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CONTENTS

PREFACE xix

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xxiii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xxix

PART 1 POLITICAL ECONOMY

1 Capitalism Shakes the World 1

The Permanent Technological Revolution 3
The Enrichment of Material Life 6
Growing Inequality 11
The Population Explosion and the Growth of Cities 12
The Changing Nature of Work 15
The Transformation of the Family 16
Threats to the Ecosystem 17
The Effects of Climate Change 17
Contamination 21
New Roles for Government 22
Globalization 23
Conclusion 26

2 People, Preferences, and Society 29

Constraints, Preferences, and Beliefs 32
“Economic Man” Reconsidered 34
Human Nature and Cultural Differences 36
The Economy Produces People 39

­­­­vii
viii CONTENTS

The Cooperative Species 45

Conclusion 46

3 A Three-Dimensional Approach to Economics 49

Economic Systems and Capitalism 50
Three-Dimensional Economics 51
Competition 51
Command 52
Change 53
Neoclassical Economics 55
Values in Political Economy 57
Efficiency 59
Inputs and Outputs 59
Pareto Efficiency 60
Fairness 60
Democracy 62
Balancing Efficiency, Fairness, and Democracy 63

4 The Surplus Product: Conflict and Change 67

Economic Interdependence, Production, and Reproduction 69
Production 70
Links Between Production and Reproduction 71
A Labor Process Example: Making Pancakes 73
The Surplus Product 74
A Model of Production and Reproduction 78
Who Gets the Surplus? 80
Enlarging the Surplus 80
Application of Model to Labor 83
The Surplus Product and Conflict 84
The Surplus Product and Change 86

5 Capitalism as an Economic System 89

Class and Class Relationships 91
Classes and Economic Systems 93
Slavery 93
 CONTENTS ix

Feudalism 94
Distinctions Among Economic Systems 94
Capitalism 96
Commodities 97
Privately Owned Capital Goods 102
Wage Labor 108
Capitalism, the Surplus Product, and Profits 108
Conclusion 110

6 Government and the Economy 113

Rules of the Game: Government and the Capitalist Economy 115
The Emergence of Modern Legal Forms of
Corporate Business 115
Limited Liability 115
Corporate Personhood 116
From Competition to Monopoly 117
From National to Transnational 118
Democratic Government as Collective Provision for the
General Welfare 119
Government and the Distribution of Income, Wealth,
and Welfare in the ­Nineteenth Century 120
Railroad Financing: Public and Private Gains 121
Other Rules: Winners and Losers 123
Contention Between Capital and Labor over Rules 124
Voter Turnout in the United States and Around the World 126
Democracy in the Twentieth Century 128
Conclusion 130

7 U.S. Capitalism: Accumulation and Change 132

Accumulation as a Source of Change 134
The Accumulation Process 135
Competition for Profits 136
Capitalism Comes to the United States 137
Social Structures of Accumulation 141
x CONTENTS

Changing Strategies for Profit-Making 142

Consolidation and Decay of an SSA 143
The Stages of Capitalism in the United States 144
Competitive Capitalism (1860s–1898) 144
Corporate Capitalism (1898–1939) 146
Regulated Capitalism (1939–1991) 146
Transnational Capitalism (1991–) 147
U.S. Capitalism: Labor Organizing and Labor Markets 147
The Rise and Fall of Labor Unions 147
The Decline of Labor Unions 149

The Rise and Fall of the Labor Accord 151

Segmented Labor Markets 152

The Independent Primary Labor Market 153

The Subordinate Primary Labor Market 154

The Secondary Labor Market 155

U.S. Capitalism Today is Transnational 155

Immigration 157
Shifts in What U.S. Labor Produces 159
Fragmenting Global Production 161
Rules for the Global Economy 162
Tax Motives for TNCs to Go Global 163
The Transnational Capitalism SSA: Deregulation and Financialization 163
Corporate Stock Buybacks and Falling Productive Investment 166
Conclusion 167

PART 2 MICROECONOMICS

8 Supply and Demand: How Markets Work 169

The Nature of Markets 170
Demand and Supply 171
Demand 171
Supply 173
Marginal Cost 174

Average Cost 175

Demand and Supply Interacting 175

 CONTENTS xi

Shifts in Demand or Supply 178

Conclusion 180

9 Competition and Coordination: The Invisible Hand 181

Adam Smith and Laissez-Faire Economics 182
Coordination 183
Coordination by Rules and by Command 184
The Limits of Coordination by Command 185
The Invisible Hand 187
The Invisible Hand in Action 188
Problems with the Invisible Hand 191
Market Failure 192
Negative Externalities as Market Failures 193
Positive Externalities as Market Failures 194
Monopoly as a Market Failure 196
Economies of Scale as a Market Failure 196
Coordination Failure 200
The Prisoner’s Dilemma and the Benefits of Cooperation 200
The Prisoner’s Dilemma and Global Warming 202

The Tragedy of the Commons 203

10 Capitalist Production and Profits 207

What Are Profits? 208
Profits from a Production Process 209
Calculating Profit and Other Property Incomes in the Whole Economy 211
Profit in a Grain-Growing Capitalist Economy 213
Calculating the Rate of Profit 213
The Corporate Profit Rate in the United States 215
Corporations and Other Businesses: Who Gets the Profit or Bears the Loss? 216
Corporations 217
Limited Liability 217

Financing by Issuing Bonds or Stock 218

Management Separated from Ownership 219

Determinants of Total Profit and the Profit Rate 220

xii CONTENTS

Example: The Good Cod Fishing Company 223

Profit per Unit of Output 224
Conflict Over the Profit Rate 225
Intermediate Inputs per Unit of Output as Profit Rate Determinants 226
Unit Labor Cost as a Profit Rate Determinant 227
Work Effort and the Efficiency of Labor 228

Understanding the Profit Rate 229

Conclusion 232

11 Competition and Concentration 233

Competition for Profits 235
The Forms of Competition 237
Price Competition 238
Price as a Markup over Cost 241
Economies of Scale and Price Competition 243
Other Advantages of Large Size 247
Capacity Utilization 248
Breakthroughs 250
Monopoly Power 252
Investing to Compete 254
The Dynamics of Competition 258
Toward Equal Profit Rates? 259
Toward Economic Concentration? 261
Large Size and Monopoly Power 262
Collusion 262
Exploiting Breakthroughs 262
Government Subsidies and Contracts 263
Trends in Concentration 264
Antitrust Enforcement 267
Conclusion 268
Appendix to Chapter 11 270

12 Wages and Work 271

Work, Sloth, and Social Organization 273
The Capitalist Firm as a Command Economy 275
 CONTENTS xiii

The Conflict between Workers and Employers 276

Labor Discipline: Carrots and Sticks 282
The Labor Market, the Wage, and the Intensity of Labor 285
Cost of Job Loss 286
Avoiding the Cost of Job Loss 288
Additional Implications of the Labor Extraction Curve 295

