These were serene and sweet days for them all, and if sometimes the old
sorrow returned for awhile, and there were still bitter longing and
grieving for Josephine, there were days, too, when even the mother
admitted to herself that some new tender element had crept into their
love for each other since the little sister's going, the invisible
presence was the closest and strongest of the ties that bound them all.
Happiness came back, planning and dreaming began again. Susan teased
Anna and Betsey into wearing white again, when the hot weather came,
Billy urged the first of the walks to the beach without Jo, and Anna
herself it was who began to extend the old informal invitations to the
nearest friends and neighbors for the tea-hour on Saturday. Susan was
to have her vacation in August; Billy was to have at least a week; Anna
had been promised the fortnight of Susan's freedom, and Jimmy and
Betsey could hardly wait for the camping trip they planned to take all
together to the little shooting box in the mountains.
One August afternoon Susan, arriving home from the office at one
o'clock, found Mrs. Carroll waiting to ask her a favor.
"Sue, dear, I'm right in the middle of my baking," Mrs. Carroll said,
when Susan was eating a late lunch from the end of the kitchen table,
"and here's a special delivery letter for Billy, and Billy's not coming
over here to-night! Phil's taking Jimmy and Betts to the circus--they
hadn't been gone five minutes when this thing came!"
"Why a special delivery--and why here--and what is it?" asked Susan,
wiping buttery fingers carefully before she took the big envelope in
her hands. "It's from Edward Dean," she said, examining it with
unaffected interest. "Oh, I know what this is--it's about that
blue-print business!" Susan finished, enlightened. "Probably Mr. Dean
didn't have Billy's new address, but wanted him to have these to work
on, on Sunday."
"It feels as if something bulky was in there," Mrs. Carroll said. "I
wish we could get him by telephone! As bad luck would have it, he's a
good deal worried about the situation at the works, and told me he
couldn't possibly leave the men this week. What ARE the blue-prints?"
"Why, it's some little patent of Billy's,--a deep-petticoat,
double-groove porcelain insulator, if that means anyone to anyone!"
laughed Susan. "He's been raving about it for weeks! And he and Mr.
Dean have to rush the patent, because they've been using these things
for some time, and they have to patent them before they've been used a
year, it seems!"
"I was just thinking, Sue, that, if you didn't mind crossing to the
city with them, you could put on a special-delivery stamp and then
Billy would have them to-night. Otherwise, they won't leave here until
tomorrow morning."
"Why, of course, that'll do!" Susan said willingly. "I can catch the
two-ten. Or better yet, Aunt Jo, I'll take them right out there and
deliver them myself."
"Oh, dearie, no! Not if there's any ugliness among the men, not if they
are talking of a strike!" the older woman protested.
"Oh, they're always striking," Susan said easily. "And if I can't get
him to bring me back," she added, "don't worry, for I may go stay with
Georgie overnight, and come back with Bill in the morning!"
She was not sorry to have an errand on this exquisite afternoon. The
water of the bay was as smooth as blue glass, gulls were flashing and
dipping in the steamer's wake. Sailboats, waiting for the breeze,
drifted idly toward the Golden Gate; there was not a cloud in the blue
arch of the sky. The little McDowell whistled for her dock at Alcatraz.
On the prison island men were breaking stone with a metallic
clink--clink--clink.
Susan found the ferry-place in San Francisco hot and deserted; the tar
pavements were softened under-foot; gongs and bells of cars made a
raucous clamor. She was glad to establish herself on the front seat of
a Mission Street car and leave the crowded water-front behind her.
They moved along through congested traffic, past the big docks, and
turned in between the great ware-houses that line Mission Street. The
hot streets were odorous of leather and machine-oils, ropes and coffee.
Over the door of what had been Hunter, Baxter & Hunter's hung a new
bright sign, "Hunter, Hunter & Brauer." Susan caught a glimpse, through
the plaster ornamentation of the facade, of old Front Office, which
seemed to be full of brightly nickeled samples now, and gave back a
blinking flash of light to the afternoon sun.
"Bathroom fixtures," thought Susan. "He always wanted to carry them!"
What a long two years since she had known or cared what pleased or
displeased Mr. Brauer!
The car clanged out of the warehouse district, past cheap flats and
cheap shops, and saloons, and second-hand stores, boiling over, at
their dark doorways, with stoves and rocking-chairs, lamps and china
ware. This neighborhood was sordid enough, but crowded, happy and full
of life. Now the road ran through less populous streets; houses stood
at curious angles, and were unpainted, or painted in unusual colors.
Great ware-houses and factories shadowed little clusters of
workingmen's homes; here and there were country-like strips of brown
palings with dusty mallow bushes spraying about them, or a lean cow
grazing near a bare little wooden farmhouse. Dumps, diffusing a dry and
dreadful odor, blighted the prospect with their pyramids of cans and
broken umbrellas; little grocery stores, each with its wide unrailed
porch, country fashion, and its bar accessible through the shop, or by
a side entrance, often marked the corners on otherwise vacant blocks.
