houses that belonged to them stood, tall and bare, alongside. They had
no room for gardens or even for little green side-yards where one
might spend a summer evening. The Corporation, as this compact village
was called by those who lived in it, was small but solid; you fancied
yourself in the heart of a large town when you stood mid-way of one of
its short streets, but from the street's end you faced a wide green
farming country. On spring and summer Sundays, groups of the young
folks of the Corporation would stray out along the country roads, but
it was very seldom that any of the older people went. On the whole, it
seemed as if the closer you lived to the mill-yard gate, the better.
You had more time to loiter on a summer morning, and there was less
distance to plod through the winter snows and rains. The last stroke
of the bell saw almost everybody within the mill doors.
There were always fluffs of cotton in the air like great white bees
drifting down out of the picker chimney. They lodged in the cramped
and dingy elms and horse-chestnuts which a former agent had planted
along the streets, and the English sparrows squabbled over them in
eaves-corners and made warm, untidy great nests that would have
contented an Arctic explorer. Somehow the Corporation homes looked
like make-believe houses or huge stage-properties, they had so little
individuality or likeness to the old-fashioned buildings that made
homes for people out on the farms. There was more homelikeness in the
sparrows' nests, or even the toylike railroad station at the end of
the main street, for that was warmed by steam, and the station-master's
wife, thriftily taking advantage of the steady heat, brought her
house-plants there and kept them all winter on the broad window-sills.
The Corporation had followed the usual fortunes of New England
manufacturing villages. Its operatives were at first eager young men
and women from the farms near by, these being joined quickly by pale
English weavers and spinners, with their hearty-looking wives and rosy
children; then came the flock of Irish families, poorer and simpler
than the others but learning the work sooner, and gayer-hearted; now
the Canadian-French contingent furnished all the new help, and stood
in long rows before the noisy looms and chattered in their odd,
excited fashion. They were quicker-fingered, and were willing to work
cheaper than any other workpeople yet.
There were remnants of each of these human tides to be found as one
looked about the mills. Old Henry Dow, the overseer of the cloth-hall,
was a Lancashire man and some of his grandchildren had risen to wealth
and prominence in another part of the country, while he kept steadily
on with his familiar work and authority. A good many elderly Irishmen
and women still kept their places; everybody knew the two old
sweepers, Mary Cassidy and Mrs. Kilpatrick, who were looked upon as
pillars of the Corporation. They and their compatriots always held
loyally together and openly resented the incoming of so many French.
You would never have thought that the French were for a moment
conscious of being in the least unwelcome. They came gayly into church
and crowded the old parishioners of St. Michael's out of their pews,
as on week-days they took their places at the looms. Hardly one of the
old parishioners had not taken occasion to speak of such aggressions
to Father Daley, the priest, but Father Daley continued to look upon
them all as souls to be saved and took continual pains to rub up the
rusty French which he had nearly forgotten, in order to preach a
special sermon every other Sunday. This caused old Mary Cassidy to
shake her head gravely.
"Mis' Kilpatrick, ma'am," she said one morning. "Faix, they ain't
folks at all, 'tis but a pack of images they do be, with all their
chatter like birds in a hedge."
"Sure then, the holy Saint Francis himself was after saying that the
little birds was his sisters," answered Mrs. Kilpatrick, a godly old
woman who made the stations every morning, and was often seen reading
a much-handled book of devotion. She was moreover always ready with a
friendly joke.
"They ain't the same at all was in them innocent times, when there was
plenty saints living in the world," insisted Mary Cassidy. "Look at
them thrash, now!"
The old sweeping-women were going downstairs with their brooms. It was
almost twelve o'clock, and like the old dray-horses in the mill yard
they slackened work in good season for the noonday bell. Three gay
young French girls ran downstairs past them; they were let out for the
afternoon and were hurrying home to dress and catch the 12:40 train to
the next large town.
"That little one is Meshell's daughter; she's a nice child too, very
quiet, and has got more Christian tark than most," said Mrs.
Kilpatrick. "They live overhead o' me. There's nine o' themselves in
the two rooms; two does be boarders."
