Aurora Dawn (27 page)

What must have been the sensations of Tom Leach as he stood atop the shaking truck, stared at by eighty thousand eyes, hearing
roars of applause for himself from forty thousand throats? Did he thank any deity for having granted him the strength to challenge
Marquis at last? Did he congratulate himself for having gone to the president of USBS on the day that Marquis had humbled
him, to tell him the story, offer his services and propose the daring scheme which was now bursting into bloom so brilliantly?
Did he regret cutting at a blow his twenty-year partnership with Grovill? Did he see the road, lying straight and dusty before
him to the grave, which he must trudge yoked to a wife who would not forgive him his costly excursion into moral principle?
A historian limited to external facts can answer none of these questions; he can only relate that as Tom Leach looked around
at the swarm of happy faces and felt the grip of Father Stanfield’s great hand, he gave his ring one mighty flick which thrust
it off his finger and sent it spinning and glittering through the air to everlasting loss in the black street; whereupon he
looked around wildly, and then burst into the first whole-souled laugh he had uttered since his young days.

And so it was that the triumphal procession of Father Stanfield and his Fold set forth toward the Republic Building ten blocks
away, the sound truck and busses rolling slowly in the van, the brass band and the gay mob following behind in a continuing
display of merriment and satisfaction, while the police, in obedience to an order from the mayor (who was a great admirer
of the Faithful Shepherd) cleared the streets before the oncoming mass and kept order while it passed. It was at this moment
that an assistant of Legrand, posted at the scene, telephoned to transmit these developments in a shaky voice, taking care
to explain very plainly the ingenious move that USBS had made to turn the crisis to its advantage.

So much less time did it take him to tell the news than it does a painstaking author, that when Legrand hung up the receiver
and drew his eyes away from his desk clock, that honest timepiece read only seven-thirty-seven. He swiftly repeated the tidings,
to the consternation of his hearers; then he went on with some sternness, “It must be clear even to you, Mr. Marquis, that
we now have no alternative. Reale,” he added, turning to our hero, “the Faithful Shepherd program will be broadcast as originally
scheduled. Please go down to the studio and make the necessary arrangements quickly.”

“Reale, stay where you are,” said Marquis in an extremely high voice. “Legrand, I will deal in my own way with USBS for stabbing
me in the back when they have nine and a half million dollars of my business, and I assure you that you will profit greatly
by the steps I will take against them, if you stand by me now. I still want Stanfield kept off my hour.”

Legrand and his lawyer exchanged a brief glance, and the radio man thrust his fingers once quickly through his hanging gray
hair. “It’s no use, Mr. Marquis,” he said. “Permitting USBS to pose as the only free-speech network would damage Republic
far beyond your ability to repay us. Go ahead, Reale.”

“Hold on!” shouted Marquis. “I serve you notice that I will at once withdraw all Aurora Dawn accounts from you and sue you
for deliberate breach of contract.”

“I anticipate both actions,” said Legrand.

“You will thank Mr. Legrand in a cooler moment,” interjected the lawyer, “for overriding what is, and I’m certain you will
some day say so, obviously an emotional and irrational decision on your part. He is taking the only step that can save both
Republic and Aurora Dawn from the most serious damage in the sphere of public relations. I say again, and I am sure you will
eventually agree, you owe him gratitude for his–”

Marquis interrupted to reply at some length to this observation, but his answer, due to the stated limitations of the historian,
must go entirely unrecorded. He was concluding his retort for want of breath when Legrand said to Reale impatiently, “Please
go ahead, my boy. We’ve very little time.”

Our hero had sat dully during the debate, confident that the result would be, as always, submission to Marquis. Only halflistening,
he had given himself up to painful reflections on the subject of his erstwhile sweetheart, Laura. He had been startled out
of this reverie by the news about USBS. Rapidly calculating his position, he realized that if Marquis broke with Republic
all would be over for his clever plans; he, a Republic man, would be received as a leper in the soap man’s household thereafter.
Since the abruptly broken meeting with Carol, he had been prevented by the turmoil of events from seeing her for more than
a few minutes at a time, and nothing was decided between them. To be cut off from the shallow, heedless youngster would be
to lose his hold over her in a month, he reasoned, thus missing the gamble after an alarming investment of self-respect and
personal felicity. In this wise, if not in these words, did the gallant Andrew hastily judge his footing, whereupon he rose
and spoke thus:

“Mr. Legrand, although it is scarcely my place to do so, permit me to urge you to reconsider, before it is too late. It seems
to me we are breaking faith with Mr. Marquis, and no business can long survive that breaks faith.”

