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Page 84
By a miracle these women kept their vow of secrecy until the fatal
evening, but at eight o'clock the plot was revealed to Germans in
Philadelphia through the confession of a young Quakeress who, after
playing her part for weeks, had fallen genuinely in love with a Prussian
lieutenant and simply could not bring herself to kill him when the time
came.
I come now to a sensational happening that I witnessed in Chicago, to
which city I had journeyed after the Richmond affair for very personal
reasons. If this were a romance and not a plain recital of facts I should
dwell upon my meeting with Mary Ryerson and our mutual joy in each
finding that the other had escaped unharmed from the perils of our recent
adventures.
Miss Ryerson, it appeared, after the discovery of her daring disguise had
been released on parole by order of General Langthorne, who believed her
story that she had taken this desperate chance as the only means of
saving Thomas A. Edison. Mary had heard the story of her brother's heroic
death and to still her grief, had thrown herself into work for the Red
Cross fund under Miss Boardman and Mrs. C.C. Rumsey. She had hit upon a
charming way of raising money by having little girls dressed in white
with American flags for sashes, lead white lambs through the streets, the
lambs bearing Red Cross contribution boxes on their backs. By this means
thousands of dollars had been secured.
On the evening following my arrival in Chicago, I had arranged to take
Miss Ryerson to a great recruiting rally in the huge lake-front
auditorium building, but when I called at her boarding-house on Wabash
Avenue, I found her much disturbed over a strange warning that she had
just received.
"Something terrible is going to happen tonight," she said. "There will be
riots all over Chicago."
I asked how she knew this and she explained that a deaf and dumb man
named Stephen, who took care of the furnace, a man in whose rather
pathetic case she had interested herself, had told her. It seems he also
took care of the furnace in a neighbouring house which was occupied by a
queer German club, really a gathering place of German spies.
"He overheard things there and told me," she said seriously, whereupon I
burst out laughing.
"What? A deaf and dumb man?"
"You know what I mean. He reads the lips and I know the sign language."
The main point was that this furnace man had begged Miss Ryerson not to
leave her boardinghouse until he returned. He had gone back to the German
club, where he hoped to get definite information of an impending
catastrophe.
"It's some big coup they are planning for tonight," she said. "We must
wait here."
So we waited and presently, along Wabash Avenue, with crashing bands and
a roar of angry voices, came an anti-militarist socialist parade with
floats and banners presenting fire-brand sentiments that called forth
jeers and hisses from crowds along the sidewalks or again enthusiastic
cheers from other crowds of contrary mind.
"You see, there's going to be trouble," trembled the girl, clutching my
arm. "Read that!"
A huge float was rolling past bearing this pledge in great red letters:
"I refuse to kill your father. I refuse to slay your mother's son. I
refuse to plunge a bayonet into the breast of your sweetheart's brother.
I refuse to assassinate you and then hide my stained fists in the folds
of any flag. I refuse to be flattered into hell's nightmare by a class of
well-fed snobs, crooks and cowards who despise our class socially, rob
our class economically and betray our class politically."
At this the hostile crowds roared their approval and disapproval. Also at
another float that paraded these words:
"What is war? For working-class wives--heartache. For working-class
mothers--loneliness. For working-class children--orphanage. For
peace--defeat. For death--a harvest. For nations--debts. For
bankers--bonds, interest. For preachers on both sides--ferocious prayers
for victory. For big manufacturers--business profits. For 'Thou Shalt
Not Kill'--boisterous laughter. For Christ--contempt."
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