MC-NRLF 
 
 T 
 
 L 
 
Jti 
 
The Heart of Toil 
 
 By 
 OCTAVE THANET 
 
 New York 
 
 International Association of Newspapers and Authors 
 iooi 
 
Copyright, 1898, by 
 Charles Scribner s Sons 
 
 Geo. M. Hill Co. 
 
 Printers and Binders 
 
 Chicago, III 
 
psm? 
 
 /Y\ A! A/ 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Non- Combatant, 
 
 AFay o/ an Election, ... ^5 
 
 Moment of Clear Vision, . . 8$ 
 
 Johnny s Job, 123 
 
 The "Scab," /59 
 
 The Conscience of a Business 
 Man, 
 
 5191 
 
THE NON-COMBATANT 
 
THE NON-COMBATANT 
 
 4 "I A 7 ELL, won t your pa be pleased! " 
 V V cried Mrs. Battles. 
 
 The slim girl with the rose-leaf complexion, 
 and the silky black braid dangling in the hol 
 low between her shoulders, turned quickly. 
 The pretty flush crept from her cheeks to her 
 forehead, her liquid dark eyes brightened and 
 glowed. 
 
 " Will it cheer him up, do you really think, 
 ma? " said she. 
 
 Mrs. Battles was dishing the dinner, for it 
 was noon and time for Race Battles to come 
 upstairs from the grocery. She waved the 
 coffee perilously at her daughter s face, in a 
 gesture of reproach. " Stella Battles! Don t 
 you know no more of your pa than not to know 
 he ll be tickled to death ? There ain t a father 
 in town wouldn t be ! I should say ! " 
 
 Stella placed the bread and the tiny mite 
 of butter meals did not have their former 
 
4 THE EEA3T OF TOIL 
 
 generous look at the grocer s now. She looked 
 at the table-cloth and spoke in a soft rush, like 
 one who fears *he failing of her own cour 
 age midway: "Ma, I know he would be 
 pleased, usually; but he seems so changed 
 and worried all the time now; and and 
 there would be the expense of the graduat 
 ing dress, the gloves, and ribbons and those 
 
 things " 
 
 "Don t you fret, lambie," returned the 
 mother, tenderly, as the girl s voice quivered 
 and sank; "if pa can t raise the money for 
 your graduating muslin, your ma can! And 
 you know pa sets the world and all by your 
 learning. But he s so beset and worried, now, 
 he don t know which way to turn. But you 
 see how it is, Stella, it s seven weeks now 
 since the boys struck, and the bills are going 
 on and on; and there don t seem no more 
 chance now than there was the first week not 
 so much, even that the strike will be settled; 
 and however will the bills get paid? It makes 
 the creeps come up my back when I think of 
 it; I don t wonder there s gray hairs in Race s 
 head nor that he groans in his sleep. I don t 
 see how pa d live through it to fail ! He said 
 that when he mortgaged the house, last week, 
 
THE NON-COMBATANT 5 
 
 and I cried when I signed. But he s got the 
 money to pay Wells. He s the worst, that 
 
 man! 
 
 She inclined her comely head toward the 
 open door, through which one could see all the 
 variegated pomp of the Battles s parlor, the 
 tapestry sofa, the columned and chamfered 
 mantel, and the geraniums and fuchsias, be 
 hind the lace curtains. On the mantel-piece 
 (tastefully draped in light-blue silk) were two 
 Parian marble statuettes. One, the Battles 
 had discovered since Stella studied Latin, rep 
 resented Clytie emerging from her sunflower; 
 the other they had always revered as the bust 
 of Abraham Lincoln. Both works of art were 
 bought at a bargain sale by Mr. Battles and 
 had been preserved in a drawer and tissue- 
 paper until the parlor was furnished. In the 
 centre of the mantel towered grandly a bronze 
 clock, presented by his former employers, the 
 rich wholesale grocers, Harcourt T. Wells & 
 Co. The other ornaments were two photo 
 graphs one, thrown on convex glass and 
 colored, the photograph of a smiling baby boy; 
 the other, that of a middle-aged man whose 
 firm features and slight frown of intentness 
 made a face of mark. A black-and-white 
 
6 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 portrait, plainly a bromide enlargement from 
 the photograph below, hung on the opposite 
 wall. 
 
 " I don t see why pa keeps his photograph 
 up there," continued Mrs. Battles, her black 
 eyes snapping, " mean as he s treated him, 
 after he s bought goods there for ten years and 
 paid prompt, too much as telling pa he d 
 break him if he didn t pay up the note due this 
 week!" 
 
 " Oh, ma, how can he pay? " cried Stella. 
 
 " He s mortgaged the building, that s how," 
 returned Mrs. Battles, sombrely. " And he 
 ain t left himself enough to pay the fire in 
 surance." 
 
 " And pa s so scared of fire! " 
 
 " Well he may be ; we was burned out 
 once! " The woman sighed heavily. " I sup 
 pose I had ought to remember. Harcourt T. 
 Wells was good then ; but why did he want to 
 turn on your pa now? Race couldn t do 
 enough for that man. When we was married 
 he was clerking for him ; and he d work over- 
 hours, and he d turn his hand to anything for 
 Harcourt T. Wells. Looked like he just 
 revelled in doing for him; and he d talk to 
 me why, yeu d think the sun rose and set 
 
THE NON-COMBATANT 7 
 
 with him. And when he run for mayor, you 
 remember your pa was fit to drop, he worked 
 so hard. I ain t exaggerating to say your pa d 
 a-give his life for that man any hour of the 
 day. Yes, he would, to-day. And look at the 
 way he s been treated! " 
 
 " But he used to be kind once," Stella in 
 terceded. " I remember the things he sent, 
 every Christmas! " 
 
 " He ain t kind, now. He hadn t got no 
 business to fly out at pa like he done and pa 
 not doing a thing. Jest for nothing but be 
 cause he would give credit to the boys those 
 boys that always had traded with him. Your 
 pa came home white as ashes. It was all I 
 could do to get it out of him. He d met "Wells 
 on the street walking with old Cochrane him 
 self. Minute he seen your pa he twisted his 
 eyebrows. Wait a minute, Mr. Battles, says 
 he didn t call him Race, like he used to do, 
 and looked like ice at him, and I know just 
 how hot your pa got, for his collar was wilted 
 clean down and it was a cool April day I 
 hear you have gone back on what you prom 
 ised me, says he. I didn t promise you noth 
 ing, says your pa. He told me he was kinder 
 startled and didn t rightly know what he was 
 
8 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 saying. It was an implied promise/ says 
 "Wells; I advised you for your good. If you 
 don t choose to follow my advice, well and 
 good; but I warn you, here, I sha n t take 
 your bad accounts for any excuse next June. 
 Good-morning. And your pa, he was so 
 dazed and so kinder wanting to cry, he felt so 
 awful that he hadn t a word to say, just gasped 
 like a fish out of water; and they walked 
 away. It fairly made your pa sick. I never 
 seen him look that way since little Ilarcourt 
 died." 
 
 " He was named after Mr. Wells," said 
 Stella, thoughtfully. " Ma, pa thought a 
 great deal of Mr. Wells." She, too, now was 
 looking at the picture across the threshold. 
 She was trying to match this unknown feel 
 ing with her own friendships. She thought 
 of her best friend at the High School; did 
 grown men and women have their friend 
 ships, too? Such a thing seemed queer and 
 almost indecorous, as vivid emotion of any 
 kind in older people always looks to youth; 
 but piercing her shamefaced, youthful esti 
 mation of her father s excess of feeling as not 
 quite sensible, was a passionate thrill of 
 sympathy. 
 
TEE NON-COMBATANT 9 
 
 Stella had her mother s limpid, long-lashed, 
 dark eyes, and her silky, abundant dark hair, 
 and her graceful shape was like her mother s 
 at sixteen indeed, at thirty, Martha Battles 
 " kept her waist " and her beautiful arms 
 but Stella was her father s child. Martha took 
 life on the broad side, laughing when she was 
 merry, weeping when she was sad, and sput 
 tering vigorously when she was in wrath. She 
 was a true-hearted, loyal creature, and she 
 made Race a good wife, and Race loved her 
 with all his heart; but there were things 
 impossible to say to his wife, that said 
 themselves to his daughter. However, if 
 Martha did not always understand her hus 
 band, she always admired him. To her, his 
 short, thick-set figure was a model of manly 
 strength; and the slouch in his shoulders 
 (which in truth he acquired bending over the 
 ledgers) was but the brand of a scholar. She 
 had been a maid-of -all-work, and her father 
 had shovelled on the street, and to her Race 
 was a self-made man a success that ought to 
 be in the newspapers. There had been a 
 notice of Race once in the Fairport Blade, 
 and his picture ; it was when he ran for alder 
 man and was defeated. But everyone knew 
 
10 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 that there was no chance for his party in the 
 ward, when he ran, and no mortal, unless it 
 were his wife, had expected that the heavens 
 would fall and his party s candidate be elected. 
 The editor alluded to him as " the successful 
 grocer and popular man, Horace Battles, 
 Esquire." Mrs. Battles bought eight copies 
 of the paper, seven of which she sent away. 
 The eighth copy was laid in the leaves of the 
 family Bible at the page recording the births 
 of the children only two, these were Stella s 
 and that of the little boy who died. lie had 
 been named after Mr. Wells; and in the 
 family Bible, after the line, " Died, May 13, 
 189 , aged 3 years, 5 months," in Kace s 
 handwriting, not so round and firm as usual, 
 there lay on the page a sprig of dried lilies of 
 the valley from the flowers which Wells had 
 sent. 
 
 " Poor father," said Stella. It was the in 
 adequate expression of a great many thoughts. 
 In a moment she went on : " Now, ma, don t 
 you say no, I m not going to graduate. I ll 
 let Bessie Page read my piece; and I ll get 
 some good excuse so I won t be there. I ll 
 write aunty about that place she said she could 
 get for me for the summer, teaching those chil- 
 
THE NON-COMBATANT 11 
 
 dren the folks were to go away in June 
 and I ll take it; and instead of being a drag 
 on pa, maybe I can help a little " 
 
 Mrs. Battles had listened with quick intakes 
 of the breath, between a sob and a snort, but at 
 this last she exploded: 
 
 " Well, Stella Battles, do you think we re 
 going to let you go off as a nursery governess 
 when you ve got a pa and a ma and a home, 
 and are the only chick or child we ve got in 
 the world? And as for giving up graduating, 
 I won t hear of it. Why, I ve been thinking 
 about it for a year, and putting aside money, 
 too; and your pa wouldn t take it neither; for 
 I did offer it to him to pay the insurance 
 knowing how frightened he is of fire and 
 says he, No, Mattie, no; it ain t enough for 
 that, and there ain t anything else on earth I d 
 take it for. It s the only time she ll ever 
 graduate/ says your pa, and let her have the 
 good of it and look nice as the rest. See here, 
 Stella, don t you begin to sniffle, there s your 
 pa this minute be a-smiling! " 
 
 Mrs. Battles dressed her face in determined 
 radiance, as example, before she opened the 
 door. Battles came home by simply mount 
 ing the stairs, the grocery being in the floor 
 
12 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 below. His daughter thought how light his 
 footfall used to sound, and how his whistle of 
 the last popular air always used to precede him. 
 Now, the only sound was of a step that 
 dragged. But he was trying to smile as he 
 entered. Battles was a short, rotund, little 
 man, who made his round face the rounder by 
 two scraps of sandy whisker on his jaws. He 
 wore these because Harcourt T. Wells, on 
 whom as man and merchant he formed him 
 self, always wore side-whiskers. He had a 
 freckled face and very faint eyebrows and 
 white teeth that flashed when he smiled, and 
 his eyes were rather wide apart, giving an im 
 pression of open-heartedness and frankness. 
 When he spoke, his voice was low and pleas 
 antly modulated; but were he tickled into 
 laughter, the mirth rolled out of him in loud, 
 whole-souled peals. That day Stella won 
 dered when she had heard her father laugh. 
 She wished her mother had not said, " I ve 
 some good news for you, pa! " She caught 
 the instant gleam of his eyes and the falling 
 of his face at the end of the sentence ; and al 
 though he kissed Stella most tenderly, and 
 said, in the heartiest way, " That is good news ; 
 I m proud of you, daughter; and how many 
 
THE NON-COMBATANT la 
 
 in the class, twenty-five, mother? Well, 
 well! " still Stella felt that the news he 
 had hoped to hear was different. In a minute 
 he added : " Wasn t that Mrs. Leroy I saw 
 coming in here this morning? What did she 
 say about the strike? " 
 
 " She said Leroy was coming in to see you 
 this afternoon, but she wanted you not to sa^ 
 so to anyone. She said they had a meeting 
 last night, but " 
 
 " Did they declare the strike off? " asked 
 Race, eagerly. 
 
 Mrs. Battles shook her head. " They voted 
 Harry down. It was that Bellair. The men 
 do be so taken with his talking ! " 
 
 " Then there s no show of the strike s end 
 ing," said Battles. He gulped down some 
 thing and drank his scalding hot coffee until 
 the tears came; but he made so poor a pre 
 tence of eating that his wife cried at him pres 
 ently, saying that he ate no more than a spar 
 row, and she was discouraged to cook. 
 
 " Well, I m sick," said Race, his gloomy 
 eyes on his saucer; " what I see makes me 
 sick. Johnny O Brien s baby died this morn 
 ing, and Johnny made a kind of coffin for it 
 out of some boxes I let him have. And 
 
14: THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 Rhodes gave Mm some white paint. To think 
 of how Johnny used to set and talk about that 
 baby. And he couldn t even buy it a casket! 
 And the Wheelans, they ain t got shoes on 
 their feet, and the Jenners have sold their cab 
 inet organ; it makes me sick to stand there be 
 hind the counter and hear such things. Be 
 sides I got an offer for the horse and wagon, 
 and I guess I ll have to let them go." He was 
 uneasily aware of the consternation on the 
 women s faces in spite of his stare at his plate. 
 He went on, desperately: " E"or that ain t all; 
 I ll have to send Danny away." 
 
 " Oh, father! " cried Stella. " Poor Dan 
 ny; he s so stupid he ll never get another job, 
 and he s so willing and faithful." 
 
 "And what will his grandmother do, 
 Horace Battles? " cried the wife. 
 
 " I don t know," said Kace. " It s got to 
 this, ma; we re like folks on a shipwreck, 
 we re only trying to save ourselves. I can t 
 raise even the $5 a week for Danny s wages; 
 it s all I can do to pull through with my own 
 skin whole. They do say that there s a car 
 load of new men coming; in that case the men 
 will have to git out of town, and there ain t 
 much chance of my collecting anything on the 
 
THE NON-COMBATANT 15 
 
 accounts, for, what with the expense of mov 
 ing and all, they ll be all broke up, every 
 mothers son of them. I don t see any way 
 out! " 
 
 " Well, I guess we sha n t starve ! " said 
 Mrs. Battles; " but that Swede family round 
 the corner, they fairly ain t got enough to eat 
 and seven children under twelve it s aw 
 ful; I couldn t help sending them in some 
 stew; I put in lots of potatoes and onion, and 
 steamed over some hunks of bread, so the meat 
 went a long way. Why, Race, those children 
 glared at the dish like wolves ! I think that 
 Bellair ought to be hung ! " At the beginning 
 of the fight it had been Cochrane to whom 
 Mrs. Battles had wished a felon s doom; but 
 the good woman changed front with an un 
 ruffled conscience, meaning only good-will 
 toward her neighbors. 
 
 " I m glad you took them in something. I 
 wish you d take the O Briens in a bite, if you 
 can fix it so they won t notice." 
 
 " You don t mean they are at that pass! " 
 
 " I don t know when any of us will get 
 there," groaned Race, pushing back his chair 
 and making for the door. But at the door he 
 came back. " Don t think I ain t pleased and 
 
16 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 proud at what you ve done, Stella/ said he, 
 his hand on her shoulder. " And it s a great 
 comfort to know that come what may you ve 
 got your education." 
 
 " Oh, pa, I wish I could help. you! " cried 
 Stella, with a choke in her throat. He kissed 
 her, but something in his own throat pre 
 vented his answering; and so he went heavily 
 downstairs to the shop and Danny. The clerk 
 was only a lumpish boy, at whom the cus 
 tomers were continually girding because he 
 made so many mistakes ; but he had a kind of 
 dogged honesty and faithfulness that Eace 
 valued, and he was the sole support of an old 
 grandmother, who prayed for the Battles, 
 every day. Danny looked up at Race s step 
 with the glimmer of a smile; he had cleaned 
 the molasses corner and waited for the grocer s 
 surprise. But Race did not see the humble 
 offering of toil, he was plunging at his busi 
 ness. 
 
 " Danny, I got something to say to you," 
 he began, as if primed for a reproof; and he 
 ended with the bald statement that he should 
 have to dismiss the lad at the week s end. It 
 was a great relief to have Danny merely say, 
 " Yes, sir. I know times are Jiard." But it 
 
THE NON-COMBATANT 17 
 
 was less of a relief to see the muscles of his 
 neck moving as he hastily walked off, and to 
 be sure that he had been crying when he re 
 turned. No one came into the store. Race 
 looked out on the street and sat drearily con 
 ning over his own plight. His heart was like 
 lead. He could look out and see the tidy little 
 yards and the windswept macadam, and the 
 men sitting idly on their steps for the most 
 part, albeit a few were patching up their sheds 
 or fences and some lawn-mowers were rattling 
 through the little front yards. A stranger 
 would have noticed only a pretty, shady street, 
 but he saw the empty window where the Jen- 
 ners s cabinet organ had stood, and he remem 
 bered how Ned Mueller had meant to paint 
 the house which stood dingy brown and would 
 wait a long time now for the paint-brush. He 
 felt not only his own anxiety and pain but the 
 smother of all the misery about him. A 
 wagon dashed round the corner, a large truck 
 drawn by two great Norman bays with shin 
 ing harness. The letters on the side jumped 
 at his eyes " Harcourt T. Wells & Co." 
 How many, many times had he watched 
 wagons like those from the corner with al 
 most the luxury of proprietorship. " Gittin 
 3 
 
18 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 richer every day! " lie would chuckle to him 
 self; and plod along, beaming. Now his 
 heart contracted at the sight, and at the feel 
 ing that he no longer could exult in Wells s 
 grandeur as in something part his own. Wells 
 had been the grocer s hero, worshipped from 
 his business principles to his whiskers. The 
 times when Battles would call to pay for his 
 groceries were proud moments to him. He 
 would saunter into the great store, nodding 
 here and there to the clerks, who all knew him, 
 and ask, in a careless voice, " Old man in? 
 just as if he had not chosen the hour of the 
 day most likely to see Wells in his office. Then 
 he would pass the card of " No Admittance," 
 cocking kip eye at it as he passed, and trusting 
 that there might be some stranger present to 
 view his confident entry, and walk up to the 
 head of the firm s desk with " Well, here I 
 am again, Mr. Wells." It was a standing 
 joke that Wells should say, " After an ex 
 tension, Race, I suppose? " and he should 
 answer, " After a receipt in full, I guess." 
 They always both laughed, and then would 
 follow a chat of a few moments. Mr. Wells s 
 opinions on matters of political moment were 
 sure to get the best circulation in Race s giv- 
 
THE NON-COMBATANT 19 
 
 ing. " "Well, I was talking with. Harcourt T. 
 Wells and he said," etc. Thus would the 
 words of the oracle be repeated over Race s 
 counter. Wells having no honorary title a 
 secret grief to his admirer Race always gave 
 him his name in full; it was never " Wells " 
 or " Mr. Wells " but always " Harcourt T. 
 Wells." It goes without saying that Wells s 
 politics were Race s. That he should ever op 
 pose Harcourt T. Wells was a catastrophe too 
 awful for the follower s imagination to com 
 pass. And here he was in the thick of it. 
 "But I couldn t do no different! " groaned 
 Race, sinking his head on his hard palms, " I 
 couldn t go back on the boys ! " 
 
 Henry Leroy, president of the Fairport 
 Labor Congress and foreman in the foundry 
 of the Cochrane Plough Company, was Race s 
 familiar friend. The men in the works were 
 mostly his neighbors and customers, good 
 neighbors and good customers. Where was he 
 to look for custom were he to drive them 
 away? And he had the acuter form of sym 
 pathy which springs from eye-knowledge. It 
 is one thing to read in the papers that strikers 
 are suffering, quite another to see the sewing- 
 machine of the Spriggs s trundled down the 
 
20 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 steps, and to watch Dick Spriggs s wife (who 
 always sent a plate over when she fried dough 
 nuts) go back with her apron to her eyes ; or 
 to hear Johnny O Brien, ^yho used to be full to 
 weariness of funny stories about his baby, beg 
 ging the street commissioner for work on the 
 sewer that he might pay for the baby s funeral. 
 Kace not only knew what decent, industrious 
 fellows many of the Cochrane men were, he 
 knew how, all winter, the wages had been 
 pared and pared until the men were fretted 
 into a panic, seeing no end. He had heard in 
 Swedish, German, and Irish dialects all about 
 the obnoxious new " bosses " and the new 
 rules and the petty oppressions, born quite as 
 much of ignorance as tyranny. The griev 
 ances that pick men s pockets and the griev 
 ances that nettle their pride Race got them 
 all, struggling meanwhile to overquell preju 
 dice and resentment with appeals to prudence 
 and " the women folks and the kids," and mild 
 reminders of the tough old Scotsman s good 
 qualities. ]STow, condemning the precipita 
 tion of the strike, he could not help a sympathy 
 for the strikers. TTells, on the other hand, 
 only saw the immediate subject of conflict, 
 (which : in fact, was puerile), and the hard con- 
 
TEE NON-COMBATANT 21 
 
 ditions of business making a reduction of 
 wages inevitable. He wanted Race to join 
 with the other tradesmen in refusing credit to 
 the strikers and thus " knock the strike flat." 
 Race did promise to see the butchers and 
 grocers. But he found them firm for the 
 strikers. So, wretchedly enough, he went to 
 report his failure. Wells was out of town. 
 To write a letter on anything more delicate 
 than the price of groceries was a stupendous 
 matter to honest Race. " I ll wait and see the 
 old man, and explain/ said he, mopping at 
 the wrinkles fast settling in his forehead. 
 "Wherefore it fell out that Race s patron re 
 ceived his first news from the paper friendly to 
 the strikers. And it was Race s hard fate to 
 run up against Wells and Cochrane at the 
 climax of Wells s explanation how his trustiest 
 henchman had deserted him. " Oh, I ll an 
 swer for Battles; Battles is all right! " he had 
 assured Cochrane; and here he must confess 
 that Battles was all wrong. Race s appear 
 ance gave a ready opportunity to release his 
 anger and disappointment, l^or did Race, an 
 afterwitted fellow at the best, find a word of 
 reply. He stumbled away like a fool, and so 
 the trouble began. And yesterday, when he 
 
22 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 paid Wells, paid him every last cent due and 
 it was like drawing blood to raise that money 
 when he came into the store thinking, any 
 how, he d get a good word from him, then 
 what happened? They told him Mr. Wells 
 
 was busy, and would he wait? By he 
 
 wouldn t wait ; he said it was no consequence, 
 he only came to pay some money and he paid 
 it, every cent! There wasn t enough left for 
 the insurance on the house; and fire was the 
 dread of his life. " I wouldn t have minded 
 so much, if he d spoke to me, himself ! I ll be 
 broke up fast enough; ain t he satisfied with 
 that ? " groaned Race. It did not distract him 
 from his dejection although the act had that 
 intention to go to the door and look about 
 him. What a comfort just looking at that 
 building had been to Horace Battles ! " To 
 think of me owning a handsome brick store 
 like that! " he used to muse in a glow of deli 
 cious wonderment. Every one admired the 
 building, three stories high, narrow to be sure, 
 but of generous depth, with a large, arched 
 window, and a high, dark-green panelled door, 
 and fixtures and woodwork of a beautiful 
 cherry-red ; a store so shining clean, so sunny, 
 and so tasteful in summer (when a tiny f oun- 
 
THE NON-VOMBATANT 23 
 
 tain played amid radishes, lettuce, and straw 
 berries) that strangers often craned their necks 
 backward as they were driven past the neat 
 gilt sign. To-day the windows were quite as 
 clean, but the display was dismally meagre. 
 The dizzy pyramids of tinned goods in their 
 gray papers had dwindled to two towers of fly- 
 specked cans of pease. Danny had tried to 
 eke out the tableau by a barricade of soap and 
 a row of bottles containing an unsuccessful, 
 though deserving, brand of pickles. 
 
 Farther down the street the grimy brick 
 walls of the great plough shops turned their 
 blank windows and barred doors sullenly on 
 the little homes that used to light their house 
 hold fires at those smokeless chimneys. Two 
 watchmen paced languidly in the sunshine, an 
 unconscious compliment to Leroy s discipline, 
 else would their heads have been broken long 
 ago. Leroy himself came up the street. He 
 greeted the watchmen in a matter-of-fact way, 
 saying something that Race was not close 
 enough to hear; but he saw that each of the 
 men eyed the labor leader s back; and they 
 spoke together. 
 
 Leroy was a tall man, muscular and cleanly 
 built, with an ease of motion often seen in. 
 
24 TEE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 those whose muscles are kept in trim "by 
 exercise. He wore his brown curls short, 
 and a firm chin was clean-shaven, but his 
 mouth was hidden by a mustache. If his 
 mouth had the expression of his eyes, it was 
 very gentle. 
 
 " Well," he said, " Eace, I couldn t wait 
 until evening." 
 
 " What s up? " said Eace; " you boys go 
 ing to give up the strike? " Leroy shook his 
 head. He followed Eace into the store, where 
 Danny was arranging the shelves and futilely 
 trying to fill the gaps with decorations in the 
 shape of placards. The boy s eyes were red. 
 Leroy nodded to him and went on to the tiny 
 office. He balanced himself on a stool by the 
 desk, and absently printed Eace s stamp on a 
 card flaunting the purity of Eoyal Baking 
 Powder. 
 
 "How did it go, Harry?" said Eace, to 
 start him. 
 
 " All wrong. We re beat, and the longer 
 we keep this up the worse we re beat! I d 
 have got out of town last month but for see 
 ing the boys through." 
 
 " But, Harry, won t they take you back? " 
 
 "Not they. There s the disadvantage of 
 
THE NON-COMBATANT 25 
 
 being president; I try to hold the men back, 
 in the first place, and get their ill-will as a 
 pusillanimous " 
 
 " But they know better now! " 
 
 " Some of them, not all by a long chalk, or 
 they d back out of the strike. And the com 
 pany thinks that I egged the men on. I ll not 
 get taken on, no matter who is, you can bet 
 your life on that! " 
 
 " But you re such a good workman! " 
 
 " Good workman doesn t count. They 
 think I m a meddler, and stirred up this racket 
 to 1 further my own ambitious purposes. God 
 knows what they were, / don t. But that s the 
 way it goes. The union always catches it; 
 and the union leaders are always to blame; 
 and yet from my experience, I d say that in 
 nine, cases out of ten the leaders are for peace 
 and prudence, and prevent more strikes than 
 they cause, ten to one. "When they do go into 
 a strike it s either because they see no other 
 way to prevent the men s being ground to 
 powder, or because there s a crazy pressure on 
 them from the hot-heads that they can t resist. 
 But you don t hear of the strikes that are pre 
 vented ; and when a strike does come off, you 
 see the officers names in the paper and they re 
 
26 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 making the speeches; and when a fight be 
 gins, even a fight you re opposed to, it ain t in 
 human nature not to sail in and put up the 
 best fight you can ! But that isn t what I came 
 to talk about. My goose is cooked. Well, I 
 made a living before I ever saw Alan Coch- 
 rane, and I guess I can make a living without. 
 But here s what I m after. There is always a 
 lot of outside sympathizers who like to be in 
 any muss going, and they keep the hot-heads 
 stirred up; and as things go from bad to 
 worse, the sober fellows catch the fever; they 
 want to swipe somebody. There s a lot of bad 
 blood in town, a lot, Kace. You know there s 
 talk that Cochrane s going to bring in a car 
 load of new men; and these crazy fellows are 
 swearing that if that s so the new men sha n t 
 find any shops to go into. May be all talk, but 
 it s ugly talk. I don t like it; and I sent a 
 note to Cochrane offering to send some men to 
 guard the shops. He declined. Said as much 
 as that I had something cloaked by the offer. 
 It was," said Leroy, his mild voice deepening a 
 little, " It was a pretty insulting letter. I 
 warned him to keep away from the shops, 
 nights; but he s sandy as the devil and he 
 goes just the same. Perhaps if you were to 
 
THE NON-COMBATANT 27 
 
 see him and tell him what I ll tell you, he 
 might take it as corroborating me, and be a 
 mite carefuller." 
 
