100%: the Story of a Patriot

Section 14

Section 14The respectable newspapers of American City of course did notwaste their space upon fantastic accusations brought by radicals,charging the police authorities with using torture upon witnesses.But there was a Socialist paper published every week in AmericanCity, and this paper had a long account of Peter’sexperienceson the front page, together with his picture. Also there were threelabor papers which carried the story, and the Goober DefenseCommittee prepared a circular about it and mailed out thousands ofcopies all over the country. This circular was written by DonaldGordon, the Quaker boy. He brought Peter a proof of it, to makesure that he had got all the details right, and Peter read it, andreally could not help being thrilled to discover what a hero hewas. Peter had not said anything about his early career, andwhoever among the Goober Defense Committee had learned thosedetails chose to be diplomatically silent. Peter smiled to himselfas he thought about that. They were foxy, these people! They wereplaying their hand for all it was worth—and Peter admiredthem for that. In Donald Gordon’s narrative Peter appeared asa poor workingman; and Peter grinned. He was used to the word“working,” but when he talked about “workingpeople,” he meant something different from what theseSocialists meant.

The story went out, and of course all sorts of people wanted tomeet Peter, and came to the home of the Todd girls. So Petersettled down to his job of finding out all he could about thesevisitors, their names and occupations, their relations to theradicalmovement. Guffey had advised him not to make notes, for fearof detection, but Peter could not carry all this in his head, so hewould retire to his room and make minute notes on slips of paper,and carefully sew these up in the lining of his coat, with athrillof mystery.

Except for this note-taking, however, Peter’s sleuthingwas easy work, for these people all seemed eager to talk about whatthey were doing; sometimes it frightened Peter—they were soopen and defiant! Not merely did they express theirideas to oneanother and to him, they were expressing them on public platforms,and in their publications, in pamphlets and in leaflets—whatthey called “literature.” Peter had had no idea their“movement” was so widespread or so powerful. He hadexpectedto unearth a secret conspiracy, and perhaps a dynamite-bombor two; instead of which, apparently, he was unearthing avolcano!

However, Peter did the best he could. He got the names anddetails about some forty or fifty people of all classes; obscureworkingmen and women, Jewish tailors, Russian and Italiancigar-workers, American-born machinists and printers; also some“parlor Reds”—large, immaculate and shiningladies who came rolling up to the little bungalow in large,immaculate and shining automobiles,and left their uniformedchauffeurs outside for hours at a time while they listened toPeter’s story of his “third degree.” Onebenevolent lady with a flowing gray veil, who wafted a sweetperfume about the room, suggested that Peter might be in need,andpressed a twenty dollar bill into his hand. Peter, thrilled, butalso bewildered, got a new sense of the wonders of this thingcalled “the movement,” and decided that when Guffey gotthru with him he might turn into a “Red” in earnest fora while.

Meantime he settled down to make himself comfortable with theTodd sisters. Sadie went off to her work before eight o’clockevery morning, and that was before Peter got up; but Jennie stayedat home, and fixed his breakfast, and opened the door for hisvisitors,and in general played the hostess for him. She was aconfirmed invalid; twice a week she went off to a doctor to havesomething done to her spine, and the balance of the time she wassupposed to be resting, but Peter very seldom saw her doing this.She wasalways addressing circulars, or writing letters for the“cause,” or going off to sell literature and take upcollections at meetings. When she was not so employed, she wasarguing with somebody—frequently with Peter—trying tomake him think as she did.

Poor kid, she was all wrought up over the notions she had gotabout the wrongs of the working classes. She gave herself no peaceabout it, day or night, and this, of course, was a bore to Peter,who wanted peace above all things. Over in Europe millions of menwere organized in armies, engaged in slaughtering one another.That, of course, was, very terrible, but what was the good ofthinking about it? There was no way to stop it, and it certainlywasn’t Peter’s fault. But this poor, deluded child wasacting all the time as if she were to blame for this Europeanconflict, and had the job of bringing it to a close. The tearswould come into her deep-set grey eyes, and her soft chin wouldquiver with pain whenever she talked about it; and it seemed toPeter she was talking about it all the time. It was her idea thatthe war must be stopped by uprisings on the part of the workingpeople in Europe. Apparently she thought this might be hastened ifthe working people of American City would rise up and set anexample!