Part 59 (1/2)
”That's just it,” put in the Captain. ”That's just what I said to Emmy this morning. I was out to see her after you left and stayed until Laura Van Dorn came and chased me off. Emmy's mighty happy, George--mighty, mighty happy--eh? Her mother always was that way. I was the one that was scared.” George nodded a.s.sent. ”But to-day--well, we just sat there and cried--she's so happy about it--eh? Wimmin, George, ain't scared a bit.
I know 'em. I've been in their kitchins for thirty years, George, and let me tell you somepin funny,” continued the Captain. ”Old Ahab Wright has taken to smoking in public to get the liberal vote! Let me tell you somepin else. They've decided to put the skids under Grant Adams and his gang down in the Valley, and the other day they ran into a snag. You know Calvin & Calvin are representing the owners since Tom's got this life job, though he's got all his money invested down there and still advises 'em. Well, anyway, they decided to put a barbed-wire trocha around all the mines and the factories. Well, four carloads of wire and posts shows up down in the Valley this week, and, 'y gory, man,--they can't get a carpenter in town or down there to touch it. Grant's got 'em sewed up. But Tom says he'll fix 'em one of these days, if they get before him in his court--what say?”
”I suppose he will, Captain,” replied Mr. Brotherton, and took up his theme. ”But getting back to the subject of children--I've been talking all morning about 'em to all kinds of folks, and I've decided the country's for 'em. Children, Cap,” Mr. Brotherton rose, put on his coat and took the Captain's arm, ”children, Captain,” he repeated, as they reached the sidewalk and were starting for the street car, ”children, I figure it out--children are the see-ment of civilization! Well, say--thus endeth the reading of the first lesson!”
As they stood in the corner transfer shed waiting for the car, Grant Adams came up. ”Say, Grant,” called Brotherton, ”what you goin' to do about that barbed wire trocha?”
”Oh,” smiled Grant, ”I've just about settled it. The boys will begin on it this afternoon. A lot of them were angry when they heard what the owners were up to, but I said, 'Here: we've got justice on our side. We claim a partners.h.i.+p interest in all those mines and factories down there. We contend that we who labor there now are the legatees of all the labor that's been killed and maimed and cheated by long hours and low wages down in the Valley for thirty years, and if we have a partners.h.i.+p right in those mines and factories, it's our business to protect them.' So I talked the boys into putting up the trocha. I tell you, George,” said Grant, and the tremor of emotion strained his voice as he spoke, ”it won't be long until we'll have a partners.h.i.+p in that trocha, just as we'll have an interest in every hammer and bolt, and ledge and vein in the Valley. It's coming, and coming fast--the Democracy of Labor. I have faith, the men and women have faith--all over the Valley. We've found the right way--the way of peace. When labor has proved its efficiency--”
”Ah--you're crazy, Grant,” snapped the Captain. ”This cla.s.s of people down here--these ignorant foreigners--why, they couldn't run a peanut stand--eh?”
d.i.c.k Bowman and his son came up, and not knowing a discussion was in the wind, d.i.c.k shook hands around. And after the Captain had taken his uptown car, Grant stood apart, lost in thought, but d.i.c.k said: ”Well, Benny, we got here in time for the car!” Then craning his long neck, the father laughed: ”Ben, here's a laboring man and his s.h.i.+ft goes on at one--so he's in a hurry, but we'll make it.”
”d.i.c.k,” began Brotherton, looking at the thin shadow of a man who was hardly Brotherton's elder by half a dozen years. ”d.i.c.k, you're a kind of expert father, you and Joe Calvin, and to-day Joe's a granddaddy--tell me about the kiddies--are they worth it?”
Bowman threw his head back and craned his long neck. ”Not for us--not for us poor--maybe for you people here,” said Bowman, who paused and counted on his fingers: ”Eight born, three dead--that's too many. Joe Calvin, he's raised all his and they're doing fairly well. That's his girl in here--ain't it?” Bowman sighed. ”Her and my Jean played together back in their little days; before we moved to South Harvey.” He lowered his voice.
”George, mother hasn't heard from Jean for going on two year, now. She went off with a fellow; told us she married him--she was just a child--but had been working around in the factories--and, well, I don't say so, but I guess she just has got where she's ashamed to write--maybe.”
His voice rose in anger as he cried: ”Why didn't she have a show, like this girl of Joe's? He's no better than I. And you know my wife--well, she's no Mrs. Joe Calvin--she's been as happy about 'em when they came as if they were princes of the blood.” He stopped.
”Then there's Mugs--I dunno, George,--it seems like we tried with Mugs, but all them saloons and--well, the gambling and the women under his nose from the time he was ten years old--well, I can't make him work.
Little Jack is steady enough for a boy of twenty--he's in the Company mines, and we've put Ben in this year. He is twelve--though, for Heaven's sake, don't go blabbing it; he's supposed to be fourteen. And little Betty, she's in school yet. I don't know how she'll turn out. No, George,” he went on, ”children for us poor, children's a mighty risky, uncertain crop. But,” he smiled reflectively, ”I'm right here to tell you they're lots of fun as little shavers--growing up. Why, George, you ought to hear Benny sing. Them Copinis of the Hot Dog found he had a voice, and they've taught him some dago songs.” Ben was a bright-faced boy of twelve--big for his age, with snappy, brown eyes and apples of cheeks and curly hair. He slipped away to look into a store window, leaving the two men alone. Mr. Brotherton was in a mellow mood. He put his great paw on the small man's shoulder and said huskily:
”Say, d.i.c.k, honest, I'd rather have just one boy like that than the whole d.a.m.n Valley--that's right!”
The car came bowling up and the South Harvey people boarded it. Grant Adams rode down into the Valley with great dreams in his soul. He talked little to the Bowmans, but looked out of the window and saw the dawn of another day. It is the curse of dreamers that they believe that when they are convinced of a truth, they who have pursued it, who have suffered for it, who have been exalted by it, they have only to pa.s.s out their truth to the world to remake the universe. But the world is made over only when the common mind sees the truth, and the common heart feels it. So the history of reform is a history of disappointment. The reform works, of course. But in working it does only the one little trick it is intended to do, and the long chain of incidental blessings which should follow, which the reformers feel must inevitably follow, wait for other reformers to bring them into being. So there is always plenty of work for the social tinker, and no one man ever built a millennium. For G.o.d is ever jealous for our progeny, and leaves an unfinished job always on the work bench of the world.
Grant Adams believed that he had a mission to bring labor into its own.
The coming of the Democracy of Labor was a real democracy to him--no mere s.h.i.+bboleth. And as he rode through the rows of wooden tenements, where he knew men and women were being crushed by the great industrial machine, he thought of the tents in the fields; of the women and children and of the old and the sick going out there to labor through the day to piece out the family wage and secure economic independence with wholesome, self-respecting work. It seemed to him that when he could bring the conditions that were starting in Harvey, to every great industrial center, one great job in the world would be done forever.
So he drummed his iron claw on the seat before him, put his hard hand upon his rough face, and smiled in the joy of his high faith.
d.i.c.k Bowman and his boy left Grant at the car. He waved his claw at little Ben when they parted, and sighed as he saw the little fellow scampering to shaft No. 3 of the Wahoo Fuel Company's mines. There Grant lost sight of the child, and went to his work. In two hours he and Violet Hogan had cleaned off his desk. He had promised the Wahoo Fuel Company to see that the work of constructing the trocha was started that afternoon, and when Violet had telephoned to Mechanics' Hall, Grant and a group of men went to the mines to begin on the trocha. They pa.s.sed down the switch into the yards, and Grant heard a brakeman say:
”That Frisco car there has a broken brake--watch out for her.”
And a switchman reply:
”Yes--I know it. I tried to get the yardmaster not to send her down. But we'll do what we can.”
The brakeman on the car signaled for the engineer to pull the other cars away, and leave the Frisco car at the top of a slight grade, to be shoved down by the men when another car was needed at the loading chute.
Grant walked toward the loading chute, and a roar from the falling coal filled his ears. He saw little Ben under a car throwing back the coal falling from the faulty chute on to the ground.
Through the roar Grant heard a yell as from a man in terror. He looked back of him and saw the Frisco car coming down the grade as if shot from a monster catapult!
”The boy--the boy--!” he heard the man on the car shriek. He tried to clamber over the coal to the edge of the car, but before he could reach the side, the Frisco car had hit the loading car a terrific blow, sending it a car length down the track.