plunge from decent comfort to actual poverty in this small mill town.
Strange to say, it was upon the smaller families that the strain fell
the worst in Farley, and upon men and women who had nobody to look to
but themselves. Where a man had a large household of children and
several of these were old enough to be at work, and to put aside their
wages or pay for their board; where such a man was of a thrifty and
saving turn and a ruler of his household like old James Dow in the
cloth-hall, he might feel sure of a comfortable hoard and be fearless
of a rainy day. But with a young man who worked single-handed for his
wife and a little flock, or one who had an invalid to work for, that
heaviest of burdens to the poor, the door seemed to be shut and barred
against prosperity, and life became a test of one's power of
endurance.
The agent went home late that noon from the counting-room. The street
was nearly empty, but he had no friendly look or word for anyone whom
he passed. Those who knew him well only pitied him, but it seemed to
the tired man as if every eye must look at him with reproach. The long
mill buildings of gray stone with their rows of deep-set windows wore
a repellent look of strength and solidity. More than one man felt
bitterly his own personal weakness as he turned to look at them. The
ocean of fate seemed to be dashing him against their gray walls--what
use was it to fight against the Corporation? Two great forces were in
opposition now, and happiness could come only from their serving each
other in harmony.
The stronger force of capital had withdrawn from the league; the
weaker one, labor, was turned into an utter helplessness of idleness.
There was nothing to be done; you cannot rebel against a shut-down,
you can only submit.
A week later the great wheel stopped early on the last day of work.
Almost everyone left his special charge of machinery in good order,
oiled and cleaned and slackened with a kind of affectionate lingering
care, for one person loves his machine as another loves his horse.
Even little Maggie pushed her bobbin-box into a safe place near the
overseer's desk and tipped it up and dusted it out with a handful of
waste. At the foot of the long winding stairs Mrs. Kilpatrick was
putting away her broom, and she sighed as she locked the closet door;
she had known hard times before. "They'll be wanting me with odd jobs;
we'll be after getting along some way," she said with satisfaction.
"March is a long month, so it is--there'll be plinty time for change
before the ind of it," said Mary Cassidy hopefully. "The agent will be
thinking whatever can he do; sure he's very ingenious. Look at him how
well he persuaded the directors to l'ave off wit' making cotton cloth
like everybody else, and catch a chance wit' all these new linings and
things! He's done very well, too. There bees no sinse in a shut-down
anny way, the looms and cards all suffers and the bands all slacks if
they don't get stiff. I'd sooner pay folks to tind their work whatever
it cost."
"'Tis true for you," agreed Mrs. Kilpatrick.
"What'll ye do wit' the shild, now she's no chance of pay, any more?"
asked Mary relentlessly, and poor Maggie's eyes grew dark with fright
as the conversation abruptly pointed her way. She sometimes waked up
in misery in Mrs. Kilpatrick's warm bed, crying for fear that she was
going to be sent back to the poorhouse.
"Maggie an' me's going to kape together awhile yet," said the good old
woman fondly. "She's very handy for me, so she is. We 'on't part with
'ach other whativer befalls, so we 'on't," and Maggie looked up with a
wistful smile, only half reassured. To her the shut-down seemed like
the end of the world.
Some of the French people took time by the forelock and boarded the
midnight train that very Saturday with all their possessions. A little
later two or three families departed by the same train, under cover of
the darkness between two days, without stopping to pay even their
house rent. These mysterious flittings, like that of the famous Tartar
tribe, roused a suspicion against their fellow countrymen, but after a
succession of such departures almost everybody else thought it far
cheaper to stay among friends. It seemed as if at any moment the great
mill wheels might begin to turn, and the bell begin to ring, but day
after day the little town was still and the bell tolled the hours one
after another as if it were Sunday. The mild spring weather came on
and the women sat mending or knitting on the doorsteps. More people
moved away; there were but few men and girls left now in the quiet
boarding-houses, and the spare tables were stacked one upon another at
the end of the rooms. When planting-time came, word was passed about
the Corporation that the agent was going to portion out a field that
belonged to him a little way out of town on the South road, and let
every man who had a family take a good-sized piece to plant. He also
offered seed potatoes and garden seeds free to anyone who would come
and ask for them at his house. The poor are very generous to each
other, as a rule, and there was much borrowing and lending from house
to house, and it was wonderful how long the people seemed to continue
their usual fashions of life without distress. Almost everybody had
saved a little bit of money and some had saved more; if one could no
longer buy beefsteak he could still buy flour and potatoes, and a bit
of pork lent a pleasing flavor, to content an idle man who had nothing
to do but to stroll about town.
V.
One night the agent was sitting alone in his large, half-furnished
house. Mary Moynahan, his housekeeper, had gone up to the church.
