WITTE ARRIVES 
 
MASHA AND HER CHILDREN WERE ADMITTED TO AMERICA 
 
WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 A NOVEL 
 
 BY 
 
 ELIAS TOBENKIN 
 
 WITH A FRONTISPIECE BY J. HENRY 
 
 Was I not made the man I am 
 By Omnipotent time? 
 
 Goethe s Prometheus 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 
 PUBLISHERS 
 
Copyright, 2926, by 
 THE NEW YORK HERALD COMPANY 
 
 Copyright, 1916, by 
 FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 
 
 All rights reserved, including that oj translation into 
 foreign languages 
 
TO 
 RAE SCHWID TOBENKIN 
 
 r* < -> f F* "* 
 
 343156 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I IN A STRANGE LAND . . i 
 
 II TAKING ROOT 19 
 
 III THE LONG LOST BROTHER 39 
 
 IV SIBERIAN ECHOES 48 
 
 V CLARA MARRIES 61 
 
 VI COLLEGE DAYS 75 
 
 VII A REPORTER 89 
 
 VIII CHICAGO 106 
 
 IX THE ROAD TO NOWHERE 122 
 
 X THE NEW YEAR 134 
 
 XI A DROWNING WORLD . . 145 
 
 XII MARRIAGE .......... 160 
 
 XIII THE COVENANT . . . . . . . .173 
 
 XIV WAR ON THE UNBORN . ... . .186 
 
 XV THE NEW KING 195 
 
 XVI LETTERS AND MORE LETTERS .... 209 
 
 XVII THE END OF A DREAM . . . . . . 222 
 
 XVIII THE PROMISE 236 
 
 XIX HELEN DIES . . . ...... 242 
 
 XX GRAY DAYS 255 
 
 XXI FATHER AND SON 268 
 
 XXII THE BOOK OF LIFE 282 
 
 XXIII OLD SORROWS AND A NEW LIFE .... 293 
 
WITTE ARRIVES 
 
WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 IN A STRANGE LAND 
 
 CASTLE GARDEN, the mysterious institution 
 which inspired Masha Witkowski and her ship 
 companions With so much dread, passed out of her 
 horizon unnoticed. While she was bracing herself for 
 the ordeal at the hands of the immigration officials 
 an ordeal concerning which her husband had fore 
 warned her and carefully prepared her in his letters 
 a young man, simply uniformed, came up to where she 
 and her three children sat huddled together beside their 
 bundles. He looked at the card which was pinned to 
 her shawl and made a sign for her to follow him. In 
 side a railing another man examined her tickets and 
 addresses and, barely moving his lips, emitted an in 
 distinct sound. Whereupon the first man led them 
 through an iron gate to a bench in the waiting-room. 
 Masha Witkowski and her three children had been 
 admitted to America, and they were not aware of it. 
 
2 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 The family had hardly finished its belated noon meal 
 purchased from one of the stands in the waiting- 
 room when a man again came up. Mrs. Witkow- 
 ski, who in the progress of her long journey from the 
 Russian Pale to the New World had learned to have 
 her tickets ever ready and to hand them in response to 
 every question she did not understand, did so on this 
 occasion too. Her instinct had not deceived her. The 
 man looked at the tickets anc^ nodded approvingly. He 
 then pointed to their bundles and made motions with 
 his arms indicating that they should pick them up. 
 When his orders were understood, he started out of 
 the building with Masha and her children following 
 him at a run. 
 
 There came a short ride on a ferry, and then more 
 waiting in a big room which the immigrant family pre 
 sumed was a railway station, while their guide was 
 talking through a grated window to a man inside and 
 was receiving some long slips of paper more tickets, 
 Masha guessed. Then came the train with a welcome 
 surprise a conductor who greeted them in Ger 
 man. 
 
 There Was a difference of centuries between the 
 German which the American conductor spoke and the 
 ghetto Yiddish of Masha Witkowski and her children. 
 Nevertheless she and her children were cheered to the 
 marrow. With a man who spoke German they felt 
 kinship. Masha even took it as a good omen. She 
 
IN A STRANGE LAND 3 
 
 put her questions in the most cosmopolitan Yiddish she 
 could summon to her command. 
 
 One of her first questions was when they would ar 
 rive in Spring Water. The conductor could not make 
 out her pronunciation of the name of the American 
 town, and she handed him a slip of paper with her 
 husband s address. The trainman consulted a time 
 table and told her that she would reach her destination 
 at nine o clock Thursday night. 
 
 At this a solemn look came into Masha s face, Her 
 eyes remained hazy for some minutes. . . . 
 
 So then this Spring Water, which for four years 
 was only a phrase to write down on an envelope once 
 a week, this Spring Water was a real place, as real as 
 the little town she had left behind in the Russian Pale. 
 The conductor knew of it. He found it in a book. 
 He even knew the hour when the train would get there, 
 when they would arrive there to her husband to 
 their father. 
 
 The train had left the last stretches of suburban 
 panorama and was sweeping into the broad open coun 
 try. Her children, Harry and Emil, aged respectively 
 sixteen and ten, and her twelve-year-old daughter, 
 Clara, their heads and faces protruding slightly out of 
 the raised window, were following intently the shifting 
 landscape and changing scenes. 
 
 Masha looked beyond the heads of her children 
 through the open window, but with unseeing eyes. 
 
4 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 Her vision and thoughts were turned inward. . . . 
 She was thinking of her husband, of Aaron Witkowski. 
 Four years she had not seen him four of the best 
 years. She was only thirty-six when he left for 
 America. At first it seemed as if she would never be 
 able to bear being away from him that long. . . . But 
 time proved the conqueror it tamed her. There 
 were innumerable nights that were long, terribly long, 
 nights when it seemed that the dawn would never 
 break, that day would never come. . . . But if the 
 nights, and frequently even the days, were long, the 
 weeks and the months and the years sped on. And 
 now the terrible years of separation, of passionate long 
 ing and unuttered confidences were over. Thursday 
 night she would see him Poor Aaron, how he must 
 have changed in these years! 
 
 A tear fell from her eyes. That aroused her. Her 
 children must not see her cry now that they were in 
 America, that they were speeding toward him and 
 were only separated from their father by the trifling 
 space of three days travel. 
 
 Her children, however, had not noticed her dimmed 
 eyes. The train was now rolling along a broad stretch 
 of farming country. Every thirty seconds a home 
 flashed into view, a neatly painted house and barn and 
 well all to itself an American farm such as Aaron 
 had so often pictured to them in his letters. The chil 
 dren drank in the sight without comment or exclama- 
 
IN A STRANGE LAND 5 
 
 tion. The scenes were too absorbing, too thrilling for 
 them to waste the least energy or time on anything but 
 seeing. 
 
 p The train passed within half a hundred feet of a 
 big load of hay that was pulled by a pair of fine 
 gray horses. The young farmer who was sitting on 
 top of the load removed his wide-brimmed straw hat 
 and smiled and nodded to the children. All three of 
 them were so astonished by this unexpected greeting 
 from a man they had never seen before, from an 
 American, that for some moments they were unable 
 to return the greeting. Clara was the first to come to 
 herself, and, protruding her head and chest far out of 
 the window, she waved her handkerchief in the direc 
 tion of the wagon which the speeding train was fast 
 leaving behind. 
 
 "Are not they splendid, these Americans?" Clara 
 said, addressing her brothers. Harry wanted to say 
 something in reply, but there was a lump in his throat, 
 so touched was he by the kindly greeting of the 
 stranger. Emil had not made the slightest stir from 
 his position at the window and was still looking at the 
 load of hay, which had by now grown exceedingly 
 small. The man on top of the wagon now looked like 
 a little boy no bigger than himself. 
 
 In after years the two brothers and the sister often 
 recalled the smile and greeting of the young farmer on 
 the hay wagon the first greeting they had received 
 
6 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 from a stranger, and a Gentile their first American 
 smile. 
 
 Evening was falling, a mild August evening. The 
 soft breeze that beat against their faces was delight 
 fully soothing. None of the children spoke. They 
 listened. The wind seemed to be making music. The 
 rapid, even strides which the train was taking through 
 space fell in rhythmic waves. Little Emil moved away 
 from the window, sank back in the seat and closed his 
 eyes. He had a vague consciousness of having lived 
 through such sensations, of having heard that music 
 before, but he could not recall where. . . .When he 
 opened his eyes again it was dark. Night had settled 
 upon everything. After a while the train cut through 
 a small village. The houses of the village were inter 
 woven with trees and the streets were studded with 
 lights. It was the first time the immigrant family saw 
 such a profusion of lights in streets, and it provoked 
 comment. 
 
 With such a delightful wind blowing in their faces 
 it seemed to the children that they would never fall 
 asleep. Soon, however, the breeze, which had been so 
 refreshing and invigorating at first, began to exhaust 
 them. The weariness seemed to grow momentarily. 
 The windows were lowered. The bundles were ar 
 ranged into pillows. The tired limbs were twisted into 
 half-sitting, half -reclining positions, and the brothers 
 
IN A STRANGE LAND 7 
 
 and the sister were soon asleep under the watchful eye 
 of their mother, who was leaning back in the seat still 
 thinking her own thoughts. 
 
 In Chicago the immigrant train disbanded. Mrs. 
 Witkowski and her children were lined up on the plat 
 form along with other aliens like themselves. Men 
 were running up and down in front of these lines of 
 foreigners, and simple but touching reunions took place. 
 Here a man recognized his wife and children. There 
 a son recognized his old father, a brother recognized a 
 sister. Masha and her children were nlaced in a car 
 riage, and there followed a brief joumey over strange- 
 looking city streets that were filled with people, despite 
 the fact that the night was already advanced. The 
 driver turned the immigrant family over to a police 
 man, who took them into what they again recognized 
 as a railway waiting-room. 
 
 " Sprechen Sie Deitsch?" Masha tried her luck, as 
 she had often done during the journey. But the red- 
 haired policeman shook his head, " no Dutch," and pro 
 ceeded to make signs to the woman and the children 
 to take possession of the benches. They had a long 
 wait ahead of them. 
 
 Masha sat up the greater part of the night watching 
 over her children who lay sound asleep on the benches. 
 She was afraid to go to sleep lest she miss her train, 
 or something befall them. Toward morning, however, 
 her power of resistance waned. She leaned against 
 
8 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 the arm of a bench and in a few minutes was sound 
 asleep. 
 
 The morning was well advanced when she awoke. 
 She looked about. Her children were nowhere to be 
 seen. Alarmed she rushed out into the next room. 
 Here she found them lined up against the window and 
 looking out into the street. She intended to upbraid 
 them for having scared her so, but reproach died on 
 her lips when she beheld the fascinating sight the open 
 window afforded. 
 
 As far as her eye could see stretched giant buildings. 
 The street below was seething with people who were 
 going to work. But to her it seemed as if all these 
 men and women were out for a holiday jaunt. They 
 were all dressed in such fine clothes. The women all 
 wore hats. How different all this was from the gray, 
 drab existence at home, in Russia. There was not a 
 single barefooted peasant in the entire street. . . . 
 Even the horses and wagons had an air of aristocracy 
 about them. The wagons were painted. The brass 
 buckles of the horses harness sparkled in the sunshine. 
 The drivers on these wagons seemed care- free, com 
 placent, so different from the peasant Ivan, who used 
 to drive her to the fair in a neighboring village for 
 half a ruble, and who made a meal on a piece of black 
 bread and an onion. Mrs. Witkowski now began to 
 understand what her husband had meant by the words 
 " dignity of labor " words which he had so often 
 
IN A STRANGE LAND 9 
 
 used in his letters in which he tried to initiate her into 
 the American view of life. 
 
 A policeman took Mrs. Witkowski to a restaurant 
 across the street from the station and supervised her 
 purchase of coffee and rolls. When the meal was 
 finished, the officer again went over to Masha. He ex 
 amined her tickets and pointed to the figure twelve on 
 his watch. She guessed that he meant that their train 
 would leave at noon. Though she still had a three 
 hours wait before her, Mrs. Witkowski gathered her 
 children and imparted the news to them, and they be 
 gan making ready for this last lap of their five weeks 
 journey. 
 
 They washed and combed with an air of deliberation, 
 as if they were performing a religious rite. The chil 
 dren brushed their old-world clothes, tried to smooth 
 out the wrinkles and creases in them. As they worked 
 away with brush and towel the color mounted to their 
 cheeks and their hearts began to beat faster. It was 
 not make-believe this time. It was real. In a few 
 hours they would see their father they would all be 
 reunited for always always always. . . . 
 
 Chicago lay miles to the rear. The train was speed 
 ing through beautiful country. The farmhouses here 
 were even more attractive, larger, richer than those 
 they had seen on the first afternoon of their journey 
 from Castle Garden to Spring Water. But none of 
 these things interested Mrs. Witkowski s children. 
 
10 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 The landscape, the farmhouses that dashed past their 
 eyes seemed more like a dream to them. What was 
 real was the approaching meeting with their father. 
 None of them talked, each preferring to be left alone 
 with his or her own thoughts and reminiscences. 
 
 The ten-year-old Emil, his head resting against the 
 plush back of the seat and his eyes closed, was dream 
 ing of his father. He was visualizing him not as he 
 expected to see him in a few hours, but as he knew him 
 on that night, the night when he, his father, the big 
 man with the big beard and imposing appearance, wept. 
 . . . That night and his father s tears were a secret of 
 Emil s, a secret of which he was proud and which made 
 him feel so much older than he was. It was his father s 
 farewell night. . . . 
 
 That evening, Emil recalled, their house was filled 
 with people. Everybody in the village came to bid 
 Aaron Witkowski farewell. The aged rabbi himself 
 sought out their humble cottage. The rabbi sat across 
 the table from his father. For some time the two 
 talked about the Torah, the law and Judaism. Then 
 the white-haired patriarch rose, lifted his hands, placed 
 them on Aaron s head and prayed. The two kissed, 
 and mumbling a blessing the rabbi walked out of the 
 house leaning heavily on his staff. 
 
 Emil had fallen asleep long before the last group 
 of well-wishers had left the house. He was awakened 
 by the pressing of something warm against his face. 
 
IN A STRANGE LAND 11 
 
 His father s lips were resting against his forehead. 
 Aaron was murmuring Emil s name and was weeping. 
 Emil longed to put his arms about his father s neck and 
 tell him how he would miss him, how he would think 
 of him every moment until the day they were reunited. 
 He felt the tears rising in his own throat, but he was 
 struck with awe at the hot tears which were rolling 
 from his father s eyes. Never had he known his father 
 to weep before. So he moved away, pulled the quilt 
 over his head and was soon asleep. . . . 
 
 In the morning, when the peasant cart stood before 
 the house and Aaron had taken leave of every one, he 
 turned once more to his six-year-old son. He slid his 
 fingers through Emil s hair, smoothed his forehead 
 with his hands and began to talk hastily, brokenly. He 
 wanted Emil to obey his mother and to learn well. 
 When they came together again he would question him 
 on everything he had studied, he would want to see 
 what progress his son had made. He must be a nice 
 boy, never associate with the rough boys, never fight. 
 He must study hard accomplish. . . . 
 
 The ten-year-old Emil recalled all of these things 
 now. But he dwelt most on his father s tears. There 
 was a vague pride stirring through his little breast. 
 He felt as if by those tears he had been taken by his 
 father into confidence. He was eager to see him, eager 
 to tell his father how he had carried out his wishes. 
 
 There was a change of trains at six-thirty. A gray- 
 
12 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 headed conductor helped them with their bags and par 
 cels into a waiting train. He smiled every time he 
 passed them. When he took the tickets from Mrs. 
 Witkowski, or rather the three stubs which she held 
 out to him, he observed them for some moments, 
 punched them slowly and put them in his pocket. 
 Masha made a motion as if to ask him for a receipt. 
 But the conductor shook his head good-naturedly. A 
 wave of excitement overcame Mrs. Witkowski and her 
 children, especially Clara. All through the journey the 
 girl had kept watch over her mother to see that she did 
 not lose any of the tickets and papers which she had re 
 ceived from the various ship and railroad agents. 
 Now the last scraps of these once long and imposing- 
 looking tickets were gone. That signified to them 
 more than words could express that they were really 
 at the end of their long and weary journey. 
 
 It grew dark. Every eight or ten minutes the train 
 stopped, and a passenger got off or on. The railway 
 stations here were small, and they all looked as if they 
 had been cast from the same mold. Did Spring Water, 
 too, have such a station? Did it, too, have so many 
 lights in the streets at night? It would soon be nine 
 o clock. They would soon be there. They would see. 
 How soon? They were becoming a little tired from 
 the overstrain of excited watching broken up. 
 They would settle down for a little rest. It must be 
 a whole hour yet till nine o clock. 
 
IN A STRANGE LAND 13 
 
 Just as they settled down for a rest the conductor 
 came in. He pointed to their parcels and said some 
 thing. They all jumped up, seized their bundles and 
 started to go. He smiled and waved to them to settle 
 down again. They sank back into their seats, dis 
 appointed. 
 
 Harry, who had his head out of the window, caught 
 a glimpse of the edge of a city. The electric lights 
 were blazing by the thousands. He communicated his 
 find. They waited. After a lapse of a minute and a 
 half which to them seemed a long, a terribly long 
 time the conductor came in once more. He again 
 pointed to their parcels. They picked them up and 
 held them under their arms. He smiled approvingly. 
 The train was slowing up. They began moving toward 
 the front of the car. The railway platform now came 
 in full view. Clara stood hard by the open window. 
 
 " Father, father," she cried wildly and burst toward 
 the door. The few passengers, who had been dozing 
 in their seats, sprang to their feet. When they caught 
 sight of the little group of stampeding aliens, their 
 alarm vanished, and a kindly, understanding look came 
 into their eyes. They shifted over to the side of the 
 car nearer the platform, raised the windows, and 
 watched the reunion of the alien family with curious 
 feelings. They knew that they would never forget 
 the pathetic little scene to which they were accidental 
 witnesses. 
 
H WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 There were three Russian Jewish families in Spring 
 Water at that time 1890 and they were all at the 
 Witte home that evening. Witkowski had changed 
 his name to Witte soon after his arrival in America. 
 Two of the families had known the Wittes in Europe. 
 They had come from the same town. There was no 
 end of questions about friends, acquaintances, distant 
 relatives. It was after midnight when the visitors 
 left, taking Harry and Clara with them for the night, 
 for the Witte household was not yet in order. Emil, 
 his father would not let from under his roof. He did 
 not take his eyes from him all evening. How he had 
 grown what a little man he had become ! He petted 
 and caressed him, tried to smooth out the wrinkles on 
 the child s forehead, and suppressed a sigh that a child 
 should have wrinkles. Poor child of the Russian 
 Pale! 
 
 But Masha put an end to his musings. It was time 
 for Emil to go to sleep. They took him to a room 
 adjoining their own bedroom, tucked him up in a nice 
 new quilt and walked out with a smile. They did not 
 kiss him good night. He seemed to them a little too 
 big for such a demonstrative manifestation of tender 
 ness. 
 
 As soon as all footsteps and noise had died out in 
 the house, Emil slipped off the bed and stole on tiptoe 
 to the window. The street was totally dark now, but 
 above the moon was shining. He saw the outlines of 
 
IN A STRANGE LAND 15 
 
 the houses distinctly in the moonlight. They all looked 
 strange and new, so much grander than the thatched 
 cottages in their native village, but they were so 
 strange, so cold. And in these houses lived people who 
 were strangers to him, whose language he did not un 
 derstand, and who did not understand his. A painful, 
 tender longing for his town, for his street, for his 
 home, for his synagogue in Russia swept over him. 
 He sank down on the floor beside the window and, put 
 ting his head down on the sill, cried softly but steadily 
 for a long time. Then he crawled into bed again and 
 fell asleep. 
 
 His father s hand playing with his hair awakened 
 him. At the foot of the bed lay a new suit of clothes 
 and fresh underclothes the latter articles he had 
 never worn in the Russian Pale. Beside the bed stood 
 a new pair of shoes. While his father was helping him 
 dress in these unaccustomed clothes, Emil was giving 
 account of himself, the account he had waited four 
 years to give. He was telling his father what he had 
 learned in those years. Yes, he was through with three 
 volumes of the Talmud, and in the last six months the 
 rabbi had taught him the law. Aaron pricked up his 
 ears. 
 
 "You studied the law?" 
 
 " Yes," said Emil eagerly. " The rabbi thought I 
 might not have an opportunity to continue my Hebrew 
 studies in America, so he wanted me to know a little 
 
16 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 about the laws of the Jews, even if I was somewhat 
 too young to study the Shulkhan Orukh." 
 
 " And what did you study in the Shulkhan Orukh, 
 what laws ? " the father asked, gazing at the child with 
 suppressed amazement. 
 
 Emil recited a long list of dietary laws, laws about 
 the keeping of the Sabbath and the principal holidays ; 
 the laws relating to the Passover and the Day of Atone 
 ment. 
 
 " It is good, it is good," Aaron said and stroked his 
 son s cheek. Observing Emil dressed and ready to go 
 downstairs, he moved toward the window, the child fol 
 lowing him. He gazed intently for some moments at 
 his little son, as if he were searching for something in 
 his face, his eyes, and then started to speak hurriedly, 
 almost confusedly. 
 
 " You will go to school here," Aaron began, and his 
 ten-year-old son who was already versed in the Law of 
 Israel hung upon every word his parent uttered. 
 " You will go to school here. But it will be a different 
 sort of a school from the one you went to in Russia. 
 Different studies, worldly studies. . . . You see it is a 
 different land we are in now, a better country the 
 best country on earth. It is not only overflowing with 
 milk and honey, but with opportunities. Here there 
 is no distinction between Jew and Gentile. ... If you 
 study hard you can make anything you want of your- 
 
IN A STRANGE LAND 17 
 
 self. . . . You can become a judge, a lawyer, a teacher 
 anything. This is a free land. The people are free 
 and all are equal. All roads are free to every one. . . . 
 Jews have the same rights as all other people. . . . No 
 differences, no distinctions. . . . They are not dis 
 criminated against. One of the greatest citizens in this 
 city is a Jew. . . ." 
 
 Aaron rambled on in this manner for some time. 
 Emil s eyes were wide with attention, and two red 
 spots appeared on his cheeks from the strain of follow 
 ing his father s words and thoughts. Masha made an 
 end to the exalted discourse by calling her husband 
 downstairs. 
 
 When Emil caught sight of his brother and sister 
 dressed in American clothes, he was taken aback, so 
 great was the difference the garments made in their 
 looks. He was going to comment upon this difference, 
 but Clara already had him by the hand and led him into 
 the kitchen to show her mother how fine Emil looked in 
 his short trousers. 
 
 " Why, he looks like a little child not like a boy 
 of ten," Clara cried, her eyes glistening with excite 
 ment. 
 
 Aaron and his wife exchanged glances at the ex 
 pense of their children, from whose shoulders their 
 American clothes had lifted a good deal of premature 
 age. Masha s eyes grew dim, and in Aaron s throat 
 
i8 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 there arose a lump. Both busied themselves with the 
 dishes, Aaron explaining to his wife the uses of cer 
 tain utensils that she had never seen in the old world. 
 
 In a few minutes he led the way to the table, and the 
 Witte family sat down to its first breakfast in America. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 TAKING ROOT 
 
 THE next two years saw a remarkable shift in the 
 fortunes of the little immigrant colony in Spring 
 Water. The Nathans had ceased to be pedlers and 
 now owned one of the most prosperous general stores. 
 The Rosen boys intrenched themselves almost over 
 night, it seemed, as the leading wholesale fruit dealers 
 of the town, and their father discarded his pedler s 
 wagon and was supervising things in the warehouse. 
 The three Goldman brothers were prospering in the 
 hide and wool business. 
 
 The Witte family alone stood in the same place. 
 Aaron still dragged himself from farmhouse to farm 
 house five days a week, peddling his far from up-to- 
 date stock of notions and minor articles of clothing. 
 Yet Aaron Witte was by no means displeased with the 
 new world or with his lot in it. If he was still a 
 pedler it was a matter of his own volition. 
 
 The afternoon of Masha s first day in the new world, 
 Aaron took her out for a stroll along outskirts of the 
 city. It was in the course of this promenade that he 
 mapped out their future. 
 
 19 - 
 
20 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 The Jewish immigrant in a town like Spring Water 
 could choose one of two ways, he told her. He could 
 choose the road which led to prosperity, and even 
 wealth. But then he had to give up much that is sacred 
 to the orthodox Jew. He had to work on the Sabbath, 
 reverse the order of the Lord and rest on the first in 
 stead of on the seventh day. In the big cities, in New 
 York or Chicago, the Jew could still cling to the old 
 order and get by. It was different in the country, 
 where there were only four or half a dozen Jewish 
 families to a town. To stick to orthodoxy here meant 
 to step out of the race for prosperity. 
 
 Aaron was not unreasonable with the men who chose 
 this road, who sacrificed orthodoxy for worldly suc 
 cess and security. The Talmud made great allowances 
 where the question of a living entered. But for him 
 self he had chosen the other road. He kept the Sab 
 bath and thereby deprived himself not only of a good 
 deal of revenue, for Saturday was the best business 
 day, but also of the chance of ever going into business 
 in the city. His horse and wagon could be put in the 
 barn over Saturday and Sunday. A store could not be 
 closed for two days. It especially could not be closed 
 on Saturday when all the farmers come to town to 
 trade. 
 
 He was willing, Aaron went on, to give in in small 
 matters. He could yield up trifles. As she saw, his 
 beard was trimmed considerably. But trimming one s 
 
TAKING ROOT 21 
 
 beard was after all a minor matter. It was not an 
 infraction of the law, merely of a custom. Keeping 
 the Sabbath, on the other hand, was one of the funda 
 mentals of the Hebrew faith. One could not tamper 
 with the foundation without endangering the entire 
 structure. . . . He was too old a man to change his\ 
 mode of living to suit the newer conditions. His train- ) 
 ing, his ideals would rebel against such a course and 
 would make him unhappy. He felt that he could not 
 make such a dent in his creed without robbing his 
 conscience of peace forever. Their children they 
 no doubt would choose the other road. But he and 
 she must follow the path of their fathers. Besides, 
 they were not so badly off. He was making a fair 
 living. And the children, Harry and Clara, would be 
 taking care of themselves soon. Harry would prob 
 ably go to work at once. Clara would soon find a 
 position in some store the young ones pick up the 
 language quickly. So they would have only Emil to 
 take care of. 
 
 Masha listened to her husband s voice more than to 
 his words. She was drinking in the familiar sound 
 of which she had been deprived four long years. 
 Nevertheless, the words were not without their sooth 
 ing effect. They set her mind at ease. She had heard 
 that America often transforms men. The struggle for 
 existence makes them hard-hearted, destroys their finer 
 sensibilities. Every time she received a letter from 
 
22 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 Aaron she had studied it for just such changes in her 
 husband. But she had found none. Still letters are 
 so brief. And four years what changes might not 
 a man undergo in so long a time ! 
 
 Aaron s words set her at ease. But they also pro 
 voked a mild resentment. What was he so apologetic 
 about ? Why did he feel so guilty for not exchanging 
 the Sabbath for cash, for not bartering his religion 
 for prosperity? Did he not know that her mind was 
 at one with his on this subject? Was not she a daugh 
 ter of Israel? Who cared for riches that could be 
 obtained only at the sacrifice of one s faith? 
 
 But her resentment faded the moment she opened 
 her mouth to speak. Instead of upbraiding Aaron 
 for uncalled-for apologies, she merely assented to 
 everything he had said, and the conversation shifted 
 to the children, centering about little Emil. The He 
 brew teacher in Russia had praised the lad highly. 
 The boy had an open mind, the teacher had said. The 
 Talmud was like child s play to him. He studied the 
 law and comprehended it like a grown person. 
 
 Emil, meantime, was strolling up and down the side 
 walk about his home, observing things with eager eyes. 
 The neatly constructed, painted homes, with porches 
 and lawns in front of them, offered such a striking con 
 trast to the cumbersome buildings in the Russian vil 
 lage where he was born. There was youthfulness 
 about the houses, about the well-paved streets, and the 
 
TAKING ROOT 23 
 
 people looked so joung. And they were so cheerful. 
 
 At one side of the street on a large stretch of va 
 cant ground, children, little boys and girls his own 
 age, were playing. The boys were tossing a ball ; the 
 girls looked on and gurgled every time the boys en 
 gaged in a scrimmage for the ball. The little im 
 migrant, who had waded through three volumes of 
 the Talmud and many tracts of the law, looked at 
 the boys playing just as he looked at the painted houses 
 and the paved street and the nice green lawns as 
 an observer looks at things that are interesting but 
 are in no way a part of him, can in no way concern 
 him. 
 
 It never occurred to Emil that he, too, might be 
 playing ball like the children there. Though many of 
 the boys at play were so much bigger than himself, 
 and older, he yet felt unconsciously as if he were way \ 
 above them in age. He wondered what these boysj 
 were thinking, what their aim in life was. For of 
 course everybody must have an aim in life, like him 
 self. Until that morning his aim had been to get to 
 his father in America and tell him how much he had 
 accomplished. Since his father had talked to him 
 about school and opportunities, his aim was " to make 
 something of himself," as his father had put it, a law 
 yer, a judge or a teacher. Certainly he must grasp 
 the opportunities which this country offered, as his 
 father had said. 
 
24 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 As he stood thus engrossed in his own thoughts, he 
 saw a little girl, who had been observing him intently 
 for some time, leave the company and walk over toward 
 him. She was a child of eight with a delicate face 
 and sparkling black eyes. Her jet-black hair was fall 
 ing in ringlets about her shoulders. As she ap 
 proached him nearer she smiled. Emil started to move 
 away out of her path, but she addressed him in 
 Yiddish. 
 
 " You came last night?" she asked, smiling. 
 
 Emil did not answer. He looked at her with sur 
 prise. She spoke Yiddish with such a strange un- 
 Jewish accent. 
 
 ".Why don t you answer me?" the little girl con 
 tinued, smiling. " You don t look like a greener at 
 all," she added. 
 
 "Are you Jewish?" Emil finally managed to 
 blurt out. 
 
 " Sure. My name is Lena Rosen. My mother was 
 over to your house last night when you came. Do 
 you want to come and play with us? " 
 
 " I can t, I don t know how," Emil answered in con 
 fusion. What he wanted to say was something en 
 tirely different. He wanted to tell her that a boy who 
 had got through with three volumes of the Talmud 
 must only play with children of his own sex with 
 boys. But so many of his old-world notions of what 
 is proper had gone against the rocks in the course of 
 
TAKING ROOT 25 
 
 -his journey to America, and especially in the half day 
 he had been in Spring Water, that he checked himself, 
 for fear that he might say something that was not 
 proper. 
 
 " Oh, you will learn to play," the child persisted. 
 " My brother there he is, the fellow with the ball 
 could not play either, when he came here three years 
 ago. Now he is the captain of the team, see? " 
 
 Emil did not understand what she meant by " cap 
 tain " and " team," and little Lena was not conscious 
 of having said anything to him that was not good 
 Yiddish. Emil was interested in her brother, how 
 ever. 
 
 " And your brother did not speak English when he 
 came here ? " he asked. 
 
 " No, and I did not either, not a word. And now 
 mama scolds him because he won t talk Jewish to her. 
 I do though. I always talk Jewish to mama. Can 
 you add? I can add and subtract." 
 
 Emil not only could add and subtract, he could mul 
 tiply and divide as well. He had gone to a teacher 
 in Russia for two hours a day to supplement his Tal- 
 mudic studies with worldly learning. He described 
 his studies to her animatedly. At last he had safe 
 ground to stand on. 
 
 Lena listened to him and was impressed. 
 
 " You know much," she said. " In three weeks 
 school starts. I ll go back to school and I m going 
 
26 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 to learn much, too. Can I take you to school the first 
 day? You have to have somebody take you there, 
 you know. I ll take you to the principal, Miss Upham. 
 She is nice. She likes children who come from the 
 old world. They learn so quick, she says/ 
 
 Lena kept her word. The day school opened she 
 was at the Witte home bright and early. Aaron was 
 going to take Emil to the principal in person. But 
 Lena assured him it was not necessary. And Lena s 
 mother said the same. So the little girl piloted Emil 
 through his first day in an American school, and there 
 after the two were often to be seen walking side by 
 side with their school books. At the end of two years 
 Emil had left Lena one grade below him. 
 
 The first Jewish wedding in Spring Water was an 
 event that transcended the confines of the immigrant 
 colony, which by this time had increased to a dozen 
 families. It was a real romance, and it got into the 
 papers. A young man, who had established himself 
 as a vegetable huckster, had sent for his bride in the 
 old world. The entire Jewish community took an in 
 terest in this affair of the heart, and a very elaborate 
 wedding was held. A rabbi was called in from a city 
 eighty miles distant to officiate. 
 
 After the ceremony was performed there came toasts 
 and short speeches. Each one said something com 
 mendatory, laudatory about the groom and the bride. 
 
TAKING ROOT 27 
 
 The talk was very intimate, homelike, simple. When 
 the turn came for Aaron Witte to speak, he rose, filled 
 his glass and began with the customary wishes and 
 congratulations. A Biblical phrase slipped his tongue, 
 an allusion to Jacob marrying in a strange land, far 
 away from parents and friends. This allusion opened 
 up a flood of words and feelings. And the higher 
 Aaron s voice rose, the more intense became the silence 
 in the room. . . . 
 
 He spoke about the new world, about America, 
 about the significance of this wedding to the Jewish 
 community in Spring Water, the debt which this young 
 couple which they all owed this new world that 
 had been so kind to them, had offered them a haven 
 from persecution, had opened its bountiful stores to 
 them without discrimination, to them oppressed, 
 driven Jews. . . . 
 
 The people looked at one another surprised, aston 
 ished. They had never paid more than passing at 
 tention to the quiet, unassuming pedler. They had 
 never suspected him of so much erudition, of such a 
 gift of speech. Their respect for him grew with their 
 silence. But Aaron was oblivious of the one as of the 
 other. He spoke evenly and feelingly about their du 
 ties to their adopted country. They must dedicate 
 themselves to a high order of citizenship. They must 
 make themselves worthy of the blessings and the op 
 portunities which were bestowed upon them freely, 
 
28 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 gratuitously, but for which the fathers of this coun 
 try once fought, and died. He wound up with a toast 
 to America and freedom. 
 
 The toast was drunk, and then people crowded about 
 Aaron and shook his hand, and praised him and ap 
 proved his utterances, as if his speech was the thing 
 they came there for the bride and groom were for 
 gotten for the moment. A reporter from the Sentinel, 
 the only morning paper in town, who was interested 
 in the wedding and was present throughout the cere 
 mony, now called aside one of the Rosen boys and 
 questioned him about the speech, what had been said. 
 Young Rosen translated some of Aaron s remarks, and 
 the next morning there was a half -column report of 
 the glowing tribute Witte had paid to America in 
 the Spring Water Sentinel. Aaron could not read the 
 article in the paper, but Emil read it and was very 
 happy and proud, as if this were the thing he had all 
 along expected from his father. 
 
 The impromptu speech of Aaron had a notable ef 
 fect upon the life of the Witte family. An old, half- 
 forgotten incident in Aaron s life was heaved out into 
 the light and for weeks was a topic of conversation 
 in the Jewish community, as if the thing had taken 
 place only yesterday. It was the story of Witte s mar 
 riage, his and Masha s love affair. The story briefly 
 was this : 
 
 In his youth Aaron was famed as a scholar of the 
 
TAKING ROOT 29 
 
 Talmud. Everybody looked forward to his becoming 
 a rabbi. When he reached the age when a ghetto 
 youth in the Russian Pale might properly think of 
 marriage, the marriage brokers of the town, the 
 " schadchens," were hot on his trail. Many a rich man 
 coveted the famed youth for a son-in-law. There was 
 a rabbinate and fortune ahead of him if he married 
 " into the right family." Aaron s father, who was 
 poor, encouraged the marriage brokers and urged his 
 son to marry wisely. But Aaron seemed in no hurry 
 to get married, and the plans of his father and the 
 anxious schadchens lagged behind. 
 
 Then came the critical day. The richest man in 
 town sent a marriage broker with a proposal. He 
 wanted Aaron for his daughter. It was a sure rab 
 binate, standing, riches. There was no dallying any 
 longer. Aaron s father took a hand in the matter. 
 His son must decide at once. Then the strange, fairly 
 unbelievable thing happened. Aaron decided, but not 
 in favor of the rich man s daughter, whom he had not 
 even cared to meet or see, but in favor of their neigh 
 bor s daughter, Masha in favor of a girl without a 
 rich father and without a dowry, but possessing deep, 
 black eyes that looked out upon the world feelingly and 
 a little sadly from under long black lashes. 
 
 There was a storm, of course. Masha s father was 
 only a tailor. Aaron s father could not find words 
 enough to express his disapproval, to utter his disap- 
 
30 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 pointment. But Aaron clung to his choice. With his 
 marriage to Masha his prospective career as a rabbi 
 came to an end. He set up a Hebrew school and for 
 some years managed to eke an existence as a teacher. 
 Later he went into business. 
 
 This story of Aaron s and Masha s love, which to 
 them was beginning to appear as a half-forgotten 
 legend, now made them friends in Spring Water, made 
 them distinguished. The young especially were taken 
 by it. Aaron Witte, then, was not one of those old- 
 fashioned Jews, even if he was orthodox. . . . 
 
 The Jewish community in Spring Water was now 
 large enough to maintain a place of worship at least 
 for the more important Hebrew holidays. A hall was 
 rented for that purpose and a congregation organized. 
 Witte was unanimously chosen president. On holi 
 days, especially on New Year s Day and on the eve 
 of the Day of Atonement, he would preach a short 
 sermon. These sermons invariably won the approval 
 of the congregation. For they were liberal in spirit. 
 Witte did not leave out of consideration the exigencies 
 of the times and conditions. He deplored the lapses 
 in devotions into which the Jews of Spring Water in 
 common with Jews all over America were falling. . . . 
 But he made allowances too. There were many things 
 to be taken into consideration, many reasons for this 
 infringing on matters that are sacred. There were 
 the differences in civilization, the demands of industry, 
 
TAKING ROOT 31 
 
 the inexorable struggle for existence all pleading 
 for leniency. 
 
 "Old man Witte" after his speech at the wed 
 ding Aaron was spoken of as " Old Man Witte " 
 " certainly has his heart in the right place," was the 
 comment on such a talk of his to the congregation. 
 And the answer invariably was : " Yes, he has a won 
 derful brain. Did you hear the story how he missed 
 becoming a rabbi? It is worth hearing. . . ." 
 
 One by one Witte s neighbors had moved into better 
 homes in the more aristocratic part of town. Time 
 had dealt kindly with them. They were growing 
 wealthy. Their business prosperity not only made 
 possible but demanded more style and elaborateness 
 in their homes and social life. Most of the older men, 
 however, would frequently drive up to Witte s home 
 to talk over communal matters. Often, indeed, they 
 would seek his counsel before the consummation of an 
 important family or business event. " Talk it over 
 with Old Man Witte/ became a common phrase with 
 the Jews of Spring Water. 
 
 It was the first warm Saturday in May. Aaron 
 pulled out a rocker from the parlor, seated himself 
 comfortably on the porch and unfolded the Weekly 
 Gazette. Masha and Clara, now nearing seventeen, 
 were standing on the lawn near-by, studying the dis 
 comfited appearance of the precarious flower bed in 
 front of them. The rain had washed it out almost 
 
32 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 completely, and Clara had put so much labor on that 
 flower bed. Now she feared she would have to plant 
 it anew. 
 
 " Masha," Aaron called. He had just come across 
 an item in the paper about their home town. It was 
 so unusual to see their home village figure in print that 
 he wanted to read the item to his wife. As he lifted 
 his head from the paper, however, Aaron perceived a 
 familiar figure coming up the street. 
 
 "Isn t that Miss Raymond coming?" Witte asked 
 his wife, forgetting the item. Masha s eyes were bet 
 ter than his, and she instantly recognized the principal 
 of the school which Emil attended. Miss Raymond, 
 though still two houses away from the Wittes , smiled 
 a greeting. Aaron and his wife rose from their seats. 
 Was she coming to them? Why? She had never 
 done so before. 
 
 It was about Emil that Miss Raymond came. He 
 was to graduate in June. It was the middle of May 
 then. Only a few weeks and he would be out of her 
 control. Of course she had nothing to say about 
 Emil s future. But she was interested in him, and she 
 was a trifle anxious as to what Mr. and Mrs. Witte 
 were planning to do with the lad. 
 
 She did not wish to intrude, she went on guardedly, 
 but she thought she might advise them, if they did not 
 already know it, that the high school was entirely free, 
 there was no expense whatever to attend it. And 
 
TAKING ROOT 33 
 
 Emil was such a pupil. He simply absorbed things. 
 It would be nice if he could go to high school. In fact 
 it would be a pity if he did not go. For he had, she 
 really believed, he had a great future before him. Few 
 boys were so earnest about their studies at his age. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Witte did not understand everything 
 Miss Raymond was saying. But they understood that 
 Emil was being praised by his teacher. Clara took a 
 hand at this juncture and in a few sentences in Yiddish 
 made clear to her parents the import of Miss Ray 
 mond s visit. 
 
 " Of course, of course," Aaron hastened, speaking 
 in a fairly solemn voice. Of course Emil would go to 
 school, to high school. He meant his boy to get an 
 education, of course. He would, God willing, even 
 send him to the University. There was a far away 
 look in his eyes. 
 
 The principal thanked him and Mrs. Witte. Then, 
 as if she had overlooked the real purpose of the visit, 
 she began speaking hastily and in very earnest tones. 
 Was Emil well? Was his health good? A startled 
 look came into the faces of the father and mother. 
 Why, was anything the matter with their boy? Had 
 she noticed anything? 
 
 Miss Raymond tried to correct herself now. She 
 began to allay their fears. She had noticed nothing. 
 As far as she could see Emil was in the best of health. 
 But he always kept to himself so much. He played so 
 
34 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 little with the boys. She was sometimes afraid that 
 he was too serious in his pursuits. They, his parents, 
 should urge him to play more. It would be well to 
 keep him back from reading and see that he got more 
 exercise. 
 
 When Miss Raymond was gone, Mrs. Witte and her 
 daughter recalled that they had forgotten to ask the 
 teacher to sit down. Mrs. Witte began upbraiding 
 Clara for her thoughtlessness. Aaron heard nothing 
 of this. He was thinking over Miss Raymond s con 
 versation. Straight ahead the sun was setting, leaving 
 a fiery sky in its wake. A mellow spring day and a 
 happy Sabbath was drawing to a close, but a new sun 
 was rising before Witte s eyes, the sun of mem 
 ories. . . . 
 
 In what the teacher had just said about Emil he saw, 
 as if in a mirror, his own youth. " He does not play 
 with the boys, he ought to be kept away from books, 
 from reading. * How like himself, like his own child 
 hood. 
 
 His mother, peace to her memory, arose before his 
 eyes. How often would she wake up in the middle of 
 a long winter night, come up to him where he sat 
 absorbed in the Talmud, remind him of the late hour, 
 and urge him to close the book and go to bed for his 
 health s sake. 
 
 Witte forgot Emil for the moment and thought of his 
 mother. A saintly woman she was. And she loved 
 
TAKING ROOT 35 
 
 him Oh, how she loved him! When he set his 
 heart on Masha and refused to marry the daughter of a 
 rich man, throwing away thereby the sure chance of a 
 career and fame as a rabbi, his mother was not angry 
 with him. His father stormed and threatened. He 
 even lifted his hand to strike Aaron in a burst of anger. 
 But she, peace to her memory, stood between them. 
 
 Late that night, when his father was sleeping, and 
 he, Aaron, was trying to forget the stormy scene of 
 the evening behind a folio of the Talmud, his mother 
 crept up to him and sat on the edge of a bench beside 
 him. 
 
 She was in tears. But, she explained, they were 
 tears of happiness. She was happy that he, Aaron, 
 had chosen Masha, glad that he loved the girl so much. 
 She was a good girl, Masha was a golden child. 
 She could not wish a better daughter-in-law. Masha 
 would make him happy. And he must not worry be 
 cause he was throwing away a rabbinate on account of 
 the girl. It did not matter what one s occupation was, 
 so long as one was happy. And he would be happy 
 with Masha. And before the Lord we were all 
 children. All alike, the humble and the mighty 
 
 Poor, old mother, Witte mused. If she could only 
 see Emil. There was a child after her heart. But she 
 had not seen any of his children. She died before the 
 first one came. 
 
 There were familiar steps far down the sidewalk. 
 
36 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 Emil was coming from the library with several books 
 under his arm. Aaron Witte rose and almost solemnly 
 walked up to the gate to meet his son. 
 
 The high school brought father and son closer to 
 gether. Witte could exercise comparatively little in 
 fluence over Emil while the latter was still in the grades. 
 He could not read English and his knowledge of arith 
 metic did not extend beyond simple fractions. With 
 the high school things took a different turn. 
 
 As they sat down one Friday evening to their 
 abundant Sabbath meal, Emil asked : 
 
 " Father, do you know a Jewish historian named 
 Josephus ? " 
 
 " Yes, yes," Witte s eyes snapped, " Josephus, of 
 course ; how do you come to know about Josephus ? " 
 
 " There is a reference to him in my Roman history," 
 Emil answered. 
 
