GETTING THE MEN IN LINE
HHis dismissal had been one of the risks Tom had accepted when he had decided upon war, and though he felt it keenly now that it had come, yet its chief effect was to intensify his resolution to overturn Buck Foley. He strode on block after block, with his long, powerful steps, his resolution gripping him fiercer and fiercer,—till the thought leaped into his mind: "I've got to tell Maggie."
His dismissal had been one of the risks Tom had accepted when he had decided upon war, and though he felt it keenly now that it had come, yet its chief effect was to intensify his resolution to overturn Buck Foley. He strode on block after block, with his long, powerful steps, his resolution gripping him fiercer and fiercer,—till the thought leaped into his mind: "I've got to tell Maggie."
He stopped as though a cold hand had been laid against his heart; then walked on more slowly, considering how he should give the news to her. His first thought was to say nothing of his dismissal for a few days. By then he might have found another job, and the telling that he had lost one would be an easy matter. But his second thought was that she would doubtless learn the news from some of her friends, and would use her tongue all the more freely because of his attempt at concealment; and, furthermore, he would be in the somewhat inglorious position of the man who has been found out. He decided to have done with it at once.
When he entered his flat Maggie looked up in surprise from the tidy on which she was working."What! home already!" Then she noticed his face. "Why, what's the matter?"
Tom drew off his overcoat and threw it upon the couch. "I've been fired."
She looked at him in astonishment. "Fired!"
"Yes." He sat down, determined to get through with the scene as quickly as possible.
For the better part of a minute she could not speak. "Fired? What for?" she articulated.
"It's Foley's work. He ordered Driscoll to."
"You've been talking about Foley some more, then?"
"I have."
Tom saw what he had feared, a hard, accusing look spread itself over her face. "And you've done that, Tom Keating, after what I, your wife, said to you only last week? I told you what would happen. I told you Foley would make us suffer. I told you not to talk again, and you've gone and done it!" The words came out slowly, sharply, as though it were her desire to thrust them into him one by one.
Tom began to harden, as she had hardened. But at least he would give her the chance to understand him. "You know what Foley's like. You know some of the things he's done. Well, I've made up my mind that we oughtn't to stand him any longer. I'm going to do what I can to drive him out of the union."
"And you've been talking this?" she cut in. "Oh, of course you have! No wonder he got you fired! Oh, my God! I see it all. And you, you never thought once of your wife or your child!"
"I did, and you'll see when I tell you all," Tom said harshly. "But would you have me stand for all the dirty things he does?"
"Couldn't you keep out of his way—as I asked you to? Because a wolf's a wolf, that's no reason why you should jump in his mouth."
"It is if you can do him up. And I'm going to do Foley up. I'm going to run against him as walking delegate. The situation ain't so bad as you think," he went on, with a weak effort to appease her. "You think things look dark, but they're going to be brighter than they ever were. I'll get another job soon, and after the first of March I'll be walking delegate. I'm going to beat Buck Foley, sure!"
For a moment the vision of an even greater elevation than the one from which they were falling made her forget her bitter wrath. Then it flooded back upon her, and she put it all into a laugh. "You beat Buck Foley! Oh, my!"
Her ireful words he had borne with outward calm; he had learned they were borne more easily, if borne calmly. But her sneering disbelief in him was too much. He sprang up, his wrath tugging at its leash. She, too, came to her feet, and stood facing him, hands clenched, breast heaving, sneering, sobbing. Her words tumbled out.
"Oh, you! you! Brighter days, you say. Ha! ha! You beat Buck Foley? Yes, I know how! Buck Foley'll not let you get a job in your trade. You'll have to take up some other work—if you can get it! Begin all over! We'll grow poorer and poorer. We'll have to eat anything. I'll haveto wear rags. Just when we were getting comfortable. And all because you wouldn't pay any attention to what I said. Because you were such a fo-o-ol! Oh, my God! My God!"
As she went on her voice rose to a scream, broken by gasps and sobs. At the end she passionately jerked Tom's coat and hat from the couch and threw herself upon it—and the frenzied words tumbled on, and on.
Tom looked down upon her a moment, quivering with wrath and a nameless sickness. Then he picked up hat and coat, and glancing at Ferdinand, who had shrunk terrified into a corner, walked quickly out of the flat.
He strode about the streets awhile, had dinner in a restaurant, and then, as Wednesday was the union's meeting night, he went to Potomac Hall. It fell out that he met Pete and Barry entering as he came up.
"I guess you'll have another foreman to-morrow, boys," he announced; and he briefly told them of his discharge.
"It'll be us next, Rivet Head," said Pete.
Barry nodded, his face pale.
All the men in the hall learned that evening what had happened to Tom, some from his friends, more from Foley's friends. And the manner of the latter's telling was a warning to every listener. "D'you hear Keating has been fired?" "Fired? No. What for?" A wise wink: "Well, he's been talkin' about Foley, you know."
Tom grew hot under, but ignored, the open jeering of the Foleyites. The sympathy of his friends he answered with a quiet, but ominous, "Just you wait!" There were few present of the men he had counted on seeing, and soon after the meeting ended, which was unusually early, he started home.
It was after ten when he came in. Maggie sat working at the tidy; she did not look up or speak; her passion had settled into resentful obstinacy, and that, he knew from experience, only time could overcome. He had not the least desire to assist time in its work of subjection, and passed straight into their bedroom.
Tom felt her sustained resentment, as indeed he could not help; but he did not feel that which was the first cause of the resentment—her lack of sympathetic understanding of him. At twenty-three he had come into a man's wages, and Maggie's was the first pretty face he had seen after that. The novelty of their married life had soon worn off, and with the development of his stronger qualities and of her worst ones, it had gradually come about that the only thoughts they shared were those concerning their common existence in their home. Tom had long since become accustomed to carrying his real ideas to other ears. And so he did not now consciously miss wifely sympathy with his efforts.
