XVII.
Burnham returned to Shepardtown only to tell his mother that he should go to Lowell immediately. He had accepted the standing offer there, and expected to begin at once.
In vain Salome offered him an increase of salary. And as he was evidently bent on going, she would not urge him to remain in her employ. But both she and Villard could assign but one reason for his sudden determination. Both felt sure that he had offered himself to Marion and that she had refused him.
Intimate as Salome and Marion were, no discussion of love-matters ever entered their conversation. With each, love was too high and sacred a thing to be bruited about, even in a conversation between friends. In their younger days, when Marion had shyly announced her engagement to a young law-student,there had been no silly or sentimental waste of words between them on the subject. And now, perhaps because both women felt the stirrings of a deep passion in their inmost heart, no reference to the subject was ever made.
When Salome went home to lunch, she told Marion of Burnham’s resignation; but beyond a momentary look of blank astonishment Marion’s face gave no sign. And Salome’s feeling for her friend was too deep and too delicate, to ask for what she did not choose to tell voluntarily.
Burnham would have been glad to leave town without risking himself in Marion’s presence again.
He feared to trust himself with her, in the presence of the strange attraction she had held for him. But common courtesy demanded that he should call at the Mansion to leave his good-byes.
Marion heard the news of his resignation with a strange sinking of the heart. Something told her that this was the end of her foolish, happy dream. And although she loyally refused to acknowledge her doubts,the strange presaging which was something more than presentiment lurked in her heart all day, and kept her uneasy and restless. She half expected Burnham to come in and by a few words settle the question of their relations. She even asked herself, how she could best leave Shepardtown if he insisted upon taking her to Lowell.
But he did not come until evening. Then it happened, as events will in this strange world, that she was with her classes at the Hall. Salome was unusually tired that evening and had remained quietly at home. Burnham dropped in about eight o’clock, sat for half an hour with her and Mrs. Soule, and then bade them good-bye, leaving his adieu for Marion. He did not go to the Hall, although she half expected him all through the long evening. The next morning he took an early train for Lowell.
When Marion came home she heard in amazement that Burnham had been there and gone. Salome gave her his word of parting.
“And was that all?” Marion asked, with strained voice and blazing cheeks.
“That was all. Tell me, dear,” askedSalome, for the first time, “was there any trouble between you? Had you anything to do with his going?”
“No, nothing,” and Marion was gone to her room.
On the first day of May, the experiment of profit-sharing was put into effect for the first time at the Shawsheen Mills. In spite of the strike, and the enforced idleness of several months which had followed, previous to the year just passed, this had been a successful one, and when the divisions for capital, machinery and reserve fund had been set aside, there still remained a surplus which gave a dividend of four and a half per cent. In some cases, this dividend on wages made a very considerable sum, and in all cases the operatives felt a new sensation of direct responsibility and connection with the mills. Besides the addition of this money to their wages, the feeling of brotherhood and ownership it engendered was, Villard declared, quite worth the experiment.
Another circular was sent out, urging the operatives to increased care in saving and painstaking in order that the dividend might be larger another year. And the good resultsof the plan were directly manifest in the work of nearly every employe.
A little incident which occurred soon after this did much to convince the men of the changed relations in which they now stood towards their employers.
An overseer had been tyrannizing over the spinners until they would endure it no longer. In Mr. Greenough’s day, it is more than probable that the matter would have culminated in a lock-out or a strike.
But with the new order of things came a greater feeling of confidence in Villard. Five of the spinners, therefore, with the consent of the others, went personally to the superintendent.
After hearing their story, Villard promised to settle their grievance, and quite a discussion of economic questions concerning CapitalversusLabor followed.
“You men have labor to sell,” said Villard, “and we buy it. We have the products of your labor to sell, and the commission merchants and others buy it. As much courtesy and fair dealing should exist between us, as I like to have between us and the men to whomwe sell. We would not take insolence from a broker’s clerk; you need not put up with the tyranny of an overseer.”
These words, repeated to the other employes, were the most powerful preventive against strikes ever tried in the Shawsheen Mills.
As the summer advanced, other new cottages were built on the hill to accommodate the growing demand from the operatives. All those built the previous year were occupied, and many of them had been bought on the installment plan. Although the community around the Shawsheen factories, as it now existed, had come suddenly into its new relation, it already represented almost an ideal one. It was already a practical lesson in social economics, which many a reformer and many a capitalist would do well to study. To be a capitalist even in a small way is to learn to respect capital. The fact that these men owned their small plots of ground and their cottages (even if they were mortgaged for the greater part of their value) was already dignifying the laborer by the tangible proof of his own value.
By this time, Salome had come to knowevery family who were in the employ of the mills. Was there trouble coming to any household, was there sickness, was there affliction among them, they all turned to her for help and sympathy, encouragement or congratulation. The smallest events—the birth of a baby, the progress of measles, the love affairs of the young, the querulous complaints of the old—were all of interest to her; and they, in return, appreciated her kindness and returned it with a loyalty of service that did her soul good.
Salome often declared, laughingly, that her relations to them were truly patriarchal. An atmosphere of content and friendliness prevailed where there had been jealousy and bickering.
The popular entertainments were kept up during the summer. There were concerts, at which local talent (often some operative who possessed the faculty of singing a song) appeared. Salome, herself, often presided at the piano, and Marion frequently lent her voice; their theory being that young people who took little or no vacation in summer needed some sort of recreation in summer as in winter.
Towards the close of the summer, as Salome came out of the Hall one evening, one of the young men came up to her side, and asked if he might speak to her alone.
