“Of course,” she added, “I got all I asked, but I wish I could earn more so I would be sure that when I die I will be decently buried. I don’t want my body in the potters’ field. My back aches awful bad,” she said, “I can’t sleep for the pain at night.”
She passed on, but Mrs. Vivian couldn’t forget the conversation. She kept thinking to herself, “That woman ought to have as much as that man, if not more, and I am going to find out why she didn’t get it.” So she asked the foreman.
“Well,” he said, “she came here without any recommendation. She said she was willing to work for her food and a place to sleep. I consulted the president and he said to take her and see if she was capable of anything, if so, to let her stay a while.”
“Now, foreman,” Mrs. Vivian said, “don’t all get the same price for the same work?”
“Oh, no,” he said. “These outsiders don’t ask so much; in fact, don’t expect as much as the members who pay in their dues.”
“Poor souls,” Mrs. Vivian said. “Some way must be found to supply them with work enough to keep them from living in misery. If they have to work I shall see that they are paid for all they earn.”
Next day Mrs. Vivian told Scoris that she wanted to apply for the title and she wished she had done so before.
CHAPTER XVI.
“Oh, mother,” she said, “I am so glad, for I made application for you. I was sorry you did not see the advantage of it, and now there will be just time enough for your name to be advertised, so you can get it on the first coronation day. I was sure you were too good a soldier to let old-fashioned ideas hold you back. No good woman will stand idle in these days, especially when so many are needed to face the foes of humanity. Why was that poor woman afraid to ask sufficient for her labor? Because she didn’t know that her labor was wealth.
“Many old men and women who had been poor all their lives, who had never known anything but poverty, were given light work to do, such as gardening with short hours, under the direction of a competent gardener. In this way the grounds in the colony had been beautified, trees had been planted, waterways dug. The women helped to take care of infants in the nursery for a few hours each day, or do necessary housework, mending, etc. As the society was formed to secure homes, it was as easy to feed these poor creatures as it was animals, and they could earn what they got also.