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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:36:47 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:36:47 -0700 |
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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/11372-0.txt b/11372-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..26bd71c --- /dev/null +++ b/11372-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9445 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11372 *** + +THE NINE-TENTHS + +BY JAMES OPPENHEIM +1911 + +TO THE MEMORY OF MY FATHER + + + + +CONTENTS + + +PART I--THE DREAM + +I. THE PRINTERY + +II. THE EAST EIGHTY-FIRST STREET FIRE + +III. THE GOOD PEOPLE + +IV. GOLDEN OCTOBER + +V. MYRA AND JOE + +VI. MARTY BRIGGS + +VII. LAST OF JOE BLAINE AND HIS MEN + +VIII. THE WIND IN THE OAKS + + +PART II--THE TEST + +I. BEGINNINGS + +II. THE NINE-TENTHS + +III. OTHERS: AND SALLY HEFFER + +IV. OTHERS: AND THEODORE MARRIN + +V. FORTY-FIVE TREACHEROUS MEN + +VI. A FIGHT IN GOOD EARNEST + +VII. OF THE THIRTY THOUSAND + +VIII. THE ARREST + +IX. RHONA + +X. THE TRIAL + +XI. THE WORKHOUSE + +XII. CONFIDENT MORNING + +XIII. THE CITY + + +PART I--THE DREAM + + + + +I + + +THE PRINTERY + +That windy autumn noon the young girls of the hat factory darted out of +the loft building and came running back with cans of coffee, and bags of +candy, and packages of sandwiches and cakes. They frisked hilariously +before the wind, with flying hair and sparkling eyes, and crowded into +the narrow entrance with the grimy pressmen of the eighth floor. Over +and over again the one frail elevator was jammed with the laughing crowd +and shot up to the hat factory on the ninth floor and back. + +The men smoked cigarettes as the girls chattered and flirted with them, +and the talk was fast and free. + +At the eighth floor the pressmen got off, still smoking, for "Mr. Joe" +was still out. Even after the presses started up they went on +surreptitiously, though near one group of them in a dark corner of the +printery lay a careless heap of cotton waste, thoroughly soaked with +machine-oil. This heap had been passed by the factory inspector +unnoticed, the pressmen took it for granted, and Joe, in his slipshod +manner, gave it no thought. Later that very afternoon as the opening of +the hall door rang a bell sharply and Joe came in, the men swiftly and +guiltily flung their lighted cigarettes to the floor and stepped them +out or crumpled them with stinging fingers in their pockets. But Joe did +not even notice the clinging cigarette smell that infected the strange +printery atmosphere, that mingled with its delightful odor of the +freshly printed page, damp, bitter-sweet, new. Once Marty Briggs, the +fat foreman, had spoken to Joe of the breaking of the "No Smoking" rule, +but Joe had said, with his luminous, soft smile: + +"Marty, the boys are only human--they see me smoking in the private +office!" + +Up and down the long, narrow, eighth-floor loft the great intricate +presses stood in shadowy bulk, and the intense gray air was spotted here +and there with a dangling naked electric bulb, under whose radiance the +greasy, grimy men came and went, pulling out heaps of paper, sliding in +sheets, tinkering at the machinery. Overhead whirled and traveled a +complex system of wheels and belting, whirring, thumping, and turning, +and the floor, the walls, the very door trembled with the shaking of the +presses and made the body of every man there pleasantly quiver. + +The stir of the hat factory on the floor above mingled with the stir of +the presses, and Joe loved it all, even as he loved the presence of the +young girls about him. Some of these girls were Bohemians, others +Jewish, a few American. They gave to the gaunt, smoky building a touch +as of a wild rose on a gray rock-heap--a touch of color and of melody. +Joe, at noon, would purposely linger near the open doorway to get a +glimpse of their bright faces and a snatch of their careless laughter. +Some of the girls knew him and would nod to him on the street--their +hearts went out to the tall, homely, sorrowful fellow. + +But his printery was his chief passion. It absorbed him by its masterful +stress, overwhelming every sense, trembling, thundering, clanking, +flashing, catching his eye with turning wheels and chewing press-mouths, +and enveloping him in something tremulously homelike and elemental. Even +that afternoon as Joe stood at the high wall-desk near the door, under a +golden bulb of light, figuring on contracts with Marty Briggs, he felt +his singular happiness of belonging. Here he had spent the work hours of +the last ten years; he was a living part of this living press-room; this +was as native to him as the sea to a fish. And glancing about the +crowded gray room, everything seemed so safe, secure, unending, as if it +would last forever. + +Up to that very evening Joe had been merely an average American--clean +of mind and body, cheerful, hard-working, democratic, willing to live +and let live, and striving with all his heart and soul for success. His +father had served in the Civil War and came back to New York with his +right sleeve pinned up, an emaciated and sick man. Then Joe's mother had +overridden the less imperious will of the soldier and married him, and +they had settled down in the city. Henry Blaine learned to write with +his left hand and became a clerk. It was the only work he could do. +Then, as his health became worse and worse, he was ordered to live in +the country (that was in 1868), and as the young couple had scarcely any +money they were glad to get a little shanty on the stony hill which is +now the corner of Eighty-first Street and Lexington Avenue and is the +site of a modern apartment-house. But Joe's mother was glad even of a +shanty; she made an adventure of it; she called herself the wife of a +pioneer, and said that they were making a clearing in the Western +wilderness. + +Here in 1872 Joe was born, and he was hardly old enough to crawl about +when his father became too sick to work, and his mother had to leave +"her two men" home together and go out and do such work as she could. +This consisted largely in reading to old ladies in the neighborhood, +though sometimes she had to do fancy needlework and sometimes take in +washing. Of these last achievements she was justly proud, though it made +Henry Blaine wince with shame. + +Joe was only six years old when his father died, and from then on he and +his mother fought it out together. The boy entered the public school on +Seventy-ninth Street, and grew amazingly, his mind keeping pace. He was +a splendid absorber of good books; and his mother taught him her poets +and they went through English literature together. + +Yorkville sprang up, a rubber-stamped neighborhood, of which each street +was a brownstone duplicate of the next. The rocky hill became valuable +and went for twenty thousand dollars, of which three thousand had to be +deducted for the mortgage. Then Joe graduated from high school, and, +lusting for life, took a clerk's job with one of the big express +companies. He held this for two years, and learned an interesting +fact--namely, that a clerk's life began at 5 P.M. and ended at 8.30 A.M. +In between the clerk was a dead but skilled machine that did the work of +a child. He learned, besides, that advancement was slow and only for a +few, and he saw these few, men past middle life, still underlings. A man +of forty-five with a salary of three thousand was doing remarkably well, +and, as a rule, he was a dried-up, negative, timid creature. + +Out of all this he went like a stick of dynamite, took the seventeen +thousand dollars and went into his father's business of printing. Joe +was shrewd, despite his open nature; he never liked to be "done"; and so +he made money and made it fast. Besides his printing he did some +speculating in real estate, and so at thirty-eight he was a successful +business man and could count himself worth nearly a hundred thousand +dollars. He made little use of this money; his was a simple, serious, +fun-loving nature, and all his early training had made for plain living +and economy. And so for years he and his mother had boarded in a +brownstone boarding-house in the quiet block west of Lexington Avenue up +the street. They spent very little on themselves. In fact, Joe was too +busy. He was all absorbed in the printery--he worked early and late--and +of recent years in the stress of business his fine relationship with his +mother had rather thinned out. They began leading separated lives; they +began shutting themselves away from each other. + +And so here he was, thirty-eight years of his life gone, and what had it +all been? Merely the narrow, steady, city man's life--work, rest, a +little recreation, sleep. Outside his mother, his employees, his +customers, and the newspapers he knew little of the million-crowded life +of the city about him. He used but one set of streets daily; he did not +penetrate the vast areas of existence that cluttered the acres of stone +in every direction. There stood the city, a great fact, and even that +afternoon as the wild autumn wind blew from the west and rapid, ragged +cloud masses passed huge shadows over the ship-swept Hudson, darkened +briefly the hurrying streets, extinguished for a moment the glitter of +a skyscraper and went gray-footed over the flats of Long Island, even +at that moment terrific forces, fierce aggregations of man-power, +gigantic blasts of tamed electricity, gravitation, fire, and steam and +steel, made the hidden life of the city cyclonic. And in that mesh of +nature and man the human comedy went on--there was love and disaster, +frolic and the fall of a child, the boy buying candy in a shop, the +woman on the operating-table in the hospital. Who could measure that +swirl of life and whither it was leading? But who could live in the +heart of it all and be unaware of it? + +Yet Joe's eyes were unseeing. Children played on the street, people +walked and talked, the toilers were busy at their tasks, and that was +all he knew or saw. And yet of late he had a new, unexpected vista of +life. Like many men, Joe had missed women. There was his mother, but no +one else. He was rather shy, and he was too busy. But during the last +few months a teacher--Myra Craig--had been coming to the printery to +have some work done for the school. She had strangely affected +Joe--sprung an electricity on him that troubled him profoundly. He could +not forget her, nor wipe her image from his brain, nor rid his ears of +the echoes of her voice. He went about feeling that possibly he had +underrated poetry and music. Romance, led by Myra's hand, had entered +the dusty printery and Joe began to feel like a youngster who had been +blind to life. + +Outside the world was blowing away on the gray wings of the twilight, +blowing away with eddies of dust that swept the sparkling street-lamps, +and the air was sharp with a tang of homesickness and autumn. The +afternoon was quietly waning, up--stairs the hat-makers, and here the +printers, were toiling in a crowded, satisfying present, and Joe stood +there musing, a tall, gaunt man, the upstart tufts of his tousled hair +glistening in the light overhead. His face was the homeliest that ever +happened. The mouth was big and big-lipped, the eyes large, dark, +melancholy and slightly sunken, and the mask was a network of wrinkles. +His hands were large, mobile, and homely. But about him was an air of +character and thought, of kindliness and camaraderie, of very human +nature. He stood there wishing that Myra would come. The day seemed to +demand it; the wild autumn cried out for men to seek the warmth and +forgetful glory of love. + +He could get some nice house and make a home for her; he could take her +out of the grind and deadliness of school-work and make her happy; there +would be little children in that house. He thought she loved him; yes, +he was quite sure. Then what hindrance? There, at quarter to five that +strange afternoon, Joe felt that he had reached the heights of success, +and he saw no obstacle to long years of solid advance. He had before +his eyes the evidence of his wealth--the great, flapping presses, the +bending, moving men. If anything was sure and solid in this world, these +things were. + +He felt sure Myra would come. She had not been around for a week, and, +anticipating a new meeting with her, he felt very young, like a very +young man for the first time aware of the strange loveliness of night, +its haunting and hidden beauties, its women calling from afar. It all +seemed wild and impossible romance. It smote his heart-strings and set +them trembling with music. He wondered why he had been so stupid all +these years and evaded life, evaded joys that should have been his +twenty years earlier. Now it seemed to him that his youth had passed +from him defeated of its splendor. + +If Myra came to-day he would tell her. The very thought gave his heart a +lovely quake of fear, a trembling that communicated itself to his hands +and down his legs, a throbbing joy dashed with a strange tremor. And +then as he wanted, as he wished for, the door beside him opened and the +bell sharply sounded. + +She stood there, very small, very slight, but quite charming in her +neat, lace-touched clothes. A fringe at the wrist, a bunch at the neck, +struck her off as some one delicate and sensitive, and the face +strengthened this impression. It was long and oval, with a narrow +woman-forehead cut off by a curve of dark hair; the mouth was small and +sweet; the nose narrow; the eyes large, clear gray, penetrating. Under +the gracefully modeled felt hat she stood quite complete, quite a +personality. One instantly guessed that she was an aristocrat by birth +and breeding. But her age was doubtful, seeming either more or less than +the total, which was thirty-two. + +There she stood, glancing at Joe with a breathless eagerness. He turned +pale, and yet at the same time there was a whirl of fire in his heart. +She had come to him; he wanted to gather her close and bear her off +through the wild autumn weather, off to the wilderness. He reached out a +hand and inclosed a very cold and very little one. + +"Why, you're frozen!" he said, with a queer laugh. + +"Oh--not much!" she gasped. She held her leather bag under her arm and +took off her gloves. Then she loosened her coat, and gave a sigh. + +He gazed at her warm-tinted cheek, almost losing himself, and then +murmured, suddenly: + +"More school stuff?" + +She made a grimace and tried to speak lightly, but her voice almost +failed her. + +"Class 6-B, let me tell you, is giving the 'Landing of the Pilgrims,' +and every blessed little pilgrim is Bohemian. Here's the programme!" + +With trembling fingers she opened her bag and handed him some loose +sheets. He bent over them at once. + +"Now make it cheap, Mr. Blaine," she said, severely. "Rock bottom! Or +I'll give the job to some one else." + +Joe laughed strangely. + +"How many copies?" + +"One thousand." + +He spoke as if in fear. + +"Fifty cents too much?" + +Myra laughed. + +"I don't want the school to ruin you!" + +He said nothing further, and in the awkward silence she began pitifully +to button her coat. There was no reason for staying. + +Then suddenly he spoke, huskily: + +"Don't go, Miss Craig...." + +"You want ..." she began. + +He leaned very close. + +"I want to take a walk with you. May I?" + +She became dead white, and the terror of nature's resistless purpose +with men and women, that awful gravitation, that passion of creation +that links worlds and uses men and women, went through them both. + +"I may?" he was whispering. + +Her "Yes" was almost inaudible. + +So Joe put on his coat, and slapped over his head a queer gray slouch +hat, and called over Marty. + +"I won't be back to-night, Marty!" he said. + +Then at the door he gave one last glance at his life-work, the orderly +presses, the harnessed men, and left it all as if it must surely be +there when he returned. He was proud at that moment to be Joe Blaine, +with his name in red letters on the glass door, and under his name +"Power Printer." His wife would be able to hold her head high. + +The frail elevator took them clanking, bumping, slipping, down, down +past eight floors, to the street level. The elevator boy, puffing at his +cigarette, remarked, amiably: + +"Gee! it's a windy day. It's gittin' on to winter, all right.... +Good-night, Mr. Blaine!" + +"Good-night, Tom," said Joe. + + + + +II + + +THE EAST EIGHTY-FIRST STREET FIRE + +They emerged in all the magic wildness of an autumn night and walked +east on Eighty-first Street. The loft building was near the corner of +Second Avenue. They passed under the elevated structure, cutting through +a hurrying throng of people. + +"Take my arm," cried Joe. + +She took it, trembling. They made an odd couple passing along between +the squalid red-brick tenements, now in shadow, now in the glow of some +little shop window, now under a sparkling lamp. At Avenue A they went +south to Seventy-ninth Street, and again turned east, passing a row of +bright model tenements, emerging at last at the strange riverside. + +Down to the very edge of the unpaved waste they walked, or rather +floated, so strange and uplifted and glorious they felt, blown and +carried bodily with the exultant west wind, and they only stopped when +they reached the wooden margin, where an old scow, half laden with +brick, was moored fast with ropes. This scow heaved up and down with the +motion of the rolling waters; the tight ropes grated; the water swashed +melodiously. + +The man and woman seemed alone there, a black little lump in the vast +spaces, for behind them the city receded beyond empty little hill-sides +and there was nothing some distance north and south. + +"Look," said Joe, "look at the tide!" + +It was running north, a wide expanse of rolling waters from their feet +to Blackwells Island in the east, all hurling swiftly like a billowing +floor of gray. Here and there whitecaps spouted. On Blackwells Island +loomed the gray hospitals and workhouses, and at intervals on the shore +sparkled a friendly light. + +"But see the bridge," exclaimed Myra. + +She pointed far south, where across the last of the day ran a slightly +arched string of lights, binding shore with shore. On the New York side, +and nearer, rose the high chimneys of mills, and from these a purplish +smoke swirled thickly, melting into the gray weather. + +And it seemed to Joe at that wild moment that nothing was as beautiful +as smoking chimneys. They meant so much--labor, human beings, fire, +warmth. + +And over all--river, bridge, chimneys, Blackwells Island, and the +throbbing city behind them--rose the immense gray-clouded heavens. A +keen smell of the far ocean came to their nostrils and the air was clear +and exhilarant. Then, as they watched, suddenly a tug lashed between +enormous flat boats on which were red freight-cars, swept north with the +tide. A thin glaze of heat breathed up from the tug's pipe; it was +moving without its engines, and the sight was unbelievable. The whole +huge mass simply shot the river, racing by them. + +And then the very magic of life was theirs. The world fell from them, +the dusty scales of facts, the complex intricacies of existence melted +away. They were very close, and the keen, yelling wind was wrapping them +closer. Vision filled the gray air, trembled up from the river to the +heavens. They rose from all the chaos like two white flames blown by the +wind together--they were two gigantic powers of the earth preparing like +gods for new creation. In that throbbing moment each became the world to +the other, and love, death-strong, shot their hearts. + +He turned, gazing strangely at her pale, eager, breathless face. + +"I want ..." he began. + +"Yes," she breathed. + +He opened his lips, and the sound that escaped seemed like a sob. + +"Myra!" + +And then at the sound of her name she was all woman, all love. She cried +out: + +"Joe!" + +And they flung their arms round each other. She sobbed there, overcome +with the yearning, the glory, the beatitude of that moment. + +"Oh," he cried, "how I love you!... Myra ..." + +"Joe, Joe--I couldn't have stood it longer!" + +All of life, all of the past, all of the million years of earth melted +into that moment, that moment when a man and a woman, mingled into one, +stood in the heart of the wonder, the love, the purpose of nature--a +mad, wild, incoherent half-hour, a secret ecstasy in the passing of the +twilight, in the swing of the wind and the breath of the sea. + +"Come home to my mother," cried Joe. "Come home with me!" + +They turned ... and Myra was a strange new woman, tender, grave, and +wrought of all lovely power, her face, in the last of the light, mellow +and softly glowing with a heightened woman-power. + +"Yes," she said, "I want to see Joe's mother." + +It was Joe's last step to success. Now he had all--his work, his love. +He felt powerfully masculine, triumphant, glorious. + +Night had fallen, and on the darkness broke and sparkled a thousand +lights in tenement windows and up the shadowy streets--everywhere homes, +families; men, women, and children busily living together; everywhere +love. Joe glanced, his eyes filling. Then he paused. + +"Look at that," he said in a changed voice. + +Over against the west, a little to the north, the gray heavens were +visible--a lightning seemed to run over them--a ghastly red +lightning--sharply silhouetting the chimneyed housetops. + +"What is it?" said Myra. + +He gazed at it, transfixed. + +"That's a fire ... a big fire." Then suddenly his face, in the pale +light of a street-lamp, became chalky white and knotted. He could barely +speak. "It must be on Eighty-first or Eighty-second Street." + +She spoke shrilly, clutching his arm. + +"Not ... the loft?" + +"Oh, it can't be!" he cried, in an agony. "But come ... hurry ..." + +They started toward Eighty-first Street up Avenue A. They walked fast; +and it seemed suddenly to Joe that he had been dancing on a thin crust, +and that the crust had broken and he was falling through. He turned and +spoke harshly: + +"You must run!" + +Fear made their feet heavy as they sped, and their hearts seemed to be +exploding in their breasts. They felt as if that fire were consuming +them; as if its tongues of flame licked them up. And so they came to the +corner of Eighty-first Street and turned it, and looked, and stopped. + +Joe spoke hoarsely. + +"It's burning;... it's the loft.... The printery's on fire...." + +Beyond the elevated structure at Second Avenue the loft building rose +like a grotesque gigantic torch in the night. Swirls of flame rolled +from the upper three stories upward in a mane of red, tossing volumes of +smoke, and the wild wind, combing the fire from the west, rained down +cinders and burned papers on Joe and Myra as they rushed up the street. +Every window was blankly visible in the extreme light, streams of water +played on the walls, and the night throbbed with the palpitating, +pounding fire-engines. + +And it seemed to Joe as if life were torn to bits, as if the world's end +had come. It was unbelievable, impossible--his eyes belied his brain. +That all those years of labor and dream and effort were going up in +flame and smoke seemed preposterous. And only a few moments before he +and Myra had stood on the heights of the world; had their mad moment; +and even then his life was being burned away from him. He felt the +hoarse sobs lifting up through his throat. + +They reached Second Avenue, and were stopped by the vast swaying crowd +of people, a density that could not be cloven. They went around about it +frantically; they bore along the edge of the crowd, beside the houses; +they wedged past one stoop; they were about to get past the next, when, +in the light of the lamp, Joe saw a strange sight. Crouched on that +stoop, with clothes torn, with hair loosed down her back, her face +white, her lips gasping, sat one of the hat factory girls. It was Fannie +Lemick. Joe knew her. And no one seemed to notice her. The crowd was +absorbed in other things. + +And even at that moment Joe heard the dire clanging of ambulances, and +an awful horror dizzied his brain. No, no, not that! He clutched the +stoop-post, leaned, cried weirdly: + +"Fannie! Fannie!" + +She gazed up at him. Then she recognized him and gave a terrible sob. + +"Mr. Joe! Oh, how did you get out?" + +"I wasn't there," he breathed. "Fannie! what's happened?... None of the +girls ..." + +"You didn't know?" she gasped. + +He felt the life leaving his body; it seemed impossible. + +"No ..." he heard himself saying. "Tell me...." + +She looked at him with dreadful eyes and spoke in a low, deadly, +monotonous voice: + +"The fire-escape was no good; it broke under some of the girls;... they +fell;... we jammed the hall;... some of the girls jumped down the +elevator shaft;... they couldn't get out ... and Miss Marks, the +forelady, was trying to keep us in order.... She stayed there ... and I +ran down the stairs, and dropped in the smoke, and crawled ... but when +I got to the street ... I looked back ... Mr. Joe ... the girls were +jumping from the windows...." + +Joe seized the stoop-post. His body seemed torn in two; he began to +reel. + +"From the ninth floor," he muttered, "and couldn't get out.... And I +wasn't there! Oh, God, why wasn't I killed there!" + + + + +III + + +THE GOOD PEOPLE + +Joe broke through the fire line. He stepped like a calcium-lit figure +over the wet, gleaming pavement, over the snaky hose, and among the +rubber-sheathed, glistening firemen, gave one look at the ghastly heap +on the sidewalk, and then became, like the host of raving relatives and +friends and lovers, a man insane. It was as if the common surfaces of +life--the busy days, the labor, the tools, the houses--had been drawn +aside like a curtain and revealed the terrific powers that engulf +humanity. + +In his ears sounded the hoarse cries of the firemen, the shout of the +sprayed water, the crash of axes, the shatter of glass. It was too +magnificent a spectacle, nature, like a Nero, using humanity to make a +sublime torch in the night. And through his head pulsed and pulsed the +defiant throb of the engines. Cinders fell, sticks, papers, and Joe saw +fitfully the wide ring of hypnotized faces. It was as if the world had +fallen into a pit, and human beings looked on each other aghast. + +"Get back there!" cried a burly policeman. + +Joe resisted his shouldering. + +"I'm Mr. Blaine;... it's my loft burning. I'm looking for my men...." + +"Go to the morgue then," snapped the policeman. "A fire line's a fire +line." + +Joe was pushed back, and as the crowd closed about him, a soft pressure +of clothing, men and women, he became aware of the fact that he had lost +his head. He pulled himself together; he told himself that he, a human +being, was greater than anything that could happen; that he must set his +jaw and fight and brave his way through the facts. He must get to work. + +Myra clutched his sleeve. He turned to her a face of death, but she +brought her wide eyes close to him. + +"Joe! Joe!" + +"Myra," he said, in a whisper, suddenly in that moment getting a sharp +revelation of his changed life. "I may never see you again. I belong to +those dead girls." He paused. "Go home ... do that for me, anyway." + +He had passed beyond her; there was no opposing him. + +"I'll go," she murmured. + +Then, dizzily, she reeled back, and was lost in the crowd. + +And then he set to work. He was strangely calm now, numb, unfeeling. +There was nothing more to experience, and the overwrought brain refused +any new emotions. So stupendous was the catastrophe that it left him +finally calm, ready, and eagerly awake. He stepped gently through the +crowd, searching, and found John Rann, the pressman. John wept like a +little boy when they met. + +"Marty got out ... yes ... most of us did ... but Eddie Baker, Morty, +and Sam Bender.... It was the cotton waste, Mr. Joe, and the +cigarettes...." + +Joe put his arm about the rough man. + +"Never mind, Johnny ... Go home to the kiddies...." + +There was so little he could do. He went to a few homes he knew, he went +to the hospital to ask after the injured, he went to the morgue. At +midnight the fire, like an evil thing, drew him back, and he encountered +only a steamy blackness lit by the search-light of the engine. There was +still the insistent throbbing. And then he thought of his mother and her +fears, and sped swiftly up the street, over deserted Lexington Avenue, +and up the lamp-lit block. Already newsboys were hoarsely shouting in +the night, as they waved their papers--a cry of the underworld +palpitating through the hushed city: "Wuxtra! Wuxtra! +Great--fire--horror! Sixty--killed! Wuxtra!" + +The house was still open, lighted, awake. People came into the hall as +he entered, but he shunned them and started up the stairs. One called +after him. + +"Your mother's out, Mr. Joe." + +He turned. + +"Out? How long?" + +"Since the fire started ... She's been back and forth several times ..." + +He went on up, entered the neat, still front room, lit the gas beside +the bureau mirror, and began to pace up and down. His mother was +searching for him; he might have known it; he should have remembered it. + +And then he heard the uncanny shouting of the newsboys--as if those dead +girls had risen from their ashes and were running like flaming furies +through the city streets, flinging handfuls of their fire into a million +homes, shaking New York into a realization of its careless, guilty +heart, crying for vengeance, stirring horror and anger and pity. Who was +the guilty one, if not he, the boss? + +And then the inquisition began, the repeated sting of lashing thoughts +and cruel questions. He asked himself what right he had to be an +employer, to take the responsibility of thirty lives in his hands. He +was careless, easy-going, he was in business for profits. Had such a man +any right to be placed over others, to be given the power over other +lives? The guilt was his; the blame fell on him. He should have kept +clean house; he should have stamped out the smoking; he should not have +smoked himself. There fell upon his shoulders a burden not to be borne, +the burden of his blame, and he felt as if nothing now in the world +could assuage that sense of guilt. + +Life, he found, was a fury, a cyclone, not the simple, easy affair he +had thought it. It was his living for himself, his living alone, his +ignorance of the fact that his life was tangled in with the lives of all +human beings, so that he was socially responsible, responsible for the +misery and poverty and pain all about him. + +That _he_ should be the one! Had he not lived just the average +life--blameless, cheerful, hard-working, fun-loving--the life of the +average American? Just by every-day standards his was the useful and +good life. But no, that was not enough. In his rush for success he had +made property his treasure instead of human beings. That was the crime. +And so these dead lay all about him as if he had murdered them with his +hands. It was his being an average man that had killed sixty-three girls +and men. And what had he been after? Money? He did not use his money, +did not need so much. Just a little shared with his employees would have +saved them. No, the average man must cease to exist, and the social man +take his place, the brother careful of his fellow-men, not careless of +all but his own gain. + +A boy passed, hoarsely shouting that terrible extra. Would nothing in +the world silence that sound? The cold sweat came out on his face. He +was the guilty one. That was the one fact that he knew. + +And then he paused; the door opened creakingly and his mother entered. +She was a magnificent young-old woman, her body sixty-three years old, +her mind singularly fresh and young. She was tall, straight, spirited, +and under the neat glossy-white hair was a noble face, somewhat long, +somewhat slim, a little pallid, but with firm chin and large forehead +and living large black eyes set among sharp lines of lids. The whole +woman was focussed in the eyes, sparkled there, lived there, deep, +limpid, quick, piercing. Her pallor changed to pure whiteness. + +"Joe ..." her voice broke. "I've been looking for you...." + +He paused, walled away from her by years of isolation. She advanced +slowly; her face became terrible in its hungry love, its mother passion. +She met his eyes, and then he fled to her, and his body shook with +rough, tearless sobs. Her relief came in great tears. + +"And all those girls," she was murmuring, "and those men. How did it +happen?" + +He drew back; his eyes became strange. + +"Mother," he said, harshly, "I'm the guilty one. There was a heap of +cotton waste in the corner, shouldn't have been there. And I let the men +smoke cigarettes." + +She was horrified. + +"But _why_ did you do that?" she whispered, moving a little away from +him. + +"My thoughtlessness ... my _business_." The word was charged with +bitterness. "Business! business! I'm a business man! I wasn't in +business"--he gave a weird laugh--"for the health of my employees! I was +making money!" + +She looked at him as if he had ceased being her son and had turned into +a monster. Then she swayed, grasped the bedpost and sank on the bed. + +Her voice was low and harsh. + +"_Your_ fault ... and all those young girls...." + +His mother had judged him; he looked at her with haggard eyes, and spoke +in a hollow voice. + +"Nothing will ever wipe this guilt from my mind.... I'm branded for +life ... this thing will go on and on and on every day that I live...." + +She glanced at him then, and saw only her son, the child she had carried +in her arms, the boy who had romped with her, and she only knew now that +he was suffering, that no one on earth could be in greater pain. + +"Oh, my poor Joe!" she murmured. + +"Yes," he went on, beside himself, "I'm blasted with guilt...." + +She cried out: + +"If you go on like this, we'll both go out of our minds, Joe! Fight! +It's done ... it's over.... From now on, make amends.... Joe!"--She rose +magnificently then--"Your father lost his arm in the war.... Now give +your life to setting things right!" + +And she drew him close again. Her words, her love, her belief in him +roused him at last. + +"You know the fault isn't all yours," she said. "The factory inspector's +to blame, too--and the men--and the people up-stairs--and the law +because it didn't demand better protection and fire-drills--all are to +blame. You take too much on yourself...." + +And gradually, striving with him through the early morning hours, she +calmed him, she soothed him, and got him to bed. He was at last too +weary to think or feel and he slept deep into the day. And thinking a +little of herself, she realized that the tragedy had brought them closer +together than they had been for years. + + * * * * * + +Out of those ashes on East Eighty-first Street rose a certain splendor +over the city. All of New York drew together with indignation and +wondrous pity. It did not bring the dead girls to life again--it was too +late for that--but it brought many other dead people to life. + +Fifty thousand dollars flowed to the newspapers for relief; an inquest +probed causes and guilt and prevention; mass--meetings were held; the +rich and the powerful forgot position and remembered their common +humanity; and the philanthropic societies set to work with money, with +doctors and nurses and visitors. The head of one huge association said +to the relief committee in a low, trembling voice: "Of course, our whole +staff is at your service." Just for a time, a little time, the +five-million-manned city flavored its confused, selfish struggle with +simple brotherhood. + +How had it happened? Whose was the fault? How came it that sixty girls +were imprisoned in the skies, as it were, and could only fling +themselves down to the stone pavement in an insanity of terror? What war +was more horrible than this Peace of Industry? Such things must be +prevented in future, said New York, rising like a wrathful god--and for +a while the busy wheels of progress turned. + +Joe had to attend the inquest as a witness. He gave his testimony in a +simple, sincere, and candid way that gained him sympathy. His men +testified in his behalf, trying to wholly exonerate him and inculpate +themselves, and the lawyers cleverly scattered blame from one power to +another--the city, the State, the fire department, the building +department, etc. It became clear that Joe could not be officially +punished; it was evident that he had done as much as the run of +employers to protect life, and that his intentions had been blameless. + +However, that did not ease Joe's real punishment. He was a changed man +that week, calm, ready with his smile, but haggard and bowed, nervous +and overwrought, bearing a burden too heavy for his heart. He made over +the twenty thousand dollars of insurance money to the Relief and +Prevention Work; he visited the injured and the bereaved; he forgot Myra +and tried to forget himself; he attended committee meetings. + +Myra wrote him a little note: + + DEAR JOE,--Don't forget that whatever happens I + believe in you utterly and I love you and shall always + love you, and that you have me when all else is lost. + + Your + MYRA. + +To which he merely replied: + + DEAR MYRA,--I shall remember what you say, and I + shall see you when I can. + + Yours, + JOE. + +It was on Sunday afternoon that Joe met Fannie Lemick on the street. Her +eyes filled with tears and he noticed she was trembling. + +"Mr. Joe!" she cried. + +"Yes, Fannie...." + +"Are you going, too?" + +"Going where?" + +"Don't you know? _The mass-meeting at Carnegie Hall_!" + +He looked at her, smiling. + +"I'll go with you, if I may!" + +So they went down together. A jam of poor people was crowding the +doors, and a string of automobiles drew up and passed at the curb. Joe +and Fannie got in the throng. There was no room left in the orchestra +and they were swept with the flood up and up, flight after flight, to +the high gallery. Here they found seats and looked down, down as if on +the side of the planet, on the far-away stage filled with the speakers +and the committees, and on that sea of humanity that swept back and up +through the boxes to themselves. All in the subdued light, the golden +light that crowd sat, silent, remorseful, stirred by a sense of having +risen to a great occasion; thousands of human beings, the middle class, +the rich, the poor; Americans, Germans, Italians, Jews. But all about +him Joe felt a silent hatred, a still cry for vengeance, a class +bitterness. Many of these were relatives of the dead. + +It was a demonstration of the human power that refuses to submit to +environment and circumstance and fate; that rises and rebukes facts, +reshapes destiny. And then the speaking began: the bishop, the rabbi, +the financier, the philanthropist, the social worker. They spoke +eloquently, they showed pity, they were constructive, they were prepared +to act; they represented the "better classes" and promised the "poor," +the toilers, that they would see that relief and protection were given; +but somehow their eloquence did not carry; somehow that mass of +commonest men and women refused to be stirred and thrilled. There was +even a little hissing when it was announced that a committee of big men +would see to the matter. + +Joe had a dull sense of some monstrous social cleavage; the world +divided into the rulers and the ruled, the drivers and the driven. He +felt uncomfortable, and so did the throng. There was a feeling as if the +crowd ought to have a throat to give vent to some strange, fierce fact +that festered in its heart. + +And then toward the end the chairman announced that one of the +hat-trimmers, one of the girls who worked--in another hat factory, would +address the meeting--Miss Sally Heffer. + +A girl arose, a young woman with thin, sparse, gold-glinting hair, with +face pallid and rounded, with broad forehead and gray eyes of remarkable +clarity. She was slim, dressed in a little brown coat and a short brown +skirt. She came forward, trembling, as if overcome by the audience. She +paused, raised her head and tried to speak. There was not a sound, and +suddenly the audience became strangely still, leaning forward, waiting. + +Then again she tried to speak; it was hardly above a whisper; and yet so +clear was the hush that Joe heard every word. And he knew, and all knew, +that this young woman was overcome, not by the audience, but by the +passion of the tragedy, the passion of an oppressed class. She was the +voice of the toilers at last dimly audible; she was the voice of a +million years of sore labor and bitter poverty and thwarted life. And +the audience was thrilled, and the powerful were shaken with remorse. + +Trembling, terrible came the words out of that little body on the far +stage: + +"I would be a traitor to these poor burned bodies if I came here to talk +good-fellowship. We have tried you good people of the public and we have +found you wanting. The old Inquisition had its rack and its thumbscrews +and its instruments of torture with iron teeth. We know what these +things are to-day: the iron teeth are our necessities, the thumbscrews +the high-powered and swift machinery close to which we must work, and +the rack is here in the fire-trap structures that will destroy us the +minute they catch on fire. + +"This is not the first time girls have been burned alive in this city. +Every week I learn of the untimely death of one of my sister workers. +Every year thousands of us are maimed. _The life of men and women is so +cheap and property is so sacred!_ There are so many of us for one job, +it matters little if sixty of us are burned to death. + +"We have tried you citizens; we are trying you now, and you have a +couple of dollars for the sorrowing mothers and brothers and sisters by +way of a charity gift. But every time the workers come out in the only +way they know to protest against conditions which are unbearable, the +strong hand of the law is allowed to press heavily down on us. + +"Public officials have only words of warning to us--warning that we must +be intensely orderly and intensely peaceable, and they have the +workhouse just back of all their warnings. + +"I can't talk fellowship to you who are gathered here. Too much blood +has been spilled. I know from my experience it is up to the working +people to save themselves. The only way they can save themselves is by a +strong working-class movement." + +Joe heard nothing further. There were several other speakers, but no +words penetrated to his brain. He felt as if he must stifle. He felt the +globe of earth cracking, breaking in two under his feet, and for the +first time in his life he was acutely aware of the division of humanity. +All through his career he had taken his middle-class position for +granted; he tacitly agreed that there were employees and employers; but +in his own case his camaraderie had hidden the cleavage. Now he saw a +double world--on the one side the moneyed owners, on the other the +crowded, scrambling, disorganized hordes of the toilers--each one of +them helpless, a victim, worked for all that was in him, and then flung +aside in the scrap heap. And behold, this horde was becoming +self-conscious, was beginning to organize, was finding a voice. And he, +who was one of the "good people," was rejected by this voice. He had +been "tried" and found wanting. He was on the other side of the fence. +And it was the fault of his class that fire horrors and all the chaos +and cruelty of industry arose. So that now the working people had found +that they must "save themselves." + +In an agony of guilt again he felt what he had said to Myra: "From now +on I belong to those dead girls"--yes, and to their fellow-workers. +Suddenly it seemed to him that he must see Sally Heffer--that to her he +must carry the burden of his guilt--to her he must personally make +answer to the terrible accusations she had voiced. It was all at once, +as if only in this way could he go on living, that otherwise he would +end in the insanity of the mad-house or the insanity of suicide. + +He was walking down the stairs with Fannie, and he was trembling. + +"Do you know this Sally Heffer?" + +"Know her? We all do!" she cried, with all a young girl's enthusiasm. + +"I want to see her, Fannie. Where does she live?" + +"Oh, somewhere in Greenwich Village. But she'll be up at the Woman's +League after the meeting." + +He went up to the Woman's League and found the office crowded with women +and men. He asked for Miss Heffer. + +"I'll take your name," said the young woman, and then came back with the +answer that "he'd have to wait." + +So he took a seat and waited. He felt feverish and sick, as if he could +no longer carry this burden with him. It seemed impossible to sit still. +And yet he waited over an hour, waited until it was eight at night, all +the gas-jets lit. + +The young woman came up to him. + +"You want to see Miss Heffer? Come this way." + +He was led up a flight of stairs to a little narrow hall-room. Sally +Heffer was there at a roll-top desk, still in her little brown +coat--quiet, pale, her clear eyes remarkably penetrating. She turned. + +"Yes?" + +He shook pitifully,... then he sat down, holding his hat in his hands. + +"I'm Joe Blaine...." + +"Joe Blaine ... of what?" + +"Of the printery ... that burned...." + +She looked at him sharply. + +"So, you're the employer." + +"Yes, I am." + +"Well," she said, brusquely, "what do you want?" + +"I heard you speak this afternoon." His face flickered with a smile. + +"And so you ...?" + +He could say nothing; and she looked closer. She saw his gray face, his +unsteady eyes, the tragedy of the broken man. Then she spoke with a +lovely gentleness. + +"You want to do something?" + +"Yes," he murmured, "I want to give--all." + +She lowered her voice, and it thrilled him. + +"It won't help to give your money--you must give yourself. We don't want +charity." + +He said nothing for a moment; and then strength rose in him. + +"I'll tell you why I came.... I felt I had to.... I felt that you were +accusing me. I know I am guilty. I have come here to be"--he smiled +strangely--"sentenced." + +She drew closer. + +"You came here for _that_?" + +"Yes." + +She rose and took a step either way. She gazed on him, and suddenly she +broke down and cried, her hands to her face. + +"O God," she sobbed, "when will all this be over? When will we get rid +of this tragedy? I can't stand it longer." + +He rose, too, confused. + +"Listen," he whispered. "I swear to you, I swear, that from this day on +my life belongs to those"--his voice broke--"dead girls ... to the +toilers...." + +She impulsively reached out a hand, and he seized it. Then, when she +became more quiet, she murmured: + +"I can see you mean it. Oh, this is wonderful! It is a miracle springing +out of the fire!" + +There was a strange throbbing silence that brought them close together. +And Sally, glancing at him again, whispered: + +"I can see how you have suffered! Let me help you ... all that I can!" + +He spoke in great pain. + +"What can I do? I know so little." + +"Do? You must learn that for yourself. You must fit in where you belong. +Do you know anything of the working-class movement?" + +"No," he said. + +"Then I will make a list of books and magazines for you." + +She sat down and wrote a list on a slip, and arose and handed it to him. + +She was gazing at him again, gazing at the tragic face. Then she +whispered: + +"I believe in you.... Is there anything else?" + +And again she reached out her hand and he clasped it. Her fine faith +smote something hard in him, shriveled it like fire, and all at once, +miraculously, divinely, a little liquid gush of lovely joy, of wonderful +beatitude began to rise from his heart, to rise and overflow and fill +him. He was being cleansed, he had expiated his guilt by confessing it +to his accuser and receiving her strange and gentle forgiveness; tears +came to his eyes, came and paused on the lashes and trickled down. He +gulped a sob. + +"I can go on now," he said. + +She looked at him, wondering. + +"You can!" she whispered. + +And he went out, a free man again, at the beginning of a new life. + + + + +IV + + +GOLDEN OCTOBER + +Life has an upspringing quality that defies pain. Something buoyant +throbs in the heart of the world--something untamed and wild--exultant +in the flying beauty of romping children, glinting in the dawn-whitened +sea, risen, indeed, through man into triumphant cities and works, and +running like a pulse through his spirit. San Francisco is shattered, and +there is death and sorrow and destruction: a whole population is +homeless--whereupon the little human creatures come down from the hills +like laughing gods and create but a more splendid city. Earth itself +forges through its winters with an April power that flushes a continent +with delicate blossoms and tints. + +Joe had come home from Sally Heffer a man renewed. From some clear well +in his nature sprang a limpid stream of soft, new joy; a new +exhilarating sense of life; a new creative power that made him eager for +action. His heart was cleansed, and with the exquisite happiness of a +forgiven child he "took up the task eternal." Hereafter he was a man +dedicated, a man consecrated to a great work. + +His mother noticed the change in him, a new wisdom, a sweet jocularity, +and, withal, the return of much of his old nature--its rough +camaraderie, its boyish liveliness and homely simplicity. For her this +was a marvelous relief, and she could only watch him and wonder at the +change. He seemed very busy again, and she did not disturb him in these +sensitive days of growth; she waited the inevitable time when he would +come to her and tell her what he was going to do, whether he would +re-establish his business or whether he had some new plan. And then one +day, tidying up his room, she stumbled on a heap of books. Her heart +thrilled and she began to surreptitiously borrow these books herself. + +Already the great city had forgotten its fire horror--save the tiny, +growing stir of an agitating committee--and even to those most nearly +concerned it began to fade, a nightmare scattered by the radiance of new +morning. One could only trust that from those fair and unpolluted bodies +had sprung a new wave of human brotherliness never to be quite lost. And +Joe's mother had had too much training in the terrible to be long +overborne. She believed in her son and stood by him. + +Luckily for Joe, he had much work to do. He and Marty Briggs had to +settle up the business, close with customers, dig from the burned +rubbish proofs and contracts, attend the jury, and help provide for his +men. One sunny morning he and Marty were working industriously in the +loft, when Marty, with a cry of exultation, lifted up a little slot box. + +"Holy Moses, Joe!" he exclaimed, "if here ain't the old kick-box!" + +They looked in it together, very tenderly, for it was the very symbol of +Joe's ten years of business. On its side there was still pasted a slip +of paper, covered with typewriting: + + KICK-BOX + + This business is human--not perfect. It needs good + thinking, new ideas (no matter how unusual), and + honest criticism. + + There are many things you think wrong about the + printery and the printery's head--things you would + not talk of face to face, as business time is precious + and spoken words are sometimes hard to bear. + + Now this is what I want: Sit down and write what + you think in plain English. It will do me good. + + JOE BLAINE. + +Suddenly Marty looked at his boss. + +"Say, Joe." + +"What is it, Marty?" The big fellow hesitated. + +"Say--when that jury finishes--you're going to set things up again, and +go on. Ain't you?" + +Joe smiled sadly. + +"I don't know, Marty." + +Tears came to Marty's eyes. + +"Say--what will the fellers say? Ah, now, you'll go ahead, Joe." + +"Just give me a week or two, Marty--then I'll tell you." + +But the big fellow's simple grief worked on him and made him waver, and +there were other meetings with old employees that sharply drew him back +to the printery. One evening, after a big day of activity, he found it +too late to reach the boarding-house for supper and he remembered that +John Rann's baby was sick. So he turned and hurried across the golden +glamor of Third Avenue, on Eightieth Street, and just beyond climbed up +three flights of stairs in a stuffy tenement and knocked on the rear +door. Smells of supper--smells chiefly of cabbage, cauliflower, fried +onions, and fried sausages--pervaded the hall like an invisible +personality, but Joe was smell-proof. + +A husky voice bade him come in and he pushed open the door into a neat +kitchen. At a table in the center under a nicely globed light sat John +Rann in his woolen undershirt. John was smoking a pipe and reading the +evening paper, and opposite John two young girls, one about ten, the +other seven, were studying their lessons. + +"Hello, John!" said Joe. + +John nodded amiably, and muttered: + +"Hello yourself!" + +He was a strong, athletic, stocky fellow, with sunken little blue eyes, +heavy jaws, and almost bald head. Before he had time to rise the two +young girls leaped up with shrieks of joy and rushed to Joe. Joe at once +tucked one under each arm and hugged them forward to a big chair, into +which they all sank together. + +"Well! Well!" cried Joe. + +"Who do you love most?" asked the seven-year-old. + +"The one who loves me most!" said Joe. + +"I do!" they both shrieked. + +"Now leave Mr. Joe be," warned the father. "Such tomboys they're getting +to be, there's no holdin' 'em in!" + +At once in the half-curtained doorway to the next room appeared a stocky +little woman, whose pale face was made emphatic by large steel-rimmed +glasses that shrank each eye-pupil to the size of a tack-head. Her +worried forehead smoothed; she smiled. + +"I knew it was Mr. Joe," she said, "by the way those gals yelled." + +Joe spoke eagerly: + +"I just had to run in, Mrs. Rann, to ask how the baby was." + +"He's a sight better. Mrs. Smith, who lives third floor front, had one +just like him sick a year ago come Thanksgiving, and he died like that. +But the doctor you sent over is that kind and cute he's got the little +fellow a-fightin' for his life. He's a _big_ sight better. Want to see +him?" + +Joe gave a kiss each way, set down two reluctant women-to-be, and +followed Mrs. Rann to the inner room. In a little crib a youngster, just +recovered from colic, was kicking up his heels. Joe leaned over and +tickled the sole of one foot. + +"Well, Johnny boy!" + +"Unc! Unc!" cried the infant. + +The mother purred with delight. + +"He's trying to say Uncle Joe. Did you ever hear the likes?" + +Joe beamed with pride. + +"Well, your uncle hasn't forgotten you, old man!" + +And he produced from his pocket a little rubber doll that whistled +whenever its belly was squeezed. + +John Rann appeared behind them. + +"Say, Mr. Joe, _you_ haven't had your supper yet." + +"Not hungry!" muttered Joe. + +"G'wan! Molly, put him up a couple of fried eggs, browned on both, and a +cup of coffee. I won't take no, either." + +Joe laughed. + +"Well, perhaps I'd better. I'm ashamed to ask for anything home this +hour--in fact, I'm scared to." + +So he got his fried eggs and coffee, and the family hung around him, and +Joe, circled with such warm friendliness, was glad to be alive. He was +especially pleased with Mrs. Rann's regard. But Joe was always a +favorite with mothers. Possibly because he was so fond of their babies. +Possibly because mothers love a good son, wherever they find one. +Possibly because his heart was large enough to contain as something +precious their obscure lives. Just before he left John asked him: + +"Will the printery soon be running, Mr. Joe?" + +"Tell you later," murmured Joe, and went out. But he was sorely +troubled. + +However, to Joe there had been revealed--almost in a day and after +thirty-eight years of insulated life--two of the supreme human facts. +There was humanity, on the one side, building the future, the new state, +organizing its scattered millions into a rich, healthy, joyous life and +calling to every man to enlist in the ranks of the creators; and then +there was woman, the undying splendor of the world, the beauty that +drenches life with meaning and magic, that stirs the elemental in a man, +that wakens the race instinct, that demands the creation of new +generations to inhabit that new state of the future. Intertwined, these +wondrous things drew the heart now this way, now that, and to Joe they +arose separately in intermittent pulsations that threatened to absorb +his existence. + +He did not dare go to Myra until he was sure of himself. It seemed that +he would have to choose between woman and work. It seemed as if his +work would lead into peril, dirt, disaster, and that he could not ask a +delicate, high-strung woman to go with him. The woman could not follow +her warrior to the battle, for marriage meant children to Joe, and the +little ones must stay back at home with the mother. + +In that moment of clear terror he had said to Myra: + +"I may never see you again.... I belong to those dead girls." + +And this phrase came and went like a refrain. He must choose between her +and those "dead girls." There stood Myra with gray luminous eyes and +soft echoing voice magically hinting of a life of ever-renewed romance. +She had a breast for his aching head, she had in her hands a thousand +darling household things, she had in her the possibilities of his own +children ... who should bring a wind of laughter into his days and a +strange domestic tenderness. The depths of the man were stirred by these +appeals--that was the happy human way to take, the common road fringed +with wild flowers and brier-lost berries, and glorious with the stride +of health and the fresh open air. + +And Myra herself, that charming presence to infold his life--He would go +walking through the golden October park, by little leaf-strewn paths +under the wild and sun-soaked foliage, with many vistas every way of +luring mystery, and over all the earth the rich opulent mother-bliss of +harvest, and his heart would ache, ache within him, ache for his own +harvests, ache like the sun for the earth, the man for the woman. + +A mad frenzy would seize him and he would plunge into his books and read +and think and lash himself to a fury of speculation till the early hours +of the morning. Exhaustion alone brought him peace. + +But something had to be done. He sat down and wrote to her with a +trembling hand: + + DEAR MYRA,--Though I am impatient to see you, I + must yet wait a little while. Bear with me. You will + understand later. + + Yours, + JOE. + +And then she replied: + + DEAR JOE,--Can't I help you? + MYRA. + +He had to fight a whole afternoon before he replied: + + Not yet--later. + JOE. + +And back he went into the whirlwind of the world-vision, a stupendous +force upsetting, up-rooting, overturning, demolishing, almost erasing +and contradicting everything that Joe had taken for granted, and in the +wake of the destruction, rising and ever rising, a new creation, the +vision of a new world. + +He had taken so much for granted. He had taken for granted that he lived +in a democracy--that the Civil War had once for all made America a free +nation--a nation of opportunity, riches, and happiness for all. Not so. +Literally millions were living in abject poverty, slaves to their +pay-envelopes; to lose a job meant to lose everything, there being more +laborers than jobs, or if not, at least recurrent "panics" and "hard +times" when the mills and the mines shut down. And these wage slaves had +practically no voice in one of the chief things of their life--their +work. So millions were penned in places of danger and disease and dirt, +lived and toiled in squalor, and were cut off from growth, from health, +from leisure and culture and recreation; and worse, millions of women +had to add the burden of earning a living to the already overwhelming +burden of child-bearing and home-making; and, still worse, millions of +children had been drafted into the service of industrialism. + +He proved the case for himself. He began making tours of the city, +discovering New York, laying bare the confusion and ugliness and grime +and crime and poverty of a great industrial center. He poked into the +Ghetto, into Chinatown, Greenwich Village, and Little Italy; he peered +into jails, asylums, and workhouses; he sneaked through factories and +hung about saloons. Everywhere a terrific struggle, many sinking down +into the city's underworld of crime, men becoming vagrants or thieves, +women walking the streets as prostitutes. + +And over this broad foundation of the "people" rose the structure of +business and politics, equally corrupted--or so it seemed to Joe, as it +does to every one who is fresh to the facts. Men at the top gathering +into their hands the necessities of life: oil, meat, coal, water-power, +wool; seizing on the railroads, those only modern means of social +exchange; snatching strings of banks wherein the people's money was +being saved; and using their mighty money-power to corrupt legislation, +to thwart the will of the voters, to secure new powers, to crush +opposition. So had arisen a "Money Power" that was annuling democracy. + +And Joe's books argued that all this change had been wrought by the +invention of machinery, that only through steam, steel, and electricity +could world-wide organization take place, that only through these arose +the industrial city, the modern mill. The very things that should have +set man free, the enormous powers he snatched from nature and harnessed +to do his work, powers with the strength of a nation of men--these very +things had been seized by a few for their own profit, and had enslaved +the majority. Over and over again could the race be fed, clothed, +housed, and enriched by these powers, and that with lessened hours of +toil and more variety of work. + +But Joe's books argued further and most dogmatically that this +organization by the selfish few was a necessary step in progress, that +when their work was finished the toilers, the millions, would arise and +seize the organization and use it thereafter for the good of all. +Indeed, this was what Sally's labor movement meant: the enlightenment of +the toilers as to the meaning of industrialism, and their training for +the supreme revolution. + +And out of all this arose the world-vision. At such moments Joe walked +in a rarer air, he stepped on a fairer earth than ordinarily obtains. It +was the beauty and loveliness of simple human camaraderie, of warm human +touch. And at such times Joe had no doubt of his life-work. It lay in +exquisite places, in chambers of jolly grandeur, in the invisible halls +and palaces of the human spirit. He was one with the toilers of earth, +one with the crowded underworld. It was that these lives might grow +richer in knowledge, richer in art, richer in health, richer in +festival, richer in opportunity, that Joe had dedicated his life. And so +arose that wonderful and inexpressible vision--a picture as it were of +the far future--a glimpse of an earth singing with uplifted crowds of +humanity, on one half of the globe going out to meet the sunrise, on the +other, the stars. He heard the music of that Hymn of Human Victory, +which from millions of throats lifts on that day when all the race is +woven into a harmony of labor and joy and home and great unselfish +deeds. That day, possibly, might never arrive, forever fading farther +and farther into the sunlit distances--but it is the day which leads the +race forward. To Joe, however, came that vision, and when it came it +seemed as if the last drop of his blood would be little to offer, even +in anguish, to help, even by ever so little, the coming and the +consummation of that Victory. + +He would awake in the night, and cry out in a fever: + +"By God, I'm going to help change things." + +The vision shook him--tugged at his heart, downward, like the clutch of +a convulsive child; seized him now and again like a madness. Even unto +such things had the "dead girls" brought him. + +So, crammed with theories--theories as yet untested by experience--Joe +became an iconoclast lusting for change. He was bursting with good news, +he wanted to cry the intimations from the housetops, he wanted to +proselytize, convert. He was filled with Shelley's passion for reforming +the world, and like young Shelley, he felt that all he had to do was to +show the people the truth and the truth would make them free. + +All this was in his great moments,... there were reactions when his +human humorous self--backed by ten years of the printery--told him that +the world is a complex mix-up, and that there are many visions; moments +that made him wonder what he was about, and why so untrained a man +expected to achieve such marvels. + +But these reactions were swallowed up by the recurrent pulsations, the +spasms of his vision. He felt from day to day a growth of purpose, an +accumulation of energy that would resistlessly spill into action, that +would bear him along, whether or no. But what should he do, and how? He +was unfitted, and did not think he cared, for settlement work. He knew +nothing and cared less for charity work. Politics were an undiscovered +world to him. What he wanted passionately was to go and live among the +toilers, get to know them, and be the means of arousing and training +them. + +But then there was the problem of his mother--a woman of sixty-three. +Could he leave her alone? It was preposterous to think of taking her +with him. Myra could a thousand times better go. He must talk with his +mother, he must thresh the matter out with her, he must not delay longer +to clear the issue. And yet he hesitated. Would she be able to +understand? How could he communicate what was bursting in his breast? +She belonged to a past generation; how could she hear the far-off drums +of the advance? + +Up and down the Park he went early one evening in a chaos of excitement, +and he had a sudden conviction that he could not put off the moment any +longer. He must go to his mother at once, he must tell all. As he +walked down the lamp-lit street, under all the starriness of a tranquil +autumn night, he became alternately pale and flushed, his heart thumped +hard against his ribs, he felt like a little boy going to his mother to +confess a wrong. + +He looked up; the shades of the second floor were illumined: she was up +there. Doing what? Sharply then he realized what a partial life she led, +the decayed middle-class associates of the boarding-house, tired, +brainless, and full of small talk, the lonesome evenings, the long days. +He became more agitated, and climbed the stoop, unlocked his way into +the house, went up the dim, soft, red-cushioned stairs, past the milky +gas-globe in the narrow hall, and knocked at her door. + +"Come in!" she cried. + +He swung the door wide and entered. She was, as usual, sitting in the +little rocker under the light and beside the bureau, between the bed and +the window. The neat, fragrant room seemed to be sleeping, but the +clear-eyed, upright woman was very much awake. She glanced up from her +sewing and realized intuitively that at last the crisis had come. His +big, homely face was a bald advertisement of his boyish excitement. + +She nodded, and murmured, "Well!" + +He drew up a chair awkwardly, and sat opposite her, tilting back to +accommodate his sprawling length. Then he was at a loss. + +"Well," he muttered, trying to be careless, "how are you?" + +"All right," she said drily. + +She could not help him, though her heart was beginning to pain in her +side. + +"I've been walking about the Park," he began again, with an indifference +that was full of leaks, "and thinking...." He leaned forward and spoke +suddenly: "Say, mother, don't you get tired of living in this place?" + +She felt strangely excited, but answered guardedly. + +"It isn't so bad, Joe.... There are a few decent people ... there's Miss +Gardiner, the librarian ... and I have books and sewing." + +"Oh, I know," he went on, clumsily, "but you're alone a lot." + +"Yes, I am," she said, and all at once she felt that she could speak no +further with him. She began sewing diligently. + +"Say, mother!" + +No answer. + +"Mother!" + +"Yes," dimly. + +His voice sounded unnatural. + +"Since the ... fire ... I've been doing some thinking, some reading...." + +"Yes." + +"I've been going about ... studying the city...." + +"Yes." + +"Now I want you to understand, mother.... I want to tell you of ... +It's--well, I want to do something with my money, my life...." And his +voice broke, in spite of himself. + +His mother felt as if she were smothering. But she waited, and he went +on: + +"For those dead girls, mother...." and sharply came a dry sob. "And for +all the toilers. Oh, but can you understand?" + +There was a silence. Then she looked at him from her youthful, brilliant +eyes, and saw only an overgrown, rather ignorant boy. This gave her +strength, and, though it was painful, she began speaking: + +"_Understand_? Do you mean the books you are reading?" + +"Yes," he murmured. + +"Well," she smiled weakly, "I've been reading them, too." + +"_You_!" He was shocked. He looked at her as if she had revealed a new +woman to him. + +"Yes," she said, quickly. "I found them in your room." + +He was amazedly silent. He felt then that he had never really known his +mother. + +"Joe," she said, tremulously, "I want to tell you a little about the +war.... There are things I haven't told you." + +And while he sat, stupefied and dumfounded, she told him--not all, but +many things. She was back in the Boston of the sixties, when she was a +young girl, when that town was the literary center of America, when high +literature was in the air, when the poets had great fame and every one, +even the business man, was a poet. She had seen or met some of the great +men. Once Whittier was pointed out to her, at a time when his lines on +slavery were burning in her brain. She had seen the clear-eyed Lowell +walking under the elms of Cambridge, and she justly felt that she was +one of those + + "Who dare to be + In the right with two or three." + +Once, even, a relative of hers, a writer then well known and now +forgotten, had taken her out to see "the white Mr. Longfellow." It was +one of the dream-days of her life--the large, spacious, square Colonial +house where once Washington had lived; the poet's square room with its +round table and its high standing desk in which he sometimes wrote; the +sloping lawn; the great trees; and, better than anything, the simple, +white-haired, white-bearded poet who took her hand so warmly and spoke +so winningly and simply. He even gave her a scrap of paper on which were +written some of his anti-slavery lines. + +Those were great days--days when America, the world's experiment in +democracy, was thrown into those fires that consume or purify. The great +test was on, whether such a nation could live, and Boston was athrob +with love of country and eagerness to sacrifice. The young, beautiful, +clear-eyed girl did not hesitate a moment to urge Henry Blaine to give +up all and go to the front. It was like tearing her own heart in two, +and, possibly at a word, Blaine would have remained in Boston and helped +in some other way. But she fought it out with him one night on Boston +Commons, and she wished then that she was a man and could go herself. On +that clear, mild night, the blue luminous tinge of whose moon she +remembered so vividly, they walked up and down, they passionately +embraced, they felt the end of life and the mystery of death, and then +at last when the young man said: "I'll go! It's little enough to do in +this crisis!" she clung to him with pride and sacred joy and knew that +life was very great and that it had endless possibilities. + +And so Henry Blaine went with his regiment, and the black and terrible +years set in--years in which so often she saw what Walt Whitman had +seen: + + "I saw askant the armies, + I saw as in noiseless dreams hundreds of battle-flags, + Borne through the smoke of the battles and pierced with missiles I saw + them, + And carried hither and yon through the smoke, and torn and bloody, + And at last but a few shreds left on the staffs (and all in silence), + And the staffs all splinter'd and broken. + I saw battle-corpses, myriads of them, + And the white skeletons of young men, I saw them. + I saw the débris and débris of all the slain soldiers of the war, + + But I saw they were not as was thought. + They themselves were fully at rest, they suffered not, + The living remain'd and suffer'd, the mother suffer'd, + And the wife and the child and the musing comrade suffer'd, + And the armies that remain'd suffer'd." + +Terrible years, years of bulletins, years of want, hard times, years +when all the future was at stake, until finally that day in New York +when she saw the remnant returning, marching up Broadway between the +black crowds and the bunting, the drums beating, the fifes playing, + + "Returning, with thinned ranks, young, yet very old, + worn, marching, noticing nothing." + +Henry Blaine was one of these and he came to her a cripple, an emaciated +and sick man. Then had followed, as Joe knew, the marriage, the hard +pioneer life in the shanty on the stony hill, the death, and the long +widowhood.... + +Had she not a right to speak to him? + +"Understand?" she ended. "I think, Joe, I ought to understand.... I sent +your father into the war...." + +Depth beneath depth he was discovering her. He was amazed and awed. He +asked himself where he had been all these years, and how he had been so +blind. He felt very young then. It was she who actually knew what the +word social and the word patriotism meant. + +He looked down on the floor, and spoke in a whisper: + +"And ... would you send me off, too? The new war?" + +She could scarcely speak. + +"Whereto?" + +"I ... oh, I'll have to go down in a tenement somewhere--the slums...." + +"Well, then," she said, quietly, "I'll go with you." + +"But you--" he exclaimed, almost adding, "an old woman"--"it's +impossible, mother." + +She answered him with the same quietness. + +"You forget the shanty." + +And then it was clear to him. Like an electric bolt it shot him, +thrilling, stirring his heart and soul. She _would_ go with him; more +than that, she _should_. It was her right, won by years of actual want +and struggle and service. More, it was her escape from a flat, stale, +meaningless boarding-house existence. Suddenly he felt that she was +really his mother, knit to him by ties unbreakable, a terrible thing in +its miraculousness. + +But he only said, in a strained voice, + +"All right, mother!" + +And she laughed, and mused, and murmured: + +"How does the world manage to keep so new and young?" + + + + +V + + +MYRA AND JOE + +Myra Craig used to dream at night that the fifty-seven members of her +class arose from their desks with wild shrieks and danced a war-dance +about her. This paralyzed her throat, her hands, and her feet, and she +could only stand, flooded with horror, awaiting the arrival of the +school principal and disgrace. Out of this teacher's dream she always +awoke disgusted with school-work. + +Myra came from Fall River--her parents still lived there--came when she +was ten years younger, to seek her fortune in the great city. New York +had drawn her as it draws all the youth of the land, for youth lusts for +life and rushes eagerly to the spot where life is most intense and most +exciting. The romance of crowds, of wealth, of art, of concentrated +pleasure and concentrated vice, of immense money-power, the very +architecture of the world-city, the maelstrom of people, drew the young +Fall River woman irresistibly. She did not want the even and smooth +future of a little town; she wanted to plunge into the hazardous +interweaving of the destinies of millions of people. She wanted to +grasp at some of the magic opportunities of the city. She wanted a +career. + +And so she came. Early that June morning she left her cabin on the Sound +steamboat and went out on deck, and then she had unfolded to her the +most thrilling scene of the earth. Gazing, almost panting with +excitement, it seemed to her that the nature she had known--the hills +and fields of New England--shrank to littleness. First there was all +about her the sway of the East River, golden--flecked with the morning +sun, which glowed through a thin haze. From either shore a city climbed, +topped with steeples and mill chimneys--floods of tenements and homes. +Then the boat swept under the enormous steel bridges which seemed upheld +by some invisible power and throbbed with life above them. And then, +finally, came the Vision of the City. The wide expanse of rolling, +slapping water was busy with innumerable harbor craft, crowded ferries, +puffing tugs, each wafting its plume of smoke and white steam; but from +those waters rose tier after tier of square-set skyscrapers climbing in +an irregular hill to the thin peak of the highest tower. In the golden +haze, shot with sun, the whole block of towers loomed distant, gigantic, +shadowy, unreal--a magic city floating on the waters of the morning. +Windows flashed, spirals of white smoke spun thin from the far roofs. +Myra thought of those skyscrapers as the big brothers of the island +gazing out over the Atlantic. + +The boat rounded the tip of the island, furrowing the broad surface of +the bay, which seemed as the floor of a stage before that lifting huge +sky-lost amphitheater. Every advance changed the many-faceted beauty of +New York, and Myra, gazing, had one glimpse across little green Battery +Park up the deep twilit cañon of Broadway, the city's spine. The young +woman was moved to tears. She seemed to slough off at that moment the +church of her youth, averring that New York was too big for a creed. It +was the great human outworking; the organism of the mighty many. It +seemed a miracle that all this splendor and wonder had been wrought by +human hands. Surely human nature was great--greater than she had +dreamed. If creatures like herself had wrought this, then she was more +than she had dared to imagine, "deeper than ever plummet had sounded." +She felt new courage, new faith. She wanted to leave the boat and merge +with those buildings and those swarming streets. She was proud of the +great captains who had engineered this masswork, proud of the powers +that ruled this immensity. + +But beyond all she felt the city's _livingness_. The air seemed charged +with human activity, with toil-pulsations. She was all crowded about +with human beings, and felt the mystery of what might be termed +_crowd-touch_. Here, surely, was life--life thick, happy, busy, daring, +ideal. Here was pioneering--a reaching forth to a throbbing future. So, +as the boat landed, she mentally identified herself with this city, +labeled herself New-Yorker, and became one of its millions. + +Her rapture lasted throughout her first stay. She tasted romance +glancing in shop windows or moving in a crowd or riding in an elevated +train. A letter of introduction to a friend of her mother's secured her +a companion, who "showed her the sights" and helped her choose her +boarding-house in East Eightieth Street. And then came the examinations +for public-school teaching; and after these she went home for the +summer, returning to New York in the fall. + +Then her new life began, the rapture ceased, and Myra Craig, like so +many others, found that her existence in the city was just as narrow as +it had been in the town. In some ways, more narrow. She was quite +without friends, quite without neighborhood. Her day consisted in +teaching from 9 A.M. to 3 P.M., correcting papers and planning lessons +and making reports until well into the evening, sometimes until late in +the night, and meeting at meals unfriendly people that she disliked. Her +class was composed of rather stupid, rather dirty children. They +_smelled_--a thing she never forgave them. And what could one woman do +with fifty or sixty children? The class was at least three times too big +for real teaching, and so almost inevitably a large part of the work +became routine--a grind that spoiled her temper and embittered her +heart. Her fellow-teachers were an ignorant lot; the principal himself +she thought the biggest lump of stupidity she had ever met--a man +demanding letter-perfection and caring not one rap for the growth of +children. Her week-ends were her only relief, and she used these partly +for resting and partly in going to theater and concert. + +Such for ten years--with summers spent at home--was Myra's life. It was +bounded by a few familiar streets; it was largely routine; it was hard +and bitter; and it had no future. It was anything but what she had +dreamed. New York was anything but what she had dreamed. She never saw +again that Vision of the City; never felt again that throb of life, that +sense of pioneering and of human power. And yet in those years Myra had +developed. She was thrown back on books for friendship, and through +these and through hard work and through very routine she developed +personality--grew sensitive, mentally quick, metropolitan. She had, as +it were, her own personal _flavor_--one felt in her presence a +difference, a uniqueness quite precious and exquisite. + +And then one day she had gone to the printery and met a man, who was +homely, rough, simple, and, in spite of her revulsion from these +qualities, was immensely drawn to him. Something deeper than the veneer +of her culture overpowered her. She had almost forgotten sex in the +aridity of those ten years; she had almost become a dried old maid; but +now by the new color in her cheeks, the sparkle in her eyes, the fresh +rapidity of her blood, and through the wonder of the world having become +more _light_, as if there were two suns in the sky instead of one--yes, +through the fact that she lived now at ten human-power instead of +one--her heart told her exultingly, "You are a _woman_." + +Girlhood had come again, but girlhood made all woman by immense +tenderness, by the up-rush of a wild love, and by the awakening of all +her instincts of home and mating and child-bearing. And then had come +that mad, wind-blown twilight at the riverside when the spirit of life +had drenched her and she had become grave, tender, and wrought of all +lovely power. Joe was just a boy then to her, and her great woman-heart +drew him in and sheltered him in the sacred warmth of her being. In that +moment she had reached the highest point of her womanhood, a new +unfolding, a new release. And then had come horror, and he had been +swept away from her--one glimpse of his numb, ghastly face, and he was +gone. + +It was Fannie Lemick that took her home. She only knew that she was +being led away, while crashing through her mind went flames, smoke, the +throbbing of the engines, and the words: "I may never see you again ... +dead girls...." All that night she tossed about in a horror, and in the +morning she feverishly read the terrible news until she thought she must +swoon away. She became sick; the landlady had to come up and help her; +the doctor had to be sent for, and he had told her that this nervous +breakdown had been long overdue; she had been working under too great a +strain; it only needed some shock to break her. + +But while she lay in a sick fever her heart went out to Joe. If she only +could be at his side, nerve him to the fight, protect him and soothe +him. She knew that his whole old life had been consumed in that fire, +and lay in ruins, and she felt subtly that he had been taken from her. +By one blow, at the very moment of the miracle of their love, they had +been torn from each other. She did not want to live; she hoped that she +had some serious disease that would kill her. + +But she did live; she became better, and then in a mood of passionate +tenderness she wrote her first little love-letter to Joe. She went +about, doing her school-work and bearing the weight of intolerable +lonely days, and he had written twice, just a word to her, a word of +delay. What kept him? What was he doing? She read of his testimony at +the inquest and became indignant because he blamed himself. Who was to +blame for such an accident? It was not his cigarette that had started +the blaze. In her overwrought condition she passed from a terrible love +to a sharp hate, and back and forth. Was he a fool or was he more noble +than she could fathom? He should have seen her sooner, he should not +have left her a prey to her morbid thoughts. Time and again she became +convinced that he had ceased to love her, that he was more concerned +over his burnt printery. She twisted his letters against him. She would +sit in her room trying to work at her school papers, and suddenly she +would clench her fists, turn pale, and stare despairingly at the blank +wall. + +Day after day she waited, starting up every time she heard the postman's +whistle and the ringing of the bell. And then at last one night, as she +paced up and down the narrow white little room, she heard the landlady +climbing the stairs, advancing along the hall, and there was a sharp +rap. She felt faint and dizzy, flung open the door, took the letter, and +sank down on the bed, hardly daring to open it. + +It was brief and cold: + + Dear Myra,--I know you are up early, so I am + coming around at seven to-morrow morning--I'll be + out in the street and wait for you. We can go to the + Park. I have some serious problems to lay before + you. + + Joe. + +"Serious problems!" She understood. He was paving the way for renouncing +her. Perhaps it was a money matter--he thought he ought not marry on a +reduced income. Or perhaps he found he didn't love her. For hours she +sat there with the letter crumpled in her hand, frozen, inert, until she +was incapable of feeling or thinking. So he was coming at seven. He took +it for granted that she would be ready to see him--would be eager to +walk in the Park with him. Well, what if she didn't go? A fine letter +that, after that half-hour at the riverside. A love-letter! She laughed +bitterly. And then her heart seemed to break within her. Life was too +hard. Why had she ever left the peace and quiet of Fall River? Why had +she come down to the cruel, careless, vicious city to be ground up in a +wholesale school system and then to break her heart for an uncouth, +half-educated printer? It was all too hard, too cruel. Why had she been +born to suffer so? Why must she tingle now with pain, when in a few +years she would be unfeeling dust again? Among all the millions of the +people of the earth, among all the life of earth and the circling +million scattered worlds, she felt utterly isolated, defrauded, +betrayed. Life was a terrible gift, and she did not want it. This whirl +of emotion rose and rose in her, went insanely through her brain, and, +becoming intolerable, suddenly ceased and left her careless, numb, and +hard. + +She arose mechanically and looked in the glass at herself. Her face was +haggard. + +"I'm getting homely," she thought, and quietly went to bed. + +But in the night she awoke to a swift frenzy of joy. He was coming. +After all, he was coming. She would see him. She would be near him +again. Yes, how she loved him! loved with all her nature. It was the +intensity of her love that made her hate. And she lay throbbing with +joy, her whole being quivering with desire for him. He was hers, after +all. It was the woman's part to forgive and forget. + +But when the morning broke, and she arose in her nightgown and sat on +the chair at the window, smoothing out and rereading the letter, her +doubts returned. He was coming to renounce her. He would make all sorts +of plausible excuses, he would be remorseful and penitent, but it all +came to the same end. Why should she go and meet him to be humiliated in +this way? She would not go. + +Yet she rose and dressed with unusual care and tried to smile back the +radiance of her face, and fixed her hair this way and that in a pitiful +attempt to take away the sharpness of her expression, and when her +little clock showed seven she put on hat and coat with trembling hands +and went swiftly down and out at the front door. She was shaking with +terrible emotions, fire filled and raged in her breast, and she had to +bite her lip to keep it still. + +The city flashed before her in all the sparkle of October, the air +tingled, and in the early morning light the houses, the street, looked +as bright and fresh as young school-children washed, combed, +bright-eyed, new with sleep, and up from roofs went magic veilings of +flimsy smoke. Down the avenues clanged cars black with mechanics, +clerks, and shop-girls on the way to work; people streamed hurrying to +their day's toil. The city was awake, shaking in every part of her with +glad breakfast and the rush to activity. What colossal forces swinging +in, swinging out of the metropolis in long pulsations of freight and +ship and electricity! Wall Street would roar, the skyscrapers swarm, the +schools drone and murmur and sing, the mills grind and rattle, and the +six continents and the seven seas would pulse their blood into the city +and be flushed by her radiating tides. Into this hidden activity Myra +stepped, deaf and blind to all but the clamor of her heart and a single +man walking like a black pawn aureoled in the low early sunlight. + +She came down slowly, as he came up. She glanced at his face. She was +shocked by its suffering, its gray age. He looked quite shabby in his +long frayed coat, his unpolished shoes, his gray slouch hat--shabby and +homely, and ill-proportioned, stooping a little, his rough shock of hair +framing the furrowed face and sunken melancholy eyes. And it was for +this man that she had been breaking her heart! Yet, at the moment there +swept over her an awful surge of passion, so strong that she could have +seized him in her arms and died in his embrace. + +He, in turn, saw how white and set her face was, how condemnatory. He +had come to her almost ready to throw his plans overboard and cleave to +her--for a day and a night that side of his nature had dominated, +expunging all else, driving him to her, demanding that he grasp her +magic presence, her womanly splendor. This alone was real, and all the +rest fantastic. And he had walked up and down the street with all the +October morning singing in his blood; the world was glorious again and +he was young; he would take her, he would forget all else, and they +would go off somewhere in the wilderness and really live. He had never +lived yet. He thirsted for life, he thirsted for all this woman could +give him. And now the condemnation in her face choked him off, made her +a stranger, separated them, made it hard to speak to her. + +He cried in a low voice: + +"Myra!" + +The word was charged with genuine passion, and she became more pale, and +stood unable to find her tongue, her lips quivering painfully. + +Then suddenly there was a nervous overflow. + +"You wanted to walk in the Park," she blurted in a cold, uneven voice. +"We'd better be going then. I won't have much time. I've got to be at +school early." + +She started off, and he strode beside her. They walked in a strange slow +silence, each charged with inexpressible, conflicting emotions, and +each waiting for the other. This strain was impossible, and finally Joe +began speaking in low tones. + +"I know it seems queer that I haven't been to see you ... but you'll +understand, I couldn't. There was so much to do...." + +He stopped, and then again came the cold, uneven voice: + +"You could have found a moment." + +They went on in silence, and entered the Park, following the walk where +it swept its curve alongside the tree-arched roadway, past low green +hills to the right and the sinking lawns to the left, crossed the +roadway, and climbed the steep path that gave on to the Ramble--that +twisty little wilderness in the heart of the city, that remote, wild, +magic tangle. + +A little pond lay in the very center of it, all deep with the blue sky, +and golden October gloried all about it--swaying in wild-tinted +treetops, blowing in dry leaves, sparkling on every spot of wet, and all +suffused and splashed and strangely fresh with the low, red, radiant +sunlight. There was splendor in the place, and the air dripped with +glorious life, and through it all went the lovers, silent, estranged, +pitiable. + +"We can sit here," said Joe. + +It was a bench under a tree, facing the pond. They sat down, each gazing +on the ground, and the leaves dropped on them, and squirrels ran up to +them, tufted their tails and begged for peanuts with lustrous beady +eyes, and now and then some early walker or some girl or man on the way +to work swung lustily past and disappeared in foliage and far low vistas +of tree trunks. + +The suspense became intolerable again. Joe turned a little to her. + +"Myra!" + +She was trembling; a moment more she would be in his arms, sobbing, +forgiving him. But she hurried on in an unnatural way. + +"You wanted to speak to me--I'm waiting. _Why_ don't you speak?" + +It was a blow in the face; his own voice hardened then. + +"You're making it very hard for me." + +She said nothing, and he had to go on. + +"After the fire--" his voice snapped, and it was a space before he went +on, "I felt I was guilty.... I went to a mass-meeting and one of the +speakers accused the ... class I belong to ... of failing in their +duty.... She said ..." + +Myra spoke sharply: + +"Who said?" + +"Miss Heffer." + +"Oh!" + +Joe felt suddenly silenced. Something unpleasant was creeping in between +them. He did not know enough of women, either, to divine how Myra was +suffering, to know that she had reached a nervous pitch where she was +hardly responsible for what she thought and said. He went on +blunderingly: + +"I felt that I was accused... I felt that I had to make reparation to +the toilers, ... had to spend my life making conditions better.... You +see this country has reached a crisis ..." + +It was all gibberish to her. + +"Exactly what do you mean?" she asked, sharply. + +"I mean"--he fumbled for words--"I must go and live among the poor and +arouse them and teach them of the great change that is taking place...." + +She laughed strangely. + +"Oh--an uplifter, settlement work, charity work--" + +He was stupefied. + +"Myra, can't you see--" + +"Yes, I see," she said, raising her voice a little; "you're going to +live in the slums and you want me to release you. I do. Anything else?" + +She was making something sordid of his beautiful dream, and she was +startlingly direct. He was cut to the heart. + +"You're making it impossible," he began. + +She laughed a little, stroking down her muff. + +"So you're going to live among the poor ... and you didn't dare come and +tell me...." + +"I had no right to involve you until I was sure...." + +"And now you're sure...." + +"No," he cried. + +She raised her voice a little again: + +"And I wrote asking if I couldn't help you. Women are fools...." + +He sat searching about for something to say. His heart was like cold +lead in his breast; his head ached. He felt her side of the case very +vividly, and how could she ever understand? + +Then, as she sat there her head seemed to explode, and she spoke +hurriedly, incoherently: + +"It's time to get to school. I want to go alone. Good-by." + +She rose and went off rapidly. + +"Myra!" he cried, leaping up, but she only accelerated her pace.... + +Instead of going to school she went straight home, flung herself +full-length on the bed, buried her face in the pillow, and shook for a +long time with terrible tearless sobs. Her life was ruined within her. + + + + +VI + + +MARTY BRIGGS + +Joe went home in a distraught condition. He was angry, amazed, and +passion-shaken. He had had a look into that strange mixture which is +woman--and he was repelled, and yet attracted as he had never been +before. He felt that all was over between them, that somehow she had +convicted him of being brutal, selfish, and unmanly, and in the light of +her condemnation he saw in his delay to meet her only cowardice and +harsh indifference. And yet all along he had acted on the conclusion +that he had no right to ask a woman to go into the danger of his work +with him. + +Pacing up and down his narrow room, he began lashing himself again, +excusing, forgiving Myra everything. He had never really understood her +nature; he should have gone to her in the beginning and trusted to her +love and her insight; he should have let her share the aftermath of the +fire; that fierce experience would have taught her that he was forever +mortgaged to a life of noble reparation, and even the terror of it all +would have been better than shutting her out, to brood morbidly alone. + +Yet, what could he do? He must be strong, be wise, keep his head. He had +pledged himself, sworn himself into the service of the working class +movement. There was no escape. He tried to bury himself in his books, +regain for a moment his splendid dream of the future state, feel again +those strange throes of world-building, of social service. + +And out of it all grew a letter, a letter to Myra. He wrote it in a +strange haste, the sentences coming too rapidly for his pen. It ran: + + DEAR MYRA,--I must _make_ you understand! I hurt + you when I wanted to help you; I wronged you when + I wanted only to do right by you. Why didn't you + listen to me this morning? + + It was at the fire there, at that moment you tugged + at my sleeve and I spoke to you, that I saw clearly that + my life was no longer my own, that I could not even + give it to you, whom I loved, whom I love now with + every bit of my existence. I told you I belonged to + those dead girls. Have you forgotten? _Sixty of them_--and + three of my men. It was as if I had killed them + myself. I am a guilty man, and I must expiate this + guilt. There is no use fooling myself with pleasant + phrases, no use thinking others to blame. It was I + who was responsible. + + And through the death of those girls I learned of the + misery of the world, of the millions in want, the women + wrenched from their homes to toil in the mills, the + little children--fresh, sweet bodies, bubbling hearts, + and tender, whimsical minds--slaving in factories, + tiny boys and girls laboring like men and women in + cotton and knitting mills, in glass factory and coal-mine, + and on the streets of cities, upon whose frail little + spirits is thrust the responsibility, the wage burden, the + money, and family trouble, the care and drudgery and + mortal burden we grown people ourselves not seldom + find too hard. I have learned of a world gone wrong; + I have learned of a new slavery on earth; and I as a + member of the master class share the general guilt for + the suffering of the poor...I must help to free + them from the very conditions that killed the sixty + girls... + + And when I think of those girls and their families + (some of them were the sole support of their mothers + and sisters and brothers) the least I can do is to render + up my life for the, lives that were lost--the least I can + do is to fill myself with the spirit of the dead and + go forth, not to avenge them, but to help build a + world where the living will not be sacrificed as they + were. + + This country is facing a great crisis; civilization is + facing a great crisis. Shall we go forward or be drawn + backward? There is a call to arms and every man must + offer his life in the great fight--that fight for democracy, + that fight for lifting up the millions to new levels of + life, that fight for a better earth and a superber race + of human beings; and in that fight I am with the + pioneers, heart and soul; I am ringing with the joy + and struggle of it; I am for it, with all my strength and + all my power. It demands everything; its old cry, + "Arise, arise, and follow me;" means giving up possessions, + giving away all, making every sacrifice. Before + this issue our little lives shrink into nothingness, + and we must sink our happiness into the future of the + world. + + How can I ask you to go into the peril, the dirt, and + disease of this struggle? And how can I refrain from + going in myself? Let me see you once more. Do not + deny me that. And understand that through life my + love will follow you ... a love greatened, I trust, by + what little I do in the great cause.... + + Ever yours, JOE + +He waited for an answer and none came, and he felt during those days +that the life was being dragged out of him. Feverishly then he buried +himself in his tasks and his books, he went on cramming himself with +theories until he reached the bursting-point and wanted to go out on +fire with mission, almost a fanatic, an Isaiah to shake the city with +invective and prophesy change. What could he do to spread the tidings, +the news? The time had come to find an outlet for the overbearing flood +within him. And then one evening in the Park like a flash came the plan. +He must go among the poor, he must get to know them--not in this +neighborhood, "a prophet is not without honor, etc."--but in some new +place where he was unknown. He thought of Greenwich Village. Did not +Fannie Lemick tell him that Sally Heffer lived in Greenwich Village? +Well, he would look into the matter. He was a printer; why not then +print a little weekly newspaper directly for the toilers, for his +neighbors? He could tell all that way, pour out his enlightenment, stir +them, stand by them, take part in their activities, their troubles and +their strikes and lead them forth to a new life. He was sure they were +ripe for the facts, powder awaiting the spark; he would go down among +them and make his paper the center of their disorganized life. + +The more he thought of the plan the more it thrilled him. What was +greater than the power of the press? What more direct? He was done with +palliatives, finding men jobs, giving Christmas turkeys, paying for +coal. What the people needed was education so that they could get +justice--all else would follow. + +But even at that perfervid period of his life Joe was saved from being a +John Brown by his sense of humor. This was the imp in him that always +poked a little doubt into his heart and laughed at his ignorance and +innocence. By next morning Joe was smiling at himself. Nevertheless, he +was driven ahead. + +He called for Marty Briggs and they went to lunch together. Third Avenue +lay naked to the rain, which swept forward in silvery gusts, dripping, +dripping from the elevated structure, and the pattering liquid sound had +a fresh mellow music. Here and there a man or woman, mush-roomed by an +umbrella, dashed quickly for a car, and the trolleys, gray and crowded, +seemed to duck hurriedly under the downpour. The faces of Joe and Marty +were fresh-washed and spattering drops; they laughed together as they +walked. + +"I've some business to talk over with you," explained Joe, and they +finally went into a little restaurant on Third Avenue. The stuffy little +place, warm and damp with the excluded rain, and odorous with sizzling +lard and steaming coffee and boiling cabbage, was crowded with people, +but Joe and Marty took a little table to themselves in the darkest +corner. They sat against the dirty rear wall, whose white paint was +finger-marked, fly-specked, and food-spotted, and in which a +shelf-aperture furnished the connection with the kitchen. To this hole +in the wall hurried the three waitresses, shrieking their orders above +the din of many voices and the clatter and clash of plates and utensils. + +"One ham--and!" + +A monstrous greasy cook peered forth, shoving out a plate of fried eggs +and echoing huskily: + +"Ham--and!" + +"Corn-beef-an'-cabbage!" "One harf-an'-harf!" "Make a sunstroke on the +hash!" and other pleasing chants of the noon. + +"What'll yer have?" + +A thin and nervous young woman swooped between them and mopped off the +sloppy, crumby table with her apron. + +"What's good?" asked Joe. + +The waitress regarded Joe with half-shut eyes. + +"_You_ want veal cutlets." + +And she wafted the information to the cook. + +"Well, Joe," said the practical Briggs, unable to hold in his excitement +any longer, "let's get down to business." + +Joe leaned forward. + +"I'm thinking of starting up the printery, Marty." + +Marty flushed, choked, and could hardly speak. + +"I _knew_ you would, Joe." + +"Yes," Joe went on, "but I'm not going to go on with it." + +Marty spoke sharply: + +"Why not?" + +"I'll tell you later, Marty." + +"Not--lost your nerve? The fire?" + +Joe laughed softly. + +"Other reasons--Marty." + +"Retire?" Marty's appetite was spoiled. He pushed the veal cutlet from +him. He was greatly agitated. "Retire--_you_? I can see you doing +nothing, blamed if I can't. Gettin' sporty, Joe, in your old age, aren't +you? You'll be wearing one of these dress-suits next and a flasher in +yer chest. Huh!" he snorted, "you'd make a good one on the shelf!" + +Joe laughed with joy. + +"With my flunkies and my handmaids. No, Marty, I'm going into another +business." + +"What business?" + +"Editing a magazine." + +"And what do you know about editing a magazine?" + +"What do most of the editors know?" queried Joe. "You don't have to know +anything. Everybody's editing magazines nowadays." + +"A magazine!" Marty was disgusted. "You're falling pretty low, Joe. Why +don't you stick to an honest business? Gosh! you'd make a queer fist +editing a magazine!" + +Joe was delighted. + +"Well, there are reasons, Marty." + +"What reasons?" + +So Joe in a shaking voice unfolded his philosophy, and as he did so +Marty became dazed and aghast, gazing at his boss as if Joe had turned +into some unthinkable zoological oddity. Into Marty's prim-set life, +with its definite boundaries and unmysterious exactness, was poured a +vapor of lunacy. Finally Joe wound up with: + +"So you see I've got to do what little I can to help straighten things. +You see, Marty? Now, what do you think of it? Give me your honest +opinion." + +Marty spoke sharply: + +"You want to know what I really think?" + +"Every word of it!" + +"Now see here, Joe," Marty burst out, "you and I grew up in the business +together, and we know each other well enough to speak out, even if you +are my boss, don't we?" + +"We do, Marty!" + +Marty leaned over. + +"Joe, I think you're a blamed idiot!" + +Joe laughed. + +"Well, Marty, if it weren't for the blamed idiots--like Columbus and Tom +Watts and the prophets and Abe Lincoln--this world would be in a pretty +mess." + +But Marty refused to be convinced, even averring that the world _is_ in +a pretty mess, and that probably the aforementioned "idiots" had caused +it to be so. Then finally he spoke caressingly: + +"Ah, Joe, tell me it's a joke." + +"No," said Joe, earnestly, "it's what I've got to face, Marty, and I +need your backing." + +Marty mused miserably. + +"So the game's up, and you've changed, and we men can go to the dogs. +Why, we can't run that printery without you. We'd go plumb to hell!" + +Joe changed his voice--it became more commanding. + +"Never mind now, Marty. I want your help to figure things out." + +So Marty got out his little pad and the two drew close together. + +"I want to figure on a weekly newspaper--I'm figuring big on the +future--just want to see what it will come to. Say an edition of twenty +thousand copies, an eight-page paper, eight by twelve, no +illustrations." + +Marty spoke humbly: + +"As you say, Joe. Cheap paper?" + +"Yes." + +"Do your own printing?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, you'll need a good cylinder press for a starter." + +"How much help?" + +"Make-up man--pressman--feeder--that's on the press. Will you set up the +paper yourself?" + +"No, I'll have it set up outside." + +"Who'll bind it, fold, and address?" + +"The bindery--give that out, too." + +"And who'll distribute?" + +"Outside, too." + +"The news company?" + +"No, I won't deal with any news company. I want to go direct to the +people. Say I get a hundred newsmen to distribute in their +neighborhood?" + +"But who'll get the paper to the newsmen?" + +"Hire a truck company--so much a week." + +"And how much will you charge for the paper?" + +"Cent a copy." + +"Can't do it," said Marty. + +"Why not?" + +Marty did some figuring, so they raised the price to two cents. And then +they put in twenty minutes and worked out the scheme. It summed up as +follows: + + Paper sells at 2 cts., 20,000 $400 + Expenses 340 + ---- + Profit $ 60 + +Joe was exultant. + +"Sixty profit! Well, I'm hanged." + +"Not so fast, Joe," said Marty, drily. "They say no one ever started a +magazine without getting stuck, and anyway, you just reckon there'll be +expenses that will run you into debt right along. But of course there'll +be the ads." + +"I don't know about the ads," said Joe. "But the figures please me just +the same." + +Marty squirmed in his chair. + +"Joe," he burst out, "how the devil is the printery going to run without +you?" + +Their eyes met, and Joe laughed. + +"Will it be worth twenty-five thousand dollars when it's rebuilt and +business booming again?" he asked, shrewdly. + +"More than that!" said Marty Briggs. + +"Then," said Joe, "I want _you_ to take it." + +"_Me_?" Marty was stunned. + +"You can do it easily. I'll take a mortgage and you pay it off two +thousand a year and five per cent. interest. That will still leave you a +tidy profit." + +"_Me_?" Then Marty laughed loud. "Listen, my ears! Did you hear that?" + +"Think it over!" snapped Joe. "Now come along." + + + + +VII + + +LAST OF JOE BLAINE AND HIS MEN + +So the printery was rehabilitated, and one gray morning Joe, with a +queer tremor at his heart, went down the street and met many of his men +in the doorway. They greeted him with strange, ashamed emotion. + +"Morning, Mr. Joe.... It's been a long spell.... Good to see the old +place again.... Bad weather we're having.... How've you been?" + +The loft seemed strangely the same, strangely different--fresh painted, +polished, smelling new and with changed details. For a few moments Joe +felt the sharp shock of the fire again, especially when he heard the +trembling of the hat factory overhead ... and that noon the bright faces +and laughter in the hallway! It seemed unreal; like ghosts revisiting; +and he learned later that the first morning the hat factory had set to +work, some of the girls had become hysterical. + +But as he stood in his private office, looking out into the gray loft, +and feeling how weird and swift are life's changes, the men turned on +the electrics, and the floors and walls began their old trembling and +the presses clanked and thundered. He could have wept. To Joe this +moment of starting up had always been precious: it had seemed to bring +him something he had missed; something that fitted like an old shoe and +was friendly and familiar. All at once he felt as if he could not leave +this business, could not leave these men. + +And yet he had only three days with them to wind up the business and +install Marty Briggs. And then there was a last supper of Joe Blaine and +his men. Those days followed one another with ever-deepening gloom, in +which the trembling printery and all the human beings that were part of +it seemed steeped in a growing twilight. Do what Joe would and could in +the matter of good-fellowship, loud laughter, and high jocularity, the +darkness thickened staggeringly. Hardly had Joe settled the transfer of +the printery to Marty, when the rumor of the transaction swept the +business. At noon men gathered in groups and whispered together as if +some one had died, and one after another approached Joe with a: + +"Mr. Joe, is it true what the fellows say?" + +"Yes, Tom." + +"Going to leave us, Mr. Joe?" + +"Going, Tom." + +"_Got_ to go?" + +"I'm afraid I have to." + +"I'll hate to go home and tell my wife, Mr. Joe. She'll cry her head +off." + +"Oh, come! come!" + +"Say--we men, Mr. Joe--" + +But Tom would say no more, and go off miserably; only to be replaced by +Eddie or Mack or John, and then some such dialogue would be repeated. +Under the simple and inadequate words lurked that sharp tragedy of life, +the separation of comrades, that one event which above all others +darkens the days and gives the sense of old age. And the men seemed all +the closer to Joe because of the tragedy of the fire. All these +conversations told on Joe. He went defiantly about the shop, but +invariably his spoken orders were given in a humble, almost affectionate +tone, as (with one arm loosely about the man): + +"Say, Sam, _don't_ you think you'd better use a little benzine on that?" + +And Sam would answer solemnly: + +"I've always done as you've said, Mr. Joe--since the very first." + +His men succeeded in this way in making Joe almost as miserable as when +he had parted from Myra; and indeed a man's work is blood of his blood, +heart of his heart. + +Possibly one thing that hurt Joe as much as anything else was a curious +change in Marty Briggs. That big fellow, from the moment that Joe had +handed over the business, began to unfold hitherto unguessed bits of +personality. He ceased to lament Joe's going; he went about the shop +with a certain jaunty air of proprietorship; and the men, for some +unknown reason, began to call him Mr. Briggs. He even grew a bit cool +toward Joe. Joe watched him with a sad sort of mirth, and finally called +him into the office one morning. He put his hands on the big man's +shoulders and looked in his face. + +"Marty," he said, "I hope you're not going to make an ass of yourself." + +"What do you mean?" murmured Marty. + +Joe brought his face a little nearer. + +"I want to know something." + +"What?" + +Joe spoke slowly: + +"_Are you Marty Briggs now or are you Martin Briggs_?" + +Marty tried to laugh; tried to look away. + +"What's the difference?" he muttered. + +"Difference?" Joe's voice sank. "Marty, I thought you were a bigger man. +It's only the little peanut fellows who want to be bossy and +holier-than-thou. _Don't make any mistake_!" + +"I guess," muttered Marty, "I can steer things O.K." + +"You'd better!" Joe spoke a little sharply. "Our men here are as big as +you and I, every one of them. My God! you'll have to pay the price of +being a high muck-a-muck, Marty! So, don't forget it!" + +Marty tried to laugh again. + +"You're getting different lately," he suggested. + +"I?" Joe laughed harshly. "What if it's you? But don't let's quarrel. +We've been together too long. Only, let's both remember. That's all, +Marty!" + +All of which didn't mend matters. It was that strangest of all the +twists of human nature--the man rising from the ranks turning against +his fellows. + +On Friday night Joe climbed the three flights of the stuffy Eightieth +Street tenement and had supper with the Ranns. That family of five +circled him with such warmth of love that the occasion burst finally +into good cheer. The two girls, seated opposite him, sent him smiling +and wordless messages of love. Not a word was said of the fire, but John +kept serving him with large portions of the vegetables and the excellent +and expensive steak which had been bought in his honor; and John's wife +kept spurring him on. + +"I'm sure Mr. Joe could stand just a weeny sliver more." + +"Mrs. Rann"--Joe put down knife and fork--"do you want me to _burst_?" + +"A big man like you? Give him the sliver, John." + +"John, spare me!" + +"Mr. Joe"--John waved his hand with an air of finality--"in the shop +what you says goes, but in this here home I take my orders from the old +lady. See?" + +"Nellie--Agnes--" he appealed, despairingly, to his little loves, "_you_ +save me! Don't you love me any more?" + +This set Nellie and Agnes giggling with delight. + +"Give him a pound, a whole pound!" cried Agnes, who was the elder. + +A nice sliver was waved dripping on Joe's plate, which Joe proceeded to +eat desperately, all in one mouthful. Whereupon the Ranns were convulsed +with joy, and John kept "ha-ha-ing" as he thumped the table, and went to +such excesses that he seemed to put his life in peril and Mrs. Rann and +the girls had to rise and pound him until their hands hurt. + +"Serves you right, John," said Joe, grimly. "Try it again, and you'll +get a stroke." + +"Ain't he the limit?" queried John, gasping. + +Then Mrs. Rann went mysteriously to the cupboard, and the girls began to +whisper together and giggle. And then Mrs. Rann brought something +covered with a napkin, and then the napkin was removed. It was pie. + +Joe pretended that he didn't know the secret, and leaned far over and +gazed at it. + +"It's--well, what is it?" + +Mrs. Rann's voice rang with exultation. + +"Your favorite, Mr. Joe." + +"Not--_raisin pie_?" + +A shout went up from all. Then real moisture came stealthily to Joe's +eyes, and he looked about on those friendly faces, and murmured: + +"Thoughtful, mightily thoughtful!" + +There was a special bottle of wine--rather cheap, it is true, but then +it was served with raisin pie and with human love, which made it very +palatable. Mrs. Rann fixed John with a sharp glance through her glasses +and cleared her throat several times, and finally Agnes gave him a poke +in the ribs, whispering: + +"Hurry up, dad!" + +John blushed and rose to his feet. + +"Mr. Joe, I ain't a talker, anyway on my feet. But, Mr. Joe, you've been +my boss six years. And, Mr. Joe--" He paused, stuck, and gazed +appealingly at Joe. + +Joe rose to the occasion. + +"So it's, here's to good friends, isn't it, John?" + +John beamed. + +"That's it--you took the words out of my mouth! Toast!" + +So they drank. + +Then Joe rose, and spoke musingly, tenderly: + +"There's a trifle I want to say to you to-night--to every one of you. I +can't do without you. Now it happens that I'm going to put a press in my +new business and I'm looking for a first-class crackerjack of a +pressman. Do you happen to know any one in this neighborhood who could +take the job?" + +He sat down. There was profound silence. And then Mrs. Rann took off +her spectacles and sobbed. John reached over and took Joe's hand, and +his voice was husky with tears. + +"Mr. Joe! Mr. Joe! Ah, say, you make me feel foolish!" + +Joe stayed with them late that night, and when he left, the kisses of +the two girls moist on his cheeks, he had no doubt of his life-work. But +next day, Saturday--the last day--was downright black. Things went +wrong, and the men steered clear of Joe. + +"Don't bother _him_," they said, meaning to spare him, and thereby +increasing his pain. Men spoke in hushed tones, as soldiers might on the +eve of a fatal battle, and even Marty Briggs dropped his new mannerisms +and was subdued and simple. + +Then Joe went off into a state of mind which might be described as the +"hazes"--a thing he did now and then. At such times the word went round: + +"The old man's got 'em again!" + +And he was left well alone, for the good reason that he was +unapproachable. He seemed not to listen to spoken words, nor to pay any +attention to the world about him. The men, however, appreciated these +spells, for, as a rule, something came of them--they bore good practical +fruit, the sure test of all sanity. + +The day finally wore away, to every one's relief. Joe took a last look +around at all the familiar scene, shut his desk, handed over the keys +to Marty (who could not speak because he was half-choked), sang out, +"See you later, boys!" heard for the last time the sharp ring of the +door-bell and the slam of the door, and hurried away. Then at last night +came, and with night the last supper (as already announced) of Joe +Blaine and His Men. + +By Monday there would be painted an addition on that door, namely: + + MARTIN BRIGGS + SUCCESSOR TO + +The supper was held in the large hall, upstairs, of Pfaff's, on East +Eighty-sixth Street. The large table was a dream of green and white, of +silver and glass, and the men hung about awkwardly silent in their +Sunday best. Then Joe cried: + +"Start the presses!" + +There came a good laugh then to break the icy air, and they sat down and +were served by flying waiters, who in this instance had the odd +distinction of appearing to be the "upper classes" serving the +"lower"--a distinction, up to date, not over-eagerly coveted by society. +For the waiters wore the conventional dress of "gentlemen" and the +diners were in plain and common clothes. + +At first the diners were in a bit of a funk, but Pfaff's excellent +meats and cool, sparkling wines soon set free in each a scintillant +human spirit, and the banquet took on almost an air of gaiety. + +Finally there came the coffee and the ice-cream in forms, and Martin +Briggs rose. There was a stamping of feet, a clanking of knives on +glasses, a cry of "Hear! Hear!" + +Martin Briggs knew it by heart and launched it with the aid of two +swallows of water. His voice boomed big. + +"Fellow-workers, friends, and the Old Man!" + +This produced tumults of applause. + +"We are met to-night on a solemn occasion. Ties are to be severed, +friends parted. Such is life. Mr. Blaine--" (Cries from the far end of +the table, "Say, Joe! say, Joe!") "Mr. Joe has been our friend, through +all these long years. He has been our friend, our boss, our co-worker. +Never did he spare himself; often he spared us. He had created an +important business, a profitable business, a business which has brought +a good living to every one of us. It is not for us to talk of the +catastrophe--this is not the occasion for that. Enough to say that +to-night Mr. Joe leaves that business. Others must carry it on. My +sentiment is that these others must continue in the same spirit of Mr. +Joe. That's my sentiment." (Roars of applause, stamping of feet, but one +voice heard in talk with a neighbor, "Say, I guess his wife wrote that, +Bill.") "So I propose a toast. To Mr. Joe, now and forever!" + +They rose, they clanked glasses, they drank. Then they sat down and felt +that something was wrong. Marty surely had missed fire. + +Whereupon John Rann, blushing, rose to his feet, and began to stammer: + +"Say, fellers, do you mind if I put in a word?" (Cries: "Not a bit!" +"Soak it him, Johnny.") "Well, I want to say," his voice rose, "Joe +Blaine is _it_." (Applause, laughter, stamping.) "He's jest one of us." +(Cries: "You bet!" "You've hit it, Johnny!" "Give us more!") "He's a +friend." (Cries: "That's the dope!") "He never did a mean thing in his +life." (One loud cry: "Couldn't if he wanted to!") "Say," (Cries: "Go +ahead!" "Nobody 'll stop yer!" "Give him hell!" Laughter.) "We fellers +never appreciated this here Joe Blaine, did we?" (Cries: "Gosh no!") +"But we do _now_!" (Uproarious and prolonged applause.) "Say, fellers, +he's been like a regular father to us kids." (A strange silence.) "He's +been--Oh, hell!" (Speaker wipes his eyes with a red handkerchief. +Strange silence prolonged. Then one voice: "Tell him to his face, John. +'Bout time he knew.") "Joe Blaine" (speaker faces Mr. Blaine, and tries +not to choke), "if any one tries to say that you had anything to do with +the fire--he's a _damned liar_!" + +A thrill charged the men; they became pale; they gazed on Joe, who +looked as white as linen; and suddenly they burst forth in a wildness, +a shouting, a stamping, a cry of: "Mr. Joe! Mr. Joe! Mr. Joe!" + +Joe arose; he leaned a little forward; he trembled visibly, his rising +hand shaking so that he dropped it. Then at last he spoke: + +"Yes--John is my friend. And you--are my friends. Yes. But--you're +wrong. I _was_ to blame." He paused. "I _was_ to blame. Here, to-night, +I want to say this: Those girls, those comrades of ours--all that went +to waste with them--well," his voice broke, "I'm going to try to make +good for them...." + +For a moment he stood there, his face working strangely as if he were +going to break down, and the men looked away from him. Then he went on +in a voice warmly human and tender: + +"You and I, boys, we grew up together. I know your wives and children. +You've given me happy hours. I've made you stand for a lot--your old man +was considerable boy--had his bad habits, his queer notions. Once in +awhile went crazy. But we managed along, quarreling just enough to hit +it off together. Remember how I fired Tommy three times in one week? +Couldn't get rid of him. Oh, Tommy, what 'pi' you made of things! Great +times we've had, great times. It hurts me raw." He paused, looking round +at them. They were glancing at him furtively with shining eyes. "Hurts +me raw to think those times are over--for me. But the dead have called +me. I go out into another world. I go out into a great fight. I may +fail--quite likely I will. But I shall be backed. Your love goes with +me, and I've got a big job ahead." Again he paused, overcome. Then he +tried to smile, tried to smooth out the tragic with a forced jocularity. +"Now, boys, behave. Mind you don't work too much. And don't all forget +the old man. And--but that's enough, I guess." + +The silence was terrible. Some of those big men were crying softly like +stricken children. It was the last requiem over the dead, the last +flare-up of the tragic fire. They crowded round Joe. He was blind +himself with tears, though he felt a strange quiet in his heart. + +And then he was out in the starry autumn night, walking home, murmuring: + +"It's all over. That's out of my life." + +And he felt as if something had died within him. + + + + +VIII + + +THE WIND IN THE OAKS + +Early Monday evening there came a note from Myra: + + I wanted you to know that I am leaving for the + country--to-morrow--to get a rest. + + MYRA. + +Joe at once put on his hat and coat and went out. The last meeting with +his men had given him a new strength, a heightened manhood. Like a man +doomed to death, he felt beyond despair now. He only knew he must go to +Myra and set straight their relationship as a final step before he +plunged into the great battle. No more weakness! No more quarreling! But +clear words and definite understanding! + +He went up the stoop and rang the bell. A servant opened the door, +showed him into the dimly lighted parlor, and went up the stairs with +his name. He heard her footsteps, light, hesitant. She appeared before +him, pale and sick and desperate. + +"What do you want?" she asked in a tortured voice. + +He arose and came close to her. He spoke authoritatively: + +"Myra, get on your things. We must take a walk." + +Her shifting eyes glanced up, gave him their full luminous gray and all +the trouble of her heart. + +"Myra," his voice deepened, and struck through her, "you must go with me +to-night. It's our last chance." + +She turned and was gone. He heard her light footsteps ascending; he +waited, wondering, hoping; and then she came down again, showing her +head at the door. She had on the little rounded felt hat, and she +carried her muff. + +They went out together, saying nothing, stepping near one another under +the lamps and over the avenues, and into the Park. It was a strange, +windy night, touched with the first bleakness of winter, tinged with the +moaning melancholy of the tossing oak-trees, and with streaks of faint +reflected city lights in the far heavens. + +It was their last night together. Both knew it. There was no help for +it. The great issues of life were sweeping them away into black gulfs of +the future, where there might never be meeting again, never hand-touch +nor sound of each other's voice. And strangely life deepened in their +hearts, and they were swept by the mystery of being alive ... alive in +the star-streaked darkness of space, alive with so many other brief +creatures that brightened for a moment in the gloom and then sank away +into the stormy heart of nature. And Love contended with Death, and the +little labors of man helped Death to crush Love; and so that moment of +existence, that brief span, became a mere brute struggle, a clash, a +fight, a thing sordid and worse than death. + +Out of the mystery, each, from some unimaginable distance, had come +forth and met here on the earth, met for a wild moment, a moment that +gave them lightning-lit glimpses of that mystery, only to part from each +other now, each to return into the darkness. + +They felt in unison more than they could ever say. And it was the last +night together. + +They sat down on a bench, under those mournful boughs, under the +lamentations of the oaks. + +"Myra," said Joe. + +She murmured, "Yes." + +His voice was charged with some of the strangeness of the night, some +significance of the mystery of life and death. + +"You read my letter ..." + +"Yes." + +"And you understand ... at last?" + +"I don't know ... I can't tell." + +He paused; he leaned nearer. + +"Why are you going away?" + +"I've been sick," she whispered. "The doctor told me to go." + +"For long?" + +"For a rest." + +"And you go to-morrow?" + +"I go to-morrow." + +"_Without forgiving me_?" He leaned very near. + +There was a palpitating silence, a silence that searched their souls, +and sharply then Myra cried out: + +"Oh, Joe! Joe! This is killing me!" + +"Myra!" he cried. + +He drew her close, very close, stroking her cheek, and the tears ran +over his fingers. + +"Oh, don't you see," he went on, brokenly, "I can't ask you to come with +me? And yet I must go?" + +"I don't know," she sobbed. "I must go away and rest ... and think ... +and try to understand...." + +"And may I write to you?..." + +"Yes," she murmured. + +"And I am forgiven?" + +"Forgive me!" she sobbed. + +They could say no more, but sat in the wild darkness, clasping each +other as if they could not let one another go.... How could they send +each other forth to go in loneliness and homelessness to the ends of the +earth? The hours passed as they talked brokenly together, words of +remorse, of love, of forgiveness. + +And then finally they arose--it was very late--and Myra whispered, +clinging to him: + +"We must say good-by here!" + +"Good-by!" he cried ... and they kissed. + +"Joe," she exclaimed, "take care of yourself! Do just that for me!" + +"I will," he said huskily, "but you must do the same for me. Promise." + +"I promise!" + +"Oh, Joe!" she cried out, "what is life doing with us?" + +And they went back, confused and strange, through the lighted streets. +They stood before her house. + +"Till you come back!" he whispered. + +She flashed about then, a look of a new wonder in her eyes. + +"If only I thought you were right in your work!" she cried. + +"You will! You will, Myra! And in that hope, we will go on!" + +She was gone; the door shut him out of her life. And all alone, strong, +bitter, staring ahead, Joe stepped off to begin the new life ... to +plunge into the battle. + + * * * * * + + +PART II--THE TEST + + + + +I + + +BEGINNINGS + +It was in that red gash of crosstown brick--West Tenth Street--that the +new life began. The neighborhood was quaint and poor, a part of that old +Greenwich Village which at one time was a center of quiet and chaste +respectability, with its winding streets, its old-fashioned low brick +houses, its trees, its general air of detachment and hushed life. Now it +was a scene of slovenliness and dust, of miserable lives huddled thickly +in inadequate houses, of cheap roomers and boarders, of squalid +poverty--a mix of many nations well-sprinkled with saloons. + +But the house was quite charming--three stories, red brick, with a stoop +of some ten steps, and long French windows on the first floor. Behind +those French windows was a four-room flat; beneath them, in the +basement, a room with iron-grated windows. Into that flat Joe and his +mother moved. + +The invasion was unostentatious. No one could have dreamed that the +tall, homely man, dashing in and out in his shirt-sleeves between the +rooms and the moving-van drawn up at the curb, had come down with the +deliberate purpose of making a neighborhood out of a chaos, of +organizing that jumble of scattered polyglot lives.... In the faded +sunshine of the unusually warm winter afternoon, with its vistas of +gold-dusty air, and its noise of playing children and on-surging +trolleys and trucks and all the minute life of the saloons and the +stores--women hanging out of windows to get the recreation of watching +the confused drama of the streets, neighbors meeting in doorways, young +men laughing and chatting in clusters about lamp-posts--Joe toiled +valiantly and happily. He would rapidly glance at the thickly peopled +street and wonder, with a thrill, how soon he would include these lives +in his own, how soon he would grip and rouse and awaken the careless +multitude.... + +All was strange, all was new. Everything that was deep in his life--all +the roots he had put down through boyhood, youth, and manhood into the +familiar life of Yorkville--was torn up and transplanted to this fresh +and unfriendly soil.... He felt as if he were in an alien land, under +new skies, in a new clime, and there was all the romance of the +mysterious and all the fear of the untried. Beginnings always have the +double quality of magic and timidity--the dreaded, delicious first +plunge into cold water, the adventurous striking out into unknown +perils.... Did it not at moments seem like madness to dare +single-handed into this vast and careless population? Was he not merely +a modern Don Quixote tilting at windmills? Well, so be it, he thought; +the goal might be unreachable, but the quest was life itself. + +He had an inkling of the monstrous size of New York. All his days he had +lived within a half-hour's ride of Greenwich Village, and yet it was a +new world to him. So the whole city was but a conglomeration of nests of +worlds, woven together by a few needs and the day's work, worlds as yet +undiscovered in every direction, huge tracts of peoples of all races +leading strange and unassimilated lives. He felt lost in the crowded +immensity, a helpless, obscure unit in the whirl of life. + +He had fallen in love with Greenwich Village from the first day he had +explored it for a promising dwelling-place. Here, he knew, lived Sally +Heffer, and here doubtless he would meet her and she would help shape +his fight, perhaps be the woman to gird on his armor, put sword in his +hand, and send him forth. For he needed her, needed her as a child needs +a teacher, as a recruit needs a disciplined veteran. It was she who had +first revealed the actual world to him; it was she who had first divined +his power and his purpose; it was she who had released him from guilt by +showing him a means of expiation. + +And yet, withal, he feared to meet her. There had been something +terrible about her that afternoon at Carnegie Hall, and something that +awed him that evening at the Woman's League. Until she had broken down +and wept, she had hardly seemed a woman--rather a voice crying in the +wilderness, a female Isaiah, the toilers become articulate. And he could +not think of her as a simple, vivacious young woman. How would she greet +him? Would her eyes remember his part in the fire? + +At least, so he told himself, he would not seek her out (he had her +address from Fannie Lemick) until he had something to show for his new +life--until, possibly, he had a copy of that magazine which was still a +hypothesis and a chimera. Then he would nerve himself and go to her and +she should judge him as she pleased. + +That first supper with his mother had a sweetness new to their lives. He +ran out to the butcher, the grocer, and the delicatessen man, and came +home laden with packages. The stove in the rear kitchen was set alight; +the wooden table in the center was spread with cloth and cutlery; and +they sat down opposite each other, utterly alone ... no boarding--house +flutter and gossip and noise, no unpleasant jarring personalities, no +wholesale cookery. All was quiet and peace--a brooding, tinkling +silence. They both smiled and smiled, their eyes moist, and the food +tasted so good. Blessed bread that they broke together, the cup that +they shared between them! The moment became sacred, human, stirred by +all the old, old miraculousness of home, that deepest need of humanity, +that rich relationship that cuts so much deeper than the light +touch-and-go of the world. + +Joe spoke awkwardly. + +"So we're here, mother ... and it's ripping, isn't it?" + +She could hardly speak, but her eyes seemed to sparkle with a second +youth. + +"Yes," she murmured, "it's the first time we've had anything like this +since you were a boy." + +They both thought of his father, and the vanished days of the shanty on +the hillside, and his mother thought: + +"People must live out their own lives in their own homes." + +There was something that fed the roots of her woman-nature to have this +place apart, this quiet shelter where she ruled. It would be a joy to go +marketing, it would be a delight to cook, and it was charming to live so +intimately with her son. They were a family again. + +After supper they washed the dishes together, laughing and chatting. +There were a hundred pleasing details to consider--where to place +furniture, what to buy, whether to have a servant or not (Joe insisted +on one), and all the incidents of the day to go over. + +And then after the dish-washing they stopped work, and sat down in the +front office amid the packing-cases and the trunks and the litter and +débris. The gas was lighted above them, and the old-fashioned stove +which stood in the center and sprouted up a pipe nearly to the ceiling +and then at right angles into the wall was made red-hot with wood and +coal. Joe smoked and his mother sewed, and a hush seemed to fall on the +city, broken only by the echo of passing footsteps and the mellowed +thunder of the intermittent trolley-cars. + +"And they call this a slum," muttered Joe. + +In fact, save possibly for less clear air and in the summer a noise of +neighbors, they might have been living in New York's finest +neighborhood--almost a disappointment to two people prepared to plunge +into dirt, danger, and disease.... Later Joe learned that some of the +city's magazine writers had settled in the district on purpose, not +because they were meeting a crisis, but because they liked it, liked its +quaint old flavor, its colorful life, its alien charm, and not least, +its cheaper rents. + +But this evening all was unknown save the joy and peace of a real home. +They went to bed early, Joe in the room next the office, his mother in +the adjoining room next the kitchen, but neither slept for a long time. +They lay awake tingling with a strange happiness, a fine freedom, a +freshness of re-created life. Only to the pioneer comes this thrill of a +new-made Eden, only to those who tear themselves from the easy ruts and +cut hazardous clearings in the unventured wilderness. It is like being +made over, like coming with fresh heart and eyes upon the glories of the +earth; it is the only youth of the world. + +The night grew late and marvelously hushed, a silence almost oppressive, +where every noise seemed like an invader, and Joe, lying there keenly +awake, seemed to feel the throb of the world, the pauseless pulsations +of that life that beats in every brain and every heart of the earth; +that life that, more intense than human love and thought, burns in the +suns that swing about heaven rolling the globe of earth among them; that +life that enfolds with tremendous purpose the little human creature in +the vastness, that somehow expresses itself and heightens and changes +itself in human lives and all the dreams and doings of men. Joe felt +that life, thrilling to it, opening his heart to it, letting it +surcharge and overflow his being with strength and joy. And he knew then +that he lay as in a warm nest of the toilers and the poor, that crowded +all about him in every direction were sleeping men and women and little +children, all recently born, all soon to die, he himself shortly to be +stricken out of these scenes and these sensations. It was all mystery +unplumbable, unbelievable ... that this breath was not to go on forever, +that this brain was to be stopped off, this heart cease like a run-down +clock, this exultation and sorrow to leave like a mist, scattered in +that life that bore it.... That he, Joe Blaine, was to die! + +Surely life was marvelous and sacred; it was not to be always a selfish +scramble, a money rush, a confusion and jumble, but rather something of +harmony and mighty labors and mingled joys. He felt great strength; he +felt equal to his purposes; he was sure he could help in the advancing +processes.... Even as he was part of the divine mystery, so he could +wield that divineness in him to lift life to new levels, while the +breath was in his body, while the glow was in his brain. + +And he thought of Myra, his mate in the mystery, and in the night he +yearned for her, hungered through all his being. She had written him a +note; it came to him from the mountains. It ran: + + DEAR JOE,--You will be glad to know that I am getting + back to myself. The peace and stillness of the + white winter over the hills is healing me. It seems + good merely to exist, to sleep and eat and exercise and + read. I can't think now how I behaved so unaccountably + those last few weeks, and I wonder if you will + ever understand. I have been reading over and over + again your long letter, trying hard to puzzle out its + meanings, but I fear I am very ignorant. I know nothing + of the crisis you speak of. I know that "ye have + the poor always with you," I know that there is much + suffering in the world--I have suffered myself--but I + cannot see that living among the poor is going to help + vitally. Should we not all live on the highest level + possible? Level up instead of leveling down. Ignorance, + dirt, and sickness do not attract me ... and + now here among the hills the terrible city seems like + a fading nightmare. It would be better if people lived + in the country. I feel that the city is a mistake. But + of one thing I am sure. I understand that you cannot + help doing what you are doing, and I know that it would + have been a wrong if I had interfered with your life. + I would have been a drag on you and defeated your + purposes, and in the end we would both have been very + unhappy. It seems to me most marriages are. Write + me what you are doing, where you are living, and how + you are. + + Yours, + + MYRA. + +He had smiled over some of the phrases in this letter, particularly, "I +feel that the city is a mistake." Would Myra ever know that her very +personality and all of her life were interwoven inextricably with the +industrial city--that the clothes she wore, the food she ate, the books +she studied, the letter she wrote him, even down to ink, pen, and paper, +the education and advantages she enjoyed, were all wrought in the mills, +the mines, the offices, and by the interchange and inweaving and mighty +labors of industrialism? The city teacher is paid by taxes levied on the +commerce and labors of men, and the very farmer cannot heighten his life +without exchange with the city. + +And so her letter made him smile. Yet at the same time it stirred him +mightily. All through it he could read renunciation; she was giving him +up; she was loosening her hold over him; she was nobly sacrificing her +love to his life-work. And she announced herself as teachable and +receptive. She could not yet understand, but understanding might come in +time. + +So in the night he tried to send his thought over the hills, flash his +spirit into hers, in the great hope that she would thrill with a new +comprehension, a new awakening.... In a world so mysterious, in an +existence so strange, so impossible, so unbelievable, might such a +miracle be stranger than the breath he breathed and the passions he +felt? + +And so in that hope, that great wild hope, he fell asleep in the +uneventful beginnings of the battle. And all through those unconscious +hours forces were shaping about him and within him to bear his life +through strange ways and among strange people. His theories, so easy as +he drank them out of books, were to be tested in the living world of men +and women, in that reality that hits back when we strike it, and that +batters us about like driftwood in the whirlpool. + + + + +II + + +THE NINE-TENTHS + +Standing on Washington Heights--that hump on northwestern Manhattan +Island--gazing, say, from a window of the City College whose gray and +quaint cluster fronts the morn as on a cliff above the city--one sees, +at seven of a sharp morning, a low-hung sun in the eastern skies, a vast +circle and lift of mild blue heavens, and at one's feet, down below, the +whole sweep of New York from the wooded ridges of the Bronx to the +Fifty-ninth Street bridge and the golden tip of the Metropolitan Tower. +It is a flood of roofs sweeping south to that golden, flashing minaret, +a flood bearing innumerable high mill chimneys, church steeples, school +spires, and the skeleton frames of gas-works. Far in the east the Harlem +River lies like a sheet of dazzling silver, dotted with boats; every +skylight, every point of glass or metal on the roofs, flashes in