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The Sturdy Oak

S >> Samuel Merwin >> The Sturdy Oak




George shook, but he was far from happy. What he had gained in peace of
mind he had lost in self-conceit. His resentment against the pinch of
circumstance was deepening to cancerous vindictiveness.

As Pennington left with a cheery good-by and a final half-cynical word of
advice "to get onto himself" George mounted the stairs slowly and came
face to face with Geneviève, obviously in wait for him.

"What happened?" she inquired, with an anxious glance at his corrugated
brow.

George did not feel in a mood to describe his retreat, if not defeat.

"Oh, nothing. We had a highball. I think I made him--well--it's all right."

"There, I knew Betty'd make him see reason," she smiled. "I'm awfully glad.
I've a real respect for Penny's judgment after all, you know."

"Meaning, you have your doubts about mine."

"No, meaning only just what I said--_just_ that. By the way, George, I wish
you'd take time to look into Alys' real estate. Somebody ought to, and if
you're really representing her----"

"Oh, good heavens!" he exclaimed impatiently, angered by her swift
transition from his own to another's affairs. "I can't! I simply can't!
Haven't you any conception of how busy I am?"

"I know, dear; I _do_ know. But something must be done. The Health
Department," she explained, "has sent in complaint after complaint, and
Miss Eliot simply won't handle the property unless she's allowed to spend
a lot setting things to rights. Alys says it's absurd; none of the other
property owners out there are doing anything, and _she_ won't. So, nobody's
looking after it, and somebody should."

"Who told you all this?" he demanded. "Miss E. Eliot, I suppose."

His wife nodded. "And she's right," she added.

"Well, perhaps she is," he allowed. "I'll get Alien to act as her agent
again. He's in with all the politicians; he ought to be able to stall off
the department."

The words slipped out before he realized their import, but at Genevieve's
wide stare of amazement he flushed crimson. "I mean--lots of these
complaints are really mere red tape; some self-important employee is trying
to look busy. A little investigation usually puts that straight."

"Of course," she acquiesced, and he breathed a sigh of relief. "That
happens, too, but Miss Eliot says that the conditions out there are really
dreadful."

"I'll talk to Allen," said George with an affectation of easy dismissal of
the subject;

But Genevieve's mind appeared to have grown suddenly persistent. At dinner
she again brought up the subject, this time directing her troubled gaze and
troubling words at her guest.

"Alys," she said abruptly, "I really think you ought to go out to
Kentwood--to see about your property out there, I mean."

Mrs. Brewster-Smith looked up, rolling her large eyes in frank amazement.

"Go out there? What for? It isn't the sort of a district a lady cares to be
seen in, I'm told; and, besides, George is looking after that for me. _He_
understands such matters, and I frankly own _I_ don't. Business makes me
quite dizzy," she added with a flash of very white teeth.

Geneviève hesitated, then went to the point.

"But you must advise with your agent, Alys. The property is _yours_."

Alys raised sharply penciled brows. "I have utter confidence in George,"
she answered in a tone of finality that brought an adoring look from
Emelene, and her usual Boswellian echo: "Of _course_."

George squirmed uneasily. Such a vote of confidence implied accepted
responsibility, and he acknowledged to himself that he wanted to and would
dodge the unwelcome burden. He turned a benign Jovian expression on Mrs.
Brewster-Smith and condescended to explain.

"I have considered what is best for you, and I will myself see Allen and
request him to take your real-estate affairs in charge again. Neither
Sampson nor--er--Eliot is, I think, advisable for your best interests."

At the mention of the last name Genevieve's expressive face stretched to
speak; then she closed her lips with self-controlled determination. Mrs.
Brewster-Smith looked at her host in scandalized amazement.

"But I _told_ you," she almost whimpered, "that his wife is simply
impossible."

George smiled tolerantly. "But his wife isn't doing the business. It's the
business, not the social interests, we have to consider.

"Oh, but she is in the business," Alys explained. "I think it's because
she's jealous of him; she wants to be around the office and watch him."

Geneviève interposed. "Mrs. Allen owns a lot of land herself, and she looks
after it. It seems quite natural to me."

"But she _has_ a husband," Alys rebuked.

"Yes," agreed Geneviève, "but she probably married him for a husband, not a
business agent."

George felt the reins of the situation slipping from him, so he jerked the
curb of conversation.

"We are beside the issue," he said in his most legal manner. "The fact is
that Allen knows more about the Kentwood district and the factory values
than any one else, and I feel it my duty to advise Alys to leave her
affairs in his hands. I'll see him for you in the morning."