Susan got off the car in the very shadow of the "works," and stood for
a moment looking at the great foundries, the dark and dirty yards, with
their interlacing tracks and loaded cars, the enormous brick buildings
set with rows and rows of blank and dusty windows, the brick chimneys
and the black pipes of the blast-furnaces, the heaps of twisted old
iron and of ashes, the blowing dust and glare of the hot summer day.
She had been here with Billy before, had peeped into the furnace rooms,
all a glare of white heat and silhouetted forms, had breathed the ashy
and choking air.
Now she turned and walked toward the rows of workingmen's cottages that
had been built, solidly massed, nearby. Presenting an unbroken,
two-story facade, the long buildings were divided into tiny houses that
had each two flat-faced windows upstairs, and a door and one window
downstairs. The seven or eight long buildings might have been as many
gigantic German toys, dotted with apertures by some accurate brush, and
finished with several hundred flights of wooden steps and several
hundred brick chimneys. Ugly when they first were built, they were even
uglier now, for the exterior was of some shallow plaster that chipped
and cracked and stained and in nearly every dooryard dirt and disorder
added a last touch to the unlovely whole.
Children swarmed everywhere this afternoon; heavy, dirty-faced babies
sat in the doorways, women talked and laughed over the low dividing
fences. Gates hung awry, and baby carriages and garbage tins obstructed
the bare, trampled spaces that might have been little gardens.
Up and down the straight narrow streets, and loitering everywhere, were
idle, restless men. A few were amusing babies, or joining in the idle
chatter of the women, but for the most part they were silent, or
talking in low tones among themselves.
"Strikers!" Susan said to herself, with a thrill.
Over the whole curious, exotic scene the late summer sunshine streamed
generously; the street was hot, the talking women fanned themselves
with their aprons.
Susan, walking slowly alone, found herself attracting a good deal of
attention, and was amazed to find that it frightened her a little. She
was conspicuously a newcomer, and could not but overhear the comments
that some of the watching young men made as she went by.
"Say, what's that song about 'I'd leave my happy home for you,' Bert?"
she heard them say. "Don't ask me! I'm expecting my gurl any minute!"
and "Pretty good year for peaches, I hear!"
Susan had to pretend that she did not hear, but she heartily wished
herself back on the car. However, there was nothing to do but walk
senselessly on, or stop and ask her way. She began to look furtively
about for a friendly face, and finally stopped beside a dooryard where
a slim pretty young woman was sitting with a young baby in her arms.
"Excuse me," said Susan, "but do you know where Mr. William Oliver
lives, now?"
The girl studied her quietly for a minute, with a closed, composed
mouth. Then she said evenly:
"Joe!"
"Huh?" said a tall young man, lathered for shaving, who came at once to
the door.
"I'm trying to find Mr. Oliver--William Oliver," Susan said smiling.
"I'm a sort of cousin of his, and I have a special delivery letter for
him."
Joe, who had been rapidly removing the lather from his face with a
towel, took the letter and, looking at it, gravely conceded:
"Well, maybe that's right, too! Sure you can see him. We're haying a
conference up at the office tonight," he explained, "and I have to
clean up or I'd take you to him myself! Maybe you'd do it, Lizzie?" he
suggested to his wife, who was all friendliness to Susan now, and
showed even a hint of respect in her friendliness.
"Well, I could nurse him later, Joe," she agreed willingly, in
reference to the baby, "or maybe Mama--Mama!" she interrupted herself
to call.
An immense, gray-haired old woman, who had been an interested auditor
of this little conversation, got up from the steps of the next house,
and came to the fence. Susan liked Ellan Cudahy at first sight, and
smiled at her as she explained her quest.
"And you're Mr. Oliver's sister, I c'n see that," said Mrs. Cudahy
shrewdly.
"No, I'm not!" Susan smiled. "My name is Brown. But Mr. Oliver was a
sort of ward of my aunt's, and so we call ourselves cousins."
"Well, of course ye wud," agreed Mrs. Cudahy. "Wait till I pin on me
hat wanst, and I'll take you up to the Hall. He's at the Hall, Joe, I
dunno?" she asked.
Joseph assenting, they set out for the Hall, under a fire of curious
eyes.
"Joe's cleaning up for the conference," said Mrs. Cudahy. "There's a
committee going to meet tonight. The old man-that's Carpenter, the boss
of the works, will be there, and some of the others."
Susan nodded intelligently, but Saturday evening seemed to her a
curious time to select for a conference. They walked along in silence,
Mrs. Cudahy giving a brief yet kindly greeting to almost every man they
met.