13 Technology, Control, and Conflict in the Workplace 299

The Social Organization of the Workplace 301
Simple Control 304
Technical Control 304
Bureaucratic Control 305
Technology and the Labor Process 307
Conflict in the Workplace 309
Technical Change and Workplace Conflict 309
Raising the Efficiency of Labor 309

Speedup 310

Deskilling 312

Unions 314
Recent Trends in Union Membership 314

Union Activities 315

Managing the Threat of Replacement 315

Promoting Social Changes to Benefit Workers 317

Discrimination in the Workplace 317

Profitability Versus Efficiency 319
Markets and Hierarchies 321
Democratic Firms 322

PART 3 MACROECONOMICS

14 The Mosaic of Inequality 325

Well-Being and Inequality 328
Influences on Well-Being and the Economy 328
Measuring Living Standards and Inequality 329
xiv CONTENTS

Growing Inequality 331

Wealth Inequality 334
Unequal Chances 338
Race and Inequality 341
Discrimination in Hiring 342
Problem of Differential Pay 342
Women’s Work, Women’s Wages 346
Conclusion 350

15 Progress and Poverty on a World Scale 352

Poverty and Progress 355
Productivity and Income 359
Vicious Circles of Low Productivity 359
Economies of Scale 361

Technology Gap 363

Intellectual Property Rights 364

Other Government Interventions to Promote Development 366
Requisites for Economic Development 366
Eight Essential Elements 366
Stability and Peace 367

Financing 367

A Well-Functioning Government 368

Skills and Education 368

Infrastructure 369

Public Health 369

Access to Foreign Markets 369

Other Factors in Development 369

Variations in Rate of Growth of Productivity 371
Foreign Investment and Development 373
Investment Decisions by Transnational Corporations 375
Transnational Investment and Tax Havens 377
Conclusion 381
 CONTENTS xv

16 Aggregate Demand, Employment, and Unemployment 383

Counting the Unemployed 386
What Determines Employment and Output? 388
Aggregate Supply and Aggregate Demand 389
Measuring Total Output 391
Terms for Measuring the Macroeconomy 391
Analyzing Aggregate Supply and Aggregate Demand 392
A Basic Macroeconomic Model 395
Unemployment and Government Fiscal Policy 400
Effects of Deficit Spending on Employment 401
Multiplier Effect of Deficit Spending 404
The Business Cycle and the Built-in Stabilizers 407
Conscious Policy Changes 409
Automatic or Built-in Stabilizers 409
Investment, Aggregate Demand, and Monetary Policy 410
Wages, Aggregate Demand, and Unemployment 417
When is an Employment Situation Wage-Led? 419
Implications for Economic Policy 420
Conclusion 421

17 The Dilemmas of Macroeconomic Policy 422

The High-Employment Profit Squeeze 426
The High-Employment Wage Push 426
The Materials Cost Push 430
Rising Costs Squeeze Profits 431
Exports, Imports, and Aggregate Demand 435
The Demand for Exports and Imports 436
The Foreign Exchange Rate 437
International Trade and Macroeconomic Policy 439
Promoting Net Exports 439
Competing in Global Markets 441
Monetary and Fiscal Policy at Odds 442
xvi CONTENTS

What Determines the Interest Rate? 443

Borrowing and the Exchange Rate 446
The Conflict between Monetary and Fiscal Policy 447
Institutions for Achieving Full Employment 447
Institutional Obstacles to Full Employment 448
The Handshake: Ways to Reach Full Employment 449
Conclusion 452

18 Financial and Economic Crisis 454

The Great Recession and the Subprime Crisis 456
Understanding the Great Recession 458
Why to Buy a Home 458
Home Prices Start to Rise 459
How to Buy a Home 462
Securitization of Mortgages 462
Credit Rating Agencies 462

Prime and Subprime Mortgages 463

Refinancing 463
Deregulation 465
Liars’ Loans 467
Collateral Damage 470
Derivatives of Other Kinds 471
Bailouts and Buyouts 473
Unemployment and Poverty 473
Lessons from the History of Economic Crises 474
Nonfinancial Causes of Crisis: Overinvestment, Underconsumption 476
Underconsumption as a Cause of Stagnation or Crisis 476
Asset Markets Differ from Goods Markets 477
Why Are Asset Markets Prone to Price Bubbles? 478
Feedback Loops 479
Reflexivity 480
Misinformation 481
Deregulation and Financial Fragility 482
Large Firms Exacerbate the Problem 483
Weakening the Social Safety Net 485
 CONTENTS xvii

Regulation in a Capitalist Economy 486

Regulating the Financial Sector 486
The Dodd-Frank Act 488
Inequality, Concentration and Crisis 488

19 Government and the Economy in Transnational

Capitalism 491
More Spending, Less Health 494
Government in the United States: Too Big? 496
Government Spending: Comparing the United States with
Other Countries 496
Old-Age Pensions 498
Influencing the Rules 500
Taxation 502
Tax Rates and Tax Payments to the Federal Government 503

Tax Rules and Enforcement 504

Weakening Enforcement 504

Rules that Affect Business Costs and Profits 506

Contracting Out Government Services 506
Government Contracting: Profits and the Public Interest 507
Decline in Competitive Bidding for Government Contracts 508
Government Contracting for Private Prison Services 508
Laws and Norms on Sentencing 509
Rethinking Private Prisons and Mass Incarceration 511
Selling to Government, Maximizing Profit 512
Medical Services in Private Prisons 514
Changing the Rules 515
Rules Written into Contracts 515

Taxing Transnational Corporations: Who Is In Control? 516

Democracy and Inequality 517
Feedback Loops Between Inequality and Power 519
Supranational Rule Changes 519
TNC Power over Foreign Government Decisions 520
Conflict over Rules 521
Proposals for Alternative Rules 522
xviii CONTENTS

Capitalism and Inequality 524

Democracy and Inequality 525
Conclusion 526

LIST OF VARIABLES 529

SOURCES OF ECONOMIC INFORMATION 532
GLOSSARY 535
INDEX 544
Preface

Understanding Capitalism: Competition, Command, and Change is an introduction

to economics that explains how capitalism works, why it sometimes does not work as
well as we would like, and how over time it not only changes its own functioning but
also revolutionizes the world around us. The book does not assume that the reader
has any prior knowledge of economics.
The three-dimensional approach to economics offered in this book focuses not
just on market competition, as highlighted in conventional economics textbooks, but
also on relationships of command—the exercise of power in firms, among nations,
and between social groups—and on processes of historical change. The approach is
multidisciplinary, making extensive use of examples from history, anthropology, and
the other behavioral sciences as well as economics.
The core idea uniting the three dimensions of competition, command, and
change is the pursuit of profits by firms. Using this central idea, we analyze com-
petition among firms, the search for profits as the driving force of investment and
technical change, and profit-seeking as a source of conflict among owners, workers,
governments, employers, and consumers.
The book covers the standard topics of supply and demand, market competi-
tion, imperfect competition, aggregate demand, and unemployment. In addition,
we give special attention to the extraordinary dynamism and material productivity
of the capitalist economy, the psychological foundations of human behavior and
the importance of Adam Smith’s invisible hand, technical change and the new
­information-based economy, global economic integration and its impact on national
economies, and inequality both within and among nations. We also provide a criti-
cal evaluation of the tenets of neoclassical economics and a clear introduction to
contract theory as well as to new research in behavioral, institutional, and informa-
tion economics.
We titled the book Understanding Capitalism (rather than, say, Understanding
Economics) to stress that our subject matter is a real economic system—not just the
ideas and models of economists. Considered in this way, economic theory is a body
of knowledge that, along with history, politics, sociology, and the other social sci-
ences, can help us understand capitalism.

