Charles M. Sheldon
The High Calling
"My address is 427 H Street East.
"ADOLPH BAUER."
When Felix had finished reading, there was a moment of silence. Then Walter said, to give Bauer time to let him into his confidence if he chose:
"Has this man Halstead corresponded with you yet?"
"No, I have had no letters from him."
"You probably will hear from him soon, then?"
"Why, yes, if what he says is true?"
Bauer all through this talk with Walter never mentioned his father's name directly but spoke of him using the personal pronoun.
"What do you suppose the patent is worth?"
"I have no imagination about it. But say, Walter, what do you think I ought to do about this letter?"
"I don't know. You have never told me–" Walter began slowly.
"I know, of course you can't advise me unless I tell you more. He—well, he deserted mother. She was involved in some similar disgrace. From all I could learn while in Washington that time I went, he turned over all his property to her. That was the only redeeming thing abut the wretched business. But at any rate he has been obliged to go back to his old law business. He is very capable. Brilliant. My mother—I can't talk of her."
Poor Bauer put his face in his hands. Walter was silent. What could anyone say?
After a little, Walter said gently, "Why do you hesitate about accepting your father's offer?"
"I don't wish to be under any obligations to him."
"But he makes you a purely business proposition. Can't you trust him to handle it?"
"Oh, I suppose so, I never knew of his being dishonest. And you know the old proverb: 'Wer lugt, der stiehlt auch'; 'show me a liar and I'll show you a thief.' His faults were always of a different sort. But you can see how I would naturally hesitate to correspond with him or have any dealings with him."
"I think you are wrong about that," said Walter positively. "This is a purely business affair. You ought to treat it as such. He can handle the matter for you, being on the ground, far better than you can do it through correspondence at this distance."
"Do you think so?"
"I know it. If I were in your place I wouldn't hesitate a minute. You are totally at the mercy of the manufacturers unless you can make them understand your ability to take care of yourself. Isn't it true that the great majority of inventors die poor? The manufacturers make the money, not the inventors."
"That's true. But I don't want to die poor. I won't die poor. I have not the ambition of a Carnegie or a Rockefeller."
"You need a good friend at Washington to protect your interests. My! Won't it be great if your incubator should make you rich! I don't know why it shouldn't. The way the chickens hatched out of it was wonderful. Just think, old man. Most everyone nowadays has electricity in his house. Thousands of people could just as well as not be raising chickens on the side. Ministers, doctors, college professors, newspaper men, lawyers, school teachers,—no end. The sun would never set on your incubator any more than hens have to. I tell you, old man, there's money in your electric birds if you manage the business end of this thing right. And I don't see why your father's offer isn't just—well, providential."
"I never knew anything about him to be 'providential,'" said Bauer in almost the only bitter tone Walter had ever known him to use. "But I don't want to take any chances on this. Perhaps he is sent along at this time to help me out."
Walter looked curiously at his friend.
"You seem to be awfully anxious to make money, Felix. Never knew you that way before. What you going to do? Get married? And start a chicken ranch?"
Over Bauer's face a great flood of colour swept. There was one confidence he had determined never to make to Walter, and that was his feelings towards Helen. He believed Walter had no hint of it. And as a matter of fact that was true. Walter had so far had no love experiences and Bauer had never by so much as a look or a word in Walter's presence betrayed his secret.
"I don't expect to get married. At least not very soon," Bauer managed to say. "But I want money. You can borrow of me," he added with one of his rare smiles, "if you need it for your own nuptials."
"No immediate need," said Walter, laughing. "I have never seen the girl my mother would like to welcome."
"Ah! Your mother. But she would be kind to the girl you would choose."
"Or the one that would choose me, you mean. I don't know. Mother would be pretty particular about the people that got into the Douglas family. Did I ever mention old man Damon who came around courting Helen last winter. He wears a wig and deals in rubber goods. Old enough to be Helen's father. I never saw mother so upset. And as for Helen—why—I would as soon think of her taking you for a suitor as Damon. But you never can tell what a girl will do. They generally do the opposite of what you expect."
Bauer managed to say—"That's fortunate for some of us perhaps. Else there might be no hope for unfortunate and homely people if there was any fixed rules by which girls acted."
