The Strong City

by Caldwell, Taylor;

  “I’m not the least clever,” replied Franz, smiling in reply. He picked up Tom’s cap from a small heap of slag and gave it to him.

  Tom laughed sourly. “My old woman used to say: ‘Keep your eye peeled for a chap as says he ain’t clever. He’ll steal the pennies from a dead man’s eyes.’” He put on his cap, and regarded Franz thoughtfully. “I like you, though,” he added.

  They went out. Near the gates of the mills they purchased newspapers. The election was finally settled, announced the papers. James A. Garfield was now the twentieth President of the United States. Ominous prophesies were uttered by the more Tory newspapers about the probable results of this election.

  “He’s a good man,” said Tom, angrily. “He don’t believe in murderin’ strikers. The big industrialists and the mine owners and the railroads’ll have to watch themselves now.”

  He went on to say that the Knights of Labor now numbered some two hundred thousand. “They can’t keep us down,” gloated Tom, striking the newspaper with his clenched fist. “They can’t keep us down!”

  The yellow street-lamps shone on his dark ugly face with its sparkling eyes. A fanatical light gleamed on his features'.

  Franz yawned. “I’m not interested in anything but keeping my job and getting my wages,” he replied, indulgently. A mist was drizzling through the murky air. He put up his coat collar and thrust his hands in his pockets.

  “Wouldn’t you like a livin’ wage?” demanded Tom, irately.

  “When I earn it yes.”

  Tom swore contemptuously. “You Dutchmen ’aven’t any guts,” he said, with disgust. “Well, wait until you’re sacked, or laid off. You’ll sing another tune.”

  “So far as I can see, the unions have caused nothing but bloodshed and confusion,” remarked Franz, indifferently.

  “That’s because we’re just organizin’. Everythin’ good’s got to be fought for. If you’d just attend one meetin’.”

  “All right, then, I’ll attend,” said Franz, with an air of weary and good-tempered capitulation. He gave Tom the impression that the latter’s repeated arguments had finally broken down his resistance. “When is the next meetin’?”

  “Tomorrow night.” Tom was delighted. He clapped his friend on the shoulder. “We’ll make a good Knight of you yet!”

  “I’m not promising anything, remember,” warned Franz. “But I suppose this is the only way I can get you to stop nagging me.”

  Tom was elated at finally breaking down Franz’s stubborn resistance. Franz smiled to himself ironically in the darkness.

  Tom’s home was a poor but neat little cottage, which his wife, Dolly, made as gay and homelike as she could on eighteen dollars a week, with the handicap of three small girls. The cottage had four tight little rooms, warm, gay, overcrowded, and brilliantly clean. The house was like herself, diminutive, tidy, fresh and gallant, and full of briskness. Franz frequently stopped in on the way home, for a cup of tea, and to play with the children, of whom he was genuinely fond.

  He stopped in tonight, and Dolly greeted him with her never-failing pleasure and gaiety. She was a tiny woman, with a bird-like bosom and bird-like movements. Her light brown hair was always elaborately waved, and her round dimpled face and merry eyes were pretty and sparkling. She loved fashion, and in a poor and pathetic imitation, followed it with grave religiousness. She made her own clothing, and her children’s. Tonight, she wore a dress of crimson cloth, wellfitted, if of poor quality, and enormously bustled, looped and draped. Her little girls, Mary, Polly and Pansy, were neat and clean, their dark hair curled into careful cockscrews, white starched pinafores over their neat plaid dresses. The kettle was. steaming on the stove. A fire was lighted in the little “parlor,” and every table was heaped with gimcracks and covered with embroidered cloths. Franz liked this house, so different from his own. Despite its poverty, it was cosy and heart-warming, and full of laughter. Dolly fancied herself quite a lady, and was always simpering, coy, smiling and flirtatious.

  She was very glad to see Franz, whose splendor of body and general appearance always excited her. Moreover, his fondness for her children had convinced her that he was a very fine young man, indeed.

  “I’ve brought ’Andsome ’ome for a cup of tea,” announced Tom, kissing his wife, and then kissing the three prim little girls.