Structure of the Book

Part 1, “Political Economy,” introduces the three-dimensional approach to eco-
nomics, explains its relationship to other approaches, develops its fundamental

­­­­xix
xx PREFACE

concepts, and summarizes some of the pertinent facts relating to life in a capitalist
economy.
Part 2, “Microeconomics,” develops the theory of the firm and of mar-
kets, including the labor market, and analyzes technological change using a
Schumpeterian model of dynamic monopolistic competition. Most important, it
develops the analysis of profits and the profit rate that provides the integrating prin-
ciple of three-­dimensional economics and establishes the link between micro- and
macroeconomics.
Part 3, “Macroeconomics,” deals with the workings of the economy as a whole.
To provide a foundation for our study of macroeconomics, we examine inequality
both within and among nations, focusing in particular on uneven development on
a global scale. Here we introduce the concepts of aggregate demand and aggregate
supply and explain why unemployment is a more or less permanent feature of capi-
talist labor markets. This part of the book ends with a chapter on economic crisis and
one on the government’s role in the economy.
Instructors using the book in a microeconomics course may want to assign
Chapters 1–13 and Chapter 19. Those using it in a macroeconomics course might
want to focus on Chapters 1–7, 10, 12, and 14–19. For a one-semester course, Chap-
ters 1–10 and 19 might be appropriate, while other chapters could be included as time
and student interest permit.

Changes in the Fourth Edition

In this fourth edition of Understanding Capitalism, the data and figures have been
thoroughly updated (text, figures, and boxes), and there are three new chapters (6, 18,
and 19) and four substantially rewritten chapters. Chapters that have been replaced
are available on a password-protected website.
• The international aspect of the book has been further strengthened with an up-
dated Chapter 7, substantial improvements to Chapter 15, and some interna-
tional content in a rewritten Chapter 19.
• In Chapter 10, the algebra of how the profit rate is determined has been simplified,
and the simpler algebra has been seamlessly integrated into Chapters 11 and 12.
• Added discussion of the rules that govern the national and world economy, and
how they may affect growth and the public interest, now appears in new or rewrit-
ten material in Chapters 6 and 19. The new Chapter 6 explains how establishing
rules such as limited liability and corporate personhood increased investment,
growth and consolidation of enterprises in the U.S., while laying the foundation
for the development of transnational corporations. Chapter 19 explores current
public debates about what economic rules best serve the public interest.
• A new chapter 18 describes the unfolding of the Great Recession, analyzes changes
in the financial sector, and discusses the causes of economic crises in general.
• Chapter 19 newly considers issues in private vs. public provision of services,
especially in health care and in prison management.
 PREFACE xxi

Pedagogical Aids and Supplements

The glossary, the definitions of terms placed in the text margins, and the captions
under each figure help readers to master the basic language and analytical tools of
economics. The boxes in the text present additional facts about the economy and
raise issues that can be the basis of classroom discussions.
The “Sources of Economic Information” section near the end of the book can
help readers locate economic information from official and other sources, both in
print and online.

