The Portion of Labor Part 76

Ellen had not arrived at her decision with regard to the strike as suddenly as it may have seemed. All winter, ever since the strike, Ellen had been wondering, not whether the principle of the matter was correct or not, that she never doubted; she never swerved in her belief concerning the cruel tyranny of the rich and the helpless suffering of the poor, and their good reason for making a stand, but she doubted more and more the wisdom of it. She used to sit for hours up in her chamber after her father and mother had gone to bed, wrapped up in an old shawl against the cold, resting her elbows on the window-sill and her chin on her two hands, staring out into the night, and reflecting. Her youthful enthusiasm carried her like a leaping-pole to conclusions beyond her years. "I wonder," she said to herself, "if, after all, this inequality of possessions is not a part of the system of creation, if the righting of them is not beyond the flaming sword of the Garden of Eden? I wonder if the one who tries to right them forcibly is not meddling, and usurping the part of the Creator, and bringing down wrath and confusion not only upon his own head, but upon the heads of others? I wonder if it is wise, in order to establish a principle, to make those who have no voice in the matter suffer for it--the helpless women and children?"

She even thought with a sort of scornful sympathy of Sadie Peel, who could not have her nea.r.s.eal cape, and had not wished to strike.

She reflected, as she had done so many times before, that the world was very old--thousands of years old--and inequality was as old as the world. Might it not even be a condition of its existence, the shifting of weights which kept it to its path in the scheme of the universe? And yet always she went back to her firm belief that the strikers were right, and always, although she loved Robert Lloyd, she denounced him. Even when it came to her abandoning her position with regard to the strike, she had not the slightest thought of effecting thereby a reconciliation with Robert.

For the first time, that night when she had gone to bed, after announcing her determination to go back to work, she questioned her affection for Robert. Before she had always admitted it to herself with a sort of shamed and angry dignity. "Other women feel so about men, and why should I not?" she had said; "and I shall never fail to keep the feeling behind more important things." She had accepted the fact of it with childlike straightforwardness as she accepted all other facts of life, and now she wondered if she really did care for him so much. She thought over and over everything Abby had said, and saw plainly before her mental vision those poor women parting with their cherished possessions, the little starving children s.n.a.t.c.hing at the refuse-buckets at the neighbors' back doors. She saw with incredulous shame, and something between pity and scorn, Mamie Bemis, who had gone wrong, and Mamie Brady, who had taken her foolish, ill-balanced life in her own hands. She remembered every word which she had said to the men on the morning of the strike, and how they had started up and left their machines. "I did it all," she told herself. "I am responsible for it all--all this suffering, for those hungry little children, for that possible death, for the ruin of another girl." Then she told herself, with a stern sense of justice, that back of her responsibility came Robert Lloyd's. If he had not cut the wages it would never have been. It seemed to her that she almost hated him, and that she could not wait to strive to undo the harm which she had done. She could not wait for morning to come.

She lay awake all night in a fever of impatience. When she went down-stairs her eyes were brilliant, there were red spots on her cheeks, her lips were tense, her whole face looked as if she were strained for some leap of action. She took hold of everything she touched with a hard grip. Her father and mother kept watching her anxiously. Directly after breakfast Ellen put on her hat and coat.

"What are you going to do?" asked f.a.n.n.y.

"I am going over to see John Sargent, and ask him to get some other men and go to see Mr. Lloyd, and tell him we are willing to go to work again," replied Ellen.

Ellen discovered, when she reached the Atkins house, that John Sargent had already resolved upon his course of action.

"The first thing he said when he came in last night was that he couldn't stand it any longer, and he was going to see the others, and go to Lloyd, and ask him to open the shop on his own terms,"

said Abby. "I told him how we felt about it."

"Yes, I am ready to go back whenever the factory is opened," said Ellen. "I am glad he has gone."

Ellen did not remain long. She was anxious to return and finish some wrappers she had on hand. Abby promised to go over and let her know the result of the interview with Lloyd.

It was not until evening that Abby came over, and John Sargent with her. Lloyd had not been at home in the morning, and they had been forced to wait until late afternoon. The two entered the dining-room, where Ellen and her mother sat at work.

Abby spoke at once, and to the point. "Well," said she, "the shop's going to be opened to-morrow."

"On what terms?" asked Ellen.

"On the boss's, of course," replied Abby, in a hard voice.

"It's the only thing to do," said Sargent, with a sort of stolid a.s.sertion. "If we are willing to be crushed under the Juggernaut of principle, we haven't any right to force others under, and that's what we are doing."

"Bread without b.u.t.ter is better than no bread at all," said Abby.

"We've got to live in the sphere in which Providence has placed us."

The girl said "Providence" with a sarcastic emphasis.

Andrew was looking at Sargent. "Do you think there will be any trouble?" he asked.

Sargent hesitated, with a glance at f.a.n.n.y. "I don't know; I hope not," said he. "Lee and Dixon are opposed to giving in, and they are talking hard to-night in the store. Then some of the men have joined the union since the strike, and of course they swear by it, because it has been helping them, and they won't approve of giving up. But I doubt if there will be much trouble. I guess the majority want to go to work, even the union men. The amount of it is, it has been such a tough winter it has taken the spirit out of the poor souls."

Sargent, evidently, in yielding was resisting himself.

"You don't think there will be any danger?" f.a.n.n.y said, anxiously, looking at Ellen.

"Oh no, there's no danger for the girls, anyhow. I guess there's enough men to look out for them. There's no need for you to worry, Mrs. Brewster."

