“I’d like to thank you, Miss Shepard,” the burly young fellow began, “for what you are doing for us. If all the employers took the interest in their operatives as you do in us, we’d want no more Unions, and there’d be no more strikes. I’m thinking you’ve got ahead of the rest of us on the labor question, and found the right answer to it.”
“I’m very glad to hear you say that,” Salome answered, with a glow at her heart which no speech from a man of the world had ever produced. “I want to find it, if I haven’t yet. But, you know it doesn’t depend on me alone. I may try, as hard as I can, but if you people don’t co-operate with me, I’m helpless. I want to depend on you, Mr. Brady.”
“And you can that, miss,” was the hearty answer. “You’ve got us all on your side now, sure. I went up this morning to see the houses. They are fine ones, too.”
“And did you pick out one for yourself, Mr. Brady? You are married, I believe?”
“I am that; and I’ve got as good a wife as ever the saints sent to bless a man. Yes, I picked out the one I liked best; but the woman’ll have to see it first, you know. And then, do you know, I think I’ll buy it. The terms are so easy, and I’ve a little money laid by, that I’d like to use; and I’m thinking Carrie’d be happier in a home of our own.”
“Now, that’s sensible of you,” said Salome, delighted that her houses were in such good prospect of pleasing. “If you do it, I’ve no doubt a good many others will. And, by and by, we shall have quite a community of property owners.”
Brady straightened himself up unconsciously at the word, touched his hat and passed on, his heart warmed and gratified by the kindly notice; while Salome entered the office in unusually good spirits.
“It seems to me,” she began, addressing herself to Burnham, “that everything is swinging round into the circle of my plans far better than I had dared hope. I expected opposition, or at least indifference, on the part of the operatives. On the contrary, they are all as delighted with the state of affairs as I am.”
“Why shouldn’t they be?” was Burnham’s comment. “They’d be ungrateful wretches if they weren’t. They’ve far more to gain than you have to lose, remember.”
“But you’ve been trying to make me believe,” pursued Salome, “that they didn’t want their condition improved; that they were satisfied to be let alone; and that they’d resist every improvement I offered.”