Walter stared at Bauer as he sometimes had to when Bauer opened his philosophy unexpectedly.
"I wonder what will happen to you, old man, when you fall in love, really and deeply?"
"I wonder," said Bauer softly.
"It will be interesting to watch you," said Walter laughing.
"Same to you," said Bauer with some spirit.
"We can watch each other," Walter continued.
"I have no doubt you will bear watching," was Bauer's reply, wrung from him by the tense situation.
Walter roared, and did not venture to say any more on that subject. But he went on to urge Bauer to answer his father's letter at once and give him power of attorney to act for him and make the best possible terms for his invention. Bauer promised before he left the room to do so, and on reaching his own room he at once set to work on the difficult business of answering his father on purely business grounds. Without making any definite promises or giving his father any authority to act for him, with characteristic caution he asked several questions about the patent laws, and especially about the possibility of undertaking the manufacture of the incubators on shares. He enclosed the letters he already had received from companies interested, none of which however had made him any positive offer, only sounding him in general as to his disposition to sell the patent rights on certain terms which had no very promising prospects of ready money. And it was money Bauer wanted,—not dim future prospects of the all-powerful medium of happiness or unhappiness.
After his letter had been mailed, he felt a little uncertain about it all, but he was of a direct, straight-forward habit and once started in a course of action he seldom changed it. Once committed to the correspondence with his father he would hold to it, keeping it all on a cold business basis as if his father had no other relation to him, and letting the heartache take care of itself. It is astonishing how many heartaches do take care of themselves in this old world. Only, like Bauer's, they are apt to take care of themselves so poorly that the ache starves the heart out of house and home.
Two days later, Walter, who was in his room going over some complicated formulae connected with Rausch's Dynamics, was interrupted by Bauer who came running in from his room across the hall waving a little slip of paper.
"What do you think of that," he exclaimed with unusual excitement.
Walter looked at the little yellow slip and read "One Thousand Dollars payable to Felix Bauer by Halstead, Burns & Co., of Washington."
"They offer me that for my patent right, with a small percentage of profit on certain sales."
Walter was excited in his turn and started to offer congratulations. But
Bauer's next words broke in on him.
"I'm going to send the check back. It's not enough and they know it."
"I believe you're right," said Walter, after a stare at Bauer in this new light of money hunger. "The fact that they sent a check shows their eagerness to get into the business and their faith in its value. What will you hold them up to?"
"I don't know. But I am going to put the matter up to—to him."
"You mean your father?"
"Yes," said Bauer hastily. "The more I think of it the more I believe he can get more than I can. I'll mail him Halstead's correspondence."
That same afternoon Bauer returned the check to Halstead, Burns, & Co. with a brief business note saying that he was not prepared to sell out at such a small figure. He added that he had placed the business connected with the patent in the hands of his father, giving street number and office. In the same mail he sent his father Halstead's letter and told of his return of the check, at the same time authorising his father to have full power to act for him with Halstead or any other firm.
"I do not know just what I ought to receive for my patent." Bauer wrote. "But I am not going to act hastily nor sell at a sacrifice. I trust you to make terms that will at least be some measure of the real value of the article."
A week passed by during which time Bauer's father wrote acknowledging
Bauer's letters, thanking him for accepting his offer, commending his action in returning the check to Halstead, Burns & Co., and assuring Felix that the business would receive prompt and careful attention.
A week later as Walter and Bauer were in the shop a telegraph messenger came in with an envelope for Felix Bauer.
Bauer opened and read and without a word passed the message over to Walter. It read, "Halstead offers $5,000 cash down and percentage on
American sales. Shall I close with offer? Adolph Bauer."
Walter could hardly speak—he was so excited.
"Better close with it. You can't do better. That father of yours must be a–"
Bauer smiled faintly. "Perhaps I can't expect more. I believe I will wire accept."
"Better find out what the percentage is, and why European sales are not included."
"Yes," said Bauer briefly. He was strangely calm and not particularly overjoyed by his unexpected good fortune. Walter recalled that afterwards.
