commonest needs of man. The time seems to be near when a boiled egg and
a piece of buttered bread will be luxuries and a family of children an
unspeakable extravagance. Let us face the facts. It is up to Vanity to
moderate its demands upon the industry of man. What we need is more
devotion to simple living and the general welfare. In plain
old-fashioned English we need the religion and the simplicity of our
fathers."
Later, in June, a strike began in the big plant of J. Patterson Bing.
The men demanded higher pay and shorter days. They were working under a
contract but that did not seem to matter. In a fight with "scabs" and
Pinkerton men they destroyed a part of the plant. Even the life of Mr.
Bing was threatened! The summer was near its end when J. Patterson Bing
and a committee of the labor union met in the office of Judge Crooker to
submit their differences to that impartial magistrate for adjustment.
The Judge listened patiently and rendered his decision. It was accepted.
When the papers were signed, Mr. Bing rose and said, "Your Honor,
there's one thing I want to say. I have spent most of my life in this
town. I have built up a big business here and doubled the population. I
have built comfortable homes for my laborers and taken an interest in
the education of their children, and built a library where any one could
find the best books to read. I have built playgrounds for the children
of the working people. If I have heard of any case of need, I have done
my best to relieve it. I have always been ready to hear complaints and
treat them fairly. My men have been generously paid and yet they have
not hesitated to destroy my property and to use guns and knives and
clubs and stones to prevent the plant from filling its contracts and to
force their will upon me. How do you explain it? What have I done or
failed to do that has caused this bitterness?"
"Mr. Bing, I am glad that you ask me that question," the old Judge
began. "It gives me a chance to present to you, and to these men who
work for you, a conviction which has grown out of impartial observation
of your relations with each other.
"First, I want to say to you, Mr. Bing, that I regard you as a good
citizen. Your genius and generosity have put this community under great
obligation. Now, in heading toward the hidden cause of your complaint,
I beg to ask you a question at the outset. Do you know that unfortunate
son of the Widow Moran known as the Shepherd of the Birds?"
"I have heard much about him," Mr. Bing answered.
"Do you know him?"
"No. I have had letters from him acknowledging favors now and then, but
I do not know him."
"We have hit at once the source of your trouble," the Judge went on.
"The Shepherd is a representative person. He stands for the poor and the
unfortunate in this village. You have never gone to see him
because--well, probably it was because you feared that the look of him
would distress you. The thing which would have helped and inspired and
gladdened his heart more than anything else would have been the feel of
your hand and a kind and cheering word and sympathetic counsel. Under
those circumstances, I think I may say that it was your duty as a
neighbor and a human being to go to see him. Instead of that you sent
money to him. Now, he never needed money. In the kindest spirit, I ask
you if that money you sent to him in the best of good-will was not, in
fact, a species of bribery? Were you not, indeed, seeking to buy
immunity from a duty incumbent upon you as a neighbor and a human
being?"
Mr. Bing answered quickly, "There are plenty of people who have nothing
else to do but carry cheer and comfort to the unfortunate. I have other
things to do."
"That, sir, does not relieve you of the liabilities of a neighbor and a
human being, in my view. If your business has turned you into a shaft or
a cog-wheel, it has done you a great injustice. I fear that it has been
your master--that it has practised upon you a kind of despotism. You
would better get along with less--far less business than suffer such a
fate. I don't want to hurt you. We are looking for the cause of a
certain result and I can help you only by being frank. With all your
generosity you have never given your heart to this village. Some unkind
people have gone so far as to say that you have no heart. You can not
prove it with money that you do not miss. Money is good but it must be
warmed with sympathy and some degree of sacrifice. Has it never occurred
to you that the warm hand and the cheering word in season are more,
vastly more, than money in the important matter of making good-will?
Unconsciously, you have established a line and placed yourself on one
side of it and the people on the other. Broadly speaking, you are
capital and the rest are labor. Whereas, in fact, you are all working
men. Some of the rest have come to regard you as their natural enemy.