 " Well, I call that real forgiving of you, 
 Harry, helping Cochrane out of the hole this 
 wayf" 
 
 Leroy s calm brown eyes blazed suddenly as 
 he answered with a novel heat, " I don t give 
 
 a d for Alan Cochrane ! I wouldn t cross 
 
 the street to save his immortal soul! But I 
 won t have any dirt charged up against the 
 union while I m bossing the fight ! It s those 
 cussed fools like Dick Bellair and Eaney and 
 Brown that kill a strike ! They act so, no de 
 cent folks can sympathize with the strikers! 
 D em! " 
 
 "That s right," agreed Eace. "Hullo, 
 there s my little girl! How d you get home 
 so early, daughter? " 
 
 Stella s figure in the door-way, with the 
 sunshine behind her, was so brightsome a pict 
 ure, in her pretty print frock and broad hat 
 trimmed with roses, with the flush on her 
 delicate cheek and the light in her soft eyes, 
 that it might set any father s heart to a lighter 
 measure. With all his worries, Race smiled. 
 
 " Can t I see you for just a minute, pa? 
 
28 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 Will you excuse me, Mr. Leroy? " said Stella, 
 her pretty manner the prettier for the girlish 
 blush that came with the words. 
 
 Race went a little apart with her, rather 
 puzzled. It was not like Stella to run in on 
 the business. Stella held " business " in 
 proper awe. But she could hardly wait now 
 to have him well out of eat-shot. Hastily she 
 held out her hand and showed him some bank 
 notes. " There s $15, pa," she said, breath 
 lessly; "it s ma s and a little I had saved; 
 and ma s willing; we talked it over, and we 
 couldn t sleep nights if you turned Danny off. 
 Please take it, pa; it ll pay three weeks* 
 wages, and lots of things may happen in three 
 weeks ! Please, pa ! " 
 
 " And the graduation dress and " 
 
 But she interrupted him : " I don t need 
 the dress. I m going to leave before we grad 
 uate. Ma s willing." 
 
 Race stood silent, his eyes filling with tears. 
 How he felt he could hardly have told him 
 self. He only was sure that he could neither 
 take the sacrifice nor refuse it. In the pause 
 Danny, on the other side of the partition, 
 slunk away with his knuckles in his eyes. 
 "Daughter," said Race, finally, "you wait; 
 
THE NON-COMBATANT 29 
 
 I ll think it over. Maybe maybe I won t 
 need to take your money to keep Danny. You 
 wait. Xo, you needn t leave the money with 
 me." 
 
 Leroy himself turned away then and walked 
 to the door of the shop, where presently Bat 
 tles joined him. 
 
 " Now," said Leroy, not looking at his 
 friend, " I ll tell you what I ve found out." 
 
 Alan Cochrane s house stands no great 
 distance from the plough works. He is an 
 elderly Scotchman, a widower these twenty 
 years, with no nearer kin than his seventh 
 cousin, Mrs. Graham, who keeps his house, 
 and he cares not a pin s head for fashion. His 
 big, square, wooden house, stands in its large, 
 old-fashioned garden, as it has stood for twen 
 ty-five years; although, long since, its neigh 
 bors have been transmuted into shops or store 
 houses, or have been razed to the ground to 
 make room for brick walls. The blinds in 
 front are always closed; why, only Mrs. 
 Graham can tell; it is her custom as it is her 
 custom to wear black silk mitts and to allow 
 no followers to her maids wherefore she of 
 ten is left with no maids at all. 
 
THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 When Leroy and Battles came to the iron 
 gate (a high iron fence enclosing a hedge sur 
 rounds the place) Leroy paused. " I ll not go 
 in with you/ he began, but he took a quick 
 step backward in the shade of the hedge, dart 
 ing a warning frown and beckoning to Race 
 to do the same, which Race did mechanic 
 ally. 
 
 " Why, Harry," says he, " there s five of 
 those fellers going up the steps. What does it 
 mean ? " 
 
 " It means, I guess, that they re smarter n 
 I counted on their being, and they re going to 
 catch him at home where he won t have a soul 
 but women in call; and it s Thursday, the 
 cook s day out; and the meeting-day of the 
 Presbyterian sewing society that Mrs. Graham 
 goes to regular as taxes." He was looking the 
 whole street over while he spoke, not seeing a 
 soul in view. " I guess you and I will have to 
 tackle this job, Battles," said he. 
 
 " Sure," says Race. " How ll we git in, 
 Harry?" 
 
 " Easy ; they ve got Raney s cousin here ; 
 she knows me and I ve got their password. 
 See how she ll give me the glad hand." 
 
 Race knew the girl himself, having in 
 
THE NON-COMBATANT 31 
 
 pleasanter days often handed her the family 
 flour and berries, and she smiled in a fright 
 ened way on him. Leroy had not touched the 
 bell; he had only knocked in a peculiar fash 
 ion. She had instantly responded. 
 
 " All right/ said Leroy, very low; he 
 added another word. 
 
 " You re sure you re to come, too? " said 
 the girl, who seemed scared out of her wits. 
 " Oh, I m sorry you re in it, you and Mr. Bat 
 tles." 
 
 " Never you mind us ! " said Leroy, kindly, 
 but always in the same low voice. " "We ll 
 help and not hinder." 
 
 " Don t let em hurt him, will you, Mr. 
 Leroy? " 
 
 " I ll try my best," returned Leroy, rather 
 grimly. 
 
 The two men stole down a dark hall, 
 through what appeared to be a dining-room, 
 and took breath outside a heavy black-walnut 
 door. Eace s pulses were drumming, but Le 
 roy looked as pale, dejected, and calm as usual. 
 He slid his hand back to his hip-pocket. 
 "Yours all right?" said he. Kace nodded, 
 imitating the motion. 
 
 "Then, listen!" 
 
32 TEE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 Cochrane s voice came to them distinctly. 
 " No, I won t sign an agreement to take you all 
 back at half the increase, or any increase, or 
 take you back at all; and you won t kill me 
 without a fight! " 
 
 Leroy laid his hand on the door-knob. His 
 lips formed an inaudible whistle. He stepped 
 softly across the room. 
 
 " Look out of the window," he whispered. 
 
 " The window s open," reported Kace, " but 
 there s a screen in it. There s a balcony out 
 side and we could swing ourselves over and 
 batter the screen down with a chair or some 
 thing." 
 
 Cochrane had stepped back, edging nearer 
 the library-table and the drawer where lay a 
 revolver; and young Billy Mooney (the reck 
 less one of the crowd, half drunk and only 
 eighteen, which is an age of the Evil One s 
 own picking does it come to wicked deeds) was 
 making between when the screen crashed for 
 ward and Leroy bounded into the room, Race 
 close after him. 
 
 "Don t fire!" he called to Cochrane; 
 " we re on your side." 
 
 " Which side? " cried a big fellow with a 
 red face; "which side, Harry? QD it, 
 
THE NON-COMLATANT 33 
 
 we re in earnest. He s going to sign, by , 
 
 or we ll make a vacancy in the firm ! " 
 
 " Hardly," said Leroy. " Get your revol 
 ver " (to Cochrane, who needed no prompting 
 but flashed it out of the drawer). " Brown, I 
 warned you fellers I wouldn t have no dirt, 
 and I icon t! It ain t five to one now, but five 
 to three and the telephone ! The police will 
 be here inside ten minutes." The man near 
 est the door quietly slipped back the bolt. 
 
 " Are you going to go back on the boys and 
 fight for the scrubs, Harry? " cried Brown. 
 
 " I ain t going to let you disgrace honest 
 men who fight fair," said Leroy, firmly. 
 " Time s short are you going to skip or wait 
 to be pinched, while you re parleyvooing ? " 
 
 " If we do go now," grumbled another 
 man, " we ll be pinched before night anyhow. 
 I m for doing up the whole " 
 
 He stopped; there was something clammy 
 and ugly in the impact of Leroy s revolver 
 jammed against his shirt-front. 
 
 " Get out, and you may save your skins for 
 all the informing I shall do," said Cochrane, 
 who had been taking in the whole scene with 
 an ironic smile. " But I advise ye, lads, to 
 skip out of town; the sooner the better." 
 3 
 
34 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 " Who gave us away, Harry? " said the big 
 man the others had unostentatiously sidled 
 to the door. 
 
 " That s my lookout," said Leroy. 
 
 The big man made no answer, although he 
 turned on Race a glance of menace. The 
 youngest of the party relieved their chafed 
 vanity by a few threats; but in the end, and 
 no long time either, they left the three men 
 standing together. 
 
 " Will they be setting the house afire go 
 ing out, for a parting token, do ye think? " 
 panted Cochrane. 
 
 " They are more likely to pay Eace or me 
 that compliment," said Leroy, quietly. 
 
 Cochrane wiped his brow. He was a portly 
 man and he was puffing with his exertions. 
 " I ll buy me a bicycle, this same day," cried 
 he. " I must work down to fighting weight ; 
 those blackguards would have done me up if 
 you hadn t come in so handily. Well, will ye 
 take something? " 
 
 "I never drink, Mr. Cochrane," said Le 
 roy, coldly; and Race, with more courtesy, de 
 clined the proffered decanter. 
 
 Cochrane chuckled under his stumpy gray 
 mustache. " Weel, at least ye ll let me thank 
 
THE NON-COMBATANT 35 
 
 ye. Those fellows were primed for murder, 
 no less. They had juist enough speerits in 
 them to be wicked. I see ye were right in your 
 caution, Leroy." He held out his hand, but Le- 
 roy turned red and took a step backward, say 
 ing, very stiffly, " You owe me no thanks, and 
 I owe you none, Mr. Cochrane." 
 
 Again Cochrane chuckled. " But ye got 
 the police?" 
 
 " Kb, sir, I didn t. That was just a bluff. 
 Battles was coming to warn you, and I was 
 only going to the gate with him, when I caught 
 a glimpse of Brown and Raney and the others, 
 and of course I went in. There wasn t a cop 
 in a mile ! " 
 
 " Weel, ye did the bluff fine. Man, ye ll 
 shake hands. You re a man and I m a man; 
 am I no? And we ve fought together. It s no 
 the preesident of the Cochrane Plough Com 
 pany, or the chairman of the Strike Commit 
 tee; it s juist Alan Cochrane and Harry Le 
 roy eh, Battles?" 
 
 That s right, sir," said Race. 
 
 And I may as weel tell ye," said Coch 
 rane, " that s all a lie about the carload of new 
 men." (Leroy s eyes flashed.) " And if the 
 union send you I ll see ye to-morrow, and we ll 
 
36 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 talk it out. If you ll come back at the old 
 wages they ll not be cut, and in a month or 
 two I ll be able to raise them a bit; and the 
 other things we ll talk over. Ye can all come 
 back; there ll be no discreemination, not even 
 against them " jerking his thumb at the win 
 dow; " they ll most like be running anyhow, 
 the fule bodies!" 
 
 " I ll do my best, sir," said Leroy, in a dif 
 ferent tone. 
 
 " He s done his best against the strike all 
 along," Race put in. 
 
 " Only because I thought the strike had no 
 chance of winning," said Leroy, stiffening 
 again. 
 
 Cochrane s sharp little gray eyes twinkled. 
 " Losh, man, don t be scared that I m putting 
 ye on my side. Ye ll let me think ye an hon 
 est enemy, will ye no? I ll conseeder those 
 same grievances." 
 
 This time it was Leroy s hand that was ex 
 tended first. " Then, good-afternoon, and I m 
 glad I came, sir," said he, shaking hands, as he 
 would shake hands with the great political per 
 sonages to whom he was sometimes presented 
 when there was need of the labor vote. Race 
 followed his example, observing the same form. 
 
THE NON-COMBATANT 37 
 
 "For the matter of that, I m glad, too," 
 said the old Scotchman, dryly. 
 
 Returning, Leroy was in higher spirits than 
 Race. The non-combatant ruefully considered 
 how he, who only wished for peace, had now 
 fought on both sides, to his own proper loss 
 and peril. Having angered his best friend past 
 forgiving by helping the strikers, he had now 
 won the ill will of the most reckless strikers by 
 fighting for the hated Cochrane. The baleful 
 eyeblink shot at him by Brown rankled like a 
 poisoned arrow. He thought of Cochrane s 
 speech about fire, and Leroy s answer. 
 
 " And me with not a cent insurance," he 
 groaned; " but, Lord! they wouldn t be such 
 fiends!" 
 
 Were they? It is past telling. !N"o clews 
 were found. The five suspected men were full 
 of pity and innocence from the teeth outward. 
 Alibis were ready at hand for every one of 
 them. ISTor is it sure that they were not gen 
 uine, these alibis. A defective flue, the un 
 punishable incendiary in so many cases, may 
 have played its tragic part again. Whatever 
 the cause, this at least is certain, Race s build 
 ing, grocery and home, was burned that same 
 night. The fire-bells awakened Harcourt T. 
 
38 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 Wells, a bachelor, lodging in a hotel. He 
 counted the strokes half the numeral in bed, 
 half out on the floor scrambling into his 
 clothes for it was Cochrane s number. That 
 was enough to send him downstairs to the tele 
 phone, and the sleepy answer, " No, it s not 
 Cochrane s, some grocery, Battles s, they 
 said! " spurred him hot foot through the 
 streets. There is something in a midnight fire 
 that pricks the nerves. It may be the contrast 
 between the quiet streets outside, with the dim 
 stores, the shrouded counters, the shadows of 
 the tall facades on the roadway, the white por 
 cupines of light blinking and winking in the 
 dark, violet air, and the seething excitement 
 that waits around the corner. Or it may be 
 that the touch of pathos in human calamity 
 and the touch of horror in human peril blend 
 with a shuddering appreciation of the pageant 
 ry of the sight. The meanest structure flam 
 ing in the night, borrows a ghastly and sinister 
 beauty. And more than anything, it may be 
 that fire-bells, especially fire-bells in the un 
 guarded hour of darkness, startle the imagina 
 tion with the sympathy of a common dread; 
 to-night, you; to-morrow night, we, perhaps! 
 As Wells pounded down the sidewalk, he 
 
THE NON-COMBATANT 39 
 
 could hear the thud of his own footfall; and 
 he remembered another time of his hearing the 
 same sound, the time when his own great store 
 was afire then, Race and he were the last 
 men on the roof ! 
 
 Snatches of many scenes drifted through 
 his mind, in which one humble, faithful figure 
 stood, as if against that red glow in the west; 
 while he ran, heedless of his years and his 
 weight, faster and faster. All he had heard 
 from Cochrane that afternoon, all he had 
 heard in Race s store before he went to Coch- 
 rane s, made a mingle-mangle in his brain, 
 like a tune to his hurrying feet. 
 
 First he passed a black mass of heads. Then 
 he stepped over the line of hose and found a 
 crowd of Cochrane s men, every man of them 
 carrying something that he had pulled out of 
 the smoke. Cochrane was on an empty box, 
 directing the loading of some drays; and 
 swearing and shouting at the men with as 
 much fervor as if nothing had occurred to dis 
 turb their relations; the men themselves run 
 ning and tugging with the heartiest obedience. 
 The building was masked in smoke. It poured 
 from the windows. The firemen were fighting 
 the fire on the roof; and the wing in the rear 
 
40 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 was blazing. Wells ran to the front, where 
 was a heap of household goods not yet re 
 moved, although Leroy was busy with a score 
 of helpers. Half a dozen loudly sympathiz 
 ing women were grouped about Mrs. Battles, 
 who sat in the wicker arm-chair on the best 
 hair mattress, rocking to and fro, unconscious 
 of an extraordinary toilet of her best black silk 
 skirt and Race s trousers flung hastily about 
 her night gear, in mistake for a jacket, and 
 Race s Sunday silk tile perched on her woful 
 head; equally unconscious that she was hud 
 dling two photographs, the bust of Clytie 
 and the bust of Abraham Lincoln, to her 
 breast. 
 
 " Where s Race ? " she wailed ; " where s 
 Race Battles? Danny, where s the master? " 
 
 Soot and flour had made a grizzly charcoal 
 study of Danny as he tottered up to her, 
 crooked by a huge white sack. " It s the very 
 last sack of flour," gasped Danny. " He ain t 
 inside. I was all over." 
 
 Mrs. Battles screamed. She could see her 
 husband. He was on the peak of the roof, 
 apart from the firemen; and he held the gar 
 den-hose in his hand. 
 
 " Hush, ma, don t be scared," said Stella. 
 
THE NON-COMBATANT 4:1 
 
 The girl was dressed and calm. " See, they re 
 all coming down! " 
 
 " But lie ain t! " shrieked the wife; " he s 
 staying. Kace! Race! Come down! Let 
 the store go! What s the store to me if you 
 get killed? Race! Come this minute! Oh, 
 he can t hear me. Mr. Wells, you call him; 
 he ll mind you ! " 
 
 Then Wells did a reckless thing. He, Har- 
 court Wells, no longer a young man, elbowed 
 the women aside and ran up the ladder like a 
 f oolhasty boy. 
 
 " Race, you old fool, come down ! " he bel 
 lowed. The roof was smoking. The firemen 
 were gone, safe down off the other ladders. 
 Race stood alone. He faced the smoke volley 
 ing toward him, spitting burning cinders from 
 out the glare behind the murk. His white 
 shirt was puffed out by the wind of the fire, 
 and his face was like the shirt, as he trained 
 his poor little squirt-gun of a hose on the 
 crackling roar. 
 
 " My life s insured but the building ain t," 
 he shouted back; " I ve got to save it." 
 
 Swearing roundly, Wells stumbled up the 
 roof. " I ll pull you off if you won t come ! " 
 he howled through the din. He grabbed 
 
42 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 Race s leg. Race dropped the hose; and he 
 did turn now. 
 
 " You re crazy," he cried. " Get off, for 
 God s sake! " 
 
 " Crazy yourself! " snapped Wells. 
 " Here, you get down that ladder first, and 
 find your wife." 
 
 They slid down together. None too soon, 
 either, since the roof whereon Race had stood 
 crashed in before their feet touched the 
 ground. Race felt Wells s hand on his arm 
 hauling him back. He clung to it, piteously 
 shaken, and began to laugh. " You ain t mad 
 at me that s most worth the fire," he qua 
 vered. 
 
 " Of course I m not mad at you, you bloom 
 ing idiot," growled Wells, who was puffing 
 and perspiring at every pore as well as burned 
 by a dozen cinders; " why in thunder didn t 
 you come round and give me a chance to say 
 so? I wasn t going to take your money the 
 other day ; I knew how it squeezed you. But 
 you wouldn t wait a minute. No, you must 
 needs go off half-cock ! You needn t be look 
 ing so black and blue, either. I came around 
 here to-day and saw your clerk, who isn t such 
 a fool as he looks, and he told me all about the 
 
THE NON-COMBATANT 43 
 
 insurance and the little girl s being willing to 
 give up her dress and all. / paid the insur 
 ance policy, Race, this afternoon. You ll be 
 a year or two to the bad, but I ll see you 
 through. And the little girl shall have as 
 pretty a frock at the show as any girl in town 
 
 Cochrane and I ll see to that D it, 
 
 Race! you aren t hurt, are you? Here! 
 Somebody! Get some whiskey! " 
 
 " It s it s only just the smoke. It got 
 into my windpipe, I guess," sobbed Race, the 
 tears running clown his cheeks. " Smoke s 
 terrible on the eyes. God bless you, Harcourt 
 T. Wells it s only just the smoke! " 
 
THE WAY OF AN ELECTION 
 
THE WAY OF AN ELECTION 
 
 IT was a special-delivery letter, and Leroy, 
 after he had receipted for it and the boy s 
 red wheel was twinkling down the street, eyed 
 the superscription a moment before he took 
 out his pocket-knife and very neatly opened 
 the envelope. 
 
 The time was five o clock of a Saturday af 
 ternoon. The foreman in the foundry at 
 Cochrane s always came home earlier Satur 
 days, the whistle blowing release at four. 
 Harry had come up on the cars, and was rest 
 ing a moment on his piazza before cleaning 
 himself for supper. He was tired with a hard, 
 warm, dirty day s work; and he waited a mo 
 ment in a pleasant daze, conscious of the splash 
 of the improvised hose fountain on the green 
 plush of the tiny lawn, of the rich colors of the 
 cannas in the pyramid near the house, of the 
 shifting of the burnished greens of the oak- 
 trees under a light breeze, of the soft blending 
 and melting of many hues in the angles made 
 47 
 
8 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 on either hand by the shady street before him, 
 of the flowers and shrubs in the yards and the 
 fanciful architecture of the wooden houses, of 
 the rattle of passing vehicles over the brick 
 pavement, and the noiseless flash of bicycles. 
 The Leroys owned their house, a new house, 
 painted cream color, with gables and a large 
 piazza. They were very proud of the house. 
 Years had been spent planning it. There were 
 as many as three large closets, and a garret, 
 and a bath-room, upstairs. When Harry used 
 to emerge from the cleansing ministrations of 
 that temple of tidiness, he felt that now, in 
 deed, he was living in luxury and that the 
 grime of the foundry was a trivial thing. Har 
 ry, his wife and their three children, had 
 watched the hewing of the joists and admired 
 the mortising. They thought few carpenters 
 could have turned such beautiful round pillars, 
 or so dexterously beaded the piazza railing; 
 and the sunburst carved over the north gable 
 assured Mrs. Leroy that their dwelling was not 
 merely a house but a mansion. 
 
 " I do wish Jay would come and see it," she 
 would say twenty times a month. She never 
 added, " Now, maybe, he ll be willing to stay 
 with us! " She never distinctly said it to her- 
 
THE WAT OF AN ELECTION 49 
 
 self; that were to reflect on Jay s affection; 
 Jay, who was so amiable to the children and 
 often brought her a pretty trifle from Chicago 
 and always praised the cooking, although he 
 lived in a hotel in Chicago, where they had ice 
 cream every day for dinner. Yet the un- 
 avowed perception of his discomfort over their 
 humble conditions, moved beneath the current 
 of her thoughts like an undertow. It sailed 
 openly through Harry s thoughts. But he 
 never showed it to his wife, not even when Jay 
 borrowed money of him for his hotel bill. He 
 lent the money silently, only telling himself 
 that it were cheaper for him did Jay come to 
 his own house. " Oh, well, I must put up 
 with his foolishness, Efne s so fond of him," he 
 said, tolerantly. Jay was EfnVs only brother, 
 younger than she ; and she had stinted herself, 
 all her youth, to earn him the education that 
 she felt his abilities deserved. He was a young 
 Chicago lawyer and politician now, whose flu 
 ent speech and fine clothes filled his sister with 
 a pride that she tried to believe satisfied all her 
 hopes. He bowed to people in Fairport that 
 she only knew by name, and talked familiarly 
 of all the great ones in her little world. And 
 once, at a political meeting, she saw him on 
 4 
 
50 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 the platform among the vice-presidents, in his 
 black frock coat and white tie, stroking his 
 mustache and smiling, quite at home. It was 
 a glorious moment. Possibly Harry was not 
 so happy; but he loved his wife, and he had 
 been a good friend to Jay. 
 
 Being so good a friend a friend in need, 
 one may say he did not like the looks of his 
 brother-in-law s hand on a special delivery en 
 velope. He frowned. " I hope Jay ain t in a 
 scrape again! " he muttered, with an uneasy 
 quaking of his pulses. Then he unfolded the 
 sheet and read; and the color drifted out of his 
 bronzed face, for this is what he read : 
 
 " HAERY : I guess you will think I am a 
 scoundrel; but I was dead frozen sure that I 
 had a sure tip on a wheat deal, and if I d won 
 out we would all have been rich, for I meant 
 to do the generous thing by Effie. But I was 
 fooled. I had to put up margins you know, 
 and I had raised all I could, and they wouldn t 
 take my note without your endorsement. Now 
 a man that used to be a friend of mine, but has 
 quarrelled with me on politics, is out gun 
 ning for me, and has got that note, and it is 
 likely he will send it to your town for collec- 
 
THE WAT OF AN ELECTION 51 
 
 tion, as it is due to-day. I believe the d 
 
 scoundrel suspects. Harry, it s the peniten 
 tiary, no less. Harry, if you let me be ar 
 rested, I swear I will blow my brains out. But 
 if you will save me this once I will never for 
 get it as long as I live ! And I will pay you up 
 certain sure, and pay the other money you 
 have lent me, too. Every cent! There s an 
 other thing. I know R well. I ve filled 
 
 him up with your great influence with the 
 workingmen. Both States are so confound 
 edly close this year that the managers are 
 opening their hearts. They are willing to 
 plank down $2,000 for your campaign ex 
 penses (between ourselves they won t be any 
 thing to speak of) if you will do your best for 
 us, on both sides the river. !Nbw, Harry, the 
 note is only $1,342 ; so if you accept you will 
 have the money to meet it, in hand. And it s 
 sure; they will pay half in advance, and half 
 in November. Don t leave me in the hole, old 
 man, for God s sake! It would break Effie s 
 heart. Burn this. J ." 
 
 Leroy sat perfectly still for a few minutes. 
 His face continued to grow paler. Suddenly 
 the tide turned in his heart. He clinched his 
 
52 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 fists and crumpled the letter in them, while 
 the blood began to color his cheeks and fore 
 head until they were a dull, painful red. 
 
 His first distinct thought came as a bicycle 
 glided athwart his vision and the child on it 
 touched his little cap to him. He thought, 
 " I can t get Tommy his bike or me one, 
 either. " He laughed: an American always 
 laughs when he gets a sudden blow. " The 
 $600 in the bank will have to go. And I 
 guess Fll have to put a mortgage on the house. 
 I thought it so awful fine when I got the other 
 paid off. Well, it will be more natural with 
 one on. Oh, Lord! " 
 
 His patient face contracted. " If this was 
 the first time," he muttered, " or if I could be 
 sure it would be the last! " Drearily his 
 memory took up the squalid roll of Jay s 
 " troubles." Jay had been grateful after each 
 escape; and came the more easily at the next 
 peril. 
 
 It was somehow wretchedly nagging to re 
 member Jay well dressed, jocose, lightly push 
 ing his misdemeanors behind him. " He to 
 say I ought to get Effie a wheel like his " 
 somehow Harry harped on this one string of 
 his grievances " when I got her a good 
 
THE WAT OF AN ELECTION 53 
 
 wheel, a pretty wheel that was ten dollars 
 more than she thought I was going to pay! 
 D his airs! " 
 
 "Hullo, Harry! " a man called to him. 
 The man carried a tin dinner-pail and a car 
 penter s kit. " You going to the meeting to 
 night? Big meeting. Darcy s going to talk." 
 
 " Politics, I suppose," said Harry. 
 
 " Yes, he ll skin the Shylocks alive. Better 
 come. Darcy was wonderful the last time I 
 heard him." 
 
 Then Harry felt the same rush of blood at 
 his heart which he had felt before; but, this 
 time, he did not repel the thought instinc 
 tively; he said: "All right, I don t mind 
 hearing what you fellows have to say." 
 
 " That s right," said the other, evidently 
 pleased. " You can answer if you want to, 
 you know." 
 
 He walked off, humming a tune. 
 
 Darcy was a smart fellow; Harry was not 
 so sure as he would like to be, that he was 
 honest. He did not agree with him on the 
 question that was in everybody s mind; he 
 himself had been studying it for months in the 
 laborious, thorough-going, workingman s fash 
 ion. He had talked it over with his comrades 
 
54: THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 at the shops; with Eace Battles, the grocer, 
 who had given him a very fair abstract of Mr. 
 Harcourt T. Wells s economical reasoning; 
 with Cochrane, and with Alderman McGin- 
 nis; slowly, his opinions had hardened. But 
 he had held his tongue. Now, suppose Jay 
 and his friends were right. A great many 
 people believed that they were right; and that 
 the triumph of their party would make poor 
 people rich. Just suppose they were; he 
 could easily he hadn t committed himself to 
 any party well, where was the harm in hear 
 ing Darcy? 
 
 He shook his head and went upstairs to his 
 bath and his Saturday-night toilet. His wife 
 fancied that he was rather absent-minded at 
 supper; but he was gentle as always. 
 
 After supper (and during the meal he 
 couldn t help speculating whether they needed 
 to have both eggs and meat at the same time ; 
 and how ever he should explain the need of 
 minute frugalities to Erne without lying) he 
 went down town. He thought of riding ; but 
 withdrew his foot from the step of the car. 
 " I m getting extravagant," said he. The 
 same reflection made him replace his tobacco- 
 bag in his pocket. 
 
THE WAY OF AN ELECTION 55 
 
 The hall was a bare room, up two flights 
 of stairs. It was already filled with men, most 
 of whom came in their working clothes. 
 There were so many dark flannel shirts that 
 the room wore a dismal air in spite of the raw 
 white walls and the flaring gas-jets. Most of 
 the men were smoking, and an odor of stale 
 beer, from the saloon below, mingled with the 
 tobacco-smoke. A shout greeted Leroy s ap 
 pearance. 
 
 He had never been there before. 
 
