A HOPELESS QUEST
There was work and a plenty of it for the charitably inclined to do
during those sad March days. Some noble-souled women, caring not which
side in the conflict was right or which side wrong, went about like
ministering angels to relieve the destitute and care for the suffering.
Ruth Tracy was one of these. Her days were filled with her hard and
unlovely tasks among the poor, and her nights were often sleepless
because of the scenes she had witnessed by day.
In her visits to the homes of the destitute she had often met the
rector of Christ Church. His errands were similar to hers. They
counseled together, they compared notes, they parceled out relief.
Together they traveled through snow-burdened, wind-swept, desolate
streets. More and more he came to rely upon her big-hearted judgment,
and her sympathetic aid. He shared with her the problem of the poor
that lay so heavily on his own heart. She became necessary to him,
invaluable, indispensable. And as for her, his nobility of character,
his great passion for suffering humanity, his tireless energy in the
doing of all good deeds, these things loomed ever larger and larger
in her mind, as she watched him day by day in the performance of his
self-appointed and self-rewarded tasks.
In these tragic days Barry Malleson also did heroic service. It is true
that he was not possessed, to any considerable extent, of the power
of initiative. And it is true also that he had little capacity for
making organized effort. But, acting under the advice and instruction
of others, he made his work invaluable. His chair at the office of
the Malleson Manufacturing Company had been practically deserted for
weeks. He was not needed there. As a matter of fact he never had been
needed there. But the cessation of the company’s activities, and the
president’s attitude of hostility toward him, had made his presence at
the factory even less necessary, not to say less welcome, than it had
ever been before. He was entirely free to engage in charitable work,
and to the best of his ability, and to the extent of his means, he did
engage in it. And it was none the less to his credit that his labors
in this behalf were carried on under the direct supervision of the
rector of Christ Church, and of his zealous co-workers, Ruth Tracy and
Mary Bradley. Many a desolate home was lightened, for the time being
at least, by his cheery words, his winning smile, and his material
gifts as he made his scheduled calls or accompanied the Widow Bradley
on her pathetic rounds. For she, too, had vacated an office chair to
give her time to charity. She traveled the streets of poverty-stricken
sections by day, and many a night she spent at the bedside of the sick,
or in well-nigh hopeless efforts to comfort those in the deepest of all
affliction. What little money she had, beyond an amount sufficient to
supply her own daily needs, was soon exhausted, for she could not bear
to see suffering while she had a penny to relieve it. But the sympathy
of her heart, the comfort of her voice, the work of her hands, these
things were inexhaustible.
She sat, one night, at the bedside of a dying child――a poor,
half-starved, half-frozen waif of a girl, offspring of improvident
and penniless parents, innocent victim of the stubbornness of forces
contending for economic mastery. The tossing of the shrunken little
body had ceased, and no moaning came now from the pale, pinched lips.
The child lay, mindless, motionless, with weakly fluttering pulse,
waiting, unwittingly, for the long release. Out in the one other room
the mother sat, huddled over the embers of a wood fire in a broken
stove, her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands, hopeless
and horror-stricken. At midnight Barry Malleson came in. He had not
knocked at the door. He had found knocking in these doleful days to be
a superfluous task. The woman barely noticed him as he entered. She did
not lift her face from her hands. By the light of the tallow dip in the
other room he saw Mary Bradley sitting at the bedside of the child. She
motioned to him to come in.
“Will I disturb her?” he whispered, as he tiptoed to the door.
“No,” she replied; “nothing will ever disturb her again.”
“I heard you were here,” he said, “and I came to walk home with you.
It’s after midnight.”
“That was very thoughtful of you, Barry. But I shall not go home
to-night. I can’t leave the woman, and I can’t leave the child. Don’t
you see I can’t leave her?”
His eyes followed hers toward the bed, and rested for a moment on the
white, pathetic face, marked with the sign of speedy dissolution, lying
quietly against the soiled pillow.
“I see,” he said. “What’s to be done?”
“Nothing,” she replied, and repeated, “nothing; nothing.”
“You know,” he continued, “I’d stop this whole fiendish business in
five minutes if I had any voice in the board; but they won’t listen to
me, not one of them.”