They ought to regard you as their natural friend. Two kinds of
despotism have prevented it. First, there is the despotism of your
business in making you a slave--so much of a slave that you haven't time
to be human; second, there is the despotism of the labor union in
discouraging individual excellence, in demanding equal pay for the
faithful man and the slacker, and in denying the right of free men to
labor when and where they will. All this is tyranny as gross and
un-American as that of George the Third in trying to force his will upon
the colonies. If America is to survive, we must set our faces against
every form of tyranny. The remedy for all our trouble and bitterness is
real democracy which is nothing more or less than the love of men--the
love of justice and fair play for each and all.
"You men should know that every strike increases the burdens of the
people. Every day your idleness lifts the price of their necessities.
Idleness is just another form of destruction. Why could you not have
listened to the counsel of Reason in June instead of in September, and
thus have saved these long months of loss and hardship and bitter
violence? It was because the spirit of Tyranny had entered your heart
and put your judgment in chains. It had blinded you to honor also, for
your men were working under contract. If the union is to command the
support of honest men, it must be honest. It was Tyranny that turned the
treaty with Belgium into a scrap of paper. That kind of a thing will not
do here. Let me assure you that Tyranny has no right to be in this land
of ours. You remind me of the Prodigal Son who had to know the taste of
husks and the companionship of swine before he came to himself. Do you
not know that Tyranny is swine and the fodder of swine? It is simply
human hoggishness.
"I have one thing more to say and I am finished. Mr. Bing, some time
ago you threw up your religion without realizing the effect that such an
act would be likely to produce on this community. You are, no doubt,
aware that many followed your example. I've got no preaching to do. I'm
just going to quote you a few words from an authority no less
respectable than George Washington himself. Our history has made one
fact very clear, namely, that he was a wise and far-seeing man."
Judge Crooker took from a shelf, John Marshall's "Life of Washington,"
and read:
"'_It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary
spring of popular government and let us, with caution, indulge the
supposition that morality can be maintained without religion._
"'_Let it simply be asked where is the security for property, for
reputation, for life, if a sense of religious obligation desert the
oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice?_"
"Let me add, on my own account, that the treatment you receive from your
men will vary according to their respect for morality and religion.
"They could manage very well with an irreligious master, for you are
only one. But an irreligious mob is a different and highly serious
matter, believe me. Away back in the seventeenth century, John Dryden
wrote a wise sentence. It was this:
"'_I have heard, indeed, of some very virtuous persons who have ended
unfortunately but never of a virtuous nation; Providence is engaged too
deeply when the cause becomes general._
"'If virtue is the price of a nation's life, let us try to keep our own
nation virtuous.'"
Mr. Bing and his men left the Judge's office in a thoughtful mood. The
next day, Judge Crooker met the mill owner on the street.
"Judge, I accept your verdict," said the latter. "I fear that I have
been rather careless. It didn't occur to me that my example would be
taken so seriously. I have been a prodigal and have resolved to return
to my father's house."
"Ho, servants!" said the Judge, with a smile. "Bring forth the best robe
and put it on him and put a ring on his finger and shoes on his feet and
bring hither the fatted calf and kill it and let us eat and be merry."
"We shall have to postpone the celebration," said Mr. Bing. "I have to
go to New York to-night, and I sail for England to-morrow. But I shall
return before Christmas."
A little farther on Mr. Bing met Hiram Blenkinsop. The latter had a
plank on his shoulder.
"I'd like to have a word with you," said the mill owner as he took hold
of the plank and helped Hiram to ease it down. "I hear many good things
about you, Mr. Blenkinsop. I fear that we have all misjudged you. If I
have ever said or done anything to hurt your feelings, I am sorry for
it."
Hiram Blenkinsop looked with astonishment into the eyes of the
millionaire.
"I--I guess I ain't got you placed right--not eggzac'ly," said he. "Some
folks ain't as good as they look an' some ain't as bad as they look. I
wouldn't wonder if we was mostly purty much alike, come to shake us
down."
"Let's be friends, anyhow," said Mr. Bing. "If there's anything I can do
for you, let me know."
