Mountain Part 22

The discussion veered and twisted after his abrupt departure; but Pelham could not fail to see, even through his disgust, how his father's insistent advice, no matter how unpleasantly phrased, dominated the group. The driver of men is never popular; and Paul Judson's keen, aggressive mind drove them against their wills. Within an hour a resolution embodying his idea was put and carried with only the son's dissenting vote.

The _Times-Dispatch_ contained a report of the meeting, and an interview with Paul Judson stressing the legal side of the situation. An editorial referred to the disaster as one of the necessary casualties of industrial growth, paid tribute to the company's promise of further safety devices, and hung on an attack on the "forces of unrest that sought to make capital of the accident, to aid their insidious unAmerican propaganda."

Pelham was puzzled by this wording, until he came across Jane, who had charge of the relief work among the victims' families. Her large eyes sparkled with a light of warfare, as she fell into step beside him, among the poor-ridden shanties of Hewintown. "You hadn't heard? Why, it's all over town now, Pell. There's a big meeting at Arlington Hall at seven-thirty to-night, to discuss the accident--and a strike!"

"Fine! It had to come--the radical unionists were just waiting the chance."

"Will you take me?"

"You couldn't keep us away."

They arrived early, but the crowd had come earlier. Only by taking stage seats were they able to get in at all. When the son of the owner of the mine was recognized, there was slight hissing, and scattered handclapping from a few Socialists. Jensen came over quietly to Pelham, his eyes dancing. "Your application's gone through, my boy; Hernandez has your red card in his pocket."

They shook hands silently. Now, Pelham realized, he was a recognized member of the red-bannered army, who were leading man into his promised earthly heritage.

Michael Serrano, who presided, plunged into the thing that had brought them there. "I'm a bricklayer by trade, as you all know. The bricklayers have made me president of their local four times. I'm called the 'reddest of the red.' If this murderous mine accident doesn't make all of you reds too, then you aren't fit for anything but to be murdered!"

The crowd stamped approval. They had come in fighting spirit; the proper key had been hit from the start.

"Now, if ever, is your chance to win your rights. The papers have been s...o...b..ring of wartime profits on ore; the reckless haste to line their pockets was the real cause of this explosion for which the worthy directors of your mines are responsible. They can't afford a shutdown now; this is your hour to win!"

Turning from the applause, he introduced Ben Spence as "a labor lawyer, with a union card in place of a heart." Spence and Jacks were the regular federation attorneys, and Spence was quite close to Pooley and Bivens; but he always professed a near-socialism that captivated his hearers in Labor Day addresses. He pa.s.sed from a humorous opening into an indictment of the mining corporations that brought the hot crowd clamoring to their feet, with wild shouts of "Go to it, Ben! Eat 'em up!"

The next few speeches scattered. Pelham wondered if the ma.s.s desire would evaporate without action. Serrano saw the drift, and walked over to where the son of Paul Judson sat drinking in the wild-mouthed denunciation of his father's rapacity and cold-heartedness. "I'm going to call on you, comrade."

"You have to?"

The chairman nodded. "You give 'em h.e.l.l. I'll sound 'em out first. These regular unionists--pfui!" He spat in scorn, and went back to his splintered gavel.

Jack Bowden, of the Miners', tied up with the Big Pooley gang, finished his inconclusive remarks. At once Serrano's orotund Italian voice shot out into the crowd. "Now you've heard what you're getting. And you've heard what you're ent.i.tled to. How many miners are in this crowd? Raise your hands."

Amid general neck-stretching, the hands went up--almost a third of the vociferous audience. There was a rattle of applause at the good showing.

"Are you going to stand being treated as dirt, or will you act like men?

How many of you miners vote strike? Let's hear your voices!"

The shout of approval showed how avid they were for some direct expression of their acc.u.mulated resentment. Bowden, a worried look on his face, rose to protest; the ecstatic chairman waved him down.

"I'm going to do an unusual thing. I'm going to call on one of your employers to tell what he really thinks about you. I call on Comrade Pelham Judson, a.s.sistant manager of the Birrell-Florence-Mountain Mining Company."

There was no applause. Pelham, tremendously alone, walked down to the front of the big platform. His mind registered random impressions--the faded tawdriness of the cheap bunting below the dirty footlights, the smell of fetid cigars and pipes, bulging necks above dirty unstarched collars, the fierce resentment and shining hunger for better things flaring in the eyes just below him. The irresistible contrast with the suave gray fittings of the directors' room flooded him.

He summoned all his knowledge of speaking, and stood silent, his eyes ranging the vast pit and the jammed galleries.

"Fellow laborers--comrades----" His voice choked. "Many of you know how I think about this. What happened two days ago on that red mountain I love was murder--definite, systematized murder. The danger has always been known; and when every effort to wipe out that danger by law has been fought, and the deaths occur, I call that deliberate murder!"

There was a startled pelt of applause in one corner of the room. It did not spread; the others were too interested, too surprised, to pa.s.s judgment.