 " I only came to see what you fellows would 
 make out of it ! " said he, brushing the jubi 
 lant congratulations and welcomes aside. 
 " Oh, they all say that," he heard. " Just 
 listen to Darcy! " " I ll listen," said Leroy, 
 " but I ve been reading and thinking a good 
 while, and I am more than half of the opin- 
 
 lon- 
 
 "Yes? Yes?" cried two or three at 
 once. 
 
 " I m more than half of the opinion that 
 you fellows haven t a leg to stand on! " 
 
 " Aw, come off," cried the most eager man, 
 yet not angrily ; it was plain that Leroy was a 
 great favorite. 
 
 " I ve knowed Harry to be right six times," 
 
56 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 said another man, " and I ain t knowed him 
 to be wrong once." 
 
 " Well, that s a record." 
 
 " Jest let him listen to Darcy! " cried the 
 first speaker; " Darcy is the boy! " 
 
 Leroy sat as if he did not hear; but it was 
 quickly passing through his consciousness, 
 like a vibration to that first thrill of gratified 
 vanity, that there were other men with whom 
 his words would have equal weight. Suppose 
 what the one party were continually declaring 
 should be true, and the defeat of their cause 
 meant cruel hard times for workingmen, as 
 well as paralysis of the industries of the coun 
 try, and national dishonor, what would those 
 who had followed him over the precipice have 
 the right to say to him? He listened without 
 interest to the early speakers, men who had 
 not yet learned to marshal their ideas in con 
 nected and effective speech. One of them was 
 a man in his own shop, a good worker, but 
 slow and unready; he never would get any 
 higher wages than he got now; he was grow 
 ing old; he had a great family and a sickly 
 wife. " I don t know what s the matter, 
 boys," he mumbled, for he had not many 
 teeth, " I know I ve worked hard for forty- 
 
THE WAT OF AN ELECTION 57 
 
 two years, ever since I was a boy of ten, and 
 it does look like things is gittin harder every 
 year." 
 
 " Wages aren t. They re higher! " called 
 Leroy. 
 
 " And things to eat is cheaper! " called the 
 man who had known Harry to be right six 
 times. He had a loud, cheerful voice, and a 
 cheerful young face with many freckles. 
 
 " I ain t denying it; but times is harder," 
 reiterated the speaker, turning his dim and 
 anxious eyes on Leroy. " I tell you, gentle 
 men, we re ground under by the money power, 
 that s what s the trouble. I got ten children 
 mjs elf 
 
 " That ain t the fault of the money power," 
 observed the irrepressible, cheerful man. 
 
 " And I had to borry fifteen dollars last 
 May, and I had to give a morgige on my wife s 
 sewing-machine, and I ve been paying ten per 
 cent, a month on that, one hundred and twenty 
 per cent, a year. What do you think of that? 
 I ain t got it all paid yit. I tell you, boys, I m 
 willing to vote any way to stop them kind of 
 things." 
 
 He sat down amid applause and cries, " It s 
 a shame! " " That s right! " " Down with 
 
58 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 Shylock! " Two or three of the light-minded, 
 however, were calling sonorously on " Dick! " 
 "Dick Williams!" "Dicky boy! " The 
 cheerful man (he was Dick Williams) was 
 whispering eagerly in Leroy s ear. 
 
 " Wait for Darcy," said Leroy. But while 
 the next man rambled through the " crimes " 
 of the opposite party, by the aid of notes, 
 which he could not always read in these in 
 tervals of embarrassing study being encour 
 aged by Dick, with a shout of "Louder! 
 louder! " Leroy set his teeth and thought. 
 He was thinking what hard times mean to la 
 boring men. He did not need to imagine, he 
 had only to remember. The drops were prick 
 ing his brow. He was roused by frantic 
 cheers. Darcy had risen. 
 
 Quietly he stood, his hand in the breast of 
 his coat, waiting for the applause to subside. 
 He was slim, pale, with wavy black hair and 
 melancholy black eyes. He wore a slender 
 black mustache, his face otherwise being 
 clean shaven. He was neatly, almost fop 
 pishly dressed, and his hands, in particular, 
 were most carefully kept. They were very 
 white. As he talked he moved easily about, 
 and his gestures, even in his most impassioned 
 
THE WAY OF AN ELECTION 59 
 
 moments, never became grotesque or violent. 
 " Darcy never tries to scoop up the planks of 
 the floor! " Dick Williams expressed it. His 
 chief oratorical charm, however, was his voice, 
 a beautiful, magnetic organ that could deepen 
 without growing harsh, and ring without flat 
 tening on its highest notes. His tones floated, 
 sweet, full, and thrilling into the silent lis 
 tener s ears. He began very quietly. He gave 
 the ordinary arguments of his political creed, 
 but with a deft and fanciful turning of his 
 own. Then he sympathized with the old man 
 who had spoken, describing his honesty and in 
 dustry so warmly that his subject was between 
 grins and sobs; from him Darcy fell upon an 
 undefined and rather hazy " money power " 
 with such vehemence and glowing metaphors 
 that the hearers yelled and shrieked their de 
 light. But honest Dick, after a sharp poring 
 over his hero s face, observed, dryly, " Big 
 talk ; but say, where do we come in ? " 
 
 Harry shook his head. His heart sank with 
 in him like a waterlogged boat. He had come 
 to be convinced, to hear logic, facts, what he 
 himself called " the horse sense of the situa 
 tion." What he heard was a hash of exaggera 
 tion and falsehood, gilded platitudes, hyster- 
 
60 TEE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 ical wrenchings at the emotions, and frantic 
 appeals to the wolfish prejudices of class 
 against class. But how magnificently the 
 orator acted his sorry part! Convincing 
 himself with his own molten passion! Sway 
 ing himself and his audience in the same 
 breath ! 
 
 " I call upon you to rebuke these Shylocks 
 who eat the poor as it were bread! " he 
 shouted; " I might so powerfully have my 
 feelings been stirred by our friend s simple, 
 pathetic story of his wrongs I might ask you 
 to tear their luxurious roofs from the heads of 
 these bloodsucking plutocrats; but I believe 
 in the ballot. Crush them, but crush them be 
 neath the avalanche of the American freeman 
 which comes down upon the tyrants and their 
 tools as white, as noiseless, and as irresistible 
 as the storm king of the Alpine hills ! " 
 
 While the room was ringing Harry arose. 
 And honest Dick choked and clinched his fists 
 in his nervousness. No one could help con 
 trasting the two men. Leroy s tall shoulders 
 stooped a little. His figure showed muscular 
 strength and the ease of it; but it had no touch 
 of Darcy s supple grace. His hands were 
 large and hard with handling hot iron. They 
 
THE WAT OF AN ELECTION 61 
 
 looked strong, not shapely. He did not seem 
 " magnetic." He had a patient, kindly, firm 
 face, kindling now into earnestness. 
 
 " I only want to say one word, boys; I m 
 not going to make a speech. Mr. Darcy has 
 been talking to you of the money power 
 what is the money power? " (A voice, " The 
 banks.") " The banks have to get their money 
 somewhere: who gives it to them? (A voice, 
 " The rich men.") " The rich men and the 
 poor men, too. I have been round to every 
 bank in town, inquiring into these sort of 
 things, for I like to be sure I am right before I 
 go ahead. (Applause mainly from Dick 
 Williams.) Boys, the bulk of the savings- 
 bank deposits and some of the other deposits 
 come from poor people and people of small 
 means. I tell you the money power is just 
 the people the rich and the poor together. 
 And I tell you what s more, that the banks are 
 not oppressing the people: they lend money 
 from $10 up; I have borrowed it; I know 
 plenty of men have borrowed it at eight, and 
 seven, and six per cent, a year. McCann s 
 story made my blood boil; but what s the 
 money power got to do with that what does 
 Darcy want to bust the banks wide open for on 
 
62 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 account of that? He never borrowed the 
 money of a bank; he borrowed it of a little, 
 dirty, private usurer. I ain t in no avalanche 
 business myself, but I ll go over to that robber 
 to-morrow with Mac and his receipts, and I ll 
 get the money that he ought to have back for 
 him! (Great laughter and applause, led vig 
 orously by Dick Williams.) So don t vote for 
 his party, for it wouldn t punish him a little 
 bit, since he isn t a banker ; he is old Jack Fan 
 ning, who is " An immense uproar took 
 
 the words off his tongue. Fists and open hands 
 were waving in the air ; and half a dozen fiery 
 patriots were demanding, " Did he lend you 
 the money? Did he? Did he? " of the bewil 
 dered McCann. 
 
 " Yes, he did, gentlemen," faltered Mc 
 Cann; "but I didn t know he belonged to us!" 
 
 "Very likely not," said Leroy, coolly; 
 " and you don t know a good many other 
 things any better. Before you boys decide to 
 turn the country upside down you better find 
 out whether you ain t jumping on the wrong 
 people just as you were this time." 
 
 " That s right! " bellowed Dick. And as 
 Leroy sat down he added, " Last car s coming. 
 Move we adjourn." 
 
THE WAY OF AN ELECTION 63 
 
 " Headed off that time," he chuckled, as 
 the crowd poured into the quiet street under 
 the white electric light; "say, Harry, don t 
 you be afraid, the boys know you re white and 
 they ll stand by you." 
 
 " And I ll stand by them, the best I know, 
 Dick; the best for them, whether it s the best 
 for me or not." 
 
 "That s right," said Dick, easily; but he 
 wondered a little at Leroy s unusual, almost 
 oppressive, solemnity of manner. " Folks do 
 get awful worked up with politics," reflected 
 he ; " but if that Darcy tries any of his slick, 
 fake talk on Harry, and makes him feel bad, 
 
 d if I don t knock his flannel mouth off 
 
 him ! Good job, too." 
 
 This same evening, for hours, two men had 
 been sitting in a private parlor of the principal 
 hotel of the city. The table before them was 
 strewn with letters, clippings from papers, and 
 railway maps. Now, although a full hour 
 later than the adjournment of the meeting 
 that had been momentous to Leroy, they were 
 still sitting, still talking. The tall man with 
 the gray, curly hair and the indefinable, well- 
 groomed air of an Eastern club man, was a 
 
64 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 great national politician. The other man, 
 shorter, slighter, and younger by ten years, was 
 quite as careful in his dress and his beautiful 
 hands; but he was a local politician. He was 
 very rich, very respectable, very much in earn 
 est ; he was in politics because he was a citizen 
 who had opinions, not because he wanted an 
 office. At this moment he looked worried. " I 
 don t like the looks of the thing; it looks 
 well, it doesn t look like a legitimate cam 
 paign expense. Do we absolutely need 
 Darcy? " 
 
 " We do," answered the national man, flick 
 ing his cigar-ash, with a patient smile, like one 
 willing to go over the same ground unnum 
 bered times; " to say nothing of his Labor 
 paper, he has a wonderful hold on his audi 
 ences, McGinnis says." 
 
 " McGinnis is the most cheerfully venal 
 politician I know." 
 
 " My dear Colonel, who denies it? But he 
 is perfectly honest with his employer after 
 he has taken his side and his campaign bank 
 account is all right. And he is working like 
 a beaver." 
 
 " Maybe," admitted the other, wearily; 
 " he does seem interested. After all, I think 
 
THE WAY OF AN ELECTION 65 
 
 it s the decent, honest men that make me the 
 sickest too timid to speak out, too lazy to go 
 
 to primaries, and too d stingy to give a 
 
 cent to campaign funds. They seem to think 
 that their whole civic duty is performed if 
 they go to the polls once a year. It is enough 
 to make a man want to emigrate ! " 
 
 " Or reconcile him to the McGinnises. 
 Hullo ! That s his knock Come in ! " 
 
 The door softly, one might say insidiously, 
 swung inward, admitting a large man in a 
 fresh white duck suit, to which a florid face 
 and a pink silk shirt gave a pleasing dash of 
 color, further emphasized by glossy black hair 
 and a black mustache. He was as much more 
 aggressive, pictorially, than a blond man in 
 the same clothes as a colored lithograph is 
 more aggressive than a water-color. 
 
 He greeted both gentlemen with a certain 
 deference, not common to Michael McGinnis. 
 The local magnate (in spite of his criticisms) 
 returned a smile of good-fellowship and the 
 national man a flattering cordiality. 
 
 " Well," was his first inquiry, " do you 
 bring news, McGinnis? How about Leroy? 
 You still think him important ? " 
 
 " I do that, sir. There isn t a man more re- 
 
66 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 spected in the unions and out than Leroy. 
 You see, they know he s white honest, you 
 know." 
 
 " How would we best get him? If he were 
 offered 
 
 " Excuse me you know him, Colonel, he 
 wouldn t handle any money. There s only 
 one way to catch Harry." 
 
 "And that?" 
 
 " That is, convince him the election of your 
 platform and your men will really help the 
 laboring man, and you ve got him ; he ll swal 
 low you all, hook, line, and sinker! I ll tell 
 you bout Harry. I had a letter from a good 
 friend of mine in Chicago; he s on the other 
 side, but they ve done him dirt, and he ain t 
 dying to have them win, though he s regular 
 and he s committed and can t say anything 
 openly. See? Well, he told me that he knew 
 for sure that Harry Leroy got an offer of 
 $2,000. We re the storm centre and we re 
 two sides of the river, two doubtful States at 
 once oh, they want us bad ! " 
 
 " Well," said the national politician, " will 
 he decline?" 
 
 " Will Joe Patchen beat a scrub? " McGin- 
 nis opened his arms in a fine swinging gesture. 
 
THE WAY OF AN ELECTION 67 
 
 " He has declined. He gave em the marble 
 heart. This evening he declared himself. 
 He s been studying and thinking. K"o good 
 to press him. Meself, I ve supplied him with 
 literature. Well, to-night there was a meet 
 ing of the Jefferson Club. Darcy he was there, 
 and so was Leroy, and so was a nice boy I 
 know, Dick "Williams. I thought it worth 
 waiting for his report." Therewith McGinnis 
 gave the details of Leroy s speech with much 
 humor. 
 
 " He is a good fellow," said the national 
 man ; " but, now, about Darcy. You think 
 we still need him? " 
 
 " Sure. You get Darcy rigged out with a 
 stereopticon and pictures showing the work 
 man to-day and how he d be if they was to win, 
 and have a picture to show the mortgage being 
 foreclosed and that sort of thing. And tell 
 ? em who has brought on the hard times; and 
 show em how much harder the times will be 
 if those fellers get an innings. Give em the 
 figures right in their own county. Tell em 
 about the way mortgages will be foreclosed 
 vriththem! That hits em in the neck. Say, 
 I got a little chap, kin look over the records 
 and get the facts pat for him." 
 
68 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 " But will the other fellows go out to the 
 lectures? You know they ve passed the word 
 down the line not to attend our meetings." 
 
 McGinnis showed a flashing set of teeth. 
 " They kin pass the word till it s worn out, but 
 in the country they ll cram the school-houses 
 for a free show like that. And if Darcy gets 
 em in front of him with them facts, and his 
 own eloquence and a jolly lot of campaign 
 songs for the local talent to sing why, don t 
 you see, it would be great ! " 
 
 " I see the advantages," said the national 
 man, dryly; " but how about Darcy? he s 
 committed to the other side " 
 
 "I know," said McGinnis, with a sigh; 
 " we ll have to put up a good deal more 
 dough." 
 
 " It s merely a question of that with him? " 
 
 " Just that. Ye see, he ain t got the money 
 yet; he s dickering with them. And their 
 offer is all in the air, while ours is " 
 
 " Spot cash," said the national statesman, 
 dryly. 
 
 McGinnis permitted himself a frank grin. 
 " Tis as I expected. Well, gentlemen, we 
 got Leroy, we got him for nothing. Now, 
 tis agreed we want Darcy? " 
 
THJ WAY OF AN ELECTION 69 
 
 " I suppose we have to have him, d 
 
 him! " groaned the respectable local states 
 man. " When can you get him? " said the 
 national man. 
 
 McGinnis edged his big thumbs into the 
 armholes of his coat. He shed a radiant Celtic 
 smile on the two politicians, thence he flung it 
 up to the portraits of the candidates of a great 
 party, which had been thoughtfully tacked on 
 the wall. 
 
 " I have got him," said he; "I got him to 
 night," 
 
 The national chairman laughed outright. 
 
 " Colonel," said he, suavely, " you are next 
 the bell, do you mind touching it? They have 
 a choice article of fizz stowed away here ; I am 
 not willing to drink Mr. McGinnis s health in 
 anything less." 
 
 " Aw, come off! " cried McGinnis, in bash 
 ful delight, blushing with pleasure; and his 
 blush deepened as the local man cleared his 
 brow and joined in the laugh, saying, " Well, 
 there s no question, McGinnis, but you re a 
 man of action. Did you eh ah name any 
 figure for his campaign expenses? " 
 
 " No, only intimated I knew they would be 
 large, put em a notch higher than the other 
 
70 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 fellers notion. Besides/ says I, * you want 
 to be on the winning side. Now, I m inside 
 and I know we stand to win : I know what the 
 canvassers report; I m betting two to one on 
 us. " 
 
 " Actually, Mike? " said the national man; 
 he had never called him Mike before. Mc- 
 Ginnis hoped that the bell-boy, who was at 
 the door to receive the order, heard that one 
 word, as the door opened. 
 
 He waited until it closed on the boy. " I 
 am," said he, then; "I never was surer. If 
 we can git Darcy we can throw enough extra 
 votes right here to help us out with two States. 
 I bet a thousand dollars this week, and I m a 
 poor man comparatively," he supplemented, 
 with a grin. 
 
 " Well, I m glad to hear you talk that way," 
 said the local man; " take another cigar." He 
 proffered his own case instead of the box on 
 the table. 
 
 McGinnis took his triumph modestly-; but 
 it warmed his soul. He had risen from the 
 ward to the county ; he had won innumerable 
 victories first on the spoils side, lately such 
 are the amazing alliances and vicissitudes of 
 politics on the side of honesty and reform; 
 
THE WAY OF AN ELECTION 71 
 
 but never before had he felt himself within 
 the mystic circle where the game is empire and 
 the stake the destinies of a nation. He had 
 never been so happy since poor Polly McGin- 
 nis, to whom was reared the most splendid and 
 tasteless monument in Saint Margaret s Cem 
 etery, promised to be his wife; and suddenly 
 his heart softened with a tender pain if only 
 he had Polly to tell it all to, how these great 
 gentlemen treated him and called him Mike. 
 He felt so much that his florid skin lost a shade 
 of its glow ; and he sat very quiet until begged 
 to " go on." 
 
 " Well, he was a good deal impressed. i I 
 suppose you folks are spending money like 
 water/ says he, thoughtful like. Well, we 
 ain t mean, says I. Then I gave it to him 
 straight, he would git more from us than from 
 the others. And I outlined the campaign. He 
 was tickled with the stereopticon and cam 
 paign-song notion, I could see that ! Now, I 
 says, you re a labor leader, and you know, all 
 nonsense aside, honest injun, labor ain t got 
 nothing to gain and everything to lose from 
 this new fool ruction; come on and help the 
 real friends of the workingman for once! 9 
 Well, he begun on Harry Leroy and consist- 
 
72 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 ency, and that rot; jest his vanity, of course. 
 But I cut right in. I know what Harry said 
 about Fanning; it s true, too, and it s true 
 about the money power, and how your fellers 
 winning will affect the poor man. Ain t it? 
 Ain t you going to be impressed and kinder 
 haunted, and ain t you going to look up things 
 more to down him than anything; and ain t 
 you going to be appalled, simply appalled by 
 what you find ? And ain t you after what will 
 help the workingman; and it don t cut no 
 ice with you whether folks call you incon 
 sistent or not you want to be inconsistent 
 when you re in the wrong. And you ve come 
 to the conclusion them fellers have made the 
 hard times they complain of themselves; 
 they ve held up the country, and now you ain t 
 in favor of electing the robbers to the police 
 force. That s how I gave it to him, and he 
 tumbled to it like a gentle bird. McGinnis, 
 he says, you re great ! So he s all right." 
 
 " And you brought them both down in one 
 night? " said the national man. 
 
 " Well, I don t claim any credit for Harry. 
 I only lent him books. It s because he s white 
 he s with us; but I did take the liberty of ask 
 ing him to come around here to-night. It s a 
 
THE WAY OF AN ELECTION 73 
 
 good night, being Saturday; and I d like real 
 well to have you gentlemen see Harry and 
 give him a kind word. After all, it s all he ll 
 git." 
 
 " Is he downstairs now? " asked the na 
 tional man. " We ll be glad to see him; he ll 
 take the taste of Darcy out of our mouths a 
 little." 
 
 " Well," deprecated McGinnis, " Darcy s 
 down there, too in a private room." 
 
 The national man smiled grimly while the 
 local man opened the door to admit a bell-boy 
 with two silver buckets, piled high with ice 
 from which rose a refreshing stream of cool 
 ness. The national man motioned him to an 
 other room; and McGinnis gleefully com 
 mented to Michael, " He won t drink with 
 everybody; bet he have Darcy in first." 
 Which, indeed, proved to be the case. 
 
 The interview was not long; McGinnis 
 acted as master of ceremonies; the national 
 man went directly to the point the local man 
 was communing with the ice-buckets in the 
 other room. 
 
 " Mr. Darcy," said the great politician, 
 " Mr. McGinnis tells me that you are good 
 enough to be willing to help us not only with 
 
74: THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 your paper the ah Hammer, but in the 
 campaign. I m very glad to find you with 
 us." 
 
 " I have refused an offer of two thousand, 
 sir, and my travelling expenses to stump for 
 the other side," said Darcy, firmly, and Mc- 
 Ginnis solemnly nodded. 
 
 " That s good," said the national man, smil 
 ing, " for you see that is precisely what we 
 want you to do! You know Mr. McGinnis s 
 idea? " 
 
 Darcy said that he had heard some details; 
 it was a great idea, but there would be large 
 expenses. 
 
 The national man, who had been jotting 
 down figures rapidly on a sheet of hotel paper, 
 pushed it over to Darcy. " That s my esti 
 mate. It may come to a little less or a little 
 more ; call it that and you take the lump sum. 
 McGinnis will attend to the statistician and the 
 lantern, etc. separately. If the arrangement 
 is satisfactory I can give you half now and the 
 other half the day after election. I ll make 
 out a memorandum which you can sign." 
 
 Darcy s brilliant eyes flashed as they saw 
 the figures. His black brows met, however, 
 when he read the " memorandum," passed 
 
THE WAT OF AN ELECTION 75 
 
 first to McGinnis, and receiving a glance of 
 heartfelt admiration from that astute practical 
 politician; but he affixed his signature in si 
 lence; and the gleam returned to his eye as 
 the national man offered a roll of bank-notes. 
 " Will you count it? " said the national man; 
 " one makes mistakes occasionally. Thanks." 
 He repeated the sum in his crisp, Eastern ac 
 cent. " Do you know, Mr. Darcy, I fancy you 
 are going to set the prairies afire. You should 
 hear our friend McGinnis talk about you! " 
 
 " Well, you ve got me hard and fast, gen 
 tlemen," said Darcy, with a dry glance at the 
 receipt which the national man was stowing 
 away in a silver-rimmed lizard-skin pocket- 
 book, " but I believe your cause is right; and 
 it will have the best efforts of my heart and 
 mind. I ll get out on the road as soon as we 
 can get the other things in shape." 
 
 " A cigar, Mr. Darcy? " said the national 
 man, politely; and again Mr. McGinnis in 
 wardly grinned; it was the box and not the 
 cigar-case that was offered. " Won t you come 
 in some time to-morrow? We are to have a 
 little conference of the workers. They will all 
 be glad to see you." He shook Darcy s prof 
 fered hand, or, it would be exact to say, he al- 
 
76 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 lowed Darcy to shake his hand, and bade him 
 farewell with much politeness. 
 
 " Don t he carry it off well! " said McGin- 
 nis, the instant the door closed behind the ora 
 tor s figure; " well, that s one kind of a labor 
 leader, let s see the other." 
 
 " Yes, you get him, and we ll get out the 
 buckets," said the national man. And his 
 greeting to Leroy and the talk which followed 
 not only made Leroy wonder in his modest 
 soul, but further convinced McGinnis that the 
 great politician understood human nature 
 without a key. " Talked right out before 
 Harry and me, both of them, like we was 
 on the ground floor. Hully gee, Michael, 
 but you are just there, and don t you forget 
 it." 
 
 He felt, somehow, a sensation of gratitude 
 to Leroy, a new respect as he heard his own 
 opinion asked. He had used the same device 
 in smaller matters, many a time; but he ex 
 perienced a simple kind of pleasure now that 
 it was used toward him; he felt at the same 
 time the flattery of the subtle distinction be 
 tween the politician s manner to Darcy and to 
 his present auditors. He treated them like po 
 litical equals. Verily, it was a proud and hap- 
 
TEE WAT OF AN ELECTION 77 
 
 py evening to Michael McGinnis. Leroy bare 
 ly lifted his glass to his lips; he never drank; 
 but Michael did the champagne full justice. 
 Michael s head was strong, he was not in the 
 least dizzy when they shook hands warmly 
 with the great men and went out of the hotel, 
 together; but perhaps before those Heaven 
 forbid I should betray confidence, I being an 
 unseen spectator, and give the definite, cruel 
 number of glasses! before the champagne, let 
 us say, he might not have hummed so cheerily, 
 
 44 Then Ireland shall be free, 
 From the centre to the sea, 
 Says the Shan van Voght," 
 
 or encircled Harry Leroy s neck so fraternally 
 with his arm as they sauntered down the 
 lonely, lighted street. 
 
 Harry smiled; but in a second, the vulture 
 that had been clawing at his heart all the 
 evening, and that had relaxed its grip for the 
 hour, under the stress of higher interests, tore 
 him anew. Involuntarily he sighed. McGin- 
 nis s eyes flashed. " Say, Harry," said he, 
 looking amiably at the electric lights, " I had 
 a mighty funny thing happen to me to-day; I 
 was down your way, and I saw a little special- 
 
78 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 delivery boy I got him the place, he lives in 
 the Eighth Ward and he was scorching along 
 to your house and nearly ran into me. I asked 
 him where he was going, after I had said what 
 was proper for his conduct we ve got to have 
 a bike law in this place, that s sure as death! 
 He told me your house, and showed me the let 
 ter. I recognized Jay s hand. Fact is, I had 
 news of Jay this very day, and I suspected that 
 he would be writing you; that s why I ques 
 tioned the boy. I I guess " McGinnis 
 dropped his arm and linked it in Harry s 
 " I guess Jay told you about that note." 
 
 " How " began Harry and stopped, un 
 certain what he should say. 
 
 "How d I know?" said McGinnis. 
 " Well, fact is, Harry, I met Meecham, and I 
 bought that note." 
 
 " It s endorsed by me," said Harry, huskily; 
 " I ll pay you, Mac." 
 
 " !N"aw, you won t. Jay Sibley will pay 
 that note. He ll pay every last cent. Not 
 jest this minnit, but as the money comes in. 
 I ll handle that young man without gloves for 
 his soul s good. He ain t my brother-in-law! 
 Don t you lose a mite of sleep, Harry. I ll 
 fix him and there won t be no scandal or bad 
 
THE WAT OF AN ELECTION 79 
 
 times. It ll all come right in the wash. You 
 just say you ve seen me, or, better still, you 
 don t say nothing at all. Pll write him; and 
 when he comes up here, you ll see a very much 
 reformed and penitent young man. Here s 
 your street-car, Harry that s all right." 
 
 He had pushed Harry and his broken thanks 
 onto the platform as he spoke. 
 
 A month later Leroy met Darcy, both being 
 on their wheels. " Well, Darcy, how goes 
 it ? " called Harry, with a cordiality that he 
 had not felt for years; " I hear you are doing 
 grand work" 
 
 Darcy s wheel was shining and beautiful; 
 Harry s was a second-hand, rattling machine 
 of a make unknown to fame; but probably 
 not a man in town had had more pleasure 
 in riding than he. He looked tanned and 
 happy. 
 
 "That you, Harry? how well you ride! 
 Why, things seem to be coming our way all the 
 time. But I feel as if I wanted to tell them- 
 all I have told a good many, that I m one of 
 your converts, a brand snatched from tho 
 burning, as it were. I was switching off on tha 
 
80 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 other tack when you set me thinking that 
 evening at the club, you remember about 
 old Fanning. I began to look things up, and 
 I was appalled, simply appalled at what I 
 found out." 
 
 "I ve read your speeches," interrupted 
 Harry, "they are full of argument, 
 facts " 
 
 " Yes, when I came to look things up, I 
 found there was only one ground for me to 
 ake, and I took it. I want to be right, and 
 ".this talk of consistency doesn t cut any ice 
 with me. I hope you get the Hammer all 
 right. Say, I hear you re doing a lot of work 
 Tight along." 
 
