For Gold or Soul? Part 4

"Couldn't hold their jobs if they didn't," chimed in a clerk who had overheard her.

"They have to arrest some one regularly about once in so often. I hope some day they'll arrest the wrong person. It would cost old Denton a pretty penny!"

Just then another clerk from the ribbon counter came up and joined them.

"Did you hear about that inspector coming here yesterday, girls? Well, it didn't do any good, for old Forbes fooled her completely! She didn't get a peep at this room or a sniff at these odors. He means to poison us all to death with sewer gas before he's done with us, but perhaps it will be just as pleasant a death as any other."

Faith Marvin looked up at the speaker with an expression of horror in her eyes.

"Do you mean to say that this place is really unhealthy, and that the firm refuses to comply with the law on such matters?"

"I mean to say that Denton, Day & Co. comply with no law whatever except their own sweet will, and that is to overwork, underpay and bulldoze their employees and then kick them out at a minute's notice."

The girl spoke the words with apparent indifference. Only a long-drawn sigh at their conclusion showed the inmost feeling on the subject.

Faith sprang to her feet with flashing eyes.

"Then that accounts for the haggard faces of the girls whom I have seen this morning! Oh, we must do something at once to alter these conditions! Our employers are but men; they must have hearts in their bosoms!"

"You don't know them, Faith."

It was Miss Jennings who spoke. She was trying her best to conquer another fit of coughing.

"Our employers look upon us girls as so many machines, created for the sole purpose of filling their coffers, and it is this G.o.d whom you respect who allows them to abuse us! to grind us into the dust because we are helpless!"

The ring of bitterness in her tones appalled all who heard her except Faith, who threw her arms about her tenderly as she answered:

"No, no, Mary! Don't say that! You are mistaken, dear! G.o.d is watching over us all with the tenderest love, and from this whirlwind of injustice He will yet reap a harvest of good! I believe it! I know it, and I shall live to see it!"

CHAPTER V.

THE FIRST INSULT.

As the young girl gave utterance to these words of prophecy her beautiful eyes were luminous with the fire of a n.o.ble purpose. She drew her graceful form to its full height and her voice rang out like the peal of a bell, carrying the message of hope to all that heard it.

Before any one could think of answering, two gentlemen suddenly appeared in the doorway of the poorly lighted room.

When the saleswomen and cash girls saw them they almost stopped breathing, for the two men were the two senior members of the firm, who, for some reason or others, were going over the store together.

Both men stared at Faith in open amazement. It was plain that they had overheard her words, and were surprised at such sentiments from the lips of a greenhorn "packer."

Mr. Denton, a gray-haired man with a fairly benevolent face, seemed more disturbed than his partner over the extraordinary utterance, but as neither of them had heard what Miss Jennings had said, their surprise pa.s.sed quickly and they began talking together.

"This is the room that they complain of," said Mr. Day, with a contemptuous gesture. "Those sneaking inspectors seem bent on making us as much trouble and expense as possible."

Mr. Denton peered around the room, and even sniffed a little.

"I do not consider it exactly healthy down here," he said, slowly, "but of course you know best, Mr. Day; you have charge of that department. I should not dream of interfering. I know you will do your duty."

"Certainly, certainly," said Mr. Day, promptly. He was a short, stout man, and exceedingly curt and pompous.

"I consider it quite healthy enough for our purpose, Mr. Denton; for what do our salespeople know of modern sanitary improvements?"

"That is so," replied Mr. Denton, with a smile of satisfaction. "What do they know, indeed? Why, they are nearly all of them from the garrets of some tenement or other. They have never been accustomed to anything better, nor perhaps half as comfortable."

They pa.s.sed out of the room, leaving Faith almost speechless with horror.

In her whole life she had never dreamed of such cowardly injustice.

"Now you know that I am right, Faith," Miss Jennings remarked, with a harsh laugh. "Now you have seen for yourself what we have to expect from our employers."

"They look on us as a lot of rats from some garret or other," added the clerk who had spoken so bitterly before. "But, time's up; we must go back and take in some more money for the darlings."

Faith stifled a sob as she took Miss Jennings' arm and started upstairs.

She was pained and disgusted, but by no means discouraged.

"There must be some way," she whispered to Miss Jennings. "It looks very dark, I am willing to admit, but with G.o.d all things are possible. I shall not give up. There must be some way of bringing the light into this place. Just now it seems lost in a terrible darkness."

"If G.o.d had wished it to be different He would have changed it long ago," muttered Miss Jennings. "But He doesn't care, Faith. Don't tell me that He cares! Why, I am dying, dying, yet He cares nothing about it!"

She broke out into such a terrible fit of coughing that she had to stop on the stairs. Faith kept her arm about her until the spell was over.

When they reached the floor they were two minutes late.

Miss Fairbanks met them and scolded them both severely.

Faith noticed that Miss Jennings did not offer to explain the delay. She would have explained it herself if her companion had not stopped her in a whisper.

"It's no use, Faith; she won't believe it, or, if she did, she'd say I had no right to cough. Poor devil! She treats the people under her just as Forbes treats her. They are a lot of slave drivers and slaves together!"

Faith crawled up to her desk feeling sick at heart. She was overwhelmed with the knowledge of evil which was being forced upon her.

During the afternoon she found time to write a few words on a bit of paper and slip it into Miss Jennings' hand without the buyer seeing her.

"Dear Mary," she wrote, "don't give up in despair. I am sure that Mr.

Denton is a good man, only weak and indifferent. I shall pray to-night that G.o.d will open his eyes--then to-morrow I shall try personally to talk to him, for I believe that prayer and effort should always go together. Who knows but that I may be able to brighten things a little?

It certainly is worth trying for--to bring the light into dark places."

Miss Jennings watched her chance and handed back her reply.

"It's no use, I tell you, Faith. His heart is like stone. You'll only lose your place. Take my advice and don't do it."

Faith smiled at her brightly as she read the words. They were characteristic of Miss Jennings, philosophic but bitter.