Next morning the whole city breakfasted with Bonbright Foote. His name
was on the tongue of every man who took in a newspaper, and of
thousands to whom the news of his revolutionary profit-sharing or
minimum-wage plan was carried by word of mouth. It was the matter of
wages that excited everyone. In those first hours they skipped the
details of the plan, those details which had taken months of labor and
thought to devise. It was only the fact that a wealthy manufacturer was
going to pay a minimum wage of five dollars a day.
The division between capital and labor showed plainly in the reception
of the news. Capital berated Bonbright; labor was inclined to
fulsomeness. Capital called him on the telephone to remonstrate and to
state its opinion of him as a half-baked idiot of a young idealist who
was upsetting business. Labor put on its hat and stormed the gates of
Bonbright Foote, Incorporated, seeking for five-dollar jobs. Not
hundreds of them came, but thousands. The streets were blocked with
applicants, every one eager for that minimum wage. The police could not
handle the mob. It was there for a purpose and it intended to stay....
When it was rebuked, or if some one tried to tell them there were no
jobs for it, it threw playful stones through the windows. It was there
at dawn; it still remained at dark.
A man who had an actual job at Bonbright Foote, Incorporated, was a
hero, an object of admiring interest to his friends and neighbors. The
thing touched him. There had been a miraculous laying on of hands,
under which had passed away poverty. So must the friends and
acquaintances of a certain blind man whose sight was restored by a bit
of divine spittle have regarded him.
Malcolm Lightener did not content himself with telephoning. He came in
person to say his say to Bonbright, and he said it with point and
emphasis.
"I thought I taught you some sense in my shop," he said, as he burst
into Bonbright's office. "What's this I hear now? What idiocy are you
up to? Is this infernal newspaper story true?"
"Substantially," said Bonbright.
"You're crazy. What are you trying to do? Upset labor conditions in
this town so that business will go to smash? I thought you had a level
head. I had confidence in you--and here you go, shooting off a
half-cocked, wild-eyed, socialistic thing! Did you stop to think what
effect this thing would have on other manufacturers?"
"Yes," said Bonbright.
"It'll pull labor down on us. They'll say we can afford to pay such
wages if you can."
"Well," said Bonbright, "can't you?"
"You've sowed a fine crop of discontent. It's damned unfair. You'll
have every workingman in town flocking to you. You'll get the pick of
labor."
"That's good business, isn't it?" Bonbright asked, with a smile. "Now,
Mr. Lightener, there isn't any use thrashing me. The plan is going into
effect. It isn't half baked. I haven't gone off half cocked. It is
carefully planned and thought out--and it will work. There'll be
flurries for a few days, and then things will come back to the normal
for you fellows.... I wish it wouldn't. You're a lot better able than I
am to do what I'm doing, and you know it. If you can, you ought to."
"No man has a right to go ahead deliberately and upset business."
"I'm not upsetting it. I'm merely being fair, and that's what business
should have been years ago. I'm able to pay a five-dollar minimum, and
labor earns it. Then it ought to have it. If you can pay only a
four-dollar minimum, then you should pay it. Labor earns it for you....
If there's a man whose labor earns for him only a dollar and
seventy-five cents a day, and that man pays it, he's doing as much at I
am..."
"Bonbright," said Malcolm Lightener, getting to his feet, "I'm damn
disappointed in you."
"Come in a year and tell me so, then I'll listen to you," said
Bonbright.
"This nonsense won't last a year. It won't pan out. You'll have to give
it up, and then what? You'll be in a devil of a pickle, won't you?"
"All you see is that five dollars. In a day or two the whole plan will
be ready. I'm having it printed in a pamphlet, and I'll send you one.
If you read it carefully and can come back and tell me it's nonsense,
then I don't know you. You might let me go under suspended sentence at
least."
Lightener shrugged his heavy shoulders. "Take one chunk of advice," he
said. "Keep away from the club for a few days. If the boys feel the way
I do they're apt to take you upstairs and drown you in a bathtub."
That was the side of the affair that Bonbright saw most during the day.
Telephone messages, letters, telegrams, poured in and cluttered his
desk. After a while he ceased to open them, for they were all alike;
all sent to say the same thing that Malcolm Lightener had said. Capital
looked upon him as a Judas and flayed him with the sharpest words they
could choose.
He read all the papers, but the papers reflected the estimated thought
of their subscribers. But to all of them the news was the big news of
the day. No headline was too large to announce it... But the papers,
even those with capitalistic leanings, were afraid to be too outspoken.
Gatherers of news come to have some knowledge of human nature, and
these men saw deeper and farther and quicker than the Malcolm
Lighteners. They did not commit themselves so far but that a drawing
back and realignment would be possible... No little part of Bonbright's
day was spent with reporters.
