It was finished at last. The plasterers and painters and plumbers had
done their last stroke of work and departed, leaving the keys with
Salome, as she had requested. On the same afternoon, she sent for Robert
Fales, and together they showed Burnham and Villard, with Marion Shaw
and Mrs. Soule—who was as anxious as any of them to see the place,
although she would not own it—over the new building.
A broad flight of stone steps led up to the main entrance. The wooden
framework, which had concealed the façade, had been taken down, and
there, over the massive doorway, was the name of Salome’s “Institution,”
carved in red sandstone—“NEWBERN SHEPARD HALL.”
“Why not simply Shepard Hall?” said Burnham, as they stood looking up at
it.
“Or Salome Shepard Hall?” put in Mrs. Soule’s voice, for she felt that
it would be like the rest of her niece’s folly to have her name carved
in stone up there.
“Auntie!” exclaimed Salome reprovingly; then, turning to Geoffrey
Burnham—“Shepard Hall might have meant me, or it might have meant my
father, or the whole race of us in general. This building is a memorial
to Newbern Shepard, not to his family. How do you like the design of the
façade?”
The building was of red brick, with massive trimmings of red sandstone,
and was substantial and useful in general appearance, rather than
ornate.
“Ten times as expensive as you needed,” was her aunt’s comment.
“Yes,” answered Burnham, to whom the remark was directed. “A cheap,
wooden building would have answered the purpose, I should say.”
“Perhaps,” laughed Salome; “but I am not putting up wooden monuments to
my grandfather’s memory. Besides, you don’t know my purpose, yet.”
“Something quixotic and unnecessary, I’m afraid, my dear,” answered Mrs.
Soule.
Salome did not answer but led the way up the stairway, and unlocked the
heavy doors These opened into a vestibule leading into a large room
fitted up with bookcases and tables.
“This is the library,” said she. “Now, see the two reading-rooms, one on
each side. One is for the girls, and one for the young men.”
They passed out into the one designed for the girls,—a pleasant airy
room with plenty of light and space. The walls were tinted and the
woodwork was in the natural finish. Nothing in the way of furnishing
had, of course, been done. Beyond the reading-room was another large
class-room, and opening from it were several smaller ones. These all
occupied one wing of the new building.
“What do you propose to have done with all these rooms?” asked some one.
Salome looked over to John Villard and smiled.
“I’ve read and studied ‘All Sorts and Conditions of Men’ to some
purpose,” she said; “I propose, as time goes on, to have various
practical and useful things taught the girls here. Dressmaking for
instance, and millinery and domestic science. The conveniences for that,
though, are in the basement.”
She led the way by a flight of stairs that led from a side-entrance, at
the end of the wing, to the basement. There was a spacious hall with
rows of hooks to hang garments on. From this, opened a large and
pleasant dining-room. Under the main portion of the building was a great
kitchen with ranges and all the modern appliances of a hotel kitchen,
though on a smaller scale.
“Isn’t this rather elaborate for a factory boarding-house?” asked
Burnham; “for, I take it, that is one of your objects, at least, if not
the primary one.”
“I approve of this,” said Mrs. Soule judicially. “It’s poor policy to
fit out a kitchen with cheap stuff. Give servants the best of everything
to do with, and teach them how to take care of them.”
“Miss Shepard has gone over the subject very carefully,” said Mr. Fales,
“and, I must say, has shown most excellent judgment in everything. As
you say, madam, it’s only money wasted to put cheap stuff into a
building like this.”
“Now, look through the pantries and larder and laundry,” Salome
interrupted; “I think, for a woman who knows absolutely nothing of the
details of housekeeping, I’ve excelled myself.” She spoke boastfully and
shook her head at Marion, at the close of her speech.
“How much of it did Miss Shaw plan?” slyly asked Geoffrey Burnham.
“Every bit of it, below the main floor,” responded Salome. “Since you
seem incapable of believing that I did it, I may as well own that Marion
and Mr. Fales planned the whole of the basement, and that I, in my
ignorance, could only look on and admire. But they did so well that now
I am inclined to take all the glory to myself.”