Three-Dimensional Economics and the Neoclassical Paradigm

When the first edition of this book was published in 1985, many thought of it as an
“alternative text” and welcomed it as a counterpoint to the neoclassical paradigm
that was the dominant approach to economics at the time. Since that time, econom-
ics has changed in significant ways. Many of the themes central to this book are
now addressed by many economists as well as by other social scientists. In recent
years economists have turned their attention to the problem of inequality, the impor-
tance of ethical values and unselfish motives in economic behavior, the exercise of
power, the way that history shapes economic events, and how the economy shapes
who we are as individuals and as people in societies and cultures. The rapid pace of
economic, scientific, political, and other developments in today’s world has forced
economists to face the issue of change.
Since the first edition of Understanding Capitalism was published, the Nobel
Prize in economics has been awarded to many of the economists and other social
scientists who have inspired our own work. Among them are Amartya Sen, Ronald
Coase, George Akerlof, Joseph Stiglitz, Robert Fogel, Douglass North, Daniel Kahn-
eman, Vernon Smith, John Nash, and Elinor Ostrom.
Of course, economics remains a controversial topic. There is, however, no
longer a single dominant school but rather many distinct approaches, each with its
own merits and shortcomings. All of the Nobel Prize winners listed above have been
sharp critics of some aspects of the neoclassical approach (while endorsing others).
Unfortunately, the teaching of economics to undergraduates has lagged behind what
is widely understood by leading economists. The conventional “neoclassical” model
is still taught, often as if it were the only approach to the field. For this reason this
book may still be thought of as an “alternative text” because it focuses on questions
largely ignored in the standard textbooks and develops concepts and ideas that are at
variance with—or not even mentioned in—conventional textbooks.
Samuel Bowles, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Richard Edwards, Lincoln, Nebraska
Frank Roosevelt, New York, New York
Mehrene Larudee, Amherst, Massachusetts
Another Random Scribd Document
with Unrelated Content
“Sam,” she said, “I haven’t been in your house for years. Do you
know, I would like to go. I’d like to go now. Do you think I might?”
Sam flushed a little and hesitated a moment.
“Why, yes, Annie, I don’t know why you shouldn’t. Mother doesn’t
see many people, as you know; and they won’t be expecting you,
but if you’ll take things as you find them—”
“Oh, yes, Sam,” she aid dryly. “That’s just what I mean. I want to
take them as they are. I want to get acquainted with your family.”
He looked pleased and softened at that.
“Do you, Annie Laurie?” he said with a little thrill in his voice. “Well,
that sure is nice of you. Not very many of the neighbors seem to
care whether they live or die. Come along, then. Let’s go now.”
So they turned in the direction of the Disbrow house, Annie Laurie
leading and Sam walking behind, nervously smiling, the dogs at his
heels.
They turned in at the Disbrow place, passing through the sagging
gate, and Sam uttered his first apology.
“I’ve tried and tried to get that old gate to stay up on the level,” he
said. “But seems like we never have the proper tools to do anything
with; and anyhow, the wood’s so rotten it won’t hold a nail, hardly.”
“Oh, a sagging gate is nothing,” answered Annie Laurie dully.
The little garden had not yet felt the influence of spring, and it
looked dejected enough. Fragments of last year’s mosquito netting
dangled at the windows; the paint of the little house was weather-
worn; the arms were off the bench on the porch. Green shades kept
the light from making its way into the low rooms. Indeed, so dim
was the room into which Annie Laurie stepped that at first she could
see nothing. The heat was fairly sweltering, and the atmosphere
was lifeless and stale-smelling.
“Mother,” said Sam gently, “I’ve brought a friend to see you—Annie
Laurie Pace.”
“Oh,” sighed a voice from the gloom, struggling between
reproachfulness and natural politeness, “have you? How do you do,
Annie Laurie?”
“I’m very well, thank, you ma’am. Are you feeling any better?”
“No—no, I don’t seem to get any better. Sam, you’ll have to pull up
a shade. Annie Laurie won’t be able to see a thing.”
Annie Laurie closed her eyes for an instant. She dreaded what she
would see, and yet she had long wished to know the truth—to know
what Sam’s strange home was like. She heard the shade being
raised, and with something of an effort she opened her eyes and
looked about. What she saw gave her a shock. Her own home was
ugly enough, as she knew well; but poverty was here, and worse
than poverty—indifference to appearances. The almost bare
apartment wore that dejected and unhappy aspect of a room for
which no one cares and in which no one hopes. It was a sad room
—a sick room—with a long couch and its occupant for the chief
objects.
Yes, the couch was long and wide, though the woman who lay on it
was so small. Figured brown calico covered the bed, and the
woman was dressed in a wrapper of faded blue. There was no collar
about her throat—only the coarse open neck-band, showing a
shriveled neck. Her face was bloodless and bleached like a
vegetable that has grown in the dark, and out of it looked a pair of
weary eyes, beneath which were deep, dark circles. Her hair—
brown, touched with gray—was brushed back straight and flat from
her bulging brow, and this, with her high-arched eyebrows, gave her
an almost Chinese look. Her hands, thinner and more apathetic
than any hands Annie Laurie ever had seen, lay on the calico cover.
“It’s not very often I have light let in here,” she said. “It makes my
head ache so.”
Annie Laurie did not say that she ought not to have let it in for her, if
that was the case. She couldn’t really feel that this was the case.
She was glad the light was in the room for once, and by it, she
moved toward Mrs. Disbrow’s bed, her hand outstretched with
something almost like satisfaction, for she knew as she looked in
that woman’s face, that if her fortune had been stolen from her by
the undertaker, his wife did not know it. She was as convinced of
this woman’s innocence when she looked at her, as she was of her
pitiful condition. So she took one of the claw-like hands in her own
strong grasp and sat down beside her. Mrs. Disbrow’s face was
quivering with the excitement of meeting a stranger.
“Sam often talks of you,” said his mother in her fluttering voice.
“I’ve been wanting to see you. You’re a strong, fine girl, Annie.”
“Yes, I’m strong and well,” the girl answered. “I’m very thankful.”
“Well, I haven’t known a well day for years,” said the invalid. “Here I
lie, racked with pain, and I declare I don’t know whether it’s one day
or another.”
Annie Laurie felt herself bracing against this discouraged tone.
“Well,” she said, “I don’t suppose you really have to worry about
what day it is. You have nothing to do—no Monday washing to think
of, or Saturday baking. Some one else does all that for you.”
She spoke merely to present a cheerful side, but Mrs. Disbrow
flushed a trifle. Annie Laurie saw that she had said something that
annoyed her.
