"He said I"d probably find you at strike headquarters," remarked the boy.
This was the letter: marked "Confidential."
My Dear Grayson: I think you must be something of a hypnotist. After you left me I began to think of the project you mentioned, and I have talked it over with one or two of my a.s.sociates. I would gladly hold this conference, but it does not now seem wise for us to do so. The interests we represent are too important to be jeopardized. In theory you are undoubtedly right, but in this case I think you will agree with me (when you think it over), we must not show any weakness. Come and stop with us to-night: Mrs. Vedder will be overjoyed to see you and we"ll have another fine talk.
I confess I was a good deal cast down as I read this letter.
"What interests are so important?" I asked myself, "that they should keep friends apart?"
But I was given only a moment for reflection for the door opened and my friend Bill, together with R---- D---- and several other members of the committee, came out. I put the letter in my pocket, and for a moment my brain never worked under higher pressure. What should I say to them now?
How could I explain myself?
Bill Hahn was evidently labouring under considerable excitement, but R---- D---- was as calm as a judge. He sat down in the chair opposite and said to me:
"We"ve been figuring out this proposition of Mr. Vedder"s. Your idea is all right, and it would be a fine thing if we could really get together as you suggest upon terms of common understanding and friendship."
"Just what Mr. Vedder said," I exclaimed.
"Yes," he continued, "it"s all right in theory; but in this case it simply won"t work. Don"t you see it"s got to be war? Your friend and I could probably understand each other--but this is a cla.s.s war. It"s all or nothing with us, and your friend Vedder knows it as well as we do."
After some further argument and explanation, I said:
"I see: and this is Socialism."
"Yes," said the great R---- D----, "this is Socialism."
"And it"s force you would use," I said.
"It"s force THEY use," he replied.
After I left the strike headquarters that evening--for it was almost dark before I parted with the committee--I walked straight out through the crowded streets, so absorbed in my thoughts that I did not know in the least where I was going. The street lights came out, the crowds began to thin away, I heard a strident song from a phonograph at the entrance to a picture show, and as I pa.s.sed again in front of the great, dark, many-windowed mill which had made my friend Vedder a rich man I saw a sentinel turn slowly at the corner. The light glinted on the steel of his bayonet. He had a fresh, fine, boyish face.
"We have some distance yet to go in this world," I said to myself, "no man need repine for lack of good work ahead."
It was only a little way beyond this mill that an incident occurred which occupied probably not ten minutes of time, and yet I have thought about it since I came home as much as I have thought about any other incident of my pilgrimage. I have thought how I might have acted differently under the circ.u.mstances, how I could have said this or how I ought to have done that--all, of course, now to no purpose whatever. But I shall not attempt to tell what I ought to have done or said, but what I actually did do and say on the spur of the moment.
It was in a narrow, dark street which opened off the brightly lighted main thoroughfare of that mill neighbourhood. A girl standing in the shadows between two buildings said to me as I pa.s.sed:
"Good evening."
I stopped instantly, it was such a pleasant, friendly voice.
"Good evening," I said, lifting my hat and wondering that there should be any one here in this back street who knew me.
"Where are you going?" she asked.
I stepped over quickly toward her, hat in hand. She was a mere slip of a girl, rather comely, I thought, with small childish features and a half-timid, half-bold look in her eyes. I could not remember having seen her before.
She smiled at me--and then I knew!
Well, if some one had struck me a brutal blow in the face I could not have been more astonished.
We know of things!--and yet how little we know until they are presented to us in concrete form. Just such a little school girl as I have seen a thousand times in the country, the pathetic childish curve of the chin, a small rebellious curl hanging low on her temple.
I could not say a word. The girl evidently saw in my face that something was the matter, for she turned and began to move quickly away. Such a wave of compa.s.sion (and anger, too) swept over me as I cannot well describe. I stepped after her and asked in a low voice:
"Do you work in the mills?"
"Yes, when there"s work."
"What is your name?"
"Maggie--"
"Well, Maggie," I said, "let"s be friends."
She looked around at me curiously, questioningly.
"And friends," I said, "should know something about each other. You see I am a farmer from the country. I used to live in a city myself, a good many years ago, but I got tired and sick and hopeless. There was so much that was wrong about it. I tried to keep the pace and could not. I wish I could tell you what the country has done for me."
We were walking along slowly, side by side, the girl perfectly pa.s.sive but glancing around at me from time to time with a wondering look.
I don"t know in the least now what prompted me to do it, but I began telling in a quiet, low voice--for, after all, she was only a child--I began telling her about our chickens at the farm and how Harriet had named them all, and one was Frances E. Willard, and one, a speckled one, was Martha Washington, and I told her of the curious antics of Martha Washington and of the number of eggs she laid, and of the sweet new milk we had to drink, and the honey right out of our own hives, and of the things growing in the garden.
Once she smiled a little, and once she looked around at me with a curious, timid, half-wistful expression in her eyes.
"Maggie," I said, "I wish you could go to the country."
"I wish to G.o.d I could," she replied.
We walked for a moment in silence. My head was whirling with thoughts: again I had that feeling of helplessness, of inadequacy, which I had felt so sharply on the previous evening. What could I do?
When we reached the corner, I said:
"Maggie, I will see you safely home."
She laughed--a hard, bitter laugh.
"Oh, I don"t need any one to show me around these streets!"
"I will see you home," I said.
So we walked quickly along the street together.
"Here it is," she said finally, pointing to a dark, mean-looking, one-story house, set in a dingy, barren areaway.
"Well, good night, Maggie," I said, "and good luck to you."
"Good night," she said faintly.