“You will have to have her made to order, Salome,” interrupted Marion from the sofa where she had been an interested listener. “Such paragons do not exist.”
“And would scarcely be appreciated by the average factory girl if they did,” added Burnham, smiling at Marion.
“I shall have a large and pleasant parlor with a piano and a comfortable reading-room,” Salome continued, as though not hearing; “I don’t suppose the girls, judging from what I hear and see of them, will care much for reading at first; but if I put plenty of light, healthful literature in their way, with illustrated books and good pictures on the walls, they will gradually come to like them. And then, there must be weekly entertainments, and perhaps a hall.”
“And what about the young men?” inquired Villard. “Are you going to leave our sex out in the cold?”
“Yes, if you educate the girls so much above them, what are the young fellows to do?”
“They shall have such a boarding-house too,” said Salome, “only we’ll call them Unions. I hate the name boarding-house, and I should think they would; and then, by and by, there are still other schemes in my mind. There are children, plenty of them, on the corporation. They are poor, sickly, unkempt, uncared-for. All this must be changed.”
“That will come, I think,” said Burnham, “with their improved conditions and surroundings. It is unhealthful where they now are. Shall you build the new houses there?”
“Oh, no, I forgot to say,” answered Salome, “that we must put up their new quarters on the hill, the other side of the mills. It is much pleasanter up there, and a far more healthful locality. Work on them can begin right away. Will you find me the proper man to undertake the building of the houses, Mr. Villard?”
John Villard’s heart fairly burned with enthusiasm. This was a project he had long cherished, although he had been entirely without means or prospect of ever being able to carry it out.
“You may be sure I will do my best,” he answered.