The Last Adam (22 page)

There had been a lull, but now came a quick flurry of calls: for different stores; two for Doctor Bull, which Mrs. Cole answered; one to ask what time it was. The laborious progress of May's thought was interrupted; but in any event, she knew by now that thought would not get her anywhere. She might half see several points that would look true; or at least, look more likely to be true than several others; but how could she tell, knowing so little?

She remembered thinking—she had probably been fifteen or sixteen, and had doubtless just begun to half see points—that what she wanted was an education. Miss Coulthard, at school, had been interested in her, and they even made an effort to get a scholarship at Mt. Holyoke, but someone else got it. This was, of course, a disappointment; for she had seen, amazed, page after page of college catalogues ranked solid with numbered course after course—three courses in Provençal; fourteen courses in physics; two half courses in the Kantian philosophy; French literature from Ronsard to Rousseau; three lectures a week for half a year on the history of Portugal. Seeing really nothing that she did not long to know all about, she would have done anything to go there. Or perhaps she should say anything she could. She couldn't manage algebra.

Not quite crushed, although Miss Coulthard lost interest in her, she turned to the books in the New Winton library. When someone presented the library with the set of thirty-odd volumes containing all that was best in the world's literature, it seemed to May at least a godsend. While she might never be really educated, in the sense that Miss Coulthard with her Vassar degree was, she would soon be well-informed. What she had expected, she couldn't imagine; but she saw presently that even when she had finished all the volumes she would not know anything in particular. She got, when she got anything for her patience, entertainment, not instruction.

Facing such problems—surely the real meat of great minds—as why the Bannings should be rich, while Mrs. Talbot was destitute; or why, when they were both out together, similarly armed, on a similar errand, it was Joe who was shot and not Harry Weems, she had nothing to fall back on except the promptings of common sense. You had, if common sense was your only resource, nothing remotely resembling any of the conflicting conclusions of the philosophers. She had read as much of a translation of Plato as seemed to fall into the class of best literature several times, thinking at first that because of her ignorance she had not understood, and in a minute she might see its relation to the realities of existence; she saw instead that it really had none. It was pure wisdom, untouched by common sense.

Left to herself, and to what she could see of the universe, real and ideal were lost together in an indifference so colossal, so utterly indifferent, that there was no defining it. This immense mindlessness knew no reasons, had no schemes; there was no cause for it. Where could it begin; and why should it end? There was even an error in personifying the universe as It, saying: How could It either plan or prevent Mrs. Talbot's misfortunes? How could It care? "Only, I care," May thought. "I think it's terrible. It oughtn't to be that way."

"This is the Sansbury operator. One-one, please, New Winton."

Making the connection, May could hear Doctor Bull's voice, irritable, blare on the transmitter promptly. He must have been in the hall on the way out.

"Sansbury calling, Doctor Bull."

Doctor Bull roared again, "Hello, hello—Operator, who the hell is ringing me?"

"One moment, please —"

"Hello? Doctor Bull? Doctor Bull, Doctor Verney is calling. I'll connect you."

"Oh! That you, Verney? Hello. Got something?"

"I'm sorry to tell you that we certainly have." Doctor Verney's voice was clipped and urgent. "There's no doubt about it at all. Your hunch is absolutely correct. Doctor Moses happened to be over from Torrington and I've had him check up on it. He's just out of school and he's fresher on it than I am. Naturally, I haven't done any work with that particular bacillus and I hoped I might be mistaken. I'll be coming right up. If I can help you in any way—I mean I suppose we ought to collect specimens all around and get them to Torrington —"

"Well, come on then —"

May let go the key. Doctor Verney's agreeable tones and clear, educated accent always impressed her. Talking to you, he wouldn't make you feel so surely that he regarded your life or death as a matter of no importance, and considered you a fool to be roared at for bothering him about it. Whatever the present matter might be, she could see that he was genuinely concerned, ready to go to any trouble to do all he could. —, In the light of such a spirit, she wondered, as she had before, if it might not be possible to have him look at Joe some time. If Harry drove them down to the hospital, surely Doctor Verney would not refuse to see Joe just because he had been Doctor Bull's patient —the line lamps lit up together as the receivers were replaced. May pulled the plugs. As soon as Joe's cold was better, she would get Harry to do it.