 When the meal was over Witte rose from the table 
 earlier than was his custom on the Sabbath eve. He 
 fumbled for some time in a closet where he had stored 
 away many of his Hebrew books. Finally he emerged 
 with a small volume and took his place at the table once 
 more. 
 
 He read to Emil a legend about Josephus contained 
 in the volume. Then, his memory refreshed, he talked 
 for a long time about the historian, the age he lived in, 
 and the significance of that age in the history of 
 Israel. 
 
TAKING ROOT 37 
 
 Masha looked by turns at her husband and her 
 son. She was happy when her husband talked about 
 books and learning. And she liked the gleam in Emil s 
 eyes with which he followed his father s words. 
 
 On another occasion Emil told his father that the 
 following week he would have to write a composition 
 on Alexander the Great. Witte prepared himself for 
 that week. He took the little Hebrew book with him 
 to the country, and in the long winter evenings, spent 
 at modest hotels or with friendly farmers, the old 
 pedler read the legends and the sagas of the Talmud 
 which dealt with Alexander the Great, for the benefit 
 of his young son in the high school. 
 
 Emil listened eagerly to the Talmudic stories about 
 the Persian conqueror which his father told him. 
 They were so full of interest, so different from the dry 
 facts and dates about the Persian king which the books 
 he had access to gave. 
 
 Henceforth Emil kept his father advised about his 
 studies. And Witte utilized his evenings in the coun 
 try, reading, searching for information in his old 
 Hebrew books which might be suited to his son s eager 
 mind. The Friday evening meals now began to last 
 until late in the night. Emil looked forward eagerly 
 to these evenings. His mother thanked the Lord in 
 silent prayer for them. 
 
 For she had seen some of the tragedies which schools 
 and education bring into the homes of immigrants. 
 
38 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 The children, who had gone through school, thought 
 themselves superior to their " greenhorn " parents. 
 They were disrespectful to them. In her house the 
 school, education, united father and son more and 
 more. It increased the respect of the son for the 
 father. Often after these long, learned discussions be 
 tween Aaron and Emil, Mrs. Witte would wipe a tear 
 which had stolen into her eyes from sheer happiness. 
 
 Father and son would frequently go out for a walk 
 together and talk over many things. The people of 
 Spring Water noticed this, and their respect for Witte 
 and his young son grew. They were greeted with 
 deference by their fellow countrymen. The reputation 
 of each was enhanced in their eyes through the associa 
 tion with the other. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE LONG LOST BROTHER 
 
 IN the parlor of the Witte home hung an enlarged 
 picture of a young man attired in the uniform of 
 a Russian university student. Mrs. Witte avoided 
 mentioning that picture or drawing attention to it in her 
 husband s presence, and she taught her children to do 
 likewise. The crayon portrait, hung in the most con 
 spicuous corner of the room, was a chronic wound in 
 the Witte household. Ever and anon it would break 
 out and start bleeding. 
 
 It was a picture of Aaron s lost brother, Simeon. . . . 
 
 For months and months Aaron would give the pic 
 ture merely a passing glance. Before an important 
 holiday, however, the Passover or the New Year, he 
 would steal up to it on tiptoe, wipe the dust off the 
 glass, look at it for a long time, and then, covering his 
 eyes with the palm of his hand, would plunge into deep 
 meditation, as if holding a spiritual reunion with his 
 lost brother. . . . 
 
 Aaron Witte was reading the Weekly Gazette. 
 Masha sat in a chair a few feet away, the prayer-book 
 in her lap. She was just finishing the last prayer of 
 the long Sabbath service. 
 
 39 
 
40 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 The Gazette slipped from Aaron s hand. When 
 Masha looked up his face was ashen and his arms 
 hung as if paralyzed. Aaron motioned to her to pick 
 up the paper. He took it in his trembling hands and 
 read the same paragraph over. No, his eyes were not 
 deceiving him. He was not dreaming. It was there. 
 He pointed the place out to his wife. She read it and 
 the joyous import of the item came to her in a flash. 
 Jubilantly she cried : 
 
 " He lives and he is free. He is coming. * 
 
 Aaron had regained his composure by this time. He 
 read the item in the paper once more, aloud. In a few 
 sentences the Gazette stated that the well-known revo 
 lutionist, Simeon Witkowski, who, with a number of 
 other nihilists, had been arrested and charged with at 
 tempting to assassinate the Czar, Alexander III, and 
 had not been heard from since, had arrived in Switzer 
 land after a sensational escape from Siberia. 
 
 It was soon after Aaron married that Simeon, his 
 younger brother, left the village to go to Vilna. 
 Simeon, too, had been destined by his father for the 
 rabbinate, and had already gone in his Talmudic studies 
 far beyond the courses which were offered in the local 
 Hebrew school. Twice in the next four years Simeon 
 came home for the Passover. Then after a long 
 silence they received a letter from him from St. 
 Petersburg. He had dropped his Talmudic studies, he 
 informed his father: his mother had been dead for 
 
THE LONG LOST BROTHER 41 
 
 some time soon after his arrival in Vilna and had 
 turned to the acquisition of a Russian, of a European 
 education. In this he had been successful and had just 
 passed with considerable excellence his entrance exam 
 ination to the University, and was enrolled as a student 
 in the medical faculty. 
 
 Aaron Witte recalled the astonishment with which 
 
 i 
 
 his father, stern orthodox that he was, read the letter, 
 the keen disappointment with which he relinquished 
 forever the hope of seeing his son s name inscribed on 
 the roster along with the names of the rabbis who were 
 famous in Israel. 
 
 Simeon, however, never became a doctor. After a 
 lapse of some time the chief of the gendarmes in the 
 district drove up to the house where the white-haired 
 father of Aaron and Simeon was living. The head of 
 the gendarmes read to the old man a long official docu 
 ment from the authorities at St. Petersburg. His voice 
 was a mixture of solemnity and anger, as he read it. 
 The old man did not understand a word of what the 
 chief of the gendarmes was saying, beyond hearing his 
 son s, Simeon s, name mentioned at frequent intervals. 
 
 After he finished reading the imposing-looking docu 
 ment, which bore many government seals and stamps, 
 the head of the gendarmes in a few plain words, liber 
 ally interspersed with oaths, imparted to the old man 
 the information that his son Simeon had deliberately 
 thrown himself outside the pale of men, that he had 
 
42 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 joined an infamous band of plotters, nihilists, who had 
 planned to take the life of the Little Father of " Holy 
 Russia," the Czar, Alexander Alexandrowitch. 
 
 The last words came from beneath the mustache of 
 the chief of the gendarmes like bullets fired off in rapid 
 succession. With blazing eyes the secret service 
 official looked at the trembling, white-faced Jew in front 
 of him, expecting an approving answer. But the old 
 man stammered forth weakly: 
 
 " Where is my boy now ? What did they do with 
 him?" 
 
 The chief of the gendarmes did not know what they 
 had done with Simeon Witkowski. His orders were 
 merely to apprise the father and search him, as well 
 as every member of Simeon s family. The solicitude 
 of the old man for his son roiled the official. 
 
 " What? " he thundered. " You still call him your 
 son! A dog he is, an enemy of the people, a plotter 
 on the life of the Little Father. You are forbidden to 
 ask what became of him. The government knows 
 what to do with such characters. Give him up for 
 dead. That is my advice unless you approve of the 
 dog s conduct. Do you approve of it? Speak! " 
 
 The old man spoke. He swore, he trembled. He 
 did not approve of his son s actions never never 
 He wept and kissed the official s hand. How could 
 he approve of it? Was he not a loyal subject of the 
 Czar ? He loved the Czar, and prayed for him and for 
 
THE LONG LOST BROTHER 43 
 
 the empire. . . . How could such a thought enter his 
 son s mind! 
 
 The head of the gendarmes ordered half a dozen 
 subordinates, who accompanied him, to search the 
 house. From the Witkowski home they turned to other 
 families in town and searched their premises. Every 
 one remotely connected with the Witkowski household, 
 or friendly to the old man, was searched. The chief of 
 the gendarmes then sought out Aaron in the village 
 where he lived. The same scene was reenacted there. 
 The same instructions were given. He must not men 
 tion the name of his brother who had cast himself out 
 side the pale of human beings by having designs on the 
 Czar, by plotting the ruin of his country. 
 
 Aaron and his father were put under police sur 
 veillance for a year. Each could not leave his respec 
 tive domicile. Both father and son had learned to 
 suppress the word Simeon from their lips. The father 
 died soon after the year was over. And Aaron began 
 making plans to leave for America. . . . 
 
 ... So then, Simeon was alive, he was free. And 
 he was out of the Czar s domain. Aaron Witte paced 
 up and down the room searching his mind for a way 
 to communicate with his brother. The information 
 gained from the small item in the Gazette was too 
 meager to be of much assistance in this search for 
 Simeon. He looked through the other Yiddish papers. 
 They all contained the item about Simeon Witkowski s 
 
44 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 escape from Siberia. Some described in detail the 
 attempt on the life of the Czar in which Simeon 
 figured. Mention was made of the more noted mem 
 bers of the group of nihilists to which Simeon belonged 
 and who were either dead or in exile. But there was 
 no clue as to the present whereabouts of Simeon beyond 
 the general statement that he had arrived in Switzer 
 land. 
 
 Witte waited until after sundown when the Sabbath 
 came to a close and then sat down and wrote a confi 
 dential letter to the editor of the Weekly Gazette telling 
 him of his predicament and asking his advice on how 
 to communicate with his brother. 
 
 In a week a reply came. The Gazette editor sent 
 him the address of the secretary of the revolutionary 
 group in London to which Simeon belonged. The 
 London branch of the group undoubtedly would be able 
 to forward to Simeon any communication his brother 
 Aaron sent it. Aaron wrote to the secretary of the 
 group in London and enclosed a letter for his brother. 
 
 The letter, written with trembling hand, read in 
 part: 
 
 " I have learned since I came to America much about 
 what you nihilists want. I understand and sympathize 
 with it. ... I have always been with you. You were 
 never out of my mind from the day I learned of your 
 disappearance. In Russia the police ordered that your 
 
THE LONG LOST BROTHER 45 
 
 name be anathema, that it be not mentioned in our house 
 under the pain of arrest and imprisonment. ... It 
 was the wish to call your name, to speak about you, 
 my brother, freely and without fear of gendarmes and 
 police, that caused me to come to America. 
 
 " Now I am getting old. I am forty-seven. And 
 I want to see you. I want you to come to me. I pray 
 that you do come. Remain with us forever, if you 
 can, or else, stay as long as you are able, as long as 
 your work will permit. I make no exactions. I have 
 not seen you in twenty years. One does not know 
 how long one may live. I want to see you I have 
 waited to see you these many years for in my mind 
 I could not reconcile myself to anything but that you 
 would come back to us. . . ." 
 
 In spots the writing was blurred by tears which 
 Aaron could not hold back in spite of his effort to do 
 so. In spots it was unsteady, for Aaron s hand 
 trembled a number of times as he referred to names 
 and scenes of a vanished past. 
 
 In three weeks there came an answer from the secre 
 tary of the London group. It was a brief, sympathetic 
 note, which set Aaron wondering why people were 
 saying that revolutionists had no regard for personal 
 feelings, for relatives, for brothers. . . . 
 
 The secretary, whom Aaron did not know, whose 
 name he had never heard before, wrote him that he 
 
46 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 would be very happy indeed to transmit Aaron s letter 
 to his distinguished brother, Simeon Witkowski, and 
 would be happier still to see the brothers reunited. 
 The letter would be forwarded to his brother in the 
 speediest manner possible, though it would have to be 
 in a roundabout way as Simeon s whereabouts were 
 still kept secret for precautionary reasons. It ended 
 with warm congratulations to Aaron Witte on his 
 brother s successful escape from the Siberian dungeon. 
 
 There began for the Wittes an agonizing period of 
 constant watching for the mailman. Aaron would 
 now come from the country earlier than usual, and his 
 first question was whether Simeon had written. But 
 Simeon did not write. The winter went and spring 
 came, and the Passover. The joy of the festival was 
 marred by the silence of the brother. 
 
 May came and went, and then June. Still there was 
 no letter from Simeon. Aaron was beginning to lose 
 hope of ever hearing from his brother. He determined 
 to write to the secretary of the London group once 
 more. He would wait a few more weeks and then 
 he would write. 
 
 Early on a Sunday morning in the last part of June, 
 Aaron emerged from the barn where he had just com 
 pleted his morning chores and was heading for the 
 house, when he observed a middle-aged Jew of small 
 stature and sparing dimensions coming up the street. 
 The man s face was framed by a short, dark beard. 
 
THE LONG LOST BROTHER 47 
 
 In his band he carried a grip, and he walked rather 
 laboriously, for the street ran uphill. 
 
 Aaron had known a traveling optician who had 
 looked very much like this man. He took the stranger 
 to be an out-of-town pedler who was going to some 
 Jewish family he knew to spend the Sunday with them. 
 So he went into the house. 
 
 He had scarcely, however, had time to take off his 
 overalls, when there was a knock at the door. The 
 man whom he had seen on the street a few moments 
 before stepped into the room and let his satchel tumble 
 to the floor. Between paroxysms of rapid asthmatic 
 breathing the stranger asked for Aaron Witkowski. 
 
 " I am Aaron Witkowski sit down, let me give 
 you a glass of water " 
 
 Aaron started to go after water. But the man 
 caught his wrist and held it fast until the spell of violent 
 breathing began to subside. Then he gasped : 
 
 " I I m Simeon." 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 SIBERIAN ECHOES 
 
 WHEN the wave of excitement occasioned by 
 Simeon s unexpected arrival had subsided, 
 Aaron took his brother for a stroll in the fields. He 
 wanted Simeon all to himself for a time, to listen and 
 talk to him undisturbed. They spent the greater part 
 of the afternoon of the first afternoon either 
 sitting in the shade of a tree along the quiet country 
 road, or walking slowly, in accordance with the dictates 
 of Simeon s asthmatic lungs. 
 
 From time to time Aaron gazed at his brother with 
 unbelieving eyes. Of course twenty years had elapsed 
 since he had seen him, and Simeon was now a man of 
 forty. None the less Aaron could not reconcile him 
 self to the thought that Simeon was really a middle- 
 aged man. He had somehow preserved him in his 
 memory as a boy. The picture which hung on the wall 
 in his parlor had helped fix that impression. 
 
 Simeon, in turn, had to watch himself constantly 
 against addressing Aaron as " Father." For Aaron, 
 except for the fact that he wore a short American 
 coat instead of a flowing ghetto gabardine, was a pic 
 ture of their father as Simeon had seen him last. 
 
 48 
 
SIBERIAN ECHOES 49 
 
 The talk, spasmodic and fragmentary, was mostly by 
 Simeon and ran about home, their Russian home from 
 which he was banished, and about their father. Their 
 mother had died while Simeon was still in Russia. 
 Avoiding Aaron s gaze Simeon kept on plying his 
 brother with questions about their father. Who was 
 with him when he died? And what did he say in his 
 last hours? Was he angry with him, Simeon? Or 
 had he forgotten him ? And where was he buried 
 anywhere near their mother, or was there a big gap be 
 tween his and her grave ? Simeon showed a surprising 
 memory with regard to the geography of the cemetery 
 of their native town. Aaron described to him minutely 
 the location of his father s grave. 
 
 This intensified memory of his about scenes and 
 places in his old home astounded Aaron. Simeon 
 asked about the playmates of his childhood, remember 
 ing the name, nickname and peculiarities of each. A 
 thousand inconsequential things, which Aaron had long 
 forgotten, were as fresh in his brother s mind as if 
 they had happened only yesterday. 
 
 As Simeon spoke of these things and dwelt on half- 
 forgotten incidents of his childhood, Aaron realized 
 that his brother must have thought often of those 
 scenes, places and persons in the many years of his 
 confinement in Siberian fortresses. . . . He felt like 
 taking the lean, almost puny, body of his younger 
 brother in his own strong arms In spite of his 
 
50 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 beard Simeon appeared to him like a child in need of 
 kindness and protection. . . . 
 
 Wild flowers were growing along the road. Simeon 
 stretched out his hand to pluck one of them. As he 
 did so his wrist came out from under the cuff, and 
 Aaron perceived a dark reddish circle about it. He 
 wondered for some moments where Simeon could have 
 got such an ugly scar. He scanned their childhood and 
 could not recall any such accident to his brother. Then 
 the significance of the scar came to him with a flash. 
 The Siberian chains the poets sang about were not mere 
 phrases they were real. They had eaten themselves 
 into the flesh of his brother. Simeon would bear the 
 marks of these chains forever. Aaron s eyes became 
 full and hot. He lost all control over himself and be 
 gan to sob. . . . 
 
 Simeon thought it was the questions about their 
 father, which he had asked, that had so unnerved his 
 brother. He began to mumble in broken phrases, 
 humbly, apologetically. 
 
 It was not his lack of love or loyalty to his family 
 that had caused him to sadden his father s old age, 
 Simeon explained. He would have given his life to 
 have saved his father the bitterness of his last 
 years. . . . But he could not act otherwise. ... It 
 was a holy war the revolutionists were carrying on 
 a war for the freedom of their county, of the Russian 
 people. The steppes of Siberia were strewn with the 
 
SIBERIAN ECHOES 51 
 
 bones of soldiers of freedom like himself. . . . For 
 every lonely grave of a revolutionist in the Siberian 
 steppes a father was mourning and a mother was cry 
 ing her eyes out and wasting her life away 
 
 Simeon became animated. Various texts from the 
 Talmud, from Hebrew history came to his mind a 
 field which he had in common with his brother. He 
 summoned these historic incidents as if to clear him 
 self in Aaron s eyes. 
 
 "What of the Maccabees?" he asked. "Were 
 not they the revolutionists of their day? Were not 
 the ancient Jewish patriots hunted down by the tyrants 
 of their age ? Were they not burned, hanged, crucified 
 for their championship of the cause of the people ? 
 
 " No doubt their mothers wept their eyes out for 
 them. ... No doubt the fathers of these martyred 
 saints went to their graves before their time. . . . But 
 such is history. . . . The human race has bought every 
 inch of freedom with the blood and sacrifice of its 
 young sons and with the tears of its old men. . . ." 
 
 It was Aaron s turn to talk and set his brother s mind 
 at ease. The least effort at speech, however, would 
 have precipitated another storm of tears. He put his 
 arm about Simeon s shoulders and they walked in 
 silence toward the city, for the sun had already set. 
 When the Witte home came into view Emil ran to meet 
 them. 
 
 In the weeks that followed, Emil, who was now 
 
52 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 nearing his seventeenth year, became the inseparable 
 companion of his uncle. Simeon from the first dis 
 covered a strain in his nephew that pleased him. 
 
 Uncle and nephew often talked about Russia. 
 EmiFs remembrance of the " old country " was still 
 vivid. As he spoke he would occasionally drop a 
 phrase rich in imagery. With such a phrase as a cue 
 Simeon would seek to pry open the boy s soul 
 
 " What do you think you are going to make of 
 yourself here? " Simeon once asked. 
 
 Emil had not thought of his future yet. That set 
 him thinking. 
 
 But Simeon was not solely imparting information. 
 He was trying to gain an idea about the United States 
 from his nephew. He made Emil tell him of the 
 American schools, of the aims and ideas of the pupils, 
 and of the outlook and philosophy of their teachers. 
 His questions were stimulating and kept Emil s mind 
 on the alert. 
 
 What Emil and his father, in fact the entire Witte 
 family, wanted to know most was the story of Simeon s 
 confinement and exile in Siberia. Simeon, however, 
 always managed to divert such questions. He spoke 
 rarely about himself, and never about his experiences. 
 It was only when he narrated the suffering of a friend, 
 the agony of a comrade dying in a mine, that they got 
 a glimpse of what he had gone through He 
 talked about Siberia to Emil like a teacher imper- 
 
SIBERIAN ECHOES 53 
 
 sonally. He often used the Siberian fortresses he 
 knew as a pivot about which he revolved the history 
 of Russia. He explained to his eagerly listening 
 nephew the significance of the revolutionary movement 
 in that country a movement which sent transport 
 after transport of prisoners, made up of the best blood 
 and brains of the country, to the remotest Asiatic 
 dungeons. 
 
 And just as when speaking to his brother Aaron, 
 Simeon sought to bring home to him the revolutionary 
 movement by comparing it with events in Jewish his 
 tory, by drawing illustrations from Hebrew lore, so in 
 speaking to his nephew he chose examples and drew 
 illustrations from ancient and American history. 
 
 Simeon s talk was a sort of running comment on 
 history. The facts which Emil had studied in school 
 assumed a different meaning, a new significance after 
 they passed through the welter of Simeon s observa 
 tions. 
 
 To Simeon human history appeared largely as a 
 struggle between classes. Most concrete form this 
 struggle assumed in Greece where the helots, or slaves, 
 toiled and made food and clothing for their masters, 
 while the latter occupied themselves with sport, war 
 and learning. The conditions which prevailed then 
 one-half of the people in a country toiling until their 
 backs broke, and the other half living in ease and even 
 idleness these conditions still prevail, he said. 
 
54 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 The Greeks transmitted this system of exploitation 
 to the Romans. The latter perfected the system of 
 enslaving the poor and the weak with a series of mur 
 derous wars. The Romans, after conquering their 
 weaker neighbors, acquiring their lands and subjugat 
 ing their peoples, then proceeded to build up a system of 
 law which made not only lawful, but fairly sacred, the 
 possession of that which they had so unjustly acquired. 
 That was how the institution of private property was 
 born. . . . 
 
 In his talks with his nephew Simeon often delved 
 into history. He gave the youth an entirely different 
 view of the growth of royal families and monarchies 
 than that given by his teachers. The " cunning one," 
 the most brutal, merciless conqueror, became the king, 
 Simeon explained. The weaker ones, those less 
 " cunning," were made the vassals, serfs, slaves. The 
 revolutionists of all ages and of all countries were 
 merely trying to restore to the oppressed and disin 
 herited masses the possessions and rights of which they 
 had been robbed by the mighty and the cunning. 
 
 Little by little Simeon unfolded the theories of 
 
 Socialism to his nephew. 
 
 V " The helot of Sparta," he told Emil once, " and the 
 factory worker of St. Petersburg, London, Paris, New 
 York, are first cousins. There is a degree of differ 
 ence in the dependence of each, but dependent they all 
 
SIBERIAN ECHOES 55 
 
 are. Socialism is fighting against this economic de 
 pendence. 
 
 " In Russia," Simeon continued, " the struggle of the 
 masses is doubly complicated. In addition to their 
 economic enslavement the masses there are held in 
 bondage by a powerful autocracy. The nihilists in 
 fighting Czar ism are merely hoping to remove one of 
 the strongest obstacles in the way of the greater and 
 principal war the war against the economic and 
 social system which makes the bread and existence of 
 thousands dependent upon the whim or will of one 
 man." 
 
 As they were sitting once at the edge of the lake 
 which skirted Spring Water, Simeon said : 
 
 " In America you don t hear much about Socialism^ 
 yet, but you will before long. Yours is still a young 
 country. Your resources are still ample and afford 
 every one a comfortable living and a fairly secure old 
 age, even under the iniquitous system of private prop 
 erty. But a time will come when the present oppor 
 tunities will be limited, when the resources will be 
 absorbed by a few. Your land will be grabbed by 
 cunning men/ who instead of becoming political kings 
 will become economic masters. They will control your 
 industries and clip the wings of your freedom with the 
 sword of economic supremacy. 
 
 " There is a serenity over your country at present," 
 
5 6 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 Simeon went on, " which has something healthy and 
 soothing about it. There is a liberal spirit in your 
 press which lifts your country above all others. But 
 the time is coming when your masters and your work 
 men will draw up the battle lines against each other 
 Great strikes will come and your universal se 
 renity will evaporate. You will have your classes 
 and your masses in this country with the defenders 
 of the one and the champions of the other. . . . 
 
 " In the twentieth century your dungeons will be 
 filled with agitators, with champions of the masses, 
 just as the Siberian mines and prisons were filled with 
 Russian nihilists in the nineteenth. . . ." 
 
 Emil listened to his uncle s discourse attentively. 
 Not all of it was quite clear to him. But Simeon had 
 warned him that he would not understand it all yet. 
 These ideas would recur to him, however, he said as 
 Emil grew older and gained in experience. They 
 would go over into convictions that would exert a far- 
 reaching influence over his life and his future. 
 
 It had grown dark in the meantime. From the lake 
 a delightful breeze was blowing. Emil was looking 
 straight ahead at the waters through which the moon 
 had cut a silvery path. Simeon studied his face in the 
 growing mist. 
 
 The uncle finally broke the silence. 
 
 " You will write about these things," he said, " about 
 these very struggles between the masses and their mas- 
 
SIBERIAN ECHOES 57 
 
 ters. For you are going to be a writer That, I 
 think, is your calling in life." 
 
 Emil trembled at these words. A faintness over 
 came him. He felt as if he were being consecrated to 
 a high and holy office. 
 
 Years after, when Simeon was dead and Emil was 
 seeing life with the eyes of an aggressive American 
 reporter in Chicago and New York, he often pondered 
 over the words uttered by his uncle on that summer 
 evening as they were sitting on the edge of the lake 
 in Spring Water. As the reporter saw mounted police 
 ride into crowds of strikers, clubbing and injuring the 
 ragged, desperate, hungry people be recalled Simeon s 
 prediction. . . . 
 
 And the humanity for which his uncle had gone to 
 Siberia the love of freedom and the welfare of the 
 masses served like a pillar of fire to the young re 
 porter. It kept his heart warm and his faith in man 
 intact. It kept him from sinking into the sloth of 
 cynicism and indifference into which so many of his 
 co workers fell, and from which they sought relief in 
 drink. 
 
 In the latter part of September Simeon announced 
 that he would leave in a week. Aaron listened with 
 bowed head, but no longer, tried to dissuade his brother. 
 Simeon had made it clear to Aaron soon after his 
 arrival in Spring Water that he had no intention of 
 settling in America. In fact there was no settling for 
 
58 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 him anywhere. As long as autocracy held sway in 
 Russia there was work for him to do. 
 
 Simeon s course was mapped out for him by the 
 London branch of his revolutionary group. He was 
 ordered to go to New York and organize a publication 
 committee from among the Russian exiles there. This 
 committee was to print revolutionary pamphlets in large 
 quantities for Russia. They were to be smuggled into 
 that country by way of Switzerland. 
 
 Aaron spent most of that last week at home and 
 tried to be with his brother as much as possible. While 
 both brothers avoided speaking about it, each felt that 
 this was the last they would see of each other. Emil 
 divined the thoughts of his father and Simeon. Much 
 as he wanted to be near his uncle in these last days, 
 he withdrew discreetly every time he found his father 
 and uncle alone. 
 
 The evening before his departure Simeon called Emil 
 
 into his room. He fumbled in his valise and produced 
 
 several German books and pamphlets, among them 
 
 Uhe Communist Manifesto, and gave them to his 
 
 nephew. 
 
 " Your German is still weak," Simeon said, " and 
 you will not be able to read and understand these fully 
 for some time. But keep them. You will find them 
 very enlightening when you get older." 
 
 After a prolonged debate with himself Aaron finally 
 asked Simeon a question which opened up the subject 
 
SIBERIAN ECHOES 59 
 
 that both had painfully avoided. If he did not hear 
 from Simeon for a long time, Aaron wanted to know, 
 where could he write to inquire about him? Was 
 there an address Simeon could leave him ? 
 
 There was no address he could give him, Simeon 
 said. He did not know where he would go from New 
 York. The life of a revolutionist was exceedingly un 
 certain. Aaron might subscribe, however, for Free 
 Leaves, the organ of the revolutionist party of Russia 
 published in London. The Free Leaves sometimes 
 made personal mention of revolutionists. At any rate 
 it always gave death notices. 
 
 Aaron tugged his mustache and did not speak for 
 some time. 
 
 From the Free Leaves Aaron learned several months 
 later that his brother had arrived in London. 
 
 A year later Aaron Witte was sitting one Saturday 
 afternoon reading the papers that had accumulated 
 during the week. He missed his Free Leaves and was 
 about to ask Masha what she had done with it for 
 Masha was now reading the revolutionary journal as 
 eagerly as her husband when he came upon a copy of 
 the paper from which the wrapper had not yet been 
 torn. He broke the cover of the little magazine, un 
 folded it. On the front page, set in a black border, 
 was the picture of his brother. . . . 
 
 Inside there was an article occupying several pages 
 and telling the story of his brother s life in Russia and 
 
60 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 in Siberia the tragic story Aaron was craving to 
 know, but about which Simeon had been silent. 
 Simeon had died in Paris after a brief illness. 
 
 With the death of Simeon the last link between the 
 Witte family and the old world was broken. The 
 old world had grown strangely distant America 
 was absorbing the attention of Emil and Aaron. And 
 even Masha thought of Russia less and less. ... If 
 she longed to be " among Jews," as she often did, her 
 longing was confined to the Jewish centers of the larger 
 American cities and not of the old world. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 CLARA MARRIES 
 
 IT was the last day of the Passover the eightli 
 Passover the Witte family had observed in the new 
 world. Aaron and Masha were sitting by the open 
 window in the parlor, looking out into the street which 
 swarmed with children all children of Jewish immi 
 grants. There were now between forty and fifty/ 
 Jewish families in Spring Water, and the majority of 
 them lived in Front Street. 
 
 It was a beautiful mid-April afternoon. A restless 
 breeze was blowing through the open window. Such 
 a breeze always stirred Mrs. Witte s heart. A tender 
 melancholy crept into it. ... There were streaks of 
 gray about her temples now. The eight years in 
 America had greatly aged her. It was not material 
 want that caused her to fall into frequent moods of 
 moroseness. Aaron made a fairly comfortable living. 
 ft It was spiritual bareness. She missed the Jewish at 
 mosphere of the old world. She missed the synagogue 
 of her home town; she missed the rabbi, the cantor and 
 tiiQ holidays. . . . Everything here appeared to her 
 merely as make-believe. What did the Sabbath mean 
 when half of her own family desecrated it by working 
 
 61 
 
62 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 that day? What pleasure could there be in a holiday 
 when Harry, her eldest born, could not leave the store 
 he now owned a clothing store in a town fifteen 
 miles from Spring Water to be with them, and Emil 
 was in school all day. 
 
 The religious life of the little immigrant community 
 seemed to her a makeshift at best And to a large 
 extent her view was justified. A hall, which served as 
 a gathering place for union laborers, was turned into a 
 house of prayer every holiday. Just as the place was 
 an imitation of a synagogue, so the services held in it 
 were imitations of real services, the kind she was ac 
 customed to in the old world. The prayers were cut 
 Things were hurried She knew that most of the 
 men would leave the makeshift house of prayer to go 
 back to their stores and shops to attend to business. 
 
 Aaron felt these things as keenly as his wife, but 
 avoided speaking about them. What was the use? 
 Every time Masha brought up the subject he had a 
 mitigating word for every pharisaical act. It was not 
 the fault of the people altogether. Necessity, the need 
 of earning a livelihood, was back of the lack of piety 
 and reverence for things that are holy. 
 
 Like her husband Masha realized their utter im- 
 potency to change things. The new world would have 
 its way. It was silly to fight. It was not cowardice 
 to submit here. She realized all that. Yet while 
 Aaron adopted a philosophic and resigned attitude, 
 
CLARA MARRIES 63 
 
 she often wept in silence over their helplessness. 
 
 A trivial incident which occurred at this time exer 
 cised a profound and depressive influence upon Mrs. 
 Witte and left a scar that would never quite heal. She 
 and her husband were out for a stroll one Sabbath after 
 noon when suddenly she perceived that they were being 
 followed by a crowd of small boys, who were jeering 
 and shouting after them. One of the youngsters 
 picked up a stone and threw it at her husband. Aaron 
 dodged the stone and started off at a faster pace, 
 Masha clinging to his arm. As they increased their 
 pace the youngsters ran after them. In front of a 
 saloon a young man with two rows of yellow teeth, 
 and a chin bespattered with tobacco juice, shook his 
 fist at them and shouted into Aaron s face: 
 " Sheeny ! " Whereupon there arose a chorus of 
 laughter and guffaws from a dozen drunken men out 
 side the saloon. 
 
 When they finally extricated themselves from the 
 annoying crowd, Aaron without looking Masha in the 
 face began in his usual manner to mitigate things. 
 Children grow up wild in the new world have no 
 respect for older persons. They are not really bad at 
 heart, just badly raised, indifferently brought up ? 
 
 Masha was blinded with tears of rage. If she could 
 only speak the language of those people! She would 
 tell them who the man they were casting stones at, 
 who her husband was! She would tell them that 
 
64 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 Aaron could match in scholarship the highest men of 
 their town, that he would have been a rabbi had not he 
 put her, Masha, above a career. But she could not 
 speak the language of these people and gritted her 
 teeth in silence. . . . 
 
 Some time after this incident several people in the 
 neighborhood sought to make friends with Mrs. Witte. 
 One of these women spoke German, and Masha was 
 glad to see her and talk to her. The woman invited 
 her to join a neighborhood club. But Masha declined. 
 The insult to her husband by the children of the 
 neighborhood was rankling in her heart. Several 
 times she received invitations to come to socials held 
 in the little church a few blocks from her home, but 
 she could not bring herself to accept them. They were 
 not for her. 
 
 She felt that the kindness of her neighbors was 
 somehow a surface kindness only. Beneath the sur 
 face they were strangers to each other. They wor 
 shiped differently. She and her family were Jews. 
 They were Christians. The things she worshiped 
 were meaningless to her American neighbors. 
 
 For a long time Masha and her husband sat silently 
 looking out of the open window. A sigh which 
 escaped Masha s breast awakened Aaron from his 
 reveries. Masha s eyes were resting on him with a 
 solicitous, liquid gaze. 
 
CLARA MARRIES 65 
 
 " You are worrying again," Aaron said, reproaching 
 her mildly. 
 
 " It is you who is worrying most," Masha replied. 
 " You have not been looking well since Simeon left 
 It cannot be helped. We too shall die We are 
 growing old 
 
 When they looked up after a lapse of silence their 
 eyes met in complete understanding. They were think 
 ing the same thoughts. 
 
 " He is not what I intended for Clara," Aaron began. 
 " He is not the sort of a man I want for my son-in-law. 
 I had hoped that Clara would marry a man who was 
 somewhat of a scholar, who knew a little of the Tal 
 mud with whom I could talk, discuss things occa 
 sionally " 
 
 In the next moment, however, Aaron was again 
 qualifying his own words : 
 
 "Of course, Alex is far from being a bad match for 
 Clara. He is a business man. The Rosens know his 
 family in Chicago fine respectable people business 
 men. A brother of his owns a big store in Omaha. 
 Alex, too, will not clerk long at the Emporium. He 
 will go in business for himself. Clara will not want 
 anything " 
 
 Alex Stein, the subject of their talk, was a young 
 man of twenty-five. His parents came to Chicago 
 from Russia when he was a child. He received a pub- 
 
66 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 lie school education and from his fourteenth year tossed 
 about from job to job and from city to city. The 
 Emporium department store of Spring Water brought 
 a new manager from Chicago. The manager, Mr. 
 Sidney Siegel, was a friend of the Stein family, and 
 Alex drifted into Spring Water to pay him a visit. 
 The manager just then needed a shoe salesman that 
 was more energetic than the easy-going Mr. Scott, who 
 had been holding the job for years, and he offered 
 young Stein the place at a much larger salary. 
 
 " But I know nothing about the shoe business," Alex 
 had protested. 
 
 " Nonsense," said the manager, " you know how to 
 sell that is all that is necessary/ 
 
 Alex met Clara at the Emporium. The glove 
 counter where she worked was around the corner from 
 the shoe department. He fell in love with her. 
 
 Alex Stein was correctness personified, and to the 
 superficial observer was everything one could desire in 
 a young man. He dressed with scrupulous up-to-date 
 ness, was rich in socks and neckties. His hair was 
 parted in the center and stayed parted as if it had been 
 glued to the scalp. He perused religiously the sporting 
 page of a Chicago evening paper he especially sub 
 scribed for, and claimed the personal acquaintance of 
 two or three prize fighters, who were much in the lime 
 light then. 
 
 The average immigrant in Spring Water looked upon 
 
CLARA MARRIES 67 
 
 Alex Stein with great respect, for to this immigrant 
 Alex stood for the typical American boy a privileged 
 child of free institutions and democracy. Alex fur 
 thered this reputation by addressing every one in Eng 
 lish, no matter whether the person addressed under 
 stood him or not. When an answer in Yiddish was 
 necessary he replied in mutilated phrases, more by 
 design than through his actual inability to speak the 
 language. In his circle it was considered a sign of 
 good breeding to have got away from the ancestral 
 language no less than from the customs. 
 
 Aaron Witte a number of times tried to draw Alex, 
 who was now a frequent caller at the Witte home, into 
 a conversation on matters that were removed from 
 business, on some of the broader questions of the day, 
 the social and humanitarian movements that were dis 
 cussed in the press, especially in the foreign press, 
 which Witte followed closely. Here Alex, in spite of 
 his being an " American boy," was absolutely helpless 
 before the man who was to be his father-in-law. Upon 
 leaving the house after such a conversation in which 
 Aaron Witte, of course, took the lead, Alex Stein in 
 variably berated Witte to himself and dismissed him 
 with a feeling of disgust, dubbing him a " greenhorn/ 
 Alex knew no greater expression of contempt than 
 that. 
 
 Once Witte sounded him on Jewish history. Alex 
 looked bewildered. He knew nothing of the questions 
 
68 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 and problems that interested the thinkers and the 
 leaders of the race. His views on religion were a 
 mixture of ignorance and cynicism. 
 
 Aaron saw that there would be no mental kinship 
 between himself and Alex. Nevertheless he was too 
 good a young man to turn down. Besides this was not 
 Europe. Here fathers were not choosing husbands 
 for their daughters. Clara had the sole say. And it 
 was an easy matter for this young man, who had been 
 through every large city in the United States, to fasci 
 nate the girl whose knowledge of America did not ex 
 tend beyond Spring Water. 
 
 That very evening after Masha s and Aaron s talk 
 Clara confided to her mother that Alex Stein had pro 
 posed to her. 
 
 " And he wants me to be a June bride," she added, 
 the blood mounting to her face. 
 
 Clara was a June bride, but it was in the last part 
 of June that she was married. This date was chosen in 
 deference to Emil, who was to graduate from high 
 school on the nineteenth of the month. To Aaron 
 Witte the graduation of his son seemed fully as im 
 portant an event as the marriage of his daughter. 
 Witte loved his only daughter dearly, but the joy of 
 the occasion was secretly blighted for him by what he 
 in his heart designated as a coarse, loaferish streak in 
 Alex Stein s nature. 
 
 When his wife showed him a new dress which the 
 
CLARA MARRIES 69 
 
 tailor had just brought for Clara, Aaron sincerely tried 
 to be interested. He tried to rejoice over the coming 
 wedding of his daughter. But his heart did not re 
 spond. His mind would most often wander in these 
 days to the attic where Emil was seated among his 
 books, preparing for the examination. 
 
 Emil, now a youth of eighteen, was pale and hag 
 gard. His thin frame seemed to be weighted down 
 with worries. The work did not come hard to him. 
 But it so happened that his lessons, instead of 
 being first with him, were last. They were a 
 sort of by-product in his mental scheme. He was 
 more interested in the books which he drew from 
 the library and which he devoured at a high rate of 
 speed. 
 
 The books he was reading were what the teacher 
 would call out of his line. He read fiction, history, 
 philosophy. Turgenev reconstructed Russia to him, 
 the Russia which was beginning to fade from his mem 
 ory. Carlyle possessed himself of his imagination 
 with the grandeur and horrors of the French revolu 
 tion, while Buckle was making clear to him many of the 
 things which his Uncle Simeon spoke about. 
 
 Alex Stein had barely found his place in the Witte 
 household when he began taking a meddlesome part in 
 its affairs. He sought to impose his wishes upon every 
 member of the family, to direct the course of every one 
 and everything. For the time being he singled out 
 
70 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 Emil. It began over the question of the course Emil 
 was to take up at the University. 
 
 It was a settled thing in the Witte household that 
 Emil would go to the University. For Aaron Witte 
 this was settled two years before when his brother 
 Simeon was still with him. 
 
 " Emil," his younger brother once said to Aaron, 
 " is quiet. But his quietness is only another expres 
 sion for character. He has a will and ability." 
 
 Aaron was fully awake to the qualities of his son. 
 But it did his heart good to hear these words from 
 Simeon s lips. 
 
 " Boys, men of the type and character of Emil," 
 Simeon went on, " are frequently misunderstood, mis 
 judged. Most people can only see power when it is 
 manifested in a strong arm, athletic physique, or daring 
 feats. But there is another sort of power in the world, 
 a more fruitful power frequently the power which 
 resists passively and endures patiently. Emil has that 
 power." 
 
 As to what course he would take neither Emil nor 
 his father had given a thought. It was Alex Stein 
 who broached the subject in a conversation a week after 
 he was married. 
 
 Emil looked up as if he were awakened from a 
 strange world. He had known that there were differ 
 ent courses at the University. He had looked through 
 the catalogue of the institution carefully. The per- 
 
CLARA MARRIES 71 
 
 sonal side of the institution appeared to him, however, 
 only through the medium of Mr. Sanborn, his Latin 
 teacher. 
 
 Sanborn was hated most cordially by the students 
 of the first and second year Latin classes. But he 
 appeared more human in Cicero. As for Virgil, the 
 Roman poet positively mellowed the Latin teacher. 
 Emil in his senior year had often wondered over the 
 remarkable change that would come over the dried-up, 
 lanky Mr. Sanborn in the Virgil class. The teacher 
 here deliberately winked at grammar. He was in 
 different to syntax and just read the Latin poet and 
 enjoyed him and made the pupils enjoy him. 
 
 He interspersed his readings of Virgil to the class 
 with remarks and anecdotes about the University, about 
 his old professor. Sometimes he would describe the 
 professor to his class the old bear, he called him, 
 but how he knew his Latin ! 
 
 Sanborn occasionally even took the class into his con 
 fidence. He was planning to return to the University 
 soon, to take up more work under this old bear of a 
 professor, who was the best teacher of the subject in 
 the country. He was planning to go up for his doctor s 
 degree in another year or two. 
 
 So it came about that Emil s picture of the Univer 
 sity was confined largely to a genial professor who was 
 interpreting Horace and Ovid to his classes with re 
 markable picturesqueness. In his mind he often saw 
 
72 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 himself sitting at the feet of this man, drinking in the 
 ancient poets of whom he was fond. 
 
 When Alex pressed Emil for a definite answer as to 
 what course he was going to take, he replied : 
 
 " The classical course." 
 
 Alex looked puzzled. 
 
 " Will that make you a doctor ? " he asked. 
 
 "No/ said Emil curtly. He did not like his 
 brother-in-law overmuch. 
 
 " Well, then you will be a lawyer? " Alex persisted. 
 Emil replied that the classical course did not lead to 
 law. 
 
 " What does it lead to? " Alex wanted to know. 
 
 Emil pondered some moments as if weighing in his 
 mind whether to answer his brother-in-law or not. 
 He finally said: 
 
 " It leads to teaching, for one thing. Then there are 
 other things " 
 
 What these " other things " were that the classical 
 course led to Emil himself had but a vague idea. 
 
 Alex Stein was insistent that Emil take up law. He 
 knew a Jewish lawyer in Chicago, he said, who was one 
 of the leading men in that city. That was the sort of 
 a man he would like to see Emil become. 
 
 This solicitude for Emil s career on the part of his 
 brother-in-law was not a matter of pure disinterested 
 ness. Just as Alex knew a Jew who was a big lawyer 
 and an influential citizen in Chicago, he knew also a 
 
CLARA MARRIES 73 
 
 number of Jews who exerted considerable influence in 
 the city hall. When any one in the ghetto was in 
 trouble these men used their influence with the judge, 
 or alderman, or somebody in authority. This fre 
 quently resulted in a man s being saved from a sentence 
 in jail or in the gaining of a desired concession. 
 
 It was Alex Stein s ambition to become just such an 
 influential Jew in Spring Water, to be an important 
 person about the city hall and in the city s affairs. 
 One or two aldermen already knew him and called him 
 by his first name. . . . That was a good beginning. 
 Now if Emil only took up law! With a brother-in- 
 law a lawyer he could climb much faster than he could 
 single-handed. . . . 
 
 Emil was not aware of these designs of his brother- 
 in-law. He looked upon the constant harangues of 
 Alex Stein as a nuisance. Aaron, too, took a hand in 
 the matter. He did not see that teaching was not as 
 honorable a profession as law or medicine. If Emil 
 wished to be a teacher, if he was inclined that way, 
 why should any one interfere with his inclinations? 
 
 Stein gave up trying to win his brother-in-law over 
 to the legal profession. His dislike for Emil, which he 
 conceived the first day they met, now turned into 
 hatred. But he was too much of a diplomat to show 
 it. He took his first serious defeat in the Witte house 
 hold gracefully, but mentally charged it up to them as 
 a thing to get even for some day in the future. 
 
