CHAPTER XXIII
In spite of her brave words the day before, when Mary left the house for the office in the morning, a feeling of uncertainty and regret weighed upon her, and made her pensive. More than once she cast a backward look at the things she was leaving behind—love, the joys of youth, the pleasure places of the world to see, romance, heart's ease, and "skies for ever blue."
At the memory of Wally's phrase she grew more thoughtful than before.
"But would they be for ever blue?" she asked herself. "I guess every woman in the world expects them to be, when she marries. Yes, and they ought to be, too, an awful lot more than they are. Oh, I'm sure there's something wrong somewhere…. I'm, sure here's something wrong…."
She thought of the four women standing in the driveway by the side of the house, looking lost and bewildered, and the old sigh of pity arose in her heart.
"The poor women," she thought. "They didn't look as though the sweetest story ever told had lasted long with them—"
She had reached the crest of the hill and the factory came to her view. A breeze was rising from the river and as she looked down at the scene below, as her forbears had looked so many times before her, she felt as a sailor from the north might feel when after drifting around in drowsy tropic seas, he comes at last to his own home port and feels the clean wind whip his face and blow away his languor.
The old familiar office seemed to be waiting for her, the pictures regarding her as though they were saying "Where have you been, young lady? We began to think you had gone." Through the window sounded the old symphony, the roar of the falls above the hum of the shops, the choruses and variations of well-nigh countless tools, each having its own particular note or song.
Mary's eyes shone bright.
Gone, she found, were her feeling of uncertainty, her sighs of regret. Here at last was something real, something definite, something noble and great in the work of the world.
"And all mine," she thought with an almost passionate feeling of possession. "All mine—mine—mine—"
Archey was the first to come in, and it only needed a glance to see that
Archey was unhappy.
"I'm afraid the men in the automatic room are shaping for trouble," he said, as soon as their greetings were over.
"What's the matter with them?"
"It's about those four women—the four who came back."
Mary's eyes opened wide.
"There has been quite a lot of feeling," he continued, "and when the four women turned up this morning again and started work, the men went out and held a meeting in the locker room. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if the automatic hands went on strike."
"You mean to say they will go on strike before they will work with their own wives and sisters?"
"That's the funny part of it. As far as I can find out, the trouble wasn't started by our own men—but by strangers—men from New York and Boston—professional agitators, they look like to me—plenty of money and plenty of talk and clever workmen, too. I don't know just how far they've gone, but—"
The office boy appeared in the doorway and he, too, looked worried.
"There's a committee to see you, Miss Spencer," he said, "a bunch from the lathe shops."
"Have they seen Mr. Woodward?"
"No'm. He referred them to you."
"All right, Joe. Send them in, please."
The committee filed in and Archey noted that they were still wearing their street clothes. "Looks bad," he told himself.
There were three men, two of them strangers to Mary, but the third she recognized as one of the teachers in her old "school"—a thoughtful looking man well past middle age, with a long grey moustache and reflective eyes. "Mr. Edsol, isn't it?" she asked.
"Yes'm," he solemnly replied. "That's me."
She looked at the other two. The first had the alert glance and actions which generally mark the orator, the second was a dark, heavy man who never once stopped frowning.
"Miss Spencer," immediately began the spokesman—he who looked like the orator—"we have been appointed a committee by the automatic shop to tell you that we do not believe in the dilution of labour by women. Unless the four women who are working in our department are laid off at once, the men in our shop will quit."
"Just a moment, please," said Mary, ringing. "Joe, will you please tell
Mr. Woodward, Sr., that I would like to see him?"
"He's just gone out," said Joe.
"Mr. Burdon, then."
"Mr. Burdon sent word he wouldn't be down today. He's gone to New York."
Mary thought that over.
"Joe," she said. "There are four women working in the automatic shop. I wish you'd go and bring them here." And turning to the committee she said, "I think there must be some way of settling this to everybody's satisfaction, if we all get together and try."
It wasn't long before the four women came in, and again it struck Mary how nervous and bewildered three of them looked. The fourth, however, held her back straight and seemed to walk more than upright.
"Now," smiled Mary to the spokesman of the committee, "won't you tell me, please, what fault you find with these four women?"
"As I understand it," he replied, "we are not here to argue the point.
