Читать книгу The Spider's Web - Reginald Wright Kauffman - Страница 6

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§1. Early that morning, Luke Huber stood before the Pennsylvania Railroad Station at Americus and fancied himself a latter-day crusader setting out to reconquer from the infidels the modern Holy City of God. He had graduated from the Harvard Law-School in the previous June. Now the Republican brother-in-law of one of his classmates, having been elected District-Attorney of corruptly Democratic New York, offered a place on his staff to Luke as soon as Huber should meet successfully the necessary formalities. This new public-prosecutor was to "clean up" the largest city in the country, and Luke, as his assistant, was to aid in restoring to the metropolis the ideals of the framers of the Constitution.

A slim young man, with a smooth face too rugged to be handsome, and gray eyes too keen to be always dreaming, Huber stood erect, the wide collar of his woolen overcoat turned up, for the spring lingered that year in the valleys of Virginia, and the brim of his Alpine hat pulled over his nose. He disregarded the group of boys waiting for the "up-train" that would bring the Philadelphia morning newspapers to his native Pennsylvania town, disregarded the grimy station-buildings, and looked toward the river, where the morning mists were lifting and the cold sunshine was creeping through to light the Susquehanna hills. He was one of those fortunate and few human beings who are born without the original sin of superstition, but what he saw seemed to him almost a favorable omen. He had come down early, because he disliked to prolong the good-bys of his mother and sister, and because he felt that even the walk to the station was an important advance in the quest which he was so eager to begin. When he arrived beside the railway tracks and allowed his father, the Congressman, to see to the checking of the baggage—a concession that Luke made to his parent's desire for some part in the great adventure—the entire river was hidden from view by a thick dun curtain: one could see nothing beyond the point by the shore where the black arms of a derrick, at the Americus Sand Company's works, were silhouetted against that curtain and stretched over a tremendous mound of sand, as if they were the arms of some gigantic skeleton pronouncing the benediction at a Black Mass. But now, though the fog really rose, it appeared to Luke to be torn from above, and as the sun mounted over distant Turkey Hill and gradually gilded the pines on the surrounding summits, it seemed to advance up the bed of the stream, slowly descending of its own force along the dark hillsides, until, all at once, the river was a rushing stream of gold. Luke found himself thinking of the veil of the Temple, and how it was rent in twain from the top to the bottom.

His father, who was taller than Luke, but broad out of all proportion to his height, came puffing back from the baggage-room. He held the checks for Luke's luggage and a slip of pink paper.

"Here are your checks," he said, "and here's your pass. I forgot to give it to you. It came last night."

Luke took the proffered paper.

"I thought," he began, "that the Interstate Commerce Commission didn't——"

The Congressman interrupted with a deep chuckle.

"Oh, that's all right," he said. "Don't let your conscience worry you about that. This is for a continuous ride to a terminus of the road."

"I see," said Luke; but what he saw was that his father, whom he loved too much to hurt uselessly, had, out of kindness, strained a legal definition. His father, he reflected, was not a man to abuse privilege in large matters, and would be only hurt by a refusal in the present trivial affair. Luke put the pass in the cuff of his overcoat and silently decided to pay his fare to the conductor. The elder man, big as he was, stamped his feet on the concrete pavement and complained of the chill in the April air; the younger was too happy to notice the cold.

"Train's five minutes late," remarked the Congressman as, through a cautiously unbuttoned overcoat, he drew and snapped open a heavy watch.

"Is your time correct?" asked Luke.

"Hasn't varied three seconds a week in ten years," his father assured him.

Neither was thinking of what was being said. The younger man was so full of the high work ahead of him that he had already forgotten his mother's ill-concealed tears at parting; the elder, granted political favors rather because of his personal popularity and pliant good-nature than for any ability at the game of vote-keeping, possessed at least the chief virtue of the politician: he was a man of few words, and the more truly he felt the less he spoke.

The "up-train" arrived (it was the "down-train" that Luke must take), and the Congressman was besieged by the newsboys, who knelt about him, striking their rolls of newspapers on the pavement the quicker to burst the wrappers in which the journals were closely confined.

"Press, Mr. Huber?"

"North American or Record?"

"Ledger?"

The boys bobbed up, flourishing their wares.

"Aw, I know what he wants," said an older lad, elbowing the rest. "Here's yer Inquirer, Mr. Congressman."

Luke's father smiled: he had never outgrown his liking for homage from whatever quarter; but he bought a paper from each boy, giving each a five-cent piece and telling him to keep the change.

"You might as well take the lot," he said to Luke. "You'll want something to read on the train." He was handing all the papers to Luke, when his eyes were caught by a large headline on the first page of one of them. "Hello!" he commented, his lips immediately pursing themselves as if to whistle. As Luke took its fellows, the Congressman folded this paper with the sudden skill of the confirmed newspaper-reader, who can handle a journal in the open air as neatly as a trained yachtsman can reef a top-sail before an undesirable wind. "I see the Big Man's been giving some more testimony to that committee of the legislature up at Albany."

For the past few weeks, Luke had been too busy preparing for his bar-examinations to keep track of current events.

"Who's the Big Man?" he asked.

The elder Huber raised his thick brows.

"You know," said he, and he mentioned the name of one of the richest men in America; not a man that had made his wealth even through the building of a great industry, but one that had, by "editing" money and combinations of money much in that manner in which a news-desk copy-reader edits the reporters' "copy," made himself a member of the triumvirate—rumor said made the triumvirate and made himself its head—which had for years controlled alike the labor and capital of the country.

"What's he been saying?" asked Luke.

"He's been answering questions about campaign contributions."

"To the Democrats?"

"Well, no." The Congressman was reluctant. "It seems it was to the Republicans."

Luke colored.

"Of course," he said, "I always knew those fellows had no real political convictions, and of course any party is bound to have some bad lots among its small fry, but I do wish our National Committee would kick out of the ranks the men that take money from such people."

The father did not like this. Luke had been a great deal away from him, first at boarding-school and then at college and the law-school, so that the two had not seen much of each other for many years; but since the younger had come home this last time, he had given frequent expression to sentiments of the present sort, and the Congressman, although he disliked argument as keenly as most Congressmen, felt that now it was his duty to protest.

"My boy," he said, "you won't go far if you go about talking that way. This contribution went to the fund that elected your District-Attorney Leighton."

"I don't believe it!"

"That's the testimony."

"I don't believe it. This man's swearing to that so as to hurt the party in New York."

"This man?" Luke's father repeated the phrase interrogatively. His usual taciturnity fell from him. "Why do you say that? How do you know it? Why should he want to hurt the party? As a matter of fact, what do you know about 'this man,' anyhow? Nothing but a lot of unfounded gossip printed in papers that want him to come over to their side. Why shouldn't he help our party? I do know something about him. I've never met him, but I know the whole story of his career—know it intimately—and I tell you that his is the greatest intellect in America to-day, and he has used his intellect, and the wealth it got him, to help—not only once, but again and again—to help and to save—yes, save, the party and the prosperity of the nation. I tell you——"

He did not tell any more. The down-train had been rumbling over the last span of the river-bridge when he began talking; and now it rolled before the station.

Luke took his suitcase in one hand and extended the other in farewell. Unexpectedly he felt a lump in his throat.

"Good-by," he said.

His father gripped the hand. His habitual inarticulateness redescended upon him. "You've—I know you're all right, Luke. Don't forget to write once a week: your mother worries."

"I won't forget."

They stood, hands clasped.

Close by, the "train-crier" was calling in a high, nasal voice:

"Train for Mountwille, Doncaster, Downington, Philadelphy, and Noo York! First stop Mountwille!"

"And, Luke——"

"Yes, father?"

"Don't make charges when you don't know facts."

"Perhaps I have a weakness that way," Luke smiled.

His smile conjured another.

"That's right; now you're showing the proper spirit." With his free hand, the elder man patted the younger's shoulder. "Stick to your books and stick to Leighton. Gratitude is the best virtue—and the rarest."

Luke nodded.

"Now, get aboard," concluded his counselor. "Got your pass?—and the checks?—I'll be running over occasionally, I dare say.—And let me know if I can do anything for you."

Luke clambered into the smoking-car. He took a seat on the side near the station and waved his hand to his father as the engine began to snort. He paid his fare to the conductor, and, when Americus was well behind him, he opened the window, tore the pink pass into a dozen small pieces and let the clean April breeze carry them away.

At Doncaster he changed to the Pullman car that was there attached to the train; he again carefully chose his seat, this time selecting one on the side from which he could the better enjoy his first view of New York. He had always liked this view when it came to him on his returns to Boston after his vacations; it wakened in him the dreams of the day which should light him into the city, there to work for its salvation and the nation's. His youthful dreams were still with him, and, since the moment when the sun had rent the Susquehanna mists, he was looking forward to that sight of the southernmost walls of New York towering like the ramparts of a mighty fortress above the crowded waters of the Jersey City ferry. Then, indeed, with the battle yet to be fought, he would feel as the crusaders must have felt at their first sight of Jerusalem.

But Luke's train was late, and by the time that it reached the point from which the city should have been visible, the mists had again descended. They had deepened. All that Luke, with straining eyes, could see were a few spectral turrets, distorted and ugly in the thickened atmosphere, swaying overhead upon waves of yellow fog.