“Andy!” wailed Van Wirt. “Be quiet and do as you’re told. Discuss it another time.” The others seemed too amazed to react.

“By your leave, Mr. Van Wirt,” went on the brave young man, “I feel too strongly about this to be silent. I am a very small
fish, but I have my scruples. Mr. Legrand,” he said appealingly, “if your orders to me are still to break our contract with
Mr. Marquis and arrange to let Father Stanfield broadcast, please be kind enough to release me from those orders or accept
my resignation. I cannot comply.”

Marquis, who had listened with an open mouth, now cleared his throat and violently swore it was wonderful to see that there
was still a man’s man in the Republic organization. Legrand immediately said, “I’m sorry, Reale, because I understand you
worked well. Your resignation is accepted.” He turned to Van Wirt. “Bill, see to the broadcast, will you? It’s extremely late.”
With a sorrowful glance at Andy, and many rueful sighs and shakes of the head, the bereaved sales manager proceeded to comply.

Marquis walked to Andrew Reale and put his arm around his shoulder. “You’ll never regret it,” he said. “Come, get your jacket
and we’ll listen to”–he threw an ill-wishing look at Legrand– “
our
broadcast in the sponsor’s booth. Carol will be there to meet us.” He started out, leading our hero, while Grovill pulled
himself to his feet and dogged his employer wearily. Marquis, with his hand on the doorknob, remarked over his shoulder, “Walter,
I want you to work with the legal staff all night tonight if it is necessary so that Mr. Legrand may have his notice of cancellation
of our contracts at eight o’clock Monday morning.” Grovill said, “Yes, sir,” in an empty tone, as he followed his defeated
lord out and closed the door.

These are the true events that underlay the great Aurora Dawn riot, and its ending in complete victory for free speech, free
religion, and every other description of freedom which, on the following day, the newspapers said had been vindicated. Accompanied
by a thousand mob antics of exultation, Father Stanfield and his Fold came to the Republic Building, were welcomed graciously
by the staff and went on the air in due course of time, exactly as though the tempestuous occurrences narrated here had never
happened; had, indeed, been no more than a dream, dreamed by Laura English, as she lay in drugged sleep in the Mercy Hospital,
a few blocks away. This history would like to pause and watch by her bedside, but it must move on faithfully to recount what
was actually contained in the cataclysmic sermon, “The Hog in the House,” and what happened to the universe when it was uttered.

“
The Hog in the House
.”

N
OBODY CAN EXPLAIN THE FACT
that radio works. Turn your dial and cause sounds; you are performing as improbable a deed as the stopping of the sun by
Joshua or the splitting of the sea by Moses.

Hold, before you throw this book into the wastebasket, and ask any scientist whether action at a distance is possible, that
is, exerting force in one place and causing effects in another place without an intervening medium to transmit the force.
Then, when he has told you (quoting Newton) no, of course it isn’t possible, ask him what the medium is that transmits radio
waves. He will either answer that nobody can say yet, thus confirming the first sentence of this chapter, or, if he regards
you as an easy mark, he will reply “Ether,” and quickly change the subject. Let us not use space here to jeer at ether, the
most flogged of all whipping-boy hypotheses ever brought into the court of science in the absence of His Royal Highness, Truth.
If you happen not to be familiar with the subject, glance at the disheartened discussion of ether in a current encyclopedia.
Ether, if it exists, is apparently an even less digestible miracle than the plague of frogs or the perpetually oxidizing Burning
Bush.

This moral history has no quarrel with miracles, either of radio or the Bible; let other pens maintain scientific and religious
heresies. It is merely sought here to point out how peculiarly fitting it was that Father Calvin Stanfield, a believer in
the old miracles which people will not recognize for lack of evidence, should make use of the new miracle of radio, which
people will not recognize because there is too much evidence. Probably this mysterious device was never more appropriately
employed than when it spread forth, from the little metal box in front of the Shepherd’s mouth into every inhabited corner
of the continent, the address called, “The Hog in the House.”