Same time, I don't see the harm of telling you what we think about it.
First place, it isn't natural for a woman to be working in a factory."
"Why not?"
"Well, for one thing, if you don't mind me speaking out, because she has babies."
"But the war has proved a baby is lucky to have its mother working in a modern factory," replied Mary. "The work is easier than housework, the surroundings are better, the matter is given more attention. As a result, the death rate of factory babies has been lower than the death rate of home babies. Don't you think that's a good thing? Wouldn't you like to see it go on?"
"Who says factory work is easier than housework?"
"The women who have tried both. These four, for instance."
"Well, another thing," he said, "a woman can't be looking after her children when she's working in a factory."
"That's true. But she can't be looking after them, either, when she's washing, or cooking, or doing things like that. They lie and cry—or crawl around and fall downstairs—or sit on the doorstep—or play in the street.
"Now, here, during the war," she continued, "we had a day nursery. You never saw such happy children in your life. Why, almost the only time they cried was when they had to go home at night!" Mary's eyes brightened at the memory of it. "Didn't your son's wife have a baby in the nursery, Mr. Edsol?"
"Two," he solemnly nodded.
"For another thing," said the chairman, "a woman is naturally weaker than a man. You couldn't imagine a woman standing up under overtime, for instance."
"Oh, you shouldn't say that," said Mary earnestly, "because everybody knows that in the human family, woman is the only one who has always worked overtime."
Here the third member of the committee muttered a gruff aside. "No use talking to a woman," said he.
"You be quiet, I'm doing this," said the chairman. "Another thing that everybody knows," he continued to Mary, "a woman hasn't the natural knack for mechanics that a man has."
"During the war," Mary told him, "she mastered nearly two thousand different kinds of skilled work—work involving the utmost precision. And the women who did this weren't specially selected, either. They came from every walk of life—domestic servants, cooks, laundresses, girls who had never left home before, wives of small business men, daughters of dock labourers, titled ladies—all kinds, all conditions."
She told him, then, some of the things women had made—read him reports—showed him pictures.
"In fact," she concluded, "we don't have to go outside this factory to prove that a woman has the same knack for mechanics that a man has. During the war we had as many women working here as men, and every one will tell you that they did as well as the men."
"Well, let's look at it another way," said the chairman, and he nodded to his colleagues as though he knew there could be no answer to this one. "There are only so many jobs to go around. What are the men going to do if the women take their jobs?"
"That's it!" nodded the other two. All three looked at Mary.
"I used to wonder that myself," she said, "but one day I saw that I was asking the wrong question. There is just so much work that has to be done in the world every day, so we can all be fed and clothed, and have those things which we need to make us happy. Now everybody in this room knows that 'many hands make light work.' So, don't you see? The more who work, the easier it will be for everybody."
But the spokesman only smiled at this—that smile which always meant to Mary, "No use talking to a woman"—and aloud he said, "Well, as I told you before, we weren't sent to argue. We only came to tell you what the automatic hands were going to do if these four women weren't laid off."
"I understand," said Mary; and turning to the four she asked, "How do you feel about it?"
"I suppose we'll have to go," said Mrs. Ridge, her face red but her back straighter then ever. "I guess it was our misfortune, Miss Spencer, that we were born women. It seems to me we always get the worst end of it, though I'm sure I don't know why. I did think once, when the war was on, that things were going to be different for us women after this. But it seems not…. You've been good to us, and we don't want to get you mixed up in any strike, Miss Spencer…. I guess we'd better go…."
Judge Cutler's expression returned to Mary's mind: "Another year like this and, barring strikes and accidents, Spencer & Son will be on its feet again—" Barring strikes! Mary was under no misapprehension as to what a strike might mean….
"I want to get this exactly right," she said, turning to the chairman again. "The only reason you wish these women discharged is because they are women, is that it?"
"Yes; I guess that's it, when you come right down to it."
"Do you think it's fair?"
"I'm sorry, Miss Spencer, but it's not a bit of use arguing any longer.
If these four women stay, the men in our department quit: that's all."
Mary looked up at the pictures of her forbears who seemed to be listening attentively for her answer.
"Please tell the men that I shall be sorry—very sorry—to see them go," she said at last, "but these four women are certainly going to stay."