"Hello, Dan, hello, Gene; how are ye, Jim?" said she, and one young
giant, shouldering his scowling way home, she stopped with a fat
imperative hand. "How's it going, Jarge?"
"It's going rotten," said George, sullenly evading her eyes.
"Well,--don't run by me that way--stand still!" said the old woman.
"What d'ye mean by rotten?"
"Aw, I mean rotten!" said George ungraciously. "D'ye know what the old
man is going to do now? He says that he'll give Billy just two or three
days more to settle this damn thing, and then he'll wire east and get a
carload of men right straight through from Philadelphia. He said so to
young Newman, and Frank Harris was in the room, and heard him. He says
they're picked out, and all ready to come!"
"And what does Mr. Oliver say?" asked Mrs. Cudahy, whose face had grown
dark.
"I don't know! I went up to the Hall, but at the first word he says,
'For God's sake, George--None of that here! They'll mob the old man if
they hear it!' They was all crowding about him, so I quit."
"Well," said Mrs. Cudahy, considering, "there's to be a conference at
six-thirty, but befoor that, Mr. Oliver and Clem and Rassette and
Weidermeyer are going to meet t'gether in Mr. Oliver's room at
Rassette's house. Ye c'n see them there."
"Well, maybe I will," said George, softening, as he left them.
"What's the conference about?" asked Susan pleasantly.
"What's the--don't tell me ye don't know THAT!" Mrs. Cudahy said, eying
her shrewdly.
"I knew there was a strike---" Susan began ashamedly.
"Sure, there's a strike," Mrs. Cudahy agreed, with quiet grimness, and
under her breath she added heavily, "Sure there is!"
"And are Mr. Oliver's--are the men out?" Susan asked.
"There's nine hundred men out," Mrs. Cudahy told her, coldly.
"Nine hundred!" Susan stopped short. "But Billy's not responsible for
all that!" she added, presently.
"I don't know who is, then," Mrs. Cudahy admitted grimly.
"But--but he never had more than thirty or forty men under him in his
life!" Susan said eagerly.
"Oh? Well, maybe he doesn't know anything about it, thin!" Mrs. Cudahy
agreed with magnificent contempt.
But her scorn was wasted upon another Irishwoman. Susan stared at her
for a moment, then the dimples came into view, and she burst into her
infectious laughter.
"Aren't you ashamed to be so mean!" laughed Susan. "Won't you tell me
about it?"
Mrs. Cudahy laughed too, a little out of countenance.
"I misdoubt me you're a very bad lot!" said she, in high good humor,
"but 'tis no joke for the boys," she went on, sobering quickly. "They
wint on strike a week ago. Mr. Oliver presided at a meeting two weeks
come Friday night, and the next day the boys went out!"
"What for?" asked Susan.
"For pay, and for hours," the older woman said. "They want regular pay
for overtime, wanst-and-a-half regular rates. And they want the
Chinymen to go,--sure, they come in on every steamer," said Mrs. Cudahy
indignantly, "and they'll work twelve hours for two bits! Bether
hours," she went on, checking off the requirements on fat, square
fingers, "overtime pay, no Chinymen, and--and--oh, yes, a risin' scale
of wages, if you know what that is? And last, they want the union
recognized!"
"Well, that's not much!" Susan said generously. "Will they get it?"
"The old man is taking his time," Mrs. Cudahy's lips shut in a worried
line. "There's no reason they shouldn't," she resumed presently, "We're
the only open shop in this part of the world, now. The big works has
acknowledged the union, and there's no reason why this wan shouldn't!"
"And Billy, is he the one they talk to, the Carpenters I mean--the
authorities?" asked Susan.
"They wouldn't touch Mr. William Oliver wid a ten-foot pole," said Mrs.
Cudahy proudly. "Not they! Half this fuss is because they want to get
rid of him--they want him out of the way, d'ye see? No, he talks to the
committee, and thin they meet with the committee. My husband's on it,
and Lizzie's Joe goes along to report what they do."
"But Billy has a little preliminary conference in his room first?"
Susan asked.
"He does," the other assented, with a chuckle. "He'll tell thim what to
say! He's as smart as old Carpenter himself!" said Mrs. Cudahy, "he's
prisidint of the local; Clem says he'd ought to be King!" And Susan was
amazed to notice that the strong old mouth was trembling with emotion,
and the fine old eyes dimmed with tears. "The crowd av thim wud lay
down their lives for him, so they would!" said Mrs. Cudahy.
"And--and is there much suffering yet?" Susan asked a little timidly.
This cheery, sun-bathed scene was not quite her idea of a labor strike.
"Well, some's always in debt and trouble annyway," Mrs. Cudahy said,
temperately, "and of course 'tis the worse for thim now!"
She led Susan across an unpaved, deeply rutted street, and opened a
stairway door, next to a saloon entrance.
