The Yale expositor. (Yale, St. Clair County, Mich.) 1894-current, 1914-10-22

memorandum to call S3 tie Todd hos
pital. From the hospital he received
word that Mrs. Whiting had gone to
Rose alley and asked him to follow
her. Some one was dying. He did
not wait for dinner, but hailing a cab.
set out on another journey TO Rose
alley.
He stumbled hastily up the gloomy
staircase to Romans door and raped
lightly 1t was opened by an unkempt
foreign woman, doubtless a neighbor.
and he entered. Save for her the
kitchen was empty. But by the light
of a smoky lamp that stood on the
table near an inner door, he saw a
group dimly outlined. On a narrow
bed lay huge dropsical figure, seem
ing to Mark already dead The Matka,
more faded than ever, sat at the dy-
ing mans side, motionless as he, her
gaze fixed rigidly upon him.
Thank you for coming" Kazia said.
Pm glad you sent for me- Is there
anything l can do?"
YES, get Piotr. He went away early
this morning and doesn't know. It
was very sudden. You'll probably find
him at" She named a corner a mile
or more distant. He makes speeches
there every evening"
The cab came to a halt at a corner
where many people passed. A small
changing crowd had gathered around
man who from his soap box ha-
rangued them. He preached a gospel
that, beginning with a germ of love,
had grown in him into a creed Of hate
1t was a rambling incoherent ha-
rangue, full of bitter denunciation and
vague generalities that never came to
point-the grotesque but pitiful out
pouring Of a feeble mind obsessed by
a sense Of injury real or fancied and
cracking under the effort to inoculate
others with its venom. Mark listened
a moment
THE man must be mad" he thought
pitifully.
Piotr in his ramblings came to the
late strike. He began a roll call Of
the masters of the Quinby company
Quinby himself. Henley, Higsbee.
Hare
came. II that were possible, even moro
bitter. He fairly writhed as he shrieked
out his charges. "Truitt the wife
beater! The rounder! With his
women" For several minutes he
raved on, regaling his audience with
an array of disgusting but apocryphal
details OF TRUTHS life that to his dis
eased fancy must have become proved
facts.
Go tell him to come here" Mark
ordered the cabman. Tell him his
father is dying"
Jaw, hell" growled big Irishman
In the crowd, audible even to the cab.
Shut up! Truths tn only wan ay tn
lot wild BOWLS T. him"
"Fool-fool!" Piotr shook clenched
fists at the Irishman. Are you taken
in because he tried to stop the strike?
Who was he working for then. you or
| Quinby? Where was he when Hen
| ley's strike breakers came to steal
your jobs and shoot down your women?
Where was his money when your
children were starving for bread?
| Where"
But the cabman had reached him
with Marks message. For a moment
Piotr stared stupidity. trying to take
in its meaning. Then he uttered a
wild piercing cry.
"Dying!" He leaned toward the
crowd, hands and face twitching in his
frenzy. my fathers dying. but he
can walt while | tell you about this
Truitt. When he was starting out
he came to our house, because my
father took pity on him. My father
loved him, better than he did his own
son. He watched over him, cared for
him, taught him all he knew of his
trade. Then the old man broke. He
wouldn't have been old anywhere else,
but he had burned himself up trying
to make Quinby's furnace bells pay.
| They threw him out, of course-and
| Truitt took his job Truitt-partner
of Quinby! The old mans heart broke.
Then his mind gave way. And now
he's dying-do you know where? In
Rose alley!"
The crowd had become very still.
To them, too, the tragedy that tor
|
repetition could not take away its bit
terness.
"And that isn't all" The emotional
delirium reached its climax. I'm that
house was a girl-just an ignorant
Hunky girl but the kind men love. And
Truitt made love to her. But when he
left us, he left her, too-another
broken heart! To forget him she mar
ried a worthless rummy she had to
leave. Then she went out into the
city to make her own living-you
know the fight and the price women
must pay or go down. And she-the
girl he wouldn't take up with him
she paid"
Bewilderment choked back the
stream of words. For a man-whose
pallor was not due to the garish arc
lamp-had leaped from the cab and
was elbowing a way swiftly toward
him. The crowd fell back to let the