PETER'S MAIDEN SPEECH
Peter had been three weeks in the beamhouse and had in that time proved
himself so useful that his pay had been raised from six to six dollars
and a half a week. Very proud he was of his financial good fortune. With
few demands in the way of clothing he was now able to lay aside quite a
little sum toward the motorcycle he so much desired. The days at the
tannery passed more quickly. Nat Jackson became his chum and the two
lads were almost inseparable; they lunched together, played on the ball
team, and often spent their Saturday afternoons in taking long walks or
going to Nat's house. Peter, however, took great good care that Nat
should not visit him.
The omission of this hospitality was not entirely unnoticed by young
Jackson, and the conclusion he drew was that Peter lived humbly--perhaps
poorly--in lodgings to which he did not consider it suitable to invite a
guest. Nat thought this foolish pride on Peter's part and he meant to
tell him so some time when they became better acquainted. It was a
mistake, argued Nat, to be over-sensitive about one's poverty. If Peter
was saving his money surely that was excuse enough. He had a right to
live as he pleased. Furthermore what possible difference could it make
in their friendship? Nat himself lived simply but very nicely on the
meager salary that he earned. He and his mother rented two tiny
bedrooms, a sunny little living-room, and a microscopic kitchen in a
part of the town which, to be sure, was cheap and ugly; but Mrs.
Jackson, Peter soon found, was one of the rare women who could make a
home--a real home--almost anywhere. She often laughingly remarked that
if she were to dwell in a snow hovel at the North Pole she believed she
should cut a window in the side of it and set a pot of flowers there,
and Peter could well imagine her doing it.
She was a short, bright-eyed, motherly little person, with a quick
appreciation of a joke, and a wonderful knack at cooking. Incidentally
she had a quiet voice and chose soft colors in preference to crude ones.
Peter gathered from her manner of speech and from the delicate modeling
of her hands that at some time in her life she had occupied a very
different position from the one she was now filling. But whatever that
past might have been he gained no inkling of it either from her or from
her son. Bravely, patiently, happily, she made a home for her boy--such
a home that Peter Coddington visited it with the keenest pleasure and
came away with a vague wonder what it was that those three wee rooms
possessed which was lacking in his own richly furnished mansion.
Perhaps if it had not been for the encouragement of Nat and his mother
Peter might not have had the grit to master his work at the beamhouse.
A wholesome spur these two friends were to his flagging spirits. There
was some subtle quality in Nat's mother that made a fellow want to do
his very best--to be as much of a man as he could. And yet she said
little to urge either of the lads to their task. It was just that she
was so proud and so pleased when they did win any good fortune through
their own endeavors. And so Peter forged bravely on, prodded by an
unformulated desire to do well not only for the sake of his own parents,
but that he might not disappoint the faith that Nat and Nat's mother had
in him.
Even Mr. Coddington remarked one evening at dinner (and there was a
twinkle in his eye when he said it) that he was highly gratified by the
reports he heard of "young Strong."
But as the summer advanced and the days grew hotter Mrs. Coddington
watched her boy with anxious care and dropped more than one suggestion
that it was time they all were off to the shore. None of her suggestions
bore fruit, however, and by and by when she saw that Mr. Coddington had
no intention of leaving Milburn she ceased to remonstrate further and
Peter settled down to work and to keep as comfortable as he could during
the hot weather. What a haven his home, with its green lawns and wide
verandas, became, after those long, breathless hours in the tannery!
Never before had he half appreciated his surroundings. Most of the
houses where the men at the factory lived were huddled closely in that
dingy part of the town where Nat Jackson's rooms were, and Peter soon
discovered that after supper many of the workmen and their families came
and sat in the ball field opposite Factory 1 where there was more air,
and where some of the men actually slept when the nights were very hot.
It was a blessing--that great open space! Peter wondered what they would
have done without it.
He had been raising the query mentally one July morning on his way to
work after a close, restless night in his big room on the hill. The day
was a sultry one; no air stirred, and it was with a sigh that Peter
entered the beamhouse. No sooner was he inside, however, than he at once
saw that something was wrong. Knots of men were speaking together in
undertones and seemed to be far more eager to talk than to take up their
daily tasks. Only Bryant, who moved from one group to another, urging,
coaxing, commanding, succeeded in compelling them to attend to what they
had to do.