Susan was glad to have company on the bare and gloomy stairs they
mounted. Mrs. Cudahy opened a double-door at the top, and they looked
into the large smoke-filled room that was the "Hall."
It was a desolate and uninviting room, with spirals of dirty, colored
tissue-paper wound about the gas-fixtures, sunshine streaming through
the dirty, specked windows, chairs piled on chairs against the long
walls, and cuspidors set at regular intervals along the floor. There
was a shabby table set at a platform at one end.
About this table was a group of men, talking eagerly and noisily to
Billy Oliver, who stood at the table looking abstractedly at various
letters and papers.
At the entrance of the women, the talk died away. Mrs. Cudahy was
greeted with somewhat sheepish warmth; the vision of an extremely
pretty girl in Mrs. Cudahy's care seemed to affect these vociferous
laborers profoundly. They began confused farewells, and melted away.
"All right, old man, so long!" "I'll see you later, Oliver," "That was
about all, Billy, I must be getting along," "Good-night, Billy, you
know where I am if you want me!" "I'll see you later,--good-night, sir!"
"Hello, Mrs. Cudahy--hello, Susan!" said Billy, discovering them with
the obvious pleasure a man feels when unexpectedly confronted by his
womenkind. "I think you were a peach to do that, Sue!" he said
gratefully, when the special delivery letter had been read. "Now I can
get right at it, to-morrow!--Say, wait a minute, Clem---"
He caught by the arm an old man,--larger, more grizzled, even more blue
of eye than was Susan's new friend, his wife,--and presented her to Mr.
Cudahy.
"---My adopted sister, Clem! Sue, he's about as good as they come!"
"Sister, is it?" asked Mrs. Cudahy, "Whin I last heard it was cousin!
What do you know about that, Clem?"
"Well, that gives you a choice!" said Susan, laughing.
"Then I'll take the Irishman's choice, and have something different
entirely!" the old woman said, in great good spirits, as they all went
down the stairs.
"I'll take me own gir'rl home, and give you two a chanst," said Clem,
in the street. "That'll suit you, Wil'lum, I dunno?"
"You didn't ask if it would suit ME," sparkled Susan Brown.
"Well, that's so!" he said delightedly, stopping short to scratch his
head, and giving her a rueful smile. "Sure, I'm that popular that there
never was a divvle like me at all!"
"You get out, and leave my girl alone!" said William, with a shove. And
his tired face brightened wonderfully, as he slipped his hand under
Susan's arm.
"Now, Sue," he said contentedly, "we'll go straight to Rassette's--but
wait a minute--I've got to telephone!"
Susan stood alone on the corner, quite as a matter of course, while he
dashed into a saloon. In a moment he was back, introducing her to a
weak-looking, handsome young man, who, after a few wistful glances back
toward the swinging door, walked away with them, and was presently left
in the care of a busily cooking little wife and a fat baby. Billy was
stopped and addressed on all sides. Susan found it pleasantly exciting
to be in his company, and his pleasure in showing her this familiar
environment was unmistakable.
"Everything's rotten and upset now," said Billy, delighted with her
friendly interest and sympathy. "You ought to see these people when
they aren't on strike! Now, let's see, it's five thirty. I'll tell you,
Sue, if you'll miss the seven-five boat, I'll just wait here until we
get the news from the conference, then I'll blow you to Zink's best
dinner, and take you home on the ten-seventeen."
"Oh, Bill, forget me!" she said, concerned for his obvious fatigue, for
his face was grimed with perspiration and very pale. "I feel like a
fool to have come in on you when you're so busy and so distressed!
Anything will be all right---"
"Sue, I wouldn't have had you miss this for a million, if you can only
get along, somehow!" he said eagerly. "Some other time---"
"Oh, Billy, DON'T bother about me!" Susan dismissed herself with an
impatient little jerk of her head. "Does this new thing worry you?" she
asked.
"What new thing?" he asked sharply.
"Why, this--this plan of Mr. Carpenter's to bring a train-load of men
on from Philadelphia," said Susan, half-proud and half-frightened.
"Who said so?" he demanded abruptly.
"Why, I don't know his name, Billy--yes I do, too! Mrs. Cudahy called
him Jarge---"
"George Weston, that was!" Billy's eyes gleamed. "What else did he say?"
"He said a man named Edward Harris---" "Sure it wasn't Frank Harris?"
"Frank Harris--that was it! He said Harris overheard him--or heard him
say so!"
"Harris didn't hear anything that the old man didn't mean to have him
hear," said Billy grimly. "But that only makes it the more probably
true! Lord, Lord, I wonder where I can get hold of Weston!"
"He's going to be at that conference, at half-past five," Susan assured
him. He gave her an amused look.