He answered the telegram with a letter, asking for details which his father furnished promptly. The European sales were subject to such expense and delay that the manufacturers explained the unusual risk and made a plausible showing why royalty terms were difficult to arrange. After two weeks correspondence, Bauer finally telegraphed his father— "You are authorised to close with Halstead on their terms. Take your commission out of the $5,000."
By the business arrangements made between them Bauer's father was to receive five per cent on any cash offer. Bauer felt kindly towards him for the way the affair had come out and in a letter written the same day he sent the telegram he authorised his father to take out ten per cent commission instead of the five agreed upon in their formal contract.
"I don't want to get too money mad," he said to himself with a grim smile as he posted the letter, and with a great feeling of weariness upon him went into the shop.
Felix Bauer was one of the few students at Burrton who never subscribed to a daily paper and seldom read one. He kept up with the news of the world by dropping into Walter's room and hearing him dribble out the events of the day from a New York daily which Walter took. The edition reached Burrton eight hours after the date line.
Three days after Bauer had authorised his father to close the contract on the patent for him Walter opened up his New York Daily for his usual skim over its contents. It was two o'clock. He had heard Bauer come up the stairs and go into his room and had not heard him go out.
He glanced down over the usual political and sporting news and then his eye caught a headline that made him start.
"LEAVES ON THE KAISER WILHELM UNDER SUSPICIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES."
"Adolph Bauer, ex-attache of the Consular service, sailed yesterday on the Kaiser Wilhelm for Bremen. Bauer will be remembered as the brilliant but shady member of the Washington coterie of unsavory reputation in connection with the Jaynes-Buford scandal. Before sailing, Bauer cashed a check for $5,000 on Halstead, Burns & Co., payment it is said on a patent right owned by himself and son for a new invention in the incubator line. The son is a student at Burrton Electrical School. There is no charge of crookedness at the bank. The check had the regular endorsement of Halstead. But parties who are interested in Bauer's movements socially, have taken steps to track him to Europe. Interesting developments are promised by those who know Bauer's antecedents and especially his treatment of his wife from whom he is separated pending a divorce."
Walter was tremendously downcast by this bit of news.
"Poor Bauer! Poor old man!" he said over and over. "What an unmitigated rascal that father of his must be to steal that money. Bauer will never get a cent. And I advised him to take up with his precious father's offer! But how could I foresee a thing as black as this. Oh, I don't know what I ought to do! How can I tell him! I can't do it! But he will find it out in a day or two! It can't be kept. Blame it! Why are there such things in the old world! And Bauer has been so eager to get money lately. Oh, I can't tell him! I just can't."
Walter paced his room in great agitation. He dreaded to see Bauer. How could he break this to him? He dreaded to see his friend come out of the room. And he waited. But after an hour, Bauer had made no move and Walter, recalling his strength of character and mindful that the news would have to come to him some time, finally shook himself together, went out, crossed the hall and knocked on Bauer's door.
The knock was a faint one and there was no reply. He knocked again a little louder, and getting no answer, he did what he often did, opened and went in.
Bauer was standing over by his washbowl, leaning over and as he raised his head and turned around, Walter was startled at the look that greeted him.
"What!" He took a stride over to his friend and put one hand on his shoulder. In the other hand he held the New York paper.
Bauer smiled back at him.
"I was going to tell you. It's too much bother to hide it. But this hemorrhage is worse than the others. I've been to see the doctor and he says I'll come out all right if I can get into the painted desert and stay there a year or two."
Walter stared at Bauer without a word.
The paper slipped out of his fingers, and he was hardly conscious of the fact that Bauer had stepped on it as he had walked over to his couch to lie down there.
"You see," he said, lying on his back, looking up at Walter and speaking in his usual slow fashion, "I've only had the flow three times. First time I never minded it. Next one took me three weeks ago while you were gone to the Harrisburg Exhibition. The doctor says I will come out all right if I go out there. My money will come in a day or two and I'll start for Canyon Diablo. I ought to have a pretty good time on $4,500. Living is cheap in the painted desert. And any way, 'Wir mussen alie einmal sterben?' 'We must all die sometime,' you know."
