John Marvel, Assistant

by Thomas Nelson Page

"Ah, I'm going," sneered Wringman, putting on his hat, "but not because you ordered me."

"Yes, you are—because I ordered you, and if you don't go instantly I will kick you out personally."

He stepped around the desk and, with his eyes blazing, walked quickly across the floor, but Wringman had backed out of the door.

"For the rest of you," he said, "you have my answer. I warn you that if you strike you will close the factories that now give employment to thousands of men and young women. You men may be able to take care of yourselves; but you should think of those girls. Who will take care of them when they are turned out on the street? I have done it heretofore—unless you are prepared to do it now, you had better consider. Go down to my box-factory and walk through it and see them, self-supporting and self-respecting. Do you know what will become of them if they are turned out? Go to Gallagin's Gallery and see. Go back to your work if you are men of sense. If not, I have nothing further to say to you."

They walked out and Mr. Leigh shut the door behind them. When he took his seat a deep gravity had settled on him which made him look older by years.

The following day an order for a general strike on the lines operated by Mr. Leigh was issued, and the next morning after that not a wheel turned on his lines or in his factories. It was imagined and reported as only a question of wages between an employer and his men. But deep down underneath lay the secret motives of McSheen and Canter and their set who had been plotting in secret, weaving their webs in the dark—gambling in the lives of men and sad-eyed women and hungry children. The effect on the population of that section of the city was curious. Of all sad things on earth a strike is the saddest. And like other battles, next to a defeat the saddest scene is the field of victory.

The shadow had settled down on us; the sunshine was gone. The temper of every one appeared to have been strained. The principle of Unionism as a system of protection and defence had suddenly taken form as a system of aggression and active hostility. Class-feeling suddenly sprang up in open and armed array, and next came division within classes. The talk was all of force; the feeling all one of enmity and strife. The entire population appeared infected by it. Houses were divided against themselves; neighbors who had lived in friendliness and hourly intercourse and exchanged continual acts of kindness, discussed, contended, quarrelled, threatened, and fought or passed by on the other side scowling and embittered. Sweetness gave place to rancor and good-will to hate.

Among those affected by the strike was the family of my old drummer. The change was as apparent in this little home, where hitherto peace and content had reigned supreme with Music to fill in the intervals and make joy, as in the immediate field of the strike.

The whole atmosphere of happiness underwent a change, as though a deadly damp had crept in from the outside, mildewing with its baleful presence all within, and turning the very sunlight into gloom. Elsa had lost her place. The box-factory was closed. The house was filled with contention. The musicians who came around to smoke their big pipes and drink beer with old Loewen were like the rest, infected. Nothing appeared to please any longer. The director was a tyrant; the first violin a charlatan; the rest of the performers mostly fools or worse; and the whole orchestra "a fake."

This was the talk I heard in the home when I stopped by sometimes of an evening on my way to my room, and found some of his friends arguing with him over their steins and pipes, and urging a stand against the director and a demand that he accede to their wishes. The old drummer himself stood out stoutly. The director had always been kind to him and to them, he insisted. He was a good man and took pride in the orchestra, as much pride as he himself did. But I could see that he was growing soured. He drank more beer and practised less. Moreover, he talked more of money, which once he had scarcely ever mentioned. But the atmosphere was telling; the mildew was appearing. And in this haunt of peace, peace was gone.