"Aren't you the little Foxy-Quiller!" he said. "Gosh, I do love to have
you out here, Sue!" he added, grinning like a happy small boy. "This is
Rassette's, where I'm staying," he said, stopping before the very
prettiest and gayest of little gardens. "Come in and meet Mrs.
Rassette."
Susan went in to meet the blonde, pretty, neatly aproned little lady of
the house.
"The boys already are upstairs, Mr. Oliver," said Mrs. Rassette, and as
Billy went up the little stairway with flying leaps, she led Susan into
her clean little parlor. Susan noticed a rug whose design was an
immense brown dog, a lamp with a green, rose-wreathed shade, a carved
wooden clock, a little mahogany table beautifully inlaid with white
holly, an enormous pair of mounted antlers, and a large concertina,
ornamented with a mosaic design in mother-of-pearl. The wooden floor
here, and in the hall, was unpainted, but immaculately clean and the
effect of the whole was clean and gay and attractive.
"You speak very wonderful English for a foreigner, Mrs. Rassette."
"I?" The little matron showed her white teeth. "But I was born in New
Jersey," she explained, "only when I am seven my Mama sends me home to
my Grandma, so that I shall know our country. It is a better country
for the working people," she added, with a smile, and added
apologetically, "I must look into my kitchen; I am afraid my boy shall
fall out of his chair."
"Oh, let's go out!" Susan followed her into a kitchen as spotless as
the rest of the house, and far more attractive. The floor was
cream-white, the woodwork and the tables white, and immaculate blue
saucepans hung above an immaculate sink.
Three babies, the oldest five years old, were eating their supper in
the evening sunshine, and now fixed their solemn blue eyes upon the
guest. Susan thought they were the cleanest babies she had ever seen;
through their flaxen mops she could see their clean little heads, their
play-dresses were protected by checked gingham aprons worked in
cross-stitch designs. Marie and Mina and Ernie were kissed in turn,
after their mother had wiped their rosy little faces with a damp cloth.
"I am baby-mad!" said Susan, sitting down with the baby in her lap. "A
strike is pretty hard, when you have these to think of, isn't it?" she
asked sympathetically.
"Yes, we don't wish that we should move," Mrs. Rassette agreed
placidly, "We have been here now four years, and next year it is our
hope that we go to our ranch."
"Oh, have you a ranch?" asked Susan.
"We are buying a little ranch, in the Santa Clara valley," the other
woman said, drawing three bubbling Saucepans forward on her shining
little range. "We have an orchard there, and there is a town nearby
where Joe shall have a shop of his own. And there is a good school! But
until my Marie is seven, we think we shall stay here. So I hope the
strike will stop. My husband can always get work in Los Angeles, but it
is so far to move, if we must come back next year!"
Susan watched her, serenely beginning to prepare the smallest girl for
bed; the helpful Marie trotting to and fro with nightgowns and
slippers. All the while the sound of men's voices had been rising and
falling steadily in an upstairs room. Presently they heard the scraping
of chairs on a bare floor, and a door slammed.
Billy Oliver put his head into the kitchen. He looked tired, but smiled
when he saw Susan with the sleepy baby in her lap.
"Hello, Sue, that your oldest? Come on, woman, the Cudahys expect us to
dinner, and we've not got much time!"
Susan kissed the baby, and walked with him to the end of the block, and
straight through the open door of the Cudahy cottage, and into the
kitchen. Here they found Mrs. Cudahy, dashing through preparations for
a meal whose lavishness startled Susan. Bottles of milk and bottles of
cream stood on the table, Susan fell to stripping ears of corn; there
were pop-overs in the oven; Mrs. Cudahy was frying chickens at the
stove. Enough to feed the Carroll family, under their mother's
exquisite management, for a week!
There was no management here. A small, freckled and grinning boy known
as "Maggie's Tim" came breathless from the grocery with a great bottle
of fancy pickles; Billy brought up beer from the cellar; Clem Cudahy
cut a thick slice of butter from a two-pound square, and helped it into
the serving-dish with a pudgy thumb. A large fruit pie and soda
crackers were put on the table with the main course, when they sat
down, hungry and talkative.
"Well, what do you think of the Ironworks Row?" asked Billy, at about
seven o'clock, when the other men had gone off to the conference, and
Susan was helping Mrs. Cudahy in the kitchen.
"Oh, I like it!" Susan assured him, enthusiastically. "Only," she added
in a lowered tone, with a glance toward Mrs. Cudahy, who was out in the
yard talking to Lizzie, "only I prefer the Rassette establishment to
any I've seen!"
"The Rassettes," he told her, significantly, "are trained for their
work; she just as much as he is! Do you wonder I think it's worth while
to educate people like that?"
"But Billy--everyone seems so comfortable. The Cudahys, now,--why, this
dinner was fit for a king--if it had been served a little differently!"
"Oh, Clem's a rich man, as these men go," Billy said. "He's got two
flats he rents, and he's got stock! And they've three married sons, all
prosperous."
