PETER MARTIN'S PROBLEM
It was not long until the idle workmen began to feel the want of their
pay envelopes. The grocers and butchers were as dependent upon those
pay envelopes as were the workmen themselves.
The winter was coming on. There was a chill in the air. In the homes of
the strikers the mothers and their little ones needed not only food but
fuel and clothing as well. The crowds at the evening street meetings
became more ominous. Through the long, idle days grim, sullen-faced men
walked the streets or stood in groups on the corners watching their
fellow citizens and muttering in low, guarded tones. Members of the
Mill workers' union were openly branded as cowards and traitors to
their class. The suffering among the women and children became acute.
But Jake Vodell was a master who demanded of his disciples most heroic
loyalty, without a thought of the cost--to them.
McIver put an armed guard about his factory and boasted that he could
live without work. The strikers, he declared, could either starve
themselves and their families or accept his terms.
The agitator was not slow in making capital of McIver's statements.
The factory owner depended upon the suffering of the women and children
to force the workmen to yield to him. Jake Vodell, the self-appointed
savior of the laboring people, depended upon the suffering of women and
children to drive his followers to the desperate measures that would
further his peculiar and personal interests.
Through all this, the Mill workers' union still refused to accept the
leadership of this man whose every interest was anti-American and
foreign to the principles of the loyal citizen workman. But the fire of
Jake Vodell's oratory and argument was not without kindling power, even
among John Ward's employees. As the feeling on both sides of the
controversy grew more bitter and intolerant, the Mill men felt with
increasing force the pull of their class. The taunts and jeers of the
striking workers were felt. The cries of "traitor" hurt. The suffering
of the innocent members of the strikers' families appealed strongly to
their sympathies.
When McIver's imperialistic declaration was known, the number who were
in favor of supporting Jake Vodell's campaign increased measurably.
Nearly every day now at some hour of the evening or night, Pete and
Captain Charlie, with others from among their union comrades, might
have been found in the hut on the cliff in earnest talk with the man in
the wheel chair. The active head of the union was Captain Charlie, as
his father had been before him, but it was no secret that the guiding
counsel that held the men of the Mill steady cane from the old basket
maker.
For John Ward the days were increasingly hard. He could not but sense
the feeling of the men. He knew that if Jake Vodell could win them,
such disaster as the people of Millsburgh had never seen would result.
The interest and sympathy of Helen, the comradeship of Captain Charlie,
and the strength of the Interpreter gave him courage and hope. But
there was nothing that he could do. He felt as he had felt sometimes in
France when he was called upon to stand and wait. It was a relief to
help Mary as he could in her work among the sufferers. But even this
activity of mercy was turned against him by both McIver and Vodell. The
factory man blamed him for prolonging the strike and thus working
injury to the general business interests of Millsburgh. The strike
leader charged him with seeking to win the favor of the working class
in order to influence his own employees against, what he called the
fight for their industrial freedom.
The situation was rapidly approaching a crisis when Peter Martin and
Captain Charlie, returning home from a meeting of their union laid one
evening, found the door of the house locked.
The way the two men stood facing each other without a word revealed the
tension of their nerves. Captain Charlie's hand shook so that his key
rattled against the lock. But when they were inside and had switched on
the light, a note which Mary had left on the table for them explained.
The young woman had gone to the Flats in answer to a call for help.
John was with her. She had left the note so that her father and brother
would not be alarmed at her absence in case they returned home before
her.
In their relief, the two men laughed. They were a little ashamed of
their unspoken fears.
"We might have known," said Pete, and with the words seemed to dismiss
the incident from his mind.
But Captain Charlie did not recover so easily. While his father found
the evening paper and, settling himself in an easy-chair by the table,
cleaned his glasses and filled and lighted his pipe, the younger man
went restlessly from room to room, turning on the lights, turning them
off again--all apparently for no reason whatever. He finished his
inspection by returning to the table and again picking up Mary's note.
When he had reread the message he said, slowly, "I thought John
expected to be at the office to-night."
Something in his son's voice caused the old workman to look at him
steadily, as he answered, "John probably came by on his way to the Mill
and dropped in for a few minutes."
"I suppose so," returned Charlie. Then, "Father, do you think it wise
for sister to be so much with John?"
The old workman laid aside his paper. "Why, I don't know--I hadn't
thought much about it, son. It seems natural enough, considering the
way you children was all raised together when you was youngsters."
"It's natural enough all right," returned Captain Charlie, and, with a
bitterness that was very unlike his usual self, he added, "That's the
hell of it--it's too natural--too human--too right for this day and
age."
Pete Martin's mind worked rather slowly but he was fully aroused
now--Charlie's meaning was clear. "What makes you think that Mary and
John are thinking of each other in that way, son?"
"How could they help it?" returned Captain Charlie. "Sister is exactly
the kind of woman that John would choose for a wife. Don't I know what
he thinks of the light-headed nonentities in the set that he is
supposed to belong to? Hasn't he demonstrated his ideas of class
distinctions? It would never occur to him that there was any reason why
John Ward should not love Mary Martin. As for sister--when you think of
the whole story of their childhood together, of how John and I were all
through the war, of how he has been in the Mill since we came home, of
their seeing each other here at the house so much, of the way he has
been helping her with her work among the poor in the Flats--well, how
could any woman like sister help loving him?"
While the older man was considering his son's presentation of the case,
Captain Charlie added, with characteristic loyalty, "God may have made
finer men than John Ward, but if He did they don't live around
Millsburgh."
"Well, then, son," said Peter Martin, with his slow smile, "what about
it? Suppose they are thinking of each other as you say?"
