thousands of 
 dollars a month. The police guarded their homes, piloted 
 their automobiles; they seemed anxious to be of service. She 
 would take the police into her confidence. 
 
 Captain Baer seemingly was the sort of policeman one was 
 
310 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 bound to have faith in. He was a big, fatherly man, deliber- 
 ate, apparently very thoughtful. When he removed his 
 official cap, his iron-gray hair, with the bald spot on his 
 head, intensified the impression of kindliness. He looked like 
 an indulgent grandfather, a home-loving man. Mrs. Avery 
 decided to trust herself to the police captain. She told him 
 the story of Ruth and her brother — the whole truth. Of 
 course her brother had committed suicide. She had been in 
 dread for weeks, months over her brother's entanglements. 
 It was awful — if she had only had more courage — 
 courage. . . . 
 
 With tears coursing down her cheeks, she confided her 
 anxiety to the captain. She was afraid of Ruth, afraid of the 
 girl's father. It was out of sheer kindness that she had taken 
 her out of the institution. How could she foresee such a 
 tragedy! But suppose the girl now turned against her — 
 suppose people — a lawyer — set the girl against her? It 
 would be awful. The world could not be expected to see 
 below the surface. It would only know that Mrs. Avery had 
 taken the girl out of an institution and that the girl was 
 ruined by her brother. . . . 
 
 Captain Baer listened with a kindly, sympathetic look 
 which went to Mrs. Avery's heart. No, she had made no 
 mistake in confiding in the police captain. She felt better 
 already. She shook hands with him as with a benefactor. 
 In a mysterious whisper she told him that she would come to 
 see him again at two o'clock and she wanted to see him alone 
 — privately. . . . 
 
 The excitement, the wear of the morning increased Mrs. 
 Avery's helplessness. She was weak, faint, when she reached 
 the office of the police captain for the second time. As soon 
 as the door closed behind them and she was convinced that 
 
CLIPPED WINGS 311 
 
 they were alone, Mrs. Avery took out a package from her 
 hand-bag and put it into the captain's hand. 
 
 " There is five thousand dollars here," she said. " I mean 
 to do the right thing by the girl and her father. Take it, 
 give it to her, but see to it, please, that I am spared all 
 humiliation and trouble. God knows I meant well by her." 
 She wept. 
 
 Captain Baer put the bundle of bills into the drawer of 
 his desk with the manner of a man who is taking charge of 
 somebody's property and must see that it is returned intact. 
 Then he spoke — just as Mrs. Avery wanted him to speak. 
 
 He assured her that she was a very, very noble person, that 
 she need not fear the girl or her father. She never wronged 
 the girl. It was Ruth who was in the wrong. These girls 
 always were. It was a mistake to try to take them into one's 
 home, to try to reform them. These girls never could be re- 
 formed. Institutions did them no good; nothing did them 
 any good. Five thousand dollars certainly was a generous 
 gift — it was magnificent. The girl might thank her stars 
 that Mrs. Avery had such a kind heart. As for himself. Cap- 
 tain Baer appreciated Mrs. Avery's lofty character and 
 would carry out her instructions to the letter. She need never 
 fear any unpleasantness. He would attend to things and 
 leave no loophole for anything like that. 
 
 Mrs. Avery was greatly reassured. She ordered her chauf- 
 feur to drive her to the French's. They had charge of the 
 funeral arrangements. Her thoughts alternated between the 
 funeral and a trip to Palm Beach. She must have a rest, 
 must get away from all this, she thought, as she sobbed 
 without tears. A long rest. . . . 
 
 While he was assuring Mrs. Avery of his high regard for 
 
312 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 her unselfish, noble character, Captain Baer was thinking 
 how he was going to dispose of the five thousand without 
 laying himself open to immediate suspicion or leaving any 
 grounds for future trouble. ... He could not deposit the 
 money in the bank, nor would it do to buy additional property 
 at once. A Citizens' Committee had only recently concluded 
 an investigation of the police department and the bank ac- 
 counts as well as the property purchases of certain police 
 officials were gone into minutely. 
 
 As soon as he closed the door on the departing Mrs. Avery, 
 he transferred the bundle of bills from the desk drawer to an 
 inside pocket. The disposition of the girl was the immediate 
 problem. Ruth was held at the station without a warrant. 
 As far as the official record of the Channing " accident " 
 went, there was not a mention of her. ... He assumed a 
 very serious, very absorbed air, and called for Garrity. 
 
 Garrity was one of Captain Baer's " trusted " detectives. 
 The captain had " a thing or two " on Garrity and Garrity 
 knew of a few shady deals in which his superior had figured. 
 They had nothing to fear from one another. . . . 
 
 " Garrity," the captain said with a preoccupied air, " this 
 Channing case is not entirely cleared up yet. I am suspi- 
 cious of the woman. She looks innocent enough, but it is 
 these innocent looking things that are frequently made instru- 
 ments of blackmail. Have a talk with her and report to me 
 at four o'clock." 
 
 When, after an hour and a half of grilling by the detective, 
 Ruth had regained her cell, she threw herself upon the hard 
 bench and screeched and bit the tips of her fingers. She 
 could not stay still a moment. She wrung her hands, begged 
 mercy and wept, though there was no one to hear her. She 
 went from one fit of hysteria into another. . . . The law was 
 after her again. The Law! It was the curse, the doom of 
 
CLIPPED WINGS 313 
 
 their family. The law had sent her father to prison inno- 
 cently, and thereby killed her mother. The law had taken 
 her from her home — branded her. . . . And now the law 
 was seeking to destroy her. Merciful God ! What were they 
 not accusing her of! Money! They were accusing her of 
 bleeding Channing for money. She had driven him to suicide 
 for money; killed him for money. A bad, designing woman, 
 they called her. She was classed with criminals and black- 
 mailers. 
 
 There was a long night ahead of her. What a night I She 
 tossed from side to side; she sat up; she tried to walk the cell. 
 Her eyes burned. Her head felt as if nails had been driven 
 through it. Her tongue was heavy ; in her throat a lump was 
 making speech difficult. At nine o'clock, Captain Baer sent 
 for her. He did not scold her as the man had the previous 
 afternoon. But he held out no more comfort than the de- 
 tective had. 
 
 She did not wish to confess to blackmailing Channing? 
 Very well, he would let the jury determine that. Perhaps 
 she would rather tell the truth to the court than to him; it 
 was her affair. He would order her transferred to jail that 
 afternoon. She would have a stay of six or eight months in 
 prison until her case came up. He did not believe what she 
 was saying and was deaf to her entreaties. 
 
 " You are all alike," he said with a sneer. " You carry on 
 after you are in trouble. But why don't you think before- 
 hand ? Why don't you keep out of trouble ? 
 
 " A girl like you, so young and already so bad, so bad." 
 Captain Baer spoke with seeming regret, and rose. Ruth 
 was taken back to her cell. 
 
 A few minutes later the captain was closeted with Gar- 
 rity once more. 
 
 " Get the girl out of the city," he was saying to the de- 
 
314 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 tective. " We don't want her here. We don't want her to 
 annoy decent people. If she has not been blackmailing the 
 Channing family yet, I have no doubt she will do so as soon 
 as we let her out. Get her out of town — get her to San 
 Francisco. Tell her if she returns we will hold her on a 
 charge of homicide. . . . This will be my policy in the future 
 with all such women. Run them out of here and don't let 
 them set foot in New York again. 
 
 "Here! " Captain Baer tossed a bundle of bills to the 
 detective. " There is three hundred and fifty dollars here. 
 It was found in the room in one of the girl's trunks. Give 
 it back to her. She can buy her ticket to San Francisco with 
 iV 
 
 Ruth was in a stupor from sleeplessness and exhaustion 
 when she was ordered before Garrity. The detective gave her 
 the alternative of being sent to jail to await trial or of free- 
 dom — and a train to San Francisco. Ruth's first question 
 was, could she see her father before leaving. The detective 
 raged. No, she could see no one, and she'd better take his 
 offer quick or she might never hear of it again. The police 
 were sick of dealing with wenches like her and that was 
 why she was given the offer to clear out. But if she began 
 to act smart she would be sent to jail forthwith. 
 
 " Take it or leave it," was the final word. 
 
 She took it. She could not bear the thought of jail. They 
 had just an hour until train time. The detective took a 
 taxi and rushed her to the ticket office. She procured pas- 
 sage quickly. On the way to the ferry he stopped in front of 
 a pawn-shop and 'bought her a cheap suitcase. At Garrity 's 
 suggestion she bought some bread and meat. The detective 
 waited on the platform in front of the window where Ruth 
 sat until the train pulled out. . . . 
 
CLIPPED WINGS 315 
 
 Fred Conrad turned white when the man displayed his 
 police shield. 
 
 " Garrity is my name," the detective introduced himself 
 with mock seriousness. " Have you seen anything of your 
 daughter lately? " 
 
 " I have not seen her for ten days," Conrad replied slowly. 
 He was anticipating trouble — more trouble — and was pre- 
 paring for it. "Why — has anything happened? " 
 
 " Oh, yes; lots has happened," the detective answered with 
 a twinkle. " And we are looking for your daughter to explain 
 it." 
 
 Conrad was striving hard to retain his calm, to think. He 
 knew nothing, had heard nothing. It was agreed between 
 father and daughter that he was never to call on her at the 
 Avery home. She was to do all the calling and she called on 
 her father weekly. She had missed one or two visits be- 
 cause she was busy, she had said. Ruth had not breathed 
 a word to her father about Channing, about his taking her 
 from the Avery home. She was waiting every day for things 
 to " settle," when she would go home to her father for good. 
 Conrad told all he knew to the detective. 
 
 " Look here," the officer said, pretending to drop his mask 
 of playfulness, " you either are acting the part of a fool or 
 else you are one. Which is it? You don't mean to tell me 
 that you are not aware that your daughter has been away from 
 the Averys' for three months? " 
 
 Fred's astonishment was genuine. 
 
 " Well," the detective proceeded briskly, " she has been in 
 with a gang, a bad gang. She has become a bad woman. 
 We are looking for her." 
 
 It was Conrad's impulse to tell the detective that he was 
 a liar. He had seen his daughter ten days previously, had 
 
3i6 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 talked to her and he knew that she was not a bad woman, 
 could not be one. But a man who has been to prison knows 
 from experience that it is best not to cross officials and de- 
 tectives, so he held his peace. In place of anger came help- 
 lessness. Tremblingly he sought to gather information about 
 his daughter from the detective, but the latter noticed this 
 and informed him that he was there to get information about 
 the girl, not to give it. . . . As he was leaving, the detective 
 made a passing reference to Conrad's prison record. For 
 how long had he been imprisoned, and in what connection? 
 Oh, yes; he recalled it now. Good-day. 
 
 " I guess the old man will leave well enough alone," Gar- 
 rity reported back to Captain Baer. " He is scared stiff, and 
 he is a meek sort of an individual anyway." 
 
 " Yes, one has to be very careful with an ex-convict. 
 There is not one of them that is any good." 
 
 Captain Baer did not look at Garrity as he spoke, but the 
 detective did not take his eyes off his chief. " You are pro- 
 tecting some one," Garrity thought. " And there is a big 
 piece of change in it for you all right." And he wondered 
 how soon his day would come for a " big piece of change." 
 He had only lopped off a trifle of one hundred dollars from 
 the three hundred and fifty the captain had given him for 
 Ruth. 
 
 Conrad had sought out the Avery home, but no one an- 
 swered. He went to the Home of Redemption, but Sister 
 Agatha, after venting her fury on him, could give him no 
 more information than the police had. The police had told 
 her the same story: Ruth had got in with a bad gang; she 
 had become a bad woman. She had run away. 
 
 Old Gottfried sought to uphold his son's hands. His faith 
 in his granddaughter was unshaken. ... It was a mistake 
 to let her go to the millionaire family. He should have put 
 
CLIPPED WINGS 317 
 
 his foot down then. . . . Ruth should have served out her 
 sentence and come home; she should have had nothing to do 
 with those rich philanthropists. Their philanthropy was poi- 
 son. Fred must find Mrs. Avery. He must get at her. 
 She alone knew where Ruth was — she alone could enlighten 
 them about the girl's whereabouts — and she should be made 
 to tell. Robert agreed with his grandfather. 
 
 Meantime, Fred turned back to the only source available 
 for information about his daughter — the police. He de- 
 spised the police. In Detective Garrity he recognized the type 
 he had once run up against, the human brute who could be 
 hired for money to do anything, from scabbing and slugging 
 strikers to manufacturing evidence and railroading men to 
 jail. 
 
 " I guess we have her spotted," Garrity informed Conrad 
 when the latter called. " She beat it to Chicago. We are not 
 going after her — case not serious enough. Trust her, how- 
 ever, to get into trouble. Sooner or later the law will have 
 its hand on her." 
 
 Fred Conrad was crushed. " Chicago — what could she 
 be doing there?" he mumbled to himself. But the detec- 
 tive heard him. 
 
 " What could she be doing there? " he sneered. " Leave 
 it to her; she'll find something to do. There are plenty of 
 streets to walk there. ..." 
 
 Conrad turned and slipped through the door noiselessly. 
 But the detective called him back. 
 
 "If you are so anxious to find your little angel," he said 
 with a malicious grin, " why don't you go to Chicago? You 
 won't have much trouble finding her. The police there keep 
 a record of such characters. They generally have such 
 women registered. You might be able to get on her trail that 
 way." 
 
3i8 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 When Conrad shut the door behind him, the detective snick- 
 ered. " Just like him," he mused, " to start on a fool's errand 
 for Chicago." And he snickered again. " But the captain 
 will be pleased all right." 
 
 At the very moment Fred Conrad was dragging himself 
 down the steps of the police station, Ruth stepped into the 
 railway waiting-room at San Francisco. There were signs 
 on the walls cautioning girls and calling attention to the 
 Young Women's Christian Association. Ruth walked past 
 these signs and past the woman who stood there apparently 
 looking for strangers to whom she might be of service. The 
 signs and the woman somehow reminded her of the Home of 
 Redemption and of Sister Agatha, with her strict and mo- 
 notonous Episcopalian services. She passed a policeman 
 quickly, without looking at him. . . . She dreaded the police. 
 She checked her suitcase, in which lay a few papers and 
 magazines she had bought on the train to hide its bareness, 
 and went out into the street. 
 
 She studied the cars for some minutes, and entered one 
 whose sign appealed to her. The car passed through a large 
 middle-class district. The houses, all two and three-story 
 frame buildings, had many " To Let " signs. She made a 
 mental notation of one of the cross streets, went with the car 
 to the end of the line, and came back with it. When she 
 reached the street on her return trip she got off. In front of 
 one of the houses a woman was sitting with a child on her lap. 
 Yes, she had a room to rent. Ruth looked at the woman and 
 at the house. She wanted to make sure that she was among 
 decent working people. She was, and she paid the two dol- 
 lars required, got the key and went back to the station to get 
 her valise. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 GOTTFRIED RUMINATES 
 
 NOTHING was the same after Ruth's disappearance. 
 The city was not the same; the streets were not the 
 same; the people were not the same. Fred Conrad entertained 
 not the slightest thought that his daughter had become a 
 criminal — he knew her too well for that — still he had to 
 overcome a certain dread every time he unfolded a newspaper 
 lest he read of Ruth's arrest — or suicide. While pining for 
 a clue to his daughter's whereabouts, he was thankful never- 
 theless every time he looked through a newspaper and failed 
 to find her name in it. The passing of the postman set his 
 heart beating faster. He was waiting, hoping for a letter 
 from Ruth. He felt that she would find a way to write to 
 him, to communicate with him, no matter what difficulties 
 she was in. She was self-possessed like her mother and she 
 loved him, loved her brother and her grandfather; she would 
 write. ... So he would stand in the hallway and watch the 
 postman distribute his mail, and listen breathlessly for the 
 calling of his name. 
 
 But no letter came. He sought once more to gain access 
 to the Avery home, but no one answered his ring. He tried 
 again, only to find the windows boarded up. While he was 
 gazing mutely at the walls a servant came out from the 
 basement of the adjoining house. Fred asked her about 
 the Averys. They had gone to Europe. 
 
 The possibility that Ruth had fallen victim to a gang, in 
 
 319 
 
320 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 the absence of any clue to the girl, was not to be dismissed 
 lightly. Evidence of the gang and its operations was to 
 be found at every turn. Whole sections of New York were 
 groaning under gang rule. The coal man, Jacob Miller, an 
 old school friend of Conrad's, had lost six horses in as many 
 months. Gangsters had poisoned them. The coal man knew 
 the gangsters, or at least their go-betweens, but when asked 
 why he did not give their names to the police, he laughed a 
 wan laugh. To tell the police on the gang would mean to 
 sign his death sentence. He kept silent and was quietly mak- 
 ing plans to slip out into the country. 
 
 But the heaviest toll the gang levied on the city was not in 
 cash but in human bodies, bodies of young girls it could ex- 
 ploit. Fred was no stranger to this problem, which the 
 newspapers were airing in their columns at frequent intervals. 
 He had known several men, laborers, each of whom had re- 
 ported a daughter to the police as " missing." These girls 
 were never found and their parents were never the same after- 
 ward. The wife of one of the men died shortly after her 
 daughter's disappearance. The mother of another girl was 
 taken to an insane asylum. She was released after six 
 months and went about her business apparently as usual, but 
 she never looked people in the eyes again. 
 
 There were blocks in New York, entire streets in fact, 
 which had an unsavory reputation. The saloons in these 
 districts figured frequently in the newspapers in connection 
 with murders; the hotels and rooming houses, in connection 
 with suicides. These streets were known as the city's under- 
 world. A number of trade unions had their headquarters 
 scattered through these districts, and in his early days as a 
 labor leader Fred Conrad had often passed through them on 
 his way to meetings. But he seldom gave these places a 
 thought. Now visions of them haunted him day and night. 
 
GOTTFRIED RUMINATES 321 
 
 It was in places such as these that his daughter, his Ruth, 
 might perhaps be found. ... He did not believe the de- 
 tective, he did not believe his daughter to be guilty, to be in 
 the wrong. But then it was known that many of the women 
 in these places were there under duress — the gang held them 
 there. Such too might be the fate of his daughter. . . . 
 
 He strolled through these streets frequently now, search- 
 ing them with his gaze. And the streets were revealing them- 
 selves to him. He saw them as he had never seen them 
 before. He watched the saloons in the district, the pool- 
 rooms, cigar stores. They always became alive at nightfall. 
 There was always a profusion of young men in front of them, 
 sleek, dapper young fellows, each of whom looked as if he 
 had just left the barber's chair, where his face had been 
 swathed in hot towels for a long time. There was a signif- 
 icance in everything these men said or did. Their faces, 
 hands, bearing, showed no trace of work. In spite of their 
 leisurely appearance, however, and in spite of their being 
 well dressed, they did not look as if they came from good 
 families. There was a lack of breeding, a coarseness about 
 them, which was repellent. 
 
 One individual, especially, arrested Fred Conrad's atten- 
 tion, and he gave him a prolonged and searching gaze. In- 
 stantly the young man thus scrutinized became apprehensive. 
 He followed Conrad down the street for nearly three blocks, 
 and examined him in passing. He then turned back and 
 upon coming face to face with Conrad, gave him a piercing 
 look. Fred watched the maneuvers of the man, noticed his 
 evident suspicion, fear, and guessed the cause of it. It was 
 into the eyes of a gangster that he had looked, and the 
 gangster had become apprehensive. So that was what they 
 were like, these gangsters! And it was such a man that 
 had robbed him of his daughter, that had made Ruth his 
 
322 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 chattel, his slave. . . . He began to doubt whether Ruth 
 would be able to write to him soon, after all. A man of the 
 type he had seen, with his suspicions working overtime, might 
 make it difficult for the girl to scrawl a line to her father 
 for a long time. 
 
 Conrad worked irregularly. Robert was earning his liveli- 
 hood in the packing department of a wholesale woolen house. 
 And Fred did not need much. He even had a hundred dol- 
 lars in the bank. He had saved it for Ruth. It was to be 
 used on her homecoming. He was to get her clothes with 
 it, nice clothes, for she was a young woman now. . . . 
 
 His sense of privacy, which had been very keen in the first 
 few weeks, was becoming less poignant. Conrad ceased to 
 hide his misfortune from people. He talked about it, guard- 
 edly of course, but still he talked, seeking information, advice, 
 which might be of value to him in tracing his daughter. 
 There was a woman in the neighborhood whose husband Con- 
 rad had known. The woman had " lost " a daughter the year 
 before, and Conrad sought her out and talked with her. 
 The woman gave him the names of societies to whom she had 
 appealed to find her girl. But she warned him beforehand 
 not to put too much trust in such societies. They made much 
 fuss but accomplished little. . . . 
 
 It was while going from one of these societies to the other 
 to enlist their help in search of his daughter, that Conrad 
 collapsed one day. The bored expression with which the 
 attendant at one place he called, a thin, long man with a 
 choleric look, took his story down, was the last straw. His 
 nerves, which he was holding in control with great effort, gave 
 way. The world seemed in conspiracy against him. The 
 police, detectives, the Garritys, were brutal, murderous. And 
 the philanthropic societies, which were supposed to aid and 
 comfort the poor, were a travesty. They had no heart. . . . 
 
GOTTFRIED RUMINATES 323 
 
 He dragged himself home with difficulty, and once he gained 
 his bed he could not leave it. He became limp bodily and 
 mentally. Robert and his grandfather took turns staying up 
 and tending to him. It was two weeks before Fred made 
 any improvement. When he was convalescing strange yearn- 
 ings began to surge through him. His dream of California, 
 of a log cabin there, became poignant once more. If he could 
 only find Ruth he would not stay another day in New York, 
 he would take her and they would start for the West at 
 once. He had a little money saved. ... He confided his 
 yearnings to Robert and to Gottfried. Yes, if he only could 
 find Ruth, everything would be well again. He felt his 
 strength coming back to him. He felt capable of striking out 
 once more. 
 
 The idea of going to Chicago occurred to him. Of course 
 he did not believe Garrity. The detective probably had not 
 the slightest evidence that the girl was there. But then Ruth 
 might be there all the same. The newspapers often told of 
 New York gangsters taking their girl victims to other cities; 
 it was safer. Ruth might be in Chicago. And at any rate 
 this sitting with folded hands would not get him anywhere. 
 His brooding was only undermining his health. He would 
 go to Chicago. . . . 
 
 Gottfried listened to his son and approved of his plan. 
 The journey to Chicago might not do Ruth any good, but it 
 would surely do his son good. Fred was in need of a change, 
 some change, if he was not to give way under the strain. 
 So Gottfried nodded approval to his son's proposals. 
 
 As he lay in bed motionless Fred felt himself equal to the 
 task of making a trip to Chicago for the purpose of finding 
 his daughter there. But when he was on his feet again his 
 enthusiasm flagged. However, he proceeded with his prepa- 
 rations for the journey; to stay home idle was maddening. 
 
324 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 Gottfried was always on hand with help and suggestions. 
 He went over every detail of the proposed journey with his 
 son, the plan which Fred was to follow in Chicago in search 
 for Ruth. . . . 
 
 The disappearance of his granddaughter had affected Gott- 
 fried no less deeply than it had his son. From the first Gott- 
 fried made up his mind that the girl was innocent. What- 
 ever might happen to her he did not for a moment doubt 
 his granddaughter's mental purity. The conviction of her 
 innocence along with the fact that the girl had character kept 
 the hope of Ruth's returning to them ever high. Ruth was 
 not the kind of girl to be dragged down easily. She would 
 fight — fight her way out. She would come back. . . . 
 
 The evening before Fred was to start for Chicago, Gott- 
 fried left the store in charge of his grandson — Robert was 
 quite capable of taking care of it — in order to be alone with 
 his son. Robert would stay with his father all night and 
 would have most of the next day with him. There were 
 things that he wanted to say to Fred, Gottfried tried to make 
 himself believe. In reality, what he wanted w^as to be near 
 his son, to see as much of Fred as possible — on this last 
 evening. He was telling himself that it was only a tem- 
 porary parting. . . . Fred would be back soon — he hoped 
 very soon — and perhaps with Ruth. . . . Nevertheless he 
 could not free himself from a melancholy feeling. . . . Some- 
 where a thought was insistently recurring that it was a seri- 
 ous parting. ... In the morning, the few things that Fred 
 had in his flat would be moved to the rear of Gottfried's 
 store. . . . The little home in which he had expected to re- 
 ceive Ruth would be broken up. . . . 
 
 Father and son talked in snatches as they sat facing each 
 other across the table. There was not much to be said — 
 everything had been settled, arranged. Besides, Gottfried 
 
GOTTFRIED RUMINATES 325 
 
 was finding speech difficult, annoying. His thoughts, too, 
 defied him. . . . They persisted in running in a groove which 
 he disliked. He had never been at the mercy of his thoughts 
 so much as he was that evening. He gazed at Fred's drawn 
 features and discovered that he had never seen him look so 
 bad. He was but a shadow of his former self. Why, his 
 hair was completely gray, and he was only forty-one. Other 
 men at his age were in the prime of life. ... A sense of 
 horror, of deep, tragic failure took hold of Gottfried and 
 shook him from head to foot. What a terrible fate to have 
 brought a son into the world to! And he, Gottfried, was re- 
 sponsible, largely, entirely, for his son's fate, for Fred's 
 seared face, for the tragic lines about his mouth, for the ex- 
 pression of unutterable pain in his tired eyes. 
 
 A fear seized Gottfried, a fear that his son's journey to 
 Chicago would be futile, would end badly. Fred was a 
 mental and physical wreck. He should not be entrusted with 
 such a task. There might be illness, an accident, death. He 
 was on the verge of telling Fred to call off the trip to Chi- 
 cago, but his throat was thick. . . . His eyes were blurred. 
 . . . Then something very strange happened. . . . 
 
 Fred's face became more and more like his mother's — in 
 her last years. Gottfried was astonished at the resemblance. 
 Never had he seen his dead wife so vividly. . . . Why, actu- 
 ally, Anna was sitting in the chair there, opposite him, sit- 
 ting in Fred's place. . . . She was looking at him as always, 
 perplexed, with big, submissive eyes — pained eyes. . . . 
 But there was more than pain in those eyes now. Reproach 
 was there. . . . She was speaking to him slowly, in a scarcely 
 audible whisper intended seemingly for his ears only. He 
 was sure no one else could hear her. . . . There was an in- 
 describable pathos in her voice, the fathomless grief that 
 goes with a terrible, an irretrievable loss. . . . 
 
326 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 "What have you done to our boy?" she was saying. 
 " Why have you forced all this pain and agony on him ? 
 Look what you have made of him. He is an old man now — 
 you have made an old man of him. Look at his gray hair — 
 Our Freddy gray-haired. Why could you not let him live 
 his own life, live in peace, like other people? Why did you 
 twist his life to suit a whim of yours? Why have you 
 angered him for so many years, forced an unnatural silence 
 upon him, out of pride, sheer vanity? Why didn't you come 
 to him with your advice and experience — perhaps if you 
 had stood by him, had been closer to him — as a father should 
 be — he would have been spared all his trials. . . . Our boy, 
 our Freddy — " 
 
 Gottfried, holding his face in his hands, was swaying in his 
 chair. . . . Fred found business in the next room for some 
 little time. . . . 
 
 Summer was drawing to a close. It was six months since 
 Fred had left for Chicago in search of Ruth. He had written 
 at first, though his letters were far from cheerful. He was 
 not getting on with the search for his daughter. He feared 
 it was a hopeless undertaking ; unless Ruth took the initiative 
 and wrote to them first, the task of finding her might never 
 be achieved. ... He was losing heart. . . . Then his let- 
 ters ceased. Robert wrote to his father, begged him frantic- 
 ally to write, to keep them informed of his plans and where- 
 abouts. The letters came back; Fred was no longer at the 
 old address. They had no other way of reaching him. 
 
 His father's silence, added to the disappearance of his 
 sister, had a peculiar effect upon Robert. It aged him physic- 
 ally and matured him mentally. His features were growing 
 staid and manly and his mind was growing serious, almost 
 too sober for one of his age. He was at his grandfather's 
 
GOTTFRIED RUMINATES 327 
 
 heel all the time, asking questions, seeking the old man's 
 views — for Gottfried's views somehow always proved to be 
 correct, Robert had learned from experience. His grand- 
 father inspired not only confidence, but respect. He was re- 
 sourceful, and was never at a loss for the proper word or deed. 
 
 In a measure, as Robert was inviting age, his grandfather 
 was shutting it out. In the past Gottfried had never paid 
 attention to his physical well-being and comfort. The ques- 
 tion of illness and of death never worried him. If death 
 came, let it come. It was not a thing one could avoid, so 
 why think or worry about it. It was different now. He 
 felt that just now he must have his health. There were a 
 number of things he wanted to see through. ... He could 
 not bring himself to think of Ruth as lost to them. She 
 would turn up and would have need of him, for Fred was 
 weak and helpless. It was up to him, Gottfried, to take 
 up the task which his son was unable to perform. He 
 must put some sort of a foundation under Robert's feet. 
 Thus far the boy had been drifting. Robert was working for 
 nine dollars a week as a packer in a wholesale house. He 
 had outgrown his job long ago and was hanging on to it solely 
 because he knew of nothing else he could do. He could not 
 hang on to it much longer, though. Soon he would be dis- 
 missed and a younger boy would be taken in his place. 
 
 But while Robert was a problem he was also a joy to the 
 old man. The sight of his grandson growing into manhood 
 thrilled and delighted Gottfried. Robert was more than a 
 grandson to him. He was his hope, the last hope for the 
 House of Conrad, the spark from which a flame might be 
 kindled — and the dream of his life yet be realized. . . . 
 
 Often wlien Gottfried gazed at his grandson an incident 
 of his Wanderjahre in Germany would come to his mind. 
 Once as a boy in the course of his wanderings from city to 
 
328 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 city evening overtook him on the road. He decided to build 
 a fire and spend the night under the open sky. He had had 
 only a few matches and he had used the last one. But the 
 fire was not successful. It was dying, in spite of all his 
 nursing. It was a gloomy prospect. Then just as it was 
 about to flicker out, a wind came up, a dry leaf was blown up 
 from somewhere. The flame was fanned to life again, fanned 
 into a blaze. . . . 
 
 He associated his grandson with the memory of that inci- 
 dent. The dying dream of his youth — the establishment of 
 a " House of Conrad " in America — might yet be fanned to 
 life again by his grandson, by Robert. It was this hope 
 which refused to be downed, that constantly tuned up his 
 vitality and enabled Gottfried to defy the infirmities of age 
 which would have sent another man, as strong as he physically 
 but mentally less fortified, to bed. He still had a mission in 
 life; he still clung to a dream. . . . 
 
 In his efforts to get nearer to his grandson, Gottfried now 
 closed the store Sundays, and he and Robert would go out for 
 a whole day to the park, seldom returning before nightfall. 
 Gottfried had no qualms about closing the store for the entire 
 day. The loss was trifling. The character of the neighbor- 
 hood had greatly changed with the years, and the character 
 of his patronage changed with it. One by one the old crowd 
 had drifted away. Most of his one-time comrades, the early 
 Lassalleans, were dead, and the few socialist pioneers that 
 were living had left the district. They now stayed with their 
 children, who lived either uptown or in the suburbs. Little 
 Germany was no longer true to its name. It was swarming 
 with newer immigrants, Jews and Slavs. Gottfried sold few 
 German papers now and still fewer socialist papers and 
 pamphlets. His trade in cigars had fallen off. There was 
 an up-to-date cigar store on the corner and the newer crowd 
 
GOTTFRIED RUMINATES 329 
 
 went there for their cigars. They knew not Conrad and had 
 not the sentiment for his place that the old-timers had. 
 
 These Sunday outings opened Gottfried's eyes to some- 
 thing which he had not hitherto observed, or rather had paid 
 no attention to. It was the success and prosperity which the 
 children of his fellow immigrants had achieved in America. 
 At every turn he ran into the German name of a doctor, a 
 lawyer, a large business establishment, a manufactory. Many 
 of the names were of his former friends and acquaintances. 
 The children of these friends of his had risen high in the 
 world. He had known some of these children very well, for 
 he and their fathers had lived and worked side by side. He 
 and their parents had belonged to the same societies, to the 
 socialist party. . . . 
 
 Yes, it was remarkable how few sons of the old socialist 
 pioneers were actually in the movement to-day — socialists. 
 The movement appealed to them no more than it had to his 
 son. But whereas he had carried on a bitter feud with his 
 Fred for years over it, these men had allowed their children 
 to go their way unhampered. . . . And the result. . . . The 
 brass plates announcing their professions, businesses; the 
 automobiles in front of their homes, spoke eloquently of suc- 
 cess, of achievement, of happiness, while his Fred. . . . 
 Where was Fred ? Gottfried had no regrets for himself. . . . 
 He could not keep his ideal like an expensive ornament to 
 be worn only on rare occasions. He had to live it, to make 
 sacrifices for it. But — why had he interfered with his son ? 
 He should have let the boy go his way. He should have 
 known better. Children seldom carried on the work of their 
 parents. It was the way — the irony — of life. . . . 
 
 He would not make the same mistake with his grandson, 
 however. He would not try to impose his ideas upon Robert. 
 It was not a one-man job, this reforming of society, nor was 
 
330 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 it a job for one generation, for one age. One man can 
 contribute a little toward the improvement of mankind; a 
 generation may bring the day of universal justice nearer. 
 But in the main, Conrad brooded, the task of regenerating the 
 world would be accomplished not by the self-sacrificing 
 altruism of a few idealists, but by a quickened consciousness 
 of the whole of mankind. What he now hoped for Robert 
 was to see the boy grow up into an honest, earnest man, doing 
 his share of the world's work, and resting content with that. 
 Successful martyrdom, the kind which is rewarded by' im- 
 mortality, is a sacred calling to which one has to be 
 born. ... 
 
 Robert too was thinking of the future. His grandfather's 
 restless energy was prodding him on. Ruth's disappearance 
 and his father's silence caused him to shelve his plans for the 
 time being. Nevertheless the plans were there, they were 
 brewing within him. A persistent characteristic of Robert's 
 plans was that they were leaving New York out of their cal- 
 culations. He was thinking of himself as doing things, as 
 achieving, but the battle-ground of his achievements was not 
 a New York street, but the open country. ... He was re- 
 calling his father's letter from prison, Fred's dream of a log 
 cabin hidden by pine-trees in California. He often fell 
 asleep v/ith the vision of the pine-trees, of the cabin. 
 
 He was out of tune with New York. It was irritating 
 him. He was beginning to hate it. The city had taken his 
 sister from him. The loathsome side of New York revealed 
 itself to him one evening and made him sick with disgust. 
 
 He was walking along Third Avenue when a familiar 
 voice called his name. It was Frank Ryland, a schoolmate 
 of his and a former neighbor. Robert recalled that he had 
 missed Frank for more than a year. He surveyed him and 
 was surprised at the prosperity the boy showed. Ryland's 
 
GOTTFRIED RUMINATES 331 
 
 parents he knew to be poor people. They chatted for some 
 moments, Frank dodging Robert's direct questions as to where 
 he was working and what he was doing. As they talked, 
 Ryland's eyes were never still an instant. He seemed to be 
 watching some one, somewhere, everywhere. Several girls 
 passed. Their showy clothes, painted faces and lingering 
 glances proclaimed their profession. They were underworld 
 characters, and as they passed Ryland they greeted him with 
 smiling, significant eyes. The boy replied in the same man- 
 ner. The truth about Frank Ryland's occupation flashed 
 upon Robert. He had heard of other boys who were living 
 off girls, off women. A horror ran through him. He was 
 too amazed for speech and started to leave. But Ryland 
 hung on to him. 
 
 " Looking for excitement? " he asked with a sly wink. 
 
 Robert said something about being on the way home, and 
 Ryland was ready with the next question. 
 
 " Still working in that woolen place? " 
 
 " Still there," Robert answered, glad to change the sub- 
 ject. 
 
 " What are you pulling down there — eight plunks a 
 week? '^ Frank Ryland's voice was one of contempt. 
 
 " About that," Robert answered. 
 
 " Why, don't you chuck that concern, Bob, and come with 
 me?" Ryland's tone was confidential, almost humane, as 
 if he were doing the boy a real favor. "I'll fix you up — 
 right." 
 
 Robert was too embarrassed to speak. He made another 
 move to go, but Ryland came closer. 
 
 " Say," he whispered, " chuck that job of yours and come 
 with me. You'll never regret it. I'll introduce you to a girl 
 — a peach. She'll do anything for you. You'll never need 
 to look at a job again." 
 
332 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 " I'm much obliged, Frank," Robert replied and abruptly 
 left him. He walked fast but Ryland followed him, 
 
 " Too good for it, eh? " he was sneering at Robert's shoul- 
 der. " You — Beat it as fast as you can or I'll have one 
 of the fellows from over there," he gave a quick glance in 
 the direction of several young men who were standing in front 
 of a saloon, " cave in your face for you. Beat it, you — " 
 
 Robert never related this incident to his grandfather. He 
 was ashamed. It was too humiliating. He hated the city, 
 hated it from the depth of his soul. 
 
 In the daytime Gottfried's trade was mostly with children. 
 He had taken in a small stock of candies and school supplies 
 to make up for the loss of trade in German newspapers and 
 cigars. In the evenings, however, his place would occasion- 
 ally regain its one-time character and atmosphere. There 
 were about a dozen men in the neighborhood, sons of Gott- 
 fried's former friends and comrades, to whom his little store 
 was still a magnet. Before an election, on the eve of a 
 great strike or of some important event in the socialist or labor 
 movement, these men would seek out Gottfried's shop and 
 would spend the evening there arguing, debating. 
 
 The discussions were not, however, as harmonious as of 
 yore. While all of the men were trade unionists, not all of 
 them were socialists. Some of them were distinctly opposed 
 to the socialist movement and were bitter in denunciation of 
 its program and especially of its leadership. The severest 
 critics of the socialists were most often children of the very 
 men who a generation back had made great sacrifices to build 
 up the movement. Arthur Gessner was such a one. Arthur's 
 father, Rudolph Gessner, was one of the early Lassalleans. 
 Gottfried well remembered the days when he and Rudolph 
 Gessner spoke from the same platform. Now Gessner's son 
 
GOTTFRIED RUMINATES 333 
 
 was the severest, though Gottfried had to admit, also a sin- 
 cere and often very sane critic of the socialists. 
 
 Gottfried seldom took part in discussions now. He had 
 been away from the movement too long and had not followed 
 the trend of events closely. His, or rather his son's, family 
 troubles had absorbed him completely. Only on rare occa- 
 sions when he was appealed to for an opinion would he break 
 his silence. He still read the Arbeiter Zeitung regularly, 
 though he often found the English papers more interesting. 
 They contained so much. It was from them more often than 
 from the Arbeiter Zeitung that he got a real glimpse of the 
 progress which his ideas, socialist ideas, were making in 
 America. The world certainly was moving. It was going 
 forward at a lively pace. Of course his dreams, the dreams 
 of his socialist friends, of the pioneer Lassalleans, had not 
 been realized. The social revolution, which they had looked 
 forward to in their youthful enthusiasm, had not come to pass. 
 But then — they had expected too much. He felt embar- 
 rassed at times when he recalled the extravagant views which 
 he and his comrades once held. They were so greatly at 
 variance with human nature. They had thought that social- 
 ism could change human institutions over night and human 
 nature with it. They were young. They had believed in 
 miracles after their own fashion. 
 
 But things had been going forward at a lively pace. 
 Gottfried found evidence of this daily, everywhere. Most of 
 what had been a purely socialist vocabulary thirty years 
 back had now become common usage. Many of the ideas 
 which when preached by him and his friends a generation 
 ago were decried as treason, now were advocated by conserva- 
 tive statesmen. A few of them already had been framed into 
 law. Great American newspapers now used the very phrases 
 for which he, Gottfried, had, on more than one occasion, been 
 
334 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 pulled down from the platform and clubbed by the police. 
 Yes, time was a great jester. . . . 
 
 But while Gottfried looked with satisfaction upon the 
 spread of his ideas, he could not free himself entirely from 
 a distressing conviction that the spread of radical phraseology, 
 thought, and here and there even law did not always imply 
 a corresponding spread of reform. The economic status of 
 the great mass of city workmen was not improving. It was, 
 in fact, getting worse. At least that was his observation. 
 More homes were being broken up every year by unemploy- 
 ment. The masses in New York, in all industrial centers, 
 were forever living in dread and uncertainty. There was no 
 twilight zone for the common laborer. He either had a job, 
 enough to eat and a roof over his head, or he had no job — 
 and in that case was face to face with utter want, with the 
 gutter — or the charity organization. The quality of citizen- 
 ship in the working class was of a low order. Character was 
 declining. The beast in man was coming to the surface more 
 and more. 
 
 Arthur Gessner indirectly laid the subject wide open one 
 evening. Gessner was charging the socialists with a loss of 
 character, a want of vision. The movement was no longer 
 the vanguard of progress, he was saying. It was being under- 
 mined by narrow, selfish, clique leadership. The old party 
 politicians were exploiting their parties for gain ; the socialist 
 politicians were exploiting the movement for vanity. In com- 
 parison with the leaders of a generation back, the socialist 
 leaders of to-day, Gessner shouted, were " manikins, pyg- 
 mies." 
 
 Gottfried half listened to Gessner at first. An item he had 
 read in the evening paper had greatly stirred and shaken 
 him. It was about a friend of his boyhood, a German immi- 
 grant like himself, who was now a wealthy farmer out West. 
 
GOTTFRIED RUMINATES 335 
 
 The item was like a voice from the past. He recalled the 
 day when this boyhood friend of his had left New York to 
 pioneer on the land. Gottfried might have gone with him; 
 his friend had pleaded with him to leave the city. But he 
 would not. He had felt the call to preach the new ideas of 
 brotherhood and humanity to the oppressed and exploited city 
 workers and he stayed with Kolb, with the others. . . . 
 
 The increasing vehemence of Gessner's arguments finally 
 roused Gottfried and he began answering him. Arthur Gess- 
 ner and his Fred had been schoolfellows together and Gott- 
 fried cherished the memory of those days, and was always 
 well disposed to Gessner despite his violent antipathies. 
 
 " What you say is true — too true." Gottfried spoke, with- 
 out passion, without heat. " But you are not distributing 
 the blame evenly. The socialist party is suffering from a lack 
 of character, but that is not purely a socialist fault. It is 
 characteristic of the whole of our society. We are living 
 in a characterless age. We are living in an age of things, 
 not of men, we are living in an age that puts a premium on 
 deceit, that makes a mockery of sincerity and a jest of self- 
 sacrifice. We have been dwarfed. Parties, like men, are 
 the product of their times, their age. The socialist movement 
 takes its leaders from the material at hand, and the human 
 material of to-day is of an inferior quality. ... It is a 
 big problem you have touched on here and responsibility for 
 it cannot be saddled upon one group or class. 
 
 " To me," Gottfried came back to the subject after brief 
 reflection, " the far worse result from this decay of character 
 than the inferior brand of leadership, socialist or otherwise, 
 is the deteriorating quality of the great army of democracy. 
 The overbearing snobbery or autocracy of an individual 
 leader I can observe with indifference, but the decline in the 
 character of an entire class, one might almost say of a people, 
 
336 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 leaves me worried. It is possible that at my age one becomes 
 discouraged too readily, but I often find myself wondering if 
 our city workers upon whom we have always relied to form 
 the backbone of the great democratic army which is to liber- 
 ate mankind — I am often wondering these days if these 
 city workers have the stamina, the character for the job. 
 
 " The factory, industry, the ever-present specter of jobless- 
 ness, batter all courage out of our city men. The fear of 
 a hungry to-morrow makes a thief, a liar, a potential traitor 
 and assassin out of every one. ... I have been thinking these 
 things over a good deal of late and I am in doubt. At times 
 it seems to me as if the backbone of the great army of 
 democracy of America will come not from the festering slums 
 and the sodden tenements of the East, but from the broad 
 fields and rolling prairies of the West. The West — " 
 
 Conrad grew silent. He was gazing over the heads of the 
 people in the room as if he were seeing, discerning something 
 in the distance. . . . No one disturbed his revery. He awoke 
 from it after a few moments. 
 
 " Let me show you something." He produced the news- 
 paper, marked the item about his boyhood friend, and passed 
 it across the counter. It told of a man named Henry Esser, 
 a farmer in the state of Kansas who was the father of ten 
 sons and sixty-five grandchildren. The Esser family owned 
 close to three thousand acres of land. Recently the father 
 and his nine married sons put in an order for ten auto- 
 mobiles. 
 
 " Henry Esser and I were friends once," Gottfried ex- 
 plained. His mind was ages distant from the conversation 
 of a few minutes previous. " We came over on the same 
 vessel. He was heartbroken because he could not persuade 
 me to go West with him — to the land. I am heartbroken 
 to-day because I stayed here. . . ." 
 
GOTTFRIED RUMINATES 337 
 
 It was a momentary weakness that had wrung this un- 
 expected confession from Conrad. And he had not seen his 
 grandson sitting in a corner of the store, listening to every 
 word he said, watching his grandfather's every gesture. He 
 was under the impression that Robert was out. . . . 
 
 In a few minutes the place was deserted. Gottfried pulled 
 down the blinds and, putting out the light, went to the rear of 
 the store, to his living-room, to make a cup of coffee. The 
 drinking of a cup of hot coffee before retiring was one of the 
 concessions he was making to his advancing age. While 
 Gottfried was busying himself about the gas stove, his grand- 
 son sat on his cot as if in a trance. Gottfried poured a cup 
 of coffee for Robert and called him. 
 
 " Why haven't you ever spoken to me — like this — about 
 the West, about land? " Robert turned on his grandfather 
 pensively. 
 
 Gottfried was silent. 
 
 " At any rate," Robert continued, " I'm glad you spoke 
 to-night the way you did. It has cleared many things for 
 me. I know what I want now. ... I am going West — I 
 am going to be a farmer. . . ." 
 
 Robert looked up at his grandfather. There was the least 
 bit of a challenge in the boy's gaze. He was determined 
 to defend his ideas to his grandfather, to convince him 
 that he was right and that his plans were practical. He 
 had thought them out carefully. Gottfried studied the boy 
 thoughtfully. 
 
 Robert was now speaking quickly, earnestly. The govern- 
 ment was giving away land, homesteads in Nevada, Oregon, 
 California. He read about it in a Sunday paper — Gott- 
 fried was selling the Sunday papers in his store now and Rob- 
 ert scanned them eagerly. There was a story there about a 
 boy from the East who made his way to a homestead. Robert 
 
338 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 meant to get such a homestead too. He would go to Cali- 
 fornia. He would take out a claim there. 
 
 " You remember Father always spoke of California," Rob- 
 ert's tense features of a moment previous relaxed at the mem- 
 ory of his past, of their past. " He once wrote a letter from 
 prison to us about California. It must have done Father good 
 to dream of that far off state then. I shall go there. I want 
 to have a farm in California. And maybe Father will find 
 me there some day, and you and Ruth. . . ." 
 
 The Eastern boy in the Sunday story had worked his way 
 to the West. Robert meant to work his way to California 
 too. He began to outline to his grandfather a plan for get- 
 ting there. He had enough money to take him to Chicago. 
 He would work in Chicago, Kansas City, Denver, anywhere 
 — he would work at anything — what difference did it make? 
 It was only a means to an end. 
 
 Gottfried, too, had read the article in the Sunday paper. 
 He could not help reading it; the pictures accompanying the 
 story were so appealing. They seemed to tear one's imagina- 
 tion wide open. For days he kept seeing the picture of the 
 little homestead in the Far West before his eyes constantly. 
 . . . He gazed at his grandson. Robert was as tall as him- 
 self. There was an expression of seriousness about him that 
 made him look manly, reliable. At the boy's age he, Gott- 
 fried, was a man, had roamed the world at will. However, 
 there was a drawback that the boy in his eagerness over- 
 looked completely. Gottfried reminded him of it. 
 
 " But you are only nineteen years old," he said. " The boy 
 in the story was twenty-one when he went out there. They 
 don't give homesteads to persons under twenty-one." 
 
 Robert's head sank. He sat motionless for some minutes. 
 Then he rose, walked up and down the room, stopping in 
 front of an old mirror which was hanging on the wall. He 
 
GOTTFRIED RUMINATES 339 
 
 gazed at himself intently then turned to his grandfather. 
 
 " I am twenty-one," he said. " I'm the right age to take 
 out a claim." 
 
 Gottfried looked at his grandson pityingly. The boy was 
 laboring under a terrific strain. The dream of the West, of 
 a homestead in California, was too enticing, too fond a dream 
 to give up easily. 
 
 " My son," Gottfried began, " I would not like to see you 
 start out on any undertaking with a lie at the founda- 
 tion. . . ." 
 
 He got no further. 
 
 " A lie! A lie! " Robert was in a rage. " Why, every- 
 thing is based on lies in this city, in this world. I had to 
 lie to get my job, and I lie daily to hold it. Do you call 
 it a lie to deny two years of my life to the government in 
 order to get to the land? Am I hurting any one with the 
 lie? Besides, it is no lie. A man is as old as he has 
 suffered. ..." 
 
 He could not continue for emotion. There was an old 
 dresser in the comer of the room. Robert staggered over 
 to it, put both his elbows on top of it and took his face in 
 his hands. 
 
 Gottfried watched his grandson for a time. That was a 
 phase of the boy he had not suspected. He had always 
 thought of Ruth as approaching him nearest in strength, and 
 had classed Robert more with his father. He had under- 
 estimated the boy's character. . . . 
 
 He rose and, walking over to where Robert stood leaning 
 against the dresser, put his hand on his grandson's shoulder. 
 
 " You are going West," he said, " and you are not going 
 by devious routes. You are not going to work your way. 
 You are going to take a train straight for Sacramento. . . ." 
 
 Robert stood up as if electrified. 
 
340 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 " And while you are pioneering there, until you have sub- 
 dued the land sufficiently to give you a living, you shall not 
 miss your coffee and bacon in the morning — as long as I 
 live, as long as I am able. ..." 
 
 Long after the light was out Robert and his grandfather 
 were still exchanging ideas about the coming journey to the 
 West. 
 
 " You know," Robert said, and his voice seemed muffled, 
 " I have a feeling that I shall find Father there. ... He 
 had always been dreaming about the West — Cali- 
 fornia. . . ." 
 
 Gottfried did not reply. It was one o'clock when the boy 
 finally fell asleep. But Gottfried was awake for a long time 
 yet, listening to his grandson's breathing and seeing with his 
 closed eyes a homestead far, far away, a house that was to 
 be his grandson's, theirs, his — the House of Conrad. . . . 
 
 Late on a misty September evening, two men were stealthily 
 making their way between long rows of freight-cars in one 
 of Chicago's enormous freight yards. One of the men was 
 Fred Conrad. The younger of the two, a boy of twenty-five, 
 led the way. Both were dressed in frayed summer garments 
 and each had a diminutive bundle under his arm — all his 
 worldly possessions. It was the younger one who was study- 
 ing the freight-cars with the eyes of experience. He ex- 
 amined more than a dozen and finally found one whose door 
 yielded readily. He climbed into it as swiftly as a cat and 
 then helped the older man pull himself up after him. 
 , " It's easy to see that you're new to the game — the way 
 you tried to climb into the car," the youth whispered in- 
 dulgently. He moved the door back in its place, put his ear 
 to the side of the car and listened. There was no one near. 
 
GOTTFRIED RUMINATES 341 
 
 " The train pulls out at midnight," he confided. " If we are 
 lucky, we will make Kansas City at one stretch." 
 
 In the company of the boy, who despite his youth was a 
 confirmed tramp, Fred Conrad was seeking to find his way 
 West to escape the rigors of Chicago's winter. A prolonged 
 stay at the County Hospital had left him greatly weakened 
 physically and mentally. Nothing seemed to matter much 
 to him except cold. His whole body was sensitive to cold, 
 his chest especially. After the excitement of stealing his 
 way past all sorts of switchmen and train attendants, a weak- 
 ness overcame Fred, and a chill. But the thought that he 
 was leaving the city behind him, that he was to escape to a 
 warmer climate, to California, cheered and heartened him. 
 He had a vague feeling as if he were at last going home to 
 friends, to very dear friends. . . . His mind was wander- 
 ing. . . . 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 THE DEATH OF FRED CONRAD 
 
 WHEN the employment agent, as a matter of routine, 
 asked for her name, her heart stood still for an in- 
 stant — and then she answered. But she gave her name in a 
 raised, tremulous voice. Her " Ruth Conrad " had a ring 
 of both alarm and challenge in it. 
 
 The agent noted the changing emotions of the girl and how 
 she mastered them, and put her down in his mind as a 
 " determined young person." Determined was precisely what 
 Ruth was. He found it out in the next few minutes when 
 she began to describe to him very positively the sort of place 
 she wanted. She wanted a job that required no experience 
 and that could be learned in a reasonable time. She wanted 
 the agent to make sure to tell her prospective employer that 
 she was without experience; she desired no misunderstanding 
 with any one on that score. Furthermore, she wanted no 
 flimsy kind of a job. She turned down point-blank a call 
 for a waitress in an ice-cream parlor and another for a girl 
 to work in the checkroom of a large restaurant, though neither 
 of these jobs called for experience. Housework, any kind of 
 housework, Ruth said, would suit her better. Likewise she 
 drew the line against going into a very rich home. She pre- 
 ferred an employer from the middle-class, even from among 
 the poorer people. 
 
 The agent glanced at a list in front of him, the day's 
 urgent calls for help. 
 
 342 
 
THE DEATH OF FRED CONRAD 343 
 
 " The nearest thing I have to housework," he said, " that 
 is where experience is not called for, is this place here, the 
 Hugo Rooming House. Mme. Lamarck, the keeper of the 
 rooming house, wants a maid to help her with the work. No 
 experience is required; she prefers to train her own girls." 
 
 There was a dubious look in Ruth's eyes at the words 
 " Mme. Lamarck." The agent perceived it and made a men- 
 tal note of that too. 
 
 " You need not worry about the name," he explained with 
 the faintest trace of a smile. " The name of the woman I 
 am sending you to is Mrs. Fitzgerald. But the woman who 
 kept the place before her was known as Lamarck and I some- 
 times get the names mixed and refer to the new proprietor 
 by the name of her predecessor. You will find Mrs. Fitzger- 
 ald a nice person to deal with. She is straight and is con- 
 siderate to her help; she has a reputation for that." 
 
 Whenever Ruth recalled the morning the employment agent 
 asked for her name — the first time she had been asked for it 
 in San Francisco — she was filled with a quiet happiness. 
 She was glad she had given him her real name, glad she was 
 known by her right name. Her name was now the only con- 
 necting link between her and her past. It was dear to her, 
 all the more dear because she had been so near losing it. She 
 trembled whenever she recalled those days of doubt and in- 
 decision. . . . 
 
 For three days on the train from New York to San Fran- 
 cisco she was in dread. Constantly she feared she was going 
 to be arrested. Every time the conductor walked past her she 
 had to suppress a desire to jump up and cry out her inno- 
 cence. At one moment she was sorry she had left New York; 
 she might as well have faced everything there and have it 
 over with. The next moment, however, she would vow that 
 if she got to San Francisco she would never, never want to 
 
344 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 see New York again. If she only got there safely, she would 
 promptly change her name; she would sever all connections 
 with the past, no matter what the cost might be, what pain 
 it would give her. 
 
 The thought of changing her name had become a fixed idea 
 with her for a while. Therein lay safety. She would obliter- 
 ate her past completely. She would cease to be Ruth Conrad ; 
 she would become Margaret Clark — Miss Clark. " Miss 
 Clark, Miss Clark," it kept ringing in her ears. And sud- 
 denly her own voice seemed strange to her. It was hoarse 
 and unpleasant. ... It was not her voice any more. . . . 
 No, a thousand times no! She would not change her name; 
 she would stay what she was — Ruth Conrad. Ruth — no 
 matter what came, in the face of everything. . . . She looked 
 furtively about to see whether any of the passengers in the 
 car had divined her thoughts, her base, ignoble thoughts. 
 But the passengers seemed quite oblivious of her. It was 
 half-past seven in the evening. The porter was making up 
 the bed for a woman with a baby. An aged couple were 
 playing cards. A prosperous fur merchant from Michigan, 
 who was going to San Diego with his wife, had found a will- 
 ing auditor in a young man and was telling him at length 
 the story of his own success, interspersing it with morals and 
 encouragement. Some one was saying that during the night 
 they would cross the highest point and that the next day they 
 would reach the desert. Ruth was glad when the porter had 
 made her bed. She crawled into it and found relief from a 
 day of doubt and torture in tears. 
 
 She awoke with a memory. It was the memory of Mary — 
 the blond Mary Parker. Mary was an inmate of the Home 
 of Redemption. She had the face of a saint, was very pleas- 
 ant and good. And yet every one at the Home mistrusted 
 her because no one knew just exactly who she was. She had 
 
THE DEATH OF FRED CONRAD 345 
 
 gone by several names, according to the police, and in spite 
 of the fact that all the girls at the Home liked her and were 
 won by her pleasant ways, they could not refrain from ask- 
 ing her now and then, jocosely or in earnest, " Mary, are 
 you really Mary? Is that your real name? " 
 
 Mary was hurt by the mistrust of the girls at the institu- 
 tion and when she was alone with Ruth she frequently philos- 
 ophized to her. 
 
 " Whatever else you do," she once counseled sadly, " stand 
 by your name. Stand by it and it will stand by you. If your 
 trouble is trifling, it won't affect your name much; it will soon 
 be forgotten. If it is serious, the fact that you changed your 
 name will lend it a more sinister aspect." 
 
 Mary's advice confirmed Ruth's final determination not 
 to change her name. But more than the memory of the past, 
 the living present now presented the strongest argument 
 against such a course. When she climbed out of her berth 
 she found the car flooded with sunshine. Through the 
 window the country presented a wonderful spectacle. The 
 plateau, with here and there an adobe village from which 
 the smoke was curling lazily, was soothing, comforting, like 
 the hand of a mother. But it was the Arizona desert that 
 presented the strongest argument against changing one's name. 
 The desert seemed endless. The purple hills, which stood 
 imperturbable in the distance, shed some of their serenity into 
 Ruth's heart. New York seemed but a bad dream. As she 
 lay back in her seat gazing at the dry stubble and cactus 
 which seemed to line the whole earth and become one with 
 the horizon, she recalled Biblical scenes she had read in her 
 Sunday-school lessons. She forgot the train, the evidence of 
 twentieth century civilization, and was ready to believe her- 
 self the child of another age, of an ancient tribal community. 
 . . . There was such a distance between her and her imme- 
 
346 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 diate past — such a vast distance. . . . No, she need not fear 
 to go by her right name; she need not hide it — thank God, 
 she need not. . . . 
 
 In San Francisco she began to waver. Perhaps, after all, 
 it would be safer to change her name. . . . The city was 
 so much like New York — big skyscrapers, busy streets. 
 The policemen looked the same. There were telegraph offices 
 everywhere. A telegram from New York reached there within 
 an hour. It was almost as if New York had moved next 
 door. . . . Fear was once more uppermost in her mind and it 
 called for every ounce of courage she possessed to overcome 
 this fear and to give the employment agent her real name. 
 
 That was why she thrilled with joy every time she re- 
 called the morning on which her name — her self — was 
 saved to her. When addressed as Miss Conrad by one of the 
 roomers in the house, or as Ruth by Mrs. Fitzgerald, she 
 would often forget the bitterness of her existence — her lone- 
 liness. . . . Her separation from her family would seem only 
 temporary in such moments, the cloud would soon be lifted. 
 . . . Something would happen and they would be reunited 
 once more. ... It was not possible that the break in her 
 life would never be made whole again, that the wound would 
 never heal up. . . . The sun was shining the same as ever. 
 People all around were kind and humane. Something would, 
 must happen, to lift the gloom of separation. She was 
 awaiting, she did not clearly know herself what, but she 
 was awaiting something. And of course she did not write. 
 . . . That might be dangerous. . . . 
 
 Letters were not to be relied upon. She had known a girl 
 at the Home of Redemption who had been trapped by a let- 
 ter she had written. Detectives had traced her by means of 
 that letter. No, she would wait until — until. . . . Her 
 thoughts were hazy, but her feelings were definite. Some 
 
THE DEATH OF FRED CONRAD 347 
 
 way, somehow, the connection between her and her family 
 would be reestablished. They were always in her thoughts 
 — her father, Robert, her grandfather — always. . . . 
 
 Mrs. Fitzgerald turned out to be all that the agent had 
 claimed for her. She was considerate with Ruth, considerate 
 with every one. She was tolerant of people and of life. It 
 was a tolerance that came with age and understanding. Mrs. 
 Fitzgerald's husband had been the manager of a sewing 
 machine company. He was doing well and they lived in a 
 wealthy section of San Francisco. They had no children 
 and so they always felt young — far younger than they were. 
 At forty-eight Mr. Fitzgerald felt that he was just entering his 
 career in earnest. His wife was forty-five, but still pretty 
 much of a girl. One Sunday Mr. Fitzgerald went on a hunt- 
 ing trip with friends. One of those frequent accidents hap- 
 pened and he was brought back dead. He had shot himself. 
 His insurance just enabled Mrs. Fitzgerald to buy out the 
 rooming house from Mme. Lamarck. And then came wis- 
 dom and understanding and tolerance. . . . 
 
 She insisted on running a " straight rooming house," " a 
 home," as she phrased it, and therein lay the secret of her 
 success. A " home " appealed to most people. Her twenty 
 odd rooms were always filled. They were filled with women, 
 self-supporting women Mrs. Fitzgerald called them, and 
 asked no further. 
 
 " I require no references of my roomers," she explained to 
 Ruth soon after the girl came to work for her, " but I tell 
 my prospective tenants that I rent out rooms for a home only. 
 I don't pry into anybody's affairs. This is a large world 
 and there are all sorts of people in it, and since they are here, 
 I presume they have a right to be here. I pass judgment 
 upon no one. But I insist on keeping my side of the street 
 clean. If a man wants to drink, let him go to a saloon. If 
 
348 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 a woman wants to make a pig of herself, let her do it else- 
 where. This is his or her home." 
 
 That Mrs. Fitzgerald was not prying into anybody's busi- 
 ness was very evident. Ruth was left strictly alone by the 
 landlady in all matters pertaining to her private or family life. 
 Mrs. Fitzgerald made not the slightest attempt to ascertain 
 who Ruth was, whence she came or what brought her to the 
 work of a chambermaid. This, in spite of the fact that they 
 were often working together for hours, mending and sort- 
 ing linen, and doing other work about the house. Ruth 
 appreciated her employer's attitude and showed her appre- 
 ciation of this quality of reserve by exercising it herself to- 
 ward the people with whom she came in contact — the room- 
 ers. 
 
 She had a feeling that every one of the women roomers 
 would appreciate her lack of prying into their lives, just as 
 she appreciated her employer's want of interest in herself. 
 And so she did her work well, answered a request courteously, 
 but never lingered longer in any one room than was neces- 
 sary. 
 
 While she restrained her curiosity, she was none the less 
 interested in the life of the women roomers. They were all 
 older than she and her life ten years hence might be the same 
 as that of these women now. Only about half a dozen of the 
 twenty women roomers left the house at eight o'clock in 
 the morning. The rest were seldom up before ten. Some 
 slept later. The shifting, uncertain ways women had of 
 making a living in the city were unfolding themselves before 
 Ruth's eyes of their own accord. Sometimes Mrs. Fitzgerald 
 would volunteer an observation that would shed a flood of 
 light on the dark recesses of the city's life. 
 
 " Give Room 11a complete overhauling," Mrs. Fitzgerald 
 told Ruth one morning. 
 
THE DEATH OF FRED CONRAD 349 
 
 The girl looked up at her with surprise. A complete over- 
 hauling was given a room only when some one moved out and 
 the room was to be made ready for a new tenant. Mrs. 
 Walsh was occupying 1 1 and Ruth had not heard anything of 
 the woman's going. 
 
 " A detective was here a few minutes ago making inquiries 
 about Mrs. Walsh," Mrs. Fitzgerald explained. " She was 
 arrested in a dance hall in Barbary Coast last night. A watch 
 was stolen from some man and she was taken with several 
 other girls. I don't know whether she is guilty or innocent, 
 but I don't want her here any more. Put her things in the 
 closet and let them stay there until she calls." 
 
 " To look at her," Mrs. Fitzgerald returned to the subject 
 of Mrs. Walsh later in the day, " you would think she was 
 a minister's wife. The innocent way she parts her hair and 
 the modest manners — you would think she had never heard 
 of Barbary Coast, let alone going to dances there. How- 
 ever, that is just the way things go." 
 
 Ruth was not shy of people, but she was fearful of them, 
 and she made no friends. Her fear of arrest, of being taken 
 back to New York had become faint. Nevertheless, she 
 avoided being drawn into intimate relationship with any one, 
 for intimacy was bound to end in questions about herself, her 
 home, her family. And that was a subject that had best 
 remain untouched. As soon as any one, man or woman, 
 attempted to become friendly she drew back. 
 
 But, just as without her prying the city of its own accord 
 was unfolding its mysteries and tragedies to her, so uncon- 
 sciously she had been drawn into a friendship with one of the 
 roomers. The young woman was known as Lolita Anderson, 
 and in a burst of confidence she told Ruth that that was not 
 her name — that she had assumed it after she went into " this 
 life." 
 
350 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 Ruth had half suspected the kind of life Miss " Anderson " 
 was leading from the hours the woman kept, but she was not 
 prepared for the double-barreled confession. 
 
 *' Don't ask me my right name, or where I come from, or 
 why I am in this life," the girl once said to Ruth, a little 
 exasperated. Ruth had been out of sorts that morning and 
 she was looking at Lolita sadly, quizzically. " I like you too 
 well, and if you begin to ask me too many questions, that will 
 spoil our friendship." 
 
 Ruth asked no questions — had not intended to — but 
 often in the afternoon when Miss Anderson would be dressing, 
 Ruth would come in and they would chat for a few minutes 
 about the weather, or a sensational story in the newspaper, or 
 a headache and what was good for it. 
 
 Every other Sunday Ruth had the afternoon off. Just 
 before going out one Sunday, she stepped into Lolita's room. 
 The girl was lying on the bed looking through the Sunday 
 paper. She stared at Ruth without speaking for some mo- 
 ments. There was a far-away gaze in her eyes. 
 
 " You look," Lolita finally broke the silence, " as if you 
 had just stepped out from a page in the Bible. You know 
 where you belong with that face of yours, child ? In a church 
 window. I wonder how you ever got here, anyhow. You 
 don't belong among us. You look like a saint. Who, what 
 are you, anyway? " 
 
 Lolita was heavy hearted, and her mood readily communi- 
 cated itself to Ruth. The question which was supposed to 
 be banned between them had slipped Lolita's tongue, but 
 Ruth was not angry. It did not exactly call for an answer. 
 Ruth found herself questioning Lolita in turn — how she 
 had come to this life, what she was doing toward getting out 
 of it. 
 
THE DEATH OP FRED CONRAD 351 
 
 The young woman did not answer Ruth at once. She 
 gazed at the girl in contemplation. Ruth was young and 
 beautiful. She was the kind of girl men would fall in love 
 with in a trice. And she sat there in the rooming house, a 
 chambermaid. Lolita had lived in the place for nearly a 
 year and Ruth was there when she came. Was she not at 
 all aware of her charms? How could she stand this life of 
 drudgery and loneliness? 
 
 " It was lonesomeness in my case," Lolita finally re- 
 sponded. " I came to the city to work as you are doing here 
 and I was lonely. Everything ached within me for loneli- 
 ness. Then he came. He was a man after my own heart 
 — or seemed to be. We fell in love; he was a wonderful 
 lover. We could not marry; he did not earn enough to 
 support the two of us. But he was a dear and I could not 
 resist. . . . Then when I was in trouble he disappeared. I 
 never heard of him again. ..." 
 
 Lolita paused a moment. She seemed to be pursuing a 
 vision with her eyes. . . . 
 
 " Once you have had a man, a friend," she continued, " you 
 crave for friendship. You loathe men and you love them. 
 You cannot hide your yearning for them. Your eyes betray 
 you; they beg for company, for friendship. ... I ceased to 
 be myself. I could not fix my mind on work. ... I was 
 unhappy. Another man appeared. We stuck to each other 
 for a while and then I left him. I was sick of him. I had 
 no work and the rent was not paid and I had to live. 
 There was a woman in the same rooming house. We talked 
 occasionally. I confided my trouble to her. She whispered 
 a suggestion as to how to make an easy living. Well, here 
 I am. Easy. . . ." She laughed a contemptuous laugh. 
 
 " How long do you think you will be able to stand it — 
 this life, I mean, the loneliness? " Lolita asked Ruth. " You 
 
352 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 are a puzzle to me, child. I wonder how you can stand this 
 drudgery, and I wonder still more how you have escaped un- 
 scathed with that face and figure of yours." 
 
 " I am used to loneliness," Ruth replied slowly, her eyes 
 filling with memories. The memory of Channing lingered 
 but an instant and gave way to the memory of the two years 
 she had spent at the Home of Redemption, the terrible loneli- 
 ness of the place. They were not in vain, those years of 
 helplessness and torment. She would capitalize them 
 now, the strength they gave her. She would be stronger 
 than Lolita. Loneliness would never drive her into a man's 
 arms. . . . 
 
 Shortly after this conversation Lolita moved. She was 
 leaving town and would not say where she was going. Ruth 
 felt as if a void had come into her life. 
 
 One morning a couple engaged a room and Ruth fixed it 
 up for them and gave them the keys. The man was very 
 polite and pleasant. The woman seemed positively happy 
 in their new home, as she called it. An hour later, half a 
 dozen shots threatened to split the sides of the building. Mrs. 
 Fitzgerald ran to the door. It was barred. She called in a 
 policeman and they forced it open. The woman was lying 
 on the floor in a pool of blood. The man lay at her feet. 
 Both were dead. The coroner declared the case to be murder 
 and suicide. The bodies were removed to the morgue. 
 
 " One must expect such a thing from time to time in this 
 business," Mrs. Fitzgerald tried to calm Ruth with her phi- 
 losophy. " One can keep a house straight easy enough, but 
 one cannot prevent a woman from turning on the gas or a 
 couple from murdering each other." 
 
 The man that Mrs. Fitzgerald kept for the rough work 
 about the house scrubbed the floor and washed off the blood- 
 stains from the carpet. Mrs. Fitzgerald herself attended to 
 
THE DEATH OF FRED CONRAD 353 
 
 the rest and before nightfall the room was ready for occu- 
 pancy once more. But Ruth shivered every time she passed 
 it. She slept little that night and the next morning she came 
 down with red eyes and announced that she was going to 
 leave. Mrs. Fitzgerald tried to dissuade her, advised her to 
 be less sensitive — a suicide might happen anywhere. But 
 as Ruth would not be swerved from her determination, the 
 landlady ceased urging her. 
 
 When Ruth was dressed and ready to go down in the street, 
 she came to Mrs. Fitzgerald and timidly asked her if she 
 could give her name as a reference at the next place she 
 applied for work. 
 
 " You can," Mrs. Fitzgerald assured her warmly. " And 
 it is the very best of reference you will get. Good luck to 
 you, wherever you go. You will stay straight wherever you 
 are. You must have had a good mother, girl, a very good 
 mother." 
 
 Ruth's eyes were blinded with tears. She extended her 
 hand. Mrs. Fitzgerald put her arms about her and kissed 
 her. 
 
 " A young woman for restaurant work," the advertisement 
 read. The address given was that of an office building. It 
 was different from the usual run of advertisements In that it 
 did not specify the nature of the work to be done, or call for 
 experience, and Ruth decided to answer it before going to the 
 employing agent. In a small office sat an elderly man and a 
 girl stenographer. The man, Mr. Mackenty, kept Ruth 
 standing at a distance for some moments while he gazed at 
 her. He then motioned her to a chair and began to ask 
 questions. Where had she worked last ? When had she left ? 
 Had she references? Only one? Well, she might come in at 
 ten o'clock the next morning. In the meantime he would 
 call up Mrs. Fitzgerald. 
 
354 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 Ruth came at the appointed time and Mr. Mackenty greeted 
 her cordially. 
 
 " Mrs. Fitzgerald spoke very well of you," he said. " I am 
 especially pleased with the fact that you stayed with her for 
 nearly two years. That shows that you are not a flighty 
 sort of person, which is just what I need. Now, the proposi- 
 tion is this: I am trying an experiment. I am running a 
 chain of restaurants for poor people. I give wholesome food 
 at popular, in fact, cheap prices, and I serve it in a nice 
 clean place. Some of these restaurants are located in dis- 
 tricts that are what might be termed tough. I have tried 
 the experiment in two such places, in rough districts, of put- 
 ting a woman in charge of the restaurant and the experiment 
 has worked well. The presence of a woman manager who 
 oversees the waiters, who helps out the cashier, says good- 
 morning to the customers, I find has an admirable effect. It 
 makes for order. There has not been a fight or any kind of 
 trouble in either of the two places since I placed the women 
 there. 
 
 " Now I am planning to put a woman manager in a third 
 restaurant. Do you think you are the woman for the place? " 
 
 Ruth gazed at the man in surprise. She had not expected 
 the last question. She was there to look for work. It was up 
 to him to say whether she was the person for the place or 
 not. She answered him to that effect. 
 
 " As far as I am concerned," Mr. Mackenty replied, " my 
 mind is made up. I think you are the person for the place. 
 The matter is really up to you. Do you think you are the 
 woman for such a job? " 
 
 " Well," said Ruth, " I know nothing about the restaurant 
 business." 
 
 *' That is no consideration whatever," Mackenty replied. 
 " We will teach you all you need to know about the restaurant 
 
THE DEATH OF FRED CONRAD 355 
 
 business. What I expect of you is to keep order in the place 
 — to handle people so that they will have respect for you 
 and for the place. Do you think you can do that? If you 
 think you can, the job is yours." 
 
 " I would like to have a try at it," Ruth said. " I think I 
 could manage it." 
 
 " All right then. Come in here at nine o'clock to-morrow 
 morning and we will go over to the place together. The 
 salary is fifty dollars a month to start. You will, of course, 
 board yourself at the restaurant and save that expense. ..." 
 
 Ruth had a whole day before her and she went back to Mrs. 
 Fitzgerald — to visit. For the first time San Francisco 
 seemed home to her. She felt that she had a friend there. 
 Mrs. Fitzgerald was a friend. 
 
 The world seemed to be on parade. Men of all nations 
 came through the restaurant door daily, walked past Ruth 
 Conrad and received her cheerful good-morning. If the 
 place was well filled, she helped them find a seat. If the 
 waiter was busy or slow she cleared the table for a customer 
 and took his order. There were men of all ages and de- 
 scriptions among the patrons. There were laborers, express- 
 men, teamsters who ran in for a beef stew; and there were 
 men who had begged the price of a cup of coffee. There 
 were men in threadbare coats and frayed trousers. There 
 were young men with hardened faces and old men with traces 
 of refinement in their features. There were boys, stolid look- 
 ing youths, who had sought adventure and found starvation; 
 or well meaning lads who had slipped back in the game of 
 life and had relaxed. Men from the remotest parts of the 
 earth, fezed Turks and turbaned Hindoos rubbed shoulders 
 with tattered Yankees from the East and derelict colonels 
 from the South. 
 
356 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 There were many men of her father's age, and her father's 
 physical condition, among the customers. Among the boys 
 there were many who were the same age as Robert. Fre- 
 quently the face, voice, or gesture of one of these would 
 remind her of her parent or brother. Such a man, or boy, 
 would immediately get her warmest attention. If he ordered 
 a bowl of soup, she was quick to bring him the bottle of 
 catchup, or would give him a double order of crackers. When 
 such a man left, she would watch out for him at the door 
 and whisper good-day to him with so much kindness that 
 the man frequently was moved to reply, " God bless you, 
 lady." 
 
 She worked from eight in the morning until eight at night. 
 But in spite of the long hours she was never overly tired. 
 The work was not fatiguing; it was interesting. It was as 
 if she were reading a good book. Every face she met was a 
 story. . . . 
 
 She dreamed a great deal at night. Sometimes it was 
 about the day's happenings. More often she dreamed of 
 home — her home of long ago — of her childhood. In 
 those dreams her father, mother, brother and she herself 
 appeared as they had looked years ago, when they had their 
 little home in the Bronx, long before the train of calamities 
 had overtaken the family. Once she dreamed that her father 
 had come into the restaurant. It was a windy day and he 
 was thinly clad. His face was pale and his eyes jaundiced. 
 He seemed hardly able to drag himself along and was about 
 to pass without recognizing her, but — she shrieked, and 
 awoke. It was five o'clock in the morning. She tossed on 
 her bed for another hour, moaning softly, and then rose and 
 began to dress. 
 
 Henceforward she scrutinized her customers, without giving 
 herself a definite reason for doing it. She was not expecting 
 
THE DEATH OF FRED CONRAD 357 
 
 to find her brother or father among them. But she might 
 find perhaps some one from New York, some one she had 
 known. . . . New York was in her thoughts constantly now. 
 This persistent thinking of home made her melancholy. Her 
 speech was softer than ever; her face kindlier. Many of her 
 homeless, friendless customers came to the place in prefer- 
 ence to nearer restaurants solely for the pleasure of seeing her 
 face and hearing her soft voice as she inquired whether the 
 coffee was hot enough. 
 
 She was planning to write home; it was time she did. She 
 no longer feared trouble from New York. Three and a half 
 years had passed since the day the detective had put her on a 
 train for San Francisco. She had learned much in those 
 years. She read in the papers daily of women being acquitted 
 by juries of serious crimes. And she was innocent, had com- 
 mitted no crime whatever. Another girl in her place might 
 even have made trouble for some people — the Averys, the 
 police. . . . She had heard of such things. But not she. 
 She loathed the thought of laying bare her secrets before the 
 world. However, there seemed to be no visible danger in 
 writing to her home, to her father, now. . . . Still she post- 
 poned doing it from day to day. If she only had a friend to 
 confide in, to ask advice of, to talk with. Mrs. Fitzgerald 
 was a good friend, but she somehow did not seem the proper 
 person for such confidence. Ruth felt toward her more as 
 she might feel toward a blood relation, an aunt. For such 
 things she needed a chum, a friend of her own age. She 
 could talk to no other about such subjects. , . . 
 
 However, things could not wait any longer. She must 
 write. Three and a half years did not make much difference 
 in her life. She was young. But in her father's life, what 
 a difference these years must have made. And her grand- 
 father ! He was close to seventy, if he was still living. . . . 
 
358 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 She hoped he was living, but her heart palpitated in sudden 
 alarm. They had not heard of her in three and a half years. 
 They had not the slightest knowledge of her whereabouts, or 
 how she was getting on. It might have driven the old man 
 to his grave. And her father was so helpless since her 
 mother's death. He had come to look up to her grandfather 
 in all matters of importance, in all decisions. What would 
 become of him now ? What had become of him ? And Rob- 
 ert! He was a man now. She hoped he had learned some 
 kind of a trade. She hoped he was looking after his father 
 a bit. Father needed looking after badly. . . . 
 
 It was three o'clock. There was hardly any business at 
 that hour. The newsboy brought in the afternoon paper and 
 laid it on the cashier's desk. Ruth glanced at the headlines. 
 Just then a customer came in. She laid the paper aside and 
 walked over to where the man had taken a seat, to see if 
 everything was in order on the table. She returned to the 
 paper presently. She looked over the first page slowly, turned 
 to the second, the third. . . . 
 
 On the third page, under a three-column headline, was a 
 picture of two children, a boy and girl. Below this picture 
 was a photograph of a woman. The faces of the three were 
 strangely familiar. She had seen them before. . . . She 
 was certain she had known them. And . . . She knew them 
 — it was her mother — herself — her brother. It was their 
 pictures, taken long ago. It was the picture of her mother 
 when she was a young woman, long before her illness. She 
 remembered the place where the pictures were taken ; and she 
 remembered herself at the time, a little girl of seven; her 
 brother was five. . . . But what were the pictures doing in 
 the paper, in a San Francisco paper ? What had happened ? 
 What. . . . 
 
 She was reading the headlines. They read like fiction — 
 
THE DEATH OF FRED CONRAD 359 
 
 conveyed no definite meaning. She read further down in the 
 story. Her father's name appeared in the third paragraph. 
 . . . What a strange, roundabout way of talking of her 
 father. Usually the papers told things so plainly. She 
 read on. . . . The paper was about to slip from her fingers. 
 In her mind it was becoming both clear and dark. Her back 
 felt weak, strangely weak — in need of support. . . . She 
 nerved herself and read the story to the end. The tears came 
 with a rush. . . . And then came thoughts, quick, flashing 
 thoughts. She must act, act quickly or it might be too 
 late. She hoped it was not too late already. . . . 
 
 Two-thirds of a column was used by the reporter to account 
 for the putting into the paper of the pictures of three un- 
 named persons. 
 
 The reporter told the story leisurely and with evi- 
 dent relish of the thrill he was preparing for his reader: 
 Patrolman Casey of the Chinatown squad was making his 
 usual round at five o'clock that morning when he stumbled 
 upon a man who sat crouched against a wall. The officer 
 took the man to be a drunk or a " bo " who was taking a nap, 
 and poked him in the ribs to wake him. Instead of rising to 
 the summons, however, the crouched figure sagged and fell 
 to one side. The patrolman took a close look and saw that 
 the man was dead. He ordered the wagon and the corpse 
 was taken to the morgue. As they were undressing him they 
 found a leather pouch carefully pinned to the inside of his 
 shirt. For a moment the morgue attendants and the police 
 had visions of a miser who hugged his treasures while dying 
 from starvation. But when they opened the pouch they made 
 a different discovery. The pouch was stuffed with papers — 
 pages with childish scrawls on them. Among the papers were 
 several letters evidently by a wife to her husband, and two 
 photographs, one of a woman and the other of two children. 
 
36o THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 From the contents of the letters the police believed that the 
 name of the man found dead was Fred Conrad and that he 
 came from New York. . . . 
 
 On a marble slab, wrapped tightly in a white sheet, the 
 body of Fred Conrad looked so thin and shrunken that for an 
 instant Ruth thought it could not be her father. But the face 
 and head were his ; she knew them at once. The police and 
 morgue officials were standing beside her as she was making 
 the identification and she fought hard to maintain an appear- 
 ance of calmness. . . . They handed her the leather pouch 
 with the papers, pages from hers and Robert's school tablets 
 when they were learning to write. . . . The letters were in 
 her mother's handwriting. She called for the pictures. A 
 policeman telephoned to the newspaper and the reporter 
 promised to be there with the photographs directly. The 
 police recommended an undertaker to her and while waiting 
 for the pictures, she telephoned to him. 
 
 She would have her father to herself at least one whole 
 day and she set the funeral for the third morning. She spent 
 the entire next day in the chapel of the undertaking estab- 
 lishment sitting beside the open coffin. She leaned over her 
 father's head and face and sobbed her story out to him. She 
 gazed at the eyeballs, which protruded stark from under the 
 closed eyelids, with painful yearning, as if she were trying 
 to extract from them the story of her father's life, of his 
 wanderings in those three and a half years since she had 
 seen him. What had brought him to California? Had he 
 knowledge that she was in San Francisco? Had he sought 
 her? It dawned upon her that he must have sought her — 
 sought her all these years. . . . Yes ! And she had not given 
 him any clue. If she only had. . . . 
 
 It was nearly evening when she heard steps in back of her. 
 She thought the undertaker had come in for something and 
 
THE DEATH OF FRED CONRAD 361 
 
 did not move. Some one touched her on the shoulder, a 
 policeman. 
 
 " A man to see you, Madam. He says he is your brother," 
 the officer spoke softly. 
 
 Ruth did not gather the import of his words, but started 
 for the door. Just then the curtains parted. Her brother 
 was coming to meet her. . . . 
 
 Robert had not come alone to claim his father's body. 
 With him was a friend and neighbor, Oscar Colson. Colson 
 had taken out a claim on the same day Robert had, and they 
 were given homesteads next to one another. Their home- 
 steads were three hundred miles or so northeast of San Fran- 
 cisco and had they been on the land that day they would 
 probably never have seen the newspaper with the story about 
 Fred Conrad's death and the pictures. But Robert and his 
 friend were in the valley just then. It was the canning season 
 and they had come out to work in a cannery and fortify them- 
 selves for the winter. 
 
 Colson, or Carlsen as his real name was, was older by 
 eight or ten years than Robert. He, too, had come from New 
 York where he had been a waiter in one of the best known 
 hotels. The son of a Swedish farmer, the call to the land, to 
 a quiet, settled life, proved stronger than the lure of Broad- 
 way and the white lights, and he came out to pioneer for his 
 farm. Colson had become greatly attached to his young 
 neighbor. 
 
 When Robert showed him the newspaper telling of his 
 father's tragic death, Colson at once offered his services. 
 He would go with Robert to the city. He would advance 
 him the little cash he had and by putting their capital to- 
 gether they might be able to meet the expense of a private 
 funeral. . . . 
 
 But when Colson saw Ruth and Robert in each other's 
 
362 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 arms, he quickly concluded that it was best for him to 
 vanish until the next day. He knew something of Ruth. 
 Robert had told him of her disappearance and how their 
 father had gone in search of her. He inquired of the under- 
 taker whether everything had been properly arranged for 
 Fred Conrad's burial and was answered in the affirmative. 
 He then requested that his friends be told that he would be 
 in plenty of time for the funeral the next morning, and slipped 
 out quietly. 
 
 Ruth and her brother sat through the greater part of the 
 night on the bed in her small room and talked and wept on 
 one another's shoulder, and kissed each other. Robert 
 brought her word from their grandfather. Gottfried was 
 alive. Indeed, he was pioneering with his grandson in spirit 
 — and in cash. His grandfather had been helping him with 
 money from the first week he settled on the land. And though 
 the land was now yielding him a livelihood, Gottfried was still 
 sending him his weekly stipend, occasionally even adding an 
 extra dollar. This was to go toward the house which he 
 was planning to put up the following spring. 
 
 Robert described his farm to Ruth. It was still a bare tract 
 located on a hillside on the Eastern slope of the Sierra Moun- 
 tains. He had built a little barn for his horse and a shack 
 which he called a house for himself. But he had been saving 
 money for a real house and they would put it up during the 
 coming winter. Of course they would build the house by 
 themselves. The neighbors — there were half a dozen of 
 them within a radius of fifteen miles — might lend a helping 
 hand, but they would hire no mechanics of any kind. 
 
 He described the boundaries of his homestead. There 
 was a mountain stream at the edge of it — no trouble about 
 water. As for the view, it was really superb. She had never 
 seen sunsets like they had here. He and Colson often stood 
 
THE DEATH OF FRED CONRAD 363 
 
 in front of his little shack and watched the sun sink between 
 the clustered peaks in the distance, too deeply moved for 
 speech. He had named his homestead Sunnyhill Ranch. 
 ... It had been his fond dream that his father would spend 
 his old age there, that they would all get together on that 
 ranch. . . . 
 
 " You remember how fond father was of California. He 
 wrote to us from. ..." The rest of Robert's words were 
 lost in sobs. . . . 
 
 Colson showed up in the morning and the three followed 
 the hearse in a single carriage. ... As they were nearing San 
 Francisco on the way back from the cemetery, the afternoon 
 was well advanced. Colson produced a time table. He 
 thought he would take the six o'clock train for Sacramento. 
 That would enable him to catch the train from there to his 
 place of work. He would get there about eleven o'clock, 
 would have a good night's sleep and be on the job again 
 in the morning. He did not say a word about Robert going 
 or staying. ... An awkward silence followed. The meeting 
 of brother and sister had introduced a new angle into the sit- 
 uation. It was something to think of. And Ruth was 
 thinking. In fact she had thought it out already. Robert 
 expected to save from his work in the cannery about one 
 hundred and fifty dollars. His friend Colson would save as 
 much; three hundred dollars between them. Ruth had nearly 
 six hundred dollars in the bank — her savings. 
 
 When the carriage reached Market Street, the cabman 
 asked where he was to drive them. 
 
 " To the office of the Western Pacific," Ruth said quickly. 
 
 Robert gazed at her questioningly. Colson, too, was at 
 attention. 
 
 " What do you want at the Western Pacific? " heir brothiei: 
 Anally asked... 
 
364 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 " I want three tickets for Sunnyhill Ranch," she said. 
 " We want to start as early as possible to-morrow." 
 
 *' But you don't understand," Robert attempted to explain. 
 " We didn't come direct from home. We work in the valley 
 now. The cannery is nearly two hundred miles this side of 
 Sunnyhill." 
 
 " I know," Ruth said and a smile came into her hazy eyes, 
 " I know; but you are not going back to that cannery. You 
 are not going. ..." Her breath was short. She looked at 
 her brother and swallowed hard. 
 
 " You remember," she finally gained control over her 
 throat, " you told me last night that grandfather was pioneer- 
 ing with you in spirit — in cash. Well, I too wish to pioneer 
 with you, though it is almost too late — you have already done 
 nearly all of the pioneering. ... I have six hundred dollars 
 in the bank. I shall get it out the first thing in the morn- 
 ing. Build your house — your houses," she corrected her- 
 self, gazing at Colson. " I would like to help you build 
 them — To cook your meals for you, if nothing else. . . ." 
 She had meant the last words as a jest, but her laugh was un- 
 successful. Tears were choking her. 
 
 Colson had meant to protest. He could not accept money 
 from a strange woman, even if she was the sister of a friend 
 of his. . . . He would stay behind and work and earn his 
 own money. . . . But he did not say all this. This was no 
 time for it. Ruth had collapsed utterly and he helped his 
 friend bring his sister back to herself, quiet her. He was 
 greatly shaken by the girl's grief, by the whole drama. . . . 
 His own nerves were on the verge of snapping. . . . His 
 protest would wait. . . . 
 
 The automobile stage passed within five miles of Sunny- 
 hill Ranch ; the nearest railway station was forty miles away. 
 
THE DEATH OF FRED CONRAD 365 
 
 Robert had asked his grandfather to determine the day he 
 would leave New York two weeks in advance and to write to 
 them. Sunnyhill Ranch was not in telegraphic or telephonic 
 communication with the rest of the world. Even the mails 
 were irregular. His grandfather must write therefore in 
 plenty of time for an answer to reach them. Gottfried re- 
 plied, setting the date when he would start for the West and 
 Robert awaited the stage and gave the chauffeur instructions 
 to be on the lookout for his grandfather and to bring him 
 on. . . . 
 
 Gottfried had written what train he planned to take from 
 Chicago and when that train was due to reach his Cali- 
 fornia destination — the agent in New York had figured it 
 out for him. Robert and Colson, however, agreed that it 
 would be wiser for them not to be too precise. Robert would 
 drive out and meet the stage a day ahead of the schedule, so 
 that in case Gottfried was put on a faster train he would not 
 find himself walking the five miles from where the stage would 
 leave him to their ranch. 
 