There was a timid knock at the door.
There were two persons waiting, a short, thick-set man and a pale
woman with dark, bright eyes who was nearly a head taller than her
companion.
"Come in, Ellen; I'm glad to see you," said the agent. "Have you got
your wheel-barrow, Mike?" Almost all the would-be planters of the
field had come under cover of darkness and contrived if possible to
avoid each other.
"'Tisn't the potatoes we're after asking, sir," said Ellen. She was
always spokeswoman, for Mike had an impediment in his speech. "The
childher come up yisterday and got them while you'd be down at the
counting-room. 'Twas Mary Moynahan saw to them. We do be very thankful
to you, sir, for your kindness."
"Come in," said the agent, seeing there was something of consequence
to be said. Ellen Carroll and he had worked side by side many a long
day when they were young. She had been a noble wife to Mike, whose
poor fortunes she had gladly shared for sake of his good heart, though
Mike now and then paid too much respect to his often infirmities.
There was a slight flavor of whisky now on the evening air, but it was
a serious thing to put on your Sunday coat and go up with your wife to
see the agent.
"We've come wanting to talk about any chances there might be with the
mill," ventured Ellen timidly, as she stood in the lighted room; then
she looked at Mike for reassurance. "We're very bad off, you see," she
went on. "Yes, sir, I got them potaties, but I had to bake a little of
them for supper and more again the day, for our breakfast. I don't
know whatever we'll do whin they're gone. The poor children does be
entreating me for them, Dan!"
The mother's eyes were full of tears. It was very seldom now that
anybody called the agent by his Christian name; there was a natural
reserve and dignity about him, and there had come a definite
separation between him and most of his old friends in the two years
while he had managed to go to the School of Technology in Boston.
"Why didn't you let me know it was bad as that?" he asked. "I don't
mean that anybody here should suffer while I've got a cent."
"The folks don't like to be begging, sir," said Ellen sorrowfully,
"but there's lots of them does be in trouble. They'd ought to go away
when the mills shut down, but for nobody knows where to go. Farley
ain't like them big towns where a man'd pick up something else to do.
I says to Mike: 'Come, Mike, let's go up after dark and tark to Dan;
he'll help us out if he can,' says I--"
"Sit down, Ellen," said the agent kindly, as the poor woman began to
cry. He made her take the armchair which the weave-room girls had
given him at Christmas two years before. She sat there covering her
face with her hands, and trying to keep back her sobs and go quietly
on with what she had to say. Mike was sitting across the room with his
back to the wall anxiously twirling his hat round and round. "Yis,
we're very bad off," he contrived to say after much futile stammering.
"All the folks in the Corporation, but Mr. Dow, has got great bills
run up now at the stores, and thim that had money saved has lint to
thim that hadn't--'twill be long enough before anybody's free. Whin
the mills starts up we'll have to spind for everything at once. The
children is very hard on their clothes and they're all dropping to
pieces. I thought I'd have everything new for them this spring, they
do be growing so. I minds them and patches them the best I can." And
again Ellen was overcome by tears. "Mike an' me's always been
conthrivin' how would we get something laid up, so if anny one would
die or be long sick we'd be equal to it, but we've had great pride to
see the little gerrls go looking as well as anny, and we've worked
very steady, but there's so manny of us we've had to pay rint for a
large tenement and we'd only seventeen dollars and a little more when
the shut-down was. Sure the likes of us has a right to earn more than
our living, ourselves being so willing-hearted. 'Tis a long time now
that Mike's been steady. We always had the pride to hope we'd own a
house ourselves, and a pieceen o' land, but I'm thankful now--'tis as
well for us; we've no chances to pay taxes now."
Mike made a desperate effort to speak as his wife faltered and began
to cry again, and seeing his distress forgot her own, and supplied the
halting words. "He wants to know if there's army work he could get,
some place else than Farley. Himself's been sixteen years now in the
picker, first he was one of six and now he is one of the four since
you got the new machines, yourself knows it well."
The agent knew about Mike; he looked compassionate as he shook his
head. "Stay where you are, for a while at any rate. Things may look a
little better, it seems to me. We will start up as soon as anyone
does. I'll allow you twenty dollars a month after this; here are ten
to start with. No, no, I've got no one depending on me and my pay is
going on. I'm glad to share it with my friends. Tell the folks to come
up and see me, Ahern and Sullivan and Michel and your brother Con;
tell anybody you know who is really in distress. You've all stood by
me!"