"Those upper rooms bees very large entirely at Fitzgibbon's," said
Mary Cassidy with unusual indulgence.
"'Tis all the company cares about is to get a good rent out of the
pay. They're asked every little while by honest folks 'on't they build
a trifle o' small houses beyond the church up there, but no, they'd
rather the money and kape us like bees in them old hives. Sure in
winter we're better for having the more fires, but summer is the
pinance!"
"They all says 'why don't folks build their own houses'; they does
always be talking about Mike Callahan and how well he saved up and
owns a pritty place for himself convanient to his work. You might tell
them he'd money left him by a brother in California till you'd be
black in the face, they'd stick to it 'twas in the picker he earnt it
from themselves," grumbled Mary Cassidy.
"Them French spinds all their money on their backs, don't they?"
suggested Mrs. Kilpatrick, as if to divert the conversation from
dangerous channels. "Look at them three girls now, off to Spincer with
their fortnight's pay in their pocket!"
"A couple o' onions and a bag o' crackers is all they want and a pinch
o' lard to their butter," pronounced Mary Cassidy with scorn. "The
whole town of 'em 'on't be the worse of a dollar for steak the week
round. They all go back and buy land in Canada, they spend no money
here. See how well they forget their pocketbooks every Sunday for the
collection. They do be very light too, they've more laugh than
ourselves. 'Tis myself's getting old anyway, I don't laugh much now."
"I like to see a pritty girl look fine," said Mrs. Kilpatrick. "No,
they don't be young but once--"
The mill bell rang, and there was a moment's hush of the jarring,
racketing machinery and a sudden noise of many feet trampling across
the dry, hard pine floors. First came an early flight of boys bursting
out of the different doors, and chasing one another down the winding
stairs two steps at a time. The old sweepers, who had not quite
reached the bottom, stood back against the wall for safety's sake
until all these had passed, then they kept on their careful way, the
crowd passing them by as if they were caught in an eddy of the stream.
Last of all they kept sober company with two or three lame persons and
a cheerful delayed little group of new doffers, the children who
minded bobbins in the weave-room and who were young enough to be tired
and even timid. One of these doffers, a pale, pleasant-looking child,
was all fluffy with cotton that had clung to her little dark plaid
dress. When Mrs. Kilpatrick spoke to her she answered in a hoarse
voice that appealed to one's sympathy. You felt that the hot room and
dry cotton were to blame for such hoarseness; it had nothing to do
with the weather.
"Where are you living now, Maggie, dear?" the old woman asked.
"I'm in Callahan's yet, but they won't keep me after to-day," said the
child. "There's a man wants to get board there, they're changing round
in the rooms and they've no place for me. Mis' Callahan couldn't keep
me 'less I'd get my pay raised."
Mrs. Kilpatrick gave a quick glance at Mary Cassidy. "Come home with
me then, till yez get a bite o' dinner, and we'll talk about it," she
said kindly to the child. "I'd a wish for company the day."
The two old companions had locked their brooms into a three-cornered
closet at the stair-foot and were crossing the mill yard together.
They were so much slower than the rest that they could only see the
very last of the crowd of mill people disappearing along the streets
and into the boarding-house doors. It was late autumn, the elms were
bare, one could see the whole village of Farley, all its poverty and
lack of beauty, at one glance. The large houses looked as if they
belonged to a toy village, and had been carefully put in rows by a
childish hand; it was easy to lose all sense of size in looking at
them. A cold wind was blowing bits of waste and paper high into the
air; now and then a snowflake went swiftly by like a courier of
winter. Mary Cassidy and Mrs. Kilpatrick hugged their old woolen
shawls closer about their round shoulders, and the little girl
followed with short steps alongside.
II.