"You fellows can do all the talking you want to at noon," he said.
"There will be no builders around to-day, I guess."
"They'll do well to keep away!" muttered an angry Swede, threateningly.
"You go to unhairing skins, Olsen," Bryant commanded, putting his hand
firmly but kindly on the broad shoulder of the man. "You can scold your
wrath all out this noon. Go on."
Sullenly the man obeyed.
"What is the matter?" Peter managed to whisper to Nat Jackson.
"The men are furious; they are threatening to strike," returned Nat in
an undertone.
"To strike!" exclaimed Peter. His thoughts flew to his father. "What has
happened?" he questioned insistently.
"Didn't you see last night's paper? Haven't you heard? Mr. Coddington is
going to put up another tannery. He's going to build it on the ball
field!"
"On the ball field! Our field!"
"So the paper says. Of course the land is his. But it does seem pretty
tough!"
Peter moved on, dazed.
To take away the field--the one out-of-door spot for luncheon and
exercise! To deprive hundreds of stifled creatures of fresh air and
sunlight! It was monstrous! Why hadn't his father mentioned the plan? Of
course he did not realize what it would mean to the men or he never
would have considered it. What would become of all those tired people
who nightly left their bare little dwellings and sought a cool evening
breeze in the field? Peter knew Nat and his mother always sat there
until bedtime and many of the other workmen brought their wives and
children. Once the boy had sat there himself. It was an orderly crowd
that he had seen--children tumbling over each other on the grass; women
seated on the benches and exchanging a bit of gossip; tired men
stretched full-length on the turf resting in the quiet of the place.
Why, it was a crime to take the field away!
All the morning while he worked Peter's mind seethed with arguments
against the building of the new factory. He longed to see his father
and talk it out. Surely Mr. Coddington would listen if he realized the
conditions. He was a kind man--not an inhuman brute. It seemed as if the
noon whistle would never blow.
With Nat Jackson and a score of agitated workmen Peter went out into the
shade opposite. Luncheon was forgotten, and ball, too. Instead a crowd
gathered and on every hand there were mutterings and angry protests.
"Of course Coddington can take the land. It's his. There is no law to
prevent him from doing anything he wants to with it. What does he care
for us?" remarked an old, gray-haired tanner.
"The working man is nothing to the rich man," grumbled another. "All the
millionaire wants is more money. Another factory means just that--more
money! It's money, money, money--always money with the rich. The more
they have the more they want."
Sick at heart, Peter listened.
"Why don't you fellows do something about it?" blustered a red-faced
Italian. "I'll bet you if we called a strike it would bring Coddington
to terms. He'd a good sight rather give up building that factory than
have us all walk out--'specially now when there's more work ahead than
the firm can handle. I've been in five strikes in other places and we
never failed yet to get what we started for."
"Do you think you could drive a man like Mr. Coddington that way?" It
was Carmachel who spoke. "You can walk out, all of you, if you choose.
It would make no difference to him. If he has decided it is best to put
up that tannery he'll put it up. A strike would do you no good and as a
result your families would be without food and a roof over their heads
all winter. You're a fine man, Ristori! Coddington pays you well. You
take his money and are glad to get a job from him; then the first
minute anything does not go to suit you you turn against him and cry:
Strike! You don't know what loyalty means. Hasn't Coddington always been
square with you? Hasn't he paid you good wages? Hasn't he added an extra
bit to your envelope at Christmas? I'll not strike!"
"What would you have us do?" was Ristori's hot retort. "Would you have
us sit by like dumb things and let him do anything to us he pleases?"
"Coddington is a reasonable man," Carmachel replied. "Why don't some of
you talk decently with him about all this?"
"Aye! And lose our jobs for our pains!" sneered a swarthy Armenian.
A shout went up.
"A strike! A strike!" yelled a hundred voices.
"Would you strike and see your families starve?" cried Nat Jackson. "I
have a mother to support. I care more for her than for the field and
everything on it. I shall not strike."
"You white-livered young idiot!" roared some one in the crowd.
