“Having ears to hear, let them hear.”
THE sleep of young strength puts a wide distance between yesterday’s
cares and to-day’s. The dawn that awoke Emma was gray, but it did not
suggest the blight of ashes as had last night’s twilight. She was sure
of the return of Jarlsen’s faculties, and she also knew that Quarry
could have made no disturbance through the night. She was inclined to
think that he meant to frighten them, and by daylight his acts seemed
more like very bad manners than like an attempt at murder.
In the morning, before setting out, she changed the bandage on
Jarlsen’s hand. The wide burns were “guttering,” seaming up in red
lines. She told him this, and though he made no reply she felt sure,
with unshakable, feminine sureness, that he had heard. She led him out
to his hammock and placed him in it. Quarry was haranguing Old Butte,
and the sound of his voice seemed to make the Swede nervous. Emma was
certain that he had heard him.
She had always liked the Pastures as a place to walk; the air was less
flat than in the town; and it was pleasant to set one’s face against
poverty and one’s feet toward a place where people were rich enough
to pay rent. Bentley’s Place overtopped the city on an artificial and
costly eminence. The little house that was placed like a lodge was the
terminal station of the narrow-gauge railway. She knew herself to be
two miles and three quarters from that, and a mile or more from the
plant.
Usually she met the day squad coming out from the town, the men
standing in the ore cars, the smoke from their pipes and the straining,
overworked little engine blown behind them toward the town--like a
message sent home, Emma thought. But to-day no cars passed, and she,
being a child of toil, was quick to know that this meant a strike. She
hurried on to her earnings, remembering that when men are out of work
they have all day in which to spend their savings. Women see so little
in strikes but higher wages until some one is dead.
When she reached the Bridge it was crowded with people. Men who had
not worked at the plant for years were exhorting their fellows not
to submit to tyranny. Many large words were being misused with great
pride by those who never had a chance to talk except when the crowd
was too busy to listen. The women were not very carefully dressed,
having had no time for fastenings or strings. They, together with the
children they brought with them, seemed to regard the occasion as one
of festivity.
Nothing was denounced very definitely. One stranger was said to be a
reporter, whereupon half a dozen people beset him, anxious to have
their views in the paper. Emma could learn nothing from any of them.
They used Quarry’s and Bowa’s names frequently, so that she forebore
mentioning under whose roof the Englishman had passed the night.
Her shop was in the fourth house from the Bridge; a steep diagonal path
ran from its back door to the Tracks. The men were swarming to it
before she was quite ready to have them, and many arrived by the rarely
used footway. News came with them, and she found herself believing
first one report and then another. Bowa came to be shaved; she was
surprised at his thinking of a thing so incidental to a holiday toilet
as a shave, but she supposed that he was resolved to die tidy, and said
as much.
He could not be at the plant, he explained, and felt that he had no
need to be there. His smile was exceedingly subtle, but his hands
worked against his will in an embarrassed fashion.
The day wore on until about four o’clock. Her business had been
immense, and she had listened to the many accounts and descriptions
of the plant until she felt she knew it perfectly. In the centre was
the powder house, where explosives were kept; on the city flank was the
nutt and bolt factory, and very near, but south of it, the furnace.
It was set on a steep “slide” of rock; its door, through which the
furnace was fed, was on the summit side; and on the base side, lower
on the slide by eight feet or more, was another door through which the
“cinder” flew away at night into the darkness like a burning river.
This door seems complicated on paper, though in fact its construction
is simple. A skewer secures it at its upper edge--a skewer with a large
loop at one end. Into this loop the hook of the fire-tenders’ strange
implement is thrust when the door is to be opened. “The Devil’s Crook”
is what the men have named the long oak stick finished at one end with
an iron hook. It does look like a thing wherewith to herd black sheep.
Emma was weary of constant exclamation and argument. It was time she
ate; so she closed her door and “boiled her bottle,” allowing the men
who were already in the shop to remain there. She saw Bowa get up
from his chair and leave by the back door, silent and hurried. As was
natural, Emma turned to the window to see what had caught his eye in
the street.
Young Bentley had driven up in his buggy; his liveried servant sat
beside him, and the horse he drove plunged and shook with nervousness
at being surrounded by a crowd of loud-voiced people. Bentley stood up
in the little buggy, having given the reins to his man. “See here,” he
said, addressing the crowd, “if we have a strike, you’d better remember
that I can stand it, and you can’t. I’ve sent police to the plant to
protect my property, and you had better stand by them; for the plant is
the machine you make your bread with, and it’s the only thing you can
work at. I’ve got lots of irons on the fire. Now some one has trifled
with this road-bed, in the cut here, By the Bridge. I suppose you want
to make me lose my charter. I’m going to examine the damage now, and I
hope you’ll come with me.”
