Authors: James Gould Cozzens
"Mr. Chairman —"
Walter Bates hammered again. "Mr. Ely has the floor! Please come to order —"
"I just wanted to say," Mr. Ely continued, his startled pale blue eyes turning in his whitish face, "I think another thing we ought to know about is Mrs. Talbot's being sent away. We all know Mary Talbot; known her since she was that high. When was she ever crazy? How did they get to send her away when her own cousin, Mrs. Darrow, and Clarence Upjohn will bear me out because he and Doctor Bull had a set-to about it, said herself she didn't really think she was anything but kind of upset. Now, it looks funny to some of us. First there's Mamie dying; and I guess everybody knows Doc Bull never came near her the whole day. I guess you might say he just let her die. Not three weeks later he finds a way to get rid of Mary Talbot. She won't be around reproaching him for killing her daughter. She won't —"
"Ah," said Robert Newell, "be your age, John!"
Mrs. Bates shrilled out. "You stay out of this! Everybody knows you don't care anything about this town's welfare—don't you hit that hammer at me, Walter, when you let him keep making his smart remarks! We have our own opinions about Mamie's death, and what happened to her mother. Any man who can treat a woman the way Robert Newell is well known to treat Alice wouldn't be expected to mind seeing another woman put in the asylum for life —"
The uproar regained its volume instantly. Whether they had come for this or not, it was only human to be gratified by so rich a type of the entertainment any town meeting under Walter Bates was always on the verge of presenting. In this case, while it would be generally felt that Emma Bates over-reached herself and had no right to make Alice Newell's probably hard and unhappy life a matter of what amounted to public record, still it was a show of gumption; you couldn't walk all over Emma Bates and get away with it!
Perfectly recognizing the complications to be expected in heating up some such side issue, Matthew Herring got to his feet, stood looking about the hall patiently.
"Mr. Chairman," he said when he could, "I think Mrs. Bates' first suggestion, that we ought to proceed with a vote, was sensible. I think the details of Doctor Bull's behaviour are familiar, and his attitude well enough understood —"
"What do you mean, Matthew?" said Henry Harris. "Do you mean that you believe that Doc Bull put Mrs. Talbot in the asylum to shut her up? If you don't mean that, better say so. People might think you did."
"In answer to Mr. Harris' interruption, I'll say that I don't mean that. That seems to be the opinion of Mr. Ely and some others; but those who hold it ought to know that Doctor Bull did not and could not act alone in such a matter. Sympathy, which I am sure everyone feels for Mrs. Talbot's misfortunes, is one thing; the assumption that Doctor Bull would behave so improperly is another, and I think, not justified. I will now ask the chairman to read to the meeting a resolution which will be offered for your adoption. In event of its being satisfactory to you, it will be forwarded to the proper—" He stopped, for one of the double doors at the back had been thrown open, admitting a long shaft of brilliant cold sunlight. There was a universal quick turning, a prompt amazing dead silence. At the back, the people standing parted; the door went banging shut, and George Bull came down the aisle. He had reached the centre of the hall, with no one moving and no one saying anything.
In this hush Henry Harris' voice arose abruptly, distinct and cheerful. "Well, George," he said, "late again!"
George Bull stood still. "Somebody knows why I'm late," he said. "Who cut the tyres on my car last night? He's here, all right. Is he man enough to stand up and say he did it? Well! I'm waiting!"
"Yeah," cried a voice, suddenly revived, "and where was your car when he cut 'em? You've been whoring around here long enough —"
"I'll take care of my business. I'll take care of where I go and what I do. Who doesn't like it?"
There was a stir now of general recovery, and, jumping to answer the challenge, a low growing murmur. "What are you going to do, George? Lick the whole town?" Robert Newell had faced about in his chair, grinning.
"Mr. Chairman," Matthew Herring said, "I think Doctor Bull is out of order."
"Sit down, Herring! First thing you know, you'll be out of order for a month."
"I have the floor at present, Doctor. I suggest that you sit down until you're recognized by the chair —"
"Do you want me to come and sit you down?"
Matthew Herring looked at him, unmoved. "You don't impress me with your threats, Doctor Bull. If you have anything to say, we are ready to listen to it; but I would advise you not to begin by attempting to bully the meeting. We have been patient for a long time; but I think the moment for a reckoning has finally come. You won't help yourself by —"
"So that's how you stand, is it? All right, Walter. Let me have this floor he's so worried about, and I'll tell you how I stand. I don't know who's doing all this grunting and groaning I hear, but let 'em keep still —" The murmur rose louder and he roared out:
"I came here to try to make you half-wits see sense. Are you going to let me try or aren't you?"
"Throw him out!"
"Well, well, Joel!" He wheeled about. "I'll be seeing you afterwards. Unless you think you'd better start running now —"
Walter Bates began to hammer again on the table, but the hubbub had risen beyond that. The roar had a sharp edge, angry, chattering, a score of voices shouting their separate answers together. "So you don't want to hear, huh? Well, you'll hear this, you jabbering baboons! I can shout louder than the lot of you!" George Bull's tremendous voice went up in thunder; and he was right, he could. "What I have to say to you is, you and Mat Herring's meeting can go to blazes. I'll see you all in hell before I'll oblige you by resigning! If you can get me out, if you have any case, and the sense to handle it, why, God damn you, do it!"
Turning, he went down the aisle, with people recoiling before him, people, outraged, yelling after him. At the closed door, he put a hand on Grant Williams' shoulder, spun him aside. The sunlight poured dazzling in, his great shadow dropped down the aisle, and he cut it off, closing the door behind him so that all the windows shook.
FOUR
l
HENRY HARRIS, standing up, said: "A man who loses his temper in a matter like this never makes a very favourable impression. Instead of helping, he hurts himself. When he cusses out his listeners, they resent it. They get all hot and start shouting back, and there you are. It's a pity."
He paused, letting his gaze move about. "Putting all that down for
The Times,
Miss Kimball?" he asked. "I hope you mention my name." He grinned at her a moment, and raising his voice a little, clear and sharp, said: "I've heard tell that they who draw the sword, shall perish by the sword. That means it's a risky thing to start a fight, because, once fighting's in the air, you can't tell where it'll stop. No, sir! Anything might happen. Well, I'll have to say what's on my mind anyway. Suppose Doc Bull's not perfect? Who is? Well, I don't want to start an argument now, Matthew, so I'll say I guess you're pretty near perfect. And Herbert Banning's perfect, of course. I'm not denying it. But you two aside, most of us just do the best we can, and usually it's not so good.
"You saw George Bull go out of here pretty mad. A lot of enthusiasts yelled him down. They don't want him to get a hearing. Those who are setting them on may be scared that, if they could hear George, they might get mixed up and think he wasn't so bad after all —
"You've heard people tell you he ought to have done this. He ought to have done that. Sure, he should. Sure, we all should have done God knows how many things we never did do. I can see now that I ought never to have let that camp site to the Interstate Company without making sure about the drainage first. I didn't bother. All I wanted was the rent money. Now, let me ask you, which one of you knows all about the drainage of any piece of land he might own back in the hills? Which one of you gives a damn? Which one of you wouldn't try to realize some money on it first chance he got without fooling around trying to make all kinds of crazy investigations?"
A voice called out, "We ain't blaming you, Henry. You can sit down now."
"Now, let me say my say, if you will. I'm going to sit down in a minute. Who here thinks when he goes to get a drink whether the water with which he's filling a glass from the faucet is pure water? He ought to know by this time that the only way to be sure is boil it. Does he take that ordinary common-sense precaution? He does not. He thinks it's probably all right the way it is; it always has been all right. Well, what do you suppose Doc Bull thought about the reservoir? He hadn't seen any reason to worry. Who had? Who didn't know that there was this construction camp up there? Who worried about that? Who cared?
"Most everyone with any sense realizes that living from day to day is taking a pretty big chance. I was thinking about that this morning. A while ago, I invested a hundred and fifty dollars in a little proposition which looked fool-proof to me. I didn't see how I could lose. Well, I find now that I'm just out that money. I didn't see any reason to worry, but it so happens that my agent in the matter took sick at the critical moment. It's hard luck, but will I get anywhere by raising a howl? I took my chance on that, even if at the time I didn't happen to reflect that I was taking such a chance. I don't know what you think of a person who is willing to take a chance, hoping he'll win or be all right; yet, when he finds he's lost, lies down and yells. I know what I think of him —
"Are things bad enough, or aren't they? Seems to me with the Evarts' place full of patients, and Doc Bull working his head off for the sick, we could shut up about who's to blame and help him. If we can't, it must be because somebody won't let us. Who won't let us? Well, I hate to suggest what I haven't documentary proof of—there's been quite a little of that so far this morning and we don't need any more—but this I know. Banning—or Mrs. Banning; she wears that pair of pants—has been working for a long time to get Doc Bull. They don't think he's cultured enough; he can't be, when he don't appreciate that they're worth ten times as much worry and care as plain ordinary people. Maybe the idea of the Bannings not getting enough respect makes you mad, but before you try to fix it for them, you ought to reflect some."
In one sense, Henry Harris had been talking against time, holding the floor to prevent the interruption of a process of reaction begun the minute the door slammed after Doctor Bull. The effect was a good deal like going out with a light gun to hunt a rabbit, and suddenly turning up a bear. The fact that the bear retired couldn't altogether erase the first ringing shock of the face-to-face encounter. The more you reflected, the nearer supper-time it seemed, the less advisable to hunt farther here to-day. A certain withdrawal would go on all round the obstinate and courageous few who meant to have some skin, whether bear or rabbit, on the barn door.
Henry Harris could feel the warm glow spread inside him of the amusement which generally blossomed in his matchless mocking smile. He did not smile now. He went on: "I say to you, for near forty years Doc Bull has had the health of this town, the life and death of the people in it, in his charge. For that matter, I wonder just how many people in this room came out of their mother's wombs with Doc Bull standing by. Winter and summer he's been on the job without a break. He's spent practically his whole life working to relieve the bodily ailments of our people. Some paid him and some didn't, but he never worried over that. Now, what about it?"
He held up a paper. "Those hostile to him have been telling you how everybody knew this, and this was generally understood, and in their opinion, it would certainly seem—I guess you recognize it. It's the way people talk when they don't happen to have the facts, or maybe have them, and find they won't do. Well, here they are. Here are the figures they weren't so anxious to give you. In the vital statistics of this state, over a period of twenty years, the death rate per thousand in New Winton has never in any year ranked poorer than tenth lowest, out of one hundred and sixty-nine Connecticut towns listed. That means that you could name at least one hundred and fifty-nine places in this state every year for the last twenty years where life and health was less secure than here. One year could be an accident, but twenty consecutive years? How'll you square that with Doc Bull being as bad a doctor and as careless of public health as I've heard some tell you he is? This is a letter from the State Health Department, Matthew. Maybe you'd like to make sure it isn't a forgery. Maybe you'd like a copy of it for your newspaper piece, Miss Kimball."
His quick glance showed him at once that he had scored. He could see Howard Upjohn's face, surprised and gratified. Mrs. Vogel and Mrs. Ely exchanged glances; Emma Bates had a blank, jolted expression. He went on: "That's what I thought you ought to know. That's the record behind the present emergency. To my mind, right feeling, human justice, are against kicking a man down through no demonstrable fault of his; and the simple, plain, printed facts nobody can laugh off don't give much of a foothold to those who like logic better than sentiment. In fact about everything seems to be against what you're asked to do.
"I can speak my mind, because I happen to be in the minority party—or what has been the minority; next fall the people of this town may decide different. I don't have to toe any line, or keep in right with anyone. So I'll say I think this is nothing but a political plot, engineered to work off a well-known grudge, by certain parties who've always tried to hold control of this town and run it to suit themselves. I'll speak plainer. I see Mr. Banning isn't present. I don't blame him. Why should he come and do his own dirty work when plenty of people just jump at the chance to associate themselves with him by doing it for him—yes, Miss Kimball, I guess you're one of them; but let me finish. Those of you who think that money and influence aren't everything in this world; those of you who believe in fair play and the right of a man to be given the facts, and from them, freely to decide what's right and do it, probably won't feel so anxious to fall in-line. Mine's one name will never be on their petition of town officers. I hope no friend of mine has a vote for them. I'm through."