That evening, as he sat by the stove in his little room over the garage
of Mr. Singleton with his dog Christmas lying beside him, Mr. Blenkinsop
fell asleep and awoke suddenly with a wild yell of alarm.
"What's the matter?" a voice inquired.
Mr. Blenkinsop turned and saw his Old Self standing in the doorway.
"Nothin' but a dream," said Blenkinsop as he wiped his eyes. "Dreamed I
had a dog with a terrible thirst on him. Used to lead him around with a
rope an' when we come to a brook he'd drink it dry. Suddenly I felt an
awful jerk on the rope that sent me up in the air an' I looked an' see
that the dog had turned into an elephant an' that he was goin' like Sam
Hill, an' that I was hitched to him and couldn't let go. Once in a while
he'd stop an' drink a river dry an' then he'd lay down an' rest.
Everybody was scared o' the elephant an' so was I. An' I'd try to cut
the rope with my jack knife but it wouldn't cut--it was so dull. Then
all of a sudden he'd start on the run an' twitch me over the hills an'
mountings, an' me takin' steps a mile long an' scared to death."
"The fact is you're hitched to an elephant," his Old Self remarked. "The
first thing to do is to sharpen your jack knife."
"It's Night an' Silence that sets him goin'," said Blenkinsop. "When
they come he's apt to start for the nighest river. The old elephant is
beginnin' to move."
Blenkinsop put on his hat and hurried out of the door.
CHAPTER NINE
WHICH TELLS OF A MERRY CHRISTMAS DAY IN THE LITTLE COTTAGE OF THE WIDOW
MORAN
Night and Silence are a stern test of wisdom. For years, the fun loving,
chattersome Blenkinsop had been their enemy and was not yet at peace
with them. But Night and Silence had other enemies in the
village--ancient and inconsolable enemies, it must be said. They were
the cocks of Bingville. Every morning they fell to and drove Night and
Silence out of the place and who shall say that they did not save it
from being hopelessly overwhelmed. Day was their victory and they knew
how to achieve it. Noise was the thing most needed. So they roused the
people and called up the lights and set the griddles rattling. The
great, white cock that roosted near the window in the Widow Moran's
hen-house watched for the first sign of weakness in the enemy. When it
came, he sent forth a bolt of sound that tumbled Silence from his throne
and shook the foundations of the great dome of Night. It rang over the
housetops and through every street and alley in the village. That
started the battle. Silence tried in vain to recover his seat. In a
moment, every cock in Bingville was hurling bombs at him. Immediately,
Darkness began to grow pale with fright. Seeing the fate of his ally, he
broke camp and fled westward. Soon the field was clear and every proud
cock surveyed the victory with a solemn sense of large accomplishment.
The loud victorious trumpets sounding in the garden near the window of
the Shepherd awoke him that Christmas morning. The dawn light was on the
windows.
"Merry Christmas!" said the little round nickel clock in a cheerful
tone. "It's time to get up!"
"Is it morning?" the Shepherd asked drowsily, as he rubbed his eyes.
"Sure it's morning!" the little clock answered. "That lazy old sun is
late again. He ought to be up and at work. He's like a dishonest hired
man."
"He's apt to be slow on Christmas morning," said the Shepherd.
"Then people blame me and say I'm too fast," the little clock went on.
"They don't know what an old shirk the sun can be. I've been watching
him for years and have never gone to sleep at my post."
After a moment of silence the little clock went on: "Hello! The old
night is getting a move on it. The cocks are scaring it away. Santa
Claus has been here. He brought ever so many things. The midnight train
stopped."
"I wonder who came," said the Shepherd.
"I guess it was the Bings," the clock answered.
Just then it struck seven.
"There, I guess that's about the end of it," said the little clock.
"Of what?" the Shepherd asked.
"Of the nineteen hundred and eighteen years. You know seven is the
favored number in sacred history. I'm sure the baby would have been born
at seven. My goodness! There's a lot of ticking in all that time. I've
been going only twelve years and I'm nearly worn out. Some young clock
will have to take my job before long."