“Yes,” the sick woman replied still more dejectedly, “I’m nothing but
a drag on my family. I often say to them that it would be better if I
was out of their way.”
“I don’t suppose that makes them very happy—hearing you say
that.” Annie Laurie replied in her hearty way. It really seemed to
her as if that was the unkindest thing a mother could say to her
children. “If only I could have my mother, sick or well, or any way at
all, I’d be the happiest girl in the world. It’s terribly lonely being
without a mother—or a father,” she added almost in a whisper.
Mrs. Disbrow reached out her hand and laid it on Annie Laurie’s.
“Poor girl,” she murmured with what was almost her first thought of
anyone save herself, that winter.
“And—Oh, I feel so sorry for Sam and Hannah, with you ill always,”
went on Annie Laurie. “Of course it spoils their happiness. It seems
such a pity! Isn’t there anything that can be done, Mrs. Disbrow?
Doesn’t any doctor know how to cure you? Haven’t you any idea
yourself of what ought to be done?”
“Well, my husband talks of going West soon,” answered Mrs.
Disbrow with something like vivacity—or rather, like a shadow of it.
“I’m looking forward to that. If we could get to a new place and to
a new house, and if there was something to look forward to, and
hope for the children to make something of themselves, I don’t
know—maybe—” her voice trailed off and her eyes fixed themselves
in an aimless reverie on the opposite wall.
So they were going West! That was the plan. The man who had
been unable to give his family a chance, who had been broken by
this long illness of his wife’s, who had failed to make his place
among men, was going West. His chance had come to him at last.
Had it come through theft? Annie Laurie found herself wishing that
they might indeed have the chance, these poor people who seemed
never to have been able to step out into the sunshine. Yet had they
a right to this chance—if it meant her defeat? Could she let them go
this way, while she was left to struggle with poverty?
The door opened and a girl entered. Hannah! She was so slender
that Annie Laurie, who was broad of shoulder, with a backbone that
might have been made of steel, wondered how the poor thing
managed to keep upright. Her face was ivory-colored, her frock an
ill-fitting gingham of a hideous “watermelon” pink. She turned her
dreadfully crossed eyes on Annie Laurie—or to be correct, turned
one of them on her—and looked at her resentfully.
“This is sister Hannah, Annie Laurie,” said Sam in rather a stifled
voice. “You two girls ought to know each other, you know.”
“How do you do?” said Hannah, miserable with shyness.
“Oh, I’m pretty well, thank you, Hannah,” Annie Laurie answered,
and then she added: “But I can’t say I’m very happy. You wouldn’t
expect that. I’m very, very lonely without my father.”
She had risen and stood before the girl, with her bald little
statement of sorrow, and Hannah, forgetting herself and her fears
for a moment, looked up at Annie Laurie with sympathy in her face.
“Oh,” she said, “it’s too bad. I—I cried after I heard of it.”
She seemed astonished at herself for saying so much, and Sam
looked at her with amazement. Had Hannah actually cried over
some one else’s troubles?
“Did you?” exclaimed Annie Laurie. “Oh, that was sweet of you,
Hannah.”
She forgot her Aunt Adnah’s axiom that the Paces seldom kissed,
and leaned forward and planted a warm kiss on Hannah’s cheek.
“I like to know that,” she went on. “You see I feel so—so friendless.”
“Why, with your aunts and all?” inquired Mrs. Disbrow.
“I feel as if I ought to be protecting my aunts, you see,” explained
Annie. “They are old and terribly broken by father’s death. And
then, everything has gone so wrong with us. We haven’t been able
to find father’s money anywhere, you know, and we’re really poor.
We’ve no money to run the dairy on, and the men need overseeing,
and I’ve blundered along with my bad bookkeeping. Altogether, it
looks as if things were going to ruin, and I just can’t bear that, Mrs.
Disbrow.”
“Why, you’ve always been so prosperous!” exclaimed Mrs. Disbrow.
“My husband often has spoken of how prosperous your father was,
and has contrasted him with himself. You see, Mr. Disbrow never
has got on well here. His farm has paid poorly, and of course the
undertaking business is of very little consequence in a community
like this. I declare I can’t blame him for being discouraged and
bitter and sort of half-hating the men who are successful. It’s hard
to like people when everything is going against you.”
Annie Laurie swept her glance around the room again, taking in the
brother and sister, and resting it at last on the sick woman.
“I suppose it is,” she said slowly. “I suppose it is. But Mrs. McBirney
says you have to give out liking to have people like you, and that
you have to think you are going to succeed in order to do it.”
“And you have to think well in order to be well, I suppose,” said the
invalid angrily. “I suppose that’s her idea. Well, you can tell her for
me that she’s mistaken.”
Annie Laurie did not look rebuked. She sat still, thinking.
“I know so little about sickness,” she said slowly, “that I can’t even
sympathize the way I ought to, I suppose. Oh, Mrs. Disbrow, don’t
you suppose you could go riding with me? I’m such a good driver, I
wouldn’t let you be shaken up at all. Sam and Hannah could sit
beside you to keep you from being joggled.”
“A pretty sight I’d make!” cried Mrs. Disbrow. “There’s too many of
the neighbors would be peeking out to see what I looked like, after
all these years of being shut away. No, thank you, child, I don’t
believe I want to try.”
“But you could go at twilight. We could go when the neighbors are
at supper. Wouldn’t it be fun, Sam? Could you sit up, ma’am?”
“No, I don’t believe I could. And even if I did, like as not I’d pay for
it the next day.”
“But why not try? Maybe you wouldn’t have to pay for it. Oh,
ma’am, it’s so wonderful to be out of doors. You can’t think what
you miss staying in here—can she, Sam?”
“No,” said Sam, “she can’t have an idea. Oh, mother, you never
would listen to me, though truly I believe you’d be ever so much
better if you would get out. Please try. The three of us will be able
to take good care of you.”
There was a moment’s silence, and then the boy flung out his arms
with sudden passion.
“Oh, mother, mother, please try! Why need we all be so unhappy?
Why can’t we have a little joy like other people?”
Annie Laurie felt the tears leap into her eyes. She had never before
seen Sam as other than the cheerful, hearty boy, but now she knew
that the cheerfulness and heartiness had been an imitation of the
real thing. They had been but his courage masquerading as
something else.
Mrs. Disbrow raised herself on her elbow and looked at her son.
Suddenly a great light broke over her. She had not been the only
sufferer in that house. Before her were the two whose youth she
had shadowed with her pain.
“I’ll go,” she said in a strange voice. “When shall it be?”
“Now,” cried Annie Laurie. “I’ll run right home and have the men
hitch up. Oh, Hannah, be sure she’s dressed warm enough. I’ll
have something warm put in for her feet. Oh, Sam, maybe she’ll like
it!”
She turned toward the boy with outstretched hands and he caught
and held them for a moment. Then she was off, running as fast as
she could to serve the people into whose house she had gone with
the motives of a spy.
 CHAPTER X
SAM