 " The best thing I ever did was to convert 
 you," said Harry, laughing; " I never could 
 quite take that story into camp until now, and 
 felt I was getting credit under false colors; 
 but now I shall point with pride Well, 
 good luck to you, and let me know if I can help 
 you any time." 
 
 As he rode along, he thought, half wist 
 fully, but without a grain of envy, " I wish 
 I had that man s talent! " 
 
 Darcy smiled to himself, watching him. 
 "He s dead easy," he muttered; then, all of 
 
TEE WAT OF AN ELECTION 81 
 
 a sudden, with the swift transitions of his 
 temperament, he bit back a sigh. 
 
 " D it! " he almost groaned, " I wish 
 
 I had that man s conscience! " 
 
THE 
 MOMENT OF CLEAR VISION 
 
THE 
 
 MOMENT OF CLEAR VISION 
 
 THE gas-jet flared unsheltered above 
 Thompson s head, painting the silhou 
 ettes of three men on the white plastered wall. 
 Thompson s had an eagle nose and pointed 
 beard (which tilted in the air, as he talked); 
 the other two had each a mustache and a good, 
 firm jaw. The three men were members of the 
 Labor Council, although belonging to differ 
 ent trades. Thompson was a printer. He had 
 been a drinking man, inclined to riot in his 
 cups; but it was an open secret that Harry 
 Leroy had made a reformed man of him ; and 
 now he merely smoked and swore to excess, 
 and was on the best terms with the police force. 
 The other two were hard-headed, conservative, 
 skilful workmen of the class that does the most 
 for the unions while needing them the least. 
 The man with the heavy mustache was a car- 
 85 
 
86 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 penter, the man with the scanty flaxen mus 
 tache was a rougher in a steel mill. 
 
 All three were smoking, all three wore a 
 troubled air, which in Thompson s case was 
 tinctured with irritation. 
 
 " Yes," said the carpenter, " the boys de 
 cided to keep on with the strike. Going to 
 appeal to the Council to help em. That 
 throws it all on us. If we say we ll support 
 the strike, why, they ll keep it up; but if 
 Harry can hold the Council back, there is a lot 
 of conservative fellows, married men, you 
 know, that ll be only too glad of a chance to 
 take what s offered." 
 
 " They were offered about everything that 
 they struck for, seems to me," Thompson 
 grunted between puffs; " extra hour on Sat 
 urday, grinders got the rise they asked, and 
 they promise to take on more men, so the fel 
 lers Haverly bounced can all get back." 
 
 "Will he take em back, though?" said 
 the steel-worker, " he used em cruel rough; I 
 guess he s made the strike, and long s he s 
 there no man who has dared to stand up to him 
 will feel safe. And they ain t going to give in 
 about discharging him, you bet! That s the 
 way. Nine times out of ten, in strikes, it s 
 
THE MOMENT OF CLEAR VISION 87 
 
 some fool boss makes the row; and then the 
 firm, instead of giving him his walking papers, 
 stand up and fight for him cause it s dis 
 cipline. That was the way at Homestead. 
 That was the way at Pullman. And that s it 
 here." 
 
 " That s right," said the carpenter, " you 
 don t catch me doing a turn in the Hollister 
 Plough Works while Ike Haverly is Superin 
 tendent; and all the other concessions don t go 
 while he stays." 
 
 " But he ain t going to stay," said Thomp 
 son, impatiently ; " they won t discharge him 
 under fire, that s true enough; but while you 
 boys have been shouting and parading and 
 howling at Harry because he won t let you 
 boycott the other companies doing business 
 with Hollister s, he s been quietly working and 
 making sympathy for you and seeing folks 
 that can talk up to Hollister; and Harry told 
 me that Haverly s got another job offered him 
 and he s going to take it. Next month. Harry 
 says so." 
 
 Both listeners showed excitement. The car 
 penter whistled. " That ought to fetch em. 
 Harry s a good un. But will they receive a 
 committee from the Union and see West when 
 
88 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 he comes? Say West and Harry, West for the 
 Unions, and Harry for the Labor Council? " 
 
 "Nit That s where Hollister says he ll 
 ght as long as he s got one brick left on an 
 other in his factory. He admits Haverly was 
 in the wrong and the men have had grievances. 
 He s willing to redress them; he ll see all the 
 committees from his own men they want to 
 send; but he won t see outsiders. That he 
 swears." 
 
 " That s where they ll split, then," the steel 
 man sighed. " West is as stiff as Hollister. 
 He ll come down to-morrow night; and if he 
 makes one of his razzle-dazzle speeches to the 
 Council there ll be no holding the boys. 
 They ll be for endorsing the strike, making an 
 assessment, having a boycott, and anything 
 else the hotheads ask." 
 
 " He ain t got half the sense in his speeches 
 Harry has," snarled Thompson. 
 
 " Maybe," admitted the steel man, " maybe. 
 Harry s pretty clear, and he talks sense every 
 *ime; but the trouble with Harry is, he ain t 
 got no magnetism. And West is chock full of 
 it. He gits them to shouting before they know 
 it. It s the easiest thing in the world, I do be 
 lieve, to make men do fool things. There s 
 
THE MOMENT OF CLEAR VISION 89 
 
 nothing tremendously exciting about sense 
 in fact, it s kinder dampening, usually; but 
 you can make an awful fine speech about the 
 way the laboring man is ground under by the 
 Shylocks and the tyrants and the soulless cor 
 porations, and goading and prodding them! 
 Besides, Victor knows lots of poetry and big 
 words, while Harry s speeches why, you can 
 understand every blamed word Harry says." 
 
 " I want to understand! " said Thompson. 
 
 " So do I ; but it ain t so grand. But the 
 main thing against Harry is, he ain t fiery 
 enough ; he s all for law and order. If you 
 knocked him down, I guess he wouldn t do 
 more than call the police ! " 
 
 " That s all you know of Harry hush up, 
 that s his knock!" 
 
 Thompson flung back the door and Leroy 
 entered, mild, gentle, gravely courteous as usu 
 al. Even Thompson, looking at him, listening 
 to his leisurely tones of greeting, swallowed 
 a sigh. " I wish he didn t have that under 
 dog look about him," thought Thompson. 
 
 " I ve got something to propose to you, 
 boys," said Leroy. 
 
 Victor "West sat, cramped and stifled, in the 
 
90 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 stuffy chair-car and gazed out of the rigid 
 storm-windows that had been screwed into 
 their winter position to repress lawless ventila 
 tion. The yellow kerosene flames swayed in 
 the aisles, and the darkening landscape with 
 out was no more than a blur of trees and plain. 
 
 " I suppose the brakeman will call the 
 place," thought West, " and anyhow Leroy 
 telegraphed that he would be on two or three 
 stations before. I wonder if he thinks he can 
 move me." His lip curled; he had the im- 
 petuous nature s contempt for the moderate, 
 cautious man. Leroy had seemed to him (dur 
 ing the two times of their meeting) to be timid 
 and slow. " He can only do a retail business 
 in anything," was West s notion; "probably 
 he is not a physical coward, but he is scared 
 of anything big, strikes or anything else. I 
 must stir the boys up." 
 
 He laid his head back against the soiled red 
 phish ; and the light showed how pale was the 
 skin, how sharply cut the delicate features. 
 Many a rough man had looked up at that hag 
 gard face and those burning brown eyes with a 
 swelling of the heart. West had a charm; 
 even his enemies admitted that. There was a 
 sweetness in his boyish radiance of hope, his 
 
THE MOMENT OF CLEAR VISION 91 
 
 frankness, his eager cordiality to those of his 
 own party; and no one in his company for 
 half an hour, could resist the assurance that 
 he was absolutely sincere. While he rested, 
 he was going over the heads of his speech. 
 Argument, invective, appeal thronged tu- 
 multuously into his mind, to be dressed by 
 every resource of his wit, and fancy, and pas 
 sionate faith in his cause. At last, with a sigh 
 of relief, he opened his eyes and muttered to 
 himself, " Yes, that ought to fix them! " 
 
 Just at this moment the train jarred and 
 moaned itself into a stop. The vast purr of 
 the engine throbbed in his ears, pierced by a 
 voice at his elbow. " Excuse me, Mr. "West? " 
 
 West sprang up and made room for the new 
 comer to sit beside him. Leroy was the same 
 neutral tinted, phlegmatic soul as ever, he de 
 cided look at him now parting his coat-tails 
 carefully as he sat ; neatly arranging his over 
 coat across his knees; and trying to smooth 
 the pocket-flaps over something that bulged 
 out the pocket. What a Miss Betty he was! 
 And such a fellow thought that he could fight 
 him ! 
 
 Victor was not conscious of vanity; con 
 sidering everything, he was not especially 
 
92 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 vain; but the image of slow, stupid, moderate 
 Harry Leroy, expecting to overquell his brill 
 iant self, struck him as funny. And yet his sen 
 sitive nerves felt an attraction in Leroy. And 
 he had a curious kind of pity for his sure de 
 feat. He began the conversation in a kindly 
 strain. Leroy went to the point at once. He 
 told his story. They had really won every 
 thing for which they were fighting. Why not 
 accept the terms offered and everybody go 
 back to work? 
 
 " How about the Union? " said West, 
 " will they meet us ? Will they recognize the 
 Unions? " 
 
 " They won t discriminate against any 
 union man; they won t promise not to em 
 ploy non-union labor; but as a matter of fact 
 about all the men do belong." 
 
 " Will they let you and me, or any of the 
 Labor Council meet them, or do they demand 
 that the members of the committee they see 
 shall be their own men? " 
 
 " They want them to be their own men, but 
 they may belong to any union. I understand 
 the point you would make; but I think we are 
 risking the bone running after the dog that 
 took it. If we go in now we shall get what we 
 
THE MOMENT OF CLEAR VISION 93 
 
 are fighting for; if we stick it out for a point 
 like that we shall lose the public sympathy, 
 and the firm will gain it ; and feeling will get 
 bad. It has been a very decent strike so far. 
 The firm hasn t tried to get in new men. But 
 they will if we stick it out; and that means the 
 devil of a time. I don t think we ought to 
 risk it." 
 
 " But for a principle," said West, with his 
 pleading smile. " I hate a strike; but what 
 are a dozen strikes if we win a principle like 
 that? We must make them recognize organ 
 ized labor." 
 
 " A lost strike ain t going to help us." 
 
 " Ah, but we sha n t lose it; and if we do, 
 it will be after such a fight that they may be 
 ruined men, or pretty near it." 
 
 " I m hanged if I see how Hollister s men 
 are going to be helped by ruining Hollister. 
 In that case, they are out of a job for good 
 and all." 
 
 " Someone else will take the factory; and 
 you may be sure that he will not be so ready 
 to fight labor." 
 
 " Do you think it is so easy to sell factories? 
 It may be six months, may be a year, may be 
 never, and the men have got to live mean- 
 
94 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 while; there are their meat and grocery bills 
 going on all the while, and their children s feet 
 wearing through the shoes. You talk easily of 
 ruin, but an employer s ruin ain t no fun to 
 the men he employs." 
 
 Something in his tone nettled West; it con 
 veyed to him a biting idea that Leroy thought 
 him young and crude, and unbusinesslike. 
 Because business was West s weak side he was 
 the prouder of his capacity therein, and the 
 more ready to flare up at any criticism. He 
 swallowed his chagrin, but it rankled within 
 him. 
 
 " I am not underestimating the hardships 
 of the men in this strike; but you must re 
 member I have to look out for not only them, 
 but for labor in general. Individual hard 
 ships must be borne for the sake of the cause." 
 
 " If the cause is worth it ; but it ain t worth 
 keeping decent, honest, hard-working men 
 awake nights just to get a blazing triumph for 
 the leaders in this strike, and that s what it 
 comes to." 
 
 West reddened; but Leroy checked the 
 words on his lips by a gesture, while he con 
 tinued: " I know you re only thinking of the 
 real welfare of workingmen. So m I, Mr. 
 
THE MOMENT OF CLEAR VISION 95 
 
 West. I know you don t care for any personal 
 glory, or victory, or any of that slush. You 
 want the men to be the better, not the worse 
 for this strike. And so do I. Say, can t we 
 get together, somehow, and save these boys? 
 They ve spent all their money, and they re 
 running up bills. They know they haven t got 
 a chance if the Council don t help ? em out; 
 but if the Council backs them up the hot heads 
 will win out and we ll all be in the mire to 
 gether. We ll have to be assessed; and if, as 
 is likely, th^v ask a boycott or. Hoi lister, then 
 all the firms tiiat have any dea iingb with him 
 will be pulled into the muss. Here we are at 
 Cochrane s, for example; we re getting along 
 all right, we ve no kick coming. Cochrane is 
 a square man; I tell you in confidence, he s 
 helped a deal to get this proposition from Hoi- 
 lister; but he ain t going to throw his friends 
 overboard at any union s dictation; and be 
 fore we know we would be walking out our 
 selves ! You see the situation ? " 
 
 " I see what you mean, Mr. Leroy," said 
 West, stiffly, " but I am obliged to differ." 
 
 Then they went over the whole ground 
 again. This time, in the sleeper, where (as 
 Leroy said) they could talk without interest- 
 
96 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 ing the men in front and behind them and 
 have some fresh air. Leroy paid for the seats. 
 As West noted him fumbling in a lank pocket- 
 book for a fifty-cent piece not too readily 
 found, he remembered that Leroy had contrib 
 uted more, than anyone to the strike fund; 
 and his secret irritation at the conservative 
 man s criticism softened; almost, he felt a 
 moving of sympathy for the slow, stupid, tim 
 orous, honest fellow. He explained his posi 
 tion with courtesy, in fact with gentleness. 
 Nevertheless Leroy was not so obtuse that he 
 did not perceive that his words were wasted. 
 He looked intently at West, whose pale cheeks 
 were flushed, and whose eyes sparkled as he 
 talked. " You put your side well," he said, 
 " I hadn t much hope I could make you see 
 things differently. But I m sorry." He 
 nodded his head so dismally West had to 
 straighten his lips. 
 
 " Here we are," Leroy continued; and he 
 motioned to the porter coming for the bag, 
 " no, we don t want to be brushed." But he 
 slipped a dime into the man s hand. 
 
 Before they were well on the platform the 
 train was speeding its lights away. 
 
 " It s not so large a town as I expected," 
 
THE MOMENT OF CLEAR VISION 97 
 
 said West, blinking in the semi-darkness, and 
 looking down the one long, dimly lighted 
 street visible; " where are the boys? " 
 
 No one stood about the little shed that 
 served for a station; a single shabby carriage 
 was drawn up to the platform. 
 
 " There s the hack," said Leroy, " the boys 
 must have thought the train would be late 
 it never is on time, scarcely and stepped over 
 to Ball s to get a glass of beer while they were 
 waiting; I guess you d better go in, while I 
 stir them up. I m sorry this way, Mr. 
 West." 
 
 West had no suspicions, although the recep 
 tion struck him as cool, and he did not half 
 like it. He got into the carriage, a weather- 
 beaten country " hack," politely reassuring 
 Leroy. It was undoubtedly all right, the com 
 mittee would hear the train, and the carriage 
 was there, which was the main thing. Leroy 
 jumped in beside him. 
 
 " We d best look em up, I guess," said he, 
 while the horses, which a glance had told West 
 were better than the vehicle, plunged off at a 
 gallop. 
 
 "Are they running away?" cried West 
 when Leroy had righted him, for he had 
 7 
 
98 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 tumbled across the seat at the start. Still he 
 did not suspect; he took Leroy s answer for 
 what it seemed. 
 
 "No, they re just a little fresh, that s 
 all." 
 
 But when the breakneck speed continued 
 with no check, and no sign of excitement on 
 the box, a snake-like fear squirmed into West s 
 consciousness. 
 
 Thought was not much quicker than his ac 
 tion, which was to grab the handle of the door. 
 Instantly his arms were gripped from behind 
 and Leroy s voice was in his ears, as pensive 
 and drawling as before, yet, be it his imagina 
 tion or not, informed with a sinister resolve, 
 "Be still! Keep quiet and you sha n t be 
 hurt; but if you try to get out, I ll have to 
 hurt you." 
 
 " See here, this is kidnapping; let me go! " 
 
 "Better not try!" 
 
 The tussle was strong but short. West was 
 no match for the moulder s muscles, and he 
 sank back exhausted. Not a word had been 
 said. " I suppose you d shoot me rather than 
 let me go? " he sneered. 
 
 " I d hate to do that," said Leroy, gently. 
 
 There was a quality of such inflexible reso- 
 
THE MOMENT OF CLEAR VISION 9S> 
 
 lution in his tones that West felt a thrill crawl 
 down his spine. 
 
 " Is it Harry Leroy, who made such 
 speeches for law and order, talking? " he ex- 
 claimedl " What do you expect? What good 
 will this do you? You can t mean " 
 
 " I don t mean any harm to you, but I do 
 mean you sha n t go to the meeting and stir 
 up a row to-night. I ve thought this all out. 
 I ve got a pair of handcuffs in my pocket and 
 if you won t be quiet I m plenty strong enough 
 to put them on you. And I will." 
 
 " It s all a plot, is it? I suppose luring me 
 into the Pullman was part of it." 
 
 " They don t call out the stations, there," 
 said Harry. 
 
 " And I m nowhere near Fairport or the 
 Mississippi? " 
 
 " Not very near," said Leroy, rattling up 
 the ragged shade. 
 
 Prairie, nothing but prairie, dun and dark 
 under the stars, sweeping off in darker 
 ploughed fields or lightening in the glistening 
 yellow-gray stubble of shorn corn, and devour 
 ing shadows streaming ahead of their lamps 
 and their horses flying hoofs. The lights of 
 the town were gone; he could not put his head 
 
100 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 out the window to find them. West began to 
 feel a disagreeable, gooseflesh feeling. He re 
 called divers stories that he had slurred over 
 lightly in the past " The men had been 
 carried away by their natural and righteous 
 indignation ; they misunderstood and went too 
 far " was that the damf ool way he had talked 
 himself? He knew better now. There was no 
 safety in these appeals to the brute court of 
 last resort, to-day his side, to-morrow it might 
 be clean against him. He had not hated those 
 things enough. They were all wrong. But 
 Leroy couldn t be meaning to do him a mis 
 chief he had been seen with him, the con 
 ductor knew him did he, though? Wasn t the 
 reckless daring of Leroy s plan perhaps its best 
 chance? Curse his own stupidity! The ar 
 gument was only a trap. And he had let this 
 fellow whom he despised entrap him! He 
 could have torn his hair, but for the childish 
 ness of it. He did grind his teeth. Leroy 
 never offered a word. They sped on, now 
 splashing through mud and now rolling 
 smoothly over the elastic turf. 
 
 West s fevered brain kept a whirl as rapid 
 as the horses hoofs. A new spectre flaunted 
 before him. He might be kept in captivity 
 
THE MOMENT OF O^AK . yJUJTO K 101 
 
 and released drugged, with hideous slanders 
 about him that would ruin him. He had from 
 a sneerer at Leroy become willing to fear al 
 most anything from his dare-devil cunning. 
 His mind went back to his speech, whereupon 
 involuntarily he groaned. 
 
 " Fm sorry to disturb you so much," said 
 Leroy s soft accents, " but I take it it s better 
 one man should suffer than four or five hun 
 dred, and maybe a great many more." 
 
 West disdained to answer, so spent was he 
 with his unavailing wrestle and his fury that 
 he was afraid, indeed, that his voice might 
 break. Silence fell between them and lasted 
 a long while. The horses lope changed into 
 a good, round trot that did not slacken until 
 they jolted over the rails of an electric road, 
 and West saw the glimmer from a car flood the 
 seat and Leroy s features, a second, before it 
 faded. The horses broke into their gallop 
 again. In what seemed a half hour to West 
 (but he was aware he was not likely to com 
 pute time accurately) the coachman silently 
 pulled them up. The carriage stopped, and 
 Leroy, raising his own window, whistled 
 twice. The whistle was answered by a num 
 ber of whistles in different keys. 
 
$8E II K ART OF TOIL 
 
 " All right/ said Leroy, " we stop here. If 
 you don t resist or try to skip, no harm will be 
 offered you. Please get out." 
 
 The coachman had extinguished the lan 
 terns. By the starlight the forms of two men 
 were dimly outlined in the shadow of the lilac 
 bushes before a gate. West opened the door. 
 He expected them to take him by the arm. 
 They did not move, but he heard Leroy s foot 
 fall on the gravel behind him. In front, at the 
 end of a winter-stung garden of mingled 
 flowers and vegetables, such as one meets in 
 the Western farming country, was a two-story 
 wooden cottage, painted some dark color, with 
 the usual piazza and a withered vine clinging 
 to the light pillars. The lower rooms of the 
 cottage were lighted, but the shades were 
 closely drawn. West thought of Dr. Cronin 
 and the death-trap in Chicago. He halted. 
 At the same instant he heard the noise of a 
 carriage driving rapidly away, and, turning 
 his head, he saw the swaying back of their 
 " hack " as it jolted over the prairie. 
 
 " Please go on," said Leroy. 
 
 West walked up to the house in spite of him 
 self, but at the piazza he stopped. " If you are 
 going to murder me you can do it outdoors ! " 
 
THE MOMENT OF CLEAR VISION 103 
 
 Those were the words on his tongue, but they 
 never were spoken, because, even as his hands 
 clinched and his lips parted for them, the door 
 was swung open, and a voice cried, heartily, 
 " Come in, Yi; what are you waiting for? " 
 
 West s heart gave a great jump of relief. 
 Mighty well did he know that tall, square- 
 shouldered shape, that bald head with grizzled 
 curls about it, and those honest, twinkling gray 
 eyes; and even better he knew the thin little 
 woman behind, whose still comely features 
 were palpitating with good-will. 
 
 Instantly he was wringing the man s hard 
 hand, and reaching his free hand to the 
 woman. 
 
 Why, he even knew the rag carpet on the 
 floor and the Rogers group of " Weighing the 
 Baby " that stood on a familiar marble-topped 
 table in the comer. 
 
 "Why, Uncle Phil Smith!" he cried, 
 " Aunt Maggie, is this really you ? " 
 
 "It s us both, Yi," answered the man, 
 " sorry and glad, both, to see you this minute ; 
 will you go to the kitchen sink to wash your 
 hands like you used to, or go upstairs to 
 your room? Supper ll be ready soon s you 
 
104: THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 West, bewildered, turned his head to find 
 Leroy. Leroy was not in the room. The door 
 was shut. 
 
 "It s locked, Vi," said Smith, quietly, 
 " locked outside. And those shadows on the 
 winder curtains, them s men. I hope you 
 won t try to get out, Vi; it would only make 
 you trouble." 
 
 "Where s Leroy?" 
 
 " He s had to go back to town, by the 
 lectric cars, to catch the next train for Fair- 
 port, so s he can speak in a meeting they have 
 to-night." 
 
 " And you would keep me a prisoner here ! 
 Uncle Phil, I didn t think that of you, I did 
 not." 
 
 " I got to do it, Vi," said Smith, quietly. 
 
 " Besides, he thinks it right to do it ; and 
 so do I," Mrs. Smith added. "Pa and I don t 
 want those poor boys to keep up the strike any 
 mor n Harry does. Nor you wouldn t neither 
 if you knew as much as Harry does about 
 things; but I told Harry just how set you 
 could be, for all you were the sweetest-tem 
 pered and kindest boy I ever knew except 
 except my Hughey ! " 
 
 Her voice changed on the last word and she 
 
THE MOMENT OF CLEAR VISION 105 
 
 turned abruptly; and the man s eyes followed 
 her as she went out of the room. 
 
 West gasped. He did not know as much as 
 Harry Leroy! And Mrs. Smith, who had 
 been almost a worshipper, to tell him ! But he 
 answered, civilly. " You don t realize the 
 danger you re in. This is nothing better than 
 kidnapping. I can have Henry Leroy arrested 
 the minute I get to Fairport. It s against the 
 law. I can send him to the pen ! " 
 
 " You d have to send us, too, then, Yictor; 
 and I don t think you d do that." The elder 
 man was smiling as he spoke. 
 
 " I suppose if I try to get out of this trap, 
 you ll knock me down and sit on me. But you 
 know I can t go back on you. Oh, yes, Leroy 
 is slick. That s what he s banking on, is it ? " 
 
 "Why, you see, Yictor," said Smith, "it 
 ain t no use to git excited and throw open the 
 throttle. If you do git back to Fairport to 
 morrow, by that time Harry ll have the strike 
 all called off and the men will be back at work 
 again, and it won t be so easy. No, Yictor, 
 Harry s got the brakes on and you got to quit, 
 and you best quit easy. Ma s making them 
 corn griddle-cakes you used to like so, and she s 
 frying some sausages and potatoes and making 
 
106 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 coffee, and we got a good bed for you upstairs. 
 And though it is a kinder queer way to meet 
 again, and we wish you felt different about it, 
 we re real glad to see you, Vi." 
 
 " If I must be in prison," said West, " I 
 couldn t ask kinder jailers, that s sure! " 
 
 He smiled his radiant, winning smile; and 
 it was a surprise to have Smith wince. Why? 
 But he was chilled and hungry and there 
 would be no harm in watching his chance to 
 escape and meanwhile eating supper. He had 
 no kinship with the Smiths, although he called 
 them " Uncle " and " Aunt; " but when he 
 came to Chicago, a lonely, ambitious orphan 
 boy, he had boarded for five years with them. 
 They were very kind to him. Years ago he 
 had left them. At the time, his heart was 
 warm, remembering a thousand little kind 
 nesses, yes, and kindness not little ; and he ex 
 pected to keep up the old intimacy always. 
 But they were shy people, and he was a busy, 
 rising man. Somehow the wave had lifted 
 him and washed them out of his sight. It had 
 been years since he had seen them. Now, his 
 keen eyes were all over the room questioning 
 the furniture. That was the old photograph 
 on the table that he used to show to Hughey. 
 
THE MOMENT OF CLEAR VISION 107 
 
 No trace of Hughe y, where was he? The col 
 ored photograph was little Maggie. But 
 where was she? It would be awkward to ask 
 and be told the child was dead. A sweet little 
 creature she was, too, and so fond of him. He 
 didn t like the looks of the room, either; every 
 thing neat as wax, to be sure, but the furniture 
 wasn t the old furniture, it was cheap and new 
 and awful little of it. The table spread for 
 supper didn t have as pretty dishes as he re 
 membered, and where were those " solid sil 
 ver " spoons that had been Aunt Maggie s 
 pride? He did hear that Smith had lost his 
 engine in the 94 strike. Blacklisted, perhaps 
 (and his heart swelled), " Papa Smith " as the 
 boys called him, the most faithful man who 
 ever rode an engine at death to save his pas 
 sengers. He wished but how could he keep 
 track of folks that wouldn t try to look him 
 up? Nevertheless, he began his inquiries at 
 supper. " Uncle Phil," he said, " I tried to 
 find you in 94, but you d moved away." 
 
 " There ! " cried the woman, impulsively, 
 " I told you, pa!" 
 
 " So you did, ma," Smith admitted, " and 
 I m real glad you was right. Well, I knowed 
 myself, Vi, if you knowed the fix we was in, 
 
103 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 you d have come a running to help us, but 
 there!" 
 
 " Why didn t you write me? " 
 
 Smith looked shamefacedly at his wife. 
 " Why, fact is, I did write ; asked if you hap 
 pened to know of a job. But, fact is, I wasn t 
 up to more than a postal card, then," he 
 grinned awkwardly " and I wrote it on 
 that." 
 
 " I never got it," exclaimed West, prompt 
 ly, but he changed color, remembering, ab 
 ruptly, how he would let the typewriter sort 
 over his mail; and how little attention was 
 paid to postals. He hastened to say that he 
 had once gone out to their house in Kenwood. 
 
 "Yes, I lost the house," said Smith; 
 " pretty rough. I had it half paid for, and I 
 had to sell it for two hundred and twenty 
 dollars. You see the engineers wasn t out; 
 but I went to hear Gene Debs one night, and 
 he worked me up so I didn t see straight. 
 Hadn t any grievance, but I couldn t bear to 
 leave the boys, and they were calling me a 
 scab, and that speech tumbled me off my base. 
 I jumped off my engine when I found the sol 
 diers was going on my train. More n that, be 
 ing plumb crazy, I went out with the crowd. 
 