  “And glad I am you did!” responded Dolly, smirking gaily at Franz. She bustled to the stove, and sent the older girl, Mary, to put out another cup. She hung up the young men’s coats, after vigorously shaking them free of drops of water.

  Franz sat down, and warmed his hands at the cheery fire. Mary came to him shyly. She was his favorite, a dark sober little girl with tinkling and reluctant laughter. She had Tom’s eyes and coloring. But she was very pretty, in an elfish way, and much older than her ten years. She allowed herself to be lifted to Franz’s knee, and the other little girls came up, jealously, to stand at his side. Polly and Pansy were twins, with round, fresh-colored faces and their mother’s dark blue eyes. They did not like Mary, and were consolidated against her, for instinctively, despite their brief six years, they knew she was different, and a stranger. They adored Franz, and could not understand his preference for Mary. So Polly surreptitiously pinched her sister, and Pansy thrust a furtive finger-nail into the girl’s leg. Mary winced, but proudly refused to cry out, or protest. Franz saw the little play, and frowned menacingly at the twins.

  “Now then, you’re being naughty, aren’t you?” he asked. “That’s no way to get what you want.”

  “How do you get what you want, Uncle Franz?” asked Pansy, pertly, and not at all abashed at the discovery of her meanness.

  “By being nice, and pleasant, and agreeable,” replied Franz, smiling involuntarily.

  “Like Uncle Franz,” interjected Tom, sardonically. “Always keeps smilin’ and smirkin’ like a bloody puppet, and the world’ll fill your paws.”

  Franz laughed without offense. But Dolly, pretending to be shocked at Tom’s “swearin’,” reprimanded him. “The children!” she exclaimed. She cut some bread very thin and buttered it lavishly. She opened a pot of damson jam with a flourish. Franz could smell the supper cooking: a thick rich oxtail soup. Dolly put a clean white cloth on a corner of the table, and set out the cups and saucers in a neat row. Even the children had their cups. Dolly poured the black steaming tea, and liberally added sugar to the cups, and pushed a pitcher of milk in Franz’s direction. Her pretty twinkling face beamed upon him slyly.

  “I saw your Ma, today, Franz. And a young lady was with her. Your cousin, your Ma says. Ooh, what a beauty!”

  Her gay Cockney voice rose in an arch of cunning laughter.

  Tom was interested. “Oh, that lass you told me about, eh? So, she’s here.”

  “And such a face, and such a color!” exclaimed Dolly, peeping knowingly over the rim of her cup at Franz. “We’ll be havin’ a weddin’ soon, mark my words!”

  Franz smiled, and drank a little tea before answering. Then he put his hand over Dolly’s tiny, work-reddened fingers.

  “You know I’m true to you, Dolly,” he said. “I can’t look at any other woman.”

  Dolly laughed gaily. “Laws, what a tongue you’ve got, Franz! You make my heart flutter. And don’t you be holdin’ my hand. Tom won’t like it.”

  Tom smiled at her affectionately. He was very proud of her prettiness and vivacity. The twins sat on his knees, and Mary still was perched on Franz’s knee.

  “Don’t let me catch you two kissin’ behind doors,” he said, frowning darkly. “A man’s got some rights.”

  He turned to Franz. “The lass’ll be goin’ into service, I’m thinkin’?”

  “Probably.” Franz produced a small silver piece for Mary, who took it with heightened color and shining eyes. She held it in her little hand, and glowed upon him with deep love.

  “Buy yourself some candy,” he suggested.

  “No. Bank,” said Dolly, briskly rising quickly like a bird and taking dow
n a plaster pig from the mantelpiece. “Come along, Mary, put it in.” The twins watched with deep envy and resentment.

  “Let the child have it for herself,” urged Franz, seeing the light fading on the girl’s face.

  Tom shook his head, dourly. “No, thank you. She must learn to save. One of these days we’ll have to break the kids’ banks for bread, if times don’t improve. Come along, Mary, do as your Ma tells you.”

  Mary, with tears on her quiet lashes, dropped the coin into the pig. The twins chortled maliciously. Franz kissed the child’s cheek.

  “Never mind, Mary. Tell me what you want for your birthday, next week, and I’ll bring it to you, even if it’s the Tower of London.”

