The Beaubien turned quickly to the girl. “You are going to Avon to-morrow? Don’t! Please don’t!” There was a look of fear in her eyes.
Carmen drew the woman to her, then stooped and kissed her cheek. “Mother dearest, I go to Avon with my God.”
The Beaubien bowed her head. She knew it was so.
And the girl went early the next morning.
CHAPTER 11
The town of Avon, two hours from New York, lay along Avon creek, from which its first manufacturing industries derived their motive power. Years before, when it was little more than a barren stretch of sand, some enterprising soul had built a cotton mill there, with only a few primitive looms. As the years passed, and kindly Congresses reared about the industry a high protective wall, the business prospered marvelously. But shortly after the death of the senior Ames the company became involved, through mismanagement, with the result that, to protect itself, the house of Ames and Company, the largest creditor, was obliged to take over its mills.
At first, J. Wilton Ames was disposed to sell the assets of the defunct company, despite the loss to his bank. But then, after a visit of inspection, and hours of meditation on certain ideas which had occurred to him, he decided to keep the property. The banging of the looms, the whirr of the pickers, the sharp little shrieks of the spinning machines, fascinated him, as he stood before them. They seemed to typify the ceaseless throbbing of his own great brain. They seemed, too, to afford another outlet for that mighty flood of materialistic thought and energy which flowed incessantly through it.
And so he set about reorganizing the business. He studied the process of cloth manufacture. He studied the growth and handling of cotton. He familiarized himself with every detail of the cotton market. He was already well versed in the intricacies of the tariff. And soon the idle machinery was roaring 148 again. Soon the capacity of the mills was doubled. And soon, very soon, the great Ames mills at Avon had become a corporate part of our stupendous mechanical development of the century just closed.