THE MOMENT OF CLEAR VISION 109 
 
 They were throwing rocks. / wasn t; but 
 who was to know that ? I looked up and I saw 
 the old man himself, the president of the road, 
 looking right at ine. I s pose they marked me 
 down for a violent rioter, that minnit." 
 " And so they blacklisted you? " 
 " Well, you see there has been such a sight 
 of men looking for jobs on railways, and such 
 a awful few railroad jobs to give ? em that it 
 was no more than nature for the railroads to 
 stand by the men who d stood by them, and 
 give the other fellers who had made em such 
 a lot of trouble the marble heart. And I got 
 it. I d an awful hard time. Once or twice I 
 got a engine, sorter scrub engine, of course; 
 but in a little while I d be laid off. God knows 
 whether twas the blacklist or they really 
 didn t have the work, like they said. I had to 
 go, anyway. We d a hard time, Yi, a awful 
 hard time. Ma, she went out as scrub-woman, 
 she did, when we was at the worst after little 
 Maggie died. She caught cold one day and 
 had a bad cough, and it got worse and that s 
 how. I ain t been the same man since, I guess. 
 You remember how Maggie and me I guess 
 there never was a parent set more by a child ; 
 and there never was a child was better or 
 
110 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 brighter and always laughing, don t you re 
 member, Vi? fall down and hurt herself and 
 scramble up on her little fat legs and lift up her 
 little face with her lip a quivering, but laugh 
 ing. Pa and Maggie don t cry! says she 
 because I said that to her after I got burned 
 in the accident, you know; she was pitying me 
 . so. And she made it her own word, ever after 
 ward." 
 
 " I hope I wish I could have done some 
 thing Uncle Phil, this is awful! " 
 
 " She had every comfort, Victor," said 
 Mrs. Smith. 
 
 " Yes, she did," said Smith, " twas then I 
 sold the house." 
 
 " And Hughey? Couldn t he help you? " 
 
 Mrs. Smith said something about cakes, and 
 rose hastily, in spite of West s protest that he 
 didn t wish any more cakes. 
 
 " I guess you ain t heard about Hughey, 
 Victor " sinking his voice " don t speak 
 about it before ma. You you re about the 
 only one of our friends I d be willing to have 
 know it, but I guess you know the sorter boy 
 Hughey was, and you won t be hard on him; 
 he jest went crazy, Hughey did in that 
 strike. He threw up his job s fireman; and 
 
THE MOMENT OF CLEAR VISION III 
 
 after the strike was over he got to running 
 with a awful bad lot that cursed all the rich 
 folks and said that property was robbery, and 
 poor Hughey, he was always that tender 
 hearted you know, always from a child; and 
 he fairly went wild. He heard about a job in 
 Fairport, at Cochrane s, fireman to the sta 
 tionary engineer. He didn t git much wages 
 and his crazy friends was always at him. 
 Well they d a safe, of course. There was 
 two men, they got at Hughey. They got 
 round him." The father looked appealingly 
 at West. " You know how easy it was to git 
 round Hughey. And he didn t think it was 
 wrong. That s how it was. They caught 
 them. Hughey only s got a year. Ma s been 
 to see him. She says he feels a good deal 
 changed. Harry Leroy, he s been awful good 
 to him. He was a good friend of his at the 
 trial, too. Telling about how faithful Hughey 
 was at his work. Harry s been awful good to 
 Hughey. It might be worse, don t you think, 
 Yi? Cochrane says he ll take him back and 
 give him another show. And Harry s talking 
 to him bout them notions of his. . I would 
 it be too much trouble for you when you re in 
 Fairport to go see him, Yi? He thinks a lot 
 
112 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 of you. He used to git all your speeches when 
 they d come out in the papers." 
 
 " I ll be glad to go," said West. He spoke 
 the truth; any kindness to the Smiths would 
 be a relief to his conscience. " But, see here, 
 yourself? " West asked, " isn t there any way 
 I can help you ? " 
 
 Smith s brow cleared; he smiled like the old 
 " Papa Smith " West used to know. 
 
 "That s jest like you. Ma! Victor s got 
 his hand in his pocket " which was true 
 " he wants to give us some of his mun." 
 
 " Not on your life, Vi," called Mrs. Smith, 
 heartily. She pattered in, her hands full. 
 Her eyes were red, but she was smiling. 
 " You re jest the same Yi, if you have got 
 famous. You keep your money; we don t 
 need it, pa s got a good job Pa, you tell Vi 
 how you got your job! " 
 
 It was a relief to have Smith plunge into the 
 new subject with a glance at his wife and a 
 sputtering laugh. " Why, it was this way, 
 Victor. I d been tramping for most two years 
 when I run into a job here. Got a stationary 
 engine. Dirt train. She was the worst old 
 terror I ever struck, running loose all the time, 
 and kicking up sech a noise you d think she d 
 
THE MOMENT OF CLEAR VISION 113 
 
 bust, next minnit. But I was awful glad to 
 git her. And I did my darndest to please and 
 hold my job. Hung on all spring, all sum 
 mer. Feeling kinder easy when, one day, who 
 should I see in front of me but the old man. 
 Him! The pipe tumbled out of my mouth 
 and me on all fours after it, to pick up the 
 pieces. I felt like I was all crumpled up. He 
 never said a word to me. No more I never said 
 a word to him. Picked up the pieces of that 
 pipe and he was gone off. First I thought I 
 wouldn t tell ma; then, I thought I wouldn t 
 want her keeping things from me; and I re 
 membered we d been through a good deal to 
 gether; and, fact is, I had to tell her. And 
 she advised me right straight to tell the old 
 man the whole story, bout little Maggie and 
 all. But I couldn t bring myself to that. I 
 went back next day, in an awful sweat, figur 
 ing on brassing it out as John Smith. And I 
 guess you could have wrung me out like a wet 
 rag when I seen the old man bearing down on 
 me. He s a little, fleshy man, and wears a 
 brown overcoat that never s buttoned ; and be 
 fore the strike I used to think he was a real 
 pleasant gentleman, and often had a word 
 with him. He used to be a poor boy himself, 
 8 
 
114: THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 you know. But, that day, when I seen him 
 steering for me, and thought of Maggie at 
 home and all the misery I d seen, I was equal 
 to murdering him, if we d been off by our 
 selves. He was on me before I had got my 
 story clear in my mind. ( What s the matter 
 with that engine, Phil? says he. 
 
 " Nothing but age/ says I then it come 
 to me, I d answered to my name. You see a 
 man gits so infernally used to his own name 
 it s hard to drop it. My name ain t Phil, 
 says I, it s John William, they most generally 
 call me John, here yes, they did, too, and 
 lots of trouble I had remembering, and plenty 
 of times I didn t remember and wouldn t an 
 swer quick. But, there, I stood scowling at 
 him and wondering whether I wouldn t break 
 his head if he gave me the bounce and, My 
 name s John William Smith, says I. You 
 used to be an honest man, Phil, says he, 
 when I knew you. I was so sure of you in 
 the strike I told Kane to have an engine ready 
 for you, I knew you wouldn t be scared. 7 
 Then, somehow, I remembered what ma said 
 and it didn t seem so hard to do it ; and it all 
 come out. I told him the whole story, black 
 list and all; and I stuck my eyes on the but- 
 
TEE MOMENT OF CLEAR VISION 115 
 
 tons in his vest his overcoat was a flying, way 
 it always had, no matter what the weather 
 and I couldn t see how he was taking it; but 
 what I did see was three men come bustling up 
 to him. And I stopped short and looked up 
 at him; the men were right in hearing. What 
 do you think he said? He said, That s all 
 right, Phil! It turned me so queer I most 
 couldn t keep on my feet ; and I couldn t tell 
 either what he meant to do; but that night I 
 found out, for the agent he come out and says 
 he, You re always scouring up that old tub, 
 Smith, but I guess I d let the new man do that, 
 
 to-night. What in h do you mean? 
 
 says I, but I guessed I knew, else I wouldn t 
 have spoke so rough; and I guess he did, too, 
 for he laughed out, You lost your job, Smith; 
 but you ve got a better, you re to take out !N"o. 
 253 on the freight in future; and you better 
 be slinging your oil-can over there where it is 
 waiting! You bet I didn t mind them laugh 
 ing at me, then. And yet, when I seen the 
 president, that very next morning, me leaning 
 out of my cab and feeling like well, I can t 
 tell you how I felt feeling an engine under me 
 that could go! will you believe I jest 
 couldn t say nothing, couldn t do nothing but 
 
116 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 swaller and swaller and look like a fool. 
 That s all right, Phil/ says he, again, and off 
 before I could git my tongue loose. " 
 
 West was not as ready as usual with a re 
 ply; but he said that he was heartily glad 
 Phil had his job back again. " I m to have a 
 passenger next month," said Phil, " I ve got 
 all my dues paid up. I m square with the 
 union. But, I guess you can see why I ain t 
 stuck on strikes. And maybe a little why I m 
 helping Harry." 
 
 " I see," said West. He made an excuse to 
 go up to his own room for a few moments 
 while Mrs. Smith washed the dishes. He stood 
 in the centre of the bare little room and 
 thought hard. He was accustomed to regard 
 himself as an honest man, a soldier of human 
 ity, to be frank, as a fine fellow only we 
 never coarsely tell ourselves that we are fine 
 fellows, we simply feel it, as we feel cold or 
 warm or hungry. West had felt the delicate 
 intoxication of satisfied vanity; but he had 
 never imagined the glow and the elation to 
 come from vanity; he credited it all to an ap 
 proving conscience. !N"ow, he looked at a 
 strike from Harry Leroy s point of view. 
 Poor Hughey! what a tender-hearted little 
 
THE MOMENT OF CLEAR VISION 117 
 
 chap he was in those days, with a funny little 
 face that would tie itself up in knots of 
 anguish over West s tales of kidnapped chil 
 dren. And how Hughey and Mrs. Smith 
 used to cheer him, that first year when he was 
 admitted to the United Brotherhood of Car 
 penters, E"o. 8, by listening breathlessly to all 
 his speeches and weeping all through the 
 speech he made for Hiram Dixon s funeral. 
 It was a little more than he had bargained to 
 pay for his pathos, however, to have Mrs. 
 Smith give up the treat she had planned and 
 spend all the cyclorama money for flowers 
 " for that poor motherless lad you were telling 
 us about, Vi." Dixon was really only a sub 
 ject for oratory to Victor; but he suppressed 
 his feelings and wove Mrs. Smith s and 
 Hughey s self-denial into his speech, later, 
 with gratifying effect. His heart softened, re 
 membering how the two, mother and son, al 
 ways came any distance to hear him speak. 
 Often he would see the little woman and the 
 boy sitting as near as they could get; their 
 faces glowing at every sentence. He could see 
 the proud glances they exchanged ! And how 
 happy they seemed on those few nights con 
 found it! why were they not more? when 
 
118 TEE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 Victor would make part of the toilsome car 
 journey back with them! 
 
 Once, Mrs. Smith had looked troubled; 
 she even adventured a timid criticism at the 
 end of the lecture. " Ain t you a little too 
 hard on the plutograts, Vi? Some of them are 
 good men, and I ve known of their doing kind 
 things right here in Chicago. You know 
 Hughey takes everything you say for gospel." 
 He wasn t to blame for Hughey. No, he 
 wouldn t take that load on his soul; the other 
 men, the cursed railroad sharks he laughed 
 uneasily or the cursed fools who ran men 
 into a hopeless strike. And yet he wished that 
 he had kept an eye on the Smiths. But he was 
 so infernally busy, studying and working, 
 burning the candle at both ends; and they 
 never pushed themselves. Why didn t they 
 push themselves a little ? they had no right to 
 expect him to do all the seeking out, why didn t 
 they hunt him up in their distresses? But he 
 stopped in the middle of a phrase; for he re 
 membered when the Smiths did hunt him up ; 
 when he was hurt by the car and lay for a 
 month at the hospital. Never a visiting day 
 passed that one of them did not come, always 
 with some little offering. Little Maggie 
 
THE MOMENT OF CLEAR VISION 119 
 
 worked him a pin-cushion and Hughey drew 
 on his hoard at the savings bank to buy a bottle 
 of port wine, and Smith had spent a whole af 
 ternoon, taking him to drive. West sank 
 down in a chair and groaned. No, curse it, 
 there was no use excusing himself; Leroy had 
 been a better friend to these trusting, loyal 
 souls than he. For one sickening moment, Le 
 roy seemed to have the right of it in other 
 ways. Then, his confidence in himself 
 righted; but it had changed places in that 
 searing light. He pushed the vision out of his 
 mind, yet he never again could be so lightly 
 sure of his own judgment. And he knew it. 
 With a long, long sigh, he rose. He called to 
 Smith; and when the latter answered him, he 
 said, speaking a trifle more rapidly than his 
 wont: " Say, Uncle Phil, your friend Leroy 
 has more sense on his side than I thought; 
 will you get me off in time to catch the train 
 for Fairport, if I ll give you my parole not to 
 oppose Leroy, but let them settle the strike 
 their own way? " 
 
 Smith did not hesitate. "Why, that s 
 what Harry told me to do, keep you here till 
 you d give your word not to fight him. He 
 said he knowed vou was white. He didn t ex- 
 
120 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 pect you d come round fore morning; but I 
 don t see as it makes any difference. I ll let 
 you out; and say, if you ll promise not to 
 stop Harry, you can take the freight-train to 
 Fairport. I ll put you board." 
 
 " And we ll talk about Hughey on the 
 way," resolved West. 
 
 The rougher shook his head, while he 
 jammed the tobacco into his pipe with his 
 thumb. " Queerest thing I ever did see. And 
 West was as smooth as you d want. How d 
 Harry fix him?" 
 
 Thompson, to whom he spoke, wagged his 
 head first at him, next at the carpenter. " I 
 don t know any mor n you do. Harry asked 
 me to drive the hack. And I drove it. He 
 got in like a lamb. They may have mixed a 
 bit inside; but he got out like a lamb, when 
 we got there. Then I had orders to drive off 
 and get to Fairport in time for the meeting. I 
 did it, too." 
 
 " All I know," said the carpenter, rubbing 
 his chin, " is that Bob and I were to watch at 
 the house and not let him git out; and when 
 Smith gave the word, we were to cut for Fair- 
 port. He didn t do a thing. And Smith gave 
 
THE MOMENT OF CLEAR VISION 121 
 
 us the word; and we took the cars for the 
 depot and came on to Fairport for the meet 
 ing; and everything went like it had been 
 greased." 
 
 " That s right," said the steel man, lighting 
 his pipe and puffing thoughtfully. " And all 
 I know, it twas West I reckoned would get 
 there; and he was so much smarter than 
 Harry; and yet Henry s got onto it with both 
 feet." 
 
 " Maybe another time, you won t be blam 
 ing Harry so much for not being fiery," 
 Thompson observed, a second later the in 
 terval having been filled with smoke and med 
 itation " and you won t sock at him that he s 
 so blamed law and orderly! " 
 
 " We won t," said the rougher, " and 
 what s more, if Harry says Law and Order, 
 Law and Order it s going to be, if we have to 
 bust all the other fellers heads! " 
 
JOHNNY S JOB 
 
JOHNNY S JOB 
 
 THE day was so warm that the men at the 
 steel-works were all mopping their 
 brows with the back of their hands. Never 
 theless the furnaces were flaming and the great 
 red and black iron sheds were penetrated with 
 the incessant pounding roar of the rolls. 
 
 Johnny Burke, the new heater s-helper, cast 
 a keen glance out of his long-lashed Irish gray 
 eyes at Larsen, the heater. The tall Swede s 
 face was flushed and strange of expression; he 
 flung his tools noisily into the bosh. Both the 
 drag-down and the charger glanced askance at 
 him, exchanging opinions in pantomime ; but 
 Johnny did not speak to either of them, he 
 walked over to the roller. That great man 
 was tapping the rolls with his tongs, whistling 
 softly. 
 
 " Say," said Johnny in his ear, " some 
 thing s the matter with Larsen, he ain t been 
 round to reverse the furnace for half an hour. 
 125 
 
126 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 I reversed it, myself, a little while ago, I didn t 
 like to before; but the bridge was most 
 awash all melting! " 
 
 The roller nodded. " I told the rougher 
 the next piece of hard iron he got from him 
 to send it back; he would before only he s a 
 friend of Knute s. "Well, so m I a friend of 
 Knute s; but we can t have the turn spoiled 
 with cracked iron." 
 
 " Looks like he had a jag on him," said 
 Johnny, in a dispassionate way. 
 
 " That s it," the roller returned gloomily, 
 " he s had some sort of trouble with his wife. 
 Jealous / guess; and he was drinking yester 
 day. Never knew him to drink before. But 
 these sober fellers when they get to drinking, 
 go all to pieces. It s an awful pity. Knute s 
 a pretty good feller. Say, do you think you 
 can kinder watch the furnace? Go right 
 ahead, he won t notice ! " 
 
 " I guess so," said Johnny; but his heart 
 swelled within him. " I had a heater s job 
 last." 
 
 "How dyouloseit?" 
 
 "Strike. We lost it; and they didn t take 
 on all the men. There was a lot of married 
 men wanted to get back, bad; they didn t 
 
JOHNNY S JOB 127 
 
 want to move. And I was single and foot 
 loose so I skipped. Well, maybe " flush 
 ing with his effort to be candid " maybe they 
 wouldn t have took me on if I d asked. I 
 didn t ask." 
 
 " I guess you re white," said the roller; 
 " well, keep your eye on things! " 
 
 He gazed after Johnny s curly black head 
 and handsome profile with a new interest, but 
 far from suspecting that he had heard the dis 
 appointment of Johnny s life. To be sure 
 Johnny had said nothing of the girl. 
 
 Johnny was a new man, taken on a week 
 ago, on Leroy s recommendation. Leroy was 
 an old friend of Knute Larsen s. Knute was 
 popular in the works, not only in his own little 
 realm, the eight-inch mill, where the heater 
 has almost equal powers with the roller, but 
 in the other mills and in the office. To the 
 office there was one exception, the assistant 
 superintendent. He was a young man who 
 rated his own knowledge high. During the 
 superintendent s absence he was in charge; 
 and he had already had a dispute with Knute 
 about the " scrap." The " scrap " was of his 
 own adventurous buying; and, naturally, 
 when the turns were disappointing he blamed 
 
128 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 the heaters, blamed the rollers, and blamed 
 Knute Larsen more than all. 
 
 Knute, however, only blamed the " scrap; " 
 he did not pass his superior s bad temper on 
 to Johnny; and Johnny was grateful. 
 
 He respected Larsen, not only because he 
 was a remarkably good heater, who always 
 sent out " nice soft iron," but because he was 
 tall Johnny, himself, being very short. 
 Knute had soft blue eyes and a yellow beard. 
 He was taciturn but cheerful in his silent way; 
 and liked to listen to other men s jokes, smil 
 ing with his eyes. The last man one would 
 think, to jeopard his high wages by drinking. 
 " A married man, too," thought Johnny se 
 verely, " if I ever get married " he flushed 
 and his eyes sparkled; and he stood for a mo 
 ment absently gazing at nothing, while his 
 whole life seemed to drift before him. 
 
 First he saw himself a little straightening 
 boy, barely nine, dizzy with the glory of work 
 ing in an iron-mill and having wages of his 
 own to bring home to his mother, every fort 
 night. His father was dead. He had three 
 sisters, all younger than he; he was the man of 
 the family, his mother always called him 
 " Mother s man." His poor mother! even af- 
 
JOHNNY S JOB 129 
 
 ter all those years the lump climbed into John 
 ny s throat as he remembered how the three 
 little sisters had all died in one dreadful week 
 of diphtheria, and how he stood alone by his 
 mother, beside the last and smallest little 
 grave. Somehow the shade of little Rosy 
 " who was so cute " was most vivid to him of 
 all; and his mother s grief for her baby was 
 heartbreaking. " But I ve got you, son," she 
 sobbed, " mother s little man O Johnny, be 
 careful!" 
 
 I fear Johnny was hardly careful in the 
 way that she meant; he had the name of 
 " the recklessest little devil in the works;" 
 and his mother s hair would have turned gray 
 could she have viewed him cheerily dodging 
 the wriggling, glowing red serpents that dove 
 at him from the finishing rolls. But he was 
 careful of his mother; he learned to put a 
 stout front on his hardships, to keep his kicks 
 and cuffs to himself and hide his burns and get 
 up in the black winter mornings without call 
 ing, although his muscles had not rested from 
 last night s ache; and he would make faces 
 for the pain, while he dressed. He thought of 
 none of those things now ; his lips were work 
 ing and he brushed the wet out of his eyes be- 
 
130 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 cause he remembered how happy his mother 
 was when he was made strand boy, happier 
 than she had been since the little girls died. 
 She laughed, she laughed out loud ! " Think 
 of you only thirteen and earning most as much 
 as your ma ! Oh, if your pa could see you this 
 day! If he could know how you ve been 
 mother s man " and then she kissed him and 
 sorely scared him by crying bitterly. Was it, 
 as she said, for the joy and for remembering 
 how proud his father had always been of his 
 only son, or was it because she knew she had 
 the sickness on her? " I m glad I got the raise 
 that week," muttered Johnny, his eyes dim 
 ming. Next week, he had no mother to be 
 glad for him. He went to live with his aunt. 
 She was sorry for the lad, who made no com 
 plaints and only cried at night for his mother, 
 but she had married a widower with six small 
 children, each one, she was accustomed to say, 
 bad in a different way from the others, so she 
 had scant leisure for " mothering " Johnny. 
 At fifteen Johnny felt himself a man; and 
 not a youngster in the works got so many cuffs 
 and oaths from the roughers whose tongs he 
 was using the minute their backs were turned. 
 Plenty of kindness the roughers gave him, be- 
 
JOHNNY S JOB 131 
 
 tween deserved reproofs for meddling; and 
 he picked up ambition and rude notions of 
 honor and a reverence for the Amalgamated 
 Association. The Lodge of the Association 
 and the Lodge of the Knights of Pythias gave 
 Johnny most of his education, both moral and 
 intellectual. Never did either association or 
 order have a catechumen who listened more 
 eagerly to teachings of the fraternal duties of 
 brothers in the lodge. 
 
 " It s the most wonderful thing in the 
 world," mused Johnny often, during the first 
 years of his membership. " Well, I guess 
 there s one thing that beats em all," he 
 thought to-day, " beats even the knights." 
 And Johnny sighed. For that one thing was 
 love. When Johnny was twenty-three, he fell 
 in love. It was soon after he got his job as 
 heater; and a light heart is easy to move. 
 She was a clerk in a dry-goods shop ; our Eng 
 lish cousins would call it a haberdasher s. 
 She boarded at Mrs. Heller s, only two blocks 
 away from Johnny s aunt s house, a clean, 
 quiet place, very respectable and not expen 
 sive. Johnny still boarded with his aunt. He 
 could have found a pleasanter place for his 
 money; and he didn t enjoy the nightly com- 
 
132 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 panionship of his youngest cousin, known in 
 the family circle as " Kicker ; " but no one 
 else would sleep with the child, and his aunt 
 needed the board money; hence Johnny 
 stayed and paid it, scrupulously in advance. 
 He furnished his bare little room, making it 
 so comfortable that his aunt always gave it to 
 her mother-in-law when she visited them, 
 while Johnny camped elsewhere with Kick 
 er. The girl, Miss Dora Glenn (Johnny knew 
 her name before he knew her), rode a bicycle. 
 Johnny also rode a bicycle ; and almost daily, 
 returning from his work, he met Miss Glenn 
 returning from hers. He admired her riding; 
 then he admired her. One day, his heart 
 curdled beholding a desperate " object- 
 struck " beginner, a man of herculean frame, 
 charge down on a baby carriage, and Miss 
 Glenn pedal swiftly in between the doomed in 
 fant and the human catapult. Johnny scorch 
 ing down to her, arrived in time to see the 
 collision and to hear the crash. She was not 
 hurt the man had toppled over at a touch; 
 one can scarcely say that he lost his balance, 
 he having so little balance to lose but her 
 wheel was broken. Johnny mended it ; after 
 he had given the unhappy beginner his opin- 
 
JOHNNY S JOB 133 
 
 ion of a man that couldn t steer, coming out 
 on the street. " You best walk home, 7 says 
 Johnny sternly; " and be thankful you ain t 
 a murderer; you ain t safe on a wheel! " 
 
 The giant limped meekly away, pushing his 
 unharmed wheel; while Johnny addressed 
 himself to repairs, assisted by Miss Glenn. 
 She had taken off her gloves. Once her hand 
 touched his. It was a very white hand and felt 
 cool and lovely smooth; and somehow, al 
 though it was so different, Johnny s mem 
 ory flashed back to the touch of his mother s 
 hand on his cheek. " Ma d like her," he 
 thought. " Oh, I wish I could tell ma about 
 her." 
 
 He noticed that she did not talk like the 
 Pennsylvania girls; and long afterward, the 
 rich, leisurely cadences of her voice lived on 
 his ear. He always thought of her with a re 
 flection of the tingling throb his heart gave 
 him, as she flew past, straight into the path of 
 that mountain of a man. 
 
 " Knew he d bowl her over, but bound to 
 save the baby! " thought Johnny enthusias 
 tically. " Oh, ain t she got sand! And she s 
 a perfect lady, too." 
 
 After this incident, whenever they met she 
 
134 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 smiled and Johnny took off his cap. The 
 second week he ventured to observe the road 
 was bad for wheeling, or it was a warm day, 
 merely in passing. He thought about her a 
 great deal; and he thought more about his 
 mother and his father than he had in a long 
 time. He consulted a carpenter of his ac 
 quaintance in regard to the price of houses. 
 At the lodge of the association, during the so 
 cial half hour after the business session, he 
 made one of the most vigorous speeches ever 
 there made, on the subject of steel men wast 
 ing their wages in riotous good times. As 
 Johnny, while never known to be visibly un 
 der the influence of that which biteth like a 
 serpent and stingeth like an adder, had prided 
 himself on the hardness of his head rather 
 than on keeping out of temptation, and, in 
 deed, had been nicknamed " the tank " by 
 less capable and envious drinkers, this auster 
 ity drew much talk. Johnny, himself, felt 
 that he had burned his festive bridges behind 
 him. 
 
 The following week he had two photographs 
 taken (in his uniform as a Knight of Pythias, 
 his hand on his sword hilt). Saturday night 
 he put the best two of the dozen in his pocket 
 
JOHNNY S JOB 135 
 
 and after an hour of scrubbing and dressing, 
 took his way to the Hellers. 
 
 It was a June night ; and Miss Glenn might 
 be sitting out on the piazza with the family. 
 So in truth it fell out. Miss Glenn was rock 
 ing beside Mrs. Heller. 
 
 They both rose to greet him. He had never 
 seen her except on her wheel or beside it. Her 
 trailing shimmering black skirt made her look 
 very tall; and there was a dainty air about 
 her pink shirt-waist and snowy lawn tie. 
 " She s an elegant appearing lady! " thought 
 Johnny, making his best bow to the accom 
 paniment of Mrs. Heller s introduction. 
 
 " So you ain t married yet? " says Mrs. 
 Heller, by way of setting everyone at ease. 
 
 " No, ma am; but I m thinking of it," says 
 Johnny, forcing his eyes up to Miss Glenn s 
 face and turning scarlet. It seemed to him 
 that he had almost made her an offer of his 
 hand. He cleared his husky voice and 
 plunged ahead. " I m getting six and seven 
 dollars a day ; and I hope to make more when 
 I get used to heating. I ve got a hundred and 
 twenty-two dollars in the bank. I don t think 
 a man has got any right to marry unless he 
 can give his wife a house of their own." 
 
136 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 If his voice would not roll up like a ball in 
 his throat he could say more, a great deal more ; 
 but how could he talk when he had to keep 
 swallowing? He essayed a smile at Mrs. 
 Heller; and he felt the drops rolling down his 
 neck and wilting his beautiful white collar. 
 
 " That s awful good wages," said Mrs. Hel 
 ler cordially. 
 
 "I should say!" Miss Glenn agreed. 
 Again to-day he felt the glow of her bright 
 dark eyes on him ; and his heart bounded. 
 
 " You must be high up, Johnny," said Mrs. 
 Heller; " rougher or heater you d never get 
 that much, finishing." 
 
 " Sure," said Johnny modestly, " I m 
 heater for the twelve-inch " 
 
 "My! but you re young to be a heater, 
 Johnny! "Wasn t you scared first day you 
 went on? You know Heller was a heater, and 
 he told me he was dreadful scared the first 
 week lest he d burn the breast out of the fur 
 nace or some sech awful thing." 
 
 " Well, I was too," admitted Johnny. " I 
 guess I ain t all over being scared, yet; you 
 see there are so many bad things you can do, 
 to the furnace or the iron." 
 
 "That s BO," the heater s widow assented, 
 
JOHNNY S JOB 137 
 
 shaking her head; " you re jest like your pa, 
 Johnny, so conscientious." 
 
