THE excitement ran very high not only in Yerbury, but all over the
country. Strikes seemed the order of the day again, and for what reason,
was not clearly made manifest, unless labor felt that it had capital a
little by the throat, in that its services were again somewhat in
demand. "Now," said the prophets. Surely, if they did not strike when
there was employment, they could not when there was none.
It began in the shoe-shop. The next Monday morning the men made their
demand in no gentle terms, and were refused. There was a large contract
at stake, however, and by Tuesday night the matter was talked over in a
better spirit. The employers were willing to accede to one-half of the
demand, otherwise the order must be sent to another firm. Thursday
morning they went to work with a rather ill grace, yet some elation.
Then the hatters took their turn. The hands at Hope Mills were served
with a notice that the mutual protectionists in all the towns around
were to be out on the following Monday; and stirring appeals were made
to those who had any feeling of honor in the cause.
It was exceedingly hard on the men. They gathered around in little knots
on Sunday, wild with conflicting emotions. Their faith in Hope Mills and
co-operation was undergoing a severe strain. The fear of secret frauds,
of underhand dealing, of distrust in Winston and Darcy, had been dinned
in their ears by outside influence, some of it very potent. Not one
appeal had been made by the managers: Cameron and the others decided it
was best.
Jack went over to the mill on Monday morning. The gatekeeper and the
bell-boy were there. The engineer came in with a quiet, solemn
"Good-morning." The Brotherhood of Engineers had warned him too, and he
was a little troubled; but he had cast in his lot with the rest, and it
might be as well to wait and see what they did. The main shaft was
turned.
Jack from his office-window watched the streets filling up with men and
women, many beside the regular operatives. They came to a halt.
"Ding-dong! ding-dong!" the bell rang out cheerily on the summer morning
air. "Come to work, come to work! The birds build homes, and rear their
young; the bee skims the fragrant air in search of flowers; the rivers
run to the sea, turning wheels, driving ships: nothing in the great
economy of nature is idle," sang out the clang of the bell.
The hands glanced at one another in doubt and dismay, and there was an
awful silence for a few seconds.
Some one elbowed his way through the crowd. He had come from the bedside
of his sick child, who might be dying even now,--a small, wiry,
middle-aged man, with a set, resolute face. He glanced about, then he
sprang up on a pile of packing-boxes. It was Jesse Gilman.
"My fellow-workmen," he began, "I don't know how you all feel about this
matter; but Hope Mills took me in when I had tramped the country half
over, and found nothing to do. I've tried the old system, and this can't
be any worse; and, if I have to lose money by an employer, I'd rather it
would be John Darcy of Yerbury, than any man I know. No man on the face
of the earth has a right to say I shall not work in Hope Mills when I
made my own bargain long ago to do it. That is all I have to say. I am
going to work."
"Three cheers!" cried some one as Gilman jumped down.
There were cheers and groans.
Ben Hay followed him, and stood a moment in the gateway.
"Boys," said he in his rich, ringing voice, "Hope Mills was opened to
receive a crowd of starving men. I'll take my oath to Jack Darcy's
honesty. He's stuck by us, and we'll stick to him. That's the beauty of
co-operation. You can't get away, and tramp off with the first fool that
asks you! It isn't merely keeping company: it's a good, honest,
up-and-down marriage. I'd as soon think of leaving my wife because some
day she didn't give me two dinners instead of one!"
There was a shout of laughter. The ice was broken in good earnest.
"Three cheers for Ben Hay! Three cheers and a tiger for Jack Darcy!" and
amid all this hubbub the men and women, the boys and girls, rushed in
pell-mell. A gladder crew one never saw. To decide when others doubt, to
go forward boldly when others hesitate, to stand up for the principle of
right when others have traduced and blackened it, to take the first
step, is to be as heroic as the "six hundred" of deathless fame.
They went to work with a will, though some were a little sore and
doubtful, but they were carried on by the enthusiasm of the others. The
street below was still blocked up, and there were yells and groans.
Presently there came a shower of superannuated eggs. Two landed in
Darcy's office-window. After that, a stampede of the riotous crew.