A low-hung central chandelier with a bead fringe and six stained-glass panels framed in ornate, antique bronze poured light on the bare amber oak of Bates' dining-room table. There were five of them gathered around it, counting Doctor Bull himself. Matthew Herring, susceptible to chills, had left his black overcoat on, merely unbuttoning it and sitting back with his long legs crossed. His reflective, intelligent regard appeared fixed on the large framed picture of the Coliseum across the room, but nothing ever trapped him into the inattention of frank boredom. No matter how far away, he would be instantly back with quiet and concise objections to protect the town treasury. He knew all about special meetings.

Isaac Quimby, Second Selectman, had a cold. His round, pugnacious old nose was sore and red from the applications of a damp handkerchief. Behind his silver-rimmed glasses, his eyes glowered. His irritable misery was, of course, aggravated by the fact that it was his latest enemy, Robert Newell, Third Selectman, who-was holding matters up. He wasn't, however, sick enough to make him easy to handle—that was, anxious for nothing but to agree and get home. George Bull, considering his own sore bandaged thumb, shrugged. He wasn't feeling any too happy himself, and it wouldn't be surprising if he and Isaac had words before the evening was over. Isaac was yearning for trouble. Sarcastically, Clarence Upjohn had put his finger on that when Quimby grumbled something about getting on; time enough to wait for Newell if it came to voting. "Why don't you just go home?" Clarence said. "If there's any voting, we'll count you against whatever it is."

Quimby and Clarence Upjohn had been intimate friends for twenty years. Their quarrel, when it came, began over a matter of officers in the local Grange, but what made it irreparable was actually a piece of Henry Harris' work. Clarence, recognizing it, had been stung into pointing out that Isaac didn't have a mind of his own; he was simply Henry Harris' errand boy. There was too much truth in it for Isaac to take the charge calmly; he had to put himself in the detested position of insisting that Henry Harris' ideas were his own. At least he could that way avoid admitting that Henry had out-manoeuvred him into a practical direction and control of what had once been Quimby's business.

The way Henry always turned up with reason on his side was remarkable. In that case it had been about gasolene. Quimby's trucks had for years got their gas from the pumps outside Upjohn's store. Henry, taking a tighter and tighter grip on the business, soon decided to stop that. They used enough gas to put in a tank and private pump of their own. Clarence could see reason; all he really wanted was for Isaac to admit that he was doing it because Henry Harris was making him do it. This feud lasted perhaps a year, while they cut each other on all public occasions. Howard Upjohn then managed a reconciliation, a formal shaking-hands. Now, each held back the sharper edge of his hostility until the other was no longer present.

George Bull had never been able to decide whether it was simply the fine tart flavour of this ruined relationship which Henry liked; or whether it was actually all part of a long patient scheme to disrupt the Republicans beyond repair. Henry, he realized, had probably been right the other day. The word Republican couldn't stretch much farther when it included Banning and the scoffingly named Better Element; Bates and the Upjohns; Isaac Quimby and Ordway; and Robert Newell. No amount of oil-pouring by Bates, meek and neutral, could form a film wide enough to keep such an expanse smooth. George Bull supposed that he ought to include himself; he'd always voted Republican.

Bates, jumping up in an agitation of relief—he could feel the room already charged, with ill-temper and fear for the outbreak—said: "That sounds like Robert, now. Come on in," he called.

Clarence had opened his minute book on the table and put on his glasses. "Well, Newell," he said, looking up over them, "I hope we haven't kept you waiting. We came as quick as we could. Now let's give it a name. What is it, Walter? Special Meeting of Selectmen in Council, Friday, March sixth—called by whom?"

"Just put your coat on the chair there, Robert," Bates said. "Sorry we had to bring you all the way down from North Truro. Why, if the meeting will now come to order; why, Doc Bull asked me to call you together to discuss a matter of public health. I guess that's all I know about it. You might as well go ahead and say whatever it is, Doc."

"For God's sake!" said Newell. He pulled out a chair indignantly, with a sort of expressed contempt for its lightness, holding it, erect and angry. "What's the idea, Doc? Why can't you wait until to-morrow?"