 Johnny, in an access of gratitude, pulled 
 out the photographs and asked her if she could 
 give them house-room. He remembered with 
 a thrill how Miss Glenn s graceful brown head 
 looked, bent over the pictures. He remem 
 bered how he lost his constraint and waxed 
 fluent explaining the objects of the Knights of 
 Pythias. But he could not muster daring 
 enough to ask her to accept one of the pictures. 
 Instead out of his grateful heart, he asked 
 Mrs. Heller, her daughter, and her little son 
 (too young to be left at home) and Miss Glenn 
 to go driving Sunday afternoon; and he took 
 them in a surrey with two handsome horses 
 that the clerk of the livery stable told him were 
 never allowed to go without a stable driver; 
 but he said that for a dollar extra he, Johnny, 
 being known to be a careful man, should be 
 given the fiery steeds. Johnny did not find 
 them fiery ; but he had the pleasure of passing 
 over the clerk s cautions to Mrs. Heller; and 
 she sat on the back seat with her children, 
 clasping them in her arms and calling 
 " whoa! " loudly every time one of the horses 
 lashed a fly; and Miss Dora was on the front 
 
138 THE HEART OP TOIL 
 
 seat with him; and the gates of paradise 
 swung open. 
 
 But the days went by without his adventur 
 ing any further confusion. Twice he rode in 
 the park with her, once on Saturday evening, 
 once on Sunday afternoon. He told her of his 
 parents, of his hopes, of his ambitions, he told 
 her of everything but his love; and that was 
 so timid, so worshipful that he could not bring 
 himself to speech. She told him that she was 
 an orphan with one sister who was married and 
 always begging her to try for employment in 
 the town where she lived. " Sometimes I 
 think I will," she said. " I was born West and 
 I love it there ; I get homesick for the Missis 
 sippi River. I hate the big cities like this. 
 I love a town where there are trees on the 
 streets and all the folks have yards to their 
 houses. And I love to see the river." 
 
 " Yes, a river s a great thing," said Johnny. 
 " I don t know when I learned to swim, I was 
 so little. Once we lived right on the river and 
 my mother was so fraid I d get drownded. 
 But she wasn t after she saw me swim." 
 
 " Mrs. Heller says you saved a little boy 
 from drowning, once." 
 
 " Shaw, that was nothing, the kid fell in the 
 
JOHNNY S JOB 139 
 
 cistern and all I had to do was to tread water. 
 Johnny was tempted to tell of the man that he 
 had saved in the river; but he thought that 
 would look like bragging and held his peace. 
 
 She was riding, slowly, her eyes on the grass- 
 plots that swam before them as they passed. 
 Her brown hair took sunnier glints in the twi 
 light glow, the delicate oval of her cheek was 
 flushed. She was pretty, as thousands of 
 American girls are pretty, but in that light, 
 with the gentle thought in her eyes, she looked 
 an angel to her lover. He caught his breath. 
 " If I get married, my wife shall live where 
 she pleases if I can only get good work," said 
 he, frowning and grasping the handle-bar with 
 a grip of steel. 
 
 He did not see her face or he would have 
 seen that she grew red; but she laughed and 
 exclaimed, " Oh, what a beautiful road to 
 scorch! " 
 
 Johnny could not understand whether she 
 wanted to put him off; but he was too shy to 
 persist. He bent over his handle-bar. 
 
 The next day the long-threatening strike be 
 gan. Johnny had no job; no right, he 
 thought, to speak. " I ll wait until we win 
 and I m back," he said. And they did not 
 
140 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 win. That was a hard month to Johnny, a 
 hard decision to make, to relinquish his fair 
 hopes and go on the road for a job. But, 
 swearing at his luck, Johnny chose a heavy 
 heart instead of a loaded conscience ; and went 
 dismally to Mrs. Heller to tell them that he 
 must go. " My sakes alive ! " cried Mrs. Hel 
 ler, waving her pudgy hands in the air, 
 " didn t you know it? Miss Glenn s -gone. 
 Her sister s been writing and writing; and 
 she decided yesterday she d go. She left her 
 good-by for you ; and hoped if you was ever in 
 Fairport, la., you d come to see her." 
 
 Johnny s cheeks were a kind of blue white. 
 His teeth came together with a click. His nos 
 trils widened. Mrs. Heller turned away from 
 his miserable eyes. 
 
 " I I give her one of your photographs 
 afore she went, Johnny," said she; " you don t 
 mind." 
 
 Johnny laughed. " I guess I don t. I 
 guess you re an awful good friend of mine. 
 Good-by, Mrs. Heller, a friend of mine knows 
 a Mr. Leroy in Fairport. He s president of 
 the Labor Council; and I ll get a letter to 
 him. There s a new steel works in Fairport or 
 just cross the river. I m going to try for a 
 
JOHNNY S JOB 141 
 
 job there. What what s Miss Dora s ad 
 dress V 
 
 But Miss Dora had left no address. " May- 
 be s a little town; and I don t need it," said 
 Johnny stoutly. He took the night train for 
 the West, leaving consolation gifts for his 
 weeping aunt and the cousins, and carrying 
 away a very scanty remainder of his savings. 
 " Oh, I ll get along," he said to the boys at the 
 train; and he would not borrow and went 
 away smiling; and nobody saw the puckered 
 face bent over the back of the car-seat as the 
 flaming chimneys fell behind. " Think of 
 them boys, who are all stone-broke and just 
 got their jobs back, wanting to lend me 
 money," he gurgled to the roar of the train. 
 " I ll never find no such friends anywhere 
 else!" 
 
 He was desperately lonely the first week in 
 Fairport. He would have been more lonely 
 but for Harry Leroy, who asked him once to 
 supper at his own house and gave him a good 
 word with Knute Larsen and the superintend 
 ent of the Edgewater Steel Works, and lent 
 him papers to read. 
 
 He walked the streets and rode on the street- 
 railways and bought papers of pins or thread 
 
142 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 or needles or a cake of soap in every dry-goods 
 shop in the city of Fairport ; but not once did 
 he see the face that haunted his heart. 
 
 Not once until this morning; and because 
 of this morning, because of an eyeblink of a 
 face at a car- window whirling by just as he 
 turned to go his way to the works he stood 
 now viewing the panorama of his life, and 
 sure that for this all had been worth the liv 
 ing. 
 
 He roused himself to attend to the drafts of 
 the furnace. Knute was lurching about in a 
 heavy-gaited way smiling feebly did anyone 
 speak to him; and making futile attempts to 
 focus his glassy eyeballs on the speaker. 
 
 " You go to the window and get a breath of 
 air," said Johnny. " I ll talk to the boss." 
 
 " Where s Larsen? " said the assistant su 
 perintendent. 
 
 " He s most sick to-day; it s so hot." 
 
 " It s infernal weather," grumbled the 
 young man; but he looked after Knute s 
 swaying back in a way that Johnny did not 
 like. 
 
 A few minutes later Johnny, having gone 
 to the window himself for a gasp of relief from 
 the dead heat of the mill, heard the assistant 
 
JOHNNY S JOB 143 
 
 and the time-keeper talking. They were in 
 the roadway below and did not see him. 
 
 " I guess there is," the time-keeper was say 
 ing in answer to some question. " I noticed 
 he was wrong when I was in there, taking 
 time; he couldn t hardly answer me; but it 
 may be the heat." 
 
 " Doesn t look like it," said the assistant; 
 " if he is drunk, he ll go, that s all. It s too 
 cursed risky! Johnny Burke used to be a 
 heater and he can take the place. I m not go 
 ing to have a mess at the eight-inch to report 
 to the old man, to-morrow." They passed on; 
 and Johnny went back to the furnace think 
 ing, " I ll give Knute a hint; he ain t show 
 ing good sense." 
 
 But there was Knute, prone on the sand- 
 heap beside the furnace, in the scorching heat, 
 his purple face full in the glow. Johnny did 
 not look at his face. He looked, his eyes hard 
 ening, at the photograph slipping out of the 
 drunken hand. It was a woman s face; and 
 the face was Dora Glenn s. Johnny set his 
 teeth and strode to the window. There was a 
 throbbing in the back of his head ; he couldn t 
 breathe. 
 
 " Trouble with his wife ! " And Dora was 
 
144: THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 his wife. They hadn t been married a month; 
 yet he was quarrelling with her and getting 
 drunk. He felt no anger against the girl. 
 " She didn t promise me nothing," he groaned, 
 " she ain t to blame for me being a fool. Oh 
 God ! I didn t have a look from her that I got 
 the right to remember against her." It was a 
 forlorn comfort that she wasn t to blame. She 
 wasn t to blame with that brute, either. He 
 knew that. A sickening rage at the man who 
 could treat her so turned him dizzy. " I ll not 
 lift a hand for him " that was his first con 
 scious thought " I won t scab any man s job; 
 but I am not going to try to save his for him, 
 he can take his chances by ! " 
 
 Out of the corner of his eye he had a vision 
 of the young boss at the straightening beds. 
 " I ain t going to look round," said Johnny, 
 doggedly. Therefore he stared out of the win 
 dow in time to see Harry Leroy on his way to 
 the office with a message about the Cochrane 
 Company s steel. Leroy sent him a friendly 
 smile and a hail; " Don t forget you take 
 supper with me, Saturday. We ll have 
 chicken! " 
 
 Johnny s head sank. He waited a second 
 longer. "Oh Lord, I got to do it," he 
 
JOHNNY S JOB 14.5 
 
 groaned. " I couldn t look him in the face if 
 I didn t. Knute s a brother knight, too! " 
 
 With that he rushed off to Knute. The 
 assistant superintendent was walking toward 
 him from the other direction. But Johnny 
 reached the insensible man first, had the 
 whiskey flask out and was bathing the purple 
 face, at the same instant calling loudly on Bill 
 the drag-down and George the charger. 
 
 " Get him to the faucet, get some ice 
 water! " roared Johnny above the din; " he s 
 prostrated by the heat ! Tell the boss, some of 
 you boys! " 
 
 " Whiskey sunstroke I guess," said the su 
 perintendent, sniffing. 
 
 " I was bathing him with it," Johnny ex 
 plained promptly; " he was hot and dry s 
 aboard!" 
 
 " That s it," agreed the roller, bustling up, 
 " he complained of his head to me, this morn- 
 ing." 
 
 " And he said he couldn t sweat a mite and 
 he felt all burning up! " chimed in George; 
 while Bill proffered testimony in the same 
 strain. The united stress of opinion was too 
 much for the assistant superintendent s nerve ; 
 after all, it might be sunstroke, anyhow the 
 10 
 
146 TEE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 men would swear that it was; and there was 
 the old man to consider; he watched them 
 drenching Knute with ice-water; and all he 
 said was, " He s coming round all right. He 
 better go home," and so walked away. 
 
 But Knute had his own mind about going 
 home. He opened his eyes, into which the 
 light was creeping, and stared at Johnny. 
 " Did I lose my job? " said he. 
 
 " No, you re all right," said Johnny. 
 
 " You boys kept it for me ? It vas bout my 
 vife. See s good vomans, but see s gone back 
 on me. See ? I guess I kill myself." 
 
 " Oh, rats ! " said Johnny. " Here, get up ; 
 the boss thinks it sunstroke and you can go 
 home." 
 
 " No, I don t go home," said Knute, sitting 
 Tip, " the old mans, fore he vent, said to try to 
 git sixty t ousand of half -inch round I git it, 
 dis turn. Dot s vy I drink to make me 
 strong, cause my head is wrong dis hot wed- 
 der." 
 
 Despite the roller s protestations he stag 
 gered to his feet. " Yonny vill help me/ he 
 said, " I git along." 
 
 As for Johnny, he laid every nerve to work 
 to guard Larsen, and to make his estimate of 
 
JOHNNY S JOB 147 
 
 the turn good. He would not think; he would 
 not feel; he had the billets to watch and the 
 furnace. Sixty thousand was a big turn. But 
 when the weight was posted on the board, Bill 
 and George came to slap him on the back as 
 well as Larsen; and Larsen s eyes brightened. 
 He was quite sober, now. " I m mooch 
 obliged to you boys/ 7 he said, " dot s a good 
 turn. Yonny is a good heater. Good-by." 
 
 He shook hands with the roller and the 
 finisher, with the roughers and his own helpers. 
 Then, he took out his knife and handed it to 
 one of the straightening boys, saying, " You 
 got dat knife, Hughey, I gif him to you." 
 
 Hughey grinned; but the men exchanged 
 uneasy glances and talked to each other, as 
 Knute walked off to his locker for his coat. 
 They would have drafted Johnny into the 
 conversation, but he had slipped outside. 
 " It s none of my business if he does try to kill 
 himself, best thing for her, I guess." In this 
 fashion he muttered to himself, nevertheless 
 not mending his pace, going more slowly, in 
 fact, with each word. " Supposing he is a 
 brother knight it s none of my business." 
 He stood still. "The way those Pittsburg 
 knights stood by me ain t got nothing to do 
 
148 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 with it! " He turned on his heel. " D 
 
 it! " He walked back to the works. 
 
 Little groups of the men were all along the 
 road, and in the second group he saw George 
 the charger lending a sympathetic arm to 
 Knute, Bill and the roller walking on the other 
 side. The roller s brow cleared at sight of 
 Johnny; he lagged behind for a moment s 
 confidence. " We re going to put Knute on 
 the car that goes to his house ; I guess he ll be 
 all right, then, don t you? " 
 
 " I guess you and I best get on the car with 
 him, on the sly. Maybe he didn t mean noth 
 ing by his talk, but Swedes kill themselves aw 
 ful easy." 
 
 " That s right," sighed the roller. " Well, 
 my wife is sure there s been an accident if I m 
 ten minutes behind time, but I ll go with you; 
 we ll let Georgy and Bill go home." 
 
 George and Bill accordingly put Knute on 
 the car, after Johnny and the roller had 
 nodded good-by, and Knute had insisted on 
 shaking hands over again, not saying anything 
 except, " I vas much obliged," to each. There 
 was no difficulty in getting a rear position on 
 the strap ; and Knute, in front, did not suspect 
 his two comrades presence. He sat with his 
 
JOHNNY S JOB 149 
 
 eyes on the brick pavements and the maple 
 trees, and the houses half -hidden by the foli 
 age. " It s singular," mused the roller, with 
 the artless confidence of the average street-car 
 traveller that his remarks will reach no other 
 ear than that into which they are poured, " it s 
 singular the trouble women make the most 
 sensible men. Now till just lately, since he s 
 been married, I d have bet money on Knute s 
 sense. But he s crazy over this girl. She is 
 pretty; but she s kinder giddy, I guess, too, 
 nothing wrong, just thoughtless. I saw her 
 once out riding on her wheel and a floor 
 walker down at Kingman s was riding with 
 her, a pretty little feller all dressed up in plaid 
 stockings. Now Knute s not pretty. I guess 
 he didn t like it. He fairly worshipped her, 
 though. You ought to see the house he 
 bought ! He gave her a gold watch and chain 
 say, what s he doing now? Can you see? " 
 
 Johnny reported; " He s writing on a leaf 
 of his memorandum-book. He s torn it out 
 and folded it up; and now, he s putting it into 
 an envelope that s addressed already in 
 ink." 
 
 " That don t look right a little bit." 
 Johnny shook his head. It was queer, but 
 
150 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 a reluctant compassion was wrestling with the 
 jealous hatred that clawed at his heart. Knute 
 loved her, too. He had meant to give her a 
 gold watch and chain for a wedding gift; but 
 Knute had given it to her, instead. " He s 
 getting up! " said the roller. 
 
 " S posing he sees us, coming out! " said 
 Johnny. But Larsen left the car by the other 
 door. They followed him to the street, and 
 kept him in sight from a safe distance. He 
 went into the post-office, came out directly, 
 walked a short block and signalled a bridge 
 car. The bridge cars cross the Mississippi to 
 Fairport. 
 
 " My wife will have a fit," moaned the 
 roller, " but we ve got to see this thing 
 through. Ketch on, Johnny, and don t let 
 him see you! " 
 
 They stood on the rear platform; and, as 
 before, Larsen was sitting well in front, where 
 they could only see the back of his head. He 
 sat motionless, his gaze on the water, which 
 was now kindling myriad opalescent hues un 
 der the golden torch in the west. A proces- 
 gion of wagons, carriages, phaetons, and last 
 of all, one smart victoria with jingling chains 
 on the horses harness and a beautiful, dark- 
 
JOHNNY S JOB 151 
 
 haired woman sitting behind the coachman 
 (who plainly suffered in his livery) drifted past 
 them on the opposite roadway. " She looks a 
 little like Knute s wife," said the roller; " did 
 you see Knute s shoulders jump? Say, Pm 
 getting nervous." 
 
 " So am I," said Johnny; " but we re most 
 across he s up ! " 
 
 He was up, reaching for the cord, stopping 
 the car. He turned and passed them. " He ll 
 wonder what we re doing here," the roller 
 whispered, leaning on Johnny s nimbler wit. 
 " What had we better say? You answer! " 
 
 But Knute s eyes turned, once, full on them, 
 did not waver nor lighten; he went by with 
 his strained, unseeing gaze; and nothing in 
 the grisly chase had given them the chill of 
 this blind passage. Their eyes met. "By 
 
 , he means to do it," the roller said, under 
 
 his breath ; and Johnny nodded, rising. They 
 were on the bridge floor, not a minute behind 
 the Swede; but he was already standing at the 
 further side of the railing. 
 
 " Larsen, stop ! " shouted Johnny, vaulting 
 over after him. 
 
 He never looked back; he flung his arms 
 above his head and sprang. At the very in- 
 
152 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 stant of motion Johnny s hands grabbed his 
 flannel shirt; but the stuff parted, and Johnny 
 was reeling with the splash in his ears. The 
 roller clutched him to save him from a fall. 
 " Get a boat! " cried Johnny. " / can hold 
 him le go! " 
 
 He had sprung after Knute, but in very 
 different shape, circling like an arrow, his 
 hands, like the arrow-head, protecting his body 
 as he dived. How lucky his coat was on his 
 arm instead of on his shoulders! How lucky 
 he had untied his shoes in the cars on the sus 
 picion of this very need; they were kicked off 
 in a second! Where was the fellow s head? 
 There! Look at him thrashing with his long 
 arms! How his eyes bulged! 
 
 " Keep still! Til save you! " yelled John 
 ny; and all the while his arms went like oars, 
 and each magnificent kick of his steel-like legs 
 was hurling him through the water. 
 
 He came up behind Knute ; but even as his 
 hand was outstretched the head sank. He 
 dived for it, and it rose to the surface, drip 
 ping, the hair flat on the forehead, the face no 
 longer a man s, only a mask of fear, with bared 
 teeth, and painted eyeballs. 
 
 "Now you re all right!" called Johnny, 
 
JOHNNY S JOB 153 
 
 cheerfully. " I got you. Quit kicking, or I ll 
 duck you ! " 
 
 It is said that suicides are easy to save, hav 
 ing used up all their will-power in the last 
 desperate act. .Knute hardly struggled, for 
 which one may give the reason cited, or take 
 Johnny s praise for fact. " You re acting 
 bully ! " cried Johnny. " You know you 
 don t want to drown me, too ! " 
 
 He could hear voices and the frantic rattle 
 and splash of oars. The danger went to his 
 Irish blood like whiskey. " I m all right," he 
 sang out; " you fellows keep the stroke! " 
 
 " For God s sake, keep up, Johnny ! We re 
 coming, Johnny! You keep up a minnit!" 
 It was the roller s voice, and it cracked under 
 a sob. Johnny bawled back: " Fm all right. 
 He s quiet as a kitten I ll duck you if you 
 dast to stir! " 
 
 But Knute did not stir; and when they had 
 pulled him into the boat, he lay with neither 
 breath nor quiver, and Johnny (towed at the 
 stern to lighten the boat) gave animated 
 orders according to his experience. " He s 
 breathing all right, but tilt his head and get 
 the water out of him now work his arms and 
 rub him. Get his flask out of his pocket and 
 
154 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 give him a taste there, I told you he was all 
 right!" 
 
 " He s coming to," bawled the roller. 
 " Say, what if he makes a break? " 
 
 " He won t," said Johnny; " but sit on his 
 head if he does." 
 
 Knute, however, was like a man stunned, 
 making no resistance, and meekly consenting 
 to be put in a hack, with his two friends, and 
 driven home. 
 
 " I make you lots of trouble, boys," he mur 
 mured in apology. 
 
 " Yes, you do," returned the roller, se 
 verely, " and you like to have drownded John 
 ny! I couldn t swim, or else you d have 
 drownded me, too. Now, what I want to know 
 
 is: Are you going to try this d trick 
 
 again?" 
 
 The Swede had been smiling feebly, but at 
 the words some sinister memory burned in his 
 melancholy eyes. 
 
 " I don t know. I can t tell. I got so much 
 troubles." 
 
 " No trouble s so bad you can t bear it like 
 a man," said Johnny. He felt something tug 
 ging at his heart, something that hurt it, yet 
 lifted it. He had never felt that way before; 
 
JOHNNY S JOB 155 
 
 and suddenly he, too, remembered, and added, 
 humbly, " especially if you have good 
 friends." 
 
 " And a good wife," added the roller with 
 increased severity. " I ve no doubt she s scared 
 to death about you this minute and so s mine 
 about me. I bet she s been to the grocery, 
 ringing up the Edgewater to know if there s 
 been an accident, or Sam Swift has been hurt. 
 Say, what was that letter you mailed " 
 
 Knute sat up with a spring. " Can t dot 
 man drive faster? " he cried; " I yust remem 
 ber I tole my vife " 
 
 " I only hope she hasn t run out to catch 
 you herself; and we can t find her," was the 
 roller s dismal augury. " Poor thing ! I 
 guess she s most crazy." 
 
 But he prodded Johnny s side with his el 
 bow and bestowed on him a furtive smile, im 
 plying that he secretly regarded Mrs. Larsen s 
 fright with satisfaction. 
 
 Knute sank back on the seat ; and the roller 
 eyed his troubled countenance and nodded, un 
 til his good-nature prompted some homely con 
 solation. " I guess you ll understand each 
 other better after this, Knute. It s going to 
 come out all right." 
 
156 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 Johnny sat in his wet clothes and shivered. 
 The night was turning chill, after the terrible 
 day. His exhilaration, which was no more 
 than the effervescence of peril, was all gone, 
 he felt cold in his heart; and his one longing 
 was to make an excuse to jump out of the hack 
 and run. " No, you don t, Johnny Burke/ 
 he kept saying to himself, " get a brace on 
 you! " But he choked and went white when 
 the carriage stopped. He opened the door 
 and sprang out, first. He was aware of a 
 pretty cottage and of red geraniums, and 
 a plank walk but then, he staggered and 
 grew faint, for it was her face flying toward 
 them. 
 
 She flung herself into the carriage door. 
 " Tell me first, I ll tell her," she began in a 
 tone like ice; she was pale but she was not 
 screaming or fainting, except that she gasped 
 and suddenly broke into a little choking laugh 
 as she saw Knute. 
 
 " Oh, Knute, how could you? " she cried. 
 " Elly s so frightened, she went to the police, 
 herself, to beg them look for you; she s just 
 come back Elly, Knute s all right! " 
 
 The other woman, who looked like Dora, 
 but was not Dora, the woman whose picture he 
 
JOHNNY S JOB 157 
 
 had seen, had passed Johnny and was sobbing 
 in Knute s arms. 
 
 " You get him into the house and get off his 
 wet clothes, soon s you can, ma am," said the 
 roller, who rose to the level of the situation 
 with the ripe composure of a ten years mar 
 ried man. " I ll explain to Miss Glenn how 
 you come to have a husband here, instead of 
 in the Mississippi." The single glimpse John 
 ny had of the faces of husband and wife as 
 she drew him into the house, assured him that 
 whatever the trouble between them, it had 
 shrivelled out of knowledge in the terror and 
 anguish of the last hour. " She loves him," 
 Johnny thought reverently; and with the 
 thought came another under which he leaned 
 quickly against the side of the porch. " He s 
 weak with his exertions," explained the roller, 
 " and no wonder. Let me tell you 
 Johnny was obliged to sit down while the 
 roller depicted the scene in such vivid colors 
 that he did not know his own experience. 
 " Knute s a giant, and he struggled awfully 
 my my gracious! my heart was in my 
 mouth, I thought he d pull him under; but 
 Johnny was calm as if he was in a ball-room 
 look here, excuse me, I haven t introduced him 
 
158 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 to you; I am rattled, that s a fact. Miss 
 Glenn, Mr. Burke." 
 
 " I know Mr. Burke well," she said, " he s 
 a friend of mine." She held out her hand, her 
 beautiful white hand, smiling. But, suddenly, 
 her lips quivered and the tears rose to her eyes. 
 " Oh, I haven t thanked you! " she said, " I 
 can t. How brave you are ! " Dimly Johnny 
 realized that she was looking at him as she had 
 never looked at him, before. 
 
 The roller sent his eyes from one young face 
 to the other; md a smile slowly dawned on his 
 features. " "Well, Miss Dora," 3a!d he, pleas 
 antly, " I guess I ll be going, my wife s wait 
 ing. Don t hurry, Johnny." And he walked 
 away, whistling. 
 
 At the street corner he cast a glance behind. 
 The two young figures were still standing, 
 bathed in the enchanted glow of sunset, and 
 Johnny was still holding the girl s hand. 
 
THE "SCAB 
 
THE "SCAB" 
 
 THE train was rolling its huge wheels over 
 the Illinois prairies, not so swiftly as car- 
 wheels are used to roll over that level stretch 
 between Joliet and Chicago ; but the day was 
 the third of July, 1894, and there was enough 
 chance that there had been tampering with the 
 rails to excuse caution. It was so warm that 
 most of the car-windows were open ; neverthe 
 less in the last car (not a Pullman) the air was 
 heavy with the sickly pungency of apples and 
 orange peel and the indescribable odor of cin 
 ders. Dust was everywhere ; vibrating in the 
 sunshine that changed its dingy motes into 
 gold, painting the window-ledges gray, and 
 coating the red plush of the seats, except where 
 two commercial travellers had fended off the 
 warm prickle by newspapers. Flies buzzed 
 through the car, and one especial fly so an 
 noyed the younger of the travellers that he 
 chased him to his death, remarking, " There! 
 I wish you were Debs ! " 
 11 161 
 
162 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 " Debs isn t to blame for the weather or the 
 flies," criticised the other man; " you better be 
 thankful we re going at all. I guess they will 
 have the Rock Island tied up as tight as a drum 
 to-morrow." 
 
 " Then I shall wish all the more Debs was 
 this fly! " returned the first man, coolly, slip 
 ping into his seat. 
 
 " I m not so blooming certain we can get 
 through, to-day," the other continued; " did 
 you know we have got a scab fireman on? " 
 
 " That s why those rocks flew at Spring 
 Valley! " 
 
 " They were rocks, then? " 
 
 " Why, certainly " Then the speaker s 
 voice sank, to the discomfiture of the elderly 
 woman from the country, two seats in front, 
 who vainly tilted her plump neck backward 
 and strained her ears to catch more than va 
 grant phrases. 
 
 She was a comely old woman, whose gray 
 hair was not thin, whose skin had a wholesome 
 clearness, and whose bright brown eyes spar 
 kled behind her glasses. There was a kind of 
 vigorous neatness about her old-fashioned toi 
 let. She was the single person in the car who 
 was not dusty. As she listened, an emotion not 
 
THE "SCAB" 163 
 
 akin to timidity, stirrred the lines of her 
 mouth, and a color not due to the heat, mottled 
 her still pretty cheeks. Rising, she brushed 
 the full folds of her black alpaca skirts with a 
 determined action. She smoothed out the 
 wrinkles of her basque at the waist. With the 
 same brisk and almost angry movements she 
 pulled her antique black straw bonnet off the 
 rack, unswathed it from a blue barege veil and 
 tied it firmly on her head. This done, she ran 
 a careful eye over the neat pile of her belong 
 ings on the opposite seat, pushed the handbox, 
 covered with wall-paper, into a safer position, 
 rested a portly, greenish-black umbrella 
 against her knee, and sat upright, as one pre 
 pared for action. 
 
 When the big brakeman, whom every trav 
 eller on No. 2 likes, entered with his water- 
 can, she beckoned to him. There had been an 
 interchange of courtesies and fried chicken be 
 tween the two already; hence he halted with 
 the smile of an acquaintance. " Well, grand 
 ma? " said the brakeman. 
 
 " Say, you set down by me, cay n t you? I 
 got something to tell you. But I don t want 
 to take you off your business; come back if 
 you ain t got the time now." 
 
164 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 Lyon is the most amiable man on the road; 
 he dropped into the seat beside her at once. 
 " It s fifteen minutes to the next station," said 
 he, " and we re running awful light not 
 twenty passengers on this train. Think of that 
 for the day before the Fourth ! " 
 
 " It s a shame/ agreed the old woman, 
 warmly. " Say " her voice, which was so 
 mellow and leisurely in its intonations that 
 even its angry tones rang pleasantly, sank into 
 a whisper " them men behind don t look 
 round! the one with the bald head and the 
 big ears and the fat one in the blue striped 
 shirt ; they bin settin all round the car, shed- 
 din papers wherever they set ; and I bin read- 
 in the papers. Why on airth don t the guvern- 
 ment put a stop to this f oolishniss 2 " 
 
 " I guess they won t let em upset any more 
 cars," said the brakeman. 
 