the +sun, and, gazing down from that corner in the sky, one sees the visible +morning hymn of the city--a drift from thousands of house chimneys of +delicate unraveling skeins of white-blue smoke lifting from those human +dwellings like aerial spirits. It is the song of humanity rising, the +song of the ritual of breaking bread together, of preparation for the +day of toil, the song of the mothers sending the men to work, the song +of the mothers kissing and packing to school the rosy, laughing +children. + +It might be hard to imagine that far to the south in that moving human +ocean, a certain Joe Blaine, swallowed in the sea, was yet as real a +fact as the city contained--that to himself he was far from being +swallowed, that he was, in fact, so real to himself that the rest of the +city was rather shadowy and unreal, and that he was immensely concerned +in a thousand-flashing torrent of thoughts, in a mix-up of appetite and +desires, and in the condition and apparel of his body. That as he sat at +his desk, for instance, it was important to him to discover how he could +break himself of a new habit of biting the end of his pen-holder. + +And yet, under that flood of roofs, Joe was struggling with that crucial +problem. He finally settled it by deciding to smoke lots of cigars, and +proceeded to light one as a beginning. He smoked one, then a second, +then a third--which was certainly bad for his health. He was in the +throes of a violent reaction. + +Several days of relentless activity had followed the moving in. There +was much to do. The four rooms became immaculately clean--sweetened up +with soap and water, with neat wallpaper, with paint and furniture. +Even the dark inner bedrooms contrived to look cozy and warm and +inviting. Joe's mother was a true New England housekeeper, which meant +scrupulous order, cleanliness, and brightness. The one room exempt from +her rule was Joe's. After the first clean-up, his mother did not even +try to begin on it. + +"You're hopeless, Joe," she laughed, "and you'll ruin faster than I can +set right." + +And so that editorial office soon became a nest of confusion. The walls +were lined with bookshelves and a quaint assortment of books, old and +new, populated not only these, but the floor, the two tables, the +roll-top desk, and here and there a chair. White paper began to heap up +in the corners. Magazines--"my contemporaries," said the proud +editor--began their limitless flood. And the matting on the floor was +soon worn through by Joe's perpetual pacing. + +The whole home, however, began to have atmosphere--personality. There +was something open, hospitable, warm about it--something comfortable and +livable. + +Among the first things Joe did was to procure two assistants. One was +the bookkeeper, Nathan Slate, a lean and dangling individual, who +collapsed over his high desk in the corner like a many-bladed penknife. +He was thin and cadaverous, and spoke in a meek and melancholy voice, +studied and slow. He dressed in black and tried to suppress his thin +height by stooping low and hanging his head. The other addition was +Billy, the office-boy, a sharp, bright youth with red hair and brilliant +blue eyes. + +There was much else to do. For instance, there were the money affairs to +get in shape. Joe secured a five-per-cent mortgage with his capital. +Marty Briggs paid down two thousand cash and was to pay two thousand a +year and interest. So Joe could figure his income at somewhat over six +thousand dollars, and, as he hoped that he and his mother would use not +more than fifteen hundred a year, or, at the most, two thousand, he felt +he had plenty to throw into his enterprise. + +Among the first things that Joe discovered was a gift of his own +temperament. He was a born crowd-man, a "mixer." He found he could +instantly assume the level of the man he talked with, and that his +tongue knew no hindrance. Thought flowed easily into speech. This gave +him a freedom among men, a sense of belonging anywhere, and singled him +out from the rest. It gave him, too, the joy of expression--the joy of +throwing out his thought and getting its immediate reaction in other +lives. Yet he understood perfectly the man who seemed shy and recluse, +who was choked-off before strangers, and who yet burned to be a +democrat, to give and take, to share alien lives, to be of the moving +throng of life. Such a man was the victim either of a wrong education, +an education of repression that discouraged any personal display, or he +had a twist in his temperament. Joe, who began to be well aware of his +gift, used it without stint and found that it had a contagious +quality--it loosened other people up; it unfolded their shy and secret +petals like sun heat on a bud; it made the desert of personality blossom +like the rose. He warmed the life about him because he could express +himself. + +So it was not hard for Joe to shift to this new neighborhood and become +absorbed in its existence. Tradespeople, idlers, roomers and landlady in +the house accepted him at once and felt as if they had known him all +their lives. By a power almost of intuition he probed their obscure +histories and entered into their destinies. + +However, in spite of these activities and all the bustle and stir of +fresh beginnings, Joe, that sunny morning, was suffering a sharp +reaction. In the presence of Nathan Slate and Billy he was pretending to +work, but his brain was as dry as a soda-cracker. It was that natural +revulsion of the idealist following the first glow. Here he was, up +against a reality, and yet with no definite plan, not even a name for +his paper, and he had not even begun to penetrate the life about him. +The throbbing moment had arrived when he must set his theories into +motion, drive them out into the lives of the people, and get reactions. +But how? In what way? His brain refused to think, and he felt nothing +save a misery and poverty of the spirit that were unendurable. + +It seemed to him suddenly as if he had hastily embarked on a search for +the fountain of eternal youth--a voyage that followed mirages, and was +hollow and illusory. Beginnings, after the first flush, always have this +quality of fake, and Joe was standing in the shadow-land between two +lives. The old life was receding in the past; the new life had not yet +appeared. Without training, without experience, without definite +knowledge of the need to be met, with only a strong desire and a mixed +ideal, and almost without his own volition, he found himself now sitting +at a desk in West Tenth Street, with two employees, and nothing to do. +How out of this emptiness was he to create something vital? + +This naturally brought a pang he might have anticipated. He had a sudden +powerful hankering for the old life. That at least was man-size--his job +had been man's work. He looked back at those fruitful laborious days, +with their rich interest and absorbing details, their human +companionships, and had an almost irrepressible desire to rush out, take +the elevated train, go down East Eighty-first Street, ascend the +elevator, ring the bell, and enter his dominion of trembling, thundering +presses. He could smell the old smells, he could see the presses and the +men, he could hear the noise. That was where he belonged. Voluntarily he +had exiled himself from happiness and use. He wanted to go back--wanted +it hard, almost groaned with homesickness. + +Such struggles are death throes or birth throes. They are as real as two +men wrestling. Joe could sit still no longer, could mask no longer the +combat within him. So he rose hastily and went out and wandered about +the shabby, unfriendly neighborhood. He had a mad desire, almost +realized, to take the car straight to Eighty-first Street, and only the +thought of Marty Briggs in actual possession held him back. Finally he +went back and took lunch, and again tried the vain task of pretending to +work. + +It was three o'clock when he surrendered. He strode in to his mother. + +"Mother," he said, "isn't there something we can do together?" + +"In what way?" + +"Any way. I've been idling all day and I'm half dead." He laughed +strangely. "I believe I'm getting nerves, mother." + +"Nerves!" She looked at him sharply. "What is it, Joe?" + +"Oh! It's in-betweenness." + +"I see." She smiled. "Well, there's some shopping to do--" + +"Thank Heaven!" + +So they went out together and took the Sixth Avenue car to Thirty-fourth +Street. Their shopping took them to Fifth Avenue, and then, later, up +Broadway to Forty-second Street. It was a different New York they +saw--in fact, the New York best known to the stranger. The gorgeous +palaces of trade glittered and sparkled, shimmered and flashed, with +jewels and silver, with silks and knick-knacks. The immense and rich +plenty of earth, the products of factories and mills, were lavishly +poured here, gathered in isles, about which a swarming sea of +well-dressed women pushed and crowded. The high ceilings were hung with +glowing moons of light; the atmosphere was magic with confused talk, +shuffling footsteps, and all the hum and stir of a human hive. Up and +down Fifth Avenue swept a black thick stream of motors and carriages in +which women and men lounged and stared. The great hotels sucked in and +poured out tides of jeweled and lace-wrapped creatures, and in the +lighted interiors of restaurants were rouged cheeks and kindled eyes. + +As Joe and his mother reached Forty-second Street, that whirlpool of +theaters released its matinee crowds, a flood of youth, beauty, +brightness, and luxury. + +And it seemed to Joe, seeing all this life from a Tenth Street +viewpoint, that here was a great city of wealth and idleness. Evidently +a large population had nothing to do save shop and motor, eat and idle. +How could he from shabby Tenth Street send out a sheet of paper that +would compete with these flashing avenues? + +The sight depressed him. He said as much to his mother. + +"This is New York," he said, "barbaric, powerful, luxuriant. These +people are the power of the city--the mighty few--these are the owners. +What can we do with them?" + +His mother sensed then the struggle in his mind. + +"Joe," she cried, "isn't there any place where we can see--the other +people?" + +There was. They took the car down to Eighth Street, they walked east, +and entered little Washington Park, with its monumental arch, and its +shadowy trees, its wide and curving walks--its general sense of being a +green breathing-space in the sweep of streets. As they walked through +the sharp wintry air in the closing sunlight, what time the blue +electric lights gleamed out among the almost naked boughs, the +six-o'clock whistles began blowing from factories all about them--a glad +shriek that jumped from street to street over the city--and at once +across the eastern plaza of the park streamed the strange torrent of the +workers--a mighty, swift march of girls and boys, women and men, +homeward bound, the day's work ended--a human stream, in the gray light, +steeped in an atmosphere of accomplishment, sweet peace, solution. All +life seemed to touch a moment of harvest. + +Joe's mother was thrilled, and in spite of himself Joe felt his heart +clutched, as it were, in a vise. He felt the strange, strong, human +grip. It was a marvelous spectacle, though common, daily, and cheap as +life. + +Joe's mother whispered, in a low voice: + +"Joe, this is the real New York!" + +And then again: + +"Those others are only a fraction--these are the people." + +"Yes," murmured Joe, his blood surging to his cheeks, "these are the +nine-tenths." + +They went closer to that mighty marching host--they saw the cheap +garments--baggy trousers, torn shoes, worn shirts; they saw the earnest, +tired faces, the white and toil-shrunk countenances, the poverty, the +reality of pain and work, all pressing on in an atmosphere of serious +progress, as if they knew what fires roared, what sinews ached down in +the foundations of the world where the future is created. And Joe +realized, as never before, that upon these people and their captains, +their teachers and interpreters, rested the burdens of civilization; +that the mighty city was wrought by their hands and those who dreamed +with them, that the foam and sparkle of Broadway and Fifth Avenue +bubbled up from that strong liquor beneath. And he believed that the +second-generation idlers had somehow expropriated the toilers and were +living like drones in the hive, and he felt that this could not be +forever, and he was seized by the conviction that a change could only +come through the toilers themselves. Could these pale people but know +their power, know their standing, know the facts of this strange double +life, and then use their might wisely and well, constructively, +creatively, to build up a better and fairer world, a finer justice, a +more splendid day's work, a happier night's home! These that created a +great city could, if trained, create a higher life in that city! + +Surely the next few ages of the future had their work cut out for +them--the most stupendous task the race had ever undertaken. + +Then, after all, he was right. All who could must be dedicated to the +work of sowing enlightenment, of yeasting the crowds with knowledge and +love and light--all who could. Then he, too, could do his share; he, +too, could reach this crowd. And these people--they were reachable. No +theaters and restaurants competed with him here. Their hearts and minds +were open. He could step in and share their lives. He had done so in his +shop, and these were of the same human nature. + +Power returned to him. + +"Mother," he said, his eyes flashing, "it's all right. Now I'm ready to +begin! I'm for the nine-tenths." + +They turned, walking home in silence, and as they went the phrase +"nine-tenths," which Joe must have picked up in some book on socialism +or some sociological study, kept haunting his mind. The new power +released in him made his brain work like lightning--creatively. Thoughts +crowded, combinations sprung up; he began to actively dream and scheme. + +"I've got it!" he cried. "Why not call my paper _The Nine-Tenths_?" + +"Good!" + +He began to plan aloud as the quick thoughts flashed. + +"An eight-page paper--weekly. An editorial, giving some of the plain +facts about civilization--simple stuff to teach the people what industry +means, what their work means, what they ought to be doing. Then +news--news about all movements toward freedom--labor, strikes, reform, +new laws, schools--news of all the forces working for betterment--a +concrete statement of where the world stands to-day and what it is +doing. But a fair sheet, mother. No railing, no bitterness, no +bomb-throwing. Plenty of horse sense, plenty of banking the fires, of +delaying wisely. No setting class against class. No under-rating of +leaders and captains. Justice, but plenty of mercy. Facts, but plenty of +philosophy to cool 'em off. Progress all the time, but no French +revolutions. And when sides must be taken, no dishonest compromises, no +cowardly broad--mindedness--but always with the weakest, the under dog, +whenever their cause is good. That's my programme; that's _The +Nine-Tenths_." + +"Of course," said his mother, "you'll see things clearer as you do them. +There'll be changes." + +"Surely!" His mind was already miles ahead. "Mother, I've got it now, +for sure!" + +"What now?" She laughed, enthusiastically. + +"Isn't this a whopper? No _ads_." + +"But why not, Joe? That would support the paper." + +"No, not a line. I don't expect the paper to pay. That's where our money +comes in. We mustn't carry a line. Don't you see? There's hardly a +paper in the land that is free. They're influenced by their +advertising--that's their bread and butter. And even if they're not +influenced, people suspect they are. We must be free even of that +suspicion. We can be free--utterly so--say what we please--speak our +minds out--and nothing to hinder us. That will be unique--that will be +something new in magazines. We'll go the limit, mother." + +His mother laughed. + +"I guess you're right, Joe. It's worth trying. But how are you going to +circulate the paper?" + +"How?" Again his mind jumped forward. "House-to-house canvass--labor +unions--street corners. I'm going to dig in now, get acquainted with the +people round about, spread it any old way. And I'm going to start with +the idea of a big future--twenty thousand copies finally. You see, it'll +be a sort of underground newspaper--no publicity--but spreading from +group to group among the workers. Broadway and up-town will never see a +copy." + +So the new life started, started in full swing. Joe worked late that +very night putting his plans on paper, and the next morning there was +plenty of activity for everybody. Joe bought a rebuilt cylinder press +for fifteen hundred dollars and had it installed in the basement. Then +he had the basement wired, and got an electric motor to furnish the +power. John Rann and his family were moved down to a flat farther west +on Tenth Street, and a feeder, a compositor, and a make-up man were +hired along with him. In the press-room (the basement) was placed a +stone--a marble-top table--whereon the make-up man could take the strips +of type as they came from the compositors, arrange them into pages, and +"lock them up" in the forms, ready to put on the presses. + +Then Joe arranged with a printery to set up the type weekly; with a +bindery to bind, fold, bundle, and address the papers; and with Patrick +Flynn, truckman, to distribute the papers to newsdealers. + +Next Joe made a tour of the neighborhood, spoke with the newsdealers, +told them that all they would have to do was to deliver the papers to +the addresses printed upon them. He found them willing to thus add to +their income. + +Thus he made ready. But he was not yet prepared to get subscriptions +(one dollar a year or twenty-five cents a quarter), feeling that first +he must have a sample paper to show. + +The labor on that first number was a joy to him. He would jump up in the +middle of the night, rush into the office, light the gas, and get to +work in his nightgown. He was at it at all hours. And it proved to be an +enormous task. Eight pages eight by twelve do not read like a lot, but +they write like a very great deal. There was an editorial, "Greetings to +You," in which Joe set forth in plain words the ideas and ideals of the +paper, and in which he made clear the meaning of the phrase +"nine-tenths." Then he found that there were two great strikes in +progress in the city. This amazed him, as there was no visible sign of +such a condition. The newspapers said nothing of it, and peace seemed to +brood over the city's millions. Yet there were thousands of cloak-makers +out, and over in Brooklyn the toilers in the sugar refineries were +having little pitched battles with strike-breakers in the streets. Three +men had been killed and a score wounded. + +Joe dug into these strikes, called at the union headquarters, spoke with +the men, even called on some of the cloak-makers' bosses and learned +their grievances. Then he wrote accounts of the strike without taking +sides, merely reporting the facts as fairly as he could. + +In this way, and with the aid of clippings, and by printing that poem by +Lowell which was his mother's favorite, wherein was the couplet already +quoted, + + "They are slaves who dare not be + In the right with two or three," + +he made up a hodge-podge of a magazine. + +Up in the corner of the editorial page he ran the following, subject to +change: + + THE NINE-TENTHS + + A WEEKLY WORD ABOUT MEN, WOMEN, AND CHILDREN + + * * * * * + + MY MOTTO + + I ACCEPT LIFE LARGELY, BUT NOT IN DETAILS + + * * * * * + + SOME OF THE DETAILS NOT ACCEPTED + ARE + + Anything that prevents a child from being well born + and from fulfilling its possibilities. + + Anything that prevents a woman or man from using + every good side of her or his nature. + + ABOUT THESE DETAILS NO DOUBT: + + DISEASE + EXCESS + WANT + OVERWORK + CHILD LABOR + + And let's avoid jealousy, quarrels, ridicule, meanness, + and the rest of the mosquito things. + + Otherwise: what a glorious world. + +This didn't please him altogether, but he wanted to be definite and +simple, and he wanted to show that he wasn't a narrow partisan. + +Thus the first number came to be. As he turned it out, Billy rushed it +in batches to the compositors, and when finally it all came back in +strips of type, it was hurried down to the idlers in the basement. At +ten-thirty that chilly, dust-blowing morning, when the sun-stricken air +glittered with eddies of motes, Joe, sitting at his desk, had the +exquisite rapture of feeling the building tremble. + +He rushed to his mother, and exulted. + +"Can't you feel the press going? Listen!" + +Truly the new life had begun--the vision was beginning to crystallize in +daily living. + +"We're in the fight now, mother!" he cried. "There's something doing!" + +And later, when Joe stood at the back of the press and that first +complete sheet came through, he picked it up as if it were a new-born +child, as indeed it was, wet, drippy, forlorn, and weird, and yet a +wonder and a miracle. Joe looked on his own creation--the little +sheets--the big, black _The Nine-Tenths_--the clear, good type. He was +awed and reduced almost to tears. + +He mailed a copy to Myra with a brief note: + + DEAR MYRA,--Here's the answer to your question. + I'm doing the inclosed, and doing it in West Tenth + Street. Do you know the neighborhood? Old Greenwich + Village, red, shabby, shoddy, common, and vulgar. + Mother and I are as happy as children. How are you? + Your letter is splendid. I am sure you will come to + understand. When are you returning to New York? + + As ever, + + JOE BLAINE. + +And he thought, "Now I have something to show Sally Heffer!" + + + + +III + + +OTHERS: AND SALLY HEFFER + +Joe filled a stiff cloth portfolio with a batch of 9/10s (abbreviation +for home use), pulled his gray hat over his bushy hair, and went over +and tapped the collapsible Slate on the shoulder. + +"Yes, Mr. Joe." + +"Nathan," cried Joe, excitedly, "if there's a rush of subscribers while +I'm gone, make 'em stand in line, and each wait his turn. But don't let +them block the car tracks--string 'em around the corner." + +Nathan gazed at Joe like a lost soul. + +"But I think, Mr. Joe," he said, slowly, "you place your hopes too high. +I don't like to be too gloomy, Mr. Joe, but I have my doubts about a +rush." + +"Slate," cried Joe, slapping the tragic bookkeeper a whack, "you're +inspiring!" + +And he swung out to the street in the brilliant morning sunshine, ready +to begin his canvass. + +"Next door," he mused, "is the place to start." + +There was a woman sitting on the stoop, a two-year-old girl in her +arms. Joe paused and looked at the baby. + +"Hello, you." + +The baby looked at him a little doubtfully, and then laughed. + +"Girl or boy?" asked Joe of the mother. + +"Girl." + +"How old?" + +"Two." + +"She's a darling! What's her name?" + +"Name's Annie." + +"Named after you?" + +"Sure!" + +"You wouldn't mind if I gave her a peppermint to suck?" + +"Would you mind some candy, Annie?" + +"_Candy_!" shrieked the child. + +Joe dove into his bulging pocket and produced a good hard white one. +Annie snatched it up and sucked joyously. + +"Thank the man, Annie." + +"Thank you." + +"Is this your only one, Mrs.--" + +"Cassidy's my name! No, I've buried two others." + +"From this house?" + +"No, we keep movin'--" Mrs. Cassidy laughed a little. + +Joe made a grim face. + +"Jump your rent, eh?" + +Mrs. Cassidy shrugged her shoulders. + +"What can poor people do?" + +"But hasn't Mr. Cassidy a job?" + +"He has when he has it--but it's bum work. Slave like a nigger and then +laid off for six months, maybe." + +"What kind of work is that?" + +"'Longshore--he's a 'longshoreman." + +"And when he's unemployed you have a hard time, don't you?" + +"Hard?" Mrs. Cassidy's voice broke. "What can we do? There's the +insurance every week--fifteen cents for my man, ten cents for me, and +five cents for Annie. We couldn't let that go; it's buryin'-money, and +there ain't a Cassidy isn't going to have as swell a funeral as any in +the ward. And then we've got to live. I've found one thing in this +world--the harder you work the less you get." + +Joe spoke emphatically. + +"Mrs. Cassidy, when your husband's out of work, through no fault of his +own, he ought to get a weekly allowance to keep you going." + +"And who's to give it to him?" + +"Who? Do you know what they do in Germany?" + +"What do they do in Germany?" + +"They have insurance for the unemployed, and when a man's out he gets +so-and-so-much a week. We ought to have it in America." + +"How can we get it? Who listens to the poor?" + +"Your man belongs to a union, doesn't he?" + +"Sure!" + +"Well, the trouble is our people here don't know these things. If they +knew them, they'd get together and make the bosses come round. It's +ignorance holding us all back." + +"I've often told Tim he ought to study something. There's grand lectures +in the schools every Tuesday and Thursday night. But Tim don't put stock +in learning. He says learning never bought a glass of beer." + +Joe laughed. + +"Mrs. Cassidy, that's not what I mean. Listen. I'm a neighbor of +yours--live next door--" + +"Sure! Didn't I see you move in? When my friend, Mrs. Leupp, seen your +iron beds, she up and went to Macy's and bought one herself. What yer +doing in there, anyway, with that printing-press? It gives me the +trembles." + +Joe laughed heartily. + +"You feel the press in this house?" + +"First time, I thought it was an earthquake, Mr. Blaine." + +Joe was abashed. + +"How'd you know my name?" + +"Ast it off your landlady." + +"Well, you're wrong--I'm Mr. Joe." + +Mrs. Cassidy was hugely amused. + +"You're one grand fellow, let me tell you. But, oh, that black, thin +one--he's creepy, Mr. Joe. But your mother--she's all right. I was +telling Mrs. Rann so myself." + +Joe sighed tragically. + +"I suppose the whole neighborhood knows all my family secrets." + +"Pretty near," laughed Mrs. Cassidy. + +"Well, there's one thing you didn't know." + +"What's that?" + +"About my newspaper." + +"What about it?" + +"What paper do you take?" + +Mrs. Cassidy mentioned a daily penny paper. + +"Let's see," said Joe, "that's eleven cents a week, isn't it? Will you +spend two cents more, and take _The Nine-Tenths_?" + +"_Yours_?" + +"It's a paper that tells about the rich and the poor, and what the poor +ought to do to get more out of life. Here, take this copy, keep it; make +Tim read it." + +Mrs. Cassidy was handed a neat little sheet, eight by twelve inches, +clearly printed. There was something homely and inviting about it, +something hospitable and honest. The woman fingered it curiously. + +"Ain't it cute?" she cried. + +"It's all written for just such people as you, and I want you to take +it." + +"How much is it?" + +"Well, you pay twenty-five cents and get it for three months, once a +week, and let Tim read it out loud. Say, don't you think Annie'd like +to see the printing-press?" + +"'Deed she would!" + +And then Joe did the one thing that won. He seized up little Annie +himself, and bore her down to the press-room, Mrs. Cassidy following, +and mentally concluding that there was no one in the ward like Mr. Joe. + +Result: first subscription, and Joe elated with victory. All of which +shows, it must be confessed, that Joe was considerable of a politician, +and did not hesitate to adopt the methods of Tammany Hall. + +It was the next day, at a street corner, that, quite accidentally, Joe +met Michael Dunan, truckman. + +"I've got a cigar," said Joe, "but I haven't a match." + +"I've got a match," said Michael, easily, "but I haven't a cigar." + +"My name's Joe Blaine," said Joe, handing over a panetela. + +"Mine's Mike Dunan," said Michael, passing a match. + +They lit up together. + +"The drinks are on me," murmured Michael. + +They stepped into the saloon at the corner--a bright, mirrory place, +whose tiled floor was covered with sawdust, and whose bar shone like +mahogany. + +"Two beers, Donovan." + +"Dark or light, Mike?" + +"Dark." + +They drank. Michael pounded the bar. + +"Joe Blaine, the times are hard." + +"How so, Michael?" + +"The rich are too rich, and the poor too poor. I'm tired of it!" + +"Then look this over." + +Michael looked it over, and bubbled with joy. + +"That's great. Did you spiel it out? Did you say this little piece? Joe, +I want to join your union!" + +Joe laughed; he sized up the little man, with his sparkling eyes, his +open face, his fiery, musical voice, his golden hair. And he had an +inspiration. + +"Mike," he said, "I'm getting out this paper up the street. Have a press +there and an office. Run in and see my mother. If you like her, tell me, +and you can join the Stove Circle." + +"And what may the Stove Circle be?" + +"The get-together club--my advisory board." + +"I'm on." + +"See here, you," said a blunt, biting, deep-chested voice at their side. +"Let me get a look." + +Joe turned and met Oscar Heming, delicatessen man, stumpy, bull-necked, +with fierce bristling mustache, and clothes much too big for him. He was +made a member at once of the Stove Circle. + +That same evening Joe went down three steps into a little, low, cigar +store, whose gas-blazing atmosphere reeked with raw and damp tobacco. He +stepped up to the dusty counter. + +"What's your best?" + +The proprietor, a wise little owl of a man, with thin black hair, and +untidy spade beard, and big round glasses enlarging his big brown eyes, +placed a box before him. + +"My own make--Underdogs--clear Havana--six cents apiece." + +"I like the name. Give me ten. But explain!" + +"Well"--Nathan Latsky (for so he proved to be) shrugged his +shoulders--"I'm one myself. But--what's in a name?" + +"He's a red revolutionist!" said a voice, and Joe, turning, noticed two +men leaning beside him at the counter; one, a fine and fiery Jew, +handsome, dark, young; the other, a large and gentle Italian, with +pallid features, dark hair sprinkled with gray, and a general air of +largeness and leadership about him. The Jew had spoken. + +"Why a red?" asked Joe. + +"Oh," said Latsky, quietly, "I come from Russia, you know!" + +"Well, I'm a revolutionist myself," said Joe. "But I haven't any color +yet." + +"Union man?" asked the Italian. + +"Not exactly. I run a radical newspaper." + +"What's the name of it?" asked the Jew. + +"_The Nine-Tenths_." + +The words worked magic. They were all eagerness, and exchanged names. +Thus Joe came to know Jacob Izon and Salvatore Giotto and Nathan Latsky. +He was greatly interested in Izon, the facts of whose life he soon came +to know. Izon was a designer, working at Marrin's, the shirtwaist +manufacturer; he made thirty dollars a week, had a wife and two +children, and was studying engineering in a night school. He and his +wife had come from Russia, where they had been revolutionists. + +The three men examined the paper closely. + +"That's what we need," said Izon. "You must let us help to spread it!" + +Joe added the three to the Stove Circle. + +He went to Giotto's house with him, up to the sixth floor of a tenement, +and met the Italian's neat, dark-eyed wife, and looked in on the three +sleeping children. Then under the blazing gas in the crowded room, with +its cheap, frail, shiny furniture, its crayons on the wall, its crockery +and cheap clocks, and with the noise of the city's night rising all +about them, the two big men talked together. Joe was immensely +interested. The Italian was large-hearted, open-minded, big in body and +soul, and spoke quaintly, but thoughtfully. + +"Tell me about yourself," said Joe. + +Giotto spread out the palms of his hands. + +"What to tell? I get a good education in the old country--but not much +spik English--better read, better write it. I try hard to learn. Come +over here, and education no good. Nobody want Italian educated man. So +worked on Italian paper--go round and see the poor--many tragedies, +many--like the theater. Write a novel, a romance, about the poor. Wish I +could write it in English." + +"Good work," cried Joe. "Then what did you do?" + +Giotto laughed. + +"Imported the wine--got broke--open the saloon. Toughs come there, +thieves, to swindle the immigrants. Awfully slick. No good to warn +immigrants--they lose all their money. Come in crying. What can I do? I +get after the bums and they say, 'Giotto no good; we will kill him.' +Then I get broke again. Go to West Virginia and work in the +coal-mine--break my leg. And that was the baddest place in the world." + +"The mine?" + +"And the town. Laborers--Italian, nigger; saloons and politics--Jews; +bosses all Irish--nothing but the saloons and the women to spenda the +money. Company own everything--stores, saloons, women. Pay you the money +and get it all back. Every day a man killed. Hell!" + +"Then where did you go?" + +"Chicago--printing--anything to do I could get. Sometimes make forty +cents a day. Little. Have to feed and work for wife and three children. +I try and try. Hod-carrier"--Giotto laughed at the memory--"press +coats--anything. Then come back here." + +"And what are you doing now?" + +"I try to make labor union with Italians. Hard work. Italians live like +pigs--ignorant--not--not _social_. Down-stairs live a Calabria man, +makes ice-cream--got four rooms--in the four rooms man, wife, mother, +five children, fifteen boarders--" + +"Go on!" cried Joe. "Why do you stop?" + +Giotto laughed. + +"So maybe your paper help. Many Italians read English. I make them read +your paper, Mr. Joe." + + * * * * * + +It was not until nearly the end of the week that Joe sought out Sally +Heffer. Though every day he meditated stepping down that narrow red side +street, each time he had felt unprepared, throbbingly incapable; but +this evening as he finished his work and was on the way home it seemed +that beyond his own volition he suddenly swerved at her corner, hurried +down the lamp-lit pave, searched out the faded number in the meager +light, mounted the stoop, and pushed open the unlocked door. + +He was very weary--heart-sick and foot-sore--as he climbed the dark +steps of the three-story house. He felt pent in the vast pulsations of +life about him--a feeling of impossibility, of a task greater than he +could bear. He simply had to see the young woman who was responsible for +sending him here. He had a vivid mental image of her tragic loveliness, +of how she had stepped back and forth before him and suddenly put her +hands to her face and wept, of how she had divined his suffering, and +impulsively seized his hand, and whispered, "I have faith in you." He +expected a sort of self-illumined Joan of Arc with eyes that saw +visions, with spirit flaming. And even in the dark top-floor hallway he +was awed, and almost afraid. + +Then in the blackness, his eyes on the thread of light beneath the rear +door, he advanced, reached up his hand, and knocked. + +There came, somehow surprising him, a definite, clear-edged voice: + +"Come in!" + +He opened the door, which swung just free of the narrow cot. Just +beyond, Sally Heffer was writing at a little table, and the globed gas +burned above her, lighting the thin gold of her sparse hair. She turned +her face to him quite casually, the same pallid, rounded face, the same +broad forehead and gray eyes, of remarkable clarity--eyes that were as +clear windows allowing one to peer in. And she was dressed in a white +shirtwaist and the same brown skirt, and over a hook, behind her, hung +the same brown coat. Yet Joe was shocked. This was not the Sally Heffer +of his dreams--but rather a refreshing, forceful, dynamic young woman, +brimming over with the joy of life. And even in that flash of +strangeness he sensed the fact that at the time he had met her she was +merely the voice of a vast insurgent spirit, merely the instrument of a +great event. This was the everyday Sally, a quite livable, lovable human +being, healthy, free in her actions, pulsing with the life about her. +The very words she used were of a different order. + +And as she casually glanced around she began to stare, her eyes lit with +wonder, and she arose, exclaiming: + +"Mr.--_Blaine_!" + +At the sound of her voice the tension snapped within him; he felt common +and homely again; he felt comfortable and warm; and he smiled wearily. + +"Yes," he said, "I'm here." + +She came close to him, more and more incredulous, and the air became +electric. + +"But what brings you here?" + +"I live here--West Tenth." + +"_Live_ here? Why?" + +Her eyes seemed to search through his. + +"You made me," he murmured. + +She smiled strangely. + +"_That night_?" + +"Yes." + +Impulsively her hand went out, and he clasped it ... her hand seemed +almost frozen. Tears of humility sprang to her eyes. + +"I was high and mighty that night,... but I couldn't help it.... But +you ... do you realize what a wonderful thing you've done?" + +He laughed awkwardly. + +"Yes, here's what I've done"--he handed her a copy of _The +Nine-Tenths_--"and it's very wonderful." + +She gave a strange, short laugh again--excitement, exultation--and held +the paper as if it were a living thing. + +"This ... _The Nine-Tenths_ ... oh!... for the working people.... Let me +see!" + +She went to the light, spread the paper and eagerly read. Then she +glanced back a moment and saw his worn face and the weary droop of his +back. + +"Say--you're dead tired. Sit down. You don't mind the bed, do you?" + +He smiled softly. + +"I don't! I am pretty much done up." And he sank down, and let his hands +droop between his knees. + +Sally read, and then suddenly turned to him. + +"This editorial is--it's just a ripper." + +The author felt the thrill of a creator. She went on: + +"I wish every working-girl in New York could read this." + +"So do I." + +She turned and looked at him, more and more excited. + +"So _this_ is what you're doing. I must pinch myself--it's all a dream! +Too good to be true." + +Suddenly there seemed to be a reversal in their relationships. Before, +his end of the beam was down, hers up. But subtly in her voice he felt +the swing to the other extreme. She had set him in a realm above +herself. + +"Tell me," she said, "just how you came to go into this." + +He told her a little, and as he spoke he became thoroughly at his ease +with her, as if she were a man, and in the pleasure of their swift +comradeship they could laugh at each other. + +"Mr. Blaine," she said, suddenly, "if I got you into this, it's up to me +to help you win. I'm going to turn into an agent for you--I'll make 'em +subscribe right and left." + +Joe laughed at her. + +"Lordy, if you knew how good it is to hear this--after tramping up three +miles of stairs and more and nabbing a tawdry twenty subscriptions." + +"Is that all you got?" + +"People don't understand." + +"We'll _make_ them!" cried Sally, clenching her fist. + +Joe laughed warmly; he was delighted with her. + +"Are you working here?" he asked. + +"Yes--you know I used to be in Newark--I was the president of the +Newark Hat-Trimmers' Union." + +"And now?" + +"I'm trying to organize the girls here." + +"Well," he muttered, grimly. "I wouldn't like to be your boss, Miss +Heffer." + +She laughed in her low voice. + +"Let me tell you what sort I am!" And she sat down, crossed her legs, +and clasped her hands on her raised knee. "I was working in that Newark +factory, and the girls told me to ask the boss, Mr. Plump, for a half +holiday. So I went into his office and said: 'Mr. Plump, the girls want +a half holiday.' He was very angry. He said: 'You won't get it. Mind +your own business.' So I said, quietly: 'All right, Mr. Plump, we'll +take a _whole_ holiday. We won't show up Monday.' Then he said to me, +'Sally Heffer, go to hell!' He was the first man to say such a thing to +my face. Well, one of the girls found me in the hall drying my eyes, and +when she got the facts she went back and told the others, and the bunch +walked out, leaving this message: 'Mr. Plump, we won't come back till +you apologize to Sally.' Well, we were out a week, and what do you +think?" Sally laughed with quiet joy. "Plump took it to the +Manufacturers Association, and they--backed him? Not a bit! _Made him +apologize_!" + +Joe chuckled. + +"Great! Great!" + +"Oh, I'm doing things all the time," said Sally. "Organized the Jewish +hat-trimmers in Newark, and all my friends went back on me for sticking +up for the Jews. Did I care? Ten years ago every time the men got a +raise through their union, the girls had their salaries cut. Different +now. We've enough sense to give the easy jobs to the old ladies--and +there's lots of old ones trimming hats." + +"What's trimming hats?" + +Sally plucked up Joe's gray hat, and then looked at Joe, her eyes +twinkling. + +"It's a little hard to show you on this. But see the sweat-band? It has +a lot of needle holes in it, and the trimmer has to stitch through those +holes and then sew the band on to the hat, and all the odds and ends. It +kills eyes. What do you think?" she went on. "The girls used to drink +beer--bosses let 'em do it to keep them stimulated--and it's ruined +lots. I stopped that." + +Joe looked at Sally. And he had a wild impulse then, a crazy thought. + +"How much do you get a week?" + +"Fifteen." + +"Well," said Joe, "I want a woman's department in the paper. Will you +handle it for fifteen a week?" + +"But you don't know me!" + +"Well," said Joe, "I'm willing to gamble on you." + +Sally's low voice loosed exultation. + +"You're a wonder, Mr. Blaine. I'll _do it_! But we're both plumb crazy." + +"I know it," said Joe, "and I like it!" + +They shook hands. + +"Come over to-morrow and meet my mother!" He gave her the address. + +"Good-by," she said. "And let me tell you, I'm simply primed for woman +stuff. It is the women"--she repeated the phrase slowly--"it is the +women, as you'll find, who bear the burden of the world! Good-by!" + +"Good-by!" + +He went down into the open air exulting. + +He could not overcome his astonishment. She was so different than he had +anticipated, so much more human and simple; so much more easy to fit +into the every-day shake-up of life, and full of that divine allowance +for other people's shortcomings. It was impossible to act the tragedian +before her. And, most wondrous of all, she was a "live wire." He had +gone to her abasing himself; he came away as her employer, subtly +cheered, encouraged, and lifted to new heights of vivid enterprise. + +"Sally Heffer!" he kept repeating. "Isn't she a marvel! And, miracle of +miracles, she is going to swing the great work with me!" + +And so the Stove Circle was founded with Sally Heffer, Michael Dunan, +Oscar Heming, Nathan Latsky, Salvatore Giotto, and Jacob Izon. Its +members met together a fortnight later on a cold wintry night. The +stove was red-hot, the circle drew about it on their kitchen chairs, and +Joe spent the first meeting in going over his plans for the paper. There +were many invaluable practical comments--especially on how to get news +and what news to get--and each member was delegated to see to one +department. Latsky and Giotto took immigration, Dunan took politics and +the Irish, Heming took the East Side, Izon, foreign news, and Sally +Heffer took workwomen. Thereafter each one in his way visited labor +unions, clubs, and societies and got each group to pledge itself to send +in news. They helped, too, to get subscriptions--both among their +friends and in the unions. In this way Joe founded his paper. He never +repeated the personal struggle of that first week, for he now had an +enthusiastic following to spread the work for him--men and a woman, +every one of whom had access to large bodies of people and was an +authority in his own world. + +But that wonderful week was never forgotten by Joe. Each day he had +risen early and gone forth and worked till late at night, making a +canvass in good earnest. House after house he penetrated, knocking at +doors, inquiring for a mythical Mrs. (or Mr.) Parsons (this to hush the +almost universal fear that he had come to collect the rent or the +instalment on the furniture or clothes of the family). In this way he +started conversation. He found first that the immediate neighborhood +knew him already. And he found many other things. He found rooms tidy, +exquisite in their cleanliness and good taste of arrangement; and then +other rooms slovenly and filthy. He found young wives just risen from +bed, chewing gum and reading the department-store advertisements in the +paper, their hair in curl-papers. He found fat women hanging out of +windows, their dishes unwashed, their beds unmade, their floors unswept. +He found men sick in bed, and managed to sit down at their side and give +them an interesting twenty minutes. He found other men, out of work, +smoking and reading. He found one Italian family making "willow plumes" +in two narrow rooms--one a bedroom, the other a kitchen--every one at +work, twisting the strands of feathers to make a swaying plume--every +one, including the grandmother and little dirty tots of four and +six--and every one of them cross-eyed as a result of the terrific work. +He found one dark cellar full of girls twisting flowers; and one attic +where, in foul, steaming air, a Jewish family were "finishing" +garments--the whole place stacked with huge bundles which had been given +out to them by the manufacturer. He found one home where an Italian +"count" was the husband of an Irish girl, and the girl told him how she +had been led into the marriage by the man's promise of title and castle +in Venice, only to bring her from Chicago to New York and confess that +he was a poor laborer. + +"But I made the best of it," she cried. "I put down my foot, hustled him +out to work, and we've done well ever since. I've been knocking the dago +out of him as hard as I can hit!" + +"You're ambitious," said Joe. + +"My! I'd give my hands for education!" + +Joe prescribed _The Nine-Tenths_. + +Everywhere he invited people to call--"drop over"--and see his plant and +meet his mother. Even the strange specimen of white woman who had +married a negro and was proud of it. + +"Daniel's black outside, but there's many stuck-up women I know whose +white man is black _inside_." + +Absorbingly interesting was the quest--opening up one vista of life +after another. Joe gained a moving-picture knowledge of life--saw +flashed before him dramatic scene after scene, destiny after +destiny--squalor, ignorance, crime, neatness, ambition, thrift, +respectability. He never forgot the shabby dark back room where under +gas-light a frail, fine woman was sewing ceaselessly, one child sick in +a tumble-down bed, and two others playing on the floor. + +"I'm all alone in the world," she said. "And all I make is two hundred +and fifty dollars a year--less than five dollars a week--to keep four +people." + +Joe put her on the free list. + +He learned many facts, vital elements in his history. + +For instance, that on less than eight hundred dollars a year no family +of five (the average family) could live decently, and that nearly half +the people he met had less, and the rest not much more. That, as a rule, +there were three rooms for five people; and many of the families +gathered their fuel on the street; that many had no gas--used oil and +wood; that many families spent about twenty-five cents a day for food; +that few clothes were bought, and these mainly from the instalment man +and second hand at that; that many were recipients of help; and that +recreation and education were everywhere reduced to the lowest terms. +That is, boys and girls were hustled to work at twelve by giving their +age as fourteen, and recreation meant an outing a year to Coney Island, +and beer, and, once in a while, the nickel theater; that there were +practically no savings. And there was one conclusion he could not +evade--namely, that while overcrowding, improvidence, extravagance, and +vice explained the misery of some families, yet there were limits. For +instance: + +On Manhattan Island no adequate housing can be obtained at less than +twelve or fourteen dollars a month. + +That there is no health in a diet of bread and tea. + +That--curious facts!--coal burns up, coats and shoes wear out in spite +of mending. + +That the average housewife cannot take time to go bargain-hunting or +experimenting with new food combinations, or in making or mending +garments, and neither has she the ability nor training to do so. + +That, in fact, the poor, largely speaking, were between the upper and +nether millstones of low wages and high prices. + +Of course there was the vice, but while drink causes poverty, poverty +causes drink. Joe found intemperance among women; he found little +children running to the saloon for cans of beer; he found plenty of men +drunkards. But what things to offset these! The woman who bought three +bushels of coal a week for seventy-five cents, watched her fires, picked +out the half-burned pieces, reused them, and wasted no heat; the +children foraging the streets for kindling-wood; the family in bed to +keep warm; the wife whose husband had pawned her wedding-ring for drink, +and who had bought a ten-cent brass one, "to keep the respect of her +children"; the man working for ten dollars a week, who once had owned +his own saloon, but, so he said, "it was impossible to make money out of +a saloon unless I put in gambling-machines or women, and I wouldn't +stand for it"; the woman whose husband was a drunkard, and who, +therefore, went to the Battery 5 A.M. to 10, then 5 P.M. to 7, every day +to do scrubbing for twenty dollars a month; the wonderful Jewish family +whose income was seven hundred and ninety-seven dollars and who yet +contrived to save one hundred and twenty-three dollars a year to later +send their two boys to Columbia University. + +And everywhere he found the miracle of miracles: the spirit of charity +and mutual helpfulness--the poor aiding the poorer; the exquisite +devotion of mothers to children; the courage that braved a terrible +life. + +For a week the canvass went on. Joe worked feverishly, and came home +late at night too tired almost to undress himself. Again and again he +exclaimed to his mother: + +"I never dreamed of such things! I never dreamed of such poverty! I +never dreamed of such human nature!" + +Greenwich Village, hitherto a shabby red clutter of streets, uninviting, +forbidding, dull, squalid, became for Joe the very swarm and drama and +warm-blooded life of humanity. He began to sense the fact that he was in +the center of a human whirlpool, in the center of beauty and ugliness, +love and bitterness, misery and joy. The whole neighborhood began to +palpitate for him; the stone walls seemed bloody with struggling souls; +the pavements stamped with the steps of a battle. + +"What can I do," he kept thinking, "with these people?" + +And to his amazement he began to see that just as up-town offered the +rivals of luxury, pleasure, and ease, so down-town offered the rivals of +intemperance, grinding poverty, ignorance. His theories were beginning +to meet the shock of facts. + +"How move them? How touch them off?" he asked himself. + +But the absorbing interest--the faces--the shadowy scenes--the gas-lit +interiors--everywhere human beings, everywhere life, packed, crowded, +evolving. + +At the end of the week he stopped, though the fever was still on him. He +had gained two hundred and fifty subscribers; he had distributed twelve +hundred copies of the paper. He now felt that he could delay no longer +in bringing out the next number. So he sat down, and, with Sally +Heffer's words ringing in his mind, he wrote his famous editorial, "It +is the Women": + + + It is the women who bear the burden of this world--the poor women. + Perhaps they have beauty when they marry. Then they plunge into + drudgery. All day and night they are in dark and damp rooms, scrubbing, + washing, cooking, cleaning, sewing. They wear the cheapest clothes--thin + calico wrappers. They take their husbands' thin pay-envelopes, and + manage the finances. They stint and save--they buy one carrot at a time, + one egg. When rent-week comes--and it comes twice a month--they cut the + food by half to pay for housing. They are underfed, they are denied + everything but toil--save _love_. Child after child they bear. The toil + increases, the stint is sharper, the worry infinite. Now they must + clothe their children, feed them, dress them, wash them, amuse them. + They must endure the heart-sickness of seeing a child underfed. They + must fight the demons of disease. Possibly they must stop a moment in + the speed of their labor and face death. Only for a moment! Need calls + them: mouths ask for food, floors for the broom, and the pay-envelope + for keen reckonings. Possibly then the husband will begin to + drink--possibly he will come home and beat his wife, drag her about the + floor, blacken her eyes, break a rib. The next day the task is taken up + again--the man is fed, the children clothed, the food marketed, the + floor scrubbed, the dress sewn. And then as the family grows there come + hard times. The man is out of work--he wants to work but cannot. Rent + and the butcher and grocer must be paid, but there are no wages brought + home. The woman takes in washing. She goes through the streets to the + more prosperous and drags home a basket of soiled clothes. The burden of + life grows heavier--the husband becomes accustomed to the changed + relationships. Very often he ceases to be a wage-earner and loafs about + saloons. From then on the woman wrestles with worlds of + trouble--unimaginable difficulties. Truly, running a state may be easier + than running a family. And yet the woman toils on; she does not + complain; she sets three meals each day before husband and children; she + sees that they have clothes; she gives the man his drink money; she + endures his cruelty; she plans ambitiously for her children. Or possibly + the man begins to work again, and then one day is killed in an accident. + There is danger of the family breaking up. But the woman rises to the + crisis and works miracles. She keeps her head; she takes charge; she + toils late into the night; she goes without food, without sleep. Somehow + she manages. There was a seamstress in Greenwich Village who pulled her + family of three and herself along on two hundred and fifty dollars a + year--less than five dollars a week! If luck is with the woman the + children grow up, go to work, and for a time ease the burden. But then, + what is left? The woman is prematurely old--her hair is gray, her face + drawn and wrinkled, or flabby and soiled, her back bent, her hands raw + and red and big. Beauty has gone, and with the years of drudgery, much + of the over-glory, much of the finer elements of love and joy, have + vanished. Her mind is absorbed by little things--details of the day. She + has ceased to attend church, she has not stepped beyond the street + corner for years, she has not read or played or rested. Much is dead in + her. Love only is left. Love of a man, love of children. She is a fierce + mother and wife, as of old. And she knows the depth of sorrow and the + truth of pain. + +He repeated his programme. Perhaps--he afterward thought so +himself--this editorial was a bit too pessimistic. But he had to write +it--had to ease his soul. He set it off, however, by a lovely little +paragraph which he printed boxed. Here it is: + + Possibly much of the laughter heard on this planet comes from + the mothers and fathers who are thinking or talking of the children. + +In this way, then, Joe entered into the life of the people. + + + + +IV + + +OTHERS: AND THEODORE MARRIN + +Joe became a familiar figure in Greenwich Village. As time went on, and +issue after issue of _The Nine-Tenths_ appeared, he became known to the +whole district. Whenever he went out people nodded right and left, +passed the time of day with him, or stopped him for a hand-shake and a +question. He would, when matters were not pressing, pause at a stoop to +speak with mothers, and people in trouble soon began to acquire a habit +of dropping in at his office to talk things over with the "Old Man." + +If it was a matter of employment, he turned the case over to some member +of the Stove Circle; if it was a question of honest want, he drew on the +"sinking-fund" and took a note payable in sixty days--a most elastic +note, always secretly renewable; if it was an idle beggar, a vagrant, he +made short work of his visitor. Such a visitor was Lady Hickory. Billy +was at his little table next the door; over in the corner the +still-despondent Slate was still collapsing; at the east window sat +Editor Sally Heffer, digging into a mass of notes; and near the west, +at the roll-top desk, a visitor's chair set out invitingly beside him, +Joe was writing--weird exercise of muttering softly, so as not to +disturb the rest, and then scratching down a sentence. + +Billy leaped up to receive her ladyship, who fatly rolled in, her +tarnished hat askew, her torn thrice-dingy silks clutched up in one fat +hand. + +Lady Hickory gave one cry: + +"There he is!" + +She pushed Billy aside and rolled over into the visitor's chair. + +"Oh, Mr. Joe!" + +Joe turned. + +"What's up?" he asked. + +"Everything's up--I'm dying, Mr. Joe--I need help--I must get to the +hospital--" + +"Sick?" + +"Gallopin' consumption!" + +Joe sniffed. + +"It doesn't smell like consumption," he said with a sigh. "It smells +like rum!" + +He hustled her out rather roughly, Nathan Slate regarding him with +mournful round eyes. Twenty minutes later Nathan came over and sat down. + +"Mr. Joe." + +"Yes, Nathan." + +"There's something troubles my conscience, Mr. Joe." + +"Let her rip!" + +"Mr. Joe--" + +"I'm waiting!" + +Nathan cleared his throat. + +"You say you're a democrat, Mr. Joe, and you're always saying, 'Love thy +neighbor,' Mr. Joe." + +"Has _that_ hit you, Nathan?" + +Nathan unburdened, evading this thrust. + +"Why, then, Mr. Joe, did you turn that woman away?" + +Joe was delighted. + +"Why? I'll tell you! Suppose that I know that the cucumber is inherently +as good as any other vegetable, does that say I can digest it? Cucumbers +aren't for me, Nathan--especially decayed ones." + +Nathan stared at him disconsolately, shook his head, and went back to +puzzle it out. It is doubtful, however, that he ever did so. + +Besides such visitors, there were still others who came to him to +arbitrate family disputes--which constituted him a sort of Domestic +Relations Court--and gave him an insight into a condition that surprised +him. Namely, the not uncommon cases of secret polygamy and polyandry. + +In short, Joe was busy. His work was established in a flexible +routine--mornings for writing; afternoons for callers, for circulation +work, and for special trips to centers of labor trouble; evenings for +going about with Giotto to see the Italians, or paying a visit, say, to +the Ranns, or some others, or meeting at Latsky's cigar store with a +group of revolutionists who filled the air with their war of the +classes, their socialist state, their dreams of millennium. + +He gave time, too, to his mother--evening walks, evening talks, and +old-fashioned quiet hours in the kitchen, his mother at her needlework, +and he reading beside her. One such night, when his mother seemed +somewhat fatigued, he said to her: + +"Don't sew any more, mother." + +"But it soothes me, Joe." + +"Mother!" + +"Yes." + +Joe spoke awkwardly. + +"Are you perfectly satisfied down here? Did we do the right thing?" + +His mother's eyes flashed, as of old. + +"We did," she cried in her youthful voice. "It's real--it's absorbing. +And I'm very proud of myself." + +"Proud? You?" + +"Yes, proud!" she laughed. "Joe, when a woman reaches my age she has a +right to be proud if young folks seek her out and talk with her and make +her their confidante. It shows she's not a useless incumbrance, but +young!" + +Joe sat up. + +"Have they found you out? Do they come to you?" + +"They do--especially the young wives with their troubles. All of them +troubled over their husbands and their children. We have the finest +talks together. They're a splendid lot!" + +"Who's come, in particular?" + +"Well, there's one who isn't married--one of the best of them." + +"Not Sally Heffer!" + +"The same!" + +"I'm dinged!" + +"That girl," said Joe's mother, "has all sorts of possibilities--and +she's brave and strong and true. Sally's a wonder! a new kind of woman!" + +A new kind of woman! Joe remembered the phrase, and in the end admitted +that it was true. Sally was of the new breed; she represented the new +emancipation; the exodus of woman from the home to the battle-fields of +the world; the willingness to fight in the open, shoulder to shoulder +with men; the advance of a sex that now demanded a broader, freer life, +a new health, a home built up on comradeship and economic freedom. In +all of these things she contrasted sharply with Myra, and Joe always +thought of the two together. + +But unconsciously Sally was always the fellow-worker--Myra--what Myra +meant he could feel but not explain; yet these crowded days left little +time for thoughts sweet but often intense with pain. He wrote to her +rarely--mere jottings of business and health; he rarely heard from her. +Her message was invariably the same--the richness and quiet of country +life, the depth and peace of rest, the hope that he was well and happy. +She never mentioned his paper--though she received every number--and +when Joe inquired once whether it came, she answered in a postscript: +"The paper? It's in every Monday's mail." This neglect irritated Joe, +and he would doubly enjoy Sally's heart-and-soul passion for _The +Nine-Tenths_. + +Sally was growing into his working life, day by day. Her presence was +stimulating, refreshing. If he felt blue and discouraged, or dried up +and in want of inspiration, he merely called her over, and her quiet +talk, her sane views, her quick thinking, her never-failing good humor +and faith, acted upon him as a tonic. + +"Miss Sally," he said once, "what would I ever do without you?" + +Sally looked at him with her clear eyes. + +"Oh," she said, "I guess you'd manage to stagger along somehow." + +But after that she hovered about him like a guardian angel. What +bothered her chiefly, when she thought of Joe's work, was her lack of +education, and she set about to make this up by good reading, and by +attending lectures at night, and by hard study in such time as she could +snatch from her work. She and Joe were comrades in the best sense. They +could always depend upon each other. It was in some ways as if they +were in partnership. And then there was that old tie of the fire to +draw them together. + +She was of great help in setting him right about the poor. + +"People are happy," she would say--"most people are happy. Human nature +is bigger than environment--it bubbles up through mud. That's almost the +trouble with it. If the poor were only thoroughly unhappy, they'd change +things to-morrow. No, Mr. Joe, it's not a question of happiness; it's a +question of justice, of right, of progress, of developing people's +possibilities. It's all the question of a better life, a richer life. +People are sacred--they mustn't be reduced to animals." + +And with her aid he gained a truer perspective of the life about +him--learned better how to touch it, how to "work" it. The paper became +more and more adapted to its audience, and began to spread rapidly. Here +and there a labor union would subscribe for it in bulk for all its +members, and the Stove Circle soon had many a raw recruit drumming up +trade, making house-to-house canvasses. In this way, the circulation +finally reached the five-thousand mark. There were certain unions, such +as that of the cloak-makers, that regarded the paper as their special +oracle--swore by it, used it in their arguments, made it a vital part of +their mental life. + +This enlarged circulation brought some curious and unlooked-for results. +Some of the magazine writers in the district got hold of a copy, had a +peep at Joe, heard of his fame, and then took copies up-town to the +respectable editors and others, and spread a rumor of "that idiot, Joe +Blaine, who runs an underground paper down on Tenth Street." As a +passion of the day was slumming, and as nothing could be more piquant +than the West Tenth Street establishment, Joe was amused to find +automobiles drawing up at his door, and the whole neighborhood watching +breathlessly the attack of some flouncy woman or some tailor-made man. + +"How perfectly lovely!" one fair visitor announced, while the office +force watched her pose in the center of the room. "Mr. Blaine, how +dreadful it must be to live with the poor!" + +"It's pretty hard," said Joe, "to live with any human being for any +length of time." + +"Oh, but the poor! They aren't clean, you know; and such manners!" + +Sally spoke coldly. + +"I guess bad manners aren't monopolized by any particular class." + +The flouncy one flounced out. + +These visits finally became very obnoxious, though they could not be +stopped. Even a sign, over the door-bell, "No begging; no slumming," was +quite ineffective in shutting out either class. + +There were, however, other visitors of a more interesting +type--professional men, even business men, who were drawn by curiosity, +or by social unrest, or by an ardent desire to be convinced. Professor +Harraman, the sociologist, came, and made quite a dispassionate study of +Joe, put him (so he told his mother) on the dissecting-table and +vivisected his social organs. Then there was Blakesly, the corporation +lawyer, who enjoyed the discussion that arose so thoroughly that he +stayed for supper and behaved like a gentleman in the little kitchen, +even insisting on throwing off his coat, rolling up his sleeves, and +helping to dry the dishes. + +"You're all wrong," he told Joe when he left, "and some day possibly +we'll hang you or electrocute you; but it's refreshing to rub one's mind +against a going dynamo. I'm coming again. And don't forget that your +mother is the First Lady of the Island! Good-by!" + +Then there was, one important day, the great ex-trust man, whose name is +inscribed on granite buildings over half the earth. This man--so the +legend runs--is on the lookout for unusual personalities. The first hint +of a new one puts him on the trail, and he sends out a detective to +gather facts, all of which are card-indexed under the personality's +name. Then, if the report is attractive, this man goes out himself and +meets the oddity face to face. He came in on Joe jovial, happy, +sparkling, and fired a broadside of well-chosen questions. Joe was +delighted, and said anything he pleased, and his visitor shrewdly went +on. In the end Joe was stunned to hear this comment: + +"Mr. Blaine, you're on the right track, though you don't know it. You +think you want one thing, but you're after another. Still--keep it up. +The world is coming to wonderful things." + +"That's queer talk," said Joe, "coming from a multimillionaire." + +The multimillionaire laughed. + +"But I'm getting rid of the multi, Mr. Blaine. What more would you have +me do? Each his own way. Besides"--he screwed up his eye shrewdly--"come +now, aren't you hanging on to some capital?" + +"Yes--in a way!" + +"So are we all! You're a wise man! Keep free, and then you can help +others!" + +The most interesting caller, however, judged from the standpoint of +Joe's life, was Theodore Marrin, Izon's boss, manufacturer of high-class +shirtwaists, whose Fifth Avenue store is one of the most luxurious in +New York. He came to Joe while the great cloak-makers' strike was still +on, at a time when families were reduced almost to starvation, and when +the cause seemed quite hopeless. + +Theodore Marrin came in a beautiful heavy automobile. He was a short +man, with a stout stomach; his face was a deep red, with large, slightly +bulging black eyes, tiny mustache over his full lips; and he was dressed +immaculately and in good taste--a sort of Parisian-New Yorker, +hail-fellow-well-met, a mixer, a cynic, a man about town. He swung his +cane lightly as he tripped up the steps, sniffed the air, and knocked on +the door of the editorial office. + +Billy opened. + +"Yes, sir." + +"Mr. Blaine in?" + +"He's busy." + +"I should hope he was! There, my boy." He deftly waved Billy aside and +stepped in. "Well! well! Mr. Blaine!" + +Joe turned about, and arose, and accepted Mr. Marrin's extended hand. + +"Who do you think I am?" + +Joe smiled. + +"I'm ready for anything." + +"Well, Mr. Blaine, I'm the employer of one of your men. You know Jacob +Izon?" + +"Oh, you're Mr. Marrin! Sit down." + +Marrin gazed about. + +"Unique! unique!" He sat down, and pulled off his gloves. "I've been +wanting to meet you for a long time. Izon's been talking, handing me +your paper. It's a delightful little sheet--I enjoy it immensely." + +"You agree with its views?" + +"Oh no, no, no! I read it the way I read fiction! It's damned +interesting!" + +Joe laughed. + +"Well, what can I do for you?" + +"What can I do for _you_!" corrected Marrin. + +"See here, Mr. Blaine, I'm interested. How about taking a little ad. +from me, just for fun, to help the game along?" + +"We don't accept ads." + +"Oh, I know! But if I contribute handsomely! I'd like to show it around +to my friends a bit. Come, come, don't be unreasonable, Mr. Blaine." + +Sally shuffled about, coughed, arose, sat down again, and Joe laughed. + +"Can't do it. Not even Rockefeller could buy a line of my paper." + +"Do you _mean_ it?" + +"Absolutely--flatly." + +"Well, what a shame! But never mind. Some other time. Tell me, Mr. +Blaine"--he leaned forward--"what are you? One of these bloody +socialists?" + +"No, I'm not a socialist." + +"What d'ye call yourself, then--Republican?" + +"No." + +"Democrat?" + +"No." + +"Insurgent?" + +"No." + +Marrin was horror-stricken. + +"Not a blooming anarchist?" + +Joe laughed. + +"No, not an anarchist." + +"What are you, then? Nothing?" + +"I can tell you what I'm not," said Joe. + +"What?" + +"I'm not any kind of an _ist_." + +"A fine fellow!" cried Marrin. "Why, a man's got to stand for +something." + +"I do," said Joe, "I stand for human beings--and sometimes," he +chuckled, "I stand for a whole lot!" + +Marrin laughed, so did Sally. + +"Clever!" cried Marrin. "Damned clever! You're cleverer than I +thought--hide your scheme up, don't you? Well! well! Let me see your +plant!" + +Joe showed him about, and Marrin kept patting him on the back: +"Delightful! Fine! You're my style, Mr. Blaine--everything done to a +nicety, no frills and feathers. Isn't New York a great town? There are +things happening in it you'd never dream of." + +And when he left he said: + +"Now, if there's anything I can do for you, Mr. Blaine, don't hesitate +to call on me. And say, step up and see my shop. It's the finest this +side of Paris. I'll show you something you've never seen yet! Good-by!" + +And he was whisked away, a quite self-satisfied human being. + +That very evening Marrin's name came up again. It was closing-up time, +Billy and Slate had already gone, and the room was dark save for the +shaded lights over Joe's desk and Sally's table. The two were working +quietly, and outside a soft fall of snow was muffling the noise of the +city. There only arose the mellowed thunder of a passing car, the far +blowing of a boat-whistle, the thin pulse of voices. Otherwise the city +was lost in the beautiful storm, which went over the gas-lamps like a +black-dotted halo. In the rear room there was a soft clatter of dishes. +The silence was rich and full of thought. Joe scratched on, Sally +puzzled over reports. + +Then softly the door opened, and a hoarse voice said: + +"Joe? You there?" + +Sally and Joe turned around. It was Izon, dark, handsome, fiery, muffled +up to his neck, his hat drawn low on his face, and the thin snow +scattering from his shoulders and sleeves. + +"Yes, I'm here," Joe said in a low voice. "What is it?" + +Izon came over. + +"Joe!"--his voice was passionate--"there's trouble brewing at Marrin's." + +"Marrin? Why, he was here only to-day!" + +Izon clutched the back of a chair and leaned over. + +"Marrin is a dirty scoundrel!" + +His voice was hoarse with helplessness and passion. + +Joe rose. + +"Tell me about this! Put it in a word!" + +Tears sprang to Izon's eyes. + +"You know the cloak-makers' strike--well! Some manufacturer has asked +Marrin to help him out--to fill an order of cloaks for him." + +"And Marrin--" Joe felt himself getting hot. + +"Has given the job to us men." + +"How many are there?" + +"Forty-five." + +"And the women?" + +"They're busy on shirtwaists." + +"And what did the men do?" + +"As they were told." + +"So you fellows are cutting under the strikers--you're scabs." + +Izon clutched the chair harder. + +"I told them so--I said, 'For God's sake, be men--strike, if this isn't +stopped.'" + +"And what did they say?" + +"They'd think it over!" + +Sally arose and spoke quietly. + +"Make them meet here. _I'll_ talk to them!" + +Izon muttered darkly: + +"Marrin's a dirty scoundrel!" + +Joe smote his hands together. + +"We'll fix him. You get the men down here! You just get the men!" + +And then Joe understood that his work was not child's play; that the +fight was man-size; that it had its dangers, its perils, its fierce +struggles. He felt a new power rise within him--a warrior strength. He +was ready to plunge in and give battle--ready for a hand-to-hand +conflict. Now he was to be tested in the fires; now he was to meet and +make or be broken by a great moment. An electricity of conflict filled +the air, a foreboding of disaster. His theories at last were to meet the +crucial test of reality, and he realized that up to that moment he had +been hardly more than a dreamer. + + + + +V + + +FORTY-FIVE TREACHEROUS MEN + +Out of the white, frosty street the next night, when every lamp up and +down shone like a starry jewel beneath the tingling stars, forty-five +men emerged, crowding, pushing in the hall, wedging through the doorway, +and filling the not-too-large editorial office. Joe had provided +camp-stools, and the room was soon packed with sitting and standing men, +circles of shadowy beings, carelessly clothed, with rough black cheeks +and dark eyes--a bunch of jabbering aliens, excited, unfriendly, +curious, absorbed in their problem--an ill-kempt lot and quite unlovely. + +At the center stove, a little way off from its red heart, sat Joe and +Sally and Izon. The men began to smoke cigarettes and little cigars, and +with the rank tobacco smell was mingled the sweaty human odor. The room +grew densely hot, and a window had to be thrown open. A vapor of smoke +filled the atmosphere, shot golden with the lights, and in the smoke the +many heads, bent this way and that, leaning forward or tilted up, showed +strange and a little unreal. Joe could see faces that fascinated him by +their vivid lines, their starting dark eyes and the white eye-balls, +their bulging noses and big mouths. Hands fluttered in lively gestures +and a storm of Yiddish words broke loose. + +Joe arose, lifting his hand for silence. Men pulled each other by the +sleeve, and a strident "'Ssh!" ran round the room. + +"Silence!" cried Joe. His voice came from the depths of his big chest, +and was masterful, ringing with determination. + +An expectant hush followed. And then Joe spoke. + +"I want to welcome you to this room. It belongs to you as much as to +anybody, for in this room is published a paper that works for your good. +But I not only want to welcome you: I want to ask your permission to +speak at this meeting." + +There were cries of: "Speak! Go on! Say it!" + +Joe went on. Behind his words was a menace. + +"Then I want to say this to you. Your boss, Mr. Marrin, has done a +cowardly and treacherous thing. He has made scabs of you all. You are no +better than strike-breakers. If you do this work, if you make these +cloaks, you are traitors to your fellow-workers, the cloak-makers. You +are crippling other workmen. You are selling them to their bosses. But +I'm sure you won't stand for this. You are men enough to fight for the +cause of all working people. You belong to a race that has been +persecuted through the ages, a brave race, a race that has triumphed +through hunger and cold and massacres. You are great enough to make this +sacrifice. If this is so, I call on you to resist your boss, to refuse +to do his dirty work, and I ask you--if he persists in his orders--to +lay down your work and _strike_." + +He sat down, and there was a miserable pause. He had not stirred them at +all, and felt his failure keenly. It was as if he had not reached over +the fence of race. He told himself he must school himself in the future, +must broaden out. As a matter of fact, it was the menace in his tone +that hushed the meeting. The men rather feared what lay behind Joe's +words. + +At once, however, one of the men leaped to his feet, and began a fiery +speech in Yiddish, speaking gaspingly, passionately, hotly, shaking his +fist, fluttering his hands, tearing a passion to tatters. Joe understood +not a word, but the burden of the speech was: + +"Why should we strike? What for? For the cloak-makers? What have we to +do with cloak-makers? We have troubles enough of our own. We have our +families to support--our wives and children and relations. Shall they +starve for some foolish cloak--makers? Comrades, don't listen to such +humbug. Do your work--get done with it. You have good jobs--don't lose +them. These revolutionists! They would break up the whole world for +their nonsense! It's not they who have to suffer; it's us working +people. We do the starving, we do the fighting. Have sense; bethink +yourselves; don't make fools out of yourselves!" + +A buzz of talk arose with many gesticulations. + +"He's right! Why should we strike--Och, Gott, such nonsense!--No more +strike talk." + +Then Sally arose, pale, eyes blazing. She shook a stanch little fist at +the crowd. But how different was her speech from the one in Carnegie +Hall--that time when she had been truly inspired. + +"Shame on all of you! You're a lot of cowards! You're a lot of traitors! +You can't think of anything but your bellies! Shame on you all! Women +would never stand for such things--young girls, your sisters or your +daughters, would strike at once! Let me tell you what will happen to +you. Some day there will be a strike of shirt-waist-makers, and then +your boss will go to the cloak-house and say, 'Now you make shirtwaists +for me,' and the cloak-makers will make the shirtwaists, saying, 'When +we were striking, the shirtwaist-makers made cloaks; now we'll make +waists.' And that will ruin your strike, and ruin you all. Working +people must unite! Working people must stand by each other! That's your +only power. The boss has money, land, machinery, friends. What have you? +You only have each other, and if you don't stand by each other, you +have nothing at all. Strike! I tell you! Strike and show 'em! Show 'em! +Rise and resist! You have the power! You are bound to win! Strike! I +tell you!" + +Then a man shouted: "Shall a woman tell us what to do?" and tumult broke +loose, angry arguments, words flying. The air seemed to tingle with +excitement, expectation, and that sharp feeling of human crisis. Joe +could feel the circle of human nature fighting about him. He leaned +forward, strangely shaken. + +Izon had arisen, and was trying to speak. The dark, handsome young man +was gesturing eloquently. His voice poured like a fire, swept the crowd, +and he reached them with their own language. + +"Comrades! Comrades! Comrades!" and then his voice rose and stilled the +tumult, and all leaned forward, hanging on his words. "You must"--he was +appealing to them with arms outstretched--"you must! You will strike; +you will not be cowards! Not for yourselves, O comrades, but for your +children--_your children_! Do I not know you? Do I not know how you toil +and slave and go hungry and wear out your bodies and souls? Have I not +toiled with you? Have I not shared your struggles and your pain? Do I +not know that you are doing all, all for your children--that the little +ones may grow up to a better life than yours--that your little ones may +be happier, and healthier, and richer, and finer? Have I not seen it a +thousand times? But what sort of a world will your children find when +they grow up if you do not fight these battles for them? If you let the +bosses enslave you--if you are cowards and slaves--will not your +children be slaves? Oh, we that belong to Israel, have we not fought for +freedom these bloody thousand years? Are we to cease now? Can't you see? +Can't you open your hearts and minds?" His voice came with a passionate +sob. "Won't you see that this is a fight for the future--a fight for all +who work for wages--a fight for freedom? Not care for the cloak-makers? +They are your brothers. Care for them, lest the day come when you are +uncared for! Strike! You must--you _must_! Strike, comrades! We will +hang by each other! We will suffer together! And it will not be the +first time! No, not the first time--or the last!" + +He sank exhausted on his chair, crumpled up. Sweat was running down his +white face. There was a moment's hush--snuffling, and a few coarse +sobs--and then a young man arose, and spoke in trembling voice: + +"I move--we send Jacob Izon to-morrow to our boss--and tell him--either +no cloaks, or--we strike!" + +"Second! Second!" + +Joe put the motion. + +"All in favor, say aye." + +There was a wild shout of ayes. The motion was carried. Then the air +was charged with excitement, with fiery talk, with denunciation and +ardor. + +"Now we're in for it!" said Joe, as the room was emptied, and the +aroused groups trudged east on the crunching snow. + +And so it was. Next morning, when Theodore Marrin made the rounds of the +vast loft where two hundred girls and forty-five men were busily +working--the machines racing--the air pulsing with noise--Jacob Izon +arose, trembling, and confronted him. + +"Well, Jacob!" + +"I want to tell you something." + +"Go ahead." + +"The men have asked me to ask you not to have us make the cloaks." + +Marrin's red face seemed to grow redder. + +"So, that's it!" he snapped. "Well, here's my answer. Go back to your +work!" + +The men had stopped working and were listening. The air was electric, +ominous. + +Izon spoke tremblingly. + +"I am very sorry then. I must announce that the men have struck!" + +Marrin glared at him. + +"Very well! And get out--quick!" + +He turned and walked away, flaming with rage. The men quickly put their +work away, got their hats and coats, and followed Izon. When they +reached the street--a strange spectacle on flashing, brilliant Fifth +Avenue--Izon suggested that they go down to Tenth Street, for they stood +about like a lot of lost sheep. + +"No," cried one of the men, "we've had enough of Tenth Street. There's a +hall we can use right over on Eighteenth Street. Come on." + +The rest followed. Izon reported to Joe, and Joe asked: + +"Do you think they'll fight it out?" + +"I don't know!" Izon shrugged his shoulders. + +This doubt was justifiable, for he soon found that he was leading a +forlorn hope. As morning after morning the men assembled in the dark +meeting-room behind a saloon, and sat about in their overcoats +complaining and whining, quoting their wives and relatives, more and +more they grew disconsolate and discouraged. There were murmurs of +rebellion, words of antagonism. Finally on the fifth morning a messenger +arrived with a letter. Izon took it. + +"It's from Marrin," he murmured. + +"Read it! Read it out loud!" + +He opened it and read: + + TO MY MEN,--I have thought matters over. I do not like to sever + connections with men who have been so long in my employ. If you return + to work this morning, you may go on at the old salaries, and we will + consider the matter closed. If, however, you listen to advice calculated + to ruin your future, and do not return, please remember that I will not + be responsible. I shall then secure new men, and your places will be + occupied by others. + + Yours faithfully, + + THEODORE MARRIN. + + _P.S._--Naturally, it is understood that under no circumstance will your + leader--Jacob Izon--the cause of this trouble between us--be + re-employed. Such men are a disgrace to the world. + +Izon's cheeks flushed hot. He looked up. + +"Shall I write to him that we will not consider his offer, and tell him +we refuse to compromise?" + +There was a silence a little while, and then one of the older men +shuffled to his feet. + +"Tell you what we do--we get up a collection for Izon. Then everything +will be all right!" + +Izon's eyes blazed. + +"Charity? Not for me! I don't want you to think of me! I want you to +think of what this strike means!" + +Then some one muttered: + +"We've listened long enough to Izon." + +And another: "I'm going to work!" + +"So am I! So am I!" + +They began to rise, to shamefacedly shamble toward the door. Izon rose +to his feet, tried to intercept them, stretched out his arms to them. + +"For God's sake," he cried, "leave me out, but get something. Don't go +back like this! Get something! Don't you see that Marrin is ready to +give in? Are you going back like weak slaves?" + +They did not heed him; but one old man paused and put a hand on his +shoulder. + +"This will teach you not to be so rash next time. You will learn yet." + +And they were gone. Izon was dazed, heart-broken. He hurried home to his +wife and wept upon her shoulder. + +Late that afternoon Joe and Sally were again alone in the office, their +lights lit, their pens scratching, working in a sweet unspoken sympathy +in the quiet, shadowy place. There was a turning of the knob, and Izon +came in. Joe and Sally arose and faced him. He came slowly, his face +drawn and haggard. + +"Joe! Joe!" + +"What is it?" Joe drew the boy near. + +"They've gone back--the men have gone back!" + +"Gone back?" cried Joe. + +"Read this letter!" + +Joe read it, and spoke angrily. + +"Then I'll do something!" + +Izon pleaded with him. + +"Be careful, Joe--don't do anything foolish for my sake. I'll get +along--" + +"But your wife! How does she take it?" + +Izon's face brightened. + +"Oh, she's a Comrade! That's why I married her!" + +"Good!" said Joe. "Then I'll go ahead. I'll speak my mind!" + +"Not for me, though," cried Izon. "I'll get something else." + +"Are you _sure_ of that?" asked Joe. + +"Why not?" + +"Are you sure," Joe went on, "that you won't be blacklisted?" + +Izon stared at him. + +"Well--I suppose--I will." + +"You'll have to leave the city, Jacob." + +"I can't. I'm right in my course of engineering. I can't go." + +"Well, we'll see!" Joe's voice softened. "Now you go home and rest. +There's a good fellow. And everything will be all right!" + +And he saw Izon out. + +Joe began again to feel the tragic undercurrents of life, the first time +since the dark days following the fire. He came back, and stood +brooding, his homely face darkened with sorrow. Sally stood watching +him, her pale face flushing, her eyes darting sympathy and daring. + +"Mr. Joe." + +"Yes, Miss Sally." + +"I want to do something." + +"What?" + +"I want to go up to Marrin's to-morrow and get the girls out on strike." + +"What's that?" + +"I've done it before; I can do it again." + +Joe laughed softly. + +"Miss Sally, what would I do without you? I'd go stale on life, I +think." + +She made an impulsive movement toward him. + +"Mr. Joe." + +"Yes?" + +"I want to help you--every way." + +"I know you do." His voice was a little husky, and he looked up and met +her fine, clear eyes. + +Then she turned away, sadly. + +"You'll let me do it?" + +"Oh, no!" he said firmly. "The idea's appealing, but you mustn't think +of it, Miss Sally. It will only stir up trouble." + +"We ought to." + +"Not for this." + +"But the shirtwaist-makers are working in intolerable conditions; +they're just ready to strike; a spark would blow 'em all up." + +He shook his head. + +"Wait--wait till we see what my next number does!" + +Sally said no more; but her heart nursed her desire until it grew to an +overmastering passion. She left for the night, and Joe sat down, burning +with the fires of righteousness. And he wrote an editorial that altered +the current of his life. He wrote: + + FORTY-FIVE TREACHEROUS MEN + + Theodore Marrin and the forty-four who went back to work for him: + Every one of you is a traitor to American citizenship. + Let us use blunt words and call a spade a spade. + Theodore Marrin, you have betrayed your employees. + You forty-four men, you have betrayed yourselves and your leader. + +And so it went, sharp, incisive, plain-spoken--words that were hot +brands and burned. + +He was sitting at this task (twice his mother had called him to supper +and he had waved her away) when an exquisite black-eyed little woman +came in. + +"Mr. Blaine?" + +"Yes." + +"I'm Mrs. Izon." + +Joe wheeled about and seized her hand. + +"Tell me to do something for you! You and your brave husband!" + +Mrs. Izon spoke quietly: + +"I came here because Jacob is so worried. He is afraid you will harm +yourself for us." + +Joe laughed softly. + +"Tell him not to worry any longer. It's you who are suffering--not I. I? +I am only having fun." + +She was not satisfied. + +"We oughtn't to get others mixed up in our troubles." + +"It's hard for you, isn't it?" Joe murmured. + +"Yes." She smiled sadly. "I suppose it isn't right when you are in the +struggle to get married. Not right to the children." + +Joe spoke courageously. + +"Never you mind, Mrs. Izon--but just wait. Wait three--four days. We'll +see!" + +They did wait, and they did see. + + + + +VI + + +A FIGHT IN GOOD EARNEST + +Sally hesitated before going into Marrin's that Monday morning. A +blinding snow-storm was being released over the city, and the fierce +gusts eddied about the corner of Fifth Avenue, blew into drifts, lodged +on sill and cornice and lintel, and blotted out the sky and the world. +Through the wild whiteness a few desolate people ploughed their way, +buffeted, blown, hanging on to their hats, and quite unable to see +ahead. Sally shoved her red little hands into her coat pockets, and +stood, a careless soul, in the white welter. + +From her shoulder, some hundred feet to the south, ran the plate-glass +of Marrin's, spotted and clotted and stringy with snow and ice, and +right before her was the entrance for deliveries and employees. A last +consideration held her back. She had been lying awake nights arguing +with her conscience. Joe had told her not to do it--that it would only +stir up trouble--but Joe was too kindly. In the battles of the working +people a time must come for cruelty, blows, and swift victory. Marrin +was an out-and-out enemy to be met and overthrown; he had made traitors +of the men; he had annihilated Izon; she would fight him with the women. + +Nor was this the only reason. Sally felt that her supreme task was to +organize the women in industry, to take this trampled class and make of +it a powerful engine for self-betterment, and no women were more +prepared, she felt, than the shirtwaist-makers. She knew that at +Marrin's the conditions were fairly good, though, even there, women and +young girls worked sometimes twelve hours and more a day, and earned, +many of them, but four or five dollars a week. What tempted Sally, +however, was the knowledge that a strike at Marrin's would be the spark +to set off the city and bring out the women by the thousands. It would +be the uprising of the women; the first upward step from sheer +wage-slavery; the first advance toward the ideal of that coming woman, +who should be a man in her freedom and her strength and her power, and +yet woman of woman in her love and her motherhood and wife-hood. +Industry, so Sally knew, was taking the young girls by the million, +overworking them, sapping them of body and soul, and casting them out +unfit to bear children, untrained to keep house, undisciplined to meet +life and to be a comrade of a man. And Sally knew, moreover, what could +be done. She knew what she had accomplished with the hat-trimmers. + +Nevertheless, she hesitated, not quite sure that the moment had come. +Joe's words detained her in a way no man's words had ever done before. +But she thought: "I do this for him. I sharpen the edge of his editorial +and drive it home. Words could never hurt Marrin--but I can." She got +under the shelter of the doorway and with numb hand pulled a copy of +_The Nine-Tenths_ from her pocket, unfolded it, and reread the burning +words of: "Forty-five Treacherous Men." They roused all her fighting +blood; they angered her; they incited her. + +"Joe! Joe!" she murmured. "It's you driving me on--it's you! Here goes!" + +It was in some ways a desperate undertaking. Once, in Newark, a rough of +an employer had almost thrown her down the stairs, man-handling her, and +while Marrin or his men would not do this, yet what method could she use +to brave the two hundred and fifty people in the loft? She was quite +alone, quite without any weapon save her tongue. To fail would be +ridiculous and ignominious. Yet Sally was quite calm; her heart did not +seem to miss a beat; her brain was not confused by a rush of blood. She +knew what she was doing. + +She climbed that first flight of semi-circular stairs without hindrance, +secretly hoping that by no mischance either Marrin or one of his +sub-bosses might emerge. There was a door at the first landing. She +passed it quickly and started up the second flight. Then there was a +turning of a knob, a rustling of skirts, and a voice came sharp: + +"Where are you going?" + +Sally turned. The forelady stood below her--large, eagle-eyed woman, +with square and wrinkled face, quite a mustache on her upper lip. Sally +spoke easily. + +"Up-stairs." + +"For what?" + +"To see one of the girls. Her mother's sick." + +The forelady eyed Sally suspiciously. + +"Did you get a permit from the office?" + +Sally seemed surprised. + +"Permit? No! Do you have to get a permit?" + +The forelady spoke roughly. + +"You get a permit, or you don't go up." + +"Where's the office?" + +"In here." + +"Thanks for telling me!" + +Sally came down, and, as she entered the doorway, the forelady proceeded +up-stairs. Sally delayed a second, until the forelady disappeared around +the bend, and then quickly, quietly she followed, taking the steps two +at a time. The forelady had hardly entered the doorway on the next +landing when Sally was in with her, and treading softly in her +footsteps. + +This was the loft, vast, lit by windows east and west, and hung, this +snow-darkened morning, with many glittering lights. Through all the +space girls and women, close together, bent over power-machines which +seemed to race at intolerable speed. There was such a din and clatter, +such a whizzing, thumping racket, that voices or steps would well be +lost. Then suddenly, in the very center of the place, the forelady, +stopping to speak to a girl, while all the girls of the neighborhood +ceased work to listen, thus producing a space of calm--the forelady, +slightly turning and bending, spied Sally. + +She came up indignantly. + +"Why did you follow me? Go down to the office!" + +Many more machines stopped, many more pale faces lifted and watched. + +Sally gave a quick glance around, and was a trifle upset by seeing Mr. +Marrin coming straight toward her. He came with his easy, tripping +stride, self-satisfied, red-faced, tastefully dressed, an orchid in his +buttonhole. Sally spoke quickly. + +"I was only looking for Mr. Marrin, and here he is!" + +As Mr. Marrin came up, more and more machines stopped, as if by +contagion, and the place grew strangely hushed. + +The forelady turned to her boss. + +"This woman's sneaked in here without a permit!" + +Marrin spoke sharply. + +"What do you want?" + +Then in the quiet Sally spoke in a loud, exultant voice. + +"I only wanted to tell the girls to strike!" + +A sudden electricity charged the air. + +"What!" cried Marrin, the vein on his forehead swelling. "You come in +here--" + +"To tell the girls to strike," Sally spoke louder. "For you've made the +men traitors and you've blacklisted Izon." + +Marrin sensed the danger in the shop's quiet. + +"For God's sake," he cried, "lower your voice--speak to me--tell me in +private--" + +"I am," shrieked Sally. "I'm telling you I want the girls to strike!" + +He turned. + +"Come in my private office, quick! I'll talk with you!" + +Sally followed his hurried steps. + +"Yes, I'll tell you there," she fairly shrieked, "that I want the girls +to strike!" + +Marrin turned. + +"Can't you shut up?" + +And then Sally wheeled about and spoke to the two hundred. + +"Girls! come on out! We'll tie him up! We're not like the men! _We_ +won't stand for such things, will we?" + +Then, in the stillness, Jewish girls here and there rose from their +machines. It was like the appearance of apparitions. How did it come +that these girls were more ready than any one could have guessed, and +were but waiting the call? More and more arose, and low murmurs spread, +words, "It's about time! I won't slave any more! He had no right to put +out Izon! The men are afraid! Mr. Blaine is right!" + +Marrin tried to shout: + +"I order you to get to work!" + +But a tumult drowned his voice, a busy clamor, an exultant jabber of +tongues, a rising, a shuffling, a moving about. + +Sally marched down the aisle. + +"Follow me, girls! We're going to have a union!" + +It might have been the Pied Piper of Hamelin whistling up the +rats--there was a hurrying, a scurrying, a weird laughter, a blowing +about of words, and the two hundred, first swallowing up Sally, crowded +the doorway, moved slowly, pushed, shoved, wedged through, and +disappeared, thundering, shouting and laughing, down the steps. The two +hundred, always so subdued, so easily bossed, so obedient and +submissive, had risen and gone. + +Marrin looked apoplectic. He rushed over to where the forty-four men +were sitting like frightened animals. He spoke to the one nearest him. + +"Who was that girl? I've seen her somewhere!" + +"She?" the man stammered. "That's Joe Blaine's girl." + +"_Joe Blaine_!" cried Marrin. + +"Look," said the man, handing Marrin a copy of _The Nine-Tenths_, "the +girls read this this morning. That's why they struck." + +Marrin seized the paper. He saw the title: + + FORTY-FIVE TREACHEROUS MEN + +and he read beneath it: + + Theodore Marrin, and the forty-four who went back to + work for him: + Every one of you is a traitor to American citizenship. + Let us use blunt words and call a spade a spade. + Theodore Marrin, you have betrayed your employees. + +And then farther down: + + No decent human being would work for such a man. + He has no right to be an employer--not in such hands + should be placed the sacred welfare of men and women. + If I were one of Marrin's employees I would prefer the + streets to his shop. + +Marrin looked up at the forty-four. And he saw that they were more than +frightened--they were in an ugly humor, almost ferocious. The article +had goaded them into a senseless fury. + +Marrin spoke more easily. + +"So that's your friend of labor, that's your Joe Blaine. Well, here is +what your Joe Blaine has done for you. You're no good to me without the +girls. You're all discharged!" + +He left them and made madly for the door. The men were chaotic with +rage; they arose; their voices went sharp and wild. + +"What does that Joe Blaine mean? He takes the bread out of our mouths! +He makes fools of us! He ought to be shot! I spit on him! Curse him!" + +One man arose on a chair. + +"You fools--you listened to that man, and went on strike--and now you +come back, and he makes you lose your jobs. Are you going to be fools +now? Are you going to let him get the best of you? He is laughing at +you, the pig. The girls are laughing at you. Come on! We will go down +and show him--we will assemble before his place and speak to him!" + +The men were insane with rage and demon-hate. Vehemently shouting, they +made for the stairs, rushed pell-mell down, and sought the street, and +turned south through the snow. There were few about to notice them, none +to stop them. Policemen were in doorways and odd shelters. And so, +unimpeded, the crazed mob made its way. + +In the mean time Marrin had come out in his heavy fur coat and stepped +into his closed automobile. It went through the storm, easily gliding, +turned up West Tenth Street, and stopped before Joe's windows. Marrin +hurried in and boldly opened the office door. Billy jumped up to +intercept him. + +"Mr. Blaine--" he began. + +"Get out of my way!" snapped Marrin, and stepped up to Joe. + +Joe was brooding at his desk, brooding and writing, his dark face +troubled, his big form quite stoop-shouldered. + +"Well," said Joe, "what's the matter, Mr. Marrin?" + +Marrin tried to contain his rage. He pointed his cane at Joe. + +"You've made a mistake, Mr. Blaine." + +"It isn't the first one." + +"Let me tell you something--" + +"I will let you." + +Marrin spoke with repression. + +"Next time--don't attack both the boss and the men. It's bad policy. +Take sides." + +"Oh, I did take sides," said Joe, lightly. "I'm against anything +treacherous." + +Marrin exploded. + +"Well, you'll get yours! And let me tell you something! I've a good mind +to sue you for libel and shut up your shop." + +Joe rose, and there was a dangerous light in his eyes. His hands were +open at his sides, but they twitched a little. + +"Then," said Joe, "I'll make it worth your while. If you don't want to +be helped out, _get out_!" + +"Very well," sputtered Marrin, and turned, twirling his cane, and made +an upright exit. + +The sad Slate was paralyzed; Billy was joyous. + +But Joe strode into the kitchen, where his mother was quietly reading at +the window. + +"What is it, Joe?" + +"Mother," he said, "that fellow Marrin was in threatening to sue me for +libel." + +"Could it hurt you?" + +"It might. Speaking the truth is always libelous." + +Joe's mother spoke softly. + +"Your father lost an arm in the war. You can't expect to fight without +facing danger. And besides," she laughed easily, "you can always get a +job as a printer, Joe." + +Joe paced up and down moodily, his hands clasped behind his back. + +"If it was only myself--" he murmured, greatly troubled. "I wonder where +Sally is this morning." + +"Didn't she come, Joe?" + +"No. Not a word from her. I'd hate her to be sick." + +"Hadn't you better send over and see?" + +"I'll wait a bit yet. And yet--" he sighed, "I just need Sally now." + +His mother glanced at him keenly. + +"Sally's a wonder," she murmured. + +"She is--" He spoke a little irritably. "Why couldn't she have come this +morning?" + +There were quick steps, and Billy rushed in, his eyes large, his cheeks +pale. + +"Mr. Joe!" he said breathlessly. + +"Yes, Billy." + +"There's a lot of men out on the street, and they're beginning to fire +snowballs!" + +Nathan Slate came in, a scarecrow of fear, teeth chattering. + +"Oh, Mr. Joe," he wailed. "Oh, Mr. Joe!" + +Joe's mother rose, and spoke under her breath. + +"Mr. Slate, sit down at once!" + +Slate collapsed on a chair, trembling. + +Joe felt as if a fork of lightning had transfixed him--a sharp white +fire darting from head and feet and arms to his heart, and whirling +there in a spinning ball. He spoke quietly: + +"I'll go and see." + +It seemed long before he got to the front window. Looking out through +the snow-dim pane, he saw the street filled with gesticulating men. He +saw some of the faces of the forty-four, but mingled with these were +other faces--the faces of toughs and thugs, ominous, brutal, menacing. +In a flash he realized that he had been making enemies in the district +as well as friends, and it struck him that these were the criminal +element in the political gang, hangers-on, floaters, the saloon +contingent, who were maddened by his attempt to lead the people away +from the rotten bosses. As if by magic they had emerged from the +underworld, as they always do in times of trouble, and he knew that the +excited East Side group was now flavored with mob-anarchy--that he had +to deal, not with men whose worst weapon was words, but with brutes who +lusted for broken heads. Some of the faces he knew--he had seen them +hanging about saloons. And he saw, too, in that swift scrutiny, that +many of the men had weapons; some had seized crowbars and sledges from a +near-by street tool-chest which was being used by laborers; others had +sticks; some had stones. An ominous sound came from the mob, something +winged with doom and death, like the rattling of a venomous snake, with +head raised to strike, ready fangs and glittering eyes. He could catch +in that paralyzing hum words tossed here and there: "Smash his presses! +Clean him out! Lynch him, lynch him! Kill--kill--kill!--" + +A human beast had coiled at his door, myriad-headed, insane, +bloodthirsty, all-powerful--the mob, that terror of civilization, that +sudden reversion in mass to a state of savagery. It boded ill for Joe +Blaine. He had a bitter, cynical thought: + +"So this is what comes of spreading the truth--of really trying to +help--of living out an ideal!" + +A snowball hit the window before him, a soft crash and spread of drip, +and there rose from the mob a fiendish yell that seemed itself a power, +making the heart pound, dizzying the brain. + +Joe turned. His mother was standing close to him, white as paper, but +her eyes flashing. She had not dared speak to Joe, knowing that this +fight was his and that he had passed out of her hands. + +He spoke in a low, pulsing voice. + +"Mother, I want you to stay in back!" + +She looked at him, as if drinking her fill of his face. + +"You're right, Joe," she whispered, and turned and went out. + +Billy was standing at the stove, a frightened boy, but he gripped the +poker in his hand. + +"Billy," said Joe, quietly, "run down and tell Rann to keep 'em out of +the press-room." + +Billy edged to the door, opened it, and fled. + +Joe was quite alone. He sat down at his desk and took up the telephone. + +"Hello, Central!" his voice was monotonous in its lowness and tenseness. + +"Hello!" + +"Give me police headquarters--_quick_!" + +Central seemed startled. + +"Police--? Yes, right away! Hold on!--Here they are!" + +"Hello! Police headquarters!" came a man's voice. + +"This is Joe Blaine." Joe gave his address. "There's a riot in front of +the house--a big mob. Send over a patrol wagon on the jump!" + +At that moment there was a wild crash of glass, and a heavy stone sang +through the air and knocked out the stove-pipe--pipe and stone falling +to the floor with a rumble and rattle--and from the mob rose murderous +yells. + +So Joe was able to add: + +"They've just smashed my window with a stone. You'd better come damn +fast." + +"Right off!" snapped Headquarters. + +Joe put down the telephone, and stepped quietly over the room and out +into the hall. Even at that moment the hall door burst wide and a +frenzied push and squabble of men poured forth upon him. In that brief +glimpse, in the dim storm-light, Joe saw faces that were anything but +human--wild animals, eyes blood-shot, mouths wide, and many fists in the +air above their heads. There was no mercy, no thought, nothing +civilized--but somehow the demon-deeps of human nature, crusted over +with the veneer of gentler things, had broken through. Worse than +anything was the crazy hum, rising and rising, the hoarse notes, the +fierce discord, that beat upon his brain as if to drown him under. + +Joe tried to shout: + +"Keep back! I'll shoot! Keep back!" + +But at once the rough bodies, the terrible faces were upon him, +surrounding him, pushing him. He seized a little man who was jumping for +his throat--seized and shook the little beast. + +"Get back!" he cried. + +Fists pushed into his eyes, blows began to rain upon his body and his +head. He ducked. He felt himself propelled backward by an irresistible +force. He felt his feet giving way. Warm and reeking breath blew up his +nostrils. He heard confused cries of: "Kill him! That's him! We've got +him!" Back and back he went, the torn center of a storm, and then +something warm and sweet gushed over his eyes, earth opened under him +and he sank, sank through soft gulfs, deeper and deeper, far from the +troublous noise of life, far, far--into an engulfing blackness. + +The flood poured on, gushing down the stair-way, at the foot of which +Rann and his two men stood, all armed with wrenches and tools. + +Rann shouted. + +"I'll break the head of any one who comes!" + +The men in advance tried to break away, well content to leave their +heads whole, but those in the rear pushed them on. Whack! whack! went +the wrench--the leader fell. But then with fierce screams the mob broke +loose, the three men were swept into the vortex of a fighting whirlpool. +Some one opened the basement gate from the inside and a new stream +poured in. The press-room filled--crowbars got to work--while men danced +and wildly laughed and exulted in their vandal work. Then suddenly arose +the cry of, "Police!" Tools dropped; the mob turned like a stampede of +cattle, crushed for the doors, cried out, caught in a trap, and ran into +the arms of blue-coated officers.... + +When Joe next opened his eyes and looked out with some surprise on the +same world that he was used to, he found himself stretched in his bed +and a low gas-flame eyeing him from above. He put out a hand, because he +felt queer about the head, and touched bandages. Then some one spoke in +his ear. + +"You want to keep quiet, Mr. Blaine." + +He looked. A doctor was sitting beside him. + +"Where's mother?" he asked. + +"Here I am, Joe." Her voice was sweet in his ears. + +She was sitting on the bed at his feet. + +"Come here." + +She took the seat beside him and folded his free hand with both of hers. + +"Mother--I want to know what's the matter with me--every bit of it." + +"Well, Joe, you've a broken arm and a banged-up head, but you'll be all +right." + +"And you--are you all right?" + +"Perfectly." + +"They didn't go in the kitchen?" + +"No." + +"And the press?" + +"It's smashed." + +"And the office?" + +"In ruins." + +"How about Rann and the men?" + +"Bruised--that's all." + +"The police came?" + +"Cleaned them out." + +There was a pause; then Joe and his mother looked at each other with +queer expressions on their faces, and suddenly their mellow laughter +filled the room. + +"Isn't it great, mother? That's what we get!" + +"Well, Joe," said his mother, "what do you expect?" + +Suddenly then another stood before him--bowed, remorseful, humble. It +was Sally Heffer, the tears trickling down her face. + +She knelt at the bedside and buried her face in the cover. + +"It's my fault!" she cried. "It's my fault!" + +"Yours, Sally?" cried Joe, quite forgetting the "Miss." "How so?" + +"I--I went to Marrin's and got the girls out." + +"Got the girls out?" Joe exclaimed. "Where are they?" + +"On the street." + +"Bring them into the ruins," said Joe, "and organize them. I'm going to +make a business of this thing." + +Sally looked up aghast. + +"But I--I ought to be shot down. It's I that should have been hurt." + +Joe smiled on her. + +"Sally! Sally! what an impetuous girl you are! What would I do without +you?" + + + + +VII + + +OF THE THIRTY THOUSAND + +One wonderful January twilight, when the clear, cold air seemed to +tremble with lusty health, Myra sat alone in the Ramble, before the +little frozen pond. And she thought: + +"This is the bench we sat on; and it was here, that morning, that we +quarreled; and this is the little pond; and those the trees--but how +changed! how changed!" + +A world-city practises magic. Any one who for years has slept in her +walls and worn the pave of her streets and mingled with her crowds and +her lighted nights, is changed by her subtle enchantment into a child of +the city. He is never free thereafter. The metropolis may send him forth +like a carrier-pigeon, and he may think he is well rid of his mistress, +but the homing instinct inevitably draws him back. "All other +pleasures," as Emerson said of love, "are not worth its pains." Myra +thought that she hated New York--the great nervous sea of life, whose +noise and stress and tragedy had shattered her health. She had longed +for the peace of nature; she had gone forth to the meadows and the +mountains, and for a long time been content with the sounds of the +barnyard and the farm, the wind and the brook; she had sunk, as it were, +into the arms of the earth and rested on that great nourishing breast. +She loved pure air, far horizons, quiet, and the mysterious changes of +the landscape. She thought she was done with the city forever. For had +she not found that the Vision of White Towers seen that first evening +was hollow and bitter at the heart, that beneath the beauty was dust and +horror, routine and disease? + +But one snow-bound morning as she gazed out from the quiet house and saw +the limitless white of the world, the fences buried, the trees loaded, +the earth lost under the gray heavens, suddenly she was filled with a +passionate desire for _life_. She was amazed at the restlessness in her +heart. But she could not shake it off. Her desire was very definite--to +walk down Eightieth Street, to hear and see the trolleys bounding down +the little hill to Seventy-ninth Street, to shop on Third Avenue, to go +threading her way through the swarm of school children outside the +school gates. And then subtly she felt the elixir of a Broadway night, +the golden witchery of the lights, the laughter-smitten people, the +crowded cars and motors, the shining shops, the warmth of the crowd. A +thousand memories of streets and rooms, of people and of things, flooded +her mind. The country seemed barren and cold and lonely. She was +grievously homesick. It was as if the city cried: "It is winter; the +world is dark and dead. Come, my children, gather together; gather here +in my arms, you millions; laugh and converse together, toil together, +light fires, turn on lights, warm your hands and souls at my flaming +hearth. We will forget the ice and the twilight! Come, winter is the +time for human beings!" + +And so Myra awoke to the fact that she was indeed a child of the +city--that the magic was in her blood and the enchantment in her heart. +It was useless to recall the mean toil, the narrow life, the unhealthy +days. These, dropped in the great illusion of crowded New York, were +transformed into a worthy struggle, a part of the city's reality. She +suddenly felt as if she would go crazy if she stayed in the country--its +stillness stifled her, its emptiness made her ache. + +But there was a deeper call than the call of the city. She wanted to be +with Joe. Her letters to him had been for his sake, not hers. She had +tried to save him from herself, to shut him out and set him free, to +cure him of his love. Desperately she did this, knowing that the future +held nothing for them together. And for a time it had been a beautiful +thing to do, until finally she was compelled to believe that he really +was cured. His notes were more and more perfunctory, until, at last, +they ceased altogether. Then, when she knew she had lost him, it seemed +to her that she had condemned herself to a barren, fruitless life; that +the best had been lived, and it only remained now to die. She had given +up her "whole existence," cast out that by which she truly lived. There +were moments of inexpressible loneliness, when, reading in the orchard, +or brooding beside some rippling brook, she glanced southward and sent +her silent cry over the horizon. Somewhere down there he was swallowed +in the vastness of life; she remembered the lines of his face, his dark +melancholy eyes, his big human, humorous lips, his tall, awkward +strength; she felt still those kisses on her lips; felt his arms about +her; the warmth of his hand; the whisper of his words; and the wind in +the oaks. + +That afternoon at the riverside he had cast his future at her feet. She +had been offered that which runs deeper than hunger or dream or toil, +the elemental, the mystic, the very glory of a woman's life. She had +been offered a life, too, of comradeship and great issues. And now, when +these gifts were withdrawn, she knew she would nevermore have rest or +joy in this world. Is not life the adventure of a man and a woman going +forth together, toiling, and talking, and laughing, and creating on the +road to death? Is not earth the mating-place for souls? Out of nature we +rise and seek out each other and mate and make of life a glory and a +mystery. This is the secret of youth, and the magic of all music and of +all sorrow and of all toil. Or, so it seemed to Myra. + +There is no longing in the world so tragic or terrible as that of men +and women for each other. And so Myra had her homesickness for the city +transfused and sharpened by her overmastering love. She fought with +herself bitterly; she resolved to wait for one more mail. Nothing came +in that mail. + +Then she evaded the issue. There were practical reasons for her return. +Her health was quite sound again, she had been idle long enough; it was +time to get back to work. What if she did return to the city? Surely it +was not necessary to seek out Joe. It would be enough to be near him. He +need not be troubled. So vast is the city that he would not know of her +presence. What harm, then, in easing her heart, in getting back into the +warmth and stir of life? + +With a young girl's joy she packed her trunk and took the train for New +York, and at sunset, as she rode in the ferry over the North River, she +stood bravely out on deck, faced the bitter and salt wind, and saw, +above the flush of the waters, that breathless skyline which, like the +prow of some giant ship, seemed making out to sea. Lights twinkled in +windows, signal-lamps gleamed red and green on the piers, chimneys +smoked, and as the ferry nosed its way among the busy craft of the +river, Myra exulted. She was coming back! This again was New York, real, +right there, unbudged, her thousand lights like voices calling her +home. The ferry landed; she hurried out and took a surface car And how +good the crowd seemed, how warm the noise and the lights, what gladness +was in the evening ebb-tide of people, how splendid the avenues shone +with their sparkle and their shops and their traffic! She felt again the +good hard pave under her feet. She met again a hundred familiar scenes. +The vast flood of life seemed to engulf her, suck her up as if to say: +"Well, you're here again! Come, there is room! Another human being!" + +All about her was rich life, endless sights, confusion and variety. The +closing darkness was pierced with lights, windows glowed, people were +hurrying home. It was all as she had left it. And she felt then that the +city was but Joe multiplied, and that Joe was the city. Both were +cosmopolitan, democratic, tragic, light-hearted, many-faceted. Both were +careless and big and easy and roomy. Both had a great freedom about +them. And what a freedom the city had!--nothing snowbound here, but +invitation, shops open, cars gliding, the millions transported back and +forth, everything open and inviting. + +She was glad for her neat back room--for gas-lights and running +water--for the comfort and ease of life. She was glad even to sit in the +crowded dining-room, and that night she was glad to lie abed and hear +the city's heart pounding about her--that old noise of whistles on the +river, that old thunder of the elevated train. + +But she found that nearness to Joe made it impossible to keep away from +him. Just as of old she had found excuses for going up to the trembling +printery, so now she felt that somehow she must seek him out. She kept +wondering what he was doing at that particular moment. Was he toiling or +idling? Was he with his mother? Did he still wear the same clothes, the +same half-worn necktie, the same old lovable gray hat? What would he +say, how would he look, if she suddenly confronted him? Myra had to +laugh softly to herself. She saw the wonder in his face, the open mouth, +the flashing eyes. Or, would he be embarrassed? Was there some other +woman--one who accorded with his ideals--one who could share his +life-work? Of course she hoped that there was. She hoped he had found +some one worthy of him. But the thought gave her intense misery. Why had +he thrown his life away and gone down into that foolish and shoddy +neighborhood? Surely when she saw him she would be disappointed by the +changes in him. He would be more than ever a fanatic--more than ever an +unreasonable radical. He might even be vulgarized by his +environment--might have taken its color, been leveled down by its +squalor. + +She must forget the new Joe and cleave to the old Joe. Next afternoon, +walking out, almost involuntarily, she turned west and entered the +Park. The trees were naked, a lacy tracery of boughs against the +deep-blue sky. She followed the curve, she crossed the roadway, she +climbed the hill to the Ramble. She began to tingle with the keen, crisp +air, and with the sense of adventure. It was almost as if she were going +to meet Joe--as if they had arranged a secret meeting. She took the +winding paths, she passed the little pool. There was the bench! But +empty. + +Then she sat down on that bench, and looked out at the naked wilderness +of trees, at the ice in the pond, at the sodden brown, dead grasses. The +place was wildly forlorn and bare. When they had last been here the air +had been tinged with the haunting autumn, the leaves had been falling, +the pool had been deep with the heavens. And again she thought: + +"This is the bench we sat on; and it was here, that morning, that we +quarreled; this is the little pond, and those the trees--but how +changed! how changed!" + +Then as she sat there she beheld the miracle of color. Behind her, +between the black tree trunks, the setting sun was a liquid red +splendor, daubing some low clouds with rosiness, and all about her, in +the turn between day and night, the world, which before was a blend in +the strong light, now divided into a myriad sharp tints. The air held a +tinge of purple, the distance a smoky violet, the brown of the grasses +was a strong brown, the black of the trunks intensely black. Out among +distant trees she saw a woman and child walking, and the child's scarlet +cloak seemed a living thing as it swayed and moved. How sharp and +distinct were the facts of earth! how miraculously tinted! what tones of +blue and red, of purple and black! It was the sunset singing its hymn of +color, and it made her feel keenly the mystery and beauty of life--the +great moments of solution and peace--the strange human life that +inhabits for a brief space this temple of a million glories. But +something was missing, there was a great lack, a wide emptiness. She +resolved then to see Joe. + +It was not, however, until the next afternoon that she took the elevated +train to Ninth Street and then the crosstown car over the city. She +alighted in the shabby street; she walked up to the entrance; she saw +over the French windows a big canvas sign, "Strike Headquarters." +Within, she thought she saw a mass of people. This made her hesitate. +She had expected to find him alone. And somehow, too, the place was even +shabbier, even meaner than she had expected. And so she stood a +moment--a slender, little woman, her hands in a muff, a fur scarf bound +about her throat, her gray eyes liquid and luminous, a rosy tint in her +cheeks, her lips parted and releasing a thin steam in the bitter winter +air. Overhead the sky was darkening with cloud-masses, a shriveling +wind dragged the dirty street, and the world was desolate and gray. The +blood was pulsing in Myra's temples, her heart leaped, her breath +panted. And as she hesitated a girl passed her, a girl about whose +breast was bound a placard whereon were the words: + + JOIN THE STRIKE + OF THE THIRTY THOUSAND + +What strike? What did it mean? Was Joe in a strike? She thought he had +been editing a paper. She had better not intrude. She turned, as if to +fly, and yet hesitated. Her feet refused to go; her heart was +rebellious. Only a wall divided him from her. Why should she not see +him? Why not a moment's conversation? Then she would go and leave him to +his work. + +Another girl passed her and paused--a girl also placarded, a girl with a +strange beauty, somewhat tall, with form well rounded, with pale face +full of the fascination of burning eagerness. This girl's eyes were a +clear blue, her lips set tight, and her light-brown hair blew +beautifully about her cheeks. She was, however, but thinly clothed, and +her frail little coat was short and threadbare. + +She spoke to Myra--a rich, sympathetic voice. + +"Are you looking for Mr. Blaine?" + +"Yes--" said Myra, almost gasping. "Is he in?" + +"He's always in!" The girl smiled. + +"There's nothing the matter?" + +"With him? No! But come, come out of the cold!" + +There was nothing to do but follow. The girl opened a door and they +entered the office. It was crowded with girls and women and men. Long +benches were about the wall, camp-stools filled the floor. Many were +seated; on two of the benches worn-out men were fast asleep, and between +the seats groups of girls were talking excitedly. Several lights burned +in the darkening room, and Myra saw swiftly the strange types--there +were Jewish girls, Italian girls, Americans, in all sorts of garbs, some +very flashy with their "rat"-filled hair, their pompadours, their +well-cut clothes, others almost in rags; some tall, some short, some +rosy-cheeked, many frail and weak and white. At a table in the rear +Giotto was receiving money from Italians and handing out union cards. He +looked as if he hadn't slept for nights. + +Myra was confused. She felt strangely "out" of all this; strangely, as +if she were intruding. The smell of the place offended her, especially +as it was mixed with cheap perfumes; and the coarse slangy speech that +flashed about jarred on her ear. But at the same time she was +suffocating with suspense. + +"Where is he?" she murmured--they were standing right within the door. + +"Over there!" the girl pointed. + +But all Myra saw was a black semicircle of girls leaning over some one +invisible near the window. + +"He's at his desk, and he's talking with a committee. You'd better wait +till he's finished!" + +This news choked Myra. Wait? Wait here? Be shut out like this? She was +as petulant as a child; she felt like shedding tears. + +But the girl at her side seemed to be playing the part of hostess, and +she had to speak. + +"What strike is this?" + +The girl was amazed. + +"_What strike_! Don't you know?" + +Myra smiled. + +"No--I don't. I've been out of the city." + +"It's the shirtwaist-makers' strike." + +"Oh! I see!" said Myra, mechanically. + +"It's the biggest woman's strike that ever was. Thirty thousand +out--Italians, Jews, and Americans." + +"Yes?" Myra was not listening. + +Suddenly then the door was flung open and a well-dressed girl rushed in, +crying shrilly: + +"Say, girls, what do you think?" + +A group gathered about her. + +"What's up? What's the news? Don't stand there all day!" + +The girl spoke with exultant indignation. + +"I've been arrested!" + +"Arrested! _You_!" + +"And I didn't do nothing, either--I was good. What do you think of this? +The judge fined me ten dollars. Well, let me tell you, I'm going to _get +something_ for those ten dollars! I'm going to raise--hell!" + +"You bet! Ain't it a shame?" + +And the group swallowed her up. + +Myra wondered why the girl had been arrested, and was surprised at her +lack of shame and humiliation. + +But she had not much time for thought. The door opened again, and Sally +Heffer entered, sparkling, neat, eyes clear. + +At once cries arose: + +"Here's Sal! Hello, Sally Heffer! Where have you been?" Girls crowded +about. "What's the news? Where did you come from?" + +Where had Myra heard that name before? + +Sally spoke with delicious fastidiousness. + +"_I've_ been to Vassar." + +"Vassar College?" + +"Yes, Vassar College--raised fifty dollars!" + +"Sally's it, all right! Say, Sal, how did they treat you? Stuck up?" + +"Not a bit," said Sally. "They were ever so good to me. They're lovely +girls--kind, sweet, sympathetic. They wanted to help and they were very +respectful, but"--she threw up her hands--"_oh, they're ignorant_!" + +There was a shout of laughter. Myra was shocked. A slum girl to speak +like this of Vassar students? She noticed then, with a queer pang, that +Sally made for the window group, who at once made a place for her. Sally +had easy access to Joe. + +The girl at her side was speaking again. + +"You've no idea what this strike means. There's some rich women +interested in it--they work right with us, hold mass-meetings, march in +the streets--they're wonderful. And some of the big labor-leaders and +even some of the big lawyers are helping. There's one big lawyer been +giving all his time. You see, we're having trouble with the police." + +"Yes, I see," said Myra, though she didn't see at all, and neither did +she care. It seemed to her that she could not wait another instant. She +must either go, or step over to his desk. + +"Is he still so busy?" she asked. + +"Yes, he is," said the girl. "Do you know him personally?" + +Myra laughed softly. + +"A little." + +"Then you heard how he was hurt?" + +"_Hurt_!" gasped Myra. Her heart seemed to grow small, and it was +pierced by a sharp needle of pain. + +"Yes, there was a riot here--the men came in and smashed everything." + +"And Mr. Blaine? _Tell me_!" The words came in a blurt. + +"Had his arm broken and his head was all bloody." + +Myra felt dizzy, faint. + +"But he's--better?" + +"Oh, he's all right now." + +"When did this happen?" + +"About six weeks ago!" + +Six weeks! That was shortly after the last letter came. Myra was +suffering agony, and her face went very pale. + +"How did it happen?" she breathed. + +"Oh, he called some strikers traitors, and they came down and broke in. +It's lucky he wasn't killed." + +He had suffered, he had been in peril of his life, while she was resting +in the peace of the country. So this was a strike, and in this Joe was +concerned. She looked about the busy room; she noticed anew the sleeping +men and the toiling Giotto; and suddenly she was interested. She was +wrenched, as it were, from her world into his. She felt in the heart of +a great tragedy of life. And all the time she kept saying over and over +again: + +"His arm was broken! his head bloody! and I wasn't here! I wasn't at his +side!" + +And she had thought in her country isolation that life in the city +wasn't real. What a moment that must have been when Joe faced the +rioters--when they rushed upon him--when he might have been killed! And +instead of deterring him from his work, here he was in the thick of it, +braving, possibly, unspeakable dangers. Then, glancing about, it seemed +to her that these girls and men were a part of his drama; he gave them a +new reality. This was life, pulsing, immediate, tragic. She must go to +him--she mustn't delay longer. + +She took a few steps forward, and at almost the same moment the girls +about Joe left him, scattering about the room. Then she saw him. And +what a spectacle! He was in his shirt-sleeves, his hair was more tousled +than ever, and his face was gray--the most tragic face she had ever +seen--gray, sunken, melancholy, worn, as if he bore the burden of the +world. But in one hand he held a pen, and in the other--a ham sandwich. +It was a big sandwich, and every few moments he took a big bite, as he +scratched on. Myra's heart was wrung with love and pity, with remorse +and fondness, and mainly with the tragi-comedy of his face and the +sandwich. + +She stood over him a moment, breathless, panting, her throat full of +blood, it seemed. Then she stooped a little and whispered: + +"Joe." + +He wheeled round; he looked up; his gray face seemed to grow grayer; his +lips parted--he was more than amazed. He was torn away, as it were, from +all business of life. + +"Why," he said under his breath, "it's you, Myra!" + +"Yes"--tears stood in her eyes--"it's I." + +He surveyed her up and down, and then their eyes met. He ran his hand +through his hair. + +"You--you--" he murmured. "And how well you look, how strong, how fresh! +Sit down! sit down!" + +She took the seat, trembling. She leaned forward. + +"But you--you are killing yourself, Joe." + +He smiled sadly. + +"It's serious business, Myra." + +She gazed at him, and spoke hard. + +"Is there no end to it? Aren't you going to rest, ever?" + +"End? No end now. The strike must be won." + +He was trying to pull himself together. He gave a short laugh; he sat +up. + +"So you're back from the country." + +"Yes, I'm back." + +"To stay?" + +"To stay." + +"You're cured, then?" + +"Yes," she smiled, "cured of many things. I like the city better than I +thought!" + +He gave her a sharp look. + +"So!" Then his voice came with utter weariness: "Well, the city's a +queer place, Myra. Things happen here." + +Somehow she felt that he was standing her off. Something had crept in +between them, some barrier, some wall. He had already emerged from the +shock of the meeting. What if there were things in his life far more +important than this meeting? Myra tried to be brave. + +"I just wanted to see you--see the place--see how things were getting +on." + +Joe laughed softly. + +"Things _are_ getting on. Circulation's up to fifteen thousand--due to +the strike." + +"How so?" + +"We got out a strike edition--and the girls peddled it around town, and +lots subscribed. It's given the paper a big boost." + +"I'm glad to hear it," Myra found herself saying. + +"_You_ glad?" If only his voice hadn't been so weary! "That's strange, +Myra." + +"It _is_ strange!" she said, her eyes suffused again. His gray, tragic +face seemed to be working on the very strings of her heart. She longed +so to help him, to heal him, to breathe joy and strength into him. + +"Joe!" she said. + +He looked at her again. + +"Yes, Myra." + +"Oh--I--" She paused. + +He smiled. + +"Say it!" + +"Isn't there some way I can help?" + +A strange expression came to his face, of surprise, of wonder. + +"_You_ help?" + +"Yes--I--" + +"Mr. Blaine! Mr. Blaine!" Some one across the room was calling. "There's +an employer here to see you!" + +Joe leaped up, took Myra's hand, and spoke hastily. + +"Wait and meet my mother. And come again--sometime. Sometime when I'm +not so rushed!" + +And he was gone--gone out of the room. + +Myra arose, still warm with the touch of his hand--for his hand was +almost fever-warm. All that she knew was that he had suffered and was +suffering, and that she must help. She was burning now with an eagerness +to learn about the strike, to understand what it was that so depressed +and enslaved him, what it was that was slowly killing him. Her old +theories met the warm clasp of life and vanished. She forgot her +viewpoint and her delicacy. Life was too big for her shallow philosophy. +It seized upon her now and absorbed her. + +She strode back to the young girl, who she learned later was named Rhona +Hemlitz, and who was but seventeen years old. + +She said: "Tell me about the strike! Can't we sit down together and +talk? Have you time?" + +"I have a little time," said Rhona, eagerly. "We can sit here!" + +So they sat side by side and Rhona told her. Rhona's whole family was +engaged in sweat-work. They lived in a miserable tenement over in Hester +Street, where her mother had been toiling from dawn until midnight with +the needle, with her tiny brother helping to sew on buttons, "finishing" +daily a dozen pairs of pants, and making--_thirty cents_. + +Myra was amazed. + +"Thirty cents--dawn till midnight! Impossible!" + +And then her father--who worked all day in a sweatshop. + +"And you--what did you do?" asked Myra. + +Rhona told her. She had worked in Zandler's shirtwaist factory--bending +over a power-machine, whose ten needles made forty-four hundred stitches +a minute. So fast they flew that a break in needle or thread ruined a +shirtwaist; hence, never did she allow her eyes to wander, never during +a day of ten to fourteen hours, while, continuously, the needles danced +up and down like flashes of steel or lightning. At times it seemed as if +the machine were running away from her and she had to strain her body to +keep it back. And so, when she reeled home late at night, her smarting +eyes saw sharp showers of needles in the air every time she winked, and +her back ached intolerably. + +"I never dreamt," said Myra, "that people had to work like that!" + +"Oh, that's not all!" said Rhona, and went on. Her wages were rarely +over five dollars a week, and for months, during slack season, she was +out of work--came daily to the factory, and had to sit on a bench and +wait, often fruitlessly. And then the sub-contracting system, whereunder +the boss divided the work among lesser bosses who each ran a gang of +toilers, speeding them up mercilessly, "sweating" them! And so the young +girls, sixteen to twenty-five years old, were sapped of health and joy +and womanhood, and, "as Mr. Joe wrote, the future is robbed of wives and +mothers!" + +Myra was amazed. She had a new glimpse of the woman problem. She saw now +how millions of women were being fed into the machine of industry, and +that thus the home was passing, youth was filched of its glory, and the +race was endangered. This uprising of the women, then, meant more than +she dreamed--meant the attempt to save the race by freeing the women +from this bondage. Had they not a right then to go out in the open, to +strike, to lead marches, to sway meetings, to take their places with +men? + +Such thoughts, confused and swift, came to her, and she asked Rhona what +had happened. How had the strike started? First, said Rhona, there was +the strike at Marrin's--a spark that set off the other places. Then at +Zandler's conditions had become so bad that one morning Jake Hedig, her +boss, a young, pale-faced, black-haired man, suddenly arose and shouted +in a loud voice throughout the shop: + +"I am sick of slave-driving. I resign my job." + +The boss, and some of the little bosses, set upon him, struck him, and +dragged him out, but as he went he shouted lustily: + +"Brothers and sisters, are you going to sit by your machines and see a +fellow-worker used this way?" + +The machines stopped: the hundreds of girls and the handful of men +marched out simultaneously. Then, swiftly the sedition had spread about +the city until a great night in Cooper Union, when, after speeches of +peace and conciliation, one of the girls had risen, demanded and secured +the floor, and moved a general strike. Her motion was unanimously +carried, and when the chairman cried, in Yiddish: "Do you mean faith? +Will you take the old Jewish oath?" up went two thousand hands, with one +great chorus: + +"If I turn traitor to the cause I now pledge, may this hand wither from +the arm I now raise." + +By this oath Rhona was bound. And so were thirty thousand +others--Americans, Italians, Jews--and with them were some of the +up-town women, some of the women of wealth, some of the big lawyers and +the labor-leaders and reformers. + +"Some of the up-town women!" thought Myra. She was amazed to find +herself so interested, so wrought up. And she felt as if she had +stumbled upon great issues and great struggles; she realized, dimly, +that first moment, that this strike was involved in something larger, +something vaster--swallowed up in the advance of democracy, in the +advance of woman. All the woman in her responded to the call to arms. + +And she was discovering now what Joe had meant by his "crisis"--what he +had meant by his fight for "more democracy; a better and richer life; a +superber people on earth. It was a real thing. She burned now to help +Joe--she burned to do for him--to enter into his tragic struggle--to be +of use to him. + +"What are you going to do now?" she asked Rhona. + +"Now? Now I must go picketing." + +"What's picketing?" + +"March up and down in front of a factory and try to keep scabs out." + +"What are scabs?" asked ignorant Myra. + +Rhona was amazed. + +"You don't even know that? Why, a scab's a girl who tries to take a +striker's job and so ruin the strike. She takes the bread out of our +mouths." + +"But how can you stop her?" + +"Talk to her! We're not allowed to use violence." + +"How do you do it?" + +Rhona looked at the eager face, the luminous gray eyes. + +"Would you like to see it?" + +"Yes, I would." + +"But it's dangerous." + +"How so?" + +"Police and thugs, bums hanging around." + +"And you girls aren't afraid?" + +Rhona smiled. + +"We don't show it, anyway. You see, we're bound to win." + +Myra's eyes flashed. + +"Well, if you're not afraid, I guess I haven't any right to be. May I +come?" + +Rhona looked at her with swift understanding. + +"Yes, please do come!" + +Myra rose. She took a last look about the darkening room; saw once more +the sleeping men, the toiling Giotto, the groups of girls. Something +tragic hung in the air. She seemed to breathe bigger, gain in stature, +expand. She was going to meet the test of these newer women. She was +going to identify herself with their vast struggle. + +And looking once more, she sought Joe, but could not find him. How +pleased he would be to know that she was doing this--doing it largely +for him--because she wanted to smooth out that gray face, and lay her +cheek against its lost wrinkles, and put her arm about his neck, and +heal him. + +Tears dimmed her eyes. She took Rhona's arm and they stepped out into +the bleak street. Wind whipped their faces like quick-flicked knives. +They walked close together. + +"Is it far?" asked Myra. + +"Quite far. It's over on Great Jones Street!" + +And so Myra went, quite lost in the cyclone of life. + + + + +VIII + + +THE ARREST + +They gained the corner of Great Jones Street--one of those dim byways of +trade that branch off from the radiant avenues. As they turned in the +street, they met a bitter wind that was blowing the pavement clean as +polished glass, and the dark and closing day was set off sharply by the +intense lamps and shop-lights. Here and there at a window a clerk +pressed his face against the cold pane and looked down into the +cheerless twilight, and many toilers made the hard pavement echo with +their fast steps as they hurried homeward. + +"There they are," said Rhona. + +Two girls, both placarded, came up to them. One of them, a thin little +skeleton, pitiably ragged in dress, with hollow eyes and white face, was +coughing in the cuff of the wind. She was plainly a consumptive--a +little wisp of a girl. She spoke brokenly, with a strong Russian accent. + +"It's good to see you yet, Rhona. I get so cold my bones ready to +crack." + +She shivered and coughed. Rhona spoke softly. + +"Fannie, you go right home, and let your mother give you a good drink of +hot lemonade with whiskey in it. And take a foot-bath, too." + +Fannie coughed again. + +"Don't you tell me, Rhona. Look out for yourself. There gets trouble yet +on this street." + +Myra drew nearer, a dull feeling in her breast. Rhona spoke easily: + +"None of the men said anything or did anything, did they?" + +"Well, they say things; they make angry faces, and big fists, Rhona. +Better be careful." + +"Where are they?" + +"By Zandler's doorway. They get afraid of the cold." + +Rhona laughed softly, and put an arm about the frail body. + +"Now you run home, and don't worry about me! I can take care of myself. +I expect another girl, anyway." + +"Good-night, Rhona." + +"Good-night--get to bed, and don't forget the hot lemonade!" + +The two girls departed, blowing, as it were, about the corner and out of +sight. Rhona turned to Myra, whose face was pallid. + +"Hadn't you better go back, Miss Craig? You see, I'm used to these +things." + +"No," said Myra, in a low voice. "I've come to stay." + +She was thinking of tiny Fannie. What! Could she not measure to a +little consumptive Russian? + +"All right," said Rhona. "Let's begin!" + +They started to walk quietly up and down before the darkened loft +building--up fifty yards, down fifty yards. A stout policeman slouched +under a street-lamp, swinging his club with a heavily gloved hand, and +in the shadow of the loft-building entrance Rhona pointed out to Myra +several ill-looking private detectives who danced up and down on their +toes, blew their hands, smoked cigarettes, and kept tab of the time. + +"It's they," whispered Rhona, "who make all the trouble. Some of them +are ex-convicts and thugs. They are a rough lot." + +"But why is it allowed?" asked Myra. + +Rhona laughed. + +"Why is anything allowed?" + +The wind seemed to grow more and more cruel. Myra felt her ear-lobes +swelling, the tip of her nose tingled and her feet and hands were numb. +But they held on quietly in the darkening day. It all seemed simple +enough--this walking up and down. So this was picketing! + +Myra spoke softly as they turned and walked west. + +"Have many of the girls been