'Fifteen hundred unhappy people!'Hazel repeated. 'I should think everybody would be trying experiments.'
'You rode through the place once. You remember how they looked. Tell me what you would have tried first?'
'I remember. But I hardly knew what it meant, then.' There was a little emphasis upon the last word.
'Go on, and say what would occur to you to do.'
'Ah, you will only laugh and call me unpractical,' said Hazel smiling; 'but the first thing I should do, Mr. Rollo, would be to beautify the places where they live. I believe it does people good to bejust a littlesmothered in roses.'
'I believe in roses; but they were not the first thing I set about. For two reasons; they take time, and also they have to be in a certain degree prepared for. The old dwellings could not be beautified; I had to build new ones; but also, Hazel, and this is a more important thing, the desire for something better than the people knew, had to be excited. Roses are not a substitute for bread,to the uncultured mind,' he added smiling; 'and men that are ground in the dust of poverty need first of all to get ambition enough to raise their heads and wash their faces. The very first thing I did, was to make the pay sufficient for decent living. That gave them from the beginning some confidence in me, too.'
'Yes, of course. O that, I knew, you had done. I heard of it last winter.'
'Then in that connection there is another thing. I am beginning now to make the pay as far as it is possible follow the work done, instead of the time. I had to wait a good while before attempting this, because I could trust nobody to tell me or advise me, and before I could be competent to form my own judgment in the matter I had a great deal of study to do. And practice,' he added smiling. 'As far as practicable, I will have the pay dependent on the quantity and quality of the work. This stimulates effort and ministers to the sense of character, and also obviates several troublesome questions which are apt to come up between employers and employed. The people are not enlightened enough to like any change which they do not immediately feel for the better; but they will come into it, for they must; and then they will like it.'
Hazel looked amused. 'Is not that last clause an addition to the old code?' she said. 'The first two sound natural.'
Rollo smiled a little, but vouchsafed no further notice. 'Now,' he went on, 'to pursue your plan, I am building new cottages; and I shall leave the rose-planting to you.'