He sat down repeating his threat in a series of endless announcements to the people around him.
"I think he'll poison us all if you pass this law," Barbara whispered.
"The farmers will run us through with their pitchforks if we don't," he laughed.
"Poisoning is the easier way," she sighed.
The leader of the brass band raised the biggest row of all. From the first these men had refused to lift their hand to do a thing except to play at stated hours each day and furnish the music for the three evenings of social amusement.
"You place me on an equality with the lout who holds a calf or the clodhopper who holds a plough—I, who feed the soul with ravishing melody—I, who lift man from earth to heaven on the wings of angels!" The band leader swelled with righteous wrath and sat down beside the cook who was still muttering incoherently:
"Let 'em try it—and see what they get!"
Yet, in spite of the fierce threats of the cook, the scrubwoman, the drainman, the musician, and all the high-salaried favourites of labour, the inevitable occurred. When put to a vote equal wages were established by an overwhelming majority.
Each member of the colony, man, woman, and child, was voted free food, clothes, and shelter, and a credit of five hundred dollars a year at the Brotherhood store.
The executive council was abolished and in its place a board of governors established, composed of the heads of each department of labour and presided over by two regents, a man and a woman, elected by the general assembly. Norman and Barbara were elected regents without opposition, and the old heads of each department of labour placed on the board of governors to serve until the approaching annual election.