arrested?" + +"Oh yes, a lot of them." + +"Have they been disorderly?" + +"Some of them have. It's hard to keep cool, with scabs egging you on +and calling you cowards." + +"And what happens to them if they are arrested?" + +"Oh, fined--five, ten dollars." + +They turned under the lamp; the policeman rose and sank on one foot +after the other; they walked quietly back. Then, as they passed the +doorway of the loft building, one of the young men stepped forward into +the light. He was a square-set, heavy fellow, with long, square, +protruding jaw, and little monkey eyes. His bearing was menacing. He +stepped in front of the girls, who stopped still and awaited him. Myra +felt the blood rush to her head, and a feeling of dizziness made her +tremble. Then the man spoke sharply: + +"Say, you--you can't go by here." + +Myra gazed at him as if she were hypnotized, but Rhona's eyes flashed. + +"Why not?" + +"Don't jaw me," said the man. "But--_clear out_!" + +Rhona tried to speak naturally. + +"Isn't this a public street? Haven't I a right to walk up and down with +my friend?" + +Then Myra felt as if she were struck by lightning, or as if something +sacred in her womanhood had been outraged. + +With a savage growl: "You little sheeny!" the man suddenly struck out a +fist and hit Rhona in the chest. She lurched, doubled, and fell, saving +herself with her hands. Myra did not move, but a shock of horror went +through her. + +The two other young men in the doorway came forward, and home-goers +paused, drew close, looked on curiously and silently. One nudged +another. + +"What's up?" + +"Don't know!" + +The thug muttered under his breath: + +"Pull her up by her hair; we'll run her in!" + +But Rhona had scrambled to her feet. She was too wild to cry or speak. +She glanced around for help, shunning the evil monkey eyes. Then she saw +the policeman under the lamp. He was still nonchalantly swinging his +club. + +She gave a gasping sob, pushing away Myra's offered help, and struggled +over to him. He did not move. She stood, until he glanced at her. Then +she caught his eye, and held him, and spoke with strange repression, as +the crowd drew about them. Myra was in that crowd, dazed, outraged, +helpless. She heard Rhona speaking: + +"Do you think a man has any right to strike a girl?" + +He did not answer; she still held his eyes. + +"Do you think a man has any right to strike a girl?" + +Still he said nothing, and the crowd became fascinated by the fixity of +gaze of the two. Rhona's voice sharpened: + +"_Do you think a man has any right to strike a girl_?" + +The officer cleared his throat and looked away. + +"Oh," he muttered carelessly, "it's all right. You people are always +kicking, anyway." + +Rhona's voice rose. + +"I ask you to arrest him." + +Several in the crowd backed this with mutterings. The policeman twirled +his stick. + +"Oh, all right!" he called. "Come along, Blondy!" + +Blondy, the thug, came up grinning. + +"Pinching me, John?" he asked. + +"Sure." The policeman smiled, and then seized Blondy and Rhona each by +an arm and started to march them toward Broadway. Myra followed wildly. +Her mind was in a whirl and the bitter tears blurred her eyes. What +could she do? How could she help? She sensed in the policeman's word a +menace to Rhona. Rhona was in trouble, and she, Myra, was as good as +useless in this crisis. She suddenly understood the helplessness of the +poor and the weak, especially the poor and weak women. What could they +do against this organized iniquity? Against the careless and cruel +world? It was all right for gentlewomen in gentle environment to keep to +the old ideals of womanhood--to stay at home and delegate their +citizenship to the men. But those who were sucked into the vortex of the +rough world, what of these? Were they not right in their attempts to +organize, to rebel, to fight in the open, to secure a larger share of +freedom and power? + +But if these were Myra's feelings and thoughts--a sense of outrage, of +being trampled on--they were little things compared with the agony in +Rhona's breast. A growing and much-pleased crowd surrounded her, +flinging remarks: + +"Lock-steps for yours! Hello, Mamie! Oh, you kid! Now will you be good! +Carrie, go home and wash the dishes!" + +And one boy darted up and snapped the placard from her waist. The crowd +laughed, but Rhona was swallowing bitter tears. + +They passed down Broadway a block or two, and then turned west. +Brilliant light from the shop windows fell upon the moving scene--the +easy-going men, the slouching, shrill boys, and the girl with her pale +set face and uncertain steps. All the world was going home to supper, +and Rhona felt strangely that she was now an exile--torn by the roots +from her warm life to go on a lonely adventure against the powers of +darkness. She had lost her footing in the world and was slipping into +the night. She felt singularly helpless; her very rage and rebellion +made her feel frail and unequal to the task. To be struck down in the +street! To be insulted by a crowd! She had hard work to hold her head +erect and keep back the bitter sobs. + +Up the darkened street they went, the crowd gradually falling away. And +suddenly they paused before the two green lamps of the new +station-house, and then in a moment they had vanished through the +doorway. + +Myra rushed up, panting, to a policeman who stood on the steps. + +"I want to go in--I'm with _her_." + +"Can't do it, lady. She's under arrest." + +"Not she," cried Myra. "The man." + +"Oh, we'll see. You run along--keep out of trouble!" + +Myra turned, confused, weak. She questioned a passer-by about the +location of Ninth Street. "Up Broadway--seven or eight blocks!" She +started; she hurried; her feet were winged with desperate fear. What +could be done? How help Rhona? Surely Joe--Joe could do something. He +would know--she would hasten to him and get his aid. That at least she +could do. + +Now and then a bitter sob escaped her. She felt that she had lost her +self-respect and her pride. Like a coward she had watched Rhona +attacked, had not even raised her voice, had not, even attempted +interference. They might have listened to a well-dressed woman, a woman +of refinement. And she had done nothing--just followed the crowd, +nursing her wounded pride. She began to feel that the world was a big +place, and that those without money or position are at the mercy of the +powerful. She began to revise her opinion of America, more keenly than +ever she understood Joe's passion for more democracy. And she had a +sense, too, that she had never really known life--that her narrow +existence had touched life at but a few minor points--and that the great +on-struggle of the world, the vast life of the race, the million-eddying +evolution were all outside her limits. Now she was feeling the edge of +new existences. The knowledge humbled, almost humiliated her. She +wondered that Joe had ever thought well of her, had ever been content to +share his life with her. + +Driven by these thoughts and by her fear and her apprehension for +Rhona's safety, she plunged west, borne by the wind, buffeted, beaten, +blown along. The lights behind the French windows were like beacons in a +storm. She staggered into the hall, entered the room. Her hair was wild +about her face, her cheeks pale, her eyes burning. + +The room was still crowded, intensely busy. She noticed nothing, but +pushed her way to Joe's desk. He was talking with two girls. + +She confronted him. + +"Joe!" + +He lifted his gray, tragic face, amazed. + +"You still here?" + +It was as if he had forgotten her. But Myra was not now thinking of +herself. She spoke, breathlessly: + +"Joe, I think Rhona Hemlitz is in trouble." + +"How so?" + +"She was knocked down by a thug, and she had him arrested, but I'm +afraid _she's_ arrested." + +A dangerous light came into Joe's eyes. + +"All right! All right! Where did this happen?" + +"On Great Jones Street." + +"Well and good," he muttered. + +"But isn't there anything to do?" cried Myra. + +"Why, if she's not arrested, she'll come here and report, and if she +doesn't come I'll go over to the Night Court at nine this evening." + +"I must go with you," cried Myra. + +"You?" He looked at her, and then suddenly he asked: "But how did you +come to hear of this?" + +"I was picketing with her." + +A great change came over Joe's face, as if he beheld a miracle. + +"Myra! So you have been picketing!" + +Her face went very white. + +"Don't! Don't!" she breathed painfully, sinking in a chair. "I was a +coward, Joe--I didn't do anything to help her!" + +"But what could you do?" + +"Oh, something, anything." + +He glanced at her keenly, and a swift smile lit his features. He spoke +very gently. + +"Myra, you step in back to my mother. Take supper with her. Keep her +company. I'm afraid I'm neglecting mother these days." + +"And the Night Court?" Myra was swallowing sobs. + +"I'll look in for you at nine o'clock." + +"Thank you," she whispered. "Oh, thank you." + +It was something that he thought her worthy. + + + + +IX + + +RHONA + +When the policeman with Rhona and Blondy passed up the steps between the +green lamps of the new station-house, they found themselves in a long +room whose warmth was a fine relief. They breathed more easily, loosened +their coats, and then stepped forward. A police sergeant sat behind a +railing, writing at a low desk, a low-hanging, green-shaded electric +bulb above him. + +Rhona felt that she had to speak quickly and get in her word before the +others. She tried to be calm, but a dull sob went with the words. + +"That man struck me--knocked me down. I've had him arrested." + +The sergeant did not look up. He went on writing. Finally he spoke, +easily: + +"True, Officer?" + +The policeman cleared his throat. + +"The other way round, Sergeant. _She_ struck the _man_." + +Rhona breathed hard, a feeling in her breast of her heart breaking. She +gasped: + +"That's not true. He struck me--he struck me." + +The sergeant glanced up. + +"What's your name?" + +Rhona could not answer for a moment. Then, faintly: + +"Rhona Hemlitz." + +"Age?" + +"Seventeen." + +"Address?" + +"---- Hester Street." + +"Occupation?" + +"Shirtwaist-maker." + +"Oh!" he whistled slightly. "Striker?" + +"Yes." + +"Picketing?" + +"Yes." + +"Held for Night Court trial. Lock her up, Officer." + +Blackness closed over the girl's brain. She thought she was going into +hysterics. Her one thought was that she must get help, that she must +reach some one who knew her. She burst out: + +"I want to telephone." + +"To who?" + +"Mr. Blaine--Mr. Blaine!" + +"West Tenth Street feller?" + +"Yes." + +The sergeant winked to the policeman. + +"Oh, the matron'll see to that! Hey, Officer?" + +Rhona felt her arm seized, and then had a sense of being dragged, a +feeling of cool, fetid air, a flood of darkness, voices, and then she +knew no more. The matron who was stripping her and searching her had to +get cold water and wash her face.... + +Later Rhona found herself in a narrow cell, sitting in darkness at the +edge of a cot. Through the door came a torrent of high-pitched speech. + +"Yer little tough, reform! reform! What yer mean by such carryings-on? I +know yer record. Beware of God, little devil...." + +On and on it went, and Rhona, dazed, wondered what new terror it +foreboded. But then without warning the talk switched. + +"Yer know who I am?" + +"Who?" quavered Rhona. + +"The matron." + +"Yes?" + +"I divorced him, I did." + +"Yes." + +"My husband, I'm telling yer. Are yer deef?" + +Suddenly Rhona rose and rushed to the door. + +"I want to send a message." + +"By-and-by," said the matron, and her rum-reeking breath came full in +the girl's face. The matron was drunk. + +For an hour she confided to Rhona the history of her married life, and +each time that Rhona dared cry, "I want to send a message!" she replied, +"By-and-by." + +But after an hour was ended, she remembered. + +"Message? Sure! Fifty cents!" + +Rhona clutched the edge of the door. + +"Telephone--I want to telephone!" + +"Telephone!" shrieked the matron. "Do yer think we keep a telephone for +the likes of ye?" + +"But I haven't fifty cents--besides, a message doesn't cost fifty +cents--" + +"Are yer telling _me_?" the matron snorted. "Fifty cents! Come now, +hurry," she wheedled. "Yer know as yer has it! Oh, it's in good time you +come!" + +Her last words were addressed to some one behind her. The cell door was +quickly opened; Rhona's arm was seized by John, the policeman, and +without words she was marched to the curb and pushed into the patrol +wagon with half a dozen others. The wagon clanged through the cold, dark +streets, darting through the icy edge of the wind, and the women huddled +together. Rhona never forgot how that miserable wagonful chattered--that +noise of clicking teeth, the pulse of indrawn sighs, and the shivering +of arms and chests. Closer and closer they drew, as if using one another +as shields against the arctic onslaught, a couple of poor women, and +four unsightly prostitutes, the scum of the lower Tenderloin. One woman +kept moaning jerkily: + +"Wisht I was dead--down in my grave. It's bitter cold--" + +The horses struck sparks against the pave, the wheels grided, and the +wagon-load went west, up the shadowy depths of Sixth Avenue, under the +elevated structure, and stopped before Jefferson Market Court. The women +were hustled out and went shuddering through long corridors, until at +last they were shoved into a large cell. + + * * * * * + +At about the same moment Myra and Joe emerged from the West Tenth Street +house and started for the court-house. They started, bowing their heads +in the wind, holding on to their hats. + +"Whew!" muttered Joe. "This is a night!" + +Myra did not dare take his arm, and he spoke a little gruffly. + +"Better hang on to me." + +She slipped her arm through his then, gratefully, and tried to bravely +fight eastward with him. + +Joe was silent. He walked with difficulty. Myra almost felt as if she +were leading him. If she only could have sent him home, nursed him and +comforted him! He was so weary that she felt more like sending him to +bed than dragging him out in this bitter weather. + +More and more painfully he shuffled, and Myra brooded over him as if he +were hers, and there was a sad joy in doing this, a sad glory in leading +him and sharing the cruel night with him. + +In this way they gained the corner of Sixth Avenue. Across the way +loomed the illuminated tower-topped brick court-house. + +"Here it is," said Joe. + +Myra led him over, up the steps, and through the dingy entrance. Then +they stepped into the court-room and sat down on one of the benches, +which were set out as in a school-room. + +The place was large and blue, and dimly lighted. The judge's end of it +was screened off by wire netting. Up on a raised platform sat the +magistrate at his desk, his eyes hidden by a green shade, his bald head +radiant with the electric light above him. Clerks hovered about him, and +an anaemic indoor policeman, standing before him, grasped with one hand +a brass rail and with the other was continually handing up prisoners to +be judged. All in the inclosed space stood and moved a mass of careless +men, the lawyers, hangers-on, and all who fatten upon crime--careless, +laughing, nudging, talking openly to the women of the street. A crass +scene, a scene of bitter cynicism, of flashy froth, degrading and cheap. +Not here to-night the majesty of the law; here only a well-oiled machine +grinding out injustice. + +Joe and Myra were seated among a crowd of witnesses and tired lawyers. +The law's delay seemed to steep the big room with drowsiness; the air +was warm and breathed in and out a thousand times by a hundred lungs. +Myra looked about her at the weary, listless audience. Then she looked +at Joe. He had fallen fast asleep, his head hanging forward. She smiled +sadly and was filled with a strange happiness. He had not been able to +hold out any longer. Well, then, he should sleep, she thought; she would +watch alone. + +Then, as she sat and gazed, a drunken woman in the seat before her fell +sound asleep. At once the big special officer at the little gate of wire +netting came thumping down the aisle, leaned close, and prodded her +shoulder with his forefinger, crying: + +"Wake up, there!" + +She awoke, startled, and a dozen laughed. + +Myra had a great fear that the officer would see Joe. But he didn't. He +turned and went back to his post. + +Myra watched eagerly--aware of the fact that this scene was not as +terrible to her as it might have been. The experience of the day had +sharpened her receptivity, broadened her out-look. She took it for what +it was worth. She hated it, but she did not let it overmaster her. + +There was much business going forward before the judge's desk, and Myra +had glimpses of the prisoners. She saw one girl, bespectacled, hard, +flashy, pushed to the bar, and suddenly heard her voice rise shrill and +human above the drone-like buzzing of the crowd. + +"You dirty liar; I'll slap yer face if yer say that again!" + +A moment later she was discharged, pushed through the little gateway, +and came tripping by Myra, shouting shrilly: + +"I'll make charges against him--I'll break him--I will!" + +Several others Myra saw. + +A stumpy semi-idiot with shining, oily face and child-staring eyes, who +clutched the railing with both big hands and stood comically in huge +clothes, his eyes outgazing the judge. He was suddenly yanked back to +prison. + +A collarless wife-beater, with hanging lips and pleading dog's eyes, his +stout Irish wife sobbing beside him. He got "six months," and his wife +came sobbing past Myra. + +Then there was an Italian peddler, alien, confused, and in rags, soon, +however, to be set free; and next a jovial drunk, slapping the officers +on the back, lifting his legs in dance-like motions and shouting to the +judge. He was lugged away for a night's rest. + +And then, of course, the women. It was all terrible, new, undreamed of, +to Myra. She saw these careless Circes of the street, plumed, powdered, +jeweled, and she saw the way the men handled and spoke to them. + +Scene after scene went on, endless, confused, lost in the buzz and hum +of voices, the shuffle of feet. The air grew warmer and more and more +foul. Myra felt drowsy. She longed to put her head on Joe's shoulder and +fall asleep--sink into peace and stillness. But time and again she came +to with a jerk, started forward and eagerly scanned the faces for Rhona. +What had happened to the girl? Would she be kept in jail overnight? Or +had something worse happened? An increasing fear took possession of her. +She felt in the presence of enemies. Joe was asleep. She could not +question him, could not be set at ease. And how soundly he slept, +breathing deeply, his head hanging far forward. If only she could make a +pillow for that tired head! + +She was torn between many emotions. Now she watched a scene beyond the +netting--something cynical, cheap, degrading--watched it with no real +sense of its meaning--wondered where she was and how she had come--and +why all this was going on. Then she would turn and look piteously at +Joe, her face sharp with yearning. Then she would drowse, and awake with +a start. She kept pinching herself. + +"If I fall asleep Rhona may get through without us--something will +happen!" + +It must have been past midnight. There was no sign of Rhona. Each new +face that emerged from the jail entrance was that of a stranger. Again +an overwhelming fear swept Myra. She touched Joe's arm. + +"Joe! Joe!" she whispered. + +He did not answer; his hand moved a little and dropped. How soundly he +slept! She smiled then, and sat forward, determined to be a brave +woman. + +Then glancing through the netting she spied Blondy and his friends +laughing together. She saw the evil monkey eyes. At once she was back +sharply in Great Jones Street, trembling with outrage and humiliation. +She tried to keep her eyes from him, and again and again looked at him +and loathed him. + +"If," she thought, "he is here, perhaps the time has come." + +Again she searched the new faces, and gave a little cry of joy. There +was Rhona, pale, quiet, her arm in the hand of the policeman who had +made the arrest. + +Myra turned to Joe. + +"Joe! Wake up!" + +He stirred a little. + +"Joe! Joe! Wake up!" + +He gave a great start and opened his eyes. + +"What is it?" he cried. "Do they want union cards?" + +"Joe," she exclaimed, "Rhona's here." + +"Rhona?" He sat upright; he was a wofully sleepy man. "Rhona?" Then he +gazed about him and saw Myra. + +"Oh, Myra!" He laughed sweetly. "How good it is to see you!" + +She paled a little at the words. + +"Joe," she whispered, "we're in the court. Rhona's waiting for us." + +Then he understood. + +"And I've been sleeping, and you let me sleep?" He laughed softly. +"What a good soul you are! Rhona! Come, quick!" + +They arose, Joe rubbing his eyes, and stepped forward. Myra felt stiff +and sore. Then Joe spoke in a low voice to the gate-keeper, the gate +opened, and they entered in. + + + + +X + + +THE TRIAL + +Rhona had spent the evening in the women's cell, which was one of three +in a row. The other two were for men. The window was high up, and a +narrow bench ran around the walls. Sprawled on this were from thirty to +forty women; the air was nauseating, and the place smelled to heaven. +Outside the bars of the door officers lounged in the lighted hall +waiting the signal to fetch their prisoners. Now and then the door +opened, a policeman entered, picked his woman, seized upon her, and +pulled her along without speaking to her. It was as if the prisoners +were dumb wild beasts. + +For a while Rhona sat almost doubled up, feeling that she would never +get warm. Her body would be still a minute, and then a racking spasm +took her and her teeth chattered. A purple-faced woman beside her leaned +forward. + +"Bad business on the street a night like this, ain't it? Here, I'll rub +your hands." + +Rhona smiled bitterly, and felt the rub of roughened palms against her +icy hands. Then she began to look around, sick with the smell, the +sudden nauseous warmth. She saw the strange rouged faces, the impudent +eyes, the showy headgear, flashing out among the obscure faces of poor +women, and as she looked a filthy drunk began to rave, rose tottering, +and staggered to the door and beat clanging upon it, all the while +shrieking: + +"Buy me the dope, boys, buy me the dope!" + +Others pulled her back. Women of the street, sitting together, chewed +gum and laughed and talked shrilly, and Rhona could not understand how +prisoners could be so care-free. + +All the evening she had been dazed, her one clear thought the sending of +a message for help. But now as she sat in the dim, reeking cell, she +began to realize what had happened. + +Then as it burst upon her that she was innocent, that she had been lied +against, that she was helpless, a wild wave of revolt swept her. She +thought she would go insane. She could have thrown a bomb at that +moment. She understood revolutionists. + +This feeling was followed by abject fear. She was alone ... alone.... Why +had she allowed herself to be caught in this trap? Why had she +struck? Was it not foolhardy to raise a hand against such a mammoth +system of iniquity? Over in Hester Street her poor mother, plying the +never-pausing needle, might be growing anxious--might be sending out to +find her. What new trouble was she bringing to her family? What new +touch of torture was she adding to the hard, sweated life? And her +father--what, when he came home from the sweatshop so tired that he was +ready to fling himself on the bed without undressing, what if she were +missing, and he had to go down and search the streets for her? + +If only Joe Blaine had been notified! Could she depend on that Miss +Craig, who had melted away at the first approach of peril? Yet surely +there must be help! Did not the Woman's League keep a lawyer in the +court? Would he not be ready to defend her? That was a ray of hope! She +cheered up wonderfully under it. She began to feel that it was somehow +glorious to thus serve the cause she was sworn to serve. She even had a +dim hope--almost a fear--that her father had been sent for. She wanted +to see a familiar face, even though she were sure he would upbraid her +for bringing disgrace upon the family. + +So passed long hours. Prisoners came in--prisoners went out. Laughter +rose--cries--mutterings; then came a long silence. Women yawned. Some +snuggled up on the bench, their heads in their neighbors' laps, and fell +fast asleep. Rhona became wofully tired--drooped where she sat--a +feeling of exhaustion dragging her down. The purple-faced woman beside +her leaned forward. + +"Say, honey, put your head in my lap!" + +She did so. She felt warmth, ease, a drowsy comfort. She fell fast +asleep.... + +"No! No!" she cried out, "it was _he_ struck _me_!" + +She had a terrible desire to sob her heart out, and a queer sensation of +being tossed in mid-air. Then she gazed about in horror. She was on her +feet, had evidently been dragged up, and John, the policeman, held her +arm in a pinch that left its mark. Gasping, she was shoved along through +the doorway and into a scene of confusion. + +They stood a few minutes in the judge's end of the court-room--a crowd +eddying about them. Rhona had a queer feeling in her head; the lights +blinded her; the noise seemed like the rush of waters in her ears. Then +she thought sharply: + +"I must get myself together. This is the court. It will be all over in a +minute. Where's Mr. Joe? Where's the lawyer? Where's my father?" + +She looked about eagerly, searching faces. Not one did she know. What +had happened? She felt the spasm of chills returning to her. Had Miss +Craig failed her? Where was the strikers' lawyer? Were there friends +waiting out in the tired audience, among the sleepy witnesses? Suddenly +she saw Blondy laughing and talking with a gaudy woman in the crowd. She +trembled all at once with animal rage.... She could have set upon him +with her nails and her teeth. But she was fearfully afraid, fearfully +helpless. What could she do? What would be done with her? + +John pushed her forward a few steps; her own volition could not take +her, and then she saw the judge. This judge--would he understand? Could +he sympathize with a young girl who was wrongly accused? The magistrate +was talking carelessly with his clerk, and Rhona felt in a flash that +all this, which to her was terrible and world-important, to him was mere +trivial routine. + +She waited, her heart pounding against her ribs, her breath coming short +and stifled. Then all at once she saw Joe and Myra as they entered the +gate, and a beautiful smile lit up her face. It was a blessed moment. + +They came up; Joe spoke in a low breath. + +"Rhona, have you seen the lawyer about?" + +"No," she muttered. + +Joe looked around. He stood above that crowd by half a head. Then he +muttered bitterly to Myra: + +"Why isn't that fellow here to-night? You shouldn't have let me sleep!" + +Myra was abashed, and Rhona, divining his misery, felt quite alone +again, quite helpless. + +Suddenly then she was pushed forward, and next the indoor policeman was +handing her up to the judge, and now she stood face to face with her +crisis. Again her heart pounded hard, her breath shortened. She was +dimly aware of Joe and Myra behind her, and of Blondy and his friends +beside her. She looked straight at the magistrate, not trusting herself +to glance either side. + +The magistrate looked up and nodded to the policeman. + +"What's the charge?" His voice was a colorless monotone. + +"Assault, your Honor. This girl was picketing in the strike, and this +private detective told her to move on. Then she struck him." + +Rhona felt as if she could burst; she expected the magistrate to +question her; but he continued to address the policeman. + +"Any witnesses?" + +"These other detectives, your Honor." + +The magistrate turned to Blondy's friends. + +"Is what the policeman says true?" + +"Yes," they chorused + +Joe spoke clearly. + +"Your Honor, there's another witness." + +The magistrate looked at Joe keenly. + +"Who are you?" + +"My name's Blaine--Joe Blaine." + +"The editor?" + +"Yes." + +The magistrate spoke sharply: + +"I can tell you now you'll merely damage the case. I don't take the word +of such a witness." + +Joe spoke easily. + +"It's not my word. Miss Craig here is the witness. She saw the assault." + +The magistrate looked at Myra. + +"What were you doing at the time?" + +Myra spoke hardly above a whisper, for she felt that she was losing +control of herself. + +"I--I was walking with Miss Hemlitz." + +"Walking? You mean picketing." + +"Yes." + +"Well, naturally, your word is not worth any more than the prisoner's. +You should have been arrested, too." + +Myra could not speak any further; and the magistrate turned again to the +policeman. + +"You swear your charge is true?" + +The policeman raised his hand. + +"I swear." + +Rhona felt a stab as of lightning. She raised her hand high; her voice +came clear, sharp, real, rising above the drone-like noise of the court. + +"I swear it is not true. I never struck him. _He_ struck me!" + +The magistrate's face reddened, a vein on his forehead swelled up, and +he leaned toward Rhona. + +"What you say, young lady"--there was a touch of passion in his +voice--"doesn't count. Understand? You're one of these strikers, aren't +you? Well, the whole lot of you"--his voice rose--"are on a strike +against God, whose principal law is that man should earn bread by the +sweat of his brow." + +Rhona trembled before these unbelievable words. She stared into his +eyes, and he went on passionately: + +"I've let some of you off with fines--but this has gone too far. I'll +make an example of you. You shall go to the workhouse on Blackwells +Island for five days. Next!" + +Joe, too, was dazed. But he whispered to Rhona: + +"Meet it bravely. I'll tell the girls!" + +Her arm was grasped, she was pushed, without volition, through crowding +faces; and at length, after another ride in the patrol wagon, she found +herself on a narrow cot in a narrow cell. The door was slammed shut +ominously. Dim light entered through a high aperture. + +She flung herself down her whole length, and sobbed. Bitter was life for +Rhona Hemlitz, seventeen years old.... + + * * * * * + +Joe, in the court-room, had seized Myra's arm. + +"Let us get out of this!" + +They went through the gateway, up the aisle, out the dim entrance, into +the streets. It was two in the morning, and the narrow cañons were +emptied of life, save the shadowy fleeting shape of some night prowler, +some creature of the underworld. The air was a trifle less cold, and a +fine hard snow was sifting down--crunched underfoot--a bitter, tiny, +stinging snow--hard and innumerable. + +Cavernous and gloomy seemed the street, as they trudged west, arm in +arm. Myra had never been so stirred in her life; she felt as if things +ugly and dangerous had been released in her heart; a flame seemed raging +in her breast. And then as they went on, Joe found vent in hard words. + +"And such things go on in this city--in this high civilization--and this +is a part of life--and then they wonder why we are so unreasonable. It +goes on, and they shut their eyes to it. The newspapers and magazines +hush it up. No, no, don't give this to the readers, they want something +pleasant, something optimistic! Suppress it! Don't let the light of +publicity smite it and clear it up! Let it go on! Let the secret sore +fester. It smells bad, it looks bad. Keep the surgeon away. We might +lose subscribers, we might be accused of muck-raking. But I tell you," +his voice rose, "this world will never be much better until we face the +worst of it! Oh," he gave a heavy groan, "Myra! Myra! I wonder if I ever +will be happy again!" + +Myra spoke from her heart. + +"You're overworked, Joe; you're unstrung. Perhaps you see this too +big--out of perspective!" + +He spoke with intense bitterness. + +"It's all my fault. It's all my fault. If I hadn't been so sleepy I'd +have sent for a lawyer. I thought, of course, he'd be there!" + +Myra spoke eagerly: + +"That's just it, Joe. Oh, won't you take a rest? Won't you go away +awhile? Just for your work's sake." + +He mused sadly: + +"Mother keeps saying the same thing." + +"She's right!" cried Myra. "Joe, you're killing yourself. How can you +really serve the strike if you're in this condition?" + +He spoke more quietly. + +"They need me, Myra. Do you think I'm worse off than Rhona?" + +Myra could not answer this. It is a curious fact that some of the +terrible moments of life are afterward treasured as the great moments. +Looked back upon, they are seen to be the vital step forward, the +readjustment and growth of character, and not for anything would any +real man or woman miss them. Afterward Myra discovered that this night +had been one of the master nights of her life, and when she repictured +that walk up Tenth Street at two in the morning, through the thin +sifting snow, the big tragic man at he; side, it seemed a beautiful and +wonderful thing. They had been all alone out in the city's streets, +close together, feeling as one the reality of life, sharing as one the +sharp unconquerable tragedy, suffering together against the injustice of +the world. + +But at the moment she felt only bitter, self-reproachful, and full of +pity for poor human beings. It was a time when the divine creatures born +of woman seemed mere little waifs astray in a friendless universe, +somehow lost on a cruel earth, crying like children in the pitiless +night, foredoomed and predestined to broken hearts and death. It seemed +a very sad and strange mystery, and more sad, more strange to be one of +these human beings herself. + +They reached the house. Lights were still burning in the office, and +when they entered they found the District Committee sitting about the +red stove, still working out the morrow's plans. Giotto was there, Sally +Heffer, and Jacob Izon, and others, tired, pale, and huddled, but still +toiling wearily with one another. As Joe and Myra came in they looked +up, and Sally rose. + +"Is she--" she began, and then spoke angrily, "I can see she's been +held." + +Joe smiled sadly. + +"Sent to the workhouse for five days." + +Exclamations of indignation arose. The committee could not believe it. + +"I wish," cried impetuous Sally, "that magistrate were my husband. I'd +throw a flatiron at his head and put some castor-oil in his soup!" + +Joe laughed a little. He looked at his watch, and then at Myra. + +"Myra," he said, gently, "it's two o'clock--too late to go home. You +must sleep with mother." + +Myra spoke softly. + +"No--I can get home all right." + +He took her by the arm. + +"Myra," he leaned over, "do just this one thing for me." + +"I will!" she breathed. + +He led her in through his room, and knocked softly. + +"Mother!" + +"Yes," came a clear, wide-awake voice. "I'm awake, Joe." + +"Here's Myra. May she stay with you?" + +"Good!" + +Myra went in, but turned. + +"Joe," she said, tremulously, "you're not going to stay up with that +committee?" + +"They need me, Myra." + +"But, Joe," her voice broke--"this is too much of a good thing--" + +Joe's mother interrupted her. + +"Better leave the boy alone, Myra--to-night, anyway." + +Joe laughed. + +"I'll try to cut it short! Sweet dreams, ladies!" + +For long they heard his voice mingled with the others, as they lay side +by side in the black darkness. But Myra was glad to be near him, glad to +share his invisible presence. After she had told Joe's mother about +Rhona, the two, unable to sleep, talked quietly for some time. Drawn +together by their love for Joe--and Joe's mother was quick in +divining--they felt as if they knew each other intimately, though they +had met for the first time that afternoon, when Myra, having reported +Rhona's arrest to Joe, groped her way blindly to the rear kitchen and +stood, trying not to sob, before the elder woman. + +She had asked: + +"Are you Mrs. Blaine?" and had gone on. "I'm Myra--Myra Craig. Joe and I +used to know each other." + +Whereupon Joe's mother, remembering something Joe had said of writing to +a Myra Craig in the country, suddenly understood. There was a swift, +"What! You and he--?" a sob from Myra, and the two were in each other's +arms. Then followed supper and a quiet evening. + +And now in the darkness they lay and talked. + +"I've been worrying about Joe," Mrs. Blaine mused, softly. + +"Why?" + +"Can't you see why?" + +"He looks badly," Myra sighed. + +"Joe," said his mother, quietly, "is killing himself. He doesn't listen +to me, and I don't want to interfere too much." + +"Isn't there anything to be done?" + +There was a silence and then Joe's mother spoke in a strange personal +voice. + +"What if _you_ could do something." + +Myra could hardly speak. + +"I?" + +"You." A hand caught hers. "Try. He's simply giving his life to the +cause." + +There was a silence a little while. The tears were wet upon Myra's +cheeks. + +"Mrs. Blaine." + +"Yes, dear." + +"Tell me about yourself--what you've been doing--both of you." + +And as Mrs. Blaine told her, time and time again Myra laughed softly, or +was glad the darkness concealed those unbidden tears. + +But as Mrs. Blaine spoke of the attack of Marrin's men, Myra was +thrilled. + +"But what happened afterward?" she cried. "Isn't he in danger now? +Mightn't there be another attack?" + +Joe's mother's voice rang. + +"Afterward? It was wonderful. The whole neighborhood rose to Joe's side. +They even started a subscription to rebuild the press. Oh, the people +here are amazing!" + +"And the men who mobbed him?" + +"Many were arrested, but Joe did not appear against them, and the men +from Marrin's were the first to come in and tell of their remorse. As +for the thugs and criminals--they don't dare lift their heads. Public +opinion is hot against them." + +Thus they talked, intimately, sweetly, and at last the elder woman +kissed the younger good-night. + +"But, dear, you've been crying!" + +"Oh, I'm so glad to be here!" sobbed Myra. "So glad to be with you!" + +And even then she had a sense of the greatness and wonder of that day; +how new and untapped forces in her nature were emerging; how the whole +seeming of life--"These shows of the night and day"--was changing for +her; how life was deepening down to its bitter roots, roots bitter but +miraculously sheathed in crystalline springs; in sweet waters, in beauty +and love and mystery. It was the finding of her own soul--a power great +enough to endure tragedy and come forth to a richer laughter and a wiser +loveliness. Only thus does life reveal its meanings and its miracles, +and prove that it is an adventure high and fine, ever tending higher, +ever more enriched with faith and marvelous strength, and that mirth +that meets the future with an expectant smile. + +So thinking, so feeling, she grew drowsier, sank deeper--her body tired +in every muscle, in every bone--her mind unable to keep awake; and so +she faded into the pure rest of sleep. + + + + +XI + + +THE WORKHOUSE + +That next day was as a dream to Rhona. Not until evening did it become +real. Breakfast was brought to her cell, but she did not taste it. Next +she was led out by a policeman to the street and packed in the patrol +wagon with eight other women. The morning was gray, with a hard sifting +snow, and as the wagon bumped over cobblestones, Rhona breathed deep of +the keen air. + +The ride seemed without end; but next she was in a ferry; and then, +last, was hurried into a long gray building on Blackwells Island. + +Her cell was fairly large, and contained two cots, one against each +wall. She was left disconsolately alone, numb, in despair, and moving +about in a dream. + +But after supper she found herself locked in with another woman. She sat +down on the edge of her cot, in the dim light of the room, and with a +sharp glance, half fear, half curiosity, regarded her room-mate. This +other was a woman of possibly thirty years, with sallow cheeks, bright +burning eyes, and straggly hair. She stood before the little wall +mirror, apparently examining herself. Suddenly she turned: + +"What you looking at, kid?" + +Rhona averted her eyes. + +"I didn't mean--" + +"Say," said the other, "ain't I the awful thing? Not a rat or a puff or +a dab of rouge allowed in these here premises. I do look a sight--a +fright. Gee!" She turned. "You're not so worse. A little pale, kid." + +She came over and sat next to Rhona. + +"What'll I call you?" + +Rhona shrank. She was a sensitive, ignorant girl, and did not understand +this type of woman. Something coarse, familiar, vulgar seemed to grate +against her. + +"Rhona's my name," she breathed. + +"Well, that's cute! Call you Ronie?" She stretched out her arms. "Oh, +slats! I'd give my teeth for a cigarette and a Manhattan cocktail. +Wouldn't I, though!" + +Rhona shuddered. + +The woman turned toward her. + +"My name's Millie. Now we're pals, eh?" Then she rattled on: "First time +in the workhouse? Comes hard at first, doesn't it? Cut off from friends +and fun--and ain't the work beastly? Say, Ronie, what's your job in +little old New York?" + +Rhona swallowed a dull sob. + +"I haven't any--we're on strike." + +Millie jumped up. + +"What, you one of them shirtwaist strikers?" + +"Yes." + +"Why did they run you in?" + +"An officer struck me, and then said I struck him." + +"Just like a man! Oh, I know men! Depend upon it, I know the men! So, +you were a shirt-waist-maker. How much d'yer earn?" + +"Oh, about five or six a week." + +"A--_week_!" Millie whistled. "And I suppose ten hours a day, or worse, +and I suppose work that would kill an ox." + +"Yes," said Rhona, "hard work." + +Millie sat down and put an arm about the shrinking girl. + +"Say, kiddie, I like you. I'm going to chuck a little horse sense at +you. Now you listen to me. My sister worked in a pickle-place over in +Pennsy, and she lasted just two years, and then, galloping consumption, +and--" She snapped her fingers, her voice became husky. "Poor fool! Two +years is the limit where she worked. And who paid the rent? I did. But +of course _I_ wasn't respectable--oh no! I was a sinner. Well, let me +tell you something. In my business a woman can last five to ten years. +Do you blame me? And I get clothes, and the eats, and the soft spots, +and I live like a lady.... That's the thing for you! Why do you wear +yourself out--slave-work and strikes and silly business?... You'll never +get married.... The work will make you a hag in another year or two, +and who will want you? And say, you've got to live just once--got to be +just downright woman for a little spell, anyway.... Come with me, +kid ... my kind of life." + +Rhona looked at her terrified. She did not understand. What sort of +woman was this? How live in luxury without working? How be downright +woman? + +"What do you mean?" asked the young girl. + +So Millie told her. They went to bed, their light was put out, and +neither had a wink of sleep. Rhona lay staring in the darkness and over +the room came the soft whisper of Millie bearing a flood of the filth of +the underworld. Rhona could not resist it. She lay helpless, quaking +with a wild horror.... Later she remembered that night in Russia when +she and others hid under the corn in a barn while the mob searched over +their heads--a moment ghastly with impending mutilation and death--and +she felt that this night was more terrible than that. Her girlhood +seemed torn to shreds.... Dawn broke, a watery glimmer through the high +barred window. Rhona rose from her bed, rushed to the door, pulled on +the bars, and loosed a fearful shriek. The guard, running down, Millie, +leaping forward, both cried: + +"What's the matter?" + +But the slim figure in the white nightgown fell down on the floor, and +thus earned a few hours in the hospital. + + * * * * * + +They set her to scrubbing floors next day, a work for which she had +neither experience nor strength. Weary, weary day--the large rhythm of +the scrubbing-brush, the bending of the back, the sloppy, dirty +floors--on and on, minute after minute, on through the endless hours. +She tried to work diligently, though she was dizzy and sick, and felt as +if she were breaking to pieces. Feverishly she kept on. Lunch was +tasteless to her; so was supper; and after supper came Millie. + +No one can tell of those nights when the young girl was locked in with a +hard prostitute--nights, true, of lessening horror, and so, all the more +horrible. As Rhona came to realize that she was growing accustomed to +Millie's talk--even to the point of laughing at the jokes--she was +aghast at the dark spaces beneath her and within her. She was becoming a +different sort of being--she looked back on the hard-toiling girl, who +worked so faithfully, who tried to study, who had a quiet home, whose +day was an innocent routine of toil and meals and talk and sleep, as on +some one who was beautiful and lovely, but now dead. In her place was a +sharp, cynical young woman. Well for Rhona that her sentence was but +five days! + +The next afternoon she was scrubbing down the long corridor between the +cells when the matron came, jangling her keys. + +"Some one here for you," said the matron. + +Rhona leaped up. + +"My mother?" she cried out, in a piercing voice. + +"See here," said the matron, "you want to go easy--and only five +minutes, mind you." + +"My mother?" Rhona repeated, her heart near to bursting. + +"No--some one else. Come along." + +Rhona followed, half choking. The big door was unlocked before her and +swung open; she peered out. It was Joe and Myra. + +Seeing these faces of friends suddenly recalled her to her old world, to +the struggle, the heroism, the strike, and, filled with a sense of her +imprisonment and its injustice, she rushed blindly out into the open +arms of Myra and was clutched close, close. + +And then she sobbed, wept for minutes, purifying tears. And suddenly she +had an inspiration, a flash of the meaning of her martyrdom, how it +could be used as a fire and a torch to kindle and lead the others. + +She lifted up her face. + +"You tell the girls," she cried, "it's perfectly wonderful to be here. +It's all right. Just you tell them it's all right. Any of them would be +glad to do it!" + +And then the matron, who was listening, stepped forward. + +"Time's up!" + +There was one kiss, one hug, and the brave girl was led away. The door +slammed her in. + +Joe and Myra looked at each other, awed, thrilled. Tears trickled down +Myra's face. + +"Oh," she cried low, "isn't it lovely? Isn't it wonderful?" + +He spoke softly. + +"The day of miracles isn't over. Women keep on amazing me. Come!" + +Quietly they walked out into the warm, sunshiny day. Streaks of snow +were vanishing in visible steam. The sky was a soft blue, bulbous with +little puffs of cloud. Myra felt an ineffable peace. Rhona's heroism had +filled her with a new sense of human power. She longed to speak with +Joe--she longed, as they stood on the ferry, and glided softly through +the wash and sway of the East River, to share her sweet emotions with +him. But he had pulled out a note-book and was busily making jottings. +He seemed, if anything, more worn than ever, more tired. He was living +on his nerves. The gray face was enough to bring tears to a woman's +eyes, and the lank, ill-clothed form seemed in danger of thinning away +to nothingness. So Myra said nothing, but kept looking at him, trying to +save him by her strength of love, trying to send out those warm currents +and wrap him up and infuse him with life and light and joy. + +All the way out he had been silent, preoccupied. In fact, all these +three days he had been preoccupied--toiling terribly early and late, +busy, the center of a swarm of human activities, his voice everywhere, +his pen in his hand. Meals he ate at his desk while he wrote, and sleep +was gained in little snatches. Myra had been there to watch him, there +to help him. Since that night in the court, she had come early and +stayed until ten in the evening, doing what work she could. And there +was much to be done--she found a profitable task in instructing new +recruits in the rules of picketing--and also in investigating cases of +need. These took her to strange places. She had vistas of life she had +not dreamed to be true--misery she had thought confined to novels, to +books like _Les Misérables_. It was all wonderful and strange and new. +She was beginning to really know the life of the Greater Number--the +life of the Nine-Tenths--and as she got used to the dust, the smells, +and the squalor, she found daily all the richness of human nature. It +was dramatic, absorbing, real. Where was it leading her? She hardly knew +yet. The strangeness had not worn off. + +She had been watching Joe, and she felt that he was hardly aware of her +presence. He took her and her work as a matter of course. And this did +not embitter her, for she felt that the time had passed for privileges, +that this was a season in Joe's life when he belonged to a mass of the +people, to a great cause, and that she had no right to any part of his +life. He was so deep in it, so overwrought, that it was best to let him +alone, to keep him free from the responsibility of personal +relationships, not to burden him with added emotionalism. And so she +accepted the rule of Joe's mother--to do Joe's bidding without question, +to let him have his way, waiting patiently for the time when he would +need and cry out for the personal. When that time came the two women +were ready to help to heal, to nurse--to bind the wounds and soothe the +troubled heart, and rebuild the broken spirit. It might be, of course, +that in the end he would shut Myra out; that was a contingency she had +to face; but she thought that, whatever came, she was getting herself +equal to it. + +They left the ferry and walked over to Second Avenue and took an +elevated train. Then Joe spoke--leaning near, his voice gentle: + +"Myra." + +"Yes, Joe." + +"I've been wondering." + +"What?" + +"About this strike business. Wondering if it isn't mostly waste." + +She found herself saying eagerly: + +"But what else can the people do?" + +He shook his head. + +"In this country if men only voted right ... only had the right sort of +government.... What are they gaining this way? It's too costly." + +"But how are they going to vote right?" + +"Education!" he exclaimed. "Training! We must train the children in +democracy. We must get at the children." + +Myra was amazed. + +"Then you think your work is ... of the wrong sort?" + +"No! no!" he said. "Everything helps--we must try every way--I may not +be fit for any other way than this. But I'm beginning to think it isn't +of the best sort. Maybe it's the only thing to do to-day, however." + +She began to throb with a great hope. + +"Don't you think," she cried, "you ought to go off and take a rest and +think it over? You know you might go into politics, to Congress, or +something--then you could really do something." + +He looked at her with surprise. + +"How you're thinking these days!" he mused. But then he went on very +wearily. "Rest? Myra," his voice sank, "if I ever come out of this +alive, I'll rest--rest deep, rest deep. But there's no end--no end to +it...." + +He reverted to the problem of the strike. + +"Don't you think there's right on the other side, too? Don't you think +many of the employers are doing all they can under present conditions? +We're asking too much. We want men to change their methods before we +change conditions. Who can do it? I tell you, I may be wronging as fine +a lot of men as there are." + +"Then why did you go into it?" she asked, quickly. + +"I didn't. It came to me. It bore me under. But I haven't made a mistake +this time. By chance I'm on the _righter_ side, the better side. When it +comes to the women in industry, there's no question. It is killing the +future to work them this way--it is intolerable, inhuman, insane. We +must stop it--and as we _don't_ vote right, we _must_ strike. A strike +is justified these days--will be, until there's some other way of +getting justice. Anyway, this time," he said, fiercely, "I'm right. But +I'm wondering about the future. I'm wondering...." + +He said nothing further, digging again at his notes. But Myra now +nourished a hope, a secret throbbing hope ... the first ray of a new and +more confident morning. + + + + +XII + + +CONFIDENT MORNING + +Myra moved down to West Tenth Street. She found a neat, little hall +bedroom in one of the three-story brick houses--a little white room, +white-curtained, white-walled, with white counterpane on the iron bed. +She was well content with these narrow quarters, content because it was +near Joe, content because it saved money (her savings were dwindling +rapidly these days), and finally content because she had shifted the +center of her interests to a different set of facts. She was both too +busy and too aroused to be sensitive about running water and the minor +comforts. Her whole being was engrossed in large activities, and she +found with astonishment how many things she could do without. What +previously had seemed so important, poetry, music, dress, quiet, ease, +now became little things lost in a host of new big events. And, +curiously enough, she found a new happiness in this freedom from +superfluities--a sense of range and independence new to her. For at this +time such things actually were superfluous, though the time was to come +again when music and poetry had a new and heightened meaning. + +But during these days of the strike she was a quite free woman, +snatching her sleep and her food carelessly, and putting in her time in +spending heart and soul on the problem in hand. She dressed simply, in +shirtwaist and skirt, and she moved among the people as if she were one +of them, and with no sense of contrast. In fact, Myra was changing, +changing rapidly. Her work called for a new set of powers, and without +hesitation these new powers rose within her, emerged and became a part +of her character. She became executive, quick, stepped into any +situation that confronted her, knew when to be mild, when to be sharp, +sensed where sympathy was needed, and also where sympathy merely +softened and ruined. Her face, too, followed this inner change. Soft +lines merged into something more vivid. She was usually pale, and her +sweet, small mouth had a weary droop, but her eyes were keen and living, +and lit with vital force. + +She began to see that a life of ease and a life of extreme toil were +both equally bad--that each choked off possibilities. She knew then that +women of her type walked about with hidden powers unused, their lives +narrowed and blighted, negative people who only needed some great test, +some supreme task, to bring out those hidden forces, which, gushing +through the soul, overflowing, would make of them characters of +abounding vitality. She felt the glory of men and women who go about the +world bubbling over with freshness and zest and life, warming the lives +they move among, spreading by quick contagion their faith and virility. +She longed to be such a person--to train herself in that greatest of all +the arts--the touching of other lives, drawing a music from long-disused +heart-strings, rekindling, reanimating, the torpid spirit. It was her +search for more _life_--richer, thicker, happier, more intense. + +Her model was Joe's mother. It seemed to her that Joe's mother had met +life and conquered it, and so would never grow old. She never found the +older woman soured or bitter or enfeebled. Even about death there was no +flinching. + +"Don't you think I know," said Joe's mother, "that there is something +precious in me that isn't going to go with the body? Just look at this +body! That's just what's happening already! I'm too young to die. And +besides I know one or two people whom I lost years ago--too precious to +be lost--I've faith in them." + +This, then, is the greatest victory of life: to treat death as a mere +incident in the adventure; an emigration to a new country; a brief and +tragic "auf wiedersehen." It has its pang of parting, and its pain of +new birth--all birth is a struggle full of pain--but it is the only door +to the future. Well for Joe's mother that her hand was ready to grasp +the dark knob and turn it when the time came. + +Once as she and Joe's mother were snatching a lunch together in the +kitchen, the elder woman spoke softly: + +"Myra, you're a great girl!" (She persisted in calling Myra a girl, +though Myra kept telling her she was nearly thirty-three and old enough +to be dignified.) "What will I ever do without you when the strike is +over?" + +Myra smiled. + +"Is it as bad as that?" + +"Yes, and getting worse, Myra!" + +Myra flushed with joy. + +"I'm glad. I'm very glad." + +Joe's mother watched her a little. + +"How have you been feeling, Myra?" + +"I?--" Myra was surprised. "Oh, I'm all right! I haven't time to be +unwell." + +"You really think you're all right, then?" + +"Oh, I know it! This busy life is doing me good." + +"It does most of us good." She changed the subject. + +Myra felt, with great happiness, that she was coming into harmony with +Joe's mother. She would have been quite amazed, however, to know that +Joe's mother was secretly struggling to adjust herself. For Joe's mother +could not help thinking that the time might come when Joe and Myra would +marry, and she was schooling herself for this momentous change. She +kept telling herself: "There is no one in the world I ought to love more +than the woman that Joe loves and weds." And yet it was hard to release +her son, to take that life which had for years been closest to her, and +had been partly in her hands, relinquish it and give it over into the +keeping of another. There were times, however, when she pitied Myra, +pitied her because Joe was engrossed in his work and had no emotions or +thoughts to spare. And she wondered at such times whether Joe would ever +marry, whether he would ever be willing to make his life still more +complex. She watched Myra closely, with growing admiration; saw the +changes in her, the faithful struggle, the on-surging power, and she +thought: + +"If it's to be any one, I know no one I should love more." + +There were times, however, when she mentally set Myra side by side with +Sally, to the former's overshadowing. Sally was so clean-cut, direct, +such a positive character. She was hardy and self-contained, and would +never be dependent. Her relationships with Joe always implied +interdependence, a perfect give and take, a close yet easy comradeship +which enabled her at any time to go her own way and work her own will. +Sometimes Joe's mother felt that Sally was a woman of the future, and +that, with such, marriage would become a finer and freer union. However, +her imaginative match-making made her smile, and she thought: "Joe +won't pick a mate with his head. The thing will just happen to him--or +not." And as she came to know Myra better, she began to feel that +possibly a woman who would take Joe away from his work, instead of +involving him deeper, would, in the end, be best for him. Such a woman +would mean peace, relaxation, diversion. She was greatly concerned over +Joe's absorption in the strike, and once, when it appeared that the +struggle might go on endlessly, she said to Myra: + +"Sometimes I think Joe puts life off too much, pushing his joys into the +future, not always remembering that he will never be more alive than +now, and that the days are being lopped off." + +Myra had a little table of her own, near the door, and this table, when +she was there, was always a busy center. The girls liked her, liked to +talk with her, were fond of her musical voice and her quiet manners. +Some even got in the habit of visiting her room with her and having +quiet talks about their lives. Sally, however, did not share this +fondness for Myra. She felt that Myra was an intruder--that Myra was +interposing a wall between her and Joe--and she resented the intrusion. +She could not help noticing that Joe was becoming more and more +impersonal with her, but then, she thought, "people are not persons to +him any more; he's swallowed up in the cause." Luckily she was too busy +during the day, too tired at night, to brood much on the matter. +However, one evening at committee meeting, her moment of realization +came. The committee, including Myra and Joe and herself and some five +others, were sitting about the hot stove, discussing the call of a Local +on the East Side for a capable organizer. + +"It's hard to spare any one," mused Joe, "and yet--" He looked about the +circle. "There's Miss Craig and--Miss Heffer." + +Both Myra and Sally turned pale and trembled a little. Each felt as if +the moment had come when he would shut one or the other out of his life. +Sally spoke in a low voice: + +"I'm pretty busy right here, Mr. Joe." + +"I know," he reflected. "And I guess Miss Craig could do it." + +He opened the stove door, took the tiny shovel, stuck it into the +coal-box, and threw some fresh coal on the lividly red embers. Then he +stood up and gazed round the circle again. + +"Sally," he said, "it's _your_ work--you'll have to go." + +She bowed her head. + +"You're sure," she murmured, "I'm not needed here?" + +"Needed?" he mused. "Yes. But needed more over there!" + +She looked up at him and met his eyes. Her own were pleading with him. + +"Surely?" + +"Surely, Sally. We're not in this game for fun, are we?" + +"I'll do as you say," she breathed. + +Her head began to swim; she felt as if she would break down and cry. She +arose. + +"I'll be right back." + +She groped her way through the inner rooms to the kitchen. Joe's mother +was reading. + +"Mrs. Blaine...." + +"Sally! What's the matter?" + +Joe's mother arose. + +"I'm going ... going to another Local.... I'm leaving here to-night ... +for good and always." + +Joe's mother drew her close, and Sally sobbed openly. + +"It's been my home here--the first I've had in years--but I'll never +come back." + +"Oh, you must come back." + +"No...." she looked up bravely. "Mrs. Blaine." + +"Yes, Sally." + +"He doesn't need me any more; he's outgrown me; he doesn't need any one +now." + +What could Joe's mother say? + +"Sally!" she cried, and then she murmured: "It's you who don't need any +one, Sally. You're strong and independent. You can live your own live. +And you've helped make Joe strong. Wait, and see." + +And she went on to speak of Sally's work, of her influence in the +place, of the joy she brought to others, and finally Sally said: + +"Forgive me for coming to you like a baby." + +"Oh, it's fine of you to come to me!" + +"So," cried Sally, "good-by." + +She found her hat and coat and slipped away, not daring to say good-by +to Joe. But as she went through the dark winter night she realized how +one person's happiness is often built on another's tragedy. And so Sally +went, dropping for the time being out of Joe's life. + + * * * * * + +There was one event that took place two weeks after Myra's coming, which +she did not soon forget. It was the great mass-meeting to celebrate the +return of Rhona and some others who had also been sent to the workhouse. +Myra and Joe sat together. After the music, the speeches, Rhona stepped +forward, slim, pale, and very little before that gigantic auditorium. +She spoke simply. + +"I was picketing on Great Jones Street. A man came up and struck me. I +had him arrested. But in court he said I struck him, and the judge sent +me to Blackwells Island. I had to scrub floors. But it was only for five +days. I think we ought all to be glad to go to the workhouse, because +that will help women to be free and help the strikers. I'm glad I went. +It wasn't anything much." + +They cheered her, for they saw before them a young heroine, victorious, +beloved, ideal. But when Myra called at Hester Street, a week later, +Rhona's mother had something else to say. + +"Rhona? Well, you had ought to seen her when we first landed! Ah! she +was a beauty, my Rhona--such cheeks, such hair, such eyes--laughing all +the time. But now--ach!" She sighed dreadfully. "So it goes. Only, I +wished she wasn't always so afraid--afraid to go out ... afraid ... so +nervous ... so ... different." + +Myra never forgot this. It sent her back to her work with wiser and +deeper purpose. And so she fought side by side with Joe through the +blacks weeks of that January. It seemed strange that Joe didn't go +under. He loomed about the place, a big, stoop-shouldered, gaunt man, +with tragic gray face and melancholy eyes and deepening wrinkles. All +the tragedy and pathos and struggle of the strike were marked upon his +features. His face summed up the sorrows of the thirty thousand. Myra +sometimes expected him to collapse utterly. But he bore on, from day to +day, doing his work, meeting his committees, and getting out the paper. + +Here, too, Myra found she could help him. She insisted on writing the +strike articles, and as Jacob Izon was also writing, there was only the +editorial for Joe to do. The paper did not miss an issue, and as it now +had innumerable canvassers among the strikers, its circulation gained +rapidly--rising finally to 20,000. + +Even at this time Joe seemed to take no special notice of Myra. But one +slushy, misty night, when the gas-lamps had rainbow haloes, and gray +figures sluff-sluffed through the muddy snow, she accompanied Joe on one +of his fund-raising tours. They entered the side door of a dingy saloon, +passed through a yellow hall, and emerged finally on the platform of a +large and noisy rear room where several hundred members of the +Teamsters' Union were holding a meeting. Gas flared above the rough and +elemental faces, and Myra felt acutely self-conscious under that +concentrated broadside of eyes. She sat very still, flushing, and feebly +smiling, while the outdoor city men blew the air white and black with +smoke and raised the temperature to the sweating-point. + +Joe was introduced; the men clapped; and then he tried hard to arouse +their altruism--to get them to donate to the strike out of their union +funds. However, his speech came limp and a little stale. The applause +was good-natured but feeble. Joe sat down, sighing, and smiling grimly. + +An amazing yet natural thing happened. The Chairman arose, leaned over +his table, and said: + +"You have heard from Mr. Joe Blaine; now you will hear from the other +member of the committee." + +Not for some seconds--not until the stamping of feet rose to a fury of +sound--did Myra realize that _she_ was the other member. She had a +sense of being drained of life, of losing her breath. Instinctively she +glanced at Joe, and saw that he was looking at her a little dubiously, a +little amusedly. What could she do? She had never addressed a meeting in +her life; she had never stood on her feet before a group of men; she had +nothing learned, nothing to say. But how could she excuse herself, how +withdraw, especially in the face of Joe's challenging gaze? + +The stamping increased; the men clapped; and there were shouts: + +"Come ahead! Come on! That's right, Miss." It was a cruel test, a wicked +predicament. All the old timidity and sensitiveness of her nature held +her back, made her tremble, and bathed her face in perspiration. But a +new Myra kept saying: + +"Joe didn't rouse them. Some one must." She set her feet on the floor, +and the deafening thunder of applause seemed to raise her. She took a +step forward. And then with a queer motion she raised her hand. There +was an appalling silence, a silence more dreadful than the noise, and +Myra felt her tongue dry to its root. + +"I--" she began, "I want to say--tell you--" She paused, startled by the +queer sound of her own voice. She could not believe it was herself +speaking; it seemed some one else. And then, sharply, a wonderful thing +took place. A surge of strength filled her. She took a good look around. +Her brain cleared; her heart slowed. It was the old trick of facing the +worst, and finding the strength was there to meet it and turn it to the +best. All at once Myra exulted. She would take these hundreds of human +beings and _swing them_. She could do it. + +Her voice was rich, vibrating, melodious. + +"I want to tell you a little about this strike--what it means. I want to +tell you what the girls and women of this city are capable of--what +heroism, what toil, what sacrifice and nobility. It is not the easiest +thing to live a normal woman's life. You know that. You know how your +mothers or wives or sisters have been slaving and stinting--what pain +is theirs, what burdens, what troubles. But think of the life of a girl +of whom I shall tell you--a young girl by the name of Rhona Hemlitz." + +She went on. She told the story of Rhona's life, and then quietly she +turned to her theme. + +"You understand now, don't you? Are you going to help these girls _win_ +their fight?" + +The walls trembled with what followed--stamping, shouting, clapping. +Myra sat down, her cheeks red, her eyes brilliant. And then suddenly a +big hand closed over hers and a deep voice whispered: + +"Myra, you set yourself free then. You are a new woman!" + +That was all. She had shocked Joe with the fact of the new Myra, and now +the new Myra had come to stay. They raised twenty-five dollars that +night. From that time on Myra was a free and strong personality, +surprising even Joe's mother, who began to realize that this was not the +woman to take Joe from his work, but one who would fight shoulder to +shoulder with him until the very end. + +In the beginning of February the strike began to fade out. Employers +right and left were making compromises with the girls, and here and +there girls were deserting the union and going back. The office at West +Tenth Street became less crowded, fewer girls came, fewer committees +met. There was one night when the work was all done at eleven o'clock, +and this marked the reappearance of normal conditions. + +It was a day or two later that a vital experience came to Joe. Snow was +falling outside, and it was near twilight, and in the quiet Joe was busy +at his desk. Then a man came in, well, but carelessly dressed, his face +pinched and haggard, his eyes bloodshot, his hair in stray tufts over +his wrinkled forehead. + +"I want to see you a minute, Mr. Blaine." + +The voice was shaking with passion. + +"Sit down," said Joe, and the man took the seat beside him. + +"I'm Mr. Lissner--Albert Lissner--I was the owner of the Lissner +Shirtwaist Company." + +Joe looked at him. + +"Lissner? Oh yes, over on Eighth Street." + +The man went on: + +"Mr. Blaine, I had eighty girls working for me.... I always did all I +could for them ... but there was fierce competition, and I was just +skimping along, and I had to pay small wages;... but I was good to +those girls.... They didn't want to strike ... the others made them...." + +Joe was stirred. + +"Yes, I know ... many of the shops were good...." + +"Well," said Lissner, with a shaking, bitter smile, "you and your strike +have ruined me.... I'm a ruined man.... My family and I have lost +everything.... And, it's killed my wife." + +His face became terrible--very white, and the eyes staring--he went on +in a hollow, low voice: + +"I--I've lost _all_." + +There was a silence; then Lissner spoke queerly: + +"I happen to know about you, Mr. Blaine.... You were the head of that +printing-place that burnt down...." + +Joe felt a shock go through him, as if he had seen a ghost.... + +"Well, maybe you did all you could for your men;... maybe you were a +good employer.... Yet see what came of it...." Suddenly Lissner's voice +rose passionately: "And yet you had the nerve to come around and get +after us fellows, who were just as good as you. There are bad employers, +and bad employees, too--bad people of every kind--but maybe most people +are good. You couldn't help what happened to you; neither can we help it +if the struggle is too fierce--we're victims, too. It's conditions, it's +life. We can't change the world in a day. And yet you--after your +fire--come here and ruin us." + +Joe was shaken to his depths. Lissner had made an overstatement, and yet +he had thrown a new light on the strike, and he had reminded Joe of his +long-forgotten guilt. And suddenly Joe knew. All are guilty; all share +in the corruption of the world--the laborer anxious for mass-tyranny and +distrustful of genius, the aristocrat afraid of soiling his hands, the +capitalist intent on power and wealth, the artist neglectful of all but +a narrow artifice, each one limited by excess or want, by intellect or +passion, by vanity or lust, and all struggling with one another to wrest +some special gift for himself. In the intricacy of civilization there +are no real divisions, but every man is merely a brain cell, a nerve, in +the great organism, and what one man gains, some other must lose. It was +a world he got a glimpse of quite different from that sharp twofold +world of the workers and the money-power, a world of infinite +gradations, a world merely the child of the past, where high and low +were pushed by the resistless pressure of environment, and lives were +shaped by birth, chance, training, position, and a myriad, myriad +indefinable forces. + +All of this confused him at first, and it had been so long since he had +dealt with theories that it was some time before the chaos cleared, some +time before the welter of new thought took shape in his mind. But it +made him humble, receptive, teachable, it made him more kindly and more +gentle. He began a mental stock-taking; he began to examine into the +lives about him. + +Myra was there--the new Myra, a Myra with daily less to do in that +office, and with more and more time to think. From her heart was lifted +the hard hand of circumstance, releasing a tenderness and yearning which +flooded her brain. It was a tragic time for her. She knew now that her +services were nearly at an end, and that she must go her own way. She +would not be near Joe any longer--she would not have the heart's ease of +his presence--she could no longer brood over him and protect him. + +It seemed to her that she could not bear the future. Her love for Joe +rose and overwhelmed her. She became self-conscious before him, paled +when he spoke to her, and when he was away her longing for him was +insupportable. She wanted him now--all her life cried out for him--all +the woman in her went out to mate with this man. The same passion that +had drawn her from the country to his side now swayed and mastered her. + +"Joe! Joe!" her soul cried, "take me now! This is too much for me to +bear!" + +And more and more the thought of his health oppressed her. If she only +had the power to take him to her breast, draw him close in her arms, +mother him, heal him, smooth the wrinkles, kiss the droop of the big +lips, and pour her warm and infinite love into his heart. That surely +must save him--love surely would save this man. + +She began to scheme and dream--to plot ways of getting about him, of +routing him out, of tearing him from his rut. + +And then one afternoon at two she risked her all. It was an opportune +time. Joe--wonder of wonders--was doing nothing, but sitting back like a +gray wreck, with his feet crossed on his desk, and a vile cigar in his +mouth. It was the first cigar in ages, and he puffed on it and brooded +dreamily. + +Myra came over, sat down beside him, and spoke airily. + +"Hello, Joe!" + +"Why, hello, Myra!" he cried. "What d'ye mean by helloing me?" + +"I'm glad to meet you." + +"Same to you." + +"I've come back from the country, Joe." + +"So I see." + +"Do you?" + +"Haven't I eyes?" + +"Well," she said, flushed, bending forward, "Joe Blaine, where have your +eyes been these five weeks?" + +"They were on strike!" he said, promptly. + +"Well," she said, "the strike's over!" + +They laughed together as they had not since far and far in the beginning +of things. + +Joe leaned near. + +"Myra," he said, "I need an airing. Take me out and shake me out! Oh!" +he stretched his arms above his head. "Have I been hibernating and is it +springtime again?" + +Myra hesitated. + +"Joe." + +"Yes, ma'am!" + +"I want you to take me somewhere." + +"I will." + +"To--the printery--I want to see it again." + +"Go 'long wid you! Marty Briggs and me are bad friends, see?" + +She reveled in this new gaiety of his. + +"Joe, you're waking up. _Please_ take me!" + +"Put on your hat, your coat, and your little black gloves, young woman. +Me for the printery!" + +They went out together, glad as young children. The world was sheathed +in a hard ice-coated snow; icicles dangled from every sill and cornice; +the skies were melting blue, and the sun flashed along every surface. It +was a world of flashing fire, of iridescent sunbursts. Through the +clean, tingling air they walked, arm in arm, the stir of a new life in +their hearts. + +"Joe," said Myra, "I want you to signalize your resurrection by a great +sacrifice to the gods." + +"I'm ready. Expound!" + +"I want you to buy a new hat." + +He took off his hat and examined it. + +"What's the matter with this?" + +"It's like yourself, Joe--worn out!" + +"But the boys of Eighty-first Street won't know me in a new hat." + +"Never mind the boys of Eighty-first Street. Do as I tell you." + +"Aw, Myra, give me a day to steel my heart and strengthen my sinews. +Wait till we come back." + +"And you'll get it then?" + +"Sure as fate." + +"Well--just this once you'll have your way!" + +So they took the elevated to Seventy-sixth Street and walked through the +old neighborhood to the printery. The familiar streets, which secretly +bore the print of every size shoe he had worn since he was a tiny +toddling fellow, made him meditative, almost sad. + +"It seems ages since I was here!" he remarked. "And yet it's like +yesterday. What have I been doing? Dreaming? Will I walk into the +printery, and will you come in with the 'Landing of the Pilgrims'?" + +Myra laughed, both glad and sad. + +"I should have charged you more," said Joe, brusquely. "Fifty cents was +too little for that job." + +"I told you it would ruin your business, Joe." Strangely then they +thought of the fire ... her order had been his last piece of business +before the tragedy. + +They walked east on Eighty-first Street and stopped before the old loft +building. A new sign was riveted on the bulletin-board in the doorway. + + MARTIN BRIGGS + SUCCESSOR TO + JOE BLAINE & HIS MEN. + +Joe looked at it, and started. + +"It's no dream, Myra," he sighed. "Times have changed, and we, too, have +changed." + +Then they went up the elevator to the clash and thunder on the eighth +floor. And they felt more and more strange, double, as it were--the old +Myra and the old Joe walking with the new Myra and the new Joe. Myra +felt a queerness about her heart, a subtle sense of impending events; of +great dramatic issues. Something that made her want to cry. + +Then they stood a moment before the dirty door, and Joe said: + +"Shall I? Shall I rouse 'em with the bell? Shall I break in on their +peaceful lives?" + +"Rouse away!" cried Myra. "Your hour has struck!" + +He pulled the door, the bell rang sharply, and they stepped in. As of +old, the tremble, the clatter, the flash of machines, the damp smell of +printed sheets, swallowed them up--made them a quivering part of the +place. And how little it had changed! They stood, almost choking with +the unchanging change of things. As if the fire had never been! As if +Tenth Street had never been! + +Then at once the spell was broken. A pressman spied Joe and loosed a +yell: + +"_It's the old man_!" + +His press stopped; his neighbors' presses stopped; as the yell went down +the room, "Joe! Joe! The old man!" press after press paused until only +the clatter and swing of the overhead belting was heard. And the men +came running up. + +"Mr. Joe! Mr. Joe! Shake! For God's sake, give me a grip! This is great +for sore eyes! Where you been keeping yourself? Ain't he the limit? He's +the same old penny! Look at him--even his hat's the same!" + +Joe shook hand after hand, until his own was numb. They crowded about +him, they flung their fondness at him, and he stood, his eyes blinded +with tears, his heart rent in his breast, and a new color climbing to +his cheeks. + +Then suddenly a loud voice cried: + +"What's the matter? What does this mean?" + +And Marty Briggs emerged from the office. + +"Hello, Marty!" cried Joe. + +Marty stood dumfounded; then he came with a rush. + +"Joe! You son-of-a-gun! Beg pardon, Miss! I ain't seen him for a +lifetime!" + +"And how goes it, Marty? How goes it, Marty?" + +"Tip-top; busy as beavers. But, say," he leaned over and whispered, +"I've found a secret." + +"What is it, Marty?" + +"You can't run a business with your hands or lungs or your manners--you +need gray stuff up here." + +The reception was a great success, full of cross-questions, of bartered +news--as the arrival of new babies christened Joe or Josephine, the +passing of old babies in the last birth of all, the absence of old +faces, the presence of new ones. Glad talk and rapid, and only cut short +by the urgency of business. + +They sang him out with a "He's a jolly good fellow," and he emerged on +the street with Myra, his eyes dripping. + +Myra spoke softly. + +"Joe." + +"Yes, Myra." + +"There's one more thing I want you to do for me." + +"Name it." + +"I want to walk with you in the Park." + +He looked at her strangely, breathlessly. + +"_In the Ramble, Myra_?" + +She met his gaze. + +"_In the Ramble, Joe_." + +Silently, with strange, beating hearts and fore-glimmer of beauty and +wonder and loveliness, they walked west to the Park, and entered that +Crystal Palace. For every branch, every twig, every stone and rail had +its pendent ice and icicle, and the strong sun smote the world with +flakes of flame. The trees were showers of rainbow-flashing glory; now +and then an icicle dropped like a dart of fire, and the broad lawns were +sheets of dazzle. Earth was glittering, fresh, new, decked out in +unimaginable jewels under the vast and melting blue skies. The day was +tender and clear and vigorous, tingling with life. + +They followed the curve of the walk, they crossed the roadway, they +climbed the hill, they walked the winding path of the Ramble. + +"You remember that morning?" murmured Joe, a music waking in his heart, +his pulses thronged with a new beauty. + +"Remember it?" Myra whispered. "Yes, Joe, I remember it." + +"That is the very bench we sat on." + +"That is the bench." + +"And that is the little pond." + +"That is the little pond." + +"And this is the spot." + +"This is the spot." + +They sat down on that bench in the crystal wilderness, a man and woman +alone in the blue-skied spaces, among the tree-trunks, and the circle of +earth. And then to Myra came an inexpressible moment of agony and +longing and love. She had struggled months; she had stayed away; and +then she had come back, and merged her life in the life of this man. And +she could bear this no longer! Oh, Joe, will you never speak? Will you +never come to your senses? + +More and more color was rising to his face, and his hands in his lap +were trembling. He tried to speak naturally--but his voice was odd and +unreal. + +"Myra." + +"Yes," tremulously. + +"You must have thought me a brute." + +"I thought--you were busy, overworked." + +"So I was. I was swallowed up--swallowed up." + +There was a silence, in which they heard little gray sparrows twittering +in the sunlight. + +"Myra." + +He hardly heard her "yes." + +"There's been a miracle in my life this year." + +"Yes?" + +"The way you came down and took hold and made good." + +"Thank you," very faintly. + +"It was the biggest thing that came my way." + +Silence. + +"I was noticing it, Myra, out of the tail of my eye." + +Myra tried to laugh. It sounded more like a dull sob. + +"I haven't time to be polite." + +"Don't want you to," Myra blurted. + +"Strange," said Joe, "how things come about. Hello, Mr. Squirrel! Want a +peanut? None on the premises. Sorry. Good-day!" + +He leaned over, picked a bit of ice, and flung it in the air. + +"Myra," he muttered. "I need a rest." + +"You do," almost inaudible. + +"I need--Didn't I say, no peanuts? No means no! Good-day!" + +He turned about laughing. + +"What do you think of that for a pesky little animal?" + +"Joe!" she cried in her agony. + +Joe said nothing, but stared, and a great sob shook him and escaped his +lips. + +"Myra!!" + +He had her in his arms; he kissed her on the lips--that new kiss, +sealing those others. And the wonderful moment came and went; the moment +when two flames leap into one fire; when two lives dashing upon each +other blend into one wonderful torrent. They did not mind the publicity +of the place that afternoon; they were quite oblivious of the world. +They were in another realm, breathing another air, treading a different +earth. It was too sacred for words, too miraculous for aught but the +beating of their living hearts, the pulse of singing blood, the secret +in their brains. Their years fell away. They were youth itself, dabbling +with the miracles of the world; they were boy and girl, new-created man +and woman. The world was a garden, and they were alone in that garden, +and nothing but beauty was in that place. They had each other to behold +and hear and touch and commune with. That was enough.... + +"Joe," said Myra, when the first glory had faded and they were +conversing sweetly, "I made up my mind to save you, and I did!" + +"Wonderful woman! And you're sure now you don't mind me--the way I'm +constructed in the cranium and all that?" + +"I love you, Joe!" She was as happy as a woman could be. + +"I'm a powerful idiot, Myra." + +"So am I." + +"Well," he mused, "you're taking your chances. Suppose I go off into +another strike or something?" + +"I'll go with you." + +"Myra," he said, "then let's go home and tell mother." + +They were as happy as children. They were well satisfied with the world. +In fact, they found it an amazingly good place. Every face that passed +seemed touched with beauty and high moral purpose, and the slate of +wrong and injustice and bitterness had been sponged clean. + +"Oh, Myra," cried Joe, "isn't it great to know that we have it in us to +go plumb loony once in a while? Isn't it great?" + +And so they made their way home, and walked tiptoe to the kitchen, and +stood hand in hand before Joe's mother. She wheeled. + +"Joe! Myra!" + +Joe gulped heavily. + +"I've brought you a daughter, mother, the loveliest one I could find!" + +Myra sobbed, and started forward--Joe's mother grasped her in a tight +hug, tears running fast. + +"It's about time, Joe," she cried, "it's just about time." + + + + +XIII + + +THE CITY + +Over the city the Spring cast its subtle spell. The skies had a more +fleeting blue and softer clouds and more golden sun. Here and there on a +window-sill a new red geranium plant was set out to touch the stone +walls with the green earth's glory. The salt breath of the sea, +wandering up the dusty avenues, called the children of men to new +adventures--hinted of far countries across the world, of men going down +to the sea in ships, of traffic and merchandise in fairer climes, of +dripping forest gloom and glittering peaks, of liquid-lisping brooks and +the green scenery of the open earth. + +Restlessness seized the hearts of men and the works of men. From the +almshouses and the jails emerged the vagrants, stopped overnight to meet +their cronies in dives and saloons, and next day took the freight to the +blooming West, or tramped by foot the dust of the roads that leave the +city and go ribboning over the shoulder and horizon of the world. +Windows were flung open, and the fresh sweet air came in to make the +babies laugh and the women wistful and the men lazy. Factories droned +with machines that seemed to grate against their iron fate. And of a +night, now, the parks, the byways, and the waterside were the haunts of +young lovers--stealing out together, arms round each other's waists--the +future of the world in their trembling hands. + +The air was full of the rumor of great things. Now, perchance, human +nature at last was going to reveal itself, the love and hope and +comradeliness and joy tucked away so deep in its interlinings. Now, +possibly, the streets were going to be full of singing, and the +housetops were going to rejoice with the mellower stars. Anything was +possible. Did not earth set an example, showing how out of a hard dead +crust and a forlorn and dry breast she could pour her new oceans of +million-glorious life? If the dead tree could blossom and put forth +green leaves, what dead soul need despair? + +Swinging and swaying and gliding, the great white Sound liner came up on +the morning and swept her flag-flapped way down the shining river. Her +glad whistle released her buoyant joy to the city, and the little tugs +and the ferries answered with their barks and their toots. Up she came, +triple-decked, her screw swirling in the green salt water, her smoke +curling lustrous in the low-hung sun. She passed Blackwells Island, she +swung easily beneath the great span of the Fifty-ninth Street bridge, +and gave "good-morning" to the lower city. + +On a side-deck, leaning over the rail, stood a man and a woman. The man +was strong, tan-faced, his eyes bright with fresh power. The woman was +rosy-cheeked and exquisite in her new beauty. For the miracle of Spring +which changed the earth had changed Myra and Joe. They too had put forth +power and life, blossom and new green leaves. They had gone to the earth +to be remade; they had given themselves over to the great physician, +Nature; they had surrendered to the soil and the sun and the air. Earth +had absorbed them, infolded them, and breathed anew in their spirits her +warmth, her joy, her powerful peace. They had run bare-headed in the +sun; they had climbed, panting, the jutting mountainside; they had taken +the winds of the world on the topmost peak; they had romped in the woods +and played in the meadow. And then, too, they had fed well, and rested +much, and been content with the generous world. + +And in that health and peace of nature at last to Joe had come the great +awakening of his life. The mental stock-taking he had begun on the day +when Lissner had spoken to him, reached there its climax; the confusion +cleared; the chaos took wonderful new shape. + +And he was amazed to see how he had changed and grown. He looked back on +the man who had gone down to West Tenth Street as on a callow and +ignorant youth, enthusiastic, but crude and untried. Back through those +past months he went with the search-light of introspection, and then at +last he knew. He had gone down to Greenwich Village crammed with +theories; he had set to work as if he were a sheltered scientist in a +quiet laboratory, where an experiment could be carried through, and +there suddenly he had been confronted with Facts! Facts! those queer +unbudgable things! Facts in a fierce stampede that engulfed and swept +him along and put all his dreams to a galloping test, a test wherein he +had even forgotten his dreams. + +He had gone the way of all reformers, first the explosive arousal, then +the theory, then the test. + +He went over the Greenwich Village experience with Myra: + +"Why," he laughed, "I expected to do great things. Whereas, look, I have +done _nothing_. This strike ends in a little bettering, and a few people +read my paper. It's just a little stir, hardly a dent--a few atoms set +into motion. How slow! how slow! _Patience_! That's the word I've +learned! It will take worlds of time; it will take a multitude striving; +it will take unnumbered forces--education, health-work, eugenics, +town-planning, the rise of women, philanthropy, law--a thousand thousand +dawning powers. Oh, we are only at the faint beginnings of things!" + +And he thought of the books he had read, and the theories of which he +had been so sure. + +"But," he exclaimed, "was my diagnosis correct? Did I really know the +human muddle? Has any man really mapped out civilization? It's so huge, +complex, varied--so many disorganized forces--who can classify it--label +it? It's bigger than our thought about it. We lay hands on only a few +wisps of it! Life! Life itself--not our interpretation--is the great +outworking force!" + +And then again. + +"We see certain tendencies and believe they will advance unhindered, but +there may be other tendencies to counteract, change, even defeat these. +No future can be predicted! And yet I was so sure of the future--so sure +of what we are to build--that future which we keep modifying so +persistently the moment it hits To-day." + +In short, he had reached his _social manhood_--which meant to him, not +dogma, but the willingness to arise every morning ready to reshape his +course, prepared for any adventure, receptive, open-minded, and all +willing to render his very life for what seemed good to do. Scientific +reverence this, the willingness to experiment, to try, to test, and +then, if the test failed, to grope for a new line of outlet, the +readiness to reverse all he believed in in the face of a new and +contradictory fact. He was a new Joe Blaine. + +And so the spirit that sprang from those dead girls became a creative +power, a patient, living strength. + +And so in the blaze of new morning, in the beginnings of a new life, +Joe and Myra leaned over the rail of the boat, coming back, coming back +to the ramparts and heights of the great World City. They saw full in +the glory of the morning sun those tiers on tiers of towers rising to +their lonely pinnacle. Beneath them harbor craft scurried about in the +bright waters; above them rose the Big Brothers of the city looking out +toward the sea. It seemed some vision builded of no human hands. It +seemed winged and uplifted toward the skies, an immensity of power and +beauty. It seemed to float on measureless waters, a magic metropolis, +setting sail for the Arabian Nights. + +Tears came into Joe's eyes. He held Myra's hand fast. + +"Are you glad to get back?" + +"Yes, glad, Joe." + +"No more peace, no more green earth, Myra." + +"I know it, Joe." + +"Even our honeymoon--that can't be repeated, can it?" + +"No," she said, sadly, "I guess it cannot." + +"And this means work, hardship, danger, injustice--all the troubles of +mankind." + +She pressed his hand. + +"Yet you're glad, Myra!" + +"I am." + +"Tell me why." + +"Because," she mused, "it's the beginning of our real life together." + +"How so _real_?" + +Myra's eyes were suffused with tears. + +"The common life--the life of people--the daily toil--the pangs and the +struggles. I'm hungry for it all!" + +He could have kissed her for the words. + +"We'll do, Myra," he cried, "we'll do. Do you know what I see this +morning?" + +"What?" + +"A new city! My old city, but all new." + +"It's you that is new, Joe." + +"And that's why I see the new city--a vision I shall see until some +larger vision replaces it. Shall I tell you about it?" + +"Tell me." + +"It is the city of five million comrades. They toil all day with one +another; they create all of beauty and use that men may need; they +exchange these things with each other; they go home at night to gardens +and simple houses, they find happy women there and sunburnt, laughing +children. Their evenings are given over to the best play--play with +others, play with masses, or play at home. They have time for study, +time for art, yet time for one another. Each loosens in himself and +gives to the world his sublime possibilities. A city of toiling +comrades, of sparkling homes, of wondrous art, and joyous festival. That +is the city I see before me!" He paused. "And to the coming of that city +I dedicate my life." + +She sighed. + +"It's too bright, too good for human nature." + +"Not for human nature," he whispered. "If only we are patient. If only +we are content to add our one stone to its rising walls." + +She pressed his hand again. + +"Joe," she murmured, "what do you think you'll be doing a year from +now?" + +"I don't know," he smiled. "Perhaps editing--perhaps working with a +strike--perhaps something else. But whatever it is, it will be some new +adventure--some new adventure!" + +So they entered that city hand in hand, the future all before them. And +they found neither that City of the Future nor a City of Degradation, +but a very human city full of very human people. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Nine-Tenths, by James Oppenheim + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11372 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c4cd111 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #11372 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11372) diff --git a/old/11372-8.txt b/old/11372-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e125f6c --- /dev/null +++ b/old/11372-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9863 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Nine-Tenths, by James Oppenheim + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Nine-Tenths + +Author: James Oppenheim + +Release Date: February 29, 2004 [EBook #11372] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NINE-TENTHS *** + + + + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Bill Walker and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +THE NINE-TENTHS + +BY JAMES OPPENHEIM +1911 + +TO THE MEMORY OF MY FATHER + + + + +CONTENTS + + +PART I--THE DREAM + +I. THE PRINTERY + +II. THE EAST EIGHTY-FIRST STREET FIRE + +III. THE GOOD PEOPLE + +IV. GOLDEN OCTOBER + +V. MYRA AND JOE + +VI. MARTY BRIGGS + +VII. LAST OF JOE BLAINE AND HIS MEN + +VIII. THE WIND IN THE OAKS + + +PART II--THE TEST + +I. BEGINNINGS + +II. THE NINE-TENTHS + +III. OTHERS: AND SALLY HEFFER + +IV. OTHERS: AND THEODORE MARRIN + +V. FORTY-FIVE TREACHEROUS MEN + +VI. A FIGHT IN GOOD EARNEST + +VII. OF THE THIRTY THOUSAND + +VIII. THE ARREST + +IX. RHONA + +X. THE TRIAL + +XI. THE WORKHOUSE + +XII. CONFIDENT MORNING + +XIII. THE CITY + + +PART I--THE DREAM + + + + +I + + +THE PRINTERY + +That windy autumn noon the young girls of the hat factory darted out of +the loft building and came running back with cans of coffee, and bags of +candy, and packages of sandwiches and cakes. They frisked hilariously +before the wind, with flying hair and sparkling eyes, and crowded into +the narrow entrance with the grimy pressmen of the eighth floor. Over +and over again the one frail elevator was jammed with the laughing crowd +and shot up to the hat factory on the ninth floor and back. + +The men smoked cigarettes as the girls chattered and flirted with them, +and the talk was fast and free. + +At the eighth floor the pressmen got off, still smoking, for "Mr. Joe" +was still out. Even after the presses started up they went on +surreptitiously, though near one group of them in a dark corner of the +printery lay a careless heap of cotton waste, thoroughly soaked with +machine-oil. This heap had been passed by the factory inspector +unnoticed, the pressmen took it for granted, and Joe, in his slipshod +manner, gave it no thought. Later that very afternoon as the opening of +the hall door rang a bell sharply and Joe came in, the men swiftly and +guiltily flung their lighted cigarettes to the floor and stepped them +out or crumpled them with stinging fingers in their pockets. But Joe did +not even notice the clinging cigarette smell that infected the strange +printery atmosphere, that mingled with its delightful odor of the +freshly printed page, damp, bitter-sweet, new. Once Marty Briggs, the +fat foreman, had spoken to Joe of the breaking of the "No Smoking" rule, +but Joe had said, with his luminous, soft smile: + +"Marty, the boys are only human--they see me smoking in the private +office!" + +Up and down the long, narrow, eighth-floor loft the great intricate +presses stood in shadowy bulk, and the intense gray air was spotted here +and there with a dangling naked electric bulb, under whose radiance the +greasy, grimy men came and went, pulling out heaps of paper, sliding in +sheets, tinkering at the machinery. Overhead whirled and traveled a +complex system of wheels and belting, whirring, thumping, and turning, +and the floor, the walls, the very door trembled with the shaking of the +presses and made the body of every man there pleasantly quiver. + +The stir of the hat factory on the floor above mingled with the stir of +the presses, and Joe loved it all, even as he loved the presence of the +young girls about him. Some of these girls were Bohemians, others +Jewish, a few American. They gave to the gaunt, smoky building a touch +as of a wild rose on a gray rock-heap--a touch of color and of melody. +Joe, at noon, would purposely linger near the open doorway to get a +glimpse of their bright faces and a snatch of their careless laughter. +Some of the girls knew him and would nod to him on the street--their +hearts went out to the tall, homely, sorrowful fellow. + +But his printery was his chief passion. It absorbed him by its masterful +stress, overwhelming every sense, trembling, thundering, clanking, +flashing, catching his eye with turning wheels and chewing press-mouths, +and enveloping him in something tremulously homelike and elemental. Even +that afternoon as Joe stood at the high wall-desk near the door, under a +golden bulb of light, figuring on contracts with Marty Briggs, he felt +his singular happiness of belonging. Here he had spent the work hours of +the last ten years; he was a living part of this living press-room; this +was as native to him as the sea to a fish. And glancing about the +crowded gray room, everything seemed so safe, secure, unending, as if it +would last forever. + +Up to that very evening Joe had been merely an average American--clean +of mind and body, cheerful, hard-working, democratic, willing to live +and let live, and striving with all his heart and soul for success. His +father had served in the Civil War and came back to New York with his +right sleeve pinned up, an emaciated and sick man. Then Joe's mother had +overridden the less imperious will of the soldier and married him, and +they had settled down in the city. Henry Blaine learned to write with +his left hand and became a clerk. It was the only work he could do. +Then, as his health became worse and worse, he was ordered to live in +the country (that was in 1868), and as the young couple had scarcely any +money they were glad to get a little shanty on the stony hill which is +now the corner of Eighty-first Street and Lexington Avenue and is the +site of a modern apartment-house. But Joe's mother was glad even of a +shanty; she made an adventure of it; she called herself the wife of a +pioneer, and said that they were making a clearing in the Western +wilderness. + +Here in 1872 Joe was born, and he was hardly old enough to crawl about +when his father became too sick to work, and his mother had to leave +"her two men" home together and go out and do such work as she could. +This consisted largely in reading to old ladies in the neighborhood, +though sometimes she had to do fancy needlework and sometimes take in +washing. Of these last achievements she was justly proud, though it made +Henry Blaine wince with shame. + +Joe was only six years old when his father died, and from then on he and +his mother fought it out together. The boy entered the public school on +Seventy-ninth Street, and grew amazingly, his mind keeping pace. He was +a splendid absorber of good books; and his mother taught him her poets +and they went through English literature together. + +Yorkville sprang up, a rubber-stamped neighborhood, of which each street +was a brownstone duplicate of the next. The rocky hill became valuable +and went for twenty thousand dollars, of which three thousand had to be +deducted for the mortgage. Then Joe graduated from high school, and, +lusting for life, took a clerk's job with one of the big express +companies. He held this for two years, and learned an interesting +fact--namely, that a clerk's life began at 5 P.M. and ended at 8.30 A.M. +In between the clerk was a dead but skilled machine that did the work of +a child. He learned, besides, that advancement was slow and only for a +few, and he saw these few, men past middle life, still underlings. A man +of forty-five with a salary of three thousand was doing remarkably well, +and, as a rule, he was a dried-up, negative, timid creature. + +Out of all this he went like a stick of dynamite, took the seventeen +thousand dollars and went into his father's business of printing. Joe +was shrewd, despite his open nature; he never liked to be "done"; and so +he made money and made it fast. Besides his printing he did some +speculating in real estate, and so at thirty-eight he was a successful +business man and could count himself worth nearly a hundred thousand +dollars. He made little use of this money; his was a simple, serious, +fun-loving nature, and all his early training had made for plain living +and economy. And so for years he and his mother had boarded in a +brownstone boarding-house in the quiet block west of Lexington Avenue up +the street. They spent very little on themselves. In fact, Joe was too +busy. He was all absorbed in the printery--he worked early and late--and +of recent years in the stress of business his fine relationship with his +mother had rather thinned out. They began leading separated lives; they +began shutting themselves away from each other. + +And so here he was, thirty-eight years of his life gone, and what had it +all been? Merely the narrow, steady, city man's life--work, rest, a +little recreation, sleep. Outside his mother, his employees, his +customers, and the newspapers he knew little of the million-crowded life +of the city about him. He used but one set of streets daily; he did not +penetrate the vast areas of existence that cluttered the acres of stone +in every direction. There stood the city, a great fact, and even that +afternoon as the wild autumn wind blew from the west and rapid, ragged +cloud masses passed huge shadows over the ship-swept Hudson, darkened +briefly the hurrying streets, extinguished for a moment the glitter of +a skyscraper and went gray-footed over the flats of Long Island, even +at that moment terrific forces, fierce aggregations of man-power, +gigantic blasts of tamed electricity, gravitation, fire, and steam and +steel, made the hidden life of the city cyclonic. And in that mesh of +nature and man the human comedy went on--there was love and disaster, +frolic and the fall of a child, the boy buying candy in a shop, the +woman on the operating-table in the hospital. Who could measure that +swirl of life and whither it was leading? But who could live in the +heart of it all and be unaware of it? + +Yet Joe's eyes were unseeing. Children played on the street, people +walked and talked, the toilers were busy at their tasks, and that was +all he knew or saw. And yet of late he had a new, unexpected vista of +life. Like many men, Joe had missed women. There was his mother, but no +one else. He was rather shy, and he was too busy. But during the last +few months a teacher--Myra Craig--had been coming to the printery to +have some work done for the school. She had strangely affected +Joe--sprung an electricity on him that troubled him profoundly. He could +not forget her, nor wipe her image from his brain, nor rid his ears of +the echoes of her voice. He went about feeling that possibly he had +underrated poetry and music. Romance, led by Myra's hand, had entered +the dusty printery and Joe began to feel like a youngster who had been +blind to life. + +Outside the world was blowing away on the gray wings of the twilight, +blowing away with eddies of dust that swept the sparkling street-lamps, +and the air was sharp with a tang of homesickness and autumn. The +afternoon was quietly waning, up--stairs the hat-makers, and here the +printers, were toiling in a crowded, satisfying present, and Joe stood +there musing, a tall, gaunt man, the upstart tufts of his tousled hair +glistening in the light overhead. His face was the homeliest that ever +happened. The mouth was big and big-lipped, the eyes large, dark, +melancholy and slightly sunken, and the mask was a network of wrinkles. +His hands were large, mobile, and homely. But about him was an air of +character and thought, of kindliness and camaraderie, of very human +nature. He stood there wishing that Myra would come. The day seemed to +demand it; the wild autumn cried out for men to seek the warmth and +forgetful glory of love. + +He could get some nice house and make a home for her; he could take her +out of the grind and deadliness of school-work and make her happy; there +would be little children in that house. He thought she loved him; yes, +he was quite sure. Then what hindrance? There, at quarter to five that +strange afternoon, Joe felt that he had reached the heights of success, +and he saw no obstacle to long years of solid advance. He had before +his eyes the evidence of his wealth--the great, flapping presses, the +bending, moving men. If anything was sure and solid in this world, these +things were. + +He felt sure Myra would come. She had not been around for a week, and, +anticipating a new meeting with her, he felt very young, like a very +young man for the first time aware of the strange loveliness of night, +its haunting and hidden beauties, its women calling from afar. It all +seemed wild and impossible romance. It smote his heart-strings and set +them trembling with music. He wondered why he had been so stupid all +these years and evaded life, evaded joys that should have been his +twenty years earlier. Now it seemed to him that his youth had passed +from him defeated of its splendor. + +If Myra came to-day he would tell her. The very thought gave his heart a +lovely quake of fear, a trembling that communicated itself to his hands +and down his legs, a throbbing joy dashed with a strange tremor. And +then as he wanted, as he wished for, the door beside him opened and the +bell sharply sounded. + +She stood there, very small, very slight, but quite charming in her +neat, lace-touched clothes. A fringe at the wrist, a bunch at the neck, +struck her off as some one delicate and sensitive, and the face +strengthened this impression. It was long and oval, with a narrow +woman-forehead cut off by a curve of dark hair; the mouth was small and +sweet; the nose narrow; the eyes large, clear gray, penetrating. Under +the gracefully modeled felt hat she stood quite complete, quite a +personality. One instantly guessed that she was an aristocrat by birth +and breeding. But her age was doubtful, seeming either more or less than +the total, which was thirty-two. + +There she stood, glancing at Joe with a breathless eagerness. He turned +pale, and yet at the same time there was a whirl of fire in his heart. +She had come to him; he wanted to gather her close and bear her off +through the wild autumn weather, off to the wilderness. He reached out a +hand and inclosed a very cold and very little one. + +"Why, you're frozen!" he said, with a queer laugh. + +"Oh--not much!" she gasped. She held her leather bag under her arm and +took off her gloves. Then she loosened her coat, and gave a sigh. + +He gazed at her warm-tinted cheek, almost losing himself, and then +murmured, suddenly: + +"More school stuff?" + +She made a grimace and tried to speak lightly, but her voice almost +failed her. + +"Class 6-B, let me tell you, is giving the 'Landing of the Pilgrims,' +and every blessed little pilgrim is Bohemian. Here's the programme!" + +With trembling fingers she opened her bag and handed him some loose +sheets. He bent over them at once. + +"Now make it cheap, Mr. Blaine," she said, severely. "Rock bottom! Or +I'll give the job to some one else." + +Joe laughed strangely. + +"How many copies?" + +"One thousand." + +He spoke as if in fear. + +"Fifty cents too much?" + +Myra laughed. + +"I don't want the school to ruin you!" + +He said nothing further, and in the awkward silence she began pitifully +to button her coat. There was no reason for staying. + +Then suddenly he spoke, huskily: + +"Don't go, Miss Craig...." + +"You want ..." she began. + +He leaned very close. + +"I want to take a walk with you. May I?" + +She became dead white, and the terror of nature's resistless purpose +with men and women, that awful gravitation, that passion of creation +that links worlds and uses men and women, went through them both. + +"I may?" he was whispering. + +Her "Yes" was almost inaudible. + +So Joe put on his coat, and slapped over his head a queer gray slouch +hat, and called over Marty. + +"I won't be back to-night, Marty!" he said. + +Then at the door he gave one last glance at his life-work, the orderly +presses, the harnessed men, and left it all as if it must surely be +there when he returned. He was proud at that moment to be Joe Blaine, +with his name in red letters on the glass door, and under his name +"Power Printer." His wife would be able to hold her head high. + +The frail elevator took them clanking, bumping, slipping, down, down +past eight floors, to the street level. The elevator boy, puffing at his +cigarette, remarked, amiably: + +"Gee! it's a windy day. It's gittin' on to winter, all right.... +Good-night, Mr. Blaine!" + +"Good-night, Tom," said Joe. + + + + +II + + +THE EAST EIGHTY-FIRST STREET FIRE + +They emerged in all the magic wildness of an autumn night and walked +east on Eighty-first Street. The loft building was near the corner of +Second Avenue. They passed under the elevated structure, cutting through +a hurrying throng of people. + +"Take my arm," cried Joe. + +She took it, trembling. They made an odd couple passing along between +the squalid red-brick tenements, now in shadow, now in the glow of some +little shop window, now under a sparkling lamp. At Avenue A they went +south to Seventy-ninth Street, and again turned east, passing a row of +bright model tenements, emerging at last at the strange riverside. + +Down to the very edge of the unpaved waste they walked, or rather +floated, so strange and uplifted and glorious they felt, blown and +carried bodily with the exultant west wind, and they only stopped when +they reached the wooden margin, where an old scow, half laden with +brick, was moored fast with ropes. This scow heaved up and down with the +motion of the rolling waters; the tight ropes grated; the water swashed +melodiously. + +The man and woman seemed alone there, a black little lump in the vast +spaces, for behind them the city receded beyond empty little hill-sides +and there was nothing some distance north and south. + +"Look," said Joe, "look at the tide!" + +It was running north, a wide expanse of rolling waters from their feet +to Blackwells Island in the east, all hurling swiftly like a billowing +floor of gray. Here and there whitecaps spouted. On Blackwells Island +loomed the gray hospitals and workhouses, and at intervals on the shore +sparkled a friendly light. + +"But see the bridge," exclaimed Myra. + +She pointed far south, where across the last of the day ran a slightly +arched string of lights, binding shore with shore. On the New York side, +and nearer, rose the high chimneys of mills, and from these a purplish +smoke swirled thickly, melting into the gray weather. + +And it seemed to Joe at that wild moment that nothing was as beautiful +as smoking chimneys. They meant so much--labor, human beings, fire, +warmth. + +And over all--river, bridge, chimneys, Blackwells Island, and the +throbbing city behind them--rose the immense gray-clouded heavens. A +keen smell of the far ocean came to their nostrils and the air was clear +and exhilarant. Then, as they watched, suddenly a tug lashed between +enormous flat boats on which were red freight-cars, swept north with the +tide. A thin glaze of heat breathed up from the tug's pipe; it was +moving without its engines, and the sight was unbelievable. The whole +huge mass simply shot the river, racing by them. + +And then the very magic of life was theirs. The world fell from them, +the dusty scales of facts, the complex intricacies of existence melted +away. They were very close, and the keen, yelling wind was wrapping them +closer. Vision filled the gray air, trembled up from the river to the +heavens. They rose from all the chaos like two white flames blown by the +wind together--they were two gigantic powers of the earth preparing like +gods for new creation. In that throbbing moment each became the world to +the other, and love, death-strong, shot their hearts. + +He turned, gazing strangely at her pale, eager, breathless face. + +"I want ..." he began. + +"Yes," she breathed. + +He opened his lips, and the sound that escaped seemed like a sob. + +"Myra!" + +And then at the sound of her name she was all woman, all love. She cried +out: + +"Joe!" + +And they flung their arms round each other. She sobbed there, overcome +with the yearning, the glory, the beatitude of that moment. + +"Oh," he cried, "how I love you!... Myra ..." + +"Joe, Joe--I couldn't have stood it longer!" + +All of life, all of the past, all of the million years of earth melted +into that moment, that moment when a man and a woman, mingled into one, +stood in the heart of the wonder, the love, the purpose of nature--a +mad, wild, incoherent half-hour, a secret ecstasy in the passing of the +twilight, in the swing of the wind and the breath of the sea. + +"Come home to my mother," cried Joe. "Come home with me!" + +They turned ... and Myra was a strange new woman, tender, grave, and +wrought of all lovely power, her face, in the last of the light, mellow +and softly glowing with a heightened woman-power. + +"Yes," she said, "I want to see Joe's mother." + +It was Joe's last step to success. Now he had all--his work, his love. +He felt powerfully masculine, triumphant, glorious. + +Night had fallen, and on the darkness broke and sparkled a thousand +lights in tenement windows and up the shadowy streets--everywhere homes, +families; men, women, and children busily living together; everywhere +love. Joe glanced, his eyes filling. Then he paused. + +"Look at that," he said in a changed voice. + +Over against the west, a little to the north, the gray heavens were +visible--a lightning seemed to run over them--a ghastly red +lightning--sharply silhouetting the chimneyed housetops. + +"What is it?" said Myra. + +He gazed at it, transfixed. + +"That's a fire ... a big fire." Then suddenly his face, in the pale +light of a street-lamp, became chalky white and knotted. He could barely +speak. "It must be on Eighty-first or Eighty-second Street." + +She spoke shrilly, clutching his arm. + +"Not ... the loft?" + +"Oh, it can't be!" he cried, in an agony. "But come ... hurry ..." + +They started toward Eighty-first Street up Avenue A. They walked fast; +and it seemed suddenly to Joe that he had been dancing on a thin crust, +and that the crust had broken and he was falling through. He turned and +spoke harshly: + +"You must run!" + +Fear made their feet heavy as they sped, and their hearts seemed to be +exploding in their breasts. They felt as if that fire were consuming +them; as if its tongues of flame licked them up. And so they came to the +corner of Eighty-first Street and turned it, and looked, and stopped. + +Joe spoke hoarsely. + +"It's burning;... it's the loft.... The printery's on fire...." + +Beyond the elevated structure at Second Avenue the loft building rose +like a grotesque gigantic torch in the night. Swirls of flame rolled +from the upper three stories upward in a mane of red, tossing volumes of +smoke, and the wild wind, combing the fire from the west, rained down +cinders and burned papers on Joe and Myra as they rushed up the street. +Every window was blankly visible in the extreme light, streams of water +played on the walls, and the night throbbed with the palpitating, +pounding fire-engines. + +And it seemed to Joe as if life were torn to bits, as if the world's end +had come. It was unbelievable, impossible--his eyes belied his brain. +That all those years of labor and dream and effort were going up in +flame and smoke seemed preposterous. And only a few moments before he +and Myra had stood on the heights of the world; had their mad moment; +and even then his life was being burned away from him. He felt the +hoarse sobs lifting up through his throat. + +They reached Second Avenue, and were stopped by the vast swaying crowd +of people, a density that could not be cloven. They went around about it +frantically; they bore along the edge of the crowd, beside the houses; +they wedged past one stoop; they were about to get past the next, when, +in the light of the lamp, Joe saw a strange sight. Crouched on that +stoop, with clothes torn, with hair loosed down her back, her face +white, her lips gasping, sat one of the hat factory girls. It was Fannie +Lemick. Joe knew her. And no one seemed to notice her. The crowd was +absorbed in other things. + +And even at that moment Joe heard the dire clanging of ambulances, and +an awful horror dizzied his brain. No, no, not that! He clutched the +stoop-post, leaned, cried weirdly: + +"Fannie! Fannie!" + +She gazed up at him. Then she recognized him and gave a terrible sob. + +"Mr. Joe! Oh, how did you get out?" + +"I wasn't there," he breathed. "Fannie! what's happened?... None of the +girls ..." + +"You didn't know?" she gasped. + +He felt the life leaving his body; it seemed impossible. + +"No ..." he heard himself saying. "Tell me...." + +She looked at him with dreadful eyes and spoke in a low, deadly, +monotonous voice: + +"The fire-escape was no good; it broke under some of the girls;... they +fell;... we jammed the hall;... some of the girls jumped down the +elevator shaft;... they couldn't get out ... and Miss Marks, the +forelady, was trying to keep us in order.... She stayed there ... and I +ran down the stairs, and dropped in the smoke, and crawled ... but when +I got to the street ... I looked back ... Mr. Joe ... the girls were +jumping from the windows...." + +Joe seized the stoop-post. His body seemed torn in two; he began to +reel. + +"From the ninth floor," he muttered, "and couldn't get out.... And I +wasn't there! Oh, God, why wasn't I killed there!" + + + + +III + + +THE GOOD PEOPLE + +Joe broke through the fire line. He stepped like a calcium-lit figure +over the wet, gleaming pavement, over the snaky hose, and among the +rubber-sheathed, glistening firemen, gave one look at the ghastly heap +on the sidewalk, and then became, like the host of raving relatives and +friends and lovers, a man insane. It was as if the common surfaces of +life--the busy days, the labor, the tools, the houses--had been drawn +aside like a curtain and revealed the terrific powers that engulf +humanity. + +In his ears sounded the hoarse cries of the firemen, the shout of the +sprayed water, the crash of axes, the shatter of glass. It was too +magnificent a spectacle, nature, like a Nero, using humanity to make a +sublime torch in the night. And through his head pulsed and pulsed the +defiant throb of the engines. Cinders fell, sticks, papers, and Joe saw +fitfully the wide ring of hypnotized faces. It was as if the world had +fallen into a pit, and human beings looked on each other aghast. + +"Get back there!" cried a burly policeman. + +Joe resisted his shouldering. + +"I'm Mr. Blaine;... it's my loft burning. I'm looking for my men...." + +"Go to the morgue then," snapped the policeman. "A fire line's a fire +line." + +Joe was pushed back, and as the crowd closed about him, a soft pressure +of clothing, men and women, he became aware of the fact that he had lost +his head. He pulled himself together; he told himself that he, a human +being, was greater than anything that could happen; that he must set his +jaw and fight and brave his way through the facts. He must get to work. + +Myra clutched his sleeve. He turned to her a face of death, but she +brought her wide eyes close to him. + +"Joe! Joe!" + +"Myra," he said, in a whisper, suddenly in that moment getting a sharp +revelation of his changed life. "I may never see you again. I belong to +those dead girls." He paused. "Go home ... do that for me, anyway." + +He had passed beyond her; there was no opposing him. + +"I'll go," she murmured. + +Then, dizzily, she reeled back, and was lost in the crowd. + +And then he set to work. He was strangely calm now, numb, unfeeling. +There was nothing more to experience, and the overwrought brain refused +any new emotions. So stupendous was the catastrophe that it left him +finally calm, ready, and eagerly awake. He stepped gently through the +crowd, searching, and found John Rann, the pressman. John wept like a +little boy when they met. + +"Marty got out ... yes ... most of us did ... but Eddie Baker, Morty, +and Sam Bender.... It was the cotton waste, Mr. Joe, and the +cigarettes...." + +Joe put his arm about the rough man. + +"Never mind, Johnny ... Go home to the kiddies...." + +There was so little he could do. He went to a few homes he knew, he went +to the hospital to ask after the injured, he went to the morgue. At +midnight the fire, like an evil thing, drew him back, and he encountered +only a steamy blackness lit by the search-light of the engine. There was +still the insistent throbbing. And then he thought of his mother and her +fears, and sped swiftly up the street, over deserted Lexington Avenue, +and up the lamp-lit block. Already newsboys were hoarsely shouting in +the night, as they waved their papers--a cry of the underworld +palpitating through the hushed city: "Wuxtra! Wuxtra! +Great--fire--horror! Sixty--killed! Wuxtra!" + +The house was still open, lighted, awake. People came into the hall as +he entered, but he shunned them and started up the stairs. One called +after him. + +"Your mother's out, Mr. Joe." + +He turned. + +"Out? How long?" + +"Since the fire started ... She's been back and forth several times ..." + +He went on up, entered the neat, still front room, lit the gas beside +the bureau mirror, and began to pace up and down. His mother was +searching for him; he might have known it; he should have remembered it. + +And then he heard the uncanny shouting of the newsboys--as if those dead +girls had risen from their ashes and were running like flaming furies +through the city streets, flinging handfuls of their fire into a million +homes, shaking New York into a realization of its careless, guilty +heart, crying for vengeance, stirring horror and anger and pity. Who was +the guilty one, if not he, the boss? + +And then the inquisition began, the repeated sting of lashing thoughts +and cruel questions. He asked himself what right he had to be an +employer, to take the responsibility of thirty lives in his hands. He +was careless, easy-going, he was in business for profits. Had such a man +any right to be placed over others, to be given the power over other +lives? The guilt was his; the blame fell on him. He should have kept +clean house; he should have stamped out the smoking; he should not have +smoked himself. There fell upon his shoulders a burden not to be borne, +the burden of his blame, and he felt as if nothing now in the world +could assuage that sense of guilt. + +Life, he found, was a fury, a cyclone, not the simple, easy affair he +had thought it. It was his living for himself, his living alone, his +ignorance of the fact that his life was tangled in with the lives of all +human beings, so that he was socially responsible, responsible for the +misery and poverty and pain all about him. + +That _he_ should be the one! Had he not lived just the average +life--blameless, cheerful, hard-working, fun-loving--the life of the +average American? Just by every-day standards his was the useful and +good life. But no, that was not enough. In his rush for success he had +made property his treasure instead of human beings. That was the crime. +And so these dead lay all about him as if he had murdered them with his +hands. It was his being an average man that had killed sixty-three girls +and men. And what had he been after? Money? He did not use his money, +did not need so much. Just a little shared with his employees would have +saved them. No, the average man must cease to exist, and the social man +take his place, the brother careful of his fellow-men, not careless of +all but his own gain. + +A boy passed, hoarsely shouting that terrible extra. Would nothing in +the world silence that sound? The cold sweat came out on his face. He +was the guilty one. That was the one fact that he knew. + +And then he paused; the door opened creakingly and his mother entered. +She was a magnificent young-old woman, her body sixty-three years old, +her mind singularly fresh and young. She was tall, straight, spirited, +and under the neat glossy-white hair was a noble face, somewhat long, +somewhat slim, a little pallid, but with firm chin and large forehead +and living large black eyes set among sharp lines of lids. The whole +woman was focussed in the eyes, sparkled there, lived there, deep, +limpid, quick, piercing. Her pallor changed to pure whiteness. + +"Joe ..." her voice broke. "I've been looking for you...." + +He paused, walled away from her by years of isolation. She advanced +slowly; her face became terrible in its hungry love, its mother passion. +She met his eyes, and then he fled to her, and his body shook with +rough, tearless sobs. Her relief came in great tears. + +"And all those girls," she was murmuring, "and those men. How did it +happen?" + +He drew back; his eyes became strange. + +"Mother," he said, harshly, "I'm the guilty one. There was a heap of +cotton waste in the corner, shouldn't have been there. And I let the men +smoke cigarettes." + +She was horrified. + +"But _why_ did you do that?" she whispered, moving a little away from +him. + +"My thoughtlessness ... my _business_." The word was charged with +bitterness. "Business! business! I'm a business man! I wasn't in +business"--he gave a weird laugh--"for the health of my employees! I was +making money!" + +She looked at him as if he had ceased being her son and had turned into +a monster. Then she swayed, grasped the bedpost and sank on the bed. + +Her voice was low and harsh. + +"_Your_ fault ... and all those young girls...." + +His mother had judged him; he looked at her with haggard eyes, and spoke +in a hollow voice. + +"Nothing will ever wipe this guilt from my mind.... I'm branded for +life ... this thing will go on and on and on every day that I live...." + +She glanced at him then, and saw only her son, the child she had carried +in her arms, the boy who had romped with her, and she only knew now that +he was suffering, that no one on earth could be in greater pain. + +"Oh, my poor Joe!" she murmured. + +"Yes," he went on, beside himself, "I'm blasted with guilt...." + +She cried out: + +"If you go on like this, we'll both go out of our minds, Joe! Fight! +It's done ... it's over.... From now on, make amends.... Joe!"--She rose +magnificently then--"Your father lost his arm in the war.... Now give +your life to setting things right!" + +And she drew him close again. Her words, her love, her belief in him +roused him at last. + +"You know the fault isn't all yours," she said. "The factory inspector's +to blame, too--and the men--and the people up-stairs--and the law +because it didn't demand better protection and fire-drills--all are to +blame. You take too much on yourself...." + +And gradually, striving with him through the early morning hours, she +calmed him, she soothed him, and got him to bed. He was at last too +weary to think or feel and he slept deep into the day. And thinking a +little of herself, she realized that the tragedy had brought them closer +together than they had been for years. + + * * * * * + +Out of those ashes on East Eighty-first Street rose a certain splendor +over the city. All of New York drew together with indignation and +wondrous pity. It did not bring the dead girls to life again--it was too +late for that--but it brought many other dead people to life. + +Fifty thousand dollars flowed to the newspapers for relief; an inquest +probed causes and guilt and prevention; mass--meetings were held; the +rich and the powerful forgot position and remembered their common +humanity; and the philanthropic societies set to work with money, with +doctors and nurses and visitors. The head of one huge association said +to the relief committee in a low, trembling voice: "Of course, our whole +staff is at your service." Just for a time, a little time, the +five-million-manned city flavored its confused, selfish struggle with +simple brotherhood. + +How had it happened? Whose was the fault? How came it that sixty girls +were imprisoned in the skies, as it were, and could only fling +themselves down to the stone pavement in an insanity of terror? What war +was more horrible than this Peace of Industry? Such things must be +prevented in future, said New York, rising like a wrathful god--and for +a while the busy wheels of progress turned. + +Joe had to attend the inquest as a witness. He gave his testimony in a +simple, sincere, and candid way that gained him sympathy. His men +testified in his behalf, trying to wholly exonerate him and inculpate +themselves, and the lawyers cleverly scattered blame from one power to +another--the city, the State, the fire department, the building +department, etc. It became clear that Joe could not be officially +punished; it was evident that he had done as much as the run of +employers to protect life, and that his intentions had been blameless. + +However, that did not ease Joe's real punishment. He was a changed man +that week, calm, ready with his smile, but haggard and bowed, nervous +and overwrought, bearing a burden too heavy for his heart. He made over +the twenty thousand dollars of insurance money to the Relief and +Prevention Work; he visited the injured and the bereaved; he forgot Myra +and tried to forget himself; he attended committee meetings. + +Myra wrote him a little note: + + DEAR JOE,--Don't forget that whatever happens I + believe in you utterly and I love you and shall always + love you, and that you have me when all else is lost. + + Your + MYRA. + +To which he merely replied: + + DEAR MYRA,--I shall remember what you say, and I + shall see you when I can. + + Yours, + JOE. + +It was on Sunday afternoon that Joe met Fannie Lemick on the street. Her +eyes filled with tears and he noticed she was trembling. + +"Mr. Joe!" she cried. + +"Yes, Fannie...." + +"Are you going, too?" + +"Going where?" + +"Don't you know? _The mass-meeting at Carnegie Hall_!" + +He looked at her, smiling. + +"I'll go with you, if I may!" + +So they went down together. A jam of poor people was crowding the +doors, and a string of automobiles drew up and passed at the curb. Joe +and Fannie got in the throng. There was no room left in the orchestra +and they were swept with the flood up and up, flight after flight, to +the high gallery. Here they found seats and looked down, down as if on +the side of the planet, on the far-away stage filled with the speakers +and the committees, and on that sea of humanity that swept back and up +through the boxes to themselves. All in the subdued light, the golden +light that crowd sat, silent, remorseful, stirred by a sense of having +risen to a great occasion; thousands of human beings, the middle class, +the rich, the poor; Americans, Germans, Italians, Jews. But all about +him Joe felt a silent hatred, a still cry for vengeance, a class +bitterness. Many of these were relatives of the dead. + +It was a demonstration of the human power that refuses to submit to +environment and circumstance and fate; that rises and rebukes facts, +reshapes destiny. And then the speaking began: the bishop, the rabbi, +the financier, the philanthropist, the social worker. They spoke +eloquently, they showed pity, they were constructive, they were prepared +to act; they represented the "better classes" and promised the "poor," +the toilers, that they would see that relief and protection were given; +but somehow their eloquence did not carry; somehow that mass of +commonest men and women refused to be stirred and thrilled. There was +even a little hissing when it was announced that a committee of big men +would see to the matter. + +Joe had a dull sense of some monstrous social cleavage; the world +divided into the rulers and the ruled, the drivers and the driven. He +felt uncomfortable, and so did the throng. There was a feeling as if the +crowd ought to have a throat to give vent to some strange, fierce fact +that festered in its heart. + +And then toward the end the chairman announced that one of the +hat-trimmers, one of the girls who worked--in another hat factory, would +address the meeting--Miss Sally Heffer. + +A girl arose, a young woman with thin, sparse, gold-glinting hair, with +face pallid and rounded, with broad forehead and gray eyes of remarkable +clarity. She was slim, dressed in a little brown coat and a short brown +skirt. She came forward, trembling, as if overcome by the audience. She +paused, raised her head and tried to speak. There was not a sound, and +suddenly the audience became strangely still, leaning forward, waiting. + +Then again she tried to speak; it was hardly above a whisper; and yet so +clear was the hush that Joe heard every word. And he knew, and all knew, +that this young woman was overcome, not by the audience, but by the +passion of the tragedy, the passion of an oppressed class. She was the +voice of the toilers at last dimly audible; she was the voice of a +million years of sore labor and bitter poverty and thwarted life. And +the audience was thrilled, and the powerful were shaken with remorse. + +Trembling, terrible came the words out of that little body on the far +stage: + +"I would be a traitor to these poor burned bodies if I came here to talk +good-fellowship. We have tried you good people of the public and we have +found you wanting. The old Inquisition had its rack and its thumbscrews +and its instruments of torture with iron teeth. We know what these +things are to-day: the iron teeth are our necessities, the thumbscrews +the high-powered and swift machinery close to which we must work, and +the rack is here in the fire-trap structures that will destroy us the +minute they catch on fire. + +"This is not the first time girls have been burned alive in this city. +Every week I learn of the untimely death of one of my sister workers. +Every year thousands of us are maimed. _The life of men and women is so +cheap and property is so sacred!