He turned to Alys with a return of tolerantly protective inflection in his
voice.

Geneviève shrugged, a faint ghost of a shrug. Had George been less absorbed
in his own mental discomforts, he would have discovered there and then that
the matter of his speech, not the manner of his delivery, was what held his
wife's attention. No longer could rounded periods and eloquent sophistry
hide from her his thoughts and intentions.

A telephone call interrupted the meal. He answered it with relief, bowing a
hurried, self-important excuse to the ladies. But the voice that came over
the wire was not modulated in tones of flattery.

"Say," drawled the campaign manager, "you'd better get a hump on, and come
over here to headquarters. There's a couple of gents here who want a word
with you."

The tone was ominous, and George stiffened. "Very well, I'll be right over.
But you can pretty well tell them where I stand on the main issues. Who's
at headquarters?"

A snort of disgust greeted the inquiry. The snort told George that
seasoned campaigners did not use the telephone with such casual lack of
circumspection. The words were in like manner enlightening. "Well, there
might be Mr. Julius Caesar, and then again Mr. George Washington might drop
in. What I'm putting you wise to," he added sharply, "is that you'd better
get on to your job."

There was a click as of a receiver hung up with a jerk, and a subdued
giggle that testified to the innocent attention of the telephone operator.

With but a pale reflection of his usual courtesy the harassed candidate
left the bosom of his family. No sooner had he taken his departure than the
bosom heaved.

"My dear girl," said Alys, "if you take that tone with your husband
you'll never hold him--never. Men won't stand for it. You're only hurting
yourself."

"What tone?" Genevieve inquired as she rose calmly and led the way to the
drawing-room.

"I mean"--Mrs. Brewster-Smith slipped a firm, white hand across Genevieve's
shoulders--"you shouldn't try to force issues. It looks as if you didn't
have confidence in your husband, and men, to _do_ and _be_ their best, must
feel perfect trust from the woman they love. You don't mind my being so
frank, dear, but we women must help one another--by our experience and our
intuitions."

Geneviève looked at her. Oblique angles had become irritatingly
fascinating. "I'm beginning to think so more and more," she replied.

"It's for your own good, dear," Alys smiled.

"Yes," Geneviève agreed. "I understand. Things that hurt are often for our
good, aren't they? We have to be _made_ to realize facts really to know
them."

"Coffee, dear?" inquired Alys, assuming the duties of hostess.

Geneviève shook her head. "No. I find I've been rather wakeful of late:
perhaps it's coffee. Excuse me. I must telephone."

A moment later she returned beaming.

"I have borrowed a car for tomorrow, and I want you and Emelene to come
with me for a little spin. We ought to have a bright day; the night is
wonderful. Poor George," she sighed, "I wish he didn't have to be away so
much."

"His career is yours, you know," kittenishly bromidic, Emelene comforted
her. The following day fulfilled the promise of its predecessor. Clear and
balmy, it invited to the outer, world, and it was with pleased anticipation
that Genevieve's guests prepared for the promised outing. Geneviève glanced
anxiously into her gold mesh bag. The motor was hired, not borrowed.

She had permitted herself this one white lie.

She ushered her guests into the tonneau and took her place beside the
chauffeur. Their first few stops were for such prosaic purchases as the
household made necessary; there was a pause at the post office, another at
the Forum, where Geneviève left two highly disgruntled women waiting
for her while with a guilty sense of teasing her prey she prolonged her
business. The sight of their stiffened figures and averted faces when she
returned to them kindled a new amusement.

At last they were settled comfortably, and the car turned toward the
suburbs.

The town streets were passed and lines of villa homes thinned. The ornate
colonial gates of the Country Club flashed by. Now the sky to the right was
dark with the smoke of the belching chimneys of many factories. For a block
or two cottages of the better sort flanked the road; then, grim, ugly
and dilapidated, stretched the twin "improved" sections of Kentwood and
Powderville. In the air was an acrid odor. Soot begrimed everything. The
sodden ground was littered with refuse between the shacks, which were
dignified by the title of "Workmen's Cottages."

Amid the confusion, irregular trodden paths led, short-cutting, toward the
clattering, grinding munition plants. For a space of at least half an acre
around the huge iron buildings the ground, with sinister import, was
kept clear of dwellings, but in all directions outside of the inclosure
thousands of new yellow-pine shacks testified to the sudden demand for
labor. A large weather-beaten signboard at a wired cross-road bore the
name of "Kentwood," plus the advice that the office was adjacent for the
purchase or lease of the highly desirable villa sites.

