Not for a week could enough new help be hired to even make a show of
opening the Shawsheen Mills. Labor Unions were a comparatively new thing
in this country, and were not so thoroughly organized as now; and a few
of the old operatives, rather than starve, were glad to go back into the
mills on any condition. But the great majority refused with indignation
to give up their claims, and proceeded to “make things hot,” as they
expressed it, for the “scabs” and “mudsills.”
Work was attempted in the mills, although many looms stood silent and
the spinning-mules were entirely deserted. Thread for warp was procured
from a neighboring city at no small expense and the mills were run at a
loss, to prove the agent’s assertion that “he would show them who was
manager of the Shawsheen Mills.”
This sort of thing was kept up four days. On the fifth morning, the
operatives went as usual to the mill, but the machinery, after a few
insufficient groans, gave up in despair and settled into utter quiet.
What was the matter?
There was a great hurrying to and fro, and a close examination of belts
and machinery. Word was soon brought up from the basement. The engines
had been tampered with; on each of them the belts had been cut. The
jocularly inclined said the “engines had joined the Union;”—while
everybody wondered what effect this stroke would have on the agent.
The premises were examined and the night-watchman questioned. Evidently
the deed had been done by some one familiar with the place, but there
was not the slightest clue. He had done well his work, and the mills
were stopped for repairs.
Otis Greenough blustered about and cursed the whole business; but he was
farther than ever from a compromise, declaring that he would yet beat
them with their own weapons.
The night-watch was doubled and the mills were opened again the next
day. But the employers were fighting a desperate party and little
calculated their strength. The man who had succeeded so well in his
first attempt to stop the mills risked himself again; and on the second
morning the machinery again refused to start. This time a small wheel
had been removed from each engine and carried away. The water-wheel had
long been in partial disuse and could not be trusted without the
engines. Hence, there was nothing to be done but to stop again for
repairs. This time it was a week before the engines were in running
order. And yet, not a word passed between the agent and the strikers.
The night-watch were discharged and new ones engaged. A special police
was secured to patrol the mill-yard, and when the mills were again
opened, it was with the avowed determination to keep them going in spite
of every earthly power.
The next morning, notwithstanding the positive assertions of police and
night-watch that no one had been near the mills, every band connecting
the looms to the machinery above was cut in half a dozen places. Then
the superstitious operatives whispered among themselves that unseen
agencies were linked with the Union, and that the strikers must succeed
in the end; and many of the fainthearted went over to the new labor
party.
“It is of no use trying to run the mills in this way,” said Mr. Burnham.
“We have already lost several thousand dollars. We must compromise.”
“Never,” said Mr. Greenough. “The terms of Floyd Shepard’s will grant me
absolute power here, and so long as I live, it shall never be said that
an educated, trained and levelheaded business man was overcome by a lot
of ignorant bullies and agitators. These Labor Unions all over the State
need an example. There is money enough in the mill treasury to fight
them until they starve themselves out. No other mill or corporation
about here will hire them, and it is only a matter of weeks or months
when absolute poverty forces them to yield. Not one inch will I give in
to them. They shall come back as beggars, glad to accept work at even
lower wages than they have ever had. I’ll teach them a lesson.”
Geoffrey Burnham turned away full of anger that a flourishing business
should be destroyed by one man’s obstinacy. John Villard went back to
the silent looms, full of righteous indignation, not only at the total
disregard of practical business interests, but at the want of humanity
and philanthropy and Christian charity, which by his subordinate
position he must seem to countenance.
Weeks lengthened themselves into months, and still the Shawsheen Mills
were closed.
Salome Shepard, after spending the holiday season with friends in New
York, came home, satiated with social success, and a little tired of the
endless pursuit of pleasure. Still the mills lay idle and Otis Greenough
refused to talk any more with her on the subject of the strike. And the
terms of her father’s will held her powerless, even had she chosen to
exercise her authority.
