Youth Challenges Part 49

"What ails you?"

No answer.

"Here now"--she spoke sharply--"you know who I be, don't you?"

"Yes," said Ruth.

"Why didn't you answer?"

"I am--so--tired," Ruth said, faintly.

"You can't be sick here. Don't you go doin' it. I hain't got no time to look after sick folks." She might as well have spoken to the pillow.

Ruth didn't care. She had simply reached the end of her will, and had given up. It was over. She was absolutely without emotion.

Mrs. Moody approached the bed and felt of Ruth's hand. She had expected to find it hot. It was cold, bloodless. It gave the woman a start. She looked down at Ruth's face, from which the big eyes stared up at her without seeming to see her.

"You poor mite of a thing," said Mrs. Moody, softly. Then she seemed to jack herself up to a realization that softness would not do and that she could not allow such goings-on in her house. "You're sick, and if I'm a judge you're mighty sick," she said, sharply. "Who's goin' to look after you. Say?"

The tone stirred Ruth.... "n.o.body..." she said, after a pause.

"I got to notify somebody," said Mrs. Moody. "Any relatives or friends?"

Ruth seemed to think it over as if the idea were hard to comprehend.

"Once I--had a--husband..." she said.

"But you hain't got him now, apparently. Have you got anybody?"

"... Husband..." said Ruth. "... husband.... But he--went away.... No, _I_--went away... because it was--too late then.... It was too late--THEN, wasn't it?" Her voice was pleading.

"You know more about it than me," said Mrs. Moody. "I want you should tell me somebody I can notify."

"I--loved him... and I didn't know it.... That was--queer--wasn't it?... He NEVER knew it...."

"She's clean out of her head," said Mrs. Moody, irritably, "and what'll I do? Tell me that. What'll I do, and her most likely without a cent and all that?... Why didn't you go and git sick somewheres else? You could of...."

She wrung her hands and called Providence to witness that all the arrows of misfortune were aimed at her, and always had been.

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself--a growd woman like you--makin' me all this nuisance. I sha'n't put up with it. You'll go packin' to the horspittle, that's what you'll do. Mark my word."

Mrs. Moody's method of packing Ruth off to the hospital was unique. It consisted of running herself for the doctor. It consisted of listening with bated breath to his directions; it consisted of giving up almost wholly the duties--A conducting her boarding house, and in making gruels and heating water and sitting in Ruth's room wielding a fan over Ruth's ungrateful face. It consisted in spending of her scant supply of money for medicines, in constant attendance and patient, faithful nursing--accompanied by sharp scoldings and recriminations uttered in a monotone guaranteed not to disturb the sick girl. Perhaps she really fancied she was being hard and unsympathetic and calloused. She talked as if she were, but no single act was in tune with her words.... She grumbled--and served. She complained--and hovered over Ruth with clumsy, gentle hands. She was afraid somebody might think her tender.

She was afraid she might think so herself.... The world is full of Mrs.

Moodys.

Ruth lay day after day with no change, half conscious, wholly listless.... It seemed to Mrs. Moody to be nothing but a waiting for the end. But she waited for the end as though the sick girl were flesh of her flesh, protesting to heaven against the imposition, ceaselessly.

CHAPTER x.x.xII

If Bonbright's handling of the Hammil casualty created a good impression among the men, his stand against the unions more than counterbalanced it. He was able to get no nearer to the men. Perhaps, as individuals became acquainted with him, there was less open hostility manifested, but there remained suspicion, resentment, which Bonbright was unable to convert into friendship and co-operation.

The professor of sociology peered frequently at Bonbright through his thick spectacles with keen interest. He found as much enjoyment in studying his employer as he did in working over his employer's plan.

Frequently he discussed Bonbright with Mershon.

"He's a strange young man," he said, "an instructive psychological study. Indeed he is. One cannot catalogue him. He is made up of opposites. Look you, Mershon, at his eagerness to better the conditions of his men--that's why I'm abandoning cla.s.ses of boys who ought to be interested in what I teach them, but aren't--and then place beside it his antagonism to unionism...."

Mershon was interested at that instant more in the practical aspects of the situation. "The unions are snapping at our heels. Bricklayers, masons, structural steel, the whole lot. I've been palavering with them--but I'm about to the end of my rope. We've needed men and we've got a big sprinkling of union men. Wages have attracted them. I'm afraid we've got too many, so many the unions feel c.o.c.ky. They think they're strong enough to take a hand and try to force recognition on us.... He won't have it." Mershon shrugged his shoulders. "I've got to the end of my rope. Yesterday I told him the responsibility was one I didn't hanker for, and put it up to him. He's going to meet with the labor fellows to-day.... And we can look for fireworks."

"If I were labor," said the professor, "I think I should leave that young man alone--until I saw where he headed. They're going to get more out of him than organization could compel or even hope for. If they prod him too hard they may upset things. He's fine capacity for stubbornness."

The labor representatives were on their way to the office. When they arrived they asked first for Mershon, who received them and notified Bonbright.

"Show them in," he said. "We may as well have it over." There were four of the men whom Mershon led through the door into Bonbright's office, but Bonbright saw but one of them-Dulac!

The young man half rose from his chair, then sat down with his eyes fixed upon the man into whose hands, he believed, his wife had given herself. It was curious that he felt little resentment toward Dulac, and none of that murderous rage which some men might have felt....

"Mr. Dulac," he said, "I want to--talk with you. Will you ask these--other gentlemen if they will step outside for--a few moments....

I have a personal matter to discuss with--Mr. Dulac."

Dulac was not at his ease. He had come in something like a spirit of bravado to face Bonbright, and this turn to the event nonplused him.

However, if he would save his face he must rise to the situation.

"Just a minute, boys," he said to his companions, and with Mershon they filed into the next room.

"Dulac," said Bonbright, in a voice that was low but steady, "is she well and--happy?"

"Eh?..." Dulac was startled indeed.

"I haven't kept you to--quarrel," said Bonbright. "I hoped she would--wait the year before she went--to you, but it was hers to choose. ... Now that she has chosen--I want to know if it has--made her happy. I want her to be happy, Dulac."

Dulac came a step nearer the desk. Something in Bonbright's voice and manner compelled, if not his sympathy, at least something which resembled respect.

"Do you mean you don't know where Ruth is?" he asked.

"No."

"You thought she was with me?"

"Yes."

"Mr. Foote, she isn't with me.... I wish to G.o.d she was. I've seen her only once since--that evening. It was by accident, on the street. ... I tried to see her. I found the place empty, and n.o.body knew where she'd gone. Even her mother didn't know. I thought you had sent her away."

"Dulac," said Bonbright, leaning forward as though drawn by spasmodic contraction of tense muscles, "is this true?"

For once Dulac did not become theatrical, did not pose, did not reply to this doubt, as became labor flouting capital. Perhaps it was because the matter lay as close to his stormy heart as it did to Bonbright's.

"Yes," he said.