They passed through the basement, coming up at the other end of the
building, and found themselves in the young men’s wing. Here, besides
the reading-rooms and class-room, was another fitted with two or three
workbenches.
“I propose to give them a chance to take an industrial education,” said
Salome, “if they should want it.”
“I declare!” ejaculated Mrs. Soule. “To give skilled mechanics a chance
to take lessons at the work-bench! You are out of your mind, child.”
“I didn’t plan it for skilled mechanics, auntie,” said Salome gently,
“although they may come if they want to. But you know, or ought to, that
the majority of our men can only perform one kind of work. They may be
nearly perfect in their special branch, but are almost helpless when it
comes to handling the hammer and saw and chisel. If they learn the
proper use of these things, it will not only increase their knowledge in
that direction, it will broaden them in other ways.”
“I don’t see how,” persisted her aunt.
“Besides,” put in John Villard, “if it does no other good, if the
experiment keeps a few of our fellows off the street at night and
develops a new taste, it will be worth while.”
“Well, perhaps you are right,” said Mrs. Soule, “but no such philosophy
or philanthropy was taught in my day.”
“‘The world do move,’ auntie,” laughed Salome. “Now, shall we go
upstairs?”
A broad flight of steps from the hallway at the end of the wing led up
to the second floor, which was just like the one on the girls’ wing.
Upstairs, the broad corridor ran through the middle of the wing, with
bedrooms opening from either side. In the main body of the building,
under the dome, was a large hall, fitted up with movable seats, and
having a raised platform at the front.
“This is the pride of my heart,” Salome announced, as she ushered her
friends into it. “If any one dares to criticise it, woe be unto him! Mr.
Burnham, what fault can you find with this?”
They all laughed at her inconsistency.
“I should not dare make it known, if I had any,” he said. “But may I ask
what it is for?”
“Why, to hold meetings in, and lectures and things,” she answered,
quickly; “what did you suppose?”
“Oh! And for the Labor Unions to congregate in and plan how they may
overthrow and destroy you, I suppose,” scoffed Burnham. “And it is a
capital place to breed the next strike.”
“There will be no ‘next strike,’” was the confident answer. “And as for
the rest, wait and see. I had the seats all movable because once in a
while there will be a party, and they will want the floor for dancing.”
“Salome! Not dancing?” cried her aunt.
“Why not? The floor is an excellent one for dancing. I saw to that
myself,” said she, purposely misunderstanding her relative.
“You are not going to let them have their low dances here?” Mrs. Soule’s
tone showed how much the idea horrified her.
“Low dances? Certainly not,” said her niece. “But we are going to show
them how to have something better. We are going to lift them above
wanting a low entertainment of any kind, and teach them how such things
are carried on by better people,—by us, for example.”
“Salome, you don’t mean me to understand that you are going to come and
dance here, yourself?”
“Perhaps, though I had not thought of it. But why not?” continued the
perverse niece. “Mr. Villard, will you lead the first figure with me, on
our opening night?”
“With the greatest pleasure in the world,” said he, with a thrill at his
heart which he did not recognize.
Mrs. Soule sat down on a convenient window-seat.
“What would your father say?” she murmured.
“I never knew my father well enough to judge.” Salome answered, with a
slight tinge of bitterness in her tone. “But I know what my grandfather
would say. I am going to put a piano in here,—or would you have an
organ?—and I intend that this hall shall be the rallying place of the
young people. I’m also going to give a course of entertainments here
during the winter, twice a week; I’m not going to begin with lectures
and heavy ‘intellectual treats;’ but I will gradually lead up to them
with concerts and even a minstrel show or two.”
“Salome,” gasped her aunt feebly from the window-sill.
“You see, if we begin by shooting over their heads, they won’t come at
all,” said Salome. “But if we begin with something light and amusing,
and not too far above their level, and gradually raise the tone of the
entertainments, they’ll find themselves attending lectures and other
sugar-coated forms of intellectual betterment, and like them; and never
mistrust that I am working out a mission on their unsuspecting heads.”
“I’m glad you realize something of their present intellectual
condition,” said John Villard, who had been unusually silent and grave
while looking over the new building; “and realize that it’s only
gradually that we can bring them, as a class, up to a higher grade as
intelligent young people.”
“Oh, I do,” said Salome, “I’ve seen too much of them, myself, this
summer. At first, I was appalled by the absolute lack of common
knowledge among the average girls. But there are a few, I know, who have
already improved the slight advantages they’ve had; and these few I
shall rely on to help me by their influence in raising the rest; the
‘little leaven,’ you know. It seems to me, that only by raising the
intellectual condition, and the educational aspiration, can we hope to
accomplish anything of permanent value to the mills.”
“That is the only way,” was Villard’s response. “And, Miss Shepard,” he
said, hurriedly, for the others had already scattered through the girls’
wing, leaving them alone, “I want to say that, as I believe you have
found the only true solution to the main questions of the labor problem,
I pledge myself to heartily sustain you in every way. You have only to
command me, and I am ready.”
Why did Salome turn away to hide the vivid blush that suddenly swept
over her face?
“I am sure of that,” she said, presently, with an effort, “I have
counted on you from the first. I shall try, by my own personal efforts,
to help the factory girls. But I shall depend on you, and you alone, to
manage the young men.”
“I shall not fail you,” was all he said, as Salome locked the door of
the hall behind them, and they went over the girl’s wing to find the
others.
The bedrooms on this wing were like those on the other side. There were
ample closets and plenty of light and air and window space. The rooms
were not spacious, but they were complete in every respect, and a vast
improvement on anything the Shawsheen mill-girls had ever seen.
“I did not want large rooms,” said Salome; “I think it is better to put
not more than two girls in a room. I shall put two single beds in each,
and fit up the rooms with everything necessary for comfort; then I shall
insist that the girls keep their own rooms in the best of order. Oh,
you’ll see what a disciplinarian I shall be!”
The third floor was entirely given up to bedrooms, the two wings being
entirely separated from each other by the upper portion of the hall
which extended to the top of the dome. Every part of the building was
beautifully finished, well-lighted, and planned for general, practical
convenience.
“There, if I never do anything else,” said Salome, after they had come
out of the place, and stood looking back at it, “I shall feel that I
have raised a suitable monument to old Newbern Shepard. I believe, if he
could have lived until now, that he would have done the same thing
himself—only better.”
“He couldn’t, Miss Shepard,” said Villard. “It is absolutely perfect.”
“Yes,” admitted Burnham, “it is. But do you realize, Miss Shepard, what
an elephant you’ve got on your hands? It’s going to be a fearful tax on
your mind and strength to keep it up, and to carry out half you’ve
planned.”
“Well, what were health and strength given me for?” Salome asked, with
the abruptness which sometimes characterized her.
“Most young women find a solution to that question without running an
eleemosynary institution,” was Burnham’s mental comment; but he said
nothing.
“I expect to see my happiest days while I have the care of this
establishment. I’m sure I never was so happy as I’ve been for the past
six months. Now, I must finish this great house. I shall need all the
suggestions and practical aid you can each give me, especially about the
libraries and reading-rooms. As to the selection of books, I’m going to
begin with a comparative few. Will you two gentlemen come up to the
house to-morrow night, prepared to help make out a suitable list?”
“You forget that I have to go to New York to-morrow,” said Burnham. “But
Villard can go; and I can help afterwards, you know.”
“As soon as we get everything in readiness,” pursued Salome, “we will
have a formal opening. We’ll have music and something good to eat, and a
little talking, and perhaps a dance to close with.” Salome looked
wickedly at her aunt, but the latter paid no heed. “Remember your
promise, Mr. Villard.”
“I shall not be the one to forget it,” he answered.
They separated very soon, Salome and her aunt and Marion taking the
architect home with them, and Burnham and Villard going back to the
mills.
But all through the afternoon, and all through the watches of the night,
one sentence repeated itself to John Villard’s heart, comforting and
helping him, strangely: “I have counted on you from the first.”