THUS in a few words, he sketched the passing of one epoch and its succession by another. The day of the small private enterprise in the Town had passed, succeeded by the day of the great corporation. Everything was owned now by capitalists, by stockholders who never saw the Mills, to whom the workers of the Flats were little more than mythical creatures, animated engines without minds or souls, whose only symbol of existence was the dividend twice a year. Machines they were ... machines ... dim machines ... not in the least real or human.
Most of the tale Willie omitted. He did not tell of the monkey-faced little man who came to the Town representing the Amalgamated. Nor did he tell of the monkey-faced man’s address to the Chamber of Commerce in which he talked a great deal of Jesus and declared that religion was what the world most needed, religion and a sense of fellowship between men. He did not tell of how the Amalgamated broke the strike by buying all the wretched houses and turning out the strikers, men, women and children. He omitted the blacklisting, the means by which the strikers were prevented from obtaining work elsewhere. He did not observe that the power which money gave Judge Weissman, himself and his mother, was as nothing compared to the power of the Amalgamated—a vast incalculable power founded upon gold and the possession of property. Nor did he say that the passing of the Mills had killed Mrs. Julis Harrison ... a thing which was as true as truth. These things were to him of no importance. He was now simply “an average citizen” minding his own business.
All Willie said was, “When mother died, the old crowd went out of it for good.”
In the drawing-room Ellen had been completely captured by the concerto. She was playing it all over again, from beginning to end, rapturously, savagely. Schneidermann lay among the cushions of the divan, his lean figure sprawled languidly, his dark eyes closed.
“And what do you do now?” asked Lily. “You must do something to occupy yourself.”
Willie’s plump face brightened. “I have a farm,” he said. “I raise ducks and chickens.” A slow smile crept over Lily’s face. “It’s a success too,” he continued. “You needn’t laugh at it. I make it pay. Why, I made this trip on last year’s profits. And I have a great deal of fun out of it.” He smiled again with an air of supreme contentment. “It’s the first time I’ve ever done what I wanted to do.”
Lily regarded him with a faint air of surprise. It may have been that she guessed then for the first time, that he was not after all a complete fool. He, too, like Ellen, like herself, even like Irene, had escaped in spite of everything.
They had been talking thus for half an hour when Ellen, followed by Paul Schneidermann, joined them. Willie stood up nervously.
“Paul,” said Lily, “Mr. Harrison—Mr. Harrison, Monsieur Schneidermann.” They bowed. “You are both steel manufacturers,” she added with a touch of irony, “You will find much in common.”
Willie protested. “No longer,” he said. “Now I am a farmer.”