"I tell you, men," went on Carmachel, "there is nothing to be gained by
striking. Get together some of your best speakers from each factory and
let them ask an interview of Mr. Coddington--now--this afternoon--before
anything more is done about the new factory."
"He'll not grant it!"
"Hasn't he always been fair with you?"
"Yes!"
"Aye!"
"So he has!"
"He has that!"
Grudgingly the workmen admitted it, even the most rabid of them.
Drawn by an irresistible impulse Peter elbowed his way into the midst of
the workmen.
"I am sure Mr. Coddington will listen to you," he ejaculated earnestly.
"Choose your men and let them go to him. Give him a chance to see your
side of it. He will be reasonable--I know he will."
"It's the Little Giant," said one man to another.
"Put it to vote," urged Peter. "Come! How many are for going to Mr.
Coddington? You fellows do not want a strike. Think what it would mean!"
"The lad's right. Up with the hands!"
It was a crisis.
Peter trembled from head to foot.
A few hands were raised, then slowly a few more; more came. All over the
field they shot into the air.
"And now choose your representatives," called Peter quickly, dreading
lest the tide of sentiment should turn.
"Carmachel! He doesn't seem to fear losing his job," piped a voice. "Put
on Carmachel!"
"And Jackson; he said he would not strike anyway," called somebody else.
"Bryant is a good fellow! Put Bryant on."
"Put on some men from the other factories, too," demanded a Pole
aggressively.
A committee of twelve were chosen.
"Add the Little Giant as the thirteenth--just for luck!" laughed a
knee-staker.
There was a cry of approval.
"The Little Giant! The Little Giant!" rose in a chorus.
"No! No, indeed! I couldn't!" Peter protested violently.
"Of course you could!" contradicted Carmachel. "Come, come! You mustn't
be so modest, Strong. You are with us for keeping the field, aren't
you?"
"Yes. But there are reasons that you don't understand why I
couldn't----"
"Pooh! What reasons?"
"I can't tell you. But I couldn't possibly go to Mr. Coddington with the
men--I couldn't, really, Carmachel," reiterated Peter miserably.
"Nonsense! The only question is this--is your sympathy with us or isn't
it?"
"Of course it is!" There was no doubting the fervor of the avowal.
"Then that settles it. Although you have come here but recently, Strong,
we all consider you a friend and count you as one of ourselves. You'll
stand by the bunch, won't you?" Carmachel scrutinized Peter sharply.
"Yes, I will. But you don't understand the circumstances or you would
never urge me to----"
Carmachel interrupted him.
"I guess I understand the circumstances better than you think," returned
he, dryly. "Mr. Coddington got you your place, I've heard. Naturally you
feel under obligations to him for his kindness. That's all very well.
But has he ever been near you since he put you into the tannery? No! He
sits in his office and opens his mail and you are just a boy in the
works. Isn't that so? What's to hinder you from going respectfully to
him with the rest of us and calling to his attention something which
seems to us an injustice? You said yourself it was the best plan. You
pleaded with us to do it."
"I know."
"Then why won't you go yourself? You're not a coward, Strong, nor,
unless I greatly mistake, are you the sort of chap who would point out
to others a path he wouldn't dare follow himself."
"I'll go!" cried Peter suddenly. "I'll go, but I will not do any
speaking."
"Nobody wants you to speak," growled an Italian who had been standing
near and who had overheard the conversation. "Bryant, Carmachel, and the
older men will do the speaking. It's their place."
So it was agreed.
Events shaped themselves rapidly. Within an hour Mr. Coddington, seated
in his perfectly appointed office, received word that a deputation of
his men respectfully requested an interview with him that afternoon.
He was thunderstruck.
What did the demand foreshadow? Was a strike brewing? The men had
appeared perfectly satisfied with the working conditions at the
tanneries. Wages were fairly high and the factories conformed to every
requirement of the Health and Labor Laws.
He touched a bell.
"Ask Tyler to step here," said he, frowning.
Mr. Tyler entered hastily.
"What's all this, Tyler?" demanded his chief. "I hear the men want to
see me."
"I know nothing about it, sir. They've kept their own council. If they
have a grievance they have not told me."
"No labor agitators have been in town recently?"
"Not to my knowledge, Mr. Coddington."