"Well, then, why do they live here?"
"Why wouldn't they? You think that it's far from clubs and shops and
theaters and libraries, but they don't care for these things. They've
never had time for them, they've never had time to garden, or go to
clubs, and consequently they don't miss them. But some day, Sue," said
Billy, with a darkening face, "some day, when these people have the
assurance that their old age is to be protected and when they have
easier hours, and can get home in daylight, then you'll see a change in
laborers' houses!"
"And just what has a strike like this to do with that, Billy?" said
Susan, resting her cheek on her broom handle.
"Oh, it's organization; it's recognition of rights; it's the
beginning!" he said. "We have to stand before we can walk!"
"Here, don't do that!" said Mrs. Cudahy, coming in to take away the
broom. "Take her for a walk, Billy," said she, "and show her the
neighborhood." She laid a heavy hand on his shoulder. "Now, don't ye
worry about the men coming back," said she kindly, "they'll be back
fast enough, and wid good news, too!"
"I'm going to stay overnight with Mrs. Cudahy," said Susan, as they
walked away.
"You are!" he stopped short, in amazement.
"Yes, I am!" Susan returned his smile with another. "I could no more
go home now than after the first act of a play!" she confessed.
"Isn't it damned interesting?" he said, walking on.
"Why, yes," she said. "It's real at last--it's the realest thing I ever
saw in my life! Everything's right on the surface, and all kept within
certain boundaries. In other places, people come and go in your lives.
Here, everybody's your neighbor. I like it! It could be perfect; just
fancy if the Carrolls had one house, and you another, and I a third,
and Phil and his wife a fourth--wouldn't it be like children playing
house! And there's another thing about it, Billy," Susan went on
enthusiastically, "it's honest! These people are really worried about
shoes and rent and jobs--there's no money here to keep them from
feeling everything! Think what a farce a strike would be if every man
in it had lots of money! People with money CAN'T get the taste of
really living!"
"Ah, well, there's a lot of sin and wretchedness here now!" he said
sadly. "Women drinking--men acting like brutes! But some day, when the
liquor traffic is regulated, and we have pension laws, and perhaps the
single tax---"
"And the Right-Reverend William Lord Oliver, R. I., in the Presidential
Chair, hooray and Glory be to God---!" Susan began.
"Oh, you dry up, Susan," Billy said laughing. "I don't care," he added
contentedly. "I like to be at the bottom of things, shoving up. And my
Lord, if we only pull this thing off---!"
"It's not my preconceived idea of a strike," Susan said, after a
moment's silence. "I thought one had to throw coal, and run around the
streets with a shawl over one's head---"
"In the east, where the labor is foreign, that's about it," he said,
"but here we have American-born laborers, asking for their rights. And
I believe it's all coming!"
"But with ignorance and inefficiency on one hand, and graft and cruelty
on the other, and drink and human nature and poverty adding their
complications, it seems rather a big job!" Susan said. "Now, look at
these small kids out of bed at this hour of night, Bill! And what are
they eating?--Boiled crabs! And notice the white stockings--I never had
a pair in my life, yet every kidlet on the block is wearing them. And
look upstairs there, with a bed still airing!"
"The wonder is that it's airing at all," Billy said absently. "Is that
the boys coming back?" he asked sharply.
"Now, Bill, why do you worry---?" But Susan knew it was useless to
scold him. They went quietly back, and sat on Mrs. Cudahy's steps, and
waited for news. All Ironworks Row waited. Down the street Susan could
see silent groups on nearly every door-step. It grew very dark; there
was no moon, but the sky was thickly strewn with stars.
It was after ten o'clock when the committee came back. Susan knew, the
moment that she saw the three, moving all close together, silently and
slowly, that they brought no good news.
As a matter of fact, they brought almost no news at all. They went into
Clem Cudahy's dining-room, and as many men and women as could crowded
in after them. Billy sat at the head of the table.
Carpenter, the "old man" himself, had stuck to his guns, Clem Cudahy
said. He was the obstinate one; the younger men would have conceded
something, if not everything, long ago. But the old man had said that
he would not be dictated to by any man alive, and if the men wanted to
listen to an ignorant young enthusiast---
"Three cheers for Mr. Oliver!" said a strong young voice, at this
point, and the cheers were given and echoed in the street, although
Billy frowned, and said gruffly, "Oh, cut it out!"
It was a long evening. Susan began to think that they would talk
forever. But, at about eleven o'clock, the men who had been streaming
in and out of the house began to disperse, and she and Mrs. Cudahy went
into the kitchen, and made a pot of coffee.
Susan, sitting at the foot of the table, poured it, and seasoned it
carefully.
"You are going to be well cared for, Mr. Oliver," said Ernest Rassette,
in his careful English.