“Certainly,” she said; “Mr. Fales, will you walk ahead with Marion, while O’Donovan walks home with me?”
She remembered the young fellow perfectly. She had seen him first during the strike, a handsome young dare-devil who seemed, in fact, to be one of the ringleaders among the younger men. When the mills had re-opened, she had taken an uncommon interest in him. He was a faithful and industrious man, and when, after a few weeks of sneering at the “new-fangled notions,” he had settled into harmony with the strange atmosphere, he had tried to improve himself in many ways. When Villard took charge of the evening school, he had held aloof for a few weeks, but at last joined one of Fales’ classes. In their entertainments and dances, he had taken leading parts; and that day, Villard had offered him the post of overseer in one of the minor departments at the mills. It was quite a step up for the young man, and Villard had beensurprised at his hesitation in accepting the offer.
Salome knew all this; and as she heartily liked the fellow, she determined to influence him for his own interest.
O’Donovan was silent for some moments, after they started, doubtless being unaccustomed to escort ladies of her degree in that friendly way. But Salome soon put him at his ease by her kind and easy manner.
“And so you’re going to be promoted,” she said, after a little. “I hope you like that?”
“Miss Shepard,” he blurted out in confused speech, “that’s what I want to talk about. There’s something—I mean, I want to tell—Ioughtto tell you something, Miss Shepard.”
“Very well. It oughtn’t to be very difficult to do that,” and her tone was cordial and encouraging.
“I don’t think I ought to take the position—unless you say so. But I expect you’ll put me in irons, if I tell you. Only—well, the other fellows would say I was a blasted fool—barrin’ your presence, miss.”
“Why, John,” exclaimed Salome wonderingly. For the young man was in a greatstate of excitement. “What can it be? Surely, you know you need not be afraid of me?”
“You remember the night some one tried to blow up the mill—and Mr. Greenough—and Mr. Villard——” Salome stood still and gazed through the summer moonlight at her strange escort. He did not look up, but stood like a culprit before her.
“I don’t know how you managed to find out and save ’em,” he went on. “Miss Shepard—it was me.”
“You? John O’Donovan!” For an instant there was silence.
“Go on,” she said, when she could command her voice. “Tell me all.”
“It was John Ross that planned it and put me up to it. When he died, I wondered if he hadn’t told you or Mr. Villard. Ever since then, I’ve been trying to, but somehow I couldn’t—tell Mr. Villard—nor you neither.—It was John Ross that planned it. He called me a coward and a scab—and, finally, well—you know I was a crazy fool then, with the rest of ’em.—It ain’t no use talkin’, miss, but we all discussed and brooded over things untilwe were half out of our heads. If any one of us had weakened first, we’d all give up, and the strike would have bu’st; but—well, ’tain’t no use talkin’, I s’pose. I’ve confessed, and you can have me put in irons, if you want to.”
“How did you come to want to tell me, John?” Salome said softly.
“Oh, miss, when I found how you saved the mill that night, and the lives of those two men, I went down on my knees with thankfulness. It somehow seemed to open my eyes to where I’d been standin’. Then, when the mills opened and you took us back, and when you commenced to take an interest in us; when you built that beautiful big Hall, and all them cottages; and, if you’ll pardon me for sayin’ it, when you begun walkin’ thro’ the mills yourself, speakin’ a pleasant word to us all and smilin’ at us as if we were all your equals, miss—and you a saint,——it was then I seemed no better’n a murderer. And when John Ross died, and the detectives gave up lookin’ for the men, it was bore in on me as how I ought to confess; and to-day, when Mr. Villard called me into the office and praised my work, and said I’d been faithful and trustworthy——trustworthy,ma’am!—why, then, I couldn’t stand it no longer.”
The young man stood silent in the moonlight. Salome’s eyes were filled with tears.
“John,” she said, “you are a noble fellow. It is no more than right that you should confess this to me, but not all fellows in your place could do it. You can because you have the making of a man in you.”
The young man looked up.
“And what are you goin’ to do with me?” he asked.
“Will you do just what I say?” returned Salome.
“I will, indeed,” he said.
“Then I want you to go to Mr. Villard to-morrow morning and tell him you accept the place. Then do your best, and deserve better things in future.”
“Miss Shepard!” Young O’Donovan fairly gasped.
“John,” she went on, and she seemed to him like the pictures of saints in the church, as she stood in her white gown in the silvery light, “if your scheme had succeeded, you would not only have destroyed most valuable property ofmine; you would have killed two of my dearest friends; but you have turned over a new leaf. I feel sure that nothing will ever induce you to consent to anything of the kind again.”
“Never, so help me Heaven!” he exclaimed, fervently.
“Now, you have confessed like a man, I will forgive like a woman. You will accept the new place. You will go on studying and improving yourself, and some day I shall be proud of you, and you will be proud that you once had the manliness to come to me and confess a crime. Now, we will bury the thing forever, and never speak of it again. Only promise me you will go to Mr. Villard in the morning and do as I ask you.”
“I promise,” said the young man solemnly. Then he dropped on his knees and seizing her hand, bent his head reverently upon it.
“If the God in Heaven above is like you,” he said, “He is a God worth serving.”
“My poor forgiveness resembles His, John, only as a drop of rain resembles the mighty ocean.”
They walked silently home, and O’Donovan left her with a new purpose in his heart thathas never left it since. He is to-day a thriving Christian gentleman. Dare any one say it would have been better to condemn him as a law-breaker?
“Nobody but a woman, I suppose, would have dealt justice so,” said Salome to herself, as she put out her light an hour later, and turned to the window—“nobody but John Villard.”