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The Portion of Labor, a novel by Mary E Wilkins Freeman |
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Chapter 59 |
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_ Chapter LIX When Robert Lloyd entered the factory that morning he experienced one of those revulsions which come to man in common with all creation. As the wind can swerve from south to east, and its swerving be a part of the universal scheme of things, so the inconsistency of a human soul can be an integral part of its consistency. Robert, entering Lloyd's, flushed with triumph over his workmen, filled also with rage whenever he thought of poor Risley, became suddenly, to all appearances, another man. However, he was the same man, only he had come under some hidden law of growth. All at once, as he stood there amidst those whirring and clamping machines, and surveyed those bowed and patient backs and swaying arms of labor, standing aside to allow a man bending before a heavy rack of boots to push it to another department, he realized that his triumph was gone. Not a man or woman in the factory looked at him. All continued working with a sort of patient fierceness, as if storming a citadel--as, indeed, they were in one sense--and waging incessant and in the end hopeless warfare against the destructive forces of life. Robert stood in the midst of them, these fellow-beings who had bowed to his will, and saw, as if by some divine revelation, in his foes his brothers and sisters. He saw Ellen's fair head before her machine, and she seemed the key-note of a heart-breaking yet ineffable harmony of creation which he heard for the first time. He was a man whom triumph did not exalt as much as it humiliated. Who was he to make these men and women do his bidding? They were working as hard as they had worked for full pay. Without doubt he would not gain as much comparatively, but he was going to lose nothing actually, and he would not work as these men worked. He saw himself as he never could have seen himself had the strike continued; and yet, after all, he was not a woman, to be carried away by a sudden wave of generous sentiment and enthusiasm, for his business instincts were too strong, inherited and developed by the force of example. He could not forget that this had been his uncle's factory. He shut his mouth hard, and stood looking at the scene of toil, then he resolved what to do. He spoke to Flynn, who could not believe his ears, and asked him over. "I beg your pardon, sir," he said. "Go and speak to the engineer, and tell him to shut down," said Robert. "You ain't going to turn them out, after all?" gasped Flynn. He was deadly white. "No, I am not. I only want to speak to them," replied Robert, shortly. When the roar of machinery had ceased, Robert stood before the employes, whose faces had taken on an expression of murder and menace. They anticipated the worst by this order. "I want to say to you all," said Robert, in a loud, clear voice, "that I realize it will be hard for you to make both ends meet with the cut of ten per cent. I will make it five instead of ten per cent., although I shall actually lose by so doing unless business improves. I will, however, try it as long as possible. If the hard times continue, and it becomes a sheer impossibility for me to employ you on these terms without abandoning the plant altogether, I will approach you again, and trust that you will support me in any measures I am forced to take. And, on the contrary, should business improve, I promise that your wages shall be raise to the former standard at once." The speech was so straightforward that it sounded almost boyish. Robert, indeed, looked very young as he stood there, for a generous and pitying impulse does tend to make a child of a man. The workmen stared at him a minute, then there was a queer little broken chorus of "Thank ye's," with two or three shrill crows of cheers. Robert went from room to room, repeating his short speech, then work recommenced. "He's the right sort, after all," said Granville Joy to John Sargent, and his tone had a quality of heroism in it. He was very thin and pale. He had suffered privations, and now came additional worry of mind. He could not help thinking that this might bring about an understanding between Robert and Ellen, and yet he paid his spiritual dues at any cost. "It's no more than he ought to do," growled a man at Granville's right. "S'pose he does lose a little money?" "It ain't many out of the New Testament that are going to lose a little for the sake of their fellow-men, I can tell you that," said John Sargent. He was cutting away deftly and swiftly, and thinking with satisfaction of the money which he would be able to send his sister, and also how the Atkins family would be no longer so pinched. He was a man who would never come under the grindstone of the pessimism of life for his own necessities, but lately the necessities of others had almost forced him there. Now and then he glanced across the room at Maria, whose narrow shoulders he could see bent painfully over her work. He was in love with Maria, but no one suspected it, least of all Maria herself. "Lord! don't talk about the New Testament. Them days is past," growled the man on the other side of Joy. "They ain't past for me," said John Sargent, stoutly. A dark flush rose to his cheek as if he were making a confession of love. "Lord! don't preach," said the other man, with a sneer. Ellen had stopped work with the rest when Robert addressed them. Then she recommenced her stitching without a word. Her thoughts were in confusion. She had so long held one attitude towards him that she could not readily adjust herself to another. She was cramped with the extreme narrowness of the enthusiasm of youth. At noontime she heard all the talk which went on about him. She heard some praise him, and some