Hal went back to Reminitsky’s boarding-house; a heavy sacrifice, but not
without its compensations, because it gave him more chance to talk with
the men.
He and Jerry made up a list of those who could be trusted with the
secret: the list beginning with the name of Mike Sikoria. To be put on a
committee, and sent to interview a boss, would appeal to Old Mike as the
purpose for which he had been put upon earth! But they would not tell
him about it until the last minute, for fear lest in his excitement he
might shout out the announcement the next time he lost one of his cars.
There was a young Bulgarian miner named Wresmak who worked near Hal. The
road into this man’s room ran up an incline, and he had hardly been able
to push his “empties” up the grade. While he was sweating and straining
at the task, Alec Stone had come along, and having a giant’s contempt
for physical weakness, began to cuff him. The man raised his
arm--whether in offence or to ward off the blow, no one could be sure;
but Stone fell upon him and kicked him all the way down the passage,
pouring out upon him furious curses. Now the man was in another room,
where he had taken out over forty car-loads of rock, and been allowed
only three dollars for it. No one who watched his face when the pit-boss
passed would doubt that this man would be ready to take his chances in a
movement of protest.
Then there was a man whom Jerry knew, who had just come out of the
hospital, after contact with the butt-end of the camp-marshal’s
revolver. This was a Pole, who unfortunately did not know a word of
English; but Olson, the organiser, had got into touch with another Pole,
who spoke a little English, and would pass the word on to his
fellow-countryman. Also there was a young Italian, Rovetta, whom Jerry
knew and whose loyalty he could vouch for.
There was another person Hal thought of--Mary Burke. He had been
deliberately avoiding her of late; it seemed the one safe thing to
do--although it seemed also a cruel thing, and left his mind ill at
ease. He went over and over what had happened. How had the trouble got
started? It is a man’s duty in such cases to take the blame upon
himself; but a man does not like to take blame upon himself, and he
tries to make it as light as possible. Should Hal say that it was
because he had been too officious that night in helping Mary where the
path was rough? She had not actually needed such help, she was quite as
capable on her feet as he! But he had really gone farther than that--he
had had a definite sentimental impulse; and he had been a cad--he should
have known all along that all this girl’s discontent, all the longing of
her starved soul, would become centred upon him, who was so “different,”
who had had opportunity, who made her think of the “poetry-books”!
But here suddenly seemed a solution of the difficulty; here was a new
interest for Mary, a safe channel in which her emotions could run. A
woman could not serve on a miners’ committee, but she would be a good
adviser, and her sharp tongue would be a weapon to drive others into
line. Being aflame with this enterprise, Hal became impersonal,
man-fashion--and so fell into another sentimental trap! He did not stop
to think that Mary’s interest in the check-weighman movement might be
conditioned in part by a desire to see more of him; still less did it
occur to him that he might be glad for a pretext to see Mary.
No, he was picturing her in a new role, an activity more inspiriting
than cooking and nursing. His “poetry-book” imagination took fire; he
gave her a hope and a purpose, a pathway with a goal at the end. Had
there not been women leaders in every great proletarian movement?
He went to call on her, and met her at the door of her cabin. “’Tis a
cheerin’ sight to see ye, Joe Smith!” she said. And she looked him in
the eye and smiled.
“The same to you, Mary Burke!” he answered.
She was game, he saw; she was going to be a “good sport.” But he noticed
that she was paler than when he had seen her last. Could it be that
these gorgeous Irish complexions ever faded? He thought that she was
thinner too; the old blue calico seemed less tight upon her.
Hal plunged into his theme. “Mary, I had a vision of you to-day!”
“Of me, lad? What’s that?”
He laughed. “I saw you with a glory in your face, and your hair shining
like a crown of gold. You were mounted on a snow-white horse, and wore a
robe of white, soft and lustrous--like Joan of Arc, or a leader in a
suffrage parade. You were riding at the head of a host--I’ve still got
the music in my ears, Mary!”
“Go on with ye, lad--what’s all this about?”
“Come in and I’ll tell you,” he said.
So they went into the bare kitchen, and sat in bare wooden chairs--Mary
folding her hands in her lap like a child who has been promised a
fairy-story. “Now hurry,” said she. “I want to know about this new dress
ye’re givin’ me. Are ye tired of me old calico?”
He joined in her smile. “This is a dress you will weave for yourself,
Mary, out of the finest threads of your own nature--out of courage and
devotion and self-sacrifice.”
“Sure, ’tis the poetry-book again! But what is it ye’re really meanin’?”
He looked about him. “Is anybody here?”
“Nobody.”
But instinctively he lowered his voice as he told his story. There was
an organiser of the “big union” in the camp, and he was going to rouse
the slaves to protest.
The laughter went out of Mary’s face. “Oh! It’s that!” she said, in a
flat tone. The vision of the snow-white horse and the soft and lustrous
robe was gone. “Ye can never do anything of that sort here!”
“Why not?”
“’Tis the men in this place. Don’t ye remember what I told ye at Mr.
Rafferty’s? They’re cowards!”
“Ah, Mary, it’s easy to say that. But it’s not so pleasant being turned
out of your home--”
“Do ye have to tell me that?” she cried, with sudden passion. “Haven’t I
seen that?”
“Yes, Mary; but I want to _do_ something--”
“Yes, and haven’t I wanted to do something? Sure, I’ve wanted to bite
off the noses of the bosses!”
“Well,” he laughed, “we’ll make that a part of our programme.” But Mary
was not to be lured into cheerfulness; her mood was so full of pain and
bewilderment that he had an impulse to reach out and take her hand
again. But he checked that; he had come to divert her energies into a
safe channel!
“We must waken these men to resistance, Mary!”
“Ye can’t do it, Joe--not the English-speakin’ men. The Greeks and the
Bulgars, maybe--they’re fightin’ at home, and they might fight here. But
the Irish never--never! Them that had any backbone went out long ago.
Them that stayed has been made into boot-licks. I know them, every man
of them. They grumble, and curse the boss, but then they think of the
blacklist, and they go back and cringe at his feet.”
“What such men want--”
“’Tis booze they want, and carousin’ with the rotten women in the
coal-towns, and sittin’ up all night winnin’ each other’s money with a
greasy pack of cards! They take their pleasure where they find it, and
’tis nothin’ better they want.”
“Then, Mary, if that’s so, don’t you see it’s all the more reason for
trying to teach them? If not for their own sakes, for the sake of their
children! The children, mustn’t grow up like that! They are learning
English, at least--”
Mary gave a scornful laugh. “Have ye been up to that school?”
He answered no; and she told him there were a hundred and twenty
children packed in one room, three in a seat, and solid all round the
wall. She went on, with swift anger--the school was supposed to be paid
for out of taxes, but as nobody owned any property but the company, it
was all in the company’s hands. The school-board consisted of Mr.
Cartwright, the mine-superintendent, and Jake Predovich, a clerk in the
store, and the preacher, the Reverend Spraggs. Old Spraggs would bump
his nose on the floor if the “super” told him to.
“Now, now!” said Hal, laughing. “You’re down on him because his
grandfather was an Orangeman!”