There was no break the next morning in Maggie's sullen resentment. After an almost wordless breakfast Tom set forth to look for another job. An opening presented itself at the first place he called. "Yes, it happens we do need a foreman," said the contractor. "What experience have you had?"
Tom gave an outline of his course in his trade, dwelling on the last two years and a half that he had been a foreman.
"Um,—yes. That sounds very good. You say you worked last for Driscoll on the St. Etienne job?"
"Yes."
"I suppose you don't mind telling why you left? Driscoll hasn't finished that job yet."
Tom briefly related the circumstances.
"So you're out with Foley." The contractor shook his head. "Sorry. We need a man, and I guess you're a good one. But if Foley did that to Driscoll, he'll do the same to me. I can't afford to be mixed up in any trouble with him."
This conversation was a more or less accurate pattern of many that followed on this and succeeding days. Tom called on every contractor of importance doing steel construction work. None of them cared to risk trouble with Foley, and so Tom continued walking the streets.
One contractor—the man for whom he had worked before he went on the St. Etienne job—offered Tom what he called some "business advice." "I'm a pretty good friend of yours, Keating, for I've found you all on the level. The trouble with you is, when you see a stone wall you think it was put there to butt your head against. Now, I'm older than you are, and had a lot more experience, and let me tell you it's a lot easier, and a lot quicker, when you see trouble across your path like a stone wall, to go round it than it is to try to butt it out of your way.Stop butting against Foley. Make up with him, or go to some other city. Go round him."
In the meantime Tom was busy with his campaign against Foley. He was discharged on the fourteenth of February; the election came on the seventh of March; only three weeks, so haste was necessary. On the days he was tramping about for a job he met many members of the union also looking for work, and to these he talked wherever he found them. And every night he was out talking to the men, in the streets, in saloons, in their own homes.
The problem of his campaign was a simple one—to get at least five hundred of the three thousand members of the union to come to the hall on election night and cast their votes against Foley. His campaign, therefore, could have no spectacular methods and no spectacular features. Hard, persistent work, night after night—that was all.
On the evening after the meeting and on the following evening Tom had talks with several leading men in the union. A few joined in his plan with spirit. But most that he saw held back; they were willing to help him in secret, but they feared the result of an open espousal of his cause. There were only a dozen men, including Barry and Pete, who were willing to go the whole way with him, and these he formed loosely into a campaign committee. They held a caucus and nominations for all offices were made, Tom being chosen to run for walking delegate and president. The presidency was unsalaried, and during Foley's régime had become an office of only nominal importance; all real power thathad ever belonged to the position had been gradually absorbed by the office of walking delegate. At the meeting on the twenty-first Tom's ticket was formally presented to the union, as was also Foley's.
Even before this the dozen were busy with a canvass of the union. The members agreed heartily to the plan of demanding an increase in wages, for they had long been dissatisfied with the present scale. But to come out against Foley, that was another matter. Tom found, as he had expected, that his arguments had to be directed, not at convincing the men that Foley was bad, but at convincing them it was safe to oppose him. Reformers are accustomed to explain their failure by saying they cannot arouse the respectable element to come out and vote against corruption. They would find that even fewer would come to the polls if the voters thereby endangered their jobs.
The answers of the men in almost all cases were the same.
"If I was sure I wouldn't lose my job, I'd vote against Foley in a minute. But you know well enough, Tom, that we have a hard enough time getting on now. Where'd we be if Foley blacklisted us?"
"But there's no danger at all, if enough of us come out," Tom would reply. "We can't lose."
"But you can't count on the boys coming out. And if we lose, Foley'll make us all smart. He'll manage to find out every man that voted against him."
Here was the place in which the guarantee he hadsought from Mr. Baxter would fit in. Impelled by knowledge of the great value of this guarantee, Tom went to see the big contractor a few days after his first visit. The uniform traveled down the alley between the offices and brought back word that Mr. Baxter was not in. Tom called again and again. Mr. Baxter was always out. Tom was sorely disappointed by his failure to get the guarantee, but there was nothing to do but to make the best of it; and so he and his friends went on tirelessly with their nightly canvassing.
The days, of course, Tom continued to spend in looking for work. In wandering from contractor to contractor he frequently passed the building in which was located the office of Driscoll & Co.; and, a week after his discharge, as he was going by near one o'clock, it chanced Miss Arnold was coming into the street. They saw each other in the same instant. Tom, with his natural diffidence at meeting strange women, was for passing her by with a lift of his hat. "Why, Mr. Keating!" she cried, with a little smile, and as they held the same direction he could but fall into step with her.
"What's the latest war news?" she asked.
"One man still out of a job," he answered, taking refuge in an attempt at lightness. "No actual conflict yet. I'm busy massing my forces. So far I have one man together—myself."
"You ought to find that a loyal army." She was silent for a dozen paces, then asked impulsively: "Have you had lunch yet?"
Tom threw a surprised look down upon her. "Yes.Twelve o'clock's our noon hour. We men are used to having our lunch then."
"I thought if you hadn't we might have lunched in the same place," she hastened to explain, with a slight flush of embarrassment. "I wanted to ask you some questions. You see, since I've been in New York I've been in a way thrown in contact with labor unions. I've read a great deal on both sides. But the only persons I've had a chance to talk to have all been on the employers' side,—persons like Mr. Driscoll and my uncle, Mr. Baxter."
"Baxter, the contractor—Baxter & Co.?"
"Yes."
Tom wondered what necessity had forced the niece of so rich a man as Mr. Baxter to earn her living as a stenographer.