74 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 Aaron went with Emil to the university town. He 
 could not afford to let him stay at any of the student 
 dormitories. So he took him to the house of a coun 
 tryman, who was a pedler like himself, and there ar 
 ranged for Emil s room and board at a much cheaper 
 rate than it could be secured at a students boarding- 
 house. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 COLLEGE DAYS 
 
 AMONG the requirements of the course in 
 " Sophomore English " was a long theme to be 
 handed in by the middle of the semester. The pro 
 fessor spoke about the character of the theme cursorily 
 on the first class day. He came to it again a month 
 later, when he urged the class to start working on it 
 immediately as there were only five weeks left to do 
 it in. 
 
 The theme was not to be argumentative in nature. 
 Nor should it be critical, or an exposition of historical 
 facts, the professor advised. The ideal theme, he ex 
 plained, would be a story, for fiction allows room for 
 both narration and description the two hardest as 
 well as the most fundamental elements in good writing. 
 For weeks the students talked among themselves about 
 the theme, wondering, guessing what would and what 
 would not be a good subject. Some consulted friends 
 among the upper classmen to get their experience in 
 the matter. 
 
 Emil consulted no one, spoke to no one. He was 
 not a popular man among his classmates. About the 
 campus few knew him by sight, fewer to talk to. He 
 
 75 
 
76 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 did not keep aloof from the students, but he kept away. 
 There were good reasons for this. The family of the 
 pedler with whom he boarded lived in the poorest dis 
 trict of the city, near the railroads. There was a 
 pedler s cart in the rear of every house. Scrap iron 
 and bottles lay piled in every yard. There were men 
 with beards and women in wigs walking up and down 
 the street, talking excitedly in Yiddish, gesticulating. 
 
 He was not ashamed of these surroundings. He 
 was not in the least annoyed by them. Behind the 
 pedler s cart, he knew, there was often a man with 
 ideals and a high education. Many of his country 
 men took to the pedler s cart, to the junk wagon, be 
 cause it most often was the only thing they could turn 
 to. They were in a strange land of whose language 
 and customs they were ignorant. Centuries of re 
 striction and oppression in the ghettos of the old world 
 had weakened them to an extent that made it impossi 
 ble for many of them to take to the pick and shovel. 
 
 Emil knew, however, that these things, while fully 
 understood by him, would not be understood, at least 
 not readily, by an outsider. To mingle with the 
 student body, to go up to a student s room, meant in 
 viting him in turn to his own room. If he invited a 
 student friend to his room in the little ghetto, there 
 would be too many explanations to make, he feared. 
 The student might have a laugh at Emil s surround 
 ings, and then transfer the laugh to Emil himself. He 
 
COLLEGE DAYS 77 
 
 had seen such things happen. So he avoided the like 
 lihood of having to invite friends by not accepting in 
 vitations from them, by keeping away from the social 
 life of the university. 
 
 As was the case with all of Emil s work, he post 
 poned the theme until the last week. Meantime 
 hardly a recitation passed without one or more students 
 asking the professor whether this or that would be an 
 acceptable subject. Emil listened to these discussions. 
 
 The Sunday of the week when the theme was to 
 be handed in he rose early and by noon had written 
 the required twenty-five hundred word story. He 
 copied it on an afternoon when his work for the next 
 day was light and deposited it on the professor s desk 
 as he left the classroom. 
 
 The professor kept these themes for three weeks, in 
 spite of the impatience of the students. He had about 
 one hundred and fifty of such themes to read, correct 
 and criticize. Finally he announced one morning that 
 the entire recitation hour would be devoted to a dis 
 cussion of the compositions. For this purpose he had 
 chosen several papers to read from. 
 
 He picked out parts of five or six themes and read 
 them, some for their merit, others because they were 
 decidedly bad. He went over these quotations, criti 
 cizing, praising, suggesting where and how such and 
 such a passage could be improved. 
 
 One paper he was going to read in its entirety, the 
 
78 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 professor said, because of its unusual merit. The 
 theme gave evidence of a literary gift. It was he 
 hesitated a moment this theme was in itself a piece 
 of literature. 
 
 As he spoke the professor looked away impersonally 
 at the wall as if not wishing to let his gaze betray the 
 writer of the theme to the shifting eyes of the class. 
 Amid deep silence he began reading. 
 
 The first few words of the theme were familiar to 
 Emil Witte. It seemed to him that he had heard them 
 somewhere before. He leaned forward in his chair to 
 hear better and in the next instant he realized that it 
 was his own theme that was being read. He became 
 hot all over. Covering his eyes with his hand he re 
 mained motionless in his seat throughout the reading 
 of the paper. 
 
 After the themes had been distributed and the class 
 was filing out, several students stopped to talk to the 
 professor. Witte made his way toward the door. 
 The professor asked him to remain a few moments. 
 
 When the last student had been dismissed, the pro 
 fessor walked down the hall with Witte to his own 
 office, complimenting him once more on his theme. 
 He wound up his compliments with an invitation to 
 call on him at his house. In order to make sure of 
 Witte s calling, the professor set the date himself. 
 This was tantamount to an order for Emil to 
 come. , 
 
COLLEGE DAYS 79 
 
 Emil went straight to the library, sought out an 
 empty table, piled several large books in front of him 
 so as to hide the right to left movements of his pen, 
 and sat down to write to his father in Yiddish the 
 Yiddish he had learned in the Russian ghetto before 
 coming to America. It was a nervous, exalted let 
 ter. . . . When Aaron read it to his wife, tears came 
 into Masha s eyes. Aaron s voice, too, faltered, and 
 he had to stop several times to clear his throat. 
 Father and mother were intensely happy and intensely 
 proud of their son in whom big men, professors, took 
 such an interest. 
 
 A year passed. 
 
 Easter and Passover fell in the same week. Emil 
 came home for the holidays. Harry, the eldest son, 
 now married and the father of a child, was there with 
 his family for the festival. Clara came with her hus 
 band and their two children. Alex Stein had not for 
 given Emil what he considered the latter s stubborn 
 ness in not taking up law. But he tactfully forgot his 
 grudge for the evening. 
 
 Aaron, whose beard was now gray, solemnized 
 Passover with impressive ceremony. As he was re 
 citing the story of the delivery of the children of 
 Israel from Egyptian bondage in the quaint medieval 
 sing-song, Emil went back in his mind sixteen years, 
 when as a child of five he sat with Harry and Clara 
 about a table similarly spread in their thatched cot- 
 
80 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 tage in Russia. What a change those years had 
 brought ! 
 
 Then his father s beard was black, his features firm. 
 There were none of the deep lines that furrowed 
 Aaron s face now. His voice, as he recited the story 
 of Israel s escape from slavery, sounded different then. 
 It was stronger, more triumphant. There was not the 
 occasional lisp that now tore itself from Aaron s lips. 
 Emil noted and this sent a pang through his heart 
 that since he had last seen his father, the latter had 
 lost a lower front tooth. . . . Aaron was aging, un 
 mistakably. 
 
 When Aaron finished reciting the story of Israel s 
 freedom and took off the white, shroud-like garment 
 which he wore all through the ceremony, the atmos 
 phere changed to one of merriment. They ate, and 
 drank wine, the four prescribed glasses that are to be 
 drunk on the occasion, and the hearts of all became 
 light. Masha looked from one to the other of her 
 children, busied herself about her three grand 
 children, and her cup of happiness was full 
 
 When Emil found himself alone in his room, how 
 ever, he could not fall asleep. The missing front 
 tooth which so greatly altered his father s voice, 
 fastened itself in his brain. He could not shake it 
 out of his thoughts. Age was overtaking his father 
 and mother. And the natural corollary of age was 
 death There was no getting away from both of 
 
COLLEGE DAYS 81 
 
 these He began figuring the age of his parents. 
 Both Aaron and Masha were past fifty. At sixty one 
 was really old He pulled the blanket over his 
 head, closed his eyes and tried not to think 
 
 In the morning Emil took a stroll through the 
 streets of Spring Water. The town was just awaken 
 ing from its winter s sleep. The sparse grass on the 
 lawns had an embarrassed look as if it were not at all 
 certain that it had not come out a trifle too early. 
 The lake, which skirted the town, always had a fasci 
 nation for Emil. He could sit at the edge of the water 
 for hours and listen to the beating of the waves. Un 
 consciously he walked in the direction of the water. 
 
 Alongside the lake lay the residential part of Spring 
 Water. The streets were wide, the houses large, 
 roomy, and far apart. Every home here had a wide 
 lawn, big verandas and an air of security and well- 
 being. 
 
 As Emil passed one of these spacious homes he 
 heard some one call his name. A woman was run 
 ning down the steps of one of these houses. She was 
 running toward him. He recognized Lena Rosen. 
 
 As if through a mist he recalled some one s telling 
 of the Rosen boys opening recently a new store in 
 Spring Water and of the Rosen family s moving into 
 the exclusive part of the city. 
 
 " I hardly recognized you at first," said Emil, con 
 fused. Though he had seen Lena many times before, 
 
82 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 his recollection of her now was that of a little girl 
 who talked to him on the first day of his arrival, and 
 who later took him to school and introduced him to the 
 kindly, smiling woman teacher. He compared the 
 picture of the child with the black curls with the young 
 lady who stood beaming at him, and it seemed to him 
 as if Lena s long dresses and womanly manners were 
 only a pose and that soon she would reappear again 
 in her real self, the little girl with curls, asking him 
 whether he could add and subtract. 
 
 He followed her into the house. Mrs. Rosen, who 
 had been gaining in corpulency out of all proportion 
 since Emil last saw her, began hopping about him, re 
 peating excitedly all the while: "Ah, what a guest, 
 what a guest ! " 
 
 " Abe," Mrs. Rosen, protruding her head through 
 the heavy Persian portieres, addressed her husband, 
 "guess who is here, Abe?" 
 
 Mr. Rosen did not guess, but walked right into the 
 parlor and was face to face with young Witte, who 
 was still standing in the middle of the room. He 
 caught Emil s hand and shook it heartily. He looked 
 him over in a fatherly manner, tapped him on the 
 shoulder as if to signify that everything was all right, 
 and puffing heavily for Mr. Rosen, too, was grow 
 ing stout started to pull a Morris chair toward his 
 guest. 
 
 When Emil was seated Rosen began to entertain 
 
COLLEGE DAYS 83 
 
 him in his own fashion, which consisted of question 
 ing the youth minutely. 
 
 Was Emil going to be a doctor ? No ? Well, then, 
 Mr. Rosen supposed that he would be a lawyer. But 
 when this supposition also proved wrong, Mr. Rosen s 
 curiosity was aroused in earnest. If not medicine or 
 law, what could one go to the University for what 
 else was there? 
 
 Emil began feeling uncomfortable under this rapid 
 fire of questions which followed his monosyllabic 
 answers. Lena noticed this and was attempting to 
 explain to her father that there were other branches 
 of knowledge taught at a university besides medicine 
 and the law, when Mrs. Rosen entered the room, a 
 carafe in one hand and a well-stocked plate in the 
 other. This ended the discussion. 
 
 As Emil was leaving, after having promised Mrs. 
 Rosen that he would not " act like a stranger," and 
 would come to visit them often during the holidays, 
 Lena slipped on her coat and went out with him. 
 
 They walked toward the lake. Now Lena was 
 showering questions upon Emil. But her questions 
 were so different. Emil not only answered them, but 
 he soon found himself talking to her as he had never 
 spoken to a stranger before. ... It even seemed to 
 him that Lena was no stranger, but was something 
 like a sister of his, somebody very near to him. . . . 
 Why should not he feel so toward her? She was the 
 
84 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 one who had unlocked the gates of the new world to 
 him. She had led him to school for the first time. 
 
 He recalled that episode of their childhood. Lena 
 laughed. 
 
 " And now," Emil said, and the words seemed to 
 linger in his throat, " now you are a big girl a 
 young lady." 
 
 He stopped and looked at her in admiration. A 
 light flush came into Lena s cheeks. 
 
 "What about yourself?" she retorted laughingly. 
 " You, too, are a big boy a man now. ... I sup 
 pose you are in love already/ she added after a 
 moment, with a roguish twinkle in her eye. 
 
 Emil turned his face from her. A weak smile 
 played about his lips. He wanted to say some 
 thing equally clever and daring, but could find no 
 words. . . . They reached the lake. He picked up a 
 handful of pebbles and was throwing them in the 
 water. As he did this the ungainliness of his frame, 
 his physical shortcomings came into view. The Rus 
 sian Pale had put her stamp upon his physique. She 
 had marked him as her own. 
 
 Emil was slightly below medium height. His 
 shoulders were a trifle stooped, his chest caved in. It 
 was quite evident that he paid little attention to physi 
 cal training and was a total stranger to athletics. 
 
 Lena quickly shifted her gaze from his body to his 
 face and head. Vaguely she felt that it was by his 
 
COLLEGE DAYS 85 
 
 face and head that Emil would be judged. It was his 
 face, and especially his head that made him attractive. 
 
 She began talking about his work, asking what his 
 plans were on graduation. He would be a senior in 
 the fall. 
 
 A deep earnestness settled over Emil s face. He 
 was debating with himself whether to answer her ques 
 tion, whether to initiate the girl into his cherished 
 ambitions. Lena, however, was looking at him so 
 expectantly, patiently and so full of faith, that he did 
 not see what harm there could be in telling her his 
 plans. 
 
 " I intend to teach," he said simply, " and then 
 write on the side. Many men have done this." 
 
 " You intend to be a writer? " Lena said, forgetting 
 about his teaching. She had not the slightest intima 
 tion before that this was Emil s ambition. But the 
 way he looked as he spoke of writing convinced her 
 that that was exactly what Emil should do. 
 
 " Yes," he said, gazing far out on the water. 
 
 " Have you written things already ? " 
 
 " Hardly anything." 
 
 " Poetry ? Have you written any verses ? " she per 
 sisted. 
 
 " Only a few." 
 
 The atmosphere which was mild a few minutes 
 before suddenly became brisk. The tips of Lena s 
 gloveless fingers began to numb. She started away 
 
86 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 from the lake. When they reached the corner where 
 she was to turn off to the house, she shook hands with 
 Emil, exacting a promise from him that he would come 
 to see them the next day. Her brothers would surely 
 like to see him. And she was anxious to talk to him 
 about the University she would like to go to the 
 University herself. She was to graduate from high 
 school in June. Emil called at the Rosen home the 
 next day and the evening before he left. 
 
 When he was back again at the University Emil 
 sent Lena a postal card giving a view of some of the 
 college buildings. He received in reply a long letter, 
 written on scented paper. He did not know how to 
 answer it and postponed writing to her from day to 
 day. Then the examinations were nearing and he had 
 little time to write at least that was what he told 
 himself every time he thought of the unanswered 
 letter. 
 
 About two weeks before the close of the semester 
 another letter came. Lena attributed his not answer 
 ing her note to his preparing for the examinations. 
 She knew what that meant. Then she mentioned see 
 ing him as soon as he came home for his vacation. 
 She was anxious to see him, she wrote. There were 
 so many things she wanted to talk over with him. 
 She hoped that they would see much of each other 
 during the summer and talk over everything every 
 thing, for Emil knew so much, and understood every- 
 
COLLEGE DAYS 87 
 
 thing so much better than the people in Spring Water, 
 the people around her 
 
 Emil spent an uneasy night after reading the letter. 
 It crowded all else out of his mind and Lena stood 
 before his eyes. In fact there were hovering before 
 him two Lenas: one a girl of eight with black curls, 
 who spoke in broken Yiddish and led him, a green 
 ghetto boy, to school; the other, a young lady who 
 wrote on scented paper who waited for him to come, 
 to talk to him, to confide in him. . . . 
 
 He lay awake for hours thinking of the girl, recall 
 ing her voice, eyes, hair. ... He would write to her 
 in the morning the first thing. 
 
 Sleep finally overcame him, but Lena remained with 
 him in his dreams. . . . 
 
 When Emil stepped off the train in Spring Water, 
 full of eager anticipations for his vacation, he was 
 met by his father who looked blanched and greatly 
 worried. 
 
 In a few words Aaron apprised him that Harry had 
 been stricken with typhoid for more than a week. He 
 had kept it from Emil, his father explained, because 
 he did not wish to worry him during the exami 
 nations. 
 
 The next morning Emil took the train for the little 
 town where Harry lived and there stepped into his 
 sick brother s place in the store. By the time Harry 
 
88 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 recovered sufficiently to be able to tend to business 
 once more, the vacation season was over. Emil had 
 barely time to snatch three days rest and went back 
 to the University. He saw nothing of Lena that 
 
 summer. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 A REPORTER 
 
 MR. RAND, the city editor of the N- 
 Express, ran his eyes over the letter of intro 
 duction handed him by Emil Witte and put it to one 
 side with an air of extreme weariness. Emil, watch 
 ing the city editor s every move, concluded that he 
 must be at least the tenth man who had come to ask 
 for a job that morning, each of whom had presented 
 just such a letter of introduction as his, and that these 
 letters and their bearers were the bane of Rand s 
 existence. 
 
 As a matter of fact a reporter had left the Express 
 the preceding week. The vacancy had not been filled, 
 and Rand was glad to see a man drift in and ask for 
 a job. 
 
 Still maintaining his air of boredom, however, the 
 city editor said: 
 
 " There is no opening on the staff right now " 
 
 The ringing of the telephone interrupted him. 
 When Rand had hung up the receiver, he again turned 
 to Emil Witte with a seemingly absent, but in reality 
 searching gaze. He picked up the letter of introduo 
 
 89 
 
go WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 tion once more it was from an influential lawyer 
 who had taken an interest in young Witte and read 
 it clear through. 
 
 " You speak several languages?" Rand asked. 
 
 Emil nodded affirmatively. 
 
 " As I said," continued the editor, " there is no 
 opening on the staff right now. However, this is a 
 metropolitan city, and a man who speaks a number of 
 languages ought to be useful. Come in again next 
 Thursday. Perhaps something will turn up in the 
 meantime." 
 
 Nothing had turned up by Thursday, but Witte was 
 told to come in again at one o clock the following day. 
 He came and Rand motioned to him to sit down near 
 one of the desks. With this Rand apparently forgot 
 him. At five o clock the city editor crooked his finger 
 at Witte and the latter came up to his desk at a run. 
 
 " Go out and talk with the woman," Rand said, 
 handing him a clipping from an evening paper. 
 
 Witte wrote the interview and laid the copy on the 
 city editor s desk. He was again forgotten until 
 nearly midnight. Then Rand in passing told him to 
 go home, adding, " One o clock to-morrow." 
 
 Emil Witte had secured his first job. 
 
 Every beginner on the Express was started in with 
 
 the " labor run." N was a city of a quarter of 
 
 a million people. It was one of the growing manu 
 facturing centers in the Middle West. There were 
 
A REPORTER 91 
 
 about two score labor unions in the city. The news 
 of these unions was printed every morning on the 
 tenth or eleventh page of the Express under the head 
 ing " In the Labor World." 
 
 The following Monday Rand gave Witte a slip of 
 paper with half a dozen addresses of the principal 
 unions and briefly explained what was expected of him 
 on the labor run. 
 
 " You will pick up the names of the other unions as 
 you go along," Rand said. " To-day be sure to look 
 up the iron molders. Talk to their business agent, 
 Weber. The molders have been threatening to strike. 
 See what you can get on it." 
 
 On the way to the headquarters of the molders, Emil 
 studied the third of a column of labor news in the 
 Express. Much of it sounded strange. The phrases, 
 " closed shop," " open shop," " boycott," " lockout " 
 were new to him. 
 
 " What became of Cochrane, was he fired? " Weber 
 asked when Witte introduced himself as the new re 
 porter from the Express. 
 
 Witte did not know Cochrane, did not know who 
 his predecessor was. The good-natured, bantering 
 way in which Weber asked the question reassured him. 
 The agent seemed to be a good sort of fellow. He 
 was kind and genial at any rate. So Witte threw him 
 self at the mercy of the business agent. He told him 
 that he was just beginning his career as a reporter, 
 
92 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 that he had been on the Express only three days and in 
 
 the city of N only a week. He would appreciate 
 
 it, therefore, if Mr. Weber, would give him all the 
 news there was. He would be especially grateful if 
 the business agent would give him the news as plainly 
 as possible so that he could write it down correctly for 
 the paper. 
 
 Weber listened to the frank statement of the 
 embryo reporter. 
 
 "You want to write labor news correctly?" the 
 business agent said with a wry smile. " All right, my 
 boy, go ahead, try. The Lord help you. You will 
 need His help if you are to get union news into the 
 Express correctly. But I am afraid even the Lord 
 cannot protect you from your city editor s blue pencil." 
 
 While Witte was pondering over Weber s words, 
 the business agent was studying the reporter curiously. 
 Witte was so different from his predecessor. He was 
 simple and unsophisticated in the city ways. 
 
 "Is your father a workman?" the labor man 
 asked. 
 
 Witte nodded, and he felt the blood come into his 
 face. Suppose the business agent asked his father s 
 trade? But Weber did not ask. 
 
 Weber supplied the reporter with the names of a 
 number of unions whose headquarters were in the 
 neighborhood and advised him what men were worth 
 while seeing in each of these unions. As for the 
 
A REPORTER 93 
 
 molders, there was no news that day, he said. As 
 Witte was about to leave, Weber added as an after 
 thought : 
 
 " You might say that the molders are firm in their 
 demands, and if the negotiations now pending with the 
 employers come to no satisfactory conclusion, nothing 
 can avert a strike." 
 
 Witte wrote down the statement word for word. 
 
 Weber watched the reporter not unkindly. To an 
 experienced newspaper man he would not have said 
 that much. He would have taken for granted that the 
 reporter would have gathered the attitude of the 
 molders union indirectly. Witte s frank admission 
 of his inexperience had moved him to this indulgence. 
 
 When Witte read off to the city editor the brief 
 statement of the business agent, Rand grunted. Witte 
 could not make out whether it meant approval or dis 
 approval. 
 
 " Roscoe ! " Rand called across the room. A re 
 porter at the farther end laid aside the afternoon paper 
 he was reading and strode up to the city editor s desk. 
 
 " Witte, here, got a statement from Weber of the 
 molders," Rand said. " He says there will be a strike 
 unless the present negotiations end favorably for the 
 union. It is the first authentic statement we have had 
 from Weber. Witte will give you the exact wording. 
 Give me about two-thirds of a column on it. It is a 
 first page story." 
 
94 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 Addressing Witte, the city editor told him to write 
 out the other items he had picked up during the after 
 noon. 
 
 " Give them about half a dozen lines each," he 
 added, when Emil was seated at his desk. 
 
 The " Labor World " corner, occupying frequently 
 less than a third of a column, immediately came to be 
 the most interesting part of the paper to Witte it 
 was the part he had written. 
 
 Included in the labor run was the Socialist party 
 headquarters. 
 
 When Witte introduced himself to a rotund, smiling 
 German, who was the secretary of the party and from 
 
 whom all news concerning the Socialists of N 
 
 emanated, the latter extended his hand to him with 
 profuse cordiality. 
 
 " So you are from the Express" the secretary 
 Gus Miller was his name said. " And what became 
 of the other fellow, Cochrane? Was he fired, or did 
 he get married ? " 
 
 Miller and his colleague at the next desk laughed 
 volubly at this joke about Cochrane. As Witte 
 seemed to remain somewhat unappreciative of it, 
 Miller explained that the Express had changed at 
 least half a dozen labor reporters within as many 
 months. 
 
 " Most of the fellows were no good," Miller said. 
 " One good reporter they had got married and went 
 
A REPORTER 95 
 
 into the State to become the editor of a country news 
 paper." 
 
 When Witte called the next day he found Miller 
 in an argumentative mood. The secretary launched 
 out on the iniquity of the present system and what 
 fools these mortals were for not seeing it and for hav 
 ing to be coaxed into the Socialist fold. 
 
 The German s eyes twinkled good-humoredly at the 
 young reporter. 
 
 " We have been fairly successful with some of the 
 reporters in the past," Miller said. " Many of the 
 newspaper men in town are Socialists. We have con 
 verted them. And now for you, my boy, we shall have 
 to start in making a Socialist of you." 
 
 Witte could not make out whether Miller was speak 
 ing in jest or in earnest. The secretary continued in 
 the same vein. 
 
 " Hoffman," he said, addressing his companion at 
 the neighboring desk, "I commission you with the 
 job of converting this young man. Show your skill 
 as an agitator now." 
 
 "It will be no easy task, I dare say," Hoffman 
 replied. "This young man must be fresh from the 
 University, where they drill them carefully into the 
 belief that private property is sacred. However, we 
 shall try." 
 
 Hoffman, smiling, searched the reporter s eyes as 
 if in confirmation of his diagnosis. 
 
96 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 " You might spare yourself the trouble of trying to ? 
 convert me," Witte said simply. " I am a Socialist." 
 
 Miller and Hoffman at once dropped their banter 
 ing tone and became alive with interest in the boy 
 before them. The secretary began plying him with 
 questions. What local did he belong to? Oh, he 
 did not belong to the party. Why not? Was there 
 no Socialist branch in his town? He saw that Witte 
 was not a native of N . 
 
 So far as Witte knew there was no Socialist party 
 branch in Spring Water. Miller fished out a card 
 catalogue from one of the drawers in his desk and 
 looked it through. Witte was right; there was no 
 branch in Spring Water. He began talking excitedly 
 to Hoffman. They were not doing things right. 
 They should have another organizer in the State. It 
 was a rank shame. Here was a city like Spring 
 Water, a city of fifteen thousand people, and no 
 Socialist branch in it. He would take the matter up 
 at the next meeting of the state executive board. 
 They must have another organizer in the field forth 
 with! 
 
 " Are there any other Socialists in Spring Water? " 
 Miller wanted to know. Witte could not enlighten 
 him. 
 
 " How did you happen to become a Socialist? " the 
 secretary asked. 
 
A REPORTER 97 
 
 " An uncle of mine," Witte spoke slowly, " an uncle 
 from Russia, was visiting us he left me some books 
 and pamphlets." 
 
 Miller was talking excitedly once more, this time 
 about Russia. Ah, that was a country for you! 
 What splendid work the revolutionists were doing 
 there. What heroic self-sacrifice ! Next to Germany, 
 Russia would soon have the strongest Socialist move 
 ment in the world. All this while in the United States 
 the Socialist movement was lagging behind. Yes, 
 lagging behind, in spite of the fact that every one 
 could read here. . . . They must put another or 
 ganizer in the State at once. A city like Spring Water 
 without a Socialist branch! Such splendid material 
 as this young man having to wait for an uncle from 
 Russia to bring him Socialist books and pamphlets. 
 It was a shame, a rank shame ! He would take it up 
 at the next meeting of the executive board; they must 
 economize elsewhere. But they must put another 
 organizer in the field 
 
 When Witte had written out his Socialist items 
 there was almost double the usual number of items that 
 afternoon Rand said to him as he was running his 
 pencil over a line in the copy : 
 
 " The old windbag was talkative to-day." 
 
 Witte guessed that he meant Miller, the secretary 
 of the Socialist party. 
 
98 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 "It is all right though," Rand added. "Always 
 pick up as many of these little items as you can 
 Go to dinner." 
 
 Witte laid aside the magazine ( and walked up to the 
 window. It was a sultry August afternoon and the 
 heat in the attic room he occupied was insufferable. 
 But the heat made him far less uncomfortable than the 
 story he had just finished. . . . 
 
 It was a fine story, the kind he would himself like 
 to have written. He wondered what sort of man the 
 author was. A man who could write a story with so 
 much feeling in it, with so much tenderness, could not 
 be happy. Yet the successful putting of such a story 
 on paper in itself ought to be sufficient to bring happi 
 ness to any man. He gazed at his own half column 
 of cut and dried notices in the Express. What a vast 
 expanse of life and experience lay between his half 
 column of labor items and the story he had just read ! 
 Would he traverse that distance? And if not, what 
 was he doing there ? Was he undergoing this struggle 
 merely for a fate like Jim Bayley s? 
 
 In the three months Emil had been on the staff of 
 the Express he had learned much about newspaper 
 life, although he never took part in the conversation 
 of the older reporters merely listened. The fame 
 and glory of the business was on the wane, he heard 
 constantly repeated. It was becoming less and less 
 
A REPORTER 99 
 
 of a profession. Chances for getting up were fewer, 
 chances for losing out increasing. One of the things 
 that always depressed him was a visit to the office from 
 Jim Bayley. 
 
 James Hawthorne Bayley was a man of sixty. He 
 was married and had grandchildren. Though he 
 made an effort to keep himself erect, his shoulders 
 were stooped. When he walked he shuffled his feet 
 in a way that showed he had done a great deal of 
 walking in his life. But his face was boyish. From 
 the editor, Mr. Hamlin, to the youngest office boy, 
 every one on the Express called him " Jim." Bayley 
 would joke with the reporters, look roguishly when 
 one of the boys told a piquant story. He always had 
 a knowing, indulgent smile on his lips. The reporters 
 always remarked how well he kept up. 
 
 In his day Jim Bayley was a power. He was in 
 turn star reporter, city editor, managing editor on the 
 
 N papers. Now he was an all-round man on the 
 
 Blade, a struggling afternoon newspaper. He was 
 working under a man he had brought up. Two or 
 three times a week the city editor of the Express 
 would call him on the telephone. There were certain 
 stories no one could handle so well as Jim Bayley. 
 The city editor would whisper a few words to him, 
 Jim would nod knowingly, and disappear. 
 
 His stories always ran long. Occasionally Rand 
 would remark this to Bill Francis, the political re- 
 
ioo WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 porter. The two would smile, but the city editor 
 would turn in the copy just as it was written. Jim 
 was paid space rates and he needed the extra money. 
 
 Yes, Witte thought, it was a case either of writing 
 stories like the one in the magazine and getting fame 
 and a competence, or else of labor news, court news, 
 city hall news, with a wind-up like that of Jim Bayley. 
 
 He went down into the street thinking how he was 
 going to spend the afternoon and evening. It was his 
 day off. Rand had given him tickets to an amusement 
 park. But he had been to the park before and was 
 bored. An idea came to him. He would go down to 
 see his people. . . . 
 
 The Jews of N were huddled together in a few 
 
 blocks in one part of the city. Emil had been through 
 the district before. But those were hurried business 
 trips. This time he walked leisurely. 
 
 The streets here were teeming with humanity. The 
 heat had driven the people from their stuffy quarters 
 into the open. Women were sitting in the hallways 
 or on benches near their houses. They chatted 
 volubly in Yiddish. 
 
 Evening was approaching, and the men and girls 
 came straggling from the shops and factories, each 
 met by the anxious look of a wife or mother, each 
 questioned and talking about the weather, the heat, 
 and how it was becoming unbearable around four 
 o clock, toward the close of the day. He sought out 
 
A REPORTER 101 
 
 a Jewish restaurant and took his dinner there! The 
 place was small and there were only three people about 
 the half a dozen tables. The meal reminded Witte 
 of home. His mother cooked just such meals. 
 
 The proprietress of the restaurant came up to where 
 he sat and talked to him. She was a middle-aged, 
 
 motherly-looking woman, who had come to N 
 
 recently from New York. She had never before seen 
 Emil Witte at her place, and she wondered whether 
 he was a recent arrival from New York. 
 
 She had taken Emil for a tailor, first, because all 
 the Jewish young men who came to eat at her place 
 were tailors, and secondly, because Emil s shoulders 
 were stooped exactly like the shoulders of a machine 
 operator. 
 
 Her questions, frank and penetrating, did not offend 
 Emil. On the contrary, he liked to be talked to by the 
 motherly-looking woman. Nobody had talked to him 
 so kindly and with such whole-souled simplicity since 
 he had been in N , since he had left home. 
 
 When he emerged into the street again night lay 
 
 over the N ghetto. The girls and boys had on 
 
 their best clothes, and in pairs, or in couples, were 
 going down-town, or to parks. The older people re 
 mained sitting in their hallways or on chairs and 
 benches near their homes, drinking in the slight breeze. 
 
 He came upon a small bookstore. In the window 
 were the works of Yiddish authors whose names his 
 
102 WTTTE ARRIVES 
 
 father frequently mentioned. He bought several of 
 the small, paper-covered volumes and started for his 
 room. 
 
 His explorations of the N ghetto left him with 
 
 a heavy heart. They revived memories of his own 
 coming to the new world and of the four years of 
 separation from his father, those tender years passed 
 in loneliness and unutterable longing for his sire, a 
 longing only partly quenched with the letter the post 
 man handed them once a week. 
 
 He began reading one of the Yiddish books he had 
 bought. The little volume dealt with the very 
 things he had been thinking of, the pathos of parting 
 iand the joy of the reunion in the new world of an 
 .immigrant family. It was midnight when he laid 
 aside the book after reading it from cover to cover. 
 Just before he fell asleep an idea came to him. Why 
 
 not write up the N ghetto? He would try it in 
 
 the morning. He set his alarm clock at seven. 
 
 He wrote the story the following morning, and the 
 morning after and the third morning. Then he found 
 that he had begun telling his story at its weakest point 
 and rewrote it anew. Stealthily he laid down the 
 manuscript on the city editor s desk, after receiving 
 his assignments for the day, and made a rush for the 
 elevator. He did not wish to meet Rand s gaze, nor 
 see what disposition the city editor would make of his 
 uncalled-for contribution. 
 
A REPORTER 103 
 
 When Witte returned to the office at five o clock 
 and sat down to write his labor items, Rand called him. 
 The city editor introduced him to the Sunday editor. 
 Rand had turned. over Witte s story to the latter. 
 
 The Sunday editor Witte did not get his name 
 and was too timid to ask explained what he wished. 
 Could not Witte elaborate the story in one or two 
 places he pointed out the places and return it in 
 the morning? 
 
 Nothing further was said about the story till mid 
 night Saturday. At that hour the city editor tore off 
 a page from the Sunday supplement and handing it to 
 Witte said: 
 
 " Here is your story." 
 
 Across the seven columns of the page was the head 
 line, " An Evening in the N Ghetto." The story 
 
 and illustrations covered the entire page. Some of 
 the more striking sentences in the story were boxed 
 near the top of the page. Above the body of the 
 story in big letters came the legend "By Emil 
 Witte " 
 
 Monday noon Witte found on his desk a letter from 
 Lena Rosen. There were congratulations on the suc 
 cess he had made in journalism and much praise of his 
 story. . . . Then there came some gossipy news about 
 Spring Water s young set the Jewish set. As he 
 read the letter Emil became conscious of how far he 
 
104 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 had drifted, from this set, which consisted of boys and 
 girls of his own age, his former schoolfellows, in the 
 years he had been at the University. 
 
 The letter wound up with a plaintive note. Life in 
 Spring Water was dull. Lena would be happy if she 
 too could go to a city and strike out for herself. But 
 her parents would not hear of it. 
 
 " They are keeping me here like a goose in a 
 cage/ " Lena wrote, Englishing a Yiddish phrase of 
 her mother s. 
 
 Before Emil s eyes rose the face of Lena, so remi 
 niscent of the fat Mrs. Rosen and yet so wonderfully 
 different. For Lena was slender and stately and had 
 refined manners and an aristocratic bearing. 
 
 He thought of the girl all afternoon. In his mind 
 he talked to her. Oh, how he talked ! He never knew 
 he could be so eloquent. He talked of his future. It 
 was to be a big future. No, not money. He would 
 do things big things. He would write. He would 
 write about the poor and disinherited, the people he 
 was meeting on his rounds as a labor reporter, the 
 misunderstood, submerged people of the slums. . . . 
 And in his mind s eye he saw Lena agreeing with him 
 understanding him ready to follow him to the 
 ends of the earth 
 
 There were the usual number of clippings on his 
 desk, obituaries from the evening papers, to rewrite. 
 He wrote the items rapidly one after the other. He 
 
A REPORTER 105 
 
 felt equal to tasks ten times as great. He welcomed 
 work. 
 
 A soreness against the city editor arose in his heart. 
 What was he keeping him on this drab stuff for, in 
 stead of giving him real work to do, instead of giving 
 him assignments that would offer an opportunity to 
 show his skill as a writer ? But the soreness soon gave 
 way to the pleasant recollection of Lena s letter. 
 What a fine judge of writing she was! How en 
 thusiastic she was about his story, how she understood 
 him 
 
 " Witte," Rand bellowed across the room, " this is 
 a metropolitan city. You left out the street number 
 in the Winkelmann obit. What is it? " 
 
 Emil fumbled among his papers, found the clipping 
 and read off the number, under the city editor s blaz 
 ing look. He felt as if he had received a ducking in 
 ice water. The picture of Lena and all the bold and 
 pleasant thoughts with which it had been associated 
 that afternoon faded from his brain. He was gloomy 
 the rest of the evening. . . . 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 WITTE S story in the Sunday paper was not 
 without effect. The city editor began giving 
 him better assignments. The young reporter s ability 
 to enliven the subject he wrote about, to heighten and 
 vivify the human touch in it, called forth Rand s 
 favorable comment. 
 
 Rand s opinions were highly valued by the staff of 
 the Express. The city editor was an importation 
 from Chicago where he had been the head of the copy 
 desk on a leading paper. His praise of Witte rapidly 
 changed the latter s status in the office. Caste lines 
 that were tightly drawn against the " cub " in the first 
 few weeks began to drop off. He was treated as an 
 equal. Some even tried to be chummy with him. 
 
 Riley, the hotel man, was the first to swing around. 
 
 As Witte was clearing his desk one night a little 
 after midnight, Riley asked : " Going over to 
 Schroeder s ? " And they went out together. 
 
 Schroeder s was a saloon around the corner from 
 the Express office. Here the men working on the 
 
 106 
 
CHICAGO 107 
 
 morning papers found an especially prepared lunch for 
 them at midnight, and would spend an hour eating 
 and chatting before going home. 
 
 Witte ordered a beer. 
 
 " Take a regular drink," Riley said encouragingly. 
 " You are a full-fledged reporter now. That story 
 of yours goes on the first page in the morning. Rand 
 was tickled with it." 
 
 From that night on the subject of drink became the 
 
 nightmare of Witte s existence in N . Whisky 
 
 revolted him physically. This abhorrence of it made 
 him laughable in the eyes of the widening circle of 
 reporters he came to know. 
 
 One night as he passed up the bottle and told the 
 waiter to give him a beer one jovial member of the 
 company hailed him as a disciple of Carrie Nation. 
 On another occasion his repugnance to whisky was 
 suddenly made a race issue. 
 
 One of the reporters had read that the Jews as a 
 race were temperate to a high degree. He recounted 
 this to the company, and each began asking Witte 
 whether the Jews were averse to drink on religious 
 grounds. 
 
 These questions made him uncomfortable. It an 
 noyed him to have his race and religion, and the 
 thousands of years of history back of them, dragged 
 into a matter of his own personal distaste. Why 
 charge up a trifling peculiarity of his to the fact that 
 
io8 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 he was a Jew? Why raise the question of race and 
 on that ground single him out as " different " ? 
 
 He resolved to end these annoyances. He would 
 take a drink of whisky now and then, or at least he 
 would try to have the appearance of drinking. But 
 his " appearance " was soon detected. Riley once 
 held up Witte s glass with a thimbleful of whisky in 
 it for the inspection of the company, and they had a 
 hearty laugh at his expense. 
 
 Embittered, Emil Witte now began taking at least 
 one " good " drink an evening, although he felt sick 
 for hours afterward. 
 
 One night as he watched Riley empty his third glass 
 of whisky, a question slipped Witte s tongue. 
 
 " Why do you fellows drink so much ? " he asked. 
 
 " Well, what else would you have us do ? " the hotel 
 reporter laughed hoarsely. 
 
 The thoughtful manner in which Witte gazed into 
 space finally communicated itself to Riley. 
 
 " You might as well ask why we stay in the news 
 paper business," the hotel reporter said. " There is 
 just as much logic to it as there is to drinking. What 
 other fun can one have at this hour of the night? 
 
 " I have sometimes wondered," Riley continued, 
 growing morose, "where this is going to lead to. 
 I have been a newspaper man for five years now. If 
 I were a lawyer, a physician, a business man, I should 
 be settled by this time. In this business nothing is 
 
CHICAGO 109 
 
 settled beyond the fact that I will be here again to 
 morrow night and will be taking the same number of 
 drinks. I had ambitions to write once, but they 
 petered out. They peter out with most newspaper 
 men. The desire to drink is the only permanent thing 
 about the business. Nothing else is stable in it. ... 
 Perhaps in a big city, in Chicago or New York, it 
 might be different." 
 
 Witte asked about Chicago. Had Riley ever been 
 there? 
 
 Riley had never worked in Chicago. But every so 
 
 often a man would leave N to go to Chicago. In 
 
 the majority of cases the fellows came back and were 
 glad to get their old jobs again. In fact men from 
 Chicago were often glad to slip into a good job in a 
 
 smaller city, in N for instance. Rand was an 
 
 example. In Chicago he probably would have re 
 mained a copy reader all his life. Here he was city 
 editor; some day he might become managing edi 
 tor. 
 
 Emil Witte and Riley were standing at the bar in 
 Schroeder s, when two reporters of the Dispatch came 
 in. One of them ordered drinks for the crowd. 
 Witte had had one whisky, but having determined not 
 to make himself conspicuous, he poured out another. 
 When the bartender put the bottle before him for the 
 third time, Witte filled his glass without further hesi- 
 
no WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 tancy. It seemed to him that he was filling the glass 
 not for himself but for somebody else. . . . That 
 somebody else lifted the glass and drank to his, Witte s 
 health. . . . Witte experienced a peculiar sensation 
 in the front part of his head. His eyelids felt pain 
 fully heavy and sore. 
 
 One of the reporters began upbraiding Schroeder 
 for the goulash and pot roast which he fed them on 
 night after night. He suggested that they go to a 
 chop suey place and have " a regular feed." The rest 
 agreed. Emil heard what they were saying as if in 
 a dream. 
 
 Riley saw to it that Emil ate his chop suey. Several 
 times when Emil s hand rested on the table feeling too 
 heavy to hold the fork, Riley urged him on. Indis 
 tinctly Witte heard his name hurled back and forth in 
 the conversation. They were laughing, too, but it 
 was not at him they were laughing, but at somebody 
 else, who had been drinking whisky. Witte leered at 
 that somebody. He was going to banter him, too, 
 but his tongue refused to move. It felt as if it were 
 glued to the back of his throat. . . . 
 
 The company moved and Witte moved along with 
 them. Now he realized what an incumbrance that 
 somebody else, who had been drinking whisky, was 
 upon him. ... He was constantly stepping upon one 
 or the other of his feet. He was in his way at every 
 step. 
 
CHICAGO 1 1 1 
 
 A piano was banging, and men and women were 
 talking loudly, and laughing. ... A man in a white 
 coat and white apron was busying himself about 
 Witte s table, and in a few minutes there appeared a 
 bottle on it and glasses. Riley had suddenly disap 
 peared from his side. Witte saw him vaguely floating 
 about, talking to some people, men, women. ... A 
 girl at the neighboring table was smiling. . . . She 
 was motioning with her head in his direction. She was 
 calling him to come over, to sit near her. 
 
 He recognized her. ... It was Lena Rosen. . . . 
 Yes, Lena was sitting there at the table. Strange he 
 had not recognized her at once. . . . He must go up 
 and talk to her . . . yes, ask about home . . . that s 
 it, about home. . . . 
 
 He tried to lift himself from his chair, but some 
 thing in his throat was holding him back. . . . He 
 must cry out, he must call for help it was choking 
 him. 
 
 He took hold of a near-by chair, stood up and tried 
 to clear his throat. . . . 
 
 There was a shriek from several women and a 
 scampering in all directions. Two men in white coats 
 and white aprons took him under each arm and led him 
 away. . . . Riley and another reporter began busying 
 themselves about him, wiping his clothes. 
 
 " Take him outside, fresh air will do him good, * 
 some one suggested. Witte was led outside. The air 
 
112 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 cleared his head. . . . He realized what had taken 
 place. But he was too sick to think. 
 
 " You had better come with me to my room," said 
 Riley. " My landlady is wise. She will fix up your 
 clothes in the morning so they won t show a trace. . . . 
 Such things happen once in a while. ... I guess that 
 chop suey disagreed with you. It came too soon after 
 the drinks." 
 
 Witte s discomfiture of the night before, which was 
 of course told in every detail by Riley to the other 
 reporters on the Express, evoked a smile. 
 
 " It was not the drinks," Lindley, the city hall man, 
 bantered thz young reporter, " it was the music that 
 did you up. I always dislike the music at Righeimer s 
 myself." 
 
 Emil felt crushed. What a miserable game it was, 
 this trying to stand in with the fellows by drinking 
 at the expense of his self-respect, let alone his health. 
 What a disgusting business ! 
 
 Riley was right. It was the fault of N . It 
 
 was no place to be in. There was no atmosphere there. 
 He must go to a city where there were literary people 
 Avhere there was a field. He would leave the Ex 
 press at the end of the Week. 
 
 When Witte, the following afternoon, upon find 
 ing a favorable moment walked over to Rand and told 
 him that he would leave the Express at the close of 
 
CHICAGO 113 
 
 the week, the city editor lifted his eyes slowly, and 
 swinging back in his chair, merely said: " All right." 
 
 Before going out to dinner, however, Rand walked 
 over to Witte s desk. He was pressed for men, he 
 said. The Express had for some time been running 
 with a shorter staff than usual. If Witte stayed he 
 would raise his wages to fifteen dollars a week he 
 was getting twelve. 
 