Captain Charlie did not answer for a long minute. And the father,
watching, saw in that strong young face the shadow of a hurt which the
soldier workman could not hide.
"It is all so hopeless," said Charlie, at last, in a tone that told
more clearly than words could have done his own hopelessness. "I--it
don't seem right for Mary to have to bear it, too."
"I'm sorry, son," was all that the old workman said, but Captain
Charlie knew that his father understood.
After that they did not speak until they heard an automobile stop in
front of the house.
"That must be Mary now," said Pete, looking at his watch. "They have
never been so late before."
They heard her step on the porch. The sound of the automobile died away
in the distance.
When Mary came in and they saw her face, they knew that Charlie was
right. She tried to return their greetings in her usual manner but
failed pitifully and hurried on to her room.
The two men looked at each other without a word.
Presently Mary returned and told them a part of her evening's
experience. Soon after her father and brother had left the house for
the meeting of their union, a boy from the Flats came with the word
that the wife of one of Jake Vodell's followers was very ill. Mary,
knowing the desperate need of the case but fearing to be alone in that
neighborhood at night, had telephoned John at the Mill and he had taken
her in his car to the place. The woman, in the agonies of childbirth,
was alone with her three little girls. The husband and father was
somewhere helping Jake Vodell in the agitator's noble effort to bring
happiness to the laboring class. While Mary was doing what she could in
the wretched home, John went for a doctor, and to bring fuel and
blankets and food and other things that were needed. But, in spite of
their efforts, the fighting methods of McIver and Vodell scored another
point, that they each might claim with equal reason as in his favor--to
God knows what end.
"I can't understand why you Mill men let them go on," Mary cried, with
a sudden outburst of feeling, as she finished her story. "You could
fight for the women and children during the war. Whenever there is a
shipwreck the papers are always full of the heroism of the men who cry
'women and children first!' Why can't some one think of the women and
children in these strikes? They are just as innocent as the women and
children of Belgium. Why don't you talk on the streets and hold mass
meetings and drive Jake Vodell and that beast McIver out of the
country?"
"Jake Vodell and McIver are both hoping that some one will do just
that, Mary," returned Captain Charlie. "They would like nothing better
than for some one to start a riot. You see, dear, an open clash would
result in bloodshed--the troops would be called in by McIver, which is
exactly what he wants. Vodell would provoke an attack on the soldiers,
some one would be killed, and we would have exactly the sort of war
against the government that he and his brotherhood are working for."
The old workman spoke. "Charlie is right, daughter; these troubles will
never be settled by McIver's way nor Vodell's way. They will be settled
by the employers like John getting together and driving the McIvers out
of business--and the employees like Charlie here and a lot of the men
in our union getting together with John and his crowd and sending the
Jake Vodells back to whatever country they came from." When her father
spoke John's name, the young woman's face colored with a quick blush.
The next moment, unable to control her overwrought emotions, she burst
into tears and started to leave the room. But at the door Captain
Charlie caught her in his arms and held her close until the first
violence of her grief was over.
When she had a little of her usual calmness, her brother whispered, "I
know all about it, dear."
She raised her head from his shoulder and looked at him with tearful
doubt. "You know about--about John?" she said, wonderingly.
"Yes," he whispered, with an encouraging smile, "I know--father and I
were talking about it before you came home. I am going to leave you
with him now. You must tell father, you know. Goodnight,
dear--good-night, father."
Slowly Mary turned back into the room. The old workman, sitting there
in his big chair, held out his arms. With a little cry she ran to him
as she had gone to him all the years of her life.
When she had told him all--how John that very evening on their way home
from the Flats had asked her to be his wife--and how she, in spite of
her love for him, had forced herself to answer, "No," Pete Martin sat
with his head bowed as one deep in thought.
Mary, knowing her father's slow way, waited.
When the old workman spoke at last it was almost as though, unconscious
of his daughter's presence, he talked to himself. "Your mother and I
used to think in the old days when you children were growing up
together that some time perhaps the two families would be united. But
when we watched Adam getting rich and saw what his money was doing to
him and to his home, we got to be rather glad that you children were
separated. We were so happy ourselves in our own little home here that
we envied no man. We did not want wealth even for you and Charlie when
we saw all that went with it. We did not dream that Adam's success
could ever stand in the way of our children's happiness like this. But
I guess that is the way it is, daughter. I remember the Interpreter's
saying once that no man had a right to make even himself miserable
because no man could be miserable alone."
The old workman's voice grew still more reflective. "It was the new
process that made Adam rich. He was no better man at the bench than I.
I never considered him as my superior. He happened to be born with a
different kind of a brain, that is all. And he thought more of money,
while I cared more for other things. But there is a good reason why his
money should not be permitted to stand between his children and my
children. There is a lot of truth, after all, in Jake Vodell's talk
about the rights of men who work with their hands. The law upholds Adam
Ward in his possessions, I know. And it would uphold him Just the same
if my children were starving. But the law don't make it right. There
should be some way to make a man do what is right--law or no law. You
and John--"
"Father!" cried Mary, alarmed at his words. "Surely you are not going
to hold with Jake Vodell about such things. What do you mean about
making a man do what is right--law or no law?"
"There, there, daughter," said the old workman, smiling. "I was just
thinking out loud, I guess. It will be all right for you and John. Run
along to bed now, and don't let a worry come, even into your dreams."
"I would rather give John up a thousand times than have you like Jake
Vodell," she said. "You shan't even _think_ that way."
When she was gone, Peter Martin filled and lighted his pipe again, and
for another hour sat alone.
Whether or not his thoughts bore any relation to the doctrines of Jake
Vodell, they led the old workman, on the following day, to pay a visit
to Adam Ward at his home on the hill.