Darcy sent Andrew, the bell-boy, to the police-station, and two men were
detailed. The workmen were allowed to go home peaceably, except a little
jeering at Keppler's. They heard then the trains had been stopped on the
two roads leading out of Yerbury. The whole world seemed to be going
crazy.
Darcy and Cameron remained in the mill that night until almost ten: then
the latter went home, and Darcy thought he would go for Ben Hay. The
streets of Yerbury had presented a very peculiar aspect that evening,
something like a beleaguered town. Groups of men and boys collected on
the corners, or wended their way through the streets with low, ominous
mutterings. People barred their doors and locked their windows, though
it was a hot summer night. Some women were abroad: but they were of the
rougher sort, and now and then their shrill voices rose on the air in
derision or vituperation. Still there were no overt acts of violence,
and at ten everybody began to breathe more freely.
The coffee-house had been shut up that evening: it was deemed advisable.
Darcy went round to the side-door, and was admitted. Hay and three other
workmen were within. They had been figuring up possible and probable
profits by the end of the five years, and looked very well satisfied.
"There's a sort of hope and expectation about it," said one of the men,
"that kind of stirs and warms a body. And when you come to count lost
time, and fluctuation in wages, it makes a pretty even thing, after all!
In '73 I worked in a shoddy-mill that _had_ been making money hand over
fist,--eleven hours a day,--not a man of us made more than five dollars
a week. Some poor fellows with families earned only three. You've never
been as hard up as that! God only knows how they lived: it's beyond my
guessing!"
"And if that was co-operation, how the system would be blamed!"
exclaimed Ben Hay. "I declare, it makes me madder than a hen in a
fence--I've caught that of Cameron," laughingly,--"to hear the things
people have said about us. They're forever blathering about fair play--I
wish they'd give a little, as well as take all. Wait till we've come to
the end, say I, before they tell what we can do, or what we can't or
sha'n't or won't!"
There was a tramp in the street. The startled eyes studied one another.
Then a shuffling and muttering, and a knock at the door.
No one stirred but Mrs. Connelly, who threw up her hands, and cried,
"The saints protect us!"
"Earthly saints, Mother Connelly,--this kind," said Ben Hay with gay
re-assurance, doubling his fist, and baring his brawny arm.
The pounding increased. Rose ran down stairs wild with affright,
followed by her sister. The boys fortunately were asleep in the back
chambers.
"Let us in, Mother Connelly: we want some bread and butter!" shouted a
voice.
"Cakes and yale!"
"Pretzel and zwei lager!"
"A sup of the craythur!"
"A dhrop of whiskey to warrum us this could night! Av yees the heart av
a sthone, Kit Connelly?"
A roar of laughter succeeded this.
"Go away, it will be better for you," declared Ben Hay.
"Come out here, Hay, and fight like a man! Don't skulk behind a woman's
petticoats!"
There was a terrific onslaught at the door. It creaked and groaned, and
was succeeded by a volley of oaths and imprecations. Rose began to cry,
and the youngest girl came screaming down the stairs.
Darcy had sent a man out of the back way for policemen. Hay and the two
other men mounted guard. Again the door shivered and creaked: then it
flew open, bolts, locks, and hinges having given way in a mass of
splinters.
Like a flash the men were on their assailants. The mob had not expected
this. Right and left valorous blows were dealt, and two or three burly
fellows were laid low. Some nearer sober, and more cowardly, took to
their heels. Two men fought like tigers; and once Ben Hay came near
getting the worst; but, by the time the dilatory guards of peace
arrived, there was only a pile of bruised and battered bodies lying on
the door-step.
"A pretty tough scrimmage!" was the comment. "Weren't you a little hard
on these fellows?"
"A man has a right to defend his own life and his own nose," said Ben
Hay decisively. "His life _may_ be useful, his nose _is_ ornamental when
it is a handsome one like mine."
What with drunkenness and the drubbing, two of the ruffians were unable
to walk. Two others were marched off under the escort of the officers,
the disabled sent for, and a guard detached to protect Mrs. Connelly's
house. When everybody had been quieted, Jack took a tour down to the
mills. Some poor object was huddled up in the corner of the main stoop.