"I've often wanted to talk with some trade union man, but I've never had the chance. I thought you might tell me some of the things I want to know."
The note of sincere disappointment in Miss Arnold's voice brought a suggestion to Tom's mind that both embarrassed and attracted. He was not accustomed to the society of women of Miss Arnold's sort, whose order of life had been altogether different from his own, and the idea of an hour alone with her filled him with a certain confusion. But her freshness and her desire to know more of the subject that was his whole life allured him; and his interest was stronger than his embarrassment. "For that matter, I'm not busy, as you know. If you would like it, I can talk to you while you eat."
For the next hour they sat face to face in the quietlittle restaurant to which Miss Arnold had led the way. The other patrons found themselves looking over at the table in the corner, and wondering what common subject could so engross the refined young woman in the tailored gown and the man in ill-fitting clothes, with big red hands, red neck and crude, square face. For their part these two were unconscious of the wondering eyes upon them. With a query now and then from Miss Arnold, Tom spiritedly presented the union side of mooted questions of the day,—the open shop, the strike, the sympathetic strike, the boycott. The things Miss Arnold had read had dealt coldly with the moral and economic principles involved in these questions. Tom spoke in human terms; he showed how every point affected living men, and women, and children. The difference was the difference between a treatise and life.
Miss Arnold was impressed,—not alone by what Tom said, but by the man himself. The first two or three times she had seen him, on his brief visits to the office, she had been struck only by a vague bigness—a bigness that was not so much of figure as of bearing. On his last visit she had been struck by his bold spirit. She now discovered the crude, rugged strength of the man: he had thought much; he felt deeply; he believed in the justice of his cause; he was willing, if the need might be, to suffer for his beliefs. And he spoke well, for his sentences, though not always grammatical, were always vital. He seemed to present the very heart of a thing, and let it throb before the eyes.
When they were in the street again and about to go their separate ways, Miss Arnold asked, with impulsive interest: "Won't you talk to me again about these things—some time?"
Tom, glowing with the excitement of his own words and of her sympathetic listening, promised. It was finally settled that he should call the following Sunday afternoon.
Back at her desk, Miss Arnold fell to wondering what sort of man Tom would be had he had four years at a university, and had his life been thrown among people of cultivation. His power, plus these advantages, would have made him—something big, to say the least. But had he gone to college he would not now be in a trade union. And in a trade union, Miss Arnold admitted to herself, was where he was needed, and where he belonged.
Tom went on his way in the elation that comes of a new and gratifying experience. He had never before had so keen and sympathetic a listener. And never before had he had speech with a woman of Miss Arnold's type—educated, thoughtful, of broad interests. Most of the women he had known necessity had made into household drudges—tired and uninteresting, whose few thoughts rarely ranged far from home. Miss Arnold was a discovery to him. Deep down in his consciousness was a distinct surprise that a woman should be interested in the big things of the outside world.
He was fairly jerked out of his elation, when, on turning a corner, he met Foley face to face in front of a skyscraper that was going up in lower Broadway. It was their first meeting since Foley had tried to have grim sport out of him on the St. Etienne Hotel.
Foley planted himself squarely across Tom's path. "Hello, Keating! How're youse? Where youse workin' now?"
The sneering good-fellowship in Foley's voice set Tom's blood a-tingling. But he tried to step to one side and pass on. Again Foley blocked his way.
"I understand youse're goin' to be the next walkin' delegate o' the union. That's nice. I s'pose these days youse're trainin' your legs for the job?"
"See here, Buck Foley, are you looking for a fight? If you are, come around to some quiet place and I'll mix it up with you all you want."
"I don't fight a man till he gets in my class."
"If you don't want to fight, then get out of my way!"
With that Tom stepped forward quickly and butted his hunched-out right shoulder against Foley's left. Foley, unprepared, swung round as though on a pivot. Tom brushed by and continued on his way with unturned head.
Again the walking delegate proved that he could swear.
THE COWARD
TTwo days before his meeting with Miss Arnold Tom had been convinced that any more time was wasted that was spent in looking for a job as foreman. He had before him the choice of being idle or working in the gang. He disliked to do the latter, regarding it as a professional relapse. But he was unwilling to draw upon his savings, if that could be avoided, so he decided to go back into the ranks. The previous evening he had heard of three new jobs that were being started. The contractors on two of them he had seen during the morning; and after his encounter with Foley he set out to interview the third. The contractor was an employer of the smallest consequence—a florid man with little cunning eyes. "Yes, I do need some men," he replied to Tom's inquiry. "How much d'you want?"
Two days before his meeting with Miss Arnold Tom had been convinced that any more time was wasted that was spent in looking for a job as foreman. He had before him the choice of being idle or working in the gang. He disliked to do the latter, regarding it as a professional relapse. But he was unwilling to draw upon his savings, if that could be avoided, so he decided to go back into the ranks. The previous evening he had heard of three new jobs that were being started. The contractors on two of them he had seen during the morning; and after his encounter with Foley he set out to interview the third. The contractor was an employer of the smallest consequence—a florid man with little cunning eyes. "Yes, I do need some men," he replied to Tom's inquiry. "How much d'you want?"
"Three seventy-five a day, the regular rate."
The contractor shook his head. "Too much. I can only pay three."
"But you signed an agreement to pay the full rate!" Tom cried.
"Oh, a man signs a lot o' things."
Tom was about to turn away, when his curiosity got the better of his disgust. For a union man to work under the scale was an offense against theunion. For an employer to pay under the scale was an offense against the employers' association. Tom decided to draw the contractor out. "Well, suppose I go to work at three dollars, how do we keep from being discovered?" he asked.
