The Clarion

CHAPTER XXXIII

THE GOOD FIGHT

Earth­quake or armed in­va­sion could scarce have shocked staid Wor­thing­ton more pro­found­ly than did the “Clar­ion's” ex­po­sure. Of the facts there could be no rea­son­able doubt. The news­pa­per's fig­ures were spe­cif­ic, and its map of in­fec­tion showed no lo­cal­ity ex­empt. The city had wak­ened from an un­trou­bled sleep to find it­self poi­soned.

As an im­me­di­ate re­sult of the jour­nal­is­tic toc­sin, the fore­bod­ings of Dr. Sur­taine and his as­so­ciates as to the ef­fects of pub­lic­ity bade fair to be jus­ti­fied. Un­de­ni­ably there was dan­ger of the dis­ease scat­ter­ing, through the medi­um of run­aways from the strick­en hous­es. But the “Clar­ion” had its re­tort pat for the tribe of “I-​told-​you-​so,” ad­mit­ting the prospect of some pri­ma­ry harm to save a great dis­as­ter lat­er. More than one hun­dred lives, it point­ed out, giv­ing names and dates, had al­ready been sac­ri­ficed to the shib­bo­leth of se­cre­cy; the whole city had been im­per­iled; the dis­ease had set up its fo­ci of in­fec­tion in a score of places, and there were some three hun­dred cas­es, in all, known or sus­pect­ed. One method on­ly could cope with the sit­ua­tion: the fullest pub­lic in­for­ma­tion fol­lowed by rad­ical hy­gien­ic mea­sures.

Of in­for­ma­tion there was no lack. So tremen­dous a news fea­ture could not be kept out of print by the oth­er dailies, all of whom now ad­mit­ted the pres­ence of the pesti­lence, while in­sist­ing that its scope had been great­ly ex­ag­ger­at­ed, and pi­ous­ly dep­re­cat­ing the “sen­sa­tion­al­ism” of their con­tem­po­rary. Thus the city ad­min­is­tra­tion was forced to ac­tion. An ap­pro­pri­ation was vot­ed to the Health Bu­reau. Dr. Mer­ritt, seiz­ing his op­por­tu­ni­ty, or­ga­nized a quar­an­tine army, es­tab­lished a de­ten­tion camp and iso­la­tion hos­pi­tal, and de­scend­ed up­on the ten­ement dis­tricts, as ter­ri­ble (to the imag­ina­tion of the fran­tic in­hab­itants) as a malev­olent god. The Emer­gen­cy Health Com­mit­tee, mean­time, died and was for­got­ten overnight.

Some­thing not un­like pan­ic swept the Rook­eries. Wild ru­mors passed from mouth to mouth, grow­ing as they went. A mil­itary cor­don, it was said, was to be cast about the whole ward and the peo­ple pent up in­side to die. Refugees were to be shot on sight. The in­fect­ed build­ings were to be burned to the ground, and the ten­ants left home­less. The wa­ter-​sup­ply was to be poi­soned, to get rid of the ex­posed--had al­ready been poi­soned, some said, and cit­ed sud­den mys­te­ri­ous deaths. Such sav­age imag­in­ings of sus­pi­cion as could spring on­ly from the ig­no­rant fears of a pop­ulace be­set by a se­cret and dead­ly pest, roused the dis­trict to a rat-​like de­fi­ance. Such of the res­idents as were not home-​bound by the au­thor­ities, growled in sa­loon back rooms and mut­tered in the streets. Ha­tred of the “Clar­ion” was the bur­den of their bit­ter­ness. Two of its re­porters were mobbed in the hard-​hit ward, the day af­ter the pub­li­ca­tion of the first ar­ti­cle.