speak of him as simply doing his manifest duty, and some say openly that he should have put the wages back upon the former footing, and she did not know which was right. He did not come near her, and she was very glad of that. She felt that she could not bear it to have him speak to her before them all. When she went home at night the news had preceded her. Fanny and Andrew looked up eagerly when she entered. "I hear he has compromised," said Andrew, with doubtful eyes on the girl's face. "Yes; he has cut the wages five instead of ten per cent.," replied Ellen, and it was impossible to judge of her feelings by her voice. She took off her hat and smoothed her hair. "Well, I am glad he has done that much," said Fanny, "but I won't say a word as long as you ain't hurt." With that she went into the kitchen, and Ellen and Andrew heard the dishes rattle. "Your mother's been dreadful nervous," whispered Andrew. He looked at Ellen meaningly. Both of them thought of poor Eva Tenny. Lately the reports with regard to her had been more encouraging, but she was still in the asylum. Suddenly, as they stood there, a swift shadow passed the window, and they heard a shrill scream from up-stairs. It sounded like "Mamma, mamma!" "It's Amabel!" cried Ellen. She clutched her father by the arm. "Oh, what is it--who is it?" she whispered, fearfully. Andrew was suddenly white and horror-stricken. He took hold of Ellen, and pushed her forcibly before him into the parlor. "You stay in there till I call you," he said, in a commanding voice, the like of which the girl had never heard from him before; then he shut the door, and she heard the key turn in the lock. "Father, I can't stay in here," cried Ellen. She ran towards the other door into the front hall, but before she could reach it she heard the key turn in that also. Andrew was convinced that Eva had escaped from the asylum, and thus made sure of Ellen's safety in case she was violent. Then he rushed out into the kitchen, and there was Amabel clinging to her mother like a little wild thing, and Fanny weeping aloud. When Andrew entered Fanny flew to him. "O Andrew--O Andrew!" she cried. "Eva's come out! She's well! she's cured! She's as well as anybody! She is! She says so, and I know she is! Only look at her!" "Mamma, mamma!" gasped Amabel, in a strange, little, pent voice, which did not sound like a child's. There was something fairly inhuman about it. "Mamma," as she said it, did not sound like a word in any known language. It was like a cry of universal childhood for its parent. Amabel clung to her mother, not only with her slender little arms, but with her legs and breast and neck; all her slim body became as a vine with tendrils of love and growth around her mother. As for Eva, she could not have enough of her. She was intoxicated with the possession of this little creature of her own flesh and blood. "She's grown; she's grown so tall," she said, in a high, panting voice. It was all she could seem to realize--the fact that the child had grown so tall--and it filled her at once with ineffable pain and delight. She held the little thing so close to her that the two seemed fairly one. "Mamma, mamma!" said Amabel again. "She has--grown so tall," panted Eva. Fanny went up to her and tried gently to loosen her grasp of the little girl. In her heart she was not yet quite sure of her. This fierceness of delight began to alarm her. "Of course she has grown tall, Eva Tenny," she said. "It's quite a while since you were--taken sick." "I ain't sick now," said Eva, in a steady voice. "I'm cured now. The doctors say so. You needn't be afraid, Fanny Brewster." "Mamma, mamma!" said Amabel. Eva bent down and kissed the little, delicate face; then she looked at her sister and at Andrew, and her own countenance seemed fairly illuminated. "I 'ain't _told_ you all," said she. Then she stopped and hesitated. "What is it, Eva?" asked Fanny, looking at her with increasing courage. The tears were streaming openly down her cheeks. "Oh, you poor girl, what have you been through?" she said. "What is it?" "I 'ain't got to go through anything more," said Eva, still with that rapt look over Amabel's little, fair head. "He's--come back." "Eva Tenny!" "Yes, he has," Eva went on, with such an air of inexpressible triumph that it had almost a religious quality in it. "He has. He left her a long time ago. He--he wanted to come back to me and Amabel, but he was ashamed, but finally he came to the asylum, and then it all rolled off, all the trouble. The doctors said I had been getting better, but they didn't know. It was--Jim's comin' back. He's took me home, and I've come for Amabel, and--he's got a job in Lloyd's, and he's bought me this new hat and cape." Eva flirted her free arm, and a sweep of jetted silk gleamed, then she tossed her head consciously to display a hat with a knot of pink roses. Then she kissed Amabel again. "Mamma's come back," she whispered. "Mamma, mamma!" cried Amabel. Andrew and Fanny looked at each other. "Where is he?" asked Andrew, in a slow, halting voice. Eva glanced from one to the other defiantly. "He's outside, waitin' in the road," said she; "but he ain't comin' in unless you treat him just the same as ever. I've set my veto on that." Eva's voice and manner as she said that were so unmistakably her own that all Fanny's doubt of her sanity vanished. She sobbed aloud. "O God, I'm so thankful! She's come home, and she's all right! O God, I'm so thankful!" "What about Jim?" asked Eva, with her old, proud, defiant look. "Of course he's comin' in," sobbed Fanny. "Andrew, you go--" But Andrew had already gone, unlocking the parlor door on his way. "It's your aunt Eva, Ellen," he said as he passed. "She's come home cured, and your uncle Jim is out in the yard, and I'm goin' to call him in. I guess you'd better go out and see her." _ |
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