Walter's eyes travelled from Bauer's face to the newspaper on the floor and back again. And Bauer mistaking his look said, "Don't take it so hard. It might be worse. Money salves the wound you know. Perhaps you can go out with me for a few weeks. Can you? Of course I'll foot all the bills if you'll go." And he smiled at Walter as he spoke.
CHAPTER XI
WALTER was trembling with sympathy and the sudden shock from the unexpected revelation of Bauer's physical condition. He was so overwhelmed with this that the loss of the money seemed comparatively trivial.
"Why did you not tell me the condition you were in? I ought to have known about it. It does not seem possible."
"It's not as serious as it seems. You remember Gardner, class of 1909?
He's out in New Mexico with a U. S. surveying party and he's all right.
A year or two out there will put me right."
Walter looked at him doubtfully.
"What a chump I must have been all this winter not to see. I wouldn't have believed it if I read it in a book."
Bauer smiled again.
"You couldn't do anything if you had known. Nobody could. The change of climate will fix me all right. Lucky that money is coming in just now. Lots of fellows don't have my good luck."
"Good luck?"
"Yes. I might be sick here without a cent, and be dependent like Franklin out at the day camp. I felt awfully sorry for him at the time, didn't you?"
"Yes, tell me! but no! it hurts you to talk?"
Bauer nodded. "I don't have any pain to-day. Just weakness. It's only one lung, the doc says. It might be my knee joints or my mucous or a dozen other places worse than lungs. If you're going to have tuberculosis have it when it will raise the most sympathy. If I only had a heart-rending cough to go with the hemorrhages I could get some church or tuberculosis society to send me out to Arizona free of charge."
Walter was so upset by the whole thing and so disturbed by the inevitable revelation that was bound to come that he sat miserably silent, while Bauer rambled on in a disconnected manner to all outward appearances quite unterrified by his trouble, or at any rate making a brave and successful attempt at deceiving his friend. But at last he unexpectedly gave Walter an opportunity to lead up to the article in the paper.
"Seems a little queer I don't hear from him. I understood Halstead and Burns were going to pay at once. Would you mind going down after the three o'clock mail? I feel a little uneasy about it. Never had so much money before. Probably never will again."
"Did you have any reason to distrust your father?" asked Walter.
"No, I told you his faults were of another sort."
"What would you do if he should try to cheat you out of the money?"
"How could he do that?"
"Didn't you give him power of attorney to act for you?"
"Yes."
"Well, what would hinder his having the check from Halstead drawn in his name instead of yours?"
"Nothing, only–"
"Only what?"
"Why, just sheer humanity."
Bauer was sitting up on the couch, his hands doubled up and his eyes fixed on Walter.
"What is it?" he said at last quietly enough. "Are you keeping something from me? I would rather have it from you than from anyone else."
"Poor old man!" Walter could not hold back a groan as his eye travelled to the paper on the floor.
Bauer saw his glance. "What is it? Read it for me."
Walter put his hands over his face and muttered.
"Oh, I can't, Felix, it's too cruel."
"Nothing's too cruel if you're used to it." He started to get up from the couch, but Walter prevented him.
"Lie down there. I'll read it to you if I must, simply because someone will have to do it sometime. But I would rather be hanged than do it."
He hardly ventured to look at Bauer when he had finished the newspaper account. When he did look at him, he saw him sitting up on the couch, his hands clasped over his knees, a slight increase of colour on his face but no mark of any unusual anger or feeling.
"How could he do it! How could he!" Bauer whispered to himself, looking off into the distance as if Walter were not present. His whole attitude affected Walter more deeply than if he had given way to a violent passion.
"It's an outrage! There ought to be some way to get the money. You could have him arrested when he–"
"Arrest my father? On the charge of being a thief? Would you do that to your–"
Walter choked. "Arrest my father? I should think not. But–"
"He may be all you think, but I will never lift a finger against him.
Let God punish him, as he has already."
"And meanwhile, if Halstead & Co. are informed how matters are, they might–"
"It isn't likely. They have paid the money once. Certainly they won't do it again. I never heard of any such philanthropists doing business in Washington."
"But how will you be able to go out to Arizona?" Walter blurted before he thought, and then wanted to bite his tongue off as Bauer turned his face towards him, a faint smile lighting it.
