When Marion came home she heard in amazement that Burnham had been there and gone. Salome gave her his word of parting.
“And was that all?” Marion asked, with strained voice and blazing cheeks.
“That was all. Tell me, dear,” asked Salome, for the first time, “was there any trouble between you? Had you anything to do with his going?”
“No, nothing,” and Marion was gone to her room.
On the first day of May, the experiment of profit-sharing was put into effect for the first time at the Shawsheen Mills. In spite of the strike, and the enforced idleness of several months which had followed, previous to the year just passed, this had been a successful one, and when the divisions for capital, machinery and reserve fund had been set aside, there still remained a surplus which gave a dividend of four and a half per cent. In some cases, this dividend on wages made a very considerable sum, and in all cases the operatives felt a new sensation of direct responsibility and connection with the mills. Besides the addition of this money to their wages, the feeling of brotherhood and ownership it engendered was, Villard declared, quite worth the experiment.
Another circular was sent out, urging the operatives to increased care in saving and painstaking in order that the dividend might be larger another year. And the good results of the plan were directly manifest in the work of nearly every employe.
A little incident which occurred soon after this did much to convince the men of the changed relations in which they now stood towards their employers.
An overseer had been tyrannizing over the spinners until they would endure it no longer. In Mr. Greenough’s day, it is more than probable that the matter would have culminated in a lock-out or a strike.
But with the new order of things came a greater feeling of confidence in Villard. Five of the spinners, therefore, with the consent of the others, went personally to the superintendent.
After hearing their story, Villard promised to settle their grievance, and quite a discussion of economic questions concerning Capital versus Labor followed.