Part 41 (1/2)
”Dey done made me a deppity, dey is.”
Pelham turned off.
”Mr. Pelham, ole Tom Cole done come back.”
”Not dead yet?”
”You cain't kill 'im. Dey cut 'im open, but he growed back agin. He am powerful sickly, do'. De Ole Boy'll cotch him nex' time; he nacherally favors preachers.”
”But not company deputies, Peter?”
The negro chuckled off; Pelham walked back with Dawson from the new shack village. The big organizer was thoroughly out of spirits. ”It just ain't moving, Judson.”
”What's especially wrong?”
”The negro question, for one thing.”
”I know,” Pelham said slowly. ”Our white labor won't a.s.similate them, as the rest of the country's labor does to the most backward white races.
They're a perpetual scab menace.”
”h.e.l.l, yes,” in sobered agreement. ”Then, the South's general backwardness.”
”That's natural, here. Our capitalists, some of the slave-owning blood, and all inheriting its att.i.tude, feel less equality: they see labor still as their slaves. Ultimately this will help awaken our people; but now----”
”That's the h.e.l.l of it; we ain't got the public with us. What with petty union squabbles, and all--it's a job to make a dent in a saint's patience.”
”Any chance of a sympathetic strike?”
”What can you do with Bowden and these yellow pups?”
The enthusiasm of the workers, dragged down physically by the hard rigors, slipped lower and lower. Picketing continued, and each arrival of new trainloads of northern scabs threatened a break; but something of the original zest had gone.
Pelham, however, found a compensating zest, in which life overpaid him for the wintry gloom at strike headquarters. After a glum day with the dispirited leaders he could count upon a solace that overbalanced worry and sorrow; downhearted planning for the intransigent struggle gave way to warm-hearted dusk dreams of a future bent to heart's will; the mines and miners were deserted for Jane.
”It doesn't seem fair, dearest dear, for us to be so unreasonably happy, when Ben Wilson, and his tubercular wife, and all the rest, have so little....”
”Your father isn't a happy man.”
”... No. He may have been as happy as we, once; fancy him as a young lover! There is a price for ambition centered in grasping things: the soul dries up and shrivels.”
”Poor man!”
”This is the real wealth....”
He took her within his arms. At home in his kiss, her lips parted slightly within his, like a bud daring to offer its tenderest petals to the crush of the enveloping wind. When he let her go, he lay slack with delicious unrest.
Abruptly he sat up, a decisive ring in his voice. ”I'm going to marry you, Jane.”
”I had hoped so.” She could not prevent the dimple from smiling within her rounded cheek.
”I mean--now!”
”To-night?”
”I'll get the license to-morrow, adorable child--and we can have Dr.