“I know, Barry. You’re not to blame. You’ve done everything in your
power. You’re a hero. But, my God, it’s horrible!”
Tears sprang to her eyes, and she wiped them away. Barry’s heart was
touched. It was the first time in all this dreadful period of her
ministry that he had seen her weep. He went closer to her, and laid a
pitying hand on her shoulder.
“You’re all broken up,” he said. “You’ve got to get some rest. You must
go home in the morning and stay there.”
She did not appear to heed his admonition, but she put her hand up, and
rested it on his.
“There’s a favor I want to ask of you, Barry. I’ve been thinking about
it to-day. You know, a long time ago, you brought me a check as a gift
from your company, and I refused it. You brought it again and I still
refused it. You urged me many times to take it. Is that check still in
existence?”
“Yes, I have it. It was charged up to our charity account when it was
issued, and it still stands that way.”
“Well, Barry, my pride is all gone now. If you should offer it to me
again I’d――I’d take it.”
“You shall have it. It’s yours. I’ll bring it to you the first thing in
the morning.”
“Thank you! I can do so much with the money now. Oh, so much! It will
be a godsend to Factory Hill.”
The shawl-clad woman in the kitchen rose, gathered a few sticks of wood
from a corner of the room, thrust them into the stove, and again seated
herself, crouching, silent, over the inadequate fire.
“And there’s another thing, Barry, but I can’t tell you that to-night.
I’ve got to have a stronger heart when I tell you that, because you’ve
been so unselfish, and brave, and splendid in every way, and I dread to
hurt you.”
He looked down at her questioningly.
“What is it, Mary?”
“Not to-night. I said, not to-night.”
“Very well. Then if I can’t do anything more for you I’ll be going. You
have food enough to last till morning?”
“Yes; I brought some with me when I came.”
“And wood for the stove?”
“Yes, there’s nothing you can do.”
“All right. I’ll be back early in the morning.”
He glanced again at the all but pulseless figure on the bed, and turned
toward the door.
“Barry!”
“Yes?”
She had risen and stood facing him.
“Barry, God bless you! Now go.”
He went softly out through the bare room in which the grief-crazed
mother still sat crouched and moaning, and passed thence into the
night. But Mary Bradley sank back into her chair and let her tears flow
unchecked. In happier days she would have scorned to ask God’s blessing
on any one. But now only God was great enough to be good to this
witless and tender-hearted hero.
An hour later the pulse that had fluttered so long at the thin little
wrist grew still. Mary Bradley performed such trifling offices as the
dead require, drew the crumpled and untidy sheet up over the pitiful
young face, and, through the remaining hours of the night, held
hopeless vigil with a mother who would not be consoled.
At daybreak she went out into the face of the bleak March wind to hunt
for Stephen Lamar.
She found him alone, in the early morning, at strike-headquarters,
shivering over a half-heated stove.
“Steve,” she said, “call it off. For God’s sake, call it off!”
“Call what off, Mary?”
“The strike. Call it off. I can’t stand this any longer. I can’t spend
another night like the one I’ve just been through. It’s too terrible.”
“But it was for your sake I brought it on.”
“Then for my sake call it off. If the sin is mine I want my soul
cleared of it to-day.”
He did not answer her for a moment. He looked out wearily through the
unclean window into the cheerless street. Then he said:
“I may as well tell you the truth, Mary. I can’t stop it. It’s gone too
far. I’ve been up all night with the committee. There isn’t a thing we
can do.”
“You can send the men back to work.”
“We can’t. Malleson won’t take ’em. He won’t have a union man in his
plant. He says so, and he means it. Next week he opens up the mills to
non-union labor. Then there’ll be trouble. My God, there’ll be trouble!”
His face was white and haggard, and his under lip trembled as he spoke.
She looked at him incredulously.
“You don’t mean to say,” she asked, “that he won’t let his old men go
back to work? Not if you kept Bricky Hoover out?”
“Not if we sent Bricky Hoover straight to hell to-day. Not a single
striker gets work at Malleson’s mills again.”
She dropped into the chair he had placed for her when she came in, and
gripped the arms of it.
“But that”――she protested――“that isn’t human.”
“I know it isn’t human. But what can we do? When Dick Malleson makes up
his mind no power in the universe can move him.”