"I won't go. 'Wir mussen alie einmal sterben?'"
"But you'll have to go. We'll have to find a way."
"Where there's a will there's a way? Also even more necessary, the money. Now I've will enough. But it won't pay for a ticket nor buy the necessary canned goods to go with the sand of the desert when I get there. I'll set up my incubators here at Burrton and raise chickens enough to bury me decently. 'Wir mussen alie einmal sterben.'"
"Yes, but we don't have to die before our time. There must be some way out."
"I don't know of any." said Bauer gravely but not with any bitterness.
"But don't let it worry you. I don't want to have you worried with it."
Nevertheless Walter did worry over it tremendously. He had never known anything in all his experience that affected him so profoundly. And in his next letter home, without hinting to Bauer of his intention, he sounded his father as to ways and means for helping Bauer at this crisis in his life.
"Isn't there some one in Milton who would be interested enough in Bauer to help send him out to Arizona? The doctor says it's his only chance. And he's pretty hard hit. Think of losing $4,500 at one fell swoop, and by his own father too. And I advised the business relation between them. Of course we had no idea that the matter would turn out as it has but that doesn't change the fact. As near as I can figure, it will cost at least three hundred dollars to get Bauer out to Arizona, pay for his board and room and keep him there a year. He isn't a member of any church and Dr. Howard of the Congregational Church here in Burrton said a few Sundays ago that his people must make a special effort to raise the money to care for several needed cases of their own, so I don't feel like going to him with Bauer's story right now. And besides, I don't believe Bauer would take church help. He's awfully proud and while he doesn't say much about his trouble and pretends to take it easy, I can see he is pretty hard hit. And who wouldn't be, to lose $4,500 at one clip and at the same time realise that he's got consumption. I tell you it strikes me as pretty hard lines for poor Bauer. The worst of it is this mess about his father. That seems awful. And there isn't anyone more affectionate and dependent than Bauer. That's the reason he took up with me, because he had to have someone. He doesn't know I'm writing this sort of a letter about him, if he did he'd object, but I feel as if something ought to be done. Perhaps you and mother can think out some plan to help him. If I could see some way to cut down my expenses here I would do it and put in my little to help. But I'm living as close to the line as I can. The school is expensive and I don't know what I can do until I get out and begin to make instead of mar dollars."
Paul took this letter to Esther. And it happened that while he was reading it to her, Helen came in. Paul stopped reading and looked at Esther.
"It's all right. Let Helen hear it. I'm sure Walter meant it for a family letter."
They were all shocked at the news. And Helen seemed even more moved by the letter than her father and mother, though she made no remark of any kind until Esther began to look at her with some concern. Paul said, after a moment of sober thought:
"I believe Masters can do something for him out there at Tolchaco. There is the old Council Hogan out there in the cottonwoods past the 'dobe flats. Bauer could sleep there. It's about the same as outdoors. And he could do something perhaps at the trading post to help pay for his board. I'll write to Masters at once and see what he says. And—I have another idea that I think will do something. We can't let a fellow like Bauer go down without doing something and if he objects to being helped, why, we'll just box him up and ship him out there f. o. b."
After Paul had gone down to the office Mrs. Douglas and Helen continued the discussion over Walter's letter.
"What other idea does father have to help Mr. Bauer?" asked Helen.
"I don't know unless he is thinking of that precious book of his!" Mrs.
Douglas laughed and Helen joined her.
It had come to be a good natured joke in the Douglas household that Paul's book was such a great failure that publishers had it listed among the "six worst sellers" if anyone ever had the courage to print it. He had put in a tremendous amount of hard work on the volume which was a bold treatment in original form of the Race Question in America. The manuscript had been sent to eight different publishers and had been returned, in three instances with scathing comments.
Paul doggedly clung to his first estimate of the book. Each rejection by the last publisher only served to increase his faith in what he had written.
"I tell you, Esther, the publishers don't know a thing. Half the time their office readers can't spell. They don't know gold from mica schist. Half the books the publishers put out are dead failures. They don't know anything more about it than a native of Ponape knows about making an igloo."
Esther smiled.
"You are naturally a little prejudiced, don't you think? But I don't blame you. It's lucky for us though, that we don't depend on book sales for a living. Let's see, how much has the book cost you so far?"
