Promptly, at the hour named, Otis Greenough, accompanied by the other
officers of the mill, appeared at the mansion of the Shepard family.
Tall, beautiful, and always impressive in her bearing, Salome was at her
best to-night. The fire of a new-born purpose was in her face, and a new
force, born of spiritual struggles, stamped upon her brow.
There are people who can look calmly upon a sunset, and see nothing but
a glare of red and yellow light. There are others who see in it a
glorious picture with matchless tints and shadows. There are yet others,
fewer, indeed, than the rest, but who hold the secret of God’s holy
purpose written more or less plainly in their souls; who see not only
the glare of red and yellow light, whose brilliant tints and deep tones
make an unrivaled picture, but who read something of the deeper meanings
of the Great Artist; who receive into their own hearts some part of the
glowing light which strengthens purpose, and crystallizes hopes and
ideals hitherto dreamy and undefined.
Salome Shepard had stood at a western window at sunset. In the hush and
stillness of the hour, the poet-quality of her soul had interpreted to
her the meaning of life and the great fact of human brotherhood. And
when she finally drew the curtains on the deepening night, she felt that
a sudden revelation had come to her—that, at last, her life purpose, in
the shape of a sternly defined duty, stood revealed.
“Well,” said Mr. Greenough, after a few moments of aimless conversation,
for nobody seemed desirous of taking the initiative, “what are you going
to do with us all to-night, little girl? Don’t you think you rather
usurp the privileges of an old man in calling together a meeting to
discuss business, of which he is the legal head? Come, give an account
of yourself and your quixotic actions.”
“Oh, I beg that none of you will think that.” And Salome looked around
the room appealingly. “I simply wished that we might have a fair and
honest talk. I want every one here to express his views. And I want to
express mine—for at last, thank heaven, I have some.”
“Getting strong-minded, eh?” retorted Mr. Greenough. “Well, go on. I
suppose you want to practice on us before taking a larger field. Going
to take the suffrage platform? or build school-houses for the niggers?
Or do you aspire to the bureau of Indian Affairs? Which is it?”
“None of them,” responded Salome, inwardly resenting the untimely jest,
but determined not to show her impatience. “None of them. I propose to
begin nearer home. I propose to go to work, earnestly, and I hope
practically, to raise the condition, morally, mentally and physically,
of my own factory-people.”
“Bravo!” exclaimed Villard and the head book-keeper.
“And I have called you here,” pursued Salome, “to ask each and every one
of you to be my assistant and coadjutor. I have not been thinking of
nothing, during the last three months. I am a woman, comparatively
young, and with absolutely no knowledge of the practical side of a
working-man’s life. But I have been thinking, and my conclusions are
these: that a strike is a much more serious matter for the
working-people than it is for us. We act as if they go out on a strike
either to annoy us or to have a good time. I have been down among
them—sought the by-ways and hedges, as it were—and I tell you they are
having anything but a good time. This strike is the outcome of want and
privation, and it has brought the people to still greater want and
privation. I believe they are not a set of noisy malcontents on the
lookout for an opportunity to create a disturbance. On the contrary,
they see in this course the only chance of bringing before the public
questions of vital importance to them. They earn their bread by the
sweat of their brow—and not always good bread either,—while we, as
capitalists, are hoarding up money. At the most, they get very little of
what their work really yields. I desire, above all things, sir, that you
grant their desires and no longer require them to give up their Labor
Union. Capitalists have their Board of Trade, which virtually amounts to
the same thing. Let the workmen have their one chance to assert
themselves by a combination of their forces. And let each side show to
the other that tolerance and Christian charity which each demands from
the other.”
“What about the tolerance and Christian charity of the outrage they
tried to perpetrate last night?” asked Mr. Greenough.
“I do not believe the Labor Union is responsible for that,” replied
Salome, with a far-seeing sympathy in her eyes. “Unfortunately it was an
outgrowth of their opinions, passions and prejudices. But you must
confess, sir, that had you met them with the tolerance which the growing
spirit of the age demands, there is little likelihood that matters would
ever have reached the point where such an action could have been
planned. I want this strike ended on any terms. I want to see the
operatives, every one of them, at work again at fair wages. And then,
God helping me, I propose to do something for their elevation—something
to help them live better, cleaner, manly and womanly lives—something
which shall carry out my grandfather’s noble plans, and help make the
factory system of New England one of her grandest achievements.”
“Miss Shepard is right,” said Mr. Burnham: “our factory, like many
another, has been run too long on the system of _laissez-faire_. I have
come to believe in a political economy which insists upon the liveliest
activity on the part of capitalists, to put their employes upon the best
possible footing as to the material surroundings of life; that they have
all the advantage as to health, morals and happiness which comes from
sanitary regulation and practical education. I believe that only when we
adopt such a political economy as this shall we draw the largest
possible dividends from the products of a community comparatively free
from crime, intemperance, poverty and vice of every kind.”
“Yes,” urged Villard, “each one of us, laborer or capitalist, has duties
to perform which cannot be shirked or shifted to the shoulders of
Fate—another name for the theory of _laissez-faire_. The new political
economy will demand that every one who, in his or her public or private
capacity, can do anything to relieve misery, to combat evil, to redress
wrong, to assert the right, shall do so with heart and soul.”
“You see,” said Salome, delighted that two strong, thinking men thus
endorsed and voiced her sentiments, “we have been acting on the Quaker’s
advice to his son: ‘Make money—honestly if you can; but make money.’ We
have forgotten that Christianity says: ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as
thyself,’ ‘Do unto others as ye would that men should do unto you,’
‘Bear one another’s burdens,’ and ‘Love one another.’ But we have
practically said: ‘Love thyself; seek thine own advantage; promote thine
own welfare; put money in thy purse; the welfare of others is not thy
business.’”
“I must confess,” answered Otis Greenough, speaking slowly and huskily,
“that I cannot, after a life-long devotion to old-fashioned ideas, take
any stock in these new-fangled, impracticable ones. I cannot, at my time
of life, change my ideas; and neither can I endorse your proposition to
make a public spectacle of ourselves in the future. Mills are run to
make money. So long as I hold the position imposed upon me by the late
Floyd Shepard, so long shall I refuse to countenance extravagance and
quixotism. But I am an old man. No one cares any longer what I think. It
is the young people with no experience whose opinions count nowadays. I
am an old man who has had his day——”
“Don’t, I beg of you, sir, talk like that,” interrupted Salome. “We do
value your opinion; we do intend to refer to your judgment; we——”
“What is that?” cried Mrs. Soule in alarm, from her seat near the
window.
“It is some one throwing gravel against the panes,” said the cashier as
a second shower came rattling against the window. He parted the curtains
and looked out.
“The grounds are full of men. We are mobbed, by George!”
The old agent’s blood was up in a moment, and regardless of the presence
of ladies he swore in good, set terms, that the rascals should be
arrested and imprisoned for this.
Then, unconscious of danger, in spite of the attempts of Villard and the
rest to hold him back, he marched, like an old hero, boldly out on to
the veranda which faced a crowd of excited workmen.
They had held a stormy meeting at the Labor Union, and the worst element
among them had become desperate, and swore to “bring the old man to
terms.” They had gone in a body to the mills, where they hoped to find
some of their employers in consultation. There they had found that the
whole force of their opponents had gone to the great Shepard Mansion.
Nothing daunted, they turned their steps thither, and at every street
corner were joined by the element of hoodlumism which is always
scattered about over the streets of a large and poorly-governed town.
Hence the mob that confronted the officers of the Shawsheen Mills held
all the elements of danger and disturbance.
When Otis Greenough’s bald head appeared before them, the crowd set up a
yell of mingled derision and defiance.
“Give us our rights, old Baldy” shouted one voice.
“Give us fair play and fair wages,” called another, while worse epithets
were hurled at him, from the roughs in the rear.
Otis Greenough’s face was purple.
“This is outrageous!” he exclaimed in hot haste. “What right have you to
come here and defile an honest citizen’s premises with your wretched,
polluting presence?”
“Stop that, now!” shouted one of the leaders. “Fair play all round. If
you won’t come to us, we’ll come to you, and compel you to make terms,
and decent ones, with us. We want——”
But the crowd of street idlers who had come in search of excitement, and
not argument, grew restless, and broke in noisily; and when Otis
Greenough opened his mouth to speak again, he was struck squarely in the
face by a handful of gravel and mud.
Then a sudden hush fell over the mob.
For what was this unexpected white form which appeared in the doorway,
and advanced to meet them?
Salome was dressed in a clinging, white, soft serge, with falls of fine
lace at the neck and wrists, and under the dim light of the piazza-lamp,
she seemed like an angel of retribution, her eyes flaming reproach, and
her hands raised in deprecation.
“Aren’t you ashamed of yourselves?” she burst forth, in ringing tones.
“You, who call yourselves honest men, and loyal citizens! You who come
here with a claim for fair play, you who come here to assert the right
of every American to be treated with respect by every other; to insult
and maltreat an old man with white hair—a man whom, as a long associate
in your work, you should honor? Do you come to my house to call forth a
man who was even now listening to plans for the improvement of your
homes and lives and prospects, simply that you may turn yourselves into
a pack of dogs to bark at him? Go home. Lay aside your prejudices and
your low, unworthy passions, and think whether we be entirely in the
wrong. Think whether you are showing yourselves worthy of being trusted?
Go home and weigh calmly your conduct against that of these officers,
and decide for yourselves whether you deserve to be met half-way. And I
give you my word of honor as owner of the Shawsheen Mills, that when you
decide to behave like men and not like beasts, you shall be treated as
men. You shall have good places with good pay. You shall find that we
are willing to do as much as—yes, more, than you are willing to do for
us, and that we will meet you half-way in the open, fair discussion of
all points connected with the labor question.”
“Three cheers for the lady!” shouted a hoodlum, who cared not which side
he was on, provided he could make a noise.
But the cheers were stayed, and further demonstration was choked in
utterance. For Otis Greenough fell suddenly at the feet of the woman who
stood there boldly championing him and her sense of right.
The superintendent carried him quickly within and put him on a sofa; a
physician was hastily summoned, and in a few words Villard dismissed the
mob, now hushed and awe-stricken.
But Otis Greenough in one moment had passed beyond the disturbances of
howling malcontents, beyond the petty smallness of his old-fashioned and
cramped ideas, out into that world where there is no fear of anarchy and
socialism, no disgrace in being a philanthropist, no bounds to the heart
of love for all mankind, and no limits to the horizon of a larger,
diviner life.