Hope Mills, Amanda Minnie Douglas [good english books to read TXT] 📗

all your knowledge of brains and nerves, of occult causes and mysterious effects! So it happens that sometimes a simple, direct truth is the greatest puzzle of all.

The schools and clubs had not been neglected with all this excitement. But this winter Mary Moran had been teacher at a small salary; and a bakery and refreshment or dining room had been opened down stairs, which really made quite a little money. Wholesomely cooked food was offered for sale, with bread, rolls, and biscuit. The club had also given two successful suppers. When Jane Morgan was home, Sylvie was relieved of the actual care: she would have it. She had come back to Yerbury a thousand dollars richer for her relative's death, and she and Jack were drawing plans for a co-operative store.


CHAPTER XXI.

"I'D rather lose five thousand dollars than do it."

Jack Darcy leaned back in his office-chair. He had just made up the third half-yearly account. It was bad enough. They had known this all along, and had not concealed it from the men. Now it was to be confronted in black and white, with searching eyes.

It was not that they had not made any thing: that would have been endurable, considering the kind of winter. But they had gone back, and eaten up the profits of last year.

"You see, there co-operation comes in," said Bob Winston. "It isn't _your_ loss alone. It's mine and every man's. That's what we agreed to when we went in. Labor and capital should share in the ups and downs. See here, Jack, I've learned a good deal myself. I have more sympathy with employers. Gad! what a pull we've had this winter! If it hadn't been for your fairy godmother"--

"Well, it must be done!" and Jack pulled a long face. "There, it is all ready to print. Now old fellow, we must brace ourselves up for the shot and shell. We'll have to do the fighting all over again. If every man had as easy, philosophical a mind as you, or as sensible, reasonable a one as Cameron, I should not have so many misgivings."

The statement was printed and distributed. The men looked blue and cross. Had they really lost nearly all of last year's balance?

Winston asked them to stop one evening while he went into a slight explanation. He was well armed. Without having a logical mind or parliamentary training, he had a woman's quick intuitions, and often jumped at very decent conclusions with hardly a glance at the premises. He had a way of massing his forces, too, that was very telling.

Now, after what he called a little skirmishing, he read that the Barnable Mills had been running on three-quarter time all winter. Wages had been a trifle lower than with them. Middleham Mills had been closed for two months. He gave the figures of loss to the workmen. Crowley and Dawson had gone into bankruptcy, owing their men in the aggregate more than all Hope Mills had used of last year's profits. Then he read a statement from an eminent manufacturer, that he had used fifty-four thousand dollars of accrued capital rather than turn off his workmen to starve. There had been strikes in several other places, in which the workmen had lost much more than at Yerbury.

"So that our showing, bad as it is, is not the worst," said he. "In the very dullest of times we cast in our lots together, and we must take the good and bad. If you had been living this winter on the private capital of any one man or corporation, you would never have given the matter a thought. You know now, by experience, that capital does not always float on a serene and indolent sea, and gather in treasures for which it has cast out no net. You can appreciate the struggle we have gone through; though, while you have been going along placidly, with the larger weight of care lifted off your shoulders, a man with less energy and pluck than our intrepid pilot, John Darcy, might have let us founder. We help him now with the readiness and good-humor with which we relinquish the profits which were dear to us, and the product of our industry; but he has taken us through a very narrow channel, on a dark night, without striking rock or snag. He and I thank you heartily for your fidelity to our keystone,--co-operation."

"Three cheers for Darcy!" sang out some one in the crowd, "and three cheers for Bob Winston!"

It was given heartily.

"And three cheers for the men of Hope Mills," responded Winston.

They shook hands, and dispersed with a little better feeling. Several of the men seemed to breathe a clearer mental atmosphere immediately.

"You may be sure it's right, whichever way it is," said one man sturdily. "I've known Jack Darcy, boy and man, and his father afore him. He comes of good, clean stock, and, if he says a thing can't be bettered, it can't; and, if it can, he's just the man to do it. Give him a long tether, say I."

Then Winston procured a list of weekly wages ruling in this country, and in many places abroad, the hours of work, and the average cost of living, with the articles in most general use. The mill-men had their flour and coal cheaper, and altogether their winter was proved as satisfactory. This was pasted up in the hall.

The matter was discussed through the town, of course. Some people saw in it a speedy dissolution of the plan,--a plan that never had worked, and never would. Others did not see that this method of getting back part of the men's wages was any better than any other swindling scheme. They never had any faith in Bob Winston,--Darcy might be honest, but he wasn't very bright,--and in five years Winston would own every thing there was in the mill!