  She smiled with dark excitement, though her eyes were still wet. But before she could reply, her mother said reprovingly: “Now, Franz, you’ll spoil the girl.”

  Franz continued to look into the child’s eyes. “A doll? A new dress? A little locket? Or a purse, or some handkerchiefs?”

  “A doll,” she whispered. The tiny purple veins in her pale temples fluttered. Her face shone again. “A doll, with yellow curls, like yours, Uncle Franz.”

  He hugged her to him. Like most Germans, he had a deep and genuine affection for children. “A doll it is, with yellow curls. And don’t let those Vandal sisters of yours get at it, either.”

  The twins were more envious than ever. They climbed down from their father’s knees, and clamored about Franz. “It’s our birthday in June!” they shouted. “We want dolls, too, bigger dolls than Mary’s!”

  “Didn’t you hear your Uncle Franz say as that was no way to get what you want—screamin’ and demandin’?” asked Tom, with heavy sarcasm.

  When Franz went out again into the raining night, he felt that he had left warmth, gaiety and joy behind him.

  He could so control his mind that he had not given Irmgard Hoeller a thought during the day. Now, as he approached his dreary home, he thought of her with sudden excitement and a curious anger. He saw her beautiful calm face and green eyes. He heard her slow quiet voice. He ran up the gritty stairs at 18 Mulberry Street, and flung open the door.

  After Tom’s home, this flat was incomparably dim, cold and somber. No fire was lit in the parlor stove. He went into the kitchen. Emmi and Irmgard were setting the table. Egon was reading near the stove, so close to it indeed that the chill air smelled with a faint scorching. He looked over his glasses at Franz and smiled his usual sweet shy smile. But Emmi gave him a brief nod, and Irmgard merely glanced at him impersonally. Franz kissed his father’s cheek. He omitted this usual greeting for Emmi. But he smiled at his cousin, trying to catch her eye.

  “What have you been doing today, cousin?” he asked, genially, moving to the stove and putting himself in her way so that she would have to look at him. Her pale cheek colored unwillingly. She looked at him steadfastly, and the green eyes were cold with dislike.

  “I have gotten a position,” she said. She bent over the stove and examined the contents of a pot. He saw her high full bosom pressing against the tightness of her black basque. He saw the smoothness of her white throat and the curve of her chin.

  “A position! So soon! Where?”

  The girl did not answer. But Emmi, standing in the center of the kitchen with an iron spoon in her hand, made grim reply.

  “Maid to a lady. She begins tomorrow. It is for a Mrs. Schmidt. The wife of the owner of the mills. The housekeeper left today, and Mrs. Schmidt’s maid is to take her place. Irmgard is to attend Mrs. Schmidt.”

  Franz stared. Then he burst out into his loud, unmirthful laughter.

  CHAPTER 14

  Emmi’s savage disappointment in her niece, Irmgard, had somewhat abated by morning. Her own integrity and singleness of mind had recognized similar qualities in the girl, and for these, she could forgive much. To her, Franz’s mind was a devious labyrinth, full of malicious enemies and obscure dangers. She did not know that the completely amoral mind was in reality as simple as her own. She would never know that the truly complicated mind was that mind continually assaulted by self-interest and a larger and more impersonal nobility. The only difference between herself and Franz was that Franz was at peace, and full of content. To the end of her life, her own simplicity was constantly at war with reality, and so she suffered eternally. But Franz was adjusted to reality, and had long ago accepted it, and so he was torn by no agony such as hers.

  Once he said to her, with that smiling malice she found so intolerable: “You will not realize that you and I have the same type of mind. The only difference lies in our eyes. You could easily be me, and I could easily be you. Only our susceptibilities are different.” Some deep subconscious acknowledgment of this truth had merely served to increase her passionate antagonism to him.

  “You believe,” he said, “that all men are your brothers. I believe that no one is my brother. Our beliefs, perhaps, are both excessive. So, even in our excesses, we are identical.”

  “You will not face facts,” they both said to each other, Emmi with bitter anger, and Franz with amusement.