 The Express was paying the highest salaries in town. 
 The Dispatch would not pay him more, the city editor 
 added. 
 
 Witte allayed Rand s suspicions on that score. He 
 was not going over to the Dispatch, he said, but was 
 leaving town. He was going to Chicago. 
 
 " Got a job there? " Rand, asked. " Friends in the 
 newspaper field? " 
 
 Witte admitted that he had no friends in Chicago 
 and not the slightest outlook for a position, but that 
 he wanted to be in a big city, was determined to be 
 there. 
 
 " You d better wait until you have more experience," 
 Rand counseled. " Chicago is hardly a place for a 
 beginner like yourself." 
 
 Witte made no answer to this, and Rand walked 
 out. 
 
 At midnight Saturday, as Witte was putting the 
 clippings of some of his stories in an envelope, Rand 
 walked over to the reporter. 
 
114 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 "When are you leaving?" he asked. 
 
 " In the morning." 
 
 " You are not wasting any time," Rand said, a thin 
 note of sarcasm in his voice. The next instant his 
 voice was serious again. 
 
 " Stick to that freak stuff, to feature writing," the 
 city editor cast a final, friendly warning. "You are 
 good at it. It will be this that will make you pro 
 vided, of course, you hit it right." 
 
 Witte thanked him for this kindly advice. 
 
 When the reporter had left the office, Rand, waking 
 from a momentary revery, remarked to the political 
 editor : " The boy will go far, he has character." 
 
 " Yes," Francis replied, " it is just like those quiet 
 foreigners " 
 
 "... And here is the bathroom. Everything is 
 nice and clean and I don t allow any rough people 
 here. This is not like them other places down the 
 street that takes in any one who comes along. ... I 
 am perticular and I don t allow any can rushing. 
 It is a fine room for the money. You won t get any 
 thing better for two dollars a week in the whole 
 city. . . ." 
 
 Witte had never been to Chicago except for passing 
 through it on his way from the old world to Spring 
 Water, thirteen years back. He had planned to stop 
 at a hotel for a few days until he had acquainted him- 
 
CHICAGO 115 
 
 self with the town. But there were nearly three col 
 umns of advertisements of rooms to rent on Van 
 Buren Street in the Chicago Sunday Star which he 
 bought on the train. One never could tell how long 
 one might have to wait for a job he had better be 
 sparing with his money. He would dispense with 
 hotels and take a room at once. He checked his suit 
 case in the station. The first policeman he met di 
 rected him to a Van Buren Street car. 
 
 The landlady, a rotund, middle-aged Irish matron 
 with a skin as fair as that of a young girl, was still 
 speaking in her not unpleasant brogue when Witte 
 handed her a week s rent. Would he take possession 
 of the room at once? He would. She went down 
 stairs to get him a key for the hall door. Witte moved 
 the only chair in the room to the window and drawing 
 aside the curtain sat looking out upon the street. 
 
 It was the middle. of November, but the day was 
 warm, almost summery. Witte had not eaten any 
 thing since breakfast and it was nearly four o clock. 
 A few doors from the rooming-house he found a res 
 taurant which was kept by an Italian. A solitary 
 waiter was dozing at a table. The deserted appear 
 ance of the place reminded him strongly that it was 
 Sunday, that every one was at home, with friends. 
 He thought of his parents, of Spring Water. . . . 
 While he was sipping his coffee he wrote a few lines 
 on a postcard to his father. 
 
n6 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 Evening found him exhausted and gloomy. On the 
 mantelpiece in his room lay several old magazines. 
 He picked one up and began to turn the pages. There 
 was writing in several places in a feminine hand. The 
 room must have been occupied last by a girl. Where 
 was the girl now? Did she go somewhere else to 
 room? Or had romance set her free from the hall 
 bedroom existence ? 
 
 He thought of Lena. He owed her a letter. But 
 he would not write until he got a job. He wondered 
 what she would think of the step he had taken, of his 
 going to Chicago. Of course she would know that he 
 
 had left N . She would learn it from his mother. 
 
 She was coming to their house often of late, his father 
 had written. 
 
 He closed his eyes and the room seemed suddenly 
 to fill with Lena s presence. ... He breathed the per 
 fume of her hair. She was coming nearer bending 
 over him He was asleep. 
 
 He was up at seven and by noon it seemed to him 
 that he had passed a long day. In spite of his de 
 cision not to look for a job until he had acquainted 
 himself with the city, he sought out the newspaper 
 offices the very first thing and noted carefully the ap 
 pearance of each building and the streets that led to 
 it. 
 
 There was a dryness in his throat. His chest pained 
 
CHICAGO 117 
 
 him from the smoke he had swallowed. There was 
 an incessant ringing in his ears. It seemed to him that 
 he would never get used to the noise and clatter of the 
 city, that he would never find himself in this maze of 
 elevated trains and street cars that were chasing each 
 other in endless streams. 
 
 The third morning there was a letter from his father. 
 In contrast to his own few lines, his father wrote at 
 length. It was a cheerful, encouraging letter. Aaron 
 
 Witte approved his son s course in leaving N . 
 
 He felt confident in his son s ability to make good in 
 the big city. " It may be difficult at first," he wrote, 
 " but then things worth while never come easy " 
 
 In spite of the cheerful tone of the letter Emil saw 
 between the lines that it was written with an aching 
 heart. His father and mother were uneasy about his 
 fortunes in the far-off, strange city. His departure 
 for Chicago had made the distance between himself 
 and his parents greater. At the close of the letter his 
 father sent him the address of a relative, a cousin of 
 Aaron s, a Mrs. Bloch, who lived in Chicago. He 
 urged Emil to go up and see her. Aaron and Re 
 becca, that was Mrs. Bloch s first name, had been al 
 most like sister and brother in their younger days. 
 
 In the afternoon of the same day the weather turned 
 colder. Emil walked into the reading-room of the 
 public library and found every seat taken by jobless, 
 
ii8 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 hungry men. Some read, others made a pretense of 
 reading, and in reality sought to snatch a few minutes 
 sleep without being caught at it by the attendant who 
 was on the alert to weed out all who were not bona 
 fide readers. 
 
 Emil consulted his map of Chicago and took a car 
 to the neighborhood where his father s cousin lived. 
 The conductor let him off at Morgan Street. He 
 found himself in the heart of Chicago s ghetto. On 
 every side were people of his race, talking the lan 
 guage in which his mother crooned him to sleep in 
 /his childhood, not stealthily and in hushed voices as 
 they spoke Yiddish in Spring Water, but with perfect 
 indifference, not feeling that they were making them 
 selves conspicuous. They were at home in the Chicago 
 ghetto almost as much as they had been in the Russian 
 Pale. 
 
 Absorption in the sights about him delayed Emil s 
 search for Mrs. Bloch. He finally hunted up the house. 
 It was a three-story building. A woman who emerged 
 from the dark hall, informed him that the Blochs lived 
 on the third floor, in front. He went up and rapped 
 at the door. 
 
 It was opened by a woman of fifty who had been 
 busying herself in the kitchen. 
 
 "Are you Mrs. Bloch Rebecca?" Witte asked 
 emphasizing the first name last. 
 
 " Yes," the woman answered, backing her way into 
 
CHICAGO 119 
 
 the parlor so as to be able to discern the visitor s face 
 better. 
 
 " I am Aaron s son Emil," he introduced him 
 self. He held out his hand. 
 
 But the woman did not take it. She gazed at his 
 face and seemed unable to find words. She finally 
 managed to speak : 
 
 " You are Emil, the little Emil Aaron s and 
 Masha s son ? " 
 
 Witte nodded stupidly. He was moved by the pe 
 culiar twitching of the muscles in the woman s face. 
 
 She took his hand and pulled him over to herself as 
 if he were a small boy, and kissed his cheeks. 
 
 " Why, child," she gasped, as her eyes filled with 
 a haze, " I raised you. I carried you in my arms as 
 an infant. But you don t remember me. I left for 
 America when you were only two years old." 
 
 She began to ply him with questions about his par 
 ents, tender, inmost questions. Emil felt ashamed for 
 having prized his relationship to this woman so little 
 but an hour before. 
 
 Mr. Bloch appeared to be of the same age as Emil s 
 father and had known Aaron Witte since boyhood. 
 He " knew " Emil in an instant. 
 
 " I could recognize him among thousands," he said, 
 not without pride in his own keenness. " Why, he is 
 the picture of Aaron." 
 
 The Blochs had two married children. The others, 
 
120 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 a boy of Emil s age and a girl of seventeen, were still 
 living with them. The boy, Sam, took an immediate 
 liking to his second cousin. 
 
 After the evening meal the Blochs insisted that Witte 
 go at once with Sam and move his things. They could 
 not permit Emil to stay with strangers. 
 
 On the way to the Van Buren Street rooming-house 
 Sam confided to Emil his ambitions. He was a cut 
 ter in a cloak shop. This was not a bad trade in itself, 
 better than his father s, who was a presser in a sweat 
 shop. But he was ambitious. He was taking up a 
 night course and would soon be a designer. 
 
 Mrs. Bloch and her husband meantime were dis 
 cussing Witte s occupation. The husband spoke of it 
 with high respect. His only regret was that Aaron s 
 boy, as he referred to Emil, did not write in Yiddish 
 so that he could read his articles. To have a writer 
 in the family was no small honor. 
 
 " And is the boy very learned? " Rebecca asked. 
 
 " Learned? " Mr. Bloch exclaimed. " Why the boy 
 is what might be compared to a great rabbi been 
 through a university! Only his learning, you under 
 stand, is different from that of a rabbi. It concerns 
 itself with other matters, worldly learning." 
 
 Mrs. Bloch listened to her husband and her heart 
 melted. 
 
 " What is there to marvel at? " Bloch said. " You 
 know what a head Aaron had on him. If it had not 
 
CHICAGO 121 
 
 been for his great love for Masha he would have been 
 a rabbi, one of the pillars of Israel now." 
 
 And then they talked of things more than a genera 
 tion old, until Witte, accompanied by Sam, who was 
 carrying his suitcase, came back. 
 
 Rebecca kept plying Emil with questions. She even 
 asked him to recount his ocean voyage. 
 
 "Foolish woman," her husband chided her good- 
 naturedly. "He did not come from the old world 
 yesterday. He has been here thirteen years. He must 
 have long forgotten his ocean voyage." 
 
 But Emil remembered his ocean voyage and de 
 scribed it minutely to Rebecca. He recalled a thou 
 sand things which he had never thought of in all the 
 years he had been in the new world. ... He took de 
 light in remembering these things. 
 
 He fell asleep quickly, and he dreamed of the little 
 town where he was born. He dreamed that his father 
 was going to America, and that he was sleeping in the 
 same bed with his father for the last time ; and Aaron 
 was kissing his head and face and was telling him that 
 he must learn well and must obey his mother, and that 
 he would quiz him on everything he had studied when 
 Emil came to him to America. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE ROAD TO NOWHERE 
 
 BY the afternoon the heavy snowfall had changed 
 into a blizzard. It was the first touch of real 
 winter Chicago had experienced that season, although 
 Christmas was only a week off. Witte gazed through 
 the windows of the Banner office at the gathering fury 
 of the snowstorm. 
 
 It was after four o clock. The regular news edition 
 of the paper had gone to press. In the sporting de 
 partment alone several men were still busy getting out 
 the final extra. Witte had been a week with the Ban 
 ner and was already familiar with the routine of an 
 afternoon newspaper. 
 
 " Any engagements to-night? " Benton, the city edi 
 tor, asked in passing. 
 
 Witte had no engagements. 
 
 " You might run over to the municipal lodging-house 
 this evening," Benton continued. " This is the first 
 cold spell. There is always a good story there on such 
 a night. The morning papers will have the news. 
 See if you cannot pick up a feature that will hold good 
 for the early editions to-morrow." 
 
 122 
 
THE ROAD TO NOWHERE 123 
 
 Benton was only thirty years old. He had been 
 married twice. His first wife died in childbirth. His 
 second wife was a chorus girl and he divorced her. 
 His temples were gray, in spite of the youthfulness of 
 his face. He had a peculiar sense for stories about 
 tragedy and misfortune. . . . 
 
 The young reporter was profoundly stirred by the 
 scene at the municipal lodging-house. Tottering, gray- 
 haired men, men in the prime of life, and boys, stood 
 in line and submitted to humiliating scrutiny. Name, 
 home address, where last employed, and why dis 
 charged, were written on a card and filed. When the 
 registration process was over each was given a tin cup 
 of coffee and a piece of bread. 
 
 Old age was stripped of all dignity here, manhood 
 commanded no respect, youth emanated no charm. 
 
 With sickening painfulness, Witte, for the first time, 
 became aware of the sinister power of circumstances. 
 It took but a single keen look to discern and separate 
 the few derelicts in the crowd from the honest, well- 
 intentioned working men, clerks and, here and there, 
 even a professional man. These men, Witte realized, 
 were men like himself, like his father, like his friends. 
 The difference between them lay solely in circum 
 stances. An adverse turn of the wheel and he, his 
 father, or his friends might be standing in the bread 
 line, answering humilating questions for the sake of 
 a cup of hot coffee and a shelter from the fury of 
 
124 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 the blizzard. . . . The helplessness of the individual 
 in modern society impressed itself upon him with stag 
 gering force. 
 
 As he stood there meditating, men continued to slink 
 into the building by two s and three s. Most of them 
 had no overcoats. They fought off the cold as best 
 they could by pinning the lapels of their coats tightly 
 across their breasts. Their hands bulging out of their 
 pockets disclosed chapped and bleeding wrists. Their 
 teeth chattered. Their drawn faces glistened from 
 cold. . . . 
 
 The immense pathos of the situation left Witte as 
 suddenly as it had come upon him. While his eyes 
 were still looking at the throng of homeless men, who 
 were now being piloted one by one to their cots, his 
 mind s eye was seeing another scene. He saw Christ 
 mas eve in the country, the bells " answering each 
 other in the mist " and ringing out the message 
 
 " Peace and Goodwill, Goodwill and Peace, 
 Peace and Goodwill, to all mankind." 
 
 These words kept ringing in his ear all the way to 
 his room on the north side. Still under the influence 
 of Tennyson s description of a country Christmas, he 
 began to write the story of the municipal lodging- 
 house. The story violated the first and, at the time, 
 most rigid newspaper rule. It did not tell the news 
 in the first paragraph. But it painted a vivid picture 
 
THE ROAD TO NOWHERE 125 
 
 of the lodging-house and its nightly occupants. It 
 told of the lad of eighteen who longed to be home for 
 Christmas. It told of an old man searching his 
 faded memory for the name of the town where a mar 
 ried daughter of his was supposed to be living. It told 
 of children who would receive no Christmas presents 
 from their daddies, because their daddies were 
 stranded, homeless and hungry, in Chicago. It told 
 of wives and mothers who would sit down to a cheer 
 less Christmas dinner, wondering where their loved 
 ones were. . . . 
 
 The story stayed on the first page of every edition 
 of the paper. 
 
 Some weeks later there was a strike in the stock 
 yards. Twelve thousand Polish and Lithuanian la 
 borers employed by one of the packing companies were 
 informed that their wages, already small, would be 
 reduced ten per cent., and they struck. The reporters 
 learned that the company had no intention of reducing 
 wages. But there were agitators at work among 
 these alien laborers, trying to organize them into a 
 union. To counteract the work of these agitators the 
 company precipitated the strike by announcing that it 
 proposed to reduce wages. 
 
 Witte reported this to the city editor, but Benton 
 listened with unmoved face. The newspapers, how 
 ever, were not unkind to the strikers. Because of the 
 cold weather there was a great deal of suffering 
 
126 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 among the foreigners and their families. This made 
 excellent material for pathetic stories. 
 
 Benton encouraged Witte to dive deep into the well 
 of misery in the " Back of the Yards " district, where 
 the strikers lived. 
 
 The Banner s well-to-do readers on the avenues read 
 these stories with a great deal of pleasure. There 
 was a tug at the heart in them. Letters praising the 
 Banner for its big-hearted, public-spirited reports of 
 the strike kept coming into the office and were con 
 spicuously printed in the paper. Neither the news 
 paper, which printed the pathetic stories, nor the read 
 ers who commended the paper for printing them, 
 thought, however, of interceding with the packing 
 company to end the strike and the misery it caused. 
 
 When the heads of the packing concern felt certain 
 that their employees were sufficiently in debt to have 
 more poignant worries on hand than organization, the 
 strike was promptly settled. The company issued a 
 statement saying, " While business conditions are such 
 as to warrant a ten per cent, cut in the wages of our 
 employees, the company has decided to take the bur 
 den entirely upon itself and will stand by its old sched 
 ule. The planned wage reduction is abandoned as a 
 matter of public policy and good citizenship. . . ." 
 
 The action of the company was highly praised edi 
 torially by some of the newspapers. It was held up 
 as an example of traditional American fairness. . . . 
 
THE ROAD TO NOWHERE 127 
 
 Day by day Chicago thus unfolded itself before 
 Witte, with its tragedies, absurdities and brutalities. 
 . . . The spirit that dominated the masses everywhere, 
 it appeared to him, was one of fear. Fear of the 
 job hovered over the thousands of department store 
 girls. It hovered over the white-collared clerk and 
 anaemic office worker. Fear was eating men like a 
 cancer. It was present on every festive occasion. It 
 was the guest of honor at every wedding. It sapped 
 all joy out of life. It hung like a cloud over child 
 hood. 
 
 Even more revolting than the fear that stalked over 
 the greater part of Chicago were the caste lines that 
 unconsciously divided the city. A caste psychology 
 had sprung up in the city, with caste customs and even 
 caste religion. 
 
 For miles and miles on the west, south and north 
 sides of the city stretched districts of a sort of corned- 
 beef-and-cabbage caste. The cheapest, most unwhole 
 some food was eaten here, the cheapest finery worn, 
 the cheapest amusements presented. 
 
 Yes, even the church was imperceptibly invaded by 
 caste lines and class spirit. The sermons preached to 
 laborers were of the old order of theology. The sta 
 ple virtues of obedience and patience were extolled. 
 The sermons addressed to working men at the be 
 ginning of the twentieth century savored strongly of 
 the spirit of the middle ages. On the other hand in 
 
128 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 the churches attended by men and women belonging 
 to Chicago s upper caste, the porterhouse caste, one 
 might call it, the " newer " theology was given full 
 sway. Here ministers preached on the higher hu 
 manities, on the elevating effects of science, on the re 
 fining influence of art. 
 
 Some of these upper caste preachers substituted 
 now and then a reading from Browning for a sermon. 
 Others even flirted with Nietzsche from the pulpit. 
 
 It occurred to Witte that these aspects of society 
 had not yet been treated artistically in America. 
 There had been no novel written about the hopeless 
 helots of modern industry. There was room for an 
 " Uncle Tom s Cabin " of industry. Why not write 
 it? 
 
 He began making plans for a book, a novel that 
 should portray the Great Fear the Fear for the Job 
 that hovered over the masses, that should depict 
 the caste lines that divide American society. He 
 would paint the helplessness of the modern factory 
 worker, the horror and despair of worklessness. He 
 would make these poor people so palpable that no one 
 would mistake them, that once seen they could not be 
 forgotten. 
 
 In the midst of these plans he was called by the 
 Morning Ledger. Witte welcomed this change, for 
 although it entailed more work, the new position meant 
 that he would have the mornings to himself. On the 
 
THE ROAD TO NOWHERE 129 
 
 Ledger he did not report for work until half-past one 
 in the afternoon. That, he thought, would give him 
 the time to write his novel. He would work on his 
 book mornings when his mind was fresh. 
 
 He carried his plans out for ten mornings in suc 
 cession and put down on paper five thousand words. 
 Then came a day when he was not feeling well. His 
 indisposition lasted for nearly a week. When he came 
 back to his book he felt that his thoughts were color 
 less and postponed writing for a few more days, 
 waiting for his ideas to clothe themselves in bright, 
 crisp phrases. But the crisp phrases refused to come. 
 He tore up page after page of his writing because it 
 was commonplace. 
 
 At the Reporters Club he confided his anxiety to 
 Sommers, a newspaper man older than himself by 
 three or four years. 
 
 " It cannot be done/ was Sommers ultimatum. 
 
 " I, too, tried to write," Sommers added gloomily, 
 " but did not get anywhere. The shop eats you up. 
 It takes whatever fire and originality you have out 
 of you. If you want to write, go into any other busi 
 ness but newspaper work, unless you can run a little 
 country paper that is different." 
 
 Witte liked Sommers. He liked the subdued man 
 ner of the Yankee, who was well read in Emerson. 
 Sommers was never snobbish and often appeared to 
 be pathetically lonely. He never swaggered, not even 
 
130 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 when he was drunk. In this respect he was the 
 antithesis of Pindell, another of Chicago s star re 
 porters. 
 
 Pindell was the life of the club. He would come 
 there about eleven in the morning, drink till one-thirty, 
 when he would go to the office to get his assignments 
 for the day. About four o clock he would be back, 
 sipping high-balls and holding forth to interested 
 listeners from among the reporters on the afternoon 
 papers, who by this time would begin to fill the modest 
 clubrooms. 
 
 Time and again a messenger would come with a call 
 from the city editor of his paper for Pindell. This 
 increased his prestige. There were few reporters in 
 Chicago who drank with the official sanction of their 
 bosses. Pindell was one of these rare few, because 
 no matter how drunk he was he would never let 
 a story, or even an important point in a story, 
 slip. 
 
 Pindell was holding forth. He had the physique 
 of a giant. There was a haughty and at the same time 
 keen look in his face, as if to say : "I can see through 
 you even if I am drunk." 
 
 He was telling a piquant story about a Magdalen he 
 had " picked up at Delmonte s." He had been bent on 
 finding out whether the girl had a soul. After the 
 sixth highball her soul came to the surface. She wept 
 on his shoulder and told him about a mother she had 
 
THE ROAD TO NOWHERE 131 
 
 not seen in five years, a mother who was haunting her 
 nights. And that was why she never could stay sober. 
 . . . He, Pindell, had not been inclined to believe 
 her at first. But her tears were so genuine, and she 
 spoke so circumspectly about her home and family, 
 at the same time refraining even in her drunkenness 
 from mentioning names or the town she came from, 
 that he was convinced she spoke the truth. 
 
 "If she were to commit suicide to-night, what a 
 fine story it would make/ Pindell reflected, a sad irony 
 playing about his drooping chin. " I ll wager I could 
 put her story on the first page of every newspaper in 
 the country to-morrow morning." 
 
 Sommers and Witte were sitting two tables distant 
 from the one occupied by Pindell and his band of 
 listeners. 
 
 " It is this," said Sommers, " that makes me so 
 weary of newspaper life. Look at Pindell gifted, 
 brilliant. Yet what is there for him here? Forty 
 dollars a week, affairs with Magdalens and drink. As 
 long as his constitution holds out he is holding his job 
 and is perhaps having some fun in life, though I am 
 not so sure about that the Great Fear haunts him; 
 he holds his job only from week to week. Should he 
 break down, as he must, he will join the great number 
 of former newspaper satellites in this town who once 
 held forth exactly as he does now, and who to-day are 
 glad to hang on to some insignificant job on a paper 
 
132 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 and eke out enough to pay for their board, room and 
 medicine." 
 
 " There was a time," he continued, pronouncing his 
 words slowly, " when newspaper work led somewhere. 
 To-day newspaper work leads to nothing but drink. 
 It is the road to nowhere. It no longer even lays 
 claim to art. It has been too much commercialized for 
 that. The newspaper writing of to-day is as removed 
 from artistic work as tombstone cutting is from sculp 
 ture. Newspaper work crushes art, crushes idealism. 
 It unfits a man for sustained work because it makes him 
 too cynical to make sacrifices. Drink is about the 
 only relief the genius of the profession has. That is 
 why our best writers drink themselves to death. 
 Every newspaper office is a graveyard of shattered 
 illusions." 
 
 Sommers grew morose as he spoke, a mood of his 
 with which Witte was familiar. He stared vacantly 
 for some moments, then added dreamily : 
 
 " Some of these days I shall take the road. I shall 
 go to the country, to some small town. I want a home 
 there with a patch of ground back of it and a lawn and 
 flower bed in front. And I want a wife in that home 
 who would never even suspect all that I know, all that 
 I have seen of life, a wife who goes to bed at ten and 
 rises at seven, who does not take her dinners out/ 
 who does not know how to sign waiters checks, who 
 goes to church and kneels in prayer and feels better 
 
THE ROAD TO NOWHERE 133 
 
 for having done so I am sick of the city. . . . Sick 
 of its painted women and wise landladies and smirk 
 ing waiters " 
 
 Sommers rose to go to the office. Witte remained 
 alone and was pondering over the latter s words and 
 over his book, plans for which were becoming more 
 and more tangled and complex. It was his day off 
 and he could sit at the club as long as he liked. He 
 rang for the waiter. . . . 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE NEW YEAR 
 
 THE outburst on the part of Sommers was not 
 new to Witte. Other newspaper men com 
 plained about their profession fully as vehemently. 
 They called the occupation of a newspaper writer a 
 blind alley, fretted and vowed they would get away 
 from it at the first opportunity that offered itself. 
 
 " It is part of the newspaper man s life," a middle- 
 aged copy reader once remarked to Witte, with a 
 crooked little laugh, " to assail his profession, to dream 
 of a farm or a country paper. I bought a half dozen 
 acres once myself and ran a chicken farm for a while. 
 I was going to enjoy nature and the quiet life; to go 
 to bed with the stars and rise with the sun. After 
 some months it began to pall on me. In less than a 
 year I was in Chicago again, working for twenty-five 
 dollars a week on the copy desk of a morning paper 
 and renewing my acquaintances with the bartenders 
 along the row. The work calls, and the call is 
 strong. . . ." 
 
 The atmosphere of the club had become dense with 
 smoke. Emil climbed half a flight of stairs to the 
 
 134 
 
THE NEW YEAR 135 
 
 sidewalk. It was a warm September night. He 
 swung aboard a street car going to an amusement park 
 at the edge of the city. 
 
 In the overcrowded car young couples were eyeing 
 each other hungrily. Here and there a youth had his 
 arm about a girl s shoulders or waist. Everything 
 in the car breathed the atmosphere of love and desire. 
 Emil thought of Lena. 
 
 He had not written to her for six months. And 
 what pains he had gone through to refrain from writ 
 ing ! To Lena he was already a made man, a success. 
 She could not conceive of a writer on the Chicago 
 Ledger as otherwise than big and successful. Her 
 last letters to him were full of tenderness. There 
 was unbounded confidence in them for Witte, faith in 
 his ability, and tender expectancy. ... In excited 
 moments Lena pictured Emil as her knight, who would 
 come and carry her off with him to the big city and 
 introduce her to its turbulent and fascinating life. 
 She asked him much about his life in Chicago, the 
 " Bohemian life of the writer/ as she once phrased 
 it. 
 
 And how Emil would have liked to be that knight ! 
 How he would have liked to come, take Lena away 
 with him, away from everybody, and have her all to 
 himself, to talk to her, to confide in her. . . . 
 
 But what was the use! He was a twenty-dollar-a- 
 week reporter. His daily bread depended upon a 
 
136 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 thousand whims. The city editor was the arbiter of 
 his fortune. And what a fickle arbiter he was! A 
 little better story by a rival, a scoop by another paper, 
 and off came the reporter s head. Clearly, under such 
 circumstances, with so unsteady a job, a man could not 
 think of marriage, could not think of settling down. 
 
 In such moods Witte would cast about for a place 
 with some permanency in it. He wrote to several 
 weeklies in the East. A good literary weekly would 
 give him an opportunity to show his ability, he mused. 
 There would be a chance on such a weekly to do some 
 thing in the way of literary criticism that would attract 
 attention. ... In the meantime, however, he would 
 wait While waiting for the job with a future, with 
 permanency, Witte refrained from writing to Lena. 
 
 He slept ill that night. When he awoke it seemed 
 to him that the fragrance of Lena s hair filled the 
 room. . . . He recalled that he had not been home 
 for more than a year. At the first opportunity he 
 would take a few days off and would visit his parents. 
 He would speak to the city editor about it at once. 
 He would go home within two weeks. 
 
 The thought braced him. He began to dress 
 briskly. He stepped out into the hall and looked over 
 the mail. There was a letter for him from his father, 
 but it was bulkier than usual. It contained a New 
 Year s card. That very evening the Hebrew New 
 Year (Rosh Hashonoh) would be ushered in. 
 
THE NEW YEAR 137 
 
 In his letter Aaron expressed his and Masha s regret 
 that Emil could not be with them on this holy day. 
 The other children would be there, Clara, her husband 
 and their children, his brother Harry and his family. 
 There was a mute appeal in the letter for Witte to come 
 home. With the appeal, however, went a pathetic 
 note of resignation, as if Aaron knew that his wish 
 could not be granted. 
 
 The Hebrew felicitations on the New Year s card 
 brought back to Emil his childhood in the old world 
 and the awe which the New Year then inspired. He 
 had long since outlived that awe. Darwin, Spencer, 
 Georg Brandes had played havoc with the faith of 
 his fathers. 
 
 Rosh Hashonoh, however, had its human side, and 
 that appealed to Emil. In the Synagogue (there was 
 a synagogue in Spring Water by this time) all the 
 people he knew would be gathered that evening and 
 the following morning. . . . Lena would be there 
 An instant decision flashed through his brain. He 
 packed his bag and hastily made for the office. 
 
 The city editor wondered what brought him down 
 so early. Had he a morning assignment ? No. But 
 he had an urgent call to come home. 
 
 " Sickness," Witte stammered, as he perceived the 
 dubious look in the city editor s face. He got the 
 desired two days leave. 
 
 The Witte family was sitting about the table upon 
 
138 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 which towered a five-branched candlestick. Aaron 
 addressed himself constantly to one or to the other of 
 his children. He looked especially after his little 
 grandchildren. Clara had two boys, and Harry a 
 girl and a boy. One of Clara s boys bore a close re 
 semblance to his brother Simeon, and Aaron occupied 
 himself with this grandson constantly. . . . 
 
 Clara mentioned Emil s name. She wondered 
 where he was at that hour and whether he was work 
 ing on the holy day. For an answer Aaron tugged 
 at his mustache. Masha slunk back into the kitchen 
 and stealthily wiped away a tear. 
 
 The conversation at the table was becoming ani 
 mated. Alex was making jokes at the expense of 
 Harry s wife, Hanna. A lively repartee arose be 
 tween them. It was brought to a halt by a knock at 
 the door. Before Masha had time to rise from her 
 chair, the door flew open, and Emil stood before 
 them. 
 
 Had Emil been the sole survivor of a ship that had 
 gone down in midocean he could not have been given 
 a more pathetic welcome. Masha clasped her arms 
 about him and again and again kissed his face. Aaron 
 himself was nigh unto tears. 
 
 The evening meal lasted until nearly ten o clock. 
 Not in years had the Witte home seen such a delight 
 ful evening. Masha was all excitement and happi 
 ness. Aaron sat listening to the happy chatter of his 
 
THE NEW YEAR 139 
 
 children with beaming face. Alex was the leader in 
 the conversation. As a former Chicagoan he ques 
 tioned Emil about a thousand different things and 
 places. 
 
 Then came the news of Spring Water : Clara was 
 telling that. Emil listened to a lot of irrelevant things, 
 while his mind was searching for something else. 
 Clara turned on him suddenly. 
 
 Had he heard that Lena Rosen was going to be 
 married? And to whom? He could not guess in a 
 thousand years. The girl was engaged to the middle- 
 aged Mr. Bobrick, the owner of a department store in 
 a neighboring town. It was, of course, Mrs. Rosen s 
 doings. Bobrick was worth close to half a million 
 dollars. Poor Lena was simply a puppet in her moth 
 er s hands. 
 
 As Clara was speaking about Lena, Masha watched 
 Emil s face from which all cheerfulness had fled. Her 
 son s evident pain communicated itself to the mother s 
 heart. ... In spite of the fact that Emil had never 
 confided his feelings toward Lena to any one, his 
 mother knew what these feelings were. She had 
 guessed them from the visits which Lena had been 
 making to the Witte home, the suppressed eagerness 
 with which the girl inquired about Emil 
 
 With the news of Lena s engagement Emil s visit 
 to Spring Water seemed to have lost all meaning. He 
 wished himself on the train again, and in Chicago. 
 
140 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 Instead, however, he took the candle from his mother s 
 hand and went upstairs 
 
 His room was unchanged, as if it had been waiting 
 for him all this time. The books were standing in 
 the bookcases precisely as he had left them. On a 
 shelf lay bundles of compositions and themes the 
 themes which had first awakened in him the desire to 
 write. 
 
 He stood for some time looking over the books and 
 tablets, trying to decipher here and there his own 
 notes, to read his own writing. A strange loneliness 
 came over him, and a feeling of futility. Of what 
 use was all this studying and hard work? Why had 
 he wasted his youth poring over books? Was it only 
 to be unfitted to gain the sweetest prize in life 
 Lena? He had no bitterness against the girl. Had 
 she not given him ample evidence of love? It was 
 he who ceased writing to her because he did not feel 
 equal to the task of settling down, because of his job, 
 which was like shifting sand, because of the work for 
 which he had been fitted by these books and study 
 work that is unsettled and uncertain. 
 
 He sat down at the edge of the bed and surren 
 dered himself to torturing thoughts. Everything 
 ahead of him seemed hazy. What was the meaning 
 of his struggles and hardships? Lena would never 
 be his 
 
 He groaned. 
 
THE NEW YEAR 1411 
 
 His mother s footsteps he had no difficulty in 
 recognizing them became audible. Masha walked 
 in and sat down beside him on the bed. He did not 
 stir from his place. He could not bring himself to 
 utter a word. It was his mother who plied him with 
 questions : 
 
 Was his room comfortable in the city? Were his 
 meals regular? And was he sure that night work 
 was not injuring his health? Ah, those American 
 customs whoever heard of people working at night 
 instead of in the daytime! 
 
 She went over to more serious and intimate ques 
 tions. Had he already attained the things he aimed 
 at? Was he secure in his place now? Would he 
 be able to settle down soon She would so like to 
 see him settled. It was time. Harry had married 
 when he was several years younger than he. All of 
 his schoolmates were now married. Several of them 
 had babies 
 
 Mrs. Witte stopped in her questions and waited for 
 an answer. But no answer came. Emil sat there 
 pressing the palms of his hands against his face. 
 Anxiety seized her. Was he ill? She leaned over 
 closer to the bent form of her son and perceived the 
 suppressed heaving of his shoulders. Emil wept 
 
 He saw Lena in the Synagogue the next morning, 
 but had no opportunity to speak to her until after the 
 
142 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 services. She was hemmed in between Mrs. Rosen 
 and a man in the forties, who had at least sixty pounds 
 of excess flesh on his body. The man was evidently 
 very warm and was constantly wiping his red apo- 
 pletic neck and forehead with a handkerchief. It was 
 Lena s fiance, Mr. Bobrick. 
 
 They met near the door and the first word Lena 
 spoke to Emil was to ask him to come over that after 
 noon. It was plain that this was foremost in her 
 mind. She had hardly finished her sentence when 
 Mrs. Rosen was at her side with Mr. Bobrick. Mrs. 
 Rosen greeted Emil with seeming cordiality, but her 
 eyes were not friendly. Lena did not introduce her 
 fiance to Emil, and in fact avoided looking in his di 
 rection. Mrs. Rosen at once introduced Bobrick to 
 Emil with that lack of formality toward the latter 
 which might have made her Emil s aunt. 
 
 Witte paid no attention to Mrs. Rosen and quickly 
 surveyed Mr. Bobrick. The department store owner 
 had a good-natured and apologetic smile. It was evi 
 dent that he was aware of his shortcomings. He spoke 
 English not only with an accent, but ungrammati 
 cally. As Lena s older brother, or uncle, he would 
 have been in place. As her lover, her fiance he was 
 a travesty. 
 
 Witte was too much absorbed in his study of the 
 man for words. Bobrick, on the other hand, did not 
 know how to start a conversation with the young 
 
THE NEW YEAR 1143 
 
 man, who had the advantage over him in refinement 
 and ease of manners. . . . Mrs. Rosen put an end to 
 the embarrassment of her intended son-in-law by bid 
 ding Emil good day and starting off, flanked by Lena 
 on one side and by Mr. Bobrick on the other. 
 
 Witte was astonished to find Lena so unhappy. He 
 had never believed that her smiling eyes could acquire 
 such a crushed, lifeless look in them. Her face was 
 thin, and altogether she looked as if she had been 
 through a severe illness. 
 
 On the way home Emil acquainted his father with 
 his own plans and problems : The road which he had 
 chosen, the road to a literary career, was no easy one. 
 It was a life of uncertainty. There was no likeli 
 hood of his being in a position to settle down for a 
 good while, for years perhaps. Aaron listened to 
 everything his son said without answering. There 
 was nothing he could say. Here was a case where 
 he was powerless to help his child. His heart was 
 bleeding. . . . 
 
 Emil did not go to the Rosens in the afternoon. 
 Now more than ever he could not alter the situation. 
 If it were madness six months back to propose to Lena 
 to marry him on twenty dollars a week, it would be 
 greater madness now to put his trifling, unstable in 
 come as a newspaper man against the department store 
 owner, Bobrick. 
 
 The following afternoon he took a train to Chicago. 
 
144 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 He arrived at midnight and went straight to the Re 
 porters Club. The men from the morning papers 
 were straggling in one by one. He pushed a button. 
 
 "A Swiss cheese sandwich and a glass of beer," 
 Witte ordered, without lifting his face from the table. 
 
 "Yes, sir," the waiter answered, and eyed him 
 queerly. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 A DROWNING WORLD 
 
 NOW that he could no longer think of Lena in 
 terms of endearment, night became a torment 
 to him. How fill out the hour between going to bed 
 and actual falling asleep without thinking of his awful 
 loss? 
 
 Mrs. Bloch, whom he visited on his first day off, 
 found that he looked bad and began showering Witte 
 with solicitous questions about his health. Assured 
 that there was nothing the matter with him, she in 
 sisted that there must be something wrong with his 
 room. Anyway, why should he live so far away from 
 them? She knew a young couple who had a splendid 
 room to rent. He would feel at home there and it was 
 only around the corner from them. 
 
 The caressing, motherly talk of Mrs. Bloch acted 
 like a balm. In her presence he felt as if he were 
 nearer to his home, to his parents. He went to look 
 at the room she recommended. It was a splendid 
 room. The people were friendly. There was no 
 boarding-house atmosphere about it. The newness of 
 the furniture, the freshness of the linen and curtains 
 soothed his aching nerves. He took it. 
 
146 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 When he told Sommers a few days later that he was 
 now living in the ghetto, the latter grew enthusiastic. 
 
 " It is a great idea/ he said. " There is lots of 
 atmosphere there real information. I always main 
 tained that the trouble with us newspaper men is that 
 we are such infernal snobs. We do not mingle with 
 the masses. That may seem paradoxical, but it is 
 true. We do not live among the people. We asso 
 ciate only with each other in narrow cliques or cir 
 cles. Working nights we never get a chance to take 
 out a girl a decent girl, I mean. We do not even 
 drink with the people. We have a few joints we 
 patronize. The people we meet are detached, home 
 less individuals, with weary souls and a cynical out 
 look upon life." 
 
 Sommers rang for the waiter and continued : 
 
 " With all our reform movements, with all our spas 
 modic interest in the people, we have not said a new 
 thing about the masses in years. The New York Sun 
 prints a story about people on the East Side using 
 their bath tubs for coal bins, and every city editor in 
 Chicago demands from his reporters just such stories, 
 regardless of truth. We are not sent out to study 
 the people, but to get a story. If the paper wants a 
 sob story, we must sob, and if the paper wants a mock 
 story, we mock the people. 
 
 " The same trouble/ Sommers continued, " extends 
 to the greater part of our present-day literature. We 
 
A DROWNING WORLD 147 
 
 seldom paint real people. Most of our present-day 
 stories seem made to order, manufactured." 
 
 On a dull Sunday afternoon the following spring, 
 Witte, while waiting for an assignment, sat down at 
 his typewriter and wrote a column story. He had 
 conceived the idea for the story the previous evening. 
 As he was walking home through the tenement streets 
 shortly before midnight, he was confronted with a 
 strange picture. The streets were deserted, dead. 
 Every tenement hallway, however, framed the bodies 
 of a boy and a girl. Screened by the veil of night, 
 the children of the poor, in locked embraces and with 
 passionate kisses, were dreaming love s ever-young 
 dream. 
 
 Whimsically Witte wrote over the top page of the 
 story the title, " Lovers Lanes of the Tenements," and 
 laid the manuscript on the city editor s desk. He was 
 called a few minutes later. 
 
 " There is no news angle to the story/ the editor 
 said, "and I cannot use it in the Ledger. But why 
 don t you take it to Mr. Manning, the Sunday editor of 
 the Star? He buys stories. This is just the sort of 
 stuff he wants." 
 
 The following afternoon Witte stood in the private 
 office of the Sunday editor of the Star. Near a table 
 strewn with manuscripts sat a man of forty, his feet, 
 body and shoulders humped together in the chair. 
 
148 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 Without changing his position the man looked up and 
 asked, "What is it?" 
 
 For an instant Emil thought that perhaps he had 
 made a mistake, and the individual in the chair was 
 not the Star s Sunday editor. He had heard Man 
 ning spoken of with a kind of awe by newspaper men. 
 He recalled, however, stories that were circulated 
 about Manning s eccentricities as well as his genius, 
 and decided that he must be in the presence of the 
 famous editor. He handed him the manuscript. 
 
 Manning glanced at the heading, ate his eyes 
 into the first page, turned it over and glanced at the 
 second page, third, and tossed the story upon a heap 
 of manuscripts to one side of the table; the entire 
 process taking less than a minute. 
 
 " I ll use it," he said, casting a rapid glance at the 
 man before him and reaching out for another manu 
 script. During all this performance he had not 
 changed his position in the chair in the slightest. 
 
 Witte stood motionless. He was delighted. He 
 wanted to say something, to talk to Manning. But the 
 Sunday editor seemed oblivious of the fact that a man 
 was standing in front of him. His eyes were on the 
 manuscript into which he was jabbing his pencil. 
 Witte slipped out of the room. His " Good day " had 
 not been answered. 
 
 He submitted stories regularly to Manning there 
 after. 
 
A DROWNING WORLD 149 
 
 " Working any place? " Manning turned upon him 
 once as he laid down a manuscript. 
 
 " Yes, on the Ledger," Witte responded. 
 
 On another occasion Manning spoke to him some 
 what longer. 
 
 One morning Witte found a note from Manning, 
 asking him to corrte and see him. 
 
 " Would you like to go to work for us ? " the edi 
 tor asked, ignoring Witte s " Good morning." 
 
 And before Witte had framed an answer he began 
 inquiring about his education, experience, the books 
 he read. He did not ask about his nationality. But 
 he asked how old he was when he came to America. 
 
 " Ten years," said Witte. 
 
 " You must be having a pretty vivid recollection of 
 the old world then," Manning presumed. 
 
 Without waiting for an answer from Witte the edi 
 tor began to dilate on the subject of Witte s job with 
 the Sunday Star and its opportunities. 
 
 "Our work here is different," Manning said. 
 "You are pretty much your own boss. You will be 
 required to give about eight hours a day to the paper. 
 The rest of the time you can use at your own discre 
 tion. There are no definite hours for work. You 
 can come and go as you please." 
 
 The editor took it for granted that Witte had am 
 bitions to become a magazine writer. He could see 
 this, he said, by his stuff. It was not of course per- 
 
150 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 feet writing Witte was turning in. It was in fact 
 far from being up to the standard of the Sunday Star. 
 But he, Manning, knew that Witte could come up to 
 the standard. That is why he was hiring him. As 
 for Witte, this was his golden opportunity. Work on 
 a Sunday paper was leading directly into the maga 
 zines. It would give him a style and would open up 
 vast stores of material for him. 
 
 Saying this, Manning smiled. It was the first time 
 Witte had seen him smile. It was a whole-souled 
 smile like that of a child. Witte felt that Manning 
 was a man to trust. He could not conceive of his tak 
 ing advantage of one. 
 
 The Sunday editor then casually brought up the 
 question of salary. How much was Witte getting? 
 Twenty a week? Manning supposed as much. 
 Witte was not in his present state worth more than 
 twenty dollars a week to the Sunday Star. However, 
 in order to make it worth while, financially, for him to 
 leave the Ledger, he would give him $22.50. 
 
 Emil accepted the wage without further argument, 
 much to the surprise of the editor, who expected to 
 pay him at least thirty dollars a week, and who put 
 forth the $22.50 figure merely as " a feeler." 
 
 " Sit down," said Manning when Witte presented 
 himself for work the following Monday. 
 
 The Sunday editor paced up and down his little 
 room several times as if looking for something. As 
 
A DROWNING WORLD 151 
 
 he did so Witte observed the man. He was of medium 
 height, sparely built, and with a slight stoop. His 
 clothes, while of good material, were baggy. The 
 top of one of his shoes was cracked and they looked 
 as if they had not been polished in weeks. As Man 
 ning seated himself in his chair Witte finished his men 
 tal portrait of the man. He had a strangely built 
 forehead. It was wide and roomy, and all the time 
 Witte looked at him he could not escape the feeling 
 that the head was much too large for Manning s frail 
 body. The editor s eyes were roving, but thought 
 was concentrated in them continuously. . . . The 
 mouth had an indifferent, sarcastic droop. . . . 
 
 Manning ran his fingers through the pages of a 
 little magazine. It was a Socialist weekly. 
 
 " An editorial here," he jabbed his scissors in the 
 booklet and clipped the editorial, "takes the writers 
 of to-day to task. Tons of paper, says this editorial, 
 are devoted by American newspapers every Sunday 
 to descriptions of the homes of the rich, to dinners 
 given to monkeys, to pictures of society ladies and 
 their cats and dogs. The newspapers, the writer 
 further charges, scour the capitals of Europe for a 
 bit of gossip about royalty. But they have not a word 
 to say about our tenement homes, about our millions 
 of submerged men, women and children, about our 
 slums. 
 
 " * A world is drowning in tears/ " Manning con- 
 
152 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 eluded, reading the last two lines of the editorial ver 
 batim, " and the American press is blind to it. It has 
 no eyes for the despair and suffering of our own 
 masses! " 
 
 The editor gazed into space for some moments then 
 turned to Witte: 
 
 " I want you to go out and find this drowning 
 world for us, for the Sunday Star. Find for me 
 the submerged the Socialist writer speaks of, find them 
 individually. Go out and talk with the old man out 
 of a job, with the widow who bends over the washtub, 
 and write their stories. Whenever possible get their 
 pictures. We will print these stories and pictures 
 in the Sunday Star. Some of this suffering of which 
 the Socialist writer complains may be needless. It 
 may be alleviated. But whether it can be alleviated 
 or not we want to know about it, the Sunday Star 
 .wants to know it, its readers ought to know it." 
 
 After a brief silence Manning continued: 
 
 " You can write anything you like provided it is 
 interesting. We will print anything provided it is 
 true. Be sure of your facts and keep opinions, your 
 opinions, other men s opinions, out of the story. I 
 don t care for what you think, I care for what you 
 
 see." 
 
 Another brief silence and the editor went on : 
 " If there are any mothers in this town who have 
 no milk for their babies, find them. If there are chil- 
 
A DROWNING WORLD 153 
 
 dren who do not go to school because they have no 
 shoes or clothing or because they have to work to 
 help support the family, find them. Tell the public 
 about them, but just tell don t make the mistake 
 which the Socialist writer of this editorial makes, 
 which all Socialists make, don t scold. Don t preach. 
 Don t try to get into an argument. Just paint a pic 
 ture and leave it there. Preaching is nothing it is 
 not taken seriously, in the first place, and is soon for 
 gotten in the next. A picture, if it is well done, burns 
 itself into the brain. The reader will never forget 
 it. It is more effective than all the oratory in the 
 world. It is the best propaganda. 
 
 " You are a Socialist " Manning began again 
 with a faint, ironic twinge of his lips. An uneasy 
 look appeared in Witte s eyes. 
 
 " I am not worrying about your political convic 
 tions/ the editor said hurriedly, as if fearing that 
 Witte might make some impolitic reply. " The Star 
 does not pry into the opinions of its employees. You 
 can be a Socialist anything, so long as you keep 
 your wits about you. If you take orders and carry 
 them out satisfactorily, your private views are no con 
 cern to the paper." 
 
 Growing confidential Manning added with the kind 
 of smile which made his face fairly childlike in its sin 
 cerity : 
 
 " I am a static. When you have been in newspaper 
 
154 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 work as long as I, you will become a static, too 
 However, this is not what I meant to say 
 
 " The Star is a big newspaper it is an institution 
 in Chicago. It is not out, of course, to gain recruits 
 for Socialism, but it does want to know the truth. 
 It must know the truth and must tell it to its readers. 
 If people are starving in this city we want to know it. 
 Ignorance is far more dangerous than truth. It is 
 more dangerous than Socialism/ 
 
 Manning checked himself. Apparently he had 
 talked more freely than he was wont to talk to report 
 ers. In a dry, matter-of-fact voice, he added: 
 
 " Look into the Back of the Yards district first. 
 There are fifty thousand people, foreigners, living 
 there. Sinclair got his Jungle out of that district; 
 see if you cannot get a page story with pictures for 
 Sunday." 
 
 With this he dismissed the reporter for the day. 
 
 The stories of " the other half " which now ap 
 peared regularly in the pages of the Sunday Star pro 
 voked wide comment. Richly gowned ladies drove 
 their limousines through tenement lanes or stopped in 
 front of shacks, and searching out the families who 
 were mentioned in the Star as being in distress, helped 
 them with money and clothes. Here and there a 
 widow was given easier work, a crippled old man was 
 taken as a gardener into the country by a gentleman 
 of Chicago s upper set. 
 
A DROWNING WORLD 155 
 
 The Star made the most of these occurrences and 
 never missed the opportunity of calling attention to 
 its " humanity," to boast of its " social service," and to 
 advertise its kindness. 
 
 "Letters to the editor," came in large numbers. 
 During the first few weeks Manning showed some of 
 these letters to Witte and encouraged him to keep on 
 getting just such stories. 
 
 Then for months and months there apparently came 
 not a single letter in praise of these articles. This 
 was all the stranger since Witte had had during that 
 time several strongly pathetic stories in the paper. 
 
 Witte remarked about this to Norton, the man sit 
 ting at the desk next to his. Norton had been with 
 the Sunday Star for three years. He was friendly to 
 Witte. 
 
 " Oh, yes," said Norton, looking somewhat dubi 
 ously at the reporter beside him, as if to say: " Are 
 you really such a simpleton, or do you merely pre 
 tend?" 
 
 But Witte was not pretending and Norton went 
 on: 
 
 " Letters are coming in all right. But Manning 
 does not want to show you these letters." 
 
 "Why not?" asked Witte. 
 
 Norton laughed indulgently. 
 
 " Don t you see," he said, " that if he keeps on 
 showing you these letters, showing you how your 
 
156 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 stories take with the people, you might ask for a raise 
 in wages? And getting a raise on the Star, and es 
 pecially from Manning, is as difficult a matter as for 
 some of our captains of industry to enter the kingdom 
 of heaven." 
 
 Norton knew whereof he was speaking. He was 
 a man of thirty and had broken engagements three 
 times because of the utter impossibility of squeezing 
 a raise from his employers at the time he needed the 
 raise. 
 
 Witte began to notice a change in the Sunday edi 
 tor s demeanor toward him. Manning would give 
 him a look in passing which chilled him to the bone. 
 After such a look he felt that he would be called into 
 the office the next minute and dismissed. 
 
 He wondered what might have offended the Sun 
 day editor. But nowhere could he find an explanation. 
 He confided his embarrassment to Norton. The latter 
 laughed. 
 
 " Oh, well," he said, " that is just a pose of Man 
 ning s. There is an object in it, however. He likes to 
 take a man down, so to speak, once in a while, to make 
 him feel that he is nothing, insignificant, that his serv 
 ices are of a most ordinary kind and can be dispensed 
 with at any minute." 
 
 Spring came. Manning dropped a remark that this 
 was a good time for stories about children. Witte 
 wrote a story about the deadliest block in Chicago 
 
A DROWNING WORLD 157 
 
 the block where the death rate among children was the 
 highest in the city during the summer months. He 
 laid the story on the editor s table and went back to 
 his desk. 
 
 He was called a few moments later. 
 
 " You are libeling a whole district," Manning ex 
 ploded. " No one but the health commissioner can 
 make such charges. You are damning a whole com 
 munity." 
 
 The story had in fact been based upon figures of 
 the health department. The statements in it were com 
 paratively mild. There was no libel in it. 
 
 Witte knew these things and was going to say so 
 to the editor. But he changed his mind. It could 
 not have escaped Manning s eye that the story was 
 quoting a prominent official of the health department. 
 He waited, expecting to get the story back with in 
 structions as to its rewriting. But Manning did not 
 return the story to him. He laid it to one side. 
 
 Later in the afternoon Witte and Norton met in a 
 near-by barroom. 
 
 Witte narrated the outburst of the Sunday editor. 
 
 " You d better be on your guard," Norton warned. 
 " There is trouble ahead for you. In fact there is 
 trouble ahead for Manning, too." Witte looked up, 
 uneasy. 
 
 " I have it from a reliable source," Norton con 
 tinued, "that some of the directors of the paper are 
 
158 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 displeased with your stories. You understand, of 
 course, that they permit Manning to run these stories 
 solely because there is good circulation in them. They 
 don t care a rap about their humanity. But some of 
 the directors feel that your stories are dangerous. 
 You see too deep. One of them called you an an 
 archist. Manning has been getting some hard knocks 
 on account of you. His whole policy of stirring up 
 the beast, as one of the directors referred to the work 
 ing people at a recent meeting, for the sake of circula 
 tion, is looked upon with disfavor." 
 r " Is Manning merely using my stuff as a cat spaw 
 for circulation ? " Witte asked. 
 
 Norton reflected for some moments. 
 
 " Not solely," he answered. " Manning is a re 
 markable man and a great editor. He thinks that 
 this sort of writing, writing about the masses and their 
 problems, is the coming phase in American journal 
 ism,, and he wants to pioneer in that sort of writing 
 it will go to his credit as an editor. Besides he is 
 peculiar in certain respects. He is as tender as a child 
 in some ways. He really feels for the poor. He likes 
 to read about their troubles, to show their troubles. 
 It is human interest/ you know." 
 
 " Do you think I had better look for another job 
 am I slated to go? " Witte asked. 
 . " I would not say that," Norton added thoughtfully. 
 "Manning usually stands by the man he hires. Be- 
 
A DROWNING WORLD 159 
 
 sides in this case he is convinced that he is right. He 
 told a number of people that he considers your writing 
 among the most vital stuff in the paper. They are 
 putting the screws on him and he will probably put the 
 screws on you. But he will not let you go. Anyway, 
 wait and see what happens." 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 MARRIAGE 
 
 THE article, under the heading " The Deadliest 
 Block in Chicago/ appeared in the Sunday Star 
 just as Witte had written it. Apparently things had 
 blown over. 
 
 .One Saturday afternoon the Sunday editor called 
 Witte into his office. Only one or two men sat abouT 
 their desks. The majority of the staff had gone 
 home. 
 
 " Sit down," Manning said, and proceeded to make 
 himself comfortable in his own chair, a process which 
 consisted of twisting and bending his limbs until he 
 assumed a position not unlike that assumed by Ma- 
 homedans when they sit down to pray. 
 
 " What have you on your mind for the coming 
 week?" he asked. 
 
 Witte suggested a number of ideas for articles. 
 
 "Those are all good stories," the editor said. 
 " Keep them for later. There is something else I 
 want you to do now. How many foreign nationali 
 ties are there in Chicago/ 
 
 " Twenty, possibly more." 
 
 160 
 
MARRIAGE 161 
 
 Manning pondered. Then spoke rapidly : 
 
 " No two persons on this earth are alike. Still there 
 are certain distinct characteristics common to the men 
 and especially to the women of each nation. Suppose 
 you go out and discover what the distinguishing char 
 acteristics of the women, of the girls, of each of the 
 twenty nationalities that live in Chicago are. Write 
 a story about the women of each nation. Get a pic 
 ture to go with the story. I don t want catalogues 
 of their virtues, or the measurement of their figures, 
 as a tailor would give them to you. I want good, 
 readable, human interest stories with nice pictures for 
 illustrations. Drop everything else and go on this 
 series at once. I want the first of these stories in 
 three days. 
 
 " You can go right on getting the economic stuff 
 into your stories/ Manning added after some reflec 
 tion. " It is interesting. But make your economic 
 stuff less conspicuous. Got plenty of feature in the 
 foreground. End your story with feature and sand 
 wich your economics in between." 
 
 Witte told Norton the substance of his conversation 
 with the Sunday editor. 
 
 " I guess things have blown over/ Norton said. 
 "The directors may kick, but they have a great deal 
 of respect for Manning. He is fearless and he has 
 the brains. He is the best Sunday editor in the coun 
 try, and they know it." 
 
162 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 The series presented even better opportunities for 
 interesting writing than Witte at first supposed. 
 Every person has a story to tell that is interesting and 
 often absorbing. The life of the immigrant, and es 
 pecially of the immigrant woman, of the girl, can be 
 relied upon to furnish plenty of thrills and pathos and 
 romance. 
 
 Thus in the Lithuanian colony, on Canalport Ave 
 nue, Witte found two sisters who were working in a 
 picture- frame factory. One was earning five dollars 
 a week, the other four. The younger one spoke fairly 
 understandable English. Both sisters had not been 
 over three years in the United States. The girls were 
 cultured and refined. In their home town in Lithuania 
 they were considered " advanced." They read and 
 talked about women s rights. But the town was lone 
 some. There was no outlet for their energies. They 
 longed for work, experience. So they came to Amer 
 ica, to Chicago. They hoped to find every woman in 
 Chicago talking of women s rights and advancement. 
 The picture-frame factory soon disillusioned them. 
 The Lithuanian women who worked in the stock 
 yards, pasting labels, or doing something similar, knew 
 nothing of women s emancipation. They were too 
 tired to think. 
 
 And not only was this the case with the Lithuanian 
 women. All women in the circles in which these two 
 
MARRIAGE 163 
 
 sisters moved if circles they can be called were 
 working in factories. They were intensely interested 
 in cheap things, in common things, like a ribbon for 
 the hair, or a little trinket for the neck. They were in 
 dead earnest about these things because their earnings 
 were small, because they always lacked one or the 
 other of these trinkets. And the lack of these made 
 such a difference. One had to sit in the house a whole 
 Sunday sometimes because a waist gave way in the 
 washing or because one s stockings tore unexpectedly 
 and there was not a quarter to get a new pair. 
 
 " And if you marry it is even worse," one of the 
 girls told Witte, " for you add to your life of want 
 and privation beatings from a drunken husband." 
 
 "A Girl s Dream of Chicago," Witte headed the 
 article. 
 
 " You will hear from it," said Norton, perusing the 
 story in proof. 
 
 Witte did hear from the story from an unex 
 pected source. He had had the pictures of ,the girls 
 taken at a photographer s in the neighborhood. The 
 day after the story appeared he went in to see the pho 
 tographer, but did not find him in. He started to 
 go, when the latter s assistant, a girl whom Witte al 
 ways found at the retouching stand, called after him. 
 In a few minutes her employer would be in, she said. 
 
 He was gazing at the pictures in the showcases when 
 
164 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 the girl walked over to where he stood. She asked: 
 
 " Have you read any Russian books Russian lit 
 erature?" 
 
 He answered in the affirmative, mentioning several 
 Russian authors he had read. 
 
 The girl nodded as if in answer to herself. 
 
 " But why do you ask? " 
 
 " I supposed you must have read," she said, " or you 
 could not have written the story^ about the Lithuanian 
 girls the way you did." 
 
 " Did you like my story ? " 
 
 The girl looked up at him and Witte was astounded 
 not to have noticed her eyes at once. They were 
 large and liquid. A world of sympathy and suffering 
 lay in them. 
 
 " It made me homesick," she said. . " Especially 
 that part of the story where you describe the peasant 
 girls in Lithuania returning home from the fields in 
 the evening, singing their songs. It was so true and 
 lifelike. Were you born in the old world?" 
 
 " I was." 
 
 "In Russia?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Oh, I see," said the girl, and a faint flush came 
 into her face. " I never suspected that you, too, were 
 an immigrant." 
 
 A brief silence followed. Witte was observing his 
 admiring critic. She was beautiful, but subdued. Ap- 
 
MARRIAGE 165 
 
 parently there was no one to notice her, to fuss over 
 her. 
 
 On the window near her retouching stand lay a 
 book. He walked over and opened it. It was Dau- 
 det s " Letters from My Mill." 
 
 " You like Daudet? " he asked. 
 
 "Very much," she said; "his stories read like 
 poetry." 
 
 " And you like poetry ? 
 
 "Don t you?" she smiled. 
 
 Witte now visited the studio frequently. Two or 
 three times he took the assistant Miss Helen Brod 
 k ( shortened from the Russian Brodsky), to lunch. 
 Once they went to an amusement park. 
 
 One rainy afternoon he found Miss Brod all alone 
 in the studio. The photographer, Mr. Altman, had 
 gone downtown for supplies. Miss Brod was reclin 
 ing on a settee in the waiting-room. In her lap lay 
 a letter. The envelope was foreign looking. Her 
 lashes showed faint traces of weeping. 
 
 " From home ? " he asked. 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 "Who writes, your mother?" 
 
 "Mother, Father both." 
 
 Witte sat in a chair at one side of the settee. 
 
 " Have you any brothers, sisters ? " 
 
 "Yes, one sister. 
 
 " And does she write to you? " 
 
166 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 A cloud spread over the girl s face. In her eyes 
 a mist gathered and the words came strained and sub 
 dued: 
 
 " She writes rarely." 
 
 Witte was not certain whether the girl resented his 
 intrusion into her private affairs. There was no anger 
 or annoyance in her voice, only a quiet pain. 
 
 " Why doesn t she write often to an only sister ? 
 I should think she would write often," he pursued. 
 
 Miss Brod took a deep breath. 
 
 " You see she cannot. She is in Siberia. . . ." 
 
 The girl was going to break out in tears, but she 
 regained her composure. Seeing Witte apparently 
 waiting for the rest of the story she told it simply, 
 briefly. 
 
 In her parents absence from home her older sister 
 on one occasion turned over the house to the revolu 
 tionary circle to which she belonged for a meeting. 
 The police trapped them and arrested every one in the 
 house, including herself, who was then only fourteen. 
 Her sister, as the hostess, was charged with being 
 the ringleader of the group and was exiled to Siberia 
 for an indefinite period. The others were given sen 
 tences in prison. 
 
 Because of her youth she was released, but not until 
 her father had stripped himself of half his fortune 
 to bribe officials. And after her release she was kept 
 under police surveillance for a year. At the end of 
 
MARRIAGE 167 
 
 that time her father decided that one daughter in 
 Siberia was enough, and he sent her, Helen, to Amer 
 ica to stay with an aunt. For the past seven years, 
 she added, her father had been trying to secure the 
 return of his daughter from Siberia. As soon as her 
 sister was released if she ever were released they 
 would all join her in America. 
 
 Mr. Altman stayed away the rest of the afternoon. 
 Witte had no particular reason for hurrying to the 
 office, so he and Miss Brod exchanged memories of 
 the old world. His memories were vague and child 
 ish, her s sharp and tragic. ... He told her of his 
 uncle, Simeon Witkowski, and described the latter s 
 stay in Spring Water. 
 
 " Witkowski, Simeon Witkowski," Miss Brod re 
 peated, trying to recollect something. She ran into 
 the next room and returned a moment later with a 
 much worn revolutionary pamphlet, which she ap 
 parently had read a great many times. Witte could 
 not make out the title or the name of the author it 
 was in Russian. But the little brochure was prefaced 
 with a picture of his father s brother, of the dead 
 Simeon. 
 
 Twice he said good-by to her, but did not leave. 
 Altman had called up to say that he would not come 
 back to the studio until closing time eight o clock. 
 Meantime Miss Brod was to go to supper. 
 
168 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 Emil rose for the third time. The girl followed 
 him to the door. He turned the knob, swung around 
 and extended his hand to her. She took it. 
 
 " Good night" 
 
 " Good night," she answered softly. 
 
 Her voice seemed tinged with a faint regret. It 
 occurred to him that she would spend a lonely even 
 ing. 
 
 He was still holding her hand. She suddenly be 
 came conscious of it and flushed. He felt awkward. 
 His jaws trembled and a choking feeling rose in his 
 throat. . . . He released her hand. In the next in 
 stant he had his arm over her shoulder and was press 
 ing her close to his breast. His face was buried in 
 her hair. . . . 
 
 They went down into the street together. A block 
 away there was a small Bohemian sort of restaurant 
 Witte patronized when in the neighborhood. He went 
 in there with Miss Brod and sat at a table. The proprie 
 tor of the place came up and ordered from the head 
 waiter a new tablecloth. He brought them water him 
 self in sparkling glasses. He kept nodding to the girl 
 and speaking to Witte about the weather in a manner 
 indicating that he penetrated their secret. His de 
 meanor seemed to say : " I congratulate you, I am 
 very glad to see you engaged. You are a splendid 
 couple." 
 
MARRIAGE 169 
 
 And Witte accepted the wordless congratulation 
 with the aggressive air of a man who has just carried 
 off a great prize and is proud of his achievement. 
 Miss Brod hung on to every word and motion of her 
 master of less than half an hour with touching exalta 
 tion and devotion 
 
 . . . The question of his earnings which had so un 
 nerved him the year before now ceased to trouble 
 him. .Walking one evening through a scented ter 
 race in Jackson Park, they made up their budget. It 
 coincided exactly with his salary. The following 
 evening they looked at some light housekeeping rooms 
 advertised in the papers. They found two rooms that 
 exactly suited their needs. Helen was fascinated with 
 them. For one thing both rooms looked out on the 
 street and had sunshine all day long. There was a 
 small bedroom. Of the large room a part was screened 
 off for a kitchen. The rest was to be a sitting-room 
 by day and Emil s workroom in the evening. 
 
 Emil emphasized the word workroom. For he 
 meant to settle down to real work. He would either 
 start working on his book or else he would try to write 
 articles for the magazines. 
 
 Helen had not been staying with her aunt for the 
 better part of a year. Her relatives sought to impose 
 upon her conventions which the young rebel did not 
 approve. The setting of the date for their wedding 
 
170 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 was therefore entirely a matter for her and Emil to 
 settle. 
 
 " Let us make it Friday," said Witte. " Friday is 
 an easy day at the office." 
 
 Emil and Helen had agreed to keep their marriage 
 from the office as much as possible. He was not 
 afraid, or anything of that sort. But a newspaper 
 office, he felt, was a place which concerned itself little 
 with the family side of the men or women employed. 
 At most his marriage would be looked upon with curi 
 osity. He would, therefore, for the time being not 
 tell any one about it. He would not even ask Man 
 ning for a day off. They would get married Friday. 
 Saturday was a half-holiday, and Sunday they would 
 have the entire day to themselves. . . . There was no 
 use dragging the happiest moments of their life out 
 into the cold, unfeeling atmosphere of a newspaper 
 office. . . . 
 
 They were together every evening during that week, 
 planning their future or drinking each other in mutely, 
 passionately 
 
 Friday morning Emil came to Helen s room. She 
 had been waiting for him, attired in a new dress she 
 had made for the occasion. Emil explained that he 
 was late because he had had an expressman take his 
 trunk to their home. The expressman would be 
 there directly to take her trunk too. 
 
 When Helen s trunk had left and Emil, through the 
 
MARRIAGE 171 
 
 window, was watching the expressman load it on his 
 wagon, the girl made a survey of her little room which 
 she was about to leave, and a sigh escaped her. She 
 was taking farewell of her girlhood. She was 
 slightly awed before her future, before the step she 
 was taking. If her parents were only there to say 
 an approving word, to give her a consoling look. . . . 
 
 Emil kissed her out of her reveries. On the street 
 car, however, they came back to her. She was hum 
 ming something to herself, and a mist gathered in her 
 eyes, 
 
 "What is it?" he asked, referring to the song she 
 was humming. 
 
 " An old Yiddish song," she answered. " I heard 
 it on the ship when I was coming to America. I only 
 remember one stanza of it." 
 
 " Hum it," he begged. 
 
 She half sang, half recited it, in a whisper: 
 
 " In a strange land, 
 Among strange people, 
 Who will bless us 
 On our wedding day?" 
 
 She grew silent. Emil thought of her parents in 
 the old world and of his own parents in Spring 
 Water. 
 
 " It is kind of lonesome to get married all by your 
 self," he remarked reflectively. 
 
 As if these words had snapped the last cord which 
 
172 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 was holding her overwrought emotions together, 
 Helen now lost all control of herself. The tears be 
 gan to course down her cheeks. Several people in the 
 car noticed this, and were looking curiously from 
 Helen to Emil. . . . 
 
 He helped her out of the car. They were down 
 town. The bustle and noise of the street, the matter- 
 of-factness of the day in the life of the city, broke 
 the spell. She regained her composure. They 
 walked a half dozen blocks to the City Hall, and half 
 an hour later they emerged into the street, husband 
 and wife. 
 
 They ate their lunch at a near-by restaurant, and 
 Emil put Helen on a car. He was to come as soon 
 as he could get away from the office to their rooms. 
 She was to wait for him there at their home 
 
 On his desk lay a clipping from Figaro. It was an 
 article by Marcel Prevost on feminine fashions. 
 
 At the top of the article, scrawled in pencil, was a 
 note from Manning that he wanted it translated at 
 once. Witte opened his desk and went to work. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE COVENANT 
 
 THERE came a series of delightful weeks. The 
 bareness of existence had disappeared and life 
 assumed meaning. When he closed his desk after a 
 day s work, the thought that he was going home, to 
 his wife, thrilled Witte. To hear Helen busying her 
 self behind the screen with their dinner was ecstasy. 
 But the greatest joy of all was the evening. 
 
 Emil never thought life had the capacity for so 
 much happiness as he experienced. For hours they 
 would sit at the foot of Lake Michigan, leaning 
 against each other, the warmth of their bodies in 
 toxicating them Wells of poetry were springing 
 up in his heart. Ideas were twittering through his 
 brain. Thoughts flowered in a thousand colors 
 
 If he could but transfer these thoughts and feelings 
 and dreams to paper, he mused, what wonderful writ 
 ing that would make. By the time, however, they 
 had returned to their rooms, languor invariably got the 
 best of him and he would abandon himself to the en 
 raptured delights of the senses 
 
 The letters from his father became frequent. His 
 
 173 
 
174 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 mother Aaron always ascribed all tenderness for 
 Emil to his wife his mother was pining to see him 
 and their daughter-in-law. Could they not come 
 out for a single week? 
 
 Emil postponed the visit to his home in every letter. 
 The reason for the postponement was the one thing 
 that was beginning to cloud his happiness. It was a 
 question of money. He needed at least forty dollars 
 to make the trip. The most he could get together was 
 twenty. He had hoped to save the other fifteen from 
 their expenses, but there were so many things their 
 young household needed that at the end of each week 
 he would find just enough left of his salary to last him 
 until Monday, which was pay day on the Star. 
 
 His parents, however, became so insistent that he 
 could not postpone the visit any longer. He bor 
 rowed fifteen dollars from Norton, and a beautiful 
 morning in September found him and his young wife 
 on the train, speeding toward Spring Water. 
 
 When Helen freed herself from Mrs. Witte s em 
 brace she felt that she would love this woman as her 
 own mother. Her vague fear of her mother-in-law, 
 a fear which she did not quite admit to herself, let 
 alone to Emil, was allayed. Mrs. Witte had but love 
 and adoration for her daughter-in-law and melted at 
 the sight of her. 
 
 It was a happy week and, as is characteristic of 
 happy events, it passed exceedingly swiftly. As Emil 
 
THE COVENANT 175 
 
 and his wife were bidding good-by to his parents, he 
 noticed that every leavetaking from his family was 
 becoming sadder, more difficult. His parents were 
 growing not only older, but poorer. His father could 
 no longer work as he used to. One could never tell 
 when such a leavetaking would prove final for one of 
 them 
 
 He mused over these things in the gathering dusk 
 while the train was tearing its way toward Chicago. 
 Every few minutes the grayish blackness of the night 
 was pierced by a light from a farmhouse. There was 
 a serene atmosphere about each of these places. Here 
 and there a farmer was seen walking toward the barn 
 to take a last look about the place before retiring for 
 the night. 
 
 They passed village after village without stopping. 
 
 On the railway platform in each of these places 
 there invariably stood a few young fellows, looking 
 curiously at the speeding train, trying to get a glimpse 
 of the people in the coaches people who were hurry 
 ing at mad speed to Chicago at a time when they, the 
 villagers, were preparing to yield themselves up to the 
 silent powers of sleep 
 
 Helen watched Emil with growing anxiety. He 
 had not spoken the greater part of the journey. His 
 face was grave and full of thought. She had never 
 seen him look so worried before. 
 
 Emil did not notice his wife s anxious looks. He 
 
176 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 was still meditating over the fact that his parents were 
 fast sailing into the twilight of life. . . . Mentally 
 he had long ago constituted himself the staff and sup 
 port of his parents in old age. Now he saw old age 
 and poverty making heavy inroads in their lives 
 and he was powerless to help them. . . . Financially 
 he was still unsettled. His job was not any more cer 
 tain now than it was before he was married. When 
 he got back to the office in the morning he would have 
 to face Norton from whom he borrowed the fifteen 
 dollars for the journey. 
 
 The train was now cutting through row after row 
 of tenement houses. They were in Chicago once 
 more. With a feeling of guilt Witte woke out of 
 his reveries and turned his thinned, lengthened face 
 toward his wife with a smile. As if to make up for 
 his neglect, he caressed her hand until the train pulled 
 in under the glass roof of the railway station. 
 
 When the fact of Emil s marriage became known 
 in the office the typewriters ceased to click for fully 
 fifteen minutes and the staff discussed its youngest 
 member. 
 
 Some considered his marriage an act of youthful 
 inexperience which would prove costly. Others, es 
 pecially the girls in the office, thought it was a show 
 ing of character. Apparently Witte had confidence in 
 himself. 
 
THE COVENANT 177 
 
 One day Manning called him into his private office. 
 
 " I hear you are married," he said. 
 
 Witte acknowledged the fact. 
 
 The Sunday editor fingered a newspaper clipping 
 for some moments. 
 
 " Fixed up a flat? " he asked. 
 
 " No," said Witte dryly. " We have a couple of 
 furnished rooms." 
 
 " I suppose you don t want to tie yourself down with 
 a flat." 
 
 " Partly that," said Witte, blushing. For some 
 time past he had been thinking of asking Manning for 
 a raise. He now wondered whether the Sunday edi 
 tor would say something about a raise himself. Man 
 ning quickly changed his tone of voice. 
 
 " Have you ever tried to write for the magazines? " 
 he asked. " You ought to be getting a lot of good 
 material in connection with your work here. The 
 magazines ought to like your stuff. . . ." 
 
 With considerable satisfaction Witte that same 
 afternoon told Norton that the Sunday editor had en 
 couraged him to try the magazines. The latter 
 laughed, a weary sort of laugh. 
 
 " So he is trying the same trick on you ? " 
 
 Witte looked puzzled. 
 
 " Well, it is a compliment, anyway," Norton con 
 tinued. " It shows that you are worth a lot more 
 money than you are getting, and Manning is beginning 
 
178 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 to be afraid you might strike him for a raise. This 
 talk about writing for magazines is an old gag of his. 
 He keeps his men working here for twenty or twenty- 
 five dollars a week. When you come to him for a 
 raise he makes an honest-to-God face and tells you that 
 he positively cannot raise you, but that it would be 
 foolish for you to quit, because the Sunday Star gives 
 you such splendid opportunities to get into magazine 
 work. And we poor fools fall for the flattery." 
 
 Witte stared vacantly. 
 
 " How long have you been with the Star?. " Norton 
 asked. 
 
 "A year." 
 
 Norton hesitated for some moments whether to say 
 what was on his mind or not. Finally he spoke. 
 
 " You should have got a raise by this time. If 
 you were single to-day and came and asked for it he 
 would give it to you. I don t think he will now. 
 You are married. A married man has a home and 
 loves it. He won t throw up his job so quick. The 
 Star knows it, and takes advantage of it." 
 
 " Is it that bad? " Witte asked. " I thought Man 
 ning was a man of fine sensibilities." 
 
 " Oh, yes," Norton made a wry face. " He has 
 worlds of sympathy. That accounts for his success 
 as an editor. But his sympathy does not extend to 
 the Star s employees. He has the heart of a saint 
 in the paper. But it is as hard as flint when it comes 
 
THE COVENANT 179 
 
 to meddling with the Star s payroll. The payroll, my 
 boy, is the most sacred thing on the Star. Manning 
 will shed tears for famine sufferers in China. He will 
 speak in ringing tones for earthquake sufferers in Italy. 
 He will pour into the Star the finest sentiments about 
 the persecuted Jews in Russia. Yes, he will even gush 
 over with compassion for the poor tenement children 
 of Chicago. And he is genuine in his compassion. 
 But all this does not touch the Star s payroll. On 
 the contrary, it increases circulation. But when it 
 comes to raising a reporter s wages, Manning listens 
 to his master s voice, to the counting-room. The only 
 way anyone gets a raise out the Star is by the use of 
 the blackjack figuratively, of course. Take the 
 paper by the throat when it needs you most, threaten 
 to quit then, and you will get a raise, not other 
 wise 
 
 " I do not mean to impute that Manning is a hypo 
 crite." Norton added hastily. " That he is not. I 
 have known him to write a check for a hundred dollars 
 and give it to a reporter to go home and bury his dead 
 mother. But business is another thing. One of the 
 prime requisites of an editor on the Star is that he 
 keep the payroll down. If Manning did not live up to 
 this rule he could not keep his job. He must sweat the 
 employees of the Star f for the stockholders of the Star 
 need the money." 
 
 Witte had no appetite at dinner and sulked the 
 
i8o WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 greater part of the evening. Helen s perplexed look 
 and mute appeal to explain his sullenness finally wrung 
 an explanation from him. He told her the substance 
 of his conversation with Norton. 
 
 She paled and bit her lips. After a while she said : 
 
 " I have known such things to happen in shops 
 in sweatshops. Manufacturers often take advantage 
 of a man who is married. But on a newspaper : do 
 they employ the same methods there ? " 
 
 Emil was silent. 
 
 Winter was coming on. Helen needed a suit and 
 shoes. He needed an overcoat. They had no winter 
 underclothes. How would they stretch his salary of 
 $22.50 to meet all these needs? 
 
 Helen was about to suggest that she might supple 
 ment his earnings by going back to her work, but re 
 frained from doing so for fear of offending her hus 
 band. Emil had definite views on the question of 
 women working after marriage which he elucidated 
 to her once in the course of a conversation. He was 
 not averse to married women working. In fact he 
 approved of it in theory. But, he had said, he 
 could not escape the sentiment that he would feel 
 humiliated if his wife went to work. A man, he felt, 
 should be able to take care of his family. Out of 
 regard for his feelings in the matter Helen avoided the 
 suggestion of seeking employment. 
 
 On the way to the office the next day his courage 
 
THE COVENANT 181 
 
 rose. He would go in and see Manning at once about 
 a raise. 
 
 Manning had hardly seated himself at his desk when 
 Witte entered and laid his request for an increase in 
 salary before him. 
 
 " Perhaps at a later time/ said Manning, " not 
 now, I cannot raise salaries now." 
 
 Witte reminded him that he had worked for the 
 Star for a year, that he had never missed an assign 
 ment. 
 
 Manning was unmoved. 
 
 " If I had worked in a grocery store that long," 
 Witte said, his blood mounting to his face, " my salary 
 would have been raised after that length of satisfac 
 tory service." 
 
 Manning looked up at him and even more emphati 
 cally than before repeated that he would not raise his 
 salary. 
 
 Witte became very pale and walked out. He did 
 not quit 
 
 When Helen saw her husband s face she became 
 frightened. He told her of his unsuccessful interview 
 with Manning, adding with suppressed fury: 
 
 " I would have quit if we were not married." 
 
 He was sorry he had said these words. Only after 
 having spoken them did he realize their significance. 
 Helen was in the midst of serving dinner. As he said 
 this her hands fell limply to her sides and her cheeks 
 
182 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 became very pale. She went behind the screen noise 
 lessly, and only with great effort did she manage to get 
 everything on the table and in its place. 
 
 She sat nibbling her food as if she were a stranger 
 in the house, a waif picked up and fed by a kindly 
 man. She did not look at Emil. She could not lift 
 her eyes to him. 
 
 He wanted to take back his words, but did not know 
 how. He was nigh unto tears at the sight of how 
 deeply he had hurt her. He made a pretense at eating. 
 Helen waited until he began to sip his coffee, then she 
 slipped away. Emil did not lift up his eyes. 
 
 She did not return to the table and he could not 
 hear her behind the screen. He stepped into the bed 
 room. She was lying on the bed, sobbing as if her 
 heart would break. . . . 
 
 He gathered her quivering form in his arms and 
 covered her with kisses. Muttering under his breath 
 he begged her forgiveness. She must forgive him, 
 she must not be angry with him. He could not endure 
 to see her angry. ... He had not meant it. Her love 
 was worth a thousand careers to him ... He would 
 get out of the business entirely. There were a 
 thousand things a man could do besides writing for 
 newspapers. . . . 
 
 Helen finally composed herself sufficiently to speak. 
 
 She was not angry with him how could she be ? 
 She realized even better than he how he had felt that 
 
THE COVENANT 183 
 
 evening. And what he said about being married was 
 not out of the way. It was true. Married men were 
 taken advantage of. She knew that long ago. She 
 knew it even more now. They were taken advantage 
 of even on a newspaper, on the Star. The same prin 
 ciple apparently operated there as in the sweatshops. 
 Squeeze all you can out of a man for as little as you 
 can. That was the hypocritical attitude of present- 
 day society. Encourage marriage on paper, in editor 
 ials, in the pulpit, and discourage it in the pay envelope. 
 She had nothing to forgive. On the contrary, she 
 sympathized with him all the more. She realized his 
 difficulties, his predicaments. . . . 
 
 She nestled close to him in silence. Then she sat 
 upright and by the pale stream of light which came 
 from the next room she looked into his face. That 
 look made Emil feel strange, almost fearful. 
 
 "Listen, Emil," she began. "Life would not be 
 worth two cents to me if you failed in your ambition. 
 But you cannot fail. Your parents have always had 
 confidence in you. I have more confidence in you 
 than they. And I tell you, you shall go ahead, you 
 shall reach your goal. I shan t be in your way " 
 
 A sickly look spread over his face. She understood 
 the meaning of it. Putting her hand to his mouth, to 
 prevent his speaking, she went on feverishly: 
 
 " Listen, I shall not leave you. I could not do that. 
 I could not give you up. But I am not going to hinder 
 
184 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 you in your work. I shall not be a drain upon 
 you ... I can earn my own living . . . and shall 
 earn it. ... There is no reproach in that. ... Go 
 right ahead with your plans. . . . Forget that you are 
 married . . . remember only that you are loved. . . . 
 
 " In Russia," Helen went on after some moments, 
 " lovers, husbands and wives are clinched in a deadly 
 grip with autocracy . . . Now and then the autocracy 
 gets the upper hand, and the husband is torn from his 
 wife, the lover from his sweetheart, and is sent to 
 prison, to Siberia, to death. ... It is not that bad in 
 America. We don t have to separate for long. . . . 
 But don t be afraid to leave me when duty calls, when 
 your ideal, your career demands it. ... Don t be 
 afraid to leave me. I can take care of myself. ..." 
 
 Her flood of words was halted for some moments 
 by the kisses which Emil was showering on her face, 
 lips and neck. But she finally tore herself away from 
 his embrace and continued : 
 
 " I want you to treat me as a comrade I will not 
 be a millstone about your neck. If you had a man as 
 your dearest friend, that friendship would not prevent 
 you from going on with your work. Love for your 
 parents does not prevent you from leaving them when 
 your career calls. Treat me as you treat your parents. 
 I demand it of you. It is a covenant I am making 
 with you. I shall not be a burden upon you. I shall 
 not be in your way. . . ." 
 
THE COVENANT 185 
 
 Emil was half listening to her words. ... He was 
 just discovering in Helen s face a depth of character 
 and idealism that went beyond even his most extrava 
 gant dreams and expectations. 
 
 " It is a covenant I am making with you," she kept 
 murmuring. 
 
 " A covenant, a covenant." 
 
 He tried to still her lips with kisses 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 WAR ON THE UNBORN 
 
 THE next day Emil took stock. If he were to 
 leave the Star he could probably get a job with 
 another paper in Chicago. But there was little to be 
 gained. It might perhaps raise his wages to twenty- 
 five dollars a week. But he would lose a good deal 
 of freedom. He would have less time to himself. 
 The wiser and better policy was to stay on the Star 
 until he produced something. He would lie low until 
 his wings became stronger. 
 
 He began to live by the clock. He systematized his 
 time and plunged into work. When he came home in 
 the evening dinner was on the table. Half an hour 
 was devoted to the meal. An hour was then spent in a 
 chat with his wife and in glancing through the evening 
 papers. Eight o clock found him at a little improvised 
 desk, straining the keys of a much worn typewriter. 
 
 He worked until eleven o clock night after night. 
 While he was writing Helen would sit in the bedroom 
 and read. She noticed on the first evening of this new 
 arrangement that her presence in the workroom was 
 embarrassing to Emil and she stayed away thereafter. 
 
 Through the half-open door, however, she would 
 
 186 
 
WAR ON THE UNBORN 187 
 
 often watch him bent over the machine, absorbed ap 
 parently in the search of an idea, a word or a phrase. 
 There were times when exhaustion was written in all 
 his motions. He was tired. At such times Helen 
 felt like slipping up to him, twining her arms about his 
 neck and putting an end to his labors. But she re 
 frained from doing so. Emil, on the other hand, 
 stuck to his work as a matter of principle. Even poor 
 work, he would often say, is better than no work, and 
 that it was more practical to rewrite a thing than to 
 sit and wait for an inspiration to come. 
 
 At the end of two months he had a story finished. 
 The fact of having accomplished something, of having 
 written something besides his routine work, cheered 
 him and urged him on to further endeavor. He 
 mailed the story to a magazine and at once proceeded 
 to work on an article. 
 
 The material for the article proved more unyielding. 
 He had to take off a number of evenings to verify cer 
 tain facts. On other evenings he went to the library 
 to read up on the subject. In the midst of these labors 
 his first story was returned from New York with a 
 printed rejection slip from the editors of the magazine. 
 ,Witte promptly rewrote the first page, which had been 
 slightly soiled in handling, and sent the story on to 
 another magazine. He would not be daunted by a 
 refusal. He knew that there was no royal road to 
 literary success. . . . 
 
.188 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 His work on the paper was now getting more 
 troublesome. Manning was exercising a sort of un 
 official censorship over his stories. He objected 
 frequently to certain ideas proposed by Witte. Nor 
 ton was telling him that the Sunday editor was in dis 
 favor with some of the stockholders of the paper. 
 There was even a rumor that he might be forced 
 out. Certain " tory " directors insisted on his dis 
 missal. 
 
 Engrossed in his work and preoccupied with these 
 stories, Witte had for some days paid scant attention 
 to Helen. As he returned home one evening he found 
 her sitting in a chair, crouched together as if in pain. 
 Her face was thin and white. 
 
 " You are ill," he said, alarmed. 
 
 She made evasive answers. 
 
 He suggested that they go to a doctor at once. But 
 she refused, insisting that she would wait. A day 
 passed and then another. Helen was ill and haggard, 
 but still stubbornly refused to see a physician. Witte 
 determined that he would call a physician the next 
 morning whether she agreed to it or not. 
 
 Late that night he was awakened by a peculiar 
 trembling which seemed to fill the room. ... He 
 reached out his hand. Helen was not there. She 
 lay at the other end of the bed, sobbing. He raised 
 the shade and a flood of moonlight fell upon her pros 
 trate form. He took her in his arms. 
 
WAR ON THE UNBORN 189 
 
 He questioned her with all the tenderness he could 
 command. What was ailing her? Her half -spoken 
 answers were vague and evasive. Her sobbing soon 
 ceased, but he could not go to sleep. His mind was 
 wide awake and working. Suddenly things became 
 clear to him He grasped her hand and in the dark 
 he sought her face, her eyes. She, too, was awake. 
 
 "Are you " The words stuck in his throat. 
 His dry lips seemed immovable. He made an effort 
 and gained control over his throat muscles. Rising 
 on one elbow he stared in the direction of her face. 
 
 " You are going to be a mother " He tried 
 to speak these words calmly, even tenderly, but failed. 
 There was alarm in his voice, as if a great catastrophe 
 had overtaken them. Helen broke out in violent weep 
 ing once more, and twining her arms about his neck, 
 she clung to him helplessly. . . . 
 
 After a while she regained her composure. She 
 tried to set him at ease. It was nothing. She was 
 troubled, of course but that was not saying that 
 she was going to be a mother. That could not be 
 definitely known for some time : It might prove 
 merely a scare 
 
 Several weeks passed. Helen had grown much 
 thinner. Emil was trying to console her. There was 
 nothing to worry about, he told her. But he himself 
 was worried and nervous. Work on his article now 
 lagged behind. His office trials weighed heavier on 
 
190 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 him. Manning was head over heels in trouble, and 
 the entire staff felt an impending change. 
 
 One afternoon when there were few people in the 
 office, Manning walked over to Witte s desk. 
 
 " Have you done anything for the magazines yet? " 
 he asked. Witte told him of his unsuccessful efforts. 
 
 Manning looked absent. It was a troubled look, 
 and Witte saw it. It dawned upon him how close 
 he and the Sunday editor were they were both hired 
 men. They were both responsible to some one, 
 dependent upon the whim of some one, required to 
 please some one. 
 
 " Better hang on to the magazines," Manning fired 
 as a parting shot. And the meaning of it was clear 
 to Witte : " You ought to try and get out of here," 
 Manning had meant. " So long as I am here, I am 
 protecting you because I have taken you on. When I 
 am gone there will be no one to protect you. You 
 will not be needed here. Go before you are dis 
 charged." 
 