Nor was the pa­per much bet­ter liked else­where. It was held re­spon­si­ble for all the trou­bles. Though the ac­tu­al­ity of the quar­an­tine fell far short of the ex­pec­tant fears, still there was a mighty tur­moil. Fam­ilies were sep­arat­ed, fugi­tives were chased down and ar­rest­ed, and close up­on the heels of the pri­ma­ry ha­rass­ment came the threat of eco­nom­ic com­pli­ca­tions, as fac­to­ries and stores all over the city, for their own pro­tec­tion, dis­missed em­ploy­ees known to live with­in the near range of the pesti­lence. In the minds of the suf­fer­ers from these mea­sures and of their friends, the “Clar­ion” was an en­emy to the pub­lic. But it was read with avid im­pa­tience, for Wayne, work­ing on the prin­ci­ple that “it is news and not evil that stirs men,” con­trived to find some new sen­sa­tion­al de­vel­op­ment for ev­ery is­sue. Do what the ri­val pa­pers might, the “Clar­ion” had and held the wind­ward course.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Busi­ness, that Great Mogul of Wor­thing­ton, was, of course, out­raged by the pub­li­ca­tion. Hal Sur­taine was an ill bird who had fouled his own nest. The wires had car­ried the epi­dem­ic news to ev­ery pa­per in the coun­try, and Wor­thing­ton was pro­claimed “un­clean” to the ears of all. The Old Home Week Com­mit­tee on Ar­range­ments held a hasty meet­ing to de­cide whether the cel­ebra­tion should be aban­doned or post­poned, but could come to no con­clu­sion. De­nun­ci­ation of the “Clar­ion” for its course was the sole point up­on which all the speak­ers agreed. Al­so there was con­sid­er­able in­ci­den­tal crit­icism of its ed­itor, as an in­grate, for pub­lish­ing the ar­ti­cle on Mil­ly Neal's death which re­flect­ed so severe­ly up­on Dr. Sur­taine. As the pa­per had been bought with Dr. Sur­taine's hard cash, the least Hal could have done, in de­cen­cy, was to re­frain from “roast­ing” the source of the mon­ey. Such was the gen­er­al opin­ion. The rep­re­sen­ta­tive busi­ness in­tel­lect of Wor­thing­ton failed to con­sid­er that the ar­ti­cle had been con­fined rigid­ly to a state­ment of facts, and that any moral or eth­ical in­fer­ence must be pure­ly a deriva­tive of those facts as in­ter­pret­ed by the read­er. Sev­er­al of those present at the meet­ing de­clared ve­he­ment­ly that they would nev­er again ei­ther ad­ver­tise in or read the “Clar­ion.” There was even talk of a boy­cott. One mem­ber was so in­cau­tious as to con­dole with Dr. Sur­taine up­on his son's dis­loy­al­ty. The old quack's re­gard fell up­on his tact­less com­forter, dull and heavy as lead.

“My son is my son,” said he; “and what's be­tween us is our own busi­ness. Now, as to Old Home Week, it'll be time enough to give up when we're licked.” And, adroit op­por­tunist that he was, he urged up­on the meet­ing that they sup­port the Health Bu­reau as the best hope of clear­ing up the sit­ua­tion.

Amongst the pan­ic-​strick­en, mean­while, moved and worked the vol­un­teer forces of hy­giene, led by the Rev­erend Nor­man Hale. Weak­ened and un­fit though he was, he could not be kept from the bat­tle-​ground, notwith­stand­ing that Dr. Mer­ritt, fear­ing for his life, had threat­ened him with kid­nap­ing and im­pris­on­ment in the hos­pi­tal. At Hale's right hand were Es­mé El­liot and Kath­leen Pierce. There had been one scene at Green­vale ap­proach­ing vi­olence on Dr. El­liot's part and de­fi­ance on that of his niece when her guardian had flat­ly for­bid­den the con­tin­uance of her slum work. It had end­ed when the girl, creep­ing up un­der the guns of his an­gry eyes, had dropped her head on his shoul­der, and said in un­steady tones:--

“I--I'm not a very hap­py Es­mé, Un­cle Guardy. If I don't have some­thing to do--some­thing re­al--I'll--I'll c-​c-​cry and get my pret­ty nose all red.”

“Quit it!” cried the gruff doc­tor des­per­ate­ly. “What d'ye mean by act­ing that way! Go on. Do as you like. But if Mer­ritt lets any­thing hap­pen to you--”

“Noth­ing will hap­pen, Guardy. I'll be care­ful,” promised the girl.

“Well, I don't know what­ev­er's come over you, late­ly,” re­tort­ed her un­cle, trou­bled.

“Nei­ther do I,” said Es­mé.

She went forth and en­list­ed Kath­leen Pierce, whose en­er­get­ic and rest­less mind was en­snared at once by what she re­gard­ed as the ro­man­tic pos­si­bil­ities of the work, and the two gath­ered un­to them­selves half a dozen of the young males of the species, who read­ily vol­un­teered, part­ly for love and loy­al­ty to the chief­tai­ness­es of their clan, part­ly out of the blithe and ad­ven­tur­ous spir­it of youth, and of them formed an au­to­mo­bile corps, for scout­ing, mes­sen­ger ser­vice, and emer­gen­cy trans­porta­tion, as aux­il­iary to Hale and Mer­ritt; an en­ter­prise which sub­se­quent­ly did yeo­man work and taught sev­er­al of the gild­ed youth some­thing about the re­spon­si­bil­ities of cit­izen­ship which they would nev­er have learned in any oth­er school.

Tip O'Far­rell was an­oth­er in­valu­able aide. He had one brief en­counter, on en­list­ment, with the health of­fi­cer.

“You ought to be in jail,” said Dr. Mer­ritt.

“What fer?” de­mand­ed O'Far­rell.

“Smug­gling out bod­ies with­out a per­mit.”

“Fer­get it,” ad­vised the politi­cian. “I tried my way, an' it wasn't good enough. Now I'll try yours. You can't af­ford to jug me.”

“Why can't I?”

“I'm too much use to you.”

“So far you've been just the oth­er thing.”

“Ain't I tellin' you I'm through with that game? On the lev­el! Doc, these poor boobs down here _know_ me. They'll do as I tell 'em. Gimme a chance.”

So O'Far­rell, mak­ing his chance, did his work faith­ful­ly and well through the dis­mal weeks to fol­low. It takes all kinds of sol­diers to fight an epi­dem­ic.

Those two stur­dy vol­un­teers, Miss El­liot and Miss Pierce, were driv­ing slow­ly along the fringe of the Rook­eries,--yes, slow­ly, notwith­stand­ing that Kath­leen Pierce was act­ing as her own chauf­feur,--hav­ing just de­liv­ered a con­sign­ment of emer­gen­cy nurs­es from a neigh­bor­ing city to Dr. Mer­ritt, when the car slowed down.

“Did you see that?” in­quired Miss Pierce, in­di­cat­ing, with a jerk of her head, the gen­er­al to­pog­ra­phy off to star­board.

“See what?” in­quired her com­pan­ion. “I didn't no­tice any­thing ex­cept a hokey-​pokey sell­er, adding his mite to the in­fant mor­tal­ity of the dis­trict.”

“Es­mé, you talk like noth­ing hu­man late­ly!” ac­cused her friend. “You're a--a--reg­ular health leaflet! I meant that man go­ing in­to the cor­ner ten­ement. I be­lieve it was Hal Sur­taine.”

“Was it?”

“And you needn't say, 'Was it?' in that lofty, su­pe­ri­or tone, like an an­gel with a new ha­lo, ei­ther,” pur­sued her ag­grieved friend. “You know it was. What do you sup­pose he's do­ing down here?”

“The epi­dem­ic is the 'Clar­ion's' spe­cial news. He spends quite a lit­tle time in this dis­trict, I be­lieve.”

“Oh, you be­lieve! Then you've seen him late­ly?”

“Yes.”

Miss Pierce stared rigid­ly in front of her and made a de­tour of mag­nif­icent dis­tance to avoid a push-​cart which wasn't in her way any­how. “Es­mé,” she said.

“Yes?”

“Did you give me away to him?”

“No. He didn't give me an op­por­tu­ni­ty.”

“Oh!” There was more si­lence. Then, “Es­mé, I was pret­ty rot­ten about that, wasn't I?”

“Why, Kathie, I think you ought to have writ­ten to him.”

“I meant to write and own up, no mat­ter if I did tell you I wouldn't. But I kept putting it off. Es­mé, did you no­tice how thin and worn he looks?”

The oth­er winced. “He's had a great deal to wor­ry him.”

“Well, he hasn't got our law­suit to wor­ry him any more. That's off.”

“Off?” A light flashed in­to Es­mé's face. “Your fa­ther has dropped it?”

“Yes. He had to. I told him the ac­ci­dent was my fault, and if I was put on the stand I'd say so. I'm not so pop­ular with Pop as I might be, just now. But, Es­mé, I _didn't_ mean to run away and leave her in the gut­ter. I got rat­tled, and Broth­er was cry­ing and I lost my head.”

“That will save the 'Clar­ion,'” said Es­mé, with a deep breath.

Kath­leen looked at her cu­ri­ous­ly, and then made a sin­gu­lar re­mark. “Yes; that's what I did it for.”

“But what in­ter­est have you in sav­ing the 'Clar­ion'?” de­mand­ed Es­mé, be­wil­dered.

“The fail­ure of the 'Clar­ion' would be a dis­as­ter to the city,” ob­served Miss Pierce in copy-​book style.

“Kathie! You should make two jabs in the air with your fore­fin­ger when you quote. Oth­er­wise you're a pla­gia­rist. Let me see.” Es­mé pon­dered. “Hugh Mer­ritt,” she de­cid­ed.

Kath­leen kept her eyes steady ahead, but a flood of col­or rose in her face.

“I had an aw­ful fight over it with him be­fore--be­fore I gave in,” she said.

“Are you go­ing to mar­ry Hugh?” de­mand­ed Es­mé blunt­ly.

The col­or deep­ened un­til even the vel­vety eyes seemed tinged with it. “I don't know. _He_ isn't ex­act­ly pop­ular with Pop, ei­ther.”

Es­mé reached over and gave her friend a sur­rep­ti­tious lit­tle hug, which might have cost a cross­ing pedes­tri­an his life if he hadn't been a brisk dodger.

“Hugh Mer­ritt is a _man_,” said she in a low voice: “He's brave and he's straight and he's fine. And oh, Kathie, dear­est, if a man of that kind loves you, don't you ev­er, ev­er let any­thing come be­tween you.”

“Hel­lo!” said Kath­leen in sur­prise. “That don't sound much like the Great Amer­ican Man-​eat­ing Pumess of yore. There's been a big change in you since you side­tracked Will Dou­glas, Es­mé. Did you re­al­ly care? No, of course, you didn't,” she an­swered her­self. “He's a nice chap, but he isn't par­tic­ular­ly brave or fine, I guess.”

A light broke in up­on her:

“Es­mé! Is it, af­ter all--”

“No, no, no, no, NO!” cried the vic­tim of this high­ly fem­inine de­duc­tion, in pan­ic. “It isn't any one.”

“No, of course it isn't, dear. I didn't mean to tease you. Hel­lo! what have we here?”

The car stopped with a jar on a side street, some dis­tance from the quar­an­tined sec­tion. Seat­ed on the curb a wom­an was wail­ing over the stiff­ened form of a young child. The boy's teeth were clenched and his face dark­ly suf­fused.

“Con­vul­sions,” said Es­mé.

The two girls were out of the car si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly. The ag­onized moth­er, an Ital­ian, was deaf to Es­mé's per­sua­sions that the child be turned over to them.

“What shall we do?” she asked, turn­ing to Kath­leen in dis­may. “I think he's dy­ing, and I can't make the wom­an lis­ten.”

Some­thing of her fa­ther's stern de­ci­sive­ness of char­ac­ter was in Kath­leen Pierce.

“Don't be a fool!” she said briskly to the moth­er, and she plucked the child away from her. “Start the car, Es­mé.”

The wom­an be­gan to shriek. A crowd gath­ered. O'Far­rell prov­iden­tial­ly ap­peared from around a cor­ner. “Grab her, you,” she di­rect­ed O'Far­rell.

The politi­cian hes­itat­ed. “What's the game?” he be­gan. Then he caught sight of Es­mé. “Oh, it's you, Miss El­liot. Sure. Hi! Can it!” he shout­ed, fend­ing off the dis­tract­ed moth­er. “They'll take the kid to the hos­pi­tal. See? You go along qui­et, now.”

Speed­ing be­yond all laws, but un­der pro­tec­tion of their red cross, they all but ran down Dr. Mer­ritt and stopped to take him in. He con­firmed Es­mé's di­ag­no­sis.

“It'll be touch and go whether we save him,” said he.

Es­mé car­ried the strick­en child in­to the hos­pi­tal ward. The two vol­un­teers wait­ed out­side for word. In an hour it came. The boy would prob­ably live, thanks to their promp­ti­tude.

“But you ought not to be pick­ing up chance in­fants around the dis­trict,” he protest­ed. “It isn't safe.”

“Oh, we be­long to the St. Bernard tribe,” re­tort­ed Miss Pierce. “We take 'em as we find 'em. Hugh, come and lunch with us.”

The gray­ish young man looked at her wist­ful­ly. “Haven't time,” he said.

“No: I didn't sup­pose you'd step aside from the thorny path, even to eat,” she re­tort­ed; and Es­mé, hear­ing the new tone un­der the flip­pant words, knew that all was well with the girl, and en­vied her with a great and gen­tle en­vy.