Of course Annie Laurie told Azalea and Carin all about it as the three
sat together the next day after luncheon, in the schoolroom.
“Papa said he’d seen you,” Carin answered. “He was horseback
riding and late getting home, and he said he saw you out with the
Disbrows, and that Mrs. Disbrow looked like a ghost that had got
back to earth and didn’t like it very well. But he thought you were
wonderful to do that. He didn’t quite see how you could, feeling as
you do, but he thought it lovely of you just the same!”
“Well,” said Annie Laurie. “You see I didn’t feel quite the way I
thought I did when I saw that poor woman and Hannah; and then
poor Sam looked at me as if he thought I could set his world right if
I only would.”
“It’s a terribly twisted world,” mused Azalea. “Now, what if poor
little Hannah has her eyes straightened, and Sam goes to college,
and Mrs. Disbrow gets her health out West all out of the money that
was stolen from you, Annie Laurie? Those are all good things to
have happen.”
“Yes, they are,” answered Annie Laurie without anger. “They are
good things. But you remember what Elder Mills said that last night
about avoiding lies in word and act. I remember particularly
because it was something like what the preacher had been saying
over to the Baptist church only a few Sundays before. It seemed to
me they were all harping on that subject, but I begin to see why,
now. I can see that all false things are lies—that stealing is a sort of
lie—a saying that something is yours which isn’t. It will be like that
with the Disbrows, I suppose; no matter what good comes to them,
it won’t seem good—at least not to Mr. Disbrow, who knows the
truth about how he came by the money. It’s dreadful, when you
come to think of it, that a nice boy like Sam should be having things
out of that money he’s no right to.”
“You oughtn’t to speak as if it was an absolutely sure thing that he
took the money, Annie Laurie,” warned Carin. “Papa says we
mustn’t do that. He says it’s a kind of crime in itself to accuse
people of sins when you’re not sure they’re guilty.”
“I’ll try not to,” sighed Annie Laurie penitently, “but it’s very hard.
And, oh, Carin, it’s getting to be so sad at the house with the old
aunts always talking about the lost money and hunting and hunting
for it, and the business going to pieces and I not able to prevent it.”
That night when the Carsons sat at dinner, Carin told her father that
Annie Laurie had said Mrs. Disbrow was expecting her husband to
take the family West.
Mr. Carson brought his fist down on the table.
“Now, that can’t be,” he cried. “I won’t have that! I simply won’t.
No matter what risk I run of doing the man an injustice, I won’t
have him leave this community. He’s under suspicion and he’s got to
stay here. I’m sorry for him, sometimes, when I see him walk into
town and all the men turn their backs on him and walk away. Of
course, it isn’t really fair—or at least, it may not be fair, for it is
possible that he is as innocent as you or I. But if he is guilty, he’s
getting only a small part of what he deserves. At any rate, I can
understand that he’s very uncomfortable in this town nowadays, and
that he’d like mighty well to get out of it. But he shan’t, if I have
anything to say about it.”
The next morning, however, Annie Laurie came with startling news.
“They’re gone!” she cried as she dashed into the schoolroom.
“Who?” the girls asked in unison.
“The Disbrows.”
“No!”
“Yes, they have. I was walking along the road and I happened to
look over toward their house, and there wasn’t any smoke coming
from the chimney. And there was something about the place—I
can’t describe it, because the curtains are forever down anyway—but
something that looked deserted. So I pelted across the field and
knocked at the door and no one answered. And then I tried the
door and it was locked. I saw the chickens were gone, too, and the
cow and the horses. They all went in the night.”
“But do you think Sam would let his family act like that?”
“Sam went to Rutherford yesterday to the academy. No, I don’t
think he knew a thing about it. He came over after I got home from
school to say good-bye, and he was very happy and—oh, well—
good, you know. No one could have looked as he did if he had
thought his father was a thief and his family sneaks.”
“But my goodness,” exclaimed Azalea, “don’t you suppose he’s
noticed how the men were treating his father—turning their backs
on him and all that? Pa McBirney said he just couldn’t bring himself
to shake hands with him any more. Don’t you suppose Mr. Disbrow
ever had spoken of that at home?”
“He always was bitter and fault-finding anyway,” said Annie Laurie.
“Mrs. Disbrow told me that. I suppose a little more or less
complaining wouldn’t mean anything to her.”
“But she certainly must have wondered at having the house torn up
in an hour or two, and at setting out in the night that way like
fugitives,” said Carin.
“Oh, well, you know she hated to go out driving with me for fear the
neighbors would be peeping at her, so I suppose she was well
pleased to go in the night. She’d hate to have folks find out what a
poor little handful of things they had, and all that.”
“Of course,” said Azalea, “it would be easy enough to find which way
they went, by the wagon marks. They must have had the cow tied
on behind the wagon, and so they could be followed easily and
overtaken if—if you wanted them to be, Annie Laurie.”
“Yes,—I know. If—I wanted them to be.”
The girl sank into a chair and rested her face in her hand, staring
straight before her. Azalea and Carin said nothing. They were
thinking very, very hard, too. The silence was long and intense.
Then they heard Miss Parkhurst’s steps approaching down the hall.
Annie Laurie struck her two hands together sharply.
“I can’t do it!” she cried. “I can’t let Sam’s people be chased like
that and brought back. I may be wrong, and weak, and not fair to
the poor old aunts, but I just can’t do it, that’s all there is to it.”
Carin and Azalea looked at her with perfect understanding.
“No,” said Carin softly, “you couldn’t do that, could you? Plenty of
people could, and they’d be just and right—maybe. But you
couldn’t, and I like you, Annie Laurie, because you can’t.”
Azalea clapped her hands.
“So do I!” she agreed. “It will all come right for you, Annie. That’s
what dear Ma McBirney would say if she knew. Somehow it will all
come right. But to have that poor, sneaking, miserable man chased,
and that sick woman, and little Hannah who is half-frightened out of
her life anyway—oo-oo-oo! You couldn’t.”
Miss Parkhurst opened the door. The three girls arose respectfully
and answered her good morning.
“Algebra this morning,” she said briskly. Perforce they turned their
thoughts to matters that were anything but exciting.
But if they could have known the experiences their friend Sam
Disbrow was going through, their lesson would have been even
poorer than it was—and Miss Parkhurst had already been obliged to
tell them that as mathematicians she did not consider them
brilliantly successful.
Sam had set off with a light heart. For the first time in his life he
was going away from home—that depressing and melancholy home,
against the gloom of which he had set all the forces of his really
happy and brave nature. But the home had been too much for him.
He could feel it slowly and surely dragging him down into that pit of
gloom and distrust where the others lived, and to leave it behind, to
have a chance to go to school and get the education which he felt
he must have if he was to make anything of himself, filled him not
only with joy but gratitude.
Of course, he still wondered how his father had been able to
manage it. He knew that they were very poor—that his father had
not been able to make a success at anything. His garden never
flourished like that of his neighbors; his chickens never laid well; his
cow gave only a fraction of the milk she should; his cotton was but a
scanty crop; and even as an undertaker, the only one in Lee, he
sometimes was passed over for his remote rival in Rutherford.
Recently things had been going even more wrong than usual. Sam
could not explain it, but a general dislike of the whole Disbrow family
seemed to have invaded the town. His father never had been
popular, but lately Sam had noticed signs of actual aversion. How
was it to be accounted for? If ever the faintest shadow of an idea as
to the real reason for this dislike entered Sam’s mind, he thrust it
out, strangled and unrecognizable, from his consciousness. He
believed in his father because he believed in himself. He was not a
person to whom suspicion came naturally, although he had lived in
the midst of it all his days. There is a thing called reaction—the
sharp turning of the spirit against a condition or an idea. Sam had
reacted against the gray dispositions in his family. He was ready to
blossom into the scarlet of courage and good will, of power and joy,
if only a little sun could shine on him.
And now it seemed to be shining. He was going away to school as
other boys did. There would be a number of fellows he knew, and
chief among them would be Richard Heller, the banker’s son. He
liked Heller. He counted on him to “show him the ropes” at the
academy.
It was a long time since he had been in the smart town of
Rutherford. His heart leaped in him as he stepped out from the
station, his bag in his hand, and felt the throb of the busy town
about him. Automobiles were ranged in line about the station,
carriages with well-kept horses stood in the shade beneath the fine
elms, the paved streets were clean, the street cars new and fresh
looking, and everywhere were busy, active people, moving along
with that air of confidence and efficiency which too often was lacking
at Lee. And it exhilarated Sam. All that was strong and eager in
him liked it. He wanted to be a part of a community like that.
He took the street car that ran to the academy, and sat wrapt in
interest at noting the fine homes, the well-kept lawns, the excellent
public buildings. People were doing things here that were worth
while, said Sam to himself. And he, in his way, was going to be a
part of it. Perhaps he could stay in the Academy till he was
graduated—with honors, maybe—and then he would stay on at
Rutherford, and become a part of its busy, stirring life. He would
have a home like the one he was passing, with tall windows, and the
light streaming in through beautiful trees, and a porch like that, with
his family sitting out on it in the open, and not hiding away in the
shadow. Then there would be bright flowers, like those in that yard,
and friends coming and going the way they were from that house.
And they would be laughing—Annie Laurie loved to laugh—and
sometimes they would eat on the lawn. But he drew himself up with
a flush. What had Annie Laurie to do with it all? A girl like that—
would she care seriously for one of the queer, shiftless tribe of
Disbrow? Sam hit his knee angrily. Let him attend to what was
before him and stop thinking nonsense.
He reached the Academy, and walked along under its wonderful
white oaks to the Ballenger dormitories, where he knew Heller
stayed. Perhaps Heller could get him a room near his own. It was
rather a trick to get in the Ballenger dormitories and the fellows who
succeeded were considered lucky. But perhaps Heller could manage
it for him somehow—they always had been good friends.
He was directed along the corridors, hung with their many pictures,
and decorated with plaster casts, to a corner room on the third
story.
He knocked expectantly.
“Come!” commanded Heller’s voice.
Sam threw open the door.
“Dick!” he cried, “I’ve come on to school. What do you think of
that?”
He dropped his suit case and hastened toward Richard with
outstretched hand.
Dick took it silently. His eyes, that used to be so cordial in their
glances, turned upon Sam with a scrutinizing look. They searched
his drooping face sharply. Then something like the old expression
returned. Sam was not slow. He saw that something was quite
wrong—that Dick had been thinking evil of him in some way, and
that now that he had met him face to face, he was finding it difficult
to sustain the suspicion.
“What’s the matter, man?” Sam cried. “What are you looking at me
like that for? Why don’t you speak?”
“Sit down,” answered Dick brusquely. “Something is the matter,
Sam, but I’d rather be skinned than tell you what it is. All the same
I’m not going to go around snubbing you and leaving you in the dark
after all the good times we’ve had together.”
“I should think not, indeed,” cried Sam. “Skin away, old man. Let’s
have the operation over with.”
Dick, it was evident, dared not give himself time to think. He blurted
out what he had to say.
“My dad wrote me that you were thinking of coming down here to
school.”
“Well?”
“Well, and he said the neighbors all were wondering where in the
dickens your father got the money to send you.”
“I don’t know,” answered Sam angrily, “that it is any of their blamed
business.”
“It mightn’t be under some circumstances,” Dick went on. “But—”
“Yes?”
“This is where the skinning process comes in.”
“Rip ahead.”
“But they think it mighty queer, you know, that your dad should
come into money just at the time that Simeon Pace’s money
disappeared.”
Sam was on his feet.
“Say!” he gasped, “I don’t understand.”
“They say,” went on Dick, gulping with distress, yet determined to
finish the whole story then and there, “that Simeon Pace carried his
money in his hollow tin arm, and that your father took that arm from
Simeon Pace’s body, and helped himself to the money. Now, there
you are, and—dang it, Sam,—you’ll have to try to forgive me for
telling you.”
Sam sank into his seat again and sat staring. The little clock on the
mantel shelf ticked off the seconds briskly—ticked on and on, and
still Sam sat and stared, and Dick waited, hardly daring to breathe.
He could see that Sam was going over the whole situation—was
balancing this against that, thinking over the things he had noticed,
“sizing up” the situation with his good clear brain.
Suddenly he got up and seized his suit case.
“Where you going?” shouted Dick.
“Home,” said Sam quietly. “I’m going home.”
Dick ran forward and, grasping Sam’s hand, wrung it with all his
strength.
“Oh, Sam,” he cried. “How I wish it could have been otherwise! But
I had to tell you. I couldn’t let a thing like that lie between us.”
“No,” said Sam wearily. “It’s got to be cleared up. Living a lie! I
remember a sermon—Annie Laurie and I heard it—living a lie! No, I
couldn’t. Good-bye, Dick. It—it wasn’t for me, was it?” He looked
about the charming room, and through the window at the great
campus. “Good-bye. And—thank you. You did right. It was the
only thing to do, since we were such old—”
“Friends!” cried Dick with a half-sob. “Such old friends, Sam. Yes,
go home and clear it up. And come back, old man—whatever you
do, come back!”
 CHAPTER XI
MARCHING ORDERS