The little eyes gleamed with appreciation of their small cunning. "I make this agreement with all my men: You get the full amount in your envelope Saturday. Anybody that sees you open your envelope sees that you're gettin' full scale. Then you hand me back four-fifty later. That's for money I advanced you durin' the week. D'you understand?"
"I do," said Tom. "But I'm no three dollar man!"
"Hold on!" the contractor cried to Tom's back. His cunning told him in an instant that he had made a mistake; that this man, if let go, might make trouble. "I was just foolin' you. Of course, I'll pay you full rate."
Tom knew the man was lying, but he had no real proof that the contractor was breaking faith both with the union and his fellow employers; so, as he needed the money, he took the offered position and went to work the next morning. The job was a fire-engine house just being started on the upper west side of the island. The isolation of the job and the insignificance of the contractor made Tom feel there was a chance Foley might overlook him for the next two weeks.
On the following Saturday morning three new men began work on the job. One of them Tom was certain he knew—a tall, lank fellow, chiefly knobsand angles, with wide, drooping shoulders and a big yellow mustache. Tom left his place at the crane of the jimmy derrick and ran down a plank into the basement to where this man and four others were rolling a round column to its place.
He touched the man on the shoulder. "Your name's Petersen, ain't it?"
"Yah," said the big fellow.
"And you worked for a couple of days on the St. Etienne Hotel?"
"Yah."
Tom did his duty as prescribed by the union rules. He pointed out Petersen as a scab to the steward. Straightway the men crowded up and there was a rapid exchange of opinions. Tom and the steward wanted that a demand for Petersen's discharge be made of the contractor. But the others favored summary action, and made for where the big Swede was standing.
"Get out!" they ordered.
Petersen glowered at the crowd. "I lick de whole bunch!" he said with slow defiance.
The men were brought to a pause by his threatening attitude. His resentful eyes turned for an instant on Tom. The men began to move forward cautiously. Then the transformation that had taken place on the St. Etienne Hotel took place again. The courage faded from him, and he turned and started up the inclined plank for the street.
Jeers broke from the men. Caps and greasy gloves pelted Petersen's retreating figure. One man, the smallest of the gang, ran up the plank after him.
"Do him up, Kid!" the men shouted scrambling up to the sidewalk.
Kid, with showy valiance, aimed an upward blow at the Swede's head. Petersen warded off the fist with automatic ease, but made no attempt to strike back. He started away, walking sidewise, one eye on his path, one on his little assailant who kept delivering fierce blows that somehow failed to reach their mark.
"If he ain't runnin' from Kid!" ejaculated the men. "Good boy, Kid!"
The blows became faster and fiercer. At the corner Petersen turned back, held his foe at bay an instant, and a second time Tom felt the resentment of his eyes. Then he was driven around the corner. A minute later the little man came back, puffed out and swaggering.
"What an infernal coward!" the men marveled, as they went back to work.
That was a hard evening for Tom. He not only had to work for votes, but he met two or three lieutenants who were disheartened by the men's slowness to promise support, and to these friends he had to give new courage. Twice, as he was talking to men on the street, he glimpsed the tall, lean figure of Petersen, standing in a doorway as though waiting for someone.
The end of his exhausting evening's work found him near the Barrys', and he dropped in for an exchange of experiences. Barry and Pig Iron Pete had themselves come in but a few minutes before.
"Got work on your job for a couple more men?" asked Pete after the first words had been spoken.
"Hello! You haven't been fired?"
"That's it," answered Pete; and Barry nodded.
"Foley's work, I suppose?"
"Sure. Foley put Jake Henderson up to it. Oh, Jake makes a hot foreman! Driscoll ought to pay him ten a day to keep off the job. Jake complained against us an' got us fired. Said we didn't know our business."
"Well, it's only for another week, boys," Tom cheered them.
"If you think that then you've had better luck with the men than me 'n' Barry has," Pete declared in disgust. "They're a bunch o' old maids! Foley's too good for 'em. I don't see why we should try to force 'em to take somethin' better." The whole blankety-blanked outfit had Pete's permission to go where they didn't need a forge to heat their rivets.
"You don't understand 'em, Pete," returned Tom. "They've got to think first of all of how to earn a living for their families. Of course they're going to hesitate to do anything that will endanger their chance to earn a living. And you seem to forget that we've only got to get one man in five to win out."
"An' we've got to get him!" said Barry, almost fiercely.
"D'you think there's much danger of your losin', Tom?" Mrs. Barry queried anxiously.
"Not if we work. But we've got to work."
Mrs. Barry was silent for several moments, during which the talk of the men ran on. Suddenly, she broke in: "Don't you think the women'd have some influence with their husbands?"
Tom was silent for a thoughtful minute. "Some of them, mebbe."
"More'n you think, I bet!" Mrs. Barry declared. "It's worth tryin', anyhow. Here's what I'm goin' to do: I'm goin' to start out to-morrow an' begin visitin' all the union women I know. I can get the addresses of others from them. An' I'll keep at it every afternoon I can get away till the election. I'll talk to 'em good an' straight an' get 'em to talk to other women. An' we'll get a lot o' the men in line, see if we don't!"
Tom looked admiringly at Mrs. Barry's homely face, flushed with determination. "The surest thing we can do to win is to put you up for walking delegate. I'll hustle for you."
"Oh, g'wan with you, Tom!" She smiled with pleasure, however. "I've got a picture o' myself climbin' up ladders an' buyin' drinks for the men."
"If you was the walkin' delegate," said Pete, "we'd always work on the first floor, an' never drink nothin' but tea."
"You shut up, Pete!" Mrs. Barry looked at Tom. "I suppose you're wife'll help in this, too?"
Tom looked steadily at the scroll in Mrs. Barry's red rug. "I'm afraid not," he said at length. "She—she couldn't stand climbing the stairs."