_ There are so many of us for one job, +it matters little if sixty of us are burned to death. + +"We have tried you citizens; we are trying you now, and you have a +couple of dollars for the sorrowing mothers and brothers and sisters by +way of a charity gift. But every time the workers come out in the only +way they know to protest against conditions which are unbearable, the +strong hand of the law is allowed to press heavily down on us. + +"Public officials have only words of warning to us--warning that we must +be intensely orderly and intensely peaceable, and they have the +workhouse just back of all their warnings. + +"I can't talk fellowship to you who are gathered here. Too much blood +has been spilled. I know from my experience it is up to the working +people to save themselves. The only way they can save themselves is by a +strong working-class movement." + +Joe heard nothing further. There were several other speakers, but no +words penetrated to his brain. He felt as if he must stifle. He felt the +globe of earth cracking, breaking in two under his feet, and for the +first time in his life he was acutely aware of the division of humanity. +All through his career he had taken his middle-class position for +granted; he tacitly agreed that there were employees and employers; but +in his own case his camaraderie had hidden the cleavage. Now he saw a +double world--on the one side the moneyed owners, on the other the +crowded, scrambling, disorganized hordes of the toilers--each one of +them helpless, a victim, worked for all that was in him, and then flung +aside in the scrap heap. And behold, this horde was becoming +self-conscious, was beginning to organize, was finding a voice. And he, +who was one of the "good people," was rejected by this voice. He had +been "tried" and found wanting. He was on the other side of the fence. +And it was the fault of his class that fire horrors and all the chaos +and cruelty of industry arose. So that now the working people had found +that they must "save themselves." + +In an agony of guilt again he felt what he had said to Myra: "From now +on I belong to those dead girls"--yes, and to their fellow-workers. +Suddenly it seemed to him that he must see Sally Heffer--that to her he +must carry the burden of his guilt--to her he must personally make +answer to the terrible accusations she had voiced. It was all at once, +as if only in this way could he go on living, that otherwise he would +end in the insanity of the mad-house or the insanity of suicide. + +He was walking down the stairs with Fannie, and he was trembling. + +"Do you know this Sally Heffer?" + +"Know her? We all do!" she cried, with all a young girl's enthusiasm. + +"I want to see her, Fannie. Where does she live?" + +"Oh, somewhere in Greenwich Village. But she'll be up at the Woman's +League after the meeting." + +He went up to the Woman's League and found the office crowded with women +and men. He asked for Miss Heffer. + +"I'll take your name," said the young woman, and then came back with the +answer that "he'd have to wait." + +So he took a seat and waited. He felt feverish and sick, as if he could +no longer carry this burden with him. It seemed impossible to sit still. +And yet he waited over an hour, waited until it was eight at night, all +the gas-jets lit. + +The young woman came up to him. + +"You want to see Miss Heffer? Come this way." + +He was led up a flight of stairs to a little narrow hall-room. Sally +Heffer was there at a roll-top desk, still in her little brown +coat--quiet, pale, her clear eyes remarkably penetrating. She turned. + +"Yes?" + +He shook pitifully,... then he sat down, holding his hat in his hands. + +"I'm Joe Blaine...." + +"Joe Blaine ... of what?" + +"Of the printery ... that burned...." + +She looked at him sharply. + +"So, you're the employer." + +"Yes, I am." + +"Well," she said, brusquely, "what do you want?" + +"I heard you speak this afternoon." His face flickered with a smile. + +"And so you ...?" + +He could say nothing; and she looked closer. She saw his gray face, his +unsteady eyes, the tragedy of the broken man. Then she spoke with a +lovely gentleness. + +"You want to do something?" + +"Yes," he murmured, "I want to give--all." + +She lowered her voice, and it thrilled him. + +"It won't help to give your money--you must give yourself. We don't want +charity." + +He said nothing for a moment; and then strength rose in him. + +"I'll tell you why I came.... I felt I had to.... I felt that you were +accusing me. I know I am guilty. I have come here to be"--he smiled +strangely--"sentenced." + +She drew closer. + +"You came here for _that_?" + +"Yes." + +She rose and took a step either way. She gazed on him, and suddenly she +broke down and cried, her hands to her face. + +"O God," she sobbed, "when will all this be over? When will we get rid +of this tragedy? I can't stand it longer." + +He rose, too, confused. + +"Listen," he whispered. "I swear to you, I swear, that from this day on +my life belongs to those"--his voice broke--"dead girls ... to the +toilers...." + +She impulsively reached out a hand, and he seized it. Then, when she +became more quiet, she murmured: + +"I can see you mean it. Oh, this is wonderful! It is a miracle springing +out of the fire!" + +There was a strange throbbing silence that brought them close together. +And Sally, glancing at him again, whispered: + +"I can see how you have suffered! Let me help you ... all that I can!" + +He spoke in great pain. + +"What can I do? I know so little." + +"Do? You must learn that for yourself. You must fit in where you belong. +Do you know anything of the working-class movement?" + +"No," he said. + +"Then I will make a list of books and magazines for you." + +She sat down and wrote a list on a slip, and arose and handed it to him. + +She was gazing at him again, gazing at the tragic face. Then she +whispered: + +"I believe in you.... Is there anything else?" + +And again she reached out her hand and he clasped it. Her fine faith +smote something hard in him, shriveled it like fire, and all at once, +miraculously, divinely, a little liquid gush of lovely joy, of wonderful +beatitude began to rise from his heart, to rise and overflow and fill +him. He was being cleansed, he had expiated his guilt by confessing it +to his accuser and receiving her strange and gentle forgiveness; tears +came to his eyes, came and paused on the lashes and trickled down. He +gulped a sob. + +"I can go on now," he said. + +She looked at him, wondering. + +"You can!" she whispered. + +And he went out, a free man again, at the beginning of a new life. + + + + +IV + + +GOLDEN OCTOBER + +Life has an upspringing quality that defies pain. Something buoyant +throbs in the heart of the world--something untamed and wild--exultant +in the flying beauty of romping children, glinting in the dawn-whitened +sea, risen, indeed, through man into triumphant cities and works, and +running like a pulse through his spirit. San Francisco is shattered, and +there is death and sorrow and destruction: a whole population is +homeless--whereupon the little human creatures come down from the hills +like laughing gods and create but a more splendid city. Earth itself +forges through its winters with an April power that flushes a continent +with delicate blossoms and tints. + +Joe had come home from Sally Heffer a man renewed. From some clear well +in his nature sprang a limpid stream of soft, new joy; a new +exhilarating sense of life; a new creative power that made him eager for +action. His heart was cleansed, and with the exquisite happiness of a +forgiven child he "took up the task eternal." Hereafter he was a man +dedicated, a man consecrated to a great work. + +His mother noticed the change in him, a new wisdom, a sweet jocularity, +and, withal, the return of much of his old nature--its rough +camaraderie, its boyish liveliness and homely simplicity. For her this +was a marvelous relief, and she could only watch him and wonder at the +change. He seemed very busy again, and she did not disturb him in these +sensitive days of growth; she waited the inevitable time when he would +come to her and tell her what he was going to do, whether he would +re-establish his business or whether he had some new plan. And then one +day, tidying up his room, she stumbled on a heap of books. Her heart +thrilled and she began to surreptitiously borrow these books herself. + +Already the great city had forgotten its fire horror--save the tiny, +growing stir of an agitating committee--and even to those most nearly +concerned it began to fade, a nightmare scattered by the radiance of new +morning. One could only trust that from those fair and unpolluted bodies +had sprung a new wave of human brotherliness never to be quite lost. And +Joe's mother had had too much training in the terrible to be long +overborne. She believed in her son and stood by him. + +Luckily for Joe, he had much work to do. He and Marty Briggs had to +settle up the business, close with customers, dig from the burned +rubbish proofs and contracts, attend the jury, and help provide for his +men. One sunny morning he and Marty were working industriously in the +loft, when Marty, with a cry of exultation, lifted up a little slot box. + +"Holy Moses, Joe!" he exclaimed, "if here ain't the old kick-box!" + +They looked in it together, very tenderly, for it was the very symbol of +Joe's ten years of business. On its side there was still pasted a slip +of paper, covered with typewriting: + + KICK-BOX + + This business is human--not perfect. It needs good + thinking, new ideas (no matter how unusual), and + honest criticism. + + There are many things you think wrong about the + printery and the printery's head--things you would + not talk of face to face, as business time is precious + and spoken words are sometimes hard to bear. + + Now this is what I want: Sit down and write what + you think in plain English. It will do me good. + + JOE BLAINE. + +Suddenly Marty looked at his boss. + +"Say, Joe." + +"What is it, Marty?" The big fellow hesitated. + +"Say--when that jury finishes--you're going to set things up again, and +go on. Ain't you?" + +Joe smiled sadly. + +"I don't know, Marty." + +Tears came to Marty's eyes. + +"Say--what will the fellers say? Ah, now, you'll go ahead, Joe." + +"Just give me a week or two, Marty--then I'll tell you." + +But the big fellow's simple grief worked on him and made him waver, and +there were other meetings with old employees that sharply drew him back +to the printery. One evening, after a big day of activity, he found it +too late to reach the boarding-house for supper and he remembered that +John Rann's baby was sick. So he turned and hurried across the golden +glamor of Third Avenue, on Eightieth Street, and just beyond climbed up +three flights of stairs in a stuffy tenement and knocked on the rear +door. Smells of supper--smells chiefly of cabbage, cauliflower, fried +onions, and fried sausages--pervaded the hall like an invisible +personality, but Joe was smell-proof. + +A husky voice bade him come in and he pushed open the door into a neat +kitchen. At a table in the center under a nicely globed light sat John +Rann in his woolen undershirt. John was smoking a pipe and reading the +evening paper, and opposite John two young girls, one about ten, the +other seven, were studying their lessons. + +"Hello, John!" said Joe. + +John nodded amiably, and muttered: + +"Hello yourself!" + +He was a strong, athletic, stocky fellow, with sunken little blue eyes, +heavy jaws, and almost bald head. Before he had time to rise the two +young girls leaped up with shrieks of joy and rushed to Joe. Joe at once +tucked one under each arm and hugged them forward to a big chair, into +which they all sank together. + +"Well! Well!" cried Joe. + +"Who do you love most?" asked the seven-year-old. + +"The one who loves me most!" said Joe. + +"I do!" they both shrieked. + +"Now leave Mr. Joe be," warned the father. "Such tomboys they're getting +to be, there's no holdin' 'em in!" + +At once in the half-curtained doorway to the next room appeared a stocky +little woman, whose pale face was made emphatic by large steel-rimmed +glasses that shrank each eye-pupil to the size of a tack-head. Her +worried forehead smoothed; she smiled. + +"I knew it was Mr. Joe," she said, "by the way those gals yelled." + +Joe spoke eagerly: + +"I just had to run in, Mrs. Rann, to ask how the baby was." + +"He's a sight better. Mrs. Smith, who lives third floor front, had one +just like him sick a year ago come Thanksgiving, and he died like that. +But the doctor you sent over is that kind and cute he's got the little +fellow a-fightin' for his life. He's a _big_ sight better. Want to see +him?" + +Joe gave a kiss each way, set down two reluctant women-to-be, and +followed Mrs. Rann to the inner room. In a little crib a youngster, just +recovered from colic, was kicking up his heels. Joe leaned over and +tickled the sole of one foot. + +"Well, Johnny boy!" + +"Unc! Unc!" cried the infant. + +The mother purred with delight. + +"He's trying to say Uncle Joe. Did you ever hear the likes?" + +Joe beamed with pride. + +"Well, your uncle hasn't forgotten you, old man!" + +And he produced from his pocket a little rubber doll that whistled +whenever its belly was squeezed. + +John Rann appeared behind them. + +"Say, Mr. Joe, _you_ haven't had your supper yet." + +"Not hungry!" muttered Joe. + +"G'wan! Molly, put him up a couple of fried eggs, browned on both, and a +cup of coffee. I won't take no, either." + +Joe laughed. + +"Well, perhaps I'd better. I'm ashamed to ask for anything home this +hour--in fact, I'm scared to." + +So he got his fried eggs and coffee, and the family hung around him, and +Joe, circled with such warm friendliness, was glad to be alive. He was +especially pleased with Mrs. Rann's regard. But Joe was always a +favorite with mothers. Possibly because he was so fond of their babies. +Possibly because mothers love a good son, wherever they find one. +Possibly because his heart was large enough to contain as something +precious their obscure lives. Just before he left John asked him: + +"Will the printery soon be running, Mr. Joe?" + +"Tell you later," murmured Joe, and went out. But he was sorely +troubled. + +However, to Joe there had been revealed--almost in a day and after +thirty-eight years of insulated life--two of the supreme human facts. +There was humanity, on the one side, building the future, the new state, +organizing its scattered millions into a rich, healthy, joyous life and +calling to every man to enlist in the ranks of the creators; and then +there was woman, the undying splendor of the world, the beauty that +drenches life with meaning and magic, that stirs the elemental in a man, +that wakens the race instinct, that demands the creation of new +generations to inhabit that new state of the future. Intertwined, these +wondrous things drew the heart now this way, now that, and to Joe they +arose separately in intermittent pulsations that threatened to absorb +his existence. + +He did not dare go to Myra until he was sure of himself. It seemed that +he would have to choose between woman and work. It seemed as if his +work would lead into peril, dirt, disaster, and that he could not ask a +delicate, high-strung woman to go with him. The woman could not follow +her warrior to the battle, for marriage meant children to Joe, and the +little ones must stay back at home with the mother. + +In that moment of clear terror he had said to Myra: + +"I may never see you again.... I belong to those dead girls." + +And this phrase came and went like a refrain. He must choose between her +and those "dead girls." There stood Myra with gray luminous eyes and +soft echoing voice magically hinting of a life of ever-renewed romance. +She had a breast for his aching head, she had in her hands a thousand +darling household things, she had in her the possibilities of his own +children ... who should bring a wind of laughter into his days and a +strange domestic tenderness. The depths of the man were stirred by these +appeals--that was the happy human way to take, the common road fringed +with wild flowers and brier-lost berries, and glorious with the stride +of health and the fresh open air. + +And Myra herself, that charming presence to infold his life--He would go +walking through the golden October park, by little leaf-strewn paths +under the wild and sun-soaked foliage, with many vistas every way of +luring mystery, and over all the earth the rich opulent mother-bliss of +harvest, and his heart would ache, ache within him, ache for his own +harvests, ache like the sun for the earth, the man for the woman. + +A mad frenzy would seize him and he would plunge into his books and read +and think and lash himself to a fury of speculation till the early hours +of the morning. Exhaustion alone brought him peace. + +But something had to be done. He sat down and wrote to her with a +trembling hand: + + DEAR MYRA,--Though I am impatient to see you, I + must yet wait a little while. Bear with me. You will + understand later. + + Yours, + JOE. + +And then she replied: + + DEAR JOE,--Can't I help you? + MYRA. + +He had to fight a whole afternoon before he replied: + + Not yet--later. + JOE. + +And back he went into the whirlwind of the world-vision, a stupendous +force upsetting, up-rooting, overturning, demolishing, almost erasing +and contradicting everything that Joe had taken for granted, and in the +wake of the destruction, rising and ever rising, a new creation, the +vision of a new world. + +He had taken so much for granted. He had taken for granted that he lived +in a democracy--that the Civil War had once for all made America a free +nation--a nation of opportunity, riches, and happiness for all. Not so. +Literally millions were living in abject poverty, slaves to their +pay-envelopes; to lose a job meant to lose everything, there being more +laborers than jobs, or if not, at least recurrent "panics" and "hard +times" when the mills and the mines shut down. And these wage slaves had +practically no voice in one of the chief things of their life--their +work. So millions were penned in places of danger and disease and dirt, +lived and toiled in squalor, and were cut off from growth, from health, +from leisure and culture and recreation; and worse, millions of women +had to add the burden of earning a living to the already overwhelming +burden of child-bearing and home-making; and, still worse, millions of +children had been drafted into the service of industrialism. + +He proved the case for himself. He began making tours of the city, +discovering New York, laying bare the confusion and ugliness and grime +and crime and poverty of a great industrial center. He poked into the +Ghetto, into Chinatown, Greenwich Village, and Little Italy; he peered +into jails, asylums, and workhouses; he sneaked through factories and +hung about saloons. Everywhere a terrific struggle, many sinking down +into the city's underworld of crime, men becoming vagrants or thieves, +women walking the streets as prostitutes. + +And over this broad foundation of the "people" rose the structure of +business and politics, equally corrupted--or so it seemed to Joe, as it +does to every one who is fresh to the facts. Men at the top gathering +into their hands the necessities of life: oil, meat, coal, water-power, +wool; seizing on the railroads, those only modern means of social +exchange; snatching strings of banks wherein the people's money was +being saved; and using their mighty money-power to corrupt legislation, +to thwart the will of the voters, to secure new powers, to crush +opposition. So had arisen a "Money Power" that was annuling democracy. + +And Joe's books argued that all this change had been wrought by the +invention of machinery, that only through steam, steel, and electricity +could world-wide organization take place, that only through these arose +the industrial city, the modern mill. The very things that should have +set man free, the enormous powers he snatched from nature and harnessed +to do his work, powers with the strength of a nation of men--these very +things had been seized by a few for their own profit, and had enslaved +the majority. Over and over again could the race be fed, clothed, +housed, and enriched by these powers, and that with lessened hours of +toil and more variety of work. + +But Joe's books argued further and most dogmatically that this +organization by the selfish few was a necessary step in progress, that +when their work was finished the toilers, the millions, would arise and +seize the organization and use it thereafter for the good of all. +Indeed, this was what Sally's labor movement meant: the enlightenment of +the toilers as to the meaning of industrialism, and their training for +the supreme revolution. + +And out of all this arose the world-vision. At such moments Joe walked +in a rarer air, he stepped on a fairer earth than ordinarily obtains. It +was the beauty and loveliness of simple human camaraderie, of warm human +touch. And at such times Joe had no doubt of his life-work. It lay in +exquisite places, in chambers of jolly grandeur, in the invisible halls +and palaces of the human spirit. He was one with the toilers of earth, +one with the crowded underworld. It was that these lives might grow +richer in knowledge, richer in art, richer in health, richer in +festival, richer in opportunity, that Joe had dedicated his life. And so +arose that wonderful and inexpressible vision--a picture as it were of +the far future--a glimpse of an earth singing with uplifted crowds of +humanity, on one half of the globe going out to meet the sunrise, on the +other, the stars. He heard the music of that Hymn of Human Victory, +which from millions of throats lifts on that day when all the race is +woven into a harmony of labor and joy and home and great unselfish +deeds. That day, possibly, might never arrive, forever fading farther +and farther into the sunlit distances--but it is the day which leads the +race forward. To Joe, however, came that vision, and when it came it +seemed as if the last drop of his blood would be little to offer, even +in anguish, to help, even by ever so little, the coming and the +consummation of that Victory. + +He would awake in the night, and cry out in a fever: + +"By God, I'm going to help change things." + +The vision shook him--tugged at his heart, downward, like the clutch of +a convulsive child; seized him now and again like a madness. Even unto +such things had the "dead girls" brought him. + +So, crammed with theories--theories as yet untested by experience--Joe +became an iconoclast lusting for change. He was bursting with good news, +he wanted to cry the intimations from the housetops, he wanted to +proselytize, convert. He was filled with Shelley's passion for reforming +the world, and like young Shelley, he felt that all he had to do was to +show the people the truth and the truth would make them free. + +All this was in his great moments,... there were reactions when his +human humorous self--backed by ten years of the printery--told him that +the world is a complex mix-up, and that there are many visions; moments +that made him wonder what he was about, and why so untrained a man +expected to achieve such marvels. + +But these reactions were swallowed up by the recurrent pulsations, the +spasms of his vision. He felt from day to day a growth of purpose, an +accumulation of energy that would resistlessly spill into action, that +would bear him along, whether or no. But what should he do, and how? He +was unfitted, and did not think he cared, for settlement work. He knew +nothing and cared less for charity work. Politics were an undiscovered +world to him. What he wanted passionately was to go and live among the +toilers, get to know them, and be the means of arousing and training +them. + +But then there was the problem of his mother--a woman of sixty-three. +Could he leave her alone? It was preposterous to think of taking her +with him. Myra could a thousand times better go. He must talk with his +mother, he must thresh the matter out with her, he must not delay longer +to clear the issue. And yet he hesitated. Would she be able to +understand? How could he communicate what was bursting in his breast? +She belonged to a past generation; how could she hear the far-off drums +of the advance? + +Up and down the Park he went early one evening in a chaos of excitement, +and he had a sudden conviction that he could not put off the moment any +longer. He must go to his mother at once, he must tell all. As he +walked down the lamp-lit street, under all the starriness of a tranquil +autumn night, he became alternately pale and flushed, his heart thumped +hard against his ribs, he felt like a little boy going to his mother to +confess a wrong. + +He looked up; the shades of the second floor were illumined: she was up +there. Doing what? Sharply then he realized what a partial life she led, +the decayed middle-class associates of the boarding-house, tired, +brainless, and full of small talk, the lonesome evenings, the long days. +He became more agitated, and climbed the stoop, unlocked his way into +the house, went up the dim, soft, red-cushioned stairs, past the milky +gas-globe in the narrow hall, and knocked at her door. + +"Come in!" she cried. + +He swung the door wide and entered. She was, as usual, sitting in the +little rocker under the light and beside the bureau, between the bed and +the window. The neat, fragrant room seemed to be sleeping, but the +clear-eyed, upright woman was very much awake. She glanced up from her +sewing and realized intuitively that at last the crisis had come. His +big, homely face was a bald advertisement of his boyish excitement. + +She nodded, and murmured, "Well!" + +He drew up a chair awkwardly, and sat opposite her, tilting back to +accommodate his sprawling length. Then he was at a loss. + +"Well," he muttered, trying to be careless, "how are you?" + +"All right," she said drily. + +She could not help him, though her heart was beginning to pain in her +side. + +"I've been walking about the Park," he began again, with an indifference +that was full of leaks, "and thinking...." He leaned forward and spoke +suddenly: "Say, mother, don't you get tired of living in this place?" + +She felt strangely excited, but answered guardedly. + +"It isn't so bad, Joe.... There are a few decent people ... there's Miss +Gardiner, the librarian ... and I have books and sewing." + +"Oh, I know," he went on, clumsily, "but you're alone a lot." + +"Yes, I am," she said, and all at once she felt that she could speak no +further with him. She began sewing diligently. + +"Say, mother!" + +No answer. + +"Mother!" + +"Yes," dimly. + +His voice sounded unnatural. + +"Since the ... fire ... I've been doing some thinking, some reading...." + +"Yes." + +"I've been going about ... studying the city...." + +"Yes." + +"Now I want you to understand, mother.... I want to tell you of ... +It's--well, I want to do something with my money, my life...." And his +voice broke, in spite of himself. + +His mother felt as if she were smothering. But she waited, and he went +on: + +"For those dead girls, mother...." and sharply came a dry sob. "And for +all the toilers. Oh, but can you understand?" + +There was a silence. Then she looked at him from her youthful, brilliant +eyes, and saw only an overgrown, rather ignorant boy. This gave her +strength, and, though it was painful, she began speaking: + +"_Understand_? Do you mean the books you are reading?" + +"Yes," he murmured. + +"Well," she smiled weakly, "I've been reading them, too." + +"_You_!" He was shocked. He looked at her as if she had revealed a new +woman to him. + +"Yes," she said, quickly. "I found them in your room." + +He was amazedly silent. He felt then that he had never really known his +mother. + +"Joe," she said, tremulously, "I want to tell you a little about the +war.... There are things I haven't told you." + +And while he sat, stupefied and dumfounded, she told him--not all, but +many things. She was back in the Boston of the sixties, when she was a +young girl, when that town was the literary center of America, when high +literature was in the air, when the poets had great fame and every one, +even the business man, was a poet. She had seen or met some of the great +men. Once Whittier was pointed out to her, at a time when his lines on +slavery were burning in her brain. She had seen the clear-eyed Lowell +walking under the elms of Cambridge, and she justly felt that she was +one of those + + "Who dare to be + In the right with two or three." + +Once, even, a relative of hers, a writer then well known and now +forgotten, had taken her out to see "the white Mr. Longfellow." It was +one of the dream-days of her life--the large, spacious, square Colonial +house where once Washington had lived; the poet's square room with its +round table and its high standing desk in which he sometimes wrote; the +sloping lawn; the great trees; and, better than anything, the simple, +white-haired, white-bearded poet who took her hand so warmly and spoke +so winningly and simply. He even gave her a scrap of paper on which were +written some of his anti-slavery lines. + +Those were great days--days when America, the world's experiment in +democracy, was thrown into those fires that consume or purify. The great +test was on, whether such a nation could live, and Boston was athrob +with love of country and eagerness to sacrifice. The young, beautiful, +clear-eyed girl did not hesitate a moment to urge Henry Blaine to give +up all and go to the front. It was like tearing her own heart in two, +and, possibly at a word, Blaine would have remained in Boston and helped +in some other way. But she fought it out with him one night on Boston +Commons, and she wished then that she was a man and could go herself. On +that clear, mild night, the blue luminous tinge of whose moon she +remembered so vividly, they walked up and down, they passionately +embraced, they felt the end of life and the mystery of death, and then +at last when the young man said: "I'll go! It's little enough to do in +this crisis!" she clung to him with pride and sacred joy and knew that +life was very great and that it had endless possibilities. + +And so Henry Blaine went with his regiment, and the black and terrible +years set in--years in which so often she saw what Walt Whitman had +seen: + + "I saw askant the armies, + I saw as in noiseless dreams hundreds of battle-flags, + Borne through the smoke of the battles and pierced with missiles I saw + them, + And carried hither and yon through the smoke, and torn and bloody, + And at last but a few shreds left on the staffs (and all in silence), + And the staffs all splinter'd and broken. + I saw battle-corpses, myriads of them, + And the white skeletons of young men, I saw them. + I saw the débris and débris of all the slain soldiers of the war, + + But I saw they were not as was thought. + They themselves were fully at rest, they suffered not, + The living remain'd and suffer'd, the mother suffer'd, + And the wife and the child and the musing comrade suffer'd, + And the armies that remain'd suffer'd." + +Terrible years, years of bulletins, years of want, hard times, years +when all the future was at stake, until finally that day in New York +when she saw the remnant returning, marching up Broadway between the +black crowds and the bunting, the drums beating, the fifes playing, + + "Returning, with thinned ranks, young, yet very old, + worn, marching, noticing nothing." + +Henry Blaine was one of these and he came to her a cripple, an emaciated +and sick man. Then had followed, as Joe knew, the marriage, the hard +pioneer life in the shanty on the stony hill, the death, and the long +widowhood.... + +Had she not a right to speak to him? + +"Understand?" she ended. "I think, Joe, I ought to understand.... I sent +your father into the war...." + +Depth beneath depth he was discovering her. He was amazed and awed. He +asked himself where he had been all these years, and how he had been so +blind. He felt very young then. It was she who actually knew what the +word social and the word patriotism meant. + +He looked down on the floor, and spoke in a whisper: + +"And ... would you send me off, too? The new war?" + +She could scarcely speak. + +"Whereto?" + +"I ... oh, I'll have to go down in a tenement somewhere--the slums...." + +"Well, then," she said, quietly, "I'll go with you." + +"But you--" he exclaimed, almost adding, "an old woman"--"it's +impossible, mother." + +She answered him with the same quietness. + +"You forget the shanty." + +And then it was clear to him. Like an electric bolt it shot him, +thrilling, stirring his heart and soul. She _would_ go with him; more +than that, she _should_. It was her right, won by years of actual want +and struggle and service. More, it was her escape from a flat, stale, +meaningless boarding-house existence. Suddenly he felt that she was +really his mother, knit to him by ties unbreakable, a terrible thing in +its miraculousness. + +But he only said, in a strained voice, + +"All right, mother!" + +And she laughed, and mused, and murmured: + +"How does the world manage to keep so new and young?" + + + + +V + + +MYRA AND JOE + +Myra Craig used to dream at night that the fifty-seven members of her +class arose from their desks with wild shrieks and danced a war-dance +about her. This paralyzed her throat, her hands, and her feet, and she +could only stand, flooded with horror, awaiting the arrival of the +school principal and disgrace. Out of this teacher's dream she always +awoke disgusted with school-work. + +Myra came from Fall River--her parents still lived there--came when she +was ten years younger, to seek her fortune in the great city. New York +had drawn her as it draws all the youth of the land, for youth lusts for +life and rushes eagerly to the spot where life is most intense and most +exciting. The romance of crowds, of wealth, of art, of concentrated +pleasure and concentrated vice, of immense money-power, the very +architecture of the world-city, the maelstrom of people, drew the young +Fall River woman irresistibly. She did not want the even and smooth +future of a little town; she wanted to plunge into the hazardous +interweaving of the destinies of millions of people. She wanted to +grasp at some of the magic opportunities of the city. She wanted a +career. + +And so she came. Early that June morning she left her cabin on the Sound +steamboat and went out on deck, and then she had unfolded to her the +most thrilling scene of the earth. Gazing, almost panting with +excitement, it seemed to her that the nature she had known--the hills +and fields of New England--shrank to littleness. First there was all +about her the sway of the East River, golden--flecked with the morning +sun, which glowed through a thin haze. From either shore a city climbed, +topped with steeples and mill chimneys--floods of tenements and homes. +Then the boat swept under the enormous steel bridges which seemed upheld +by some invisible power and throbbed with life above them. And then, +finally, came the Vision of the City. The wide expanse of rolling, +slapping water was busy with innumerable harbor craft, crowded ferries, +puffing tugs, each wafting its plume of smoke and white steam; but from +those waters rose tier after tier of square-set skyscrapers climbing in +an irregular hill to the thin peak of the highest tower. In the golden +haze, shot with sun, the whole block of towers loomed distant, gigantic, +shadowy, unreal--a magic city floating on the waters of the morning. +Windows flashed, spirals of white smoke spun thin from the far roofs. +Myra thought of those skyscrapers as the big brothers of the island +gazing out over the Atlantic. + +The boat rounded the tip of the island, furrowing the broad surface of +the bay, which seemed as the floor of a stage before that lifting huge +sky-lost amphitheater. Every advance changed the many-faceted beauty of +New York, and Myra, gazing, had one glimpse across little green Battery +Park up the deep twilit cañon of Broadway, the city's spine. The young +woman was moved to tears. She seemed to slough off at that moment the +church of her youth, averring that New York was too big for a creed. It +was the great human outworking; the organism of the mighty many. It +seemed a miracle that all this splendor and wonder had been wrought by +human hands. Surely human nature was great--greater than she had +dreamed. If creatures like herself had wrought this, then she was more +than she had dared to imagine, "deeper than ever plummet had sounded." +She felt new courage, new faith. She wanted to leave the boat and merge +with those buildings and those swarming streets. She was proud of the +great captains who had engineered this masswork, proud of the powers +that ruled this immensity. + +But beyond all she felt the city's _livingness_. The air seemed charged +with human activity, with toil-pulsations. She was all crowded about +with human beings, and felt the mystery of what might be termed +_crowd-touch_. Here, surely, was life--life thick, happy, busy, daring, +ideal. Here was pioneering--a reaching forth to a throbbing future. So, +as the boat landed, she mentally identified herself with this city, +labeled herself New-Yorker, and became one of its millions. + +Her rapture lasted throughout her first stay. She tasted romance +glancing in shop windows or moving in a crowd or riding in an elevated +train. A letter of introduction to a friend of her mother's secured her +a companion, who "showed her the sights" and helped her choose her +boarding-house in East Eightieth Street. And then came the examinations +for public-school teaching; and after these she went home for the +summer, returning to New York in the fall. + +Then her new life began, the rapture ceased, and Myra Craig, like so +many others, found that her existence in the city was just as narrow as +it had been in the town. In some ways, more narrow. She was quite +without friends, quite without neighborhood. Her day consisted in +teaching from 9 A.M. to 3 P.M., correcting papers and planning lessons +and making reports until well into the evening, sometimes until late in +the night, and meeting at meals unfriendly people that she disliked. Her +class was composed of rather stupid, rather dirty children. They +_smelled_--a thing she never forgave them. And what could one woman do +with fifty or sixty children? The class was at least three times too big +for real teaching, and so almost inevitably a large part of the work +became routine--a grind that spoiled her temper and embittered her +heart. Her fellow-teachers were an ignorant lot; the principal himself +she thought the biggest lump of stupidity she had ever met--a man +demanding letter-perfection and caring not one rap for the growth of +children. Her week-ends were her only relief, and she used these partly +for resting and partly in going to theater and concert. + +Such for ten years--with summers spent at home--was Myra's life. It was +bounded by a few familiar streets; it was largely routine; it was hard +and bitter; and it had no future. It was anything but what she had +dreamed. New York was anything but what she had dreamed. She never saw +again that Vision of the City; never felt again that throb of life, that +sense of pioneering and of human power. And yet in those years Myra had +developed. She was thrown back on books for friendship, and through +these and through hard work and through very routine she developed +personality--grew sensitive, mentally quick, metropolitan. She had, as +it were, her own personal _flavor_--one felt in her presence a +difference, a uniqueness quite precious and exquisite. + +And then one day she had gone to the printery and met a man, who was +homely, rough, simple, and, in spite of her revulsion from these +qualities, was immensely drawn to him. Something deeper than the veneer +of her culture overpowered her. She had almost forgotten sex in the +aridity of those ten years; she had almost become a dried old maid; but +now by the new color in her cheeks, the sparkle in her eyes, the fresh +rapidity of her blood, and through the wonder of the world having become +more _light_, as if there were two suns in the sky instead of one--yes, +through the fact that she lived now at ten human-power instead of +one--her heart told her exultingly, "You are a _woman_." + +Girlhood had come again, but girlhood made all woman by immense +tenderness, by the up-rush of a wild love, and by the awakening of all +her instincts of home and mating and child-bearing. And then had come +that mad, wind-blown twilight at the riverside when the spirit of life +had drenched her and she had become grave, tender, and wrought of all +lovely power. Joe was just a boy then to her, and her great woman-heart +drew him in and sheltered him in the sacred warmth of her being. In that +moment she had reached the highest point of her womanhood, a new +unfolding, a new release. And then had come horror, and he had been +swept away from her--one glimpse of his numb, ghastly face, and he was +gone. + +It was Fannie Lemick that took her home. She only knew that she was +being led away, while crashing through her mind went flames, smoke, the +throbbing of the engines, and the words: "I may never see you again ... +dead girls...." All that night she tossed about in a horror, and in the +morning she feverishly read the terrible news until she thought she must +swoon away. She became sick; the landlady had to come up and help her; +the doctor had to be sent for, and he had told her that this nervous +breakdown had been long overdue; she had been working under too great a +strain; it only needed some shock to break her. + +But while she lay in a sick fever her heart went out to Joe. If she only +could be at his side, nerve him to the fight, protect him and soothe +him. She knew that his whole old life had been consumed in that fire, +and lay in ruins, and she felt subtly that he had been taken from her. +By one blow, at the very moment of the miracle of their love, they had +been torn from each other. She did not want to live; she hoped that she +had some serious disease that would kill her. + +But she did live; she became better, and then in a mood of passionate +tenderness she wrote her first little love-letter to Joe. She went +about, doing her school-work and bearing the weight of intolerable +lonely days, and he had written twice, just a word to her, a word of +delay. What kept him? What was he doing? She read of his testimony at +the inquest and became indignant because he blamed himself. Who was to +blame for such an accident? It was not his cigarette that had started +the blaze. In her overwrought condition she passed from a terrible love +to a sharp hate, and back and forth. Was he a fool or was he more noble +than she could fathom? He should have seen her sooner, he should not +have left her a prey to her morbid thoughts. Time and again she became +convinced that he had ceased to love her, that he was more concerned +over his burnt printery. She twisted his letters against him. She would +sit in her room trying to work at her school papers, and suddenly she +would clench her fists, turn pale, and stare despairingly at the blank +wall. + +Day after day she waited, starting up every time she heard the postman's +whistle and the ringing of the bell. And then at last one night, as she +paced up and down the narrow white little room, she heard the landlady +climbing the stairs, advancing along the hall, and there was a sharp +rap. She felt faint and dizzy, flung open the door, took the letter, and +sank down on the bed, hardly daring to open it. + +It was brief and cold: + + Dear Myra,--I know you are up early, so I am + coming around at seven to-morrow morning--I'll be + out in the street and wait for you. We can go to the + Park. I have some serious problems to lay before + you. + + Joe. + +"Serious problems!" She understood. He was paving the way for renouncing +her. Perhaps it was a money matter--he thought he ought not marry on a +reduced income. Or perhaps he found he didn't love her. For hours she +sat there with the letter crumpled in her hand, frozen, inert, until she +was incapable of feeling or thinking. So he was coming at seven. He took +it for granted that she would be ready to see him--would be eager to +walk in the Park with him. Well, what if she didn't go? A fine letter +that, after that half-hour at the riverside. A love-letter! She laughed +bitterly. And then her heart seemed to break within her. Life was too +hard. Why had she ever left the peace and quiet of Fall River? Why had +she come down to the cruel, careless, vicious city to be ground up in a +wholesale school system and then to break her heart for an uncouth, +half-educated printer? It was all too hard, too cruel. Why had she been +born to suffer so? Why must she tingle now with pain, when in a few +years she would be unfeeling dust again? Among all the millions of the +people of the earth, among all the life of earth and the circling +million scattered worlds, she felt utterly isolated, defrauded, +betrayed. Life was a terrible gift, and she did not want it. This whirl +of emotion rose and rose in her, went insanely through her brain, and, +becoming intolerable, suddenly ceased and left her careless, numb, and +hard. + +She arose mechanically and looked in the glass at herself. Her face was +haggard. + +"I'm getting homely," she thought, and quietly went to bed. + +But in the night she awoke to a swift frenzy of joy. He was coming. +After all, he was coming. She would see him. She would be near him +again. Yes, how she loved him! loved with all her nature. It was the +intensity of her love that made her hate. And she lay throbbing with +joy, her whole being quivering with desire for him. He was hers, after +all. It was the woman's part to forgive and forget. + +But when the morning broke, and she arose in her nightgown and sat on +the chair at the window, smoothing out and rereading the letter, her +doubts returned. He was coming to renounce her. He would make all sorts +of plausible excuses, he would be remorseful and penitent, but it all +came to the same end. Why should she go and meet him to be humiliated in +this way? She would not go. + +Yet she rose and dressed with unusual care and tried to smile back the +radiance of her face, and fixed her hair this way and that in a pitiful +attempt to take away the sharpness of her expression, and when her +little clock showed seven she put on hat and coat with trembling hands +and went swiftly down and out at the front door. She was shaking with +terrible emotions, fire filled and raged in her breast, and she had to +bite her lip to keep it still. + +The city flashed before her in all the sparkle of October, the air +tingled, and in the early morning light the houses, the street, looked +as bright and fresh as young school-children washed, combed, +bright-eyed, new with sleep, and up from roofs went magic veilings of +flimsy smoke. Down the avenues clanged cars black with mechanics, +clerks, and shop-girls on the way to work; people streamed hurrying to +their day's toil. The city was awake, shaking in every part of her with +glad breakfast and the rush to activity. What colossal forces swinging +in, swinging out of the metropolis in long pulsations of freight and +ship and electricity! Wall Street would roar, the skyscrapers swarm, the +schools drone and murmur and sing, the mills grind and rattle, and the +six continents and the seven seas would pulse their blood into the city +and be flushed by her radiating tides. Into this hidden activity Myra +stepped, deaf and blind to all but the clamor of her heart and a single +man walking like a black pawn aureoled in the low early sunlight. + +She came down slowly, as he came up. She glanced at his face. She was +shocked by its suffering, its gray age. He looked quite shabby in his +long frayed coat, his unpolished shoes, his gray slouch hat--shabby and +homely, and ill-proportioned, stooping a little, his rough shock of hair +framing the furrowed face and sunken melancholy eyes. And it was for +this man that she had been breaking her heart! Yet, at the moment there +swept over her an awful surge of passion, so strong that she could have +seized him in her arms and died in his embrace. + +He, in turn, saw how white and set her face was, how condemnatory. He +had come to her almost ready to throw his plans overboard and cleave to +her--for a day and a night that side of his nature had dominated, +expunging all else, driving him to her, demanding that he grasp her +magic presence, her womanly splendor. This alone was real, and all the +rest fantastic. And he had walked up and down the street with all the +October morning singing in his blood; the world was glorious again and +he was young; he would take her, he would forget all else, and they +would go off somewhere in the wilderness and really live. He had never +lived yet. He thirsted for life, he thirsted for all this woman could +give him. And now the condemnation in her face choked him off, made her +a stranger, separated them, made it hard to speak to her. + +He cried in a low voice: + +"Myra!" + +The word was charged with genuine passion, and she became more pale, and +stood unable to find her tongue, her lips quivering painfully. + +Then suddenly there was a nervous overflow. + +"You wanted to walk in the Park," she blurted in a cold, uneven voice. +"We'd better be going then. I won't have much time. I've got to be at +school early." + +She started off, and he strode beside her. They walked in a strange slow +silence, each charged with inexpressible, conflicting emotions, and +each waiting for the other. This strain was impossible, and finally Joe +began speaking in low tones. + +"I know it seems queer that I haven't been to see you ... but you'll +understand, I couldn't. There was so much to do...." + +He stopped, and then again came the cold, uneven voice: + +"You could have found a moment." + +They went on in silence, and entered the Park, following the walk where +it swept its curve alongside the tree-arched roadway, past low green +hills to the right and the sinking lawns to the left, crossed the +roadway, and climbed the steep path that gave on to the Ramble--that +twisty little wilderness in the heart of the city, that remote, wild, +magic tangle. + +A little pond lay in the very center of it, all deep with the blue sky, +and golden October gloried all about it--swaying in wild-tinted +treetops, blowing in dry leaves, sparkling on every spot of wet, and all +suffused and splashed and strangely fresh with the low, red, radiant +sunlight. There was splendor in the place, and the air dripped with +glorious life, and through it all went the lovers, silent, estranged, +pitiable. + +"We can sit here," said Joe. + +It was a bench under a tree, facing the pond. They sat down, each gazing +on the ground, and the leaves dropped on them, and squirrels ran up to +them, tufted their tails and begged for peanuts with lustrous beady +eyes, and now and then some early walker or some girl or man on the way +to work swung lustily past and disappeared in foliage and far low vistas +of tree trunks. + +The suspense became intolerable again. Joe turned a little to her. + +"Myra!" + +She was trembling; a moment more she would be in his arms, sobbing, +forgiving him. But she hurried on in an unnatural way. + +"You wanted to speak to me--I'm waiting. _Why_ don't you speak?" + +It was a blow in the face; his own voice hardened then. + +"You're making it very hard for me." + +She said nothing, and he had to go on. + +"After the fire--" his voice snapped, and it was a space before he went +on, "I felt I was guilty.... I went to a mass-meeting and one of the +speakers accused the ... class I belong to ... of failing in their +duty.... She said ..." + +Myra spoke sharply: + +"Who said?" + +"Miss Heffer." + +"Oh!" + +Joe felt suddenly silenced. Something unpleasant was creeping in between +them. He did not know enough of women, either, to divine how Myra was +suffering, to know that she had reached a nervous pitch where she was +hardly responsible for what she thought and said. He went on +blunderingly: + +"I felt that I was accused... I felt that I had to make reparation to +the toilers, ... had to spend my life making conditions better.... You +see this country has reached a crisis ..." + +It was all gibberish to her. + +"Exactly what do you mean?" she asked, sharply. + +"I mean"--he fumbled for words--"I must go and live among the poor and +arouse them and teach them of the great change that is taking place...." + +She laughed strangely. + +"Oh--an uplifter, settlement work, charity work--" + +He was stupefied. + +"Myra, can't you see--" + +"Yes, I see," she said, raising her voice a little; "you're going to +live in the slums and you want me to release you. I do. Anything else?" + +She was making something sordid of his beautiful dream, and she was +startlingly direct. He was cut to the heart. + +"You're making it impossible," he began. + +She laughed a little, stroking down her muff. + +"So you're going to live among the poor ... and you didn't dare come and +tell me...." + +"I had no right to involve you until I was sure...." + +"And now you're sure...." + +"No," he cried. + +She raised her voice a little again: + +"And I wrote asking if I couldn't help you. Women are fools...." + +He sat searching about for something to say. His heart was like cold +lead in his breast; his head ached. He felt her side of the case very +vividly, and how could she ever understand? + +Then, as she sat there her head seemed to explode, and she spoke +hurriedly, incoherently: + +"It's time to get to school. I want to go alone. Good-by." + +She rose and went off rapidly. + +"Myra!" he cried, leaping up, but she only accelerated her pace.... + +Instead of going to school she went straight home, flung herself +full-length on the bed, buried her face in the pillow, and shook for a +long time with terrible tearless sobs. Her life was ruined within her. + + + + +VI + + +MARTY BRIGGS + +Joe went home in a distraught condition. He was angry, amazed, and +passion-shaken. He had had a look into that strange mixture which is +woman--and he was repelled, and yet attracted as he had never been +before. He felt that all was over between them, that somehow she had +convicted him of being brutal, selfish, and unmanly, and in the light of +her condemnation he saw in his delay to meet her only cowardice and +harsh indifference. And yet all along he had acted on the conclusion +that he had no right to ask a woman to go into the danger of his work +with him. + +Pacing up and down his narrow room, he began lashing himself again, +excusing, forgiving Myra everything. He had never really understood her +nature; he should have gone to her in the beginning and trusted to her +love and her insight; he should have let her share the aftermath of the +fire; that fierce experience would have taught her that he was forever +mortgaged to a life of noble reparation, and even the terror of it all +would have been better than shutting her out, to brood morbidly alone. + +Yet, what could he do? He must be strong, be wise, keep his head. He had +pledged himself, sworn himself into the service of the working class +movement. There was no escape. He tried to bury himself in his books, +regain for a moment his splendid dream of the future state, feel again +those strange throes of world-building, of social service. + +And out of it all grew a letter, a letter to Myra. He wrote it in a +strange haste, the sentences coming too rapidly for his pen. It ran: + + DEAR MYRA,--I must _make_ you understand! I hurt + you when I wanted to help you; I wronged you when + I wanted only to do right by you. Why didn't you + listen to me this morning? + + It was at the fire there, at that moment you tugged + at my sleeve and I spoke to you, that I saw clearly that + my life was no longer my own, that I could not even + give it to you, whom I loved, whom I love now with + every bit of my existence. I told you I belonged to + those dead girls. Have you forgotten? _Sixty of them_--and + three of my men. It was as if I had killed them + myself. I am a guilty man, and I must expiate this + guilt. There is no use fooling myself with pleasant + phrases, no use thinking others to blame. It was I + who was responsible. + + And through the death of those girls I learned of the + misery of the world, of the millions in want, the women + wrenched from their homes to toil in the mills, the + little children--fresh, sweet bodies, bubbling hearts, + and tender, whimsical minds--slaving in factories, + tiny boys and girls laboring like men and women in + cotton and knitting mills, in glass factory and coal-mine, + and on the streets of cities, upon whose frail little + spirits is thrust the responsibility, the wage burden, the + money, and family trouble, the care and drudgery and + mortal burden we grown people ourselves not seldom + find too hard. I have learned of a world gone wrong; + I have learned of a new slavery on earth; and I as a + member of the master class share the general guilt for + the suffering of the poor...I must help to free + them from the very conditions that killed the sixty + girls... + + And when I think of those girls and their families + (some of them were the sole support of their mothers + and sisters and brothers) the least I can do is to render + up my life for the, lives that were lost--the least I can + do is to fill myself with the spirit of the dead and + go forth, not to avenge them, but to help build a + world where the living will not be sacrificed as they + were. + + This country is facing a great crisis; civilization is + facing a great crisis. Shall we go forward or be drawn + backward? There is a call to arms and every man must + offer his life in the great fight--that fight for democracy, + that fight for lifting up the millions to new levels of + life, that fight for a better earth and a superber race + of human beings; and in that fight I am with the + pioneers, heart and soul; I am ringing with the joy + and struggle of it; I am for it, with all my strength and + all my power. It demands everything; its old cry, + "Arise, arise, and follow me;" means giving up possessions, + giving away all, making every sacrifice. Before + this issue our little lives shrink into nothingness, + and we must sink our happiness into the future of the + world. + + How can I ask you to go into the peril, the dirt, and + disease of this struggle? And how can I refrain from + going in myself? Let me see you once more. Do not + deny me that. And understand that through life my + love will follow you ... a love greatened, I trust, by + what little I do in the great cause.... + + Ever yours, JOE + +He waited for an answer and none came, and he felt during those days +that the life was being dragged out of him. Feverishly then he buried +himself in his tasks and his books, he went on cramming himself with +theories until he reached the bursting-point and wanted to go out on +fire with mission, almost a fanatic, an Isaiah to shake the city with +invective and prophesy change. What could he do to spread the tidings, +the news? The time had come to find an outlet for the overbearing flood +within him. And then one evening in the Park like a flash came the plan. +He must go among the poor, he must get to know them--not in this +neighborhood, "a prophet is not without honor, etc."--but in some new +place where he was unknown. He thought of Greenwich Village. Did not +Fannie Lemick tell him that Sally Heffer lived in Greenwich Village? +Well, he would look into the matter. He was a printer; why not then +print a little weekly newspaper directly for the toilers, for his +neighbors? He could tell all that way, pour out his enlightenment, stir +them, stand by them, take part in their activities, their troubles and +their strikes and lead them forth to a new life. He was sure they were +ripe for the facts, powder awaiting the spark; he would go down among +them and make his paper the center of their disorganized life. + +The more he thought of the plan the more it thrilled him. What was +greater than the power of the press? What more direct? He was done with +palliatives, finding men jobs, giving Christmas turkeys, paying for +coal. What the people needed was education so that they could get +justice--all else would follow. + +But even at that perfervid period of his life Joe was saved from being a +John Brown by his sense of humor. This was the imp in him that always +poked a little doubt into his heart and laughed at his ignorance and +innocence. By next morning Joe was smiling at himself. Nevertheless, he +was driven ahead. + +He called for Marty Briggs and they went to lunch together. Third Avenue +lay naked to the rain, which swept forward in silvery gusts, dripping, +dripping from the elevated structure, and the pattering liquid sound had +a fresh mellow music. Here and there a man or woman, mush-roomed by an +umbrella, dashed quickly for a car, and the trolleys, gray and crowded, +seemed to duck hurriedly under the downpour. The faces of Joe and Marty +were fresh-washed and spattering drops; they laughed together as they +walked. + +"I've some business to talk over with you," explained Joe, and they +finally went into a little restaurant on Third Avenue. The stuffy little +place, warm and damp with the excluded rain, and odorous with sizzling +lard and steaming coffee and boiling cabbage, was crowded with people, +but Joe and Marty took a little table to themselves in the darkest +corner. They sat against the dirty rear wall, whose white paint was +finger-marked, fly-specked, and food-spotted, and in which a +shelf-aperture furnished the connection with the kitchen. To this hole +in the wall hurried the three waitresses, shrieking their orders above +the din of many voices and the clatter and clash of plates and utensils. + +"One ham--and!" + +A monstrous greasy cook peered forth, shoving out a plate of fried eggs +and echoing huskily: + +"Ham--and!" + +"Corn-beef-an'-cabbage!" "One harf-an'-harf!" "Make a sunstroke on the +hash!" and other pleasing chants of the noon. + +"What'll yer have?" + +A thin and nervous young woman swooped between them and mopped off the +sloppy, crumby table with her apron. + +"What's good?" asked Joe. + +The waitress regarded Joe with half-shut eyes. + +"_You_ want veal cutlets." + +And she wafted the information to the cook. + +"Well, Joe," said the practical Briggs, unable to hold in his excitement +any longer, "let's get down to business." + +Joe leaned forward. + +"I'm thinking of starting up the printery, Marty." + +Marty flushed, choked, and could hardly speak. + +"I _knew_ you would, Joe." + +"Yes," Joe went on, "but I'm not going to go on with it." + +Marty spoke sharply: + +"Why not?" + +"I'll tell you later, Marty." + +"Not--lost your nerve? The fire?" + +Joe laughed softly. + +"Other reasons--Marty." + +"Retire?" Marty's appetite was spoiled. He pushed the veal cutlet from +him. He was greatly agitated. "Retire--_you_? I can see you doing +nothing, blamed if I can't. Gettin' sporty, Joe, in your old age, aren't +you? You'll be wearing one of these dress-suits next and a flasher in +yer chest. Huh!" he snorted, "you'd make a good one on the shelf!" + +Joe laughed with joy. + +"With my flunkies and my handmaids. No, Marty, I'm going into another +business." + +"What business?" + +"Editing a magazine." + +"And what do you know about editing a magazine?" + +"What do most of the editors know?" queried Joe. "You don't have to know +anything. Everybody's editing magazines nowadays." + +"A magazine!" Marty was disgusted. "You're falling pretty low, Joe. Why +don't you stick to an honest business? Gosh! you'd make a queer fist +editing a magazine!" + +Joe was delighted. + +"Well, there are reasons, Marty." + +"What reasons?" + +So Joe in a shaking voice unfolded his philosophy, and as he did so +Marty became dazed and aghast, gazing at his boss as if Joe had turned +into some unthinkable zoological oddity. Into Marty's prim-set life, +with its definite boundaries and unmysterious exactness, was poured a +vapor of lunacy. Finally Joe wound up with: + +"So you see I've got to do what little I can to help straighten things. +You see, Marty? Now, what do you think of it? Give me your honest +opinion." + +Marty spoke sharply: + +"You want to know what I really think?" + +"Every word of it!" + +"Now see here, Joe," Marty burst out, "you and I grew up in the business +together, and we know each other well enough to speak out, even if you +are my boss, don't we?" + +"We do, Marty!" + +Marty leaned over. + +"Joe, I think you're a blamed idiot!" + +Joe laughed. + +"Well, Marty, if it weren't for the blamed idiots--like Columbus and Tom +Watts and the prophets and Abe Lincoln--this world would be in a pretty +mess." + +But Marty refused to be convinced, even averring that the world _is_ in +a pretty mess, and that probably the aforementioned "idiots" had caused +it to be so. Then finally he spoke caressingly: + +"Ah, Joe, tell me it's a joke." + +"No," said Joe, earnestly, "it's what I've got to face, Marty, and I +need your backing." + +Marty mused miserably. + +"So the game's up, and you've changed, and we men can go to the dogs. +Why, we can't run that printery without you. We'd go plumb to hell!" + +Joe changed his voice--it became more commanding. + +"Never mind now, Marty. I want your help to figure things out." + +So Marty got out his little pad and the two drew close together. + +"I want to figure on a weekly newspaper--I'm figuring big on the +future--just want to see what it will come to. Say an edition of twenty +thousand copies, an eight-page paper, eight by twelve, no +illustrations." + +Marty spoke humbly: + +"As you say, Joe. Cheap paper?" + +"Yes." + +"Do your own printing?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, you'll need a good cylinder press for a starter." + +"How much help?" + +"Make-up man--pressman--feeder--that's on the press. Will you set up the +paper yourself?" + +"No, I'll have it set up outside." + +"Who'll bind it, fold, and address?" + +"The bindery--give that out, too." + +"And who'll distribute?" + +"Outside, too." + +"The news company?" + +"No, I won't deal with any news company. I want to go direct to the +people. Say I get a hundred newsmen to distribute in their +neighborhood?" + +"But who'll get the paper to the newsmen?" + +"Hire a truck company--so much a week." + +"And how much will you charge for the paper?" + +"Cent a copy." + +"Can't do it," said Marty. + +"Why not?" + +Marty did some figuring, so they raised the price to two cents. And then +they put in twenty minutes and worked out the scheme. It summed up as +follows: + + Paper sells at 2 cts., 20,000 $400 + Expenses 340 + ---- + Profit $ 60 + +Joe was exultant. + +"Sixty profit! Well, I'm hanged." + +"Not so fast, Joe," said Marty, drily. "They say no one ever started a +magazine without getting stuck, and anyway, you just reckon there'll be +expenses that will run you into debt right along. But of course there'll +be the ads." + +"I don't know about the ads," said Joe. "But the figures please me just +the same." + +Marty squirmed in his chair. + +"Joe," he burst out, "how the devil is the printery going to run without +you?" + +Their eyes met, and Joe laughed. + +"Will it be worth twenty-five thousand dollars when it's rebuilt and +business booming again?" he asked, shrewdly. + +"More than that!" said Marty Briggs. + +"Then," said Joe, "I want _you_ to take it." + +"_Me_?" Marty was stunned. + +"You can do it easily. I'll take a mortgage and you pay it off two +thousand a year and five per cent. interest. That will still leave you a +tidy profit." + +"_Me_?" Then Marty laughed loud. "Listen, my ears! Did you hear that?" + +"Think it over!" snapped Joe. "Now come along." + + + + +VII + + +LAST OF JOE BLAINE AND HIS MEN + +So the printery was rehabilitated, and one gray morning Joe, with a +queer tremor at his heart, went down the street and met many of his men +in the doorway. They greeted him with strange, ashamed emotion. + +"Morning, Mr. Joe.... It's been a long spell.... Good to see the old +place again.... Bad weather we're having.... How've you been?" + +The loft seemed strangely the same, strangely different--fresh painted, +polished, smelling new and with changed details. For a few moments Joe +felt the sharp shock of the fire again, especially when he heard the +trembling of the hat factory overhead ... and that noon the bright faces +and laughter in the hallway! It seemed unreal; like ghosts revisiting; +and he learned later that the first morning the hat factory had set to +work, some of the girls had become hysterical. + +But as he stood in his private office, looking out into the gray loft, +and feeling how weird and swift are life's changes, the men turned on +the electrics, and the floors and walls began their old trembling and +the presses clanked and thundered. He could have wept. To Joe this +moment of starting up had always been precious: it had seemed to bring +him something he had missed; something that fitted like an old shoe and +was friendly and familiar. All at once he felt as if he could not leave +this business, could not leave these men. + +And yet he had only three days with them to wind up the business and +install Marty Briggs. And then there was a last supper of Joe Blaine and +his men. Those days followed one another with ever-deepening gloom, in +which the trembling printery and all the human beings that were part of +it seemed steeped in a growing twilight. Do what Joe would and could in +the matter of good-fellowship, loud laughter, and high jocularity, the +darkness thickened staggeringly. Hardly had Joe settled the transfer of +the printery to Marty, when the rumor of the transaction swept the +business. At noon men gathered in groups and whispered together as if +some one had died, and one after another approached Joe with a: + +"Mr. Joe, is it true what the fellows say?" + +"Yes, Tom." + +"Going to leave us, Mr. Joe?" + +"Going, Tom." + +"_Got_ to go?" + +"I'm afraid I have to." + +"I'll hate to go home and tell my wife, Mr. Joe. She'll cry her head +off." + +"Oh, come! come!" + +"Say--we men, Mr. Joe--" + +But Tom would say no more, and go off miserably; only to be replaced by +Eddie or Mack or John, and then some such dialogue would be repeated. +Under the simple and inadequate words lurked that sharp tragedy of life, +the separation of comrades, that one event which above all others +darkens the days and gives the sense of old age. And the men seemed all +the closer to Joe because of the tragedy of the fire. All these +conversations told on Joe. He went defiantly about the shop, but +invariably his spoken orders were given in a humble, almost affectionate +tone, as (with one arm loosely about the man): + +"Say, Sam, _don't_ you think you'd better use a little benzine on that?" + +And Sam would answer solemnly: + +"I've always done as you've said, Mr. Joe--since the very first." + +His men succeeded in this way in making Joe almost as miserable as when +he had parted from Myra; and indeed a man's work is blood of his blood, +heart of his heart. + +Possibly one thing that hurt Joe as much as anything else was a curious +change in Marty Briggs. That big fellow, from the moment that Joe had +handed over the business, began to unfold hitherto unguessed bits of +personality. He ceased to lament Joe's going; he went about the shop +with a certain jaunty air of proprietorship; and the men, for some +unknown reason, began to call him Mr. Briggs. He even grew a bit cool +toward Joe. Joe watched him with a sad sort of mirth, and finally called +him into the office one morning. He put his hands on the big man's +shoulders and looked in his face. + +"Marty," he said, "I hope you're not going to make an ass of yourself." + +"What do you mean?" murmured Marty. + +Joe brought his face a little nearer. + +"I want to know something." + +"What?" + +Joe spoke slowly: + +"_Are you Marty Briggs now or are you Martin Briggs_?" + +Marty tried to laugh; tried to look away. + +"What's the difference?" he muttered. + +"Difference?" Joe's voice sank. "Marty, I thought you were a bigger man. +It's only the little peanut fellows who want to be bossy and +holier-than-thou. _Don't make any mistake_!" + +"I guess," muttered Marty, "I can steer things O.K." + +"You'd better!" Joe spoke a little sharply. "Our men here are as big as +you and I, every one of them. My God! you'll have to pay the price of +being a high muck-a-muck, Marty! So, don't forget it!" + +Marty tried to laugh again. + +"You're getting different lately," he suggested. + +"I?" Joe laughed harshly. "What if it's you? But don't let's quarrel. +We've been together too long. Only, let's both remember. That's all, +Marty!" + +All of which didn't mend matters. It was that strangest of all the +twists of human nature--the man rising from the ranks turning against +his fellows. + +On Friday night Joe climbed the three flights of the stuffy Eightieth +Street tenement and had supper with the Ranns. That family of five +circled him with such warmth of love that the occasion burst finally +into good cheer. The two girls, seated opposite him, sent him smiling +and wordless messages of love. Not a word was said of the fire, but John +kept serving him with large portions of the vegetables and the excellent +and expensive steak which had been bought in his honor; and John's wife +kept spurring him on. + +"I'm sure Mr. Joe could stand just a weeny sliver more." + +"Mrs. Rann"--Joe put down knife and fork--"do you want me to _burst_?" + +"A big man like you? Give him the sliver, John." + +"John, spare me!" + +"Mr. Joe"--John waved his hand with an air of finality--"in the shop +what you says goes, but in this here home I take my orders from the old +lady. See?" + +"Nellie--Agnes--" he appealed, despairingly, to his little loves, "_you_ +save me! Don't you love me any more?" + +This set Nellie and Agnes giggling with delight. + +"Give him a pound, a whole pound!" cried Agnes, who was the elder. + +A nice sliver was waved dripping on Joe's plate, which Joe proceeded to +eat desperately, all in one mouthful. Whereupon the Ranns were convulsed +with joy, and John kept "ha-ha-ing" as he thumped the table, and went to +such excesses that he seemed to put his life in peril and Mrs. Rann and +the girls had to rise and pound him until their hands hurt. + +"Serves you right, John," said Joe, grimly. "Try it again, and you'll +get a stroke." + +"Ain't he the limit?" queried John, gasping. + +Then Mrs. Rann went mysteriously to the cupboard, and the girls began to +whisper together and giggle. And then Mrs. Rann brought something +covered with a napkin, and then the napkin was removed. It was pie. + +Joe pretended that he didn't know the secret, and leaned far over and +gazed at it. + +"It's--well, what is it?" + +Mrs. Rann's voice rang with exultation. + +"Your favorite, Mr. Joe." + +"Not--_raisin pie_?" + +A shout went up from all. Then real moisture came stealthily to Joe's +eyes, and he looked about on those friendly faces, and murmured: + +"Thoughtful, mightily thoughtful!" + +There was a special bottle of wine--rather cheap, it is true, but then +it was served with raisin pie and with human love, which made it very +palatable. Mrs. Rann fixed John with a sharp glance through her glasses +and cleared her throat several times, and finally Agnes gave him a poke +in the ribs, whispering: + +"Hurry up, dad!" + +John blushed and rose to his feet. + +"Mr. Joe, I ain't a talker, anyway on my feet. But, Mr. Joe, you've been +my boss six years. And, Mr. Joe--" He paused, stuck, and gazed +appealingly at Joe. + +Joe rose to the occasion. + +"So it's, here's to good friends, isn't it, John?" + +John beamed. + +"That's it--you took the words out of my mouth! Toast!" + +So they drank. + +Then Joe rose, and spoke musingly, tenderly: + +"There's a trifle I want to say to you to-night--to every one of you. I +can't do without you. Now it happens that I'm going to put a press in my +new business and I'm looking for a first-class crackerjack of a +pressman. Do you happen to know any one in this neighborhood who could +take the job?" + +He sat down. There was profound silence. And then Mrs. Rann took off +her spectacles and sobbed. John reached over and took Joe's hand, and +his voice was husky with tears. + +"Mr. Joe! Mr. Joe! Ah, say, you make me feel foolish!" + +Joe stayed with them late that night, and when he left, the kisses of +the two girls moist on his cheeks, he had no doubt of his life-work. But +next day, Saturday--the last day--was downright black. Things went +wrong, and the men steered clear of Joe. + +"Don't bother _him_," they said, meaning to spare him, and thereby +increasing his pain. Men spoke in hushed tones, as soldiers might on the +eve of a fatal battle, and even Marty Briggs dropped his new mannerisms +and was subdued and simple. + +Then Joe went off into a state of mind which might be described as the +"hazes"--a thing he did now and then. At such times the word went round: + +"The old man's got 'em again!" + +And he was left well alone, for the good reason that he was +unapproachable. He seemed not to listen to spoken words, nor to pay any +attention to the world about him. The men, however, appreciated these +spells, for, as a rule, something came of them--they bore good practical +fruit, the sure test of all sanity. + +The day finally wore away, to every one's relief. Joe took a last look +around at all the familiar scene, shut his desk, handed over the keys +to Marty (who could not speak because he was half-choked), sang out, +"See you later, boys!" heard for the last time the sharp ring of the +door-bell and the slam of the door, and hurried away. Then at last night +came, and with night the last supper (as already announced) of Joe +Blaine and His Men. + +By Monday there would be painted an addition on that door, namely: + + MARTIN BRIGGS + SUCCESSOR TO + +The supper was held in the large hall, upstairs, of Pfaff's, on East +Eighty-sixth Street. The large table was a dream of green and white, of +silver and glass, and the men hung about awkwardly silent in their +Sunday best. Then Joe cried: + +"Start the presses!" + +There came a good laugh then to break the icy air, and they sat down and +were served by flying waiters, who in this instance had the odd +distinction of appearing to be the "upper classes" serving the +"lower"--a distinction, up to date, not over-eagerly coveted by society. +For the waiters wore the conventional dress of "gentlemen" and the +diners were in plain and common clothes. + +At first the diners were in a bit of a funk, but Pfaff's excellent +meats and cool, sparkling wines soon set free in each a scintillant +human spirit, and the banquet took on almost an air of gaiety. + +Finally there came the coffee and the ice-cream in forms, and Martin +Briggs rose. There was a stamping of feet, a clanking of knives on +glasses, a cry of "Hear! Hear!" + +Martin Briggs knew it by heart and launched it with the aid of two +swallows of water. His voice boomed big. + +"Fellow-workers, friends, and the Old Man!" + +This produced tumults of applause. + +"We are met to-night on a solemn occasion. Ties are to be severed, +friends parted. Such is life. Mr. Blaine--" (Cries from the far end of +the table, "Say, Joe! say, Joe!") "Mr. Joe has been our friend, through +all these long years. He has been our friend, our boss, our co-worker. +Never did he spare himself; often he spared us. He had created an +important business, a profitable business, a business which has brought +a good living to every one of us. It is not for us to talk of the +catastrophe--this is not the occasion for that. Enough to say that +to-night Mr. Joe leaves that business. Others must carry it on. My +sentiment is that these others must continue in the same spirit of Mr. +Joe. That's my sentiment." (Roars of applause, stamping of feet, but one +voice heard in talk with a neighbor, "Say, I guess his wife wrote that, +Bill.") "So I propose a toast. To Mr. Joe, now and forever!" + +They rose, they clanked glasses, they drank. Then they sat down and felt +that something was wrong. Marty surely had missed fire. + +Whereupon John Rann, blushing, rose to his feet, and began to stammer: + +"Say, fellers, do you mind if I put in a word?" (Cries: "Not a bit!" +"Soak it him, Johnny.") "Well, I want to say," his voice rose, "Joe +Blaine is _it_." (Applause, laughter, stamping.) "He's jest one of us." +(Cries: "You bet!" "You've hit it, Johnny!" "Give us more!") "He's a +friend." (Cries: "That's the dope!") "He never did a mean thing in his +life." (One loud cry: "Couldn't if he wanted to!") "Say," (Cries: "Go +ahead!" "Nobody 'll stop yer!" "Give him hell!" Laughter.) "We fellers +never appreciated this here Joe Blaine, did we?" (Cries: "Gosh no!") +"But we do _now_!" (Uproarious and prolonged applause.) "Say, fellers, +he's been like a regular father to us kids." (A strange silence.) "He's +been--Oh, hell!" (Speaker wipes his eyes with a red handkerchief. +Strange silence prolonged. Then one voice: "Tell him to his face, John. +'Bout time he knew.") "Joe Blaine" (speaker faces Mr. Blaine, and tries +not to choke), "if any one tries to say that you had anything to do with +the fire--he's a _damned liar_!" + +A thrill charged the men; they became pale; they gazed on Joe, who +looked as white as linen; and suddenly they burst forth in a wildness, +a shouting, a stamping, a cry of: "Mr. Joe! Mr. Joe! Mr. Joe!" + +Joe arose; he leaned a little forward; he trembled visibly, his rising +hand shaking so that he dropped it. Then at last he spoke: + +"Yes--John is my friend. And you--are my friends. Yes. But--you're +wrong. I _was_ to blame." He paused. "I _was_ to blame. Here, to-night, +I want to say this: Those girls, those comrades of ours--all that went +to waste with them--well," his voice broke, "I'm going to try to make +good for them...." + +For a moment he stood there, his face working strangely as if he were +going to break down, and the men looked away from him. Then he went on +in a voice warmly human and tender: + +"You and I, boys, we grew up together. I know your wives and children. +You've given me happy hours. I've made you stand for a lot--your old man +was considerable boy--had his bad habits, his queer notions. Once in +awhile went crazy. But we managed along, quarreling just enough to hit +it off together. Remember how I fired Tommy three times in one week? +Couldn't get rid of him. Oh, Tommy, what 'pi' you made of things! Great +times we've had, great times. It hurts me raw." He paused, looking round +at them. They were glancing at him furtively with shining eyes. "Hurts +me raw to think those times are over--for me. But the dead have called +me. I go out into another world. I go out into a great fight. I may +fail--quite likely I will. But I shall be backed. Your love goes with +me, and I've got a big job ahead." Again he paused, overcome. Then he +tried to smile, tried to smooth out the tragic with a forced jocularity. +"Now, boys, behave. Mind you don't work too much. And don't all forget +the old man. And--but that's enough, I guess." + +The silence was terrible. Some of those big men were crying softly like +stricken children. It was the last requiem over the dead, the last +flare-up of the tragic fire. They crowded round Joe. He was blind +himself with tears, though he felt a strange quiet in his heart. + +And then he was out in the starry autumn night, walking home, murmuring: + +"It's all over. That's out of my life." + +And he felt as if something had died within him. + + + + +VIII + + +THE WIND IN THE OAKS + +Early Monday evening there came a note from Myra: + + I wanted you to know that I am leaving for the + country--to-morrow--to get a rest. + + MYRA. + +Joe at once put on his hat and coat and went out. The last meeting with +his men had given him a new strength, a heightened manhood. Like a man +doomed to death, he felt beyond despair now. He only knew he must go to +Myra and set straight their relationship as a final step before he +plunged into the great battle. No more weakness! No more quarreling! But +clear words and definite understanding! + +He went up the stoop and rang the bell. A servant opened the door, +showed him into the dimly lighted parlor, and went up the stairs with +his name. He heard her footsteps, light, hesitant. She appeared before +him, pale and sick and desperate. + +"What do you want?" she asked in a tortured voice. + +He arose and came close to her. He spoke authoritatively: + +"Myra, get on your things. We must take a walk." + +Her shifting eyes glanced up, gave him their full luminous gray and all +the trouble of her heart. + +"Myra," his voice deepened, and struck through her, "you must go with me +to-night. It's our last chance." + +She turned and was gone. He heard her light footsteps ascending; he +waited, wondering, hoping; and then she came down again, showing her +head at the door. She had on the little rounded felt hat, and she +carried her muff. + +They went out together, saying nothing, stepping near one another under +the lamps and over the avenues, and into the Park. It was a strange, +windy night, touched with the first bleakness of winter, tinged with the +moaning melancholy of the tossing oak-trees, and with streaks of faint +reflected city lights in the far heavens. + +It was their last night together. Both knew it. There was no help for +it. The great issues of life were sweeping them away into black gulfs of +the future, where there might never be meeting again, never hand-touch +nor sound of each other's voice. And strangely life deepened in their +hearts, and they were swept by the mystery of being alive ... alive in +the star-streaked darkness of space, alive with so many other brief +creatures that brightened for a moment in the gloom and then sank away +into the stormy heart of nature. And Love contended with Death, and the +little labors of man helped Death to crush Love; and so that moment of +existence, that brief span, became a mere brute struggle, a clash, a +fight, a thing sordid and worse than death. + +Out of the mystery, each, from some unimaginable distance, had come +forth and met here on the earth, met for a wild moment, a moment that +gave them lightning-lit glimpses of that mystery, only to part from each +other now, each to return into the darkness. + +They felt in unison more than they could ever say. And it was the last +night together. + +They sat down on a bench, under those mournful boughs, under the +lamentations of the oaks. + +"Myra," said Joe. + +She murmured, "Yes." + +His voice was charged with some of the strangeness of the night, some +significance of the mystery of life and death. + +"You read my letter ..." + +"Yes." + +"And you understand ... at last?" + +"I don't know ... I can't tell." + +He paused; he leaned nearer. + +"Why are you going away?" + +"I've been sick," she whispered. "The doctor told me to go." + +"For long?" + +"For a rest." + +"And you go to-morrow?" + +"I go to-morrow." + +"_Without forgiving me_?" He leaned very near. + +There was a palpitating silence, a silence that searched their souls, +and sharply then Myra cried out: + +"Oh, Joe! Joe! This is killing me!" + +"Myra!" he cried. + +He drew her close, very close, stroking her cheek, and the tears ran +over his fingers. + +"Oh, don't you see," he went on, brokenly, "I can't ask you to come with +me? And yet I must go?" + +"I don't know," she sobbed. "I must go away and rest ... and think ... +and try to understand...." + +"And may I write to you?..." + +"Yes," she murmured. + +"And I am forgiven?" + +"Forgive me!" she sobbed. + +They could say no more, but sat in the wild darkness, clasping each +other as if they could not let one another go.... How could they send +each other forth to go in loneliness and homelessness to the ends of the +earth? The hours passed as they talked brokenly together, words of +remorse, of love, of forgiveness. + +And then finally they arose--it was very late--and Myra whispered, +clinging to him: + +"We must say good-by here!" + +"Good-by!" he cried ... and they kissed. + +"Joe," she exclaimed, "take care of yourself! Do just that for me!" + +"I will," he said huskily, "but you must do the same for me. Promise." + +"I promise!" + +"Oh, Joe!" she cried out, "what is life doing with us?" + +And they went back, confused and strange, through the lighted streets. +They stood before her house. + +"Till you come back!" he whispered. + +She flashed about then, a look of a new wonder in her eyes. + +"If only I thought you were right in your work!" she cried. + +"You will! You will, Myra! And in that hope, we will go on!" + +She was gone; the door shut him out of her life. And all alone, strong, +bitter, staring ahead, Joe stepped off to begin the new life ... to +plunge into the battle. + + * * * * * + + +PART II--THE TEST + + + + +I + + +BEGINNINGS + +It was in that red gash of crosstown brick--West Tenth Street--that the +new life began. The neighborhood was quaint and poor, a part of that old +Greenwich Village which at one time was a center of quiet and chaste +respectability, with its winding streets, its old-fashioned low brick +houses, its trees, its general air of detachment and hushed life. Now it +was a scene of slovenliness and dust, of miserable lives huddled thickly +in inadequate houses, of cheap roomers and boarders, of squalid +poverty--a mix of many nations well-sprinkled with saloons. + +But the house was quite charming--three stories, red brick, with a stoop +of some ten steps, and long French windows on the first floor. Behind +those French windows was a four-room flat; beneath them, in the +basement, a room with iron-grated windows. Into that flat Joe and his +mother moved. + +The invasion was unostentatious. No one could have dreamed that the +tall, homely man, dashing in and out in his shirt-sleeves between the +rooms and the moving-van drawn up at the curb, had come down with the +deliberate purpose of making a neighborhood out of a chaos, of +organizing that jumble of scattered polyglot lives.... In the faded +sunshine of the unusually warm winter afternoon, with its vistas of +gold-dusty air, and its noise of playing children and on-surging +trolleys and trucks and all the minute life of the saloons and the +stores--women hanging out of windows to get the recreation of watching +the confused drama of the streets, neighbors meeting in doorways, young +men laughing and chatting in clusters about lamp-posts--Joe toiled +valiantly and happily. He would rapidly glance at the thickly peopled +street and wonder, with a thrill, how soon he would include these lives +in his own, how soon he would grip and rouse and awaken the careless +multitude.... + +All was strange, all was new. Everything that was deep in his life--all +the roots he had put down through boyhood, youth, and manhood into the +familiar life of Yorkville--was torn up and transplanted to this fresh +and unfriendly soil.... He felt as if he were in an alien land, under +new skies, in a new clime, and there was all the romance of the +mysterious and all the fear of the untried. Beginnings always have the +double quality of magic and timidity--the dreaded, delicious first +plunge into cold water, the adventurous striking out into unknown +perils.... Did it not at moments seem like madness to dare +single-handed into this vast and careless population? Was he not merely +a modern Don Quixote tilting at windmills? Well, so be it, he thought; +the goal might be unreachable, but the quest was life itself. + +He had an inkling of the monstrous size of New York. All his days he had +lived within a half-hour's ride of Greenwich Village, and yet it was a +new world to him. So the whole city was but a conglomeration of nests of +worlds, woven together by a few needs and the day's work, worlds as yet +undiscovered in every direction, huge tracts of peoples of all races +leading strange and unassimilated lives. He felt lost in the crowded +immensity, a helpless, obscure unit in the whirl of life. + +He had fallen in love with Greenwich Village from the first day he had +explored it for a promising dwelling-place. Here, he knew, lived Sally +Heffer, and here doubtless he would meet her and she would help shape +his fight, perhaps be the woman to gird on his armor, put sword in his +hand, and send him forth. For he needed her, needed her as a child needs +a teacher, as a recruit needs a disciplined veteran. It was she who had +first revealed the actual world to him; it was she who had first divined +his power and his purpose; it was she who had released him from guilt by +showing him a means of expiation. + +And yet, withal, he feared to meet her. There had been something +terrible about her that afternoon at Carnegie Hall, and something that +awed him that evening at the Woman's League. Until she had broken down +and wept, she had hardly seemed a woman--rather a voice crying in the +wilderness, a female Isaiah, the toilers become articulate. And he could +not think of her as a simple, vivacious young woman. How would she greet +him? Would her eyes remember his part in the fire? + +At least, so he told himself, he would not seek her out (he had her +address from Fannie Lemick) until he had something to show for his new +life--until, possibly, he had a copy of that magazine which was still a +hypothesis and a chimera. Then he would nerve himself and go to her and +she should judge him as she pleased. + +That first supper with his mother had a sweetness new to their lives. He +ran out to the butcher, the grocer, and the delicatessen man, and came +home laden with packages. The stove in the rear kitchen was set alight; +the wooden table in the center was spread with cloth and cutlery; and +they sat down opposite each other, utterly alone ... no boarding--house +flutter and gossip and noise, no unpleasant jarring personalities, no +wholesale cookery. All was quiet and peace--a brooding, tinkling +silence. They both smiled and smiled, their eyes moist, and the food +tasted so good. Blessed bread that they broke together, the cup that +they shared between them! The moment became sacred, human, stirred by +all the old, old miraculousness of home, that deepest need of humanity, +that rich relationship that cuts so much deeper than the light +touch-and-go of the world. + +Joe spoke awkwardly. + +"So we're here, mother ... and it's ripping, isn't it?" + +She could hardly speak, but her eyes seemed to sparkle with a second +youth. + +"Yes," she murmured, "it's the first time we've had anything like this +since you were a boy." + +They both thought of his father, and the vanished days of the shanty on +the hillside, and his mother thought: + +"People must live out their own lives in their own homes." + +There was something that fed the roots of her woman-nature to have this +place apart, this quiet shelter where she ruled. It would be a joy to go +marketing, it would be a delight to cook, and it was charming to live so +intimately with her son. They were a family again. + +After supper they washed the dishes together, laughing and chatting. +There were a hundred pleasing details to consider--where to place +furniture, what to buy, whether to have a servant or not (Joe insisted +on one), and all the incidents of the day to go over. + +And then after the dish-washing they stopped work, and sat down in the +front office amid the packing-cases and the trunks and the litter and +débris. The gas was lighted above them, and the old-fashioned stove +which stood in the center and sprouted up a pipe nearly to the ceiling +and then at right angles into the wall was made red-hot with wood and +coal. Joe smoked and his mother sewed, and a hush seemed to fall on the +city, broken only by the echo of passing footsteps and the mellowed +thunder of the intermittent trolley-cars. + +"And they call this a slum," muttered Joe. + +In fact, save possibly for less clear air and in the summer a noise of +neighbors, they might have been living in New York's finest +neighborhood--almost a disappointment to two people prepared to plunge +into dirt, danger, and disease.... Later Joe learned that some of the +city's magazine writers had settled in the district on purpose, not +because they were meeting a crisis, but because they liked it, liked its +quaint old flavor, its colorful life, its alien charm, and not least, +its cheaper rents. + +But this evening all was unknown save the joy and peace of a real home. +They went to bed early, Joe in the room next the office, his mother in +the adjoining room next the kitchen, but neither slept for a long time. +They lay awake tingling with a strange happiness, a fine freedom, a +freshness of re-created life. Only to the pioneer comes this thrill of a +new-made Eden, only to those who tear themselves from the easy ruts and +cut hazardous clearings in the unventured wilderness. It is like being +made over, like coming with fresh heart and eyes upon the glories of the +earth; it is the only youth of the world. + +The night grew late and marvelously hushed, a silence almost oppressive, +where every noise seemed like an invader, and Joe, lying there keenly +awake, seemed to feel the throb of the world, the pauseless pulsations +of that life that beats in every brain and every heart of the earth; +that life that, more intense than human love and thought, burns in the +suns that swing about heaven rolling the globe of earth among them; that +life that enfolds with tremendous purpose the little human creature in +the vastness, that somehow expresses itself and heightens and changes +itself in human lives and all the dreams and doings of men. Joe felt +that life, thrilling to it, opening his heart to it, letting it +surcharge and overflow his being with strength and joy. And he knew then +that he lay as in a warm nest of the toilers and the poor, that crowded +all about him in every direction were sleeping men and women and little +children, all recently born, all soon to die, he himself shortly to be +stricken out of these scenes and these sensations. It was all mystery +unplumbable, unbelievable ... that this breath was not to go on forever, +that this brain was to be stopped off, this heart cease like a run-down +clock, this exultation and sorrow to leave like a mist, scattered in +that life that bore it.... That he, Joe Blaine, was to die! + +Surely life was marvelous and sacred; it was not to be always a selfish +scramble, a money rush, a confusion and jumble, but rather something of +harmony and mighty labors and mingled joys. He felt great strength; he +felt equal to his purposes; he was sure he could help in the advancing +processes.... Even as he was part of the divine mystery, so he could +wield that divineness in him to lift life to new levels, while the +breath was in his body, while the glow was in his brain. + +And he thought of Myra, his mate in the mystery, and in the night he +yearned for her, hungered through all his being. She had written him a +note; it came to him from the mountains. It ran: + + DEAR JOE,--You will be glad to know that I am getting + back to myself. The peace and stillness of the + white winter over the hills is healing me. It seems + good merely to exist, to sleep and eat and exercise and + read. I can't think now how I behaved so unaccountably + those last few weeks, and I wonder if you will + ever understand. I have been reading over and over + again your long letter, trying hard to puzzle out its + meanings, but I fear I am very ignorant. I know nothing + of the crisis you speak of. I know that "ye have + the poor always with you," I know that there is much + suffering in the world--I have suffered myself--but I + cannot see that living among the poor is going to help + vitally. Should we not all live on the highest level + possible? Level up instead of leveling down. Ignorance, + dirt, and sickness do not attract me ... and + now here among the hills the terrible city seems like + a fading nightmare. It would be better if people lived + in the country. I feel that the city is a mistake. But + of one thing I am sure. I understand that you cannot + help doing what you are doing, and I know that it would + have been a wrong if I had interfered with your life. + I would have been a drag on you and defeated your + purposes, and in the end we would both have been very + unhappy. It seems to me most marriages are. Write + me what you are doing, where you are living, and how + you are. + + Yours, + + MYRA. + +He had smiled over some of the phrases in this letter, particularly, "I +feel that the city is a mistake." Would Myra ever know that her very +personality and all of her life were interwoven inextricably with the +industrial city--that the clothes she wore, the food she ate, the books +she studied, the letter she wrote him, even down to ink, pen, and paper, +the education and advantages she enjoyed, were all wrought in the mills, +the mines, the offices, and by the interchange and inweaving and mighty +labors of industrialism? The city teacher is paid by taxes levied on the +commerce and labors of men, and the very farmer cannot heighten his life +without exchange with the city. + +And so her letter made him smile. Yet at the same time it stirred him +mightily. All through it he could read renunciation; she was giving him +up; she was loosening her hold over him; she was nobly sacrificing her +love to his life-work. And she announced herself as teachable and +receptive. She could not yet understand, but understanding might come in +time. + +So in the night he tried to send his thought over the hills, flash his +spirit into hers, in the great hope that she would thrill with a new +comprehension, a new awakening.... In a world so mysterious, in an +existence so strange, so impossible, so unbelievable, might such a +miracle be stranger than the breath he breathed and the passions he +felt? + +And so in that hope, that great wild hope, he fell asleep in the +uneventful beginnings of the battle. And all through those unconscious +hours forces were shaping about him and within him to bear his life +through strange ways and among strange people. His theories, so easy as +he drank them out of books, were to be tested in the living world of men +and women, in that reality that hits back when we strike it, and that +batters us about like driftwood in the whirlpool. + + + + +II + + +THE NINE-TENTHS + +Standing on Washington Heights--that hump on northwestern Manhattan +Island--gazing, say, from a window of the City College whose gray and +quaint cluster fronts the morn as on a cliff above the city--one sees, +at seven of a sharp morning, a low-hung sun in the eastern skies, a vast +circle and lift of mild blue heavens, and at one's feet, down below, the +whole sweep of New York from the wooded ridges of the Bronx to the +Fifty-ninth Street bridge and the golden tip of the Metropolitan Tower. +It is a flood of roofs sweeping south to that golden, flashing minaret, +a flood bearing innumerable high mill chimneys, church steeples, school +spires, and the skeleton frames of gas-works. Far in the east the Harlem +River lies like a sheet of dazzling silver, dotted with boats; every +skylight, every point of glass or metal on the roofs, flashes in the +sun, and, gazing down from that corner in the sky, one sees the visible +morning hymn of the city--a drift from thousands of house chimneys of +delicate unraveling skeins of white-blue smoke lifting from those human +dwellings like aerial spirits. It is the song of humanity rising, the +song of the ritual of breaking bread together, of preparation for the +day of toil, the song of the mothers sending the men to work, the song +of the mothers kissing and packing to school the rosy, laughing +children. + +It might be hard to imagine that far to the south in that moving human +ocean, a certain Joe Blaine, swallowed in the sea, was yet as real a +fact as the city contained--that to himself he was far from being +swallowed, that he was, in fact, so real to himself that the rest of the +city was rather shadowy and unreal, and that he was immensely concerned +in a thousand-flashing torrent of thoughts, in a mix-up of appetite and +desires, and in the condition and apparel of his body. That as he sat at +his desk, for instance, it was important to him to discover how he could +break himself of a new habit of biting the end of his pen-holder. + +And yet, under that flood of roofs, Joe was struggling with that crucial +problem. He finally settled it by deciding to smoke lots of cigars, and +proceeded to light one as a beginning. He smoked one, then a second, +then a third--which was certainly bad for his health. He was in the +throes of a violent reaction. + +Several days of relentless activity had followed the moving in. There +was much to do. The four rooms became immaculately clean--sweetened up +with soap and water, with neat wallpaper, with paint and furniture. +Even the dark inner bedrooms contrived to look cozy and warm and +inviting. Joe's mother was a true New England housekeeper, which meant +scrupulous order, cleanliness, and brightness. The one room exempt from +her rule was Joe's. After the first clean-up, his mother did not even +try to begin on it. + +"You're hopeless, Joe," she laughed, "and you'll ruin faster than I can +set right." + +And so that editorial office soon became a nest of confusion. The walls +were lined with bookshelves and a quaint assortment of books, old and +new, populated not only these, but the floor, the two tables, the +roll-top desk, and here and there a chair. White paper began to heap up +in the corners. Magazines--"my contemporaries," said the proud +editor--began their limitless flood. And the matting on the floor was +soon worn through by Joe's perpetual pacing. + +The whole home, however, began to have atmosphere--personality. There +was something open, hospitable, warm about it--something comfortable and +livable. + +Among the first things Joe did was to procure two assistants. One was +the bookkeeper, Nathan Slate, a lean and dangling individual, who +collapsed over his high desk in the corner like a many-bladed penknife. +He was thin and cadaverous, and spoke in a meek and melancholy voice, +studied and slow. He dressed in black and tried to suppress his thin +height by stooping low and hanging his head. The other addition was +Billy, the office-boy, a sharp, bright youth with red hair and brilliant +blue eyes. + +There was much else to do. For instance, there were the money affairs to +get in shape. Joe secured a five-per-cent mortgage with his capital. +Marty Briggs paid down two thousand cash and was to pay two thousand a +year and interest. So Joe could figure his income at somewhat over six +thousand dollars, and, as he hoped that he and his mother would use not +more than fifteen hundred a year, or, at the most, two thousand, he felt +he had plenty to throw into his enterprise. + +Among the first things that Joe discovered was a gift of his own +temperament. He was a born crowd-man, a "mixer." He found he could +instantly assume the level of the man he talked with, and that his +tongue knew no hindrance. Thought flowed easily into speech. This gave +him a freedom among men, a sense of belonging anywhere, and singled him +out from the rest. It gave him, too, the joy of expression--the joy of +throwing out his thought and getting its immediate reaction in other +lives. Yet he understood perfectly the man who seemed shy and recluse, +who was choked-off before strangers, and who yet burned to be a +democrat, to give and take, to share alien lives, to be of the moving +throng of life. Such a man was the victim either of a wrong education, +an education of repression that discouraged any personal display, or he +had a twist in his temperament. Joe, who began to be well aware of his +gift, used it without stint and found that it had a contagious +quality--it loosened other people up; it unfolded their shy and secret +petals like sun heat on a bud; it made the desert of personality blossom +like the rose. He warmed the life about him because he could express +himself. + +So it was not hard for Joe to shift to this new neighborhood and become +absorbed in its existence. Tradespeople, idlers, roomers and landlady in +the house accepted him at once and felt as if they had known him all +their lives. By a power almost of intuition he probed their obscure +histories and entered into their destinies. + +However, in spite of these activities and all the bustle and stir of +fresh beginnings, Joe, that sunny morning, was suffering a sharp +reaction. In the presence of Nathan Slate and Billy he was pretending to +work, but his brain was as dry as a soda-cracker. It was that natural +revulsion of the idealist following the first glow. Here he was, up +against a reality, and yet with no definite plan, not even a name for +his paper, and he had not even begun to penetrate the life about him. +The throbbing moment had arrived when he must set his theories into +motion, drive them out into the lives of the people, and get reactions. +But how? In what way? His brain refused to think, and he felt nothing +save a misery and poverty of the spirit that were unendurable. + +It seemed to him suddenly as if he had hastily embarked on a search for +the fountain of eternal youth--a voyage that followed mirages, and was +hollow and illusory. Beginnings, after the first flush, always have this +quality of fake, and Joe was standing in the shadow-land between two +lives. The old life was receding in the past; the new life had not yet +appeared. Without training, without experience, without definite +knowledge of the need to be met, with only a strong desire and a mixed +ideal, and almost without his own volition, he found himself now sitting +at a desk in West Tenth Street, with two employees, and nothing to do. +How out of this emptiness was he to create something vital? + +This naturally brought a pang he might have anticipated. He had a sudden +powerful hankering for the old life. That at least was man-size--his job +had been man's work. He looked back at those fruitful laborious days, +with their rich interest and absorbing details, their human +companionships, and had an almost irrepressible desire to rush out, take +the elevated train, go down East Eighty-first Street, ascend the +elevator, ring the bell, and enter his dominion of trembling, thundering +presses. He could smell the old smells, he could see the presses and the +men, he could hear the noise. That was where he belonged. Voluntarily he +had exiled himself from happiness and use. He wanted to go back--wanted +it hard, almost groaned with homesickness. + +Such struggles are death throes or birth throes. They are as real as two +men wrestling. Joe could sit still no longer, could mask no longer the +combat within him. So he rose hastily and went out and wandered about +the shabby, unfriendly neighborhood. He had a mad desire, almost +realized, to take the car straight to Eighty-first Street, and only the +thought of Marty Briggs in actual possession held him back. Finally he +went back and took lunch, and again tried the vain task of pretending to +work. + +It was three o'clock when he surrendered. He strode in to his mother. + +"Mother," he said, "isn't there something we can do together?" + +"In what way?" + +"Any way. I've been idling all day and I'm half dead." He laughed +strangely. "I believe I'm getting nerves, mother." + +"Nerves!" She looked at him sharply. "What is it, Joe?" + +"Oh! It's in-betweenness." + +"I see." She smiled. "Well, there's some shopping to do--" + +"Thank Heaven!" + +So they went out together and took the Sixth Avenue car to Thirty-fourth +Street. Their shopping took them to Fifth Avenue, and then, later, up +Broadway to Forty-second Street. It was a different New York they +saw--in fact, the New York best known to the stranger. The gorgeous +palaces of trade glittered and sparkled, shimmered and flashed, with +jewels and silver, with silks and knick-knacks. The immense and rich +plenty of earth, the products of factories and mills, were lavishly +poured here, gathered in isles, about which a swarming sea of +well-dressed women pushed and crowded. The high ceilings were hung with +glowing moons of light; the atmosphere was magic with confused talk, +shuffling footsteps, and all the hum and stir of a human hive. Up and +down Fifth Avenue swept a black thick stream of motors and carriages in +which women and men lounged and stared. The great hotels sucked in and +poured out tides of jeweled and lace-wrapped creatures, and in the +lighted interiors of restaurants were rouged cheeks and kindled eyes. + +As Joe and his mother reached Forty-second Street, that whirlpool of +theaters released its matinee crowds, a flood of youth, beauty, +brightness, and luxury. + +And it seemed to Joe, seeing all this life from a Tenth Street +viewpoint, that here was a great city of wealth and idleness. Evidently +a large population had nothing to do save shop and motor, eat and idle. +How could he from shabby Tenth Street send out a sheet of paper that +would compete with these flashing avenues? + +The sight depressed him. He said as much to his mother. + +"This is New York," he said, "barbaric, powerful, luxuriant. These +people are the power of the city--the mighty few--these are the owners. +What can we do with them?" + +His mother sensed then the struggle in his mind. + +"Joe," she cried, "isn't there any place where we can see--the other +people?" + +There was. They took the car down to Eighth Street, they walked east, +and entered little Washington Park, with its monumental arch, and its +shadowy trees, its wide and curving walks--its general sense of being a +green breathing-space in the sweep of streets. As they walked through +the sharp wintry air in the closing sunlight, what time the blue +electric lights gleamed out among the almost naked boughs, the +six-o'clock whistles began blowing from factories all about them--a glad +shriek that jumped from street to street over the city--and at once +across the eastern plaza of the park streamed the strange torrent of the +workers--a mighty, swift march of girls and boys, women and men, +homeward bound, the day's work ended--a human stream, in the gray light, +steeped in an atmosphere of accomplishment, sweet peace, solution. All +life seemed to touch a moment of harvest. + +Joe's mother was thrilled, and in spite of himself Joe felt his heart +clutched, as it were, in a vise. He felt the strange, strong, human +grip. It was a marvelous spectacle, though common, daily, and cheap as +life. + +Joe's mother whispered, in a low voice: + +"Joe, this is the real New York!" + +And then again: + +"Those others are only a fraction--these are the people." + +"Yes," murmured Joe, his blood surging to his cheeks, "these are the +nine-tenths." + +They went closer to that mighty marching host--they saw the cheap +garments--baggy trousers, torn shoes, worn shirts; they saw the earnest, +tired faces, the white and toil-shrunk countenances, the poverty, the +reality of pain and work, all pressing on in an atmosphere of serious +progress, as if they knew what fires roared, what sinews ached down in +the foundations of the world where the future is created. And Joe +realized, as never before, that upon these people and their captains, +their teachers and interpreters, rested the burdens of civilization; +that the mighty city was wrought by their hands and those who dreamed +with them, that the foam and sparkle of Broadway and Fifth Avenue +bubbled up from that strong liquor beneath. And he believed that the +second-generation idlers had somehow expropriated the toilers and were +living like drones in the hive, and he felt that this could not be +forever, and he was seized by the conviction that a change could only +come through the toilers themselves. Could these pale people but know +their power, know their standing, know the facts of this strange double +life, and then use their might wisely and well, constructively, +creatively, to build up a better and fairer world, a finer justice, a +more splendid day's work, a happier night's home! These that created a +great city could, if trained, create a higher life in that city! + +Surely the next few ages of the future had their work cut out for +them--the most stupendous task the race had ever undertaken. + +Then, after all, he was right. All who could must be dedicated to the +work of sowing enlightenment, of yeasting the crowds with knowledge and +love and light--all who could. Then he, too, could do his share; he, +too, could reach this crowd. And these people--they were reachable. No +theaters and restaurants competed with him here. Their hearts and minds +were open. He could step in and share their lives. He had done so in his +shop, and these were of the same human nature. + +Power returned to him. + +"Mother," he said, his eyes flashing, "it's all right. Now I'm ready to +begin! I'm for the nine-tenths." + +They turned, walking home in silence, and as they went the phrase +"nine-tenths," which Joe must have picked up in some book on socialism +or some sociological study, kept haunting his mind. The new power +released in him made his brain work like lightning--creatively. Thoughts +crowded, combinations sprung up; he began to actively dream and scheme. + +"I've got it!" he cried. "Why not call my paper _The Nine-Tenths_?" + +"Good!" + +He began to plan aloud as the quick thoughts flashed. + +"An eight-page paper--weekly. An editorial, giving some of the plain +facts about civilization--simple stuff to teach the people what industry +means, what their work means, what they ought to be doing. Then +news--news about all movements toward freedom--labor, strikes, reform, +new laws, schools--news of all the forces working for betterment--a +concrete statement of where the world stands to-day and what it is +doing. But a fair sheet, mother. No railing, no bitterness, no +bomb-throwing. Plenty of horse sense, plenty of banking the fires, of +delaying wisely. No setting class against class. No under-rating of +leaders and captains. Justice, but plenty of mercy. Facts, but plenty of +philosophy to cool 'em off. Progress all the time, but no French +revolutions. And when sides must be taken, no dishonest compromises, no +cowardly broad--mindedness--but always with the weakest, the under dog, +whenever their cause is good. That's my programme; that's _The +Nine-Tenths_." + +"Of course," said his mother, "you'll see things clearer as you do them. +There'll be changes." + +"Surely!" His mind was already miles ahead. "Mother, I've got it now, +for sure!" + +"What now?" She laughed, enthusiastically. + +"Isn't this a whopper? No _ads_." + +"But why not, Joe? That would support the paper." + +"No, not a line. I don't expect the paper to pay. That's where our money +comes in. We mustn't carry a line. Don't you see? There's hardly a +paper in the land that is free. They're influenced by their +advertising--that's their bread and butter. And even if they're not +influenced, people suspect they are. We must be free even of that +suspicion. We can be free--utterly so--say what we please--speak our +minds out--and nothing to hinder us. That will be unique--that will be +something new in magazines. We'll go the limit, mother." + +His mother laughed. + +"I guess you're right, Joe. It's worth trying. But how are you going to +circulate the paper?" + +"How?" Again his mind jumped forward. "House-to-house canvass--labor +unions--street corners. I'm going to dig in now, get acquainted with the +people round about, spread it any old way. And I'm going to start with +the idea of a big future--twenty thousand copies finally. You see, it'll +be a sort of underground newspaper--no publicity--but spreading from +group to group among the workers. Broadway and up-town will never see a +copy." + +So the new life started, started in full swing. Joe worked late that +very night putting his plans on paper, and the next morning there was +plenty of activity for everybody. Joe bought a rebuilt cylinder press +for fifteen hundred dollars and had it installed in the basement. Then +he had the basement wired, and got an electric motor to furnish the +power. John Rann and his family were moved down to a flat farther west +on Tenth Street, and a feeder, a compositor, and a make-up man were +hired along with him. In the press-room (the basement) was placed a +stone--a marble-top table--whereon the make-up man could take the strips +of type as they came from the compositors, arrange them into pages, and +"lock them up" in the forms, ready to put on the presses. + +Then Joe arranged with a printery to set up the type weekly; with a +bindery to bind, fold, bundle, and address the papers; and with Patrick +Flynn, truckman, to distribute the papers to newsdealers. + +Next Joe made a tour of the neighborhood, spoke with the newsdealers, +told them that all they would have to do was to deliver the papers to +the addresses printed upon them. He found them willing to thus add to +their income. + +Thus he made ready. But he was not yet prepared to get subscriptions +(one dollar a year or twenty-five cents a quarter), feeling that first +he must have a sample paper to show. + +The labor on that first number was a joy to him. He would jump up in the +middle of the night, rush into the office, light the gas, and get to +work in his nightgown. He was at it at all hours. And it proved to be an +enormous task. Eight pages eight by twelve do not read like a lot, but +they write like a very great deal. There was an editorial, "Greetings to +You," in which Joe set forth in plain words the ideas and ideals of the +paper, and in which he made clear the meaning of the phrase +"nine-tenths." Then he found that there were two great strikes in +progress in the city. This amazed him, as there was no visible sign of +such a condition. The newspapers said nothing of it, and peace seemed to +brood over the city's millions. Yet there were thousands of cloak-makers +out, and over in Brooklyn the toilers in the sugar refineries were +having little pitched battles with strike-breakers in the streets. Three +men had been killed and a score wounded. + +Joe dug into these strikes, called at the union headquarters, spoke with +the men, even called on some of the cloak-makers' bosses and learned +their grievances. Then he wrote accounts of the strike without taking +sides, merely reporting the facts as fairly as he could. + +In this way, and with the aid of clippings, and by printing that poem by +Lowell which was his mother's favorite, wherein was the couplet already +quoted, + + "They are slaves who dare not be + In the right with two or three," + +he made up a hodge-podge of a magazine. + +Up in the corner of the editorial page he ran the following, subject to +change: + + THE NINE-TENTHS + + A WEEKLY WORD ABOUT MEN, WOMEN, AND CHILDREN + + * * * * * + + MY MOTTO + + I ACCEPT LIFE LARGELY, BUT NOT IN DETAILS + + * * * * * + + SOME OF THE DETAILS NOT ACCEPTED + ARE + + Anything that prevents a child from being well born + and from fulfilling its possibilities. + + Anything that prevents a woman or man from using + every good side of her or his nature. + + ABOUT THESE DETAILS NO DOUBT: + + DISEASE + EXCESS + WANT + OVERWORK + CHILD LABOR + + And let's avoid jealousy, quarrels, ridicule, meanness, + and the rest of the mosquito things. + + Otherwise: what a glorious world. + +This didn't please him altogether, but he wanted to be definite and +simple, and he wanted to show that he wasn't a narrow partisan. + +Thus the first number came to be. As he turned it out, Billy rushed it +in batches to the compositors, and when finally it all came back in +strips of type, it was hurried down to the idlers in the basement. At +ten-thirty that chilly, dust-blowing morning, when the sun-stricken air +glittered with eddies of motes, Joe, sitting at his desk, had the +exquisite rapture of feeling the building tremble. + +He rushed to his mother, and exulted. + +"Can't you feel the press going? Listen!" + +Truly the new life had begun--the vision was beginning to crystallize in +daily living. + +"We're in the fight now, mother!" he cried. "There's something doing!" + +And later, when Joe stood at the back of the press and that first +complete sheet came through, he picked it up as if it were a new-born +child, as indeed it was, wet, drippy, forlorn, and weird, and yet a +wonder and a miracle. Joe looked on his own creation--the little +sheets--the big, black _The Nine-Tenths_--the clear, good type. He was +awed and reduced almost to tears. + +He mailed a copy to Myra with a brief note: + + DEAR MYRA,--Here's the answer to your question. + I'm doing the inclosed, and doing it in West Tenth + Street. Do you know the neighborhood? Old Greenwich + Village, red, shabby, shoddy, common, and vulgar. + Mother and I are as happy as children. How are you? + Your letter is splendid. I am sure you will come to + understand. When are you returning to New York? + + As ever, + + JOE BLAINE. + +And he thought, "Now I have something to show Sally Heffer!" + + + + +III + + +OTHERS: AND SALLY HEFFER + +Joe filled a stiff cloth portfolio with a batch of 9/10s (abbreviation +for home use), pulled his gray hat over his bushy hair, and went over +and tapped the collapsible Slate on the shoulder. + +"Yes, Mr. Joe." + +"Nathan," cried Joe, excitedly, "if there's a rush of subscribers while +I'm gone, make 'em stand in line, and each wait his turn. But don't let +them block the car tracks--string 'em around the corner." + +Nathan gazed at Joe like a lost soul. + +"But I think, Mr. Joe," he said, slowly, "you place your hopes too high. +I don't like to be too gloomy, Mr. Joe, but I have my doubts about a +rush." + +"Slate," cried Joe, slapping the tragic bookkeeper a whack, "you're +inspiring!" + +And he swung out to the street in the brilliant morning sunshine, ready +to begin his canvass. + +"Next door," he mused, "is the place to start." + +There was a woman sitting on the stoop, a two-year-old girl in her +arms. Joe paused and looked at the baby. + +"Hello, you." + +The baby looked at him a little doubtfully, and then laughed. + +"Girl or boy?" asked Joe of the mother. + +"Girl." + +"How old?" + +"Two." + +"She's a darling! What's her name?" + +"Name's Annie." + +"Named after you?" + +"Sure!" + +"You wouldn't mind if I gave her a peppermint to suck?" + +"Would you mind some candy, Annie?" + +"_Candy_!" shrieked the child. + +Joe dove into his bulging pocket and produced a good hard white one. +Annie snatched it up and sucked joyously. + +"Thank the man, Annie." + +"Thank you." + +"Is this your only one, Mrs.--" + +"Cassidy's my name! No, I've buried two others." + +"From this house?" + +"No, we keep movin'--" Mrs. Cassidy laughed a little. + +Joe made a grim face. + +"Jump your rent, eh?" + +Mrs. Cassidy shrugged her shoulders. + +"What can poor people do?" + +"But hasn't Mr. Cassidy a job?" + +"He has when he has it--but it's bum work. Slave like a nigger and then +laid off for six months, maybe." + +"What kind of work is that?" + +"'Longshore--he's a 'longshoreman." + +"And when he's unemployed you have a hard time, don't you?" + +"Hard?" Mrs. Cassidy's voice broke. "What can we do? There's the +insurance every week--fifteen cents for my man, ten cents for me, and +five cents for Annie. We couldn't let that go; it's buryin'-money, and +there ain't a Cassidy isn't going to have as swell a funeral as any in +the ward. And then we've got to live. I've found one thing in this +world--the harder you work the less you get." + +Joe spoke emphatically. + +"Mrs. Cassidy, when your husband's out of work, through no fault of his +own, he ought to get a weekly allowance to keep you going." + +"And who's to give it to him?" + +"Who? Do you know what they do in Germany?" + +"What do they do in Germany?" + +"They have insurance for the unemployed, and when a man's out he gets +so-and-so-much a week. We ought to have it in America." + +"How can we get it? Who listens to the poor?" + +"Your man belongs to a union, doesn't he?" + +"Sure!" + +"Well, the trouble is our people here don't know these things. If they +knew them, they'd get together and make the bosses come round. It's +ignorance holding us all back." + +"I've often told Tim he ought to study something. There's grand lectures +in the schools every Tuesday and Thursday night. But Tim don't put stock +in learning. He says learning never bought a glass of beer." + +Joe laughed. + +"Mrs. Cassidy, that's not what I mean. Listen. I'm a neighbor of +yours--live next door--" + +"Sure! Didn't I see you move in? When my friend, Mrs. Leupp, seen your +iron beds, she up and went to Macy's and bought one herself. What yer +doing in there, anyway, with that printing-press? It gives me the +trembles." + +Joe laughed heartily. + +"You feel the press in this house?" + +"First time, I thought it was an earthquake, Mr. Blaine." + +Joe was abashed. + +"How'd you know my name?" + +"Ast it off your landlady." + +"Well, you're wrong--I'm Mr. Joe." + +Mrs. Cassidy was hugely amused. + +"You're one grand fellow, let me tell you. But, oh, that black, thin +one--he's creepy, Mr. Joe. But your mother--she's all right. I was +telling Mrs. Rann so myself." + +Joe sighed tragically. + +"I suppose the whole neighborhood knows all my family secrets." + +"Pretty near," laughed Mrs. Cassidy. + +"Well, there's one thing you didn't know." + +"What's that?" + +"About my newspaper." + +"What about it?" + +"What paper do you take?" + +Mrs. Cassidy mentioned a daily penny paper. + +"Let's see," said Joe, "that's eleven cents a week, isn't it? Will you +spend two cents more, and take _The Nine-Tenths_?" + +"_Yours_?" + +"It's a paper that tells about the rich and the poor, and what the poor +ought to do to get more out of life. Here, take this copy, keep it; make +Tim read it." + +Mrs. Cassidy was handed a neat little sheet, eight by twelve inches, +clearly printed. There was something homely and inviting about it, +something hospitable and honest. The woman fingered it curiously. + +"Ain't it cute?" she cried. + +"It's all written for just such people as you, and I want you to take +it." + +"How much is it?" + +"Well, you pay twenty-five cents and get it for three months, once a +week, and let Tim read it out loud. Say, don't you think Annie'd like +to see the printing-press?" + +"'Deed she would!" + +And then Joe did the one thing that won. He seized up little Annie +himself, and bore her down to the press-room, Mrs. Cassidy following, +and mentally concluding that there was no one in the ward like Mr. Joe. + +Result: first subscription, and Joe elated with victory. All of which +shows, it must be confessed, that Joe was considerable of a politician, +and did not hesitate to adopt the methods of Tammany Hall. + +It was the next day, at a street corner, that, quite accidentally, Joe +met Michael Dunan, truckman. + +"I've got a cigar," said Joe, "but I haven't a match." + +"I've got a match," said Michael, easily, "but I haven't a cigar." + +"My name's Joe Blaine," said Joe, handing over a panetela. + +"Mine's Mike Dunan," said Michael, passing a match. + +They lit up together. + +"The drinks are on me," murmured Michael. + +They stepped into the saloon at the corner--a bright, mirrory place, +whose tiled floor was covered with sawdust, and whose bar shone like +mahogany. + +"Two beers, Donovan." + +"Dark or light, Mike?" + +"Dark." + +They drank. Michael pounded the bar. + +"Joe Blaine, the times are hard." + +"How so, Michael?" + +"The rich are too rich, and the poor too poor. I'm tired of it!" + +"Then look this over." + +Michael looked it over, and bubbled with joy. + +"That's great. Did you spiel it out? Did you say this little piece? Joe, +I want to join your union!" + +Joe laughed; he sized up the little man, with his sparkling eyes, his +open face, his fiery, musical voice, his golden hair. And he had an +inspiration. + +"Mike," he said, "I'm getting out this paper up the street. Have a press +there and an office. Run in and see my mother. If you like her, tell me, +and you can join the Stove Circle." + +"And what may the Stove Circle be?" + +"The get-together club--my advisory board." + +"I'm on." + +"See here, you," said a blunt, biting, deep-chested voice at their side. +"Let me get a look." + +Joe turned and met Oscar Heming, delicatessen man, stumpy, bull-necked, +with fierce bristling mustache, and clothes much too big for him. He was +made a member at once of the Stove Circle. + +That same evening Joe went down three steps into a little, low, cigar +store, whose gas-blazing atmosphere reeked with raw and damp tobacco. He +stepped up to the dusty counter. + +"What's your best?" + +The proprietor, a wise little owl of a man, with thin black hair, and +untidy spade beard, and big round glasses enlarging his big brown eyes, +placed a box before him. + +"My own make--Underdogs--clear Havana--six cents apiece." + +"I like the name. Give me ten. But explain!" + +"Well"--Nathan Latsky (for so he proved to be) shrugged his +shoulders--"I'm one myself. But--what's in a name?" + +"He's a red revolutionist!" said a voice, and Joe, turning, noticed two +men leaning beside him at the counter; one, a fine and fiery Jew, +handsome, dark, young; the other, a large and gentle Italian, with +pallid features, dark hair sprinkled with gray, and a general air of +largeness and leadership about him. The Jew had spoken. + +"Why a red?" asked Joe. + +"Oh," said Latsky, quietly, "I come from Russia, you know!" + +"Well, I'm a revolutionist myself," said Joe. "But I haven't any color +yet." + +"Union man?" asked the Italian. + +"Not exactly. I run a radical newspaper." + +"What's the name of it?" asked the Jew. + +"_The Nine-Tenths_." + +The words worked magic. They were all eagerness, and exchanged names. +Thus Joe came to know Jacob Izon and Salvatore Giotto and Nathan Latsky. +He was greatly interested in Izon, the facts of whose life he soon came +to know. Izon was a designer, working at Marrin's, the shirtwaist +manufacturer; he made thirty dollars a week, had a wife and two +children, and was studying engineering in a night school. He and his +wife had come from Russia, where they had been revolutionists. + +The three men examined the paper closely. + +"That's what we need," said Izon. "You must let us help to spread it!" + +Joe added the three to the Stove Circle. + +He went to Giotto's house with him, up to the sixth floor of a tenement, +and met the Italian's neat, dark-eyed wife, and looked in on the three +sleeping children. Then under the blazing gas in the crowded room, with +its cheap, frail, shiny furniture, its crayons on the wall, its crockery +and cheap clocks, and with the noise of the city's night rising all +about them, the two big men talked together. Joe was immensely +interested. The Italian was large-hearted, open-minded, big in body and +soul, and spoke quaintly, but thoughtfully. + +"Tell me about yourself," said Joe. + +Giotto spread out the palms of his hands. + +"What to tell? I get a good education in the old country--but not much +spik English--better read, better write it. I try hard to learn. Come +over here, and education no good. Nobody want Italian educated man. So +worked on Italian paper--go round and see the poor--many tragedies, +many--like the theater. Write a novel, a romance, about the poor. Wish I +could write it in English." + +"Good work," cried Joe. "Then what did you do?" + +Giotto laughed. + +"Imported the wine--got broke--open the saloon. Toughs come there, +thieves, to swindle the immigrants. Awfully slick. No good to warn +immigrants--they lose all their money. Come in crying. What can I do? I +get after the bums and they say, 'Giotto no good; we will kill him.' +Then I get broke again. Go to West Virginia and work in the +coal-mine--break my leg. And that was the baddest place in the world." + +"The mine?" + +"And the town. Laborers--Italian, nigger; saloons and politics--Jews; +bosses all Irish--nothing but the saloons and the women to spenda the +money. Company own everything--stores, saloons, women. Pay you the money +and get it all back. Every day a man killed. Hell!" + +"Then where did you go?" + +"Chicago--printing--anything to do I could get. Sometimes make forty +cents a day. Little. Have to feed and work for wife and three children. +I try and try. Hod-carrier"--Giotto laughed at the memory--"press +coats--anything. Then come back here." + +"And what are you doing now?" + +"I try to make labor union with Italians. Hard work. Italians live like +pigs--ignorant--not--not _social_. Down-stairs live a Calabria man, +makes ice-cream--got four rooms--in the four rooms man, wife, mother, +five children, fifteen boarders--" + +"Go on!" cried Joe. "Why do you stop?" + +Giotto laughed. + +"So maybe your paper help. Many Italians read English. I make them read +your paper, Mr. Joe." + + * * * * * + +It was not until nearly the end of the week that Joe sought out Sally +Heffer. Though every day he meditated stepping down that narrow red side +street, each time he had felt unprepared, throbbingly incapable; but +this evening as he finished his work and was on the way home it seemed +that beyond his own volition he suddenly swerved at her corner, hurried +down the lamp-lit pave, searched out the faded number in the meager +light, mounted the stoop, and pushed open the unlocked door. + +He was very weary--heart-sick and foot-sore--as he climbed the dark +steps of the three-story house. He felt pent in the vast pulsations of +life about him--a feeling of impossibility, of a task greater than he +could bear. He simply had to see the young woman who was responsible for +sending him here. He had a vivid mental image of her tragic loveliness, +of how she had stepped back and forth before him and suddenly put her +hands to her face and wept, of how she had divined his suffering, and +impulsively seized his hand, and whispered, "I have faith in you." He +expected a sort of self-illumined Joan of Arc with eyes that saw +visions, with spirit flaming. And even in the dark top-floor hallway he +was awed, and almost afraid. + +Then in the blackness, his eyes on the thread of light beneath the rear +door, he advanced, reached up his hand, and knocked. + +There came, somehow surprising him, a definite, clear-edged voice: + +"Come in!" + +He opened the door, which swung just free of the narrow cot. Just +beyond, Sally Heffer was writing at a little table, and the globed gas +burned above her, lighting the thin gold of her sparse hair. She turned +her face to him quite casually, the same pallid, rounded face, the same +broad forehead and gray eyes, of remarkable clarity--eyes that were as +clear windows allowing one to peer in. And she was dressed in a white +shirtwaist and the same brown skirt, and over a hook, behind her, hung +the same brown coat. Yet Joe was shocked. This was not the Sally Heffer +of his dreams--but rather a refreshing, forceful, dynamic young woman, +brimming over with the joy of life. And even in that flash of +strangeness he sensed the fact that at the time he had met her she was +merely the voice of a vast insurgent spirit, merely the instrument of a +great event. This was the everyday Sally, a quite livable, lovable human +being, healthy, free in her actions, pulsing with the life about her. +The very words she used were of a different order. + +And as she casually glanced around she began to stare, her eyes lit with +wonder, and she arose, exclaiming: + +"Mr.--_Blaine_!" + +At the sound of her voice the tension snapped within him; he felt common +and homely again; he felt comfortable and warm; and he smiled wearily. + +"Yes," he said, "I'm here." + +She came close to him, more and more incredulous, and the air became +electric. + +"But what brings you here?" + +"I live here--West Tenth." + +"_Live_ here? Why?" + +Her eyes seemed to search through his. + +"You made me," he murmured. + +She smiled strangely. + +"_That night_?" + +"Yes." + +Impulsively her hand went out, and he clasped it ... her hand seemed +almost frozen. Tears of humility sprang to her eyes. + +"I was high and mighty that night,... but I couldn't help it.... But +you ... do you realize what a wonderful thing you've done?" + +He laughed awkwardly. + +"Yes, here's what I've done"--he handed her a copy of _The +Nine-Tenths_--"and it's very wonderful." + +She gave a strange, short laugh again--excitement, exultation--and held +the paper as if it were a living thing. + +"This ... _The Nine-Tenths_ ... oh!... for the working people.... Let me +see!" + +She went to the light, spread the paper and eagerly read. Then she +glanced back a moment and saw his worn face and the weary droop of his +back. + +"Say--you're dead tired. Sit down. You don't mind the bed, do you?" + +He smiled softly. + +"I don't! I am pretty much done up." And he sank down, and let his hands +droop between his knees. + +Sally read, and then suddenly turned to him. + +"This editorial is--it's just a ripper." + +The author felt the thrill of a creator. She went on: + +"I wish every working-girl in New York could read this." + +"So do I." + +She turned and looked at him, more and more excited. + +"So _this_ is what you're doing. I must pinch myself--it's all a dream! +Too good to be true." + +Suddenly there seemed to be a reversal in their relationships. Before, +his end of the beam was down, hers up. But subtly in her voice he felt +the swing to the other extreme. She had set him in a realm above +herself. + +"Tell me," she said, "just how you came to go into this." + +He told her a little, and as he spoke he became thoroughly at his ease +with her, as if she were a man, and in the pleasure of their swift +comradeship they could laugh at each other. + +"Mr. Blaine," she said, suddenly, "if I got you into this, it's up to me +to help you win. I'm going to turn into an agent for you--I'll make 'em +subscribe right and left." + +Joe laughed at her. + +"Lordy, if you knew how good it is to hear this--after tramping up three +miles of stairs and more and nabbing a tawdry twenty subscriptions." + +"Is that all you got?" + +"People don't understand." + +"We'll _make_ them!" cried Sally, clenching her fist. + +Joe laughed warmly; he was delighted with her. + +"Are you working here?" he asked. + +"Yes--you know I used to be in Newark--I was the president of the +Newark Hat-Trimmers' Union." + +"And now?" + +"I'm trying to organize the girls here." + +"Well," he muttered, grimly. "I wouldn't like to be your boss, Miss +Heffer." + +She laughed in her low voice. + +"Let me tell you what sort I am!" And she sat down, crossed her legs, +and clasped her hands on her raised knee. "I was working in that Newark +factory, and the girls told me to ask the boss, Mr. Plump, for a half +holiday. So I went into his office and said: 'Mr. Plump, the girls want +a half holiday.' He was very angry. He said: 'You won't get it. Mind +your own business.' So I said, quietly: 'All right, Mr. Plump, we'll +take a _whole_ holiday. We won't show up Monday.' Then he said to me, +'Sally Heffer, go to hell!' He was the first man to say such a thing to +my face. Well, one of the girls found me in the hall drying my eyes, and +when she got the facts she went back and told the others, and the bunch +walked out, leaving this message: 'Mr. Plump, we won't come back till +you apologize to Sally.' Well, we were out a week, and what do you +think?" Sally laughed with quiet joy. "Plump took it to the +Manufacturers Association, and they--backed him? Not a bit! _Made him +apologize_!" + +Joe chuckled. + +"Great! Great!" + +"Oh, I'm doing things all the time," said Sally. "Organized the Jewish +hat-trimmers in Newark, and all my friends went back on me for sticking +up for the Jews. Did I care? Ten years ago every time the men got a +raise through their union, the girls had their salaries cut. Different +now. We've enough sense to give the easy jobs to the old ladies--and +there's lots of old ones trimming hats." + +"What's trimming hats?" + +Sally plucked up Joe's gray hat, and then looked at Joe, her eyes +twinkling. + +"It's a little hard to show you on this. But see the sweat-band? It has +a lot of needle holes in it, and the trimmer has to stitch through those +holes and then sew the band on to the hat, and all the odds and ends. It +kills eyes. What do you think?" she went on. "The girls used to drink +beer--bosses let 'em do it to keep them stimulated--and it's ruined +lots. I stopped that." + +Joe looked at Sally. And he had a wild impulse then, a crazy thought. + +"How much do you get a week?" + +"Fifteen." + +"Well," said Joe, "I want a woman's department in the paper. Will you +handle it for fifteen a week?" + +"But you don't know me!" + +"Well," said Joe, "I'm willing to gamble on you." + +Sally's low voice loosed exultation. + +"You're a wonder, Mr. Blaine. I'll _do it_! But we're both plumb crazy." + +"I know it," said Joe, "and I like it!" + +They shook hands. + +"Come over to-morrow and meet my mother!" He gave her the address. + +"Good-by," she said. "And let me tell you, I'm simply primed for woman +stuff. It is the women"--she repeated the phrase slowly--"it is the +women, as you'll find, who bear the burden of the world! Good-by!" + +"Good-by!" + +He went down into the open air exulting. + +He could not overcome his astonishment. She was so different than he had +anticipated, so much more human and simple; so much more easy to fit +into the every-day shake-up of life, and full of that divine allowance +for other people's shortcomings. It was impossible to act the tragedian +before her. And, most wondrous of all, she was a "live wire." He had +gone to her abasing himself; he came away as her employer, subtly +cheered, encouraged, and lifted to new heights of vivid enterprise. + +"Sally Heffer!" he kept repeating. "Isn't she a marvel! And, miracle of +miracles, she is going to swing the great work with me!" + +And so the Stove Circle was founded with Sally Heffer, Michael Dunan, +Oscar Heming, Nathan Latsky, Salvatore Giotto, and Jacob Izon. Its +members met together a fortnight later on a cold wintry night. The +stove was red-hot, the circle drew about it on their kitchen chairs, and +Joe spent the first meeting in going over his plans for the paper. There +were many invaluable practical comments--especially on how to get news +and what news to get--and each member was delegated to see to one +department. Latsky and Giotto took immigration, Dunan took politics and +the Irish, Heming took the East Side, Izon, foreign news, and Sally +Heffer took workwomen. Thereafter each one in his way visited labor +unions, clubs, and societies and got each group to pledge itself to send +in news. They helped, too, to get subscriptions--both among their +friends and in the unions. In this way Joe founded his paper. He never +repeated the personal struggle of that first week, for he now had an +enthusiastic following to spread the work for him--men and a woman, +every one of whom had access to large bodies of people and was an +authority in his own world. + +But that wonderful week was never forgotten by Joe. Each day he had +risen early and gone forth and worked till late at night, making a +canvass in good earnest. House after house he penetrated, knocking at +doors, inquiring for a mythical Mrs. (or Mr.) Parsons (this to hush the +almost universal fear that he had come to collect the rent or the +instalment on the furniture or clothes of the family). In this way he +started conversation. He found first that the immediate neighborhood +knew him already. And he found many other things. He found rooms tidy, +exquisite in their cleanliness and good taste of arrangement; and then +other rooms slovenly and filthy. He found young wives just risen from +bed, chewing gum and reading the department-store advertisements in the +paper, their hair in curl-papers. He found fat women hanging out of +windows, their dishes unwashed, their beds unmade, their floors unswept. +He found men sick in bed, and managed to sit down at their side and give +them an interesting twenty minutes. He found other men, out of work, +smoking and reading. He found one Italian family making "willow plumes" +in two narrow rooms--one a bedroom, the other a kitchen--every one at +work, twisting the strands of feathers to make a swaying plume--every +one, including the grandmother and little dirty tots of four and +six--and every one of them cross-eyed as a result of the terrific work. +He found one dark cellar full of girls twisting flowers; and one attic +where, in foul, steaming air, a Jewish family were "finishing" +garments--the whole place stacked with huge bundles which had been given +out to them by the manufacturer. He found one home where an Italian +"count" was the husband of an Irish girl, and the girl told him how she +had been led into the marriage by the man's promise of title and castle +in Venice, only to bring her from Chicago to New York and confess that +he was a poor laborer. + +"But I made the best of it," she cried. "I put down my foot, hustled him +out to work, and we've done well ever since. I've been knocking the dago +out of him as hard as I can hit!" + +"You're ambitious," said Joe. + +"My! I'd give my hands for education!" + +Joe prescribed _The Nine-Tenths_. + +Everywhere he invited people to call--"drop over"--and see his plant and +meet his mother. Even the strange specimen of white woman who had +married a negro and was proud of it. + +"Daniel's black outside, but there's many stuck-up women I know whose +white man is black _inside_." + +Absorbingly interesting was the quest--opening up one vista of life +after another. Joe gained a moving-picture knowledge of life--saw +flashed before him dramatic scene after scene, destiny after +destiny--squalor, ignorance, crime, neatness, ambition, thrift, +respectability. He never forgot the shabby dark back room where under +gas-light a frail, fine woman was sewing ceaselessly, one child sick in +a tumble-down bed, and two others playing on the floor. + +"I'm all alone in the world," she said. "And all I make is two hundred +and fifty dollars a year--less than five dollars a week--to keep four +people." + +Joe put her on the free list. + +He learned many facts, vital elements in his history. + +For instance, that on less than eight hundred dollars a year no family +of five (the average family) could live decently, and that nearly half +the people he met had less, and the rest not much more. That, as a rule, +there were three rooms for five people; and many of the families +gathered their fuel on the street; that many had no gas--used oil and +wood; that many families spent about twenty-five cents a day for food; +that few clothes were bought, and these mainly from the instalment man +and second hand at that; that many were recipients of help; and that +recreation and education were everywhere reduced to the lowest terms. +That is, boys and girls were hustled to work at twelve by giving their +age as fourteen, and recreation meant an outing a year to Coney Island, +and beer, and, once in a while, the nickel theater; that there were +practically no savings. And there was one conclusion he could not +evade--namely, that while overcrowding, improvidence, extravagance, and +vice explained the misery of some families, yet there were limits. For +instance: + +On Manhattan Island no adequate housing can be obtained at less than +twelve or fourteen dollars a month. + +That there is no health in a diet of bread and tea. + +That--curious facts!