Sam saw nothing now of the inviting homes and their lovely gardens
as he rode back to the station. The world seemed black shot
through with little darts of scarlet. They kept teasing him—these
darting flecks of red, sharp-pointed and angry. At the station he
found that it was an hour and a half before train time, so he sat
down stolidly to wait. He had missed his luncheon, and it was now
near dinner time, but it did not occur to him to get anything to eat.
The time, too, raced by, keeping pace with those swift-speeding
thoughts of his, on which he could not have drawn the reins had he
tried. And presently he was on the train again, going homeward.
He soon would see his father, who would not, Sam had to confess
with biting shame, look him in the eye nor answer any question
frankly. Moreover, it would be his fate to add to his mother’s misery;
he would see Hannah turning away from him even more than she
had. And all the town would be looking at him with the eyes of
suspicion. He would read: “Son of a thief! Son of a thief!” in their
averted glances.
Of course his father might not be guilty. And yet, somehow,
shamefully, heart-breakingly, it was borne in upon him that he was.
And why should he, Sam, who had done no harm to anyone, go
back to face it? Why should Annie Laurie and her friends see his
shame? He could disappear now—slip off the train at the next
station—and walk and walk till he reached some place where nobody
knew him, and then he could go to work and care for himself, and
win an honorable name. That was what America was for, he had
heard Mr. Carson say, to give a chance to the individual. A man had
a right to prove himself, and to be judged by himself, apart from and
regardless of his family.
Yet, to run away from a thing like that, to let the old neighbors think
him a poor wretch, to lose the regard of—of all those he cared
about, was out of the question. And moreover, he couldn’t let his
father go on keeping back the fortune that belonged to others. He’d
have to go back and make him right himself.
His thoughts came clashing together as a returning wave meets and
breaks against an advancing one upon the seashore. And the tumult
and raging was too much for him. He found himself incapable of
going on just then. The train stopped for a moment at some
woodland siding—the track was but a single one and such stops
were occasionally necessary—and almost without thinking, Sam
leaped from the platform and slipped away into the twilight.
He walked along, hardly knowing where he was going. His suit case
was not much of a handicap, for there was little enough in it. He
could not have told, if any one had asked him, why he kept on
pounding along the road, nor why, when he came to a heavily
wooded hill, he should have gone in through an opening in the trees
and begun to climb its gentle slope. He only knew that he was
grateful to have the trees closing around him like that, hiding him
from the sight of men.
He went on, stumbling over roots, half-starting at deep shadows,
and reached the summit. Here the trees had been cut away, and
though the songs of those beneath him surged up to his ears, he
presently found himself standing beneath the clear sky, perfectly
sheltered from view. There was a scythe-like young moon, well
toward the zenith, and a few pale stars. The weather had softened
and warmed and spring was sending her sweet messages abroad.
He stood for a moment looking upward; then he cast himself on the
ground, with his face to the earth, and in the solitude his sharp
suffering gave vent to itself in sobs.
Nor was it alone for the shame and sorrow of the present that he
wept. It seemed as if all the tears he had held back during his
lonely and baffled boyhood had their way now and streamed from
his eyes. He cried blindly, passionately. He emptied his soul of
grief. And then he sat up weakly and looked around him. The
whippoorwills were calling to each other. Distant hounds were
barking. The delicate little moon was running her fragile skiff over
the sky-sea toward its western port. It was night, and the world
was asleep. What was it Annie Laurie sang?

