The snow increased all day. When the six-o'clock whistle blew, and
the workmen streamed out of the factories, it was a wild waste of
winter and storm. The wind had come up, and the light snow arose in
the distance like white dancers of death, spinning furiously over
the level, then settling into long, gravelike ridges. Ellen glanced
into the office as she passed the door, and saw Robert Lloyd talking
busily with Flynn and another foreman by the name of Dennison. As
she passed, Robert turned with a look as if he had been watching for
her, and came forward hastily.
"Miss Brewster!" he called.
Mamie Brady, following close behind, gave Ellen an admonishing
nudge. "Boss wants to see you," she whispered, loudly. Ellen
stopped, and Robert came up.
"Please step in here a moment, Miss Brewster," he said, and colored
a little.
Granville Joy, who was following Ellen, looked keenly at him, some
one sniggered aloud, and a girl said quite audibly, "My land!"
Ellen followed Robert into the office, and he bent over her,
speaking rapidly, in a low voice.
"You must not walk home in this snow," he said, "and the cars are
not running. You must let me take you. My sleigh is at the door."
Ellen turned white. Somehow this protecting care for herself, in the
face of all which she had been considering that day, gave her a
tremendous shock. She felt at once touched and more indignant than
she had ever been in her whole life. She had been half believing
that Robert was neglecting her, that he had forgotten her; all day
she had been judging his action of cutting the wages of the workmen
from her unswerving, childlike, unshadowed point of view, and now
this little evidence of humanity towards her, in the face of what
she considered wholesale inhumanity towards others, made her at once
severe to him and to herself, and she forced back sternly the leap
of pleasure and happiness which this thought of her awakened. "No,
thank you," she said, shortly; "I am much obliged, but I would
rather walk."
"But you cannot, in this storm," pleaded Robert, in a low voice.
"Yes, I can; it is no worse for me than for others. There is Maria
Atkins, she has been coughing all day."
"I will take her too. Ellen, you cannot walk. You must let me take
you."
"I am much obliged, but I would rather not," replied Ellen, in an
icy tone. She looked quite hard in his face.
Robert looked at her perplexed. "But it is drifting," he said.
"It is no worse for me than for the others." Ellen turned to go.
Her attitude of rebuff was unmistakable.
Robert colored. "Very well; I will not urge you," he said, coldly.
Then he returned to his desk, and Ellen went out. She caught up with
Maria Atkins, who was struggling painfully through the drifts,
leaning on Abby's arm, and slipped a hand under her thin shoulder.
"I expect nothing but she'll get her death out in this storm,"
grumbled Abby. "What did he want, Ellen?"
"Nothing in particular," replied Ellen. Uppermost in her mind at
that moment was the charge of cruelty against Robert for not taking
her hint as to Maria. "He can ask me to ride because he has amused
himself with me, but as for taking this poor girl, whom he does not
love, when it may mean life or death to her, he did not think
seriously of doing that for a moment," she thought.
Maria was coughing, although she strove hard to smother the coughs.
Granville Joy, who was plodding ahead, turned and waited until they
came up.
"You had better let me carry you, Maria," he said, jocularly, but
his honest eyes were full of concern.
"He is enough sight kinder than Robert Lloyd," thought Ellen; "he
has a better heart." And then the splendid Lloyd sleigh came up
behind them and stopped, tilting to a drift. Robert, in his
fur-lined coat, sprang out and went up to Maria.
"Please let me take you home," he said, kindly. "You have a cold,
and this storm is too severe for you to be out. Please let me take
you home."
Maria looked at him, fairly gasping with astonishment. She tried to
speak, but a cough choked her.
"You had better go if Mr. Lloyd will take you," Abby said,
decisively. "Thank you, Mr. Lloyd; she isn't fit to be out." She
urged her sister towards the sleigh, and Robert assisted her into
the fur-lined nest.
"I can sit with the driver," said Robert to Abby, "if you will come
with your sister."
"No, thank you," replied Abby. "I am able to walk, but I will be
much obliged if you will take Maria home."
Robert sprang in beside Maria, and the sleigh slid out of sight.
"I never!" said Abby. Ellen said nothing, but plodded on, her eyes
fixed on the snowy track.
"I am glad she had a chance to ride," said Granville Joy, in a
tentative voice. He looked uneasily at Ellen.
"It beats the Dutch," said Abby. She also regarded Ellen with
sympathy and perplexity. When they reached the street where she
lived, up which the sleigh had disappeared, she let Granville go on
ahead, and she spoke to Ellen in a low tone. "Why didn't he ask
you?" she said.
"He did," replied Ellen.
"In the office?"
"Yes."
"And you wouldn't?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"I don't care to accept favors from a man who oppresses all my
friends!"
"He was good to take in Maria," said Abby, in a perplexed voice.
"His uncle would never have thought of it."
Ellen made no reply. She stood still in the drifting snow, with her
mouth shut hard.
"You feel as if this cutting wages was a pretty hard thing?" said
Abby.