"What are you doing here?" demanded Darcy.
"Oh, Mr. Darcy, don't strike me! I'm Bart Kane. I've had enough of this
night, and I crawled here"--
The boy began to sob and talk brokenly. He lifted his face in the
moonlight. It was ghastly; one eye swollen shut, and purple-black, and
streaks of blood and dirt over it; the clothing torn, the throat bare.
"Were you down there at Connelly's?"
"I warn't nowhere. It was along o' father: he comed home drunk."
Barton Kane was a mill-boy, about nineteen now. Darcy's first feeling
had been one of outrage and anger, but he cooled suddenly.
"Tell me, my lad," in a kindly tone, taking the shivering fingers in
his.
"You see, Mr. Darcy, father'd been out along of the hatters all day,
gettin' more and more rum in him. He said on Sunday, as how't I should
strike; but they went to work here, and I worked with 'em. When I went
home, mother, she gev me my supper, and ses she, 'Keep out o' sight,
lad, happen thy dad's powerful mad wi' thee!' So I went to bed. But
about nine he comed home, and tore up the house wi' his tantrums, and
then lathered me. He called me a rat, and a sneak, and a turn-coat, and
kicked me out o' the house, and threw my traps to me. Then afore I was
fairly dressed he at me again, and said if ever I darkened the door,
he'd murder me! I strayed round, afeared of everybody, and crawled up
here. 'Pears like every bone in my body is broke, and my eye, he do hurt
so!"
With that Barton Kane broke out sobbing again, and clung to Jack Darcy's
knees.
"My poor lad!" the tone was infinitely tender. "Can you walk a little
way, to Kit Connelly's? You can be nursed up there, and go to bed
peaceably. Come, Barton, my boy, you are the hero of Hope Mills. When
this is over, we shall have to give you a medal."
He put his strong arm around the shivering body, and led him back to a
kindly shelter.
"Hay, Mrs. Connelly, and all of you: here's a lad that has been
half-killed for standing by his colors to-day. Look here, Armstrong,
would you mind going for Dr. Maverick? this poor chap needs some
patching-up. And, Kit, give me some water and a napkin: we'll get his
face a little cool and clean."
"Let me do it, Mr. Darcy. Sure, I've boys of my own, and am used to it.
Oh, the poor, poor lad!"
Barton told his story over again. He was weak and hysterical now, and
they made him a shake-down on the floor until the doctor came.
"Now I'll start on my inspection-tour again," said Darcy, turning away.
"We are all likely to make a night of it."
He thought he would go around before he went in to see the watchmen:
they had placed a force on guard quietly. He had just turned the second
corner, when he saw a man jump from the high fence, and lie for an
instant as if stunned. He hastened on, but the man sprang up and ran
down the dark side of the street. His first impulse was to follow; then
it struck him as strange that the dog gave no alarm. He had a gate-key
in his pocket, and unlocked it at once.
"Bruno!" he called, "Bruno, good fellow, come here."
There was not a sound. The ominous silence thrilled Jack.
"Bruno!"
Hark! a curious crackling or sweep of wind, and smoky smell. He ran
round to the rear. Close up against the back door, quite out of the
moonlight, something was piled. Forked tongues of flame were shooting
out of it everywhere. He seized the chain attached to the factory-bell,
and rang it rapidly. There was a window thrown up, and a voice called.
"Fire! fire!" he shouted. "Turn on the hose,--the lower back door."
The flames streamed up fiercely now. It was plain that the mound had
been saturated with kerosene.
Daly hurried down, and opened a door. "Hurd and Byrnes are at the
buckets and hose," he cried. "Where is it? O Mr. Darcy!"
"Quick, quick!" shouted Jack, rushing by him.
The men had the hose ready. They put it out of the window, turned on the
stream, and in a few moments a column of dense smoke rose amid the
arrowy flashes of lurid splendor. The watchman ran down from Connelly's.
It was subdued in a few moments. They tore away the charred boxes and
_débris_, smoking and smouldering. Underneath all they found the body of
princely Bruno.
"This is fiendish!" cried Jack, dragging the poor fellow away, his
scorched coat smelling horribly. "Brave Bruno, you are the second hero
of the night!"