--coal burns up, coats and shoes wear out in spite +of mending. + +That the average housewife cannot take time to go bargain-hunting or +experimenting with new food combinations, or in making or mending +garments, and neither has she the ability nor training to do so. + +That, in fact, the poor, largely speaking, were between the upper and +nether millstones of low wages and high prices. + +Of course there was the vice, but while drink causes poverty, poverty +causes drink. Joe found intemperance among women; he found little +children running to the saloon for cans of beer; he found plenty of men +drunkards. But what things to offset these! The woman who bought three +bushels of coal a week for seventy-five cents, watched her fires, picked +out the half-burned pieces, reused them, and wasted no heat; the +children foraging the streets for kindling-wood; the family in bed to +keep warm; the wife whose husband had pawned her wedding-ring for drink, +and who had bought a ten-cent brass one, "to keep the respect of her +children"; the man working for ten dollars a week, who once had owned +his own saloon, but, so he said, "it was impossible to make money out of +a saloon unless I put in gambling-machines or women, and I wouldn't +stand for it"; the woman whose husband was a drunkard, and who, +therefore, went to the Battery 5 A.M. to 10, then 5 P.M. to 7, every day +to do scrubbing for twenty dollars a month; the wonderful Jewish family +whose income was seven hundred and ninety-seven dollars and who yet +contrived to save one hundred and twenty-three dollars a year to later +send their two boys to Columbia University. + +And everywhere he found the miracle of miracles: the spirit of charity +and mutual helpfulness--the poor aiding the poorer; the exquisite +devotion of mothers to children; the courage that braved a terrible +life. + +For a week the canvass went on. Joe worked feverishly, and came home +late at night too tired almost to undress himself. Again and again he +exclaimed to his mother: + +"I never dreamed of such things! I never dreamed of such poverty! I +never dreamed of such human nature!" + +Greenwich Village, hitherto a shabby red clutter of streets, uninviting, +forbidding, dull, squalid, became for Joe the very swarm and drama and +warm-blooded life of humanity. He began to sense the fact that he was in +the center of a human whirlpool, in the center of beauty and ugliness, +love and bitterness, misery and joy. The whole neighborhood began to +palpitate for him; the stone walls seemed bloody with struggling souls; +the pavements stamped with the steps of a battle. + +"What can I do," he kept thinking, "with these people?" + +And to his amazement he began to see that just as up-town offered the +rivals of luxury, pleasure, and ease, so down-town offered the rivals of +intemperance, grinding poverty, ignorance. His theories were beginning +to meet the shock of facts. + +"How move them? How touch them off?" he asked himself. + +But the absorbing interest--the faces--the shadowy scenes--the gas-lit +interiors--everywhere human beings, everywhere life, packed, crowded, +evolving. + +At the end of the week he stopped, though the fever was still on him. He +had gained two hundred and fifty subscribers; he had distributed twelve +hundred copies of the paper. He now felt that he could delay no longer +in bringing out the next number. So he sat down, and, with Sally +Heffer's words ringing in his mind, he wrote his famous editorial, "It +is the Women": + + + It is the women who bear the burden of this world--the poor women. + Perhaps they have beauty when they marry. Then they plunge into + drudgery. All day and night they are in dark and damp rooms, scrubbing, + washing, cooking, cleaning, sewing. They wear the cheapest clothes--thin + calico wrappers. They take their husbands' thin pay-envelopes, and + manage the finances. They stint and save--they buy one carrot at a time, + one egg. When rent-week comes--and it comes twice a month--they cut the + food by half to pay for housing. They are underfed, they are denied + everything but toil--save _love_. Child after child they bear. The toil + increases, the stint is sharper, the worry infinite. Now they must + clothe their children, feed them, dress them, wash them, amuse them. + They must endure the heart-sickness of seeing a child underfed. They + must fight the demons of disease. Possibly they must stop a moment in + the speed of their labor and face death. Only for a moment! Need calls + them: mouths ask for food, floors for the broom, and the pay-envelope + for keen reckonings. Possibly then the husband will begin to + drink--possibly he will come home and beat his wife, drag her about the + floor, blacken her eyes, break a rib. The next day the task is taken up + again--the man is fed, the children clothed, the food marketed, the + floor scrubbed, the dress sewn. And then as the family grows there come + hard times. The man is out of work--he wants to work but cannot. Rent + and the butcher and grocer must be paid, but there are no wages brought + home. The woman takes in washing. She goes through the streets to the + more prosperous and drags home a basket of soiled clothes. The burden of + life grows heavier--the husband becomes accustomed to the changed + relationships. Very often he ceases to be a wage-earner and loafs about + saloons. From then on the woman wrestles with worlds of + trouble--unimaginable difficulties. Truly, running a state may be easier + than running a family. And yet the woman toils on; she does not + complain; she sets three meals each day before husband and children; she + sees that they have clothes; she gives the man his drink money; she + endures his cruelty; she plans ambitiously for her children. Or possibly + the man begins to work again, and then one day is killed in an accident. + There is danger of the family breaking up. But the woman rises to the + crisis and works miracles. She keeps her head; she takes charge; she + toils late into the night; she goes without food, without sleep. Somehow + she manages. There was a seamstress in Greenwich Village who pulled her + family of three and herself along on two hundred and fifty dollars a + year--less than five dollars a week! If luck is with the woman the + children grow up, go to work, and for a time ease the burden. But then, + what is left? The woman is prematurely old--her hair is gray, her face + drawn and wrinkled, or flabby and soiled, her back bent, her hands raw + and red and big. Beauty has gone, and with the years of drudgery, much + of the over-glory, much of the finer elements of love and joy, have + vanished. Her mind is absorbed by little things--details of the day. She + has ceased to attend church, she has not stepped beyond the street + corner for years, she has not read or played or rested. Much is dead in + her. Love only is left. Love of a man, love of children. She is a fierce + mother and wife, as of old. And she knows the depth of sorrow and the + truth of pain. + +He repeated his programme. Perhaps--he afterward thought so +himself--this editorial was a bit too pessimistic. But he had to write +it--had to ease his soul. He set it off, however, by a lovely little +paragraph which he printed boxed. Here it is: + + Possibly much of the laughter heard on this planet comes from + the mothers and fathers who are thinking or talking of the children. + +In this way, then, Joe entered into the life of the people. + + + + +IV + + +OTHERS: AND THEODORE MARRIN + +Joe became a familiar figure in Greenwich Village. As time went on, and +issue after issue of _The Nine-Tenths_ appeared, he became known to the +whole district. Whenever he went out people nodded right and left, +passed the time of day with him, or stopped him for a hand-shake and a +question. He would, when matters were not pressing, pause at a stoop to +speak with mothers, and people in trouble soon began to acquire a habit +of dropping in at his office to talk things over with the "Old Man." + +If it was a matter of employment, he turned the case over to some member +of the Stove Circle; if it was a question of honest want, he drew on the +"sinking-fund" and took a note payable in sixty days--a most elastic +note, always secretly renewable; if it was an idle beggar, a vagrant, he +made short work of his visitor. Such a visitor was Lady Hickory. Billy +was at his little table next the door; over in the corner the +still-despondent Slate was still collapsing; at the east window sat +Editor Sally Heffer, digging into a mass of notes; and near the west, +at the roll-top desk, a visitor's chair set out invitingly beside him, +Joe was writing--weird exercise of muttering softly, so as not to +disturb the rest, and then scratching down a sentence. + +Billy leaped up to receive her ladyship, who fatly rolled in, her +tarnished hat askew, her torn thrice-dingy silks clutched up in one fat +hand. + +Lady Hickory gave one cry: + +"There he is!" + +She pushed Billy aside and rolled over into the visitor's chair. + +"Oh, Mr. Joe!" + +Joe turned. + +"What's up?" he asked. + +"Everything's up--I'm dying, Mr. Joe--I need help--I must get to the +hospital--" + +"Sick?" + +"Gallopin' consumption!" + +Joe sniffed. + +"It doesn't smell like consumption," he said with a sigh. "It smells +like rum!" + +He hustled her out rather roughly, Nathan Slate regarding him with +mournful round eyes. Twenty minutes later Nathan came over and sat down. + +"Mr. Joe." + +"Yes, Nathan." + +"There's something troubles my conscience, Mr. Joe." + +"Let her rip!" + +"Mr. Joe--" + +"I'm waiting!" + +Nathan cleared his throat. + +"You say you're a democrat, Mr. Joe, and you're always saying, 'Love thy +neighbor,' Mr. Joe." + +"Has _that_ hit you, Nathan?" + +Nathan unburdened, evading this thrust. + +"Why, then, Mr. Joe, did you turn that woman away?" + +Joe was delighted. + +"Why? I'll tell you! Suppose that I know that the cucumber is inherently +as good as any other vegetable, does that say I can digest it? Cucumbers +aren't for me, Nathan--especially decayed ones." + +Nathan stared at him disconsolately, shook his head, and went back to +puzzle it out. It is doubtful, however, that he ever did so. + +Besides such visitors, there were still others who came to him to +arbitrate family disputes--which constituted him a sort of Domestic +Relations Court--and gave him an insight into a condition that surprised +him. Namely, the not uncommon cases of secret polygamy and polyandry. + +In short, Joe was busy. His work was established in a flexible +routine--mornings for writing; afternoons for callers, for circulation +work, and for special trips to centers of labor trouble; evenings for +going about with Giotto to see the Italians, or paying a visit, say, to +the Ranns, or some others, or meeting at Latsky's cigar store with a +group of revolutionists who filled the air with their war of the +classes, their socialist state, their dreams of millennium. + +He gave time, too, to his mother--evening walks, evening talks, and +old-fashioned quiet hours in the kitchen, his mother at her needlework, +and he reading beside her. One such night, when his mother seemed +somewhat fatigued, he said to her: + +"Don't sew any more, mother." + +"But it soothes me, Joe." + +"Mother!" + +"Yes." + +Joe spoke awkwardly. + +"Are you perfectly satisfied down here? Did we do the right thing?" + +His mother's eyes flashed, as of old. + +"We did," she cried in her youthful voice. "It's real--it's absorbing. +And I'm very proud of myself." + +"Proud? You?" + +"Yes, proud!" she laughed. "Joe, when a woman reaches my age she has a +right to be proud if young folks seek her out and talk with her and make +her their confidante. It shows she's not a useless incumbrance, but +young!" + +Joe sat up. + +"Have they found you out? Do they come to you?" + +"They do--especially the young wives with their troubles. All of them +troubled over their husbands and their children. We have the finest +talks together. They're a splendid lot!" + +"Who's come, in particular?" + +"Well, there's one who isn't married--one of the best of them." + +"Not Sally Heffer!" + +"The same!" + +"I'm dinged!" + +"That girl," said Joe's mother, "has all sorts of possibilities--and +she's brave and strong and true. Sally's a wonder! a new kind of woman!" + +A new kind of woman! Joe remembered the phrase, and in the end admitted +that it was true. Sally was of the new breed; she represented the new +emancipation; the exodus of woman from the home to the battle-fields of +the world; the willingness to fight in the open, shoulder to shoulder +with men; the advance of a sex that now demanded a broader, freer life, +a new health, a home built up on comradeship and economic freedom. In +all of these things she contrasted sharply with Myra, and Joe always +thought of the two together. + +But unconsciously Sally was always the fellow-worker--Myra--what Myra +meant he could feel but not explain; yet these crowded days left little +time for thoughts sweet but often intense with pain. He wrote to her +rarely--mere jottings of business and health; he rarely heard from her. +Her message was invariably the same--the richness and quiet of country +life, the depth and peace of rest, the hope that he was well and happy. +She never mentioned his paper--though she received every number--and +when Joe inquired once whether it came, she answered in a postscript: +"The paper? It's in every Monday's mail." This neglect irritated Joe, +and he would doubly enjoy Sally's heart-and-soul passion for _The +Nine-Tenths_. + +Sally was growing into his working life, day by day. Her presence was +stimulating, refreshing. If he felt blue and discouraged, or dried up +and in want of inspiration, he merely called her over, and her quiet +talk, her sane views, her quick thinking, her never-failing good humor +and faith, acted upon him as a tonic. + +"Miss Sally," he said once, "what would I ever do without you?" + +Sally looked at him with her clear eyes. + +"Oh," she said, "I guess you'd manage to stagger along somehow." + +But after that she hovered about him like a guardian angel. What +bothered her chiefly, when she thought of Joe's work, was her lack of +education, and she set about to make this up by good reading, and by +attending lectures at night, and by hard study in such time as she could +snatch from her work. She and Joe were comrades in the best sense. They +could always depend upon each other. It was in some ways as if they +were in partnership. And then there was that old tie of the fire to +draw them together. + +She was of great help in setting him right about the poor. + +"People are happy," she would say--"most people are happy. Human nature +is bigger than environment--it bubbles up through mud. That's almost the +trouble with it. If the poor were only thoroughly unhappy, they'd change +things to-morrow. No, Mr. Joe, it's not a question of happiness; it's a +question of justice, of right, of progress, of developing people's +possibilities. It's all the question of a better life, a richer life. +People are sacred--they mustn't be reduced to animals." + +And with her aid he gained a truer perspective of the life about +him--learned better how to touch it, how to "work" it. The paper became +more and more adapted to its audience, and began to spread rapidly. Here +and there a labor union would subscribe for it in bulk for all its +members, and the Stove Circle soon had many a raw recruit drumming up +trade, making house-to-house canvasses. In this way, the circulation +finally reached the five-thousand mark. There were certain unions, such +as that of the cloak-makers, that regarded the paper as their special +oracle--swore by it, used it in their arguments, made it a vital part of +their mental life. + +This enlarged circulation brought some curious and unlooked-for results. +Some of the magazine writers in the district got hold of a copy, had a +peep at Joe, heard of his fame, and then took copies up-town to the +respectable editors and others, and spread a rumor of "that idiot, Joe +Blaine, who runs an underground paper down on Tenth Street." As a +passion of the day was slumming, and as nothing could be more piquant +than the West Tenth Street establishment, Joe was amused to find +automobiles drawing up at his door, and the whole neighborhood watching +breathlessly the attack of some flouncy woman or some tailor-made man. + +"How perfectly lovely!" one fair visitor announced, while the office +force watched her pose in the center of the room. "Mr. Blaine, how +dreadful it must be to live with the poor!" + +"It's pretty hard," said Joe, "to live with any human being for any +length of time." + +"Oh, but the poor! They aren't clean, you know; and such manners!" + +Sally spoke coldly. + +"I guess bad manners aren't monopolized by any particular class." + +The flouncy one flounced out. + +These visits finally became very obnoxious, though they could not be +stopped. Even a sign, over the door-bell, "No begging; no slumming," was +quite ineffective in shutting out either class. + +There were, however, other visitors of a more interesting +type--professional men, even business men, who were drawn by curiosity, +or by social unrest, or by an ardent desire to be convinced. Professor +Harraman, the sociologist, came, and made quite a dispassionate study of +Joe, put him (so he told his mother) on the dissecting-table and +vivisected his social organs. Then there was Blakesly, the corporation +lawyer, who enjoyed the discussion that arose so thoroughly that he +stayed for supper and behaved like a gentleman in the little kitchen, +even insisting on throwing off his coat, rolling up his sleeves, and +helping to dry the dishes. + +"You're all wrong," he told Joe when he left, "and some day possibly +we'll hang you or electrocute you; but it's refreshing to rub one's mind +against a going dynamo. I'm coming again. And don't forget that your +mother is the First Lady of the Island! Good-by!" + +Then there was, one important day, the great ex-trust man, whose name is +inscribed on granite buildings over half the earth. This man--so the +legend runs--is on the lookout for unusual personalities. The first hint +of a new one puts him on the trail, and he sends out a detective to +gather facts, all of which are card-indexed under the personality's +name. Then, if the report is attractive, this man goes out himself and +meets the oddity face to face. He came in on Joe jovial, happy, +sparkling, and fired a broadside of well-chosen questions. Joe was +delighted, and said anything he pleased, and his visitor shrewdly went +on. In the end Joe was stunned to hear this comment: + +"Mr. Blaine, you're on the right track, though you don't know it. You +think you want one thing, but you're after another. Still--keep it up. +The world is coming to wonderful things." + +"That's queer talk," said Joe, "coming from a multimillionaire." + +The multimillionaire laughed. + +"But I'm getting rid of the multi, Mr. Blaine. What more would you have +me do? Each his own way. Besides"--he screwed up his eye shrewdly--"come +now, aren't you hanging on to some capital?" + +"Yes--in a way!" + +"So are we all! You're a wise man! Keep free, and then you can help +others!" + +The most interesting caller, however, judged from the standpoint of +Joe's life, was Theodore Marrin, Izon's boss, manufacturer of high-class +shirtwaists, whose Fifth Avenue store is one of the most luxurious in +New York. He came to Joe while the great cloak-makers' strike was still +on, at a time when families were reduced almost to starvation, and when +the cause seemed quite hopeless. + +Theodore Marrin came in a beautiful heavy automobile. He was a short +man, with a stout stomach; his face was a deep red, with large, slightly +bulging black eyes, tiny mustache over his full lips; and he was dressed +immaculately and in good taste--a sort of Parisian-New Yorker, +hail-fellow-well-met, a mixer, a cynic, a man about town. He swung his +cane lightly as he tripped up the steps, sniffed the air, and knocked on +the door of the editorial office. + +Billy opened. + +"Yes, sir." + +"Mr. Blaine in?" + +"He's busy." + +"I should hope he was! There, my boy." He deftly waved Billy aside and +stepped in. "Well! well! Mr. Blaine!" + +Joe turned about, and arose, and accepted Mr. Marrin's extended hand. + +"Who do you think I am?" + +Joe smiled. + +"I'm ready for anything." + +"Well, Mr. Blaine, I'm the employer of one of your men. You know Jacob +Izon?" + +"Oh, you're Mr. Marrin! Sit down." + +Marrin gazed about. + +"Unique! unique!" He sat down, and pulled off his gloves. "I've been +wanting to meet you for a long time. Izon's been talking, handing me +your paper. It's a delightful little sheet--I enjoy it immensely." + +"You agree with its views?" + +"Oh no, no, no! I read it the way I read fiction! It's damned +interesting!" + +Joe laughed. + +"Well, what can I do for you?" + +"What can I do for _you_!" corrected Marrin. + +"See here, Mr. Blaine, I'm interested. How about taking a little ad. +from me, just for fun, to help the game along?" + +"We don't accept ads." + +"Oh, I know! But if I contribute handsomely! I'd like to show it around +to my friends a bit. Come, come, don't be unreasonable, Mr. Blaine." + +Sally shuffled about, coughed, arose, sat down again, and Joe laughed. + +"Can't do it. Not even Rockefeller could buy a line of my paper." + +"Do you _mean_ it?" + +"Absolutely--flatly." + +"Well, what a shame! But never mind. Some other time. Tell me, Mr. +Blaine"--he leaned forward--"what are you? One of these bloody +socialists?" + +"No, I'm not a socialist." + +"What d'ye call yourself, then--Republican?" + +"No." + +"Democrat?" + +"No." + +"Insurgent?" + +"No." + +Marrin was horror-stricken. + +"Not a blooming anarchist?" + +Joe laughed. + +"No, not an anarchist." + +"What are you, then? Nothing?" + +"I can tell you what I'm not," said Joe. + +"What?" + +"I'm not any kind of an _ist_." + +"A fine fellow!" cried Marrin. "Why, a man's got to stand for +something." + +"I do," said Joe, "I stand for human beings--and sometimes," he +chuckled, "I stand for a whole lot!" + +Marrin laughed, so did Sally. + +"Clever!" cried Marrin. "Damned clever! You're cleverer than I +thought--hide your scheme up, don't you? Well! well! Let me see your +plant!" + +Joe showed him about, and Marrin kept patting him on the back: +"Delightful! Fine! You're my style, Mr. Blaine--everything done to a +nicety, no frills and feathers. Isn't New York a great town? There are +things happening in it you'd never dream of." + +And when he left he said: + +"Now, if there's anything I can do for you, Mr. Blaine, don't hesitate +to call on me. And say, step up and see my shop. It's the finest this +side of Paris. I'll show you something you've never seen yet! Good-by!" + +And he was whisked away, a quite self-satisfied human being. + +That very evening Marrin's name came up again. It was closing-up time, +Billy and Slate had already gone, and the room was dark save for the +shaded lights over Joe's desk and Sally's table. The two were working +quietly, and outside a soft fall of snow was muffling the noise of the +city. There only arose the mellowed thunder of a passing car, the far +blowing of a boat-whistle, the thin pulse of voices. Otherwise the city +was lost in the beautiful storm, which went over the gas-lamps like a +black-dotted halo. In the rear room there was a soft clatter of dishes. +The silence was rich and full of thought. Joe scratched on, Sally +puzzled over reports. + +Then softly the door opened, and a hoarse voice said: + +"Joe? You there?" + +Sally and Joe turned around. It was Izon, dark, handsome, fiery, muffled +up to his neck, his hat drawn low on his face, and the thin snow +scattering from his shoulders and sleeves. + +"Yes, I'm here," Joe said in a low voice. "What is it?" + +Izon came over. + +"Joe!"--his voice was passionate--"there's trouble brewing at Marrin's." + +"Marrin? Why, he was here only to-day!" + +Izon clutched the back of a chair and leaned over. + +"Marrin is a dirty scoundrel!" + +His voice was hoarse with helplessness and passion. + +Joe rose. + +"Tell me about this! Put it in a word!" + +Tears sprang to Izon's eyes. + +"You know the cloak-makers' strike--well! Some manufacturer has asked +Marrin to help him out--to fill an order of cloaks for him." + +"And Marrin--" Joe felt himself getting hot. + +"Has given the job to us men." + +"How many are there?" + +"Forty-five." + +"And the women?" + +"They're busy on shirtwaists." + +"And what did the men do?" + +"As they were told." + +"So you fellows are cutting under the strikers--you're scabs." + +Izon clutched the chair harder. + +"I told them so--I said, 'For God's sake, be men--strike, if this isn't +stopped.'" + +"And what did they say?" + +"They'd think it over!" + +Sally arose and spoke quietly. + +"Make them meet here. _I'll_ talk to them!" + +Izon muttered darkly: + +"Marrin's a dirty scoundrel!" + +Joe smote his hands together. + +"We'll fix him. You get the men down here! You just get the men!" + +And then Joe understood that his work was not child's play; that the +fight was man-size; that it had its dangers, its perils, its fierce +struggles. He felt a new power rise within him--a warrior strength. He +was ready to plunge in and give battle--ready for a hand-to-hand +conflict. Now he was to be tested in the fires; now he was to meet and +make or be broken by a great moment. An electricity of conflict filled +the air, a foreboding of disaster. His theories at last were to meet the +crucial test of reality, and he realized that up to that moment he had +been hardly more than a dreamer. + + + + +V + + +FORTY-FIVE TREACHEROUS MEN + +Out of the white, frosty street the next night, when every lamp up and +down shone like a starry jewel beneath the tingling stars, forty-five +men emerged, crowding, pushing in the hall, wedging through the doorway, +and filling the not-too-large editorial office. Joe had provided +camp-stools, and the room was soon packed with sitting and standing men, +circles of shadowy beings, carelessly clothed, with rough black cheeks +and dark eyes--a bunch of jabbering aliens, excited, unfriendly, +curious, absorbed in their problem--an ill-kempt lot and quite unlovely. + +At the center stove, a little way off from its red heart, sat Joe and +Sally and Izon. The men began to smoke cigarettes and little cigars, and +with the rank tobacco smell was mingled the sweaty human odor. The room +grew densely hot, and a window had to be thrown open. A vapor of smoke +filled the atmosphere, shot golden with the lights, and in the smoke the +many heads, bent this way and that, leaning forward or tilted up, showed +strange and a little unreal. Joe could see faces that fascinated him by +their vivid lines, their starting dark eyes and the white eye-balls, +their bulging noses and big mouths. Hands fluttered in lively gestures +and a storm of Yiddish words broke loose. + +Joe arose, lifting his hand for silence. Men pulled each other by the +sleeve, and a strident "'Ssh!" ran round the room. + +"Silence!" cried Joe. His voice came from the depths of his big chest, +and was masterful, ringing with determination. + +An expectant hush followed. And then Joe spoke. + +"I want to welcome you to this room. It belongs to you as much as to +anybody, for in this room is published a paper that works for your good. +But I not only want to welcome you: I want to ask your permission to +speak at this meeting." + +There were cries of: "Speak! Go on! Say it!" + +Joe went on. Behind his words was a menace. + +"Then I want to say this to you. Your boss, Mr. Marrin, has done a +cowardly and treacherous thing. He has made scabs of you all. You are no +better than strike-breakers. If you do this work, if you make these +cloaks, you are traitors to your fellow-workers, the cloak-makers. You +are crippling other workmen. You are selling them to their bosses. But +I'm sure you won't stand for this. You are men enough to fight for the +cause of all working people. You belong to a race that has been +persecuted through the ages, a brave race, a race that has triumphed +through hunger and cold and massacres. You are great enough to make this +sacrifice. If this is so, I call on you to resist your boss, to refuse +to do his dirty work, and I ask you--if he persists in his orders--to +lay down your work and _strike_." + +He sat down, and there was a miserable pause. He had not stirred them at +all, and felt his failure keenly. It was as if he had not reached over +the fence of race. He told himself he must school himself in the future, +must broaden out. As a matter of fact, it was the menace in his tone +that hushed the meeting. The men rather feared what lay behind Joe's +words. + +At once, however, one of the men leaped to his feet, and began a fiery +speech in Yiddish, speaking gaspingly, passionately, hotly, shaking his +fist, fluttering his hands, tearing a passion to tatters. Joe understood +not a word, but the burden of the speech was: + +"Why should we strike? What for? For the cloak-makers? What have we to +do with cloak-makers? We have troubles enough of our own. We have our +families to support--our wives and children and relations. Shall they +starve for some foolish cloak--makers? Comrades, don't listen to such +humbug. Do your work--get done with it. You have good jobs--don't lose +them. These revolutionists! They would break up the whole world for +their nonsense! It's not they who have to suffer; it's us working +people. We do the starving, we do the fighting. Have sense; bethink +yourselves; don't make fools out of yourselves!" + +A buzz of talk arose with many gesticulations. + +"He's right! Why should we strike--Och, Gott, such nonsense!--No more +strike talk." + +Then Sally arose, pale, eyes blazing. She shook a stanch little fist at +the crowd. But how different was her speech from the one in Carnegie +Hall--that time when she had been truly inspired. + +"Shame on all of you! You're a lot of cowards! You're a lot of traitors! +You can't think of anything but your bellies! Shame on you all! Women +would never stand for such things--young girls, your sisters or your +daughters, would strike at once! Let me tell you what will happen to +you. Some day there will be a strike of shirt-waist-makers, and then +your boss will go to the cloak-house and say, 'Now you make shirtwaists +for me,' and the cloak-makers will make the shirtwaists, saying, 'When +we were striking, the shirtwaist-makers made cloaks; now we'll make +waists.' And that will ruin your strike, and ruin you all. Working +people must unite! Working people must stand by each other! That's your +only power. The boss has money, land, machinery, friends. What have you? +You only have each other, and if you don't stand by each other, you +have nothing at all. Strike! I tell you! Strike and show 'em! Show 'em! +Rise and resist! You have the power! You are bound to win! Strike! I +tell you!" + +Then a man shouted: "Shall a woman tell us what to do?" and tumult broke +loose, angry arguments, words flying. The air seemed to tingle with +excitement, expectation, and that sharp feeling of human crisis. Joe +could feel the circle of human nature fighting about him. He leaned +forward, strangely shaken. + +Izon had arisen, and was trying to speak. The dark, handsome young man +was gesturing eloquently. His voice poured like a fire, swept the crowd, +and he reached them with their own language. + +"Comrades! Comrades! Comrades!" and then his voice rose and stilled the +tumult, and all leaned forward, hanging on his words. "You must"--he was +appealing to them with arms outstretched--"you must! You will strike; +you will not be cowards! Not for yourselves, O comrades, but for your +children--_your children_! Do I not know you? Do I not know how you toil +and slave and go hungry and wear out your bodies and souls? Have I not +toiled with you? Have I not shared your struggles and your pain? Do I +not know that you are doing all, all for your children--that the little +ones may grow up to a better life than yours--that your little ones may +be happier, and healthier, and richer, and finer? Have I not seen it a +thousand times? But what sort of a world will your children find when +they grow up if you do not fight these battles for them? If you let the +bosses enslave you--if you are cowards and slaves--will not your +children be slaves? Oh, we that belong to Israel, have we not fought for +freedom these bloody thousand years? Are we to cease now? Can't you see? +Can't you open your hearts and minds?" His voice came with a passionate +sob. "Won't you see that this is a fight for the future--a fight for all +who work for wages--a fight for freedom? Not care for the cloak-makers? +They are your brothers. Care for them, lest the day come when you are +uncared for! Strike! You must--you _must_! Strike, comrades! We will +hang by each other! We will suffer together! And it will not be the +first time! No, not the first time--or the last!" + +He sank exhausted on his chair, crumpled up. Sweat was running down his +white face. There was a moment's hush--snuffling, and a few coarse +sobs--and then a young man arose, and spoke in trembling voice: + +"I move--we send Jacob Izon to-morrow to our boss--and tell him--either +no cloaks, or--we strike!" + +"Second! Second!" + +Joe put the motion. + +"All in favor, say aye." + +There was a wild shout of ayes. The motion was carried. Then the air +was charged with excitement, with fiery talk, with denunciation and +ardor. + +"Now we're in for it!" said Joe, as the room was emptied, and the +aroused groups trudged east on the crunching snow. + +And so it was. Next morning, when Theodore Marrin made the rounds of the +vast loft where two hundred girls and forty-five men were busily +working--the machines racing--the air pulsing with noise--Jacob Izon +arose, trembling, and confronted him. + +"Well, Jacob!" + +"I want to tell you something." + +"Go ahead." + +"The men have asked me to ask you not to have us make the cloaks." + +Marrin's red face seemed to grow redder. + +"So, that's it!" he snapped. "Well, here's my answer. Go back to your +work!" + +The men had stopped working and were listening. The air was electric, +ominous. + +Izon spoke tremblingly. + +"I am very sorry then. I must announce that the men have struck!" + +Marrin glared at him. + +"Very well! And get out--quick!" + +He turned and walked away, flaming with rage. The men quickly put their +work away, got their hats and coats, and followed Izon. When they +reached the street--a strange spectacle on flashing, brilliant Fifth +Avenue--Izon suggested that they go down to Tenth Street, for they stood +about like a lot of lost sheep. + +"No," cried one of the men, "we've had enough of Tenth Street. There's a +hall we can use right over on Eighteenth Street. Come on." + +The rest followed. Izon reported to Joe, and Joe asked: + +"Do you think they'll fight it out?" + +"I don't know!" Izon shrugged his shoulders. + +This doubt was justifiable, for he soon found that he was leading a +forlorn hope. As morning after morning the men assembled in the dark +meeting-room behind a saloon, and sat about in their overcoats +complaining and whining, quoting their wives and relatives, more and +more they grew disconsolate and discouraged. There were murmurs of +rebellion, words of antagonism. Finally on the fifth morning a messenger +arrived with a letter. Izon took it. + +"It's from Marrin," he murmured. + +"Read it! Read it out loud!" + +He opened it and read: + + TO MY MEN,--I have thought matters over. I do not like to sever + connections with men who have been so long in my employ. If you return + to work this morning, you may go on at the old salaries, and we will + consider the matter closed. If, however, you listen to advice calculated + to ruin your future, and do not return, please remember that I will not + be responsible. I shall then secure new men, and your places will be + occupied by others. + + Yours faithfully, + + THEODORE MARRIN. + + _P.S._--Naturally, it is understood that under no circumstance will your + leader--Jacob Izon--the cause of this trouble between us--be + re-employed. Such men are a disgrace to the world. + +Izon's cheeks flushed hot. He looked up. + +"Shall I write to him that we will not consider his offer, and tell him +we refuse to compromise?" + +There was a silence a little while, and then one of the older men +shuffled to his feet. + +"Tell you what we do--we get up a collection for Izon. Then everything +will be all right!" + +Izon's eyes blazed. + +"Charity? Not for me! I don't want you to think of me! I want you to +think of what this strike means!" + +Then some one muttered: + +"We've listened long enough to Izon." + +And another: "I'm going to work!" + +"So am I! So am I!" + +They began to rise, to shamefacedly shamble toward the door. Izon rose +to his feet, tried to intercept them, stretched out his arms to them. + +"For God's sake," he cried, "leave me out, but get something. Don't go +back like this! Get something! Don't you see that Marrin is ready to +give in? Are you going back like weak slaves?" + +They did not heed him; but one old man paused and put a hand on his +shoulder. + +"This will teach you not to be so rash next time. You will learn yet." + +And they were gone. Izon was dazed, heart-broken. He hurried home to his +wife and wept upon her shoulder. + +Late that afternoon Joe and Sally were again alone in the office, their +lights lit, their pens scratching, working in a sweet unspoken sympathy +in the quiet, shadowy place. There was a turning of the knob, and Izon +came in. Joe and Sally arose and faced him. He came slowly, his face +drawn and haggard. + +"Joe! Joe!" + +"What is it?" Joe drew the boy near. + +"They've gone back--the men have gone back!" + +"Gone back?" cried Joe. + +"Read this letter!" + +Joe read it, and spoke angrily. + +"Then I'll do something!" + +Izon pleaded with him. + +"Be careful, Joe--don't do anything foolish for my sake. I'll get +along--" + +"But your wife! How does she take it?" + +Izon's face brightened. + +"Oh, she's a Comrade! That's why I married her!" + +"Good!" said Joe. "Then I'll go ahead. I'll speak my mind!" + +"Not for me, though," cried Izon. "I'll get something else." + +"Are you _sure_ of that?" asked Joe. + +"Why not?" + +"Are you sure," Joe went on, "that you won't be blacklisted?" + +Izon stared at him. + +"Well--I suppose--I will." + +"You'll have to leave the city, Jacob." + +"I can't. I'm right in my course of engineering. I can't go." + +"Well, we'll see!" Joe's voice softened. "Now you go home and rest. +There's a good fellow. And everything will be all right!" + +And he saw Izon out. + +Joe began again to feel the tragic undercurrents of life, the first time +since the dark days following the fire. He came back, and stood +brooding, his homely face darkened with sorrow. Sally stood watching +him, her pale face flushing, her eyes darting sympathy and daring. + +"Mr. Joe." + +"Yes, Miss Sally." + +"I want to do something." + +"What?" + +"I want to go up to Marrin's to-morrow and get the girls out on strike." + +"What's that?" + +"I've done it before; I can do it again." + +Joe laughed softly. + +"Miss Sally, what would I do without you? I'd go stale on life, I +think." + +She made an impulsive movement toward him. + +"Mr. Joe." + +"Yes?" + +"I want to help you--every way." + +"I know you do." His voice was a little husky, and he looked up and met +her fine, clear eyes. + +Then she turned away, sadly. + +"You'll let me do it?" + +"Oh, no!" he said firmly. "The idea's appealing, but you mustn't think +of it, Miss Sally. It will only stir up trouble." + +"We ought to." + +"Not for this." + +"But the shirtwaist-makers are working in intolerable conditions; +they're just ready to strike; a spark would blow 'em all up." + +He shook his head. + +"Wait--wait till we see what my next number does!" + +Sally said no more; but her heart nursed her desire until it grew to an +overmastering passion. She left for the night, and Joe sat down, burning +with the fires of righteousness. And he wrote an editorial that altered +the current of his life. He wrote: + + FORTY-FIVE TREACHEROUS MEN + + Theodore Marrin and the forty-four who went back to work for him: + Every one of you is a traitor to American citizenship. + Let us use blunt words and call a spade a spade. + Theodore Marrin, you have betrayed your employees. + You forty-four men, you have betrayed yourselves and your leader. + +And so it went, sharp, incisive, plain-spoken--words that were hot +brands and burned. + +He was sitting at this task (twice his mother had called him to supper +and he had waved her away) when an exquisite black-eyed little woman +came in. + +"Mr. Blaine?" + +"Yes." + +"I'm Mrs. Izon." + +Joe wheeled about and seized her hand. + +"Tell me to do something for you! You and your brave husband!" + +Mrs. Izon spoke quietly: + +"I came here because Jacob is so worried. He is afraid you will harm +yourself for us." + +Joe laughed softly. + +"Tell him not to worry any longer. It's you who are suffering--not I. I? +I am only having fun." + +She was not satisfied. + +"We oughtn't to get others mixed up in our troubles." + +"It's hard for you, isn't it?" Joe murmured. + +"Yes." She smiled sadly. "I suppose it isn't right when you are in the +struggle to get married. Not right to the children." + +Joe spoke courageously. + +"Never you mind, Mrs. Izon--but just wait. Wait three--four days. We'll +see!" + +They did wait, and they did see. + + + + +VI + + +A FIGHT IN GOOD EARNEST + +Sally hesitated before going into Marrin's that Monday morning. A +blinding snow-storm was being released over the city, and the fierce +gusts eddied about the corner of Fifth Avenue, blew into drifts, lodged +on sill and cornice and lintel, and blotted out the sky and the world. +Through the wild whiteness a few desolate people ploughed their way, +buffeted, blown, hanging on to their hats, and quite unable to see +ahead. Sally shoved her red little hands into her coat pockets, and +stood, a careless soul, in the white welter. + +From her shoulder, some hundred feet to the south, ran the plate-glass +of Marrin's, spotted and clotted and stringy with snow and ice, and +right before her was the entrance for deliveries and employees. A last +consideration held her back. She had been lying awake nights arguing +with her conscience. Joe had told her not to do it--that it would only +stir up trouble--but Joe was too kindly. In the battles of the working +people a time must come for cruelty, blows, and swift victory. Marrin +was an out-and-out enemy to be met and overthrown; he had made traitors +of the men; he had annihilated Izon; she would fight him with the women. + +Nor was this the only reason. Sally felt that her supreme task was to +organize the women in industry, to take this trampled class and make of +it a powerful engine for self-betterment, and no women were more +prepared, she felt, than the shirtwaist-makers. She knew that at +Marrin's the conditions were fairly good, though, even there, women and +young girls worked sometimes twelve hours and more a day, and earned, +many of them, but four or five dollars a week. What tempted Sally, +however, was the knowledge that a strike at Marrin's would be the spark +to set off the city and bring out the women by the thousands. It would +be the uprising of the women; the first upward step from sheer +wage-slavery; the first advance toward the ideal of that coming woman, +who should be a man in her freedom and her strength and her power, and +yet woman of woman in her love and her motherhood and wife-hood. +Industry, so Sally knew, was taking the young girls by the million, +overworking them, sapping them of body and soul, and casting them out +unfit to bear children, untrained to keep house, undisciplined to meet +life and to be a comrade of a man. And Sally knew, moreover, what could +be done. She knew what she had accomplished with the hat-trimmers. + +Nevertheless, she hesitated, not quite sure that the moment had come. +Joe's words detained her in a way no man's words had ever done before. +But she thought: "I do this for him. I sharpen the edge of his editorial +and drive it home. Words could never hurt Marrin--but I can." She got +under the shelter of the doorway and with numb hand pulled a copy of +_The Nine-Tenths_ from her pocket, unfolded it, and reread the burning +words of: "Forty-five Treacherous Men." They roused all her fighting +blood; they angered her; they incited her. + +"Joe! Joe!" she murmured. "It's you driving me on--it's you! Here goes!" + +It was in some ways a desperate undertaking. Once, in Newark, a rough of +an employer had almost thrown her down the stairs, man-handling her, and +while Marrin or his men would not do this, yet what method could she use +to brave the two hundred and fifty people in the loft? She was quite +alone, quite without any weapon save her tongue. To fail would be +ridiculous and ignominious. Yet Sally was quite calm; her heart did not +seem to miss a beat; her brain was not confused by a rush of blood. She +knew what she was doing. + +She climbed that first flight of semi-circular stairs without hindrance, +secretly hoping that by no mischance either Marrin or one of his +sub-bosses might emerge. There was a door at the first landing. She +passed it quickly and started up the second flight. Then there was a +turning of a knob, a rustling of skirts, and a voice came sharp: + +"Where are you going?" + +Sally turned. The forelady stood below her--large, eagle-eyed woman, +with square and wrinkled face, quite a mustache on her upper lip. Sally +spoke easily. + +"Up-stairs." + +"For what?" + +"To see one of the girls. Her mother's sick." + +The forelady eyed Sally suspiciously. + +"Did you get a permit from the office?" + +Sally seemed surprised. + +"Permit? No! Do you have to get a permit?" + +The forelady spoke roughly. + +"You get a permit, or you don't go up." + +"Where's the office?" + +"In here." + +"Thanks for telling me!" + +Sally came down, and, as she entered the doorway, the forelady proceeded +up-stairs. Sally delayed a second, until the forelady disappeared around +the bend, and then quickly, quietly she followed, taking the steps two +at a time. The forelady had hardly entered the doorway on the next +landing when Sally was in with her, and treading softly in her +footsteps. + +This was the loft, vast, lit by windows east and west, and hung, this +snow-darkened morning, with many glittering lights. Through all the +space girls and women, close together, bent over power-machines which +seemed to race at intolerable speed. There was such a din and clatter, +such a whizzing, thumping racket, that voices or steps would well be +lost. Then suddenly, in the very center of the place, the forelady, +stopping to speak to a girl, while all the girls of the neighborhood +ceased work to listen, thus producing a space of calm--the forelady, +slightly turning and bending, spied Sally. + +She came up indignantly. + +"Why did you follow me? Go down to the office!" + +Many more machines stopped, many more pale faces lifted and watched. + +Sally gave a quick glance around, and was a trifle upset by seeing Mr. +Marrin coming straight toward her. He came with his easy, tripping +stride, self-satisfied, red-faced, tastefully dressed, an orchid in his +buttonhole. Sally spoke quickly. + +"I was only looking for Mr. Marrin, and here he is!" + +As Mr. Marrin came up, more and more machines stopped, as if by +contagion, and the place grew strangely hushed. + +The forelady turned to her boss. + +"This woman's sneaked in here without a permit!" + +Marrin spoke sharply. + +"What do you want?" + +Then in the quiet Sally spoke in a loud, exultant voice. + +"I only wanted to tell the girls to strike!" + +A sudden electricity charged the air. + +"What!" cried Marrin, the vein on his forehead swelling. "You come in +here--" + +"To tell the girls to strike," Sally spoke louder. "For you've made the +men traitors and you've blacklisted Izon." + +Marrin sensed the danger in the shop's quiet. + +"For God's sake," he cried, "lower your voice--speak to me--tell me in +private--" + +"I am," shrieked Sally. "I'm telling you I want the girls to strike!" + +He turned. + +"Come in my private office, quick! I'll talk with you!" + +Sally followed his hurried steps. + +"Yes, I'll tell you there," she fairly shrieked, "that I want the girls +to strike!" + +Marrin turned. + +"Can't you shut up?" + +And then Sally wheeled about and spoke to the two hundred. + +"Girls! come on out! We'll tie him up! We're not like the men! _We_ +won't stand for such things, will we?" + +Then, in the stillness, Jewish girls here and there rose from their +machines. It was like the appearance of apparitions. How did it come +that these girls were more ready than any one could have guessed, and +were but waiting the call? More and more arose, and low murmurs spread, +words, "It's about time! I won't slave any more! He had no right to put +out Izon! The men are afraid! Mr. Blaine is right!" + +Marrin tried to shout: + +"I order you to get to work!" + +But a tumult drowned his voice, a busy clamor, an exultant jabber of +tongues, a rising, a shuffling, a moving about. + +Sally marched down the aisle. + +"Follow me, girls! We're going to have a union!" + +It might have been the Pied Piper of Hamelin whistling up the +rats--there was a hurrying, a scurrying, a weird laughter, a blowing +about of words, and the two hundred, first swallowing up Sally, crowded +the doorway, moved slowly, pushed, shoved, wedged through, and +disappeared, thundering, shouting and laughing, down the steps. The two +hundred, always so subdued, so easily bossed, so obedient and +submissive, had risen and gone. + +Marrin looked apoplectic. He rushed over to where the forty-four men +were sitting like frightened animals. He spoke to the one nearest him. + +"Who was that girl? I've seen her somewhere!" + +"She?" the man stammered. "That's Joe Blaine's girl." + +"_Joe Blaine_!" cried Marrin. + +"Look," said the man, handing Marrin a copy of _The Nine-Tenths_, "the +girls read this this morning. That's why they struck." + +Marrin seized the paper. He saw the title: + + FORTY-FIVE TREACHEROUS MEN + +and he read beneath it: + + Theodore Marrin, and the forty-four who went back to + work for him: + Every one of you is a traitor to American citizenship. + Let us use blunt words and call a spade a spade. + Theodore Marrin, you have betrayed your employees. + +And then farther down: + + No decent human being would work for such a man. + He has no right to be an employer--not in such hands + should be placed the sacred welfare of men and women. + If I were one of Marrin's employees I would prefer the + streets to his shop. + +Marrin looked up at the forty-four. And he saw that they were more than +frightened--they were in an ugly humor, almost ferocious. The article +had goaded them into a senseless fury. + +Marrin spoke more easily. + +"So that's your friend of labor, that's your Joe Blaine. Well, here is +what your Joe Blaine has done for you. You're no good to me without the +girls. You're all discharged!" + +He left them and made madly for the door. The men were chaotic with +rage; they arose; their voices went sharp and wild. + +"What does that Joe Blaine mean? He takes the bread out of our mouths! +He makes fools of us! He ought to be shot! I spit on him! Curse him!" + +One man arose on a chair. + +"You fools--you listened to that man, and went on strike--and now you +come back, and he makes you lose your jobs. Are you going to be fools +now? Are you going to let him get the best of you? He is laughing at +you, the pig. The girls are laughing at you. Come on! We will go down +and show him--we will assemble before his place and speak to him!" + +The men were insane with rage and demon-hate. Vehemently shouting, they +made for the stairs, rushed pell-mell down, and sought the street, and +turned south through the snow. There were few about to notice them, none +to stop them. Policemen were in doorways and odd shelters. And so, +unimpeded, the crazed mob made its way. + +In the mean time Marrin had come out in his heavy fur coat and stepped +into his closed automobile. It went through the storm, easily gliding, +turned up West Tenth Street, and stopped before Joe's windows. Marrin +hurried in and boldly opened the office door. Billy jumped up to +intercept him. + +"Mr. Blaine--" he began. + +"Get out of my way!" snapped Marrin, and stepped up to Joe. + +Joe was brooding at his desk, brooding and writing, his dark face +troubled, his big form quite stoop-shouldered. + +"Well," said Joe, "what's the matter, Mr. Marrin?" + +Marrin tried to contain his rage. He pointed his cane at Joe. + +"You've made a mistake, Mr. Blaine." + +"It isn't the first one." + +"Let me tell you something--" + +"I will let you." + +Marrin spoke with repression. + +"Next time--don't attack both the boss and the men. It's bad policy. +Take sides." + +"Oh, I did take sides," said Joe, lightly. "I'm against anything +treacherous." + +Marrin exploded. + +"Well, you'll get yours! And let me tell you something! I've a good mind +to sue you for libel and shut up your shop." + +Joe rose, and there was a dangerous light in his eyes. His hands were +open at his sides, but they twitched a little. + +"Then," said Joe, "I'll make it worth your while. If you don't want to +be helped out, _get out_!" + +"Very well," sputtered Marrin, and turned, twirling his cane, and made +an upright exit. + +The sad Slate was paralyzed; Billy was joyous. + +But Joe strode into the kitchen, where his mother was quietly reading at +the window. + +"What is it, Joe?" + +"Mother," he said, "that fellow Marrin was in threatening to sue me for +libel." + +"Could it hurt you?" + +"It might. Speaking the truth is always libelous." + +Joe's mother spoke softly. + +"Your father lost an arm in the war. You can't expect to fight without +facing danger. And besides," she laughed easily, "you can always get a +job as a printer, Joe." + +Joe paced up and down moodily, his hands clasped behind his back. + +"If it was only myself--" he murmured, greatly troubled. "I wonder where +Sally is this morning." + +"Didn't she come, Joe?" + +"No. Not a word from her. I'd hate her to be sick." + +"Hadn't you better send over and see?" + +"I'll wait a bit yet. And yet--" he sighed, "I just need Sally now." + +His mother glanced at him keenly. + +"Sally's a wonder," she murmured. + +"She is--" He spoke a little irritably. "Why couldn't she have come this +morning?" + +There were quick steps, and Billy rushed in, his eyes large, his cheeks +pale. + +"Mr. Joe!" he said breathlessly. + +"Yes, Billy." + +"There's a lot of men out on the street, and they're beginning to fire +snowballs!" + +Nathan Slate came in, a scarecrow of fear, teeth chattering. + +"Oh, Mr. Joe," he wailed. "Oh, Mr. Joe!" + +Joe's mother rose, and spoke under her breath. + +"Mr. Slate, sit down at once!" + +Slate collapsed on a chair, trembling. + +Joe felt as if a fork of lightning had transfixed him--a sharp white +fire darting from head and feet and arms to his heart, and whirling +there in a spinning ball. He spoke quietly: + +"I'll go and see." + +It seemed long before he got to the front window. Looking out through +the snow-dim pane, he saw the street filled with gesticulating men. He +saw some of the faces of the forty-four, but mingled with these were +other faces--the faces of toughs and thugs, ominous, brutal, menacing. +In a flash he realized that he had been making enemies in the district +as well as friends, and it struck him that these were the criminal +element in the political gang, hangers-on, floaters, the saloon +contingent, who were maddened by his attempt to lead the people away +from the rotten bosses. As if by magic they had emerged from the +underworld, as they always do in times of trouble, and he knew that the +excited East Side group was now flavored with mob-anarchy--that he had +to deal, not with men whose worst weapon was words, but with brutes who +lusted for broken heads. Some of the faces he knew--he had seen them +hanging about saloons. And he saw, too, in that swift scrutiny, that +many of the men had weapons; some had seized crowbars and sledges from a +near-by street tool-chest which was being used by laborers; others had +sticks; some had stones. An ominous sound came from the mob, something +winged with doom and death, like the rattling of a venomous snake, with +head raised to strike, ready fangs and glittering eyes. He could catch +in that paralyzing hum words tossed here and there: "Smash his presses! +Clean him out! Lynch him, lynch him! Kill--kill--kill!--" + +A human beast had coiled at his door, myriad-headed, insane, +bloodthirsty, all-powerful--the mob, that terror of civilization, that +sudden reversion in mass to a state of savagery. It boded ill for Joe +Blaine. He had a bitter, cynical thought: + +"So this is what comes of spreading the truth--of really trying to +help--of living out an ideal!" + +A snowball hit the window before him, a soft crash and spread of drip, +and there rose from the mob a fiendish yell that seemed itself a power, +making the heart pound, dizzying the brain. + +Joe turned. His mother was standing close to him, white as paper, but +her eyes flashing. She had not dared speak to Joe, knowing that this +fight was his and that he had passed out of her hands. + +He spoke in a low, pulsing voice. + +"Mother, I want you to stay in back!" + +She looked at him, as if drinking her fill of his face. + +"You're right, Joe," she whispered, and turned and went out. + +Billy was standing at the stove, a frightened boy, but he gripped the +poker in his hand. + +"Billy," said Joe, quietly, "run down and tell Rann to keep 'em out of +the press-room." + +Billy edged to the door, opened it, and fled. + +Joe was quite alone. He sat down at his desk and took up the telephone. + +"Hello, Central!" his voice was monotonous in its lowness and tenseness. + +"Hello!" + +"Give me police headquarters--_quick_!" + +Central seemed startled. + +"Police--? Yes, right away! Hold on!--Here they are!" + +"Hello! Police headquarters!" came a man's voice. + +"This is Joe Blaine." Joe gave his address. "There's a riot in front of +the house--a big mob. Send over a patrol wagon on the jump!" + +At that moment there was a wild crash of glass, and a heavy stone sang +through the air and knocked out the stove-pipe--pipe and stone falling +to the floor with a rumble and rattle--and from the mob rose murderous +yells. + +So Joe was able to add: + +"They've just smashed my window with a stone. You'd better come damn +fast." + +"Right off!" snapped Headquarters. + +Joe put down the telephone, and stepped quietly over the room and out +into the hall. Even at that moment the hall door burst wide and a +frenzied push and squabble of men poured forth upon him. In that brief +glimpse, in the dim storm-light, Joe saw faces that were anything but +human--wild animals, eyes blood-shot, mouths wide, and many fists in the +air above their heads. There was no mercy, no thought, nothing +civilized--but somehow the demon-deeps of human nature, crusted over +with the veneer of gentler things, had broken through. Worse than +anything was the crazy hum, rising and rising, the hoarse notes, the +fierce discord, that beat upon his brain as if to drown him under. + +Joe tried to shout: + +"Keep back! I'll shoot! Keep back!" + +But at once the rough bodies, the terrible faces were upon him, +surrounding him, pushing him. He seized a little man who was jumping for +his throat--seized and shook the little beast. + +"Get back!" he cried. + +Fists pushed into his eyes, blows began to rain upon his body and his +head. He ducked. He felt himself propelled backward by an irresistible +force. He felt his feet giving way. Warm and reeking breath blew up his +nostrils. He heard confused cries of: "Kill him! That's him! We've got +him!" Back and back he went, the torn center of a storm, and then +something warm and sweet gushed over his eyes, earth opened under him +and he sank, sank through soft gulfs, deeper and deeper, far from the +troublous noise of life, far, far--into an engulfing blackness. + +The flood poured on, gushing down the stair-way, at the foot of which +Rann and his two men stood, all armed with wrenches and tools. + +Rann shouted. + +"I'll break the head of any one who comes!" + +The men in advance tried to break away, well content to leave their +heads whole, but those in the rear pushed them on. Whack! whack! went +the wrench--the leader fell. But then with fierce screams the mob broke +loose, the three men were swept into the vortex of a fighting whirlpool. +Some one opened the basement gate from the inside and a new stream +poured in. The press-room filled--crowbars got to work--while men danced +and wildly laughed and exulted in their vandal work. Then suddenly arose +the cry of, "Police!" Tools dropped; the mob turned like a stampede of +cattle, crushed for the doors, cried out, caught in a trap, and ran into +the arms of blue-coated officers.... + +When Joe next opened his eyes and looked out with some surprise on the +same world that he was used to, he found himself stretched in his bed +and a low gas-flame eyeing him from above. He put out a hand, because he +felt queer about the head, and touched bandages. Then some one spoke in +his ear. + +"You want to keep quiet, Mr. Blaine." + +He looked. A doctor was sitting beside him. + +"Where's mother?" he asked. + +"Here I am, Joe." Her voice was sweet in his ears. + +She was sitting on the bed at his feet. + +"Come here." + +She took the seat beside him and folded his free hand with both of hers. + +"Mother--I want to know what's the matter with me--every bit of it." + +"Well, Joe, you've a broken arm and a banged-up head, but you'll be all +right." + +"And you--are you all right?" + +"Perfectly." + +"They didn't go in the kitchen?" + +"No." + +"And the press?" + +"It's smashed." + +"And the office?" + +"In ruins." + +"How about Rann and the men?" + +"Bruised--that's all." + +"The police came?" + +"Cleaned them out." + +There was a pause; then Joe and his mother looked at each other with +queer expressions on their faces, and suddenly their mellow laughter +filled the room. + +"Isn't it great, mother? That's what we get!" + +"Well, Joe," said his mother, "what do you expect?" + +Suddenly then another stood before him--bowed, remorseful, humble. It +was Sally Heffer, the tears trickling down her face. + +She knelt at the bedside and buried her face in the cover. + +"It's my fault!" she cried. "It's my fault!" + +"Yours, Sally?" cried Joe, quite forgetting the "Miss." "How so?" + +"I--I went to Marrin's and got the girls out." + +"Got the girls out?" Joe exclaimed. "Where are they?" + +"On the street." + +"Bring them into the ruins," said Joe, "and organize them. I'm going to +make a business of this thing." + +Sally looked up aghast. + +"But I--I ought to be shot down. It's I that should have been hurt." + +Joe smiled on her. + +"Sally! Sally! what an impetuous girl you are! What would I do without +you?" + + + + +VII + + +OF THE THIRTY THOUSAND + +One wonderful January twilight, when the clear, cold air seemed to +tremble with lusty health, Myra sat alone in the Ramble, before the +little frozen pond. And she thought: + +"This is the bench we sat on; and it was here, that morning, that we +quarreled; and this is the little pond; and those the trees--but how +changed! how changed!" + +A world-city practises magic. Any one who for years has slept in her +walls and worn the pave of her streets and mingled with her crowds and +her lighted nights, is changed by her subtle enchantment into a child of +the city. He is never free thereafter. The metropolis may send him forth +like a carrier-pigeon, and he may think he is well rid of his mistress, +but the homing instinct inevitably draws him back. "All other +pleasures," as Emerson said of love, "are not worth its pains." Myra +thought that she hated New York--the great nervous sea of life, whose +noise and stress and tragedy had shattered her health. She had longed +for the peace of nature; she had gone forth to the meadows and the +mountains, and for a long time been content with the sounds of the +barnyard and the farm, the wind and the brook; she had sunk, as it were, +into the arms of the earth and rested on that great nourishing breast. +She loved pure air, far horizons, quiet, and the mysterious changes of +the landscape. She thought she was done with the city forever. For had +she not found that the Vision of White Towers seen that first evening +was hollow and bitter at the heart, that beneath the beauty was dust and +horror, routine and disease? + +But one snow-bound morning as she gazed out from the quiet house and saw +the limitless white of the world, the fences buried, the trees loaded, +the earth lost under the gray heavens, suddenly she was filled with a +passionate desire for _life_. She was amazed at the restlessness in her +heart. But she could not shake it off. Her desire was very definite--to +walk down Eightieth Street, to hear and see the trolleys bounding down +the little hill to Seventy-ninth Street, to shop on Third Avenue, to go +threading her way through the swarm of school children outside the +school gates. And then subtly she felt the elixir of a Broadway night, +the golden witchery of the lights, the laughter-smitten people, the +crowded cars and motors, the shining shops, the warmth of the crowd. A +thousand memories of streets and rooms, of people and of things, flooded +her mind. The country seemed barren and cold and lonely. She was +grievously homesick. It was as if the city cried: "It is winter; the +world is dark and dead. Come, my children, gather together; gather here +in my arms, you millions; laugh and converse together, toil together, +light fires, turn on lights, warm your hands and souls at my flaming +hearth. We will forget the ice and the twilight! Come, winter is the +time for human beings!" + +And so Myra awoke to the fact that she was indeed a child of the +city--that the magic was in her blood and the enchantment in her heart. +It was useless to recall the mean toil, the narrow life, the unhealthy +days. These, dropped in the great illusion of crowded New York, were +transformed into a worthy struggle, a part of the city's reality. She +suddenly felt as if she would go crazy if she stayed in the country--its +stillness stifled her, its emptiness made her ache. + +But there was a deeper call than the call of the city. She wanted to be +with Joe. Her letters to him had been for his sake, not hers. She had +tried to save him from herself, to shut him out and set him free, to +cure him of his love. Desperately she did this, knowing that the future +held nothing for them together. And for a time it had been a beautiful +thing to do, until finally she was compelled to believe that he really +was cured. His notes were more and more perfunctory, until, at last, +they ceased altogether. Then, when she knew she had lost him, it seemed +to her that she had condemned herself to a barren, fruitless life; that +the best had been lived, and it only remained now to die. She had given +up her "whole existence," cast out that by which she truly lived. There +were moments of inexpressible loneliness, when, reading in the orchard, +or brooding beside some rippling brook, she glanced southward and sent +her silent cry over the horizon. Somewhere down there he was swallowed +in the vastness of life; she remembered the lines of his face, his dark +melancholy eyes, his big human, humorous lips, his tall, awkward +strength; she felt still those kisses on her lips; felt his arms about +her; the warmth of his hand; the whisper of his words; and the wind in +the oaks. + +That afternoon at the riverside he had cast his future at her feet. She +had been offered that which runs deeper than hunger or dream or toil, +the elemental, the mystic, the very glory of a woman's life. She had +been offered a life, too, of comradeship and great issues. And now, when +these gifts were withdrawn, she knew she would nevermore have rest or +joy in this world. Is not life the adventure of a man and a woman going +forth together, toiling, and talking, and laughing, and creating on the +road to death? Is not earth the mating-place for souls? Out of nature we +rise and seek out each other and mate and make of life a glory and a +mystery. This is the secret of youth, and the magic of all music and of +all sorrow and of all toil. Or, so it seemed to Myra. + +There is no longing in the world so tragic or terrible as that of men +and women for each other. And so Myra had her homesickness for the city +transfused and sharpened by her overmastering love. She fought with +herself bitterly; she resolved to wait for one more mail. Nothing came +in that mail. + +Then she evaded the issue. There were practical reasons for her return. +Her health was quite sound again, she had been idle long enough; it was +time to get back to work. What if she did return to the city? Surely it +was not necessary to seek out Joe. It would be enough to be near him. He +need not be troubled. So vast is the city that he would not know of her +presence. What harm, then, in easing her heart, in getting back into the +warmth and stir of life? + +With a young girl's joy she packed her trunk and took the train for New +York, and at sunset, as she rode in the ferry over the North River, she +stood bravely out on deck, faced the bitter and salt wind, and saw, +above the flush of the waters, that breathless skyline which, like the +prow of some giant ship, seemed making out to sea. Lights twinkled in +windows, signal-lamps gleamed red and green on the piers, chimneys +smoked, and as the ferry nosed its way among the busy craft of the +river, Myra exulted. She was coming back! This again was New York, real, +right there, unbudged, her thousand lights like voices calling her +home. The ferry landed; she hurried out and took a surface car And how +good the crowd seemed, how warm the noise and the lights, what gladness +was in the evening ebb-tide of people, how splendid the avenues shone +with their sparkle and their shops and their traffic! She felt again the +good hard pave under her feet. She met again a hundred familiar scenes. +The vast flood of life seemed to engulf her, suck her up as if to say: +"Well, you're here again! Come, there is room! Another human being!" + +All about her was rich life, endless sights, confusion and variety. The +closing darkness was pierced with lights, windows glowed, people were +hurrying home. It was all as she had left it. And she felt then that the +city was but Joe multiplied, and that Joe was the city. Both were +cosmopolitan, democratic, tragic, light-hearted, many-faceted. Both were +careless and big and easy and roomy. Both had a great freedom about +them. And what a freedom the city had!--nothing snowbound here, but +invitation, shops open, cars gliding, the millions transported back and +forth, everything open and inviting. + +She was glad for her neat back room--for gas-lights and running +water--for the comfort and ease of life. She was glad even to sit in the +crowded dining-room, and that night she was glad to lie abed and hear +the city's heart pounding about her--that old noise of whistles on the +river, that old thunder of the elevated train. + +But she found that nearness to Joe made it impossible to keep away from +him. Just as of old she had found excuses for going up to the trembling +printery, so now she felt that somehow she must seek him out. She kept +wondering what he was doing at that particular moment. Was he toiling or +idling? Was he with his mother? Did he still wear the same clothes, the +same half-worn necktie, the same old lovable gray hat? What would he +say, how would he look, if she suddenly confronted him? Myra had to +laugh softly to herself. She saw the wonder in his face, the open mouth, +the flashing eyes. Or, would he be embarrassed? Was there some other +woman--one who accorded with his ideals--one who could share his +life-work? Of course she hoped that there was. She hoped he had found +some one worthy of him. But the thought gave her intense misery. Why had +he thrown his life away and gone down into that foolish and shoddy +neighborhood? Surely when she saw him she would be disappointed by the +changes in him. He would be more than ever a fanatic--more than ever an +unreasonable radical. He might even be vulgarized by his +environment--might have taken its color, been leveled down by its +squalor. + +She must forget the new Joe and cleave to the old Joe. Next afternoon, +walking out, almost involuntarily, she turned west and entered the +Park. The trees were naked, a lacy tracery of boughs against the +deep-blue sky. She followed the curve, she crossed the roadway, she +climbed the hill to the Ramble. She began to tingle with the keen, crisp +air, and with the sense of adventure. It was almost as if she were going +to meet Joe--as if they had arranged a secret meeting. She took the +winding paths, she passed the little pool. There was the bench! But +empty. + +Then she sat down on that bench, and looked out at the naked wilderness +of trees, at the ice in the pond, at the sodden brown, dead grasses. The +place was wildly forlorn and bare. When they had last been here the air +had been tinged with the haunting autumn, the leaves had been falling, +the pool had been deep with the heavens. And again she thought: + +"This is the bench we sat on; and it was here, that morning, that we +quarreled; this is the little pond, and those the trees--but how +changed! how changed!" + +Then as she sat there she beheld the miracle of color. Behind her, +between the black tree trunks, the setting sun was a liquid red +splendor, daubing some low clouds with rosiness, and all about her, in +the turn between day and night, the world, which before was a blend in +the strong light, now divided into a myriad sharp tints. The air held a +tinge of purple, the distance a smoky violet, the brown of the grasses +was a strong brown, the black of the trunks intensely black. Out among +distant trees she saw a woman and child walking, and the child's scarlet +cloak seemed a living thing as it swayed and moved. How sharp and +distinct were the facts of earth! how miraculously tinted! what tones of +blue and red, of purple and black! It was the sunset singing its hymn of +color, and it made her feel keenly the mystery and beauty of life--the +great moments of solution and peace--the strange human life that +inhabits for a brief space this temple of a million glories. But +something was missing, there was a great lack, a wide emptiness. She +resolved then to see Joe. + +It was not, however, until the next afternoon that she took the elevated +train to Ninth Street and then the crosstown car over the city. She +alighted in the shabby street; she walked up to the entrance; she saw +over the French windows a big canvas sign, "Strike Headquarters." +Within, she thought she saw a mass of people. This made her hesitate. +She had expected to find him alone. And somehow, too, the place was even +shabbier, even meaner than she had expected. And so she stood a +moment--a slender, little woman, her hands in a muff, a fur scarf bound +about her throat, her gray eyes liquid and luminous, a rosy tint in her +cheeks, her lips parted and releasing a thin steam in the bitter winter +air. Overhead the sky was darkening with cloud-masses, a shriveling +wind dragged the dirty street, and the world was desolate and gray. The +blood was pulsing in Myra's temples, her heart leaped, her breath +panted. And as she hesitated a girl passed her, a girl about whose +breast was bound a placard whereon were the words: + + JOIN THE STRIKE + OF THE THIRTY THOUSAND + +What strike? What did it mean? Was Joe in a strike? She thought he had +been editing a paper. She had better not intrude. She turned, as if to +fly, and yet hesitated. Her feet refused to go; her heart was +rebellious. Only a wall divided him from her. Why should she not see +him? Why not a moment's conversation? Then she would go and leave him to +his work. + +Another girl passed her and paused--a girl also placarded, a girl with a +strange beauty, somewhat tall, with form well rounded, with pale face +full of the fascination of burning eagerness. This girl's eyes were a +clear blue, her lips set tight, and her light-brown hair blew +beautifully about her cheeks. She was, however, but thinly clothed, and +her frail little coat was short and threadbare. + +She spoke to Myra--a rich, sympathetic voice. + +"Are you looking for Mr. Blaine?" + +"Yes--" said Myra, almost gasping. "Is he in?" + +"He's always in!" The girl smiled. + +"There's nothing the matter?" + +"With him? No! But come, come out of the cold!" + +There was nothing to do but follow. The girl opened a door and they +entered the office. It was crowded with girls and women and men. Long +benches were about the wall, camp-stools filled the floor. Many were +seated; on two of the benches worn-out men were fast asleep, and between +the seats groups of girls were talking excitedly. Several lights burned +in the darkening room, and Myra saw swiftly the strange types--there +were Jewish girls, Italian girls, Americans, in all sorts of garbs, some +very flashy with their "rat"-filled hair, their pompadours, their +well-cut clothes, others almost in rags; some tall, some short, some +rosy-cheeked, many frail and weak and white. At a table in the rear +Giotto was receiving money from Italians and handing out union cards. He +looked as if he hadn't slept for nights. + +Myra was confused. She felt strangely "out" of all this; strangely, as +if she were intruding. The smell of the place offended her, especially +as it was mixed with cheap perfumes; and the coarse slangy speech that +flashed about jarred on her ear. But at the same time she was +suffocating with suspense. + +"Where is he?" she murmured--they were standing right within the door. + +"Over there!" the girl pointed. + +But all Myra saw was a black semicircle of girls leaning over some one +invisible near the window. + +"He's at his desk, and he's talking with a committee. You'd better wait +till he's finished!" + +This news choked Myra. Wait? Wait here? Be shut out like this? She was +as petulant as a child; she felt like shedding tears. + +But the girl at her side seemed to be playing the part of hostess, and +she had to speak. + +"What strike is this?" + +The girl was amazed. + +"_What strike_! Don't you know?" + +Myra smiled. + +"No--I don't. I've been out of the city." + +"It's the shirtwaist-makers' strike." + +"Oh! I see!" said Myra, mechanically. + +"It's the biggest woman's strike that ever was. Thirty thousand +out--Italians, Jews, and Americans." + +"Yes?" Myra was not listening. + +Suddenly then the door was flung open and a well-dressed girl rushed in, +crying shrilly: + +"Say, girls, what do you think?" + +A group gathered about her. + +"What's up? What's the news? Don't stand there all day!" + +The girl spoke with exultant indignation. + +"I've been arrested!" + +"Arrested! _You_!" + +"And I didn't do nothing, either--I was good. What do you think of this? +The judge fined me ten dollars. Well, let me tell you, I'm going to _get +something_ for those ten dollars! I'm going to raise--hell!" + +"You bet! Ain't it a shame?" + +And the group swallowed her up. + +Myra wondered why the girl had been arrested, and was surprised at her +lack of shame and humiliation. + +But she had not much time for thought. The door opened again, and Sally +Heffer entered, sparkling, neat, eyes clear. + +At once cries arose: + +"Here's Sal! Hello, Sally Heffer! Where have you been?" Girls crowded +about. "What's the news? Where did you come from?" + +Where had Myra heard that name before? + +Sally spoke with delicious fastidiousness. + +"_I've_ been to Vassar." + +"Vassar College?" + +"Yes, Vassar College--raised fifty dollars!" + +"Sally's it, all right! Say, Sal, how did they treat you? Stuck up?" + +"Not a bit," said Sally. "They were ever so good to me. They're lovely +girls--kind, sweet, sympathetic. They wanted to help and they were very +respectful, but"--she threw up her hands--"_oh, they're ignorant_!" + +There was a shout of laughter. Myra was shocked. A slum girl to speak +like this of Vassar students? She noticed then, with a queer pang, that +Sally made for the window group, who at once made a place for her. Sally +had easy access to Joe. + +The girl at her side was speaking again. + +"You've no idea what this strike means. There's some rich women +interested in it--they work right with us, hold mass-meetings, march in +the streets--they're wonderful. And some of the big labor-leaders and +even some of the big lawyers are helping. There's one big lawyer been +giving all his time. You see, we're having trouble with the police." + +"Yes, I see," said Myra, though she didn't see at all, and neither did +she care. It seemed to her that she could not wait another instant. She +must either go, or step over to his desk. + +"Is he still so busy?" she asked. + +"Yes, he is," said the girl. "Do you know him personally?" + +Myra laughed softly. + +"A little." + +"Then you heard how he was hurt?" + +"_Hurt_!" gasped Myra. Her heart seemed to grow small, and it was +pierced by a sharp needle of pain. + +"Yes, there was a riot here--the men came in and smashed everything." + +"And Mr. Blaine? _Tell me_!" The words came in a blurt. + +"Had his arm broken and his head was all bloody." + +Myra felt dizzy, faint. + +"But he's--better?" + +"Oh, he's all right now." + +"When did this happen?" + +"About six weeks ago!" + +Six weeks! That was shortly after the last letter came. Myra was +suffering agony, and her face went very pale. + +"How did it happen?" she breathed. + +"Oh, he called some strikers traitors, and they came down and broke in. +It's lucky he wasn't killed." + +He had suffered, he had been in peril of his life, while she was resting +in the peace of the country. So this was a strike, and in this Joe was +concerned. She looked about the busy room; she noticed anew the sleeping +men and the toiling Giotto; and suddenly she was interested. She was +wrenched, as it were, from her world into his. She felt in the heart of +a great tragedy of life. And all the time she kept saying over and over +again: + +"His arm was broken! his head bloody! and I wasn't here! I wasn't at his +side!" + +And she had thought in her country isolation that life in the city +wasn't real. What a moment that must have been when Joe faced the +rioters--when they rushed upon him--when he might have been killed! And +instead of deterring him from his work, here he was in the thick of it, +braving, possibly, unspeakable dangers. Then, glancing about, it seemed +to her that these girls and men were a part of his drama; he gave them a +new reality. This was life, pulsing, immediate, tragic. She must go to +him--she mustn't delay longer. + +She took a few steps forward, and at almost the same moment the girls +about Joe left him, scattering about the room. Then she saw him. And +what a spectacle! He was in his shirt-sleeves, his hair was more tousled +than ever, and his face was gray--the most tragic face she had ever +seen--gray, sunken, melancholy, worn, as if he bore the burden of the +world. But in one hand he held a pen, and in the other--a ham sandwich. +It was a big sandwich, and every few moments he took a big bite, as he +scratched on. Myra's heart was wrung with love and pity, with remorse +and fondness, and mainly with the tragi-comedy of his face and the +sandwich. + +She stood over him a moment, breathless, panting, her throat full of +blood, it seemed. Then she stooped a little and whispered: + +"Joe." + +He wheeled round; he looked up; his gray face seemed to grow grayer; his +lips parted--he was more than amazed. He was torn away, as it were, from +all business of life. + +"Why," he said under his breath, "it's you, Myra!" + +"Yes"--tears stood in her eyes--"it's I." + +He surveyed her up and down, and then their eyes met. He ran his hand +through his hair. + +"You--you--" he murmured. "And how well you look, how strong, how fresh! +Sit down! sit down!" + +She took the seat, trembling. She leaned forward. + +"But you--you are killing yourself, Joe." + +He smiled sadly. + +"It's serious business, Myra." + +She gazed at him, and spoke hard. + +"Is there no end to it? Aren't you going to rest, ever?" + +"End? No end now. The strike must be won." + +He was trying to pull himself together. He gave a short laugh; he sat +up. + +"So you're back from the country." + +"Yes, I'm back." + +"To stay?" + +"To stay." + +"You're cured, then?" + +"Yes," she smiled, "cured of many things. I like the city better than I +thought!" + +He gave her a sharp look. + +"So!" Then his voice came with utter weariness: "Well, the city's a +queer place, Myra. Things happen here." + +Somehow she felt that he was standing her off. Something had crept in +between them, some barrier, some wall. He had already emerged from the +shock of the meeting. What if there were things in his life far more +important than this meeting? Myra tried to be brave. + +"I just wanted to see you--see the place--see how things were getting +on." + +Joe laughed softly. + +"Things _are_ getting on. Circulation's up to fifteen thousand--due to +the strike." + +"How so?" + +"We got out a strike edition--and the girls peddled it around town, and +lots subscribed. It's given the paper a big boost." + +"I'm glad to hear it," Myra found herself saying. + +"_You_ glad?" If only his voice hadn't been so weary! "That's strange, +Myra." + +"It _is_ strange!" she said, her eyes suffused again. His gray, tragic +face seemed to be working on the very strings of her heart. She longed +so to help him, to heal him, to breathe joy and strength into him. + +"Joe!" she said. + +He looked at her again. + +"Yes, Myra." + +"Oh--I--" She paused. + +He smiled. + +"Say it!" + +"Isn't there some way I can help?" + +A strange expression came to his face, of surprise, of wonder. + +"_You_ help?" + +"Yes--I--" + +"Mr. Blaine! Mr. Blaine!" Some one across the room was calling. "There's +an employer here to see you!" + +Joe leaped up, took Myra's hand, and spoke hastily. + +"Wait and meet my mother. And come again--sometime. Sometime when I'm +not so rushed!" + +And he was gone--gone out of the room. + +Myra arose, still warm with the touch of his hand--for his hand was +almost fever-warm. All that she knew was that he had suffered and was +suffering, and that she must help. She was burning now with an eagerness +to learn about the strike, to understand what it was that so depressed +and enslaved him, what it was that was slowly killing him. Her old +theories met the warm clasp of life and vanished. She forgot her +viewpoint and her delicacy. Life was too big for her shallow philosophy. +It seized upon her now and absorbed her. + +She strode back to the young girl, who she learned later was named Rhona +Hemlitz, and who was but seventeen years old. + +She said: "Tell me about the strike! Can't we sit down together and +talk? Have you time?" + +"I have a little time," said Rhona, eagerly. "We can sit here!" + +So they sat side by side and Rhona told her. Rhona's whole family was +engaged in sweat-work. They lived in a miserable tenement over in Hester +Street, where her mother had been toiling from dawn until midnight with +the needle, with her tiny brother helping to sew on buttons, "finishing" +daily a dozen pairs of pants, and making--_thirty cents_. + +Myra was amazed. + +"Thirty cents--dawn till midnight! Impossible!" + +And then her father--who worked all day in a sweatshop. + +"And you--what did you do?" asked Myra. + +Rhona told her. She had worked in Zandler's shirtwaist factory--bending +over a power-machine, whose ten needles made forty-four hundred stitches +a minute. So fast they flew that a break in needle or thread ruined a +shirtwaist; hence, never did she allow her eyes to wander, never during +a day of ten to fourteen hours, while, continuously, the needles danced +up and down like flashes of steel or lightning. At times it seemed as if +the machine were running away from her and she had to strain her body to +keep it back. And so, when she reeled home late at night, her smarting +eyes saw sharp showers of needles in the air every time she winked, and +her back ached intolerably. + +"I never dreamt," said Myra, "that people had to work like that!" + +"Oh, that's not all!" said Rhona, and went on. Her wages were rarely +over five dollars a week, and for months, during slack season, she was +out of work--came daily to the factory, and had to sit on a bench and +wait, often fruitlessly. And then the sub-contracting system, whereunder +the boss divided the work among lesser bosses who each ran a gang of +toilers, speeding them up mercilessly, "sweating" them! And so the young +girls, sixteen to twenty-five years old, were sapped of health and joy +and womanhood, and, "as Mr. Joe wrote, the future is robbed of wives and +mothers!" + +Myra was amazed. She had a new glimpse of the woman problem. She saw now +how millions of women were being fed into the machine of industry, and +that thus the home was passing, youth was filched of its glory, and the +race was endangered. This uprising of the women, then, meant more than +she dreamed--meant the attempt to save the race by freeing the women +from this bondage. Had they not a right then to go out in the open, to +strike, to lead marches, to sway meetings, to take their places with +men? + +Such thoughts, confused and swift, came to her, and she asked Rhona what +had happened. How had the strike started? First, said Rhona, there was +the strike at Marrin's--a spark that set off the other places. Then at +Zandler's conditions had become so bad that one morning Jake Hedig, her +boss, a young, pale-faced, black-haired man, suddenly arose and shouted +in a loud voice throughout the shop: + +"I am sick of slave-driving. I resign my job." + +The boss, and some of the little bosses, set upon him, struck him, and +dragged him out, but as he went he shouted lustily: + +"Brothers and sisters, are you going to sit by your machines and see a +fellow-worker used this way?" + +The machines stopped: the hundreds of girls and the handful of men +marched out simultaneously. Then, swiftly the sedition had spread about +the city until a great night in Cooper Union, when, after speeches of +peace and conciliation, one of the girls had risen, demanded and secured +the floor, and moved a general strike. Her motion was unanimously +carried, and when the chairman cried, in Yiddish: "Do you mean faith? +Will you take the old Jewish oath?" up went two thousand hands, with one +great chorus: + +"If I turn traitor to the cause I now pledge, may this hand wither from +the arm I now raise." + +By this oath Rhona was bound. And so were thirty thousand +others--Americans, Italians, Jews--and with them were some of the +up-town women, some of the women of wealth, some of the big lawyers and +the labor-leaders and reformers. + +"Some of the up-town women!" thought Myra. She was amazed to find +herself so interested, so wrought up. And she felt as if she had +stumbled upon great issues and great struggles; she realized, dimly, +that first moment, that this strike was involved in something larger, +something vaster--swallowed up in the advance of democracy, in the +advance of woman. All the woman in her responded to the call to arms. + +And she was discovering now what Joe had meant by his "crisis"--what he +had meant by his fight for "more democracy; a better and richer life; a +superber people on earth. It was a real thing. She burned now to help +Joe--she burned to do for him--to enter into his tragic struggle--to be +of use to him. + +"What are you going to do now?" she asked Rhona. + +"Now? Now I must go picketing." + +"What's picketing?" + +"March up and down in front of a factory and try to keep scabs out." + +"What are scabs?" asked ignorant Myra. + +Rhona was amazed. + +"You don't even know that? Why, a scab's a girl who tries to take a +striker's job and so ruin the strike. She takes the bread out of our +mouths." + +"But how can you stop her?" + +"Talk to her! We're not allowed to use violence." + +"How do you do it?" + +Rhona looked at the eager face, the luminous gray eyes. + +"Would you like to see it?" + +"Yes, I would." + +"But it's dangerous." + +"How so?" + +"Police and thugs, bums hanging around." + +"And you girls aren't afraid?" + +Rhona smiled. + +"We don't show it, anyway. You see, we're bound to win." + +Myra's eyes flashed. + +"Well, if you're not afraid, I guess I haven't any right to be. May I +come?" + +Rhona looked at her with swift understanding. + +"Yes, please do come!" + +Myra rose. She took a last look about the darkening room; saw once more +the sleeping men, the toiling Giotto, the groups of girls. Something +tragic hung in the air. She seemed to breathe bigger, gain in stature, +expand. She was going to meet the test of these newer women. She was +going to identify herself with their vast struggle. + +And looking once more, she sought Joe, but could not find him. How +pleased he would be to know that she was doing this--doing it largely +for him--because she wanted to smooth out that gray face, and lay her +cheek against its lost wrinkles, and put her arm about his neck, and +heal him. + +Tears dimmed her eyes. She took Rhona's arm and they stepped out into +the bleak street. Wind whipped their faces like quick-flicked knives. +They walked close together. + +"Is it far?" asked Myra. + +"Quite far. It's over on Great Jones Street!" + +And so Myra went, quite lost in the cyclone of life. + + + + +VIII + + +THE ARREST + +They gained the corner of Great Jones Street--one of those dim byways of +trade that branch off from the radiant avenues. As they turned in the +street, they met a bitter wind that was blowing the pavement clean as +polished glass, and the dark and closing day was set off sharply by the +intense lamps and shop-lights. Here and there at a window a clerk +pressed his face against the cold pane and looked down into the +cheerless twilight, and many toilers made the hard pavement echo with +their fast steps as they hurried homeward. + +"There they are," said Rhona. + +Two girls, both placarded, came up to them. One of them, a thin little +skeleton, pitiably ragged in dress, with hollow eyes and white face, was +coughing in the cuff of the wind. She was plainly a consumptive--a +little wisp of a girl. She spoke brokenly, with a strong Russian accent. + +"It's good to see you yet, Rhona. I get so cold my bones ready to +crack." + +She shivered and coughed. Rhona spoke softly. + +"Fannie, you go right home, and let your mother give you a good drink of +hot lemonade with whiskey in it. And take a foot-bath, too." + +Fannie coughed again. + +"Don't you tell me, Rhona. Look out for yourself. There gets trouble yet +on this street." + +Myra drew nearer, a dull feeling in her breast. Rhona spoke easily: + +"None of the men said anything or did anything, did they?" + +"Well, they say things; they make angry faces, and big fists, Rhona. +Better be careful." + +"Where are they?" + +"By Zandler's doorway. They get afraid of the cold." + +Rhona laughed softly, and put an arm about the frail body. + +"Now you run home, and don't worry about me! I can take care of myself. +I expect another girl, anyway." + +"Good-night, Rhona." + +"Good-night--get to bed, and don't forget the hot lemonade!" + +The two girls departed, blowing, as it were, about the corner and out of +sight. Rhona turned to Myra, whose face was pallid. + +"Hadn't you better go back, Miss Craig? You see, I'm used to these +things." + +"No," said Myra, in a low voice. "I've come to stay." + +She was thinking of tiny Fannie. What! Could she not measure to a +little consumptive Russian? + +"All right," said Rhona. "Let's begin!" + +They started to walk quietly up and down before the darkened loft +building--up fifty yards, down fifty yards. A stout policeman slouched +under a street-lamp, swinging his club with a heavily gloved hand, and +in the shadow of the loft-building entrance Rhona pointed out to Myra +several ill-looking private detectives who danced up and down on their +toes, blew their hands, smoked cigarettes, and kept tab of the time. + +"It's they," whispered Rhona, "who make all the trouble. Some of them +are ex-convicts and thugs. They are a rough lot." + +"But why is it allowed?" asked Myra. + +Rhona laughed. + +"Why is anything allowed?" + +The wind seemed to grow more and more cruel. Myra felt her ear-lobes +swelling, the tip of her nose tingled and her feet and hands were numb. +But they held on quietly in the darkening day. It all seemed simple +enough--this walking up and down. So this was picketing! + +Myra spoke softly as they turned and walked west. + +"Have many of the girls been arrested?" + +"Oh yes, a lot of them." + +"Have they been disorderly?" + +"Some of them have. It's hard to keep cool, with scabs egging you on +and calling you cowards." + +"And what happens to them if they are arrested?" + +"Oh, fined--five, ten dollars." + +They turned under the lamp; the policeman rose and sank on one foot +after the other; they walked quietly back. Then, as they passed the +doorway of the loft building, one of the young men stepped forward into +the light. He was a square-set, heavy fellow, with long, square, +protruding jaw, and little monkey eyes. His bearing was menacing. He +stepped in front of the girls, who stopped still and awaited him. Myra +felt the blood rush to her head, and a feeling of dizziness made her +tremble. Then the man spoke sharply: + +"Say, you--you can't go by here." + +Myra gazed at him as if she were hypnotized, but Rhona's eyes flashed. + +"Why not?" + +"Don't jaw me," said the man. "But--_clear out_!" + +Rhona tried to speak naturally. + +"Isn't this a public street? Haven't I a right to walk up and down with +my friend?" + +Then Myra felt as if she were struck by lightning, or as if something +sacred in her womanhood had been outraged. + +With a savage growl: "You little sheeny!" the man suddenly struck out a +fist and hit Rhona in the chest. She lurched, doubled, and fell, saving +herself with her hands. Myra did not move, but a shock of horror went +through her. + +The two other young men in the doorway came forward, and home-goers +paused, drew close, looked on curiously and silently. One nudged +another. + +"What's up?" + +"Don't know!" + +The thug muttered under his breath: + +"Pull her up by her hair; we'll run her in!" + +But Rhona had scrambled to her feet. She was too wild to cry or speak. +She glanced around for help, shunning the evil monkey eyes. Then she saw +the policeman under the lamp. He was still nonchalantly swinging his +club. + +She gave a gasping sob, pushing away Myra's offered help, and struggled +over to him. He did not move. She stood, until he glanced at her. Then +she caught his eye, and held him, and spoke with strange repression, as +the crowd drew about them. Myra was in that crowd, dazed, outraged, +helpless. She heard Rhona speaking: + +"Do you think a man has any right to strike a girl?" + +He did not answer; she still held his eyes. + +"Do you think a man has any right to strike a girl?" + +Still he said nothing, and the crowd became fascinated by the fixity of +gaze of the two. Rhona's voice sharpened: + +"_Do you think a man has any right to strike a girl_?" + +The officer cleared his throat and looked away. + +"Oh," he muttered carelessly, "it's all right. You people are always +kicking, anyway." + +Rhona's voice rose. + +"I ask you to arrest him." + +Several in the crowd backed this with mutterings. The policeman twirled +his stick. + +"Oh, all right!" he called. "Come along, Blondy!" + +Blondy, the thug, came up grinning. + +"Pinching me, John?" he asked. + +"Sure." The policeman smiled, and then seized Blondy and Rhona each by +an arm and started to march them toward Broadway. Myra followed wildly. +Her mind was in a whirl and the bitter tears blurred her eyes. What +could she do? How could she help? She sensed in the policeman's word a +menace to Rhona. Rhona was in trouble, and she, Myra, was as good as +useless in this crisis. She suddenly understood the helplessness of the +poor and the weak, especially the poor and weak women. What could they +do against this organized iniquity? Against the careless and cruel +world? It was all right for gentlewomen in gentle environment to keep to +the old ideals of womanhood--to stay at home and delegate their +citizenship to the men. But those who were sucked into the vortex of the +rough world, what of these? Were they not right in their attempts to +organize, to rebel, to fight in the open, to secure a larger share of +freedom and power? + +But if these were Myra's feelings and thoughts--a sense of outrage, of +being trampled on--they were little things compared with the agony in +Rhona's breast. A growing and much-pleased crowd surrounded her, +flinging remarks: + +"Lock-steps for yours! Hello, Mamie! Oh, you kid! Now will you be good! +Carrie, go home and wash the dishes!" + +And one boy darted up and snapped the placard from her waist. The crowd +laughed, but Rhona was swallowing bitter tears. + +They passed down Broadway a block or two, and then turned west. +Brilliant light from the shop windows fell upon the moving scene--the +easy-going men, the slouching, shrill boys, and the girl with her pale +set face and uncertain steps. All the world was going home to supper, +and Rhona felt strangely that she was now an exile--torn by the roots +from her warm life to go on a lonely adventure against the powers of +darkness. She had lost her footing in the world and was slipping into +the night. She felt singularly helpless; her very rage and rebellion +made her feel frail and unequal to the task. To be struck down in the +street! To be insulted by a crowd! She had hard work to hold her head +erect and keep back the bitter sobs. + +Up the darkened street they went, the crowd gradually falling away. And +suddenly they paused before the two green lamps of the new +station-house, and then in a moment they had vanished through the +doorway. + +Myra rushed up, panting, to a policeman who stood on the steps. + +"I want to go in--I'm with _her_." + +"Can't do it, lady. She's under arrest." + +"Not she," cried Myra. "The man." + +"Oh, we'll see. You run along--keep out of trouble!" + +Myra turned, confused, weak. She questioned a passer-by about the +location of Ninth Street. "Up Broadway--seven or eight blocks!" She +started; she hurried; her feet were winged with desperate fear. What +could be done? How help Rhona? Surely Joe--Joe could do something. He +would know--she would hasten to him and get his aid. That at least she +could do. + +Now and then a bitter sob escaped her. She felt that she had lost her +self-respect and her pride. Like a coward she had watched Rhona +attacked, had not even raised her voice, had not, even attempted +interference. They might have listened to a well-dressed woman, a woman +of refinement. And she had done nothing--just followed the crowd, +nursing her wounded pride. She began to feel that the world was a big +place, and that those without money or position are at the mercy of the +powerful. She began to revise her opinion of America, more keenly than +ever she understood Joe's passion for more democracy. And she had a +sense, too, that she had never really known life--that her narrow +existence had touched life at but a few minor points--and that the great +on-struggle of the world, the vast life of the race, the million-eddying +evolution were all outside her limits. Now she was feeling the edge of +new existences. The knowledge humbled, almost humiliated her. She +wondered that Joe had ever thought well of her, had ever been content to +share his life with her. + +Driven by these thoughts and by her fear and her apprehension for +Rhona's safety, she plunged west, borne by the wind, buffeted, beaten, +blown along. The lights behind the French windows were like beacons in a +storm. She staggered into the hall, entered the room. Her hair was wild +about her face, her cheeks pale, her eyes burning. + +The room was still crowded, intensely busy. She noticed nothing, but +pushed her way to Joe's desk. He was talking with two girls. + +She confronted him. + +"Joe!" + +He lifted his gray, tragic face, amazed. + +"You still here?" + +It was as if he had forgotten her. But Myra was not now thinking of +herself. She spoke, breathlessly: + +"Joe, I think Rhona Hemlitz is in trouble." + +"How so?" + +"She was knocked down by a thug, and she had him arrested, but I'm +afraid _she's_ arrested." + +A dangerous light came into Joe's eyes. + +"All right! All right! Where did this happen?" + +"On Great Jones Street." + +"Well and good," he muttered. + +"But isn't there anything to do?" cried Myra. + +"Why, if she's not arrested, she'll come here and report, and if she +doesn't come I'll go over to the Night Court at nine this evening." + +"I must go with you," cried Myra. + +"You?" He looked at her, and then suddenly he asked: "But how did you +come to hear of this?" + +"I was picketing with her." + +A great change came over Joe's face, as if he beheld a miracle. + +"Myra! So you have been picketing!" + +Her face went very white. + +"Don't! Don't!" she breathed painfully, sinking in a chair. "I was a +coward, Joe--I didn't do anything to help her!" + +"But what could you do?" + +"Oh, something, anything." + +He glanced at her keenly, and a swift smile lit his features. He spoke +very gently. + +"Myra, you step in back to my mother. Take supper with her. Keep her +company. I'm afraid I'm neglecting mother these days." + +"And the Night Court?" Myra was swallowing sobs. + +"I'll look in for you at nine o'clock." + +"Thank you," she whispered. "Oh, thank you." + +It was something that he thought her worthy. + + + + +IX + + +RHONA + +When the policeman with Rhona and Blondy passed up the steps between the +green lamps of the new station-house, they found themselves in a long +room whose warmth was a fine relief. They breathed more easily, loosened +their coats, and then stepped forward. A police sergeant sat behind a +railing, writing at a low desk, a low-hanging, green-shaded electric +bulb above him. + +Rhona felt that she had to speak quickly and get in her word before the +others. She tried to be calm, but a dull sob went with the words. + +"That man struck me--knocked me down. I've had him arrested." + +The sergeant did not look up. He went on writing. Finally he spoke, +easily: + +"True, Officer?" + +The policeman cleared his throat. + +"The other way round, Sergeant. _She_ struck the _man_." + +Rhona breathed hard, a feeling in her breast of her heart breaking. She +gasped: + +"That's not true. He struck me--he struck me." + +The sergeant glanced up. + +"What's your name?" + +Rhona could not answer for a moment. Then, faintly: + +"Rhona Hemlitz." + +"Age?" + +"Seventeen." + +"Address?" + +"---- Hester Street." + +"Occupation?" + +"Shirtwaist-maker." + +"Oh!" he whistled slightly. "Striker?" + +"Yes." + +"Picketing?" + +"Yes." + +"Held for Night Court trial. Lock her up, Officer." + +Blackness closed over the girl's brain. She thought she was going into +hysterics. Her one thought was that she must get help, that she must +reach some one who knew her. She burst out: + +"I want to telephone." + +"To who?" + +"Mr. Blaine--Mr. Blaine!" + +"West Tenth Street feller?" + +"Yes." + +The sergeant winked to the policeman. + +"Oh, the matron'll see to that! Hey, Officer?" + +Rhona felt her arm seized, and then had a sense of being dragged, a +feeling of cool, fetid air, a flood of darkness, voices, and then she +knew no more. The matron who was stripping her and searching her had to +get cold water and wash her face.... + +Later Rhona found herself in a narrow cell, sitting in darkness at the +edge of a cot. Through the door came a torrent of high-pitched speech. + +"Yer little tough, reform! reform! What yer mean by such carryings-on? I +know yer record. Beware of God, little devil...." + +On and on it went, and Rhona, dazed, wondered what new terror it +foreboded. But then without warning the talk switched. + +"Yer know who I am?" + +"Who?" quavered Rhona. + +"The matron." + +"Yes?" + +"I divorced him, I did." + +"Yes." + +"My husband, I'm telling yer. Are yer deef?" + +Suddenly Rhona rose and rushed to the door. + +"I want to send a message." + +"By-and-by," said the matron, and her rum-reeking breath came full in +the girl's face. The matron was drunk. + +For an hour she confided to Rhona the history of her married life, and +each time that Rhona dared cry, "I want to send a message!" she replied, +"By-and-by." + +But after an hour was ended, she remembered. + +"Message? Sure! Fifty cents!" + +Rhona clutched the edge of the door. + +"Telephone--I want to telephone!" + +"Telephone!" shrieked the matron. "Do yer think we keep a telephone for +the likes of ye?" + +"But I haven't fifty cents--besides, a message doesn't cost fifty +cents--" + +"Are yer telling _me_?" the matron snorted. "Fifty cents! Come now, +hurry," she wheedled. "Yer know as yer has it! Oh, it's in good time you +come!" + +Her last words were addressed to some one behind her. The cell door was +quickly opened; Rhona's arm was seized by John, the policeman, and +without words she was marched to the curb and pushed into the patrol +wagon with half a dozen others. The wagon clanged through the cold, dark +streets, darting through the icy edge of the wind, and the women huddled +together. Rhona never forgot how that miserable wagonful chattered--that +noise of clicking teeth, the pulse of indrawn sighs, and the shivering +of arms and chests. Closer and closer they drew, as if using one another +as shields against the arctic onslaught, a couple of poor women, and +four unsightly prostitutes, the scum of the lower Tenderloin. One woman +kept moaning jerkily: + +"Wisht I was dead--down in my grave. It's bitter cold--" + +The horses struck sparks against the pave, the wheels grided, and the +wagon-load went west, up the shadowy depths of Sixth Avenue, under the +elevated structure, and stopped before Jefferson Market Court. The women +were hustled out and went shuddering through long corridors, until at +last they were shoved into a large cell. + + * * * * * + +At about the same moment Myra and Joe emerged from the West Tenth Street +house and started for the court-house. They started, bowing their heads +in the wind, holding on to their hats. + +"Whew!" muttered Joe. "This is a night!" + +Myra did not dare take his arm, and he spoke a little gruffly. + +"Better hang on to me." + +She slipped her arm through his then, gratefully, and tried to bravely +fight eastward with him. + +Joe was silent. He walked with difficulty. Myra almost felt as if she +were leading him. If she only could have sent him home, nursed him and +comforted him! He was so weary that she felt more like sending him to +bed than dragging him out in this bitter weather. + +More and more painfully he shuffled, and Myra brooded over him as if he +were hers, and there was a sad joy in doing this, a sad glory in leading +him and sharing the cruel night with him. + +In this way they gained the corner of Sixth Avenue. Across the way +loomed the illuminated tower-topped brick court-house. + +"Here it is," said Joe. + +Myra led him over, up the steps, and through the dingy entrance. Then +they stepped into the court-room and sat down on one of the benches, +which were set out as in a school-room. + +The place was large and blue, and dimly lighted. The judge's end of it +was screened off by wire netting. Up on a raised platform sat the +magistrate at his desk, his eyes hidden by a green shade, his bald head +radiant with the electric light above him. Clerks hovered about him, and +an anaemic indoor policeman, standing before him, grasped with one hand +a brass rail and with the other was continually handing up prisoners to +be judged. All in the inclosed space stood and moved a mass of careless +men, the lawyers, hangers-on, and all who fatten upon crime--careless, +laughing, nudging, talking openly to the women of the street. A crass +scene, a scene of bitter cynicism, of flashy froth, degrading and cheap. +Not here to-night the majesty of the law; here only a well-oiled machine +grinding out injustice. + +Joe and Myra were seated among a crowd of witnesses and tired lawyers. +The law's delay seemed to steep the big room with drowsiness; the air +was warm and breathed in and out a thousand times by a hundred lungs. +Myra looked about her at the weary, listless audience. Then she looked +at Joe. He had fallen fast asleep, his head hanging forward. She smiled +sadly and was filled with a strange happiness. He had not been able to +hold out any longer. Well, then, he should sleep, she thought; she would +watch alone. + +Then, as she sat and gazed, a drunken woman in the seat before her fell +sound asleep. At once the big special officer at the little gate of wire +netting came thumping down the aisle, leaned close, and prodded her +shoulder with his forefinger, crying: + +"Wake up, there!" + +She awoke, startled, and a dozen laughed. + +Myra had a great fear that the officer would see Joe. But he didn't. He +turned and went back to his post. + +Myra watched eagerly--aware of the fact that this scene was not as +terrible to her as it might have been. The experience of the day had +sharpened her receptivity, broadened her out-look. She took it for what +it was worth. She hated it, but she did not let it overmaster her. + +There was much business going forward before the judge's desk, and Myra +had glimpses of the prisoners. She saw one girl, bespectacled, hard, +flashy, pushed to the bar, and suddenly heard her voice rise shrill and +human above the drone-like buzzing of the crowd. + +"You dirty liar; I'll slap yer face if yer say that again!" + +A moment later she was discharged, pushed through the little gateway, +and came tripping by Myra, shouting shrilly: + +"I'll make charges against him--I'll break him--I will!" + +Several others Myra saw. + +A stumpy semi-idiot with shining, oily face and child-staring eyes, who +clutched the railing with both big hands and stood comically in huge +clothes, his eyes outgazing the judge. He was suddenly yanked back to +prison. + +A collarless wife-beater, with hanging lips and pleading dog's eyes, his +stout Irish wife sobbing beside him. He got "six months," and his wife +came sobbing past Myra. + +Then there was an Italian peddler, alien, confused, and in rags, soon, +however, to be set free; and next a jovial drunk, slapping the officers +on the back, lifting his legs in dance-like motions and shouting to the +judge. He was lugged away for a night's rest. + +And then, of course, the women. It was all terrible, new, undreamed of, +to Myra. She saw these careless Circes of the street, plumed, powdered, +jeweled, and she saw the way the men handled and spoke to them. + +Scene after scene went on, endless, confused, lost in the buzz and hum +of voices, the shuffle of feet. The air grew warmer and more and more +foul. Myra felt drowsy. She longed to put her head on Joe's shoulder and +fall asleep--sink into peace and stillness. But time and again she came +to with a jerk, started forward and eagerly scanned the faces for Rhona. +What had happened to the girl? Would she be kept in jail overnight? Or +had something worse happened? An increasing fear took possession of her. +She felt in the presence of enemies. Joe was asleep. She could not +question him, could not be set at ease. And how soundly he slept, +breathing deeply, his head hanging far forward. If only she could make a +pillow for that tired head! + +She was torn between many emotions. Now she watched a scene beyond the +netting--something cynical, cheap, degrading--watched it with no real +sense of its meaning--wondered where she was and how she had come--and +why all this was going on. Then she would turn and look piteously at +Joe, her face sharp with yearning. Then she would drowse, and awake with +a start. She kept pinching herself. + +"If I fall asleep Rhona may get through without us--something will +happen!" + +It must have been past midnight. There was no sign of Rhona. Each new +face that emerged from the jail entrance was that of a stranger. Again +an overwhelming fear swept Myra. She touched Joe's arm. + +"Joe! Joe!" she whispered. + +He did not answer; his hand moved a little and dropped. How soundly he +slept! She smiled then, and sat forward, determined to be a brave +woman. + +Then glancing through the netting she spied Blondy and his friends +laughing together. She saw the evil monkey eyes. At once she was back +sharply in Great Jones Street, trembling with outrage and humiliation. +She tried to keep her eyes from him, and again and again looked at him +and loathed him. + +"If," she thought, "he is here, perhaps the time has come." + +Again she searched the new faces, and gave a little cry of joy. There +was Rhona, pale, quiet, her arm in the hand of the policeman who had +made the arrest. + +Myra turned to Joe. + +"Joe! Wake up!" + +He stirred a little. + +"Joe! Joe! Wake up!" + +He gave a great start and opened his eyes. + +"What is it?" he cried. "Do they want union cards?" + +"Joe," she exclaimed, "Rhona's here." + +"Rhona?" He sat upright; he was a wofully sleepy man. "Rhona?" Then he +gazed about him and saw Myra. + +"Oh, Myra!" He laughed sweetly. "How good it is to see you!" + +She paled a little at the words. + +"Joe," she whispered, "we're in the court. Rhona's waiting for us." + +Then he understood. + +"And I've been sleeping, and you let me sleep?" He laughed softly. +"What a good soul you are! Rhona! Come, quick!" + +They arose, Joe rubbing his eyes, and stepped forward. Myra felt stiff +and sore. Then Joe spoke in a low voice to the gate-keeper, the gate +opened, and they entered in. + + + + +X + + +THE TRIAL + +Rhona had spent the evening in the women's cell, which was one of three +in a row. The other two were for men. The window was high up, and a +narrow bench ran around the walls. Sprawled on this were from thirty to +forty women; the air was nauseating, and the place smelled to heaven. +Outside the bars of the door officers lounged in the lighted hall +waiting the signal to fetch their prisoners. Now and then the door +opened, a policeman entered, picked his woman, seized upon her, and +pulled her along without speaking to her. It was as if the prisoners +were dumb wild beasts. + +For a while Rhona sat almost doubled up, feeling that she would never +get warm. Her body would be still a minute, and then a racking spasm +took her and her teeth chattered. A purple-faced woman beside her leaned +forward. + +"Bad business on the street a night like this, ain't it? Here, I'll rub +your hands." + +Rhona smiled bitterly, and felt the rub of roughened palms against her +icy hands. Then she began to look around, sick with the smell, the +sudden nauseous warmth. She saw the strange rouged faces, the impudent +eyes, the showy headgear, flashing out among the obscure faces of poor +women, and as she looked a filthy drunk began to rave, rose tottering, +and staggered to the door and beat clanging upon it, all the while +shrieking: + +"Buy me the dope, boys, buy me the dope!" + +Others pulled her back. Women of the street, sitting together, chewed +gum and laughed and talked shrilly, and Rhona could not understand how +prisoners could be so care-free. + +All the evening she had been dazed, her one clear thought the sending of +a message for help. But now as she sat in the dim, reeking cell, she +began to realize what had happened. + +Then as it burst upon her that she was innocent, that she had been lied +against, that she was helpless, a wild wave of revolt swept her. She +thought she would go insane. She could have thrown a bomb at that +moment. She understood revolutionists. + +This feeling was followed by abject fear. She was alone ... alone.... Why +had she allowed herself to be caught in this trap? Why had she +struck? Was it not foolhardy to raise a hand against such a mammoth +system of iniquity? Over in Hester Street her poor mother, plying the +never-pausing needle, might be growing anxious--might be sending out to +find her. What new trouble was she bringing to her family? What new +touch of torture was she adding to the hard, sweated life? And her +father--what, when he came home from the sweatshop so tired that he was +ready to fling himself on the bed without undressing, what if she were +missing, and he had to go down and search the streets for her? + +If only Joe Blaine had been notified! Could she depend on that Miss +Craig, who had melted away at the first approach of peril? Yet surely +there must be help! Did not the Woman's League keep a lawyer in the +court? Would he not be ready to defend her? That was a ray of hope! She +cheered up wonderfully under it. She began to feel that it was somehow +glorious to thus serve the cause she was sworn to serve. She even had a +dim hope--almost a fear--that her father had been sent for. She wanted +to see a familiar face, even though she were sure he would upbraid her +for bringing disgrace upon the family. + +So passed long hours. Prisoners came in--prisoners went out. Laughter +rose--cries--mutterings; then came a long silence. Women yawned. Some +snuggled up on the bench, their heads in their neighbors' laps, and fell +fast asleep. Rhona became wofully tired--drooped where she sat--a +feeling of exhaustion dragging her down. The purple-faced woman beside +her leaned forward. + +"Say, honey, put your head in my lap!" + +She did so. She felt warmth, ease, a drowsy comfort. She fell fast +asleep.... + +"No! No!" she cried out, "it was _he_ struck _me_!" + +She had a terrible desire to sob her heart out, and a queer sensation of +being tossed in mid-air. Then she gazed about in horror. She was on her +feet, had evidently been dragged up, and John, the policeman, held her +arm in a pinch that left its mark. Gasping, she was shoved along through +the doorway and into a scene of confusion. + +They stood a few minutes in the judge's end of the court-room--a crowd +eddying about them. Rhona had a queer feeling in her head; the lights +blinded her; the noise seemed like the rush of waters in her ears. Then +she thought sharply: + +"I must get myself together. This is the court. It will be all over in a +minute. Where's Mr. Joe? Where's the lawyer? Where's my father?" + +She looked about eagerly, searching faces. Not one did she know. What +had happened? She felt the spasm of chills returning to her. Had Miss +Craig failed her? Where was the strikers' lawyer? Were there friends +waiting out in the tired audience, among the sleepy witnesses? Suddenly +she saw Blondy laughing and talking with a gaudy woman in the crowd. She +trembled all at once with animal rage.... She could have set upon him +with her nails and her teeth. But she was fearfully afraid, fearfully +helpless. What could she do? What would be done with her? + +John pushed her forward a few steps; her own volition could not take +her, and then she saw the judge. This judge--would he understand? Could +he sympathize with a young girl who was wrongly accused? The magistrate +was talking carelessly with his clerk, and Rhona felt in a flash that +all this, which to her was terrible and world-important, to him was mere +trivial routine. + +She waited, her heart pounding against her ribs, her breath coming short +and stifled. Then all at once she saw Joe and Myra as they entered the +gate, and a beautiful smile lit up her face. It was a blessed moment. + +They came up; Joe spoke in a low breath. + +"Rhona, have you seen the lawyer about?" + +"No," she muttered. + +Joe looked around. He stood above that crowd by half a head. Then he +muttered bitterly to Myra: + +"Why isn't that fellow here to-night? You shouldn't have let me sleep!" + +Myra was abashed, and Rhona, divining his misery, felt quite alone +again, quite helpless. + +Suddenly then she was pushed forward, and next the indoor policeman was +handing her up to the judge, and now she stood face to face with her +crisis. Again her heart pounded hard, her breath shortened. She was +dimly aware of Joe and Myra behind her, and of Blondy and his friends +beside her. She looked straight at the magistrate, not trusting herself +to glance either side. + +The magistrate looked up and nodded to the policeman. + +"What's the charge?" His voice was a colorless monotone. + +"Assault, your Honor. This girl was picketing in the strike, and this +private detective told her to move on. Then she struck him." + +Rhona felt as if she could burst; she expected the magistrate to +question her; but he continued to address the policeman. + +"Any witnesses?" + +"These other detectives, your Honor." + +The magistrate turned to Blondy's friends. + +"Is what the policeman says true?" + +"Yes," they chorused + +Joe spoke clearly. + +"Your Honor, there's another witness." + +The magistrate looked at Joe keenly. + +"Who are you?" + +"My name's Blaine--Joe Blaine." + +"The editor?" + +"Yes." + +The magistrate spoke sharply: + +"I can tell you now you'll merely damage the case. I don't take the word +of such a witness." + +Joe spoke easily. + +"It's not my word. Miss Craig here is the witness. She saw the assault." + +The magistrate looked at Myra. + +"What were you doing at the time?" + +Myra spoke hardly above a whisper, for she felt that she was losing +control of herself. + +"I--I was walking with Miss Hemlitz." + +"Walking? You mean picketing." + +"Yes." + +"Well, naturally, your word is not worth any more than the prisoner's. +You should have been arrested, too." + +Myra could not speak any further; and the magistrate turned again to the +policeman. + +"You swear your charge is true?" + +The policeman raised his hand. + +"I swear." + +Rhona felt a stab as of lightning. She raised her hand high; her voice +came clear, sharp, real, rising above the drone-like noise of the court. + +"I swear it is not true. I never struck him. _He_ struck me!" + +The magistrate's face reddened, a vein on his forehead swelled up, and +he leaned toward Rhona. + +"What you say, young lady"--there was a touch of passion in his +voice--"doesn't count. Understand? You're one of these strikers, aren't +you? Well, the whole lot of you"--his voice rose--"are on a strike +against God, whose principal law is that man should earn bread by the +sweat of his brow." + +Rhona trembled before these unbelievable words. She stared into his +eyes, and he went on passionately: + +"I've let some of you off with fines--but this has gone too far. I'll +make an example of you. You shall go to the workhouse on Blackwells +Island for five days. Next!" + +Joe, too, was dazed. But he whispered to Rhona: + +"Meet it bravely. I'll tell the girls!" + +Her arm was grasped, she was pushed, without volition, through crowding +faces; and at length, after another ride in the patrol wagon, she found +herself on a narrow cot in a narrow cell. The door was slammed shut +ominously. Dim light entered through a high aperture. + +She flung herself down her whole length, and sobbed. Bitter was life for +Rhona Hemlitz, seventeen years old.... + + * * * * * + +Joe, in the court-room, had seized Myra's arm. + +"Let us get out of this!" + +They went through the gateway, up the aisle, out the dim entrance, into +the streets. It was two in the morning, and the narrow cañons were +emptied of life, save the shadowy fleeting shape of some night prowler, +some creature of the underworld. The air was a trifle less cold, and a +fine hard snow was sifting down--crunched underfoot--a bitter, tiny, +stinging snow--hard and innumerable. + +Cavernous and gloomy seemed the street, as they trudged west, arm in +arm. Myra had never been so stirred in her life; she felt as if things +ugly and dangerous had been released in her heart; a flame seemed raging +in her breast. And then as they went on, Joe found vent in hard words. + +"And such things go on in this city--in this high civilization--and this +is a part of life--and then they wonder why we are so unreasonable. It +goes on, and they shut their eyes to it. The newspapers and magazines +hush it up. No, no, don't give this to the readers, they want something +pleasant, something optimistic! Suppress it! Don't let the light of +publicity smite it and clear it up! Let it go on! Let the secret sore +fester. It smells bad, it looks bad. Keep the surgeon away. We might +lose subscribers, we might be accused of muck-raking. But I tell you," +his voice rose, "this world will never be much better until we face the +worst of it! Oh," he gave a heavy groan, "Myra! Myra! I wonder if I ever +will be happy again!" + +Myra spoke from her heart. + +"You're overworked, Joe; you're unstrung. Perhaps you see this too +big--out of perspective!" + +He spoke with intense bitterness. + +"It's all my fault. It's all my fault. If I hadn't been so sleepy I'd +have sent for a lawyer. I thought, of course, he'd be there!" + +Myra spoke eagerly: + +"That's just it, Joe. Oh, won't you take a rest? Won't you go away +awhile? Just for your work's sake." + +He mused sadly: + +"Mother keeps saying the same thing." + +"She's right!" cried Myra. "Joe, you're killing yourself. How can you +really serve the strike if you're in this condition?" + +He spoke more quietly. + +"They need me, Myra. Do you think I'm worse off than Rhona?" + +Myra could not answer this. It is a curious fact that some of the +terrible moments of life are afterward treasured as the great moments. +Looked back upon, they are seen to be the vital step forward, the +readjustment and growth of character, and not for anything would any +real man or woman miss them. Afterward Myra discovered that this night +had been one of the master nights of her life, and when she repictured +that walk up Tenth Street at two in the morning, through the thin +sifting snow, the big tragic man at he; side, it seemed a beautiful and +wonderful thing. They had been all alone out in the city's streets, +close together, feeling as one the reality of life, sharing as one the +sharp unconquerable tragedy, suffering together against the injustice of +the world. + +But at the moment she felt only bitter, self-reproachful, and full of +pity for poor human beings. It was a time when the divine creatures born +of woman seemed mere little waifs astray in a friendless universe, +somehow lost on a cruel earth, crying like children in the pitiless +night, foredoomed and predestined to broken hearts and death. It seemed +a very sad and strange mystery, and more sad, more strange to be one of +these human beings herself. + +They reached the house. Lights were still burning in the office, and +when they entered they found the District Committee sitting about the +red stove, still working out the morrow's plans. Giotto was there, Sally +Heffer, and Jacob Izon, and others, tired, pale, and huddled, but still +toiling wearily with one another. As Joe and Myra came in they looked +up, and Sally rose. + +"Is she--" she began, and then spoke angrily, "I can see she's been +held." + +Joe smiled sadly. + +"Sent to the workhouse for five days." + +Exclamations of indignation arose. The committee could not believe it. + +"I wish," cried impetuous Sally, "that magistrate were my husband. I'd +throw a flatiron at his head and put some castor-oil in his soup!" + +Joe laughed a little. He looked at his watch, and then at Myra. + +"Myra," he said, gently, "it's two o'clock--too late to go home. You +must sleep with mother." + +Myra spoke softly. + +"No--I can get home all right." + +He took her by the arm. + +"Myra," he leaned over, "do just this one thing for me." + +"I will!" she breathed. + +He led her in through his room, and knocked softly. + +"Mother!" + +"Yes," came a clear, wide-awake voice. "I'm awake, Joe." + +"Here's Myra. May she stay with you?" + +"Good!" + +Myra went in, but turned. + +"Joe," she said, tremulously, "you're not going to stay up with that +committee?" + +"They need me, Myra." + +"But, Joe," her voice broke--"this is too much of a good thing--" + +Joe's mother interrupted her. + +"Better leave the boy alone, Myra--to-night, anyway." + +Joe laughed. + +"I'll try to cut it short! Sweet dreams, ladies!" + +For long they heard his voice mingled with the others, as they lay side +by side in the black darkness. But Myra was glad to be near him, glad to +share his invisible presence. After she had told Joe's mother about +Rhona, the two, unable to sleep, talked quietly for some time. Drawn +together by their love for Joe--and Joe's mother was quick in +divining--they felt as if they knew each other intimately, though they +had met for the first time that afternoon, when Myra, having reported +Rhona's arrest to Joe, groped her way blindly to the rear kitchen and +stood, trying not to sob, before the elder woman. + +She had asked: + +"Are you Mrs. Blaine?" and had gone on. "I'm Myra--Myra Craig. Joe and I +used to know each other." + +Whereupon Joe's mother, remembering something Joe had said of writing to +a Myra Craig in the country, suddenly understood. There was a swift, +"What! You and he--?" a sob from Myra, and the two were in each other's +arms. Then followed supper and a quiet evening. + +And now in the darkness they lay and talked. + +"I've been worrying about Joe," Mrs. Blaine mused, softly. + +"Why?" + +"Can't you see why?" + +"He looks badly," Myra sighed. + +"Joe," said his mother, quietly, "is killing himself. He doesn't listen +to me, and I don't want to interfere too much." + +"Isn't there anything to be done?" + +There was a silence and then Joe's mother spoke in a strange personal +voice. + +"What if _you_ could do something." + +Myra could hardly speak. + +"I?" + +"You." A hand caught hers. "Try. He's simply giving his life to the +cause." + +There was a silence a little while. The tears were wet upon Myra's +cheeks. + +"Mrs. Blaine." + +"Yes, dear." + +"Tell me about yourself--what you've been doing--both of you." + +And as Mrs. Blaine told her, time and time again Myra laughed softly, or +was glad the darkness concealed those unbidden tears. + +But as Mrs. Blaine spoke of the attack of Marrin's men, Myra was +thrilled. + +"But what happened afterward?" she cried. "Isn't he in danger now? +Mightn't there be another attack?" + +Joe's mother's voice rang. + +"Afterward? It was wonderful. The whole neighborhood rose to Joe's side. +They even started a subscription to rebuild the press. Oh, the people +here are amazing!" + +"And the men who mobbed him?" + +"Many were arrested, but Joe did not appear against them, and the men +from Marrin's were the first to come in and tell of their remorse. As +for the thugs and criminals--they don't dare lift their heads. Public +opinion is hot against them." + +Thus they talked, intimately, sweetly, and at last the elder woman +kissed the younger good-night. + +"But, dear, you've been crying!" + +"Oh, I'm so glad to be here!" sobbed Myra. "So glad to be with you!" + +And even then she had a sense of the greatness and wonder of that day; +how new and untapped forces in her nature were emerging; how the whole +seeming of life--"These shows of the night and day"--was changing for +her; how life was deepening down to its bitter roots, roots bitter but +miraculously sheathed in crystalline springs; in sweet waters, in beauty +and love and mystery. It was the finding of her own soul--a power great +enough to endure tragedy and come forth to a richer laughter and a wiser +loveliness. Only thus does life reveal its meanings and its miracles, +and prove that it is an adventure high and fine, ever tending higher, +ever more enriched with faith and marvelous strength, and that mirth +that meets the future with an expectant smile. + +So thinking, so feeling, she grew drowsier, sank deeper--her body tired +in every muscle, in every bone--her mind unable to keep awake; and so +she faded into the pure rest of sleep. + + + + +XI + + +THE WORKHOUSE + +That next day was as a dream to Rhona. Not until evening did it become +real. Breakfast was brought to her cell, but she did not taste it. Next +she was led out by a policeman to the street and packed in the patrol +wagon with eight other women. The morning was gray, with a hard sifting +snow, and as the wagon bumped over cobblestones, Rhona breathed deep of +the keen air. + +The ride seemed without end; but next she was in a ferry; and then, +last, was hurried into a long gray building on Blackwells Island. + +Her cell was fairly large, and contained two cots, one against each +wall. She was left disconsolately alone, numb, in despair, and moving +about in a dream. + +But after supper she found herself locked in with another woman. She sat +down on the edge of her cot, in the dim light of the room, and with a +sharp glance, half fear, half curiosity, regarded her room-mate. This +other was a woman of possibly thirty years, with sallow cheeks, bright +burning eyes, and straggly hair. She stood before the little wall +mirror, apparently examining herself. Suddenly she turned: + +"What you looking at, kid?" + +Rhona averted her eyes. + +"I didn't mean--" + +"Say," said the other, "ain't I the awful thing? Not a rat or a puff or +a dab of rouge allowed in these here premises. I do look a sight--a +fright. Gee!" She turned. "You're not so worse. A little pale, kid." + +She came over and sat next to Rhona. + +"What'll I call you?" + +Rhona shrank. She was a sensitive, ignorant girl, and did not understand +this type of woman. Something coarse, familiar, vulgar seemed to grate +against her. + +"Rhona's my name," she breathed. + +"Well, that's cute! Call you Ronie?" She stretched out her arms. "Oh, +slats! I'd give my teeth for a cigarette and a Manhattan cocktail. +Wouldn't I, though!" + +Rhona shuddered. + +The woman turned toward her. + +"My name's Millie. Now we're pals, eh?" Then she rattled on: "First time +in the workhouse? Comes hard at first, doesn't it? Cut off from friends +and fun--and ain't the work beastly? Say, Ronie, what's your job in +little old New York?" + +Rhona swallowed a dull sob. + +"I haven't any--we're on strike." + +Millie jumped up. + +"What, you one of them shirtwaist strikers?" + +"Yes." + +"Why did they run you in?" + +"An officer struck me, and then said I struck him." + +"Just like a man! Oh, I know men! Depend upon it, I know the men! So, +you were a shirt-waist-maker. How much d'yer earn?" + +"Oh, about five or six a week." + +"A--_week_!" Millie whistled. "And I suppose ten hours a day, or worse, +and I suppose work that would kill an ox." + +"Yes," said Rhona, "hard work." + +Millie sat down and put an arm about the shrinking girl. + +"Say, kiddie, I like you. I'm going to chuck a little horse sense at +you. Now you listen to me. My sister worked in a pickle-place over in +Pennsy, and she lasted just two years, and then, galloping consumption, +and--" She snapped her fingers, her voice became husky. "Poor fool! Two +years is the limit where she worked. And who paid the rent? I did. But +of course _I_ wasn't respectable--oh no! I was a sinner. Well, let me +tell you something. In my business a woman can last five to ten years. +Do you blame me? And I get clothes, and the eats, and the soft spots, +and I live like a lady.... That's the thing for you! Why do you wear +yourself out--slave-work and strikes and silly business?... You'll never +get married.... The work will make you a hag in another year or two, +and who will want you? And say, you've got to live just once--got to be +just downright woman for a little spell, anyway.... Come with me, +kid ... my kind of life." + +Rhona looked at her terrified. She did not understand. What sort of +woman was this? How live in luxury without working? How be downright +woman? + +"What do you mean?" asked the young girl. + +So Millie told her. They went to bed, their light was put out, and +neither had a wink of sleep. Rhona lay staring in the darkness and over +the room came the soft whisper of Millie bearing a flood of the filth of +the underworld. Rhona could not resist it. She lay helpless, quaking +with a wild horror.... Later she remembered that night in Russia when +she and others hid under the corn in a barn while the mob searched over +their heads--a moment ghastly with impending mutilation and death--and +she felt that this night was more terrible than that. Her girlhood +seemed torn to shreds.... Dawn broke, a watery glimmer through the high +barred window. Rhona rose from her bed, rushed to the door, pulled on +the bars, and loosed a fearful shriek. The guard, running down, Millie, +leaping forward, both cried: + +"What's the matter?" + +But the slim figure in the white nightgown fell down on the floor, and +thus earned a few hours in the hospital. + + * * * * * + +They set her to scrubbing floors next day, a work for which she had +neither experience nor strength. Weary, weary day--the large rhythm of +the scrubbing-brush, the bending of the back, the sloppy, dirty +floors--on and on, minute after minute, on through the endless hours. +She tried to work diligently, though she was dizzy and sick, and felt as +if she were breaking to pieces. Feverishly she kept on. Lunch was +tasteless to her; so was supper; and after supper came Millie. + +No one can tell of those nights when the young girl was locked in with a +hard prostitute--nights, true, of lessening horror, and so, all the more +horrible. As Rhona came to realize that she was growing accustomed to +Millie's talk--even to the point of laughing at the jokes--she was +aghast at the dark spaces beneath her and within her. She was becoming a +different sort of being--she looked back on the hard-toiling girl, who +worked so faithfully, who tried to study, who had a quiet home, whose +day was an innocent routine of toil and meals and talk and sleep, as on +some one who was beautiful and lovely, but now dead. In her place was a +sharp, cynical young woman. Well for Rhona that her sentence was but +five days! + +The next afternoon she was scrubbing down the long corridor between the +cells when the matron came, jangling her keys. + +"Some one here for you," said the matron. + +Rhona leaped up. + +"My mother?" she cried out, in a piercing voice. + +"See here," said the matron, "you want to go easy--and only five +minutes, mind you." + +"My mother?" Rhona repeated, her heart near to bursting. + +"No--some one else. Come along." + +Rhona followed, half choking. The big door was unlocked before her and +swung open; she peered out. It was Joe and Myra. + +Seeing these faces of friends suddenly recalled her to her old world, to +the struggle, the heroism, the strike, and, filled with a sense of her +imprisonment and its injustice, she rushed blindly out into the open +arms of Myra and was clutched close, close. + +And then she sobbed, wept for minutes, purifying tears. And suddenly she +had an inspiration, a flash of the meaning of her martyrdom, how it +could be used as a fire and a torch to kindle and lead the others. + +She lifted up her face. + +"You tell the girls," she cried, "it's perfectly wonderful to be here. +It's all right. Just you tell them it's all right. Any of them would be +glad to do it!" + +And then the matron, who was listening, stepped forward. + +"Time's up!" + +There was one kiss, one hug, and the brave girl was led away. The door +slammed her in. + +Joe and Myra looked at each other, awed, thrilled. Tears trickled down +Myra's face. + +"Oh," she cried low, "isn't it lovely? Isn't it wonderful?" + +He spoke softly. + +"The day of miracles isn't over. Women keep on amazing me. Come!" + +Quietly they walked out into the warm, sunshiny day. Streaks of snow +were vanishing in visible steam. The sky was a soft blue, bulbous with +little puffs of cloud. Myra felt an ineffable peace. Rhona's heroism had +filled her with a new sense of human power. She longed to speak with +Joe--she longed, as they stood on the ferry, and glided softly through +the wash and sway of the East River, to share her sweet emotions with +him. But he had pulled out a note-book and was busily making jottings. +He seemed, if anything, more worn than ever, more tired. He was living +on his nerves. The gray face was enough to bring tears to a woman's +eyes, and the lank, ill-clothed form seemed in danger of thinning away +to nothingness. So Myra said nothing, but kept looking at him, trying to +save him by her strength of love, trying to send out those warm currents +and wrap him up and infuse him with life and light and joy. + +All the way out he had been silent, preoccupied. In fact, all these +three days he had been preoccupied--toiling terribly early and late, +busy, the center of a swarm of human activities, his voice everywhere, +his pen in his hand. Meals he ate at his desk while he wrote, and sleep +was gained in little snatches. Myra had been there to watch him, there +to help him. Since that night in the court, she had come early and +stayed until ten in the evening, doing what work she could. And there +was much to be done--she found a profitable task in instructing new +recruits in the rules of picketing--and also in investigating cases of +need. These took her to strange places. She had vistas of life she had +not dreamed to be true--misery she had thought confined to novels, to +books like _Les Misérables_. It was all wonderful and strange and new. +She was beginning to really know the life of the Greater Number--the +life of the Nine-Tenths--and as she got used to the dust, the smells, +and the squalor, she found daily all the richness of human nature. It +was dramatic, absorbing, real. Where was it leading her? She hardly knew +yet. The strangeness had not worn off. + +She had been watching Joe, and she felt that he was hardly aware of her +presence. He took her and her work as a matter of course. And this did +not embitter her, for she felt that the time had passed for privileges, +that this was a season in Joe's life when he belonged to a mass of the +people, to a great cause, and that she had no right to any part of his +life. He was so deep in it, so overwrought, that it was best to let him +alone, to keep him free from the responsibility of personal +relationships, not to burden him with added emotionalism. And so she +accepted the rule of Joe's mother--to do Joe's bidding without question, +to let him have his way, waiting patiently for the time when he would +need and cry out for the personal. When that time came the two women +were ready to help to heal, to nurse--to bind the wounds and soothe the +troubled heart, and rebuild the broken spirit. It might be, of course, +that in the end he would shut Myra out; that was a contingency she had +to face; but she thought that, whatever came, she was getting herself +equal to it. + +They left the ferry and walked over to Second Avenue and took an +elevated train. Then Joe spoke--leaning near, his voice gentle: + +"Myra." + +"Yes, Joe." + +"I've been wondering." + +"What?" + +"About this strike business. Wondering if it isn't mostly waste." + +She found herself saying eagerly: + +"But what else can the people do?" + +He shook his head. + +"In this country if men only voted right ... only had the right sort of +government.... What are they gaining this way? It's too costly." + +"But how are they going to vote right?" + +"Education!" he exclaimed. "Training! We must train the children in +democracy. We must get at the children." + +Myra was amazed. + +"Then you think your work is ... of the wrong sort?" + +"No! no!" he said. "Everything helps--we must try every way--I may not +be fit for any other way than this. But I'm beginning to think it isn't +of the best sort. Maybe it's the only thing to do to-day, however." + +She began to throb with a great hope. + +"Don't you think," she cried, "you ought to go off and take a rest and +think it over? You know you might go into politics, to Congress, or +something--then you could really do something." + +He looked at her with surprise. + +"How you're thinking these days!" he mused. But then he went on very +wearily. "Rest? Myra," his voice sank, "if I ever come out of this +alive, I'll rest--rest deep, rest deep. But there's no end--no end to +it...." + +He reverted to the problem of the strike. + +"Don't you think there's right on the other side, too? Don't you think +many of the employers are doing all they can under present conditions? +We're asking too much. We want men to change their methods before we +change conditions. Who can do it? I tell you, I may be wronging as fine +a lot of men as there are." + +"Then why did you go into it?" she asked, quickly. + +"I didn't. It came to me. It bore me under. But I haven't made a mistake +this time. By chance I'm on the _righter_ side, the better side. When it +comes to the women in industry, there's no question. It is killing the +future to work them this way--it is intolerable, inhuman, insane. We +must stop it--and as we _don't_ vote right, we _must_ strike. A strike +is justified these days--will be, until there's some other way of +getting justice. Anyway, this time," he said, fiercely, "I'm right. But +I'm wondering about the future. I'm wondering...." + +He said nothing further, digging again at his notes. But Myra now +nourished a hope, a secret throbbing hope ... the first ray of a new and +more confident morning. + + + + +XII + + +CONFIDENT MORNING + +Myra moved down to West Tenth Street. She found a neat, little hall +bedroom in one of the three-story brick houses--a little white room, +white-curtained, white-walled, with white counterpane on the iron bed. +She was well content with these narrow quarters, content because it was +near Joe, content because it saved money (her savings were dwindling +rapidly these days), and finally content because she had shifted the +center of her interests to a different set of facts. She was both too +busy and too aroused to be sensitive about running water and the minor +comforts. Her whole being was engrossed in large activities, and she +found with astonishment how many things she could do without. What +previously had seemed so important, poetry, music, dress, quiet, ease, +now became little things lost in a host of new big events. And, +curiously enough, she found a new happiness in this freedom from +superfluities--a sense of range and independence new to her. For at this +time such things actually were superfluous, though the time was to come +again when music and poetry had a new and heightened meaning. + +But during these days of the strike she was a quite free woman, +snatching her sleep and her food carelessly, and putting in her time in +spending heart and soul on the problem in hand. She dressed simply, in +shirtwaist and skirt, and she moved among the people as if she were one +of them, and with no sense of contrast. In fact, Myra was changing, +changing rapidly. Her work called for a new set of powers, and without +hesitation these new powers rose within her, emerged and became a part +of her character. She became executive, quick, stepped into any +situation that confronted her, knew when to be mild, when to be sharp, +sensed where sympathy was needed, and also where sympathy merely +softened and ruined. Her face, too, followed this inner change. Soft +lines merged into something more vivid. She was usually pale, and her +sweet, small mouth had a weary droop, but her eyes were keen and living, +and lit with vital force. + +She began to see that a life of ease and a life of extreme toil were +both equally bad--that each choked off possibilities. She knew then that +women of her type walked about with hidden powers unused, their lives +narrowed and blighted, negative people who only needed some great test, +some supreme task, to bring out those hidden forces, which, gushing +through the soul, overflowing, would make of them characters of +abounding vitality. She felt the glory of men and women who go about the +world bubbling over with freshness and zest and life, warming the lives +they move among, spreading by quick contagion their faith and virility. +She longed to be such a person--to train herself in that greatest of all +the arts--the touching of other lives, drawing a music from long-disused +heart-strings, rekindling, reanimating, the torpid spirit. It was her +search for more _life_--richer, thicker, happier, more intense. + +Her model was Joe's mother. It seemed to her that Joe's mother had met +life and conquered it, and so would never grow old. She never found the +older woman soured or bitter or enfeebled. Even about death there was no +flinching. + +"Don't you think I know," said Joe's mother, "that there is something +precious in me that isn't going to go with the body? Just look at this +body! That's just what's happening already! I'm too young to die. And +besides I know one or two people whom I lost years ago--too precious to +be lost--I've faith in them." + +This, then, is the greatest victory of life: to treat death as a mere +incident in the adventure; an emigration to a new country; a brief and +tragic "auf wiedersehen." It has its pang of parting, and its pain of +new birth--all birth is a struggle full of pain--but it is the only door +to the future. Well for Joe's mother that her hand was ready to grasp +the dark knob and turn it when the time came. + +Once as she and Joe's mother were snatching a lunch together in the +kitchen, the elder woman spoke softly: + +"Myra, you're a great girl!" (She persisted in calling Myra a girl, +though Myra kept telling her she was nearly thirty-three and old enough +to be dignified.) "What will I ever do without you when the strike is +over?" + +Myra smiled. + +"Is it as bad as that?" + +"Yes, and getting worse, Myra!" + +Myra flushed with joy. + +"I'm glad. I'm very glad." + +Joe's mother watched her a little. + +"How have you been feeling, Myra?" + +"I?