  She would never know that in truth her mind was as amoral as Franz’s. The truly moral mind accepted evil and vileness. She never accepted them. She was as intolerant of human nastinesses as Franz was intolerant of what he called sentimentality. He believed in the right of using his fellow men, and was ruthless in this. Emmi believed in the duty of assisting her fellow men, and was just as ruthless. She undertook to guide Irmgard’s life as ruthlessly as Franz contemplated using it.

  So, the next morning she said to Irmgard: “You insist upon securing work? Then, I will go with you, and you cannot accept anything of which I do not approve.”

  Irmgard thought: My life is my own, But she merely smiled and said nothing, proving that her mind was not as simple as Emmi’s.

  Emmi had wished her to remain in the flat on Mulberry Street indefinitely, secretly hoping that Franz would be brought under the influence of both Irmgard’s beauty and her honesty. But Irmgard had gently insisted that she would be no burden, and had already decided that she must earn her own living. “Otherwise,” she said, “I should not have come to America.”

  Emmi, in principle, approved of such Teutonic independence and pride. Moreover, there was always the question of expense—

  She took Irmgard to an employment office which dealt with domestic servants. Being healthy of spirit, she did not deplore that the daughter of German bourgeoisie and small landowners should have to seek her living as a servant. She, herself, had been brought up in the sound German tradition that honest work of any kind was not degrading. The degradation lay in the mind of the individual. Irmgard would be no less proud and self-respecting in menial work than if she had been a School-mistress. One accepted what circumstance had placed in one’s hands to do, and one did it well and with lofty pride.

  The employment office was a dingy room in a line of grimy mercantile buildings. A severe middle-aged woman presided over it. Accustomed to the sight of many raw peasants seeking work in the houses of the rich, she was startled by Irmgard’s noble bearing and excessive beauty, and was inclined to be antagonistic. Moreover, she was surprised at the girl’s command of English, slow and careful though it was. However, Irmgard had little chance to talk. Emmi did most of the talking, with a prim hard arrogance which affronted the woman.

  “My niece speaks French, as well as English,” she said. “I think she would make an excellent governess.”

  The woman smiled contemptuously. “I have no such positions. My calls are for cooks, housemaids and personal maids.” She eyed Irmgard hostilely over her blinking glasses. “My clients do not care for German cooking, though many of them are Germans. Moreover, this young—lady, is too large to be a housemaid. My clients prefer small girls. And as for her being a personal maid—” she smiled again, “I am afraid that mistresses do not like girls who are too good-looking. They have to watch their husbands, you know.”

  Emmi rose, tall, lean and harsh in her
bonnet and jacket and muff. “Then, you have nothing?” She turned to Irmgard and said: “Come.”

  “You are too hasty,” said the woman, frowning. She looked at Irmgard. “Can you massage?”

  Irmgard thought of the weary years in which she had faithfully massaged her suffering father’s body, which had been afflicted with rheumatism since his prison days. She answered quietly: “Yes.”

  The woman rustled some papers. “I have a call here for a strong girl to be the personal maid of a lady who suffers with rheumatic pains, and is very delicate. Massage is a requirement. She also wishes some one with a gentle voice and nice manners. In short, a girl who knows her place.”

  Irmgard’s lovely calm face flushed. She stood beside Emmi, in her old country garments, her hands folded before her. “I know my place,” she said, and her voice became strained, as though she were choking.

  The woman was pleased by these signs of discomfiture. “The young female chosen must be very exceptional.” She bridled. “Not so long ago I sent her a German girl, Matilda, who was so adequate that she has become the housekeeper in the lady’s mansion. It is a very distinguished household—one of our best families. The name is Schmidt. Mr. Schmidt is the owner of the Schmidt Steel Company. You can see that only a very capable and well-bred young person would be accepted there. One with excellent manners and a good address.”

  She wrote busily on a card. “The remuneration is twenty dollars a month, which is very, very good. But Mrs. Schmidt is noted for her kindness and generosity. You will also have a room of your own, and will be on call twenty-four hours a day. Alternate Thursday afternoons are yours, and one Sunday in four. Very, very generous. I have heard that Mrs. Schmidt is very considerate with her servants, and not at all over-bearing. You will, in a way, be her companion, too.”

  She gave Irmgard the card, and the two women left the office.