"Whatever dastardly devil did this, knows as much about Hope Mills as
you or I," shouted Hurd savagely. "Bruno was poisoned first; and he
wouldn't have taken any thing from a strange hand. But the fellow was a
fool to build the fire here."
"I don't know about that," said Darcy. "If it had burned the door down,
it would have gone in the hall, and up the hatchway--if it was open."
"By thunder! so it would; and right to the stock-room. That place must
never be left open again while Hope Mills stands, or co-operation waves
her starry banner in the breeze."
"Loud applause!" said some one.
The fire was thoroughly extinguished; and the guardian of the night
decided to remain here, being within call if another disturbance should
occur at Mrs. Connelly's. The bells rang out for midnight. A few, who
had gathered at the alarm, dispersed: and every thing became quiet
again,--deadly, solemnly quiet.
Jack wanted to see Maverick, so he paced back to Mrs. Connelly's. He was
trying to remember some distinctive mark of the man he had seen jump. He
was too stout for Davy, and he could not believe such villany of the
man. Then Price was a little lame from an old rheumatic affection, and
would not have dared such a deed.
Barton Kane had been washed, patched, bandaged, put to bed, and given an
opiate; so now he was in a sound but rather disturbed sleep. The men
gathered in the lunch-room, and discussed the cowardly attempt upon the
mill, the day's affairs generally.
"See how great a matter a little fire kindles," said Maverick. "But for
McPherson's lecture here, I don't believe any of these things would have
happened. It is a free country, of course, and a man has a right to air
his ideas; but capital is not set firmly enough on its legs to stand a
severe fire, and labor is in too great a superabundance. To seek to
drain the ocean with a silver mug may be grand, but quite hopeless."
One! The witching hour, and a few sleepy men began to yawn.
"How odd it seems, not to hear trains in the night!" Maverick said
presently. "A queer lock-out this."
One, again. One, two, three: this time the fire-alarm.
They rushed out toward the mill. Then they as suddenly wheeled around.
In an instant the air seemed full of shouts and cries, and a broad sheet
of flame flared up in the face of the tranquil heavens. A roar, like a
mighty tramping of hosts, a crackling, snapping, sweeping sound.
"It's Keppler's. Boyd's block will surely go!"
The houses were frame, old and dry: Keppler's on the corner, the rest
joined, like a row of sheds, and filled with the very poorest; a few
apartments standing empty. The engines were out, but it was of little
avail. The corner was just one brilliant sheet of lurid light. Shrieking
women and children fled for their lives. The street swarmed again, and
people trampled over one another in their wild terror. There was a
crash, and the building fell in. The flames licked up the other fiery
flood, and had a brave battle in the cellar. The engines played until
the air was filled with smothering smoke, and there was nothing left but
a long, blackened ruin.
"It may be ungenerous to rejoice in any man's misfortune," said
Maverick, "but in a sanitary point of view I am thankful those old
rookeries have come to an end. Boyd wouldn't do any thing to them, and
they were unfit for pigs to live in. And, as for Keppler's, there will
be but one verdict this end of the town."
Some one laid a hand on Jack Darcy's shoulder. He turned and saw Fred
Lawrence.
"They are all worried to death about you, old chap," began Fred. "Your
mother, Miss Morgan, Sylvie,--and Irene is walking the floor. I have not
seen her so excited since--since she had the fever. What a horrible
thing! Was any one lost, do you know?"
"They will not be able to tell that until morning, every thing is in
such confusion. Pray God that the morning may dawn soon! I seem to have
lived through years."
The dawn came up by and by; first in faint opaline splendors, then
scarlet and gold. The moon paled, and the stars dropped out, and there
was a chirp of birds to welcome the new-born day.
The shock of the fire cooled the temper of the raiders, for half the men
were idle hangers-on, rather than absolute strikers. One frantic woman
flew to the scene of devastation: her boy, four years old, was missing.
They tried to comfort her with the thought that some neighbor had kindly
taken him in, but she kept wildly imploring them to search.