The news came to every house in the city. It came even to Mrs. Moody's
obscure boarding house, and the table buzzed with it. It mounted the
stairs with Mrs. Moody to the room where Ruth lay apathetically in her
bed, not stronger, not weaker, taking no interest in life.
Mrs. Moody sat daily beside Ruth's bed and talked or read. She read
papers aloud and books aloud, and grumbled. Ruth paid slight attention,
but lay gazing up at the ceiling, or closed her eyes and pretended she
was asleep. She didn't care what was going on in the world. What did it
matter, for she believed she was going to leave the world shortly. The
prospect did not frighten her, nor did it gladden her. She was
indifferent to it.
Mrs. Moody sat down in her rocker and looked at Ruth triumphantly.
"I'll bet this'll interest you," she said. "I'll bet when I read this
you won't lay there and pertend you don't hear. If you do it's because
somethin's wrong with your brains, that's all I got to say. Sick or
well, it's news to stir up a corpse."
She began to read. The first words caught Ruth's attention. The words
were Bonbright Foote. She closed her eyes, but listened. Her thoughts
were not clear; her mental processes were foggy, but the words Mrs.
Moody was reading were important to her. She realized that. It was
something she had once been interested in--terribly interested in...
She tried to concentrate on them; tried to comprehend. Presently she
interrupted, weakly:
"Who--who is it--about?" she asked.
"Bonbright Foote, the manufacturer. I read it out plain."
"Yes... What is it?... I didn't--understand very well. What did he--do?"
Mrs. Moody began again, impatiently. This time it was clearer to Ruth
... Once she had tried to do something like this thing she was hearing
about--and that was why she was here... It had something to do with her
being sick... And with Bonbright... It was hard to remember.
"Even the floor sweepers git it," said Mrs. Moody, interpreting the
news story. "Everybody gits five dollars a day at least, and some gits
more."
"Everybody?..." said Ruth. "HE'S--giving it to--them?"
"This Mr. Foote is. Yes."
Suddenly Ruth began to cry, weakly, feebly. "I didn't help," she
wailed, like an infant. Her voice was no stronger. "He did it
alone--all alone... I wasn't there..."
"No, you was right here. Where would you be?"
"I wonder--if he did--it--for me?" Her voice was piteous, pleading.
"For you? What in goodness name have YOU got to do with it? He did it
for all them men--thousands of 'em.... And jest think what it'll mean
to 'em!... It'll be like heaven comin' to pass."
"What--have I--got to do--with it?" Ruth repeated, and then cried out
with grief. "Nothing... Nothing.... NOTHING. If I'd never been born--he
would have done it--just the same."
"To be sure," said Mrs. Moody, wondering. "I guess your head hain't
jest right to-day."
"Read... Please read... Every word. Don't miss a word."
"Well, I swan! You be int'rested. I never see the like." And the good
woman read on, not skipping a word.
Ruth followed as best she could, seeing dimly, but, seeing that the
thing that was surpassed was the thing she had once sacrificed herself
in a futile effort to bring about... It was rather vague, that past
time in which she had striven and suffered... But she had hoped to do
something... What was it she had done? It was something about
Bonbright... What was it? It had been hard, and she had suffered. She
tried to remember.... And then remembrance came. She had MARRIED him!
"He's good--so good," she said, tearfully. "I shouldn't have--done it
... I should have--trusted him... because I knew he was good--all the
tune."
"Who was good?" asked Mrs. Moody.
"My husband," said Ruth.
"For the land sakes, WHAT'S HE got to do with this? Hain't you
listenin' at all?"
"I'm listening... I'm listening. Don't stop."
Memory was becoming clearer, the fog was being blown away, and the past
was showing in sharper outline. Events were emerging into distinctness.
She stared at the ceiling with widening eyes, listening to Mrs. Moody
as the woman stumbled on; losing account of the reading as her mind
wandered off into the past, searching, finding, identifying... She had
been at peace. She had not suffered. She had lain in a lethargy which
held away sharp sorrow and bitter thoughts. They were now working their
way through to her, piercing her heart.
"Oh!..." she cried. "Oh!..."
"What ails you now? You're enough to drive a body wild. What you
cryin'about? Say!"
"I--I love him... That's why I hid away--because I--loved him--and--and
his father died. That was it. I remember now. I couldn't bear it..."
"Was it him or his father you was in love with?" asked Mrs. Moody,
acidly.
"I--hated his father... But when he died I couldn't tell HIM--I loved
him... He wouldn't have believed me."
"Say," said Mrs. Moody, suddenly awakening to the possibilities of
Ruth's mood, "who was your husband, anyhow?"
Ruth shook her head. "I--can't tell you... You'd tell him... He mustn't
find me--because I--couldn't bear it."
The mercenary came to the door. "Young woman at the door wants to see
you," she said.
"Always somebody. Always trottin' up and down stairs. Seems like a body
never gits a chance to rest her bones.... I'm comin'. Say I'll be right
downstairs."
