The lecture-hall was usually packed at the weekly entertainment which Salome provided, and a new feeling of content and self-respect had begun to permeate the mills. Make a man who has been looked upon as a mere machine feel that he is estimated at something near the worth which every human being feels in his heart that he is entitled to, and you have done much to raise him to a higher social standard. For the first time since old Newbern Shepard’s day, the mill-hands began to feel a just pride in being individual American citizens. Unconsciously, both men and women were setting their faces toward the higher standards which Villard by his life, and Salome by her newly awakened energy, had set for them.
At the mills, affairs were on a most flourishing basis. The Shawsheen brand of cloth was too well known to allow of a few months shutdown of the mills making any difference in the law of demand. Orders had increased, even while the mills were closed, and they had been worked to their utmost capacity ever since they had opened. Never had the Shawsheen Mills been more prosperous than at the beginning of January, or their future looked brighter.
When Villard had opened his evening school he invited Burnham to co-operate with him; but the latter had put him off without a definite reply, and not until the afternoon of the day referred to in the beginning of this chapter had Villard asked him whether or not he might count on his assistance. Burnham occasionally looked in at the Hall of an evening, but Villard had begun to suspect that this was principally for the purpose of seeing Marion Shaw.
“Well, to tell the truth,” Burnham finally admitted, “I’ve no taste for this sort of thing. Oh, yes; it’s a good scheme, and seems to be working first-rate; but I’m not the right fellow for the place. I don’t like philanthropic work, never did, never shall. I work hard enough during the day. I need rest and freedom at night.”
Villard smiled.
“And I suppose I don’t do anything day-times and need this sort of thing as recreation and intellectual stimulus?” His tone was sarcastic, for he had little patience with selfishness in any form.
“No, not that,” said Burnham. “You work hard enough—too hard, in fact. But all this is more in your line. You’re like Miss Shepard; you’re both of you happier working yourselves to death for others. Now, I’m not built on that plan. I’ve no faculty for teaching, and I’m sure that my well-meant efforts to meet the men half-way are looked upon by them as condescension on my part.”
He waited an instant for Villard to speak, but no answer came.
“I can’t help it. I wasn’t born to the manor, so to speak. I didn’t come up from the ranks, as you know. I suppose they’d believe in me more, if I had. But you know that my father put me under Mr. Greenough to learn the business, only after I had graduated from college and fooled away a year in Europe. I sometimes doubt if I’m not out of place in this mill as it is run nowadays.”
“Oh, no, not that,” put in Villard hastily. “You’re too good a business man. We couldn’t spare you.”