The Good Work

In the cities, 350 billions swarmed like termites in a hill; but Jeremiah Winthrop still called himself a man....
Tall and rawboned was Jeremiah Winthrop. Narrow of shoulder and shallow of chest he was, but no matter. There was a dignity to the man that showed itself in every movement. Here was one who still called himself a man, one whose traditions sprang from the rocky New England soil that had nourished his forebears. The mold that produces such a man is not easily bent or broken, not even in a world of three hundred and fifty billion people, not even in a world where the rocky New England soil lies buried and forgotten beneath the foundations of monstrous buildings.
Jeremiah Winthrop rode the spiral escalator up, up to the two-part cubicle he called home on the one hundred and forty-eighth floor. He stood swaying slightly as the escalator wound its serpentine way upwards. Others rode with him, tight people, tense people, pushed together, staring straight as they rode the spiral escalator up. And now and then at a turn or a bend a man would elbow his way out. He'd leave the upflowing river of people and step onto a landing as his floor came by. But the escalator was still crowded as it passed the one hundred and forty-eighth floor and Winthrop stepped off. He was not one of the lucky ones who lived high near the roof where it was at least possible to think about the air and the light and the sun.
Winthrop boarded a moving belt that carried him over to his own corridor. He walked down the corridor for ten minutes. It was easy walking, for there were far fewer people now. Finally he came to his own door. He inserted his thumb in the thumbhole, slid the door open and walked in. A tousle-headed youngster sat on the floor playing with a plastic box. The boy looked up as Winthrop entered.
Daddy! he shouted. He flung himself to his feet, dashed across the room and grabbed his father around the legs.
Hello, Davy, said Winthrop, ruffling the curly brown hair. How's the little man?