"Well, in typewriting, and postage on returned manuscript it has cost me about one hundred and fifty dollars," said Paul good naturedly. "But I'll send it to every publisher in America before I'll give up. I've written a good book and I know it. And I've made up my mind to one thing, Esther. When it comes to making terms I'll sell the manuscript outright for cash and give the money away to the most needy cause I can find."
"Better have the stipulation with the publishers stereotyped, father," said Helen, who was present when this conversation was held. "It will save you time and money."
"Very well, Miss," replied her father. "But don't you dare ask for any of this extra when my ship does come in. Not a cent of it does this ungrateful, unappreciative family get. It is my book and the 'child of my heart' and if it brings me anything I will spend it in riotous living on the other fellow."
Esther and Helen laughed and Paul went down to the office and courageously expressed the manuscript to one of the eastern publishers who had not yet seen it.
All this had occurred several months before Walter's letter about Bauer and when Paul went down to the office after getting the news his heart and mind were burdened with plans for Bauer's relief. He began to open his mail and a letter from the eastern publisher specially interested him. After reading it, he looked at the check accompanying the letter and chuckled in anticipation of meeting Esther and Helen at lunch when he came home.
The mother and daughter were continuing their talk about Walter's letter.
"Can Mr. Bauer get well out there? Walter did not say very clearly?"
Helen asked.
"Many cases like this do recover," said Esther. "But he ought to go at once. If he is having severe hemorrhages that will be his only hope."
Helen was silent for some moments.
"How much did Walter say it would cost to keep him out there a year?"
"He said three hundred dollars."
"It seems like a very small sum, doesn't it?"
"It certainly does. But you remember in some of Mr. Masters's letters to your father about the mission expenses at Tolchaco how ridiculous the amounts seemed to us? You remember one year the entire mission force including seven persons lived on less than fifteen dollars a month for each? I suppose Walter had something like that in mind. And you remember how often in his letters Walter has spoken of Bauer's horror of the luxurious habits of one of the students at Burrton as if it were a great wrong?"
"It was Van Shaw," said Helen with a short laugh. "Walter spoke last Christmas about the solid silver dog collars Mr. Van Shaw purchased for his kennel. Fancy Mr. Bauer buying solid silver dog collars! Fancy him even buying a dog!"
"Unless it was to prevent someone from abusing it. I never met a young man with such a kind heart as Bauer."
Helen did not answer. She sat with her hands clasped over her knees, looking off through the window. At last she rose and went into her room, and returned almost immediately.
"Mother," she said, with a note of hesitation that was new to her, "would it be all right for me to help Mr. Bauer out of my allowance? If the rest of the family is going to help I'd like to give twenty-five dollars."
She put the money into her mother's lap and sat down in front of her.
Mrs. Douglas was startled at the girl's perfectly transparent act. She thought she knew Helen, but for a moment she questioned her own insight. Then she did what she had always done in the intimacy she had encouraged between herself and her children.
"Why do you want to do this, Helen?"
"Because—because I can't help feeling–"
"Well?"
"I don't love him, mother,—no,—I am sure of myself. But it seems dreadful to think of him dying, just because of the need of a little money. I have never been sick. I wonder how I should feel to face such a fate. I believe it would drive me crazy."
"But how do you think Mr. Bauer will understand your gift? If he is so sensitive as Walter says–"
Over Helen's face the warm colour swept.
"Why does he need to know? We are all going to help, aren't we? But we don't need to tell him. I would not have him know for the world."
"Wait till father comes home. We will talk it over with him," said Esther after a pause. "I don't question your sincerity. It is a terrible loss to lose the physical strength and face death at a sure distance. Poor Bauer! And all that family trouble, too. He never hinted at that when he was here."
Helen recalled her innocent questioning of Bauer about his people and the silence he had maintained at the time. In the light of what she knew now, the figure of the German student assumed a tragic character, invested with deep pathos, and she had to confess that it was treading on dangerous ground to dwell too long on the picture. Still she asserted stoutly that her feeling was one of simple friendship, and even went so far as to anticipate a possible question again on her mother's part.