Newell's mouth snapped shut under the short-cropped black moustache. The natural belligerent stare of his brown eyes widened. Had a drink or two, George Bull decided. There was a distinctive note of bold, unnecessary hardness about Newell. Although he had been born in Truro, he went West as a boy, spent several years in Idaho. Back with him he brought a probably spurious western air—a suggestion of whisky, of violent horses violently treated, of boots and ropes and whips (not confirmed, a rumour concerned the use of one of the whips on his wife). He was known to patronize and believed to promote the cock-fights secretly held at a village just across the New York state line.

As owner and manager of Lakeland Lodge & Camps, up on Quail Pond, beyond North Truro, he was, as New Winton counted things, an economic factor. During the course of the summer he would require supplies for as many as five hundred guests, in transient lots of fifty or sixty—girls in knickerbockers and silk stockings; men who wore cheap coloured polo shirts with invariable cigars in their mouths. George Bull, summoned professionally from time to time, could testify that those who wanted it got plenty to drink at the Lodge. Now and then, he had reason to believe that couples sharing a cabin were not married to each other. Around the barber shop, Lester Dunn had made it more or less the fashion to call the camp Tail Lake, but Lester's mind ran along those lines. George Bull, in a somewhat better position to know, didn't believe that any more out of the way went on there than most places. What talk there was could be traced largely to Lester's imagination and Quimby's quarrel with Newell over horse feed and ice. It was Quimby who barked out now: "Sit down, young fellow! We've wasted plenty of time already. You hear the business first and tell us what you think afterwards."

Newell's thick lip curled a little under the cropped moustache, but he said merely: "Another county heard from! All right, Doc."

"This won't take long," George Bull said. "Doctor Verney has been up from Sansbury this afternoon with me. As some of you know"—he jerked his head towards Bates—"we've been taking blood specimens. Thirteen in all. They're over at Torrington now. In that sense, we haven't a complete confirmation, and won't have until to-morrow or the next day; but Doctor Verney made a culture yesterday, and I don't think there's any reasonable doubt about the situation. Probably every one of those tests is going to show the same thing, so we may as well say right now that what we've got's a first-rate typhoid fever epidemic."

He turned his glance down the table, inspecting them. In the silence Matthew Herring said quietly: "Dear me, Doctor, that's really terrible! Are you quite sure?"

Ignoring this, since the others were still staring simply, George Bull raised his voice. "Now, let's not waste time. Doctor Verney agrees with me that the most sensible immediate measure would be to arrange tomorrow for general inoculations. We can't do much about what's already started, but we can at least try to prevent any spread from established cases. I suppose the inoculations can't be made obligatory, but we ought at least to make them free of charge. We'll have the telephone exchange ring up all numbers and explain. I want everyone in town, and particularly the school children—everybody who doesn't show any febrile symptoms, that is—to be ready to take a first injection to-morrow morning. Better do it down at the school. Somebody can get hold of Getchell and have him arrange it. To-morrow's Saturday and there won't be any classes, but the buses had better collect the children as usual. I hope to have the vaccine here—at least enough to start—within the next hour or so. If you'll just vote an appropriation to cover it, that'll take care of that. Now, we have one other job —"

Pausing, he looked at Matthew Herring, who, somewhat to his surprise, simply nodded. He might, after all, have foreseen that. Herring could be pretty stingy with the town money, but he had enough intelligence to —Isaac Quimby said sharply: "Hold your horses, Doc. There may be some of us who don't believe much in sticking children full of those bugs at the public expense. Myself, I've heard it's a lot of nonsense, anyway. I wouldn't have any child of mine —"

"I don't know that I hold with it, either, George," said Clarence Upjohn, poising his pen. "All this vaccinating stuff—I know Howard darn near lost his arm when they were doing it to him for smallpox back in —"

"All right, we'll vote about that later. You'll have to do what I say, so I won't waste time arguing with you. You've got one vote, Isaac. I think Newell and Walter Bates have sense enough to back me up, so you can use it any way you like. The other matter is this. I want to find a place we can use for a hospital. It doesn't have to be much; but a certain number of cases can't be properly nursed at home. Verney's afraid that the Sansbury hospital's too small to spare any nurses, but we can get some from Torrington all right. The Ewarts' house is the best place I can think of. See if you can get old Jethro to let you use it, Walter. If you can't, we'll just use it anyway."