 The soreness which Witte had nursed in his heart 
 against the Sunday editor for refusing to raise his 
 wages was gone now. Apparently Manning had his 
 troubles. 
 
 He walked home from the office ruminating. He 
 found Helen lying on the bed. She had not been feel 
 ing well that afternoon. Emil fixed up a meal for 
 them. But she did not eat. At his suggestion that 
 
WAR ON THE UNBORN 191 
 
 perhaps he had better call a doctor after all she smiled 
 weakly. 
 
 She was " better " in the morning. Again, how 
 ever, she did not eat. Emil went to the office, saying 
 that he would run in home at noon. 
 
 He could not get away until nearly two o clock. 
 When he entered their rooms he found Helen in bed. 
 The landlady was sitting beside her, holding her hands. 
 Helen s face was chalk-white and her lips blue. She 
 glanced at Emil weakly and was about to say some 
 thing. But the landlady warned her : " Hold your 
 breath." 
 
 A carriage stopped in front of the house. It was 
 the doctor for whom the landlady had telephoned at 
 the request of Helen. 
 
 The physician ordered Helen s street clothes. She 
 was dressed in a few moments. They helped her 
 downstairs and into his carriage. The doctor gave 
 Emil the address of a private hospital. 
 
 "What has happened?" Emil, left standing there 
 bewildered, asked. 
 
 " As though you don t know ! " The landlady 
 snapped her jaws and walked out of the room. 
 
 At the hospital Witte had to wait for an hour. 
 Finally the doctor emerged. He was accompanied by 
 another physician. They talked briskly and seemed 
 well pleased. The doctor informed him that the 
 operation was "very successful," that his wife was 
 
192 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 safe and would be home in a week or ten days. 
 
 " But, doctor, what happened, what did you do to 
 her?" Witte stammered. 
 
 The physician s face flushed with anger. 
 
 "If you want to ask me questions/ he said, " come 
 to my home. You will find the office hours on this 
 card." 
 
 When Witte entered his office an hour later, the 
 physician looked him over curiously. 
 
 " Have you come to cross-question me? " the doctor 
 snapped. " Do you know that your wife has only paid 
 me half of the miserable sum of twenty-five dollars 
 which I charged her for this operation? She did not 
 have the other twelve and a half dollars. But it did 
 not matter. I yielded to her pleas for this operation 
 because she threatened to commit suicide. And she 
 would have committed it. I am a pretty good judge 
 of human nature. I know the sort of people who only 
 threaten and those who do. 
 
 " In this chair where you are sitting," the physician 
 continued, " she sat and wept and told me how a child 
 would be her ruin. She told me all about yourself, 
 your job, your employers. She told me how she 
 meant to help you gain your goal. She sobbed until 
 it seemed that her heart would break. She would not 
 leave this room until I promised to save her or read 
 a death sentence to her. . . ." 
 
 The physician was silent, apparently waiting for 
 
WAR ON THE UNBORN 193 
 
 Emil Witte to speak. But Emil could not utter a 
 word. 
 
 " Young man," the doctor resumed, and his voice 
 was softer now. " You are working on a newspaper, 
 you are a writer and are supposed to know life. But 
 let me tell you something : 
 
 " War on the unborn is not made by physicians. It 
 is made by society. The newspapers, and your 
 Chicago Star in particular, are worried in their edi 
 torial columns over the growth of race suicide. But 
 do they mean it ? Do they pay their employees enough 
 to raise families? Do they pay them enough to 
 marry ? Does not society, do not your publishers, the 
 molders of society, of public opinion, look upon the 
 boy of twenty-five, who marries as a fool who will soon 
 sober up and realize the great mistake he has made? 
 It is not the doctor who is responsible for the race 
 suicide, but society. It is the curse of our civilization 
 that it is taking the joy and pride out of parenthood 
 by the ghost of unemployment and the terror of 
 poverty. . . . 
 
 " Many self-respecting physicians, like myself, per 
 form such operations not because we relish war on 
 the unborn, but in order to save those already living. 
 Go home, young man, and be thankful that your wife 
 is now on the road to mental and physical recovery in 
 a hospital instead of lying a suicide, as she would have 
 been, had not I yielded to her plea. 
 
194 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 " Go home, and when you have thought it over, and 
 find that I have earned the twenty-five dollars which 
 your wife was supposed to pay me, you can send me 
 a check for the other twelve and a half dollars. But 
 there is no hurry about it. Pay it when you can." 
 
 Emil walked through the streets of the city until 
 late that night. He passed in front of the hospital 
 several times. The last time he passed it was mid 
 night. He did not know what room she was in. 
 But everything about the building was quiet. Evi 
 dently everything was well. 
 
 When he entered his room he found a small hand 
 kerchief on the floor. It was Helen s. She had 
 dropped it as she was leaving for the hospital. . . . 
 He put the handkerchief to his lips. A stream of 
 tears broke from his eyes. They were tears of sorrow 
 and of longing for the girl, for his wife, to whom 
 he felt he would always remain a debtor for her great 
 love and sacrifice for him. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE NEW KING 
 
 4< TT THAT does Manning mean when he says he 
 W is a static ?" Witte had asked Norton 
 shortly after he came to work for the Star. 
 
 Norton smiled. 
 
 " By being a static Manning means that he stands 
 aside and watches the passing show with a grin. He 
 means that after one is in the newspaper business a 
 long time, one loses the power to enthuse over ideas, 
 to fight for a principle. One becomes accustomed to 
 the world s follies and does not try to reform it. One 
 becomes indifferent." 
 
 Manning s description of himself as a " static " was 
 not entirely true. He had not lost the power of 
 enthusiasm altogether. He was not indifferent to 
 everything. While it amused him to see people take 
 up a so-called " cause " and fight for it, while he dis 
 missed such people as " cranks," he was himself a 
 "crank" in certain matters. One of these was the 
 editing of a Sunday paper. 
 
 It was common talk in newspaper circles that 
 Manning had made the Sunday Star. He had poured 
 his life into his work. It was his pride that the 
 
 195 
 
196 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 Sunday Star always led, that his ideas were invariably 
 followed, copied. On the question of editing a Sun 
 day paper, Manning was not a " static." He was not 
 indifferent. He was positive. He knew what he 
 wanted and insisted on having his own way. 
 
 Accordingly when the expected happened and he was 
 called on the carpet before the directors at a very 
 private conference, Manning entered the office with 
 his mind fully made up. The directors wanted him 
 to drop the " pessimistic " stories, as they called them 
 politely. (They had other less polite names for these 
 stories which they refrained from mentioning in the 
 editor s presence.) They were unwholesome. The 
 Star could not be confounded with those who try to 
 muckrake. Let him fill the Sunday paper with 
 pleasant reading matter. Why dig up the gloomy, un 
 pleasant side of the city? Those things had better be 
 left alone. It does no good to stir up discontent. 
 
 The spokesman of the directors, Mr. Andrew G. 
 McNaughton, was a gentleman who headed a large 
 manufacturing plant in Chicago. The editors of the 
 Star spoke of him as " the good old Tory." He was 
 accustomed to command. He talked to many of his 
 lawyers much the same as he did to his clerks and 
 office boys. To him an " employee " was an " em 
 ployee," no matter what work he was doing. 
 
 Manning listened to a long tirade by McNaughton 
 in silence. The silence of the editor, the steady gaze 
 
THE NEW KING 197 
 
 of his gray eyes irritated the manufacturer. As the 
 chairman of the Board of Directors, McNaughton 
 could dictate the policy of the paper. Manning knew 
 that; he acceded to it. McNaughton could order 
 things with regard to the management of the Star as 
 he could with regard to the management of his factor 
 ies. There was nothing for Manning to do when 
 McNaughton was exercising his rights as chief stock 
 holder. It was his property and he had a right to 
 order what should and what should not go into the 
 paper. 
 
 The continued silence of the Sunday editor finally 
 brought McNaughton out of all patience. He began 
 to cast aspersions upon Manning, upon his ability as 
 an editor. In a fit of suppressed rage he suggested 
 caustically that perhaps Manning was combing the 
 slums and digging up " these sewer stories " (he 
 pointed to a number of clippings which lay on the 
 table in front of himj because of a famine of ideas. 
 
 The chief of the stockholders had ventured beyond 
 his boundaries. He could dictate to the Sunday 
 editor, but he could not assail his professional pride. 
 
 At these words of McNaughton, Manning became 
 very pale. A smile played about his lips and his 
 drooping, sarcastic chin, a smile of boundless, crushing 
 contempt. He straightened up in his chair and with 
 a slightly exaggerated politeness replied to the chief 
 stockholder. He had great respect for Mr. Me- 
 
198 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 Naughton s ability as a business man, Manning said 
 speaking slowly and still smiling, but he considered the 
 latter s opinions about editing a newspaper entirely 
 worthless. 
 
 It was McNaughton s turn to grow pale. He was 
 beaten. Manning came from a New England family 
 whose traditions went back to pre-Revolutionary days. 
 Several well-known writers had come from that 
 family. Manning s father had been a famous editor 
 in his day. Manning s sneer at McNaughton s at 
 tempt to judge him, to condemn him as an editor, 
 struck a vulnerable spot. McNaughton personally 
 was not cultured. As for his family he side 
 tracked all reference to it by stressing the fact that he 
 was a self-made man. 
 
 Manning dropped his smile. He spoke in dead 
 earnest now. 
 
 You object to my printing stories which deal with 
 vital facts," he said, " facts that are of great concern 
 to the community, to the nation. Sewer stories/ you 
 call them. You speak of them with contempt. The 
 German government, the statesmen of Germany, do 
 not sneer at these facts. Belgium does not sneer at 
 them. They know better over there. They are in 
 terested in these problems and try to remedy such 
 conditions. 
 
 " A paper like the Star should be alive to all the 
 issues and problems and wants of the people. It 
 
THE NEW KING 199 
 
 should know the city, yes, even to the ratholes and 
 sewers, where the masses live and breed anger and dis 
 content. . . . 
 
 " Let me predict," Manning continued, lowering his 
 voice, but lending a prophetic emphasis to it, " let me 
 predict that in five years from now the same issues 
 which I am now taking up in the Sunday pages, buried 
 between columns of advertising, will command a re 
 spectful hearing on the editorial page of the Star." 
 
 The directors shifted uneasily in their seats. Mc- 
 Naughton quickly asserted himself. Assuming a lofty 
 look of unconcern, as if to signify that he was accus 
 tomed to meet all sorts of people and to listen to all 
 sorts of twaddle by flighty or ill-balanced persons, he 
 announced that he knew what he wanted in the Sunday 
 Star and proposed to stand by his policy. 
 
 " Then you d better get another man to carry out 
 your policy," Manning said, rising from his chair, 
 and he walked out of the directors room. 
 
 Several directors exchanged uneasy glances. One 
 of them said something about Manning s years of ser 
 vice to the paper. He had built up the circulation of 
 the Star. He had given it prestige. The Sunday 
 editor was too good a man to lose. 
 
 But McNaughton was obdurate. He was furious. 
 
 " No man is too good to lose," he shouted. " The 
 day when a man was indispensable is over. Manning 
 goes and his place shall be filled at once." 
 
200 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 The next morning there appeared on the bulletin 
 board a notice, signed by the publisher, announcing 
 that " Mr. Manning having resigned, Mr. Bradford is 
 now Sunday editor, and the staff is expected to regard 
 him accordingly." 
 
 Bradford was one of the Star s privileged reporters. 
 He was what was known as a " policy man." He was 
 an expert when it came to writing a cynical or sneer 
 ing story. And on the Star sneering stories took first 
 rank. 
 
 For the Star had close affiliations with certain cor 
 porations. When a special privilege was wanted from 
 the city council by one of these corporations and ob 
 jection arose from one source or another, the paper 
 immediately launched out upon a campaign of sneers 
 and ridicule against the men who objected to the steal. 
 Invariably such campaigns of ridicule resulted in vic 
 tory for the corporation because they diverted the pub 
 lic mind from issues to cheap personal sneers and libels 
 against certain men. 
 
 So Bradford, having for years served in the position 
 of "policy reporter" and having helped put over 
 " jokers " on the people, was placed in Manning s 
 position. There was a double object in it. Not only 
 was it to reward Bradford. His viewpoint, his atti 
 tude toward social questions, or rather lack of attitude, 
 were considered essential now to undo the work of 
 Manning. He could be relied upon to have no eye for 
 
THE NEW KING 201 
 
 slums and problems. There would be no more " un 
 comfortable " stories in the Sunday paper. 
 
 Bradford began his duties as Sunday editor with 
 a general overhauling of the staff. He called the 
 writers into his office one by one. Some of them came 
 out smiling. Others had a furtive look in their eyes. 
 
 He called Witte last. 
 
 " There are some stories I want you to take/ Brad 
 ford said. The acquaintance between Witte and him 
 self had been very casual. The Sunday editor now 
 looked him over carefully, searchingly. Bradford s 
 spoken instructions were to sidetrack Witte from his 
 accustomed work and put him on general assignments. 
 The unspoken instructions were to get rid of him. 
 
 It was policy with the Star not to " fire " reporters 
 but to " let them out." There were various ways of 
 letting a reporter see that his usefulness to the paper 
 had waned and that his removing himself would be 
 welcomed. This policy of not discharging employees 
 was fostered by McNaughton, who cherished the idea 
 of being a " benevolent " employer. 
 
 "We have had altogether too many distressing 
 stories in the paper of late," Bradford continued. 
 " There were some protests from readers, I believe. 
 Anyway from now on we want bright and snappy 
 things in the Sunday paper. Suppose you try to get 
 some humorous stories. Find, for instance, the largest 
 family in Chicago a man having thirty or forty 
 
202 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 children. That would make a corking page. Another 
 story you might get is about the girl that has had the 
 most proposals of marriage. Get me also a story 
 about the shop girl who has the prettiest feet in 
 Chicago. . . ." 
 
 There was very little work done in the office that 
 afternoon. The men sought out the nearest barroom 
 and there discussed the " new king." 
 
 Witte took little interest in the discussions now. 
 Since the days he had spent in the hospital with his 
 wife and watched her go through the ordeal, her 
 struggle against death, his job and office politics ap 
 peared small indeed. He felt guilty toward his wife. 
 It was his fear, his helplessness in the arena of life, 
 he said to himself, that had urged Helen on to take 
 chances with death. 
 
 In the office meantime the work of disintegrating the 
 staff was begun. Two new men were brought in by 
 Bradford. One of them was to be his assistant, the 
 other a rewrite man. An uneasy expression appeared 
 on the faces of several members of the staff. Some 
 body would have to leave 
 
 At the end of the week the Sunday editor called in 
 a Mr. Lane, a member of the Star s staff for several 
 years, and informed him that henceforth he would be 
 put on space. He would be paid for as many stones 
 as the paper would use. Lane resigned. 
 
 " I guess it is my turn next," Witte thought and 
 
THE NEW KING 203 
 
 was vaguely planning what he would do. Bradford 
 had already dropped several remarks about not caring 
 for stories about the " foreign scum " and the " tene 
 ment trash." 
 
 " There is a letter for you in the mailbox," Norton 
 woke him out of his reflections. The letter was from 
 a Mr. Brinton, the editor of a new magazine started 
 in Chicago. Would Witte kindly come and see him 
 at once? 
 
 Witte went. Brinton needed an article on a civic 
 subject for the next issue. That would be a week 
 hence. Could Witte have such an article in a week? 
 
 The article was finished four days later. The same 
 afternoon Brinton called up to notify Witte that the 
 article suited. 
 
 "It is just the thing," said the editor; "come and 
 see me in the morning." 
 
 Brinton ordered two more articles from Witte " on 
 social lines." They were ready in less than ten days. 
 Witte was now waiting for a letter from Brinton. 
 There might be some changes to make. They might 
 even have to be rewritten. He was ready for it. 
 After ten days the letter came. The editor was 
 pleased with the articles. He might want to change 
 here and there a phrase later on, but there would be 
 no material changes. He inclosed a check for one 
 hundred and five dollars for the three. 
 
 As Emil held the check between his trembling 
 
204 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 fingers, his eyes filled with a haze. It was as if he had 
 just received a commutation of a long prison sentence. 
 For though he had for some weeks given every 
 moment he could spare to the articles for Mr. Brinton, 
 the changes that were being made or were pending in 
 the office, had not escaped his attention. Several 
 stories he had written were cut down by Bradford to 
 one-third of their original length. Several other 
 stories of his were killed in proof. Clearly he w r ould 
 have to be going soon. The check was his passport 
 into the world 
 
 It was the last day of March, but the breeze that 
 evening was as mild as that of a May day. Witte 
 not only walked home, but he took his coat off, and 
 enjoyed every step he was taking and planned his 
 future. . . . 
 
 Without a word, with an air of reverence, Witte 
 handed the check to Helen. 
 
 She gazed at the green slip of paper before her and 
 then fixed her eyes upon her husband. There was a 
 solemn look in Emil s face. 
 
 " What will it be next? " she asked. 
 
 " New York," he answered. 
 
 Quietly Witte opened the door into the Sunday 
 editor s room. Bradford turned in his swivel chair, 
 and perceiving the reporter, grinned icily. Witte, with- 
 
THE NEW KING 205 
 
 out knowing why, thought of a fox as he gazed at 
 Bradford s smooth-shaven, slick face. 
 
 " I came to pronounce my valedictory," he smiled in 
 turn. " I want to give you two weeks notice. I shall 
 leave at the end of that time." 
 
 The icy grin disappeared from Bradford s lips. 
 Witte had stolen a march on him. He had resigned 
 and deprived him, Bradford, of the pleasure of freez 
 ing him out. . . . 
 
 " Got a job, I presume," Bradford said bluntly. 
 
 " No," Witte replied. " I have not tried to get a 
 job here. I am going to New York." 
 
 The Sunday editor started slightly. In his heart of 
 hearts he had faith in Manning s judgment and re 
 spected Manning s choice of men. And Manning not 
 only had chosen, but so consistently stood by Witte 
 Bradford knew that far better than Witte. 
 
 "I am sorry you are going," Bradford ended a 
 silence that was becoming awkward. " I am sure you 
 will make good there. Anything I can do for you 
 don t hesitate to ask me." 
 
 The announcement that Witte was going to New 
 York created a respectful atmosphere in the office 
 toward him. One older member of the staff spoke re 
 gretfully of his own lost opportunities. He, too, 
 should have gone to New York at a certain point in 
 his career. Several of the younger writers talked 
 
206 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 wistfully of the day when they, too, would leave for 
 the metropolis. . . . Witte was much in demand now. 
 Everybody was glad to split a bottle of beer with him 
 and to express confidence in his ability to make good 
 in New York. . . . 
 
 He wrote a letter full of tenderness to his parents. 
 His finances did not permit his coming home to say 
 good-by to them. But he hoped to spend his vacation 
 with them in the near future perhaps in a year. He 
 would come to see them at the first opportunity. His 
 going away to New York, he feared, would be a blow 
 to them. They would find it hard to reconcile them 
 selves to it. 
 
 To his surprise the attitude of his parents was the 
 very opposite. They were glad he was going to New 
 York. They had confidence in his ability to make 
 good there, boundless confidence. And when he made 
 good who could tell but what they might join him 
 in the great metropolis. . . . 
 
 Here his father s letter grew intimate and subdued. 
 Not only his mother, Masha, but he, Aaron, too, would 
 like to leave Spring Water. . . . They would like to 
 join Emil in New York. . . . They were getting old. 
 He, Aaron, was not as strong as formerly. . . . The 
 life of a pedler was becoming too hard for him. In a 
 city he might find some lighter work. And he would 
 be among his people among Jews They longed 
 
THE NEW KING 207 
 
 to be among Jews again. It was hard to spend one s 
 declining years among " goyim " (Gentiles). 
 
 Parental blessing and repeated confidence in him 
 closed the missive which acted as a depressant on Witte 
 the rest of the day and evening. 
 
 They ate their last supper in silence. . . . Helen 
 quickly disposed of the dishes. She put them away 
 in the improvised little closet in their screened kitchen, 
 ready for use by the next couple that should move 
 into " their " rooms. . . . The trunks had already 
 been packed the landlady notified. In the morning 
 Helen would move into another room. She had 
 already got back her job with Mr. Altman and would 
 go to work as soon as Emil left 
 
 It was still light, and they sat by the window looking 
 out upon the street which with the breath of spring 
 was assuming new life. Their shoulders touched, but 
 they avoided looking at each other, for each sensed the 
 tears in the other s eyes. . . . 
 
 They could repress themselves no longer. . . . The 
 tears came with a rush. . . . As if seeking protection 
 against the overpowering emotions, they held each 
 other in passionate embrace and wept on each other s 
 shoulders. 
 
 It was past midnight when sleep finally relaxed their 
 tense nerves and made an end of their whispered con- 
 
208 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 fidences. At the break of day, however, Emil was 
 awake. He raised the shade slightly and in the pale 
 morning light he watched Helen s even breathing. 
 There was a faint flush in her cheek. She looked 
 almost like a child to him and she was so patheti 
 cally lonely. A great sorrow seized him. He was 
 leaving her alone without money, without friends, 
 without a protector. ... It was cruel, cruel of him to 
 leave her, cruel of the world to separate husband and 
 wife for the sake of bread. . . . 
 
 He took her soft hands in his and covered them 
 with kisses. . . . She opened her eyes. There was 
 a blurred smile in them. She had been awakened in 
 the midst of a pleasant dream. She nestled up close 
 to him, twined her arms about his neck and was asleep 
 again in an instant. . . . 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 LETTERS AND MORE LETTERS 
 
 WITTE had fortified himself with letters to New 
 York editors before leaving Chicago. One 
 of these was to the editor of the Advance, Mr. Howard 
 Charles Thornton. It was written by an old chum 
 of Thornton s, a copy reader on the Chicago Star. 
 
 " So, you know Priestley," the editor eyed Witte 
 sympathetically. Thornton was fond of the old copy 
 reader in Chicago. The two had worked side by side 
 for many years. Priestley was considered by far the 
 brighter man. It was Thornton s fortune, however, 
 to be pushed upward wherever he worked. Priestley 
 stood in one place. 
 
 They talked about Chicago. Thornton recalled his 
 own days in the newspaper field with a feeling not 
 unlike that with which men speak of their boyhood 
 days. He was a man past forty-five and had been out 
 of newspaper work for twelve years. He mentioned 
 several editors, but Witte did not know them. A new 
 generation had come and gone since Thornton left. 
 
 " Priestley," the editor said, assuming a business 
 tone, "tells me that you come here to do magazine 
 
 209 
 
210 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 work. What do you intend to confine yourself to 
 fiction or articles ? " 
 
 "Articles, fiction both/ said Witte. "I ll try 
 my hand at every thing. " 
 
 " Yes, that is the best way/ Thornton nodded. 
 
 After a pause he asked bluntly: 
 
 " How are you fixed financially? " 
 
 Witte told him he had thirty-five dollars in his 
 pocket. 
 
 The editor winced at the young man s inexperience. 
 
 " I would suggest," he said, " that you try to con 
 nect up with some newspaper here. You don t want, 
 of course, to take a regular job, if you aim to do maga 
 zine work, but you ought to get some special work to 
 do. Magazine writing is a precarious business in the 
 beginning. You ought to try and make your living 
 through the newspapers, as a free lance. You ought 
 to have no trouble selling stuff to the Sunday papers." 
 
 With this Mr. Thornton dismissed Witte, after 
 urging him to submit his stories or articles to him as 
 soon as they were written. 
 
 "Do you know Mr. Merrick of the Universe?" 
 Thornton asked as Witte was about to leave. " Mer 
 rick is a Chicago man. Better go up and see him. 
 Tell him I sent you to him. He is a good man to 
 know." 
 
 At the end of two days Witte had rounded up the 
 half dozen editors to whom he had introductions. 
 
LETTERS AND MORE LETTERS 211 
 
 The third day was Saturday. He " pitched his tent," 
 as he wrote Helen, in a room on East Fifteenth Street, 
 and put in the same evening in writing a feature which 
 he had observed during the day. A Sunday paper, he 
 thought, would take it. He worked on it all Sunday 
 morning. In the afternoon he wrote to Helen. 
 
 ". . . It is three o clock," he wrote in part. " The 
 street is teeming with people dressed in their best. 
 Even in the ghetto, a part of which I can see by looking 
 out of my window, every one seems to be observing 
 Sunday. There is a whole afternoon and evening 
 ahead of me. It is the first Sunday afternoon and 
 evening without you. I don t count all the Sundays 
 I spent before I knew you. They have been obliter 
 ated by your presence. All I remember is the joyful 
 Sundays we spent together When I think of hav 
 ing to spend the next twenty or twenty-five weeks 
 without you- as things are shaping themselves now 
 I cannot expect to have you here much sooner when 
 I think of being away from you all that time, I feel 
 all energy escape me. Yet this must not be. I must 
 have my energies keyed to the highest, as this, and 
 this alone, can bring nearer the day of your coming to 
 me. . . ." 
 
 ". . . My impressions of New York," he wrote in 
 another letter, " are mixed. It holds me spell-bound 
 at times, and then again it horrifies me. Was it Heine 
 who said * I am a tragedy, I am a comedy ? New 
 
212 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 York might appropriately take this for its motto, 
 emblazon it over its skyscrapers. It is everything in 
 one. It is a beast, it is a God. It is in one breath 
 the most American city in the United States, and yet 
 the most foreign city in America. The squalor of 
 the old world and the genius of the new are often 
 housed within a block of each other. The flower of 
 the nation s intellect and the ebb of humanity pass each 
 other on the street, rub shoulders with one another 
 in street cars. . . ." 
 
 " Unsettled as I am," he wrote on another occasion, 
 " I am still settled in a rut. My free lance newspaper 
 articles give me a living, and no more, and the maga 
 zine articles keep coming back, with polite regrets from 
 editors. Three months have passed and still I have 
 not landed; still your coming is as far off as on the 
 first day I came here. ... It is becoming intolerable 
 : I suffocate for want of you " 
 
 His next letter was a paean of triumph. A story of 
 his had been accepted by the Universe. The clouds 
 were clearing, and the sun was breaking. It was the 
 beginning of further successes. He had three more 
 stories traveling among magazines. Soon he would 
 be in a position to send for her. . . . 
 
 Within the next two weeks, however, every one of 
 the stories came back with a personal note of regret 
 from the editor or a reader of the magazine. ... It 
 
LETTERS AND MORE LETTERS 213 
 
 was not a bad story, but in every case there was the 
 same " but " the story did not suit the needs of the 
 magazine. 
 
 He had become friendly with the assistant editor of 
 one of the magazines, a young man recently out of 
 Harvard. The latter explained to him why his stories, 
 though the editors honestly thought them good, were 
 not accepted. 
 
 " You no doubt remember the role of the Fates in 
 Greek mythology," the assistant editor, Jennings, said 
 to him. " What the Fates had spun, even the Gods 
 could not unravel. Before the Fates Olympus itself 
 was helpless. 
 
 " The editors are in much the same position. Each 
 magazine has set up a certain standard. It has made 
 up its mind to appeal to a certain class of the public. 
 It has therefore decided upon a certain kind of story 
 that it wants. Your stories are good, but they do not 
 happen to fit the needs of the magazine as we see them, 
 or think them. In this case the editor is helpless. 
 What he likes to read personally is not always the 
 stuff he dares give to his readers " 
 
 Several weeks later the check for his first story 
 came from the Universe. It was a check for sixty- 
 five dollars. Witte looked at it long and mournfully. 
 There were stories current not only among the public, 
 but among newspaper men as well, that short stories 
 
214 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 were prize articles. Fabulous sums were being paid 
 to short story writers. O. Henry was getting a 
 thousand dollars for two or three pages. . . . 
 
 His own thirty-five dollars with which he had come 
 to New York, had been reduced to only twenty, in 
 spite of the jealous guard he kept over it. Working 
 on his stories, he often neglected his bread and butter 
 stuff for the newspapers and had to draw an occasional 
 dollar from the bank. Eighty-five dollars, then, was 
 what he had at the end of five months in New York 
 upon which to attempt to build a nest in the metropolis 
 for Helen. But before the nest could be feathered 
 even on the installment plan, Helen s fare to New 
 York had to be paid. . . . She might even have to 
 have a suit. . . . She never said anything in her letters 
 about clothes, but he knew how much she was earn 
 ing. . . . 
 
 He sat for a long time, held fast in his chair by a 
 sick, dizzy feeling. . . . Twilight had come and gone 
 and now night was spreading her black, heavy wings 
 over the city. . . . 
 
 He went down into the street and lingered long at 
 the table in the restaurant, paying no heed to the 
 annoyed look on the head waiter s face, which seemed 
 to say : " Why don t you pay your bill and go? " 
 
 At last he went out into the street again. 
 
 The sky, which had been bright and starry when 
 Witte entered the restaurant, was now leaden. A 
 
LETTERS AND MORE LETTERS 215 
 
 wind was raising the dust from the street and sending 
 it up in clouds. He strolled aimlessly. 
 
 A fine rain began to sprinkle. Unconsciously he 
 welcomed it. He increased his pace. The more the 
 rain penetrated his clothes, the further it seemed to 
 remove him from the tormenting thoughts which had 
 held him fast that afternoon and the early part of the 
 evening, since he had received the check. His 
 troubles now seemed remote, as if they concerned some 
 one else, not him. He forgot the petty worries of the 
 day and feasted his eyes on the scenes in the 
 streets. . . The city was teeming with stories. . . . 
 Some day when he had made his name he would force 
 the editors to accept the stories he was now seeing 
 not make him look for stories that they want. . . . 
 Some day, some day All his life he had been living 
 with that " some day " in view, and still the words 
 seemed as full of freshness and hope to him as 
 ever. . . . 
 
 At Broadway and Forty-second he was caught in a 
 whirl of humanity, which, in spite of the rain, had no 
 thought of cutting its pleasure short. He walked 
 briskly and presently found himself near Columbus 
 Circle. He turned back. 
 
 He stopped in front of the Times Building and 
 looked up at the seventeenth floor. He knew that 
 floor. He had been up there a number of times. It 
 was alive with activity now. It was twelve o clock. 
 
216 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 The first edition of the paper had already gone to 
 press. It seemed to him he could smell lead the 
 odor of the composing room. The tips of his fingers 
 felt as if they had just come in touch with a wet 
 proof drops of rain had trickled down on them 
 from his coat. It reminded him that he was getting 
 wet. 
 
 He strolled down Seventh Avenue. The rain was 
 gaining strength. Here and there in the streets pools 
 were forming. He increased his pace. At Thirty- 
 Fourth Street he would strike a car. 
 
 A dark form, a woman, suddenly slipped out from a 
 hallway. 
 
 " Lonesome, Buddy?" And the dark form fell in 
 line with Witte. She turned a smiling face on him. 
 She was young, very young. Through the paint on 
 her cheeks and penciled eyebrows innocence was fight 
 ing hard to come to the surface. 
 
 " It is so wet and I am so uncomfortable," she 
 lisped. She adjusted her umbrella to make room 
 under it for Witte. " My shoes are soaked through 
 and my feet are wet." 
 
 It seemed as if she were confiding her troubles to a 
 brother. 
 
 " Gee," she continued," I am so hungry, I could eat 
 a steak as big as my head." She tried to gain Witte s 
 eye. " Won t you come and buy me a steak ? I know 
 a nice restaurant around the corner." 
 
LETTERS AND MORE LETTERS 217 
 
 Witte stopped abruptly, and looking her squarely in 
 the face, said : 
 
 " How long is it since you saw your mother, girlie ? " 
 
 The girl moved away a few steps, as if stung. 
 
 "You think you re funny, don t you?" she said, 
 still moving backward. There was a gleam of resent 
 ment in her painted features. Her anger made her 
 appear more natural. It heightened the look of inno 
 cence about her. It seemed unbelievable that she was 
 one of the " women " the world never mentioned with 
 out scorn. The " slush, slush " of her torn shoes 
 reached Witte s ears. 
 
 "Wait," he called back. He fished out a dollar 
 from his pocket. " Here, buy yourself a steak." 
 
 The girl took the dollar and looked at it to make 
 sure that it was real money. 
 
 11 We can both eat on that," she said, her voice sof 
 tening. " Come along, why don t you ? " 
 
 Were it not for her painted cheeks and eyebrows, 
 the hour of the night, or rather morning, and the cer 
 tainty of the girl s " profession," she might have been 
 taken for a high school girl, who was coaxing a boy 
 classmate to taste of the candy she had herself made 
 and threatening to be insulted if he refused. 
 
 Witte had started off. When he reached his room 
 he opened the window wide and lighted the gas. Ex 
 cept for the light in a restaurant a block away the 
 street was deserted. The sky was clearing up. The 
 
218 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 stars came out and a breeze, cooled and refreshed by 
 the rain, swept up from the East River and zigzagged 
 its way through the tenements. The weariness, which 
 had befallen him in the car, had disappeared with the 
 removal of his wet clothes. He sat down at the table 
 and wrote Helen a long letter, informing her of the 
 decision that was born within him that evening. 
 
 The next three days he haunted the newspaper of 
 fices in search of a job. The search of work, how 
 ever, netted him nothing. 
 
 " It is a tough game getting a job in this town," a 
 reporter he knew warned him. " They \vill take a 
 story if you have one, but if you w r ant a job on the 
 staff you have to force them to give it to you. If you 
 have letters, they at least give you a personal hearing. 
 That is worth something." 
 
 The next morning Witte went to see the editor of 
 the Advance. Mr. Thornton was out of town, but his 
 secretary, Miss Graves, to whom Witte had talked on 
 several occasions, came out. 
 
 He told her in a few words of his decision to go 
 back to newspaper work and to wait for a more au 
 spicious opportunity in the magazine field. 
 
 " I wanted to ask Mr. Thornton if he could not give 
 me letters to some of the editors in town. It is hard 
 to get to them otherwise," he said. 
 
 " Yes, I know," the girl agreed, " and Mr. Thorn- 
 
LETTERS AND MORE LETTERS 219 
 
 ton would be very glad to introduce you to some of 
 the editors, I m sure. Suppose you wait until next 
 Monday, He will surely be back then. Can you wait 
 that long?" 
 
 Witte smiled. Of course he would wait. Miss 
 Graves lingered for a moment, and Witte sensed that 
 the young woman wanted to say something else, but 
 held back. They said " Good day " to each other, and 
 he walked out. 
 
 Thornton was busy Monday. He told Witte, how 
 ever, that he would write the letters of introduction 
 for him at the first opportunity and that Miss Graves 
 would mail them to him. 
 
 Two days later he received a packet containing half 
 a dozen letters to as many editors of different papers 
 written by Mr. Thornton. Inclosed was a note from 
 Miss Graves transmitting these letters and expressing 
 the hope that they would be of value to him. 
 
 She added casually : 
 
 "If these letters fail to anchor anything im 
 mediately, you might call on my brother, George 
 Graves, on the Evening Bulletin. He is telegraph 
 editor there. I have already talked to him about you." 
 
 Thornton s letters to the editors brought in every 
 case a handshake and a few moments conversation. 
 But there were no jobs open then. Witte was told to 
 call around again. Perhaps something would turn up. 
 
 He went to see Mfss Graves brother on the Bulletin 
 
220 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 as a last resort. The telegraph editor sent word down 
 for Witte to wait half an hour, until he got through 
 working. Witte s heart leaped up for joy at this in 
 formal and brisk answer. There was no chilling 
 politeness here. It was like a soldier talking to a 
 brother soldier. 
 
 " Whew," said Graves, shaking hands with Witte, 
 "this telegraph room is an inferno. They keep us 
 cooped up in it like hens. Let s go out and get a breath 
 of air." 
 
 What had impressed Witte most about Miss Graves 
 on his various visits to Thornton s office was her evi 
 dent high breeding. In her manner she was simple 
 and democratic, yet she walked like a queen. Her 
 features were delicate and yet there was a deliberate- 
 ness in them. Her bearing, the way she bowed or 
 smiled, bespoke great culture and refinement. The 
 same air of refinement characterized her brother, 
 George Graves. 
 
 " Let s go out to the water front," the latter said. 
 " One feels so much freer by the water. No wonder 
 stories about the sea never lose their interest! " 
 
 The two, walking side by side, presented a strange 
 contrast. Graves with his cane and dark-rimmed 
 glasses looked every inch the New England Yankee 
 that he was. Witte looked decidedly plebeian in his 
 baggy clothes. 
 
 " My sister told me about the fight you have been 
 
LETTERS AND MORE LETTERS 221 
 
 making to get into the magazines, * Graves said, "and 
 that you want to get back to newspaper work for a 
 while; 1 
 
 Witte told him of his experience with editors while 
 job hunting. 
 
 " Yes," said Graves, " I suppose it is hard for the 
 outsider. I myself have never been away from New 
 York and have never thought much how difficult it is 
 for an outsider to get in here." 
 
 " I shall talk to Mr. Milne within the next two or 
 three days," he added. " Mr. Milne is the managing 
 editor. I think he will make room for you." 
 
 Two days later Witte received a telegram from 
 Graves to call on him that same afternoon at two 
 o clock. He introduced him to Milne, but the manag 
 ing editor talked to him only a moment and turned him 
 over to the city editor, Mr. Bogart. The latter asked 
 Witte a few perfunctory questions and told him to 
 come to work the next morning. 
 
 He wrote a long letter to Helen full of cheer and 
 hope and expectancy. They would be reunited in a 
 month. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE END OF A DREAM 
 
 WINTER had come and gone. One by one the 
 tenement houses were yielding themselves up 
 to spring. At first the older children were allowed to 
 play marbles in the streets. Then even babies were 
 permitted to taste the balmy air of the last days of 
 March. Windows, which had been shut tightly all 
 winter long, were now raised. 
 
 Helen sat by the open window of their flat in a 
 " model " tenement building and looked out upon the 
 street. It was Sunday morning. Breakfast was done, 
 and it was still too early to worry about dinner. The 
 book she had meant to read lay beside her, half opened. 
 She was not reading. Emil was glancing through the 
 Sunday papers, jabbing his pencil here and there at a 
 story which interested him, and which he meant to read 
 later. 
 
 Helen sighed. 
 
 You look worried," Emil said, observing his wife s 
 face. 
 
 " Just spring," Helen explained. " Spring always 
 makes me melancholy." 
 
 222 
 
THE END OF A DREAM 223 
 
 " I wonder," she added after a silence, " if we are 
 ever again going to have such a winter." 
 
 Emil tried to laugh away her fears. 
 
 " You are a Jew through and through," he chided 
 her jokingly. :< You cannot enjoy the fleeting 
 moment. You must worry, doubt. A strange trait 
 this is in our race." 
 
 Helen listened fondly. She loved to listen to Emil. 
 
 " I presume it is only natural," Witte added, speak 
 ing slowly, as if to himself. " Two thousand years of 
 wanderings and migrations, dotted heavily with perse 
 cution, with sudden calamities coming as if from the 
 clear sky, implant in men a certain cautiousness, a feel 
 ing that fortune is fickle and may turn traitor at any 
 moment." 
 
 Both were silent for a time. 
 
 They had indeed spent a happy winter. They were 
 happier in New York than they had been in Chicago. 
 Why ? The answer lies in the one unwritten chapter 
 of modern psychology " The Psychology of the Job." 
 Thanks to the interest of Graves, Witte was given 
 consideration on the New York Bulletin. His stories 
 found a ready response. They were given plenty of 
 space and good display. The managing editor had 
 taken notice of him on several occasions. He was 
 often given the leading story of the day. With the 
 importance of the stories he was doing, his own im 
 portance rose. 
 
224 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 The cheerful atmosphere of the office found a ready 
 echo in his home life. A month after he had secured 
 the job on the Bulletin, Helen came. His salary on 
 the paper was such that in three weeks time he had 
 saved sufficient to cover her traveling expenses and the 
 necessary clothes. In one of the model tenements 
 that were springing up in certain parts of New York 
 he found an apartment that fitted in splendidly with his 
 scheme of things. Rent was paid there by the week. 
 No lease was required. The tenants were given all 
 around freedom and considerable convenience. One 
 of the stores that make a specialty of feathering such 
 nests, furnished their three rooms at convenient in 
 stallment rates. 
 
 Once more delightful evenings came and Sundays. 
 They went out a good deal. They saw the town and 
 observed the people. He surrendered himself entirely 
 to the duties of the office and the pleasures of his home. 
 Yes, it was the pleasantest winter they had spent. In 
 spite of his efforts to allay the doubts of his wife, 
 Witte, too, was affected by her simple question whether 
 they would have another such happy winter. Would 
 they? Fortune was fickle. 
 
 He made an end to the gloomy meditations pro 
 posing that they ride out to Staten Island to see the 
 awakening of spring in the country. They left the 
 house with the air of children leaving school to enjoy 
 themselves the rest of the day as they will 
 
THE END OF A DREAM 225 
 
 The summer proved even more delightful than the 
 winter. Life was indeed kind to Helen 
 
 Early in September Emil received a letter from Mr. 
 Thornton of the Advance. The editor asked Witte to 
 call on him the following afternoon with regard to an 
 article he wanted him to do. 
 
 Thornton was very cordial. He was glad, he said, 
 Witte was doing so well on the Bulletin Miss 
 Graves told him of his success there. He then ex 
 plained to him the character of the article he wanted. 
 Witte plunged into work. 
 
 By the middle of December the article was ready 
 and he submitted it. He expected an answer by New 
 Year, but Mr. Thornton had left the city for the 
 Christmas holidays. Miss Graves informed him that 
 no decision would, in all likelihood, be reached on the 
 article before the middle of January. A lot of work 
 always piled up after the holidays. 
 
 Meantime Witte was thinking of his parents. The 
 letters from his father were becoming more plaintive. 
 The life of a pedler, Aaron wrote in his last, was be 
 coming physically impossible for him. He could no 
 longer go out into the country for a week at a stretch. 
 Business was slowing up. Could he find something to 
 do in New York? There were so many Jews there 
 Could he buy a little store in the ghetto and eke out 
 an existence ? They were old and did not need much. 
 
226 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 And if they sold out everything in Spring Water they 
 would have about five hundred dollars. Would that 
 give them a living? They would be satisfied with any 
 kind of a living, only to be near him and among 
 Jews. 
 
 His father s letter touched Emil deeply, Aaron and 
 Masha were on the verge of sixty. They were old. 
 He had meant to be their support in old age. What a 
 poor support he was! 
 
 Helen agreed with him that it was time for his 
 parents to come to New York. New York would be 
 Emil s permanent home henceforth. He was making 
 friends there in a business way. He was getting to 
 be known. The nearness of his parents would mate 
 rially add to their happiness. 
 
 The next letter to his parents was full of hope. 
 There was no use disturbing things during the winter, 
 Emil wrote. But after the Passover, in the spring, 
 they would move to New York. By that time, too, he, 
 Emil, might save a small capital. If he sold the 
 article to the Advance he would have considerable 
 extra money. He could merge his little capital with 
 his parents , if need be, and help them establish them 
 selves in a business way. 
 
 The answer from his father was one exalted cry. 
 
 " Mother," Aaron wrote, " made me read over the 
 letter to her many times." They were impatient for 
 
THE END OF A DREAM 227 
 
 the winter to pass. . . . They would begin to dispose 
 of things at once. . . . They were counting the days 
 when they would be reunited with their son in New 
 York. . . . 
 
 The article was accepted by Thornton, and im 
 mediately following the announcement of the accept 
 ance a check for two hundred dollars. With the one 
 hundred and fifty that they had in the bank Emil 
 and Helen felt themselves rich. They now took 
 occasional strolls through the lower East Side " with 
 an eye to business." They were scanning the streets 
 for some fitting little store for his parents. 
 
 A week before the Passover Emil wrote a letter to 
 his father with final instructions for the journey. It 
 was eleven o clock in the evening when he finished the 
 letter. The last collection of the mail at the box 
 around the corner was at eleven-thirty. Emil hastened 
 down the four flights of stairs to mail it. 
 
 A messenger boy was scanning the cards in the hall 
 way. Witte was about to pass him, but changed his 
 mind. He asked the messenger whom he was looking 
 for. The latter showed him the name on the tele 
 gram. It was addressed to himself. 
 
 Witte tore open the envelope and took in the brief, 
 crisp line at a glance. It said : " Mother died in four 
 hours from apoplectic stroke." It was signed, " Alex 
 Stein." 
 
228 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 It was only two years before Mrs. Witte s death 
 that the Jews of Spring Water had purchased a piece 
 of land a short distance from the public cemetery and 
 consecrated a burial ground of their own. But when 
 the first funeral was held, the tragedy of death yielded 
 in bitter poignancy to the grewsomeness of a lonely 
 grave. The first to die was a woman. When she 
 was brought to the cemetery and her grown children 
 perceived the lonely grave in the midst of the field, 
 a shudder ran through them. A daughter fainted and 
 a son, crazed with grief, attempted to stop the funeral. 
 He finally yielded to the entreaties of the older men, 
 sobbing all the while : " It is cruel, cruel, to bury a 
 woman in such a lonely grave in a far-away land." 
 
 Everybody wept. On the way home Mrs. Witte 
 took her husband s hand, and gulping down her tears, 
 spoke : 
 
 "If anything happens to me, Aaron, I want you to 
 
 take me to N . I want to be buried among 
 
 Jews. ... I have been lonely among strangers 
 all my life. . . ." 
 
