His hut, set a little way up the mountain-side, commanded an extended view of the road, which, leaving the slope, ran tortuously through the lower land. Evidently something that he saw down the road failed to please the miner, for he gave a low whistle and re-entered the house with a frown on his face.
“I’ll be goin’ down the road a minute, Kate,” he said to his wife, throwing on his coat and pausing at the door. “There’s a crowd gathered down toward the settlement. Somethin’ ’s goin’ on, an’ I want to see what’s up.” He slammed the door and strode away.
“Jason, Jason,” his wife called after him, “don’t you have nothin’ to do with their goin’s-on, neither one way nor the other. Do you hear?”
“Oh, I’ll take care o’ myself.” The answer came back out of the darkness.
“I do wish things would settle down some way or other,” mused Mrs. Andrews. “I don’t see why it is men can’t behave themselves an’ go ’long about their business, lettin’ well enough alone. It’s all on account o’ that pesky walkin’ delegate too. I wisht he’d ’a’ kept walkin’. If all the rest o’ the men had had the common-sense that Jason has, he wouldn’t never ’a’ took no effect on them. But most of ’em must set with their mouths open like a lot o’ ninnies takin’ in everything that come their way, and now here’s all this trouble on our hands.”
There were indeed troublous times at the little mining settlement. The men who made up the community were all employees, in one capacity or another, of the great Crofton West Virginia Mining Co. They had been working on, contented and happy, at fair wages and on good terms with their employers, until the advent among them of one who called himself, alternately, a benefactor of humanity and a labour agitator. He proceeded to show the men how they were oppressed, how they were withheld from due compensation for their labours, while the employers rolled in the wealth which the workers’ hands had produced. With great adroitness of argument and elaboration of phrase, he contrived to show them that they were altogether the most ill-treated men in America. There was only one remedy for the misery of their condition, and that was to pay him two dollars and immediately organise a local branch of the Miners’ Labour Union. The men listened. He was so perfectly plausible, so smooth, and so clear. He found converts among them. Some few combated the man’s ideas, and none among these more forcibly than did Jason Andrews, the foreman of Shaft 11. But the heresy grew, and the opposition was soon overwhelmed. There are always fifty fools for every fallacy. Of course, the thing to do was to organise against oppression, and accordingly, amid great enthusiasm, the union was formed. With the exception of Jason Andrews, most of the men, cowed by the majority opposed to them, yielded their ground and joined. But not so he. It was sturdy, stubborn old Scotch blood that coursed through his veins. He stayed out of the society even at the expense of the friendship of some of the men who had been his friends. Taunt upon taunt was thrown into his face.
“He’s on the side of the rich. He’s for capital against labour. He’s in favour of supporting a grinding monopoly.” All this they said in the ready, pat parlance of their class; but the foreman went his way unmoved, and kept his own counsel.
Then, like the falling of a thunderbolt, had come the visit of the “walking-delegate” for the district, and his command to the men to “go out.” For a little time the men demurred; but the word of the delegate was law. Some other company had failed to pay its employees a proper price, and the whole district was to be made an example of. Even while the men were asking what it was all about, the strike was declared on.
The usual committee, awkward, shambling, hat in hand, and uncomfortable in their best Sunday clothes, called upon their employers to attempt to explain the grievances which had brought about the present state of affairs. The “walking-delegate” had carefully prepared it all for them, with the new schedule of wages based upon the company’s earnings.