"What ought you to do? Your referendum will decide. If I were in your places, there is only one thing I could do--and that is, strike! Strike against the company, and me--yes! Strike for the enforcement of the weak-kneed mining law, and for a better one! Strike for more pay, shorter hours, and your organization! Fight back! Unite"--his long, tense arms reached out, and drew in together in a clenching grasp--"bring together your force as one man, and there is no power in the world that can stand against you!"

This was familiar. They howled agreement.

"There are two ways you must strike. Part of the blame lies with that legislature at Jackson. You elected them; you can retire 'em. Strike politically. Unite at the polls--there'll be a labor ticket, the socialist ticket, for every office--drive it home to victory! Then you will have laws which would make such an explosion an impossibility!"

There were a few mock groans from the _Voice of Labor_ crowd, but the majority still sat silent.

"You have a quicker weapon, on the industrial field--a strike. We've all read the announcement of the company's action; my vote was the only one against it at the directors' meeting. You must strike to teach your masters what they can't do! Strike for justice to the thirty men maimed and crippled in the cause of profits! Strike for the twenty-three families who are the worst sufferers from this h.e.l.l. Yes, twenty-three, Mr. Chairman; I received phone word that Hank Burns died of his injuries at six-thirty to-night." There was a faintly rising moan of anger at this. "If you unite, as I believe you will, there is no power in the world that can stop you!"

He went back to his seat, trembling, his forehead moist with frigid sweat. Jane's rapturous hands caught his; he felt fully repaid.

The meeting broke up in an uproar of enthusiasm.

As he started for the Andersons' with Jane, the mad spell of a June moon-bright night caught and tortured him, until it was pain to think of letting her go. The cool darkness rushed by on both sides. Out of the creva.s.ses of big buildings they pa.s.sed into the more open stretches of low urban homes. The country club road invited; they slid over gentle rises until they had their fill of tree rustle and moon shimmer. Against the sky they traced the soft outlines of the swan and the lyre swung to the East over the dull rose glow of unsleeping furnaces; but the persistent flood from the moon dulled even Vega to a mild glimmer. At length the car whirred up the last hill, and stopped in front of the darkened house where she was to sleep.

There was so much to be said. The beauty of the night was throat-catching, and lifted them away from the hectic scene at Arlington Hall, and the bitter fight that to-morrow must bring. He felt her full sympathy with the att.i.tude he must take; her first hand-grasp, as he took his seat after the speech, told him that. His hand, as the car waited before her house, lingered fearfully against hers; an electric current snapped between the two.

His fancy played fitfully with fantasies that started with his lifting that warm dear hand to his kiss ... then the yielding lips ... then the mutual surrender. But like a scourge memory listed over to him the mouths he had kissed, youthfully, poignantly, casually.... No, he had done with that. This must be no mere union of bodies; love should begin with a pure communion of kindred spirits. A kiss, a caress--these were the soft persuasive preludes to the swelling finale of mating; cheapen them, wear out their springbud freshness, and the blossom of mated love must remain stunted, like a frost-warped dogwood flower,--must henceforth be soiled, like a draggled pear-blossom mired by an April downpour. Hereafter he would hold his lips--and keep hers--inviolate, virginal; the miraculous event of love consummated should not be fouled by recollections of squandered embraces, of cheap philanderings.

The desire to touch and conquer the hand beside his almost overpowered him, despite his ascetic musing. Spasmodically he pulled his hand away.

A force stronger than his will brought it slowly back, until it shivered against hers.

Quietly, with restrained and schooled abandon, his words breathed out.

"Jane ... dear ... dearer--dearest----"

Her intuitive eyes read the words that were coming, before his own mind framed them. A sudden blossoming of joy surged within her, so great for a moment that it prevented speech; then, panic-stricken, she wished to postpone the inevitable question, to delay the rapture, to flee away, with the words unspoken, for just a little longer to consider the matter.... She said nothing of this; her silence, blent into the silence of the mountain at the end of the rise before them, was voluble with another message than delay or hesitation.

An agony of doubt racked him. Hadn't he been mistaken all along?

Wouldn't she laugh at him, for his presumption in reading even toleration in her eyes, that radiated indifferently upon things unworthy, like himself, and worthy alike? Would he dare go on? He must--even if her laugh shattered the iridescent sphere of his hopes.

An impa.s.sioned eagerness to get the words out made his tone forced and unnatural. "Will you have me, Jane? Will you love me--a little? I know I've no right to speak--my affairs are so tangled, and all----"

Then she raised her arm, until the hand was above his head; and her fingers touched his hair gently, caressingly, soothingly.

"Jane...." His voice was rich with reverent unbelief.

"Pelham dear----"

In excess of happiness, he caught the hand beside him almost to his lips; and then, instead, pressed it against his breast, against his heart.

His laugh was almost incoherent. "I was so afraid you'd say 'no.'"

The light shone only on her averted cheek. "I was so afraid ... you wouldn't ask me!"

"Silly girl! When every infinitesimal part of me aches and cries out to you! I can't believe yet that you've said yes."

"Yes," in joyous affection.

"And I will aim a lifetime toward making you glad you've said it!"