The motor drew up and Genevieve alighted. For the first time since their
course had been turned toward the unlovely but productive outskirts,
Geneviève faced her passengers. Alys' face was pale. Emelene's expression
was puzzled and worried, as a child's is worried when the child is suddenly
confronted by strange and gloomy surroundings.

"There is some one in the renting office," said Geneviève with quiet
determination. "I'll find but. We shall need a guide to go around with us.
Emelene, you needn't get out unless you wish to."

Emelene shuffled uneasily, half rose, and collapsed helplessly back on
the cushions, like a baby who has encountered the resistance of his buggy
strap.

"I--if you'll excuse me, Geneviève, dear, I won't get out. I've only got
on my thin kid slippers. I didn't expect to put foot on the pavement this
morning, you know."

"Very well, then, Alys!" Genevieve's voice assumed a note of command her
mild accents had never before known.

Alys' brilliant eyes snapped. "I have no desire," she said firmly, with all
the dignity of an affronted lady, "to go into this matter." "I know you
haven't. But I'm going to walk through. _I_ am making a report for the
Woman's Forum."

Alys' face crimsoned with anger.

"You have no right to do such a thing," she exclaimed. "I shall refuse you
permission. You will have to obtain a permit."

"I have one," Geneviève retorted, "from the Health Department. And--I am to
meet one of the officers here."

Mrs. Brewster-Smith's descent from the tonneau was more rapid than
graceful.

"What are you trying to do?" she demanded. "Geneviève, I don't understand
you."

"Don't you?"

The diffident girl had suddenly assumed the incisive strength of observant
womanhood.

"I think you _do_. I am going to show you your own responsibilities, if
that's a possible thing. I'm not going to let you throw them on George
because he's a man and your kin; and I shan't let him throw them on an
irresponsible agent because he has neither the time nor the inclination
to do justice to himself, to you, nor to these people to whom he is
responsible."

She waved a hand down the muddy, jumbled street.

The advent of an automobile had had its effect. Eager faces appeared at
windows and doors. Children frankly curious and as frankly neglected
climbed over each other, hanging on the ragged fences. Two mongrel dogs
strained at their chains, yelping furiously. Geneviève crossed to the
little square building bearing a gilt "office" sign. There was no response
to her imperative knock, but a middle-aged man appeared on the porch of the
adjoining shack and observed her curiously.

"Wanta rent?" he called jëeringly.

"Are you in charge here?" Geneviève inquired.

"Sorter," he temporized. "Watcha want?"

"I want some one who knows something about it to go around Kentwood with
us."

"What for?" he snarled. "I got my orders."

"From whom?" countered Geneviève.

"None of your business, as I can see." He eyed her narrowly. "But my orders
is to keep every one nosin' around here without no good raison _out_ of the
place--and I don't think _you're_ here to rent, nor your friend, neither.
Besides, there ain't nothin' to rent."

Mrs. Brewster-Smith colored. The insult to her ownership of the premises
stung her to resentment.

"My good man," she said sharply. "I happen to be the proprietor of North
Kent wood."

"Then you'd better beat it." The guardian grinned. "There's a dame been
here with one of them fellers from the town office."

"Where are they now?" questioned Genevieve sharply.

"Went up factory way. But if you _ain't_ one of them lady nosies, you'd
better beat it, I tell you."

Genevieve looked up the street. "Very well, we'll walk on up. This is North
Kentwood, isn't it?"

"Ain't much choice," he shrugged, "but it is. You can smell it a mile. Say,
you lady owner there"--he laughed at his own astuteness in not being taken
in--"you know the monikers, don't you? South Kentwood, 'Stinktown'; North
Kentwood, 'Swilltown'?" He grinned, pulled at his hip pocket and,
extracting a flat glass flask, took a prolonged swig and replaced the
bottle with a leer.

The two incongruous visitors were already negotiating the muddy
thoroughfare between the dilapidated dwellings. Presently these gave place
to roughly knocked together structures for two and three families.

The number of children was surprising. Now and again a shrill-voiced woman,
who seemed the prototype of her who lived in the shoe, came to admonish her
young and stare with hostile eyes at the invaders. Refuse, barrels, cans,
pigs, dogs, chickens, were on all sides, with here and there a street
watering trough, fed, apparently, by an occasional tap at the wide-apart
hydrants, installed by the factories for protection in case of fire, as
evidenced by the signs staked by the apparatus.

"What do they pay you for these cottages?" Geneviève inquired suddenly.