 Aaron upbraided her for talking " such nonsense." 
 Nevertheless it was understood between them that if 
 anything happened to either of them, the other was to 
 take her, or him, to N for burial. 
 
 It was to N that Emil went to meet the earthly 
 
 remains of his mother. It was a drizzly morning when 
 he tumbled out of the train, red-eyed, his clothes 
 
THE END OF A DREAM 229 
 
 crumpled and his face covered with a three days 
 beard. He had taken no sleeper. He could not think 
 of sleeping, much less of sleeping in comfort, at such 
 a time. . . . His father, Harry and Clara were at the 
 house of a friend. They were awaiting his arrival. 
 Alex had been there, but had returned to Spring 
 Water, and was to be summoned by telegram when 
 Emil arrived. 
 
 As he entered he overheard his father s voice. 
 Aaron was talking to a countryman of theirs, discuss 
 ing a passage in the Talmud relating to life after death. 
 The discussion was not heated, but his father spoke 
 with considerable firmness about immortality. Emil 
 observed his father s eyes an instant before the latter 
 saw him and he was struck by their peculiar brilliancy. 
 
 Everybody crowded about him. Clara sobbed and 
 moaned. Harry inquired after his journey and tried 
 to talk commonplaces but his tongue moved with 
 difficulty and his eyes would not stay dry. Aaron 
 alone maintained a semblance of poise, of calmness, 
 but it was a strange poise. His chin trembled several 
 times as if it were detached from the rest of his 
 face. ... He urged the daughter to see that they 
 prepared something to eat for Emil he must be 
 hungry after such a long journey. Then he fussed 
 with Emil s overcoat and suitcase, changing them from 
 place to place. . . . 
 
 Masha had died on a Wednesday night. In view of 
 
230 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 Emil s insistence that they wait with the funeral for 
 him, it had to be postponed till Sunday. The Jewish 
 
 undertaker in the N ghetto, to whom the body 
 
 was shipped from Spring Water, had no proper ac 
 commodations to keep it that length of time. He sug 
 gested to Aaron that the city morgue was the only 
 place where the body could be kept in a proper temper 
 ature. 
 
 Aaron knew little about the significance of a morgue 
 and consented to everything the undertaker said. 
 Later when his children, and especially Alex Stein, 
 learned where the body had been taken, they raved. 
 Still there was nothing to be done. There was no 
 other Jewish undertaker in town. And the morgue, 
 if not from a sentimental, at least from a religious 
 standpoint, seemed preferable to a Christian under 
 taking establishment. 
 
 The fact that his mother s body was at the morgue 
 was broken to Emil cautiously. Nevertheless a 
 shudder of indignation ran through him. As a re 
 porter in N he had been to the morgue on two 
 
 or three occasions. The thought of his mother s coffin 
 lying alongside of nameless dead had something humil 
 iating, horrifying in it. However, he gained control 
 over his feelings and, after making a pretense at eating 
 breakfast, he started off in the company of his father 
 and his brother for the morgue. 
 
 When Emil requested to see his mother s body, the 
 
THE END OF A DREAM 231 
 
 attendant began to grumble. Could he not wait until 
 they took her away for burial? It was not strictly in 
 accordance with the rules to open the vaults to visitors. 
 Had it been the body of some one who did not concern 
 him personally that he wanted to see, Emil would have 
 known how to silence objections and gain his point. 
 As it was, however, he listened helplessly to the stub 
 born drawl of the sluggish attendant. Finally he 
 found his voice. 
 
 "I came all the way from New York here to see 
 her," he said hoarsely, " over a thousand miles. I 
 won t be long " 
 
 Witte s discomfitured attitude must have flattered 
 the morgue keeper s vanity. Apparently he had shown 
 the young man before him his power and now he 
 would show his generosity. He motioned to Emil to 
 follow him into the next room. There without much 
 effort he rolled the coffin out half-way from a vault 
 and removed the lid. 
 
 Emil lifted a cloth and beheld his mother s face, 
 which was beginning to turn blue. In death, too, his 
 mother had that same submissive and resigned look 
 which he had always seen in her face during her life 
 time. He bent down on his knees and felt her hand 
 and face. They were hard frozen. 
 
 "Enough, Emil," his father touched his shoulder 
 after some time. . . . 
 
 On the way home Aaron related to him the details 
 
232 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 of his mother s death. As she was setting the table 
 for supper she became dizzy. He brought her a glass 
 of water. She took a sip of it, and swayed in the 
 chair. She did not regain consciousness any more. 
 
 It was a long ride through a slow- falling rain to the 
 cemetery. There were half a dozen people besides the 
 Witte family in the cortege. They were all old friends 
 and countrymen of the Wittes. There is a simple and 
 somewhat hurried dignity about an orthodox Jewish 
 funeral. The undertaker opened up the coffin and 
 adjusted the body. He then produced a little sack of 
 earth from Palestine and strewed a handful of it spar 
 ingly over the face of the deceased a symbol of the 
 longing of the orthodox Jew for the land of his ances 
 tors, of faithfulness to it even unto death. 
 
 Just before the coffin was lowered Aaron bent over 
 his wife s body. He uncovered her face, and looking 
 at it, began to speak to her asking her forgiveness, 
 which is a custom among Jews. If he had ever of 
 fended her . . . if he had ever been rude or inatten 
 tive, Aaron lisped, he now begged of her not to carry 
 the earthly feeling of resentment with her into the next 
 world either toward him or any one else. 
 
 Clara overheard her father s words and fainted. 
 The undertaker; who was on the lookout for just such 
 a scene, took a hand in the matter and began to 
 expedite things. The body was lowered. Half a 
 
THE END OF A DREAM 233 
 
 dozen spades seemed to have risen from nowhere, and 
 the grave was rapidly filling up with wet clay. 
 
 Emil watched the coffin disappear from view and 
 the grave fill up on a level with the ground. Then a 
 little mound rose over it. He stood and looked at it 
 like a stone figure until the sexton gave him a sharp 
 pull by the sleeve. 
 
 The sexton placed Emil alongside of his brother 
 Harry. They formed the center of a little group. He 
 and his brother were handed a framed parchment upon 
 which was inscribed the " Kadosh," the prayer for the 
 dead. 
 
 As a child, when Witte was still in Russia, he had 
 seen little orphans lined up near the altar in the syna 
 gogue morning and evening, reciting the " Kadosh." 
 
 As these orphans chanted the prayer they were in 
 variably watched by the entire congregation. In the 
 streets these little children might be ignored, but in 
 the synagogue they commanded respect. For here 
 they were doing duty by their dead. They prayed for 
 them. That invested them with much dignity in the 
 eyes of the onlookers, with much importance. 
 
 The sing-song in which the prayer is recited now 
 came to Emil as if he had heard it only yesterday. 
 The words came to tym clearly, naturally. ... Of 
 course the prayer meant nothing to him any longer. 
 It was far removed from his own religious convictions, 
 or perhaps lack of convictions. But he recited these 
 
234 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 words feelingly. For he knew that could his mother 
 see him standing there, reciting the " Kadosh " 
 over her grave, it would have made her immensely 
 happy. . . . She had so feared that her sons would 
 dispense with the " Kadosh," would consider the prayer 
 too old-fashioned in this busy, American world. . . . 
 
 Aaron insisted on celebrating the Passover, which 
 was two days off, at home, and immediately after the 
 funeral they took the train for Spring Water. He 
 insisted that his children gather at his house. None 
 of the children found voice to oppose him. It was 
 evident that he was trying to postpone his leave-taking 
 from family life, from a home of his own, for another 
 few days. It was too much to break away all at once. 
 
 He solemnized Passover Eve in the wonted manner. 
 He recited the story of Israel s exodus from Egypt in 
 the same triumphant sing-song in which he had recited 
 it ever since he sat at the head of the table which 
 was nearly forty years. Several times, however, he 
 looked to his right where his wife was wont to sit, 
 as if expecting her to hand him this or the other glass, 
 or dish, in accordance with the rites of the " Seder." 
 But Masha was not there to assist him. Once or twice 
 there was a tremor in Aaron s voice as he recited. A 
 sharp memory flitted across his brain. But the tremor 
 lasted only an instant and he was himself again. The 
 
THE END OF A DREAM 23$ 
 
 forced composure of the old man Aaron was nearly 
 all white now only heightened the sense of horror 
 of their loss. . . . 
 
 In the course of the next few days, when Aaron 
 thought no one saw him, he walked from room to room, 
 searched every nook and cranny, picked up a piece of 
 cotton or a needle and looked at it long. Once Emil 
 found his father in the clothes-closet smoothing 
 Masha s garments tenderly, wiping a fleck of dust here 
 and there, as if expecting that she would return any 
 moment and would wear them once more. 
 
 It was with great effort that Emil brought himself 
 to speak of his father s future. He wanted Aaron to 
 go with him to New York. But the latter shook his 
 head negatively. He would feel better in Spring 
 Water. It was nearer to N . He could run out 
 there occasionally, and visit. ... He would stay with 
 Clara. 
 
 The next morning Emil took the train for New 
 York. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE PROMISE 
 
 THE wound was slow in healing. His mother s 
 death had become the pivot about which his 
 thoughts revolved. Everything began and ended with 
 it. In the morning, when he awoke, he said to himself 
 that this was the twenty-ninth or the thirty-fifth day 
 since she had died. Going up in the elevator to the 
 office he saw a girl holding a bunch of lilacs- May 
 had already come and this suggested to him that his 
 mother would never more enjoy the sight of a flower. 
 In City Hall Park the grass looked especially green and 
 fresh and his mind wandered to his mother s grave. 
 Was grass growing on it already ? 
 
 Deep down in his heart there was a gnawing re 
 proach he should have succeeded sooner. His 
 mother would perhaps still be living if he had. Her 
 loneliness, her longing for him, and worry over his un 
 settled existence, might have hastened her death. . . . 
 What did success avail now? She would never see 
 it. She would never more be proud of him. . . . 
 
 Nevertheless it was success that made him forget his 
 great loss for any length of time. Now more than 
 
 236 
 
THE PROMISE 237 
 
 ever he felt like writing. He craved stories with con 
 suming tragedy in them. To write such stories gave 
 him pleasure; to draw a picture which would make 
 the reader gasp for breath was real happiness. 
 
 And such stories now came his way or perhaps 
 he went out of his way in search of them. He wrote 
 in succession three or four pathetic pieces of which 
 every one in the office took notice. 
 
 The more pathos he put into the stories he wrote, 
 the more his own pain was stilled. To ruminate over 
 the sorrows and tragedies which came to his desk in 
 skeletonized reports from police courts and morgues 
 and almshouses, \vas to detract unconsciously from the 
 poignancy of his own grief. He was not the only one 
 to suffer from the cruelty and capriciousness of fate. 
 
 One day the realization came to him that in his grief 
 for the dead he was committing a grievous injustice 
 toward the living. He had neglected his wife. Ever 
 since he had come back from Spring Water Helen had 
 tended to him as if he were a sick child. She left 
 him alone with his great sadness whenever he wanted 
 to be alone. Yet she was always there to see that he 
 got every comfort possible. She took his long hours 
 of silence, his craving for seclusion, patiently and with 
 out a murmur. 
 
 It was while he was sitting in the office and listening 
 to the rumbling of the press below that these thoughts 
 about his wife came to him. As if awakening from a 
 
238 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 long sleep he suddenly realized what the two months, 
 which he had lived in a sort of trance, must have 
 meant to Helen. He became hot all over. Shame 
 and pity diffused through his brain and heart. He 
 wished the day were over and he could rush home and 
 tell Helen how guilty he felt toward her, how dear she 
 was to him. 
 
 Helen, meantime, was standing beside the small fire 
 place, upon which their dinner was cooking, sunk in 
 reveries. She had felt happier that day than she had 
 felt in a long time. She could not give any reason for 
 her feeling thus. It was just a singing of the heart 
 which comes and goes as it pleases. She tried to give 
 expression to her happiness in the meal she was making 
 for the evening. She thought of the dishes Emil was 
 especially fond of and was preparing them. 
 
 She looked at the clock. It was five-thirty, the hour 
 Emil usually came. She ran to the mirror to tidy her 
 self. Her cheeks were burning red from work and 
 excitement. . . . Once or twice she looked out of the 
 window, but she did not see him coming. Then, just 
 as she was getting her mind off him for a moment and 
 beginning to maneuver one of the pots which was in 
 danger of burning, there was an abortive ring of the 
 bell, and in half the usual time she heard Emil s rapid, 
 clambering footsteps. He was evidently running up 
 the stairs. She opened the door and stood there 
 flushed and smiling, waiting for him. He too was 
 
THE PROMISE 239 
 
 flushed, and out of breath from running. His eyes 
 had a liquid brilliance and on his lips there was a smile 
 which had been missing for months. 
 
 He clasped her in his arms and held her with such a 
 vehemence as if he were defending his right to her 
 against a thousand hands that were stretching out to 
 separate them. . . . 
 
 The summer was drawing to a close, and Emil de 
 termined to make the most of the few Sundays that 
 were left. 
 
 " Suppose you meet me at four o clock this after 
 noon and we will take a ride to Rockaway Beach," he 
 suggested to Helen as he started to go to work one 
 Saturday morning. 
 
 Helen reflected a moment and declined to come out. 
 
 "Better come home when you get through/ she 
 said, " and we will go out around here. I am not quite 
 well to-day/ 
 
 Emil gave her a worried look. He had noticed that 
 she had grown paler. 
 
 " Don t look so alarmed," she smiled back. " It is 
 not anything serious, I just don t feel quite right. 
 Maybe I will change my mind later, and we will go to 
 Rockaway Beach after all." 
 
 He was uneasy about Helen all morning. In the 
 afternoon he looked at his watch every ten minutes. 
 If only a good story would come his way, a story that 
 
240 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 would absorb him and take his mind off his own 
 affairs for some time. But there were no big stories 
 breaking. It was a quiet Saturday. The copy readers 
 were letting items run long, for there was nothing of 
 importance coming in for the late editions to make 
 room fo^. 
 
 The suspense worried him. He climbed the steps 
 to the elevated heavily. As he approached the house 
 he looked up to see if Helen was at the window. She 
 was not there. She came to the door, however. 
 
 She had been lying on the couch in the sitting-room, 
 which was also EmiFs workroom, though he had not 
 worked much since his mother s death. She went back 
 to the couch and lay down. Bmil sat beside her. He 
 pressed her hand. Her face suddenly became crimson. 
 
 " You are sick," he said, worried. 
 
 She turned her eyes away from him and began to 
 cry softly. 
 
 He looked puzzled. 
 
 "Is there any bad news?" he asked. "From 
 home? From your folks from Russia?" 
 
 She shook her head negatively. 
 
 He took her head in his hands and kissed Her hair. 
 She curled up and leaned against his breast. 
 
 " Emil." 
 
 He looked into her face quickly. There was sus 
 pense, almost fear in his eyes. That amused her. 
 She laughed. 
 
THE PROMISE 241 
 
 " You poor boy," she said, " you remember you 
 asked me. . . . Well, it has come. . . . You are going 
 to be a father." 
 
 " I could not tell you this in the morning," she said 
 when she had freed herself from his passionate em 
 braces, " because I could not bear to be away from you 
 all day after having told you." 
 
 They did not go out. For hours they sat talking in 
 tender whispers about their unborn child and all that 
 he would mean to them, the great void he would fill in 
 their existence, the zest he would add to his, Emil s 
 work. 
 
 Yes, he could work again now. The spell of inac 
 tivity was broken. The feeling of futility which had 
 torn his soul since his mother s death had disappeared. 
 
 He forgot what it was to brood about death. He 
 was dreaming of life. . . . 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 HELEN DIES 
 
 THE pfiysician figured that it would be an April 
 baby. 
 
 " You were a trifle hasty," he said with a twinkle. 
 " The most convenient time for a baby to come into the 
 world from the baby s point of view is in the last 
 part of May or early in June. The unsteady spring 
 weather is over by that time. It begins to get warm, 
 and little babies like little birds want warmth. They 
 like the sun." 
 
 Dr. Ochsner was one of the pioneers of the Russian 
 Jewish colony in New York. His name was not 
 known to the medical world, though he was a well- 
 educated, conscientious physician. His interests lay 
 not so much in the direction of scientific medicine as in 
 the social problems which his practice on the East Side 
 unraveled before his eyes daily. 
 
 He was a freqent contributor to certain Yiddish 
 journals of socialistic tendencies. 
 
 " Yes," Dr. Ochsner continued, " babies need sun 
 shine. That is the principal trouble with our babies 
 
 242 
 
HELEN DIES 243 
 
 in New York they live away from the sun. Our 
 landlords put a ban on sunshine in their tenement 
 houses. They value space far too much to waste it. 
 Why admit Old Sol free when you can let in a boarder 
 in a windowless bedroom for six dollars a month? 
 The ancients worshiped the sun. Would that we too 
 learned to worship the sun, instead of worshiping the 
 Almighty Dollar!" 
 
 " Is this your first baby? " the physician asked. 
 
 Helen and Emil exchanged a swift look and both 
 said, " Yes." Dr. Ochsner observed the expression in 
 their faces and made a mental note of their " Yes." 
 
 Just before Christmas Witte got an offer from the 
 editor of the Morning Leader to go to work for that 
 paper. He sought out Graves and asked his advice. 
 
 " Accept it," Graves said unhesitatingly. " Take it 
 by all means. You will get a chance there to show 
 yourself. You cannot write a good story on an after 
 noon paper. Everything has to be written in a hurry. 
 The Leader will give you a chance to write." 
 
 Still Witte had his misgivings about accepting the 
 job on account of Helen. In her delicate condition 
 it was a great comfort to be at home evenings. On the 
 Leader he would have to work until one in the morn 
 ing. 
 
 Though Helen received the news with a slight pang, 
 she did not show it. She did not falter an instant, but 
 agreed with Graves that Emil must accept the job. He 
 
244 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 must not throw aside anything in the way of advance 
 ment. 
 
 Even after Witte left the Bulletin, Graves interest 
 in him did not flag. On the contrary he was watching 
 the reporter more eagerly than ever and was glad of 
 every opportunity to be of help to him. Such oppor 
 tunities came. While dining in the Press Club Graves 
 saw West enter. West was the city editor of the 
 Leader. He made room for him at his own table and 
 much of the conversation during the meal centered 
 about Witte. 
 
 It would be hard to explain what caused such deep 
 attachment and interest to spring up in Graves for such 
 an utter stranger as Witte. Perhaps the chief reason 
 was that Graves was a bachelor in the forties and was 
 completely free from domestic worries of any sort. 
 He was not averse to having a protege. His interest 
 in Witte was stimulated, too, by his sister s telling him 
 of the latter s untiring efforts at writing, in spite of all 
 discouragements, in spite of continuous refusals by 
 editors to accept his manuscript, which Miss Graves, 
 as Mr. Thornton s secretary, was in a position to know. 
 
 Then, too, Witte s writing on the Bulletin was full 
 of surprises. 
 
 " Witte s stories are different," the city editor of the 
 Bulletin had once said to Graves. " What to another 
 reporter would be a simple case of assault and battery, 
 under Witte s research and investigation, grows into 
 
HELEN DIES 245 
 
 human tragedy. Long forgotten causes, hidden fam 
 ily skeletons are dragged out into the light. He does 
 not let the police and the coroner give him the news 
 he goes into the home, he digs into life. He finds the 
 motive behind the crime, and the cause behind the sin." 
 
 This going behind the scenes in every story, the 
 constant searching for motives and causes of crime and 
 sin and misery, soon came to the surface on the Leader. 
 Witte made the first page of the Leader frequently. 
 A few of the stories he wrote were first-page stories to 
 begin with and were deliberately assigned to him. But 
 there were other stories of his on the first page not 
 because they were in themselves so significant, but be 
 cause of the manner in which they were written. The 
 human touch in them forced them to the front. 
 
 " I like the way you handled the kid story this 
 morning," West once said to him. " Keep on writing 
 in this vein that is, without regard to rules. I don t 
 care whether you get the news in the first paragraph 
 or in the last, provided the story is written in such a 
 manner as to compel the reader to read it from be 
 ginning to end. Give yourself freedom in the matter 
 of style. Write the way you think you ought to write, 
 the way you feel like writing." 
 
 When Witte figured up his income at the end of two 
 months he found that he had averaged fifty-eight 
 dollars a week. 
 
 " And now let him come," he said, looking mis- 
 
246 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 chievously at Helen. " I am ready for him. I can 
 give him a fairly good reception." 
 
 Helen rejoined in the same mischievous vein : " It 
 is going to be a girl. . . ." 
 
 " I want a girl," she continued with feigned sulki- 
 ness in her voice. " I am putting pink ribbon on all 
 her dresses. I want a companion for Mamma. . . ." 
 
 " It is going to be a boy," Emil responded with mock 
 firmness. " It cannot be helped, my dear. We just 
 have to have a chubby boy in the family." 
 
 From the figures of his earnings Witte turned to the 
 figures of his savings. They had over five hundred 
 dollars in the bank and they felt very rich. Their 
 child would not be born into want. . . . 
 
 Returning from work past midnight one night late 
 in the month of March, Emil found Helen pacing up 
 and down the floor in pain. She had been ill all 
 evening. At first she could hardly take a step. But 
 she was getting a trifle better. There was no need of 
 calling a doctor at such an hour, but they would call 
 him in the morning 1 . 
 
 Dr. Ochsner came and examined the patient. He 
 prescribed some medicine. 
 
 " You might telephone up to me to-morrow how you 
 feel," he said before leaving. " I will come and see 
 you again in two days, when I hear from the labor 
 atory." 
 
HELEN DIES 247 
 
 Helen divided the day between mental and physical 
 anguish. For whenever she was ill the thought of 
 home, her parents, her mother came to her with agon 
 izing persistency. Frequently in such periods of 
 mental and physical pain she would pen a letter to her 
 parents asking them to come to America, to be near 
 her. Invariably she tore such letters up with a feeling 
 of shame. How could they leave Russia while her 
 sister was immured in Siberia? How selfish of her to 
 entertain such desires in the face of her sister s martyr 
 dom! 
 
 But she pined for her parents and sister all the same. 
 Oh, what a help her sister would have been to her now 
 in these circumstances. She sobbed softly as she 
 thought of it. ... Weakness overcame her, she fell 
 asleep and both physical and political barriers were 
 removed. She and her parents were together. The 
 Atlantic ocean, Siberia and Russian autocracy, all 
 seemed to have evaporated as if in response to the wave 
 of a magic wand, and she and her older sister were 
 walking hand in hand through a beautiful garden, 
 clinging to each other, gazing into each other s 
 eyes. . . . 
 
 It was while Helen was walking through this magic 
 garden, which the realm of sleep alone can conjure into 
 existence, that Emil quietly let himself into the apart 
 ment with a latchkey. He walked over to where his 
 wife lay on the couch on tiptoe and looked at her 
 
248 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 for several moments. She opened her eyes sud 
 denly. 
 
 " Oh, I had such a nice dream/ she said, and pro 
 ceeded to narrate it. 
 
 She was not much better. The medicine did not 
 seem to do her much good. In the morning, they 
 decided, they would call Dr. Ochsner once more. 
 They spent the remainder of the night restlessly. 
 Emil did not fall asleep until nearly daybreak. At ten 
 o clock he was awakened by a loud ringing. He 
 opened the door and faced Dr. Ochsner. 
 
 " I got the laboratory report just about half an hour 
 ago in the mail/ the physician said with an effort at 
 calmness. "Your wife must go to the hospital at 
 once. There is not a minute to lose. It is a case of 
 nephritis," he added, when he saw Witte looking at 
 him dumfounded. 
 
 They broke the news to Helen cautiously. In the 
 first few minutes she thought that going to the hospital 
 was still a thing of the future, though near future. 
 When told, however, that she must dress and leave the 
 house immediately, she blanched. Emil cheered and 
 encouraged her, but his own face was bloodless. 
 Helen bit her lips and dressed as fast as her limp arms 
 would permit. . . . 
 
 In the hospital, as she was led from the bathroom 
 to the ward by the attendant, she caught sight of Emil s 
 distressed face which was staring blankly ahead, help- 
 
HELEN DIES 249 
 
 lessness written all over it. She broke down and began 
 to cry. He saw her and was at her side in an instant. 
 Dr. Ochsner came up and upbraided her good-naturedly 
 for " acting so childish." She was led into the ward, 
 the nurse shutting the door in Emil s face. 
 
 When Dr. Ochsner emerged from the ward and saw 
 Emil still waiting, his lips assumed a thin smile. 
 
 "It will be several days," he explained, "before 
 anything will be known definitely. You can call 
 around here any time you like." 
 
 " Is she in danger? " Witte asked. 
 
 " Every woman who is about to give birth to a child 
 is more or less in danger," said the physician. " How 
 ever, we will pull her through without any trouble." 
 
 Dr. Ochsner shot a quick, inquisitive look at Witte. 
 
 " I don t like to pry into personal affairs too much," 
 he said, " but is this Mrs. Witte s first child ? Has she 
 ever had a miscarriage ? It is well to know it." 
 
 Witte admitted she had. 
 
 There are altogether too many of these things 
 happening," Dr. Ochsner said with a far-off look, " for 
 the health of the mothers and the good of the race." 
 
 For several days in succession Emil visited Helen in 
 her ward twice a. day. One afternoon a nurse met him 
 at the door and told him that Mrs. Witte could not be 
 seen. Persistent questioning was met with persistent 
 indefiniteness of answer. 
 
 Witte rang up Dr. Ochsner. The physician was not 
 
250 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 in. He rang again at six. The physician gave him 
 little satisfaction and advised him to call at nine. He 
 called at nine. Dr. Ochsner was busy, he could not 
 be called to the telephone. 
 
 Witte had hardly hung up the receiver when the 
 editor called him over. 
 
 " Whip this into a story," West said, handing him 
 some copy evidently written by a young reporter. 
 Witte quickly began to gather the loose ends of an 
 elopement story. He telephoned to police headquar 
 ters, and not getting any satisfaction, he ran over there 
 himself. It was ten o clock by the time he had the 
 story well in hand. The editor wanted it for the first 
 edition. There was not a minute to lose. 
 
 Before he had finished with it, however, he was 
 handed some more copy to rewrite. It was twelve 
 when he finally cleared his desk. He rang up the 
 hospital. An attendant said he would make inquiries. 
 
 " A still-birth," the attendant s voice came over the 
 wire after a space of half a minute. 
 
 "A what?" Witte demanded. 
 
 " A still-birth, a dead baby," the voice at the other 
 end of the wire drawled. 
 
 Ten minutes later Witte was at the hospital. Could 
 he see his wife? The attendant, a placid Swede, 
 looked at him with astonishment, as if Witte had asked 
 him if it was not possible to change night into day 
 light. It could not be done. Emil persisted. He 
 
HELEN DIES 251 
 
 must see his wife for one moment. The night watch 
 man shrugged his shoulders and called an interne. 
 The interne was more sympathetic, but it was im 
 possible. It was against the rules of the institution. 
 Besides Mrs. Witte was not in a condition to be dis 
 turbed. 
 
 Emil roused Dr. Ochsner out of bed. He came out 
 dressed in a bathrobe. 
 
 " I am sorry," said the physician, as he led Witte 
 into his office. " But the baby could not be saved. 
 It had been dead for some days." 
 
 Emil looked stony. 
 
 " I would not worry about the child," the physician 
 continued. " Rather ought you to be thankful that 
 your wife was saved. Such cases often end badly for 
 the mother." 
 
 " How is she ? " Emil asked quickly. 
 
 " Oh, fairly well as well as could be expected 
 under the circumstances." 
 
 " Is she out of danger? " 
 
 Dr. Ochsner tried to hide his answer behind a 
 smile. 
 
 " I think it will come out all right," he said. 
 
 Helen was not out of danger. When Emil saw her 
 the next morning she was very weak. In the after 
 noon she had fever and later became delirious. 
 
 For five days her life hung in the balance. Then a 
 slight improvement was noted. He spent much of his 
 
252 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 time at or near the hospital now. On the eighth day 
 she was considerably improved. Emil could have 
 cried for happiness at the return of intelligence into her 
 eyes. The following day, in spite of the physician s 
 injunction not to tax her with too much conversation, 
 he told her of a letter he had received that morning 
 from the editor of the Universe saying that there was 
 a series of articles he wanted him to do. What a 
 happy life they would lead yet! Let her only come 
 out of the hospital ! 
 
 A faint flush came into Helen s face, a flush of 
 happiness and triumph. She knew those letters would 
 come to Emil. She was not deceived in him. 
 
 She asked after the baby. Had Emil seen it at 
 least, and what disposition had been made of it? She 
 had wanted to see it badly, but the doctor would not 
 permit. . . . 
 
 Emil cheered her. Helen drank in every word of 
 his. It was like a tonic to her. She asked after their 
 home. Everything must be covered with dust an inch 
 thick, she said. 
 
 " You look bad," she added, as he was leaving. " I 
 am afraid by the time I get out of here, you will be 
 fit for the hospital." 
 
 The nurse had warned him for the third time that 
 he must go. He took Helen s hand to his lips and held 
 it there long. Then he pressed a kiss on her cheek. 
 Tears suddenly came welling from his eyes. He felt 
 
HELEN DIES 253 
 
 that he was losing all control over himself. Hastily 
 he ran out of the room. 
 
 The instant Emil was out of the room Helen s fever 
 rose. 
 
 That night Emil planned to get a good long sleep. 
 He needed it. He went straight home from the office 
 and into bed. He was asleep in a few moments. 
 
 A prolonged ringing roused him. At first he 
 thought that the bell was ringing in a neighbor s apart 
 ment. But as the ringing persisted, he realized that it 
 was his bell. He went to the door. A messenger 
 handed him a telegram. He called the boy into the 
 room and glanced at the clock in passing. It was 
 nearly five. 
 
 The telegram was from the hospital. Helen had 
 suffered a relapse and her case was serious. 
 
 " No answer," he said to the boy. 
 
 He was in the office of the hospital a little before six 
 o clock. The night attendant, sleepier than ever, 
 motioned to him to go right up. He walked up three 
 flights of stairs. The elevator was not yet running. 
 The ward his wife was in lay at the end of the corridor. 
 Midway up the hall he came upon a wheel cot which 
 stood to one side and was hidden from view by a white 
 screen. He had no clear notion what that might be, 
 but the sight of it terrified him. He entered the ward 
 and on tiptoe stole up to the bed Helen occupied. She 
 was not there. , . He wondered if he had made a 
 
254 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 mistake and got off at the wrong floor. He made a 
 dash for the door and was face to face with the nurse. 
 
 " Oh/ she gasped, when she recognized Witte. 
 
 " Where is she ? " he demanded hoarsely. " What 
 has happened ? " 
 
 The nurse walked down the hall hastily. Emil fol 
 lowed. She stopped in front of the screened wheel 
 cot. She removed the screen. Emil threw himself 
 over his wife s rigid body. . . . 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 GRAY DAYS 
 
 WHEN Witte lifted his dry eyes from the face 
 of his dead wife, he was confronted with the 
 problem of the disposition of the body. He had no 
 experience in such matters, and he stood there thinking 
 rather unclearly, when an interne came to his assist 
 ance. 
 
 Witte explained to him briefly that they were 
 strangers in New York, that he had no friends and 
 knew no one. 
 
 ( You d better see the superintendent of the hospital 
 as soon as he comes," the interne counseled. 
 
 The superintendent gave him the name of a Jewish 
 undertaker. 
 
 " He will do the right thing by you," he said. 
 
 For a long time Witte debated with himself whether 
 to notify Graves or not. His friendship with Graves 
 had hitherto been purely an office affair. Graves 
 knew, of course, that Witte was married. He knew 
 when Helen came to New York. Once or twice he 
 asked Witte how his wife liked the city, and there the 
 
 255 
 
256 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 matter ended. Witte had never invited Graves to his 
 home. 
 
 It would have been hard for Emil to explain just 
 why he had hesitated to invite so good a friend as 
 Graves to his home. Off-hand he might have 
 answered that the house was not exactly what he 
 wished it to be. It was still more of a roost than a 
 home. He might have said, too, that Graves being 
 so much older than himself, and an editor, while he 
 was only a reporter, he did not feel that it was right 
 to bring down their professional friendship to a purely 
 personal, family basis. But these would only be make- 
 believe answers. 
 
 The real reason why he never invited Graves to the 
 house was that he was a Jew and Graves a Gentile. 
 Isolated experiences, a few of them going back to his 
 college days, had forced upon him the conviction that 
 the anti-social attitude which Christians were taking 
 toward Jews in the old world had not entirely been 
 overcome in the new. And friendship with a Gentile 
 had best not be pushed too far. 
 
 He had seen Jew and Gentile mingle in offices in 
 Chicago. They were friends. They had confidences, 
 their common secrets. But this was all during work 
 ing hours. After office hours their ways parted. The 
 social life of the Gentile was not the social life of the 
 Jew. Some newspapers, too, made a subtle distinction 
 in their columns between " society news 
 
GRAY DAYS 257 
 
 of Jewish society". . . They did not label Jewish 
 society news differently. But they managed to group 
 Jewish engagements, Jewish entertainments, Jewish 
 personals in a column apart from the regu 
 lar society news. . . . This anomaly of perfect 
 equality between Jew and Gentile in the office, in busi 
 ness life, and the gulf that divided the two in social 
 life had interested Witte when he was merely an ob 
 server. It pained him, however, when it entered his 
 own personal life. Still he feared to make a break. 
 He feared to invite Graves to his house lest this some 
 how result in an estrangement. Graves, on the other 
 hand, was too much of a man of the world to be im 
 politic in such matters. 
 
 After notifying his office, Witte yielded to an inmost 
 desire for the sympathy of a friend and telephoned to 
 Graves informing him of his calamity. Graves im 
 mediately offered his services. He would meet Witte 
 at the undertaker s at four-thirty. Like a drowning 
 man, Witte clutched at what little comfort and solace 
 there was in this offer of his friend. . . . 
 
 .... The funeral cortege, besides Witte, consisted 
 of Graves, a copy reader of the Bulletin whom the 
 latter brought with him and a reporter of the Leader 
 who had become friends with Witte. The undertaker 
 was a little nonplussed at first by the unusual situation. 
 There were not even ten Jews the number required 
 for the reciting of the prayer over the dead. . . . 
 
258 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 However, he was a man of the world, and readily took 
 in the situation. Everything moved with exceeding 
 swiftness. 
 
 How much more quickly his wife was being expe 
 dited from the land of the living than his mother, and 
 with how much less ceremony, did not escape Emil. A 
 wave of resentment swept over him resentment 
 against himself, against fate. Had Helen not been so 
 lonely in New York, had she had her people there, her 
 funeral would have taken on a different complexion. 
 He hardly noticed how he was shoved into the carriage 
 and how fast the carriage was speeding toward Man 
 hattan and away from the cemetery. ... He came to 
 himself fully and clearly only when Brooklyn Bridge 
 came in sight. 
 
 At Park Row the driver stopped. Graves and the 
 other two men stepped out. Witte followed. He 
 looked about for a moment and then started. 
 
 " Where are you going? " Graves asked. 
 
 " To the office." 
 
 Graves was about to remonstrate, but changed his 
 mind. Perhaps the office was after all the best place 
 for Witte. 
 
 Except for the city editor and two or three reporters 
 no one in the office knew that Witte had lost his wife. 
 Several men passed him with a nod or a smile. He 
 replied as best he could. He was spared the necessity 
 
GRAY DAYS 259 
 
 of going to work that evening and he sat before his 
 open desk looking at the newspapers before him with 
 unseeing eyes. 
 
 At ten o clock he left the office. He started for the 
 elevated as usual, but changed his mind. He felt that 
 he would not have the courage to enter his apartment 
 again, to sleep through the night there. He walked 
 into the nearest hotel and asked for a room. 
 
 He had hoped that when he disposed of his flat and 
 settled in a room that he would be able to resume work 
 once more. He was anxious to work now, to work 
 hard. It would be splendid to become absorbed and to 
 forget. . . . But he could not become absorbed. There 
 was a perpetual thumping in his head. Before his eyes 
 there would frequently swim streaks of blacknesss. 
 He would never fall asleep before five in the morning, 
 and his sleep was fitful, restless 
 
 The thought of Helen never left him. What a 
 strange thing life was! And how still more strange 
 was the power of love. This girl who had a father 
 and mother somewhere far off, in Russia, had linked 
 her life with his. She had forgotten every one and 
 cleaved to him. And, as she lived for him, she had 
 now died for him. . . . That was becoming a fixed 
 idea in his mind Helen had died for him, through 
 him. As in the case of his mother his success came too 
 late. It should have come sooner soon after their 
 
260 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 marriage. Then that horrible deed, that wanton de 
 struction of what should have been their first-born, 
 would never have occurred. And if that had not oc 
 curred she would have been among the living now. 
 Though the doctor had not attributed her illness to that 
 violent and unnatural operation which she had had 
 performed in Chicago, Witte felt convinced that her 
 illness and death were directly caused by it. And he 
 was to blame. . . . 
 
 His dreams were of her. One night her parents 
 appeared before him a sad, sorrowful Jewish couple. 
 They were not angry with him, but they were sad. 
 They did not speak to him, they merely looked. But 
 their look seemed to say : 
 
 " She was our only daughter. The other one 
 in Siberia God knows when we shall see her 
 again. . . . We trusted her to you. How did you 
 fulfil your trust toward us ?" 
 
 Emil cried out and awoke. He got out of bed and 
 walked to the window. The city was just coming to 
 life. It was six o clock. People were beginning 
 to pour out into the streets. The day s rush for the 
 subway, elevated and cars was beginning. He had 
 slept less than two hours. But he could not bring 
 himself to pull the shade down and go to sleep again. 
 
 So he sat there behind the curtain watching the city 
 take up its day s work. For more than two hours 
 men and women passed under his window. First came 
 
GRAY DAYS 261 
 
 factory workers. They carried their lunch with them. 
 They laughed and chatted as they walked. Then came 
 the white-collared brigade, clerks, salesmen, office 
 workers, stenographers. They carried no lunch. 
 Their clothes were of a different cut than those of the 
 factory workers, but they were often more shiny. He 
 wondered how they lived whether they were happy. 
 
 Happiness, in the main, was the chief business of 
 life. We were all struggling, fighting, suffering, en 
 during in order to gain happiness. He turned his 
 thoughts inward. Would he ever have been happier 
 if he had chosen any other occupation than the one he 
 was in than writing? Books if he could only 
 write books, he always thought, he would be happy. 
 But would he ? And suppose these books did not sell ? 
 Suppose, what is still worse, they did not rise above 
 the ordinary. Ah, what a tragedy the ordinary book 
 was! 
 
 He had been to the Astor library and looked over 
 some old newspapers of twenty-five and forty years 
 back. There were advertisements of books in them, 
 and book reviews. Certain works that were hailed by 
 the critics a generation back as epoch-making were un 
 known not only to the public but even to the publishers 
 of to-day. He looked for them high and low but could 
 not find them. In the space of one-third of a century 
 thousands of books that their writers relied upon to 
 give them fame, yes, even immortality, had been swept 
 
262 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 off the earth. Time, the stern critic and inexorable 
 judge, had thrown them upon the scrap heap as the 
 "luckless pots marr d in the making. . . ." The 
 authors of these books were not spared from oblivion. 
 If he only had chosen any life but the life of a writer! 
 Helen might be living and he might have been spared 
 so much misery. He would not have had to drink the 
 cup of bitterness to the dregs. 
 
 The thought of suicide frequently came now along 
 with the peculiar thumping in his head. He wondered 
 whether he would have sufficient courage to embrace 
 death of his own volition. Did it require a stronger 
 impulse than pain or grief to send a man headlong into 
 eternity ? 
 
 With these thoughts of suicide came the counter 
 thought his father. The police would telegraph his 
 death to Spring Water. An officer there would bring 
 the news to Aaron. He would try to break it to him 
 cautiously, but would blurt it out all the same. . . . 
 He had seen such things done. Or maybe it would be 
 a reporter who would inform his father the Spring 
 Water newspaper, too, might be getting up-to-date, 
 enterprising. He pictured to himself the look in his 
 father s face when the news was broken to him of his, 
 Emil s, death, by his own hand. . . . 
 
 He went to the office as usual that day. Several 
 times during the afternoon, however, streaks of black 
 ness passed before his eyes and seemed to take longer 
 
GRAY DAYS 263 
 
 for their journey than usual. He went out to dinner 
 at six o clock. At the sight of food he realized how 
 sick he was. A friend took him home. A doctor was 
 called in. He would come again in the morning. 
 
 In the morning the physician gave Emil a thorough 
 examination. Could Mr. Witte take a month or two 
 off and go to a sanitarium? He needed a rest. It 
 was not a question of drugs. Drugs would not restore 
 his overwrought nerves to normal again. 
 
 Witte telephoned to Graves. The latter came in a 
 short time. 
 
 " I know a better place than a sanitarium," Graves 
 counseled, "your home. I believe you told me once 
 you have a sister and father out West. Go to them. 
 Stay there two or three months or longer, if neces 
 sary. It is better than a sanitarium. There are too 
 many people with aches and pains, both real and im 
 aginary, in sanitariums for a man to get well there." 
 
 The thought of going home at first seemed prepos 
 terous to Witte. It would be different if his mother 
 were living, if they still had the sort of home they 
 used to have. Still, the anticipation of being once more 
 with his father, with his family, distilled a soothing 
 sensation through his veins. He made ready for the 
 journey. Graves took him to the Pennsylvania 
 Station and helped him with his baggage. 
 
 " Write," Graves urged him as they were shaking 
 hands in the Pullman. "Tell me about the West. 
 
264 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 Most of my people have lived and died somewhere be 
 tween New York and Boston. I hope to see a little 
 more of the country. I would like to go West myself 
 some day." 
 
 Time had dealt kindly with Alex Stein. He was 
 now the owner of one of the most prosperous stores in 
 Spring Water. He owned a beautiful home in a more 
 exclusive section of the city and considerable business 
 property in the heart of the mercantile district. His 
 ambition to become a leading citizen in his community 
 had been realized. He was a fairly prominent figure 
 in the city s civic life. His portly figure he had 
 taken on flesh in the last few years was frequently 
 seen about city hall. His interest in public affairs and 
 influence in certain circles in the city had resulted in 
 his appointment as a member of the board of educa 
 tion. Alex Stein took his office very seriously, and his 
 conscientious work in behalf of the public gained for 
 him considerable respect in administration quarters. 
 
 He now strongly resembled those " city hall Jews " 
 in Chicago, who had been his envy when he was a boy. 
 He, too, could do a man a favor by calling a city 
 official on the telephone. 
 
 The contempt which Alex Stein once had for his 
 wife s family had imperceptibly worn off. If he still 
 thought them " greenhorns " he never uttered this in 
 their, or in his wife s presence. He was especially 
 
GRAY DAYS 265 
 
 kindly disposed toward Emil now. For Emil was in 
 no small measure responsible for his brother-in-law s 
 success in politics. 
 
 From the moment Emil s signed articles began to 
 appear in the Sunday Star Alex Stein knew how to 
 take advantage of it. It supplied him a topic for con 
 versation. When speaking to the local political 
 satellites, he would invariably twist the conversation 
 about so as to find an opportunity to stick in a phrase 
 like, "as my brother-in-law said in last Sunday s 
 paper." And if the politician in question did not 
 happen to know what was meant by this reference, 
 Stein very deliberately and very gladly supplied the 
 information that his brother-in-law, Emil Witte, was 
 working on the Chicago Star and was one of the ablest 
 of the younger writers on civic questions. 
 
 When Emil Witte s first article appeared in a maga 
 zine, Alex Stein showed it to the advertising manager 
 of the Sentinel with considerable pride. The adver 
 tising man fully shared Stein s pride in his brother- 
 in-law, and two or three days later the Sentinel came 
 out with a column story telling of the success a Spring 
 Water boy was winning as a writer. Well to the 
 front of the story brief mention was made of the fact 
 that this young writer, Emil Witte, was the brother- 
 in-law of the well-known merchant, Alex Stein, etc., 
 etc. 
 
 Every article that came from the pen of Witte was 
 
266 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 so used by Stein as to lend an air of intellectuality to 
 himself. He saw to it that people, the people he was 
 interested in, should not be surprised at Witte s success 
 in the writing field, but that instead they should say, 
 lt What wonder is it? Does not he come from an 
 intellectual family? Take that brother-in-law of his, 
 Alex Stein a very intellectual man." 
 
 Witte went from the train straight to his brother-in- 
 law s store. Stein was profuse in his welcome. He 
 was genuinely sorry for Emil s misfortunes. The 
 sight of his brother-in-law, thin and haggard and still 
 with the boyish look in his face in spite of his thirty 
 years, aroused his compassion. 
 
 " Where is father? " Emil asked. 
 
 " Father is on the farm did he not write to you 
 yet?" 
 
 Emil recalled that his father had written him it 
 was the week Helen was in the hospital that Alex 
 Stein had bought a farm and that he, Aaron, would 
 devote himself entirely to overseeing things on the 
 place. 
 