--" Myra was surprised. "Oh, I'm all right! I haven't time to be +unwell." + +"You really think you're all right, then?" + +"Oh, I know it! This busy life is doing me good." + +"It does most of us good." She changed the subject. + +Myra felt, with great happiness, that she was coming into harmony with +Joe's mother. She would have been quite amazed, however, to know that +Joe's mother was secretly struggling to adjust herself. For Joe's mother +could not help thinking that the time might come when Joe and Myra would +marry, and she was schooling herself for this momentous change. She +kept telling herself: "There is no one in the world I ought to love more +than the woman that Joe loves and weds." And yet it was hard to release +her son, to take that life which had for years been closest to her, and +had been partly in her hands, relinquish it and give it over into the +keeping of another. There were times, however, when she pitied Myra, +pitied her because Joe was engrossed in his work and had no emotions or +thoughts to spare. And she wondered at such times whether Joe would ever +marry, whether he would ever be willing to make his life still more +complex. She watched Myra closely, with growing admiration; saw the +changes in her, the faithful struggle, the on-surging power, and she +thought: + +"If it's to be any one, I know no one I should love more." + +There were times, however, when she mentally set Myra side by side with +Sally, to the former's overshadowing. Sally was so clean-cut, direct, +such a positive character. She was hardy and self-contained, and would +never be dependent. Her relationships with Joe always implied +interdependence, a perfect give and take, a close yet easy comradeship +which enabled her at any time to go her own way and work her own will. +Sometimes Joe's mother felt that Sally was a woman of the future, and +that, with such, marriage would become a finer and freer union. However, +her imaginative match-making made her smile, and she thought: "Joe +won't pick a mate with his head. The thing will just happen to him--or +not." And as she came to know Myra better, she began to feel that +possibly a woman who would take Joe away from his work, instead of +involving him deeper, would, in the end, be best for him. Such a woman +would mean peace, relaxation, diversion. She was greatly concerned over +Joe's absorption in the strike, and once, when it appeared that the +struggle might go on endlessly, she said to Myra: + +"Sometimes I think Joe puts life off too much, pushing his joys into the +future, not always remembering that he will never be more alive than +now, and that the days are being lopped off." + +Myra had a little table of her own, near the door, and this table, when +she was there, was always a busy center. The girls liked her, liked to +talk with her, were fond of her musical voice and her quiet manners. +Some even got in the habit of visiting her room with her and having +quiet talks about their lives. Sally, however, did not share this +fondness for Myra. She felt that Myra was an intruder--that Myra was +interposing a wall between her and Joe--and she resented the intrusion. +She could not help noticing that Joe was becoming more and more +impersonal with her, but then, she thought, "people are not persons to +him any more; he's swallowed up in the cause." Luckily she was too busy +during the day, too tired at night, to brood much on the matter. +However, one evening at committee meeting, her moment of realization +came. The committee, including Myra and Joe and herself and some five +others, were sitting about the hot stove, discussing the call of a Local +on the East Side for a capable organizer. + +"It's hard to spare any one," mused Joe, "and yet--" He looked about the +circle. "There's Miss Craig and--Miss Heffer." + +Both Myra and Sally turned pale and trembled a little. Each felt as if +the moment had come when he would shut one or the other out of his life. +Sally spoke in a low voice: + +"I'm pretty busy right here, Mr. Joe." + +"I know," he reflected. "And I guess Miss Craig could do it." + +He opened the stove door, took the tiny shovel, stuck it into the +coal-box, and threw some fresh coal on the lividly red embers. Then he +stood up and gazed round the circle again. + +"Sally," he said, "it's _your_ work--you'll have to go." + +She bowed her head. + +"You're sure," she murmured, "I'm not needed here?" + +"Needed?" he mused. "Yes. But needed more over there!" + +She looked up at him and met his eyes. Her own were pleading with him. + +"Surely?" + +"Surely, Sally. We're not in this game for fun, are we?" + +"I'll do as you say," she breathed. + +Her head began to swim; she felt as if she would break down and cry. She +arose. + +"I'll be right back." + +She groped her way through the inner rooms to the kitchen. Joe's mother +was reading. + +"Mrs. Blaine...." + +"Sally! What's the matter?" + +Joe's mother arose. + +"I'm going ... going to another Local.... I'm leaving here to-night ... +for good and always." + +Joe's mother drew her close, and Sally sobbed openly. + +"It's been my home here--the first I've had in years--but I'll never +come back." + +"Oh, you must come back." + +"No...." she looked up bravely. "Mrs. Blaine." + +"Yes, Sally." + +"He doesn't need me any more; he's outgrown me; he doesn't need any one +now." + +What could Joe's mother say? + +"Sally!" she cried, and then she murmured: "It's you who don't need any +one, Sally. You're strong and independent. You can live your own live. +And you've helped make Joe strong. Wait, and see." + +And she went on to speak of Sally's work, of her influence in the +place, of the joy she brought to others, and finally Sally said: + +"Forgive me for coming to you like a baby." + +"Oh, it's fine of you to come to me!" + +"So," cried Sally, "good-by." + +She found her hat and coat and slipped away, not daring to say good-by +to Joe. But as she went through the dark winter night she realized how +one person's happiness is often built on another's tragedy. And so Sally +went, dropping for the time being out of Joe's life. + + * * * * * + +There was one event that took place two weeks after Myra's coming, which +she did not soon forget. It was the great mass-meeting to celebrate the +return of Rhona and some others who had also been sent to the workhouse. +Myra and Joe sat together. After the music, the speeches, Rhona stepped +forward, slim, pale, and very little before that gigantic auditorium. +She spoke simply. + +"I was picketing on Great Jones Street. A man came up and struck me. I +had him arrested. But in court he said I struck him, and the judge sent +me to Blackwells Island. I had to scrub floors. But it was only for five +days. I think we ought all to be glad to go to the workhouse, because +that will help women to be free and help the strikers. I'm glad I went. +It wasn't anything much." + +They cheered her, for they saw before them a young heroine, victorious, +beloved, ideal. But when Myra called at Hester Street, a week later, +Rhona's mother had something else to say. + +"Rhona? Well, you had ought to seen her when we first landed! Ah! she +was a beauty, my Rhona--such cheeks, such hair, such eyes--laughing all +the time. But now--ach!" She sighed dreadfully. "So it goes. Only, I +wished she wasn't always so afraid--afraid to go out ... afraid ... so +nervous ... so ... different." + +Myra never forgot this. It sent her back to her work with wiser and +deeper purpose. And so she fought side by side with Joe through the +blacks weeks of that January. It seemed strange that Joe didn't go +under. He loomed about the place, a big, stoop-shouldered, gaunt man, +with tragic gray face and melancholy eyes and deepening wrinkles. All +the tragedy and pathos and struggle of the strike were marked upon his +features. His face summed up the sorrows of the thirty thousand. Myra +sometimes expected him to collapse utterly. But he bore on, from day to +day, doing his work, meeting his committees, and getting out the paper. + +Here, too, Myra found she could help him. She insisted on writing the +strike articles, and as Jacob Izon was also writing, there was only the +editorial for Joe to do. The paper did not miss an issue, and as it now +had innumerable canvassers among the strikers, its circulation gained +rapidly--rising finally to 20,000. + +Even at this time Joe seemed to take no special notice of Myra. But one +slushy, misty night, when the gas-lamps had rainbow haloes, and gray +figures sluff-sluffed through the muddy snow, she accompanied Joe on one +of his fund-raising tours. They entered the side door of a dingy saloon, +passed through a yellow hall, and emerged finally on the platform of a +large and noisy rear room where several hundred members of the +Teamsters' Union were holding a meeting. Gas flared above the rough and +elemental faces, and Myra felt acutely self-conscious under that +concentrated broadside of eyes. She sat very still, flushing, and feebly +smiling, while the outdoor city men blew the air white and black with +smoke and raised the temperature to the sweating-point. + +Joe was introduced; the men clapped; and then he tried hard to arouse +their altruism--to get them to donate to the strike out of their union +funds. However, his speech came limp and a little stale. The applause +was good-natured but feeble. Joe sat down, sighing, and smiling grimly. + +An amazing yet natural thing happened. The Chairman arose, leaned over +his table, and said: + +"You have heard from Mr. Joe Blaine; now you will hear from the other +member of the committee." + +Not for some seconds--not until the stamping of feet rose to a fury of +sound--did Myra realize that _she_ was the other member. She had a +sense of being drained of life, of losing her breath. Instinctively she +glanced at Joe, and saw that he was looking at her a little dubiously, a +little amusedly. What could she do? She had never addressed a meeting in +her life; she had never stood on her feet before a group of men; she had +nothing learned, nothing to say. But how could she excuse herself, how +withdraw, especially in the face of Joe's challenging gaze? + +The stamping increased; the men clapped; and there were shouts: + +"Come ahead! Come on! That's right, Miss." It was a cruel test, a wicked +predicament. All the old timidity and sensitiveness of her nature held +her back, made her tremble, and bathed her face in perspiration. But a +new Myra kept saying: + +"Joe didn't rouse them. Some one must." She set her feet on the floor, +and the deafening thunder of applause seemed to raise her. She took a +step forward. And then with a queer motion she raised her hand. There +was an appalling silence, a silence more dreadful than the noise, and +Myra felt her tongue dry to its root. + +"I--" she began, "I want to say--tell you--" She paused, startled by the +queer sound of her own voice. She could not believe it was herself +speaking; it seemed some one else. And then, sharply, a wonderful thing +took place. A surge of strength filled her. She took a good look around. +Her brain cleared; her heart slowed. It was the old trick of facing the +worst, and finding the strength was there to meet it and turn it to the +best. All at once Myra exulted. She would take these hundreds of human +beings and _swing them_. She could do it. + +Her voice was rich, vibrating, melodious. + +"I want to tell you a little about this strike--what it means. I want to +tell you what the girls and women of this city are capable of--what +heroism, what toil, what sacrifice and nobility. It is not the easiest +thing to live a normal woman's life. You know that. You know how your +mothers or wives or sisters have been slaving and stinting--what pain +is theirs, what burdens, what troubles. But think of the life of a girl +of whom I shall tell you--a young girl by the name of Rhona Hemlitz." + +She went on. She told the story of Rhona's life, and then quietly she +turned to her theme. + +"You understand now, don't you? Are you going to help these girls _win_ +their fight?" + +The walls trembled with what followed--stamping, shouting, clapping. +Myra sat down, her cheeks red, her eyes brilliant. And then suddenly a +big hand closed over hers and a deep voice whispered: + +"Myra, you set yourself free then. You are a new woman!" + +That was all. She had shocked Joe with the fact of the new Myra, and now +the new Myra had come to stay. They raised twenty-five dollars that +night. From that time on Myra was a free and strong personality, +surprising even Joe's mother, who began to realize that this was not the +woman to take Joe from his work, but one who would fight shoulder to +shoulder with him until the very end. + +In the beginning of February the strike began to fade out. Employers +right and left were making compromises with the girls, and here and +there girls were deserting the union and going back. The office at West +Tenth Street became less crowded, fewer girls came, fewer committees +met. There was one night when the work was all done at eleven o'clock, +and this marked the reappearance of normal conditions. + +It was a day or two later that a vital experience came to Joe. Snow was +falling outside, and it was near twilight, and in the quiet Joe was busy +at his desk. Then a man came in, well, but carelessly dressed, his face +pinched and haggard, his eyes bloodshot, his hair in stray tufts over +his wrinkled forehead. + +"I want to see you a minute, Mr. Blaine." + +The voice was shaking with passion. + +"Sit down," said Joe, and the man took the seat beside him. + +"I'm Mr. Lissner--Albert Lissner--I was the owner of the Lissner +Shirtwaist Company." + +Joe looked at him. + +"Lissner? Oh yes, over on Eighth Street." + +The man went on: + +"Mr. Blaine, I had eighty girls working for me.... I always did all I +could for them ... but there was fierce competition, and I was just +skimping along, and I had to pay small wages;... but I was good to +those girls.... They didn't want to strike ... the others made them...." + +Joe was stirred. + +"Yes, I know ... many of the shops were good...." + +"Well," said Lissner, with a shaking, bitter smile, "you and your strike +have ruined me.... I'm a ruined man.... My family and I have lost +everything.... And, it's killed my wife." + +His face became terrible--very white, and the eyes staring--he went on +in a hollow, low voice: + +"I--I've lost _all_." + +There was a silence; then Lissner spoke queerly: + +"I happen to know about you, Mr. Blaine.... You were the head of that +printing-place that burnt down...." + +Joe felt a shock go through him, as if he had seen a ghost.... + +"Well, maybe you did all you could for your men;... maybe you were a +good employer.... Yet see what came of it...." Suddenly Lissner's voice +rose passionately: "And yet you had the nerve to come around and get +after us fellows, who were just as good as you. There are bad employers, +and bad employees, too--bad people of every kind--but maybe most people +are good. You couldn't help what happened to you; neither can we help it +if the struggle is too fierce--we're victims, too. It's conditions, it's +life. We can't change the world in a day. And yet you--after your +fire--come here and ruin us." + +Joe was shaken to his depths. Lissner had made an overstatement, and yet +he had thrown a new light on the strike, and he had reminded Joe of his +long-forgotten guilt. And suddenly Joe knew. All are guilty; all share +in the corruption of the world--the laborer anxious for mass-tyranny and +distrustful of genius, the aristocrat afraid of soiling his hands, the +capitalist intent on power and wealth, the artist neglectful of all but +a narrow artifice, each one limited by excess or want, by intellect or +passion, by vanity or lust, and all struggling with one another to wrest +some special gift for himself. In the intricacy of civilization there +are no real divisions, but every man is merely a brain cell, a nerve, in +the great organism, and what one man gains, some other must lose. It was +a world he got a glimpse of quite different from that sharp twofold +world of the workers and the money-power, a world of infinite +gradations, a world merely the child of the past, where high and low +were pushed by the resistless pressure of environment, and lives were +shaped by birth, chance, training, position, and a myriad, myriad +indefinable forces. + +All of this confused him at first, and it had been so long since he had +dealt with theories that it was some time before the chaos cleared, some +time before the welter of new thought took shape in his mind. But it +made him humble, receptive, teachable, it made him more kindly and more +gentle. He began a mental stock-taking; he began to examine into the +lives about him. + +Myra was there--the new Myra, a Myra with daily less to do in that +office, and with more and more time to think. From her heart was lifted +the hard hand of circumstance, releasing a tenderness and yearning which +flooded her brain. It was a tragic time for her. She knew now that her +services were nearly at an end, and that she must go her own way. She +would not be near Joe any longer--she would not have the heart's ease of +his presence--she could no longer brood over him and protect him. + +It seemed to her that she could not bear the future. Her love for Joe +rose and overwhelmed her. She became self-conscious before him, paled +when he spoke to her, and when he was away her longing for him was +insupportable. She wanted him now--all her life cried out for him--all +the woman in her went out to mate with this man. The same passion that +had drawn her from the country to his side now swayed and mastered her. + +"Joe! Joe!" her soul cried, "take me now! This is too much for me to +bear!" + +And more and more the thought of his health oppressed her. If she only +had the power to take him to her breast, draw him close in her arms, +mother him, heal him, smooth the wrinkles, kiss the droop of the big +lips, and pour her warm and infinite love into his heart. That surely +must save him--love surely would save this man. + +She began to scheme and dream--to plot ways of getting about him, of +routing him out, of tearing him from his rut. + +And then one afternoon at two she risked her all. It was an opportune +time. Joe--wonder of wonders--was doing nothing, but sitting back like a +gray wreck, with his feet crossed on his desk, and a vile cigar in his +mouth. It was the first cigar in ages, and he puffed on it and brooded +dreamily. + +Myra came over, sat down beside him, and spoke airily. + +"Hello, Joe!" + +"Why, hello, Myra!" he cried. "What d'ye mean by helloing me?" + +"I'm glad to meet you." + +"Same to you." + +"I've come back from the country, Joe." + +"So I see." + +"Do you?" + +"Haven't I eyes?" + +"Well," she said, flushed, bending forward, "Joe Blaine, where have your +eyes been these five weeks?" + +"They were on strike!" he said, promptly. + +"Well," she said, "the strike's over!" + +They laughed together as they had not since far and far in the beginning +of things. + +Joe leaned near. + +"Myra," he said, "I need an airing. Take me out and shake me out! Oh!" +he stretched his arms above his head. "Have I been hibernating and is it +springtime again?" + +Myra hesitated. + +"Joe." + +"Yes, ma'am!" + +"I want you to take me somewhere." + +"I will." + +"To--the printery--I want to see it again." + +"Go 'long wid you! Marty Briggs and me are bad friends, see?" + +She reveled in this new gaiety of his. + +"Joe, you're waking up. _Please_ take me!" + +"Put on your hat, your coat, and your little black gloves, young woman. +Me for the printery!" + +They went out together, glad as young children. The world was sheathed +in a hard ice-coated snow; icicles dangled from every sill and cornice; +the skies were melting blue, and the sun flashed along every surface. It +was a world of flashing fire, of iridescent sunbursts. Through the +clean, tingling air they walked, arm in arm, the stir of a new life in +their hearts. + +"Joe," said Myra, "I want you to signalize your resurrection by a great +sacrifice to the gods." + +"I'm ready. Expound!" + +"I want you to buy a new hat." + +He took off his hat and examined it. + +"What's the matter with this?" + +"It's like yourself, Joe--worn out!" + +"But the boys of Eighty-first Street won't know me in a new hat." + +"Never mind the boys of Eighty-first Street. Do as I tell you." + +"Aw, Myra, give me a day to steel my heart and strengthen my sinews. +Wait till we come back." + +"And you'll get it then?" + +"Sure as fate." + +"Well--just this once you'll have your way!" + +So they took the elevated to Seventy-sixth Street and walked through the +old neighborhood to the printery. The familiar streets, which secretly +bore the print of every size shoe he had worn since he was a tiny +toddling fellow, made him meditative, almost sad. + +"It seems ages since I was here!" he remarked. "And yet it's like +yesterday. What have I been doing? Dreaming? Will I walk into the +printery, and will you come in with the 'Landing of the Pilgrims'?" + +Myra laughed, both glad and sad. + +"I should have charged you more," said Joe, brusquely. "Fifty cents was +too little for that job." + +"I told you it would ruin your business, Joe." Strangely then they +thought of the fire ... her order had been his last piece of business +before the tragedy. + +They walked east on Eighty-first Street and stopped before the old loft +building. A new sign was riveted on the bulletin-board in the doorway. + + MARTIN BRIGGS + SUCCESSOR TO + JOE BLAINE & HIS MEN. + +Joe looked at it, and started. + +"It's no dream, Myra," he sighed. "Times have changed, and we, too, have +changed." + +Then they went up the elevator to the clash and thunder on the eighth +floor. And they felt more and more strange, double, as it were--the old +Myra and the old Joe walking with the new Myra and the new Joe. Myra +felt a queerness about her heart, a subtle sense of impending events; of +great dramatic issues. Something that made her want to cry. + +Then they stood a moment before the dirty door, and Joe said: + +"Shall I? Shall I rouse 'em with the bell? Shall I break in on their +peaceful lives?" + +"Rouse away!" cried Myra. "Your hour has struck!" + +He pulled the door, the bell rang sharply, and they stepped in. As of +old, the tremble, the clatter, the flash of machines, the damp smell of +printed sheets, swallowed them up--made them a quivering part of the +place. And how little it had changed! They stood, almost choking with +the unchanging change of things. As if the fire had never been! As if +Tenth Street had never been! + +Then at once the spell was broken. A pressman spied Joe and loosed a +yell: + +"_It's the old man_!" + +His press stopped; his neighbors' presses stopped; as the yell went down +the room, "Joe! Joe! The old man!" press after press paused until only +the clatter and swing of the overhead belting was heard. And the men +came running up. + +"Mr. Joe! Mr. Joe! Shake! For God's sake, give me a grip! This is great +for sore eyes! Where you been keeping yourself? Ain't he the limit? He's +the same old penny! Look at him--even his hat's the same!" + +Joe shook hand after hand, until his own was numb. They crowded about +him, they flung their fondness at him, and he stood, his eyes blinded +with tears, his heart rent in his breast, and a new color climbing to +his cheeks. + +Then suddenly a loud voice cried: + +"What's the matter? What does this mean?" + +And Marty Briggs emerged from the office. + +"Hello, Marty!" cried Joe. + +Marty stood dumfounded; then he came with a rush. + +"Joe! You son-of-a-gun! Beg pardon, Miss! I ain't seen him for a +lifetime!" + +"And how goes it, Marty? How goes it, Marty?" + +"Tip-top; busy as beavers. But, say," he leaned over and whispered, +"I've found a secret." + +"What is it, Marty?" + +"You can't run a business with your hands or lungs or your manners--you +need gray stuff up here." + +The reception was a great success, full of cross-questions, of bartered +news--as the arrival of new babies christened Joe or Josephine, the +passing of old babies in the last birth of all, the absence of old +faces, the presence of new ones. Glad talk and rapid, and only cut short +by the urgency of business. + +They sang him out with a "He's a jolly good fellow," and he emerged on +the street with Myra, his eyes dripping. + +Myra spoke softly. + +"Joe." + +"Yes, Myra." + +"There's one more thing I want you to do for me." + +"Name it." + +"I want to walk with you in the Park." + +He looked at her strangely, breathlessly. + +"_In the Ramble, Myra_?" + +She met his gaze. + +"_In the Ramble, Joe_." + +Silently, with strange, beating hearts and fore-glimmer of beauty and +wonder and loveliness, they walked west to the Park, and entered that +Crystal Palace. For every branch, every twig, every stone and rail had +its pendent ice and icicle, and the strong sun smote the world with +flakes of flame. The trees were showers of rainbow-flashing glory; now +and then an icicle dropped like a dart of fire, and the broad lawns were +sheets of dazzle. Earth was glittering, fresh, new, decked out in +unimaginable jewels under the vast and melting blue skies. The day was +tender and clear and vigorous, tingling with life. + +They followed the curve of the walk, they crossed the roadway, they +climbed the hill, they walked the winding path of the Ramble. + +"You remember that morning?" murmured Joe, a music waking in his heart, +his pulses thronged with a new beauty. + +"Remember it?" Myra whispered. "Yes, Joe, I remember it." + +"That is the very bench we sat on." + +"That is the bench." + +"And that is the little pond." + +"That is the little pond." + +"And this is the spot." + +"This is the spot." + +They sat down on that bench in the crystal wilderness, a man and woman +alone in the blue-skied spaces, among the tree-trunks, and the circle of +earth. And then to Myra came an inexpressible moment of agony and +longing and love. She had struggled months; she had stayed away; and +then she had come back, and merged her life in the life of this man. And +she could bear this no longer! Oh, Joe, will you never speak? Will you +never come to your senses? + +More and more color was rising to his face, and his hands in his lap +were trembling. He tried to speak naturally--but his voice was odd and +unreal. + +"Myra." + +"Yes," tremulously. + +"You must have thought me a brute." + +"I thought--you were busy, overworked." + +"So I was. I was swallowed up--swallowed up." + +There was a silence, in which they heard little gray sparrows twittering +in the sunlight. + +"Myra." + +He hardly heard her "yes." + +"There's been a miracle in my life this year." + +"Yes?" + +"The way you came down and took hold and made good." + +"Thank you," very faintly. + +"It was the biggest thing that came my way." + +Silence. + +"I was noticing it, Myra, out of the tail of my eye." + +Myra tried to laugh. It sounded more like a dull sob. + +"I haven't time to be polite." + +"Don't want you to," Myra blurted. + +"Strange," said Joe, "how things come about. Hello, Mr. Squirrel! Want a +peanut? None on the premises. Sorry. Good-day!" + +He leaned over, picked a bit of ice, and flung it in the air. + +"Myra," he muttered. "I need a rest." + +"You do," almost inaudible. + +"I need--Didn't I say, no peanuts? No means no! Good-day!" + +He turned about laughing. + +"What do you think of that for a pesky little animal?" + +"Joe!" she cried in her agony. + +Joe said nothing, but stared, and a great sob shook him and escaped his +lips. + +"Myra!!" + +He had her in his arms; he kissed her on the lips--that new kiss, +sealing those others. And the wonderful moment came and went; the moment +when two flames leap into one fire; when two lives dashing upon each +other blend into one wonderful torrent. They did not mind the publicity +of the place that afternoon; they were quite oblivious of the world. +They were in another realm, breathing another air, treading a different +earth. It was too sacred for words, too miraculous for aught but the +beating of their living hearts, the pulse of singing blood, the secret +in their brains. Their years fell away. They were youth itself, dabbling +with the miracles of the world; they were boy and girl, new-created man +and woman. The world was a garden, and they were alone in that garden, +and nothing but beauty was in that place. They had each other to behold +and hear and touch and commune with. That was enough.... + +"Joe," said Myra, when the first glory had faded and they were +conversing sweetly, "I made up my mind to save you, and I did!" + +"Wonderful woman! And you're sure now you don't mind me--the way I'm +constructed in the cranium and all that?" + +"I love you, Joe!" She was as happy as a woman could be. + +"I'm a powerful idiot, Myra." + +"So am I." + +"Well," he mused, "you're taking your chances. Suppose I go off into +another strike or something?" + +"I'll go with you." + +"Myra," he said, "then let's go home and tell mother." + +They were as happy as children. They were well satisfied with the world. +In fact, they found it an amazingly good place. Every face that passed +seemed touched with beauty and high moral purpose, and the slate of +wrong and injustice and bitterness had been sponged clean. + +"Oh, Myra," cried Joe, "isn't it great to know that we have it in us to +go plumb loony once in a while? Isn't it great?" + +And so they made their way home, and walked tiptoe to the kitchen, and +stood hand in hand before Joe's mother. She wheeled. + +"Joe! Myra!" + +Joe gulped heavily. + +"I've brought you a daughter, mother, the loveliest one I could find!" + +Myra sobbed, and started forward--Joe's mother grasped her in a tight +hug, tears running fast. + +"It's about time, Joe," she cried, "it's just about time." + + + + +XIII + + +THE CITY + +Over the city the Spring cast its subtle spell. The skies had a more +fleeting blue and softer clouds and more golden sun. Here and there on a +window-sill a new red geranium plant was set out to touch the stone +walls with the green earth's glory. The salt breath of the sea, +wandering up the dusty avenues, called the children of men to new +adventures--hinted of far countries across the world, of men going down +to the sea in ships, of traffic and merchandise in fairer climes, of +dripping forest gloom and glittering peaks, of liquid-lisping brooks and +the green scenery of the open earth. + +Restlessness seized the hearts of men and the works of men. From the +almshouses and the jails emerged the vagrants, stopped overnight to meet +their cronies in dives and saloons, and next day took the freight to the +blooming West, or tramped by foot the dust of the roads that leave the +city and go ribboning over the shoulder and horizon of the world. +Windows were flung open, and the fresh sweet air came in to make the +babies laugh and the women wistful and the men lazy. Factories droned +with machines that seemed to grate against their iron fate. And of a +night, now, the parks, the byways, and the waterside were the haunts of +young lovers--stealing out together, arms round each other's waists--the +future of the world in their trembling hands. + +The air was full of the rumor of great things. Now, perchance, human +nature at last was going to reveal itself, the love and hope and +comradeliness and joy tucked away so deep in its interlinings. Now, +possibly, the streets were going to be full of singing, and the +housetops were going to rejoice with the mellower stars. Anything was +possible. Did not earth set an example, showing how out of a hard dead +crust and a forlorn and dry breast she could pour her new oceans of +million-glorious life? If the dead tree could blossom and put forth +green leaves, what dead soul need despair? + +Swinging and swaying and gliding, the great white Sound liner came up on +the morning and swept her flag-flapped way down the shining river. Her +glad whistle released her buoyant joy to the city, and the little tugs +and the ferries answered with their barks and their toots. Up she came, +triple-decked, her screw swirling in the green salt water, her smoke +curling lustrous in the low-hung sun. She passed Blackwells Island, she +swung easily beneath the great span of the Fifty-ninth Street bridge, +and gave "good-morning" to the lower city. + +On a side-deck, leaning over the rail, stood a man and a woman. The man +was strong, tan-faced, his eyes bright with fresh power. The woman was +rosy-cheeked and exquisite in her new beauty. For the miracle of Spring +which changed the earth had changed Myra and Joe. They too had put forth +power and life, blossom and new green leaves. They had gone to the earth +to be remade; they had given themselves over to the great physician, +Nature; they had surrendered to the soil and the sun and the air. Earth +had absorbed them, infolded them, and breathed anew in their spirits her +warmth, her joy, her powerful peace. They had run bare-headed in the +sun; they had climbed, panting, the jutting mountainside; they had taken +the winds of the world on the topmost peak; they had romped in the woods +and played in the meadow. And then, too, they had fed well, and rested +much, and been content with the generous world. + +And in that health and peace of nature at last to Joe had come the great +awakening of his life. The mental stock-taking he had begun on the day +when Lissner had spoken to him, reached there its climax; the confusion +cleared; the chaos took wonderful new shape. + +And he was amazed to see how he had changed and grown. He looked back on +the man who had gone down to West Tenth Street as on a callow and +ignorant youth, enthusiastic, but crude and untried. Back through those +past months he went with the search-light of introspection, and then at +last he knew. He had gone down to Greenwich Village crammed with +theories; he had set to work as if he were a sheltered scientist in a +quiet laboratory, where an experiment could be carried through, and +there suddenly he had been confronted with Facts! Facts! those queer +unbudgable things! Facts in a fierce stampede that engulfed and swept +him along and put all his dreams to a galloping test, a test wherein he +had even forgotten his dreams. + +He had gone the way of all reformers, first the explosive arousal, then +the theory, then the test. + +He went over the Greenwich Village experience with Myra: + +"Why," he laughed, "I expected to do great things. Whereas, look, I have +done _nothing_. This strike ends in a little bettering, and a few people +read my paper. It's just a little stir, hardly a dent--a few atoms set +into motion. How slow! how slow! _Patience_! That's the word I've +learned! It will take worlds of time; it will take a multitude striving; +it will take unnumbered forces--education, health-work, eugenics, +town-planning, the rise of women, philanthropy, law--a thousand thousand +dawning powers. Oh, we are only at the faint beginnings of things!" + +And he thought of the books he had read, and the theories of which he +had been so sure. + +"But," he exclaimed, "was my diagnosis correct? Did I really know the +human muddle? Has any man really mapped out civilization? It's so huge, +complex, varied--so many disorganized forces--who can classify it--label +it? It's bigger than our thought about it. We lay hands on only a few +wisps of it! Life! Life itself--not our interpretation--is the great +outworking force!" + +And then again. + +"We see certain tendencies and believe they will advance unhindered, but +there may be other tendencies to counteract, change, even defeat these. +No future can be predicted! And yet I was so sure of the future--so sure +of what we are to build--that future which we keep modifying so +persistently the moment it hits To-day." + +In short, he had reached his _social manhood_--which meant to him, not +dogma, but the willingness to arise every morning ready to reshape his +course, prepared for any adventure, receptive, open-minded, and all +willing to render his very life for what seemed good to do. Scientific +reverence this, the willingness to experiment, to try, to test, and +then, if the test failed, to grope for a new line of outlet, the +readiness to reverse all he believed in in the face of a new and +contradictory fact. He was a new Joe Blaine. + +And so the spirit that sprang from those dead girls became a creative +power, a patient, living strength. + +And so in the blaze of new morning, in the beginnings of a new life, +Joe and Myra leaned over the rail of the boat, coming back, coming back +to the ramparts and heights of the great World City. They saw full in +the glory of the morning sun those tiers on tiers of towers rising to +their lonely pinnacle. Beneath them harbor craft scurried about in the +bright waters; above them rose the Big Brothers of the city looking out +toward the sea. It seemed some vision builded of no human hands. It +seemed winged and uplifted toward the skies, an immensity of power and +beauty. It seemed to float on measureless waters, a magic metropolis, +setting sail for the Arabian Nights. + +Tears came into Joe's eyes. He held Myra's hand fast. + +"Are you glad to get back?" + +"Yes, glad, Joe." + +"No more peace, no more green earth, Myra." + +"I know it, Joe." + +"Even our honeymoon--that can't be repeated, can it?" + +"No," she said, sadly, "I guess it cannot." + +"And this means work, hardship, danger, injustice--all the troubles of +mankind." + +She pressed his hand. + +"Yet you're glad, Myra!" + +"I am." + +"Tell me why." + +"Because," she mused, "it's the beginning of our real life together." + +"How so _real_?" + +Myra's eyes were suffused with tears. + +"The common life--the life of people--the daily toil--the pangs and the +struggles. I'm hungry for it all!" + +He could have kissed her for the words. + +"We'll do, Myra," he cried, "we'll do. Do you know what I see this +morning?" + +"What?" + +"A new city! My old city, but all new." + +"It's you that is new, Joe." + +"And that's why I see the new city--a vision I shall see until some +larger vision replaces it. Shall I tell you about it?" + +"Tell me." + +"It is the city of five million comrades. They toil all day with one +another; they create all of beauty and use that men may need; they +exchange these things with each other; they go home at night to gardens +and simple houses, they find happy women there and sunburnt, laughing +children. Their evenings are given over to the best play--play with +others, play with masses, or play at home. They have time for study, +time for art, yet time for one another. Each loosens in himself and +gives to the world his sublime possibilities. A city of toiling +comrades, of sparkling homes, of wondrous art, and joyous festival. That +is the city I see before me!" He paused. "And to the coming of that city +I dedicate my life." + +She sighed. + +"It's too bright, too good for human nature." + +"Not for human nature," he whispered. "If only we are patient. If only +we are content to add our one stone to its rising walls." + +She pressed his hand again. + +"Joe," she murmured, "what do you think you'll be doing a year from +now?" + +"I don't know," he smiled. "Perhaps editing--perhaps working with a +strike--perhaps something else. But whatever it is, it will be some new +adventure--some new adventure!" + +So they entered that city hand in hand, the future all before them. And +they found neither that City of the Future nor a City of Degradation, +but a very human city full of very human people. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Nine-Tenths, by James Oppenheim + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NINE-TENTHS *** + +***** This file should be named 11372-8.txt or 11372-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/1/3/7/11372/ + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Bill Walker and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Nine-Tenths + +Author: James Oppenheim + +Release Date: February 29, 2004 [EBook #11372] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NINE-TENTHS *** + + + + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Bill Walker and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +THE NINE-TENTHS + +BY JAMES OPPENHEIM +1911 + +TO THE MEMORY OF MY FATHER + + + + +CONTENTS + + +PART I--THE DREAM + +I. THE PRINTERY + +II. THE EAST EIGHTY-FIRST STREET FIRE + +III. THE GOOD PEOPLE + +IV. GOLDEN OCTOBER + +V. MYRA AND JOE + +VI. MARTY BRIGGS + +VII. LAST OF JOE BLAINE AND HIS MEN + +VIII. THE WIND IN THE OAKS + + +PART II--THE TEST + +I. BEGINNINGS + +II. THE NINE-TENTHS + +III. OTHERS: AND SALLY HEFFER + +IV. OTHERS: AND THEODORE MARRIN + +V. FORTY-FIVE TREACHEROUS MEN + +VI. A FIGHT IN GOOD EARNEST + +VII. OF THE THIRTY THOUSAND + +VIII. THE ARREST + +IX. RHONA + +X. THE TRIAL + +XI. THE WORKHOUSE + +XII. CONFIDENT MORNING + +XIII. THE CITY + + +PART I--THE DREAM + + + + +I + + +THE PRINTERY + +That windy autumn noon the young girls of the hat factory darted out of +the loft building and came running back with cans of coffee, and bags of +candy, and packages of sandwiches and cakes. They frisked hilariously +before the wind, with flying hair and sparkling eyes, and crowded into +the narrow entrance with the grimy pressmen of the eighth floor. Over +and over again the one frail elevator was jammed with the laughing crowd +and shot up to the hat factory on the ninth floor and back. + +The men smoked cigarettes as the girls chattered and flirted with them, +and the talk was fast and free. + +At the eighth floor the pressmen got off, still smoking, for "Mr. Joe" +was still out. Even after the presses started up they went on +surreptitiously, though near one group of them in a dark corner of the +printery lay a careless heap of cotton waste, thoroughly soaked with +machine-oil. This heap had been passed by the factory inspector +unnoticed, the pressmen took it for granted, and Joe, in his slipshod +manner, gave it no thought. Later that very afternoon as the opening of +the hall door rang a bell sharply and Joe came in, the men swiftly and +guiltily flung their lighted cigarettes to the floor and stepped them +out or crumpled them with stinging fingers in their pockets. But Joe did +not even notice the clinging cigarette smell that infected the strange +printery atmosphere, that mingled with its delightful odor of the +freshly printed page, damp, bitter-sweet, new. Once Marty Briggs, the +fat foreman, had spoken to Joe of the breaking of the "No Smoking" rule, +but Joe had said, with his luminous, soft smile: + +"Marty, the boys are only human--they see me smoking in the private +office!" + +Up and down the long, narrow, eighth-floor loft the great intricate +presses stood in shadowy bulk, and the intense gray air was spotted here +and there with a dangling naked electric bulb, under whose radiance the +greasy, grimy men came and went, pulling out heaps of paper, sliding in +sheets, tinkering at the machinery. Overhead whirled and traveled a +complex system of wheels and belting, whirring, thumping, and turning, +and the floor, the walls, the very door trembled with the shaking of the +presses and made the body of every man there pleasantly quiver. + +The stir of the hat factory on the floor above mingled with the stir of +the presses, and Joe loved it all, even as he loved the presence of the +young girls about him. Some of these girls were Bohemians, others +Jewish, a few American. They gave to the gaunt, smoky building a touch +as of a wild rose on a gray rock-heap--a touch of color and of melody. +Joe, at noon, would purposely linger near the open doorway to get a +glimpse of their bright faces and a snatch of their careless laughter. +Some of the girls knew him and would nod to him on the street--their +hearts went out to the tall, homely, sorrowful fellow. + +But his printery was his chief passion. It absorbed him by its masterful +stress, overwhelming every sense, trembling, thundering, clanking, +flashing, catching his eye with turning wheels and chewing press-mouths, +and enveloping him in something tremulously homelike and elemental. Even +that afternoon as Joe stood at the high wall-desk near the door, under a +golden bulb of light, figuring on contracts with Marty Briggs, he felt +his singular happiness of belonging. Here he had spent the work hours of +the last ten years; he was a living part of this living press-room; this +was as native to him as the sea to a fish. And glancing about the +crowded gray room, everything seemed so safe, secure, unending, as if it +would last forever. + +Up to that very evening Joe had been merely an average American--clean +of mind and body, cheerful, hard-working, democratic, willing to live +and let live, and striving with all his heart and soul for success. His +father had served in the Civil War and came back to New York with his +right sleeve pinned up, an emaciated and sick man. Then Joe's mother had +overridden the less imperious will of the soldier and married him, and +they had settled down in the city. Henry Blaine learned to write with +his left hand and became a clerk. It was the only work he could do. +Then, as his health became worse and worse, he was ordered to live in +the country (that was in 1868), and as the young couple had scarcely any +money they were glad to get a little shanty on the stony hill which is +now the corner of Eighty-first Street and Lexington Avenue and is the +site of a modern apartment-house. But Joe's mother was glad even of a +shanty; she made an adventure of it; she called herself the wife of a +pioneer, and said that they were making a clearing in the Western +wilderness. + +Here in 1872 Joe was born, and he was hardly old enough to crawl about +when his father became too sick to work, and his mother had to leave +"her two men" home together and go out and do such work as she could. +This consisted largely in reading to old ladies in the neighborhood, +though sometimes she had to do fancy needlework and sometimes take in +washing. Of these last achievements she was justly proud, though it made +Henry Blaine wince with shame. + +Joe was only six years old when his father died, and from then on he and +his mother fought it out together. The boy entered the public school on +Seventy-ninth Street, and grew amazingly, his mind keeping pace. He was +a splendid absorber of good books; and his mother taught him her poets +and they went through English literature together. + +Yorkville sprang up, a rubber-stamped neighborhood, of which each street +was a brownstone duplicate of the next. The rocky hill became valuable +and went for twenty thousand dollars, of which three thousand had to be +deducted for the mortgage. Then Joe graduated from high school, and, +lusting for life, took a clerk's job with one of the big express +companies. He held this for two years, and learned an interesting +fact--namely, that a clerk's life began at 5 P.M. and ended at 8.30 A.M. +In between the clerk was a dead but skilled machine that did the work of +a child. He learned, besides, that advancement was slow and only for a +few, and he saw these few, men past middle life, still underlings. A man +of forty-five with a salary of three thousand was doing remarkably well, +and, as a rule, he was a dried-up, negative, timid creature. + +Out of all this he went like a stick of dynamite, took the seventeen +thousand dollars and went into his father's business of printing. Joe +was shrewd, despite his open nature; he never liked to be "done"; and so +he made money and made it fast. Besides his printing he did some +speculating in real estate, and so at thirty-eight he was a successful +business man and could count himself worth nearly a hundred thousand +dollars. He made little use of this money; his was a simple, serious, +fun-loving nature, and all his early training had made for plain living +and economy. And so for years he and his mother had boarded in a +brownstone boarding-house in the quiet block west of Lexington Avenue up +the street. They spent very little on themselves. In fact, Joe was too +busy. He was all absorbed in the printery--he worked early and late--and +of recent years in the stress of business his fine relationship with his +mother had rather thinned out. They began leading separated lives; they +began shutting themselves away from each other. + +And so here he was, thirty-eight years of his life gone, and what had it +all been? Merely the narrow, steady, city man's life--work, rest, a +little recreation, sleep. Outside his mother, his employees, his +customers, and the newspapers he knew little of the million-crowded life +of the city about him. He used but one set of streets daily; he did not +penetrate the vast areas of existence that cluttered the acres of stone +in every direction. There stood the city, a great fact, and even that +afternoon as the wild autumn wind blew from the west and rapid, ragged +cloud masses passed huge shadows over the ship-swept Hudson, darkened +briefly the hurrying streets, extinguished for a moment the glitter of +a skyscraper and went gray-footed over the flats of Long Island, even +at that moment terrific forces, fierce aggregations of man-power, +gigantic blasts of tamed electricity, gravitation, fire, and steam and +steel, made the hidden life of the city cyclonic. And in that mesh of +nature and man the human comedy went on--there was love and disaster, +frolic and the fall of a child, the boy buying candy in a shop, the +woman on the operating-table in the hospital. Who could measure that +swirl of life and whither it was leading? But who could live in the +heart of it all and be unaware of it? + +Yet Joe's eyes were unseeing. Children played on the street, people +walked and talked, the toilers were busy at their tasks, and that was +all he knew or saw. And yet of late he had a new, unexpected vista of +life. Like many men, Joe had missed women. There was his mother, but no +one else. He was rather shy, and he was too busy. But during the last +few months a teacher--Myra Craig--had been coming to the printery to +have some work done for the school. She had strangely affected +Joe--sprung an electricity on him that troubled him profoundly. He could +not forget her, nor wipe her image from his brain, nor rid his ears of +the echoes of her voice. He went about feeling that possibly he had +underrated poetry and music. Romance, led by Myra's hand, had entered +the dusty printery and Joe began to feel like a youngster who had been +blind to life. + +Outside the world was blowing away on the gray wings of the twilight, +blowing away with eddies of dust that swept the sparkling street-lamps, +and the air was sharp with a tang of homesickness and autumn. The +afternoon was quietly waning, up--stairs the hat-makers, and here the +printers, were toiling in a crowded, satisfying present, and Joe stood +there musing, a tall, gaunt man, the upstart tufts of his tousled hair +glistening in the light overhead. His face was the homeliest that ever +happened. The mouth was big and big-lipped, the eyes large, dark, +melancholy and slightly sunken, and the mask was a network of wrinkles. +His hands were large, mobile, and homely. But about him was an air of +character and thought, of kindliness and camaraderie, of very human +nature. He stood there wishing that Myra would come. The day seemed to +demand it; the wild autumn cried out for men to seek the warmth and +forgetful glory of love. + +He could get some nice house and make a home for her; he could take her +out of the grind and deadliness of school-work and make her happy; there +would be little children in that house. He thought she loved him; yes, +he was quite sure. Then what hindrance? There, at quarter to five that +strange afternoon, Joe felt that he had reached the heights of success, +and he saw no obstacle to long years of solid advance. He had before +his eyes the evidence of his wealth--the great, flapping presses, the +bending, moving men. If anything was sure and solid in this world, these +things were. + +He felt sure Myra would come. She had not been around for a week, and, +anticipating a new meeting with her, he felt very young, like a very +young man for the first time aware of the strange loveliness of night, +its haunting and hidden beauties, its women calling from afar. It all +seemed wild and impossible romance. It smote his heart-strings and set +them trembling with music. He wondered why he had been so stupid all +these years and evaded life, evaded joys that should have been his +twenty years earlier. Now it seemed to him that his youth had passed +from him defeated of its splendor. + +If Myra came to-day he would tell her. The very thought gave his heart a +lovely quake of fear, a trembling that communicated itself to his hands +and down his legs, a throbbing joy dashed with a strange tremor. And +then as he wanted, as he wished for, the door beside him opened and the +bell sharply sounded. + +She stood there, very small, very slight, but quite charming in her +neat, lace-touched clothes. A fringe at the wrist, a bunch at the neck, +struck her off as some one delicate and sensitive, and the face +strengthened this impression. It was long and oval, with a narrow +woman-forehead cut off by a curve of dark hair; the mouth was small and +sweet; the nose narrow; the eyes large, clear gray, penetrating. Under +the gracefully modeled felt hat she stood quite complete, quite a +personality. One instantly guessed that she was an aristocrat by birth +and breeding. But her age was doubtful, seeming either more or less than +the total, which was thirty-two. + +There she stood, glancing at Joe with a breathless eagerness. He turned +pale, and yet at the same time there was a whirl of fire in his heart. +She had come to him; he wanted to gather her close and bear her off +through the wild autumn weather, off to the wilderness. He reached out a +hand and inclosed a very cold and very little one. + +"Why, you're frozen!" he said, with a queer laugh. + +"Oh--not much!" she gasped. She held her leather bag under her arm and +took off her gloves. Then she loosened her coat, and gave a sigh. + +He gazed at her warm-tinted cheek, almost losing himself, and then +murmured, suddenly: + +"More school stuff?" + +She made a grimace and tried to speak lightly, but her voice almost +failed her. + +"Class 6-B, let me tell you, is giving the 'Landing of the Pilgrims,' +and every blessed little pilgrim is Bohemian. Here's the programme!" + +With trembling fingers she opened her bag and handed him some loose +sheets. He bent over them at once. + +"Now make it cheap, Mr. Blaine," she said, severely. "Rock bottom! Or +I'll give the job to some one else." + +Joe laughed strangely. + +"How many copies?" + +"One thousand." + +He spoke as if in fear. + +"Fifty cents too much?" + +Myra laughed. + +"I don't want the school to ruin you!" + +He said nothing further, and in the awkward silence she began pitifully +to button her coat. There was no reason for staying. + +Then suddenly he spoke, huskily: + +"Don't go, Miss Craig...." + +"You want ..." she began. + +He leaned very close. + +"I want to take a walk with you. May I?" + +She became dead white, and the terror of nature's resistless purpose +with men and women, that awful gravitation, that passion of creation +that links worlds and uses men and women, went through them both. + +"I may?" he was whispering. + +Her "Yes" was almost inaudible. + +So Joe put on his coat, and slapped over his head a queer gray slouch +hat, and called over Marty. + +"I won't be back to-night, Marty!" he said. + +Then at the door he gave one last glance at his life-work, the orderly +presses, the harnessed men, and left it all as if it must surely be +there when he returned. He was proud at that moment to be Joe Blaine, +with his name in red letters on the glass door, and under his name +"Power Printer." His wife would be able to hold her head high. + +The frail elevator took them clanking, bumping, slipping, down, down +past eight floors, to the street level. The elevator boy, puffing at his +cigarette, remarked, amiably: + +"Gee! it's a windy day. It's gittin' on to winter, all right.... +Good-night, Mr. Blaine!" + +"Good-night, Tom," said Joe. + + + + +II + + +THE EAST EIGHTY-FIRST STREET FIRE + +They emerged in all the magic wildness of an autumn night and walked +east on Eighty-first Street. The loft building was near the corner of +Second Avenue. They passed under the elevated structure, cutting through +a hurrying throng of people. + +"Take my arm," cried Joe. + +She took it, trembling. They made an odd couple passing along between +the squalid red-brick tenements, now in shadow, now in the glow of some +little shop window, now under a sparkling lamp. At Avenue A they went +south to Seventy-ninth Street, and again turned east, passing a row of +bright model tenements, emerging at last at the strange riverside. + +Down to the very edge of the unpaved waste they walked, or rather +floated, so strange and uplifted and glorious they felt, blown and +carried bodily with the exultant west wind, and they only stopped when +they reached the wooden margin, where an old scow, half laden with +brick, was moored fast with ropes. This scow heaved up and down with the +motion of the rolling waters; the tight ropes grated; the water swashed +melodiously. + +The man and woman seemed alone there, a black little lump in the vast +spaces, for behind them the city receded beyond empty little hill-sides +and there was nothing some distance north and south. + +"Look," said Joe, "look at the tide!" + +It was running north, a wide expanse of rolling waters from their feet +to Blackwells Island in the east, all hurling swiftly like a billowing +floor of gray. Here and there whitecaps spouted. On Blackwells Island +loomed the gray hospitals and workhouses, and at intervals on the shore +sparkled a friendly light. + +"But see the bridge," exclaimed Myra. + +She pointed far south, where across the last of the day ran a slightly +arched string of lights, binding shore with shore. On the New York side, +and nearer, rose the high chimneys of mills, and from these a purplish +smoke swirled thickly, melting into the gray weather. + +And it seemed to Joe at that wild moment that nothing was as beautiful +as smoking chimneys. They meant so much--labor, human beings, fire, +warmth. + +And over all--river, bridge, chimneys, Blackwells Island, and the +throbbing city behind them--rose the immense gray-clouded heavens. A +keen smell of the far ocean came to their nostrils and the air was clear +and exhilarant. Then, as they watched, suddenly a tug lashed between +enormous flat boats on which were red freight-cars, swept north with the +tide. A thin glaze of heat breathed up from the tug's pipe; it was +moving without its engines, and the sight was unbelievable. The whole +huge mass simply shot the river, racing by them. + +And then the very magic of life was theirs. The world fell from them, +the dusty scales of facts, the complex intricacies of existence melted +away. They were very close, and the keen, yelling wind was wrapping them +closer. Vision filled the gray air, trembled up from the river to the +heavens. They rose from all the chaos like two white flames blown by the +wind together--they were two gigantic powers of the earth preparing like +gods for new creation. In that throbbing moment each became the world to +the other, and love, death-strong, shot their hearts. + +He turned, gazing strangely at her pale, eager, breathless face. + +"I want ..." he began. + +"Yes," she breathed. + +He opened his lips, and the sound that escaped seemed like a sob. + +"Myra!" + +And then at the sound of her name she was all woman, all love. She cried +out: + +"Joe!" + +And they flung their arms round each other. She sobbed there, overcome +with the yearning, the glory, the beatitude of that moment. + +"Oh," he cried, "how I love you!... Myra ..." + +"Joe, Joe--I couldn't have stood it longer!" + +All of life, all of the past, all of the million years of earth melted +into that moment, that moment when a man and a woman, mingled into one, +stood in the heart of the wonder, the love, the purpose of nature--a +mad, wild, incoherent half-hour, a secret ecstasy in the passing of the +twilight, in the swing of the wind and the breath of the sea. + +"Come home to my mother," cried Joe. "Come home with me!" + +They turned ... and Myra was a strange new woman, tender, grave, and +wrought of all lovely power, her face, in the last of the light, mellow +and softly glowing with a heightened woman-power. + +"Yes," she said, "I want to see Joe's mother." + +It was Joe's last step to success. Now he had all--his work, his love. +He felt powerfully masculine, triumphant, glorious. + +Night had fallen, and on the darkness broke and sparkled a thousand +lights in tenement windows and up the shadowy streets--everywhere homes, +families; men, women, and children busily living together; everywhere +love. Joe glanced, his eyes filling. Then he paused. + +"Look at that," he said in a changed voice. + +Over against the west, a little to the north, the gray heavens were +visible--a lightning seemed to run over them--a ghastly red +lightning--sharply silhouetting the chimneyed housetops. + +"What is it?" said Myra. + +He gazed at it, transfixed. + +"That's a fire ... a big fire." Then suddenly his face, in the pale +light of a street-lamp, became chalky white and knotted. He could barely +speak. "It must be on Eighty-first or Eighty-second Street." + +She spoke shrilly, clutching his arm. + +"Not ... the loft?" + +"Oh, it can't be!" he cried, in an agony. "But come ... hurry ..." + +They started toward Eighty-first Street up Avenue A. They walked fast; +and it seemed suddenly to Joe that he had been dancing on a thin crust, +and that the crust had broken and he was falling through. He turned and +spoke harshly: + +"You must run!" + +Fear made their feet heavy as they sped, and their hearts seemed to be +exploding in their breasts. They felt as if that fire were consuming +them; as if its tongues of flame licked them up. And so they came to the +corner of Eighty-first Street and turned it, and looked, and stopped. + +Joe spoke hoarsely. + +"It's burning;... it's the loft.... The printery's on fire...." + +Beyond the elevated structure at Second Avenue the loft building rose +like a grotesque gigantic torch in the night. Swirls of flame rolled +from the upper three stories upward in a mane of red, tossing volumes of +smoke, and the wild wind, combing the fire from the west, rained down +cinders and burned papers on Joe and Myra as they rushed up the street. +Every window was blankly visible in the extreme light, streams of water +played on the walls, and the night throbbed with the palpitating, +pounding fire-engines. + +And it seemed to Joe as if life were torn to bits, as if the world's end +had come. It was unbelievable, impossible--his eyes belied his brain. +That all those years of labor and dream and effort were going up in +flame and smoke seemed preposterous. And only a few moments before he +and Myra had stood on the heights of the world; had their mad moment; +and even then his life was being burned away from him. He felt the +hoarse sobs lifting up through his throat. + +They reached Second Avenue, and were stopped by the vast swaying crowd +of people, a density that could not be cloven. They went around about it +frantically; they bore along the edge of the crowd, beside the houses; +they wedged past one stoop; they were about to get past the next, when, +in the light of the lamp, Joe saw a strange sight. Crouched on that +stoop, with clothes torn, with hair loosed down her back, her face +white, her lips gasping, sat one of the hat factory girls. It was Fannie +Lemick. Joe knew her. And no one seemed to notice her. The crowd was +absorbed in other things. + +And even at that moment Joe heard the dire clanging of ambulances, and +an awful horror dizzied his brain. No, no, not that! He clutched the +stoop-post, leaned, cried weirdly: + +"Fannie! Fannie!" + +She gazed up at him. Then she recognized him and gave a terrible sob. + +"Mr. Joe! Oh, how did you get out?" + +"I wasn't there," he breathed. "Fannie! what's happened?... None of the +girls ..." + +"You didn't know?" she gasped. + +He felt the life leaving his body; it seemed impossible. + +"No ..." he heard himself saying. "Tell me...." + +She looked at him with dreadful eyes and spoke in a low, deadly, +monotonous voice: + +"The fire-escape was no good; it broke under some of the girls;... they +fell;... we jammed the hall;... some of the girls jumped down the +elevator shaft;... they couldn't get out ... and Miss Marks, the +forelady, was trying to keep us in order.... She stayed there ... and I +ran down the stairs, and dropped in the smoke, and crawled ... but when +I got to the street ... I looked back ... Mr. Joe ... the girls were +jumping from the windows...." + +Joe seized the stoop-post. His body seemed torn in two; he began to +reel. + +"From the ninth floor," he muttered, "and couldn't get out.... And I +wasn't there! Oh, God, why wasn't I killed there!" + + + + +III + + +THE GOOD PEOPLE + +Joe broke through the fire line. He stepped like a calcium-lit figure +over the wet, gleaming pavement, over the snaky hose, and among the +rubber-sheathed, glistening firemen, gave one look at the ghastly heap +on the sidewalk, and then became, like the host of raving relatives and +friends and lovers, a man insane. It was as if the common surfaces of +life--the busy days, the labor, the tools, the houses--had been drawn +aside like a curtain and revealed the terrific powers that engulf +humanity. + +In his ears sounded the hoarse cries of the firemen, the shout of the +sprayed water, the crash of axes, the shatter of glass. It was too +magnificent a spectacle, nature, like a Nero, using humanity to make a +sublime torch in the night. And through his head pulsed and pulsed the +defiant throb of the engines. Cinders fell, sticks, papers, and Joe saw +fitfully the wide ring of hypnotized faces. It was as if the world had +fallen into a pit, and human beings looked on each other aghast. + +"Get back there!" cried a burly policeman. + +Joe resisted his shouldering. + +"I'm Mr. Blaine;... it's my loft burning. I'm looking for my men...." + +"Go to the morgue then," snapped the policeman. "A fire line's a fire +line." + +Joe was pushed back, and as the crowd closed about him, a soft pressure +of clothing, men and women, he became aware of the fact that he had lost +his head. He pulled himself together; he told himself that he, a human +being, was greater than anything that could happen; that he must set his +jaw and fight and brave his way through the facts. He must get to work. + +Myra clutched his sleeve. He turned to her a face of death, but she +brought her wide eyes close to him. + +"Joe! Joe!" + +"Myra," he said, in a whisper, suddenly in that moment getting a sharp +revelation of his changed life. "I may never see you again. I belong to +those dead girls." He paused. "Go home ... do that for me, anyway." + +He had passed beyond her; there was no opposing him. + +"I'll go," she murmured. + +Then, dizzily, she reeled back, and was lost in the crowd. + +And then he set to work. He was strangely calm now, numb, unfeeling. +There was nothing more to experience, and the overwrought brain refused +any new emotions. So stupendous was the catastrophe that it left him +finally calm, ready, and eagerly awake. He stepped gently through the +crowd, searching, and found John Rann, the pressman. John wept like a +little boy when they met. + +"Marty got out ... yes ... most of us did ... but Eddie Baker, Morty, +and Sam Bender.... It was the cotton waste, Mr. Joe, and the +cigarettes...." + +Joe put his arm about the rough man. + +"Never mind, Johnny ... Go home to the kiddies...." + +There was so little he could do. He went to a few homes he knew, he went +to the hospital to ask after the injured, he went to the morgue. At +midnight the fire, like an evil thing, drew him back, and he encountered +only a steamy blackness lit by the search-light of the engine. There was +still the insistent throbbing. And then he thought of his mother and her +fears, and sped swiftly up the street, over deserted Lexington Avenue, +and up the lamp-lit block. Already newsboys were hoarsely shouting in +the night, as they waved their papers--a cry of the underworld +palpitating through the hushed city: "Wuxtra! Wuxtra! +Great--fire--horror! Sixty--killed! Wuxtra!" + +The house was still open, lighted, awake. People came into the hall as +he entered, but he shunned them and started up the stairs. One called +after him. + +"Your mother's out, Mr. Joe." + +He turned. + +"Out? How long?" + +"Since the fire started ... She's been back and forth several times ..." + +He went on up, entered the neat, still front room, lit the gas beside +the bureau mirror, and began to pace up and down. His mother was +searching for him; he might have known it; he should have remembered it. + +And then he heard the uncanny shouting of the newsboys--as if those dead +girls had risen from their ashes and were running like flaming furies +through the city streets, flinging handfuls of their fire into a million +homes, shaking New York into a realization of its careless, guilty +heart, crying for vengeance, stirring horror and anger and pity. Who was +the guilty one, if not he, the boss? + +And then the inquisition began, the repeated sting of lashing thoughts +and cruel questions. He asked himself what right he had to be an +employer, to take the responsibility of thirty lives in his hands. He +was careless, easy-going, he was in business for profits. Had such a man +any right to be placed over others, to be given the power over other +lives? The guilt was his; the blame fell on him. He should have kept +clean house; he should have stamped out the smoking; he should not have +smoked himself. There fell upon his shoulders a burden not to be borne, +the burden of his blame, and he felt as if nothing now in the world +could assuage that sense of guilt. + +Life, he found, was a fury, a cyclone, not the simple, easy affair he +had thought it. It was his living for himself, his living alone, his +ignorance of the fact that his life was tangled in with the lives of all +human beings, so that he was socially responsible, responsible for the +misery and poverty and pain all about him. + +That _he_ should be the one! Had he not lived just the average +life--blameless, cheerful, hard-working, fun-loving--the life of the +average American? Just by every-day standards his was the useful and +good life. But no, that was not enough. In his rush for success he had +made property his treasure instead of human beings. That was the crime. +And so these dead lay all about him as if he had murdered them with his +hands. It was his being an average man that had killed sixty-three girls +and men. And what had he been after? Money? He did not use his money, +did not need so much. Just a little shared with his employees would have +saved them. No, the average man must cease to exist, and the social man +take his place, the brother careful of his fellow-men, not careless of +all but his own gain. + +A boy passed, hoarsely shouting that terrible extra. Would nothing in +the world silence that sound? The cold sweat came out on his face. He +was the guilty one. That was the one fact that he knew. + +And then he paused; the door opened creakingly and his mother entered. +She was a magnificent young-old woman, her body sixty-three years old, +her mind singularly fresh and young. She was tall, straight, spirited, +and under the neat glossy-white hair was a noble face, somewhat long, +somewhat slim, a little pallid, but with firm chin and large forehead +and living large black eyes set among sharp lines of lids. The whole +woman was focussed in the eyes, sparkled there, lived there, deep, +limpid, quick, piercing. Her pallor changed to pure whiteness. + +"Joe ..." her voice broke. "I've been looking for you...." + +He paused, walled away from her by years of isolation. She advanced +slowly; her face became terrible in its hungry love, its mother passion. +She met his eyes, and then he fled to her, and his body shook with +rough, tearless sobs. Her relief came in great tears. + +"And all those girls," she was murmuring, "and those men. How did it +happen?" + +He drew back; his eyes became strange. + +"Mother," he said, harshly, "I'm the guilty one. There was a heap of +cotton waste in the corner, shouldn't have been there. And I let the men +smoke cigarettes." + +She was horrified. + +"But _why_ did you do that?" she whispered, moving a little away from +him. + +"My thoughtlessness ... my _business_." The word was charged with +bitterness. "Business! business! I'm a business man! I wasn't in +business"--he gave a weird laugh--"for the health of my employees! I was +making money!" + +She looked at him as if he had ceased being her son and had turned into +a monster. Then she swayed, grasped the bedpost and sank on the bed. + +Her voice was low and harsh. + +"_Your_ fault ... and all those young girls...." + +His mother had judged him; he looked at her with haggard eyes, and spoke +in a hollow voice. + +"Nothing will ever wipe this guilt from my mind.... I'm branded for +life ... this thing will go on and on and on every day that I live...." + +She glanced at him then, and saw only her son, the child she had carried +in her arms, the boy who had romped with her, and she only knew now that +he was suffering, that no one on earth could be in greater pain. + +"Oh, my poor Joe!" she murmured. + +"Yes," he went on, beside himself, "I'm blasted with guilt...." + +She cried out: + +"If you go on like this, we'll both go out of our minds, Joe! Fight! +It's done ... it's over.... From now on, make amends.... Joe!"--She rose +magnificently then--"Your father lost his arm in the war.... Now give +your life to setting things right!" + +And she drew him close again. Her words, her love, her belief in him +roused him at last. + +"You know the fault isn't all yours," she said. "The factory inspector's +to blame, too--and the men--and the people up-stairs--and the law +because it didn't demand better protection and fire-drills--all are to +blame. You take too much on yourself...." + +And gradually, striving with him through the early morning hours, she +calmed him, she soothed him, and got him to bed. He was at last too +weary to think or feel and he slept deep into the day. And thinking a +little of herself, she realized that the tragedy had brought them closer +together than they had been for years. + + * * * * * + +Out of those ashes on East Eighty-first Street rose a certain splendor +over the city. All of New York drew together with indignation and +wondrous pity. It did not bring the dead girls to life again--it was too +late for that--but it brought many other dead people to life. + +Fifty thousand dollars flowed to the newspapers for relief; an inquest +probed causes and guilt and prevention; mass--meetings were held; the +rich and the powerful forgot position and remembered their common +humanity; and the philanthropic societies set to work with money, with +doctors and nurses and visitors. The head of one huge association said +to the relief committee in a low, trembling voice: "Of course, our whole +staff is at your service." Just for a time, a little time, the +five-million-manned city flavored its confused, selfish struggle with +simple brotherhood. + +How had it happened? Whose was the fault? How came it that sixty girls +were imprisoned in the skies, as it were, and could only fling +themselves down to the stone pavement in an insanity of terror? What war +was more horrible than this Peace of Industry? Such things must be +prevented in future, said New York, rising like a wrathful god--and for +a while the busy wheels of progress turned. + +Joe had to attend the inquest as a witness. He gave his testimony in a +simple, sincere, and candid way that gained him sympathy. His men +testified in his behalf, trying to wholly exonerate him and inculpate +themselves, and the lawyers cleverly scattered blame from one power to +another--the city, the State, the fire department, the building +department, etc. It became clear that Joe could not be officially +punished; it was evident that he had done as much as the run of +employers to protect life, and that his intentions had been blameless. + +However, that did not ease Joe's real punishment. He was a changed man +that week, calm, ready with his smile, but haggard and bowed, nervous +and overwrought, bearing a burden too heavy for his heart. He made over +the twenty thousand dollars of insurance money to the Relief and +Prevention Work; he visited the injured and the bereaved; he forgot Myra +and tried to forget himself; he attended committee meetings. + +Myra wrote him a little note: + + DEAR JOE,--Don't forget that whatever happens I + believe in you utterly and I love you and shall always + love you, and that you have me when all else is lost. + + Your + MYRA. + +To which he merely replied: + + DEAR MYRA,--I shall remember what you say, and I + shall see you when I can. + + Yours, + JOE. + +It was on Sunday afternoon that Joe met Fannie Lemick on the street. Her +eyes filled with tears and he noticed she was trembling. + +"Mr. Joe!" she cried. + +"Yes, Fannie...." + +"Are you going, too?" + +"Going where?" + +"Don't you know? _The mass-meeting at Carnegie Hall_!" + +He looked at her, smiling. + +"I'll go with you, if I may!" + +So they went down together. A jam of poor people was crowding the +doors, and a string of automobiles drew up and passed at the curb. Joe +and Fannie got in the throng. There was no room left in the orchestra +and they were swept with the flood up and up, flight after flight, to +the high gallery. Here they found seats and looked down, down as if on +the side of the planet, on the far-away stage filled with the speakers +and the committees, and on that sea of humanity that swept back and up +through the boxes to themselves. All in the subdued light, the golden +light that crowd sat, silent, remorseful, stirred by a sense of having +risen to a great occasion; thousands of human beings, the middle class, +the rich, the poor; Americans, Germans, Italians, Jews. But all about +him Joe felt a silent hatred, a still cry for vengeance, a class +bitterness. Many of these were relatives of the dead. + +It was a demonstration of the human power that refuses to submit to +environment and circumstance and fate; that rises and rebukes facts, +reshapes destiny. And then the speaking began: the bishop, the rabbi, +the financier, the philanthropist, the social worker. They spoke +eloquently, they showed pity, they were constructive, they were prepared +to act; they represented the "better classes" and promised the "poor," +the toilers, that they would see that relief and protection were given; +but somehow their eloquence did not carry; somehow that mass of +commonest men and women refused to be stirred and thrilled. There was +even a little hissing when it was announced that a committee of big men +would see to the matter. + +Joe had a dull sense of some monstrous social cleavage; the world +divided into the rulers and the ruled, the drivers and the driven. He +felt uncomfortable, and so did the throng. There was a feeling as if the +crowd ought to have a throat to give vent to some strange, fierce fact +that festered in its heart. + +And then toward the end the chairman announced that one of the +hat-trimmers, one of the girls who worked--in another hat factory, would +address the meeting--Miss Sally Heffer. + +A girl arose, a young woman with thin, sparse, gold-glinting hair, with +face pallid and rounded, with broad forehead and gray eyes of remarkable +clarity. She was slim, dressed in a little brown coat and a short brown +skirt. She came forward, trembling, as if overcome by the audience. She +paused, raised her head and tried to speak. There was not a sound, and +suddenly the audience became strangely still, leaning forward, waiting. + +Then again she tried to speak; it was hardly above a whisper; and yet so +clear was the hush that Joe heard every word. And he knew, and all knew, +that this young woman was overcome, not by the audience, but by the +passion of the tragedy, the passion of an oppressed class. She was the +voice of the toilers at last dimly audible; she was the voice of a +million years of sore labor and bitter poverty and thwarted life. And +the audience was thrilled, and the powerful were shaken with remorse. + +Trembling, terrible came the words out of that little body on the far +stage: + +"I would be a traitor to these poor burned bodies if I came here to talk +good-fellowship. We have tried you good people of the public and we have +found you wanting. The old Inquisition had its rack and its thumbscrews +and its instruments of torture with iron teeth. We know what these +things are to-day: the iron teeth are our necessities, the thumbscrews +the high-powered and swift machinery close to which we must work, and +the rack is here in the fire-trap structures that will destroy us the +minute they catch on fire. + +"This is not the first time girls have been burned alive in this city. +Every week I learn of the untimely death of one of my sister workers. +Every year thousands of us are maimed. _The life of men and women is so +cheap and property is so sacred!_ There are so many of us for one job, +it matters little if sixty of us are burned to death. + +"We have tried you citizens; we are trying you now, and you have a +couple of dollars for the sorrowing mothers and brothers and sisters by +way of a charity gift. But every time the workers come out in the only +way they know to protest against conditions which are unbearable, the +strong hand of the law is allowed to press heavily down on us. + +"Public officials have only words of warning to us--warning that we must +be intensely orderly and intensely peaceable, and they have the +workhouse just back of all their warnings. + +"I can't talk fellowship to you who are gathered here. Too much blood +has been spilled. I know from my experience it is up to the working +people to save themselves. The only way they can save themselves is by a +strong working-class movement." + +Joe heard nothing further. There were several other speakers, but no +words penetrated to his brain. He felt as if he must stifle. He felt the +globe of earth cracking, breaking in two under his feet, and for the +first time in his life he was acutely aware of the division of humanity. +All through his career he had taken his middle-class position for +granted; he tacitly agreed that there were employees and employers; but +in his own case his camaraderie had hidden the cleavage. Now he saw a +double world--on the one side the moneyed owners, on the other the +crowded, scrambling, disorganized hordes of the toilers--each one of +them helpless, a victim, worked for all that was in him, and then flung +aside in the scrap heap. And behold, this horde was becoming +self-conscious, was beginning to organize, was finding a voice. And he, +who was one of the "good people," was rejected by this voice. He had +been "tried" and found wanting. He was on the other side of the fence. +And it was the fault of his class that fire horrors and all the chaos +and cruelty of industry arose. So that now the working people had found +that they must "save themselves." + +In an agony of guilt again he felt what he had said to Myra: "From now +on I belong to those dead girls"--yes, and to their fellow-workers. +Suddenly it seemed to him that he must see Sally Heffer--that to her he +must carry the burden of his guilt--to her he must personally make +answer to the terrible accusations she had voiced. It was all at once, +as if only in this way could he go on living, that otherwise he would +end in the insanity of the mad-house or the insanity of suicide. + +He was walking down the stairs with Fannie, and he was trembling. + +"Do you know this Sally Heffer?" + +"Know her? We all do!" she cried, with all a young girl's enthusiasm. + +"I want to see her, Fannie. Where does she live?" + +"Oh, somewhere in Greenwich Village. But she'll be up at the Woman's +League after the meeting." + +He went up to the Woman's League and found the office crowded with women +and men. He asked for Miss Heffer. + +"I'll take your name," said the young woman, and then came back with the +answer that "he'd have to wait." + +So he took a seat and waited. He felt feverish and sick, as if he could +no longer carry this burden with him. It seemed impossible to sit still. +And yet he waited over an hour, waited until it was eight at night, all +the gas-jets lit. + +The young woman came up to him. + +"You want to see Miss Heffer? Come this way." + +He was led up a flight of stairs to a little narrow hall-room. Sally +Heffer was there at a roll-top desk, still in her little brown +coat--quiet, pale, her clear eyes remarkably penetrating. She turned. + +"Yes?" + +He shook pitifully,... then he sat down, holding his hat in his hands. + +"I'm Joe Blaine...." + +"Joe Blaine ... of what?" + +"Of the printery ... that burned...." + +She looked at him sharply. + +"So, you're the employer." + +"Yes, I am." + +"Well," she said, brusquely, "what do you want?" + +"I heard you speak this afternoon." His face flickered with a smile. + +"And so you ...?" + +He could say nothing; and she looked closer. She saw his gray face, his +unsteady eyes, the tragedy of the broken man. Then she spoke with a +lovely gentleness. + +"You want to do something?" + +"Yes," he murmured, "I want to give--all." + +She lowered her voice, and it thrilled him. + +"It won't help to give your money--you must give yourself. We don't want +charity." + +He said nothing for a moment; and then strength rose in him. + +"I'll tell you why I came.... I felt I had to.... I felt that you were +accusing me. I know I am guilty. I have come here to be"--he smiled +strangely--"sentenced." + +She drew closer. + +"You came here for _that_?" + +"Yes." + +She rose and took a step either way. She gazed on him, and suddenly she +broke down and cried, her hands to her face. + +"O God," she sobbed, "when will all this be over? When will we get rid +of this tragedy? I can't stand it longer." + +He rose, too, confused. + +"Listen," he whispered. "I swear to you, I swear, that from this day on +my life belongs to those"--his voice broke--"dead girls ... to the +toilers...." + +She impulsively reached out a hand, and he seized it. Then, when she +became more quiet, she murmured: + +"I can see you mean it. Oh, this is wonderful! It is a miracle springing +out of the fire!" + +There was a strange throbbing silence that brought them close together. +And Sally, glancing at him again, whispered: + +"I can see how you have suffered! Let me help you ... all that I can!" + +He spoke in great pain. + +"What can I do? I know so little." + +"Do? You must learn that for yourself. You must fit in where you belong. +Do you know anything of the working-class movement?" + +"No," he said. + +"Then I will make a list of books and magazines for you." + +She sat down and wrote a list on a slip, and arose and handed it to him. + +She was gazing at him again, gazing at the tragic face. Then she +whispered: + +"I believe in you.... Is there anything else?" + +And again she reached out her hand and he clasped it. Her fine faith +smote something hard in him, shriveled it like fire, and all at once, +miraculously, divinely, a little liquid gush of lovely joy, of wonderful +beatitude began to rise from his heart, to rise and overflow and fill +him. He was being cleansed, he had expiated his guilt by confessing it +to his accuser and receiving her strange and gentle forgiveness; tears +came to his eyes, came and paused on the lashes and trickled down. He +gulped a sob. + +"I can go on now," he said. + +She looked at him, wondering. + +"You can!" she whispered. + +And he went out, a free man again, at the beginning of a new life. + + + + +IV + + +GOLDEN OCTOBER + +Life has an upspringing quality that defies pain. Something buoyant +throbs in the heart of the world--something untamed and wild--exultant +in the flying beauty of romping children, glinting in the dawn-whitened +sea, risen, indeed, through man into triumphant cities and works, and +running like a pulse through his spirit. San Francisco is shattered, and +there is death and sorrow and destruction: a whole population is +homeless--whereupon the little human creatures come down from the hills +like laughing gods and create but a more splendid city. Earth itself +forges through its winters with an April power that flushes a continent +with delicate blossoms and tints. + +Joe had come home from Sally Heffer a man renewed. From some clear well +in his nature sprang a limpid stream of soft, new joy; a new +exhilarating sense of life; a new creative power that made him eager for +action. His heart was cleansed, and with the exquisite happiness of a +forgiven child he "took up the task eternal." Hereafter he was a man +dedicated, a man consecrated to a great work. + +His mother noticed the change in him, a new wisdom, a sweet jocularity, +and, withal, the return of much of his old nature--its rough +camaraderie, its boyish liveliness and homely simplicity. For her this +was a marvelous relief, and she could only watch him and wonder at the +change. He seemed very busy again, and she did not disturb him in these +sensitive days of growth; she waited the inevitable time when he would +come to her and tell her what he was going to do, whether he would +re-establish his business or whether he had some new plan. And then one +day, tidying up his room, she stumbled on a heap of books. Her heart +thrilled and she began to surreptitiously borrow these books herself. + +Already the great city had forgotten its fire horror--save the tiny, +growing stir of an agitating committee--and even to those most nearly +concerned it began to fade, a nightmare scattered by the radiance of new +morning. One could only trust that from those fair and unpolluted bodies +had sprung a new wave of human brotherliness never to be quite lost. And +Joe's mother had had too much training in the terrible to be long +overborne. She believed in her son and stood by him. + +Luckily for Joe, he had much work to do. He and Marty Briggs had to +settle up the business, close with customers, dig from the burned +rubbish proofs and contracts, attend the jury, and help provide for his +men. One sunny morning he and Marty were working industriously in the +loft, when Marty, with a cry of exultation, lifted up a little slot box. + +"Holy Moses, Joe!" he exclaimed, "if here ain't the old kick-box!" + +They looked in it together, very tenderly, for it was the very symbol of +Joe's ten years of business. On its side there was still pasted a slip +of paper, covered with typewriting: + + KICK-BOX + + This business is human--not perfect. It needs good + thinking, new ideas (no matter how unusual), and + honest criticism. + + There are many things you think wrong about the + printery and the printery's head--things you would + not talk of face to face, as business time is precious + and spoken words are sometimes hard to bear. + + Now this is what I want: Sit down and write what + you think in plain English. It will do me good. + + JOE BLAINE. + +Suddenly Marty looked at his boss. + +"Say, Joe." + +"What is it, Marty?" The big fellow hesitated. + +"Say--when that jury finishes--you're going to set things up again, and +go on. Ain't you?" + +Joe smiled sadly. + +"I don't know, Marty." + +Tears came to Marty's eyes. + +"Say--what will the fellers say? Ah, now, you'll go ahead, Joe." + +"Just give me a week or two, Marty--then I'll tell you." + +But the big fellow's simple grief worked on him and made him waver, and +there were other meetings with old employees that sharply drew him back +to the printery. One evening, after a big day of activity, he found it +too late to reach the boarding-house for supper and he remembered that +John Rann's baby was sick. So he turned and hurried across the golden +glamor of Third Avenue, on Eightieth Street, and just beyond climbed up +three flights of stairs in a stuffy tenement and knocked on the rear +door. Smells of supper--smells chiefly of cabbage, cauliflower, fried +onions, and fried sausages--pervaded the hall like an invisible +personality, but Joe was smell-proof. + +A husky voice bade him come in and he pushed open the door into a neat +kitchen. At a table in the center under a nicely globed light sat John +Rann in his woolen undershirt. John was smoking a pipe and reading the +evening paper, and opposite John two young girls, one about ten, the +other seven, were studying their lessons. + +"Hello, John!" said Joe. + +John nodded amiably, and muttered: + +"Hello yourself!" + +He was a strong, athletic, stocky fellow, with sunken little blue eyes, +heavy jaws, and almost bald head. Before he had time to rise the two +young girls leaped up with shrieks of joy and rushed to Joe. Joe at once +tucked one under each arm and hugged them forward to a big chair, into +which they all sank together. + +"Well! Well!" cried Joe. + +"Who do you love most?" asked the seven-year-old. + +"The one who loves me most!" said Joe. + +"I do!" they both shrieked. + +"Now leave Mr. Joe be," warned the father. "Such tomboys they're getting +to be, there's no holdin' 'em in!" + +At once in the half-curtained doorway to the next room appeared a stocky +little woman, whose pale face was made emphatic by large steel-rimmed +glasses that shrank each eye-pupil to the size of a tack-head. Her +worried forehead smoothed; she smiled. + +"I knew it was Mr. Joe," she said, "by the way those gals yelled." + +Joe spoke eagerly: + +"I just had to run in, Mrs. Rann, to ask how the baby was." + +"He's a sight better. Mrs. Smith, who lives third floor front, had one +just like him sick a year ago come Thanksgiving, and he died like that. +But the doctor you sent over is that kind and cute he's got the little +fellow a-fightin' for his life. He's a _big_ sight better. Want to see +him?" + +Joe gave a kiss each way, set down two reluctant women-to-be, and +followed Mrs. Rann to the inner room. In a little crib a youngster, just +recovered from colic, was kicking up his heels. Joe leaned over and +tickled the sole of one foot. + +"Well, Johnny boy!" + +"Unc! Unc!" cried the infant. + +The mother purred with delight. + +"He's trying to say Uncle Joe. Did you ever hear the likes?" + +Joe beamed with pride. + +"Well, your uncle hasn't forgotten you, old man!" + +And he produced from his pocket a little rubber doll that whistled +whenever its belly was squeezed. + +John Rann appeared behind them. + +"Say, Mr. Joe, _you_ haven't had your supper yet." + +"Not hungry!" muttered Joe. + +"G'wan! Molly, put him up a couple of fried eggs, browned on both, and a +cup of coffee. I won't take no, either." + +Joe laughed. + +"Well, perhaps I'd better. I'm ashamed to ask for anything home this +hour--in fact, I'm scared to." + +So he got his fried eggs and coffee, and the family hung around him, and +Joe, circled with such warm friendliness, was glad to be alive. He was +especially pleased with Mrs. Rann's regard. But Joe was always a +favorite with mothers. Possibly because he was so fond of their babies. +Possibly because mothers love a good son, wherever they find one. +Possibly because his heart was large enough to contain as something +precious their obscure lives. Just before he left John asked him: + +"Will the printery soon be running, Mr. Joe?" + +"Tell you later," murmured Joe, and went out. But he was sorely +troubled. + +However, to Joe there had been revealed--almost in a day and after +thirty-eight years of insulated life--two of the supreme human facts. +There was humanity, on the one side, building the future, the new state, +organizing its scattered millions into a rich, healthy, joyous life and +calling to every man to enlist in the ranks of the creators; and then +there was woman, the undying splendor of the world, the beauty that +drenches life with meaning and magic, that stirs the elemental in a man, +that wakens the race instinct, that demands the creation of new +generations to inhabit that new state of the future. Intertwined, these +wondrous things drew the heart now this way, now that, and to Joe they +arose separately in intermittent pulsations that threatened to absorb +his existence. + +He did not dare go to Myra until he was sure of himself. It seemed that +he would have to choose between woman and work. It seemed as if his +work would lead into peril, dirt, disaster, and that he could not ask a +delicate, high-strung woman to go with him. The woman could not follow +her warrior to the battle, for marriage meant children to Joe, and the +little ones must stay back at home with the mother. + +In that moment of clear terror he had said to Myra: + +"I may never see you again.... I belong to those dead girls." + +And this phrase came and went like a refrain. He must choose between her +and those "dead girls." There stood Myra with gray luminous eyes and +soft echoing voice magically hinting of a life of ever-renewed romance. +She had a breast for his aching head, she had in her hands a thousand +darling household things, she had in her the possibilities of his own +children ... who should bring a wind of laughter into his days and a +strange domestic tenderness. The depths of the man were stirred by these +appeals--that was the happy human way to take, the common road fringed +with wild flowers and brier-lost berries, and glorious with the stride +of health and the fresh open air. + +And Myra herself, that charming presence to infold his life--He would go +walking through the golden October park, by little leaf-strewn paths +under the wild and sun-soaked foliage, with many vistas every way of +luring mystery, and over all the earth the rich opulent mother-bliss of +harvest, and his heart would ache, ache within him, ache for his own +harvests, ache like the sun for the earth, the man for the woman. + +A mad frenzy would seize him and he would plunge into his books and read +and think and lash himself to a fury of speculation till the early hours +of the morning. Exhaustion alone brought him peace. + +But something had to be done. He sat down and wrote to her with a +trembling hand: + + DEAR MYRA,--Though I am impatient to see you, I + must yet wait a little while. Bear with me. You will + understand later. + + Yours, + JOE. + +And then she replied: + + DEAR JOE,--Can't I help you? + MYRA. + +He had to fight a whole afternoon before he replied: + + Not yet--later. + JOE. + +And back he went into the whirlwind of the world-vision, a stupendous +force upsetting, up-rooting, overturning, demolishing, almost erasing +and contradicting everything that Joe had taken for granted, and in the +wake of the destruction, rising and ever rising, a new creation, the +vision of a new world. + +He had taken so much for granted. He had taken for granted that he lived +in a democracy--that the Civil War had once for all made America a free +nation--a nation of opportunity, riches, and happiness for all. Not so. +Literally millions were living in abject poverty, slaves to their +pay-envelopes; to lose a job meant to lose everything, there being more +laborers than jobs, or if not, at least recurrent "panics" and "hard +times" when the mills and the mines shut down. And these wage slaves had +practically no voice in one of the chief things of their life--their +work. So millions were penned in places of danger and disease and dirt, +lived and toiled in squalor, and were cut off from growth, from health, +from leisure and culture and recreation; and worse, millions of women +had to add the burden of earning a living to the already overwhelming +burden of child-bearing and home-making; and, still worse, millions of +children had been drafted into the service of industrialism. + +He proved the case for himself. He began making tours of the city, +discovering New York, laying bare the confusion and ugliness and grime +and crime and poverty of a great industrial center. He poked into the +Ghetto, into Chinatown, Greenwich Village, and Little Italy; he peered +into jails, asylums, and workhouses; he sneaked through factories and +hung about saloons. Everywhere a terrific struggle, many sinking down +into the city's underworld of crime, men becoming vagrants or thieves, +women walking the streets as prostitutes. + +And over this broad foundation of the "people" rose the structure of +business and politics, equally corrupted--or so it seemed to Joe, as it +does to every one who is fresh to the facts. Men at the top gathering +into their hands the necessities of life: oil, meat, coal, water-power, +wool; seizing on the railroads, those only modern means of social +exchange; snatching strings of banks wherein the people's money was +being saved; and using their mighty money-power to corrupt legislation, +to thwart the will of the voters, to secure new powers, to crush +opposition. So had arisen a "Money Power" that was annuling democracy. + +And Joe's books argued that all this change had been wrought by the +invention of machinery, that only through steam, steel, and electricity +could world-wide organization take place, that only through these arose +the industrial city, the modern mill. The very things that should have +set man free, the enormous powers he snatched from nature and harnessed +to do his work, powers with the strength of a nation of men--these very +things had been seized by a few for their own profit, and had enslaved +the majority. Over and over again could the race be fed, clothed, +housed, and enriched by these powers, and that with lessened hours of +toil and more variety of work. + +But Joe's books argued further and most dogmatically that this +organization by the selfish few was a necessary step in progress, that +when their work was finished the toilers, the millions, would arise and +seize the organization and use it thereafter for the good of all. +Indeed, this was what Sally's labor movement meant: the enlightenment of +the toilers as to the meaning of industrialism, and their training for +the supreme revolution. + +And out of all this arose the world-vision. At such moments Joe walked +in a rarer air, he stepped on a fairer earth than ordinarily obtains. It +was the beauty and loveliness of simple human camaraderie, of warm human +touch. And at such times Joe had no doubt of his life-work. It lay in +exquisite places, in chambers of jolly grandeur, in the invisible halls +and palaces of the human spirit. He was one with the toilers of earth, +one with the crowded underworld. It was that these lives might grow +richer in knowledge, richer in art, richer in health, richer in +festival, richer in opportunity, that Joe had dedicated his life. And so +arose that wonderful and inexpressible vision--a picture as it were of +the far future--a glimpse of an earth singing with uplifted crowds of +humanity, on one half of the globe going out to meet the sunrise, on the +other, the stars. He heard the music of that Hymn of Human Victory, +which from millions of throats lifts on that day when all the race is +woven into a harmony of labor and joy and home and great unselfish +deeds. That day, possibly, might never arrive, forever fading farther +and farther into the sunlit distances--but it is the day which leads the +race forward. To Joe, however, came that vision, and when it came it +seemed as if the last drop of his blood would be little to offer, even +in anguish, to help, even by ever so little, the coming and the +consummation of that Victory. + +He would awake in the night, and cry out in a fever: + +"By God, I'm going to help change things." + +The vision shook him--tugged at his heart, downward, like the clutch of +a convulsive child; seized him now and again like a madness. Even unto +such things had the "dead girls" brought him. + +So, crammed with theories--theories as yet untested by experience--Joe +became an iconoclast lusting for change. He was bursting with good news, +he wanted to cry the intimations from the housetops, he wanted to +proselytize, convert. He was filled with Shelley's passion for reforming +the world, and like young Shelley, he felt that all he had to do was to +show the people the truth and the truth would make them free. + +All this was in his great moments,... there were reactions when his +human humorous self--backed by ten years of the printery--told him that +the world is a complex mix-up, and that there are many visions; moments +that made him wonder what he was about, and why so untrained a man +expected to achieve such marvels. + +But these reactions were swallowed up by the recurrent pulsations, the +spasms of his vision. He felt from day to day a growth of purpose, an +accumulation of energy that would resistlessly spill into action, that +would bear him along, whether or no. But what should he do, and how? He +was unfitted, and did not think he cared, for settlement work. He knew +nothing and cared less for charity work. Politics were an undiscovered +world to him. What he wanted passionately was to go and live among the +toilers, get to know them, and be the means of arousing and training +them. + +But then there was the problem of his mother--a woman of sixty-three. +Could he leave her alone? It was preposterous to think of taking her +with him. Myra could a thousand times better go. He must talk with his +mother, he must thresh the matter out with her, he must not delay longer +to clear the issue. And yet he hesitated. Would she be able to +understand? How could he communicate what was bursting in his breast? +She belonged to a past generation; how could she hear the far-off drums +of the advance? + +Up and down the Park he went early one evening in a chaos of excitement, +and he had a sudden conviction that he could not put off the moment any +longer. He must go to his mother at once, he must tell all. As he +walked down the lamp-lit street, under all the starriness of a tranquil +autumn night, he became alternately pale and flushed, his heart thumped +hard against his ribs, he felt like a little boy going to his mother to +confess a wrong. + +He looked up; the shades of the second floor were illumined: she was up +there. Doing what? Sharply then he realized what a partial life she led, +the decayed middle-class associates of the boarding-house, tired, +brainless, and full of small talk, the lonesome evenings, the long days. +He became more agitated, and climbed the stoop, unlocked his way into +the house, went up the dim, soft, red-cushioned stairs, past the milky +gas-globe in the narrow hall, and knocked at her door. + +"Come in!" she cried. + +He swung the door wide and entered. She was, as usual, sitting in the +little rocker under the light and beside the bureau, between the bed and +the window. The neat, fragrant room seemed to be sleeping, but the +clear-eyed, upright woman was very much awake. She glanced up from her +sewing and realized intuitively that at last the crisis had come. His +big, homely face was a bald advertisement of his boyish excitement. + +She nodded, and murmured, "Well!" + +He drew up a chair awkwardly, and sat opposite her, tilting back to +accommodate his sprawling length. Then he was at a loss. + +"Well," he muttered, trying to be careless, "how are you?" + +"All right," she said drily. + +She could not help him, though her heart was beginning to pain in her +side. + +"I've been walking about the Park," he began again, with an indifference +that was full of leaks, "and thinking...." He leaned forward and spoke +suddenly: "Say, mother, don't you get tired of living in this place?" + +She felt strangely excited, but answered guardedly. + +"It isn't so bad, Joe.... There are a few decent people ... there's Miss +Gardiner, the librarian ... and I have books and sewing." + +"Oh, I know," he went on, clumsily, "but you're alone a lot." + +"Yes, I am," she said, and all at once she felt that she could speak no +further with him. She began sewing diligently. + +"Say, mother!" + +No answer. + +"Mother!" + +"Yes," dimly. + +His voice sounded unnatural. + +"Since the ... fire ... I've been doing some thinking, some reading...." + +"Yes." + +"I've been going about ... studying the city...." + +"Yes." + +"Now I want you to understand, mother.... I want to tell you of ... +It's--well, I want to do something with my money, my life...." And his +voice broke, in spite of himself. + +His mother felt as if she were smothering. But she waited, and he went +on: + +"For those dead girls, mother...." and sharply came a dry sob. "And for +all the toilers. Oh, but can you understand?" + +There was a silence. Then she looked at him from her youthful, brilliant +eyes, and saw only an overgrown, rather ignorant boy. This gave her +strength, and, though it was painful, she began speaking: + +"_Understand_? Do you mean the books you are reading?" + +"Yes," he murmured. + +"Well," she smiled weakly, "I've been reading them, too." + +"_You_!" He was shocked. He looked at her as if she had revealed a new +woman to him. + +"Yes," she said, quickly. "I found them in your room." + +He was amazedly silent. He felt then that he had never really known his +mother. + +"Joe," she said, tremulously, "I want to tell you a little about the +war.... There are things I haven't told you." + +And while he sat, stupefied and dumfounded, she told him--not all, but +many things. She was back in the Boston of the sixties, when she was a +young girl, when that town was the literary center of America, when high +literature was in the air, when the poets had great fame and every one, +even the business man, was a poet. She had seen or met some of the great +men. Once Whittier was pointed out to her, at a time when his lines on +slavery were burning in her brain. She had seen the clear-eyed Lowell +walking under the elms of Cambridge, and she justly felt that she was +one of those + + "Who dare to be + In the right with two or three." + +Once, even, a relative of hers, a writer then well known and now +forgotten, had taken her out to see "the white Mr. Longfellow." It was +one of the dream-days of her life--the large, spacious, square Colonial +house where once Washington had lived; the poet's square room with its +round table and its high standing desk in which he sometimes wrote; the +sloping lawn; the great trees; and, better than anything, the simple, +white-haired, white-bearded poet who took her hand so warmly and spoke +so winningly and simply. He even gave her a scrap of paper on which were +written some of his anti-slavery lines. + +Those were great days--days when America, the world's experiment in +democracy, was thrown into those fires that consume or purify. The great +test was on, whether such a nation could live, and Boston was athrob +with love of country and eagerness to sacrifice. The young, beautiful, +clear-eyed girl did not hesitate a moment to urge Henry Blaine to give +up all and go to the front. It was like tearing her own heart in two, +and, possibly at a word, Blaine would have remained in Boston and helped +in some other way. But she fought it out with him one night on Boston +Commons, and she wished then that she was a man and could go herself. On +that clear, mild night, the blue luminous tinge of whose moon she +remembered so vividly, they walked up and down, they passionately +embraced, they felt the end of life and the mystery of death, and then +at last when the young man said: "I'll go! It's little enough to do in +this crisis!" she clung to him with pride and sacred joy and knew that +life was very great and that it had endless possibilities. + +And so Henry Blaine went with his regiment, and the black and terrible +years set in--years in which so often she saw what Walt Whitman had +seen: + + "I saw askant the armies, + I saw as in noiseless dreams hundreds of battle-flags, + Borne through the smoke of the battles and pierced with missiles I saw + them, + And carried hither and yon through the smoke, and torn and bloody, + And at last but a few shreds left on the staffs (and all in silence), + And the staffs all splinter'd and broken. + I saw battle-corpses, myriads of them, + And the white skeletons of young men, I saw them. + I saw the debris and debris of all the slain soldiers of the war, + + But I saw they were not as was thought. + They themselves were fully at rest, they suffered not, + The living remain'd and suffer'd, the mother suffer'd, + And the wife and the child and the musing comrade suffer'd, + And the armies that remain'd suffer'd." + +Terrible years, years of bulletins, years of want, hard times, years +when all the future was at stake, until finally that day in New York +when she saw the remnant returning, marching up Broadway between the +black crowds and the bunting, the drums beating, the fifes playing, + + "Returning, with thinned ranks, young, yet very old, + worn, marching, noticing nothing." + +Henry Blaine was one of these and he came to her a cripple, an emaciated +and sick man. Then had followed, as Joe knew, the marriage, the hard +pioneer life in the shanty on the stony hill, the death, and the long +widowhood.... + +Had she not a right to speak to him? + +"Understand?" she ended. "I think, Joe, I ought to understand.... I sent +your father into the war...." + +Depth beneath depth he was discovering her. He was amazed and awed. He +asked himself where he had been all these years, and how he had been so +blind. He felt very young then. It was she who actually knew what the +word social and the word patriotism meant. + +He looked down on the floor, and spoke in a whisper: + +"And ... would you send me off, too? The new war?" + +She could scarcely speak. + +"Whereto?" + +"I ... oh, I'll have to go down in a tenement somewhere--the slums...." + +"Well, then," she said, quietly, "I'll go with you." + +"But you--" he exclaimed, almost adding, "an old woman"--"it's +impossible, mother." + +She answered him with the same quietness. + +"You forget the shanty." + +And then it was clear to him. Like an electric bolt it shot him, +thrilling, stirring his heart and soul. She _would_ go with him; more +than that, she _should_. It was her right, won by years of actual want +and struggle and service. More, it was her escape from a flat, stale, +meaningless boarding-house existence. Suddenly he felt that she was +really his mother, knit to him by ties unbreakable, a terrible thing in +its miraculousness. + +But he only said, in a strained voice, + +"All right, mother!" + +And she laughed, and mused, and murmured: + +"How does the world manage to keep so new and young?" + + + + +V + + +MYRA AND JOE + +Myra Craig used to dream at night that the fifty-seven members of her +class arose from their desks with wild shrieks and danced a war-dance +about her. This paralyzed her throat, her hands, and her feet, and she +could only stand, flooded with horror, awaiting the arrival of the +school principal and disgrace. Out of this teacher's dream she always +awoke disgusted with school-work. + +Myra came from Fall River--her parents still lived there--came when she +was ten years younger, to seek her fortune in the great city. New York +had drawn her as it draws all the youth of the land, for youth lusts for +life and rushes eagerly to the spot where life is most intense and most +exciting. The romance of crowds, of wealth, of art, of concentrated +pleasure and concentrated vice, of immense money-power, the very +architecture of the world-city, the maelstrom of people, drew the young +Fall River woman irresistibly. She did not want the even and smooth +future of a little town; she wanted to plunge into the hazardous +interweaving of the destinies of millions of people. She wanted to +grasp at some of the magic opportunities of the city. She wanted a +career. + +And so she came. Early that June morning she left her cabin on the Sound +steamboat and went out on deck, and then she had unfolded to her the +most thrilling scene of the earth. Gazing, almost panting with +excitement, it seemed to her that the nature she had known--the hills +and fields of New England--shrank to littleness. First there was all +about her the sway of the East River, golden--flecked with the morning +sun, which glowed through a thin haze. From either shore a city climbed, +topped with steeples and mill chimneys--floods of tenements and homes. +Then the boat swept under the enormous steel bridges which seemed upheld +by some invisible power and throbbed with life above them. And then, +finally, came the Vision of the City. The wide expanse of rolling, +slapping water was busy with innumerable harbor craft, crowded ferries, +puffing tugs, each wafting its plume of smoke and white steam; but from +those waters rose tier after tier of square-set skyscrapers climbing in +an irregular hill to the thin peak of the highest tower. In the golden +haze, shot with sun, the whole block of towers loomed distant, gigantic, +shadowy, unreal--a magic city floating on the waters of the morning. +Windows flashed, spirals of white smoke spun thin from the far roofs. +Myra thought of those skyscrapers as the big brothers of the island +gazing out over the Atlantic. + +The boat rounded the tip of the island, furrowing the broad surface of +the bay, which seemed as the floor of a stage before that lifting huge +sky-lost amphitheater. Every advance changed the many-faceted beauty of +New York, and Myra, gazing, had one glimpse across little green Battery +Park up the deep twilit canon of Broadway, the city's spine. The young +woman was moved to tears. She seemed to slough off at that moment the +church of her youth, averring that New York was too big for a creed. It +was the great human outworking; the organism of the mighty many. It +seemed a miracle that all this splendor and wonder had been wrought by +human hands. Surely human nature was great--greater than she had +dreamed. If creatures like herself had wrought this, then she was more +than she had dared to imagine, "deeper than ever plummet had sounded." +She felt new courage, new faith. She wanted to leave the boat and merge +with those buildings and those swarming streets. She was proud of the +great captains who had engineered this masswork, proud of the powers +that ruled this immensity. + +But beyond all she felt the city's _livingness_. The air seemed charged +with human activity, with toil-pulsations. She was all crowded about +with human beings, and felt the mystery of what might be termed +_crowd-touch_. Here, surely, was life--life thick, happy, busy, daring, +ideal. Here was pioneering--a reaching forth to a throbbing future. So, +as the boat landed, she mentally identified herself with this city, +labeled herself New-Yorker, and became one of its millions. + +Her rapture lasted throughout her first stay. She tasted romance +glancing in shop windows or moving in a crowd or riding in an elevated +train. A letter of introduction to a friend of her mother's secured her +a companion, who "showed her the sights" and helped her choose her +boarding-house in East Eightieth Street. And then came the examinations +for public-school teaching; and after these she went home for the +summer, returning to New York in the fall. + +Then her new life began, the rapture ceased, and Myra Craig, like so +many others, found that her existence in the city was just as narrow as +it had been in the town. In some ways, more narrow. She was quite +without friends, quite without neighborhood. Her day consisted in +teaching from 9 A.M. to 3 P.M., correcting papers and planning lessons +and making reports until well into the evening, sometimes until late in +the night, and meeting at meals unfriendly people that she disliked. Her +class was composed of rather stupid, rather dirty children. They +_smelled_--a thing she never forgave them. And what could one woman do +with fifty or sixty children? The class was at least three times too big +for real teaching, and so almost inevitably a large part of the work +became routine--a grind that spoiled her temper and embittered her +heart. Her fellow-teachers were an ignorant lot; the principal himself +she thought the biggest lump of stupidity she had ever met--a man +demanding letter-perfection and caring not one rap for the growth of +children. Her week-ends were her only relief, and she used these partly +for resting and partly in going to theater and concert. + +Such for ten years--with summers spent at home--was Myra's life. It was +bounded by a few familiar streets; it was largely routine; it was hard +and bitter; and it had no future. It was anything but what she had +dreamed. New York was anything but what she had dreamed. She never saw +again that Vision of the City; never felt again that throb of life, that +sense of pioneering and of human power. And yet in those years Myra had +developed. She was thrown back on books for friendship, and through +these and through hard work and through very routine she developed +personality--grew sensitive, mentally quick, metropolitan. She had, as +it were, her own personal _flavor_--one felt in her presence a +difference, a uniqueness quite precious and exquisite. + +And then one day she had gone to the printery and met a man, who was +homely, rough, simple, and, in spite of her revulsion from these +qualities, was immensely drawn to him. Something deeper than the veneer +of her culture overpowered her. She had almost forgotten sex in the +aridity of those ten years; she had almost become a dried old maid; but +now by the new color in her cheeks, the sparkle in her eyes, the fresh +rapidity of her blood, and through the wonder of the world having become +more _light_, as if there were two suns in the sky instead of one--yes, +through the fact that she lived now at ten human-power instead of +one--her heart told her exultingly, "You are a _woman_." + +Girlhood had come again, but girlhood made all woman by immense +tenderness, by the up-rush of a wild love, and by the awakening of all +her instincts of home and mating and child-bearing. And then had come +that mad, wind-blown twilight at the riverside when the spirit of life +had drenched her and she had become grave, tender, and wrought of all +lovely power. Joe was just a boy then to her, and her great woman-heart +drew him in and sheltered him in the sacred warmth of her being. In that +moment she had reached the highest point of her womanhood, a new +unfolding, a new release. And then had come horror, and he had been +swept away from her--one glimpse of his numb, ghastly face, and he was +gone. + +It was Fannie Lemick that took her home. She only knew that she was +being led away, while crashing through her mind went flames, smoke, the +throbbing of the engines, and the words: "I may never see you again ... +dead girls...." All that night she tossed about in a horror, and in the +morning she feverishly read the terrible news until she thought she must +swoon away. She became sick; the landlady had to come up and help her; +the doctor had to be sent for, and he had told her that this nervous +breakdown had been long overdue; she had been working under too great a +strain; it only needed some shock to break her. + +But while she lay in a sick fever her heart went out to Joe. If she only +could be at his side, nerve him to the fight, protect him and soothe +him. She knew that his whole old life had been consumed in that fire, +and lay in ruins, and she felt subtly that he had been taken from her. +By one blow, at the very moment of the miracle of their love, they had +been torn from each other. She did not want to live; she hoped that she +had some serious disease that would kill her. + +But she did live; she became better, and then in a mood of passionate +tenderness she wrote her first little love-letter to Joe. She went +about, doing her school-work and bearing the weight of intolerable +lonely days, and he had written twice, just a word to her, a word of +delay. What kept him? What was he doing? She read of his testimony at +the inquest and became indignant because he blamed himself. Who was to +blame for such an accident? It was not his cigarette that had started +the blaze. In her overwrought condition she passed from a terrible love +to a sharp hate, and back and forth. Was he a fool or was he more noble +than she could fathom? He should have seen her sooner, he should not +have left her a prey to her morbid thoughts. Time and again she became +convinced that he had ceased to love her, that he was more concerned +over his burnt printery. She twisted his letters against him. She would +sit in her room trying to work at her school papers, and suddenly she +would clench her fists, turn pale, and stare despairingly at the blank +wall. + +Day after day she waited, starting up every time she heard the postman's +whistle and the ringing of the bell. And then at last one night, as she +paced up and down the narrow white little room, she heard the landlady +climbing the stairs, advancing along the hall, and there was a sharp +rap. She felt faint and dizzy, flung open the door, took the letter, and +sank down on the bed, hardly daring to open it. + +It was brief and cold: + + Dear Myra,--I know you are up early, so I am + coming around at seven to-morrow morning--I'll be + out in the street and wait for you. We can go to the + Park. I have some serious problems to lay before + you. + + Joe. + +"Serious problems!" She understood. He was paving the way for renouncing +her. Perhaps it was a money matter--he thought he ought not marry on a +reduced income. Or perhaps he found he didn't love her. For hours she +sat there with the letter crumpled in her hand, frozen, inert, until she +was incapable of feeling or thinking. So he was coming at seven. He took +it for granted that she would be ready to see him--would be eager to +walk in the Park with him. Well, what if she didn't go? A fine letter +that, after that half-hour at the riverside. A love-letter! She laughed +bitterly. And then her heart seemed to break within her. Life was too +hard. Why had she ever left the peace and quiet of Fall River? Why had +she come down to the cruel, careless, vicious city to be ground up in a +wholesale school system and then to break her heart for an uncouth, +half-educated printer? It was all too hard, too cruel. Why had she been +born to suffer so? Why must she tingle now with pain, when in a few +years she would be unfeeling dust again? Among all the millions of the +people of the earth, among all the life of earth and the circling +million scattered worlds, she felt utterly isolated, defrauded, +betrayed. Life was a terrible gift, and she did not want it. This whirl +of emotion rose and rose in her, went insanely through her brain, and, +becoming intolerable, suddenly ceased and left her careless, numb, and +hard. + +She arose mechanically and looked in the glass at herself. Her face was +haggard. + +"I'm getting homely," she thought, and quietly went to bed. + +But in the night she awoke to a swift frenzy of joy. He was coming. +After all, he was coming. She would see him. She would be near him +again. Yes, how she loved him! loved with all her nature. It was the +intensity of her love that made her hate. And she lay throbbing with +joy, her whole being quivering with desire for him. He was hers, after +all. It was the woman's part to forgive and forget. + +But when the morning broke, and she arose in her nightgown and sat on +the chair at the window, smoothing out and rereading the letter, her +doubts returned. He was coming to renounce her. He would make all sorts +of plausible excuses, he would be remorseful and penitent, but it all +came to the same end. Why should she go and meet him to be humiliated in +this way? She would not go. + +Yet she rose and dressed with unusual care and tried to smile back the +radiance of her face, and fixed her hair this way and that in a pitiful +attempt to take away the sharpness of her expression, and when her +little clock showed seven she put on hat and coat with trembling hands +and went swiftly down and out at the front door. She was shaking with +terrible emotions, fire filled and raged in her breast, and she had to +bite her lip to keep it still. + +The city flashed before her in all the sparkle of October, the air +tingled, and in the early morning light the houses, the street, looked +as bright and fresh as young school-children washed, combed, +bright-eyed, new with sleep, and up from roofs went magic veilings of +flimsy smoke. Down the avenues clanged cars black with mechanics, +clerks, and shop-girls on the way to work; people streamed hurrying to +their day's toil. The city was awake, shaking in every part of her with +glad breakfast and the rush to activity. What colossal forces swinging +in, swinging out of the metropolis in long pulsations of freight and +ship and electricity! Wall Street would roar, the skyscrapers swarm, the +schools drone and murmur and sing, the mills grind and rattle, and the +six continents and the seven seas would pulse their blood into the city +and be flushed by her radiating tides. Into this hidden activity Myra +stepped, deaf and blind to all but the clamor of her heart and a single +man walking like a black pawn aureoled in the low early sunlight. + +She came down slowly, as he came up. She glanced at his face. She was +shocked by its suffering, its gray age. He looked quite shabby in his +long frayed coat, his unpolished shoes, his gray slouch hat--shabby and +homely, and ill-proportioned, stooping a little, his rough shock of hair +framing the furrowed face and sunken melancholy eyes. And it was for +this man that she had been breaking her heart! Yet, at the moment there +swept over her an awful surge of passion, so strong that she could have +seized him in her arms and died in his embrace. + +He, in turn, saw how white and set her face was, how condemnatory. He +had come to her almost ready to throw his plans overboard and cleave to +her--for a day and a night that side of his nature had dominated, +expunging all else, driving him to her, demanding that he grasp her +magic presence, her womanly splendor. This alone was real, and all the +rest fantastic. And he had walked up and down the street with all the +October morning singing in his blood; the world was glorious again and +he was young; he would take her, he would forget all else, and they +would go off somewhere in the wilderness and really live. He had never +lived yet. He thirsted for life, he thirsted for all this woman could +give him. And now the condemnation in her face choked him off, made her +a stranger, separated them, made it hard to speak to her. + +He cried in a low voice: + +"Myra!" + +The word was charged with genuine passion, and she became more pale, and +stood unable to find her tongue, her lips quivering painfully. + +Then suddenly there was a nervous overflow. + +"You wanted to walk in the Park," she blurted in a cold, uneven voice. +"We'd better be going then. I won't have much time. I've got to be at +school early." + +She started off, and he strode beside her. They walked in a strange slow +silence, each charged with inexpressible, conflicting emotions, and +each waiting for the other. This strain was impossible, and finally Joe +began speaking in low tones. + +"I know it seems queer that I haven't been to see you ... but you'll +understand, I couldn't. There was so much to do...." + +He stopped, and then again came the cold, uneven voice: + +"You could have found a moment." + +They went on in silence, and entered the Park, following the walk where +it swept its curve alongside the tree-arched roadway, past low green +hills to the right and the sinking lawns to the left, crossed the +roadway, and climbed the steep path that gave on to the Ramble--that +twisty little wilderness in the heart of the city, that remote, wild, +magic tangle. + +A little pond lay in the very center of it, all deep with the blue sky, +and golden October gloried all about it--swaying in wild-tinted +treetops, blowing in dry leaves, sparkling on every spot of wet, and all +suffused and splashed and strangely fresh with the low, red, radiant +sunlight. There was splendor in the place, and the air dripped with +glorious life, and through it all went the lovers, silent, estranged, +pitiable. + +"We can sit here," said Joe. + +It was a bench under a tree, facing the pond. They sat down, each gazing +on the ground, and the leaves dropped on them, and squirrels ran up to +them, tufted their tails and begged for peanuts with lustrous beady +eyes, and now and then some early walker or some girl or man on the way +to work swung lustily past and disappeared in foliage and far low vistas +of tree trunks. + +The suspense became intolerable again. Joe turned a little to her. + +"Myra!" + +She was trembling; a moment more she would be in his arms, sobbing, +forgiving him. But she hurried on in an unnatural way. + +"You wanted to speak to me--I'm waiting. _Why_ don't you speak?" + +It was a blow in the face; his own voice hardened then. + +"You're making it very hard for me." + +She said nothing, and he had to go on. + +"After the fire--" his voice snapped, and it was a space before he went +on, "I felt I was guilty.... I went to a mass-meeting and one of the +speakers accused the ... class I belong to ... of failing in their +duty.... She said ..." + +Myra spoke sharply: + +"Who said?" + +"Miss Heffer." + +"Oh!" + +Joe felt suddenly silenced. Something unpleasant was creeping in between +them. He did not know enough of women, either, to divine how Myra was +suffering, to know that she had reached a nervous pitch where she was +hardly responsible for what she thought and said. He went on +blunderingly: + +"I felt that I was accused... I felt that I had to make reparation to +the toilers, ... had to spend my life making conditions better.... You +see this country has reached a crisis ..." + +It was all gibberish to her. + +"Exactly what do you mean?" she asked, sharply. + +"I mean"--he fumbled for words--"I must go and live among the poor and +arouse them and teach them of the great change that is taking place...." + +She laughed strangely. + +"Oh--an uplifter, settlement work, charity work--" + +He was stupefied. + +"Myra, can't you see--" + +"Yes, I see," she said, raising her voice a little; "you're going to +live in the slums and you want me to release you. I do. Anything else?" + +She was making something sordid of his beautiful dream, and she was +startlingly direct. He was cut to the heart. + +"You're making it impossible," he began. + +She laughed a little, stroking down her muff. + +"So you're going to live among the poor ... and you didn't dare come and +tell me...." + +"I had no right to involve you until I was sure...." + +"And now you're sure...." + +"No," he cried. + +She raised her voice a little again: + +"And I wrote asking if I couldn't help you. Women are fools...." + +He sat searching about for something to say. His heart was like cold +lead in his breast; his head ached. He felt her side of the case very +vividly, and how could she ever understand? + +Then, as she sat there her head seemed to explode, and she spoke +hurriedly, incoherently: + +"It's time to get to school. I want to go alone. Good-by." + +She rose and went off rapidly. + +"Myra!" he cried, leaping up, but she only accelerated her pace.... + +Instead of going to school she went straight home, flung herself +full-length on the bed, buried her face in the pillow, and shook for a +long time with terrible tearless sobs. Her life was ruined within her. + + + + +VI + + +MARTY BRIGGS + +Joe went home in a distraught condition. He was angry, amazed, and +passion-shaken. He had had a look into that strange mixture which is +woman--and he was repelled, and yet attracted as he had never been +before. He felt that all was over between them, that somehow she had +convicted him of being brutal, selfish, and unmanly, and in the light of +her condemnation he saw in his delay to meet her only cowardice and +harsh indifference. And yet all along he had acted on the conclusion +that he had no right to ask a woman to go into the danger of his work +with him. + +Pacing up and down his narrow room, he began lashing himself again, +excusing, forgiving Myra everything. He had never really understood her +nature; he should have gone to her in the beginning and trusted to her +love and her insight; he should have let her share the aftermath of the +fire; that fierce experience would have taught her that he was forever +mortgaged to a life of noble reparation, and even the terror of it all +would have been better than shutting her out, to brood morbidly alone. + +Yet, what could he do? He must be strong, be wise, keep his head. He had +pledged himself, sworn himself into the service of the working class +movement. There was no escape. He tried to bury himself in his books, +regain for a moment his splendid dream of the future state, feel again +those strange throes of world-building, of social service. + +And out of it all grew a letter, a letter to Myra. He wrote it in a +strange haste, the sentences coming too rapidly for his pen. It ran: + + DEAR MYRA,--I must _make_ you understand! I hurt + you when I wanted to help you; I wronged you when + I wanted only to do right by you. Why didn't you + listen to me this morning? + + It was at the fire there, at that moment you tugged + at my sleeve and I spoke to you, that I saw clearly that + my life was no longer my own, that I could not even + give it to you, whom I loved, whom I love now with + every bit of my existence. I told you I belonged to + those dead girls. Have you forgotten? _Sixty of them_--and + three of my men. It was as if I had killed them + myself. I am a guilty man, and I must expiate this + guilt. There is no use fooling myself with pleasant + phrases, no use thinking others to blame. It was I + who was responsible. + + And through the death of those girls I learned of the + misery of the world, of the millions in want, the women + wrenched from their homes to toil in the mills, the + little children--fresh, sweet bodies, bubbling hearts, + and tender, whimsical minds--slaving in factories, + tiny boys and girls laboring like men and women in + cotton and knitting mills, in glass factory and coal-mine, + and on the streets of cities, upon whose frail little + spirits is thrust the responsibility, the wage burden, the + money, and family trouble, the care and drudgery and + mortal burden we grown people ourselves not seldom + find too hard. I have learned of a world gone wrong; + I have learned of a new slavery on earth; and I as a + member of the master class share the general guilt for + the suffering of the poor...I must help to free + them from the very conditions that killed the sixty + girls... + + And when I think of those girls and their families + (some of them were the sole support of their mothers + and sisters and brothers) the least I can do is to render + up my life for the, lives that were lost--the least I can + do is to fill myself with the spirit of the dead and + go forth, not to avenge them, but to help build a + world where the living will not be sacrificed as they + were. + + This country is facing a great crisis; civilization is + facing a great crisis. Shall we go forward or be drawn + backward? There is a call to arms and every man must + offer his life in the great fight--that fight for democracy, + that fight for lifting up the millions to new levels of + life, that fight for a better earth and a superber race + of human beings; and in that fight I am with the + pioneers, heart and soul; I am ringing with the joy + and struggle of it; I am for it, with all my strength and + all my power. It demands everything; its old cry, + "Arise, arise, and follow me;" means giving up possessions, + giving away all, making every sacrifice. Before + this issue our little lives shrink into nothingness, + and we must sink our happiness into the future of the + world. + + How can I ask you to go into the peril, the dirt, and + disease of this struggle? And how can I refrain from + going in myself? Let me see you once more. Do not + deny me that. And understand that through life my + love will follow you ... a love greatened, I trust, by + what little I do in the great cause.... + + Ever yours, JOE + +He waited for an answer and none came, and he felt during those days +that the life was being dragged out of him. Feverishly then he buried +himself in his tasks and his books, he went on cramming himself with +theories until he reached the bursting-point and wanted to go out on +fire with mission, almost a fanatic, an Isaiah to shake the city with +invective and prophesy change. What could he do to spread the tidings, +the news? The time had come to find an outlet for the overbearing flood +within him. And then one evening in the Park like a flash came the plan. +He must go among the poor, he must get to know them--not in this +neighborhood, "a prophet is not without honor, etc."