The agent of the mills was a single man, keen and business-like, but
quietly kind to the people under his charge. Sometimes, in times of
peace, when one looks among one's neighbors wondering who would make
the great soldiers and leaders if there came a sudden call to war, one
knows with a flash of recognition the presence of military genius in
such a man as he. The agent spent his days in following what seemed
to many observers to be only a dull routine, but all his steadiness of
purpose, all his simple intentness, all his gifts of strategy and
powers of foresight, and of turning an interruption into an
opportunity, were brought to bear upon this dull routine with a keen
pleasure. A man in his place must know not only how to lead men, but
how to make the combination of their force with the machinery take its
place as a factor in the business of manufacturing. To master workmen
and keep the mills in running order and to sell the goods successfully
in open market is as easy to do badly as it is difficult to do well.
The agent's father and mother, young people who lived for a short time
in the village, had both died when he was only three years old, and
between that time and his ninth year he had learned almost everything
that poverty could teach, being left like little Maggie to the mercy
of his neighbors. He remembered with a grateful heart those who were
good to him, and told him of his mother, who had married for love but
unwisely. Mrs. Kilpatrick was one of these old friends, who said that
his mother was a lady, but even Mrs. Kilpatrick, who was a walking
history of the Corporation, had never known his mother's maiden name,
much less the place of her birth. The first great revelation of life
had come when the nine-years-old boy had money in his hand to pay his
board. He was conscious of being looked at with a difference; the very
woman who had been hardest to him and let him mind her babies all the
morning when he, careful little soul, was hardly more than a baby
himself, and then pushed him out into the hungry street at dinner
time, was the first one who beckoned him now, willing to make the most
of his dollar and a quarter a week. It seemed easy enough to rise from
uttermost poverty and dependence to where one could set his mind upon
the highest honor in sight, that of being agent of the mills, or to
work one's way steadily to where such an honor was grasped at
thirty-two. Every year the horizon had set its bounds wider and wider,
until the mills of Farley held but a small place in the manufacturing
world. There were offers enough of more salary and higher position
from those who came to know the agent, but he was part of Farley
itself, and had come to care deeply about his neighbors, while a
larger mill and salary were not exactly the things that could tempt
his ambition. It was but a lonely life for a man in the old agent's
quarters where one of the widows of the Corporation, a woman who had
been brought up in a gentleman's house in the old country, kept house
for him with a certain show of propriety. Ever since he was a boy his
room was never without its late evening light, and books and hard
study made his chief companionship.
As Mrs. Kilpatrick went home holding little Maggie by the hand that
windy noon, the agent was sitting in the company's counting-room with
one of the directors and largest stockholders, and they were just
ending a long talk about the mill affairs. The agent was about forty
years old now and looked fifty. He had a pleasant smile, but one saw
it rarely enough, and just now he looked more serious than usual.
"I am very glad to have had this long talk with you," said the old
director. "You do not think of any other recommendations to be made at
the meeting next week?"
The agent grew a trifle paler and glanced behind him to be sure that
the clerks had gone to dinner.
"Not in regard to details," he answered gravely. "There is one thing
which I see to be very important. You have seen the books, and are
clear that nine per cent. dividend can easily be declared?"
"Very creditable, very creditable," agreed the director; he had
recognized the agent's ability from the first and always upheld him
generously. "I mean to propose a special vote of thanks for your
management. There isn't a minor corporation in New England that stands
so well to-day."
The agent listened. "We had some advantages, partly by accident and
partly by lucky foresight," he acknowledged. "I am going to ask your
backing in something that seems to me not only just but important. I
hope that you will not declare above a six per cent. dividend at that
directors' meeting; at the most, seven per cent.," he said.
"What, what!" exclaimed the listener. "No, sir!"
The agent left his desk-chair and stood before the old director as if
he were pleading for himself. A look of protest and disappointment
changed the elder man's face and hardened it a little, and the agent
saw it.
"You know the general condition of the people here," he explained
humbly. "I have taken great pains to keep hold of the best that have
come here; we can depend upon them now and upon the quality of their
work. They made no resistance when we had to cut down wages two years
ago; on the contrary, they were surprisingly reasonable, and you know
that we shut down for several weeks at the time of the alterations. We
have never put their wages back as we might easily have done, and I
happen to know that a good many families have been able to save little
or nothing. Some of them have been working here for three generations.