"No such luck!" Billy said, smiling at Susan, as he emptied his cup at
a draught. "Well! I don't know that we do any good sitting here. Things
seem to be at a deadlock."
"What do they concede, Bill?" Susan asked.
"Oh, practically everything but the recognition of the union. At least,
Carpenter keeps saying that if this local agitation was once wiped
out,--which is me!--then he'd talk. He doesn't love me, Sue."
"Damn him!" said one of his listeners, a young man who sat with his
head in his hands.
"It's after twelve," Billy said, yawning. "Me to the hay! Goodnight,
everyone; goodnight, Sue!"
"And annywan that cud get a man like that, and doesn't," said Mrs.
Cudahy when he was gone, "must be lookin' for a saint right out av the
lit'ny!"
"I never heard of any girl refusing Mr. Oliver," Susan said demurely.
She awoke puzzled, vaguely elated. Sunshine was streaming in at the
window, an odor of coffee, of bacon, of toast, drifted up from below.
Susan had slept well. She performed the limited toilet necessitated by
a basin and pitcher, a comb somewhat beyond its prime, and a mirror too
full of sunlight to be flattering.
But it was evidently satisfactory, for Clem Cudahy told her, as she
went smiling into the kitchen, that she looked like a streak of
sunlight herself. Sunlight was needed; it was a worried and anxious day
for them all.
Susan went with Lizzie to see the new Conover baby, and stopped on the
way back to be introduced to Mrs. Jerry Nelson, who had been stretched
on her bed for eight long years. Mrs. Nelson's bright little room was
easily accessible from the street; the alert little suffering woman was
never long alone.
"I have to throw good soup out, the way it spoils on me," said Mrs.
Nelson's daughter to Susan, "and there's nobody round makes cake or
custard but what Mama gets some!"
"I'm a great one for making friends," the invalid assured her happily.
"I don't miss nothing!"
"And after all I don't see why such a woman isn't better off than Mary
Lord," said Susan later to Billy, "so much nearer the center of things!
Of course," she told him that afternoon, "I ought to go home today. But
I'm too interested. I simply can't! What happens next?"
"Oh, waiting," he said wearily. "We have a mass meeting this afternoon.
But there's nothing to do but wait!"
Waiting was indeed the order of the day. The whole colony waited. It
grew hotter and hotter; flies buzzed in and out of the open doorways,
children fretted and shouted in the shade. Susan had seen no drinking
the night before; but now she saw more than one tragedy. The meeting at
three o'clock ended in a more grim determination than ever; the men
began to seem ugly. Sunset brought a hundred odors of food, and
unbearable heat.
"I've got to walk some of this off," said Billy, restlessly, just
before dark. "Come on up and see the cabbage gardens!"
Susan pinned on her wide hat, joined him in silence, and still in
silence they threaded the path that led through various dooryards and
across vacant lots, and took a rising road toward the hills.
The stillness and soft dusk were very pleasant to Susan; she could find
a beauty in carrot-tops and beet greens, and grew quite rapturous over
a cow.
"Doesn't the darling look comfortable and countryish, Bill?"
Billy interrupted his musing to give her an absent smile. They sat down
on a pile of lumber, and watched the summer moon rise gloriously over
the hills.
"Doesn't it seem FUNNY to you that we're right in the middle of a
strike, Bill?" Susan asked childishly.
"Funny--! Oh, Lord!"
"Well---" Susan laughed at herself, "I didn't mean funny! But I'll tell
you what I'd do in your place," she added thoughtfully.
Billy glanced at her quickly.
"What YOU'D do?" he asked curiously.
"Certainly! I've been thinking it over, as a dispassionate outsider,"
Susan explained calmly.
"Well, go on," he said, grinning indulgently.
"Well, I will," Susan said, firing, "if you'll treat me seriously, and
not think that I say this merely because the Carrolls want you to go
camping with us! I was just thinking---" Susan smiled bashfully, "I was
wondering why you don't go to Carpenter---"
"He won't see me!"
"Well, you know what I mean!" she said impatiently. "Send your
committee to him, and make him this proposition. Say that if he'll
recognize the union--that's the most important thing, isn't it?"
"That's by far the most important! All the rest will follow if we get
that. But he's practically willing to grant all the rest, EXCEPT the
union. That's the whole point, Sue!"
"I know it is, but listen. Tell him that if he'll consent to all the
other conditions--why," Susan spread open her hands with a shrug,
"you'll get out! Bill, you know and I know that what he hates more than
anything or anybody is Mr. William Oliver, and he'd agree to almost ANY
terms for the sake of having you eliminated from his future
consideration!"
"I--get out?" Billy repeated dazedly. "Why, I AM the union!"
"Oh, no you're not, Bill. Surely the principles involved are larger
than any one man!" Susan said pleasantly.
