Chapter 14
Section 27 and 28 of 100% The Story of a Patriot by Upton Sinclair. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Section 27 Yes, Peter was safe, but it had been a close call, and he still had painful scenes to play his part in.
He had to go back to the Todd home and meet the frantic Sadie and weep and be horrified with the rest of them. It would have been suspicious if he had not done this. The comrades would never have forgiven him. Then to his dismay he found that Sadie had somehow come to a positive conviction as to
Jenny's trouble. She penned Peter up in a corner and accused him of being responsible. And there was poor Peter, protesting vehemently that he was innocent and wishing that the floor would open up and swallow him. In the midst of his protestations a clever scheme occurred to him.
He lowered his voice in shame. There was a man, a young man, who used to come to see Jenny off and on. Jenny asked me not to tell. Peter hesitated a moment and added his masterstroke. Jenny explained to me that she was a free lover.
She told me all about free love. I told her I didn't believe in it, but you know, Sadie, when Jenny believed in anything she would stand by it and act on it. So I felt certain it wouldn't do any good for me to butt in. Sadie almost went out of her mind at this.
She glared at Peter. Slanderer! Devil! She cried. Who was the man?
Peter answered, He went by the name of Ned. That's what Jenny called him. It wasn't my business to pin her down about him. It wasn't your business to look out for an innocent child? Jenny herself said she wasn't an innocent child.
She knew exactly what she was doing. All socialists did it. And to this parting shot he added that he hadn't thought it was decent, when he was a guest in a home to spy on the morals of the people in it. When Sadie persisted in doubting him, and even in calling him names, he took the easiest
way out of the difficulty, fell into a rage, and stormed out of the house. Peter felt pretty certain that Sadie would not spread the story very far. It was too disgraceful to her sister and to herself. And maybe when she had thought it over she might come to believe Peter's story. Maybe she herself was a free lover.
McGivney had certainly said that all socialists were, and he had been studying them a lot. Anyhow, Sadie would have to think first of the Goober case, just as little Jenny had done. Peter had them there all right, and realized that he could afford to be forgiving. So he went to the telephone and called up Sadie and said, I want you to know that I'm
not going to say anything about this story. It won't become known except through you. There were half a dozen people whom Sadie must have told. Miss Nebbins was icy cold to Peter the next time he came in to see Mr. Andrews. Also, Miriam Yankovitch lost her formal cordiality, and several other women treated him with studied
reserve. But the only person who spoke about the matter was Pat McCormick, the IWW boy who had given Peter the news of little Jenny's suicide. Perhaps Peter hadn't been able to act satisfactorily on that occasion, or perhaps the young fellow had observed something for himself, some love glances between Peter and Jenny.
Peter had never felt comfortable in the presence of this silent Irish boy, whose dark eyes would roam from one person to another in the room, and seemed to be probing your most secret thoughts. Now Peter's worst fears were justified. Mac got him off in a corner, and put his fist under his nose, and told him that he was a
dirty hound, and if it hadn't been for the Goober case, he, Mac, would kill him without a moment's concern. And Peter did not dare open his mouth. The look on the Irishman's face was so fierce that he was really afraid for his life. God, what a hateful lot these Reds were!
And now here was Peter, with the worst one of all against him. From now on, his life would be in danger from this maniac Irishman. Peter hated him so heartily and genuinely that it served to divert his thoughts from little Jenny, and to make him regard himself as a victim. Yes, in the midnight hours, when Jenny's gentle little face haunted him, and his conscience
attacked him, Peter looked back upon the tangled web of events, and saw quite clearly how inevitable this tragedy had been, how naturally it had grown out of circumstances beyond his control. The fearful labor struggle in American City was surely not Peter's fault, nor was it his fault that he had been drawn into it, and forced to act first as an unwilling witness, and then as a secret agent.
Peter read the American City Times every morning, and knew that the cause of Goober was the cause of anarchy and riot, while the cause of the district attorney, and of Guffy's secret service, was the cause of law and order. Peter was doing his best in this great cause. He was following the instructions of those above him.
And how could he be blamed because one poor weakling of a girl had got in the way of the great chariot of the law? Peter knew that it wasn't his fault, and yet grief and terror gnawed at him. For one thing, he missed little Jenny. He missed her by day, and he missed her by night.
