July 22, 2018:—This morning owing to new utterances on the part of Sparrow Short and two others, more venomous than himself, brothers of “Beau Nash,” he and they are put into the International Prison for world treason, with all further bail and bond refused. Therefore tonight there is a great torch-parade and ritual by St. Friend and his followers in the cathedral. Debs, John Brown, Lovejoy, Liebknecht, are invoked. Springfield’s fury, glory, and devotion are in every face and eye. St. Friend, with unaccustomed 288fire for these his days of feebler health, reviles the opinions of Short and his companions. But he demands their liberation in the name of the Constitution of the United States and Free Speech. St. Friend cries from the pulpit: “We preach not the low revolution, but the high revolution, not the massacre in the street, but the high unquenched torch of freedom and free speech in the unconsumed cathedral.”
The smoke of those torches comes between me and St. Friend. Everything on this day happens to me in such a fashion. There is much dust on the dustless streets, at least when I pass by. And many streets are unaccountably deserted, morning and afternoon, though there is a World’s Fair crowd roaring somewhere near, I know. And the dust that sweeps up with the autumn leaves from these streets has the taste of old years in it, and the grave. It seems, some moments, as though I can keep my eyes open no longer. I am not to take one step further. Some fate has forbidden me to glimpse more of my City. But there is that in my will and my soul that commands me to go forward one step further, and open my eyes for one moment longer.
And so through this evening I realize that, dimly and dizzily, the torches are being uplifted 289at the beginning of the star chiming hour.
Now the great Joseph Bartholdi Michael, the Second, is himself speaking in the cathedral, and, if he testifies for old Sparrow Short, who shall say that Short is a danger to the World Flag?
Michael says that just as freedom resides in the Declaration of Independence, in trial by jury, and the like, which are immemorial, crystallized institutions of the radicalism of ancient times, so radicals with new thoughts should have every chance with their torch in the church and not be forced to wave it in the street, and that “he is indeed glad this meeting is being held in this place, etc., etc.”
July 23:—Sparrow Short is left locked up and forgotten, for today there is a great war-music in the streets.
All Singapore is running amuck. The Horseshoe Brotherhood and the Amazons are drilling double hours. Joseph Bartholdi Michael, the Second, is firing his clan like an Arab Mahdi, preaching a new holy war. A new group of trumpeters are to the fore, blowing slender trumpets, all of them silver white, to frighten the Lord of Cocaine, trumpets whose cry is that of birds that the Singaporians 290hold accursed; the eagle, the turkey and the wild swan.
And to that music, there at Camp Lincoln, the maelstrom of cavalry goes on, round and round their gigantic mechanical toy, their simple childlike image of the earth, and its glow is turning to a glare as of a smelter-furnace door, or the blaze of a little planet, newly whirled off from the sun.
July 24:—War talk dies down and the whole town is full of hatred of its leaders and feverish silly rumors against them. More and more openly the small fry politicians of all factions seem to be justifying with reminiscent emphasis the lynching of Surto Hurdenburg as an heroic act of defiance of both the City Hall and the Board of Education. The actual responsibility for the lynching is shifted from this one to that one, but, whoever it was that led (if we are to believe the tone of the coffee houses) is a hero.
The fairly well-meaning leaders of the town, comprising the majority of both the Board of Education and the City Hall, are in new tremendous offices, administering the growing responsibilities of the World’s Fair and the war preparations also, and a gulf has been made between them and the people with 291whom they have been on gossiping terms heretofore.
The old war between the town and the gown seems revived, with this difference, that the natives of Springfield act like the University students, and the finest World’s Fair visitors seem the real citizens of the place, insulted at the deeds of the freshmen. The habit of turning every spare village green into a summer camp ground for passing tourists in automobiles, that has prevailed through the United States for a long time, has established in all the counties adjoining Springfield an enormous circle of village grounds, and here the great part of the Fair visitors camp by their own machines and come in to the show by day, by local transportation of all sorts. Their resentment of the frivolity of the rank and file of the city grows, and nightly they are the more appalled at the rumor as they chatter in their camps, that the Springfield mob intends to lynch wholesale the only people who have treated the Fair visitors with any degree of courtesy, namely:—the City Council and the Board of Education.
