After they have all steeped their senses in the beauties of the surroundings and have satisfied the cravings of appetite the evening’s pleasures begin. Music, song and tableaux have been arranged with exquisite skill. Cora’s voice has lost none of its richness, none of its charms. On the contrary it is more flexible, more sweet and full, more perfect in every respect, and well it may be. Has she not spent two years in hard study after they came to the home, in making herself perfect in her art? At many a concert, during these years, has her sweet, thrilling voice been heard, and tonight she almost outdoes herself. She is perfectly happy and throws her whole soul into her work; deafening applause rewards her.
Margaret’s rendition of “Deborah” meets with equal favor. She never fails to please.
Then follows some renditions of music wherein Imelda and Milton both excel, for they too have been spending time in developing their precious talents.
The evening’s entertainment then concludes with a series of tableaux, three in number, entitled “Progress,” which are received with storms of applause. They represent “The Past, the Present and the Future.”
There is one feature that has not been announced upon the program. One whom we have almost forgotten to mention has opened the evening’s festivities with a short address, dwelling on the object, the aim, the hopes that are to follow the evening’s work. That one is an old time friend, probably forgotten by most of our readers. It is an old, white-haired gentleman with a well preserved air about him. It is the Mr. Roland, of the lecture room of the olden days and the fatherly friend of our Margaret and Imelda, and who is followed by another almost forgotten friend, the lecturer “Althea Wood.”
When the curtain has dropped on the last tableaux the assembled audience refuses to be satisfied. They well know whose money has erected the palatial building and “Owen Hunter! Owen Hunter!” is now the cry. In response to this call Owen steps upon the stage and in a slow, graceful manner saunters up to the footlights. Waiting for the stormy welcome to subside, then in slow even tones he begins:
“Friends and comrades! You do me far too great honor in thus calling me to the front. What you term an act of greatness is simply one of justice. No merit is due to me that I control millions of dollars while millions of my fellow human beings this night are starving. My early years were droned away in luxury, ease and pleasure hunting, and in all probability I would have gone on thus to the end had not circumstances given me a shaking up, thereby showing me something of the darker side of life.
“What these circumstances were, what the means by which the awakening was brought about I cannot here tell you. The story would be too long. But I awoke to a sense of the fact that I was of no use whatever in the world. With the aid of minds superior to mine a home was planned, one for a small number of congenial friends who wished to try co-operation, and having proved it a success, this one for the busy bees of our great industrial hive was next planned.
“You have, until now, been the employes of the ‘Home Company.’ From this day forth you are partners therein. You will receive your salaries just the same as heretofore. At the end of the year the accounts will be squared and a dividend declared with which you are to pay your rent, so-called, for your home, but which in reality you are buying. For when you have paid rent amounting to the sum it has cost to erect this building, you will be the owners of it, not I. Moreover, you shall not be taxed with a shameless interest, and when your home is paid for and the original capital again garnered in, there will be countless other employes who are in need of a home like this, and which it will devolve upon us to erect. Do you see?”
And see they do! Such deafening shouts of applause never before filled a hall. It is a perfect uproar and it takes some time ere quiet can again be restored. Owen smilingly shakes his head——