"'Tis all the lazy ones 'ould be coming if we told on the poor boy,"
said Ellen gratefully, as they hurried home. "Ain't he got the good
heart? We'd ought to be very discrate, Mike!" and Mike agreed by a
most impatient gesture, but by the time summer had begun to wane the
agent was a far poorer man than when it had begun. Mike and Ellen
Carroll were only the leaders of a sorrowful procession that sought
his door evening after evening. Some asked for help who might have
done without it, but others were saved from actual want. There were a
few men who got work among the farms, but there was little steady
work. The agent made the most of odd jobs about the mill yards and
contrived somehow or other to give almost every household a lift. The
village looked more and more dull and forlorn, but in August, when a
traveling show ventured to give a performance in Farley, the
Corporation hall was filled as it seldom was filled in prosperous
times. This made the agent wonder, until he followed the crowd of
workless, sadly idle men and women into the place of entertainment and
looked at them with a sudden comprehension that they were spending
their last cent for a little cheerfulness.
VI.
The agent was going into the counting-room one day when he met old
Father Daley and they stopped for a bit of friendly talk.
"Could you come in for a few minutes, sir?" asked the younger man.
"There's nobody in the counting-room."
The busy priest looked up at the weather-beaten clock in the mill
tower.
"I can," he said. "'Tis not so late as I thought. We'll soon be having
the mail."
The agent led the way and brought one of the directors' comfortable
chairs from their committee-room. Then he spun his own chair
face-about from before his desk and they sat down. It was a warm day
in the middle of September. The windows were wide open on the side
toward the river and there was a flicker of light on the ceiling from
the sunny water. The noise of the fall was loud and incessant in the
room. Somehow one never noticed it very much when the mills were
running.
"How are the Duffys?" asked the agent.
"Very bad," answered the old priest gravely. "The doctor sent for
me--he couldn't get them to take any medicine. He says that it isn't
typhoid; only a low fever among them from bad food and want of care.
That tenement is very old and bad, the drains from the upper tenement
have leaked and spoiled the whole west side of the building. I suppose
they never told you of it?"
"I did the best I could about it last spring," said the agent. "They
were afraid of being turned out and they hid it for that reason. The
company allowed me something for repairs as usual and I tried to get
more; you see I spent it all before I knew what a summer was before
us. Whatever I have done since I have paid for, except what they call
legitimate work and care of property. Last year I put all Maple Street
into first-rate order--and meant to go right through the Corporation.
I've done the best I could," he protested with a bright spot of color
in his cheeks. "Some of the men have tinkered up their tenements and I
have counted it toward the rent, but they don't all know how to drive
a nail."
"'Tis true for you; you have done the best you could," said the priest
heartily, and both the men were silent, while the river, which was
older than they and had seen a whole race of men disappear before they
came--the river took this opportunity to speak louder than ever.
"I think that manufacturing prospects look a little brighter," said
the agent, wishing to be cheerful. "There are some good orders out,
but of course the buyers can take advantage of our condition. The
treasurer writes me that we must be firm about not starting up until
we are sure of business on a good paying margin."
"Like last year's?" asked the priest, who was resting himself in the
armchair. There was a friendly twinkle in his eyes.
"Like last year's," answered the agent. "I worked like two men, and I
pushed the mills hard to make that large profit. I saw there was
trouble coming, and I told the directors and asked for a special
surplus, but I had no idea of anything like this."
"Nine per cent. in these times was too good a prize," said Father
Daley, but the twinkle in his eyes had suddenly disappeared.
"You won't get your new church for a long time yet," said the agent.
"No, no," said the old man impatiently. "I have kept the foundations
going as well as I could, and the talk, for their own sakes. It gives
them something to think about. I took the money they gave me in
collections and let them have it back again for work. 'Tis well to
lead their minds," and he gave a quick glance at the agent. "'Tis no
pride of mine for church-building and no good credit with the bishop
I'm after. Young men can be satisfied with those things, not an old
priest like me that prays to be a father to his people."
Father Daley spoke as man speaks to man, straight out of an honest
heart.
"I see many things now that I used to be blind about long ago," he
said. "You may take a man who comes over, him and his wife. They fall
upon good wages and their heads are turned with joy. They've been
hungry for generations back and they've always seen those above them
who dressed fine and lived soft, and they want a taste of luxury too;
they're bound to satisfy themselves. So they'll spend and spend and
have beefsteak for dinner every day just because they never had enough
before, but they'd turn into wild beasts of selfishness, most of 'em,
if they had no check. 'Tis there the church steps in. 'Remember your
Maker and do Him honor in His house of prayer,' says she. 'Be
self-denying, be thinking of eternity and of what's sure to come!' And
you will join with me in believing that it's never those who have
given most to the church who come first to the ground in a hard time
like this. Show me a good church and I'll show you a thrifty people."
Father Daley looked eagerly at the agent for sympathy.
"You speak the truth, sir," said the agent. "Those that give most are
always the last to hold out with honest independence and the first to
do for others."