"That will do."
Tyler went out.
Again Mr. Coddington rang.
"I will see the men at three o'clock," he said to a messenger.
Left alone the president paced the floor. Business was good. The books
showed a quantity of unfilled orders. It would be an awkward time for a
strike.
"Undoubtedly I could get strike-breakers from Chicago," he murmured
aloud, "but it would take time. Besides, I do not want my men to walk
out. Think of the years many of them have worked here! The town will be
full of idle persons and suffering families. I have never had a strike
in all the history of my business. I've always tried to do what was fair
toward those who were in my employ. That is what cuts--to be square
with your men and then have them meet you with ingratitude. Why, I would
have staked my oath that they would have stood by me. I'm
disappointed--disappointed!"
With such unpleasant reflections as companions three o'clock came none
too speedily for Mr. Coddington. The men were ushered promptly into the
office and the door closed. Then an awkward silence ensued. Nobody knew
exactly whose place it was to speak first.
But if the tanners had expected the president of the company to break
the ice and open the interview they had missed their calculations, for
he did no such thing. He met their gaze firmly, courteously, but
silently.
Peter, who stood at the back of the room behind the older workmen, saw
in his father's face an unaccustomed sternness and felt instinctively
that their mission was destined to failure.
It was Bryant who at last summoned courage to begin the conference.
"Mr. Coddington," he said, "we men have come to you because we wish to
hear the truth concerning a rumor that has reached us. We come
respectfully. You are our chief--the one who, in the past, has always
been fair and square with us. It is because of your justice that we
address you now. Is it true that you propose to take the vacant field
opposite Factory 1 for the site of a new building?"
As Mr. Coddington drew a sigh of relief he inclined his head.
"You have been correctly informed," he assented. "We need more room. The
land is lying idle with a tax to be paid yearly upon it. It seems to me
an economic plan to utilize the space for a new factory in which the
patent leather department may be housed."
"Did you realize, in deciding, that the field you intend to take is the
recreation ground of the men in your mills?" asked Bryant.
"I know that some of the men play ball there," replied Mr. Coddington,
smiling.
"And yet you have decided to take it in spite of that fact?"
The president stiffened.
"The land," said he, "is mine, and the taxes I annually pay on it render
it rather a costly spot for a ball field. For years the lot has been
nothing but an expense to me. If the case were yours and you could
derive an income from property where previously all had been outgo
wouldn't you do it?"
"But do you need that income, Mr. Coddington?" cut in one of the men.
"Isn't the Coddington Company rich? Must rich men go on getting more and
more, and never think of those who coin their money for them?"
It was an unwise speech, and its effect was electrical.
"I will try and believe that you men came here with the intention of
being courteous," observed Mr. Coddington with frigid politeness. "My
affairs, however, are mine and not yours. I must deal with them in the
way that I consider wisest. You hardly realize, I think, that you are
over-stepping the bounds of propriety when you attempt to dictate to me
what I shall do with my land, or how I shall manage my tanneries."
The sternness of the answer blocked any possible reply.
Amid the silence of the room one could almost hear the heart-beats of
the waiting throng.
Then some one in the crowd made his way to the front of the room and
faced the president.
It was Peter Strong.
As Mr. Coddington's gaze fell on his son he started.
The boy stood erect and looked his father squarely in the eye.
"May I speak, sir?"
Mr. Coddington bowed.
Peter began gently, respectfully, and his words were without defiance.
[Illustration: "MAY I SPEAK, SIR?"]
"I hardly think you know what the field you are going to take from the
men--from us all--means, sir. Not only do we play ball and go there to
eat our luncheon but each noon time we have a chance to get a breath of
fresh air and go back to work better in consequence. The field,
moreover, is the only open lot in this part of the town. At night
hundreds of men who have worked hard all day congregate there to get
sight of the green grass and enjoy a little interval of quiet. They
bring their families from the huddled districts where there is neither
sky, tree, nor breathing space. Suppose you lived as they do? Suppose
when you went home at night it was to a tenement in a crowded part of
the city? You return to a big house on the top of a hill where the trees
catch every breeze that passes; where there are shrubs, gardens,
flowers. Who needs this space more--you or your employees?"
