"Mr. Leigh, I am a young lawyer here, and I have come to ask your
permission to pay my addresses to your daughter."
"Wha-t!" His jaw positively fell, he was so surprised. But I did not
give him time.
"I have no right to ask it--to ask any favor of you, much less a favor
which I feel is the greatest any man can ask at your hands. But I--love
her--and--I--I simply ask that you will give me your consent to win her
if I can." I was very frightened, but my voice had steadied me, and I
was gazing straight in his eyes.
"Does my daughter know of this extraor--of this?" He asked the question
very slowly, and his eyes were holding mine.
"I hardly know what she may divine. I told her once that I thought a
gentleman should not--should not try to marry a gir--a lady until he had
asked her father's permission, and she is so clear-minded that I hardly
know----"
"Does she know of your attachment?"
"Yes, sir. I mean, I told her once--I----"
"I thought you said you thought a gentleman had no right to speak to her
until he had gained her father's consent!" A slight scorn had crept into
his face.
"Yes, sir, I did--something like that, though not quite that--but----"
"How then do you reconcile the two?" He spoke calmly, and I observed a
certain likeness to his daughter.
"I do not--I cannot. I do not try. I only say that in my cooler moments
my principle is stronger than my action. I gave way to my feelings once,
and declared myself, but when I got hold of myself I felt I should come
to you and give you some account of myself."
"I see." I began to hope again, as he reflected.
"Does my daughter reciprocate this--ah--attachment?
"No, sir. I wish to God she did; but I hope that possibly in time--I
might prevail on her by my devotion." I was stammering along awkwardly
enough.
"Ah!"
"I am only asking your permission to declare myself her suitor to try to
win--what I would give the world to win, if I had it. I have no hope
except that which comes from my devotion, and my determination to win.
I have nothing in the world except my practice; but mean to succeed." I
had got more confidence now. I went on to give him an account of myself,
and I tried to tell him the truth, though doubtless I gave myself the
natural benefit of a friendly historian. I told him frankly of my
unfortunate experience in the matter of the contribution to the
_Trumpet_--though I did not conceal my views on the main subject, of the
corporation's relation to the public. I must say that Mr. Leigh appeared
an interested auditor, though he did not help me out much. At the end,
he said:
"Mr. Glave, I have some confidence in my daughter, sufficient--I may
say--to have decided for some time back to allow her to manage her own
affairs, and unless there were some insuperable objection in any given
case, I should not interfere. This is one of the vital affairs in life
in which a man has to fight his own battle. I refer you to my daughter.
If there were an insuperable objection, of course I should interfere." I
wondered if he knew of Canter, and took some hope from his words.
The only thing that gave me encouragement was that he said, just as I
was leaving:
"Mr. Glave, I used to know your father, I believe. We were at college
together." I think I must have shown some feeling in my face, for he
added, "We were very good friends," and held out his hand. I came away
drenched with perspiration; but I felt that I had made a step in the
direction of winning Eleanor Leigh, and almost as if I had gained a
friend. At least, I liked him, as self-contained as he was, for he
looked at times like his daughter.
That evening Miss Leigh observed something unusual in her father's
expression, and finally, after waiting a little while for him to
disclose what he had on his mind, she could stand it no longer.
"Dad, what is it?" she demanded.
Mr. Leigh gazed at her quizzically.
"Well, I have had a rather strenuous day. In the first place, I got a
letter from Henry Glave." Miss Eleanor's eyes opened.
"From Henry Glave! What in the world is he writing to you about?"
"He has offered me assistance," said Mr. Leigh. He took from his pocket
a letter, and tossed it across the table to her, observing her with
amusement as her expression changed. It, possibly, was not the Henry
Glave she had had in mind.
As she read, her face brightened. "Isn't that fine! I thought he
would--" She stopped suddenly.
"You wrote to him?" said Mr. Leigh.
"Yes, but I didn't know he would. I only asked his advice--I thought
maybe, he possibly might--knowing how he liked you. This will help us
out? You will accept his offer, of course?"
Mr. Leigh nodded. "I am considering it. It was certainly very good in
him. Not every man is as grateful these times. My only question is
whether I ought to accept his offer."