"Well, well--yes--that's true!" he agreed, after a second's silence.
"To a certain extent--I see what you mean!--that is true. But, Sue,
this is an unusual case. I organized these boys, I talked to them, and
for them. They couldn't hold together without me--they'll tell you so
themselves!"
"But, Billy, that's not logic. Suppose you died?"
"Well, well, but by the Lord Harry I'm not going to die!" he said
heatedly. "I propose to stick right here on my job, and if they get a
bunch of scabs in here they can take the consequences! The hour of
organized labor has come, and we'll fight the thing out along these
lines---"
"Through your hat--that's the way you're talking now!" Susan said
scornfully. "Don't use those worn-out phrases, Bill; don't do it! I'm
sick of people who live by a bunch of expressions, without ever
stopping to think whether they mean anything or not! You're too big and
too smart for that, Bill! Now, here you've given the cause a splendid
push up, you've helped these particular men! Now go somewhere else, and
stir up more trouble. They'll find someone to carry it on, don't you
worry, and meanwhile you'll be a sort of idol--all the more influential
for being a martyr to the cause!"
Billy did not answer. He got up and walked away from her, turned, and
came slowly back.
"I've been here ten years," he said then, and at the sound of pain in
his voice the girl's heart began to ache for him. "I don't believe
they'd stand for it," he added presently, with more hope. And finally,
"And I don't know what I'd do!"
"Well, that oughtn't to influence you," Susan said bracingly.
"No, you're quite right. That's not the point," he agreed quickly.
Presently she saw him lean forward in the darkness, and put his head in
his hands. Susan longed to put her arm about him, and draw the rough
head to her shoulder and comfort him.
At breakfast time the next morning, Billy walked into Mrs. Cudahy's
dining-room, very white, very serious, determined lines drawn about his
firm young mouth. Susan looked at him, half-fearful, half-pitying.
"How late did you walk, Bill?" she asked, for he had gone out again
after bringing her back to the house the night before.
"I didn't go to bed," he said briefly. He sat down by the table. "Well,
I guess Miss Brown put her finger on the very heart of the matter,
Clem," said he.
"And how's that?" asked Clem Cudahy. His wife, in the very act of
pouring the newcomer a cup of coffee, stopped with arrested arm. Susan
experienced a sensation of panic.
"Oh, but I didn't mean anything!" she said eagerly. "Don't mind what I
said, Bill!"
But the matter had been taken out of her hands now, and in less than an
hour the news spread over the entire settlement. Mr. Oliver was going
to resign!
The rest of the morning and the early afternoon went by in a confused
rush. At three o'clock Billy, surrounded by vociferous allies, walked
to the hall, for a stormy and exhausting meeting.
"The boys wouldn't listen to him at all at first," said Clem, in giving
the women an account of it, later. "But eventually they listened, and
eventually he carried the day. It was all too logical to be ignored and
turned aside, he told them. They had not been fighting for any personal
interest, or any one person. They had asked for this change, and that,
and the other,--and these things they might still win. He, after all,
had nothing to do with the issue; as a recognized labor union they
might stand on their own feet."
After that the two committees met, in old Mr. Carpenter's office, and
Billy came home to Susan and Mrs. Cudahy, and sat for a tense hour
playing moodily with Lizzie's baby.
Then the committee came back, almost as silently as it had come last
night. But this time it brought news. The strike was over.
Very quietly, very gravely, they made it known that terms had been
reached at last. Practically everything had been granted, on the single
condition that William Oliver resign from his position in the Iron
Works, and his presidency of the union.
Billy congratulated them. Susan knew that he was so emotionally shaken,
and so tired, as to be scarcely aware of what he was doing and saying.
Men and women began to come in and discuss the great news. There were
some tears; there was real grief on more than one of the hard young
faces.
"I'll see all you boys again in a day or two," Billy said. "I'm going
over to Sausalito to-night,--I'm all in! We've won, and that's the main
thing, but I want you to let me off quietly to-night,--we can go over
the whole thing later.
"Gosh, about one cheer, and I would have broken down like a kid!" he
said to Susan, on the car. Rassette and Clem had escorted them thither;
Mrs. Cudahy and Lizzie walking soberly behind them, with Susan. Both
women kissed Susan good-bye, and Susan smiled through her tears as she
saw the last of them.
"I'll take good care of him," she promised the old woman. "He's been
overdoing it too long!"
"Lord, it will be good to get away into the big woods," said Billy.
"You're quite right, I've taken the whole thing too hard!"
"At the same time," said Susan, "you'll want to get back to work,
sooner or later, and, personally, I can't imagine anything else in life
half as fascinating as work right there, among those people, or people
like them!"
"Then you can see how it would cut a fellow all up to leave them?" he
asked wistfully.
"See!" Susan echoed. "Why, I'm just about half-sick with homesickness
myself!"