"Yes, I do."
"Well, so do I. I wonder what they will do about it. I don't know
how the men feel. Somehow, folks can't seem to think or plan much in
a storm like this. There's the sleigh coming back."
"Good-night," Ellen said, hurriedly, and trudged on as fast as she
was able in order not to have the Lloyd sleigh pass her; it had to
turn after reaching the end of the street. Ellen caught up with
Granville Joy. Robert, glancing over the waving fringe of fur tails,
saw disappearing in the pale gleam of the electric-light the two dim
figures veiled by the drifting snow. He thought to himself, with a
sharp pain, that perhaps, after all, Granville Joy was the reason
for her rebuff. It never occurred to him that his action in cutting
the wages could have anything to do with it.
Ellen went along with Granville, who was anxious to offer her his
arm, but did not quite dare. He kept thrusting out an elbow in her
direction, and an inarticulate invitation died in his throat.
Finally, when they reached an unusually high drift of snow, he
plucked up sufficient courage.
"Take my arm, won't you?" he said, with a pitiful attempt at ease,
then stared as if he had been shot, at Ellen's reply.
"No, thank you," she said. "I think it is easier to walk alone in
snow like this."
"Maybe it is," assented Granville, dejectedly. He walked on,
scuffling as hard as he could to make a path for Ellen with the
patient faithfulness of a dog.
"What are you going to do about the cut in wages?" Ellen asked,
presently.
Granville started. The sudden transition from personalities to
generalities confused him.
"What?" he said.
Ellen repeated her question.
"I don't know," said Granville. "I don't think the boys have made up
their minds. I don't know what they will do. They have been weeding
out union men. I suppose the union would have something to say about
it otherwise. I don't know what we will do."
"I shouldn't think there would be very much doubt as to what to do,"
said Ellen.
Granville stared at her over his shoulder in a perplexed, admiring
fashion. "You mean--?" he asked.
"I shouldn't think there would be any doubt."
"Well, I don't know. It is a pretty serious thing to get out of work
in midwinter for a good many of us, and as long as the union isn't
in control, other men can come in. I don't know."
"I know," said Ellen.
"You mean--?"
"I mean that I do not think it right, that it is unjust, and I
believe in resisting injustice."
"Men have resisted injustice ever since the Creation," said
Granville, in a bitter voice.
"Well, resistance can continue as long as life lasts," returned
Ellen. Just then came a fiercer blast than ever, laden with a
stinging volley of snow, and seemed to sweep the words from the
girl's mouth. She bent before it involuntarily, and the conviction
forced itself upon her that, after all, resistance to injustice
might be as futile as resistance to storm, that injustice might be
one of the primal forces of the world, and one of the conditions of
its endurance, and yet with the conviction came the renewed
resolution to resist.
"What can poor men do against capital unless they are backed up by
some labor organization?" asked Granville. "And I don't believe
there are a dozen in the factory who belong to the union. There has
been an understanding, without his ever saying so that I know of,
that the old boss didn't approve of it. So lots of us kept out of
it, we wanted work so bad. What can we do against such odds?"
"When right is on your side, you have all the odds," said Ellen,
looking back over her snow-powdered shoulder.
"Then you would strike?"
"I wouldn't submit."
"Well, I don't know how the boys feel," said Granville. "I suppose
we'll have to talk it over."
"I shouldn't need to talk it over," said Ellen. "You've gone past
your house, Granville."
"I ain't going to let you go home alone in such a storm as this,"
said Granville, in a tender voice, which he tried to make facetious.
"I wouldn't let any girl go home alone in such a storm."
Ellen stopped short. "I don't want you to go home with me, thank
you, Granville," she said. "Your mother will have supper ready, and
I can go just as well alone."
"Ellen, I won't let you go alone," said the young man, as a wilder
gust came. "Suppose you should fall down?"
"Fall down!" repeated Ellen, with a laugh, but her regard of the
young man, in spite of her rebuff, was tender. He touched her with
his unfailing devotion; the heavy trudging by her side of this poor
man meant, she told herself, much more than the invitation of the
rich one to ride behind his bays in his luxurious sleigh. This meant
the very bone and sinew of love. She held out her little, mittened
hand to him.
"Good-night, Granville," she said.
Granville caught it eagerly. "Oh, Ellen," he murmured.
But she withdrew her hand quickly. "We have always been good
friends, and we always will be," said she, and her tone was
unmistakable. The young man shrank back.
"Yes, we always will, Ellen," he said, in a faithful voice, with a
note of pain in it.
"Good-night," said Ellen again.
"Good-night," responded Granville, and turned his plodding back on
the girl and retraced his laborious steps towards his own home,
which he had just passed. There come times for all souls when the
broad light of the path of humanity seems to pale to insignificance
before the intensity of the one little search-light of personality.
Granville Joy felt as if the eternal problem of the rich and poor,
of labor and capital, of justice and equality, was as nothing before
the desire of his heart for that one girl who was disappearing from
his sight behind the veil of virgin snow.