"Why not?"
Mr. Leigh did not answer for a moment, he was deep in reflection,
reviewing a past in which two older men who bore my name had borne a
part, and was trying to look forward into the future. Presently he
replied:
"Well, the fact is, I am very hard pressed."
For answer Eleanor sprang up and ran around to him, and throwing her arm
about his neck, kissed him. "You poor, dear old dad. I knew you were in
trouble; but I did not like to urge you till you got ready. Tell me
about it."
Mr. Leigh smiled. It was a patronizing way she had with him which he
liked while he was amused by it.
"Yes. I'm--the fact is, I'm pretty near--" He paused and reflected; then
began again, "What would you say if I were to tell you that I am almost
at the end of my resources?"
The girl's countenance fell for a second, then brightened again almost
immediately.
"I shouldn't mind it a bit, except for you."
Mr. Leigh heaved a sigh which might have been a sigh of relief.
"You don't know what it means, my dear."
"Oh! Yes, I do."
"No-o. It means giving up--everything. Not only all luxuries; but--" He
gazed about him at the sumptuous surroundings in his dining-room, "but
all this--everything. Horses, carriages, servants, pictures--everything.
Do you understand?"
"Everything?" Eleanor's voice and look betrayed that she was a little
startled.
"Yes," said her father with a nod and a sigh. "If I assign, it would all
have to go, and we should have to begin afresh."
"Very well. I am ready. Of course, I don't want to be broke; but I am
ready. Whatever you think is right. And I would rather give up
everything--everything, than have you worried as you have been for ever
so long. I have seen it."
"Nelly, you are a brick," said her father fondly, looking at her in
admiration. "How did you ever happen to be your Aunt Sophy's niece?"
"Her half-niece," corrected the girl, smiling.
"It was the other half," mused Mr. Leigh.
"Tell me about it, father. How did it come? When did it happen?" she
urged, smoothing tenderly the hair on his brow.
"It didn't happen. It came. It has been coming for a long time. It is
the conditions----"
"I know, those dreadful conditions. How I hate to hear the word! We used
to get them when we were at Miss de Pense's school,--we had to work them
off--and now people are always talking about them."
"Well, these conditions," said Mr. Leigh smiling, "seem a little more
difficult to work off. I am rated as belonging to the capitalists and as
opposed to the working class. The fact is I am not a capitalist; for my
properties are good only while in active use, all my available surplus
has gone into their betterment for the public use, and I am a
harder-worked man than any laborer or workman in one of my shops or on
one of my lines."
"That you are!" exclaimed his daughter.
"I belong to the class that produces, and we are ground between the
upper and the nether millstones. Do you see?"
Eleanor expressed her assent.
"The fire, of course, cost us a lot."
"It was set on fire," interrupted his daughter. "I know it."
"Well, I don't know--possibly. It looks so. Anyhow, it caught us at the
top notch, and while the insurance amounts to something, the actual loss
was incalculable. Then came the trouble with the bank. So long as I was
there they knew they could not go beyond the law. So Canter and the
others got together, and I got out, and, of course----"
"I know," said his daughter.
"They asked me to remain, but--I preferred to be free."
"So do I."
"I had an overture to-day from the Canters," said Mr. Leigh, after a
moment of reflection. "I do not quite know what it means, but I think I
do."
"What was it?" Eleanor looked down with her face slightly averted.
"Jim Canter came from his father to propose--to suggest a _modus
vivendi_, as it were. It means that they have started a blaze they
cannot extinguish--that they are having trouble with their people, and
fear that our people are coming around, but it means something further,
too, I think." Mr. Leigh ceased talking, and appeared to be reflecting.
"What?" said the girl, after waiting a moment.
"You know--your aunt--however--" He paused.
She rose and faced him.
"Father, I wouldn't marry him to save his life--and I have told both him
and Aunt Sophia so." Mr. Leigh gave a sigh of relief.
"You, of course, declined the proposal they made?" said Eleanor.
"I did--I think they have broken with the Argand interest. I saw your
aunt to-day, and had a talk with her. I think her eyes are opened at
last. I told her a few plain truths."