"Some priests may have plundered their parishes for pride's sake;
there's no saying what is in poor human nature," repeated Father Daley
earnestly. "God forgive us all for unprofitable servants of Him and
His church. I believe in saying more about prayer and right living,
and less about collections, in God's house, but it's the giving hand
that's the rich hand all the world over."
"I don't think Ireland has ever sent us over many misers; Saint
Patrick must have banished them all with the snakes," suggested the
agent with a grim smile. The priest shook his head and laughed a
little and then both men were silent again in the counting-room.
The mail train whistled noisily up the road and came into the station
at the end of the empty street, then it rang its loud bell and puffed
and whistled away again.
"I'll bring your mail over, sir," said the agent, presently. "Sit here
and rest yourself until I come back and we'll walk home together."
The leather mail-bag looked thin and flat and the leisurely postmaster
had nearly distributed its contents by the time the agent had crossed
the street and reached the office. His clerks were both off on a long
holiday; they were brothers and were glad of the chance to take their
vacations together. They had been on lower pay; there was little to
do in the counting-room--hardly anybody's time to keep or even a
letter to write.
Two or three loiterers stopped the agent to ask him the usual question
if there were any signs of starting up; an old farmer who sat in his
long wagon before the post-office asked for news too, and touched his
hat with an awkward sort of military salute.
"Come out to our place and stop a few days," he said kindly. "You look
kind of pinched up and bleached out, Mr. Agent; you can't be needed
much here."
"I wish I could come," said the agent, stopping again and looking up
at the old man with a boyish, expectant face. Nobody had happened to
think about him in just that way, and he was far from thinking about
himself. "I've got to keep an eye on the people that are left here;
you see they've had a pretty hard summer."
"Not so hard as you have!" said the old man, as the agent went along
the street. "You've never had a day of rest more than once or twice
since you were born!"
There were two letters and a pamphlet for Father Daley and a thin
handful of circulars for the company. In busy times there was often
all the mail matter that a clerk could bring. The agent sat down at
his desk in the counting-room and the priest opened a thick foreign
letter with evident pleasure. "'Tis from an old friend of mine; he's
in a monastery in France," he said. "I only hear from him once a
year," and Father Daley settled himself in his armchair to read the
close-written pages. As for the agent of the mills, he had quickly
opened a letter from the treasurer and was not listening to anything
that was said.
Suddenly he whirled round in his desk chair and held out the letter to
the priest. His hand shook and his face was as pale as ashes.
"What is it? What's the matter?" cried the startled old man, who had
hardly followed the first pious salutations of his own letter to their
end. "Read it to me yourself, Dan; is there any trouble?"
"Orders--I've got orders to start up; we're going to start--I wrote
them last week--"
But the agent had to spring up from his chair and go to the window
next the river before he could steady his voice to speak. He thought
it was the look of the moving water that made him dizzy. "We're going
to start up the mills as soon as I can get things ready." He turned to
look up at the thermometer as if it were the most important thing in
the world; then the color rushed to his face and he leaned a moment
against the wall.
"Thank God!" said the old priest devoutly. "Here, come and sit down,
my boy. Faith, but it's good news, and I'm the first to get it from
you."
They shook hands and were cheerful together; the foreign letter was
crammed into Father Daley's pocket, and he reached for his big cane.
"Tell everybody as you go up the street, sir," said Dan. "I've got a
hurricane of things to see to; I must go the other way down to the
storehouses. Tell them to pass the good news about town as fast as
they can; 'twill hearten up the women." All the anxious look had gone
as if by magic from the agent's face.
Two weeks from that time the old mill bell stopped tolling for the
slow hours of idleness and rang out loud and clear for the
housekeepers to get up, and rang for breakfast, and later still for
all the people to go in to work. Some of the old hands were gone for
good and new ones must be broken in in their places, but there were
many familiar faces to pass the counting-room windows into the mill
yard. There were French families which had reappeared with surprising
promptness, Michel and his pretty daughter were there, and a household
of cousins who had come to the next tenement. The agent stood with his
hands in his pockets and nodded soberly to one group after another. It
seemed to him that he had never felt so happy in his life.
"Jolly-looking set this morning," said one of the clerks whose desk
was close beside the window; he was a son of one of the directors, who
had sent him to the agent to learn something about manufacturing.
"They've had a bitter hard summer that you know nothing about," said
the agent slowly.
Just then Mrs. Kilpatrick and old Mary Cassidy came along, and little
Maggie was with them. She had got back her old chance at doffing and
the hard times were over. They all smiled with such blissful
satisfaction that the agent smiled too, and even waved his hand.
Transcriber's Note: This e-book was excerpted from a modern
reprint of works. The table of contents for "Selected Stories and
Sketches" has been editted to identify the source of each story
in the source work.