All-Wool Morrison, Holman Day [historical books to read txt] 📗

Conawin corporation from a labor crowd."
"Nevertheless, I urge you to come with me. I believe that a little contact with the people in this instance will clear your thoughts."
"Another one of your riddles!" snorted the manufacturer. "What's it all about?"
"Blanchard," declared Morrison, setting his jaws grimly while he pondered for a moment and then coming out explosively, "it's about what we may expect from the people when damned fools try to play politics according to the old rules in these new times. It's about what we may expect of the people when they're denied a showdown by men at the head of public affairs. There's trouble brewing in the city of Marion to-night. What would you do if you happened to glance out of your office window and saw a leak spurting big as a lead-pencil from the base of the Conawin dam? You'd know the leak would be as big as a hogshead in a few minutes, wouldn't you?"
"Yes!" admitted the other.
"You'd get to that leak and plug it mighty quick, wouldn't you?"
"No need to ask!"
"Well, this is a hurry call and I need your help."
"I don't stand in well with the labor crowd--" demurred Blanchard.
"I know all that! You're hiring too many aliens and Red radicals in your mill! But you ought to have some influence with your own gang, such as they are! I suspect that they're the leading troublemakers down in that hall. Blanchard, if you're not afraid of your own men, come along!" He clapped the millman on the shoulder and led the way toward the door.
"If there are scalawags starting that 'state steal' howl again somebody ought to tell 'em that there are three machine-guns and plenty of loaded rifles on Capitol Hill to-night, and the men behind 'em propose to shoot to kill," stated Blanchard, vengefully, shaking his silk hat.
Morrison whirled on him. "You're just the man to go down there and tell 'em so! You probably have inside information. All I know is hearsay! I'll advise 'em and you threaten 'em. Come along, Blanchard! We'll make a good team!"


V
THE MEN WHO WERE WAITING TO BE SHOWN
While Commander Lanigan talked with the mayor from a telephone-booth in a drugstore under Central Labor Union hall, Post-Adjutant Demeter stood with his nose pressed against the glass door, waiting anxiously.
Lanigan pushed open the door with one hand while he hung up the receiver with the other, and by his precipitate exit nigh bowled his adjutant over; Mr. Lanigan, it was plain to be seen, was wound up tightly that evening and his mainspring was operating him by jumps.
"He's the boy! He's coming! Tell the world so! And I'll go back up-stairs and tell them blistered sons o' seefo that there are such things as truth and a bar o' soap in this country, spite o' the fact they have never used either one!"
Demeter followed his commander into the street.
In spite of his haste, Lanigan was halted; he gazed up into the heavens, his breath streaming on the crackly-cold air.
The skies were blazing with shuttlings of lambent flame. From nadir to zenith the mystic light shivered and sheeted. Never had Lanigan beheld a more vivid display of the phenomenon of the aurora borealis. He seemed to be waiting for something. He sighed and shook his head.
"Peter, my heart jumped at first glimpse! 'Tis like the flash of the Argonne big guns! Thank God, the thunder of 'em isn't following!"
"Yes, thank God!" murmured Demeter, his soul in his tones!
They stood there for a few minutes, shoulder to shoulder, the contact of arm with arm serving for an exchange of thoughts between those veterans in a silence that would have been profaned by words.
The phantasmagoria overhead was shifting infinitely and rapidly; there were flashes that seemed to presage a thunderous roar of an explosion and were more bodeful because the hush aloft in the heavenly spaces remained unbroken; then the filaments and streamers of light made one mighty oriflamme across the skies, an expanse of woven hues, wavering and lashing as if a great wind were threshing across the main fabric and flinging its attendant bannerets.
"It's in the air; it's in the nerves! It puts hell into a man, doesn't it, Peter?"
"Yes!"
"It was in that telephone back there! It crackled and snapped! A lot of it may be in those poor fools up in that hall--and they ain't knowing what the matter is with 'em! You and I have been over in the Big Bow-wow, boy, and we have had some good lessons in how to handle rattled nerves. I guess it's up to us to hold things steady, as experts. Soothe 'em and smooth 'em! It was All-Wool Morrison's lesson to me to-day! Soft and careful with 'em, seeing that they're full of what's in the air this night, and don't know just what ails 'em!"
He lowered his gaze from the skies. A man was passing on his way toward the door of the hall.
Lanigan had just laid down a general rule of diplomatic conduct for the evening, but he made a prompt exception. He leaped on the man, struggled with him for a moment, and yanked off a red necktie, taking with it the man's collar and a part of his shirt, "But some stuff that they're full of can't be smoothed out--it's got to be whaled out!" panted Lanigan. He did not release his captive. "The nerve o' ye, parading your red wattles on a night like this, ye Tom Gobbler of a Bullshevist!"
"I have the right to pick the color of my own necktie!" snarled the man.
"Not for the reason why you picked it! Not to wear it up into that hall, my bucko boy!"
When the man expostulated with oaths, Lanigan tripped him and held him on the sidewalk. "Hush your yawp! You can't fool me about your taste in ties! I know what's behind that color like I'd know what's behind an Orangeman's yellow! I don't need to wait for him to hooray for the battle o' the Boyne ere I get my brick ready! Peter, frisk his pockets!"
Demeter obeyed.
A crowd was collecting. Through the press rushed a young man. "Need help, Commander?"
"Only keep your eye peeled to see that another Bullshevist don't sneak up and kick me from behind, after the like o' the breed!"
Demeter's exploration produced a bulldog revolver, a slungshot, a packet of pamphlets, and several small red flags.
"What's your name?" demanded the commander.
"No business of yours!"
Lanigan kneeled on the captive and roweled cruel thumbs into the man's neck. "Out with it before I dig deeper for it."
"Nicolai Krylovensky!"
"I knew it must be bad, but I didn't think it was as bad as that! I don't blame ye for trying to keep it mum! And ye look as though it tasted bitter coming up. I'll not poison me own mouth." He stood up and yanked the man to his feet. "So I'll call ye Bill the Bomber! Where do ye work, or don't ye work?"
"Conawin!"
"I thought so! One of that bunch down there that's trying to undermine the best government on the face of the earth. Come along! I've got a bit o' business on hand right now and I need you in it."
Then he turned, pushing the man ahead of him.
Lanigan became aware that the young fellow who had proffered aid was muttering in a derogatory fashion.
"What's on your mind, Jeff?" demanded the commander, recognizing a member of the post.
"Nothing!"
"I'm in an inquiring turn o' mind right now," rasped Lanigan. "And ye have just seen me go after information. I heard ye damning something. Ye'd best make me understand that you wasn't damning _me_!"
"I sure wasn't, sir! But as for this government being the best, I want to say--"
Lanigan's yelp broke in like an explosion. "Hold this Bullshevist, Peter! I want both hands free!"
"I wasn't saying anything against our government, Commander Lanigan! Not a word!" wailed the overseas man. "So help me!"
"I'm in a soothing frame of mind this night," returned the ex-sergeant. "I have been having some good lessons in soothing from the mayor of Marion, God bless him! I was nigh making a fool of myself till he showed me that the soothing way is the best way. And I shall keep right on soothing. But this is a night when the plain truth and the word of man-to-man have got to operate to prevent trouble! And I want the truth out o' ye, Jeff Tolson, or else ye'll be calling for toast, well soaked, in the hospital in the morning!"
"I went up to one of them sissy slackers--"
"Mind the kind of a name ye stick on to a soldier of the government! Do ye see who's listening?" He grabbed his prisoner again and shook him. "Be careful of what you say as an American citizen in the hearing of rats like this, Tolson! It encourages 'em. They think we mean it. Get the bile out of your system in a strictly family fuss! Spit out a lot you don't mean, if it's going to make you feel better! But first slam down the windows so that the outsiders can't overhear. I'll see you later!"
"But I want you to get me right, Commander," Tolson pleaded. "I went up to one of the boys to show him how to hold his gun and he banged me with the butt of it!"
"He did!" Lanigan clicked his teeth and showed that he was having hard work to control his own resentment.
"I was only trying to be helpful. I tried to take his gun and show him. And he insulted an overseas veteran!"
Lanigan had himself in hand again. "Tried to take away his gun, you say! You in civics and he in uniform and on duty! Jeff, if it's that hard to wake up and know that you're no longer a soldier, I reckon your wrist-watch is acting too much like a reminder-string around a Jane's finger! Better hang it from the end of your nose. It's a wonder he didn't give you the bayonet!"
"The butt was aplenty, sir!"
"I can stand it better to be banged on the knob by a gun-butt by a good American than batted in the eye by this color on a Bullshevist!" asserted Lanigan, waving the red necktie that he still retained in his clutch. He gave the owner of it another push. "Along with you, Bill the Bomber."
Tolson trailed. "But what are they trying to do up on Capitol Hill, sir? What does it all mean?"
"I don't know," confessed the commander. He drove his way through the bystanders. "You see, boys, I have started in along the way of telling the truth to-night. So I own up that I don't know! We're going to find out what it means!" He kept on toward the door of the hall with his prisoner. "I've arranged to have a man come down here and tell us what it means and tell us how to act."
"Well, he'll know more than anybody else I have tackled on the subject to-night," said Tolson, sourly. "He's a wonder, if he does know!"
"He's All-Wool Morrison--and that's your answer, buddie," retorted Lanigan. And that answer did seem to suffice for Tolson.
There were many men on the stairs leading up to the hall, and the elbowing throng at the door of the auditorium furnished further evidence of the overflowing nature of the gathering.
"Gangway!" commanded Lanigan at the top of his voice. "Make way, there! I'm bringing something straight in my mouth and something crooked in my mit, and neither one of 'em will ye have till free passage is