 "They Setter/ Why, it s ridiclous! They 
 throwed stuns at one car, it says. S posin 
 there d bin babies in that car! I got a little 
 grandchild two years old I come nigh a-bring- 
 in with me how d I felt if I had! And I 
 guess there s plenty other grandmothers sides 
 me, with childern, a-travellin ! Them men 
 say, too, we may have trouble cause we got a 
 scab fireman on board; have we? " 
 
THE "SCAB" 165 
 
 The brakeman nodded. 
 
 " Do tell! Would you mind tellin me, jest 
 to oblige, what a scab reely is? " 
 
 The brakeman had a round, cheerful young 
 face, to which the freckles only imparted 
 an additional friendliness of expression; but 
 at these artless words it clouded; his lower 
 jaw dropped and he hitched his blue trou 
 sers up at the knee, appearing to ask aid 
 of the thick shoes, which were tapping the 
 floor. 
 
 "A scab?" said the brakeman, "why, a 
 scab s a feller that scabs takes another fel 
 ler s job!" 
 
 " Well, but," insisted the countrywoman, 
 " I don t understand. My daughter that I bin 
 visitin in Iowa, she was havin a cellar made 
 and the mason that was doin it had a man 
 workin for him that bin workin for him thir 
 teen year and was the best man he had, but he 
 wasn t a union man, and the boss of the union 
 told him he d got to send that man off cause 
 he didn t belong to the union, or else all the 
 others would strike on him, and they d boycott 
 him with his customers, so he done it, and an 
 other man took his place, now I s pose he was 
 a scab?" 
 
166 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 " Didn t they give the feller the choice of 
 joinin the union ? " 
 
 " I don t know. I know he went off, and he 
 felt awful bad, cause he said twasn t no fun 
 huntin a job this year. Was that man who 
 took his place a scab? " 
 
 " Oh, no, ma am, he was all right, he be 
 longed to the union " 
 
 " Ain t nobody got a right to work without 
 he belongs to the union? " 
 
 " That ain t the point ladies don t under 
 stand. It s like this way in a strike: all the 
 workingmen win if the strike wins, and it is 
 thought to be about the durndest mean act a 
 man can do to step in and take the place of 
 some feller who is out really fighting for him, 
 see?" 
 
 " No, I don t see. What good would it a 9 
 done that mason if the masons had struck, 
 when they wouldn t let anybody hire him any 
 how? I don t see no harm in scabs. What s 
 this one s name? Is he a nice man ?" 
 
 ]STo one is less of an agitator than Jerry 
 Lyon ; in preference to argument he answered 
 her questions; Yes, the fireman was a nice 
 man, and his name was Eli Pauls. 
 
 " Will they try to hurt us cause he s on, 
 
THE "SCAB" 167 
 
 think? Ditch the train maybe, or some sich 
 deviltry they do them things right along it 
 says in the papers." 
 
 " I don t believe the strikers do, railroad 
 boys ain t so mean as that." 
 
 " But somebody might it s done; and if 
 there should be an accident, I hate to trouble 
 you, but I got a daughter-in-law, a widder, 
 lives right in Blue Island her name s Mrs. 
 Lizzie J. Gayter and I guess you better send 
 the body, there" 
 
 " No you don t, grandma," said the brake- 
 man. " I ain t goin to let you git killed, nor 
 anybody else. That s positive. Don t you be 
 lieve what those drummers say ! " 
 
 He went away, laughing, but his face dark 
 ened before he met the conductor on the plat 
 form. 
 
 The conductor was reading a yellow slip of 
 paper. 
 
 " Well? " said Lyon, taking an easy, rail 
 way pose on the steps. 
 
 " They stoned the last train at Blue Island 
 and nearly killed the engineer. Dragged 
 him and the fireman off the cab. Arnold was 
 there with the injunction yesterday afternoon, 
 and they simply hooted him hollered To 
 
168 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 h with the Government, and tore down 
 
 the injunctions. He tried to move the trains; 
 but they knocked him down and pounded him. 
 The deputies ran. !Nlce show for Pauls, ain t 
 it?" 
 
 The brakeman pushed his cap back off 
 his curly fair hair, .looking the other way. 
 " Pauls has got a wife and six kids," said 
 he, irrelevantly, " and he s been out of work 
 most three months he told me. He was sta 
 tionary engineer for a company that failed. 
 One of his kids is sick; he s worried about 
 him." 
 
 " What sort of fellow is he? " 
 
 " Oh, he s one of these kinder rabbit men, 
 been dodging around in his cab all the way, 
 f raid of stones. He says his wife used to be a 
 school-teacher, but she took in sewing and 
 washing, too, to earn money while he was out 
 of a job. He worked out poll-taxes or any 
 thing else he could get seems they are trying 
 to pay for a house, and he s awful anxious to 
 earn money." 
 
 " You ever see his wife? " 
 
 " !NTah, but he s got a picture of his wife and 
 three of the kids; he wears it in his shirt- 
 pocket. It s got paper over it to keep it clean. 
 
THE "SOAB" 169 
 
 She s a real nice-looking woman, and the kids 
 are nice-looking, too." 
 
 " Shaw! " said the conductor; but the ex 
 clamation was one of sympathy, and the brake- 
 man so understood it. He rubbed one foot 
 over the other, as he continued, with an ajf ec- 
 tation of indifference, " Look here, Doughty, 
 suppose I go in and fire for that feller. Max 
 won t mind. Everything is so topsy-turvy 
 now, rules don t count. And all the boys 
 know me, and they won t catch on to him 
 if he s braking in my place. What do you 
 
 The conductor was a Scotchman. He 
 rubbed his sandy hair a full minute, saying 
 nothing. Finally, he answered, " Let s go 
 talk to Max, and you better take my gun ! " 
 
 They found the engineer, a sun-burned, 
 stolid man, leaning out of his cab, and smok 
 ing, while he watched a little crowd of men 
 on the platform. 
 
 The fireman busied himself in polishing off 
 a stray stain on some brass-work. He had a 
 nervous air. As he worked his straight, fair 
 hair fell over his red face. He looked up 
 eagerly at Lyon s approach. " What s the 
 news, Mr. Lyon? " said he. 
 
170 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 " What s the news, Jerry? " said the engi 
 neer. 
 
 " Nothing good," answered Lyon. " Say, 
 Pauls, I guess you will attract less observation 
 from our excitable friends, braking in a quiet, 
 peaceful way than firing. Let s exchange jobs 
 the rest of the trip to Chicago! " 
 
 The fireman flushed. " No, you don t," said 
 he, " I ain t much on fighting, maybe, but I 
 won t have another man stoned in my place ! " 
 
 "I could have told you he wouldn t let 
 you," said Max, the engineer, in his emotion 
 less, bass voice. 
 
 Lyon s persuasions availed nothing, and he 
 was forced to leave Pauls at the furnace, 
 grumbling as he went. 
 
 But had he realized how much lighter was 
 the fireman s heart as he peered over the grates 
 at the saw of flame behind the smudge, he had 
 felt less need to belabor his own stupidity for 
 making " a bad break " for nothing. For, at 
 that very moment Pauls was swallowing hard, 
 yearning in his soul for some future chance to 
 pound a possible assailant of Lyon s to a jelly, 
 and inaudibly praising Lyon to his wife. " I 
 do think the boys are beginning to get used to 
 uae a bit," says Pauls, choking. A little kind- 
 
THE "SCAB" 171 
 
 ness went a long way with the " scab.* He 
 was a quiet man, not prone to vanity nor to 
 take offence, who had rehearsed to himself in 
 advance the snubs and annoyances that a 
 " scab " must count on getting, and had prom 
 ised himself not to resent them. Julie couldn t 
 understand ; but he, himself, had the working- 
 man s feeling about the man who would steal 
 another man s job. He didn t blame the yard 
 men and the train crews taking his presence in 
 bad part and showing their resentment in any 
 form short of stones. " It s natural," Pauls 
 used to say rather drearily to himself, folding 
 his bare arms on the window-sill of the cab and 
 puffing at his pipe ; " they don t like me tak 
 ing Ridgely s place. / don t think I m wrong. 
 The strike is a fool strike and a mean one, and 
 Hidgely hasn t got any right to throw up his 
 job and then expect other men to let their 
 families suffer rather than take it from him. 
 Julie s right. I owe more to her and the chil 
 dren than I do to a man I never saw in my life. 
 But I can t expect the boys that knew Ridgely 
 to look at it like I do!" 
 
 And Pauls had so much of the working- 
 man s prejudice in him that he felt cowed by 
 the tacit disapproval of his comrades; he could 
 
172 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 not keep his chin in the air did the street boys 
 yell " Scab! " at him. A workingman s com 
 rades are his society, there is no public opinion 
 to him outside his own class; to lose the good 
 will of the men who work at his side, every day, 
 is to be an outcast. It had really taken more 
 moral courage for Pauls to climb up the steps 
 of the cab, the first time, than many a man 
 needs during his whole life. " I ain t doing 
 wrong, if they do think so," he said, doggedly. 
 But he felt grateful even for the cool indiffer 
 ence of his new comrades. " They haven t 
 done a mean thing to me," he told Julie, and 
 he was very cheerful before her and the little 
 sick boy who was interested in the engine. He 
 didn t tell his wife how often he thought of 
 Ridgely, the striking fireman. There was his 
 oil-can and the bits of waste that he had used 
 in polishing the engine; sombrely enough 
 Pauls stared at them many a time, wondering 
 what manner of man Ridgely was, and if he 
 needed the place. Once he asked Max 
 whether Ridgely was a married man, and stuck 
 his head into the furnace door and withdrew it, 
 red as the fire inside. 
 
 " No," said Max. He added no possible 
 romance for Ridgely. Pauls heaved a mighty 
 
TEE "SCAB" 173 
 
 shovelful of slack on the grates. " What kind 
 of a man was Riclgely? " said he, coughing in 
 the dust that he raised. But Max did not no 
 tice his confusion and answered carelessly, 
 " Oh, he wasn t much count. He didn t keep 
 things clean, and he was always getting tired 
 shovelling and wanting to run the engine! " 
 
 And then the conductor had happened to 
 come up ; and Pauls had never got his courage 
 into action again. Not even to Lyon who was 
 kind to him, could he unpack his wishes and 
 scruples and regrets about Ridgely. Max was 
 kind to him, also ; but Max was a taciturn man 
 who smoked a short pipe, consuming his 
 thoughts, as some chimneys consume their 
 smoke. Lyon, on the contrary, was an open- 
 hearted, frank fellow, reared on a farm in a 
 large family, who insensibly began to pity 
 Pauls as soon as he knew that he had six chil 
 dren. He was not aware that he was kind 
 indeed, he regarded his behavior as having the 
 happy mixture of forbearance and contempt 
 due from a loyal member of a union that was 
 not striking and opposed to the present strike, 
 to a useful but odious " scab." In Pauls s case, 
 however, his feelings were complicated by 
 Ridgely ! None of the train-crew liked Ridge- 
 
THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 ly; and Lyon hated him. Lyon had a sweet 
 heart; and he was bitterly jealous of Kidgely, 
 with his handsome face and fluent tongue. 
 Ridgely had bragged that he could marry 
 " Jerry Lyon s best girl, any time he wanted 
 to/ 7 and Lyon s fists clinched whenever he 
 thought of the man. But he couldn t abuse 
 him to Pauls; so Pauls wondered at the si 
 lence. To-day, Ridgely was persistently in his 
 mind. Was poor Ridgely among the rioters? 
 "I d like to do that man a good turn!" 
 thought Pauls. 
 
 " Next stop is Blue Island," said Max. 
 
 " They are quiet enough, here," said Pauls, 
 looking out at the pretty little houses with 
 their fresh paint and the dusty street, and a 
 gray team of farm-horses with a farmer at their 
 heads. The farmer, seeing that his horses 
 would stand, left them and approached the 
 train. Pauls saw his face light up, and in a 
 second saw him swing himself on the platform 
 of the rear car. 
 
 " Yes, it s quiet enough, here," said Max. 
 
 w But I see some white ribbons," said Pauls. 
 " Don t it seem an awful strange thing that a 
 week ago we were all so peaceful and now may 
 be there ll be civil war." 
 
THE "SCAB" 175 
 
 " There won t be no civil war," said Max ; 
 " those fellers won t fight; it s jest a big 
 bluff." 
 
 " Well, I hope so," said Pauls, stealing a 
 glance at the contemptuous immobility of the 
 engineer s face; "I d hate to kill a man, it 
 would be an awful thing; and yet I guess 
 I d do it before I d give up and let em kill the 
 engine. What do you think? " 
 
 Max s peaceful face did not change; but he 
 put his hand to his hip-pocket and showed a 
 hammerless revolver. " I ain t going to let 
 them kill my engine if I can help it," said he, 
 quietly. " They d hurt her. They don t mind 
 what they do to an engine, those fellers." He 
 flicked a speck off the shining brass-work. 
 
 " She s a beauty," acquiesced Pauls, " it 
 would hurt me, too, to see her hurt." 
 
 A faint gleam crept into Max s gray eyes. 
 " Ridgely used to say she wasn t no better n 
 half a dozen engines on the road," said he. " I 
 I ain t sorry Ridgely s gone." 
 
 Pauls essayed to speak lightly, but his voice 
 shook, " Well, I fact of the matter is, I ve 
 felt pretty bad bout taking his place." 
 
 " You needn t," said Max. 
 
 He said no more, either because he would 
 
176 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 not have said more, in any event, or because 
 lie saw three men under the cab-window. 
 
 The three men were Lyon, the conductor, 
 and the farmer. An air of controlled agitation 
 hung about them all. The conductor spoke in 
 a low voice, plainly trying to seem uncon 
 cerned. He said, " They have been having a 
 
 h of a time in Blue Island and Chicago, 
 
 all day! " Now, the conductor was a Presby 
 terian who never used an oath. 
 
 "So?" said Max. 
 
 " Don t look as if anything was up," said 
 Doughty, rapidly; " there s no knowing who s 
 spying on us. I ll explain to you." He ex 
 plained in a few sentences. The man with 
 them was the son of a lady on the train. He 
 lived about two miles out of Blue Island, and 
 he had gone in early, to be there to meet his 
 mother, who was coming to visit him. He had 
 a sister in town, and she had seen the rioters 
 dropping something between the rails. No 
 doubt they were spiking the switches, but they 
 hadn t driven the spikes in. She told her 
 brother, and he had gone to the next town to 
 meet his mother there and to warn the train. 
 The place was a little before they entered the 
 depot. "That s the situation, boys," said 
 
THE "SCAB" 177 
 
 Doughty, " aud I don t know how you feel 
 about it, but I said, with Max at the engine I 
 believed we could run the train into Chicago, 
 and I don t like to be downed." 
 
 " What you think of doing? " asked Max, 
 cutting off a slice of tobacco. 
 
 Doughty and the farmer exchanged glances. 
 " We are not going to do much of anything, I 
 guess, but Mrs. Gayter, this gentleman s 
 mother, says those bolts must be picked up, un 
 suspected, and she is game to do it for us, her 
 self. She has a plan well, I guess we cooked 
 it up amongst us. But the old lady will dress 
 up in an old dress she s got with her, and be a 
 peanut-woman. We can get all Tommy s pea 
 nuts and apples. And when she gets to the 
 spot she will tip her basket over and while she 
 is picking them up, she will pick up a few 
 spikes that are of no account round there. The 
 old lady is smart as a whip-lash and I believe 
 she will do it." 
 
 " But somebody ought to go with her! " 
 Pauls cried, " somebody that knows about the 
 road " 
 
 The conductor took the words off his tongue, 
 " Lyon, of course, spoke up for the job, but 
 I told him they would be on to him in a flash." 
 
 12 
 
178 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 " But they don t know me" said Pauls. 
 
 " Well, if you want the job, I guess Lyon 
 can fire for you," returned the conductor. 
 " Come on back into the car." 
 
 Pauls followed. Lyon at the door looked 
 back at the engineer. " Will he do, guess? " 
 said he. 
 
 " Sure/ said Max. 
 
 Ten minutes later, Max and Lyon looked out 
 of the cab-window to see a farm-wagon disap 
 pear through a radiant cloud of dust. Pauls 
 sat behind drilling the impromptu peanut- 
 woman in her part. 
 
 Her son had brought a bit of white ribbon, 
 which he insisted on pinning to her blue calico 
 gown, on the shoulder (this was her stipula 
 tion), where she would not need to see it. She 
 had pulled a stiff and very clean yellow sun- 
 bonnet over her head. " Tis pretty warm, 
 this bunnit, but I m willin to do my part to 
 put down the rebellion," said she, stoutly. 
 " My father fit for the flag in 1812 and my 
 husband was killed for it in 1863, leavin Sam, 
 there, no more n a baby; and I m willin to 
 bear my testimony, now. Talk of persenti- 
 ments, I felt a persentiment creepin cole down 
 my spine, the minnit I heard them men a-talk- 
 
THE "SCAB" 179 
 
 in . And I got all my things ready, straight, 
 I didn t have to keep Sam waiting none! " 
 
 Her high spirits, which were not in the least 
 feigned, put a new fire into Paul s veins. He 
 had not thought of the matter in such a light. 
 " Every good American ought to be helping 
 now," cried she; " it s a good way, I guess, of 
 celebratin the Fourth! " 
 
 " That s so," her son agreed, smiling on her 
 proudly. But for the most part he was very 
 grave, having a better appreciation than she 
 of the quality of the scene to which he was 
 taking her. Pauls did not see the houses nor 
 the parched woodlands, nor the trampled, 
 scorched roadside drifting past his wide eyes; 
 he saw a tiny lawn, green and closely clipped, 
 he saw the clematis vine on a cottage porch, 
 rustling and waving in the wind, and through 
 the purple and green he saw a patched ham 
 mock with a little, smiling, pale face on the 
 pillow, and a black-haired woman rocking and 
 sewing, near. He remembered some verses 
 that he had learned once to speak in school, 
 they were about a dying gladiator, 
 
 41 There were his young barbarians all at play, 
 There was their Dacian mother. " 
 
 Suppose those Blue Island toughs killed him, 
 
180 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 would he see Julie and Jim and the girls? 
 The farmer half turned his head. " Got a 
 pistol ? " said he. 
 
 Pauls shook his dead. " They cost so 
 much/ 7 said he, apologetically. " I was a sta 
 tionary engineer, before, and didn t need one. 
 Max asked me if I had one, but I knew he 
 would want to give me his, and he needed it, 
 so I said, < That s all right; and he thought 
 I had one." 
 
 " I wish I had one/ said the farmer, with a 
 rueful smile, " but I haven t anything ex 
 cept cannon firecrackers for my children! " 
 
 "They re better n nothin ," observed the 
 old woman, cheerily. " Look, Sam, ain t we 
 comin into Blue Island? " 
 
 Pauls stared down the straggling sky line of 
 shops and houses. He could see the street 
 jammed with black figures, wavering in 
 ragged lines; he saw, here and there, a spiral 
 of smoke curling up from the open street; that 
 must be a blockaded engine. But, in general, 
 the sky was strangely pure, no smoke from the 
 great factories, no smoke from the railroad- 
 shops. " Debs has kept his word," explained 
 Sam; " he s tied the Rock Island up tight." 
 
 Their plans were now to be tested. Sam 
 
THE "SCAB" 181 
 
 drew up the wagon close to the wooden side 
 walk, where a patch of smart-weed and jiin- 
 son made a squalid boulevard between the 
 road and the planks. He kissed his mother, 
 saying, " I ll keep close behind, ma, mind 
 that! " Then he shook Pauls s hand. Pauls 
 said, " It s Mrs. W. T. Pauls, if you lose the 
 address." Sam nodded. " And you look af 
 ter your mother, don t mind me, whatever hap 
 pens," said Pauls. Then he crossed the street 
 and strolled along, an idle stranger, seeking 
 the spectacles of the day. On the other side, 
 an old peanut-woman proffered her wares to 
 the few passers-by. In the middle of the road, 
 a farmer drove a tired team of horses slowly 
 down the broad street. Presently, the 
 stranger, who looked like most of the men 
 about, in his flannel shirt and shabby trousers, 
 had come to the railway tracks and the crowd. 
 An observable thing about the crowd was its 
 youth. There were beardless young fellows at 
 every turn. They perched on fences and car- 
 roofs. Their hats were pushed back on their 
 heads, their faces were flushed, and they called 
 jeers and witty abuse of the marshals (as they 
 esteemed wit) from one group to another. 
 o of them walked the rounds of the trains, 
 
182 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 and stared at the weary faces at the windows. 
 Another feature of the crowd was the number 
 of women and children in its ranks, so that the 
 wailing of children was one of the component 
 parts of the din. The women were untidy of 
 dress, as plainly in their working-clothes as 
 the men were in theirs, their tousled hair often 
 uncovered and their faces disfigured by a fury 
 of excitement. Not a tin star was in sight ; but 
 a policeman leaned drowsily against a saloon- 
 door and looked to be in a Nirvana of rest amid 
 the turmoil. 
 
 The shabby man walked along the tracks 
 just behind the wagon. Though the way was 
 clear the wagon halted for a second, as if to 
 allow the driver to read one of the placards on 
 the cars. It went on and the man, following, 
 stood still for the same purpose. He was 
 roused by an exclamation of distress, in a 
 woman s pipe. Behold, behind him, the un 
 lucky peanut-woman who had stumbled and 
 spilled her nuts over the track ! The children, 
 swaKaaing there as everywhere, were on all 
 fours after them in a trice; and the owner 
 crawled about the rails, lamenting and pick 
 ing up peanuts. The man seemed to be a 
 good-natured fellow, for he was active in dis- 
 
THE "SCAB" 183 
 
 persing the small banditti and collecting pea 
 nuts. He did not lose patience with the old 
 woman, although she thriftily gathered up the 
 last peanut from the frogs and once or twice in 
 her eagerness caught her cotton gown between 
 the cunning joints, requiring his help to re 
 lease her. " Good-by, grandma," he called, as 
 she stumbled painfully away, and disappeared 
 in the crowd. He remained, studying the 
 placards. He brought some food from a 
 restaurant to a woman in one of the cars. He 
 joined in one or two very brief conversations. 
 He watched a pleasant-looking countrywoman 
 in a black alpaca gown (who came out of one 
 of the better class of houses down a side-street) 
 clamber into the countryman s wagon. She 
 looked about her, smiling happily like a child ; 
 and he smiled, too. 
 
 But, immediately, his mouth compressed it 
 self in a very different smile. And he walked 
 up the track. 
 
 The train ran into Blue Island, as if the rails 
 were eggs. Max with his hand on the lever, 
 did not let his glance swerve a hair s-breadth. 
 Big drops rolled down Lyon s pale face, his 
 teeth flashed in a grin of intensest excitement 
 and watchfulness; he kept his eyes on Max, 
 
184: THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 who, except for his keen eyes, looked as impas 
 sive as ever. 
 
 " We were to stop if we didn t see him," said 
 Lyon. 
 
 " There he is," said Max he spoke as 
 quietly as he would have spoken ten days be 
 fore " yes, that s him. He s signalling for 
 us to go straight on and not stop. Does he 
 know the signals, for sure ? " 
 
 " Yes, I taught him. By Look at 
 
 him; do you see the mob ?" 
 
 " Do you hear them? Boys this looks 
 bad! " it was a new voice; Doughty, the 
 conductor, had made his way to the engine, he 
 was clambering along the foot-board. 
 
 " Get in, Doughty," said Max, not turning 
 his head, " I hear them. "We re getting near." 
 
 Near enough, now, for the three men to hear 
 the hollow roar and hiss as one word was 
 screamed by hundreds of throats, " Scab ! 
 scab ! " Near enough to see the furious faces, 
 the clinched fists and the women s arms 
 scratching in the common insult of the mob. 
 And near enough to see, on a pile of lumber, a 
 single man, his arms above his head waving 
 the signal. " Track clear! Don t stop! " 
 
 " He knows they ll block the track. It s 
 
THE "SCAB" 185 
 
 our only chance to get through," said the con 
 ductor. 
 
 " Scabs! Scabs! Kill the scabs ! PulPem 
 off the engine! " a woman s voice shrieked, 
 shriller than the rest. 
 
 " He s going to make a run for us," cried 
 Lyon; "that s Slippery Dick behind him; 
 they ve caught on to the signals yah, I knew 
 it, there come the stones ! " 
 
 " He ain t running to us, he s running cross 
 the street!" said Max, "he won t bring 
 trouble on us." 
 
 " Here s another stone," said the conductor; 
 " I must get back to my passengers. Max, you 
 know the orders. Let her go! " 
 
 Lyon thought he heard a queer sound from. 
 Max when he pushed the lever and opened the 
 throttle. " I hate to leave that fellow! " he 
 growled; but the great black bulk quivered 
 and raced down on the mob, faster at each, 
 word. The slack flew into the furnace. Then, 
 the fireman s head pitched out of the black 
 dust and he stole a glance through the win 
 dow. 
 
 " Nobody ever kept her so clean like he 
 did ! " Max was muttering. " Jerry, can t 
 you see nothing?" 
 
186 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 Lyon shook his fist in an ecstasy of rage. 
 " If there wasn t a whole litter of children in 
 
 the way I d shoot, I would by ! D 
 
 them, they re stoning him! That dirty Bul 
 ly for grandma, she s trying to get him in the 
 wagon Oh! " Lyon swore in a sob of 
 passion that cracked into a fierce laugh. 
 
 " Why don t you tell, instead of hollering 
 like a wild Injun?" cried the justly ex 
 asperated Max. " You know I can t turn 
 round! " 
 
 " It was that black-hearted devil, Dick," 
 said Lyon; " he hit the old lady with a coup 
 ling-pin, tumbled her clean off the seat, and 
 Pauls smashed him with the same pin 
 They ve got him down Oh, Max, I cayn t 
 stand rrh!" 
 
 It was no articulate exclamation that reeled 
 out of Lyon s lips, but rather a gasp, a groan, 
 and a scream all jumbled together. And Max 
 heard nothing of it, for even that modern 
 Roman sentinel wheeled round the upper part 
 of him at a tremendous barking clatter of ex 
 plosion, followed by a tumult of shrieks and 
 shouts. 
 
 " I think that must have been a bomb," said 
 [Lyon, in a small, gentle voice. 
 
THE "SCAB" 187 
 
 " What can you see? " asked Max, a statue 
 again. 
 
 " They all seem to be running the horses 
 are running, too I can t see " 
 
 Nor could he, for there was nothing to be 
 seen but a lessening perspective of cars and 
 rails; nothing to be heard but the pounding 
 gallop of the insensate steed that hurried them 
 away. 
 
 " I m going back to Blue Island on the 
 street-cars, the minit I git to Chicago/ Lyon 
 announced. " I m going to see about that 
 bomb! Poor Pauls." 
 
 " That didn t sound to me so much like a 
 bomb, it sounded just like cannon fire 
 crackers," meditated Max. 
 
 Nor was it a bomb. When Pauls ran he 
 had no thought to run to his friends. He was 
 simply trying to turn the attention of the mob 
 away from the engine. 
 
 But thus running, he heard a voice, " Here, 
 here ! climb in ! " And he saw the wagon be 
 side him. The next instant, the old woman 
 dropped. There was blood on her gray hair, 
 and Pauls s brain seemed to burst into flames. 
 He struck furiously at the assailant, and as if 
 by the wind of his own blow was felled. 
 
188 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 He did not feel hurt nor frightened, he only 
 felt a mad, overwhelming brute longing to 
 fight, to kill, before they should trample the 
 life out of him! But then the crash and the 
 blaze came; and the crowd was running and 
 he was lying on his back, stupidly staring up 
 into the sky. He squinted one eye along the 
 ground until it encountered a curl of red 
 paper, and he began to laugh. Firecrackers or 
 not, some people were hurt, for he had heard 
 the screams. And he laughed again, while he 
 crawled to his feet. A woman not a woman 
 of the crowd, a woman with a neat dress and 
 smooth hair ran to him and helped him 
 along, urging him to haste. She took him into 
 a drug-store where they washed his face and 
 dosed him with brandy and got him into an 
 other coat. 
 
 " The lady in the wagon does anybody 
 know if the lady in the wagon was hurt?" 
 Pauls begged, the instant they let his mouth 
 alone. 
 
 " Ma? " cried the kind woman beside him, 
 " ma s all right, just round the corner in the 
 wagon. I ll take you." 
 
 She guided him out of the house, by the 
 back door, and down a peaceful alley to a 
 
THE "SCAB" 189 
 
 shady street where the Gayter wagon stood 
 under a branching maple, the horses nibbling 
 grass as tranquilly as if they had never sniffed 
 powder and known war. 
 
 Mrs. Gayter sat on the front seat. Except 
 the flutter of a white handkerchief beneath 
 the generous curve of her bonnet, not a mark 
 of combat showed on her genial visage. Sam 
 wore a new hat and he had a bruise on his 
 cheek-bone, but he, too, was smiling; and he 
 wrung Pauls s hand in a mighty grip. 
 