There was no further molestation of the men at Hope Mills. They walked
in the yard quietly at seven o'clock, their faces touched with surprise
and terror when they heard the story of the night. Barton Kane lay
disabled at Mrs. Connelly's, and poor Bruno was buried with honors,
regretted by the whole force.
Jack called the men together, and addressed them briefly. He was very
pale, and his usually bright, clear eyes were heavy.
"I want to thank you," he said, in a tone that was a little unsteady
with exhaustion and emotion, "I want to thank you for standing so
bravely by me, and by your principles. We are all partners together, and
what is one man's interest is every man's. I feel sure that we shall
never have another difficulty. We have gone through the worst, and in a
little while every man will have his free choice again. Let us all keep
the warmest of friends until then."
There was no cheering: they were not gay enough for that. Some of the
men wrung his hand silently; then the women pressed forward, and invoked
a blessing upon him.
"We know better nor any of 'em what it was to have no fire, and childers
cryin' for bread," said one woman, wiping her eyes with the end of her
faded shawl. "And, thank the Lord, I've had bite, and sup, and fire,
ever since the day Hope Mills was opened."
The men outside were working at the ruins,--among them some of the
strikers of yesterday. They found poor Mrs. Rooney's little Johnny,
burned to a crisp; and in the house next to Keppler's they exhumed the
body of Biddy Brady, a good-natured, efficient washerwoman, whose
greatest fault was her intemperance. She and her son had gone to bed
very drunk, after having a good time through the evening. The boy had
been roused in season, but she had perished. It was as vivid and fervent
a temperance-lecture as ever was given in Yerbury.
About ten in the morning Jack Darcy returned home dead tired, as much
with the excitement as the fatigue, took a bath, and went to bed.
The Yerbury authorities looked sharply about them that day. The strikers
were orderly and quiet, but they had lost ground. "The Evening
Transcript" deprecated all this sort of business, and for once had no
fling about the "Utopian theory of co-operation." But "The Leader" of
the morning came out strongly in praise of the good order, forbearance,
and _esprit de corps_ of Hope Mills, and called Mr. Darcy "our young and
enterprising citizen, whom, we doubt not, we shall hear of in higher
positions in life, which he has proved himself eminently worthy to
fill."
There was no great lament made about Boyd's Row or Keppler's saloon,
except for the sad casualty it had caused; but the dastardly attack on
Mrs. Connelly, and the fiendish attempt to burn Hope Mills, met with the
severest condemnation.
Maverick came around to the Darcys that evening. "I fancy I have found
your man, Jack," he began. "Mrs. Stixon called me in towards night,
saying Jem had been on a spree, and was dreadfully beaten. I found one
side of his face scratched and bruised, and bits of gravel still
adhering to the flesh. The right arm, on the same side, has one bone
broken, and his shoulder is dislocated. He said he fell off of a stoop,
and is dreadfully sullen. I asked him what stoop, but he would not tell.
Do you remember which way the man fell?"
Jack thought a moment. "On the right side, Maverick, away from me, or I
should have seen his face. Just such a size man as Jem Stixon, too,"
with a satisfied nod.
"What will you do about it?"
Jack took two or three turns across the floor. "See here, Maverick, we
will not do any thing. You cure the poor fellow, and I think he will
never try to damage Hope Mills again. I can hardly forgive him Bruno,
though."
"If I were Sylvie Barry,"--he never called her Mrs. Lawrence when
speaking of her,--"I should say, 'Jack, you are an angel.'"
Jack flushed. "Masculine angels!" he laughed.
"Well, wasn't there Gabriel and a host of them? Why, Jack, they were
_all_ masculine!"
There was no need for earthly justice to meddle with Jem Stixon. His arm
inflamed: he had led a hard life late years, and his system was in bad
order. He would not listen to amputation until it was too late, and in
less than a month he was dead. It was better for his poor hard-working
wife and family.
One other death grew out of the summer riots, though this was at a
distance. Dennis Connelly had been working with a railroad-gang, and the
strikers there had a desperate struggle with the civil authority. They
were worsted in the end, and Connelly was one of the victims, or perhaps
more truly speaking, a victim to bad whiskey, for when sober he was very
peaceable. Kit sent for his body, and had him decently buried.