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The Portion of Labor, a novel by Mary E Wilkins Freeman |
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Chapter 45 |
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_ Chapter XLV A Short time after Norman Lloyd's death, Ellen, when she had reached the factory one morning, met a stream of returning workmen. They swung along, and on their faces were expressions of mingled solemnity and exultation, as of children let out to play because of sorrow in the house, which will not brook the jarring inconsequence of youth. Mamie Brady, walking beside a young man as red-haired as herself, called out, with ill-repressed glee, "Turn round, Ellen Brewster; there ain't no shop to-day." The young man at her side, nervously meagre, looked at Ellen with a humorous contortion of this thin face, then he caught Mamie Brady by the arm, and swung her into a hopity-skip down the sidewalk. Just behind them came Granville Joy, with another man. Ellen stopped. "What is it?" she said to him. "Why is the shop closed?" Granville stopped, and let the stream of workmen pass him and Ellen. They stood in the midst of it, separating it, as rock will separate a current. "Mrs. Lloyd is dead," Granville replied, soberly. "I heard she was very low last night," Ellen returned, in a hushed voice. Then she passed Granville, who stood a second gazing wistfully after her, before he resumed his homeward way. He told himself quite accurately that she had purposely refrained from turning, in order to avoid walking with himself. A certain resentment seized him. It seemed to him that something besides his love had been slighted. "She needn't have thought I was going to make love to her going home in broad daylight with all these folks," he reflected, and he threw up his head impatiently. The man with whom he had been walking when Ellen appeared lingered for him to rejoin him. "Wonder how many shops they'd shut up for you and me," said the man, with a sort of humorous bitterness. He had a broad face, seemingly fixed in an eternal mask of laughter, and yet there were hard lines in it, and a forehead of relentless judgment overhung his wide bow of mouth and his squat and wrinkled nose. "Guess not many," replied Granville, echoing the man in a way unusual to him. "And yet if it wa'n't for us they couldn't keep the shop running at all," said the man, whose name was Tom Peel. "That's so," said Granville, with a slight glance over his shoulder. Ellen had met the Atkins girls, and had turned, and was coming back with them. It was as he had thought. "If the new boss cuts down fifteen per cent., as the talk is, what be you goin' to do?" asked Tom Peel. "I ain't goin' to stand it," replied Granville, fiercely. "Ain't goin' to be swept clean by the new broom, hey?" said the man, with a widened grin. "No!" thundered Granville--"not by him, nor any one like him. Damn him!" Tom Peel's grin widened still further into an intense but silent laugh. Meantime Ellen was walking with Abby and Maria. "I wonder how we're going to get along with young Lloyd," said Abby. Ellen looked at her keenly. "Why?" she said. "Oh, I heard the men talking the other night after I'd gone to bed. Maybe it isn't true that he's thinking of cutting down the wages." "It can't be," said Ellen. "I say so, too," said Maria. "Well, I hope not," said Abby. "You can't tell. Some chimneys always have the wind whistling in them, and I suppose it's about so with a boot and shoe shop. It don't follow that there's going to be a hurricane." They had come to the entrance of the street where the Atkins sisters lived, and Ellen parted from them. She kept on her way quite alone. They had walked slowly, and the other operatives had either boarded cars or had gone out of sight. Ellen, when she turned, faced the northwest, out of which a stiff wind was blowing. She thrust a hand up each jacket-sleeve, folding her arms, but she let the fierce wind smite her full in the face without blenching. She had a sort of delight in facing a wind like that, and her quick young blood kept her from being chilled. The sidewalk was frozen. There was no snow, and the day before there had been a thaw. One could see on this walk, hardened into temporary stability, the footprints of hundreds of the sons and daughters of labor. Read rightly, that sidewalk in the little manufacturing city was a hieroglyphic of toil, and perhaps of toil as tending to the advance of the whole world. Ellen did not think of that, for she was occupied with more personal considerations, thinking of the dead woman in the great Lloyd house. She pictured her lying dead on that same bed whereon she had seen her husband lie dead. All the ghastly concomitants of death came to her mind. "They will turn off all that summer heat, and leave her alone in this freezing cold," she thought. She remembered the sound of that other woman's kind voice in her ears, and she saw her face when she told her the dreadful news of her husband's death. She felt a sob rising in her throat, but forced it back. What Abby had told concerning Mrs. Lloyd's happiness in the face of death seemed to her heart-breaking, though she knew not why. That enormous, almost transcendent trust in that which was absolutely unknown seemed to engulf her. When she reached home, her mother looked at her in astonishment. She was sewing on the interminable wrappers. Andrew was paring apples for pies. "What be you home for--be you sick?" asked Fanny. Andrew gazed at her in alarm. "No, I am not sick," replied Ellen, shortly. "Mrs. Lloyd is dead, and the factory's closed." "I heard she was very low--Mrs. Jones told me so yesterday," said Fanny, in a hushed voice. Andrew began paring another apple. He was quite pale. "When is the funeral to be, did you hear?" asked Fanny. Ellen was hanging up her hat and coat in the entry. "Day after to-morrow." "Have you heard anything about the hands sending flowers?" "No." "I suppose they will," said Fanny, "as long as they sent one to him. Well, she was a good woman, and it's a mark of respect, and I 'ain't anything to say against it, but I can't help feeling as if it was a tax." _ |
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