"Mr. Lloyd did not offer to do anything better about the wages?"

asked Ellen.

Sargent shook his head.

"Catch him!" said Abby, bitterly.

Ellen had a feeling as if she were smiting in the face that image of Robert which always dwelt in her heart.

"Well," said Abby, with a mirthless laugh, "there's one thing: according to the Scriptures, it is as hard for the rich man to get into heaven as it is for the poor men to get into their factories."

"You don't suppose there will be any danger?" f.a.n.n.y said again, anxiously.

"Danger--no; who's afraid of Amos Lee and a few like him?" cried Abby, contemptuously; "and Nahum Beals is safe. He's going to be tried next month, they say, but they'll make it imprisonment for life, because they think he wasn't in his right mind. If he was here we might be afraid, but there's n.o.body now that will do anything but talk. I ain't afraid. I'm going to march up to the shop to-morrow morning and go to work, and I'd like to see anybody stop me."

However, before they left, John Sargent spoke aside with Andrew, and told him of a plan for the returning workmen to meet at the corner of a certain street, and go in a body to the factory, and suggested that there might be pickets posted by the union men, and Andrew resolved to go with Ellen.

The next morning the rain had quite ceased, and there was a faint something, rather a reminiscence than a suggestion, of early spring in the air. People caught themselves looking hard at the elm branches to see if they were acquiring the virile fringe of spring or if their eyes deceived them, and wondered, with respect to the tips of maple and horse-chestnut branches, whether or not they were swollen red and glossy. Sometimes they sniffed incredulously when a soft gust of south wind seemed laden with fresh blossom fragrance.

"I declare, if I didn't know better, I should think I smelled apple blossoms," said Maria.

"Stuff!" returned Abby. She was marching along with an alert, springy motion of her lean little body. She was keenly alive to the situation, and scented something besides apple blossoms. She had tried to induce Maria to remain at home. "I don't know but there'll be trouble, and if there is, you'll be just in the way," she told her before they left the house, but not in their parents' hearing.

"Oh, I don't believe there'll be any. Folks will be too glad to get back to work," replied Maria. She had a vein of obstinacy, gentle as she was; then, too, she had a reason which no one suspected for wishing to be present. She would not yield when John Sargent begged her privately not to go. It was just because she was afraid there might be trouble, and he was going to be in it, that she could not bear to stay at home herself.

Andrew had insisted upon accompanying Ellen in spite of her remonstrances. "I've got an errand down to the store," he said, evasively; but Ellen understood.

"I don't think there is any danger, and there wouldn't be any danger for me--not for the girls, sure," she said; but he persisted.

"Don't you say a word to your mother to scare her," he whispered.

But they had not been gone long before f.a.n.n.y followed them, Mrs.

Zelotes watching her furtively from a window as she went by.

All the returning employes met, as agreed upon, at the corner of a certain street, and marched in a solid body towards Lloyd's. The men insisted upon placing the girls in the centre of this body, although some of them rebelled, notably Sadie Peel. She was on hand, laughing and defiant.

"I guess I ain't afraid," she proclaimed. "Father's keepin' on strikin', but I guess he won't see his own daughter hurt; and now I'm goin' to have my nea.r.s.eal cape, if it is late in the season.

They're cheaper now, that's one good thing. On some accounts the strike has been a lucky thing for me." She marched along, swinging her arms jauntily. Ellen and Maria and Abby were close together.

Andrew was on the right of Ellen, Granville Joy behind; the young laster, who had called so frequently evenings, was with him. John Sargent and w.i.l.l.y Jones were on the left. They all walked in the middle of the street like an army. It was covertly understood that there might be trouble. Some of the younger men from time to time put hands on their pockets, and a number carried stout sticks.

The first intimation of disturbance came when they met an electric-car, and all moved to one side to let it pa.s.s. The car was quite full of people going to another town, some thirty miles distant, to work in a large factory there. Nearly every man and woman on the car belonged to the union.

As this car slid past a great yell went up from the occupants; men on the platforms swung their arms in execration and derision.

"Sc-ab, sc-ab!" they called. A young fellow leaped from the rear platform, caught up a stone and flung it at the returning Lloyd men, but it went wide of its mark. Then he was back on the platform with a running jump, and one of the Lloyd men threw a stone, which missed him. The yell of "Scab, scab!" went up with renewed vigor, until it died out of hearing along with the rumble of the car.

"Sometimes I wish I had joined the union and stuck it out," said one of the Lloyd men, gloomily.

"For the Lord's sake, don't show the white feather now!" cried a young fellow beside him, who was striding on with an eager, even joyous outlook. He had fighting blood, and it was up, and he took a keen delight in the situation.

"It's easy to talk," grumbled the other man. "I don't know but all our help lies in the union, and we've been a pack of fools not to go in with them, because we hoped Lloyd would weaken and take us back.

He hasn't weakened; we've had to. Good G.o.d, them that's rich have it their own way!"

"I'd have joined the union in a minute, and got a job, and got my nea.r.s.eal cape, if it hadn't been for father," said Sadie Peel, with a loud laugh. "But, my land! if father'd caught me joinin' the union I dun'no' as there would have been anything left of me to wear the cape."

They all marched along with no disturbance until they reached the corner of the street into which they had to turn in order to approach Lloyd's. There they were confronted by a line of pickets, stationed there by the union, and the real trouble began. Yells of "Scab, scab!" filled the air.

"Good land, I ain't no more of a scab than you be!" shrieked Sadie Peel, in a loud, angry voice. "Scab yourself! Touch me if you da.s.se!"