Winston laughed over the gossip. Jack could not take it so light-heartedly. He was an earnest, honest reformer, and hated to have things go awry. Winston, not believing there was very much capacity for reform in human nature, did not distress himself.

Ben Hay, and a dozen or so others, did their best with the new cloth, and succeeded in producing a really creditable article. The heads discussed the feasibility of having an auction-sale to clear out some of the piles of goods; then concluded that it might be misconstrued at this present juncture. They could hold on until fall.

But the delightful _esprit du corps_ had vanished. The men did not seem to work with a will. There were moody faces and discourteous greetings, half-insolent nods, and more than one wrangle at the workmen's meeting. Hurd felt anxious and discouraged. Yardley took a low fever, not severe enough to confine him to the house, but it made him irritable, and every sneer or innuendo cut him to the quick. Cameron was a great comfort to Jack, with his queer, wrinkled, grizzled face, and an expression that always puzzled you as to whether nature meant him to laugh or cry.

"I am not surprised," said he, one day, in the office. "I knew we would have to come to just this time. A wife shares your joys and sorrows, gen'ally speaking; but you see there it's a force put, she can't well get away. Other partners like your joys, but they make a wry face over the sorrows, and like to squirm out of them if they can. But it is the only way to train men to the real responsibilities of business. Now, I'm sorry enough to lose, but it stands to reason that times will come better. We're getting through the panic; but after the battle there's some dead to bury, and some wounded to care for, and you see that's tedjus. You can't march straight home, covered with glory. Here's our money in the hospital, first up, then down, and all the doctors in the land tinkering with allopathic doses and homoeopathic doses, and blisters and poultices and remedies, when all it wants is a little honest letting-alone. It doesn't occur to these long-headed doctors that the best way out is to show everybody that we're willing to go to work and pay our debts just as fast as we can. And any fool might know that when you are paying up back debts you can't have much money to sport around on. Never you mind, Jack: we're coming out straight in five years time,--I'll bet my old hat on that!"

Jack wrung his hand warmly.

In May there was quite a jollification over the marriage of two mill-hands. Ben Hay took to wife pretty Rose Connelly; and the coffee-house parlor was denuded of tables and benches, trimmed with evergreens and flowers, and such a merry-making as did one's heart good. There was a bountiful supper, plenty of tea, coffee, and lemonade, dancing, and ice-cream, and the utmost good-humor and good wishes. Connelly _pere_ had gone back to his cups, thrown up his situation, come home and stirred up a general "ruction," and had now gone off on a tramp. Ben Hay was to cast his lot with the Connelly household for the present.

"But I tell you what it is, Mr. Darcy," said he, "if any luck comes to Hope Mills, in five years' time I'll have my own little house and garden. I tramped around a bit in the dull times, but I didn't see many prettier places than Yerbury. And, the more I study this business of co-operation, the more I think it will succeed in the end."

Jack experienced a great throb of comfort when he heard such words as these.

Another mill-hand had married Mary Moran. She was not the beauty of Yerbury, by any means, but everybody declared she had improved wonderfully, and that she was the smartest girl in town. Their wedding-party was given at the club-room. It was a larger and rather more boisterous affair; and some of the Morans' warm-hearted Irish friends brought a "dhrop of the craythur" in their pockets, to drink the bride's health. Everybody admitted that there wasn't such another bread-maker in town, unless it was Miss Morgan.

In fact, it was quite astonishing to see what a revolution had been worked in this most important article of diet. The women had learned to distinguish between poor and good flour, and Kilburn's trade in the former had fallen off largely. Of the bread that in Samantha Allen's view "required cast-iron principle to back it up," very little was seen. It had been rather hard work to convince some of the mothers that bread wasn't naturally born into the world heavy and sour, but it had been done.

If Hope Mills failed, the impetus to general knowledge that had been diffused throughout Yerbury would remain and bear fruit. An evening-school had been opened for boys too large to stay at home evenings, and just the right age to fall into temptations. It began with the mill-boys, but it soon drew in others. There was a short session of study, then a talk about some useful art or science. Maverick had treated them to sundry experiments, and explained many general rules of health. Mr. Winston had described Western cities in a vivid and picturesque manner. There had been some astronomy within the reach of all, some philosophy of common every-day things; and it had given the boys ideas above "high, low, Jack."

Darcy tried to find comfort in this when other matters looked dark to him. A little good seed had been sown. The generation growing up would not be quite so dull and brutish.