Whole streets of the city are suddenly deserted and the business houses closed, for this or that lightly given reason, and the next 292hour that street, under obscure leaders may be filled with a howling mob, that seems to be howling about nothing.
The slander still persists, with infinite variations, that the man who poisoned Drug Store Smith and Coffee House Kusuko did it at the direct instigation of old Boone. Such an action is indeed far from Boone’s nature. And this, all discredited leaders, in a panic for their personal safety, steadily maintain.
July 25:—I am again the Malay servant at the house of the Man from Singapore.
The death of Drug Store Smith and Coffee House Kusuko was exacted of the Mayor’s son by Montague Rock. It was an earnest of the sincerity of his conversion to the Singaporian cult. The Man from Singapore had nothing to do with it and, in fact, does not approve of the use of such a drastic initiation, “But who can control these zealous proselytes, these foreigners?” he says. The slandering of Boone, it appears, by the talk of the Man from Singapore with his daughter, is also the work of this fanatical convert, Montague Rock. It is not exactly the Singaporian way. But again “who can control these foreigners?”
July 26:—About the beginning of July, four men come to town, who took part in 293the burning alive of a negro in Chicago. The burning was provoked by a yellow journal’s account, giving hear-say evidence against the negro. Disturbing their minds not at all over the subsequent vindication of the black man, his executioners come to Springfield, intoxicated with their recent leadership, the first taste of public power they have ever known, the smell of burning flesh delighting their cannibal nostrils. They take odd jobs from Boone and profess to be his violent partizans. They are more violent than he desires or uses.
And so tonight, while I am chained in the body of the Malay body-servant, the news comes over the phone, particularly grieving the Man from Singapore, that Boone has been hanged from the same tree at the northwest corner of the State House ground, where Surto Hurdenburg was hanged on the twentieth of June. The four men from Chicago, who lead the mob, want to burn Boone to death, but the rest of the crowd insist on a hanging. The crowd is not composed of partizans of the City Hall. There are few people who were at the murder of Hurdenburg; according to the report over the phone, equally obscure members of all factions are represented.
294The Man from Singapore says he deeply regrets the death of Boone who was an honorable and open foe of Singapore. He almost weeps before the beautiful Mara and, as to what she thinks, I know not. He says that if he had had his way, Boone should have lived several years longer, but the fashions, even of proselytes in Springfield, are past finding out. “They are WHITE people, you know,” he says to Mara, “even if they are converted.”
Then he is gone to his writing room in the white tower of his house, and Mara sits waiting for Crawling Jim, who is due later this evening.
And here let it be recorded that, the Singaporian issue becoming more bitter, the towers of Springfield and all the principal cities of the United States have been painted white this last month, to drive out the more fanatical Singaporians. In complete harmony with this hysterical and fantastic and humorous procedure, Crawling Jim has been under the necessity of wearing a small white plume in his hat, or resigning his place as President of the Robin Redbreast Flying Club. Nothing is said among the members. Plumes begin to appear one at a time. Soon a majority have them. Jim put on his plume late yesterday. 295He values his supremacy in that flying club more than any victory in love or any dogma of religion.
But having had a part in the Judas tricks which have ended in the hanging of Boone, he knocks most confidently on the door tonight, when it is almost midnight, and I let him in. He carries in his hand the hat with the white plume.
He walks into the book-room most jauntily. There the deep eyed Mara awaits him with love. She is nestled among her books, just below her mother’s languid picture. She lifts slow eyes that are heavy with love. But she sees that white plume. And Jim has little time left in life to have the Malay nature explained to him, the brief tale of how they may run “amuck” without reason.
Mara cannot wait. Her dagger is out, and she is indeed running “amuck.” They reach the hall together, and she stabs him before the eyes of the green Glass Buddha. She stands stark and lonely above him, and screams for her father to come down from his writing room.
October 29:—The body of Crawling Jim was found in a shadow, near the tree where 296Boone was hanged, by the group of young Boones who came to take away the body of their kinsman.