It was after eleven o'clock when Tom left the Barrys' and started through the quiet cross streettoward a car line. A man stepped from an adjoining doorway, and fell in a score of paces behind him. Tom heard rapid steps drawing nearer and nearer, but it was not till the man had gained to within a pace that it occurred to him perhaps he was being followed. Then it was too late. His arm was seized in a grip of steel.
The street was dark and empty. Thoughts of Foley's entertainment committee flashed through his head. He whirled about and struck out fiercely with his free arm. His wrist was caught and held by a grip like the first. He was as helpless as if handcuffed.
"I vant a yob," a savage voice demanded.
Tom recognized the tall, angular figure. "Hello, Petersen! What d'you want?"
"I vant a yob."
"A job. How can I give you a job?"
"You take to-day ma yob avay. You give me a yob!"
In a flash Tom understood. The Swede held him accountable for the incident of the morning, and was determined to force another job from him. Was the man crazy? At any rate 'twould be wiser to parley than to bring on a conflict with one possessed of such strength as those hands betokened. So he made no attempt to break loose.
"I can't give you a job, I say."
"You take it avay!" the Swede said, with fierce persistence. "You make me leave!"
"It's your own fault. If you want to work, why don't you get into the union?"
Tom felt a convulsive shiver run through the man's big frame. "De union? Ah, de union! Ev'ryvare I ask for yob. Ev'ryvare! 'You b'long to union?' de boss say. 'No,' I say. De boss give me no yob. De union let me not vork! De union——!" His hands gripped tighter in his impotent bitterness.
"Of course the union won't let you work."
"Vy? I am strong!—yes. I know de vork."
Tom felt that no explanation of unionism, however lucid, would quiet this simple-minded excitement. So he said nothing.
"Vy should I not vork? Dare be yobs. I know how to vork. But no! De union! I mak dis mont' two days. I mak seven dollar. Seven dollar!" He fairly shook Tom, and a half sob broke from his lips. "How de union tank I live? My family?—me? Seven dollar?"
Tom recognized with a thrill that which he was hearing. It was the man's soul crying out in resentment and despair.
"But you can't blame the union," he said weakly, feeling that his answer did not answer.
"You tank not?" Petersen cried fiercely. "You tank not?" He was silent a brief space, and his breath surged in and out as though he had just paused from running. Suddenly he freed Tom's wrists and set his right hand into Tom's left arm. "Come! I show you vot de union done."
He started away. Those iron fingers locked about the prisoner's arm were a needless fetter. The Swede's despairing soul, glimpsed for a moment,had thrown a spell upon Tom, and he would have followed willingly.
Their long strides matched, and their heel-clicks coincided. Both were silent. At the end of ten minutes they were in a narrow street, clifted on its either side with tenements that reached up darkly. Presently the Swede turned down a stairway, sentineled by garbage cans. Tom thought they were entering a basement. But Petersen walked on, and in the solid blackness Tom was glad of the hand locked on his arm. They mounted a flight of stone steps, and came into a little stone-paved court. Far above there was a roof-framed square of stars. Petersen led the way across the court and into the doorway of a rear tenement. The air was rotting. They went up two flights of stairs, so old that the wood shivered under foot. Petersen opened a door. A coal oil lamp burned on an otherwise barren table, and beside the table sat a slight woman with a quilt drawn closely about her.
She rose, the quilt fell from her shoulders, and she stood forth in a faded calico wrapper. "Oh, Nels! You've come at last!" she said. Then she saw Tom, and drew back a step.
"Yah," said Petersen. He dragged Tom after him into the room and swept his left arm about. "See!—De union!"
The room was almost bare. The table, three wooden chairs, a few dishes, a cooking-stove without fire,—this was the furniture. Half the plastering was gone from the ceiling, the blue kalsomine was scaling leprously from the walls, in places the floorwas worn almost through. In another room he saw a child asleep on a bed.
There was just one picture on the walls, a brown-framed photograph of a man in the dress and pose of a prize fighter—a big, tall, angular man, with a drooping mustache. Tom gave a quick glance at Petersen.
"See!—De union!" Petersen repeated fiercely.
The little woman came quickly forward and laid her hand on Petersen's arm. "Nels, Nels," she said gently.
"Yah, Anna. But he is de man vot drove me from ma yob."
"We must forgive them that despitefully use us, the Lord says."
Petersen quieted under her touch and dropped Tom's arm.
She turned her blue eyes upon Tom in gentle accusation. "How could you? Oh, how could you?"
Tom could only answer helplessly: "But why don't he join the union?"
"How can he?"
The words echoed within Tom. How could he? Everything Tom saw had not the value of half the union's initiation fee.
There was an awkward silence. "Won't you sit down, brother." Mrs. Petersen offered Tom one of the wooden chairs, and all three sat down. He noted that the resentment was passing from Petersen's eyes, and that, fastened on his wife, they were filling with submissive adoration.
"Nels has tried very hard," the little woman said. They had been in the West for three years, she went on; Nels had worked with a non-union crew on a bridge over the Missouri. When that job was finished they had spent their savings coming to New York, hearing there was plenty of work there. "We had but twenty dollars when we got here. How could Nels join the union? We had to live. An' since he couldn't join the union, the union wouldn't let him work. Brother, is that just? Is that the sort o' treatment you'd like to get?"
Tom was helpless against her charges. The union was right in principle, but what was mere correctness of principle in the presence of such a situation?
"Would you be willing to join the union?" he asked abruptly of Petersen.
It was Petersen's wife who answered. "O' course he would."
"Well, don't you worry any more then. He won't have any trouble getting a job."
"How?" asked the little woman.
"I'm going to get him in the union."
"But that costs twenty-five dollars."
"Yes."
"But, brother, we haven't gotone!"
