"That chap'll blow up Hope Mills in less than a month," said Jem Stixon, who had been refused. "You mark my words! I wouldn't have wife or child of mine working there."
Darcy watched the temper of the employees, and reported every few days to Maverick. The little social "we" and "ours" was working wonders, he thought.
"And we do nothing!" said Sylvie one evening, in a discontented tone, as she sat crocheting by Mrs. Darcy's pretty round table in the old library, that had become a kind of general business-room. "I thought you were going to set us women at work about something. Miss Morgan and I have been waiting patiently."
"There was the cooking-school"—
"But we have nothing to cook. And how are we to get any thing? unless we set up as those poor weavers in Toad Lane, on our pocket-money. I believe I beg from those who have a little, nearly half my time, to give to those who have nothing. And, would you believe it, some of the women begin to think they must be provided for. Mrs. Cairns asked me to-day when the relief-store was going to open. She didn't see why there shouldn't always be something here like the parish relief in England. And when Mrs. Ray offered to take Josie this winter, and keep her in shoes for what she could do, and teach her a little, Mrs. Cairns said, 'if she was worth any thing, she was worth more than that. She might have her for a dollar a week.'"
"Such people ought to go hungry," declared Jane Morgan sharply.
"I've been thinking," said Jack, who now raised his eyes slowly, "there is one thing you might help do; and, indirectly, it would be very serviceable to me. Sylvie, you know Kit Connelly's corner, as they always call it?"
"Well, so it is: Mrs. Connelly earned the money that bought it, and I am glad she didn't let Dennis go on in business until he spent every cent of it. And oh, Jack! all we women of Yerbury ought to be doubly proud that she wouldn't let Den keep a beer-shop there, nor hire it to any one else."
"I hope you are. I think Kit was pretty plucky to take the black eyes and the grumbling. It was a good job for her when Den went over to the Bowman House for hostler. So, of course, it has been shut up a year and a half. You know, two blocks down below, Keppler's door stands open for everybody, and so many of the mill-hands pass that way. It is so easy to run in and get a glass, and the men who bring their lunches go down for a mug of ale. It is a terrible temptation, and I wonder if they are not more easily tempted on an empty stomach? Well, I've been considering for some days if we could not start a coffee-house there,—set Kit up in business. I'm not going to fling a temperance-pledge right in every man's face,—for that makes them spiteful. I do not even want to exhort. But if we put it there,—right in their way,—and there was a nice fire in the evening, and maybe a book or two"—
"Splendid, Jack! There's no such thing in Yerbury. Let's get about it right away!" and Sylvie sprang up, as if she would start at once.