No one is in serious peril of being brought to justice for the death of Boone, though that was three months and three days ago. This has always been the case, in Springfield lynchings and murders. It is a thing still taken for granted, as people look drearily in the direction of the courts. The weekly magazines in Coe’s Book Store, from all over the country, roar about the two unavenged and unspeakable Springfield murders:—of the leading editor, and the son of the mayor on the same night. This has been in the papers, on similar occasions, for a century. And curiously enough, the town is blazing with international courage and all tense with efficiency on international issues. We are more in despair of bringing some sixty or one hundred masked murderers to justice than of annihilating the whole nation and religion of Singapore on the other side of the world. And there is, I admit, some justification for our hope. America, paralyzed one minute, is like a million bolts of lightning the next. There is something of the essence of majority rule in this, if one might think it out. But to our story.
297Singapore is about to proclaim an all-Asiatic alliance against the World Government, with the ostensible object of an ultimate Pacific Ocean Government, living in alleged reciprocity and amity with the World Government, but not under one jurisdiction. Their newspaper editorials, sent by cable, sound marvelously like the fulminations of South Carolina in the days of Andrew Jackson, and further fulminations in the days just before the Civil War.
Indo China joins the Singaporian league, Burmah, and certain provinces of Southern China. But most of the Asiatic continent and all of Japan remains actively loyal to the Flag of Joseph’s Coat. On the other hand there are strange hesitancies in Europe and South America. There are rumors of World Treason, even among American officials of the World Government. Today the Singaporian declaration hangs.
I find myself again with the Japanese and his secretary on the reviewing stand by the wrought iron gates of Camp Lincoln, as the Amazons once more whirl by. They are valiant and potent as Britomart, and the Japanese Samurai says “it is inconceivable that such creatures could let a mob run away with their town, if such things had not happened 298hundreds of times in the history of noble cities.”
I find a wan new hope pouring into my dusty veins as they pass us many thousand strong, riding the best bred, the best shod horses in the whole wide world, and flashing the finest swords ever made. And along with the swords, the eyes of the horses flash as though they themselves were shouting the song of the warrior maidens. It is the old song, sung now with terrible irony and sweetness: “Springfield Awake, Springfield Aflame.” And then there are strains of that World Government song, beginning: “Every ship of every land, every wheel and every wing.”
The cheeks of the girls are sun-browned, and rosy as the Amaranth-Apples in the orchards of Hunter Kelly.
The whole town is here; every faction, religion, tribe and tongue. Besides all the Michaels, Boones and Darsies, Bonansingas, Romanoffs, Fagins, Kopenskys, Rocks, Rues, Swartzes, McGinnisses, Ezekiels, Greys, there are even girls of the negro Timmons and Emis families. There are Hymans, Stanleys and Radleys, and all the rest. Each steed is like a pale horse of death. I am thinking that when human beings go forward like this, trained to 299the last inch, all whipcord and tempered steel, it is no wonder that, left far behind, to make mischief, there are human embers. This must be paid for, by the discarded creatures among us who cannot stand this pace and who are not quite vile enough in ordinary hours to be hid in jails or sanitariums, but who when their little time suddenly arrives, go forth marauding according to their nature and their good luck.
I am beneath the reviewing platform and, as I am meditating, the mayor’s little sister stands up in her stirrups and cuts me across the face with her whip, not checking her pace an instant. Some one behind and above me says: “Evidently you did not see the flags.” It is the Japanese, all courtesy and solicitude. But he has been fortunate enough to see in time and to salute the meteors just ahead of this fiery little rider, the two battle flags of the Amazons, the Star Spangled Banner and the thousand-colored flag that will yet redeem mankind, made of all the flags in the world, sewed into one glorious banner, the Flag of Joseph’s Coat.
But I have my excuse for not seeing the flags of my world. My eyes have been dazzled by Avanel, who has been mourning and hidden three months and three days; she is riding 300in from a boulevard to the left, hurrying with her escort to the head of the cavalcade.
The meaning of her accoutrement is plain. She is saying, by what she wears: “No Singapore intrigue can drive the child of Daniel Boone from her destiny.” Never was she such a commander as she is in this twilight, with black horse, black gauntlets, black dress, black harness, black plume, all things black and the only flash of white, her mourning face. Her pride is laid low for a higher pride. For the first time her black hair is combed back over her shoulders, after the manner and regulation of the Boones, and she goes forward to resume her command, and the girls cry out in passionate welcome, and there is a terrible mourning and a terrible menace in their cry, when she takes her left hand from the gauntlet, and it is dyed crimson, after the manner and regulation of the Boones.