"I'll advance it. He can pay it back easy enough afterwards."
The little woman rose and stood before Tom. Her thin white face was touched up faintly with color, and tears glistened in her eyes. She took Tom's big red hand in her two frail ones.
"Brother, if you ain't a Christian, you've got a Christian heart!" she cried out, and the thin hands tightened fervently. She turned to her husband. "Nels, what did I say! The Lord would not forget them that remembered him."
Tom saw Petersen stand up, nothing in his eyes now but adoration, and open his arms. He turned his head.
For the second time Tom took note of the brown-framed photograph, with "The Swedish Terror" in black letters at its bottom, and rose and stood staring at it. Presently, Mrs. Petersen drew to his side.
"We keep it before us to remind us what wonders the Lord can work, bless His holy name!" she explained. "Nels was a terrible fightin' man before we was married an' I left the Salvation Army. A terrible fightin' man!" Even in her awe of Petersen's one-time wickedness Tom could detect a lurking admiration of his prowess. "The Lord has saved him from all that. But he has a terrible temper. It flares up at times, an' the old carnal desire to fight gets hold o' him again. That's his great weakness. But we pray that God will keep him from fightin', an' God does!"
Tom looked at the little woman, a bundle of religious ardor, looked at Petersen with his big shoulders, thought of the incident of the morning. He blinked his eyes.
Tom stepped to the table and laid down a five-dollar bill. "You can pay that back later." He moved quickly to the door. "Good-night," he said, and tried to escape.
But Mrs. Petersen was upon him instantly. "Brother! Brother!" She seized his hands again in both hers, and looked at him with glowing eyes. "Brother, may God bless you!"
Tom blinked his eyes again. "Good-night," he said.
Petersen stepped forward and without a word took Tom's arm. The grasp was lighter than when they had come up. Again Tom was glad of the guidance of that hand as they felt their way down the shivering stairs, and out through the tunnel.
"Good-night," he said once more, when they had gained the street.
Petersen gripped his hand in awkward silence.
RUTH ARNOLD
RRuth Arnold was known among her friends as a queer girl. Neither the new ones in New York nor the old ones of her birth town understood her "strange impulses." They were constantly being shocked by ideas and actions which they considered, to phrase it mildly, very unusual. The friends in her old home were horrified when she decided to become a stenographer. Friends in both places were horrified when, a little less than a year before, it became known she was going to leave the home of her aunt to become Mr. Driscoll's secretary. "What a fool!" they cried. "If she had stayed she might have married ever so well!" Mrs. Baxter had entreated, and with considerable elaboration had delivered practically these same opinions. But Ruth was obstinate in her queerness, and had left.
Ruth Arnold was known among her friends as a queer girl. Neither the new ones in New York nor the old ones of her birth town understood her "strange impulses." They were constantly being shocked by ideas and actions which they considered, to phrase it mildly, very unusual. The friends in her old home were horrified when she decided to become a stenographer. Friends in both places were horrified when, a little less than a year before, it became known she was going to leave the home of her aunt to become Mr. Driscoll's secretary. "What a fool!" they cried. "If she had stayed she might have married ever so well!" Mrs. Baxter had entreated, and with considerable elaboration had delivered practically these same opinions. But Ruth was obstinate in her queerness, and had left.
However, only a few weeks before, Mrs. Baxter had had a partial recompense for Ruth's disappointing conduct. She had noted the growing intimacy between Mr. Berman, who was frequently at her house, and Ruth, and by delicate questioning had drawn the calm statement from her niece that Mr. Berman had asked her in marriage.
"Of course you said 'yes,'" said Mrs. Baxter.
Ruth had not.
"My child! Why not?"
"I don't love him."
"What of that?" demanded her aunt, who loved her husband. "Love will come. He is educated, a thorough gentleman, and has money. What more do you want in a husband? And your uncle says he is very clever in business."
Thus brought to bay, Ruth had taken her aunt into the secret that her refusal had not been final and that Mr. Berman had given her six months in which to make up her mind. This statement was Mrs. Baxter's partial recompense. "Then you'll marry him, Ruth!" she declared, and kissed her lightly.
Ruth understood herself no better than did her friends. She was not conscious that she had in a measure that rare endowment—the clear vision which perceives the things of life in their true relation and at their true value, plus the instinct to act upon that vision. It was the manifestations of this instinct that made her friends call her queer. Her instinct, however, did not hold her in sole sway. Her training had fastened many governing conventions upon her, and she was not always as brave as her inward promptings. Her actions made upon impulse were usually in accord with this instinct. Her actions that were the result of thought were frequently in accord with convention.
It was her instinct that had impelled her to ask Tom to call. It was convention that, on Sunday afternoon, made her await his coming with trepidation. She was genuinely interested in the things forwhich Tom stood, and her recent-born admiration of him was sincere. Nevertheless his approaching visit was in the nature of an adventure to her. This workingman, transferred from the business world to the social world, might prove himself an embarrassing impossibility. Especially, she wondered, with more than a little apprehension, how he would be dressed. She feared a flaming necktie crawling up his collar, and perhaps in it a showy pin; or a pair of fancy shoes; or a vest of assertive pattern; or, perhaps, hair oil!
When word was brought her by a maid that Tom was below, she gave an order that he was to wait, and put on her hat and jacket. She did not know him well enough to ask him to her room. She could not receive him in the parlor common to all the boarding-house. Her instinctive self told her it would be an embarrassment to him to be set amid the gossiping crowd that gathered there on Sunday afternoon. Her conventional self told her that, if he were but a tenth as bad as was possible, it would be more than an embarrassment for her to sit beside him amid those curious eyes. The street was the best road out of the dilemma.
He was sitting in the high-backed hall chair when she came down. "Shall we not take a walk?" she asked. "The day is beautiful for February."
