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The Portion of Labor, a novel by Mary E Wilkins Freeman |
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Chapter 49 |
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_ Chapter XLIX The snow increased all day. When the six-o'clock whistle blew, and the workmen streamed out of the factories, it was a wild waste of winter and storm. The wind had come up, and the light snow arose in the distance like white dancers of death, spinning furiously over the level, then settling into long, gravelike ridges. Ellen glanced into the office as she passed the door, and saw Robert Lloyd talking busily with Flynn and another foreman by the name of Dennison. As she passed, Robert turned with a look as if he had been watching for her, and came forward hastily. "Miss Brewster!" he called. Mamie Brady, following close behind, gave Ellen an admonishing nudge. "Boss wants to see you," she whispered, loudly. Ellen stopped, and Robert came up. "Please step in here a moment, Miss Brewster," he said, and colored a little. Granville Joy, who was following Ellen, looked keenly at him, some one sniggered aloud, and a girl said quite audibly, "My land!" Ellen followed Robert into the office, and he bent over her, speaking rapidly, in a low voice. "You must not walk home in this snow," he said, "and the cars are not running. You must let me take you. My sleigh is at the door." Ellen turned white. Somehow this protecting care for herself, in the face of all which she had been considering that day, gave her a tremendous shock. She felt at once touched and more indignant than she had ever been in her whole life. She had been half believing that Robert was neglecting her, that he had forgotten her; all day she had been judging his action of cutting the wages of the workmen from her unswerving, childlike, unshadowed point of view, and now this little evidence of humanity towards her, in the face of what she considered wholesale inhumanity towards others, made her at once severe to him and to herself, and she forced back sternly the leap of pleasure and happiness which this thought of her awakened. "No, thank you," she said, shortly; "I am much obliged, but I would rather walk." "But you cannot, in this storm," pleaded Robert, in a low voice. "Yes, I can; it is no worse for me than for others. There is Maria Atkins, she has been coughing all day." "I will take her too. Ellen, you cannot walk. You must let me take you." "I am much obliged, but I would rather not," replied Ellen, in an icy tone. She looked quite hard in his face. Robert looked at her perplexed. "But it is drifting," he said. "It is no worse for me than for the others." Ellen turned to go. Her attitude of rebuff was unmistakable. Robert colored. "Very well; I will not urge you," he said, coldly. Then he returned to his desk, and Ellen went out. She caught up with Maria Atkins, who was struggling painfully through the drifts, leaning on Abby's arm, and slipped a hand under her thin shoulder. "I expect nothing but she'll get her death out in this storm," grumbled Abby. "What did he want, Ellen?" "Nothing in particular," replied Ellen. Uppermost in her mind at that moment was the charge of cruelty against Robert for not taking her hint as to Maria. "He can ask me to ride because he has amused himself with me, but as for taking this poor girl, whom he does not love, when it may mean life or death to her, he did not think seriously of doing that for a moment," she thought. Maria was coughing, although she strove hard to smother the coughs. Granville Joy, who was plodding ahead, turned and waited until they came up. "You had better let me carry you, Maria," he said, jocularly, but his honest eyes were full of concern. "He is enough sight kinder than Robert Lloyd," thought Ellen; "he has a better heart." And then the splendid Lloyd sleigh came up behind them and stopped, tilting to a drift. Robert, in his fur-lined coat, sprang out and went up to Maria. "Please let me take you home," he said, kindly. "You have a cold, and this storm is too severe for you to be out. Please let me take you home." Maria looked at him, fairly gasping with astonishment. She tried to speak, but a cough choked her. "You had better go if Mr. Lloyd will take you," Abby said, decisively. "Thank you, Mr. Lloyd; she isn't fit to be out." She urged her sister towards the sleigh, and Robert assisted her into the fur-lined nest. "I can sit with the driver," said Robert to Abby, "if you will come with your sister." "No, thank you," replied Abby. "I am able to walk, but I will be much obliged if you will take Maria home." Robert sprang in beside Maria, and the sleigh slid out of sight. "I never!" said Abby. Ellen said nothing, but plodded on, her eyes fixed on the snowy track. "I am glad she had a chance to ride," said Granville Joy, in a tentative voice. He looked uneasily at Ellen. "It beats the Dutch," said Abby. She also regarded Ellen with sympathy and perplexity. When they reached the street where she lived, up which the sleigh had disappeared, she let Granville go on ahead, and she spoke to Ellen in a low tone. "Why didn't he ask you?" she said. "He did," replied Ellen. "In the office?" "Yes." "And you wouldn't?" "No." "Why not?" "I don't care to accept favors from a man who oppresses all my friends!" "He was good to take in Maria," said Abby, in a perplexed voice. "His uncle would never have thought of it." Ellen made no reply. She stood still in the drifting snow, with her mouth shut hard. "You feel as if this cutting wages was a pretty hard thing?" said Abby. "Yes, I do." "Well, so do I. I