When he began to speak, Peter had had no clear idea of what he should
say; but as he went on words came to him. Was not he himself one of
these working men who knew what the heat, the odor, the noise of the
tanneries meant? As he went on his voice vibrated with earnestness.
There was no doubting his sincerity. It was in truth Peter Strong and
not Peter Coddington who made the appeal.
As Mr. Coddington listened without comment to the speech his
wordlessness was an enigma to the men. It seemed as if it was a silence
of suppressed anger and in consternation Carmachel plucked Peter's
sleeve.
"Say no more, lad," he whispered. "You've gone too far. You forget that
it is the president himself you're talking to. You shouldn't have said
what you did, even though it's true."
But Peter scarcely heard.
He was watching his father--watching his face for the gleam that did not
come.
"I will consider what you have said, Strong," replied Mr. Coddington
after a pause. "I will acknowledge that I was ignorant of the fact that
the spot meant anything to the people of the community. If the
conditions are as you say we may be able to find a solution for the
problem. May we consider this interview at an end?"
Although the remark was in the form of a question the committee felt
itself dismissed and uncomfortably the men filed into the corridor.
"We've gained nothing!" was Bryant's first word when they found
themselves alone. "We've only succeeded in antagonizing Mr. Coddington
and solidified his intention of taking the field. We might have got
somewhere if Strong had not put his foot in it. What possessed you to
pitch into the president like that, young fellow?"
"What made you speak at all?" put in Carmachel. "Don't you know your
place better than to think a rich man like Mr. Coddington is going to
stand for having a kid like you lay down the law to him? How ever did
you dare? Your job is gone--that's certain. I'm sorry, too, for we all
like you here at the works."
"Oh, Peter! Peter! Why did you say it?" wailed Nat Jackson. "I know you
had the best of intentions, but don't you see that you've upset the
whole thing?"
There was something very like a sob in Nat's tone.
Poor Peter! From every hand came reproaches. If only he had not spoken!
His impulse, good at heart, had been one of mistaken zeal. It was not
that he himself had lost his cause--he had lost it for hundreds of men
in whom he had become interested, and whom he had struggled to serve.
Very wretched the boy was for the remainder of the day; when night came
he dreaded to go home. What would his father say to him?
Peter might have saved himself this worry, for when he entered the
dining-room and sat down to dinner he found the good-humor of his father
quite undisturbed and no allusion was made to the day's occurrence.
Surely this was carrying out to the letter the agreement they had made.
Peter Coddington was his son and he treated him as such; but to Peter
Strong, the boy of the tannery, he had nothing to say. Miserably Peter
waited for the opportunity to offer explanation or apology. It did not
come and all chance for securing it vanished when, directly after the
coffee was served, Mr. Coddington rose, announced that he had an
engagement, and was whirled off in the motor-car. He did not return
until long after his son was asleep.
Had Peter known what this mysterious engagement was his slumbers would
have been happier, for the president of the company had gone on no idle
errand. Screened from view in the far corner of the big touring-car he
had ridden past the tanneries and with his own eyes had seen the benches
in the ball field thronged with sweltering humanity. Twice, three times
he passed. He saw the boys at their games; the tired mothers resting in
the twilight; the babies that toddled at their feet; and the men--his
men--lying full-length on the grass drinking in the cool air. This was
what he had come out to see.
The result of it was that the next morning, in the doorway of every
factory of the Coddington Company, the following notice was posted:
After careful investigation Mr. Coddington has decided that it is
for the interest of his men that the plan to erect a building on
the ball field be abandoned. Instead the land will be laid out as a
recreation ground to be known as Strong Park, and to be reserved
for the Coddington employees, their families, and their friends.
Negotiations have been opened for a site on Central Street, where
the new patent leather factory will shortly be erected.
Signed: H. M. CODDINGTON, President.
What an ovation the men gave Peter that day! And how grateful Peter was
to his father! So grateful that before going to bed he felt compelled to
break their compact of silence and exclaim:
"Father, it's splendid of you to keep the field for the men! I can't
thank you half enough, sir. But you ought not to name it after me."
"I'm not naming it after you," was his father's laconic reply. "I'm
naming it after Peter Strong."
[Illustration]