In the parlor Mrs. Moody found a young woman of a world with which
boarding houses have little acquaintance. She glanced through the
window, and saw beside the curb a big car with a liveried chauffeur. "I
vum!" she said to herself.
"I'm Mrs. Moody, miss," she said. "What's wanted?"
"I'm looking for a friend... I'm just inquiring here because you're on
my list of boarding houses. I guess I've asked at two hundred if I've
asked at one."
"What's your friend's name? Man or woman?"
"Her name is Foote. Ruth Foote."
"No such person here... We got Richards and Brown and Judson, and a lot
of 'em, but no Foote."
The young woman sighed. "I'm getting discouraged.... I am afraid she's
ill somewhere. It's been months, and I can't find a trace. She's such a
little thing, too.... Maybe she's changed her name. Quite likely."
"Is she hidin' away?" asked Mrs. Moody.
"Yes--you might say that. Not hiding because she DID anything, but
because--her heart was broken."
"Um!... Little, was she? Sort of peaked and thin?"
"Yes."
"Ever hear the name of Frazer?"
"Why, Mrs. Moody--do you--That was her name before she was married ..."
"You come along with me," ordered Mrs. Moody, and led the way up the
stairs. "Be sort of quietlike. She's sick..."
Mrs. Moody opened Ruth's door and pointed in. "Is it her?" she asked.
Hilda did not answer. She was across the room in an instant and on her
knees beside the bed.
"Ruth!... Ruth!... how could you?..." she cried.
Ruth turned her head slowly and looked at Hilda. There was no light of
gladness in her eyes; instead they were veiled with trouble. "Hilda..."
she said. "I didn't--want to be found. Go away and--and unfind me."
"You poor baby!... You poor, absurd, silly baby!" said Hilda, passing
her arm under Ruth's shoulders and drawing the wasted little body to
her closely. "I've looked for you, and looked. You've no idea the
trouble you've made for me... And now I'm going to take you home. I'm
going to snatch you up and bundle you off."
"No," said Ruth, weakly. "Nobody must know... HE--mustn't know."
"Fiddlesticks!" "Do you know?... He's done something--but it wasn't for
me... I didn't have ANYTHING to do with it... Do you know what he's
done?"
"I know," said Hilda. "It was splendid. Dad's all worked up over it,
but I think it is splendid just the same." "Splendid," said Ruth,
slowly, thoughtfully--"splendid... Yes, that's it--SPLENDID." She
seemed childishly pleased to discover the word, and repeated it again
and again.
Presently she turned her eyes up to Hilda's face, lifted a white,
blue-veined, almost transparent hand, and touched Hilda's face.
"I"--she seemed to have difficulty to find a word, but she smiled like
a tiny little girl--"I--LIKE you," she said, triumphantly. "I'm--sorry
you came--but I--like you."
"Yes, dear," said Hilda. "You'd BETTER like me."
"But," said Ruth, evidently striving to express a differentiation,
"I--LOVE him."
Hilda said nothing; there was nothing she could say, but her eyes
brimmed at the pitifulness of it. She abhorred tears.
"I'm going now, dear," she said. "I'll fix things for you and be back
in no time to take you home with me.... So be all ready."
"No..." said Ruth.
"Yes," Hilda laughed. "You'll help, won't you, Mrs. Moody?"
"Hain't no way out of it, I calc'late," said the woman.
"I won't be half an hour, Ruth... Good-by."
But Ruth had turned away her face and would not answer.
"Say," said Mrs. Moody, in a fever of curiosity which could not be held
in check after they had passed outside of Ruth's room, "who is she,
anyhow?... SOMEBODY, I'll perdict. Hain't she somebody?"
"She's Mrs. Foote... Mrs. Bonbright Foote."
"I SWAN to man!... And me settin' there readin' to her about him. If it
don't beat all... Him with all them millions, and her without so much
as a nest like them beasts and birds of the air, in Scripture. I never
expected nothin' like this would ever happen to me..." Hilda saw that
Mrs. Moody was glorifying God in her heart that this amazing adventure,
this bit out of a romance, had come into her drab life.
"Is that there your auto?" Mrs. Moody asked, peering out with awe at
the liveried chauffeur.
Hilda nodded. "And who be you, if I might ask?" Mrs. Moody said.
"My name is Hilda Lightener, Mrs. Moody."
"Not that automobile man's daughter--the one they call the automobile
king?"
"They call dad lots of things," said Hilda, with a sympathetic laugh.
She liked Mrs. Moody. "I'll be back directly," she said, and left the
good woman standing in an attitude suggestive of mental prostration,
actually, literally, gasping at this marvel that had blossomed under
her very eyes.
As Hilda's car moved away she turned, picked up her skirts, and ran
toward the kitchen. The news was bursting out of her. She was leaking
it along the way as she sought the mercenary to pour it into her ears.
Hilda was driving, not to her home, but to Bonbright Foote's office.