“Why, Steve, women are starving and freezing. Little children are
dying. The man has no heart, no soul.”
“True! And if he tries to break the strike with scabs he’ll have no
mill.”
“Steve! There won’t be violence; there won’t be bloodshed?”
“I can’t tell what there’ll be. The men are desperate, and they’ll do
desperate things.”
“But I won’t have bloodshed! I’ve got enough to answer for as it is. I
tell you, Steve, you’ve got to stop it.”
“And I tell you I can’t stop it.”
“Then I’ll find some one who can. Mr. Farrar will help me.”
At the mention of the clergyman’s name the man’s face flushed. For
Mary Bradley to go from Lamar to seek the rector’s aid was simply to
pour oil on a smoldering fire. She had been already too much in this
minister’s company under pretense of visiting the poor. Why should
she hold him, Stephen Lamar, her avowed lover, at arm’s length, while
bestowing clandestine favors on this discredited hypocrite of the
Church? No fire burns so fiercely as the fire of jealousy.
“Oh, Farrar!” he sneered. “What will he do? Go pray with old man
Malleson who doesn’t give a damn for his pious advice? I tell you this
fellow has lost his grip. Capital derides him; labor laughs at him; you
might as well――――”
“Stop! You can’t slander him in my presence. He’s been the one strong,
heroic figure in all this dreadful disaster, and the whole city knows
it.”
The man’s jealous wrath blazed up in words befitting the loafer of the
street.
“Oh, you; you think he’s a little tin god on wheels! You think he’s
the greatest thing that ever came down the pike! I say he’s a damned
hypocrite and a menace to society, and I’ll prove it.”
She rose from her chair with face aflame and anger flashing from her
eyes.
“Steve,” she said, “take that back. You coward, take that back!”
He saw that he had overreached himself and grew suddenly penitent.
“Forgive me, Mary! I don’t know what I’m saying. I’m driven crazy by
this infernal strike――and by you.”
“By me?”
“Yes, by you. You have no pity. I’m eating my heart out for you, and
you’re as cold as an arctic moon.”
“Do you want me to be kind to you?”
“It’s the only want I have.”
“Then stop this strike. Stop it and ask anything decent of me and it’s
yours. But until you do stop it, don’t speak to me, nor look at me, nor
so much as whisper my name.”
She turned and swept out from his presence, and when she was gone he
dropped back into his chair, stared at the blank walls around him, and
cursed the evil days on which he had so ingloriously fallen.
But he resolved to win back the favor of the woman for whose sake he
would joyously have walked straight to perdition.
Through the bleak March morning, past piles of grimy, half-melted snow,
Mary Bradley went. Two blocks up, at the corner of the street which led
from the mill, she met Barry Malleson. He had gone early, as he had
said he would, to procure her check. He drew it from his pocket now and
gave it to her.
“It only needs your endorsement,” he said, “and you can get the money
at any bank.”
“Thank you, Barry! Now I want you to go with me.”
“Where?” And before she could reply he added: “It doesn’t matter where.
I’ll go, and be glad to.”
But she told him where she wished him to go.
“I’m going to see Mr. Farrar,” she said. “Perhaps he can do something
to put an end to this unbearable tragedy.”
They found him in his study. The darkness of the morning had made
necessary the lighting of his table-lamp, and vague shadows filled
the room and moved unsteadily up and down his gray face as he bent
to his work or sat back in his chair to ponder. And he had work to
do as well as cause to ponder. The suffering he had witnessed during
these last days lay heavy on his heart. His eyes were dim with it; the
lines on his face were deep with it. His sympathies were stirred as
they had never in his life been stirred before. His wife entered the
room softly but he neither saw nor heard her. She paused and looked
at him for a moment and then went out without speaking to him. She
was not vexed nor sullen, but she was inexpressibly troubled and sad,
and she pitied him. In his work among the poor he had not consulted
her, nor had he asked her aid. She forgave him for that, much as it
grieved her. For, of course, he knew that she had her own burdens to
bear, her children to care for, her house to be kept under ever more
and more straitened circumstances and embarrassing conditions. So why
should he burden her with his cares or sorrows, or harass her mind by
recitals of the sufferings of others? Yet she had abundant reason to be
despondent and distressed, and worn out in both body and soul. Society
which had ceased to recognize him had, of necessity, gradually, but
unobtrusively, closed its doors to her. Her whole life, in these bitter
days, was compassed by the four walls of the rectory. If she could only
have been his companion and helpmate how gladly she would have borne
it all. But she knew her limitations, her childish incapacity, her
deplorable lack of every resource on which he might have drawn to aid
him in solving his problems or in performing the tasks that confronted
him. How natural it was that, in default of this aid from her, he
should accept, or even seek it from another. And with this thought the
poignancy of her suffering reached its climax. For she saw, or believed
she saw, the place that should have been hers as her husband’s friend
and counselor and loyal and helpful companion successfully filled by
another. What cause, other than this, could bring more bitter sorrow
into the heart of a loving wife? She was not angry nor resentful, but
she was inexpressibly grieved and hurt.
