XXXI
When I got back to the Labor Temple, I learned that there was to be
a mass-meeting of the strikers this Saturday evening. It had been
planned some days ago, and now was to be turned into a protest
against police violence and "government by injunction." There was a
cheap afternoon paper which professed sympathy with the workers, and
this published a manifesto, signed by a number of labor leaders,
summoning their followers to make clear that they would no longer
submit to "Cossack rule."
It appeared now that these leaders were considering inviting
Carpenter to become one of the speakers at their meeting. Two of
them came up to me. I had heard this stranger speak, and did I think
he could hold an audience? I gave assurance; he was a man of
dignity, and would do them credit. They were afraid the newspapers
would represent him as a freak, but of course their meeting would
hardly fare very well in the papers anyhow. One of them asked,
cautiously, how much of an extremist was he? Labor leaders were
having a hard time these days to hold down the "reds," and the
employers were not giving them any help. Did I think Carpenter would
support the "reds"? I answered that I didn't know the labor movement
well enough to judge, but one thing they could be sure of, he was a
man of peace, and would not preach any sort of violence.
The matter was settled a little later, when Mary Magna drove up to
the Labor Temple in her big limousine. Mary, for the first time in
the memory of anyone who knew her, was without her war-paint;
dressed like a Quakeress--a most uncanny phenomenon! She had not a
single jewel on; and before long I learned why--she had taken all
she owned to a jeweler that morning, and sold them for something
over six thousand dollars. She brought the money to the fund for the
babies of the strikers; nor did she ask anyone else to hand it in
for her. It was Mary's fashion to look the world in the eye and say
what she was doing.
T-S was still hanging about, and at first he tried to check this
insane extravagance, but then he thought it over and grinned,
saying, "I git my tousand dollars back in advertising!" When I
pointed out to him what would be the interpretation placed by
newspaper gossip on Mary's intervention in the affairs of Carpenter,
he grinned still more widely. "Ain't he got a right to be in love
vit Mary? All de vorld's in love vit Mary!" And of course, there was
a newspaper reporter standing by his side, so that this remark went
out to the world as semi-official comment!
You understand that by this time the second edition of the papers
was on the streets, and it was known that the new prophet was at the
Labor Temple. Curiosity seekers came filtering in, among them half a
dozen more reporters, and as many camera men. After that, poor
Carpenter could get no peace at all. Would he please say if he was
going to do any more healing? Would he turn a little more to the
light--just one second, thank you. Would he mind making a group with
Miss Magna and Mr. T-S and the "wealthy young scion"? Would he
consent to step outside for some moving pictures, before the light
got too dim? It was a new kind of mob--a ravening one, making all
dignity and thought impossible. In the end I had to mount guard and
fight the publicity-hounds away. Was it likely this man would go out
and pose for cameras, when he had just refused fifteen hundred
dollars a week from Mr. T-S to do that very thing? And then more
excitement! Had he really refused such an offer? The king of the
movies admitted that he had!
We live in an age of communication; we can send a bit of news half
way round the world in a few seconds, we can make it known to a
whole city in a few hours. And so it was with this "prophet fresh
from God"; in spite of himself, he was seized by the scruff of the
neck and flung up to the pinnacle of fame! He had all the marvels of
a lifetime crowded into one day--enough to fill a whole newspaper
with headlines!
And the end was not yet. Suddenly there was a commotion in the
crowd, and a man pushed his way through--Korwsky, the secretary of
the tailor's union, who, learning of Carpenter's miracles, had
rushed all the way home, and got a friend with a delivery wagon, and
brought his half-grown son post-haste. He bore him now in his arms,
and poured out to Carpenter the pitiful tale of his paralyzed limbs.
Such a gentle, good child he was; no one ever heard a complaint; but
he had not been able to stand up for five years.
So, of course, Carpenter put his hands upon the child, and closed
his eyes in prayer; and suddenly he put him down to the ground and
cried: "Walk!" The lad stared at him, for one wild moment, while
people caught their breath; then, with a little choking cry, he took
a step. There came a shout from the spectators, and then--Bang!--a
puff as if a gun had gone off, and a flash of light, and clouds of
white smoke rolling to the ceiling.
Women screamed, and one or two threatened to faint; but it was
nothing more dangerous than the cameraman of the Independent Press
Service, who had hired a step-ladder, and got it set up in a corner
of the room, ready for any climax! A fine piece of stage management,
said his jealous rivals; others in the crowd were sure it was a put
up job between Carpenter and Korwsky. But the labor leaders knew the
little tailor, and they believed. After that there was no doubt
about Carpenter's being a speaker at the mass-meeting!