“All are sleeping, weary heart.

Thou, thou only sleepless art.”

He hoped she was sleeping—that poor Annie Laurie, who was having
so much trouble, and none of it in any way her fault. And had she,
too, been suspecting him? Had she held this terrible idea of his
father and kept it to herself? Had she come to his house that day
she had been so kind and good, to see what they were like—the
Disbrows? He seemed to be on fire from head to foot with shame.
Back and forth, like wild beasts pacing, raged his thoughts. He had
no idea of the passage of time. Only the stars kept moving on,
beautifully, in their wonderful order, and the wind, growing chillier
now, blew upon him, and still the whippoorwills called. By and by
the color of the world began to change. Something strange
happened to the night—it grew pale, thin, transparent. The birds
began stirring about, making soft noises. The cattle lowed in the
near-by fields. Then a kind of milky lightness, delicate as one of
Carin’s scarfs, drifted up into the sky. Presently it turned a soft pink;
then rosy red; then it was edged with orange and embroidered with
saffron. It was sunup, and Sam Disbrow faced the most important
day of his life.
He had to make up his mind whether he was a coward or a brave
man—whether he was going to run away or stay and fight. And he
didn’t know. As he got dizzily to his feet, he hadn’t an idea which he
was. But the colors in the sky seemed to be cheering him on like
trumpets. Something wild, strange and splendid swept into his spirit
—something that made him feel as if he were about to set out on a
march with brave men—men who could die for an idea. It was as if
he had swung into the ranks, and his leader had shouted “Forward,
march!”
Sam went down the hill, and struck a road on the far side of it. He
followed it to a farmhouse and asked if he might have some
breakfast. They gave him good bacon and corn bread, butter and
milk. He ate like one famished, and then, having learned the
schedule of the trains, and that he had barely time to catch the next
one bound toward Lee, he ran as hard as he could to the distant
station. The train drew in while he was yet a block away, but he
sent out a shout that startled the engineer in his cab. Good-
naturedly, they held the train for him. He swung on the rear
platform. And, though he could not forget for a moment all that he
was going back to, still he was indefinably happy.
“Forward, march,” his invisible leader had commanded. Sam did not
stop to find a name for this leader—to call him God. He obeyed, and
having placed himself under marching orders, he fell asleep, and
when the conductor called him at Lee, arose refreshed, and went
out to fight his battle.
There were not many persons on the street. A mid-forenoon
quietude rested over the little town. A few neighbors Sam did meet,
but they had no chance to turn the cold shoulder to him this
morning for he hardly saw them. He was bent for home, and he
strode forward with no thought of anything but meeting his father
face to face and hurling at him the question:
“Did you take Simeon Pace’s money?”
He forgot that he was a son, and must pay a son’s deference, or that
Hector Disbrow, suspected of being a thief, was his father. He felt as
if his soul must put that inquiry to the soul of the man. And on his
answer depended honor, happiness, everything.
As he drew near the house, he saw that there was something
unusual about it. With a sick feeling, he realized that it looked even
more vacant and dejected than ordinarily. He tried the front door;
found it locked; sped to the rear; was unable to enter; and then,
rushing to the stable, realized the whole truth. His family had gone.
They had run away in the night. The whole thing was true. His
father was a thief—and now he was making of himself a fugitive.
But the feeling of having come back to fight a battle as a brave man
would fight it, did not desert him. The black despair of the night
before had been routed by all the better angels of his nature. He
was in the thick of the battle now, beyond question. He turned his
back on the house and went toward the town.
On his way, he met Hi Kitchell, who had been excused from school
because of a toothache, and who was running along, his hand to his
face, quite willing to talk about his misery to anyone. Sam called
him.
“Hello, Hi. Toothache?”
“You bet!”
“What you going home for? Why don’t you go to a dentist?”
“Naw. I’m going home.”
“No use in that. Turn around the other way. Come on down to the
dentist’s.”
Hi wriggled. “I’m afraid.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“Will yeh?”
“You bet I will. And Hi, I’ve got a trouble that’s much worse than
toothache.”
“Have you, Sam—for sure?”
“For sure I have, Hi. Now if you had a terrible trouble what would
you do? I’ve told you where to go to get a toothache cured, but
where would you go if—if everything you cared for seemed tumbling
to pieces?”
Hi came up close to Sam. He had forgotten about his toothache,
and he looked at Sam with his ferret eyes, in which the tears had
now gathered.
“Sam,” he said under his breath, “I know about your trouble. I’ve
heard of it. And—and you know your people have gone away.
They’ve gone over the mountain, I reckon. Why, Sam, if I was in
trouble like that I’d go straight to Mr. Summers.”
“But he’s the Methodist preacher, you know, and my folks are
Baptists.”
“What’s the difference?” cried Hi defiantly. “I don’t see no
difference. Anyway, if Mr. Summers was a Populist I’d go to him just
the same.”
Sam was surprised to hear himself laughing.
“I will,” he declared, and he and Hi tramped on toward town. At the
dentist’s office Sam started to turn in with Hi, but Hi stopped him.
“You don’t need to come,” he said. “I reckon I can stand a little
tooth-tinkering. You get on to Mr. Summers. And—and, Sam—”
“Yes?”
“If you don’t want to stay up there to the house alone, you come
down to our place. My ma, she’d love to have you. Sam—”
“Yes.”
“We know what trouble is, ma and me, see? Don’t nobody around
these parts know better than we do. Mr. Carson, he set us on our
feet, and now we can hold up our heads and look people in the
face. My, but it feels good! But we know what trouble is—all kinds,
pretty near. You come to us.”
Sam held out a tense hand.
“Put it there, Hi.”
Hi “put it there” and turned valorously up the dentist’s terrible stairs.
As for Sam, he kept vigorously on his way. He thought of those
automobiles he had seen the day before, and he felt as if he were all
cranked up, with a good spark on, and was ready for a long hard
run. So he turned up Burchard Avenue, and in at the gate of the
little Methodist parsonage.
The first person he saw was Mrs. Summers, who had just got baby
Jonathan asleep and was setting him out of doors in his carriage, to
grow. She held up a small brown finger to warn Sam that
conversation was not to be permitted in the vicinity of the sleeping
prince, and led the way into the living room. Then she went in
search of her husband, who, it appeared, was shut up in the cell-like
room he called his study. He came striding out of his retreat and
grasped Sam by the hand.
“Thought you were off to Rutherford, son.”
“So I was, sir, but—I came back.”
“So I see. Why?”
“I—I heard what they were saying about my father, sir. Dick Heller
told me.”
“Well, well, he did, eh? It was better on the whole, I reckon. I had
two minds to tell you myself, and then I just lacked the ginger. But
now you know what you’re up against, don’t you? And your folks
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