When Barry and his companion entered the study the minister rose
and welcomed them with sad cordiality. He saw that the woman was
excited and distressed, and he knew that there must be some disastrous
development in the already unbearable situation.
“What is it now?” he asked her. “Has any new limit of suffering been
reached?”
“Yes,” she replied, “my limit has been reached. I can’t bear it any
longer. I came to ask you to make one more effort to put an end to this
horrible strife.”
“Yes,” echoed Barry; “she’s gone the limit. I know. It’s up to you and
me, Farrar, to buckle in and make a whirlwind effort to end this thing
now. We’re the only two men on earth that can do it.”
“Barry,” said the rector, “it’s no use. You’ve done all that a human
being could do. And I, Mrs. Bradley, I have exhausted every effort. The
men are stubborn, the mill-owners are obdurate; the thing is absolutely
dead-locked.”
“The mill-owners are indeed obdurate,” she replied, “but the men are
no longer stubborn. They’ve been starved and frozen into submission.
They’ll go back on any terms.”
“Without Bricky Hoover?”
“Yes, without Bricky Hoover.”
“Then why under the canopy don’t they go?” asked Barry. “We’ll take ’em
in a minute, if they’ve dropped Bricky.”
“They don’t go,” she replied, “because the company won’t let them.”
“Won’t let them!” exclaimed Barry and the rector in unison.
“Won’t let them,” she repeated. “Mr. Malleson says they’ve repented too
late. He’s hired strike-breakers, scabs, thugs, to take their places.”
“Who told you this?” demanded the rector.
“Steve Lamar. He says there’ll be riots and bloodshed. And, if there
is, the guilt of it will be on my head. You must stop it, Mr. Farrar.
You must! You must!”
She dropped into a near-by chair, hid her face in her hands and fell to
sobbing. It was the first time that either of these men had seen her
thus broken in pride and strength, and for a moment they gazed at her
and at each other in silence. Then the rector went to her, and laid a
quieting hand on her shoulder.
“You mustn’t give way like this,” he said. “We need you. We need your
courage, more now than ever before. I can’t understand this. You must
have been misinformed. Lamar must be mistaken. If the men are willing
to go back on Mr. Malleson’s terms he certainly can’t refuse them; he
dare not; he must not!”
He was growing as excited and indignant over the situation as was Mary
Bradley herself.
“Tell him so, Mr. Farrar!” exclaimed the woman. “Please go to him and
tell him so. He won’t listen to the men. He won’t listen to Barry. He
won’t listen to anybody. But maybe――there’s just a chance――that if you
go to him again, and tell him this, he may see the wisdom of it, the
justice of it, the absolute necessity of it.”
“I’ll go,” said the rector.
“And I’ll go with you,” exclaimed Barry, “to clinch the argument. He
hasn’t listened to me before. Maybe he will now.”
She rose from her chair and looked at the two men from tear-filled eyes.
“You are both very brave,” she said, “and noble. And I know you’ll
succeed. I know it. It can’t be otherwise. If you fail it will kill me,
and I’ll have to go up to God with this sin on my soul.”
Again the rector sought to soothe and encourage her. He did not know
what she meant by her self-accusations, but he knew that this was no
time to inquire. Moreover, he was eager to be off on his errand. He
took her hand and, holding it in his, walked with her down the hall
to his street door, trying to speak comforting words. How comforting
he did not know. What calmness came to her with his touch he did not
dream. How precious in her heart she held the memory of that little
journey to the outer air, he could not by any possible chance conceive.