They know as well as you and I and the books do when the mills are
making money. Now I wish that we could give them the ten per cent.
back again, but in view of the general depression perhaps we can't do
that except in the way I mean. I think that next year we're going to
have a very hard pull to get along, but if we can keep back three per
cent., or even two, of this dividend we can not only manage to get on
without a shut-down or touching our surplus, which is quite small
enough, but I can have some painting and repairing done in the
tenements. They've needed it for a long time--"
The old director sprang to his feet. "Aren't the stockholders going to
have any rights then?" he demanded. "Within fifteen years we have had
three years when we have passed our dividends, but the operatives
never can lose a single day's pay!"
"That was before my time," said the agent, quietly. "We have averaged
nearly six and a half per cent. a year taking the last twenty years
together, and if you go back farther the average is even larger. This
has always been a paying property; we've got our new machinery now,
and everything in the mills themselves is just where we want it. I
look for far better times after this next year, but the market is
glutted with goods of our kind, and nothing is going to be gained by
cut-downs and forcing lower-cost goods into it. Still, I can keep
things going one way and another, making yarn and so on," he said
pleadingly. "I should like to feel that we had this extra surplus. I
believe that we owe it to our operatives."
The director had walked heavily to the window and put his hands deep
into his side-pockets. He had an angry sense that the agent's hands
were in his pockets too.
"I've got some pride about that nine per cent., sir," he said loftily
to the agent.
"So have I," said the agent, and the two men looked each other in the
face.
"I acknowledge my duty to the stockholders," said the younger man
presently. "I have tried to remember that duty ever since I took the
mills eight years ago, but we've got an excellent body of operatives,
and we ought to keep them. I want to show them this next year that we
value their help. If times aren't as bad as we fear we shall still
have the money--"
"Nonsense. They think they own the mills now," said the director, but
he was uncomfortable, in spite of believing he was right. "Where's my
hat? I must have my luncheon now, and afterward there'll hardly be
time to go down and look at the new power-house with you--I must be
off on the quarter-to-two train."
The agent sighed and led the way. There was no use in saying anything
more and he knew it. As they walked along they met old Mrs. Kilpatrick
returning from her brief noonday meal with little Maggie, whose
childish face was radiant. The old woman recognized one of the
directors and dropped him a decent curtsey as she had been taught to
salute the gentry sixty years before.
The director returned the salutation with much politeness. This was
really a pleasant incident, and he took a silver half dollar from his
pocket and gave it to the little girl before he went on.
"Kape it safe, darlin'," said the old woman; "you'll need it yet.
Don't be spending all your money in sweeties; 'tis a very cold world
to them that haves no pince in their pocket."
The child looked up at Mrs. Kilpatrick apprehensively; then the
sunshine of hope broke out again through the cloud.
"I am going to save fine till I buy a house, and you and me'll live
there together, Mrs. Kilpatrick, and have a lovely coal fire all the
time."
"Faix, Maggie, I have always thought some day I'd kape a pig and live
pritty in me own house," said Mrs. Kilpatrick. "But I'm the old
sweeper yet in Number Two. 'Tis a worrld where some has and more
wants," she added with a sigh. "I got the manes for a good buryin',
the Lord be praised, and a bitteen more beside. I wouldn't have that
if Father Daley was as croping as some."
"Mis' Mullin does always be scolding 'bout Father Daley having all the
collections," ventured Maggie, somewhat adrift in so great a subject.
"She's no right then!" exclaimed the old woman angrily; "she'll get no
luck to be grudging her pince that way. 'Tis hard work anny priest
would have to kape the likes of hersilf from being haythens
altogether."
There was a nine per cent. annual dividend declared at the directors'
meeting the next week, with considerable applause from the board and
sincere congratulations to the agent. He looked thinner and more sober
than usual, and several persons present, whose aid he had asked in
private, knew very well the reason. After the meeting was over the
senior director, and largest stockholder, shook hands with him warmly.
"About that matter you suggested to me the other day," he said, and
the agent looked up eagerly. "I consulted several of our board in
regard to the propriety of it before we came down, but they all agreed
with me that it was no use to cross a bridge until you come to it.