--but in some new +place where he was unknown. He thought of Greenwich Village. Did not +Fannie Lemick tell him that Sally Heffer lived in Greenwich Village? +Well, he would look into the matter. He was a printer; why not then +print a little weekly newspaper directly for the toilers, for his +neighbors? He could tell all that way, pour out his enlightenment, stir +them, stand by them, take part in their activities, their troubles and +their strikes and lead them forth to a new life. He was sure they were +ripe for the facts, powder awaiting the spark; he would go down among +them and make his paper the center of their disorganized life. + +The more he thought of the plan the more it thrilled him. What was +greater than the power of the press? What more direct? He was done with +palliatives, finding men jobs, giving Christmas turkeys, paying for +coal. What the people needed was education so that they could get +justice--all else would follow. + +But even at that perfervid period of his life Joe was saved from being a +John Brown by his sense of humor. This was the imp in him that always +poked a little doubt into his heart and laughed at his ignorance and +innocence. By next morning Joe was smiling at himself. Nevertheless, he +was driven ahead. + +He called for Marty Briggs and they went to lunch together. Third Avenue +lay naked to the rain, which swept forward in silvery gusts, dripping, +dripping from the elevated structure, and the pattering liquid sound had +a fresh mellow music. Here and there a man or woman, mush-roomed by an +umbrella, dashed quickly for a car, and the trolleys, gray and crowded, +seemed to duck hurriedly under the downpour. The faces of Joe and Marty +were fresh-washed and spattering drops; they laughed together as they +walked. + +"I've some business to talk over with you," explained Joe, and they +finally went into a little restaurant on Third Avenue. The stuffy little +place, warm and damp with the excluded rain, and odorous with sizzling +lard and steaming coffee and boiling cabbage, was crowded with people, +but Joe and Marty took a little table to themselves in the darkest +corner. They sat against the dirty rear wall, whose white paint was +finger-marked, fly-specked, and food-spotted, and in which a +shelf-aperture furnished the connection with the kitchen. To this hole +in the wall hurried the three waitresses, shrieking their orders above +the din of many voices and the clatter and clash of plates and utensils. + +"One ham--and!" + +A monstrous greasy cook peered forth, shoving out a plate of fried eggs +and echoing huskily: + +"Ham--and!" + +"Corn-beef-an'-cabbage!" "One harf-an'-harf!" "Make a sunstroke on the +hash!" and other pleasing chants of the noon. + +"What'll yer have?" + +A thin and nervous young woman swooped between them and mopped off the +sloppy, crumby table with her apron. + +"What's good?" asked Joe. + +The waitress regarded Joe with half-shut eyes. + +"_You_ want veal cutlets." + +And she wafted the information to the cook. + +"Well, Joe," said the practical Briggs, unable to hold in his excitement +any longer, "let's get down to business." + +Joe leaned forward. + +"I'm thinking of starting up the printery, Marty." + +Marty flushed, choked, and could hardly speak. + +"I _knew_ you would, Joe." + +"Yes," Joe went on, "but I'm not going to go on with it." + +Marty spoke sharply: + +"Why not?" + +"I'll tell you later, Marty." + +"Not--lost your nerve? The fire?" + +Joe laughed softly. + +"Other reasons--Marty." + +"Retire?" Marty's appetite was spoiled. He pushed the veal cutlet from +him. He was greatly agitated. "Retire--_you_? I can see you doing +nothing, blamed if I can't. Gettin' sporty, Joe, in your old age, aren't +you? You'll be wearing one of these dress-suits next and a flasher in +yer chest. Huh!" he snorted, "you'd make a good one on the shelf!" + +Joe laughed with joy. + +"With my flunkies and my handmaids. No, Marty, I'm going into another +business." + +"What business?" + +"Editing a magazine." + +"And what do you know about editing a magazine?" + +"What do most of the editors know?" queried Joe. "You don't have to know +anything. Everybody's editing magazines nowadays." + +"A magazine!" Marty was disgusted. "You're falling pretty low, Joe. Why +don't you stick to an honest business? Gosh! you'd make a queer fist +editing a magazine!" + +Joe was delighted. + +"Well, there are reasons, Marty." + +"What reasons?" + +So Joe in a shaking voice unfolded his philosophy, and as he did so +Marty became dazed and aghast, gazing at his boss as if Joe had turned +into some unthinkable zoological oddity. Into Marty's prim-set life, +with its definite boundaries and unmysterious exactness, was poured a +vapor of lunacy. Finally Joe wound up with: + +"So you see I've got to do what little I can to help straighten things. +You see, Marty? Now, what do you think of it? Give me your honest +opinion." + +Marty spoke sharply: + +"You want to know what I really think?" + +"Every word of it!" + +"Now see here, Joe," Marty burst out, "you and I grew up in the business +together, and we know each other well enough to speak out, even if you +are my boss, don't we?" + +"We do, Marty!" + +Marty leaned over. + +"Joe, I think you're a blamed idiot!" + +Joe laughed. + +"Well, Marty, if it weren't for the blamed idiots--like Columbus and Tom +Watts and the prophets and Abe Lincoln--this world would be in a pretty +mess." + +But Marty refused to be convinced, even averring that the world _is_ in +a pretty mess, and that probably the aforementioned "idiots" had caused +it to be so. Then finally he spoke caressingly: + +"Ah, Joe, tell me it's a joke." + +"No," said Joe, earnestly, "it's what I've got to face, Marty, and I +need your backing." + +Marty mused miserably. + +"So the game's up, and you've changed, and we men can go to the dogs. +Why, we can't run that printery without you. We'd go plumb to hell!" + +Joe changed his voice--it became more commanding. + +"Never mind now, Marty. I want your help to figure things out." + +So Marty got out his little pad and the two drew close together. + +"I want to figure on a weekly newspaper--I'm figuring big on the +future--just want to see what it will come to. Say an edition of twenty +thousand copies, an eight-page paper, eight by twelve, no +illustrations." + +Marty spoke humbly: + +"As you say, Joe. Cheap paper?" + +"Yes." + +"Do your own printing?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, you'll need a good cylinder press for a starter." + +"How much help?" + +"Make-up man--pressman--feeder--that's on the press. Will you set up the +paper yourself?" + +"No, I'll have it set up outside." + +"Who'll bind it, fold, and address?" + +"The bindery--give that out, too." + +"And who'll distribute?" + +"Outside, too." + +"The news company?" + +"No, I won't deal with any news company. I want to go direct to the +people. Say I get a hundred newsmen to distribute in their +neighborhood?" + +"But who'll get the paper to the newsmen?" + +"Hire a truck company--so much a week." + +"And how much will you charge for the paper?" + +"Cent a copy." + +"Can't do it," said Marty. + +"Why not?" + +Marty did some figuring, so they raised the price to two cents. And then +they put in twenty minutes and worked out the scheme. It summed up as +follows: + + Paper sells at 2 cts., 20,000 $400 + Expenses 340 + ---- + Profit $ 60 + +Joe was exultant. + +"Sixty profit! Well, I'm hanged." + +"Not so fast, Joe," said Marty, drily. "They say no one ever started a +magazine without getting stuck, and anyway, you just reckon there'll be +expenses that will run you into debt right along. But of course there'll +be the ads." + +"I don't know about the ads," said Joe. "But the figures please me just +the same." + +Marty squirmed in his chair. + +"Joe," he burst out, "how the devil is the printery going to run without +you?" + +Their eyes met, and Joe laughed. + +"Will it be worth twenty-five thousand dollars when it's rebuilt and +business booming again?" he asked, shrewdly. + +"More than that!" said Marty Briggs. + +"Then," said Joe, "I want _you_ to take it." + +"_Me_?" Marty was stunned. + +"You can do it easily. I'll take a mortgage and you pay it off two +thousand a year and five per cent. interest. That will still leave you a +tidy profit." + +"_Me_?" Then Marty laughed loud. "Listen, my ears! Did you hear that?" + +"Think it over!" snapped Joe. "Now come along." + + + + +VII + + +LAST OF JOE BLAINE AND HIS MEN + +So the printery was rehabilitated, and one gray morning Joe, with a +queer tremor at his heart, went down the street and met many of his men +in the doorway. They greeted him with strange, ashamed emotion. + +"Morning, Mr. Joe.... It's been a long spell.... Good to see the old +place again.... Bad weather we're having.... How've you been?" + +The loft seemed strangely the same, strangely different--fresh painted, +polished, smelling new and with changed details. For a few moments Joe +felt the sharp shock of the fire again, especially when he heard the +trembling of the hat factory overhead ... and that noon the bright faces +and laughter in the hallway! It seemed unreal; like ghosts revisiting; +and he learned later that the first morning the hat factory had set to +work, some of the girls had become hysterical. + +But as he stood in his private office, looking out into the gray loft, +and feeling how weird and swift are life's changes, the men turned on +the electrics, and the floors and walls began their old trembling and +the presses clanked and thundered. He could have wept. To Joe this +moment of starting up had always been precious: it had seemed to bring +him something he had missed; something that fitted like an old shoe and +was friendly and familiar. All at once he felt as if he could not leave +this business, could not leave these men. + +And yet he had only three days with them to wind up the business and +install Marty Briggs. And then there was a last supper of Joe Blaine and +his men. Those days followed one another with ever-deepening gloom, in +which the trembling printery and all the human beings that were part of +it seemed steeped in a growing twilight. Do what Joe would and could in +the matter of good-fellowship, loud laughter, and high jocularity, the +darkness thickened staggeringly. Hardly had Joe settled the transfer of +the printery to Marty, when the rumor of the transaction swept the +business. At noon men gathered in groups and whispered together as if +some one had died, and one after another approached Joe with a: + +"Mr. Joe, is it true what the fellows say?" + +"Yes, Tom." + +"Going to leave us, Mr. Joe?" + +"Going, Tom." + +"_Got_ to go?" + +"I'm afraid I have to." + +"I'll hate to go home and tell my wife, Mr. Joe. She'll cry her head +off." + +"Oh, come! come!" + +"Say--we men, Mr. Joe--" + +But Tom would say no more, and go off miserably; only to be replaced by +Eddie or Mack or John, and then some such dialogue would be repeated. +Under the simple and inadequate words lurked that sharp tragedy of life, +the separation of comrades, that one event which above all others +darkens the days and gives the sense of old age. And the men seemed all +the closer to Joe because of the tragedy of the fire. All these +conversations told on Joe. He went defiantly about the shop, but +invariably his spoken orders were given in a humble, almost affectionate +tone, as (with one arm loosely about the man): + +"Say, Sam, _don't_ you think you'd better use a little benzine on that?" + +And Sam would answer solemnly: + +"I've always done as you've said, Mr. Joe--since the very first." + +His men succeeded in this way in making Joe almost as miserable as when +he had parted from Myra; and indeed a man's work is blood of his blood, +heart of his heart. + +Possibly one thing that hurt Joe as much as anything else was a curious +change in Marty Briggs. That big fellow, from the moment that Joe had +handed over the business, began to unfold hitherto unguessed bits of +personality. He ceased to lament Joe's going; he went about the shop +with a certain jaunty air of proprietorship; and the men, for some +unknown reason, began to call him Mr. Briggs. He even grew a bit cool +toward Joe. Joe watched him with a sad sort of mirth, and finally called +him into the office one morning. He put his hands on the big man's +shoulders and looked in his face. + +"Marty," he said, "I hope you're not going to make an ass of yourself." + +"What do you mean?" murmured Marty. + +Joe brought his face a little nearer. + +"I want to know something." + +"What?" + +Joe spoke slowly: + +"_Are you Marty Briggs now or are you Martin Briggs_?" + +Marty tried to laugh; tried to look away. + +"What's the difference?" he muttered. + +"Difference?" Joe's voice sank. "Marty, I thought you were a bigger man. +It's only the little peanut fellows who want to be bossy and +holier-than-thou. _Don't make any mistake_!" + +"I guess," muttered Marty, "I can steer things O.K." + +"You'd better!" Joe spoke a little sharply. "Our men here are as big as +you and I, every one of them. My God! you'll have to pay the price of +being a high muck-a-muck, Marty! So, don't forget it!" + +Marty tried to laugh again. + +"You're getting different lately," he suggested. + +"I?" Joe laughed harshly. "What if it's you? But don't let's quarrel. +We've been together too long. Only, let's both remember. That's all, +Marty!" + +All of which didn't mend matters. It was that strangest of all the +twists of human nature--the man rising from the ranks turning against +his fellows. + +On Friday night Joe climbed the three flights of the stuffy Eightieth +Street tenement and had supper with the Ranns. That family of five +circled him with such warmth of love that the occasion burst finally +into good cheer. The two girls, seated opposite him, sent him smiling +and wordless messages of love. Not a word was said of the fire, but John +kept serving him with large portions of the vegetables and the excellent +and expensive steak which had been bought in his honor; and John's wife +kept spurring him on. + +"I'm sure Mr. Joe could stand just a weeny sliver more." + +"Mrs. Rann"--Joe put down knife and fork--"do you want me to _burst_?" + +"A big man like you? Give him the sliver, John." + +"John, spare me!" + +"Mr. Joe"--John waved his hand with an air of finality--"in the shop +what you says goes, but in this here home I take my orders from the old +lady. See?" + +"Nellie--Agnes--" he appealed, despairingly, to his little loves, "_you_ +save me! Don't you love me any more?" + +This set Nellie and Agnes giggling with delight. + +"Give him a pound, a whole pound!" cried Agnes, who was the elder. + +A nice sliver was waved dripping on Joe's plate, which Joe proceeded to +eat desperately, all in one mouthful. Whereupon the Ranns were convulsed +with joy, and John kept "ha-ha-ing" as he thumped the table, and went to +such excesses that he seemed to put his life in peril and Mrs. Rann and +the girls had to rise and pound him until their hands hurt. + +"Serves you right, John," said Joe, grimly. "Try it again, and you'll +get a stroke." + +"Ain't he the limit?" queried John, gasping. + +Then Mrs. Rann went mysteriously to the cupboard, and the girls began to +whisper together and giggle. And then Mrs. Rann brought something +covered with a napkin, and then the napkin was removed. It was pie. + +Joe pretended that he didn't know the secret, and leaned far over and +gazed at it. + +"It's--well, what is it?" + +Mrs. Rann's voice rang with exultation. + +"Your favorite, Mr. Joe." + +"Not--_raisin pie_?" + +A shout went up from all. Then real moisture came stealthily to Joe's +eyes, and he looked about on those friendly faces, and murmured: + +"Thoughtful, mightily thoughtful!" + +There was a special bottle of wine--rather cheap, it is true, but then +it was served with raisin pie and with human love, which made it very +palatable. Mrs. Rann fixed John with a sharp glance through her glasses +and cleared her throat several times, and finally Agnes gave him a poke +in the ribs, whispering: + +"Hurry up, dad!" + +John blushed and rose to his feet. + +"Mr. Joe, I ain't a talker, anyway on my feet. But, Mr. Joe, you've been +my boss six years. And, Mr. Joe--" He paused, stuck, and gazed +appealingly at Joe. + +Joe rose to the occasion. + +"So it's, here's to good friends, isn't it, John?" + +John beamed. + +"That's it--you took the words out of my mouth! Toast!" + +So they drank. + +Then Joe rose, and spoke musingly, tenderly: + +"There's a trifle I want to say to you to-night--to every one of you. I +can't do without you. Now it happens that I'm going to put a press in my +new business and I'm looking for a first-class crackerjack of a +pressman. Do you happen to know any one in this neighborhood who could +take the job?" + +He sat down. There was profound silence. And then Mrs. Rann took off +her spectacles and sobbed. John reached over and took Joe's hand, and +his voice was husky with tears. + +"Mr. Joe! Mr. Joe! Ah, say, you make me feel foolish!" + +Joe stayed with them late that night, and when he left, the kisses of +the two girls moist on his cheeks, he had no doubt of his life-work. But +next day, Saturday--the last day--was downright black. Things went +wrong, and the men steered clear of Joe. + +"Don't bother _him_," they said, meaning to spare him, and thereby +increasing his pain. Men spoke in hushed tones, as soldiers might on the +eve of a fatal battle, and even Marty Briggs dropped his new mannerisms +and was subdued and simple. + +Then Joe went off into a state of mind which might be described as the +"hazes"--a thing he did now and then. At such times the word went round: + +"The old man's got 'em again!" + +And he was left well alone, for the good reason that he was +unapproachable. He seemed not to listen to spoken words, nor to pay any +attention to the world about him. The men, however, appreciated these +spells, for, as a rule, something came of them--they bore good practical +fruit, the sure test of all sanity. + +The day finally wore away, to every one's relief. Joe took a last look +around at all the familiar scene, shut his desk, handed over the keys +to Marty (who could not speak because he was half-choked), sang out, +"See you later, boys!" heard for the last time the sharp ring of the +door-bell and the slam of the door, and hurried away. Then at last night +came, and with night the last supper (as already announced) of Joe +Blaine and His Men. + +By Monday there would be painted an addition on that door, namely: + + MARTIN BRIGGS + SUCCESSOR TO + +The supper was held in the large hall, upstairs, of Pfaff's, on East +Eighty-sixth Street. The large table was a dream of green and white, of +silver and glass, and the men hung about awkwardly silent in their +Sunday best. Then Joe cried: + +"Start the presses!" + +There came a good laugh then to break the icy air, and they sat down and +were served by flying waiters, who in this instance had the odd +distinction of appearing to be the "upper classes" serving the +"lower"--a distinction, up to date, not over-eagerly coveted by society. +For the waiters wore the conventional dress of "gentlemen" and the +diners were in plain and common clothes. + +At first the diners were in a bit of a funk, but Pfaff's excellent +meats and cool, sparkling wines soon set free in each a scintillant +human spirit, and the banquet took on almost an air of gaiety. + +Finally there came the coffee and the ice-cream in forms, and Martin +Briggs rose. There was a stamping of feet, a clanking of knives on +glasses, a cry of "Hear! Hear!" + +Martin Briggs knew it by heart and launched it with the aid of two +swallows of water. His voice boomed big. + +"Fellow-workers, friends, and the Old Man!" + +This produced tumults of applause. + +"We are met to-night on a solemn occasion. Ties are to be severed, +friends parted. Such is life. Mr. Blaine--" (Cries from the far end of +the table, "Say, Joe! say, Joe!") "Mr. Joe has been our friend, through +all these long years. He has been our friend, our boss, our co-worker. +Never did he spare himself; often he spared us. He had created an +important business, a profitable business, a business which has brought +a good living to every one of us. It is not for us to talk of the +catastrophe--this is not the occasion for that. Enough to say that +to-night Mr. Joe leaves that business. Others must carry it on. My +sentiment is that these others must continue in the same spirit of Mr. +Joe. That's my sentiment." (Roars of applause, stamping of feet, but one +voice heard in talk with a neighbor, "Say, I guess his wife wrote that, +Bill.") "So I propose a toast. To Mr. Joe, now and forever!" + +They rose, they clanked glasses, they drank. Then they sat down and felt +that something was wrong. Marty surely had missed fire. + +Whereupon John Rann, blushing, rose to his feet, and began to stammer: + +"Say, fellers, do you mind if I put in a word?" (Cries: "Not a bit!" +"Soak it him, Johnny.") "Well, I want to say," his voice rose, "Joe +Blaine is _it_." (Applause, laughter, stamping.) "He's jest one of us." +(Cries: "You bet!" "You've hit it, Johnny!" "Give us more!") "He's a +friend." (Cries: "That's the dope!") "He never did a mean thing in his +life." (One loud cry: "Couldn't if he wanted to!") "Say," (Cries: "Go +ahead!" "Nobody 'll stop yer!" "Give him hell!" Laughter.) "We fellers +never appreciated this here Joe Blaine, did we?" (Cries: "Gosh no!") +"But we do _now_!" (Uproarious and prolonged applause.) "Say, fellers, +he's been like a regular father to us kids." (A strange silence.) "He's +been--Oh, hell!" (Speaker wipes his eyes with a red handkerchief. +Strange silence prolonged. Then one voice: "Tell him to his face, John. +'Bout time he knew.") "Joe Blaine" (speaker faces Mr. Blaine, and tries +not to choke), "if any one tries to say that you had anything to do with +the fire--he's a _damned liar_!" + +A thrill charged the men; they became pale; they gazed on Joe, who +looked as white as linen; and suddenly they burst forth in a wildness, +a shouting, a stamping, a cry of: "Mr. Joe! Mr. Joe! Mr. Joe!" + +Joe arose; he leaned a little forward; he trembled visibly, his rising +hand shaking so that he dropped it. Then at last he spoke: + +"Yes--John is my friend. And you--are my friends. Yes. But--you're +wrong. I _was_ to blame." He paused. "I _was_ to blame. Here, to-night, +I want to say this: Those girls, those comrades of ours--all that went +to waste with them--well," his voice broke, "I'm going to try to make +good for them...." + +For a moment he stood there, his face working strangely as if he were +going to break down, and the men looked away from him. Then he went on +in a voice warmly human and tender: + +"You and I, boys, we grew up together. I know your wives and children. +You've given me happy hours. I've made you stand for a lot--your old man +was considerable boy--had his bad habits, his queer notions. Once in +awhile went crazy. But we managed along, quarreling just enough to hit +it off together. Remember how I fired Tommy three times in one week? +Couldn't get rid of him. Oh, Tommy, what 'pi' you made of things! Great +times we've had, great times. It hurts me raw." He paused, looking round +at them. They were glancing at him furtively with shining eyes. "Hurts +me raw to think those times are over--for me. But the dead have called +me. I go out into another world. I go out into a great fight. I may +fail--quite likely I will. But I shall be backed. Your love goes with +me, and I've got a big job ahead." Again he paused, overcome. Then he +tried to smile, tried to smooth out the tragic with a forced jocularity. +"Now, boys, behave. Mind you don't work too much. And don't all forget +the old man. And--but that's enough, I guess." + +The silence was terrible. Some of those big men were crying softly like +stricken children. It was the last requiem over the dead, the last +flare-up of the tragic fire. They crowded round Joe. He was blind +himself with tears, though he felt a strange quiet in his heart. + +And then he was out in the starry autumn night, walking home, murmuring: + +"It's all over. That's out of my life." + +And he felt as if something had died within him. + + + + +VIII + + +THE WIND IN THE OAKS + +Early Monday evening there came a note from Myra: + + I wanted you to know that I am leaving for the + country--to-morrow--to get a rest. + + MYRA. + +Joe at once put on his hat and coat and went out. The last meeting with +his men had given him a new strength, a heightened manhood. Like a man +doomed to death, he felt beyond despair now. He only knew he must go to +Myra and set straight their relationship as a final step before he +plunged into the great battle. No more weakness! No more quarreling! But +clear words and definite understanding! + +He went up the stoop and rang the bell. A servant opened the door, +showed him into the dimly lighted parlor, and went up the stairs with +his name. He heard her footsteps, light, hesitant. She appeared before +him, pale and sick and desperate. + +"What do you want?" she asked in a tortured voice. + +He arose and came close to her. He spoke authoritatively: + +"Myra, get on your things. We must take a walk." + +Her shifting eyes glanced up, gave him their full luminous gray and all +the trouble of her heart. + +"Myra," his voice deepened, and struck through her, "you must go with me +to-night. It's our last chance." + +She turned and was gone. He heard her light footsteps ascending; he +waited, wondering, hoping; and then she came down again, showing her +head at the door. She had on the little rounded felt hat, and she +carried her muff. + +They went out together, saying nothing, stepping near one another under +the lamps and over the avenues, and into the Park. It was a strange, +windy night, touched with the first bleakness of winter, tinged with the +moaning melancholy of the tossing oak-trees, and with streaks of faint +reflected city lights in the far heavens. + +It was their last night together. Both knew it. There was no help for +it. The great issues of life were sweeping them away into black gulfs of +the future, where there might never be meeting again, never hand-touch +nor sound of each other's voice. And strangely life deepened in their +hearts, and they were swept by the mystery of being alive ... alive in +the star-streaked darkness of space, alive with so many other brief +creatures that brightened for a moment in the gloom and then sank away +into the stormy heart of nature. And Love contended with Death, and the +little labors of man helped Death to crush Love; and so that moment of +existence, that brief span, became a mere brute struggle, a clash, a +fight, a thing sordid and worse than death. + +Out of the mystery, each, from some unimaginable distance, had come +forth and met here on the earth, met for a wild moment, a moment that +gave them lightning-lit glimpses of that mystery, only to part from each +other now, each to return into the darkness. + +They felt in unison more than they could ever say. And it was the last +night together. + +They sat down on a bench, under those mournful boughs, under the +lamentations of the oaks. + +"Myra," said Joe. + +She murmured, "Yes." + +His voice was charged with some of the strangeness of the night, some +significance of the mystery of life and death. + +"You read my letter ..." + +"Yes." + +"And you understand ... at last?" + +"I don't know ... I can't tell." + +He paused; he leaned nearer. + +"Why are you going away?" + +"I've been sick," she whispered. "The doctor told me to go." + +"For long?" + +"For a rest." + +"And you go to-morrow?" + +"I go to-morrow." + +"_Without forgiving me_?" He leaned very near. + +There was a palpitating silence, a silence that searched their souls, +and sharply then Myra cried out: + +"Oh, Joe! Joe! This is killing me!" + +"Myra!" he cried. + +He drew her close, very close, stroking her cheek, and the tears ran +over his fingers. + +"Oh, don't you see," he went on, brokenly, "I can't ask you to come with +me? And yet I must go?" + +"I don't know," she sobbed. "I must go away and rest ... and think ... +and try to understand...." + +"And may I write to you?..." + +"Yes," she murmured. + +"And I am forgiven?" + +"Forgive me!" she sobbed. + +They could say no more, but sat in the wild darkness, clasping each +other as if they could not let one another go.... How could they send +each other forth to go in loneliness and homelessness to the ends of the +earth? The hours passed as they talked brokenly together, words of +remorse, of love, of forgiveness. + +And then finally they arose--it was very late--and Myra whispered, +clinging to him: + +"We must say good-by here!" + +"Good-by!" he cried ... and they kissed. + +"Joe," she exclaimed, "take care of yourself! Do just that for me!" + +"I will," he said huskily, "but you must do the same for me. Promise." + +"I promise!" + +"Oh, Joe!" she cried out, "what is life doing with us?" + +And they went back, confused and strange, through the lighted streets. +They stood before her house. + +"Till you come back!" he whispered. + +She flashed about then, a look of a new wonder in her eyes. + +"If only I thought you were right in your work!" she cried. + +"You will! You will, Myra! And in that hope, we will go on!" + +She was gone; the door shut him out of her life. And all alone, strong, +bitter, staring ahead, Joe stepped off to begin the new life ... to +plunge into the battle. + + * * * * * + + +PART II--THE TEST + + + + +I + + +BEGINNINGS + +It was in that red gash of crosstown brick--West Tenth Street--that the +new life began. The neighborhood was quaint and poor, a part of that old +Greenwich Village which at one time was a center of quiet and chaste +respectability, with its winding streets, its old-fashioned low brick +houses, its trees, its general air of detachment and hushed life. Now it +was a scene of slovenliness and dust, of miserable lives huddled thickly +in inadequate houses, of cheap roomers and boarders, of squalid +poverty--a mix of many nations well-sprinkled with saloons. + +But the house was quite charming--three stories, red brick, with a stoop +of some ten steps, and long French windows on the first floor. Behind +those French windows was a four-room flat; beneath them, in the +basement, a room with iron-grated windows. Into that flat Joe and his +mother moved. + +The invasion was unostentatious. No one could have dreamed that the +tall, homely man, dashing in and out in his shirt-sleeves between the +rooms and the moving-van drawn up at the curb, had come down with the +deliberate purpose of making a neighborhood out of a chaos, of +organizing that jumble of scattered polyglot lives.... In the faded +sunshine of the unusually warm winter afternoon, with its vistas of +gold-dusty air, and its noise of playing children and on-surging +trolleys and trucks and all the minute life of the saloons and the +stores--women hanging out of windows to get the recreation of watching +the confused drama of the streets, neighbors meeting in doorways, young +men laughing and chatting in clusters about lamp-posts--Joe toiled +valiantly and happily. He would rapidly glance at the thickly peopled +street and wonder, with a thrill, how soon he would include these lives +in his own, how soon he would grip and rouse and awaken the careless +multitude.... + +All was strange, all was new. Everything that was deep in his life--all +the roots he had put down through boyhood, youth, and manhood into the +familiar life of Yorkville--was torn up and transplanted to this fresh +and unfriendly soil.... He felt as if he were in an alien land, under +new skies, in a new clime, and there was all the romance of the +mysterious and all the fear of the untried. Beginnings always have the +double quality of magic and timidity--the dreaded, delicious first +plunge into cold water, the adventurous striking out into unknown +perils.... Did it not at moments seem like madness to dare +single-handed into this vast and careless population? Was he not merely +a modern Don Quixote tilting at windmills? Well, so be it, he thought; +the goal might be unreachable, but the quest was life itself. + +He had an inkling of the monstrous size of New York. All his days he had +lived within a half-hour's ride of Greenwich Village, and yet it was a +new world to him. So the whole city was but a conglomeration of nests of +worlds, woven together by a few needs and the day's work, worlds as yet +undiscovered in every direction, huge tracts of peoples of all races +leading strange and unassimilated lives. He felt lost in the crowded +immensity, a helpless, obscure unit in the whirl of life. + +He had fallen in love with Greenwich Village from the first day he had +explored it for a promising dwelling-place. Here, he knew, lived Sally +Heffer, and here doubtless he would meet her and she would help shape +his fight, perhaps be the woman to gird on his armor, put sword in his +hand, and send him forth. For he needed her, needed her as a child needs +a teacher, as a recruit needs a disciplined veteran. It was she who had +first revealed the actual world to him; it was she who had first divined +his power and his purpose; it was she who had released him from guilt by +showing him a means of expiation. + +And yet, withal, he feared to meet her. There had been something +terrible about her that afternoon at Carnegie Hall, and something that +awed him that evening at the Woman's League. Until she had broken down +and wept, she had hardly seemed a woman--rather a voice crying in the +wilderness, a female Isaiah, the toilers become articulate. And he could +not think of her as a simple, vivacious young woman. How would she greet +him? Would her eyes remember his part in the fire? + +At least, so he told himself, he would not seek her out (he had her +address from Fannie Lemick) until he had something to show for his new +life--until, possibly, he had a copy of that magazine which was still a +hypothesis and a chimera. Then he would nerve himself and go to her and +she should judge him as she pleased. + +That first supper with his mother had a sweetness new to their lives. He +ran out to the butcher, the grocer, and the delicatessen man, and came +home laden with packages. The stove in the rear kitchen was set alight; +the wooden table in the center was spread with cloth and cutlery; and +they sat down opposite each other, utterly alone ... no boarding--house +flutter and gossip and noise, no unpleasant jarring personalities, no +wholesale cookery. All was quiet and peace--a brooding, tinkling +silence. They both smiled and smiled, their eyes moist, and the food +tasted so good. Blessed bread that they broke together, the cup that +they shared between them! The moment became sacred, human, stirred by +all the old, old miraculousness of home, that deepest need of humanity, +that rich relationship that cuts so much deeper than the light +touch-and-go of the world. + +Joe spoke awkwardly. + +"So we're here, mother ... and it's ripping, isn't it?" + +She could hardly speak, but her eyes seemed to sparkle with a second +youth. + +"Yes," she murmured, "it's the first time we've had anything like this +since you were a boy." + +They both thought of his father, and the vanished days of the shanty on +the hillside, and his mother thought: + +"People must live out their own lives in their own homes." + +There was something that fed the roots of her woman-nature to have this +place apart, this quiet shelter where she ruled. It would be a joy to go +marketing, it would be a delight to cook, and it was charming to live so +intimately with her son. They were a family again. + +After supper they washed the dishes together, laughing and chatting. +There were a hundred pleasing details to consider--where to place +furniture, what to buy, whether to have a servant or not (Joe insisted +on one), and all the incidents of the day to go over. + +And then after the dish-washing they stopped work, and sat down in the +front office amid the packing-cases and the trunks and the litter and +debris. The gas was lighted above them, and the old-fashioned stove +which stood in the center and sprouted up a pipe nearly to the ceiling +and then at right angles into the wall was made red-hot with wood and +coal. Joe smoked and his mother sewed, and a hush seemed to fall on the +city, broken only by the echo of passing footsteps and the mellowed +thunder of the intermittent trolley-cars. + +"And they call this a slum," muttered Joe. + +In fact, save possibly for less clear air and in the summer a noise of +neighbors, they might have been living in New York's finest +neighborhood--almost a disappointment to two people prepared to plunge +into dirt, danger, and disease.... Later Joe learned that some of the +city's magazine writers had settled in the district on purpose, not +because they were meeting a crisis, but because they liked it, liked its +quaint old flavor, its colorful life, its alien charm, and not least, +its cheaper rents. + +But this evening all was unknown save the joy and peace of a real home. +They went to bed early, Joe in the room next the office, his mother in +the adjoining room next the kitchen, but neither slept for a long time. +They lay awake tingling with a strange happiness, a fine freedom, a +freshness of re-created life. Only to the pioneer comes this thrill of a +new-made Eden, only to those who tear themselves from the easy ruts and +cut hazardous clearings in the unventured wilderness. It is like being +made over, like coming with fresh heart and eyes upon the glories of the +earth; it is the only youth of the world. + +The night grew late and marvelously hushed, a silence almost oppressive, +where every noise seemed like an invader, and Joe, lying there keenly +awake, seemed to feel the throb of the world, the pauseless pulsations +of that life that beats in every brain and every heart of the earth; +that life that, more intense than human love and thought, burns in the +suns that swing about heaven rolling the globe of earth among them; that +life that enfolds with tremendous purpose the little human creature in +the vastness, that somehow expresses itself and heightens and changes +itself in human lives and all the dreams and doings of men. Joe felt +that life, thrilling to it, opening his heart to it, letting it +surcharge and overflow his being with strength and joy. And he knew then +that he lay as in a warm nest of the toilers and the poor, that crowded +all about him in every direction were sleeping men and women and little +children, all recently born, all soon to die, he himself shortly to be +stricken out of these scenes and these sensations. It was all mystery +unplumbable, unbelievable ... that this breath was not to go on forever, +that this brain was to be stopped off, this heart cease like a run-down +clock, this exultation and sorrow to leave like a mist, scattered in +that life that bore it.... That he, Joe Blaine, was to die! + +Surely life was marvelous and sacred; it was not to be always a selfish +scramble, a money rush, a confusion and jumble, but rather something of +harmony and mighty labors and mingled joys. He felt great strength; he +felt equal to his purposes; he was sure he could help in the advancing +processes.... Even as he was part of the divine mystery, so he could +wield that divineness in him to lift life to new levels, while the +breath was in his body, while the glow was in his brain. + +And he thought of Myra, his mate in the mystery, and in the night he +yearned for her, hungered through all his being. She had written him a +note; it came to him from the mountains. It ran: + + DEAR JOE,--You will be glad to know that I am getting + back to myself. The peace and stillness of the + white winter over the hills is healing me. It seems + good merely to exist, to sleep and eat and exercise and + read. I can't think now how I behaved so unaccountably + those last few weeks, and I wonder if you will + ever understand. I have been reading over and over + again your long letter, trying hard to puzzle out its + meanings, but I fear I am very ignorant. I know nothing + of the crisis you speak of. I know that "ye have + the poor always with you," I know that there is much + suffering in the world--I have suffered myself--but I + cannot see that living among the poor is going to help + vitally. Should we not all live on the highest level + possible? Level up instead of leveling down. Ignorance, + dirt, and sickness do not attract me ... and + now here among the hills the terrible city seems like + a fading nightmare. It would be better if people lived + in the country. I feel that the city is a mistake. But + of one thing I am sure. I understand that you cannot + help doing what you are doing, and I know that it would + have been a wrong if I had interfered with your life. + I would have been a drag on you and defeated your + purposes, and in the end we would both have been very + unhappy. It seems to me most marriages are. Write + me what you are doing, where you are living, and how + you are. + + Yours, + + MYRA. + +He had smiled over some of the phrases in this letter, particularly, "I +feel that the city is a mistake." Would Myra ever know that her very +personality and all of her life were interwoven inextricably with the +industrial city--that the clothes she wore, the food she ate, the books +she studied, the letter she wrote him, even down to ink, pen, and paper, +the education and advantages she enjoyed, were all wrought in the mills, +the mines, the offices, and by the interchange and inweaving and mighty +labors of industrialism? The city teacher is paid by taxes levied on the +commerce and labors of men, and the very farmer cannot heighten his life +without exchange with the city. + +And so her letter made him smile. Yet at the same time it stirred him +mightily. All through it he could read renunciation; she was giving him +up; she was loosening her hold over him; she was nobly sacrificing her +love to his life-work. And she announced herself as teachable and +receptive. She could not yet understand, but understanding might come in +time. + +So in the night he tried to send his thought over the hills, flash his +spirit into hers, in the great hope that she would thrill with a new +comprehension, a new awakening.... In a world so mysterious, in an +existence so strange, so impossible, so unbelievable, might such a +miracle be stranger than the breath he breathed and the passions he +felt? + +And so in that hope, that great wild hope, he fell asleep in the +uneventful beginnings of the battle. And all through those unconscious +hours forces were shaping about him and within him to bear his life +through strange ways and among strange people. His theories, so easy as +he drank them out of books, were to be tested in the living world of men +and women, in that reality that hits back when we strike it, and that +batters us about like driftwood in the whirlpool. + + + + +II + + +THE NINE-TENTHS + +Standing on Washington Heights--that hump on northwestern Manhattan +Island--gazing, say, from a window of the City College whose gray and +quaint cluster fronts the morn as on a cliff above the city--one sees, +at seven of a sharp morning, a low-hung sun in the eastern skies, a vast +circle and lift of mild blue heavens, and at one's feet, down below, the +whole sweep of New York from the wooded ridges of the Bronx to the +Fifty-ninth Street bridge and the golden tip of the Metropolitan Tower. +It is a flood of roofs sweeping south to that golden, flashing minaret, +a flood bearing innumerable high mill chimneys, church steeples, school +spires, and the skeleton frames of gas-works. Far in the east the Harlem +River lies like a sheet of dazzling silver, dotted with boats; every +skylight, every point of glass or metal on the roofs, flashes in the +sun, and, gazing down from that corner in the sky, one sees the visible +morning hymn of the city--a drift from thousands of house chimneys of +delicate unraveling skeins of white-blue smoke lifting from those human +dwellings like aerial spirits. It is the song of humanity rising, the +song of the ritual of breaking bread together, of preparation for the +day of toil, the song of the mothers sending the men to work, the song +of the mothers kissing and packing to school the rosy, laughing +children. + +It might be hard to imagine that far to the south in that moving human +ocean, a certain Joe Blaine, swallowed in the sea, was yet as real a +fact as the city contained--that to himself he was far from being +swallowed, that he was, in fact, so real to himself that the rest of the +city was rather shadowy and unreal, and that he was immensely concerned +in a thousand-flashing torrent of thoughts, in a mix-up of appetite and +desires, and in the condition and apparel of his body. That as he sat at +his desk, for instance, it was important to him to discover how he could +break himself of a new habit of biting the end of his pen-holder. + +And yet, under that flood of roofs, Joe was struggling with that crucial +problem. He finally settled it by deciding to smoke lots of cigars, and +proceeded to light one as a beginning. He smoked one, then a second, +then a third--which was certainly bad for his health. He was in the +throes of a violent reaction. + +Several days of relentless activity had followed the moving in. There +was much to do. The four rooms became immaculately clean--sweetened up +with soap and water, with neat wallpaper, with paint and furniture. +Even the dark inner bedrooms contrived to look cozy and warm and +inviting. Joe's mother was a true New England housekeeper, which meant +scrupulous order, cleanliness, and brightness. The one room exempt from +her rule was Joe's. After the first clean-up, his mother did not even +try to begin on it. + +"You're hopeless, Joe," she laughed, "and you'll ruin faster than I can +set right." + +And so that editorial office soon became a nest of confusion. The walls +were lined with bookshelves and a quaint assortment of books, old and +new, populated not only these, but the floor, the two tables, the +roll-top desk, and here and there a chair. White paper began to heap up +in the corners. Magazines--"my contemporaries," said the proud +editor--began their limitless flood. And the matting on the floor was +soon worn through by Joe's perpetual pacing. + +The whole home, however, began to have atmosphere--personality. There +was something open, hospitable, warm about it--something comfortable and +livable. + +Among the first things Joe did was to procure two assistants. One was +the bookkeeper, Nathan Slate, a lean and dangling individual, who +collapsed over his high desk in the corner like a many-bladed penknife. +He was thin and cadaverous, and spoke in a meek and melancholy voice, +studied and slow. He dressed in black and tried to suppress his thin +height by stooping low and hanging his head. The other addition was +Billy, the office-boy, a sharp, bright youth with red hair and brilliant +blue eyes. + +There was much else to do. For instance, there were the money affairs to +get in shape. Joe secured a five-per-cent mortgage with his capital. +Marty Briggs paid down two thousand cash and was to pay two thousand a +year and interest. So Joe could figure his income at somewhat over six +thousand dollars, and, as he hoped that he and his mother would use not +more than fifteen hundred a year, or, at the most, two thousand, he felt +he had plenty to throw into his enterprise. + +Among the first things that Joe discovered was a gift of his own +temperament. He was a born crowd-man, a "mixer." He found he could +instantly assume the level of the man he talked with, and that his +tongue knew no hindrance. Thought flowed easily into speech. This gave +him a freedom among men, a sense of belonging anywhere, and singled him +out from the rest. It gave him, too, the joy of expression--the joy of +throwing out his thought and getting its immediate reaction in other +lives. Yet he understood perfectly the man who seemed shy and recluse, +who was choked-off before strangers, and who yet burned to be a +democrat, to give and take, to share alien lives, to be of the moving +throng of life. Such a man was the victim either of a wrong education, +an education of repression that discouraged any personal display, or he +had a twist in his temperament. Joe, who began to be well aware of his +gift, used it without stint and found that it had a contagious +quality--it loosened other people up; it unfolded their shy and secret +petals like sun heat on a bud; it made the desert of personality blossom +like the rose. He warmed the life about him because he could express +himself. + +So it was not hard for Joe to shift to this new neighborhood and become +absorbed in its existence. Tradespeople, idlers, roomers and landlady in +the house accepted him at once and felt as if they had known him all +their lives. By a power almost of intuition he probed their obscure +histories and entered into their destinies. + +However, in spite of these activities and all the bustle and stir of +fresh beginnings, Joe, that sunny morning, was suffering a sharp +reaction. In the presence of Nathan Slate and Billy he was pretending to +work, but his brain was as dry as a soda-cracker. It was that natural +revulsion of the idealist following the first glow. Here he was, up +against a reality, and yet with no definite plan, not even a name for +his paper, and he had not even begun to penetrate the life about him. +The throbbing moment had arrived when he must set his theories into +motion, drive them out into the lives of the people, and get reactions. +But how? In what way? His brain refused to think, and he felt nothing +save a misery and poverty of the spirit that were unendurable. + +It seemed to him suddenly as if he had hastily embarked on a search for +the fountain of eternal youth--a voyage that followed mirages, and was +hollow and illusory. Beginnings, after the first flush, always have this +quality of fake, and Joe was standing in the shadow-land between two +lives. The old life was receding in the past; the new life had not yet +appeared. Without training, without experience, without definite +knowledge of the need to be met, with only a strong desire and a mixed +ideal, and almost without his own volition, he found himself now sitting +at a desk in West Tenth Street, with two employees, and nothing to do. +How out of this emptiness was he to create something vital? + +This naturally brought a pang he might have anticipated. He had a sudden +powerful hankering for the old life. That at least was man-size--his job +had been man's work. He looked back at those fruitful laborious days, +with their rich interest and absorbing details, their human +companionships, and had an almost irrepressible desire to rush out, take +the elevated train, go down East Eighty-first Street, ascend the +elevator, ring the bell, and enter his dominion of trembling, thundering +presses. He could smell the old smells, he could see the presses and the +men, he could hear the noise. That was where he belonged. Voluntarily he +had exiled himself from happiness and use. He wanted to go back--wanted +it hard, almost groaned with homesickness. + +Such struggles are death throes or birth throes. They are as real as two +men wrestling. Joe could sit still no longer, could mask no longer the +combat within him. So he rose hastily and went out and wandered about +the shabby, unfriendly neighborhood. He had a mad desire, almost +realized, to take the car straight to Eighty-first Street, and only the +thought of Marty Briggs in actual possession held him back. Finally he +went back and took lunch, and again tried the vain task of pretending to +work. + +It was three o'clock when he surrendered. He strode in to his mother. + +"Mother," he said, "isn't there something we can do together?" + +"In what way?" + +"Any way. I've been idling all day and I'm half dead." He laughed +strangely. "I believe I'm getting nerves, mother." + +"Nerves!" She looked at him sharply. "What is it, Joe?" + +"Oh! It's in-betweenness." + +"I see." She smiled. "Well, there's some shopping to do--" + +"Thank Heaven!" + +So they went out together and took the Sixth Avenue car to Thirty-fourth +Street. Their shopping took them to Fifth Avenue, and then, later, up +Broadway to Forty-second Street. It was a different New York they +saw--in fact, the New York best known to the stranger. The gorgeous +palaces of trade glittered and sparkled, shimmered and flashed, with +jewels and silver, with silks and knick-knacks. The immense and rich +plenty of earth, the products of factories and mills, were lavishly +poured here, gathered in isles, about which a swarming sea of +well-dressed women pushed and crowded. The high ceilings were hung with +glowing moons of light; the atmosphere was magic with confused talk, +shuffling footsteps, and all the hum and stir of a human hive. Up and +down Fifth Avenue swept a black thick stream of motors and carriages in +which women and men lounged and stared. The great hotels sucked in and +poured out tides of jeweled and lace-wrapped creatures, and in the +lighted interiors of restaurants were rouged cheeks and kindled eyes. + +As Joe and his mother reached Forty-second Street, that whirlpool of +theaters released its matinee crowds, a flood of youth, beauty, +brightness, and luxury. + +And it seemed to Joe, seeing all this life from a Tenth Street +viewpoint, that here was a great city of wealth and idleness. Evidently +a large population had nothing to do save shop and motor, eat and idle. +How could he from shabby Tenth Street send out a sheet of paper that +would compete with these flashing avenues? + +The sight depressed him. He said as much to his mother. + +"This is New York," he said, "barbaric, powerful, luxuriant. These +people are the power of the city--the mighty few--these are the owners. +What can we do with them?" + +His mother sensed then the struggle in his mind. + +"Joe," she cried, "isn't there any place where we can see--the other +people?" + +There was. They took the car down to Eighth Street, they walked east, +and entered little Washington Park, with its monumental arch, and its +shadowy trees, its wide and curving walks--its general sense of being a +green breathing-space in the sweep of streets. As they walked through +the sharp wintry air in the closing sunlight, what time the blue +electric lights gleamed out among the almost naked boughs, the +six-o'clock whistles began blowing from factories all about them--a glad +shriek that jumped from street to street over the city--and at once +across the eastern plaza of the park streamed the strange torrent of the +workers--a mighty, swift march of girls and boys, women and men, +homeward bound, the day's work ended--a human stream, in the gray light, +steeped in an atmosphere of accomplishment, sweet peace, solution. All +life seemed to touch a moment of harvest. + +Joe's mother was thrilled, and in spite of himself Joe felt his heart +clutched, as it were, in a vise. He felt the strange, strong, human +grip. It was a marvelous spectacle, though common, daily, and cheap as +life. + +Joe's mother whispered, in a low voice: + +"Joe, this is the real New York!" + +And then again: + +"Those others are only a fraction--these are the people." + +"Yes," murmured Joe, his blood surging to his cheeks, "these are the +nine-tenths." + +They went closer to that mighty marching host--they saw the cheap +garments--baggy trousers, torn shoes, worn shirts; they saw the earnest, +tired faces, the white and toil-shrunk countenances, the poverty, the +reality of pain and work, all pressing on in an atmosphere of serious +progress, as if they knew what fires roared, what sinews ached down in +the foundations of the world where the future is created. And Joe +realized, as never before, that upon these people and their captains, +their teachers and interpreters, rested the burdens of civilization; +that the mighty city was wrought by their hands and those who dreamed +with them, that the foam and sparkle of Broadway and Fifth Avenue +bubbled up from that strong liquor beneath. And he believed that the +second-generation idlers had somehow expropriated the toilers and were +living like drones in the hive, and he felt that this could not be +forever, and he was seized by the conviction that a change could only +come through the toilers themselves. Could these pale people but know +their power, know their standing, know the facts of this strange double +life, and then use their might wisely and well, constructively, +creatively, to build up a better and fairer world, a finer justice, a +more splendid day's work, a happier night's home! These that created a +great city could, if trained, create a higher life in that city! + +Surely the next few ages of the future had their work cut out for +them--the most stupendous task the race had ever undertaken. + +Then, after all, he was right. All who could must be dedicated to the +work of sowing enlightenment, of yeasting the crowds with knowledge and +love and light--all who could. Then he, too, could do his share; he, +too, could reach this crowd. And these people--they were reachable. No +theaters and restaurants competed with him here. Their hearts and minds +were open. He could step in and share their lives. He had done so in his +shop, and these were of the same human nature. + +Power returned to him. + +"Mother," he said, his eyes flashing, "it's all right. Now I'm ready to +begin! I'm for the nine-tenths." + +They turned, walking home in silence, and as they went the phrase +"nine-tenths," which Joe must have picked up in some book on socialism +or some sociological study, kept haunting his mind. The new power +released in him made his brain work like lightning--creatively. Thoughts +crowded, combinations sprung up; he began to actively dream and scheme. + +"I've got it!" he cried. "Why not call my paper _The Nine-Tenths_?" + +"Good!" + +He began to plan aloud as the quick thoughts flashed. + +"An eight-page paper--weekly. An editorial, giving some of the plain +facts about civilization--simple stuff to teach the people what industry +means, what their work means, what they ought to be doing. Then +news--news about all movements toward freedom--labor, strikes, reform, +new laws, schools--news of all the forces working for betterment--a +concrete statement of where the world stands to-day and what it is +doing. But a fair sheet, mother. No railing, no bitterness, no +bomb-throwing. Plenty of horse sense, plenty of banking the fires, of +delaying wisely. No setting class against class. No under-rating of +leaders and captains. Justice, but plenty of mercy. Facts, but plenty of +philosophy to cool 'em off. Progress all the time, but no French +revolutions. And when sides must be taken, no dishonest compromises, no +cowardly broad--mindedness--but always with the weakest, the under dog, +whenever their cause is good. That's my programme; that's _The +Nine-Tenths_." + +"Of course," said his mother, "you'll see things clearer as you do them. +There'll be changes." + +"Surely!" His mind was already miles ahead. "Mother, I've got it now, +for sure!" + +"What now?" She laughed, enthusiastically. + +"Isn't this a whopper? No _ads_." + +"But why not, Joe? That would support the paper." + +"No, not a line. I don't expect the paper to pay. That's where our money +comes in. We mustn't carry a line. Don't you see? There's hardly a +paper in the land that is free. They're influenced by their +advertising--that's their bread and butter. And even if they're not +influenced, people suspect they are. We must be free even of that +suspicion. We can be free--utterly so--say what we please--speak our +minds out--and nothing to hinder us. That will be unique--that will be +something new in magazines. We'll go the limit, mother." + +His mother laughed. + +"I guess you're right, Joe. It's worth trying. But how are you going to +circulate the paper?" + +"How?" Again his mind jumped forward. "House-to-house canvass--labor +unions--street corners. I'm going to dig in now, get acquainted with the +people round about, spread it any old way. And I'm going to start with +the idea of a big future--twenty thousand copies finally. You see, it'll +be a sort of underground newspaper--no publicity--but spreading from +group to group among the workers. Broadway and up-town will never see a +copy." + +So the new life started, started in full swing. Joe worked late that +very night putting his plans on paper, and the next morning there was +plenty of activity for everybody. Joe bought a rebuilt cylinder press +for fifteen hundred dollars and had it installed in the basement. Then +he had the basement wired, and got an electric motor to furnish the +power. John Rann and his family were moved down to a flat farther west +on Tenth Street, and a feeder, a compositor, and a make-up man were +hired along with him. In the press-room (the basement) was placed a +stone--a marble-top table--whereon the make-up man could take the strips +of type as they came from the compositors, arrange them into pages, and +"lock them up" in the forms, ready to put on the presses. + +Then Joe arranged with a printery to set up the type weekly; with a +bindery to bind, fold, bundle, and address the papers; and with Patrick +Flynn, truckman, to distribute the papers to newsdealers. + +Next Joe made a tour of the neighborhood, spoke with the newsdealers, +told them that all they would have to do was to deliver the papers to +the addresses printed upon them. He found them willing to thus add to +their income. + +Thus he made ready. But he was not yet prepared to get subscriptions +(one dollar a year or twenty-five cents a quarter), feeling that first +he must have a sample paper to show. + +The labor on that first number was a joy to him. He would jump up in the +middle of the night, rush into the office, light the gas, and get to +work in his nightgown. He was at it at all hours. And it proved to be an +enormous task. Eight pages eight by twelve do not read like a lot, but +they write like a very great deal. There was an editorial, "Greetings to +You," in which Joe set forth in plain words the ideas and ideals of the +paper, and in which he made clear the meaning of the phrase +"nine-tenths." Then he found that there were two great strikes in +progress in the city. This amazed him, as there was no visible sign of +such a condition. The newspapers said nothing of it, and peace seemed to +brood over the city's millions. Yet there were thousands of cloak-makers +out, and over in Brooklyn the toilers in the sugar refineries were +having little pitched battles with strike-breakers in the streets. Three +men had been killed and a score wounded. + +Joe dug into these strikes, called at the union headquarters, spoke with +the men, even called on some of the cloak-makers' bosses and learned +their grievances. Then he wrote accounts of the strike without taking +sides, merely reporting the facts as fairly as he could. + +In this way, and with the aid of clippings, and by printing that poem by +Lowell which was his mother's favorite, wherein was the couplet already +quoted, + + "They are slaves who dare not be + In the right with two or three," + +he made up a hodge-podge of a magazine. + +Up in the corner of the editorial page he ran the following, subject to +change: + + THE NINE-TENTHS + + A WEEKLY WORD ABOUT MEN, WOMEN, AND CHILDREN + + * * * * * + + MY MOTTO + + I ACCEPT LIFE LARGELY, BUT NOT IN DETAILS + + * * * * * + + SOME OF THE DETAILS NOT ACCEPTED + ARE + + Anything that prevents a child from being well born + and from fulfilling its possibilities. + + Anything that prevents a woman or man from using + every good side of her or his nature. + + ABOUT THESE DETAILS NO DOUBT: + + DISEASE + EXCESS + WANT + OVERWORK + CHILD LABOR + + And let's avoid jealousy, quarrels, ridicule, meanness, + and the rest of the mosquito things. + + Otherwise: what a glorious world. + +This didn't please him altogether, but he wanted to be definite and +simple, and he wanted to show that he wasn't a narrow partisan. + +Thus the first number came to be. As he turned it out, Billy rushed it +in batches to the compositors, and when finally it all came back in +strips of type, it was hurried down to the idlers in the basement. At +ten-thirty that chilly, dust-blowing morning, when the sun-stricken air +glittered with eddies of motes, Joe, sitting at his desk, had the +exquisite rapture of feeling the building tremble. + +He rushed to his mother, and exulted. + +"Can't you feel the press going? Listen!" + +Truly the new life had begun--the vision was beginning to crystallize in +daily living. + +"We're in the fight now, mother!" he cried. "There's something doing!" + +And later, when Joe stood at the back of the press and that first +complete sheet came through, he picked it up as if it were a new-born +child, as indeed it was, wet, drippy, forlorn, and weird, and yet a +wonder and a miracle. Joe looked on his own creation--the little +sheets--the big, black _The Nine-Tenths_--the clear, good type. He was +awed and reduced almost to tears. + +He mailed a copy to Myra with a brief note: + + DEAR MYRA,--Here's the answer to your question. + I'm doing the inclosed, and doing it in West Tenth + Street. Do you know the neighborhood? Old Greenwich + Village, red, shabby, shoddy, common, and vulgar. + Mother and I are as happy as children. How are you? + Your letter is splendid. I am sure you will come to + understand. When are you returning to New York? + + As ever, + + JOE BLAINE. + +And he thought, "Now I have something to show Sally Heffer!" + + + + +III + + +OTHERS: AND SALLY HEFFER + +Joe filled a stiff cloth portfolio with a batch of 9/10s (abbreviation +for home use), pulled his gray hat over his bushy hair, and went over +and tapped the collapsible Slate on the shoulder. + +"Yes, Mr. Joe." + +"Nathan," cried Joe, excitedly, "if there's a rush of subscribers while +I'm gone, make 'em stand in line, and each wait his turn. But don't let +them block the car tracks--string 'em around the corner." + +Nathan gazed at Joe like a lost soul. + +"But I think, Mr. Joe," he said, slowly, "you place your hopes too high. +I don't like to be too gloomy, Mr. Joe, but I have my doubts about a +rush." + +"Slate," cried Joe, slapping the tragic bookkeeper a whack, "you're +inspiring!" + +And he swung out to the street in the brilliant morning sunshine, ready +to begin his canvass. + +"Next door," he mused, "is the place to start." + +There was a woman sitting on the stoop, a two-year-old girl in her +arms. Joe paused and looked at the baby. + +"Hello, you." + +The baby looked at him a little doubtfully, and then laughed. + +"Girl or boy?" asked Joe of the mother. + +"Girl." + +"How old?" + +"Two." + +"She's a darling! What's her name?" + +"Name's Annie." + +"Named after you?" + +"Sure!" + +"You wouldn't mind if I gave her a peppermint to suck?" + +"Would you mind some candy, Annie?" + +"_Candy_!" shrieked the child. + +Joe dove into his bulging pocket and produced a good hard white one. +Annie snatched it up and sucked joyously. + +"Thank the man, Annie." + +"Thank you." + +"Is this your only one, Mrs.--" + +"Cassidy's my name! No, I've buried two others." + +"From this house?" + +"No, we keep movin'--" Mrs. Cassidy laughed a little. + +Joe made a grim face. + +"Jump your rent, eh?" + +Mrs. Cassidy shrugged her shoulders. + +"What can poor people do?" + +"But hasn't Mr. Cassidy a job?" + +"He has when he has it--but it's bum work. Slave like a nigger and then +laid off for six months, maybe." + +"What kind of work is that?" + +"'Longshore--he's a 'longshoreman." + +"And when he's unemployed you have a hard time, don't you?" + +"Hard?" Mrs. Cassidy's voice broke. "What can we do? There's the +insurance every week--fifteen cents for my man, ten cents for me, and +five cents for Annie. We couldn't let that go; it's buryin'-money, and +there ain't a Cassidy isn't going to have as swell a funeral as any in +the ward. And then we've got to live. I've found one thing in this +world--the harder you work the less you get." + +Joe spoke emphatically. + +"Mrs. Cassidy, when your husband's out of work, through no fault of his +own, he ought to get a weekly allowance to keep you going." + +"And who's to give it to him?" + +"Who? Do you know what they do in Germany?" + +"What do they do in Germany?" + +"They have insurance for the unemployed, and when a man's out he gets +so-and-so-much a week. We ought to have it in America." + +"How can we get it? Who listens to the poor?" + +"Your man belongs to a union, doesn't he?" + +"Sure!" + +"Well, the trouble is our people here don't know these things. If they +knew them, they'd get together and make the bosses come round. It's +ignorance holding us all back." + +"I've often told Tim he ought to study something. There's grand lectures +in the schools every Tuesday and Thursday night. But Tim don't put stock +in learning. He says learning never bought a glass of beer." + +Joe laughed. + +"Mrs. Cassidy, that's not what I mean. Listen. I'm a neighbor of +yours--live next door--" + +"Sure! Didn't I see you move in? When my friend, Mrs. Leupp, seen your +iron beds, she up and went to Macy's and bought one herself. What yer +doing in there, anyway, with that printing-press? It gives me the +trembles." + +Joe laughed heartily. + +"You feel the press in this house?" + +"First time, I thought it was an earthquake, Mr. Blaine." + +Joe was abashed. + +"How'd you know my name?" + +"Ast it off your landlady." + +"Well, you're wrong--I'm Mr. Joe." + +Mrs. Cassidy was hugely amused. + +"You're one grand fellow, let me tell you. But, oh, that black, thin +one--he's creepy, Mr. Joe. But your mother--she's all right. I was +telling Mrs. Rann so myself." + +Joe sighed tragically. + +"I suppose the whole neighborhood knows all my family secrets." + +"Pretty near," laughed Mrs. Cassidy. + +"Well, there's one thing you didn't know." + +"What's that?" + +"About my newspaper." + +"What about it?" + +"What paper do you take?" + +Mrs. Cassidy mentioned a daily penny paper. + +"Let's see," said Joe, "that's eleven cents a week, isn't it? Will you +spend two cents more, and take _The Nine-Tenths_?" + +"_Yours_?" + +"It's a paper that tells about the rich and the poor, and what the poor +ought to do to get more out of life. Here, take this copy, keep it; make +Tim read it." + +Mrs. Cassidy was handed a neat little sheet, eight by twelve inches, +clearly printed. There was something homely and inviting about it, +something hospitable and honest. The woman fingered it curiously. + +"Ain't it cute?" she cried. + +"It's all written for just such people as you, and I want you to take +it." + +"How much is it?" + +"Well, you pay twenty-five cents and get it for three months, once a +week, and let Tim read it out loud. Say, don't you think Annie'd like +to see the printing-press?" + +"'Deed she would!" + +And then Joe did the one thing that won. He seized up little Annie +himself, and bore her down to the press-room, Mrs. Cassidy following, +and mentally concluding that there was no one in the ward like Mr. Joe. + +Result: first subscription, and Joe elated with victory. All of which +shows, it must be confessed, that Joe was considerable of a politician, +and did not hesitate to adopt the methods of Tammany Hall. + +It was the next day, at a street corner, that, quite accidentally, Joe +met Michael Dunan, truckman. + +"I've got a cigar," said Joe, "but I haven't a match." + +"I've got a match," said Michael, easily, "but I haven't a cigar." + +"My name's Joe Blaine," said Joe, handing over a panetela. + +"Mine's Mike Dunan," said Michael, passing a match. + +They lit up together. + +"The drinks are on me," murmured Michael. + +They stepped into the saloon at the corner--a bright, mirrory place, +whose tiled floor was covered with sawdust, and whose bar shone like +mahogany. + +"Two beers, Donovan." + +"Dark or light, Mike?" + +"Dark." + +They drank. Michael pounded the bar. + +"Joe Blaine, the times are hard." + +"How so, Michael?" + +"The rich are too rich, and the poor too poor. I'm tired of it!" + +"Then look this over." + +Michael looked it over, and bubbled with joy. + +"That's great. Did you spiel it out? Did you say this little piece? Joe, +I want to join your union!" + +Joe laughed; he sized up the little man, with his sparkling eyes, his +open face, his fiery, musical voice, his golden hair. And he had an +inspiration. + +"Mike," he said, "I'm getting out this paper up the street. Have a press +there and an office. Run in and see my mother. If you like her, tell me, +and you can join the Stove Circle." + +"And what may the Stove Circle be?" + +"The get-together club--my advisory board." + +"I'm on." + +"See here, you," said a blunt, biting, deep-chested voice at their side. +"Let me get a look." + +Joe turned and met Oscar Heming, delicatessen man, stumpy, bull-necked, +with fierce bristling mustache, and clothes much too big for him. He was +made a member at once of the Stove Circle. + +That same evening Joe went down three steps into a little, low, cigar +store, whose gas-blazing atmosphere reeked with raw and damp tobacco. He +stepped up to the dusty counter. + +"What's your best?" + +The proprietor, a wise little owl of a man, with thin black hair, and +untidy spade beard, and big round glasses enlarging his big brown eyes, +placed a box before him. + +"My own make--Underdogs--clear Havana--six cents apiece." + +"I like the name. Give me ten. But explain!" + +"Well"--Nathan Latsky (for so he proved to be) shrugged his +shoulders--"I'm one myself. But--what's in a name?" + +"He's a red revolutionist!" said a voice, and Joe, turning, noticed two +men leaning beside him at the counter; one, a fine and fiery Jew, +handsome, dark, young; the other, a large and gentle Italian, with +pallid features, dark hair sprinkled with gray, and a general air of +largeness and leadership about him. The Jew had spoken. + +"Why a red?" asked Joe. + +"Oh," said Latsky, quietly, "I come from Russia, you know!" + +"Well, I'm a revolutionist myself," said Joe. "But I haven't any color +yet." + +"Union man?" asked the Italian. + +"Not exactly. I run a radical newspaper." + +"What's the name of it?" asked the Jew. + +"_The Nine-Tenths_." + +The words worked magic. They were all eagerness, and exchanged names. +Thus Joe came to know Jacob Izon and Salvatore Giotto and Nathan Latsky. +He was greatly interested in Izon, the facts of whose life he soon came +to know. Izon was a designer, working at Marrin's, the shirtwaist +manufacturer; he made thirty dollars a week, had a wife and two +children, and was studying engineering in a night school. He and his +wife had come from Russia, where they had been revolutionists. + +The three men examined the paper closely. + +"That's what we need," said Izon. "You must let us help to spread it!" + +Joe added the three to the Stove Circle. + +He went to Giotto's house with him, up to the sixth floor of a tenement, +and met the Italian's neat, dark-eyed wife, and looked in on the three +sleeping children. Then under the blazing gas in the crowded room, with +its cheap, frail, shiny furniture, its crayons on the wall, its crockery +and cheap clocks, and with the noise of the city's night rising all +about them, the two big men talked together. Joe was immensely +interested. The Italian was large-hearted, open-minded, big in body and +soul, and spoke quaintly, but thoughtfully. + +"Tell me about yourself," said Joe. + +Giotto spread out the palms of his hands. + +"What to tell? I get a good education in the old country--but not much +spik English--better read, better write it. I try hard to learn. Come +over here, and education no good. Nobody want Italian educated man. So +worked on Italian paper--go round and see the poor--many tragedies, +many--like the theater. Write a novel, a romance, about the poor. Wish I +could write it in English." + +"Good work," cried Joe. "Then what did you do?" + +Giotto laughed. + +"Imported the wine--got broke--open the saloon. Toughs come there, +thieves, to swindle the immigrants. Awfully slick. No good to warn +immigrants--they lose all their money. Come in crying. What can I do? I +get after the bums and they say, 'Giotto no good; we will kill him.' +Then I get broke again. Go to West Virginia and work in the +coal-mine--break my leg. And that was the baddest place in the world." + +"The mine?" + +"And the town. Laborers--Italian, nigger; saloons and politics--Jews; +bosses all Irish--nothing but the saloons and the women to spenda the +money. Company own everything--stores, saloons, women. Pay you the money +and get it all back. Every day a man killed. Hell!" + +"Then where did you go?" + +"Chicago--printing--anything to do I could get. Sometimes make forty +cents a day. Little. Have to feed and work for wife and three children. +I try and try. Hod-carrier"--Giotto laughed at the memory--"press +coats--anything. Then come back here." + +"And what are you doing now?" + +"I try to make labor union with Italians. Hard work. Italians live like +pigs--ignorant--not--not _social_. Down-stairs live a Calabria man, +makes ice-cream--got four rooms--in the four rooms man, wife, mother, +five children, fifteen boarders--" + +"Go on!" cried Joe. "Why do you stop?" + +Giotto laughed. + +"So maybe your paper help. Many Italians read English. I make them read +your paper, Mr. Joe." + + * * * * * + +It was not until nearly the end of the week that Joe sought out Sally +Heffer. Though every day he meditated stepping down that narrow red side +street, each time he had felt unprepared, throbbingly incapable; but +this evening as he finished his work and was on the way home it seemed +that beyond his own volition he suddenly swerved at her corner, hurried +down the lamp-lit pave, searched out the faded number in the meager +light, mounted the stoop, and pushed open the unlocked door. + +He was very weary--heart-sick and foot-sore--as he climbed the dark +steps of the three-story house. He felt pent in the vast pulsations of +life about him--a feeling of impossibility, of a task greater than he +could bear. He simply had to see the young woman who was responsible for +sending him here. He had a vivid mental image of her tragic loveliness, +of how she had stepped back and forth before him and suddenly put her +hands to her face and wept, of how she had divined his suffering, and +impulsively seized his hand, and whispered, "I have faith in you." He +expected a sort of self-illumined Joan of Arc with eyes that saw +visions, with spirit flaming. And even in the dark top-floor hallway he +was awed, and almost afraid. + +Then in the blackness, his eyes on the thread of light beneath the rear +door, he advanced, reached up his hand, and knocked. + +There came, somehow surprising him, a definite, clear-edged voice: + +"Come in!" + +He opened the door, which swung just free of the narrow cot. Just +beyond, Sally Heffer was writing at a little table, and the globed gas +burned above her, lighting the thin gold of her sparse hair. She turned +her face to him quite casually, the same pallid, rounded face, the same +broad forehead and gray eyes, of remarkable clarity--eyes that were as +clear windows allowing one to peer in. And she was dressed in a white +shirtwaist and the same brown skirt, and over a hook, behind her, hung +the same brown coat. Yet Joe was shocked. This was not the Sally Heffer +of his dreams--but rather a refreshing, forceful, dynamic young woman, +brimming over with the joy of life. And even in that flash of +strangeness he sensed the fact that at the time he had met her she was +merely the voice of a vast insurgent spirit, merely the instrument of a +great event. This was the everyday Sally, a quite livable, lovable human +being, healthy, free in her actions, pulsing with the life about her. +The very words she used were of a different order. + +And as she casually glanced around she began to stare, her eyes lit with +wonder, and she arose, exclaiming: + +"Mr.--_Blaine_!" + +At the sound of her voice the tension snapped within him; he felt common +and homely again; he felt comfortable and warm; and he smiled wearily. + +"Yes," he said, "I'm here." + +She came close to him, more and more incredulous, and the air became +electric. + +"But what brings you here?" + +"I live here--West Tenth." + +"_Live_ here? Why?" + +Her eyes seemed to search through his. + +"You made me," he murmured. + +She smiled strangely. + +"_That night_?" + +"Yes." + +Impulsively her hand went out, and he clasped it ... her hand seemed +almost frozen. Tears of humility sprang to her eyes. + +"I was high and mighty that night,... but I couldn't help it.... But +you ... do you realize what a wonderful thing you've done?" + +He laughed awkwardly. + +"Yes, here's what I've done"--he handed her a copy of _The +Nine-Tenths_--"and it's very wonderful." + +She gave a strange, short laugh again--excitement, exultation--and held +the paper as if it were a living thing. + +"This ... _The Nine-Tenths_ ... oh!... for the working people.... Let me +see!" + +She went to the light, spread the paper and eagerly read. Then she +glanced back a moment and saw his worn face and the weary droop of his +back. + +"Say--you're dead tired. Sit down. You don't mind the bed, do you?" + +He smiled softly. + +"I don't! I am pretty much done up." And he sank down, and let his hands +droop between his knees. + +Sally read, and then suddenly turned to him. + +"This editorial is--it's just a ripper." + +The author felt the thrill of a creator. She went on: + +"I wish every working-girl in New York could read this." + +"So do I." + +She turned and looked at him, more and more excited. + +"So _this_ is what you're doing. I must pinch myself--it's all a dream! +Too good to be true." + +Suddenly there seemed to be a reversal in their relationships. Before, +his end of the beam was down, hers up. But subtly in her voice he felt +the swing to the other extreme. She had set him in a realm above +herself. + +"Tell me," she said, "just how you came to go into this." + +He told her a little, and as he spoke he became thoroughly at his ease +with her, as if she were a man, and in the pleasure of their swift +comradeship they could laugh at each other. + +"Mr. Blaine," she said, suddenly, "if I got you into this, it's up to me +to help you win. I'm going to turn into an agent for you--I'll make 'em +subscribe right and left." + +Joe laughed at her. + +"Lordy, if you knew how good it is to hear this--after tramping up three +miles of stairs and more and nabbing a tawdry twenty subscriptions." + +"Is that all you got?" + +"People don't understand." + +"We'll _make_ them!" cried Sally, clenching her fist. + +Joe laughed warmly; he was delighted with her. + +"Are you working here?" he asked. + +"Yes--you know I used to be in Newark--I was the president of the +Newark Hat-Trimmers' Union." + +"And now?" + +"I'm trying to organize the girls here." + +"Well," he muttered, grimly. "I wouldn't like to be your boss, Miss +Heffer." + +She laughed in her low voice. + +"Let me tell you what sort I am!" And she sat down, crossed her legs, +and clasped her hands on her raised knee. "I was working in that Newark +factory, and the girls told me to ask the boss, Mr. Plump, for a half +holiday. So I went into his office and said: 'Mr. Plump, the girls want +a half holiday.' He was very angry. He said: 'You won't get it. Mind +your own business.' So I said, quietly: 'All right, Mr. Plump, we'll +take a _whole_ holiday. We won't show up Monday.' Then he said to me, +'Sally Heffer, go to hell!' He was the first man to say such a thing to +my face. Well, one of the girls found me in the hall drying my eyes, and +when she got the facts she went back and told the others, and the bunch +walked out, leaving this message: 'Mr. Plump, we won't come back till +you apologize to Sally.' Well, we were out a week, and what do you +think?" Sally laughed with quiet joy. "Plump took it to the +Manufacturers Association, and they--backed him? Not a bit! _Made him +apologize_!" + +Joe chuckled. + +"Great! Great!" + +"Oh, I'm doing things all the time," said Sally. "Organized the Jewish +hat-trimmers in Newark, and all my friends went back on me for sticking +up for the Jews. Did I care? Ten years ago every time the men got a +raise through their union, the girls had their salaries cut. Different +now. We've enough sense to give the easy jobs to the old ladies--and +there's lots of old ones trimming hats." + +"What's trimming hats?" + +Sally plucked up Joe's gray hat, and then looked at Joe, her eyes +twinkling. + +"It's a little hard to show you on this. But see the sweat-band? It has +a lot of needle holes in it, and the trimmer has to stitch through those +holes and then sew the band on to the hat, and all the odds and ends. It +kills eyes. What do you think?" she went on. "The girls used to drink +beer--bosses let 'em do it to keep them stimulated--and it's ruined +lots. I stopped that." + +Joe looked at Sally. And he had a wild impulse then, a crazy thought. + +"How much do you get a week?" + +"Fifteen." + +"Well," said Joe, "I want a woman's department in the paper. Will you +handle it for fifteen a week?" + +"But you don't know me!" + +"Well," said Joe, "I'm willing to gamble on you." + +Sally's low voice loosed exultation. + +"You're a wonder, Mr. Blaine. I'll _do it_! But we're both plumb crazy." + +"I know it," said Joe, "and I like it!" + +They shook hands. + +"Come over to-morrow and meet my mother!" He gave her the address. + +"Good-by," she said. "And let me tell you, I'm simply primed for woman +stuff. It is the women"--she repeated the phrase slowly--"it is the +women, as you'll find, who bear the burden of the world! Good-by!" + +"Good-by!" + +He went down into the open air exulting. + +He could not overcome his astonishment. She was so different than he had +anticipated, so much more human and simple; so much more easy to fit +into the every-day shake-up of life, and full of that divine allowance +for other people's shortcomings. It was impossible to act the tragedian +before her. And, most wondrous of all, she was a "live wire." He had +gone to her abasing himself; he came away as her employer, subtly +cheered, encouraged, and lifted to new heights of vivid enterprise. + +"Sally Heffer!" he kept repeating. "Isn't she a marvel! And, miracle of +miracles, she is going to swing the great work with me!" + +And so the Stove Circle was founded with Sally Heffer, Michael Dunan, +Oscar Heming, Nathan Latsky, Salvatore Giotto, and Jacob Izon. Its +members met together a fortnight later on a cold wintry night. The +stove was red-hot, the circle drew about it on their kitchen chairs, and +Joe spent the first meeting in going over his plans for the paper. There +were many invaluable practical comments--especially on how to get news +and what news to get--and each member was delegated to see to one +department. Latsky and Giotto took immigration, Dunan took politics and +the Irish, Heming took the East Side, Izon, foreign news, and Sally +Heffer took workwomen. Thereafter each one in his way visited labor +unions, clubs, and societies and got each group to pledge itself to send +in news. They helped, too, to get subscriptions--both among their +friends and in the unions. In this way Joe founded his paper. He never +repeated the personal struggle of that first week, for he now had an +enthusiastic following to spread the work for him--men and a woman, +every one of whom had access to large bodies of people and was an +authority in his own world. + +But that wonderful week was never forgotten by Joe. Each day he had +risen early and gone forth and worked till late at night, making a +canvass in good earnest. House after house he penetrated, knocking at +doors, inquiring for a mythical Mrs. (or Mr.) Parsons (this to hush the +almost universal fear that he had come to collect the rent or the +instalment on the furniture or clothes of the family). In this way he +started conversation. He found first that the immediate neighborhood +knew him already. And he found many other things. He found rooms tidy, +exquisite in their cleanliness and good taste of arrangement; and then +other rooms slovenly and filthy. He found young wives just risen from +bed, chewing gum and reading the department-store advertisements in the +paper, their hair in curl-papers. He found fat women hanging out of +windows, their dishes unwashed, their beds unmade, their floors unswept. +He found men sick in bed, and managed to sit down at their side and give +them an interesting twenty minutes. He found other men, out of work, +smoking and reading. He found one Italian family making "willow plumes" +in two narrow rooms--one a bedroom, the other a kitchen--every one at +work, twisting the strands of feathers to make a swaying plume--every +one, including the grandmother and little dirty tots of four and +six--and every one of them cross-eyed as a result of the terrific work. +He found one dark cellar full of girls twisting flowers; and one attic +where, in foul, steaming air, a Jewish family were "finishing" +garments--the whole place stacked with huge bundles which had been given +out to them by the manufacturer. He found one home where an Italian +"count" was the husband of an Irish girl, and the girl told him how she +had been led into the marriage by the man's promise of title and castle +in Venice, only to bring her from Chicago to New York and confess that +he was a poor laborer. + +"But I made the best of it," she cried. "I put down my foot, hustled him +out to work, and we've done well ever since. I've been knocking the dago +out of him as hard as I can hit!" + +"You're ambitious," said Joe. + +"My! I'd give my hands for education!" + +Joe prescribed _The Nine-Tenths_. + +Everywhere he invited people to call--"drop over"--and see his plant and +meet his mother. Even the strange specimen of white woman who had +married a negro and was proud of it. + +"Daniel's black outside, but there's many stuck-up women I know whose +white man is black _inside_." + +Absorbingly interesting was the quest--opening up one vista of life +after another. Joe gained a moving-picture knowledge of life--saw +flashed before him dramatic scene after scene, destiny after +destiny--squalor, ignorance, crime, neatness, ambition, thrift, +respectability. He never forgot the shabby dark back room where under +gas-light a frail, fine woman was sewing ceaselessly, one child sick in +a tumble-down bed, and two others playing on the floor. + +"I'm all alone in the world," she said. "And all I make is two hundred +and fifty dollars a year--less than five dollars a week--to keep four +people." + +Joe put her on the free list. + +He learned many facts, vital elements in his history. + +For instance, that on less than eight hundred dollars a year no family +of five (the average family) could live decently, and that nearly half +the people he met had less, and the rest not much more. That, as a rule, +there were three rooms for five people; and many of the families +gathered their fuel on the street; that many had no gas--used oil and +wood; that many families spent about twenty-five cents a day for food; +that few clothes were bought, and these mainly from the instalment man +and second hand at that; that many were recipients of help; and that +recreation and education were everywhere reduced to the lowest terms. +That is, boys and girls were hustled to work at twelve by giving their +age as fourteen, and recreation meant an outing a year to Coney Island, +and beer, and, once in a while, the nickel theater; that there were +practically no savings. And there was one conclusion he could not +evade--namely, that while overcrowding, improvidence, extravagance, and +vice explained the misery of some families, yet there were limits. For +instance: + +On Manhattan Island no adequate housing can be obtained at less than +twelve or fourteen dollars a month. + +That there is no health in a diet of bread and tea. + +That--curious facts!--coal burns up, coats and shoes wear out in spite +of mending. + +That the average housewife cannot take time to go bargain-hunting or +experimenting with new food combinations, or in making or mending +garments, and neither has she the ability nor training to do so. + +That, in fact, the poor, largely speaking, were between the upper and +nether millstones of low wages and high prices. + +Of course there was the vice, but while drink causes poverty, poverty +causes drink. Joe found intemperance among women; he found little +children running to the saloon for cans of beer; he found plenty of men +drunkards. But what things to offset these! The woman who bought three +bushels of coal a week for seventy-five cents, watched her fires, picked +out the half-burned pieces, reused them, and wasted no heat; the +children foraging the streets for kindling-wood; the family in bed to +keep warm; the wife whose husband had pawned her wedding-ring for drink, +and who had bought a ten-cent brass one, "to keep the respect of her +children"; the man working for ten dollars a week, who once had owned +his own saloon, but, so he said, "it was impossible to make money out of +a saloon unless I put in gambling-machines or women, and I wouldn't +stand for it"; the woman whose husband was a drunkard, and who, +therefore, went to the Battery 5 A.M. to 10, then 5 P.M. to 7, every day +to do scrubbing for twenty dollars a month; the wonderful Jewish family +whose income was seven hundred and ninety-seven dollars and who yet +contrived to save one hundred and twenty-three dollars a year to later +send their two boys to Columbia University. + +And everywhere he found the miracle of miracles: the spirit of charity +and mutual helpfulness--the poor aiding the poorer; the exquisite +devotion of mothers to children; the courage that braved a terrible +life. + +For a week the canvass went on. Joe worked feverishly, and came home +late at night too tired almost to undress himself. Again and again he +exclaimed to his mother: + +"I never dreamed of such things! I never dreamed of such poverty! I +never dreamed of such human nature!" + +Greenwich Village, hitherto a shabby red clutter of streets, uninviting, +forbidding, dull, squalid, became for Joe the very swarm and drama and +warm-blooded life of humanity. He began to sense the fact that he was in +the center of a human whirlpool, in the center of beauty and ugliness, +love and bitterness, misery and joy. The whole neighborhood began to +palpitate for him; the stone walls seemed bloody with struggling souls; +the pavements stamped with the steps of a battle. + +"What can I do," he kept thinking, "with these people?" + +And to his amazement he began to see that just as up-town offered the +rivals of luxury, pleasure, and ease, so down-town offered the rivals of +intemperance, grinding poverty, ignorance. His theories were beginning +to meet the shock of facts. + +"How move them? How touch them off?" he asked himself. + +But the absorbing interest--the faces--the shadowy scenes--the gas-lit +interiors--everywhere human beings, everywhere life, packed, crowded, +evolving. + +At the end of the week he stopped, though the fever was still on him. He +had gained two hundred and fifty subscribers; he had distributed twelve +hundred copies of the paper. He now felt that he could delay no longer +in bringing out the next number. So he sat down, and, with Sally +Heffer's words ringing in his mind, he wrote his famous editorial, "It +is the Women": + + + It is the women who bear the burden of this world--the poor women. + Perhaps they have beauty when they marry. Then they plunge into + drudgery. All day and night they are in dark and damp rooms, scrubbing, + washing, cooking, cleaning, sewing. They wear the cheapest clothes--thin + calico wrappers. They take their husbands' thin pay-envelopes, and + manage the finances. They stint and save--they buy one carrot at a time, + one egg. When rent-week comes--and it comes twice a month--they cut the + food by half to pay for housing. They are underfed, they are denied + everything but toil--save _love_. Child after child they bear. The toil + increases, the stint is sharper, the worry infinite. Now they must + clothe their children, feed them, dress them, wash them, amuse them. + They must endure the heart-sickness of seeing a child underfed. They + must fight the demons of disease. Possibly they must stop a moment in + the speed of their labor and face death. Only for a moment! Need calls + them: mouths ask for food, floors for the broom, and the pay-envelope + for keen reckonings. Possibly then the husband will begin to + drink--possibly he will come home and beat his wife, drag her about the + floor, blacken her eyes, break a rib. The next day the task is taken up + again--the man is fed, the children clothed, the food marketed, the + floor scrubbed, the dress sewn. And then as the family grows there come + hard times. The man is out of work--he wants to work but cannot. Rent + and the butcher and grocer must be paid, but there are no wages brought + home. The woman takes in washing. She goes through the streets to the + more prosperous and drags home a basket of soiled clothes. The burden of + life grows heavier--the husband becomes accustomed to the changed + relationships. Very often he ceases to be a wage-earner and loafs about + saloons. From then on the woman wrestles with worlds of + trouble--unimaginable difficulties. Truly, running a state may be easier + than running a family. And yet the woman toils on; she does not + complain; she sets three meals each day before husband and children; she + sees that they have clothes; she gives the man his drink money; she + endures his cruelty; she plans ambitiously for her children. Or possibly + the man begins to work again, and then one day is killed in an accident. + There is danger of the family breaking up. But the woman rises to the + crisis and works miracles. She keeps her head; she takes charge; she + toils late into the night; she goes without food, without sleep. Somehow + she manages. There was a seamstress in Greenwich Village who pulled her + family of three and herself along on two hundred and fifty dollars a + year--less than five dollars a week! If luck is with the woman the + children grow up, go to work, and for a time ease the burden. But then, + what is left? The woman is prematurely old--her hair is gray, her face + drawn and wrinkled, or flabby and soiled, her back bent, her hands raw + and red and big. Beauty has gone, and with the years of drudgery, much + of the over-glory, much of the finer elements of love and joy, have + vanished. Her mind is absorbed by little things--details of the day. She + has ceased to attend church, she has not stepped beyond the street + corner for years, she has not read or played or rested. Much is dead in + her. Love only is left. Love of a man, love of children. She is a fierce + mother and wife, as of old. And she knows the depth of sorrow and the + truth of pain. + +He repeated his programme. Perhaps--he afterward thought so +himself--this editorial was a bit too pessimistic. But he had to write +it--had to ease his soul. He set it off, however, by a lovely little +paragraph which he printed boxed. Here it is: + + Possibly much of the laughter heard on this planet comes from + the mothers and fathers who are thinking or talking of the children. + +In this way, then, Joe entered into the life of the people. + + + + +IV + + +OTHERS: AND THEODORE MARRIN + +Joe became a familiar figure in Greenwich Village. As time went on, and +issue after issue of _The Nine-Tenths_ appeared, he became known to the +whole district. Whenever he went out people nodded right and left, +passed the time of day with him, or stopped him for a hand-shake and a +question. He would, when matters were not pressing, pause at a stoop to +speak with mothers, and people in trouble soon began to acquire a habit +of dropping in at his office to talk things over with the "Old Man." + +If it was a matter of employment, he turned the case over to some member +of the Stove Circle; if it was a question of honest want, he drew on the +"sinking-fund" and took a note payable in sixty days--a most elastic +note, always secretly renewable; if it was an idle beggar, a vagrant, he +made short work of his visitor. Such a visitor was Lady Hickory. Billy +was at his little table next the door; over in the corner the +still-despondent Slate was still collapsing; at the east window sat +Editor Sally Heffer, digging into a mass of notes; and near the west, +at the roll-top desk, a visitor's chair set out invitingly beside him, +Joe was writing--weird exercise of muttering softly, so as not to +disturb the rest, and then scratching down a sentence. + +Billy leaped up to receive her ladyship, who fatly rolled in, her +tarnished hat askew, her torn thrice-dingy silks clutched up in one fat +hand. + +Lady Hickory gave one cry: + +"There he is!" + +She pushed Billy aside and rolled over into the visitor's chair. + +"Oh, Mr. Joe!" + +Joe turned. + +"What's up?" he asked. + +"Everything's up--I'm dying, Mr. Joe--I need help--I must get to the +hospital--" + +"Sick?" + +"Gallopin' consumption!" + +Joe sniffed. + +"It doesn't smell like consumption," he said with a sigh. "It smells +like rum!" + +He hustled her out rather roughly, Nathan Slate regarding him with +mournful round eyes. Twenty minutes later Nathan came over and sat down. + +"Mr. Joe." + +"Yes, Nathan." + +"There's something troubles my conscience, Mr. Joe." + +"Let her rip!" + +"Mr. Joe--" + +"I'm waiting!" + +Nathan cleared his throat. + +"You say you're a democrat, Mr. Joe, and you're always saying, 'Love thy +neighbor,' Mr. Joe." + +"Has _that_ hit you, Nathan?" + +Nathan unburdened, evading this thrust. + +"Why, then, Mr. Joe, did you turn that woman away?" + +Joe was delighted. + +"Why? I'll tell you! Suppose that I know that the cucumber is inherently +as good as any other vegetable, does that say I can digest it? Cucumbers +aren't for me, Nathan--especially decayed ones." + +Nathan stared at him disconsolately, shook his head, and went back to +puzzle it out. It is doubtful, however, that he ever did so. + +Besides such visitors, there were still others who came to him to +arbitrate family disputes--which constituted him a sort of Domestic +Relations Court--and gave him an insight into a condition that surprised +him. Namely, the not uncommon cases of secret polygamy and polyandry. + +In short, Joe was busy. His work was established in a flexible +routine--mornings for writing; afternoons for callers, for circulation +work, and for special trips to centers of labor trouble; evenings for +going about with Giotto to see the Italians, or paying a visit, say, to +the Ranns, or some others, or meeting at Latsky's cigar store with a +group of revolutionists who filled the air with their war of the +classes, their socialist state, their dreams of millennium. + +He gave time, too, to his mother--evening walks, evening talks, and +old-fashioned quiet hours in the kitchen, his mother at her needlework, +and he reading beside her. One such night, when his mother seemed +somewhat fatigued, he said to her: + +"Don't sew any more, mother." + +"But it soothes me, Joe." + +"Mother!" + +"Yes." + +Joe spoke awkwardly. + +"Are you perfectly satisfied down here? Did we do the right thing?" + +His mother's eyes flashed, as of old. + +"We did," she cried in her youthful voice. "It's real--it's absorbing. +And I'm very proud of myself." + +"Proud? You?" + +"Yes, proud!" she laughed. "Joe, when a woman reaches my age she has a +right to be proud if young folks seek her out and talk with her and make +her their confidante. It shows she's not a useless incumbrance, but +young!" + +Joe sat up. + +"Have they found you out? Do they come to you?" + +"They do--especially the young wives with their troubles. All of them +troubled over their husbands and their children. We have the finest +talks together. They're a splendid lot!" + +"Who's come, in particular?" + +"Well, there's one who isn't married--one of the best of them." + +"Not Sally Heffer!" + +"The same!" + +"I'm dinged!" + +"That girl," said Joe's mother, "has all sorts of possibilities--and +she's brave and strong and true. Sally's a wonder! a new kind of woman!" + +A new kind of woman! Joe remembered the phrase, and in the end admitted +that it was true. Sally was of the new breed; she represented the new +emancipation; the exodus of woman from the home to the battle-fields of +the world; the willingness to fight in the open, shoulder to shoulder +with men; the advance of a sex that now demanded a broader, freer life, +a new health, a home built up on comradeship and economic freedom. In +all of these things she contrasted sharply with Myra, and Joe always +thought of the two together. + +But unconsciously Sally was always the fellow-worker--Myra--what Myra +meant he could feel but not explain; yet these crowded days left little +time for thoughts sweet but often intense with pain. He wrote to her +rarely--mere jottings of business and health; he rarely heard from her. +Her message was invariably the same--the richness and quiet of country +life, the depth and peace of rest, the hope that he was well and happy. +She never mentioned his paper--though she received every number--and +when Joe inquired once whether it came, she answered in a postscript: +"The paper? It's in every Monday's mail." This neglect irritated Joe, +and he would doubly enjoy Sally's heart-and-soul passion for _The +Nine-Tenths_. + +Sally was growing into his working life, day by day. Her presence was +stimulating, refreshing. If he felt blue and discouraged, or dried up +and in want of inspiration, he merely called her over, and her quiet +talk, her sane views, her quick thinking, her never-failing good humor +and faith, acted upon him as a tonic. + +"Miss Sally," he said once, "what would I ever do without you?" + +Sally looked at him with her clear eyes. + +"Oh," she said, "I guess you'd manage to stagger along somehow." + +But after that she hovered about him like a guardian angel. What +bothered her chiefly, when she thought of Joe's work, was her lack of +education, and she set about to make this up by good reading, and by +attending lectures at night, and by hard study in such time as she could +snatch from her work. She and Joe were comrades in the best sense. They +could always depend upon each other. It was in some ways as if they +were in partnership. And then there was that old tie of the fire to +draw them together. + +She was of great help in setting him right about the poor. + +"People are happy," she would say--"most people are happy. Human nature +is bigger than environment--it bubbles up through mud. That's almost the +trouble with it. If the poor were only thoroughly unhappy, they'd change +things to-morrow. No, Mr. Joe, it's not a question of happiness; it's a +question of justice, of right, of progress, of developing people's +possibilities. It's all the question of a better life, a richer life. +People are sacred--they mustn't be reduced to animals." + +And with her aid he gained a truer perspective of the life about +him--learned better how to touch it, how to "work" it. The paper became +more and more adapted to its audience, and began to spread rapidly. Here +and there a labor union would subscribe for it in bulk for all its +members, and the Stove Circle soon had many a raw recruit drumming up +trade, making house-to-house canvasses. In this way, the circulation +finally reached the five-thousand mark. There were certain unions, such +as that of the cloak-makers, that regarded the paper as their special +oracle--swore by it, used it in their arguments, made it a vital part of +their mental life. + +This enlarged circulation brought some curious and unlooked-for results. +Some of the magazine writers in the district got hold of a copy, had a +peep at Joe, heard of his fame, and then took copies up-town to the +respectable editors and others, and spread a rumor of "that idiot, Joe +Blaine, who runs an underground paper down on Tenth Street." As a +passion of the day was slumming, and as nothing could be more piquant +than the West Tenth Street establishment, Joe was amused to find +automobiles drawing up at his door, and the whole neighborhood watching +breathlessly the attack of some flouncy woman or some tailor-made man. + +"How perfectly lovely!" one fair visitor announced, while the office +force watched her pose in the center of the room. "Mr. Blaine, how +dreadful it must be to live with the poor!" + +"It's pretty hard," said Joe, "to live with any human being for any +length of time." + +"Oh, but the poor! They aren't clean, you know; and such manners!" + +Sally spoke coldly. + +"I guess bad manners aren't monopolized by any particular class." + +The flouncy one flounced out. + +These visits finally became very obnoxious, though they could not be +stopped. Even a sign, over the door-bell, "No begging; no slumming," was +quite ineffective in shutting out either class. + +There were, however, other visitors of a more interesting +type--professional men, even business men, who were drawn by curiosity, +or by social unrest, or by an ardent desire to be convinced. Professor +Harraman, the sociologist, came, and made quite a dispassionate study of +Joe, put him (so he told his mother) on the dissecting-table and +vivisected his social organs. Then there was Blakesly, the corporation +lawyer, who enjoyed the discussion that arose so thoroughly that he +stayed for supper and behaved like a gentleman in the little kitchen, +even insisting on throwing off his coat, rolling up his sleeves, and +helping to dry the dishes. + +"You're all wrong," he told Joe when he left, "and some day possibly +we'll hang you or electrocute you; but it's refreshing to rub one's mind +against a going dynamo. I'm coming again. And don't forget that your +mother is the First Lady of the Island! Good-by!" + +Then there was, one important day, the great ex-trust man, whose name is +inscribed on granite buildings over half the earth. This man--so the +legend runs--is on the lookout for unusual personalities. The first hint +of a new one puts him on the trail, and he sends out a detective to +gather facts, all of which are card-indexed under the personality's +name. Then, if the report is attractive, this man goes out himself and +meets the oddity face to face. He came in on Joe jovial, happy, +sparkling, and fired a broadside of well-chosen questions. Joe was +delighted, and said anything he pleased, and his visitor shrewdly went +on. In the end Joe was stunned to hear this comment: + +"Mr. Blaine, you're on the right track, though you don't know it. You +think you want one thing, but you're after another. Still--keep it up. +The world is coming to wonderful things." + +"That's queer talk," said Joe, "coming from a multimillionaire." + +The multimillionaire laughed. + +"But I'm getting rid of the multi, Mr. Blaine. What more would you have +me do? Each his own way. Besides"--he screwed up his eye shrewdly--"come +now, aren't you hanging on to some capital?" + +"Yes--in a way!" + +"So are we all! You're a wise man! Keep free, and then you can help +others!" + +The most interesting caller, however, judged from the standpoint of +Joe's life, was Theodore Marrin, Izon's boss, manufacturer of high-class +shirtwaists, whose Fifth Avenue store is one of the most luxurious in +New York. He came to Joe while the great cloak-makers' strike was still +on, at a time when families were reduced almost to starvation, and when +the cause seemed quite hopeless. + +Theodore Marrin came in a beautiful heavy automobile. He was a short +man, with a stout stomach; his face was a deep red, with large, slightly +bulging black eyes, tiny mustache over his full lips; and he was dressed +immaculately and in good taste--a sort of Parisian-New Yorker, +hail-fellow-well-met, a mixer, a cynic, a man about town. He swung his +cane lightly as he tripped up the steps, sniffed the air, and knocked on +the door of the editorial office. + +Billy opened. + +"Yes, sir." + +"Mr. Blaine in?" + +"He's busy." + +"I should hope he was! There, my boy." He deftly waved Billy aside and +stepped in. "Well! well! Mr. Blaine!" + +Joe turned about, and arose, and accepted Mr. Marrin's extended hand. + +"Who do you think I am?" + +Joe smiled. + +"I'm ready for anything." + +"Well, Mr. Blaine, I'm the employer of one of your men. You know Jacob +Izon?" + +"Oh, you're Mr. Marrin! Sit down." + +Marrin gazed about. + +"Unique! unique!" He sat down, and pulled off his gloves. "I've been +wanting to meet you for a long time. Izon's been talking, handing me +your paper. It's a delightful little sheet--I enjoy it immensely." + +"You agree with its views?" + +"Oh no, no, no! I read it the way I read fiction! It's damned +interesting!" + +Joe laughed. + +"Well, what can I do for you?" + +"What can I do for _you_!" corrected Marrin. + +"See here, Mr. Blaine, I'm interested. How about taking a little ad. +from me, just for fun, to help the game along?" + +"We don't accept ads." + +"Oh, I know! But if I contribute handsomely! I'd like to show it around +to my friends a bit. Come, come, don't be unreasonable, Mr. Blaine." + +Sally shuffled about, coughed, arose, sat down again, and Joe laughed. + +"Can't do it. Not even Rockefeller could buy a line of my paper." + +"Do you _mean_ it?" + +"Absolutely--flatly." + +"Well, what a shame! But never mind. Some other time. Tell me, Mr. +Blaine"--he leaned forward--"what are you? One of these bloody +socialists?" + +"No, I'm not a socialist." + +"What d'ye call yourself, then--Republican?" + +"No." + +"Democrat?" + +"No." + +"Insurgent?" + +"No." + +Marrin was horror-stricken. + +"Not a blooming anarchist?" + +Joe laughed. + +"No, not an anarchist." + +"What are you, then? Nothing?" + +"I can tell you what I'm not," said Joe. + +"What?" + +"I'm not any kind of an _ist_." + +"A fine fellow!" cried Marrin. "Why, a man's got to stand for +something." + +"I do," said Joe, "I stand for human beings--and sometimes," he +chuckled, "I stand for a whole lot!" + +Marrin laughed, so did Sally. + +"Clever!" cried Marrin. "Damned clever! You're cleverer than I +thought--hide your scheme up, don't you? Well! well! Let me see your +plant!" + +Joe showed him about, and Marrin kept patting him on the back: +"Delightful! Fine! You're my style, Mr. Blaine--everything done to a +nicety, no frills and feathers. Isn't New York a great town? There are +things happening in it you'd never dream of." + +And when he left he said: + +"Now, if there's anything I can do for you, Mr. Blaine, don't hesitate +to call on me. And say, step up and see my shop. It's the finest this +side of Paris. I'll show you something you've never seen yet! Good-by!" + +And he was whisked away, a quite self-satisfied human being. + +That very evening Marrin's name came up again. It was closing-up time, +Billy and Slate had already gone, and the room was dark save for the +shaded lights over Joe's desk and Sally's table. The two were working +quietly, and outside a soft fall of snow was muffling the noise of the +city. There only arose the mellowed thunder of a passing car, the far +blowing of a boat-whistle, the thin pulse of voices. Otherwise the city +was lost in the beautiful storm, which went over the gas-lamps like a +black-dotted halo. In the rear room there was a soft clatter of dishes. +The silence was rich and full of thought. Joe scratched on, Sally +puzzled over reports. + +Then softly the door opened, and a hoarse voice said: + +"Joe? You there?" + +Sally and Joe turned around. It was Izon, dark, handsome, fiery, muffled +up to his neck, his hat drawn low on his face, and the thin snow +scattering from his shoulders and sleeves. + +"Yes, I'm here," Joe said in a low voice. "What is it?" + +Izon came over. + +"Joe!"--his voice was passionate--"there's trouble brewing at Marrin's." + +"Marrin? Why, he was here only to-day!" + +Izon clutched the back of a chair and leaned over. + +"Marrin is a dirty scoundrel!" + +His voice was hoarse with helplessness and passion. + +Joe rose. + +"Tell me about this! Put it in a word!" + +Tears sprang to Izon's eyes. + +"You know the cloak-makers' strike--well! Some manufacturer has asked +Marrin to help him out--to fill an order of cloaks for him." + +"And Marrin--" Joe felt himself getting hot. + +"Has given the job to us men." + +"How many are there?" + +"Forty-five." + +"And the women?" + +"They're busy on shirtwaists." + +"And what did the men do?" + +"As they were told." + +"So you fellows are cutting under the strikers--you're scabs." + +Izon clutched the chair harder. + +"I told them so--I said, 'For God's sake, be men--strike, if this isn't +stopped.'" + +"And what did they say?" + +"They'd think it over!" + +Sally arose and spoke quietly. + +"Make them meet here. _I'll_ talk to them!" + +Izon muttered darkly: + +"Marrin's a dirty scoundrel!" + +Joe smote his hands together. + +"We'll fix him. You get the men down here! You just get the men!" + +And then Joe understood that his work was not child's play; that the +fight was man-size; that it had its dangers, its perils, its fierce +struggles. He felt a new power rise within him--a warrior strength. He +was ready to plunge in and give battle--ready for a hand-to-hand +conflict. Now he was to be tested in the fires; now he was to meet and +make or be broken by a great moment. An electricity of conflict filled +the air, a foreboding of disaster. His theories at last were to meet the +crucial test of reality, and he realized that up to that moment he had +been hardly more than a dreamer. + + + + +V + + +FORTY-FIVE TREACHEROUS MEN + +Out of the white, frosty street the next night, when every lamp up and +down shone like a starry jewel beneath the tingling stars, forty-five +men emerged, crowding, pushing in the hall, wedging through the doorway, +and filling the not-too-large editorial office. Joe had provided +camp-stools, and the room was soon packed with sitting and standing men, +circles of shadowy beings, carelessly clothed, with rough black cheeks +and dark eyes--a bunch of jabbering aliens, excited, unfriendly, +curious, absorbed in their problem--an ill-kempt lot and quite unlovely. + +At the center stove, a little way off from its red heart, sat Joe and +Sally and Izon. The men began to smoke cigarettes and little cigars, and +with the rank tobacco smell was mingled the sweaty human odor. The room +grew densely hot, and a window had to be thrown open. A vapor of smoke +filled the atmosphere, shot golden with the lights, and in the smoke the +many heads, bent this way and that, leaning forward or tilted up, showed +strange and a little unreal. Joe could see faces that fascinated him by +their vivid lines, their starting dark eyes and the white eye-balls, +their bulging noses and big mouths. Hands fluttered in lively gestures +and a storm of Yiddish words broke loose. + +Joe arose, lifting his hand for silence. Men pulled each other by the +sleeve, and a strident "'Ssh!" ran round the room. + +"Silence!" cried Joe. His voice came from the depths of his big chest, +and was masterful, ringing with determination. + +An expectant hush followed. And then Joe spoke. + +"I want to welcome you to this room. It belongs to you as much as to +anybody, for in this room is published a paper that works for your good. +But I not only want to welcome you: I want to ask your permission to +speak at this meeting." + +There were cries of: "Speak! Go on! Say it!" + +Joe went on. Behind his words was a menace. + +"Then I want to say this to you. Your boss, Mr. Marrin, has done a +cowardly and treacherous thing. He has made scabs of you all. You are no +better than strike-breakers. If you do this work, if you make these +cloaks, you are traitors to your fellow-workers, the cloak-makers. You +are crippling other workmen. You are selling them to their bosses. But +I'm sure you won't stand for this. You are men enough to fight for the +cause of all working people. You belong to a race that has been +persecuted through the ages, a brave race, a race that has triumphed +through hunger and cold and massacres. You are great enough to make this +sacrifice. If this is so, I call on you to resist your boss, to refuse +to do his dirty work, and I ask you--if he persists in his orders--to +lay down your work and _strike_." + +He sat down, and there was a miserable pause. He had not stirred them at +all, and felt his failure keenly. It was as if he had not reached over +the fence of race. He told himself he must school himself in the future, +must broaden out. As a matter of fact, it was the menace in his tone +that hushed the meeting. The men rather feared what lay behind Joe's +words. + +At once, however, one of the men leaped to his feet, and began a fiery +speech in Yiddish, speaking gaspingly, passionately, hotly, shaking his +fist, fluttering his hands, tearing a passion to tatters. Joe understood +not a word, but the burden of the speech was: + +"Why should we strike? What for? For the cloak-makers? What have we to +do with cloak-makers? We have troubles enough of our own. We have our +families to support--our wives and children and relations. Shall they +starve for some foolish cloak--makers? Comrades, don't listen to such +humbug. Do your work--get done with it. You have good jobs--don't lose +them. These revolutionists! They would break up the whole world for +their nonsense! It's not they who have to suffer; it's us working +people. We do the starving, we do the fighting. Have sense; bethink +yourselves; don't make fools out of yourselves!" + +A buzz of talk arose with many gesticulations. + +"He's right! Why should we strike--Och, Gott, such nonsense!--No more +strike talk." + +Then Sally arose, pale, eyes blazing. She shook a stanch little fist at +the crowd. But how different was her speech from the one in Carnegie +Hall--that time when she had been truly inspired. + +"Shame on all of you! You're a lot of cowards! You're a lot of traitors! +You can't think of anything but your bellies! Shame on you all! Women +would never stand for such things--young girls, your sisters or your +daughters, would strike at once! Let me tell you what will happen to +you. Some day there will be a strike of shirt-waist-makers, and then +your boss will go to the cloak-house and say, 'Now you make shirtwaists +for me,' and the cloak-makers will make the shirtwaists, saying, 'When +we were striking, the shirtwaist-makers made cloaks; now we'll make +waists.' And that will ruin your strike, and ruin you all. Working +people must unite! Working people must stand by each other! That's your +only power. The boss has money, land, machinery, friends. What have you? +You only have each other, and if you don't stand by each other, you +have nothing at all. Strike! I tell you! Strike and show 'em! Show 'em! +Rise and resist! You have the power! You are bound to win! Strike! I +tell you!" + +Then a man shouted: "Shall a woman tell us what to do?" and tumult broke +loose, angry arguments, words flying. The air seemed to tingle with +excitement, expectation, and that sharp feeling of human crisis. Joe +could feel the circle of human nature fighting about him. He leaned +forward, strangely shaken. + +Izon had arisen, and was trying to speak. The dark, handsome young man +was gesturing eloquently. His voice poured like a fire, swept the crowd, +and he reached them with their own language. + +"Comrades! Comrades! Comrades!" and then his voice rose and stilled the +tumult, and all leaned forward, hanging on his words. "You must"--he was +appealing to them with arms outstretched--"you must! You will strike; +you will not be cowards! Not for yourselves, O comrades, but for your +children--_your children_! Do I not know you? Do I not know how you toil +and slave and go hungry and wear out your bodies and souls? Have I not +toiled with you? Have I not shared your struggles and your pain? Do I +not know that you are doing all, all for your children--that the little +ones may grow up to a better life than yours--that your little ones may +be happier, and healthier, and richer, and finer? Have I not seen it a +thousand times? But what sort of a world will your children find when +they grow up if you do not fight these battles for them? If you let the +bosses enslave you--if you are cowards and slaves--will not your +children be slaves? Oh, we that belong to Israel, have we not fought for +freedom these bloody thousand years? Are we to cease now? Can't you see? +Can't you open your hearts and minds?" His voice came with a passionate +sob. "Won't you see that this is a fight for the future--a fight for all +who work for wages--a fight for freedom? Not care for the cloak-makers? +They are your brothers. Care for them, lest the day come when you are +uncared for! Strike! You must--you _must_! Strike, comrades! We will +hang by each other! We will suffer together! And it will not be the +first time! No, not the first time--or the last!" + +He sank exhausted on his chair, crumpled up. Sweat was running down his +white face. There was a moment's hush--snuffling, and a few coarse +sobs--and then a young man arose, and spoke in trembling voice: + +"I move--we send Jacob Izon to-morrow to our boss--and tell him--either +no cloaks, or--we strike!" + +"Second! Second!" + +Joe put the motion. + +"All in favor, say aye." + +There was a wild shout of ayes. The motion was carried. Then the air +was charged with excitement, with fiery talk, with denunciation and +ardor. + +"Now we're in for it!" said Joe, as the room was emptied, and the +aroused groups trudged east on the crunching snow. + +And so it was. Next morning, when Theodore Marrin made the rounds of the +vast loft where two hundred girls and forty-five men were busily +working--the machines racing--the air pulsing with noise--Jacob Izon +arose, trembling, and confronted him. + +"Well, Jacob!" + +"I want to tell you something." + +"Go ahead." + +"The men have asked me to ask you not to have us make the cloaks." + +Marrin's red face seemed to grow redder. + +"So, that's it!" he snapped. "Well, here's my answer. Go back to your +work!" + +The men had stopped working and were listening. The air was electric, +ominous. + +Izon spoke tremblingly. + +"I am very sorry then. I must announce that the men have struck!" + +Marrin glared at him. + +"Very well! And get out--quick!" + +He turned and walked away, flaming with rage. The men quickly put their +work away, got their hats and coats, and followed Izon. When they +reached the street--a strange spectacle on flashing, brilliant Fifth +Avenue--Izon suggested that they go down to Tenth Street, for they stood +about like a lot of lost sheep. + +"No," cried one of the men, "we've had enough of Tenth Street. There's a +hall we can use right over on Eighteenth Street. Come on." + +The rest followed. Izon reported to Joe, and Joe asked: + +"Do you think they'll fight it out?" + +"I don't know!" Izon shrugged his shoulders. + +This doubt was justifiable, for he soon found that he was leading a +forlorn hope. As morning after morning the men assembled in the dark +meeting-room behind a saloon, and sat about in their overcoats +complaining and whining, quoting their wives and relatives, more and +more they grew disconsolate and discouraged. There were murmurs of +rebellion, words of antagonism. Finally on the fifth morning a messenger +arrived with a letter. Izon took it. + +"It's from Marrin," he murmured. + +"Read it! Read it out loud!" + +He opened it and read: + + TO MY MEN,--I have thought matters over. I do not like to sever + connections with men who have been so long in my employ. If you return + to work this morning, you may go on at the old salaries, and we will + consider the matter closed. If, however, you listen to advice calculated + to ruin your future, and do not return, please remember that I will not + be responsible. I shall then secure new men, and your places will be + occupied by others. + + Yours faithfully, + + THEODORE MARRIN. + + _P.S._--Naturally, it is understood that under no circumstance will your + leader--Jacob Izon--the cause of this trouble between us--be + re-employed. Such men are a disgrace to the world. + +Izon's cheeks flushed hot. He looked up. + +"Shall I write to him that we will not consider his offer, and tell him +we refuse to compromise?" + +There was a silence a little while, and then one of the older men +shuffled to his feet. + +"Tell you what we do--we get up a collection for Izon. Then everything +will be all right!" + +Izon's eyes blazed. + +"Charity? Not for me! I don't want you to think of me! I want you to +think of what this strike means!" + +Then some one muttered: + +"We've listened long enough to Izon." + +And another: "I'm going to work!" + +"So am I! So am I!" + +They began to rise, to shamefacedly shamble toward the door. Izon rose +to his feet, tried to intercept them, stretched out his arms to them. + +"For God's sake," he cried, "leave me out, but get something. Don't go +back like this! Get something! Don't you see that Marrin is ready to +give in? Are you going back like weak slaves?" + +They did not heed him; but one old man paused and put a hand on his +shoulder. + +"This will teach you not to be so rash next time. You will learn yet." + +And they were gone. Izon was dazed, heart-broken. He hurried home to his +wife and wept upon her shoulder. + +Late that afternoon Joe and Sally were again alone in the office, their +lights lit, their pens scratching, working in a sweet unspoken sympathy +in the quiet, shadowy place. There was a turning of the knob, and Izon +came in. Joe and Sally arose and faced him. He came slowly, his face +drawn and haggard. + +"Joe! Joe!" + +"What is it?" Joe drew the boy near. + +"They've gone back--the men have gone back!" + +"Gone back?" cried Joe. + +"Read this letter!" + +Joe read it, and spoke angrily. + +"Then I'll do something!" + +Izon pleaded with him. + +"Be careful, Joe--don't do anything foolish for my sake. I'll get +along--" + +"But your wife! How does she take it?" + +Izon's face brightened. + +"Oh, she's a Comrade! That's why I married her!" + +"Good!" said Joe. "Then I'll go ahead. I'll speak my mind!" + +"Not for me, though," cried Izon. "I'll get something else." + +"Are you _sure_ of that?" asked Joe. + +"Why not?" + +"Are you sure," Joe went on, "that you won't be blacklisted?" + +Izon stared at him. + +"Well--I suppose--I will." + +"You'll have to leave the city, Jacob." + +"I can't. I'm right in my course of engineering. I can't go." + +"Well, we'll see!" Joe's voice softened. "Now you go home and rest. +There's a good fellow. And everything will be all right!" + +And he saw Izon out. + +Joe began again to feel the tragic undercurrents of life, the first time +since the dark days following the fire. He came back, and stood +brooding, his homely face darkened with sorrow. Sally stood watching +him, her pale face flushing, her eyes darting sympathy and daring. + +"Mr. Joe." + +"Yes, Miss Sally." + +"I want to do something." + +"What?" + +"I want to go up to Marrin's to-morrow and get the girls out on strike." + +"What's that?" + +"I've done it before; I can do it again." + +Joe laughed softly. + +"Miss Sally, what would I do without you? I'd go stale on life, I +think." + +She made an impulsive movement toward him. + +"Mr. Joe." + +"Yes?" + +"I want to help you--every way." + +"I know you do." His voice was a little husky, and he looked up and met +her fine, clear eyes. + +Then she turned away, sadly. + +"You'll let me do it?" + +"Oh, no!" he said firmly. "The idea's appealing, but you mustn't think +of it, Miss Sally. It will only stir up trouble." + +"We ought to." + +"Not for this." + +"But the shirtwaist-makers are working in intolerable conditions; +they're just ready to strike; a spark would blow 'em all up." + +He shook his head. + +"Wait--wait till we see what my next number does!" + +Sally said no more; but her heart nursed her desire until it grew to an +overmastering passion. She left for the night, and Joe sat down, burning +with the fires of righteousness. And he wrote an editorial that altered +the current of his life. He wrote: + + FORTY-FIVE TREACHEROUS MEN + + Theodore Marrin and the forty-four who went back to work for him: + Every one of you is a traitor to American citizenship. + Let us use blunt words and call a spade a spade. + Theodore Marrin, you have betrayed your employees. + You forty-four men, you have betrayed yourselves and your leader. + +And so it went, sharp, incisive, plain-spoken--words that were hot +brands and burned. + +He was sitting at this task (twice his mother had called him to supper +and he had waved her away) when an exquisite black-eyed little woman +came in. + +"Mr. Blaine?" + +"Yes." + +"I'm Mrs. Izon." + +Joe wheeled about and seized her hand. + +"Tell me to do something for you! You and your brave husband!" + +Mrs. Izon spoke quietly: + +"I came here because Jacob is so worried. He is afraid you will harm +yourself for us." + +Joe laughed softly. + +"Tell him not to worry any longer. It's you who are suffering--not I. I? +I am only having fun." + +She was not satisfied. + +"We oughtn't to get others mixed up in our troubles." + +"It's hard for you, isn't it?" Joe murmured. + +"Yes." She smiled sadly. "I suppose it isn't right when you are in the +struggle to get married. Not right to the children." + +Joe spoke courageously. + +"Never you mind, Mrs. Izon--but just wait. Wait three--four days. We'll +see!" + +They did wait, and they did see. + + + + +VI + + +A FIGHT IN GOOD EARNEST + +Sally hesitated before going into Marrin's that Monday morning. A +blinding snow-storm was being released over the city, and the fierce +gusts eddied about the corner of Fifth Avenue, blew into drifts, lodged +on sill and cornice and lintel, and blotted out the sky and the world. +Through the wild whiteness a few desolate people ploughed their way, +buffeted, blown, hanging on to their hats, and quite unable to see +ahead. Sally shoved her red little hands into her coat pockets, and +stood, a careless soul, in the white welter. + +From her shoulder, some hundred feet to the south, ran the plate-glass +of Marrin's, spotted and clotted and stringy with snow and ice, and +right before her was the entrance for deliveries and employees. A last +consideration held her back. She had been lying awake nights arguing +with her conscience. Joe had told her not to do it--that it would only +stir up trouble--but Joe was too kindly. In the battles of the working +people a time must come for cruelty, blows, and swift victory. Marrin +was an out-and-out enemy to be met and overthrown; he had made traitors +of the men; he had annihilated Izon; she would fight him with the women. + +Nor was this the only reason. Sally felt that her supreme task was to +organize the women in industry, to take this trampled class and make of +it a powerful engine for self-betterment, and no women were more +prepared, she felt, than the shirtwaist-makers. She knew that at +Marrin's the conditions were fairly good, though, even there, women and +young girls worked sometimes twelve hours and more a day, and earned, +many of them, but four or five dollars a week. What tempted Sally, +however, was the knowledge that a strike at Marrin's would be the spark +to set off the city and bring out the women by the thousands. It would +be the uprising of the women; the first upward step from sheer +wage-slavery; the first advance toward the ideal of that coming woman, +who should be a man in her freedom and her strength and her power, and +yet woman of woman in her love and her motherhood and wife-hood. +Industry, so Sally knew, was taking the young girls by the million, +overworking them, sapping them of body and soul, and casting them out +unfit to bear children, untrained to keep house, undisciplined to meet +life and to be a comrade of a man. And Sally knew, moreover, what could +be done. She knew what she had accomplished with the hat-trimmers. + +Nevertheless, she hesitated, not quite sure that the moment had come. +Joe's words detained her in a way no man's words had ever done before. +But she thought: "I do this for him. I sharpen the edge of his editorial +and drive it home. Words could never hurt Marrin--but I can." She got +under the shelter of the doorway and with numb hand pulled a copy of +_The Nine-Tenths_ from her pocket, unfolded it, and reread the burning +words of: "Forty-five Treacherous Men." They roused all her fighting +blood; they angered her; they incited her. + +"Joe! Joe!" she murmured. "It's you driving me on--it's you! Here goes!" + +It was in some ways a desperate undertaking. Once, in Newark, a rough of +an employer had almost thrown her down the stairs, man-handling her, and +while Marrin or his men would not do this, yet what method could she use +to brave the two hundred and fifty people in the loft? She was quite +alone, quite without any weapon save her tongue. To fail would be +ridiculous and ignominious. Yet Sally was quite calm; her heart did not +seem to miss a beat; her brain was not confused by a rush of blood. She +knew what she was doing. + +She climbed that first flight of semi-circular stairs without hindrance, +secretly hoping that by no mischance either Marrin or one of his +sub-bosses might emerge. There was a door at the first landing. She +passed it quickly and started up the second flight. Then there was a +turning of a knob, a rustling of skirts, and a voice came sharp: + +"Where are you going?" + +Sally turned. The forelady stood below her--large, eagle-eyed woman, +with square and wrinkled face, quite a mustache on her upper lip. Sally +spoke easily. + +"Up-stairs." + +"For what?" + +"To see one of the girls. Her mother's sick." + +The forelady eyed Sally suspiciously. + +"Did you get a permit from the office?" + +Sally seemed surprised. + +"Permit? No! Do you have to get a permit?" + +The forelady spoke roughly. + +"You get a permit, or you don't go up." + +"Where's the office?" + +"In here." + +"Thanks for telling me!" + +Sally came down, and, as she entered the doorway, the forelady proceeded +up-stairs. Sally delayed a second, until the forelady disappeared around +the bend, and then quickly, quietly she followed, taking the steps two +at a time. The forelady had hardly entered the doorway on the next +landing when Sally was in with her, and treading softly in her +footsteps. + +This was the loft, vast, lit by windows east and west, and hung, this +snow-darkened morning, with many glittering lights. Through all the +space girls and women, close together, bent over power-machines which +seemed to race at intolerable speed. There was such a din and clatter, +such a whizzing, thumping racket, that voices or steps would well be +lost. Then suddenly, in the very center of the place, the forelady, +stopping to speak to a girl, while all the girls of the neighborhood +ceased work to listen, thus producing a space of calm--the forelady, +slightly turning and bending, spied Sally. + +She came up indignantly. + +"Why did you follow me? Go down to the office!" + +Many more machines stopped, many more pale faces lifted and watched. + +Sally gave a quick glance around, and was a trifle upset by seeing Mr. +Marrin coming straight toward her. He came with his easy, tripping +stride, self-satisfied, red-faced, tastefully dressed, an orchid in his +buttonhole. Sally spoke quickly. + +"I was only looking for Mr. Marrin, and here he is!" + +As Mr. Marrin came up, more and more machines stopped, as if by +contagion, and the place grew strangely hushed. + +The forelady turned to her boss. + +"This woman's sneaked in here without a permit!" + +Marrin spoke sharply. + +"What do you want?" + +Then in the quiet Sally spoke in a loud, exultant voice. + +"I only wanted to tell the girls to strike!" + +A sudden electricity charged the air. + +"What!" cried Marrin, the vein on his forehead swelling. "You come in +here--" + +"To tell the girls to strike," Sally spoke louder. "For you've made the +men traitors and you've blacklisted Izon." + +Marrin sensed the danger in the shop's quiet. + +"For God's sake," he cried, "lower your voice--speak to me--tell me in +private--" + +"I am," shrieked Sally. "I'm telling you I want the girls to strike!" + +He turned. + +"Come in my private office, quick! I'll talk with you!" + +Sally followed his hurried steps. + +"Yes, I'll tell you there," she fairly shrieked, "that I want the girls +to strike!" + +Marrin turned. + +"Can't you shut up?" + +And then Sally wheeled about and spoke to the two hundred. + +"Girls! come on out! We'll tie him up! We're not like the men! _We_ +won't stand for such things, will we?" + +Then, in the stillness, Jewish girls here and there rose from their +machines. It was like the appearance of apparitions. How did it come +that these girls were more ready than any one could have guessed, and +were but waiting the call? More and more arose, and low murmurs spread, +words, "It's about time! I won't slave any more! He had no right to put +out Izon! The men are afraid! Mr. Blaine is right!" + +Marrin tried to shout: + +"I order you to get to work!" + +But a tumult drowned his voice, a busy clamor, an exultant jabber of +tongues, a rising, a shuffling, a moving about. + +Sally marched down the aisle. + +"Follow me, girls! We're going to have a union!" + +It might have been the Pied Piper of Hamelin whistling up the +rats--there was a hurrying, a scurrying, a weird laughter, a blowing +about of words, and the two hundred, first swallowing up Sally, crowded +the doorway, moved slowly, pushed, shoved, wedged through, and +disappeared, thundering, shouting and laughing, down the steps. The two +hundred, always so subdued, so easily bossed, so obedient and +submissive, had risen and gone. + +Marrin looked apoplectic. He rushed over to where the forty-four men +were sitting like frightened animals. He spoke to the one nearest him. + +"Who was that girl? I've seen her somewhere!" + +"She?" the man stammered. "That's Joe Blaine's girl." + +"_Joe Blaine_!" cried Marrin. + +"Look," said the man, handing Marrin a copy of _The Nine-Tenths_, "the +girls read this this morning. That's why they struck." + +Marrin seized the paper. He saw the title: + + FORTY-FIVE TREACHEROUS MEN + +and he read beneath it: + + Theodore Marrin, and the forty-four who went back to + work for him: + Every one of you is a traitor to American citizenship. + Let us use blunt words and call a spade a spade. + Theodore Marrin, you have betrayed your employees. + +And then farther down: + + No decent human being would work for such a man. + He has no right to be an employer--not in such hands + should be placed the sacred welfare of men and women. + If I were one of Marrin's employees I would prefer the + streets to his shop. + +Marrin looked up at the forty-four. And he saw that they were more than +frightened--they were in an ugly humor, almost ferocious. The article +had goaded them into a senseless fury. + +Marrin spoke more easily. + +"So that's your friend of labor, that's your Joe Blaine. Well, here is +what your Joe Blaine has done for you. You're no good to me without the +girls. You're all discharged!" + +He left them and made madly for the door. The men were chaotic with +rage; they arose; their voices went sharp and wild. + +"What does that Joe Blaine mean? He takes the bread out of our mouths! +He makes fools of us! He ought to be shot! I spit on him! Curse him!" + +One man arose on a chair. + +"You fools--you listened to that man, and went on strike--and now you +come back, and he makes you lose your jobs. Are you going to be fools +now? Are you going to let him get the best of you? He is laughing at +you, the pig. The girls are laughing at you. Come on! We will go down +and show him--we will assemble before his place and speak to him!" + +The men were insane with rage and demon-hate. Vehemently shouting, they +made for the stairs, rushed pell-mell down, and sought the street, and +turned south through the snow. There were few about to notice them, none +to stop them. Policemen were in doorways and odd shelters. And so, +unimpeded, the crazed mob made its way. + +In the mean time Marrin had come out in his heavy fur coat and stepped +into his closed automobile. It went through the storm, easily gliding, +turned up West Tenth Street, and stopped before Joe's windows. Marrin +hurried in and boldly opened the office door. Billy jumped up to +intercept him. + +"Mr. Blaine--" he began. + +"Get out of my way!" snapped Marrin, and stepped up to Joe. + +Joe was brooding at his desk, brooding and writing, his dark face +troubled, his big form quite stoop-shouldered. + +"Well," said Joe, "what's the matter, Mr. Marrin?" + +Marrin tried to contain his rage. He pointed his cane at Joe. + +"You've made a mistake, Mr. Blaine." + +"It isn't the first one." + +"Let me tell you something--" + +"I will let you." + +Marrin spoke with repression. + +"Next time--don't attack both the boss and the men. It's bad policy. +Take sides." + +"Oh, I did take sides," said Joe, lightly. "I'm against anything +treacherous." + +Marrin exploded. + +"Well, you'll get yours! And let me tell you something! I've a good mind +to sue you for libel and shut up your shop." + +Joe rose, and there was a dangerous light in his eyes. His hands were +open at his sides, but they twitched a little. + +"Then," said Joe, "I'll make it worth your while. If you don't want to +be helped out, _get out_!" + +"Very well," sputtered Marrin, and turned, twirling his cane, and made +an upright exit. + +The sad Slate was paralyzed; Billy was joyous. + +But Joe strode into the kitchen, where his mother was quietly reading at +the window. + +"What is it, Joe?" + +"Mother," he said, "that fellow Marrin was in threatening to sue me for +libel." + +"Could it hurt you?" + +"It might. Speaking the truth is always libelous." + +Joe's mother spoke softly. + +"Your father lost an arm in the war. You can't expect to fight without +facing danger. And besides," she laughed easily, "you can always get a +job as a printer, Joe." + +Joe paced up and down moodily, his hands clasped behind his back. + +"If it was only myself--" he murmured, greatly troubled. "I wonder where +Sally is this morning." + +"Didn't she come, Joe?" + +"No. Not a word from her. I'd hate her to be sick." + +"Hadn't you better send over and see?" + +"I'll wait a bit yet. And yet--" he sighed, "I just need Sally now." + +His mother glanced at him keenly. + +"Sally's a wonder," she murmured. + +"She is--" He spoke a little irritably. "Why couldn't she have come this +morning?" + +There were quick steps, and Billy rushed in, his eyes large, his cheeks +pale. + +"Mr. Joe!" he said breathlessly. + +"Yes, Billy." + +"There's a lot of men out on the street, and they're beginning to fire +snowballs!" + +Nathan Slate came in, a scarecrow of fear, teeth chattering. + +"Oh, Mr. Joe," he wailed. "Oh, Mr. Joe!" + +Joe's mother rose, and spoke under her breath. + +"Mr. Slate, sit down at once!" + +Slate collapsed on a chair, trembling. + +Joe felt as if a fork of lightning had transfixed him--a sharp white +fire darting from head and feet and arms to his heart, and whirling +there in a spinning ball. He spoke quietly: + +"I'll go and see." + +It seemed long before he got to the front window. Looking out through +the snow-dim pane, he saw the street filled with gesticulating men. He +saw some of the faces of the forty-four, but mingled with these were +other faces--the faces of toughs and thugs, ominous, brutal, menacing. +In a flash he realized that he had been making enemies in the district +as well as friends, and it struck him that these were the criminal +element in the political gang, hangers-on, floaters, the saloon +contingent, who were maddened by his attempt to lead the people away +from the rotten bosses. As if by magic they had emerged from the +underworld, as they always do in times of trouble, and he knew that the +excited East Side group was now flavored with mob-anarchy--that he had +to deal, not with men whose worst weapon was words, but with brutes who +lusted for broken heads. Some of the faces he knew--he had seen them +hanging about saloons. And he saw, too, in that swift scrutiny, that +many of the men had weapons; some had seized crowbars and sledges from a +near-by street tool-chest which was being used by laborers; others had +sticks; some had stones. An ominous sound came from the mob, something +winged with doom and death, like the rattling of a venomous snake, with +head raised to strike, ready fangs and glittering eyes. He could catch +in that paralyzing hum words tossed here and there: "Smash his presses! +Clean him out! Lynch him, lynch him! Kill--kill--kill!