October 30.—The Amazons of the city, and the Horseshoe Brotherhood have taken possession of the city, and until the day of their going, they will police the city and none shall hinder them, and they ride down the boulevards with little consideration or patience for the loitering of passers by. More and more the Avanel blades hiss in the air, and there is angry fear in the eyes of the women, that the 301mobs may again own these streets, while the city’s warriors are away in Asia. And this evening The Boone Ax, of which Avanel is now the nominal editor, comes out with an editorial, front page, with her signature:—“I have railed in my time at middle-class respectability. Yet The Boone Ax trusts it today as the one jewel case containing most of the gems of brotherhood. Whatever its policy in the past The Boone Ax now puts at the head of its regular inside editorial page a picture of Confucius, and under it this description:—‘The champion of old-fashioned, middle-class decency and respectability, and the lawgiver for this paper.’
“The picture goes there as our only vengeance for the death of the founder of this paper, and as our eternal reminder of that act.
“As a matter of getting down to the bed rock of civilization we turn to the world’s most ancient champion of propriety and civility and fight lynch law and all popular and ill-considered whirlwinds, until our paper has won its battle, or is wiped from the face of the earth.”
November 1, 2018:—But Confucius is not the patron saint of the lady Avanel.
It all comes as a clouded vision before me 302as though I were half in the vision, and through it beginning a new and more desperate destiny of my own. It is the snowy morning of All Saints’ Day. Representatives of the Michael Clan, young and old, Horseshoe Brotherhood, Amazons and many others are at the crossing of Fifth Street and Capital Avenue, by the ancestral Blacksmith Shop. The horse of the conquering Avanel Boone is to be shod by that good sport, Joseph Bartholdi Michael, the Second, as a sign of fealty, and in final preparation for the going forth against Singapore. Scattered among the Michaels are the long-haired, black-haired Boones, with the locks of both the men and women streaming back over their shoulders, after the manner and regulation of the Boones, and their left hands dyed crimson, as a perpetual reminder to themselves and all the world of certain strains of Red Indian ancestry.
While the snow is blowing into the shop, white-haired Joseph Bartholdi Michael, the Second, aided by his son, the Third, have taken the old shoes from the dainty feet of the white pony, and just as the old warrior is lifting a new shoe from the fire, the flames leap up, there is a music incredibly sweet and, with a great whirring of wings 303and terrible thunder, the Golden Book flies out of the fire and circles above these two clans and their satellites of renown.
And the swords of the Amazons are out in the air in involuntary salutation, and the face of Avanel has the consecration of a nun, taking her final vows. I wonder if all her girlish escort, so wonderstricken, see, as I see. For to me, as I feel my feet sinking into the dust of the ancient grave, this horse and rider move heavenward a little, it seems as though Avanel’s horse’s hoofs no longer quite touch the ground; she is a sort of celestial lady centaur. She and her horse have one pair of wings that bind them together, and the wings are rays of light and the same color as the wings of the book and akin. And even while I look, the very glory of this vision of a young girl, receiving her commission from the unseen world, burns me down like the last embers of a campfire blown upon by a terrible wind from the skies. I am neither man nor weed nor flame any more but something less than these and doomed by the years. There is a flower of flame above her forehead that consumes my eyes; there are flowers of flame above the foreheads of all her girl companions.
Avanel, with eyes fixed and strained, follows 304the flying book on her winged horse. The book settles into her arms and, though the snow and autumn leaves swirl down and blind me, I see her there above the company, like a fairy in a trance, while the assembled clans and all the citizens gather close to hear every word. The first pages of the volume give a new constitution for the World Government, based on the teachings of Abraham Lincoln. The song in the air praises Avanel and urges her and all she commands to valor for the Heavenly Star Spangled Banner and the Heavenly International Flag.
But as for myself, I am sinking to my knees into yesterday, and this is not Fifth and Capital Avenue, for me, for the wind says: “ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” Then Avanel leans down. She gives her crimson hand to me one moment. She gives me life for this war. This is the day of going forth against Singapore.