He dropped into reflection and a quizzical expression came into his
eyes.
"I had a very remarkable thing happen to me to-day."
"What was it?" demanded his daughter.
"I had an offer of marriage made me."
Eleanor Leigh's face changed--at first it grew a shade whiter, then a
shade redder.
"I know who it was," she said quickly.
"Oh!" Mr. Leigh shut his lips firmly. "I did not know."
"She is a cat! She has been sending me flowers and opera tickets all
winter, and deluging me with invitations. I knew she was up to
something." She spoke with growing feeling, as her father's eyes rested
on her placidly with an amused expression in them. "I wouldn't be such
easy game. Why, dad, she'd bore you to death--and as to me, I wouldn't
live in the house with her--I couldn't." She stood with mantling cheek
and flashing eye, a young Amazon girded for battle.
"I will relieve you," said her father. "It is not the feline-natured
lady you have in mind; but a person quite different." Miss Eleanor
looked relieved.
"Dad--it couldn't be--it was not Aunt Sophia? That would explain a lot
of things. You know I think she's been laying some snares lately. She
even forgave me when I told her the other evening that that was the last
time I would ever accept an invitation from Mr. Canter, even as a favor
to her. Dad, she'd make you miserable. You couldn't."
"No," said Mr. Leigh. "In fact, it was not a lady at all. It was a
person of the opposite sex, and the proposal was for your hand."
"Dad! Who was it? Now, dad." She moved around the table to him, as Mr.
Leigh, with eyes twinkling over his victory, shut his mouth firmly.
"Dad, you'd just as well tell me at once, for you know I am going to
know, so you might as well tell me and save yourself trouble. Who was
it?"
Mr. Leigh took her firmly by the arms and seated her on his knee.
"Well, it was a young man who appeared quite in earnest."
"It wasn't--no, I know it wasn't he--he wouldn't have done that--and it
wasn't--" (she pondered) "no, it wasn't he--and it wasn't--" She
suddenly paused. "Tell me, what did he say? How did you like him? What
did you say to him?"
"So you have settled who it is. Perhaps, you sent him to me?"
"Indeed, I did not, and I don't know who it was. What did you tell him?"
"I told him you were of age----"
"I am not. I am twenty."
"No, I told him you were too young--to think of such a thing----"
"I am twenty," repeated the girl.
"That is what I told him," said Mr. Leigh, "and that I thought you were
able to take care of yourself."
The girl rested her chin on his head and went off in a reverie.
"Dad, we must hold together," she said. Her father drew her face down
and kissed her silently. "The man who takes you away from me will have
to answer with his life," he said.
"There is no one on earth who could," said Eleanor.
XXXVI
THE RIOT AND ITS VICTIM
It is a terrible thing for a man with a wife and children to see them
wasting away with sheer starvation, to hear his babes crying for bread
and his wife weeping because she cannot get it for them. Some men in
such a situation drown their sorrow in drink; others take a bolder
course, and defy the law or the rules of their order.
The Railway Company, still being forced to run their cars, undertook to
comply with the requirement, even though the protection of the police
was withheld. The police were instructed, indeed, to be present and keep
the peace, and a few were detailed, but it was known to both sides that
no real protection would be granted. Coll McSheen's order to the force
bore this plainly on its face--so plainly that the conservative papers
roundly denounced him for his hypocrisy, and for the first time began to
side decisively with the company.
The offer of increased wages to new men was openly scouted by the
strikers generally. But in a few houses the situation was so terrible
that the men yielded. One of these was the empty and fireless home of
McNeil. The little Scotchman had had a bitter experience and had come
through it victorious; but just as he was getting his head above water,
the new strike had come--against his wishes and his vote. He had held on
as long as he could--had held on till every article had gone--till his
wife's poor under raiment and his children's clothes had gone for the
few dollars they brought, and now he was face to face with starvation.
He walked the streets day after day in company with a sad procession of
haggard men hunting for work, but they might as well have hunted on the
arctic floes or in the vacant desert. For every stroke of work there
were a hundred men. The answer was everywhere the same: "We are laying
men off; we are shutting down."