At the street corner she left them. She did not look again at the
rector. But she turned pleading eyes on Barry.
“You’ll come and tell me,” she implored, “what happens?”
“I’ll come,” said Barry, “if I get away alive.”
He smiled at her, lifted his hat, and then joined the rector who was
already hurrying on his way. The morning was not cold, but it was raw
and misty, and the air had in it an indescribable chill. The two men
walked rapidly and in silence. Shivering workmen, with despondent
faces, looked at them as they passed, and some lifted their caps
awkwardly from tousled heads in recognition. It was no unusual sight to
see the rector and Barry on the street together in these days, and no
one commented on their appearance now. The men had no grievance against
Barry. He had doubtless done what he could for them, but they knew him
to be absolutely helpless, and they saw no possible gleam of hope in
his direction. As for the rector, he was of course a friend to labor.
He had proved that to them abundantly. But they no longer looked to
him to lead them up out of slavery. As Steve Lamar said, he had lost
his grip, if he had ever had one. Every effort of his on their behalf
had been utterly useless, if indeed he had not, by these very efforts,
plunged them into still deeper servitude. He had preached the religion
of Christ to those in high places and it had availed nothing. He had
preached it to men ground down by capital and suffering from hunger,
and it had not served to right a single wrong, or relieve a single
pang of distress. What they wanted was a religion that would not only
affirm their rights, but would in fact obtain them. What they wanted
was a man who could not only preach justice, but could get it; a man
with material as well as spiritual power, a man who could force capital
to its knees, and bring victory to the cause of labor. And the rector
of Christ Church was not such a man. Wherefore they looked on with
indifference as these two passed by.
Though it was still early morning Richard Malleson was in. He had been
coming early to his office, and staying late. That his work and his
anxiety were wearing on him there could be no doubt. His appearance
indicated it. Within the last two months he had aged perceptibly. His
hair had grown noticeably gray. Sharp lines had been etched into his
face. His clothes no longer fitted his body snugly, and above his
collar the skin of his neck hung in flabby, vertical folds. But his
cold, gray eyes had lost none of their sharpness, and his square,
aggressive jaws were even more firmly set than of old. He sent out word
that he would see Mr. Farrar, but that Barry was not to be admitted. So
the rector entered the office alone. The president of the company rose
and shook hands formally with his visitor, and motioned him to a chair.
Then he sat back and fingered his eye-glasses expectantly. The rector
went at once to the point, as was his custom.
“My errand this morning,” he said, “is to tell you that I believe a way
has been opened for the immediate resumption of work at your mills.”
“Yes?” There was no manifestation of surprise or of interest in either
his voice or his manner.
“Yes. I understand that your men are willing to return on the old
terms, without Bricky Hoover.”
“I believe that is true. I was so informed by a committee yesterday.”
“Then what stands in the way of a settlement?”
“Everything. We shall not take these men back.”
“Why not?”
“I will tell you. We had an agreement with them which, by their strike,
they have flagrantly and causelessly violated. We have now, on our
part, abrogated that agreement. They are irresponsible, reckless and
destructive. We shall not reëmploy them.”
“You don’t mean to say that these men who have given the better part of
their lives to your service are to be locked out? blacklisted?”
“Call it what you choose, Mr. Farrar. We are through with them. When we
reopen our shops, as we shall reopen them next week, it will be to men
who have not worked us injury, and in whose word and good faith we hope
we can trust.”
“But, Mr. Malleson, do you realize that if you bring in new men to take
the places of the old ones there is sure to be trouble?”
“We look to the police and the law to protect our property and our
employees, and if the police and the law are not sufficient we shall
have armed deputies of our own to defend us against violence.”
“Pardon me, but you will only be inviting disorder. The patience of
these striking workmen is strained already to the breaking point. You
cannot assume that they will stand idly by and see strangers take the
places to which they believe themselves entitled. Bloodshed, in such a
case, is no remote possibility.”