--" + +A human beast had coiled at his door, myriad-headed, insane, +bloodthirsty, all-powerful--the mob, that terror of civilization, that +sudden reversion in mass to a state of savagery. It boded ill for Joe +Blaine. He had a bitter, cynical thought: + +"So this is what comes of spreading the truth--of really trying to +help--of living out an ideal!" + +A snowball hit the window before him, a soft crash and spread of drip, +and there rose from the mob a fiendish yell that seemed itself a power, +making the heart pound, dizzying the brain. + +Joe turned. His mother was standing close to him, white as paper, but +her eyes flashing. She had not dared speak to Joe, knowing that this +fight was his and that he had passed out of her hands. + +He spoke in a low, pulsing voice. + +"Mother, I want you to stay in back!" + +She looked at him, as if drinking her fill of his face. + +"You're right, Joe," she whispered, and turned and went out. + +Billy was standing at the stove, a frightened boy, but he gripped the +poker in his hand. + +"Billy," said Joe, quietly, "run down and tell Rann to keep 'em out of +the press-room." + +Billy edged to the door, opened it, and fled. + +Joe was quite alone. He sat down at his desk and took up the telephone. + +"Hello, Central!" his voice was monotonous in its lowness and tenseness. + +"Hello!" + +"Give me police headquarters--_quick_!" + +Central seemed startled. + +"Police--? Yes, right away! Hold on!--Here they are!" + +"Hello! Police headquarters!" came a man's voice. + +"This is Joe Blaine." Joe gave his address. "There's a riot in front of +the house--a big mob. Send over a patrol wagon on the jump!" + +At that moment there was a wild crash of glass, and a heavy stone sang +through the air and knocked out the stove-pipe--pipe and stone falling +to the floor with a rumble and rattle--and from the mob rose murderous +yells. + +So Joe was able to add: + +"They've just smashed my window with a stone. You'd better come damn +fast." + +"Right off!" snapped Headquarters. + +Joe put down the telephone, and stepped quietly over the room and out +into the hall. Even at that moment the hall door burst wide and a +frenzied push and squabble of men poured forth upon him. In that brief +glimpse, in the dim storm-light, Joe saw faces that were anything but +human--wild animals, eyes blood-shot, mouths wide, and many fists in the +air above their heads. There was no mercy, no thought, nothing +civilized--but somehow the demon-deeps of human nature, crusted over +with the veneer of gentler things, had broken through. Worse than +anything was the crazy hum, rising and rising, the hoarse notes, the +fierce discord, that beat upon his brain as if to drown him under. + +Joe tried to shout: + +"Keep back! I'll shoot! Keep back!" + +But at once the rough bodies, the terrible faces were upon him, +surrounding him, pushing him. He seized a little man who was jumping for +his throat--seized and shook the little beast. + +"Get back!" he cried. + +Fists pushed into his eyes, blows began to rain upon his body and his +head. He ducked. He felt himself propelled backward by an irresistible +force. He felt his feet giving way. Warm and reeking breath blew up his +nostrils. He heard confused cries of: "Kill him! That's him! We've got +him!" Back and back he went, the torn center of a storm, and then +something warm and sweet gushed over his eyes, earth opened under him +and he sank, sank through soft gulfs, deeper and deeper, far from the +troublous noise of life, far, far--into an engulfing blackness. + +The flood poured on, gushing down the stair-way, at the foot of which +Rann and his two men stood, all armed with wrenches and tools. + +Rann shouted. + +"I'll break the head of any one who comes!" + +The men in advance tried to break away, well content to leave their +heads whole, but those in the rear pushed them on. Whack! whack! went +the wrench--the leader fell. But then with fierce screams the mob broke +loose, the three men were swept into the vortex of a fighting whirlpool. +Some one opened the basement gate from the inside and a new stream +poured in. The press-room filled--crowbars got to work--while men danced +and wildly laughed and exulted in their vandal work. Then suddenly arose +the cry of, "Police!" Tools dropped; the mob turned like a stampede of +cattle, crushed for the doors, cried out, caught in a trap, and ran into +the arms of blue-coated officers.... + +When Joe next opened his eyes and looked out with some surprise on the +same world that he was used to, he found himself stretched in his bed +and a low gas-flame eyeing him from above. He put out a hand, because he +felt queer about the head, and touched bandages. Then some one spoke in +his ear. + +"You want to keep quiet, Mr. Blaine." + +He looked. A doctor was sitting beside him. + +"Where's mother?" he asked. + +"Here I am, Joe." Her voice was sweet in his ears. + +She was sitting on the bed at his feet. + +"Come here." + +She took the seat beside him and folded his free hand with both of hers. + +"Mother--I want to know what's the matter with me--every bit of it." + +"Well, Joe, you've a broken arm and a banged-up head, but you'll be all +right." + +"And you--are you all right?" + +"Perfectly." + +"They didn't go in the kitchen?" + +"No." + +"And the press?" + +"It's smashed." + +"And the office?" + +"In ruins." + +"How about Rann and the men?" + +"Bruised--that's all." + +"The police came?" + +"Cleaned them out." + +There was a pause; then Joe and his mother looked at each other with +queer expressions on their faces, and suddenly their mellow laughter +filled the room. + +"Isn't it great, mother? That's what we get!" + +"Well, Joe," said his mother, "what do you expect?" + +Suddenly then another stood before him--bowed, remorseful, humble. It +was Sally Heffer, the tears trickling down her face. + +She knelt at the bedside and buried her face in the cover. + +"It's my fault!" she cried. "It's my fault!" + +"Yours, Sally?" cried Joe, quite forgetting the "Miss." "How so?" + +"I--I went to Marrin's and got the girls out." + +"Got the girls out?" Joe exclaimed. "Where are they?" + +"On the street." + +"Bring them into the ruins," said Joe, "and organize them. I'm going to +make a business of this thing." + +Sally looked up aghast. + +"But I--I ought to be shot down. It's I that should have been hurt." + +Joe smiled on her. + +"Sally! Sally! what an impetuous girl you are! What would I do without +you?" + + + + +VII + + +OF THE THIRTY THOUSAND + +One wonderful January twilight, when the clear, cold air seemed to +tremble with lusty health, Myra sat alone in the Ramble, before the +little frozen pond. And she thought: + +"This is the bench we sat on; and it was here, that morning, that we +quarreled; and this is the little pond; and those the trees--but how +changed! how changed!" + +A world-city practises magic. Any one who for years has slept in her +walls and worn the pave of her streets and mingled with her crowds and +her lighted nights, is changed by her subtle enchantment into a child of +the city. He is never free thereafter. The metropolis may send him forth +like a carrier-pigeon, and he may think he is well rid of his mistress, +but the homing instinct inevitably draws him back. "All other +pleasures," as Emerson said of love, "are not worth its pains." Myra +thought that she hated New York--the great nervous sea of life, whose +noise and stress and tragedy had shattered her health. She had longed +for the peace of nature; she had gone forth to the meadows and the +mountains, and for a long time been content with the sounds of the +barnyard and the farm, the wind and the brook; she had sunk, as it were, +into the arms of the earth and rested on that great nourishing breast. +She loved pure air, far horizons, quiet, and the mysterious changes of +the landscape. She thought she was done with the city forever. For had +she not found that the Vision of White Towers seen that first evening +was hollow and bitter at the heart, that beneath the beauty was dust and +horror, routine and disease? + +But one snow-bound morning as she gazed out from the quiet house and saw +the limitless white of the world, the fences buried, the trees loaded, +the earth lost under the gray heavens, suddenly she was filled with a +passionate desire for _life_. She was amazed at the restlessness in her +heart. But she could not shake it off. Her desire was very definite--to +walk down Eightieth Street, to hear and see the trolleys bounding down +the little hill to Seventy-ninth Street, to shop on Third Avenue, to go +threading her way through the swarm of school children outside the +school gates. And then subtly she felt the elixir of a Broadway night, +the golden witchery of the lights, the laughter-smitten people, the +crowded cars and motors, the shining shops, the warmth of the crowd. A +thousand memories of streets and rooms, of people and of things, flooded +her mind. The country seemed barren and cold and lonely. She was +grievously homesick. It was as if the city cried: "It is winter; the +world is dark and dead. Come, my children, gather together; gather here +in my arms, you millions; laugh and converse together, toil together, +light fires, turn on lights, warm your hands and souls at my flaming +hearth. We will forget the ice and the twilight! Come, winter is the +time for human beings!" + +And so Myra awoke to the fact that she was indeed a child of the +city--that the magic was in her blood and the enchantment in her heart. +It was useless to recall the mean toil, the narrow life, the unhealthy +days. These, dropped in the great illusion of crowded New York, were +transformed into a worthy struggle, a part of the city's reality. She +suddenly felt as if she would go crazy if she stayed in the country--its +stillness stifled her, its emptiness made her ache. + +But there was a deeper call than the call of the city. She wanted to be +with Joe. Her letters to him had been for his sake, not hers. She had +tried to save him from herself, to shut him out and set him free, to +cure him of his love. Desperately she did this, knowing that the future +held nothing for them together. And for a time it had been a beautiful +thing to do, until finally she was compelled to believe that he really +was cured. His notes were more and more perfunctory, until, at last, +they ceased altogether. Then, when she knew she had lost him, it seemed +to her that she had condemned herself to a barren, fruitless life; that +the best had been lived, and it only remained now to die. She had given +up her "whole existence," cast out that by which she truly lived. There +were moments of inexpressible loneliness, when, reading in the orchard, +or brooding beside some rippling brook, she glanced southward and sent +her silent cry over the horizon. Somewhere down there he was swallowed +in the vastness of life; she remembered the lines of his face, his dark +melancholy eyes, his big human, humorous lips, his tall, awkward +strength; she felt still those kisses on her lips; felt his arms about +her; the warmth of his hand; the whisper of his words; and the wind in +the oaks. + +That afternoon at the riverside he had cast his future at her feet. She +had been offered that which runs deeper than hunger or dream or toil, +the elemental, the mystic, the very glory of a woman's life. She had +been offered a life, too, of comradeship and great issues. And now, when +these gifts were withdrawn, she knew she would nevermore have rest or +joy in this world. Is not life the adventure of a man and a woman going +forth together, toiling, and talking, and laughing, and creating on the +road to death? Is not earth the mating-place for souls? Out of nature we +rise and seek out each other and mate and make of life a glory and a +mystery. This is the secret of youth, and the magic of all music and of +all sorrow and of all toil. Or, so it seemed to Myra. + +There is no longing in the world so tragic or terrible as that of men +and women for each other. And so Myra had her homesickness for the city +transfused and sharpened by her overmastering love. She fought with +herself bitterly; she resolved to wait for one more mail. Nothing came +in that mail. + +Then she evaded the issue. There were practical reasons for her return. +Her health was quite sound again, she had been idle long enough; it was +time to get back to work. What if she did return to the city? Surely it +was not necessary to seek out Joe. It would be enough to be near him. He +need not be troubled. So vast is the city that he would not know of her +presence. What harm, then, in easing her heart, in getting back into the +warmth and stir of life? + +With a young girl's joy she packed her trunk and took the train for New +York, and at sunset, as she rode in the ferry over the North River, she +stood bravely out on deck, faced the bitter and salt wind, and saw, +above the flush of the waters, that breathless skyline which, like the +prow of some giant ship, seemed making out to sea. Lights twinkled in +windows, signal-lamps gleamed red and green on the piers, chimneys +smoked, and as the ferry nosed its way among the busy craft of the +river, Myra exulted. She was coming back! This again was New York, real, +right there, unbudged, her thousand lights like voices calling her +home. The ferry landed; she hurried out and took a surface car And how +good the crowd seemed, how warm the noise and the lights, what gladness +was in the evening ebb-tide of people, how splendid the avenues shone +with their sparkle and their shops and their traffic! She felt again the +good hard pave under her feet. She met again a hundred familiar scenes. +The vast flood of life seemed to engulf her, suck her up as if to say: +"Well, you're here again! Come, there is room! Another human being!" + +All about her was rich life, endless sights, confusion and variety. The +closing darkness was pierced with lights, windows glowed, people were +hurrying home. It was all as she had left it. And she felt then that the +city was but Joe multiplied, and that Joe was the city. Both were +cosmopolitan, democratic, tragic, light-hearted, many-faceted. Both were +careless and big and easy and roomy. Both had a great freedom about +them. And what a freedom the city had!--nothing snowbound here, but +invitation, shops open, cars gliding, the millions transported back and +forth, everything open and inviting. + +She was glad for her neat back room--for gas-lights and running +water--for the comfort and ease of life. She was glad even to sit in the +crowded dining-room, and that night she was glad to lie abed and hear +the city's heart pounding about her--that old noise of whistles on the +river, that old thunder of the elevated train. + +But she found that nearness to Joe made it impossible to keep away from +him. Just as of old she had found excuses for going up to the trembling +printery, so now she felt that somehow she must seek him out. She kept +wondering what he was doing at that particular moment. Was he toiling or +idling? Was he with his mother? Did he still wear the same clothes, the +same half-worn necktie, the same old lovable gray hat? What would he +say, how would he look, if she suddenly confronted him? Myra had to +laugh softly to herself. She saw the wonder in his face, the open mouth, +the flashing eyes. Or, would he be embarrassed? Was there some other +woman--one who accorded with his ideals--one who could share his +life-work? Of course she hoped that there was. She hoped he had found +some one worthy of him. But the thought gave her intense misery. Why had +he thrown his life away and gone down into that foolish and shoddy +neighborhood? Surely when she saw him she would be disappointed by the +changes in him. He would be more than ever a fanatic--more than ever an +unreasonable radical. He might even be vulgarized by his +environment--might have taken its color, been leveled down by its +squalor. + +She must forget the new Joe and cleave to the old Joe. Next afternoon, +walking out, almost involuntarily, she turned west and entered the +Park. The trees were naked, a lacy tracery of boughs against the +deep-blue sky. She followed the curve, she crossed the roadway, she +climbed the hill to the Ramble. She began to tingle with the keen, crisp +air, and with the sense of adventure. It was almost as if she were going +to meet Joe--as if they had arranged a secret meeting. She took the +winding paths, she passed the little pool. There was the bench! But +empty. + +Then she sat down on that bench, and looked out at the naked wilderness +of trees, at the ice in the pond, at the sodden brown, dead grasses. The +place was wildly forlorn and bare. When they had last been here the air +had been tinged with the haunting autumn, the leaves had been falling, +the pool had been deep with the heavens. And again she thought: + +"This is the bench we sat on; and it was here, that morning, that we +quarreled; this is the little pond, and those the trees--but how +changed! how changed!" + +Then as she sat there she beheld the miracle of color. Behind her, +between the black tree trunks, the setting sun was a liquid red +splendor, daubing some low clouds with rosiness, and all about her, in +the turn between day and night, the world, which before was a blend in +the strong light, now divided into a myriad sharp tints. The air held a +tinge of purple, the distance a smoky violet, the brown of the grasses +was a strong brown, the black of the trunks intensely black. Out among +distant trees she saw a woman and child walking, and the child's scarlet +cloak seemed a living thing as it swayed and moved. How sharp and +distinct were the facts of earth! how miraculously tinted! what tones of +blue and red, of purple and black! It was the sunset singing its hymn of +color, and it made her feel keenly the mystery and beauty of life--the +great moments of solution and peace--the strange human life that +inhabits for a brief space this temple of a million glories. But +something was missing, there was a great lack, a wide emptiness. She +resolved then to see Joe. + +It was not, however, until the next afternoon that she took the elevated +train to Ninth Street and then the crosstown car over the city. She +alighted in the shabby street; she walked up to the entrance; she saw +over the French windows a big canvas sign, "Strike Headquarters." +Within, she thought she saw a mass of people. This made her hesitate. +She had expected to find him alone. And somehow, too, the place was even +shabbier, even meaner than she had expected. And so she stood a +moment--a slender, little woman, her hands in a muff, a fur scarf bound +about her throat, her gray eyes liquid and luminous, a rosy tint in her +cheeks, her lips parted and releasing a thin steam in the bitter winter +air. Overhead the sky was darkening with cloud-masses, a shriveling +wind dragged the dirty street, and the world was desolate and gray. The +blood was pulsing in Myra's temples, her heart leaped, her breath +panted. And as she hesitated a girl passed her, a girl about whose +breast was bound a placard whereon were the words: + + JOIN THE STRIKE + OF THE THIRTY THOUSAND + +What strike? What did it mean? Was Joe in a strike? She thought he had +been editing a paper. She had better not intrude. She turned, as if to +fly, and yet hesitated. Her feet refused to go; her heart was +rebellious. Only a wall divided him from her. Why should she not see +him? Why not a moment's conversation? Then she would go and leave him to +his work. + +Another girl passed her and paused--a girl also placarded, a girl with a +strange beauty, somewhat tall, with form well rounded, with pale face +full of the fascination of burning eagerness. This girl's eyes were a +clear blue, her lips set tight, and her light-brown hair blew +beautifully about her cheeks. She was, however, but thinly clothed, and +her frail little coat was short and threadbare. + +She spoke to Myra--a rich, sympathetic voice. + +"Are you looking for Mr. Blaine?" + +"Yes--" said Myra, almost gasping. "Is he in?" + +"He's always in!" The girl smiled. + +"There's nothing the matter?" + +"With him? No! But come, come out of the cold!" + +There was nothing to do but follow. The girl opened a door and they +entered the office. It was crowded with girls and women and men. Long +benches were about the wall, camp-stools filled the floor. Many were +seated; on two of the benches worn-out men were fast asleep, and between +the seats groups of girls were talking excitedly. Several lights burned +in the darkening room, and Myra saw swiftly the strange types--there +were Jewish girls, Italian girls, Americans, in all sorts of garbs, some +very flashy with their "rat"-filled hair, their pompadours, their +well-cut clothes, others almost in rags; some tall, some short, some +rosy-cheeked, many frail and weak and white. At a table in the rear +Giotto was receiving money from Italians and handing out union cards. He +looked as if he hadn't slept for nights. + +Myra was confused. She felt strangely "out" of all this; strangely, as +if she were intruding. The smell of the place offended her, especially +as it was mixed with cheap perfumes; and the coarse slangy speech that +flashed about jarred on her ear. But at the same time she was +suffocating with suspense. + +"Where is he?" she murmured--they were standing right within the door. + +"Over there!" the girl pointed. + +But all Myra saw was a black semicircle of girls leaning over some one +invisible near the window. + +"He's at his desk, and he's talking with a committee. You'd better wait +till he's finished!" + +This news choked Myra. Wait? Wait here? Be shut out like this? She was +as petulant as a child; she felt like shedding tears. + +But the girl at her side seemed to be playing the part of hostess, and +she had to speak. + +"What strike is this?" + +The girl was amazed. + +"_What strike_! Don't you know?" + +Myra smiled. + +"No--I don't. I've been out of the city." + +"It's the shirtwaist-makers' strike." + +"Oh! I see!" said Myra, mechanically. + +"It's the biggest woman's strike that ever was. Thirty thousand +out--Italians, Jews, and Americans." + +"Yes?" Myra was not listening. + +Suddenly then the door was flung open and a well-dressed girl rushed in, +crying shrilly: + +"Say, girls, what do you think?" + +A group gathered about her. + +"What's up? What's the news? Don't stand there all day!" + +The girl spoke with exultant indignation. + +"I've been arrested!" + +"Arrested! _You_!" + +"And I didn't do nothing, either--I was good. What do you think of this? +The judge fined me ten dollars. Well, let me tell you, I'm going to _get +something_ for those ten dollars! I'm going to raise--hell!" + +"You bet! Ain't it a shame?" + +And the group swallowed her up. + +Myra wondered why the girl had been arrested, and was surprised at her +lack of shame and humiliation. + +But she had not much time for thought. The door opened again, and Sally +Heffer entered, sparkling, neat, eyes clear. + +At once cries arose: + +"Here's Sal! Hello, Sally Heffer! Where have you been?" Girls crowded +about. "What's the news? Where did you come from?" + +Where had Myra heard that name before? + +Sally spoke with delicious fastidiousness. + +"_I've_ been to Vassar." + +"Vassar College?" + +"Yes, Vassar College--raised fifty dollars!" + +"Sally's it, all right! Say, Sal, how did they treat you? Stuck up?" + +"Not a bit," said Sally. "They were ever so good to me. They're lovely +girls--kind, sweet, sympathetic. They wanted to help and they were very +respectful, but"--she threw up her hands--"_oh, they're ignorant_!" + +There was a shout of laughter. Myra was shocked. A slum girl to speak +like this of Vassar students? She noticed then, with a queer pang, that +Sally made for the window group, who at once made a place for her. Sally +had easy access to Joe. + +The girl at her side was speaking again. + +"You've no idea what this strike means. There's some rich women +interested in it--they work right with us, hold mass-meetings, march in +the streets--they're wonderful. And some of the big labor-leaders and +even some of the big lawyers are helping. There's one big lawyer been +giving all his time. You see, we're having trouble with the police." + +"Yes, I see," said Myra, though she didn't see at all, and neither did +she care. It seemed to her that she could not wait another instant. She +must either go, or step over to his desk. + +"Is he still so busy?" she asked. + +"Yes, he is," said the girl. "Do you know him personally?" + +Myra laughed softly. + +"A little." + +"Then you heard how he was hurt?" + +"_Hurt_!" gasped Myra. Her heart seemed to grow small, and it was +pierced by a sharp needle of pain. + +"Yes, there was a riot here--the men came in and smashed everything." + +"And Mr. Blaine? _Tell me_!" The words came in a blurt. + +"Had his arm broken and his head was all bloody." + +Myra felt dizzy, faint. + +"But he's--better?" + +"Oh, he's all right now." + +"When did this happen?" + +"About six weeks ago!" + +Six weeks! That was shortly after the last letter came. Myra was +suffering agony, and her face went very pale. + +"How did it happen?" she breathed. + +"Oh, he called some strikers traitors, and they came down and broke in. +It's lucky he wasn't killed." + +He had suffered, he had been in peril of his life, while she was resting +in the peace of the country. So this was a strike, and in this Joe was +concerned. She looked about the busy room; she noticed anew the sleeping +men and the toiling Giotto; and suddenly she was interested. She was +wrenched, as it were, from her world into his. She felt in the heart of +a great tragedy of life. And all the time she kept saying over and over +again: + +"His arm was broken! his head bloody! and I wasn't here! I wasn't at his +side!" + +And she had thought in her country isolation that life in the city +wasn't real. What a moment that must have been when Joe faced the +rioters--when they rushed upon him--when he might have been killed! And +instead of deterring him from his work, here he was in the thick of it, +braving, possibly, unspeakable dangers. Then, glancing about, it seemed +to her that these girls and men were a part of his drama; he gave them a +new reality. This was life, pulsing, immediate, tragic. She must go to +him--she mustn't delay longer. + +She took a few steps forward, and at almost the same moment the girls +about Joe left him, scattering about the room. Then she saw him. And +what a spectacle! He was in his shirt-sleeves, his hair was more tousled +than ever, and his face was gray--the most tragic face she had ever +seen--gray, sunken, melancholy, worn, as if he bore the burden of the +world. But in one hand he held a pen, and in the other--a ham sandwich. +It was a big sandwich, and every few moments he took a big bite, as he +scratched on. Myra's heart was wrung with love and pity, with remorse +and fondness, and mainly with the tragi-comedy of his face and the +sandwich. + +She stood over him a moment, breathless, panting, her throat full of +blood, it seemed. Then she stooped a little and whispered: + +"Joe." + +He wheeled round; he looked up; his gray face seemed to grow grayer; his +lips parted--he was more than amazed. He was torn away, as it were, from +all business of life. + +"Why," he said under his breath, "it's you, Myra!" + +"Yes"--tears stood in her eyes--"it's I." + +He surveyed her up and down, and then their eyes met. He ran his hand +through his hair. + +"You--you--" he murmured. "And how well you look, how strong, how fresh! +Sit down! sit down!" + +She took the seat, trembling. She leaned forward. + +"But you--you are killing yourself, Joe." + +He smiled sadly. + +"It's serious business, Myra." + +She gazed at him, and spoke hard. + +"Is there no end to it? Aren't you going to rest, ever?" + +"End? No end now. The strike must be won." + +He was trying to pull himself together. He gave a short laugh; he sat +up. + +"So you're back from the country." + +"Yes, I'm back." + +"To stay?" + +"To stay." + +"You're cured, then?" + +"Yes," she smiled, "cured of many things. I like the city better than I +thought!" + +He gave her a sharp look. + +"So!" Then his voice came with utter weariness: "Well, the city's a +queer place, Myra. Things happen here." + +Somehow she felt that he was standing her off. Something had crept in +between them, some barrier, some wall. He had already emerged from the +shock of the meeting. What if there were things in his life far more +important than this meeting? Myra tried to be brave. + +"I just wanted to see you--see the place--see how things were getting +on." + +Joe laughed softly. + +"Things _are_ getting on. Circulation's up to fifteen thousand--due to +the strike." + +"How so?" + +"We got out a strike edition--and the girls peddled it around town, and +lots subscribed. It's given the paper a big boost." + +"I'm glad to hear it," Myra found herself saying. + +"_You_ glad?" If only his voice hadn't been so weary! "That's strange, +Myra." + +"It _is_ strange!" she said, her eyes suffused again. His gray, tragic +face seemed to be working on the very strings of her heart. She longed +so to help him, to heal him, to breathe joy and strength into him. + +"Joe!" she said. + +He looked at her again. + +"Yes, Myra." + +"Oh--I--" She paused. + +He smiled. + +"Say it!" + +"Isn't there some way I can help?" + +A strange expression came to his face, of surprise, of wonder. + +"_You_ help?" + +"Yes--I--" + +"Mr. Blaine! Mr. Blaine!" Some one across the room was calling. "There's +an employer here to see you!" + +Joe leaped up, took Myra's hand, and spoke hastily. + +"Wait and meet my mother. And come again--sometime. Sometime when I'm +not so rushed!" + +And he was gone--gone out of the room. + +Myra arose, still warm with the touch of his hand--for his hand was +almost fever-warm. All that she knew was that he had suffered and was +suffering, and that she must help. She was burning now with an eagerness +to learn about the strike, to understand what it was that so depressed +and enslaved him, what it was that was slowly killing him. Her old +theories met the warm clasp of life and vanished. She forgot her +viewpoint and her delicacy. Life was too big for her shallow philosophy. +It seized upon her now and absorbed her. + +She strode back to the young girl, who she learned later was named Rhona +Hemlitz, and who was but seventeen years old. + +She said: "Tell me about the strike! Can't we sit down together and +talk? Have you time?" + +"I have a little time," said Rhona, eagerly. "We can sit here!" + +So they sat side by side and Rhona told her. Rhona's whole family was +engaged in sweat-work. They lived in a miserable tenement over in Hester +Street, where her mother had been toiling from dawn until midnight with +the needle, with her tiny brother helping to sew on buttons, "finishing" +daily a dozen pairs of pants, and making--_thirty cents_. + +Myra was amazed. + +"Thirty cents--dawn till midnight! Impossible!" + +And then her father--who worked all day in a sweatshop. + +"And you--what did you do?" asked Myra. + +Rhona told her. She had worked in Zandler's shirtwaist factory--bending +over a power-machine, whose ten needles made forty-four hundred stitches +a minute. So fast they flew that a break in needle or thread ruined a +shirtwaist; hence, never did she allow her eyes to wander, never during +a day of ten to fourteen hours, while, continuously, the needles danced +up and down like flashes of steel or lightning. At times it seemed as if +the machine were running away from her and she had to strain her body to +keep it back. And so, when she reeled home late at night, her smarting +eyes saw sharp showers of needles in the air every time she winked, and +her back ached intolerably. + +"I never dreamt," said Myra, "that people had to work like that!" + +"Oh, that's not all!" said Rhona, and went on. Her wages were rarely +over five dollars a week, and for months, during slack season, she was +out of work--came daily to the factory, and had to sit on a bench and +wait, often fruitlessly. And then the sub-contracting system, whereunder +the boss divided the work among lesser bosses who each ran a gang of +toilers, speeding them up mercilessly, "sweating" them! And so the young +girls, sixteen to twenty-five years old, were sapped of health and joy +and womanhood, and, "as Mr. Joe wrote, the future is robbed of wives and +mothers!" + +Myra was amazed. She had a new glimpse of the woman problem. She saw now +how millions of women were being fed into the machine of industry, and +that thus the home was passing, youth was filched of its glory, and the +race was endangered. This uprising of the women, then, meant more than +she dreamed--meant the attempt to save the race by freeing the women +from this bondage. Had they not a right then to go out in the open, to +strike, to lead marches, to sway meetings, to take their places with +men? + +Such thoughts, confused and swift, came to her, and she asked Rhona what +had happened. How had the strike started? First, said Rhona, there was +the strike at Marrin's--a spark that set off the other places. Then at +Zandler's conditions had become so bad that one morning Jake Hedig, her +boss, a young, pale-faced, black-haired man, suddenly arose and shouted +in a loud voice throughout the shop: + +"I am sick of slave-driving. I resign my job." + +The boss, and some of the little bosses, set upon him, struck him, and +dragged him out, but as he went he shouted lustily: + +"Brothers and sisters, are you going to sit by your machines and see a +fellow-worker used this way?" + +The machines stopped: the hundreds of girls and the handful of men +marched out simultaneously. Then, swiftly the sedition had spread about +the city until a great night in Cooper Union, when, after speeches of +peace and conciliation, one of the girls had risen, demanded and secured +the floor, and moved a general strike. Her motion was unanimously +carried, and when the chairman cried, in Yiddish: "Do you mean faith? +Will you take the old Jewish oath?" up went two thousand hands, with one +great chorus: + +"If I turn traitor to the cause I now pledge, may this hand wither from +the arm I now raise." + +By this oath Rhona was bound. And so were thirty thousand +others--Americans, Italians, Jews--and with them were some of the +up-town women, some of the women of wealth, some of the big lawyers and +the labor-leaders and reformers. + +"Some of the up-town women!" thought Myra. She was amazed to find +herself so interested, so wrought up. And she felt as if she had +stumbled upon great issues and great struggles; she realized, dimly, +that first moment, that this strike was involved in something larger, +something vaster--swallowed up in the advance of democracy, in the +advance of woman. All the woman in her responded to the call to arms. + +And she was discovering now what Joe had meant by his "crisis"--what he +had meant by his fight for "more democracy; a better and richer life; a +superber people on earth. It was a real thing. She burned now to help +Joe--she burned to do for him--to enter into his tragic struggle--to be +of use to him. + +"What are you going to do now?" she asked Rhona. + +"Now? Now I must go picketing." + +"What's picketing?" + +"March up and down in front of a factory and try to keep scabs out." + +"What are scabs?" asked ignorant Myra. + +Rhona was amazed. + +"You don't even know that? Why, a scab's a girl who tries to take a +striker's job and so ruin the strike. She takes the bread out of our +mouths." + +"But how can you stop her?" + +"Talk to her! We're not allowed to use violence." + +"How do you do it?" + +Rhona looked at the eager face, the luminous gray eyes. + +"Would you like to see it?" + +"Yes, I would." + +"But it's dangerous." + +"How so?" + +"Police and thugs, bums hanging around." + +"And you girls aren't afraid?" + +Rhona smiled. + +"We don't show it, anyway. You see, we're bound to win." + +Myra's eyes flashed. + +"Well, if you're not afraid, I guess I haven't any right to be. May I +come?" + +Rhona looked at her with swift understanding. + +"Yes, please do come!" + +Myra rose. She took a last look about the darkening room; saw once more +the sleeping men, the toiling Giotto, the groups of girls. Something +tragic hung in the air. She seemed to breathe bigger, gain in stature, +expand. She was going to meet the test of these newer women. She was +going to identify herself with their vast struggle. + +And looking once more, she sought Joe, but could not find him. How +pleased he would be to know that she was doing this--doing it largely +for him--because she wanted to smooth out that gray face, and lay her +cheek against its lost wrinkles, and put her arm about his neck, and +heal him. + +Tears dimmed her eyes. She took Rhona's arm and they stepped out into +the bleak street. Wind whipped their faces like quick-flicked knives. +They walked close together. + +"Is it far?" asked Myra. + +"Quite far. It's over on Great Jones Street!" + +And so Myra went, quite lost in the cyclone of life. + + + + +VIII + + +THE ARREST + +They gained the corner of Great Jones Street--one of those dim byways of +trade that branch off from the radiant avenues. As they turned in the +street, they met a bitter wind that was blowing the pavement clean as +polished glass, and the dark and closing day was set off sharply by the +intense lamps and shop-lights. Here and there at a window a clerk +pressed his face against the cold pane and looked down into the +cheerless twilight, and many toilers made the hard pavement echo with +their fast steps as they hurried homeward. + +"There they are," said Rhona. + +Two girls, both placarded, came up to them. One of them, a thin little +skeleton, pitiably ragged in dress, with hollow eyes and white face, was +coughing in the cuff of the wind. She was plainly a consumptive--a +little wisp of a girl. She spoke brokenly, with a strong Russian accent. + +"It's good to see you yet, Rhona. I get so cold my bones ready to +crack." + +She shivered and coughed. Rhona spoke softly. + +"Fannie, you go right home, and let your mother give you a good drink of +hot lemonade with whiskey in it. And take a foot-bath, too." + +Fannie coughed again. + +"Don't you tell me, Rhona. Look out for yourself. There gets trouble yet +on this street." + +Myra drew nearer, a dull feeling in her breast. Rhona spoke easily: + +"None of the men said anything or did anything, did they?" + +"Well, they say things; they make angry faces, and big fists, Rhona. +Better be careful." + +"Where are they?" + +"By Zandler's doorway. They get afraid of the cold." + +Rhona laughed softly, and put an arm about the frail body. + +"Now you run home, and don't worry about me! I can take care of myself. +I expect another girl, anyway." + +"Good-night, Rhona." + +"Good-night--get to bed, and don't forget the hot lemonade!" + +The two girls departed, blowing, as it were, about the corner and out of +sight. Rhona turned to Myra, whose face was pallid. + +"Hadn't you better go back, Miss Craig? You see, I'm used to these +things." + +"No," said Myra, in a low voice. "I've come to stay." + +She was thinking of tiny Fannie. What! Could she not measure to a +little consumptive Russian? + +"All right," said Rhona. "Let's begin!" + +They started to walk quietly up and down before the darkened loft +building--up fifty yards, down fifty yards. A stout policeman slouched +under a street-lamp, swinging his club with a heavily gloved hand, and +in the shadow of the loft-building entrance Rhona pointed out to Myra +several ill-looking private detectives who danced up and down on their +toes, blew their hands, smoked cigarettes, and kept tab of the time. + +"It's they," whispered Rhona, "who make all the trouble. Some of them +are ex-convicts and thugs. They are a rough lot." + +"But why is it allowed?" asked Myra. + +Rhona laughed. + +"Why is anything allowed?" + +The wind seemed to grow more and more cruel. Myra felt her ear-lobes +swelling, the tip of her nose tingled and her feet and hands were numb. +But they held on quietly in the darkening day. It all seemed simple +enough--this walking up and down. So this was picketing! + +Myra spoke softly as they turned and walked west. + +"Have many of the girls been arrested?" + +"Oh yes, a lot of them." + +"Have they been disorderly?" + +"Some of them have. It's hard to keep cool, with scabs egging you on +and calling you cowards." + +"And what happens to them if they are arrested?" + +"Oh, fined--five, ten dollars." + +They turned under the lamp; the policeman rose and sank on one foot +after the other; they walked quietly back. Then, as they passed the +doorway of the loft building, one of the young men stepped forward into +the light. He was a square-set, heavy fellow, with long, square, +protruding jaw, and little monkey eyes. His bearing was menacing. He +stepped in front of the girls, who stopped still and awaited him. Myra +felt the blood rush to her head, and a feeling of dizziness made her +tremble. Then the man spoke sharply: + +"Say, you--you can't go by here." + +Myra gazed at him as if she were hypnotized, but Rhona's eyes flashed. + +"Why not?" + +"Don't jaw me," said the man. "But--_clear out_!" + +Rhona tried to speak naturally. + +"Isn't this a public street? Haven't I a right to walk up and down with +my friend?" + +Then Myra felt as if she were struck by lightning, or as if something +sacred in her womanhood had been outraged. + +With a savage growl: "You little sheeny!" the man suddenly struck out a +fist and hit Rhona in the chest. She lurched, doubled, and fell, saving +herself with her hands. Myra did not move, but a shock of horror went +through her. + +The two other young men in the doorway came forward, and home-goers +paused, drew close, looked on curiously and silently. One nudged +another. + +"What's up?" + +"Don't know!" + +The thug muttered under his breath: + +"Pull her up by her hair; we'll run her in!" + +But Rhona had scrambled to her feet. She was too wild to cry or speak. +She glanced around for help, shunning the evil monkey eyes. Then she saw +the policeman under the lamp. He was still nonchalantly swinging his +club. + +She gave a gasping sob, pushing away Myra's offered help, and struggled +over to him. He did not move. She stood, until he glanced at her. Then +she caught his eye, and held him, and spoke with strange repression, as +the crowd drew about them. Myra was in that crowd, dazed, outraged, +helpless. She heard Rhona speaking: + +"Do you think a man has any right to strike a girl?" + +He did not answer; she still held his eyes. + +"Do you think a man has any right to strike a girl?" + +Still he said nothing, and the crowd became fascinated by the fixity of +gaze of the two. Rhona's voice sharpened: + +"_Do you think a man has any right to strike a girl_?" + +The officer cleared his throat and looked away. + +"Oh," he muttered carelessly, "it's all right. You people are always +kicking, anyway." + +Rhona's voice rose. + +"I ask you to arrest him." + +Several in the crowd backed this with mutterings. The policeman twirled +his stick. + +"Oh, all right!" he called. "Come along, Blondy!" + +Blondy, the thug, came up grinning. + +"Pinching me, John?" he asked. + +"Sure." The policeman smiled, and then seized Blondy and Rhona each by +an arm and started to march them toward Broadway. Myra followed wildly. +Her mind was in a whirl and the bitter tears blurred her eyes. What +could she do? How could she help? She sensed in the policeman's word a +menace to Rhona. Rhona was in trouble, and she, Myra, was as good as +useless in this crisis. She suddenly understood the helplessness of the +poor and the weak, especially the poor and weak women. What could they +do against this organized iniquity? Against the careless and cruel +world? It was all right for gentlewomen in gentle environment to keep to +the old ideals of womanhood--to stay at home and delegate their +citizenship to the men. But those who were sucked into the vortex of the +rough world, what of these? Were they not right in their attempts to +organize, to rebel, to fight in the open, to secure a larger share of +freedom and power? + +But if these were Myra's feelings and thoughts--a sense of outrage, of +being trampled on--they were little things compared with the agony in +Rhona's breast. A growing and much-pleased crowd surrounded her, +flinging remarks: + +"Lock-steps for yours! Hello, Mamie! Oh, you kid! Now will you be good! +Carrie, go home and wash the dishes!" + +And one boy darted up and snapped the placard from her waist. The crowd +laughed, but Rhona was swallowing bitter tears. + +They passed down Broadway a block or two, and then turned west. +Brilliant light from the shop windows fell upon the moving scene--the +easy-going men, the slouching, shrill boys, and the girl with her pale +set face and uncertain steps. All the world was going home to supper, +and Rhona felt strangely that she was now an exile--torn by the roots +from her warm life to go on a lonely adventure against the powers of +darkness. She had lost her footing in the world and was slipping into +the night. She felt singularly helpless; her very rage and rebellion +made her feel frail and unequal to the task. To be struck down in the +street! To be insulted by a crowd! She had hard work to hold her head +erect and keep back the bitter sobs. + +Up the darkened street they went, the crowd gradually falling away. And +suddenly they paused before the two green lamps of the new +station-house, and then in a moment they had vanished through the +doorway. + +Myra rushed up, panting, to a policeman who stood on the steps. + +"I want to go in--I'm with _her_." + +"Can't do it, lady. She's under arrest." + +"Not she," cried Myra. "The man." + +"Oh, we'll see. You run along--keep out of trouble!" + +Myra turned, confused, weak. She questioned a passer-by about the +location of Ninth Street. "Up Broadway--seven or eight blocks!" She +started; she hurried; her feet were winged with desperate fear. What +could be done? How help Rhona? Surely Joe--Joe could do something. He +would know--she would hasten to him and get his aid. That at least she +could do. + +Now and then a bitter sob escaped her. She felt that she had lost her +self-respect and her pride. Like a coward she had watched Rhona +attacked, had not even raised her voice, had not, even attempted +interference. They might have listened to a well-dressed woman, a woman +of refinement. And she had done nothing--just followed the crowd, +nursing her wounded pride. She began to feel that the world was a big +place, and that those without money or position are at the mercy of the +powerful. She began to revise her opinion of America, more keenly than +ever she understood Joe's passion for more democracy. And she had a +sense, too, that she had never really known life--that her narrow +existence had touched life at but a few minor points--and that the great +on-struggle of the world, the vast life of the race, the million-eddying +evolution were all outside her limits. Now she was feeling the edge of +new existences. The knowledge humbled, almost humiliated her. She +wondered that Joe had ever thought well of her, had ever been content to +share his life with her. + +Driven by these thoughts and by her fear and her apprehension for +Rhona's safety, she plunged west, borne by the wind, buffeted, beaten, +blown along. The lights behind the French windows were like beacons in a +storm. She staggered into the hall, entered the room. Her hair was wild +about her face, her cheeks pale, her eyes burning. + +The room was still crowded, intensely busy. She noticed nothing, but +pushed her way to Joe's desk. He was talking with two girls. + +She confronted him. + +"Joe!" + +He lifted his gray, tragic face, amazed. + +"You still here?" + +It was as if he had forgotten her. But Myra was not now thinking of +herself. She spoke, breathlessly: + +"Joe, I think Rhona Hemlitz is in trouble." + +"How so?" + +"She was knocked down by a thug, and she had him arrested, but I'm +afraid _she's_ arrested." + +A dangerous light came into Joe's eyes. + +"All right! All right! Where did this happen?" + +"On Great Jones Street." + +"Well and good," he muttered. + +"But isn't there anything to do?" cried Myra. + +"Why, if she's not arrested, she'll come here and report, and if she +doesn't come I'll go over to the Night Court at nine this evening." + +"I must go with you," cried Myra. + +"You?" He looked at her, and then suddenly he asked: "But how did you +come to hear of this?" + +"I was picketing with her." + +A great change came over Joe's face, as if he beheld a miracle. + +"Myra! So you have been picketing!" + +Her face went very white. + +"Don't! Don't!" she breathed painfully, sinking in a chair. "I was a +coward, Joe--I didn't do anything to help her!" + +"But what could you do?" + +"Oh, something, anything." + +He glanced at her keenly, and a swift smile lit his features. He spoke +very gently. + +"Myra, you step in back to my mother. Take supper with her. Keep her +company. I'm afraid I'm neglecting mother these days." + +"And the Night Court?" Myra was swallowing sobs. + +"I'll look in for you at nine o'clock." + +"Thank you," she whispered. "Oh, thank you." + +It was something that he thought her worthy. + + + + +IX + + +RHONA + +When the policeman with Rhona and Blondy passed up the steps between the +green lamps of the new station-house, they found themselves in a long +room whose warmth was a fine relief. They breathed more easily, loosened +their coats, and then stepped forward. A police sergeant sat behind a +railing, writing at a low desk, a low-hanging, green-shaded electric +bulb above him. + +Rhona felt that she had to speak quickly and get in her word before the +others. She tried to be calm, but a dull sob went with the words. + +"That man struck me--knocked me down. I've had him arrested." + +The sergeant did not look up. He went on writing. Finally he spoke, +easily: + +"True, Officer?" + +The policeman cleared his throat. + +"The other way round, Sergeant. _She_ struck the _man_." + +Rhona breathed hard, a feeling in her breast of her heart breaking. She +gasped: + +"That's not true. He struck me--he struck me." + +The sergeant glanced up. + +"What's your name?" + +Rhona could not answer for a moment. Then, faintly: + +"Rhona Hemlitz." + +"Age?" + +"Seventeen." + +"Address?" + +"---- Hester Street." + +"Occupation?" + +"Shirtwaist-maker." + +"Oh!" he whistled slightly. "Striker?" + +"Yes." + +"Picketing?" + +"Yes." + +"Held for Night Court trial. Lock her up, Officer." + +Blackness closed over the girl's brain. She thought she was going into +hysterics. Her one thought was that she must get help, that she must +reach some one who knew her. She burst out: + +"I want to telephone." + +"To who?" + +"Mr. Blaine--Mr. Blaine!" + +"West Tenth Street feller?" + +"Yes." + +The sergeant winked to the policeman. + +"Oh, the matron'll see to that! Hey, Officer?" + +Rhona felt her arm seized, and then had a sense of being dragged, a +feeling of cool, fetid air, a flood of darkness, voices, and then she +knew no more. The matron who was stripping her and searching her had to +get cold water and wash her face.... + +Later Rhona found herself in a narrow cell, sitting in darkness at the +edge of a cot. Through the door came a torrent of high-pitched speech. + +"Yer little tough, reform! reform! What yer mean by such carryings-on? I +know yer record. Beware of God, little devil...." + +On and on it went, and Rhona, dazed, wondered what new terror it +foreboded. But then without warning the talk switched. + +"Yer know who I am?" + +"Who?" quavered Rhona. + +"The matron." + +"Yes?" + +"I divorced him, I did." + +"Yes." + +"My husband, I'm telling yer. Are yer deef?" + +Suddenly Rhona rose and rushed to the door. + +"I want to send a message." + +"By-and-by," said the matron, and her rum-reeking breath came full in +the girl's face. The matron was drunk. + +For an hour she confided to Rhona the history of her married life, and +each time that Rhona dared cry, "I want to send a message!" she replied, +"By-and-by." + +But after an hour was ended, she remembered. + +"Message? Sure! Fifty cents!" + +Rhona clutched the edge of the door. + +"Telephone--I want to telephone!" + +"Telephone!" shrieked the matron. "Do yer think we keep a telephone for +the likes of ye?" + +"But I haven't fifty cents--besides, a message doesn't cost fifty +cents--" + +"Are yer telling _me_?" the matron snorted. "Fifty cents! Come now, +hurry," she wheedled. "Yer know as yer has it! Oh, it's in good time you +come!" + +Her last words were addressed to some one behind her. The cell door was +quickly opened; Rhona's arm was seized by John, the policeman, and +without words she was marched to the curb and pushed into the patrol +wagon with half a dozen others. The wagon clanged through the cold, dark +streets, darting through the icy edge of the wind, and the women huddled +together. Rhona never forgot how that miserable wagonful chattered--that +noise of clicking teeth, the pulse of indrawn sighs, and the shivering +of arms and chests. Closer and closer they drew, as if using one another +as shields against the arctic onslaught, a couple of poor women, and +four unsightly prostitutes, the scum of the lower Tenderloin. One woman +kept moaning jerkily: + +"Wisht I was dead--down in my grave. It's bitter cold--" + +The horses struck sparks against the pave, the wheels grided, and the +wagon-load went west, up the shadowy depths of Sixth Avenue, under the +elevated structure, and stopped before Jefferson Market Court. The women +were hustled out and went shuddering through long corridors, until at +last they were shoved into a large cell. + + * * * * * + +At about the same moment Myra and Joe emerged from the West Tenth Street +house and started for the court-house. They started, bowing their heads +in the wind, holding on to their hats. + +"Whew!" muttered Joe. "This is a night!" + +Myra did not dare take his arm, and he spoke a little gruffly. + +"Better hang on to me." + +She slipped her arm through his then, gratefully, and tried to bravely +fight eastward with him. + +Joe was silent. He walked with difficulty. Myra almost felt as if she +were leading him. If she only could have sent him home, nursed him and +comforted him! He was so weary that she felt more like sending him to +bed than dragging him out in this bitter weather. + +More and more painfully he shuffled, and Myra brooded over him as if he +were hers, and there was a sad joy in doing this, a sad glory in leading +him and sharing the cruel night with him. + +In this way they gained the corner of Sixth Avenue. Across the way +loomed the illuminated tower-topped brick court-house. + +"Here it is," said Joe. + +Myra led him over, up the steps, and through the dingy entrance. Then +they stepped into the court-room and sat down on one of the benches, +which were set out as in a school-room. + +The place was large and blue, and dimly lighted. The judge's end of it +was screened off by wire netting. Up on a raised platform sat the +magistrate at his desk, his eyes hidden by a green shade, his bald head +radiant with the electric light above him. Clerks hovered about him, and +an anaemic indoor policeman, standing before him, grasped with one hand +a brass rail and with the other was continually handing up prisoners to +be judged. All in the inclosed space stood and moved a mass of careless +men, the lawyers, hangers-on, and all who fatten upon crime--careless, +laughing, nudging, talking openly to the women of the street. A crass +scene, a scene of bitter cynicism, of flashy froth, degrading and cheap. +Not here to-night the majesty of the law; here only a well-oiled machine +grinding out injustice. + +Joe and Myra were seated among a crowd of witnesses and tired lawyers. +The law's delay seemed to steep the big room with drowsiness; the air +was warm and breathed in and out a thousand times by a hundred lungs. +Myra looked about her at the weary, listless audience. Then she looked +at Joe. He had fallen fast asleep, his head hanging forward. She smiled +sadly and was filled with a strange happiness. He had not been able to +hold out any longer. Well, then, he should sleep, she thought; she would +watch alone. + +Then, as she sat and gazed, a drunken woman in the seat before her fell +sound asleep. At once the big special officer at the little gate of wire +netting came thumping down the aisle, leaned close, and prodded her +shoulder with his forefinger, crying: + +"Wake up, there!" + +She awoke, startled, and a dozen laughed. + +Myra had a great fear that the officer would see Joe. But he didn't. He +turned and went back to his post. + +Myra watched eagerly--aware of the fact that this scene was not as +terrible to her as it might have been. The experience of the day had +sharpened her receptivity, broadened her out-look. She took it for what +it was worth. She hated it, but she did not let it overmaster her. + +There was much business going forward before the judge's desk, and Myra +had glimpses of the prisoners. She saw one girl, bespectacled, hard, +flashy, pushed to the bar, and suddenly heard her voice rise shrill and +human above the drone-like buzzing of the crowd. + +"You dirty liar; I'll slap yer face if yer say that again!" + +A moment later she was discharged, pushed through the little gateway, +and came tripping by Myra, shouting shrilly: + +"I'll make charges against him--I'll break him--I will!" + +Several others Myra saw. + +A stumpy semi-idiot with shining, oily face and child-staring eyes, who +clutched the railing with both big hands and stood comically in huge +clothes, his eyes outgazing the judge. He was suddenly yanked back to +prison. + +A collarless wife-beater, with hanging lips and pleading dog's eyes, his +stout Irish wife sobbing beside him. He got "six months," and his wife +came sobbing past Myra. + +Then there was an Italian peddler, alien, confused, and in rags, soon, +however, to be set free; and next a jovial drunk, slapping the officers +on the back, lifting his legs in dance-like motions and shouting to the +judge. He was lugged away for a night's rest. + +And then, of course, the women. It was all terrible, new, undreamed of, +to Myra. She saw these careless Circes of the street, plumed, powdered, +jeweled, and she saw the way the men handled and spoke to them. + +Scene after scene went on, endless, confused, lost in the buzz and hum +of voices, the shuffle of feet. The air grew warmer and more and more +foul. Myra felt drowsy. She longed to put her head on Joe's shoulder and +fall asleep--sink into peace and stillness. But time and again she came +to with a jerk, started forward and eagerly scanned the faces for Rhona. +What had happened to the girl? Would she be kept in jail overnight? Or +had something worse happened? An increasing fear took possession of her. +She felt in the presence of enemies. Joe was asleep. She could not +question him, could not be set at ease. And how soundly he slept, +breathing deeply, his head hanging far forward. If only she could make a +pillow for that tired head! + +She was torn between many emotions. Now she watched a scene beyond the +netting--something cynical, cheap, degrading--watched it with no real +sense of its meaning--wondered where she was and how she had come--and +why all this was going on. Then she would turn and look piteously at +Joe, her face sharp with yearning. Then she would drowse, and awake with +a start. She kept pinching herself. + +"If I fall asleep Rhona may get through without us--something will +happen!" + +It must have been past midnight. There was no sign of Rhona. Each new +face that emerged from the jail entrance was that of a stranger. Again +an overwhelming fear swept Myra. She touched Joe's arm. + +"Joe! Joe!" she whispered. + +He did not answer; his hand moved a little and dropped. How soundly he +slept! She smiled then, and sat forward, determined to be a brave +woman. + +Then glancing through the netting she spied Blondy and his friends +laughing together. She saw the evil monkey eyes. At once she was back +sharply in Great Jones Street, trembling with outrage and humiliation. +She tried to keep her eyes from him, and again and again looked at him +and loathed him. + +"If," she thought, "he is here, perhaps the time has come." + +Again she searched the new faces, and gave a little cry of joy. There +was Rhona, pale, quiet, her arm in the hand of the policeman who had +made the arrest. + +Myra turned to Joe. + +"Joe! Wake up!" + +He stirred a little. + +"Joe! Joe! Wake up!" + +He gave a great start and opened his eyes. + +"What is it?" he cried. "Do they want union cards?" + +"Joe," she exclaimed, "Rhona's here." + +"Rhona?" He sat upright; he was a wofully sleepy man. "Rhona?" Then he +gazed about him and saw Myra. + +"Oh, Myra!" He laughed sweetly. "How good it is to see you!" + +She paled a little at the words. + +"Joe," she whispered, "we're in the court. Rhona's waiting for us." + +Then he understood. + +"And I've been sleeping, and you let me sleep?" He laughed softly. +"What a good soul you are! Rhona! Come, quick!" + +They arose, Joe rubbing his eyes, and stepped forward. Myra felt stiff +and sore. Then Joe spoke in a low voice to the gate-keeper, the gate +opened, and they entered in. + + + + +X + + +THE TRIAL + +Rhona had spent the evening in the women's cell, which was one of three +in a row. The other two were for men. The window was high up, and a +narrow bench ran around the walls. Sprawled on this were from thirty to +forty women; the air was nauseating, and the place smelled to heaven. +Outside the bars of the door officers lounged in the lighted hall +waiting the signal to fetch their prisoners. Now and then the door +opened, a policeman entered, picked his woman, seized upon her, and +pulled her along without speaking to her. It was as if the prisoners +were dumb wild beasts. + +For a while Rhona sat almost doubled up, feeling that she would never +get warm. Her body would be still a minute, and then a racking spasm +took her and her teeth chattered. A purple-faced woman beside her leaned +forward. + +"Bad business on the street a night like this, ain't it? Here, I'll rub +your hands." + +Rhona smiled bitterly, and felt the rub of roughened palms against her +icy hands. Then she began to look around, sick with the smell, the +sudden nauseous warmth. She saw the strange rouged faces, the impudent +eyes, the showy headgear, flashing out among the obscure faces of poor +women, and as she looked a filthy drunk began to rave, rose tottering, +and staggered to the door and beat clanging upon it, all the while +shrieking: + +"Buy me the dope, boys, buy me the dope!" + +Others pulled her back. Women of the street, sitting together, chewed +gum and laughed and talked shrilly, and Rhona could not understand how +prisoners could be so care-free. + +All the evening she had been dazed, her one clear thought the sending of +a message for help. But now as she sat in the dim, reeking cell, she +began to realize what had happened. + +Then as it burst upon her that she was innocent, that she had been lied +against, that she was helpless, a wild wave of revolt swept her. She +thought she would go insane. She could have thrown a bomb at that +moment. She understood revolutionists. + +This feeling was followed by abject fear. She was alone ... alone.... Why +had she allowed herself to be caught in this trap? Why had she +struck? Was it not foolhardy to raise a hand against such a mammoth +system of iniquity? Over in Hester Street her poor mother, plying the +never-pausing needle, might be growing anxious--might be sending out to +find her. What new trouble was she bringing to her family? What new +touch of torture was she adding to the hard, sweated life? And her +father--what, when he came home from the sweatshop so tired that he was +ready to fling himself on the bed without undressing, what if she were +missing, and he had to go down and search the streets for her? + +If only Joe Blaine had been notified! Could she depend on that Miss +Craig, who had melted away at the first approach of peril? Yet surely +there must be help! Did not the Woman's League keep a lawyer in the +court? Would he not be ready to defend her? That was a ray of hope! She +cheered up wonderfully under it. She began to feel that it was somehow +glorious to thus serve the cause she was sworn to serve. She even had a +dim hope--almost a fear--that her father had been sent for. She wanted +to see a familiar face, even though she were sure he would upbraid her +for bringing disgrace upon the family. + +So passed long hours. Prisoners came in--prisoners went out. Laughter +rose--cries--mutterings; then came a long silence. Women yawned. Some +snuggled up on the bench, their heads in their neighbors' laps, and fell +fast asleep. Rhona became wofully tired--drooped where she sat--a +feeling of exhaustion dragging her down. The purple-faced woman beside +her leaned forward. + +"Say, honey, put your head in my lap!" + +She did so. She felt warmth, ease, a drowsy comfort. She fell fast +asleep.... + +"No! No!" she cried out, "it was _he_ struck _me_!" + +She had a terrible desire to sob her heart out, and a queer sensation of +being tossed in mid-air. Then she gazed about in horror. She was on her +feet, had evidently been dragged up, and John, the policeman, held her +arm in a pinch that left its mark. Gasping, she was shoved along through +the doorway and into a scene of confusion. + +They stood a few minutes in the judge's end of the court-room--a crowd +eddying about them. Rhona had a queer feeling in her head; the lights +blinded her; the noise seemed like the rush of waters in her ears. Then +she thought sharply: + +"I must get myself together. This is the court. It will be all over in a +minute. Where's Mr. Joe? Where's the lawyer? Where's my father?" + +She looked about eagerly, searching faces. Not one did she know. What +had happened? She felt the spasm of chills returning to her. Had Miss +Craig failed her? Where was the strikers' lawyer? Were there friends +waiting out in the tired audience, among the sleepy witnesses? Suddenly +she saw Blondy laughing and talking with a gaudy woman in the crowd. She +trembled all at once with animal rage.... She could have set upon him +with her nails and her teeth. But she was fearfully afraid, fearfully +helpless. What could she do? What would be done with her? + +John pushed her forward a few steps; her own volition could not take +her, and then she saw the judge. This judge--would he understand? Could +he sympathize with a young girl who was wrongly accused? The magistrate +was talking carelessly with his clerk, and Rhona felt in a flash that +all this, which to her was terrible and world-important, to him was mere +trivial routine. + +She waited, her heart pounding against her ribs, her breath coming short +and stifled. Then all at once she saw Joe and Myra as they entered the +gate, and a beautiful smile lit up her face. It was a blessed moment. + +They came up; Joe spoke in a low breath. + +"Rhona, have you seen the lawyer about?" + +"No," she muttered. + +Joe looked around. He stood above that crowd by half a head. Then he +muttered bitterly to Myra: + +"Why isn't that fellow here to-night? You shouldn't have let me sleep!" + +Myra was abashed, and Rhona, divining his misery, felt quite alone +again, quite helpless. + +Suddenly then she was pushed forward, and next the indoor policeman was +handing her up to the judge, and now she stood face to face with her +crisis. Again her heart pounded hard, her breath shortened. She was +dimly aware of Joe and Myra behind her, and of Blondy and his friends +beside her. She looked straight at the magistrate, not trusting herself +to glance either side. + +The magistrate looked up and nodded to the policeman. + +"What's the charge?" His voice was a colorless monotone. + +"Assault, your Honor. This girl was picketing in the strike, and this +private detective told her to move on. Then she struck him." + +Rhona felt as if she could burst; she expected the magistrate to +question her; but he continued to address the policeman. + +"Any witnesses?" + +"These other detectives, your Honor." + +The magistrate turned to Blondy's friends. + +"Is what the policeman says true?" + +"Yes," they chorused + +Joe spoke clearly. + +"Your Honor, there's another witness." + +The magistrate looked at Joe keenly. + +"Who are you?" + +"My name's Blaine--Joe Blaine." + +"The editor?" + +"Yes." + +The magistrate spoke sharply: + +"I can tell you now you'll merely damage the case. I don't take the word +of such a witness." + +Joe spoke easily. + +"It's not my word. Miss Craig here is the witness. She saw the assault." + +The magistrate looked at Myra. + +"What were you doing at the time?" + +Myra spoke hardly above a whisper, for she felt that she was losing +control of herself. + +"I--I was walking with Miss Hemlitz." + +"Walking? You mean picketing." + +"Yes." + +"Well, naturally, your word is not worth any more than the prisoner's. +You should have been arrested, too." + +Myra could not speak any further; and the magistrate turned again to the +policeman. + +"You swear your charge is true?" + +The policeman raised his hand. + +"I swear." + +Rhona felt a stab as of lightning. She raised her hand high; her voice +came clear, sharp, real, rising above the drone-like noise of the court. + +"I swear it is not true. I never struck him. _He_ struck me!" + +The magistrate's face reddened, a vein on his forehead swelled up, and +he leaned toward Rhona. + +"What you say, young lady"--there was a touch of passion in his +voice--"doesn't count. Understand? You're one of these strikers, aren't +you? Well, the whole lot of you"--his voice rose--"are on a strike +against God, whose principal law is that man should earn bread by the +sweat of his brow." + +Rhona trembled before these unbelievable words. She stared into his +eyes, and he went on passionately: + +"I've let some of you off with fines--but this has gone too far. I'll +make an example of you. You shall go to the workhouse on Blackwells +Island for five days. Next!" + +Joe, too, was dazed. But he whispered to Rhona: + +"Meet it bravely. I'll tell the girls!" + +Her arm was grasped, she was pushed, without volition, through crowding +faces; and at length, after another ride in the patrol wagon, she found +herself on a narrow cot in a narrow cell. The door was slammed shut +ominously. Dim light entered through a high aperture. + +She flung herself down her whole length, and sobbed. Bitter was life for +Rhona Hemlitz, seventeen years old.... + + * * * * * + +Joe, in the court-room, had seized Myra's arm. + +"Let us get out of this!" + +They went through the gateway, up the aisle, out the dim entrance, into +the streets. It was two in the morning, and the narrow canons were +emptied of life, save the shadowy fleeting shape of some night prowler, +some creature of the underworld. The air was a trifle less cold, and a +fine hard snow was sifting down--crunched underfoot--a bitter, tiny, +stinging snow--hard and innumerable. + +Cavernous and gloomy seemed the street, as they trudged west, arm in +arm. Myra had never been so stirred in her life; she felt as if things +ugly and dangerous had been released in her heart; a flame seemed raging +in her breast. And then as they went on, Joe found vent in hard words. + +"And such things go on in this city--in this high civilization--and this +is a part of life--and then they wonder why we are so unreasonable. It +goes on, and they shut their eyes to it. The newspapers and magazines +hush it up. No, no, don't give this to the readers, they want something +pleasant, something optimistic! Suppress it! Don't let the light of +publicity smite it and clear it up! Let it go on! Let the secret sore +fester. It smells bad, it looks bad. Keep the surgeon away. We might +lose subscribers, we might be accused of muck-raking. But I tell you," +his voice rose, "this world will never be much better until we face the +worst of it! Oh," he gave a heavy groan, "Myra! Myra! I wonder if I ever +will be happy again!" + +Myra spoke from her heart. + +"You're overworked, Joe; you're unstrung. Perhaps you see this too +big--out of perspective!" + +He spoke with intense bitterness. + +"It's all my fault. It's all my fault. If I hadn't been so sleepy I'd +have sent for a lawyer. I thought, of course, he'd be there!" + +Myra spoke eagerly: + +"That's just it, Joe. Oh, won't you take a rest? Won't you go away +awhile? Just for your work's sake." + +He mused sadly: + +"Mother keeps saying the same thing." + +"She's right!" cried Myra. "Joe, you're killing yourself. How can you +really serve the strike if you're in this condition?" + +He spoke more quietly. + +"They need me, Myra. Do you think I'm worse off than Rhona?" + +Myra could not answer this. It is a curious fact that some of the +terrible moments of life are afterward treasured as the great moments. +Looked back upon, they are seen to be the vital step forward, the +readjustment and growth of character, and not for anything would any +real man or woman miss them. Afterward Myra discovered that this night +had been one of the master nights of her life, and when she repictured +that walk up Tenth Street at two in the morning, through the thin +sifting snow, the big tragic man at he; side, it seemed a beautiful and +wonderful thing. They had been all alone out in the city's streets, +close together, feeling as one the reality of life, sharing as one the +sharp unconquerable tragedy, suffering together against the injustice of +the world. + +But at the moment she felt only bitter, self-reproachful, and full of +pity for poor human beings. It was a time when the divine creatures born +of woman seemed mere little waifs astray in a friendless universe, +somehow lost on a cruel earth, crying like children in the pitiless +night, foredoomed and predestined to broken hearts and death. It seemed +a very sad and strange mystery, and more sad, more strange to be one of +these human beings herself. + +They reached the house. Lights were still burning in the office, and +when they entered they found the District Committee sitting about the +red stove, still working out the morrow's plans. Giotto was there, Sally +Heffer, and Jacob Izon, and others, tired, pale, and huddled, but still +toiling wearily with one another. As Joe and Myra came in they looked +up, and Sally rose. + +"Is she--" she began, and then spoke angrily, "I can see she's been +held." + +Joe smiled sadly. + +"Sent to the workhouse for five days." + +Exclamations of indignation arose. The committee could not believe it. + +"I wish," cried impetuous Sally, "that magistrate were my husband. I'd +throw a flatiron at his head and put some castor-oil in his soup!" + +Joe laughed a little. He looked at his watch, and then at Myra. + +"Myra," he said, gently, "it's two o'clock--too late to go home. You +must sleep with mother." + +Myra spoke softly. + +"No--I can get home all right." + +He took her by the arm. + +"Myra," he leaned over, "do just this one thing for me." + +"I will!" she breathed. + +He led her in through his room, and knocked softly. + +"Mother!" + +"Yes," came a clear, wide-awake voice. "I'm awake, Joe." + +"Here's Myra. May she stay with you?" + +"Good!" + +Myra went in, but turned. + +"Joe," she said, tremulously, "you're not going to stay up with that +committee?" + +"They need me, Myra." + +"But, Joe," her voice broke--"this is too much of a good thing--" + +Joe's mother interrupted her. + +"Better leave the boy alone, Myra--to-night, anyway." + +Joe laughed. + +"I'll try to cut it short! Sweet dreams, ladies!" + +For long they heard his voice mingled with the others, as they lay side +by side in the black darkness. But Myra was glad to be near him, glad to +share his invisible presence. After she had told Joe's mother about +Rhona, the two, unable to sleep, talked quietly for some time. Drawn +together by their love for Joe--and Joe's mother was quick in +divining--they felt as if they knew each other intimately, though they +had met for the first time that afternoon, when Myra, having reported +Rhona's arrest to Joe, groped her way blindly to the rear kitchen and +stood, trying not to sob, before the elder woman. + +She had asked: + +"Are you Mrs. Blaine?" and had gone on. "I'm Myra--Myra Craig. Joe and I +used to know each other." + +Whereupon Joe's mother, remembering something Joe had said of writing to +a Myra Craig in the country, suddenly understood. There was a swift, +"What! You and he--?" a sob from Myra, and the two were in each other's +arms. Then followed supper and a quiet evening. + +And now in the darkness they lay and talked. + +"I've been worrying about Joe," Mrs. Blaine mused, softly. + +"Why?" + +"Can't you see why?" + +"He looks badly," Myra sighed. + +"Joe," said his mother, quietly, "is killing himself. He doesn't listen +to me, and I don't want to interfere too much." + +"Isn't there anything to be done?" + +There was a silence and then Joe's mother spoke in a strange personal +voice. + +"What if _you_ could do something." + +Myra could hardly speak. + +"I?" + +"You." A hand caught hers. "Try. He's simply giving his life to the +cause." + +There was a silence a little while. The tears were wet upon Myra's +cheeks. + +"Mrs. Blaine." + +"Yes, dear." + +"Tell me about yourself--what you've been doing--both of you." + +And as Mrs. Blaine told her, time and time again Myra laughed softly, or +was glad the darkness concealed those unbidden tears. + +But as Mrs. Blaine spoke of the attack of Marrin's men, Myra was +thrilled. + +"But what happened afterward?" she cried. "Isn't he in danger now? +Mightn't there be another attack?" + +Joe's mother's voice rang. + +"Afterward? It was wonderful. The whole neighborhood rose to Joe's side. +They even started a subscription to rebuild the press. Oh, the people +here are amazing!" + +"And the men who mobbed him?" + +"Many were arrested, but Joe did not appear against them, and the men +from Marrin's were the first to come in and tell of their remorse. As +for the thugs and criminals--they don't dare lift their heads. Public +opinion is hot against them." + +Thus they talked, intimately, sweetly, and at last the elder woman +kissed the younger good-night. + +"But, dear, you've been crying!" + +"Oh, I'm so glad to be here!" sobbed Myra. "So glad to be with you!" + +And even then she had a sense of the greatness and wonder of that day; +how new and untapped forces in her nature were emerging; how the whole +seeming of life--"These shows of the night and day"--was changing for +her; how life was deepening down to its bitter roots, roots bitter but +miraculously sheathed in crystalline springs; in sweet waters, in beauty +and love and mystery. It was the finding of her own soul--a power great +enough to endure tragedy and come forth to a richer laughter and a wiser +loveliness. Only thus does life reveal its meanings and its miracles, +and prove that it is an adventure high and fine, ever tending higher, +ever more enriched with faith and marvelous strength, and that mirth +that meets the future with an expectant smile. + +So thinking, so feeling, she grew drowsier, sank deeper--her body tired +in every muscle, in every bone--her mind unable to keep awake; and so +she faded into the pure rest of sleep. + + + + +XI + + +THE WORKHOUSE + +That next day was as a dream to Rhona. Not until evening did it become +real. Breakfast was brought to her cell, but she did not taste it. Next +she was led out by a policeman to the street and packed in the patrol +wagon with eight other women. The morning was gray, with a hard sifting +snow, and as the wagon bumped over cobblestones, Rhona breathed deep of +the keen air. + +The ride seemed without end; but next she was in a ferry; and then, +last, was hurried into a long gray building on Blackwells Island. + +Her cell was fairly large, and contained two cots, one against each +wall. She was left disconsolately alone, numb, in despair, and moving +about in a dream. + +But after supper she found herself locked in with another woman. She sat +down on the edge of her cot, in the dim light of the room, and with a +sharp glance, half fear, half curiosity, regarded her room-mate. This +other was a woman of possibly thirty years, with sallow cheeks, bright +burning eyes, and straggly hair. She stood before the little wall +mirror, apparently examining herself. Suddenly she turned: + +"What you looking at, kid?" + +Rhona averted her eyes. + +"I didn't mean--" + +"Say," said the other, "ain't I the awful thing? Not a rat or a puff or +a dab of rouge allowed in these here premises. I do look a sight--a +fright. Gee!" She turned. "You're not so worse. A little pale, kid." + +She came over and sat next to Rhona. + +"What'll I call you?" + +Rhona shrank. She was a sensitive, ignorant girl, and did not understand +this type of woman. Something coarse, familiar, vulgar seemed to grate +against her. + +"Rhona's my name," she breathed. + +"Well, that's cute! Call you Ronie?" She stretched out her arms. "Oh, +slats! I'd give my teeth for a cigarette and a Manhattan cocktail. +Wouldn't I, though!" + +Rhona shuddered. + +The woman turned toward her. + +"My name's Millie. Now we're pals, eh?" Then she rattled on: "First time +in the workhouse? Comes hard at first, doesn't it? Cut off from friends +and fun--and ain't the work beastly? Say, Ronie, what's your job in +little old New York?" + +Rhona swallowed a dull sob. + +"I haven't any--we're on strike." + +Millie jumped up. + +"What, you one of them shirtwaist strikers?" + +"Yes." + +"Why did they run you in?" + +"An officer struck me, and then said I struck him." + +"Just like a man! Oh, I know men! Depend upon it, I know the men! So, +you were a shirt-waist-maker. How much d'yer earn?" + +"Oh, about five or six a week." + +"A--_week_!" Millie whistled. "And I suppose ten hours a day, or worse, +and I suppose work that would kill an ox." + +"Yes," said Rhona, "hard work." + +Millie sat down and put an arm about the shrinking girl. + +"Say, kiddie, I like you. I'm going to chuck a little horse sense at +you. Now you listen to me. My sister worked in a pickle-place over in +Pennsy, and she lasted just two years, and then, galloping consumption, +and--" She snapped her fingers, her voice became husky. "Poor fool! Two +years is the limit where she worked. And who paid the rent? I did. But +of course _I_ wasn't respectable--oh no! I was a sinner. Well, let me +tell you something. In my business a woman can last five to ten years. +Do you blame me? And I get clothes, and the eats, and the soft spots, +and I live like a lady.... That's the thing for you! Why do you wear +yourself out--slave-work and strikes and silly business?... You'll never +get married.... The work will make you a hag in another year or two, +and who will want you? And say, you've got to live just once--got to be +just downright woman for a little spell, anyway.... Come with me, +kid ... my kind of life." + +Rhona looked at her terrified. She did not understand. What sort of +woman was this? How live in luxury without working? How be downright +woman? + +"What do you mean?" asked the young girl. + +So Millie told her. They went to bed, their light was put out, and +neither had a wink of sleep. Rhona lay staring in the darkness and over +the room came the soft whisper of Millie bearing a flood of the filth of +the underworld. Rhona could not resist it. She lay helpless, quaking +with a wild horror.... Later she remembered that night in Russia when +she and others hid under the corn in a barn while the mob searched over +their heads--a moment ghastly with impending mutilation and death--and +she felt that this night was more terrible than that. Her girlhood +seemed torn to shreds.... Dawn broke, a watery glimmer through the high +barred window. Rhona rose from her bed, rushed to the door, pulled on +the bars, and loosed a fearful shriek. The guard, running down, Millie, +leaping forward, both cried: + +"What's the matter?" + +But the slim figure in the white nightgown fell down on the floor, and +thus earned a few hours in the hospital. + + * * * * * + +They set her to scrubbing floors next day, a work for which she had +neither experience nor strength. Weary, weary day--the large rhythm of +the scrubbing-brush, the bending of the back, the sloppy, dirty +floors--on and on, minute after minute, on through the endless hours. +She tried to work diligently, though she was dizzy and sick, and felt as +if she were breaking to pieces. Feverishly she kept on. Lunch was +tasteless to her; so was supper; and after supper came Millie. + +No one can tell of those nights when the young girl was locked in with a +hard prostitute--nights, true, of lessening horror, and so, all the more +horrible. As Rhona came to realize that she was growing accustomed to +Millie's talk--even to the point of laughing at the jokes--she was +aghast at the dark spaces beneath her and within her. She was becoming a +different sort of being--she looked back on the hard-toiling girl, who +worked so faithfully, who tried to study, who had a quiet home, whose +day was an innocent routine of toil and meals and talk and sleep, as on +some one who was beautiful and lovely, but now dead. In her place was a +sharp, cynical young woman. Well for Rhona that her sentence was but +five days! + +The next afternoon she was scrubbing down the long corridor between the +cells when the matron came, jangling her keys. + +"Some one here for you," said the matron. + +Rhona leaped up. + +"My mother?" she cried out, in a piercing voice. + +"See here," said the matron, "you want to go easy--and only five +minutes, mind you." + +"My mother?" Rhona repeated, her heart near to bursting. + +"No--some one else. Come along." + +Rhona followed, half choking. The big door was unlocked before her and +swung open; she peered out. It was Joe and Myra. + +Seeing these faces of friends suddenly recalled her to her old world, to +the struggle, the heroism, the strike, and, filled with a sense of her +imprisonment and its injustice, she rushed blindly out into the open +arms of Myra and was clutched close, close. + +And then she sobbed, wept for minutes, purifying tears. And suddenly she +had an inspiration, a flash of the meaning of her martyrdom, how it +could be used as a fire and a torch to kindle and lead the others. + +She lifted up her face. + +"You tell the girls," she cried, "it's perfectly wonderful to be here. +It's all right. Just you tell them it's all right. Any of them would be +glad to do it!" + +And then the matron, who was listening, stepped forward. + +"Time's up!" + +There was one kiss, one hug, and the brave girl was led away. The door +slammed her in. + +Joe and Myra looked at each other, awed, thrilled. Tears trickled down +Myra's face. + +"Oh," she cried low, "isn't it lovely? Isn't it wonderful?" + +He spoke softly. + +"The day of miracles isn't over. Women keep on amazing me. Come!" + +Quietly they walked out into the warm, sunshiny day. Streaks of snow +were vanishing in visible steam. The sky was a soft blue, bulbous with +little puffs of cloud. Myra felt an ineffable peace. Rhona's heroism had +filled her with a new sense of human power. She longed to speak with +Joe--she longed, as they stood on the ferry, and glided softly through +the wash and sway of the East River, to share her sweet emotions with +him. But he had pulled out a note-book and was busily making jottings. +He seemed, if anything, more worn than ever, more tired. He was living +on his nerves. The gray face was enough to bring tears to a woman's +eyes, and the lank, ill-clothed form seemed in danger of thinning away +to nothingness. So Myra said nothing, but kept looking at him, trying to +save him by her strength of love, trying to send out those warm currents +and wrap him up and infuse him with life and light and joy. + +All the way out he had been silent, preoccupied. In fact, all these +three days he had been preoccupied--toiling terribly early and late, +busy, the center of a swarm of human activities, his voice everywhere, +his pen in his hand. Meals he ate at his desk while he wrote, and sleep +was gained in little snatches. Myra had been there to watch him, there +to help him. Since that night in the court, she had come early and +stayed until ten in the evening, doing what work she could. And there +was much to be done--she found a profitable task in instructing new +recruits in the rules of picketing--and also in investigating cases of +need. These took her to strange places. She had vistas of life she had +not dreamed to be true--misery she had thought confined to novels, to +books like _Les Miserables_. It was all wonderful and strange and new. +She was beginning to really know the life of the Greater Number--the +life of the Nine-Tenths--and as she got used to the dust, the smells, +and the squalor, she found daily all the richness of human nature. It +was dramatic, absorbing, real. Where was it leading her? She hardly knew +yet. The strangeness had not worn off. + +She had been watching Joe, and she felt that he was hardly aware of her +presence. He took her and her work as a matter of course. And this did +not embitter her, for she felt that the time had passed for privileges, +that this was a season in Joe's life when he belonged to a mass of the +people, to a great cause, and that she had no right to any part of his +life. He was so deep in it, so overwrought, that it was best to let him +alone, to keep him free from the responsibility of personal +relationships, not to burden him with added emotionalism. And so she +accepted the rule of Joe's mother--to do Joe's bidding without question, +to let him have his way, waiting patiently for the time when he would +need and cry out for the personal. When that time came the two women +were ready to help to heal, to nurse--to bind the wounds and soothe the +troubled heart, and rebuild the broken spirit. It might be, of course, +that in the end he would shut Myra out; that was a contingency she had +to face; but she thought that, whatever came, she was getting herself +equal to it. + +They left the ferry and walked over to Second Avenue and took an +elevated train. Then Joe spoke--leaning near, his voice gentle: + +"Myra." + +"Yes, Joe." + +"I've been wondering." + +"What?" + +"About this strike business. Wondering if it isn't mostly waste." + +She found herself saying eagerly: + +"But what else can the people do?" + +He shook his head. + +"In this country if men only voted right ... only had the right sort of +government.... What are they gaining this way? It's too costly." + +"But how are they going to vote right?" + +"Education!" he exclaimed. "Training! We must train the children in +democracy. We must get at the children." + +Myra was amazed. + +"Then you think your work is ... of the wrong sort?" + +"No! no!" he said. "Everything helps--we must try every way--I may not +be fit for any other way than this. But I'm beginning to think it isn't +of the best sort. Maybe it's the only thing to do to-day, however." + +She began to throb with a great hope. + +"Don't you think," she cried, "you ought to go off and take a rest and +think it over? You know you might go into politics, to Congress, or +something--then you could really do something." + +He looked at her with surprise. + +"How you're thinking these days!" he mused. But then he went on very +wearily. "Rest? Myra," his voice sank, "if I ever come out of this +alive, I'll rest--rest deep, rest deep. But there's no end--no end to +it...." + +He reverted to the problem of the strike. + +"Don't you think there's right on the other side, too? Don't you think +many of the employers are doing all they can under present conditions? +We're asking too much. We want men to change their methods before we +change conditions. Who can do it? I tell you, I may be wronging as fine +a lot of men as there are." + +"Then why did you go into it?" she asked, quickly. + +"I didn't. It came to me. It bore me under. But I haven't made a mistake +this time. By chance I'm on the _righter_ side, the better side. When it +comes to the women in industry, there's no question. It is killing the +future to work them this way--it is intolerable, inhuman, insane. We +must stop it--and as we _don't_ vote right, we _must_ strike. A strike +is justified these days--will be, until there's some other way of +getting justice. Anyway, this time," he said, fiercely, "I'm right. But +I'm wondering about the future. I'm wondering...." + +He said nothing further, digging again at his notes. But Myra now +nourished a hope, a secret throbbing hope ... the first ray of a new and +more confident morning. + + + + +XII + + +CONFIDENT MORNING + +Myra moved down to West Tenth Street. She found a neat, little hall +bedroom in one of the three-story brick houses--a little white room, +white-curtained, white-walled, with white counterpane on the iron bed. +She was well content with these narrow quarters, content because it was +near Joe, content because it saved money (her savings were dwindling +rapidly these days), and finally content because she had shifted the +center of her interests to a different set of facts. She was both too +busy and too aroused to be sensitive about running water and the minor +comforts. Her whole being was engrossed in large activities, and she +found with astonishment how many things she could do without. What +previously had seemed so important, poetry, music, dress, quiet, ease, +now became little things lost in a host of new big events. And, +curiously enough, she found a new happiness in this freedom from +superfluities--a sense of range and independence new to her. For at this +time such things actually were superfluous, though the time was to come +again when music and poetry had a new and heightened meaning. + +But during these days of the strike she was a quite free woman, +snatching her sleep and her food carelessly, and putting in her time in +spending heart and soul on the problem in hand. She dressed simply, in +shirtwaist and skirt, and she moved among the people as if she were one +of them, and with no sense of contrast. In fact, Myra was changing, +changing rapidly. Her work called for a new set of powers, and without +hesitation these new powers rose within her, emerged and became a part +of her character. She became executive, quick, stepped into any +situation that confronted her, knew when to be mild, when to be sharp, +sensed where sympathy was needed, and also where sympathy merely +softened and ruined. Her face, too, followed this inner change. Soft +lines merged into something more vivid. She was usually pale, and her +sweet, small mouth had a weary droop, but her eyes were keen and living, +and lit with vital force. + +She began to see that a life of ease and a life of extreme toil were +both equally bad--that each choked off possibilities. She knew then that +women of her type walked about with hidden powers unused, their lives +narrowed and blighted, negative people who only needed some great test, +some supreme task, to bring out those hidden forces, which, gushing +through the soul, overflowing, would make of them characters of +abounding vitality. She felt the glory of men and women who go about the +world bubbling over with freshness and zest and life, warming the lives +they move among, spreading by quick contagion their faith and virility. +She longed to be such a person--to train herself in that greatest of all +the arts--the touching of other lives, drawing a music from long-disused +heart-strings, rekindling, reanimating, the torpid spirit. It was her +search for more _life_--richer, thicker, happier, more intense. + +Her model was Joe's mother. It seemed to her that Joe's mother had met +life and conquered it, and so would never grow old. She never found the +older woman soured or bitter or enfeebled. Even about death there was no +flinching. + +"Don't you think I know," said Joe's mother, "that there is something +precious in me that isn't going to go with the body? Just look at this +body! That's just what's happening already! I'm too young to die. And +besides I know one or two people whom I lost years ago--too precious to +be lost--I've faith in them." + +This, then, is the greatest victory of life: to treat death as a mere +incident in the adventure; an emigration to a new country; a brief and +tragic "auf wiedersehen." It has its pang of parting, and its pain of +new birth--all birth is a struggle full of pain--but it is the only door +to the future. Well for Joe's mother that her hand was ready to grasp +the dark knob and turn it when the time came. + +Once as she and Joe's mother were snatching a lunch together in the +kitchen, the elder woman spoke softly: + +"Myra, you're a great girl!" (She persisted in calling Myra a girl, +though Myra kept telling her she was nearly thirty-three and old enough +to be dignified.) "What will I ever do without you when the strike is +over?" + +Myra smiled. + +"Is it as bad as that?" + +"Yes, and getting worse, Myra!" + +Myra flushed with joy. + +"I'm glad. I'm very glad." + +Joe's mother watched her a little. + +"How have you been feeling, Myra?" + +"I?--" Myra was surprised. "Oh, I'm all right! I haven't time to be +unwell." + +"You really think you're all right, then?" + +"Oh, I know it! This busy life is doing me good." + +"It does most of us good." She changed the subject. + +Myra felt, with great happiness, that she was coming into harmony with +Joe's mother. She would have been quite amazed, however, to know that +Joe's mother was secretly struggling to adjust herself. For Joe's mother +could not help thinking that the time might come when Joe and Myra would +marry, and she was schooling herself for this momentous change. She +kept telling herself: "There is no one in the world I ought to love more +than the woman that Joe loves and weds." And yet it was hard to release +her son, to take that life which had for years been closest to her, and +had been partly in her hands, relinquish it and give it over into the +keeping of another. There were times, however, when she pitied Myra, +pitied her because Joe was engrossed in his work and had no emotions or +thoughts to spare. And she wondered at such times whether Joe would ever +marry, whether he would ever be willing to make his life still more +complex. She watched Myra closely, with growing admiration; saw the +changes in her, the faithful struggle, the on-surging power, and she +thought: + +"If it's to be any one, I know no one I should love more." + +There were times, however, when she mentally set Myra side by side with +Sally, to the former's overshadowing. Sally was so clean-cut, direct, +such a positive character. She was hardy and self-contained, and would +never be dependent. Her relationships with Joe always implied +interdependence, a perfect give and take, a close yet easy comradeship +which enabled her at any time to go her own way and work her own will. +Sometimes Joe's mother felt that Sally was a woman of the future, and +that, with such, marriage would become a finer and freer union. However, +her imaginative match-making made her smile, and she thought: "Joe +won't pick a mate with his head. The thing will just happen to him--or +not." And as she came to know Myra better, she began to feel that +possibly a woman who would take Joe away from his work, instead of +involving him deeper, would, in the end, be best for him. Such a woman +would mean peace, relaxation, diversion. She was greatly concerned over +Joe's absorption in the strike, and once, when it appeared that the +struggle might go on endlessly, she said to Myra: + +"Sometimes I think Joe puts life off too much, pushing his joys into the +future, not always remembering that he will never be more alive than +now, and that the days are being lopped off." + +Myra had a little table of her own, near the door, and this table, when +she was there, was always a busy center. The girls liked her, liked to +talk with her, were fond of her musical voice and her quiet manners. +Some even got in the habit of visiting her room with her and having +quiet talks about their lives. Sally, however, did not share this +fondness for Myra. She felt that Myra was an intruder--that Myra was +interposing a wall between her and Joe--and she resented the intrusion. +She could not help noticing that Joe was becoming more and more +impersonal with her, but then, she thought, "people are not persons to +him any more; he's swallowed up in the cause." Luckily she was too busy +during the day, too tired at night, to brood much on the matter. +However, one evening at committee meeting, her moment of realization +came. The committee, including Myra and Joe and herself and some five +others, were sitting about the hot stove, discussing the call of a Local +on the East Side for a capable organizer. + +"It's hard to spare any one," mused Joe, "and yet--" He looked about the +circle. "There's Miss Craig and--Miss Heffer." + +Both Myra and Sally turned pale and trembled a little. Each felt as if +the moment had come when he would shut one or the other out of his life. +Sally spoke in a low voice: + +"I'm pretty busy right here, Mr. Joe." + +"I know," he reflected. "And I guess Miss Craig could do it." + +He opened the stove door, took the tiny shovel, stuck it into the +coal-box, and threw some fresh coal on the lividly red embers. Then he +stood up and gazed round the circle again. + +"Sally," he said, "it's _your_ work--you'll have to go." + +She bowed her head. + +"You're sure," she murmured, "I'm not needed here?" + +"Needed?" he mused. "Yes. But needed more over there!" + +She looked up at him and met his eyes. Her own were pleading with him. + +"Surely?" + +"Surely, Sally. We're not in this game for fun, are we?" + +"I'll do as you say," she breathed. + +Her head began to swim; she felt as if she would break down and cry. She +arose. + +"I'll be right back." + +She groped her way through the inner rooms to the kitchen. Joe's mother +was reading. + +"Mrs. Blaine...." + +"Sally! What's the matter?" + +Joe's mother arose. + +"I'm going ... going to another Local.... I'm leaving here to-night ... +for good and always." + +Joe's mother drew her close, and Sally sobbed openly. + +"It's been my home here--the first I've had in years--but I'll never +come back." + +"Oh, you must come back." + +"No...." she looked up bravely. "Mrs. Blaine." + +"Yes, Sally." + +"He doesn't need me any more; he's outgrown me; he doesn't need any one +now." + +What could Joe's mother say? + +"Sally!" she cried, and then she murmured: "It's you who don't need any +one, Sally. You're strong and independent. You can live your own live. +And you've helped make Joe strong. Wait, and see." + +And she went on to speak of Sally's work, of her influence in the +place, of the joy she brought to others, and finally Sally said: + +"Forgive me for coming to you like a baby." + +"Oh, it's fine of you to come to me!" + +"So," cried Sally, "good-by." + +She found her hat and coat and slipped away, not daring to say good-by +to Joe. But as she went through the dark winter night she realized how +one person's happiness is often built on another's tragedy. And so Sally +went, dropping for the time being out of Joe's life. + + * * * * * + +There was one event that took place two weeks after Myra's coming, which +she did not soon forget. It was the great mass-meeting to celebrate the +return of Rhona and some others who had also been sent to the workhouse. +Myra and Joe sat together. After the music, the speeches, Rhona stepped +forward, slim, pale, and very little before that gigantic auditorium. +She spoke simply. + +"I was picketing on Great Jones Street. A man came up and struck me. I +had him arrested. But in court he said I struck him, and the judge sent +me to Blackwells Island. I had to scrub floors. But it was only for five +days. I think we ought all to be glad to go to the workhouse, because +that will help women to be free and help the strikers. I'm glad I went. +It wasn't anything much." + +They cheered her, for they saw before them a young heroine, victorious, +beloved, ideal. But when Myra called at Hester Street, a week later, +Rhona's mother had something else to say. + +"Rhona? Well, you had ought to seen her when we first landed! Ah! she +was a beauty, my Rhona--such cheeks, such hair, such eyes--laughing all +the time. But now--ach!" She sighed dreadfully. "So it goes. Only, I +wished she wasn't always so afraid--afraid to go out ... afraid ... so +nervous ... so ... different." + +Myra never forgot this. It sent her back to her work with wiser and +deeper purpose. And so she fought side by side with Joe through the +blacks weeks of that January. It seemed strange that Joe didn't go +under. He loomed about the place, a big, stoop-shouldered, gaunt man, +with tragic gray face and melancholy eyes and deepening wrinkles. All +the tragedy and pathos and struggle of the strike were marked upon his +features. His face summed up the sorrows of the thirty thousand. Myra +sometimes expected him to collapse utterly. But he bore on, from day to +day, doing his work, meeting his committees, and getting out the paper. + +Here, too, Myra found she could help him. She insisted on writing the +strike articles, and as Jacob Izon was also writing, there was only the +editorial for Joe to do. The paper did not miss an issue, and as it now +had innumerable canvassers among the strikers, its circulation gained +rapidly--rising finally to 20,000. + +Even at this time Joe seemed to take no special notice of Myra. But one +slushy, misty night, when the gas-lamps had rainbow haloes, and gray +figures sluff-sluffed through the muddy snow, she accompanied Joe on one +of his fund-raising tours. They entered the side door of a dingy saloon, +passed through a yellow hall, and emerged finally on the platform of a +large and noisy rear room where several hundred members of the +Teamsters' Union were holding a meeting. Gas flared above the rough and +elemental faces, and Myra felt acutely self-conscious under that +concentrated broadside of eyes. She sat very still, flushing, and feebly +smiling, while the outdoor city men blew the air white and black with +smoke and raised the temperature to the sweating-point. + +Joe was introduced; the men clapped; and then he tried hard to arouse +their altruism--to get them to donate to the strike out of their union +funds. However, his speech came limp and a little stale. The applause +was good-natured but feeble. Joe sat down, sighing, and smiling grimly. + +An amazing yet natural thing happened. The Chairman arose, leaned over +his table, and said: + +"You have heard from Mr. Joe Blaine; now you will hear from the other +member of the committee." + +Not for some seconds--not until the stamping of feet rose to a fury of +sound--did Myra realize that _she_ was the other member. She had a +sense of being drained of life, of losing her breath. Instinctively she +glanced at Joe, and saw that he was looking at her a little dubiously, a +little amusedly. What could she do? She had never addressed a meeting in +her life; she had never stood on her feet before a group of men; she had +nothing learned, nothing to say. But how could she excuse herself, how +withdraw, especially in the face of Joe's challenging gaze? + +The stamping increased; the men clapped; and there were shouts: + +"Come ahead! Come on! That's right, Miss." It was a cruel test, a wicked +predicament. All the old timidity and sensitiveness of her nature held +her back, made her tremble, and bathed her face in perspiration. But a +new Myra kept saying: + +"Joe didn't rouse them. Some one must." She set her feet on the floor, +and the deafening thunder of applause seemed to raise her. She took a +step forward. And then with a queer motion she raised her hand. There +was an appalling silence, a silence more dreadful than the noise, and +Myra felt her tongue dry to its root. + +"I--" she began, "I want to say--tell you--" She paused, startled by the +queer sound of her own voice. She could not believe it was herself +speaking; it seemed some one else. And then, sharply, a wonderful thing +took place. A surge of strength filled her. She took a good look around. +Her brain cleared; her heart slowed. It was the old trick of facing the +worst, and finding the strength was there to meet it and turn it to the +best. All at once Myra exulted. She would take these hundreds of human +beings and _swing them_. She could do it. + +Her voice was rich, vibrating, melodious. + +"I want to tell you a little about this strike--what it means. I want to +tell you what the girls and women of this city are capable of--what +heroism, what toil, what sacrifice and nobility. It is not the easiest +thing to live a normal woman's life. You know that. You know how your +mothers or wives or sisters have been slaving and stinting--what pain +is theirs, what burdens, what troubles. But think of the life of a girl +of whom I shall tell you--a young girl by the name of Rhona Hemlitz." + +She went on. She told the story of Rhona's life, and then quietly she +turned to her theme. + +"You understand now, don't you? Are you going to help these girls _win_ +their fight?" + +The walls trembled with what followed--stamping, shouting, clapping. +Myra sat down, her cheeks red, her eyes brilliant. And then suddenly a +big hand closed over hers and a deep voice whispered: + +"Myra, you set yourself free then. You are a new woman!" + +That was all. She had shocked Joe with the fact of the new Myra, and now +the new Myra had come to stay. They raised twenty-five dollars that +night. From that time on Myra was a free and strong personality, +surprising even Joe's mother, who began to realize that this was not the +woman to take Joe from his work, but one who would fight shoulder to +shoulder with him until the very end. + +In the beginning of February the strike began to fade out. Employers +right and left were making compromises with the girls, and here and +there girls were deserting the union and going back. The office at West +Tenth Street became less crowded, fewer girls came, fewer committees +met. There was one night when the work was all done at eleven o'clock, +and this marked the reappearance of normal conditions. + +It was a day or two later that a vital experience came to Joe. Snow was +falling outside, and it was near twilight, and in the quiet Joe was busy +at his desk. Then a man came in, well, but carelessly dressed, his face +pinched and haggard, his eyes bloodshot, his hair in stray tufts over +his wrinkled forehead. + +"I want to see you a minute, Mr. Blaine." + +The voice was shaking with passion. + +"Sit down," said Joe, and the man took the seat beside him. + +"I'm Mr. Lissner--Albert Lissner--I was the owner of the Lissner +Shirtwaist Company." + +Joe looked at him. + +"Lissner? Oh yes, over on Eighth Street." + +The man went on: + +"Mr. Blaine, I had eighty girls working for me.... I always did all I +could for them ... but there was fierce competition, and I was just +skimping along, and I had to pay small wages;... but I was good to +those girls.... They didn't want to strike ... the others made them...." + +Joe was stirred. + +"Yes, I know ... many of the shops were good...." + +"Well," said Lissner, with a shaking, bitter smile, "you and your strike +have ruined me.... I'm a ruined man.... My family and I have lost +everything.... And, it's killed my wife." + +His face became terrible--very white, and the eyes staring--he went on +in a hollow, low voice: + +"I--I've lost _all_." + +There was a silence; then Lissner spoke queerly: + +"I happen to know about you, Mr. Blaine.... You were the head of that +printing-place that burnt down...." + +Joe felt a shock go through him, as if he had seen a ghost.... + +"Well, maybe you did all you could for your men;... maybe you were a +good employer.... Yet see what came of it...." Suddenly Lissner's voice +rose passionately: "And yet you had the nerve to come around and get +after us fellows, who were just as good as you. There are bad employers, +and bad employees, too--bad people of every kind--but maybe most people +are good. You couldn't help what happened to you; neither can we help it +if the struggle is too fierce--we're victims, too. It's conditions, it's +life. We can't change the world in a day. And yet you--after your +fire--come here and ruin us." + +Joe was shaken to his depths. Lissner had made an overstatement, and yet +he had thrown a new light on the strike, and he had reminded Joe of his +long-forgotten guilt. And suddenly Joe knew. All are guilty; all share +in the corruption of the world--the laborer anxious for mass-tyranny and +distrustful of genius, the aristocrat afraid of soiling his hands, the +capitalist intent on power and wealth, the artist neglectful of all but +a narrow artifice, each one limited by excess or want, by intellect or +passion, by vanity or lust, and all struggling with one another to wrest +some special gift for himself. In the intricacy of civilization there +are no real divisions, but every man is merely a brain cell, a nerve, in +the great organism, and what one man gains, some other must lose. It was +a world he got a glimpse of quite different from that sharp twofold +world of the workers and the money-power, a world of infinite +gradations, a world merely the child of the past, where high and low +were pushed by the resistless pressure of environment, and lives were +shaped by birth, chance, training, position, and a myriad, myriad +indefinable forces. + +All of this confused him at first, and it had been so long since he had +dealt with theories that it was some time before the chaos cleared, some +time before the welter of new thought took shape in his mind. But it +made him humble, receptive, teachable, it made him more kindly and more +gentle. He began a mental stock-taking; he began to examine into the +lives about him. + +Myra was there--the new Myra, a Myra with daily less to do in that +office, and with more and more time to think. From her heart was lifted +the hard hand of circumstance, releasing a tenderness and yearning which +flooded her brain. It was a tragic time for her. She knew now that her +services were nearly at an end, and that she must go her own way. She +would not be near Joe any longer--she would not have the heart's ease of +his presence--she could no longer brood over him and protect him. + +It seemed to her that she could not bear the future. Her love for Joe +rose and overwhelmed her. She became self-conscious before him, paled +when he spoke to her, and when he was away her longing for him was +insupportable. She wanted him now--all her life cried out for him--all +the woman in her went out to mate with this man. The same passion that +had drawn her from the country to his side now swayed and mastered her. + +"Joe! Joe!" her soul cried, "take me now! This is too much for me to +bear!" + +And more and more the thought of his health oppressed her. If she only +had the power to take him to her breast, draw him close in her arms, +mother him, heal him, smooth the wrinkles, kiss the droop of the big +lips, and pour her warm and infinite love into his heart. That surely +must save him--love surely would save this man. + +She began to scheme and dream--to plot ways of getting about him, of +routing him out, of tearing him from his rut. + +And then one afternoon at two she risked her all. It was an opportune +time. Joe--wonder of wonders--was doing nothing, but sitting back like a +gray wreck, with his feet crossed on his desk, and a vile cigar in his +mouth. It was the first cigar in ages, and he puffed on it and brooded +dreamily. + +Myra came over, sat down beside him, and spoke airily. + +"Hello, Joe!" + +"Why, hello, Myra!" he cried. "What d'ye mean by helloing me?" + +"I'm glad to meet you." + +"Same to you." + +"I've come back from the country, Joe." + +"So I see." + +"Do you?" + +"Haven't I eyes?" + +"Well," she said, flushed, bending forward, "Joe Blaine, where have your +eyes been these five weeks?" + +"They were on strike!" he said, promptly. + +"Well," she said, "the strike's over!" + +They laughed together as they had not since far and far in the beginning +of things. + +Joe leaned near. + +"Myra," he said, "I need an airing. Take me out and shake me out! Oh!" +he stretched his arms above his head. "Have I been hibernating and is it +springtime again?" + +Myra hesitated. + +"Joe." + +"Yes, ma'am!" + +"I want you to take me somewhere." + +"I will." + +"To--the printery--I want to see it again." + +"Go 'long wid you! Marty Briggs and me are bad friends, see?" + +She reveled in this new gaiety of his. + +"Joe, you're waking up. _Please_ take me!" + +"Put on your hat, your coat, and your little black gloves, young woman. +Me for the printery!" + +They went out together, glad as young children. The world was sheathed +in a hard ice-coated snow; icicles dangled from every sill and cornice; +the skies were melting blue, and the sun flashed along every surface. It +was a world of flashing fire, of iridescent sunbursts. Through the +clean, tingling air they walked, arm in arm, the stir of a new life in +their hearts. + +"Joe," said Myra, "I want you to signalize your resurrection by a great +sacrifice to the gods." + +"I'm ready. Expound!" + +"I want you to buy a new hat." + +He took off his hat and examined it. + +"What's the matter with this?" + +"It's like yourself, Joe--worn out!" + +"But the boys of Eighty-first Street won't know me in a new hat." + +"Never mind the boys of Eighty-first Street. Do as I tell you." + +"Aw, Myra, give me a day to steel my heart and strengthen my sinews. +Wait till we come back." + +"And you'll get it then?" + +"Sure as fate." + +"Well--just this once you'll have your way!" + +So they took the elevated to Seventy-sixth Street and walked through the +old neighborhood to the printery. The familiar streets, which secretly +bore the print of every size shoe he had worn since he was a tiny +toddling fellow, made him meditative, almost sad. + +"It seems ages since I was here!" he remarked. "And yet it's like +yesterday. What have I been doing? Dreaming? Will I walk into the +printery, and will you come in with the 'Landing of the Pilgrims'?" + +Myra laughed, both glad and sad. + +"I should have charged you more," said Joe, brusquely. "Fifty cents was +too little for that job." + +"I told you it would ruin your business, Joe." Strangely then they +thought of the fire ... her order had been his last piece of business +before the tragedy. + +They walked east on Eighty-first Street and stopped before the old loft +building. A new sign was riveted on the bulletin-board in the doorway. + + MARTIN BRIGGS + SUCCESSOR TO + JOE BLAINE & HIS MEN. + +Joe looked at it, and started. + +"It's no dream, Myra," he sighed. "Times have changed, and we, too, have +changed." + +Then they went up the elevator to the clash and thunder on the eighth +floor. And they felt more and more strange, double, as it were--the old +Myra and the old Joe walking with the new Myra and the new Joe. Myra +felt a queerness about her heart, a subtle sense of impending events; of +great dramatic issues. Something that made her want to cry. + +Then they stood a moment before the dirty door, and Joe said: + +"Shall I? Shall I rouse 'em with the bell? Shall I break in on their +peaceful lives?" + +"Rouse away!" cried Myra. "Your hour has struck!" + +He pulled the door, the bell rang sharply, and they stepped in. As of +old, the tremble, the clatter, the flash of machines, the damp smell of +printed sheets, swallowed them up--made them a quivering part of the +place. And how little it had changed! They stood, almost choking with +the unchanging change of things. As if the fire had never been! As if +Tenth Street had never been! + +Then at once the spell was broken. A pressman spied Joe and loosed a +yell: + +"_It's the old man_!" + +His press stopped; his neighbors' presses stopped; as the yell went down +the room, "Joe! Joe! The old man!" press after press paused until only +the clatter and swing of the overhead belting was heard. And the men +came running up. + +"Mr. Joe! Mr. Joe! Shake! For God's sake, give me a grip! This is great +for sore eyes! Where you been keeping yourself? Ain't he the limit? He's +the same old penny! Look at him--even his hat's the same!" + +Joe shook hand after hand, until his own was numb. They crowded about +him, they flung their fondness at him, and he stood, his eyes blinded +with tears, his heart rent in his breast, and a new color climbing to +his cheeks. + +Then suddenly a loud voice cried: + +"What's the matter? What does this mean?" + +And Marty Briggs emerged from the office. + +"Hello, Marty!" cried Joe. + +Marty stood dumfounded; then he came with a rush. + +"Joe! You son-of-a-gun! Beg pardon, Miss! I ain't seen him for a +lifetime!" + +"And how goes it, Marty? How goes it, Marty?" + +"Tip-top; busy as beavers. But, say," he leaned over and whispered, +"I've found a secret." + +"What is it, Marty?" + +"You can't run a business with your hands or lungs or your manners--you +need gray stuff up here." + +The reception was a great success, full of cross-questions, of bartered +news--as the arrival of new babies christened Joe or Josephine, the +passing of old babies in the last birth of all, the absence of old +faces, the presence of new ones. Glad talk and rapid, and only cut short +by the urgency of business. + +They sang him out with a "He's a jolly good fellow," and he emerged on +the street with Myra, his eyes dripping. + +Myra spoke softly. + +"Joe." + +"Yes, Myra." + +"There's one more thing I want you to do for me." + +"Name it." + +"I want to walk with you in the Park." + +He looked at her strangely, breathlessly. + +"_In the Ramble, Myra_?" + +She met his gaze. + +"_In the Ramble, Joe_." + +Silently, with strange, beating hearts and fore-glimmer of beauty and +wonder and loveliness, they walked west to the Park, and entered that +Crystal Palace. For every branch, every twig, every stone and rail had +its pendent ice and icicle, and the strong sun smote the world with +flakes of flame. The trees were showers of rainbow-flashing glory; now +and then an icicle dropped like a dart of fire, and the broad lawns were +sheets of dazzle. Earth was glittering, fresh, new, decked out in +unimaginable jewels under the vast and melting blue skies. The day was +tender and clear and vigorous, tingling with life. + +They followed the curve of the walk, they crossed the roadway, they +climbed the hill, they walked the winding path of the Ramble. + +"You remember that morning?" murmured Joe, a music waking in his heart, +his pulses thronged with a new beauty. + +"Remember it?" Myra whispered. "Yes, Joe, I remember it." + +"That is the very bench we sat on." + +"That is the bench." + +"And that is the little pond." + +"That is the little pond." + +"And this is the spot." + +"This is the spot." + +They sat down on that bench in the crystal wilderness, a man and woman +alone in the blue-skied spaces, among the tree-trunks, and the circle of +earth. And then to Myra came an inexpressible moment of agony and +longing and love. She had struggled months; she had stayed away; and +then she had come back, and merged her life in the life of this man. And +she could bear this no longer! Oh, Joe, will you never speak? Will you +never come to your senses? + +More and more color was rising to his face, and his hands in his lap +were trembling. He tried to speak naturally--but his voice was odd and +unreal. + +"Myra." + +"Yes," tremulously. + +"You must have thought me a brute." + +"I thought--you were busy, overworked." + +"So I was. I was swallowed up--swallowed up." + +There was a silence, in which they heard little gray sparrows twittering +in the sunlight. + +"Myra." + +He hardly heard her "yes." + +"There's been a miracle in my life this year." + +"Yes?" + +"The way you came down and took hold and made good." + +"Thank you," very faintly. + +"It was the biggest thing that came my way." + +Silence. + +"I was noticing it, Myra, out of the tail of my eye." + +Myra tried to laugh. It sounded more like a dull sob. + +"I haven't time to be polite." + +"Don't want you to," Myra blurted. + +"Strange," said Joe, "how things come about. Hello, Mr. Squirrel! Want a +peanut? None on the premises. Sorry. Good-day!" + +He leaned over, picked a bit of ice, and flung it in the air. + +"Myra," he muttered. "I need a rest." + +"You do," almost inaudible. + +"I need--Didn't I say, no peanuts? No means no! Good-day!" + +He turned about laughing. + +"What do you think of that for a pesky little animal?" + +"Joe!" she cried in her agony. + +Joe said nothing, but stared, and a great sob shook him and escaped his +lips. + +"Myra!!" + +He had her in his arms; he kissed her on the lips--that new kiss, +sealing those others. And the wonderful moment came and went; the moment +when two flames leap into one fire; when two lives dashing upon each +other blend into one wonderful torrent. They did not mind the publicity +of the place that afternoon; they were quite oblivious of the world. +They were in another realm, breathing another air, treading a different +earth. It was too sacred for words, too miraculous for aught but the +beating of their living hearts, the pulse of singing blood, the secret +in their brains. Their years fell away. They were youth itself, dabbling +with the miracles of the world; they were boy and girl, new-created man +and woman. The world was a garden, and they were alone in that garden, +and nothing but beauty was in that place. They had each other to behold +and hear and touch and commune with. That was enough.... + +"Joe," said Myra, when the first glory had faded and they were +conversing sweetly, "I made up my mind to save you, and I did!" + +"Wonderful woman! And you're sure now you don't mind me--the way I'm +constructed in the cranium and all that?" + +"I love you, Joe!" She was as happy as a woman could be. + +"I'm a powerful idiot, Myra." + +"So am I." + +"Well," he mused, "you're taking your chances. Suppose I go off into +another strike or something?" + +"I'll go with you." + +"Myra," he said, "then let's go home and tell mother." + +They were as happy as children. They were well satisfied with the world. +In fact, they found it an amazingly good place. Every face that passed +seemed touched with beauty and high moral purpose, and the slate of +wrong and injustice and bitterness had been sponged clean. + +"Oh, Myra," cried Joe, "isn't it great to know that we have it in us to +go plumb loony once in a while? Isn't it great?" + +And so they made their way home, and walked tiptoe to the kitchen, and +stood hand in hand before Joe's mother. She wheeled. + +"Joe! Myra!" + +Joe gulped heavily. + +"I've brought you a daughter, mother, the loveliest one I could find!" + +Myra sobbed, and started forward--Joe's mother grasped her in a tight +hug, tears running fast. + +"It's about time, Joe," she cried, "it's just about time." + + + + +XIII + + +THE CITY + +Over the city the Spring cast its subtle spell. The skies had a more +fleeting blue and softer clouds and more golden sun. Here and there on a +window-sill a new red geranium plant was set out to touch the stone +walls with the green earth's glory. The salt breath of the sea, +wandering up the dusty avenues, called the children of men to new +adventures--hinted of far countries across the world, of men going down +to the sea in ships, of traffic and merchandise in fairer climes, of +dripping forest gloom and glittering peaks, of liquid-lisping brooks and +the green scenery of the open earth. + +Restlessness seized the hearts of men and the works of men. From the +almshouses and the jails emerged the vagrants, stopped overnight to meet +their cronies in dives and saloons, and next day took the freight to the +blooming West, or tramped by foot the dust of the roads that leave the +city and go ribboning over the shoulder and horizon of the world. +Windows were flung open, and the fresh sweet air came in to make the +babies laugh and the women wistful and the men lazy. Factories droned +with machines that seemed to grate against their iron fate. And of a +night, now, the parks, the byways, and the waterside were the haunts of +young lovers--stealing out together, arms round each other's waists--the +future of the world in their trembling hands. + +The air was full of the rumor of great things. Now, perchance, human +nature at last was going to reveal itself, the love and hope and +comradeliness and joy tucked away so deep in its interlinings. Now, +possibly, the streets were going to be full of singing, and the +housetops were going to rejoice with the mellower stars. Anything was +possible. Did not earth set an example, showing how out of a hard dead +crust and a forlorn and dry breast she could pour her new oceans of +million-glorious life? If the dead tree could blossom and put forth +green leaves, what dead soul need despair? + +Swinging and swaying and gliding, the great white Sound liner came up on +the morning and swept her flag-flapped way down the shining river. Her +glad whistle released her buoyant joy to the city, and the little tugs +and the ferries answered with their barks and their toots. Up she came, +triple-decked, her screw swirling in the green salt water, her smoke +curling lustrous in the low-hung sun. She passed Blackwells Island, she +swung easily beneath the great span of the Fifty-ninth Street bridge, +and gave "good-morning" to the lower city. + +On a side-deck, leaning over the rail, stood a man and a woman. The man +was strong, tan-faced, his eyes bright with fresh power. The woman was +rosy-cheeked and exquisite in her new beauty. For the miracle of Spring +which changed the earth had changed Myra and Joe. They too had put forth +power and life, blossom and new green leaves. They had gone to the earth +to be remade; they had given themselves over to the great physician, +Nature; they had surrendered to the soil and the sun and the air. Earth +had absorbed them, infolded them, and breathed anew in their spirits her +warmth, her joy, her powerful peace. They had run bare-headed in the +sun; they had climbed, panting, the jutting mountainside; they had taken +the winds of the world on the topmost peak; they had romped in the woods +and played in the meadow. And then, too, they had fed well, and rested +much, and been content with the generous world. + +And in that health and peace of nature at last to Joe had come the great +awakening of his life. The mental stock-taking he had begun on the day +when Lissner had spoken to him, reached there its climax; the confusion +cleared; the chaos took wonderful new shape. + +And he was amazed to see how he had changed and grown. He looked back on +the man who had gone down to West Tenth Street as on a callow and +ignorant youth, enthusiastic, but crude and untried. Back through those +past months he went with the search-light of introspection, and then at +last he knew. He had gone down to Greenwich Village crammed with +theories; he had set to work as if he were a sheltered scientist in a +quiet laboratory, where an experiment could be carried through, and +there suddenly he had been confronted with Facts! Facts! those queer +unbudgable things! Facts in a fierce stampede that engulfed and swept +him along and put all his dreams to a galloping test, a test wherein he +had even forgotten his dreams. + +He had gone the way of all reformers, first the explosive arousal, then +the theory, then the test. + +He went over the Greenwich Village experience with Myra: + +"Why," he laughed, "I expected to do great things. Whereas, look, I have +done _nothing_. This strike ends in a little bettering, and a few people +read my paper. It's just a little stir, hardly a dent--a few atoms set +into motion. How slow! how slow! _Patience_! That's the word I've +learned! It will take worlds of time; it will take a multitude striving; +it will take unnumbered forces--education, health-work, eugenics, +town-planning, the rise of women, philanthropy, law--a thousand thousand +dawning powers. Oh, we are only at the faint beginnings of things!" + +And he thought of the books he had read, and the theories of which he +had been so sure. + +"But," he exclaimed, "was my diagnosis correct? Did I really know the +human muddle? Has any man really mapped out civilization? It's so huge, +complex, varied--so many disorganized forces--who can classify it--label +it? It's bigger than our thought about it. We lay hands on only a few +wisps of it! Life! Life itself--not our interpretation--is the great +outworking force!" + +And then again. + +"We see certain tendencies and believe they will advance unhindered, but +there may be other tendencies to counteract, change, even defeat these. +No future can be predicted! And yet I was so sure of the future--so sure +of what we are to build--that future which we keep modifying so +persistently the moment it hits To-day." + +In short, he had reached his _social manhood_--which meant to him, not +dogma, but the willingness to arise every morning ready to reshape his +course, prepared for any adventure, receptive, open-minded, and all +willing to render his very life for what seemed good to do. Scientific +reverence this, the willingness to experiment, to try, to test, and +then, if the test failed, to grope for a new line of outlet, the +readiness to reverse all he believed in in the face of a new and +contradictory fact. He was a new Joe Blaine. + +And so the spirit that sprang from those dead girls became a creative +power, a patient, living strength. + +And so in the blaze of new morning, in the beginnings of a new life, +Joe and Myra leaned over the rail of the boat, coming back, coming back +to the ramparts and heights of the great World City. They saw full in +the glory of the morning sun those tiers on tiers of towers rising to +their lonely pinnacle. Beneath them harbor craft scurried about in the +bright waters; above them rose the Big Brothers of the city looking out +toward the sea. It seemed some vision builded of no human hands. It +seemed winged and uplifted toward the skies, an immensity of power and +beauty. It seemed to float on measureless waters, a magic metropolis, +setting sail for the Arabian Nights. + +Tears came into Joe's eyes. He held Myra's hand fast. + +"Are you glad to get back?" + +"Yes, glad, Joe." + +"No more peace, no more green earth, Myra." + +"I know it, Joe." + +"Even our honeymoon--that can't be repeated, can it?" + +"No," she said, sadly, "I guess it cannot." + +"And this means work, hardship, danger, injustice--all the troubles of +mankind." + +She pressed his hand. + +"Yet you're glad, Myra!" + +"I am." + +"Tell me why." + +"Because," she mused, "it's the beginning of our real life together." + +"How so _real_?" + +Myra's eyes were suffused with tears. + +"The common life--the life of people--the daily toil--the pangs and the +struggles. I'm hungry for it all!" + +He could have kissed her for the words. + +"We'll do, Myra," he cried, "we'll do. Do you know what I see this +morning?" + +"What?" + +"A new city! My old city, but all new." + +"It's you that is new, Joe." + +"And that's why I see the new city--a vision I shall see until some +larger vision replaces it. Shall I tell you about it?" + +"Tell me." + +"It is the city of five million comrades. They toil all day with one +another; they create all of beauty and use that men may need; they +exchange these things with each other; they go home at night to gardens +and simple houses, they find happy women there and sunburnt, laughing +children. Their evenings are given over to the best play--play with +others, play with masses, or play at home. They have time for study, +time for art, yet time for one another. Each loosens in himself and +gives to the world his sublime possibilities. A city of toiling +comrades, of sparkling homes, of wondrous art, and joyous festival. That +is the city I see before me!" He paused. "And to the coming of that city +I dedicate my life." + +She sighed. + +"It's too bright, too good for human nature." + +"Not for human nature," he whispered. "If only we are patient. If only +we are content to add our one stone to its rising walls." + +She pressed his hand again. + +"Joe," she murmured, "what do you think you'll be doing a year from +now?" + +"I don't know," he smiled. "Perhaps editing--perhaps working with a +strike--perhaps something else. But whatever it is, it will be some new +adventure--some new adventure!" + +So they entered that city hand in hand, the future all before them. And +they found neither that City of the Future nor a City of Degradation, +but a very human city full of very human people. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Nine-Tenths, by James Oppenheim + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NINE-TENTHS *** + +***** This file should be named 11372.txt or 11372.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/1/3/7/11372/ + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Bill Walker and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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