The Nine-Tenths Part 25

A new kind of woman! Joe remembered the phrase, and in the end admitted that it was true. Sally was of the new breed; she represented the new emanc.i.p.ation; the exodus of woman from the home to the battle-fields of the world; the willingness to fight in the open, shoulder to shoulder with men; the advance of a s.e.x that now demanded a broader, freer life, a new health, a home built up on comradeship and economic freedom. In all of these things she contrasted sharply with Myra, and Joe always thought of the two together.

But unconsciously Sally was always the fellow-worker--Myra--what Myra meant he could feel but not explain; yet these crowded days left little time for thoughts sweet but often intense with pain. He wrote to her rarely--mere jottings of business and health; he rarely heard from her.

Her message was invariably the same--the richness and quiet of country life, the depth and peace of rest, the hope that he was well and happy.

She never mentioned his paper--though she received every number--and when Joe inquired once whether it came, she answered in a postscript: "The paper? It's in every Monday's mail." This neglect irritated Joe, and he would doubly enjoy Sally's heart-and-soul pa.s.sion for _The Nine-Tenths_.

Sally was growing into his working life, day by day. Her presence was stimulating, refreshing. If he felt blue and discouraged, or dried up and in want of inspiration, he merely called her over, and her quiet talk, her sane views, her quick thinking, her never-failing good humor and faith, acted upon him as a tonic.

"Miss Sally," he said once, "what would I ever do without you?"

Sally looked at him with her clear eyes.

"Oh," she said, "I guess you'd manage to stagger along somehow."

But after that she hovered about him like a guardian angel. What bothered her chiefly, when she thought of Joe's work, was her lack of education, and she set about to make this up by good reading, and by attending lectures at night, and by hard study in such time as she could s.n.a.t.c.h from her work. She and Joe were comrades in the best sense. They could always depend upon each other. It was in some ways as if they were in partnership. And then there was that old tie of the fire to draw them together.

She was of great help in setting him right about the poor.

"People are happy," she would say--"most people are happy. Human nature is bigger than environment--it bubbles up through mud. That's almost the trouble with it. If the poor were only thoroughly unhappy, they'd change things to-morrow. No, Mr. Joe, it's not a question of happiness; it's a question of justice, of right, of progress, of developing people's possibilities. It's all the question of a better life, a richer life.

People are sacred--they mustn't be reduced to animals."

And with her aid he gained a truer perspective of the life about him--learned better how to touch it, how to "work" it. The paper became more and more adapted to its audience, and began to spread rapidly. Here and there a labor union would subscribe for it in bulk for all its members, and the Stove Circle soon had many a raw recruit drumming up trade, making house-to-house canva.s.ses. In this way, the circulation finally reached the five-thousand mark. There were certain unions, such as that of the cloak-makers, that regarded the paper as their special oracle--swore by it, used it in their arguments, made it a vital part of their mental life.

This enlarged circulation brought some curious and unlooked-for results.

Some of the magazine writers in the district got hold of a copy, had a peep at Joe, heard of his fame, and then took copies up-town to the respectable editors and others, and spread a rumor of "that idiot, Joe Blaine, who runs an underground paper down on Tenth Street." As a pa.s.sion of the day was slumming, and as nothing could be more piquant than the West Tenth Street establishment, Joe was amused to find automobiles drawing up at his door, and the whole neighborhood watching breathlessly the attack of some flouncy woman or some tailor-made man.

"How perfectly lovely!" one fair visitor announced, while the office force watched her pose in the center of the room. "Mr. Blaine, how dreadful it must be to live with the poor!"

"It's pretty hard," said Joe, "to live with any human being for any length of time."

"Oh, but the poor! They aren't clean, you know; and such manners!"

Sally spoke coldly.

"I guess bad manners aren't monopolized by any particular cla.s.s."

The flouncy one flounced out.

These visits finally became very obnoxious, though they could not be stopped. Even a sign, over the door-bell, "No begging; no slumming," was quite ineffective in shutting out either cla.s.s.

There were, however, other visitors of a more interesting type--professional men, even business men, who were drawn by curiosity, or by social unrest, or by an ardent desire to be convinced. Professor Harraman, the sociologist, came, and made quite a dispa.s.sionate study of Joe, put him (so he told his mother) on the dissecting-table and vivisected his social organs. Then there was Blakesly, the corporation lawyer, who enjoyed the discussion that arose so thoroughly that he stayed for supper and behaved like a gentleman in the little kitchen, even insisting on throwing off his coat, rolling up his sleeves, and helping to dry the dishes.

"You're all wrong," he told Joe when he left, "and some day possibly we'll hang you or electrocute you; but it's refreshing to rub one's mind against a going dynamo. I'm coming again. And don't forget that your mother is the First Lady of the Island! Good-by!"

Then there was, one important day, the great ex-trust man, whose name is inscribed on granite buildings over half the earth. This man--so the legend runs--is on the lookout for unusual personalities. The first hint of a new one puts him on the trail, and he sends out a detective to gather facts, all of which are card-indexed under the personality's name. Then, if the report is attractive, this man goes out himself and meets the oddity face to face. He came in on Joe jovial, happy, sparkling, and fired a broadside of well-chosen questions. Joe was delighted, and said anything he pleased, and his visitor shrewdly went on. In the end Joe was stunned to hear this comment:

"Mr. Blaine, you're on the right track, though you don't know it. You think you want one thing, but you're after another. Still--keep it up.

The world is coming to wonderful things."

"That's queer talk," said Joe, "coming from a multimillionaire."

The multimillionaire laughed.

"But I'm getting rid of the multi, Mr. Blaine. What more would you have me do? Each his own way. Besides"--he screwed up his eye shrewdly--"come now, aren't you hanging on to some capital?"

"Yes--in a way!"

"So are we all! You're a wise man! Keep free, and then you can help others!"

The most interesting caller, however, judged from the standpoint of Joe's life, was Theodore Marrin, Izon's boss, manufacturer of high-cla.s.s shirtwaists, whose Fifth Avenue store is one of the most luxurious in New York. He came to Joe while the great cloak-makers' strike was still on, at a time when families were reduced almost to starvation, and when the cause seemed quite hopeless.

Theodore Marrin came in a beautiful heavy automobile. He was a short man, with a stout stomach; his face was a deep red, with large, slightly bulging black eyes, tiny mustache over his full lips; and he was dressed immaculately and in good taste--a sort of Parisian-New Yorker, hail-fellow-well-met, a mixer, a cynic, a man about town. He swung his cane lightly as he tripped up the steps, sniffed the air, and knocked on the door of the editorial office.

Billy opened.

"Yes, sir."

"Mr. Blaine in?"

"He's busy."

"I should hope he was! There, my boy." He deftly waved Billy aside and stepped in. "Well! well! Mr. Blaine!"

Joe turned about, and arose, and accepted Mr. Marrin's extended hand.

"Who do you think I am?"

Joe smiled.

"I'm ready for anything."

"Well, Mr. Blaine, I'm the employer of one of your men. You know Jacob Izon?"

"Oh, you're Mr. Marrin! Sit down."

Marrin gazed about.

"Unique! unique!" He sat down, and pulled off his gloves. "I've been wanting to meet you for a long time. Izon's been talking, handing me your paper. It's a delightful little sheet--I enjoy it immensely."

"You agree with its views?"

"Oh no, no, no! I read it the way I read fiction! It's d.a.m.ned interesting!"

Joe laughed.

"Well, what can I do for you?"

"What can I do for _you_!" corrected Marrin.

"See here, Mr. Blaine, I'm interested. How about taking a little ad.