Mrs. Brewster-Smith, whose curiosity concerning her possessions had been
aroused by the physical evidence of the same, balanced on a rut and
surveyed her tormentor angrily.

"I'm sure I don't know. I've told you before I don't understand such
matters, and I see nothing to be gained by coming here."

Geneviève pushed open a battered gate, walked up to the door and knocked.

"What are you doing?" her companion called, querulously.

A noise of many pattering feet on bare floors, a strident order for
silence, and the door swung open. A young girl stood in the doorway. Behind
her were a dozen or more children, varying from toddlers to gawky girls and
boys of school age.

Genevieve's eyes widened. "Dear me," she exclaimed, "they aren't all
_yours_!"

The young woman grinned mirthlessly. "I should say not!" she snapped. "They
pays me to look out for 'em--their fathers and mothers in the factory.
Watcha want?"

"What do you pay for a house like this?"

The hired mother's brow wrinkled, and her lips drew back in an ugly snarl.
"They robs us, these landlords does. We gotter be 'longside the works, so
they robs us. What do I pay for this? Thirty a month, and at that 'tain't
fit for no dawg to live in. I could knock up a shack like this with tar
paper, I could.

"And what do we get? I gotter haul the water in a bucket, and cook on an
oil stove, and they hists the price of the ile, 'cause he comes by in a
wagon with it. The landlords is squeezing the life out of us, I tell ye."

She paused in her tirade to yell at her charges. Then she turned again to
the story of her wrongs.

"And of all the pest holes I ever seen, this is the plum worst. There's
chills an' fever an' typhoid till you can't rest, an' them kids is abustin'
with measles an' mumps an' scarlet fever. That I ain't got 'em all myself's
a miracle."

"You ought to have a district nurse and inspector/' said Geneviève, amused,
in spite of her indignation, at the dark picture presented.

"Distric' nothin'," the other sneered. "There ain't nothin' here but rent
an' taxes--doggone if I don't quit. There's plenty to do this here mindin'
work, an' I bet I could make more at the factory. They're payin' grand for
overtime."

Geneviève looked at the thin shoulders and narrow chest of the girl, noted
her growing pallor and wondered how long such a physique could withstand
the strain of hard work and overtime. She sighed. Something of her thoughts
must have shown in her face, for the girl reddened and her lips tightened.
Without another word she slammed the door in her visitor's face.

Mrs. Brewster-Smith cackled thin laughter.

"That's what you get for interfering," she jeered, so angry with her
hostess for this forced inspection of her source of income that she
was ready to sacrifice the comforts of her extended visit to have the
satisfaction of airing her resentment.

"Poor soul!" said Geneviève. "Thirty a month!" Her eyes ran over the rows
of crowded shacks. "The owners must get together and do something here,"
she said. "These conditions are simply vile."

"It's probably all these people are used to," Alys snapped, "And, besides,
if they went further into town it'd cost them the trolley both ways, and
all the time lost. It's the location they pay for. Mr. Alien told me not
two months ago he thought rents could be raised."

"If you all co-operate," Genevieve continued her own line of thought, "you
could at least clean the place and make it _safe_ to live in, even if they
haven't any comforts."

Her face brightened. Around the corner came the strong, solid figure of
Miss Eliot; behind her trotted a bespectacled young man who carried a
pigskin envelope under his arm and whose expression was far from happy.

"Hello!" called Miss Eliot. "So you did come. I'm glad of it. Let me
present Mr. Glass to you. The department lent him to me for the day. And
what do you think of it, now that you can see it?"

"Glad to meet you," said Genevieve, nodding to the health officer. "What do
I think of it? What does Mr. Glass think? That's more important. Oh, let me
present you--this is Mrs. Brewster-Smith."

Miss Eliot's face showed no surprise, though her eyes twinkled, but Mr.
Glass was frankly taken aback.

"Mrs. Brewster--Smith----Brewster--Smith," he stammered. "Oh--er--" he
gripped his pigskin folio as if about to search its contents to verify the
name. "The--er--the owner?" he inquired.

Alys stiffened. "My dear husband left me this property. I have never before
seen it."

"I'm very glad," beamed Mr. Glass, "to see that we shall have your
co-operation in our efforts to do something definite for this section--and
measures must be taken quickly. As you see, there is no sanitation, no
trenching, no mosquito-extermination plant. Malaria and typhoid are
prevalent; it's all very bad, very bad, indeed. And you'd hardly believe,
Mrs. Brewster-Smith, what difficulties we are having with the owners as a
class. The five biggest have formed an association. I suppose you've heard
about it. They must have made an effort to interest you "--he stopped
short, remembering that her name appeared on the lists of the "Protective
League."

"Really"--Alys had recovered her hauteur and the aloofness becoming the
situation--"I know nothing whatever about what measures my agents have
thought it advisable to take."

Mr. Glass choked and glanced uneasily at Miss Eliot.

That lady grinned, almost the grin of a gamin. "You needn't look at _me_,
Mr. Glass. I don't represent Mrs. Brewster-Smith."

"Oh, I know, I know," Mr. Glass hastened to exonerate his companion.

"I believe Miss Eliot declined the honor," Genevieve's voice was heard.

"I did," the agent affirmed. She laughed shortly. "Otherwise you would
hardly find me here in my present capacity. One does not 'run with the hare
and hunt with the hounds,' you know."

Alys lost her temper. It seemed to her she was ruthlessly being forced to
shoulder responsibilities she had been taught to shirk as a sacred feminine
right. Therefore, feeling injured, she voiced her innocence.

"Your husband, my dear Geneviève, has been good enough to administer my
little estate. Whatever he has done, or now plans to do, meets with _my_
entire approval."

The thrust went home in more directions than one. Miss Eliot turned her
frank gaze upon the speaker, while she slowly nodded her head as if
studying a perfect specimen of a noxious species. Mr. Glass gasped. There
was political material in the statement. He looked anxiously at the wife
of the gentleman implicated, but in her was no fear and no manner of
trembling. Instead, the light of battle shone in her eyes.

"My dear Alys," she said, "my husband has told you that he is too busy a
man to give your affairs his personal attention. He can only advise you and
turn the executive side over to another. His experience does not extend
to the stock market or to real estate. It is an imposition to throw your
burdens upon him. If you derive benefits from ownership, you must educate
yourself to accept your duty to society."

"Indeed!" flared Alys, furious at this public arraignment. "May I ask if
you intend to continue this insulting attitude?" "If you mean, do I expect
hereafter to be a live woman and not a parasite--I do."

Mrs. Brewster-Smith turned on her heel and walked away, teetering over the
ruts and holes of the path.

Genevieve looked distressed. "I'm sorry," she breathed, "I'm ashamed, but
it _had_ to come out. I--I couldn't stand it any longer. I--beg everybody's
pardon. I'm sure, it was awfully bad manners of me. Oh, dear--" she
faltered, half turned, and, with a gesture of appeal toward Mrs.
Brewster-Smith's slowly retreating back, moved as if to follow.

"I wouldn't go after her," said E. Eliot. "Of course, you haven't had
experience. You don't know how much self-restraint you've got to build up,
but you're here now, and I'm sure Mr. Glass understands. _He's_ got to come
up against all sorts of exasperations on _his_ job, too. He won't take
any stock in Mrs. Brewster-Smith's trying to tie your husband up to these
wretched conditions.

"He's looking forward to seeing an honest, public-spirited district
attorney get into office--even if your husband doesn't yet see that women
have anything to say about it. They may heckle him in order to force him to
come out on his intentions about the graft, and the eight-hour day, and the
enforcement of the law, but they don't doubt his honesty. When he know's
what's what, I guess the public can trust him to do the right thing. Only
he's got to be shown."

As she talked, giving Geneviève time to recover from her upheaval, the
three investigators were plowing their way up and down byways equally
depressing and insanitary. Silence ensued. Occasionally an expression of
commiseration or condemnation escaped one or another of the party.

Suddenly a raucous whistle tore the air, followed by another and another,
declaring the armistice of the noon hour. Iron gates in the surrounding
wall were opened, a stream of men and women poured out, grimed,
sweat-streaked and voluble. The two women and their escort paused and
watched the oncoming swarm of humanity.

Around the corner, just ahead, strode a giant of a man, followed by a
red-faced, unkempt, familiar figure--the man in charge of the renting
office. The giant came forward threateningly.

"What youse doing?" he growled. He jerked his jersey, displaying a brass
badge, P. A. Guard.

"Git outer here--git," he called.

Mr. Glass stepped forward, displaying his Health Department permit. The
giant laughed.

"Say, sonny," he sneered, "that don't go--see. Them tin fakes don't git by.
If you're one of them guys, you come here wit' McLaughlin, and youse
can rubber. But we've had enough of this stuff. Them dames is no blind,
neither. I'm guard for the owners here, and we ain't takin' no chances wit'
trouble makers--git. Git a move on!"

"The department," spluttered Glass, "shall hear of this."

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