He missed her gentle voice, her fluffy soft hair, her body in his empty arms. She was his first love, and she was gone, and it is human weakness to appreciate things most when they have been lost. Peter aspired to be a strong man, a he-man, according to the slang that was coming into fashion.
He now tried to live up to that rule. He didn't want to go mooning about over this accident, yet Jenny's face stayed with him, sometimes wild as he had seen it at their last meeting, sometimes gentle and reproachful. Peter would remember how good she had been, how tender, how never failing in instant response to an advance of love on his part.
Where would he ever find another girl like that? Another thing troubled him especially, a strange, inexplicable thing, for which Peter had no words, and about which he found himself frequently thinking. This weak, frail slip of a girl had deliberately given her life for her convictions. She had died in order that he might be saved as a witness for the goobers.
Of course Peter had known all along that little Jenny was doomed, that she was throwing herself away, that nothing could save her. But somehow it does frighten the strongest heart when people are so fanatical as to throw away their very lives for a cause. Peter found himself regarding the ideas of these reds from a new angle.
Before this they had been just a bunch of nuts, but now they seemed to him creatures of monstrous deformity, products of the devil, or of a god gone insane. Section 28 There was only one person whom Peter could take into his confidence, and that was McGivney. Peter could not conceal from McGivney the fact that he was troubled over his bereavement,
and so McGivney took him in hand and gave him a jacking up. It was dangerous work, this of holding down the reds, dangerous because their doctrines were so insidious, they were so devilishly cunning in their working upon people's minds. McGivney had seen more than one fellow start fooling with their ideas and turn into one himself.
Peter must guard against that danger. It ain't that, Peter explained, it ain't their ideas, it's just that I was soft on that kid. Well it comes to the same thing, said McGivney. You get sorry for them, and the first thing you know, you're listening to their arguments. Now Peter, you're one of the best men I've got in this case, and that's saying a good
deal because I've got charge of seventeen. The rat-faced man was watching Peter and saw Peter flush with pleasure. Yes, he continued, Peter had a future before him. He would make all kinds of money. He would be given responsibility, a permanent position.
He might throw it all away if he got to fooling with these red doctrines, and also he ought to understand he could never fool McGivney because McGivney had spies on him. So Peter clenched his hands and braced himself up. Peter was a real he-man and wasn't going to waste himself. It's just that I can't help missing the girl, he explained, to which the other answered.
Well, that's only natural. What you want to do is to get yourself another one. Peter went on with his work in the office of the Goubert Defense Committee. The time for the trial had come and the struggle between the two giants had reached its climax. The district attorney, who was prosecuting the case and who was expecting to become governor
of the state on the strength of it, had the backing of half a dozen of the shrewdest lawyers in the city, their expenses being paid by the big businessmen. A small army of detectives were at work and the court where the trial took place was swarming with spies and agents. Every one of the hundreds of prospective jurors had been investigated and card catalogued,
as every weakness and every prejudice recorded. Not merely had his psychology been studied, but his financial status and that of his relatives and friends. Peter had met half a dozen other agents besides McGivney, men who had come to question him about this or that detail.
And from the conversation of these men he got glimpses of the endless ramifications of the case. It seemed to him that the whole of American City had been hired to help send Jim Guber to the gallows. Peter was now getting $50 a week and expenses, in addition to special tips for valuable bits
of news. Hardly a day passed that he didn't get wind of some important development and every night he would have to communicate with McGivney. The prosecution had a secret office where there was a telephone operator on duty, then traveling to the district attorney's office and to Guffy's office.
All this to forestall telephone tapping. Peter would go from the headquarters of the Guber Defense Committee to a telephone booth in some hotel, and there he would give the secret number and then his own number, which was 642. Everybody concerned was known by numbers, the principal people, both of the prosecution
and of the defense. The name Guber was never spoken over the phone. Before the trial had got started, it was hard to get anybody to work in the office of the Defense Committee. Everybody wanted to be in court.
Someone would come in every few minutes with the latest reports of sensational developments. The prosecution had succeeded in making away with the police court records, proving the conviction of its star witness of having kept a brothel for Negroes. The prosecution had introduced various articles alleged to have been found on the street by the police after the explosion.
One was a spring, supposed to have been part of a bomb, but it turned out to be a part of a telephone. Also, they had introduced parts of a clock, but it appeared that in their superzeal they had introduced the parts of two clocks. There was some excitement like this every day.
End of sections 27 and 28.