 The stage passed the nearest point to his ranch at noon 
 and Robert was up bright and early and made ready for the 
 brief journey. He curried the horses with great care; 
 oiled the harness and put several bolts in the wagon where 
 they were needed. Ruth was waiting with dinner. Colson 
 was keeping her company. They were all under too much of 
 a strain to work. 
 
 About two o'clock Robert returned — alone. Gottfried was 
 not to be expected now before the next day. Colson thought 
 that there was a likelihood of his not coming even until the 
 day after. There is a slow train from Chicago and it is 
 policy with the railroad to have that train well filled. Unless 
 a passenger is on his guard the ticket man is sure to direct 
 him to this slow train. 
 
366 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 They worked little that afternoon. Colson had a railway 
 time-table and map and he and Robert kept following the 
 train on which his grandfather was supposed to be from 
 station to station along the map. There Gottfried would eat 
 his supper — there he would retire for the night — there he 
 would get up. . . . 
 
 They were up earlier than usual the next morning, but 
 the time seemed to be moving slower than ever. Finally 
 Robert left. He tried to look calm but he was not. Dinner 
 was ready and Ruth had set the table. She had laid four 
 plates and the arrangement was different — Gottfried was to 
 sit at the head. . . . 
 
 It was a quarter to one. Robert was to be given at least 
 another forty-five minutes. He could hardly get back before 
 one-thirty. . . . Colson thought he would go down to the 
 spring for fresh water. ... He wanted Gottfried's approval 
 of their spring water. . . . Colson was certain that he had 
 never drunk better water in all his life, anywhere. . . . Ruth 
 would not remain alone in the house. ... Time was creep- 
 ing dreadfully slow. . . . She went down with him. 
 
 They purposely lingered on the way. They wanted to have 
 to wait as little as possible when they returned to the house. 
 . . . They lagged a little too long — or maybe Robert was 
 making faster time than usual. . . . The rattle of wheels was 
 distinctly audible. They walked faster. The team was 
 coming up the narrow road to the house. There were two on 
 the wagon. . . . Ruth sat down her pail of water and ran. 
 She reached her grandfather's side just as Gottfried had set 
 foot on the ground. . . . 
 
BOOK IV 
 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 THE HOUSEW ARMING 
 
 CHARLOTTE CRANE was humming as she moved 
 about from one end of the table to the other, straight- 
 ening the linen. Thirty people in all, every member of the 
 families of Robert Conrad's half-dozen neighbors, would be 
 present at the housewarming. They could not possibly be 
 accommodated in the small dining-room and the tables were 
 set in front of the house under the open sky. Half a dozen 
 yards away, Ruth was busying herself at the stove in her 
 kitchen of four posts and a roof. 
 
 Charlotte Crane, nineteen years old, was the daughter of 
 one of Robert's neighbors, Edmond Crane. She was already 
 considered a part of the Conrad family. In the fall she and 
 Robert would be married. She had come over the day before 
 to help Ruth prepare for the party that was to celebrate the 
 completion of the house. . . . 
 
 There was a faint rumble in the distance. It died away 
 and then again became audible. Charlotte, accustomed to 
 mountain silences and mountain noises, quickly distinguished 
 the pounding of horses' hoofs and the clatter of wheels. She 
 stopped in her work and searched the hills with her gaze. 
 Robert was passing and she called to him. In a few moments 
 they discerned a team. They could not make out the color 
 of the horses and were speculating as to which one of their 
 neighbors would be the first-comer. 
 
 Gottfried Conrad came up with an armful of wood and laid 
 it at his granddaughter's feet, in front of the stove. He 
 
 369 
 
370 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 beamed at her fondly as he threw back his shoulders and 
 straightened out his arms. In his corduroy trousers, blue 
 shirt, and heavy boots, Gottfried presented a strange ap- 
 pearance. They were such a contrast to the city clothes Ruth 
 was accustomed to see her grandfather in. She smiled every 
 time she saw him, despite the fact that Gottfried had been 
 wearing these clothes for three weeks now, ever since his 
 arrival from New York. 
 
 Gottfried observed Robert and Charlotte gazing intently 
 ahead of them as if studying a far-distant object. He sur- 
 mised that some one was coming and started toward his grand- 
 son to inquire. Robert had his arm about the girl's waist. 
 Gottfried stopped, gazed at the couple for a moment, then 
 turned about noiselessly and walked away in the opposite 
 direction. He was filled with a tender happiness. 'Twas 
 thus he had dreamed. ... It was more than he had expected, 
 more than he had hoped for. . . . 
 
 Presently the team became visible. The Erasers were com- 
 ing. A shout of delight came from Robert. The Erasers 
 were his nearest neighbors and they had been exceedingly 
 friendly to him, George Eraser had got the title to his 
 land only two years ahead of Robert Conrad and Oscar Col- 
 son. He had been a carpenter in a Pennsylvania town. 
 During a prolonged strike in his trade, he drifted West in 
 search of work. In Sacramento one day he read of a new 
 tract of land which the government had thrown open to set- 
 tlers and he took out a claim. It was a risky thing to do 
 for a man with a family to support, but he was sick of 
 strikes. He wrote his wife to shift as best she could for her- 
 self and children for a year or so and then he would be able 
 to help. It was not one year, but three, that the woman had 
 to shift for herself and family, but they had a farm now and 
 the abrasions those three years had made were healed. 
 
THE HOUSE WARMING 371 
 
 George Fraser had proved himself of especial value to Rob- 
 ert in the building of his home. He became his architect, as 
 it were. Robert frequently acknowledged the fact that if it 
 had not been for the erstwhile carpenter, his house might not 
 yet have been completed. Robert knew so little about build- 
 ing. 
 
 Mrs. Fraser donned an apron as soon as she arrived. She 
 would not be treated as a " guest." She explained their early 
 arrival by her desire to help with the cooking and baking. 
 The party must be a success and the girls really had too 
 much to do to make it so. Mrs. Fraser commandeered her 
 daughter Edna, a girl of fifteen, to assist Charlotte, while she 
 herself went into the " kitchen " to help Ruth, or rather to 
 turn the girl into her helper. 
 
 Old man Fraser, meantime, was unpacking dishes and 
 pans. He had brought a box full of them. The Conrad 
 household was so young; he thought they would need them. 
 
 " But where is Willy? " Robert asked, missing the Fraser 
 boy. 
 
 " There he comes," Gottfried said, pointing down the road. 
 Willy, a lad of nine, was coming astride a burro which his 
 father had just bought him, and seemed to be enjoying the 
 antics of the donkey hugely. 
 
 There was a busy hour and a half for Gottfried while the 
 guests were coming in. He helped them put up their horses, 
 fed them. ... It was so long since he had fed a horse that he 
 remembered it as if he were in a dream. It was back in Ger- 
 many at his stepfather's. The memory of it was so far away 
 it seemed to him that it could not be possible that he was once 
 the boy he was now recollecting. . . . 
 
 The children had grouped themselves on one side to play, 
 and the women were buzzing about Ruth and Charlotte, lend- 
 ing a helping hand. The men were gathered about one of the 
 
372 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 wagons and were discussing the future of their little commu- 
 nity. They must take action soon about getting a school of 
 their own. Some of the children would soon be of school 
 age; others had not yet outgrown the age when they still 
 should be studying. It was no way to do things. They 
 ought to select a committee to go down to the county seat and 
 take the proper steps, the proper action. 
 
 One or the other of the men from time to time turned to 
 Gottfried for his approval of some suggestion that was made. 
 Although most of the people had met Gottfried but once, on 
 the first Sunday of his arrival from the East, they had a good 
 deal of respect for him. They sized him up as a man of 
 intelligence. His speech was brief and incisive. Besides 
 he was the grandfather of Robert and of Ruth, whom they 
 all thought of highly. 
 
 Gottfried tried to listen to everything they were saying, 
 but he could not prevent his mind from wandering to things 
 that were nearer to him. He was thinking of his son. . . . 
 It was only since coming to California that he had gathered 
 the details of Fred's lonely, tragic death. He had not seen 
 his son's grave yet. ... It was still far away. . . . 
 
 A question had been asked him with regard to organizing 
 their community. Gottfried answered it. He spoke a little 
 longer than was his custom. He found himself drifting away 
 from the subject under discussion to something else, some- 
 thing that was on his mind, had been on his mind during all 
 the days that they were preparing for the housewarming, for 
 the entry into their new home, the Conrad House, without his 
 son, without his Fred. . . . 
 
 He did not wish at all to cloud the happiness of the day, 
 he was saying, but life and death were inseparable. . . . One 
 was the complement of the other. . . . While they were con- 
 sidering the choosing of a site for a schoolhouse, it might per- 
 
THE HOUSEWARMING 373 
 
 haps not be amiss to choose also a site for a burial ground. 
 In the long run they would have to consider the matter. And 
 if they chose the site for a cemetery now, it would be a 
 great kindness to him. . . . They all knew of his son's death 
 — how he had died before they had reached this haven. He 
 was buried in San Francisco. It was his wish — perhaps a 
 foolish, sentimental wish — to bring his son's ashes here, to 
 bury them in the midst of their community, within sight of 
 their homestead. . . . 
 
 Edmond Crane had risen before Gottfried finished speak- 
 ing, and the others rose with him. For nearly three hours 
 they walked through the fields searching for a proper loca- 
 tion, thinking, studying distances. Finally they decided upon 
 a little hillock a short way from the main road. That was 
 to be the community's burial ground. On the way back they 
 selected a committee of one, for the present, to go to the 
 county seat and take the first steps toward giving their newly 
 formed community legal status. . . . 
 
 Dinner was on the table by the time the men returned. 
 Though Ruth was busy running to and from the kitchen, 
 Robert managed to get her aside for a moment. In a few 
 hurried words he told her how a burial ground had already 
 been settled upon and of their grandfather's desire to have 
 their father's remains moved from San Francisco and buried 
 within the shadow of their home. 
 
 Robert hastened away without looking at his sister, and 
 Ruth looked about for her grandfather. Upon finding his 
 tall figure among the men she gazed at him with moist eyes 
 for a moment, and went back to her work. . . . 
 
 The dinner lasted until late in the afternoon. When the 
 tables were finally removed and the ground cleared, the chil- 
 dren played games, while the men and women talked and 
 jested. Robert and his grandfather had managed to slip 
 
374 THE HOUSE OF CONRAD 
 
 into their Sunday clothes just before dinner, and now went 
 about among the guests, looking after every one's comfort, 
 making sure that every one was enjoying himself, was happy. 
 Oscar Colson, whose role was midway between that of a 
 guest and a member of the Conrad household, had gone to the 
 spring with Willy Fraser for fresh water. They returned 
 with it and Ruth presently appeared with a bowl of lemonade. 
 Some one called for a song. 
 
 " Edna, a song. Give us a song! Edna! Edna! " 
 
 George Eraser's fifteen-year-old daughter was famed for 
 her voice among their neighbors. And she knew many songs ; 
 she had learned them all in school — " back in the East." 
 It was not until she had nearly finished the eighth grade that 
 the call to California came from her father. 
 
 " Edna, Edna ! " the voices kept calling. A circle formed. 
 Men and women sat on the ground, or on benches. 
 
 Edna stepped forward. She was thinking. Presently she 
 began. 
 
 A wave of satisfaction spread over every face. She was 
 singing the song they all loved so well, the song they all 
 thought she sang best. 
 
 " Should auld acquaintance be forgot . . ." 
 
 Edna was gazing above the heads of her listeners. Her 
 eyes seemed to be piercing the distance, spanning the conti- 
 nent back to that town in Pennsylvania, to her home, to her 
 friends, schoolmates, memories — " back East." 
 
 " We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet, 
 For auld lang syne." 
 
 All of the men and women were humming, swaying — all 
 except Colson and Gottfried. Both of them had emigrated 
 to America after they had received their schooling in the Old 
 
THE HOUSEW ARMING 375 
 
 World. Colson, however, was visibly affected by the song. 
 . . . Robert was sitting with his arms about Charlotte's 
 shoulders. Colson sought Ruth's hand and took it in 
 his. . . . 
 
 Gottfried had heard only the first stanza of the song. 
 The rest was lost to him in the swaying and humming of the 
 people. He was gazing at them, gazing at Robert and 
 Charlotte, at Ruth and Colson. ... He was grateful — 
 grateful for this House of his. He was happy, and he was 
 lonely. If Fred had only been there among them. . . . 
 
 The song was ended. There was applause, approval, 
 clamor for more. Gottfried rose and slipped away unnoticed. 
 He walked around the house. From the other side of it he 
 could see the place they had chosen as a cemeLcy. It was 
 a splendid location, right in the course of the sun. He 
 looked at the sun. It was sinking among the hills. More 
 than half of it was already gone below the snow-peaks of the 
 Sierras. . . . Yes, a splendid location. . . . Edna was sing- 
 ing again. The strains of a school song reached his ears. 
 . . . Before his eyes shadows were hovering. . . . 
 
 THE END 
 
in 
 
 14 DAY USE 
 
 TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED 
 
 LOAN DEPT. 
 
 This book is due on the last date stamped below, or 
 
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 Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. 
 
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