Times look a little better, and the operatives will share in the
accession of credit to a mill that declares nine per cent. this year.
I hope that we shall be able to run the mills with at worst only a
moderate cut-down, and they may think themselves very fortunate when
so many hands are being turned off everywhere."
The agent's face grew dark. "I hope that times will take a better
turn," he managed to say.
"Yes, yes," answered the director. "Good-bye to you, Mr. Agent! I am
not sure of seeing you again for some time," he added with unusual
kindliness. "I am an old man now to be hurrying round to board
meetings and having anything to do with responsibilities like these.
My sons must take their turn."
There was an eager protest from the listeners, and presently the busy
group of men disappeared on their way to the train. A nine per cent.
dividend naturally made the Farley Manufacturing Company's stock go up
a good many points, and word came presently that the largest
stockholder and one or two other men had sold out. Then the stock
ceased to rise, and winter came on apace, and the hard times which the
agent had foreseen came also.
III.
One noon in early March there were groups of men and women gathering
in the Farley streets. For a wonder, nobody was hurrying toward home
and dinner was growing cold on some of the long boarding-house tables.
"They might have carried us through the cold weather; there's but a
month more of it," said one middle-aged man sorrowfully.
"They'll be talking to us about economy now, some o' them big
thinkers; they'll say we ought to learn how to save; they always begin
about that quick as the work stops," said a youngish woman angrily.
She was better dressed than most of the group about her and had the
keen, impatient look of a leader. "They'll say that manufacturing is
going to the dogs, and capital's in worse distress than labor--"
"How is it those big railroads get along? They can't shut down,
there's none o' them stops; they cut down sometimes when they have to,
but they don't turn off their help this way," complained somebody
else.
"Faith then! they don't know what justice is. They talk about their
justice all so fine," said a pale-faced young Irishman--"justice is
nine per cent. last year for the men that had the money and no rise at
all for the men that did the work."
"They say the shut-down's going to last all summer anyway. I'm going
to pack my kit to-night," said a young fellow who had just married and
undertaken with unusual pride and ambition to keep house. "The likes
of me can't be idle. But where to look for any work for a mule
spinner, the Lord only knows!"
Even the French were sobered for once and talked eagerly among
themselves. Halfway down the street, in front of the French grocery, a
man was haranguing his compatriots from the top of a packing-box.
Everybody was anxious and excited by the sudden news. No work after a
week from to-morrow until times were better. There had already been a
cut-down, the mills had not been earning anything all winter. The
agent had hoped to keep on for at least two months longer, and then to
make some scheme about running at half time in the summer, setting
aside the present work for simple yarn-making. He knew well enough
that the large families were scattered through the mill rooms and that
any pay would be a help. Some of the young men could be put to other
work for the company; there was a huge tract of woodland farther back
among the hills where some timber could be got ready for shipping. His
mind was full of plans and anxieties and the telegram that morning
struck him like a blow. He had asked that he might keep the card-room
prices up to where the best men could make at least six dollars and a
half a week and was hoping for a straight answer, but the words on the
yellow paper seemed to dance about and make him dizzy. "Shut down
Saturday 9th until times are better!" he repeated to himself. "Shut
down until times are worse here in Farley!"
The agent stood at the counting-room window looking out at the
piteous, defenseless groups that passed by. He wished bitterly that
his own pay stopped with the rest; it did not seem fair that he was
not thrown out upon the world too.
"I don't know what they're going to do. They shall have the last cent
I've saved before anybody suffers," he said in his heart. But there
were tears in his eyes when he saw Mrs. Kilpatrick go limping out of
the gate. She waited a moment for her constant companion, poor little
Maggie the doffer, and they went away up the street toward their poor
lodging holding each other fast by the hand. Maggie's father and
grandfather and great-grandfather had all worked in the Farley mills;
they had left no heritage but work behind them for this orphan child;
they had never been able to save so much that a long illness, a
prolonged old age, could not waste their slender hoards away.
IV.