He returned home one night hungry and dejected to find his wife fainting
with hunger and his children famished. "I will get you bread," he said
to the children, and he turned and went out. I always was glad that he
came to me that night, though I did not know till afterward what a
strait he was in. I did not have much to lend him, but I lent him some.
His face was haggard with want; but it had a resolution in it that
impressed me.
"I will pay it back, sir, out of my first wages. I am going to work
to-morrow."
"I am glad of that," I said, for I thought he had gotten a place.
The next morning at light McNeil walked through the pickets who shivered
outside the car-barn, and entered the sheds just as their shouts of
derision and anger reached him. "I have come to work," he said simply.
"My children are hungry."
The first car came out that morning, and on the platform stood McNeil,
glum and white and grim, with a stout officer behind him. It ran down by
the pickets, meeting with jeers and cries of "Scab! scab!" and a
fusillade of stones; but as the hour was early the crowd was a small
one, and the car escaped. It was some two hours later when the car
reappeared on its return. The news that a scab was running the car had
spread rapidly, and the street near the terminus had filled with a crowd
wild with rage and furiously bent on mischief. As the car turned into a
street it ran into a throng that had been increasing for an hour and now
blocked the way. An obstruction placed on the track brought the car to a
stop as a roar burst from the crowd and a rush was made for the scab.
The officer on the car used his stick with vigor enough, but the time
had passed when one officer with only a club could hold back a mob. He
was jerked off the platform, thrown down, and trampled underfoot. The
car was boarded, and McNeil, fighting like a fury, was dragged out and
mauled to death before any other officers arrived. When the police, in
force, in answer to a riot-call, reached the spot a quarter of an hour
later and dispersed the mob, it looked as if the sea had swept over the
scene. The car was overturned and stripped to a mere broken shell; and
on the ground a hundred paces away, with only a shred of bloody clothing
still about it, lay the battered and mutilated trunk of what had been a
man trying to make bread for his children, while a wild cry of hate and
joy at the deed raged about the street.
The men who were arrested easily proved that they were simply onlookers
and had never been within fifty feet of the car.
The riot made a fine story for the newspapers, and the headlines were
glaring. The victim's name was spelled according to the fancy of the
reporter for each paper, and was correctly published only two days
later.
The press, except the _Trumpet_, while divided in its opinion on many
points, combined in its denouncement of the murder of the driver, and
called on the city authorities to awake to the gravity of the situation
and put down violence. It was indeed high time.
Moved by the similarity of the name to my friend McNeil, I walked over
that afternoon to that part of the city where he had lived. It was one
of the poorest streets of the poor section. The street on which I had
lived at the old Drummer's, with its little hearth-rug yards, was as
much better than it as the most fashionable avenue was better than that.
The morass, like a moving bog, had spread over it and was rapidly
engulfing it.
The sidewalks were filled with loafers, men and women who wore the
gloomiest or surliest looks. As I passed slowly along, trying to read
the almost obliterated numbers, I caught fragments of their
conversation. A group of them, men and women, were talking about the man
who had been killed and his family. The universal assertion was that it
served him right, and his family, too. I gleaned from their talk that
the family had been boycotted even after he was dead, and that he had
had to be buried by the city, and, what was more, that the cruel
ostracism still went on against his family.
"Ay-aye, let 'em starve, we'll teach 'em to take the bread out of our
mouths," said one woman, while another told gleefully of her little boy
throwing stones at the girl as she came home from outside somewhere. She
had given him a cake for doing it. The others applauded both of these.
The milk of human kindness appeared to be frozen in their breasts.
"Much good it will do you! Do you get any more money for doing it?" said
an old man with round shoulders and a thin face; but even he did not
seem to protest on account of the cruelty. It was rather a snarl. Two or
three young men growled at him; but he did not appear afraid of them; he
only snarled back.
I asked one of the men which house was the one I was seeking. He told
me, while half a dozen hooted something about the "scab."
When I came to the door pointed out I had no difficulty in recognizing
it. The panels and sides were "daubed" up with mud, which still stuck in
many places, showing the persecution which had been carried on. Inside,
I never saw a more deplorable sight. The poor woman who came to the
door, her face drawn with pain and white with terror, and her eyes red
with weeping, would not apparently have been more astonished to have
found a ghost on the steps. She gave a hasty, frightened glance up the
street in both directions, and moaned her distress.
