“I married four women to give those children a home–and what thanks do I get? Ingrates–one a milk-sop–God, if he’d only be a Socialist and get out and throw dynamite; but he won’t; he won’t do a thing but sit around drooling about social justice when I want to eat my meals in peace. And he goes coughing all day and night, and grunting, and now he’s wearing a pointed beard–he says it’s for his throat, but I know–it’s because he thinks it’s romantic. And that Anne–why, she’s worse,” but he did not finish the sentence. His old head wagged violently. Evidently another assessor had suddenly pounced in upon his imagination. For he shuffled into the street.
Mr. Brotherton sat by the fire, leaning forward, with his fingers locked between his knees. The warning against Grant Adams that Tom Van Dorn had given him had impressed him. He knew Market Street was against Grant Adams. But he did not realize that Market Street’s attitude was only a reflex of the stir in the Valley. All Market streets over the earth feel more or less acutely changes which portend in the workshops, often before those changes come. We are indeed “members one of another,” and the very aspirations of those who dream of better things register in the latent fears of those who live on trade. We are so closely compact in our organization that a man may not even hope without crowding his neighbor. And in that little section of the great world which men knew as Market Street in Harvey, the surest evidence of the changing attitude of the men in the Valley toward their work, was found not in the crowds that gathered in Belgian Hall week after week to hear Grant Adams, not in the war-chest which was filling to overflowing, not in the gardens checkered upon the hillsides, but rather in the uneasiness of Market Street. The reactions were different in Market Street and in the Valley; 521but it was one vision rising in the same body, each part responding according to its own impulses. Of course Market Street has its side, and George Brotherton was not blind to it. Sitting by his fire that raw March day, he realized that Market Street was never a crusader, and why. He could see that the men from whom the storekeepers bought goods on ninety days’ time, 3 per cent. off for cash, were not crusaders. When a man turned up among them with a six-months’ crusade for an evanescent millennium, flickering just a few years ahead, the wholesalers of the city and the retailers of Market Street nervously began thumbing over their rapidly accumulating “bills payable” and began using crisp, scratchy language toward the crusader.
It made Brotherton pause when he thought how they might involve and envelop him–as a family man. For as he sat there, the man’s mind kept thinking of children. And his mind wandered to the thought of his wife and his home–and the little ones that might be. As his mind clicked back to Amos Adams, and to the strange family that would produce three boys as unlike as Grant and Jasper and Kenyon, he began to consider how far Kenyon had come for a youth in his twenties. And Brotherton realized that he might have had a child as old as Kenyon. Then Mr. Brotherton put his hands over his face and tried to stop the flying years.
A shadow fell, and Brotherton greeted Captain Morton, in a sunburst of mauve tailoring. The Captain pointed proudly to a necktie pin representing a horse jumping through a horseshoe, and cried: “What you think of it? Real diamond horseshoe nails–what say?”
“Now, Captain, sit down here,” said Mr. Brotherton. “You’ll do, Captain–you’ll do.” But the subject nearest the big man’s heart would not leave it. “Cap,” he said, “what about children–do they pay?”
“That’s just it,” put in the Captain. “That’s just what I said to Emmy this morning. I was out to see her after you left and stayed until Laura Van Dorn came and chased me off. Emmy’s mighty happy, George–mighty, mighty happy–eh? Her mother always was that way. I was the one that was scared.” George nodded assent. “But to-day–well, we just sat there and cried–she’s so happy about 522it–eh? Wimmin, George, ain’t scared a bit. I know ’em. I’ve been in their kitchins for thirty years, George, and let me tell you somepin funny,” continued the Captain. “Old Ahab Wright has taken to smoking in public to get the liberal vote! Let me tell you somepin else. They’ve decided to put the skids under Grant Adams and his gang down in the Valley, and the other day they ran into a snag. You know Calvin & Calvin are representing the owners since Tom’s got this life job, though he’s got all his money invested down there and still advises ’em. Well, anyway, they decided to put a barbed-wire trocha around all the mines and the factories. Well, four carloads of wire and posts shows up down in the Valley this week, and, ’y gory, man,–they can’t get a carpenter in town or down there to touch it. Grant’s got ’em sewed up. But Tom says he’ll fix ’em one of these days, if they get before him in his court–what say?”
“I suppose he will, Captain,” replied Mr. Brotherton, and took up his theme. “But getting back to the subject of children–I’ve been talking all morning about ’em to all kinds of folks, and I’ve decided the country’s for ’em. Children, Cap,” Mr. Brotherton rose, put on his coat and took the Captain’s arm, “children, Captain,” he repeated, as they reached the sidewalk and were starting for the street car, “children, I figure it out–children are the see-ment of civilization! Well, say–thus endeth the reading of the first lesson!”
As they stood in the corner transfer shed waiting for the car, Grant Adams came up. “Say, Grant,” called Brotherton, “what you goin’ to do about that barbed wire trocha?”
“Oh,” smiled Grant, “I’ve just about settled it. The boys will begin on it this afternoon. A lot of them were angry when they heard what the owners were up to, but I said, ‘Here: we’ve got justice on our side. We claim a partnership interest in all those mines and factories down there. We contend that we who labor there now are the legatees of all the labor that’s been killed and maimed and cheated by long hours and low wages down in the Valley for thirty years, and if we have a partnership right in those mines and factories, it’s our business to protect them.’ So I 523talked the boys into putting up the trocha. I tell you, George,” said Grant, and the tremor of emotion strained his voice as he spoke, “it won’t be long until we’ll have a partnership in that trocha, just as we’ll have an interest in every hammer and bolt, and ledge and vein in the Valley. It’s coming, and coming fast–the Democracy of Labor. I have faith, the men and women have faith–all over the Valley. We’ve found the right way–the way of peace. When labor has proved its efficiency–”
“Ah–you’re crazy, Grant,” snapped the Captain. “This class of people down here–these ignorant foreigners–why, they couldn’t run a peanut stand–eh?”