These reflections of the little clock were suddenly interrupted. The
Shepherd's mother entered with a merry greeting and turned on the
lights. There were many bundles lying about. She came and kissed her son
and began to build a fire in the little stove.
"This'll be the merriest Christmas in yer life, laddie boy," she said,
as she lit the kindlings. "A great doctor has come up with the Bings to
see ye. He says he'll have ye out-o'-doors in a little while."
"Ho, ho! That looks like the war was nearly over," said Mr. Bloggs.
Mrs. Moran did not hear the remark of the little tin soldier so she
rattled on:
"I went over to the station to meet 'em last night. Mr. Blenkinsop has
brought us a fine turkey. We'll have a gran' dinner--sure we will--an' I
axed Mr. Blenkinsop to come an' eat with us."
Mrs. Moran opened the gifts and spread them on the bed. There were books
and paints and brushes and clothing and silver articles and needle-work
and a phonograph and a check from Mr. Bing.
The little cottage had never seen a day so full of happiness. It rang
with talk and merry laughter and the music of the phonograph. Mr.
Blenkinsop had come in his best mood and apparel with the dog
Christmas. He helped Mrs. Moran to set the table in the Shepherd's room
and brought up the platter with the big brown turkey on it, surrounded
by sweet potatoes, all just out of the oven. Mrs. Moran followed with
the jelly and the creamed onions and the steaming coffee pot and new
celery. The dog Christmas growled and ran under the bed when he saw his
master coming with that unfamiliar burden.
"He's never seen a Christmas dinner before. I don't wonder he's kind o'
scairt! I ain't seen one in so long, I'm scairt myself," said Hiram
Blenkinsop as they sat down at the table.
"What's scairin' ye, man?" said the widow.
"'Fraid I'll wake up an' find myself dreamin'," Mr. Blenkinsop answered.
"Nobody ever found himself dreamin' at my table," said Mrs. Moran. "Grab
the carvin' knife an' go to wurruk, man."
"I ain't eggzac'ly used to this kind of a job, but if you'll look out
o' the winder, I'll have it chopped an' split an' corded in a minute,"
said Mr. Blenkinsop.
He got along very well with his task. When they began eating he
remarked, "I've been lookin' at that pictur' of a girl with a baby in
her arms. Brings the water to my eyes, it's so kind o' life like and
nat'ral. It's an A number one pictur'--no mistake."
He pointed at a large painting on the wall.
"It's Pauline!" said the Shepherd.
"Sure she's one o' the saints o' God!" the widow exclaimed. "She's
started a school for the children o' them Eytalians an' Poles. She's
tryin' to make 'em good Americans."
"I'll never forget that night," Mr. Blenkinsop remarked.
"If ye don't fergit it, I'll never mend another hole in yer pants," the
widow answered.
"I've never blabbed a word about it to any one but Mr. Singleton."
"Keep that in yer soul, man. It's yer ticket to Paradise," said the
widow.
"She goes every day to teach the Poles and Italians, but I have her here
with me always," the Shepherd remarked. "I'm glad when the morning comes
so that I can see her again."
"God bless the child! We was sorry to lose her but we have the pictur'
an' the look o' her with the love o' God in her face," said the Widow
Moran.
"Now light yer pipe and take yer comfort, man," said the hospitable
widow, after the dishes were cleared away. "Sure it's more like
Christmas to see a man an' a pipe in the house. Heavens, no! A man in
the kitchen is worse than a hole in yer petticoat."
So Mr. Blenkinsop sat with the Shepherd while the widow went about her
work. With his rumpled hair, clean shaven face, long nose and prominent
ears, he was not a handsome man.
"This is the top notch an' no mistake," he remarked as he lighted his
pipe. "Blenkinsop is happy. He feels like his Old Self. He has no fault
to find with anything or anybody."
Mr. Blenkinsop delivered this report on the state of his feelings with a
serious look in his gray eyes.