“We assume nothing, sir, except that we have a right, under the
law, to operate our works with such men as we see fit to employ. If
unwarranted or violent interference with our property or our employees
is resorted to, and bloodshed ensues, we shall hold ourselves in no way
responsible.”
The cold logic of his reply left room for no further argument. The
appeal to reason having been dismissed, an appeal to sentiment was now
the minister’s only recourse.
“Mr. Malleson,” he said, “there is one thing more which I beg you to
consider. These workmen of yours are beaten. You have forced them into
the last ditch. Their wives are starving and their babies are dying.
They are ready to yield every point. Unless you give them work the
weak and the helpless among them will perish like beasts. You are a
Christian man. I appeal to you in the name of the merciful Christ to
have mercy on them.”
The president of the company looked at his visitor for a full minute
before replying. Then he said:
“You also are a Christian man, Mr. Farrar. And you are a minister of
the gospel besides. And, as a minister, you have preached discord and
discontent. You have stirred up envy and hatred in the breasts of these
working people. You have roused the spirit and the passions which
have led to this destitution and misery. You have sown the wind; your
victims are reaping the whirlwind. It comes with poor grace from you to
appeal to my sense of Christian mercy.”
The rector did not resent the accusation, and he made little attempt to
justify himself. He simply said:
“I have preached the gospel of Jesus Christ as I have understood it.
But let us assume that I have been wrong. Let us even assume that my
preaching may have been in part responsible for this disaster. The
emergency is too great for any of us to pause long enough to lay the
blame at another’s door. We are confronted by suffering unspeakable.
With one word you can relieve it. With one turn of the hand you can
lift a whole community from the slough of wretchedness and despair to
the very heights of happiness, and that without yielding one iota of
your lawful right or personal dignity. Again I ask you, as a Christian
man, to exert your power on the side of mercy.”
“And again I tell you that, being a Christian man, I shall not throw
this sop to the forces of evil. I can do no greater service to this
community than to exert my power to crush this spirit of revolt which
you and those like you have fostered here. I intend to stamp out, so
far as I can, those pernicious doctrines of socialism, of radicalism,
of syndicalism by the preaching of which you and your companions
and followers have brought to the people of this city hardship and
suffering which you now find yourselves powerless to relieve.”
“We are powerless to relieve it, Mr. Malleson. That is frankly why I
come to you. And I come as man to man, with a man’s message on my lips.”
“As man to man!” The phrase seemed to have caught the president’s
attention. His face flushed as if in anger. “As man to man,” he
repeated. “What have I in common with you who find your companions
among atheists and radicals? Why should I take counsel with you who
have taken delight in warping the weak mind of a member of my family
into complete acceptance of your destructive doctrines? You have made
him easy prey of designing women, and a tool of sinister men. You have
alienated him from his family and his friends. I say why should I
listen for one moment to you?”
He half rose in his chair, struck his clenched fist on the table, and
glared at his visitor in unmistakable anger.
“Mr. Malleson,” replied the rector; he was still calm and deliberate,
“you do me an injustice. I have done no harm to your son. But that is
neither here nor there. I came to appeal to you, not for myself nor for
your son, but in behalf of your starving workmen. Will you take them
back?”
“I will not take them back. They left me without cause. They have
assassinated my character. They have tried to wreck my business.”
“They may both wreck your business and destroy your property in the
end.”
“Is that a threat, Mr. Farrar?”
“I make no threats; God forbid! But, since you will not listen to
reason, nor be moved by pity, I must tell you frankly that in my
judgment you have brought this calamity on yourself; and if you persist
in the course you are pursuing, a still worse calamity is sure to
follow.”
The president of the manufacturing company rose to his feet, white with
rage.
“Sir,” he exclaimed, “the interview is at an end!”
“As you choose,” replied the minister. “But beware of the next
messenger who comes. For, instead of bringing to you the olive branch
which I have brought, he may bring to you the rioter’s club, and the
incendiary’s torch.”
It was doubtless a rash thing for him to say. But when his heart was
hot the rector of Christ Church did not pause to consider well the
words he should utter.