“Let a hog in yer house, and he’ll crawl on yer table.”

Father Stanfield spoke these opening words, halted, and looked around at the crowded studio. It was an oblong cavern of a
room, walled with a rough substance that eliminated echoes by absorbing sound and abolished cheer by being the coldest shade
of green in the spectrum. In the middle of one of the long walls was a wide platform, and here the preacher stood, flanked
by the penitential stools for the sinners and the golden pews for the redeemed –also by several queerly shaped pieces of radio
equipment. Overhead there arched, in pink cardboard letters four feet high nailed to a wood frame, the legend, “AURORA DAWN
PRESENTS,” forlorn as a campaign poster after elections. In the seats directly before the stage the folk of the Fold were
grouped, and the rest of the studio, seats, aisles, and doorways alike, overflowed with human beings. This was against the
company’s rules, but the usual controls for herding audiences had proved too flimsy to contain the mob which had glutted every
foot of space. The glassed-in sponsor’s box to the right of the stage, where there were seats for sixteen persons, provided
a contrast by holding only three: Andrew Reale, Talmadge Marquis, and Carol. In place of the train of attendants usually to
be seen with Marquis on such occasions of state, were thirteen superbly upholstered empty armchairs.

“That’s my text for tonight,” went on the Shepherd. “It ain’t from the Good Book, but it’ll serve. It’s a sayin’ of my father,
who was a God-fearin’ man and lived long enough to know a few things and put ’em in words.

“I’m gonna talk to you folks about this business we call advertisin’.”

His eyes rested on Marquis, who shifted his gaze to the ash of his cigar and stared at it as though it were the most remarkable
object on earth. Carol moved her hand so that it touched Andrew’s wrist and clung there like a kitten’s paw. Our hero glanced
gratefully at her and returned his attention to the preacher.

“They is a punchin’ bag in our land that every highbrow and scribbler swings at sooner er later–and that’s advertisin’. Seems
nobody with a college education has got any more use fer advertisin’ than they got fer a dead polecat on a hot night–’ceptin’
the fellers who make a livin’ advertisin’, and even they get sorta bristly, like it’s a humpbacked kid o’ theirs and they’ll
fight you if you speak mean about it. Now if I use five-and-ten-cent words and disappoint the perfessers and reformers who
expect me to rip up the business with hacksaws, I’m sorry. I don’t think advertisin’ is no dead polecat and no humpbacked
kid, neither. I ain’t even agin’ it.

“When my pop he said, ‘Let a hog in the house and he’ll crawl on yer table,’ he wasn’t agin’ hogs, neither. Fact, we was all
pretty near raised on pork. Pop was jest statin’ a plain fact about hogs. All I aim to do tonight is state plain facts.

“Feller come out our way one winter when I was thirteen, and set up shop on the main street of town. Name was Slade, and he
was a shoemaker. He hung up a little wood sign outside his shop, ‘Slade’s Shoes.’ Seems like he didn’t git enough trade to
suit him, ’cause pretty soon up goes a big red and yaller sign, ‘Slade’s Special Superb Shoes.’ First time anyone put up such
a big bright sign on Main Street. Plenty of folks stopped to gawk, and a few bought shoes, I reckon. Well, maybe Slade figgered
he’d hit on a smart idee, er maybe he took a trip to a big city. Anyhow, one mornin’ in May I’m comin’ in town fer some kerosene
to burn out caterpillars, and in front of Slade’s shop is a crowd, and on his roof is a sign bigger’n the whole shop. It’s
a picture of a naked gal a-winkin’, and across her middle is a sash, and on it it says, ‘How Kin I Help Lovin’ A Feller With
Slade’s Shoes On?’ But the crowd ain’t lookin’ at the sign, they’re lookin’ at Slade, who is quite a sight, all tar and feathers
and astraddle of a fence rail. Some hooligans carry him to the town limits and come back and burn up the sign, and nobody
never sees Slade no more, and we got a right quiet lot o’ signs along the main street to this day.