wonder what they will do about it. I don't know how the men feel. Somehow, folks can't seem to think or plan much in a storm like this. There's the sleigh coming back." "Good-night," Ellen said, hurriedly, and trudged on as fast as she was able in order not to have the Lloyd sleigh pass her; it had to turn after reaching the end of the street. Ellen caught up with Granville Joy. Robert, glancing over the waving fringe of fur tails, saw disappearing in the pale gleam of the electric-light the two dim figures veiled by the drifting snow. He thought to himself, with a sharp pain, that perhaps, after all, Granville Joy was the reason for her rebuff. It never occurred to him that his action in cutting the wages could have anything to do with it. Ellen went along with Granville, who was anxious to offer her his arm, but did not quite dare. He kept thrusting out an elbow in her direction, and an inarticulate invitation died in his throat. Finally, when they reached an unusually high drift of snow, he plucked up sufficient courage. "Take my arm, won't you?" he said, with a pitiful attempt at ease, then stared as if he had been shot, at Ellen's reply. "No, thank you," she said. "I think it is easier to walk alone in snow like this." "Maybe it is," assented Granville, dejectedly. He walked on, scuffling as hard as he could to make a path for Ellen with the patient faithfulness of a dog. "What are you going to do about the cut in wages?" Ellen asked, presently. Granville started. The sudden transition from personalities to generalities confused him. "What?" he said. Ellen repeated her question. "I don't know," said Granville. "I don't think the boys have made up their minds. I don't know what they will do. They have been weeding out union men. I suppose the union would have something to say about it otherwise. I don't know what we will do." "I shouldn't think there would be very much doubt as to what to do," said Ellen. Granville stared at her over his shoulder in a perplexed, admiring fashion. "You mean--?" he asked. "I shouldn't think there would be any doubt." "Well, I don't know. It is a pretty serious thing to get out of work in midwinter for a good many of us, and as long as the union isn't in control, other men can come in. I don't know." "I know," said Ellen. "You mean--?" "I mean that I do not think it right, that it is unjust, and I believe in resisting injustice." "Men have resisted injustice ever since the Creation," said Granville, in a bitter voice. "Well, resistance can continue as long as life lasts," returned Ellen. Just then came a fiercer blast than ever, laden with a stinging volley of snow, and seemed to sweep the words from the girl's mouth. She bent before it involuntarily, and the conviction forced itself upon her that, after all, resistance to injustice might be as futile as resistance to storm, that injustice might be one of the primal forces of the world, and one of the conditions of its endurance, and yet with the conviction came the renewed resolution to resist. "What can poor men do against capital unless they are backed up by some labor organization?" asked Granville. "And I don't believe there are a dozen in the factory who belong to the union. There has been an understanding, without his ever saying so that I know of, that the old boss didn't approve of it. So lots of us kept out of it, we wanted work so bad. What can we do against such odds?" "When right is on your side, you have all the odds," said Ellen, looking back over her snow-powdered shoulder. "Then you would strike?" "I wouldn't submit." "Well, I don't know how the boys feel," said Granville. "I suppose we'll have to talk it over." "I shouldn't need to talk it over," said Ellen. "You've gone past your house, Granville." "I ain't going to let you go home alone in such a storm as this," said Granville, in a tender voice, which he tried to make facetious. "I wouldn't let any girl go home alone in such a storm." Ellen stopped short. "I don't want you to go home with me, thank you, Granville," she said. "Your mother will have supper ready, and I can go just as well alone." "Ellen, I won't let you go alone," said the young man, as a wilder gust came. "Suppose you should fall down?" "Fall down!" repeated Ellen, with a laugh, but her regard of the young man, in spite of her rebuff, was tender. He touched her with his unfailing devotion; the heavy trudging by her side of this poor man meant, she told herself, much more than the invitation of the rich one to ride behind his bays in his luxurious sleigh. This meant the very bone and sinew of love. She held out her little, mittened hand to him. "Good-night, Granville," she said. Granville caught it eagerly. "Oh, Ellen," he murmured. But she withdrew her hand quickly. "We have always been good friends, and we always will be," said she, and her tone was unmistakable. The young man shrank back. "Yes, we always will, Ellen," he said, in a faithful voice, with a note of pain in it. "Good-night," said Ellen again. "Good-night," responded Granville, and turned his plodding back on the girl and retraced his laborious steps towards his own home, which he had just passed. There come times for all souls when the broad light of the path of humanity seems to pale to insignificance before the intensity of the one little search-light of personality. Granville Joy felt as if the eternal problem of the rich and poor, of labor and capital, of justice and equality, was as nothing before the desire of his heart for that one girl who was disappearing from his sight behind the veil of virgin snow. _ |
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