He left the office of the president and strode back to his home
under lowering skies, through wet and dingy streets, moved by such
indignation and despair as had never in his life before found lodgment
in his breast. Yet he caught himself, ever and anon, wondering whether
the charge that Richard Malleson had so bluntly and brutally thrust at
him was in any respect true; the charge that he himself, by preaching
a gospel of discontent, had helped to bring on this industrial war. He
tried to evade the question, to dismiss it from his mind, but it would
not down. Was he or was he not, in any degree, responsible for this
economic tragedy? Mary Bradley had declared that the guilt of it lay on
her soul. This was doubtless untrue. But how much of the guilt of it
lay on his? Here, indeed, was food for thought.
* * * * *
When Bricky Hoover came into strike-headquarters that morning Lamar
was still there, and he was alone. Hoover, too, had the appearance of
a man who had been suffering from both a physical and a mental strain.
His clothing was wrinkled and soiled, his face was swollen, his eyes
were bloodshot, and when he threw his cap on the table he disclosed a
tangled shock of red hair that for twenty-four hours at least had not
felt the civilizing effect of a comb.
Lamar looked up at him and scowled.
“Bricky,” he said, “you were drunk last night. You were no good. Don’t
you know that you can’t afford to swill booze while this strike is on?”
“I know it, Steve,” he replied. “I admit I was drunk. But the thing
got on my nerves and I had to stiddy myself somehow. I took a drop too
much, that’s all. What’s the next move?”
“The next move is to call off the strike.”
“Call it off? What for?”
“Because we’re licked. And the only chance for the men to get anything
is to go ask for it, one by one.”
“I say we ain’t licked. And they won’t a man git ’is job back by goin’
and askin’ for it. I know. Wasn’t I on the comity that went to see the
old man yisterday? I crawled on me belly to ’im; told ’im I’d quit
the city, leave the state, go drown meself, do anything, if he’d take
the bunch back on the old terms. He snarled at me an’ wouldn’t listen
to it. I told ’im I’d do the same thing if he’d take the men back,
one by one, as he wanted ’em. He come down on me like a thousand o’
brick. Said he’d ruther see his mills burn down than take back a single
traitor of us. Banged ’is fist on the table an’ called me a Judas
Ischariot. I told you all that last night. Steve, no man can’t call me
a Judas Ischariot an’ save ’is skin. This strike is goin’ on.”
“But I tell you it can’t go on. The old man’s got us by the throat and
he’s choking us to death.”
“Hell! That’s baby-talk! We’ve got him up ag’inst the wall, and he
can’t do a thing.”
“But he’s going to open up with scabs and strike-breakers.”
“Let him! They won’t last three days. We can hold out for ten. At the
end of that time the strike’ll be won.”
“Bricky, you’re a fool. The men can’t hold out for ten days. They’re
starving. It’s March. They’ll break away from us one by one. They’ll
tumble over each other looking for their jobs. You won’t smash Dick
Malleson, but you’ll smash the union.”
“I say we’ll smash Dick Malleson, and I know what I’m talkin’ about. I
know the men. I know what they’ll stan’ for, and I know what they won’t
stan’ for. Ten days turns the trick.”
“Bricky, I said you were a fool. I say, now, you’re a damned fool! The
thing can’t be done. It’s impossible!”
Bricky did not grow angry at the denunciation. He smiled strangely and
raised his voice but slightly as he replied:
“Look here, Steve. You made a fool of me once. That was when you got
me into this thing. And old man Malleson made a fool of me once. That
was yiste’day, when I went beggin’ to him as you told me to. They can’t
neither of ye make a fool o’ me twice. I’m through with both o’ ye. I’m
goin’ to smash Malleson now on me own account, for the things he said
to me yiste’day. And as for you, Steve, you can go plumb to hell.”
Lamar started up from his chair.
“Bricky,” he shouted, “you’re crazy!”
Bricky never moved nor changed the tone of his voice.
“Maybe I am,” he replied. “But I ain’t crazy enough to start five
hunderd men on the road to perdition jest because a black-eyed,
smooth-tongued woman puts me up to it. And I ain’t crazy enough nor
yellow-hearted enough to sell them men out jest because the same
shaller-minded woman gits cold feet an’ purrs it into me ears to do it,
an’ pays me my price fer it. Oh, I know the game! You can’t put nothin’
over on me!”
“Bricky, you damned, black-hearted scoundrel, get out o’ here!”
And Bricky got out.