"It kind o' reminds me o' the time when I used to hang up my stockin'
an' look for the reindeer tracks in the snow on Christmas mornin'," he
went on. "Since then, my ol' socks have been full o' pain an' trouble
every Christmas."
"Those I knit for ye left here full of good wishes," said the Shepherd.
"Say, when I put 'em on this mornin' with the b'iled shirt an' the suit
that Mr. Bing sent me, my Old Self came an' asked me where I was goin',
an' when I said I was goin' to spen' Christmas with a respectable
fam'ly, he said, 'I guess I'll go with ye,' so here we be."
"The Old Selves of the village have all been kicked out-of-doors," said
the Shepherd. "The other day you told me about the trouble you had had
with yours. That night, all the Old Selves of Bingville got together
down in the garden and talked and talked about their relatives so I
couldn't sleep. It was a kind of Selfland. I told Judge Crooker about it
and he said that that was exactly what was going on in the Town Hall the
other night at the public meeting."
"The folks are drunk--as drunk as I was in Hazelmead last May," said Mr.
Blenkinsop. "They have been drunk with gold and pleasure----"
"The fruit of the vine of plenty," said Judge Crooker, who had just come
up the stairs. "Merry Christmas!" he exclaimed as he shook hands. "Mr.
Blenkinsop, you look as if you were enjoying yourself."
"An' why not when yer Self has been away an' just got back?"
"And you've killed the fatted turkey," said the Judge, as he took out
his silver snuff box. "One by one, the prodigals are returning."
They heard footsteps on the stairs and the merry voice of the Widow
Moran. In a moment, Mr. and Mrs. Bing stood in the doorway.
"Mr. and Mrs. Bing, I want to make you acquainted with my very dear
friend, Robert Moran," said Judge Crooker.
There were tears in the Shepherd's eyes as Mrs. Bing stooped and kissed
him. He looked up at the mill owner as the latter took his hand.
"I am glad to see you," said Mr. Bing.
"Is this--is this Mr. J. Patterson Bing?" the Shepherd asked, his eyes
wide with astonishment.
"Yes, and it is my fault that you do not know me better. I want to be
your friend."
The Shepherd put his handkerchief over his eyes. His voice trembled when
he said: "You have been very kind to us."
"But I'm really hoping to do something for you," Mr. Bing assured him.
"I've brought a great surgeon from New York who thinks he can help you.
He will be over to see you in the morning."
They had a half-hour's visit with the little Shepherd. Mr. Bing, who was
a judge of good pictures, said that the boy's work showed great promise
and that his picture of the mother and child would bring a good price if
he cared to sell it. When they arose to go, Mr. Blenkinsop thanked the
mill owner for his Christmas suit.
"Don't mention it," said Mr. Bing.
"Well, it mentions itself purty middlin' often," Mr. Blenkinsop laughed.
"Is there anything else I can do for you?" the former asked.
"Well, sir, to tell ye the dead hones' truth, I've got a new ambition,"
said Mr. Blenkinsop. "I've thought of it nights a good deal. I'd like to
be sextunt o' the church an' ring that ol' bell."
"We'll see what can be done about it," Mr. Bing answered with a laugh,
as they went down-stairs with Judge Crooker, followed by the dog
Christmas, who scampered around them on the street with a merry growl of
challenge, as if the spirit of the day were in him.
"What is it that makes the boy so appealing?" Mr. Bing asked of the
Judge.
"He has a wonderful personality," Mrs. Bing remarked.
"Yes, he has that. But the thing that underlies and shines through it is
his great attraction."
"What do you call it?" Mrs. Bing asked.
"A clean and noble spirit! Is there any other thing in this world that,
in itself, is really worth having?"
"Compared with him, I recognize that I am very poor indeed," said J.
Patterson Bing.
"You are what I would call a promising young man," the Judge answered.
"If you don't get discouraged, you're going to amount to something. I am
glad because you are, in a sense, the father of the great family of
Bingville."
THE END
End of Project Gutenberg's The Prodigal Village, by Irving Bacheller