But she chafed under the knowledge that two thousand people, who were in
a sense dependent upon her for their daily bread, were out of work in
the midst of a hard winter.
One day she went to walk down among the people who were suffering, now,
for a principle.
She was amazed at the gaunt, hungry look of the old men; and
self-accused at the pinched and wan faces of the few children who played
in the narrow streets. Unthinking, she had put on a seal-skin cloak. It
was a cold day, and furs, to her, were only a natural accompaniment to
the frosts of winter.
But going down the uncared-for side-walk, she rebuked herself, noting
the single shawl and calico dress of an old woman who was wearily making
her way a few paces in front of her. Presently the woman stopped, seized
with a paroxysm of coughing.
Salome came up with her, and looked into the white face, which told of
hard times.
“Madam,” she said, respectfully, “can I be of any assistance to you?
Shall I not help you home?”
Her tone and manner were exactly the same she would have used to any of
her aunt’s friends. It did not occur to her to be patronizing or
condescending.
The old woman stared at her. She was not used to being addressed as
“Madam.”
“Yes’m,” she said, presently. “I live up to the other end of the street.
If the cough wasn’t so bad, an’ my side didn’t ketch me so! But if I can
git back to my own chair ag’in——”
Another fit of coughing seized her, and interrupted the “garrulousness
of uncultured old age.” Salome waited until she got breath again and
then took her by the arm, accommodating her steps to the feebler ones.
Here and there a surprised face peered curiously at her through a dirty
window, knowing who she was, and wondering that she condescended to walk
with old Granny Lancaster. Everywhere a general air of poverty, perhaps
of actual hunger, impressed this woman, who had inherited the
tumble-down tenement houses on each side.
“I beg your pardon,” she said, “but do you eat nourishing food enough?
Good beef-steak and roast-beef would help your cough more than
medicine.”
The old woman laughed, a grating, cackling laugh.
“Beef-steak and roast-beef ain’t for the likes o’ me,” she said. “Meat
of any kind ain’t for us in times o’ strikes. May the Lord above send us
oatmeal enough to keep us through till the mills open ag’in is all I
ask. Here’s my house. Much ’bleeged, lady.”
Salome wanted to go inside the rickety old door and follow the woman up
the dirty stairway, but she did not say so, and the old woman hobbled up
the steps without asking her in.
Salome felt impulsively in her pocket, and drawing out her
porte-monnaie, emptied its contents into the dirty, emaciated palm of
Granny Lancaster. Then she turned and walked rapidly back home.
The next day Otis Greenough called on her.
“My dear,” he said, after an hour or two passed in desultory
conversation, “may I beg that you will keep away from the operatives?
Impulsive and injudicious charity does them more harm than anything
else. No doubt the part of Lady Bountiful seems a pleasant and desirable
one, but, just now, you are not fitted for it.”
“What do you mean, sir?” asked she in a puzzled tone.
“For instance,” he went on, “the money you gave a certain old woman on
the corporation yesterday was taken by her son-in-law last night, and
furnished him an opportunity for a glorious old drunk. I beg your pardon
for using their phraseology. He was arrested before morning for
drunkenness and disorderly conduct.”
“I do not comprehend,” she stammered. “The woman said they had no meat.
She was actually suffering for nourishing food. I gave the money,
impulsively it is true, but that they need not go hungry.”
“Now, you see, my dear,” he answered, “just how much encouragement one
gets in trying to do anything for the laboring classes. They turn upon
you and use the goodness of your heart and your generous motives to drag
themselves down to a lower depth of degradation. Good-day, my dear, and
don’t be led away by your feelings.”
Salome stood looking after him, heart-sick and discouraged. The
world—her part of it, at least—was all wrong, and she, with plenty of
money and an awakening desire to help, was powerless. She ordered the
pony phaeton again and started for a drive. She obeyed a sudden impulse
to go through the factory precincts. There were evidences of a
suppressed excitement. Knots of desperate-looking men stood about. But
they hushed their voices as she drew near, and stood in sullen silence
as she passed.