 After Emil had spent half an hour with Clara and 
 her children, Alex came with a runabout which he had 
 acquired only recently for the purpose of driving out 
 to his farm every two or three days. The farm was 
 .only five miles from the city and the drive through the 
 green fields on that June morning acted like a tonic 
 upon Witte. The atmosphere was soothing and in- 
 
GRAY DAYS 267 
 
 vigorating. It took loads off his heart, and his brain 
 felt as if heavy clouds were being lifted from it. 
 
 A brisk trot, and Stein s farm hove into view. Emil 
 discerned his father standing in the yard. Aaron was 
 gazing toward them intently. He evidently recog 
 nized Stein s rig and was wondering who the person 
 sitting beside his son-in-law might be. As they came 
 nearer Aaron recognized Emil. Waving his arms and 
 uttering inarticulate exclamations he ran toward them. 
 
 Emil had meant to meet his father with stoic resig 
 nation and self-control. But the tears got the best of 
 him. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 FATHER AND SON 
 
 TWICE Aaron came up to the door of the room 
 where Emil was sleeping, and upon hearing his 
 son s even breathing, retraced his steps to the kitchen. 
 He would not wake him. Morning sleep was good for 
 children and to him Emil was a child once more, and 
 a sick child at that. 
 
 He changed the position of the coffee-pot on the 
 stove so as to prevent its further boiling and went out 
 into the yard. He was trying to think of some point of 
 interest to show Emil about the farm that day. They 
 had seen a good deal of the place in the week Emil 
 had been back from New York. But Aaron must find 
 something to keep up his son s interest and to keep 
 his thoughts from reverting to himself, to the past. . . . 
 
 Aaron had his own ideas about curing those sick 
 nesses that are not of the body, but of the soul. 
 
 When Clara, with her husband and her father, was 
 alone the evening after Emil came, she said she was 
 convinced that her brother was very sick. He looked 
 ill and broken, physically and mentally. Alex Stein 
 suggested that they call in the best doctor in Spring 
 Water and spare no expense. Clara began making 
 
 268 
 
FATHER AND SON 269 
 
 plans for taking care of him. He would have to get 
 very good care. 
 
 Aaron, however, waved aside all talk of calling a 
 doctor. 
 
 " Don t put yourself out/ he said to his daughter. 
 " You have enough to do taking care of the children. 
 I ll look after Emil myself. I ll bring him around. 
 Just leave him to me." 
 
 Clara did not leave them alone entirely. She ran 
 out to the farm every few days to see how her father 
 was looking after Emil, whether he was not starving 
 the boy. . . . But there was no danger of that. Aaron 
 had developed into an excellent cook and manager. 
 As for the care he was giving Emil, no doctor could 
 advise better care. 
 
 When Aaron came up to Emil s door for the third 
 time the latter was dressing. 
 
 The fence at the far end of the two hundred acre 
 tract was broken, he informed his son. After break 
 fast they would go down to fix it. Alex Stein had a 
 man running the place for him and there was nothing 
 for Aaron to do there. But since Emil had come, the 
 old man was constantly looking for a chance to tinker 
 about the place. It was so diverting, and the exer 
 cise in trotting up and down the farm was good for 
 Emil. . . . 
 
 So, as soon as they were through breakfasting, 
 Aaron took a hammer and some nails and started off 
 
270 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 on a slow circuitous walk toward that end of the field 
 where the fence was broken. They passed a little 
 ravine where cattle were grazing. Then they came to a 
 spring. Here they drank and sat in the shade and 
 chatted for the better part of an hour. 
 
 Centuries of life in the ghettos of the old world have 
 extinguished in the Jew all love for nature. Emil was 
 no exception. He could dissect human emotions. 
 His heart and brain were attuned like a violin to human 
 suffering, to the joys and sorrows of his fellows. But 
 nature had never interested him much. The animal 
 and plant worlds were pretty much of a sealed book to 
 him. He could not call more than two or three flowers 
 by their names. Now this book was opening itself 
 before his eyes. He was becoming interested in things 
 he had formerly never noticed. He could sit for hours 
 and watch the manceuvers of a squirrel. A worm 
 crawling slowly along the earth would arouse his in 
 terest. He would lie on his back, screen his eyes with 
 his hand, and watch the myriads of little insects and 
 creatures floating in the bluish haze about him. 
 
 In such moments the memory of the city, of the 
 struggling, seething life there, evaporated, became 
 dreamlike. The city seemed to lose all sense of reality. 
 His father was reading in the papers Emil was not 
 reading anything that men were dying from heat in 
 Chicago and New York daily. And while he listened 
 to these items they did not seem to penetrate his mind. 
 
FATHER AND SON 271 
 
 He could hardly understand that. Even his father s 
 occasional remark about the sultriness of the weather 
 found no response within him. He welcomed the sun. 
 The blazing rays were penetrating and melting and 
 healing his frozen heart. The sunshine and warmth 
 seemed to ease the thumping in his head. . . . 
 
 Two or three times a week Emil would spend after 
 noons with his sister. Either Clara came out to see 
 him, or else he would drive into town. Alex Stein 
 welcomed these visits of Emil. No matter how busy 
 he might be he would put aside his books and figures 
 and chat with his brother-in-law. 
 
 Emil noticed the change that had come over Stein. 
 He had softened a great deal since the days when he 
 first entered their household. Business success to 
 gether with his growing prestige in the community 
 had made Stein more tolerant of people. He had a 
 name among his employees as a considerate employer. 
 
 Aaron s attitude toward his son-in-law, too, had 
 changed. If Alex Stein still was unable to follow his 
 Talmudic discussions, his son-in-law was now practic 
 ing many of the things the rabbis preached and ex 
 horted. He was contributing liberally to the poor. 
 He was a director of the Spring Water charity society. 
 He not only gave money but time to the management 
 of the society s affairs. Whenever a call came to aid 
 the distressed, no matter of what race or what country, 
 
272 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 Alex Stein was always at the head of the list of con 
 tributors. Just as in his younger days he had followed 
 eagerly the news of the sporting world, so he now read 
 religiously a journal which was disseminating ideas of 
 welfare and humanity. 
 
 But while he changed his methods of dealing with 
 people considerably, Alex Stein did not let up a whit. 
 He was working harder than ever, in fact, for he was 
 now projecting big undertakings. He had the am 
 bition to see an up-to-date department store in Spring 
 Water, with himself, of course, as the owner of it. It 
 was with this end in view that he had been amassing 
 property in the business section. What stood in the 
 way of the execution of the project was the corner lot 
 he needed, which was owned by an old settler in the 
 community, the druggist, Holstman. Holstman was 
 loath to part with the property, and Alex Stein would 
 not resort to methods that would drive the old man 
 close to the wall. It would not be in keeping for Stein 
 as a leading citizen, and a member of the board of edu 
 cation, to resort even to a legitimate trick to force the 
 old man to sell out to him. So he waited patiently 
 and let the project of building a department store ac 
 cumulate momentum, so that once started it would pro 
 ceed rapidly. 
 
 The afternoons Emil spent in the city were beginning 
 to give him great pleasure. He would stay for supper 
 at Clara s house. Emil would play with his little 
 
FATHER AND SON 273 
 
 nephews. A healthy, hearty laugh was coming back 
 to him. . . . 
 
 Once when Emil and his father drove home, the 
 horse started up at a gallop. Emil, who held the reins, 
 was thrilled by it like a boy. He remarked this to his 
 father, and the latter said : 
 
 " Yes, you never really had a childhood, like Amer 
 ican children have. In the ghetto children not only 
 grow old they are born old. And ever since you 
 came to this country it has always been work and 
 trouble." 
 
 Emil ran over in his mind his twenty years in 
 America 
 
 " Yes, work and trouble," he repeated thoughtfully. 
 
 Aaron was sorry he had ventured into the field of 
 reminiscences. Both the subject he had brought up 
 and the manner in which he had spoken about it had 
 drawn down a sudden gloom upon Emil. They rode 
 in silence the rest of the way. . . . 
 
 Now that Emil was recovering his mental and physi 
 cal poise he was beginning to ply his father with ques 
 tions. Aaron talked at first hesitatingly, then, seeing 
 that Emil was strong enough to delve into the past, 
 he talked gladly about the many things in their own 
 lives, things either vaguely or totally unknown to Emil. 
 The great world with its problems and sorrows, which 
 had occupied Emil all the years he was working on 
 newspapers, now seemed to fade from his memory, and 
 
274 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 the little world of the Witte households, of immediate 
 friends and relatives, took the center of the stage for 
 the time being. 
 
 His father loved to dwell on the past, especially on 
 those incidents in it in which Emil s mother had 
 figured. Aaron would never grow tired of speaking 
 of his dead wife. . . . 
 
 Often when his father talked to him with such ten 
 derness of his mother, a pain would come over Emil 
 a pain for Helen. Would that he, too, had a child 
 to whom he could in after days speak of her. But it 
 was not given to her to have a child. It was not 
 given to Helen to preserve her image for him in a living 
 part of herself. All he had of her was the image that 
 had chiseled itself into his brain. . . . 
 
 On nights when he thought of this he would toss on 
 his bed for hours, or would raise the window and look 
 long at the stars and listen to the rustling leaves in the 
 trees. . . . 
 
 The first week in September brought disagreeable 
 weather. A cold rain with a sharp wind heralded the 
 first breath of autumn. All through the night the trees 
 groaned under the onslaught of the raging elements. 
 Emil lay awake a good part of the night. It was a 
 unique sensation to be awake and listening to moan- 
 ings of the storm at night in the country. 
 
 In the morning when he came to breakfast he found 
 
FATHER AND SON 275 
 
 the kitchen stove going. It was exuding a pleasant 
 warmth. The smell of burning pine saturated the 
 room. He felt a soothing sensation penetrate his very 
 bones. For years he had not sat in front of a burning 
 stove. This sensation gave him immense pleasure. 
 
 The rain kept up throughout the forenoon and the 
 leaden clouds gave no promise of a let-up. After 
 dinner Aaron joined his son in the kitchen. He sat 
 and smoked a pipe he smoked more and oftener 
 since the death of his wife. Emil was wading through 
 a batch of magazines he had not looked at all summer. 
 
 He found names in these magazines of writers he 
 knew, or had heard of. He read one short story and 
 then another. Then he paused and thought. . . . 
 Neither of the stories satisfied him completely. Life 
 was deeper, ever so much deeper than the writers of 
 these stories painted it. ... The " love pangs " in the 
 stories were often a pretense the sorrow in them not 
 deep, not genuine. . . . Have men and women for 
 gotten how to love ? Has suffering become so easy to 
 endure, so superficial? Or was it the fault of the 
 writers ? Apparently the writers were not " eating 
 their bread with tears " and were not spending their 
 "nights a-sorrowing " : Goethe s formula for good 
 writing. 
 
 He thought of his own stories, the unprinted, the 
 semi-written children of his brain. Most of these 
 half-written stories were lying in his trunk. A longing 
 
276 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 for them came over him. He left the room and soon 
 returned with a bundle of papers. He looked ruefully 
 at the fragments of writing on which he had spent so 
 many weary and ecstatic hours hours he had taken 
 from Helen. He came to a score or more of scribbled 
 pages. It was the book, the book he had begun early 
 in his newspaper career, the book that was to paint life 
 deep and strong. 
 
 He read the fragmentary manuscript page by page. 
 The pictures the pages presented were fresh and thrill 
 ing, though the writing was bad in spots. He struck 
 out a few words here, added a sentence there. 
 
 It occurred to him that it would be worth while re 
 writing these pages. It was worth while preserving 
 them. Some day they would form the nucleus, the be 
 ginning of a book. 
 
 His father was out of the room by this time. It 
 was but a step into his bedroom to get the machine. 
 He adjusted the typewriter on the kitchen table. The 
 keys were a trifle stiff, but that passed away after a 
 few moments. A wave of happiness came over him as 
 the familiar clicking of the keys began to reverberate 
 through the room 
 
 Twice Aaron Witte hovered past the kitchen door, 
 attracted there by the strange noise the machine was 
 making, and twice he receded on tiptoe for fear that 
 his presence might disturb his son. Once he caught 
 the tenseness in Emil s face as his eyes shifted from the 
 
FATHER AND SON 277 
 
 page which lay before him on the table to the page 
 which was growing out of his typewriter inch by inch, 
 and a strange happiness akin to humiliation overcame 
 him. Aaron had never seen Emil work on a type 
 writer, and the quickness and suppleness with which 
 his brain and hands worked together filled the old man 
 with a strange pride in his boy his favorite son upon 
 whom he lavished more affection and more attention 
 than on all his children. If Masha had only lived! 
 If she could have been brought to life and but for a 
 single instant be put there before the door to watch 
 Emirs flushed face and fine forehead as the thoughts 
 were flashing from it on paper! 
 
 Through the night the book had shaped itself defin 
 itely in his mind. He was more than ever convinced 
 now that his first choice of ideas and situations was a 
 happy one. It still rained in the morning. In the 
 kitchen the stove was again going, the burning pine 
 acting like a tonic on his nerves. After breakfast he 
 again sat down to the typewriter. His father had 
 sought out a special table for him and had had the 
 legs sawed off so as to make it the right height. By 
 eleven o clock the ten pages he had written the previous 
 afternoon were increased to again as many. At dinner 
 he told his father that he could feel his health come 
 back by leaps and bounds. They laughed and ate 
 heartily. . . . 
 
 These mornings at the typewriter were now a stand- 
 
278 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 ing feature with Emil. His mind was permeated with 
 ideas and pictures. Episodes and chapters were 
 crowding one another in his brain and there was but 
 one way to relieve this strain on his nerves to put 
 these thoughts and pictures and episodes on paper. 
 So he wrote morning after morning. Aaron insisted 
 that he refrain from working afternoons he was 
 there to rest, to recover his health. 
 
 When the first snow fell, a few days before Thanks 
 giving, Witte took an inventory of his book. He 
 found that it was more than two-thirds done. ... It 
 was then he permitted himself to surprise Graves, 
 with whom he was corresponding with fair regularity, 
 with the news that he was working on a story. 
 Graves reply was immediate and enthusiastic. He 
 was hoping that Emil would be along soon. He ought 
 to come back to New York as soon as his health per 
 mitted. 
 
 Emil had completely recovered his health. Many 
 of the aches and pains of a few months back were now 
 an indistinct memory. He wondered at times how a 
 person could so easily forget the sensations of pain 
 and discomfort which so shortly before had held him 
 in their grip. But the renewed strength of youth ap 
 parently would not stand for such trifling things as 
 disease memories. 
 
 A longing for the city, for the office atmosphere, a 
 homesickness for the printed word, now frequently 
 
FATHER AND SON 279 
 
 overtook him. And this longing became stronger as 
 the book neared completion. The first week in Jan 
 uary it was finished. 
 
 Aaron reconciled himself to the thought of his son s 
 going back to New York. He suggested, however, 
 that Emil stay with him till spring. Hitherto Aaron 
 Witte had nursed his son, he now wanted two months 
 to look at him, to enjoy his presence. Who could 
 foretell when they would see each other again? 
 
 The last week in March Witte received a telegram 
 from Graves. Graves had been called by the Leader 
 as night editor. There was to be a complete reorgan 
 ization of the staff. Van Bever, the managing editor, 
 was looking for a rewrite man. He could fix it for 
 Witte to get the job. Did he want it? He had a 
 week s time to get there. Witte wired an acceptance 
 that same day. 
 
 A family dinner was arranged by Clara for Friday 
 evening. Harry and his wife and children came. 
 Alex Stein was in the best of spirits. The fact that 
 Emil was called by a New York editor pleased him 
 greatly. He took it as a personal compliment and was 
 making much of it as if he had been responsible for 
 it. The fact that he had at one time urged Emil 
 angrily to take up law or any other profession instead 
 of " the fool course " which led him into writing, was 
 conveniently forgotten by Stein. 
 
 Emil was up early the next morning. He was to 
 
28o WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 leave at ten o clock. Alex Stein went down to the 
 store and said he would be back in time to take Emil 
 to the train. Aaron Witte was busying himself about 
 Emil s luggage. Emil and Clara remained alone in 
 the house. 
 
 His sister came up close to him and began speaking 
 about his journey and New York. He must take good 
 care of himself there. He must guard his health and 
 he must write to her to her especially and often. 
 She broke down and wept. Emil caressed her arm 
 and her shoulder and urged her to calm herself. What 
 was there to weep about ? He was going to New York 
 in a far better state than when he came. Everything 
 was all right. Father was well and contented on the 
 farm not a bad old age at that. ... He would, of 
 course, come to visit them at the first opportunity. 
 
 " Do come/ Clara emitted between sobs. " Come 
 next summer if you can I am so lonely." 
 
 And then she hid her face in her hands and moaned 
 and spoke in fragments: 
 
 " Alex he is good to me. But he is not like 
 one of us He is always chinking of business 
 mo ney He is not like you like father. He does 
 not confide in me as father did in mother He does 
 not have time for his family " 
 
 Emil looked at his sister, who was drying her eyes, 
 and was astounded to find how closely she resembled 
 his mother the mother he had known as a little child. 
 
FATHER AND SON 281 
 
 He had never suspected any rift between Clara and her 
 husband. . . . He was profoundly disturbed by his 
 sister s tears. ... He tried to console her. 
 
 He absolved Alex Stein from blame for his money 
 madness. It was not his fault, this never-ceasing 
 struggle for gold and more gold. It was the cardinal 
 sin of American life. Money madness was the curse 
 of the age, the blot on our civilization. Alex Stein was 
 merely falling in line with the ideals, or lack of ideals, 
 of the times. 
 
 Emil talked at length and Clara hung on his every 
 word. As she looked into her brother s resigned eyes, 
 she was struck by the close resemblance Emil was be 
 ginning to bear to their father. If he had a beard 
 Emil would look just as her father had looked when 
 she was a little girl. And he talked like her father 
 never harshly, always mitigatingly, always subduedly. 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 THE BOOK OF LIFE 
 
 THERE are streets in Brooklyn where the quiet is 
 so intense that the very stillness fairly threatens 
 to become audible at times. Everything in these 
 streets moves noiselessly. The maid who takes a child 
 for an outing walks as if somebody was lying at the 
 point of death and a laugh or exclamation might do 
 irretrievable hurt. Carriages and limousines glide 
 through the streets at certain hours of the day, but 
 they, too, glide noiselessly. The heavily curtained 
 windows of the residences give no sign of the life that 
 is going on within. 
 
 The spacious and imposing residences in these streets 
 are occupied mostly by lawyers, bankers, brokers, and 
 higher class merchants who have their offices or busi 
 ness places in Manhattan. In the morning between 
 eight-thirty and nine-thirty o clock these men are 
 seen leaving their homes in carriages or automobiles. 
 At five in the afternoon they return. As their going 
 so their coming is soft and quiet. The walk and de 
 meanor of the men is such as to appear almost studied 
 in its fear of noise. In the evening alone one occasion 
 ally hears laughter in these streets, as when a theater 
 party starts out or else returns home. 
 
 282 
 
THE BOOK OF LIFE 283 
 
 The men and women who live in these streets are 
 without exception of the " old families," families with 
 New England traditions, families that belong to the 
 American aristocracy of culture. They are not of the 
 class of money kings. Rather are they the intellectual 
 servants of these money kings and of corporations. 
 Immigrants invariably are fascinated by these faces, 
 for there is kindliness in them and sincere interest as 
 well as simplicity. Even the aloofness of some of 
 these families has not the inborn contempt for the 
 people one finds in the titled nobility of Europe, or the 
 insolence of the new rich. Emerson and Thoreau are 
 still the penates, the family gods, in these homes. 
 
 One of these quiet and exclusive residences the 
 Graves family occupied. The late William Parton 
 Graves was a famous lawyer and scholar. There were 
 several volumes of his essays and addresses in the 
 library. In spite, however, of both his literary inclin 
 ations, which resulted in his taking much time from 
 business and limiting his law practice to high-grade 
 work only, and of his untimely death, he left his fam 
 ily fairly well provided for. Mrs. Graves owned the 
 residence and had the income from a large farm in 
 Vermont. There was also some suburban property 
 which was rapidly rising in value. 
 
 Toward this house George Graves and Emil Witte 
 were now coming. It was the first invitation the 
 editor had extended to Witte to spend the evening with 
 
284 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 him, his mother and sister, and was made in such a 
 sincere manner that Witte at once accepted it. 
 
 Since Witte s arrival from Spring Water, some six 
 weeks before, he and Graves had been drawn together 
 more closely, first by their office work Emil Witte 
 was now doing considerable work under the immediate 
 supervision of Graves and secondly by Witte s 
 book. 
 
 Graves was very much interested in this book. 
 They talked about it frequently. He urged Witte to 
 whip the manuscript into presentable shape and submit 
 it to an editor there was no use losing time. Witte 
 was too busy on the Leader, however, to give the manu 
 script the necessary time for revision. 
 
 " I have described your book, that is, as much as I 
 know about it, to my sister," Graves said to Witte. 
 " She thinks it is a timely work, and that you ought to 
 take it to a publisher at once." 
 
 Graves had great respect for his sister s opinion. 
 Barbara Graves knew the publishing business well in 
 deed. Before becoming secretary to the editor of the 
 Advance she had worked for the Seymour and 
 Brothers Publishing Company for some years. 
 
 It was at this point that Graves suggested urgently 
 that Witte spend an evening with them. Together 
 they could talk over his book and perhaps a plan would 
 suggest itself for its marketing. 
 
 So Witte found himself in the Graves sitting-room, 
 
THE BOOK OF LIFE 285 
 
 answering the greetings of Mrs. Graves, a woman in 
 the sixties, who concerned herself greatly about making 
 her guest comfortable and putting him at ease. It was 
 the first time in the period of nearly three years of their 
 acquaintance that Witte found himself talking to Miss 
 Graves on subjects other than business. 
 
 They talked about the West. She had known it only 
 cursorily, having taken a trip to the Pacific Coast. 
 
 " That," said Miss Graves, " is really no way of 
 seeing one s country. You cannot see far from an 
 observation platform." 
 
 Her brother turned the conversation to the book. 
 Witte told her how he had conceived the idea for the 
 story years previously as a reporter for a Chicago 
 paper, and how he had carried it into execution in those 
 autumn days on the farm, while the burning stove was 
 diffusing the odor of pine through the farmhouse and 
 his brain. 
 
 " Could I see it? " Miss Graves asked. 
 
 " Yes, gladly." 
 
 He gave the manuscript to Graves the following 
 evening to take home with him. 
 
 Three days later Witte received a note from Miss 
 Graves asking his permission to show the manuscript 
 to a friend of hers, a Miss Gardiner, a reader for a 
 publishing house. 
 
 He wrote back a note of appreciation for the interest 
 which Miss Graves was taking in his manuscript and 
 
286 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 jestingly added that she might consider herself a 
 trustee of his work and could dispose of it any way 
 she saw fit. 
 
 " I have accepted the trusteeship/ she wrote in the 
 same spirit, "and after having made a few trifling 
 editorial changes and corrections, I have turned the 
 manuscript over into very trustworthy hands, where it 
 is now being rewritten. It needed that badly." 
 
 Both Graves and his sister apparently forgot the 
 manuscript for the next two weeks. Graves met Witte 
 every night at work as usual, but there was no mention 
 of the book. At the end of two weeks there came a 
 letter signed by a Mr. Alden, the president of the Sey 
 mour and Brothers Publishing Company. Witte was 
 informed that his book was accepted and was asked 
 to come in at the first opportunity to talk over certain 
 changes that were desirable in the story. 
 
 Formal as was the note of acceptance which Mr. 
 Alden had written, the reception he gave Witte was the 
 very antithesis. 
 
 " You have here a splendid book," said Alden. " It 
 is refreshing. I was delighted to read it." 
 
 The publisher was a man past fifty, gray-haired, 
 smooth-shaven. He gave one the impression that he 
 was part and parcel of an older generation. Witte 
 learned in the next few moments, however, that this 
 man who spoke to him in almost clerical manner, as 
 the parson in a small community speaks to one of his 
 
THE BOOK OF LIFE 287 
 
 parishioners, was very up-to-date in his knowledge of 
 conditions, far more up-to-date, in fact, than many a 
 brisk and brittle younger man. 
 
 " I have been wishing for some time for such a 
 book," Alden continued. " The technique of the thing 
 is weak in places, but that will be pulled up in the 
 editing. The main thing is the subject matter, the at 
 mosphere. That is there in inimitable manner. 
 
 " I looked over the manuscript again after I wrote 
 to you/ he went on after a pause, " and I am inclined 
 to make no changes in the story. I believe I shall let 
 the situations stand just the way you have them. 
 Your judgment and feeling in the book is right. You 
 have a work here a work " 
 
 He broke off, apparently not sure how to phrase his 
 criticism or praise of the book. He continued : 
 
 "Am I making myself clear? You have a story 
 here that is different from anything that has been 
 written in years. There is heart in it. There is some 
 thing else in this book of yours. Something for which 
 we have no word in English, but which the Germans 
 call iiberlebtes things one has lived through, suf 
 ferings one has experienced in one s own soul " 
 
 Alden searched with his gray eyes the face of the 
 young man before him with a look of genuine sym 
 pathy, and said : 
 
 " You must have gone through a lot you must 
 have suffered a lot to be able to write such a book. 
 
288 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 Such a work as yours is not merely thought out it 
 is lived. There is a note of sincerity in it that is too 
 often a stranger to American literature. It is the book 
 of life. It is epic in its depth of grandeur. It is a dis 
 tinct contribution to American letters." 
 
 Mr. Alden made Witte sketch his life for him. At 
 the mention of Manning, the publisher pricked up his 
 ears. He had known Manning years ago in Boston. 
 Witte described to him just what Manning s purpose 
 was in hiring him on the Chicago Star, the sort of 
 writing he wanted of him. 
 
 Ten days later Witte received another note from the 
 publisher to come and see him. 
 
 " I want you to go to work for us," Alden said 
 bluntly. He then proceeded to explain. 
 
 The Seymour and Brothers publishing house, as 
 Witte knew, was publishing not only books but a num 
 ber of magazines, among them the Age, a well-known 
 weekly. 
 
 " I think," said Alden, " that we can do considerable 
 for you and that you can do considerable for the Age. 
 We have been looking around for a likely man to take 
 on our staff for some time. I think you are the man 
 we want. 
 
 " We want you to write editorials for the Age. We 
 want you to tell us of America s newest problems. I 
 agree perfectly with the sentiments of your book that, 
 sifted down to fundamentals, the greatest problem 
 
THE BOOK OF LIFE 289 
 
 for this country to solve is the bread and contentment 
 accent the contentment problem, and that Gold 
 smith s sentiment to the effect that ill fares the land 
 where wealth accumulates and men decay is not senti 
 mentality, but truth, practical statesmanship. In your 
 story you have brought out the dignity, the poetry, and 
 the despair of the job. But you have brought them 
 out only as an artist which was right considering the 
 fact that you were writing fiction. We want you to 
 bring out these questions as a publicist, editorially, 
 emphatically, in the Age every week. I agree fully 
 with your sentiment that there is no reason why men 
 who want work should not find it. There is no reason 
 why work should be made hateful by mismanagement, 
 by improper surroundings, by indifferent or brutal 
 treatment of the worker. I agree with you that there 
 is no reason why culture and refinement should be the 
 heritage of the few. It belongs to all the people. 
 There should be no room for caste and class lines in a 
 democracy, in America." 
 
 Witte, overwhelmed by the offer, listened in silence. 
 He had never thought of himself in the light of an 
 editorial writer. He had always associated elderly 
 men with work of that sort. He admitted it frankly 
 to Mr. Alden. The latter laughed. 
 
 "That is the accepted view," said the publisher. 
 " But it is a mistaken view. It is the young, not neces 
 sarily in years but in mind, in spirit, who shape the 
 
2QO WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 course of civilization, and the young should be allowed 
 to say just what the course should be. The young 
 writer has a distinct viewpoint which the older man 
 often loses. He has enthusiasm. We should not wait 
 until he has lost these qualities to let him write editor 
 ials. 
 
 " The editorial," Alden went on after some moments, 
 " is the poem of to-day. In a previous century the 
 best political and social writing was done in poetry. 
 To-day it is done in editorials. We must have more 
 men of force and of vision and of youth speaking 
 through our editorial columns." 
 
 Witte hurried to the office of the Leader. On his 
 desk lay a number of clippings with instructions from 
 the city editor as to what length they should be re 
 written. He was in the midst of one of these stories 
 when Graves rushed up to him radiant with delight. 
 
 He already knew Witte was going to work for 
 Alden. He shook his hand warmly. 
 
 " Great luck! " cried Graves. " It makes a national 
 figure of you. Mr. Alden thinks he has made a great 
 find in you. You have arrived ! " 
 
 "Who told you?" Witte wondered. 
 
 " Miss Gardiner, one of the readers for Seymour s, 
 telephoned my sister. She and Barbara are chums. 
 It was to Miss Gardiner, you know, that she took your 
 book in the first place, and it was on her recommenda 
 tion that Alden read it." 
 
THE BOOK OF LIFE 291 
 
 " I see," said Witte. 
 
 An office boy came running after Graves. He was 
 wanted in the managing editor s office. The executive 
 heads were going into council to decide on the next 
 day s paper. He left Witte hurriedly. 
 
 At midnight Witte sat down to write his resignation. 
 But Van Bever, the managing editor, himself walked 
 up to the desk. He had already heard from Graves 
 about Witte s leaving. He came up to congratulate 
 him. 
 
 When Witte, after a brisk walk in the night air, 
 reached his room, his exultation left him. In its place 
 came a sadness and a vacant feeling. To whom should 
 he tell the story of his success? His mother, whose 
 support in old age he had hoped to be, was dead. She 
 had passed away without seeing him safely anchored. 
 And Helen He felt as if his heart was bathing in 
 its own blood at the thought of his dead wife. . . . 
 
 The lines from Goethe s Dedication in "Faust" 
 came to him : 
 
 " Mein Leid ertont der unbekannten Menge, 
 Ihr Beifall selbst macht meinem Herzen bang. . . ." 
 
 Those who could recall his struggle and understand 
 his triumphs were no longer among the living. Those 
 who would applaud him were not those whose applause 
 he craved. What was achievement, what was fame, 
 when those you have worked for, striven for, are no 
 longer with you to share your fame, when the days of 
 
292 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 youth and happiness are but a memory and linger like a 
 faintly quivering dream? What is success or fame to 
 a heart that harbors the graves of love and happiness? 
 He raised the window to let the cool night air rest 
 his overwrought nerves. But the air chilled without 
 resting him. He pulled down the shade and turned on 
 the light. On the table lay a worn-out copy of 
 " Faust," the copy he had used as a student. He 
 opened it and began to read. . . . 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 OLD SORROWS AND A NEW LIFE 
 
 THREE years had passed. Except for an added 
 sharpness about his temples and the intensified 
 pallor of his features, Emil Witte had changed little 
 outwardly. Within him, however, the change which 
 had been ushered in twenty-five years back on that first 
 morning of his in the new world, when his father 
 dressed him in American clothes from head to foot 
 that change was now reaching the highest consumma 
 tion. . . . 
 
 Witte had become peculiarly American. He had 
 drunk deep not only of American ideals, but of Amer 
 ican culture and American traditions. His articles and 
 editorials in the Age attracted attention particularly by 
 their Emersonian flavor. The cultural background of 
 Witte s writing was that of New England. Not one 
 in a thousand readers of these unsigned editorials on 
 American life and problems and ideals would have sus 
 pected that they were written by any one not of Amer 
 ican birth. Many, indeed, would have placed the 
 writer of such articles as none other than a scion of one 
 of the oldest American families. 
 
 293 
 
294 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 Still in the privacy of his home he now occupied 
 a modest apartment in Greenwich Village Emil 
 would take his pen once a week or ten days and would 
 write a letter in Yiddish to his father. To write to 
 his father was one of his great pleasures. The true 
 reporter s instinct for seeing life at first hand had not 
 left him : he still would make his pilgrimages to the 
 people in search of ideas as well as " color." In these 
 ramblings through the city he would come upon a 
 synagogue or into " Jewish streets " on the East Side 
 occasionally, and then memories of his past would 
 be revived. And, as is characteristic of such mem 
 ories, he would dwell fondly upon them. . . . 
 
 Witte s place among the younger writers and editors 
 was definitely established by his second book " The 
 Fate of Democracies," which had been put on the mar 
 ket a few months before, and reviews of which were 
 beginning to appear in the papers and magazines. 
 
 It was a cool August morning, and Witte, who had 
 been unable to fasten himself dow r n to his desk in ear 
 nest for some weeks, determined to make the most of 
 it. There were several articles in his mind waiting to 
 be transferred to paper. He decided to put that 
 " problem " out of his head for the day, at least, and 
 get down to business. He walked into his office de 
 terminedly. . . . 
 
 The first thing that greeted his eyes in the mail be 
 fore him was an envelope of clippings reviews of 
 
OLD SORROWS AND A NEW LIFE 295 
 
 his book. He began looking them over. Some of the 
 reviewers thought that the author of the " The Fate of 
 Democracies " was taking the difficulties that beset 
 the American republic in altogether too sinister a light. 
 Others, on the contrary, praised the book as a timely 
 warning, and as performing a great service to the coun 
 try. 
 
 One of the critics struck a personal note. He made 
 mention of the fact that this " fundamentally American 
 volume " was written by a man who had come to the 
 United States as an immigrant. . . . The question of 
 restricting immigration was then being agitated in cer 
 tain quarters. " It would be folly," the writer had 
 digressed from book reviewing to editorializing for a 
 moment, " to close our doors on immigrants when they 
 bring to our shores such splendid material for Ameri 
 canism, such forceful and uncompromising champions 
 of democratic institutions and republican ideals. . . ." 
 
 The reference to his foreign birth stirred memories, 
 which in spite of his determination not to digress from 
 work that morning could not be put out of his mind at 
 will. There was a fleeting memory of his father whom 
 he had not seen in two years. . . . He had not heard 
 from Clara in months. He wondered how Alex Stein 
 was getting on with his department store. His brother 
 Harry, Emil mused with much satisfaction, was at last 
 getting on his feet. Partly with the aid of their 
 brother-in-law and partly through an unlocked for 
 
296 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 business boom, Harry had come into possession of a 
 big clothing establishment in Spring Water and was 
 doing exceedingly well. 
 
 An office boy brought in a bundle of magazines. 
 Witte shook off his memories and began to look 
 through the mail quickly. Toward the end of the 
 batch he came upon a letter which brought him face to 
 face with the " problem " he was vainly trying to put 
 out of his mind, for that day at least. It was a note 
 from Miss Graves. 
 
 She invited him to come out to dinner Sunday. 
 There would be a number of friends there whom he 
 would no doubt be glad to see. . . . There was a refer 
 ence also to the fact that he had not called at their 
 home for three weeks. Was he busy, or was it worry ? 
 Anyway he would be there Sunday, she hoped. ... 
 Oh, yes, his editorial on women s rights was fine. She 
 was very happy he had written it in that vein just 
 the way he had outlined it to her. It was bold 
 splendid. ... A discreet tenderness ran through the 
 note. Miss Graves was worried over his staying away 
 so long. He saw that clearly. . . . 
 
 He tossed all thought of working that morning 
 definitely to the winds. There was no use. The 
 " problem " took its place once more, like the tra 
 ditional sword, over his head. Witte loved Barbara 
 Graves. He was certain, too, that his love would be 
 returned. He and Barbara had been approaching each 
 
OLD SORROWS AND A NEW LIFE 297 
 
 other nearer and nearer for more than a year. He had 
 been a fequent visitor at the Graves home during that 
 time. Much of his writing, as in the case of the edi 
 torial on women s rights, had been done after he had 
 talked things over with her, or with her brother, or 
 both. He began to feel that he could no longer satisfy 
 the desire for her company, for her presence, with an 
 occasional visit. He wanted her to himself, constantly, 
 all the time. 
 
 It was not easy to begin with for Witte to admit to 
 himself that the feeling he cherished for Barbara was 
 love. . . . Helen had not entirely ceased to be a part 
 of himself. ... At night he would lie awake for 
 hours and watch Helen and a little boy their little 
 boy, the one that should not. have died at birth romp 
 about on a green lawn. ... He would romp with 
 them and pet his child and talk to Helen in warm, 
 endearing terms. ... He had seen a picture of such 
 a happy family somewhere, and the picture had 
 fastened itself in his brain with Helen, their child 
 their dead son and himself as the subjects. . . . 
 In his dreams he was leading a delightful family life 
 with Helen and was spending many ecstatic moments 
 with his golden-haired youngster. . . . 
 
 One night the picture of Helen, which his imagina 
 tion had conjured up, had imperceptibly passed over 
 into a picture of Barbara. . . . Only Barbara was 
 not playing with a child on the lawn. Instead she 
 
298 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 was sitting in a reclining chair, book in hand. . . . 
 
 Gradually the picture of Barbara crowded out the 
 picture of Helen and their baby. There was some 
 thing every day, a letter, a telephone call, a visit to 
 remind him of Barbara, to draw him nearer to her. 
 He realized that he loved her deeply, tenderly 
 and drew back writhing in pain stung by the 
 " problem " 
 
 What stood between Witte and Barbara was race. 
 He did not mince words about it. He did not try to 
 deceive himself. When a little child in Russia, he had 
 learned to fear certain Christian holidays because they 
 meant drunkenness, and that meant breaking into 
 Jewish homes, fighting, brawling "a calamity upon 
 Jews." In America the prejudice against his race did 
 not manifest itself in physical violence. But there 
 were fine pin-pricks, subtle discriminations, which did 
 not escape his eye, which did not escape his own person 
 at times. His love for the Gentile girl had the effect 
 of awakening and intensifying his racial sympathies. 
 
 Of course, Miss Graves had nothing to do with all 
 this. There were no personal religious differences be 
 tween him and her. He was no disciple of the syna 
 gogue. Miss Graves nominally was a Unitarian. 
 Her deism and his antagonism had nothing hostile, 
 nothing conflicting about them. That was what his 
 reason told him. But that did not smooth over the 
 indignities which, though he was not himself suffering 
 
OLD SORROWS AND A NEW LIFE 299 
 
 from them at the moment, the Jews were suffering at 
 the time in various parts of the world, at the 
 hands of Christians. And these indignities rankled, 
 
 burned. . . . 
 
 For three months this awakened race feeling had 
 been strewing thorns in the path of his love. He had 
 sought all the literature on the subject from Lessings 
 " Nathan the Wise " to Zangwill s " The Melting Pot." 
 He read the latest discussions of the " Jewish ques 
 tion " in the Yiddish press of America. He was much 
 impressed with Nathan s speech to the Templar : 
 
 "Are we our nation? What does it signify nation ? 
 Are Christian and Jew rather Christian and Jew 
 Than Man? Oh, if only I had found in you 
 One more whom it suffices to be called Man." 
 
 But the broad tolerance of the wise Nathan was not 
 guiding the relations between Jew and Christian in 
 their daily contact, Witte felt. In spite of Lessing 
 and Zangwill the palm had not been extended by the 
 one or accepted by the other. . . . Jew and Christian 
 alike still cherished age-long prejudices against each 
 other. . . . Not Lessing, not Zangwill, but an obscure 
 writer in a small Yiddish weekly, it seemed to Witte, 
 was getting nearer to the crux of the difference between 
 Jew and Christian. 
 
 " Christianity is not content with having the Jew 
 merely throw off his creed," this writer wound up an 
 impassioned article. "The last thing Christianity 
 
300 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 wants is for the Jew to cease to be a Jew and to become 
 a man. It wants him to become a Christian. Do away 
 with the Ram s Horn, with the Shopar, but only to 
 listen to the ringing of church bells. Christianity 
 wants a world of Christians. . . . 
 
 " But," the writer concluded, " as long as there are 
 churches there will be synagogues. As long as church 
 bells will symbolize the Trinity to Christians, the 
 Shopar will speak of the One God to Jews. . . ." 
 
 Witte read this article by the obscure Yiddish writer 
 to Miss Graves. They often talked together about 
 creeds and smiled and wondered at the folly of it 
 all ... man pitted .against man, nation against 
 nation. ... As lief might the trees in the forest en 
 gage in deadly combat because of the differences in 
 bark. . . . 
 
 Miss Graves accompanied him one Sunday morning 
 on a stroll through the East Side. Within the space 
 of one block they came upon a church and a synagogue. 
 It was a Jewish holiday, and precisely at the hour when 
 men and women were pouring out of the church at one 
 end of the block, men and women were pouring out of 
 the synagogue at the other. The worshipers in each 
 case carried a copy of the Book which first promulgated 
 the injunction, " Love thy neighbor as thyself." They 
 passed each other in grim silence. Yes, here and there 
 even with a look of anger, hatred. . . . Several 
 children snickered " Sheeny " and mimicked a bearded 
 
OLD SORROWS AND A NEW LIFE 301 
 
 Jew whose features were not unlike those that artists 
 attribute to the Christ. 
 
 Miss Graves noticed this and bit her lips. When she 
 regained control over herself she said: 
 
 " Some day humanity will outgrow bigotry and 
 superstition. It is inconceivable that these artificial 
 barriers between races should last for all time." 
 
 At which Emil laughed softly, sadly. On his desk 
 lay the unfinished manuscript of an article on the " Ris 
 ing Tide of Nationalism," which he was writing. 
 Even then all through Europe the smaller nations were 
 in ferment, demanding the right to exist as independent 
 national bodies. As was the case with the Jews in the 
 days of the prophets, each of these nationalities was 
 now clamoring for a king. They welcomed tyranny 
 so long as the tyrants were of their own blood. 
 
 He communicated his thoughts to her and his doubts 
 about the quick disappearance of race distinctions and 
 national hatreds. 
 
 " Is there to be no end of it? " Miss Graves asked 
 with infinite sadness. " Is this senseless feud between 
 followers of various creeds to rage on for ever? Will 
 the cross, which was intended as a symbol of passion, 
 continue to be identified with persecution? Will the 
 ringing of church bells, intended to signify the ushering 
 in of peace and good will, continue to spell massacres, 
 pogroms upon millions of people? Is there no way 
 out?" 
 
302 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 Several days later they were discussing the same 
 problem as they sat on a bench in Prospect Park in the 
 evening. 
 
 Witte was more than usually subdued. There 
 seemed to be no way out of this muddle of religious 
 bigotry and persecution. There seemed to be no 
 remedy for this blind, unreasoned race hatred. He 
 feared there was no way out. His love, his happiness 
 were crumbling. 
 
 Miss Graves looked helpless, distressed. She caught 
 a glimpse of Witte s face. It was graven with pain. 
 They sat silent for a long time. . . . 
 
 She finally broke the silence. Her voice vibrated 
 with feeling. It sounded strange and dreamlike, as if 
 it came from far off. . . . 
 
 " Yes," she was saying, " there is a way out. . . . 
 If men would only see it ... Love that is the way 
 out. . . . We must all follow the voice of love. . . ." 
 
 Witte turned his face from her. He felt that if he 
 looked into her eyes he would say that which his heart 
 cried out, but which his tongue feared to utter. 
 
 It was shortly after that evening that he had ceased 
 going to the Graves home. He stayed away and 
 grappled with his problem and brooded over it for 
 weeks. It was for this absence that her note was now 
 mildly reproaching him. . . . 
 
 He picked up the letter and read it once more. A 
 tenderness ran through him. ... He was nigh unto 
 
OLD SORROWS AND A NEW LIFE 303 
 
 tears. . . . What had she to do with a senseless feud 
 of two thousand years? Why hold her to account for 
 the malice of Christendom? The hatred between 
 Christian and Jew was not of her making not of 
 their making. Why should it mar their lives? Why 
 should it be in the way of their love ? 
 
 He sat in his chair for some time. ... A weakness 
 overcame him, a dizziness. . . . Voices seemed to fill 
 the room. . . . His father s voice. . . . And his 
 mother s. . . . There was regret in their voices . . . 
 tears were in their eyes. . . . 
 
 He woke from his revery. His mind was cleared. 
 He had decided. 
 
 His father would understand him. . . . He always 
 understood him. . . . And his mother, were she alive, 
 she, too, would have stood by him. ... He could ex 
 plain it to them. . . . And they would see it. ... He 
 was not surrendering. ... He was not deserting. . . . 
 He was merely trying to wrest from life the happiness 
 which was his due ... the happiness which was hu 
 man and knew no race or creed. . . . 
 
 He rose and lifted the telephone receiver. He called 
 a number. His voice was clear and strangely calm. 
 Suddenly a deep flush came into his face. She was 
 speaking. ... He lost all control over himself. 
 
 * Yes," he stammered, " I m coming at once to see 
 you Barbara " 
 
 He walked out of the office noiselessly. In the street 
 
304 WITTE ARRIVES 
 
 he walked fast for several blocks. His walking inter 
 fered with his thoughts, his visionings. He motioned 
 to a nearby taxi. He gave the address of the Graves 
 home, leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. 
 
 Barbara met him in the hallway. The astounded yet 
 happy look in her eyes made her beautiful. . . . She 
 extended her hand to him, but he did not notice it. ... 
 He was looking straight at her face. . . . She had 
 never seen him look in that way at her before. . . . 
 Speech died on her lips. . . . She found it again in 
 his arms. 
 
 THE END 
 

YB 40010 
 
 GENERAL LIBRARY- U.C. BERKELEY 
 
 8000770^1 
 
 343156 
 
 3 crW. 
 
 * 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY