The Stillwater Tragedy
Page 15
XV
"Since we are in for it," said Mr. Slocum the next morning, "putthe case to them squarely."
Mr. Slocum's vertebrae had stiffened over night.
"Leave that to me, sir," Richard replied. "I have been shaping outin my mind a little speech which I flatter myself will cover thepoints. They have brought this thing upon themselves, and we areabout to have the clearest of understandings. I never saw the menquieter."
"I don't altogether admire that. It looks as if they hadn't anydoubt as to the issue."
"The clearest-headed have no doubt; they know as well as you and Ido the flimsiness of those resolutions. But the thick heads are in afog. Every man naturally likes his pay increased; if a simple fellowis told five or six hundred times that his wages ought to be raised,the idea is so agreeable and insidious that by and by he begins tobelieve himself grossly underpaid, though he may be getting twicewhat he is worth. He doesn't reason about it; that's the last thinghe'll do for you. In this mood he lets himself be flown away by thebreath of some loud-mouthed demagogue, who has no interest in thematter beyond hearing his own talk and passing round the hat afterthe meeting is over. That is what has happened to our folks below.But they _are_ behaving handsomely."
"Yes, and I don't like it."
Since seven o'clock the most unimpeachable decorum had reigned inthe workshops. It was now nine, and this brief dialogue had occurredbetween Mr. Slocum and Richard on the veranda, just as the latter wason the point of descending into the yard to have his talk with themen.
The workshops--or rather the shed in which the workshops were, forit was one low structure eighteen or twenty feet wide and open on thewest side--ran the length of the yard, and with the short extensionat the southerly end formed the letter L. There were no partitions,an imaginary line separating the different gangs of workers. A personstanding at the head of the building could make himself heard more orless distinctly in the remotest part.
The grating lisp of the wet saws eating their way into the marbleboulder, and the irregular quick taps of the seventy or eightymallets were not suspended as Richard took his stand beside a tallfunereal urn at the head of the principal workshop. After a second'sfaltering he rapped smartly on the lip of the urn with the key ofhis studio-door.
Instantly every arm appeared paralyzed, and the men stoodmotionless, with the tools in their hands.
Richard began in a clear but not loud voice, though it seemed toring on the sudden silence:--
"Mr. Slocum has asked me to say a few words to you, this morning,about those resolutions, and one or two other matters that haveoccurred to him in this connection. I am no speech-maker; I neverlearned that trade"--
"Never learned any trade," muttered Durgin, inaudibly.
--"but I think I can manage some plain, honest talk, forstraight-forward men."
Richard's exordium was listened to with painful attention.
"In the first place," he continued, "I want to remind you,especially the newer men, that Slocum's Yard has always given steadywork and prompt pay to Stillwater hands. No hand has ever been turnedoff without sufficient cause, or kept on through mere favoritism.Favors have been shown, but they have been shown to all alike. Ifanything has gone crooked, it has been straightened out as soon asMr. Slocum knew of it. That has been the course of the yard in thepast, and the Proprietor doesn't want you to run away with the ideathat that course is going to be changed. One change, for the timebeing, is going to be made at our own suggestion. From now, until the1st of September, this yard will close gates on Saturdays at fiveP.M. instead of six P.M."
Several voices cried, "Good for Slocum!" "Where's Slocum?" "Whydon't Slocum speak for himself?" cried one voice.
"It is Mr. Slocum's habit," answered Richard, "to give hisdirections to me, I give them to the foremen, and the foremen to theshops. Mr. Slocum follows that custom on this occasion. With regardto the new scale of wages which the Association has submitted to him,the Proprietor refuses to accept it, or any modification of it."
A low murmur ran through the workshops.
"What's a modificashun, sir?" asked Jemmy Willson, steppingforward, and scratching his left ear diffidently.
"A modification," replied Richard, considerably embarrassed togive an instant definition, "is a--a"--
"A splitting of the difference, by--!" shouted somebody in thethird shop.
"Thank you," said Richard, glancing in the direction of hisimpromptu Webster's Unabridged. "Mr. Slocum does not propose to splitthe difference. The wages in every department are to be just whatthey are,--neither more nor less. If anybody wishes to make aremark," he added, observing a restlessness in several of the men, "Ibeg he will hold on until I get through. I shall not detain you muchlonger, as the parson says before he has reached the middle of hissermon.
"What I say now, I was charged to make particularly clear to you.It is this: In future Mr. Slocum intends to run Slocum's Yardhimself. Neither you, nor I, nor the Association will be allowed torun it for him. [Sensation.] Until now the Association has tied himdown to two apprentices a year. From this hour, out, Mr. Slocum willtake on, not two, or twenty, but two hundred apprentices if thebusiness warrants it."
The words were not clearly off Richard's lips when the foreman ofthe shop in which he was speaking picked up a couple of small drills,and knocked them together with a sharp click. In an instant the menlaid aside their aprons, bundled up their tools, and marched out ofthe shed two by two, in dead silence. That same click was repeatedalmost simultaneously in the second shop, and the same evolution tookplace. Then click, click, click! went the drills, sounding fainterand fainter in the distant departments; and in less than threeminutes there was not a soul left in Slocum's Yard except the Oratorof the Day.
Richard had anticipated some demonstration, either noisy orviolent, perhaps both; but this solemn, orderly desertion dashed him.
He stepped into the middle of the yard, and glancing up beheldMargaret and Mr. Slocum standing on the veranda. Even at thatdistance he could perceive the pallor on one face, and theconsternation written all over the other.
Hanging his head with sadness, Richard crossed the yard, whichgave out mournful echoes to his footfalls, and swung to the largegate, nearly catching old Giles by the heel as he did so. Lookingthrough the slats, he saw Lumley and Peterson hobbling arm in armdown the street,--after more than twenty-five years of kindlytreatment.
"Move number one," said Richard, lifting the heavy cross-pieceinto its place and fastening it with a wooden pin. "Now I must go andprop up Mr. Slocum."