He jumped to the ground and began to descend the steps leading to the
road-bed in the cut, over which the Bridge is. No one followed him, but
with admirable nerve he neither hesitated nor quickened his pace.
Emma remembered that Jarlsen had liked him, and that he had called to
ask for him once By the Tracks and twice on the Pastures. No Bentley
had visited the Pastures before, and Emma felt the distinction keenly.
She opened the door and went out, merely observing to the bystanders
that they “hed no spring.”
Before she got to the stair’s head about six men had followed her,
looking deeply ashamed of each other, but at present firm in their
duty. Emma let them pass her, and slipped into the advancing crowd.
Bowa and three companions were standing on the tracks by two overturned
ore cars. They seemed more sheepish than defiant, and Emma noticed with
pride how neat Bowa looked as he tried not to flinch under Bentley’s
contemptuous gaze. The rails were torn up for about twenty yards, and
in the silence that preceded Bentley’s first words Emma realized that
this meant prison.
“Did you do that?” he said at length. Then turning to the men at
his back, he said very pleasantly, “I think we can put this right
with”--his voice grew suddenly louder--“two more to help us.”
Two Soot City police appeared, and very quietly secured Bowa and his
friends. They were too surprised to make any resistance, and went
silent and sullen at Bentley’s curt bidding. Some one cried, “Shame!”
at the plant owner. Martha Long answered “Nonsense!” very loud. But her
tears fell for Bowa, and she pleaded for him in words.
“Mr. Bentley,” she said, “he was put up to that. He’s young for the
shadder of a prison to fall on him. He’s as mild as new milk, and he’s
had his taste, and he won’t want no more.”
“Martha,” Bentley answered, “I think making an example of a workman is
making a martyr of him and an enemy of his labour organization. I don’t
want any strikes, so I’ll probably let him off; but I wouldn’t promise
any one.”
Martha went away well comforted, and Emma, when the darkness had
fallen, set out for home. She considered the strike was over, and
laughed as she made herself pictures of Quarry’s discomfiture; his
plans would be henceforth unheeded, and, as he had not succeeded, the
men would not fear him, and not fearing meant, under such conditions,
shunning. She had had a diverting day; the silver jingled in her
pocket, and her wish was that Jarlsen might have ears to hear all about
it.
The cottage was dark, but before she came within a hundred yards of
it, while it yet stood out black and square against the dark east, she
heard Jarlsen calling, “Emma, hurry, girl!--Emma, girl, hurry!”
She ran to him, stumbling and in dread, and groped in the darkness of
the room with tender hands that feared--she longed to know just what.
“I’m all right,” he said; “but listen. Speak to me; I can hear. I’ve
heard ever since we moved. I’ve wanted to say so, but I wanted to go on
hearing your father talk to Quarry. I’ve heard it all. I’m done with
secrets; I’m pretty near done with theirs. Speak to me, Emma; I can
prove it.”
“I’m so bursting-out happy, I can’t talk much,” said she.
Her speech followed her in his voice. “I’m so bursting-out happy, I
can’t talk much.’ But I can hear! Emma, Quarry and your poppa have been
setting it up since we came here, and I was afraid to say I heard, for
fear two couldn’t keep a secret. Emma, we want the plant’s pension, and
we’re going to get it!
“You’re going now,” he said, “to run out to the plant--to run your
best; when you get there, go to the furnace. If you keep right on By
the Tracks, nobody’ll mind you. Quarry’s bought the furnace-minders,
and they’re going to leave for the station to report a disturbance in
the factory. The Devil’s Crook is in the little house by the furnace;
it is by the door. You take it as you pass--no one’ll be there--and
when you see a light in the factory you open the centre door and make a
flare, for the police can’t see in the dark. You’ll catch ’em; O Emma,
hurry! I’ve got a good chance to fix Quarry, and he didn’t warn me of
that blast, or I wouldn’t be here now. He put his flag behind his back
when he saw me come, and I walked right on. Hurry, Emma girl! Don’t
burn yourself!”
Emma could feel that he wanted to go himself. She caught up her shawl.
“Is it the powder house?” she asked.
“For God’s sake,” he said loudly, “get started! Of course it is!”
She ran out into the wide darkness. She was racing death, and she knew
it.