Tom acceded gratefully. He had glanced through the parted portières into the parlor, and his minutes of waiting had been minutes of consternation.
The first thing Ruth noted when they came out into the light of the street was that his clothes wereall in modest taste, and she thrilled with relief. Mixed with this there was another feeling, a glow of pleasure that he was vindicating himself to her conventional part.
Ruth lived but a few doors from Central Park. As they started across Central Park West a big red automobile, speeding above the legal rate, came sweeping down upon them, tooting its arrogant warning. Tom jerked Ruth back upon the sidewalk. She glared at the bundled-up occupants of the scurrying car.
"Don't it make you feel like an anarchist when people do that?" she gasped.
"Not the bomb-throwing sort."
"Why not? When people do that, I've got just one desire, and that's to throw a bomb!"
"What good would a bomb here or there do? Or what harm?" Tom asked humorously. "What's the use trying to destroy people that're already doomed?"
Ruth was silent till they gained the other side of the street. "Doomed? What do you mean?" she then asked.
"Every dog has his day, you know. Them rich people are having theirs. It's a summer day, and I guess it's just about noon now. But it's passing."
Ruth had learned during her conversation with him on the previous Tuesday that a large figurative statement such as this was likely to have a great many ideas behind it, so she now proceeded to lead him to the ideas' expression. The sun, drawing good-humoredly from his summer's store, had broughtthousands to the Park walks, and with genial presumption had unbuttoned their overcoats. The bare gray branches of bush and tree glinted dully in the warm light, as if dreamfully smiling over the budding days not far ahead. But Tom had attention for the joy of neither the sun nor his dependents. He thought only of what he was saying, for he had been led to speech upon one of his dearest subjects.
Though he had left school at thirteen to begin work, he had attended night school for a number of years, had belonged to a club whose chief aim was debating, had read a number of solid books and had done a great deal of thinking for himself. As a result of his reading, thinking and observation he had come into some large ideas concerning the future of the working class. In the past, he now said to Ruth, classes had risen to power, served their purpose, and been displaced by new classes stimulated by new ideas. The capitalist class was now in power, and was performing its mission—the development and centralization of industries. But its decline would be even more rapid than its rise. It would be succeeded by the working class. The working class was vast in numbers, and was filled with surging energy. Its future domination was certain.
"And you believe this?" Ruth queried when he came to a pause.
"I know it."
"Admitting that all these things are coming about—which I don't—don't you honestly think it would be disastrous to the general interest for the workingman to come into power?"
"You mean we would legislate solely in our own interests? What if we did? Hasn't every class that ever came into power done that? Anyhow, since we make up nine-tenths of the people we'd certainly be legislating in the interests of the majority—which can't always be said now. And as for our ability to run things, I'd rather have an honest fool than a grafter that knows it all. But if you mean we're a pretty rough lot, and haven't much education, I guess you're about right. How can we help it? We've never had a chance to be anything else. But think what the working class was a hundred years ago! Haven't we come up? Thousands of miles! That's because we've been getting more and more chances, like chances for an education, that used to belong only to the rich. And our chances are increasing. Another hundred years and we won't know ourselves. We'll be fit for anything!"
"I see you're very much of a dreamer."
"Dreamer? Not at all! If you were to look ahead and say in a hundred years from now it'll be 2000, would you call that a dream?"
"Hardly!" Ruth admitted with a smile.
"Well, what I'm telling you is just as certain as the passage of time. I'm anything but a dreamer. I believe in a present for the working class as well as a future. I believe that we, if we work hard, have the right, now, to-day, to a comfortable living, and with enough over to give our children as good an education as the children of the bosses; and with enough to buy a few books, see a little of the world, and to save a little so we'll not have ahead of usthe terrible fear that we and our families may starve when we get too old to work. That's the least we ought to have. But we lack an almighty lot of having it, Miss Arnold.
"Take my own trade—and we're a lot better off than most workingmen—we get three seventy-five a day. That wouldn't be so bad if we made it three hundred days a year, but you know we don't average more than six months' work. Less than seven hundred dollars a year. What can a man with a family do in New York on seven hundred dollars a year? Two hundred for rent, three hundred for food, one hundred for clothes. There's six hundred gone in three lumps. Twenty-five cents a day left for heat, light, education, books, amusement, travel, street-car fare,—and to save for your old age!
"And then our trade's dangerous. I think half of our men are killed. If you saw the obituary list that's published monthly of all the branches of our union in the country, you'd think so, too! Every other name—crushed, or something broke and he fell. Only the other day on a steel bridge near Pittsburg a piece of rigging snapped and ten men dropped two hundred feet. They landed on steel beams in a barge anchored below—and were pulp. And after the other names, it's pneumonia or consumption. D'you know what that means? It means exposure at work. Killed by their work!... Well, that's our work,—and we get seven hundred a year!
"And then our work takes the best part of our lives, and throws us away. So long as we're strongand active, we can be used. But the day we begin to get a little stiff—if we last that long!—we're out of it. It may be at forty. We've got to learn how to do something else, or just wait for the end. There's our families. And you know how much we've got in the bank!
"Well, that's how it is in our union. Is seven hundred a year enough?—when we risk our lives every day we work?—when we're fit for work only so long as we're young men? We're human beings, Miss Arnold. We're men. We want comfortable homes, we want to keep our children in school, we'd like to save something up for the time when we can't work. Seven hundred a year! How're we going to do it, Miss Arnold? How're we going to do it?"
Ruth looked up at his glowing set face, and for the moment forgot she was allied to the other side. "Demand higher wages!" her instinct answered promptly.
"That's the only thing! And that's what we're going to do! More money for the time we do work!"
