Part 15 (1/2)

”Ah!” I returned. ”Then you can hardly blame the employers for taking it out of him in any way they can. That's human nature.”

”Good heavens!” the Altrurian cried out. ”Is it possible that in America it is human nature to take away the bread of a man's family because he has gone counter to your interest or pleasure on some economical question?”

”Well, Mr. Twelvemough seems to think so,” sneered the young man. ”But whether it's human nature or not, it's a fact that they do it, and you can guess how much a blacklisted man must love the country where such a thing can happen to him. What should you call such a thing as blacklisting in Altruria?”

”Oh yes,” Mrs. Makely pleaded, ”do let us get him to talking about Altruria on any terms. I think all this about the labor question is so tiresome; don't you, Mrs. Camp?”

Mrs. Camp did not answer; but the Altrurian said, in reply to her son: ”We should have no name for such a thing, for with us such a thing would be impossible. There is no crime so heinous with us that the punishment would take away the criminal's chance of earning his living.”

”Oh, if he was a criminal,” said young Camp, ”he would be all right _here_. The state would give him a chance to earn his living then.”

”But if he had no other chance of earning his living, and had committed no offence against the laws--”

”Then the state would let him take to the road--like that fellow.”

He pulled aside the shade of the window where he sat, and we saw pausing before the house, and glancing doubtfully at the doorstep, where the dog lay, a vile and loathsome-looking tramp, a blot upon the sweet and wholesome landscape, a scandal to the sacred day. His rags burlesqued the form which they did not wholly hide; his broken shoes were covered with dust; his coa.r.s.e hair came in a plume through his tattered hat; his red, sodden face, at once fierce and timid, was rusty with a fortnight's beard.

He offended the eye like a visible stench, and the wretched carrion seemed to shrink away from our gaze as if he were aware of his loathsomeness.

”Really,” said Mrs. Makely, ”I thought those fellows were arrested now. It is too bad to leave them at large. They are dangerous.” Young Camp left the room, and we saw him going out toward the tramp.

”Ah, that's quite right,” said the lady. ”I hope Reuben is going to send him about his business. Why, surely, he's not going to feed the horrid creature!” she added, as Camp, after a moment's parley with the tramp, turned with him and disappeared round a corner of the house. ”Now, Mrs.

Camp, I think that is really a very bad example. It's encouraging them.

Very likely he'll go to sleep in your barn, and set it on fire with his pipe. What do you do with tramps in Altruria, Mr. h.o.m.os?”

The Altrurian seemed not to have heard her. He said to Mrs. Camp: ”Then I understand from something your son let fall that he has not always been at home with you here. Does he reconcile himself easily to the country after the excitement of town life? I have read that the cities in America are draining the country of the young people.”

”I don't think he was sorry to come home,” said the mother, with a touch of fond pride. ”But there was no choice for him after his father died; he was always a good boy, and he has not made us feel that we were keeping him away from anything better. When his father was alive we let him go, because then we were not so dependent, and I wished him to try his fortune in the world, as all boys long to do. But he is rather peculiar, and he seems to have got quite enough of the world. To be sure, I don't suppose he's seen the brightest side of it. He first went to work in the mills down at Ponkwa.s.set, but he was 'laid off' there when the hard times came and there was so much overproduction, and he took a job of railroading, and was braking on a freight-train when his father left us.”

Mrs. Makely said, smiling: ”No, I don't think that was the brightest outlook in the world. No wonder he has brought back such gloomy impressions. I am sure that if he could have seen life under brighter auspices he would not have the ideas he has.”

”Very likely,” said the mother, dryly. ”Our experiences have a great deal to do with forming our opinions. But I am not dissatisfied with my son's ideas. I suppose Reuben got a good many of his ideas from his father: he's his father all over again. My husband thought slavery was wrong, and he went into the war to fight against it. He used to say when the war was over that the negroes were emanc.i.p.ated, but slavery was not abolished yet.”

”What in the world did he mean by that?” demanded Mrs. Makely.

”Something you wouldn't understand as we do. I tried to carry on the farm after he first went, and before Reuben was large enough to help me much and ought to be in school, and I suppose I overdid. At any rate, that was when I had my first shock of paralysis. I never was very strong, and I presume my health was weakened by my teaching school so much, and studying, before I was married. But that doesn't matter now, and hasn't for many a year. The place was clear of debt then, but I had to get a mortgage put on it. The savings-bank down in the village took it, and we've been paying the interest ever since. My husband died paying it, and my son will pay it all my life, and then I suppose the bank will foreclose. The treasurer was an old playmate of my husband's, and he said that as long as either of us lived the mortgage could lie.”

”How splendid of him!” said Mrs. Makely. ”I should think you had been very fortunate.”

”I said that you would not see it as we do,” said the invalid, patiently.

The Altrurian asked: ”Are there mortgages on many of the farms in the neighborhood?”

”Nearly all,” said Mrs. Camp. ”We seem to own them, but in fact they own us.”

Mrs. Makely hastened to say: ”My husband thinks it's the best way to have your property. If you mortgage it close up, you have all your capital free, and you can keep turning it over. That's what you ought to do, Mrs.

Camp. But what was the slavery that Captain Camp said was not abolished yet?”

The invalid looked at her a moment without replying, and just then the door of the kitchen opened, and Young Camp came in and began to gather some food from the table on a plate.