"Won't you step inside?" she asked, more to get the door closed between
her and the terror of the street than out of any other feeling; and when
I was inside, she asked me over again what I wanted. She could not take
in that I had called out of charity; she appeared to think that it was
some sort of official visit. When she found out, however, that such was
my object, the effect was instantaneous. At first she could not speak at
all; but after a little she was calm enough and poured out all her woes.
She went over anew how her husband had come over from Scotland several
years before and they had been quite comfortably fixed. How he had
gotten work, and had belonged to the union, and they had done well. He
had, however, been obliged by the union to strike, and they had spent
all the money they had, and in addition to that had gotten into debt.
So, when the strike was over, although he obtained work again, he was in
debt, and the harassment of it made him ill. Then how he had come North
to find work, and had had a similar experience. All this I knew. It was
just then that her last baby was born and that her little child died,
and the daughter of the employer of her husband was so kind to her, that
when her husband got well again, there was talk of a strike to help
others who were out, and she made him resign from the union. Here she
broke down. Presently, however, she recovered her composure. They had
come to her then, she said, and told her they would ruin him.
"But I did not think they would kill him, sir," she sobbed. "He tried to
get back, but Wringman kept him out. That man murdered him, sir."
There was not a lump of coal in the house; but her little girl had gone
for some cinders, while she minded the baby. She had to go where she was
not known--a long way, she said--as the children would not let her pick
any where she used to get them.
When I came out I found that it had turned many degrees colder during
the short time I was in the house, and the blast cut like a knife. The
loafers on the street had thinned out under the piercing wind; but those
who yet remained jeered as I passed on. I had not gotten very far when I
came on a child, a little girl, creeping along. She was bending almost
double under the weight of a bag of cinders, and before I reached her my
sympathy was excited by the sight of her poor little bare hands and
wrists, which were almost blue with cold. Her head, gray with the sifted
ashes, was tucked down to keep her face from the cutting wind, and when
I came nearer I heard her crying--not loud; but rather wailing to
herself.
"What is the matter, little girl?" I asked.
"My hands are so cold--Oh! Oh! Oh!" she sobbed.
"Here, let me warm them." I took the bag and set it down, and took her
little ashy hands in mine to try and warm them, and then for the first
time I discovered that it was my little girl, Janet. She was so changed
that I scarcely knew her. Her little pinched face, like her hair, was
covered with ashes. Her hands were ice. When I had gotten some warmth
into them I took off my gloves and put them on her, and I picked up her
bag and carried it back for her. My hands nearly froze, but somehow I
did not mind it. I had such a warm feeling about my heart. I wonder men
don't often take off their gloves for little poor children.
I marched with her through the street near her house, expecting to be
hooted at, and I should not have minded it; for I was keyed up and could
have fought an army. But no one hooted. If they looked rather curiously
at me, they said nothing.
As I opened the door to leave, on the steps stood my young lady. It is
not often that a man opens a door and finds an angel on the step
outside; but I did it that evening. I should not have been more
surprised if I had found a real one. But if one believes that angels
never visit men, these days, he should have seen Eleanor Leigh as she
stood there. She did not appear at all surprised. Her eyes looked right
into mine, and I took courage enough to look into hers for an instant. I
have never forgotten them. They were like deep pools, clear and
bottomless, filled with light. She did not look at all displeased and I
did not envy St. Martin.
All she said was, "How do you do, Mr. Glave?" It was quite as if she
expected to find me there--and she had. She had seen me stop little
Janet and put the gloves on her. She was on her way to the house, and
she had stopped and waited, and then had followed us. I did not know
this until long afterward; but I asked her to let me wait and see her
home, and so I did.
That walk was a memorable one to me. The period of explanations was
past. I dared harbor the hope that I was almost in sight of port. When I
put her on the car, she was so good as to say her father would be glad
to see me some time at their home, and I thought she spoke with just the
least little shyness, which made me hope that she herself would not be
sorry.