 " Did you kill him? " 
 
 " I don t know," replied Pauls, " I did my 
 best! " 
 
 Sam looked downcast, but Mrs. Gayter s 
 rich tones struck in, consolingly, " Maybe it s 
 best not. I don t wish no f eller-cretur to be 
 killed. Don t feel bad, boys. He gave me a 
 reel good chance to set off that hull bunch of 
 firecrackers, and I reely think, besides, I run 
 over him. We hadn t orter be too ha sh ! Mr. 
 Pauls, there s one thing, though, I wish you d 
 do for me, that is, git some firecrackers in Chi 
 cago for the childern, the king firecrackers. I 
 cayn t git them here, and the childern would 
 be so disapp inted if they didn t git em. Sam 
 will come in here for them to-morrow morn- 
 
190 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 in and Lizzie will show you what cars to 
 take." 
 
 Lizzie showed Pauls so well that without 
 further misadventure he reached the city and 
 ran into Max and Lyon, just starting out in 
 search of him. He thought it was worth the 
 tussle and all his bruises to have Lyon wring 
 his hand and Max grin placidly upon him. 
 " Well, they didn t kill you," said Max. " Did 
 you kill Kidgely?" 
 
 "Me? Kidgely?" repeated Pauls, dazed. 
 
 " That was Kidgely hit the old lady," ex 
 plained Lyon. " Slippery Dick Kidgely 
 used to run with us." 
 
 "Was that man Ridgely?" said Pauls, 
 with a deep sigh. " Boys, I ve been sorry for 
 him " 
 
 " You needn t be! " said Max, grimly. 
 
 " I wish you d killed him ! " said Lyon. 
 
 " I did my best," said Pauls, humbly. " At 
 least " he added the words with a queer 
 smile that only Max understood " at least 
 if I haven t killed him, I ve killed his 
 ghost! " 
 
THE CONSCIENCE OF A 
 BUSINESS MAN 
 
THE CONSCIENCE OF A 
 BUSINESS MAN 
 
 A SMALL cyclone was blowing through the 
 eight-inch mill of the Edgewater Steel 
 Works. Sam Swift, the roller, commonly a 
 mild and taciturn man, had been exasperated 
 to the swearing point (which, in truth, is easy 
 to reach in a rolling-mill!) by the persistent 
 and heart-breaking stupidity of his finisher. 
 The last offence was to forget to grease the 
 iiole, causing the oval iron to stick, so that when 
 the roller impatiently clapped his tongs to it, 
 it was beyond a giant s muscles, and Swift had 
 pulled it out of the guides, cursing. " Yester 
 day you tangled up the ovals, and to-day you 
 forget the grease," he raged. " You re the 
 worst man to poke in iron I ever did see! 
 Blank! blank!! blank !!! "the finisher tak 
 ing it all with exemplary patience, and Swift, 
 amid his swelling fury, not losing a second, 
 but rapidly and effectively pushing a new oval 
 
 into the guides. 
 
 13 193 
 
194 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 Finally the finisher opened his lips, but not 
 to defend himself. He said, meekly, " Say, 
 Sam, there s the kid and Mr. Jamieson and the 
 old man coming our way, right behind you." 
 
 Sam remarked that he didn t care if the 
 devil were coming; but it was one thing to 
 swear at his finisher, himself, quite another to 
 expose him to censure from the higher powers, 
 and he subsided into a resentful silence. 
 
 Young Randall, the secretary, came first, a 
 pleasant, cool figure, that steaming August 
 day, in white crash, with a pink rose in his but 
 tonhole. Next, Mr. Martin Jamieson, the 
 treasurer, middle-aged, meagre, rather near 
 sighted, never knowing any of the men; and 
 last, was the president, " the old man." Rivers 
 was his name Jabez Wentworth Rivers. He 
 always signed it J. W. Rivers. He was of 
 middle stature and full habit, and when moved 
 to anger (which was oftener than was good for 
 his soul) he would grow very red in the face. 
 Randall, who had inherited his father s stock, 
 and was but recently graduated from Harvard, 
 considered his senior to be lacking in dignity. 
 Secretly, also, he feared that Rivers s busi 
 ness talents had been overrated. He was too 
 cautious; he did not perceive business possi- 
 
CONSCIENCE OF A BUSINESS MAN 195 
 
 bilities quickly. Randall said as much to 
 Jamieson once; that was in the spring, and 
 Jamieson had answered grimly, " This is no 
 year for branching out; the old man is right." 
 To-day, Randall thought Jamieson was telling 
 the truth. His eye wandered to the dinner- 
 buckets that were coming into the mill. 
 
 "If we shut down what will they have to 
 put in them? " he questioned, and his face 
 darkened. He did not notice Swift smiling 
 and nodding. 
 
 The roller s face fell. " Can t be he s mad 
 at me for anything," he thought. " Oh, I 
 guess he s jest busy thinking." He liked the 
 secretary all the men liked him, he was so 
 sunny and good-natured, and remembered 
 their given names. 
 
 The old man rolled in, looking much as 
 usual, finding time to stop and mutter over 
 some ovals a fraction too small (nobody else 
 would have noticed them ; they were accepted 
 by an amiable inspector, without kicking, the 
 next week), and to nod at Swift in passing. 
 But the roller looked after him and shook his 
 head. The old man was aging, or else some 
 thing had gone wrong; he didn t have that 
 drawn twitch about his mouth last week. At 
 
196 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 noon the heater of the twelve-inch mill saun 
 tered up to Swift. He was a man who picked 
 up all the shop gossip. " Hear they re going 
 to shet down, Monday," he remarked. 
 
 "H !" said the roller. 
 
 " Yes, sir; orders give out folks won t 
 specify. Waiting till after election, they say." 
 
 " Who told you? " 
 
 " Nev mind; I ain t giving it away. Say, 
 did you mind how glum the kid was? " 
 
 " What if he was? " 
 
 " That s what. He thinks it an all-fired 
 shame, and so tis. Say, I got five children, 
 oldest ain t leven. Mill I was working in last 
 shet down and didn t run for two months. 
 Save anything? How n h kin I save any 
 thing, me in that fix ? I tell you, Sammy, it s 
 all wrong, jest like the kid says I heard him 
 talking to some girls he was taking over the 
 works our hull industrial system is wrong, 
 says he. You bet your life it is, too ! Look at 
 old Eivers, s posing they do shet down, twon t 
 faze him. He ll be making a little less money, 
 that s all; but you n me will be skinning 
 round for credit at the grocer and figurin how 
 often a week we dast have meat ! " 
 
 " I guess it won t be precisely a picnic tQ 
 
CONSCIENCE OF A BUSINESS MAN 197 
 
 Jabez Rivers," said the roller, mildly, as be 
 came a conservative and " better fixed " man. 
 The roller had saved money; neither was he 
 so rich in the poor man s joys as the other. 
 
 " Lemme tell you something. What do you 
 think of a man who s going to spend forty or 
 fifty thousand dollars buying a house while 
 men are begging for work to keep their fam 
 ilies? That s what he s going to do, and shet 
 down his shops. Do you call that fair deal- 
 in ? " 
 
 " He s got a house; what do you mean? " 
 
 " I know he has a fine one ; that makes it 
 worse. Tain t as if he was having to pay rent. 
 E"o, sir; I know all about it." 
 
 " Maybe twould ease you a mite to spit it 
 all out, then. What s the old man wanting a 
 fifty-thousand dollar house for? He ain t one 
 of them all-for-show folks. Never was." 
 
 The heater extracted a light-brown and 
 slightly crumpled cigar from a pocket, lighted 
 it, and puffed a second under the critical gaze 
 of the roller. 
 
 "Segars!" commented the roller. "I 
 smoke a pipe, but he with five children and his 
 wife not rugged, he must have his segar. 
 Hm! " But this was in silence, and the heater 
 
198 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 continued, " Why, twas like this: The old 
 man come round to the twelve-inch with 
 Jamieson and they were talking and I heard 
 him say, Yes, I got the cash together, fur 
 I don t mind the name is after the place, 
 too; but spot cash will be the temptation no 
 body can resist these days. I can tell you it 
 was rather a job getting it myself, and I guess 
 I sacrificed some things ; but I tell you and 
 when he got there the old man spoke kinder 
 queer, dretful earnest I call it, and, says he, 
 Jamieson, my mind s ben sot on gittin that 
 house ever sence I was a little shaver, worrying 
 cause my mother was setting up nights to knit 
 me mittens. First, I was going to buy it for 
 my mother, then for my wife, and now, I guess 
 it ll end in being for my daughter. That 
 house used to be my grandfather s, and I guess 
 there ain t a living being knows what I feel 
 about gitting it back agin; but when I could 
 pay it, I hadn t the money, and when I got the 
 money the folks that had the house wouldn t 
 sell it ; but my chance is come, says he. Then 
 Jamieson, he mumbled something he s 
 kinder bloodless feller, Jamieson, you know 
 and they went away. But I know he s kep at 
 it. That s why we can t run the shops." 
 
CONSCIENCE OF A BUSINESS MAN 199 
 
 " If they snet down the shops/ said Swift, 
 dryly, disdaining to show any impression made 
 on him by the other s narrative, " if they shet 
 down the shops it will be because they can t 
 run them on a profit. Nobody s going to run 
 shops at a loss. You wouldn t in the old man s 
 place." 
 
 " I wouldn t make my profit out of flesh 
 and blood, I know that much," said the heater, 
 doggedly, " but I know the Rivers tribe, root 
 and branch. They re hard, driving men, I 
 come from Jabez Rivers s town, and my fa 
 ther s seen him when he needed shoes on his 
 feet, too. He needn t talk so big. His father 
 was none too fine a man got drunk and squan 
 dered his money and his ma took in sewing. 
 He d ought to know how it feels to have your 
 stomach pinched; he s had many a hungry 
 day, I guess, himself. But his grandfather, 
 the old judge, he was a cruel old tyrant; and 
 the old man s a chip of the same block; and 
 he forgets how he was poor himself, and takes 
 it out of the poor man. You d think he d 
 sorter want to help a man come from his own 
 town " 
 
 " He did give you a job," said Swift. 
 
 " A job! Ain t I give him good work? " 
 
200 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 " Well, you re all right when you re steady; 
 but last week when the old man come round I 
 looked to see you git a walking ticket " 
 
 " I was doing my work if I was a bit in 
 liquor! " 
 
 " A bit is it? a good bit. I seen him squint 
 ing his eyes at you, and I could not make out 
 why he turned the other way and never took 
 no notice. I can, now. It s lucky for you you 
 come from the same town." 
 
 The townsman sneered, but made no reply, 
 while Swift drank the last swallows of his cof 
 fee, and said that his wife certainly did make 
 good coffee. 
 
 " I don t expect my wife ll have a chance 
 next week to make any coffee, good or bad," 
 was the heater s dismal comment; " but you 
 bet the Riverses won t stint in their coffee! I 
 swear I don t think it fair dealing one man s 
 to git all the good things of living and another, 
 jest s good, to go sweating out his days and 
 glad for a drop of whiskey to forget his mis- 
 ery!" 
 
 " If it comes to that, where s the fairness of 
 the Lord s making one man smart and another 
 a poor, shiftless fool, don t know enough to 
 keep a job when he gits it? " 
 
CONSCIENCE OF A BUSINESS MAN 201 
 
 " There ain t so much difference in men s 
 intellecks, if you come to that ! It is the way 
 they re treated. It s this present iniquitous in 
 dustrial servitude which pulls the laboring 
 man down and keeps him down ! " 
 
 " There ain t sech an awful difference in 
 rich folks happiness and poor folks ," began 
 Swift, but the heater cut in excitedly, " There 
 is all the difference in the world. Look at me, 
 lost a child with diphtheria, and drinking ever 
 since, cause I can t bear the sorrer, and look at 
 him- 
 
 " Yes, look at him! His son Tom, oldest 
 son, died four years ago, this last winter " 
 
 " And the best thing he ever did do," in 
 terrupted the heater, with a sneer, " call that 
 a trial? " 
 
 " Don t you call it the wust kind of trial 
 that your son s death should be the best thing 
 could happen to him and to you? Well, I do. 
 And then his wife s been dead a good while; 
 and he lost Jabez last summer, a little more n 
 a year ago. Jabez " the roller hesitated 
 for a second, adding, in a careful voice, a little 
 dry and higher, " Jabez, he was learning the 
 business, he worked with me, my finisher. He 
 was a mighty nice boy. That s what I called 
 
202 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 him Jabez. And he called me Sam. I ve " 
 his voice caught on something in his throat 
 and staggered a little " I ve swore at him 
 many a time! We were good friends, we 
 were; and he knew how to take things, and 
 we d have our dinners together. My wife al 
 ways sends me in hot dinners, and Jabez he 
 liked them lots better than the girly things 
 they d be putting into his pail. Jabez had 
 more pluck than a game rooster. I never saw 
 a man stand up to it, after he d been burned, 
 better n him! And smart he was the smart 
 est boy ever in these works or anywhere else, 
 and just as pleasant-tempered and high-prin 
 cipled, and the old man set his eyes by him. 
 They d ride home every evening, in the bug 
 gy, Jabez slouching his back over, for all the 
 world like the old man. He didn t look much 
 like him, though. I guess he was the hand 
 somest feller ever seen in this town ; and when 
 he wasn t working you d ought to seen his 
 clothes. I went to the theatre with him, once. 
 He was better dressed than the man on the 
 stage that was playing he was an earl, or some 
 sech foolishness. The kid is nice looking; but 
 he ain t in it with Jabez. Don t you call it ter 
 rible to lose a son like that? " 
 
CONSCIENCE OF A BUSINESS MAN 203 
 
 The heater admitted that it was hard, but a 
 good deal depended on how much a man 
 felt the Riverses were always hard as 
 nuts. 
 
 " Maybe the old man is and maybe he 
 ain t," said Swift. " I know one thing, he ll 
 never cease mourning for Jabez, till his own 
 time comes. He s showed me I went up to 
 his house once, he asked me, bout some busi 
 ness he showed me Jabez s certificate that he 
 got to college, all writ in Latin; and he told 
 me some about the boy, what a good boy he 
 was. < You needn t tell me nothing bout 
 that/ says I, * ain t he worked with me ! I 
 guess I sorter broke down then, I was feeling 
 awful bad myself. The old man and me al 
 ways seemed to understand each other after 
 that, somehow. He d come here and stand 
 round where Jabez used to work, never say 
 ing a word. I d know he was thinking how Ja 
 bez used to look, laughing and hustling about ; 
 and I d want so to say a word and know I 
 couldn t, and feel so so damn I d have to go 
 off and swear about it to Knute and Johnny, 
 who knew Jabez, too." 
 
 The heater thought maybe the old man felt 
 bad; he d "never seen any sign of feeling 
 
204= THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 about any of the Ei verses; maybe Sam knew 
 
 the old man better " 
 
 " Lots better/ 7 returned Sam, calmly; "I 
 ought to, seeing I ve worked with him going 
 on nine years. The old man has got lots of 
 good things bout him. He always keeps his 
 word; and he fights fair." Sam laughed. 
 " That makes me think of the time we struck 
 on him, when I was first working with him. I 
 was one of a deputation foolish enough to try to 
 scare the old man ; and by G he put us out 
 of the window while we were plunging round 
 with our pops. I had to laugh, he did it so 
 slick. I ll report you to the lodge, says he; 
 1 you re clean against your own rules and regu 
 lations; and I told the boys we were. So we 
 were, too; the old man was sound. We had a 
 talk, next day, and fixed things up pretty much 
 his way. I didn t suppose he d noticed me; 
 but, about a week after, there happened to be 
 a job at night rolling and he gave it to me, and 
 in a month he gave me the mill. { I notice you 
 have a little horse sense, Swift, says he ; keep 
 it ! Well, I ve tried to. I ve seen considera 
 ble, off and on, of the old man, and I can tell 
 you, now, he s all right; if there s a show to 
 keep the shops running, they ll run! " 
 
CONSCIENCE OF A BUSINESS MAN 205 
 
 " God knows I hope so," said the heater, 
 with a sigh; " it s terrible times to lose a job. 
 All the same, he ll shet down ruther n lose 
 money, you say 
 
 " What s that? " another man asked, catch 
 ing the sentence as he passed; " you ain t 
 heard the shops was to shet down? " 
 
 " He ain t heard nothing, really," Sam 
 struck in curtly; "he s chinning to amuse 
 himself by scaring us." 
 
 " My wife s sick, and we ve got a new baby, 
 and the doctor prescribes terrible expensive 
 things," said the man, " and we re kinder be 
 hind, anyhow. I don t know what we will do 
 if the shops shet down." 
 
 A third man came up, wearing an anxious 
 face, and a fourth, a fifth; Sam was glad to 
 hear the whistle. 
 
 For half an hour the officers of the Edge- 
 water Steel Works had been talking. Jamie- 
 son had explained the business situation. Ran 
 dall had questioned and added dismal facts 
 concerning orders. But the old man had said 
 little. Lolling ungracefully in his chair, he 
 had listened and attended to his nails with a 
 pen-knife, while Randall shuddered. The pres 
 ident stood little on niceties of manner, where 
 
206 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 he felt himself at home ; and much more than 
 by his own fireside (which his daughter and 
 only living child ruled), did he feel himself at 
 home in his office. Now and then, he would 
 throw a cross-grained sentence at Randall; but, 
 really, he was snubbing the secretary by sheer 
 force of habit ; he hardly remembered his own 
 words. What his frowning gray eyes saw was 
 not the handsome oaken woodwork or the 
 gay carpet of the office, but a stately, prim, 
 white mansion, with gambrel roof and 
 porches, and tall white Corinthian columns 
 shining through the elms. He sniffed the 
 pungent fragrance of honeysuckle; he could 
 feel the cool tingle of the moist, plastic earth 
 against a boy s bare feet. Suddenly, his heart 
 stirred with the memory of his mother s voice. 
 When he was only twelve, his mother had 
 shown him the house, one day (but he always 
 had known it), and told him how the great 
 house had been his grandfather s, when his 
 father was a boy. " It will be ours again, 
 sometime," he cried, " you ll see, Til get it 
 for you! " 
 
 And, even while they talked, his father had 
 drifted down the street, a little crowd of jeer 
 ing boys at his heels; and Jabez had flown at 
 
CONSCIENCE OF A BUSINESS MAN 207 
 
 them like a wild cat. He taunted them as he 
 struck, " You re nothing but common boys, 
 my grandfather was a judge; he sent your 
 grandfathers to jail! We used to own that 
 house! I can lick any one of you! " Where 
 upon, naturally, the boys thumped him, and 
 he was rescued by his mother, bruised and 
 bloodied and (far dolefuller mischance) mud 
 died and torn. " I don t know how I can ever 
 mend your pants," sighed the poor woman. 
 It didn t console her that he should repeat, 
 anew, that he would buy the Judge s house 
 for her. When he went to bed, that night, he 
 cried. Then, he resolved to buy the house. 
 He had two things he wanted to do, wanted as 
 bad as a man could want things, he guessed ; to 
 buy that house and to see Jabez an officer of 
 the Edgewater. The desolate father looked at 
 Randall across the table. " There s where he d 
 have sat," he thought; " he knew more in a 
 day than that young blowhard in a year. Yet 
 the boy s got stuff in him, too. Don t you be 
 a dog in the manger, Jabez Rivers! The old 
 Judge would be ashamed of you. How he d 
 have taken to Jabez " He shifted his po 
 sition abruptly; his face with its clean-shaven 
 heavy jaws and beetling eyebrows looked al- 
 
208 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 most savage to Randall at that instant. But 
 Randall was too desperately in earnest, in the 
 plea that he was making, to fear the face of 
 man. His words flowed like lava. " It is an 
 atrocious bargain ! we get wealth and soft liv 
 ing and adulation and praise in the newspapers 
 if we are half way decent, and they get the 
 right to work! Is that a fair bargain? But 
 they don t get even that; when we re making 
 money, if they kick we are ready to call them 
 all sorts of names, but when the pinch comes, 
 we cast them aside, turn them off, won t even 
 give them the poor right to work! I call 
 the civilization that, when the land is groan 
 ing with plenty, refuses the man who only 
 asks for work, I call it a failure and a dis 
 grace! " 
 
 " Huh! " said Rivers. The sound partook 
 of the nature both of a snort and a grunt. 
 
 " We pay the highest market wages, you 
 say; but I say we owe them something more 
 than the bare money we pay them. They are 
 human beings, not machines, and we owe it to 
 them to treat them like human beings, and not 
 take our profits out of their skins." 
 
 * We are more likely, if we keep on, to be 
 paying them wages out of ours," said Jamie- 
 
CONSCIENCE OF A BUSINESS MAN 209 
 
 son, " the question isn t whether the present 
 industrial system is wrong though I observe 
 that Elvers and I hadn t a penny or a right 
 more than any workingman has, and we have 
 managed under the present iniquity, to get 
 along in the world, but that isn t the question; 
 it is simply whether we can afford to run the 
 Edgewater at a loss for three months." 
 
 " Couldn t we try? And "he flushed up 
 to his eyes. but went on sturdily " I have a 
 few thousands, and perhaps my mother and 
 sister " 
 
 " Huh! " said Rivers, " don t risk women s 
 money! " 
 
 " We haven t the right to risk the stock 
 holders money," said Jamieson, " especially 
 when the chances are we shall lose it. Now, I 
 don t enjoy shutting down the shops any more 
 than you do; but I m in the steel business to 
 make money; when we stand to lose money I 
 think we better quit." 
 
 " But my own money " 
 
 " It s only a few thousands, and it isn t a 
 few thousands will run this concern between 
 now and November the banks shut tight as 
 an oyster, and gilt edge paper no use on 
 earth!" 
 
 14 
 
210 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 " That s right, said Rivers. He also added, 
 "Huh!" 
 
 " Then, you will shut down? " said Ran 
 dall, turning his pale, fair face, and flashing, 
 excited blue eyes on the president. In spite of 
 his Harvard training he was trembling. 
 
 There was an instant s pause; even Jamie- 
 son made a grimace. 
 
 " I guess we better keep on," said the old 
 man. 
 
 " How? " said Jamieson. 
 
 " Well, I don t think we ought to risk the 
 money of the concern; nor to pay fancy in 
 terest to borrow. Besides, as you say, the 
 banks are all sitting down on their funds. But 
 I have some money of my own, forty or fifty 
 thousand. I ll let you have that, taking the 
 risks and the profits if there are any, myself. 
 And we ll keep running until election, any 
 how. How s that?" 
 
 Randall caught his breath, his hand which 
 was impulsively outstretched to Rivers, 
 dropped as he met the old man s keen and 
 chilly glance. He sat silent and felt dizzy. 
 
 " But," faltered Jamieson, " I understood 
 you meant there was another purpose " 
 
 " I ve changed my mind," the old man in- 
 
CONSCIENCE OF A BUSINESS MAN 211 
 
 terrupted, sharply; " I ll be obliged if you ll 
 leave that out." 
 
 " Why, certainly," agreed Jamieson, ner 
 vously. He hesitated; he confessed to Ran 
 dall, later, that he was of a mind to shake 
 hands with the old man himself; but did not 
 judge his aspect propitious, therefore he com 
 promised with his feelings by drawing a cigar 
 from his case and offering it, remarking: 
 " Yes, Mr. Rivers, that will be a very nice way 
 out, and we are very much obliged; and I m 
 sure the men will be relieved. Well, I am re 
 lieved myself; it s infernally unpleasant shut 
 ting down. And then, there are the furnaces. 
 Then, it s decided. How about the other mat 
 ters? " 
 
 The talk went its way into the other mat 
 ters. Rivers was quite out of his reverie, 
 brusque, cynical, and sensible as usual. He 
 snarled over the cigars in his invariable fash 
 ion with Randall and Jamieson. " You boys 
 never will learn to pick out a decent cigar," he 
 growled, flinging away half of Jamieson s lat 
 est sacrifice, " and I suppose if those Cuban 
 niggers don t get put down, or can t put the 
 Spaniards down, that there won t be any de 
 cent cigars left for anyone to smoke. It s 
 
212 TEE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 sickening. Well, I m going, now; and if I 
 find that young monkey as close to the door as 
 he was yesterday, Fm going to kick him ! " 
 
 Randall and Jamieson looked at each other. 
 " I suppose he has some money-making scheme 
 in this," Randall ventured. 
 
 " I don t know," said Jamieson; " I know 
 he s pulled us out of a hole." 
 
 Rivers found the office-boy near the door, 
 but he did not kick him; he smiled sombrely 
 at the brightness on the lad s face. " Got 
 a mother and a lame sister, and looks like 
 life and death to him, our keeping open, I 
 expect," thought the old man. " No, there s 
 too many of em; I couldn t do it. But oh 
 Lord! what ll Sissy say when she finds she 
 ain t to have the house? Business losses it ll 
 have to go to. Glad I didn t tell her more n 
 a hint; she can t have her hopes up much. 
 And, Lord! what will I have to think about, 
 now, when I m alone, riding over the bridge, 
 now I haven t got Jabez ? " He shut his mouth 
 more tightly, as he gave Swift a scowl with his 
 nod. Swift s heart ran down like a clock ; for 
 a second seemed to stop ticking. 
 
 " Guess that means we are going to shut 
 down," he muttered; "old man feels awful 
 
OONSOIENOE OF A BUSINESS MAN 213 
 
 bad. Don t know why I hoped he d stop it; 
 but I guess I did, or I wouldn t be feeling so 
 disappointed. "Well, I suppose I ought to be 
 thankful I can afford to take a little vacation, 
 myself. But there s all the other boys ! " 
 
 His wrinkled brow unconsciously imitated 
 Rivers, when he strode to the furnace, almost 
 running down the office-boy, such was his ab 
 straction. 
 
 " What the h do you want, splay- 
 feet?" he cried, in the natural irritation of 
 the moment. 
 
 " Order from the old man," answered the 
 lad, beaming on him, unabashed. He gave the 
 order, adding, without the pause of a comma, 
 " Say, the shops ain t going to shut down ! " 
 
 " What! " Swift shouted. 
 
 "Old man says so. Going to lend us his 
 own money. He s got a lot in the bank. Don t 
 give me away. I heard em talking. Guess 
 the old man sees big money in it, somewhere." 
 Swift, grinding his teeth, made a dive at the 
 rolls with his tongs. " You re knowing a lot, 
 Billy," said he, in a caustic tone; " you are a 
 very smart boy, and you re mother s very 
 proud of you, but if I was you I d skip my 
 opinions on the old man. Seeing he s running 
 
214 THE HEART OF TOIL 
 
 the shops at his own expense; and we ve all 
 got to thank him we re not out of a job. And 
 I happen to know that he s given up plans he 
 thought a deal on, to do it. That s all, Billy. 
 On your way back, you might skip over to the 
 twelve-inch and tell Forbes." 
 
 Billy must have obeyed, for the turn was no 
 sooner finished than the heater appeared at 
 Swift s ear. 
 
 " Ain t it good news! " he cried; " but I 
 wish I knew what made the old man change 
 his mind. It ain t like the Kiverses. Giving 
 up what they are set on is wuss than drawing 
 teeth to all the breed. I expect he s got some 
 deep scheme, and he ll jest mint money! " 
 
 Swift had no time for answ r er before he was 
 gone; and his sudden retreat was explained 
 when Swift saw the old man himself, standing 
 by the rolls, where Jabez was wont to stand, 
 eyeing the mill. His full, florid face had not 
 grown paler, but it wore a shrunken, haggard 
 look, peculiar to such faces when men suffer. 
 Swift felt his throat contract with ugly pain. 
 Never had he longed to speak, to say some 
 thing, to let the old man know, as he longed 
 then. He swallowed once or twice, a mist got 
 into his eyes, he grinned foolishly. " We 
 
CONSCIENCE OF A BUSINESS MAN 215 
 
 turned out fifty thousand yesterday, sir," said 
 he. 
 
 A flicker kindled in the old man s dull eyes; 
 they changed, and rested on the roller. 
 
 " The Edgewater is a dandy mill," said 
 Swift; " ain t a better run one, anywhere." 
 
 " I guess so," said the old man. Half turn 
 ing, he added, gruffly, over his shoulder: 
 " And you re a damn good fellow, Swift; and 
 you always were! " 
 
 Then he lumbered off slowly, past the silent 
 engines, his head sagging a little, as if he were 
 in thought. 
 
 Swift watched him. " Lord, I hope he s got 
 somebody home ain t so damfool clumsy as 
 me, and can comfort him a bit for things. 
 Like s not he ll never be able to buy that 
 house, now; and, next to Jabez, his heart was 
 jest set on it. And he s lost em both. And 
 folks think he s doing this to make money! 
 Well, it s a lonesome world! " 
 
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