“There is evidently something in the wind,” she thought, urging the pony
to quicken his pace.
She did not know that the committee from the Labor Union had that
morning made a third attempt to treat with her agent and failed.
“No compromise,” was still his watchword.
“I’ll send for Marion Shaw,” she said to herself, on her way home an
hour later. “She is a practical, sensible, business-like woman. Perhaps
she will know of some way to help me to help others. And she needs
rest.”
This idea so inspired her that she arrived home quite elated, and stated
her plan to Mrs. Soule at dinner-time with much animation.
But later in the evening, the groups of men she had seen on “the
corporation” came back to her mind and caused her a certain feeling of
uneasiness. What had they been talking about so excitedly as she drew
near?
It was one of those suddenly warm nights in January that succeed, in our
fickle climate, a bitter cold day, and Salome felt an unaccountable
desire to be in the open air. She threw on a warm wrap and hood, and
saying nothing, went out on the piazza, and crossed the lawn to a
favorite walk of hers in summer—a path under a long group of fir-trees
down by the street at the back of the house.
After a few turns, she heard a peculiar whistle which was answered by
another.
She withdrew still more into the shadow and waited. Presently two men
met.
“Well, what’s the news?” eagerly asked one.
“Sh—sh! not so loud,” replied the other. “It’s all right, and better
than we expected.”
“Why—how better?” asked the first.
They spoke lower, so that Salome could scarcely catch the tones.
“Because,” the first was saying, “the old man himself has gone down to
the mill.”
“Whe—e—w!”
“Yes. What on earth possessed him? But then that’s none of our affairs.
If he wants to run the risk of losing his life—that’s his business, not
mine.”
“Well, but,” and the first voice had a timid note, “that’s going too
far—we were only to blow up the mill—not to kill anybody.”
“Can’t help that. Fifteen minutes more, if everything works well, and
old man Greenough’s day is over. Jim’s just about lighting the fuse, I
reckon, now. It’s an awful long one, but the fire’ll creep round there
in time.”
“What about the police?”
“He’s all right. We’ve fixed him.”
The voices grew fainter and ceased altogether, only the dull sound of
the men’s footsteps reaching her as they passed down the hill away from
the grounds.
Salome stood an instant, rooted to the spot. What was this horrible
thing she had heard?
The factory to be blown up?
She must go for help.
And Mr. Greenough down there, risking his life?
No. There was no time to get help.
“Fifteen minutes more, if everything works well, and old man Greenough’s
day is over.”
The whole plot flashed across her bewildered brain. She dashed through
the back-gate and down the deserted street towards the mills. It was a
ten minutes’ walk across that way, but she ran,—flew,—tore down the
lonely road in less than half that time.
Otis Greenough might be an unreasonable, hot-headed, obstinate agent,
but he was her father’s friend and had loved and petted her when she was
a motherless child.
What could she do? Raise an alarm? Call for help? Rouse everybody?
But the fuse was already lighted.
Where was it?
Under the office window most likely, since they knew that the old agent
was in there.
She came in sight of that window. There was a dim light there. All else
was dark. The south wind moaned dismally.
She hurried faster and came nearer the office window. Under it was
another window with a broken pane, from which hung something she
instantly divined as the fuse.
Yes. A fiery spark crept closer and closer to the wall.
By the time she reached the window it was out of her reach.
Oh, God! could she do nothing?
She had been sewing on some dainty trifle earlier in the evening, and a
pair of small scissors still hung at her waist.
Closer drew the spark of fire to the broken window pane, whence it would
disappear to work its fearful errand. It seemed to twinkle and mock at
her in fiendish delight. She grasped the jutting window-frame and jumped
upon the broad sill.
Thank God, she had it at last. One snip of her scissors, and the spark
of fire dropped harmlessly to the ground. She turned slightly to step
off the window-ledge. Her foot slipped and she fell, a white, faint heap
upon the ground.