He said no more. Now that the stimulant of his excited words was gone, Ruth felt her fatigue. Engrossed by his emotions he had swung along at a pace that had taxed her lesser stride.
"Shall we not sit down," she suggested; and they found a bench on a pinnacle of rock from whence they looked down through a criss-cross of bare branches upon a sun-polished lagoon, and upon the files of people curving along the paths. Tomremoved his hat, and Ruth turning to face him took in anew the details of his head—the strong, square, smooth-shaven face, the broad forehead, moist and banded with pink where his hat had pressed, the hair that clung to his head in tight brown curls. Looked,—and felt herself growing small, and the men of her acquaintance growing small. And thought.... Yes, that was it; it was his purpose that made him big.
"You have kept me so interested that I've not yet asked you about your fight against Mr. Foley," she said, after a moment.
Tom told her all that had been done.
"But is there no other way of getting at the men except by seeing them one by one?" she asked. "That seems such a laborious way of carrying on a campaign. Can't you have mass-meetings?"
Tom shook his head. "In the first place it would be hard to get the men out; they're tired when they come home from work, and then a lot of them don't want to openly identify themselves with us. And in the second place Foley'd be likely to fill the hall with his roughs and break the meeting up."
"But to see the men individually! And you say there are twenty-five hundred of them. Why, that's impossible!"
"Yes. A lot of the men we can't find. They're out when we call."
"Why not send a letter to every member?" asked Ruth, suggesting the plan to her most obvious.
"A letter?"
"A letter that would reach them a day or twobefore election! A short letter, that drove every point home!" She leaned toward him excitedly.
"Good!" Tom brought his fist down on his knee.
Ruth knew the money would have to come from his pocket. "Let's see. It would cost, for stamps, twenty-five dollars; for the letters—they could be printed—about fifteen dollars; for the envelopes six or seven dollars. Say forty-five or fifty dollars."
Fifty dollars was a great deal to Tom—saved little by little. But he hesitated only a moment. "All right. If we can influence a hundred men, one in twenty-five, it'll be worth the money."
A thoughtful look came over his face.
"What is it?" Ruth asked quickly.
"I was thinking about the printing and other things. Wondering how I could get away from work to see to it."
"Won't you let me look after that for you?" Ruth asked eagerly. "I look after all our printing. I can leave the office whenever I'm not busy, you know. It would take only a few minutes of my time."
"It really wouldn't?" Tom asked hesitantly.
"It wouldn't be any trouble at all. And I'd be glad to do it."
Tom thanked her. "I wouldn't know how to go about a thing of that sort, anyhow, even if I could get away from work," he admitted.
"And I could see to the addressing, too," Ruth pursued.
He sat up straight. "There's the trouble! The addresses!"
"The addresses? Why?"
"There's only one list of the men and where they live. That's the book of the secretary and treasurer."
"Won't he lend it to you?"
Tom had to laugh. "Connelly lend it to me! Connelly's one of the best friends Foley's got."
"Then there's no way of getting it?"
"He keeps it in his office, and when he's not there the office is locked. But we'll get it somehow."
"Well, then if you'll write out the letter and send it to me in a day or two, I'll see to having it printed right away."
It flashed upon Tom what a strong concluding statement to the letter the guarantee from Mr. Baxter would make. He told Ruth of his idea, of his attempts to get the guarantee, and of the influence it would have on the men.
"He's probably forgotten all about it," she said. "I think I may be able to help you to get it. I can speak to Aunt Elizabeth and have her speak to him."
But her quick second thought was that she could not do this without revealing to her aunt a relation Mrs. Baxter could not understand. "No, after all I can't be of any use there. You might try to see him again, and if you fail then you might write him."
Tom gave her a quick puzzled glance, as he had done a few days before when she had mentioned her relation to Mr. Baxter. She caught the look.
"You are wondering how it is Mr. Baxter is my uncle," she guessed.
"Yes," he admitted.
"It's very simple. All rich people have theirpoor relatives, I suppose? Mrs. Baxter and my mother were sisters. Mr. Baxter made money. My father died before he had a chance. After mamma died, I decided to go to work. There was only enough money to live a shabby-genteel, pottering life—and I was sick of that. I have no talents, and I wanted to be out in the world, in contact with people who are doing real things. So I learned stenography. A little over a year ago I came to New York. I lived for awhile with my uncle and aunt; they were kind, but the part of a poor relation didn't suit me, and I made up my mind to go to work again. They were not pleased very well; they wanted me to stay with them. But my mind was made up. I offered to go to work for my uncle, but he had no place for me, and got me the position with Mr. Driscoll. And that's all."
A little later she asked him for the time. His watch showed a quarter of five. On starting out she had told him that she must be home by five, so she now remarked: "Perhaps we'd better be going. It'll take us about fifteen minutes to walk back."
They started homeward across the level sunbeams that were stretching themselves out beneath barren trees and over brown lawns for their night's sleep. As they drew near to Ruth's boarding-house they saw a perfectly-tailored man in a high hat go up the steps. He was on the point of ringing the bell when he sighted them, and he stood waiting their coming. A surprised look passed over his face when he recognized Ruth's companion.
As they came up the steps he raised his hat toRuth. "Good-afternoon, Miss Arnold." And to Tom he said carelessly: "Hello, Keating."
Tom looked him squarely in the eyes. "Hello, Berman," he returned.
Mr. Berman started at the omission of the "Mr." Tom lifted his hat to Ruth, bade her good-afternoon, and turned away, not understanding a sudden pang that shot into his heart.
Mr. Berman's eyes followed Tom for a dozen paces. "A very decent sort—for a workingman," he remarked.
"For any sort of a man," said Ruth, with an emphasis that surprised her. She took out her latch-key, and they entered.
LAST DAYS OF THE CAMPAIGN