It seemed to me now that the years went like days and the first five after our marriage, that ended with the summer of 1851, were filled for the most part with pleasant cares. I was still my mother's girl, and helped about the house as always before. Of course, some sorrows came to us in these years, for changes cannot be perfectly like clear glass. Hal and Mary had held to their hearts one beautiful Baby blossom, who only lived four months to cheer them, and then passed from their brooding tenderness on to the other side. We sorrowed for this, and "Love's Fawn" had pale cheeks for a long time. Hal feared she would follow her child, and it might have been had not a somewhat necessary journey across the Atlantic brought great benefit to her.
The venture Mr. Hanson had made had proved so eminently successful, that when, this year, he again went to the Old World, it was deemed wise and right for them to accompany himself and family. I almost wanted to go, too, and when Hal sent back to us his beautifully written account of all he saw, I stood in spirit beside him, and anticipated many of his proposed visits. They both returned with improved health and added fortune.
The mining fever of 1849 took a few of our townspeople from us. Aunt Phebe wrote us that her second son had gone to find gold, and Ben had a little idea of trying the life of a pioneer; but the sight of the waiting acres, which he hoped some day to call his, detained him, and he still kept on making a grand success of farming, for he was doing the work he desired and that which he was capable of carrying to a successful end.
Louis' work had lain in all directions; helping Mr. Davis still as his varying strength required, interesting himself in the improvements about us, etc. Gradually widening the sphere of his influence, slowly but surely feeling his way among human hearts, he could not fail to be recognized, and after a time to be sought for among such as needed help. No appeal was ever made in vain from this quarter.
Capitalists, who had reared in the village below us a huge stone mill designed for the manufacture of woolens, had made advances which he did not meet as desired, for their system of operating was disloyal, he said, to all true justice, encroaching, as it did, upon the liberties of a class largely represented in this, as well as in all other towns. Three gentlemen, who represented the main interests, called on Louis, and he expressed to them what seemed to him to be the truth regarding this, and said:
"The years to come will be replete with suffering, and vice, degradation, and misery are sure to follow in the steps you are taking. I do not say that you realize this, but if you will think of it as I have, you cannot fail to reach the same conclusion. You cause to be rung a morning bell at five o'clock, that rouses not only men from their slumbers, but the little growing children who need their unbroken morning dreams. These children must work all day in the close and stifling rooms of your mill. Their tender life must feel the daily dropping seed of disease, and with each recurring nightfall, overworked bodies fall into a heavy slumber, instead of slipping gradually over into the realm of peace. The mothers and fathers of these children suffer in this strife for daily bread. Fathers knowing not their children, and entire families living to feel only the impetus of a desire to satisfy the cravings of hunger, and to shield themselves from the cold of winter or the summer's heat. What does all this mean? If we look at the elder among your employees we shall find men, who, not being strong enough to work twelve hours a day, naturally, and almost of necessity, have resorted to the stimulant of tobacco, and the strength of spirituous liquors.
"I can personally vouch for the truth of all I say regarding it. The practice of fathers is already adopted or soon will be adopted by their children, and by this means the little substance they may gain through hard toil, for you well know their gain is small if your profit is what you desire, falls through the grated bars of drunkenness and waste, into the waiting pit of penury and pauperism. Bear with me, gentlemen, if I speak thus plainly, and believe me it is for your own comfort as well as for the cultivation of the untouched soil in the minds of your workmen, that I feel called upon to address you earnestly.
"You do not ask, neither would you permit, your wives and children to work in the mill beside these people, and only the line of gold draws the distinction between you. There are sweet faces in your mill, there are tender hearts and there is intellect which might grow to be a power in our midst. But the sweet faces have weary eyes, the tender hearts beat without pity, and the strength which might exalt these men and us as their brothers, becomes the power of a consuming fire, which as time flies, and our population increases, will burn out all the true and loyal life that might have developed among us. When our village becomes a city, we, like other denizens of cities, must see prison houses rise before us, and to-day we are educating inmates for these walls. Remember also, that the laces our wives shall wear in those days of so-called prosperity, will be bought with human life. I will not stand amenable before God for crime like this.
"If you will drop your present schemes, if you will be content to share with these men and children a portion of your profits, to let them toil eight hours instead of twelve per day, and if on every Saturday you will give to them one full long day in God's dear sunlight, I will invest the amount of capital necessary to cover all which you as a body have invested, and I will stand beside you in your mill. I would to God, gentlemen, you were ready to accept this offer, for it comes from my heart, but I can anticipate your reply. You will say I am speaking ahead of my time, that the world is not ready for these theories, much less for the practice I desire. And in return I would ask, when will it ever be? Has any new and valuable dispensation sought us through time, when hands were not raised in holy horror, and the voice of the majority has not sounded against it. You are to-day enjoying, in the machinery you use, the benefit of thought which against much opposition fought its way to the front. And shall we rest on our oars, and say we cannot even try to do what we know to be right, because the world, the unthinking, unmindful world, sees no good in it? It would be easier for many acting as one man, to move the wheels, but if this cannot be, I must wait as other hearts have waited, but I will work in any and in all ways to break the yokes which encircle the necks of our people."
He paused and looking still earnestly at them, waited a reply. The eldest said in answer: